@autismswagsummit

Can’t wait to see two of my favorite characters duke it out, sorry Kris you’re wicked cool but the turtle has my vote. He likes science

A Question about MaxTul !!!

I hear you’re abit of a fan??

SO, please can I ask what your fave Maxtul scenes are that they have done across their shows!!!

Also, do you think we will get them in something again?

Anon, once again, you are not to blame for Tul's departure from acting. This is on me. I put all my eggs kidneys in the Transplant (Manner of Death x Triage) basket.

I am a huge fan of MaxTul, and as the saying goes, I'd rather have had witnessed their amazing chemistry than have never known them at all. I'm straight clownin' but I'm going to still hope for them to star in Transplant for as long as I live. It could happen thirty years from now when Tul retires from his career in real estate and development. I can wait like that woman in Titanic. It doesn't matter when I get it as long as I get it. Are you listening, Tul?

To your ask - I enjoy every MaxTul scene, but since you are making me pick favorites (what is with y'all forcing me to choose between all the things I love?!) . . .

Top Ten MaxTul Scenes

#10 - PRIDE - MaxTul

This is the only actual MaxTul propaganda I will regularly tote out that has nothing to do with a series because it isn't even from a show. It's just them being them. In 2021, they released a handful of photos for Pride, and I love them for it.

#9 - Club Kiss - Manner of Death

The way the lights dance around them while Tan holds Bun's neck as their heads align with each other is beautiful. The director created magic with that shot and my shitty GIF does not do it justice.

#8 - Confession - Together With Me

Before Pat whispered "no" on that rooftop in Bad Buddy, and Win told Team to "be brave about it" in Between Us, Korn asked Knock if "the love I have for you, doesn't it give you courage? Courage to love a man like me?" and I haven't left that bedroom since. That's some Grey's Anatomy level of line delivery, and it hit me straight in my heart where it still resides six years later.

#7 - Rain & Umbrellas - Together With Me

I doubt Knock and Korn did the "comfort the other person under the protection of an umbrella while it rains" trope first, but they did it the best, and now every time I see it in a BL, my heart grows a little more each time.

#6 - "You smell so good" - Manner of Death

This is actually parallel scenes, but they are my favorites because in the first scene, Tan told Bun he smelled good, yet Bun quickly walked away in disgust. The next time it happened, Bun told Tan he smelled good right after they broke into a truck to steal a laptop, and in the midst of that adrenaline rushing through their bodies, Tan did not hesitate to take Bun's confession as an invitation, and sexed his man up ALL NIGHT! Blessed.

#5 - Getting caught - Together With Me: The Next Chapter

Knock and Korn finally got back together and were doing what they do best - BEING VERS! - when surprise surprise, their friends were chilling outside watching them figure out their next position move. Their friends were checking up on them after their big blowout, but instead their friends got to see them blow each other's backs out. Blessed times two.

#4 - Not getting caught - Manner of Death

Tan and Bun had to get out of the hospital before the police caught them, so the entire hospital staff helped them escape on a gurney because ACAB! But even in their dire situation, Tan was still flirting with Bun and trying to make a move on him to much of Bun's frustration. No matter the time or place, Tan proved he wanted his man, carnally.

#3 - Engagement - Bad Romance

First off, Bad Romance aired before Together with Me, but timeline-wise actually happens between Together with Me and Together with Me: The Next Chapter, yet in reality IT MAKES NO SENSE.

The boys were color-coded in this series (and lightly in the other two), and the attached image is their color exchange. Yep, that's right! Korn (Max) is the Blue Boy and Knock (Tul) is the Red Rascal, and Knock lived up to that label in Bad Romance. Knock wanted to be out, and Korn had to be in the closet, then Knock kissed another dude, yet all ended with Korn proposing to Knock in front of all their friends (while wearing pink!). A mess, but it is my beloved mess!

#2 - Wedding - Manner of Death

I did not think we would get a happy ending out of Manner of Death. When shots were fired in the tenth episode, I was screaming! And yet the boys not only survived everything they went through, THEY GOT MARRIED! Thailand has not legalized marriage equality yet, so for the whole team to say "Fuck it! We gonna do it anyway" in 2020 was the rainbow sprinkles on top of this bomb-ass sundae of a series!

#1 - Husbands - Triage

This one-minute cameo wins. This is my everything, and I will cling to forever regardless if my clown ass gets Transplant or not. We saw the boys get together as Knock x Korn in Together With Me. We watched them get engaged in Bad Romance. We witnessed them fall apart and come back together in Together with Me: The Next Chapter. We got to see them grow up and get married as Tan x Bun in Manner of Death. And we celebrated them as HUSBANDS in Triage.

So if Triage really was MaxTul's final outing together, I'm glad I got to go along for the entire journey, from the chaotic beginnings of a drunken one-night stand to the grand finale of committed husbands. The boys gave us a hell of a ride (pun intended).

*I'm gonna cry*

can i get your take on the hope aspect? your thoughts about rage got some gears turning, and like you said in your post about life, it helps to understand the opposite aspect in relation :)

Absolutely! It's my opinion that the Hope Aspect, like a few other aspects and what they're named after, is fairly misunderstood because of the connotations the word "hope" has. The Hope Aspect is also one I gained a better understanding of by comparing it alongside its inverse.

The word "hope" has some pretty positive connotations to it. Dreams, longing, yearning for something better, holding on, so on and so forth. These aren't wrong when thinking of the Hopebound, but they're certainly not the full picture of what the Hope Aspect has to offer. And, like the other 11 aspects, the Hope Aspect isn't necessarily good or bad; it is inherently neutral, with the potential to be either good or bad.

From The Extended Zodiac, I pulled these keywords from the Hope Aspect description. These would be the "canon" traits; they are what I adhere to when analyzing, but it should also be understood that this concept encompasses much more to do with than these keywords. Its "vibe", if you will, is much more than what is written.

TEZ Hope Keywords: Conviction, justice, aid, black and white thinking, imagination, dreams, better future, positive, caring, warm, (narrow-minded, selfish)

What really caught my attention in the canon description for the Hope Aspect was the descriptor "narrow-minded". It painted an interesting picture; that someone can be narrow-minded at their worst when their drive is towards that of a better future.

My chosen words for the Hope Aspect are "Conviction, Ideology, Commitment, Justice". I felt that the drive for many Hopebound is their sense of justice; they believe the things they do because they have a sense of justice. However, it's also important to keep in mind that one person's idea of justice is not always another person's idea of justice. (The Death Penalty debate is a good example of what I mean, but there are a lot of other good examples out there too).

The other word I chose for the Hope Aspect that didn't come from the TEZ was "ideology", which I felt encompassed many of the words on the list and off the list. Ideology is what a person believes; this can be religion, one's moral compass, true (or false) education, government systems, propaganda, so on and so forth. Ideology focuses on the system of beliefs a person has, and so the Hope Aspect also focuses on both personal beliefs, and systems in general (the government system, the education system, etc). This is perhaps why Ragebound tend to be anarchists and punks. Since the Hope Aspect is about beliefs, these beliefs can be anything. There's a lot of room in the Hope Aspect to look like other aspects if someone's ideology happens to match up with, say, the Life Aspect, or the Light Aspect, or any of the other aspects. There's a lot of wiggle room, but ultimately, the Hopebound do what they do because they hold fast to their beliefs and adhere to the systems that are in place which support their beliefs.

Like with Gamzee and Kurloz, the Hope Aspect doesn't get a full spotlight with Eridan (Prince of Hope) and Cronus (Bard of Hope) representing it, as the destroyer classes tend to skew the understanding of an aspect. However, for what Eridan's classpect was, he certainly was written up to it; the Prince uses hope to destroy hope, because he cannot grasp it or control it despite its abundance around him. His connection to the Hope aspect is fairly apparent in his Pesterquest route, actually, with how he talks about gender roles and his desire to be gender non-conforming and supportive of it, but he just can't grasp that for himself despite believing in it (ironically, because he's a shitty person via actively destroying the Hope of others). He also, in the next breath, proceeds to spout some pro-hemospectrum system bullshit, which I feel really does represent how narrow-minded he can be on certain subjects. Cronus is written flatly, but as a Bard of Hope, he has too much control over Hope, and that actually scares him. He allows Hope to deteriorate by actively enhancing Rage in others; this might be why he comes off as a playboy and a coward, and why so many people don't like being around him.

Meanwhile, I don't recall if Jake (Page of Hope) ever fully realizes his classpect within canon (and I am not counting being forced by Aranea), but Jake's arc has a lot to do with going out and forging his own ideology and set of beliefs; his attachment to adventures really shines through for his Page class. He has commitment problems with Dirk, which is a fault of the Page class and something he has to learn to work through to master Hope. He's got a fledgling sense of justice, and has to work through his meekness and shyness to hold fast to his convictions.

E, n, u for the letters ask please! 🖖

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?

Yes, but not recently! These were back in early early high school. I wrote a very short, very bad Draco Malfoy/Apple(as in the fruit) fic once. I hope to god it has been lost to time. I will not tell anyone what my fanfiction dot net username was. I also wrote a Doctor Who/Supernatural/Sherlock/X Files/Star Trek: The Original Series/Warehouse 13/The Yellow Submarine(not Beatles RPF because the only character was Jeremy Hillary Boob, PhD aka The Nowhere Man)/Invader Zim crackfic extravaganza in collab with @gabrielnovakgoestomyschool (there may have been another fandom that I forgot). I do not know if it has survived the passage of time. I almost hope it did. They were all in this incredibly Escher-esque grocery store trying to get milk. I guess recently I accidentally wrote "Loghain Mac Tit" instead of "Loghain Mac Tir" when starting a post, took one look at it, and just posted it without further elaboration. I don't know if anyone ELSE thought it was funny, but I definitely did.

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

Anders - I love an underdog, I love a revolutionary, I love a pathetic tall man who looks like he hasn't slept in a month, I love a man who will make Those Sounds when he kisses me. Also he loves cats and complaining; same, Anders. More seriously, I think he's a deeply misunderstood character by both those around him in canon, by his writing team and Bioware as a whole, and by the general fandom(not any of my beloved mutuals, we are all in the Right About Anders club); despite this, I do think he is a cohesive character. I just don't necessarily think that he is a cohesive character on purpose. I love the implications of his bonding with Justice, and the avenues it opens up for writing. I fully believe that Anders believes that he corrupted Justice into Vengeance, and that Vengeance is a demon; I just don't believe it's true.

Stephen Maturin - Ohhh, Stephen, my beloved. Patrick O'Brian cooked you up in a lab specifically to make me insane (nevermind the fact that I was three years old when he died) - mine is a fated obsession, to the point that I actually had a crazy-dramatic, toxic relationship with an autistic Trinity College naturalist for four and a half years directly out of high school; my brain simply had not fully learned that Stephen Maturin existed (I'd seen the movie once or twice and listened to the soundtrack ad nauseum because of my mother but never payed much attention), and fixated on the next best thing. Here is my Stephen Maturin propaganda: He's a tiny, angry little man who calls animals and friends and his wife alike "honey" and "my dear" and "acushla/a chuisle" (I will never forget the "awwwwwwww" that came from my mouth the one time he called Tom Pullings honey). He calls his best friend "soul" and "joy", and his other best friend "honey-bun". He's an International Super Spy, one of the most effective in the British service, and refuses to be paid for it because he hates tyranny so much (he does not like English colonialism either, but he has decided that England is the best way to beat Napoleon). He's an Irish and Catalan revolutionary (I did say I love a revolutionary), who is somewhat in hiding in the first book because of his associations with The Society of United Irishmen, and therefore connections to the Irish Uprising of 1798. Despite this impressive resume, this man has never met a boat or ship he is not in danger of not falling out of - he has been at sea for the better part of twenty years by the end of the series, and he still must be Carefully Watched to make sure he does not drown, or get soaked through to the skin. He is an acclaimed surgeon, with a miraculous success rate. He is also a renowned natural philosopher who has discovered multiple species, including a giant tortoise. He is the least tidy or fastidious man in all of creation, and is constantly covered in blood and/or winestains and/or crumbs. He pours alcohol over surgical sites not because he knows of germ theory, but because he thinks it'll help with pain. The only non-familial friend he's had longer than Jack Aubrey(who lives longer than the first book. Sorry James, ily) is Adhemar de la Mothe, a known and flamboyantly queer Parisian. He regularly says that he does not see the harm in sodomy so long as no one is harassing the ship's boys, and that anything that adds more love to the world seems a good thing. He loses his mind over a woman, and the more awful she is to him the more he loses it.

Speaking of Diana Villiers - Oh, Diana. I am fully in understanding with Stephen over you. A beautiful, headstrong woman who can ride better than most men, stuck in the most boring atmosphere of Southern England with her aunt and cousins after the death of her husband and her father both made her leave India - I cannot blame her for many of her actions. Diana is a fascinating character, and to me she is proof of Patrick O'Brian's writing ability. Most authors of Men Go To War books don't really seem to know how to write women very well (C.S. Forester I am looking at you. I do not know who Maria is outside of her fawning over Hornblower), but Diana is a fully fledged person from the moment we meet her setting her horse over a gate, despite the fact that we never see any of the events of the twenty books through her eyes. Not only is she a fully realised character, but she is one that shows his understanding of the setting he writes in. Diana Villiers is coping with grief - not only grief for her husband and her father, but for her independence. Her life in India, keeping house for her father from her mid-teens, would have been almost as different as one can imagine from the life of a poor relation take in on charity by a widowed aunt. She feels stifled in the English countryside, forced to play second fiddle to her cousins in order to keep the peace and a roof over her head. I cannot blame her for toying with men's hearts as a source of entertainment. Going into keeping with Canning is Diana's attempt to regain at least some measure of independence, and it is successful, to some extent. She has money, she is back in a country she finds familiar and exciting - but she also has a jealous, suspicious lover who employs their servants as spies to watch her activities, and little company because she is herself a scandal. Stephen's proposal offers her a way out of her situation; it also, to her, seems like a loss of freedom, not only because Stephen loves her, but also because she loves him, and that terrifies her. So she instead runs away with Johnson to America. Johnson, of course, is worse than Canning, and she leaves him temporarily, but then her freedom in England is threatened, again, this time by suspicions of intelligence work (I always wonder just how she got tied up so tightly in Mrs Wogan's subterfuge; did Johnson have something to do with it?), and surprise! Johnson is there to whisk her away from the danger. But he's worse still, and Stephen manages to intervene(yay Stephen) and get her away and back to Europe. This just keeps happening. Diana wants something that is almost entirely impossible for a woman in the period she lives in: liberty. Anything that could interfere with her freedom and independence is avoided at any cost - even her own feelings for Stephen. Especially her feelings for Stephen. She also, to me as someone with BPD/cPTSD now pretty well in remission, reads as a very empathetic and accurate portrayal of someone with BPD/cPTSD. Personally I think Being A Woman In The Late 1700s is enough reason on its own to have it(and we don't know enough of Diana's life before the Peace of Amiens to speculate on other Sources Of Trauma other than the death of her husband and father), but a lot of her hot-and-cold feels so familiar to me. She can be so cruel, and mean it fully in the moment she's saying it, but almost immediately regret her cruelty while still doubling down because she feels she has no other options.

Wow. This got really long. I hope everyone enjoys my Aubreyad Opinions Of The Day

The Darkling

why I like them: could have been SO GOOD in theory okay? I will never shut up about this because "character who everyone thinks is evil is actually just the victim of a smear campaign and some really bigoted propaganda" is SUCH a good character concept and I wish darkling fans were right about him because it would be so fucking cool and aesthetic

why I don't: he uh. he isn't that. he could have been so fucking iconic and instead he was just a vicious murderer. who grooms teenage girls.

favourite episode/scene: LOVE the bit where alina stabs his hand in s1e8. tbf that's more of a fav alina moment than anything else lmao, let me think... okay fr I love the "fine. make me your villain" scene bc it just really showcases who he is as a character and how he sees himself (hint: those two things are not the same)

favourite season/movie: imo he's better written in s1 of the show than in s2, idk though. and I do love his story in the kos duology lmao

favourite line: that one bit in rule of wolves where he says "everything I have done has been for ravka" because it's so clearly Not True and yet.... he clearly thinks it is.... so where does intent stop and impact begin...... it's deep okay

favourite outfit: purely for shits and giggles I'm going to say his black kefta in s2 where there's bits of gold bc I loveeee people being haunted by those they've wronged and I think alina haunting him really fits into that theme

otp: no thank you! in all honesty he prob could have been Fixed™ if he'd had a genuine relationship at an earlier age but he didn't so I refuse to inflict him on any other character. darkolai is interesting to consider though bc I feel like the ways they see themselves clash so heavily.... it's about self image and it's about villainy and law and justice and power and and and. they would Not be a good relationship but I think they should interact more for the Narrative

brotp: his sister ulla! they'd have such a fun sibling dynamic lmao I think it'd be sweet

headcanon: tbh I don't tend to think about him much beyond the big narrative stuff so I'm struggling to think of something that fits the genre of "headcanon".... but let's humanise him a little! I bet he reads really literary fiction and gets ever-so-slightly pretentious about it lmao

unpopular opinion: is it unpopular to say that despite his original good intentions he's a bit of a dickhead and not as smart as he thinks he is? in some corners of the fandom it totally is but idk

a wish: at this point there's not much more that could be done with his character beyond what's already been set up (him being mercy killed so he's not suffering in the thorn wood for all eternity) so I'm going to say that I hope his stans get better reading comprehension bc dear GOD some of the takes I see (posted in the alina tag btw I'm not deliberately seeking them out) are absolutely horrendous. is that too salty? perhaps. idc though it's my blog and darkling stans are free to block me if they don't like my takes

an oh-god-please-don't-ever-happen: I swear if he goes NEAR alina genya or zoya again I will reach through the fourth wall to kill him myself. only half joking btw I'd be so pissed. imo they've all had the closure they need narratively and for him to seek them out again would be a dick move of the highest degree

5 words to best describe them: used to have good intentions. that might be cheating but idk if I can pick 5 random adjectives lmao

my nickname for them: I call him darkles sometimes (bc it's funny and also I think it'd piss him off if people called him that in-universe) also a lot of less positive nicknames ("that prick", "shithead" etc) but idk if that counts

Footnotes - Part 2

[80] Graham Kemp and Douglas P. Fry (eds.), Keeping the Peace: Conflict Resolution and Peaceful Societies around the World, New York: Routledge, 2004, p. 163.

[81] All quotes and statistics on the Navajo come from Dennis Sullivan and Larry Tifft, Restorative Justice: Healing the Foundations of Our Everyday Lives, Monsey, NY: Willow Tree Press, 2001, pp. 53–59.

[82] www.harmfreezone.org (viewed November 24, 2006)

[83] Philly’s Pissed, www.phillyspissed.net [Viewed May 20, 2008]

[84] George R. Edison, MD, “The Drug Laws: Are They Effective and Safe?” The Journal of the American Medial Association. Vol. 239 No.24, June 16, 1978. A.W. MacLeod, Recidivism: a Deficiency Disease, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965.

[85] Jamie Bissonette, When the Prisoners Ran Walpole: A True Story in the Movement for Prison Abolition, Cambridge: South End Press, 2008, p. 201. Also consider the stories of John Boone and other bureaucrats presented in this story.

[86] Some mainstream sources still contest that the Makhnovists were behind anti-Semitic pogroms in Ukraine. In Nestor Makhno, Anarchy’s Cossack, Alexandre Skirda traces this claim to its roots in anti-Makhno propaganda, while citing unfriendly contemporary sources who acknowledged that the Makhnovists were the only military units not carrying out pogroms. He also references propaganda put out by the Makhnovists attacking anti-Semitism as a tool of the aristocracy, Jewish militias that fought among the Makhnovists, and actions against pogromists personally carried out by Makhno.

[87] Paul Avrich, The Russian Anarchists, Oakland: AK Press, 2005, p. 218.

[88] Makhno hoped that Lenin and Trotsky were motivated by a personal vendetta against him rather than an absolute desire to crush the free soviets, and would call off the repression if he left.

[89] Alexandre Skirda, Nestor Makhno, Anarchy’s Cossack: The Struggle for Free Soviets in the Ukraine 1917–1921, London: AK Press, 2005, p. 314.

[90] Amy Goodman, “Lakota Indians Declare Sovereignty from US Government,” Democracy Now!, December 26, 2007.

[91] From an anonymous illustrated pamphlet, “The ‘Oka Crisis’ ”

[92] Oscar Olivera, Cochabamba! Water War in Bolivia, Cambridge: South End Press, 2004.

[93] George Katsiaficas, The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life. Oakland: AK Press, 2006, p. 123

[94] Jaime Semprun, Apología por la Insurrección Argelina, Bilbao: Muturreko Burutazioak, 2002, p.34 (translated from French to Spanish by Javier Rodriguez Hidalgo; the translation to English is my own). The quotes in the next paragraphs are from p.18 and p.20.

[95] Jaime Semprun, Apología por la Insurrección Argelina, Bilbao: Muturreko Burutazioak, 2002, pp.73–74 (translated from French to Spanish by Javier Rodriguez Hidalgo; the translation to English is my own).

[96] Ditto, p.80 . Regarding the fourth point, in contrast to Western society and its various forms of pacifism, the peacefulness of the movement in Algeria does not preclude self-defense or even armed uprising, as evidenced by the preceding point regarding the martyrs. Rather, peacefulness indicates a preference for peaceful and consensual outcomes over coercion and arbitrary authority.

[97] Ditto, p.26.

[98] George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, London: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd., 1938, pp.26–28.

[99] There were 40,000 armed anarchist militants in Barcelona and the surrounding region alone. The Catalan government would have been effectively abolished had the CNT simply ignored it, rather than entering into negotiations. Stuart Christie, We, the Anarchists! A study of the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) 1927–1937, Hastings, UK: The Meltzer Press, 2000, p. 106.

[100] Ditto, p. 101

[101] John Jordan and Jennifer Whitney, Que Se Vayan Todos: Argentina’s Popular Rebellion, Montreal: Kersplebedeb, 2003, p. 56.

[102] Natasha Gordon and Paul Chatterton, Taking Back Control: A Journey through Argentina’s Popular Uprising, Leeds (UK): University of Leeds, 2004.

[103] John Jordan and Jennifer Whitney, Que Se Vayan Todos: Argentina’s Popular Rebellion, Montreal: Kersplebedeb, 2003, p. 9.

[104] George Katsiaficas, “Comparing the Paris Commune and the Kwangju Uprising,” www.eroseffect.com. That the resistance was “well-organized” comes from a report from the conservative Heritage Foundation, Daryl M. Plunk’s “South Korea’s Kwangju Incident Revisited,” The Heritage Foundation, No. 35, September 16, 1985.

[105] Goods produced in environmentally friendly ways, by workers who receive a living wage in healthier labor conditions.

[106] Sam Dolgoff, The Anarchist Collectives, New York: Free Life Editions, 1974, p. 71.

[107] David Graeber, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2004, pp. 54–55.

[108] John Jordan and Jennifer Whitney, Que Se Vayan Todos: Argentina’s Popular Rebellion, Montreal: Kersplebedeb, 2003, pp. 42–52.

[109] Ditto, pp. 43–44.

[110] Diana Denham and C.A.S.A. Collective (eds.), Teaching Rebellion: Stories from the Grassroots Mobilization in Oaxaca, Oakland: PM Press, 2008, interview with Yescka.

[111] Ditto, interview with Leyla.

[112] “Longo Maï,” Buiten de Orde, Summer 2008, p.38. My own translation.

[113] Natasha Gordon and Paul Chatterton, Taking Back Control: A Journey through Argentina’s Popular Uprising, Leeds (UK): University of Leeds, 2004.

[114] For those who cannot read French or Spanish, in 2004 Firestarter Press put out a good zine about this insurrection, called “You Cannot Kill Us, We Are Already Dead.” Algeria’s Ongoing Popular Uprising.

[115] Paul Avrich, The Russian Anarchists, Oakland: AK Press, p. 212–213.

[116] Harold Barclay, People Without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchy, London: Kahn and Averill, 1982, p. 57.

[117] “Pirate Utopias,” Do or Die, No. 8, 1999, pp. 63–78.

[118] To name just one example, “humanitarian” UN missions have been caught repeatedly setting up sex trafficking rings in the countries where they are stationed for peacekeeping. “But the problem goes beyond Kosovo and sex trafficking. Wherever the UN has established operations in recent years, various violations of women seem to follow.” Michael J. Jordan, “Sex Charges haunt UN forces,” Christian Science Monitor, 26 November 2004. What the mainstream press cannot go so far as to admit is that this reality is universal to militaries, whether they wear blue helmets or not.

[119] “About RAWA,” www.rawa.org Viewed June 22, 2007

[120] See the citation of van der Dennen and Rappaport in Chapter 1.

[121] Harold Barclay, People Without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchy, London: Kahn and Averill, 1982, p. 122.

[122] Haudennosaunne oral traditions always maintained this early date, but racist white anthropologists discounted this claim and estimated the league began in the 1500s. Some even hypothesized that the Five Nations constitution was written with European help. But recent archaeological evidence and the record of a coinciding solar eclipse backed up the oral histories, proving that the federation was their own invention. Wikipedia, “The Iroquois League,” http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois_League Viewed 22 June 2007

[123] Stephen Arthur, “Where License Reigns With All Impunity:” An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity,” Northeastern Anarchist No. 12, Winter 2007 nefac.net

[124] See, for example, Dmitri M. Bondarenko and Andrey V. Korotayev, Civilizational Models of Politogenesis, Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences, 2000.

[125] The argument that certain societies were able to take over the world because of geographic conditions rather than any inherent superiority is skillfully presented by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.

There was this one AU I made, where Smokescreen used to be a Decepticon spy (this was based on a really old crack theory when he was first revealed in the show) but when he was in the Archives, he started learning more about Cybertron as a whole and has a realization that "hey, maybe the Autobots have a Point™ and I don't know which side of this war I really want to be on" but he knows he already dug his grave and couldn't get out of it. That was until he crashed landed on Earth and no one knew who he was. He could actually be on the side he truly believed in, and help win the war. Now, he just has to hope no one on the Decepticon side will recognize him. (Plot twist: someone does)

OOOOOOOO YESSSSSSS

I hope you don’t mind if I add onto this because my brain grabbed it in a choke hold and went ZOOM

So we have Smokescreen doing Spy Things for the Cons. What if instead of having gone through the whole Elita Guard training which would’ve been incredibly risky, they just set him up to intercept the actual Guardsmen who’d been assigned to Trion so he can replace them. For most, guarding essentially a glorified librarian would be boring at best, but to a spy? Alpha Trion is the head of THE Iacon Archives, a complete foundation of useful, difficult to access information

And what if this would be Smokescreen’s first proper undercover mission. He’d done intelligence before, and he was really good at it, but this would be the first time he’d be going behind enemy lines for a long stretch of time. He thinks he’s got this completely in the bag

He does not have this completely in the bag

Unfortunately for Smokescreen, Alpha Trion keeps all KINDS of records in the Archives. He’s got stuff in there from everybody, Autobot, Decepticon and Neutral, from news clippings to videos to all manner of propaganda. He’s even got a whole secret section dedicated to banned media.

And when Smokescreen’s doing his spy investigations….. he ends up finding a couple things he either didn’t know or didn’t really think about, and the datapads he finds offer a large amount of view points. Many of them are biased, but there’s enough different view points that he’s able to piece together a picture.

And it’s….. not great, if he’s being honest. Sure the Autobots aren’t saints, but they’re not the monsters Megatron and the Decepticons had painted them to be. Not the monsters Smokescreen had them as. And to make things even worse, the Decepticons aren’t nearly as good as he’s been made to believe. He learns of Shockwave and his experiments, the Decepticon Justice Division, Praxus, so many things he’d heard in passing but never got all the context for and even more things he’d never even heard of

Smokescreen didn’t like not knowing things. He was an intelligence agent, knowing things was his job….. or at least, he thought it was.

So he’s faced with a crisis. He knows he can’t go back to the Decepticons knowing what he knows now, but at the same time the Decepticons won’t take his defection well and there’s no guarantee that the Autobots will take him in. Right now Alpha Trion is his best and really only option for safety and honestly….. he really does trust the guy. His friendship made with him wasn’t all faked, and he genuinely likes him.

So he decides he’s going to tell Alpha Trion the truth and go from there. He can figure out the specifics of his maybe(?) defection after that.

……only he doesn’t get the chance because then the Fall of Iacon happens and Smokescreen gets knocked out

He does wake up on the ship like in canon, only this time he isn’t a prisoner because they knew who he was. Instead he wakes up in the med bay and is told they found him unconscious in the Archives. They say he’s to wait for his next assignment and then he’ll be off

Only now the full force of what he’s doing comes crashing down and he realizes just how badly he’s fucked up. Alpha Trion is now dead and it’s all thanks to what he’s done. Because he was too afraid and too unwilling and too slow to accept everything, now he’s lost his best friend and mentor who showed him more kindness than he felt he deserved

And what if in that moment Smokescreen decides once and for all that he’s going to defect and nothings going to stop him. And if he gets caught, at least he’s going to go out with a bang. So he uploads every virus he can onto that ship and causes as much chaos and havoc as possible before jettisoning himself off via an escape pod

……only then it turns out one of his viruses had messed with the pods as well at set the one he got into into a long distance pod

And as much as it sucks, he decides to use the new anonymity to its fullest. He doesn’t trust them completely, since even with all he’s learned it’s still a little difficult to fully trust them so he doesn’t come out with the full truth, most importantly his now ex-Decepticon spy status

as for the reveal, what if it happens during Inside Job. Megatron’s poking around in his head and finds some things Smokescreen had wanted ti keep secret, and now he has some blackmail that he could use to fracture the Autobots a bit…… like say during the Children-Omega Key Exchange when they fight for the Onega Lock

but yeah those are what I could come up with :D

Deacon

My interpretation of Deacon is very much in the camp of, “every good lie has a seed of truth”. Got no idea if that what makes a good lie, but I think it’s a fun story telling device so idc. I never want to take away from him being a liar because it feels like it’d be a disservice to his character, but from his dialogue it feels like there’s always that grain of truth. Rather than just flat out lies, he twists the truth. The only time it ever feels flat out is when you’re supposed to doubt him, (like that he’s been to Greenland or played cards with Mr. House). It’s wacky, outlandish, and he plays it straight because that’s apart of the joke.

Because at his heart he’s a goofball! I think that Deacon shows more of who he truly is than he realizes by the mere fact that he doesn’t really know who that is anymore. If you spend sometime time as the lie, when does it become the truth?

He’s so edgy in own head, but I think that his true colors show from his actions which are usually spent either a) protecting the people he loves, or b) keeping their spirits high. He may be cynical, but he doesn’t want to be. He admires optimism and hope and surrounds himself in it, and I think some of it rubs off on him when he isn’t looking.

How can he not? The way that I can hear his voice SPARKLE after you blow up the Institute… Like the whole world has just taken on a new brighter shade. But also the way that he fights, and he fights, and he fights even in the darkest hours of the Railroad. At times I think he feels beaten down and broken, like he couldn’t get up again, but then he looks at these beacons of hope like Dez, Glory, and everyone else and he can’t help it! While he definitely has the “man loses last bit hope he didn’t know he had” moment, he doesn’t stay in the darkness. He’s magnetized to the light. Something something a lantern in the dark hehe.

Piper

I’ve fallen in love a little bit with almost all of the Fallout 4 companions, and Piper is the latest 💞. I made a conscious effort to spend more time with her on my survival play through and she’s just so charming. Bethesda knew what they were doing and they got my pansexual ass hook, line, and sinker. She’s sweet, and awkward, and passionate, and quirky, and goofy, and driven. What’s there not love?

I think my Piper is definitely a reflection of what I’m feeling like in my early twenties, except a more fantasized “country girl in the big apple vibes” version. Life is an adventure, and oh fuck being an adult with responsibility is difficult. I care so much about my community yet feel so isolated for one reason or the other. She’s fighting for justice but doesn’t have it all together yet. She trips, stumbles, and is learning.

I think the biggest roadblock for loving her character had been the contradiction of being ostensibly pro-synth but also lambasting McDonough for being a synth publicly. However, when I took a look at that as a character arc I really began to appreciate her!

Piper’s point was never to promote synth hate, and I’m so compelled by her grappling and dealing with the fact that she did. That her constant strive to deliver the unabashed truth, along with her (rightful) disdain of McDonough as a person meant that she helped the paranoia. That she made synths the bad guys rather than the Institute at large. Her seeing the toll of a full out war with propaganda from all sides, and developing another layer to her belief system. An awareness of her words and how they effect people.

Cait

I know that for some character arcs it’s about learning to be okay in your own body, on your own, but it’s SO important to me that Cait ends her story with someone absolutely smitten for her. It doesn’t matter the gender (although I’m personally partial to a girlfriend for her), she needs someone to hold her. To be patient with her. To call her out on her shit when she’s being dumb, and stand by her through the roughest parts of her journey. I want her to feel warm, and safe, and held and to be surrounded by people who love and appreciate her.

Also want her to have a complicated relationship with drugs that isn’t easy, but that she feels like she has agency and choice over. That she doesn’t need to feel ashamed for her drug use! That sure she’s got baggage but she’s so worth carrying it. I want Cait to live an easy breezy life where she’s surrounded by laughter.

(Man I guess this was less meta and more me wanting to give Cait nice things lmao).

In such a bad mood after reading something that I won’t say more about because I don’t care for engaging in internet discourse! So instead I wanna post something positive! These are just some thoughts on a couple of the companions. Definitely not the full breadth of my thoughts, but I’m kinda just not in the mood to be critical right now. Just need something good to cheer me up. Hope it can do the same for you!

My interpretations generally tend towards the sweeter more optimistic end, and I’m aware of that. But I stand by them none-the-less. I want the wasteland to become a softer place, not a harder one, and I think that while characters start out in dark places they can be lifted out of that. Fallout already spends so much time really showing off the depths of the horrors of humanity and I think that it needs to foster hope. Hope and growth give meaning to the struggle. The violence may be pointless but then we can choose to be different. Idk y’all it’s nearly two in the morning and I just want some feel goods after being absolutely STEAMED.

If you wanna join in on the fun and add your own thoughts I’d love to hear them. About these guys or any others. I just picked a random three myself. It can be angsty! I just ask to keep things respectful and compassionate in how you talk about it.

The hate jays character gets is insane! Bro just breathed 😭. But fr people saying that he has no personality and stuff like he just got introduced and he does have a personality ur just to stuck to your ship to see it. Hope jonjay get married and live a happy life 🙏🙏🙏

lmao im flabbergasted by the “no personality/lois copy” claims cuz it’s like, yes, i understand that he was MARKETED as a lois archetype, and is in fact a reporter, but like….. that’s it. the PR doesn’t do him any justice, bc when was lois an asian, not-white-passing refugee whose been branded an extremist by Big Brother Batman bc he had the nerve to stage a revolution while seeking safe haven in a different country? lois, is at best, is an example of the AMERICAN quest for truth and justice. jay reflects the refugee’s modern day struggle for disseminating the truth while combating misinformation and corpofascist propaganda. if gamorra didn’t exist, nephew could have been from any region currently experiencing crisis. palestinian, se asian, south asian, middle eastern, you name it, and it fits, and FINE if you think that’s boring, but my guy DOES have a personality. it is not his fault superman thought his personality was hot before he even took off that ugly mask. if ur gonna hate him, at least hate him based on the facts. just admit you hate refugees who won’t assimilate the way kal of house el did 😂

so as per usual i saw people talking about a concept, pulled a face, then started thinking, “okay, but could that actually work?”, so here’s my personal take on how Hunter Killing Belos could actually work

so. imagine this. somehow, Hunter finds out about the draining spell/genocide plans on his own. it’s pre-Hollow Mind, that never ends up happening, so Belos doesn’t know he knows, and therefore his own life is not in immediate danger and he doesn’t have to run away.

instead, he’s just going about his regular daily life in the castle. attending to his duties as Golden Guard. assisting the Emperor, who he now knows is planning to murder the entire population of the Isles in at most a couple of months, and whose regime Hunter himself has personally helped prop up and legitimize.

now the thing about Hunter is that he thought he was doing something good. like everyone else, he sincerely believed the propaganda - he believed that Belos spoke to the Titan and carried out the Titan’s will, that he himself had some kind of divinely appointed grand destiny that he was working towards fulfilling, that the Isles were going to be ushered into paradise on the Day of Unity, that everything Belos did was for the good of the people.

he’s a deeply moral person with a strong sense of justice, imo, whose idea of what morality or justice or goodness is has been intensely warped by being raised by Emperor “Philip ‘lying serial killer’ Wittebane” Belos and handfed a steady diet of propaganda and manipulation for his entire life.

so. he has a choice. he can either let Belos hurt people, let Belos literally kill everyone on the Isles... or he can do something about it.

as far as he knows, he’s the only person who knows. as far as he knows, he’s the only person who can do anything about it.

on the one hand, there’s Belos. his uncle, the man who raised him, his only family, a man who he absolutely adores, a man he worships, a man who he has dedicated his entire life to serving. on the other hand, there’s literally every single living person in the entire Isles.

that’s not an easy choice for Hunter, not at all, but it’s a very simple one. he can’t let his uncle go through with it. but what’s he supposed to do? he can’t talk Belos out of it. there’s no act of sabotage he could commit that would sufficiently derail the Day of Unity. he’s just one person, albeit a very highly-ranked one.

no, the only real advantage he has is that he has unparalleled intimate access to the Emperor. to his uncle.

so... he uses that. he makes a plan. (he stops sleeping, he stops eating, he throws himself into his work, he does his best to keep up appearances, his stomach is eating itself and he feels so sick all of the time.) he gets Belos alone. it’s harder to do now than when he was younger, but he still finds himself alone with Belos in his workshop, in his personal chambers, away from anyone else, plenty often.

and he assassinates the Emperor.

he hopes to die in the attempt. failing that, he’s sure that he’ll be executed afterwards, and he’ll happily stand on the stage to be petrified without ever breathing a word of what he found out. no one else needs to know what Belos was planning. let them revile him, let his memory be dragged through the mud, let him be known forever as a traitor who took paradise away from them. that’s fine.

he doesn’t die, though! and, worse - he’s not the only person who knew. there were rebels at the highest levels who were trying to work to stop Belos themselves, and he got the jump on them and now they’re scrambling to get on top of this situation.

and now i invite you to consider... Raine Whispers, who has a ruthlessly practical streak a mile wide, who was absolutely willing to die and kill for the sake of toppling this dictator even before they knew he was planning genocide. who, as a performer, understands the value of propaganda.

(and Darius, who, as a theatrical bitch and someone who did an even better job of flying under the radar than Raine, also understands the value of putting on a good show. and cares about Hunter, too, although he’s never felt like it was safe enough to admit that to anyone, least of all Hunter.)

consider the two of them looking at the problem in front of them: they have a beheaded imperium staggering around about to collapse, a society full of witches and demons who have no idea what Hunter just did for them, and one extremely guilty suicidal teenage boy who just saved everyone’s lives and is ready to go to his grave without ever saying so because it meant betraying and murdering the man who raised him.

and consider them, practical, crafty, bastardous, going: “i think i know how to kill both of these birds with one stone here.”

and leaping to craft and push this whole narrative where the noble Golden Guard was ready and willing to sacrifice his own life to save the people of the Isles after learning of the Emperor’s true goals, so who better to take the Emperor’s place? with, of course, the support and advice of the ruling council of the coven heads, who truly knew nothing of what Belos intended.

(none of them like or respect Hunter. none of them trust or particularly like Raine, either. they probably largely don’t like Darius, but his loyalty and dedication is unimpeachable. he’ll talk them around. they all want power, right? well here it is - the boy can’t rule, he’s a trained dog stuffed into royal vestments, he’s a kid, he’ll need guidance, do you see what he’s saying?)

they save Hunter by making him a figurehead. now everyone knows the truth - although how long it’s going to take for everyone to accept that truth is another matter entirely - now the covens have a banner to rally under, now there’s a sense of continuity and society has been shaken without collapsing entirely, so Raine and Darius and Eberwolf can go on making changes and bringing about the government they want to have without completely tearing it down and starting all over again.

(Raine is worried about him. this is a lot for a kid to deal with, and he’s obviously troubled. but it’s the best thing for the greatest number of people, and it’s only until they can hammer out something better.)

(Darius is so proud of him - a secret palisman and sneaking out to make friends is one thing, but this? if he’d known Hunter had this kind of rebellion in him, he might’ve brought the kid into his confidence a lot earlier. he wishes they’d been able to coordinate, because sweet Titan is this a grade-A clusterfuck of a mess, but he can’t bring himself to regret not telling the Emperor’s loyal right-hand boy man about the treason he was planning.)

(and Hunter? well. Hunter has A Job To Do, so he can’t throw himself into the spike moat, no matter how miserable he is.)

Hi! I heard that there was an antisemite who worked on harry potter, but was removed from the dev team shortly before release. You seem like the person who would know things about that. Could you tell me more?

Presumably this was about Troy Leavitt, but it's not quite what happened. The tl;dr of this post is that he resigned after Twitter caught wind of his reactionary YouTube channel.

Further details:

Leavitt was hired as a lead designer for Hogwarts Legacy in 2018; from 2019 to March 2021, when he resigned, he was Senior Producer.

In February 2021, game critic Liam Robertson tweeted a link to Leavitt's then-inactive YouTube channel with the following commentary:

I know this is just shocking but the lead designer of Hogwarts Legacy is Troy Leavitt, a far right YouTuber who used to make anti-fem and pro GG vids: https://youtube.com/c/TroyLeavitt/videos… I want to make something clear here - I'm not trying to "cancel" anyone. I just wanted to let people know this because I feel like it's something people might like to know before deciding whether to support this project. This is all public info and there for anyone to find.

In Leavitt's "In Defense of John Lasseter" video, he discusses how Lasseter was personally nice to him when they worked together closely on the Cars 2 video game.

He characterises the #MeToo movement as a "moral panic" and downplays Lasseter's many sexual harassment allegations essentially because he doesn't think any of them qualify as outright illegal and he believes they were less severe than Harvey Weinstein's.

However, he claims that making this distinction within the climate of #MeToo could cause him to be branded a "rape apologist" and says "after all, I’m a white male myself and so my mere existence is assumed to be part of the problem”.

An article was subsequently published on Kotaku with further details about Leavitt's support for Gamergate and other reactionary views. It describes some of the content of Leavitt's videos, including one where he states that "...even though I disclosed my YouTube channel to WB Games, it didn’t appear to be an issue for them ... they seem more concerned with making good games than with pushing some kind of a social justice agenda, so there is hope." The following month, Leavitt resigned.

Leavitt's video explaining the events claims that the controversy was unrelated to his resignation and that he had already been working towards retirement in order to focus on issues within his family, reiterating that his employer had known about his channel all along. In this video, he objects to being called alt-right and anti-feminist, calling himself a supporter of "certain types of feminism", with Christina Hoff Sommers as an example of the libertarian "equity feminist" ideas he supports and Andrea Dworkin as an example of what he describes as the "men are bad, #killallmen" approach to feminism. He also describes himself as a strong supporter of trans rights but argues that JK Rowling is "worthy of conversation, not cancellation": "When I read JK Rowling's position, I see that she's expressing herself in a calm and reasonable manner, and she even provides explanations for why she thinks the way that she does." He positions himself as a victim of cancel culture and accuses his critics of conducting a propaganda-based smear campaign against him without having actually watched his videos.

I don't know if any of his videos expressed antisemitic views because I honestly can't be bothered to watch them, but he does have a Religion and Philosophy playlist on his channel with titles like In Praise of Cultural Appropriation and The Injustice of Social Justice. In the video I did watch, he said he believes humans should "grow up" and reject our "petty", "tribal" identifiers like race and gender, and that "the minority most worthy of protection is the individual". (I understand that people who are into "the only race is the human race!" idea tend to be well-intentioned, but as someone who belongs to a tribal culture, seeing someone call themselves "anti-tribal" is a bit awkward.) Even if he never produced an antisemitic YouTube video, however, he still produced an antisemitic game.

Okay, so I was looking through the SDRA2 Masterlist and I realized that I requested for Tsurugi 7 times but never requested for general dating Headcanons. So could I get dating HCs for him please? Thanks

Ok ok, moody police officer, got it

Sorry my finals just ended and I just got into the headspace to write again woo.

🛑Hella Spoilers🛑

Also sorry I wrote like an entire fucking book for him instead of simple headcanons I just got on a role and went with it. I honestly really love this character.

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Tsurugi Dating Headcanons

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Older Tsurugi

🚓 Tsurugi has a lot of issues he has yet to deal with yet, regardless of when you meet and get into a relationship with him

🚓 He is honestly worse to try to communicate after the events of DRA, but if you somehow get past that and break through those walls of his, you can clearly see just how broken he is emotionally

🚓 If you've been with him since before he was in the "game" and survived, you better believe he's going to be somewhat softer (only with you) despite his "change of heart"

🚓 He will never ask you for help though, not until he's at the point when he's broken down

🚓 Regardless of when you're together, he's awkward, distant, stubborn and protective as hell

🚓 Behind closed doors he'd like nothing more than just to spend some quality time with you, where he can finally relax for a little while and enjoy being able to hold you without fear of losing you

(which is often a very rare occurrence due to his PTSD putting a strain on your relationship)

🚓 Scary dog right? Hell yeah. Y'all got like a scary junk yard dog that barks so loud it sometimes scares itself

-

With him before DRA events?

🚓 He for sure tracked your ass down after he escaped the island, he was one of the only ones with memory fragments left

🚓 Believe me, if Utsuro had the balls to mention you to get him to feel despair, he's going to make sure it isn't just a bluff

🚓 If you happen to be brainwashed by Junko's videos, propaganda, and the riots, you're going straight into rehabilitation

🚓 (Otherwise) You're going to be living with him, there is no debate after he finds you again

🚓 He's got you your own personal security team, it's annoying at times but at least you can understand the sentiment of it

🚓 He honestly worries about him scaring you away sometimes...

🚓 You're one of the only people he allows to get within 3 foot from him without meeting the barrel of his service weapon

🚓 It takes a lot more for him to snap at you than it does for him to yell at others, he simply has learned to control himself better when you're around

🚓 If he's being honest, he'd prefer if you were always in his field of vision, but he knows well that you have your own life besides for him and considering what his job is, you could get hurt

🚓 On the off-chance you get hurt he will deal with whoever or whatever hurt you, god hope he spares them by not dragging it out

🚓 He will never allow you to get into a position where you could become just another casualty of justice

🚓 He's more likely to listen to you when you tell him he needs a break, and that's saying a lot

🚓 You can sometimes catch him staring at you in that lovesick puppy way, it's not quite a common occurrence like it was before back in Hope's Peak (but it's a sign that he's still the same Tsurugi you knew back then)

🚓 Others can clearly see the impact you have on him, to the point where you've become the Kisaragi Foundation's appointed negotiator specifically for him (because he'll actually let you speak and think about what you say before dismissing it)

🚓 He does appreciate the constant concern you show for health, much more than you think he does

🚓 The affection you give him makes him melt, but he prefers that others don't see/hear you

🚓 You are constantly on his mind, almost like a borderline-yandere like obsession, it's caused him to always second-guess his decisions before going through with anything

🚓 Of course, he's worried about how his decisions affect you

🚓 It's almost funny how much he actually cares compared to what he's willing to show others

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Younger Tsurugi

🚓 His younger self is much easier to talk to, to persuade, and to compromise with

🚓 You attempting to help him with his issues makes a bigger impact on him then he'd ever be able to explain to you

🚓 Modest sweetheart, easier to fluster than you think

🚓 A simple kiss to the cheek has him red in the face, though that's mostly from his embarrassment (man's got zero dating experience and here you are loving on him, you're good for him!)

🚓 Unknowingly touch-starved, (give him affection he deserves it, this is a threat)

🚓 You might not go on very many dates, but the ones you do are special enough to get a picture-perfect moment for

🚓 He always has your back in an argument with someone else

🚓 Got people messing with you? Not anymore, he already made sure of it

🚓 Doesn't really care about what kind of talent you have (if you have one at all) and will still praise you regardless (it's more like an off-handed comment, sometimes he doesn't even realize what he said until you're hugging him)

🚓 Hands down would shoot someone for you, very few questions asked (please teach him not to always resort to violence)

🚓 He constantly worries he's going to screw up, not surprising

🚓 Will you get him to finally see a therapist? Maybe. He's thinking about what you told him

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This post is brought to you by Utsuro.

"What? You asked about him and didn't expect me to answer?"

Ok because I'm brainrotted. More facts about the Guilty Gear Inside My Brain

- there is a universal translation spell. Since the GG stories have people speaking all one language, I assumed that there is a sort of translation effect going on: axl speaking 1990s English would not let him interact with literally anyone in the present considering peoples various nationalities. Also explains why ppl all speak a certain language for the viewer

- Illyria is a melting pot so language over there is fucked. It's a mix of a lot of western European languages bc countries and boundaries sort of got blown up during the crusades

- The Crusades were a lot worse in my head. Like they are kind of glossed over except for the whole "a lot of people died" but it was bad bad. An immortal enemy and her endlessly propagating soldiers makes morale both incredibly hard to keep up and incredibly important to maintain

- On that note rations during this time were super commonplace. A lot of time was spent making food and resources available for The Holy Order. Large scale farms were often the target of Justice's attacks so food in general was pretty scarce. Civilians had to ration distributed food and usually supplemented it with small farms and livestock if possible. A few squadrons of the Order started eating slain gears when it came down to it (based on animals, probably okay to cook and eat. Due to hyper-regeneration I don't think gears tasted good at all but a war is a war)

- Morale is part of why Ky was appointed as a Commander so young. Propaganda wise he is just picture perfect, the kid who beat the odds and always has Hope . Perfect for morale in the Order and for civvies

- Kliff did his best to keep him out of the propaganda side of things but he is sort of ruled by the UN and their funding so :(

- Back to point one, the first time Axl timeslipped he got really really sick because of all the new viruses/germs/health shit his body wasn't used to . Modern Magical Medicine mitigates the stuff axl brings forwards though :) (the worst of it is usually the sniffles)

- the Former United States got hit the worst with the gear attacks at the beginning and them having a centralized government is an extremely new thing. States as we know them no longer exist in anything but name as they are effectively large enough communities that live in a given area. The amount of territory controlled by the centralized government is actually pretty small

- Magic does not make it easier to continent hop. I don't care if everyone can teleport or some shit i studied way too many planes to make it that easy. Boats piloted by those with water magic or magic-powered airships are the primary forms of cross-continental transportation here. Its common knowledge that if you want to beef up your ship you'll use Black Tech from Zepp. They have quite literally perfected engines from sub to supersonic since the Dawn of Revival they know their fucking planes

- most civilians don't have a large scale form of transportation. Large scale settlements are connected by magi-rail, and bicycles are becoming more common. Those who do have cars either have a small, compact car, or one that's used for many people in a given location, depending on how many people live at that location

-Sol's bike is augmented with black tech because he doesn't give a shit.

- a lot of things are still being worked on: science took a massive hit with the destruction of knowledge in 99 and then another hit when the crusades started. Most innovation during that time went into how to kill more gears and let people survive so in peacetime more effort has gone towards uh. Other stuff.

- voyager 1 and 2 still operated and stopped transmitting data when their supply of plutonium was no longer able to power them. The Golden Record is still up and out there. :)

Some random, disjointed thoughts on Lincoln. Originally I shared this with some buddies on Discord and thought “ah, why not”.

-still celebrates Danny’s and Ellis’ birthdays years after their deaths

-I’ve mentioned this before but he’s a huge proto-punk fan (alongside the very blatant love for rock that he has in-game). The Clash’s “I Fought the Law” cover is one of his favorite songs

On that note, he also likes a lot of folk music, mostly Bob Dylan and occasionally Pete Seeger (Yes I am projecting my Appalachian-ness onto him. sue me)

-In the route where he leaves, it takes a few years but he finds himself more hopeful. Something something anger is the more “acceptable” form of hope, as both are justice-driven emotions, but that is a conversation for another day.

-VERY heavily represented by bass and guitar— I’ve discussed that in a music post I made, but still, it’s very significant. The electric variations are the “war” side, and the acoustic variations are more the “humanitarian”(?) side

-had a thing for mystery books when he was younger, but hated how things were done in said books most of the time

-godawful singer but he does it anyway

-random ass “”naps”” (he collapses on the floor for 30 minutes then wakes up and goes back to doing whatever he was originally doing)

-had to get good at de-escalation as a kid at the orphanage, but his “methods” were 1 of 2 things:

Staring intensely until someone told the truth. Effective…?

Escalation as a form of de-escalation. They can’t fight if he’s threatening both of them!

-weirdly enough, the above methods worked 90% of the time

-mild flat affect. Maybe it’s just because I see him as autistic but still— he’s very expressive with people he’s close to, but otherwise, he’s very flat

on that note: as a kid he would just stare and say “that’s bullshit” with no emotion in his voice (given he didn’t know someone). Father James always found it funny but never said anything other than telling him not to swear

-can play the harmonica! That’s the only musical talent he has

-socially inept 80% of the time (🤝)

Yeah that’s all I got for now, hope it’s fun. Here’s a piece of USSR propaganda called “The Socialist Fraternal Kiss” featuring Boris Yeltsin (last leader of the USSR technically) passionately kissing some guy with a unibrow (idk who, it looks like Brezhnev to me?). Why put this at the end of this post? Because I’m hilarious.

One of the more interesting questions about the morality of media consumption is less whether consuming 'bad' media or liking the wrong characters causes/models bad behaviour, but does good media and good character cause/model good behaviour?

Glibly, I think the fandom behaviour of that crowd demonstrates otherwise. It's clearly not doing what it's supposed to be doing.

But like, it's much more interesting that somebody with values which are anathema to my own will still see himself in Luke Skywalker and may not potentially model his own behaviour after Luke Skywalker-in-the-text (compassionate... saves his father...) but whatever idea he has projected onto Luke Skywalker, that Luke is a badass with video-game powers and also every story ever should be about him, because that was the whole point of the trilogy right.

From a more personal perspective, no matter how many hopeful stories I may partake in, they don't fundamentally change the things I have struggled with/continue to struggle with. They are very meaningful though, and they do make me think about a lot of things. Most of the time I just don't view that type of opportunity for something good as available to me; I'm kind of doing the opposite of projection here lol.

Again, though, my concern with good media/good character-liking causing/modelling good behaviour is that this is never going to be used for a true social justice agenda, it is 100% going to be used for corporate interests and, well, propaganda. Don't hand that power over lol.

So been trying to make Pokemon Verses for my OCs. So far I got a basic idea with pokemon in mind. Feedback would be nice. It's under the cut.

Aeon's and Maria's Pokemon verses. (Joanna is a work in progress)

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Aeon: A trainer who started his journey at a young age like everyone else, inspired by a champion he met one day. He started his journey in the Sinnoh region. His side passion is being a photographer and nurturing pokemon, this however has put a damper in some relationships with family members as his passion had blinded him from the drama that he left.

Terra (Torterra): The first pokemon when Aeon started, starting as a Turtwig. Very laid back and is a gentle giant, never the aggressor. He sometimes hates battling which Aeon caught on and only does it when absolutely necessary. Doesn't mind training though.

Azure (Lucario): The second member when discovered as a Riolu. Was left alone, living comfortably, as he waited for his mother to return. It wasn't until Aeon discovered his mother was captured long ago and wanted to tag along. Since the two can communicate they chat like friends and Aeon had even learned a few things about aura. Azure is determined and brave, soft spoken and rarely loses temper.

Nakoma (Aegislash): At first rageful and cruel, Aeon gets through to this fully evolved Honedge. She had at first refused to accept him, as she was loyal to her previous owner but tragically lost them while still in their pokeball. She saw trainers as slave owners, using the pokeballs as cages. Aeon did help find the culprit, a vicious criminal part of a group, and when receiving justice her old friends were free by Aeon's choice. Seeing potential in the boy, she does join but is always kept out of the ball except during emergencies.

Hazel (Mudsdale): Was seen as the runt of the group. Hazel was taken by Aeon as he saw potential. Once sad and mopey, Hazel came into his own and eventually won a farming contest. Though can be clumsy.

Cordellia (Escavalier): A honorable and boastful Escavalier. Very confident and can back it up, but has a long way to go to be a royal knight. Aeon simply wanted a picture and she wanted him to be her personal photographer, get her place in history.

Saber (Sirfetch'd): A pokemon they met often, that bested the group time and time again till Azure finally got the win. They are a real renegade, and had joined after Aeon earned his respect. He seeks to be the strongest knight... and hopes to find true love.

Maria: A trainer who researches pokemon and the mysteries of the world. She started off as a trainer but found less satisfaction with the leagues, as it was more of a propaganda than anything in her eyes. She does refuse to be a professor as she also doesn't agree to their ideals, stating, "Children should not be doing what adults ought to be doing."

Gardevoir (Eowin): Found during her childhood after her brother left home. The pokemon was a Ralts that was all alone like her. The two bonded together and it now inhabits nearly everything that is Maria. Smart, capable, but is more attached than Maria. The most loyal of the group.

Hierophant (Roserade): The second comer, a very flamboyant as he loves the theatrics. Views itself as a gentleman. Can dance, act, and tries to be professional.

Luminous (Chandelure): Found as a Litwick that was incredibly scard and shy. She took great interest in Maria's books, she was terrified to leave the mansion it was all alone in. What convinced her was that Maria had stayed several nights with her to read stories, all till they were all done. Maria promised her more stories if she came with. Eventually, she build the courage and got more brave as they journeyed. Though she is still really shy.

Misumi (Bisharp): Found when Maria entered her territory, this Bisharp did not play fair and used clever tactics to protect her home. She is cold and distant, does not play well with others. She only joined Maria after she had aided her from an attack by its natural predator. It seem she has a debt to pay, but perhaps she found a new home.

Goliath (Grimmsnarl): Found as a Impidimp, this last member was a hand full. He would prank and cause mischief for Maria constantly. When he got trounced he just kept following her, challenge after challenge, even evolving at times. When he was a Grimmsnarl, after one last heated battle, he wanted to join as he admired Maria's strength. Not only that but he grew a rivalry with Misumi. Maria had to admit he was strong, so she agreed. But he was certainly a loose canon.