#HERE WE GO AFRICA CAN YOU HANDLE IT?

[devilsrecreation]

LET’S GO LESBIANS, LET’S GO

Oh my god, lesbians!

SAVING THE PRIDE LANDS WITH A BUNCH OF LESBIANS!!!!!

#HERE WE GO AFRICA CAN YOU HANDLE IT? #i’m sorry i had to #but it’d be funny if vitani actually said that #the lion guard

[hoe4sports]

The world is growing

Alexia Putellas x Reader

Summary: After a miscarriage, you are pregnant again hopeful that this time will be it. But this time, things are not what you hoped they would be.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Something is wrong. The midwife is taking an extra second look at the ultrasound. She’s stopped talking. She’s stopped smiling. She’s stopped everything. She’s just looking. Her eyes glued to the screen without as much as an emotion on her face. She’s moving the probe. And looking some more. Oh no. Not again. Your heartbeat was increasing. It felt like it was about to beat through your chest. You had miscarried once already. The first IVF attempt had surprisingly worked. Only to be ripped away from you after 2 months. No heartbeat. No baby. No future. You had decided that you were ready to try again just shy of Christmas. It was now May, and summer was fast approaching. Alexia had been stuck in traffic as practice had been running late, and she was just around the corner. You couldn’t even imagine having to tell her that once again; your body had killed her egg, her baby. The first time it happened, she didn’t say much. She was so supportive that I t hurt. But when she thought you were sleeping, she let her tears flow. How was she gonna react to this again? What was a third try gonna look like? Would she even want to go for a third try? You didn’t know if that was a possibility. Due to the poor state of her eggs, you didn’t get many good eggs from her, and very few of them had matured into good quality embryos ready for transfer. It had all happened in a short amount of time: from kissing her for the first time to buying a house and trying for a baby all in the span of 3 years. What if she couldn’t handle this? You got nauseous by the thought of it.

“Sorry, I’m just gonna go and get the doctor. Just wait here mrs.Putellas.” The midwife said as she stood up and walked out. You reached for your phone as you pulled your sweater down causing the gel to stick to the inside of your sweater. You didn’t care. You didn’t want to see the tiny bump. You didn’t want to let the doctor see the bumb. You didn’t want the doctor to tell you that your baby was dead. You wanted to hide the bump, and to run away so you didn’t have to deal with reality just yet. You had to once again tell Alexia that you fucked up. It couldn’t have been anyone else’s mistake. It had to be yours. You had been so careful, but you had that one piece of shrimp you shouldn’t have had a few weeks ago and you had a stomachache a few days ago without connecting in to the pregnancy. Alexia had insisted on seeing a doctor, but you insisted that you were perfectly fine. And now you were paying the consequences for it.

“Hola, mi amor, lo siento mucho. The traffic was horrible, so I parked upfront. Don’t expect anything but a fine” the Spaniard sang as she walked into the room, a little out if breath. Her smile quickly faded as she saw your serious grin. “Preciousa, are you okay, no?” She asked with a shaky voice as she pulled a chair out to sit close to you while she grabbed your hand. You shook your head as tears formed in your eyes. “Ale, she said that she was gonna get the doctor to come look” you mumbled as your head hang down. “Oh” alexia said as her good energy died out. “I’mo sorry” you said as you buried your face in your hands. “I’m so sorry, ale. I’ll do better next time, I promise” you said as a tear escaped your eye. “Amor, let’s wait for the doctor. It will be okay. I can get some time off and we can travel, just stay at a resort and relax in the heat, si?” She said as her hand touched your belly as if it was purely routine. “But for now, let’s wait for the doctor” she said as she kissed the side of your tiny belly that were still covered by your sweater. You nodded as you tried to distract yourself with the thought of going on vacation. Thailand would be nice, or Bali. Or south-Africa. Greece was also nice, but you had already been there. Cap verde was close and had lots of beautiful beaches. You sat in silence for a while until the door swung open again. “Sorry again, Mrs.Putellas, let’s take a look now shall we” the older woman said as she gestured for the doctor to sit down on the chair to look at the ultrasound. You unwillingly leaned backwards and pulled up your sweater awaiting your penalty. The midwife pointed on the screen and the doctor nodded. “Mhm, I see” she said as she moved the probe around on your belly. You held your breath terrified of the words that were about to come out of her mouth. You didn’t wanna hear it. You gripped Alexia’s hand hard and got a second of reassurance when she squeezed back.

“So, the results. Two things.” The doctor started as your heart-rate skyrocketed. Alexia gripped tighter in your hand and you felt her skin becoming somewhat damp. “First: Your little girl is perfectly fine, she’s small for her age, but she’s getting there” the doctor said as you gasped. Your little girl. A girl. A girl with long blonde hair and blue eyes looking like her mami. “A girl?” Alexia said as her eyes teared up. The doctor nodded as she smiled. “A girl, a princesa” she said as she smiled. She turned around the screen of the ultrasound so you could see your daughter. She was moving her legs slightly, but she still wasn’t big enough that you could feel it. “The second thing i wanted to tell you is, well, exactly that. Second. The second baby is also a girl. Twins. Most likely identical.” She said. Your eyes widened and your jaw dropped. “Que? There’s-there’s two?” alexia said as she scooted closer to the screen as the doctor pointed out the second twin. “Si, dos, correct. She was just hiding behind her sister, which is why she hasn’t shown herself yet” the doctor explained as she gave tons of information about how check ups were gonna have to happen more often than before. You didn’t catch any of it, as you were just releaved that the baby was alive. Your eyes were glued to the baby on the screen. Well, the babies. The girls. Your two girls. They were fine, healthy and growing. You were snapped out of your thoughts when the doctor and the midwife left the room to allow you to breathe. None of you said a word. The room was dead quiet.

“I-I guess we need to go shopping again” she stuttered while looking it you. You nodded. “Two cribs, two strollers, two carseats for both of the cars, oh my god! Do we need a new car to fit the girls??” She panicked as her eyes widened kicking your brain into action. “Babe, it’s okay. There is two girls. They are both healthy. Everything is good. We are all good.” You said as you stood up and embraced her. She held you tight. “God, I just can’t believe it. There are gonna be little girls running around soon. Not just any little girls, our little girls” she said as she wrapped her arms around you kissing the top of your head. “Yea, our little girls. And twice the love” You said as you breathed in her scent instantly calming you. “Our perfect little girls” she said as she placed a hand on your belly. «Our perfect little girls» you repeated as she kissed you.

#woso imagine #alexia putellas #alexia x reader #alexia Putellas x reader #woso x reader

[dreamcatchers-husband]

Animalistic Tendencies

Male Reader X Iz*one MInju

Length: 2200+

Tags: Creampie, Breeding

A/N- Final fic of the year! This fic officially make 30 fics I wrote this year. Thank you for all the support! Sorry for any typos and such ahead of time.

Nature. Nature is really beautiful with all these different creatures out there in the world. Your love for all these things affected your decision on what you wanted to do in life.  

After your strenuous four years of university, you got the job of your dreams. A Zoologist may sound boring to some but for you? It was perfect. Your love for the job let another two years go by as you traveled all over the world to study various animals.

That brings you to today. An exhausting twelve-hour flight the day before brought you to a country you haven’t been to before, South Africa. Currently, you found yourself in the middle of a Safari. The stereotypical Jeep you saw on YouTube videos was your mode of transportation. 

As you sat in the back seat, your hand was full with a hefty recording device. With the window lowered, you used that as an opportunity to extend your arms for a closer shot. The sound of a camera shutter hit your ears as you continued to film. 

“Oppa. Are you getting it?” 

“Yeah. Keep taking pictures of the lions, Minju. I think it’s almost over.” 

What was it that you and Minju were documenting? Lion breeding processes. As the two mammals were occupied in their activities, you and Minju were making sure to get it all. 

Minju was assigned to do a new mating and breeding process study for lions and being a good friend you decided to go with her to help her document. Just as the male lion stopped its movements, you and Minju brought your devices back into the vehicle and brought the windows back up. 

“Yes! We got it! How lucky are we to get two lions mating on our first day here?” 

“Very lucky. I- Minju, Start the car and drive.” 

“Why?” 

“They see us.” 

Turning her head, Minju was faced with the pair of lions staring at you intruders. Without hesitation, Minju started the Vehicle and slammed on the accelerator. As you looked back the two lions could be seen in the distance. The sound of their growl hit your ears even with the closed windows. 

After driving like a madwoman for the next thirty minutes, Minju finally pulled into Capetown. Seeing the familiar surroundings of buildings helped calm down the girl and her erratic driving. Pulling in front of your hotel, Minju put the car in park and relaxed her back on the car seat. 

“You ok?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine. That was a rush huh?”

“Yeah, it sure was. Let’s bring our stuff in and see what we got.” 

Agreeing with you, the young girl unlocked the doors and stepped out of the vehicle. Grabbing your equipment, you followed Minju inside the nice hotel and made your way up to your room. As the front door opened, Minju made her way over to your bed and placed her stuff down. 

Once inside, your hands grabbed the laptop next to the tv and turned it on. With the necessary cables already attached, you connected the camera to your laptop which was connected to the hotel tv. 

Selecting the most recent file on the laptop display, the sound of Minju’s voice can be heard from the tv speakers. Stepping back, you sat down on your bed and began to watch the film. 

“Hello. This is Kim Minju, a Zoologist for the Animal Research Department of the University of Seoul. My fellow Zoologist, Jang Doyoon is handling the video camera which will be recording our subjects. Now for my first leading research project, I decided to study something that I feel could use more information. The Lion breeding process. Now due to how protective Lions can be during this, people need to arrive near the beginning of the process or later on. We have been tracking two lions from early in the day, keeping our distance Despite being in this bulky Jeep. Any second now the- Oppa I think they are starting. Make sure to film!”

As the camera moved from Minju, the tv screen then displayed the Male Lion jumping on top of the female lion. The next two minutes felt a little uncomfortable as you and Minju watched the mammals have intercourse. With the final thrust, the Lion ended its mating process and stood back on its four legs. 

Jumping up, you then walked over and paused the video right there. 

“So. I think we learned that lions don’t last long.” 

With a giggle leaving Minju’s mouth, you began to laugh along with your friend at her comment. 

“So, Minju. I was wondering, why did you want to study the Lion breeding process?”

“Well I want to study the breeding process of a specific mammal but I was told there isn’t much on Lion’s process. With that in mind, I decided to first study the lion and now I can study the next mammal.” 

“Really? What’s the mammal you want to study next?.” 

Moving her stuff from the bed, Minju then faced you and smirked. That dangerous gaze began to fill your mind with a lustful sensation. Looking at her outfit, you noticed how all of it matched. The tan beret held her long brown hair that lay on her covered chest. The tan shirt that covered her upper body was accompanied by a striped tie that made the outfit look a bit more professional. Your favorite part of the wardrobe was her shorts. 

Moving your head down, you saw Minju’s legs begin to walk closer to you. Her meaty thighs jiggled with each step she took. A finger touched your chin and brought your glance back up to Minju’s face. 

“You see. I want to study the breeding process of home sapiens, otherwise known as Humans.” 

You didn't need to be a genius to pick up what Minju was saying. Without hesitation, your arms extended and pulled the young woman closer to you. Attaching your Lips to Minju’s, the two of you quickly battle for control. Pushing your tongue forward, Minju stopped fighting and allowed your tongue in her mouth. 

As your appendage intertwined with hers, your hands moved down to her waist and then her ass. The handfuls you grabbed of her ass made your cock begin to twitch from inside the confines of your pants. 

Removing your left hand from her ass cheek, your fingertips began to move along the soft skin of her fat thighs. Just as you did with her ass, your hand began to take a handful of her upper leg. Pulling back from the kiss, your mouth moved to her neck and began to pepper it with kisses. 

Using her hands, Minju then reached down to your belt and began to unbuckle it. Pulling back from your touch, the young woman then dropped to her knees. Pulling down your pants in one swoop, a gasp left your friend's mouth as she saw your exposed member. 

Reaching up once more, Minju’s delicate hand took hold of your length and began to give it small strokes. 

“So first notes. The human man seems to enjoy foreplay before engaging in intercourse. The male penis seems to vary in size compared to a lion. The current subject seems to have a very large phallus. Exact measurement will come later.” 

Speeding up her small strokes, the young girl brought her mouth closer to your length and began to blow a bit of air on the tip. The little teases from Minju made you feel impatient as each second went by. Your friend seemed to pick this up as the sudden sensation of lips wrapped around your tip.

With a few small sucks, Minju then lowered her mouth farther down your cock. As Minju began to bob her head, your right hand grabbed Minju’s hat and threw it off her head. Taking a handful of her hair, you helped guide Minju further down your rod. 

Looking down, Minju’s eyes met your own as she gave you a little smile. Minju at that time began to unbutton her shirt, giving you a small glance at her cleavage. With the final button removed, Minju brought her mouth off your rod and took off her shirt. 

The tan-colored bra that matched her shirt quickly came off with no effort from the girl. Minju’s breasts weren’t the biggest but at that moment they were the most perfect pair you had ever seen. With a small giggle, the woman made her way back to your length and licked it up and down. 

“Fuck Minju. That tongue of yours is amazing.” 

Going down to your balls, Minju began to give each of them a few suck that made your body jolt. With each suck and stroke your friend gave you, the more your body began to jump around from the stimulation. 

As Minju opened her mouth near your cock once more, the girl suddenly stopped and smirked at you. With your hand still on her hair, you began to push Minju’s head down but she stopped you. 

Letting go of her hair, Minju then stood up and reached down for her shorts. Unbuckling them, Minju then pulled down her shorts revealing her wet pussy. Minju’s snatch seemed to be leaking as her fluids ran down her thighs. 

“No cumming Oppa. I had a taste of you. Why don’t you have a taste of me?”

Laying down on the bed, Minju then spread her legs open. Her freshly shaven pussy made your mouth water with each second that passed by. Dropping to your knees, you pulled Minju closer to the edge of the bed and your face. Like a thirsty animal, Your tongue began to lick Minju’s lips like it was a source of water. Each lick filled your tongue with Minju’s juices that had a flavor incomparable to anything else. 

Each slurp of her fluids made you crave more. Finding her clit at the top of her folds, Your tongue began to lick it just as you did with her lips. Little jolts and moans came from Minju as you continued to stimulate her pink nub. Bringing your hand up, you pushed a finger into her pussy and began to move it in and out. 

“A-Ah. Oppa, more please.” 

Listening to Minju’s pleas, you introduced another finger into her pussy and sped up your movements. With your tongue and fingers attacking her senses, Minju began to close her legs around your head. The strangling feeling around your head was your confirmation that the girl was getting close to her peak. 

With that in mind, your movements came to a halt. A loud whine left Minju’s mouth as she opened her legs. 

Just as Minju did to you, you gave Minju a big smirk and stood up. Lining your length up with her folds, you pushed your way in aggressively. Your friend’s eyes shot open at the sensation of being filled. Taking hold of her legs, you began to move your hips back and forth. 

Each thrust into Minju resulted in a grunt from you. Your movements continued to speed up as Minju raised her upper body. 

“F-Fuck. Oppa I’m so close. Don’t stop a-again.”

Hearing those words, you let go of the hold on her legs and reached down for her clit. Rubbing the erect button in a circular motion, Minju began to scream as her peak was arriving. Matching your speed, Minju fucked herself on your length and wrapped her legs around your body until her own stopped moving. 

Minju’s walls began to tighten around your length as her yells filled the room. Despite Minju reaching her orgasm, your own thrusts continued with some resistance from her constricting walls. With that gut feeling arriving, you used all your remaining strength to move as fast as possible. 

Minju at that time came back to her senses as she wrapped her arms around your neck. 

“Remember Oppa. You need to breed me. Fill my womb up with the load.” 

Those words served as the catalyst for your peak. With two-final thrusts, your cock began to twitch from inside the young woman. Your cock at that time began to shoot out semen, filling Minju to the brim. Your legs at that time gave out as you dropped on top of Minju. 

Seeing her beautiful face in front of you, your lips went back to Minju, and began to kiss her once more. Your hand at that time began to grab her breast and play with her mounds. Pulling back from the kiss, you looked down at Minju and smiled. 

“That was quite the study.” 

“Well. Anything in the name of science, right?” 

“Did you really want to study the breeding process of humans?” 

“Oh yes. As a matter of fact, I’m ovulating. The next part of the study is how a man and a female act when expecting offspring.” 

Hearing those words made you smile. Grabbing Minju, you threw Minju on top of you and lined up your length with her folds once more. 

“Well then. Let’s make sure we put a baby in you.” 

With a smile, Minju hopped back on your erect length. 

Safe to say the breeding study went on for the rest of the night.

#smut #kpopsmut #minjusmut #izonesmut

[thewrothode-if]

Just so you know your page is giving racist. Not only are you proud of how little research you have done but you also have decided that no black people existed in the Scandinavia... I understand that Google is hard but putting in academic journals or looking at peer reviewed articles could really help you. Ps I'm not doing the leg work for you. I hate when people need to be spoon fed so they aren't racist. White supremacy is on the rise and many fascists have used "viking culture" as a blanket to hide under. Many well read readers will be majorly turned off by how... let's just say indelicately you are handling this. I'm hoping that you are just young. I saw your wip and enjoyed it but will unfortunately be dropping this due to your followers and your own take on race. I hope you learn from this. Don't let your followers make you complacent, you have been racist. Not allowing diverse skin tone, racist. Not capable of doing any research on the topic knowing damn well that many people of African descent were all over Europe in general. Literally Icelandic and Nordic peoples travelled all the way to North America but pop off with your dog whistles. This was overall extremely disappointing hope you get better or hope you stop writing either would be great 👍

I’m so sad that I have to address this once more but here I go.

“Literally Icelandic and Nordic peoples travelled all the way to North America but pop off with your dog whistles.”

First things first, this tells me that you didn’t quite read through all that I have written on race on my blog because I did talk about that right here.

I’ll add it down here as well:

“It is interesting to note that Vikings found their way to North Africa (more specifically Morocco) at some point because they really were such vast travelers. So it was more so the Vikings coming to Africa rather than the other way around.”

2. “…you also have decided that no black people existed in the Scandinavia..”

No, I did not decide that no black people existed in Scandinavia. Maybe the way I talked about people of color being in Scandinavia made it seem like that, especially here when I said, “so it was more so the Vikings coming to Africa rather than the other way around.” But that doesn’t translate to, “there were absolutely no black people in Scandinavia.”

3. “Not allowing diverse skin tone, racist.”

Not allowing diverse skin tone is not racist, especially for this IF because as I said, you are playing as a Viking in Denmark. You are not a Viking from China or South Africa or Brazil or Italy, but Denmark.

I want to write a story where the main character is a white viking. I don’t see why that is a big problem. As many people have told me, A Tale of Crown has a lack of white skin tone options because the story is based in the Middle East. That is not a problem and what I’m doing here shouldn’t be a problem either.

4. “Ps I'm not doing the leg work for you.”

Then if you won’t do the leg work and I won’t do the leg work, why are we both fighting about something we have no clue over? I think that if you are going to start an argument about this, maybe you should research a little more so you can factually tell me why I’m wrong instead of just saying I’m racist.

5. “… hope you get better or hope you stop writing either would be great.”

I won’t stop writing, but I will probably take a small little break to calm down so I don’t let this affect me too much.

[mermaidsirennikita]

What's your theory on what's going on with Kate or do you not care enough to have one?

I mean, I've had a pretty solid theory since the day they announced she had abdominal surgery and she wouldn't be back until after Easter.

(I notice that a lot of people who are new to this versus true to this think the Royals have said this and meant "she'll be back on Easter". OH NO MON AMI. If they had her LOCKED DOWN for Easter, we'd know at this point. They would've announced it.)

Is it possible that this is all a part of a divorce play by her (and William is trying to get her to stay) or William (and Kate is doing a Gone Girl type move where she's basically refusing to cooperate)? Yes. I am more open to that than I once was.

However, I say:

--This family is not as divorce-averse as people think, lmao. I see people go "but the Church of England" okay but like... the King.... is divorced... He divorced the most famous woman... maybe ever. And shit got better for him after they stopped twiddling their thumbs and did it. The royal family knows that it is ultimately better to just call it than to try and make someone stay. Anne is divorced, Creepy Uncle is divorced. It's not as taboo as I think some people feel, so if she's leaving... why concoct this story to keep her in the game?

And like, I do think William has SOMETHING WRONG WITH HIM... because no sane individual would attempt to handle this as he has been, and it is HIM, Kensington Palace is HIM, and Charles's office seems to be very hands-off about all this. But idk, being like "my wife had abdominal surgery" to hide her leaving you is a bit... much.

--Then we go to "he's divorcing her"/"has cheated one too many times" and she's in hiding. First off, adorable if people think Rose is the only one he's fucked with in this 20+ year relationship. I think there are probably MANY issues with that marriage aside from cheating, but Kate is not Diana. Kate was with William for a long time, during which I'm sure he cheated, before they married. She knew what she was signing up for. Is it harder than she thought? Probably. But I don't think she'd pull something like this over cheating, because the man ain't gonna stop so it's like... leave him or not.

But then on William's side... I don't know, dude. Yes, Charles really wanted to be with Camilla. I don't think it's as romantic a story as people think, but there got to be a point where if Charles was going to be with Camilla, he needed to marry her, and Diana didn't want to be queen anymore, so they just... divorced. I don't buy that William is attempting to force an unwilling Kate out of the picture to marry Rose. I think that if William wanted to be with Rose and Kate didn't want to leave, he'd simply have Rose as a mistress, as many royals before him have. And then, where's the logic of this man replacing Kate with Rose, but also trying to make everyone believe he's a good father and husband with this "William took the photo of Kate and the kids" bullshit?

So while I know some viewed the random article(s) about Rose as "soft-launching the mistress"... I did not. I saw it as warning shots from the media. They're not very happy with Wills; they know shit; here's a random article about a totally random lady they know nothing about besides her being a random marchioness who looks like Kate, who lives near William and Kate, who used to be friends with Kate but isn't anymore...........

--I also just think the idea of her being perfectly well in hiding is kind of ridiculous. Because I just feel like... unless she's in a basement somewhere, someone has to have seen her in all this time. If she's well??? And can walk about???? You're telling me she's either never left some house or has and someone hasn't seen her? Even Princess Charlene had to make up some bullshit about why she was in South Africa for weeks when she tried to escape that one time. (I wish more KateGate people would read about THAT story.)

If they're not divorcing, what is it?

If that woman could appear in a short little outing, not even speaking, maybe in a wheelchair, and look well enough... They would have her out there. It is INSANE TO ME that people think a family that regularly shopped Diana around at events, knowing she was self harming and binging and purging and throwing herself down the stairs while pregnant, that ignored how increasingly upset and mentally unwell Meghan was (while pregnant)... would just let Kate sit back when the world thinks William has like, chopped her up into little pieces and put her in a fridge.

I'm not even saying an engagement! I'm saying a quick "here's William pushing Kate around the garden", "here's Kate sitting and watching her kids play in the yard, VERY clear VIDEO FOOTAGE (because they've fucked it all up, nobody believes still images of her anymore, I don't buy that the woman in the pic in her mom's car was her 100%, and I think the most recent pic without her face in it is probably an old one being shopped as new) is needed. And they're not making it happen.

And I don't think it's because they won't. I think it's because they CANNOT. Like, if she was okay, I do tend to feel like Charles might actually make her show the fuck up, but I don't think she is and it's on William to handle it. (And William fucking up kind of benefits Charles, because they are always in competition. "Charles has cancer that's why he's not doing it" Charles is not only... Charles. He is Camilla and their entire office.)

So. I think she is either incredibly unwell mentally, or incredibly unwell physically--beyond what they've implied. I think there's probably some truth to what the Spanish press has reported about her health. I feel like something probably happened around December 28, and she is having a hard time.

And why not just SAY THAT?

Because a) this is a very old-fashioned ableist family that treats issues that have to do with mental and physical health with shame, and I mean, they have literally locked members of the family they find unwell away before, and if you look at what they did to Diana beyond what The Crown even showed... this is not very off b) William is a disaster who thinks he knows everything and both uses the press and truly hates it, OR SO I GUESS NOT KNOWING HIM AT ALL and his PR strategy has never been good so once confronted with a genuine crisis he's flailing c) of WHAT CAUSED this incident.

Did increasingly horrible conditions in that family and in her marriage cause Kate to do something? (I don't know why people would think this is crazy when her mother-in-law literally discussed passive suicide attempts and constant suicidal thinking, though I suppose the Windsors have recently made a lot of headway with their "Diana did it all because she was crazy" versus "Diana did it because we drove her crazy" press tour.) Did someone hurt her? Did she have unhealthy habits exacerbated by the royal life that led to medical complications? I don't know.

And I also think it's possible that they're hoping they can get her back to "peak condition" if they have enough time, and it's possible that simply won't happen. No matter what does happen, though, I can tell you that there is no way they can get their way out of this looking the way they did before.

Anyway, I've been on this train since literally day 1 and everything they're doing just makes me feel increasingly correct, so. The press is starting to turn. The New York Post (a Murdoch rag, which therefore SHOULD support them) started doing write ups about how her health may be much worse than they've let on. It's not good.

Disclaimer: theories theories theories speculation speculation alleged alleged

#like again i dislike kate but her kids didn't do anything to deserve the trauma of their mom being seriously unwell #so genuinely HOPE this is just a divorce thing #that is like... the best case scenario it's beginning to feel like #but idk those ghouls always have me thinking the worst

[aer-in-wanderland]

PSYCHO-PASS: Providence - According to Japanese Twitter

After a long wait (or maybe it just felt long to me), PSYCHO-PASS: Providence finally hits North American theaters this week (14 July 2023), before becoming more widely internationally available in early August.

Unfortunately, as I'm not currently in Japan, I've not yet seen it. Fortunately, I speak Japanese, so I've read pretty much everything I could find about what happens. If you're like me and can't wait to see it in cinemas/don't mind major spoilers, this post is for you.

What follows is a compilation of everything my sister and I know about PPP -- drawing from fan talk on Twitter, director and writer interviews and tweets, and other official promotional materials only available in Japanese -- without actually having seen it.

We also explain some of the major plot points and go into detail on the real-life works referenced in the film, so if you watched it but feel like you could still use some clarification (as many Japanese fans did), this post might be for you too.

Once again, this post is nothing but spoilers (to be taken with several grains of salt as there is a certain amount of guesswork involved), so read on at your own risk.

*Note: "SN" denotes tweets/quotes by director Shiotani Naoyoshi.

We open on a snowy, stormy night, January 2118 (2 months post-SS Case.3).

A team of armed mercenaries board a transport ship off the coast of Kanagawa, Japan and set about killing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) Suppressing Action Department (SAD) agents on board. 

Among them is Kai Mikhaylov, a Russian agent with a large burn scar on the left half of his face.

Kai Mikhaylov (VA: Kase Yasuyuki): A member of the “Peacebreakers.” In order to obtain the Stronskaya Document, he launches an attack on the ship Milcia is on. 

Leading the mercenaries is fellow mercenary Bokamoso Murray, who sports distinctive red dreadlocks.

Bokamoso Murray (VA: Shirokuma Hiroshi): A combatant affiliated with the “Peacebreakers.” He operates in tandem with Kai Mikhaylov; beginning with the assault on the Grootslang, he works to seize the Stronskaya Document. 

For the record, the Grootslang (the ship’s name) is a mythical giant snake rumoured to dwell deep in a cave in the Richtersveld, South Africa. It’s said that anyone who encounters it will meet with misfortune. Well then.

Indoors on the same ship, we find Dr Milicia Stronskaya, who has been invited to Tokyo from Russia to participate in an important political conference. 

Milcia Stronskaya (VA: Tsuda Shōko): A researcher and global authority on behavioural economics and statistics. She establishes the basic theory simulation referred to as the “Stronskaya Document.”

Realising the ship is under attack, she hurriedly sends a communication to someone, apologising under her breath as she does so.

She pulls out a gun just as a helmeted mercenary bursts into the room, and she shoots him dead. You can tell from how she handles it that she’s competent.

Kai charges in next, dodging her shots and pinning her down.

Leaning over her, Kai calls her “professor,” at which she startles. He then says to her, “There’s nowhere left to run.”

Kai shoots Dr Stronskaya, killing her. 

Bokamoso shows up then and says to Kai, “You screwed up, huh, Kai,” and “We’re switching to Plan B.”

Meanwhile, Kogami Shinya, one of our two main protagonists, heads to her rescue.

Kōgami Shinya (VA: Seki Tomokazu): Special Investigator, Suppressing Action Department, Overseas Coordination Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Age 33. He was living a nomadic life abroad acting as a mercenary but was recruited by Frederica and returned to Japan; currently, he’s pursuing international incidents. He prides himself on his advanced combat techniques and honed physique.

Kogami makes an insane jump from an aircraft wearing a wingsuit. (I’ve seen him described alternately as Batman, Captain America, and a flying squirrel here lol)

SN: What colour suits a man who flies... Thinking about it.

Kogami proceeds to fight his way through the enemy soldiers with his typical efficiency.

Unfortunately, he arrives too late to save the professor, and the mercenaries have already absconded with her head. The reason for this is explained later.

On deck, Bokamoso and his team board their aircraft and make their escape.

Kogami, who has followed them out, takes aim at the aircraft but is tackled to the deck by a reanimated SAD agent. The man’s mouth doesn’t move but we hear a voice quoting what appears to be a passage from a religious text.

An explosion goes off and Kogami breaks free of his attacker and escapes the conflagration by jumping into the ocean.

Backlit by the flames and treading water, Kogami — vexed but composed as usual — reports on the situation via his device.

<<Opening Credits>>

OP: 「アレキシサイミアスペア」 (alexithymiaspare) ~ 凛として時雨 (Ling tosite sigure)

We cut to the opening credits, set to Ling tosite sigure’s “Alexthymiaspare.” The group also contributed to the soundtracks for PP1, PP2, and PP: The Movie (M1), so this is one of many ways in which the film “returns to its roots.”

The credits are then followed by a brief shot of the Sibyl System accompanied by the following text: 《"The Sibyl System," a vast surveillance network that assigns numeric values to and governs human beings’ mental states. Detectives who carry "Dominators" — guns that measure "crime coefficients" — pursue "latent criminals" before they commit crimes.》

The next morning, our other main protagonist, Tsunemori Akane, now Chief Inspector of the CID, attends a meeting of senior bureaucrats to discuss the proposed abolishment of the Ministry of Justice and the old system of law.

Tsunemori Akane (VA: Hanazawa Kana): Chief Inspector of the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Public Safety Bureau. Age 25. She commands the Public Safety Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Department. She possesses an incontrovertible sense of justice and a stalwart mentality that makes it difficult for her Hue to cloud; she makes an appeal for maintaining the law under the Sibyl System.  

The official name of the conference, which is being held at Nona Tower (i.e. the Ministry of Welfare’s HQ), is “Review Meeting on the Topic of the Overseas Expansion of Industry RE: the Sibyl System.”

Shindo Atsushi — father to PP3 protagonist Shindo Arata — is also in attendance, alongside officials from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Shindō Atsushi (VA: Sugō Takayuki): Director-General of the Statistics Department, Minister’s Secretariat,  Ministry of Health and Welfare. One of the elite who started his career as an Inspector [at the CID] and entered the MHW. He’s involved in the exportation of the Sibyl System, immigration policy, etc.

For the record, this is the same conference that Dr Stronskaya was originally scheduled to attend at Atsushi’s invitation.

Akane is the only woman and by far the youngest person present, but she doesn’t hesitate to say her piece. When it’s her turn to speak, she opens by saying, “‘Under the Sibyl System, the law is unnecessary.’ Is that truly the case?”

Akane is basically the sole voice of dissent, while Atsushi assumes a more neutral position. 

During the meeting, Atsushi receives a text message, which he checks covertly before stashing his device in an inner pocket of his suit jacket.

Moments later, Akane receives a red alert on her device and excuses herself.

Atsushi calls a break in the meeting while Akane steps out to take a call from Mika.

Shimotsuki Mika (VA: Sakura Ayane): Inspector, Division 1, Criminal Investigation Department, Public Safety Bureau, Ministry of Health and Welfare. Age 21. The youngest Inspector ever inducted. At the time, she took a negative stance towards Akane’s way of thinking, but the two have a good working relationship now. She’s competitive but possesses both presence of mind and rational judgement.

Director Shiotani tweeted a quote by Rousseau that I saw someone identify as having been in reference to this scene. It’s not clear to me though whether a character quotes it aloud, or if Shiotani just meant it as an overarching theme:

SN: “Keep this truth ever before you—Ignorance never did any one any harm, error alone is fatal, and we do not lose our way through ignorance but through self-confidence.” by.Rousseau

from Rousseau’s Emile (On Education), Book III

SN: “Real knowledge is knowing the extent of one’s ignorance.”〈matcha emoji〉

from Confucius’ Analects II, Political Philosophy

Keep reading here.

#psycho pass #psycho pass: providence #PPP #akane tsunemori #tsunemori akane #kogami shinya #ginoza nobuchika #spoilers #foundintranslation #サイコパス #常守朱 #狡噛信也 #宜野座伸元 #塩谷直義 #Sugou Teppei #Kunizuka Yayoi #Karanomori Shion #Hinakawa Sho #Shimotsuki Mika #SaigaJouji #Hanashiro Frederica #Shindo Arata #Kei Mikhail Ignatov #PP1 #PP2 #PP3

[douglysium]

Is FGO's Andromeda Black?

I already talked about this on Twitter So I figured I would mention this here and it was originally a sort of response to people criticizing for someone assuming Andromeda was some sort of gyaru.

I appreciate that people are aware of Andromeda’s Aethiopian / African origins in FGO but tbh I think there’s something to be said about how FGO design usually approaches drawing black people / features. Sure I think Andromeda is black but if you where to grab a random non-fate fan before putting FGO’s Andromeda, Amakusa, Emiya Alter, and Suzuka Gozen (Summer) in front of them with no context and asked them “Which of these characters is black?” or "Which of these character an African figure?" I hesitate to say that they would be able to tell you consistently.

I’m not saying no character can ever be racially ambiguous or everything can fit cleanly into little boxes at all times but as tempting as it is to say someone not realizing Andromeda is black is merely the ignorance of an audience member I can’t help but think that Fate also primes such expectations with how they often approach black characters in general. I think parts of the internet do bend over backward trying to deny a character being black when it makes sense but I also ask when is the last time Fate has idk drawn really curly hair or dreads? Like seriously think about it.

(Lenora maybe isn't the best example because I think she plays into some stereotypes but the point here is to look at the hair texture)

So, I think as good as the conversation about Africa in Greek mythology is to have and how easy it is to blame it on the audience (which is not completely unjustified) I think we also have to question how Fate itself primes the audience or may handle things in such a way as to increase the chance of miscommunication. And this is not to say that it’s always Fate’s fault or that black people can never have straight hair and / or lightskin black people or what have you, but i find Myself having to debate whether a character is black or not in fate way more often than I have to debate if a character is black in other media. I think the weaknesses that Fate has with these kinds of designs is something I don’t see with Magic the Gathering or Pokemon or even Digimon. Outside of specific characters I don’t see people arguing Marvin Jackson from Digital-Police is a gyaru or Lenora isn’t black.

Like if you look at Sid Story’s Mansa Musa design for example I don’t think there’s really anyway for someone to misinterpret that she’s not black without looking like they are purposefully trying to troll others for engagement.

(Shout outs to illust_ringo (https://twitter.com/illust_ringo))

Like yeah, there is a lot of racism in some parts of the Fate fandom but Fate itself did also make a bunch of Detroit jokes with Emiya alter and clearly realized they made some sort of mistake with design since they’ve been walking back on some subtle stuff so I can only give FGO itself so much grace in that context. I love Fate but I think if we want to have a productive conversation we need to acknowledge the racism within Fate itself and how that can attract certain people or set up certain expectations (even with the censorship of characters like Emiya Alter).

I guess what I’m also trying to say is for some people if you give an inch they’ll take a mile. If you give even a little bit of a possibility that a character isn’t black, even if they’re supposed to be, some people are going to take it and I think that there’s some stuff Fate could be doing more often (even if not all the time) to help prevent misconceptions from occurring and prevent me from pulling out an essay or history lesson on why a character is or should be black almost every-time they release and African servant.

While I ended up talking about some of the ways I think Fate could do better I don’t think it’s always 100% their fault. Like I said if you give an inch some people will take a mile (and some people don’t want to ever count Egypt as part of Africa for some reason) but I also think there’s stuff they could be doing to help curb this. I also don’t think it helps that Fate barely touches any black figures around / outside of Egypt but that’s for another time (where’s Yasuke?! Im on my hands and knees begging).

Anyway, those are my thoughts because quite frankly one could go on all day with almost infinite ifs, ands, or buts and numerous exceptions and when the responsibility is more on the designer or more on the audience or how there are always exceptions, considering racially ambiguous people and designs, etc but this is from Twitter and my brain hurts so I'll spare you an entire chapter book's worth of thoughts. I figured this was also fitting to go over during Black History Month.

Extra Thoughts

There are a couple of other points I would like to mention though. Some people have argued Andromeda is a win because they didn't depict her as white and I'm not sure I completely agree? Yes, it is a major win that they didn't do that thing where they only look at how white Europeans from the medieval century depicted her and used pale skin as a symbol of beauty but there are some fan translations of her profile and it says this " A tomboy princess who prides herself on her swimming ability. Ethiopia (Aethiopia) is said to mean "land of the sunburnt people"[1], however, it does not necessarily correspond to the nation of Ethiopia which exists today."

So yes, Aethiopia does not correspond perfectly to Ethopia but it still refers to parts of Africa and Africans. Quite frankly, this part of the profile reads like a summer servant and while it might be easy to say "Fate gave her dark skin so it's a win" I also worry that what happened is that they interpreted "land of the sunburnt people" as a tan and took the depictions of white Andromeda and interpreted it as a sort of tan. Which is a doubt I REALLY REALLY REALLY wish I didn't have and I can't stress this enough. I so desperately want to believe that they are saying Andromeda is at least black but like I said I think we have to be honest that Fate's depiction of black and African people adds a lot of room for doubt. I think her skin is naturally tan at least and while she does indeed have dark hair in some of her ascensions it ends up turning blonde. You could maybe argue this confirms that she actually isn't a gyaru since most stereotypical gyarus have blonde hair but even with that in mind I think the way Fate handles Andromeda and just black designs in general can often fall a bit flat or unclear and sometimes I think fans are doing a lot of heavy lifting with good faith readings (including me).

This is not me saying Andromeda is white this is me saying that Fate pretty consistently falls short with these designs which feeds into a room for doubt. Like I said, I just want Fate to be more willing to include some black features more often so I'm not constantly having to pull up a small dissertation on why a character is black. It would be nice if there were just a few more of their black characters that I could point to and have no doubts about and not need to debate anyone.

Also, Fate just has a SERIOUS whitewashing problem and a weird relationship with blonde hair quite frankly. It feels like sometimes it's an obsession. Like when they made it so blonde hair was a sign of divinity for most of the Babylonian gods. Something that has a lot of Eurocentric baggage with the history of associating often white / "aryan" traits with purity, beauty, goodness, divinity, etc.. Not to mention, that in my opinion, Fate seems like it is basically going out of its way to avoid black historical figures most of the time unless they have do Egypt. Yes, I know about Strange / Fake and Nzambi but they barely touched most of Africa and even outside of Egypt they haven't really even mentioned characters like Yasuke outside of some fan-submitted design in one of their gag mangas. Combine this with designs like Emiya Alter and the controversy around that and I can't help but be left wanting a bit more of a bare minimum somewhere even if there aren't a lot of black servants.

Greeks and Pigment

Since someone is inevitably going to bring this up. Yes the Greeks do technically depict Andromeda with light skin even way back when but I just happened to take an art history class so I know a bit about this.

Greeks did this weird thing where they sometimes depicted women with light skin and men with dark skin so if you really wanted to commit to that argument then someone like Perseus for example would have to be black or at least dark-skinned. To me it can hold about as much wait as arguing a man has blue skin and a girl has pink skin because people associate those colors with boys and girls.

For reference, here’s a pot depicting Perseus and Andromeda from 575-550 BCE on an amphora from Italy. If someone did want to argue Andromeda was white than they would need to argue Pereus is black or something which is to say Greek art and skin tones can be weird.

Andromeda wasn’t the only Greek mythological figure from Ethiopia (such as Memnon during the Trojan War) and the Greeks had settlements in African areas like Egypt and traded with Africans. Additionally, the myth of Helios explains why dark skin tones exist (so different skin tones are literally incorporated into their myths) so I think based on context even with art like this we can assume the Greek culture generally probably knew about black people. Also, Andromeda's profile clearly alludes to the idea that the designers and writers probably know Andromeda is from Africa too.

Ending

Idk, I try not to come off as a debbie downer or seem like the only enjoyment I get from Fate is when I bash it but I feel like some people are getting really caught up in praising the design or the individuals who are probably misreading Andromeda's race or ethnicity and not seeing the bigger picture itself. Something that limits the productivity of the conversation. I also think that where possible we should maybe push for more clearly black designs to prevent things like this from happening. I know that's usually not going to happen because FGO is a Japanese game for a mostly Japanese audience but you never know who's paying attention or who you might inspire. I also think that some of us maybe shouldn't be settling for scraps or half gestures as often.

Andromeda does do well with not just depicting her as Perseus white but at the same time I think everyone also just has REALLY low standards (including me) so even that little bit was a surprise. Which is depressing when you think about it. This isn't me saying you can't like Andromeda or that every character needs to have their race plastered on their forehead but it's very clear that Fate's design philosophy has some major pitfalls and weaknesses (especially with depicting black people) and I think it could be taking some simple steps to resolve them. It feels like every time FGO releases a black character the same cycle happens in the community and I'm not really sure it's going anywhere because people end up debating about what is basically a symptom showing up within the fanbase without addressing the actual source and elephant in the room itself, FGO and maybe even Fate in general.

There are also even people in Japan who at least kind of care enough to try to depict black people in a less ambiguous fashion that isn't racist or a stereotype (like Jinkei who has literally worked on FGO: https://x.com/jinkei_bunny/status/1759352092467364240?s=20).

BHM

Anyway, happy Black History Month. I urge you that while criticism is good and healthy positive reinforcement is also great and just as important. There's no point in ever only paying attention to the negative but never fostering the positive.

In the spirit of positivity and being the change you want to see in the world here are my Yasuke and Shaka Zulu fanservant designs

Demon Saber: Yasuke Full Profile- https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/735141544541208576/mori-ranmaru-wikipedia

Grand Lancer Candidate: Shaka Zulu Full Profile- https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/721643569180557312/douglysium-douglysium-douglysium-grand

Steel Berserker: John Henry Unfinished Profile- https://www.tumblr.com/douglysium/735103259781578752/steel-berserker-john-henry-wip?source=share

#Fgo #Fate #Typemoon #Criticism #media criticism

[enbycrip]

I have come across a number of things in books and podcasts about historical West Africa recently which have made me think about our current society and how we as humans handle prestige, class, resources and stability.

(I am aware I’m writing this as a white European and that the people this knowledge passed to me through had European or American accents and names; while all of them referenced academics with African names, I am acknowledging as a starting point here that there is going to have been flattening of power relationships, oversimplification, translation issues, issues with how oral histories reach academic writings, and the issues of a colonial lens *at the very least* in the transmission of knowledge to me here, and that’s before whatever misunderstanding and issues with my lack of context and structural racism have occurred in how I have processed what I have read and heard.)

So it seems that, in a lot of medieval West African kingdoms, particularly historical Ghana (relationship to the modern state of Ghana is complex and not really geographical), land was neither owned by individuals/families or by the king a la European feudalism; it was in something closer to corporate wider kin/tribal group ownership.

Unlike the situation in *most* of medieval Europe, there was just not a land shortage; there never seems to have been an issue with any individual or familial group having security of tenure of a particular area of land as long as they had the capacity to work it.

The issue of shortage was *labour*, not land itself; it’s basically the complete inverse of the situation in Western Europe in the 14th century just before the decade preceding the Black Death, when there was so much labour due to population growth that all the marginal land was under cultivation just to feed everyone and there was this underclass living in serious poverty and food insecurity, who were, horribly and familiarly, the first people to start dying in the decade of disasters that led up to the Black Death.

This kind of situation, where *land* is the prestige resource, is the one really baked into the European and colonial mindset, and you can still see the effects of it stretching into our modern western capitalist mindset when, in a lot of ways, that doesn’t entirely make logical sense. But, in medieval to early modern West Africa, the prestige resource was *labour*, not land.

Hence the long, stable social history of slavery in West Africa; when labour is your scarce resource, holding and controlling labour is how you gain, hold and demonstrate power and prestige.

And because it is long and stable, the institution of slavery in West Africa seems to have had a lot more in common with serfdom in Europe or thralldom in early medieval Scandanavia than chattel slavery in the Americas or Roman slavery. Because both of those depend on an Imperial mindset. While a society can *absolutely* persist stably with manifest inequality and exploitation, and even dehumanisation of whole classes of people, it can’t *use up* people the way those institutions did and still remain stable.

It’s not even simply an issue with birth and replacement rates etc; there are conditions of life that humans can tolerate on a generational scale and ones we can’t. We are these highly social apes that evolved to survive and thrive in small, hierarchical but highly interdependent clan communities. So there are certain kinds of stress we can tolerate an enormous amount of *if* we have other protective factors.

Imperial societies do not allow their underclasses these factors because they do not only seek to *maximise* output of resources at any given time; they see the maximum theoretical output as their “right”. They work slaves to death and exploit land to infertility because they can always conquer more land/take more prisoners/buy more slaves. The fact that they *can* acquire MORE people, and/or more land, quickly becomes a social imperative; they are *duty-bound* to acquire more people and/or more land; to EXPAND, and not doing so becomes a “loss”.

(Yes, Augustus set Rome’s imperial boundaries; it didn’t stop them continually starting wars for resources and prisoners to become slaves until the collapse of the Empire.)

I think it is fairly clear that modern capitalism is a global imperial society. You can, in fact, explicitly see that evolution. Capitalism was born at the same time as Spanish imperialism - and colonialism-genocide - in the South Americas; it was South American silver that was the resource injection that allowed the beginnings of the stock market in the Netherlands. Both of these were part of the Spanish Empire at the time, and the Netherlands’ nascent capitalism powered itself on that resource injection and used it to leap free from Spanish control and immediately begin its own colonial ventures.

Capitalism was part of the imperial machinery of the Dutch, French and British Empires; the American Empire has been more explicitly capitalist than it has been imperialist, as one became more overtly acceptable than the other. It didn’t really change its nature; just moved it from a national base - and let’s be clear; nation states are as much social constructs as anything else is, and the fact that they are somewhat anchored to a geographical location does not give them more objective reality than, for example, money - to something more diffuse that nonetheless still operates to systemically entrench power and privilege to certain people and marginalise others.

#capitalism #disaster capitalism #african history #european history #imperialism #colonialism #slavery #medieval history #early modern history #anti capitalism #capitalism is imperialism #world history

[shigayokagayama]

maybe a weird question, but do you have any recommendations for non-mob psycho media? I’ve been in search of something that hits similarly/is as well made and I trust your judgement o wise one. I’m not super picky, so recs of any kind would be appreciated :)

im like the worst person to take media recommendations from because you have to tie me down to watch something new and then i get obsessed with it forever, in terms of things ive seen recently that hit the same tumblr is NOT lying dungeon meshi is really good and if you start watching now you're gonna be watching at the part where it starts getting crazy

other stuff ive been into (gets progressively less mob psycho and generally more depressing like the further down we go bc i tend to get into really, really sad shit):

-i <3 deltarune but everyone has already played that. deltarune good. if you havent played deltarune play deltarune. genuinely like it more than undertale. also if the last chapter of deltarune is just the confession arc i called it and deserve a million dollars

-same w spiderverse. listen usually i dont care about superhero stuff but god these movies are good and i really hope they stick the landing.

-everything everywhere all at once continues to be one of my favorite movies ever

-rainworld (video game, very difficult but skurry's playthroughs do a good job summarizing the plot and general vibe of each route if you wanna watch those. i watched my friend play survivor ages ago and ive been playing through survivor with a friend on multiplayer and decided to watch some playthroughs to get a feel for the map and GOD DAMN the story of this game. rivulet route almost made me cry.) fair warning this is animal death the video game.

-severance (live action tv show, general plot is some sort of dystopian future where they invent a surgery where you can seperate your work self from your normal self so you clock into work and then black out until your shift is over. except your work self is just stuck at work forever. only 9 episodes but very, VERY good)

-i actually really enjoyed the scott pilgrim comics and the anime i wish anyone ever could be normal about them. id definitely suggest comics (if you can handle the 2000s humor) then anime. also basically everyone knows this but fair warning that starting out the main character is in his early 20s dating a 17 year old, it is explicitly treated as a shitty thing by the narrative and theres nothing explicit and its made very clear that he has 0 feelings for her whatsoever and is just using her as an ego boost but if youre sensitive to that stuff i might skip this one

-lots of webcomics about animals. i read so many webcomics about animals its like. my main media intake. this is part of the reason that i dont understand complaints about the art style my favorite webcomic looks like this

its called doe of deadwood and ill think about it until the day i die. others im currently reading (since this one wrapped a while ago) are "what lurks beneath" (cat cult on an island) "waves always crash" (cat cult on the beach) "i didnt know" (cat cult in a barn), toufati sawa (hyena trying to avenge her clan) and africa (leopard trying to survive the harshening world with her cubs) warning for animal death with all of these and general abuse warning for all those cat cult ones bc. cults.

-i like warrior cats. do not read warrior cats. its not very good and youll get stuck here forever.

-pathologic but the actual game and not just people describing the game please watch someone play the actual game summaries skip so much of the meat of the story and the characters. or play the game if you can bear learning to strategically quicksave. fair warning there is a lot of racism depicted against indigenous people in these games and while the framing of it generally aires on the side of "racism bad" there are a lot of kinda shitty tropes that come with it.

-listen bojack horseman is one of my shows it is the polar opposite of mob psycho in like every way and i would never in a million years recommend it if you want something that hits like mob psycho but if we're asking for just things i enjoy this is one of them. heavy cw for drug usage and abuse with this one. might want to give "does the dog die" a look for this one bc people are not joking about how heavy this show is

-same with hospice. hospice is a concept album about a hospice worker and a patient and has had more of an influence on me than any other piece of media ever bc i found it at the exact perfect time in my life for it to be relevant to my circumstances and now its like part of my identity. heavy cw for abuse also

-speaking of concept albums hey have you listened to tyler the creator he has several. WOLF especially i really like because the plot is actually like. kinda intricate. he also says the f slur a lot in WOLF but hes bisexual so diversity win?

-succession good. tw for like. everything though. probably "does the dog die" this one.

-hey have you ever watched david lynch's 1972 film "eraserhead"

#me and my friends tor and mich read the entire manga in 2 call sessions #i put everything else under a readmore #i feel like the more you know about my interests you can look at anything i write and go #hey. hey i see you.

[the-empress-7]

"I wonder if their card said, behind a large yellow candle"

Their card states:

To: Harold and M, Duke and Duchess of Chunga-Changa

What: KCIII Coronation. You can see The Prince of Wales' Coronet, The Princess of Wales will wear an elegant dress that will match her Tiara and other crown jewels that will be loaned to her, and the Wales' kids looking so regal, specially Princess Charlotte with a nice dress that actually fits. This is a soft show of the future of the monarchy just to remind you what and who matters.

Where: United Kingdom. We do not have any branch in North America, we are not planning on bringing the coronation to you.

When: May 6, 2023. We know it's your son's birthday. We intentionally chose this day to give you a reason not to come. You no longer need to think of any excuse since we know you are not good at thinking.

Why: We actually don't want you here. The tax payers don't want you too. Nobody bloody wants you but we are still sending for the sake of sending.

How to get there: Since you think that you are more important than you really are, and act like you're Earth's most victimized victim of all victims eversince victimization exist. We decided that it is best to send a platoon of well trained penguins from North Pole who will handle your security. The penguins will come at your castle at Chunga-Changa. They will excort you to your borrowed private jet. Those penguins will fly you first to Australia since you claim to be famous there. The Aussies will have a tea throwing party at you. Immediately after that, they will fly you to Vancouver Island where the penguins will take a pap photo of you so you can publish a pap photobook at Penguin Random House. After Canada, the penguins will bring you to Africa and tell all the citizens to ask you if you are Ok. Only then you can go to UK.

To protect you from the racjst UK. We have commisioned life size yellow cancles that will surround you while in UK. It'll be there while you are walking, seating, standing even when you are riding a car. No paps or British media can take a photo/video of any your body part since the candle will handle the cover. Also to protect Harold from the Willy, PoW, we decided to place your seat at the very back of the venue. The PoW and his family will seat in front being the heir. The spare like most stock of spare parts are in the tool box in the back. So you stay at the very back. Also since The Wife is mad that the Princess of Wales got first dibs of the designer brands and she needs to follow the queue after her, we are delightful to inform you that you no longer need to follow that queue. The British brands decided to remove you from the queue. You are no longer need to have to choose from their selection since it will not be offered to you.

#I love my anons

[wathanism]

I've heard a lot of people in the ex muslim community say that islamophobia isn't real, and I wanted to throw in my 2 cents as someone who's lived both in swana and the west.

also some quick notes before I start:

1. I pretty exclusively refer to the middle east as swana (southwest asia and north africa) bc I find the term "middle east" to be too europe-centric.

2. I'm open to hearing other people's thoughts so feel free to reblog and add your commentary, but I don't really do debates so don't come expecting me to argue with you.

3. terfs are not welcome here and will be blocked on sight. anyone just looking to start shit will also be blocked.

first off western liberalism has never known how to talk about Islam with any level of complexity and tends to make an absolute mockery of the nuances of the lived experiences of swana people, so please don't assume I'm coming at this from the perspective of a white lady who's never stepped foot in the middle east just regurgitating whatever sounds politically correct. fr, hearing americans (both muslim and otherwise) talk about this subject gives me a headache too so let's just get it out of the way that the entire way the discussion is handled by liberals is unproductive at best and just straight dogshit at worst.

with that out of the way, I guess I'll address the first criticism of the concept of islamophobia which is that it's just racism/xenophobia. which, yeah, it absolutely is, but there's nothing wrong with having a word to explain this very specific brand of racism. our experiences as swana people are unique, and they can't be compared to the experiences of say african americans or aboriginal folk, and their experiences can't be compared to ours. I don't particularly like the term islamophobia, since it impacts all swana people regardless of religion, but it's what we got for now and until a more accurate term comes along, we gotta deal. also you can't really separate islam out of the development of this particular brand of racism.

if I understand correctly, I'd say the rejection of islamophobia in the ex muslim community comes from the simple fact that western liberals cry islamophobia as an excuse to shut down all criticism of islam, regardless of their validity. and frankly, agreed, there's truly nothing more infuriating than when someone pulls that shit, but I invite you bear with me for a second and to look at it from a different angle. because the fact of the matter is that there ARE very valid criticisms of islam and we're not going to make any progress towards human rights in swana countries until we address that.

but no amount of western liberals being really fucking annoying and misguided will change the fact that islamophobia is a real geopolitical entity used so western forces can invade and destabilize swana countries. the US has a long and documented history of backing muslim extremist groups and leaders, only to then turn around and convince their own populace that, "wow look at those evil savage barbaric muslims." this was only exacerbated by the 9/11 attack, and frankly talk to literally any human being alive in the US during that time. the shift was immediate and drastic and pretty damn disturbing. children in schools were forced to watch gruesome videos of terrorist attacks just to be told, "this is what they're like," and news outlets were very intentionally fearmongering for the sole purpose of recruiting soldiers. they weren't discussing any of the nuances or intricacies of the politics in swana; they wanted to convince people all people of this caricature of evil and they painted all swana people as being that. this is why you see even sikhs be victims of islamophobia—it was never about religion. they just needed an excuse to be xenophobic. these people do not care about the rights and freedoms of non-muslim people in swana countries. they won't fight for our women, our queer folk, our ethnic minorities. they are not our friends. if they recognize our existence at all, which they rarely do, it's just to bolster their own agenda and to ultimately justify hurting our own nations and countries even more.

it's important to recognize that this whole complicated shitshow looks very different for muslims in the west and for everyone living in swana. ALL people in swana countries feel the large scale effects of western imperialism which is justified by islamophobia. muslims in the west feel the small scale effects of islamophobia through things like hate crimes, bullying, discrimination, etc. regurgitated by non-muslims who fell for western propaganda. muslims in swana are the religious majority and they hold political power, so they don't experience the kind of 1:1 discrimination that you might see a muslim experience in the west. similarly, white christians are the majority and hold political power in the west, so muslims living there will experience that. both of these perspectives and experience deserve to be seen and represented.

this is where I think a huge part of the disconnect and miscommunication between ex-muslims and western liberals is. they don't know how to separate the nuances and the valid criticisms of islam as a political force in swana from the very aggressive warmongering rhetoric they're trying to unlearn from the propaganda that was shoved down their throats. and we as non-muslims who suffered at the hands of islamic forces barely have a say in the matter, because those of us who faced it first-hand have a target on our back if we ever try to speak out. this, combined with the fact that the experiences of western muslims are so incomparably different from those of swana people living under islamic regimes, makes it really difficult to have this conversation without stepping on any toes.

and honestly the most confusing and frustrating part of this is that, not only is islamophobia a geopolitical force used to enforce violence in swana, but islam itself is ALSO a major geopolitical force used to enforce violence in swana. and somehow, counterintuitively, they feed into each other! the west benefits from instability in swana countries, and islamic regimes benefit from western support. and at the end of the day, everyone gets fucked over (to varying degrees) except for non-muslim westerners and the violent dictators they support.

honestly, I don't know how progress can be made from here. we're kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place. the situation in Iran, tragic as it is, is a good jumping off point to maybe FINALLY talk about this matter with some nuance. I can only hope the sacrifices of the brave women of Iran will not go to waste. call me an optimist, but I want to believe for my own sanity that good will come from this and we can finally make some tangible steps towards meaningful progress in our nations.

EDIT: I also feel the need to super quickly clarify my intention with making this post: I'm not saying ex-muslims shouldn't criticize islam. it takes like 2 seconds on my blog to see that I'm all about calling out the negative impacts of islam on the lives of all swana people. my intention was just to point out that we're all screwed over by the same forces and to encourage a sense of solidarity wherever there may be space for it. it's probably a long shot, but it sure would be nice if we could facilitate a productive conversation with muslims and ex-muslims alike that goes beyond arguing in circles.

#rambles #ex muslim

[sl-newsie]

Query: Q x 00 Agent- Ch. 11: Somewhat Normal

“This is us.”

Q gestures to the next door and opens it to let me in. The room is simple, somewhere one might picture a family taking their kids on holiday. 2 beds and a small bathroom. In the back there’s a giant window displaying a gorgeous view of the mountains.

“Nice choice, Q. Your selection in hotel bookings is just as tasteful as your interior design choices.”

“Um, thanks?” Q drops his bag down on one of the beds and sets his laptop up on the desk. “Do you know what this is?” He holds out the ring Bond gave to him and I see a strange symbol on it.

“An ugly octopus?”

He chuckles dryly. “Charming. No, it's a symbol.”

“No doubt for whoever’s behind this mess,” I wonder out loud. “Maybe it’s like the Hydra.”

Q frowns. “How could you connect it to something like that?”

I sit up on the table and cross my legs. “As Einstein said, ‘intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience.’ The Hydra’s always been a symbol for perseverance, with the whole ‘cut off one head, two more grow back’ meaning. Maybe this octopus is a symbol for different members of this plot?”

I’m cut off when Q points to me with a look of eureka. He clicks another link and another image pops up.

“You’re absolutely right. This is-”

Knock knock.

We both turn towards the door.

“I’ll check it out,” I say softly as I get up. “You grab my grappling equipment and get ready to run. If it’s not Bond, we make a quick exit out the back window.”

I carefully step to the door and pull my pistol out. One, two, three-

“Hello, Levie.”

I roll my eyes at Bond’s laid-back tone, returning my pistol to its holster and walking back to the table. Bond walks in, along with who I think is the Dr. Swann he was talking about earlier. I can already tell she’s Bond’s type. Stubborn, pretty, and full of attitude.

Q goes to close the door and Bond nods in greeting. “Dr. Swann, Q. Q, Dr. Swann.”

Dr. Swann eyes him cautiously. “Hello.”

“Enchanted,” Q returns with the same tone.

“Dr. Swann, meet 0011.”

I hold out a hand for us to shake but she doesn’t budge. “Pleased to meet you. I hope Bond’s been treating you well?” She gives me a look of deep annoyance. “I’ll take that as a temporary no.”

“Bond, we need to talk. Alone.” Q emphasizes

“She knows,” he responds.

“But Bond-”

“She knows,” Bond repeats. “What have you got?” Here it goes.

Q lowers his head. “I owe you an apology, 007. You were right. Oberhauser is still alive, the ring proves it.” He pulls out his laptop and brings up a chart shaped with the same symbol on the ring. “And it seems they were all part of one organization. Silva, Sciarra, White, Patrice, Greene, and Le Chiffre. And do you know who links them all?”

“Him.” Bond points to the screen.

“Exactly.”

“The organization. Do you know what it’s called?”

“SPECTRE,” Dr. Swann says from across the room. “Its name is SPECTRE.”

Q looks between us with confused eyes. “How does she know?”

“Because my father was part of it,” Swann explains.

“Well then you ought to see this.”

Q clicks a TV remote and a news report shows the headline: Cape Town In Chaos. He must have just gotten an alert from M. The story goes on to report a massive terrorist strike in South Africa; something that will no doubt stress for the Nine Eyes program to be pushed through.

“Q, go back to London,” Bond says while still watching the TV. “M’s going to need your help. And keep tracking me.”

Q nods. “I will. And Bond, you have to find L'Américain. He’s our only link to Oberhauser.”

“It’s not a person,” Dr. Swann speaks up. “It’s a place. In Tangier.”

“Then that’s where we need to go next.” Bond heads for the door and checks to see if it’s clear. 

“I can help-” I start to follow.

Bond holds up a hand to stop me. “You go with him, Levie. You’ve already risked your 00 status by being here. You need to go back. I can handle this.”

It’s best not to argue. Bond’s far more experienced and he’s right. M needs anyone he can trust.

“Best of luck, Bond. Don’t hesitate to call.”

We shake hands and Bond escorts Dr. Swann out, leaving me with Q again. He’s still typing away on his laptop so the only helpful thing I can do is continue to survey the outside premises.

“Are you upset?” Q asks from behind.

I shake my head as I stare out the giant window. “Just disappointed that I’m going to be stuck in London again. It doesn’t help that C keeps trying to pry into everything- Wait a minute, why aren’t you packing?”

Instead of gathering his belongings, Q is instead setting out the contents of his travel bag.

“It would be a shame to waste my savings on a room and not use it. Besides, I’m due for a small holiday even if it is one night.”

Did I hear that right?

“Are you, the workaholic Quartermaster, taking a break? Do you feel light-headed?”

“Very funny,” Q replies dryly. “Between C’s interference and the headache Bond’s giving me I want to try and feel like a normal human being.”

I can’t say I blame him. He deserves a break from everyone, including me. It’s too late and too expensive for me to book my own room so I should go report back to M-

“Where are you going?” Q asks as I start to walk towards the door.

I frown. “You’re taking a night off. I thought I’d go back early and not be a bother.”

Q gets a disagreeing look and he gestures to the other bed. “This is why I booked a double-bed, 0011. This room is for you too.”

He’s not joking? How has Q become my new favorite co-worker?

“You’re serious? First you send me on a solo mission, then you build me my own motorcycle. Now this!” I smile and shake my head. “How am I supposed to pay the tab?”

“Nothing to worry about.” Q waves it off. “You’ll probably repay me later by saving me from another assassin.”

“It would be my honor.” I do a dramatic bow. “So what now? What do you do for a holiday? You don’t take me as someone who skis.”

Q laughs nervously and scratches his neck. “No, I’d rather not do that. I’m not so adaptable when it comes to physical activity.”

“Then how do you meet the requirements?”

“By hard perseverance. Meaning I work myself until my body nearly collapses.”

I smirk. “Sounds like me. So if outdoor recreation is not an option…” I walk over to the TV and check the channel guide, coming up empty. “No good channels. And none of us are into drinking so the bar’s out of the question.”

Q picks up a hotel brochure and flips through it. “There’s a whirlpool outside.”

I snort. “You said to pack warm clothes. Swim attire didn’t exactly make it onto my list of warm clothing.”

“Are you wearing proper undergarments?”

This catches me off guard. I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me that.

“Obviously,” I scoff.

Q shrugs. “They’re basically the same thing as a bathing costume. If you’re against it then you can rest here.” He stands up and grabs a towel from the bathroom. “You know where to find me.”

I arch a brow. “I’m not hiding in a hotel room. Fine, I’ll go too.”

I triple-check the room to make sure it’s secure. After grabbing my own towel Q opens the door to let me pass and we both head down the dark hallway. By now it’s too late for much activity. No families with screaming kids, no lost elders looking for a map. The second I open the door to the outside deck a stiff breeze slaps me in the face.

“Alright, let’s find this whirlpool before I change my mind and book the next flight to Italy.”

I make a beeline to the tub and strip my boots, jacket, bulletproof vest, knickers, and jumper. All that’s left is my less-than-traditional ladies boxers, sports bra, and the knife holster around my thigh. It does feel strange to be more- revealing during a time like this. Yet this small scenario is nothing compared to all of Bond’s escapades. 

“Why Italy?” Q asks, avoiding looking at me directly.

I hustle over to sink below the soothing water, allowing my stress to melt. “Of all places I’ve been stationed to, I’ve never been sent to Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going. Not for a mission, but as a civilian.” I open my eyes and stare off, remembering my old dream. “Bond says the views there are stunning.”

Q’s been out of my sight for the past minute. When he sits down in the water across from me he reminds me of an icicle. Skinny, white, and shivering. He’s wearing boxers as well. What surprises me most is his physique. Not buff by any means but not a complete broomstick. 

“You look like an athletic sprinter,” I wonder out loud as I unpin my hair.

Q’s eyes seem to be searching for somewhere to focus. “Like I said, I work myself until my body nearly collapses. Um- I think that's the first time I’ve seen you with your hair down.”

I chuckle. “It’s a rare thing, Q. The only times I let it down is when I sleep or I have to do undercover work.” I scrunch my nose. “I’ve always hated having hair in my face.”

“Then why keep it long?”

I think for a minute, twirling a lock on my finger. “You know, I'm not sure. I suppose it’s because it adds to my femininity.” This makes me huff. “Which doesn’t help when my femininity is exploited for lying. Every time I need to show a pretty face I have to lie to somebody.” We sit in silence while the jets lull my thoughts numb. Q was right, this holiday was very well-needed.

“You should be grateful,” Q says after a while. “You are a high-ranking 00 field agent who can use her features to her advantage.”

Is he saying I should-!?

“I’m not just talking about a pretty face,” Q cuts off my thinking. “You’re quite clever and witty, which are some qualities that most everyday pretty faces don’t have.”

My eyes stare into him so hard I feel I’m about to burn a hole in his face. Never before has my Quartermaster said something so… uplifting.

“Did you just compliment me?” I get a cheeky smile.

He rolls his eyes and the moment’s gone. “Don’t get used to it, 0011. I’m only speaking as an impressed co-worker.”

So he did, but just doesn’t want to take credit. I’ll buy that. 

“On a lighter matter, where did you learn how to invent?” I ask. This should be interesting.

The geek’s eyes light up and his tense body language shifts. “I started out at Cambridge University-”

“Jeez Louise!” My jaw drops. 

Q simply holds up a hand. “Please hold all applause for after the lecture. Anyways, after I graduated I wanted to work with electronics. I was supposed to be sent to Scotland to work for a private company, but a few MI6 agents stepped in and offered me twice the salary. Granted I’d never been asked to merge mechanics with my expertise but I was willing to learn.”

This makes sense. Any level-headed chap wouldn’t overlook Q’s genius. It’s no wonder the government wanted him on their payroll.

Now I try a deeper subject. “Do you have family?”

Q nods. “For confidential and safety reasons I’m not allowed to visit them. They still send letters through the mail.”

“Sounds old-fashioned.”

He shrugs. “Sometimes old-fashioned is the most reliable.”

I snicker. “Says the man who said we should trust the future.”

“Haha. Since we’re on the subject of family, do you-?”

Beep! Beep!

The alert jerks my senses awake and my hand flies to my phone tucked under my jumper.

“Hold up. It’s M.” I answer the phone while Q gives me a jittered look. “What’s the news?”

“There’s been an emergency meeting of the security heads of state. The Nine Eyes program has been sanctioned unanimously.” I hear M sigh. “It goes online tomorrow night. He also informed me of you and Bond’s little trip to Austria.”

My eyes narrow. That little rat.

“Sir, Q is taking a small holiday to clear his thoughts,” I speak evenly. “I myself witnessed him having a terrible mental breakdown and chose to escort him to his resort personally. He has been gathering more information regarding a lead from Bond.”

A few seconds go by (while Q gives me a befuddled look) and then M answers:

“Just get back here. I expect you both at noon tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.”

His tone lightens. “And do tell Q to relax.”

The call ends and I replace the phone underneath my clothes. 

“I wouldn't call my small conflict with Bond a 'mental breakdown.' Let me guess, we’re fired?” Q asks anxiously. “No, wait! Don’t tell me!” He scrunches his eyes closed. 

“Hey, Nervous Nate.” I pat his shoulder. “We are not fired. In fact, M specifically said for you to relax. So relax!”

He slowly opens his eyes and leans back in relief. For a brief moment I swear Q actually becomes a normal person. No talk of missions or gadgets, just 2 chums hanging out. I hope Bond’s keeping his mental health intact too-

“Should we head up?”

Q’s voice stirs me from my thoughts. “Hm? Why’s that?”

“Because my brain feels like it’s melting and you look like you’re about to fall asleep, and I do not feel like dragging your unconscious self up 5 flights of stairs.”

I give an annoyed grunt. “Very well. All pleasure must come to an end anyways.”

The whirlpool did work wonders, both mentally and physically. My whole body feels soft and fatigued, while my mind is steady and relaxed. It all comes to a halt the instant we step out of the water and the freezing air speeds up my heart rate. After scrambling to redress and get back inside, Q and I head to our room.

“You can shower first,” Q offers. 

“Thank you, sir.” 

Once I’ve checked the room to be sure it’s clear I shut all the curtains, then retrieve my bag and enter the bathroom. It’s fairly sized with a decent tub, but I won’t waste any hot water for a bath. Instead I take a quick shower, scrubbing off any dirt that wasn’t washed away by the whirlpool. It must be the hotel that’s making me feel this relaxed; considering I’ve never taken a normal holiday it’s hard to adapt to it. When I finish up I open the door to find Q (no surprise) typing away on his laptop.

“Your turn,” I say. “I’ll check the news for any updates.”

Q seems to have gotten over his awkwardness. His body language makes him appear like we are two old friends rather than distant colleagues. He grabs a change of clothes and heads to the bathroom. I pull out a granola bar, hoping to satisfy my growing hunger, and turn on the TV. All I can put together is that all the news channels keep advertising the Nine Eyes initiative. Swell. C’s corrupted the media to work his will too.

“Alright?” Q asks when he returns.

I’m holding my head in my hands, rubbing my temples in hopes to block out the disturbing reports. 

“You can mute the television, you know.” I hear the TV noise die.

I sigh. “It doesn’t make a difference. No matter how far I bury my head in the sand there will always be bad news. That’s how my job works.” I lift my head and see Q settling down in his bed; wearing the usual sleep shirt and flannel pants with messy wet hair. It’s unclear why but the simple sight makes me smile.

Q catches me looking. “What?”

I shake my head. “Nothing. Just nonsense. Probably going mad from all this mess.”

He nods respectfully and waits for me to sit down in my own bed before turning off the light. We lay in eerie silence. This is completely different than the noise from home, leaving me to wonder if I’ll be able to sleep.

“Q, do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you hadn’t joined MI6?”

A few seconds go by before he answers. “More often than I’d like to. But most of the time the benefits outweigh the setbacks.”

“Agreed. I love serving my country, and can’t think of anything else that could have outdone this.”

My life was a trainwreck until MI6 gave me something to fight for. After meeting M, Bond, and everyone else, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

“Do you regret it?” Q asks after a while.

Staring off into the dark I shake my head. “Not a damn thing.”

And that includes working with Q.

#quartermaster x reader #quartermaster #q x reader #james bond #daniel craig #ben whishaw #skyfall #spectre #no time to die #007 #james bond 007

[alastairstom]

All right, you asked me a question and now I have one for you, in a very similar vein: where do you see Matthew Fairchild post-canon? What are your hopes for him? If you were the writer, what would you do?

Sorry this took me a couple of days to respond to! I'm here(ish) now.

I actually am extremely happy with the direction Matthew's story has taken in the canon thus far. Even if I was dissatisfied with some other arcs/writing choices (see: Grace's, Christopher's, Cordelia's in many ways), Matthew's storyline was handled in a sensitive, realistic, and character-driven way that I loved. And, of course, I'm excited to see him going forward. I think that Cassie is going to continue to do an amazing job with his story because she has not dropped the ball on him yet.

This is probably a cop-out, and I'll give more of an answer in a minute, but I just want Matthew to be happy and healthy. That's my only real hope for him in the future. Think that song My Wish : "My wish for you is that this life becomes all that you want it to / your dreams stay big / your worries stay small", yadda yadda. But that's my real answer. I just want a happy Matthew and don't care what form that takes. I am going to therefore be unequivocally satisfied with any story direction in his bindup since Cassie already basically said at a signing that he would get a happy ending.

But if I were Cassie, here's what I would do.

I'm excited that Matthew has chosen to travel, because it's something that's also important to me. It's yet another way that Matthew's values and life goals mirror mine. I think that travel is freedom, and I am happy that Matthew is going to experience that freedom.

I think that in the bindup, I would take him to visit a ton of places all across the world. I don't want him to confine himself to Europe. I'd like to see him in South America, Asia, Africa - everywhere! I think this seems likely to happen, and am glad of it.

However, within the confines of "Matthew gets a partner abroad," I would like to see him not being with said partner 100% of the time. A big part of Matthew's travel should be finding himself. I'd like something where he travels alone most of the time, sees his love interest like once a month or so, and spends a couple of days with them. This would be the short story we see, and they would split up again until the next month, which would be the next story. This would give him ample time for solo travel, meeting interesting people, and taking the reins on his own adventure.

In my ideal world in canon, I probably would not have him meet his partner while traveling. I think he should meet someone in about 5 years, so he can get a grip on his newfound sobriety and freedom. Just, like from a realistic perspective. I think this would be the best thing for him in a realistic scenario.

HOWEVER, I am all for him getting a love interest now since it's something I'm really excited to see in the bindup. As a reader, I'm 1000% here for Matthew's adventure romance whirlwind. And I know that it will be totally fine in Cassie-Clare-Bookland, even if it's not what I think would be best for Matthew in a real life case.

For Matthew's love interest, I actually actively want him to end up with a woman. It's important to me as a bisexual to see a bi person wind up with someone of a different gender for once, and unlike a lot of people, I really trust Cassie to deliver with it. She hasn't disappointed me regarding Matthew before, and I don't see why she'd start now. I also would like to see an absolutely chaotic scapegrace of a girl who rejects Edwardian social conventions and embraces the bohemian lifestyle alongside Matthew.

Regardless of love interest gender, I want the person to be kind of a batshit bonkerballs sort that matches Matthew's chaotic energy. I want them to be comfortable in their freedom and their chaos; I want them to have scandalous fun together. I think Matthew needs someone who loves and embraces the crazier sides of himself, the mercurial moods, the fact that "feelings flow from him like blood from a cut." The fact that he's a little impulsive. This is what I deeply want for Matthew, and it's another reason that I'm chill with the idea of him meeting someone on his travels. It'll be another adventurer.

In my ideal world, Matthew would not have children. This is wish fulfillment because I am childfree. But I know he is going to have them and be Clary's ancestor. Though I'm not enthralled about that, I still don't think it will be harmful to his character. I think that he and the love interest will continue to be unabashedly themselves and raise their kids in a rabble-rousing bohemian way. But, if I'm taking creative license, I ain't giving him kids. I'm making one of the twins Clary's ancestor. I don't give a fuck about bloodlines, sorry.

I actually do have a controversial take regarding Matthew. If I were given full creative license over the character, I would give him a lot of distance from James and Cordelia. I hope that he goes no-contact with Cordelia while traveling so that he has time to heal from her and get over her, and I hope that he keeps his communication with James to periodic letters. I know he'll be close with them in the future, which is fine.

But if it were up to me, he wouldn't be. He'd still talk to them, be James's parabatai, but the emotional proximity would decrease.

I always viewed TMT very much as James/Matthew + Thomas/Christopher, but I'd want to bend the shape of this. I think James should become closer with Jesse, and Matthew should become closer with Thomas and Alastair. Not just because I like Thomastair better than others, but because I think that James and Matthew have so much hurt between them. And because, I cannot stress this enough, Matthew needs distance from Cordelia.

I think that Thomas's disposition complements Matthew's well, and I think that he could provide him and the chaotic love interest with a calming presence. I also think that Matthew and Alastair should become really, really close because they can understand each other in ways that other people cannot. Adding Grace to this BFF mix would also make me really happy, though I understand that it's unlikely.

That's where I currently am!

#matthew fairchild #tlh #the last hours #matthew bindup

[baeddel]

what did you think of nick land?

you asked this in past tense as though i just met him at a dinner party. why, he was loud and he used all the gravy. what a rude man!

here’s my real, very long answer: [2.4k words]

obviously today he is a miserable racist toad who goes on and on about the blockchain and woke capital. and after he moved to China he worked as an actual CCP propagandist. so he's not my hero. but thats the late era. early era: his earliest stuff is really good. i have mostly handled his first paper, Kant, Capital and the Prohibition of Incest (1988). the thing is, his scholarship in this essay isn't very good. he makes a huge argument about the development of capitalism, the situation in South Africa, the development of the family and so forth, yet it has only 11 citations, all to Kant, Levi-Strauss, Nietzche, Marx, Luce Iriguay and Monique Wittig. none of his historical or economic argument interacts with history or economics (the Marx citation is just for the page number for the quoted phrase "so-called primitive accumulation", which he uses without operationalizing), and his anthropological claims rest on the already yellowing pages of Levi-Strauss's 1947 book on kinship structures. further, in handling Levi-Strauss he makes, i believe, two errors: 1. he grounds the entire discussion in the 'dual-organization' which is, correct me if i'm wrong, just the first part of the book, and if you included the rest of the material it'd work a lot less as a just-so story (the highest page number citation to Levi-Strauss is 88, the whole book is over 500 pages—you can literally see where he gave up reading), and 2. he assumes that Levi-Strauss’s theories about contemporary non-industrial societies are equally true about prehistoric societies. he doesn’t even mention that he’s doing that, he just implicitly treats the book as a description of the arbitrarily distant ontogenesis of whatever genealogy is under discussion. take the duplicity in the first paragraph that he cites Levi-Strauss:

In The Elementary Structures of Kinship Claude Levi-Strauss notes the frequent distinction made by various societies between normal and 'rich food' (op. cit. pg 8; all page numbers correspond to the pdf)

which is that normal food is produced within the moiety and ‘rich food’ is imported from outside the moiety through gifting or exchange. that this is a ‘frequent’ distinction in ‘various’ societies is as much background as we get; from now on we act like it’s an essential feature of all societies. skip to the end of the paragraph,

If 'rich food' is the primordial element of trade its metamorphosis into the modern 'commodity' can be seen as... [he uses this to scaffold an argument about Enlightenment philosophy] (ibid.)

this distinction Levi-Strauss ‘noted’ in ‘various’ contemporary nonindustrial societies has quietly become the PRIMORDIAL source of the commodity form. if you’re going to project Levi-Strauss’s observations into the past like that you’re really going to need to make the argument that you can. but the truth is that you can’t. this has been a pernicious trend in virtually every field, from anthropology to biology to philosophy, discussed in (for example) this 1978 paper (that’s ten years, we remind the reader—and feeling a little good about ourselves while we do it—before Land’s article was publsihed) Myths About Hunter-Gatherers by anthropologist Carol R. Ember,

I take issue wtth the belief that we are entitled to infer from [information about contemporary hunter-gatherers] what cultural patterns must have been typical in the distant past. We know, for example, that there is substantial variation among recent hunter-gatherers in residence, subsistence, division of labor, and warfare. If these variations are the result of different causal conditions, then what has been "typical" in recent times may only be a statistical artifact of the recent prevalence of certain causal conditions.

in a 2001 review of an unlikely book called Hierarchy in the Forest by Christopher Boehm, which makes a similar assumption about the historical utility of information from contemporary hunter-gatherer societies, she reflects on her argument in this paper, writing “I have argued such an assumption is problematic, especially since extant foragers live in very marginal enviornments” while historical foragers occupied optimal enviornments. so if there is such a widespread distinction between normal and ‘rich’ food, that’s certainly interesting, but we’re very far from saying it’s a primordial distinction emanating from prehistory, as opposed to one resulting from the interaction of similar societies in marginal enviornments, if we can’t specify the causal conditions of that cultural distinction. all of this is a lot of ink to spend on one claim, which is not even the most outrageous claim in that paragraph. in the middle he writes that,

The difference between rich food and normal food maps onto the difference between filiation (relation by blood) and alliance (relation by marriage). This is because rich food occupies the position of women within a marriage system regulated by patrilineal exogamy, with its producer renouncing it for himself, and thus echoing the prohibition of incest.

this one cultural distinction ‘maps onto’ this other cultural distinction. why? because one part ‘occupies the position’ of something else in the other one. and that ‘echoes’ still a third cultural practice. huh? why? nevermind—it’s time to talk about Kant instead. it’s remarkable that this passed peer review at all. in fact, that’s probably why it was published in the miscellany section of Third Text (vol 2 no 5, 1988), a journal of art criticism, which in those early days published more articles by sculptors and designers than academics. the issue before this one contains a glowing review of Black Athena: the Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization. you get the idea—Nick Land was always a bit of a crank.

wait a minute, didn’t i start off saying it was really good? yeah. i still think so. the reason its so frustrating is the overall argument in this paper is really good. Land’s case is that capitalism relies on a continuous process of primitive accumulation (the aggregation of wealth through enclosure, robbery, slavery and so forth), but that this economic process creates political conditions—mutiny, revolt, unrest—which place capitalism in danger. thus, to handle this threat primitive accumulation was outsourced goegraphically to colonies, and internally to ghettos and bantustans, which quarantine the political consequences of accumulation (“I say that these colonies are not costly, they are more faithful, they injure less, and the injured, as has been said, being poor and scattered, cannot hurt”—Machiavelli). this quarantining creates a racial 'other’ which makes and continually renews the opportunity for cultural exogamy, the kind that ruled the world pre-captialism because of the incest taboo. but capitalist society, and capitalist thought, in fact rejects this exogamous exchange, and retreats to a kind of endogamy—anti-miscegnation, militarized borders, and so on, except that, due to capitalism’s dependence on a primitive accumulation quarantined to the racial other, the racial other can never be fully excluded, and this endogamy is always in trouble. racism is, therefore, patriarchy’s nervous, unsuccessful self-transvaluation in response to the demands capitalism places on it, and this triggers a meltdown of the incest taboo (’inhibited synthesis’) which appears twice, once in the economic sphere—as the commodity form—and again in philosophy—as the synthetic a prori, an ‘alterity already inscribed within the system’ (paraphrase; op. cit. pg 9). the revolutionary solution Land proposes is (taking the opposite side to Shulmith Firestone, who also read the oppression of women through Levi-Strauss’s dual-organization, until she decided women’s liberation was bound up with the abolition of the incest taboo) a radical exogamy, an embrace of alterity even at the cost of self-dissolution. xenophilia. lesbian vampires. jungle. meltdown has a place for you . . .

you get the picture. its a beautiful theory. the relationship he describes between economics, politics and culture is very convincing to me, even if the particulars can’t be the way he says, since he’s using old, outdated sources—and using them badly. and the connection with philosophy he supposes is too clumsy to me—of course there must be some relationship, but the way he wants to approach it is pretty unclear. and yeah, its still a just-so story, that conveniently ties women’s liberation, anti-racism, anti-colonialism, and anti-capitalism all together into one program, all while conserving a role for philosophers like him. i don’t know where the argument that primitive acculumation is a continuous feature of capitalism started. i know it was a big part of Federici’s thought after a certain stage, and it gets a completely explicit statement in Anti-Oedipus: “So true is it that primitive accumulation is not produced just once at the dawn of capitalism, but is continually reproducing itself” (pg 251). the chapter is the Civilized Capitalist Machine, the same one we get the name ‘accelerationism’ from. they get there by engaging with a bunch of economics papers and marxist writers. and if you thumb a few pages back in the book you’ll get to the chapter called Barbarian or Imperial Representation (pg 220), which is about incest, which also introduces the idea of a relationship between the incest taboo and alliances. and for a piece of writing that contains the spontaneous utterance “O Caligula, O Heliogaba-lus, O mad memory of vanished emperors!” in the middle of a paragraph (pg 222), the scholarship is a lot more serious than in Land’s essay, connecting ethnographic work with information about writing systems and other data, criticisms of psychoanalytic theories, and even finding time for Nietzsche—who’s also in Land’s essay. so perhaps there are some of Land’s fingerprints on a copy somewhere. but all of this is a bit unfair, because we’re holding Land to certain academic standards, certain styles of reasoning and methods for handling (or, indeed, providing) evidence, which are, for Nick Land, the very thing at stake.

look here, if i thought the only worthwhile way to write nonfiction was to make 15 pages of inductive reasoning, with every ‘t’ crossed and every citation sourced, and send it off to Mind i wouldn’t be writing stream-of-consciousness rants on tumblr every day. there are other things to write, other impulses writing can capture, and other audiences waiting with other methods of reading. over the course of the 90s Land and his buddies would build a bit of a walled garden, not just the actual CCRU, but a subculture of ‘para-academic’ writers, speakers, and artists who very rarely reference anyone outside their hermeneutic circle, and who no one outside of their hermeneutic circle ever references. this is the attack on Reza Negarestani made by goodreads user Paul (a former Heidegger scholar, Nazi history revisionist, conservative Chrsitian and race realist) in his review and comments, who remarks that continental philosophy has “fringes full of charlatans who cite/publish each other”, before he types up a long angry rant to one critic, questioning his credentials: “Seriously, can you give me a list of the books you've read by Kant and about Kant (in the original languages if possible), and who you studied with? Have you passed doctoral comps on any of these figures or taught them to others?” to him, Negarestani & Land are charlatans who create a cult around themselves in order to sell the books they print on their own vanity presses. and i am, i admit, a little suspicious of them myself—Reza and Land both founded this online school where you pay thousands of dollars to get an MFA in ‘Post-Planetary Universal Design’ over Google Hangouts and Google Classroom, or you can pay a few hundred dollars to attend seminars on Bahktain (this institution is apparently accredited). Land was fired for being racist btw. are those things worth going to? for a quarter of that price i could get a whole course on the astrological significance of the newly discovered dwarf planets from A Bigger Picture Astrology. IMAGINE A YOD

IN THE ASTROLOGICAL SKY FOR

SEVEN YEARS. . .

anyway, rightfully or wrongfully suspicious—you can’t just say all that and forget that there was this thing called the CCRU, there was this thing people believed in called Accelerationism, and so on, as though writing is just writing and books are just books. the small minded world that Paul comes from—this is something they were trying to outrun. it has something of the character of the Surrealist Bureau of Research, or the Acéphale Society, and things like that. why make a walled garden out of your philosophy? why cultivate a non-academic audience? why meet in secret, play jungle music, hallucinate? the writing only affirms the milieu. like a manifesto. and today the milieu around those people isn’t worth being part of. discussion hovers around announcing in-group affiliation: this is deterritorialized and based, that is striated and cringe. another review of Reza’s book, this time from one of the faithful, says it “could do with more embodiment and affect and libido altho an interesting read regardless.” if this is the image of thought the CCRU was able to achieve then it wasn’t worth doing. but maybe there is something else, deep in there, still running free. idk.

i want to compare it with the anarchist milieu. sometimes anarchist writing is quite rigorous; Endnotes, Chuang, even Desert pay careful attention to the bibliography. but if you go and read anything on the anarchist library, the scholarship might not get better than Land’s, and it might even get worse. Aragorn! was prone to unargued proclamations like this: “The Russian Revolution was not won with an army; the Bolsheviks filled a power vacuum created by the handling of the German war and missteps of the Provisional Government” (Anarchy & Strategy). is that true? how do you know? well, those sound like provocative questions when i write them like that. but Aragorn! could count on a literate audience, since anarchists debate those events and theories day after day in our practical lives. we have an oral tradition, a shared intellectual context, a way of spreading and innovating on information. this platform can interact with academic literature, but it doesn’t become academic. anarchist pamphlets are written in the imperative mood, or the interrogative. they advise, excite, provoke, challenge a reader who is assumed to be engaged in anarchy. orientation. navigation. songspirals.

conversely, who was Land writing to in the 80s and 90s? the people that read some little journal? people who buy scary books? i understand trying to outrun academia, but why stay an academic? isn’t it just that they all were academics, since they took philosophy when they were 18, and we’re back to facing Nietzsche's prognosis in We Philologists, “A man chooses his calling before he is fitted to exercise his faculty of choice.” or was there some good reason, and something potentially very exciting about the space they had, the milieu, the audience, that made it worth doing? i don’t know, i’d have to read a lot more, or speak to someone who was invovled. things like that. but those are the things i’m thinking about when it comes handling to Nick Land.

[munchflix]

MUNCHFLIX - CASINO ROYALE

IMDB BLURB: After earning 00 status and a license to kill, secret agent James Bond sets out on his first mission as 007. Bond must defeat a private banker funding terrorists in a high-stakes game of poker at Casino Royale, Montenegro.

WARNINGS: Violence (sorta), terrorism, nudity, CBT. No...really.

RATING: One randomly bleeding, asthmatic, chess prodigy Albanian with Mad poker skills.

OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: All reviews are done solely for humor and should not be taken seriously ever. If you cannot handle cursing, crude humor and probably some offensive things, pls do not read this.

Munch: I get to go in blind again! I've never seen this because I don't really fuckin' enjoy Bond movies.

Biscuits: Me either, but we're watching one. Why are we doing this again?

M: Because you've got the hots for Mads Mikkelsen, I assume. This is only pg-13, why are we bothering?

B: I was gonna comment on that. It's not even really an action movie, it's just a movie where a guy goes to a poker game.

M: That's not very Bond, is it? Isn't he supposed to be like banging tons of women and blowing things up?

B: He does have sex with women for no reason, and I guess he does some other stuff. Mostly he seems like a chode who's incompetent at everything.

M: Movie starts all NOIR. I don't know what's happening. Bond is here and some other guy and I guess other guy is selling secrets. Wait, he's not even 007 yet??? What's the point??

B: He's about to get promoted. This is a flashback scene. Bond is played by Daniel Craig, who is a guy. Is he good looking? No. Is he a good actor? Eh...

M: I like Daniel Craig, just not really as James Bond. Would've made a great gay James Bond.

B: Listen, Bond HAS to be a straight white British guy or the world will fall apart. He should have been gay Bond. We have to face so much injustice in this world. I do really like the Bond credit sequence.

M: Oh Eva Green is in this? She's hot. The opening credits always look cool.

B: This movie isn't good but it's heavy on the aesthetic.

M: Is this Soundgarden? I hate soundgarden. Aesthetic can redeem a movie tho. See Coppola's Dracula. It's not great but it's DRIPPING with aesthetic.

B: Also I know this based on the novel of the same name. I don't care.

M: I didn't know they wrote novels! Do all Bond movies have novels??

B: Let's get the jokes out of the way! Bames Nond's having a stronk, call the Bondulance! And when I find the guy who James Bond burgered my sister! There, now I don't have to make them. If you want us to watch other Bond movies, fuck you.

M: I don't wanna watch other Bond movies, they're not really good. So now we're in....fucking somewhere....there's a war going on or something in Africa. There's a lot of people with guns. And like three white dudes and one of them is Mads, so who cares about the others.

B: For this movie, instead of making the villian some Russian super agent who kills people, Le Chiffre is a financier, so we gotta set up this whole complex process of him taking money from people and doing terrorism for...stonks? Why not just a bad guy who kills people?

M: Because! Capitalism is the most evil. Bottom text. He's got a cool eye scar thing going on. I love the evil stock market thing.

B: Evil stonks! That's his whole thing, and Bond has to defeat this guy by beating him at a poker game!

M: That's...impressively lame. I guess we're in Madagascar now with some other dudes who are doing secret agent things but not very well because they just got caught. Bond is just standing there while this other white dude is doing all the work. Is he training him?

B: They're going after this bomb maker guy. Secret agent stuff, dude.

M: How silly of me. A rousing chase scene ensues. Bond suddenly has a fucking industrial plow but this guy knows PARKOUR and he is scaling the building frame in record time. Bond also knows parkour. Now something exploded.

B: I think Bond gets this guy killed.

M: Three other dudes have already died falling off the trellis.

B: That's what I'm saying! He's not a very good secret agent! Why isn't Bond chasing this guy, why is his friend Virgil or whoever chasing him. I don't know if that's his name, I literally just made it up.

M: It is now! Bond is here now and he's gonna chase this guy off a ten mile high building rig cos that's how secret agents do. Isn't this kind of high profile violence for a secret agent? Oh parkour guy is fine, he knows how to tuck and roll. Ow. Bond is definitely not okay but really he is. YOU CAN'T JUST DO A FUCKING 40 FOOT DROP AND BE FINE.

B: Bond has broken like every bone in his body by now and he just busted through a piece of DRYWALL.

M: Aren't they getting tired? This has been like 10 minutes of constant fighting and running and parkour.

B: Uganda's first action movie! Parkour guy set off an alarm and now there's bad guys everywhere and guns.

M: Bond gets hit by exactly zero of the 900000 bullets being fired by the 50 assault rifles. Now he's holding Parkour guy hostage but not really. He lets him go as a fake and then BLOWS UP 30 PEOPLE.

B: James Bond's war crimes, the movie. You could make an entire movie of those.

M: Why do they have 80 year old Nokia phones?

B: This film came out in 2006 so....

M: Back to the Bad guy! French Mads is having dinner with some randos.

B: Blood comes out of his eyeball sometimes.

M: WHY

B: To make him look cooler and more evil. He's really good at math, that's his evil superpower. Statistics.

M: British agent kills unarmed prisoner reads headline. AND 30 OTHER PEOPLE.

B: Mads is looking at this like - this guy sucks at his job. Oh yeah Judi Dench is here.

M: I don’t know how.

B: She was in some bad movies, okay. She was in CATS.

M: Don't make me remember that. She deserves better. Bond is doing some secret agent shit with some fucking computers that seem way too advanced for a world with the old brick Nokias.

Hacking photosynthesis.

B: Geolocating, triangulating. You think the government would have this kind of technology? They can't even afford printers. If there's one lesson life has taught me, it's that the government is incompetent.

M: H ( who is actually M being played by Judi Dench but Munch is dumb )  is kinda pissed about the rampage of death. Bond is awfully sassy for someone who sucks this much at his job.

B: H tells Bond that he's arrogant and shitty and shouldn't be so egotistical,  and he never learns this lesson. He's still arrogant at the end of the movie!

M: That's like the whole Bond thing tho, that he's this verr macho macho man who doesn't need oversight because he's so BADASS except this Bond sucks at being a secret agent.

B: Bond is doing something, he's very cool. He's got GPS.

M: Where the fuck is Q? Doesn't Bond need gadgets and shit??

B: Later. Did I tell you this movie is really boring?

M: No. Bond is tying his shoes and getting the lay the of the land for a long time, which does not at all look suspicious.

B: He's also bad at parking a car. He might have done that on purpose.

M: Just to be an asshole?

B: That guy thought he was the valet.

M: So he destroys his car?

B: You saw what he did to other shit! Bond immediately begins snooping.

M: What even is his mission right now? Watch dvds?

B: He's...secret....I don't know...looking to find some clue? Hang the fuck on, I just got a fucking email from 8TRACKS telling me someone liked my playlist!??! What the hell???

M: Who the hell has an 8tracks account in this year of our lord, 2023???

B: I forgot I did!

James Bond on his Nokia liking my 8tracks Fallout playlist I made in 2014.

M: You and this one other guy apparently. Bond is doing really boring shit. I don't even care. He's getting a hotel room. Whoo. Later we shall bang, beautiful blonde woman at the counter. Bond goes swimming. This is so dull. A woman I assume to be Eva Green rides by on a white horse. No it is not Eva Green. Nevermind. Bond has hacked into H's account to look up criminal profiles on facebook. Le Chiffre, banker...accountant. EVIL GENIUS.

B: Some dudes are playing poker or something. Bond is gonna play. That's important. A hot woman appears. She is the woman from the horse earlier. Her boyfriend is a dick.

M: Bond is gonna gamble away all of H's retirement.

B: Bond is good at poker, but not really.

M: He's probably cheating. And eyeing up the girlfriend. He hasn't banged anyone yet so we gotta get that 13 into the pg-13 rating. Mr Bond is EXTREMELY forward. Hey I know you don't wanna piss off your boyfriend so how about coming back to my place with a man you just met for alcohol?? Biscuits has fucked off and left me. They're just gonna bang on the FLOOR?

B: Sex! James Bond is so cool. Why is she like giving him her life story? By the way this character only exists so Bond have sex with her. I guess he's trying to get information out of her?

M: With his penis?

B: This is spy business!

M: It's penis business, she's going down on him ffs. Or not, cue phone ringing. It's the husband/boyfriend. He's leaving so they can bang all night on the hard floor. Are we sure Bond's not gay? He seems really uninterested in this woman who is crawling all over him.

Hi honey, your voice sounds way deeper over the phone!

B: No he likes banging women, he's a cool guy.

M: When does the next fight scene happen? I'm bored. And out of booze. There's so many scenes of just...nothing happening. More poker is happening and Bond is getting caught by the husbando and they're having a very very boring knife fight where neither one really moves. And husband is stabbed but it's fine, nobody will notice.

B: He just stabs a guy in a museum because he's cool agent guy. Someone has taken the important evidence he was trying to get? But he figures it out by calling the cell phone.

M: How did he have this guy's number? From his wife? Now there's an airport. *yawns* A lot of walking around looking at things. Trying to find the guy who took his stuff. So he calls H and tells her he'll call her back. There might be a bomb.

B: *sits in silence for 10 minutes of these guys walking around doing nothing* Oh yeah...terrorism I guess? That should be the movie summary.

M: Accurate. It's very slow paced terrorism but how exciting can you make evil stonks??

B: They're gonna blow up a plane to tank the stonks and Bond's gotta stop it but he DOESN'T because spoiler alert, he's bad at his job!

M: *sits in silence for another 10 minutes of nothing really exciting happening while Bond doesn't do his job* I guess if I found like...car chases really thrilling...

B: I don't dislike action movie per se, I've discovered, there's some I actually like!

M: There's nothing wrong with some good cheesy action but this is taking itself waaaaaaay too seriously. It's so fucking overwrought. Like....move the fuck on with your action sequence. We all have lives to get back to.

B: The virgin Jame Bond vs the chad John Wick. What's happening? Oh yeah...epic action. SUPA ACTION!

ON IS THE MOVIE!

M: I'd rather be watching Who Killed Captain Alex.

B: That's a masterpiece of cinema so it's not really fair to compare this movie to it.

M: That's true. I like Daniel Craig but baby doll....you can do so much better than this. Let some other boneheaded guy play Bond. Oh I guess Bond's getting arrested.

B: They think he just did terrorism.

M: Meanwhile the other bad guy is blowing up the plane....and himself because Bond...planted a thing on him??

B: Le Chiffre uses an inhaler. I'm really scared of this old accountant with an inhaler. This is your bad guy. This is the guy your government is going after. And that girl Bond was fuckin' is fuckin' dead now.

M: Why is she like...dead on H's lawn???

B: They’re at the hotel I think. H is like...this is all your fault.

M: It IS tho. Le Chiffre is an Albanian chess prodigy accountant to terrorists and he has asthma. He is already like 100 times more interesting than Bond. I wanna know more about this fucking guy. H and Bond have a rousing discussion about stonks.

B: Le Chiffre's biggest crime...insider trading. Btw, you gotta go beat this guy in a poker game to stop terrorism.

M: How...exactly is that gonna stop him?

B: H just explained it, when he loses all his money he's gonna be scared because the guys whose money he has are gonna come after him and then the government is gonna take him in because he knows stuff.

M: Why would Le Chiffre bet ALL HIS MONEY in a poker game???

B: He's...super arrogant. This is Vesper Lynd, our Bond girl.

M: Eva Green is so beautiful and she deserves better than this. So I guess they're just gonna get Bond into this poker game and he's gonna win because uh...he's secret agent guy.

B: Bond has to do some back and forth biting flirtation with her.

M: Bond is apparently also an armchair psychologist. Women love being psychoanalyzed. Gets them so hot.

B: She's right, he is a bastard. She's a good character because she keeps telling him no and he needs to hear that more. He's reckless, he's a danger to everyone around him and he sucks at his job. And half of this movie is just people playing poker. Cool, high energy spy shit.

M: It's not even that interesting when they do the spy shit.

B: He never stops trying to fuck her.

M: Bond apparently only likes married women.

B: Like I said, he's kind of a chode.

M: How did they arrange this game if Le Chiffre knows who Bond is? They were just like, hey we're gonna try and entrap you, you mind?

B: It was already going on and they inserted Bond into it.

M: But if Le Chiffre KNOWS who he is and where he's from then.....

B: Look...the plot makes perfect sense. It just does.

M: WE AREN'T EVEN HALFWAY THROUGH. What the fuck else is gonna build the action for another hour??? We're leading up to a poker game!

B: There is no action. Only poker. Oh yeah Mathis is a character, he's not that important. Bond tells Vesper she needs to look hot for spy reasons so she can distract the other players. Bond assumes MI6 doesn't know his measurements, even though they have a tracking chip in his arm.

M: Seems like a shitty decision for a secret agent to allow a tracking chip....but that's just me.  Are you serious about the poker game going on for an hour?? Oh my god. Oh Le Chiffre knows everything. So...okay.

B: This is important, this whole password thing. Sort of.

M: They get to make a password so they can wire the money anywhere in the world or some shit but...

B: It's just so they have an excuse for Le Chiffre not to kill Bond immediately later.

M: But no spoilers.

B: This is where Mads spends a lot of time smouldering.

M: Well...he's good at it. He's the most interesting thing in this movie anyway.

B: Sorry your back is tired from carrying this whole movie, king.

M: The last Craig Bond movie I saw was that one with Javier Bardem as the villian and he carried the entire movie too. They should just make Bond villian movies.

B: Bond was too busy looking at boobies to make a bet.

M: I too, have been distracted by Eva Green's boobs, and unfortunately for you, I guess we do not get to see Mads’ boobies.

B: We do not.

M: Meester Bohnd.

B: This shouldn't bother me as much as it does, but the dealer keeps taking the player's cards and mixing them back in with the cards on the table, which like?? Why would you do that, don’t do that.

M: No cheating here.

B: They assume the audience doesn't know anything about poker, which they probably don't, but...

M: We gotta take a break so Bond can assault Lynn as some way of pretending he knows that Le Chiffre is bluffing but he's wrong.

Just...something happen! Please!

B: He doesn't know shit, he doesn't know that Le Chiffre is bluffing and Matthus's entire role is to tell the audience things and I hate him. I just want two hours of Mads sitting at a poker table in a beautiful building looking angry. Bond plants a tracking mechanism in Le Chiffre's INHALER which is a little ableist, I gotta tell you.

M: It's kinda fucked up. But then....I don't know why they don't just...kill him and instead decided to risk everything on some dumb high stakes poker game.

B: We gotta take this scene now to show these guys who are attacking Le Chiffre for not having their money but he should have the money! He just won like 4 billion on stock terrorism!

M: How the fuck is this guy in the hole to all these people when he's doing all this fucking underground evil money making?!

B: How do they even know where he is?

Yeah these guys are basically just a plot device, what can ya do.

M: They also put a tracker in his inhaler.

B: He takes the medication thing out and it's just full of tracking bugs. He also doesn't care if you hack his girlfriend into pieces.

M: Is Bond gonna fucking rescue the bad guy? Who is not actually that bad of a guy after all?

B: No but he's gonna kill people for no reason. Saving Le Chiffre would've been a very interesting plot twist!

M: They don't have the balls to do anything that interesting.

B: These guys are gonna shoot at him for...overhearing I guess and they're gonna fight in a stairwell because that's cool. (Editor’s note: Isn’t Bond killing the guys who want money from Le Chiffre kinda antithetical to their whole mission...?)(Editor’s editor note: Yes, but as you pointed out earlier, the plot makes perfect sense, it just does.)

M: He's gonna look really beat up when he gets back to the table.

B: Damn, what happened to you?? Oh I had sex with my wife so hard all this blood came out of my face because I'm so cool.

M: Bond is like...Vesper...go tell Matthus to get rid of all these bodies. What the fuck.

B: We gotta be reminded that Daniel Craig is buff and has abs. He's not really my type but he does have big titties.

M: He's old enough....

B: I'm not gonna respond to that.

M: You don't need to. Your old man thirst is well documented on this blog.

B: Le Chiffre is also fine after his horrific incident of terror.

M: I hope this doesn't affect his poker playing!

B: We're taking a break from the poker now because Vesper is traumatized and is sitting in a shower in her evening gown. This is like the one nice moment where Bond is trying to like...comfort her and maybe he's not a complete douchebag. But then he goes right back to being a douche.

Buck up, little camper.

M: He's sucking on her fingers so....yeah.

B: Just kidding, he was being horny the whole time. This your man?

M: Is there a point to that scene? Are we supposed to think he's a kinder gentler Bond....why has this game paused for the entire night???

B: It's like a tournament that goes on for several days...I think. Matthus just frames some rando for the murders in the stairwell.

M: That's fucked up. Mads stares deeply out a window.

B: Absolutely serving cunt.

M: The worst part is...the poker game is more interesting to me than anything else that's happened in this entire movie.

B: Bames Nond is gonna up the stakes because he thinks he knows when Le Chiffre is bluffing.    

M: They're playing it up by making it look like Le Chiffre has all these tells by touching his temples and shit but come on. This guy is a chess prodigy.

B: And then Le Chiffre goes ALL IN so that Bond has to go all in to match him. And now we're gonna have to pause for a minute so I can rant.

M: Four of a kind beats a full house motherfucker. Okay rant away.

B: Bond bet all his money so now he's broke and he's like, hey Vesper you and the accountant people need to give me more money! And they're like no, which is the correct response, because all he's done is LOSE! He's just demonstrated that he's really bad at poker! But then THIS OTHER GUY who was there at the poker table, who has not been important yet at all, is like "Hey I'm from the CIA and I'll buy you back into the game" - like WHAT. MY MAN. Also ensuring that James Bond receives ABSOLUTELY NO CONSEQUENCES for his fucking failure!

M: Also, Bond just decides he's gonna kill Le Chiffre - with a fucking kitchen knife. But CIA guy stops him.

B: 007, Consequences. That doesn't sound like a very good movie, does it? But then Le Chiffre's girlfriend who kinda looks like Britney Spears poisons Bond's martini.

M: But why, he already lost all his money and he didn't actually attack Le Chiffre so....

B: He unlost tho so....she decided to give him consequences. It was just a drop of consequence poisoning.

M: Bond runs to the bathroom to barf and sweat and then go to his car in the middle of the game, which seems like it would also have consequences but that's where all his cool gadgets are so he can be like oh no I've been poisoned.

When will you learn?? When will you learn that your actions have CONSEQUENCES??

B: I don't wanna have to say it again but...Bames Nond is having a stronk....call the Bondulance. They’re like...defibrillate yourself.

M: Why don't they just fucking call an AMBULANCE. Or a BONDULANCE. How do they know it's digitalis???

B: The chip that monitors his blood can tell that but he didn't plug in the defibrillator because he's bad at his job! Eva shows up and she somehow knows what's going on and how to plug in the defibrillator and save him.

M: Bond, poisoned about 20 seconds ago is fine now. That's not how poison works.

B: When you die, it removes status effects! Come on!

M: You don't suddenly like...have a heart attack and then be like, oh poison gone.

B: Le Chiffre makes a great ‘how are you not dead’ face.

M: Back to poker. Stop trying to kill everyone and just fucking play. Two aces on the table so that's big. Everyone is going all in. If Le Chiffre is not fucking STUPID he won't do it but he's gonna because he's a bad guy. Bond goes all in.

B: As we clarified, he's bad at poker, but he's trying to force Le Chiffre to do it too.

M: He has to lose because otherwise they'll stare at each other longingly for all eternity. What would happen if one of these other dudes had four of a kind? A royal flush?

B: But Bond wins the poker game with a straight flush and Le Chiffre is mad now.

M: Why is the CIA playing in a high stakes game anyway?  Bond needs to get some grub. Which is fair.

B: He just wants to hit on Vesper.

M: There's still like...half an hour left.

B: The climax happens and then the falling action just goes on for like...half an hour.

M: That was the climax???

B: No that's the point that's coming up. That's when I climaxed at least. Vesper is like, don't you even care that you murdered two people?

M: And Bond is like, I've killed way more people than that. Oh shit....Matthus. He might be in danger!

B: Actually he was a double agent! He was working for the bad guy the whole time! And Bond runs after a moving car. He's gotta get in his cooler car.

M: Is this gonna be another 20 minute long chase scene? I'm sorry but there's NO WAY he somehow swerved to miss hitting Vesper tied up in the middle of the road also how did they get here there that fast?

Bond is definitely very alive after this, trust us.

B: Bond wrecks the ever loving shit out of his car and he is now dead. They have Bond now and they gotta get the tracking chip out of his arm. I guess they knew about it because of Matthus. Time for your ball flattening.

M: *dies laughing* Ouch.

B: I'm not kidding!

M: Oh this is a real thing?!

B: Dude this is the cock and ball torture scene!

M: You didn't say anything about a fucking CBT scene!!!

B: I thought everyone knew that happened!

M: NO. We're gonna have to put a CBT warning. I don't wanna see this! Oh god. Bond is naked and strapped to a chair with the base cut out and Le Chiffre is carrying a big rope and uh....

B: Le Chiffre has to sensually tell Bond he's taken good care of his body. All of Bond's villians are gay coded, they have been for ages, it's fine, nobody’s mad.

M: Hannibal training. I really don't need to see this happening. Is this where the pg13 rating comes in?

B: Is this an inappropriate time to say God I wish that were me?

M: YES. He just whacked Bond in the nuts with a huge rope.

B: Thank you daddy, may I have another? I wanna be whoever had to spray Mads to make him that greasy. Man is fucking lubricated.

M: Bond is screaming though, as anyone would be. But he's trying to be cool about having his balls decimated. Le Chiffre has a point tho.....even if he kills Bond, MI6 would still welcome him because he knows too much stuff. Much better terrorist tactic, threaten Vesper.

B: Is little mister Bond gonna tell Daddy the password, or is he gonna keep being a naughty boy?

Man, 50 Shades of Grey looking better than I remember

M: I don't know you.

B: Just in time to save Bond's balls, it's some guy! With a gun! Honestly it would’ve been a very bold move to make it canon that Bond loses his balls. But that doesn't happen. The world wasn't ready for gay, ball-less, villian rescuing James Bond.

M: They weren't even ready for a black Bond, do you remember the hate toward Idris Elba??? They would never let us remove Bond's Balls. Oh yeah....Le Chiffre is dead.

B: Matthus is actually like...a triple agent? He was working for them but now he's not really? Or maybe he is. He's just a plot device.

M: I have no idea. They just tased him.

B: I stopped watching after this point the first time because Mads was dead and all I wanted was him sitting there looking mad at a poker table.

M: Vesper is here and she's gonna make Bond feel all better, and I wanna know how he thinks he's gonna bone her when his balls are the size of grapefruits.

B: This man's testicles are wrecked right now. But because of trauma bonding, they're totally into each other right now. Speaking of people who don't have balls...it's my cat!

M: Hi kitty. They should have Bond sitting there with a giant ice pack on his lap. Vesper suddenly is like, I love you even without your balls. WHY.

B: Dude....

M: Bond is like, I have no armor. You must love me now. I love you. I have no balls. This is the fucking movie, friends. Are we really supposed to believe Names Bond is gonna settle down???

B: Sex mode activated!

M: He's pretty motivated for a dude with a hospital bed in his room.

B: We must be reminded that Daniel Craig is buff. Every Bond actor is like someone your mom thinks is hot.

So you’re a buff guy, like it really rough guy, just can’t get enough guy

M: My mom definitely thinks Daniel Craig is hot. He's okay.

B: I think Vesper double crosses him actually.

M: Good. He's got it coming.

B: I'm ready to quit my job and travel the world with you, woman I've known for two days. He's acting like he's gonna quit because being a secret agent is so hard on him emotionally. He's resigning, but not really.

M: I think he's just afraid for his balls. Which is fair. Why isn't this over yet? The bad guy is dead.

B: We gotta set up for the next movie. He always looks like such a goober when he's not in his sleek spy suit. Why would his employer want him to come back?? He failed at everything.

M: He didn't even take out the bad guy. Le Chiffre is dead but that's not what they wanted, they wanted him alive.

B: Everything went wrong except that Bond is cool now and he gets to fuck a woman half his age.

M: Ooooh H wants to know where the monies are, and Bond is like...oshit...is Vesper stealing all the money?? Uh oh. Now MI6 is gonna kick your ass. To be fair, if I was Vesper...I would've done the same thing. Fuck this guy.

B: She's being manipulated by some secret organization because she couldn't have done this of her own free will because woman.

M: That's way less interesting.

B: I thought it was gonna turn out the person she'd been in love with was Le Chiffre but no. He doesn't like women that much.

M: I like my version better where she's just like, you know what Bond, you're a lying sack of shit with huge swollen balls and I'm taking your monies.

B: We gotta have one more action scene because otherwise the board would be like no we need more shoot gun explosion action.

M: Boo. This should have ended like an hour ago.

B: The falling action goes on forever. They had to set up the next movie instead of being like hey Bond your next mission is to go to Costa Rica and fuck some dudes in the ass! Except more British.

M: He's gotta cause enough property damage to negate all the money MI6 would've gotten back.

Listen, blowing up that building was just a goof!

B: This might be more than that. He's levelling buildings. Daniel Craig does have extremely blue eyes. They are very pretty. Nice titties and very blue eyes.

M: The bar is so low. He's like...perpetually doing duckface tho as his natural expression. I don't even know what's happening, stuff is just exploding. Vesper might be drowning, there's a lot of dust and gunfire. I assume Bond will come out on top. Oh he's gonna rescue Vesper? Or not. She's gonna commit aliven't??

B: Secret agent stuff? I guess? Some kind of thing.

M: This makes no sense.

B: That's implying the rest of the movie did make sense. No, don't try to save me. I love you, let me drown to death. She just exhaled so much, she would be drowning already, so would he.

M: She does tho and he's fine, despite all of his exhalation.

B: He might not be good at his job but he's got the lung capacity of a seal.

M: Somehow he got her out of the water and now he's doing the sexiest version of rescue breathing I've ever seen, wherein he doesn't even exhale and just makes out with her corpse.

B: We don't really feel bad for him tho because as we've clarified, he's kind of an asshole, and we don't feel bad for her because she mostly existed for him to bang.

M: And now M has to explain that Vesper had a boyfriend but they kidnapped him and were threatening to kill him so...that's kinda fucked up. Bond is like, NO I DON'T CARE ANYMORE SHE WAS A BITCH.

B: He's acting like a 10 year old. Now we'll never know who was behind all this because you fucked it all up, Bond. Don't worry, he'll fall in love with a different woman in the next movie.

M: I'm literally just waiting for this fucking movie to end. It won't end. They keep adding random shit that means nothing. There's another criminal fucking organization behind everything and we donut care at all. Some other guy just got shot by Bond. BLARG. I don't really have any closing thoughts uh....Bond really sucks now. Like...either stick to your guns and make him this utterly dehumanizing super macho bullshit strong dude or don't. But don't fucking go back and forth with it the whole movie. It's annoying as hell. The villian was 10000 times more interesting.

B: James Bond? More like LAMES BOND.

M: Parfait.

Munch and Biscuits out, yo.

#james bond #names bond #007 #munchflix #casino royale #review #humor #mads mikkleson #mads mikkelsen #eva green #judi dench #daniel craig

[thatseventiesbitch]

My Reddit essays (Pt 1)

[On fans accusing Donna of being toxic in her relationship, or bad to Eric]

Eric very much became a shell of his former self in season 7. To me, it seems the writers/showrunners didn't know how to handle TG's impending departure from the show. They had Eric/Donna's wedding collapse because they were afraid to write a married Eric/Donna in season 7, and then have to deal with writing off one half of the married couple after TG left the show. So instead we got the weird plots they came up with for him for season 7, to lead to his eventual ending in Africa. I agree that it's frustrating to watch. It's why I don't watch season 7 a lot - and season 8 almost never.

I do feel that a lot of people write off the way Eric treats Donna in the later seasons, though, and that's not really fair. We can dislike the plot all we want, but it's just as much a part of their relationship history and dynamic as any episode from season 4. Eric leaves Donna at the altar... and she forgives him INCREDIBLY easily. Eric is really selfish when he decides to go to Africa - he doesn't talk to his partner about moving overseas for a year, and then is all ????? when she's upset at him for it. But once again, Donna forgives him and promises to wait for him. She comes around and is supportive - goes with him to get his vaccines, gets him a going-away present, drives him to the airport. And then when he gets to Africa? The dillhole breaks up with her in a letter.

Writing that all out gives me pause. Like, shit, ya'll really think Donna is the toxic one here? Hmm. In the early part of their relationship they were teenagers, high schoolers who were both learning how to be in a relationship for the first time and making mistakes. This is how Eric was acting when they were grown.

We haven't even talked about

The David Milbank episode, where Eric implies he only spent time with Donna as a friend so he could one day date her/he values her for her body not as a person

The several times throughout the show (S3xE7 Baby Fever and the S6 episode when they thought she was pregnant) that Eric made comments about how he expects her to stay home and raise their children, even though he knows this is definitely not what she wants

The SAT episode, where he loses his shit and has an inferiority complex meltdown because she scored higher than he did.

I'm gonna stop, because Eric is actually my favorite character too and now I'm getting pissed at him.

I still don't see what you see, in terms of Donna treating Eric poorly at any point in the series. I do not think Donna was a perfect girlfriend by any means. She had some moments that were bad, selfish moments (like all of the characters did) but they were pretty few and far between. The criticism I see of her most often on this subreddit is that she overreacts or gets upset at Eric for insignificant things. And that's just not what I see. In each example in this thread, I've explained how Eric played an equal role in the conflict. He, just like Donna, was in his first relationship and made some mistakes as he figured it out. In most of their conflicts, they were both at fault and they both realized it in the end. That's what I enjoyed about their relationship.

I also see criticism that Donna's a hypocrite or never apologizes, and that's also just not what I see. Donna apologizes a lot. She makes mistakes a lot, but she usually realizes it by the end of the episode and apologizes or admits to her role in the situation. A few examples:

S4xE5 "Bye Bye Basement" - Donna is being mean to Eric after their break-up. He calls her a bitch and Donna reflects, and asks their friends if they agree with him. They do. She realizes she's got lingering feelings left over from their break-up and that's why she's lashing out at Eric. She goes to him and apologizes for the way she’s been acting.

S4xE7 "Uncomfortable Ball Stuff" - Donna yells at Eric after seeing him kiss a girl on their date-that-wasn't-a-date to the Pricemart Ball. This was hypocritical of her. But she know it, and comes over the next day to apologize.

S4xE27 "Love Wisconsin Style" - When Donna gets dumped by Casey she comes back to Eric. A lot of people focus on how she asked him to take her back and whether Eric was right or wrong not to do so. But what Donna actually said first was, "I'm so sorry" - seeming to take responsibility for their break-up/year apart/the whole Casey situation. It also seems like she's about to go into that subject more/apologize again in S5xE1 "Going to California" when she and Eric are in the back of the van. She says, "Eric about Casey, and all that stuff -" but he cuts her off and says he doesn't care.

S6xE17 "Happy Jack" - After she catches Eric in the bathroom, lol, she forgives him at the end of the episode. She says she knows the celibacy thing was her idea and it's been really hard, so she accepts some responsibility for the odd and disgusting things he does.

S2xE20 "Kiss of Death" - Donna is initially really mad at Eric for accidentally killing her cat and then lying to her about it. As I type that I'm like... yeah, girl, I fucking would be too!? But after she talks to Jackie she puts it in perspective and at the end of the episode she's reflected and she tells him that she knows he only lied because he didn't want to hurt her.

S2xE6 “Eric’s Panties” - This is the episode where Donna finds panties in Eric’s car and jumps to the conclusion he cheated on her, but they were actually Midge’s (from her hook-up with Bob). At the end of the episode she apologizes to Eric, says she knows she made an ass out of herself, and (at his insistence lol) says she knows he’s hot enough to get other girls.

S6xE21 “5:15″ - After the Mitch-wedding fiasco, Donna lets Eric gloat and point out that he was right and she was wrong, even though she doesn’t seem thrilled to be wrong. She’s then supportive of Eric beating up Mitch, and tries to help him by telling him not to do the Forman death-grip because it doesn’t really hurt (lol).

I. Could. Keep. Going!!!

Donna is not a perfect character, but most of the time in she and Eric's fights or conflicts, she is not acting unreasonably and/or Eric is also acting unreasonably. She's also a very reflective character. She has no problems apologizing or admitting she wasn't right about something, and she does so over and over again in her relationship with Eric.

I don't know why so many people are just predisposed to want to hate her, but I don't think those people are watching the series with an objective eye. I have lots of theories on why Donna's a lighting rod for male hate. But that's quite a different topic.

**There have been some fascinating discussions on reddit lately. Bringing my thoughts over here to my T70S blog!**

#That 70s Show #That '70s Show #T70S #Eric and Donna #Eric x Donna #Eric Forman #Donna Pinciotti #My Essays #thatseventiesbitch #In Defense of Donna #I had time today #The unjustified Donna hate is a pet peeve #Cant you tell?