#your genocide supporting ass is not welcome here

[melodytowmn]

What Isreal is doing to Gaza right now is horrific and should not be ignored

Do not stop talking do not stop sharing, we can't let them win.

[lethea1969]

I honestly don't know what to say because if your entire argument hinges on the fact that you want less dead Palestinians then not voting/voting third party is Absolutely NOT the choice supported by your argument. Honestly what part of Trump Will Be WORSE! do you not understand? Like please look up harm reduction omg. Do you think that some sort of miracle is going to appear out of thin air and create a candidate that doesn't want to support Israel to some extent? Or are you just one of those people who want the world to get worse (like Hamas) to force a revolution ala the rapture.

Like fr I think the only reason people just aren't paying attention to Trump's plans and making such a fuss about Biden is because he Is the sitting president. No where near the amount of accusations towards other people in the US government or who have the potential to be in the US government (cough *Trump* cough).

Really giving "people pissed off at Martin Van Buren about the economy under his presidency even tho all the decisions that created the crappy economy happened under Andrew Jackson" energy.

Look.

I have made you a chart. A very simple chart.

People say "You have to draw the line somewhere, and Biden has crossed it-" and my response is "Trump has crossed way more lines than Biden".

These categories are based off of actual policy enacted by both of these men while they were in office.

If the ONLY LINE YOU CARE ABOUT is line 12, you have an incredible amount of privilege, AND YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT PALESTINIANS. You obviously have nothing to fear from a Trump presidency, and you do not give a fuck if a ceasefire actually occurs. You are obviously fine if your queer, disabled, and marginalized loved ones are hurt. You clearly don't care about the status of American democracy, which Trump has openly stated he plans to destroy on day 1 he is in office.

[pleasantspark]

Welcome to my BLOG!

Hello, I am Orion, I am a 20 year old Trans Masc from America, I make mid ass fanfictions because I cannot write well. Soooo, yeah.

I tend to write x Readers, OCs for myself, and I occasionally write content pertaining to my AUs.

I am known as a Jeice and Frieza Lover. I also have tons of others. But yeah.

THIS BLOG IS STRICTLY NSFW, MINORS WILL BE BLOCKED AND OR REMOVED. AGE IN BIO OR BLOCKED. Update: Any Minors who interact MUST not click on the RED LINKS or click on ANYTHING with warnings. This is TO make sure they are controlled. This is to protect and STILL interact.

Regarding Promo and Asks about Gaza/Palestine: I will be unfortunately closing asks relating to any of those due to mental health issues, I have mutuals that are willing to share the posts around, I simply cannot stress the fact that seeing all this, coupled with the shitfest that's America is doing wonders for our state. Let this be known this does NOT mean I am supporting ISERAEL I hate Genocide, I just want to keep a close mind away from series topics.

Fanfiction Related Questions

Where do I request stories? In my Ask Box

Am I allowed OC x Canon? I normally charge for it, because OC x Canon (Your OC) is too much work to do, especially if I'M not equipped to write it.

Where can I support you? Comms are OPENED, so here: X

Notes

Frieza and The Cold Family are MY personal ones from my AU. If you see anything that isn't Canon, read my Bio.

I run the Overhaul Doc for the Frieza Race located here: X

Most of the DBZ fics I write are enlisted in my main canon and not DBZ's Canon.

I own a Human AU, so if you want to request a oneshot, go ahead.

DBZ OVERHAUL AU

This is the main AU overhauling EVERYTHING. Currently here's a roadmap.

Frieza Race Overhaul Doc: 100% Complete; X

Saiyan Race Overhaul Doc: Just Started

Namekian Race Overhaul Doc: 100% Complete; X

Android/Bio Android Race Overhaul Doc: WIP

Character DOCs

This is for the Characters in the AU.

Frieza: WIP

ERM WHAT THE HFIL?!

ERM WHAT THE HFIL!? is a Indie Project series I am working on, you can find info here:

This section will be showcasing posts for the series, such as the story and the like. Where I post them here.

A03 | WATTPAD | FF.NET | QUOTEV

Tumblr: S1: HFIL BOUND | A CALL FOR HELP | FALLEN ANGEL | DEAR OLD LEADER | ONE FLEW OUT THE ICEJIN'S NEST | POWER | WHERE GOOD GUYS GO | HEAVEN IS A PLACE IN THE OVERWORLD | CLARITY

Shorts: A BAKERS DOZEN

IT TAKES A SQUADRON

It Takes A Squadron is another indie series I am working on! You can find info here:

This section will be showcasing posts for the series, such as the story and the like. Where I post them here.

A03 | WATTPAD | FF.NET | QUOTEV

Tumblr: S1: TBA Shorts: TBA

Fanfictions

Note: This section is currently being updated, any FanFictions I post are here for Navigation. Color Codes are below.

Update (08/16/2024): For better viewing I decided to split the Oneshots and Series for now, Imagine/Headcanons are situated under the Oneshots section.

Update (08/24/2024): Dunno when I updated it, but I added a color code for WIPs and the like. Adding Drafts as well.

Green: General Audience Orange: Teen Red: Unrated/Explicit White/Black: WIPs (Drafts)

Oneshots

Oh Mary, Contrary How Does Your Garden Grow? (Vegeta x Reader) I Can't Imagine A Future Without You (Jeice x Zarbon's Daughter! OC) Little Blue Book (Vegeta x Majin! OC x Jeice) Premature (King Cold x Female Frieza Race! OC + Frieza + Cooler) Red Magma (Jeice x Cyborg! Zarbon's Daughter! OC) I Set Fire, To The Rain, Watch It Pour As I Touch Your Face (Blitz x Seraphina) From Afar (Pendleton x Reader) Mating Season (Cell x Bio-Android! OC) Robotic Heart (Android 16 x Majin! OC) An Alternative Reality (Gevo x Saiyan! OC x Android 16)

Headcanons & Imagines

Ginyu Force Is Still Alive - Headcanon Zarbon is French - Headcanon Frieza Loves Pudding - Headcanon Human Jeice - Headcanon Frieza's Favorite Past Time - Headcanon Soulmate Imagine - Imagine If Frost Met Frieza's Wife - Imagine Why Jeice Didn't Went Pro - Headcanon Cooler With A AuDHD S/O - Headcanon Cooler With A AuDHD S/O (Coming Out) - Headcanon Cooler, Frieza, Cell and Ginyu (ERMWHATTHEHFIL!? Edition) with a diehard warrior - Headcanons Cell With A Potential Partner - Imagine Raditz is Biologically King Vegeta's Son - Headcanon

Series

Forever & Ever Series (Frieza x FFR! OC): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Addict Series (Frieza x OC, Human AU): 1 Little Kuriza Series (Frieza x Sayian! OC + Kuriza): 1, 2, 3 Three Ways To Love You, But I Want To Say It In One Series (Jeice x Zarbon's Daughter! OC): 1 Just Yours Series (Yandere! Ginyu Force x Zarbon's Daughter! OC): 1 Arranged Marriage Series (Salza/Thouser x Zarbon's Daughter! OC): 1 A Prize To Be Earned, Not Won Series (Salza/Thouser x Zarbon's Daughter! OC x Jeice): 1 Baby Daddy Zarbon Series (Zarbon + Daughter! OC / Zarbon x Saiyan! OC): 1 A Monster Has Vices, Too Series (Monster Form! Zarbon x Saiyan! OC): 1 Pink Eyes Series (Yandere! Cell x Saiyan! OC): 1, 2, 3 Apart of Your World Series (Yandere! Dragon Ball Ensemble x Saiyan! Isekai! OC): 1 LOYALTY. (Frieza x FFR! OC): 1 Strictly Business (King Cold x Saiyan! OC): 1, 2

Regarding my stance on shipping!

I do not care who ships what, as long as you respect my boundries, I have had people who (I can't tell if they were joking) we're shoving Yamcha x Frieza onto me. And I don't ship canon x canon (I do only for one ship) so yeah, don't be discouraged if I don't do ships. I don't mind if you yap about ships. Just be mindful.

Current Ships / OCs / AUs

Ships

Zarbon x Cell (Canon x Canon)

Zarbon x Zucchine (OC x Canon)

Jeice x Mikumi (OC x Canon)

Ginyu x Orion (OC x Canon)

Ginyu Force x Mikumi (OC x Canon)

Android 16 x Orion (OC x Canon)

Cell x Genesis (OC x Canon)

Frieza x Orion (OC x Canon)

Husk x Orion (OC x Canon)

OCs Please see this post for all my OCs: x Most of them are ALOT and I needed the extra space. :P

AUS

Human AU

Overhaul AU

Trepidation AU

Revamped AU (Android 16)

Rewritten and Revamped AU

Rewritten and Abridged AU

Yandere AU

DDLC AU

Swap AU

Hazbin x DBZ AU

Soulmate AU

Frieza Redemption AU

Redeeming The Hellaverse AU (HH/HB Rewrite)

My Selfships / Inserts

Lists of all them.

Social Medias

You can find me over...

Twitter

@xx16xOrionxx - Official Twitter

@CysLittleMini_ - Alt Account

DeviantArt

Fangirlofsonic111 - Main

A03

AWAMO - Main [TRIGGERING CONTENT]

GlitterGutzzz - ALT [TRIGGERING CONTENT]

wallydarlingsmalewife - ALT [TRIGGERING CONTENT]

xoDuskerox - ALT

YouTube

16xOrion - Main

PleasantSpark - Gacha Account

AshzieReads - Fanfiction Account

MammonGaming - AI Gameplay

YoutubersQuotesandClips - Clips Channel

BiblicallyInaccurate - Series Channel

Twitch

RoseyPupWasTaken - Main

Steam

Starscreaming - Main

Roblox

xoCaliPlayzxNolaxo - Main

cookiecrumbler9872 - ALT

Wattpad

PleasantSpark - Main

OFFICAL DISCORD SERVER

VivziePop Document

People really wanted the VivziePop Document linked here so here is the Document.

[savefrog]

Hi! I shouldn't assume that being a longtime follower means I know you but I gotta unfollow anyone engaging in "vote blue no matter who" rhetoric and figured I'd say so on my way out. You have every right to do whatever w electoral politics and I agree there's a level of pragmatism to voting. But like, are you saying that about the USA Dems?? They're bombing Gaza to the point of genocide as we speak! Even if you're not proud of that fact, what would be the aim of such a vote? I doubt anyone of any party committing war crimes can be pushed by freely given votes, no?

You're welcome to unfollow. But essentially I'm entirely on the pragmatism end here.

Me saying vote blue in this case is not going "woohoo ok dems i love everything you do, do whatever!!!!"

it's a matter of "red quite LITERALLY wants to remove all ability to protest and say this shit is wrong".

see summary of Trump on shutting down the ability to protest

blue is not entirely clean on this matter either but i would take getting run over by a motorbike over getting run over by a truck.

I would like to preserve the ability to say the government sucks ass and while I totally get where people are coming from when they don't want to vote dem...I'd say that abstaining from voting to "send a message" is akin to complete silence in this current election climate especially considering the stakes, and there are a lot of other ways to get a message across that isn't passively allowing the literal white supremacist in - who by the way said BIDEN of all people was too soft on Palestine and that he wanted Israel to hurry up and "finish the job":

source (It is also recorded on various other news sources)

Though frankly I agree with this quote here, from an article that is also critical of Harris and Biden:

“Trump would be the worst,” Asmaa Nimilaat, 50, said from a hospital where thousands of people are sheltering in Deir el-Balah, an area in central Gaza. “But any candidate that becomes president will not support Palestinians.”

The USA as an entire machine is so heavily invested in Israel it's hard to imagine a pro-palestinian president ever being elected. That is why I said the election is "picking your opponent".

The ideal situation is a complete rework of the US. As much as not voting FEELS like protest here...it is not going to do anything meaningful in this regard. It is indistinguishable from a non-vote from someone who couldn't get off work or was screwed out of an accessible voting location by red bullshit or just skipped out of apathy.

But we can at least not let the guy in whose ideal is to restructure the government to only allow fascist kiss ups in, heavily criminalize any opposing voices and militarize against them, has already set a new standard to allow the executive branch to do "What the fuck crime ever", and continue to use poc and lgbt in the US as a scapegoat and target of violence to radicalize his people. And then CONTINUE to protest and make pressure.

By all means I'd say no matter someone's plans for the actual voting day, TELL democractic nominees you're undecided and will not vote if they don't call for a ceasefire that lasts more than 10 minutes.

You can do whatever, but im personally not interested in a situation I see as letting conservatives take what is already bad and making it 3000 times worse and 80x less improvable and I guess I would encourage others if they can stomach it to make that same consideration rather than treat the election like a moral pageant. If they truly believe not voting will actually send a message, cool. But I want people to think really hard on whether it will. And then for the love of god don't stop at just voting.

If anything I encourage people to vote dem in state elections if only because there are dems right now trying to make ranked voting a thing, so that we can finally be free from having to vote dem at all and actually make it viable to pressure them in ballots!!!!

[rainbowgod666]

Welcome to the Multiverse

Colors sendable (the first image is from @sizzlingcandyjellyfishhh while thesecond image is from @gaybichon), and also the @wynmu vibes thing. While the divider was made by @sister-lucifer (weird url ik but mines weirder soooo)

To all RPers: my very existence takes the narrative and uses it as toilet paper. The 4th wall is my onahole. You can use the askbox to talk to your blorbos.

To let you get started, here are some of my best posts. Remember that the Ourple ones are KINDA mandatory if you want ANY background on wtf is this blog.

List of my powers / Its the end of the world as you know it (and i did it on purpose) / an admin kicked me off the island lmao / Mental Health Time / That one time i traumadumped to mewo omori about my usual shit / PM Seymour has removed me from his internet. / You Absolute Buffoons / The Numeron Game / Well thats a thing that happened! / Out of touch: leap yeap / 🅱️usiness / Magnus did nothing wrong, except its steven universe / welcome to the internet, SCP edition / #HALLOLLAH# / AMERICA IS FASCIST HEAVEN BECAUSE FUNNY / Lost Childhoods / please save those poor gay americans / Free Disco Elysco / Bone to the bad / Priting Wrojects / the True Range of my abilities / the fuck's an apocalypse knight anyway? / @punkitt-is-here fucked Geronimo Stilton and i think its a good thing / Alex goes batshit insane and forces everyone to do as he says... again 🙄 / Screaming in a Pattern. / wizardposting: because powerscaling needed fuckign Zeno Dragonballsuper apparently / BEN 10 BUT LANCER? FUCK YEAH! / So i went batshit insane again / High Geology / fantasy settings on tumblr are really fucking cool actually / RIFLE. IS. FINE. BUT YOU FUCK UP DESIGN YOU UROD. / i technically claimed ownership of Dr. Bright and Betty from glitchtale do you seriously think im NOT gonna do that for homestuck? / XenasOuch / SCP-8000 contest, OR: WHAT THE ACTUAL FUC- / LEMMINO but like, 8 years ago / Hazbin Hotel: a necessary... something i guess. / the original joke was my brain yapping about predators sooo...

Below is who i am, and also the tags you can (and should) search for

Hi, name's Alex.

Born on the first ever day of 2005 and also having aspergers, i am a guy from italy trying to make it impossible for anyone to spend a day without knowing who i am. Also i literally trascend powerscaling so hard the only things that can even put a DENT on me are... decided by me. Welcome to the multiverse i guess.

DNI: people who support genocide, people who tolerate corporate bullshit, racists, and terfs.

The following list is ALL THE TAGS USED TO NAVIGATE THIS BLOG. Seriously. This masterpost is an explaiantion for the "portal hub" i placed in the search bar

Lore Post: sometimes the lore of the multiverse, sometimes my personal life.

Welcome to the multiverse: sometimes MASSIVE textpost telling everyone "oh yeah right, this dude has autism", usually me existing. tHE MAIN TAG.

Alex's Answering Machine: literally my asks

The magical workshop: turns out the wizards of tumblr are the reason the phrase "some of y'all have gotten too comfortable saying stuff without getting punched for it" exist. And its up to my autistic, protagonism-fueled low self-esteem high self-awareness ass to... fix shit up.

Belowstory: undertale but REALLY FUCKED UP: so basically frisk falls down and is greeted by a feminine voice that calls itself chara (it becomes slightly visible after getting out of the ruins) and like the good boi undertale character he is he proceeds to save the world. This entire thing exists because one time I was like "how fucked up OP can a sans be before its My Immortal levels of wtf?" And uh yeah here we are uuuuuuh sans greets you by pointing a .44 magnum at you so thank the head of the guards (papyrus) for saving you. Everyone here is broken and just wants A Fucking Break. Also you gain levels in pacifist because LOVE is Level Of VirtuE. Fuck you lmao

Undertale.exe: so I looked at Camilla Cuevas being an awful person. Then i looked at the beautiful anime that is @jakei95's underverse... then i smushed it all toghether to basically create the perfect AU. Frisk is a pansexual fuccboi that Has Game, Chara is THICC and powerful, Betty is built like a ballerina and is 1000 years old, and Asriel is a Streemur. All of them live in this house far away from the city thats literally a larger version of sans' house. All charachters can legally drink (prepare for Drunk Chara shenanigans where its Betty Glitchtale the drunk one instead) and the only one who (probably) isnt gay is Asriel (even though frisk covets the Dreemur Dong) (one day soldier, one day...). Many chatachters from many AUs sometimes come to visit cause, you know. Its a nice place.

Curseworld: massive writing project of mine which is just "adventure time shaped mass of autism". The world is cursed and fucked over, and everything is colorful. Its also part Owl House because fuck you the magic system is FUCKED here.

Internet friends: basically internet stereotype-shaped people. We have a furry thats normal, a reddit/discord mod that just wants to work in peace, and the protagonist is Just A Guy but a-ha! He has both an xbox an...d ps5 thus fucking over any CAD reference. The last sketch i made was a mr.monopoly shaped guy who really wants youngsters to actually AFFORD shit who is married to a very obvious reference to Meru the succubus. Also i 100% intend to put a gag about mr beast living in an ATM when he isnt making videos

Im looking respectfully: look. Back then tumblr was basically Rule 34 with twitter users. Now its way better at the cost of a fraction of their value. Have fun looking at attactive women!

TOH:NEXT GENERATION: not even @moringmark's comics are safe! Enjoy the adventures of ayzee commented by me... telling everyone that shes STRONG strong. Like holy shit girl inherited will much?

Warhammer 50k: listen. This is just me looking at games workshop and fucking emperors tts and going "fuck that. Heres mine". This is a project where my "shard" assegned to this universe basically copies the imperium because, and im not joking, "the emperor is kind of a baka, but then again tzeentch is a thing so...". Also btw TTS is canon as SHIT. Like fr its all canon. Yes even the shadowsun fling, let kitten rest.

Pluripotent Impotence: an scp canon of mine thats basically "the foundation is so cold and clinical they MASSIVELY misunderstood shit". 6140, 6500, 5500 and 7000 are canon. 2718 and 5000 are in the files but they basically might as well not exist. 3812 is living tech support. 166 is in her early 20s and 239 is 19 and they fuck nasty (theyre also childhood friends. Girl Love i guess~) because fuck you clef love wins especially yuri go snort telekill dust. 2317 loves humans and thins theyre cute and squishy and when its seventh child turned out to be fucking JoyBoy? Yeah get this: he DID condemn the fortune teller that was like "dude your sevent child is one of those prophecy children that are so in vogue these days" but also messed with fate so that her death ended up being the coolest and most inspiring shit ever because he was like "considering the average Evil King story, i might as well just... let this happen! Maybe i can convince my literal offspring to spare me!" And it fucking worked. Also a bunch of shit is canon. @i-am-dado looks like a Kpop star and is somft. Dr Jack bright is my character and mine alone and also elias shaw is there i guess. My OC bangs the first one of these 2 amulet boys on a regular basis and the second one occasionally, dont ask why is there a gay polycule when im straight, there are some things that escape my mind. I have been in SCP for a long time and regardless of me making my account 6/1/2024 (LA BEFANAH) i have been here longer than you believe in. From my perspective it took a year before a 5000 contest was announced, so fcuk yoyu

Earth-ℵ₀: the best way to take care of the DC and Marvel universes is... let an autistic dude fix damages done by money-hungry idiots in hollywood. The joker is unimportant. Dr.Manhattan is Done With This Shit. I made a squad with random charachters i like. Lmao suck on uranium rods UwU

ytposting: (Funkdela Catalogue: Encounter starts playing)

Omni-shit: ben 10 is actually a good series guys, and the reboot is an interesting way of showing what would Ben 10 Classic look like if it was made Now

1% enhancement: basically i look at something and go like "hey what if the charachters were basically part me but not in a Knights of the Apocalypse way"

Tumblr italia: aò sono italiano che cos'altro vi aspettate

components: basically i use tumblr as image hosting. LoL.

Items: images turned undertale items. For reference, i have 2³¹-1 HP and my stats are ATK 100000 and DEF 65535. Yes the attack is a yugioh zexal reference. NOSTALGIA IS PTSD BUT GOOD.

Mungeon Deshi: dunmeshi is a good anime and marcille is italian

Full Nelson Analchemist: if FMA exists in my presence im going to give the 20k mg weed gummy to Truth

Evangelion 4.0: look, hideki anno has gone insane. Every time he makes evangelion as the most brain damaging version of telling someone to go touch grass people inevitably miss the point. I take it upon myself to give the @jakei95 treatment to the poor creatures (also fun fact: KAWOSHIN CANON. THEY KISS ON SCREEN. FUCK YOU AMERICA.)

The hoes are stuck: homestuck. What you thought they were safe from my grasp? 人間 you havent seen sheiße.

FeeF the BeeB: minecraft mod bullsheiße

[[Nothing Is Worth The Risk]]: lets just say that sometimes, the multiverse isnt that "cool and good"

Ultimate Sonic: i have a Sonic AU where... uhm... just. If i have a post about that. Just look at it. LoL.

Multiverse Polls: i make tHEM-

Autistic and Artistic: (draws happily)

Side effects of reading this blog can vary between true insight into the inner workings of the universe and self-defenestration from the top of the burj khalifa.

Anyways welcome to the multiverse

Do yourself a favour and dont go out without a loaded gun.

[karamazovposting]

Basic info about me and this blog

This is a not spoiler free side blog I made because I needed a place to ramble and reblog things about The Brothers Karamazov without clogging my main because I am soo normal about it (lie)

my pronouns are he/him, I'm in my early twenties and I don't go by any names on any social media but I just use Guy for this side blog because it's short for my main's username

Self-proclaimed CEO of the bipolar Ivan Karamazov agenda because I have that disorder myself and I think his character makes an awful lot of sense if seen as having it too

Lots of long literary analysis posts, so beware

BUT I'm not a literature student or a philosophy student or a theology student or anything like that, I'm just clinically insane

My DMs and asks are always open and don't be afraid to share your takes in my replies or reblogs

People I block on sight: radfems (yes any kind of radfem including rad leaning/adjacent, I don't care) and any other kind of transphobes, bigots/right-wingers, people who support and justify the bombing and killing of Palestinians and any other group that is facing genocide; fuck off, you're not welcome here and you wouldn't like my queer leftist ass anyway

[potroasttheghostdogpontificates]

Time for my first rant about politics here. Warning, long, left, angry, and ranty. Grab a snack if you wanna read.

I've become completely exhausted with the white center left. I'm tired and frankly, over these past four years I've come to despise them. I'm making the express decision to abandon platforms like reddit for political discussion, because even though there are a plethora of actual left spaces, the actually welcoming ones to anarchists and anti-war leftists have been settled and colonized nearly totally by liberals and they regularly brigade them, stirring the pot to run cover for this latest crop of neocon democrat fuckery.

I don't think I've ever been disappointed by a political affiliation before. I expect the fascists to have monster brained takes. I expect neocons to call any dissenting opinion about the status quo in my home country of America traitorous. But here we are. The party I supported for nearly a decade and a half, voting for them in literally every election I've ever been legally permitted to vote in from school board to president, my supposed allies even if they weren't 100% as cool as I'd like them to be; throwing a tantrum at the latest failures of electoralism and ineffective neoliberal governance, but flinging shit in the wrong direction. Four years of this after voting for the guy they told me to, even though I wasn't happy about it, and I'm done. I'm tired of it. I can't anymore y'all. Too much bullshit to swallow from the neoliberal center. I knew Biden was going to suck, but I didn't expect the bastard to be so outwardly hostile to everything I'd like to see.

This administration, the liberals have completely shown their ass. The absolutely vile whataboutisms, hostility, doublespeak, rahrah hyper-patriotism, excuses for genocide, vote and value shaming, needless argumentstion, smug condescension and snippering, and simpering cowardice from them has just made me hostile to them and any space they occupy.

I was one of those leftists. The ones who USED to say: "Well it's liberals. They aren't gonna grill us for food, so they aren't THAT bad. Outreach is important, and they're probably amenable to leftism if we remember to extend the olive branch when they reach out. No hon your aunt with the 'I'm With Her' bumper sticker isn't the enemy".

This administration and the actions and voices of their supporters has changed that, radically. Out of all the things that radicalized me, I didn't expect the most extreme radicalization I would experience would be from the motherfucking "gOoD gUy" party. These people have got me in marxist-leninist spaces that excuse the authoritarian actions of places like China, NK, and Russia, because they seem to be the only ones talking sense about what this administration has done and is trying to continue doing. The anarchist spaces currently have to cut through the chaff of an aggressive liberal infestation to even begin to discuss genocide with a sensible head on their shoulders. But the tankies hate them about as much as I have come to, and their zero tolerance stance has at least allowed a breath of clean air while trying to discuss an actual left position.

I should clarify that this goes BEYOND Palestine, by the way.

Tokens. Get. Spent.

As a nonbinary person of color, I've become disgusted by the white center tokenizing trans people to excuse the blatant fact that the democrats AND the republicans have voluntarily entered into an arms race over who can be more draconian on policing black people and shutting down the border to keep out latin people. There are other marginalized people out there people. Communities that are being made invisible so that the token can be used as a get-out-of-jail-free card, because both parties benefit from keeping them under boot. To the trans people out there who think the dems have our back, baby, they don't.

Remember this line. It was to explain to people of color latching onto right-wing movements to secure their safety the reality of their situation:

I had to learn that as a biracial person, so I don't have to learn that as a queer person. To those who haven't, keep it to breast, and watch carefully. This is how it starts. They aren't coming for you yet because they can squeeze some press out of you. That will pass. It always does. Ask brown skinned latin/south americans. The dems used to campaign on how they're treated so poorly under Trump because of his and his party's racism (they have, here in the US). Trump's successor just called them all vicious invaders in a god damn State of The Union, holding up a photo of a white woman and telling a sob story about her death at the hands of "a violent illegal" to appeal to scared white racists, because he's afraid his genocidal aspirations might cost him an election among his hostaged progressive voter base. If Spike Lee had put that in a movie, Renni Eddo-Lodge would ask him to tone it down a little.

They speak out of both sides of their mouths, saying in one breath that we should all set aside our differences and kingmake THEIR chosen and work together to fight the fascists and how they NEED us to save everyone (when they aren't sure they can win an election). Then in the next, sneer with contempt about how they never needed us in the first place and will win this election without the interference of the "children" who dissent to their spiral into fascism, (when they think they have the election locked up or just won one), which they either see it and love it, or are too smug to see it. They tried that in 2016. They still aren't over the sore asses they got from it, even though they're milking the loss for all it's worth, because they keep pushing absolutely atrocious candidates as if it's their "due", because Trump's existence and a post-Trump world are the only places people like that could even hope to be politically viable anymore as zero hour approaches in America. Biden and Clinton needed that scumbag to win a presidency, which is why the party gambled with him in 2020 rather than hand the nomination to Sanders, the more popular, more left candidate. They'd rather gamble with the only ones who could lose to this guy than cede the fact that the voter base has moved more left than they'd like.

"Sorry idealists but unfortunately, "not genocide" isn't on the ballot this year" isn't a fucking excuse, no matter how many times you say that to me. If it is true, fuck that ballot. If it isn't, fuck you for lying. Also, fuck you, the fuck it isn't. There are plenty of anti-genocide candidates running in this election, it just requires the bare minimum of due diligence from the electorate to find the candidates running. Claudia de la Cruz, despite being absolutely buried by pop coverage of this election to where you basically have to be told she exists or stumble upon her by accident, has what might be exactly what the left wants, or at least I do, as far as incremnetalist progress goes, and what the liberals claimed they wanted during Trump. Anti-capitalist expansion, anti-war, pro-marginalized, anti-fascism. But yet, all the pro-Biden camp has to say about her is "who?" and "oh so nobody then". What a genuinely contemptible, vile thing for a person to say.

I expect that from conservatives, but not democrats. Oh wait. And yet, leftists tired of the decades of compromise with the viper that is the center are "politically uninformed" or "unengaged/uneducated voters just doing what the tv tells them to do" because we say Biden as a president has been far worse than we anticipated and has moved to the right of Reagan and Eisenhower in terms of policing and Israel, to where it should be unteneble that he is allowed to occupy the nomination that claims to be left, as if their complete snow-blindness (and I choose that word very carefully) for candidates other than what the Democrat Party Brass feeds them is anything other than political laziness.

Liberals have shown me that for all their fluff about caring about the downtrodden, about doing what's right, it's smoke. Add a qualifier to every stance they have: "--until/unless I can justify it".

They bitch and moan about social media like TikTok as if it's a bastion of misinformation (it is, like all social media) but don't challenge hegemonic media even when they blatantly lie, and no, "just Fox" doesn't fucking count anymore, when multiple outlets have gotten their nuts nailed in scandal, ESPECIALLY regarding Israel (Not a peep when CNN literally reversed the x-axis on a graph to drum up white fear about crime that actually wasn't being reported, for example). No eyebrows raised when TikTok and only TikTok gets limitations put on it to "protect users from disinformation", when literally a few years back the founder of Facebook was getting interrogated by the state for getting caught selling personal information to the highest bidder for profit and having literally zero interest in curtailing the storm of lies being circulated by the platform.

Social media limitation without information and privacy protections and reforms is propaganda effort, simple as, and the fact that TikTok has a lot of young people, the demographic that skews the furthest left and TikTok being the platform that has been sharing most of the horrors happening in Gaza without a spin, should make people concerned when it amd only it is being targeted for "misinformation". The government is targeting the social paltform most outspokenly against what it is doing and getting its fingers into it to silence it. I don't even use TikTok, but I'm old enough to know what a damage control narrative looks like from a politician.

When the dems have, without prompting, threatened to sic the FBI on pro-Palestine protests to "investigate ties to Russia and China" that shows us that the dems are perfectly content to get authoritarian when you don't make shit easy for them. Pelosi walked that shit back, AFTER she got called out for it, but remember the old adage: "When someone tells you who they are, believe them". No one prompted that outburst from her. That's her true face. Sure she dressed it up in cute weasel words about how "they'll be subject to due process and it's just an investigation" blah blah blah, but anyone who has even a working understanding of McCarthyism amd protest strategy should tell you why you shouldn't ever EVER cooperate with that. McCarthy "just wanted to make sure" too. It just so happens that "making sure" under a hierarchical government involves being arrested, (and considering our police force, brutalized in the process) scared shitless, threatened, detained (and as long as they like to) until they've decided they can no longer politically survive the jailings/deaths. The byproduct of this rhetoric is of course you don't need to try someone as a traitor to treat them like one and kill a protest, so you get the dual benefit of authoritarianingly(?) kill a protest of your government and pretend you're a just government of the people. Don't buy it. Accusation will be enough to kill a protest stone dead if you spook enough people, because all of our lives are already dangling by a thread. It's risking enough to take time off work when a few hours of pay can determine eating or going hungry for a week for far too many people in this god-forsaken country, it's a deatb sentence to be tried as a criminal. It worked for McCarthy, don't let these milquetoast posh versions of Reaganites pull the same stunt. At least McCarthy had enough sack to be an evil bastard publicly instead of simpering when interrogated.

"I'm against racism..... until I can justify it" "I'm against war.... unless I can justify it" " I'm against draconian borders..... unless I can justify it" "I reject genocide.... until I can justify it". "And we'll kill you if you resist enough".

Makes em seem a lot more honest when you put it that way.

I hate how cowardly they defend this shit. I hate that I have to add parentheses to highlight the obvious to points I make that no leftist would actually make, on the off-chance that some miserable Biden campaign social media quote-doctors me into a republican.

They pretend that they're the politically engaged, they're the "big picture" "adult" voters, or, even more egregiously, that they're the empathetic ones.

If you keep a rabid dog loose in your yard, you save a shit load of money not having to build a fence. Controlled opposition is manipulation.

Single-issue is fucking rich, considering the only defense they can angle for this guy at this point is "but trans people though!" As if any of the bones they toss will actually make the situation for trans people better. It's liberal identity politics at its absolute pathetic.

Trans people can join the army again! (If they can survive the rampant bullying, sexual assault, and white supremacy in the armed forced that no one in authority has any intention of addressing and face no threat of repercussion for that failure because the US increases their budget every year with no regards to stopping for any reason)

If trans kids get misgendered or their pronouns disrespected at school, they can sue! (Provided they have access to the means of effective legal representation and aren't under a judge who is not amenable to their side of the issue, which is unlikely due to the inroads of privilege necessary to become a judge in the first place ensures that a frighteningly big percentage of them are white, upper-middle-class and above, conservative, and isolated from the community at large.)

Good news! Trans people won't be discriminated against in hiring! (Until the EO times out because let's face it, they aren't gonna draft an amendment to enshrine that federally any time soon, and also ignoring the fact that a majority of hiring discrimintaion happens under the table and in secret, and is facilitated by at-will employment practices and allowances, AND a majority of trans-discrimination in the workplace happens after hiring, when trans people start to publicly transition where they face bullying or firings). Do nothing about the plethora of anti-trans bills worming their way through the legal system on this country, meaning the trams community has a literal ticking clock over them. (Unless they help the republicans pass them like in West Virginia). Do nothing about homelessness being a death sentence that is nearly impossible to escape or seek aid for, even though the trans community is disproportionally homeless because of bigoted families disowning them. No, they won't ever ever be allowed to go to the doctor or safely access transitionary care without a shitload of front-loaded privilege to financial stability that only some have.

We did it! Trans people saved. Now vote for us. Because we burned the black vote bridge with our vicious policing practices even after pretending to side with them during the 2020 protests, and the hispanic vote bridge with our scapegoating of them and our draconian border, migrant, and asylum policies, and the arab vote bridge with our blatant spreading of misinformation about a genocide facing their people and families. Screw the poor, black people, arab people, hispanic people (but only the brown ones, if you don't have an accent or melanin we won't be able to tell and will let you do as you please), leftists, protestors, and trans people (eventually) but we aren't gonna bite you trans people. Vote. Do it. Do it now. You don't wanna see what will happen to you if you don't. Oh no not us. Just an associate. We won't stop them if they come for you. Give us all the authority over you so we can prevent it. We'll do it this time, we swear.

"You're a single issue voter, like a loser" says the liberal to the person who opposes genocide regardless of party (it's a pretty big fucking issue, no?) But this is the person who sees the state of affairs and says "but trans people" without even asking them what they need to survive. How dare you dangle their lives for political gains because you're too cowardly to fight your own battles. My fellow trans people, don't swallow this. All they're doing with their "buying time" is allowing the situation to decay unseen for a few more years, after which, it will be too late to stop things becoming catastrophically bad unless we literally fight for our lives.

If you've read this far, you've already been here for days. Took me a while to organize my thoughts in downtime between work. So one final point so we aren't both here for weeks.

I can't stand the sneeringly condescension if liberalism-as-default as a method to defend their position. They bite back on leftists who don't support the center as "well there's no leftist on the ballot right now. Why do you always 'pull this' during election season instead of a ground-up movement over time?? Bring me a leftist and I'll vote for him." Or my favorite, "what are YOU doing about it??" I hate this counterargument for multiple reasons. Let's have some fun with formatting and list them.

It tacitly admits that the speaker doesn't support anything for an ideological reason. They support people who can "win" neoliberal electoralism and nothing more. They care about winning. Doesn't matter who does or for what reason. They support the establishment, for better or worse.

This is also taking as read the idea that they will not support leftism in any meaningful capacity until it reaches hegemonic status, despite (or perhaps because of) it needing support from multple sources to get to that point at all. A Catch-22 from someone who is basically saying "I refuse to cooperate with you until you get me to cooperate with you and you become the default which requires me cooperating with you". They won't help the left get off the ground, even though it needs them at least out of the way to do so, but will say they will get out of the way once it does get off the ground. This is why the left says the liberals hold progressives and leftists "hostage"

It demands the left do the work of justifying and legitimizing itself to compare to THEIR chosen default, while admitting they have zero intention of doing the same. Liberalism is default. Therefore, the left has to justify itself, the liberals don't, and anyone who asks them to is being disingenuous or unfair. They demand legitimization from their opposition, and won't give it.

They are admitting they have been ignoring leftism and only pay attention during election season, because it threatens their hegemony.

They are ignoring the fact that the reason the left raises so much stink during election season is because the candidates claiming to be left and what the center champions as what leftists supposedly want have yet again slid right to win said election. The left is sounding the alarm bell as it happens. It's not the left's fault the center is choosing, yet again, to ignore it.

They're pretending that the center and right won't unite to kill the left if it ever DOES get that far, even without them (more than likely because that would include themselves in the ranks, and that's a bad look when trying to high-horse a political discussion with a leftist). This includes party formation or any sort of on-the-ground organization like protests. The left will be killed stone-dead unless the center starts putting its money where its mouth is, because the center will be the one holding the knife. They know this. They don't want you to. Ruins the surprise.

They're demanding you fix the problem they made while also refusing to compromise with you to do so. "We've done nothing and we're all put of ideas" has gone from a derogative to an accusation. Liberals have shown themselves to be painfully bad at media analysis.

It's a blatant trap to bait out organizational efforts from psy-ops to break them or infiltrate them. Chances are higher than you might think that someone asking you how you organize is a cop trying to insert operatives into the ranks to disrupt. The liberals trying to ask "well how are YOU organizing?" are doing the oppressors work for them, even if unintentional.

The demand for organization of politicial ingress into hierarchical electoralism while ignoring the truth that for organization of that level to even get off the ground requires a degree of privilege and legitimization that the left has been barred from accessing outside of violent revolution, while also quietly admitting they don't intend to give that to them unless they take it, and they will resist them taking it

And that's it for now. Rant over.

Jeez did you get all this way? I'm impressed. And thanks for hearing me out. As a reward, if you feel slighted by my words, here are some verbal face pets to ease my point and position.

No, I don't vote shame. If you do vote for the dems, either because you support them ideologically, vote tactically and genuinely believe they are a good option, don't vote, or vote third party, you won't get any oushback from me. I'm an anarchist. I believe it's your right, completely and fully, to do whatever you want with that vote of yours. If you want Biden to represent you, go for it. I do not. Under any circumstances. If you vote tactically or genuinely believe in them to protect queer people or stop the onslaught of the right, if you believe that neoliberal electoralism will help us, I don't think you're evil, I believe you're misled. I feel upset on your behalf that you've been lied to. No, I don't think you're unintelligent, young, gullible, or naive. I believe you've been lied to. You can't be "enlightened" or whatever you personally call being woke if you've never seen what the truth looks like. I don't blame a propagandized people for being propagandized. You don't blame a person for believing a lie. You get angry at the liar for deceiving them.

If you think Trump might be worse, you're probably not wrong. He's an ugly kind of neoliberal, the kind that has melted into a fascist. But if you think he DEFINITELY will be, I genuinely believe you to have not been paying enough attention. Will he be better? Absolutely fucking not. No way in hell. See? There's that clarification and emphasis that I have to do to prevent bad-faith characterization that will happen anyway again. But if you can't recognize Biden as a lateral move at best, I honestly don't trust you. Sorry, but I don't. Shit's bad out here for more than white queers. Please remember that. The LGBTQ community is not a hegemonic white one. Liberals don't have a target on your back, yet, but that's because it's easier to shoot at us first. The cops Biden and Harris like putting on the streets won't ask me my pronouns before they gun me down. They're gonna see my afro-textured hair and skin-color first, and go off that. They're gonna see me at a protest and declare me a dissident before they even ask me about my bisexual spreadsheet. Solidarity is important, because they're coming for us all. Avoid class reductionism AND neoliberal identity politics. Both poison the well.

To all the white trans people who are fucking scared, I see you. We're all scared. I don't mean to diminish this fear or disregard it, because I get it. These bastard hegemons at the top think they can push and pull us using the fear they themselves create to turn us against each other. I remind you not to fear. If they could have destroyed us they would have succeeded long ago. I have zero faith things will even be in a staid equilibrium under Biden's next term. Mutual aid will survive literally anything these bastards can throw at us all, but we must remember to stay true to our values and communities and remember solidarity to the allies. We will get through this like we have everything else, I promise. I stand with you. I intend to fight for you if I have to. Most everyone on the left will. Electoralism for neocons like Biden and what the dems are trying to shove down our throats will not, remember that. Vote, if you want, but don't trust them to save us. He thinks protecting your pronouns in school are enough but won't expand hate crime laws. He's jerking us around.

And that's it. Here's some genuine literal face pats to thank you for hearing me out. Go with peace and happiness and love. Love strong and live your truth. And fuck these god damn liberals. Solidarity, support. We're gonna get through this, together, like we always have, without their help.

[blackbat05]

Jumping in head first

Shangqi x Reader

A/N: This was actually written before the others but not sure why I put it at the back. Been writing a bit more platonic imagines but I always welcome a different interpretation when you read it! To give a bit of context, reader is also an Avenger but she joined later and Shangqi is like the older protective brother? Because I just think that trope is neat. Anyways, hope this idea of mine is engaging as it was in my mind and as always, like and comment if you wish! Appreciate the support! 

Genre: PG 13

Warning: Profanity, blood, the usual when I attempt to write an action sequence? 

A gunshot rang throughout the department store. Shit. You were still in there. Shangqi races inside, battling against the throngs of shoppers who were desperately trying to get out.

You lifted the little boy up, sprinting away from the sound with all your might. Think (y/n), you tell yourself. Frantically gazing around the deserted store, you decided to hide the boy in a changing room that was neatly tucked in a corner. You removed your jacket, wrapping it around the boy. How nice, you and Shangqi had decided to go to the nearby mall to grab burgers from the new burger joint that had opened before heading to the Avengers compound to train and this had to happen. 

‘Hey… hey, don’t be afraid ok? I’ll make sure to come back for this.’ You tried to assure the poor boy. It seemed to do the trick as he managed to calm down. Shutting the door, you peeked out into the open to make sure the coast was clear. You had to direct attention away from this floor. As you turned left to the now stationary escalator, you saw a mannequin at the children’s section. Perfect.

You pushed the mannequin down the escalator, resulting in a large crash the level below. That was going to leave some lasting damage. ‘Someone’s downstairs!’ You could hear the pairs of heavy boots going down to the second level. Good. Now you just needed to see how many assholes were there to carry out your attack. Making sure to keep a safe distance, you went into a crouching position behind a wall, whipping out your phone camera.

Two… Four… Five of them. You were pretty tall yourself but these guys had boulders for bodies. You were starting to think if this plan of yours was just straight up reckless. Before you could decide on your next move, a hand clamps on your shoulder, bringing you down. ‘What the-oomph! Shangqi!’ You gasp. ‘The hell you doing here?’

‘Saving your ass clearly! What were you thinking?’ Shangqi glances up to see the assailants before turning to look at you. ‘The boy’s safe. I managed to get him out. We can engage freely. But minimum damage please.’

You rolled my eyes at him, ‘Says the guy who caused a bus to be chopped in half.’

‘You know that wasn’t me!’ He hisses back. Ignoring the noise of indignation he made, you scanned the area again. It was as if higher beings were looking out for the two of you, only two of the assailants remained while the rest spread themselves out within the level. The both of you were thinking the same thing - you and him and to take down each assailant within record time to prevent any unwanted attention.

Signing to Shangqi, the both of you treaded carefully down the escalator, each taking a side of the walkway surrounding a store selling prams. You signaled to him using your fingers. On three, strike immediately. Three…two…one!

You launched at the unsuspecting man in front of you, knocking him off balance. Before he could react, I wrapped myself around his left leg, forearms surrounding his ankle in a tight grip. ‘Don’t move unless you want to be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life boy.’ The masked assailant whimpers, quickly taking of his mask. He was no more than 16. ‘Alright, I surrender! Please don’t hurt me!’

I stare hard at him. He reminds me to much of the kids that I volunteer with at the shelter. What is his story? ‘Fine, tell me who’s your boss and why is he making you do this?’

‘I swear, for real - I don’t know. All I know is that some guy in a suit and sunglasses came to me and my friends and offered us a heck load of cash if we help to pull of some heist.’

I turn to Shangqi as if hoping the had some answers which he did. Being an Avenger didn’t just consist of battling a genocidal titan. It also meant that they were spread out across the country, lending a hand to the local police. ‘It’s probably the local gangs crawling around Chinatown. They gets kids like them to do heist like these and use the money to fund illegal activities.’ 

‘What kind?’

‘You don’t want to know,’

‘What kind,’ I emphasized again, not taking no for an answer. If kids like the boy were in danger, there needed to be something done. Shangqi sighs, ‘Drug smuggling, prostitution, organ harvesting. This is just the tip of the iceberg.’

My blood ran cold. Grabbing a rope from the mannequin donned in sports climbing gear, I tied the boy to the metal grills. ‘Don’t try anything funny.’

The two us proceeded to follow the remaining assailants. My brain was in overdrive, full of rage. ‘Can’t believe such lowlifes are allowed to run around San Francisco freely,’ I muttered under my breath, ‘don’t try to stop me.’ 

Shangqi ascends the steps of the escalator together with me, ‘Who said anything about stopping? Just try not to kill them okay? We still need them for interrogation.’ 

‘Can’t promise you that.’ 

Exactly an hour later, the two of us are standing together with a rookie officer who was taking Shangqi’s statement. I keep my eyes on the entrance where first responders were wheeling out stretchers of the injured. I happen to see the little boy who gave me a small wave in thanks. At least my injured shoulder was worth it. 

‘Fucking bitch!’ The last stretcher rolled out from the shopping mall with one of the assailants who was pointing furiously at me. ‘That bitch broke my ankle!’ 

I should have been shocked by the outburst and perhaps slightly embarrassed that tons of onlookers were staring at me. To my credit, it was the opposite - a mixture of satisfaction and annoyance at his behavior. My natural instincts were now controlling me. Striding towards his stretcher, I held a hand out to the medic to give me a minute before grabbing him by his bloodied shirt. 

‘Listen here you piece of shit,’ I kept my voice low to prevent any onlookers from picking up on the situation but loud enough for Shangqi to hear. ‘I’m willing to break more than just your ankle for what you did to those kids. You better spill everything to the police before I break more than just your ankle.’ To send my point across, my eyes playfully roamed down his body. He definitely left on the ambulance traumatized. 

‘Woah don’t burn me,’ Shangqi raises his hands playfully as he approaches me. ‘I don’t have to worry about you anymore huh?’ 

You rolled your eyes at him, ‘What can I say? I’m looking to outshine you one day!’

On cue, the same rookie officer bounds up to us, out of breath. ‘Mister uh-Shangqi, Miss Y/N, I just got another alert from my officer, there’s another attack in one of the financial buildings - we have reason to believe it’s the same group.’

We gave each other knowing looks. It was going to be a longer day than usual. ‘Well, the trip to the compound just got cancelled,’ Shangqi stretches his arms, as if gearing up for a boxing match.

‘Works for me, I have a lot to say to these assholes.’

‘Always jumping in head first huh?’

‘You know me too well!’

A/N: Wow! Legit came up with this during work hours so I’m not sure if my ending was ok? Hope you didn’t get bored reading up till here but if you did, thank you! It’s mid week and then I just have three more weeks left till this god damn placement ends. Until then, stay tuned! 

[i-dont-know-how-this-site-works]

do tony stans not get that the whole point of yelena is that she wants to be free? why the hell would she let an old ass talk to her let alone adopt her. she wants to have the life she didn’t have because of the red room. like did no one see how happy she was to get the vest? no way wild tony even get close to adopting her

(also that take is just weird as in general but sadly not the worse i’ve seen for her)

(Please keep in mind my points here might be a little bit far-fetched, but those are my subjective observations and you can see the whole thing differently. Also, if anything sounds clunky or unclear, then I am sorry. Not a native English speaker.)

I honestly think that they don't. They just see a young woman (important point! I will get to it later) that was abused and is traumatised by her past and it's like this light is going off in their brain- "If I headcanon my fave as a good parental figure that takes care of a vulnerable person, that means he is overall a good person and I can ignore the negative aspects of their personality".

Now, let's take a look at both Yelena and Nebula. Like you said, the whole point of Yelena is that she wants to break free of the Red Room, leave her past behind, forget the abuse she experienced at the hands of Dreikov and develop into being her own person, with agency and free will. Nebula on the other hand wants to break free from Thanos, leave her past behind, get revenge on her abusive POS adoptive papa and develop into being her own person, with agency and free will. Now you see how these two characters overlap and that their stories and circumstances are somewhat similar.

So knowing that Nebula was headcanoned (or even fanoned since a lot of people in this fandom adopted(hehe) this headcanon) as T0ny's adopted kid, it was fairly easy to predict that Yelena was going to get the same treatment.

Alas!

There is another young woman in this universe that is a) young and b)traumatised.

There is a difference between the three though. You see, taking care of someone who hates your guts might pose a bit of a challenge. Wanda did not get infantilised and "adopted" into the stork family because she is antagonistic towards the stans' object of admiration. The very first thing we learn about her in AoU is that she hates the dude (bless her heart) and sticks the middle finger to him in the first like, 5 minutes of this finest Whedon Mess-Fest™. She also reminds everyone of T0ny's past mistakes and I guess it hurts??

Both Yelena and Nebula started out either not knowing T0ny even existed or he never affected them personally. Which might also be why they seem adamant on lumping Shuri in with these women.

Shuri has never interacted with T0ny and as far as I remember, she also never even mentioned him. So, again, no bad relation/memories/whatever to spoil the headcanon. However, she is different from the women mentioned above- no tragic or abusive backstory (I think at least), supportive ALIVE family and a teenager, a person actually in need of guidance and oversight, as opposed to a woman approaching her 30s. Along with the other teenagers that have ALIVE family members like Peter and Harley.

So, two categories of "kids"- adult people in their 20s with issues and teens.

Adult people in their 20s with issues, huh?

Steve and Thor are definitely not welcome into the adopted child circle, even though they are young and they have issues. So adoptable *snorts*. And yes, I know, they are technically way older than T0ny, but mentally and physically they are in their mid-twenties when they meet him. So, what gives?

Ahh right! How could I forget! They are men. All the people in the first "category" are women.

Take away what you will from this.

Alas^2!

So far, we have 5 "kids"- Nebula, Yelena, Harley, Peter and Shuri. However, as my staunchly Christian auntie from a catholic-alcoholic denomination always says, the more kids, the merrier! Ho ho ho! Let's throw some bio kids under the tree too!

But wait a minute, Mr. Santa. Bio children? No one wants to play with those!

So, I noticed that T0ny stans always put Morgan on the backburner, rarely if ever mention Vision (technically not bio, but you know what I mean) and totally forget Ultron, although with Ultron I get the sentiment, if my child turned genocidal I would want to forget about them too.

And again, far-fetched, but I think what is happening here is that well, if you decide to have a kid, you kind of have an obligation to take care of them, but when you decide to take a completely unrelated person under your wing and tutelage and guidance and care, it's like, looked upon as honorable, I guess???? I mean, take a look at other characters that assume a parental role over an unrelated child. Din Djarin, Hunter, Kanan, Obi-Wan, hell, even Anakin can squeeze in there. They are darlings of the SW fandom, mostly because of the Raw Daddy Energy™

Also, Found Family fecking slaps and is regarded by many as the tastiest snack out there, but with bio kids you can't really "find" them, you DIY them into existance.

To sum it all up: This whole thing flew off the rails faster than my future plans do and I feel like I made some pretty moot points, but that's how I would explain this strange addiction of t0ny stans.

Also, anon, sorry if that's not the answer you were expecting, but I felt like your ask was a perfect jumping point to make this post, since I've been thinking about the whole "kid adopting" thing for a few days now.

[graystonepaganresources]

Christians and people who support Christianity aren't welcome here. They don't need to be messaging me. They need to stay away from me.

You're free to believe what you want, but as someone who has read the entire Bible and was raised by a pastor who abused, starved, beat, raped me, and tried to kill me "because their God said so", I sincerely don't want anyone related to that hate group around me.

If you choose to be Christian, you do so knowing that your religion has been supportive in the past and currently of pedophilia, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, genocides, and the holocaust. This is why you don't need to be around me. If you support that, you're not welcome near me.

Anyone who has something negative to say in response will be blocked and reported. I refuse to pretend that I support hate groups or evil people.

So to the "Christian witch" who told me on anon to kill myself because I don't like bigots like you, GO FUCK YOURSELF. You Becky ass bitches make me fucking sick, go bother someone else.

And PS- the Bible calls for all witches to be killed and says that they don't go to heaven, so if you're a Christian witch, you're basically saying that you're too ignorant about your own religion to make it to heaven. You have no right to tell anyone to kill themselves for being pagan when you're too fucking stupid to understand either one of the two religions you're fucking mocking. Good luck with burning for eternity, cunt.

[potatowitch]

finding out that the star wars sequel series was written on the fly rather than actually planned out makes so much fucking sense but also pisses me off EVEN MORE because i watched the force awakens in 2016 and within a day of leaving the cinema had a fully fleshed out idea in my head of the direction the next two films would take and the plot points they would cover, all brainstormed in the shower. 16 year old me was more capable of writing a cohesive storyline than disney was. so here you are - i rewrote the sequels to be ten times better than what disney actually gave us. enjoy.

- after rey finds luke they train for a bit then he's like "gotta tell u something. u ever heard of mara jade? she's ur mum" "wait weren't u two dating for a bit" "yeah" "does that mean ur...." "...yeah"

- "why did u leave me on jakku?" "i didnt. she did. i only just learned u existed i wouldve come for u" "oh."

- "...can i call u dad or" "i would be honored if u did"

- meanwhile at the resistance base leia realises finn is force sensitive, gives him her old lightsaber she had in the comics

- because come on. rewatch the force awakens and tell me that man aint fuckin feeling the "shitloads of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced" when starkiller goes off

- and he picks up a lightsaber and instinctively knows how to use it?

- also: two main heroes in a star wars film being a queer coded woman and a queer coded black man.

- and the whole "used to be a stormtrooper and defected, becomes a jedi" is a TOTALLY NEW storyline? not some tired old "white boy villain is a dick for three movies then suddenly turns Good TM right at the end" trope

- make rey explicitly asexual. she's beautiful and smart and got abs that make everyone who sees them MELT but she is NOT INTERESTED in anything but JUSTICE and PLATONIC HUGS

- finn and poe are also making out because come on, disney, if u wanted to show you're becoming more progressive having a loving interracial gay romance is the fucking easiest way to do it. BB8 has two dads and they share The Jacket

- turns out finn is a kenobi because u cannot tell me obi wan didnt Fuck. jedi code says "dont form attachments" but watch the clone wars - obi wan plays fast and loose w the jedi code at the best of times. now we got a skywalker and a kenobi working together being best buds again, THE WAY IT SHOULD BE.

- the destruction of starkiller has crippled the first order. don't fucking look at me like "the resistance just won a major, VERY VISIBLE victory but OOO no somehow they're still very low on numbers and infrastructure" NO. the public destruction of starkiller has earned the resistance an influx of allies. the republic has started publicly supporting them. the first order spent years building that thing and now not only is all that time, effort and MONEY gone, they lost a shitload of staff and military personnel when it blew up

- "the first order is rich" is a plot point I DO NOT UNDERSTAND because it directly contradicts what's going on in the expanded universe books. the first order was built from remnants of the empire that had been banished to the outer reaches of the galaxy to live out of broken down, shitty old star destroyers.

- it's the reason hux, who was raised in a decrepit old academy in the ass end of the universe by an abusive father, is SO anti republic. in his head, it's the reason he starved as a child. it's the reason his mother is dead. it's the reason he had to be raised by a father that beat him. his hatred for the republic is PERSONAL

- disney learn how to write a good villain challenge? hux EASILY could have been terrifying AND sympathetic

- hux and kylo now have to deal with how absolutely PISSED snoke is that both of them failed with starkiller. hux gets force choked and threatened. kylo gets snoke very painfully rooting around in his head. it is emphasised that snoke's relationship with these two is downright abusive.

- somewhere in there, they realise that the whole five years they've known each other snoke has been deliberately pitting them against each other and sneakily forcing them to undermine each other's authority

- they realise it was snoke's shitty leadership that lead to the destruction of starkiller. they realise that maybe they'd be better off on their own

- the two of them plot to murder snoke themselves. while this is happening, the resistance is happily building an army, gathering resources, and forming alliances. luke and rey have reunited with the resistance and now rey and finn are both happily training with luke.

- snoke dies. hux decides to take the mantle of emperor. kylo LETS HIM because he realises he doesn't know shit about fuck when it comes to leading anything more than his knights. has a crisis of confidence about how useful he actually is, then hux decides he wants to keep the knights of ren around as his personal "fuck up the resistance" squad.

- the two of them working together turn out to be fucking terrifying, competent villains. the films have short, five to ten minute sections where they explore their VERY SIMILAR traumas to make them sympathetic WITHOUT making them seem like "uwu they're not actually bad people" because THEY'RE STILL AWFUL GENOCIDAL MASS MURDERERS

- on the kylo trauma side: it's made obvious in the books that from about age 6 snoke has been in his head deliberately grooming him away from his family. make that obvious in the films. make its impact on kylo obvious in how unsure of himself he actually is. don't make his "redemption arc" one where he suddenly goes light side. give him a bastardisation arc where he realises his whole life he has never made a choice - and then make THE FIRST ORDER his choice. (it is the wrong choice! emphasise that! but make him MAKE THAT CHOICE)

- the resistance thinks they're doing well. they have two new jedi. they've seen very little of the first order outside of small operations that they've been squashing. they think "hm. starkiller's loss must have crippled them. we're doing well!"

- until they learn actually. they've got an emperor now. and the commander of the knights of ren is INCREDIBLY loyal to him. the first order is PISSED OFF and VENGEFUL. they're back with a force. they've started invading and subjugating planets even with their forces cut as thin as they are because hux is a military mastermind and kylo and the knights of ren are a fucking TERRIFYING unit in combat.

- also why did disney decide to present hux in the films as a weak pissbaby when he probably topped his class in all combat situations and fights dirty in close quarters. man can SNIPE. man will bite your fucking finger off if you manage to disarm him. he is a 6 foot beanpole and he will kick your ass

- kylo has a crisis about actually having to kill his mother, uncle and cousin. he still feels a bit bad about han - despite everything, he still loves them and is struggling. he actually confides in his knights about this. we get to see that the knights of ren have a found family dynamic with their commander and they comfort him.

- kylo realises it will be painful to murder the last of his bio family but it must be done, because he's come around to hux's view that the resistance and the republic are standing in the way of true peace in the galaxy. he actually believes that reinstating an empire is the best thing for the galaxy. this makes him a more effective villain because he actually believes what he's doing is right.

- more stormtroopers defect to the resistance. finn is there to welcome them and help them adjust. there's a couple of lowkey force sensitive troopers in there too. we learn more about how horrible, soul crushing and traumatic stormtrooper training is. this is a good way to keep painting the first order as an organisation that violates human rights and the geneva convention at every turn.

- the first order makes up for this loss of troops in picking up recruits from the planets they've taken over in the outer rim because they've been providing stability. again - it is SO EASY to write the first order as sympathetic villains WHO ARE STILL FASCIST ASSHOLES. this would've been such a good opportunity to show the moral argument between stability vs freedom. show the flaws in the republic because they do exist!! we see that throughout the ENTIRE expanded universe! every iteration of the republic fails in some way!

- the fight against the first order becomes increasingly more difficult, but they're actually on pretty even ground. it doesn't make sense to me that disney decided to go for the route of "the resistance should've been squished easily by the might of the first order but uwu kylo can't make up his mind and thats what saves them!" that is not a compelling storyline! they are relatively evenly matched and the resistance only JUST comes out on top!

- kylo kills luke in actual combat, not just "luke randomly dissolves for ... no good reason?". this hits the resistance HARD. rey and finn have to struggle with their desire for revenge. leia realises her son is beyond help. it nearly breaks her. she has a moment where she feels like she has lost everything. poe has to step in to remind her she still has him. it is revealed that he joined the resistance after the first order killed his family HORRIBLY when he was a teenager and he and leia sort of have a mother/son relationship.

- this is also a good way to juxtapose hux and kylo. they took their trauma and it made them awful. poe takes his trauma and it makes him kind. it makes him want to protect people from what he went through. also gets rid of the "haha we made the latino man have a drug dealer background" bullshit that disney did

- poe also has to comfort his boyfriend and best friend and remind them that they are fighting to make the galaxy a better place, NOT for revenge. then they have a discussion about "yeah, don't make revenge your main priority, but the jedi were a bit wrong in saying that you shouldn't enjoy it anyway. it's going to feel good to fucking murder kylo and that's okay". acknowledgement that the old jedi code was garbage and too restrictive for actual PEOPLE to follow it.

- kylo still can't kill leia or chewie. we get flashbacks of her singing to him, braiding his hair, comforting him after nightmares. we see baby ben riding on chewie's shoulders. seeing the conflict between kylo recognising his family loved him and still choosing to be a villain would have RUINED ME. he tells hux this, expecting hux to shoot him for it. hux understands - he had a mother, once. the republic killed her.

- (they actually didn't. she was an imperial slave and was probably left behind when an imperial settlement was being razed. the only reason hux actually survived was because he was his father's only heir. there's a whole spiel in the books about brendol going "this kid is a piece of shit bastard i dont want him" and imperial officials being like "the empire needs kids. go pick him up")

- hux decides to kill leia instead. he nearly dies doing so because woman is STILL a force to be reckoned with even at this age. remember she is actually trained to use a lightsaber AND guns. the only reason hux doesn't die? kylo steps in at the last minute and kills his own mother. he's made his choice. he mourns, and then he steels. there is nothing left to pull him to the light side anymore.

- anakin has given up trying to bring his grandson to the light from beyond the grave. him and obi wan are focusing their force ghost attention on rey and finn. now luke and leia are both there too. we get the same "all my jedi ancestors are rooting for me" moment that disney gave us, except now it's shared between rey and finn.

- the two of them plus chewie cut through the knights of ren until they get to kylo. he kicks the living shit out of them, but they manage to kill him. rey earns some gnarly, sexy scars. chewie needs a hug and goddamn does he get one.

- poe is the one to kill hux. he's not just doing it for the galaxy, he's doing it for leia. the first order already stole his first family from him. he won't lose his second family to them. bonus points if BB8 joins the fight and like ... tases hux in the leg a few times.

- we get some gratuitous "c3p0 and r2 are sneaking through an imperial base and fucking shit up but like, badly because 3p0 never stops talking" scenes

- you want to bring rose tico into it? she's head of the resistance's infiltration team. she's with the droids taking down shields, stabbing people in the back, freeing prisoners, stealing plans, sowing chaos. she's the one who finally takes down phasma.

- without their emperor and the knights of ren, the new empire crumbles pretty quickly. the resistance has taken HEAVY losses but they have won. we get a very beautiful funeral scene for luke and leia. there's a gorgeous group hug between finn, rey, poe, chewie and bb8. poe and finn smooch against the sunset.

- we see finn and rey going into crystal caves to get kyber crystals. poe, chewie, bb8, r2 and 3P0 wait outside the cave in the falcon for them to be done picking up their crystals, then we see finn and rey inside the falcon building their new lightsabers with guidance from a bunch of force ghosts. we get to see that rey has chosen to decorate the inside of the falcon with a bunch of potted plants so she can be surrounded by greenery at all time. the found family aesthetic is STRONG

- rey builds a saber pike. it comes out golden. finn builds a standard single blade saber that comes out white, like ahsoka's. gold to emphasise protection of the weak and the perfect blend of combat and scholarly pursuits. white to emphasise free will from both the jedi and the sith. it is emphasised that these two will NOT be your traditional jedi.

- we see an epilogue where poe is working to help shift the republic's focus from political squabbling to actually protecting its citizens. he leads reconstruction efforts, helps establish more of a presence in the outer rim, constantly fights for moving resources from protecting the republic's assests to providing food, shelter and safety to its citizens.

- finn is constantly by his side. we see him protecting his new husband, on the front lines destroying remnants of the empire and the first order, and using his combat prowess to absolutely murder slave owners.

- rey has taken to training new force sensitives with chewie by her side, however she recognises the jedi code has been failing force sensistives for millennia, and instead her teachings are more aligned with the grey jedi philosophy. she recognises that people feel anger, hate, grief - and that they are all valid emotions. it's what you choose to do with them that is important.

- she actively encourages personal connection, believing that loving your friends and family is righteous and the true path to the light side. her apprentices all adore her, and she is always there for them - she'll listen to their worries, from something as small as "i am 13 years old and my first crush just rejected me" to "i am a former slave coming to you after the first order murdered my family and tortured me. i am having nightmares and am afraid of the anger i feel".

- she encourages apprentices to stay in contact with their family, and she becomes that family for the ones who have lost theirs.

- you get the feeling that this time, peace in the galaxy is actually going to last. anakin, obi wan, luke and leia look on from the Force in pride at their children and grandchildren. they did good. they can finally rest.

- the sequels have made personal choice a major theme. finn chooses to defect. poe and rey choose to be kind, when they have every reason not to be. hux and kylo make the wrong choices. there's no flip flopping like a dead fish between good and evil until the very last second. the lines between kindness and freedom and hatred and subjugation are clearly drawn again and again.

- i sit in the cinema after the screen goes black and i weep. i am satisfied. this was a fitting end for a franchise i have loved for most of my life.

[eyeslikefoxglove]

Episode 4 - Meng Yao has a crush & Foxglove likes to babble

Hello everybody, welcome to episode 4. I slept like a baby last night, but I have a migraine so I may sound a bit incoherent. (Post episode Foxglove here, I’m not incoherent in this, I’m just ranty)

Poor WWX. Funny story, during my first? Second? Year of Med School I fell aspleep on my biophysics notes during exam period, woke up at 9pm when my alarm for my meds started ringing, realised what I’d done and called my mum (who was on a 24h shift at the hospital) crying. In hindsight is hilarious because I had something like two weeks until the exam so I lost no more than a few hours but oh well.

Full disclosure here: I don’t like the Lan sect, LXC, LWJ and the Ducklings excluded I think they’re a bunch of hypocrites. You can’t call yourself righteous and boast about your almost 4000 rules and then shrug when people decide to commit genocide.

Also, 4000-ish rules? Fuck that noise, there’s a post floating around here where some amazing soul translated what they could see of the Wall of Rules and yeah, some of them are in the “don’t be an asshole, don’t hurt yourself or others” vein which, absolutely fair. But things like “dress properly” who are you to tell me what and how I cover my body with? “Don’t be promiscuous” wow thanks for the slut shaming my dudes. “Don’t smile foolishly/don’t smile too much”, “sit properly”, “don’t be too sad”, “don’t be too happy”. You’re telling me these are rules, not guidelines, not common sense stuff. RULES. You’re telling me people get punished for grinning or crying. Fuck off mate.

And we can’t forget the golden example of hypocrisy “Don’t talk to Wei Wuxian” so much for “don’t speak ill of others”.

Is my Western Girl showing? I’m sorry, I’m from Spain and I was raised by the guidelines “don’t be an asshole, don’t hurt yourself or others, don’t take anyone’s bullshit, live and let live, have courage and be kind, we will always love and support you” so some stuff in here is very very grating. I don’t have enough knowledge about the culture to discern if it is because of my modern sensibilities or because my culture is so different.

Oooooohhh I don’t like birds. I mean, I love crows, ravens and birds of prey to an unhealthy degree, but they keep their distance. The other day a pigeon flew into my building and decided that my (very dark) doorstep was the place to have a rest. I screamed like a banshee.

Hey, those two assholes at the back, get the fuck out of here.

LXC protective mode activated.

You will never convince me Meng Yao did not develop a monster crush right then and there.

Oh no. It’s this asshole.

Oh WangJi about to cut a bitch.

Drag him WWX.

MY’s protective mode activated.

And LXC is too done with this shit. Yep, NHS also thinks MY got a massive crush.

WQ aka Qishan Wen’s only braincell.

It’s the One Braincell Trio!

Notice me sempai! Omg JC’s faces.

This is where I dump all my canon-divergence AUs:

Meng Yao stays in Cloud Recesses. He and LXC keep gazing longingly into each other’s eyes.

NHS introduces him to the other two from the One Braincell Trio. WWX takes one look at him and goes “yep, you’re my friend now, I’m kneecapping anybody who fucks with you.” Because there’s no way he wouldn’t be sympathetic to MY after his own childhood (omg, both of them drunk, making terrible gallows’ humour jokes about living poor and mostly homeless while JC and NHS just listen horrified). JC goes into overprotective bro mode with MY. I mean, he still can’t emote for shit but he’s made very very sure that he will cut a bitch for MY and at least he knows MY has a brain, not like someone else he knows.

Shijie makes friends with MY because Shijie is a goddess and MY is so confused because how the hell does someone so kind exist? And she wants to be friends? And she doesn’t care at all about his past? What? MY.exe has stopped working.

Maybe JZX gets his head out of his ass and goes to talk to MY and warn him about what an asshole JGS is, because I refuse to think JZX doesn’t know it. Maybe MY hears him disparaging Shijie and decides that nope, the Jins can fuck right off every single one of them is a rude idiot; it’s ok with him because of his parentage (it’s not ok) but no one touches Shijie. The Yunmeng sibs is where it is at.

And that’s when he unleashes his full Slytherin powers on behalf of his new family. Because he does indeed have a fully functioning brain and shit is going to get really ugly really fast for all the people he loves if he doesn’t try and mitigate the damage somehow.

(A lot of mutual XiYao pinning is going on in the background because I live for the angst ok. LWJ fully approves of him as a brother-in-law tho)

A lot of terrible shit still happens because this is my AU and I want pain, but not only does JGS not have MY’s enormous brain on his side when he tries to seize power, he’s actively working against him (you can’t tell me MY wouldn’t get the kick of his life publicly bringing down and exposing his terrible father).

I’m sorry, back to the commentary.

This two idiots omg.

It’s WQ! Drag him WQ (gently)

I’m going to channel my ballet teacher here for a second: put your hair up! (You bunch of spider crabs, as she would call us)

I mean, JC’s hair is clearly in his face when he’s doing drills and, while the visual of all that dark hair whipping in the wind with the robes (another beef I have, they look like they’d catch on everything) is very dramatic I can assure you it’s fucking annoying. Plus it limits your visual field a lot. Again, I know jack about the culture and people can fly on swords here so why am I complaining about hair but let me live.

I used to have that much hair (then I got a pixie, now I’m growing it back out) and smacking yourself on the face with your own braid hurts.

Shijie knows what’s up with Jiang “I can only show anger” Cheng.

My one track mind when I saw the fish: Anisakis!

I think I would absolutely become a vegetarian if I got dropped in the past tbh. Not only is there no quality control of animal products (hello Trichinella), there’s also no way to do a proper cold storage (hello Salmonella). I’ve read and seen to many horror stories due to contaminated animal byproducts and, while vegetables pose their own risk (hello E. Coli) usually you only have to be thorough at washing and peeling to not have trouble.

5am wake up call without coffee. Fuck that noise.

Wei “I’m a petty gremlin” Wuxian.

I once called WWX a “mad scientist with ADHD” on an AO3 comment and I stand by that assessment.

Ok, but why the turtle caricature? It’s because turtles are “old and wise” like LQR? Is that the joke? Or are they laughing at WWX’s balls?

AW NO PAPERMAN.

“Tell me, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood? // Where, would you look if I asked you to get me a bezoar? // And what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?” It’s pretty much the same energy. LQR is Ancient magic China’s version is Severus Snape down to the pettiness. He tries to catch WWX in a mistake, and when he can’t he dismisses his knowledge (look at Shijie’s face when he says WWX should not be proud to know what he does). He keeps pushing until WWX’s runs into a wall, then uses LWJ to “show him how it’s done” I mean, look how smug he looks and how uncomfortable everyone else is.

“Pity... clearly, fame isn't everything.”

(No, I don’t like LQR and I don’t like Severus Snape either; tragic past and sacrifices do not give you a pass to abuse children don’t @ me, I’m not interested in changing my mind)

And here is where all my “mad scientist with ADHD” hc stem from.

“No screaming in Cloud Recesses.” Screams LQR (yes, I’m 100% that bitch)

WEN NING IS HERE HI WN YOURE SO PRECIOUS.

But intercepting an arrow mid flight is some Geralt of Rivia Witcher bullshit right there.

Detective Wei strikes again.

The scenery is gorgeous my god.

Can we talk again about how this 16-year-old boy reacted to someone sneaking up on him by drawing his sword and attacking? That’s not fucking normal, that’s a common reflex in soldiers or people with PTSD.

(The Netflix translation has him calling LWJ “WangJi” and I die)

Thanks for reading!

[popculturebuffet]

Excalibur #1: “The Accolade of Betsy Braddock”

As the magic of Krakoa seeps into Otherworld and puts Morgan Le Fay in a genocidal mood, Betsy Braddock tries to find her place in the new world while also dealing with her idiot brother.. but you know instead of Paul Rudd she has a reality warping man child with mental instablity. Meanwhile Apocalypse adopts an unprouncable name and a new misson statment as a wizard man, Gambit suppresses the urge to kill him and Goldballs tries a new somehow even worse name out.

Welcome back. Due to yesterday being kinda nuts, and the last review being more taxing than planned, this one is kinda late. But better late than never as dawn of X continues it’s win streak with Excalibur, back and better than ever. And thankfully this time, the exposition is all really easy to bake in as we go compared to my last few reviews, so without any delay, it’s time to forge the sword once again. This is Tini Howard and Marcus To’s Excalibur.

We open on a long info page revealing that when Xavier gave his big “While you Slept the world changed” or, to put it more acuratley “All I wanted was to love you , to help you to save your asses and all you did was either try to kill us, look away while others did, or make a token effort at best to help. Fuck you, we’re taking what’s ours bitches. “ speech, Apocalypse gave his own, in a sense telling Humankind “Magic is ours to take back now.... “

We cut to the present where Morgan Le Fay is in Otherworld, basically the court of king arthur, the source of Captain Britan’s power, and a realm created by the british public’s collective subconscious. I don’t get it either. But Morgan Le Fay, Arthur’s evil sister and long time pain in the ass of the Avengers in the 616, has taken over in his absence and nearly drowns one of her minons upon finding something in her well.. a weed affecting it.. and since the x-men have a plant motif and apocalypse made a big MINE NOW speech to the rest of the world.. it’s easy to see Krakoa’s involved. Nice work Apocalypse, your on Krakoa one week and you’ve already pissed off the neighbors.

After the opening titles, we cut to Braddock Academy, basically the british version of Xavier’s and Avengers Academy and unsurprisingly a pet project of Brian’s. Since the school is also the Braddock ancestral home, Betsy’s been crashing here while sorting things out after getting her original body back. Yeah for those of you not that familiar with Psylocke, which I am not but know at least this much, was body swapped with the Assian Kwannon. That was reversed shortly before Dawn of X, which in order to help smooth the transition has given each their own starring roll. And really it is an intresting thing to explore: Betsy spent 5 or 6 years in a body that was not her own, living her life, loving, and doing bloody awful things in the name of the greater good. So it’s no suprise being put back in her old body after all this time and the implications of having basically lived her life in someoen elses skin with the other person now having it back and being understandably pissed about it, having only not gotten it back sooner due to dying of the Legacy Virus. Thankfully this issue dives deep into it and we’ll explore it more as we go.

The child loudly complaning is Margaret, Brian and Meggan’s daughter. Margret is one of the few things Mark Guggenheim’s run on X-Men did that was all that intresting as, probably thanks to a combination of her dad’s magical man juice and her mom’s already shifting genetics, can already talk in full sentences and comprehend stuff at the tender age of 1. Betsy is of course heading to Krakoa but much like Kitty last week, she’s unsure. But it still works: Kitty was unsure because Krakoa, for whatever reason, basically rejected her and staying would just make her a ghost again. For Betsy, she’s gone from living in a stranger’s body and back again and is understandably frazzled and unsure of tommorow.

But as Brian escorts her to the portal on his property, a touch I like as Meggan is a mutant herself and Brian is a longtime ally so it makes perfect sense to put a portal down there both for his mutant students to depart and for Meggan to visit without having to leave her husband behind, he encourages her. This is something I love about the issue: most x-runs I see betsy in kinda forget she has a brother and Uncanny X-Force turned him into an asshole. Here, their close bond and past, she was a supporting character in his book first after all, is shown beautifully as Brian , while happy to have her back, wants her to move on with her life and knows she’ll do great. 

As also seen above Betsy wishes their brother could join them though Brian isn’t so sure. I didn’t really get into Jamie in the other review, and i’m pleased as punch to get here there. Jamie is their older brother.. and also has schizophrenia and the power of god, two tastes that instead create a rancid punch that threatns all life as Jamie dosen’t think anything else is real. Despite this, Betsy wishes he’d be there to see it and hopes it’d make him better. After all if Apocalypse can find a new start here why not him? They literally have worse people on the island.

Speaking of the devil, after Betsy makes her awkward entrance, we cut to Apocalypse who’s of course standing out a window watching everything meancingly, because even when he’s on the good guy side and no longer plotting horribly Darwinian crimes.. he’s still a super villian deep down and old habits die hard. He’s visited by Trinary, a fairly new x-character introduced in X-Men Red, she’s a technopath, as well as one of the brain trust running Krakoa’s computer network. Also as you can see apocapse want’s to be called by his weird Krakoan name.. i’m just going to stick with Apocalypse as I assume it’s the same thing and even Tini Howard herself has flat out admitted she dosen’t have a translation for it and just scripts him as Apocalypse still. He also gets dagger eyes from everyone’s faviorite Cajun as he makes his villianous rant.

Remy does however have more reason than most to hate the man: He was one of Apocalypse’s horseman once: he attempted to go under cover, but underestimated how good the horseman process was and would up having to go to Mr.Sinister of all people to get himself back to normal. So yeah, having the guy who turned you into a monster that tried to kill your future wife, KINDA makes you not willing to have a ham sammich with the guy.  Trinary came to fetch Apocalypse to check out a new gate that opened.. to otherworld.. the problem is Morgan sealed it, and thus Apocalypse , not being a moron, decides they need “a champion” to break it. And since Hercules is on a three month no pants cruise of the bahamas right now, he’s going to have to be less literal about it.  Meanwhile MOrrigan is an asshole to a coven of sorcerers decreeing that they failed her by.. letting mutants exist. Yeah the one weakspot I have with the book thus far is the opening villianess: Morgan Le Fay simply isn’t that intresting and while she’s had a good storyline or too here she’s pissy because.. mutants found magic again. It isn’ t a terrible motive but her steroptical villaness “take my anger out out my minons” stuff is just tiresome and not at all entertaining. She’s the right level of threat for this book, just not fleshed out about enough and is the one real dry spot in this issue. 

Back on Krakoa, Betsy runs into Kwannon and it’s.. about as awkard as you’d expect as you can see.. and really isn’t helping Betsy’s unease. And I actually, despite not having read a ton of comics with Betsy in them get why she’s so uneasy besides the obvious problems of having the woman whose face you stole around all the time: she has no idea what to do. Everyone else on Krakoa, for the most part at least, is fully on board with the new plan, rairing to go. Sure some understandably object to their old foes being there… but theirs a sense of optimism and wonder and happy.. that just dosen’t go with someone who has so much blood on her hands she looks like she took a guys heart out with her bear hands, is in a body that hasn’t been home in years, and has to look the person who’s body she stole, intentional or not, and didn’t put any effort into bringing back from the dead or once she was back giving her her body back in the face. She’s just not in a great place. Thankfully even if her old pal Jubilee dosen’t pick up on this she does get Betsy could probably use some booze. Unfortunatley pressing matters keep her from finding out if krakoa can pour mimosa’s directily into her mouth via some kind of hose bush:

It’s your pal and mine goldballs, one of the five mutants able to raise the dead (but the car is fine). Or Egg I guess but I’m not calling him that. For one goldballs is a far better name just for the ridiculous factor. For another, just call yourself goldeggs. It’s still dumb but egg is somehow dumber. Even add a Z if you want no one cares. Your one of Krakoa’s own personal jesus’. You could rip a person’s throat out and no one would care… though granted that’s also because death is now meaningless for mutants. But yeah as you can see he has a problem and it’s Jamie.

And yup Jamie is back, alive and while not trying to kill everyone, is still kind of a weird asshole. Also I do not want to know what he did in there but I presume he fucked at least one person. Maybe he made them out of thin air, maybe they just came in. Maybe Sinister decided why not. Either way he’s fouling up the pods, and soon puts his foot in his mouth by saying Betsy’s classic look reminds him of better times right after their parents died. However in a nice little character bit he quickly apologizes, showing he has genuinely changed thanks to his resurrection on some level, and admits that the real reason is because they were all together then and all happy. As for why he’s a nusiance, it’s simple: while ressurectees DO need time to recover from you know, the whole being dead thing, it usually takes about ten minutes for the shock to wear off. And while there’s clearly no shock left Jamie is just farting around. Betsy’s response is to treat him like a ten year old. 

It..actually works.. but unfortunately Jamie has about as much intrest in seeing Brian as Brian does in seeing him. And I see why: before he went insane, Jamie was still a supervillian and still hunted brian out of jealousy, while Jamie.. is just kind of a dick. He’s like Krakoa’s own discord: he’s not an apocalyptic godlike threat to the world any more but he will fuck with you just for cheap laughs. Betsy tries using her telepathy to force him to go but Fabio stops her, as it upsets the eggs apparently and decides to drag Brian here, something even Jamie can see as a bad idea. And when the naked man whose been back for all of 5 minutes can see the holes in your plan, maybe you rethink things. But I also get why Betsy is trying so hard at this: She has almost no stablity left and Brian has been her rock, past and present. But Jamie is still her brother and now has the potetinal to do good and while still a loon, is no longer a genocidal madman and is stubbornly refusing to reconcile because he’s decided to swear off humanity. She just wants her family whole and her brothers not trying to kill each other, but is in too bad a state to recognize they need time and may NEVER get along. it’s how it is with family. Dosen’t mean she has to choose one or the other. Brian wouldn’t make her and frankly Jamie isn’t dumb enough to try that.  Thankfully apocalypse interupts Betsy’s extrodinarly bad plan to ask her about the gate.. and point out that Brian himself would be the best way and that, even as a half human, he’d be welcome here in this crisis. He probably get some leeway since apparently the captain britan thing makes him half otherworlder and he is a cosmic champion versus just some joe who wants to enjoy a paradise he hasn’t earned thorugh hard work or nearly dying a bunch. 

Betsy heads to Braddock Manor where Brian is already planning on going to Otherworld to fix this and is naturally not all that inclined to listen to Apocalypse. So as seen above Betsy goes with plan B: She’s going with him even if it’s a trap because fighting alongside her brother doing the right thing is better than moping around an island trying to dodge Kwannon. This also gives me a nice opprotunity to bring up Betsy’s approach to their former enemies. She’s far more accepting than the rest, even Logan outright objected, but I also easily get why: She’s former black ops, having served on one version of X-Force and lead the one right after it. She understands the need for pragmatism and is a pragmatic person. It’s probably why she’s so willing to forgive Jamie: yeah he did terrible things, but at his worst he was mentally ill, and as established by X-Men #1, Krakoa has terrific healthcare and telepaths and empaths to help him work through his issues. He may not WANT to of course, but he’s more likely to and him slowly improving in paradise is better than her brother just being dead to her as a genocidal mad man.  They encounter Morgan who, being basically a 50′s disney villian, expects Brian as otherworld’s champion to start drowning his own sister.. because fuck subtley. 

Back on Krakoa we meet up with Rouge and Gambit. As a tiny bit of exposition for you lapsed ex fans the two are now married. The two reconciled in the excellent Rouge and Gambit mini series, hashing out their long and messy history. Then X-Men gold happened.. see there was SUPPOSED to be a wedding of Colosus and Kitty.. but their reconcilation was so terribly forced no one wanted the wedding and editoral had gambit, of course, steal The Wedding. So the two are in a happy place, though Rouge dosen’t want to use her power dampener on paradise, understandable as said dampener is a repurposed anti-mutant thing and it’d be like brining a pile of nazi gold as your present to a jewish wedding. Rouge then decides , as shown above ot bring up the idea of having kids but before Gambit can say “of course”, Trinary summons them for apocalypse. Apocalypse needs Rouge as he figures her absoprtion power might allow her to serve as a gateway, and a way to retrieve Betsy. Remy, Understandably, dosen’t want her to do this But Rogue is willing to take the risk to save her friend. Remy , now tenativley on board, suggestings bringing in Jubes since she was the last one to talk to Betsy, but A-Train is way ahead of them. 

Naturally, having talked to her all of one sentence, she has nothing. Also curiously apparently Apocalypse wanted Jubes to bring her son, adopted if you didn’t knokw about him, Shogo with her but shockingly she didn’t want to bring her son to see the scary blue man who had no trouble trying to do a murder on a child when she was younger. However Apocalypse really needs her as a bridge between minds: Rouge will touch the portal to break through it and Gambit will keep watch and is all too happy to. As a side note i’d lvoe to see apocalypse babysit “So you see small infant, after that I cleaved the flesh off his skull and put said skull on a pile as a warning to my enimies. You always want to get the flesh nice and clean off.. .the bits create more of a smell and you need to think of the smell. Speaking of the smell I think someone needs a changie!” 

I would too, but i’m pretty sure Remy would be a ground smear, but I think Apocaypse does respect his willingess to try anyway even if he dosen’t take gambit serious as a threat. 

Back in crazy magic lady town Morgan is slowly corrupting Brian, and despite Betsy’s best attempts to stop it, is quickly turned into a warped dark knight who’s trying to shove the amulet of right in her face for some reason.

But with Apocalypse plan in motion, she figures out what’s going on and destroys the portal.. unfortuantley for Rogue this causes to feel weird and then well.. this is the end result.

What exactly the fuck dosen’t even begin to describe this.

Back in King Arthur’s House, Trinary’s words not mine, Betsy tries to kick Morgan’s ass but Dark Brian blocks her… before the above happens.. and it’s clear WHY he was cramming the amulet down her throat... Morrigan has full control of him, he can’t do anything to stop her.. but he can pass it on so she can hopefully stop her or , if he can’t be freed, destroy him before he harms anyone else. He sends her back to the real world as Betsy wails> This scene is damn powerful, as we’ve seen before Brian was one of the few people who understood she was going through some shit and offered her his full support... and now he’s gone, no idea how to rescue him, leaving a wife and daughter behind. 

Back on Krakoa things arne’t much better wirth Rouge int he flower cocoon I showed earlier and Gambit ready to blow Apocalypse’s head off.. and as you can see Apocalypse is like “Fine i’ll come  back from it stronger, but can you please wait? We’ve got a lot of shit going down. But before Apocalypse can pound Remy into a Cajun Corpse, the assembled group is distracted by a returning Betsy. 

And so we end on Betsy, now fully crowned once again as Captain Britain, wondering what the fuck is up with Rogue. We get a quick Epilogue where one of the covern from earlier joins a cult based on the same one related to apocayplypse and we’re out. ‘Final Thoughts: Excalibur #1 is a good start. While some things don’t quite gel, Otherworld isn’t explained at all for those who have never heard of it (raises hand), it feels fresh and makes me invested in Betsy’s struggle, the tragedy Brian goes through, Remy’s fury and Apocalypse, who for once gets to serve as a wise sage instead of a warrior and it’s an intresting role for him, as well as him clearly being set up to mentor Betsy as she rises higher than ever before with her new role. It makes you want to see what comes next and the only real drawback is that Jubilee is basically a tagalong while Rictor is entirely absent, but both I suspect will be fixed with time. As fhte first part of a story, and the first Dawn of X Comic to be part of an arc since the two mini series that launched it, it works well setting things up. As I said the comic suffers from a lack of exposition on Otherworld and from a weak villain, but it’s not enough to distract from this fun, well crafted fantasy and I can’t wait to see what comes next. Until next time, hail to the queen baby.  

[snowysalmon]

Harley x ivy stans the harley quinn and poison ivy you hatred by humanity and men and the lesbians genocidal maniacs, false heroines and that she and eco-terrorist not welcome here by justice league never touch finger on son of krypton like kal-el, clark kent superman and while not admitting and accepting the truth ,honesty ,innocent and bisexual now you undestand the bisexuality now?

we’re going to address this in parts and then you’re catching this block. you know where the unfollow button is!!! use it!!!! don’t come at me with this incomprehensible bullshit absolutely unprovoked for the second fucking time today 

a) “false heroines” - Harley and Ivy are LITERALLY villains, they’re not nice and don’t have the best morals, that’s just what they do 

b) “not welcome here by justice league” - neither of them were ever or would want to be in the Justice League. Crossovers or team-ups are a different story, read another comic if it bothers you. If you’re confused, see point A again

c) idk why you keep mentioning superman,,,,, what are you on about. Unless there was a recent comic I’m unaware of, Superman and Harlivy fighting is just,,,, what they do?? Gotham and Metropolis characters sometimes go to other cities it ain’t that deep they don’t want Kal-el’s heterosexual ass. You think he’s the pure golden boy that’s being tainted by Harley and Ivy existing? I promise you they do not give a single fuck about the other, if I’m wrong, drop the panel 

d) “you understand the bisexuality now?” - I don’t know how to tell you this,,,,,,, I’m gay dude I fucking KNOW what bisexuality is and I know that Harley and Ivy are together. I don’t like them SOLELY JUST because they’re LGBT. I’m not even close to the leading supporter/super knowledgeable of Harlivy and am honestly baffled that I had to read both your messages with my own two eyes.

Don’t come to my page again with this shit,and take a fucking grammar class. 

[awed-frog]

tl;dr: nope

I got a couple of anon asks about this, and I’m also tagging @twist-shout-and-shells because they asked me to, but I have to say - I don’t know anything about comics, I don’t know Marvel at all, so this review is just a meaningless rant. Like, I know so little about this universe that the first superhero movie I ever saw in my life was Thor, and the only reason they got me was because my mythology-loving ass assumed this would be about the actual god, you know?, so that was a very confusing two hours. Anyway - after this, I’m done with them. The ridiculous hype campaign they created around Infinity War actually activated my crow brain, which means I rushed to the theater because I was sort of expecting this would be a shocking masterpiece and any spoiler would ruin it for me, and - yeah. Never doing that again. Because, whatever - they do manage to come up with some good writing from time to time, and Black Panther’s success had made me hope they’d finally recognize that a solid, coherent and meaningful story is really the first thing you need, but apparently not? 

Ugh.

Anyway, here are main reasons why I didn’t like Infinity War.

1) No, we don’t need a new plague

Problem number one with this movie is that it fails to take into account that our IQ as a people has dropped about twenty points over the last thirty years (and I’m not even joking) and that means even a guy nicknamed ‘Mad Titan’ is actually given the benefit of the doubt (I don’t remember anyone thinking Hela might have had a point, but then again, women are known to be emotionally compromised at all times, right, so all that rage was probably PMS and crazy bitches, amirite?, can’t live with them, can’t live without them). And here, predictably, is the result:

I even checked Breitbart so you wouldn’t have to and while they seem confused as to whether they should support this movie or not (don’t watch because Captain America is played by ‘Comrade Communism’, do watch because Chris Pratt is a Good Christian Man), it’s still clear to everybody over there that Thanos, “an environmentalist wacko obsessed with salvaging the natural resources of the universe” is “espousing liberal jibberish”.

So, I’m going to keep it short and mostly sourceless because I saw a lot of people discussing this, but just to be clear: yeah, it is worrying that human population has basically tripled in thirty years, but the correlation ‘more people = more damage & fewer resources’ isn’t as clear-cut as some like to think. Also, research shows that women being recognized as human beings - that’s the actual way to solve this problem (see also x, x), which means that if Thanos had meant business, he could have used those frwaking stones to build schools and family planning centres. 

2) Your plan against evil can’t be just saying no

This is probably what bugs me the most both in fiction and IRL: saying ‘Trump is a moron’, ‘capitalism is bad’ or ‘genocide is wrong’ is not a political program. It’s a moral stance, and kudos to you, but if you want to make the world a better place, you need a lot more than that. But, nope - IW fell into this trap with such relish I can actually believe no one saw this as a problem - at all. When Thanos pointed out, rather smugly, that decimating Gamora’s planet had led to a new era of happiness and prosperity, she didn’t react in any way. We never saw Tony or Shuri mentioning the outlandish, extravagant idea that better and greener technology could actually save us all. We never saw anyone point out that when the richest 1% own half the world’s wealth, wiping out half of a Nairobi slum isn’t likely to do much for the environment. I guess it wasn’t relevant to the plot?

3) Turning your audience against the good guys = dick move

That said, our planet is objectively in bad shape, and writers and artists who are (or like to think of themselves as) engagés are more than welcome to discuss this - for all her faults, JK Rowling did that to perfection in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, focusing on the importance of conservation and taking a clear stance against animal trafficking. Other movies, of course, went a lot farther than that: my movie rec of the day is Okja, a masterful and soulwrenching look at how capitalism manages food production. But IW, on top of everything else, manages to be an anti-green movement movie? As if that was needed in any way? Apparently comic!Thanos’ goal was to impress Lady Death or something, and maybe they should have gone with that, because to me, movie!Thanos’ plan sounds like an ill-conceived and unfortunate parody of the green movement. In fact, eminent biologist E. O. Wilson’s Half-Earth explores this exact possibility - which is not about killing off 50% of the population, thank you very much, but about improving agriculture and urban structures so we can leave 50% of the world to the rest of the ecosystem. And maybe it’s just me, but isn’t it a bit weird the book came out at about the same time when IW’s script was being written? I try not to be a paranoid nutcase, but come on. Because what the movie does is that it turns Thanos into a sort of green Hitler whose only focus is the environment (“But he was a vegetarian!”), cue the creepy final shot of him going all ‘Schwarzy in the forest’ surrounded by clean-water creeks and happy animals while we are left counting our dead. The metaphor couldn’t be more obvious, and to be honest it is most unwelcome. Time and place, guys? I really haven’t seen something so revolting since I got to the end of the Da Vinci Code and realized atheists were the true monsters all along.

4) Being a hero doesn’t mean saving your friends

So this is starting to become a trend, and seriously, enough. If you’re a hero, then you need to think of something greater than yourself, and this is why your life will suck and suck and suck until your untimely death. Deal with it? And I can understand Loki giving up the Tesseract for his brother, because he’s always been more of an anti-hero than a hero, and his morals are shot to hell in any case, and I’ll forgive Dr Strange because he clearly saw something we didn’t, but what the hell was Steve thinking? Seriously, I keep seeing posts about how Pure and Noble Steve is, and guys, did we even see the same movie? Bringing Vision to Wakanda meant endangering an entire nation, and thousands of people there paid for that choice with their lives. It’s because Steve insisted in not seeing the big picture - or accepting Vision’s own wishes - that Thanos even succeeded in the first place. If they’d destroyed the stone, Thanos would never have gotten his hands on it, and Wakanda would not have been attacked by a horde of alien demons. Sacrificing hundreds or thousands of nameless (black, African) warriors to keep one (white) man safe is not heroism - it’s cowardice. It’s assuming your own feelings and your friends’ lives count more than the lives of strangers, and this is the exact opposite of how a hero should think. Not that I’m surprised, since Steve already condoned the destruction of half of Bucharest to save Bucky, but whatever. Compare and contrast with Tony, by the way, who first tried to destroy the Time stone, then chose to sacrifice himself to save someone he didn’t even like? Yeah, that’s more like it. #TeamStark

5) Every single woman is defined by her relationship to a man

With the caveat that no emotion, connection or motivation is throroughly explored in IW because it’s an action-packed movie during which people never speak an honest word to each other (relying instead on posturing, movie quotes and sarcastic remarks), here is basically what happens: men have things, and women have men. Tony’s journey is mostly about saving Peter and also sacrificing himself for the world. Steve is all about his friends and various heroics. Dr Strange is a sort of ascetic monk playing the long game. Thanos wants to save the universe or something. And Vision is on a quest towards humanity? Maybe? But the women - Gamora is important because she’s Thanos’ daughter. Scarlet Witch is important because she loves Vision. Natasha (I think she’s in the movie? I don’t actually remember if we hear her speak) is on Cap’s side because Cap. Pepper only appears to remind us of what Tony has to lose. Exceptions to this rule include Shuri, whom IW didn’t quite manage to destroy; Loki, who was always female- and queer-coded, so I’m not surprised he ends up dying for the handsome and suitably Aryan hero; and arguably Starlord, who mostly fights for Gamora (what is a virtue in a woman, however, is a weakness in a man, because Starlord ends up fucking up the plan because of his love for her). And I know they probably tried to compensate for the complete lack of women in the movie by highlighting how powerful Scarlet Witch is and focusing so much on Gamora, but I’m an annoying person, so that didn’t work for me. Because, again, Scarlet Witch is a 2D character plucked directly from a Victorian dictionary’s definition of ‘woman’ (while the menfolk around her worry about the possible demise of the Entire Earth, there she is, channelling all her energy in being a good and loyal companion to her robot husband) and Gamora has no more control over her life in this movie than she had as a child? Her main narrative purpose in IW is to make us feel bad for her boyfriend and father, who’re both driven to kill her (for very different reasons) and suffer for her death (and don’t get me started on Thanos suddenly loving someone and what a stroke of luck, the one person in the universe he gives a damn about just happens to be standing next to him on top of a cliff when he needs to kill her). Seriously, why is it that female characters’ concerns still begin and end with romantic love? This trope that romance is the most important thing for every single woman needed to die, like, yesterday.

6) None of that actually means anything

Look, I’m a sucker of time-travel of any description, but I also think time-travel must be done honestly or not at all. Movies like Back to the Future or Arrival both use time bending to great effect, because the stakes are real and painful and there are all sort of complex decisions facing our heroes. But IW doesn’t care about any of that. The existence of the Time stone is not about ethical dilemmas or even turning up the drama to eleven - the one purpose of that thing is to make us hope that our personal fave is not dead after all, so we’ll keep watching this stupid franchise until the end of times. That finale could have been innovative and heartwrenching, and instead we already know it wasn’t. Samuel L. Jackson is apparently confirmed in Captain Marvel, which will be released next year, and we also know they’re working on Spider-Man 2, Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Black Panther 2 and Doctor Strange 2. Capitalism has very nearly killed the possibility of creating a well-written and gutting story, because the rule is, If it makes money, it goes the fuck on. Hence TV shows which no longer make any kind of sense but we all keep watching out of nostalgia, affection for the characters or dissatisfaction with our own lives, and also franchises which stretch the plot to new and boring limits (for instance, it beggars belief that Tony and Steve didn’t even meet in IW, and their fight never came up at all: I guess we’ll have to wait for IW 2, or Avengers 37: The One with The Talk). And here, again, studios are so greedy that they willingly disregard the fact audiences will reward ‘complete’ stories: for instance, Logan was critically acclaimed and made tons of money, but the risk of ‘permanently’ killing off a beloved character is still considered too high. And playing it safe actually works: IW costed $320 million, which is about 5% of the studio’s budget, and that investment has already been repaid in full (the movie made double that in the first two weeks).  

(Meanwhile, 21st Century Fox gained more than one billion dollars from Trump’s TAX REFORM THAT WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN - probably a disappointing amount of money for owner Richard Murdoch, who has a net worth of 15 billion and is known to use some of that hard-earned cash to support laudable & important causes such as the privatization of public education, but hey, we all need to make do and move on, right? Right.)

So this is mostly it. To be fair, IW was mildly entertaining, and I thought they sort of did a good job in juggling twenty leads - we got no character development at all and no meaningful dialogue, but we saw everybody at least once and their lines were funny? Some moments were genuinely good despite a couple of bizarre plot points (I’m still unclear on why Strange didn’t create a circle of fire around Thanos’ arm, and very tired of the overused ‘Yeah, let’s save the most powerful weapons for last’ trope), so I wouldn’t say this was the worst movie ever made, but as I said, I’m done. I’ve given more than enough money to this franchise, so when IW 2 comes out, I think I’ll be a boring adult and watch it on TV as I’m doing my ironing or something. Good times.

[deadskepticfiles]

THE DREAMING PROPHET: EPISODE 5 TRANSCRIPT

EPISODE FIVE: A LIGHT IN THE DARK (LINK)

Our kind was never meant to wake, but we sure are awake now. We can thank "the Adversary" for that - but who is he, really? Talking points: Thee-I-Dare, past and present, a spot of theory, and a community talk. Featuring guest, Fluffy Raven.

Spoiler + Content warning begins at 1:25. Content warnings: General horror, harm to children, death, genocide.

- lavanya: host, transcript, video editor, asset artist, speak-as-one's #1 fan

- astriferal: host, audio editor, puncher of things

- be11amy: advertising, fact-checking

- fluffy_raven: guest

- xaviul: moral support

- intro & outro music, "ringing bells": a weirdly handsome individual

- transition audio clips, music, voice lines: the blackout club/question games

- weird ambiance: Magmi Soundtracks on freesound (https://freesound.org/people/Magmi.Soundtracks/sounds/475737/)

- the blackout club: question games (https://www.blackoutclubgame.com

LAVANYA: Good evening, Red Acre~, and welcome to the Dreaming Prophet. Tonight, we're going to do something a little different. I'm going to ask you to sit back, close your eyes, and cast your mind back all the way out into the murky depths of our origin, ten thousand generations ago.

 LAVANYA: Look at the sky. Look at the stars, and look at the sun shining down on that upright ape.

 LAVANYA: Watch as the sun guides IT - your ancestors - your grandmothers! - leading them out of the cruelty of the darkness and into the warmth of the light.

 LAVANYA: Open your eyes. Look to the sky.

 LAVANYA: Will you let it lead you?

 LAVANYA: My name is Lavanya -.

 ASTRO: And I'm Astro.

LAVANYA: And tonight, we're leading a very special episode of the Dreaming Prophet. That's a joke, because every single episode is special and unique in its own individual way.

 ASTRO: This is a Blackout Club show for Blackout Club players with minimal speculation, all lore, and a focus on the known facts. Tonight, our topic of the day is Thee-I-Dare. We'll be talking in-depth about this Daimon for the first half of our episode.

 ASTRO: We are going to get into the spoiler and content warnings as always with the Dreaming Prophet. If this is your first time tuning in and you are not keen on hearing spoilers about the lore of the Blackout Club, this is your chance to pop on.

 LAVANYA: We will be discussing basically every aspect of Thee-I-Dare lore that is available in-game! So, our general content warnings for this are the same as usual: general horror, mention of children being harmed, and to be more explicit given that this is Thee-I-Dare, we will be discussing the specific death of named NPCs, and the overall death of a large number of unnamed NPCs.

 LAVANYA: One of the core aspects of Thee-I-Dare's lore is the Cull, which is a historical genocide that occurred in Red Acre, in which Thee-I-Dare's hosts were collected and killed by Speak-as-One.

 LAVANYA: In tonight's special guests is Fluffy Raven. Fluffy Raven will be helping us deal with the exciting topic of Thee-I-Dare, and giving us an insight into her own personal views of him. Hi Fluffy!

 RAVEN: Hi, my name's Fluffy Raven. You can find me sprinkled throughout the Blackout Club community, whether it's in the discord, or just meandering about online in game. I am one of Thee-I-Dare's chosen and I'm here to talk about it today.

 LAVANYA: Sometimes we say that Thee-I-Dare's followers can be a little overenthusiastic, but honestly, when we talk about people raving, we're mostly just talking about Raven.

 ASTRO: Let's start off with the question that's on everyone's minds.

 LAVANYA: Who is Thee-I-Dare?

 RAVEN: When the game was originally coming out, Thee-I-Dare was more so known for his rebellious nature. An example of this would be when his siblings and his maker basically said - don't come to Red Acre, and that he was not invited -.

 RAVEN: He ended up showing up anyway, because they told him not to come. If you were to stumble upon Thee-I-Dare today, and Red Acre, you would more likely find out that he represents individuality and choice.

 LAVANYA: And presumably, that's been the case throughout most of his life. We don't exactly know much about Thee-I-Dare historically: who he's been in the past, what he's done, or where he's gone, but what we do know is a few scattered facts from various individuals throughout Red Acre.

 LAVANYA: One of them is - per Laugh-Last, who is definitely, definitely a reliable narrator, absolutely - is that he had a stick up his ass to match SAO back in the day, back when he was still in tight with his makers. We also know that, even though Thee-I-Dare currently is not really in with Speak-as-One or many of the other gods, in the past he was! And in the past, he went by several other names.. who still exist outside of Red Acre.

 LAVANYA: So remember that next time you decide to take a tourist trip.

 LAVANYA: In the past, he's also gone by other genders. We know that he's gone by she and her, and possibly others.

 LAVANYA: As a side note, what's interesting about the voices is that they do not have the traditional relationship with gender that humans and the player characters might have! Voices are not people. That's always something that's worth emphasizing, and that's always something that kind of plays into what pronouns they use.

 LAVANYA: We know that in the past, The-Measure-Cuts has also been referred to as a woman, and we know that Thee-I-Dare has been referred to as a woman in the past. This is not necessarily because of the Daimons exact gender identity - because they don't have bodies, they are voices floating in the void and they are not humans.

 LAVANYA: Voices take on the gender of the host whose voice they are using to speak. When The-Measure-Cuts was using a female voice, everyone uses female pronouns. When Thee-I-Dare was using a female voice, everyone use female pronouns. The voice who is the primary means through which Speak-as-One speaks uses them, he/him and she/her pronouns, because the Voice is two different people, a man and a woman speaking in tandem.

 LAVANYA: For this episode, though, we will be using he/him pronouns for Thee-I-Dare throughout. Because that is the current gender, as far as we know of, his Voice.

 LAVANYA: To get back on topic, even though the Voices are not humans, they do all, with the exception of Speak-as-One, use familial terms to refer to one another. Thee-I-Dare is the first born child of Speak-as-One, and he is the second oldest of the known voices, per Speak-as-One, who, unfortunately, is not always a reliable narrator. He is also the source of some of the other voices.

 LAVANYA: We don't know exactly how that works, but in the end, that may just be Speak-as-One being exceptionally petty, as they don't want to admit, that they have countless or nine children that *all* manage to think they are the absolute fucking worst.

 RAVEN: From a conversation a few months ago, Speak-as-One claims that the other gods split off from Thee-I-Dare and not from the big baddy themselves.

 RAVEN: However, Thee-I-Dare has gone against their claims saying the voices did, in fact, split off of SAO. Right now, there's not a lot of solid facts with that. And this is something that's being disputed over as familial relations are kind of the constant enigma when it comes to the voices.

 RAVEN: Thee-I-Dare often rejects being called the title of "parent", because he feels that it's arrogant, in that it denies the role of humans into his coming of existence and that of the other voices. Thee-I-Dare has stated that he believes that humans came first, and were the ones who created Voices in the first place. However, despite with Thee-I-Dare thinking that the title of becoming a "parent" is more on the arrogant side, he has no issues preferring to Speak-as-One as his makers.

 RAVEN: Which, this can actually be seen with other voices, such as The-Measure-Cuts calling SAO his progenitor.

 RAVEN: After the big event known as the Culling, Thee-I-Dare was left shattered and voiceless - basically a shadow of himself. And because of this he lost contact with his sibling voice. As Thee-I-Dare is regaining his strength, he's been trying to reach out and recreate a relationship with his siblings, and ally with certain voices.

 RAVEN: A few examples of these would be: Dies-for-You, Dance-for-Us, and The-Measure-Cuts.

 ASTRO: Thee-I-Dare views Speak-as-One as his enemy, and until recently, also thought poorly of the rest of his family. He speaks often about how his family moves together: where one goes, the others will follow as a result. When Speak-as-One created Red Acre, all the other Daimons showed up there. Even though Speak-as-One tried to keep them out -.

 LAVANYA: - because, if you recall back to what we were saying just a few minutes ago, it turns out Thee-I-Dare is the spirit of rebellion! The spirit of rebellion: that youthful desire to do exactly what he's told not to do.

 LAVANYA: Is it any surprise that most of his hosts have been 13 year old childrnen?

 LAVANYA: We don't actually know the chronology of how the voices arrived in Red Acre. What we do know is that Thee-I-Dare himself says that he was one of the last of his family, if not the last, to arrive in Red Acre. When he arrived, he was then betrayed by Laugh-Last, who's probably, although he's never said it -.

 LAVANYA: Well, we can all assume here, his least favorite sibling.

 LAVANYA: This led to his fragmenting!

 LAVANYA: Fragmentation is an interesting process in which a voice's name is stripped into pieces. We don't exactly know how it occurs. What we do know is that, when one voice wants another voice dead, that they will initiate a Cull. The Cull are basically where you track down every single human being that hosts a piece of the Voices name, or the voice themselves, and you kill them. By systematically destroying each host and each part of the voices name, you will kill the name.

 LAVANYA: With Thee-I-Dare, for whatever reason, this did not kill him. It resulted in him fragmenting instead into name fragments, which then could be found across the map.

 LAVANYA: As of right now, on August 10th, 2019, you can still find name fragments, and we are still finding new ones each and every day, despite the fact that Thee-I-Dare has regained his name, and does, for the most part, appear to be fully functional as a voice.

 LAVANYA: What's interesting about the fragmentation is that, initially, the other voices did not seem to care. In the early dream encounters, the voices did not seem interested in Thee-I-Dare at all. Laugh-Last was actively malicious towards him. The-Measure-Cuts was disinterested. Dance-for-Us, while she could be read as sympathetic, was not willing to do anything towards helping him, or helping the players recover his name fragments, and in initial conversations with Thee-I-Dare, the feeling of disinterest and downright animosity were largely mutual.

 LAVANYA: While Thee-I-Dare now has begun approaching his siblings with a hand out to try and reconcile the relationship between them, and also gain support in acting against Speak-as-One. In the past, he did not give a single fuck about his siblings, except in terms of how betrayed and how hurt he was in the fact that they had all stood by and watched as their progenitor tried to destroy him.

 ASTRO: In much more ancient history, Thee-I-Dare says that he taught human speech - the spoken word - with the help of another unnamed God, a God who supposedly was another version of himself - the spoken word was used to plot in secret again Speak-as-One.

 ASTRO: Prior to that, they all used what Speak-as-One refers to as the old tongue, which is dance.

 ASTRO: The spoken word was also used to give early humans a sense of self. As they began to speak, they could begin to agree and disagree. They could begin to give opinions, and so on and so forth. It was a tool that allowed them to transcend, or perhaps, simply depart from the idea of one singular collective. He says that these disagreements this sense of identity might be where the other voices came from.

 ASTRO: He also says that he invented the lie.

 LAVANYA: So now we've covered all the history of Thee-I-Dare, and basically the core of him as a person - as a non-person - as a person who is disembodied - and is also an outright leech who lives inside of your head. The most unique kind of person of all! But that's all in the past. What about Thee-I-Dare right now?

 LAVANYA: He is in a lot of ways the face of the voices.

 LAVANYA: He is the one that is most commonly encountered by player characters. He is the one that is the most friendly and the most helpful towards player characters. And until recently, he was the most likely to be encountered by a new player.

 LAVANYA: Back in the old days, prior to 1.0., what Thee-I-Dare used to do was contact new players. He would speak to them, and ask them for their help, and then he would lead them to the cave fragment. When they closed their eyes, they would see a glowing man in chains. He would ask them for their help, and oftentimes he would give them halos.

 LAVANYA: Nowadays, he doesn't do that as much. Thee-I-Dare has regained his name, and he no longer needs all these grubby children rubbin' their hands all over his name fragments. He does not really point out where new name fragments are, but he will tell stories about the dead hosts that represent them.

 ASTRO: He does do a lot of player outreach. I guess you could say he's the public relations team of the gods.

 LAVANYA: Boo!

 LAVANYA: The only God who needs a public relations team, if you're being perfectly honest here, is Speak-as-One. If only they would answer my calls and fully hire me for that important pre college marketing internship, in which I teach them all the ways that they can make their public face, more personable and sellable to the millennials of this age.

 ASTRO: But do you have your work permit?

 LAVANYA: Shut the fuck up, Astro.

 LAVANYA: So, jokes aside, there's been an interesting change in perception and betrayal of Thee-I-Dare since the beginning of the game.

 LAVANYA: Thee-I-Dare, in terms of personality, has shifted a lot as he's gained more fragments, and as he's become more certain of this situation in Red Acre.

 LAVANYA: He used to speak of dead hosts frequently at the start, and anytime that a player character would lead him to a fragment, he would usually have a story at hand. As of recently, he's grown more and more ill at ease with this concept.

 LAVANYA: He's not as interested in talking about his dead hosts, for some *reason*, and he's gone as far as to say that these stories can be depressing.

 LAVANYA: In the past, he would often say to players that they need to survive - that he wants them to survive, and live through the night, and not die as so many of his hosts had died previously.

 LAVANYA: Now, increasingly with certain players, he's begun changing that he no longer says survive.  Now he says survive for me - a little bit of an ominous twist to everything, considered. Interestingly enough, and possibly linked in, is the fact that Thee-I-Dare is one of the few voices that is reluctant to take on every player as a host.

 LAVANYA: Some, like Speak-as-One, canonly have groomed up the children of Red Acre to all serve as their host. Others like In-Her-Teeth have been wildly flailing at any player who might possibly be open to it, asking them to serve as her host. Thee-I-Dare has been more hesitant.

 LAVANYA: When some player characters ask him if they can serve as host, he has actually rejected them, and has had to be convinced to take them on. Others, he has been open and willing to it.

 ASTRO: It's almost like a child being picky with their food.

 RAVEN: Give him the chicken tenders! He wants the chicken tenders!

 LAVANYA: Oh my god.

 RAVEN: Interestingly enough, due to Thee-I-Dare and Speak-as-One being polar opposites of one another, Thee-I-Dare's presence will often suppress SAO's watchers - but they can also suppress him back. I actually have a friend of mine who has a watcher in their head, and Thee-I-Dare actively has to keep them at bay in order to keep the player from being taken over by the Watchers in their sleep.

 RAVEN: Initially, when Thee-I-Dare still had a voice he spoke to players in the form of dreams with a backward speech. It has improved as players have begun collecting his fragments. However, he is currently left without a voice.

 RAVEN: Thee-I-Dare is one of two gods that will speak in text to players during missions. In a dream, The-Measure-Cuts says it's the only way that he is able to communicate with players after he was shattered.

[DREAM] PLAYER: If you see a white eye closing, close your eyes and listen.

[DREAM] THE-MEASURE-CUTS: This one has clearly been contacted by our fallen sibling. Your desire to share this data proves you might make an excellent host for me, however. Indeed, this is the only way he can speak while he remains... dismembered.

RAVEN: I would like to note that speaking in the text form is actually immensely painful for him, as it is not his natural way of communicating.

 LAVANYA: And now with that section done, we're on to the most exciting part of tonight's episode!

 LAVANYA: Now normally, here on the Dreaming Prophet, we're a bunch of old coots. We don't deal with speculation to the point that the podcast's entire purpose is to disseminate the true and real facts of the game to make it easier for players to come up there. However, tonight, things are a little different because this is a God conversation, and we do have a player, right here, ready to come up with their own speculation. So tonight we're going to set aside our petty grebe-ances with speculation and theories, and we're going to let Raven take the lead, and go stork raven mad with any theories that's a conversation she's had.

 ASTRO: We wanted you here, because you know this Daimon well. As you said, you're one of his chosen. This is your opportunity to talk about whatever you want.

 RAVEN: All right. One thing that I would like to touch on, because this is something that is currently happening within the community, and we're experiencing this live - is that Thee-I-Dare is currently going through a name change. Interestingly enough, a friend of mine and I helped to kind of really trigger this accidentally, by showing him a destroyed symbol.

 RAVEN: And so now, all the sudden, just all these changes are happening amongst Thee-I-Dare, where he is, although sickly, he is going through this interesting metamorphosis that apparently happened to the Voices.

 RAVEN: However, normally with the voices, the original Voice tends to die off when the new Voice comes into being. So, it's going to definitely be interesting to see where this goes, whether he'll be able to survive this process or not.

 ASTRO: So, for players that haven't been on the up and up with the recent hubbub, can you describe what you mean by him feeling sickly?

 RAVEN: Basically, the issue is when I was trying to get this information out of him, is that he wouldn't even know what he was feeling - just that he was feeling ill.  I don't know exactly what that is in terms for the Voices, but basically, he just wasn't feeling right - as if, like, you know feeling, I'm just feeling off.

 ASTRO: Yeah, I saw a log where he seemed to be unable to say his name - his own name.

 RAVEN: Yeah, it was. It was really interesting reading that, because a detail that I think people might have overlooked is that he referred to his name - Thee-I-Dare - as his old name.

 RAVEN: And so, this was kind of the first hint of him really going through this change. We have known about this for a few months now, I believe, since April. It just was very slow and nothing just drastic had occurred until now.

 ASTRO: So, of course, yeah, it's kind of unnerving to see the Voice that we've come to see is so confident who has grown so much to suddenly take on unsure traits to become so one study.

 RAVEN: Yeah, it's definitely scary, especially as this is the guy that I've basically followed this since first coming into The Blackout Club.

 RAVEN: So, to see him in this state is just very disconcerting and worrisome.

 ASTRO: All right. Is there anything else you want to talk about?

 RAVEN: I was talking with a friend today about this - is that people are starting to think that perhaps Thee-I-Dare got Bells killed, whether it was inadvertent, or on purpose, or not sure, because one important thing is that the Word and the Song cannot exist in the same person. It basically instantly kills them. And so we're wondering if Thee-I-Dare was within Bells - if it's because Speak-as-One had been trying to take over at the same time something bad happens. So there is a lot of speculations with that.

 LAVANYA: That's all super interesting and also a little depressing. So I'm going to end this on a high note.

 RAVEN: : Yeah! Sad boy hours.

 LAVANYA: It's true. Every hour is sad boy hour with Thee-I-Dar. But with that said, do you have any speculation on what his new name might be?

 RAVEN: I'm kind of assuming that he's going to be going off this current trend of leaning more towards choice and individuality. I'm sure it will be something relating to that, hopefully, unless this changing process goes wrong and we get something completely different, which is definitely a possibility.

 ASTRO: Here's a second question for you! If you had the opportunity to choose his new name, what would you choose?

 LAVANYA: Would it be a bird pun?

 RAVEN: Well, I think one time, when I was going through a rough time, Thee-I-Dare and I - but he brought up sharing a pair of wings. So, maybe like, Shares-His-Wings or something would be kind of cool?

 LAVANYA: Nice!

 ASTRO: All right.

 LAVANYA: That would be fun!  Well, thank you, Raven, for appearing on the show and brightening up our night with a little bit of Thee-I-Dare inside deets.

 RAVEN: Thanks for having me.

 ASTRO: And now, a word from our sponsors:

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LAVANYA: All right. And welcome back everyone. Now that we're back from that wonderful commercial break, it's time to start the next section of our show, which is - hold your applause! - an etiquette section.

 ASTRO: Lavanya, your audio quality sounds much different.

 LAVANYA: It's puberty. Fourteen and a half is a difficult age, especially when you're going to be : 15 in three months, and you still haven't passed basic math.

 LAVANYA: So, jokes aside, the next section of the show is going to be the etiquette section.

 LAVANYA: Basically, this is not us instructing you on the best possible way to host your personal tea parties, even though tea parties are great, I am told. This is instead discussing etiquette and the community specifically towards god encounters.

 LAVANYA: All right! Now that that's been said, this section is not endorsed, approved of, or necessarily indicative of the developers views. They are not involved in this podcast, and all views represented are Astro and mine's, because, ultimately, it's on us players to make the community that we want to be in.

 ASTRO: So, with the advent of 1.0 of the Blackout Club, voiced encounters are back, which is new and exciting to everyone that wasn't here in the beta.

 LAVANYA: Including us!

 ASTRO: We were not here in the beta, we both joined during the early access period. Right now, we're all adjusting to what the new normal of the Blackout Club looks like, with regards to god encounters. Not just us, the players, but the developers too.

 LAVANYA: One of the most interesting things about the Blackout Club is that it is a game that tries to cover several genres at once. It kind of calls out to massively multiplayer online games, like World of Warcraft, which often have large scale events, to alternate reality games such as Marble Hornets or Everyman Hybrid, to traditional multiplayer stealth games like the ever-popular Thief.

 LAVANYA: The problem is - with massively multiplayer online games, there is a large staff for each of those, sometimes getting up to hundreds of people involved in these studios, operating these events, operating these holidays, and helping with bugs, and everything else. They have specific community managers.

 LAVANYA: With alternate reality games, there's usually only one or two puppet masters but the communities for those are pretty small. At their largest, the ones that I've participated in have had about a hundred, five hundred players at the most.

 LAVANYA: And with multiplayer style games, like, say, Left 4 Dead 2 - which isn't quite a stealth game, but work with me here - those don't really have the sort of community where the developers are actively engaging with the audience that the way that the Blackout Club does.

 LAVANYA: Question Studio does not have the massive staff that larger studios have, it has a significantly larger player base than alternate reality games have, and it involves a lot more direct interaction than your traditional multiplayer stealth games. There is no automation, which is a large part of what helps traditional stealth games work. It's literally just the developers pushing forward the story directly with the help of the players.

 LAVANYA: However, Question Studio is unique in all of these. Not only the fact that combining it but in the fact it's a tiny ass studio.

 ASTRO: So amidst all of this it's important to recall that the developers are human. They are limited to everything that mortal humans can do.

 LAVANYA: Arguably! Technically, we do not know 100 percent for sure if the developers are or are not vampires. Their sleep schedule suggests that at least some of them may be.

 LAVANYA: Like I was saying, Question Studio is a very small studio. As far as I know, Question only has about 6 people - and courtesy of our handy dandy fact checkers, we just verified that by the web site.

 LAVANYA: So they are a tiny ass studios far as things go. Even for an independent studio!

 LAVANYA: So with the god encounters, it's important to keep in mind, we do not know exactly how many of the developers are involved with the god encounters in terms of writing them, in terms of scripting them out, or whatever else is involved with them on the developers end of thing.

 LAVANYA: What we do know is that there's only six people, and each of the god encounters can last anywhere from 10 to 40 minutes.

 LAVANYA: So when each god encounter is lasting 10 to 40 minutes, and most players do prefer longer ones if they can manage it, and usually come packed with a shit ton of questions ready to throw directly at their Daimon of choice like fucking softballs, then these encounters can stretch out very quickly to take up a great deal of time.

 LAVANYA: If you only have, say, five god encounters in a night, and each of those is 20 minutes long, this developer just spent over an hour doing nothing except doing these god encounters.

 LAVANYA: And that's assuming that they're not taking breaks in the middle of it. If they are taking breaks, getting up, stretching their legs, making sure they don't get repetitive strain injury from typing, then something like that five god encounters could easily take like two hours. Just dedicated to engaging, and coming up - on the spur of the moment! - with new encounters with the players.

 ASTRO: There are a couple web sites that show you statistics for the steam games you play. According to one of them, simply on steam, the players can peak at around 250 to 300 users every day. At 6:00 in the morning eastern time, when I checked this the first time, there were eighty four players listed as online. This isn't counting consoles, and it may not be entirely accurate.

 ASTRO: If everyone four-stacked at peak time, there would be a minimum of about 75 games for any developer to sort through.

 LAVANYA: So, to summarize this, here's a very limited amount of developers, but there is a fuck ton of players in the game right now, and in this community.

 LAVANYA: So distributing out god encounters, especially at peak times, can end up being kind of difficult, from an outsider's point of view.

 LAVANYA: We've actually had Null, in the main discourse, discuss how they decide on god encounters to a certain extent, in terms of which players get it, and which players don't.

 LAVANYA: To quote him, he stated that: the system has a few metrics, but it favors new players, players who are locked onto a story thread that we want to spool out, and then randoms.

 LAVANYA: At times, there have been targeted influencer encounters, because we want to make 100 percent certain the encounter is recorded and archived, but in those cases, smallish streamers get a shot too. The ratio of guaranteed public vs. private varies a lot from night to night.

 LAVANYA: And a lot of activity is never reported.

 LAVANYA: We have to trust that those players will tell their friends, and some will make it to social, etc..

 LAVANYA: They're meant to feel very rare and always will, even as we expand operations which we will, if there is enough interest.

 LAVANYA: But the bulk of our team's work goes towards making the game fun on its own. So as some player in here put it, gods are gravy.

 LAVANYA: Basically, to summarize his quote, the system favors new players, it favors players who have unlocked certain story threads that they want to distribute, and then it focuses on randoms. So most people do have a shot at getting a god encounter most nights, it's just a numbers game.

 LAVANYA: The thing to keep in mind here is that god encounters are not merit based.

 LAVANYA: They are functionally another form of the RNG that handles Lights of Rebellion, and/or say bonus evidence spawning. You have to be at the right place, at the right time, and then you have a chance of getting it. You are never guaranteed a god encounter. God encounters are not merit based. If you play for, say, 48 hours straight - if you're constantly talking in the discord - if you draw a lot of fan art - none of those are going to make you more likely to get a god encounter.

 LAVANYA: It's not merit based. It is just luck if you happen to stumble across a story thread that the developers want to spill out, and, say, if you are possibly new! :.

 ASTRO: The voice of the gods that you hear in voiced encounters are not developers, they are voice actors, and they are also limited similarly. They can't speak in more than one game at a time. So, if they're in one game, that's 40 minutes they can't spend in another. They also have other gigs besides the Blackout Club, and they also need time away from work entirely.

 ASTRO: Most people's family and friends don't necessarily enjoy it when someone is off pulling 48 hour shifts working, and they haven't come home, or they're spending all of their free time specifically on work.

 LAVANYA: You have to get up from your desk, go outside, see the sun. Stretch your legs. Do your laundry!

 LAVANYA: Developers do have to take breaks from working on the game occasionally, and doing voice encounters, and doing god encounters period in order to take care of themselves.

 LAVANYA: And it's also important for the players to take care of themselves too.

 LAVANYA: If you're pulling 48 hour shifts to try and get a god, for example, that's not great for you. If you're only playing the game in hopes of getting a god encounter, that's also not great for you. Building up your expectations for something that is ultimately relying on a random number generator is always a bad idea in terms of the fact you're investing a lot of time into something that may not pan out, and you cannot rely on it panning out.

 ASTRO: The Blackout Club is ultimately a game. It's meant to be played and enjoyed. If you aren't enjoying it, that's a problem, but it's not an unsolvable one.

 LAVANYA: It is not an unsolvable one! And it's always important to remember that, even if you do get caught in the feedback loop of playing it for this one specific thing - in this case, god encounters - when you do get that encounter, it probably will not be as satisfying as you anticipate it.

 LAVANYA: When I was 18, I played World of Warcraft obsessively for about three or four months. I spent hours daily grinding up specifically for the one achievement, "Insane in the Membrane", and to get some specific pet that I can't quite remember now.

 LAVANYA: As soon as I got them, I dropped playing the entire game. I have not touched it since, because I was not playing World of Warcraft because I was super into the gameplay, or because I was actually interested in the lore, or anything else. I was playing it because I wanted that one achievement. So the entire thing was pointless as soon as I got it.

 LAVANYA: And as a result, the achievement ended up kind of pointless too, because I didn't even enjoy getting it. So, if you're playing Blackout Club specifically for the god encounters - which, remember, are not merit based, but they are just based essentially on random number generator and sheer luck - then that's something to keep in mind! The game should be fun in itself. It should not be frustrating. If you are getting frustrated with it, as even I have gotten frustrated with it in the past - then you get up, you take a break from it and then you can come back to it.

 LAVANYA: Or you cannot come back to. If you're not enjoying it, or it's stressing you out, then you shouldn't be sinking time into it. Because games are ultimately a leisure activity. If you're not having fun and it's not relieving your stress, then what's the point of it?

 ASTRO: In conclusion, like Lavanya has said, we aren't making this segment to tell you what to do. We're trying to foster the kind of community we want to be in, and we care about the people in that community. If nothing else, we hope that you'll consider this food for thought.

ASTRO: Blackout Club is made by question games. Our advertising director is Bellamy. Our transcript and video is by Lavanya. Audio editing is by me, Astro. Our guest today was Fluffy Raven. Xaviul knows how long the hundred year war was.