I am gonna make Wu and Garmadon so morally questionable in the demon's wish au aren't I.

Savannah Squad Presentation Night Headcanons/Drabble [2/3]

it has been forever :'D (everyone say thank you to @moonbiine)

ANYWAYS, here's part 2 :}

Part 1: Taylor & Logan Part 2: Ben & Tyler Part 3: Aiden & Ashlyn [WIP]

Logan's POV

Two hours and twenty-eight minutes. It has been two hours and twenty-eight minutes and we've been stuck at 76% complete for forty minutes. Whoever made Windows deserves to burn and I stand by that, cause what do you mean that they can push an update and force restart my laptop.

"Logan when was the last time you updated this?" "Logan, why are there fifteen updates that need to be downloaded?" "Bro, when was the last time you actually shut down your laptop?" ... "I've been busy, okay--"

So it might be my fault. Partially. I will admit that much, but the laptop's never given me a problem before and it was running fine. It's just old, and has a few odd... kinks? I mean, the left half of the mousepad is jammed to the point where it can't click, and, sure, the screen does go black every now and again, but just hit it a few times it works! It's character, charm even (and I can't be bothered to fix it...)!

It was, honest to God, easier for Aiden to run back to his place and grab his laptop.

"So we agree that Logan is off electronic duty right?" Taylor had asked as Ben was setting up the other computer to the television screen with Aiden helping. It was a unanimous decision. Ben and Aiden are the new tech guys.

"Yeah, that's probably for the better," I had conceded.

Ben Clarke

Ben goes next because he saved the groups sanity by suggesting that Aiden just gets his laptop. Everyone, thank Ben for the night not failing.

To address the obvious, Ben has a text to speech app on his phone, which is connected to a speaker, that he uses to present. I will say that there is a sort of humor in this for two reasons. One, the voice can either be monotoned like a typical text-to-speech program with funny pronunciation errors, or two, it will sound like one of those videos on tiktok where an AI is reading a tumblr post about SuperBats or something and gets progressively more expressive as time goes on. Personally, I want to hear exasperated robot Ben voice explaining to Aiden why "Life is a Highway" on repeat can and will be considered a torture method.

Ben's music taste is GODLY. And he's more of a eclectic listener too so he has experience with a good amount of genres. This man does not bash other genres of music that he doesn't care for, he thinks its rude to the person he's talking to and to the artist.

Aiden is the exception to this rule^^

DESPISES having to subscribe to music platforms. What do you mean that you can't listen to a song on repeat without paying, what do you mean that you will interrupt his carefully crafted playlist with a recommended song that does not fit the vibe. This end up derailing his presentation couple times.

He has a set criteria that he judges on: length, vibes, transitions, and replayability. Good playlists should at minimum be an hour, have similar vibes/sound while still being unique, the transitions between songs shouldn't be jarring, and the playlist shouldn't be painful to listen to after a month.

Taylor and Ashlyn helped him judge everyone's playlists by acting as secondary perspectives. Taylor is more open to everyone's music tastes while Ashlyn scrutinizes them more. They pretty much just took a playlist that everyone listens to regularly, one that they made but listen to it every so often, and their liked songs.

I would also like everyone to remember that the series is set in 2016... they would have songs mostly from the 2000s-2010s with the exceptions of some 90s and 80s songs. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I'm just saying that I looked up 2010s hit songs and I'm filled with nostalgia.

Overall, Ben's criticisms and recommendations are genuinely thoughtful. Especially the recommendations. For each person, after critiquing their playlists, Ben made a slide of genres and artists that each person should check out to expand their tastes.

(I'll probably make a bit about what songs were on their playlist, idk tho)

Group Reaction (how they ranked in comparison to each other)

Personally, Tyler and Logan getting the best ratings because their playlists are very consistent in their vibes and are replayable. I also think that Ben's music taste fits the most with these two for some reason, so they got the most song recs out of everyone.

Ashlyn is third in the ranking. She has one or two that she listens to occasionally, and they're pretty short. They are absolute polar opposites though. One of the playlists is rock, since she canonically likes Paramore (if you don't, get well soon), and the other is classical music for her ballet performances.

Taylor is next. Her playlist isn't bad, its just... a bit everywhere. Like it starts pretty good, but you can tell that somewhere along the lines of creating this playlist she just added songs that she remembered that she likes. It mostly fits the same genre. Ben makes her a more organized playlist after the presentation.

Aiden is dead last. It's not because his music taste is shit. Aiden actually has a pretty good music taste. No. Its because he only listens to his liked songs on repeat like a monster. It is musical whiplash. You go from a movie theme song, to crying, to listening to white girl club music, to rock, to crying again, and then for some reason the Home Depot jingle???? The only playlists that he makes are for jokes really. Do you know the John Mulaney bit where he plays "What's New Pussycat?" 27 times. Yeah, that's Aiden.

Tyler Hernandez

Tyler's next, and, I'm letting you know now that he sprayed the fuck out of Aiden for interrupting. Yeah, Ash pulled them a part.

Motherfucker is so pleased with himself, like its honestly so funny. Aiden had him by the collar and Tyler was just fucking smiling. Taylor does throw her slipper at him for being rude, but he could honestly care less.

The slideshow itself is the most soulless thing ever made, man used the Blank Google Slides template and called it a day. Like one stock image on each slide, and its so pixelated. He probably did it like an hour ago. That's why his presentation is funny because he's just jabbing at Aiden over and over with a basic slideshow that you'd see someone pull out in a Spanish 1-2 class.

You know what? He probably had another presentation about what piercing he think would suit the group best, and just did this one out of spite cause Aiden was being loud. I take back my previous statement about him doing it an hour before getting to Logan's place, he did this on his PHONE WHEN THE LAPTOP WAS UPDATING!!!! Like Logan was taking a walk, Ben was trying to fix the computer, the girls went to make sandwiches, Aiden was running errands, and Tyler made this in an hour.

His presentation is based off a tier system where it gets more effective with each method. Methods 1-3 are pretty basic where its just stuff like duct taping his mouth shut, 4 and onwards just gets funny

I'll be completely honest, each way he put is wild, and it gets progressively more deranged as the presentation goes on. These one's my favorite

"Number 9: Dying You know, I thought this would be the best way, but the bastard got crushed by a ceiling and walked it off. I want you to try and convince me that Aiden wouldn't crawl out of hell just to ruin my day. " "Number 10: Put him in a room alone with Ashlyn's mom and dad *insert a picture of Aiden sitting not so comfortably in between Ashlyn's parents* I don't even think I need to say anything else, I mean, I will, but like... look at him"

This is honestly the shortest presentation of the night but so far it's the most chaotic (he will quickly lose this title).

Tyler went through two spray bottles, mainly for Aiden, but he did spray Taylor once or twice. She threw a shoe at him. It's only fair.

Groups Reaction

Aiden is standing to the side with a towel around himself because Logan said his grandparents would kill them for ruining their couch. He's not exactly pissed but he is kind of sulking. Honestly this just makes his presentation so much better for him.

You know how Tyler asked for suggestions in the beginning, Ben and Ashlyn give him genuine ideas. Mainly Ben, just out of good humor you know. And Tyler's taking notes.

Taylor is giggling, but she does feel a bit bad for Aiden. At some point she gives him a consolation sandwich to raise his spirits.

Logan, however, doesn't and he's just quietly enjoying the scene that's unfolding around him.

The end of these two presentations are by far more chaotic than the first two, and it feels like its only going to get worse from here(/pos). Because right now Aiden is fighting with Tyler, getting him soaked too, Taylor is filming them while Logan provides commentary, and Ashlyn is standing with Ben setting up the next powerpoint.

While it was initially decided that Aiden would go last, Ashlyn suggested that she and him switch. Mainly so that he can drip dry while presenting, and sit down when he's done.

Aiden is following a presentation that was just jabbing at him, how do you think his is going to end up now?

So if Superman is Moses and Captain America is David, do you think that Spider-Man is Job?

He's always miserable, with suffering piled upon suffering and loss piled upon loss. But he always has faith in the goodness of humanity and the righteousness of his duty. He maintains his faith throughout all of his trials, and that's what makes him a hero.

(I was thinking about how Judaism and Xianity see G-d differently, and more specifically how they see faith and obedience to G-d differently. In Judaism faith isn't about obedience, and G-d is often an allegory for the world just as the world is often an allegory for G-d — at least that's how I interpreted the fact that 90% of our prayers are thanking G-d for creating a specific aspect of material reality. So if the story of Job is, from a Jewish perspective, isn't about unwavering obedience to a single entity but instead about having unwavering faith in the goodness of the world, then it fits Peter Parker almost to a T, right?)

Wow ok I am SO pissed off that I wrote the answer to this for a full hour and now it's just fucking gone because Tumblr decided not to publish it when I hit post. What the very fuck. So I'm going to try to shorten what I wrote a little and hopefully it'll still make sense. But this is a great ask, for real.

Anyway. I feel like something that's been lost in my most popular posts is that my central thesis when it comes to the Jewish nature of superheroes is not that there's a 1:1 between every hero and a historical, mythological, or Tanakhi figure. The central thesis is, instead, that the very concept of heroism as presented in comics is tied to the Jews who created the genre; it's just very easy to demonstrate these kinds of concepts with direct allegories that have such clear parallels. I actually have a third secret parallel that'll probably never see the light of day, between Magneto and Aher (and like, does anybody even know who Aher is? he's not exactly a well known figure).

One of the reasons I haven't posted this comparison is that it is largely thematic, and therefore requires considerably more explanation, especially for goyim or those who aren't familiar with Aher's story (אלישע בן אבויה fyi if that means anything to y'all). But that's sort of my point - it's much easier to point that Superman is literally Moses and Cap and David serve very similar purposes as characters than to talk about the fact that superheroism is based in Jewish values and traditions: the very idea that heroes are meant to make the world better through action as opposed to sacrifice, the value assigned to every single life (he who saves one life etc), characters becoming better people over time rather than going through dedicated redemption arcs, etc (I can't remember what I wrote here and it's driving me nuts thank you very much for asking).

I gave a lot of context here to the difference between Golden Age and Silver Age writing here but honestly again that took forever and I don't feel like typing it all up, so I'll just point out the basic facts which are that the people creating the comic book industry in the late 30s and early 40s were desperate Jews trying to save their people across the ocean, and also were only about ten or twenty years removed from having lived in the Old Country themselves. Their life and culture was intensely Jewish, they'd grown up in specific Jewish tales. By the time we get to Spider-Man, the situation is entirely different. It's been 25 years of comics (Superman debuted in '38, Spider-Man in '63), and the Jewish foundations of comic books and heroism are already baked in to the genre. Yes, the industry is still overwhelmingly Jewish, but now the separation from a purely Jewish upbringing and Jewish separatism in the Old Country is forty years old. The attempt now is to specifically make stories that haven't already been told - for Spider-Man, the main concept was that there had never been a teen hero before who stood on his own - one that wasn't part of team like the fantastic four, or, more typically, a sidekick.

All these differences actually mean that the coding of these characters is very different. Superman being Moses was intentional; Cap was created as anti-Nazi propaganda. Spider-Man was and is Jewish because he is such a pure example of what Jewish heroism is. He's flawed, he's angry, but he can't help himself from trying to save... Well, everyone. It is, however, important to note that he debuted a long while before Magneto was confirmed Jewish (I don't actually know if he was the first, bc I'm having trouble finding that kind of info easily on the internet, but he's certainly one of the most notable Marvel Jews ever, and he was confirmed as a Holocaust survivor relatively early); it was a whole before Marvel realized you could make somewhat prominent characters Jewish, let alone heroes, and by then Spider-Man was one of their best selling characters, and they're still afraid to this day to alienate readers by confirming him as such.

But moving onto Job - I think I have a very different read of the Book of Job from you, but that's not surprising to me; the Book of Job is incredibly opaque, and I doubt that any two people will interpret it exactly the same. Also, I was raised Orthodox, and I often have very different perspectives on various Jewish things than the typical American Jew. Here's how I view it, though.

Firstly, Job absolutely does not maintain his faith throughout the entire story. Yes, initially he's presented as the most pure person ever, one who has never even been tempted to do a chet (חטא, closest translation is sin; another word would be aveira, which would best be translated as a transgression). And, indeed, it is not his deeds that lead to him losing everything; it is instead Satan who argues to test his faith by taking everything he holds dear away from his - his money, his cattle, his children, his health, his wife.

It's noteworthy, for any goyiche reader, that Satan in Judaism is not the Christian Devil who rules hell. He's an adversary, for sure, but he's more like an opposing counsel; his role is to argue for every human's guilt, especially when someone has committed a terrible aveirah. Forgive me for saying this, but he's essentially a devil's advocate. He can be viewed as the manifestation of yetzer hara on a wider scale (yetzer hara and yetzer hatov are the two natural impulses we all have in ourselves, the first to be selfish or to commit bad deeds and the other to commit good deeds and help others; this is a neutral fact rather than a condemnation of any person, and also I'm massively oversimplifying things here). Also, he's a tattle-tale.

Anyway, back to Job. Yes, at first he does maintain his faith, through the loss of his property, his children, even his health; his wife, before she dies, begs him to curse God, and yet he doesn't. But when she does die, he spends a chapter lamenting the day he was born, regretting that he wasn't stillborn. At first this doesn't look like a direct accusation at God, but it absolutely is, as God is in charge of life and death, but also evidence by the following:

So Job does lose his faith, because as far as he can tell, he has never done anything wrong in his life ever, and yet he has been cursed to grieve everything he has ever had, and he won't even die.

Most of the book is dedicated to dialogue between himself and three of his friends, who come to the common conclusion that he must have done something wrong to deserve this treatment. But Job remains adamant: I did not deserve this.

The general lesson that many people take from this book is that God works in mysterious ways, blah blah. But like... We know, in fact, exactly why this story happened. We saw it! We saw Satan advocate to try Job! So what's the point of the book?

The point is the Job keeps asking "why". The point is that Job hears that God won't forgive his friends, despite the fact they blame him for his misfortune, and he still chooses to pray for them. The point is that he refuses to take what has happened to him quietly. Not accepting that what happened to him was just, but not accepting others' injustice either.

Ugh. I phrased all of this way better in the first draft. I really truly hate this.

Anyway my point is that Job, despite being far richer than the average Jew by the standards of his time, actually is meant to represent a very common situation: what do you when bad things happen. Do you blame yourself, or do you blame God? Do you let other people beat you when you're down, or do you stand up for yourself?

And the thing is those themes are universal, but they're not really related to Peter Parker in particular. In the shallowest sense, the kind I used to compare Cap and David or Superman and Moses, they do not have similar stories or backgrounds. Job has everything, and he loses it all, and he mourns all of it, including the property and money; Peter Parker is working class, has never had enough money, but we see again and again that he views it as a tool rather than a goal in and of itself. Spider-Man's origin is about learning to battle your yetzer hara, your darkest impulses, and we see Peter again and again trying to do his best even though he's often being pulled by his instincts to use his power for selfish purposes. Job does not ever have to learn any such lesson; he never did anything wrong.

The one thing in common between the two stories is that they both believe that every life has value - well, if Peter is being written by a competent authors at least - with Job praying to save the men who are literally called the "resha'im", the evil ones, and with Peter being the little man's hero. But that can be said about most heroes, especially the notable ones. Hell, there's an entire double page spread dedicated to the concept in Batwoman: Elegy. This is more of another indication of Jewish values making their way into the foundations of superhero comics than it is a similarity between Job and Peter.

Also, I feel like I need to be clear. Our prayers thanking God for creating something? Traditionally are simply thanking God for creating something. I'm not saying you can't interpret it as a metaphor for the world if that's what works for you, if that's how you see God, but God was very literal to most Jews for thousands of years, and I could talk for ages and ages about the schools of thought regarding God and the world and Maimonides and shit.

Speaking of which, we need to discuss the fact that Job is literally just some guy. Like he's not a prophet, he's not a leader or a judge, he's just some rich dude who lost everything, mourned it, and then got it all back. I've talked about this before, but one of the foundational ideas of my thesis is that the similarity between prophets having powers (such as Samson but also really any judge being considered a higher authority despite not even communing directly with God) and superheroes invokes Maimonides' claim that the first degree of prophecy is the need to act for the better good, being unable to ignore the ills of the world and doing your best to fix them - that people who incapable of ignoring that urge (and Peter, despite his occasional selfishness, often prioritizes Spider-Man in his life specifically because of that urge) are possessed by the spirit of God. Literal prophecy, communing with God, cannot exist without this base level. So, in effect, Peter is significantly holier than Job.

Anyway. Again, I've definitely missed some points because of Tumblr's fuck up and I intentionally skipped most of the history lesson that gave a lot of context which I didn't feel like typing up again, but this is most of it. Sorry if this wasn't what you hoped for, but this was a really interesting thing to talk about anyway, and I'm very grateful you gave me the opportunity to think it over.

Women are at least equally as likely as men to initiate DV. 40% of victims in a DV study in America were men. Women are at least as likely as men to abuse their children and are the perpetrators in at least half of child maltreatment cases. Lesbian couples also have the highest rate of DV -- 44%, compared to 35% of straight women and 26% of gay men.

Lol it just so happens that I have my criticisms of most of these basically memorized because as always you have nothing to offer except for regurgitating the same braindead talking points MRAs have been using for years without bothering to think critically. I'm on the train so I have some time but just know that you are getting boring again, be careful or I'll stop throwing seeds into your enclosure when you bang the bars and I know when that happens you're going to try to kill yourself by taking your entire Cialis prescription at once

So this should be obvious but there are tens of thousands of small IPV studies with wildly varying rates of self reported abuse from both men and women, making them unreliable, and the 40% stat falls into this category. This is literally the definition of cherry picking. Why not cite one of the other small studies that comes to the conclusion that women are over 90% more likely to experience IPV than men? Survey based studies, especially those with a low sample size, are notoriously unreliable, hence the massive difference in results.

"At least equally likely to initiate" this one isn't even worth addressing because you provided no actual data that would allow me to identify the study you pulled this from (since you didn't bother to cite any sources as usual) + the language you use is opinion based. "At least" is a term no one with hard data needs to use. Sorry, I know MRAs don't question anything as long as it works with their confirmation bias but outside of your bubble of maladjusted male market failures you can't just say "Women Bad" and have people applaud you for your intelligence & wisdom. You have to back it up.

Women are far more likely to be the sole parents of children due to men abandoning their offspring so often. Adjusted for that (which is the only way to get reliable data, using maladjusted stats to make a claim like this in an academic setting would literally get even an undergrad laughed out of the room), men are in fact more likely to abuse their kids-and far more likely to sexually abuse them even /without/ adjusting the variables, which is alarming.

The "lesbians abuse more!!1!" bs is well known to be a limited & misleading "study" that no reasonable academic would ever cite due to it contradicting better studies that have much more reliable metrics. And you didn't describe it correctly, either-it's not a percentage of couples but rather a percentage of people who identify as lesbians, straight women, straight men (notice how you left them off your list, wonder why?), or gay men who have experienced IPV at some point in their lifetimes. Not each individual relationship. Which should be obvious lol lik or course almost half of lesbian couples don't beat each other, & neither do 2/3rds of straight couples (which would be required for both men and women to have a combined ~70% rate within each couple which is the way you are presenting this misinformation). Plus, many lesbians dated men as teenagers or young adults due to comphet so even if the stats were reliable, due to the nature of the questions used in the survey they're still potentially misleading bc the identity of the abusers is not specified, just the identity of the victims.

By FAR the most relevant source that we have when looking at population demographics of IPV are the crime stats for the most severe forms of abuse. It's the most reliable way to get this data as it's solely based on hard evidence, not just self reporting, and also it's the largest sample size you can possibly get by far-the entire population of the world. Men are almost TEN TIMES more likely to hospitalize or murder their partners as women are, and again that is the kind of data that is impossible to fabricate due to the scale of it. But sure, ignore that and keep citing poorly conducted studies based on low sample size self reported surveys, the weakest form of scientific "evidence".

Something else worth noting when talking about male violence against their female partners is that the number one cause of death for pregnant women is being murdered by the father of the child. It's more common than the top 3 most common obstetric causes combined, in addition to shadowing any other COD that is normally far more common than homicides among adults. But sure, feminists are just being hysterical when we talk about male violence, right? Let's just call women crazy and paranoid until they're murdered, then we'll call them stupid & say they should've been more careful about picking their men.

Anyways, I know that all of this probably went over your head because I used language the average eight grader would understand instead of language the average paleolithic toddler would understand, let me rephrase for the intellectually underprivileged: u wrong lol

Ao3 narrator/tyler fics recommations 🙏

First place goes to Unwritten by @tylerstesticles . She has not written fight club fanfic that I know of but if she did it would be the best thing ever and I'm saying this because it's true. Literally I am not lying to you. And also because I hope she does one day because I am a little parasite who gluts on the art she gives me

Anyway the rest of this isn't ranked or anything, it's all good. It is also nowhere near an exhaustive list, there's a lot of good fight club fanfic and I can't just list 90% of the ao3 tag

Hate it here by UriPara - I'm kind of obsessed with fics where they're in the psych ward. I like that this one continues with him being in denial about it all. I like the part about him building things in his garage.

the sequel to the fist is the teeth by spocklee - I really like the dynamic here, the narrator not being able to handle Tyler being nice; must be a trap. a very evil trap. it has great voice

The First Taste by Bowelm0vement - the homoerotic cannibalism we deserve! many fantastic lines in here. I like the narrator's italicized screed and the bit right before he bites him. Such energy.

brain parasites by grace_the_demon - another post- fight club fic, this time focusing on living beyond it... interesting premise and I'm really enthralled by the idea presented at the end. I think it's very in character

Something to Sleep To by Jaden56 - psych ward, appropriately gross for them.

Placebo by spam_eml - explores that inbetween space where the narrator knows and doesn't want to

Valley of the Dogs by PaxVobis - very interesting because there's this sort of desperation to Tyler. and the narrator both knows he has the power here but also is still scared enough to fight with Tyler and stay up for 5 days straight

pretty much everything for (check the gifts page) and by PaintedVanilla. Some great long fics with interesting and solid characterization especially for those who like a real boy Tyler. frankly I assume most people have read those and the Recidivism series by snottys which is also very good

Clothes Make the Man by lemon_teacake - I like when they're sweet on each other but I also like when Tyler is absolutely dogshit to the narrator. For that reason, most things by lemon_teacake. I just really love a nasty dynamic lmao I love when these fucks are rancid

and also because I have no shame, my own fic lol

I could keep going but like I said, can't rec the entire tag haha

Hi! Long time no yap but I've been really bothered by this thing and I know you're just the person I can go to with this (even if we don't always end up agreeing at times).

I got into a tiff with someone in a comments section of a post that was about Amy (Which character do you think deserved to become a villain? or something similar). They brought up Amy's abuse of her boyfriend. I may have tried to defend Amy (key word is tried. I am officially rubbish at debating) but then I may have said something? Because they said that I (and apparently a lot of other fans) was excusing Amy's abuse because of her trauma. It got me stumped because isn't young Amy's treatment of Rory rooted in her trauma? Did I miss the memo where we separate trauma and abuse? Am I missing something?

That statement bothered me a lot because if there's one thing I never want to do it's defend an abuser. So here I am, humbly asking and hoping to clear the muddy waters.

Your really confused and disturbed moot, Tia 💌

TIA!!!!! Thanks for the ask 💌 , and I send you all the hugs.

Discussion of abuse, trauma, ableism, infidelity, and unhealthy relationship dynamics beneath the cut.

(First off… while I really appreciate your faith in my explaining skills <3 <3 <3 my passion for traumatized characters and mentally ill+neurodivergent rights doesn't make me especially qualified to fully clear muddy waters especially not knowing the full context, but I feel you, and what follows is my informed perspective!)

Speaking generally first, harm done in media is best examined by the impact on the audience, with a different lens than harm done to real people. While relatable experiences in media can be useful and validating and incredibly important, you can’t be “defending an abuser” when the abuse is fictional. It's actually normal for traumatized/ND/mentally ill people to project onto mentally ill villains, when villains are the only significant representation for those stigmatized symptoms in a media landscape that excludes and demonizes us simply for existing. RTD can't stop people who hallucinate from reclaiming the Master's Drums and projecting onto the Master, for example — 90% of the best Doctor Who psychosis fic by psychotic authors is about the Master, whether RTD likes it or not. It's not true crime.

(This is speaking generally. Amy Pond is very much not the Master.)

Abuse is a behavior, and there can be many reasons for it, but reasons based in trauma don’t make it not abuse (some forms of generational trauma can propagate abusive parenting styles, when the parent thinks abusive parenting is normal, or lives entirely vicariously through their child). This absolutely should not be taken to mean trauma correlates with abusive behavior; rather that abusive behaviors from traumatized people are more likely to present in specific ways.

Abuse is also a targeted behavior, based in control — not consistently displayed C-PTSD symptoms as seen in Season 5 Amy Pond through many aspects of her life. Mental health symptoms don't become abuse just because they hinder one partner from meeting the other partner's needs. Any life event can do that.

Without knowing the context of the arguments, this is the aspect of their relationship I've seen you talk about before (which I also feel strongly about), and what I assume is what you were debating? So, here I will talk specifically in regard to Season 5.

We all know Amy — she's never attached to Leadworth because she never wanted to leave Scotland, no steady therapist because none of them stick up for her, can't stick with one job yet her first choice is a job that simulates intimacy because her avoidant behavior (a known trauma response) isn't sustainable to her wellbeing. Rory knows her fears of commitment stem from her repeated abandonments, it’s why he’ll always wait for her, and it's why he blames the Doctor “You make it so they don't want to let you down.”, who apart from having caused a lot of her trauma, has actively taken advantage of her being the “Scottish girl in the English village” who's “still got that accent,” because he wants to feel important, so yeah, I think interpreting Amy's issues (and how Amy and Rory transverse them) as Amy abusing Rory indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of their relationship, as well as a misunderstanding of the (raggedy) Doctor’s role in Amy’s formative self-image (which of course she works through in Season 6, but I am sticking to Season 5).

Abuse is always based in control. That just doesn’t fit here. While Amy's detachment from her real life includes things like calling Rory her “kind of boyfriend” (which she is upfront about to his face; differing commitment levels isn't abuse, though it can be a relationship red flag for both parties IRL) — her Season 5 disregard of Rory’s feelings occurs only in response to the fairytale embodiment of her trauma. It's never a response to Rory; it's a response to the Doctor, who stole her childhood and led her by the hand to her death. She cheats on Rory with the Doctor in her bedroom full of Doctor toys, drawings, models, she made from childhood to early adulthood.

(And yes, like many repeatedly-traumatized people, Amy is prone to being sensitive and reactive. Take her “Well, shut up then!” line in The Big Bang; but given Rory responds to this by hugging her, clearly he doesn’t take it as her actually dismissing him. He knows her better than that.)

And by no means do I meant to imply this is fair to young Rory, poor Rory, who's left struggling with the feeling that his role in her life is in competition with the role of her trauma (aka the Doctor). But not every unhealthy relationship dynamic is unhealthy because of abuse. Labelling Amy's treatment of Rory in Season 5 more accurately isn't the same as excusing her harmful choices — but making mistakes is part of being human, Amy's mistakes are certainly understandable, and she works through them out of love for Rory.

If there's one thing to say about Moffat women, it's that Moffat allows his female characters the same grace that the male characters *coughTENcough* have always had, to hurt and struggle and make realistic mistakes and overcome those mistakes and to heal without being demonized.

Amy isn't perfect, but she is a fully realized character, and her story gives us a resonant depiction of childhood trauma.

Hello Dutch! Do you think the loss of mystery and less impact on certain scenes in the narrative was caused by long-term fanservice?

Yes and no. I certainly think it was a factor, but I don't think it was the biggest one. If I had to guess, and since I am not a mind reader a guess is the best I can do, I think the biggest reason is the necessary change of the pacing of the game. In remake the developers made the (in my opinion) mistake of constantly showing Sephiroth, almost from the start of the game even. The decision to do this was based on three main factors I think. 1: "In the OG the first time you see Sephiroth is in Kalm, however, that is only a few hours into the game. If we did the same with the Remake we wouldn't see Sephiroth until game 2 and we can't have an entire FFVII game without Sephiroth." 2: "People already know Sephiroth, so the mystery is gone anyway, so it doesn't make sense to treat his appearance as one when everyone already knows him". 3: "People love Sephiroth so lets give them a bunch of Sephiroth!!!".

I personally think all of these are flawed. For one people are capable of influencing their mind state to resemble someone who is watching something for the first time. It's not exactly the same, but close enough, there is a reason people can watch the same thing over and over again and get similar responses on repeat viewings. When people love a story they are willing to watch things as though it were the first time. They can feel mystery and suspense even though they know the answer. I also think that there is enough happening in FFVII that you can keep the player occupied while playing a long game when it comes to mystery. If anything I think that the extra time to let mystery build could be used to enhance the experience, rather than making it feel drawn out. Especially in remake I think Shinra was MORE than good enough to qualify as the main villain for the story segment, and I think Sephiroth being only "a shadow on the edge of memory" for 90% of the game would make his unseen appearance in shinra HQ all the more terrifying. And ofcourse the reason people love Sephiroth is how effective he is as a villain, and part of that is the mystique. If you give people more Sephiroth you are actually giving them LESS Sephiroth, because Sephiroth isn't just the man, it's the idea, the presentation, and that presentation requires restraint in implementation.

My suspicion is that the mystery surrounding Clouds condition was approached very similarly. They figured they had the new mystery surrounding the "parallel worlds" as an overarching mystery and since people already know whats going on with Cloud that mystery could essentially be spoken about more openly. But this suffers from the same problems I mentioned above. I can totally watch FFVII as though I do not know the mystery, and experiencing said mystery was what I was looking forward to most. To me it's the best part of FFVII, and without it I barely even consider it a remake. And yes, I think fan-service did play a part. One of the things you hear most often when discussing the LTD is the retort that FFVII is not a romance story and that we're too focused on something that FFVII just isn't about, and while I disagree with that assessment, since romance ABSOLUTELY is a massive and crucial element to the story, I do agree that the romance is, for the most part, something that is in the background, it is the underlying backdrop that is required to understand the characters and their actions. But the focus is still on the actions themselves, as well as feelings and events that the romantic backdrop have caused, namely Clouds alter ego and accompanying mental problems. However, in rebirth the romance is NOT the backdrop, it's the focus of a large part of the game. Hell, the main play loop of the game revolves around you getting the party members to like you. And while it is true that this also involves, for instance, Barret and Nanaki, I think it's pretty clear that this entire core aspect of the game was implemented mostly as a way to explore romance in the game and satisfy fan desires. The question is, did that impact the mystery? And yes, I think it did. For one, everything related to Aerith and Zack in chapter 14 is PURE fan-service bait. The entire "can we save Aerith" plotline was fan-service bait from the start. And both these things, on account of both not being well handled, and overshadowing the actual mystery of FFVII, have a negative impact on how well rebirth is able to tell the story of the OG. Not only that, but SE tried to avoid burning bridges by not being clear with their story in regards to Aerith. I've heard people say that SE was wishy washy when it comes to choosing between Tifa and Aerith, they weren't, this game is about as pro-Cloti as it could be, Cloud and Tifa are a thing, if that weren't already obvious it's even more obvious in rebirth. No, the thing SE is being wishy washy about, is between Aerith and Aerith. Between the interpretation of Aerith loving Zack and simply using Cloud as a stand in, or Aerith as having "genuine" feelings. And the problem is that by trying to keep that a mystery they've made themselves incapable of properly examining either idea. There could have been deep meaningful scenes and conversations about how Aerith is still searching for the guy she lost. But they can't be that explicit without alienating fans, so they instead are vague, which results in a whole host of issues. But the most important issue for this question is that this approach creates an unfocused story, one that lacks clear direction. And a story without clear focus and direction will never be able to tell its mysteries in the most engaging and enthralling way. They want to show Zack, they want to discuss Zack, so they can't have Zack be a twist, but they also can't properly discuss Zack since that would be too explicit and so they half-ass it. They want to imply that Aerith is looking for Zack in Cloud, but they don't want to burn bridges, so they also want to hold open the possibility that Aerith actually likes Cloud for Cloud, and by doing all this nonsense you're creating a teenage love drama where you could have had a meaningful story about two people helping each other where the scenes could be directed to maximize the effectiveness of the mystery of Zack, rather than playing into a "I love him, I love him not" soap opera that got boring 27 years ago.

Music is a thing in the music industry and so I would like to talk about music,

Why Plunderphonic Concept Albums Should Be a Bigger Thing, Actually.

Plunderphonics is such a fascinating genre to me. There is so much potential in taking pieces from other peoples' work and using those pieces to orchestrate a new work entirely. Not just that, but taking those pieces and crafting a new story out of them aurally, like a concept album or a sound collage, something of the sort.

When I say that, the first example that comes to people's minds when it comes to sample-based concept albums, it's most likely Everywhere at the End of Time by The Caretaker. If you don't already know, Leyland Kirby produced a monolithic 6-part saga of albums that ran from 2016 to 2019, each part representing a different stage of Alzheimer's disease & dementia and each part taking from super old traditional pop & jazz records and warping them to some degree until the very end where they're no longer intelligible. It's an absolutely staggering work of art and it blew up in the years since its conclusion to stunned reactions.

But to me, there's a lot more do delve into than creating haunting ambient pieces like this. Not to knock The Caretaker at all, I think it's amazing that this even happened, but it's nothing that I would personally want to listen to regularly, unless I wanna feel spooked by putting on Stage 3, but even then, look me in the eye and tell me you would listen to that kind of thing in the background on a casual setting.

Another artist that kind of fails in this regard is also one of the most important & genre-defining plunderphonics acts. Negativland are an infamous band in one of the best ways possible, using sample-based music to create some of the most biting pieces of satire in the late 80s and even 90s. I love it. They still don't have that replayability to me personally, but I still can't think of songs like Christianity is Stupid and Yellow Black & Rectangular from their Escape From Noise album without chucking a laughing fit.

Nowadays, plunderphonics music is so much easier to make than with the technology they had back then, so those albums are still miracles to me. Today, they're almost too easy to make. There are more plunderphonics albums in this past decade and a half than at any other point in history. To mention that, I need to talk about vaporwave again. They didn't start off as super detailed conceptual albums, but the way they have presented themselves over the years, you'd think they were conceptual by default.

Vektroid's pioneering albums in this genre are very potently indicative of the sounds, atmospheres and even worlds that they were not only capturing, but deeply exuding in their mere presence. You listen to Floral Shoppe under her Macintosh Plus alias and you are immediately taken somewhere else. It's completely atmospheric in that there's an ambience to the music that's playing and how they're twisted to warp you into its reality.

I know I've knocked The Caretaker's music for being too ambient, but there's a musicality in the way that Vektroid distorts her samples that still keeps them wildly enjoyable to me. I've especially been tuning into her New Dreams Ltd. project's Initiation Tape: Isle of Avalon Edition a lot recently for this exact reason. I almost so desperately want a visual accompanyment, I want to be in that lonely hotel room in the middle of the night with only this music & my feeling.

I could talk all day & every day about vaporwave albums that capture me and lift me away with their potent atmospheres. Tuning into Vacant Places by Hantasi, which makes me float like a ghost across the halls of its incredibly haunted & dense yet empty shopping centre; or The Path to Lost Eden (ロストエデンへのパス) by Nmesh & telepath テレパシー能力者 whose individual sides take me to two different ends of a journey to a mystical rainforest paradise; or Into the Light by Infinity Frequencies if I ever want to see The Backrooms again.

I also want to add probably vaporwave's biggest leading act right now into the conversation, who were responsible for some of the genre's most enriching & creative concept albums. death's dynamic shroud.wmv is a supergroup who at a point in time were creating conceptual mixtapes non-stop in 2014, my personal favourite being SEAWRLDハートブレーク from their member Tech, but there are a ton of fan favourites across their discography to choose from.

They didn't stop there either. James & Keith put together the group's magnum opus in their essential I'll Try Living Like This the following year and after a while of slowing down, they've since kicked off the NUWRLD Mixtape Club with new albums almost every month, many of which are concept albums of multiple stripes! It's so impressive how much they've been able to put together as a group.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, because over the course of its existence, vaporwave as a genre has also grown to have albums sometimes simply be albums without the need for heavy concepts or even samples to speak of to deliver an atmosphere. But I want to talk about a certain artist who bridges between plunderphonics & vaporwave in ways that I think have loads of potential in unprecedented ways.

If you know me, you know I'm talking about christtt. He's one of the most experimental figures in the vaporwave genre and often the most polarising because of it. His 2016 album no lives matter* takes the simplest components of vaporwave and completely flips them on their head by delivering themes & concepts of death and the afterlife in hell. It's the minimal sample editing and yet potent atmospheres that are common in most vaporwave albums taken to some of their logical extremes.

Along with that, you have his 2018 album deep dark trench, another concept album that delivers in a completely unique way, taking from sound collage to deliver emotions about worldwide tragedies. Not to mention his side-project 아버지 (father2006) and its album reflection, another album about death that is far more ambient, simultaneously dissonant and yet emotionally devastating. These three are among my favourite albums of all time. They are so incredibly captivating, both sonically & conceptually that they make up my most replayed listens ever.

There is so much potential in the music that he's creating that so few people are taking from to create their own concept albums with these approaches to vaporwave & plunderphonics. Especially since the ones that I currently have in mind the most recently are also among the most flawed examples. To bring up christtt again, as much as his best material has some amount of contentious decisions put into them, his lower received material is even more debatable.

His most recent album last year A.D. is probably his most underrated? It combines many of the styles that he's experimented with in a concept album about the rapture. It mostly centers around the lone survivor, but there's also a suite of tracks titled hell that surround those in the afterlife, which caught many people off guard. Even worse is social justice whatever from 2017, what I see as a love letter to the early ages of the internet paired with subtle sombre & bittersweet moments, most other people see as a compilation of chopped together memes & shitposts, understandably so.

But the biggest example to me of the unforeseen potential in music such as this is made not by him but one of his protégés. This year, a friend of mine RAWINTHEVOID put out their most recent concept album NOTINTHEMOOD, which tells the story of love at first sight turned into a sexual yet eventually bitter & spiteful relationship. There are some amazing tracks on this album that I highly recommend you sit through to find for yourself, but in my opinion, it also has some rough patches. I'm proud to say he's certainly found his edge ten albums in, but it needs some sharpening & polishing to say the least.

Conclusion? No. Concussion. 💥🔨

Overall, I hope this post serves as an inspiration for more albums like these to be made. Plunderphonic music these days is so easy to create, but it's also much more difficult to create great plunderphonic music and additionally, great plunderphonic concept albums. I would kill to see so many more albums like these coming out today. With the state of Bandcamp right now and how slowly the vaporwave scene itself has been progressing since 2017, it's easy to not have too much hope, but the potential I see is incredibly boundless and I implore anybody reading this who's interested in making music like this to get creative and go wild. The music world is your plundered oyster.

for the ask game: 1, 15 !

Thank you so much for asking!

Full Game is Here

🏠Where do you think they live?

Within my written stuff, I try to vary how they live for funsies. But if I had to pen it out logically:

I think initially (Post Heroes) Rouge intended to take Shadow home and get him some help, and ended up having to take Omega home because he was extremely low power after their adventure. They ended uo staying in her G.U.N. flat, which they were all eventually kicked out of for damage.

However, they don't all live together all the time. Shadow likes to wander, especially around the events of Shadow the Hedgehog he was hard to pin down, he spent a lot of time soul searching. Rouge came into posession of a flat over the club when she got it, and also has a few other properties she calls home like a beachhouse and a ski chalet. Omega most consistently has one home, because his replacement parts and chargers are specific and tricky to replace, and also they mosify them so he can fit. Omega's homes are usually considered Team Dark's HQ, because its where they store all their spare kit and sensitive stuff. Its armed to the teeth.

I do have a story about them building Shadow a home. I think he would like living remotely, in the mountains where the stars are the best. Omega alao struggles to live in normal society, but he quite enjoys the drama of it. Rouge would ideally live on a pile of gold like Gustave in SMTV, but she'll settle for a fancy penthouse somewhere hollywood-esque. So, they don't particularly stay together all the time, but at present they all go back to base quite regularly.

🎶Who has the aux cord most - what do they play?

This is coming up for me in Day 6s story, actually!

Rouge is the owner of the Aux Cord, so she commandeers it. She likes: 80s/90s pop; Jazz; Ballads; and secretly showtunes. She introduced Shadow and Omega to music, and has a fairly nice singing voice but is not very well trained. Once upon a time she played saxophone but is out od practice.

Shadow will only play the music he likes in very close company, and turns it off if anyone spoils or criticises it. He does like rock and emo and the stuff people think are stereotypical of him, and he doesn't like to be teased for it. He also listens to classical and instrumentals and develops a taste for peaceful New Age stuff with time. He has taught himself piano and guitar (got a keyboard fairly cheap, and Sonic left his old guitar lying around once) and does sometimes sing with it. He will immediately stop if anyone is in hearing vicinity, so unconfirmed if he is any good.

Omega does actually have a taste in music: obviously, metal (haha) but also synth, electric pop, and anything quite fast tempo might tempt him, he has yet to like a lovesong. He's also a bit random with what he likes, and never explains what about it or why. He will just sometimes insist on a song being replayed, and occasionally records songs as they're being played to blast at inconvenient moments. They can't find any rhyme or reason as to why he would even have a preference for music, it isn't written in any code, but there is a list he can produce of 'liked songs'. Rouge and Shadow guess it is just another way he is figuring out an identity and what to do with it, so are very happy to encourage him.

Thanks for the ask! 🖤🦇🤖

It was a question asking this question about what version is Naoko's "final" word on Sailor Moon.

Which to me I put Crystal for the simple reason it's a couple scenes (especially the last one in Cosmos before post credits) that are in there that I think it was something she wanted to do in the manga but didn't have time to do or clarify which Crystal does.

Which a person had to say this.

Which just had to put the 90's anime in it. You just can't not have a convo about the Manga and Crystal without dipping the 90's anime in there.

Which I already wrote post disagreeing about this anyway. It didn't play out better when it comes to the ending. (Which is here)

Which another person said this..

Always have to kiss the 90's anime ass but thankfully giving props to PGSM.

Then they got into a convo which I think need to talk about it.

I mean a team writers is what the 90's anime had but the problem was the fact it feels like they was not on the same page. Then the fact it's a magical girl show for girls and women and it's only 3 women in that writers room who wrote 46 episodes over the span of a 200 episode 5 season show.. Meanwhile it was 7 men who wrote 154 episodes and the movies over the span of 200 episodes.

Megumi Sugihara 31 Episodes

Genki Yoshimura -14 Episodes

Mutsumi Nakano-1 Episode

7 Males ( 154 Episodes plus 3 movies and specials)

3 Females (46 Episodes)

All for having a team of writers don't get me wrong but they need to be on the same page.

Meanwhile the Manga is written by one woman for 60 acts and story stories and PGSM was also written by one woman for 50 episodes and Special act. Which to me both of those flowed better and was a better structured story.

Like I keep saying about PGSM.

PGSM did what the manga didn't have tell to do and the 90's anime fail to do.

Also with Crystal as whole I love it at what it was trying to do but sometimes I felt like it didn't " get" what Naoko was trying to do. The writers didn't "understand" the manga.

But let me talk about this tweet specially

Umm

Manga/Cosmos

Sees Chibiusa leaves from the future after her training

Sees Chibs get greeted by her family with roses.

Something going on with the present which Chibiusa wants to go back but her mom says no by trying to protect her becasue she doesn't even know what the fuck is going on.

Diana goes back but something happens to her.

Chibs really want to go back which her mom finally agrees which shows that she's ready which she goes back with the Sailor Quartet who has finally awaken in the future.

Chibiusa and Sailor Quartet assist Usagi which the Sailor Quartet kills Sailor Heavy Metal Papillon.

Tells Usagi that it's not really girls and Mamo because they are dead.

Witness Usagi killing them and then witness Usagi and Galaxia fight.

Have a little convo with ChibiChibi asking who she is since she's showing she got power.

Sees Mamo being dropped into cauldron which she fades. ( Which this targets Usagi losing control of her power)

The Sailor Quartet talks to Sailor Moon Cosmos which she tells them about what Usagi just did in the Cauldron, a little about herself, and then sent them back to their time.

While Usagi, Mamo and Girls are in the cauldron, she tells them that she see them in the the future.

Hints at the Usa/Mamo wedding that she is pregnant with Chibs .

90's anime

Leaves after the Nehellenia arc in StarS and never to be heard from again which is offscreen about her leaving.

Like

This is the last time we see her in the 90's anime. Episode 172 The last shot and last line of Chibiusa in the whole series is in a circle after Nehellenia get her redo saying " I hope she will be happy." after that woman tried to kill her twice.......

Which episode 173 it is mentioned she went back.

Compared to ( Spoilers)

You are really pressed and say Cosmos is rushed when they didn't show her embrace Usagi, Mamo or everyone else but tells them " Hey I see yall in the future." after we see her in and out of that arc and seeing her growth meanwhile in the 90's anime she just leaves after the Nehellenia arc in Stars never to be heard from again? Which she doesn't come back to help at all. Which we don't know what's going on in the future?

Yall make it make sense.

A Freelancer's Guide to Galactic Exploration: The Ix'ai

You're better off surrendering.

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The ix'ai (sin. and pl.) are comprised of three separate, distinct oviparous reptilian species that merged into one culture for reasons lost to time. Known widely for their military prowess, societal discipline, and insatiable love of shellfish.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

Biology

Ix'ai consist of three species, from smallest to largest: terrestrial, arboreal, and marine. Terrestrials stick to the black stone and glass deserts of their home planet, Totug. They have long legs and delicate feet made for running, and a whiplike tail for balance and defense. They rarely grow taller than three feet (excluding tail length), with most of their height coming from their legs. Their necks are longer, proportionally, than the other ix'ai species to accommodate their frill, which wraps around their shoulders like a capelet when not extended by its hyoid bones. Their scales can change color for camouflage and they have lots of small but very sharp teeth! They bleed red. Up until the advent of weaponry, they were largely a prey species and thus developed a stomach-turning (in more than one way) defense mechanism that has persisted to the present day: they can hack up digestive acid with enough strength to hit a target several feet away. Arboreals hail from the temperate rainforests of Escai where they make their homes in the trees. They hover around 5.5 to 6 feet tall, with strong musculature concentrated in their legs and thick, prehensile tails. Their hands and feet are tipped with strong, thick claws; their feet are also prehensile to assist with climbing, and to the horror of more conservative species, holding things, steering ships, opening jars, and, on occasion, eating. they have toebeans They have bright blue tongues and bleed blue-violet! They also shed their teeth periodically, and it’s not uncommon to see them improvised as shrapnel in explosive devices, polished into beads, or tossed into jars to shake and keep the kids entertained on a long trip. Marine ix'ai originate from Ehek, which they share with the xhrill. They're just big. Big teeth, big jaws, big thick tails they use as rudders when diving, and they tower over arboreals and terrestrials, growing upwards of 7 to 8 feet tall, with a high frequency for gigantism. They have black tongues and bleed green. They’re capable of holding their breath for up to 90 minutes underwater and diving to depths in excess of 150 feet. They may or may not be the reason xhrill evolved neurotoxins in their muscosal discharge. The xhrill may or may not be the reason marine ix’ai are now immune to most toxins.

Diet

Terrestrial ix'ai have high protein dietary requirements, and for those that still hunt for their dinner, they'll go for anything smaller and slower than them. Since taking to the stars, their diets often consist mostly of off-cuts and (surprisingly well-seasoned) protein pastes. Arboreals, on the other hand, have primarily fruit-based diets -- citrus, especially! Their high metabolisms require them to eat fairly often, so it isn't uncommon to see them carrying around fruit strips and xadoqe -- round, red citrus fruit that resembles a clementine -- in their pockets and bags. Marine ix'ai? Shit, they'll eat it if it's bigger than them, they have guns. If they can buy it, catch it, or kill it, it's liable to end up on the menu -- including sapients. Maybe stay out of grabbing range until you're acquainted. The overlap in their diets lies in their love of mollusks, crustaceans, and other shellfish. The shells are a great source of calcium for them, and sometimes they'll just eat shells -- when dining out, it's polite to offer the shells you can't eat (with the added benefit of having your shellfish peeled for you!)

Social Organization

This is where the three-species-acting-as-one comes in. The ix'ai have one of the strongest militaries in the galaxy and often contract out as private security and mercenaries. A not-so-insignificant amount of prisons are also run by ix'ai, and they tend to just. Take empty planets. And terraform them. And they're really good at it, too. Two of Totug's moons, Whaman and Khroerth are ix'ai dominated, with the third, Chapus, being leased to the uknuks. They like laying down roots and establishing territories. Their society is strictly disciplined and focused on collectivism. While an army needs soldiers for a commander to command, ix'ai schools focus on "breeding leaders, not followers", and many go on to captain freelance expeditions, establish corporations, and hold political offices. Hell, their parents would be proud if they end up a successful boss of a crime syndicate -- a queen of the underworld is still a queen, after all! On that note, families prioritize on instilling a "leadership mindset" early on, with fledglings running errands for their household on their own by six years of age, adolescents officially "out of the nest" and off to state school by 12, and by 18, they're sent to mandatory basic training and service for three years (after which, they're considered full citizens). This doesn't mean, however, that they cut contact with their parents -- quite the opposite, in fact; they're encouraged to report progress back to their parents often for morale, and holidays are massive multigenerational gatherings. After they've set out on their own, it's not uncommon for ix'ai to adopt companions and crewmates into their families. [cultural note: these foundlings are affectionately referred to as 'gazagaza' (orphans) by the adopter's blood family, regardless of whether or not said foundling is actually an orphan] A large part of basic training places emphasis on "morale maintenance," or establishing and maintaining positive morale as a tenet of good leadership. Positive morale leads to positive results, etc etc. When on leadership training rotation, whoever is in charge of the squad for the week is subjected to peer reviews and held ultimately responsible for incomplete or inadequate completion of squad duties, missed drills, flagging trust in leadership, and morale scores below 80%. However, this also means that if a trainee fails more than three peer reviews, their instructor is held responsible. As a low-context society, they can be very direct and prone to oversharing -- they say what they mean and mean what they say. Everything is deliberate. They value transparency over confidentiality; transparency benefits the group because everyone is on the same page. "But how do they manage to establish criminal organizations?" you ask. Easy! Loopholes. Everything's out in the open and Technically Legal. At the very least, there's nothing specifying something is illegal. Go ahead, search the office. They're the bane of every GEA inquisitor's existence.

So, I was all set to make that comparison post but, 1), I have 26 wips that still need to be updated, 2) it's 90° F and I don't want to bother thinking of how to word it (this heat is also getting in the way of me writing) and 3) there isn't enough footage of both sides to work with for a proper comparison, sadly. I do have THIS to show though. If Varian was being abused, manipulated, whatever, why did he look so shocked when he was punished for turning against them by being locked up with Rapunzel?

That's not the face of someone that is used to being put down or punished, that's the face of someone that has never been punished by the people punishing him and he's in disbelief that they're treating him like a naughty kid.

And then he looks SAD about it, he's sad that he let them down, he's sad that things turned out this way, that the Saporians felt like they needed to turn to violence because "we don't have time".

This is not the face of someone that has been abused.

This is the face of someone that was so well-treated that he was basically running the Kingdom instead of Andrew, who could've taken the Royal Advisor role for himself if he was that type of guy.

The Saporians are Varian's people.

The Coronans, and Rapunzel especially, are his employers and actual past abusers who he can't feel at full ease around. Being caught goofing off has him nervously chuckling and questioning why they're in his lab.

The closest argument you can get as "proof" he was abused is Varian being worried for Rapunzel and her group after the bomb went off.

And, honestly, they all look like they didn't fully agree with the bomb being used here.

Varian was concerned about the use of violence, which was his OWN last resort, but he wasn't kowtowing to Andrew because he abused and groomed him, he just trusted his judgement as his friend and leader, just as the others did.

This is not normal for him.

He is confused, he is hurt, he is seeing himself being betrayed by his friends again, seeing them go against his wishes.

Clementine thinks that he might just be sad about his alchemy no longer being used, so she assures him that they'll still being using it, which was a mistake on her part.

Enraged about them not only turning to violence against his wishes, but also using his alchemy for it, Varian reminds Andrew of a promise he made.

And Andrew, instead of saying "Shut up, we're doing this" tries to reason with him. They don't have time to keep trying to make the memory gas, does Varian really want to be on the wrong side of history and help the ones that hurt him before?

And Varian considers it. He has the freedom, the trust in them to not hurt him, to consider it. He turns to Rapunzel's pleading face, and considers his past, his future, his present, and makes a choice.

This is probably the first disagreement they've had. They seem genuinely shocked that he would turn on them, and even question what he intends to do.

And after he gives them a rather sudden and unwanted bath, Varian isn't scared of them, but embarrassed. Look at the quirk of his brow, he's confused about how that happened and embarrassed it did, especially after his big, dramatic speech.

Especially in front of Rapunzel. The absolute shame he must be experiencing.

And all they do, as a punishment, is open the door and lock him in with Rapunzel.

Once aboard the airship, he's all confident again. The embarrassment has passed, and he's determined to stop his alchemy from being misused.

The Saporians fight Rapunzel with swords, but for Varian, they only use their fists, never intending to hurt him seriously, maybe just knock him out or grab him.

Clementine is the first and only one to aim a sword at him, and even then she's just pointing it, not slashing. She could also be using any form of magic on him, I doubt she only had the one wand, and instead she's just pointing a sword at him.

Then Andrew does the infamous move of holding Varian over the edge. Sadly, I have reached the limit of pictures I can do per post, so I'm afraid I can only use words from this point.

However, I can give time-stamps and you can check it out yourself.

33:57-33:58 - Andrew grabs Varian and holds him over the edge. 33:59-34:00: Varian holds onto Andrew's arm while he dangles him over, looking up at him not with fear, but with a determined expression, though his gaze does turn towards the ground below. He's not pleading for mercy or begging to be let go, he doesn't think he'll actually do it, but that ground does look awful far if he actually does get the inclination... 34:01-34:05 - Pascal runs in his little bubble to crash into Andrew's leg. Andrew is knocked back and lets go of Varian, but not before yanking him back with him so Varian falls onto the ship itself. Andrew had time to drop him, if he was going to, and he didn't, because he, and the Saporians, actually care enough about Varian to not kill him or even hurt him.

And I can't put the pictures in because of the limit, but compare his scenes with Andrew with his scene with Eugene before "Be Very Afraid", starting with "The Alchemist Returns". There's a very telling scene where Varian looks terrified at the idea of being seen by Eugene when he comes up to Rapunzel in the castle, and that was before he actually got a criminal record because they didn't know at that point that he was the creator of the truth cookies.

Those two got some off-screen history.

Fight Club

I can see immediately why people had so much trouble understanding the point of this film after the 90s were done.

This is a very 20th century American story, about how "Generation X" boys would inevitably evolve into "incels", and how that would ultimately fail to create anything other than a thin mythology with which to justify and absolve them as perpetrators of violence.

It is a simple prescience, in the way of all speculative fictions, in which the author extrapolates from 'now' to envision a future based on extant reality. That "future" came and went, exactly according to its author's schedule. Its despair was proven accurate (and its author has since retired into contentment).

At the time, it was presented as a dark farce, but of course the entire basis for any but the most surreal farce has been obsoleted. "Something like this would never really happen", "no one would actually do this", "people aren't that silly" are incoherent premises! We all know it would, they would, they are, and beyond. In this way Fight Club is a final fading ember of farce. The darkness its joke was presented with has since become standard fare, so ubiquitous as to be invisible.

The difficulty of art was once Palahniuk's burden, but the outcome of simple reality is not his responsibility.

The story's psychological complexity speaks to a people that are mostly gone, now: 'the middle children of history' have surrendered to their masters and their cynicism has been redirected toward their younger siblings, so that they can keep their jobs. Blue Trump is a satisfying and adequate surrogate for Orange Trump.

When Chuck speaks clearly, the movie gives cinematic weight to the line, but it's gone ignored or misunderstood all these years:

We are men. Men is what we are. Put this in context: at the support group for people who have had their testicles removed. Line it up with what he has demanded be done to him if he betrays Project Mayhem…

Bad news, friend, it's not going to happen. I'm sorry if there was a misunderstanding. You're trespassing and I will have to call the police. The people you sought your validation from are going to demean you in every same way you have been demeaned before. Can you take it? Or are you weak? You can't be in the club if you won't let us abuse you for our amusement.

Tyler. You are the worst thing that ever happened to me. she is unable to escape her abuser. his power includes having her brought to him against her will, and to convince her to hold his hand while his violence erupts. our justification is that it is credit card companies he is attacking - but in the real world, do the credit card companies erase your debt? or does your abused girlfriend feel obligated to try again? in reality.

I always suspected that his fans drastically misinterpreting his work is part of the reason for Palahniuk's cheerful recusal from the business. I speculate that he is too mild a person to really grapple with white supremacy at that level. Many people his age, especially educated white people, are just unable to face it. Realizing that their existential crises stem from their own privilege within racist systems is too crippling to face, too guilty and with no apparent solution, especially as web-enabled moral absolutism increasingly defines our common perspective. What a different story Fight Club would have been if it was "I am Jack's Wrong Colored Skin", or if Raymond K Hessel, sobbing and pathetic, had been depicted as the average white boy viewer instead of a humorously nebbish asian person.

Beyond the ground level - did Chuck know how white a movie it was going to be? Did he reflect after on just how white all his works are? I've read three of his books, they have nothing to do with nonwhite reality. Watching the movie, I wonder if it is intentional, how jarringly out of place & shallow his black background characters look. As a wild guess, I don't think he was conscious of it; I don't know of any interviews or essays in which he examines the boundaries of his imaginal worlds that express an insight into the delineations of color in the society he criticizes. It's a useful filter to examine his work through.

Clint could only enjoy the high of his climax for about 90 seconds before snickering could be heard in the distance.

❝ HEY GIRL. ❞ ❝ Come here often? ❞

@strxngetimes and clint will never get a moment to last, huh?

Now Clint was a man who liked sex, he'd say that he was particularly good at activity in a lot of ways. Several ways he was quite proud of. The particulaar pitiful dry spell had come to a surprising end when something started to click between him and Doctor Strange after so many years of knowing him. Seeing Stephen has been fantastic for getting some in the sexdepartment, but there always came two major caveats with that.

They weren't having as much sex as Clint's appetite may crave. This first caveat would be due to three major factors. Stephen Strange had many duties, most of them self assigned (mind you), and they could and did take him for varible amounts of time (he knows time doesn't work like how he knows it to; save the lecture, Stephen). There's the factor that Clint's in recovery and that's played a part in his body being sexually active or not. It's a thing, and Stephen being a doctor doesn't necessarily help with the whole embarrassment feeling.

In addition, Clint's a superhero himself that gets the call to go deal with this or that, from multiple sources; the avengers, the thunderbolts, and he was guilty of doing his heroing on the side (so he can't groan about Doctor Strange business too). There's also the interruptions because the world needs saving which means that may be four factors to caveat one alone.

Now caveat two won't come into play... until.... well... an example like RIGHT NOW.

The four reasons of caveat one were not present which meant that Clint finlly got the time to make Mister Tall, Dark, and Handsome into Mister Tall, Dark, and Horitzontal. Originally, he had started out with Stephen being vertifcal but after Clint had banged his knee quite harshly in to the wall (there's a goddamn bruise the size of an egg like he was a little kid), causing for Clint to yelp and Stephen to laugh. Due the minor injury, the couple had ended up taking things to the bedroom. Where the bed wwould be there to comfort the parts of them that were forty years old.

From there, Clint had felt his mood shift to desiring to dote upon Stephen. DOTE, HE DID. If there was an inch that he hand touched, that his mouth hadn't been, then give him a several minutes after this delightful bliss that was being warmed by Stephen's most intimate place. Panting above him, barely holding himself up until....

❝ HEY GIRL. ❞ ❝ Come here often? ❞

Well, there kills that thought of a round two to make sure that Stephen was thoroughly taken care of. Here arrives caveat two which often the main cockblockers of the house would be Anton and Aleister. The twin serpents were always intent in making sure that any lustful mood that Clint was in got snuffed out or took particular joy in ruining a moment. A moment that Clint won't say he was a little desparate for, if the bruise on his knee wasn't proof of that.

That's it, this is the last time he wears his hearing aids. He doesn't want to hear them again or any of their dumb comments especially when they came at the expanse of his (their) sex life. If only because this very moment would be undisturbed for Clint at least if he couldn't hear them; it's something that he's been meaning to talk to Stephen about. That thought is on pause as Clint slips out of his boyfriend unceremoniously because the only thought on his mind, is his annoyance with A&A, desparately needing to shoo them away so they can enjoy any moment at all.

He pushes his hair back, groaning in complaint as his hand searches for a pillow. Clint lobs the pillow (it is his pillow; he will regret this) in the direction to where Anton and Aleister had silthered in from. ❝ YOU TWO! ❞ If he sound particularly whiny, that would be due to fact that his high got cut short (and he's not happy about it). Stephen's temporarily abandoned to see if his pillow had found his targets. At least one of the snakes is under the pillow (they are fine; a pillow is soft and they can slither out).

❝ GET OUT! Moment ruined, good job. ❞ He points out, for their satisifaction and does he have to get up to shoo them out further? That's another conversation he'll have to have with Stephen, these two bastards.

Once they've slithered out, only then does Clint turn back to his boyfriend. Delicately he folds his arms over his chest and props his head on his arms to stare up at Stephen. The sight that the sorcerer would see is a man pouting, it is the only waay to describe Clint's face. A wistful sigh before he's asking, ❝ Where'd they come from again and can't we trade them for, I don't know, two magical puppies? ❞

A few more moments pass as he just lays on Stephen before he speaks again. ❝ Was that good for you? Need anything? ❞ Still a bit pouty, red in the face. Mood for round two is definitely still killed.

As a passionate fan of space operas I NEEDED to do this. So yea. Space opera AU with twisted boiz.

Part 1

Heartslabyul

Space police, basically.

Their main office is located on space station that's called "Garden of Roses" and looks pretty much like a big white rose with red spots. One could say this station is so big that it's more of a maze than a space station.

Riddle Rosehearts.

The youngest lieutenant in the history of Komissarium (name of space police).

Very strict with schedule, and follows charter every day, every second.

"Newbies, I expect you all to follow regulations or else," on LITERALLY every briefing.

He has his gun for a reason. But he's strong even without the gun. One time Ace challenged him, thinking that Riddle as weak as he seems to be. Ace was almost broken in half so he has never ever said anything about Riddle's strength after.

He can seems cold sometimes, but he really cherishes his co-workers, not only that, he remembers their birthdays and favourite presents.

He has little neuro pad for that.

Actually, he has neuro pad for every occasion in his life.

"Didn't know? Cabinet of lieutenant Rosehearts is known as cleanest place in Universe. If I was you, I would just leave these papers near his door. I don't want even imagine what he'll do if you leave those in a wrong folder."

Ace Trappola.

He became part of Komissarium not so long ago, but he showed some skills in one case, where he was working as partners with Deuce Spade.

He can be dum-dum sometimes, but he's sharp when he's on a crime scene.

And he's pretty strong.

...but uses his strength for winning in arm wrestling against his colleagues (he has collection of food talons, I tell you what)

As it was said he lost to Riddle once. So now he has some pretty strong motivation to go the gym.

"What do you mean we can't cooperate with criminals? Talking about wasted potential..." he said and after that he had a long conversation with Trey about things you can say in office.

Local menace to society.

Deuce Spade.

He's also a newbie with some potential.

... especially in chasing.

Although Riddle forbid him and Ace to do so, they participated in local racing around small planets.

By the way their number was 69 and Ace couldn't stop laughing.

They also almost hit satellite of a planet.

He has pretty low scores on exams, but his pilot exams scores always 90 or higher.

Ace is being salty about that so Deuce brags even more about it.

"That's just about that feeling to fly in space that I can't get enough of. One day I'll be a captain on one, just you wait!"

Trey Clover.

Not the oldest, but everyone joke about his age anyway.

You forgot to do your papers for Riddle? He got you. You have worked all night and run out of coffee? He got you.

He got you in any way.

He helped Ace and Deuce in their first case although he tried his best to not interfere.

Trey is known for his diplomatic skills, so he more often escorts important political parties on planets and space stations rather than seeking for offenders.

And, of course, he's often in the office together with Cater.

Some might say those two have a romance, but nether of them have ever accepted that.

"I haven't seen my family in a long time. They're on Earth currently. Maybe I should take Cater with me the next time I visit them. Why? No reason at all. That's what friends do, right?"

Cater Diamond.

Works in office and knows EVERY rumor there.

This guy has somewhat magical skills in knowing how Riddle would like to see papers being sorted, so everyone ask him for advice.

He is a pretty good navigator.

Also, he knows a lot of people on planets and systems that out of reach of most investigators' connections.

And even Riddle can take him on a case so Cater can help with witnesses.

Drinks a lot of coffee in their buffet, but only Trey and Ace know that coffee that he drinks is extremely BITTER.

Ace knows that because his cheeky ass decided to try Cater's coffee without permission one time.

"Look, I reeeealllyyy would like to do that work but tonight I'm going home early. They have opened new club on 50th floor so I want to go there. Thanks for filling those papers tho! You're da best"

Komissarium has around 52 spaceships. Riddle's favourite one is Queen of Hearts. It looks like big sharp black heart with four powerful interstellar engines that look a lot like white roses with red spots. Also this ship is the only one that has anti-field that can turn off enemy's engines completely for a long period of time. Employees of Komissarium joke that this ship can have the head of other ship.

The one that was used by Ace and Deuce in race is called Five of Hearts.

Five of Hearts looks like a big white card with popping out belly. Belly has a form of sharp heart, one side of which is dark blue and the other one is red. Ship has five interstellar engines, but they are way weaker than the ones that Queen of Hearts has.

"This ship can't lose! Its name is so close to legendary 'Queen of Hearts'. And I believe five is a good number. So I'm sure we're betting on right horse here." (by Ace, before the race)

"C'mon now, dear, we need some more speed to win. We have our limits doubled here!" (by Deuce)

A Time Called You (2023)

Like an extra long cassette tape from a 90s k-pop icon, this show is chock full of references I will never understand. I liked it though...

At first glance, the show seems to be about brain-bending time travel shenanigans. But it's really about nostalgia, and the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. Especially when that story turns sad and dark. It's also about the lies depression tells the person who is suffering from it.

And there's a murder mystery, which I'm not fond of, but whatever.

What Worked

Show is great at evoking nostalgia. I wasn't a teenager in Korea in the late 90s, but somehow the show made me feel like I was there. It works in the same way that a movie shot in New York makes you miss autumn in NYC, even if you've never been there. When the lights are on and the camera starts rolling, for a little while you get a chance to see the world the way the photographer sees it, and it's magical.

But the closer the show got to the present, the less magical the world seemed. Some of that was intentional, for sure. This was very effective, especially when combined with the score and the cast, but it left me feeling a little hollow at the end of the series.

What Didn't Work

I just don't like murder mysteries in the middle of my romance shows. Even if the romance is more about the romance of the past than about the relationships inside the show. In fact, that's one of the reason why the love "triangle" didn't annoy me as much, show was more about the writer using the characters to show / talk through some things than about the characters or their relationships.

Also, the ending was very rough. It wasn't exactly tacked on, as you could see the direction they were taking the sad girl main character, but still not super cheerful. I liked the message that came out of that ending though.

The Performances

Everyone was pretty good. But the show was definitely more about the writing and the direction (and the sound/music) than about any one performer. I liked the cast, but didn't really love any of them.

TL; DR:

Show was good. It went a little dark in places, but it also had some hidden depths. I'm very interested in seeing the Taiwan drama this was based on. But if you can't / don't wanna watch that, this version is still good.