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definitely-not-a-wasp · 3 years

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I'm okay with a bunch of disorganized rambling honestly 😂. But if I had to narrow it down then I guess I want to know about main and side characters and how they compare to the original?

I know that tumblr is the Prime Site for disorganized rambling, but I have perfectionism issues. But that is a great question, nonnie, and I will be happy to ramble is a slightly less disorganized fashion.

When reading Maximum Ride as a somewhat-formed adult who discovered they enjoy English classes about 3.5 years ago, I noticed that JP, when writing, doesn't understand consistency. At all. Which means, in many ways, I have a free sandbox to work with.

Spoilers for my rewrite WIP, because I strongly believe that if a story would no longer be good if one had spoilers, then it wasn’t a good story in the first place.

I'm trying to keep the backstories the same, plus or minus the scientific method and a few characters (RIP my OCs. I want to bring you back so bad but it wouldn't fit with the thematic narrative). I've mostly kept their (starting) abilities the same, too. Without further ado, I'm going to introduce some WorldBuilding. (If I'm good at nothing else, I'm good at world building)

First off. Logically.

How are they getting Cable?

How are they getting internet?

How are they getting money to eat and stuff?

JP's answer: handwave it off. Sometimes you need to ignore logistics for the sake of plot. This is an answer I'd accept from an author that I like, such as Julie Kagawa, that makes amazing worlds, characters, and narratives that I will happily handwave a few things that wouldn't work in the real world. James Patterson, on the other hand, did not make any of that; he made a cool concept, some good rough-draft characters, and nothing else, and therefore this is an unforgivable sin.

Wasp's answer: They are not getting any of that.

Introducing Cottagecore.

The house is off the grid. Solar Panels and a wind turbine create electricity. They have their own well. They grow their own food, raise livestock for eggs, milk, and wool, and trap fish for meat. They get money through dumpster diving and pawning. They still have to steal half of the necessities they can’t make themselves. They do have a TV, but it can access about three channels on a clear day. Internet is only a thing when they go to the public library.

Giving the flock a background that’s heavy in farming and livestock rearing shores up the plot holes mentioned above, but in my opinion, ties the flock more tightly to the environment, thus giving them something tangible to lose when they have to leave the E-shaped house. Because they’re not just leaving a house and a safety net— they’re leaving their entire way of life with no promise of getting it back. It also gives them a tangible connection to the earth in case I want to actually pursue the global warming themes.

Main Characters

Maximum “Max” Ride (Birthname: nonexistent)

First off, I'm letting her be Latina, James Patterson.

In the original, Max was very much the headstrong, independent, action girl. Leaning into Strong Female Character (TM), but overall she had a strong, solid foundation and enough character consistency through the first three books for me to not have to just make an entire new character. However, I felt that she was, in some ways, a bit too Action-Girl and Strong and Capable. Yes, Max is incredible and competent, but she’s also fourteen. She’s a child.

In the rewrite, Max’s character is still headstrong, independent, capable, and sometimes not the best at listening to others. All of that’s the same. But she’s that way not because of girlboss energy, but because there’s no one else to do it. She doesn’t want to lead, necessarily. She wants to get some rest and let someone else handle the problems life keeps throwing at her. But she knows if she did that, the responsibility of leader would fall to Fang and Iggy, and she can’t ask that of them. She doesn’t want to place that burden on anyone else (Look, there’s a reason I chose Ayano’s Theory of Happiness as one of her signifier songs, okay?). Her narrative is very much centered around burden, and also around loss. She lost her cultural heritage when she was taken away from her birth family, she lost her childhood to being a leader, she lost a good deal of her friends to the school (RIP my OCs), she lost Jeb, and then she lost her stability. And she’s going to lose a lot more before the end of the story. So a lot of her character arc deals with learning that there are some things she can’t fix, some things that can’t be recovered. She can’t get the E-shaped house back. She can’t get her Little Baby Angel back, even after they rescue her. She can’t get her friends back from the school. And instead of working so hard to recover those or find something to replace them, she has to learn to live with that sense of loss and move on with her life without feeling guilty for leaving things behind. And she has to learn that asking for help and sharing her burden is selfish or weak.

Other changes I made that don’t necessarily fit into her narrative arc, but you asked for rambling so rambling you shall get:

Max hallucinates, because mental illness is also a prominent theme in the rewrite. She doesn’t have a psychotic disorder, but her C-PTSD causes visual/audio hallucinations, especially when she’s stressed or sleep deprived.

Max ends up having a Gender Discovery throughout the story and goes by He/She pronouns eventually. I don’t know when, but it will happen.

As far as genetic modifications/special quirks go, she can fly faster than the rest of the flock, but not 300 miles per hour. She averages about sixty mph with diving speeds of 240. She cannot breathe underwater or shut down her organs on command. She also has the Super Special Power to predict the weather, but that’s not because of genetics, it’s because she has chronic pain in her right arm that gets worse when weather fronts change.

Her favored weapon is her trusty rebar that she picked up from a condemned building. I think she’s going to name it eventually but I don’t know what yet.

Fang (Birth name: Gabriel Xue)

In canon, Fang is characterized in early books by being the “dark, strong, silent type”. He’s probably the most reserved member of the flock, to the point of falling into the Brooding Mystery Man trope in parts of the book. They care a lot, but they’re not the best at conveying that, especially with the younger members of the flock, and at times their high empathy leads them to making mistakes. Despite the high empathy, he’s often compared to a robot due to his lack of expression and external emotions.

Well, first change is that they’re not a man, so jot that down—

If Max’s narrative is centered around burden and loss, I would probably say that Fang’s is centered around humanity and moving on. None of the flock was treated as human while in the school, but Fang was more often than not treated like a wild animal due to “behavioral issues”, and therefore had and continues to have a difficult time considering themselves real and alive, let alone human. This manifests through a several different ways— where in canon Fang definitely had a ‘fight’ reaction, in the re-write they have a ‘freeze’ or ‘shut down’ instinct. They’re selectively mute for multiple reasons (including derealization, jaw pain, the fact that they didn’t learn how to speak until they were 10, and genuinely forgetting it’s something they’re capable of), a period of Cotard’s syndrome, and a tendancy towards self-loathing and self-sacrifice. In short, Fang is still halfway stuck in the mindset that most of the flock grew out of when they escaped in the school, and doesn’t know how to move past it.

Much of their character arc revolves around not necessarily seeing themselves as human, but learning to treat themselves as human even when they don’t feel like one (or even feel real), and knowing that just because they don’t feel human all the time doesn’t mean anyone else can treat them the same. They never start easily expressing their emotions, and they’re always going to be selectively mute, but they learn to accept that those aspects of themself aren’t character flaws or signs that they’re sub-human.

Other additions to Fang’s character include:

They don’t get their hair cut in New York. It stays long through the entire series. They have the longest hair in the flock by the end of the series, and they can wear it in so many styles.

Fang uses they/it pronouns because themes of reclaiming the weapons used against it and, more importantly, Gender.

They’re actually really good at spelling compared to the rest of the flock, because they and Iggy communicate with Print-On-Palm when they’re nonverbal, and they’re nonverbal for some pretty long stretches of time.

They and Max have... zero romantic tension. At all. There is none. The number of times Max calls them her sibling/little sibling in the first arc alone is staggering, and that will not change.

Igneous “Iggy” (Birthname: Jamsetta “Jamie” Griffiths)

I’ve talked about Iggy before. Canon doesn’t give us much to go off of, but from what’s shown, he’s smart, sarcastic, has sharper edges than Fang and Max, and also has a sizable ruthless streak. So that’s what I have to go off of.

The big difference between Iggy and Fang&Max is that Iggy has a much better memory of the School. Most of the flock have areas (months or years) that they don’t remember, or people that they’ve blocked from their mind, but Iggy... doesn’t. So he’s the one that remembers all of the other AVIAN test subjects that were old enough to have names and identities but died due to complications. Max might have the burden of leadership, but he has the burden of memory. And that has lead to both a massive fucking guilt complex, because why did he survive when they didn’t, and, as mentioned above, a ruthless streak that he doesn’t shy away from.

Which is to say, by the end of the story, Iggy has the highest kill count.

I love, love writing Iggy next to Max and Fang. I love writing Iggy next to Gazzy and Nudge. Because, I say this with all of the love of the world, but Iggy is not a good person. He is loyalty and love incarnate, and the world can burn down if he and his siblings are safe. Max and Fang will always try to save as many people as they can. They will wonder what’s wrong with them the first time they kill and don’t have a mental breakdown about it. They are good in a way that Iggy is not. He’s okay with killing Erasers. He’s okay with killing humans. He’s okay with killing people who might not necessarily deserve it, if they show themselves as a threat or are simply in the blast radius. He knows perfectly well that most of those Erasers he’s murdering are four and five and he is okay with that, because a lot of the AVIANs were that age when they died. (Yeah, in the rewrite it’s not Fang who has an issue with Ari; it’s Iggy who wants the 7-year-old wolf-boy dead.)

And this is, of course, juxtaposed with Iggy being really, really good with Nudge and Gazzy (especially in the beginning). Because, again, he actually remembers being a child. He remembers a lot of kids that died and is therefore fiercely protective of the kids that didn’t, as well as fiercely protective of the innocence that he never got. So he’s the one that cooks their favorite foods when they’re having a bad day, always makes time when they want to talk about something, and convinces Max to let them go to that toy store in New York because, yeah, he Max and Fang aren’t kids. They never were. But Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel can be. (And if he has to be a murderer to preserve that, then he’s perfectly okay with that.)

He and Angel don’t get along very well, though. The telepath doesn’t like hanging out with the person with the most clear memories of the school.

Other additions:

Iggy is trans and says trans rights

He also has paranoid episodes, because C-PTSD. Sometimes they’re very helpful. Sometimes they are not.

I actually decided that he’s one of the flock that doesn’t meet their parents. I know in canon he did, but I always found that very clunky because it didn’t add to his character. He was one of the characters who, until it was convenient for the plot, seemed to care the least about his family. I’d much rather give that to a character whose arc would benefit from it.

Iggy! Gets! Older Sibling Rights! Seriously, he’s two months younger than Fang, he is just as capable.

Iggy does not know braille because Jeb decided it wasn’t necessary for him to know. Iggy is also the best speller in the flock, because Print-on-Palm was the only way to talk to Fang for a solid year. Yes he mocks everyone over this.

Iggy is the only member of the flock that enjoys swimming and can take into the air from water. Everyone else in the flock is incredibly jealous.

Nudge (Birthname: Monique Robinson)

If Iggy is defined by his memories, Nudge is his polar opposite. She was seven when she left the School, but she has next to no memories of it. She is missing a lot of time in the first year she escaped. And that causes... a lot of things. It makes her feel disconnected from her older siblings, it gives her the ability to function in society in a way the other’s can’t, it lets her feel less grief over the ones that didn’t make it and she doesn’t remember, it makes her feel guilty that she doesn’t remember what she’s old enough to know.

Basically, in order for me to keep the character of Nudge as I saw her (more extroverted, not afraid of the world, fascinated with humans like her siblings aren’t, desiring to fit in instead of isolate), I had to put a little bit of distance between her and the flock. Of course, she loves them— that will in no way change— but she’s old enough that she should remember the school (and her dead friends) unlike Gazzy and Angel, but she can’t, and she very much fears forgetting the flock if anything happens to them. So she’s trying desperately to keep the flock close and wants desperately to experience the world at the same time, and doesn’t know what to do when she can’t have both. That’s her biggest character conflict throughout the series, along with that in-between area where she’s not quite where her older siblings are but understands so much more than Gazzy and Angel, and where she stands in that.

So yeah. Nudge’s journey is that in looking for belonging in the world, in her family, and in herself.

This is why she’s one of the ones that gets to find her parent, James Patterson.

Other additions include:

She never straightens her hair. Never. Her resources at the E-shaped house aren’t perfect, but she still has learned how to take care of her hair and has a few styles she cycles through.

She becomes the default person Max sics on people when the flock is trying to befriend them. Also their de-facto diplomat around strangers.

As in canon, she does take some time away from the flock to expirience ‘normal life’. This does not last long due to the stress of being separated from her siblings/not being able to help them and [REDACTED]

Nudge is... not the only person in her head. I’m not focusing on it much because she doesn’t actually know and neither does the flock (I don’t know if they ever figure it out during the series, either), but she has dissociative identity disorder. She’s not aware of her alter(s?). Her alter isn’t super aware of her, either.

The alter that I’ve developed is named Oxy and is not super aware of the outside world. In her eyes, she’s still seven and they’re still at the School. She would not recognize the body as her own if she looked in a mirror.

Nudge actually leaves the flock for a while to pursue her dream of living a normal life. She deserves it. She learns how to make muffins and the basics of software development. These things are unrelated.

Gasman (Birthname: No first name, surname “Falk”)

Honestly, writing Gazzy is kind of hard for me. Partially because I’m not great at writing kids, and partially because I feel like he’s a pretty surface-level character in-series that... isn’t super compelling in canon. But even if that’s the case, I try to treat all of my characters with respect, so here we go. In my rewrite, he escaped when he was four, which was half a lifetime ago for him, so his memories are ill-defined. Therefore, he managed to circumvent a lot of the trauma that the rest of the kids have, and not in the way Nudge did, which is by creating an elaborate blockage in her memories.

Which means Gazzy... really doesn’t know how to deal with all of this traumatic stuff happening. So much of his development turns out to be a coming-of-age narrative. Learning how to deal with the horrors of what his siblings grew up with. Learning the fears that they had the entire time. Losing his innocence when everyone around him never had it in the first place, and being so terribly alone because of it. Because, really, how can you explain such a deep loss to people who never had what he had? How can they help in a way that matters?

Also, relationship-wise, I’m slowly deteriorating the relationship between him and Iggy. Slowly. Or, changing it, at least. Gazzy hero-worships Iggy in-series, and for good reason, because Iggy is super cool, especially in the eyes of an eight-year-old, and especially when Iggy has taken care to cultivate parts of his behaviors to be child-friendly. Part of growing up is seeing the flaws in your heroes, and Gazzy has to learn how to deal with it. End of the series Gazzy is much less closer to Iggy than beginning of the series Gazzy, and neither of them are really okay with that, but they learn to live with it, because that’s really all they can do.

Notes:

I’m keeping the mimickry! It plays a bit of a bigger role because that’s how Gazzy learned to talk. I’m debating whether or not he has his own voice or if he just borrows the flock’s as he sees fit. He also uses it to scream really loudly and occaisonally burst the eardrums of Erasers.

At one point he cosplays as Jessica Jones. No you don’t get any more context than this.

He has a horrible sense of fashion.

I’m changing his name eventually because it sucks. He’s either going to change it to Gannet, Garrison, or Ivy Mike temporarily, and permanently to Zephyr. (I never said I was going to make his name GOOD, because he’s eight, but it’s changing. You’re welcome.)

Angel (Birthname: No first name, surname “Falk”)

It’s just... a completely different character, at this point. I’ve changed so many things about her in an attempt to make her consistent and act like a six-year-old and work in the whole “telepath before she has a solid sense of identity”, so it’s a different character. Also, I’m tired of writing coherently or in paragraphs, so have some interesting facts.

She has epilepsy! Super severe epilepsy! I think she might also develop juvenile MS in the future because her brain has so many scars from being a fucking six-year-old telepath. There’s no way she could get out of that unscathed.

She has more memories of the school than Gazzy, but only because she keeps accidentally reading the minds of Max, Fang, and Iggy. On a related note, she interacts with Iggy as little as possible.

The mind reading means that she has a hard time developing as a normal child with a normal sense of identity or reality. She can’t tell how much people are individual people and how much they’re just extensions of her. Conversely, she can’t tell how much of herself is actually her instead of the thoughts/opinions/identities of someone else. It’s... kinda fucked? But also super not-her-fault.

She’s albino because white wings. Also, because I thought it was cool. This also means that her vision sucks, though. Also she has the biggest straw sunhat and the most stylish sunglasses a six-year-old can have.

She’s responsible for Max shaving her hair off.

She has the highest swear count because I think it’s funny. She’s the only person allowed to say the fuck word in writing. Everyone else can only say ‘hell’ and the occasionally ‘damn’ but she can say whatever she wants for dramatic and comedic value.

She is NOT THE FUCKING VOICE, J*MES P*TTERSON.

Honorable Mentions

Jeb

I’m skipping Jeb because of how little I care about him. He’s a little bitch, next character.

Ari

STILL HASN’T BEEN REVEALED AS AN ERASER. I’ve been writing for 50,000 words and he’s over here saying ‘nope nope not yet, not dramatic enough’. He’s had speaking lines but has refused to make himself known to Max. I am so frustrated with this seven-year-old wolf-child that I’ve already considered how I would kill him, if I decide I want to kill yet another child in my writing.

So, my main thoughts for Ari is that he... really just drew the short end of the stick in every possible way. While Jeb didn’t sign him up for Eraser expirimentation, he didn’t do anything to stop it, and pretty much cut his losses when he realized this expiriment made a wreck of his ‘perfect, unflawed’ son, because Jeb doesn’t consider children of any species to actually be humans. So, Ari really hates his dad, which makes things complicated, because he also really loves his dad and really wants his approval.

Which means that he also really hates Max, because she’s the child that always got Jeb’s time and attention, even when Ari was human. I think, on some level, he knows that trying to tear Max down to a less-favored level isn’t actually going to help his situation— infighting for the love of an abusive parent won’t make them any less abusive— but he’s also seven, and his development is already severely stunted due to becoming an Eraser, and he doesn’t see ‘leaving ITEX’ as an option like the Flock does. ITEX is his everything. It’s all he’s ever known, and they tell him he’s doing the right thing, and he wants them to love him. He wants his father to love him. He knows that if he ever questions ITEX, his father will never love him. So it must be his older sister that’s ruining his life and being a horrible child, and once Ari drags her back down to his level, Jeb will realize who the best child is and love him properly again.

Ari, on an even deeper level, does care for Max quite a bit, because she’s his older sister and he wants that to mean something in a way that ‘Jeb being his father’ obviously doesn’t. He wants what she made for herself, and he hates the Flock because she loves them and obviously doesn’t love him.

Ari, if anything, is the product of neglect, and both loves and hates everyone who shows a chance of caring about him. And he’s seven, so he can’t notice these patterns, let alone break them.

So. Notes!

He doesn’t look like an adult. I thought that was gross and unnecessary. He’s seven, but he looks closer to thirteen or fourteen. Still young enough that he looks like every Eraser’s little brother, and the Erasers high-key treat him like it.

On a related note, he’s the only Eraser who can talk. The others don’t have the mental capacity or vocal structure to replicate human speech, but they can understand language (at about the level of a two or three year old) and are very good at nonverbal communication. This is why Ari managed to climb the ranks despite only having three years of “service” and also looking like a tween.

He doesn’t have an expiration date because that is SUCH a stupid plot point.

I’m giving him a chainsaw! I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but he deserves to have a chainsaw and GODDAMN I will give it to him.

Emergency and Gene

The OCs that I love and also killed pre-series. They don’t have any scenes, because they’re dead, but their deaths greatly effected Max, Fang, and Iggy, and they are very commonly referenced. Their voices are probably Max’s most common hallucination, to the point where she sometimes pretends they’re ghosts that she can talk to. They’re not ghosts. They’re dead.

Dr. Valencia Martinez

I’m actually keeping her pretty close to canon— loving, supportive, the type of person to take in a gsw victim with minimal questions. The difference is that rather than kindness fueling her actions, it’s incredible guilt. She has three goals surrounding Max: Give her as much support in any way she can, teach her as much about chicane culture as possible, and never let Max know that she’s her birth parent.

(She’s probably going to fail at AT LEAST two of those, but it’s the thought that counts.)

Notes:

She has a pet fox named Robin Hood that she rescued from an exotic animal salesman that got arrested.

I think I’m going to kill her. I don’t know yet, but it’s on the table.

Anne Walker

Y’know, the fake FBI Agent. Who’s not actually a fake in my story because I hated that plot point. She’s genuinely an FBI agent who put the Flock into pseudo-witness-protection in order to build a case against the Institute of Higher Living, accidentally got attached to her prime witnesses, raised them for a few months, realized a [SPOILER] and promptly had to let them get the hell out dodge.

I really like the Anne Walker that lives in my head. She is a VITAL part of the Flock’s development, their mental/emotional recovery, and adding to their safety net to fall back on. She serves them as their first adult role model, and is the first adult to show them what parent/child are supposed to look like from a healthy perspective. Though she has several fuck ups, she becomes someone that the Flock genuinely trusts and loves, which makes it all the more difficult for them to leave when [REDACTED].

Notes:

She and Max do butt heads initially, because Max is paranoid and also afraid of becoming uneeded. This ends up being incredibly important because Max needs to learn how to live and find meaning in life without being the designated Leader/Parent/Big Sister

Anne, at one point, sits the entire flock down to teach them about consent, which was something no one ever talked about with them before. She goes in talking specifically about consent in a romantic/sexual sense (because they’re fourteen and that’s something they need to know), but quickly turns into a full-fledged no, people are NOT allowed to do that to you, what the FUCK.

She’s responsible for giving the flock a laptop. It’s because Angel is online schooled (bc telepathy makes actually learning difficult) and was therefore provided with a computer.

Anne is also allowed to swear, but only when it’s funny.

Michael “Grey” Rivers

Aka Grey from the Sewers Aka GR3Y H47 Aka Mike from the Bronx Aka Gifted Child Syndrome Incarnate Aka Would-be-in-MIT-if-his-parents-weren’t-horrible. He’s my son, your honour.

Basically, his backstory boils down to him being a genius, getting into MIT at 14, his (horrible) parents wanting a perfect child who could “make it out” of the Bronx and represent his family/neighborhood/borough to the world. When he inevitably failed their expectations due to stress, a schizophrenic-spectrum disorder that completely alienated him from the rest of his support network, and refusing to take his psych meds because the side effects were horrible and they made it harder to think (and therefore pass his classes), they kicked him out. He fully intends to go back to MIT when he turns 18 and has control of his finances/scholarships/medication/therapy.

So that’s how the flock meets him.

Mike ends up in a very prominent support role for the flock both in technological persuits (helping them track their parents, helping them get information from ITEX, trying to disable Max’s chip and failing multiple times until it becomes a matter of personal honour—), in helping the older members of the flock figure out how to deal with hallucinations/delusions (because he’s actually been to therapy, unlike them), and in being one of the only people who talks to them and helps them without any ulterior motive. He’s not trying to build a case against ITEX/The Institute of Higher Learning, he’s not double crossing them, he’s not plagued with guilt. He just genuinely wants to help them, and they genuinely want to help him, and that’s their first introduction to a healthy, non-codependent relationship.

My many disorganized notes on Michael Rivers:

He’s from specifically Morris Heights, Bronx, NYC.

He would say that his last name is actually Rivera, but his grandparents changed it to Rivers so it would sound more English, and his family has been in America for so long that he doesn’t know much about any Latino heritage he may or may not have. He identifies as African American, not Afro-Latino. He’s just bitter that his family felt the need to change their surname to have better opportunities in New York.

Nudge aggressively befriends him pretty much the moment she meets him, bullies him into teaching her how to code, and he very quickly adopts her as his pseudo-little-sister.

His delusions in the book seemed to involve government conspiracies, but as that’s the one delusion that is proved correct in the book, I’ve decided it would be best if his delusions and reality intersected a bit less if I don’t want to write him having a manic/paranoid episode in the second scene he has screen time. So his delusions are more based on “none of this is real”, “someone is recording everything I do and setting me up to fail” and “my ill-wishes on people can and will come true if I dwell on them too long.”. Government conspiracies are one of things he is skeptical about because he thinks most conspiracies are either “CIA admitted to this twenty years ago” or “antisemitism”.

He’s taking online free college classes that don’t actually give him any college credit, but they have good information and help him feel like he’s working towards something. He plans to double major in computer sciences and electrical engineering, minor in marine biology. He’s wanted to join NOAA since he was twelve and he is nothing if not stubborn.

There you go. These are my characters, now. I have custody.

#maximum ride on main #Maximum Ride rewrite

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tobeornottotc · 3 years

Text

FUTS Ep 8-The Dramatic Irony of the character of Mork

It’s always one step forward with Mork and two steps back sigh.Because he’s closer to his realisation and character development, he’s seeing the consequences of his actions but he’s still determined to convince Pi about the truth he believes which is Pi loving him too. He’s determined, head strong and will go to any lengths to show Pi what he is to him. But it’s a step back because he’s still being manipulative. He’s still coercing and goading Pi behind the scenes. However instead of being upset at this, I’m starting to commend the show for this, because I think everything is slowly starting to piece together. This show knows when it’s characters are being wrong, they show it in subtext and dialogues that we the audience aren’t meant to accept or swoon at this, but we’re meant to finally see that all the characters of the show are 3 dimensional and realistic. They’re all flawed but they’re all results of this determination to not be seen as vulnerable or weak, they are headstrong about the wrong things, or do things the wrong way because they’re human, they’re learning, they’re just dealing with their life and situations in a way they believe would help them at the end. It always comes with an ironic price, instead of helping themselves or progressing to where they want, it ends up hurting the people they love, care about or themselves. Surprisingly after being so upset and annoyed at Mork, he’s the same as Pi and Duen and others who people have issues getting because of the walls they have. But he’s meant to be.

I truly believe this is the arc he was given, this is his flaw so I can now relax since I used to worry about his lack of characterization/[personality in the show. He has a lesson to learn at the end of the show which is surprisingly about honesty and also letting himself be vulnerable to show that honesty in the right way. No more masks, no more cool and unfazed attitudes, no more secrets just him; Mork and his truth. A truth he hid because he didn’t want to be seen as weak or uncool to Pi. Why this is important? Why was he so desperate to form his own mask to get to Pi that he ended up ironically doing the opposite? Being a hinderance than a help.

I think they’re finally showing us the reason this episode when we watch him unsure of what to say when Pi texts him. Surprise he’s the guy from the faculty nearby who hid in secret to get to know Pi, to be friends with Pi and be by his side. We’ve been right all along too, Pi’s natural kindness is what he noticed about him from the start, which means that Pi probably doesn’t recognise that he and Mork met at the time he thought people didn’t want him, and he was doomed to be lonely and hated for being his true self. Pi probably showed up in Mork’s life like a light, helping him at one point too hence the determination for Mork to help him too and show him care🥺 Again Pi acts selfish on the surface and like he doesn’t care about others (but as you watch the show you start to see it’s a mask. it’s done on purpose). The truth however is although it’s not shown on the surface, he’s automatically kind when he’s without his defense mechanisms, he’s caring. It’s because he’s so caring and kind, he let people who we’re friends with him use him to get better grades (not knowing he was being used), it’s because he was kind originally that made him get hurt by people and that’s why he stopped. When we first see him, we see him already hardened, and determined to not let anyone use him again. Ofcourse he tries to avoid people seeing him that way, but naturally when no one is noticing, he is automatically still being helpful if someone needs help.

He probably did show up at a time of need for Mork, I keep thinking this theory is right; Mork didn’t use to look or be as cool as he was before. Mork is actually unsure of himself, and also has his own insecurities. Pi who’s always loud, sarcastic and annoyed at the world probably helped him out when he was feeling the most vulnerable/jaded about himself. It makes sense Pi’s actions probably makes Mork want to better himself or be braver because that’s what Pi has always represented in this show. He’s self reliant, he doesn’t let people make him back down, he doesn’t give in to people’s opinions about him instead he becomes fiercer, braver, and determined to prove to people he’s fine without them. Someone who’s unapologetically all about self preservation and self pride and protection, the way he probably showed kindness to Mork would be telling him to not care about whatever was bothering him, but to just be who he wants and be braver and louder about what he wants. You see where the irony probably explains why Mork is who he is now, why he is flawed the way he is?

This is probably why we now see Mork, who’s constantly taken those words to heart decide to get to know Pi properly and show him he cares no matter how much Pi pushes him away. This is why he probably started of doing it secretly still scared and unsure if Pi would notice or want to be his friend. For me that’s where this narrative is going, that’s probably why Mork is so determined to want to be close to Pi, because he helped him at one point. And again we have mirroring, the whole situation mirrors the same reason Pi fell for Nan in episode 1 the start of this whole narrative; his kindness and showing him help at a time where mentally he was feeling exhausted and depressed about the state of the world he was in. Remember ironically these two mirror each other too in the show, when Mork speaks about Pi’s obsession ironically he’s also speaking about himself, when Pi stays steadfast on Nan who has shown him he isn’t willing to have a relationship with him, Mork does too. Hence why Mork says in this episode (all about exposing vulnerabilities and masks) that just like Nan is Pi’s Fish in the sky, he’s that for Mork too. It’s also the overall reason why the show is called this. This is just a theory because you never know how much the director wants to show on the surface, about why Mork is so affected by Pi but truly I think narratively it makes sense and I think it’s been hinting to this for a while. As we see our characters slowly let their masks and vulnerabilities show, we’ll get closer to the truth more and more, the messages, the themes and the vision the director had for the show from the start.

#fish upon the sky #futs #thai bl #bl series #bl drama #reviews #analysis

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rurifangirl · 3 years

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chile, could ya explain the magic system in yo oc world more? im kinda confused w how it works👁👄👁

Oh boy, here we go bitches.

So as an intro to this, I said bout last oc post in Qiran's part that their fam was full of mages n shit, but also some of em weren't, n since they do have magic istelf Imma do more parts (3 parts)

First part- how does It all work (Humans/Mages)

First of all, not all of em have a connection with magic, for example Evelyn doesn't at all while Lyva does but only through a magical item so It doesn't really count.

Other then that, if you're born you can either be born with some kind of magic, or simply not. It all depends from your family's lineage, for example If you come from a family of mainly rougues it's hard to get some kind of magical power, while if your parents have both some kind of power or even if it's only one of em, it's more likely you'll end up with something really similar, or a mixture of the two. (In case both of your parents have magical powers of any sort.)

It also depends on where you're living, for example If you'd be born from a cold place it's unlikely ya'd have magma magic rather than snow magic.

Between humans/mages the system Is kinda the same, but that does change for Hybrids/Demi gods/anything that isn't born between the same species.

Between humans/mages it's more of how their ancestors managed to treat its powers, as some got even destroyed for not being worthy of its usage, so If anything at this point and time they're lucky about getting somethin.

Mages are far more cautious about It, having both a lot of hidden knowlege about spells or even origins of some types of magic, though that being the most "common" ones, (for example fire, water ect.), because it's not only them of course, there's far more variants and all are different from eachother.

They can also get stronger by the worshipping of certain gods, which I don't think I will really talk about, at least in this post. (And also because they're still a wip of mine)

But the gang until now really never relied on any of them, or at least Lyva/Rui n Naexi never really did, while the others absolutely did. This Is also why I will do another post as a sorta of a part 2.

Anyways back on topic, most people in all parts of my oc world aren't used to worshipping anymore, or at least a great part of It, mainly because of a loss of knowlege about anything about them.

It's kind of taboo even mentioning most gods names, as they fear something will go wrong if they would (*ahem*being suspicious n allarmin the cult*AHEM*). In fact it's hard to get on most religions because the only remains of It are extremely either hidden, or destroyed in the meanwhile.

I wanna say that another reason because the worshipping stopped Is also because of Rui's cult. Yes, remember that?

It's gonna be talked about on its own post, but let's just say that for them, it's a safe way to restrain anyone knowing far too much about how everything works.

They're the only ones owning most stuff about different coltures to avoid having them against their side,

If there's no worshippers, no knowlege, n more weak magic because people don't strengthen them, who's gonna go against em? (It'll turn out to be the shittiest idea they've ever had but that really did work for the longest time.)

Oh I think i forgot to mention this, but since magic goes lineage to lineage, It also weakenens as generations pass by, as THAT'S the reason they absolutely need those texts.

That's also the reason most humans struggle w keepin magic. Mages can manage, though it's a small portion, since sometimes not even what they've learned over generations works anymore.

Second part- how does It all work (Hybrids/Demi gods n stuff)

Oh boy, so, I'm also gonna use Shou n Naexi a lot here, so bear w me. As I said earlier, it's different from em, since it's not about lineage at all.

Apart that the union between different species Is both a taboo n seen as something "ashaming",so even if they had a child It was more likely they'd Hide It or leave It behind. So it's already a really, god-awful situation for them.

The magic works kinda randomly, in the sense that since the hybrid's nature is seen as unstable to begin w, there's no real critere to handle how the child born Is gonna turn out to be.

Sometimes it's really hard to notice, having yeah some features but can be hidden really easly, but other times Is just, a real mess between the two species, n the magic Is also uncontrollable, especially during their first years of life.

For example, in Shou's case he used to really switch a lot between em, that being the reason he later on prefers not to switch, n havin to learn as soon as possible how to learn how his magic n form would work w It, having again a lot of preassure comin from people he knew.

This Is unfortunatly a really common situation between most hybrids. And there's also no choise.

If you as an hybrid can control magic w/o anything to rely on then you can live, while if you cannot do It, it's a matter of time before you'd get zoned out by everyone and everything.

This Is a big issue, other than having everything fucked by the cult but that's another story.

Aight now bout demi-gods, they're also really not seen well. Most of them prefer not to interact at all with anything that Is not godly related, and in fact, most of em even refused to adknowledge their mortal parent, since they all have resentment over the sudden disappereance of all belivers.

If anything Naexi Is a weird one at that, as they did have a suddent interest in humans and ungodly creatures, though still recognized about how cruel any of them could've been, especially she's a demi-god and has a bad reputation at that.

The magic system Is relatively simple, they just get a certain amount of power from their god parent and are actually pretty capable of controlling them in confront of Hybrids.

That mainly comes from a special connection w their god parent's power, so in theory they're sort of devoted to them.

I wanna expand this when I'll do the gods post n finnaly introduce some of em (And potentially Naexi's mother👀), so I'll not go beyond this atm.

Third part- Magical items/weapons

Aight onto another important part, which Is basically how tf would that work. We have that comin from Qiran's sword n Lyva's earrings, so they'll also be later on disscussed bout.

Even though it's a tough and long procedure, you can transport some of your own magic onto somethin as ordinary as an hat or as sharp as a dagger.

This Is being mainly used in emergency situations, as that energy can eventually be re-used later on by its user.

The user can be changed as long as there's a deal between both parties, whether that being a gift, buying It, or anythin up to them really.

It can also be a great way to hide mage's power, since there are some parts where they arent exactly that respected, so they could blend in with normal humans.

In fact, Qiran does that continiously thanks to their sword, daggers and other lil weapons, and they keep a big part of It there, to seem rather a normal knight/adventurer rather than havin somethin supernatural goin on.

They have a great holdo it since their father did make them learn to fulfill their request to be freerly goin round.

With Lyva it's not really different, even if she kinda stole It n there wasn't really a deal at that moment, but before runnin away from everyone n everything she convinced her mother to give her something that she could use to defend herself, since they were never around and when they were, they would've kinda avoided her.

Oh, and to add this, you could also curse an item. It's a way to mainly punish since ,well, it's a curse,

and makes the user either completely obsessed with the object itself or makin them do somethin w/o any type of consent, whether physical or emotional.

In some cases It can also be a torture tool. Though, as some recent stuff happened, they're somewhat hard to find.

If you still have somethin unclear lemme know cuz idk If I covered everythin or if somethin ain't clear enough😭

Tags undercut:

@a-chaotic-dumbass @spoopy-fish-writes @dopesaladlady @damnfoxx @audre-falrose @nadi-117

(If you want your tag removed/added either dm me/go in the ask thing or do the tag thingy in the pinned comment‼️)

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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What are your takes or opinions on Mr. Haley? He knew abou the court of owls didn't he? I honestly can't remember

He did. I know a lot of people don’t like that aspect of the Court of Owls retcon because they prefer Dick to still have that kindly uncle/grandfather kind of figure from his childhood to remain untarnished by that association. But its better than it like, having been his parents in the know, and I do feel like it just wouldn’t work narratively to have the Court have this association with the circus stretching back several generations into Dick’s family, without ANYONE from Dick’s childhood having any idea. Not only does it strain suspension of disbelief purely on a logistical front, it kinda....wastes the narrative opportunity of a personal betrayal/revision of a character’s understanding of their own history, that’s kinda....the POINT of doing a story like that in the first place.

So I’m fine with Mr. Haley having known and being a reluctant/intimidated functionary of the Court who knew what Dick’s fate was intended to be, because frankly, someone had to be and it might as well be him. He’s more of a cipher/plot vehicle than a character most of the time anyway.....the point of him is the impact/role he has in Dick’s life, and again, when personal betrayal is the point of the story, like....someone’s gotta take the fall.

But then, I know a lot of people don’t like the Court of Owls retcon in the first place, because of the way it makes it Dick’s destiny to always become embroiled in violence or the superhero/villain fight one way or another. That it further angsts up his backstory, etc, etc.

First off, my opinion on that last part will always be: bah humbug. Dick’s backstory is the tragic loss of his parents and everything familiar to him. Its already angsty as fuck, and if you think that adding the Court of Owls makes it extensively MORE angsty, its likely you weren’t giving his original trauma/angst as much deference as it was due all on its own, and unconsciously or not, you’re still just leaning into the idea of Trauma Olympics in general, the idea that there even CAN be rankings to trauma on this scale, or at least, that there’s any practical reason for TRYING to rank things in that matter.

So that, much as with the juvie origin, I say is irrelevant.

Now in terms of how it makes Dick’s future ‘destined’ to be painful even without the loss of his parents, if the night of their murder hadn’t happened......I mean, I can kinda understand that a little more, but I don’t really agree with that notion because like.....the point is, in everything other than random AUs.....Dick’s parents DID die that night. We already KNOW his fate. The POINT of his character is that happened, and this is how it shaped him.....so the fact that he was already ‘destined’ for more hardship and tragedy isn’t really a deterrent to adding this retcon because.....he already ended up with more hardship and tragedy anyway, so ‘avoiding’ taking an alternate route to hardship and tragedy doesn’t really....actually avoid anything or add or keep anything in Dick’s premise or narrative.

But then there’s the argument that it diminishes the power of Dick’s choice to be a superhero, if he was always going to be destined to end up in this conflict one way or another....that he’s not really an everyman who voluntarily takes up the fight if the fight was always inevitable for him. That’s a bit more of a compelling argument for me, since y’know I’m always about the power of choice and yada yada yada.

But the sticking point here is that.....Dick’s archetype and narrative have NEVER been him as an everyman who could choose an ordinary life for himself but instead is a hero. Like, to me that’s just a very superficial reading of the fact that he’s not actually superhuman. But in no other way has Dick ever been an everyman. Pre-his parents’ murder he was a professional acrobat and showman from early childhood, of international renown. Post-his parents’ murder he was raised by a bona fide superhero who moonlights as a ditzy billionaire playboy by day.

Nothing about Dick Grayson’s skills or life was EVER that of an ‘everyman.’

Additionally, I think this notion also only comes from comparing him directly to Bruce, and focusing on the similarities in their backstories and the common bond of their parents’ murders, and the fact that he’s more of an everyman in comparison to Bruce because of how Bruce sticks out as a billionaire from birth, accomplished at everything, a master of all trades by the time we ever really MEET Bruce on the page, with his own origins largely told in flashbacks and backstory.

But, this is also why personally, I focus on the differences in their backstories....on using that shared experience they have as the BASIS for their relationship, like the reason Bruce sees him as especially standing out as a victim he has empathy for given that it brings to mind his own past trauma and hurt......but not like....using it to juxtapose Dick and Bruce directly, as I think that really doesn’t work.

Because Dick’s archetype, all of his narratives, IMO, are those of the fish out of water.

The culture clash, I’ve always maintained, is every bit as much a trauma as his parents’ murder, because it was like living one life until he’s eight or ten or whatever, and then just being told all in one day, or one week, hey, all of that is over now. This is your new life, even if it has NOTHING in common with your old one, and you just have to suck it up and make your peace with the fact that everything you knew is gone and you have to start over from scratch. New city, new routines, new family, new future, new everything. Even how you act around other people and expect or take as a given they’ll act with you is going to be different from now on.

None of that is anything that Bruce can relate to, because its not Bruce’s archetype. Those aren’t his narratives. And I think there’s a tendency to focus overmuch on Dick and Bruce’s similarities at the expense of acknowledging that Dick Grayson is no more a knock-off of Bruce Wayne than Robin is a derivative of Batman. Robin’s Batman’s junior partner or protege or sidekick or whatever you want to call it....but Robin has never stood in anyone’s mind as “Batman-lite” because he’s ENTIRELY different from Batman even just on a CONCEPTUAL level. They’re linked, but they’re not the same. Robin follows where Batman leads, but Robin does not derive from Batman directly.

Same with Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne. They’re similar in places, they’re linked by shared experiences and stories, but Dick’s no more Bruce-lite than he is as Robin. And I think focusing on him in terms of who his character is SEPARATE from Bruce, like....goes a long way towards making him distinct in his own right, even when standing right next to Bruce.

So I’ve always felt that whether in canon or fanfics, the key to developing Dick as his own character in his own right, not dependent or derivative of anyone else, is to determine what his core archetype is regardless of all else around him, and lean into THAT.

And for me, that archetype is the fish out of water, so my inclination is always going to LEAN INTO the fact that like....the point of his character, his entire character premise, is and always was going to be that of the guy who was plucked from one life and dropped into another entirely, and had to find a way to adapt to that, survive and even learn to thrive despite all the obstacles this presented, and the inherent tragedy of him having to do it at all.

So that means acknowledging the culture clash, building on it, emphasizing the class distinctions between his origin and Bruce’s, just focusing on the fact that he was NEVER Bruce-lite....because he always arrived on the scene, came into the picture, with his own entirely separate and distinct backstory, origin, and beginnings, just with his narrative journey then merging with Bruce’s at that point of OVERLAP, that shared experience where they both lost their parents in similar ways.

So coming at the character from that direction - the Court of Owls retcon doesn’t really change any of that for me at all. Because when the premise of Dick’s character is that he had to learn how to survive and overcome being forced into situations and a life that he wasn’t prepared for and didn’t even want in the first place.....well, then, the parallel path of him being taken from the circus by the Court of Owls instead, again....doesn’t actually force anything new on his character or take anything away from his character. It just....presents an alternative course for the same essential narrative journey.

So despite me not being a fan of Talon fics because of all the reasons I’ve mentioned before (plus the fact that it bothers me that so many people feel a need to make Dick literally superhuman but in no other way operating on a different level from his family’s general capabilities when.....his character has never required being superhuman to do anything on that level before, HMM. Or if people do focus on making him different, its usually just in terms of showcasing his healing, which...kinda tends to end up turning him into a human pincushion every other scene, with an additional decrease to how much other characters even notice this or wonder if he’s hurting because oh well, he’ll be fine again in a paragraph. Which again I say, I Object)....despite that, lol, I have no problem with the Court of Owls retcon even though it nominally takes away some of Dick’s choices to say that he never really had a choice in getting involved in these larger than life conflicts.

*Shrugs* Because it only does that in theory. In practice, we’re all reading the adventures of Dick Grayson as Robin and Nightwing and Batman. Not the daily life of Dick Grayson, adult circus acrobat with a nice, happy life.

Instead, the Court of Owls retcon IMO actually just adds directly to Dick’s premise as I see it....both with the fish out of water archetype AND as the fact that like....his core struggle throughout all of his stories is that he’s the guy determined to chart his own destiny no matter how much circumstances or society or even his own loved ones try to force him down specific paths or pigeon hole him in specific boxes. Limit him or take away his options or force him to act or make choices from a place of having less avenues he can go.

Like, that’s who he is to me, so the Court and his ‘destiny’ as the Gray Son just.....if anything, bring that into even sharper focus.

If anything, my biggest issue with the Court of Owls retcon is that it didn’t go FAR enough.

It was basically the first major story of the Batfamily in the New 52, when we were introduced to these familiar characters in different ways, so I would have taken that and run with it, and in the process opened up a LOT more doors.

What I mean is....instead of this having been a revelation to Dick ALONGSIDE the rest of his family and readers when it occurred in the present day....I would have had the present day storyline reveal this as the secret history of Batman and Robin, and build on the idea that the Court had already made a move to claim Dick as the Gray Son right after or soon after his parents’ death, and Bruce had rescued him/defeated them, and then they’d kinda just buried this ever since.

First off....it cleans things up logistically. Having them seize upon an already existing tragedy and capitalize it, either by taking him directly then or maybe being the cause of him going to juvie/a bad foster home and using that to present themselves as his saviors when they introduce themselves to him, or anything similar to that.....its always going to make a lot more sense than the idea of a secret society pulling the strings of the city like....having no option to prevent an infamously irresponsible young bachelor from taking in this traumatized boy, and then just waiting a decade or more while their target becomes more and more ingrained in the public eye and consciousness before trying to....disappear him. Umm. No. Make it make sense.

Secondly, it goes a long way towards addressing the problems in child superheroes/sidekicks at all....which is definitely something DC already had on the brain when they rebooted their universe. Given that they....tried to claim Dick was like sixteen when he met Bruce, and that the other Robins since then all came and went in a span of like, a year each. Endless sigh of endlessness. Hey, DC, if your big priority is keeping the ages of your more famous characters down, is the best move condensing the timeline and simultaneously aging UP many of those same characters before they even debut? Umm. No. Make it make sense.

However. Keep Dick the same age he was when he and Bruce met pre-boot (which, lbr, most fics and even canon stories ended up doing anyway).....and suddenly, you get a lot more options.

Because say you’re Bruce Wayne, and you just took down the Gotham chapter of this globe-spanning shadow organization and rescued a traumatized boy you empathize and relate to, who had been taken by this organization with the specific intention of raising him up to be a merciless killing machine they then made an immortal, obedient weapon out of. And you know that other chapters of this organization are still out there, they still want this kid because they literally believe they own him and his destiny, and no other foster home or group home or placement is ever going to be able to understand what this kid has already been through and might have to face again if they ever try and take him again?

And on top of that, this kid has already like...imprinted on you from saving him from this fate, trusts you despite having major and understandable trust issues up the wazoo now, and probably will NEVER open up to anyone the way he might to you? And oh yeah, he also wants to learn to do all the stuff you can do so he, like you, can MAKE something of his tragedy, find a way to give it reason or purpose he can use to hopefully move on someday, he wants to defy the people who viewed him as nothing more than an inevitable killer by learning how to be a protector and defender instead, by CHOICE?

What do you do in THAT case?

You take that kid in. You train him, teach him everything he needs to know to be able to defeat them the way you defeated them, if they come back for him in the future. You keep him by your side, not to control him, but to protect him, or at least make him feel that he’s protected, that he has someone who WANTS to protect him, be there for him, WITH him, that despite having his own life, wants to be just one grapple swing away and the first person able to do something about it if the threat always lurking just around the corner someday reappears.

You introduce him to the others in the hero community, maybe even build connections where you previously stayed aloof, so that he’s PART of something, feels connected to something other than the fate tied to him by a bloodline he can’t shake or do anything about, that he has family and friends that aren’t just his much hated Great-Grandpa Billy Cobb Thornton. You make sure he has people who will be there for him even if you can’t be someday, if that Court tries to take him again, you won’t be the only cavalry riding to his rescue.

You probably don’t advertise any of this, at least not beyond a few trusted friends like Diana and Clark. Even as others start to emulate you, training proteges of their own and assuming they know your reasons, you still respond to people criticizing your debut of a young, child partner, no matter his skill level, by brusquely telling them its none of their business. Because there’s really no other way to justify it without telling the truth, and the truth is not something you want to hide not just to keep secrets or because you don’t trust others, but purely for HIS sake. You take it and lock it away and bury it as deeply as you can for no other reason than because it HURTS him. Because the truth is PAINFUL.

Its inherently connected to a time and a space and a part of Dick’s personal history that will never be anything other than a trauma whose shadow he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to break free of no matter what you do. But at least what you can do is minimize the number of times and places and people which require he face it all over again. That bring it all bubbling back up to the surface to confront and shove back down each and every time someone might feel like reminding him his own ancestor wanted nothing more for him than to be someone else’s obedient weapon, so why should they care anymore than that about his opinion, or plans, or viewpoint. You bury this secret not because its shameful, but because you know people will try and use it to shame him anyway, and you can’t banish the shadows looming in his past, but you can help him stand in a spotlight of his own choosing, where people can’t easily see those shadows amid the glare of his own highlighted role and mantle and self.

And its not always easy, raising this kid, because you WANT that blight on his personal history to be gone, for HIS sake, so you focus maybe more than you should on the stuff you CAN relate to, even though its not always the reason for his latest nightmare. And sometimes he’s bound to resent that, he’s going to want to yell because you’re saying you understand and you honestly don’t, you truly never will, and you’re going to fight about that and its going to hurt but its not because there’s anything wrong with either of you, or either of you are bad people.

And you’re bound to be overprotective, almost paranoid about his safety, always looking for the monster lurking in the dark for him, because that monster is REAL, you’ve already met it, you know its name, and its not paranoia when you know exactly what it is you’re afraid of and why. And he’s going to bristle at this, and its going to chafe, because you taught him well, you prepared him just as well as you prepared yourself, and he’s as ready as he’ll ever be to face that monster when it comes back, but that doesn’t mean you’re any less afraid of what that will do to him no matter how ready he is, not when you were the one to see what it did to him, what it wanted to do to him, that first time.

And you’ll be so preoccupied focusing on the monster, the Big Threat, the DANGER, that you forget sometimes about the other ways you and he are different. About all the other things he’s lost or had taken from him and that the monster isn’t the only one whose ever tried to put him in a box or confine him to the limits of someone else’s choices. So sometimes you fuck up, you think he’s being unreasonable or reckless when really he’s just trying to say its worth it to risk it all sometimes just to have a CHOICE, because the very act of having that choice, even the freedom to make the WRONG choice, is so much more precious and valuable to him than will ever make sense to someone who has had so many more choices respected and allowed and allotted in life.

But as long as you remember to rein yourself in after these times, as long as you never try and shirk the burden and responsibility you willingly took on when you willingly took him in, you never forget that that was YOUR choice, and that means the onus will always be on you to stop, take a breath, and try and see things from his shoes, be the one to try and bridge the gap in your life experiences and reach across the aisle instead of impatiently waiting for him to adapt and change and stretch himself to accommodate you and the choices and life and expectations you’re used to....as long as you do that, he’ll be able to look at THAT. And see that its not because you’ve just stopped caring what he wants at some point, so he’ll forgive you even when his friends don’t understand it, can’t make sense of why he puts up with stuff they never would, because they’ve never had that monster hiding in their shadow and don’t see it in his because he’s not quite ready to point it out to them yet, draw their attention to it yet. He’s still trying to become HIMSELF clearly enough that he can face it head on and look at it and then look back at himself and see without a doubt that the two are not the same.

And when you take in more kids eventually, for other reasons that are different but no less important, there are going to be problems here too. Maybe some of them think you favor your eldest, care more about him or are more worried about him when its really just that there’s something specifically TO be worried about, to keep an eye out for and always be wary might be lurking in the dark. Maybe when the truth finally comes to light, there are hurt feelings and resentment because you’re supposed to be a family, you should have trusted them with this, and it’ll take time to impress upon them that it was never that you WEREN’T a family, never that they weren’t trusted or confided in by their brother because they didn’t matter, but rather it was just because part of this monster in his past is ALSO his family, whether he wants it to be or not, and that’s CONFUSING and its hard to face and not something he WANTS to face and so maybe it just was easier, HAPPIER, to try and pretend it wasn’t there or didn’t matter for as long as he could because deep down he always knew it’d come back and there’d be an After that he had to adapt to all over again anyway, so at least he wanted to try and make the most of the Before. And maybe that’ll be a mistake, and maybe it won’t be, but what it will be is HUMAN. RELATABLE. REAL.

And 100% not anything that anyone in this family is to blame for, or unreasonable for, or because anyone loves or cherishes anyone else more than the rest.

And bing, bang, boom, you’ve just cleaned up a WHOLE mess of junk, strengthened and clarified several core premises and characterizations and seeded entire fields of potential conflict of all types, interpersonal and story-wise and everything in between.

All with ONE. SINGLE. STORY.

And no brain cells had to be harmed in the reading of it.

But nah.

*looks at how it played out in canon*

Sure.

That’s much better.

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the-other-totally-normal-account · 3 years

Text

Lobotomyhammer 40k: The Most Dangerous Enemies The Average “Clerk” Will Face

> OPEN FILE; ARTICLE 378-B OF THE CLERK REGIMENTAL STANDARD?

> [YES] [NO]

...

... ...

Greetings, Clerk Omega-45978888402. Today, you will learn about two of the most common, and most dangerous foes you will face against. But do not fret or fear, Carmen Protects.

Here, we do not believe in sugar coating or downplaying threats, as that is likely to waste important resources, such as you.

SWEEPERS

They are named due to their tendency to "sweep" entire planets of all life; And to level with you, entire Regiments of Fixers and Clerks (Clerks just like you, mind you) have been reported to vanish without a trace besides a few distressed radio transmissions. They are often one of the most threatening entities one can encounter in the cold vastness of space, next to only Aleph class (and above, though those are rare) Abnormalities.

Their strength is that of their numbers, which is Legion. They are one of the more numerous threats you will have to face, though, thankfully, they do not often attack. When they do, however, it is devastating.

It is unknown exactly what they are, but they appear to be composed of a techno-organic shell, containing liquefied biomass inside. They need to regularly replenish this disgusting material in order to continue living; Like how we eat to survive, yet more dire.

Sometimes, citizens among those areas they "sweep" are reported by survivors as not having been liquefied for consumption. It is unknown where they are taken or what exactly happens to them, but theories and rumors are in abundance. It is best not to dwell on their fates, quite frankly.

Next up are the agents of the Great Enemy, Abnormalities.

ABNORMALITIES

Abnormalities are, as you have likely been informed during training, abominations that often must be purged from existence at all cost. One of the main threats they pose is that they have the tendency to corrupt those that encounter them, if they don't outright kill, so cleansing and oftentimes the "firing" of Clerks that encounter them often take place post conflicts.

Thankfully, "firing" is rarely done unless one is corrupted beyond repair, which often does not happen with the more common abnormalities, so you may rest easy after most engagements with Abnormalities.You will find a list below, however, of more dangerous Abnormalities, dangerous enough to have been cataloged by survivors and submitted to our archives. Some accounts may be obscured by personal hatred of the abnormalities mentioned on account of the experiences the aforementioned survivors had with them. Also, unlike other enemies you may encounter, they are far more diverse and varied than most. Thusly, it’s best to approach them if encountered as a unique entity instead of a greater part of a whole, despite that being exactly what they are.

ARCHIVED INFORMATION ON NOTABLE ABNORMALITIES

[The Blue Shepherd and his Infernal Hound. Threat Level: WAW] (Note: Especially cruel. Do not be taken alive if encountered. Recite prayer number 987 if encountered. It helped.)

[The Great Devourer. Threat Level: Teth] (Note: Remember that battlefields don’t have pretty glowing flowers sticking out of the ground. That’s this thing about to devour you if you’re tricked by it.)

[Infectious, Burning Love. Threat Level: Aleph] (Note by Veteran Clerk Alpha-118: That [EXPLETIVE OMITTED] turned half of my entire Regiment into mounds of bone and melted flesh. They were still moving and vocalizing and shrieking. If encountered, apply bullet to your skull.)

[The Greedy King. Threat Level: WAW] (Note: Stay behind It at all times. It's one of the dumber ones I've encountered.)

[The Ashen Child. Threat Level: Teth] (Note: If you're marked, you'll immediately be able to tell. You'll smell burning wood, and sometimes flesh. For the good of your comrades, die before it reaches you, or tactically retreat.) [Eurydice. Threat Level: Teth] (Note: Do not interact. Under any circumstance do not interact. Do not listen. Do not look. Walk away slowly. Don't look.) [The Mechanical War Machine. Threat Level: Teth] (Note: It's an oddly common one to encounter, and for that reason, a lot of information has been compiled on it by various regiments, but one of the most important parts is, perhaps, its origin. First appearance was during the Heresy, during a raid on a Sector that allied with The Sons of The Well. Unlike most Abnormalities, it seems like this one was made. It's unknown how this is even possible. It also seems to collect hearts. It's best to keep your distance from it and call in artillery support. Just don't let anyone die due to it, or, well, you don't want to see what happens. Also, it has a massive axe with a pretty decent reach on it. Don't get within range, though that goes without saying.) [The Brainless Scarecrow. Threat Level: HE] (Note: Tricky, vile [EXPLETIVE OMITTED]. If you're above the minimum education- why are you even a Clerk in that case- needed for getting a job at a Conglomerate Factory, keep your distance and set up a firing line. If you have a flamer, even better. It's a bit of a weakling if you've got enough manpower. On your own, pray for your life and run.) [The Living(?) Apple Threat Level: WAW] (Note: Burn it before the vines get you. I doubt you've ever seen a man be impaled [EXPLETIVE OMITTED] to mouth by a vine before but you're going to if you encounter this thing. Only thing you can do is prevent as many needless deaths as you can, really. Good luck.] [The Beautiful Beast. Threat Level: Teth] (Note: Do not interact. Do not under any [EXPLETIVE OMITTED] circumstance even remotely think about attacking this thing. You really, really don't want to know what happens to the person who manages to kill it in a futile attempt to send it back to where it came from) [The Patchwork Abomination. Threat Level: HE] (Note: PULSATING EYES. EMPTY. STITCHES. DEATH OF INNOCENCE. WRITHING ORGANS.) [Alriune The Crumbling. Threat Level: WAW] (Note by Veteran Clerk Alpha-118: Destroy it as fast as possible, before it relocates and causes an entire squad or something to lose their minds violently. Also, tip, if you notice those floating petals, take the thing out before there's a large amount of them. It's an odd sort of timer, I've found.) [The Queen Bee and Her Hive. Threat Level: WAW] (Note: Do not inhale the spores. If your regiment has helmets that use filters, consider yourself one of the luckiest people alive- hopefully, at least. If you don't have helmets like that, you probably have melta charges. If you inhale the spores, I hope you know how to use one and are willing to give your life to Her and Her corporation.) [The Shard of The Galaxy. Threat Level: Teth] (Note: Plug your ears with something. Anything. If you don't have anything to do that with, consider deafening yourself. You can always get implants later.) [The Jittering Doll. Threat Level: HE] (Note: If she tries to give you a present, punt that little [EXPLETIVE OMITTED] across the battlefield. It's fairly stupid and mindless so you can probably pick it up and use it as a meatshield or sandbag if the need be. It has the annoying tendency to survive a ridiculous amount of punishment, though.] [The Butterfly's Burial. Threat Level: HE] (Note: Utilizes ranged attacks heavily. Engage in glorious melee combat from behind or pelt with grenades. Either way tends to work) [The Black Swan's Nightmare. Threat Level: WAW] (Note: Take great care when it comes to the lookalikes. If you do something they don't like or harm them, be prepared for a difficult fight with a massive mutated bird-like abomination and brace for casualties. To be honest, I'm not even sure what a swan is but if that's even remotely similar to what one looks like, I don't want to know.) [The Sleeping Carcharodon. Threat Level: WAW] (Note: Back off and don't provoke it. You do not want to be ran through by a drug addled... fish thing(?) going at ridiculous speeds, I'm sure. I've seen all of my squadmates die from that, and only managed to survive because I was taking a piss in the corner in the shell of a bombed out building.) [The Burrowing Tree. Threat Level: WAW] (Note: If you have servitors, order them to watch it. If you don't, I highly advise you to either end yourself before it gets an opportunity to turn you into a really messed up Carmenmas tree, or if you're confident enough try your luck and keep eye contact.) [The Mountain of Wailing Corpses. Threat Level: Aleph] (Note by Veteran Clerk Alpha-118: I sincerely feel bad for you if you have the misfortune to encounter this abomination. Melta and Flamer weaponry do wonders against it, but not all regiments have that kind of equipment. If you do, start burning corpses once it's spotted. Good luck.) [The Observer. Threat Level: HE] (Note: Look away if you don't enjoy being split in two by massive buzzsaws. Also, Abnormalities apparently are manifestations of human concepts, feelings, stories, traumas, and things we experience; But for the life of me I can't figure out what this thing even is supposed to be. It's just... awful. Anyway, call an artillery strike on the thing before it's too late if you encounter it.) [The Dimensional Refraction. Threat Level: WAW] (Note: [EXPLETIVE OMITTED] [EXPLETIVE OMITTED] [EXPLETIVE OMITTED] [EXPLETIVE OMITTED] [EXPLETIVE OMITTED]. This thing, this [EXPLETIVE OMITTED] thing. Newly emerged Abnormality, I'm a survivor of perhaps the first encounter with it. Almost the entirety of my regiment was wiped out by this abomination. 1,000 lights snuffed out in a blink, suffocated and pulled apart violently. We couldn't fight it. We couldn't see it. By sheer chance it was discovered that it could be viewed with Thermal and even then we couldn't deal meaningful damage to it. The vessel we were on was blown to bits as a handful of us managed to escape. Carmen protect you all.) [The Event Horizon. Threat Level: Aleph] (Note: I've seen the end of all things, the ultimate, finality of everything that ever was and will ever be. And it was heart shaped. I'm probably going to be "fired" shortly. Remember that there's no hope if you see the Blue Star.] [The Shy One. Threat Level: Teth] (Note: This one is very finicky. Best to leave it alone. It's harmless unless you catch it in a bad mood or take a peak behind the curtain.) [The Dreaming Void. Threat Level: Teth] (Note: I hope you have Recaff on hand and enough people who are insomniacs to wake everyone else when this thing shows up. If you don't, chances are you're going to fall asleep and never wake up. Also, don't attack it, even if people are dying due to it. It will raise your chances of death from "possible" to "completely screwed".) [CENSORED] (NOTE: CENSORED FOR YOUR SAFETY) [He's Not There. Threat Level: Aleph] (Note: Don't trust anyone around you if there's even the slightest chance this thing's around. It's gotten really good at acting since it was first encountered ages ago. You will die painfully, horribly, and you will be used as a skin suit by this abomination. And, if one of your squadmates suddenly says that they love you, put them down without hesitation. Whether it was genuine, or whether it was this thing wearing them, it doesn't matter; You may have just prevented a disaster. Don't express sorrow for the loss of a possible happy future if you were mistaken, it was for the good of all mankind. ...And, got to admit, it sucks that these things always come back, never truly dying.)

#pretty long post ngl #but i've been working on this for awhile #abnormalities #dark humor at some points #graphic death tw #often grimdark #[expletives omitted]#I was actually working on another codex but got bored #body horror tw #Lobotomyhammer #Lobotomyhammer40k

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blushdressshop · 3 years

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God Made Scots A Wee Bit Better T-Shirt

That Essential Work so That All of Us Can Keep Moving for Even When It All Feels so Overwhelming Working Parents Are Somehow Piecing It All Together with Our Childcare Features and Didn’t Created so That Our Kids Can Still Learn and Grow Our Young People I’d Desperately Fighting to Pursue Their Dreams and When the God Made Scots A Wee Bit Better T-Shirt Horrors That Systemic Racism Shook Our Country and Our Consciences of Americans in the Background Rose up to March for Each Other for the Release Are Shipping Your People Whose Fortunes Are Bound up with One Another As Well past Time for Our Leaders to Once Again Reflect Our Troops so Our Voices in Our Votes to the Course of History and Going Heroes like John Lewis Who Said When You See Something Right You Must Do Something Is the Truest Form of Empathy Is Feeling and Doing Not Just for Ourselves or Our Kids Everyone for All Our Kids If We Were to Keep the Possibility of Progress Alive in Our Time Would Be Able to Look like Children in the Selection We Have Got to Reassert Our Place in American History. A national effort to expand access to convalescent plasma donated from the blood of those who of recovered from the virus the blood of these donors contains antibodies that can potentially reduce the severity of the illness and those who are sick and frankly those that are very sick nearly 3000 patients are now enrolled in the expanded access program receiving transfusions nationwide and I want to thank all of the people that recovered for what they’ve done is I said yesterday they raise their hand when they barely can walk in there saying I want to donate blood I want to donate whatever it is that you want because we want to help people really quite incredible convalescent plasma will also be used to manufacture a concentrated antibody treatment that does not have Debbie match with a particular blood type this concentrated antibody treatment could be used as a preventative measure to keep healthcare workers and other high risk pop populations from contracting the virus in the first place very big deal clinical. Suburban women to see what be watching for tonight I’ll start with MSNBC’s international course on presenting Alanna and Chris again is about is a claim there undecided and a lot of us i

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Premium Trending This Summer Season will Presents Who Love:

This country because America uniquely holds the promise of a God Made Scots A Wee Bit Better T-Shirt place where everyone can belong we know that for too many and for too long that promise has been denied but we also know America is at its best when we make that circle of belonging wider just over 10 years ago I joined the military where firing me because of who I am was just possible it was policy now in 2020 is unlawful in America to fire someone because of who they are or who they love the very ring on my finger away we celebrated here where I’m standing reflects how this country can change love makes my marriage real but political courage made it possible including that of Joe Biden who stepped out ahead even of this party when he said that marriage equality under the law of the land there is a long way to go but if this much can change between 2010 and 2020 imagine what could change between now and 2030 imagine what we could achieve this coalition we are building this very season gathering progressives and moderates independents and even what. Tony catfight theory meets up with themand Bruce Banner black widow continue to have a bit of a romance that is destined to fail is the both very damaged in different ways anyway in South Korea Ultram is building the perfect library embodied himself with the my stone from Loki scepter in its head over the twins find out Ultram is planning on killing everyone in the world not just Tony Starks that I like well Tony Stark is probably better than the entire will be destroyed so they team up with the avengers even just vital Tron in South Koreaand let us get away with that perfect body he made stuck in banner try to put Jarvis into this perfect body all the avengers alike K you try this beforeand this happened so maybe don’t but they do it anyway what’s alighting from Thor’s hammer the body comes to lifeand becomes the vision where she is a good guyand is also kind of invincible he proves his intentions by lifting Thor’s hammer saw speak plan is to lift up’s cobiaand drop it like a meteor onto the earth killing everyone the venture shopping fight with help from war machine who actually got the memo this timeand experience Ella carrierand if he all Tronand all is all shallotsand save the day now without any repercussions though Pietro maxima dissecting Hawkeye also a kid who’s in Segovia doing charity work is killed in battle as is the family of helmets IMO a succumbing soldierand not terribly nice guy Simon was so angry over the avengers indirectly killed his family is planning on how to get revenge he realizes he can’t defeat them directly as if a robot army can do that I was a sad strange little maggot to do it instead takes a page out of the Loki bookand decides to tell them apart from the inside also during the battle Bruce Banner hoax outand decides to fly off the Quinn jet which eventually ends up in space somehow after while it crashes in the planet of scar that junk plaintiff before because being a form planet is pretty stressful banner staysand hope for him he’s done by Valkyrie who remember is now a drunk who scavenges stuffand she brings into the Grand Master this very weird eccentric guy whose brother is actually the collector from earlier he runs in arena gladiator fighting thing on this planetand the whole becomes his number one champion over the next two years Houck fights in the arena learn some basic speech becomes closer Valkyrieand overall is really just loving life after all this store still weirded out positionsand goes up to look for the infinity stones goes around the universe for two years looking for them which for the record is a marvel one shot I would love to see but is completely unsuccessful the managers back on earth now set up base in New Yorkand move away from ledgers tower with this big new fancy facilityand Blackwood are going train scarlet which falcon war machineand vision to become real avengers why the indestructible laser shooting hyper intelligent robotic in the Thor’s hammer needs training I’m not entirely sure on Tony’s also there but he’s a little preoccupied with the relationship problems he’s now having with pepper which leads to them taking a break while in space status is getting real sick of everyone failing to get his stones so he decides he’s gonna do it himselfand by that I mean he’s going to wait three years to do it but he start planning now which most in getting a bigger glove called the infinity gauntlet that would let them hold the stones once he finds them unearthed the shield team gets to the human campand shield was to register all been humans on a big list so they’re all accounted for something like a human’s version of the Scobee Accords which will get you over the humans at the camp predictably don’t like this also people start realizing that Daisy’s mom is kind of evil so a big fight ensues in the war which is really more of a battle between shielding humans he follows his nonskilled anklesand loses his arm also those chargingand human crystalsand up in the oceanand spend the pillsand also to stuff so now in human start popping up moreand more around the world also Mays ex husband Garner egrets in humidified enter into this horrible monster called flash also grant one was to try to start by Dragon even though the avengers just fishing that Daisy also says about her dad who wasn’t such a bad guy after all he gets his memory erasedand start a new life may decides to take a break from shieldand Fitzsimmons finally start dating however risingand going Simmons is in the same room as the monolith which shield has occasional memory that’s the portal through which you go to this terrible ugly planet with an original inhuman monster hive lives she was the inspiration for Hydra away quick positive video here I really hope it doesn’t feel like I’m talking down you guys by saying in case your memberand that’s her stuff a lot I genuinely does make this as easy to followand not confusing as possible is especially for people who are defense of the stuff that haven’t washed all this already of this information is slightly hard to keep track of you a second thatand gets into that placeand he said last night was abandoned there a long time ago they become friendsand survive together after many years of service Frank S returns home to his family from his militaryand shady servers daysand it’s super niceand emotional however around this timeand Cerberus leaks with Cerberus was actually about including the video that it is a guiding shot to this guy called David whose nickname micro will be back in a sec agent orange transfer for doing this because he’s not a big fan of Frank’sand so with the help of the Cerberus squad including Frank supposed best friend Billy Russo he sets up a three way gunfight between three gangs in a park to kill Frankand his family Frank’s wifeand children are brutally murderedand Frankish on the head but survives after this Frank is enragedand devastated answer decides take matters into his own hands he uses his military trainingand pure anger to hunt downand kill everyone in the gangs involved with his family’s death he does this under the vigilante guys of the punisher first just make a plan though so that takes a little time now micro is a hackerand NSA analyst these to help a Daisy when she was working as a hacker’s analysis info that Cerberus doing legal stuffand he starts leaking it so agent orange triesand killed his men shoot microand think they killand really the bullet his phoneand so survived because phones are bulletproof in this world Michael doesn’t hidingand pretends to be dead even from his wifeand kids who he watches from security cameras Scott Lange has finally finished serving his time in prison for his crime that really was not badand is released going to stay with his old cellmateand pal Luis he wants to see his daughter but his life is moved on to another guyand so that’s difficult in its with Luis his new friends Kurtand Daveand try to get a job at Baskin Robbins but Baskin Robbins always finds out tech is having run by Darren cross hang pencil protégé along with Hank’s daughter hope while Hank is on the world they some old tales of Hank’sand process about his own version of the suit called the yellowjacket only this one is way deadlierand fliesand shoots lasers cross also plans to sell this tech to Hydraand the 10 ringsand just the worst people thanks not too happy about thisand try to think of a plan to stopand even where Scott Lange ever since the very public Vista quick job I think Scott could be a good choice to take on the object stuff before gets into the wrong hands through a series of people think it’s got a tip about as mentioned Rob Casillas to see how good Scott really is what Scott eventually does only to find the entrance to he takes it tries it onand is terrified by the experience Hank is impressed with the skill cc but when Scott tries to return the suit he’s caught by the policeand cost breakdown in jailand tells of his pregnant with cross help is not awfully happy with how things are developing as she was to wear the MS student takedown cross but Hank does a letter because of how her mother died all those years ago so they trained Scott until he becomes great at the shrink tricky stuff even to friendsand called Anthony very good Scott also starts to get romantically involved with hopeand Hank reveals to help our mom diedand she is all well I totally understandand forgive you know dad even though you really could is only sooner I’m an adult you know they’re good now Scott needs advice from an old avenger space to steal the yellowjacket suit is there only to discover that it’s been renovatedand it’s now the new venture space is not by falcon who fights in man is defeated but also impressed by Scott’s abilitiesand less just called Scott’s good fortune that it wasn’t patient who was on patrol that day also by the way crosses going crazy because pen particles mess with the brain after all this Scott goes in to steal the yellowjacket suit but gets caught so him across FIFO while in a helicopterand then a briefcaseand in Scott’s daughter’s room to save his daughterand kill cross Scott go subatomicand saves the day but is temporarily trapped in the quantum realm where Hank’s wife Janet was left however he manages to get outand it’s all good after all this Hank believes that hope is finally ready to become a heroand so gives her the lost barber Scott is back his familyand his daughter Anna’s dosing hopeand never once happy now go back to the moon real quick a place we haven’t been for a while where the go inhumanand potentially the most unlikable character in this entire universeand human arguing about this American flag I am only mentioning this to see him forget that there’s an entire inhuman civilization just living on the moon while all this is happening back on earth the tomb salvaging company shows up in the area were scurvy’s to beand picks up small font Exceland some of this ends up in the hands of Hydra uses it to build a giant robot called ultimo but the manager show up at least those are leftand defeated now were getting into the Netflix world for a while first off Jessica Jones gets new job from Joy Meacham the sister of one Meacham was running red Enterprises will be manipulate it by’s dad was being controlled by the hand I give it a second to sink in again anyway she is Jessica to investigate the people around so she can blackmail them later if need be also Wilson Fisk is stilland by his he I mean jail because he such a big crime boss he start making connections there that Frank Castle has finally gotten all the resources he needs to kill the gangs he thinks were solely responsible for his family’s murder so starts going around doing that in the most brutal way possible starting with the Irish Mafiaand a gang called the dogs of hell is all happening in or near Hells kitchenand that Murdoch starts noticing the stuff so he starts investigating eventually as daredevil in a newand improved suit by the way he comes face to face of the punisher which ends with a bullet to the face that is seriously injured but survives fighting keep fighting that the vigilante stuff while Cassidy is going around the city killing pedophiles in such an entry castle manages to kidnap daredevil Jenny into a chimney where they learn about each other’s pastsand ideologies Castle takes a gun to daredevil’s hand pulse of the criminaland hasn’t had to shoot the criminal or he’s can do it because castle things killing your enemies is the way to go hello I thought a lot of the people daredevil Scott daredevil to try to kill anyway daredevil breaks outand has to fight through some angry bikers Castle unleashes on them later on Frank it’s kidnap by the Irish who brutally tortured him but eventually he gets out with their troubles help explain the situationand himand daredevil cool now but that is arrested that the craziness is now over but nope just now Electra shows up his old girlfriend then ninjaand potentially secret weapon for the handand she’s like a let’s find together because I see her doing that nowand so they do if I think he was a mainly with franking space to Karen what happened to his familyand the bondand become best is so daredeviland Electra are going around fighting the accuserand ultimately come across this giant pit the hand is digging in order to get Dragon bonesand to become immortal that still going on their tax by handand just until state shows up to save the day meanwhile on the lower side of things the punisher trial happensand during that Frank saw like an Angus into jail where he meets Wilson Fisk Fisk is like Frank nothings working everything but my biggest rival this person helped kill your family soand Frank Sykes say no more so he takes a that guy that this double crossesand try seven killed by Frank is just too good for that so Fisk lets them goand Frank tells Fisk to kill him when if he sees them again Frank it’s a geland mean wild animals like snow but again then ninja he thought he go before was brought back by the hand also their little kids being drained of their blood also for resurrection purposes through similar shenanigans the punisher keeps going around killing guys involved with his family’s murderand I will still have conflicting ideologiesand punish ends up killing an old Marine buddy of his Electra stick have a falling outand cystic trust tablets are killedand she didn’t like that so she tries to kill him will saves the dayand sticks kidnapped by the hand so Matt goesand save steak but while he’s doing that nobody reveals that Electra is a black skyand should be leading the hand she almost does but ends up joining their double insteadand the five images together real lasted I’m on right there after a hostage situationand Electra go up against like an infinite supply of hingesand Electra ends up sacrificing yourself for daredevil the punisher also shows up at the last minute to get daredeviland assist which is a pretty awesome moment not to lie no booze killed for real this time by stickand the good guys win except the hand takes Electra’s bodyand uses their Dragon magic to bring her back to life so she can work for them one of the five leaders of the hand the main one Alexandra comes to oversee her resurrection fog equatesand hours for Hogarth from Jessica Jones reveals he’s daredevil to Karenand the punisher goes off to kill everyone was involved with his family’s murder micro also wants answers about the whole Cerberus thing as a goes into Frank’s houseand puts the disk there with the video on it Castle’s unit in Afghanistan tortureand killing that innocent guy which Frank findsand takes with them tiny little break from the granite stuff here a witch just straight up which shows up in Londonand steals a magical artifact called the dark scepter however long case aliasand more masters of the Mystic arts show upand stop her a reminder that there’s magic in this world back to the streets now the gauge is now working at Pops barbershopand I know people disagree on what years these Netflix shows in particular take placeand they are confusing but based on the research I did this seems to check out anyway Luke also works of the barand one evening because he such a player he starts floating with detective Misty Knight the club Lucas working is also my cottonmouth now is a big shot crime boss’s cousin Mariah is a City Councilmanand is also pretty shady just more low key than enough strike is a hammer check from Justin Hammer for some good money but the operation goes wrong look secret half brother Willa striker is also involved here at the highest level is a big criminal now is now called diamondbackand is cottonmouth’s boss basicallyand so he sends in his body shades to make sure everything is running smoothly godmother still cool because these be friends back in the day but because the guy because the deal to go wrong is involved with pop one of cotton’s goons goes against disordersand shoots at the barbershop killing pop through this link in contrast to fightingand looks all like I really care for but not my radar so stop doing illegal stuffand calmness like know so we can start messing up his operation Luke also teams up with Claire Temple daredevil hotel buffet crimeand start a romance energy gets his hands on some bullets I can actually penetrate Luke’s impenetrable scan forand use them thoughand up having an argumentand so she murders him with a mic standand because the new big crime boss with shades help diamondback decides to team up with their setting out a plan to run the crime will do Harlem well Mariah does all the boring political stuff diamondback also shoots a cage twice with those magic bulletsand reveals that he’s actually his brother Claire takes her to the doctor who originated the experiment on themand they send an asset or boiling water something painfuland basically he’s restored to full strength while diamondbackand Mariah are running like a spear campaign against the cage to turn the people filed against them they do this through politicsand super shock loves Lucas backand FaceTime back in the police eventually diamondback shows up in a terrible super suitand even the punch each other for a bit is the end against diamondback partly with helping New York Spiderman style despite all his heroicsand proving himself a good guide to the policeand the people Harlem Lucasand back to prison because been discovered as Carl Lucas back in the day with your call despite being innocent broke out of prisonand so still needs to service time however one of Luke’s barbershop friends is a file that proves his innocence so he’s getting out soon also diamondback is taking them but I doctor who did this experienceand Luke so he’ll probably have some modifications the next time we see them there is a little bummed out that Luke is in jailand that they can’t get a cup of coffee for a while but she keeps itself occupied by starting martial arts training with help from Colleen way that martial artist to statically buy land but doesn’t really know that the hand is evil a bunch of little stuff happens here now firstly that kid who Iron Man said a while back Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider which gives in special abilities like superstrength the ability to climb the wallsand having a dead uncle because he’s a genius kid he also designs web shooters that shoot superstrong webs also because he’s a good kid he realizes if you help people using his new powers he’s responsible for one bad stuff happens so he designs a pajama looking costume takes a living Spidermanand starts fighting little crimes in Queens now over with the Masters of the Mystic arts page 1and Margot find a group called the Dragon Raiders just FYI also falcon is still pretty impressed by thatand I guys a while back I think she could be a valuable asset to the team so he finds a way to contact with them through Luis about potentially joining the avengers Scots like well I cannot stay with my daughter right now but if you really need me yes give me a call we had about the shield team in a while but they’re still doing stuff around these husband Andrew turned into an inhuman call mile he did that is now a giant monster whose sole purpose really is to hunt other humans with humans popping up around the world now shields main mission objective is protecting in humansand training them is made harder because the government treats a group called the ATC you which is designed to track down superpowered people like humansand take them then basically they’re designed to replace yield now that shield has had to go underground in the ATC you is this guy called Malik once again is a big secret Hydra guy said he thought we were done with Hydra you were sorely mistaken the reason this ATC you exists is so Hydra can get a hold of all these in humansand use them you guessed it to make a super soldier army is not getting that seriously 99 of Hydra’s plans so shield in the ATC are fighting for to try to get Simmons off at alien planet which eventually doesand what is still working on rebuilding Hydra I guess Marilyn Stucker’s weightless cool son Werner to join him in a nutshell the main thing is shield us to start up a team of humans the inhuman hunting monster is out there going after them thing of lash is like a less strong or cool version of the book he changes in this monster at different times Olson is asking pretty close to one of the higher ups at the ATC you who isn’t actually evil but then worksheets are in the throat cycles is like I just have to crush discussed just Hydra also wants to get to the matter because they want to bring Benjamin back because they think will be a big secret weapon for them so word fits in Colson end up on an alien planetand cousins like mandatory wordand he crushes Ward’s chest with his robot handand then goes back to think that’s the end of Ward but then the superpowerful clinical human eye possesses corpseand then makes its way back to earth I was now leading Hydra through Ward’s bodyand he’s observing people for strengthand you know typical evil villain stuff so that any rent is still in and now going to basket CCI festand that’s what the iron fist does ever he starts missing homeand gets bored because he’s kind of a spoiled brat so just ramp runs away when the pass is open his eyes to go back to New York to take packs company because that’s I think it works because he’s also kind of a thundering dumbass doesn’t work focuses old friends join Ward Meacham if it were just go with it think is a crazy homeless person understandably wards think that that Harold is still kind of running the company while being controlled by the hand which he started to get kinda sick of becomes friends with Colleen at the dojo he also meets Claire Temple bananas put in a mental hospital he breaks out there with the power of the iron fist stocking 30 with Colleenand Bruce’s friends that it actually is an is coming back with the help of Jerry Hogarth he kinda sucks a business though because he’s been living among city in another dimension for the past decade ends of meeting Harold whose IK we should work together can sometimes take a controlling me so you can go kill themand I like gathers the main purpose in life I had to hand them gal the hand is still selling heroinand Denny’s unhappy about that science of beating herand agreeing to a series of challenges the loser has to pack upand get out of the city anyways but Manga breaks the promise but she’s got ancient society superpowers so there’s not much you can do about it Danny keeps consistently sucking a ring’s company so he’s married now by the board along with the Meacham’s words also super pissed at is that Harold is he took all of his money so he tells Harold bio comes back thanks to the hand Danny Colleenand Claire go to Chinaand take them gal realizes that Ward killed him so he frames them for drug possessionand so Ward gets locked up in the asylum Harold of its joy to be his new number two Danny also made potato Colleen so teacher was also secretly when the 5 m of the handand find out about thisand is in the fan now this guy called divers who isn’t that Dallas is days old friend from and he shows up to help Dannyand Colleen Joyce into saying that the hand probably his neck in the end after helping Dallas is like take the path to come on is open right nowand you’re supposed regarding it what the hell manand I was like well you know is boringand decides to team up with Haroldand joy to take on handand the Kudo but the kudos now working with wordand long story short is defeated but runs away Dallas is not a Danny but they work it out kind of data gets frame for drug stuffand goes in the runand Harold is the bag on the endand tries to take over the company Danny Lord in the big final battle team up kill Haroldand burn his corpse so he will come back to life now Ward is running the companyand Dallas teams of joyand maybe not out to kill Danny down the lineand then sends a team led by lecture to come on which again has no iron fist protecting it they kill a bunch of the monks there it’s pretty brutal the entrance is then close for safety so no one knows when it’ll open up again because back to check out the passand find the city is goneand some abilityand he realizes he probably should state to protect it also Luke Cage sends Claire letter from prison because there still thing overand cover Taj at this point Casillas is starting to get kinda pissed with Angel on it if you like his training isn’t getting him what he wants to start having some friction with most the Masters there also finds out that the angel on his drawing power from the dark dimension which he thinks is pretty have a critical because he must use the dark dimension to see his dead family againand to gain immortality but the angeland told him no because a bunch of people that the ancient one is withholding informationand they should bring tomato from the dark dimension to earth to golf it in eternity forms to rise up against the ancient one they break into the libraryand cover tiesand steal some pages from the ageless book about the dark dimension one tries to stop them but they get away in the end one point Rogers well the shielding goes to Mexicoand meets the human called yo yo who has superspeed who eventually joins the ranksand eventually becomes next girlfriend also Bobby Hunter leave the team because they were so staff spent off but that didn’t happen somewhere venturesand Sue Shield has an inhuman team but highest the inhuman Hydra God takes control of Daisy’s mind because he can do thatand turns against the team just as a vision of the future where one of them diesand other important detail there’s this group called the watchdogs which is basically inhuman racist who are going around killing humans as they plan by the way is to make every human in the worldand in human goes against Dr Ratcliff a scientist who he thinks can help them re create the original Cree experiment that native humans in the first place he realizes he needs actual Cree blood to do it so he sends a signal to the Creed to get some to come downand they do in a fight ensues they’re both taken out but also rendered useless however some Cree blood from daisies used from when she was saved without original Cree corpse long story doesn’t really matter experience go half rate asand it turns peopleand these gross disfigured mindless things meanwhile Scott laying after successfully cross job is still training is at man with Hankand hope that at some point here he upgrade to suitand test out new tech that allows him to become giant he tries it onceand passes out but hey it works Peter is continuing to Spiderman around the city at one point stopping a car crashand getting caught on camera the footage is uploaded to YouTubeand catches the eye of Tony Stark who keeps it in his watch later until he really needs it he’s got bigger stuff to think about right now is right around this point people are starting to take more notice of how much damage the superheroes have actually caused in their superheroand the guy who’s all over this is unsurprisingly general Ross from the days he needs of the presidentand his appointed Secretary of Stateand start talking about how they can keep the stuff moreand check the start of on the ideas for the Segovia cords basically a way of regulating superheroes with more oversight by forcing them to register with the government while this is happening Frank Castle continues his killing spree of people who were involved in this family’s murder going from truck murder to sniper murder to the bathroom murder is getting what he thinks is all them in a decides to move all of his life is the whole point the punisher was to avenge his family so that’s done now or so he thinks also after lectures not has stopping daredevil for a few months now because he’s just too sad things are not bad though foggy Nelson get some helpand I got in the barbershopand clears the cages nameand Lucas at a prison loop is up with Claireand they get that coffee they’d wanted Jessica Jones comes across lecture during one of her cases is still doing whatever the hand once rememberand objective Dragon bones under New York immortality the only problem is those Dragon bones are essential foundations for the city so the removal of them is causing serious earthquakesand could eventually to the whole city collapsing is also hiring a bunch of Harlem kids to help them kill and or clean up the mess is left behind by their enemies cages about this news like I got to protect the people of Harlemand Danny Randy is about this is like I gotta take a hand saw this lease to them crossing pathsand having a bit of a fight every day become friends because of their mutual friend Claire through fortuitous circumstances Jessica’s tracking guy connected to the handand that Murdoch ends up being her lawyerand also gets interested in the case so all four of them end up at the hands buildingand start fighting their ninjas electro sent into daredevil surprise but doesn’t remember him remind you of anyone but they all managed to get out of thereand go hide out in a Chinese restaurant where the become more acquainted state gets kidnapped by the hand but gets out of there by cutting off his own hand get itand goes to talk to the team Alexandraand had followed to see Alexandraand the hand is a whole knee iron fist alive because his iron fist is the key to open the gate to the sweet sweet Dragon bones if I happens electro starts remember who she isand that offenders get their hands on one of the hands main leaders also have their superhero team name is the defenders this guy is not of much help thoughand so stick to set off is not happy about this because they’re running out of there immortality juice the defender starting though because they’re like if the hand need you Danny we should probably had your wayand then he does what he does bestand is a whiny baby so they’ll punch him for a whileand then time however stickand typical stick fashion thinks that he might in the world so I’m getting kill him but lecture shows upand kill stickand tasty on fist to the hand she also kills Alexandra as she wants to be in charge I guess Jessica Jones find out more about that whole get it will found a while back with hands digging for Dragon bones after Lilith over the police that offenders minus Danny fight the hand plus the got Colleen to help Danny accidentally opens the gates of the Dragon bones because of course he doesand other defenders are fighting to hand in a lecture while also trying to block building so the hand can destroy New York the kudos guild Misty Knight loses an armand the offenders whenand get out of there butback to talk to Bucky I mean Electra yesterday heard the building collapses on the master kissingand that he saved by some nuns think look that they savedand that doesn’t actually die thank God it’s time to introduce another very important character very late in the game a Stephen strange is an amazing surgeon but he’s also super arrogantand kind of addict’s ex girlfriend also works with him called Rachel McAdams one day he’s drivingand textingand he crashes his car crushing his amazing surgeon hands in his life because he can’t be an awesome surgeon anymoreand he somehow even more awful to sex than usual really his life is just falling apart he starts to find ways to heal himself however ridiculous eventually he comes across Jonathan born the guy who trained with the ancient oneand was cured so strange has two Taj is there more to one of the masters takes into the ancient one because of all the crazy ultra dimensions there are at least the trip used ones he’s like help me learnand she’s like no your grossand sad in a terrible person but he pleadsand stays her door so she reluctantly changes her mind so strange that’s learning how to control the Mystic artsand other dimensionsand make hologram shieldsand whatnot with the help of Moto the ancient oneand the bookkeeper Wong who he befriends is about the different symptomsand how they protect worldand trains for several months along the way he also stumbles upon the times done sitting in a handy necklace the INI tomato figures out how to been time with it more unwanted like you don’t do that you could get stuck in a time loop anyway at one point you stuck to Mount Everest restraining just while all this other stuff is happening remember Stephen strange is getting great a magic this whole time so U ventures all trained upand going on missions also still looking for Bucky the next hydrogen in Lagosand think it might finally be Bucky but as they get there they realize it’s actually Brock Romo crossbones who understoodand is planning on suicide lineup himselfand Capt. From the capital nation to be only the abandoned government found wanting to you is down for lack of probably racial stories are for slavery would like we enjoyed helping our countries pushed the right from overcorrection Levi Roberts reports be noticeable degree for nearly a century was to story one of America’s years and will grow as he never heard her needs needs degree beating my hair as See Other related products: God Made Scots A Wee Bit Better T-Shirt

#God #Made #Scots #A #Wee #Bit #Better #T-Shirt

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rukakikuchi · 4 years

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LOONA # era teasers analysis and theories

Alright, so quick disclaimer. I am actually working on some analysis and theories regarding the music video for “So What” and how is affects the story of the LOONAverse, but first, I wanted to share the analysis I made for the teasers.

The reason why is because I had already written most of these points before the release of the “So What” MV; some were added on after the MV released, but for the most part, it was all speculation before the comeback.

I also wanted to correct a few details made from my original timeline analysis that I had got wrong. They don’t change my analysis too drastically, but I would still like to bring them up before talking about “So What”.

So, let’s start with addressing those corrections before analyzing the teasers.

…

Firstly, there is the scene at the end of “Love & Live”, where we see ViVi stop in the middle of the road, apparently out of breath, just after the timer on her battery runs out.

It was confirmed in an interview by ViVi herself, as well as the director of the video, that in that scene, she became human.

So, we can now say that the ending to “Love & Live” was the moment where ViVi became human again. She regained the ability to feel emotion, feel tired, to dream, and to eat food again, but her memories were still a little messed up. It’s through her interactions with Heejin, Hyunjin, and Haseul, that she eventually remembers what happened that led to her becoming an android.

Next, is regarding Chuu and Gowon’s representative emotions.

Originally, it was shown through the “one” short movie that Chuu represents love and Gowon represents hope. However, this was switched in the description for the “Butterfly” music video; Chuu is now hope and Gowon is now love.

At first, I was baffled by this change. Chuu representing love and Gowon as hope just made more sense to me. However, I decided to keep an open mind. So let’s see how these two fit into their newly designated emotions.

The description for “Butterfly” reads: “Chuu keeps her ‘hopes’ up with her yearning towards Yves. Gowon ‘loves’ her unique self.” These are both proven to be true, as we see in their respective solo MVs.

Chuu is relentlessly stubborn in her efforts to gain Yves’ attention and affection in “Heart Attack”.

And Gowon sings about how she learns to love herself, her “One & Only”.

(There’s even a double meaning to that, as Gowon is referring to her “one and only” self as her “one and only” love.)

Lyrics in other LOONA songs also reaffirm this. In yyxy’s “one way”, Gowon ends the song with the spoken line, “But I still love you.” And in “Butterfly”, Chuu sings the line “Dreams, dreams may come true.”

So yeah, now that that’s cleared up, it’s time to talk about the # era teasers!

Keep in mind that most of the observations were made before the release of “So What”. I will use my analysis of what we see in “So What” to correct or alter some of these previous observations.

…

The end of the beginning

So, from watching and re-watching the teasers for “#”, I’ve begun forming a new theory of where the story of the LOONAverse could be heading.

Starting with the first teaser released last year, simply titled “#”, we see several shots that appear to parallel or reference scenes we saw in the “X X” teasers (namely XIIX, XIIIX, and XIVX) and the “Butterfly” music video.

We see Gowon in Iceland, removing her black coat just like she did in “XIIX” when she went back in time to save Haseul and initiate the butterfly effect. In my timeline analysis, I said that this was Gowon’s shadow, since the real Gowon was asleep.

We see her awake later on, with her coat still on. She looks up at the sky, but what does she see?

Then we see Olivia, when she woke up after the world had changed due to Gowon’s butterfly effect. We see a shot of her going up the stairs, possibly hearing Gowon calling to her.

We also see her pass by the girl with the afro we saw dancing in “Butterfly”. Olivia looks back at her as she continues looking for presumably the other yyxy girls.

We later see Chuu, looking for Yves to reunite with her after the butterfly effect. She turns around, as if something caught her attention.

There are also a couple of scenes showing some of the other girls who appeared in “Butterfly”; the other LOONAs.

We see the girl who was standing on the rooftop look back confused, as if she doesn’t remember how she got there.

We even briefly see the “X X” and “+ +” in the black box over her eyes.

Then we see the eye of a girl looking up at the sky, the eye belonging to the girl with the crutches. Did she see something?

Then we see the short haired “Odd Eye” girl (this one was meant to represent Choerry) standing in front of goldfish tanks while holding a plastic bag with a fish. But what is she doing here?

Knowing that the fish tanks are meant to represent alternate timelines, I’m going to propose two possibilities:

1.) Choerry was trying to travel to the past like Gowon did, either to contact herself from the past, or another member, to tell them what was going to happen.

Or…

2.) She was trying to save one of the other members from the time loop resetting by placing them in another timeline. But the question is who?

Probably the most noteworthy are the girls in the red tracksuits, who we see running up the stairs, trying to reach something, but are then seen collapsed on the ground, as if they all fell asleep.

We see imagery of things being burned, such as tags with “+ +” and “X X” on them, and a butterfly's wings, as well as a swarm of butterflies flying up from what appear to be flames.

And throughout the video, many of these clips and images were shown with a VHS static overlay. (See images above.)

And which member do we frequently connect this effect with? ViVi. So why are we seeing this static overlay here?

Well, something I have gone back and forth about including in the LOONA timeline is 1/3’s “Rain 51db”. But it might actually have more significance than I originally thought.

Alongside the VHS tape recording aesthetic, similar to ViVi’s “Everyday I Love You”, this video feels like it came straight from the 90’s. There’s also something quite peculiar about the beginning of the video, but that’s something we’ll discuss later.

The main reason I didn’t include “Rain 51db” in my timeline was because I had no idea where to place it. I didn’t know if this was some alternate timeline, or another dream or warped memory from ViVi. I even thought it could’ve been a sort of message 1/3 was trying to send to someone. (Odd Eye Circle maybe?)

But the more I think about it, it makes sense for this to be a memory or dream from ViVi.

Or rather… It’s both. It’s a memory of a dream.

If we consider the cassette tapes in ViVi’s possession as a way to access memories through dreaming, then that means we can link the VHS static effect with someone dreaming, whether that be ViVi herself, or another member.

So, this means what we see in the # teaser are memories, and maybe even memories of dreams.

And the dreamlike vision of the butterflies flying is abruptly cut by static, before immediately taking us back to a bird’s eye view of the black sand beach in Iceland.

(And just a quick aside, I won’t be trying to decode what the blurred message we see in the static could be. Because, I don’t think that’s a detail we should be focused on; rather, the fact that the cut to static is present at all to begin with.)

This exact same shot is where we open “#1″ with, before another flash of static, some quick black and white images of the 1/3 girls, cutting to Heejin waking up floating above the clouds.

I think what we are seeing in the “#” teaser is another instance similar to the first “X X” teaser, when we saw everything in “Hi High” being rewound; the time loop is being reset again.

The previous timelines of “+ +” and “X X” are being erased, and so are the girls’ memories. They become like memories of dreams. Memories that start to fade after you wake up, and eventually disappear.

And the tracksuit wearing girls we see collapsed on the ground could represent the other members of LOONA. Only one of them managed to break out of the Moebius time loop, and the others tried to catch up to her, but failed as the time loop began to catch up to them.

And who was the one girl who made it out? Heejin.

In “#1”, Heejin awakens alone in the sky above the Moebius. She was the only one who managed to fly high enough to break out of the Moebius loop. Only she managed to reach the moon, where the Goddess was waiting for her. We see she reached the moon in “#2”.

[[**Flash warning for gif**]]

But her friends are still stuck in the time loop, and now that she’s out of the Moebius loop, the world is rewriting itself completely. The eclipse we see in “#2” signifies this; it is the sign of the end and beginning of the world.

“+ +” was about three worlds (Earth, middle Earth/the Cosmos, Eden) becoming one; “X X” was about the girls uniting with their shadow selves on the mirror side of the LOONAverse. And as we’ll talk about later, “#” in my opinion is about the destruction and rebirth of the LOONAverse.

So what does Heejin do seeing that her friends are still trapped by the Moebius loop? She willingly falls back to Earth to save her friends.

Similar to the “fall of Icarus”, whose wings burned due to hubris, Heejin made the conscious choice to go back so she and her friends could break out of the loop together; because they were meant to be together, as twelve.

So how has the world and the other girls changed?

The back of the moon

The “#3” teaser shows us the “back of the moon”, meaning we are in an alternate, darker timeline than what we’ve previously been following. Certain things about the girls, their relationships, and other aspects from LOONA’s story have been reversed, or slightly altered.

Firstly, we see ViVi, now a graffiti artist, most likely using graffiti as an act of self expression and maybe even rebellion against something.

In the teaser for “So What”, she tosses a can of spray paint while looking down towards the camera.

I think in this new timeline, ViVi is a human. But perhaps she is having a different sort of identity crisis, using graffiti as a way to express herself.

Then we see Kim Lip in what appears to be a museum or palace. Kim Lip is one of the few members who does not turn around in the whole video.

We see a similar looking setting later in “To all LOONAs around the world”, but Gowon is there, in a different place in possibly the same location.

We then see Hyunjin and Choerry are together, facing a line of tuk tuks. Some of them have different colored headlights, but the most notable are the orange and green headlights seen side by side, most likely meant to represent Haseul and Yeojin.

Next, we see Jinsoul walking on a train with a group of unknown girls (Update: it’s been revealed these are members of LOONA, but we’ll talk about that later on).

She looks behind her, but turns her head back to facing forward as she continues on. Perhaps in this new timeline, Jinsoul is indulging more in her inner darkness, acting more aloof and rebellious.

Then, we see three of the yyxy girls, Chuu, Gowon, and Yves.

Chuu and Gowon are together, holding their hands behind each other’s backs as they turn their heads backwards, while Yves is by herself, in a dance practice room, looking at the sky from a window. Do Chuu and Gowon know something that Yves doesn’t? Are the three of them even in the same place?

Also, an interesting thing we can point out here are the colors of the dresses Chuu and Gowon are wearing. Chuu is in a red dress, and Gowon is in a yellow dress.

What’s so noteworthy about this? Because of the meanings both colors have. Red is a color that often represents love, and yellow, alongside cheerfulness and joy, can also represent hope.

But we just said that Chuu is now representing hope and Gowon is love, so why has it switched back? Could it be that in “+ +”, the two of them didn’t realize what their true representative emotions were until “X X”?

Either way, it’s an interesting point to note. So moving on...

What’s notable is that Yves is wearing all black, a direct contrast from when we first saw her in “new” wearing all white.

We see this dance room again in “To all LOONAs around the world”, and the latest teaser for “So What”, with several other ballerina girls.

At one point, we see them circling someone. Maybe Yves? Perhaps in this timeline, Yves is an outcast because she’s different from everyone; a “black swan”.

Next, from a distance, we see Yeojin standing in the middle of a schoolground as a group of students run in her direction. Why this could be the case, there are several possibilities. Are these students meant to represent the members of LOONA finding Yeojin, or is Yeojin about to start a school uprising?

(My money is on the latter. lol)

However, here is where I would like to propose another theory; Yeojin and Haseul have switched places. In the previous timelines, Yeojin was lost in the forest before being found by Haseul and the other girls.

But now, I think the roles have reversed in this timeline, and now Haseul is the one who is missing. (This could serve as a good in-universe reason as to explain how she won’t be present in this comeback. The 11 members of LOONA need to unite to find her.)

Lastly, we see Heejin and Olivia Hye, on two different sides of the same billboard. Heejin is there in the day, likely her arrival after she fell back into the loop, and Olivia is there at night, the screen turning red as she turns her head back.

Heejin and Olivia have always been mirror opposites of one another; they are literally shown to be “day and night” here. So what will happen when they confront each other in this new timeline?

...

Thus concludes the observations I made for the teasers! Again, since I am still working on my analysis for the “So What” MV, some of these previous observations may be revised when I actually do the analysis proper.

Nonetheless, I hope you look forward to my theories! Until then, keep streaming “So What” and support LOONA however you can! 🙌🏻🙌🏻

#LOONA #LOONA 1/3 #LOONA Odd Eye Circle #LOONA yyxy #Heejin #Hyunjin #Haseul #Yeojin #ViVi #Kim Lip #JinSoul #Choerry #Yves #Chuu #Gowon #Olivia Hye #LOONAverse

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peepingtoad · 4 years

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@minaa-munch said: Do you have any headcannons with regards to Jiraiya and fuuinjutsu? The Sannin are part of the few shinobi who exhibit sealing prowess after all. | headcanon asks | always accepting! |

Hello again! First off, great question because it’s always been vexing to me that the Sannin are all so skilled in this area, and yet fūinjutsu overall is such an underexplored, underexplained discipline in general. On the other hand, this gives us a lot of room to have fun with it (which I think I’ve yet to really make any specific headcanon for) so here we go!

What I’ll say first is that I’ve been waiting (I dunno why, because nothing was stopping me) for a reason to post this particular thing for so long now, but in regards to the origin of Jiraiya’s skill in fūinjutsu, I see Danzō being the one to introduce him to it and initially mentor him in his youth—I’d say from perhaps age 13 or 14, for a couple of years. And for this I’ve thought of a few main reasons it’d come about:

Plain and simple, Danzō is keen to piss off Hiruzen by snagging his students because he’s a salty and bitter old goat—and at this point Orochimaru isn’t quite on the cards, what with still comfortably being Hiruzen’s favourite. Meanwhile Jiraiya is underestimated and somehow, despite being the way he is, manages to fly under the radar a lot. The raw potential is there too, and it’s intriguing to him.

To expand on Jiraiya going unnoticed, he is also basically an orphan, with no parent present enough to ever interfere. This is an important factor that Danzō no doubt values in the early stages of building ROOT—and whatever its intentions were at the time, Danzō was not particularly a shady guy at this stage. He could scope out the talent relatively unbothered.

But young Jiraiya’s talents are definitely something he’s seeking out, knowing he eventually wishes to operate from the shadows, to have people who can blend in seamlessly—and Jiraiya, being so personable and capable of ‘acting natural’ to the most human degree, is a great candidate for such a job. Sometimes he barely even seems like a shinobi at all, and that’s a strength for a spy.

Of course, after a few infuriating years he learns that basically everything about Jiraiya as a person is fundamentally unsuited to the type of work he wishes to do through ROOT. What a waste of time, huh?

So with some degree of general mentorship and information-digging going on, Danzō offers some training across various specialties and thus discovers that Jiraiya has a natural flair for fūinjutsu. In fact, despite being a slow and steady learner in many other areas of shinobi discipline, he takes to this like a fish to water. Book-learned basic principles aside, I imagine it’s a very hands-on, intuitive skill that requires great creativity to expand on the knowledge already possessed—which is probably minimal, besides Danzō’s own and the previous Hokage’s contributions, based on how relatively early Konoha is in the whole ‘document everything’ game (relatively).

Needless to say, Jiraiya has the creativity down pat. He designed the seal to suppress the Kyūbi chakra, after all, and was even proficient enough to seal Amaterasu. Hell, his toad-themed jutsu in themselves are quite the exercise in creativity, so even though Jiraiya turned out to be no good for ROOT, he would use that brilliant(!) mind to go on to play a part in developing many seals commonly used among Konoha shinobi today.

His main forte, or at least the area of fūinjutsu where he really went wild, is the design of numerous paper/scroll/tag-based seals, lending to the general convenience of use for shinobi of all ranks. They’re easy to pack, carry and replicate which helped to ensure that units were more prepared than ever. Chiefly, sealing elemental jutsu (exemplified by sealing Itachi’s Amaterasu fire) and weapons within scrolls, along with chakra suppression, vocal silencing, paralyzing and tracking seals. He didn’t invent these manners of sealing by any stretch, but made the designs more... streamlined? Accessible? More simple to draw and execute, I imagine, being generally simpler himself and not so constrained by the rigid teachings of any given clan.

As an aside—the reason he was so focused on sealing objects at all was so that he could bring Items He Should Not Have into Places They Weren’t Welcome, while being more difficult to notice doing so. Make of that what you will. (It’s booze-related because isn’t it always? Hell, maybe even some of that dank Myōbokuzan kush that the toads are blatantly always smoking in those fancy kiseru... am I joking? Who knows)

Anyway. His weapon seal would go on to inspire Tenten’s technique of sealing many weapons at once. Again by no means did he invent this technique, because this is Tenten’s baby (plus he’s no bukijutsu specialist!), but the theory had its basis within the seals he designed for simple and chakra-efficient storage of weaponry.

Again being very much geared towards paper and tag seals, much of Jiraiya’s training that was unique to Konan, along with combining toad oil/fire and paper, was teaching her fūinjutsu and brainstorming ideas to make her paper jutsu even more formidable and unpredictable than before. We of course see her using all those explosive tags in the fight with Obito, but I think Konan + paper seals doing all sorts of shit, releasing sealed jutsu and who knows what else... was a missed trick!

While I believe Mito definitely had influence on Jiraiya’s fūinjutsu, I think it was indirect, and any learnings of Uzumaki sealing will have been passed to Jiraiya through Kushina and/or what Minato learned through Kushina (who in turn learned most heavily from Mito). My reasoning for this is that as the first jinchūriki, Mito seemed to be far more isolated than later hosts would be, particularly in her older years—and I don’t see there being much inclination to share Uzumaki sealing secrets with someone with no ties to the clan. Kushina and Tsunade? Yes. Random little ragamuffin? Perhaps not.

... I’ve already rambled on a fair bit and think I’m out of proper ideas for now, so I’m just gonna take a moment to list some short/stupid fūinjutsu-related headcanon ideas now:

When he calls Orochimaru’s work sloppy that one time, it’s a big ol’ front. But he does still think this is one area where he’s better than Oro. Nyehhh.

Why yes, of course he has seals for sexual use! Climax-blocking, stamina refreshing, instant shibari (chakra or actual rope), all over stimulation via the mildest raiton contained in a seal? You bet!

Released a book of ‘prank seals’ including ‘poof the object into nonexistence’ and ‘release deluge of oil’ and ‘suddenly frog’ amongst many others. This book is illegal in most countries.

He once sealed (and I guess, technically stealed bwahahaha) a hotel jacuzzi when he was drunk, forgetting that there was no such thing as plumbing on the road, and its not exactly the same experience having to make all that hot water yourself

No appropriate place to piss? SEAL IT. BANISH IT. OR USE IT AGAINST YOUR WORST ENEMIES.

Once heroically sealed an entire town’s vermin infestation, forgot about it, then accidentally released it later. Is now barred from that ryokan, forever.

Has an entire scroll devoted to condoms

And another devoted to flavoured lube.

Not so stupid, but the need for rapid seal-drawing helped him to develop his ambidexterity to the point where you can barely tell what his dominant hand originally was (however he places down his left hand to summon in all early manga panels I remember at least, which indicates that as a child he signed it with his left hand).

He’s able to store Gerotora easily with a seal concealed in his throat. That’s why it’s so easy for him, not because of some other gutter-brained reason, honest.

He got really good at kanji through learning fūinjutsu. It arguably helped him along in his writing career—especially when writing more traditional style poetry.

#minaamunch #honourable mention to awintersrose for being so receptive to the danzo thing and helping me justify it ;o;#a trusted and valued fren to bounce ideas off and feed back - so some of the little details might also be her input #also to my s/o for some of the silly ones heh #bloody soundsketch #{memoirs(headcanons)}#{long post}#{rated:m}#{fanmail}#{chikaratochakra | prowess headcanons}

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imagine-loki · 5 years

Text

Not as it seems

TITLE: Not as it seems

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: chapter one

AUTHOR: Technically a-pandoras-box-of-characters, but my story blog (a-pandoras-box-of-stories) is a side blog, so I’ll likely be posting there too at some point.

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine that Loki is banished to Midgard shortly after Thor: the dark world. However, as punishment for his crimes, he is forced into the form of a common animal on earth to prevent his use of magic and silver tongue. This common animal is a cat.

RATING: Right now should be fine for anyone to read, later chapter rating may change.

NOTES/WARNINGS: Up until they learn his name, he is thought not to have one. The characters I’m using are Rp characters, but I thought that this would be fun. Feedback would be appreciated! :) (Also, her name is pronounced “Eye-zale-ia,” similar to ‘Azalea,’ but different because I’m weird and like the sound of my spelling better.)

** Chapters may run longer or shorter depending on what ideas I have for them!

————————————————————–

Living among humans had never been easy for her. She was most certainly not a human - but nearly no one believed her when she said otherwise, so she just went with it. Her and her two friends’ living depended on it: they were in a band; bands had to have fans in order to get anywhere. Without fans, they’d get no performances asked for. Without fans, they would sell no CD’s. And so forth.

This made living among the humans something essential to their survival. It was sometimes more pleasant than others..other times, however, it was not.

Right now, there was a lull in performances. This was because they had just come off of a tour, and were trying to take a break. Although it was a surprise to them all, that their manager/agent - a nasty man named Steven Pollag - had even allowed them to do it. Usually, he was all about working them hard to get the money. There was a theory among the three of them, that he was only allowing them to have this break because it was also beneficial to him in some way.

Aizalea, better known by her stage name ‘Izzy Moon,’ or to her friends, simply ‘Izzy;’ she did not care. Whatever would keep him far away from her was good enough.

He was good at his job - surprisingly - but not good to Izzy. She rejected his advances, and so he’d become violent; he had also begun to threaten her because he knew it would get under her skin. The full extent of it all, she had been trying to keep from her two bandmates, Ashley and Lauren - better known as ‘Ash and Luna,’ both on stage, and by themselves with Izzy. If they knew more than she thought they did, they weren’t telling her. They knew she had her pride, after all. Not that it made keeping their agent around any easier.

Right now, Izzy had decided to go for a walk. She had been out for some time when it had started to rain, so she pulled her hood up. Thinking about to head back to the - unnecessarily lavish - rented apartment that Steven was letting them use when something caught her eye from across the street.

A car had driven off, leaving a cat at this vet’s office. It was clearly not open right now, but whoever it was had been yelled at to leave the cat so they could go. After speeding away and splashing the poor thing with a growing puddle in the road, the car went off out of sight. Izzy could see a sad woman looking back, but that was it before the car continued on down the street and away to wherever it was going. Seeing no one else interested in helping the cat, Izzy bit her lip. She knew Steven would only gripe at her for it, but she had to do something. Part of what she was, was animalistic..in a manner of speaking. To leave another creature out here like this would be horrible - and she couldn’t do it.

Deciding that Steven could shove it and that what he didn’t know for now couldn’t hurt her, Izzy ran across the road before any more cars come. The cat had started to wander around a bit as if confused. It was still close enough, though, for Izzy to come over and pick it up.

Immediately, the cat began to growl and hiss lowly. It sounded pained, though, as if something were wrong. Judging from the limp she thought that she’d seen, Izzy was nearly certain that it was. From her heightened sense of smell, she discerned that the cat was a boy. There seemed to be something else off about him, but since he didn’t seem in the mood to willingly communicate with her, she couldn’t figure it out that way. For now, Izzy bundled him up as best as she could with the front of her hoodie, carrying him in what was sort of like a basket made of cloth. Or.. something.

“Shhh. It’ll be alright, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to take you inside, get you cleaned up, and see about finding you something to eat. So you can stop growling, kitty. I’m not letting you run off with a hurt paw and other probable injuries that need checking. I’d be a terrible hybrid if I did that,” she stated the last part softly, figuring that admitting such a thing to a cat wouldn’t be of any ill consequence to her. She did seem to have his interest after that, though, she noticed. And he’d stopped growling.

Taking that as a good sign, Izzy continued onwards to the building where she, Ash, and Luna had been staying at. Once inside, she took her hood off and headed for the elevator. Holding the cat in her arms as closely as she dared for the whole ride up, Izzy had to wonder if the cat that she had saved had a name already or not. She didn’t have too much longer to think about that, though, because they soon reached the floor that they were supposed to be on.

Stepping out of the elevator, Izzy carried her “precious cargo” across the hall and to the door leading to their apartment. Pausing at the door, Izzy fished out her keys. Resituating how she was holding him, she cradled him in one arm and opened the door with her free hand.

Upon stepping inside, Izzy was greeted by Ash jumping up and halting whatever video game that she’d been playing, jumping over the couch rather than going around it, and bouncing over to her, exclaiming nearly all in one breath: Izzy, Izzy! Where’ve you been? We missed you! Oh, and I got a new high score and I want you to see! It was the coolest thing ever, so you just gotta come and see it!” Ash jumped up and down, startling the cat in Izzy’s arms.

The greeting from her sister, however, began with her simply lowering her book, marking her spot, and rolling her eyes with a soft sigh. Then, she got up and walked over, arms folded.

“She’s been in the sugar again,” Luna stated, to which Ash stuck her tongue out at her and shook her head.

“Have not!” Ash said, in a way that only gave away further how hyper she was. She was about to start arguing with Luna when she heard a cat growling at her and stopped. Sniffing the air, she gave a confused look. “I smell a cat. There’s no cat here! Where’s the cat? Where’s—“ she was cut off by Luna clearing her throat and pointing to Izzy, to which Ash just bounced back into hyper-mode, and grinned. “Oooh!! You brought home a kitty!” She grinned, leaning in to try and get his attention. He was having none of it, though, and swatted at her despite it being painful to do so. Ears back, he bared his teeth and growled.

“Owwie.. he hurt me,” Ash pouted, withdrawing her hand and putting her finger in her mouth to make it stop bleeding.

Izzy just sighed and tried to calm the kitty down. It was not working well.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you, Ash,” Izzy said, looking down at the cat in her arms, sort of folded up in the risen front of her hoodie. “I found him on my way back. Someone left him in front of the vet’s office, even though it was closed. As if the expected the poor thing to stay until someone came in the morning,” Izzy frowned, rolling her eyes.

“Anyways, I could tell that he was hurt so I went across the road and picked him up. The car that left him there splashed him with road water, so I tried to fold him up close to me so he’d be at least a little bit warmer. As you can see, we’re both soaked. So I am fairly certain that before I can check on his wounds, I’m going to have to give him a warm bath. I’ll take my shower later.” Aizalea finished, pausing for a moment. Turning to the more responsible and far less hyper of the two, she coughed.

“Luna, could you and Ash go and pick up some stuff from the store? Kitty friendly, remember. He’s got feline in him, not canine.” Izzy looked at Ash when she stressed this and shook her finger. “I’ll order us dinner unless you two want to bring it home?” she rose a brow, to which Luna looked down at the poor creature in her friend’s arms, and nodded.

“We can bring it back. He needs to eat, and so do we. You give him a bath, and we’ll go get the stuff. Come on, Ash. Let’s go get ready. This stuff won’t buy itself,” Luna added, turning to walk off and get herself ready to go out. She knew it was raining, so she reminded Ash more than once to dress in something warm because she wasn’t entirely sure that Ash was listening to her the first few times. After all, in this form, they didn’t have as much to keep them from getting cold in the rain.

And questions would likely be raised, if they were to go running through the city in their other forms, with bags of food and cat supplies in their mouths.

✧༝┉┉┉┉┉˚*❋ 🐾 ❋*˚┉┉┉┉┉༝✧

After Ash and Luna had gone out to go buy the stuff that they’d probably need, Izzy carried her new little friend to the kitchen. Removing him from her hoodie and carefully placing him into the sink, she turned and took her hoodie off. Using a black hair tie off of her wrist - that had been there for who knew how long - she pulled her long hair up in as best a way as she could. All the while, keeping watch of the cat, who also seemed to be watching her. He was sitting there with his tail flicking in a way that suggested that he was frustrated, and his ears were back. But he hadn’t tried to get away yet - she guessed this was because he was in pain, and left it at that.

“Alright..” She stated, sighing softly. “Let’s get you cleaned up, shall we?” Izzy smiled lightly, coming over to the sink. She had no idea; or, at least, didn’t know yet, where this cat had truly come from. Or, who it actually was. It was fair enough: the cat sitting in her sink didn’t know who she was, either.

Miserable as he was before having been picked up by her, things had only become even further of a mess as far as he was concerned. There was only one of them before. Now, there were three. The one they called ‘Ash’ reminded him far too much of an over-excited child. ‘Luna’ seemed to be decent, but he wasn’t sure yet. The last one, who he supposed was called ‘Izzy,’ was..strange. He could tell that she thought that what she was doing was right, even if he wasn’t in the mood to receive help from her currently.

If he ever would be, he didn’t know. Life had made him a lot more bitter of late; before coming here, he had been stuck in a form that purposely prevented him from shifting out of it. He had been made to take the form of a cat and was unable to change it because he had been barred from doing so somehow. Whatever manner of spell that had been used to change him was not one that he was familiar with - that was the only reasonable conclusion that he had come up with so far. Not that it was one that he was particularly satisfied with.

While being bathed in a sink of all things was something that he felt to be highly undignified, Izzy was gentle. She scrubbed where necessary, but did her best not to further harm him. For one who smelled to him like a mix of something extremely strange, and more oddly, a dog of some kind; she was not horrible. For the moment.

Now that he thought about it.. they all smelled like dog to him, in some capacity. A scent that he had learned to not be very fond of since getting here - he blamed his current form and its reactions that he couldn’t stop, for that. The hissing, the growling.. the instinct to bite or to swat at people. All of that came from his being trapped in feline form. He was sure of it. The rest, he supposed must be from how the mortals here had treated him. All of them, save for the little girl who had apparently desperately wanted to keep him for longer than a night, were terrible as far as he was concerned. Kicking him, throwing things at him. Yelling, chasing, and frightening the life out of him. All reasons why he wasn’t happy that Izzy had picked him up in the first place. Yet here he was, sitting in a sink in what he guessed was their home, getting a bath in the sink.

The warm water felt nice, after being so cold outside. In this form, he apparently was affected by the cold. Ironic, he thought, given his true genetic lineage.

His thoughts were brought back to the present, as Izzy continued to bathe him. She was using some flowery-scented soap, which also kind of smelled like vanilla to him; sudsing him up, gently massaging it in, and then washing it away again, with some sort of extendable sink sprayer-thing that also felt pretty good. The whole time, Izzy hummed softly, as if hoping that it might somehow make him feel better. In the beginning, it was an annoyance. Over time, however, he decided to tolerate it.

Right when he was getting used to the pattern of things, the water went off. What an un-disappointing disappointment.

✧༝┉┉┉┉┉˚*❋ 🐾 ❋*˚┉┉┉┉┉༝✧

Being a feline was complicated. Part of him had hated the water, and yet; there was another part of him that found it soothing. That, and, perhaps he liked the fact that he wouldn’t have to use his tongue for a while..a lot more than he was letting himself believe.

When the water went off and she had put the sink-sprayer thing back in place, Izzy set about carefully drying his fur a bit. It felt weird to have her patting all over him with a towel, but it was at least soft and did not smell bad. Only once she seemed satisfied with his level of dryness, did she finally hoist him up out of the sink and into her arms again - snuggled close like some form of wrapped-up food. He got his breath hard; but it hurt, so he didn’t do it again. Watching from the view he had, he could hear her talking to him.

“I’m going to find you a comfortable pillow to sit on,” Izzy stated, although it seemed more like it was to herself than to him. “After I set you down, I’m going to get the hairdryer. It will be loud.. so please don’t run, okay?”

The plea posed to him came with a soft and caring tone; in with it was also pity, which he despised. However, he elected to stay on the pillow on the grounds that it was indeed comfortable, and he liked it.

Returning to dry him off further, Aizalea sat on the bed and plugged the hairdryer into the wall. Turning it on a lower setting, she took the towel and set it to the side. One hand on the other side of his as if to prevent any escape attempts he may make, she began to dry his fur better. She was not sure how he felt about it but hoped that he enjoyed it.

The hairdryer put to the side when finished with, Aizalea picked him up and rose again. This time, she brought him to her en-suite bathroom. The counter was big enough for her to check him over, and she could get to the most basic first aid supplies that she may need. It seemed like a good idea to her, but he did not seem to like it one bit. It was as if he’d had enough of her handling him, and now he wanted down.

“No, you can’t. You can’t get down,” Izzy said, hoping that somehow he’d get it in his head to behave. The air and scent that she got off of him may have been strange, but that didn’t have to mean that he wasn’t a normal cat. For all she knew, it could very well just be her smelling or feeling things that weren’t there. His attitude was enough to prove that he likely was just a normal cat. Even if he had set relatively still for his bath.

Claws and hissing met her when she got to some of the hurt places; she had not expected for him to give her a necessarily good reaction, but this was not something that she was going to put up with.

“Stop. I’m just trying to help you. Behave,” she growled herself, startling the cat in front of her into being still for a moment. Long enough, for Izzy to finish bandaging him up. A heavy exhale left her as she picked him up; she was glad that she had gotten him cleaned off and that he was now fixed up as best as she could accomplish right now with such little cooperation from him.

A frown pressed on her lips, as she brought him in and set him down in her room. Irritated by having been attacked simply for helping, she decided that she was going to leave him alone in her room for a while, to see if he’d start being a little nicer to her later on. The look she was given was as close to a scowl as he could give, and she hadn’t missed it. Shaking her head as she shut her door, Izzy went to the kitchen to wash her arms off. She didn’t think that any of them were bad enough to warrant bandages, and would likely heal on their own anyways; she had elevated healing from two different sources, her wait wouldn’t be a long one.

Not that that didn’t mean that she was not going to sit and be frustrated for the rest of the time before Ash and Luna came back to their apartment.

Because she was.

✧༝┉┉┉┉┉˚*❋ 🐾 ❋*˚┉┉┉┉┉༝✧

A few hours after the “incident” with the cat, the sound of knocking on the door brought Izzy away from her attempts to write a new song. Setting that to the side, she went to the door and let them both in.

“Thanks,” Luna sighed, arms full of bags. From behind her, Ash gave a limp sort of greeting, signifying that her sugar rush induced hyperness had finally worn off. Shuffling inside, both sisters set down the bags of cat supplies by the doorway and took the food bags into the kitchen. Going through the kitty supplies was going to wait. For now, they were all hungry.

“I’m guessing that the bath didn’t go so well, did it?” Luna asked as they ate their very late dinner: consisting of fried chicken that they’d gotten from the nearest deli, various sides, and several other types of meat gotten from either that same deli or from different places around it.

“No,” Izzy sighed, setting down her chicken bone. “These didn’t come from me giving him a bath. He did pretty well with that, actually. It was when I was trying to check his wounds that he did it. He started hissing and growling at me, so I left him in my room.” Aizalea chewed at her lower lip, seeming conflicted about it. Finally, she looked up at the sisters sitting at the table with her and added on to what she’d said before.

“Don’t eat it all. Leave some of it for me, okay? I’m going to take some of it to him so he can eat. Maybe it’ll put him in a better mood, I don’t know..” she said, earning nods from the other two in response. Ash was pretty tired right now, so she didn’t feel like eating a huge amount anyways.

“What’re you going to call him?” Ash did speak up after some time, glancing over the rim of her cup at Aizalea as she got a drink from it, and raising an eyebrow.

Getting up to take care of her trash and her dishes, Izzy hummed softly. Her own dark eyebrows creased in thought as she wiped her inedible bits of food into the trash, she shrugged her shoulders.

“I’m not sure yet,” was her answer. “I’m going to take some food to him, though, and I think maybe also get cleaned up. Night or not, don’t forget to sleep you two.” This comment was her last to them for the moment, as she picked out nice bits of still-warm meats and put them on a plate. Her actual final words to them for the night, came as she went into her room and wished them both goodnight.

Once inside, she looked around for the cat that she’d left in there earlier. He wasn’t anywhere that she could see at first, but in pausing to let her higher sense of hearing take over, she located him by the sound of his breathing. He was sulking under her bed, likely not very happy with her.

“I know you’re probably still mad at me, but I brought you food. I hope you like it, it’s out here.”

Izzy placed the plate down on the carpet near the end of her bed, then went about gathering her things for a shower. The whole time, she had to wonder if he already had a name. She hadn’t been able to speak with him so far because he wasn’t in the mood to cooperate; all she had gotten was normal animal sounds. Nothing she could make heads or tails of, which bothered her. If he wouldn’t speak to her, how would she know if he had a name?

As she went to bed for the night, she continued to think about it all for a while. Her whole day - how it had gone, finding the cat, and what had all taken place afterward. The last thing she thought to herself while finally drifting off, was that she’d seen the cat laying on her bookshelf and staring at the books themselves.

Odd…

#Loki #Others #Submitted fic #submission #a-pandoras-box-of-stories #not as it seems #chapter 1

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centerofstupidity · 4 years

Text

Noah Primeval Preface Snark

If you enjoy the content you are reading, please like and follow the Center of Stupidity blog.

Summary: The author claims that his stories are rooted in "the theological and spiritual intent of the Bible." He also loves to scripture drop. The worst is yet to come.

In case anyone wants to read the original author’s preface in order to form their own conclusions, you can read it here.

In the event that this gets flagged, here is another place to read the chapter snark.

Inspired By True Events.

Keep this in mind, folks.

Because...

The story you are about to read is the result of Biblical and historical research about Noah’s flood and the ancient Near Eastern (ANE) context of the book of Genesis.

Translation: Because I did some research, it means that the novel is deep and elevated lit-ra-choor.

While I engage in significant creative license and speculation,

....

..................

......................................

That’s a verbose way of saying “I created a work of fiction.”

all of it is rooted in an affirmation of what I believe is the theological and spiritual intent of the Bible.

Even though there are countless Bible interpretations.

You found all of the "hidden truths"and know the "correct" way to read the Bible.

But silly me.

This is the same person who spews vitriol at movies that don't conform to his beliefs and wrote a paper called Calvinism and the Bible.

In the document, Godawa insists that "Calvinism is simply Biblical Christianity" and how the five points of Calvinism are “truly Biblical doctrines, then most of us western American Christians have been sold a bill of goods as to what the Gospel really is."

For those who are leery of such a “novel” approach,

Like some other writers, Godawa believes that he has a Wildean wit.

let them consider that the traditional Sunday school image of Noah as a little old white-bearded farmer

I gotta call bullshit.

The traditional Sunday school image depicted Noah as being a white man.

It didn't emphasize that he was an old farmer.

building the ark alone with his sons is itself a speculative cultural bias.

It's been a while since I've been to CCD…

But I don't remember them ever discussing at great length on how the ark was built.

They don't deal in the minutia.

Instead they focused on educating people about their faith.

And the whole "speculative cultural bias" comment is rich...

Coming from a man who preaches in his fiction and does evangelizing podcasts with his friends.

The Bible actually says very little about Noah.

Instead we get lengthy details about who begat who and what tribe they came from.

We don’t know what he did for a living before the Flood or even where he lived.

Which is why the Midrash aggadah was written.

According to MJL, Midrash aggadah interprets biblical narrative, exploring questions of ethics or theology, or creating homilies and parables based on the text.

For instance, one of the best known midrashes is the story about Abraham.

It states while Abraham was a young child in Mesopotamia, he was smashing idols.

This story suggests that God didn't randomly pick Abraham.

Instead, God knew that Abraham would be receptive to His voice.

How do we know whether he was just a simple farmer or a tribal warrior?

The answer?

We will most likely never know for certain.

And secondly, who cares? It is minutiae.

Oh wait.

The author is going to bestow us the answer.

Genesis 9:2 says Noah “began to be a man of the soil” after the Flood, not before it.

Genesis 9:2 says this:

The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands.

(This comes from the New International Version.)

And I checked two other translations: the King James Version [KJV] and the English Standard Version [ESV].

They are the same as the first.

The passage about Noah becoming a farmer comes from Genesis 9: 20

Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. [ESV]

Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. [NIV]

And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard. [KJV]

So in conclusion:

If the world before the flood was full of wickedness and violence,

Because they would all fight evil physically.

It's not like righteous men would ever combat evil by using their words or practicing non violence.

Noah would not have been that different from Abraham,

Or…

He could have been a prophet whose words inspired others.

Nobody knows for certain what Noah did prior to the flood.

who farmed, did business and led his family and servants in war against kings.

Man, Godawa is obsessed with the idea of righteous warriors.

We know very little about primeval history,

There is a newfangled thing called archaeology.

but we do learn from archeological evidence that humanity was clearly tribal during the early ages when this story takes place.

Um…

The previous line belies the rest of the sentence.

Where's the editor?

Yet, nothing is written about Noah’s tribe in the Bible.

We also don't know anything about Jesus' childhood.

Your point being?

It would be modern individualistic prejudice to assume that Noah was a loner when everyone in that Biblical context was communal.

Who ever said that he was???

Is Godawa just making up arguments so he can tear them down?

Noah surely had a tribe.

You already said that. Move along.

There is really no agreement as to the actual time and location of the event of the Flood.

And in other news…

Bears shit in the woods and the Pope is Catholic.

So B. Godawa lists some theories about when and where the Flood took place.

He thinks it is "Early Bronze Age Mesopotamian contexts" because of some passages in Genesis.

By the by... He doesn't mention any specific passages.

At some other time, I'll take a look at the appendix.

Because right now, I'm not in the mood to read an appendix that is about one hundred pages long.

The Bible also says Noah built the ark.

And now for the following news bulletin:

Adam and Eve lived in a place called the Garden of Eden.

Are we to believe that Noah built it all by himself?

Yes, if you take the Bible literally.

It doesn’t say. With his sons’ help? It doesn’t say.

But that very same book does say earlier that Cain “built a city” (some scholars believe it was Cain’s son Enoch).

Which scholars said that?

Because doing a quick Google search got me absolutely bupkis.

Instead, I got a bunch of websites that talked about Cain building a city and naming it after his son.

Are we to assume that he built an entire city by himself?

No lie… I had to check and see if Cain had a son named Enoch. (And he did).

Because after the bungling of a verse from Genesis, I wasn’t sure if this was another mistake.

As for Cain building an entire city single handedly? I’m sure Christian fundamentalists would respond with “yes”.

My response would be “no” followed by:

Who helped Cain to build a city? A lot of golems? Some demons? Or did he hire a lot of people in the nearby area?

If Cain just hired a bunch of people, wouldn't the idea of God only creating two humans [a.k.a. Adam and Eve] be false?

How did Cain get the materials to build a city?

How would Cain know which materials would be good for building a city?

And why did Cain want to build a city in the first place?

Ridiculous.

Who knew that with one word, such disdain could drip from a person’s tongue?

Cain or Enoch presided as a leader over the building of a city by a group of people,

Wait a tick…

Godawa previously said that it was Cain that built a city but some scholars believe it was Enoch.

And now he is stating that it could be Cain OR Enoch.

Does that mean that Godawa forgot what he wrote previously?

Or the man who sees himself as the Grand Poobah of Biblical Knowledge is finally admitting that he doesn’t have all the answers?

just as Noah probably did with his ark.

So in other words, Noah just sat on his ass and barked orders at people.

Because as we all know, that is a great leadership style.

One of the only things Genesis says about Noah’s actual character is that he was “a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God” (Gen. 6:9).

Now a normal person would interpret this to mean that Noah was a good person who conversed with God.

But Noah Primeval turns Noah into a Gary Stu. (By the way, this will be revealed in future chapter snarks).

The New Testament clarifies this meaning by noting Noah as an “heir” and “herald” of righteousness by faith (Heb. 11:7; 2Pet. 2:5).

ESV [English Standard Version] said Noah as a “herald of righteousness” while NIV and KJV described Noah as a “preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5).

While ESV, NIV, and KJV all described how Noah “became an heir of righteousness.” (Hebrews 11:7).

You might be thinking to yourself: What’s your point?

If we are to take into account what the Bible said about Noah… It describes Noah spreading God’s message (like a herald or a preacher). But it also adds that because of Noah’s faith in God, he “became an heir of righteousness.”

This differs from the depiction in Noah Primeval where Noah is the Chosen One from an ancient prophecy.

And that makes him superior to all the other filthy mortals along with slightly less perfect than Jesus.

The popular interpretation of this notion of “righteousness” is to understand Noah as a virtually sinless man too holy for his time, and always communing with God in perfect obedience.

But is this really Biblical?

If you mean, some people acting like sanctimonious hypocritical assholes, then I would loudly shout “Hell yes!”

Would Noah have never sinned? Never had an argument with God?

Personally, my answers would be “no” for both questions.

But in this novel, when Noah isn't acting like a bratty teenager, he acts like a smug douchebag.

Yet the reader is supposed to see Noah as a paragon of virtue.

Never had to repent?

In order to repent, a person must have genuine remorse for their actions. It also requires accountability.

It doesn't entail a person rending their garments melodramatically until they are completely naked and then yelling at the top of their lungs. I'm looking at you, Noah Primeval.

As a matter of fact, the term “righteous” in the Old and New Testaments was not a mere description of a person who did good deeds and avoided bad deeds.

Maybe it is because the writers of the Old and New Testament know that good people are not perfect. They make mistakes and take ownership of their actions.

Righteousness was a Hebrew legal concept that meant, “right standing before God” as in a court of law.

What makes me so fucking disgusted is that Godawa has no qualms with cherry picking things from different mythologies and whatever doesn’t suit his narrative is either discarded or depicted as being malevolent lies.

It carried the picture of two positions in a lawsuit, one “not in the right,” and the other, “in the right”

You mean a lawsuit involves two sides: the prosecution and the defense?

or “righteous” before God.

And this series doesn’t hesitate to jump on a soap box and shout at the top of their lungs.

It was primarily a relational term.

*Sigh*

What’s next?

Are we going to define the definition of is?

Not only that, but in both Testaments, the righteous man is the man who is said to “live by faith,” not by perfect good deeds (Hab. 2:4; Rom. 1:17).

So righteousness does not mean “moral perfection” but “being in the right with God because of faith.”

In other words, ice is cold and fire is hot.

….

This is leading up to rant filled with gratuitous Bible citations.

What’s more, being a man of faith doesn’t mean a life of perfect consistency either.

You mean good people aren't perfect??? Thanks for notifying me Brian Godawa!

Look at David, the “man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22), yet he was a murderer and adulterer and more than once avoided obeying God’s will. But that doesn’t stop him from being declared as “doing all God’s will” by the apostle Paul.

At risk of sounding like a broken record, good people are not perfect.

Which is why repeating the obvious makes a person look like a blithering moron.

Or consider Abraham, the father of the Faith, who along with Sarah believed that God would provide them with a son (Heb. 11:8-11).

What does this have to do with anything? Is Godawa trying to dazzle the reader with how many Bible verses he can quote?

Yet, that Biblically honored faith was not perfect, as they both laughed in derision at God’s promise at first (Gen. 17:17; 18:12).

I guess Godawa never heard of a thing called context.

According to the Zohar, Sarah laughed because her son would have a feminine soul.

The Zohar also states that a soul from the "feminine world" cannot have children.

Sarah knew this and laughed because this contradicted God's promise to continue Abraham's bloodline.

God had to remind Sarah that He has the power to do anything. Which means He can turn a feminine soul into a masculine one.

And because Godawa loves to scripture drop, he cites additional examples from the Bible when people either argued or complained to God.

The very name Israel means “to struggle with God.”

I normally don't split hairs but considering the fact that the author fancies himself to be a scholar…

The word Israel means "God contends".

An alternate translation is "He Retains God"or "God Is Upright".

All the heroes in the Hebrews Hall of Faith (Heb. 11) had sinful moments, lapses of obedience and even periods of running from God’s call or struggling with their Creator.

According to the NIV translation, it commended the people for having a strong faith in God and how that faith allowed them to do what it is just. It does not give blow-blow descriptions of their spiritual struggles or a detailed accounting of all of their sins.

Now that I'm thinking about it… I have a sneaking suspicion that this is leading up to Godawa justifying his depiction of Noah.

It would not be heresy to suggest that Noah may have had his own journey with God

Well, duh.

Noah's spiritual journey would have started with baby steps.

It is not like Noah would be chummy with God the very second he was born. A relationship with God is developed during a lifetime.

that began in fear and ended in faith.

That's assuming that every person that started a relationship with God that said relationship was founded on distrust (which is fueled by fear) or the case of Noah Primeval, built on a foundation that is a passive-aggressive hate boner for the Almighty.

For some individuals, their spiritual journey never originated from animosity or distain because they always had faith.

In fact, to say otherwise is to present a life inconsistent with the reality of every human being in history.

I'll say it again.

Every person's spiritual journey with God is different.

To insist that every person's relationship with God originated from negative emotions is not based in reality.

To say one is a righteous person of faith is to say that the completed picture of his life is one of finishing the race set before him, not of having a perfect run without injuries or failures.

It is time for a writing exercise! Let’s take this wordy sentence and make it concise.

I'll go first.

The completed picture of a righteous person’s life is not a perfect run without injuries or failures but rather they finished the race set before them.

Now that I'm thinking about it …

This verbose sentence sounds like something that belongs in a fortune cookie.

Also, I find it odd that this little nugget of wisdom uses the gender neutral phrase “righteous person of faith” but then uses his | him pronouns.

Why am I getting the feeling that this is a subtle message that only a man can be a "righteous person of faith"?

Some scholars have even noted that the phrase “blameless in his generation” is an unusual one,

“They also think it is peculiar that the Flood lasted for forty days and nights. Why not eighteen or twenty-five? Is forty God’s favorite number or did He just pick it randomly?”

reserved for unblemished sacrifices in the temple.

Wait a minute.

So these scholars are stating that the phrase "blameless in his generation" is only used for animal sacrifices.

Which means Noah is likened to an animal sacrifice…

Which is totally different from Noah Primeval's depiction of Noah as a macho and virile warrior who is the Chosen One.

Also, it is really dodgy when someone only gives some citations or doesn't provide any.

This physical purity

…

The words "physical purity" just sent shivers down my spine.

Because when words like that casually enter into a conversation, it is not long before an argument is made in favor of eugenics.

takes on new meaning when understood in the genetic context of the verses

"Genetic context"?

I didn't know that words had DNA.

Flippant comment aside, all this talk of "physical purity" and "genetic context" prompted me to do a quick Google search of the following: Noah blameless in his generation animal and it brought up a thread asking if Genesis 6:9 is referring to Noah's genetic purity.

before it that speak of “Sons of God” or bene ha elohim leaving their proper abode in heaven and violating the separation of angelic and human flesh (Gen. 6:1-4; Jude 5-7).

Um…

This is sort of correct.

Genesis 6:7-4 is about the Sons of God marrying beautiful human women and having children called Nephilim. Yet it also states that humans will live to be 120.

While Jude 5-7, the writer reminds the reader that God delivered his people out of Egypt and destroyed the non-believers. They also said that the angels who "did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling" along with the sinful people of Sodom and Gomorrah will be punished by "eternal fire."

Within church history,

The concept of the Grigori and Nephilim originated in Jewish folklore and legends.

At some point, early Christians either stumbled across an old scroll discussing these ideas or simply heard about it. They probably found the whole story to be fascinating and proceeded to write their own interpretations.

there is a venerable tradition of interpreting this strangest of Bible passages as referring to supernatural beings from God’s heavenly host who mate with humans resulting in the giant offspring called Nephilim.

The idea that some angels came down from Heaven to mate with humans doesn't sound bizarre to me.

Frankly, the Book of Revelation reads like John was on a big acid trip.

Other equally respectable theologians argue that these Sons of God were either humans from the “righteous” bloodline of Seth or a symbolic reference to human kings or judges of some kind.

Again, Christians didn't come with these alternate explanations. For instance, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai strongly opposed the idea that the "benei elokim" were angels.

I have weighed in on the supernatural interpretation

That is a weird way of saying "I have decided to write a novel that depicts the Grigori as angels."

According to the Collins dictionary, the words "weighed in", means:

give an opinion or enter a discussion or argument

to measure how heavy someone is, esp. before a competition

It is important to note that The Free Dictionary and the Oxford Learner's Dictionaries has these definitions but with slightly different wording.

In conclusion?

and have provided appendices at the end of the book that give the Biblical theological foundation for this interpretation.

Only a filthy peasant has opinions.

An enlightened individual only believes in facts and since they are benevolent, they are imparting their wisdom to others.

This novel seeks to remain true to the sparse facts presented in Genesis (with admittedly significant embellishments)

“Admittedly significant embellishments”?

That’s putting it mildly.

More like “being preachy but insisting that you are only telling people facts.”

interwoven with theological images and metaphors come to life.

I’m sorry but I can’t take this statement seriously.

Because it reminds me of a scene in the movie The Ref when Gus is talking about how “a complex web of complications need to be weaved and woven into a quilt of some kind.”

Where I engage in flights of fancy,

That’s putting it mildly.

This story never put its feet on the ground.

such as a journey into Sheol,

Pray tell, what is Sheol?

An explanation would be nice because for all we know, Sheol is the name of a cave or a forest.

I seek to use figurative imagery from the Bible, such as “a bed of maggots and worms” (Isa. 14:11) and “the appetite of Sheol” (Isa. 5:14) and bring them to life by literalizing them into the flesh-eating living-dead animated by maggots and worms.

Let’s break this down, shall we?

Isaiah 5:14 ESV says this:

Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite

and opened its mouth beyond measure,

and the nobility of Jerusalem[h] and her multitude will go down,

Isaiah 5 is about the people of Israel who will be punished for their sins. This specific passage is discussing how the sinners are going to die.

Isaiah 14:11 ESV says this:

Your pomp is brought down to Sheol,

the sound of your harps;

maggots are laid as a bed beneath you,

and worms are your covers.

Isaiah 14 discusses how Babylon will be destroyed by God. This specific passage is about how the haughty King of Babylon will perish.

It still doesn’t answer the question of what Sheol is.

If we are still looking at the Bible for an explanation, the NIV translation of Isaiah 5:14 states:

Therefore Death expands its jaws, opening wide its mouth;

Also, the New International version of Isaiah 14 doesn’t use the word Sheol.

Instead, it uses the words to the grave.

Based on these translations, one can make the assumption that Sheol is the word for death or grave.

However, Sheol is a place where the souls of the dead reside.

Let's take a look at this line more closely:

bring them to life by literalizing them into the flesh-eating living-dead animated by maggots and worms.

The Bible having figurative imagery? That is not a groundbreaking revelation. Plenty of Bible scholars have written papers and or books analyzing this.

Figurative language is not supposed to be taken literally. It is used by a writer to convey an idea (example: time is a thief) or to paint a picture in a reader's mind (example: the flowers danced in the wind.)

To take something figurative and make it literal is asinine.

Also, "flesh-eating living-dead"?

I guess the word "zombie" is too plebeian.

Another player that shows up in the story is Leviathan.

“Another player”?

I bethink he is a pretentious rampallian who thinkest by using an antediluvian word maketh him intelligent and literary sir.

“Player” is an old fashioned word for actor.

It DOES NOT mean character.

So in conclusion:

While I have provided another appendix explaining the theological motif of Leviathan

Translation?

“Behold my dizzying intellect!”

as a metaphor in the Bible for chaos and disorder, I have embodied the sea dragon in this story for the purpose of incarnating that chaos as well.

One word:

I have also literalized the Mesopotamian cosmology of a three-tiered universe with a solid vault in the heavens, and a flat disc earth supported on the pillars of the underworld, the realm of the dead.

Thanks to Brian Godawa, the words "metaphor" and "literalized" annoy me.

I'd hate to rain on your parade but Mesopotamian mythology isn't the only one who had a three-tiered universe.

Below is an image of the Hebrew cosmology:

It also has an universe that has three levels: heaven, earth, and the underworld. The earth is a flat disc floating on water with heaven above it and the underworld below it.

If one takes a second look at the picture, you will notice that there are pillars or the foundation of the earth.

In conclusion, Mesopotamian mythology isn't the only one to depict a universe as being composed of three levels.

This appears to be the model assumed by the Biblical writers in many locations (Phil. 2:10; Job 22:14; 37:18; Psa. 104:5; 148:4; Isa. 40:22),

Jewish people have their own culture. They would not be using Mesopotamian mythology as their yardstick.

so I thought it would be fascinating to tell that story within that worldview unknown to most modern westerners.

You mean a different concept or an idea can be interesting? What a mind boggling revelation!

If I didn't know any better, I’d believe Godawa when he said telling a story from another culture’s point of view would be “fascinating.”

Yet it is painfully obvious that if something doesn't conform to his beliefs, it must be a vile falsehood created by malevolent beings.

The purpose of the Bible is not to support scientific theories or models of the universe,

Actually, the Big Bang Theory does not conflict with the story of creation.

but to tell the story of God through ancient writers. Those writers were people of their times just as we are.

Which is why the absence of Jewish culture is jarring.

Especially since all the "good" characters are Calvinists.

I have also woven together Sumerian and other Mesopotamian mythology in with the Biblical story,

It is randomly inserted (ex: Pazuz) or the deities are evil fallen angels who are destroying Family Values™ and Corrupting the Children™.

but with this caveat:

"Anything that doesn't conform to my worldviews must be the lies devised by Satan."

Like C.S. Lewis,

Did he compare himself to C.S. Lewis?

….

……….

…………………….

It is like trying to compare M. Night Shyamalan to Alfred Hitchcock.

Even though one is a hack while the other one is a talented creator.

I believe the primary purpose of mythology is to embody the worldview and values of a culture.

Aside from helping people to understand the world around them and giving them answers to timeless questions such as: Is there life after death? Why does evil exist?

Mythology also provides a form of entertainment and ensures that certain traditions survive.

But all myths carry slivers of the truth and reflect some distorted vision of what really happened.

This reeks of ethnocentrism!

Sumer’s Noah was Ziusudra, Babylon’s Noah was Utnapishtim, and Akkad’s was Atrahasis. The Bible’s Noah is my standard.

I'll bring this up if anyone tries to claim that Noah Primeval isn't preachy and ethnocentric.

So my goal was to incorporate real examples of ANE history and myth in subjection to that standard in such a way that we see their “true origin.”

....

You know what?

If someone wrote a Wiccan based fantasy series that demonized Christianity, he would be outraged.

Godawa reiterates his "speculation" that the deities were fallen angels with superhuman abilities that once belonged to God's divine council.

See the appendix at the back for my defense of this interpretation from the Bible.

I'm not in the mood to read a lengthy appendix that reads like you giving yourself a giant pat on the back. Perhaps that will be a future snark.

Lastly, I have permitted myself to use extra-Biblical Jewish literature from the Second Temple period as additional reference material for my story.

In other words...

He gave himself permission to steal and vandalize a different culture. Isn't that charming?

I use these ancient Jewish sources

I bet many people wished you hadn't.

not because I consider them completely factual or on par with the Bible,

"They are complete heresy. Instead, believe in the teachings of John Calvin."

but simply in an attempt to incarnate the soul of the ancient Hebrew imagination in conversation with the text of Scripture

Like the Yeti, the Hebrew imagination has yet to be found.

rather than imposing my own modern western one upon the text.

...

............

............................

I am within the tradition of the Church on this since authors of the New Testament as well as early Church Fathers

Just "Church Fathers"?

Christianity also had Church Mothers.

To name a few: Mary Magdalene, Phoebe, Junia, Lydia, Eudia, Thecla, Syntyche, and Prisca.

and other orthodox theologians in church history respected some of these ancient manuscripts as well.

While the author did the opposite.

Many of these texts from the Second Temple Period, such as Jubilees, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs or The Life of Adam and Eve, and others found in the Pseudepigrapha, were creative extrapolations of the Biblical text.

I guess the word of the day is "extrapolations".

Extrapolation is defined as "to predict by projecting past experience or known data" or " to infer from values within an already observed interval."

I find it rather disgusting to imply that the Midrash is a product of guesswork or estimates.

Which means whatever the author's personal beliefs are founded in facts.

These were not intended to deceive or overturn the Bible,

Notice the word "intended".

It infers that the writers weren't deliberately telling lies.

It just happens that they were spreading falsehoods.

but rather to retell Biblical stories with theological amplification and creative speculation

You see, humans are a curious species. We don't like unanswered questions.

Therefore, we come up with a possible answer or an explanation for a particular event.

The purpose of the Midrash is to provide explanations or to give a story details.

Ever wondered who was Cain's wife? According to Book of Jubilees, she was Cain's sister and her name is Awan.

while remaining true to their interpretation of the Scriptures.

They weren't providing interpretations to Mesopotamian mythology.

In short, I am not writing Scripture.

Normally, I would believe this.

But subsequent interviews and podcasts along with the preachy messages written in the story belies this statement.

I am not even saying that I believe this is how the story might have actually happened.

Remember when I said to keep something in mind because it will be significant later on?

Well, now it is important.

This statement and the words "Inspired by True Events" are contradictory.

I am simply engaging in a time-honored tradition of the ancient Hebrew culture:

No, no, no!

Do not pass go. Do not collect $200!

I am retelling a Biblical story in a new way to underscore the theological truths within it.

Godawa only wants to associate with ancient Hebrew culture when it elevates him as a writer and his stories.

From his remarks, it is obvious that he regards the Midrashes as being subpar bodies of work that will mislead undiscerning readers.

That being said, that won't stop him using such texts in order to receive praise for his "creativity" and be commended in scholarly circles for using Jewish texts.

This mentality is similar to Rick Riordan's.

In case anyone doesn't know...

Rick Riordan is best known for writing the Percy Jackson series which retold Greek mythology. He then wrote a series based on Norse mythology called Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard.

Both series were a hit and he greatly profited from these stories.

After sometime, Riordan made the following statements:

“I didn’t realize some people still worship the old Viking gods. Very strange, and a little scary…In my opinion, the more you learn about the mythology, the more impossible it is to take it seriously as a religion… after you’ve met Odin and Thor in the stories, who in their right mind would ever want to worship them?”

" I love Greek myths, but why anyone would want to worship the Greek pantheon is beyond me. "

"It’s strange to think anyone would still worship the Olympians seriously."

Early in the book, the character Chiron draws a clear distinction between God, capital-G, the creator of the universe, and the Greek gods (lower-case g). Chiron says he does not wish to delve into the metaphysical issue of God, but he has no qualms about discussing the Olympians because they are a “much smaller matter.”

Unsurprisingly, this offended many polytheists.

You might be wondering: what's my point?

To put it simply? Both writers profited from incorporating different mythologies into their stories.

One writer made disparaging remarks about individuals who believe in these deities after becoming a best selling author.

While the other barely concealed their disdain for the source material they used that garnered their popularity and praise from critics.

In conclusion?

Don't build your career on writing stories using different mythologies and deride the believers of said mythos or the very thing that puts money in your bank account.

Then wonder why some people think you are a horse's ass.

The Biblical theology that this story is founded upon is provided in several appendixes at the back of the book for those who are interested in going deeper.

First of all..

Stop peddling your friggin' appendixes.

We get it.

It has citations.

Which means it is supposed to be scholarly...

Therefore... It is deep and elevated literature.

The beauty of fiction

Um, no.

It is not all beautiful.

It can also be bland or terrible.

And in some cases, it is deeply disturbing.

is that we can make assumptions regarding uncertain theological and historical information

Yes, you can.

Up to a point.

The moment when you insist theses assumptions or personal beliefs are based in fact...

Writers like Philippa Gregory and Brian Godawa are born.

without having to prove them one way or another.

You know what also doesn't require proof?

Faith.

The story requires only that we establish continuity within the made up world,

It is called the suspension of disbelief.

and accepting those assumptions for the sake of the story does not imply theological agreement.

Normally, yes.

But this series makes it abundantly clear that if you don't agree with the political and theological beliefs...

At best, you are country pumpkin. (Yes, he does equate them to being stupider than Ana Steele.)

At worst, you are not only a moron but a depraved degenerate as well.

So, sit back and

Reach for the booze because you are going to need it. Also, make sure that the vomit bucket is in front of you.

let your imagination explore the contours of this re-imagined journey

And before long, wishing that you never did and longing to depart for the Undying Lands.

of one of the most celebrated religious heroes across all times and cultures.

And by the end, you want:

To repeatedly punch the "good" characters in the throat and stab them in the groin. Especially Noah.

The villains to shut up and fuck off. Because they are what a thirteen years old boy would think is edgy. Especially if said boy was also a Bible thumper.

#book snark #chapter snark #bad fiction #snark #noah primeval #anti Brian Godawa #anti noah primeval

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roguebotanist · 4 years

Text

I’ve been playing around with talk to transformer today and thought it would be fun to extend a bunch of sim bios! I think someone may have done something similar recently, but I’m not really sure. Anyway, here’s every sim in Strangetown (bolded parts are their original bios). Long post ahead:

Loki Beaker

As soon as he perfects his latest invention, Loki is sure to get the recognition he knows he deserves. In the meantime, he keeps himself busy by trying to assemble a nuclear reactor out of common household items. During one of his experiments, he accidentally melts the family dog. Realizing that his so-called tools of destruction are so harmless, Loki gladly takes his pet back home and happily adopts it. Fearing that the strange creature will cause more damage if he is ever left alone, Loki goes to great lengths to keep it, including stacking hundreds of baby chicken eggs in the backyard.

Circe Beaker

Circe knows 238 different ways to make someone scream, and none of them are nice. She enjoys taxidermy and collecting coat hangers. She has a wonderful knowledge of names and an affinity for Hallmark, which is why all her books are centered around Christmas and spring holidays. This is particularly important to her, as her whole life is completely shaped by them. The children love to ask questions about things, and they are able to make up as many of the answers as they like. Do you have a huge embarrassment problem? One of Circe's known phrases is 'Where's the finger in your back pocket?'.

Sometimes in the garden, she prances

Nervous Subject

His hobbies include twitching and blinking a lot. He's also fond of travelling and baking. Along with the broad and meaty teeth of a canine, St George the giant groundhog has a day-old beard and a partial gingivitis – which is the inflammation of a plaque inside the teeth. His beard and gingivitis don't hurt his routine; they just mean he's a bit slower and a bit more circumspect.

That's because he's aged.

Olive Specter (yes, it gave her stats)

Olive will stop at nothing to get what she wants. She spends her time collecting mushrooms, sharpening sticks, and excavating her yard. As you might expect, she has a big appetite, and eats anything that she thinks is good enough for her. She's as much of a carnivore as you are, and is able to catch fish or birds at the least opportunity. She doesn't bother with plants, and prefers to live in areas full of food.

Alignment: Neutral evil

Hit Dice: 1d8+2

Speed: 30 feet

Ophelia Nigmos (this one is unsettling and strangely coherent)

Ophelia's hobbies include hypochondria and monitoring the air quality. She worries about the future... and the past... and the present. Especially right now.

Her past memories have become like mantras, repeating over and over in her head. They are the most important thing to her. This time, she's not sure she will remember them the way she did before. She's aching to go back and erase her past.

That which is most important to her--the things she left behind--has been forgotten. And nobody can help her. Nobody.

PT9 Smith

The only thing PT9 loves more than his lawn is his family. When he is not spending time with his children, he enjoys clipping coupons and staring up at the sky. Over the years PT9 has found his place in the aquarium world. He has helped educate people on different types of fish and he has hosted various education seminars for clients who have "fish stories" to share. In his spare time, PT9 enjoys spending time with his wife and his grandchildren.

Jenny Smith

Jenny loves having a career, but she wishes she could spend more time with her family, and maybe make some new friends. She really likes green. She wishes she had more friends. She wishes her mom would talk to her more often. She wishes she had nicer hair. She wishes her nose looked like a horse's. She has a lot of sympathy for humans and hopes to see one in the future. Jenny is a cross between a cat and a dog with a medium build, no special traits, but that means she's got a lot of muscle and a huge body

Johnny Smith

Johnny dreams of being the hero that rides in on a white horse, or at least a cool sports car. He'd go on to become the worst Superhero in all of space and time, which I guess is exactly what a normal, human teenage boy would do.

Jill Smith

When Jill closes her eyes, she sees dolphins. She has her heart set on becoming a deep sea welder someday. She loves dolphins so much, she's often put one in the trunk of her car and hit the gas to cheer her up.

"I love them so much," Jill declares. "I'm a Dolphin Lover."

Pascal Curious

No matter what happens, Pascal believes there is a logical explanation for everything. In his free time, he practices home psychoanalysis and collects conspiracy theories. He's become adept at opening jars containing creepy little bones or fragments of jellyfish, an odd skill in the world of ponysaurus hunting.

"I have been extremely lucky with bone fragments and that's not even being exaggerating," Pascal said.

Vidcund Curious

Serious and exact, Vidcund strives to fit the universe into a nice tidy package. He has an unnatural fondness for African violets. He is literally covered in them, from head to toe, if not technically. This is an odd love-hate relationship, a love-love and a hate-hate; that leaves us to sit and imagine the potential war between the vine and the earth.

Lazlo (”Twilight”) Curious

Not as studious as his older brothers, Lazlo got his degree in Phrenology. He likes to call phone psychics and spends hours trying to bend forks with his mind. His middle name is "Twilight" because his father was a vampire. He hates flowers.

General Buzz Grunt

The General likes to have his clocks set to military time. He used to enjoy barbershop quartet singing, but that is classified information. It's unknown when he fell in love, but it's possible that he was one of the first humans to understand the concept of love.

Tank Grunt

Tank Grunt wants to be just like his old man. He spends his days lifting heavy things, dodging imaginary bullets, and being bigger than the other guy, but deep down inside, he wonders if anyone really knows who he is. He hates it when his grandmother wants him to call her "Mama" and his grandma is pissed, and he just wants to stay in the dark and get away from the boring world around him. If he could just learn to love himself, he'd be unstoppable.

Ripp Grunt

Ripp totally doesn't care what you think of him. He is going to do whatever he wants to do, which is mostly what everyone else is doing. He has this whimsical desire to show off his tattoos, even though they give me nightmares (sometimes it feels like these tattoos are like a big torture device). He is hyperbolic and outrageous and uncouth and rude to the point that he's almost comical.

Buck Grunt

More than anything else, Buck wants to be a pet stylist to the stars. He spends a lot of time wondering why his father never seems to notice him.

"I want to have big hands and big feet, and I'm hoping I'm going to end up a couple of feet longer than my parents are," Buck said. "My Dad tells me a lot of things like, 'My son is going to be that guy who gets attention by the funnest side of you you've ever seen.' "

Cousins' health makes him optimistic about his prospects

Ajay Loner

To pass the hours, Ajay enjoys counting the grains of sand in his backyard. He may be about to blow his last few thousand, so he worries no more. "You can always count them. You just have to keep on keeping on," he says.

Chloe Curious

The complete opposite of her sister, Chloe just wants to meet new people and to have a good time. She can often be found daydreaming or chatting on the phone. She is very positive and has a creative mind, a big help when composing mean tweets. She always makes sure she keeps her emotions under control and is not too outgoing in social situations.

Lola Curious

Intelligent and focused, Lola knows what she wants and how to get it. She enjoys politics and telling those around her what to do. She keeps her enemies close and keeps a close eye on her enemies' backbones. Her love of Doctor Who and her interest in exploration drive her to travel the galaxy.

Erin Beaker

Erin spends a lot of time working on her psychic powers. Of course, she isn't really psychic, but don't tell her that. Erin's already a pro at picking out great dates with potential future partners. Nothing beats having a psychic date.

Kristen Singles

Kristen envisions herself as a world famous sports champion. She doesn't particularly care for Strangetown, but it's only a pit stop on her track to greatness. As much as she hates to admit it, her talent has never been in question, but that's not stopping her from strutting and parading around town in a T-shirt advertising her skills. She's no longer treating her sport as a game, but instead is obsessed with her prowess as a self proclaimed "muscle mom."

#ts2 #long post #this took HOURS bc I wanted them to all be at least mildly entertaining #I think buck's is my favorite

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thoughtlessghost · 4 years

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Salem ou alekoum fellow disbelievers,

I decided to write this story down because one of my friends is currently questioning Islam. She said it might be a good idea for me to share my journey to help her and others find inner peace once you have walk out of something you grew up thinking was correct. I think I will make this a 2-3 parts series depending on interest and how she deals with just part 1. There's a lot to go through, and I will try to be brief, but I do not mind elaborating on any section in the comments or private. I am very open and confident about who and what I am. Finally, I want to have at least one part dedicated to my current worldview with the hopes of helping you guys create your moral landscape.

Finally, I would like to complete this preface by saying that I know that we all have personal reasons for leaving a Religion. Some of you have left the faith because you felt as though it was too controlling; others may have felt that God was simply too cruel. I will say that in the end, those were not the deciding factors for me. In my view, only Truth matters. Therefore, for me to stop believing in a concept, it merely has to be proven untrue, whether scientifically or logically. So my journey of leaving Islam did not originate because I had problems with its takes on the world. They occurred in large part because I feel as though Islam is inconsistent with our understanding of the natural world. Given the purpose of writing this is to help people, and that most people don't make decisions based on logic, I will try and emphasize how events and not thoughts affected my worldview to help illustrate how and when the transition occurred.

1. Humble beginnings: I know everybody has a different upbringing, so I would like to give you guys some context of how familiar I was with Islam growing up as a child (4-12). For starters, I am the eldest son of first-generation Algerian immigrants to Canada. This is just to tell you I'm brown, and I went to a school surrounded by non-muslims. In school, I was a troublemaker. I was basically this brainy kid who cared so little of rules and norms that I was almost transferred to this school for a learning disability. In response, my dad would beat the shit out of me every day for not being an obedient student despite my grades being decent (during that period B to B+). Despite his sincerest efforts, I never learned or changed. I'm only saying this because it made Arabic school impossible for my parents to manage since I simply refused to do my regular homework from school. My thinking was something like this: "What's the point of going to ANOTHER school on the weekend and spend all of my time off doing pointless alphabetical exercises in a language no one other than my parents spoke?" This, in turn, limited my exposure to Islam since I didn't interact with other Muslim kids. Finally, my parents bestowed upon me few Islamic teachings or practices. For instance, I fasted, I didn't eat pepperoni pizza, I was a relatively good kid, and I knew of prayer. Still, it wasn't something we did in our household. So I basically ended up with the same amount of knowledge of Islam and Arabic as Mohammed did when he was visited by Gabriel.

2. The quest begins: By the time I reached 14, I began to change mentally (One would only hope). I had stopped being this rebellious kid and became a book worm. I read encyclopedias, watched documentaries, binged read Wikipedia and genuinely wanted to learn everything the world had to offer. Therefore, religion seemed like the next logical step. Another reason that pushed me to that position is my first adolescent trip to Algeria. It was the first time I had truly been exposed to Islam, and I felt like I got a good whiff of what it meant to be a Muslim. And so, I decided I had now come of age and was of sufficient maturity to read the Quran and become a proper Muslim. I purchased a translated version of the Holy Book and waited until nightfall to open it. I vividly remember the mindset I put myself in before opening the book. I told myself the following things:

1. Bismillah. (YAH BOY) 2. I am about to read a book written by a being that is not human. (how fucking cool is that?!) 3. It is a book of ultimate and limitless knowledge and is the literal word of God. 4. It will guide me now and forever, for it is a timeless work meant to guide all of humanity.

By the time I made it halfway through Al-Baqarah, the second chapter of the book, I was mortified. For whatever reason, God presented himself as a terrifying merciless being. So many verses spoke about how powerful God was, and for some reason, it felt weird to me. It's almost like Bill Gates flaunting billions at a homeless person or a fisherman trying to shame a fish on how it cant breathe once it's out of water. I also felt as though too many verses spoke about eternal damnation instead of collective upbringing. In essence, it wasn't the book I expected. I was hoping for the key to save my soul and help humanity. All that ran through my head was that I was unworthy and had to dedicate myself or else face the consequences. But I persevered. Over the next few days, I kept reading while trying to keep an open mind, but I was definitely feeling perplexed. What I could not wrap my head around was the following: If God can indeed do anything, why can't he have a son? Like all this talk about how Powerful he is, but he can't have a son?

It was around this time I started to explore other religions. However, there were so many religions that existed that it would take an eternity to study and contemplate every single one. So I elaborated the following shortcuts:

1. I skipped Judaism because a "true" faith can't have fewer subscribers than the city of New York. That also threw a bunch of other religions out the window. In my view, a Divine being should do a good job of spreading his work even if he has to do it remotely. 2. I skipped polytheistic religions like Hinduism because multiple Gods seemed odd to me. 3. Buddhism didn't have a deity, can we, therefore, call it a religion?

By that flawless logic (lol), I thought that Christianity was likely to be the One True Faith. But there were inconsistencies. For starters, the faith had multiple subdivisions and multiple versions given the Bible was written after the life of Jesus. Suffice to say, I agreed with most Muslim criticisms towards Christianity's essence manipulated by men. If Christianity is the real deal, then God would have cared a little more. As a side note to my thinking, the book of Narnia really helped me appreciate Christianity. It portrayed a more merciful caring version of God that wanted what was best for his disciples and all that existed. Yet the feeling of a merciful and just God was simply not sufficient to make me convert.

And so I started to think about atheism. However, I could still feel the presence of God. In the end, I just felt discouraged. I wrapped my head around the whole thing when I realized there was a possibility I was simply too immature to understand Islam or the Quran. So, in the end, I decided to postpone my immersion in the faith until later.

3. I committed: By the time I reached 16, I had started rereading the Quran, which actually flowed better this time around. I was relieved to know that my 14-year-old self was simply too childish. Eventually, I stumbled upon a verse akin to the following: Oh, Believers look into the world, and you shall see evidence of Islam. It felt as though God challenged me to learn science and search for proof of his existence in the natural world. And so, I did.

So one thing that occurred to me growing up is that I wanted to learn everything. By the time I reached 12, I thought to myself that if I knew every word in the dictionary, I would end up knowing everything. But the dictionary was dull. So, I decided that if I know how all things came about by reading history, then I would end up knowing everything. So when I read that verse that said learn science, I was ecstatic. I just doubled down on my readings and started to focus more on scientific theories. I read about physics and the origin of the universe. I read on chemistry and the nature of matter and atomic bonds. By the time I reached biology, Darwinism quickly became very problematic. I thought really long and hard about how to counter it. I started to read into Intelligent Design and watched Islamic Scholars debate atheists. Still, it didn't make sense to me since the evidence for evolution was just overwhelming.

I voiced some of my concerns to a Muslim friend of mine in High School, and we had this long-winded conversation in which he convinced me he was right. I wish I remembered exactly what he said, but I remember him instilling upon me enough doubt to make me not drop the faith. Following that conversation, I decided it was time to commit to Islam finally. Here are a few things I started to do: 1. I started praying 5-7 times per day. 2. I read the Quran. 3. I would watch videos daily on what it meant to be a Muslim and how I can improve on my practice. 4. I would fast every once a while. 5. I went to the mosque whenever I could since it was far from where I lived. 6. I even helped start our prayer group in High School. In that group, we would all sit and eat together. We shared food, laughter and drinks. We were a brotherhood through and through, and for a time, it was good.

Reflecting on this period, I was one standard deviation from being in a CIA hit list. I literally messaged Benjamin Netanyahu on YT, encouraging him to stop his occupation of Palestine and to seak a peaceful approach when engaging with my brothers and sisters. Despite these friendly messages, some darker thoughts flowed through me. So I will say that there definitely is some credence to the idea that the more radical a Muslim is, the more you should worry about him, especially if he is a dude.

So when I say I genuinely believed 100% of what the Quran said, I really did. Some people will say: "Well, yea, I also used to be that way too." Well, I think I took it to another degree. For instance, when I used to walk, I would think to myself there are two people next to me—these immortal, holy beings made of light were sent by God to watch over my every move. I must, therefore, walk and behave in the utmost perfect ways to not only impress them but also uphold my honour. I was 16.

4.The Masturbation/sleep problem:

Now I'm going to say that the period mentioned above lasted about 6 months. During this period, despite my holier than thou behaviour, I was still a man, and I had urges dawg. Every once in awhile, i.e, once a week, I would lament hypothetically at my hypocrisy. Repression creates obsession; truer words have never been spoken. The more I fought my urges not to masturbate, THE MORE I HAD TO. I created this whole inner mathematical system based on the number 19 since its a particular Islamic number. Basically, I would only masturbate around times when I could calculate 19. To me, it meant God approved of my addiction. I ended up using the time since my alarm clock was next to me. Its such warped logic don't look too much into it for when there is a will there is a way and I can get creative. Here are a few noteworthy examples:

1.Its 1:09 AM. Shit that's 19 to me since all you have to do is ignore the 0, and you have 19. 2. Its 1:45 AM. You guessed it 19. 3.7:00 PM. 19. 4. 12:07 PM. Unzip. 5. 12:17. PM shit, that's 19 too. 12+(1 times 7). Guess its Time for round 2. 6. 12:35 PM. FUCK I have to again you see 1+2+35=38, which is 19 times 2. EYYYY

[Insert COOMER MEME.]

To get over this dissonance, the Devil was responsible for these intrusive thoughts. I was a holy man of God, after all. But the voice that told me to unzip my pants and wax my carrot was the EXACT same voice that told me to go bed when I didn't want too. In the end, I knew deep down temptation doesn't come from the Devil. It comes from me. I decide what I do with my life, not some off-world entity. Keep in mind for later its just this thing I noticed. The Mosque event: So the day started like any other Friday prayer. The Imam began to speak about how God has no equal. He went on about how great and awesome of a sky Chad he was. He said that although he had no equal, there was another being that was insanely powerful as well. My eyes lit up, for I loved Islamic lore. He said that among non-God entities, the strongest was Gabriel. Eventually, he went on to say how to associate any other thing to God's power was literally the worst crime a human could commit. Shirk was worse than murder, he said. It literally guarantees you a trip to Hell.

And so given that I was human when I am told not to think about something, I immediately start to think about it. So I began to think well what if Gabriel stood up to God. I do not know what came over me but I got a literal panic attack from this. [Insert meme it was at this moment he knew he fucked up]

As the Imam had so eloquently put it to associate anything to God, you just committed the worst sin ever. I kept trying to tell myself not to think about it. Still, it just kept repeating it over and over again despite my sincerest efforts. I legit left the mosque and went back home and prayed all night, hoping God would forgive me.

The next morning was wild. I was basically schizophrenic since I kept thinking God was going to smite me for I have sinned. Crossing the street was so hard since I felt God would turn a car invisible and run me over or would simply kill me there where I stood. I lived in utter fear since I felt as though I had a bounty on my head. The inner world that I worked so hard to create had fallen apart from stupid, intrusive, thoughts. How the mighty have fallen.

5.Rethinking the Conspiracies:

A few days later, I started to rethink everything inside my head once I started to calm down. I felt as though my fears were way too irrational for the type of person I usually am and that I could not regain my sanity by thinking I was unworthy. I just simply had to work my way back up to the top fam.

During this time, I also began to rethink my understanding of the political world. For starters, as far back as I can remember, I have always been anti-authority. I believed in political realism, and so large corporations or governments always used their powers to oppress others. And so, what began as a soft-hearted liberal who thought 911 was an inside job turned into a cult of devil worshippers who rule the world and are trying to get us into the End Times.

This political worldview of a small elite who use the Devil to gain off-world power was further validated my understanding of Islam. In my view, the END WAS NEAR. Eventually, people took my ideas and thoughts in High School, and it became its own thing. Just to give you context on the time here, but it was when Lady Gaga dropped Bad Romance, and Kanye West and Jay-Z dropped Watch The Throne. We would analyze the videos and look for satanic imagery, but I always felt like that was a tad bit too far. Why are they being so apparent about something that's supposed to be secret? Predictive-Programming can only go so far after all. I began to pushback on this worldview, and I went so far back that Islam was caught in the cross-fire.

This turned into a three-month-long journey. I started by revisiting natural selection, and I realized that I duped myself. I just did not understand natural selection well enough to defend my position 6 months ago. I read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I binged watched George Carlin, and he really helped me overcome any anxiety I had towards leaving my faith because, like him, I really did want to believe in a deity, but I started to realize all of the inconsistencies. [I will elaborate more on this in a later part]

5. The social consequences: By the time I left my faith, I was open about it. I have always been vocal about what I believe in, and I simply told all of my prayer brothers why I stopped going to prayer. Needless to say, they weren't pleased about it. Unlike Elementary School and as a result of our immigration policies, High School had more Muslims in it, and many hated or criticized me for questioning the faith. As time went on, they became more toxic and vicious in their opposition, and so I called them out on their shit. I told them that I am on a journey like each and every one of them, and if they don't want to talk to me anymore, I would not care, and if they wanted to fight me, then bring it on. It was the last time any of them said anything to my face that was negative. Some of them never spoke to me again, some spoke to me less. I respected their choice and moved on; whether they respected mine mattered not. All that I cared about was that I felt that I was moving forward in my life. Eventually, the Muslim prayer group fell apart, and everything went back to normal in my High School.

Now, all of what I wrote happened about 10 years ago, and despite standing up to my fellow peers, I still haven't mustered up the courage to tell my parents. Honestly, I'm glad I still haven't. To this day, I have a good relationship with them, and they are far more religious now than they were. It seems like an egregiously unnecessary thing to do that will not only sour my relationship with them but also with their future grandkids. That just seems too selfish for my liking despite my usual vocal tendencies.

End of part 1.

#islam #atheism #lifestory #blog #religion #spirituality #reddit #journey

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greatnesswithin-blog · 4 years

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What ADVICE Would Swiss Family Robinson Give On the COVID-19 Pandemic?

In the early 1800s, the Robinsons, who left Switzerland to escape the bondage of government, found themselves shipwrecked in the middle of the Indian Ocean. They eventually found refuge on a remote island, isolated from the known world. Much like the COVID-19 pandemic, the initial change created uncertainty and fear. “How would we survive? There are so many unknowns. What would the future hold?” they thought. They survived, even prospered, by learning to use the resources available to them. They used common sense, ingenuity, and faith in God. We have the same opportunity today.

As I sit in my bungalow isolated from my known external world, in a place where I wrote the novel “Return to Robinson Island,” I imagine how nice it would be to remove myself (and my family) from the current chaos and go to Robinson Island. Robinson Island is a paradise few have ever seen — clean, peaceful, and thriving.

As I imagine myself on that island, my mind sinks deeper in thought. The world has been shut down (quarantined) now for about a month to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus. But as I contemplate today’s realities, I wonder how the Robinson’s, who were wise and humble, would respond to today’s pandemic. What strategies did they apply to turn their crisis into a roaring success that became the envy of the world in 1805–1817? If the Robinsons were able to get a glimpse into the year 2020, how would they respond? What advice would they give?

The Robinsons had their challenges with viruses, sickness, scurvy, scarlet fever, and initially cabin fever. Long before the Germ Theory was discovered, Elizabeth Robinson (Mother) devised her own natural medicines and even encouraged eating diced garlic cloves three times a day. Fortunately, the Robinson’s immune systems were robust and healthy. They were active, and they ate well. They would eat what they coined “God’s Food.” This was food that grew from the earth, the animals of the field, and the fish of the sea. For which they always gave thanks.

In the end, they trusted circumstances would turn out well. Not to say there wouldn’t be bumps and bruises along the way, but they were resilient and faithful. They were “God-fearing” or better said, “God-loving” people who reached toward the heavens in search of answers for their family. They didn’t ask God to take away sicknesses and challenges; rather, they believed that God would give them the insight and inspiration needed to endure the crises successfully.

So, given the Robinson’s experience of radical uncertainty, what perspective and advice would they give the world in 2020 outside of availability of the safe and remote island called, Robinson Island?

FIRST, they would remind people to humble themselves and seek power from above. They prayed in faith and fasted to draw down the powers from heaven. As they read the Bible, they understood that if they, “Draw nearer unto God, God would draw nearer unto them.” Their spirituality gave them much comfort and relief during times of crisis and peace.

SECOND, they would do their best to honor the suggestions from the medical professionals. For example, stay home unless it was necessary to leave. Keep the advised distance within groups. Wash your hands and cover your mouth when coughing. Mother Robinson inherently saw the value of preventing germs from spreading. At times, these changes would frustrate the family, and she would remind her children, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren (according to “Return to Robinson Island”) that this was a momentary sacrifice of trading what you want for the moment for what you want long term. The family agreed. She would remind them that in a short season if they were diligent, “This too shall pass.”

THIRD, the Robinsons would be mortified by today’s culture of elevating mother nature over God. Indeed, they believed that the earth is a living entity with intelligence and a spirit — a blessing that was created by God. They believed that all living things are subject to God and natural law. For this reason, they strongly believed in being good stewards of the earth and environment but resisted substituting mother nature for God.

FOURTH, they would encourage cooperation. Watch five minutes of cable news; the Robinsons would be sorely disappointed. Where is civil decorum and respect for each other with differing views? They would invite politicians from all parties to stop bickering, seek a win/win, through shared principles, understanding, and values. The Robinsons would emphasize that when we are divided, it exacerbates the weak and negative aspects of all people. They would plead with politicians to cooperate and serve the greater good instead of one’s political party. Besides, blaming and victimizing never served relationships, families, communities, or nations in a positive and sustaining way. Sadly, in today’s culture, this is probably more ideal than practical, but why not strive for the ideal?

FIFTH, the Robinsons would encourage you (and society) to look at your world differently and take bold moves to anticipate and innovate. In times of crisis, arise opportunities for innovation. The history books are filled with stories where one door closed another door opened, leading to increased knowledge and progress. In times of crisis, necessity forced the Robinsons to innovate. On Robinson Island, innovation took on many forms like finding refuge in a cave after first being shipwrecked to later building the infamous Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse that consisted of running water using bamboo shoots. The Robinsons discovered how to make candles using the wax from Bayberry bushes. For you, at this time, innovation may include the form of using new methods of educating your children from home using the latest technology. Or a company that is having to adjust operations by working remotely. In 1997, Steve Jobs coined the slogan, “Think Different.” In other words, get creative and start thinking like an entrepreneur. There is power in being adaptable.

SIXTH, the Robinsons would encourage increased love and affection toward all people. Love wins. Scripture speaks of a time when mankind will become, “Lovers of themselves.” Particularly, love your family and your friends through actions of service and expression.

The Swiss Family Robinsons loved God, family, and liberty. Originally, their whole purpose for leaving Switzerland was in search of more freedom and liberties. They knew this could only be found in a limited government that gave power to the people and where hard work, ingenuity, and a respect for all people existed — and where one could freely and unapologetically worship by the dictates of their own hearts.

When the Robinsons had the option to relocate to Australia, or back home to Switzerland, or America for that matter, they opted to stay on Robinson Island. When governments sought to settle Robinson Island, they declined. They had become accustomed to being self-sufficient. In the end, they preferred freedom over captivity or comfort.

The message to you is this, cherish this time of quarantine and change. See this time as an opportunity to strengthen the relationships of those you love. Be considerate of other people when you go into public. And probably the hardest thing in today’s culture, delay your judgment of people who see the world differently than you (i.e., this article). Choose to respond thoughtfully with a spirit of seeking understanding rather than mindlessly reacting.

As you find your life disrupted, remember you are in charge of your own destiny. No matter how difficult your circumstance may be or become, you always have a choice in how to respond. In his classic book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl points out that many of those who survived the Nazi concentration camps said that they, “Benefited from the captivity, seeing it as a growth experience.” As horrendous as Auschwitz was, Frankl taught, “Our core drive as humans is our search for meaning…. The way in which a man accepts his fate, and all the suffering that it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity — even under the most difficult circumstances — to add deeper meaning to his life.” Russian Novelist, short story writer, and philosopher, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, once stated, “There is only one thing I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.” In his Ted talk, David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine Monk, made this statement on being grateful, “Does that mean we can be grateful for everything? Certainly not. We cannot be grateful for violence, for war, for oppression, for exploitation. On a personal level, we cannot be grateful for the loss of a friend, for unfaithfulness, for bereavement. I didn’t say we can be grateful for everything; I said we could be grateful in every given moment.”

You can be grateful for “this moment” by which you have an opportunity to choose. You can choose how to respond. You can choose what to do now. You can choose to be grateful that the COVID-19 will empower humanity to be better prepared and protected in the future. You can choose how to feel by choosing what to focus on at this moment. You have the power to choose your attitude despite times of uncertainty. What’s the consequence of taking advantage of this inherent power given to every human being? The ability to choose your own “self-fulfilling prophecy,” which can be your hopes, desires, and dreams. It all starts with your thoughts! Thoughts drive the law of attraction. Whatever you dwell on, you will attract and magnify in your life.

In the end, what will be said of you during this time? Were you the victim or the victor? Did you choose to bear your afflictions with a cheerful heart or blame some external force as the cause of your unhappiness? Lift your head. Square your shoulders. Be engaged in a good cause. Live with purpose. Be strong. Focus on the good in all circumstances and people. Find meaning from this experience and unleash your greatness within.

To learn more about how to Unleash Your Greatness Within, visit https://www.GreatnessWithin.com or download TJ Hoisington’s podcast on Apple Podcast here: https://apple.co/2V133fb TJ’s mission is to share principled and inspirational content on leadership, high-performance, and happiness. Visit TJ on social media @tjhoisington TJ Hoisington is the author of both Self-Help books and historical fiction books. Read “Return to Robinson Island” or “The Swiss Family Robinson Secret Discovery” — Link: https://amzn.to/2RJX4tc To learn more about Swiss Family Robinson click here: https://www.swissfamilyreturns.com

#swissfamilyrobinson #covid-19 #christian #love #survival #tjhoisingtonpodcast #returntorobinsonisland #faith #advice #hope #howto #mothernature #environment #coronavirus #personaldevelopment

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shirtlesssammy · 5 years

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1x03: Dead in the Water

Then:

A Season One Aesthetic

Now:

Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin

We open to a quaint family tableau: father, daughter, and son. The daughter is a bit of a health nut and heads to the lake for a morning swim. If this brand new baby of a show hadn’t been named “Supernatural”, the under the water shots of her swimming would tip us off that something creepy is about to go down. The woman hears voices and is suddenly sucked under the water. We then are shown 2.5 hours of bubbling water. SUSPENSE.

Dean Winchester is on the case though! (Natasha: Look at these precious babies, still using printed newspapers to research cases!) Bby is a bit thirsty for a buxom server to really care about Sam’s slight bitchiness that their dad is still missing (I’ll always remember my resounding, insistent questioning about where their father was when I watched this the first time. Lol, John Winchester is coming back for episode 300, and I no longer am chomping at the bit for this. Ok, so like, yeah, I think it’ll be good --it better be cathartic for the brothers, especially Dean, who’s changed and grown so much since his father has died. Instead of writing this recap, let me write a 1000 word essay on the return of John Winchester.) Dean makes it very clear that he wants to find their dad, but until then, they’re going to hunt everything they can.

Wildlife Agents Ford and Hamill are on the case. They interview the brother, who tells them his sister was an expert swimmer and nothing was amiss about the lake that day. Sam wants to interview the father but “he’s kind of been through a lot.”

They head to the sheriff’s office. Ha, the sheriff insists that there’s nothing in the lake big enough to pull a human under, “unless it was the Loch Ness Monster.” (We won’t learn for several seasons that the Loch Ness Monster is actually real. I wonder if the brothers know that at this point.) In the process of explaining the unexplainable, the sheriff spills that the dam is falling apart. In 6 months, there won’t be a lake --or a town for that matter.

The sheriff’s daughter and grandson pop in. Dean turns the creep factor up a bit at the daughter, Andrea, but turns on the soft father-type he really is when he sees the grandson, Lucas. Lucas doesn’t respond to Dean, and his grandfather admits he’s “been through a lot.”

Andrea walks Dean and Sam over to their motel. Dean tries engaging her in conversation, but she sees right through his weak style. “Must be hard with your sense of direction, never being able to find yourself to a decent pick up line.” BURN.

Although, Sam calling Dean out on not loving kids is rich. WE KNOW HE DOES --but Sam doesn’t at this point. (Sidenote: Dean counting with his hands and scratching the back of his head. That’s it. That’s the sidenote.)

Sam’s research reveals that whatever is haunting the lake, it’s picking up its pace. There have been disappearances over the years, but it’s becoming much worse. They discover that Lucas is the only witness to what’s happening in the lake. He was out with his father a couple months before when his father drowned. Yeah, I guess this kid has been “through a lot.” Dean’s empathy with Lucas breaks me.

The brothers track Andrea and Lucas down at a park. Dean heads to talk with Lucas while Sam stays with Andrea. Dean’s beyond the flirting stage, and wants to get to the bottom of this case. He also has a major soft spot for a kid in pain. BRB, crying.

Dean tries engaging a mute Lucas with reminiscing about green plastic army men. BRB, crying. (GOD! There are really some things that can hit you A LOT harder on a rewatch.) Dean asks to sit and draw with Lucas. He has an artist’s eye (WHERE’S THE DEAN IS AN ARTIST FANFIC, YOU HEATHENS.) Dean then proceeds to start drawing and, lit by nothing but soft, reflective music, talk to Lucas about his own childhood trauma. He tells Lucas that he’ll listen if Lucas wants to talk (or draw).

Dean reconnects with Sam as Andrea tells how traumatized Lucas is. Lucas walks up and hands Dean a picture of a house.

That night, the father of the victim sits morosely in the dark, his son insisting he eat something (Sidenote: I love how the budget was so tight in early seasons of Supernatural that they couldn’t afford lighting.) While the son preps dinner, the sink water turns black and starts bubbling up from the drain.

Ok, Asshole, we’ve all seen It. Do you want to float too? Ugh. Apparently so, because bro sticks his hand in and gets sucked under. The water eventually drains away to reveal his dead face.

Upon learning about the latest lake victim, Sam and Dean quickly put it together that whatever is haunting the lake is in a race against time. It can reach out beyond the lake, and it will take what it can, while it can. The brothers go to visit the victim’s father, Bill Carlton. He’s in a deep state of grief, and in no place to talk. Dean thinks he’s also hiding something. He also notices that the drawing of a house Lucas gave him matches the Carlton home.

They go to talk with Lucas. Dean asks Lucas about his drawing, and feels that Lucas is scared. (Dean admitting he leads his life the way he feels others want him to. BRB, crying.) Lucas gives Dean another picture of a boy and a bike.

For Pained Boy Noir Science:

In the car, Sam spins out theories that Lucas is experiencing trauma-induced psychic visions. (I wonder if they'd planned Sam's psychic arc at this point?) (Later edit: They DID! Excellent!) Sam also tries to address Dean's revelation about seeing their mom die, which Dean shrugs off with his signature macho deflection. Damn it, Dean.

They find the church and the yellow house that match up to the drawing Lucas gave Dean and head in to investigate. An elderly woman lives there who tells them about the disappearance of her son 35 years ago. “Losing him – it's worse than dying.” Dean finds an old photo of the missing boy and Bill – the father from the cold open.

Cut to Bill sitting on the end of the dock addressing the water, saying that he finally understands what it wants. Losing his children is “worse than dying.” When Dean and Sam arrive, he's already piloting a boat out into the water. His boat gets thrown into the air and...game over.

Back at the Sheriff's, Lucas is freaking out. He grabs Dean, distressed, but can still say nothing. Dean looks after him as he leaves, equally distressed.

For OH NO, DEAN BEAN Science:

Later, the Sheriff interrogates Dean and Sam, telling them that he knows they're not Fish and Wildlife Service. Uh, yeah, no kidding! They start to leave town but Dean changes his mind and heads back. Sam's surprised.

Dean: I just don't want to leave this town until I know the kid's okay.

Sam: Who are you? And what have you done with my brother?

Dean: Shut up.

Natasha: What Dean said.

Meanwhile, Andrea is preparing an extremely full bath. She relaxes into it as brackish water begins pouring in through the tap. Suddenly something grabs her and tries to pull her down into the bathtub. Dean and Sam arrive during the attack and Lucas opens the door for them and leads them to the bathroom.

Dean kicks down the door (Mmmmhmmmm) while Sam drags Andrea from the bath, fighting the spirit’s fierce hold. They save her! Yay! But that nice wood floor is ruined, man.

(Sidenote: I love how this episode was filmed. There are so many interesting shots through windows and mirrors, as though these are reflections or looking through the surface of water. Well done, show!)

The next morning Sam gently interrogates Andrea while Dean researches through old family albums. He finds a picture of the Sheriff – Jake - as a young boy, in a Boy Scout troop photo with Bill and the missing boy, Peter. A clue!

Lucas interrupts them by staring intently outside, and he leads them to a patch of moss. Sam and Dean dig, only to find Peter’s red bicycle buried in the ground.

Jack interrupts the Winchesters and pulls a gun on them, asking them how they knew the bicycle was there. Ooof. How did YOU know it was there, buddy? “You can't bury the truth,” Sam tells him. Dean tells Jack that the kid they killed is haunting the lake and plans to kill Andrea and Lucas AND Jack. They need to burn and salt the remains. Andrea runs out to talk to her dad and asks him for the truth. She reminds him that her husband died and tells him she was recently attacked. Jack begins to break down. He tells her that he and Bill bullied Peter. They held his head underwater too long and he drowned. The body sank into the lake.

They're making plans to leave the lake when they notice Lucas leaning over the end of the dock.

They race to pull him away, but it's too late. A gray arm reaches out of the water and drags Lucas in.

While Sam and Dean dive into the water to search for him, Jack wades into the lake pleading with Peter's ghost to take him instead. Andrea watches it all from the dock and HELLO, TRAUMA.

Jack gets pulled down into the suddenly crazy deep lake. Meanwhile Sam emerges from the water and shakes his head sadly. NOOOOO.

Suddenly Dean bursts up out of the water with Lucas in his arms! Lucas is limp :( :( :(

The next day, Sam and Dean get ready to leave town. “We're not gonna save everybody,” Sam tells a sad Dean. NOOOOOOO. Just then, Andrea calls to them and she and Lucas approach! Oh, show, good job tricking me. They've brought them lunch! Lucas is speaking again! Andrea is super cute!

Andrea and Sam wrap up the case. Andrea’s seeking some closure and peace with the loss of her father. Dean and Lucas share a different farewell. Dean teaches Lucas to say, “Zepp rules!” Oh, Dean. I’d say never change, but I enjoy the journey.

Dean gets a kiss from Andrea. Dean's adorable about it and SOFT. Then Dean Bean ushers Sam back to the car. Time to hit the road! On Netflix, we get played out with some random pop song but on the originally released show Bad Company's "Movin' On" starts to play and they head out to the next hunt.

Natasha: This episode holds a special place in my heart because it's the moment when my eyes were open to Dean Winchester in all his traumatized, dutiful, and soft glory. I loved the little glimpses we get into the loss of Mary and the effect that had on Dean. This episode reads like a thesis statement on macho Dean and his underlying softer layers – from his empathy with Lucas to his use of Ford and Hamill surnames for their cover. (Boris: HARD AGREE)’

Still Searching for the Quote-Ness Monster:

We will find Dad, but until then, we're gonna kill everything bad between here and there. Okay?

I’m Agent Ford, this is Agent Hamill. We’re with the U.S. Wildlife Service.

Kids are the best, huh?

Must be hard, with your sense of direction, never being able to find your way to a decent pickup line.

Watching one of your parents die isn’t something you just get over.

Kids are strong. You'd be surprised what they can deal with.

My mom—I know she wanted me to be brave. I think about that every day. And I do my best to be brave.

Zeppelin rules!

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive!

#spn recap #spn rewatch #spn 1x03 #dead in the water #dean winchester #Sam winchester #supernatural season 1

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