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strangenessbooks · 2 years

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The Bat-Man Recap #13

Hello Robins, and by Robins, I decided not to say something else in my opening despite it being the thing that comes to my head when doing an intro of any kind. Anyway, today I will be talking about Batman #1. I've decided to do these recaps by the story, as Batman #1 has four unique stories as well as a reprinting of Batman's origins. I've already talked about that in another recap [see The Bat-Man Recap #7, Part 1]. The only difference is a drawing of Batman instead of the opening to that issue's story. So we'll be starting with the story that introduces the Joker.

I guess they decided that a Circus motif was the way to go for this thing. The story starts with some random old people who have nothing to do with the story in any way and then the Joker hijacks a radio.

He announces his plan, causing panic to the man he named, who you will be shocked to know does he indeed die.

So this is the first time Joker kills and the gin has been there since the start. Also leaving Joker cards at crime scenes. Apparently, the Joker is full of Hate, which is not the vibe he gives now. More wacky murderous energy and being in lust obessed with Batman.

So Batman decides to just let this go, until "the time is ripe" whatever that means. I think parenting has tired Batman out.

The Joker uses Gas in this one to knock the police out but it only paralyses them temporality while he uses a blown dart that has "venom" in it to kill another person and steal a ruby. The Blown dart is in a gun, so not quite a blown dart.

Batman decides to go after the Joker, not because he's killed again. No, because another criminal plans to kill the Joker for stealing the jewels they were planning on stealing. Something is sus here, Bruce.

This is the first time that Batman saves a villain, instead of just watching or actively causing their death. He saves him twice. The Joker kills four people in his first appearance (which makes him a serial killer) and he almosts kills Batman two times. Batman was setting up for a change, but this is the same character who kicked a man off a roof last year for stealing some stones that society has decided have worth.

Here is Judge Drake, I bet his first name is Jason. He's been threaten so is under police protection.

And like that Drake is dead. Speaking of Robins, Dick is in a tree spying on this house from a distance and follows a disguised Joker like Batman told him (how Batman knew that Robin should follow anyone leaving the house is up to him and God).

The first of the many beatings Robins will face from the Joker. Don't worry, this Robin will have his revenge on the Joker later. But how will he survive to have that revenge? Don't worry, Batman has a gadget to find The Boy Wonder.

There was lot of panels I could have shared (I saved 41 images) but I think this was the most important. Sure, I could have shared the panels that give evidence to Batman having powers or the many terms card base jokes. Anyway, they fight and lose, so the Joker knocks them out before setting his own house on fire and leaving to them to die. However, Batman is immune to gas somehow and wakes up in time to save Robin and track the Joker down once again.

Robin misses out on his second confirmed kill thanks to Batman. This does feel like the first time Batman has actually stopped one of his villains from dying. He's either caused their deaths or just watched as they do it.

So that was the first time we met the Joker, who is clearly being set up to be a recurring character. The fact he doesn't die is the big indication here and his plan to escape.

We know that he's Batman's most recognizable foe. He's also the one that most standouts at this point and he doesn't look like a generic bad guy (which is usually a xenophobia caricature). Costume heroes have been a thing but the villains not so much. I've tried googling but can't find information on the first one.

The Joker more has of a uniform than a costume. That's what he wears all the time. Masked villains have existed, but not as a statement card. This is something that I might end up researching more. I mean who is the first Riddler like character. I kinda want to know now. There have been folk heroes that are disguised but known by that disguise for decades e.g. Robin Hood. If anyone knows, please tell me.

Now that they knew Batman was gonna last for a bit, it makes sense to have an actual recurring villain. The No Killing Rule isn't into effect yet, but this is definitely a different morality to this Batman. This comic has been going for a year, and Bruce Wayne isn't his own character yet. Batman could literally be any pulp hero at this point. Now that he's getting full books to himself, I wonder if he will become his own character instead of a costume for a quick action story.

The Joker is similar to his current form. The purple suit and the green hair, while using toxic chemicals to make his victims smile. Only a tiny bit of laughing. This does remind me of the The Dark Knight film, but that just might be the knight Amour and cop costume. The announcing his crimes, is more the Riddler thing now but a modern Joker doing the same would not be out of character.

Join us next time where Batman will be showing how down for killing he really is still.

#Batman #The Joker #DC Joker #DC Robin #dick grayson #The Bat-man Recap

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measuringbliss · 1 year

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Glee Rewatch 1x22, bye Matt!

This is actually Blaine's first appearance.

(Are you confused? Check this out!)

This episode is notable because it's Matt's last appearance until season 6. See you later <3

Guys, the last episode of season 1 is called "Rhapsodie" in French. I wonder which song they'll cover...!

Mike's shirt <3

Once again, Glee's weird relationship with sex rears its head. Why does Will care if Emma has slept with Carl? Why does the scene end on her answering him? I know I'm pretty detached on that subject compared to a lot of people but as gay dude, Ryan Murphy would probably have a vaguely similar mindset to mine on that subject. But apparently the episode was written by Brad Falchuk who, considering he's married to Gwyneth Paltrow (...), probably isn't gay. So that explains it. Still, it's weird. It's just sex. Does Will want to be Emma's first? Why? Whyyyyyyy? Who cares about virginity???

Anyway, we hear Don't Stop Believin' and at this point I'm curious how many times we heard. Twice in the pilot, at least once during the season aside from that, now this time... I was going to say that Glee could feature other Journey songs, like Any Way You Want It (because I know that song and I enjoy it) but I looked it up in Google and oops, seems like this song is part of a mashup for this very episode!

Remember when the judges were actually linked to the season's storyline? We've already seen all of them. Josh Groban for Sandy's obsession, Olivia Newton-John for her great featuring with Sue, Rod Remington and Sue herself of course. It makes them more fun to follow.

The "Queen of Hearts, King of Diamond" made-up play is NOT a reference to the "Queen of Hearts/King of Spades" song by Jackson Aide, as I initially wrote ("initially" meaning here "two seconds ago during my Google search") since that song came out in 2016. It's probably about Rachel and Finn since they rekindle their relationship in this episode.

Speaking of Finn and Rachel, they're so adorably cute in this episode.

The Journey covers are fine, I guess. "Faithfully" is typically the kind of music I won't care about. "Any Way You Want It" is disappointing but there isn't any big mistake or anything, it's just There. "Don't Stop Believin'" is nice, but I think we all prefer the pilot version, right? I'm happy Santana could sing for a bit though.

Gorgeous colors, also I got chills (they're multiplyin') from the first few seconds. The whole Bohemian Rhapsody performance is incredible and also very funny. It's humongous. Iconic. Fuck, it's good!

This painting only appears in this one specific shot. It looks a bit mythological or religious, but I couldn't find what it is. It probably implies that Shelby's actually a goddess. And, I mean, it's Idina Menzel we're talking about. It doesn't sound that far-fetched.

These, however, we can look at. The left pic is a vintage poster for an exhibit for carpets and upholstery, probably meaning that somewhere out there, in another universe, these three judges sold goods at exhibits for exorbitant prices.

The second one is a poster from 1893 drawn by Jules Chéret for the Folies Bergères French cabaret featuring Loïe Fuller, an american dancer, doing her famous serpentine dance. Seems like she was lesbian or bisexual as she spent the last 23 years of her life having a relationship with another woman (Gabrielle Bloch). We love to see it! So who's gonna write a meta about bisexual Rachel Berry based on this?

Matt has a lovely scarf. I'm gonna miss him! It's very funny that he got that line given how little time was spent on him. Matt went from "just another football player" to "just another Glee Club member". Can't say I'm very impressed!

Sue voting for ND is part of those few moments where I love her even more than just for her comedic purpose.

I actually sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow in class many years ago. I already didn't care about the song before singing it again and again, but after that I started actively disliking it. That is to say, Will's number left me completely unfazed. Oh well!

Overall, I think season 1 has quality you can't deny, but after the pilot, it peters out and only gets back up around episode 9, in time for the midseason finale, after which it is consistently solid.

#glee #rewatch

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bad268 · 3 years

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hello! I was wondering if u could do one with Remus Lupin where he gets mad during full moon, and he's scared to hurt the reader so he just breaks up with her, reader tries to make him jealous (and it works) and it ends on a good note? like there's a lot of angst but it ends with fluff.

I Just Broke Up With My Girlfriend (Remus Lupin X Reader)

Fandom: Harry Potter

Requested: Clearly

Warnings: Language, self injury

W.C.: 1615

As always, my requests are OPEN

MASTERLIST // HITLIST

~~(^Google/HP Fancast)

“Do you have any plans for the weekend? I thought maybe we could go to Hogsmeade?” I said as I sat down next to Remus. He seemed upset the past week, and I thought a trip to Hogsmeade would lift his spirits even if it is only a little. He didn’t respond, just set his head down on the table. “We could get some candy and have a butterbeer or something.” James, Sirius, and Lily had sat down across from us and looked concerned for Remus.

“Moony, you good?” Sirius asked with a light laugh, thinking it was an act. Remus’s head shot up at the teasing tone to glare at Sirius before turning his attention to me.

“I don’t think I want to be with you anymore, (Y/N),” he said quietly, almost as if he didn’t want to say it, but the damage was done. He didn’t want to be with me anymore.

“So that’s it? The last six months meant nothing to you?” I was mad. I tried so hard to not be that clingy girlfriend, but also not too distant where we appear as if we aren’t a couple. Clearly, I didn’t try hard enough for us. “You know what-don’t answer that. Based on the breakup, I can assume everything meant nothing to you.”

James, Sirius, and Lily were very confused with Remus’s confession. I just rolled my eyes and went up to go to my common room.

Second POV

James did not understand why Remus was so sour this week. Then again, he remembered the full moon was Sunday-two days away. Remus had been going through weird mood swings before the full moon the last couple of months. The first time he was overly sensitive while the other he was super clingy.

Sirius knew Remus was feeling irritated, but he never thought Remus would explode on his girlfriend. Granted, Remus didn't say it in a harsh way, but Sirius knew (Y/N); she would blame herself for everything. Remus had been short-tempered with him all week, but he was always able to hold back from lashing out and hurting people’s feelings.

Lily was just as shocked as the rest of them. She and Remus were just talking about what he was going to do for your six-month anniversary which happened to fall on the day after the full moon. She helped him plan a picnic by the black lake and decide which books you would be interested in. Remus seemed so happy to be with you, according to Lily.

It hadn’t set in for Remus. He was just mad that his friends were pestering him, then his girlfriend would not stop asking questions, professors decided to assign three essays that were due Monday, and he was just overall pissed about the full moon being so close to your anniversary.

You, however, had just gotten over the initial shock. Now, you were just upset, crying under the covers in your room. Your roommates who had gone up to bed early were concerned but not enough to comfort you. You just wanted privacy, and if they were going to silently judge you, then you would hide in the abandoned Prefect’s bathroom.

“Are you on your man period or something?” Sirius broke the silence around them. “Or is this one of your new mood swings from the full moon?”

“Shut up,” Remus mumbled.

“No,” Lily snapped. “We need to discuss this now.”

“Yeah, you just broke up with (Y/N). Does that mean nothing to you?” James chimed in.

“Of course it does!” Remus exclaimed, standing up. “I just broke up with my girlfriend. And for what? To save her from me. This whole week I’ve just been pissed, and I don’t want to take that out on her,” he said as he started to sob. “I can’t let her get hurt because of me.”

“You should have just told her the secret, Moony. Now, I’m going to comfort her while you guys figure out a plan to win her back,” Lily whispered before getting up in search of you.

“Alright,” James took the initiative, “let’s start planning.”

“Thought I would find you here,” Lily’s voice echoed through the room. “You always come here for peace, but I’m here to cheer you up.”

“How? I know I didn’t try hard enough to keep us together,” Your voice cracked. This was when Lily caught sight of your puffy, bloodshot eyes, mangled hair, and bleeding fingernails. You were tearing yourself apart. “I should’ve noticed.”

“What are you on about?” Lily asked as she sat next to you. She wiped some of the tears from your face and pulled your head to lean on her shoulder as she tried to fix your messy hair. “You are the best girlfriend Remus could have-granted you are the first one he’s ever had-but still!” You laughed lightly before leaning further into your best friend, seeking some sort of comfort. “You know virtually anything about him, (Y/N). He made a mistake, and he knows it.”

“If he knows he made a mistake, why did he do it, Lily?”

“I’m not the best person to tell you his reasoning,” She sighed. Lily really wanted to explain the situation to her, but she knew it was not her place. “Just trust me when I say that he regrets it. Please, give him another chance. Let him explain, then you can choose from there.”

“Fine, one more chance.”

“Now, you need a plan,” James started once the boys got into the common room.

“I think we should wait until after the full moon because we don’t need you to be a moody bitch as you try to apologize,” Sirius said as he lit the fire and plopped down onto his designated chair in the common room.

“Well, our anniversary is the day after,” Remus muttered. His mind was still fuzzy about the whole ordeal, and he still didn’t understand it fully. “I could make it up to her by going through with the picnic idea Lily and I came up with. We were going to do it for our anniversary dinner, but might as well use it as an apology dinner.”

“Alright, so we just need to make sure you don’t harm yourself too much during the transformation,” James clarified. “Are you going to tell her?”

“I have to if I want to save my relationship.”

TWO DAYS LATER

First POV

Today was going to be hard. I knew this. Not only did I stay up past three in the morning finishing these essays, but Remus and I had a tradition where we would go stargazing at midnight on our anniversary. I was not here mentally. I just laid in my bed as all of my roommates began getting up and dressing themselves for breakfast. I could not find the will to get myself out of my bed. Just as I was about to go back to sleep, Lily comes bursting through the door, straight over to me.

“Get up,” She said, urgently pulling me from my bed. “We need to get to the medical wing, now.”

“Why?” I asked. She refused to tell me anything. Just insisting to hurry up. She continued to drag me through the halls. Finally, she stops directly in front of the door. “Please, explain this to me. Who’s dying?”

“It’s not a matter of life or death, but this is their opportunity to explain themselves,” She said, pushing me through the door.

I walked through the room, no one was in there. Well, there was one person. They were laying on the bed closest to Madam Pomfrey’s office area. I didn’t want to intrude on whoever was recovering, but once Madam Pomfrey caught sight of me, she ushered me over. Pulling back the curtain, Remus laid bruised and battered. He looked like he had gotten into the worst fight.

“What the hell happened to you?” I said, kind of heartless. I honestly thought this was karma.

“I need to explain everything,” He said quietly as he sat up more, holding his hand out to me. With a sigh, I grabbed his hand and sat on the bed next to him. He took a breath, looking down at our hands, tightening his grip briefly. “I’m a werewolf, and before you say that’s not possible, it is. I was bit when I was a kid, and that’s why I’ve had to cancel dates last minute. That’s why I am missing from classes the day after full moons, that’s why my nickname is Moony, and that’s why I snapped. I did not want you getting hurt anymore because of me. I have already caused you pain, and the last thing I want to do is to hurt you more than I already have.” He stopped for a second, lifting his eyes to me yours. “I didn’t mean to. I have no other excuse other than the moons recently have been messing with my head. I’ve just been so snappy the last week, and I took it out on you when I shouldn’t have. Could you ever forgive me?”

“What happened to you?” I said quietly as I raised my hand to wipe some of the tears off one of his cheeks. He leaned into it slightly, still trying to gauge what my reaction to his confession would be. “I’ll forgive you, but I need to know what happened.”

“It was bad last night,” He laughed lightly. “I got in a fight with another wolf, and I lost.”

“You are an idiot,” I whispered. “But you’re my idiot. Just be honest, please? I don’t want to go through this again.”

~~~

HP Taglist:

@scvrllet

@fandoms-are-possessive

@dogmom2014

~~~~~

#remus lupin x you #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin imagine #remus x y/n #remus x reader #reader x remus #remus angst #moony #remus lupin #bad268 #ship268 #thing268

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stylesberries · 4 years

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Rainbow Cardigan

Summary: Harry loses his favorite cardigan. You learn how to knit. (Based on the JW Anderson cardigan knitting trend.)

Genre(s): fluff, a sexual innuendo

Word Count: 2.1k

Warning(s): mentions of sexual intercourse.

Harry’s sense of style is one of the main things that make people around automatically drowns to him. High waisted flares, custom Gucci suits and newsboy caps - Harry in a nutshell.

His style is so distinctive, that even if his face and tattoos were covered, people around would still recognize him just by looking at his outfit.

You, of course, are one of the many fans of Harry’s style. Being his girlfriend had its benefits. Getting to steal his clothes was, obviously, on top of the list.

“Sweetheart!” Harry calls out for you from the bedroom.

You got up from your place in the living room, following your boyfriend’s voice. You knew that if he just wanted to tell you something, he would’ve texted. He clearly needs you to come up to him, so that’s exactly what you do.

Going up the stairs, you kept thinking about who could be the killer in the new detective series episode you’ve been watching.

When you reached your bedroom, your eyes trailed right to your worrying boyfriend, who was walking in circles around the room with his brows furrowed and in deep thought.

“Love, is everything okay? You seem upset.” You gently started.

He really looked frustrated, and you had no idea what was the reason behind it. He would always take every hardship light-heartedly, knowing that everything can be solved and everything can be fixed, and if that’s not the case, he would say, “Well, that’s what life’s about, isn’t it? It can’t always be easy. That’s the beauty of it.” Your mind started walking in circles just like your distraught boyfriend, thinking about anything that could’ve caused him to react this way.

“Y/N, I think I lost m’rainbow cardigan.”

Then it hit you. He really loved that cardigan. It wasn’t just adorable, warm and cozy. He wore it for your first date, and being someone who imbues everything with meaning and gets emotionally attached to things, his reaction wasn’t surprising to you.

“My dear, I’m sure we will find it. Come on. I’ll help you lo-”He cut you off full of sadness and frustration.

“I’ve already looked everywhere, and I mean everywhere. I’ve looked in every room, on every shelf. I looked under every couch, just in case. I even checked the stove. Like, come on, it could never be there, but I still looked! I don’t know what t’do. I always take it along wherever I go. If I am here and it’s not - I lost it. I fucking lost it. Y/N, what do I do? Where else could I look?” He was full-on bawling now. You couldn’t help but cut the distance separating you short and hug him.

“Don’t worry, Har. We will find it. I know how much it means to you. We’ll find it.” You kept repeating it. Although, your voice was muffled by his hair, he caught every word leaving your mouth.

“I cannot lose it. I can’t. What if it’s lost forever? How could I let it out of my sight?” The sight of him so genuinely saddened by the situation made you let out a sigh. You were full of compassion and understanding, trying to remember the last time you saw the poor cardigan. Failing to do so, you turned to your crushed boyfriend and tried to get information out of him.

“When did you last see it, baby? Do you remember?” You carefully asked, trying your best not to push him even more. Judging by his appearance, you knew that he could easily beat himself up for losing the cardigan to a point of having an anxiety attack, and that was the last thing you wanted right now.

You watched him slowly breathe air in and out, trying to slow his heart rate down.

“I haven’t seen it for over a week. The last time I’ve seen it was at the studio, I think. I put it on t’go there. It was cold that day.” He explained.

You remembered exactly what day he was talking about. He went to the studio early and you missed him a lot, so when he came back home you jumped on him, which later on led to a heated make out session. The thing was that you didn’t remember taking the cardigan off of him that day.

“Har.” You tried to be as gentle as you possibly could, but you knew that there wasn’t anything that could make him feel better about losing something so dear to him.

“Yeah?” He took a step back and looked at your saddened face.

“I’m afraid you came home without the cardigan.”

After having your crying-your-eyes-out-because-of-a-piece-of-clothing session, you were determined to find the cardigan. Knowing that Harry just went to the studio and back that day, you did the same. Harry asked everyone working at the studio if they’ve seen the cardigan, and with every new person your hope withered more and more. As you asked more people and tried to track the cardigan down, you realized that it was probably lost on a bench he sat on by the studio, to drink his morning coffee. That meant that you’ll never see it again. Understanding the hopelessness of the situation, Harry gave up looking.

Seeing your Harry walking around the house completely destroyed by the situation, you couldn’t help, but think about a way to make him feel better.

He would skip his morning runs to sulk in the bed, cuddled up in the blankets with his feet tangled with yours. Harry was never one to skip any part of his daily routine, so you understood how attached he was to the lost cardigan.

One night, after you both finished your dinner and went to watch some rom-com in the living room, your grandmother called. You apologized to Harry and answered the call.

As you gave her an update on your life these days, Harry cuddled closed into your side and let his eyes close.

Your grandmother asked you about everything, starting from what you had for breakfast to how your university project was going.

In couple of minutes Harry started lightly snoring into your ear. Next thing you know she’s telling you about the new blanket that she knitted.

Then an idea came to your mind. You’ll knit him a new cardigan.

Next day was spent shopping for yarn and needles and watching knitting tutorials. The fact that Harry was out in the studio made it even easier for you to bring your ideas to life.

In the beginning you found it a little hard, but with a little motivation you knitted a couple of colorful squares, just like the ones in Harry’s precious cardigan.

The image of the cardigan mostly came from your head, but whenever you needed a reference you could type “Harry Styles Rainbow Cardigan” into Google and freshen the memories.

It took you some time to get the cardigan together, knitting every little square with the other, making sure everything is as neat as possible.

You felt bad for lying to your sweetheart, but you had to admit - it was fun running around hiding your surprise from him.

When the cardigan was ready, you took a look at your creation.

Although, it wasn’t the same as the one you both had so many memories with, it was made with love, coming straight from your heart.

You finished the last touches at about 7 o’clock, and Harry was supposed to come home a bit later today due to a meeting with the management. You waited for him until late evening and found a box to put your little creation into.

After folding the wrapping paper around the box and tying a bow from the ends of the yellow ribbon, that was now wrapped around the sides of the box, you laid down in your bed and picked up an unread book to finally finish it.

In an hour or so your exhausted boyfriend stepped into the house. You could head his steps coming from outside of the bedroom. By the time he came back home, the book found its way back on the side table, as you wrapped the blanket around yourself to mimic the warmth of missing Harry.

Harry walked into the room slowly, making sure he doesn’t step on certain creaking planks in the floor, not to wake you up. He carefully undressed himself and folded the corner of the blanket to get under it. As he carefully positioned himself next to you, you turned around, making sure not to take him by surprise and scare the living shit out of him.

“You’re so late, love. Did something happen?” You asked, hoping that everything was okay with the upcoming tour. Your mind didn’t view anything else as a possibility because you trusted him completely. You knew you had nothing to worry about, as he proved his loyalty to you enough for you not to have any doubts about it.

“Jeff kept me a bit late, m’precious. We were going through the tour schedule. I’m sorry I made y’worry, baby.” He wrapped his arm around your waist and pressed a kiss on your temple. You let him shower you with more and more kisses, before you remembered the box you hid in the closet. You eyes abruptly opened and Harry caught the look of realization on your face.

“What happened, bean? Not in the mood?” He made sure to ask you.

You got up from the bed, pushing his hands off of you, and walked right to the closet.

“Baby? Is everything alright?” Harry was confused over the way you were acting.

You left his questions unanswered and grabbed the box, after opening the doors of the closet looking for it. You walked back up to the bed, but now from Harry’s side. He seemed completely oblivious of what was coming next and, obviously, awaited for an explanation.

“It’s a present. For you.” You now let yourself smile at him, after putting on a show to freak him out. You let out a laugh after seeing Harry look insulted by the way you played with his feelings.

“You’re a meanie. That’s not cute. Was gonna make love to you just now, but I am no longer going to do so.” Harry ended the dramatically long sentence with a theatrical frown.

Despite the little show he put on for you, he couldn’t help but keep looking at the box, laying in front of him.

“What’s that?” He curiously asked.

“Open and see for yourself.” You moved closer to him, with only the box separating you.

Harry carefully unwrapped the bow, making sure he doesn’t rip the paper you carefully wrapped. Something so small, almost unnoticeable, but another thing you loved about this man. There was love in every little gesture and move of his. He could’ve just torn the paper and the ribbon off, acting on his curiosity, but he didn’t. He knew you took time to make it look pretty for him, and he wouldn’t ruin your creation, even if it’s just wrapping paper.

When Harry got to opening the box, he looked up at you, as if asking for your permission. You nodded, smile grazing your face.

As the lid came off the box and the bright colors of the carefully knitted cardigan started gleaming from the light, coming from the lamp on the bedside table, Harry’s facial expression turned from curiosity to utter shock. Noticing his surprise, you chose to speak up.

“I made it myself. I knew how heartbroken you were after losing that cardigan, so I thought - maybe I could knit it for you. I know it’s not perfect, but it would make me very happy if you kept it.” You nervously blabbered, thinking that he didn’t seem as happy as you thought he would be.

“You knitted it yourself?” He looked up at you in shock with tearful eyes, as his hands finally let themself touch the buttons of the item.

“I did. I watched tutorials on YouTube. Thanks to those, I learned how to knit.” You joked, trying to lighten up the atmosphere.

“You learned how to knit to make this for me?” His voice turned raspy, as it always did when he got emotional and he looked like he desperately needed a hug.

So that’s what you gave him.

“Come here, my love. Please don’t cry. I didn’t knit it to make you sad. I wanted to make you happy.” You cooed into his ear.

Harry held onto you with such need and desperation, that you haven’t seen him show before. He squeezed you closer, his hands still keeping hold of the knitted piece.

“You made me so happy. You make me so fucking happy.”

#harry styles #harry styles fluff #harry styles imagine #harry styles imagines #harry styles one shot #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles x reader #harry styles masterlist #harry styles blurbs #calm #jw anderson #cardigan

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chicoriii · 3 years

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Season 4, Episode 17 - Larme Ultime (Rocketear)

So this is a DjiWifi episode from which comes a screenshot I've seen over a month ago (I think). It's good they got it, before season 4 started I really wanted it to happen and to see a kiss between Nino and Alya in it (but that didn't happen and I don't get why, only the main pairing is allowed to kiss in this show or what?), but now I could not be excited about it anymore, because I'm sick of Alya and I'm not able to hide it. Yes, I'm biased, but I'm just a normal viewer and I have right to dislike her favouritism.

My the biggest thought after watching this is that it looks like since Optigami, Alya is not only a deuteragonist, like I said in my post about Sentibubbler, she's actually more like a co-protagonist now. That was an extremely Alya-centric episode (even more than Lie was was about Adrien, as it was mostly Ladybug who saved the world like almost always, also because Chat sacrificed himself again), while in Optigami and this one she has screentime comparable to Marinette. I'm still trying to avoid spoilers (so please, don't tell what's going to happen in the next episodes, I don't want to know), but I'm sure that either 15 or 16 is also highly about her, because we've seen the new Rena's suit in this episode and it looked like it wasn't the first episode with it. But really, I won't be surprised if Alya has lots of screentime in both episodes and all others to the end of the show as well. I don't think Adrien is ever going to get as much special treatment like Alya. :/ The creators have never been as nice to him.

Didn't the writes have enough ideas for another story arcs? And thanks to it they were able to save money, because then creators could just reuse old models of villains more than before. Have anyone noticed that S4 has even fewer number of completely new characters than previous seasons? The scientist seen at the start of the episode has detailed model, so she had to be akumatised in any of the previous unreleased episodes (or one of the next ones). And why she looks a lot like Alya, is she her relative? If yes, you know what that means? Another excuse to make an episode full of the fox wielder, because, you know, it’s not like she already got enough occasions to shine in S4.

Speaking of Rena Rouge's new suit. What a waste, it would be great for a potential chameleon Miraculous, so it seems it won't be ever created for canon. So bad, I think it's one of the coolest animal, so a Miraculous based on it would be awesome. It could one from an African Miracle Box which should appear, since they are planning making an African special. The suit is good and all, but I still feel disappointed that it's not the superpower of a chameleon Miraculous. :(

Why is Nino acting over the top out of nowhere? I like film noir atmosphere, fedoras and especially jazz music full of saxophones (my favourite music genre and instrument), but it looks totally ridiculous when he's like that. I thought it's Marinette's speciality, and he beat her in that category. I'm not trying to say it's a a bad thing, it just feels weird seeing Nino like that. And since I love jazz, I would like to listen to that film noir-esque music more once I got 5.1 audio, since it was hardly heard in the episode. It didn't sound much interesting, but it's too early to judge it seriously.

Too bad they had written the main conflict in the episode using one of the biggest romantic cliche - misunderstanding in which one character see and\or hear something, but not the whole thing, so said character interprets it wrong. Motifs like that are rather annoying, so it's good something similar haven't happened in the Love Square's arc (yet at least). Though I have a big issue with how they write it this season and I'm going to make a post about it (is anyone interested?).

The akuma is one the ugliest and has one of the most laziest power ever. Really? He shoots using tear bullets and does nothing more? I know many people hate Bubbler's design, but no matter how silly it looks, it was much more creative than this.

And of course the whole thing with Alya remembering the whole conversation with Chat Noir was extremely far-fetched. The could think about something more believable, but I'm not surprised it happened, since I think this season is generally more lazy written than previous ones.

On the other hand, I'm surprised that Marinette is actually aware that Shadow Moth should not know that Alya is still Rena Rouge. It seems that the whole episode 15 (or 16) is about they trying to figure out what to do with that problem. I won't be surprised if Alya would do it all by herself like it happened with protecting charms in Mr Pigeon 72, because it's completely normal that a random person who has never met Fu is better at decrypting the grimoire than someone who has been trained to be a guardian to some extend :/ Still I think they should not be sure that camouflage mode would solve the problem completely. From what I understand the new suit doesn’t make her completely invisible to others. Rena could be seen by anyone who takes a photo of her and then post in on the internet (it won't be believable that she's the only one crazy about superheroes in Paris). But at least they tried to do something and Marinette sees the danger to some extend. It’s something new.

It's not like Alya is careful, she's completely reckless (and they think she's a good reporter material? Don't make me laugh) and she still thinks more about her own fun in being the superheroine than safety of herself or the world. But of course, it's not gonna happen, because plot armor is very strong in this show. I really had a feeling that she acted like a little child in the first minutes of the episode. She's unable to see that her situation is not a joke. She should be all happy that Marinette still lets her to keep the fox Miraculous. She really lacks humility and I see it clearly since Optigami at least. Besides, Marinette ignores another red flags, that Alya is taking pictures of herself in the new suit no one is supposed to see and thinking about posting them on Ladyblog (was Bunnix right that Alya is able to reveal Miraculous secrets on her blog because of her overenthusiasm and lack of ability of seeing consequences of her actions?).

By the way, now I think, if Alya can't keep in secret that she's still Rena Rouge from Nino (which happens because it's needed for the plot), so how could she be all fine with keeping in secret other facts like that Ladybug gave her the fox permanently and she knows her identity (which isn't happening because the plot doesn't require it)? She still has to lie on Nino because of these secrets.

They are making Marinette a big hypocrite this season. Since she revealed herself to Alya, it's been shown that secret identities rule was bullshit from the start, but Marinette is still saying that heroes can't reveal their identities to anyone. What? What has she done before like not revealing herself to someone, so how she dares keep saying about how crucial is keeping secrets from everyone? Sorry writers, I can't take that rule seriously anymore since Alya knows and no one should. Because Marinette told Alya, she could tell it to other persons she trust as well. What's the difference between her best friend and the rest of the people in the world? Is Alya the only person she trusts? In fact, revealing herself to Sabine, for example, would be much better choice. She's actually wise and mature unlike Alya and her secrets would be much more safe with her mother.

I've seen Chat Blanc again on TV recently and I remembered one thing Ladybug told to Bunnix there: "The best-kept secrets are the ones you never share." (Google Translate says that the line is exactly the same in the French original). Some episodes later, she isn't thinking twice if she should tell all the guardian secrets to Alya. Okay, she revealed her identity because of being too emotional in that exact moment, but then when she calmed down, she should be able to think if telling all the Miraculous secrets is a good idea. The other hypocritical thing is telling Chloé "you can't be Queen Bee anymore, because Hawk Moth knows your identity" but still calling the other heroes whose identities have been exposed.

So I can't even blame Alya for telling Nino the truth if the guardian herself is not following her own rules. Not to mention, Marinette doesn't address wrong things Alya is doing at all, so no wonder she feels she could do anything, she won't get punished, no matter what. After all, it's not the first moment in which she does something her best friend forbid her.

And we can say the show has been confirmed that Nino is even worse at keeping secrets, especially in crisis situations, so why people wanted to see Adrien revealing himself to Nino? It's obvious that he would tell Adrien's secret to Alya and maybe some other people as well.

I thought that since S3 finale Adrien is supposed to know identities of every backup hero from seasons 2 and 3 and I was ready to be salty about that as well. But yes, actually after purification of Miracle Queen's akuma, brainwashed heroes didn't detransform. They were forgotten completely and we don't even know what happened with them exactly. I suppose Ladybug took their Miraculous when Chat Noir wasn't there anymore.

Adrien has every right to be angry at Ladybug, she treats him so badly, since Alya knows her own secrets and she doesn't even have the guts to admit that. But I'm going to say about my the biggest issue in the Chat Noir and Ladybug's situation in another post, I hope I would write before the next episode airs.

#miraculous ladybug #ml rocketear #ml season 4 #ml spoilers #ml spoiler #ml season 4 spoilers #chicoriii about S4 episodes #chicoriii #original post

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phoneybeatlemania-bit-the-dust · 3 years

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i think this is one of the quotes anon was talking about: https://thegilly.tumblr.com/post/29568742275/the-beatles-and-me-by-neil-aspinall-scanned

(Link) (CW eating disorders)

That magazine article actually breaks my heart - the way that he’s legitimately torturing himself is just so upsetting. And in reading about John dieting the way he did, I can especially empathise with him because ive had a lot of the same experiences.

Some points I took note of from the article are:

1. John ate one meal a day, which was steak with a large salad - that means he was probably eating less then a 1000 calories a day, and id guess he was maybe only getting about 800 (?) calories a day at most with that diet. 800 calories or less is literally starvation.

2. “John wont even look at bread” - this is the definition of an ‘unsafe food’. People with restrictive ED’s do eat, but they tend to have “safe” and “unsafe” foods. I suspect John considers bread unsafe because he knows its a binge food, and a food that he thinks will cause him weight gain - again, its just so sad that he would put himself through this misery. I also think that he probably felt meats were probably relatively safe for him to eat.

3. He had two different suits - one for when he was at his normal, healthy weight and another for when he had lost weight. He would bring them both on tour with him because his weight would fluctuate so much.

4. His regular weight was about 159lbs; apparently he was around 139lbs when he died (at least, thats what a quick google search tells me, so I don’t know how true that is. But certainly he was far thinner by the time he died).

5. “Right before a tour, he’ll do everything he can to lose weight” - this appears to speak especially to the theory that Johns ED might have been sparked largely by the pressures of fame and publicity.

6. “John hardly touches his salad, and he wont even look at the other boys eat.” - He’s eating the most miserable meal on the planet guys :’(

7. “John begins to look at me apprehensively. He has hunger pains in his eyes! Finally, when he is about to “break down” I…pull out the meat sandwiches.” - He was in actual, physical pain because he was so hungry.

8. “John takes the meat out of the sandwiches and eats every tiny sliver he can find. Then he stuffs the leftover slices of bread into a bag, which I take from him (so that he wont break down again and eat those).” - I would constitute this behaviour as a “binge”, because to me a binge is not based necessarily on the quantity of food you eat, or the amount of calories you take in, but more so about how in control and contented you are during and after eating. John wasn’t in control here, and its because its his bodies natural reaction when its in starvation mode.

9. “[Johns] main complaint is ‘How come Paul never gains an ounce — and he eats twice as much as I do?’”

10. “John is sure some kind of curse is set on his head — or is stomach as it were!”

Im not going to judge everyone for seemingly not making any real efforts to help John recover from his ED, because I don’t think ED’s became something that the general public were aware of until about the early 80s with Karen Carpenters death - and its taken years for people to even really begin recognising that a lot of men also suffer from ED’s! And so im not going to criticise them for not recognising that John legitimately was displaying symptoms of an ED, but I do think its just really sad that they were all watching John starve and torture himself, and couldn’t really do anything about it. And because they weren’t recognising him as mentally ill here, they probably all just accepted his diet as a bit of a laugh, whilst still knowing there was something more sinister underpinning it.*

(*I wonder however what Paul might have thought about all this, because we know that Paul was prone to being a sort of caretaker for John, and in a lot of ways “mothered” him. I feel like Paul would’ve recognised that only eating one meal a day was a problem, and maybe sort of laughed it off a bit because he couldn’t have known it was a legitimate mental illness - but also, I hope he would try to encourage John to eat. Id like to hear him talk about this in an interview someday, though I doubt anyone would ask him about this stuff)

This is just genuinely one of the most depressing things ive ever read about John, and if its a topic you feel comfortable reading id encourage anyone to give it a read (although if you think it could be damaging for your mental health, id say avoid it!).

And overall, im just really surprised that no biographer appears to have ever really spoken about this topic in a nuanced manner.

#cw ed #cw anorexia #cw eating disorder #john lennon ed #john lennon #johns psyche #this just makes me so so sad #he reminds me so much of ME #and thats just sad #like reading about seeing hunger in his eyes #<<< i know that pain!! i know that hunger!#@sergeantpeppa

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straighttohellbuddy · 3 years

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📓 !!

Okay im so excited please know I think about How The Light Gets In's world every day still, and so anyways here is a side story I want to write but there's a lot of set up regarding the reader and eef becoming friends again. For context, they were incredibly close around 2014-2017, but people were getting creepy and invasive and demanding about their friendship (think 2012 toxic side of the Phandom, if that makes sense), and a lot of the reader's relationships were strained at that time because while they had been successful before, they were absolutely blowing up after their first album released and they became far more mainstream. They felt like they were bothering the people they had become closest to, both because they're worried that they're a bother, and because gossip rags and paps would harrass their friends looking for a scoop, and so they ended up just completely cutting off contact without warning one day right before they went on their first tour. the start of HTLGI is about 3 years since they'd been in proper contact with any of the creators they were close to at that time.

DON'T LOOK AT ME on their 2017 ep Hyperfocus was a more general song in response to everything that had been happening in their life around that time, with a focus on how they stop associating with anyone for a while, without outright addressing it, but on their latest album n o s t a l g i a, read at 5am ft. Troye was specifically written at the start of quarantine, when the reader was getting back into YouTube, about their feelings regarding how their friendship with ethan ended, as they spent a lot of this time looking back of their YouTube career, and he was the person they were closest to for a very long time, before they iced everyone out.

OKAY SO THERES MORE OF THE BACKGROUND OF THE WHOLE FIC AND THE READER BUT

Werewolf Ethan & Mark. I'm sorry I don't make the rules. They have golden retriever energy you cannot change my mind. But also because this is the HTLGI you know that supernatural characteristics are able to be activated rather than just triggered by the full moon. What I'm trying to say is since this is set in the year of Unus Annus, they film a video together that's like, you know that show where a person has to try and outwit a professional tracker? Except its the reader being tracked by two werewolves at night in a national park. Reader is wearing some sort of night vision camera on themselves so whenever it cuts to them the audience can't actually see how they're using their powers, if that makes sense.

Also the reader agreed to this knowing it would probably be when they ended up telling Mark and Ethan about them being a demon.

Video is titled Hunting Down An Old Friend

A few Moments that the boys edit out:

The reader using their stupidly sharp prehensile tail to swing from tree branches, though they leave in shots where the reader's tail can't be seen.

Knowing that with the werewolves having advanced hearing, the reader would give themselves away by talking to the camera, they take a few minutes having flown up to a high tree branch, to pull out a notebook and do a little sketch of how Mark and Ethan appear in their Demon True Sight, and holding it up to their camera.

Werewolves being one of the animals who can kind of sense demons without being able to identify them, essentially like dogs can sense natural disasters and are often good judges of character, this can be heightened on command for werewolves. There's about 15 minutes of footage cut out of the boys discussing or mentioning how this place has awful vibes and that they should have done this during the day. It gets worse as they get closer to the reader, who didn't realise that the boys hadn't thought to ever use that particular power around them before.

("I say this with so much love and appreciation for you, dude," Ethan yells, looking up at you from the base of the tree they'd finally found you in, "but I- this is making me anxious I feel like something terrible's gonna happen, and we should probably get out of here and film the rest of the video back at Mark's." And behind him, Mark's nodding, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, eyes scanning the trees for whatever was most likely the cause of this terrible impending doom.

Oh. It's you. And they don't know its you.

Now or never, you suppose.

"Can you cut the cameras for a second? You're going to be fine I promise," you called back, and though they obligingly did, they both seemed antsy. You cleared your throat awkwardly, "that... that terrible feeling, that's not the park or anything in it- well I mean, it is, but it's just- it's me."

and later

"Dude your wings smell like rotten eggs."

"To YOU Ethan! And no they don't!"

"If it makes you feel better they smell like burning and rotten eggs."

"It does not."

(for reference, when enhancing their sense of smell werewolves can kind of distinguish various supernatural creatures, or parts of supernatural creatures. Some creatures have an inherent scent, but some, like angels and demons, only have distinct scents when they've activated certain attributesor abilities; demon wings smell like fire and brimstone, which unfortunately means burning and rotten eggs. I like to think angels wings are like the love potion in Harry Potter that smells like the things you love the most. Mark and Ethan usually don't enhance it around each other because they smell like wet dog to the other)

This gets about 2k notes on tumblr. The reader likes it:

Ethan finally finding Y/N at the end of Hunting Down An Old Friend (2020) Colourised.

Other things to note regarding all this:

It takes a while to rebuild their friendship to the point where they're comfortable enough to be on camera together (eef and reader specifically).

However, the Unus Annus video is the first thing they properly do together, and the reader, in an effort to connect more and make up for the past, will join in multiplayer gaming streams if asked.

Impromptu duet in proximity Among Us of Young Volcanoes by Fall Out Boy, which has their respective chats and fandoms losing their minds, except it stops abruptly after the first chorus as they both remember the opening lines of the second verse (make it easy, say I never mattered -- those lyrics hit a little too close to home)

But also the reader convinces him to join him for a proper cover in like, February of 2021, and it's something deeply sappy (I'm thinking Bon Iver by mxmtoon because I think its sweet and fits them well)

Also Ethan being reminded that the reader is kind of a much bigger deal than when they'd been friends before.

designed to hurt (touch me) from their ep Working On It is nominated for a Grammy for Track of the Year, and n o s t a l g i a wins Best Pop Album (because it's my fic and I said so)

FIRST OF ALL designed to hurt (touch me) is a beautifully produced song about Corpse (which people do not know) and the title itself is literally making fun of something he said IMAGINE his reaction to it being Grammy Nominated 😂😂😂 God he'd be proud but lowkey fuming, meanwhile the moment the nominations are announced the reader tweets:

me: here is an album where I processed my entire world view including heartfelt explorations of the trauma of existing and oversharing in the public eye from a young age without the traditional barrier between audience and entertainer

the grammys: that's cute BUT you know the song you wrote to bully your boyfriend and also be horny on main for him before you guys were even dating? THAT deserves its own recognition.

meanwhile Ethan's like..... this is the same person who I filmed a video with playing cards against humanity, and you laughed so hard you almost threw up. I am very proud but deeply confused.

The Hot Meme of Late April 2021 is "2 time Grammy Award Winning Artist Y/N" with a gif, still, or quote from the reader where they're just being an absolute chaos gremlin.

Of course we have "If I bleached my asshole for charity I'd do it tastefully."

2 Time Grammy Award Winning Artist Y/N speaking to their actual boyfriend in the year of our lord 2020: You are being executed for Clown Crimes.

ethan posts a short video to twitter simply of his screen where he's renaming a folder from "Never Before Seen Images of Grammy Award Winning Artist Y/N" simply changing it to 2 time Artist. The reader responds specifically to his tweet with a video of themselves asking Google how to hard reset someone else's computer.

So many screenshots from old videos surface that week.

I miss this world. Sorry this is rambly!!

#shut ur pretty mouth #how the light gets in #corpse husband x reader #your local homosexual with no chill #htlgi

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noirandchocolate · 3 years

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All right, since I was asked very nicely by a couple people when I complained in general about how Americans don’t get properly taught about their own Constitutional rights, here is a post explaining why, in the US, jurors are not permitted to do their own research outside the courtroom (even if they think something a witness said might be incorrect or ‘wrong’).

The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution states that a person may not be deprived of her life, liberty, or property “without due process of law.” More specifically, the Sixth Amendment guarantees a criminal defendant the right to a trial by “an impartial jury,” and the right to be “confronted with the witnesses against him.”

The “impartial jury” rule has been interpreted to mean, among other things, that the jury must make its decision based solely on the evidence presented in court, and that the verdict must not be tainted by outside influences. The “witness confrontation” rule also comes into play with this topic, as I’ll explain below. But basically, the short answer to the question “why can’t jurors do their own research?” is “because the Constitution says they can’t, and the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.” But that doesn’t explain WHY that’s the rule, and is therefore unsatisfying, so here’s some good reasons why a criminal defendant shouldn’t want jurors to be able to consider things outside the evidence presented at their trial!

1) Publicity--One of the major things jurors are instructed not to look at while a trial is ongoing is news media. Why? Because news outlets are not forbidden from reporting about ongoing criminal matters (First Amendment!), and exposure to such publicity can jeopardize the impartiality of a juror. Let’s say you are charged with robbing a convenience store, and your trial has just started. A news reporter posts an article online about the robbery. It has a pretty sensational headline, something like “Father of Two Threatened with Gun in Convenience Store Holdup.” A juror hearing your case, let’s call him Rick, is curious about the location of the store, and googles its name. The news article comes up and Rick sees this headline. Oh, wow, the cashier has kids? He was threatened? It was a “holdup”? That sounds terrible!! Humans are very susceptible creatures and can be swayed by all kinds of things. Would you, the defendant, want Rick to read that headline, much less the article giving out a bunch of details that haven’t (yet, or ever) been revealed in court? Would you trust Rick to listen to your side of the story, and base his decision in your case on the evidence in court, after reading such inflammatory things about the incident?

Many times, very high-profile cases are moved out of the jurisdiction where they would normally be tried, because the local area has been inundated with pretrial publicity making it difficult to find jurors who haven’t heard about the case and formed some kind of opinion, conscious or unconscious, about it. Keeping a sitting jury from being exposed to media publicity during a trial is just as important.

2) Right to Confront Witnesses--As stated above, the Sixth Amendment guarantees this. What does it mean? That the prosecution must base its case on witness testimony and evidence that it puts before the jury in court, and you the defendant must be given a chance to cross-examine those witnesses about their testimony and the evidence presented, to call its truth into question, challenge whether it establishes all the elements of the crime you’re charged with, or otherwise poke holes in the case against you. This is the reason hearsay evidence is barred unless one of a number of exceptions applies. So what does that have to do with jurors doing outside research?

In our faux robbery trial, let’s say that juror Keisha thought there were some gaps or inconsistencies in the cashier’s testimony, so she looks him up online to see if he talked about being robbed on social media closer to when it happened. Not only does she find his tweets from right after the incident, which bolster the story he told on direct examination (and that your counsel did their best to bash holes in during cross), she finds his cousin’s Facebook. The cousin has an emotionally charged post about how the cashier came to her house sobbing after talking to police, and everything he told her about the robbery. During deliberations, Keisha shares the tweets and the cousin’s post with the other jurors. Now, wouldn’t you be mad if you found out that there was another witness against you in the case (the cousin) that you didn’t get a chance to question? Wouldn’t you be upset to hear that the jurors were using the cashier’s tweets as evidence for your guilt, when the prosecutor didn’t present them in court and you didn’t get an opportunity to ask the cashier about them (and they may have been inadmissible, as discussed below)? Your Sixth Amendment right to confrontation has been violated, because a juror did outside research!

3) Expert Witnesses--This is obviously linked with the last point. When explaining evidence will involve some technical knowledge, the prosecution may present an “expert” witness to provide that background and knowledge. Such an expert might or might not have any other link to the current case. For example, where a gun is involved in a crime, a ballistics expert might be called to testify in general about bullet calibers, how guns work and how bullets can be matched to them, etc., and then may be asked to provide an expert opinion based on that knowledge--perhaps whether, after performing some examination, she believes a bullet fired into the floor of the convenience store during the robbery appears to “match” with a gun found in your home. Before an expert witness may provide such testimony, both the prosecution and the defense will ask her questions about her qualifications as an expert, such as her education on the subject, whether she has any certifications in the field, whether she attends ongoing training to update her knowledge, things like that. Then, the judge will make a finding whether the qualifications are sufficient for her to testify as an expert, and will tell the jury that it should consider those qualifications when deciding whether her opinion has any weight.

Now, for an example, let’s say juror Winn didn’t think the ballistics expert sounded very certain about matching the bullet to the gun police claim they found in your home, and is wondering how much weight they should even give the witness’s testimony. At home, they do a quick google search to see if the kind of gun police claim was at your house uses the type of bullet they found at the store. They find a website listing many types of guns and bullets, read that the gun can indeed fire that type of bullet, and even see the site creator’s opinion that this kind of gun is an “assault weapon” and that those bullets are particularly damaging. During deliberations, Winn tells the other jurors what they learned. Whoops! That website may have been used by the jury as an “expert witness,” despite the fact that its creator may only be a hobbyist gun enthusiast without formal education! You didn’t get to question this mysterious person about their qualifications to speak about ballistics, you didn’t get to cross-examine their opinions...and you should really file an appeal if you’re convicted.

4) Inadmissible Evidence--Prior to any criminal trial, there will probably be at least some discussion (and motions) by your counsel and the prosecutor about whether certain evidence is admissible at trial. For example, your lawyer might move to suppress your confession to police, because they used improper interrogation tactics or violated your Miranda rights. Or, if you have a prior record, the State might try to submit evidence of your earlier convictions (a type of evidence that is highly prejudicial, because it makes it look like you’re “a criminal,” particularly if your prior conviction involves a similar offense to the one currently charged). In fact, let’s go with that example. Let’s say you have a prior conviction for assault, from several years ago. The court rules that the prosecution may not bring up that conviction to make you look bad during their case. However, if you choose to testify, the prosecutor will be allowed to ask you some basic information about it--its degree, and when it happened, but NOT what offense it was for--so the jury can assess the credibility of your testimony with the knowledge that you have broken the law before. Maybe you choose to testify anyway, and that “sanitized” (a legal term) info is told to the jury.

Hearing that you had a prior conviction, Amir is curious, and searches for your name and the phrase “conviction.” He finds the record of your conviction, which is public, and finds out it was for assault. Well, the very information the court ruled inadmissible is soon shared with the whole jury, and several members now think of you not just as someone with some vague prior offense, but as someone who assaults people. You know. Like a robber does. Alternatively, let’s say you decided not to testify, because you worried that the jury would find out you had a prior conviction and become biased against you. So, the prosecutor wasn’t allowed to talk about the subject at all. But Amir still wondered in general about what kind of person you are, so he still did his google search for your name and found out about your conviction anyway. You gave up your chance to tell your side of the story, and the jury still discovered exactly what you wanted to hide!

This point can also dovetail with the prior ones. What if Amir found your mom’s blog post where she mentioned how you confessed the robbery to police, despite the fact that the judge ruled your confession inadmissible and the jury would otherwise have no idea it existed? The jury now knows that you “confessed,” but since the confession was never discussed at trial you didn’t have a chance to cross-examine the cops that interrogated you about the subject. So the jury doesn’t know they withheld food from you for hours and wouldn’t let you speak to your attorney. As far as the jury knows, the cops did nothing wrong! You didn’t get the chance to confront that evidence against you.

5) Mistakes or Misinformation--Seriously, a website might have a typo in it. The problem can be as stupid and yet as vital as that. Plenty of sites have agendas or viewpoints they’re trying to push, too. Sure, a person testifying in court might lie (on pain of being found out and charged with perjury!) or make a mistake or not remember something correctly. But it’s a really bad idea to add into that mix the chaos of internet research, when a criminal defendant’s liberty is on the line. Jurors are expected to evaluate whether they think witnesses are credible based on what goes on in the courtroom. Allowing them to “check” witness testimony online, using sites that might also not be credible at all, simply doesn’t make sense. In court, at least a witness can be cross-examined. You can’t cross-examine a juror’s Wikipedia trail.

6) Even Positive Stuff is Bad--Okay, you may be saying, but all these examples involve jurors discovering stuff that’s bad for me the hypothetical defendant. What if a juror googles a cop witness and finds his racist tweets, hurting his credibility? What if a witness lies about something, and a juror finds their Facebook where they told the real story? What if a witness misstates something and a juror looks up a website that tells them the accurate facts? That would help me! I guess so, and the lack of prejudice to you the defendant’s constitutional rights might be taken into account if, say, the prosecutor finds out about these types of jury taint and moves for a mistrial. But the government also has a strong interest in maintaining the integrity of a trial, and that will also be weighed.

In the end, the answer to the question “why don’t we let jurors do outside research” is “because your Constitutional right to a fair trial is so important.” You shouldn’t be deprived of your liberty without due process, and due process includes the right to question, cross-examine, and call into question all of the evidence against you. As a result, the verdict in your case needs to be based on the evidence officially presented in court during your trial, not whatever mishmash of sources the jury might discover outside. Even though there might be the off chance that some juror’s research could help your side, there are so many ways you could be hurt by it. If you were facing the possibility of several years in prison, would you want to take that chance, and have this key rule be changed?

#kidk says stuff #law #this got long but i feel like things make more sense to non-law people if i explain with examples #and honestly the fact that it's long is in itself evidence of how important this shit is #it's SO important to know and understand your rights #they're not just concepts on paper in an old ass document--they're there for a reason!

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thenightling · 3 years

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In defense of Tom Sturridge (Already!?)

Apparently Tom Sturridge needs defending from our own meager fandom... already...

Disclaimer: Though it is looking more and more likely that Tom Sturridge has the role of Morpheus in Netflix’s Adaptation of The Sandman this has still NOT been confirmed. We are still riding on pure speculation. However, I will defend the man.

Though it is not officially confirmed that Tom Sturridge will be playing Morpheus in The Sandman there are already people in the fandom complaining about the casting. (See the Neil Gaiman’s Sandman Facebook group. The one with over three-thousand-members that I left.)

In this post I will be addressing each and every complaint that I have seen thus far.

And you wonder why they’re keeping the cast a secret from us for so long? This. This behavior would actually be worse if you knew for certain who was in the cast.

When these negative reactions are in regard to who “might” be playing Morpheus, without any actual footage, or even images of him in character, they were wise to keep it a secret from us.

Now, let us begin.

1. “He looks too much like Robert Pattinson.” The hatred of Robert Pattinson is bizarre and irrational. It is as if a great deal of the population cannot separate him from a character they despise. The irony is Robert Pattinson never liked playing Edward Cullen anyway. He did it strictly for the money. And as far as vampire fiction goes, there is far, far, worse out there than Twilight. Twilight is not good but there is worse out there. It seems the hatred of Twilight is almost a knee-jerk reaction- a compulsive raw contempt against anything that appeals to teenage girls. I do not like Twilight but I do not irrationally hate an actor just because he was in the films. So what if Tom Sturridge resembles Robert Pattinson a bit? You’ll condemn an actor because of his bone structure? Because he “Kind of” reminds you of a man who played a character you don’t like? Really? I thought most of this fandom were grown ups.

2. “He’s too young to play Morpheus.” The casting call was for men between the ages of twenty six and thirty six. Tom Sturridge turns thirty-six this year. It’s true that a man in his forties or even a youthful fifties could probably play Morpheus perfectly well and Morpheus did have crows-feet wrinkles in the first issue but to condemn an actor based on his age is merely ageism. In this day and age a man can look any age with the right makeup. Look at the lead in the silent film of Faust, directed by F. W. Murnau (Director of Nosferatu). It’s impressive to know a thirty-six-year-old played elderly and youthful Faust in that film, and that was back in 1926.

3. “He’s too old to play Morpheus.” ...Seriously? What did you want? A CW teenager or early twenty-something college kid as the ten-billion-year-old dream lord? Yet again, I know a man can pretty much play any age with the right makeup. All else is ageism, even my cynical statement about the CW, that’s ageism.

When Lestat the musical was on Broadway the actor who played Lestat was forty, the woman playing his mother was only about two years older than him.

The actor playing Barnabas in the original Dark Shadows was in his forties. The character was (According to Dan Curtis) only twenty-five when he became a vampire. The woman playing his mother was only five-years-older than him.

Tom Welling was still in Smallville as pre-Superman Clark Kent and he was older than the actor who played Superman in Superman Returns. With good acting and makeup age doesn’t really matter.

4. “He’s a terrible actor.” The man has about ten acting credits in total according to IMDB. Most are bit parts and two are from when he was ten and eleven-years-old respectively.

Are you judging him on roles he had before he hit puberty!?

I have my doubts you ever saw him act in anything yet. You’re probably leaping to conclusions because the pictures you found of him are a stoic pretty boy with beard stubble.

5. “If he’s playing Morpheus that’s automatically a deal breaker. I’m not watching.” Okay. Okay, fine. Don’t watch it. You don’t have to. No one is making you watch it. However, you should be aware that Neil Gaiman watched the auditions. He had a say in the casting. If Tom Sturridge is playing him than this is the man HE chose. If Neil Gaiman doesn’t know who should play Morpheus, than no one does. I thought James McAvoy did an excellent job in The Sandman audio drama and I will not automatically assume Tom Sturridge is a bad actor just because there are people pre-determined to hate this.

6. “He shouldn’t be played by a white man. It indicates that The Endless are all white and white people rule the universe.” Morpheus likely will still have his bone-white (not human-white) skin from the comics (and I hope, the black void eyes with star pupils). This was pulled off successfully with the Frankenstein monster in Penny Dreadful, with his own inhuman skin and yellow eyes.

Morpheus’ bone-white skin, improbably thin build, and black void eyes are supposed to be without distinct race. He’s not a human being. He’s not Caucasian. He might be played by a white man, yes, but the actor was chosen based on talent, not racial background.

I saw the casting description. Race was not a factor. Since actual non-human / humanoid entities devoid of distinct racial background were unavailable, the show simply had to make do with a human being, instead. The real Endless were unavailable or refuse to act. You know how temperamental anthropomorphic personifications can be.

7. “He’s not thin enough.” Okay, look. A lot can be done with CG. I don’t want an actor killing himself for this role.

Back in 1976 David Bowie was close to ninety-pounds when playing Thomas Jerome Newton in The Man who fell to Earth. He was so under-weight that the wardrobe department had to buy his clothes in the children’s department of a store. Yes, the character was really that thin in the Walter Tevis novel that the movie was based on. But in the book Newton had hollow bones, like a bird, David Bowie, however, is a human being, not an alien. And Tom Sturridge is a human being, not an anthropomorphic personification.

When David Bowie played Newton he was on a diet mostly consisting of cocaine... He could have easily died. Thankfully Bowie cleaned up later, but he was not in a healthy state when he was in The man who fell to Earth. We do not need a return of The Thin White Duke. Not like that.

For a human to reach Morpheus’ comic book weight- that might require very unhealthy behavior, it would potentially be dangerous. This is something they can adjust with camera tricks and computer effects. He does not need to look like he’s dying.

8. “They should find an actor whose cheekbones stand out.” See above...

9. “He doesn’t look anything like Morpheus.” I am certain you have not seen him in costume yet. Neil Gaiman has (hypothetically speaking). Let us trust the author and believe that his character looks the way he intended. Remember how Henry Cavill went from Superman to The Witcher.

10. “I wanted Henry Cavill to play him.” ... What?

Have you... have you read Sandman? Henry Cavill is under contract to do The Witcher. He needs to stay buff for that role, and you want him to play “rake thin” Morpheus? Yeah, a lot can be done with CG but Henry is an action hero actor. He can act. He’s a good actor. But this is probably not the right role for Henry Cavill.

11. “He looks like an American Youtuber.” He’s not either of those things. Stop judging by appearances.

12. “He’s too pretty to play Morpheus.” Stop judging by appearances.

13. “He’s not attractive enough to play Morpheus.” See above...

14. “He’s too short to play Morpheus.” / “I heard he’s only five foot three.” / “I read that he’s just five foot eight.” According to Google and IMDB he’s 5′10. That’s the same height David Bowie was. That’s average adult male height. If they want him to look taller that’s easily done. Remember, Tom Cruise was The Vampire Lestat.

It’s just lather, rinse, repeat, when it comes to fans. Every adaptation the same thing. “Tom Cruise can’t play Lestat.” (Anne Rice apologized for leading that charge, when she saw him in action). Or “Michael Keaton is too wholesome to play Batman.” or even “Ryan Reynolds should never play Deadpool after what he did in Wolverine.”

People never learn.

Just give Tom Sturridge a chance. The casting isn’t even official yet. And if he is Morpheus- try and wait to actually see how he plays the role before you decide he’s the worst thing to happen to The Sandman. A few publicity photos don’t tell you what he is capable of as an actor. You might be pleasantly surprised.

#Tom Sturridge #The Sandman #Morpheus #Dream of The Endless #Neil Gaiman #Neil Gaiman's The Sandman

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haosvteen · 4 years

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I Found You | soulmate seventeen series

a/n: this is my first traditionally written imagine i’m posting here, so i hope you like it!! i’m a little bit nervous to post, so please let me know how you like it :)

minghao x reader | soulmate seventeen

~ - fluff

word count: 3.2k

main masterlist

All you could focus on is the ticking of the clock and the tapping of your pencil on the worn-out wooden desk. No matter how hard you tried to tune into your professor’s monotone voice lecturing about string theory, your mind kept wandering elsewhere. Literally anywhere else. At first, you started thinking about why you had to take this class anyway. It didn’t have anything to do with your major, so what was the point? But as soon as that thought came, it went, and you were trying to decide where to get lunch after the unnecessarily long class ended.

Leaning down to your side and reaching into your backpack on the floor, you pulled out a brown leather-bound notebook. Running your fingers over the intricate gold designs adorning the spine, admiring the swirls and flowers, you placed it on your desk and flipped it open. Gliding your pencil across the unlined, seemingly old paper, you wrote “What do I get for lunch? My stomach is about to grumble in class”.

You run a hand through your hair with a sigh and look back up at your professor, once again trying to figure out what he is attempting to explain. One-dimensional strings? Quantum gravity? It meant nothing to you. Thankfully, Hao had been helping you almost every night. Honestly, you felt a little bad because he was trying his hardest to make it simple for you, but the content was essentially impossible to understand. Your brain just doesn’t seem to cooperate when it comes to physics.

Looking back down at the notebook below you, you received a response: “What about that pizza place you like down the street from your apartment?”. Just the thought of the greasy slice of goodness makes your stomach emit an audible grumble, causing several heads near you to turn your way, judgmental looks behind their eyes. After taking a moment to apologetically smile at them and deal with your embarrassment, you jot on the paper, “Hao, you’re a genius how do you always know what I want?”.

Almost as quickly as you finished writing your sentence, you see Hao’s handwriting appear letter by letter on the page. “It’s because I’m your soulmate, duh”. You lean your head on your hand and smile to yourself, noticing the students around you start packing up their books and leaving the room, signaling to you that class had finished.

After closing all of your books and stuffing them in your backpack, you slung a strap on your shoulder and started to make your way out of the classroom. Before you had the opportunity to escape into the hallway, your professor called to you, “Ms. Y/L/N, would you mind seeing me for a moment?”

Slowly turning around, you made your way up to the front of the classroom where he was wiping down the blackboard for the next class. It felt as if you were walking to the gallows due to the tone of his beckoning. “Yes, sir?”, you asked, curious as to what this may be about. Had he noticed you weren’t paying attention? That you were writing in your soulmate journal?

“As you know, final exams are coming up and I am concerned about your final grade in this class. In order to pass, you need to earn at least an 85% or higher on the final,” he nonchalantly said, not even bothering to make eye contact with you as he began to pack up.

You knew that you were not the best at physics, but you did not realize your grade was so low. That you would basically have to eat, sleep, and breathe the subject until the end of the term. “I’m so sorry, is there any extra credit I could possibly do? I’ve been trying my best, it’s just that-“, before you had the opportunity to finish your statement, he had cut you off.

“You haven’t been trying your best, though. Far too often I see you writing away in that notebook of yours and I highly doubt your taking notes.” You didn’t even know what to say in response to that because he was right. You weren’t taking notes. But could you be blamed for wanting to talk with your soulmate? Somewhere along the way since your 16th birthday, you and Hao discovered that you lived in different time zones so there were only certain times of the day you could talk to each other…one of those times just happened to be during this class. If only your professor understood this.

As if the gruff man in front of you read your mind, he continued, “I am assuming that is your soulmate journal?” Silently giving a small nod, you internally cringed for what was to come because based on the raised eyebrow and demeaning glare, it could not be good. “You know all of that’s bullshit right?”. Your jaw slightly dropped because you were not expecting that to come from your professor’s mouth.

“Statistically only 32% of people actually end up with their ‘soulmate’? No one even understands the technology of these journals or where they come from. Researchers haven’t been able to find conclusive evidence of the accuracy of these journals. The odds are higher that you will end up with someone in this class rather than whomever you are speaking to through those pieces of paper. I suggest you keep this in mind for the remainder of the semester,” your professor concluded and hastily marched out of the classroom.

You are dumbfounded. You didn’t know what your professor wanted to see you about, but in no way did you suspect that. Alright, maybe you suspected him addressing you about your poor grade, but that rant? Probably would have been the last thing you guessed. After overcoming the initial shock of the encounter you just were on the receiving end of, you shook your head and finally left the room.

Walking down the street to your favorite pizza place (as Hao suggested), you couldn’t stop thinking about everything your professor said. Was it really true that only 32% of people end up with their soulmate? And now that you thought about it, having someone’s writing showing up in some magical journal you get on your 16th birthday seems a little impractical too.

After taking a seat at the small pizzeria, you took a bite, the cheese stretching, and about to fall off the slice. You wiped your greasy fingers off on a napkin before pulling out your soulmate journal to write to Hao, telling him his suggestion was an excellent choice.

While waiting for his response, you decided to do a little bit more research about the probability of soulmates ending up together. With a simple google search, thousands of articles came up about the illegitimacy of the journals, however, there were equally as many describing the validity of them while recounting people’s personal positive experiences.

After reading article after article, you couldn’t help but question if you would actually end up with Hao. You’d never had to think about it before. Your whole life, you had always been told: “whoever you write to in your soulmate journal is who you will find true love with and be forever happy”. You didn’t have a reason to question it either because you love Hao. Even though you had never seen him, you knew that you love him.

Your parents were connected through the soulmate journal and found each other, so they raised you to believe that the same would happen for you. The difference is that your parents had known each other since they were six years old. It was easier for them. You didn’t even know where Hao was from. You had your guesses considering his timezone, but you really knew nothing else. The journal would erase writing that held personal information (which sounds kind of…magical? but everyone has a notebook in which they can speak to their soulmate, so who’s to judge when that is an aspect of your world). When you first got your journal, you immediately wrote in it, providing your social media handles so your soulmate could find you. However, with every letter you wrote, they disappeared twice as fast.

There were many sleepless nights you complained to your friends about how hard it was because you just wanted to find him. You just wanted to be able to see his face. Hear his voice. Almost everyone you knew found their soulmates easily, but you were what felt like the only one left without your soulmate. Especially one on the other side of the world.

Becoming so wrapped in your thoughts, you picked up your pen again and wrote in the journal, “Hey…have you ever thought that we maybe…won’t end up together?”.

“What do you mean? Of course, we will end up together. We’re soulmates. That’s the whole purpose of this journal,” Minghao responded.

“I know, I know, but my professor just told me some stuff today. It’s stupid and I know I shouldn’t even worry about it, but he said that only 32% of people actually end up with their soulmate,” you explained. Sitting up in your seat, you started to get a little anxious. You know that Hao hated talking about this stuff.

“Y/N, I’ve told you this so many times before. We will find each other. I will find you. Don’t listen to the statistics,”. As you see the words appear on the paper in front of you, you can’t help but think…what if? What if you don’t find each other. Taking a moment to logically think about it, there is really no definitive way to track the other down. It all happens by chance.

As you placed your pen on the paper, about to write back, Hao’s handwriting appeared again. “I don’t want you to worry about this. The universe wants us together. It will find a way.”

With a sigh, you simply responded, “You’re right, I’ll talk to you later” and quickly drew a heart. You closed the journal, hoping it would help the thoughts leave your head, but you couldn’t stop the constant what-ifs running through your mind for the next days.

During that time, you did more research and truly discovered statistically how low the chances are that you will find your soulmate. There are 7.5 billion people in the world, what are the odds you find your person?

Things between you and Hao were never really the same after that.

It started out slowly. You would happen to forget your journal at home when you went out and instead of running back to get it (like you usually would), you didn’t bother. There were days that turned into weeks where you wouldn’t write to Minghao at all. Every so often you would maybe leave a kind message telling him to have a good day, but there were no longer meaningful conversations between you two. You even started seeing other boys. If statistically, you were not going to end up with Minghao, it was okay to start looking elsewhere.

Having been raised on the idea that this person on the other end of the journal is who you will end up with, no ifs, ands, or buts about it, didn’t allow you to experience young love the way many people do. When you turned 16, all of your attention went immediately to Minghao…because you were 100% sure you would end up with him. Now that you knew the small likelihood of that actually happening, you allowed yourself to find happiness. Even if it wasn’t with your soulmate.

Not to say that you forgot about Minghao. You could never forget about Minghao. But no matter how much you wished that it would work between you two, you knew the reality of the situation.

Several years had gone by. You and Minghao would write to each other in your journals sometimes, but never at the same time. Typically, you would write a message every several months to update him about what was going on in your life and he would do the same. Even years later, you still regret leaving him the way you did. You cannot imagine what providing little to no explanation did to him, but you were young. You didn’t know how to handle it.

But now, your life was completely different from those years ago when your best friend was through a journal. You had a career that you loved, amazing and supportive friends…there wasn’t more you could ask for. Except that you still hadn’t found someone. You thought that it would be easier to find a boy to spend your life with, even if it wasn’t Minghao, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Everyone was just looking for people to hook up and have one-night-stands with as they waited to find their soulmate. No one had accepted the reality of the situation as you had. While some might say that you were being pessimistic, you liked to think of it as being logical.

It was 8:54am and you were stumbling all over your apartment in an attempt to get dressed while simultaneously pack your bag for work. You were sure that you set your alarm for 6:30am so you had ample time to prepare and have a relaxing morning before you had to leave to catch your train. The image of the 6:30am alarm on your phone being switched on was ingrained in your mind, you knew you turned it on. Technology works in mysterious ways.

While tugging on the first appropriate shoes you found, you swung open the closet door that contained your sweatshirts that were still appropriate for work. This was your go-to when you were running late and today was definitely one of those days. As you swiftly opened the door, a book fell down from the top shelf. Your soulmate journal.

The panic of the morning immediately halted. It had been years since you had even looked at it. You shoved it away in a random box while moving to this city for your job and you honestly hadn’t thought about it since. While the memories of your conversations with Minghao flooded your mind, you decided to pack it in your bag. Maybe you would write to him while you were on your lunch break.

Grabbing the last of your items, you hurried out the door, trying to make it to the next scheduled train. As you exited your building and began running down the busy sidewalk to the train station, the crisp air whipped against your face. Your nose and ears were numb, but that was the least of your worries.

Your lungs felt like they were on the verge of exploding as you approached the train and saw the double doors sliding closed. “Hey!!! Someone hold the door!!! Please!!!”, you shout breathlessly, hoping to catch the attention of anyone inside the warm transport. To your luck, someone heard you and stuck their hand outside. Little did they know they were saving you from having to wait another 30 minutes for a train.

As you quickened your pace to enter the train, you smiled at the man who held the doors open for you, “Thank you so much, if it weren’t for you I would even more late for work than I am now”.

“No problem,” he said while making his way to a seat. Taking a moment to smooth out your hair, you followed behind him trying to find a place of your own. After looking around, the only one you found available was right across from that same man.

You looked at your watch and couldn’t help but watch the seconds and minutes tick away, making you more and more late for work. Stealing you from your trance, your phone began ringing. Noticing that it was your boss, you couldn’t help but let out a heavy sigh.

Before you had the opportunity to say hello, he was screaming into your ear, “Y/N where are you?! We need you here now!! This is unacceptable behavior.”

“I understand, I apologize. I’m on my way, sir. I will be there as fast as I can,” you responded, trying to keep your cool. After some more several unkind words, your boss hung up the phone. Running your hands over your face, you look up to see the man sitting opposite you, staring at you with wide eyes and a slightly agape mouth. You gave him a small smile and looked away, trying to ignore the look he continued to give you.

“Y/N?” you heard him say.

“Oh, me?” you questioned, to ensure that he was talking to you. Hopefully whatever he has to say won’t take too long because the train was due to stop in three minutes and you had to get off immediately.

He responds with a nod, eyes still as wide as a deer in headlights, “I’m Minghao”.

With that, your expression imitated his. Minghao? As in your Minghao?

“Wait, I don’t understand. You’re here?” you asked because last time you read a message from him in the journal, he hadn’t moved or mentioned traveling. Well…the last time you had touched the journal was years ago.

Minghao quickly moved to rummage in his bag. After a few moments, he pulled out a brown leather-bound notebook…with gold designs on the spine…swirls and flowers.

Before you knew what you were doing, you also began to dig in your bag for your soulmate journal…that happened to fall out of your closet today…that you wouldn’t have opened if your alarm would have gone off…

You immediately opened the old journal for the first time in years. The first words you see are, “I found you”.

Looking up at Hao, tears began to form in your eyes. You hadn’t admitted it to yourself, but it had been so hard without him. It’s like whenever you weren’t with him, everything was so much worse. Even if you only knew each other through the soulmate journal.

The train came to a screeching stop and the people around you began standing and exiting to the station, but you two remained seated. There were some people giving you some strange looks, but they didn’t realize that two people who were meant to be together had finally met. That you and Hao had met.

“I’ve looked everywhere for you,” Hao said as he stood up. “I told you I would find you.”

You couldn’t help yourself, but run up and wrap your arms around him. The arms you wanted to hold you since you were 16. You could finally feel him. Hear his voice. See his face. You could be with him. Not just through pieces of bound paper.

You pulled away from him and looked up into his eyes. Your cheeks were tear-stained, but you couldn’t help it. “We are not a statistic,” Hao softly whispered. His eyes flicked from yours, down to your lips. He moved his hands up to your face, using his thumbs to wipe the tears that won’t stop cascading down your cheeks. He leaned into you slowly, softly pressing his lips to yours.

“I found you,” Hao said so only you could hear, as he leaned his forehead against yours.

He found you.

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aer-in-wanderland · 4 years

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구미호뎐 | Tale of the Nine Tailed - Ji Ah’s Fate & the Korean Mythology Surrounding It (requested by @kestrel-of-herran)

Ask: One of the most fascinating things for me is the prophecy the fortune teller told Ji Ah when she gave him the fox bead. I feel like that's important foreshadowing for the drama's ending. How would you translate and interpret that?

Note: words/terms left in Korean require context and will be discussed below.

EP06 The Four Pillars of Fate - Ji Ah Trades the Fox Bead

Ji Ah: I’ll repay this eunhye no matter what, please?

Fortune Teller: Okay, okay! You were a princess in your past life, do you think you’re a princess now? You think if you whine enough you can have anything. Ei! Your hand. Give me thine hand. (Ji Ah extends her right hand). Left hand!

Ji Ah: (changing hands) Left hand.

Fortune Teller: You were born with a very special saju weren’t you! Water and fire vie on par, earth is clouded, but metal will subdue it, so though darkness should surround you (literally: all four directions, heaven, and earth), a moon rises in your sky.

Ji Ah: I’m not sure what you mean...?

Fortune Teller: You have the fox bead! For that is your moon.

Ji Ah: Excuse me?

Fortune Teller: Give to me the fox bead. Even without a moon, your saju is overflowing enough. Therefore...!

Ji Ah: I’ll give it to you! I don’t believe in such things as palja.

Fortune Teller: The deal...has been accepted.

Ji Ah: Pardon? Already?

Fortune Teller: Your palm lines. Your palm lines have changed.

(Note: I translated this working from the raw, so I haven’t seen the subs to be able to comment on them).

Eunhye (은혜)

Commonly translated as a ‘favor’ or ‘debt,’ ‘eunhye’ is distinct from both of these both linguistically and conceptually. When Yeon says that foxes are obligated to repay ‘debts,’ he’s actually talking about eunhye. ‘Debt’ is another word entirely (빚) and it does appear occasionally. The two are distinct. The glowing ring bonds formed between Yeon and Ah Eum, and Rang and Sajang are both manifestations of eunhye.

One Korean folktale in which eunhye features famously is the tale of the Grateful Magpies (은혜갚은 까치, literally: ‘the magpies who repaid their eunhye’). Shin Joo refers to this in EP02 when Yeon tells him about returning Ji Ah’s eyesight to her even after she tranquilized him:

Shin Joo: And you’re saying you just let her go? And returned her sight, too?

Yeon: Since rules are rules.

Shin Joo: It’s not as if we’re magpies meticulously repaying our eunhye! Geez, how long do we have to be bound by that sort of premodern contractual relationship?

Eunhye is difficult to translate but can be approximated as ‘help or favor (as in ‘to favor someone’) given willingly.’ In my mind, rather than a debt which is a negative concept, eunhye is more of a positive concept. There’s a voluntary, good faith/good will element to it. So you’re ‘indebted’ as the result of a good deed done for you. Except it’s not so voluntary if you’re a gumiho, apparently.

In contrast, when Yeon tells Eodukshini, ‘I’ll repay this debt shortly,’ in EP08 (could also be translated sarcastically as ‘I’ll return the favor shortly’), he uses the actual word for debt (빚) - no good will to be had here on either side.

Saju Palja (사주팔자）

Literally ‘four pillars eight characters’ (四柱八字), commonly translated as the ‘four pillars of destiny/fate.’ The concept comes from the Chinese astrological concept that a person’s destiny or fate can be divined by the two sexagenary cycle characters assigned to their birth year, month, day, and hour. For more on that, I’ll refer you to Wikipedia. ;)

In EP02, when Yeon asks Taluipa to look into whether Ji Ah’s parents are alive or dead, he has Ji Ah text him their saju (birth dates and times).

I’m not sure how palmistry fits in with the concept, and am no expert in astrology, western or eastern, so I can’t offer any interpretation of the fortune teller’s prophecy, but if anyone wants to try looking into it I’d be intrigued to hear what you find. Apparently, the writer spent 2.5 years on the script, so I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that there’s actual meaning behind it.

The Fox Bead (여우 구슬)

Fox beads are a common earmark of gumiho lore in both Korea and Japan (and probably China, too, but I don’t know enough Chinese to speak to that). In most tellings I’ve encountered, a fox can’t live without their bead, but that doesn’t appear to be the case for Yeon. I was also intrigued by the following exchange he has with the Magistrate in EP06:

Yeon: That’s the Mirror of the Moon. Do you mean to harm (literally: catch) a human with one of the four great mountain gods’ four great treasures meant to protect all creation?

Magistrate: And so, did your fox bead protect all of creation? Or did it protect one person?

To my thinking, this implies that Yeon’s fox bead is being attributed to his status as a mountain god as much as it is to his being a fox. None of our other foxes seem to have one, but none of them are gumiho (gu = nine, ie. the number of tails), much less cheonho (heavenly foxes) like Yeon.

I’m actually a little unclear on this front as well. According to the excerpt from the Hyeonjoong’gi (玄中記) at the start of the first episode, foxes that live to be a hundred can take human form and foxes that live to be a thousand become cheonho. Shin Joo is obviously at least 600 years old but he doesn’t appear to be anywhere near Yeon’s caliber (or even Rang’s who is half human), something he says himself, and in the spin-off he only had one tail. Yoo Ri is younger still. It’s unclear to me whether they will ‘level up' if they live long enough, or if they will never be as powerful as Yeon, regardless of how long they live. I get the sense it’s the latter. Both Yeon and Shin Joo have said that Yeon was of a different caliber from the very beginning (in EP02 and EP03, respectively).

Finally, we haven’t been told much about the fox bead’s powers other than emitting an aura only Yeon can see (sometimes) and suppressing Imoogi inside of Ji Ah. I’m hoping we see it again before the series wraps, but not convinced they’ll have time to recover it given everything else that needs to happen.

On another note, based on the preview for EP15, it appears that the Magistrate’s Mirror of the Moon will be coming back into play. My guess is that Imoogi is going to steal it from the Magistrate and use it on Taluipa. She was shown turned to stone in the background while Yeon and Terry-Imoogi fight. That’s originally her power, so I think Imoogi may use the mirror against her similarly to how the Magistrate ‘absorbed’ the sword Yeon sent flying at him and re-directed it at Ji Ah.

The Jeo Seung Shi Wang (저승 시왕)

The Ten Kings of the Afterlife (jeo-seung-shi-wang) [저승 시왕], as they’re known in the drama, are more commonly called the Ten Kings of the Underworld (myeong-bu-shi-wang) [명부 시왕・冥府十王]. In the subs they appear as the Afterlife Judges, which is accurate in that this is one of the key roles that they perform. As we're told in EP13, the fortune teller is actually one of them.

Yeon: What’s the word? That fortune teller, did you find out about him?

Snail Bride: I’ve been asking around via our patrons.

Yeon: He didn’t seem to be just another low-level native (Korean) god. What’s the geezer’s deal?

Snail Bride: This seems like just a baseless rumour, but there was talk that one of the Ten Kings of the Afterlife who rule over hell leaves his position without notice at odd times.

Yeon: Heh...Interesting. In any case, relay any news you hear about that geezer to me as soon as you hear it.

While the Snail Bride seems to doubt the validity of the rumour, Yeon appears confident it’s true. He later relays this to Team Fox at their strategy meeting:

Yeon: Do you remember the fortune teller we met at the Korean Folk Village?

Ji Ah: Of course I remember! (Shooting Rang a dirty look) Because of someone [your] fox bead was stolen from us.

Rang: I heard rumour he’s a major big shot. Is it true?

Yeon: He’s one of the Ten Kings of Hell.

Rang: What?!

Yeon: They say he’s also in possession of the Uiryeong’geom (geom = sword).

Rang: No way~

Jae Hwan: What’s the Uiryeong’geom?

Shin Joo: It’s a sword that cuts evil (literally: sins).

Jae Hwan: Cuts...evil, you said?

Shin Joo: It’s sword they say was made in ancient days by King Yeomra himself from a branch he broke off of the Uiryeongsu (su = tree) that weighs sins. But, didn’t that disappear from the world several thousand years ago?

Yeon: (Shaking his head) Uh-uh. The Snail Bride just picked it up.

As you may recall, the Ten Kings are the ones who put a celestial hit on Rang which led Yeon to track him down and pretend to kill him (thanks for the angst), and they’re the ones who passed judgement on Yeon after he killed the mudang (shamanness) and sentenced him to time in the Snow Mountain Prison.

It appears that there was some confusion going around that the fortune teller is King Yeomra. Given the above dialogue, I can see where people may have understood his possession of the sword to indicate that, and, in truth, we don’t know which of the Ten Kings he is. That being said, I think if King Yeomra was frequently vacating his post without notice, someone would have said something. I also think Yeomra is a big enough name that if it were him they would’ve just come out and said so. Yeomra is also Taluipa’s brother so she, at least, would know. My assumption was that he was one of the other, less well known kings.

To conclude, this has all been a long way of saying that I have no idea what Ji Ah’s palja will mean for her fate. What I can provide is a little context. I’m not familiar with the sword, and it doesn’t turn up when I google it, so I suspect it was invented for the purpose of the show. Whether it remains a red herring until the end or shows up in the final hour remains to be seen.

#tale of the nine tailed #nam ji ah #korean mythology #ask #totnt #구미호뎐 #남지아 #my translations #kestrel-of-herran #totnt ask

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spine-buster · 4 years

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the storm before the calm (f. andersen) | prologue

A/N: Here. We. Go. Canon questions welcome (even though this is just the prologue).

Frederik Andersen was tired. He was tired, and it was nearly two o’clock in the morning, and he was walking down King Street West to get home. Except then he remembered: he remembered he couldn’t go home yet, because he needed to pick up toilet paper, and he couldn’t go home without toilet paper.

Or aftershave.

Or toothpaste.

He could never just go home like he wanted to – there always had to be something. Something that obstructed him from doing what he wanted to do, from getting himself to the comfort of his own home, from being the traditional homebody that he was. Something always thwarted his plans. Something always came up.

He sighed.

He took out his phone and opened Google Maps to make sure he hadn’t walked past the 24-hour Shopper’s Drug Mart yet. He knew it was a five-minute walk from his condo, but in the dark of night he knew it would be hard to see. It also didn’t help that it was obscured within an old building, the typically large, LED-signage not present like with others. Noticing that it was only the next block over, he hurried his pace, walking through the scores of girls in too-short dresses drunkenly tipping over on their stiletto heels grabbing onto one another for support and the boys desperate for their phone numbers following them out of the bars and clubs that lined the street with their phones in their hands and hope in their eyes.

Because it was two o’clock in the morning, the Shoppers Drug Mart was empty. There was one lady standing at a till, with all the self-checkouts still open. He wasn’t even sure if the pharmacist was present, looking towards the back to see if his suspicions were correct. It was quiet – so quiet he could practically hear the ringing of the lights above him. The only interruptions were giggles from girls outside or cars revving their engines.

Okay, toilet paper.

He grabbed a small basket, putting in a quick 6-roll package inside, knowing that it would probably last him until his next road trip, when – inevitably – he’d come home late at night and realize he was out of toilet paper and would have to run back to the same Shopper’s Drug Mart to get some so he could sleep peacefully.

Toothpaste.

He walked a few aisles over and was greeted with the wall of toothpaste. He grabbed an old favourite and chucked it into his basket.

Aftershave.

The previous aisle back. He realized his usual was locked up in a cabinet, and he wasn’t in the mood to go ask the one lady working the till to get the key and unlock it just for him. He had enough to last him. He made the decision to come back tomorrow. Or, technically, later today. When there was light outside.

Was there anything else?

Deodorant. He needed deodorant.

He walked the few aisles over to where he knew the deodorant was, and as soon as he turned the corner, he saw a figure. It was a person – that much he knew – in a stylish trench coat. A woman – mounds of hair twisted and tied with a scrunchie in a messy bun atop her head, the wisps of hair she didn’t happen to catch cascading down her back in perfectly manicured waves. Her back was to him. She was standing right in front of his deodorant.

He approached her slowly, making sure not to startle her – he was 6’3”, he knew he could startle people based on his size alone. But the closer he got to her, he realized she wouldn’t move. The closer he got to her, he realized she was either ignoring him or legitimately didn’t hear him.

The closer he got to her, he realized she was crying.

He heard it at first: soft sniffles, even softer whimpers, her body shaking slightly from her trying to keep it together and not descending into a full-on sob in the middle of the store. He still couldn’t see her face – only her hands and her hair still – but it was still awkward. He didn’t know what to do. It’s not like he had ever encountered a crying girl in the middle of a Shopper’s Drug Mart at two o’clock in the morning before. There was no precedent for this. Fifteen seconds ago he thought he was the only customer in the store.

“Um…excuse me?” Fred asked in as gentle of a voice he could muster.

The poor girl jumped in shock. She turned her head towards him quickly, like a flash, not long enough in the slightest to get a good look at her. “Oh my God…” she mumbled.

“Are you okay?” Fred asked as she began wiping her face with her hand. It was then, and only then, when she turned her head slightly to look at him, that he got a good look at her.

He knew that she was taken aback by his soft intrusion, but to say that her features took him aback was an understatement. In less than a second, he was completely and utterly transfixed. Rich, dark brown hair. Perfectly tanned and contoured skin as smooth and flawless as glass. Dominant eyebrows that framed her face. Perfectly cut cheekbones blushed and highlighted. Lips – God, her lips – full and bow-shaped, pained with a daring red.

Her eyes full of tears, with striking hazel irises, were staring directly into his soul.

She was, quite possibly, the most strikingly beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and would ever see, in his life.

“I’m fine, Fred,” she said, in a voice equally as soft as his. He noticed her shuffle away from him nervously, refusing to stay too close. “I’m – I’m sorry – I –”

Fred’s brows furrowed at the mention of his name. He had never seen this girl before in his life. And he’d know if he’d seen her before. How did she know who he was? He knew he played for the Toronto Maple Leafs but…well…this wasn’t a girl who looked like she was into hockey. He knew he should never judge a book by its cover and all that, but still. “How do you know who I am?”

A certain look flashed across her face – a look he couldn’t read. It could have been disgust. It could have been sorrow. It could have been surprise. It could have been anything, really, and the fact that he didn’t know made him upset. “I just performed at the function you came from.”

He was taken aback by her answer. He had just left a charity gala – a busy one at that, with hundreds of people in attendance – and he’d heard the music being performed there…well, there was the music during the cocktail hour, and the performers during dinner, and the live band when the dancing started, and…she was there? Which one was she? He…he would have noticed her. He would have listened. If he saw somebody like her approaching the stage or at a piano he’d notice, God damn it he’d notice, but he didn’t remember…

“I’m sorry I’m in the way,” her voice interrupted his internal battle as she moved away. Her heels clicked on the ground below them and each step further away from him was like nails on a chalkboard to Fred. She turned the corner.

“Wait – wait – who – are you sure – why are you crying?” he asked. He wanted to move but his feet were cement, stuck to the floor like heavy columns. He couldn’t even formulate the right words. He sounded like an idiot. The only thing that kept flashing in his mind – not the rows upon rows of different brands of deodorant – the only thing he could see in front of him were her eyes. Her striking hazel eyes.

Bright but full of darkness.

Full of life but full of sorrow.

So vivacious but so unhappy.

After a few moments, Fred was able to get his footing again, his own shoes clacking against the floor as he rushed over to the end of the aisle to catch her in the next.

Except she wasn’t there.

He turned around, going to the next aisle.

The next aisle. The next. The next.

Not there. Not there. Not there.

He looked towards the window. There were more people on the sidewalks now, since bars had their last call and everybody had to filter out. He dropped his basket and ran outside, towering over everyone passing him. He looked to his left to see if he could find her trench coat and heels walking through the crowds. He looked to his right to see if he could find her messy bun and scrunchie.

She wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere. It was like she had disappeared into thin air, never to be heard of or seen again. Was she a figment of his imagination? Was she just a hallucination? Something that his mind conjured up at two in the morning after a charity gala? It was impossible. This wasn’t Hamlet. He wasn’t Hamlet. No ghost was going to appear to him, speak to him, call him his name and know he went to a function that night. No overtired or overactive imagination would do that – the least not his.

“Sir? Sir are you going to pay for your items or should I re-shelve them?” the poor cashier called out to him from inside the store, lifting his basket in his arms. “Should I ring you up?”

He took one more look to his right. One more look to his left. Nothing. Should he ask the cashier? That might make him sound like a stalker. The last thing he needed was this cashier calling the cops on him because he wanted to follow a female stranger out of the store.

“Sir?”

He sighed. He took in a big gulp of the crisp night air to make sure he was still…alive. Cognizant. Conscious. He thought about the encounter: brief but life-changing. At least for him. He thought about her trench coat, her heels, her lips, her tears, her voice, her eyes; everything imprinted in his mind so they were unforgettable.

He resolved: he’d scour every face in Toronto, he’d look into every pair of eyes until he found hers again.

“I’m coming,” he finally called out, walking in through the out door.

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uesp · 5 years

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If you were to rank the daedric princes in terms of power, who would fall where?

This is a tricky question, because we have one clear objective answer, and according to Google, 355,687,428,096,000 subjective lists. That’s a fairly big number, but it gets worse because we don’t necessarily know how many Daedric Princes exist.

The objective answer is “it depends on the writer”. As a few examples of this, sometimes Clavicus Vile is so weak that he can hardly interact with the world around him, other times he’s casually eradicating villages for fun. We’ve seen Hircine casually hijack reality for his own amusement multiple times, but he can also be beaten in a standup fight at the same time, and we’ve been told that he was originally the “weakest” of the bunch. Peryite is sometimes depicted as being the “weakest” Prince, other times he’s treated as the archdemon of Tamriel. Molag Bal is somehow able to go toe to toe with the power of the combined Aedra, and at other points has trouble doing much more than pranking some priest with a haunted house. They are going to be as strong or weak as the story requires, basically.

So instead of trying to open that can of worms today, we’re going to open an entirely different can of worms, and judge them based on their fashion sense.

#17 -- Azura (DISQUALIFIED)

Azura is immediately disqualified from this contest for cheating, because of COURSE she would. Her fashion sense is essentially just the Dunmer fashion sense. This is mostly because she expresses her will through possession often enough, so her “chosen” outfit is usually just whatever that person chose to wear that day. Honestly this might be the worst thing she has ever done, and she cursed the entire population of Morrowind to die because of the actions of three people.

#16 -- Hermaeus Mora

You have to play the game if you want points, and Mora doesn’t play the game. Hermaeus Mora, a terrifying monstrosity from beyond the void, doesn’t play dress up. His commitment to himself is respectable, but this contest is about their fashion sense.

#15 -- Jyggalag

Jyggalag is the kind of person we could have told about this contest in advance, given him plenty of time to prepare, only to have him show up wearing the same armor as always. It’s not that he doesn’t care, he cares FAR too much, but he has about the same imagination capacity as the rest of this metaphor when we compare him to “someone without much imagination at all”.

#14 -- Molag Bal

Molag Bal’s relationship with clothing can be best described as “generally opposed”, and his fashion sense suffers from that. He is much more interested in tearing clothing off over finding something that matches his complexion. Molag Bal is an awful person.

#13 -- Meridia

Meridia is powerful enough to hijack the sun for her own purposes, and she still dresses like she shoplifts from Goodwill. Meridia, you’re supposed to oppose the undead, stop dressing like you are one.

#12 -- Malacath

Malacath was never going to win this contest, something he’s very fine with. Malacath may not even make it to the top half of the list, but he earns a small amount of personal respect for literally not caring about that fact at all.

#11 -- Namira

What the hell Namira? Sincerely, you may be in the back half of the contest but only SLIGHTLY. Of all the Princes who would have taken a dive to lose this thing, it really should have been you. Namira places on our eleventh spot, but she SHOULD have been at last place. She dresses adequately. Nothing overly fancy, but nothing truly ragged as expected from NAMIRA. I can’t believe you let Azura take last place from you.

#10 -- Peryite

Peryite has a small collection of forms. His favorite outfit is his dragon appearance, but he has also been known to use various foul creatures to appear. He understands his gimmicks well, throws some variety in there, and even has “formal wear”. A generally competent performance, and all we can expect from the only Prince with a real job. Bravo!

#9 -- Mehrunes Dagon

Mehrunes Dagon breaks through the pack of back half thanks to one thing and one thing only... he works it. He knows the poses, how to make an entrance, how to hold himself. It really is unfortunate he is in the triumvirate of Princes who only really wear loincloths if anything at all, alongside Molag Bal and Malacath. If he worked in some capes, some armor, he could have been a fierce contender for a top spot.

#8 -- Clavicus Vile

As we head into the top half of our list we start running into difficulties. Everyone after this point REALLY does try. At least usually. Which takes us to Clavicus Vile, and we really need to ask, what’s going on? Clavicus has a degree of style to him, but it’s just missing... je ne sais quoi. It’s hard to put your finger on it exactly. So really, this spot is going to Barbas, because he’s a good boy!

#7 -- Vaermina

Vaermina’s appearance does get the notion of “Dream Demon” across, so she scores highly with consistency and just a degree of variety. I feel like she could have won this, but she just doesn’t get the limelight enough for the Daedra who literally interacts with every person on an almost nightly basis. Vaermina loses, but from no fault of her own.

#6 -- Sanguine

Sanguine gets points for variety, which is exactly what he’s about. There’s a lot of forms of pleasure out there, and Sanguine definitely experiments with his wardrobe. I’m going with the Skyrim appearance, but that’s due to the platform. Sanguine would prefer to be strutting with his golden staff of a naked lady, but Tumblr has a problem with that apparently.

#5 -- Sheogorath

Sheogorath, smart dresser, true to himself... and barely lost this. Sheogorath seemed to forget something very important about himself, and that is that he dresses smart to lead people down the Golden Path. Instead, he’s been mostly lounging in some variety of his robes from the Shivering Isles for the last thirteen years, with very few exceptions. Sheogorath may have thrown this contest away, but he still gets the fifth spot.

#4 -- Mephala

This is a painful one, which is appropriate considering we’re dealing with Mephala. Mephala has some fantastic appearances that have been just absolutely impressive, she knows who she is and how to present herself. She even had her own fashion line. She did not podium, though. Mephala ranks at #4 instead of higher for two reasons. She keeps forgetting to do stuff, for one. Mephala is “around”, but just not enough. It feels like her best showing is still to come. Secondly, there have been some “off” appearances where it really just seems like she wasn’t into it. A bit more flair, and she would have been competing for a top spot.

#3 -- Nocturnal

Nocturnal gets the bronze because she basically hits every point we can ask her too. She is consistent but still a degree of variety, she has a fairly strong presence in the series, and she knows how to steal a scene. Nocturnal is coming into her own, but she just didn’t have enough of a presence in the earlier installments of the series to win outright.

#2 -- Boethiah

Boethiah earned a top spot just for the wardrobe. Just an absolute ton of variety, Boethiah has fun appearing in new and interesting ways. Really knows how to make an appearance too, usually extremely memorable and just all around fun. Boethiah just barely lost outright to our number one spot, because of a lack of lengthier appearances. A one scene wonder, but a great one.

#1 -- Hircine

Hircine is the winner for most stylish Daedric Prince, and with a safe margin! Hircine uses different appearances to make each scene memorable, and adjusts it to match the occasion. He even usually morphs reality to better fit the tone he’s going for. He really knows how to hold himself, he steals each scene with the atmosphere he oozes. And most of all, he is OUR PRINCE. Hircine has made time for us again and again, he’s even fought us before and made it a fair fight to keep things interesting! He praises us when we ignore his orders, but respects our cooperation when we provide it. Hircine is a class act of a Prince, and one stylish fellow.

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citrineghost · 3 years

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100 Humans on Netflix

So there’s this neat Netflix Original show called 100 Humans. I immediately got interested in it because they take this group of various humans from different backgrounds, age groups, and so on, and they use them to conduct experiments to get answers to interesting questions.

So, right away I had concerns about this show because

If you know anything about data and statistical research, you know 100 people is a very small sample size and does not breed accurate results

However, I’m very curious and wanted to see what they came up with anyway. I watched all 8 episodes and, honestly, I enjoyed watching it for the most part. However, I have a LOT of issues with the show and how it was conducted and I want to list them out here.

If you’re interested in watching 100 Humans or have already watched it, please consider the following before taking any of the show’s data as fact.

100 people is a very small sample size. This is because, the more people you have, the more weight each increment in your percentages has. With 100 people, each person represents 1 entire percent. That’s a lot. That means even a few people giving incorrect answers, having off-days, or giving ridiculous results (such as you can see in the spiders georg meme), can sway the entire result of an experiment into unreasonable territory. This is why most scientific studies attempt to get data from many hundreds or even thousands of people. The bigger the sample size, the more accurate it is to the entirety of the world.

I’ll put the rest under the cut because it gets long

The 3 hosts, who I’ll refer to as the scientists (regardless of if they actually are, because I’m not sure and don’t feel like googling it) repeatedly make false statements. For example, in one episode, they told their humans to “raise your hand if you believe you’re less bigoted than the average person here,” to which 94 people raised their hands. One of the scientists then made the statement, “If that were true, it would mean only 6% of Americans are bigoted.” This statement is entirely false. The only way to actually determine a true meaning to that would be to determine at what percentage of bigotry you are considered a real bigot. You also must consider that believing you’re more bigoted than other people in a small group, who you already have an impression of, is not necessarily indicative of how you feel you measure up to America as a whole. Anyway, I could go on and on. The only way to accurately summarize the results of that question would be to say that 44% of the humans had an inflated sense of righteousness or something of the sort.

The 3 scientists, both in person and in narration, for the sake of entertainment (if that’s what you call it) continually made “jokes” that poked fun at different groups, implied men are shit, etc. Maybe that’s fun for some people, but the kind of jokes they were making to amp up the hilarity of their host personas was genuinely just uncomfortable and made me feel even more like they couldn’t be trusted to go about unbiased research.

The scientists continually drew conclusions where the results should have been labeled inconclusive

The scientists made blanket statements about certain groups based on 1 element of research that would not stand up to further evaluation. For example, when explaining that ~93% (i think it was about that number) of Americans have access to clean, drinkable, tap water and yet some large number of single use bottled waters are sold every year, one scientist said it was because people believe bottled water is safer and cleaner than tap water. I am going to do my next survey on this to see if my own perception is flawed, but I simply don’t believe that all of the people who buy bottled water do so because they think its cleaner than “tap” (as if all tap is the same.) I know there have been studies about people drinking unlabeled bottled water and tap water and not being able to tell the difference, but this neglects to account for the fact that different houses pipes can affect the taste of the tap water running through them, people can use disposable bottles of water for certain activities or events too far away from tap for people to refill their reusable bottles easily, and so so so much more. Anyway, it just really bothers me to see “scientists” making these kinds of generalizations when they’re the ones whose results we’re supposed to trust.

The show was incredibly cisnormative. There was an entire episode based on comparing men and women that made me extremely uncomfortable with its division of people by men and women. There was the implication that all men have penises and all women have vaginas. There were implications that reproduction is a necessity in picking a partner. It was just a shitshow. There was one comment by one subject who asked, when being told to separate by men and women, “What if I’m transgender?” Obviously I can’t say for sure, but this person didn’t appear to be transgender and the sort of tone it was asked in makes me think it was literally something they asked him to say in order to get inclusivity points with the viewers and to “prove” that they’re not transphobic by having them divide up, because they said to go to the side you identify with. This whole thing is a) harmful to nb folks who would not have had a side to go to and b) completely negating the fact that the way we were socialized can have an effect on our social responses. That means that for a social experiment, a trans person could sway the results of one side due to their upbringing and the pressures society put on them before/if they don’t pass. This is all assuming they had any trans people there, which is potentially debatable. I also take issue with this entire fucking episode because just, the amount of toxicity in proving one sex is better than the others is really gross and actually counterproductive to everything feminist and progressive. Not to mention, them implying that they’re trying to support trans people only to reinforce the notion that a trans man is inherently lesser for being a man when even prior to hatching, he would have also been force fed propaganda and societal pressure implying he’s less than for supposedly being a woman is really gross and makes me angry. The point of what I’m saying is that it’s actually not woke to hate men as a way of bringing women up because there are men who are minorities who are being hurt by the rise of aggression being directed at them for their gender. Anyway enough about that.

The tests drew false conclusions because they did not account for how minorities adapt to a world that’s not made for them. This is specifically directed at the episode where subjects were asked to match up 6 people into couples. There were 3 women and 3 men and the humans were asked to put them together into pairs. they could ask the people 1 question each but then had to match them up with only that information. The truth is, the people brought in were 3 real life couples already, which the humans didn’t know until after they matched them. The couples were m/f, m/m, and f/f. I think that’s great, but the problem is, literally none of the humans asked any of them their sexuality as their question and most people didn’t even consider they could match up same-sex people. One girl even thought that they had told her to make m/f pairings, even though they didn’t. The scientists concluded from the experiment that the humans have a societal bias toward people, and assume they’re all straight, even if they, themselves, are not straight. I personally believe that was the wrong conclusion to draw. You could see some of the queer humans were shocked that they hadn’t considered some of the pairings might be gay. But, I don’t think it’s because they believe everyone they meet is straight, I believe this says more about what they expected from the scientists themselves. If someone is in a minority and they go to do something organized, like a set of experiments, they are going to be judging the quality and setup of the experiments by those designing them. I feel that the lack of consideration that the couples might be gay has a lot more to do with queer people having adapted to a world where queers are rarely involved or included in equal volume to the cishets. The queer humans taking part in the experiment and failing to guess gay couples shows that they have adapted to a world where they are excluded rather than a belief that every random person that they meet is straight. My point is further supported by an expert they had on the show who explained that, statistically, it was entirely likely that they were all straight and that even queers will account for being minorities by going with what’s most likely. The truth is, we are surrounded by a whole lot of straight people. It makes sense to assume only 6 people are all straight and that, if any aren’t, they may be bi.

The scientists frequently broke an already small sample size into even smaller groups. The group was very frequently broken in half, in thirds, or into sets of 10 people. These sample sizes tell us almost nothing actually conclusive.

The experiments/tests frequently were affected by peoples abilities, unrelated to what was being tested. For example, one test that was broken down into 6 people and 6 control people competing at jenga was meant to show whether needing to pee helps or hurts your focus. first of all, sample sizes of 6 are a fucking joke. Second, this completely ignores these 6 people’s actual ability to play Jenga. If someone sucks at jenga with or without needing to pee, them losing Jenga when they need to pee says exactly fuck all about whether needing to pee affected their focus. They should have tested people’s Jenga skills beforehand, counted the amount of moves they made before the tower fell, and then did it again after hours of not peeing to compare their results. This test made no logical sense at all.

The scientists ignored the social effect of subjects knowing each other as well as duration of events during their last experiment. They were testing to see if people with last names near the end of the alphabet get a shittier deal because they go last in everything where things are done by name order. They tested this by doing a fake awards ceremony where they gave out some 30 awards to people, gauging the applause to see whether the people at the end got less hype and therefore felt worse about themselves than those in the beginning who got the fresh enthusiasm of the audience. the results showed that the applause remained fairly consistent throughout the awards. The issues with this test are numerous, but here are the three I take most issue with. 1) the people here all got to know each other very well over the week it took to make the show. People who know each other and have become friends are much more likely to cheer for each other with enthusiasm, regardless of how long it’s been. On the other hand, polite applause from a crowd at, say, a graduation, where you are applauding people you don’t know, WILL start off more raucous and grow very quiet except for individual families near the end. 2) the duration of the test was a half hour, which is not very long at all and doesn’t say much to test the limits of enthusiasm. Try testing the audience at a graduation with a couple hundred graduates that also involves the time it takes to walk all the way up to a stage a hundred feet away, accept a diploma, and then wait for the next person. These kinds of events take hours and nobody keeps up their enthusiasm that long unless they’re rooting for someone in particular. 3) this study tested only one of many many ways name order affects a person. Cheering and applause is only one factor. It does not take into account people having their resumes looked at in alphabetical order and therefore people at the beginning of the alphabet being picked before anyone ever looks at a W name’s resume. It doesn’t take into account a small child’s show and tell day being at the very end of the school year, after 6 other people have brought in the same thing they planned to. No one cares about their really cool trinket because they’ve seen a bunch like it already. This test doesn’t take into account how many end-of-the-alphabet people just get straight up told, “we ran out of time. maybe next time,” when next time doesn’t really exist. I feel genuinely bad for the girl who suggested this experiment because the scientists straight up said something akin to, “lmao her theory was bs ig /shrug” even though it was their own shitty research abilities that led to their results.

They did one experiment intending to see how many people have what it takes to be a “hero.” The request for this test was made by someone curious about the effect of adrenaline and if it really works how some people say. The scientists thought it an adequate method to determine an answer by testing their reflexes with a weird crying baby sound and then dropping a doll from above while they were distracted with answering questions. The scientists looked up before the doll dropped to indicate a direction of attention. While this does give some answers about peoples intuition, reflexes, and ability to use context clues, its entirely an unusual situation, makes no sense in reality, fails to take adrenaline into consideration literally at all, and has a lot more to do with chance. The person dropping the doll literally couldn’t even drop it in the same place from person to person. Some got it dropped into their lap and others almost out of arm’s reach. This, like a few of the other mentioned experiments, was during the last episode, which felt lazy and thrown together last minute, with very little scientific basis to any of the results. The last episode was weak and disappointing overall.

One of the big issues I have with this show is actually their repeated use of the same group. They said at the end that they had done over 40 tests. Part of doing studies is getting varied samples of people in order to get more widespread results. Using the same 100 or less people (already a tiny sample) repeatedly is a terrible research method. You’re no longer studying humans at large. You’re studying these specific humans. You can’t take the same group with the same set of inadequacies, the same set of skills, and the same set of biases and then study them extensively and in many different ways like this. Your results are inherently skewed toward these specific people and their abilities. I expected them to at least get a new group each episode - every 5 or so studies - but no. They keep the same group all week, which makes the entire season. This is inexcusable in research imo.

The next issue is contestant familiarity. The humans all getting to know each other is great, socially, but it also destroys the legitimacy of many of the studies that involve working together or comparing yourselves and your beliefs

Many tests had issues with subject dependency. One study, meant to compare age groups and their ability to work together to complete the task of putting together a piece of ready to assemble furniture had each group with members they relied on entirely. A few people built the furniture while one person sat across the room, looking at instructions with their back to the others. They had to relay the instructions through a walkie talkie to another contestant and that other contestant had to relay it to the people they’re watching build the chair. You cannot study a group’s ability to build something with instructions by the ability of one single person to communicate. You’re testing that individual and the rest of them on two completely different capabilities. One person fails at being able to communicate and everyone else becomes unable to build the furniture. Even if everyone else in the group is more effective than all the other groups at building ready to assemble furniture, they might end up falling in last because of their shitty communicator who is literally not able to convey simple instructions. (yes, this actually happened in the test)

One test judged the subjects at their speed of getting ready, to see if men or women are faster at getting ready. While most elements of this test were just fine, the part I took issue with was that they did this test without regard to social convention. They told the subjects they were going on a field trip and to get ready by a certain time. Then, they gave them many things to get distracted by, like refreshments to pack with them, a menu to preorder lunch from, and so on. The part that upsets me about this test is that they ignored social convention entirely, to the point that subjects were judged based on their conventional actions and expectations more than their actual speed at getting ready. The buses promptly shut their doors and left at the time they were supposed to but there was no final call to get on the buses. In general, when a group is to be taken somewhere by bus, there will be an announcement to load up and leave. You could clearly see many of the subjects were ready to go and were just standing around talking while they waited for fellow subjects to finish getting ready. I have no doubt that, if given a final call, most of them would have loaded up within a couple minutes. However, they were relying on the social convention of announcing departure and were therefore, left behind entirely (for a nonexistent field trip). These people who were left behind were counted as being late and not making the time cutoff. If one were to look at the social element of this situation, if everyone there believed there would be a warning before departure, the fact that 24 to 14 women to men were loaded onto the buses at departure doesn’t necessarily indicate the women were faster to get ready. It seems to me that it’s more likely to indicate anxiety at being late and a belief that they need not impede on anything lest they be reprimanded or have social consequences for taking too long - something women are frequently bullied for. There’s also the chance that many who boarded without final call are more introverted or antisocial. Plus, we can’t forget to include the people who have anxiety about seating. If someone is overweight, has joint pain, or has social anxiety, they will be more likely to board early to get a seat they feel comfortable in. If they had counted up all of the people socializing and waiting on the sidewalks nearby, they may have found that there were more men who were ready to board up at a moment’s notice. I’m not saying I think men are faster to get ready, I’m just saying that we can’t know based on who boarded without a final call. If people believe they will have a last minute chance to board, a large number of them will take the last few minutes to socialize with their new friends until they’re told they have to board. Therefore, this test cannot be considered conclusive without counting and including the people who were ready and not boarded as a third subset.

Honestly, I could go on and on about how sensationalist and unscientific this show is, but I just don’t have 6 more hours to contribute to digging up every single flaw with it. There’s A Lot.

My point is, if you feel like watching this show, which I don’t necessarily discourage inherently, I just beg you to go into it with a critical eye. Enjoy the fun of it and the social aspects, but please don’t rely on the information provided and please don’t spread it as fact, because it’s not.

It’s entertainment, not science.

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