#16 year old me doesn't know who consistency is

[some-weebs-posts]

Ok, so I've been obsessed with Monster High since it came out, and my favorite character has always been Jackson Jekyll. And you know what? Not only is he an underrated character, but like, they made his background super detailed and complicated for like no reason. I couldn't tell you how many times I've gone on long rants trying to explain it all.

Think of this like a combination of different wikis. This is based on Generation 1, the movies from Boo York Boo York and previous, the diaries, the webisodes, and some of the books. I have not watched anything from Gen 2 or 3, which really doesn't matter because Jackson isn't in any of the reboots.

Basic Information

Jackson Jekyll and Holt Hyde are two people in the same body. They have different memories and different personalities.

Jackson Jekyll is 16 years old. His favorite color is yellow, his favorite food is mac & cheese, and his birthday is May 30th.

Holt Hyde is 16 years old. His favorite color is orange, his favorite food is hot wings, and his birthday is May 30th.

They both have a pet chameleon named Crossfade.

Jackson is a bit of a nerdy type. He enjoys wearing bow ties and sweater vests. He likes to play video games. He's crazy smart, and his favorite subject is Mad Science.

Holt has a rocker style with his everyday outfit being a red leather jacket and purple pants. He also shows more of their fire elemental side than Jackson, so he incorporates flames in all his outfits as well. He loves music, so he always wears headphones (not to mention that later becomes his trigger), and music theory is his favorite subject. He has a hot temper and can become angry very easily.

Jackson Jekyll is their default character. However, he transforms into Holt due to different triggers. His original trigger was it being either day or night where he was Jackson during the day and Holt at night. Later, his trigger changed to music with a 4/4 time signature, which is most music. In the diaries, Jackson states that his doctor believes the trigger will change at least one more time, and he is deathly afraid it will be something important that he can't avoid like taking a shower.

Jackson and Holt did not know of each other's existences until they were 16. Since their memories were different, they thought they had consistent black outs. Holt considered it just a way of life and how it was, but in the books, Jackson (thanks to the suggestion of Melody Carver) thought is was due to his extreme anxiety.

Family

Jackson Jekyll is the son of Dr. and Mrs. Jekyll.

Holt Hyde is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Hyde.

Jackson was born half normie (mom) and half monster (dad). The thing is, his dad is not the Jekyll/Hyde. That's his mom. His mom is the normie half of the Jekyll and Hyde combo. His dad is a fire elemental.

Holt is a full monster. His mother is the Hyde, and his father is a fire elemental.

This makes Jackson and Holt half-brothers. They have different moms but the same dad.

They know they have different moms or at least more than one mom. They call her Moms in the books and diaries. Their mom (in both versions of Jekyll and Hyde as far as I can tell) is named Sydney, who is a science teacher at Merston High and likes to go by Mrs. J.

That adds on another layer because that means his dad took his mom's last name, AND his dad's last name changes depending on who his wife is because he married both the Jekyll and the Hyde. So does that mean every time he is asked his name, the dad has to be like, "I don't know. Let me call my wife,"? Like, does he just change his name every day or is he just Dr. Jekyll by default and then changes his name if he gets a call from his wife? And he's not Dr. Hyde but Mr. Hyde, so does he loses his doctorate when his wife goes crazy?

Anyway, Jackson and Holt are cousins with Heath and Harmony Burns. Harmony is Heath's older sister. Their mother is Jackson and Holt's dad's sister aka their aunt.

Friends

Jackson's best friend is Deuce Gorgon.

Jackson first met Deuce in the diaries where they played some pick-up casketball. Then, they met-met and actually started to hang out after the webisode Fear Pressure. In the episode, Jackson had started to attend Monster High but was being bullied for being a normie (or at least appearing as one), so Deuce decided to take pity on him and let him sit at his and Heath's lunch table. Later on, Deuce introduced him to others like Gil.

When they first moved to their neighborhood, which made them change schools and start attending Monster High, Jackson only became Holt during the night, so Jackson was the first one to meet their neighbors. One time, Draculaura made him a welcome-to-the-neighborhood cake, and when he returned the tin, he met Dracula of which he was not afraid and actually made a joke about stakes. This was considered weird because both normies and monsters were afraid of Dracula, for in the diaries, he was described as being like a creepy, no-nonsense Nosferatu. Later, Draculaura invited him to Clawdeen's Boo-B-Que where he met The Wolfs.

During the night, Holt would come out and walk around. There, he studied his neighbor's houses and saw them very occasionally.

Holt actually went and became a DJ with the nickname DJ Hyde. While working a party, he met Draculaura. She was dancing the Transylvania Trance. He thought she was attractive and approached her by calling her Ula D, but she became confused because they had never met before.

That adds on another thing. Apparently, they can share some memories.

Romances

Jackson and Holt had many romances.

In the books, Jackson went to Merston High. There, he met a siren named Melody Carver. They started to date, but Melody met Cleo, because Cleo also went to this school for some reason, and they hated each other. So to get Melody jealous, Cleo ended up kissing Jackson. But he felt nothing for her. Then Melody started a band and revealed Holt, which started a love triangle except Jackson didn't know about Holt, so he didn't know what she was upset about. They ended up breaking up where she then got with a gargoyle named Granite who was also into music, but unfortunately their relationship never went anywhere, and Melody and Granite never became official.

Then there was Draculaura. Jackson and Holt both liked her, but she only ever tried to date Jackson. She said in one of her diaries that they ended up "breaking up", even though they were never officially dating, because he never went to their evening dates and could never remember exactly why he didn't the next morning. Little did they know it was because of Holt.

Then there was Frankie. She slowly fell in love with him over the course of Volume II of the webisodes in episodes such as Miss Information, Hyde Your Heart, and Hyde and Shriek. She originally liked Jackson because he was the new kid, and she was fairly new too and remembered how hard it was. She even stood up against his bully, Manny Taur. But then she met Holt and became conflicted because she thought she liked both of them and had to choose between them. After she found out they were the same person, she introduced them to each other, which is how they found out about each other in the first place. She then would record them talking on her phone so that they could talk to each other, but that got old fast, so she gave them separate phones specifically for texting each other. She decided they couldn't date until they got over their differences.

There was Operetta. In the diaries, Holt said that he liked that she liked music, so they went on a date at a concert. But then Holt got angry at someone, and due to his anger issues, he got into a fight. He and Operetta were kicked out. Her dad did not like that, and they weren't allowed to date anymore.

Then there was Clair. Clair is my personal favorite and is my OTP. In the movie Ghouls Rule, Holt got arrested while he and other monsters were vandalizing the normie school of New Salem High. He transformed back into Jackson while in jail, so they let him go thinking that Holt somehow kidnapped Jackson and swapped places with him. He became a fugitive, so Jackson hid by attending New Salem High. There, he met Clair. She stood up to bullies for him and even later defended him against the police after they captured him and tried to behead him (and no, I'm not joking). They had a discussion at the end where Holt commented that while Jackson and him don't agree on much, at least they can agree on women. He tried to kiss her, but she swapped him to Jackson first and then kissed him because, well, she didn't know him that well yet. She's an anti-police, anti-racism/speciesism, goth baddie, and I love her for that.

Side Notes

Despite being a huge nerd, Jackson is actually really good at sports. Jackson and Deuce only initially became friends because of a game of casketball. In Deuce's diary, he went to the court to play, but only saw "a lame human kid" aka Jackson. He was initially going to ignore him, but then Jackson asked to play. Then it turned out that Jackson could play very well. Quote, "I was gonna slide out of there, but he asked if I wanted to play some one on one. I figured it wouldn't take long to make him look like a statue out there, but I was wrong. He had a scary good jump shot and even crossed me over a couple times. I had just started to play really hard when my glasses got knocked off and broke. Now I have to figure out a way to get home without stoning someone, but dude just took off his shades and handed them over to me. He said to keep them until I got home and he'd get them later. Told me his name is Jackson Jekyll. He said he wants a rematch. I told him any time, any place. Not a bad guy...for a human." Also, in Friday Night Frights, Jackson attempted to join the roller maze team before he was stopped by Manny Taur. Edit: I just remembered he also plays volleyball in the Gloom Beach line.

Additionally, Jackson and Holt have facial piercings and tattoos. This is very rare and somewhat strange given they are only 16 and would at least need parent's permission for the tattoos. The only other G1 characters that have tattoos, that I know of, are Operetta and Wisp from 13 Wishes. The only other characters with facial piercings, not counting ear piercings, are Clair, Cleo, and Manny Taur as Cleo has the gem under her eye, Clair has a classic lip piercing, and Manny has a septum piercing. Jackson has one tattoo of a Ying & Yang symbol on his back, and he has an eyebrow piercing on his left eyebrow. Holt has two tattoos with the same Yin & Yang tattoo and an additional face tattoo around his eye. He also has a left eyebrow piercing.

The tattoos admittedly confuse me because the fact that Jackson doesn't have one of Holt's tattoos may imply that they got the tattoos separately, so they both just so happened to pick the same tattoo and then Holt got one extra. Also, their parents had to sign off on allowing their 16 year old son to be allowed to have a face tattoo.

Edit: Some people have mentioned that Holt's face tattoo may actually be a birthmark due it being mentioned in one of the diaries. However, this doesn't make sense to me because Jackson does not have a birthmark. So like many, I believe this mention of it being a birthmark was only added after they made the design as an excuse, and it should be left up for interpretation.

That's alI can think of for now. Info may change later, but that's the story of The Strange Case of Jackson Jekyll and Holt Hyde.

#monster high #jackson jekyll #holt hyde #heath burns #deuce gorgon #draculaura #operetta #i should go to bed #friday night frights

[amphorographia]

Something interesting about Pathologic that I don't see people talk about very often is the fact that technically none of the protagonists are doctors and, of the three, it's actually Artemy that's the closest to a real physician.

The fact that Daniil is specifically referred to as a "Bachelor" of medicine is something that was always sort of confusing to me but is actually extremely telling when put together with all the other details we get about him.

There's an excellent video essay about Daniil's character by Horror Game Analysis which goes into more detail about this [x], but he points out two things about thanatology that I think are really significant:

It was first conceptualised as a field of study in 1903 by Ilya Mechnikov, a Russian-Ukranian immunologist and microbiologist, who felt that there was not enough known about the phenomenon of death itself; and

Thanatology straddles the line between the humanities and the sciences because it's investigations grapple with the physical, psychological, socio-cultural, philosophical, and spiritual elements of death

With all that in mind and Pathologic's ambiguous time period, Daniil could very much be read as the in-game world's equivalent of Mechnikov. Despite his (sort of) alignment with the philosophically-minded Kains, Daniil is consistently shown to be very much focused on the physical components of death. He came to the town hoping that "[Simon's] tissues will help [him] defeat death." Rubin, Artemy, Victor (and Lara, Yulia, Aspity, Anna, and Clara) all need him to collect and examine blood samples for evidence of the disease. Once the plague begins, his focus in on the creation of a vaccine - a tool for immunisation - instead of a cure.

All of the evidence points to Daniil, at his core, being a microbiologist and researcher. His medical knowledge, while far above average, is highly specialised and doesn't indicate that he has any practical experience as a physician. He's not a doctor, he's a bachelor of medicine using his theoretical and academic expertise to fight an impossible disease in the only way he knows.

Now, Artemy does have some practical knowledge. Isidor taught him about the traditional medicine of the town while he was growing up before sending him to "study modern medicine in the academy" when he was 16. However, in his opening description, all we are told is that Artemy is returning from several years of "travelling from town to town learning theoretical and pratical surgery." In Pathologic Classic, Artemy is canonically 26 years old so if he spent 6-7 years travelling, his formal medical education was likely either short or incomplete. Not to mention that the emphasis on Artemy as a surgeon and menkhu (much like Daniil as a bachelor and thanatologist) implies a very specialised area of expertise which, although closely related to practical medicine, is not the same thing.

This is reinforced in a number of ways. For example, while there are multiple dialogue options which let you dismiss the town's local medical practices, they appear mostly (or only) in conversations with outsiders - responding to Daniil's admission of underestimating the value of "steppe medical knowledge" with "there's nothing medical in their knowledge" and telling Block that he has "an education in the civilized world and ha[s] forgotten two thirds of the specific local practices." Ultimately, Artemy is more consistently aligned with the Kin's more bodily approach to medicine. That distinction between Kin and Town is important, since the traditional medicines Artemy makes are not valued or trusted by townspeople and the kin refuse almost all of the modern medicine (specifically antibiotics) sold in the town.

He also seems to be either unfamiliar or seriously out of practice with the more formal language of science and medicine a university-educated physician should know. At several points, Artemy is shown to be dependent on Daniil's medical knowledge, and various members of the town poke fun at him for asking clarifying questions - Boy: "You graduated from a university and this is your question…?" Rubin: "I thought you were [away] studying." Artemy's story is about trying to fill his father's role and, while he succeeds in becoming a menkhu, his position as the town's doctor is less clearly defined even after the plague. While he begins the game with the most practical experience of the three protagonists, the fact that he's not qualified to be a physician but has to act as one is what drives his story forward.

I won't go into Clara since it's obvious she's not a doctor. If anything, she's more like a personification of a cure for this one specific disease (just like her 'twin' is the plague). She couldn't reset a bone or diognose the flu any more than she could synthesise antibiotics or distinguish between bacteria in a blood sample. Still, she's an interesting comparison point and does serve to remind the player that the protagonists don't really represent different approaches to medicine, but different approaches to healing.

The Bachelor is the modern healer of formal scientific practices who sees healing as the result of understanding the body, disease, and their interactions.

The Haruspex is the traditional healer with the spiritual or ancestral right to protected knowledge and practices who sees healing as a reflection of cultural duty, customs, and community.

The Changeling is the divine healer chosen by a Deity (or Deities) to carry out their will on earth who sees healing as an act of religious faith and demonstration of the existence and power of God(s).

#this took way longer to write than I expected holy shit #also can you tell that Daniil is my favourite? #pathologic #pathologic meta #pathologic classic hd #pathologic classic hd meta #daniil dankovsky #artemy burakh #clara saburova #clara changeling #pathologic bachelor #pathologic haruspex #pathologic changeling

[mostlysignssomeportents]

1900s futurism

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then SAN FRANCISCO (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

I'm profoundly skeptical of the idea that the future can be predicted, and doubly skeptical that sf writers are any kind of prophet. The former grotesque fatalism (if the future can be predicted, then what we do doesn't matter); the latter is tragicomic hubris.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/07/the-gernsback-continuum/#wheres-my-jetpack

That said, few people have been more consistently useful in understanding and anticipating (and yes, building) the future than my friend and colleague Karl Schroeder, whom I've known since I was 16 years old. Karl was the first person I heard say the world "internet." Also: "fractal," "World Wide Web," "ftp," and numerous other touchstones of the future just over the horizon.

Karl is, in fact, a futurist ("foresight consultant") who approaches the work with the same shrewd insight, wild imagination and humility that he brings to his fiction. In a new essay written with both his futurist and sf writer hats on, he nails down the toxic shadow cast by the 20th century sf, or, as he calls it, "The Science Fiction of the 1900s":

https://kschroeder.substack.com/p/the-science-fiction-of-the-1900s

Karl starts by describing the odd "double vision" of the future of the 1900s. On the one hand, many of us (myself included) were convinced that nuclear armageddon was inevitable. Unlike the unhinged architects of the nuclear arms-race, realists understood that a nuclear war would effectively end the future. As Einstein put it, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

But the flipside of that certainty that the future would end with the first nuclear strike was the belief that if we could just somehow walk the tightrope over the chasm of nuclear holocaust, we'd emerge in a future worth looking forward to: "a new era of peace and prosperity for all."

Contrast that with the existential dread of today's polycrisis: environmental collapse and political decay up to and including fascism. These aren't the binary proposition of nuclear annihilation vs Utopia – rather, they're a continuum of worse-and-better outcomes of every description. As Karl writes: "It’s not that simple. Our future now is an exhausting spectrum of scenarios, each with its own promise, and its own problems."

For Karl, we have entered a new epoch, but we've dragged in the long-expired way of imagining (and hence creating and navigating) the future with us. What makes this a new epoch? For Karl, it's the kind of future on our horizon. He cites Charles C Mann’s 1491, a superb history of the Americas before Columbus:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/107178/1491-second-edition-by-charles-c-mann/9781400032051/readers-guide/

1491 radically reframes "the patchwork of propaganda and inference" that makes up the received narrative of the so-called "New World." It describes a land of flourishing cities, art, science and culture "in the Americas while Rome was just getting its act together." Contact with colonizing Europeans was a disaster for First Nations people, who call this period "The Invasion." It was an epochal break.

Futurism is an inextricably historical discipline. The willingness of some settler-colonialists states to consider this epochal break forces us to reframe our literal place in history, the story of the land under our feet. At its best, this futuro-historical work can begin the long work of reconciliation, as with the Canadian government's promise of $23b in reparations for the First Nations people who were kidnapped as children and sent to murderous "residential schools" before, during and after the Sixties Scoop.

The sf of the 1900s is no longer fit for purpose, if it ever was. It's a literature that was steered by open fascists like John W Campbell, who explicitly saw the literature as a means of inculcating a societal narrative of the triumph of white, corporate technocracy over all other forms of government:

https://locusmag.com/2019/11/cory-doctorow-jeannette-ng-was-right-john-w-campbell-was-a-fascist/

Karl isn't the first sf writer to try to overturn this orthodoxy – indeed, it was continuously challenged by radicals within the field, as with the New Wave, personified by the likes of Samuel Delany and Judith Merril (who both mentored and introduced Karl and me):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/13/better-to-have-loved/#neofuturians

The cyberpunks took a good hard run at it, too. For plenty of writers (including me), Bruce Sterling and William Gibson's 1981 story "The Gernsback Continuum" was a wake-up call:

http://writing2.richmond.edu/jessid/eng216/gernsback.pdf

Not for nothing, William Gibson has long insisted that his 1984 classic Neuromancer should be read as utopian: after all, it depicts a future in which the inevitable nuclear war only reduces a few cities to radioactive ash, sparing the rest of the planet.

Bruce Sterling once paid me the supreme compliment of describing a 2003 story I wrote about the ways that algorithms will enshittify self-driving cars as "making everybody else in the business look like they live in a dark basement growing on the mulch from old STAR TREK scripts":

https://craphound.com/stories/2005/10/12/human-readable/

Schroeder – along with today's new radical sf writer cohort – wants to fashion a fictional futurism that is fit for this world and its crisis: "in our modern technological society, science fiction tells us what to spend our time and money on." The fact that our mediocre billionaires are mired in the sf of the 1900s means that we're getting some decidedly old-fashioned futures.

For Karl, Musk is a poster-child for this profoundly conservative, backwards-looking vision: "He’s fighting the intellectual battles of the last century, a 1900s hero dropped into the 2000s with an unlimited budget to reshape the future to fit the era he’s from." Musk's obsessions – "Space flight. Settling Mars. Cyberpunk-style brain-computer interfaces. Artificial Intelligence. Self-driving electric cars. Humanoid robots." – are 1900s science fiction.

Ironically, much of this fiction labels itself "hard sf," despite the fact that interstellar travel is utter fantasy – as is mass-scale, near-term interplanetary civilization:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead

Karl wants "a future for the 2000s." He points to some efforts to make this happen, like Neal Stephenson's Hieroglyph anthology, edited by Ed Finn and Kathryn Cramer:

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/hieroglyph-ed-finnkathryn-cramer

The "Hieroglyph" is Stephenson's shorthand for a recognizable, tangible, meme-able gizmo or other touchstone for a 2000s-era vision of the future – a replacement for jetpacks and flying cars. Karl's story for the anthology, "Degrees of Freedom," focuses on an abstraction (governance: "the single most important thing humanity can focus its creative energies on right now"), and by Karl's own admission, it's not quite the hieroglyph Stephenson was looking for.

But Karl did come up with a hieroglyph in a later work, the "deodands" of 2019's Stealing Worlds – a software agent "that believes it is some natural system, such as a river or forest, and acts in its own self-interest, that being the preservation and thriving of that natural system":

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/06/18/karl-schroeders-stealing-worlds-visionary-science-fiction-of-a-way-through-the-climate-and-inequality-crises/

(My own contribution to Hieroglyph was very gadget heavy – "The Man Who Sold the Moon," about autonomous lunar 3D printers. It won the Sturgeon Award):

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/05/22/the-man-who-sold-the-moon/

I've been impressed with Karl since the day I met him in 1987. There's no one whose thoughts on the future I'm more interested in hearing. I don't think that's a coincidence, either: Karl is an autodidact who was raised by a Mennonite TV repairman – the first TV repair shop in the Canadian prairies. If you want to understand the future, try being raised by someone who takes that kind of deliberate approach to which technology to adopt, and how.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/07/the-gernsback-continuum/#wheres-my-jetpack

#pluralistic #science fiction #futurism #the future #reactionaries #tescreal #retrofuturism #scientifiction #karl schroeder #1491 #genocide

[darkstarofchaos]

It is finally time to talk about Megatron and Starscream.

Spoilers for Transformers EarthSpark under the cut.

So to start, it's fascinating to me that people are only now complaining that Megatron's characterization isn't consistent. I've thought it was inconsistent ever since episode 8, and it's only after episode 21 that I finally feel satisfied with his portrayal.

Way back in episode 3, Bumblebee asks Megatron what he would do if his troops weren't listening to him. Megatron's answer was, "When I commanded legions of Decepticons, my strategy was always intimidation. A little brute force, make a show of my weaponry, that sort of thing." He also mentions a "signature move" called the Turbo Twister, and while the details of what that is are lost to an explosion, it's pretty clear that he was using violence to keep people obedient.

Compare that to episode 8, which he spends complaining that Optimus has no problem locking up Decepticons despite not trusting GHOST. He doesn't want to use excessive force on the Cassettes when fighting them, rejects the use of devices that trap bots in their altmodes, and generally just doesn't like how the Cons are being treated. At the end of the episode, Optimus allows Megatron to let the Cassettes go, and Megatron tells Optimus that, "Perhaps your leadership style is not so different from my own."

Um. Excuse me, sir, but did you or did you not advocate for violence as a means of controlling your troops?

That's a blatant contradiction, and honestly, Starscream's "You don't know the real Megatron," sums up my problem with Megatron's redemption perfectly: we don't know the pre-redemption Megatron. We don't know what he was like when he led the Decepticons. We don't know why none of the Decepticons joined him when he allied with the Autobots. We know nothing about pre-redemption Megatron. Nothing beyond his own, cheerful anecdote about how he kept his troops in line through intimidation, and a later remark in episode 16 that, "A human soldier showed more compassion for my people than I did" (note that there is no contradiction between Megatron's self-assessment and his approach to disobedience).

Except now, thanks to the newest episodes, we do have something else. We have Starscream's assessment, and he describes Megatron almost the same way Megatron described himself: "The ruthless tyrant who ruled over us with fear and intimidation." Starscream did not say anything Megatron himself hasn't been telling us, and yet it's only now that Megatron's behavior gets labeled a contradiction?

But that's not why it's being called contradictory. I know it's not. So let's get to the heart of the issue: it's not just any Megatron who hears that Starscream has escaped and Does Not want him roaming free. It's a redeemed Megatron. It's a Megatron who argues against Decepticons being kept in cages, has a human partner, and shows nothing but patience in dealing with the Terrans.

It's a Megatron who, on learning that one of his most troublesome soldiers has escaped, falls straight back into old habits.

We have no direct evidence that Starscream was as rebellious in this continuity as in others, but I think it can be inferred. Megatron described intimidation as his approach to dealing with disobedience, and Starscream starts to treat Hashtag the same way when she refuses to obey him - then backs off when she calls him on it. So we know Starscream wasn't very obedient, and that he was "disciplined" often enough that he outright tells Megatron he doesn't feel safe with him ("Nowhere is safe if it's with you").

This matters because, when Megatron hears about Starscream's escape, it's not just some Decepticon. It's a mech Megatron could never properly control, who probably ignored orders and did his own thing constantly. Starscream isn't just an escaped Decepticon: he's a bot Megatron has been controlling with violence for who knows how long. And when that bot is no longer contained, Megatron slips back into unknown years' worth of learned behavior. Because he never had an opportunity to unlearn it. How could he, when Starscream has been locked up and Megatron didn't have to think about him?

But he doesn't stay in that mindset. Yes, he attacks Starscream on sight. But he backs down when Hashtag intervenes (he's already lowering his weapon before she's even said two sentences in Starscream's defense), and he makes no further attempt to capture Starscream. Quite the opposite: at the end of the episode, he extends an offer of safety, and when Starscream rejects that offer, Megatron just... lets him go. Just like he let the Cassettes go back in episode 8.

Megatron's redemption wasn't somehow undone because he made a bad decision on impulse. Not if all it took for him to change his mind about Starscream was seeing him try to save Hashtag from the Dweller. If anything, it showed that Megatron is committed to his new ideals. Even if he slips up sometimes, he isn't going to return to his old ways. And I don't know about anyone else, but I needed that.

I have spent the entire season doubting Megatron's redemption. It didn't feel like redemption; it felt like the writers just wanted a nice Megatron, and his old mindset could be handwaved as, "Well, he was bad once, but he's good now". Seeing him default to old behavior, even just a little, connected the Megatron we know and the one we only hear about in a real, tangible way. And at least to me, that makes his characterization stronger.

Of course, there's still that contradictory comment about Optimus' leadership style being "not so different" from Megatron's. But I don't think a single line of weird dialogue is worth getting worked up over.

#transformers #Transformers Earthspark #Earthspark spoilers #Spoilers #Megatron #Starscream

[beemers-hell]

i desperately wanna apologize to you but you would call bullshit and paint me like something evil bitch when in reality, i want the cycle of abuse to end and to ease my mind. i just wanna redeem myself before ending it all.

- you already know who

to everyone else sorry about this, but I've had enough, anyway i was just gonna delete this, just like i deleted the TWO suicide notes you sent me in my ask box a lil bit ago, but a number of my friends DM'd me about what you've been posting on your blog so I can only assume this all came from Nene, also known as @/shugurrsn0w , and for anyone who doesnt know Nene is, well this callout thread will get you acclimated with her REAL quick lmfao:

You are not fucking apologetic at all if you are using s0uless' full REAL name on your blog, you stupid bitch. That kind of information can put them at risk of REAL GENUINE HARM. S0uless made the mistake of using their name as their art handle when they were younger but they have been doing a pretty extensive wipe of that username being online, I know this isn't exactly doxxing because of that but USING IT WHEN THEY'RE CLEARLY NOT WANTING IT TO BE PUBLIC INFORMATION IS SOME PRETTY SCUMMY SHIT, AND CAN BE USED FOR ACTUAL REAL HARM BEING DONE TO HIM YOU JACKASS

Don't come in my ask box hiding behind anonymous acting like you actually feel bad for the shit you did when you are STILL making posts calling me and my husband fucking freaks when you know DAMN WELL we're not. Don't you dare try and act all remorseful and pitiful and like you're some misunderstood fallen angel when you've been doing but helping making our lives a fucking nightmare. You don't get to act like you've done nothing wrong when you have CONSISENTLY VICTIM BLAMED THEM, CLAIMED THEIR TRAUMA WAS FAKE, BEEN RACIST TO ME, MOCKED MY ABUELAS RECENT DEATH, THREATENED HARM ON BOTH OF US, HARASSED AND STALKED US, AND SPREAD ALL THIS INSANE SHIT ABOUT US FOR NO GODDAMN REASON. You don't get to just act like you made some petty mistakes that you can walk off, you have been non stop harassing, stalking, and falsely accusing me and s0uless of being scum of the fucking earth when there is no goddamn evidence that we are and you KNOW there isn't, because we fucking ARENT. Unlike your freak ass, we KNOW what the fuck is right and what is wrong. But that kind of shit gets around to people and makes people start thinking we ARE those freaks that we aren't.

And you should be well aware of how fucking awful that makes a mother fucker feel, you know? Since you wanna keep whining about how "people keep being mean/demonizing you for no reason." What, you don't think people are gonna DM me asking me what the fuck you're talking about in those posts you make? Newsflash dipshit, most people wanna know both party's stories regarding drama that surrounds someone they know. Don't you try to twist this and cry about how I'm some creepy weirdo that's stalking you, you should've thought harder about following someone and then IMMEDIATELY sending them an anonymous ask about me and s0uless, cause that DEFINETLY isn't fucking fishy at all, dumbass. That's how I was alerted to you and your new bullshit. Don't try and act like I'm a freak that keeps tabs on you, I thought you'd drop off the face of the earth after that one callout thread got made on you. You wanna talk about evidence of wrongdoing? Nothing really shows your true colors more than publicly being racist, harassing minors, and consistently AND RECENTLY consuming bestiality porn of minors. Try bouncing back from saying that YOU want to make noncon porn of your favs, or being a whole ass adult saying you wanna fuck a 16 year old character that you KNOW is 16. THATS some REAL freak shit that YOU admitted to your damn self, you don't get to act like me or s0uless are the real freaks when there is REAL AND RECENT EVIDENCE of you doing that shit, you gross fuck.

Leave us the fuck alone, I do not care about your pathetic ass and s0uless sure as shit doesn't either. This has been going on for over a FUCKING YEAR NOW and i dont give a single SHIT about playing nice and being quiet about it anymore. Don't fucking come whining to me and acting like you're remorseful again when you're PULLING THIS SHIT AGAIN. Leave me the fuck alone and I'll leave you the fuck alone. Expect a restraining order dumbass, it was real easy to get your info when you've got it so readily available online! If youre gonna play stupid games, expect to win stupid prizes. Get the fuck off my and my husband's dick and focus on fixing yourself you ghoul. Do some fucking introspection so you can figure out why the fuck people don't like you. And don't come to me threatening suicide again, I don't give a single SHIT about you and I'm sure as FUCK not going to give you any sympathy when you've shown no fucking growth or genuine remorse for all of this. I've thought about killing myself a lot lately too, you're not fucking special.

#again sorry to yall but i am literally at my limit at this point #i havent wanted to be a bother to anyone so ive just kept quiet about it cause i thought that would end it but nah #i am not going to just take this shit anymore ive had it

[octuscle]

Lord, all I want is to turn my roommate into a hot biker my age, around 18/20 years old…. My current roommate is just a nerd, showers everyday, and is too clean. I want a goofy, dumb biker boy roommate please!

Your roommate really is a pain in the ass. He's constantly lecturing you about some astronomy shit that you're really not interested in. He plays video chess with some friends who live in the middle of nowhere and talks to them in Klingon. Everything about him annoys you. The noises he makes when he breathes. The way he brushes his teeth. His quirk of always wearing funny colored socks. Yes, he's probably a genius. He's only 16, has no hair on his sack yet, but is already a sophomore in college. But that doesn't change anything. He's unbearable!

The first thing you notice is his language… His nasal British English becomes harsher, his language simpler and simpler. And you could swear there's an accent mixed in… Something funny. Russian? He's probably learning a new language in his spare time now. You could puke!

"Sup, comrade?" he greets you as he arrives home very late by his standards. You look at him questioningly. "Hey man, I come driving school. You always say that you're half man without driver's license." You never said that. You didn't even know he didn't have a driver's license. You smile painfully. And go back to your Playstation. Your flatmate lies on the bed with his shoes on and reads a car magazine that he has obviously picked up at driving school. Boy, he's really off the wall today.

You are woken up the next morning by your flatmate. He comes in the door in a sweat. "That was good training. You have come with me tomorrow" he grunts. Damn, the Slavic accent seems natural and not at all fake. Maybe it's always been his language and the British accent was artificial… Your flatmate sprays a little Axe under his arms, gets dressed and disappears. "Driving school" he mumbles on the way out. What he does, he does consistently. But it's never happened that he leaves without making his bed and tidying his gym clothes. Okay, he's never been to the gym before.

When he comes home in the evening, he's talking loudly on the phone. I have no idea what language that is… Russian? Could also be Bulgarian, Serbian or something else. In any case, his squeaky voice has given way to a pretty impressive barition. Without greeting you, he throws his heavy leather jacket and helmet on the bed and goes into the bathroom, continuing to talk on the phone. His baritone gives way to a groan, followed by a loud "Fuuuuuuuuuck". He comes out of the bathroom grinning, stows his cock away and asks if you've cum today. Otherwise he would suck you off. You decline with thanks. And regret it just a few minutes later.

It's 06:00 when your roommate's alarm clock rings. Has he been sleeping naked? In any case, he goes to the bathroom naked. A few minutes later you hear him wanking again. You don't hear him showering. But when you see him coming out of the bathroom, still naked, you see his semi-hard cock. And it's impressive. Maybe you should ask him today if you can suck him off. You ask why he's up so early. He answers. "I got new job. And I want pump first. Will come with me?" "Maybe tomorrow," you reply and close your eyes again. Half asleep, you notice your flatmate putting on a boiler suit and heavy work boots. A leather jacket on top. He picks up his rucksack and helmet and noisily leaves your room.

The guy who comes into your room in the evening is not your flatmate. At least not at first glance. He notices your questioning look. "I cut hair. More handy with helmet. Like it?" He kneads his impressive bulge. He smells of sweat, leather and engine oil. You get a hard-on and fall to your knees.

Your flatmate is actually more of a lone Slavic wolf. He doesn't make a big deal out of it. He loves his bike, he loves his job as a mechanic and he loves pumping iron. Pretty much in that order. But sometimes he needs a pillion. Someone to suck his cheesy uncut cock. And you love that job.

Slika pronađena @zakucavanje

#male tf #muscle tf #reality change #chronivac #age progression

[mournersandfunerals]

Alice Oseman's Solitaire is a very important book and here's why:

A lot of the time when mental health is being depicted in fiction, it centres so much around the person struggling with it. Which, of course, makes sense. It's important to show what people go through when they suffer from mental illnesses, and it helps others in similar situations know that they're not alone in dealing with it. But it isn't very often you see something from the perspective of a friend or a relative and what they go through when someone they care about is struggling. Solitaire is a book that's so important for this specific reason.

Here, you have Tori. A teenage girl who spends 50% of her time worried about her brother, Charlie, and the other 50% of her time trying to convince herself that she isn't worried about him. She puts so much pressure on herself to keep everyone's heads above water that she doesn't realise that she, herself, is starting to drown. Their parents don't know how to handle everything that's going on with their son, so they act like everything is fine, relying on Tori to be the problem-free "normal" one. That's a lot of pressure to put on your 16/17 year old daughter. Tori takes on the responsibility of keeping her family happy and together, which ends up having the opposite effect and drives them further away from each other. So now you have two siblings that are so near but not within reaching distance when they need each other the most.

Which leads us on to the themes of guilt within the book. This is something that is so well executed and hard-hitting and absolutely crucial.

Tori is someone who feels a lot of guilt and regret when it comes to what Charlie is going through. She feels partially responsible for everything that happened to him. It's not her fault in the slightest, but when someone close to you is hurting and struggling, and you notice but don't do anything because you don't know how, it takes its toll. A lot of the pressure that Tori's under comes from the crippling guilt that she's trying to hold in. It manifests itself into something entirely different. She suffers with anxiety, she has negative thoughts, she hyperfixates entirely on solving the Solitaire mystery so she has something to do while her family is barely holding it together. She spirals.

And what's super interesting about this is how Charlie has a similar reaction at the end when he eventually comes to terms with the fact that his sister isn't okay, either. He mentions how he noticed but didn't do anything, and he feels awful about it. The Spring siblings have a remarkable way of avoiding what's right in front of them because who in the world would want to admit that their brother or sister is the opposite of okay?

And to add to this, I think we really need to note the importance of Michael Holden within this entire situation as well.

Michael is there for Tori consistently. He shows up when she doesn't even realise she needs him, he comes back whenever she pushes him away, and it's almost as though he's her only form of stability within the chaos. And that's exactly what she needs. She doesn't know how to handle what she's feeling about her family so she's pushed everyone else away. She needs someone.

Because it's so easy to ignore the state of your own mental health when someone you love is going through hell. So now we have Michael, a character who essentially says, "I'm here. Let me worry and look after you, while you unwittingly take on the weight of the world." Of course, Michael has problems of his own but if he and Tori can share their burdens between the two of them, maybe the weight of all of it won't feel so heavy.

Alice Oseman created something so underrated and special with Solitaire. It tackles things that can be difficult to talk about but need talking about. It reminds you that it's okay to not be okay. You shouldn't feel bad about feeling bad. And just because someone you love is struggling, it doesn't mean that you're entirely responsible for them. It doesn't mean that you're not allowed to grieve and be upset about it. And it doesn't mean that you're not allowed to struggle through your own issues either. But it does mean that you can find your own support system and let them pull you out of the metaphorical and, I guess in this instance, literal fire that's burning around you.

#this post is brought to you by yet another solitaire reread #it's so important to me #solitaire #solitaire alice oseman #alice oseman #tori spring #charlie spring #michael holden #sprolden #heartstopper #osemanverse #book ramblings #tw mental health

[cuckooinanest]

Personal headcanon of the ages/timeline in the batfamily

I've been trying to make some sense of the batfamily's ages and the timeline of like how long it has been since Batman has had a Robin. I've never read the comics and my knowledge of the batfamily comes from one or two animated batman movies, fanfiction, metas, and the fandom wiki. I know in the new 52, Bruce has been Batman for about 5 years. But like, it kinda doesn't make sense to me considering he has had quite the number of robins already.

There are a few consistent ages I've seen so far in the fandom like Tim discovers Batman and Robin's identity at 9 years old, Jason dies at 15, Damian becomes Robin at 10 and Bruce dies when Tim is or about to become 17, Bruce Wayne becomes an orphan at 8 years old.

So here's how I personally age the batfamily members:

Bruce Wayne becomes Batman at 25

Bruce adopts Dick three years later

Dick is 11 when he's adopted and 12 when he becomes Robin, so Dick and Bruce has an age gap of 16 years

Barbara is older than Dick by a year or two

Tim is 2 when the Graysons die, his age gap with Dick would be 9 years

If Damian wasn't grown in a lab, he could be conceived when Dick was 16

Tim discovers Robin I's identity at 9 years old

A few months or weeks after Tim discovers their identities, Dick leaves Gotham at 18

A few months or weeks later, Jason steals the Batmobile's tires at 11 and becomes Robin when he was 12. His age gap with Dick is about 7-8 years

Jason dies when he's 15

Tim becomes Robin months later at age 13, so Jason and Tim have an age gap of 2-3 years

Cassandra is the same age as Jason and gets adopted when she was 16

Stephanie is barely a year older than Tim.

Jason is resurrected and goes back to Gotham two-three years after his death then beats up Tim who was 15-16

Bruce "dies" when Tim is 17 and Damian is 10

Duke is adopted at 16 and Damian was 12 at that time

As much as I love Old Man Bruce, my head can't wrap with the idea that a 50 year old is doing the things Batman does. Plus I like the idea that Dick and Bruce has an age gap similar to Dick and Damian since the latter pair has quite the paternal feeling to their relationship, canon or not.

In some of the things I've read, Dick was aged to as young as 8 years old when he's adopted. However, because we have canon ages for when Tim finds out about their identities and when Bruce dies, I aged Dick at 11 and Tim 2, the trauma from the night could sear the memories into Tim's mind even if he's 2 years old.

I like the idea that Dick left for college or when he's in freshman year of college when Tim just found out about their identities. I think Dick would leave when he's 18 and legal and not a year younger so that Bruce has zero reasons to force him to stay

I got Jason's age in a wiki, I can't remember if it was for New 52, initially, I thought maybe Jason should be 12 when he's adopted but then it made me sad thinking about how it would be such a short Robin run for someone who believed Robin is magic. It's a good tragedy but I'm not here for it. Plus, I want to have Tim be attached to Jason's Robin more.

#batfam #batdad #batman #dc #barbara gordon #oracle #bruce wayne #dick grayson #nightwing #cassandra cain #orphan #black bat #batgirls #red hood #jason todd #spoiler dc #stephanie brown #tim drake #red robin #duke thomas #signal dc #damian wayne #dc robin #robin damian

[ben-10-setting-omnicrom]

I keep seeing people say Ben's character constantly regresses or that he acts like his 10 year old self post season 2 of Alien Force and that's objectively wrong lmao. The series goes over this explicitly multiple times. It explains why he acts arrogant and treats things like a joke.

I fucking hate this take lmao. He never reverted. There's a whole fucking Omniverse episode of 11 year old Gwen being freaked out about 11 year old Ben being mature because his 16 year old mind was in that body at the time.

People who say this and believe it have frankly little to no media literacy or know how teenagers work.

Ben's characterization makes perfect sense in the context of the series.

He was only that mature because he literally had no other choice and saw his grandpa die right in front of him. By the 3rd season he not only knows Max is alive and thus able to help, but he's stopped universal omnicide by the Highbreed.

So obviously once he has more of a support network he can finally relax and be less hyper vigilant. This continues into Omniverse were there's a whole fully staffed Plumber base to help out on Earth now and he's seen so much shit that basically nothing fazes him.

Like Ben LITERALLY SAYS in the Forge of Creation episode that the reason he acts arrogant and jokes is to distract himself from what if scenarios on what could happen if he fails and make sure he doesn't freeze when the going gets tough.

"Everything's not a game.

What we do is important.

If you can't see that, maybe you are just a kid." Kevin

"You think I don't know?

When it's hero time, if I mess up, somebody could die.

From what you told me, if we mess up this time, everybody could die.

....

Maybe that's too much to have in your head when you have to win.

Maybe if I pretend everything's a big joke, when the time comes, I'll be able to do what I have to do." Young Ben

"Is that why you're so arrogant all the time... because you're scared?" Gwen

"No. I'm actually oblivious." Teen Ben

People with those opinions are objectively wrong lol.

Ben doesn't revert to a 10 year old personality wise.

Multiple episodes EXPLICITLY point this out.

The reason Ben learns the same lessons again is because it's a long running kids cartoon. Obviously they're going to go over stuff like what makes a hero multiple times.

All superhero media, most media in fact, are just different flavors of morality tales in different settings.

#ben 10 #ben tennyson #ben 10 omniverse #ben 10 ultimate alien #ben 10 alien force #ben 10 discourse #delusional ben 10 #character exploration

[aihoshiino]

hello!!! you have no idea how hard it is (for me at least haha) to find a blog that talks about ai even semi consistently let alone analyze her this closely so i enjoy ur blog very much! thank you for feeding my ai brainrot :D

anyways any thoughts on ai and hikaru’s relationship? or just speculation since theres not much on it rn? its pretty fascinating to me, they were both children who were abused and exploited as a whole (that and their own respective fucked up relationship and idea of sexual intimacy which might be one of the catalysts for them jumping to sex so quickly despite both (i think?) being aware of the consequences with them being relatively active in the entertainment industry and what not) so its not too hard to imagine them potentially bonding even if it never quite reached genuine love romantic or otherwise

HAPPY TO PROVIDE, ANON! <3 I fully admit that my ramblings are mostly for my own benefit because if I don't talk about Hoshino Ai at least twice a day I will turn into the Oshi no Joker but it's always so nice to hear folks are glad to be along for the ride.

Hikaru and Ai's relationship has always been really fascinating to me, though! It's kind of an interesting subversion on some of our and Aqua's ingrained assumptions about the kind of person the twins' father would be – there's this sort of implicit, unspoken understanding based on the way Aqua focuses primarily on men who were already adults when Ai got pregnant that Ai was victimized in some way which resulted in the twins. Finding out who Hikaru is and the fact that he and Ai were peers immediately casts all of Ai's decisions regarding him in a hugely different light and raises a lot of questions about things that we otherwise assumed went without saying.

That said, given that we know so little about both their relationship and Hikari himself as a person, it's kind of hard to make solid guesses! I sort of have a rough shape of what I imagine it was like in my head just based on Hikaru's emotional function in the story VS what we know about him specifically as a person – Hikaru is very clearly intended to be a sort of bad end/dark mirror of Aqua, so I like to think that his and Ai's relationship probably contained echoes of the two main Aqua romances we see play out in the present. I had like a huge and honestly kind of incomprehensible ramble here originally while I tried to define what I meant by that but then I realized the series itself already lays it out...

In Hikaru, Ai found someone she thought would finally understand and accept her.

In Ai, Hikaru saw light.

Ai is tied to stars and light constantly through the series while also being tied to Kana pretty strongly as well, so I think it makes sense for her to be the Kana/light equivalent in this relationship. Uh, of course, I think I have accidentally implied that this means Akane is paralleling Hikari, so let's move on................................

It's also interesting to take into account 45510 when trying to pick up some info about how this relationship went. The stream at the center of this story is dated just after Ai came back from her hiatus following the birth of the twins, so around when she was 16/17 years old -- closer to the latter and so likely two or three years after her relationship with Hikaru fell apart. With that in mind, Ai's words here feel kind of... I guess, accidentally revealing? In some interesting ways.

When asked to describe her ideal type for a lover, Ai says: ""I guess I'd like to be with someone who doesn't lose their cool with me when I mess things up, ‘cause that happens a lot! Someone who gets all worked up over every little thing would probably get tired of me pretty quick. It’d be unfair for them, so I'd rather be with someone who's not like that.""

And unprompted, she continues from there with this: ""Love is all about trust, isn't it? They call it... 'recipricity', I think? Like, if someone showed me they love me, I'd feel the same way about them. But, I'm a bit of a scaredy-cat. It's tough for me to really believe in words like 'love' and 'like.' I've never actually fallen in love with someone before, so I'm not even sure what it means, you know?""

This is FASCINATING knowing this is Ai on the other side of her relationship with Hikaru. We know that this is Ai's true feelings because even the 45510 narrator, who calls her a liar every time she so much as breathes, admits that she knows Ai is probably telling the truth here. If this is the case, then this basically confirms that however intense the HikaAi relationship was, she didn't feel as though she loved him, which matches with the snippets we've gotten from the DVD and the movie where Ai's parting/break up with Hikaru was centered on Ai admitting that she couldn't love him.

Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean that their bond wasn't genuine or that they didn't have real feelings for each other – I totally agree with your take that they probably gravitated towards each other as victims of abuse generally and CSA specifically and found a sort of comfort and solidarity in recognizing and licking each others' wounds. But obviously, things didn't work out and I think we have a lot of clues already what this fundamental misunderstanding was.

When Ai tells Hikaru "I can't love you" this is an apology, an admission of weakness and self-blame. What Ai is saying is I can't love you, because I'm broken and I can't love anyone.

What Hikaru likely hears is I can't love you because you're broken and nobody could.

That sense of rejection, combined with the trauma he already carried from his abuse would have been bad enough but that Ai got pregnant and broke up with him was likely hugely retraumatizing for him, ripping open the scars of his abuse at Airi Himekawa's hands. He may have even misconstrued Ai's actions as an act of abuse similar to Airi's and everything went spiralling from there.

I don't have any really solid shots to call, unfortunately! So much about Hikaru is up in the air right now, but I think he's a super interesting character and his and Ai's relationship is something I really, really want to eventually see more of.

#oshi no ko #oshi no posting #ai hoshino #onk spoilers #hikaru kamiki #csa mention #abuse mention

[alien-slushie]

Lucy worrying about her rent makes a lot of sense and I don't like that people point it out when they say they don't like her or call her annoying because of it.

As a person who has struggled with financial instability since childhood I understand that anxiety of not having enough money to make rent. And can we acknowledge the fact that Lucy was likely homeless for at least a year?

The way I see it: Lucy grew up in luxury, her entire childhood estate was about big enough for a small town, and then unable and unwilling to deal with her father's emotional abuse and neglect she ran away. Now I'm pretty sure she was able to take some money or some things from the estate in order to sell for money, but likely not enough to last anfull year of living while she was running from her father and in fear of him finding her(and her dream of joining Fairy Tail) she probably could not settle down in one place. So immediately she's on the street, unfamiliar with the common world, and homeless at 16. Her time on the street was probably very hard for her to adjust to. For one she probably didn't know how to blend in and had to ask for help on what was considered normal clothing, she was moving around a lot and not many people would hire a 16 year old so she probably couldn't find very many jobs, she probably had to take public mage jobs for mages without guilds(which I'll assume doesn't pay as musch as the jobs sent to guilds). She could probably only barely scrape together enough money for food, essentials, and travel and learned to use her body in order to get discounts in order to save what money she could.

Not to mention wizards do not have a consistent pay, depending on what jobs they take some pay more, some pay less, and "Team Natsu" barely get the full payment because of their recklessness, which leads to more instability.

The point of this is: Lucy gets too much shit when she is literally fucking amazing, and she was dealt a harder hand then people realise.

I'm not saying she had a harder time than Erza or Natsu or Gray or anything like that, comparing people's traumas and what they've been through is just plain wrong, but I see so many people call her weak, or slutty for using her body for things and what she wears, or all these other things and she just doesn't deserve that kind of slander.

Lucy is a strong, intelligent, resourceful, and bad-ass woman with the beauty of a Goddess and if she hit me I would thank her.

#fairy tail #fairy tail fanfiction #lucy heartfilia #bamf lucy heartfilia #lucy heartifilla #fairy tail lucy #celestial magic #Celestial spirit mage #team natsu #lucy is a queen #rant #begone lucy bashers you are not welcome here

[useless19]

I was kinda hoping for a junior birthday edition of days, i loved junior in this series? I thought you were hinting twards it to. Did you have ideas or was it just a way to reasure bowser that luigi would be back?

So was I! I made a space for it in my drafts doc and everything, but I couldn't figure out enough of a plot to hang it together. It might've been because by that point I was starting to wind down my writing in Days with an aim to finish the series off, or it could have been because it would've required a fairly heavy narrative switch and I was already struggling with Bowser's pov for Day 16.

Or it could've been that I didn't want to have to figure out what a spoilt 8-year-old Koopa prince's birthday presents were going to be!

It's Junior's birthday, so it's going to be the most coolest awesomest day of the entire year! -the planned summary

Like King Boo, I left myself the option of writing Junior's birthday just in case. I've honestly found this to be pretty useful for constructing the series as a whole. Things happen that the narrative doesn't show (Luigi thinks about taking Junior Lava Bubble fishing one time, but we never see that), and allowing myself the freedom of not having to write it meant that I managed to finish more other parts than I ever thought I would when starting.

Still, I know roughly where the characters are at on Day 51 (aka Junior's birthday), so let's have a look at them, shall we?

Luigi extends his visit so he leaves the day after Junior's birthday. It's much easier for him to agree to stay longer than it is for him to commit to a longer stay before he arrives. He gets comfortable where he is. He spent the previous day making sure Junior knew he was going to leave after his birthday so that he wouldn't have to keep reminding Junior on his birthday and bring the mood down. Luigi likes a good party and he doesn't have to be the centre of attention, so he has a great time.

Bowser likes a party even more than Luigi and his son is growing up so well. He's way more tolerant of destructive antics than most parents too (he's got minions to deal with mess and rebuilding). He also starts to realise some of Luigi's problems when it comes to visiting; ie that he's very suggestible. It's not an entirely conscious observation, but he's less worried when Luigi leaves and spends more than a week away, despite saying that he was only going for a week. There's always going to be some lag. Email updates help (even if the first one is from a long-suffering Mario).

(If anyone other than me did the maths and figured out that Luigi wouldn't actually be at Bowser's castle for Day 69, assuming a consistent week-in-the-Mushroom-Kingdom/week-in-Bowser's-castle, this is why. It's always a bit more than a week-long visit).

And, of course, Junior. He's more resilient than Bowser in the being abandoned department, though he's still a bratty kid who's used to having his own way. He's very determined to show Luigi every single last one of his presents so Luigi will know what he's missing out on if he goes ahead with his stupid leaving plan. Similarly, the Koopalings also get the full range, but they have to leave in dribs and drabs over the next week too.

I guess part of why I couldn't figure out a plot was because Junior is going to be getting more and more intense and overexcited as his birthday party goes on and that would narrow the focus too much to be interesting.

(Maybe the lesson here is that putting it in Junior's pov was a bad call and I should've been trying to see Luigi's thoughts on the whole thing).

I don't know what Luigi would get Junior. He'd probably play it safe and do some art supplies (which are fine, but nothing super exciting and he gets a bit miffed when Junior moves on fairly quickly). He also delivers a letter from Peach (which Junior initially dismisses as boring), with an invitation to a brand new tournament she's organising (I'd have just picked a random sport that's not a main Mario tie-in game, or maybe one of the less represented sports like one of the Olympic ones). Luigi can't remember speaking with her about that, but he must've said enough for her to do this. Junior's quite excited over this - it's his own invitation, not just his dad's!

I also imagine that Mario sends something, maybe food? Possibly a bunch of hot sauce bottles from the various places he's helped out (they won't stop sending them and, while he likes spicy food, he can't eat this much!)? He puts the same amount of effort into it as he would a nephew. Luigi's also surprised at this and has to deal with the (actually super obvious in hindsight) realisation that he's sort of on his way to becoming Junior's step-dad, not just a regular old babysitter.

(Yeah, this would've been a challenge to properly depict in Junior's pov. Possibly an interesting one though.)

It was definitely set up more as potential day for writing, but it was useful to help reassure Bowser once I'd added it.

#bowuigi #days #this got long #ask

[ohplagg]

I Love Yoo Timeline Part 1/4

The Evidence Part 1

This is part 1 of 4 of my I Love Yoo Timeline as of Episode 241.

Part 1 and 2 consists of laying out all the detailed evidence with descriptions, screenshots and episode number.

Part 3 consists of explaining the evidence, connecting the dates and some math because the I Love Yoo universe (or as I like to call it, Yooniverse) uses letters instead of numbers to represent official years.

Part 4 is the I Love Yoo Timeline.

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Seeing Nessa alive in Kousuke's flashback of his highschool graduation day made me question everything I though I knew about the timeline so I have read, reread, and re-reread this webtoon; I've researched old reddit and tumblr posts, Quimchee's old Curious Cat answers, the wiki, and so much more.

(Just in case someone is worried, all information presented is free and publicly available. I was told that in Quimchee's patreon I could possibly find more exact information but I decided against looking there since I wouldn't be able to share my findings outside of patreon and my goal is for everyone who is a fan of I Love Yoo to be able to see this mega post.)

Because of the huge ammount of information I've decided to split my original post in 4 different parts so it's easier for everyone (including myself) to come back and find the information without having to endlessly scroll.

I encourage you all to go read/reread I Love Yoo with the new information you learn with this timeline in mind because oohhh boy does the story hit different. (Also take that opportunity to like all the episodes to support Quimchee!)

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Turns out there's a lot of information in a 7+ year old, 240+ episode long webtoon; who would have though? Not me!

Anyways, there's so much information scattered all over the place and everything is so connected to everything that it was hard to organize it.

The evidence and information is in ' Whatever Order I Remembered It' order , but even so I tried my best to keep it organized by categories.

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Episode 222 News articles

Here we got a lot of information in the presentation of news articles. So I'll keep this information as it's own category.

Let's read them up close.

Let's start with "Randulph Hannesson appointed as temporary Chairman of Hirahara Corp"

In it, it states how in March 27, 20WZ Rand gets appointed as temporary Chairman of the Board. At the same time, according to the public, he is "seeing" (dating?) Yui. Before becoming temporary Chairman of the Board (which we know he became permanent) he was CFO of Hirahara Corp. And before that he "founded a successful finance firm, Hannsesson Finance, which Hirahara Corp. has since acquired."

Now let's focus on the newspaper that's right under. In it, it talks about how an ilegal immigrant woman was found dead (assumed to be suicide) and her son is no where to be found. All arrows point to this woman being Nessa, Nol's mom.

It doesn't have a title but it does have a date. Newspapers normally publish these type of news the following morning from which the news happened meaning that Nessa died December 21st, 20XP

No wonder Nol hates his birthday week.

On the US Asia Daily Herald newspaper, "Chairman of Investment Giant Hirahara Corp to Step Down." When Rand was still CFO he was one of the witnesses that helped Young-Chul Kim be held accountable for all the SA he did. So that's where Nol got his sense of respecting and standing up for women. And that this happend in Octobre 31st, 20WY

Not really adding information to the timeline but just in case someone doesn't know, Yu-Jing has the police department interview transcripts for Nessa's death investigation

Lastly we have "Prestigious Prep School Closes SA Investiagtion With No Charges Filed" where it states that on March 20XW the 16-month long investigation of 50 years of SA with over 100 cases was basically dismissed.

Right before Nol was sent to the mental facility

Episode 150

Episode 150 starts with a flashback right after the brother incident where Nol is getting locked up in the mental facility ambulance. (This is confirmed in episode 210 because the dialogue matches up with the one in Kousuke's flashback)

And right after the flashback we get this news article that Yu-Jing has. "Troubled Child, Aftermath of the Hirahara Extra Marrital Affair."

So now we know that the brother incident that got Nol into the mental facility happened 1 year after the supposed marriage reconciliation between Yui and Rand.

Episode 210

We see a glimpse of the immediate aftermath of the incident.

It happened at night while raining.

Kousuke doesn't know what happened.

Yui's hand is bruised.

Nol is taken directly to the "Hirahara Mental Health Institute"

I'm very proud of my following discovery

The trees have no leaves.

Why is leafless trees so important and why am I so proud of my finding? Because trees lose their leaves during the Fall and by Winter they are completely leafless. This whole scene has all trees leafless meaning that it's winter. But hold on, it can't be winter winter because it's raining and not snowing. Bingo. It's early winter. And winter starts December 21st.

Episode 239

The pain I felt reading this after I figured out when in the timeline this happens.. my heart hurts.

This is the brother incident (at least the start of it).

Nol had no prior connection/relationship to the Hirahara's before this (he used the address on the letter's Rand send his mother to find them)

Nol went to Kousuke's house because he needs help, because he has no where else to go because his mother is gone.

If you're having a hard time keeping up, all this basically means the night Nessa died Nol went to look for Rand and his other family for help which is also the same night the brother incident happened which got Nol locked up in the Mental Facility which is why in both news articles Nol's whereabouts are unknown, because he was immediately taken away. (and all of this happened on his birthday :D).

After Nol got out of the mental facility

Episode 99

Nol presents himself using the name Yeong-gi.

Dieter and Nol met on the summer right before their first year of highschool.

Dieter met Nol before Soushi did.

At this moment in time it's been 5 years since Nol last saw his mom.

Episode 157

Nol was trying to befriend Soushi at the same time Kousuke was still in college.

Episode 155

Nol got out of the Mental Facility "roughly 6 years ago"

Nol spent "almost 2 years" inside the mental facility.

Kousuke mentions that the Yeong-gi name was something he started using after he came out of the Mental facility.

Episode 205

A while after Nol got out of the mental facility, Nana arrived.

"Until recently, I've been by myself."

Episode 129

Nana and Yui met for the first time after 5 years

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This is just part 1 of 4. Go keep reading:

Part 2: The Evidence Part 2

Part 3: Math and connecting the dots

Part 4: The Timeline

#i love yoo #i love yoo webtoon #quimchee #shin ae yoo #kousuke hirahara #nol hirahara #yeong gi hirahara #yui hirahara #nolan lochlainn #rand hirahara #ilyoo #webtoon #i love yoo timeline

[those-crybaby-tears]

𝐵𝐿𝑂𝐺 𝑅𝑈𝐿𝐸𝑆!

𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗪𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗘𝗥

★ Howdy! I'm Emm and I'm the writer of this blog, I use all pronouns and I'm 16. I wanted to start this blog because I find a particular interest in writing. I hope my writing skills are satisfactory for all of you (≧▽≦)

★ I initially planned to write only for the Creepypasta fandom, however I also accept requests from the Hazbin Hotel, Helluva Boss, SCP, Underverse and Undertale + AUs fandoms!!

★ Writing for me is a pastime and, since I'm still in school, I won't be able to publish with any specific consistency ๐·°(৹˃̵﹏˂̵৹)°·๐

★ Of course, I will try to write everything as soon as possible!

𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗦 𝗜 𝗪𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗘/𝗜 𝗗𝗢𝗡𝗧 𝗪𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗘 𝗙𝗢𝗥

★ As for Helluva Boss, SCP, Underverse and Undertale + AUs characters I will write for any of them, the only exceptions concern some Hazbin Hotel and Creepypasta characters.

★ Regarding Hazbin Hotel I would prefer to avoid any kind of request regarding Valentino and the rape issue.

★ I know that Valentino is a bad character, since he is a sinner, however I don't feel comfortable and I don't think it's right to write about rape with such "lightness" if I can define it that way.

★ This doesn't mean I won't write for Valentino, I think it's unfair to put his character aside simply because of this. Obviously what he does is horrible but he's just as bad as, for example, Rosie.

★ Regarding Creepypasta I would like to avoid writing for: S. Offenderman and Dr. Smiley.

★ As for S. Offenderman: it's the same motivation I gave for Valentino. This means I will still write for him but I'll avoid anything rape related.

★ For Dr. Smiley the reason seems obvious to me.

𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗦𝗜𝗧𝗨𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦/𝗥𝗘𝗤𝗨𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗦 𝗜 𝗪𝗜𝗟𝗟 𝗔𝗖𝗖𝗘𝗣𝗧/𝗪𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗘

★ headcanons;

★ prompts;

★ fanfictions;

★ friendship relationships;

★ romantic relationships;

★ gore;

★ angst;

★ character x reader.

𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗦𝗜𝗧𝗨𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦/𝗥𝗘𝗤𝗨𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗦 𝗜 𝗪𝗢𝗡𝗧 𝗔𝗖𝗖𝗘𝗣𝗧/𝗪𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗘

★ rape;

★ incest;

★ pedophilia;

★ zoophilia;

★ anything that goes against minorities;

★ character x character;

★ NSFW (temporarily).

𝗕𝗘𝗡 𝗗𝗥𝗢𝗪𝗡𝗘𝗗

★ I felt obliged to make a small aside for the character of 'BEN DROWNED' since I know that in the fandom there are conflicting ideas about his character.

★ I have a slightly particular vision of 'BEN'.

★ In fact, there are 3 characters who have this name: Ben, Benjamin and B.E.N.

★ I will write headcanons for them later, however I wanted to specify their ages.

★ Ben is an adult, around 22 years old.

★ Benjamin is a young teen, around 12 years old.

★ B.E.N have no age, yet they take the form of a young teen.

𝑇𝐻𝐴𝑁𝐾𝑆 𝐹𝑂𝑅 𝑌𝑂𝑈𝑅 𝐴𝑇𝑇𝐸𝑁𝑇𝐼𝑂𝑁!

#creepypasta x reader #ben drowned #eyeless jack #smile dog #laughing jack #tobias erin rogers #masky #hoodie #slenderman #request #new blog #nina the killer #jane the killer #homicidal liu #splendorman #candy pop #jason the toymaker #creepypasta #proxy #slender proxy #reader #character x reader #trenderman #offenderman #clockwork #jane arkensaw #hazbin hotel #underverse #undertale #scp fandom

[xisco-lozdob]

What do we know of Dark Gallifrey?

So, yesterday Big finish finally announced a new range titled Dark Gallifrey. The initial reveal left me underwhelmed because it didn't look as Gallifrey-oriented as I'd at first thought, but some of the comments the creators have posted afterwards are making me warm up to the idea.

So, first of all, it's going to be "a brand-new series showcasing the most chaotic, mischievous and evil Time Lords the planet has ever produced" and it consists of 8 different trilogies, each focusing on one these dark children of Gallifrey. The fact that three of those were given to three different incarnations of the Master who all already have their own ranges gave me pause, but it could be alright if the themes and focus is distinct enough.

However, the Monk and the Nun and, more importantly, Morbius (the incarnation played by Samuel West from the 8DAs 16 years ago) also have their own trilogies. Morbius' one is actually the opening act of the series, though we don't know exactly when it's set. But Morbius is always a great character to delve into Gallifreyan lore.

First thing I want to point out is that they chose to use the same Gallifrey logo as the Gallifrey series, so at the very least they think it should be branded the same way. So we don't only have a link through the title choice but also the same visual identity.

Now, even if John Dorney, writer and script editor for the Morbius trilogy, said this:

It’s completely disconnected from regular Gallifrey.

It doesn't have to mean it's disconnected from Gallifrey the planet, and its history, which, for me, is the most important part, just that it's disconnected from the main cast of the series: Romana, Leela, Narvin and Braxiatel.

So let's see what the other creatives are saying. Rob Valentine, who serves as producer for the series, had this to say:

Dark Gallifrey is a sprawling, multi-story event in which all the most dastardly Time Lords are being let out of the box in various unexpected ways. [...] ...and, behind it all, something massive is brewing.

That means there's some overarching theme or threat in the shadows, probably to be resolved in the last trilogy. What I think is that, more likely than not, it's not going to be a big crossover kind of deal. Maybe some characters and even a couple of the trilogy protagonists are going to be there, but, from what is know, I surmise that we'll be looking at a... Rassilon? trilogy which ties together things that have been set up during the others, but we won't know they have been until we have all the pieces. Let me explain.

Firstly, and something which I really like the sound of, from the Big Finish Talk Back panel at Gally1, they want to do more experimental stories and Dark Gallifrey is part of that.

Dorney, again, said that these are:

Writer led concept albums full of bold creativity. [...] these are not your standard stories.

Whereas Scott Handcock, director and script editor for the War Master trilogy, teased that there are "baffling surprises" and that he doesn't know how his trilogy pieces together with the other ones.

I do like that this range seems to be based on allowing the creators freedom to tell the story they want to tell, so they can experiment with the storylelling and the format. Valentine also says there are all sorts of stories, from darker ones to some that are more comic. But, while Handcock seems to confirm he wasn't privy to all the plans for the range, I read that as implying he did know there was something that linked the trilogies together, but that due to his involvement being with just this trilogy in particular, he didn't need to know every detail.

Still, one last piece of information from Dorney, tells me it's particularly not necessary for the individual creators to know how it all pieces together (if the producers did a good job in keeping tabs):

Just to repeat what I said on the panel this series is influenced by things like Alan Ayckbourn’s Norman Conquests, the old Transformers comic strip Aspects of Evil and Chris Ware’s magnificent Building Stories. [...] it inspired the entire series.

All of these have one particularity in common: they're stories that build a bigger tapestry if put together, with multiple layers of storytelling. But they still work as your basic anthology.

But why do I think it'll all come together with a Rassilon story? Well, for that let's go to writer Tim Foley's blogpost with some visual clues. All the pictures are really interesting, but two in particular piqued my interest. (Btw, Foley seems to have worked at least on the Morbius trilogy with Dorney.)

The first illustration comes from the DWM story The Tides of Time. This story features Rassilon (actually his first appearance in any medium) and the Matrix, as well as the Higher Evolutionaries, a group of ancient and powerful time-aware beings. Basically, they're to Gallifrey's Temporal Powers what Division sorta is to the CIA.

The other image is a rendition by Daryl Joyce of Ancient Gallifrey, from the Lungbarrow ebook. You all know what kinds of implications this has. I really hope we take a long overdue trip to other episodes in Gallifrey's History. This is what I'm expecting (hoping) from this series and, in a way, the Fugitive Doctor's one.

Will we have references and nods to other stories that built on the mythology and history of Gallifrey (and not just those two, Morbius being a main character has the potential to link with some more obscure things)? I don't know but I hope so.

I think that's all the information we have. I don't even really know what I want to say with this post, just wanted to collect all this somewhere, and I guess speculate a bit there at the end.

I really hope this series ends up being as special as it promises.

#doctor who #big finish #big finish gallifrey #dark gallifrey #rassilon #lungbarrow #ancient gallifrey #the master #the monk #morbius #long post

[seek--rest]

Final Thoughts on The Dumb Teen Show

I'm too old for this media, this media is not written or meant for me.

Alas, we move:

It's the finale and I must finally speak my truth. I have not nor will I ever give a shit about Taylor and Steven. Taylor was a terrible friend to Belly and I'm sorry, I never forgave her for that. Cheating is despicable and I know that's rich coming from a show that's highlighting a love triangle between brothers but that's just how it is. Taylor is boring and annoying, Steven is grating as a person and as a brother and all the chatter of how "this show is bad but at least we have Steve and Taylor" I simply cannot relate to any of you!! They're bad people and not even in an interesting can't wait to root for them kind of way they're just Bad and more offensively, Boring.

JEREMIAH GET BEHIND ME. The way you deserve so much better in this show and in this universe. I've long been Team Jeremiah in the sense that everyone needs some fucking therapy (himself included) and that he needs to be in a better universe, with a better show and better writers. This is a boy that is consistently pulled around, has to fake a smile because that's all that is expected of him and the (1) time he actually shares his frustrations in a way that isn't absolutely perfect, he's mistreated by damn near everyone including the fandom. Everything about him in the last episode is a person that has so much maturity in a way that just doesn't make sense considering the hell he's been through. He's the better person.

Which was no help to fucking Susannah!!!!!!!! I've long since lamented that the show dropped the ball on exploring the real, tangible grief of Laurel in losing her Susannah and the more the season went on, the more frustrated I was because SUSANNAH IS A TERRIBLE MOTHER. She's arguably a shit sister. She is, within the narrative itself without looking for subtext, someone who is really fucked up! And what do we have to show for it! Nothing! The show did absolutely NOTHING with what they set up for her and never once interrogates how fucking demented she is to tell a fucking sixteen year old on her death bed to watch out for Conrad. poor Conrad. You love Conrad. He loves you. This isn't even because I think Jeremiah is the better person/brother (I do) but on any level you swing it, that is seriously fucked up to ask that of a teenager. As a grown ass woman!! What is wrong with you! Why are you asking her to watch out for your grown ass son AND ONLY the one son? When Jeremiah walked into the room after that?? It's like fuck did you forget you're a mother to TWO people here?

Removing Jeremiah entirely, that would still be so supremely fucked up and that is just one thing of the many things that have shown cracks in Susannah's life and experiences that now? We'll never get to explore. Laurel, hold my hand. Go to therapy with me. You will see the truth in time.

Conrad is a fucking terror of a human being. I'm sorry, I cannot understand how or why he has so many fucking defenders especially from anyone with a fully developed prefrontal cortex. "He's mourning his mother" "he doesn't know how to express his feelings" "love it when he's petty! king!" like what is wrong with all of you. This isn't to say "omg your ship is soooo bad because it's unhealthy" because whatever, do what you want. But for so many to argue with their whole chests that Conrad is like an angel sent from heaven that is tortured and misunderstood and to mean that with utter sincerity has me convinced 1) every single one of you is also 16, never been in love before and/or in love with the toxicity of an emo bad boy or 2) loves the toxic drama. Which if it's the second, that's fine! But it's rare (if ever) that it's someone acknowledging that Conrad is a big fucking red flag.

I know the drill. I know what the endgame is. I haven't read the books but I don't have to. I understand Narratives. Conrad is going to "grow" and "develop" and the narrative will "prove" that fuck whatever Belly chooses, fuck the objectively more mature and more insightful and person who actively communicates with Belly even as a teenager that is Jeremiah, the show will contrive some way to bring Belly and Conrad together because they're Meant to Be or some shit.

Fuck fate. Fuck having to be emotionally manipulated and twisted around. Fuck having to being told that you're not mature enough and grow up from the same person throwing constant temper tantrums. Fuck the age difference honestly. Fuck the fact that this person always saw her as a little kid until she flirted with someone else.

I don't condone violence but Laurel's slap? Idk I think Belly needed that reality check. She needs to leave both of these boys alone. She needs to be in therapy, she needs to be single, and needs to let go of this idea that the world revolves around her.

I hate this dumb show so fucking much.

Can't wait for the next season.

#seek streams #the summer i turned pretty #the summer i turned pretty spoilers #tsitp #tsitp spoilers