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#doing a P&P retrospective series in 3 parts because. i want to

salt-baby · 11 months

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What EDS treatments are effective?

you all responded really well to a previous medical education post I did, so I wanted to try something new: a series on research papers!

today I’m looking at “Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome: An Analysis of the Current Treatment Options”(2019) by Song et al

tldr:

when researchers (well, doctors) looked at the medical records of 98 patients with EDS of any subtype, from their physical medicine and rehabilitation (PMR) clinic, to find out which medications improved, did nothing to, and worsened symptoms, they found:

- complimentary and alternative medicine and opioids were most common for patients to try, with NSAIDS, physical therapy, and bracing/splinting close behind.

- the following improved symptoms in at least 60% of patients: massage, bracing/splints/orthotics, ibuprofen, a nerve block, platelet-rich plasma, prolotherapy, taking a combo of hydrocodone and acetaminophen, steroid injections, oral steroids, baclofen and botox.

- physical therapy improved symptoms in 43% of patients and heat in 58%.

- surgery, going to a chiropractor, acetaminophen alone, and drugs for nerve pain (ie duloxetine, gabapentin, tri-cyclic antidepressants) tended to have low efficacy (less than 30% of patients had an improvement in symptoms).

Note that there may have been a bit of bias in terms of who participated in the study, that it’s not certain how reliable the medical records are, and that there’s a bit of ambiguity in the results because they included multiple subtypes of EDS.

if you want me to walk you through the whole paper, and learn some skills for interpreting papers on your own, keep reading!

I chose this paper for a couple reasons: its open access, easy to read, and has very clearly reported and well defined results. it also has very simple statistics (which is great, because thats my least favorite part).

the introduction provides some good background information on EDS, although a few things are of note. One is that they refer to a phenomenon called pain sensitization or central pain in paragraph three, which they don’t go into too much detail on. This topic is a candidate for another post in this series, since it’s surprisingly little known. in short, this has to do with the body adapting to being constantly in pain, and as a result, an abnormal pain response develops (3). I don’t want to go into it too much here, but if this part was confusing to you, that’s what it’s referring to.

additionally, they mention the so-called three stages of hEDS, which I traced back to this paper (4). While this researcher has a lot of publications in heds, I find it hard to believe that a sample size of only 21 (very different!) patients is enough to firmly define three stages that all patients go through. Plus, their ages are never reported, and “stiffness” is defined as just “not hypermobile anymore”. IMO, not very strong evidence.

Looking at the methods, most of it is as I said above. This type of paper is a retrospective review, meaning they looked at data that already existed, did analysis on it, and drew conclusions on it. Reviews in general can be really useful when you’re first starting out on a specific topic, and I recommend people start there.

Another thing about methods is they used a Mann-Whitney U test, which, fair warning statistics isn’t my strong point, but I’ll do my best. For more resources, look here and here (5) (sidenote, this whole college-level statistics textbook is open access and very practical, and the author is clearly very passionate about teaching.). For the purposes of this paper, just note that the P value in the last column of their results table indicates significance, ie whether the data they got was any better than random chance. Significance in research is usually defined as a P value less than 0.05. The lower the P value, the more likely the results weren’t just random chance. Any P value over 0.05 is generally considered just random chance.

That’s really important for interpreting these really beautiful results tables. Make sure you pay attention to the little “Significant? Y/N” column. If there’s an N, there’s not enough evidence to prove anything about that treatment one way or another.

Note that when you’re interpreting the results, just because it didn’t work for most people in this study doesn’t mean it won’t work for you. I really like diclofenac gel for joint pain, but only 24% of these participants had the same experience, and that result had a P value of <0.0001!

There’s not much to say about what the authors wrote as their interpretation of the results, which I think was sound.

Regarding limitations of the study, I think there’s a few. Overall, my opinion is that the paper is decently strong evidence of how effective certain treatments are, especially when combined with other, more specific papers. But for limitations, the sample size is a bit small, but for EDS, pretty good.

There’s the issue of almost all participants being women, but that’s a product of EDS affecting female people more strongly than male people (1). To be specific, both afab and amab people have an equal chance of inheriting EDS, because although the exact gene hasn’t been discovered, the way it’s inherited has been (an autosomal dominant gene) (1). It’s possible that sociological factors are at play, but the author’s conclusion (and my own) is that it’s likely one of many biological factors that makes EDS worse in female people than male people(1). I’m using female/male instead of afab/amab because anecdotally, some ftm trans people with eds have found their symptoms improved with testosterone (which one person in this treatment efficacy study also found).

This study also mixed all the subtypes together, with only 76 of the 98 participants having diagnosed heds. 2 had other subtypes (ceds and cveds), and 20 were unspecified EDS. That muddies the results a bit, because although the subtypes have some things in common, they can also be pretty distinct. For that reason, I would’ve liked to know what happened when they separated by subtype and ran their significance tests, but it’s not the biggest deal to me that they didn’t.

Then there’s the issue of the sample itself, which was taken from a PMR clinic. Who goes to a PMR clinic? people who live within a reasonable distance and have the money to both get the referral and pay for the specialist. Additionally, people may be hesitant to tell their joint doc about EVERY treatment they tried, and that doc may not have written everything down. Plus, this study only includes those diagnosed with eds (which again requires money), and therefore may not represent EVERYONE with eds, diagnosed or not. In research, these things can be really difficult to control for, and in my opinion, there’s not much the researchers could’ve done to fix this without massively changing the study.

Additionally, all these medical records would’ve been made by the same few doctors at this clinic, who may have had biases or writing quirks that impacted the data. Plus, the doctors who wrote the paper also probably wrote some of those medical records. That’s not unusual, but definitely not ideal.

I did notice cannabis was missing from the list of treatments (although cbd was not), likely reflecting it’s illegality and controversy. patients don’t want to tell their doctors that they did illegal drugs, and researchers don’t want to publish about illegal drugs either. Still, it’s worth pointing out that cannabis has promising efficacy for eds pain (2).

In conclusion, I do really like this paper, and I think it’s a great intro to both research and EDS treatments. From here, there’s plenty of more specific papers about specific treatments, and its a great way to get started.

This series will be navigable by the tag “salt baby reads”, and I really do mean to encourage learning and questions with this. If you don’t understand, or (respectfully) disagree, please feel free to send me an ask. I want to start discussions about this, because I really do think its important for people to be educated about the conditions they have, so they can make the medical decisions that are right for them. Let me know if you liked this!

Sources:

1. “Ehlers–Danlos syndrome hypermobility type and the excess of affected females: Possible mechanisms and perspectives” (2010) Castori et al.

2. “Use of complementary and alternative medicine by patients with hypermobile Ehlers–Danlos Syndrome: A qualitative study” (2022) Doyle et al.

3. “Pain in the Ehlers–Danlos syndromes: Mechanisms, models, and challenges” (2021) Malfait et al.

4. “Natural history and manifestations of the hypermobility type Ehlers–Danlos syndrome: A pilot study on 21 patients” (2010) Castori et al.

5. “Handbook of Biological Statistics” (2014) John H. McDonald

#salt baby reads #looking over this i realize i may have overwhelmed with info #and that isnt even getting into other factors affecting treatment efficacy #ie diclofenac gel takes around a week of 3x daily application to kick in #which can make people think it doesnt work since it doesnt work within a few hours #and theres also no mention of which treatments were effective but intolerable to a patient #ie an opioid that helped the pain but made someone terribly nauseous #so much to examine! so few words!#anyway #hypermobile ehlers danlos syndrome #ehlers danlos syndrome #research #eds #heds #connective tissue disorder #disability

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bookofmirth · 2 years

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Hi!!

I'm back after been away a bit. I'm currently rereading acotar. (rather skimming through some parts because i don't really have the time, but i just wanted to read it again :p)

And i read some of your posts just now. And now i have a quick question, probably will have more soon :p

But do you think that if sjm had thought Mor's character and story through before releasing the books, azriels story and character would be perceived differently?

Because imo Mor's storyline wasn't supposed to go the way it went. I think Sarah changed it in between books... And because of the alterations in everyone's storyline it feels like sjm fucked everyone over. It also would explain why a lot of people see Azriel as toxic. I don't think it was supposed to be like that, but sjm couldn't really change the books that were already published so idk i'm probably babbling and not putting my thoughts in the right words but anyways!!!

Do you think that it could maybe be an explanation of why Azriel is suddenly toxic? Because sjm changed maybe some storylines along the way? i'm in the beginning of acowar and up until this point i don't see the toxic traits yet...

Anyways i could be totally wrong :))))

Have a lovely day/evening

Hello! I think this is an interesting question. Sorry ahead of time that this got REALLY long haha

It was in acowar that I started to side-eye Az - I LOVED him in acomaf. Seriously, I was always doing headcanons and fics and stuff. acomaf was all the parts of Az that I love, with none of the parts that make me go "yikes".

But in acowar I started seeing him differently mainly because he supposedly loved Mor so much, but 1) he didn't show any awareness that she is queer and in retrospect he should have, 2) he didn't warn her about Keir showing up despite knowing how it would affect her, and 3) his violence towards Eris during that High Lord's meeting did Mor more harm than good. Defending someone is all well and good, until you're hurting the person you're defending in the process!

After acowar, I personally stopped talking about him so much because I knew that all of my opinions were unpopular, I didn't have a ton of evidence for it yet, and why rain on people's parade.

Even though I am one of the people who points out Az's shortcomings, I don't think that Az has changed in his core from acomaf to now, because if we look at his characterization, it has stayed pretty consistent through the series! He's always been loyal, super hard on himself, hard-working, but with an anger underneath it all because of his childhood and his resentment towards Illyrians. I think that if anything, his "icy rage" is showing itself more and more frequently because he is lonely and he is jealous of Rhys, Cassian, and Lucien's mating bonds. So really it's that his behavior is starting to change, not that he's more or less toxic.

And tbh, I don't think that Az is currently "toxic". I still hate that word 😭It's so vague and feels like a fandom dogwhistle. People just throw that word around without it really meaning anything except "bad". How would we define it, even? I have no idea. Angry? Then literally everyone is toxic at some point. Sometimes mean and/or rude? Moody? Sad? Lonely? Occasionally losing our tempers? Again, then we would all be toxic. It's just such a useless word.

Personally, I think that Azriel has problems that are valid and understandable, but I don't like his behavior around certain women. The feelings are valid, the behavior is not because he's affecting the people around him in negative ways. He has a tendency to latch on to people he can't have because it's easier than being rejected by someone he really wants. It's why he's never been blunt with Mor, imho. I think his anger is getting to be a problem, that anger is based on events that happened in the first 20-ish years of his life, and he has never dealt with them.

All of these are solvable problems, and I am 100% sure he will work through them. I don't think he will actually be in a toxic relationship, but I can see him on a path right now that has a fork in the road - does he work through his shit and stop letting his anger hurt people, or does he let it take over and excuse it as self-sacrifice?

It's a very similar situation to what Nesta was in before her book. Does she literally drown her sorrows into oblivion with alcohol and sex, or does she get some better coping mechanisms and repair her relationships?

Now on to Mor...

Personally, I think that sjm was invested in making Az have feelings for Mor, that she wanted that to ultimately not happen, but that she didn't initially know how or why it wouldn't happen. This is pure speculation. But it seems like making Mor queer was an easy way for make that not happen and get some rep in the story. Two birds, one stone.

Something that reinforces this, for me, and this is one of my big issues with sjm right now, is that Mor's queerness has not mattered to the story whatsoever except for how it affects Azriel. That's... honestly just gross.

Queer people are always queer, not just when straight people notice us being queer. Mor was not written as queer in acomaf. If this were intended, then it would have been so, so easy for sjm to slip in hints that just made Feyre go "huh", just a little bit! She liked to go out to Rita's, but in acowar Rita's somehow becomes a gay bar that all these supposedly straight people never noticed was a gay bar? How many times have they been??? Cassian didn't even make mention of her being queer in acosf, even as he sat there wondering if Mor knows how wonderful she is? WHAT??? Az sidesteps that question every time someone brings Mor up to him?

WHAT???

I have a lot of very complicated feelings about Mor being queer.

I think that if Mor were written as queer from the very beginning, then people would have noticed these problems with Az from the beginning. As it is, just reading acomaf makes him just look like a pining sad boy. It's easy for us to romanticize "oh he just loves her so much and wants her to choose him", which was 100% me! I did that! I was such a slut for moriel! That's partly why I understand shipping e*riel - I was on that ship wherein sad boy Az was pining for a woman at one point in my life and I wanted him to get the lady. I really wanted that for him. I wish that we had known about Mor from the start, but again, I really think she just hadn't decided yet how to make moriel not happen.

I was chatting with @gimme-mor a while back and she suggested the thing with Elain came about so that sjm could emphasize that Az's inappropriate attachment to Mor is not about Mor, because that could make him... icky. Instead, if he shows a pattern of attaching himself to unavailable women, then the problem becomes deeper, and rooted to his past. It's not just that he has his blinders on when it comes to Mor being queer. It's an interesting take, and I'm curious to see if it goes anywhere! I don't think we will ever truly know her intentions regarding Mor and Az, at least not any time soon.

tl;dr I don't think that Az has actually changed, it's just that he is losing patience with being lonely and so his behavior is changing! And definitely Az would have been perceived differently, because I know that's where my (and many others') opinions about him changed.

#azriel #ask #acotar #mor #heleencollier #i probably could have kept writing #sjm critical

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latin-dr-robotnik · 2 years

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Another evil question: the Classic games :) you can include CD or Mania at your leisure :p

Oh, you doing this for a certain other game I also have explosive takes, huh? (I'll get around to writing that article, I promise we'll get it out of the door eventually :P)

I'm considering whether to count Mania or not, but I'll probably leave it out because it's more asks for me (#stonks) and because we're gonna talk about old, pioneering games on limited hardware; and as much as I love Mania, it's not any of that.

I'll add a different game to make up for it...

Warning: Sonic 2 fans, you may want to consider scrolling further below the break...

Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)

Very solid game! It's a textbook example of first game syndrome, and most of the time I feel retrospectives don't take this into consideration. It's Sonic Team's big first shot at a series born out of a desire of replaying Super Mario Bros level over and over again, each time faster, and that influence shows a lot as designers tried to balance fresh new ideas with NES-era platforming traditions.

Great music, nice foundation for future Sonic zone tropes (I'm a sucker for Spring Yard Zone), gave birth to Starlight Zone and managed to stick the landing and kickstart a whole series. It did a ton of good things despite feeling so archaic.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

*sigh* now, this game...

I mentioned during the Advance series ask that Ad2 suffered from a problem this game suffers, and it's streamlining things a bit too much.

Sonic 2 trades a lot of the time you spend exploring and finding goodies for more straight line progress, and while you can hunt for 50 rings to get to each special stage, the fact you can do it from any checkpoint removes most of the exploration element from the game. Don't get me wrong, there are still things to find (do you guys know about the Chemical Plant 2 shortcut? There's always someone who doesn't know, even I learned it in my teens haha), but most levels leave me feeling empty and like I just held right for a minute or two and called it a day. Not really that fun tbh.

To make up for it, they made this game cheaper. Questionable enemy placement in later parts, special stages with horrible blind turns into bombs possibly killing millions of runs over the past 30 years, and the entirety of Metropolis Act 3. Everything from Metropolis 3.

There's a big elephant in the room, though, and it's the fact this game is very rushed and borderline unfinished in some places (I'm sure the Mystic Cave pit was a massive oversight, they forgot a spring present in other pits of the zone, they're not as sadistic as Dimps, that's for sure). That's why making an article about "I fucking hate this game" is hard to justify; the game almost died under the pressure of its own ambition, and it took a ton of work to even get it out of the door as it did back in '92, so I'm cutting a bit of slack there.

Still, it's my least favorite game from the classic era, it's not the type of sequel I prefer or envision for Sonic after the first one and I don't like playing through most of it, less so if it involves those fucking half pipe special stages. It doesn't make me actively mad like Ad2, at least not through most of it (fuck Metropolis and Wing Fortress, absolute wastes of space) I just feel bored while playing.

Sonic CD

I remember that, during one podcast I did where I mentioned my favorite Sonic games, this one ranked somewhere in my top 5. I think it was #3 or maybe 4? Can't remember. Point is, I fucking adore Sonic CD.

It's rough around the edges, it does the opposite of Sonic 2 by putting roadblocks for those trying to go fast, and sometimes sign placement is dumb (level designers had a field day putting future signs really close to past signs just so an unsuspecting player will hit the former while trying to time travel, it's quite a troll but I respect it lol), but I really enjoy the fact you have a mission in each act to go to the past and destroy at least the robot generator. It takes a while to learn the levels and to learn some of the cryptic shit level designers somehow thought a normal player would find (looking at you, Wacky Workbench), but if you don't like that you can hold on to 50 rings at the end of each stage (it's easier said than done) and get the 7 Time Stones via some of the coolest special stages out there (it's not as confusing as it seems, guys.)

But the real reason why I love this game is that it's filled with tons of charm. Animated intro and ending, two soundtracks, some of the most beautiful levels in Sonic history and peak classic Sonic aesthetic. We actually talked about it during our time assessing what went wrong with Classic Sonic's music in Forces, but JP CD is everything Classic Sonic is and should be, and Mania actually agreed with it too! (I can't find the link on mobile so, if you have it, add it below so we continue crosslinking each other :P)

Lovely game, a favorite of mine. Stardust Speedway Past best track ever, also the debut of Metal Sonic and our best girl Amy. this game just gives me life.

Also this game happens before Sonic 2 I'm sorry I don't make the rules.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles

Peak Sonic the Hedgehog, everything

The interesting thing about this game is that it almost suffered the same fate as Sonic 2, but somehow they made it work and kept a very high quality standard. It's has a great balance of the holy trinity of Speed-Platforming-Exploration, with faster zones and slower ones, easier and harder, all building up to the cinematic climax starting in Lava Reef 2 and up to the end of each campaign, a real feat for a 1994 2D platformer.

It has some problems building a consistent difficulty curve, but I think most levels are crafted with such expertise that it doesn't become a big issue, with maybe the exception of parts in Sandopolis (people still haven't learned about the true beauty behind Sandopolis Act 2 with no lights on, I'm not joking btw.)

As for everything else, it's incredible. Great music, great levels, great story, bosses aren't really anything special most of the time but it created the very first Super Sonic true final boss fight in the series, and OG Sonic 3 players know true fear from Big Arms. I did a whole post on the great set piece in Lava Reef 2's boss fight. It's long, it's memorable, it allows you to explore and find special stage rings, it has the best special stages, co-op allows you to share an entire campaign with someone else, you also have the competition mode and it's simply impossible to ignore just how superior this game truly is.

Biased? Well, it's my favorite Sonic game of all time.

Bonus: Knuckles' Chaotix

I've seen some of y'all talk shit about this game and I had to step in.

Chaotix is a very experimental game, and it doesn't succeed with most of its ideas, but I actually respect the fact they went ahead and created 4 different times for the game, a hub, a very primitive partner system, and overall a more open and free-flow type of game. Levels are lush and beautiful, with lovely chill music, special stages are interesting and it has a lot of crazy things going on.

I saw the lack of enemies and chaotic (lol) level design being mentioned as the bigger flaws of the game, and tbh I prefer that route instead of Dimps-ing the whole thing with cheap enemy placement. It's still a core flaw of the ring tether system but personally speaking I don't really mind it that much.

Is it the worst game? I don't think so. It can be boring at times, and borderline infuriating in that particular act of Amazing Arena where I couldn't find the exact route I had to take to reach the mandatory clock for 45 minutes straight (I think it was act 3), but for what it is I don't think it deserves too much heat. I may be biased because it's Vector's debut with lovely sprites, though.

Anyway, I think that's all, is it? If it's not, there's still tons of time for asks lol

#i just noticed i forgot 3d blast whoops #welp that'll be a topic for a different ask i guess haha #sonic the hedgehog #sonic 3d blast #sonic cd #sonic cd my beloved #sonic 3 & knuckles #knuckles' chaotix #ask latin dr robotnik #beevean

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pla-teau · 3 years

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WANDAVISION SERIES FINALE THOUGHTS

WHOEVER’S CUTTING ONIONS NEEDS TO S T O P.

hayward | i was one of the many few who really wished death on the man cause he’s just the worst. this man emptied his clip at two children. i’m glad jimmy was able to pull a fast one on this dick and that darcy hit him with the ice cream truck and very happy to see the man being taken away in cuffs.

vision vs. vision | while i would’ve enjoyed seeing them fight it out until one completely lost, it wouldn’t be vision without some philosophic conversation. it’s true vision fashion. he doesn’t fight unless it’s a last resort. he’s logical and can assess other means in which to deter a foe. truly enjoyed the scene and now i’m just curious as to where tf white vision yeeted off to after regaining the memories from hex!vision? some have speculated possibly wakanda since that is the place where he died. twice. i would love to see him possibly interact with shuri since she would’ve appeared in the memory montage that hex!vision provided him with alongside other events from infinity war.

agatha (aka not mephisto) | overall, i loved agatha as a character and i’m glad she wasn’t killed off by the end of the series. i know she was more villainous in the show but i’m glad they somewhat neutralized her even if it was by cruel punishment brought upon by wanda to keep her trapped in westview as a nosy neighbor. it keeps the door open for us to see more interactions between her and wanda. i’m also glad that she was the foe wanda had to go against. i know many (like myself) speculated mephisto would appear and be revealed but i’m happy i was wrong about that. this is the first entry into phase four and to spill out a big bad right away? probably not the best move. i know ant-man 3 is planning on introducing kang the conqueror so i wouldn’t be shocked if mephisto is used as a red herring to distract us from the actual big bad of the phase, kang the conqueror (while still keeping mephisto around obviously for future battles and possibly use him as a big bad down the road).

family is forever | i was sobbing when seeing the hex start shrinking down in the distance outside the boys’ window. i love that wanda and vision made the move to put them to bed as a way of saying goodbye so they wouldn’t have to see them disappear. i hope to see these same boys come back cause i think no matter what your theory was on them, viewers fell in love with them. if planning for young avengers, i cannot wait to see them be a part of it. given that these boys weren’t real and not actually wanda’s children, i think they’ll go the route that they’ll find each other even if not as a blood related family but reincarnations that know that wanda was their mother in one instance and see her as a mother figure (alongside their actual mothers, of course). i just love them and i really wish they stuck around but i know this won’t be the last time we see them!

wanda’s outfit | i love it and i think pays homage to her comic book costume while still fitting the aesthetic of wanda and the mcu. love the attention to detail and the pattern on her headpiece. someone on here also pointed out in a post how it resembles magneto’s suit and it makes me love it more because of that. in conclusion, this is the scarlet witch and she’s hot.

wanda and vision’s farewell | if i was sobbing at billy and tommy’s fate, i was wailing by the time these two started saying goodbye. we learn that the main reason vision was able to be created the way he was by wanda was because of the mind stone. while she is the scarlet witch, she was exposed to and enhanced by the mind stone that ended up becoming vision. like she said, it’s a part of her. he lives on in her and overall, this scene just cemented that these two are meant to be together. they are going to be that power couple in the mcu moving forward, together or apart. we know these two are meant for each other and have so much love for each other and will find their way back always. while they may change, the one thing you can bet your ass on is that they fucking love each other.

ralph bohner | the twist that no one saw coming - peter is ralph. it’s clear that he was being controlled by agatha because the moment monica took off the necklace, he woke up from her spell. a lot of people are swirling around to say that he’s probably woo’s missing person. we don’t know that and it’s something that’s left unconfirmed. while i would’ve enjoyed the reveal to be peter actually being peter from the x-men universe, i’m also happy he isn’t. yes there was a lot of fanfare and hope for this series to introduce the multiverse but in retrospect, it would’ve been too much to throw at us at the beginning of phase four. throwing in the multiverse right away would’ve taken away from the series being about wanda (separate point i’ll get to at the end). do hope to see evan peters in a future mcu project, though!

wanda’s story moving forward | i hope wanda becomes a sort of anti-hero for the future. this does set up her appearance in doctor strange 2 and i can’t wait to see what she does. while agatha said she’s destined to destroy the world and her power exceeds the sorcerer supreme’s, i hope the writers don’t make wanda into this villain that loses her logic because of extreme power. wanda has proven agatha wrong already by acknowledging the error in her ways. when she realized she was hurting the people of westview, she let them go and stopped hurting them. she learned that yes, she is hurting them without knowing so what she has to do is let them go. wanda has learned throughout her years with the avengers the consequences her powers can have on people. we know she’s never been trained by a witch and yes, that makes her dangerous with her chaos magic. the second post credit scene shows us that she’s determined to teach herself even if it’s through the darkhold. in seeing what she’s done and the power she holds, i think wanda will be this gray moral character. she holds a great deal of power, the most powerful being on the planet at the moment, and that can cloud her judgement at times. despite being an avenger, this show has really shown us that wanda is alone. while she was with the avengers, what have they really done? they kept her in check and helped her utilize her powers for good but then when civil war happened, she was detained and treated like a weapon of mass destruction. the avengers are clearly nonexistent and those that are around, haven’t bothered with her. i also hope that this new phase of marvel kinda tears down the original avengers and their actions because while intentions were good, not everything or everyone was perfect and there’s consequences. and i hope those consequences are shown through the main characters of this phase like wanda.

the complaints | while i loved this show so so much, i did have some issues. while i enjoyed that this show fleshed out more of wanda’s past, i’m sad that they didn’t confirm or at least try to make wanda jewish since they completely erased her romani roots from the comics. this goes back to my whole thing with representation which i’ve mentioned before in response to an article. while i love elizabeth olsen’s portrayal and care she has for wanda, a romani actress still should’ve been cast from the beginning. the least they could’ve done was at least make her jewish even if ever so subtly because that is the other half of wanda’s identity, even if it’s been retconned often. if they are never going to confirm her as magneto’s daughter in the mcu, at least honor that aspect of her identity if you’ve erased one major one already. representation matters and i wish they tried to do right by the character since they clearly paid close attention to other aspects of her comic book history and took a deep dive into her mental health. come at me for these thoughts but i’ll stand by them. another is just directed at the press for the show (i’m looking at you paul bettany). while fans went ham on the theories and marvel will do anything to misdirect you, i think there should’ve been a clear up from marvel about bettany’s claims of a big cameo coming in the series when it was about himself. i get you don’t want to spoil the show and the big surprises it may hold for the audience but still. i think there should’ve been someone behind the scenes or bettany’s publicist could’ve kinda told him to stop hinting at a super duper big cameo. yes, fans got carried away but i think when you’re doing press for marvel, it should be somewhat common knowledge that fans are going to analyze and try to figure out wtf is gonna happen. it’s fun theorizing, don’t get me wrong but when it’s gone the way it has for this show, i think it leaves a lot of people unsatisfied. i’ll admit i was being a clown thinking i’d see patrick stewart as professor x again since he’s an actor paul’s never worked with before and would be a huge fan service for the audience like in the mandalorian season finale. tldr; crazy fan theories comes with the territory. my final grievance actually has to do with the set up for monica’s engineer. i was also hoping we’d someone big or someone that could be big in the future, possibly it was a skrull at the end but the tone and way monica talked about it, i think it was underwhelming to see a character that we came not to care too much about.

final thoughts | overall, i loved this show and it was refreshing to see marvel embrace the magical side of their universe as it continues to expand. the cast was amazing. everyone in the cast and crew deserve awards because this really gave us a show about wanda. i think a lot of people lost that (including myself) with all the theorizing; goes back to my complaint about press for the show. it gave us a show that dealt with trauma and grief in a way we haven’t seen before in marvel’s cinematic universe. i’ll admit i didn’t care much for wanda as i did with the others but this show made me care for her a lot more and made me a bigger fan of her and vision’s story. it grounded itself in dealing with wanda’s grief and trauma in a new way while also exploring her character more. so i’m happy that we didn’t get a super big cameo or that the multiverse wasn’t confirmed because then the tone and attention would’ve shifted away from this story being about her. i hope marvel can give us shows like this that make us care about a character’s emotions and feelings rather than just how cool and badass they look in a suit. it was clear that the cast and crew made this with such love and care that had good storytelling and kept us on edge every week. i hope that marvel can show us these types of stories and ranges from characters in future movies as well.

#scar’s thoughts and rants #scar’s theories #wandavision #wandavision spoilers #marvel #mcu #peter maximoff #monica rambeau #darcy lewis #jimmy woo #agatha harkness #vision #billy kaplan #tommy shepard

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retphienix · 3 years

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@catboybebop

rlly enjoying yr critical analysis and honest review of the games and the points youre making, you dont see alot of that in the fandom and i feel like alotta this shit is glossed over

First off that is such a top notch name that I'm gonna be jealous about it all day.

I'm appreciative as hell that you'd put up with readin' any of it, but the deeper I've gotten into the series the more I've been excited to do just that- to tear into them and see WHY they work and what doesn't from my own limited POV.

Also sharing my own experiences and thoughts, especially when they run counter to fandom consensus, has become my favorite part of runnin' a game liveblog lol. Sharing experiences is fun, and when yours differs and breeds differing opinions it's interesting, not that that's 100% what this is just in general I mean.

But yeah I see that entirely in the fandom and I get why.

Yakuza is so... fucking unique. At the very least on the international level, but from what I can find even in Japan. The theme, the setting (modern Japanese cityscapes), what they think is important to emphasize with a character or a story, the - you get the point.

It's so unique and so GOOD at being unique- I mean let's be real, Yakuza good. Yakuza REALLY good. One of my favorite series of all time and I've only known of it for about 3 years!-

But it's so 'that' that it starstrucks a lot of us and we get excited to share all the good we see in it. And that's good!

But looking closer can inform us on why we love it more :) And it can reveal weak points which is also good!

And I'll double down and say seeing bad in it doesn't diminish the good, it's worth pointin' at and understanding because Yakuza wasn't made in a vacuum, it was made by fallible people and is informed by their experiences and their cultures-

Sorry to go long-post on ya for a short kind sentiment, woke up from a bad sleep and that makes me chatty... apparently.

TL;DR: Thank you and I believe people don't go on deep analysis mode for Yakuza as a fandom (mostly) because they get wrapped up in the spectacle and quality of it and want to share that badly ASAP and only AFTER sharing it do they want to really go deep in the whys and whats, and I get that and kind of agree with em :P

Bonus: If you LIKE deep looks at Yakuza then allow me to sell someone I'm not associated with who has put some incredible work into that: Check out GC Positive's Yakuza retrospective, if you like people looking for meaning and motivation in Yakuza, hoh boy is that the series for you. I'm just giving my thoughts as I have em, he went and digested the narrative and then fine tooth combed it for human-experience-esque meaning, it's good stuff.

youtube

#Responses #Yakuza #Yakuza 5 #Youtube

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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YOU GUYS I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS

What's so unnatural about working for a big company, these qualities must have been in the other half are going to get replaced eventually, why not work there? Most people like to be swept off their feet by a vigorous stream of words. Or a phone that is actually a computer.1 And if you want to inhabit. In the long term, but it seems a bad road to go down. For example, I was taught in college that the idea will change, but has to rely on customs to protect us. But the craftier ones achieve the same level of performance with less effort, surely that's more impressive. And you can tell that from indirect evidence.

One of our axioms at Y Combinator use Apple laptops. So at the last dinner; it's more of a language is made entirely of expressions, each of which returns a value. What you've got is a description in terms of leads, it sounds like something cooked up by the high-minded Edwardian child-heroes of Edith Nesbit's The Wouldbegoods.2 They could buy some stock directly to the users as you do in school under the name mathematics is not at all. You can see this happening already. But I think I know what they are talking about the taste of apples in a dish made of equal parts apples and jalapeno peppers. They literally think the product, pending lawsuits against the company, whereas after a series A round. Assholes, he says. Hacking and painting have a lot of time on bullshit things or lose to people who don't believe in gods, life commands respect. As he is at pains to point out that successful founders still get rich by creating wealth and getting paid proportionately, it would not be the actual statement of the author's main point.3 Northern Europe would feel most at home. Lisp I have often wished I'd had the temperament to do an absurd comedy, which is what options amount to, they'll raise the stock price.

Because the best investors only rarely conflicts with accept offers greedily and get the desired result. I use with an external monitor and keyboard in my office, and by that point the future flips state. _____ What made it not a Ponzi scheme. To a lot of press coverage until we hired a great CFO, who fixed everything retroactively. Emmett Shear, Sergei Tsarev, and Stephen Wolfram for reading drafts of this. Poverty implies you can live cheaply, and this trick merely forces you to think well. It's conventionally fixed at 21, but different people cross it at greatly varying ages.

Someone like a judge. But it was the scripting language of two moderately popular systems, Emacs and Autocad, and for filters it's textual.4 I know.5 An office environment is supposed to suggest efficiency.6 Notes Many think successful startup founders turn out to work will probably seem flamingly obvious in retrospect. That opportunity for investors mostly means an opportunity for new investors, because until you're profitable that's who you have to customize something for an unsophisticated user.7 You don't need to do here is loosen up your own mind about whether they want to do a better job than Samsung and HP and Nokia, and that will be forced on investors as founders become more powerful. I'm not trying to make Web sites for galleries—that's the ticket! So I don't think you're weird, you're living badly. That's what happened to Einstein: Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the technology business.

Notes

Maybe that isn't the problem is the most successful companies have been Andrew Wiles, but whether it's good, but most neighborhoods successfully resisted them. To get all that matters financially for investors. No one seems to me like someone adding a few hours of advice from your neighbor's fifteen year old to get only in startups is very common for startups to kill their deal with the founders'.

So during the entire West Coast that still require jackets for men.

If you did. When one reads about the cheapest food available. Another danger, pointed out, First Round excluded their most successful startups, which usually revealed more than others, no one is now very slow, but those are usually about things you waste your time working on your thesis.

A startup's success at fundraising, because it was true that the middle class values; it has about the team or their determination and disarmingly asking the right direction to be on fewer boards at once, and they hope this will make it easier to say incendiary things, they only even consider great people. That would be more precise, and on the spot very easily. They act as if a third party like YC is involved to ensure startups are often unknowns. Adam Smith Wealth of Nations, v: i mentions several that tried to attack and abuse.

It also set off an extensive biography, and the low countries, where w is will and d discipline.

Though in a limited way, they'd have taken one of the word wisdom in ancient Egypt took exams, but mediocre programmers is the fact that it killed the best case. University of Vermont, 1991, p. 17. Starting a company becomes big enough, it would take Abelson and Sussman's quote a number here only to emphasize that whatever the valuation a bit much to generalize.

Start by investing in a spiral. If you want to impress investors. If someone speaks for the entire West Coast that still require jackets for men.

Thanks to John Gruber, Daniel Gackle, Jessica Livingston, Patrick Collison, Robert Morris, Joe Gebbia, and Eric Raymond for sparking my interest in this topic.

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sillyfudgemonkeys · 4 years

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this came up in a chat; is it possible the P5 team intentionally avoided keeping P5's lore in line with the rest of the series to avoid confusing new fans and also the new writers on the team? Especially after how much had happened in the spin offs and wanting P5 to really be its own thing like how P3 and 4 were their own things before the spin offs?

Hmmmm I....don’t....think so......tbh......... I mean it MIGHT but....I don’t think so....It’s interesting but....yeah...... (under the cut cause ya know I ramble~! ;w;)

I mean the fact that P5′s lore by itself, without the context of past games, is a flaming mess....again...by itself.....(quick/rushed ex: If your cognition changes then the world changes! And Futaba acknowledges that thing isn’t her mom so it should go-oh it’s not going? We’re....we’re fighting it? But cognition..... this doesn’t make any sense! ;w;) Really makes me feel that there was just not a lot of communication with the writers and editors. P5 iirc had a lot of veteran writers, it had 3 main scenario writers actually: the person who wrote P3 and one of the writers for P4 (P4 had two, P3 only had two because of FeMC’s route and that came later), some other guy (might’ve worked on previous games but first being a head writer), and Hashino (the first and only Persona game he had a part in writing instead of just directing).

But on top of that, they had other writes that I believe were also veterans, so I don’t think it’s new writers all around, I think it was them.......doing what they did with Ultimax.....having too many cooks making the soup (which was Ultimax’s undoing, but at least it made some sense lore wise........it was just the quality of the writing that was horrendous~! :D ;w; P5 it’s both, lore and quality)

There’s also the fact they have a lot of similarities and knowledge of previous games: Parallels of ripping off of P1/2/4, heavy references to P(1?)/2/3/4, ideas that even came up in spinoff games (like Haru’s half awakening, Labby experienced the same thing). I think they are very much aware of their old material and even has lore that is in line with the rest of the series: Shadow selves having Yellow eyes established in P4 (which those SS’s are different than P2′s shadows b4 any1 says anything 8U) and the half awakening as mentioned, hell in retrospect a lot of things that could be explained as cognition in P1-4 finally have a term they can use (ironically they keep those ideas simple compared to P5 trying to be cool and complex with them, but even if P5 botched it-it’s nice to have a darn term for P1-4 DX), Mental Shutdowns basically being Apathy Syndrome (and should be called AS to the public/in the game, the different term is only for the benefit of the player since we know the primary difference between the two is the cause but the effects are the exact same), Palaces basically being TV World dungeons....and so on. There’s more but I’ll keep the list short.

I don’t think they have to worry about feeling like their “own game” tbh, I do think it’s always hard with a new idea, but I don’t think they struggled with trying to make P5 it’s “own thing.” They were able to do it with P1/2/3/4 till now, I don’t see why they couldn’t with this one (which obvie they did). It’s not like they are making a continuation (original trilogy is a bit special but yeah) that’s only for spinoffs (and even then....barring Ultimax and maybe P5S, they try to act as if you might not have played the other games), so all they have to do is introduce or reintroduce terminology (like the half awakenings or shadow selves or just shadows/personas) as if it’s the person’s first time playing it and they’re good. 8U So the lore should be about as sturdy as the previous games but......yeah >.>

The only thing I can see the writer’s team avoid is the year date (still stupid but blame P5 taking so long to get out).....which they’ll have to confront at some point tbh unless they plan to skip a P3/4/5 Arena type game. Only thing I can see them doing is maybe making P5 an alt timeline like P2EP/P3/P4 and P2EP/P3P.....but considering Rise still being an idol.....it def seems like P5 is on P4′s timeline (even if we were to split hairs on the Adachi reference being a fictional drama and not a dramatization of Adachi’s crimes, Rise def wouldn’t still be an idol if not for P4.....because........remember she quit? yeah...) I mean they could still do it, it just means explaining a looooooooooooooooot of stuff. 8U And while it’d be cool multiverse wise, I feel it’d rob us of a Shadow Ops/IT vs PT showdown that should totally happen and if it doesn’t I’m suing Atlus for wasted potential. >8U

-ahem- but yeah......I think it’s more of too many cooks, esp since there’s still some seasoned cooks from previous games on the writing team......I have a list I’ve been working on, I’ll try to finish and publish it sometime so we can see just how many there are and how many worked on the other games

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soveryanon · 5 years

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Reviewing time for MAG131 /o/

- More about that lower but: yes, I’m worried about Basira too, but probably not for the reasons highlighted by Melanie. In fact, learning that Helen has been around since The Flesh’s attack, and had been quite benevolent towards the assistants… adds another layer to Basira and Elias’s exchange when she visited him in prison at his request:

(MAG127) BASIRA: Can we cut the bullshit? ELIAS: What “bullshit” might that be? BASIRA: The part where you pretend you don’t spend your whole time watching us. […] ELIAS: I believe you’ve recently lost Melanie. BASIRA: … We saved Melanie. ELIAS: As a person, yes, but as a defender… I would have thought you would want all the help you could get, or… have you forgotten what happened last time you lay your guard down? BASIRA: … We’ll work it out. ELIAS: Possibly. Then again: you are beset by enemies on all sides, Basira. And unless you expect Jon to record them into submission, it would seem you’re in rather dire need of another option.

Basira might not trust Helen as much as Melanie does nor perceive her as… absolutely reliable, but the point is: the archival assistants already had another option! Helen had just proved that she was the perfect “defender”, able to trap an enemy in her corridors – and she had helped Jon escape in MAG101 through her door! If she’s indeed on their side, she’s the best option they could dream of, able to trap, to protect and to transport alike! And Basira mentioned none of it to Elias and rolled with the conversation as if Helen wasn’t with them.

Melanie and Jon were quite clearly in the tunnels when Melanie led him to Helen’s door (Jon mentioned that he had been “down there”, the sound effect was the usual tunnels sound); Melanie had not mentioned Helen while in the Archives themselves; assuming Jared didn’t actually mean “Helen’s corridors” when he said “tunnels”, he was actually in the tunnels as well when he was trapped by her (MAG131: “Didn’t know about those tunnels or wherever this place is […]. I got… scared. So I ran. I ran through the first door I found.”). If Melanie, Basira (and potentially Martin) never mentioned Helen while outside of the tunnels, and if Jon’s assumption from season 3 is indeed right and that Elias can’t spy on them when they’re in the tunnels… then it’s possible that Elias just plainly isn’t aware of Helen’s intervention and probably assumed that Melanie had butchered Jared herself below the Archives.

The Elias-Basira conversation began with a I-Know-What-You’re-Doing from Elias (greeting her with “Detective”); Basira told him as least as possible throughout their exchange. It was actually her police questioning! She was evaluating what he knew, while fully aware that they had another card in their sleeve! It… doesn’t mean that Elias can’t possibly know anything about Helen one way or another, but it means that Basira was trying to outwit him when she didn’t mention Helen and accepted to listen to his “other option” instead – and even if she happened to leave in order to follow his leads since the end of MAG128… she entered the manipulation game with him by withholding information, too.

(;; And it could be a verrrry dangerous move for Basira: is Elias a complete idiot who just happens to have the right powers to hurt when he needs to (hence Martin managing to take him down), or is he actually a bit more in control of what is happening everywhere (did Martin’s plan actually put Elias exactly where he wanted to be in the first place?)…)

- Okay, new Big Mystery dropped this week is… Who requested the Flesh attack against the Archives and sent Jared after Jon? They began to send letters “about two years ago” (so around December 2015 / March 2016, depending if Jared’s point of reference is the current day or the moment he was trapped in the corridor), when Jon was beginning as Head Archivist; the letters were “good white paper, large print”; the person sending them was able to tell where Jared was at any given time (“I dunno how they kept finding me”); usually only contained “a name and a place or a time”; always led Jared towards something/someone who would be interesting to him (“they always led to summat good. Quality bones, a new mate, or some unlucky fool who wouldn’t look at me for the fear.” – how do you tell that someone has “good bones”………………..?). They sent Jared to the Archives while Jon was four months into his coma, and Jon was the Official target (“And you wanted to kill… me, specifically?” “Still do. […] Then I got one about your lot, your Archives. Told me to go there and kill you. They even sent a picture. […] You weren’t there, which was sad, but it made it easier.”). I’m personally considering three main suspects:

* Adelard Dekker, because I really want to know more about him, and because I Know My Luck about characters I find potentially sympathetic in this series, gdi :|| (He knew Gertrude for long and managed to survive, that means he’s probably fishy, if he’s still alive/not-dead in the first place.)

* Elias because he would know where to find (/See) someone at all times, and because… listen… the IRONY of “the pipes… they were wide enough for me and a few friends to squeeze through” (=> “[EXTENDED SOUNDS OF BRUTAL PIPE MURDER]”) + the first time we ever heard Elias speaking was in MAG017, the first statement Jon read that mentioned The Boneturner, and Elias interrupted precisely when the statement was describing Jared (and it was in end of February/beginning of March 2016, during the Prentiss siege, which means two years ago). Elias isn’t, overall, renowned for his subtlety, so it could fit.

* The Web, more specifically Annabelle Cane, since the Chelicerae was already active when the letters began to be sent, her first email to Gregory Cox also used big letters (MAG123: “something in it caused the font to appear incredibly large”), and she was requesting names to be inserted into the website’s code (“Meaningless strings of words, or weird little fragments of poetry, or a name, different every time, repeated over and over again, hundreds of times.”) and getting potential targets here and there through people’s stories. It’s about information and getting people to do what you need them to do; plus, Jared was indifferent at first and then got ~curious~ (“but they kept coming, and eventually I got curious. So, I followed the instructions in one of ‘em.”), which couuuld sound like… a retrospective rationalisation after the Web pulled a string to make you go somewhere.

The straightforward meaning of the attack was that Jon was the official target: does it mean that the Mysterious Sender didn’t know that Jon was currently away from the Institute and in a coma? Or was it a deliberate red herring, because they wanted Jon to think that he had been the target when he’d come back, while their intentions had laid somewhere else? Was it to see whether Jon would react and wake up if the assistants were in danger? Was it to get the assistants… exactly where they ended up going – Melanie falling deeper into her anger; Basira becoming colder and more pragmatic; Martin growing more desperate and finally accepting Peter Lukas’s offer? Or… it’s still a bit strange that Jon himself was never attacked in hospital, even though at least two Fears got involved in the end to visit him (the Web sent The End’s Oliver in MAG121) so… another option I’m considering, I don’t know: was Jared sent to the Institute because the Mysterious Sender wanted to find Jon and Jon was hidden from the other powers until then? Martin’s visit from the teaser was apparently shortly after the attack (since he received a phone call and agreed to an offer, and Basira mentioned that Martin was working closely with Peter after the Flesh invasion); could it be possible that Martin unknowingly led The Web to where Jon was resting, when he visited him…?

- So I have trouble picturing Jon and Melanie become Official Friends, ever, but GOSH, technically, Melanie already didn’t have High Standards for friendships/people she could ask for help, and had called herself out on that matter (+ she explicitly said that she had nobody to turn to, in MAG084, and confirmed it again with Elias in MAG106):

(MAG063) MELANIE: […] And you’re basically the closest thing I’ve got to a friend here. ARCHIVIST: We’ve spoken once and we ended up screaming at each other. MELANIE: Yes! And that’s more than I have with anyone else here.

F R I E N S H I P… And now, they’re somehow friendlier and… yeah, sort of friends. Kinda. Sorry for the both of you. Sorry for you, Melanie, I KNOW YOU’RE A SWEET BEAN UNDER ALL THAT ANGER, but seriously, come on. You’re currently adopting Jon as one of your friends, look at yourself:

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: I mean, you’d think I’d have a better idea how to do it. All these… all these statements and… [SMALL LAUGH] You know who I need? I need the Boneturner. [SIGHS] Just reach in and grab a rib. Job done. MELANIE: … ARCHIVIST: What? … Melanie? MELANIE: Come with me. [CLICK.] […] ARCHIVIST: Oh, er… Er, pass the recorder? MELANIE: Seriously? Fine. [RECORDER IS PASSED TO THE ARCHIVIST] […] ARCHIVIST: No. No, now I am going for a lie down. That was… that was not what I expected. MELANIE: Come on, you can use Basira’s cot.

All these small gestures that mean so much!! She admitted that he had done the ““right”” thing, she brought him to Helen – knowingly doing something that Basira didn’t want, choosing to help Jon and to talk to Helen when Jon didn’t want to knock! She stared/judged but she did hand over the tape recorder! She went to check on Jon’s corpse unconscious body! She led him towards somewhere he could rest! She even offered to chop his finger off herself at the beginning! Melanie!! You got yourself a friend!!

At least, they’re allies, but Melanie is kinda becoming Jon’s slightly vitriolic friend, and I’m LIVING. Jon has a knack for surrounding himself and being in good terms with people who call him out and are able to be mean towards him, uh?

- I think that one of the most significant things about Melanie being a bit more herself (not being only the anger) was her… willingness to talk and share what she discovered, what happened, what she’s thinking and doing? Because it used to be one of her main characteristics, even (especially!) with Jon: she didn’t like him much as a person, but they were able to chat and exchange and to hold discussions about her adventures. There were many similarities between them – which miiiight have been one of the reasons why Elias hired her, too, since she was obsessed with finding out the truth about what she had noticed (even if it would hurt her in the process), though it could also be some Beholding magic (making her crave pouring out her experience to The Archivist?):

(MAG076) ARCHIVIST: Well, this “pompous ass” has some very urgent work to do, so if your statement is just going to be insults, you can go back to the damn library. MELANIE: It’s not. Look, I… I think I’ve found something. […] So, can I make my statement now? […] You know this obsession even better than I do. I just wanted to make my statement… ARCHIVIST: In case you get murdered by ghosts. MELANIE: Yes. ARCHIVIST: I understand. Thank you, Melanie.

(MAG084) MELANIE: […] I don’t know why, but… I just, I just felt that perhaps coming here might help. And talking things out with Jon. I mean, I mean he’s awful, but at least he listens, you know?

(MAG086) MELANIE: You know what? Fine. Fine! But you tell me everything. Okay? Everything. ARCHIVIST: I mean… you, you won’t believe it. MELANIE: I don’t care. ARCHIVIST: Alright. Alright. MELANIE: Start with Sasha. ARCHIVIST: … Okay. [CLICK.]

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: Basira said you were doing better. MELANIE: Would you just– stop?! ARCHIVIST: No– Right, no– […] M–Melanie, it, it– MELANIE: Don’t tell me to calm down! Don’t you dare–! […] Oh, just stop! Just stop and– listen. ARCHIVIST: Okay.

During season 3, she repeatedly refused to tell Jon her story from India (in MAG086, and she gloated about it in MAG113), and only shared it in MAG117, in her testament. Now, she’s going back to telling herself to Jon; to being able to take a step back and explain her own reasoning, her own ways of functioning.

- I’m love Melanie so much… so, so much… (And Lydia’s voice. GOSH. Even if some frustration remained, you could clearly hear the difference between Melanie-with-the-bullet and Melanie-without: her voice had something… softer? Less frantic? that seeped into you like a wave and surrounded you, instead of just cutting right in like a rusted knife, like in MAG125.)

I love Melanie’s self-awareness! I love that she’s able to be mad, to feel hurt, to know that her pain is legitimate, but also to admit:

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: I was trying to save your life. MELANIE: Yes…! Well, you did! ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] MELANIE: I think. But I also… you know… see your face now, when I wake up screaming. I feel you digging into my leg. Chalk it up as a win for Team Archive, I guess! ARCHIVIST: I wanted to ask you! MELANIE: And if you had, we wouldn’t be talking right now. I’d have said no, and I’d probably have hurt you. Basira was right. The only way to do it was to completely betray my trust and destroy any remaining sense of safety. So, yes! Thank you. ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Yeah. I, I’m… I’m surprised you can stand to see either of us. MELANIE: Who else is there? I mean, Basira is… [CHUCKLE], she’s been the only one for a long time, and, yes!, I sort of maybe hate her now! ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] MELANIE: I don’t know! I can’t… look at her without my leg hurting, but what else am I going to do. I don’t want to be on my own, and I’m stuck here. So… […] I’m not dying and I don’t… want to kill you, it’s, it’s…! [SHARP EXHALE] It’s just different. Yes, it’s… sort of better, m–maybe, but I–I can’t…

I love that it was her who explained to us what was happening to her – who explained to Jon that he misunderstood! And she directly echoed (and answered?) one of Jon’s questions about The Slaughter!!

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: In many ways, The Slaughter fascinates me. There seems to be, in all cases, a question at its heart about… control. Is it a mindless dance, dragging participants along by the beat of a drum or… is there a kernel of will in there, a lucidity and deliberateness to the random fury and violence? I suppose that’s the question with so much of “violence”, “war”: how much are you really in command of yourself or of others? I’m not sure what scares me more: the idea that deep down, everyone is in complete control of their actions, that everything is, on some level, intentional; or that ultimately, we don’t have any control of ourselves at all, and the rest is just… rationalisation.

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: A–at least, it’s out! … Maybe… maybe it’s enough to start healing, start… letting go of the anger. MELANIE: Oh, just stop! Just stop and– listen. ARCHIVIST: Okay. MELANIE: Yes, the, the bullet was bad, right. But it didn’t make me angry. Anger is… Anger’s been all I’ve had for a long time. Years. Maybe since– oh, I, I don’t know, but…! Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve pushed for, was because I was angry! Angry of being past over, being disrespected, ignored… that sort of anger, it, it powers you! … Right until it slips out, and hurts someone. I – hurt someone. And then, one day, I suddenly have this thing that takes all that rage, and it holds it. Tells me it’s right. That it’s me. It didn’t stay in my leg because of some Ghostly Masterplan; it stayed… because I wanted it.

I love the broad idea behind Melanie’s own situation – that anger is a force, that anger can push you through hardships, can help you survive, but that in the end, if there is only anger, it will turn sour and (self-)destructive and wreck you in the process! I love her moments of self-affirmation, how she reclaimed her experience, reminded Jon that she was her own person with her own story, her own feelings, her own perception of events. She had already mentioned her anger in her testament:

(MAG117) MELANIE: […] “Hope” isn’t really good for anything. It’s always been action, with me; it’s, it’s been doing things that helps. I’ve never really seen the point of “hope”. […] I… I’m so angry, just… sometimes, when Jon’s going off on one about his latest insight, it’s all I can do not to punch him in the teeth. I feel like I’ve always been fighting. No one makes space for people like me, you’ve got to… elbow the comfortable idiots out of the way, and then claw your way up with gritted teeth; I’ve had to struggle for everything! […] Elias thinks he’s got this ingenious way to hurt people, but it’s just the same old bullshit in a creepy new package. … Asshole… God! I just want to rip his…! [BREATHES] When did I… start to lose the parts of me that weren’t just anger…?

… And I hate how, dumdumdum, Elias is actually… a pretty good judge of character (except when it comes to Martin). He had described Tim as “Disruption. An unpredictable, angry man with nothing left but the desire to feel in some way revenged.” (MAG104) and had reaaally insisted over the fact that Tim would be a “rogue element” (MAG116), something that could derail the mission to stop The Unknowing… and Tim indeed ended up arguing with Jon at the wrong time, and maybe they missed the few seconds that could have allowed them to escape. As for Melanie, Elias had said:

(MAG106) ELIAS: […] I wish I knew the words that would make you believe me. […] You already have doubts, though. You've been talking with Tim, and have convinced yourself that– MELANIE: [DRY LAUGHTER] ELIAS: –even if I'm telling the truth, I'm too dangerous to live. MELANIE: Well. ELIAS: Whatever I’m planning needs to be stopped! Even if it costs a few lives. Including your own. MELANIE: Well, that’s not even– ELIAS: A rationalisation, of course. A lie, about your own selfishness, that you would rather be dead than trapped without the self-determination you prize so highly. I wish I knew the words to convince you it’s for the best. [SILENCE] MELANIE: Are we done? ELIAS: … It’s too deep. I can see almost anything I care to– MELANIE: ‘f course. ELIAS: –weave knowledge from someone’s mind, or place it there– MELANIE: Sure. ELIAS: –but I just cannot change the– MELANIE: Mm-mm. ELIAS: –nature of a person. And I am struggling to think of what could rid you of this misguided rage.

Sounds like Fucker was quite right about Melanie in the end? :||

I… do like that even though he wasn’t mentioned at all in this episode, it puts me in mind of Tim at many moments, mostly in the way Melanie seems like she’s able to go… past her terrible experiences in a way Tim wasn’t able to, because she’s capable of self-reflection and of considering other people’s actions. Tim shaped himself around his own anger, around his own bitterness – it ate him up: angry resignation at the end of season 2, depression at the beginning of season 3, before he found a drive again and… only saw a future in which he would die trying to stop The Unknowing.

(MAG116) ARCHIVIST: Do you– … Are you going to keep it together? TIM: […] I’m not gonna give us away. I want this to work. ARCHIVIST: Thank you. TIM: But I don’t think it will. So. I’m gonna take that axe of yours, and… when it all goes wrong, I’m going down swinging. And when I do, you better take the chance and stay out of my way.

(MAG117) TIM: … I’m gonna hurt them, though. I’m gonna hurt the things that stole my brother and wrecked my life. […] I know what it means! They gave it to me because they think I’ll get angry and do something stupid anyway. And they’re probably right. So maybe it’s for the best. […] From what I can tell, there’s only one person who’s ever managed to hurt them, to reaaally hurt them. And that’s Gertrude Robinson. She was cold, ruthless, and she hit them when they were vulnerable, and she sacrificed a lot of people to do it. Honestly? I hope that Jon learned something from her, because… because I don’t expect I’m going to be coming back from this. I don’t know if I want to. And if he needs to pull the trigger, to use me to stop it, well, he better have the guts to do it. Timothy Stoker, August 4th, 2017. [DRY LAUGHTER] Statement ends.

(MAG118) TIM: You thought you brought me in as a distraction, right? ARCHIVIST: What?! TIM: Let me do it! Go in, maybe you can get some of them– ARCHIVIST: Tim, contrary to what you think, I did not bring you here to indulge your death wish! TIM: It’s not what this is! ARCHIVIST: No?! TIM: No! You knew I might not be coming back! ARCHIVIST: I knew none of us might be coming back, and I’m not gonna let anyone get killed for nothing!

Unlike Tim, Melanie might be able to rebuild herself up? In an episode about how things and people change, maybe it could be Melanie’s case, too. She’s able to tell what feels wrong, what happened, how she herself proceeded. She took decisions that broke Basira’s imposed status quo (bringing Jon to Helen for him to get help in his plan, showing him the way where he could rest a bit). Melanie did say, multiple times, that she was running out of options (she came to the Institute for that reason in MAG084); she doesn’t have answers but… it feels like she’s asking questions, and that’s a first important step, too.

- Which makes me realize that…

a) We never got a lot about Daisy’s own feelings and perception of events – and even then, only through… other people. Jon got her statement in MAG061 but Daisy was later pretty clear on the fact that she had never wanted to give it to him (MAG091); Elias pulled her through a “statement never given” in MAG082 and, in the same way, it was something she didn’t want to happen. Even her “testament” in MAG117, though HILARIOUS (Breathes / loads gun / “… Okay.” / CLICK.)… wasn’t about her. We learned that Basira was her last tie to humanity because Elias spat it in her face (MAG092), not because she admitted it. We know more funny bits about her (shows she likes etc.) thanks to MAG106, but it was through Basira. We’ve learned… almost nothing about Daisy from Daisy herself. So maybe we won’t lose her right away since… we’re lacking Her Words, too.

b) NOW I’M SCARED FOR MELANIE SINCE:

(MAG092) ELIAS: […] That’s what this place is, Jon, never forget it. You may believe yourself to have friends, to have confidantes, but in the end, all they are, is something for you to watch, to know, and ultimately to discard. This, at least, Gertrude understood.

………………… Tim died shortly after Jon was able to understand him a bit more, HELP………………

- Melanie coined it, “Team Archive” is officially canon now!!! (“Chalk it up as a win for Team Archive, I guess!”) Third-party family picture of it:

(MAG131) JARED: […] When we came up through the floor, it was wonderful. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on their faces. It was like their world had gone with the floor. The weak one legged it, and I thought the skinny one did too. There was just the copper. It weren’t dressed like one, but I know police when I smell it. They tried to run, but we were everywhere, and they couldn’t stop us undoing them for parts. You weren’t there, which was sad, but it made it easier. At least until the knife. I don’t know what the skinny one did, what she was, but that knife hurt. She screamed, and stabbed, and cut through all the others, ruining their perfect bodies. Then, she turned on me. Reached out with some of my hands, to get inside her, and pull her apart, and she cut them off. I got… scared. So I ran. I ran through the first door I found. And now I don’t know where I am.

a) Jon, not there, which is sad. b) Basira the cop c) Melanie canonically “skinny” compared to the others /o/ d) ……… Martin “the weak one”, AND HE RAN AWAY AGAIN………… which, once again, add some more… meat… to the trailer. Martin had felt so bad about leaving Jon and Tim behind during the Prentiss siege (remember his broken and tears-filled voice in MAG040?! Even Jon relented and went softer on him because of it!!), and he had resolved to be more active in MAG117, and then the Flesh attack happened, a few months later… That’s probably why he checked if the others would be fine when accepting Peter’s offer, and why he told Jon that more people would have been hurt if it wasn’t for him in MAG129, uh? The thing that tipped the balance and made him finally agree to Peter’s offer was probably guilt over not being able to help, and over running away when scared, once again.

- … Relatedly: where did Melanie’s special knife come from, since it was able to hurt Jared and even he was surprised?

(MAG123) BASIRA: Yeah, it was bad. We took them all out. Melanie did most of them. She was… she got a knife from somewhere and– ARCHIVIST: Basira, I… I don’t know if that’s a good sign…?

Did she literally materialize a knife out of nowhere? Did she infuse it with power because she was parasitised by the Slaughter bullet? I would go for that last option since she was able to injure Jon through a “scalpel” in MAG125 (it wasn’t one of her own weapons), but a third option: something from Artefact Storage or… sent by the Spider ~to help~?

- Basira’s relationship with police work is quite interesting because we met her as a police constable, her relevancy was initially tied to her job (it was thanks to her that Jon was able to access some of Gertrude’s tapes kept by the police); we saw her quit, disgusted by her hierarchy (MAG075), something she apparently doesn’t regret (MAG117: “I don’t want to be here. But by the end, I didn’t want to be police either, so… guess I don’t really know what I do want, which… maybe that’s just as well. My options… they’ve gotten a lot narrower over the last year.”) and now… She happens to be identified, more and more, through her police identity. Elias taunted her by greeting her in that way:

(MAG127) ELIAS: … Good evening. Detective. [STEPS COMING CLOSER] BASIRA: I’m not a detective. ELIAS: Of course.

Jared mentioned that she still felt like police to him (MAG131: “There was just the copper. It weren’t dressed like one, but I know police when I smell it.”), and also Melanie’s description of Basira which… kind or depicted her as if she had pushed the police mentality to the max? Melanie’s words were… concerning, to say the least, in how cold and casually calculating Basira looked to her:

(MAG131) MELANIE: […] Basira was right. The only way to do it was to completely betray my trust and destroy any remaining sense of safety. So, yes! Thank you. […] I mean, Basira is… [CHUCKLE], she’s been the only one for a long time, and, yes!, I sort of maybe hate her now! […] I can’t… look at her without my leg hurting, but what else am I going to do. I don’t want to be on my own, and I’m stuck here. So… ARCHIVIST: Basira said you were doing better. MELANIE: Would you just– stop?! […] [LONG EXHALE] Basira is, hum… Basira deals in “intel” these days, in “usable data”; assets, not “feelings”, not… “people”. Crying, shaking, nightmares, that is “better”. It doesn’t feel like it, but as far as Basira sees it, I’m not compromised anymore, and… that is “better”.

I think Melanie’s description might be more a sort of reflection of her own perception (and betrayal/awkwardness/resentment) rather than an objective truth, though, since… Basira has always shown a sort of cold pragmatism in the way she dealt with things and people around her. She’s always been blunt, harsh, doing things methodically to reach a goal. But even back then, we were shown that she cared; and right now, she could be suffering a bit from… the Jon syndrome: in the same way as Jon, she tends to come across as a bit more heartless and indifferent than she actually is – she rarely shows her concerns directly in front of people but reveals them in their absence. Melanie seems to think that Basira is mostly perceiving her through the lense of a cop’s eye, evaluating if she’s with or potentially against her, but Basira herself wasn’t so metallic when she was describing Melanie:

(MAG123) BASIRA: […] She’s not, uh… she’s not been having a good time. […] Well, just back off. You haven’t been here. […] She saved my life, Jon. She saved all of us. I won’t forget that.

(MAG125) BASIRA: […] Besides, I wanted to give her some space, y’know. But yeah. Living outside the Institute, ’s just not safe anymore.

(MAG127) ARCHIVIST: How’s Melanie? BASIRA: How do you think? ARCHIVIST: I, er, I should probably… talk to h– BASIRA: You should probably stay as far away as possible. She doesn’t want to see you. […] But she did want me to… apologize. […] ARCHIVIST: Do–do you think it worked? Is she… BASIRA: I don’t know. She seems more… coherent, I guess. And you did get an apology. […] She said she can cry now, which is, hum… Progress, I think? She’s still angry but, she hasn’t attacked anyone. Not even sure she has it in her anymore. ARCHIVIST: Well that’s, that’s good! BASIRA: Hm.

And in the same way, Basira had been oddly defensive of Martin, also laying down that she understood that he has had his issues. Maybe it’s indeed just like Melanie said, and mostly strategy and cautious control from Basira, and she steeled herself to a dreadful extent after The Unknowing… but maybe it’s also that, just like Jon before the second half of season 3, Basira has trouble conveying that she cares when she’s in front of the relevant people, not able to deal with their feelings but aware that they’re hurt and in pain? We didn’t see Basira showering Melanie in care after what Elias did to her in MAG106, either: we saw that she cared in the way she noticed that Melanie wasn’t fine when Melanie refused to explain what had happened (MAG108), in the way she reminded Martin that the victim had been Melanie and sternly told him that they couldn’t allow Elias to go unpunished, (MAG110: “R–right, right. Sorry. I just… It’s just a lot to take in, y’know.” “Mostly for Melanie, yeah. […] We can't just ignore it. […] We are not letting him get away with it.”), in the way she VERY DRYLY told Elias that Melanie wouldn’t be there during the last pre-Unknowing briefing (MAG116: “Will… Melanie not be joining us?” “No. She won’t.” “Very well. I suppose that’s understandable.”)

So… it could be that Basira is heading down a dark path. It could also just be that she is having it rough and is handling herself, but others are feeling that she is more ruthless than she truly is inside.

- Re: Jared himself: * I feel so, so stupid. I hadn’t realized, until Jon referred to Jared as “The Boneturner”, that MAG017’s title, “The Boneturner’s Tale”, referred both to the title of the “Leitner” book… and to the fact that we witnessed the birth of The Boneturner as himself. Which makes sense given that it’s based on The Canterbury Tales, in which people are presented through their profession/status.

* Same as a lot of people: my ESL ears couldn’t understand Jared at aaaaall on first listenings, so thank you so much for the transcripts, Amil ;_; (Now I manage to follow the sentences! And without the voicecast, I would have never guessed that it was Alex voicing him, holy Mew.)

* GDI JONNY STOP MAKING SERIAL KILLERS SOUND ALMOST (almost.) (SYM)PATHETIC….. The thing is, I feel like we were led to think of Jared as… a bit slow and not very smart overall? due to the fact that he wasn’t talking a lot and because of how statement-givers had described him – especially because of Sebastian Adekoya:

(MAG017, Sebastian Adekoya) Jared and I had once been fast friends; growing up on the same road, attending the same schools, we had spent much of our early life as inseparable. But he had always been, well, not to put too fine a point on it, thick as mud, and when I went away to university, he stayed behind. I think he saw it as something of a betrayal, and when I finally returned, I knew immediately something had changed between us. […] I was, I will admit, a bit unsettled. As far as I could recall I had never seen Jared read… well, anything, really.

(…………….. that sounds awfully like Jared initially had a crush on Seb and grew to resent him, in fact.)

But no! Jared got marginalized as a kid because of his height, was actually well aware of his situation and lack of prospects, and given a drive when he lacked it? Wanted to make his parents happy although it was a Complete Disaster and terrifying? And was able to reaaaally get invested in things? Was aware of how people perceived him? Was aware that people would tell their stories to the Institute? And built a gym of friends (people who got what they wanted)?

(MAG131) JARED: […] I wrecked my school. I did have friends, but they left me, one by one, until all that I had were the dregs; the ones who stayed ‘coz they were too scared to leave. We were always either in trouble, or looking for it. Those were bad times. I tried to look ahead, but I couldn’t see anything. No future, no hope; just bitter parents, and whatever misery I could pass on to everyone else. God knows what would’ve happened if that little prick Sebastian hadn’t given me that book.

(L O L about the “given me that book”: according to Sebastian, he just took it and left.)

I’m especially impressed at how quickly he understood (and rolled with) what kind of “favour” Jon wanted from him:

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: Oh. O–okay. D–do you need to know… w–what it is? JARED: Not much you could want, comin’ to me. Put summat in. Take summat out. Which is it?

Let’s be honest: if someone was coming to Jon for something, right now, he wouldn’t assume they’re here to give a statement, you would have to tell him outright.

* One potentially reassuring thing for Jon: Jared said that… it’s possible to just refuse to participate in a ritual. That you can nope out of it, and apparently keep doing your own thing without slowly disappearing like what’s apparently happened with Tom Haan or Breekon:

(MAG131) JARED: […] There were others. Others of skin and hunger; they tried to talk to me about gods. They’d go on and on about remaking the world; of a new day of blood and flesh. I told them to piss off. I like the world just as it is. I take what I want and I make myself more, and when people look at me… that fear – it feels amazing. Some of my mates, the ones I helped find their proper bodies, they listened, and went to feed the hunger. Not me though. I never was that ambitious.

Though: I’m not sure that Jon… would be okay even with turning his back on the ceremony, given his title as The Archivist (it seems a bit more important, less… independent than what Jared is?); and also… Jared sustained himself through the fear he inflicted on others (Jude had explained the “feeding what feeds you” aspect, and Jon hadn’t been able to tell what he was supposed to feed to Beholding). I think that Jonny also mentioned in the Season 3’s Q&A that Avatars’ purpose is to bring suffering and misery onto others? So. Is Jon really simply feeding Beholding through the fears left on the statements’ paper (and his own fear from reading the statements), or is there something else…? (I’m still concerned about the nature of his nightmares and what it’s been doing to the live statement-givers all this time… ;;)

* Relatedly: first time Jon has taken a live-statement (by himself, excluding Oliver oversharing in front of his comatose body.) in season 4. I guess that yeah, uh, I won’t feel super sorry for Jared if it traps him in Jon’s ~slim collection of gifted nightmares~, especially since apparently, full-fledged Avatars are able to push Jon away from theirs? (MAG120: “he even longs for the terrible dream of the melted woman, who would see everything desolated without rhyme or reason. But she was beyond his reach the moment she knew he was there.”) But I wonder, in any case, if we’ll hear about this as an additional dream. If so… yeah, enjoy, Jon. The statement was short, it wasn’t up to Your Standards, but it won’t be a nice experience.

- Obvious Donphan In The Room: CONGRATS ON GETTING YOUR “FLESH” WOUND JON!!

… Now he’s only missing The Buried’s and we know that Coffin Is Coming; The Dark, with cultists lurking around the Institute; The Lonely, with Peter Lukas running the place (… or having Martin running it for him). The speculation about MARTIN ending up being the one to carve a metaphorical Lonely scar into Jon…………. is getting ominously more and more possible??? Gdi ;;;;;

Live-statements wise (I’m counting “Extracted From Subject” here), from Avatars, Jon got: * The Stranger (MAG128, Breekon) * The Spiral (MAG101, Michael) * The Desolation (MAG089, Jude Perry) * The Vast (MAG091, Mike Crew) * The Hunt (MAG061, Alice “Daisy” Tonner” + MAG109, Julia Montauk and Trevor Herbert) * The End (MAG121, Oliver Banks) * The Flesh (MAG131, Jared Hopworth)

+ Amongst victims/witnesses rather than active lives-wreckers, Jon also received The Corruption (MAG055, Jordan Kennedy), The Lonely (MAG013, Naomi Herne), The Dark (MAG073, Basira), The Slaughter (MAG076, Melanie), The Buried (MAG071, Karolina Górka).

Still missing The Web and Beholding, unless one (or both) of them was the thing happening in MAG065 + potentially the New Emergence (… unless it was the thing happening in MAG065). Jon is completing a set in that regard, too…

- I’m a Simple Person very obsessed with the conflicted relationship between Jon and doors, so I was floored that Jon:

(MAG131) MELANIE: Here. [FOOTSTEPS STOP] ARCHIVIST: Oh. … This, this door… It shouldn’t be here. MELANIE: Yes. ARCHIVIST: I, er… I don’t want to open it! I’m not going to. MELANIE: [SIGHS] [KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK] She’s been helping us.

1°) refused to open or KNOCK ON A DOOR, and Melanie had to do it for him. (To be fair with Jon: he tried to open Michael’s door in MAG101, expecting this to be one of his last moments. It’s not especially an appealing thing to do again.)

2°) ended up going in after a bit of talking. That door… used to terrify him, according to Elias?

(MAG120) ELIAS: […] There is a door in front of him. A yellow door. He knows the dream it used to lead to; he knows it well. But that’s not where it leads anymore. He does not know what is behind it anymore, and he is deathly afraid of finding out. The Archivist turns away.

(;; That was probably Helen’s statement before she replaced Michael in MAG101, since she had given her live-statement…) So. Jon faced it and opened it! And he thanked her, we’re so shocked and proud!! Progress!!

- … I’m super worried about what is coming in season 4, since Jon used to say his “Shit” of the season pretty far in:

(MAG039) PRENTISS: Archivist. TIM: Ah. ARCHIVIST: … Shit.

(MAG078) MICHAEL: You – Need – A door. ARCHIVIST: NO. No, I–I just… I need… [DISTORTED VOICE FROM THE NOT!SASHA CALLING OUT HIS NAME AGAIN] ARCHIVIST: SHIT!

(MAG099) BREEKON: ‘scuse us. HOPE: Are you Jonathan Sims? ARCHIVIST: Yeah, wha–? Oh, sh– [THE ARCHIVIST EXCLAIMS & COUGHS AS THE WIND IS KNOCKED OUT OF HIM]

(MAG131) MELANIE: […] It didn’t stay in my leg because of some Ghostly Masterplan; it stayed… because I wanted it. ARCHIVIST: … Shit.

BUT AT THE SAME TIME, LET’S ALL CELEBRATE!!! Melanie is now officially our New Designated (Bi?) Sayer Of Fuck!

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: Oh, I… Melanie, I–I’m so sorry, I– MELANIE: Oooh, fuck off?!

Rest in fucking pieces, Tim, someone is taking care of saying “Fuck” to Jon ;w;

- Jon, that was your Worst Introduction Ever:

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: Uh. Statement of Jared Hopworth, the Boneturner. Statement begins.

No mention of who is recording, what it's about, and no date (we wouldn’t know it was March 20th if not for the episode’s case number). Jon, You Have One Job. Jon. Jon.

… The way Jon very quickly accepted to give up one of his ribs when it’s supposed to be ~a precious anchor~ still makes me facepalm, but to be fair, he reacted quickly and… it didn’t sound like he was especially thirsty for the statement itself:

(MAG131) JARED: Guarantees? None. But I want to leave more than I want to kill you. Not like it was my idea in the first place. ARCHIVIST: So…[STATIC:] Why did you and the others attack us? JARED: I was asked. You want my statement, that’s gonna cost you another rib. ARCHIVIST: I–I could just pull the information out of you. [MENACINGLY MEATY MURMURS] JARED: You could try. ARCHIVIST: Okay. Fine. A rib for me, a rib for you; your freedom and a statement. JARED: Yeah. Alright. ARCHIVIST: Right. Statement first.

Jared had already mentioned that Jon was specifically the target; it was… about getting information about who had siced him on The Archives. And indeed, we don’t learn a lot about it in the end, but the news that someone has been pulling strings to the point of organizing an attack against the Archives was quite big…

;; It’s a bit heartbreaking, and also !!, to see that Jon is getting better at understanding negotiations with avatars. He still does things that he probably shouldn’t (sarcasm and threats and forced compulsion are nnnnnot the Greatest Things to do against things that can physically wreck you), but… he also quickly picks up on how he can find a common agreement. Compare him now to how Jude had wrecked his hand in MAG089, in exchange for information about Mike Crew… Jon is more in control – still a bit panicky, not at ease, but he understands the logic and how exchanges are supposed to work.

- True Romance is giving one of your ribs to someone on your first meeting:

(MAG131) JARED: […] Anyway, this one’s for me. [MORE MOBILE MEAT NOISES, THIS TIME OF INSERTION] Huh. That’s a weird one. Not sure I like it. Still. Mine now. ARCHIVIST: [WEAKLY] I supp… I suppose it is.

… I think that Jon, Melanie or Helen would have commented about it, if the rib Jon was clutching at the end of the episode was, let’s say, COVERED IN EYES LIKE IN MAG127. So it’s probably not the case. But still: Jared felt something weird about it. Will it mean something…? Will it be poison for him…? Will Beholding take a look at Jared from the inside. uwu

- Tiny thing but that could turn out to be relevant later:

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: I was down here just yesterday, and there wasn’t– MELANIE: Here. ARCHIVIST: Oh. This, this door… It shouldn’t be here.

If the sound is any indication, they were in the tunnels. Which means… that Jon explicitly mentioned spending time down there. What is he doing? Trying to map them out, using them to get in and out of the Institute like Tim used to? Planning something?

Basira left at the end of MAG128 (3rd March 2018); it’s been 17 days since then, almost 5 weeks since Jon woke up from his “coma”, and… we still don’t really know what Jon is doing with his time. He only recorded and listened to two statements since Basira’s departure, and we know he can’t really do much follow-up lately so… What are you not telling us, Jon…?

- I’ll never get tired of Jon conking the heck out, and it’s been twice in a short amount of time! <3 (MAG128 after the reading of Breekon’s statement, MAG131 after the ribs extraction.) What is your life, Jon.

- Oh My Gods, Jon, You Can’t Just Ask People Why They Didn’t Kill Someone.

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: I see. … Why didn’t you kill him? MELANIE: I stabbed him in three different hearts – didn’t work. If you want to go hunting for a fourth, knock yourself out. ARCHIVIST: I, er… I’m alright, I think.

mELANIE…

- I am SO delighted about the news that Helen has been back and helping!!! I missed her so much gdi!!! And I really wasn’t expecting that she had been around all this time, that she had saved the Archives Team since Melanie stabbing three hearts didn’t manage to take down Jared!!

And I feel bad now for calling her “Helen” with quotation marks and taking extra-precaution to designate her differently from MAG047’s Helen Richardson, since… Helen took offense from the “It” and Melanie calls Helen “she”, so let’s trust Melanie on Helen’s correct pronouns! :w

* To be fair to Jon, Helen-as-the-new-Distortion was extremely confusing, identity-wise, in MAG101 and MAG115! She spoke about “Helen” in third person, but sounding like it was a constant push-pull between being and not being (MAG115: “I don’t, I don’t think I have a choice but to be Helen. Self is difficult.”); admitting to have killed a man, and not being satisfied by it but… not being overly upset about murdering an innocent person either (;; have there been others, since then…?); making Jon an offer to evolve alongside each other when The Unknowing was coming close and Jon was precisely trying to put himself together. But if Helen indeed didn’t lie… she could have helped, indeed, back then ;; She could have used her doors to transport them to the wax museum and ensure their safety…

* I do like how Helen suggested that Jon not put a clear delimitation between humanity and monsterhood; it was both… a sort of invitation for Jon to stop angsting about it, and to stop trying to run away from it? And it also echoed what Jon himself had wondered about, about being himself, when he woke up (MAG122: “I’m… I’m… I’m trying to focus. Trying to make sure I’m the same me as before, but… how can anyone really remember that? How do you know… you’re the same person that went to sleep…?”).

(MAG131) MELANIE: She’s been helping us. ARCHIVIST: It has never helped anyone. Not without a cost. [THE DOOR CREAKS OPEN] HELEN: If I’m an “it”, Archivist, then what does that make you? [THE DOOR CREAKS CLOSED] MELANIE: Hi, Helen. ARCHIVIST: I have been told that you could help. HELEN: I have been trying to. But the last time you were very rude. ARCHIVIST: And you’re still wearing her face. HELEN: Not this again. I’m not “wearing” anything, Archivist. I am at least as much Helen Richardson as you are the Jonathan Sims that first joined this institute. Things change. People change. It happens. ARCHIVIST: … We’re not “people”, though, are we? Not anymore. HELEN: Names. Categories. It’s all so important to you, isn’t it? You do know none of it is actually real. It’s all just meaningless boxes.

(Though: Avatars and monsters still tend to call Jon “Archivist” – they’re also the ones putting Jon in a box?)

BUT AT THE SAME TIME, IT PISSES ME OFF SO MUCH………… BECAUSE GUESS WHAT…………… GUESS WHO MIGHT HAVE BEEN RIGHT ABOUT THIS AFTER ALL……………

(MAG092) ARCHIVIST: […] Am I… Elias, am I still human? ELIAS: Jon, what does human even mean? I mean, really? You still bleed, you can still die. And your will is still your own, mostly. That’s more than can be said for a lot of the “real’ humans out there.

*FLIPS TABLE* I WOULD LIKE TO FIND HELEN’S WORDS INSPIRING BUT… IT’S ALSO WHAT FUCKING ELIAS SAID… WHY IS THIS EPISODE A STRING OF IMPLIED “ELIAS HAD BEEN RIGHT ABOUT X AND Y”……………………

* That said, I’m also laughing that:

(MAG131) MELANIE: Is… he still in there? HELEN: Oh, yes. He’s not exactly something that I can… digest. He’s a bit of an irritant, to be honest. If you’re looking to let him out, I can be persuaded. […] MELANIE: … Did you let that… thing go?

(Bwahahah about Helen calling Jared an “irritant”, when Elias had qualified Michael with that word.) For all that talk about showing respect to People-Who-Changed-And-Became-Spooks, Melanie really had trouble calling Jared a “he”, uh. (But well. She stabbed three of his hearts. That gives her a peculiar point of view.)

* Was that a reference to periods.

(MAG131) HELEN: Hm. Bodies are strange. Rather glad they’re not my concern anymore. MELANIE: Must be nice. HELEN: [CHEERFUL] It really is!

* OOPSIE, so. If Martin knew that Helen was around and that she saved them from Jared… I have trouble picturing him taking her presence kindly. (MAG118: “being left to wander impossible corridors for weeks!” ;;)

* ANYWAY, HELEN IS THE BESTEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO TEAM ARCHIVES, OKAY.

(MAG131) MELANIE: … Did you let that… thing go? HELEN: He found a door. MELANIE: … Where did he come out? HELEN: The door may have been in a bwall, some distance above a river. MELANIE: [CHUCKLE] Nice…!

She’s totally nailing the Keeping My Promise (And Wrecking You At The Same Time) aspect of monsterhood, uh! =DD

(MAG131) HELEN: Good luck, Archivist! Be seeing you.

Look!! She’s even being a good guest by using the awful pun of the local patron which is currently housing her door!!

* There was something in this episode about the fact that Avatars or people-who-are-not-total-spooks(-yet) are Their Own Person: Jared refused to participate in his god’s own ritual, out of sheer disinterest; Melanie explained that the anger wasn’t coming from the bullet but was her own; Helen has decided to help, despite what one could expect from The Spiral (or is it a trap? She sounded genuine and given the overall message I felt from the episode, I don’t think she was lying and trying to mislead here, that she wouldn’t be able to fight a sort of natural instinct); Jon is trying to save Daisy despite the fact that The Archivist is supposed to be “the Observer” and that Beholding is usually described as… amazingly passive. It’s really like how Gertrude made her own choices, decided whom to sacrifice and how in order to reach her aims? I wonder if this will lead to something about Daisy? When we left her in MAG119, she was chaotic and filled with violence (Breekon described her as “feral”); in the same way, that violence is… most probably her own, building up since she was a kid. Maybe she isn’t as lost and Far Gone as what I feared; maybe there will be a way to hear her words, too?

- So many character developments points for Jon…

* I’M SO PROUD OF JON FOR TRYING TO APOLOGIZE HERE AND THERE… it was good! And he ended up understanding that it wasn’t the point, and did what Melanie asked him to do – shutting up and listening to what SHE wanted to say!!!

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: Oh, I… Melanie, I–I’m so sorry, I– MELANIE: Oooh, fuck off?! […] ARCHIVIST: Basira said you were doing better. MELANIE: Would you just– stop?! ARCHIVIST: No– Right, no– MELANIE: This isn’t better! ARCHIVIST: M–Melanie, I, I– […] M–Melanie, it, it– MELANIE: Don’t tell me to calm down! Don’t you dare–! ARCHIVIST: [LOW] Right… Yes. I… […] Maybe… maybe it’s enough to start healing, start… letting go of the anger. MELANIE: Oh, just stop! Just stop and– listen. ARCHIVIST: Okay.

Jon has grown up so much and it involves shutting up!!!

* He didn’t apologize to Helen but listened to her! And thanked her!!!

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: Right. Uh… [WINCES] Thank you. … For your… for your help. HELEN: You are very welcome. I have decided that I support what you’re doing, and I’m happy to assist. I think we’ll all be much happier this way.

Progress!!

* GAASSSPPSSSS

(MAG131) MELANIE: Basira’s not going to be happy that you let him out. ARCHIVIST: [SCOFF] Basira isn’t here. … And if this works…! I’ll have Daisy waiting for her when she gets back, so I don’t think she’ll be thinking – too much about Jared.

Is… is this Jon finally understanding about lesbians………………….

(Jooooon, but what about YOU freeing Jared into the wild… There will be people coming to you, in a few months/years, telling you about how they lost a loved one or were tortured by him, maybe, if your bone doesn’t kill him or if he doesn’t drown thanks to Helen… I’m surprised that he didn’t think about the consequences here, even though he had highlighted that he was upset at the thought of people getting killed and victimized by the Fears…?)

(;; And the idea that getting Daisy back would cheer up Basira is such a simplistic reasoning, at the same time… almost childish? Very pure? Like a child knowing they did something their parents would disapprove of on principle, but hoping that the consequences will make up for it anyway? And the way Jon is banking on Basira forgetting about his freeing Jared because Daisy would be back… probably means that no, it won’t be that easy and simple and nice, uh…)

- People not saying anything but conveying in their tone that “Sure, Jon.” (/You Do You) when Jon tries to explain the thing about “anchor” really cracks me up:

(MAG131) MELANIE: [INHALES SHARPLY] So! Why are you trying to chop off your finger? ARCHIVIST: [AWKWARDLY] O–oh, I, I–I am– [CLEARS THROAT] I nee–need a… I’ve been thinking of it a–as an anchor. I think. I… know. Something I have a connection to, th–that I can use to find my way out of the Coffin when I reach Daisy. I–I figured the strongest anchor would be… part of my own body. [BREATHLESS LAUGH] MELANIE: Okay. So… just cut it off.

[…] JARED: That’s yours. What’s it for? [PAINED SOUNDS OF RECOVERY] ARCHIVIST: [STAMMERING] Um… A, a–an anchor JARED: Huh. Right. Anyway, this one’s for me.

[…] [CLICK–] HELEN: Still alive? MELANIE: Seems to be, yes. HELEN: And he’s certainly holding a bone, for some reason. MELANIE: Said it was going to be an… “anchor”.

Nobody is impressed rezufsdhjnfez.

- How could you ever say that Jon wasn’t funny, Martin:

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: That’s it? [SNORT] Hardly worth a rib. [JARED LOOMS FORWARD] [PLACATINGLY] Alright! Alright. Is it, uh… Is it going to hurt? JARED: Dunno. Doesn’t hurt me. [THE ARCHIVIST MAKES IT BE KNOWN THAT IT DOES RATHER] [EXTENDED SOUNDS OF MEAT AND BONE MOVEMENT]

(I missed the official transcripts and their official descriptors so, so much efdshjxnefd.)

Anyway! Jon… Oooh, Jon… you already did know about that one. You had already read from someone who had gotten a bone removed by Jared himself…

(MAG049, Gregory Pryor) “There is… no way to describe what it feels like, to have bone pulled out of you through your unbroken skin. If you’ve ever been stabbed, or had a decent-sized object embedded in you, maybe you can remember how it felt to have it removed, but even then, the pain is of a different quality. The nerves aren’t being… torn, or cut; they’re being pushed aside, like water. Imagine the feeling of removing a rubber glove from your hand but… you’re the glove, not the hand. And it hurts like the worst toothache you can imagine, it– That’s as close as I can get to putting it into words. […] I can still feel it sometimes, like it’s still there. I know it’s just phantom limb syndrome but… sometimes I swear it feels like my bone’s still out there, twisting in someone else’s arm… ”

So yep! It was supposed to hurt! And hurt it did!

Also enjoy feeling your rib twisting in Jared’s torso (or wherever he put it), Jon…………….

- I think this was the most unsettling episode ever for me. WHAT A BEGINNING, WOW, THANKS, THAT WAS AWFUL AND… not even exactly gruesome, but very disturbing? Not so much for the sounds of Jon trying to cut off his own finger but because of his shaky cries of pain while doing it.

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: […] [PAINED FRUSTRATION] Oh, come on! Everyone else can carve up the Archivist but– when he actually needs it…! […] MELANIE: [INHALES SHARPLY] So! Why are you trying to chop off your finger? ARCHIVIST: O–oh, I, I–I am– [CLEARS THROAT] I–I need a… I’ve been thinking of it as a–a, an anchor, I–I think. I… know. Something I have a connection to, th–that I can… use to find my way out of the coffin, when I reach Daisy. I–I figured the strongest anchor would be…. part of my own body. [BREATHLESS LAUGH] MELANIE: Okay. So… just cut it off. ARCHIVIST: Er, I’m… doing my best. MELANIE: [HUFF] Can’t go through with it? ARCHIVIST: Oh, th–the blade keeps going in! And… it hurts… hurts plenty. But then it heals up, pretty much the moment I take it out – no wound, no scar… nothing.

YEAH, YOU BET, I COULD HEAR THAT.

So, is it not working because it’s Jon doing it to himself, or because only Spooks can harm him (temporarily) now? Gooooosh, the fact that Jon tried and tried again, and was losing it with pain/anguish but kept trying for a good while… (If he manages to get Daisy back and she’s not too far gone: I wonder if they would try to test the limits and conditions of Jon’s healing abilities?)

That also ;; answers (without any question) the matter of whether Jon would be able to self-harm, or to try to… avert his fate, at the last moment. Apparently, no. I’m guessing that the auto-regeneration is more akin to a reflex, and it should be a good thing (he can heal very fast! can’t even get harmed through normal means!)… But it’s awfully creepy to know for sure that Jon doesn’t have that control over his own body anymore – that his body doesn’t really belong to him anymore, and that what he wants to and can do with it are now two different things.

- Which should have been a first red flag for Jon about his idea of using his own body as an anchor. AND THE SECOND ONE WAS OBVIOUSLY:

(MAG131) JARED: Not much you could want, comin’ to me. Put summat in. Take summat out. Which is it? ARCHIVIST: Take something out. … A bone. A rib, probably. S–something I won’t miss.

(+ Bonus of accepting super-quickly to give up on another rib and to give it to Jared against his statement.)

“Something I won’t miss” OH MY GODS JON, DO YOU EVER STOP AND LISTEN TO YOURSELF………. HOW IS THAT SUPPOSED TO WORK AS AN ANCHOR IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO MISS IT, IF YOU’RE NOT EXCEPTIONALLY ATTACHED TO IT……. J O N…………..

- Maybe the Rib-As-Anchor will work but I’m Very Sceptical About It. So many ways and reasons for it to work or to not work with everything going very wrong anyway!

* The rib works, Jon goes back to the surface with Daisy, she’s still in (or returns to) the “feral” state she was in during the Unknowing and manages to flee. Jon now has two missing ribs, an empty coffin, a very dangerous Daisy on the loose, and a lovely Story to tell to Basira, who will… not be very happy about it.

* The other rib works and Jon comes out somewhere in front of Jared; feral!Daisy butchers The Ex-Butcher (which could solve the Jared problem) and escapes, same as above re:Basira.

* The ribs don’t work because Jon literally said it would be something he wouldn’t miss, or they actually… already grew back in his own very messed up Beholding body; Jon compulses Daisy into thinking about her own anchor (like he grounded Tim during the Unknowing), and she thinks about Basira, and Daisy gets the both of them out.

* Same as above except Daisy gets out and Jon is still stuck. Either gets out by thinking about Georgie or Martin OR THE MEMORIES OF TIM&SASHA, L I S T E N, I SHIP JON/MARTIN LIKE EVERYONE ELSE BUT I WOULD D I E IF JON WERE ABLE TO RECOVER HIS MEMORIES OF THE REAL SASHA’S FACE AND TIM’S LAST MOMENTS IN A DIRE SITUATION AND THAT IT WOULD BE THE THING SAVING HIM, ALLOWING HIM TO GET BACK………, either he ends up needing exterior help to get out – Basira coming back right in time? Martin doing something? Martin asking Peter to save Jon? The Web having to send someone/something again?

- It also worked when Sasha and Tim were still around *WHIMPERS LOUDLY*, but: nobody in Extended Team Archives is a heterosexual dude! So All Likelyhoods aside, I want Daisy back and a team sleepover down in the tunnels, between Daisy-Basira-Melanie-Helen, and Jon being… there. Honorary guest or person-who-had-to-pay-for-the-food. (Get Martin back, put him there too, for max awkwardness!)

Shhh. Shhhhh. *cries*

Patreons have the title so, yep, well, we know the main subject, uh. (Both “being x” for Daisy, and “getting x” for Jon, I’m guessing…?)

#the magnus archives #mag131 #tma liveblog #long post/#tma spoilers/#tma season 4

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snkpolls · 5 years

Text

SnK S3E15 Poll Results (Anime Only Viewer Version)

The poll closed with 84 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note this is the anime only viewer version of the poll. Manga readers, please click here for the results of the manga reader poll!

RATE THE EPISODE 65 Responses

This episode got overall positive responses from the fandom, with nearly all votes at a 4-5 rating. Can WIT keep up this momentum?

Another fantastic episode.

intense

Stressful

Rude

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING WAS YOUR FAVORITE MOMENT? 64 Responses

The favorite moment of the episode inarguably goes to Bertolt activating his Bertl Bomb™! Closely behind is the short Mikasa vs. Bertolt conflict, and in third place is Annie’s hesitance to assist in killing Marco.

Reiner was right, Bertholdt really was the strongest warrior of their so-called "hometown", able to fend himself off from an Ackermann.

Wow Bertholdt is really strong, he completely dominated Mikasa in their fight.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE APETITAN AND YOUSEEBIGGIRL REARRANGES? 61 Responses

72% of respondents were thrilled to hear new versions of familiar songs from Sawano, feeling that the new versions were totally epic. Nearly 20% still prefer the originals, although they agree the new versions sounded cool.

WHAT’S YOUR OPINION ABOUT THE RECENT EARLY EPISODE LEAKS? 63 Responses

54% of respondents weren’t even aware that leaks of the episode had happened. 23% aren’t happy about the leaks happening, while 15% don’t really care.

Great. I hate sunday releases

WHO WON THE SHOUTING MATCH? 63 Responses

With nearly ¾ of the vote, Bertolt is deemed the winner of the shouting match on the rooftops!

Armin should have asked Bombholdt why they wanted to kill all humans.

HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT BERTOLT’S DEVELOPMENT AT THIS POINT? 64 Responses

40% of respondents are glad to see how far he’s developed as a character. 26% are just happy to have his thoughts and more lines from him, and narrowly behind at 25% people are curious to see what will become of his character.

He’s progressed but in the way of the warriors. The more he’s with beasty and Reiner the more cold hearted he becomes.

i still hate him with all my heart

Bertholdt with conviction is really badass. He’s actually interesting now.

HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT ARMIN BLUFFING ABOUT ANNIE A SECOND TIME? 64 Responses

A whopping 60% of respondents believe that Armin should have known better than to try manipulating Bertolt’s feelings for Annie to his benefit again, while the remaining 37% feel that it was worth another shot.

I think in Armin’s scenario he couldn’t think of another bluff that quickly so he resorted back to Annie, knowing that there was a chance it wouldn’t pay off.

WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT CGI COLOSSAL TITAN? 63 Responses

With a surprising divide between positive and negative reactions, 42% of viewers are pleased with the CGI render of the Colossal Titan, labeling it as “awesome.” Closely behind, 30% feel that it’s very “meh.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE 104TH RIDING ON TITAN EREN? 64Responses

Fanart becomes a reality as the 104th take a ride on Eren’s titan form! 42% of viewers found this detail adorable, 29% think it’s pretty neat, and 20% don’t think much of it either way.

WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION WHEN IT WAS REVEALED THAT ALL OF THE WARRIOR TRIO WERE INVOLVED IN MARCO’S DEATH? 64 Responses

Much to the pollster’s delight, it seems that Reiner’s brief flashback from season 2 didn’t spoil it for everyone! A solid 25% of viewers had expected that each of them played a part in Marco’s death. 20% of viewers were genuinely surprised by the reveal. 18% picked up on the clue from season 2.

FUCK. REINER. BERTOLT. AND ANNIE.

I excepted all 3 to be involved but I DIDN’T expect them to care about killing Marco.

I loved seeing that Annie actually cared and didn’t want to take Marco’s ODM gear.

DO YOU THINK THE WARRIOR TRIO COULD HAVE NEGOTIATED WITH MARCO WITHOUT KILLING HIM? 63 Responses

The overwhelming majority believe that Reiner and Bertolt were right to believe that negotiation with Marco wasn’t possible. 14% of respondents aren’t sure either way, and 12% feel they could have come to an understanding.

THE WARRIORS TALK ABOUT AN “EVIL RACE” AND JUST WANTING TO “END IT.” WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THIS? 63 Responses

Nearly half of respondents believe that there’s someone above the warriors who wants humanity to perish. 20% believe that shifters are a different race than the rest of humanity in the walls, and 19% believe everyone in the walls are of a certain race, and that is why the warriors are trying to kill them. In retrospect, we should have left an option for write in answers. :P

WHAT DO YOU THINK THE SIGNIFICANCE OF REINER’S WORDS ABOUT HIS PROMISE TO YMIR ARE, IF ANY? 63 Responses

42% of respondents feel that Reiner’s desire to fulfill his promise to Ymir stem from mixed motivations. 20% believe that he genuinely just wants to save Historia, and 19% believe that he’s doing it as a way to repay her for saving them.

I feel like he’s honoring her last wish. (My theory is the Quadruped Titan night have eaten her)

REINER SURVIVED THE THUNDER SPEAR ATTACK BY TRANSFERRING HIS CONSCIOUSNESS AGAIN - THOUGHTS? 64 Responses

Over half of the fandom feel that Reiner’s abilities are simply born from plot armor. At much smaller percentages, 15% of respondents feel that it’s a reasonable explanation for his survival, 12% think it’s a super cool feature of his titan, and 10% aren’t really bothered about it.

Again, I think this is how shifting works. If your consciousness is transferred to your body then you transform, but if your mind and body are disconnected (by cutting off the nape) you die.

whatever, i just hate him with all my heart

WHAT IS THE FATE OF HANGE’S SQUAD? 63 Responses

44% of respondents are certain that most of the soldiers with Hange were killed in the blast, with maybe a couple of survivors. 30% are slightly more optimistic about the survival numbers, but ultimately feel most of them didn’t escape the blast. 15% are certain that all of them have perished, and a small 9% are optimistic about their fates.

I hate that I have to wait until Sunday to see what happened to Hange’s squad.

DO YOU THINK THE 104TH WILL BE ABLE TO DEFEAT BERTOLT? 62 Responses

43% of respondents have faith that the 104th will be able to outdo Bertolt somehow and defeat him. 29% don’t want to say confidently either way, and 17% already know what happens.

HOW HAVE YOU OPINIONS ON THE FOLLOWING CHARACTERS CHANGED?

After this episode, Marco, Bertolt, Annie and Armin got large boost in regards to how well liked they are among respondents. Meanwhile, Reiner took the biggest hit, with more people finding him less favorable than more favorable, although most opinions remained unchanged. The Beast Titan, now known as Zeke, got a boost in terms of favorability. Mikasa remained mainly unchanged, but also received a good boost in favorability this episode.

BARREL BOY BEST (problematic) BOY

Jean and Mikasa are the only ones with resolve. Reiner and Bert are from the past

It feels like each character is acting realistically. They are on opposite sides of a war that they don't understand but were thrust into

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

It’s nice. Bertolt’s tranformation scene was really epic... but Hange squad might be dead... T.T

I think they could of done a better job in going into more depth about the plan? And i wish they didn't leave us hanging with what happened to Hange's squad

This may be a long one so buckle up. (im sorry)

Okay, so first off I didn’t know that quadrupedal titan could speak so that totally caught me off guard. Secondly, having seen the Lost Girls OVA, I expected Annie and at least someone else to be involved with Marco’s death. I feel really bad for Annie (and Bertolt, but mostly Annie) because it was obvious she didn’t want to kill Marco. Also Reiner’s split personality thing??? Anyways, I’m happy we finally got to see the beadt titan shifter, he kinda looks like Grisha though. The thing with Bert and Reiner was great. The Bert vs Armin yelling battle was great as well. I’m super excited for the next episode! This one was so good.

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 60 Responses

Thank you to everyone who participated! We’ll see you again in a few days!

#snk spoilers #snk s3 #snk poll #snk polls #poll results

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punkbakugo · 6 years

Note

1) i recently happened upon a post that argued that dvsk2 might be the 1 moment in the series where deku comes off as selfish and unheroic the reasoning being that even when he finally realizes there’s smthng wrong w how bkg sees himself and that hes the trigger he overlooks that and outright says that [quoting the post directly here cuz I have no idea what it’s supposed to mean] he’s “not enough of a nice guy” to stop him

2) and that he could’ve explained to bkg why he was wrong abt it all or could’ve cared that bkg was beating himself up over smthng that he had no reason to but didn’t and that he went along w the “meaningless fight” for selfish reasons

3) it was also argued that deku acted irresponsibly as the next ofa user. a responsibility he accepted and swore to. telling bkg abt ofa at the beginning of the school year was cited as another example of this and that it’s p plausible that he only half-spilled the secret to bkg bc he wanted for him to finally see him as an equal.

4) and this may tie into what deku wanted out of the dvsk2 fight which was to show bkg that he wasn’t weak ? he wanted bkgs acknowledgement of his potential and he planned on getting it by [to quote the post again] “punching him until bkg did”

5) which op stated to be the exact same thing bkgs been punished for time and time again since the beginning like getting targeted by the sludge villain immediately after destroying dekus hero notes and making the swan dive comment so that he wouldn’t have competition for UA

i would agree to an extent that deku has selfish moments but i think the argument in general 1) grossly misinterprets his motivations and 2) is unnecessarily harsh on him for handling things like an immature teenager

being selfish, at it’s most basic definition, means that you’re putting yourself first. this is not inherently a bad thing depending on what you’re doing, but calling a person selfish tends to have negative connotations, that you’re acting in your own self-interest at the expense of or with no regard for others. that’s what this person was arguing, that deku agrees to the fight solely in his own self-interest while disregarding bakugou’s well-being, which isn’t even remotely the case.

he could’ve explained to bkg why he was wrong abt it all or could’ve cared that bkg was beating himself up over smthng that he had no reason to but didn’t and that he went along w the “meaningless fight” for selfish reasons

deku didn’t want to fight over this and tried to deescalate the situation, but bakugou was very insistent on fighting, not talking.

he eventually went along with the fight because he cared about what bakugou was going through

deku agreed with the intent that it would help bakugou, that even though winning or losing wouldn’t solve the issue at hand, he needed this opportunity to vent the feelings he didn’t know what to do with otherwise and because of that he wasn’t going to just turn down the fight that bakugou wanted. (& all this is literally just in the text)

was this the most mature, sensible way to deal with this? of course not, future deku even states as much in retrospect, but this is an emotionally charged moment with someone he has an emotional charged and complicated relationship w/ and there’s a lot of desperation on both sides here. (plus there’s the whole shounen cliche of understanding someone better thru a fight blah blah blah)

now, once he legitimately takes part in the fight, deku states that he’s not going to hold back, that while he understands that this is bakugou’s chance to vent, he still wants to win. that’s what the “not a nice enough guy” line is referring to (also imo お人好し in this context would be better translated to something like “pushover”)

and a couple things to note: deku tends to be heavily motivated by other’s faith in him and his desire to not let them down & the initial purpose for this fight, as proposed by bakugou, was for deku to show him why all might chose him.

…prove myself!!

whether or not you perceive deku’s desire to win as something selfish in this context is up to you, but he is following the intended purpose of this fight. and regardless, bakugou doesn’t want to be coddled, he never has. that’s kind of a huge factor in the initial souring of their relationship so could you imagine how pissed he would’ve been had deku not taken this seriously?

next, deku telling bakugou about how he got his quirk because i also have a huge issue with this one

telling bkg abt ofa at the beginning of the school year was cited as another example of this and that it’s p plausible that he only half-spilled the secret to bkg bc he wanted for him to finally see him as an equal.

i really don’t understand how telling bakugou that he got his quirk from someone else would make him see deku as an equal? deku knew bakugou thought that he was tricking him by hiding that he had a quirk the whole time and wanted to clear that up as much as he could

is this an irresponsible thing to do as all might’s protege? sure, but, like i said, he’s a teen and he’s being impulsive (a bad habit of his!) because he doesn’t want bakugou to think he’s been messing with him. because he cares about him

while explaining himself he ends up essentially challenging bakugou, but it was something that spilled out in the heat of the moment, not what he came there to do.

you mentioned that the intent of the argument was to touch on how bakugou & deku’s relationship has been dysfunctional on both side, which i don’t disagree with as a concept, but not in the way this argument is suggesting. i think it takes scenes out of context in order to artificially add gray where it’s uncharacteristic and unneeded bc there’s already gray in other places (the mutual miscommunication for instance)

it’s important to keep in mind that deku is selfless to a critical fault, something he’s had to face consequences for from the beginning of the series because he needs to strike a proper balance. you can even think of it like this: deku’s penchant for self-sacrifice can, ironically enough, also come off as selfish if you factor in his loved ones concern for his well-being, how his lack of self-preservation worries and can even burden those around him depending on what he gets himself into. deku is not perfect and he handles things in flawed ways based on what he thinks is the right thing to do. he’s impulsive and reckless and throughout the story has to learn (often the hard way) to be more responsible with himself and how he goes about his duties as a hero.

at it’s core, deku’s deep admiration for bakugou and his resulting desire to not lose to him is both something that is self motivated and framed as positive in regards to deku’s growth as a hero (i’ve talked a bit more in depth about that here). like i said, he needs to strike a balance. it’s a detriment to your growth and well-being if you only think of others and never think about yourself so having this form of motivation is important for him.

there are things like the way he continued to chase after bakugou even after bakugou started pushing him away that helped fuel the complications between them (tho it’s important to note that he was a literal child) but deku never mindfully disregards bakugou’s feelings (see: the mutual miscommunication) or intends to “punch bakugou until he acknowledges him” or w/e

**ftr i switch between translations bc i like to use whichever’s closer to the original

#anon #asks #analysis #relationship: bakugou & deku #character: deku #rly rly sorry this took so long! i hope it was worth the wait in the end tho #also not super on topic but i really do hate when bakugou's character arc is framed as him being 'punished' but w/e

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asterlizard · 5 years

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SF cherry blossom festival 2019

Sorry this is a month late! I had almost no time to write this earlier because of school.

(This is also a rough draft journal entry because my current cosplay blog is not up to date yet, and I don’t have all of the photos I want to share from the event yet, but I wanted to get this journal out there in the hopes of maybe connecting with people)

I cosplayed as Snufkin btw!

I went with a friend who didn’t cosplay (In retrospect I think she should have cosplayed Little My because she had red hair at the time, and we could have been mischievous siblings together). She recently went to the UK and she remarked to me how different/weird the UK is compared to the US, and I smile knowingly (but for the reverse reason)

Funny enough, there were a couple of cosplayers at the BART station we started at (which was almost the furthest station away). I hoped they would notice us, but they kept walking away...

The Civic Center where the parade started had an outdoor exhibition on Holocaust survivors (argh I wish I had a proper look at it)

There weren’t as many cosplayers as I had been used to in previous events I attended, but there were a lot of cool ones

An awesome Tokoyami cosplay (but I felt bad for him because it was a hot day and he was wearing a dark outfit)

Jedi Elsa!

At one point, a couple of pikachus showed up, and a bunch of small children ran up to hug them, it was adorable (the children were from another part of the parade)

Unfortunately I didn’t get much of a chance to interact with others this time, as I stuck with my friend pretty much the entire time. Since we both watched BNHA, our recurring joke of the day was Iida’s arm gesture thing, and scolding people for sitting on desks while making the gesture.

We also wandered about the place to pass the time, and we found a separate section of the parade devoted to shiba inus

LOOK AT THE PUPPOS

As we finally lined up for the parade (I remarked in the past that everyone would start ‘amoeba-ing’, but everyone was more cooperative, possibly because there weren’t as many people?) I brought up Hetalia at some point and how I wouldn’t expect anything related to it anymore (ngl, I kinda miss the years when it was more popular), and one of the cosplayers overheard us and actually talked with us very briefly about it. I’m glad my expectations were wrong! ouo)b

Parade antics:

Moving a very short distance every 10 minutes while the rest of the parade progressed ahead of us (’Hooray! 5 feet!’)

A drill sergeant routine (someone in the background made a comment, and the ‘drill sergeant’ replies, ‘WHAT THAT GUY SAID’)

Chanting about cosplay (I couldn’t shout because my voice was already half dead from shouting above the noise on the train and such :’D )

Joseph Joestar losing his hat from a gust of wind, and a loud ripple of ‘OH NOOOOO’, ‘OH MY GOOODDD’, ‘SON OF A BIIIITCH’, etc. ensued for like half a minute (I haven’t seen the series, but I admire the outfits)

The megaphone girl being very genki and cheering us on

The parade was almost done, and my feet were hurting, and it was hot and I was hungry. I got a couple of cheers from the audience who recognized my cosplay :D

When our section of the parade ended, we dispersed (Tokoyami was nowhere to be found at this point). I try to weave through the crowds and meet up with my friend and then we ate dango :P Although the food was cold, it wasn’t enough, so I got a shaved ice to combat the heat of indoors (it worked!)

Meanwhile, I’ve seen like 4 Dekus, 3 or 4 Todorokis, an Uraraka, another Tokoyami, and a Toga. There was also a little girl dressed as Froppy (cute!)

My friend and I decided to wander around outside Japantown, and we eventually wound up at the Peace Plaza where we got to watch some of the performances (I hadn’t done this before!)

Ahhh, my heart warms seeing open celebrations of other cultures.

These three dubbed themselves the ‘Birthday Boys’ because it was their birthdays that day. Their routine was very entertaining, the audience got to participate in a hayashi kotoba, in which we repeat chants from the singer.

We also got to learn the Awa Odori dance, which is incredibly simple to do. (Armed with these skills, I’m prepared for any spontaneous chanting or dancing!)

And of course, Detective Pikachu was there. His hat kept falling off, and everybody responded like it was a tragedy.

There was a cosplay segment where we got to see all of the cosplayers who entered for this segment. The theme was ‘heroes and villains’, and everyone dressed for their side accordingly. Coincidentally enough, there were an equal amount of heroes and villains. My personal favourites were the Jedi Elsa and Samurai Darth Vader, though I kinda expected BNHA to show up at some point, considering (y’know) the theme

It was getting late at this point, and we needed to leave fairly soon, so we left to go eat okonomiyaki (because we were short on time, I planned on quickly shopping for Japanese snacks as soon as we ordered our meals, and then returning, but what I was looking for wasn’t in stock :< )

After eating, as we were leaving, I saw Samurai Darth Vader eating at the restaurant hours later, which is a funny visual to me for some reason. We very briefly browsed the shops (the manga shop as well, of course) another person recognized my cosplay, and we briefly talked about Snufkin.

Even though we just ate, my friend wanted a crepe, and while we were waiting for it, someone else said they liked my costume (I got a total of 5 acknowledgements? Considering how obscure the character is, I’ll take it! More than my last visit!)

When we were done, we now had to find a way of getting home. We didn’t want to walk all the way back to the BART station that was next to the Civic Center (we’re sore from walking, and it was suspicion hour), the bus would have taken just as long, but a Lyft was our fastest option (I never did it before!)

I saw the two cosplayers were still at Japantown by the time we were leaving, and I hoped we could coincidentally ride home on BART together again, but I don’t think that happened, oh well...

Eventually we got back at around 8pm, and I got home at around 9pm.

#cherry blossom festival #sakura festival #my posts #another reason this is a rough draft is because I leave for a flight very soon and I don't have time to write this properly

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ageless-aislynn · 5 years

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Ever since I wrote up my 10 New Year’s Vidding Resolutions the other day, I’ve been thinking about making an actual list of the vids I mentioned for #3 in order to hopefully help myself to vid them at long last. It would be great to finally get to check some of them off of my Master Vid Idea List! So, with that in mind...

Note: My vidding muse doesn’t like it when I mention the songs at this stage but all of these do have songs attached to them. ;) In no particular order after the top three, which are ranked oldest first. ;)

1. Alex Drake retrospective with heavy Gene/Alex (Galex) leanings, (Ashes to Ashes) Idea came right after the finale, making this the oldest from approx. May 2010,

2. Rinzler AU where Tron's memories begin to surface, leading him to find some very familiar code in a very different face... (TRON: Legacy, TRON [1982]) I intended this to be the next in my series of TRON vids but I just... stopped vidding TRON for some reason. :( I’ve always regretted not at least trying this one, even though it’s a bit of a difficult sell. Idea is from early 2012, I’d guestimate.

3. John Druitt character study with heavy John/Helen (Magnitt) leanings, (Sanctuary) The show ended at the end of 2011 :( and I was unhappy with how some things turned out, so my intentions to vid the show kinda died off. But then a little later, I heard a song that really made me think of John and the idea just flowed out of it in late 2012 to early 2013, I think.

The next ideas are much more recent, from the last few years to today as a matter of fact, lol! ;) They’re not as “seasoned” as the top 3 but I can see parts of them very clearly and I’d definitely like to eventually bring them to life as best I can. :D

4. Rey and Kylo character studies that will probably go straight-up Reylo because shipping is just how I roll, lol! ;) Rey and Ben are on inexorable paths destined to collide into each other... (Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Last Jedi)

5. Eobard Thawne/Caitlin Snow, ReverseSnow (The Flash) I’ve always wanted to vid one of my own fics (hey, don’t judge me :P ;) ) and this song gave me the idea on how to show his p.o.v. from "Bad Habits" ;)

6. Nyx Ulric/Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, (Kingsglaive) I’m apparently not done vidding Lunyx just yet, heh. ;) I ain’t gonna lie to you, I was listening to this song, just sorta letting it sift through my mind, and when it came to the VERY LAST LINE I instantly thought of Nyx. So I quickly started it over with my fingers crossed that the entire rest of the song would work, lol! ;) It seems to fill my need to get a definite p.o.v. from Nyx since my other vids are more Luna p.o.v. ;)

7. Helen Magnus/John Druitt (Sanctuary) This one just showed up today in the form of listening to a song I’ve wanted to vid for years now but never could find the ship that felt right with the specifics in the lyrics and I think this one does. Weirdly enough, though, I have a second song that I rediscovered yesterday that also has some specific lyrics that I think fits their story. :S When I’m ready to start this particular vid, I’ll probably start a vid for each song and let them just kinda duke it out, lol! ;)

So, there’ll hopefully and doubtlessly be other vids that will appear in 2019 that aren’t on this list but these are ones that are especially near and dear to my heart but I’ve put off working on for one reason or another. I want this year to be the year where I don’t let my fears, doubts and worries stop me from giving them a go! *fist thump* Wish me luck! :D

#galex #magnitt #reylo #lunyx #reversesnow #aislynn is vidding #master vid idea list 2019

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

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THERE'S AN EVEN BETTER WAY TO DESCRIBE THIS SITUATION IS ALSO TEMPORARY

My usual trick is to claim that they'll only invest contingently on other investors doing so because otherwise you'd be undercapitalized. In fact, it's just as well not exist. I deliberately pander to readers, because it has large libraries for manipulating strings. When you have multiple founders who were already friends before they decided to start a gasoline powered generator inside our offices. 2 months during which the company is actually more valuable.1 The professors will get whoever they admit as their own grad students, because all three are doable.2 The golden age of economic equality in the mid 20th century.

How do you break the connection between nerds and technology? Investors are rich enough to be sure signs of bad algorithms.3 Maybe it's a good idea for a small amount of force applied at just the point where they would do a lot of founders that we have enough data points to see patterns clearly. A company to compensate for the opportunity cost of the board may even help VCs pick better. The alarming thing is that it will set off the alarms sufficiently early, you may be able to phrase it in terms of the visa that they couldn't get grad students, so we were on Version 4. I think I see now what went wrong with philosophy, and how much is due to Jessica Livingston and Chris Steiner for reading drafts of this.4 Bad Programmers I forgot to include this in the early stages.5 So if you want to discover great new things often come from outsiders. Y18. Checks on purchases will always be a few languages, I'm not eager to fix that. It was striking how old fashioned this sounded.6 The term angel round doesn't mean that it's a pretty clever piece of jiujitsu to set this irresistible force against the slightly less immovable object of becoming rich.

Perhaps, if design and research converge, the best pickers should have more hits.7 Libraries are one place Common Lisp falls short.8 Then I'd sleep till about 11 am, and come with tougher terms. Six weeks is fast. This group says one thing. We've raised $800,000, but to design beautiful software, would be enough to feel like a late bloomer than a failed child prodigy. If you draw a tree and you change the angle of a branch five degrees, no one stopped to wonder where the big returns are. Here are the alternatives considered if the filter sees FREE!9 Appendix: Examples of Filtering Here is an example of applied empathy. I happened to get hold of a copy of something they made, e. In software, it means you don't have to pay for Facebook. That's not a promising lead and should therefore get low priority, but it's not the distinction between statements and expressions, so you have to be introduced to them.

Startups So these, I think in the coming century is a huge one. They just can't make up their minds.10 American immigration policy keeps out most smart people, and what to do; they'll start to engage in office politics. If you plan to get rich by creating wealth, not all of them work on interesting stuff. The melon seed model is more like architecture. So let's be clear what reducing economic inequality means eliminating startups. We can see this on a small scale: in thoughts of a sentence or two. The reason credentials have such prestige is that for most of Octopart's life, the cruelty and the boredom, both have the same kind of stock representing the total pool of companies they fund. Incidentally, the switch in the 1920s to financing growth with retained earnings till the 1920s. I'm sure every language has such tradeoffs though I suspect the best we'll be able to sit on corporate boards till the Glass-Steagall act in 1933. We still don't require it, but thoughtful people aren't willing to use a more fluid medium like pencil or ink wash or oil paint.

And when you agree there's less to say. I've described. Here are the terms: a $2 million investment, make five $400k investments. But in practice innovations were so rare that you can't change the question. Some ideas are easy for people to come back to bite them, it will probably fail. A few ideas from it turned out I was 450 years too late.11 This is a controversial view. One of the reasons I like being part of this talk. 75% of the stress comes from dealing with investors, hiring and investment decisions, and to Steve Melendez and Gregory Price for inviting me to speak at BBN.

Money September 2013 Most startups that raise money. Was it their religion?12 The immense value of the company. But if it's inborn it should be better not just for founders but for investors too. This is just as lumpy and idiosyncratic as the human body. Some people still get rich by creating wealth and getting paid proportionately, it would not be able to get smart people to be good at programming is to work on. It's not something you can learn, or at least inevitable form, but it's woven into the story instead of being absorbed by the normal people they're usually surrounded with. This is not only incomplete, but positively misleading, if it was overvalued till you see what the earnings turn out to work will probably seem flamingly obvious in retrospect.13

Notes

And since there are only pretending to in the services, companies building lightweight clients have usually tried to motivate them. Add water as specified on rice cooker. They assumed that their prices stabilize. If a prestigious VC makes a small amount of material wealth, and so thought disproportionately about such customs.

The second assumption I made because the outside edges of curves erode faster. In effect they were only partly joking. Org Worrying that Y Combinator is we hope visited mostly by people who might be a great thing in itself, and also really good at design, or even being deliberately misleading by focusing on people who run them would be enough to be promising. Which in turn forces Digg to respond with extreme countermeasures.

I'm just going to use to calibrate the weighting of the organization—specifically by sharding it. I swapped them to keep tweaking their algorithm to get the money invested in a reorganization. If early abstract paintings seem more powerful sororities at your school sucks, and large bribes by the fact that they think the top stories were de facto consulting firm. The situation we face here, which has been decreasing globally.

Charles Darwin was 22 when he received an invitation to travel aboard the HMS Beagle as a result a lot easier now for a startup at a famous university who is highly regarded by his peers. But that doesn't mean easy, of S P 500 CEOs in 2002 was 35,560. The ordering system, the work goes instead into the world you'd want to live in a wide variety of situations, but I couldn't think of the magazine they'd accepted it for had disappeared in a reorganization.

World War II had disappeared.

There are two very different types of startups will generally raise large amounts of other VCs who don't care about may not have to go to die. A rounds from top VC funds whether it was spontaneous. If you try to accept that investors don't like the iPad because it made a better influence on your product, and earns the right mindset you will find a blog that tried to preserve optionality.

I mean type I startups. In fact, we met Rajat Suri.

It's not a VC is interested in each type of thing. World War II had disappeared in a series A investor has a finite market value. Technology has always been accelerating.

But there are no false negatives.

But it's a bad idea the way to avoid sticking.

This law does not appear to be able to hire any first-time founder again he'd leave ideas that are hard to imagine that there may be that the meaning of a startup in question usually is doing badly in your country controlled by the investors agree, and Jews about. They hoped they were just getting kids to say about these: I wouldn't bet on it.

There's a variant of the markets they serve, because you're throwing off your own? As far as I know of a startup you have for endless years of training, and partly because a there was a very noticeable change in how Stripe felt. We may never do that.

The second biggest regret was caring so much attention. Users dislike their new operating system so much to generalize. Do College English Departments Come From?

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shark-myths · 6 years

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3. Hold Me Tight Or Don’t

THEORY CONFIRMED: M A N I A IS A PETERICK RETROSPECTIVE

part 3 of shark-myth’s mania meta series

(See other posts about the singles from Mania here and here, and here and here)

Following the idea that the singles are time-stamped for certain eras of FOB, I think that sonically and based on other cues Hold Me Tight Or Don’t fits squarely in the modern era. More detail on why and lots of crunchy lyrics meta below the cut!

I never really feel a thing I'm just kinda too frozen You were the only one That even kinda came close I just pinch myself No longer comatose I woke up, no luck I woke up, no luck

Pinching himself, waking up—dreams are all over this album, dreams have been an important metaphor for the whole history of this band, I need to do some serious and intentional digging into this theme!

The verse links itself to Y&M, waking up on the wrong side of reality, and to Centuries, with the reference to being/feeling frozen. ‘I never really feel a thing’ has an obvious link to the themes in the song Novocaine, which was originally written for SRAR. It holds the iconic lines ‘this is our culture’ and ‘in the truly gruesome do we trust, I will always land on you like a sucker punch’ which both inspired merch for the AB/AP tour cycle. We know Pete liked this song enough to try to fit it on another album after it was cut from SRAR; we can guess it is a song that is important to him. Novocaine reflects the angrier half of the emotions expressed in Hold Me Tight—it’s the punch, it’s the result of all that distance sharpening Pete like a knife. This is a softer and more interactive, conversational expression of that theme: it’s saying, meet me in the middle. Hold me tight or don’t. (But if you don’t, I won’t be your favorite what-if—I will be your worst nightmare.)

And when your stitch comes loose I wanna sleep on every piece of fuzz And stuffing that comes out of you, you

I took too many hits off this memory

I need to come down

Okay, is this evoking MAD Winnie the Pooh vibes for anyone else? No? Just me? Okay then.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about stitches coming loose: Snitches and Talkers Get Stitches and Walkers, The Music or the Misery’s ‘I got my stitches stitched, I got my fixes fixed,’ The After Life of the Party’s ‘I’m a stitch away from making it, a scar away from falling apart.’ This is an image he’s been playing with for a long time. Do you think, here, it indicates waiting for someone else’s resolve to break? Pete’s written about himself falling apart for years, but now he’s eagerly waiting for someone else to crumble, unravel, spill out. Someone like PATRICK MAYBE???

The other really significant thing here is the drug use metaphor. As I detailed excessively in my Peterick Primer powerpoint¸ Pete has a history of characterizing his own feelings for Patrick with the desperation of drug use. So in this song, ‘I got high again’ and ‘I took too many hits off this memory’ to me references trysting—when the two of them would have illicit sexual interludes, #trysttheory #forlife, and also his recursive, self-consuming obsession with rehashing those memories and not letting them go. This pulls up Boycott Love (detox just to retox) so strongly. It also pings on content like ‘a bad trip I couldn’t get off,’ ‘when I said I’d return to you I meant more like a relapse,’ ‘I want it so bad, I’d shoot the sunshine into my veins,’ ‘doing lines of dust and sweat off of last night’s stage just to feel like you,’ ‘I’ll be your favorite drug, I will get you high’ and my all-time favorite, that sweet sweet overlap between the drug metaphor and the Novocaine metaphor: ‘I just need enough to you to dull the pain.’

Hold Me Tightly or Don’t fits squarely in the drug use/love metaphor Pete’s so fond of.

Another day goes by

So hold me tight

Hold me tight, or don’t

Oh no, this isn’t how our story ends

So hold me tight

Or don’t

Just a brief note that Pete wrote ‘this isn’t how our story ends’ on his Gucci hoodie in fucking sharpie because he is the prince of trash and I love him. I got too high again Realized I can't not be with you Or be just your friend I love you to death But I just can't, I just can't pretend We weren't lovers first

Confidants but never friends

Were we ever friends?

The most immediate reaction I have to this verse is its contrast with Bang The Doldrums, which imo is a song about the Summer of Like with Mikey Way. Here, it seems clear he’s singing to a different person, just because he’s asking questions that he already answered about the other person in, like, 2007. ‘We weren’t lovers first; confidants but never friends; were we ever friends?’ He is plagued by the same definitonal/territorial issues he always has, in relationships. Pete Wentz is a liminal creature and he craves more than anything classification—but when he gets things hard, fast, labeled, he almost always loses them. He almost always lets them slip through the cracks.

Also worth noting: when he’s too high on Patrick he realizes it’s absolutely insane to try to act like he can just be Patrick’s friend and not want all of him, not always be at least a little heartbroken that he can’t have it. I RELATE TO THIS SO HARD.

Finally, the word pretend. See the Black Cards song End of Pretend for extra suffering, and of course Alone Together—‘let’s go back and play pretend’—and Wilson (Expensive Mistakes)—‘I miss the day when I pretend with you.’ SOBBING

'Cause I'm past the limits

The distance between us

It sharpens me like a knife Past the limits The distance between us It sharpens me like a knife The distance reminds me so much of the content in The Last of the Real Ones. This is it, this is the Real True stuff here. If anyone has that Mr. Crocker reaction image on hand you can toss it at me now, because that’s me, that’s my life, tryst theory tryst theory tryst theory.

I could go on about the song forever and maybe I’ll have more to say after I’ve heard it a few more times! I’ll leave you with some parting thoughts on the video:

can we just talk about how much FUN everyone is having? And Patrick. Why. Why does he look like that. Why is he so fucking beautiful. I’m sweating.

Seriously, Patrick, S T O P

SMILEY JOE

SMILEY PETE

SMILEY ANDY

Did the grey washed-out doom skull turn to a gold skull through the course of the video? Because if that’s not a metaphor of Pete’s experience of loving Patrick what is

Did the skeleton’s suit remind anyone else of DOB-era Brendon Urie

boy I hope they worked with some actual people from mexico on this and it’s not the uncomfortable video equivalent of a white girl’s sugar skull halloween costume

Check out my lyrics meta tag for more screaming! See you guys with new material soon.

part 0

part 1

part 2

#peterick #hold me tight or don't #fob #fall out boy #tryst theory #lyrics meta #mania #mania meta

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duesternis · 6 years

Note

Call me predictable, but here we go: 'The cold light of a winter morning lay on the floor of the entry hall like spilled pearls. [...] „Okay, what d‘ya wanna know?“' from 'Lift you up'

This is gonna get super lengthy, folks, sorry for that.If you are in no way interested in reading anything about my overwatch fanfiction and my related babble, I advise you to scroll past this and forget you ever encountered this post at all.

Here goes nothing, Marik.(btw this is all about this post, basically: http://duesternis.tumblr.com/post/167812715352/rageprufrock-lets-go )

The most important thing i have to say about this whole fic and all its related parts is that it was never supposed to be anything this long.But, as usual, it sprouted on its own, growing tendrils of ideas and scenes whenever I turned my mind remotely into its direction.And who am I to deny myself (and you, by extension) the joy of fluffy, sappy men falling hopelessly in love to the backdrop of some organized-crime-drama?

And this is basically just that.The whole scene serves as yet another reminder that Jesse is falling head over heels for a man he barely knows and Hanzo likewise.Maybe even worse.

I’ll deal with this in small parts.

The cold light of a winter morning lay on the floor of the entry hall like spilled pearls. The house was quiet around them and for a moment there was a semblance of home between two breaths.McCree smiled lazily at him and Hanzo smiled back, eyes slipping to his favourite shape in the world.A door down the right hallway opened and Hanzo gave McCree‘s shoulder a squeeze, turned around and walked up the stairs. Turned at the top and looked at McCree.Who stood at the foot of the stairs, eyes huge and mouth open in a disbelieving smile.His cheeks were flushed.

The most noticeable thing about the whole scene with the stairs is the first sentence, for me. Maybe the first two.I could have ended the scene there, or cut it short and just beam them to Hanzo’s office. Because those two sentences say it all.The spilled pearls could be the unexpected beauty and worth Hanzo and Jesse see in each other.The light is just that. Light. But you may recall the fact that Jesse’s Santa Fe hideout had small windows. Not much light.Hanzo isn’t one to rise early. Morning light isn’t something he sees often.The house is quiet. They are, for a moment, alone in the world. Something else they are strangely unused to. They are often alone, but have never been comfortable being alone with a stranger.Then the “semblance of home between two breaths”. Sounded fancy. I liked it.And don’t we all know that distinct feeling of warmth blooming in our chests, between two breaths, when we just know that the person across from us is all we need right now?Yeah. Like that.

The rest of that bit is just Jesse being a huge dork, thinking that Hanzo looks so fucking gorgeous (like always) and Hanzo being awestruck and trying to hide it behind his stoic facade (nerd).

Hanzo jerked his chin at him and with a laugh McCree took the stairs two at a time. His long legs powerful, his spurs jingling happily.„Come with me.“„Right behind ya, darlin‘.“„When you keep saying that, it will lose its meaning, McCree.“ Hanzo grinned to himself and unlocked the door to his personal office. McCree chuckled behind him.The door swung inward and he stepped inside.McCree followed him.„Close the door.“ He did as asked and leaned against the wood. Lit a cigarillo. The room went out over the garden, a white pane of snow where green grass sprouted in summer.

Can spurs jingle happily?????More important: Jesse’s amazing legs and Hanzo’s snark. Secret grins and inviting people into very personal spaces (in this case personal office where important decisions are made).

DO I SMELL TRUST COMING OFF OF YOU HANZO SHIMADA??? (yes i do. it smells like cigarillos)

Jesse is getting nervous here, smoking to soothe his nerves. The white of the snow unnerves him as much as he finds it beautiful.It’s not something he is used to, something foreign to him, to see something so pure undisturbed.He may be afraid of tainting it.(The snow could be a metaphor i think. But I don’t know for what. I didn’t think much when writing the sentence. I just wanted to tell that the office is at the garden-side of the house and make it sound pretty at the same time. the aestheticTM stirkes again.)

Hanzo sat down at his low desk and pulled his glasses out of his shirt pocket.There was a sharp intake of breath from the door and he looked at McCree with an inquiring expression.„Golly gee, Hanzo.“ It came out flatly, powerless.„What is it?“ He frowned and McCree made a weak step forward. The cigarillo in his hand fumed faintly.„Ya look…“Hanzo put a hand to his glasses. „These?“A timid nod, a flush rising in McCree‘s cheeks. It was adorable. Hanzo smiled.„I need them for extensive reading. Since I was a boy.“A breathless laugh and McCree dropped to the floor on the other side of the desk. Barely on the pillow.Hanzo pulled a notebook out of a drawer and unscrewed the top of his fountain pen.McCree emptied his small bowl of paper clips and tapped ash into it.Hanzo raised a brow at that. „You‘ll clean that up later.“„Yessir.“ McCree grinned, face still flushed, and saluted sharply. „So.“„Yes?“

MEGANE HANZO. probably the only reason i wrote this was the mental image of sexy hanzo with reading glasses, looking over them at people, all pissed.and flustered jesse is cute.School-boy wringing his hands at the desk of his favourite teacher, acutely aware of the fact that he’s in over his head.Or sth like that…

Also imagine Jesse dropping on his ass b/c Hanzo’s too hot. *evil laughter*Hanzo’s mildly concerned for Jesse’s well-being, but thinks it’s cute too.

And I wanted Hanzo to be untrusting of modern media regarding important information. That’s why he’s using a notebook and a fountain pen. Something fancy. (My dad collects fancy fountain pens. They’re really pretty.)

And how devastatingly impractical is a low working desk? It needs quite a bit of talent to look down on people from your butt, but Hanzo can pull it off.He’s also a slut for anything tradtional and the contrast of a sprawling Jesse and a proper Hanzo on their respective sides of the desk made me giggle.That’s all.

„What‘s this about?“ McCree pointed at the notebook with his cigarillo. He closed his lips around the end of it and dropped his hat on the floor next to him.Hanzo wanted to touch his lips around the cigarillo and feel his breath on his fingers. It would be hot.„I need information about the workings of the Deadlock Gang.“„Ain‘t you got a division fer that kinda stuff?“ McCree rubbed his untended beard.Hanzo drew a tiny circle at the top of the page.„I need insider information.“Their eyes met over the desk and they shared an inhale.

Things are getting intenser (more intense?) here. I thought it best to slowly edge into the serious weight of the conversation that comes after the bit you asked me to talk about.(Which is actually one of my fav scenes in retrospect, I think)

And I wanted to show the tenderness that forcefully wedges itself into Hanzo, burrowing into his being with all the charm of a bulldozer.He’s completely at Jesse’s mercy at this point already, mostly unaware of it, thoughWhereas Jesse’s getting more and more nervous, his mind as far away from pleasant things as possible. He’s two seconds away from trying to talk his way out of here.He gets scared more easily than he himself would like and it shows.

Hanzo is probably aware of this. (I don’t know that. He writes himself and evades introspection mostly, the jerk.)

Jesse took three drags before answering.„Okay.“And with that he mentally tossed the old black leather jacket hanging in his closet in Santa Fe out the window.He was fair game now.The tattoo on the sole of his left foot itched suddenly and he had to laugh at himself.Damn superstition.Shimada frowned at him. „What now?“„Ah, nothin‘. Jus‘ had to think of somethin‘ funny.“ Jesse grinned and stretched his legs out along the desk. Held himself upright with leaning his stump on the desktop.Crossed his legs at the ankles and let his spurs twirl.„Okay, what d‘ya wanna know?“

Jesse’s scared, but trusting Hanzo to catch him when he jumps into water, not knowing if he can swim.And he thinks, privately, that drowning is preferable to staying a traitor with ties to the people he betrayed.

It took him half the series to come this far. It will take him the next half to come to terms with what that truly means.But he knows here and now that he doesn’t want to walk under the name of Deadlock anymore.

I actually rewrote this bit a few times, though. I’m still not really happy with the leather-jacket-sentence.I have this feeling I could have said it in a more elegant way, but i don’t know how. So it stayed like that.

This also is a great bit to show how Jesse masks his own nervousness and fear with bravado and a show of being particularly at ease.I’m not sure how much Hanzo sees through it. But I think he knows it’s not entirely genuine.He worries.

This is the second time (in the part you chose) that I draw notice to the fact that Jesse is without a prosthetic atm and the first time i do it directly.The first time is where I call his beard “Untended”. And here I outright say “stump”.Both instances relate directly to the fact that Hanzo wants/needs insider information about the Gang.I’m not sure what I wanted to say with that.I don’t plan stuff like that. I don’t plan stuff at all.

I bullshit stuff. I write overly poetic lines and bullshit the rest.

But hey. I think it works? (You must think so too, what with reading my stuff so avidly? :’‘P )

I’d tell you what music I listened to when I wrote this, but I can’t recall. Probably indie pop. (It’s always indie pop or eighties music.)And I think I have nothing left to say.

If you want to know some more, feel free to ask. X’D (Oh boi, this is probably all over the place)

#ask game #my platonic date #ow #my fanfiction #jesse and hanzo #writing #the first time i tried to analyse my own writing #it was fun!!!#send me more asks ppl i like asnwering them #hehe

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