Self-immolation man proves that you can be the ultimate tool of imperialism - a white American man in the American armed forces - commit all the war crimes that go along with it, and as long as you end it all with a public, gory suicide in the name of Palestine, non-Jewish leftists will worship you.

Hi there - I'm trans and Jewish and I'd like to share my perspective on the "trans genocide" thing. I don't think we're experiencing active genocide in the US; that's definitely an extreme and offensive statement to make regarding what's happening. However, I do think that the increasing legislation attacking trans rights and autonomy as well as an increasingly polarized public view of trans people points to the potential for a worse situation that moves closer to genocide.

Now, personally, I live in a state where no laws limiting trans rights have passed. I was able to legally begin my medical transition when I was 15, I've never experienced transphobic violence, and the majority of people around me are supportive of my transition. My experience is similar to most other trans people in my area, with varying degrees of familial support.

But nation wide, we have seen an increase of trans people being murdered, and a massive increase in anti-trans legislation. This legislation aims to strip trans people of their autonomy and privacy. It seeks to put trans children in danger, remove information about what it is to be trans or queer from children's access, and enforce archaic ideas about what it means to be a man or woman.

Most of this is happening because right wing politicians can capitalize on moral outrage and fear to win votes. They're scapegoating trans people instead of trying to improve the lives of their constituents. This is kind of politician's thing, so it's not surprising in any way. However, when those policies successfully do win these politicians support, they'll have to make them more extreme. They'll want to make it illegal to exist as a trans person in public.

Now I'm not saying that that's genocide. I think we're an awfully long way off from trans people being mass arrested for being trans, and then murdered by the state. But we are in a rising climate of fear, and I don't think the trans people calling this the seventh stage of genocide are doing so out of bad faith. I think they're doing that because they are terrified of having their right to take life-saving medication, or have protection in the workplace, or be able to use a bathroom, or have children, or wear what they want to wear taken away. And they're terrified of those things because the bills on the table in states across the country put those rights in jeopardy. And if calling this a genocide makes people pay attention? I'm not super mad about it.

Hi, thank you for sharing your perspective on this. I appreciate it.

Your fear is primarily based on sensationalist headlines and interpretations of the law that are unfounded. I can assure you, you are not even in the early stages of a genocide.

But nation wide, we have seen an increase of trans people being murdered

In 2021, the Human Rights Campaign recorded 50 deaths of trans, nonbinary and GNC people.

In 2022, the HRC recorded 38 deaths (source). So. If we take these numbers at face value, that's a decrease of nearly 25% in one year, in a growing section of the population.

Taking these numbers and the size of the transgender population in the US (1.6 million), in 2021, trans people had a death rate of 3.1/100k, and in 2022, this dropped to 2.4. Again, the numbers provided by the HRC include nonbinary and GNC people, and accidental deaths.

Some of these aren't even murders or intentional homicides. They just say they were killed. I wouldn't consider these numbers reliable whatsoever, but they're the only estimate we have for now. There are so few trans deaths that they can fit on a single Wikipedia page, along with a little blurb about their life and who they were. It would be impossible to do something similar with victims of femicide, since there are too many to count. This page lists victims of femicide, only in Canada, only in 2022, and it is nearly as long as the Wikipedia page I listed above.

This is a perfect segue to my next point, which is to compare trans genocide to femicide, which is actually real. Women are killed so often that the UN has to categorize female murder victims as either killings (unnatural deaths), intentional homicides or gender-related killings (hate crimes, therefore considered in femicide statistics).

The intentional homicide rate for female victims in the US is 2.9/100k (data from 2021), and it is steadily increasing after having been on the decline since the mid-90s.

That only includes the pink and red circles shown in the UN's chart, not accidental deaths or unknown deaths like the HRC includes in their counts. Some countries have as many as 10.6/100k women die a year.

TL;DR: The murder rate for trans people in the US is not increasing, it is decreasing. This isn't indicative of a trans genocide in the slightest.

But nation wide, we have seen [...] a massive increase in anti-trans legislation.

As I was saying earlier, this idea stems from sensationalist headlines. It's concerning to me how widespread the misinformation about anti trans legislation really is, when house bills are publicly available online. You can literally do a quick Google search and find that most of these bills are nothing burgers.

Unfortunately, it's easier for you to just go on a website like translegislation.com and have them tell you what these bills say. I'll do some of the work for you and go through how these sites lie to you.

Alabama imposing criminal penalties on providers of trans healthcare? Sounds scary. Let's see what the source they linked, the HRC, has to say.

Ah. So it's specifically regarding transgender youth. As in, minors. This is after going through an insanely long title detailing how bad the bill is. The trans legislation tracker essentially lies by omission, implying that all trans healthcare is being criminalized.

Going to the bill in question, AL SB184, we can see that it actually acknowledges the existence of dysphoria in children.

However, they also acknowledge that this feeling may be fleeting, and that making permanent changes to a child's body solely on account of the child's personal sense of identity is unwise.

I won't go through every single bill here, as this post is already very long, but you get the idea. Feel free to send another ask if you would like me to look at specific bills.

Back to your ask: the way you speak of these bills shows that you've never read them for yourself or know how legislation works, since you're acting like it's the beginning of Armageddon.

This legislation aims to strip trans people of their autonomy and privacy. It seeks to put trans children in danger, remove information about what it is to be trans or queer from children's access, and enforce archaic ideas about what it means to be a man or woman.

I'm assuming by autonomy and privacy, you mean the choice to undergo medical transition and the bathroom/locker room/women's sports issue respectively.

Bills limiting "gender-affirming" care are focused on children, since puberty blockers like Lupron are now known to have very negative and permanent effects. The bills don't ban adults from choosing to take HRT. It's extremely profitable for doctors to continue to prescribe HRT and for surgeons to continue to recommend expensive plastic surgeries. Legislation won't go that route unless there's a massive shift in public perception.

The "Save Women's Sports Act" literally just limits participation in women's school sports to females only. That's it. The trans legislation tracker even acknowledges this.

Most of these bills are copy pasted from eachother, which is why they're all dubbed as "Save Women's Sports." Here's a snippet from HB61 in Ohio:

If someone's sex is brought into question, a simple blood test is all that's needed. Contrary to what the media may have led you to believe, there are no forcible genital inspections. No trans person is being forced to undress for this. Only 6 trans "girls" are affected by this in Ohio, out of 400k total athletes in girl's sports. So I'm not sure why this feels like a precursor to genocide to you.

remove information about what it is to be trans or queer from children's access,

Personally, I don't think children should be aware that medical transition is even a remote possibility unless they are in extreme psychological distress related to their sex. Even then, therapy is usually the best solution. I don't think the "Gender Unicorn," a surprisingly complex graphic created in part by an alleged violent rapist and groomer, should be used in classrooms to teach children about gender ideology. Gender ideology should be taught to college students who are better equipped to form their own opinion, not children who barely know how to read.

There are better, more useful things to push in our education curriculum, like compulsory comprehensive sex ed. That way, young men don't learn about sex through violent pornography, and young girls don't accidentally get pregnant without knowing what it means. This would also be a good time to teach them about sexual orientation. Leaving it up to the parents or focusing on abstinence evidently doesn't work.

enforce archaic ideas about what it means to be a man or woman.

The lack of self-awareness here is pretty astounding. The trans movement actively enforces these archaic ideas of gender by telling tomboys that they might actually be a boy. This implies that femininity is what makes womanhood, which is objectively untrue.

By telling masculine women that they are men and feminine men that they are women, you're literally enforcing the gender roles you say you're destroying.

They'll want to make it illegal to exist as a trans person in public.

You can speculate about this all you want, but you can't see laws limiting child transition and keeping sports sex-segregated as writing on the wall. We're not even close to that.

Now I'm not saying that that's genocide. I think we're an awfully long way off from trans people being mass arrested for being trans, and then murdered by the state.

I'm glad to hear you are moderately sane.

But we are in a rising climate of fear,

Your phrasing reminds me of US politics in the wake of 9/11. When people act out of fear, decisions are made in haste, and wars are started over made-up WMDs. Being fearful clouds your judgement.

Look around you. You're safe and accepted. The trans flag is flown almost everywhere in June. A trans woman won the NCAA National Champion title just last year. For International Women's Day, multiple companies featured trans women. Time Magazine featured many trans women as Women of the Year. Language is now inclusive, so women don't actually exist anymore. We're just uterus havers. This is all to cater to trans people.

Yeah. It's getting to be a bit much, isn't it? Don't you expect the least bit of pushback, especially from women? We aren't living in fear of some invisible boogeyman. We are angry at how rapidly our hard work has been undone.

We're pissed that after decades of feminist progress, we've regressed to being considered non-men once again.

and I don't think the trans people calling this the seventh stage of genocide are doing so out of bad faith. I think they're doing that because they are terrified of having their right to take life-saving medication, or have protection in the workplace, or be able to use a bathroom, or have children, or wear what they want to wear taken away.

Puberty blockers and HRT do not save lives. They actually haven't been proven to have a substantial enough effect on mental health to consider them an adequate treatment for gender dysphoria.

2. Trans people have the same basic human rights as any other human being.

3. Many places are adding gender-neutral bathrooms in order to accommodate the growing trans population. No one is checking your genitals at the door of a bathroom, no one cares that much. I care about girls being assaulted at school by boys in skirts and the school boards covering it up in the name of trans acceptance (x).

4. Trans people remove their own ability to have children by going on puberty blockers, HRT and even eventually physically castrating themselves. If you mean the ability to adopt or foster children, I don't know. Gay and lesbian couples still have a hard time adopting to this day, so progress can be made in that department.

To conclude this hodgepodge of various facts, screenshots and links, I'll leave you with this:

I fundamentally disagree with you that crying "genocide" is in any way helpful for your community. It's not. Most of Western society might have forgotten what genocide looks like or doesn't even know what the word means anymore, but you should know better as a Jew.

The attention trans people get from saying that they're going through a genocide is overwhelmingly negative from people on both ends of the political spectrum at this point. People are annoyed at trans people for making shit up, which ruins your movement's credibility.

When you have to lie to get someone's attention, you've already lost.

An open letter to David Jenkins

Some fans believe that we should not vent our anger and frustration to show creators. I don’t believe that. The thing about being a professional is that receiving criticism is part of your job—especially if you have done a terrible job.

OFMD went from groundbreaking to disappointing overnight.

There was a momentum to create a queer media that is smart, fun, sexy, and most importantly, respectful. In the way they are writing these queer characters. Especially older and disabled queer characters, a reflection of a generation of marginalised communities that have gone through so much. To give audience a glimpse of hope in their escapism.

But sir, you choose to Remus Lupin him instead.

This is not just about killing off a character. Hell, I might be willing to accept it. After all, I have read and even written fics with MCD in it—involving my favourite character.

But I want you to know that this is a special case. It is not just another popular character being killed off to drive plots.

I have issue with how you kill off a queer character that represents many marginalised communities in his arc.

Izzy is an abuse survivor who becomes disabled as a result of it. Izzy is a queer elder. Izzy is suicidal but manages to overcome it with the healing power of love and community.

Having him killed off just like that is a huge slap for fans who have gone through what he has gone through. Turns out, even in fiction, in our escapism, there is no joy. Only despair.

Also. Father figure? Where does that come from? Ed has never been shown to have any level of respect for Izzy. So let me ask you again. Where does “father figure” come from?

You have an opportunity to make a difference with OFMD; to be remembered in history for the right reasons. Yet somehow you choose not too. You choose to turn this into cheap, sensationalist entertainment where death and torture are thrown around for shock value.

It is like you have no idea how much power you have by being a professional storyteller.

Let me break it down to you. For you as a writer, perhaps killing off Izzy is nothing but an artistic choice. A plot point to figure out. But for audiences in marginalised groups, stories are mirrors. They see themselves in stories. That is how stories give them hope. This is why OFMD has never been “just a pirate story”. Perhaps this is hard to understand if you have never been part of an underrepresented community in the mainstream media, but this is how many are feeling about your work now. Your legacy.

OFMD has truly become an overnight failure. I don’t know how this happened. I would like to blame budget cuts, but your Vanity Fair interview makes me realise this is all deliberate choice.

So, what is next for us Canyonites?

If anything, this convinced me that queer and disabled people should write. And continue to write.

We can no longer trust major media to speak for us. We definitely can never trust David Jenkins again. Any form of progressiveness that he showed earlier was just coincidence, apparently. Even worse, it was fake.

As my friend Sam beautifully puts it, Izzy belongs to us now. We reclaim that character and give him all the happy endings he deserves in our fic, our art. We transform the works. We write about queer, disabled, suicidal characters the way the deserve to be written. If being a published writer is the path you choose, make sure you make wiser decisions than David Jenkins.

Thank you, sir. It was good while it lasts.

But this is a terrible job that you’re doing.

Peter Cushing: one of my favorite Sherlocks

I have often written on Baker Street Babble about some of the more recent portrayals of Holmes: Cumberbatch, Miller, and Downey.  And I've spent some time indicating my admiration for Jeremy Brett's Holmes.  However, on of my favorite actors to portray Sherlock Holmes was Peter Cushing, who had the distinction of playing the detective in three different decades: the 1950s, the 1960s, and the 1980s.

Cushing first played Holmes in the 1959 Hammer Films version of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Despite the film's somewhat sensationalist rendition of The Hound, I find it to be perhaps the best version I've seen.  Cushing's Holmes is intense and dashing, with just the right kind of energy and humor for my taste. Reportedly, Cushing was very dedicated to his research of the character of Sherlock Holmes, and was very interested in the details: how Holmes smoked his pipe, how he did his hair, and how he stabbed his correspondence on the mantel with a jack-knife.  The Watson to his Holmes in the film is played quite capably by Andre Morell, and we also get the wonderful Christopher Lee as Henry Baskerville.  You can get a glimpse of Cushing's performances at the trailer below:

Almost a decade later, Cushing returned to the role of Sherlock Holmes, when he took over the part from Douglas Wilmer for the BBC's 1968 TV series, "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes."  Wilmer had played Holmes in black-and-white in the 1965 incarnation of the series, with Nigel Stock as his Watson. The 1968 was taped in color, and retained Stock as Watson.  The 1968 series was apparently quite popular at the time: Alan Barnes reports in Sherlock Holmes on Screen that The Sign of Four from the series garnered over 15.5 million viewers.  Once again, Cushing's portrayal of Holmes is very much on point, and it's a pity that more episodes from the series haven't survived.  According to Barnes, the BBC at the time had a policy of wiping tapes of programs that weren't considered significant enough to keep.  Still, copies survive of A Study in Scarlet, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Boscombe Valley Mystery, The Sign of Four, and The Blue Carbuncle. 

Cushing's last hurrah as Sherlock Holmes occurred in 1984 in a made-for-TV film entitled The Masks of Death.  By this time, Cushing was 71, and his Holmes no longer has the energy that made his earlier performances so enjoyable.  The film works Irene Adler into the plot, though not as a love interest (Cushing was too elderly at this point to make such a plot credible).  The film was the last in which Cushing would play a leading role.  You can watch the film in its entirety on YouTube (I've embedded it below for your convenience).

Like many people of my generation, my first exposure to Peter Cushing as an actor was seeing him play Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars in 1977.  Some of his performances as Sherlock Holmes in the films and TV programs mentioned above are abundant proof of how woefully underused Mr. Cushing had become at that point in his career.  Do yourself a favor, and watch Peter Cushing play Conan Doyle's great detective.  You won't be sorry.  

Peter Cushing's own sketch of Sherlock Holmes

Cocker Lips Now! Words: Johnny Dee, Photographer: Derek Ridgers Taken from the New Musical Express, 4 December 1993 Transcription: Acrylic Afternoons

He's raw sex in hipsters, he's old enough to know better and he's out to make his strange suburban madness a household brand. Johnny Dee braves the shoddiest TV show in the world to bring you Pulp - and the gospel according to Jarvis Cocker.

Pulp singer Jarvis Cocker, a man with the deadpan attitude of Alan Bennett and the raw sexuality of Barry White, doesn't like the idea of Virtual Reality. He doesn't like it at all. "I don't want to sound like an old guffer," he apologises, "but a dose of reality would be better for most people interested in Virtual Reality. I mean, most people would be freaked out if you went round and, you know gagged 'em, drugged 'em or something, stuck them in the boot of a car and dumped them in the middle of a field in North Yorkshire. That would freak most people out more than having some headset on."

The Pulp members - Russell (guitar/violin), Steve (bass), Candida (keyboards), Nick (drums) - are used to such typical Jarvis pronouncements, all delivered with a sanguine matter-of-factness. Jarvis is forever calm and unflustered, a man who'd refuse to panic if his arse was on fire. But this time he's gone too far.

"Bloody hell, Jarvis," says Russell, wrapped up in a tight pale blue PVC jacket that matches his eye shadow. "Well," says Jarvis Cocker. "You'd take the gag off afterwards."

Who needs Virtual Reality anyway? Close your eyes and imagine an endless, white corridor. Here, years ago, a perm-haired kids TV presenter called Mick Robertson crouched on his knees at the end of a row of coins denoting the success of the latest Magpie charity appeal. At the end of the corridor is Room 101 - Pulp's dressing room for the night. We are in TV world...

Well, we're in Teddington Lock, Middlesex for the filming of The Word in a TV centre that feels like a maximum security Holiday Inn. Since fellow guests Onyx have received several death threats throughout the day, there are uniformed men resembling Viz comic parkies stationed at the end of each hallway. On every wall there are unnervingly huge colour pictures of celebrities - Eric Morecambe, Cilia Black, Judith Chalmers. The Magpie appeals no longer worm their way around the maze of studios, but in the canteen, Rory Bremner is tucking into quiche and chips.

In Room 101 Pulp siphon Smirnoff into a Highland Spring bottle to beat the draconian on-set alcohol ban. They've been here since 11am: drinking, having their shirts ironed (since guests get their clothes pressed for free, they've all bought along a week's washing) and make-up done and arguing about "the gap".

Their new single 'Lip Gloss' has a two-second break in the middle, which The Word's people maintain isn't on the record (it is) and are worried that the audience will think it's the end of the song and start clapping like chimps (they do). "The gap" becomes an incredibly significant Pulp moment. If they agree to cut it out they'll be compromising. So Sheffield's finest popmongers decide to make the gap longer. Much longer.

It's been a long day spent in stardom's waiting room, but little things have made it worthwhile. Drummer Nick, for instance, overheard Dani Behr call someone "a f***in' c***". Russell saw a raincoated man bent over and struggling with a heavy box in the gents' loo. He opened the door for him and the man flashed a cheesy grin. "It was Des O'Connor! Des O' flippin' Connor!"

It's now 9pm and Pulp are on stage for the last dress rehearsal. It feels more than just a rehearsal for a sensationalist TV show; it feels like a rehearsal for stardom itself. Pulp have been together with various line-ups for ten years now through punk, new romance, C86 and grunge - always defiantly different.

They've survived disasters: Jarvis once being confined to a wheelchair after he jumped from a window to impress a girl; Fire Records putting their third album on hold for two years during legal wrangles. And they've coped with personality crises, too: Russell going through a disciplinary dictator phase, when Pulp ran to a strict regimented timetable; ex-drummer Magnus leaving the band and going barmy after deciding he was the moon... But over the past two years each successive single has been better and sold more than the last, and their audience has got bigger and younger. Now, incredibly, they're on a major label, their records are available in Woolworths, they're on daytime radio and on TV.

Huge day-glo shapes hang from the ceiling as they perform 'Lip Gloss' to a barren studio, Jarvis snaking across the stage in too-tight, thick, purple corduroy trousers, shaping hand movements not witnessed since Alvin Stardust rolled his ringladen fingers for the Pops' cameras. The only people here to witness this are skivvies fussing around with clip-boards, and the dancers - looking like clichéd Freemans catalogue versions of teenagers - who are paid to show off. As Jarvis sings of lipstick-stained fags and being chucked, these young bucks, with bare, greased-up torsos vogue over-enthusiastically on podiums. Half-naked 18-year-olds pretending to rave and having a fake wild time is bizarre enough but then so are Pulp. The camera cuts from Jarvis in karate mode to someone's bum cheek escaping from a pair of midget Homme pants and then back again to bassist Steve, desperately trying not to laugh.

The lovers portrayed in 'Lip Gloss' are worlds away from this forced environment of The Word. Like many Pulp songs, 'Lip Gloss' celebrates the strangeness of the ordinary and stretches a subject so mundane no-one's dared sing about it before. In this case, being pissed off after you've been chucked because you wasted time getting to know his/her mates who you never liked in the first place.

"I've got a bit of a hang-up about songs and films presenting an idealised version of things," explains Jarvis. "It makes people dissatisfied with their own lot in life. But it's something that never existed, it's just been made up by someone. Yes, we do glamorise the everyday but, you know, a bus journey can be exciting. You can treat it just like a journey and sit there like a plank or you can wonder what other people on the bus do with their lives."

Read any article about Pulp and at least three, if not all of these things will be mentioned alongside "the 'w' word" (wacky) or "the 'k' word" (kitsch). Perhaps all the detritus and trash that's associated with Pulp has masked something fantastic. Maybe Pulp really are going to be pop stars. At 11.35pm on Friday night, watching the TV set in room 101, Pulp's manager, Geoff Travis - who was previously the boss of Rough Trade - is sure of it. Tonight is a turning point, Pulp are contenders.

Do Pulp really want fame or are they content to carry on as nearly-made-it confectionery for the talking classes? Is siphoning vodka into water bottles, moaning about "gaps", getting your clothes ironed for free the behaviour of pop stars or forever sixth-form underachievers?

"Oh, we want to be famous," claims Jarvis. "It's what we've always wanted." But do you honestly believe you can appeal to 15-year-old girls? "I'm always trying. We want to appeal to everyone. I'd like to think we're not only trying to appeal to students and grocers. You can't choose who buys your record - it's in a shop, it could be murderers or bakers. But, we've been going so long it's not like we expect to get to Number One or anything."

It could happen, Pulp could really become stars. They'll never be on the cover of teen magazines, flashing torsos or sporting exotic hairstyles they're too old for all that. But it could be fun - Jarvis on What's Up, Doc? corrupting the nation's youth with dark tales of urban normality. Yet... why do they want to go through it, why do they want fame? Jarvis smiles and puffs on an Embassy regal.

You can take your time with this, but how would a wholly genderbent deathnote be?

You can take your time with this, but how would a wholly genderbent deathnote be?

A wholly genderbent death note?

I must admit ,anon -I took my time with this, because the scope of that is a little intimidating. Also Eclipse has been busy with work and Baldur's Gate 3, and hasn't had much energy to brainstorm. Thank you for your patience. 

To start with, the gender politics of this world are very different, as a lot of people in important positions have become female.

 Higuchi, is head of the technological development of the Yotsuba group at age 32, in 2004. He's canonically obsessed with gaining social status, power, and wealth, and is implied to not be as competent as his colleague's. If it were just him swapping genders that would carry unfortunate implications, but the rest of the group heads were male,  are also gender swapped, so now she's power climbing ambitious hate-sink, I guess. Just like before. 

Would Demegawa still be a sensationalist media director of a TV station in a gender swap? Maybe not if it was just him being swapped. That story would probably her being a lacky who made it higher (quite possibly to Kira Deaths in the industry) who is running the station in part two, someone who reached too high and fell to Kira like all others. 

The director of the FBI Stev(i)e Mason, is female, and so is most of the American FBI, with Misora standing out. Actually, in this AU would Penber have still told her fiance to stay in the kitchen and quit his job in order to marry her? Is she still reluctant to marry him? If so, that certainly carries implications about gender roles in this world.

But let's say things are different and Penber is less of a sexist jerk, and Misora had to tie up some loose ends on a previous job, before Rae dies. Misora is still one of the bigger threats to Light in series, and had to be taken down quickly for the story to work. It would certainly up the stakes if that coincidence was taken out, but keeping them there and playing multi person chess would be a lot harder.

The SPK of America, and the police of Japan are now full of ladies. It turns Lady Lights' desire from controversial to expected again.

On the flipside, crime is also made up of ladies, such as Mello's Mafia, Misa's stalker, and independents such as Otoharada.

It's starting to feel kind of like Barbieland, as there is a noticeably higher number of named male characters then Female in the universe of Death Note. Like really, off the top of my head I can think of 13 named female characters in death note, and I'm including characters like Misa's friend Yoshi.

In this gender swapped Death Note, by 2009, there is something that hasn't happened in reality in the states. There is a Madame President, and Vice president. Mrs Roger is so done with Watari, she never wanted to spend this much time around children and here she is running an orphanage filled with them. I'm going to assume Linda is still into art.

In a world where Watari was the only one gender swapped,  I would wonder if Watari's past as an inventor was a bit like L being the world famous detective that no one sees. I also wonder about her backstory having her well trained in espionage, and marksmanship. Watari was born in 1933 (anime), which is in the range of world war 2, but would make her a young child when it started and ended. Does this mean that in the Death Note universe World War 2 lasted longer, or did England get up to orphan spy training programs, that later inspired Watari to create orphan detective programs. Wait, is this becoming a kind of crossover with Gallagher girls? After all, just because Watari founded a school in England, didn't mean she was from there. Also transfers were a thing. Or could have been. That's fun. 

I'd say Watari would have to be a lot louder to get such a rep as L's handler. After all, stupid people still exist even when you have a rep. I wonder if she used disguise to help? Of course, thats in a solo, and this is about everyone.

Aiber and Wedy

Wedy is L's profesional cat burglar and survalance expert. In story she mostly looks cool, installs some bugs to evesdrop, and rides a motorcycle. 

Aiber gets more to characterize himself and stand out. Aiber is L's professional con-man, and social infiltrator, said to be able to blend in with varied types of social groups. L has enough evidence to land Aiber in lifetime prison, and has saved Aiber's life a couple of times. Its also said (in how to read) that he is multilingual, often assumes fake identidies, and gets his biggest thrills from swindling and living on the edge. Basically. He sounds a bit like a male Black Widow, with less combat training, and tramatic backstory… presumably. Hmmm, also less brainwashing

L trusts Aiber enough to use one of the other detective names he stole, and play the roll of Eraldo Coil. I can't say if Aiber is playing the roll of L playing Coil, or original coil. He also, has a family, and heavily dislikes guns.

For the most part, they are pretty typecast by their character designs  if it were a story about any of them individually, there's more space for extrapolation, but in large groups it becomes a norm. Female Aiber could be interesting to explore as an individual. Actually, so could male. Same with Watari, or any of them really, by any writer who decides to get really invested in it.

Still, in fanwork, you have to consider the conservation of the ship of Theseus. At what point in replacing the parts do you have a new ship? Is it when the first nail is replaced? The fifth? The planks? The entire boat? Is it still the same boat after all that change? Likewise, you can never be the same person you were at eleven, or even two years ago. You have grown, your body has changed old cells out for new ones, and most importantly you have had experiences that filter your thoughts into directions that filter your perceptions.

At what point in changing a character do they become an OC committing identity fraud? What core traits are important to keeping a character”in character”, even when you change the experiences that filter their perception of the world? What changes with gender, and what stays the same? 

Gender is a big factor in the face we present to the world. It has expectations with it. And the expectations of gender in Japanese culture are different then the ones in the west. Japanese culture is collectivist, and group cohesion is placed higher than the west's individual needs. There is also a shame culture in the east, in contrast to the west's guilt culture. Confucius vs Christian values. There are benefits and pitfalls to both worldviews. 

It's not something anyone would know their first time watching eastern media, but with learning more about these cultural aspects, one can look back to characters they didn't previously understand the motives of in a new light.

Time is also a factor. The culture and expectations adults today grew up with, are different from the ones they would have experienced 20 years ago, for all that there have been things that stayed the same? 

I should also get into Honne and Tatemae. Tatemae is whats expected by society and required according to one's position and circumstances. The Honne is one's true feelings and desires, which may be contrary to society's expectations and is often kept hidden except with one's closest friends. 

It ties in with Japanese Confucianism Beliefs, of human centered virtues for harmonious and peaceful society. Essentially, in Japanese culture Public failure and disapproval of others are seen as a source of shame and reduced social standing, so direct confrontation is something they wish to avoid. The traditional social norm then is to minimize discord, not doing so might be seen as insulting or aggressive.

I feel a good example can be seen in this quote from this article.

“A Belgian friend of mine once kindly told a Japanese librarian that the English travel guides had been misplaced in the “History” section. The woman immediately started apologizing almost hysterically, bowing, hiding her face in her hands and looking so distressed that my Belgium friend started apologizing frantically as well, and left as fast as she could after putting the books back where they belonged. A Japanese student, had he or she noticed the mistake, would probably have took it upon himself or herself to silently put the books back into the right place, and nobody but a foreigner would have casually and publicly proclaimed something was wrong, thus unintentionally shaming the librarian and embarrassing themselves in the process.”

Not to say that we don't have social masks as well in the west. We do. But because its not talked about to keep social cohesion, you often don't realize you have been angering someone to the point hurt and resentment and grudges towards you has built up until things escalate.

Politeness is something that keeps society together. We have scripts for interacting with others to keep things even keel. We have rules that we all follow to more or less get along with other people. This is true of any lasting society. 

We all expect other people to follow the rules, and make exceptions for those we consider close to us.

Perhaps that paints Light's killing of criminals with more context. These people did not follow the rules for harmonious society.  Light told Rem to find someone selfish and cruel enough to be willing to use the Death Note, while being dumb enough to not spread out his corporate killings. She found Higuchi. Nobody likes him. His collages instantly pin him as Kira. He's a victim no one would have any qualms about dying if it were not for the Kira case.

Lights dream for the Millennium Kingdom-I mean- new world, consist of kind hearted people he deems fit to live in it. He claims that once the world as a whole changes people will become kinder as a whole. He starts with criminals, then plans to move to immoral people, and harassers, and has later plans to kill people who refuse to contribute to the good of society, or lazy people as he put them. I have to wonder whether Light living through “The Lost Decade” had any influence on his thoughts here?

He's basing who should live in the world he wishes to build on those who can follow the rules (both said and unsaid) of society he knows. And he is using the rules of Japanese Justice to enforce them.

The Phoenix Wright games are not a bad place to start understanding Japanese Justice. Japan has a 99.8% conviction rate in cases that go to trial. For all we make jokes about the confetti that comes down when Pheonix wins a case, with those numbers, winning a case as a Defense Attorney is rare, and worthy of celebration. 

While no real trial that I am aware of has needed to cross examine a parrot, Japan's “hostage justice” means a long uphill battle for an acquittal. 

On Japanese Justice

Japan also practices Capitol Punishment and the death penalty.

To Light, narcissist, son of a police officer, and good Japanese student, this is probably what everyone is secretly wanting but could never do. But he can. And will do it for them. And if not, well they will come around when they see how much better it is, his way. He just needs time to change the world.

But back to a point, of sorts, Eclipse and I try to keep a balance of sorts between what we know of Japanese culture, and fun headcanons. We certainly go into cracky territory (no regrets about Cat Misa here), but I also don't see a lot of reasons that most of the character traits with the other characters need to change with Gender, when gender is not the only factor that make up their persona. What we see of most of the other characters are what are culturally or socially expected of them. We don't see their Honne, just their Tatemae. 

I'm going to end this with another Lady Virgilia video about Persona 5, this one about Socialcultural context. P5 is very on the nose apt with its gameplay mechanic about removing their mask to send their will of rebellion out to fight. 

The Cold Gun

Tw: Guns, Zach and Jude go to a shooting range and use it for its intended purpose, Zach getting roasted, Death mentions.

Cold Case In Harlem inspired me a little, you can consider it a moodboard for this fic? Sort of?

OCs Included: Zach, Jude, some hints to future OCs…

Dividers by firefly-graphics

“You’re terrible at this.” Zach muttered.

Jude almost whirled around to glare at him, but she was still locked onto her target and abandoned the action halfway through. He watched her straining her sunburnt forehead, white-knuckling like she always was when she was struggling. She fired off another shot that went way off mark and huffed in annoyance.

“You don’t have to be so insufferable, you know. Not everyone got a sponsor like you did.” She flicked her braid back over her freckled shoulder.

They were about the only people still using this decrepit shooting range. It was given sparse maintenance, and the old bullet holes in the targets could’ve been years old by now. The one she had chosen was already barely holding itself together. Zach was sitting on a bench at the back, watching. He rather wished he wasn’t, because Agent Judith Bell’s shoddy aim was a sorry sight to behold. She always fared better when she got up close and personal, but that was also pretty dangerous to do under most circumstances.

“Well, I have been doing this longer than you, so I suppose…” He leaned back leisurely, knitting his hands together. His seat creaked ominously.

Admittedly, he’d been well used to shooting cans off fences years before Jude even set a fingerprint on a gun (and she’d vowed never to touch one before then). It was a matter of experience as well as skill.

“Flexing your seniority on me again? Don’t start. Maybe give it a few more years and I bet I’d outshoot you.” She sniffed, tilting her chin forward defiantly. Zach supposed she must be in a rotten mood of some sort, one unrelated to her shitty aim. Jude usually wasn’t given to such a contrarian attitude.

That was mostly his thing.

“You really don’t wanna bet against me. Keep trying.” He said. He crushed his cigarette into an ashtray that was balanced precariously on the railing. Surprisingly, he was still allowed to smoke in here.

“Go away. I’m trying to get some practice in here.” She grumbled, and went back to hopelessly shooting at her chewed-up target.

Not too keen on getting too much on her nerves (since that was his specialty), he decided to leave her be and peeled open a newspaper that had gotten stuck together at the bottom of his pack. Here was the usual sensationalist drivel about celebrities’ love lives and weight gain, sandwiched between sports news and advertisements. What he was really looking for was reports on local crime, and sure enough he found it: “New York man found frozen to death in apartment in record-breaking heatwave.”

There was usually a whistleblower in every big law enforcement department they could manage to infiltrate, so he knew this one already.

It was the reason why they were here, after all.

“What are they saying now?”

Zach glanced over to see that Jude had materialised in front of him with her hands on her hips. She must’ve given up on hitting her mark. He rolled the newspaper back up and stuffed it into his bag. He’d only come here for her benefit (although it’d be good for both of them if she could actually hit something for once) so he was just about ready to go.

“Oh, just the usual. Your average pig’s about as useful as a wet paper towel when it comes to the paranormal. Should’ve learned years ago to trust us with it instead. Can’t believe we still have to pretend this shit doesn’t happen…” Zach blew smoke out of the side of his mouth forcefully.

“Well, that’s not their fault…” Jude said softly. “It’s probably for the best that most people don’t know about all this. Blissful ignorance and all.”

He stared up at her, frowning.

“... It probably is.”

Zach found himself focusing again on the crooked line of targets. He remembered this place filled with warmth and life. He used to go down here to metaphorically and literally shoot the shit with agents who were older and cooler than he was. Now, it was empty.

Most of those people were dead now, too.

An hour later they were loitering around the sidewalks of Harlem, grazing on street food. He’d bought Jude a cold chicken wrap to make up for her sour mood; and for his prodding. She couldn’t seem to decide whether or not she had an appetite, but he knew he did, and demolished his own tortilla. Right now he was leaning on a sign pole, waiting for the bus, blowing smoke rings into the city air.

“I can see why the cops are stumped.” She said between gulps of water. “Freezing to death? In this weather? It’s not normal…”

He flicked some ashes into a nearby gutter.

“This case is pretty straightforward for us, but yeah, for your average person it’s definitely strange. I’m sure the higher-ups will send in some hush money afterwards. We just have to do our jobs, save them the hassle.” Zach hummed pleasantly.

Jude looked disgruntled. “Is it straightforward? We’ve been running in circles for days trying to pinpoint where this asshole is.” She was selectively picking on various ingredients from her wrap, as if they were only parts of it she was able to stomach.

He turned back to give her a wry smile. It was unusual for her to swear. He took a mental note not to push her too far today.

“Well, If we can just rule out any of our high rollers… It might just be a particularly pesky imp.” Zach said. He supposed from her facial expression that his tone was a bit too casual, but that’s how you get when you do this sort of work for years.

“... It killed five people…” She murmured, sucking her finger dry of sauces.

Zach sucked in a breath, nodding. “... Yeah, It did.”

He saw the bus coming up and hurriedly discarded his cigarette on pavement and ground it down with his boot. It was stuck in rush-hour traffic, of course.

That was why it took so long to get back ‘home.’

Zach wrenched the door of their safehouse open with a groan. It was starting to get stiff and stubborn. Must’ve been just as annoyed with the nosy neighbours as he was. He often found old Mr. Galloway stooped down low to peek into the keyhole, ‘sneakily.’

Jude slipped in before him. “So we’re dealing with another ice spirit,” she said wearily.

Her face was grim. This had been how she’d started every conversation on this mission since they’d been assigned to it. He knew she hated the cold.

“Or an imp.” Zach followed in behind her.

He dropped his bag carelessly on the saggy coach, and Jude’s pack followed soon after it.

She waded through piles of books and folders into the kitchen. The flat’s walls were lined wall to wall with spreads of annotated maps, newspaper clippings and circled photographs. They had been using this place for half a year now - after the previous agent went ‘missing in action’ - and it had started to resemble the cluttered hideout of a conspiracy theorist.

“I don’t think it’s 530. That one usually doesn’t go this far into the city. Just the outskirts, and always farther North than here” Zach sighed.

At this, Jude just shook her head and switched on the coffee machine. On the bus, she’d brought up No. 530 and had seemed convinced it was the culprit. They’d had a minor disagreement over it. Zach rummaged through a locker and, after some digging, finally found the block of files they kept around for records.

“You know we can just hit up ‘Polly for these, right?” Jude made a face at him, setting two steaming mugs on a desk. It was so overcrowded she had to shuffle off some folders to make room.

“Yeah, but you know I’m old school…”

Jude rolled her eyes in response and snatched up some documents from his hands. “You act like you’re allergic to the Internet.”

She sat down and grazed on her tea.

“Yeah, well… The Internet’s not completely safe either. Remember that shapeshifting hacker we had?” Zach shot back.

This was the exact reason why he wasn’t overly fond of the decision to convert all their records into that shiny new AI. Jude set her cup back on the table.

“It would just be a lot easier is all I’m saying…”

She turned her attention back to the files.

“You’d think this thing would have the sense to at least wait until Winter. Summer is getting hotter every year now; you can practically fry an egg on our car’s hood some days.” She shook her head, peeling through papers and throwing unlikelies onto the floor. Zach gave her a sidelong glance. He knew she made the most of every Summer that rolled by.

“Not too smart, I’d wager.” He said, and lit himself another cigarette, perhaps the twentieth of the day.

“Sorry to say, but I think you share two minds.” Her hazel eyes flickered back up to glare at him. “When’s the last time you ditched the trenchcoat?”

He stopped. It was Nathaniel’s coat, and she knew that. She understood his reasons. Jude seemed to recognise this mishap and coughed.

“You know I can’t…” He said quietly.

Jude sighed. “I know but… Just promise me you wont let yourself boil in all that leather. I don’t need you sweating out all that remaining brain juice.”

He forced a chuckle, wanting to keep the mood light.

“Thought I didn’t have any?”

“Yeah, well… Maybe you have some, but you’re in danger of losing it.” She gazed at him sharply.

Zach’s throat felt unnaturally tight. He quickly changed the subject, flicking through his chosen files for a routine process of elimination.

“‘Victims were found frozen in carved sculptures…’ No… ‘Bite marks on the arms and chest…’ Nothing like that… We can rule out the yeti, I think.” He muttered.

“It really is just like 530...” Zach looked back up at her. She was staring at No. 530’s file in the same way she often did when she thought he wasn’t looking. He shook his head. Nothing good ever came of trying to understand these malicious entities’ motives. They were all rotten to the core, the lot of them. They’d always be quick to take advantage of misplaced sympathy. Jude was sometimes a little too kind for her own good, and still had a regretful splinter in her heart that made her easy to sway with pity.

“Not as famous, though. 530’s a bit more careful with its victims, it seems.” He said, gulping down a mouthful of his coffee. “And it prefers up northwest, and it goes for late night drivers, not people just living their lives in the city. We can rule it out.”

Jude still had a thoughtful expression on her face. “You know I sometimes wonder if there’s a reason fo-”

A heavy banging on the door interrupted her. The agents looked up from their files towards the source of the noise. Zach saw Jude start, but beat her to it:

“I’ll get it,” he said firmly. The stern glance he gave her left no room for argument. It might’ve been nothing much, but if anything dangerous came through that door he’d prefer it hit him first. In two strides, he cleared the small space and cracked it open a slice.

What met him instead was the aged face of ‘Agnes Tompetty’ - who some might’ve still considered dangerous, but to him was a trusted ally.

“Get your ugly face out of mine, lad. I like the girl better.” She spat out in a hoarse voice. Zach couldn’t help but crack a cheeky grin.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Tompetty.” He lay open the door for her like a gentleman, well used to ignoring her remarks. She didn’t mean it. Or at least, he didn’t care too much if she did.

“It’s the bloody evening!” She crowed, and hobbled inside with her walking stick. “And there’s nothing good about it. Hmph.”

He quickly checked his watch. “So it is…”

Mrs. Tompetty was something of a sleeper agent. She had fought monsters all her life until she went blind - then she adopted a fake name and ‘retired’ into the same block of apartments they were staying in. Zach was certain that if some silly vampire tried to drink from this old bat, they’d find themselves with a broken off cane stick shoved into their shrivelled up heart. Her reflexes were still unreasonably sharp.

The fact that she could still navigate her way through this mess was proof of how capable she still was, Zach thought to himself as she kicked away some stray debris.

Jude’s face had lit up at the sight of her.

“Coffee, Agnes?” And she got up, hurrying to wash out another mug before she even had an answer. “We actually have sugar this time.”

“No, don’t. Leave it. I said leave it! I’m only here to pass you a message from Mr. Roy.” Mrs. Tompetty batted the air like she was swatting a fly.

“For godssakes. It’s too hot for that shite anyway.”

Jude sat back down, looking disappointed.

“And why can’t he deliver it himself?” Zach furrowed his dark brows, expelling a puff of smoke. “We’ve been here for a week, he could afford to pay us a visit, right?”

The older woman turned around slowly to face him, her dull white eyes still and glassy. Zach had the feeling that, blind as she was, she could still see right through him. He’d heard of fellow agents who were so destroyed by what they’d seen in the field that they’d gouged their own eyeballs out. He supposed those as old as Agnes had developed senses beyond sight by this point, but he certainly did not envy her, seeing that he was halfway to blindness himself.

“I imagine he finds you dreadfully irritating, same as me.” Mrs. Tompetty said grumpily. She was searching through her purse for something.

Zach sighed. He’d invited Agent Roy many times for a drink, but the other man never took up his offer. He was starting to think Gabe didn’t like him!

And why wouldn’t he like him?

“Anyway. Shut your fat mouth and take this.” She snapped, and thrust a wrinkled hand into his chest. Zach realised it was holding a letter, now crumpled up and smelling of mints and hand lotion. He ripped it open and unfolded some lined paper.

Sure enough, there was Agent Roy’s neat, loopy handwriting. Zach stopped to squash the stub of his cigarette into a nearby ashtray before reading:

“Agent Johnson. You know what this is about.”

“Don’t bother scouring the city, because this slippery fucker doesn’t like crowds. You’ll find him down South, much farther down South than you were expecting. I’m talking Maryland, not New York. You’re barking up the wrong tree, Johnson, I’m just trying to set you straight. Of course, I can’t tell you his exact location because, like I said, he’s a little snake.“

“You’re probably aware of the five reported fatalities, but I unfortunately have to tell you that there are a lot more than that. A lot more. It’s a nasty business, I’m afraid. It involves- Well, I think you know personally that these creatures don’t discriminate based on anything, really. So you can feel free to torture him as much as you like. Just know that you’ll be delivering actual justice this time.”

(This choice of words made him raise an eyebrow.)

“Also. Stop mailing me gun magazines.”

~ Agent Roy

Out of force of habit, he turned over the paper to check the back of it, but it was empty. Still, he felt confused, as if there was a hidden passage he’d missed somewhere.

Where in the fuck does he get all his information? Zach shook his head in disbelief, and then he felt a twinge of annoyance. He should really just do all this himself…

“He was in a right hurry, that boy,” muttered the older woman. “Must think I’ve got nothing to do all day, hmm…”

Jude piped up. “Hopefully he can come tell us in person next time. He’s a nice guy, you know.”

When he’s around you, anyway… Zach thought.

“I should hope so! I’m not a carrier pigeon.” Mrs. Tompetty turned back with a huff and slammed the door behind her. Zach knew she would be back around talking his partner’s ear off by the next day.

“Well, um…” Jude rubbed her arm. “So what does it say?” She nodded towards the letter in his hand.

He glanced back up at her with a dubious expression.

“He’s got information on our target. Apparently Agent Roy has his own sources that he’s not willing to share.” He couldn’t help but say this somewhat bitterly.

“He’s just like you.” She remarked. “Sending letters in this day and age. Why not an email? A letter can be intercepted a lot easier.”

“Mrs. Tompetty’s got better security.” Zach said amusedly, shrugging.

“I can believe that. But still…” She sighed, then got up to dump the rest of her drink into the sink. It was too hot for enjoying coffee.

Zach was beginning to feel the heat too, and found the leather strips of his gun holsters were were now cutting into his skin. He stuffed the letter into his pockets and paced the floor, restless. “Gabriel says we’re way off mark. That our target’s down South in Maryland.” He quickly summarised for her.

“Maryland?” Jude repeated back. He could hear the sheer incredulity in her voice.

He scoffed. “I know… I’m not entirely sure if I should believe it to be entirely honest with you, but as far as I’m aware, Agent Roy has no reason to lie… Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve been thrown off the scent like this, wouldn’t you agree?”

She bit her lip, still leaning against the kitchen sink. “But Cooper’s corpse was frozen. Do you think there might be more than one?”

“That’s entirely possible.” He turned back towards her and nodded. For a moment they stared at each other, and a moment of understanding flashed between them.

“Right… You go South, then.” She pursed her lips.

“You wanna stay in the city?” Zach couldn’t help but let the surprise show on his face. He was certain that she would prefer to leave it; crowds and smog and all.

Jude shrugged helplessly. It looked to him like she just wanted to be left alone. He’d been there, too.

“Okay.” He said, quickly downing his coffee and gathering up his equipment again with a groan.

“I’ll be taking the car. I assume you’ve got the gist of the city’s layout by now?”

Jude not being a city girl, he did worry for her in this situation. Might get lost in the alleys again…

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Was all she said.

With that, he left her standing there, despondent, in the middle of the room, trying to push back strange, persistent feeling that he’d been sent into a trap.

(Taglist: @rottent33th, @slaasherslut, @the-pinstriped-hood, @goldrose-star, @soupbabe, @bluecoolr, @vincent-sinclair-deserved-better, @flower-crowned-lady, @probably-a-plant-thing, @solmints-messyocdiary, @myers-meadow)

can you do Adam for the character opinion thing? im so eager to hear your thoughts

First impression: My faggotry could not be contained. Sorry. I said my faggotry couldn't be contained. Sorry. I said... fuck. I said my faggotry couldn't be contained-

Impression now: Adam Radford is the Saw fandom's Princess Diana.

Favorite moment: And what if I just drop the entireity of the Saw (2004) screenplay into your lap as a response? What then?

Being real, though, if I have to choose a particular moment, it's that split-second when he decides to hide that Polaroid from Lawrence. Yes, the entire Zepp scene means everything and more to me, but in the spirit of trying to examine other moments, I think this one is really emblematic of him, and the codependency with/for Lawrence that's really taken root during the events of this film. He hides it to keep Lawrence stable, which keeps him stable... what more could I possibly want?

Idea for a story: Well, maybe it's time for me to talk about the ghost Adam fic that I've been working on, on Tumblr this time. I've been a little reluctant to share anything about it because it's primarily about two of my OCs, but considering I'm having a lot of difficulty narrowing down my other story ideas for a prompt like this about Adam, I might as well.

Don't want to read about my OCs? Cope, I guess.

Nora and Emmeline are a couple who move into Adam's abandoned apartment several months after his disappearance (and tragic death). Officially, he was evicted and the locks were changed. The landlord, not wanting to have to deal with the ordeal of paying a service to purge the unit of Adam's belongings, offers them to prospective tenants. Due to the sensationalist coverage of Jigsaw murders in the media, city rents are beginning to drop and property managers are struggling to retain their current tenants. So, when Emmeline scored a faculty position in the area and re-located with Nora, apartments within their budget were not hard to come by. When offered Adam's abandoned apartment, not told anything about the previous tenant or their whereabouts, the landlord gets them in on the deal (supposedly because he really needs someone to just take it, because the empty units are much easier to lease than an abandoned apartment still full of someone else's belongings). Nora negotiates some terms with the landlord regarding their lease, allowing them a little more freedom to change the place up (paint the walls, nothing crazy) for the same rent, and waiving the application fee...

They aren't quite prepared for what "abandoned apartment" really entails. They were expecting it to be mostly cleared out, save for furniture left behind. What they find is clothes still in the closet, darkroom full of photographs left hanging to dry for so long that they've started to curl, a drying rack full of dishes next to the sink that's been sitting there for long enough that the plates feel as if they 'stick' to the plastic, like the dried soapy water fused them there, and that "call mom?" note still sitting by the phone, the voicemail button blinking. Much like a hotel, the landlord simply keeps the phone lines and transfers them from tenant to tenant. As Emmeline and Nora begin cleaning, they listen to Adam's voicemails, out of a kind of morbid curiosity, eventually feeling too guilty to continue listening to his concerned mother's gentle pleading.

They don't have a lot, in terms of belongings of their own, so what they do is they clean and box up his things; they fold up his clothes and put them in their moving boxes, as neat as they can, thinking the previous tenant might still potentially be coming back. Already, they start out carrying a lot of concern for whoever this previous tenant is, given the state the place was left in, looking untouched, like they could come back at any moment, despite being told that he hasn't come back in months. Skipping over some of the domestic stuff a little, this apartment is haunted. And it's haunted by Adam's ghost.

Over the course of the next few months, Nora becomes a kind of conduit, much like the apartment itself is, for Adam. Nora and Em have both given themselves a lot of extra assurances moving to a place where a known killer-at-large is abducting people, torturing, and killing them; they added extra locks to the apartment door, they added locks to the windows (because with the low rent they're already paying, they were already to kiss the security deposit goodbye for the sake of suiting their tastes and needs sprucing the place up). Still, Nora awakens at night to sounds of a struggle, the phantom sounds of Adam's abduction, and Em never hears it.

On the lighter side of things, a stray cat continues coming to the door at night, begging for food. They take it in, washing it and feeding it what they can (canned tuna, canned chicken) but know they will need to see about its vaccines and spay/neuter status at the vet. While Nora is not as enthused about adopting a cat, Emmeline is. Food and litter, acquired. Emmeline, despite not believing Nora's suggestion that the apartment might be haunted, will often joke that "I think the ghost agrees with me," despite not knowing for certain whether or not he does. He does, in this case. The cat, name still undecided, will sometimes seem to be playing with things that aren't there. Nora will assume it's chasing a bug or stray reflection of light from the street below, only because she can't see anything herself.

The water in the apartment doesn't get warm, let alone hot. It's always cold. Nora has a recurring nightmare in which she sees nothing, just the black darkness, but she feels cold, she feels dirty, she can sense the putrid smell of rotting blood, and she awakens with a start and a deep pain in her right chest and shoulder. The couple checks for gas leaks, they have the hot water heater looked at, they do everything they can to explain why it's happening. Then they start using some of Adam's cameras and film, but they don't know how to develop the pictures themselves, so they take the cameras elsewhere to have the photos developed. Adam appears in each one of them.

Emmeline decides they should attempt contact. They decide to use a pendulum, despite how unreliable it might be (they are both very unsettled by the idea of using an Ouija board or summoning using a seance or mirror method), the 'pendulum' being a pendant on a chain from one of the boxes in which they'd stored Adam's belongings (don't tell me this bisexual didn't rock with at least some jewelry). Using a piece of paper with an esoteric-typical alpha-numeric 'wheel' spread out in a circle, the pendant hanging down toward the center, they literally just get some numbers.

What Nora eventually comes to realize (skipping some things that I might consider fic spoilers) is that it's an address and a time, the meeting place and time for trap survivors. She's worried about being out of place, and when she's asked to speak she's upfront about explaining that she's "here on someone else's behalf," explaining what she knows about how Adam is feeling, which begins to spook Lawrence who, ultimately, confronts her. I haven't decided, yet, whether I want that confrontation to be normal-but-scary... or a kind of bluff trap. The narrative framing begins with Lawrence observing her at a meeting (third person omnipotence) and the story of the haunting contained in that, 'zooming out' at one or two points to emphasize what Lawrence's opinions of her are, compared to the rest of the group.

There's some more about my goal in writing this that I also don't want to spoil, so I will leave it at that. In all, I kinda just wanted to give Adam a chance at some specific closure points (at least with his mom and maybe some of his friends... but not Scott, I promise), have Lawrence confronted by this externally (outside his own internal haunting), involve the survivor group, explore some of my favorite theories about ghosts and the ordeal of 'afterlife' stuff, including the idea that perhaps Adam is bound between a few places; the bathroom, his home (including some belongings like cameras), and to Lawrence, and I definitely wanted to give Adam, even as a ghost, some friends who, as they become attached to the apartment, become kind of like his defenders. It's my dream come true.

Unpopular opinion: I have a lot of these, if I'm being honest, I don't think his music taste is as exclusive as some people think it is (even if i made a restrictive playlist, that was a self-challenge), I don't know if it's really that unpopular or not (in fandoms, I'm never sure) but I know deep in my heart that he is bisexual (and that maybe people are a little too strict with the label of 'gay'... like perhaps we can use this as more of an umbrella term, perhaps... and be normal about that maybe... or grow up about it a little). I don't know, I feel like I have a lot of minor, more insignificant 'unpopular opinions' about Adam, as opposed to major character quibbles about how canon or fanon narratively frames or talks about him. But, then again, I'm not really a participant in this fandom at-large.

Favorite relationship: Like the many before me who have mentioned it doing this ask game, Lawrence is definitely the low-hanging fruit. The entirety of the film, for Adam, is defined by his relationship to Lawrence, more than anybody else. So, for a bit of a challenge, I'll select Amanda. And yes, I realize I'm now talking about Amanda in the "favorite relationship" category for Lawrence and, now, Adam so far. But I don't care. See above for the coping saw.

Part of this is entirely speculative for me. We never get to know what they would've been like if they'd had the opportunity to speak more as people, just people, face-to-face. It's a shame that one of our only glimpses at an Amanda interaction with Adam, mask-off, is a deleted scene. Had Adam lived and been pressured and forced into becoming an apprentice, I feel like Amanda is someone with whom he'd have such a fascinating relationship with.

There's almost certainly no chance at such a thing as 'forgiveness' between them. Adam can't forgive her, and she doesn't forgive herself. But I just know deep down that Adam might have tried to convince her (maybe even maliciously or out of spite, but I personally believe there's some empathy and solidarity there to their guilt if Adam has been conscripted as an apprentice) that "he didn't help you, John didn't help you. You helped yourself. You saved yourself." I think there would be, at the very least, some kind of connection they're able to make with each other like that. Especially because I think that if Lawrence had done something like trade Adam's freedom into apprenticeship because he wanted to preserve his life, wanted to save him, then Adam has all the more reason to seek connections elsewhere. He might not trust Lawrence, would probably think of that as a violation of his autonomy. Perhaps he's grateful not to be dead, but only that.

With Amanda, I feel like there's possibly a chance he can convince her that none of this, none of the Jigsaw antics or traps or anything, is helping anyone. It's only causing trauma. And, frankly, even in death, I think Adam has done plenty to haunt Amanda. He's been the embodiment of her guilty conscience, probably since the moment they met and spoke. It's like how you tell kids they shouldn't give stray/lost animals names lest they become too attached to give them up for adoption or reunite them to their owners... They talked, and the guilt of having to force him through a game made her deeply unwell.

Favorite headcanon: "Adam is Trans" is maybe a bit of a cop-out for me, I've talked a lot about why I think it works and why it's self-indulgent and why I love it so much as a common headcanon that veers into fanon consensus, and of course he's already canonically a communist (all too likely a Marxist-Leninist... maybe that's my micro-headcanon, that he's a Marxist-Leninist Maoist), but an AU-related headcanon I see a lot is that he and David are twins. Now, I'm actually of two minds with this. On the one hand, I view David as a separate victim, perhaps even in another universe entirely, who just so happens to be played by Leigh Whannell, the same as Adam; that we could plausibly 'draw' them looking negligibly different and it wouldn't impact story. However, and bear with me, they could also have been separated at birth. Bringing the screenplay into this, it would not be all that far-fetched to suggest that Adam believes he's an only child, perhaps his parents didn't even know he'd been a twin. I love the AU concepts that are made possible with the help of this fandom headcanon, I just think it's cool.

I love him so much. I love Adam so much.

send me a character

seeing the reaction to the queen’s death here on tumblr dot com is so wild because I always forget how odd it gets when you have a country-specific non-american news item breaking on here

basically posts can be broken up into several handy categories:

that’s fucked up

that’s fucked up but for a far more horrific reason than op realises 

that’s fucked up but not quite as fucked up as op suggests

that’s fucked up but actually has nothing to do with who/what op is blaming it on

that’s just weird

that’s weird but not actually a bad thing when you think about it

that’s weird but there’s a logical explanation for it

that’s weird but there’s an illogical explanation for it

that’s normal in our country but we should probably rethink that

that’s normal in our country and we’re all happy with it, please stop saying we should be like the USA in all forms

that’s completely inaccurate, stop yelling/patronising/levelling false accusations at the people who know more about this and are correcting you

that’s completely inaccurate: how come the sensationalist post with very false information is getting 10x more notes that the post correcting it?

that’s completely inaccurate and actually pretty damaging information to spread, Where Are You Getting Your Information

that’s completely inaccurate but wait! here’s something even more bizarre that will really get your head spinning

that’s completely inaccurate but also funny, I’ll allow it

that’s from a completely different news item from 2003, seriously Where Are You Getting Your Information

Hey Dr Reames! I’ve been reading Anthony Everitt’s biography of Alexander and he seems obsessed with boosting the importance of Bagoas. Some time ago I read your post about Bagoas and the role he likely had historically, and I wondered why, in your opinion, do so many biographers feel compelled to discuss him with such certainty if the sources we have are contradictory?

First, I’m going to admit that I’ve not read this biography, nor do I intend to (not any time soon). My reason is simple: Everitt is not an Alexander/Macedonia specialist. He’s not even a trained historian, but seems to specialize in performance and the vision arts with a penchant for writing pop history. He read in English literature at Cambridge, so seems to have no formal historical training. There are SO many books chapters/articles/books written by my colleagues, published each year, I can’t even keep up with that tide of published scholarship, never mind pop history from non-specialists.

That may—probably does—sound haughty, but it’s just pragmatic. I want to write my OWN stuff (academic and fiction both), as well as read things I need to read…not to mention do my job (which includes a lot of class prep, grading, and service). Ergo, I must be very circumspect in what I do read.

Given your question, I strongly suspect I wouldn’t care much for his book. Given the full title of the book, I’m even more certain I wouldn’t. Every time “mysterious death” pops up related to Alexander, I can be about 98% sure it’s going to be sensationalist and used to sell books. As someone who’s written about Alexander’s death myself, as well as Hephaistion’s demise, and who’s actually read in bereavement studies and done bereavement counselling, I lack patience for the sort of crackpot stuff I find too often about ATG’s last 9-10 months. That’s part of why I wrote “The Mourning of Alexander.”

Having said that, I could be wrong and he does a fine treatment of ATG’s death. I’ve simply been burned too often to expect it. Looking at the titles of his other history/biographies, however, he seems to lean to the sensationalist. He knows how to sell books.

As for Bagoas, to be honest, when you see him overemphasized in a biography, you’re looking at the enormous influence of Renault. I’ve written about that before, as the asker indicated. Macedonian and Alexander specialists don’t give him a lot of space because he’s a minor figure, if he existed at all and isn’t pure Roman fiction. (Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did exist, but he most certainly didn’t have any sort of outsized impact on ATG.)

As noted, I think the tendency to give it to him really does owe to Renault. It may also owe to a need to find some new “angle” on Alexander that will sell books for him. 😉 Why write (or publish) Yet Another biography on Alexander unless there’s something new-ish to say?

Too bad the newish thing doesn’t involve all the cool stuff coming out of the ground at Archontiko, Sindos, or Vergina in Macedonia that’s making us rethink what we knew about Archaic and early Classical Macedonia….

Again, reply at your convenience.

If canon Dazai goes BEAST AU mode and that's how the manga ends, i'll find it a very depressing ending. Since many say that BSD is about hope and improvement, so stuff like that would feel really sensationalist, cheap and cowardly to me. I prefer a hopeful story so much more; hope is what betters the world and keeps us going after all. And BEAST is all about Dazai terminally succumbing to his narrow worldview and depression, losing all hope for other paths to happiness and belonging, traumatizing others along the way 😔

If Dazai does go BEAST mode, I want some suicidal / depressed / troubled characters to obtain a happy ending solely by getting life - changing epiphanies and growing into wiser, smarter, more skilful people. Sure, let some characters break completely and get bad endings, but show how they had actual paths to a better life if they could've avoided giving in to negativity and rigidity ( Many of them will have to break free of this Dazai's influence / legacy to achieve this) :

Kyouka and Atsushi taking charge of their life and happiness instead of unwillingly risking severe PTSD, depression and death due to their sense of worthlessness and due to being bound to the ADA. Akutagawa realizing his worth and the value of his life, becoming independent and happy. Kenji being free from his trauma. Sigma becoming competent and street smart enough so nobody can use him like a pawn, and finding a peaceful safe home. Kunikida realizing how shitty it was to be initially uncaring of Atsushi and Kyouka, learning to live for himself too instead of only living to be good, and learning to prioritize living breathing people over his ideals.

Now that will be an actual meaningful and inspiring story, not some trauma - porn tragedy bullshit. If I wanted BSD to be meaningless torture porn, I would've watched Saw instead.

I suppose I can’t really answer this to the best of my abilities until I actually read Beast.

But, like, as far as I can tell, isn’t beast supposed to at least semi-hopeful for everybody but Dazai. And even then it’s implied he sacrificed himself so everybody else could have a better life. Yeah it’s sad, but in canon there are other characters who have already done similar things who were also doing bad mentally. Like Oda. Kind of. And he gets his happy ending in beast. And Akutagawa gets the chance to be a better person. And I could be very wrong here, but aren’t Atsushi and Kyouka still implied to possibly be on their way to joining the ada in beast? Like it feels entirely possible that everyone can still change in that universe. Can still improve their lives. Just not.. Dazai…I guess. In a way Beast itself could be said to be about hope, if you’re looking at the right characters.

Anyways what I’m trying to say is I think it’s a matter of perspective. Beast is better for some characters, worse for others. Which feels… realistic? I guess? It might even be the only universe where Fukuchi doesn’t win. Probably Not. But we don’t know that yet.

Also I’m not actually sure how I personally think it’s going to end. That’s the really fun thing about bsd, despite it being inherently derivative due to every character being based on exsisting people, characters, and works, it’s actually one of the most unique things I’ve ever read. You never really know where it’s going.

Alas, one day I will actually read the beast light novel instead of going off of all of the spoilers I’ve heard and the few chapters I read of the beast manga like last year, and then I will have a fully formed opinion on this.

You’re not doing anything new by threatening to kill women who dislike men, women have been raped and beaten to death since the dawn of time for not centering men. While men throw acid on girls and gang rape them, you sit here chiding marginalized people for not adoring their oppressors. What a hateful waste you are.

I ain't threatening nobody. I merely used sensationalist language to grab attention. Ever been on tumblr? We use hyperbole a lot here.

If you want to help women who are gang raped, I support you, but if you do not show compassion for the trans men who are gang raped, or the trans men murdered, or the trans men who are the most sexually assaulted group, then you are hypocrite.

White women oppress Black men, yet you hate the Black man raped by a white woman due to his maleness. You see him as the other, the one to be feared.

You don't have to adore any group, in fact I discourage it. I adore no group, for I see everyone as individual. You merely wish to disguise your hate for queer men, for men of color, for disabled men and for poor men as something else, just so you can get away with it. You wish to uphold white supremacy, heteronormativity, cisnormativity and classism.

Men, women and those who identify otherwise need to work together towards a common goal. What common goal, you ask? A world where gender based hate is a thing of the past.

Oh, boy! Rudi’s book is even worse than I thought!

I got these messages (I’m editing out the name just in case the person doesn’t want to get involved lol):

......So, let’s drag this.

Story 1: What the fuck is this. It’s another thing that doesn’t make sense on a logistical level; Phoebe was usually the one who was tasked with managing Freddie’s drugs (weird sentence to type lol), so why would he even need Barbara to smuggle anything? And I know she was a party animal, but would she have really done this? Even if she would have, would Freddie have been desperate enough for coke to have removed it from a woman’s vagina? One of the main problems with this story is that Rudi is yet again portraying Freddie is a ~wild~ and out of control drug user, which is something debunked by Brian, Roger, Jim, and Phoebe (off the top of my head, at least). It’s a tabloid narrative that’s been used to smear Freddie and blame him for his death for decades, literally, to the point where Brian had to defend Freddie against this accusation right after his death. The other problem is, of course, the sexual nature of this story, again suggesting that Freddie was sexually interested in Barbara, which he was not. It’s a lie Rudi has repeated in the past, though. I can’t tell who made this up, Rudi or Barbara (because she made up other sex stories with Freddie, after all), but I think it’s made-up nonetheless. 

Story 2: There is no reputable source that says Barbara knew about Freddie’s diagnosis, to my knowledge. In fact, Jim said Barbara was one of the people Freddie cut off and distanced himself from once he got sick, because his circle got much smaller and he didn’t want people to know or see him that way. I don’t think Barbara or Rudi knew tbh, but there’s this sick tendency among grifters like them to claim they did know, since it was such a big secret and only people super close to Freddie were told about it. So, they pretend they were close to and trusted by Freddie enough to have been one of the few to know his secret diagnosis. Rudi is a habitual liar, so I see no reason to think this isn’t the case with him. The fact that each of these stories got a whole chapter also feels like padding to me, a sign that Rudi didn’t actually have a lot of information to share and needed to extend the page length.

tl;dr Rudi is a lying piece of trash and I’m really angry that yet another grifter has decided to make money off Freddie’s name decades after his death with sensationalist, exaggerated garbage that oh-so conveniently fits with the tabloids’ endless harmful narrative about Freddie. Don’t give this cock your money.

A Little Bit of Extra From the Last

I know I just did one a bit ago but I think more and more shit is transpiring and it feels like it is coming all at once but it is amazing that the start of this decade, with my aesthetic and predicament who doesn’t matter much in the long run or in the discourse etc, but it is amazing that 10 years ago I never thought I would be more on the left than a bunch of the alt media people who helped move me more to a left leaning and not looking at the MSM as the be all end all, so yeah if I wasted my time consuming “progressives” and they are doing the boring and predictable booking of going into the right wing sphere and we have to play naive baby faces and hope there is a coming back from this, but the recent interviews being done where ex progressives are going on for a press run to not be challenged by new people who Ana and Cenk are embracing, they would clear that there needs to be exchanging ideas and being in college you have to hear all point of views but she is hiding behind right wing shows to basically get buzz and be more comfortable promoting far right wing people who are being paid to spread propaganda and sophisticate it enough where if there is any progressive consuming their shit, they will then think this is appropriate, like 5 years ago or so, even though I didn’t look at myself as anti trans, I would be buying into the narratives behind it from people in the celeb world where they use the most sensationalist shit on the planet to basically sway your opinion, and they used the sports shit and me figuring that these people have been athletes and been around them their whole life, they must know what they are talking about, and these concerns would be talking points I would use because I was concerned about the dangers and assumed mutilation was this regular occurrence etc, and because most people who are really dumbed down but they think they are waking up to shit because they consume these kind of media spots and believe me, the Joe Rogan’s of the the world are media whether they want to admit it or not, I am just saying if this was the online narrative by the progressive outlets 5 years ago, I would’ve probably thought some of these people didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t mind looking at my progress and the thought process even if it doesn’t make sense to other people, I know deep down there are people who might not know everything about the science and all the facts, and in this era it is hard to really get the real answer it feels, because it is more about the sports entertainment of all of this shit, and not anything designed for solutions. And a lot of bad faith arguing is happening, like someone like Ana will say shit about how she doesn’t want to talk to people who are already calling her the worst names possible where no productive convo can happen, but she is literally too cowardly and pussy to admit that she goes online in the midst of some of the worst vitriol to gaslight people into reacting and while there are bad faith actors who will being over the top, and I believe some of these right wingers help create accounts to make it look like the worst is happening with death threats etc, while there are civilized people from those communities telling you why she messed up and how they are willing to forgive her but just kind of own up to her being a reactionary, it reeks of someone who knows she is going for a big payday so she has to go start shit and then complain on these media shows about all of this shit, and finding more common ground with Nazi like rhetoric, I know people like Jimmy Dore are now using the Muslims in Detroit who are weary of this trans stuff in schools or banning flags from public property, so he wants LGBTQ to basically go at the Muslims but then uses these specific Muslims to downplay that this is some modern Nazi movement going on, so he is using the aesthetic of brown people also feeling like this so it can’t be white supremacy and Nazi shit, because there hasn’t been this forced diversity thing going on in these modern day fundamentalist circles. They then think this position being had is the fair opinion because these people pretend to ask like they are asking questions but most of the time it is them being paid to ask dishonest questions so it looks like you are more sane more so then the sensationalist examples you use, like when people complain about the community, it feels like other insiders in the game are feuding with other delegations in this mafia system, so if there are “social climbers” and “clout chasers” online, that could exist, but it doesn’t mean it is exclusive to only the trans community nor other marginalized communities, and the reason I mention that, because the reason why the right wing and people jumping on their side can think there is this sensationalist examples of it being an issue, it is because they are planning on creating them since the over the top shit is what is being promoted. And since being trans is not a political ideology, they will assume every person who is trans who does something shady, that means it is all of them, and I thought we were supposed to be in a more evolved phase of this world, but we are dumbing down shit while pretending we are presenting nuance. Telling trans people not to worry about the sports shit, like “we polled MAGA people and they say they are fine with trans people on the important issues but it would be easy to get them on your side if you shut your mouth about the sports issue” like fuck off, I don’t always buy into the kayfabe shit but people have showed data that these issues for the most part are losing issues for republicans anyways. Here is the thing with sports, and people are not gonna like it, they are all fucking rigged. I really have no ties to the sports world etc, so I will flat out say that most shit now is rigged, people are cheating in sports before the trans issue became this forced discourse, people will be mad about the sports comments but yeah I feel that way, I think while it is impressive what these people can do etc, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t rigged, it is basically as legit as pro wrestling. Get mad. So the argument is basically shit, to make it seem like trans people are the ones who are causing an uproar, maybe I would be okay with sports if they didn’t let so many mental and physical abusers in them. People will make excuses for that, but then create personas online to get mad at, you know how people say that people create a scenario to get mad at them, they are half right, but these people literally feud with other delegations, and they have accounts online to perpetuate the most sensationalist shit so they can then use that as their entire argument. This is what is dangerous about this propaganda going on is that yeah there are people who are doing dangerous conspiracy theories, but you could use the conspiratorial shit to get back at them, but they know there will be examples where they can use something shady and evil done by someone who happens to be trans, as being trans is the reason why this shit is happening, and you could literally apply shady shit people have done with all backgrounds and build a case that it is done by these specific people, and these people know what they are doing but they are too cowardly to tell you they know they are crossing over to the right, and know they are gonna get a big payday, and they can’t deal with the notion they are giving up on their progressive principles, and at this point it is even debatable if this entire time it was a grift because I am not being the naive one anymore on this shit, they are all going into a dangerous territory there will be no coming back from. I do believe people can change for the better, but it feels the one constant is that the system that is more focused on culture wars and sports entertainment, that will constantly have misleading shit because they think they are safe because they make “anti authority and anti establishment” as personality traits when it doesn’t mean as much when your shit is just as much establishment, even if you pretend to have a bad wifi connection. Anti establishment doesn’t have the same feeling it did 20 years ago. And it is like there is this effort and it has been the case to boost up how great the 90’s were where it seemed like there was some cutting edge going on and they made it seem any type of progressive message, even limited was actually bad shit, but the mistake these people make is making it seem the same shit that had value in society back then actually has the same value now, and it is 100 times more crazier with how this is being normalized and made to look certain ways. I cannot be taken seriously because of the conspiracies, but a bunch of right wing people can literally tell 2 or 3 truths about shit and then act like they were the originators of it while helping lead more people into right leaning think. 

I will give one of the people who used to work at TYT props who just quit and I am glad she did, because I don’t have an issue with cogs within their system, but more people who claim to be about calling bigots and transphobes should also try to do that and get off that ship before you go down with it and Cenk/Ana are then are gonna move onto their next right wing pivots, I used to be reactionary and yet I am less reactionary then the other people who fucking act like authorities on the narratives, I will give you an example, 5 or so years ago, if breastfeeding discourse from a trans woman became this discourse and yet I am not aware if they can or not, I could pretend to regurgitate the talking points but I wouldn’t know, but 5 or so years ago something that like popping up in the discourse would’ve made me think this trans stuff is getting to be too much for me, and I still sit here and not always being able to remember the presented facts, but you know what I will not do, I will not take my lack of knowledge and become a reactionary because it is the easiest thing to do to regress and act like all of us are really advanced more than we think. I know most people who think the worst of me would think I would opt to do that and if I wanted, I could’ve done it but being right about small shit in the most limited way is not worth selling my soul so I can be on the side of the Nazis who are sophisticating their propaganda. Another example is acting like fi someone who happens to be trans committed rape or they caused a shooting, the right wing will focus on the notion that if they are prison, they are asking for treatment, and listen I know they did a bad thing and they should be locked way so they can rehabilitate so they can heal, but the prison system doesn’t do it, they want people to be in horrible conditions, that will make them worse, so yeah I don’t condone the crime committed, but the right wing will act like no one is talking about the crime and there is more focus on the treatment of these prisoners etc, but it is like you are already advertising the crime to your large audience. And yes every person from every community will have people who are not good people, but it is not because of the community they belong to. It is becoming more alarming how easy it is now to manufacture consent for fascist shit, people have these aspirations to partake in it and they will sell their soul if they can rub elbows with powerful people who will protect them, and while people know they are untouchable, some of these people selling out will have to realize that they are not as talented as they think they are, we are living in a world where people have to pretend Cenk and Ana are actually funny, even when I liked their show, I didn’t think they were that funny per se but now people who keep it real on the right leaning side, now have to show how phony they are because they are hyping up someone who is just saying shit they want to hear. Sorry it is fucking shitty. It is dangerous and some of these alt media figures who can’t admit they sold their soul are gonna have to be along with their thoughts in the future to face what they are contributing to, you can keep pretending you are funny and interesting and maybe you will have an echochamber of that, but you are not funny. Everything is fucking fake. Fuck your shitty sports too, it is all predetermined and you have been watching people partake in sports that was as rehearsed as pro wrestling because they all do the sports entertainment. And I just don’t want to be on this planet because I know it is gonna get worse, it is the same shit with wrestling, because people who are paid online to put out narratives are selling that there is so much danger in the business with the spots they do, that someone is gonna end up getting permanently injured or someone might die, and it is like in order for the business to finally get better this mafia and exploitative system don’t mind having a sacrificial lamb for the greater good. People don’t think that something conspiratorial could ever be true but this is my point of view, like are people legit concerned or are they self preserving so they can continue their online characters of wanting beef with everything which sounds forced. I view the grandview a bit differently so the fact this becomes a topic in the discourse, it feels the wrestlers who are showing where the bump going wrong can be informative, but if it is not disclosed these things could be organized and done on purpose, then the heat should go to the company. I don’t know what to believe, that is why it is easier just to accept the notion that these people have clones or advancements so they can destroy their bodies, otherwise it is like they are destroying their bodies so they can be future memorial tributes in this game, and it is not just with wrestling, it goes everywhere in showbiz and now showbiz has expanded, before in the 90’s and early 2000’s, they would think Hollywood is separate from WWE or Howard Stern talk radio but to me it was another sector of showbiz and now in current day shit, it is podcasts, social media, alt media and even politics are are now an expansion of Hollywood now and look how parody the entire thing has become. Can anyone really say I am wrong, I know your natural inclination would be to dunk one me to make yourself feel better, but the rules have never been more inconsistent. You don’t know who is a real ally or who is a fucking snake. I don’t know what is gonna happen with the future of all of this, but it doesn’t look good and it has felt for the last several years that the day I wake up, I will wake up to  complete chaos or some shit. It feels so much is imploding and it is not a matter of if, but a matter of when because there is a reason why they are having people show who they are before shit hits the fan. I know because I bitch about shit, it gives people who hate me more incentive to ride for people and things that make me fucking sick, and if that is what it is, then you can fuck off. I look at shit like 10 years ago or so I was going down a bad path and I have managed not to regress in an era where people are doing it left and right, and holding myself back from being sucked into where I go to a place where there is no coming back from, it fucks with my head mentally and the one thing I had as a safe guard was that there were people with platforms who were at least seeming to help people evolve and not regress, and now if these people who are well respected are able to be sucked in and sell out to chase right wing money and audience, then what chance do i have where eventually more people will go down that route, so they can then suck me in. I am mentally stronger than I have ever been, but it becomes too much, and it isn’t someone like Ana Kasparian being stupid, she knows her arguments and the people she is citing makes her look like an asshole, but now she has a cult of people who agree with her tactics who will back her up and they can pretend she is waking up and she will be okay with that on the surface, but mentally she knows the praise is empty and she won’t feel good about it, she might show off a new elitist lifestyle and attitude, but the gimmick is overplayed and been done, no one is referring to a vagina as a bonus blackhole, it is just more sensationalist bullshit to make it seem like trans people are going too far and then she knowingly puts out how the civil rights were more peaceful when she has literally covered stories about the civil rights and they have had enough Black History Month shows from people on the channel who have discussed what happened during the civil rights, and she is doing typical right wing tricks. It is scary how many people are moving toward more fascist mindset and intellectualizing it when they have insider knowledge where the world is going behind the scenes, and this is why it is even scarier because they are planning shit and that is why I feel people are making pivots because they are scared pussies so they had to bend the knee to their fucking Nazi leaders, and I believe these people are Nazis, I know you’re only supposed to think Nazis are in Ukraine, while they interview and downplay Nazis in the US and sophisticate their propaganda that is playing with people’s lives because a bunch of pretentious cunts have chosen to turn politics in a reality show WWE Sports Entertainment show that has a mix of comedic banter with manifestation of other political and media shows you like, people are gonna be fucked for real and these people are finding ways to make it their fucking sports entertainment character. The money and prestige you were promised will not be good enough, you will never be happy mentally and you will alienate everyone in your life in the process of trying to solidify your shitty status. Even engaging with their bad faith acting is a waste of time, but they have platforms and influence and they are all claiming to be on the left and they are the ones who are creating boosted up arguments to put people in a state of panic in a time where there is more highly amplified laws being passed to harm people and we have to fucking engage with shitty bad faith actors who are more concerned with their branding more so human lives they are gonna throw under the bus, even people who supposedly oppose some of these post leftist people, I wonder if you are also doing sports entertainment before you reveal yourself to be a villain, I have seen this shit go on way too much over the last decade, it feels like typical WWE tropes, WWE would be the MSM in this case, and so many people who are online personas will present a view of them so limited, so that they can then run a con and it is the same shit with a lot of the alt media over the fucking years. So fuck anyone who is intending on making the pivot, I would rather die than ever cross over to that side, even as much they try to push me or dangle rewards in font of my face. This world is fucking doomed. I hope people will fight back against the propaganda, but it just seems everyday everyone will just keep going further to the right and this is what happens when you pretend online shit has just been some underground chat room when it has become the establishment ever since social media started to get propped up but this is what we do, we pretend we are educating people but in reality we have been dumbing shit down, even with the censorship argument, the fact that we know about the censorship and it is being talked about and being marketed, it feels like we are creating our own kayfabe so we limit how we can address the issues, and when that limit happens, it normally helps the right wing because being a baby face in this scenario, you have to be limited and that is why there can never be genuine baby faces in this game anymore, everyone thinks being the villain is cool and they get traction by taking advantage of an already corrupt system so they can be those kinds of figures, like I said when the establishment officially anoints someone to be this new force etc, I can at least look at it and say “Yeah I don’t believe everything that they say about this person and I question the motivations and narratives” but when someone puts themselves as anti establishment, they act like they are truth tellers who can never be questioned because they pointed out the system is corrupt and maybe you could fool people and it is like the establishment funds those kinds of people and that is what they never fucking mention. But now when you assume even “truth tellers” and “free thinkers” are all full of shit despite making some good points on some level, it now becomes easier not to buy into these people, but thing is many people are and it fucking sucks. Call me conspiratorial and hate on me, but I rather look the way I look and be the way I am and know that I am not going the route a lot of you are going and doing it at the behest of fundamentalism and white supremacy.

I remember Joyce Carol Oates said in an interview from the 2000s talking about how Marilyn was treated in life she victim blamed and slut shamed her saying because of the way she dressed and how she behaved “she was complicit in her own fate, i’m afraid.”

And when someone tweeted how Norman Mailer was an abusive husband she replied with "bad husband to whom?".

I don't understood how they're allowed to market a work of FICTION as a biopic? She rewrote Marilyn's life and added to her abuse and suffering and romanticized it.

that remark of hers i have seen - everything she's said or written has been full of victim blaming and slut shaming, and a dearth of empathy for mental health difficulties and the repercussions of abuse. (i've also been told she's bigoted in a couple of other ways, though i don't have the information to back that up because i haven't looked into it further.) imagine the callousness and internal misogyny it takes to say someone who struggled was "complicit" - it's also, frankly, ableist, both towards illness (mental and physical) and addiction. this comment in the thread i linked earlier:

(and also as i previously mentioned, there is ample evidence to believe her death may have been accidental, but regardless, to just be like, "well, she killed herself and that's her fault," is despicable.)

norman mailer? WHO STABBED HIS WIFE?! that's... wow.

agree totally with your last paragraph too. it should be marketed as a sensationalistic/graphic work of fiction.

What scene have you written that draws the most emotion from you? Did this translate to your readers? Would you change anything?

Thanks for the ask!

Two scenes come to mind. The first is actually the entire story of Summerhall Part 2. I was in a very bittersweet mood when I wrote that. I had just been vaccinated, and was starting to feel hopeful again, but I was still so sad about all that had been lost. For weeks when I was writing it, I felt like I was caught up in a fever-dream, I was so immersed in the feelings of that story. That feeling definitely translated to the readers who connected with it. And it was the last thing I planned to write for the GoT fandom, so there was an extra layer of bittersweetness to it.

The other scene that comes to mind is Rickon's death in Dragons in Winter. It was so dark, and I worried it would come across as cheap and a twist for twist's sake. I wrote around that scene for a long time, until I couldn't put it off anymore. When I sat down to write it, I just really focused on Jon, Sansa, and Arya and how they all had vastly different responses to the tragic situation. So many people have told me that that chapter made them cry, I still get comments about it sometimes. I'm so relived that the emotions came across correctly, and it didn't get interrupted as cheap and sensationalist.