#my instinct being to do the one with less votes first just to be a contrarian is so funny to me
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Mu’s understanding of relationships
Analysis dump, this time specifically about Mu’s view of relationships. I don’t think she has any idea what a normal relationship is or understands how social attachment works for most people. For her, everything is transactional, and she assumes it works like that for everyone. A friendship is giving and taking and nothing more.
As far as we know, Mu has never had a true friend. She’s had “friends”, but it was never an actual bond. Before the bullying of Mu started, her friends still hung around Mu for a material benefit. We can see them fawning over her wealth and being offered expensive lipstick from Mu, along with the protection of the queen bee of the school. In return, Mu gets people to provide her “honey”, as well as people who will do what she says.
Mu consistently refers to these people as her friends, or at least former friends, despite the fact it doesn’t seem like either of them actually liked hanging out together. It was mutually beneficial, but not born of an actual connection. Mu defines friends simply as “Someone who properly listens to what I say.”
When one of the bug girls stops providing honey, Mu pushes them over. They’ve stopped fulfilling their end of the bargain. If her friends don’t give her something, then they’re not friends. As far as Mu knows, everyone else operates the same way, and she’s not entirely wrong. Her friends do abandon and turn on her when she stops benefitting them. She doesn’t understand selfless loyalty because she’s never experienced it.
Still, I do believe she cared about Rei. She sings the lines “I love you” while chasing after her, reaches out to her, and clearly is very affected over her rejection above everyone else involved in the bullying. Mu’s murder was an impulsive move in a fit of emotion, and I doubt she would have felt so strongly over someone she didn’t care about. She just didn’t know how to deal it.
Mu comes from a pampered background and probably never had any interpersonal conflicts like this before, let alone one as extreme as the bullying she went through. Nobody ever taught her how to properly deal with things like this. All Mu knows how to do it to be the queen bee and whine when things don’t go her way until they do. Her whole life she’s been in control, so when she looses that control and can’t wrestle it back no matter how much she cries and begs, she panics.
In the first voice drama, Mu tries to get Es to like her so she’ll be seen as innocent. She says “All I have to do is gain your favour, right? I’ll listen to what you say! So, what would you like me to do?”, calling back to her saying that a friend is someone who listens to what you have to say. She instinctively starts trying to make herself likeable and worthwhile to hang around to gain something (in this case, an innocent vote).
Despite this, moments after, she shows genuine concern for Es (she also worries for Es’ health in the second voice drama), asking about their odd behavior and speech without any obvious gain to her, then panics when they start freaking out. When Es snaps at her for it, she grows defensive - it seems every time she’s tried to be genuine to the people around her, it’s gone poorly for her.
Once Es calms down, she falls back on her standard view of relationships. Mu flat out says “So, in other words, I should just become someone you’re fond of. And, if I do that, you’ll forgive me, right?” and “Prison guard, you’re human as well, so… I’ll do my best. I’ll figure out what kinda person you’re fond of.”
She’s not wrong, either. She was forgiven in After Pain for showing her more pathetic, pitiable and weak side, but now that she’s become more abrasive she’s getting largely guilty vote. She’s getting punished for her personality rather than being what people want to see once again.
In the second voice drama, she becomes less desperate for Es’ approval because she doesn’t think she needs it anyone. She doesn’t have to be likable anymore because she doesn’t need something from the person she’s trying to endear herself too. “I know now that I can get whatever I want if I ask for it, so I don’t need to be so on edge anymore.”
Her relationship with Haruka operates the same way. They both provide each other what they crave - attention and validation for both, a mother figure for Haruka, and someone to always listen to her for Mu. Because of that, they’re friends. There doesn’t need to be anything more. If two people have something to gain by being friends, what more is there to it?
When Es questions her, directly asking if she wants something from Haruka, she asks if Es has any friends. When they say no, there’s this conversation, which I find really confirms Mu’s unhealthy view of relationships.
“Friends aren’t like that, you know. Rather than using each other for something, we just get along because we’re comfortable around each other. That’s all.” “Haruka-kun is really nice! He accepts anything I say, he listens to anything I tell him. For me, that’s really comfortable.”
“And that’s...friendship?”
“What do you mean? Of course we’re friends! Haruka-kun is happy with it, so it only has benefits for both of us!”
“...isn’t that just exploitation?”
“Exploitation…? Um, I don’t really understand, but… I do help him pick out clothes in return, and I recently gave him a hairpin I didn’t need anymore as a hand-me-down!” “I don’t think it’s a relationship that anyone could have a problem with!”
To Mu, her relationship to Haruka is perfectly normal. She’s confused when Es questions it, and insists this is just how friendship is. She says nothing about how they feel about each other, only the ways they benefit each other and that they’re both happy with those benefits. There’s nothing about Haruka as a person, only what he can provide her, and Mu talks about herself the same way. She only points to her giving Haruka material gifts, direct favors and that he’s happy with what he gets rather than them actually liking each other. It’s not important to how Mu thinks of a friendship.
Mu knows about Haruka’s suicide threats, and seems excited about it. To her, it’s a show of devotion, that he won’t turn on her so easily. If he’s willing to give her something like that, then they’re really friends. I don’t think she want Haruka to die by any means, but rather that she doesn’t understand how a normal person would respond to something like this. It’s Haruka’s choice, right, so what does it have to do with her?
“That made me happy… It made me really feel our friendship!”
“You know about it and you’re not trying to stop him?”
“Why would I? Haruka-kun says he wants to do it, so there’s nothing I can do, right?”
“But you’re calling him your friend.”
“Isn’t it exactly because he’s my friend? Isn’t friendship about letting your friends do the things they want? … Are you about to tell me “that’s not what friendship is”? Then what is friendship? You’re together because it’s beneficial for everyone involved, aren’t you?”
She directly says she thinks friendship is because it’s beneficial. That’s her understanding of friendship. To her, Haruka’s suicidal behaviors are his own personal choice and you’re not supposed to interfere with what your friend wants to do.
I think part of this comes from her own suicidal thoughts in the past. When Mu was at her breaking point, desperate and about to seriously hurt herself to try and escape the bullying, she reached out to Rei. She grabbed onto her, pleading and crying for help, only to get brushed off. Nobody helped Mu when she felt this way, so she has no reference for what help would look like.
TL;DR: Mu’s never had a friendship without exploitation and unhealthy dynamics but doesn’t understand this isn’t how it is for everyone, leading to some of her worse behaviors because of this skewed worldview from her past experiences
#illia original#mu kusunoki#muu kusunoki#kusunoki mu#kusunoki muu#milgram#milgram project#analysis#meta
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moral archives fanfic i wrote for fun lol
@maxphilippa here
I should've known. It was so obvious, it should've occured to me earlier.
The way I smiled every time he smiled, the way I laughed when he laughed, the way I followed when he took the lead, the way he followed when I took the lead.
But I was oblivious to my love, and therefore his. I waved off every feeling I had as a side product of our friendship, no matter how head over heels I was.
It was only then, when he gave me the immunity milk, that I truly understood.
The way my face reddened with love, like it had many times before, although quickly undercut by the sour taste of the long since spoiled milk. The way he looked into my eyes, with a beautiful smile on his face I had always admired. It finally clicked. I was in love.
I asked him if he was sure, I mean it was his after all. If he wanted it, I would've given it right back. But he reassured me, making sure I took his gift. I looked at him with love struck eyes, and I looked at him back all the same.
My honey covered feelings made drinking the spoiled milk slightly less bad, although I was struggling to keep it down. Every chance it got, my brain wondered back to how Yinyang looked at me in that moment. My heart raced just thinking about it.
As Mephone read the votes, my mind kept coming back to the same subject. Everytime I smiled anew, like it had just happened again. My heart pitter pattered the same sped up rhythm as it did when he gave me the milk, refusing to slow down.
"Yinyang. Two votes Nickel, Two votes Yinyang."
I looked at my one and only ally with worry in my eyes. We did have the numbers to out vote Silver and Nickel, but I didn't know if anybody had made any sudden switches with Blueberry rejoining. He looked at me back seemingly even more worried. My stomach twisted itself a few more knots at the sight of his worried expression.
"Yinyang. Two votes Nickel. Three votes Yinyang."
Oh God. If everything went as planned, then we would at least force a tie. But my heart pounded in worry and I tried my absolute best to take deep breaths discreetly, which didn't help at all. I gripped the immunity milk with all my might, as if I could change the course of fate if I had a strong enough grip on the milk jug.
"And the final vote is..."
I awaited the news with baited breath.
"Yinyang! You are our fifteenth eliminated contestant."
My heart sank all the way to the sandy beach below my wheels. How could this have happened? Yinyang thought *I* was on the chopping block, that's why he gave me the immunity milk, plus we had three members in our alliance, it should've been a tie.
"Now that we know the jury decides the winner, Yinyang is just too big of a threat."
Well. I can't blame him. It is competition. People will do anything it takes to win. But my heart still ached. After everything he had done for me... eliminated. Just like that.
I quickly got over the betrayal as I refocused on something else. The fact I *loved* Yinyang. My heart shattered once again, as I struggled to not only speak but also keep my tears at bay.
"Oh, I'm so sorry your selfless sacrifice was for all for nothing."
I managed to choke out, sensing my sadness Yinyang quickly reassured me. At first I instinctively smiled at his happiness over his personal victory, but then I was painfully reminded that he'd be going away. My face twisted itself, trying to both smile and frown at the same time. It looked weird.
"Hit me as hard as you can!"
Still so excited, even whilst being eliminated. I was reminded again why I loved him. But then he was sent away all the way to Indefinite Island. Then it hit me. How could this have happened? I tried to focus on the positives, how happy he sounded about their personal victory, the smile on his face as he playfully asked Mephone to hit him. But I couldn't.
It hurt. I yearned for whom I just learned I needed, and what I just learned I couldn't contact until either I won, or eliminated. I kept my tears at bay by focusing on the silver lining, but that was all the silver lining did. Keep me from tears. I still ached for Yinyang, hoping that I had found out about my love just a second earlier, just so I could tell him I loved him the same way he loved me.
But I couldn't. I was too late. I had found out at the most inconvenient of times, and now I was to face the side effects. I rolled along the beach in the opposite direction from anyone, mourning my new found loss. I rummaged through my files, searching for any way to contact him. The only way that didn't have a success rate in the negatives was writing a message in a bottle and sending it into the ocean. It had a success rate of exactly 0.01%.
I was again reminded of still bleeding wound of my love, stabbed as soon as it was discovered. I stopped at a certain point, remembering where I was. This was the same spot Yinyang and I built that sand castle, in the down time between episodes 13 and 14. Tears welled up in my eyes about as fast as I could wipe them away.
I pulled out Yinyangs file, and my eyes quickly darting to the small image of him I taped to the side. I had taken in the morning after episode 12, the angle was slightly slanted and it was a little shaky as I kept laughing at the funny face he made towards the camera, though I did end up with a better picture later. I thought this was more fitting. A smile slowly returned to my face like the sun lazily setting over the island.
File in one hand, I used my other hand to find my red pen, searching through the neatly organized manilla folders and printer papers. Once I had found it, I got to work on his file. Slowly but surely, I drew little hearts around the image, I couldn't quite get them fully symmetrical, but I thought that was fitting.
I smiled as I put the file back into the Y section, and looked off into the sunset. It still hurt, but it was comforting that even though he wasn't here, he did love me back. I wonder if he knew I love him too, and if he was comforted by that. I knew one thing was for certain though, I was going to see him again, and that was enough to carry me through the rest of my time on the game.
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Marvel Humour Pt2
Hello everyone!! We're back for round two of Marvel humor fics to brighten up your day.
You can find part one here.
Battle Plans by prettybirdy979 (1.8k)
They say never piss off the nurses because they're the ones who actually run the hospital. They can make your life a misery if you do.
Shirley Benson has never had to instruct her nurses to use this power en-mass before but to protect the identity of Daredevil, protector of the innocent and destroyer of the wicked? She'll happily make the police regret ever setting foot in her hospital.
Leap Before You Look by 94BottlesOfSnapple (2.1k)
Or, 5 times Matt Murdock jumped out a window to avoid his feelings (including horrible embarrassment), and 1 time he couldn't.
Double Blind by smilebackwards (2.3k)
Matt comes to, flat on his back, with Iron Man and Hawkeye hovering over him. “Oh fuck,” Stark says, less than comfortingly.
Double-D in Your A-P-P by 94BottlesOfSnapple (2.4k)
Foggy is legally obligated by the laws of friendship to download any and all mobile games starring Daredevil.
Unfortunately, that means eventually he has to explain to Matt why he's got a superhero dating sim app on his phone.
Say You Don't Know Me (or Recognize My Face) by ShowMeAHero (2.9k)
Daredevil is kind of dark and broody. He doesn't want anyone to know his real name, he never smiles, and he has kind of a loner attitude.
Matt Murdock, on the other hand, is completely unrecognizable to Jessica the first time she really sees him.
Repeat After Me by battybatzgirl (3.8k)
Tony’s face hardens as he says, “What kid.”
“I don’t know, some twelve year old—”
Below him, the kid coughs out, “Fifteen.”
“—Fifteen year old—”
Tony scrubs a hand across his face. “Don’t tell me he’s wearing a dorky shirt with a chemistry pun on it.”
Rhodey frowns. That was oddly specific. Glancing down, he looks at what little he can see of the kid’s shirt—which isn't much since there’s so much blood now, but what could be once called a cartoon joke is printed on it. “Um, yeah?”
“Son of a bitch.”
Hieroglyphics (or you are under arrest for being attractive & ruining my life) by The_Readers_Muse (4.4k)
As far as randomly acquired superhero powers go, he is going to admit right now that his are kind of lame. Okay, lots lame. Sort of. But considering Matt is a complete and utter dingus with about the same self-preservation instincts as a mosquito flying full tilt into a bug zapper, he figures an extra edge - as fucking weird and annoying as it is – is probably worth the headache.
in an empty moral space by blueh (5.4k)
“Bring Spider-Man to us, Mr. Stark,” High-heels says and rattles off an address. “If that bug isn’t here in the next twenty four hours, then your intern gets it. We are not going to ask a second time.”
There’s a pause.
Then, “You want Spider-Man?”
“In exchange for your intern,” High-heels affirms.
“Spider-Man,” Mr. Stark repeats. He sounds more amused than worried for Peter’s apparent safety.
also known as: Peter Parker is held hostage…in order to get to Spider-Man. Throw in some Accords reconciliation and, well, Peter’s life just got a whole lot weirder.
This is the worst timeline by Hittinmiss (6.6k)
Chair Dude: I have some good news and some bad news
Chair Dude: good news is you didn't miss any training for decathlon
Chair Dude: bad news is that they decided the field trip without you ://
Man of Spiders: why is it bad news??
Chair Dude: because Flash decided to pick the compound and no one said no so…
Man of Spiders: Dude why didn't you say no???
Chair Dude: I would have been out voted Dude!
Chair Dude: I also wanna see the compound as well so yeet
Peter Parker's Super Secret Snack Stash by coconutknightshade (7k)
"It's D, Peter. We talked about this."
“No it’s not, Ned. Because if it were D then I would be wrong and that would put me at a 65% already on this practice exam and we haven’t even gotten through it all. I can’t fail another history exam, Ned! This last one is worth 60% of our grade! If I fail this final then I’ll fail the class and if I fail the class then I’ll be kicked out of school-”
“You’re top of our year, Peter.” You can almost hear Ned’s eye roll as he talks over Peter.
“- and if I’m kicked out of school then I’ll be forced to live on the streets exchanging sexual favors for money and I can’t do that, Ned! I wouldn’t even know what to charge- I mean, what’s the street value of a blow job, Ned? Do you know? Because I sure as shit don’t.” At this point Ned is outright giggling over Peter’s theatrics.
Five times the Avengers don't find out about Daredevil and one time they do by Nautika (7.2k)
“And then I had to help Daredevil climb out of that dumpster, freaking Daredevil, can you believe it?” Clint waved his arms around, nearly sweeping his cup off the table in Matt’s apartment.
Five Times Peter Parker Pretended to Be Asleep by blondsak (16k)
...and the one time he actually was.
Or: sometimes, faking sleep can work to your advantage. When it comes to trying to fool a certain genius, overprotective, superhero mentor, Peter finds this to be doubly true.
from your perspective, the world is flat by blueh (18k)
Peter successfully goes on a field trip, accidentally catches the school bleachers, survives a bus explosion, and reveals his identity as Spider-Man.
…not necessarily in that order, much to the confusion of his entire decathlon team.
also known as: Peter Parker and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
What I Really Need is You by happyaspie (18k)
or: Five Things Peter Needs From Tony and One Thing He Wants.
i see myself (in you) by parkrstark (28k)
“Hey, c’mon, before long we’ll be back to normal and we’ll look back at this and laugh.”
Peter just looked up at him with a slight glare as he scratched at his chin again. The itch of the facial hair was driving him crazy and Tony found it highly amusing. “You’re in the body of a 15-year-old boy. Why are you smiling?”
“You’re in the body of Tony Stark. Why aren’t you smiling?” Tony asked with a smirk.
turn back the clock (and I'll try again in the morning) by madasthesea (35k)
Peter gets stuck in a time loop. In it, he lives through some of his worst nightmares, only to wake up that morning and have no one remember. He needs Tony to help him get through.
And if that isn't bad enough, his identity is revealed over and over, every day.
Avocados and Avengers by whitchry9 (51k)
Matt meets Avengers. Avengers don't know he's blind. Things happen. Hilarity ensues. Matt gains new friends and Foggy is totally jealous.
Child's Play by SPICYJARVIS (59k)
Spiderman has been missing for one year, two months and five days.
Clint Barton happens across a homeless kid named Peter Parker.
It's a Secret to Everybody by Snapdragon_in_the_Snow (97k)
Peter gets to spend all summer living in Avengers Tower with Tony. When the Rogue Avengers get pardoned and come back to live at the Tower too, they're confused as to who Peter is. However, once they see how Tony acts around Peter, that confusion goes away, as they know for certain who Peter must be - Tony's secret son.
Tony and Peter decide to make the most of the situation, and play along. They hope they can keep up the act all summer. But they soon learn that they barely have to act at all.
And there we have it! If you have any other recommendations to share or fic recs you'd like me to find, please send me an ask or a message. And as usual, thank you to the fantastic writers for sharing their fics with us!!
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Ask game time! Thanks for the tag, @filmamir!
1. Are you named after anyone?
I keep saying if I do anything noteworthy enough in my life to deserve a wikipedia page, someone has to add me to List of things named after Bernhard Riemann - Wikipedia, so... yes.
2. When was the last time you cried?
Yesterday night, and also, longer ago than I remember. Are the tears mine if the sadness isn't? It be like that sometimes.
3. Do you have kids?
No, and thank the powers that be (mostly contraception) for that!
4. What sports do you play/have played?
No real sports, unless highschool PE counts. I was a fervent and pretty skilled skier for a while but my partner is afraid of skiing and its too expensive to go on my own, so it's been years since I did it.
5. Do you use sarcasm?
Not as much as you'd think. I'm a painfully sincere person much of the time.
6. What's the first thing you notice about people?
I hate to be *that* person, but... their vibe. Fake car salesperson smiles, awkward "haha we will ignore that!" silences, confrontational high-schooler convo style... Some people just have fucky energy, idk what else to say. That said, my actual opinion of people takes a while to form -it's like a committee vote more or less.
7. What's your eye colour?
Blue-green
8. Scary movies or happy endings?
Happy endings all the way. I can watch unhappy endings if the movie is aesthetic(TM) or it's more about the art or history of the film than the narrative, but if I'm immersing myself in a story-story, the person(s) the narrative makes me root for better fucking make it to a happy end.
I'm very selective about scary movies: they need to be aesthetic, and satisfying.
9. Any talents?
... not... really? I kinda struggle with linking my qualities to "talents". I don't have many (if any) things I'm just "naturally good" at; even skill sets I'm now proud of were not something I ever had a natural aptitude for, and if I developed a skill it was 99% of the time out of necessity rather than enjoyment.
I guess I have... shockingly broad bandwidth for other people's issues. Like... interpersonal exhaustion? I don't know her, man. Mostly due to a combination of voyeuristic enjoyment of knowing and understanding things about others, my sense of empathy being almost entirely generated through fine-grained psych analysis rather than instinct, and the *very* odd given that my own personality temporarily stabilizes when exposed to interpersonal input. I'm not sure that's a talent so much as a condition, though xD
10. Where were you born?
Belgium
11. What are your hobbies?
At the moment, mostly writing Tron fanfiction. I also draw (sometimes), paint and kitbash Warhammer 40k minis (been a while), do metalwork (I need a new welding helm T_T), do gothic and fetish modelling, thrift and collect things for my house, etcetera. I cycle through hobbies mostly. Writing is my most stable one -I dare say I keeps me sane.
12. Do you have any pets?
I have a cat! Her name is Meoi (Quenya for "Cat", in honour of Huan and terrible Feanorian naming traditions -retired Silmarillion fan here)
13. How tall are you?
1m70 but most people assume I'm a good bit taller because I'm broad-shouldered and always in 17cm platform stilettos.
14. Favourite subject in school?
Oof. Tough one. I've been out of school for a good long while. The person I was in high-school would have picked physics, followed closely by math. Leaving the following period in the middle (lalala), at uni *in the major I actually graduated from*, my favourites were Architectural Theory, Medieval Image Culture, and Visual Analysis.
15. Dream job?
Oof again. Opinions divided on this one.
I like to say my dream job needs to meet the following criteria:
- I am competent at the job and reasonably regularly get this confirmed by others
- Every day at work I know largely what is expected of me, and what is expected fully falls within my capacity to deliver.
- I have tangible, well-described tasks and goals and never have to "be proactive about finding more work" or "try to look more productive".
- I have good coworkers I get along with, at least professionally.
- No extraneous admin tasks or timesheet micromanagement.
- GOOD PAY
If I'm really ambitious, I would add to that:
- I'm an expert (or just really, really good) at it.
But let's be honest, actual dream jobs Riemann over here has dreamed of having or pursuing? Interior designer/stylist, professional fetish performer/pro-domme, and Enterprise IT Architect.
Yeah.
You see why I stick to bullet point lists.
Tagging... @bowiesinspace @inquisitor-gayfax @clevermird @et-novum and everyone else who feels like it!
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Hi hi!! I have a few ooo questions for you if you feel like answering :) so now that we have yoojung and kb solos and remixes why do you think they got the remixes they did? Do you think they had any say on which one goes on their album or was it just whichever remix was done first? Do you think they had a certain attachment to the og song that was remixed? What songs do you think the other members will get remixed? Which songs do you hope the others will get or which song do you associate the others with? I do love reading your ooo essays and thoughts about their art <3 but I realize this is a lot so feel free to ignore this!!
anon hi hi!! i've been looking forward to answering this ask and today i finally have time, this is such a fun ask <33
for which remixes go with which solo, i definitely think taeyeob and kyubin had at least some say in which ones they got beyond it being whichever was done first. given that wookjin is working a lot on the remixes and he worked closely on begin and be free as well, i can imagine there was discussion w taeyeob and kyu abt which ones they would get (and i imagine this will apply for the future ones as well)
as for specifically why they got the ones they did, i'm less sure. both picasso and desert are ones that were originally largely composed and arranged by producing line themselves + the producers they work w v frequently (nap!er, haeil, ximon, etc). i'm not sure if that actually has anything to do with it, but if it does, i'm also not sure which direction the causality runs. like maybe they're only remixing ones they themselves + ooo producers worked on bc that's logistically and artistically more feasible (i.e. they have all the original files + they have 100% right to do whatever they want w it) or maybe the ones they want to remix are the ones that lend themselves better to their signature art pop style and those naturally would be the ones they worked more closely on themselves
now this gets even further into just my own speculation of potential reasons but: for taeyeob getting picasso, i feel like it makes sense bc to me, dora maar has always been a very taeyeob song and choreo, and in the choreo, he essentially plays the character of dora maar (here's a thread analyzing the choreo, and here's a video essay version of that thread + other dora maar analysis). i doubt they'd do an art pop remix of dora maar since it already is the quintessential example of their art pop style, so to do the companion song to that makes sense to me
and for kyubin getting desert, while he didn't work on the original song actually (though jisung and wookjin did), it is one of their early songs that i feel like is most in line w kyu's preferred k-rnb style. i originally thought kolo was gonna be k-rnb bc that genre is just soooo kyubin and suits his voice especially well, so given that be free wasnt, it makes sense to me that at least the remix was
now for the upcoming remixes, i'm gonna do this in the order that i think they're gonna be released (though i myself am conflicted abt what i think the order is gonna be, so this is just one theory)
i really hope that sungho gets something dramatic that shows off his vocals; i'm personally voting for onlyoneof you because that's one of my faves of theirs, i think prod line can do smth rly cool w an art pop remix of that, and sungho's parts sound incredibleeeee in the original already. but beyond that, i actually dont have much of a guess bc we havent seen much of sungho's personal musical style as prod line and i associate him more with the choreo, naturally
for junhyung, i feel like i might even have less of an idea bc we know he worked on suit dance, and the song that, to me, feels most analogous to suit dance on their discography is instinct. but, i feel like they might only be remixing songs from pre-instinct era bc underground idol is loosely a continuation of the instinct saga (e.g. the styling, the concepts so far, the fact that the name comes from the tracklist of ip2), so it makes sense in a way that they're only remixing things from outside of it. for pre-instinct stuff, i think it'd be interesting to hear a designer art pop remix. it's so stylistically different from the art pop stuff, but the concept is similar to suit dance in a way. but, this one was largely worked on by boycold who doesnt work w ooo regularly (though haeil is credited on designer as well), so if we're going w my earlier theory that they're only remixing stuff they worked on the most, this wouldn't work. much to think about!!
for yongsoo, i would loveeeee to hear a blossom remix bc i think it's such a fun yongsoo song or a asoiaf remix bc i feel like pd2 era looked so good on him and his rap in that one is so good, but neither are ones that the members worked closely on, plus it seems difficult to make either work w the art pop style, so ik they might be off the table. in which case, i feel like onlyoneof you would make sense for yongsoo. it's sentimental, it's sweet, just like he is <3 also he cried to it during the fan party but that's neither here nor there
and finally for wookjin, i would absolutely killllllllllll for a byredo art pop remix. if we got that, i think i would just levitate. that song is already sooooo sexy, and the art pop remix style would fit so well with it. we also know that song is wookjin's baby and one of his favorites if not his no. 1 favorite off their discography, However, if we're going w my earlier theory of them only remixing pre-instinct songs, that wouldn't work. had taeyeob not gotten picasso, i feel like that one would also work for wook, both conceptually (i.e. he plays the character of picasso in the dora maar choreo) and stylistically. i think there's also a good chance that he gets ooo me, though like i said i'm hoping sungho gets that one, so much to think abt here too 🤔🤔 (but sidenote, if they are remixing instinct era songs as well, i think tear of god would also be an excellent choice for sungho and gaslighting an excellent choice for junhyung)
(one song i havent mentioned yet is fragile. i think there's a super high chance that it's gonna get a remix bc it was produced completely by the members + their regular producers, it lends itself well to their art pop style, and it's a pre-instinct song. if it gets remixed, i think it can work with a lot of them. i feel it works with wookjin stylistically a lot, and it works with sungho and junhyung vocally a lot. but i didnt mention it earlier bc a part of me hopes that it doesn't get remixed bc i personally associate that one w jisung a lot, in large part bc his vocals in it are crazzzzyyyy good, so while ik prod line would be able to make an incredible art pop remix of it, it would make me a little :(( to hear it without jisung, even more than their other songs do)
and also a little abt the upcoming solo order, bc it's semi-relevant to this and i have speculations i want to talk abt a;lsdfkjasd: im very much wondering if the other solos are going to be released by unit like kyujung's were or if they wont be. like it ofc makes sense that begin and be free were released back to back, but i'm not expecting the other solos to have stories that are that interconnected, which leaves the question of if they'll still be released back to back
one thing is, i feel like wookjin's solo is near the end. ive mentioned it before, but during a begin-era (i.e. not long ago) fancall, he said that wolo is not close to done yet and that he's already scrapped 3 potential songs for it. given how much of a perfectionist he is, i doubt he'd leave himself so little time to finish wolo esp since i imagine whatever solo is next is already rly close to done if not already recorded, and this fancall was within the last ~month. also in his youtube live yesterday, he showed a tiny spoiler for the next cover he's working on, and while ofc u can work on two things at once, i feel like if wolo was soon, he would be focusing on that and probs wouldnt have another cover planned for the near future (i also feel like all the covers he's been doing recently are in part an exercise for him to try out diff styles and figure out what he wants to do for wolo)
so if his is one of the last two (i personally think it's last) and they're releasing by units, that means that the next one has to be either sungho or junhyung, in which case my bet would be on sungho. but if his is not one of the last two or if they're not releasing by units, for some reason i also feel like the next one could be yongsoo's. but another thing is i feel like it also makes sense for rolo to be last bc that would mean that sungho gets to release his during his birthday month, but then that also throws a whole other wrench into my current theories, so who knows. my current strongest bet is on sungho>junhyung>yongsoo>wookjin, but also ik there's a few other orders that are also super possible
anyways, i would say sorry this ended up being way longer than expected but also i had a feeling i would end up writing an essay in response to this a;slkjfasl;dfkj i hope u found this helpful/interesting anon, and ty for such a fun ask!!
#love love talking abt ooo and my theories and thoughts n im glad u like reading them ty anon <33#also!#the first teaser for kolo was released july 5th#which means there's a good chance we're getting the teaser for no. 3 this week#or if not，then probably next monday#very exciting#also be free hit 1m views today which is soooo exciting and cool#twice as fast as begin! they rly are on an upward trajectory#hopefully this momentum keeps for the rest of underground idol 🤞🏼🤞🏼#onlyoneof#ooo#ennuitxt#answered#anonymous
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The Guardian, June 12, 2014
Lana Del Rey has been through the wringer since her breakthrough success led to a vicious backlash, which shows in the 'narco swing' of her brooding new album Ultraviolence – and the fact that she can't stop talking about dying.
"I wish I was dead already," Lana Del Rey says, catching me off guard. She has been talking about the heroes she and her boyfriend share – Amy Winehouse and Kurt Cobain among them – when I point out that what links them is death and ask if she sees an early death as glamorous. "I don't know. Ummm, yeah." And then the death wish.
Don't say that, I say instinctively.
"But I do."
You don't!
"I do! I don't want to have to keep doing this. But I am."
Do what? Make music?
"Everything. That's just how I feel. If it wasn't that way, then I wouldn't say it. I would be scared if I knew [death] was coming, but …"
We're in New Orleans, a city not known for peace and quiet. A couple of blocks from Lana Del Rey's hotel lies Bourbon Street, the scene of drunken rampages from morning till night. Head in the opposite direction and you can expect to be assaulted by the vibrant brass of the French Quarter's street jazz musicians. Even inside Del Rey's elegant suite there is carnage: suitcases half-exploded; bags of corn chips strewn across the floor. Even her laptop has been doused in tomato ketchup, temporarily thwarting our attempts to hear songs from her new album Ultraviolence. "Ewww," she says, baffled as to how a condiment could have found its way inside the power socket.
And yet when we move outside to sit on her balcony, the scene is transformed into complete calm. "This place is magical," she says, sparking up the first of many cigarettes. So serene is the setting, in fact, that it takes me by surprise when Del Rey begins to tell me how unhappy she is: that she doesn't enjoy being a pop star, that she feels constantly targeted by critics, that she doesn't want to be alive at all.
"Family members will come on the road with me and say: 'Wow, your life is just like a movie!'" she says at one point. "And I'm like: 'Yeah, a really fucked-up movie.'"
Throughout our hour-long conversation she keeps returning to dark themes. Telling her story – a remarkable one that involves homelessness, biker gangs and being caught in the eye of a media hurricane – also involves working out why a songwriter who has sold more than 7m copies of her last album, Born To Die seems so disillusioned with life.
Perhaps the logical place to start, then, is with the extraordinary reaction to Video Games, her breakthrough song in 2011. Arriving seemingly out of nowhere (although Del Rey had been posting her songs and homemade videos for some time), the video's Lynchian creepiness cast a spell on almost everyone who saw it, causing the song to go viral. Yet no sooner had the plaudits started rolling in (the Guardian voted it the best song of 2011) than Del Rey was placed under the intense scrutiny of endless blogposts and think pieces, with critics poring over her past for evidence of fakery: was her carefully studied aesthetic for real? Was she really just a major label puppet? Had her dad funded a previous bid for fame? Were her lips the result of plastic surgery? Was she really born as plain old Elizabeth Grant rather than emerging from the womb fully formed as the popstar Lana Del Rey?
I ask how long she got to enjoy the success of Video Games before the backlash arrived and she looks surprised. "I never felt any of the enjoyment," she says. "It was all bad, all of it."
Del Rey says she's not scared to put another record out because she "knows what to expect this time", but during the two-and-a-half years since Born to Die came out, she has often dismissed the idea of a follow-up because she'd "already said everything I wanted to say". So what changed?
"I mean, I still feel that way," she says. "But with this album I felt less like I had to chronicle my journeys and more like I could just recount snippets in my recent past that felt exhilarating to me."
From the handful of songs I get to hear at the hotel, it's safe to say the new material has plenty to get the bloggers worked up about again. Sad Girl, for instance, talks about how "being a mistress on the side, might not appeal to fools like you".
She laughs when I ask where the inspiration came from: "A good question. I mean … I had different relationships with men, with people, where they were sort of wrong relationships, but still beautiful to me."
By wrong does she mean being the other woman?
She laughs again and looks away coyly. "I mean, I guess so."
It's not clear if Money, Power, Glory was originally written just to rile her detractors but it makes a decent stab at it by warning: "I'm going to take them for all that they've got."
"I was in more of a sardonic mood," she says of writing that song. "Like, if all that I was actually going to be allowed to have by the media was money, loads of money, then fuck it … What I actually wanted was something quiet and simple: a writer's community and respect." She talks about that frequently: craving a peaceful life in an artistic community, away from the glare of a media that "always puts an adjective in front of my name, and never a good one".
Like the woozy soft rock of the album's teaser track West Coast, many of the songs on Ultraviolence are slow-tempo and atmospheric, ditching the hip-hop trappings of Born To Die for what she and her producer – the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach – call a "real narco swing". Del Rey originally thought she had completed the album back in December, but after meeting Auerbach in a club and dancing the night away with him she realised she needed to record it all over again with his looser techniques – adding a more casual, California vibe to the sound by recording in single takes, with cheap microphones bought from the drugstore.
It wasn't all plain sailing. One track, Brooklyn Baby, had been written with Lou Reed in mind: he'd wanted to work with Del Rey and so she'd flown over to New York to meet him. "I took the red eye, touched down at 7am … and two minutes later he died," she says.
If the critical sniping had died down, then Del Rey was finding her life invaded by other, more intrusive, means. In 2012, her personal computer was accessed by hackers and all sorts of information started to appear online: pictures, financial details, health records, not to mention her songs. "All 211 of them," she sighs. "Just one more element of the unknown in my daily life." She says she has no way of knowing who currently has access to several years' worth of material, and no way of controlling the slow-drip leak of them online, including songs written for other people and at least one – Black Beauty – that was originally scheduled for Ultraviolence.
Indeed, when you start to look closely at Del Rey's past three years, it's not hard to understand why she might feel burned by her experience of stardom. You're also forced to wonder why the pop stars who attract the most vitriol are so often solo female artists.
"People ask me this all the time," she says. "I think they think there's an element of sexism going on, but I feel that it's more personal. I don't see where the female part comes into it. I just can't catch that feminist angle."
I mention some current examples of musicians getting picked over in the spotlight: Miley Cyrus, Lorde, Lily Allen, Lady Gaga, Sinéad O'Connor spring to mind.
"Well maybe those people are true provocateurs," she says. "But I'm really not and never have been. I don't think there's any shock value in my stuff – well, maybe the odd disconcerting lyric – but I think other people probably deserve the criticism, because they're eliciting it."
What about her video for Ride, in which she hooks up with a succession of older guys from biker gangs (it received criticism for, among other things, appearing to glamorise prostitution)?
"OK," she concedes. "I can see how that video would raise a feminist eyebrow. But that was more personal to me – it was about my feelings on free love and what the effect of meeting strangers can bring into your life: how it can make you unhinged in the right way and free you from the social obligations I hope we're growing out of in 2014."
How much did that video reflect her actual life?
"Oh, 100%"
Hanging out with biker gangs and going off with different guys?
"Yeah," she says, looking away again with another awkward laugh.
For all the accusations of being a fraud, Lana Del Rey seems to have lived a more rock'n'roll existence than your average pop star. She talks of teenage years spent "displaced … I didn't have a home, didn't know my social security number" and says she wasn't in contact with her parents for about six years. Which must have made it extra galling when accusations came in that her career was funded by her father. "It was the exact opposite of that," she says. "We never had more money than anyone we ever knew in town. My dad was a well-loved entrepreneur – he was interested in the early dawning of the internet in 1994 – but it wasn't anything that ever translated financially." When those stories first emerged in the wake of Video Games she says she wasn't even sure what her father was doing with his life: "And I don't think he was too sure what I had been up to either. So it was interesting that they sort of fictionally put us side-by-side together and involved him in that story."
Del Rey likes to describe the more tumultuous periods of her life in romantic terms: she says she'd often spend her nights wandering around New York – "West Side Highway, Lower East Side, parts of Brooklyn" – meeting strangers and seeing where the night took them. "I was inspired by Dylan's stories of meeting people and making music after you met them. I met a lot of singers, painters, bikers passing through. They were friends, or sometimes more. All people I was really interested in on impact."
It sounds pretty dangerous.
"Yeah, I was lucky, but I also have strong intuition."
Does she still do it?
"Sometimes."
Does anyone ever say: "Hang on … you're Lana Del Rey!"
"Sometimes they do. About half the time they do, half the time they don't. If they know who I am I can just leave, or I say it's not a big deal, I'm just a singer."
Are they not surprised to see you out wandering the streets?
"If I'm in LA then maybe. If I'm in Omaha, maybe not."
When she was 18, Del Rey's darker experiences – she has talked about being alcoholic – prompted her to take up outreach work helping those addicted to drugs or alcohol. It's something she describes as her true calling and something she still does when she gets the chance.
"I live in Koreatown on the edge of Hancock Park [in LA], so I do different things where and when I can. It's not just people with mental illness on the streets, but also people who, throughout the years, have lost identification information, that sort of thing. And I know what to do, I know how I can help, because I was that person."
She says it feeds directly into her music. "A lot of my songs are not just simple verse-chorus pop songs – they're more psychological." She talks about tempo, and how she likes to reflect her mental state through a song's speed: "When I played [the label] West Coast they were really not happy that it slipped into an even slower BPM for the chorus," she says. "They were like: 'None of these songs are good for radio and now you're slowing them down when they should be speeded up.' But for me, my life was feeling murky, and that sense of disconnectedness from the streets is part of that."
She longs to be regarded as a serious songwriter, which is why those early accusations of fakery stung her so badly. Yet Del Rey only really needs to take a step back to see how well things have gone for her since she rode out that initial storm and began accruing the critical respect she feels she deserves. Outside music, too, her life appears relatively settled, even if she does describe her relationship with fellow musician Barrie-James O'Neill intensely: "We have a difficult road. He's a very dark character. He has months on end where it's a really dark stretch of writing and waiting, he has his total own world so …"
She falls silent. A waft of brass floats by and mingles with her cigarette smoke. I think about her live shows, such as the outdoor one she's due to play later that night, during which she'll respond to the constant screams – her fans are too busy taking photos to applaud – by letting her band jam away for 20 minutes while she wanders the photo pit, posing for selfies with fans in the front row. Surely during those moments she must love what she does.
"No," she says. Then after another drag from her cigarette she looks down towards the busy street below and says. "I don't know what I think. All I know is that, right now, I like sitting here, on this terrace." She leans back and, for a moment, looks completely content in the silence.
Ultraviolence is released on Polydor on 16 June. Tim Jonze's trip to New Orleans was paid for by Polydor.
Originally published on theguardian.com with the headline Lana Del Rey: 'I wish I was dead already'.
Following the article’s publication, Lana Del Rey shared subsequently deleted tweets criticizing the piece:
Read The Guardian’s response here.
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Thought I’d post the conclusion of your “end of IWTV”/Moss house poll results as I doubt there will be more votes now.
- 69.3% of people think Louis did meet with Lestat, even if not fully as he describes.
- 30.7% think the meeting never happened.
- 0 people say they have no idea.
As I see it, it doesn’t matter in the overall story of Lestat & Louis whether it happened or not, BUT it does make things more poignant & heartbreaking (I personally perceive!) if it happened AND perhaps most interestingly of all - the fact that it is ambiguous & book readers absolutely do not all agree (& we won’t agree as the text simply is NOT definite about it, so it is open to our personal interpretation!) means we don’t know what Rolin thinks about what really happened, so it’ll be a true surprise to discover what the show portrays! And it being the literal end of IWTV, we will see a version! Or perhaps multiple versions!!?! It could also be presented ambiguously on TV… though it will definitely be more powerful if it isn’t ambiguous there in my opinion. Kind of exciting, no?!
I would like to talk about TRUTH here though! In discussing this moment, I have heard a lot of people talk along the lines of “Louis is canon an unreliable narrator & Lestat in canon speaks truth” on the one hand & on the other hand people saying “Why is Louis’ IWTV novel truth any less true than Lestat’s? Everyone is just speaking their own truth!”
I feel it needs clearing up: whatever the truth of the moment I speak of here, I am NOT calling anyone a liar! Let’s look at Louis! Interview with the Vampire is not an accurate portrayal of Lestat (Sorry! It’s just very obviously NOT!), BUT - LOUIS DOES NOT INTENTIONALLY LIE!
The majority (I think: all!?!) of Louis’ mistruths stem from:
- Louis’ shame & that he hasn’t accepted his feelings towards Lestat yet
- Louis often tends towards assuming people’s motivations & emotions & presenting them as facts when in fact he doesn’t know what’s in other people’s minds & hearts. Louis is a beautifully sensitive creature, but he doesn’t instinctively understand what other beings are feeling or experiencing easily (likely as he’s so deeply in his own experience!)
- Lestat had to withold a lot of information from young-Louis as Marius threatened Lestat & any fledglings that he’d destroy them otherwise, so of course Louis felt Lestat was either withholding or knew less than he actually did so there’s a lot about Lestat that Louis literally could never understand until he reads TVL
- Louis was surviving off the blood of animals in the first amount of IWTV that he recounts & as such was in an extra-depressive place that colours his perception & interpretation of Lestat
- It must be remembered that even during this interview in the 1970’s, Louis is only just able to begin to hint at the true depth of his feelings towards Lestat. We can presume that in the last 50 years, since the last thing Louis describes in his story, as he alludes to, Louis has been through his own new levels of loneliness & despair that are only-just now beginning to lead Louis to deeper understandings
- Louis does not invent events that didn’t happen. He doesn’t *choose* to lie! There are emotional & practical reasons behind the inaccuracies in what he tells us in IWTV
On the exact same note!
If Louis *did* meet Lestat & Lestat hates that Louis wrote about it & wants to deny it happening (I mean, he denies it during arguments let’s remember! NOT with any conviction in his own book about the same events!!) that also doesn’t make Lestat a liar!
- Lestat doesn’t deny the meeting in TVL. He doesn’t mention ever seeing Louis, but does say Armand has told him Louis saw him, through a window (which wouldn’t alter things hugely if that was the extent of the “meeting” only it would mean Lestat didn’t beg Louis.)
- Lestat’s recollection of these events is muddled & reflective of the awful mind-place he was genuinely in at this time. Lestat himself makes reference to being unsure how much is real or imagined & how memory plays tricks. Armand appearing to him is always dreamlike & confused.
- If Lestat wishes to years later deny the meeting happened when it actually did happen, it reflects only Lestat’s pain & shame & hurt. It doesn’t make Lestat a liar.
So, let’s look at it!
If the meeting didn't happen, it expresses something about Louis. But there's a lot less emotion in it in my opinion if it didn't happen. I think Louis must have at least seen Lestat to be able to describe Lestat how he does, before Lestat ever spoke of it. No? Also, it makes Louis unimaginably cruel & seems impossibly odd if Louis spends a good amount of time in New Orleans & doesn’t even try to glimpse Lestat! AND Armand suggests Louis should go there, so there’s no logical reason Armand would now try to keep Louis away from Lestat, after suggesting going to New Orleans! And there are a lot of odd implications too. If the meeting never happened, the whole emotional resolution & purpose of Louis’ story is removed. It had big implications of Louis’ experience of the next 50 years if that was just invented!! To me, it just makes no sense. Why would Louis make it up!?! How would he make it up, while giving an accurate description of Lestat’s state of mind & body at the time.
So, if the meeting didn't happen, then Louis still saw Lestat through a window, but never spoke to him. In that case, it would still be accurate as to what Louis presumably would have wanted to say/how he'd have wanted to act and how he did act as he still left Lestat alone there. Louis still would have got an accurate feeling about Lestat’s state of mind. The only difference would be no begging Lestat. The only negative could be if Louis intentionally mentions where Lestat lies in order to send people there. That could have negative connotations (sending people to kill Lestat), or positive (sending people to awaken Lestat.) But I don’t see Louis as that manipulative myself…? OR, that Louis unwittingly sends people to Lestat’s lair without even thinking about it could be Lestat’s true issue with it all!
It adds a heartbreaking moment in time if the meeting did happen. And it says something poignant about Lestat's pain around the moment. Louis saw & spoke to Lestat when Lestat was in his deepest despair, Lestat begged Louis to stay & Lestat can’t deal that in this moment, Louis instead abandoned him & left, thinking Lestat was indeed close to death, dying a slow, mortal-esque death & Louis says he thinks Lestat may never go outside again.
Maybe that's partially why I believe it happened. I'll always seek the answer of greatest emotional poignancy if I can, teehee!!! And that is the most emotionally poignant & heartbreaking scenario, no doubt! Give me all of the melodrama please, thank you! And some more melodrama on top of that! Drown me in heartbreak!
But yeah, it doesn't alter anything in the greater scheme of things.
To add: I think there is some logic in Louis abandoning Lestat. Of course Armand also asks Louis if he wanted revenge, for Claudia. And Louis is not yet fully in a place of loving Lestat. He is only just starting to begin to articulate a tiny amount of his feelings towards Lestat to Daniel around 50 years after this! Even now, he implies the depth of his feelings often rather than directly verbalising them. And this is half a century on! And we know Lestat wasn't coherent enough to explain himself to Louis in any way that he had earlier wanted to (as Louis tells it, but he's definitely not coherent enough as he describes himself with Armand in this era either.) so Louis has no way to understand Lestat (though Armand is worried he might… or maybe Armand realises he & Louis are soon to part ways & actually, kindly hoped to bring Louis & Lestat together now - a sort of gift. It just failed in that moment….?)
Also, given Louis' depressive worldview, I genuinely think he might have seen it as a kindness to leave Lestat. Louis talks about how Lestat is like an elderly mortal, close to death. Louis definitely perceives that Lestat will die soon and I think Louis could think he ought to let him have the death he is yearning for. Louis says several times that Lestat is dying. His story ends in despair and the despair is Lestat's despair... mirroring what will become his own despair. It's sort of only when Louis presumably goes through his own despair in these next 50 years that he can now begin to fully acknowledge what his feelings for Lestat are, as I see it.
I think it makes sense Louis doesn't tell Armand he saw Lestat for a month too. After all, Armand had let Louis believe Lestat was dead for literal years. And Louis knows too (if the meeting happened) that Lestat had thought he was dead, so he could easily presume (as is true) Armand told Lestat that. And it's already clear that Armand and Louis are soon to part ways. And Louis doesn't want Armand to know how he feels towards Lestat. There are many layers of complicated feelings.
It’ll remain up for debate as it is ambiguous. But I believe Louis' account (not 100%, but certainly the general gist of the feeling Louis had, what Louis did & Lestat’s despair) here. I just don't think this is the way in which Louis lies in the books. He paints a different picture of Lestat than we grow to know Lestat is. But the only TRUE lies Louis tells all stem from hiding his own feelings or from how he has misunderstood something, or where he had a lack of knowledge so filled in with what he presumed. And he sometimes might misinterpret things. But he doesn't tend to invent events that didn't happen. That's not Louis' style. He isn't directly, obtusely telling lies. He imagines what people's motivations and feelings are and can fully believe a wrong thing he says in that way. But he doesn't just make up events that didn't happen.
And then - Louis's account matches what Lestat says about himself at the time too closely and Louis couldn't know that unless he was there. And I just don't believe that Louis would be in New Orleans and either not see Lestat at all or only look at him through a window.
I'm very interested how they'll interpret it on the TV show though as obviously I understand not everyone thinks it happened at all. They'll probably play with Armand's mind powers here in some way... I mean, in the books, Armand does use such powers, putting visions in Lestat's head. They could have Armand use some kind of mind control to keep Louis away from Lestat I suppose. Although it doesn't make any sense to me as it's really Armand who suggests Louis should return to New Orleans...!?!?
I obviously personally think it did happen similarly to how Louis describes, so I think that we will see it that way and that will be truth. But who knows!
I hope I’m not annoying anyone who believes the opposite to me in discussing this! I find it so fascinating that we can have read the same books & believe opposite things! And I think there’s something very human in *needing* to know what you personally believe… hence why not a single person responded that they had no idea what the truth was! All of us instead decide on one side or the other what we feel was truth!
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What Have You Done For Me Lately
There is a lot of controversy swirling around politics these days. (Oh My God I'm shocked). One of the issues has nothing to do with two parties (or three depending on what side of the border you live). Nay nay. This time it is about how old some of these geezers, I mean candidates, are. This is nothing new. I vividly remember when I was young (I just impressed myself with recalling something from that long ago) when a 90 something Canadian senator could be seen being pushed around in his wheelchair. One time he was moved up to the Mic for a vote. I am pretty sure he said 'burgers and fries please'. Maybe not. Sometimes at my age the memory is selective but that is exactly the point.
Currently in the good old U.S. of A the average age of senators is 64. In Canada it is 67, but it is colder up here so we stay fresher longer. We have also capped the age at 75 for mandatory retirement so they can watch hockey while they still understand what is happening on the ice. 64 does not seem too old as an average but consider this. For every 44 year old there is a corresponding 84 year old. Scary.
So what needs to be done about this? Simple. I have devised a test to see if a candidate is still up to the rigors of sitting and doing nothing for several more years. The test is below. It is harsh. Failing even one of them disqualifies you. Give it a try and see if you could run for office.
Simple math. Give them 1+1. if their answer is a color or a bird...
Give them a cell phone. See if their first instinct is to try and change the channel on the monitor in front of them with it.
If they have to pee 5 times during the daily session but get up less than that many times, bye bye.
Make them walk across the chamber floor. They have 3 minutes to make the distance without breaking a hip.
Their personal page qualifies for Old Age pension.
When walking see if their arms move faster than their legs.
All movements they make are at Tai Chi speed.
A good tasing makes them more coherent and cognizant.
They are several inches shorter than when they were first elected.
They demand a recess for supper at 3:00.
Ten simple tasks and questions. Who could object to that?
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK: Never let ego get in the way of doing what is right.
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Ride on Shooting Star || Eureka 01 || Trial 3 Vote Reaction
All this anger and sadness was generally anticipated. This is what happened when the world was pulled out from under your feet. People who cared about her, trusted her, dealing with the turmoil in the same boat as those who hated her. If she felt bad for any of it. just one thing. It was tha she had hurt erisu in doing this. At least for Erisu this was before the two could get truly close. At least for Erisu, it was Eureka doing this to herself rather than somebody else doing it. Actually, no, she did not even have that. If this chip had not been placed within her head then there was no chance in hell that the sisters could kill her here. she was a survivor. She was impossible to hold down and finish off. As others around her fell, she stood. She was considering how to do so now more than actually hurting over things said. Though a few did catch her annoyance.
Mouth opening to speak it is stopped by a bullet. END grabbing her. Eureka is quicker than most have likely seen in how she sheds her jacket like a lizard's tail. As if by instinct, a hand reaches for the railgun inside the coat as END grabs it. There is nothing there. The second time it hasn't been where she needed it. Hen END's hand is on her with a grip too tight to escape. As soon as she threw the first punch, Eureka would use that moment to strike and escape. It never came. At least not physically. End just raved, with fury and sadness. The eyes of the electrician watched her, blinking with a blank, almost dumb expression. It was almost as if what was left of the all too human person Eureka had been was peeled away. Then she was thrown.
Standing up, Eureka grew a cocky, though displeased expression. Lips curling up into the look of a cat who had eaten the fish from your ramen before getting slapped. Eyes sharp and judgemental aimed themselves at Erik.
"Petty little bitch aren't we? Huh? Huh? Yeah yeah I figured you were a posh little lover boy who wanted a broken girl to satiate your thirst for fixing things that make you feel more put together than them. So I tried to taunt you into breaking up erisu from a dude who's plan to keep a woman close to him is destroy her life and leave her with no choice but to seek him out for help. It's not like I made you guys fight or played puppetmaster in the background or some weird shit. I just thought you both sucked but you were less violent. I was right about you too. About both of you. Well, until now."
She shrugs and that expression turns to Erik A, curious and analyzing. What was so special about this little guy? What was it about him that did these things? She couldn't understand. She heard the things he said but a part of her refused to accept them. She had gone too far to accept them.
"This little twink. Erik A. I am pretty sure he is that main reason both of you are less horrible now. He fixed Ae-Ra, made Arakiel more human, made Erik less of a bastard. Kind of wish he could have fixed me eh? And I hear you about my sister but... eh. My beloved little sister Eureka 02 had plenty of time to train them to kill me. She did hate me a lot. Still, I will give you a shot. You got it in you builder boy? I am listening."
In mock listening she leaned over a bit and put a hand around her ear to hear him out before waving it away. It didn't matter actually. He couldn't have done it anyway. That was the difference. Those three wanted to be better. Somewhere in themselves they wanted something that required they be better. She didn't. Being better wasn't something she craved. It never had been. Not once in her life. It just so happened that it was never an issue, until it was. Until things pushed her from being a chaotic helper to being a monster. Eureka sighed, putting her hands in her pockets.
"The tablet is in the jacket. Actually."
She squirms her arms out, snagging the jacket before throwing it into the air. Putting her arms up it slides onto her with a practiced perfection. A hand dives into one of her pockets, fishing around before pulling out a tablet that she sets down on the podium to her right. Eyes looking at END for a moment, tired.
"Sorry about the trouble buddy. You are right. I was dumb with this one. But you know how it is. Risk assessment machine broken."
With that she strolls as if there were no death on her shoulders over to Erisu. her shoulders scoop a bit before she springs into place closer to her.
"Sorry Eribeary. It was a bit of an oopsie woopsie. You seem to like people who are good at that."
With a silly smile, Eureka gently knocks herself on the forehead to mimic some meme she saw online twenty years ago. As her death came nearer she became less serious.
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Apparently DC is OBSESSED with giving long-established characters Surprise! New! Siblings! lately, so I have decided as a public service to rank them from worst to best, because I’m generous like that. You’re welcome.
5. Wonder Woman’s brother Jason: It was bad enough when DC decided to shove men into Diana’s backstory in 2011 by making her the daughter of Zeus, but giving WONDER WOMAN a brother in a desperate attempt to make her story more about a dude is a degree of tone deafness I remain truly astonished by six years after his debut. Is this asshole still alive? Is he in continuity? DC doesn’t know or care and neither do I. Let’s never speak of this again. Verdict: Offensively garbage.
4. Lois Lane’s brother Leo Lane, a.k.a. “the Daemon Rose”: Speaking of characters who absolutely do not need more pointless men stuffed into her life to make her interesting! (Not you, Clark, you’re an angel and we’re thrilled that you’re here.) Leo is less offensive than the “I have to put a man on Themiscyra or I’ll die!” instinct, but on the other hand he showed up in the middle of a multi-year, utterly incomprehensible storyline to spew empty Bendisisms that went nowhere before disappearing. He was an enormous bombshell that landed and instead of exploding, just sort of sat around like a turd until the event was mercifully over. Also, the name “the Daemon Rose” is breathtakingly 90s and, as the kids say, cringe. Verdict: Less offensive than Jason, but still garbage.
3. Dick Grayson’s sister Melinda Zucco: “Dick finds out his father had an child with the wife of the man who would eventually murder both of Dick’s parents” is the kind of plot device that inspires a put-upon sigh, but Melinda herself is fine. Like, the whole idea makes me tired, but there’s at least the potential for some interestingly complicated stories to come out of it. I’ll allow it, begrudgingly. Verdict: Eh.
2. Damian Wayne’s brother Respawn: NOW THIS IS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT! First of all, I one thousand percent buy that Ra’s al Ghul would make a clone out of Slade Wilson and Talia’s DNA just to be a petty little bitch. Second, watching Slade go bonkers insane over this kid because he’s projecting his guilt over Grant onto him is wildly entertaining. Third, the idea of Damian now being related to Rose and Joey is very intriguing, as is Respawn himself, because with that lineage he truly could go in any direction morally speaking and that’s fascinating. (I wonder if anyone’s ever going to get around to naming him? I vote...Jim.) But most importantly, spoiled youngest child Damian is now no longer the baby, and if you don’t find that absolutely hilarious, I’m sorry for you. Verdict: LOLOLOLOL.
1. Oliver Queen’s sister Emiko Queen: I love two things, and they are angry teen girl assassins, and Oliver Queen being befuddled by teenagers. Retconning away Shado’s post-Crisis history of sexually assaulting Ollie and replacing it with an affair with Ollie’s father was such a good choice, and the fact that it brought us my beloved Emi is a massive bonus. All I need now is for DC to publish a proper Green Arrow book so that Emi can meet Mia and Cissie and Ollie can never again know a moment’s peace. Verdict: Brilliant, incredible, showstopping, 10/10.
#wonder woman#lois lane#dick grayson#nightwing#damian wayne#robin#rose wilson#ravager#respawn#emiko queen#red arrow#oliver queen#green arrow#meta
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Shinigami Eyes (I)
Pairing: Corpse Husband / Reader
Summary: When you’re paired up with Corpse as imposters in a game of Among Us, you seem to somehow apprehend each others strategies even though it’s the first time you’ve ever played together. He appreciates a good impostor.
Notes: I know I still have many fics I need to finish, but I just wanted to throw out a quick Corpse one because sad to say I’ve been simping for him too. By the way, this is my interpretation of him and this is just for fun. Also, I haven’t written for second person in a while, so I’m sorry if this sucks.
TAG LIST CLOSED!
Shinigami Eyes - Oneshot
“Hey, I wanted to invite Corpse,” Sean said right as the Among Us theme started playing on your computer.
“Great vooooice,” Grease called out.
“Oh, I haven’t played with him before,” you said. It was true, but you’d heard of his legendary voice before and your viewers had been asking for him. You’d only allow it because No Simp September was over. Chat was already going mad.
“You’ll love him. Unless he murders you, because he’s a great imposter,” Sean replies. “He’s too good,” Felix adds.
After a moment, you heard the familiar noise of someone joining the Discord. “Hello everyone,” a deep rumble greeted. The group all said their welcomes, while you introduced yourself. “Very nice to meet you, Corpse,” you added. You didn’t want to comment on the obvious. He must hear it all the time. But you couldn’t deny it was like silk to your ears.
“Nice to meet you to. You make great vids.” A blush spread across your cheeks, “You shouldn’t say things like that, chat is already jealous.” He chuckled.
5… 4… 3… 2… 1…
Impostor
Great, you’re instantly sweating. Thankfully, though, it seems you were lucky enough to have been teamed up with the king of lying himself. Corpse’s name is as bloodred as yours.
You decide to follow him after Toast and Sean, and think about how it was Sean who ironically invited the person who was going to murder him in just a few moments. All four of you were being decontaminated below lab, when Corpse made stepped a tad closer to him. You almost synchronically chopped their heads off, and you squealed in excitement. 2 down, 4 to go. As long as no one would find their bodies for a while, you still had time.
Next thing, you’re out of the South entrance and you’ve split up. You join Sykkuno in electric and just wait on him to do his task. Felix joins you afterwards in the next room. That’s when Toast’s body, and ultimately Sean’s, is reported.
Corpse had run back and self-reported.
“Corpse and I just ran into decontamination and found Sean and Toast,” Rae announced.
You were still muted. “Oh god, he’s playing a dangerous game.”
Sykkuno decided it would be the perfect time to call you out. “You and Felix only joined me a while later and decided to stay. Kinda sus of you.”
“No, she was with me at the beginning. I watched her do a task in office,” your fellow impostor vouched. They’d been right, he’s a damn good liar. He manages to hide any sliver of emotion in that deep baritone.
“I don’t trust Corpse anymore, he does stuff like this all the time when he’s impostor,” Lily noted.
“Stuff like what?” He huffed in amusement.
The group agreed the accusation made was a bit vague, and it had affectively directed the attention away from you and onto Felix. After another round of some serious investigating and threatening you all decided to skip.
“Corpse makes me feel less nervous about being an impostor,” you tell chat, “He seems so chill about it.” You ran down to Weapons, but decided against killing anyone when you found three people doing tasks there. You shoved yourself into the clump of bodies and waited until everyone had finished. Running back up to centre with both Lily and Rae, you felt restless that you would eventually have to kill one of them. You just hoped they wouldn’t take it personally.
Corpse ran past, alone. Your characters didn’t have eyes, but somehow they showed a mutual understanding. He killed Lily, you killed Rae. You sputtered and chortled and followed right on after him down into the venthole. He met you in the bathroom stall. “Cosy,” you joked. Until Grease walked in. “Oh, that’s awkward.” You realized you were still standing suspiciously over the venthole. “Shit.”
You didn’t know where Grease had gone, but your first instinct was to hit the red emergency meeting button in the Office. “Grease was in the bathroom stall hovering over a vent.” You may not have your fellow impostors emotionless tone, but you knew laughing through your accusation usually worked.
“Are you kidding me?! I just saw you and Corpse standing in there doing I don’t know what!” Grease yelled.
“That’s a bold statement. You know I’d never cheat on Sykkuno,” Corpse said. “Wait, what?” the man in question replied. Corpse ignored him.
“Corpse was with me when I found you there. On another note I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people vent at the same time before.” Two truths, technically.
“Alright, I’m voting Grease,” Felix said, “I’m sensing liar voice.”
Sykkuno suspected Grease and you, but promised he’d vote you out after if he was wrong. “We have to vote now,” you reminded them.
Grease was ejected.
You met Corpse again in laboratory, where only Felix was doing a task. No one moved. “Oh no, you may have the honours,” you gracefully called out to an unsuspecting impostor. He seemed to get the message through however, and swiftly killed Felix when the Kill button was set to press again.
Defeat.
“Oh my god, that was so stressful,” you cried out. Corpse chuckled, “Don’t worry, you did great.”
“Hey, don’t you dare steal him,” Sean threatened, “He’s my impostor mate!” You laughed.
“You murdered me and Lily almost synchronically,” Rae sputtered, to which Sean added, “Oh my god, same here. It was some nasty psychic shit.” “Corpse and I just have the Shinigami eyes,” you explained. You saw Corpse’s name flash in the top left corner, but only heard him exhale in amusement. It was cute.
5… 4… 3… 2… 1…
Impostor
“Oh… my… god.” Has this ever happened before in this game? Either way, no one will suspect both of you to be it again. You imagine he was feeling similarly, as he hadn’t moved from the spawn point yet. “How in the fuck…?” Chat was confused, but seemed to enjoy the spectacle.
You and corpse split up this time. Don’t use the same tactics twice.
You followed Felix and Sykkuno into Office and faked a task. They decided to wait for you, and you kept your eyes on the green bar until it moved. You travelled trough Admin and Decontamination until you met up with Lily in Labs. “Shit,” you murmured, “There’s too many people. I’m gonna look suspicious.”
Corpse showed up. Lily and Sykkuno left. You killed Felix. Toast walked in, and unfortunately at the hands of your teammate, he did become toast.
You ran in a circle around him and hoped it was enough of a hint for him to follow you. He picked up on it and followed you into the bathroom stall. But neither of you vented. You let a smile slip, almost forgetting you had a face cam. Awkwardly clearing your throat, you explained to your viewers in a very non-convincing way this was just a good impostor strategy. They’d do well to learn from it.
The bodies were reported instantly, and you cursed under your breath. Lily was the one who reported it. “So, I found Felix in Labs and there were only two other people in there before me and Sykkuno left.”
“I went down through Decontamination,” you explained, “I lost Corpse back at Labs.”
“I went back North, I passed you on the way there, Lily.”
Lily was sus of you. “What? Why?!” You asked. “Because I didn’t see anyone in Decontamination and there’s no way you could’ve gone through there that quickly. I wasn’t gone that long,” she said.
Well, shit. “Weren’t the lights off? You couldn’t possibly see me in Decontamination. I’m wondering why you walked back into Labs anyway, Lily.”
A series of ‘ooh’s were heard through the Discord call.
“But I was running up that hallway, I didn’t see you come out,” Grease suddenly spoke up.
“Why were you in there, Grease?” Corpse asked, but you knew it was already too late.
“I was running up to do my task in Labs. I didn’t see her come through the doors before the body was reported.”
“I wasn’t out of Decontamination yet,” you ground out. It was of no use, however. More than half of the people left voted you out, including Lily, Grease, Sean and Corpse, since he had an image to maintain as fake crewmember.
HeartEyes was ejected.
You decided, both out of your own interest and for content’s sake, to follow Corpse as a ghost. He seemed to be having the same trouble as you, suddenly being surrounded by a group of people. “That’s rough. He’s gonna have to kill five more people.”
That was when he bravely decided to take action. Sabotage the reactor, follow everyone there, jump into the lump of people trying to fix the problem and kill so no one would know who did it. He self-reported it in the blink of an eye.
The group was indeed confused, to say the least. Grease had died. “Wait, who was the last to come in?” Sean asked. “It was me,” Corpse admitted, “But I did the handprint scan because no one else was doing it. Weren’t you standing there doing that with Lily?” “Yeah, I had to wait because it wasn’t working.”
“What?!” Lily exclaimed, in only a way she could, “I was doing the scan! It was Sean, then!” The two suspects were starting a heavy discussion, whilst your eyes were trained on the red of Corpse’s name.
The group decided to vote out Lily, as she was the one to report the last murder.
“Is he just… Killing the people who voted for me?” you muttered. Shaking your head, you continued, “Nah, it has to be coincidence.”
But then a body was found, and Corpse said he suspected Sean again. Was he actually working down the list? “Is he avenging me? That’s so sweet, no one has ever done that for me before…” Just a video game, you had to remind yourself. It was just a video game you were playing with friends. And a man with a very nice voice who’d just murdered everyone who did you wrong. Just a game, yes.
Turns out, Corpse really knew how to put his voice to use, as Sean was ejected. He managed to kill Sykkuno and Dave after that, and the game was won by the imposters.
“AGAIN?!” Felix yelled, “How did you two get teamed up again?!” “That’s bullshit,” Sean laughed.
You smiled, as Corpse said, “Us Shinigami’s have to stick together.” It made you blush. “Thanks for avenging me, Corpse. That was very sweet of you.” He chuckled, “Any time. I don’t mind killing people when I have a good teammate.”
“Hey! I’m still here too, you know!” Sean yelled upset.
“It was really fun playing with you guys,” you said, stretching your arms. You’d already been streaming for three hours, it was time to go. Everyone said goodbye, but you didn’t hear Corpse. And you wished it hadn’t twisted your stomach in the way it did.
You wished your viewers a nice day, and promised to update them on Twitter when you’d be streaming next. You were done for the day.
Yet, as you’d closed all tabs and were about to close Discord, you got a call. It was private, and it was from Corpse.
“Hey, miss me already?” you jokingly said.
He chuckled quietly. He suddenly seemed a lot shyer now, being extracted from the group. “Nice game.”
“Yeah, you really know how to keep your emotions hidden. I was impressed, to say the least.”
“You were really good, too. I can appreciate a good imposter.”
You bit your lip. “Hm, I hope to see some more of that appreciation in the future. It was rather nice having someone avenge me.”
“I’d do it again any time. Hiding in the toilet was a good strategy, by the way.”
You snorted at that, “Not good enough, it seems. They voted me out.”
“Big mistake. Nobody kills my teammate.”
“Aww, did the Shinigami catch feelings for the human?”
He rumbled, “I thought you weren’t human?”
You didn’t comment on the fact that he’d failed to answer the original suggestion you’d made. “Touché.”
It was quiet for a moment, and you wondered if you’d crossed a line there and made the wrong assumptions about where the conversation was going. You quickly added, “Are you playing again this week?”
“Yeah, Sean said they’d stream again this Thursday.”
“I suppose I’ll see you there, then.”
He hummed. You sensed there was more to it, though. He hadn’t made any indication he wanted to end the call yet. But then he finally said, “I hope we get teamed up again. So you can get your own revenge.”
“I hope so too.”
***
Might do a follow up to this oneshot, if anyone asks for it. Will definitely create more for Corpse, he’s a lot of fun to write.
#Corpse Husband#Corpse#Corpse x reader#corpse husband x reader#jacksepticeye#pewdiepie#youtube fanfiction
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Cognitive and social information to make selecting, bonding with, and training your pigeon easier:
There are lots of things I can go into more detail on, but here are the hows and whys of pigeon cognition and sociology that form the basis of our research into communication and Therapy work, laid out as a guide to building your relationship with your bird, starting with generalities universal to the species, and ending with an in depth look at the mechanics behind the typical behaviors and temperaments of cocks vs hens and what to expect.
Though they are extremely social outside nest space, Pigeons, whether cock or hen, are life-or-death viciously territorial of their specific nest space.
For reference:
A free flying bird with no cage considers nest space to consist of the actual nest and about their own body length around it.
Because they are crevice nesters, a pigeon with an enclosure considers the entire enclosure to be nest space.
Only a pigeon's mate is allowed to enter their nest, and that's exclusively by invitation.
Peeps are hatched into it, and once they wean, they are not allowed to re-enter.
Anything entering their nest space that is not that bird's mate is instinctively considered to be either a predator, or a rival.
A rival won't eat them, but is coming explicitly to attack them to drive them out of a good nest, which will involve killing their nestlings if they have any.
So, to avoid triggering the predator/rival defensive response, it's important to open your bird's enclosure to invite them to come out on their own terms when you want to spend social time with them.
This rewards their natural curiosity and makes you feel more like a cohabitant/potential flock mate than a potential predator or attacker.
While your bird is out exploring, you can strengthen your bond with them by treat priming; Address them by name, ask "Want a treat?" and toss a safflower seed in front of them, but not straight at them. Praise them when they eat it with something along the lines of "Yes, that is for you! Good bird!" in a pleased tone of voice. (even birds who hate handling and refuse treats respond positively to a pleased tone of voice.)
Calling their name every time primes them to look at you when you address them.
Little by little, as they get comfortable with the distance, you should be able to toss treats less and less far from yourself.
The end goal is for your bird to come into willing physical contact with you.
From there, you can start offering a treat on the tip of one or two fingers.
Once the bird is reliably accepting that, offer the treat held by the narrow end between your thumb and index finger.
This makes your hand more similarly shaped to the head of a bird than the scary giant talon with extra toes or giant snake it usually looks like to a bird.
In every flock of pigeons, there are at least one or two teen or older birds that will feed any weaned baby that cries.
I call these "Flock Aunties/Unkles", and this is the mantle you take up for your bird once they get they hang of hand feeding.
It's best to start having out times in the evenings, so that bed time is after dark. Lights Out training makes returning them to the enclosure less stressful for both you and your bird.
When you want to put the bird away, address them to get their attention, and say "Lights Out or Bed Time soon!", wait about 10 seconds, Then walk over to the light switch, make a note of where your bird is, repeat "Lights Out/Bed Time now", and flick off the lights.
Pigeons are diurnal and non-migratory. They can't see in the dark, and just sort of turn off.
This differs from the learned helplessness shut down in being instinctively associated with sleep, rather than inescapable distress.
In the dark, you can pick up your bird and gently return them to the enclosure without the stress of having to chase and catch them.
After a few repetitions, birds that don't enjoy being carried to bed will use the ten or so seconds between "soon" and "now" to fly back to their enclosure on their own. Birds that do like being carried will assume the position and wait for you to turn off the light and carry them.
There is no getting around the fact that feeding, watering, and cleaning require you to reach into your pigeon's enclosure, and if you can't do that while they are out (for example, if you feed in the morning before leaving for work) you can help them overcome their defensive response by talking them through what you are doing without reaching for the bird themself.
"It's food time. I need your dish." while reaching in only as far as needed to remove the dish, and withdrawing with it as quickly and unobtrusively as possible. Same for the water dish, and talking them through cleaning.
For example, the floor of my hospital cages slide out, so I tell the birds "I need your floor." and then repeat "Back up, back up, back up" in a soft, encouraging tone until they are off, then praising with "Thank you!" to signify they have done what I asked and I will not bother them now until time to put the floor back in.
When the floor is cleaned and repapered, I tell them "Here's your floor back." and repeat "Step up." as I slide it in until they have both feet on the floor.
When I have finished cleaning, watering, and feeding (All three get done at once for the hospital cages) I signify to the bird that it's over by "Ok! We're done now!" and then praising "Good bird! Thank you."
It's important to talk them through EVERYTHING because they are literally five-year-old-child intelligent.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090212141143.htm
Pigeons and baboons have similarly high cognition.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171204144805.htm
Pigeons have an innate understanding of the concepts of space and time.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140402095107.htm
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070220131646.htm
They categorize like we do.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130717095336.htm
Their brains are wired similarly to ours.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/s13295-014-0057-5/html
So much so that they are considered an excellent model in the study of cognitive neuroscience
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0197458019304270
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166432814007554
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166432820306471
With TONS of alzheimer-specific research
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110411171847.htm
Their facial recognition is similar to ours.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110703132527.htm
They recognize humans as individuals.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120622163056.htm
By both face, and voice.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080613145535.htm
They surpass the ability of human children up to three years old to recognize that their reflection in a mirror is their own reflection, and not another bird.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150204184447.htm
They can learn the equivalent of words by the same mechanic as human children.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160919111535.htm
They can learn to differentiate a written word from an acronym with the same number of letters.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170418094512.htm
And flocks build what can legitimately be called a culture by building knowledge across generations.
The take away from this is that pigeons are intelligent enough to learn what your communication means, and can be taught by the same mechanic as a human toddler.
Language is a pattern of matching words to objects, actions, individuals, places, and concepts. Pigeons are pattern mappers, hard wired to latch onto stable patterns.
It is vitally important that you talk a pigeon that you are training through absolutely everything, the way you would a toddler who hasn't quite gotten that word down yet.
They can eventually learn to answer yes and no questions, if you give them a template. (this is already going to be enough of a novella, I can go into detail about that later.
A pigeon flock is basically one gigantic extended family living together in their equivalent of an ancestral apartment complex.
Pigeons only join a flock by hatching or marrying into it.
Pigeons are one of extremely few species that remain year round in the same breeding colony AND cooperatively forage; not just all going the same place, but actively voting on what to look for, how to best get there, and how to best get back.
Babies only rarely leave the flock.
When they leave the nest, they are taught by their fathers to be pigeons for the first month or so. Where safe food and water are, how to find nest materials, how to defer to a higher ranking flock member.
The rest of the flock line up to each teach the peep that they are higher ranking than the peep. (Peeps instinctively expect this hazing and are very skittish from five to eight weeks of age)
At about eight weeks, the peep is as big as it will get, and starts to earn their place in the hierarchy by experimentally pushing back against the older birds to see who gives and who won't.
By four or five months, the young bird has a solid place in the hierarchy, has found out what it's good at, and has usually won a mate.
At this point, a cock earns the right to claim a nest space among his parents, grand kin, aunts, unkles, cousins, and so-on.
Young pigeons only leave their flock to form a new one if there aren't enough nest spaces or isn't enough food to support every one.
So stability and finding a place in the social dynamic are EXTREMELY important to them.
Pigeon Flocks are democratic meritocracies.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100416214045.htm
They vote on everything they do as a group
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061106145043.htm
Parties with differing opinions compromise.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150609213053.htm
Because they need to be able to depend on the support of their flock mates to cooperatively find resources, watch out for predators, and navigate home.
https://www.audubon.org/news/in-homing-pigeon-flocks-bad-bosses-quickly-get-demoted
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160914143044.htm
Pigeons will not follow a leader they can't depend on, be that due to a loss of capability, or an unwillingness to heed cast votes or attempt to compromise.
This adds up to a bird that is hard wired to expect a say in everything they are involved in and be keenly, my-life-depends-on-this aware when their say is being ignored.
Pigeons do not have a concept of “Reasons I could not discern”.
If they can’t discern a reason you ignored their vote or any attempt to compromise with them, they just think there wasn’t one, and you're either incompetent or being an ass hole.
And Pigeons consider themselves to be well within their rights to refuse to cooperate with an incompetent ass hole.
This is a BIG part of why talking them through everything is so vitally important.
Pigeons are EXTREMELY communicative.
Once they trust you as a flock mate, The more they understand about what you are doing, what you want them to do, and how that affects them, the more willing they are to cooperate with you.
Those are the cognitive universals.
When selecting a companion or therapy animal, it’s important to know what temperament to expect, and the typical temperaments of Cocks and Hens differ pretty drastically!
We touched briefly on mate behaviors earlier, and now we need to go into that to explain sex-typical behaviors, by which I mean the instinctive behavioral and base line personality differences between typical cocks and hens.
To explain sex-typical behaviors, I have to walk you through the pigeon courtship ritual called Driving, which has three phases.
It starts with the Chase phase.
The cock struts up to a hen he'd interested in and alternately chest-bumps and bites her until she runs away.
He continues to strut after her, occasionally charging with a sweeping tail to push or bite her until she bursts into flight.
Hens will initiate for a cock they are EXTREMELY interested in, but in pigeon society, the hen having to initiate means the cock just is not remotely interested in her.
This is less than ideal for the hen, and she will divorce him for the first cock that shows enough interest to initiate the chase.
Once they are in the air, the hen is trying to break away and flee, and the cock is trying to herd her towards the nest area he's picked out.
Ideally, she crashes into it, too exhausted to keep flying.
To a human, this looks really violently aggressive.
But the Rock Dove, from which our domestic pigeons descend, evolved in a Thompson's Gazelle vs. Cheetah style arms race with the Peregrine goddamn Falcon.
If the cock cannot out pace and out maneuver the hen, and his stamina is lower than hers, then her children by him will be slower and less maneuverable than she is, with lower stamina.
This all adds up, to her, as her peeps by this cock being easier than she is for a falcon to catch.
If she can get away from him, he is an inferior potential sire, and she will reject him.
The Wrestling phase begins after the hen has recovered her breath.
As soon as she can, she will try to blow past the cock and vanish into the sky.
He has to body block her to prevent her from leaving, grab her by the scruff if she tries to push past, and fight her until she stops trying to get up.
Again, this looks REALLY violently abusive to a human!
But nest location is a status symbol in pigeon society.
A good nest is high up, wide enough for two adult birds side by side, with an entrance ideally narrow enough for only one at a time to get in.
This also makes it really hard for a hawk, rodent, or snake to get in after the eggs, peeps, or parent defending them.
Other cocks will want a good, safe, defensible nest for their wife, and absolutely will kill nestlings to drive out a less fit pair, hoping to impress a (usually specific and very picky) potential mate.
If the cock cannot fight the generally smaller, weaker hen who just recovered from the Chase phase to prevent her getting out, he hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell of defending her from a healthy rival who wants that nest for his wife and peeps.
It's only after he's completed the Chase and Wrestling phases that she allows him to prove that he's an excellent forager by offering to feed her from his crop. (the kissing behavior that immediately precedes the act of treading.)
This translates VERY poorly to a human partner, and is what makes bottle raised baby boys such a monumental pain in the ass.
Pigeons are INTENSELY social.
The drive to bond is stronger than the drive to actually reproduce, so your bonded pigeon will treat you like a mate.
Which means that a cock will be compelled to attempt the initiation, chase, and wrestling phases of Driving.
Imprinting does not just make a specific person a baby bird's mommy.
It tells the bird what species it is and sets Mommy as the ideal mate.
A pigeon that thinks they are human expects their human to understand these instinctive pigeon behaviors.
Their human's failure to respond as expected comes across as ignoring them.
Which leads to human-imprinted pigeons going from trying to court their caretaker, to feeling intentionally ignored for no reason and attacking out of furious frustration.
This is why I don't hand raise nestlings unless the peep will die if I don't step in.
Pigeons who are parent-raised, but socialized by humans the way you would nursing puppies or kittens, understand that a human is not a pigeon.
Instead of expecting their caretaker to understand them by default and getting overwhelmed with frustration when they can't, a parent-raised, human-social pigeon tries to work out how to bridge the communication gap.
If your human-social cock approaches you and tries to start a fight out of the blue, he doesn't hate you.
He loves you, and is pulling out all stops to prove to a freaking KAIJU, via hand to hand combat, that he's strong enough to protect them and their nest.
I tell people that "Cock love is pinchy."
This is what I'm talking about.
Physical contact is a mate/baby-exclusive privilege for cocks. Only his mate allopreens him, and he only allopreens his mate and their peeps.
Flock mates other than his mate only attempt to make physical contact with a cock to start a fight or ask for sex.
So all associations for a cock, aside from mate and peeps, are rivalries and side-chicks.
Pigeon bites can't break the skin (all they can do is pinch), unless it's just a massive monster of a pigeon, but the tenacity sexually selected for by hens makes cocks relentless until they are satisfied that they have suitably impressed you.
Hens, in contrast, are approached by flock mates to proposition for sex, to engage in allopreening, or to invite to feed, bathe, or loaf together.
They are generally more cuddly, more forgiving of restraint (Joke's on you, she's into that shit!), and more accepting of other family members making contact with her.
Cocks who are satisfied with their relationship can be a lot of fun, but their nippiness can be an anxiety trigger if you don't know to expect it.
In order to consider himself bonded to his person, a cock has to feel he has impressed you, like he would be expected to impress a hen.
It is much easier to convince a parent raised cock that you really are impressed and don't just see him as beneath your notice than it is to convince an Imprint.
Parent raised cocks will be more gentle when they initiate driving, as the drive is more like a compulsive need to complete a symbolic gesture for them than the actual hand to hand combat to manually overpower a titan that these matches are to an imprinted cock.
To convince a cock that he really has won your admiration fair and square, Start by putting up some resistance when he initiates.
Push him back, shake your hand, ruffle and wrestle with him like you would a very small kitten.
You will need to do this WAY longer for an imprint than a parent raised bird, but when you want to wind down the match, pay attention to what he's doing.
He is never just biting.
He is trying to maneuver your hand either by tugging or shoving.
Follow where he directs until he stops either pulling or pushing, and just pushes down. That is where he wants your hand to be.
Relax it there until he turns away, then go about your business.
It will take a few sessions, but once he's satisfied he's impressed you, he'll have no need to go all out like that anymore.
Ankhou (an imprint who is extremely satisfied with a now five year long extremely stable relationship) doesn't engage in driving fights with me anymore, but we do have lots of brief, very gentle wrestling sessions.
Hens don't need human mates to impress them in hand to hand combat like they require a cock to.
They are intelligent enough to assume that nothing her size is going to stand a chance against something your size.
The peaceful simplicity of bonding with a hen tends to make them more desired as therapy and companion animals.
Bonded cocks are just as cuddly and sweet, but you have to go through his Driving impulse to get to that point with him.
This doesn't make cocks bad pets or therapy prospects, but they are definitely not the ideal match for everyone.
@tinysaurus-rex ‘s Battar is an excellent example of a bonded hen.
If you would like to see how his owner applies the constant biting of a feral Imprint towards physical therapy for nerve pain flair ups, check out the blog @homeofhousechickens and search for Loki.
They also have a parent raised, human social emotional support cock named Fluffernutter and have made a lot of great posts illustrating the contrast between imprinted pigeons and pigeons who were raised by their parents, but socialized with lots of gentle handling.
I hope this helps the people who have their bird’s physical needs planned out to pick the bird whose emotional needs they can best meet, and whose personality will best match their emotional needs. <3
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The Cullens don’t value human life, or: Carlisle, honey, I’m so sorry
So, Carlisle is in a miserable situation.
He was forcibly turned into a vampire under traumatic circumstances, and became a cannibalistic demon. Against all odds he discovered that he didn’t actually have to kill people: however, he was still lonely. Fast forwards a few lonely years, he found a BFF and homoerotic academic in Aro, and spent decades trying to persuade him to his diet. Failed. Decided to travel the world in search of likeminded - failed.
There’s no one.
Fast forwards to 1918, Carlisle has spent centuries trying to get someone, anyone, to understand this seemingly simple concept. Don’t eat people, please, it’s literally the only thing Carlisle asks. And he’s still asking too much.
We know how history then unfolded itself - Carlisle was going to let the Masens die, as countless patients had before, and then Elizabeth Masen said “nu uh, not my son he won’t!”, and that was the kick in the butt Carlisle needed to create his own companion. Converting others had failed, but maybe a brand new vampire who has never known anything different and who looks to Carlisle for guidance will follow the diet.
And it works. Edward follows Carlisle’s diet. A few years later Carlisle repeats the experiment, now he’s in a coven of three vampires who are actually doing the diet. What a world. I’m sure he was walking around in a daze for a solid portion of that time.
The coven grows, soon Carlisle has a whole squad of vegetarians, and even a cousin squad. (Although since the Denali sister went for the diet because they wanted to have sex with the same men multiple times, I can only picture Carlisle’s delight upon finding them quickly turning into a thousand yard stare.)
Anyway, Carlisle has what he always wanted, let there be happiness galore.
Unfortunately, none of the Cullens actually care about human life.
Off the top of my head:
Edward left Carlisle for years. This by itself is a dealbreaker, he had all the love and support he could ever ask for, and turned his back on it because he’d rather kill people. Killing rapists wasn’t even his first instinct, at first he killed homeless junkies, since no one would miss them. He only turned to rapists because junkies taste awful. He turned back not because he learned the error of his ways, but because life wasn’t fulfilling. He has learned nothing: when we meet him in 2005, he would have eaten Bella and the Biology class if it weren’t for Carlisle, contemplates killing all the Quileutes, and in Volterra he would have gone on a massacre, again if it wasn’t for Carlisle. This guy doesn’t care about human life, and he never becomes a better person. He abstains from human blood for Carlisle, to feel like less of a monster, and because it plays into his superiority complex.
Esme makes it very clear she’s fine with Bella’s untimely death. She’d let Bella die to satisfy Edward’s thirst, or to keep him in Forks. Her vote for Bella to live has nothing to do with Bella, and she later gives Edward implicit approval to eat her if he wants. It’s additionally damning that Edward isn’t at all surprised by her behavior. She does the diet for her family.
Rosalie used not wanting to move to a new place and start over as an argument in favor of killing Bella. She later places her bet that Bella will be eaten in the meadow. She adheres to the diet better than anyone in the family, but she doesn’t actually care for the individual human life, not even when it’s an innocent girl. Her main reason for following the diet is that she wants to be as close to being human as possible, and maneating demon is about as far from human as you can get.
Emmet’s response to Edward having a singer is “Treat yourself, bro!” and when Bella’s becoming a vampire, he makes a bet about how many people she’ll kill. He could not care less. He follows the diet for Rosalie’s sake.
Alice lives the way she does because her visions told her that she should live with the Cullens. She cares about Bella because Bella is her barbie, and she treats her like an accessory rather than a person. When push comes to shove she brings Bella to Volterra, knowing what the Volturi do to humans who know the secret. She never appears to care about humans for the sake of humans, at one point we see her try to help Jasper control his thirst: “It helps if you think of them as people!”
Jasper’s gift is essentially a shock collar that made a human diet unsustainable for him.
Bella chooses vampirism, knowing that there’s a chance she’ll kill people. When told of Jasper and Emmet’s newborn Bella body count bet, she is not at all concerned. And the thirst is never a problem for her, she doesn’t have to struggle to stay on the diet. She eats animals because she’s a Cullen, Cullens eat animals. Duh.
(I know this is a bit reductive, I do have far more to say on each of these, but I’m trying to be a succinct person)
They’re not doing the human diet for altruistic reasons.
This is the thing that makes Carlisle a tragic character to me.
Loneliness is his whole thing, and all he ever wanted in a companion someone who shared his ideals, who would value human life as he does. What he ends up with is the Cullens, who all believe they’re amazing people for not eating people and morally superior (they won’t say it aloud, but- well they’ll absolutely say it aloud. And they do.) to other vampires, but they don’t actually care at all.
We see it in Rosalie, Emmet, and Jasper deciding to kill Bella in Midnight Sun, we see it in- well, I just wrote a bunch of examples above. We see it again and again, these people care about human life up until the second it’s inconvenient for them to do so.
And all Carlisle can do is live in intense double think denial where his family is filled with wonderful people who care about humans so much, but he also has to make them go to their victim’s funerals in a desperate, and very telling, bid to make them understand that humans are people.
The whole point of the Cullens is that after centuries of loneliness Carlisle finally has a family of vampires who share his ideals, but when they don’t actually care-
Well.
Carlisle, honey, I’m so sorry.
#i have a million asks in my inbox and tonight i'm answering none of them#shoutout to the person who asked me about whether Edward's interest in Bella will wane now that she's a vampire#that's a huge question requiring a huge answer with so many book quotes I scream just thinking about it#i'll answer you one day#some day#before covid is over#also i do have far more thoughts on jasper but i try to keep my posts short if you people can believe it#i mean i have far more thoughts on all of this#but i saw a post that just sort of set this whole thing off#carlisle cullen#alice cullen#edward cullen#esme cullen#rosalie hale#jasper hale#emmet cullen#bella swan#twilight meta#twilight#twilight renaissance
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THE INEVITABLE LEGACY DISCRIMINATION POST.
i originally wrote about this on my rp blog (as with most analyses), but i decided to actually repost it onto my personal so that non-rp blogs could interact with it. so for those of you who do not know, i have long theorized about legacies being an oppressed group in the percy jackson series (notably in heroes of olympus, since that’s where they get introduced). this obviously influences the way i write octavian, since he is a legacy, and it’s also why i generally dislike the “what if octavian was actually a demigod all along!” posts. i think it kind of... takes away from what his character means. so let’s get into what’s going on with legacies, and why i have the unpopular opinion that they’re discriminated against. please note that i haven’t read trials of apollo, so i don’t really take anything from that.
okay, so i’m going to split this up in two. the first part is the meta stuff: like how the author actually crafted the narrative to make legacies seem inherently bad, evil, and unworthy. and the second part is the in-universe stuff: about how, systemically, things seem to work when it comes to legacies and why.
i do want to start off by saying that legacies are inherently less cool than demigods. from a storytelling perspective, legacies are more able to blend in in public without getting targeted by monsters for their godly blood, they’re less likely to have cool powers, and they have no ingrained sense of being able to read greek/latin texts and no hardwired battle instincts like demigods have. so... they’re just not as fun to write. but if it was just about there not being many legacies at all, i’d probably write it off as a decision made to appease a younger audience with flashy powers and cool light shows. but i think what makes this interesting is the introduction of biased narration and villainization of existing legacies.
let’s start off with biased narration. what quickly marks octavian as a villain is the narration from percy, hazel, and frank, all of whom dislike octavian. even reyna, a certified girlboss tm, does not like octavian. these characters, who are cool people that we like, are sympathetic to us as readers, so when they say octavian is nasty, we’re kind of inclined to believe them. i do think it’s also worth mentioning that people generally don’t hate octavian for, like, starting a war or whatever. it’s almost always that he killed percy’s panda pillow pet, and then (as an afterthought) that he blackmailed hazel into voting for him for praetor (which she didn’t even do). it’s also interesting how demigod villains who do similar things (like drew using charmspeak to get everyone to elect her the leader of the aphrodite cabin) does not get her widespread death threats or even much in the way of talk about her not inherently being deserving of the position she has. but i’m getting ahead of myself here. biased narration makes octavian seem more insidious than he is by describing him as “crazed” or whatever. but there’s a stronger example of biased narration during the war games, when gwen is stabbed by a pilium from the first cohort. it’s stated in the previous chapter that percy had knocked octavian unconscious, and percy’s strategy did include stealing people’s piliums. it’s entirely possible that someone picked up someone else’s pilium and stabbed gwen with it. what’s absolutely certain, though, is that octavian would not and could not have murdered her. for one thing, it goes completely against his moral code as a roman, which is something octavian adheres to extremely strictly. roman law is very important to him, and there’s no reason why he’d break protocol to kill some random centurion. but since he was unconscious, it literally actually rules him out. and the pilium, by the way, was not octavian’s. if you go to the actual chapter, you’ll see that frank noticed it was a pilium from the first cohort, and then immediately checked only octavian to see if he had his. which he didn’t. so octavian was blamed for this, and the setup begins to show octavian as some crafty manipulator who kills people for fun and profit.
and then we come to our only other named legacy: bryce lawrence. oh boy! our only two legacies being two people who are widely considered to be dangerous, violent, and sociopathic? it’s almost like there’s a narrative being constructed here about legacies being a danger to the superior group! like, was bryce lawrence constructed to be an awful bad guy for nico to kill so that we wouldn’t care that he kills octavian? yes. but also in the story itself, he’s a character that’s pretty much cherry-picked to be like: oh no, a really mean legacy! just like octavian! if bryce were a demigod, it would have had the exact same narrative point, but since he’s a legacy, it perpetuates that same, legacies are expendable, they’re power-hungry, they need to die rhetoric going on. i also do think it was a deliberate choice that bryce’s backstory is that he was exiled for murdering his centurion in cold blood. it continues to establish that rhetoric of legacies killing others, legacies being dangerous, legacies breaking the rules... legacies needing to be stopped for everyone’s good. it’s a lot, you know?
the final aspect that i’d like to touch on, which i think is a deliberate writing move, is that octavian is the only character whose powers are repeatedly called into question. many, many people have suggested in canon that octavian might be faking his divination powers, something that people generally don’t say for demigod counterparts. it comes back to the idea that legacies don’t usually have special powers, but it also feels very insidious in the sense that it implies that octavian isn’t fit for his job — another thing he regularly gets teased for. like, i cannot stress enough that it is so weird to think about someone walking into the temple and being like “ha-ha! octavian’s doing his job! what a total loser!” but that’s also besides the point. the main thing i wanted to point out was that octavian has been accused a couple times of faking his powers, and this kind of notion that this would make him somehow unfit for his position, like... that the absence of special powers would make him unfit to be augur, when lowkey i doubt a demigod son of apollo who was faking divination powers would face the same kind of scrutiny.
so now that i’ve mentioned some of the narrative stuff, i’d like to point out some of the in-universe systemic stuff, starting with my last point about legacies being lesser than demigods because they don’t have hardwired fighting abilities, demigod features, or special powers. first of all, like, i see you frank, i know you have a Legacy Power tm, but i don’t think that’s very common at all, plus you’re also a demigod, so you have rights. sorry about that. but frank is a very interesting example here, actually, since frank, if you recall, does not have adhd or dyslexia. which means he does not have hardwired fighting abilities nor can he automatically read ancient latin. still, he has a place in camp jupiter because he’s a demigod. another example is annabeth. despite having demigod features like hardwired fighting abilities and the ability to read ancient greek, annabeth has no special powers to speak of. actually, her main talents are learned! pretty much all aphrodite kids are similarly powerless, save for the few special ones with charmspeak. so the question then arises — in a space like camp jupiter, where there are allegedly thousands of legacies all being trained to read ancient latin and to fight effectively, why aren’t more of them making centurion? why aren’t more of them praetors or augurs? why is octavian the only one? (i know in toa, there’s like claudia’s unnamed father, but like fuck you, i seriously cannot handle this. toa is a sin anyway bc the main villain is yet ANOTHER legacy of apollo, like fuck off actually)
i mean, the narrative that legacies have “thinned-out” godly blood is probably a good reason to consider them weaker and inferior, right? like, will actually literally calls octavian anemic, which... yes he probably is anemic, but isn’t it interesting that will insults octavian’s blood, while in the same breath referring to himself as the “real” son of apollo? like, it’s the way that legacies get dehumanized and discredited when demigods never do. truly. even if there’s no systemic discrimination against legacies (which i doubt), there’s definitely unconscious bias at play here.
but! systemic discrimination! let’s talk about that too, since we’re on the subject. i think it happens. i believe that in order to make centurion, there needs to be five years of service and the person must go on a quest. however, this idea that legacies are inherently weaker could lend itself to some bias in picking demigods over legacies for quests. adding this up, it’s then more likely for demigods to meet requirements for becoming centurion, which is the gateway to higher ranks in the camp. like, listen... you can’t tell me that there are thousands of legacies here and literally like four of them in all of history made centurion. like that is so ridiculous. im literally not functioning.
anyway, another take of mine is that octavian is the first legacy to make augur in all of history, and i do think it’s absolutely ludicrous that he’s shooting for praetor. like, yes. octavian is rich and his family has a lot of influence. but i truly don’t think he ever would have made centurion if he hadn’t had those things, let alone being an augur. and while “octavian has friends, most of them bought” (thanks hazel), i think he kind of... needed to resort to methods like that in order to secure a position as prestigious as augur and to even consider trying for praetor. i just don’t think that lifetimes of discrimination and unconscious biases would be dismantled as easy as that. and knowing all this, is it any wonder that everyone wants to kill octavian with their own hands when villains like luke castellan were given the benefit of the doubt until the end? that everyone thinks octavian’s weak, cowardly, manipulative, and dangerous? that at the end of blood of olympus, there’s a ceremony for all the fallen demigods?
considering how much power plays a role in the pjo/hoo series, with all the prevalence placed on power equalling influence, and how the children of the big three are always practically gods themselves, i seriously don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that the inverse is true for legacies. that they’re considered insignificant, unable to effect real change, and ultimately deserving only of being considered collateral instead of heroes.
#octavian#pjo octavian#heroes of olympus#octavian hoo#pjo hoo#that's about enough tags for me#anyway this is okay to reblog!#my metas
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What He Grows to Be: Snippet 5
Thank you to everyone who expressed their preference over what they’d prefer to see in the snippet! Tom watching Harry’s memories about the Chamber of Secrets got the most votes, so here is the draft version of it. Though since it’s almost 4K long, maybe calling it a snippet isn’t appropriate :D
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Talking through a diary was an interesting idea. Tom wasn’t sure what kind of magic this was, but now that he’d seen it, he could figure it out. He and Harry would be able to have immediate conversations instead of relying on letters or Patronuses.
Then again, considering what this diary had led to, perhaps this wasn’t a good idea. The last thing Tom wanted was to add himself into Harry’s collection of negative associations in one more way.
He didn’t see how Harry had managed to get into the Chamber of Secrets. One moment, he was staring at the bloody inscription on the wall; the next one, he was standing in an entirely new vast space. Tom still had no idea where it was located or how to access it.
His heart sank in disappointment, but when the full implications hit him, it stopped entirely.
Harry had excluded this memory on purpose. He didn’t trust Tom with the knowledge of where the Chamber was. He showed him the core events but not the details because his trust and his faith were already gone by that point.
And the ritual made it even worse.
An uncomfortable itchy heat began to radiate from Tom’s chest. The sensation was entirely unfamiliar, so he pressed his palm against it, confused and hoping to squash it down.
He couldn’t name it, but it felt a little like shame. He’d never experienced it to this extent before, and it was never mixed with this kind of almost desperate hurt.
He’d been trying. For years, he’d been trying to be someone Harry would approve of. The craving, the longing for his acceptance stayed his hand so many times that now Tom couldn’t count them all — he even allowed that scum Morfin to blackmail him, no matter how maddeningly outrageous the whole situation was, simply because he refused to risk Harry finding out.
He’d made mistakes, but they were minimal in comparison to what he would have done if he hadn’t been trying. And yet Harry still didn’t trust him.
The shame began to curl away, giving way to dejection. Loneliness suddenly felt sharp and uncompromising, and Tom wrapped his hands around himself, watching how Harry’s head snapped up.
“She won’t wake,” a voice said. It was soft but cold, so it took a moment for Tom to recognise it. His eyes quickly moved towards one of the pillars, and something in him shuddered from what he saw.
It was like watching his reflection in someone else’s dream. Something was wrong with the boy he was looking at, and it wasn’t just about the fact that his physical contours were blurred, as if he was being held together by magic alone.
No, he was simply different. He didn’t have the splendour Tom prided himself on. He was thinner and hollow-cheeked; his clothes, while neat, came from some cheap store Tom would have never stepped into. He was but a shadow with empty vicious eyes and greed that swarmed around him in a cloud — greed Tom wasn’t sure he could relate to.
He longed for things. He longed for Harry. But even from here, he could read the shallowness and the arrogance written all over his twin’s face, and he didn’t like it one bit.
This wasn’t him. This was Tom Riddle. Someone he could have been.
“Are you a ghost?” Harry asked. He was staring at Riddle with such earnestness, like he trusted him entirely and couldn’t see what a hollow shell he was. This was the first time Tom would disappoint him — the first in a long line of failures and betrayals.
“No,” Tom murmured to himself, shaking his head briefly. He couldn’t keep blurring himself and Riddle — that way madness lied. Despite some superficial similarities, they were completely different people. He might have let Harry down, too, but their story was different. This abomination was dead and could never touch it.
“A memory,” Riddle replied. His voice was quiet, but its sinister and bitter undertones were as loud as shouting. “Preserved in a diary for fifty years.”
Tom’s brows furrowed. What? A memory? That must have been some ritual. Why would he condemn himself to this kind of existence? To give Voldemort more power? Maybe Voldemort had managed to subdue his will and make him into a brainless soldier somehow. This was more plausible than any version of him feeling such loyalty to some monster that he would follow him blindly and sacrifice his life force for him.
How did one become a memory in the first place? Even Tom with his knowledge about all possible forms of dark arts couldn’t figure it out.
Riddle burst into an animated, mostly one-sided conversation, and several minutes later, Tom had to admit that listening to his own voice was surprisingly challenging. Riddle’s arrogance was distorting his words; his excitement over successfully breaking an 11-year-old girl was embarrassing — Tom had felt less enthusiastic when he killed Charlus, and that happened back when he was a child himself. His first impression had been accurate: Riddle was worlds away from him. He was stupid, and Tom would have never believed it if he wasn’t witnessing it with his own eyes.
“I have been waiting for you to appear since we arrived here,” Riddle said pleasantly. His eyes were fixed on Harry in an intense, hungry way — and well, they did have something in common, after all. “I knew you’d come. I have many questions for you, Harry Potter.”
“Like what?” Harry spat angrily. He didn’t look intimidated in the slightest — his anger and righteousness made him appear taller, and his blazing eyes were furious enough to stop anyone in their tracks.
“How is it that you, a skinny boy with no extraordinary magical talent, managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time?” Riddle wondered. The pleasant notes were disappearing again under the piles of bitterness and odd envy. “How did you escape with nothing but a scar while Lord Voldemort’s powers were destroyed?”
By the end of it, a red gleam entered his eyes. It looked unnatural enough for Tom to make an instinctive step towards Harry.
This was unnerving. Magic was one thing, but what would turn his eyes — Riddle’s eyes — red? Humans couldn’t do that, it went against all laws of nature. Unless… Unless Riddle wasn’t human.
If so, what was he?
“Why do you care how I escaped?” Harry asked slowly. His own gaze was narrowed in a dawning realisation that Tom couldn’t decipher. Did Harry have a theory? How could he — he was only twelve. “Voldemort was after your time.”
Riddle smirked at him, looking almost giddy, and Tom had to amend his opinion. This impostor wasn’t simply stupid, he was crazy. He grew excited over irrelevant things and reacted inappropriately to every logical question Harry asked.
“Voldemort,” he uttered, “is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter.”
Pulling a wand out of his pocket, he slashed the air with it, writing three rapid words.
Tom Marvolo Riddle
Tom studied them, his stare lingering on “Marvolo.” Something about it stood out. Something was strangely familiar.
Before he could follow the clues, Riddle waved the wand again, rearranging the letters. The syllables shifted and clung to each other briefly before assuming their designated places.
I Am Lord Voldemort
His mind went utterly blank. Time stopped. The existence of the world lost its meaning. Tom stared at these words, re-reading them again, and again, and again.
I Am Lord Voldemort.
Tom Riddle. Voldemort.
He was Voldemort.
He was Voldemort. All this time, he was watching himself, and he didn’t even realise this.
The bottom dropped out of his stomach. Tom recoiled from the damning words so violently that he lost his balance and collapsed onto the wet floor. His body didn’t feel the impact — it couldn’t, he didn’t even have it here, but it still burned, it still groaned and shuddered, as if the weight of his mind and his feelings was too much for it to bear.
“It can’t be,” he tried to speak. No words reached his ears, so he did it again. “It’s not possible. I’m not him.”
Still nothing.
Acid burned at the back of his throat. His stomach contorted in pained shock, and then the terrible screaming something filled his ears, crawling in them until it was the only sound they could perceive. It was violent and shredding — it echoed in his very bones.
He was Voldemort. All along, he was Voldemort. He’d killed Harry’s parents. He tried to kill Harry. He made so many Horcruxes that he had gone insane, losing his mind along with his powers, losing the respect of his followers, leaving only fear in its place.
He wasn’t the right hand of Harry’s nemesis. He was his nemesis. Harry had spent his entire first life hating and fearing him — he had single-handedly ruined Harry’s existence so thoroughly that Harry was forced to escape into the past. To accept guardianship over someone who tortured and destroyed him.
An icy fist closed around his lungs, clawing and squeezing the remains of air out of them. Tom gasped, his body jerking in odd abrupt movements that he had no control over. The next second, the contours of the Chamber of Secrets faded, melting back into Harry’s bedroom. The phantoms of the past were gone — they stayed trapped in the Pensieve, but their terrible echoes remained with Tom. They latched onto his mind with hungry vengeance, throwing an image after an image of the pictures he had seen when he was first watching Harry’s memories.
It didn’t matter then. Those pictures were just that — the images of a monster he didn’t know and had no direct relationship with. But recalling them now and putting his own face onto them…
His mind rebelled. Tom pressed his hands to his ears, trying to silence the screaming, but it kept getting louder. It hurled accusations and mockeries, painted every crime he committed, every time he hurt Harry and raised his wand against him.
There was no silencing something like this. The only thing Tom could do was outcry it, so he screamed, too.
He found that he couldn’t stop.
***
That night, he added just one sentence to his letter.
Why would you love me?
***
The sleep didn’t come. The desire to tear into his skin and shred it until physical pain remained the only sensation was strong, but every time Tom raised his wand or his hands, he stopped.
He wanted to hurt himself. He didn’t want to hurt Harry.
It was easier before. In Harry’s absence, for a long time, he’d been putting his own hurt above everything, even above Harry himself; he’d marred his skin without care, wanting, needing acknowledgement.
But he couldn’t do it now. The thought of leaving even a small scratch on Harry made him sick.
That cursed ritual.
Tom managed to stay physically intact throughout the night, yet he spent it curled into a tight ball, shaking under the pressure of ache and grief and emotions he couldn’t identify. There were so many of them — they were crowding his chest, interfering with his heart, making him feel like he was about to explode with them.
When the morning came and nothing changed, Tom made himself get up. He cooked breakfast, then stared at it silently, knowing that he could never eat it without vomiting it back.
He needed… something. Something comforting. Harry wouldn’t return; Harry’s blanket and things no longer produced the same soothing effect, so it had to be something new.
If he could capture Harry’s Patronus into some vial… if he could consume the letters Harry had written him…
The letters. He still had the letters. They were the last thing he’d gotten from Harry — they had his personality, his handwriting; they had a whole part of him because Tom could easily trace the story of their creation. From the pressure Harry had applied to a quill in different instances, it was evident where he hesitated, where he took a break, where he got anxious or passionate. It was the closest thing to him Tom had in his possession now.
Without thinking further, he returned to the bedroom and grabbed the last letter. His eyes immediately zeroed in on three specific half-lines.
…I’m going to keep explaining until you do.
…I’ve promised you’ll always be my priority.
…I might consider returning.
A promise of future communication.
The use of future tense.
Future possibility.
This was evidence. Whatever Tom was, Harry didn’t give up on him. Harry still loved him. He might still return.
Tom closed his eyes, nuzzling into the letter, and finally, for the first time in hours, the ache lessened. The sick feeling grew dimmer, too, and he felt solid and grounded again. When he pulled back, his gaze dropped to another passage.
Watch those memories. Don’t contact me until you do.
Tom pressed his lips to these lines, trying to breathe them in, feeling how their rough surface scratched his mouth.
Permission to contact Harry. He still had it. He was simply supposed to meet Harry’s condition.
That meant that he had to return to the Pensieve. The sooner he was done, the closer to Harry he could feel again.
Carefully, Tom folded the letter and put it in his pocket. If things got bad again, he could always touch it and remind himself of the future.
The memories weren’t a punishment. They were a chance to improve things.
Tom couldn’t really be certain, but he preferred to cling to this notion.
This made things easier at least to a small degree.
***
He chose to return to the start of the memory. Silently, he watched his shadow speak with Harry, lingered on how it hissed the words of self-admiration and hung onto its useless pride.
“I fashioned myself a new name,” Riddle boasted breathlessly, “a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!”
“You are not,” Harry said quietly. Despite his age, his resolution was steely, and if Tom had to choose whom he admired more at this moment... it wouldn’t even be a competition.
“Not what?” Riddle snapped. Insecurity and rage were twisting his ghostly face — it was a pitiful display. If the words of a 12-year-old boy had the power to affect him, then he had not only failed at greatness, he was also a failure of a sorcerer.
“Sorry to disappoint you and all that, but the greatest wizard in the world is Albus Dumbledore,” Harry said hotly. “Everyone says so!”
The reasoning was… like that of a child. Even though his stomach was clenched into a tight knot, Tom smiled a little, suddenly overcome with a rush of gentleness and fondness for this particular version of Harry.
He was trusting. He was pure in a way that even his Harry wasn’t — he didn’t see death and destruction yet; he was not betrayed by Dumbledore.
He was not betrayed by Tom.
The smile disappeared, leaving Tom hollow.
When Dumbledore’s phoenix burst into the Chamber, carrying the Sorting Hat, Riddle laughed, and Tom laughed with him — only his laughter was hysterical because all pieces in his head suddenly clicked into one clear picture.
Dumbledore. Of course. Of course it was Dumbledore’s plan all along, how did he not see this from the start?
Harry hadn’t sneaked into the Chamber secretly — Dumbledore allowed him to. Dumbledore was likely watching him even now, invisible, waiting for the outcome.
Harry was a Horcrux, and Horcruxes could be destroyed with basilisk’s venom.
This was a test. Dumbledore wanted to see if he could get rid of the Horcrux inside Harry without necessarily killing him. The Hat was here to give Harry the Sword — with his mindless bravery, it was not a surprise that he could pull it out. The phoenix was here to decrease the chances of Harry dying and to heal him after he was stabbed.
Clever. And enraging. Because for Dumbledore, Harry was a game piece. For Tom, he was the world.
He would have let Voldemort live for a thousand of years. He would have allowed him to destroy this universe until nothing was left if it meant he could keep Harry safe. Dumbledore would never prioritise one over a billion, and for that, Tom hated him.
“Kill him,” Riddle hissed. The words sent a jolt of automatic panic through him, and Tom moved between Harry and the basilisk before he could think rationally about it.
The snake was magnificent, there was no denying it. Even the first time, when he’d been distracted to the point of ignorance, he stopped to watch it because it was breath-taking in every way.
There was only one drawback. It wanted to kill Harry, and it meant that Tom would see it destroyed.
Harry broke into a run with his eyes shut. He managed to half-cross the room when he tripped and crashed down, his chin colliding with the cold stone. The sound of it launched Tom into immediate action again before he could stop his stupid feet.
Feeling this protective for such an extended period of time was exhausting. His heart kept hammering relentlessly and his hands were itching with magic, needing to pour it somewhere to protect Harry and to make sure he never got hurt again. How could anyone live in such a state?
The basilisk roared from pain when Dumbledore’s phoenix attacked it. Its tail whipped across the floor, approaching Harry with deadly speed, and Tom’s heart stopped. It stumbled forwards again only when Harry ducked, crouching, dirty and bloodied but with determination still burning brightly on his face. He was beautiful and desperate, and Tom would have cradled him in his arms if he could touch him.
A gust of wind sent the Hat right in Harry’s face. He grabbed it, put it onto his head, and threw himself to the side when the basilisk’s tail snapped forward again, almost crushing him into nothingness.
This was all strategic. It wasn’t a coincidence that the phoenix appeared immediately after Harry pledged his loyalty to Dumbledore. This was training — training in blind devotion, in recklessness, in self-sacrifice. And Harry had no idea.
At least this Harry didn’t. The adult version knew everything yet he still seemed to hold deep respect for Dumbledore.
Perhaps some training was too ingrained to ever fade from one’s core. This explained… almost everything about Harry. If Tom got another chance to make things right, he would dedicate himself entirely to removing these suicidal ideas from his head once and for all.
Harry pulled out the Sword from the Hat. He spent only a second on contemplating it — the next one, he was already standing and pointing it at the basilisk.
Nothing about this picture was palatable. The sword was too heavy for a child his size: Harry was struggling with it, and the basilisk kept thrashing, hitting everything in sight. How he survived was a matter of miracle. If he had died… If he’d died, this would be it. Tom would never be the person he was now. He would be limited to a memory in his own diary, to a ruin incapable of human thought. He would never get his second chance, and the life as he knew it would never exist.
Terror that rolled through him could only be rivalled by the sheer horror of witnessing the basilisk’s fang separate itself from its mouth and plunge into Harry’s arm. Static electricity burned somewhere above his elbow in a phantom sensation of pain Harry had to be experiencing. It wasn’t real, but Tom’s breathing still quickened, and his fingers wrapped around his arm convulsively.
He couldn’t tell if the fang fell out because Harry had aimed his Sword there or if it was Dumbledore again. Either way, Harry was dying, and even though Tom knew he’d survive, watching this was no less excruciating.
“Fawkes,” Harry murmured hoarsely. His eyes were fluttering shut in an image that came straight from Tom’s worst nightmares. “You were fantastic, Fawkes.”
Giving praise to an impervious bird when life was bleeding out of him. Harry was insane. He was the Harry — his Harry. It was no wonder that an overwhelming longing for him had been and was going to be Tom’s undoing in every life he lived.
“You’re dead, Harry Potter,” Riddle crowed, and Tom turned to face him with a snarl.
He hated this version of himself. Hated him. It was just a shard of him, dull and shallow, and if this underwhelming thing was ever his future, he would have preferred death.
Riddle wasn’t a powerful wizard. Even now, when faced with a dying wandless boy, he was too wary of making his own move. He let the basilisk be his weapon; he was watching Harry die and not intervening because he was intimidated.
Though perhaps it made sense. Maybe even Riddle could see Harry’s brilliance despite his narrow-mindedness — maybe, beneath the hatred and the fear, he was fascinated. Tom knew he would be.
Harry might not have much power, and he certainly didn’t at the age of twelve, but he still managed something no other wizard had tried. He’d defeated a giant basilisk with a sword; his agility was almost otherworldly as he twisted, crouched, and ducked from the heavy blows.
This was worthy of admiration. Even Riddle couldn’t be that blind so as to miss it.
When the phoenix healed Harry, Riddle didn’t cry out in alarm or anger like Tom might have expected him to. Instead, his face shifted between different conflicting expressions, and his eyes regained the hungry glint Tom found intimately familiar.
“It makes no difference,” Riddle spoke confidently, with only the tiniest twitch of uncertainty underneath. “In fact, I prefer it this way. Just you and me, Harry Potter... you and me.”
The surprising jealousy raised its ugly head, making Tom tense. He didn’t know in what way his shadow meant these words — he didn’t like to think about it either. It didn’t matter any way because there would never be such thing as Riddle and Harry, not until Harry came back to the past and gave the real Tom a chance at rebirth.
Without answering, Harry stabbed the diary with the fang, his eyes glistening with fevered hatred. Even Riddle’s piercing scream didn’t shake Tom the way this look had. He barely heard a sound through the sudden roaring in his ears, the sudden realisation that this was Harry’s first and last meeting with an actual Tom Riddle. Voldemort was a monstrosity with a face Tom refused to claim, but physically, Riddle was him.
How did Harry feel, watching him grow up? Had he ever looked at him and seen Riddle from the Chamber of Secrets? How could the feeling of love prevail over the feeling of hatred the 12-year-old Harry was currently wearing?
Tom turned away, unable to keep looking. His throat was dry, and as his knees started to shake, threatening to buckle right under him, he thrust his hand into his pocket, gripping the letter there.
In some other world, this moment had been Riddle’s end. But it wouldn’t be his.
He could do better. He would do better.
He’d finish watching these memories, he’d complete his letter to Harry, and then he’d start working. Harry would never look at him like he had at Riddle. In years, the memories of the Chamber of Secrets would fade; Riddle would become a shadow of a shadow, and Tom’s image would outshine him. It would take precedence in Harry’s mind.
This determination washed away the worms of doubts and self-hatred. When the new wave of memories swept him along, Tom felt prepared to face them.
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Martin Luther King Jr., Guns, and a Book Everyone Should Read
BY JEREMY S. | JAN 15, 2018
“Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 89 years old today, were he not assassinated in 1968. On the third Monday in January we observe MLK Jr. Day and celebrate his achievements in advancing civil rights for African Americans and others. While Dr. King was a big advocate of peaceful assembly and protest, he wasn’t, at least for most of his life, against the use of firearms for self-defense. In fact, he employed them . . .
If it wasn’t for African Americans in the South, primarily, taking up arms almost without exception during the post-Civil War reconstruction and well into the civil rights movement, this country wouldn’t be what it is today.
By force and threat of arms African Americans protected themselves, their families, their homes, and their rights and won the attention and respect of the powers that be. In a lawless, post-Civil War South they stayed alive while faced with, at best, an indifferent government and, at worst, state-sponsored violence against them.
We know the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision of 1857 refused to recognize black people as citizens. Heck, they were deemed just three-fifths a person. Not often mentioned in school: some of that was due to gun rights. Namely, not wanting to give gun rights to blacks. Because if they were to recognize blacks as citizens, it…
“…would give to persons of the negro race . . . the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, . . . and it would give them the full liberty of speech . . . ; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”
Ahha! So the Second Amendment was considered an individual right, protecting a citizen’s natural, inalienable right to keep and carry arms wherever they go. Then as now, gun control is rooted in racism.
During reconstruction, African Americans were legally citizens but were not always treated as such. Practically every African American home had a shotgun — or shotguns — and they needed it, too. Forget police protection, as those same officials were often in white robes during their time off.
Fast forward to the American civil rights movement and we learn, but again not at school, that Martin Luther King Jr. applied for a concealed carry permit. He (an upstanding minister, mind you) was denied.
Then as in many cases even now, especially in blue states uniquely and ironically so concerned about “fairness,” permitting was subjective (“may issue” rather than “shall issue”). The wealthy and politically connected receive their rights, but the poor, the uneducated, the undesired masses, not so much.
Up until late in his life, MLK Jr. chose to be protected by the Deacons for Defense. Though his home was also apparently a bit of an arsenal.
African Americans won their rights and protected their lives with pervasive firearms ownership. But we don’t learn about this. We don’t know about this. It has been unfortunately whitewashed from our history classes and our discourse.
Hidden, apparently, as part of an agreement (or at least an understanding) reached upon the conclusion of the civil rights movement.
Sure, the government is going to protect you now and help you and give you all of the rights you want, but you have to give up your guns. Turn them in. Create a culture of deference to the government. Be peaceable and non-threatening and harmless. And arm-less, as it were (and vote Democrat). African Americans did turn them in, physically and culturally.
That, at least, is an argument made late in Negroes and the Gun: the Black Tradition of Arms. It’s a fantastic book, teaching primarily through anecdotes of particular African American figures throughout history just how important firearms were to them. I learned so-freaking-much from this novel, and couldn’t recommend it more. If you have any interest in gun rights, civil rights, and/or African American history, it’s an absolute must-read.
Some text I highlighted on my Kindle Paperwhite when I read it in 2014:
But Southern blacks had to navigate the first generation of American arms-control laws, explicitly racist statutes
starting as early as Virginia’s 1680 law, barring clubs, guns, or swords to both slaves and free blacks.
“…he who would be free, himself must strike the blow.”
In 1846, white abolitionist congressman Joshua Giddings of Ohio gave a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, advocating distribution of arms to fugitive slaves.
Civil-rights activist James Forman would comment in the 1960s that blacks in the movement were widely armed and that there was hardly a black home in the South without its shotgun or rifle.
A letter from a teacher at a freedmen’s school in Maryland demonstrates one set of concerns. The letter contains the standard complaints about racist attacks on the school and then describes one strand of the local response. “Both the Mayor and the sheriff have warned the colored people to go armed to school, (which they do) [and] the superintendent of schools came down and brought me a revolver.”
Low black turnout resulted in a Democratic victory in the majority black Republican congressional district.
Other political violence of the Reconstruction era centered on official Negro state militias operating under radical Republican administrations.
“The Winchester rifle deserves a place of honor in every Black home.” So said Ida B. Wells.
Fortune responded with an essay titled “The Stand and Be Shot or Shoot and Stand Policy”: “We have no disposition to fan the coals of race discord,” Thomas explained, “but when colored men are assailed they have a perfect right to stand their ground. If they run away like cowards they will be regarded as inferior and worthy to be shot; but if they stand their ground manfully, and do their own a share of the shooting they will be respected and by doing so they will lessen the propensity of white roughs to incite to riot.”
He used state funds to provide guns and ammunition to people who were under threat of attack.
“Medgar was nonviolent, but he had six guns in the kitchen and living room.”
“The weapons that you have are not to kill people with — killing is wrong. Your guns are to protect your families — to stop them from being killed. Let the Klan ride, but if they try to do wrong against you, stop them. If we’re ever going to win this fight we got to have a clean record. Stay here, my friends, you are needed most here, stay and protect your homes.”
In 2008 and 2010, the NAACP filed amicus briefs to the United States Supreme Court, supporting blanket gun bans in Washington, DC, and Chicago. Losing those arguments, one of the association’s lawyers wrote in a prominent journal that recrafting the constitutional right to arms to allow targeted gun prohibition in black enclaves should be a core plank of the modern civil-rights agenda.
Wilkins viewed the failure to pursue black criminals as overt state malevolence and evidence of an attitude that “there’s one more Negro killed — the more of ’em dead, the less to bother us. Don’t spend too much money running down the killer — he may kill another.”
But it puts things in perspective to note that swimming pool accidents account for more deaths of minors than all forms of death by firearm (accident, homicide, and suicide).
The correlation of very high murder rates with low gun ownership in African American communities simply does not bear out the notion that disarming the populace as a whole will disarm and prevent murder by potential murderers.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimated 1,900,000 annual episodes where someone in the home retrieved a firearm in response to a suspected illegal entry. There were roughly half a million instances where the armed householder confronted and chased off the intruder.
A study of active burglars found that one of the greatest risks faced by residential burglars is being injured or killed by occupants of a targeted dwelling. Many reported that this was their greatest fear and a far greater worry than being caught by police.48 The data bear out the instinct. Home invaders in the United States are more at risk of being shot in the act than of going to prison.49 Because burglars do not know which homes have a gun, people who do not own guns enjoy free-rider benefits because of the deterrent effect of others owning guns. In a survey of convicted felons conducted for the National Institute of Justice, 34 percent of them reported being “scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim.” Nearly 40 percent had refrained from attempting a crime because they worried the target was armed. Fifty-six percent said that they would not attack someone they knew was armed and 74 percent agreed that “one reason burglars avoid houses where people are at home is that they fear being shot.”
In the period before Florida adopted its “shall issue” concealed-carry laws, the Orlando Police Department conducted a widely advertised program of firearms training for women. The program was started in response to reports that women in the city were buying guns at an increased rate after an uptick in sexual assaults. The program aimed to help women gun owners become safe and proficient. Over the next year, rape declined by 88 percent. Burglary fell by 25 percent. Nationally these rates were increasing and no other city with a population over 100,000 experienced similar decreases during the period.55 Rape increased by 7 percent nationally and by 5 percent elsewhere in Florida.
As you can see, Negroes and the Gun progresses more or less chronologically, spending the last portion of the book discussing modern-day gun control. It’s an invaluable source of ammunition (if you’ll pardon the expression) against the fallacies of the pro-gun-control platform. It sheds light on a little-known (if not purposefully obfuscated), critical factor in the history of African Americans: firearms.
On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I highly recommend you — yes, you — read Negroes and the Gun: the Black Tradition of Arms.
And I’ll wrap this up with a quote in a Huffington Post article given by Maj Toure of Black Guns Matter:
https://cdn0.thetruthaboutguns.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/huffpo-maj-toure.jpg”
#books#black history#history#american history#Guns#civil rights#constitution#supreme court#gun control#martin luther king jr.#dread scott#concealed carry#concealedcarry#everydaycarry#gun confiscation
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