#What's the point of the villains if you know nothing of them but hearsay over how 'dangerous' they are

[wwheeljack]

#Hogwarts Legacy #Theophilus Harlow #Ashwinder Executioner #Poachers #Ashwinders #Victor's little dog. Still irritated he had two times he got to speak. #What's the point of the villains if you know nothing of them but hearsay over how 'dangerous' they are #Prove it #Show it

[ask-everafteracademy]

Sooo Lavinia? Thoughts? And if you could, is there anything you'd change about how they handled her character?

Ooh. Hm. Alright, full transparency, not the biggest Lavinia fan. And it's a shame really, because her route and her character did have a lot of great potential to it. My main issues were how the general plot with the flower charm felt recycled from Ezra's route (not the writer's fault, it likely wasn't planned for her to have a route at the time it was written), but it still felt kind of cheap. Also wasn't a fan of the way the lore and underlying plot of the series was glossed over. Yes, I'm aware that the purpose of Lovestruck was romance first, but when the rest of the routes focus a lot on the plot, having one that doesn't really makes it stand out in all the wrong ways. That and the way Lavinia was characterized left a lot to be desired. As an immortal powerful queen, you'd expect her personality to reflect that. However, throughout the route, she felt more like a whiny teenager going through a rebellious phase. Which sucks because again, she had so much potential. Still, I mean no disrespect towards Lavinia fans, she's clearly very popular so maybe it's just an us thing. But I'd much rather read Ezra's route, and I'm saying that as a lesbian lol

-Lightkeeper

I can appreciate how positioning a "villainous" character like Lavinia as a love interest helps us see the main cast from an opposing point of view, to showcase their flaws and a contrasting side to them, likely poising to make a statement on morality. It often was very entertaining to see everyone butt heads! I was really curious to see how she would have grown from villainous to perhaps virtuous, so I'm disappointed we'll never know now.

I have to agree with Lightkeeper in that a lot of Lavinia's route seems to borrow from Ezra's. Their relationship dynamics certainly resemble each other. Both began adversarial and argumentative, and through those arguments the LI warmed up once FMC earned their respect. Though Lavinia's feelings for FMC shift from respect into devotion when FMC proves she's a rare individual who extends her compassion and benefit of the doubt, and even faith in her ability to become a better person. EAA's overall theme of the transformative power of love rears its beautiful head once again. (At least, I hope I'm remembering their dynamic correctly.) Maybe upon closer reading, and a long overdue reread, of both routes, I'll be able to better appreciate the differences between Ezra's and Lavinia's romances.

Taken by itself, Lavinia's characterization was fun, as your sort of archetypal delinquent/bad girl hiding heartbreak this time with a fairytale twist, but it was sadly that—just sort of archetypal. Considering she's a centuries-old entity with fairy blood lacking a piece of her heart, I think it would've been really cool to see that reflect in the way she relates to and is seen by humans. Ethereal, whimsical, dangerous? Creepy and unsettling, imposing and mysterious and utterly alien. A force of nature rather than a petulant, brooding rebel without a cause. Anything to justify her fearsome reputation and the main cast's prejudice against her? (Unless that was based off nothing but hearsay, as it was with Ezra, which could have been the entire point! but that would undermine the theme of her story as outlined by her route summary)

Put simply, I wanted to see her character concept taken further, particularly her fae heritage, which would have made the route more fun for me in a few ways. This would have 1) more heavily foreshadowed the Titania twist and made the reveal more satisfying; 2) raised questions about nature vs nurture (after all, what is Lavinia's major?); 3) distinguished it more from Ezra's story, which is about a fundamentally good person whose reputation is smeared by a third party, and made it about someone whose bad reputation is deserved and who must earn her redemption; and 4) allowed us to witness a struggle to reconcile who Lavinia initially is with the image (FMC's image?) of an ideal partner, and from that starting point, watch her become that more suitable partner.

But this is a university setting, and a fluffy romance story. If molding the Ice Queen into a figure you'd be more likely to meet at university was the goal, then I would've liked to see some clearer justification for or exploration of why she's this emotionally stunted for an ancient queen. Something to do with her missing heart shard? Maybe that was coming down the pipe. Again, we'll never know.

Overall, I wasn't terribly fond, since I do have pretty specific tastes and I readily admit that I have my own strong biases. I'm sorry to disappoint anyone looking for a more wholly positive viewpoint! But I'm glad there are people who do love her.

– Pathfinder

#asks #replies #lovestruck #lovestruck voltage #lovestruck renaissance #ever after academy #eaa ask blog #eaa renaissance #lightkeeper posts #pathfinder posts #lavinia le guin

[bring-it-all-down]

I’d like to talk about something that I think is central to Black Sails but often gets glossed over in discussions of Silver: his relationship with the systemic violence of empire.

One thing the show does particularly well is demonstrating the ways in which the violence of empire manifests itself both within England and in England’s colonies. We see this with just about all of the main characters, and this encounter with violence informs their subsequent relationships with imperial England. While Silver’s disability would surely result in his marginalization, his encounter with marginalization differs to that of every other character.

James encounters this violence in England in the form of Alfred imprisoning Thomas and the combination of Alfred and Admiral Hennessy banishing him from the country, in light of which he chooses to become a pirate. Jack falls victim to capitalism when his family’s tailoring business is forced to close, plunging his father into alcoholism and death, and holding Jack, a child, responsible for his father’s debts. Jack then becomes a pirate as a means of escaping indentured servitude. Billy, too, becomes a pirate as a means of escaping indentured servitude (and the violence he commits as a result––killing his enslaver––that would have seen him punished had he returned to England). Likewise, Vane turns to piracy after escaping from his enslavers (though it’s unclear how Vane became enslaved to begin with). Finally, we learn that Anne becomes a pirate after Jack murdered her abusive husband to whom she was married at the age of 13. For all of these people, piracy offered freedom from violence and oppression meted out by England.

We rather deliberately never learn about SIlver’s backstory, and for purposes of this post, I’m going to avoid theorizing about it and stick to what the show tells us about him. We first meet him when he’s aboard a merchant ship that Flint’s crew attacks. Out of self-preservation to avoid being killed by the crew, he fashions a lie, killing the cook and assuming his place, in order to join the Walrus. Thus, the first act of violence he encounters and commits is a result of pirates, not England. He becomes disabled as a result of Vane’s crew, not England. His only encounter with somebody mocking his disability is when Dufresne calls him “half a man” and an “invalid” (3.07). Finally, he tells Madi that he must look strong, not for England, but because he cannot allow his fellow pirates to see him as weak. All of Silver’s encounters with violence and marginalization occur with his fellow pirates, not with any stand-in for English colonialism/empire.

At this point, I’d like to compare Silver to Miranda, as they were the two people depicted to know James the best (as Thomas never knew Captain Flint) and were the two to try and convince him to give up his fight against England. When we first meet Miranda, she is desperate to return to civilization, telling James, “there is no life here” in Nassau, but they could have “a life in Boston...There is joy there and music and peace” (1.07). Her conception of civilization differs from James’ because she was never its direct target. Though she was a woman and was aware of the danger James and Thomas were in, her class privilege insulated her from experiencing England’s violence.

This all changes for her when she and James finally make it to Charlestown and she learns of Peter Ashe’s betrayal. This realization finally spurs her to understand the systemic nature of England’s colonial violence and the reality that she and James could never re-assimilate. Her final conversation with Peter here is crucial to understanding her newfound conception of colonialism: 

Miranda: All these years it never sat right with me how Alfred was able to turn the navy against James. He was far too admired by his superiors for his career to be dashed solely on hearsay. Alfred would have known that. He wouldn't have gone to them armed only with unfounded suspicions. He would have needed a witness, someone who knew Thomas and James well enough to give the accusation credibility. Alfred came to you, didn't he? Asked you to betray Thomas in exchange for which he'd see you made a king in the New World.

Peter: Perhaps this is an opportunity for us all to find a little forgiveness.

Miranda: Forgiveness? What forgiveness are you entitled to while you stand back in the shadows pushing James out in front of the world to be laid bear for the sake of the truth? Tell me, sir, when does the truth about your sins come to light?

Peter: You know nothing of my sins. Were you there when Alfred Hamilton threatened my family's standing, my daughter's future if I failed to cooperate? Were you there when I visited Thomas at the hospital to confess my sins and heard him offer his full and true forgiveness? He knew I had no choice in the matter.

Miranda: No choice?

Peter: A hard choice. Made under great duress, but with the intent to achieve the least awful outcome. You wish to return to civilization. That is what civilization is. I am so very sorry for what you have suffered and for any part I may have played in it. Please believe that. But at this point, the most important thing is what comes next, what we make of this.

Miranda: You destroyed our lives!

Peter: Miranda.

Miranda: You caused our exile!

Peter: I am sorry for what I did.

Miranda: Thomas died in a cold, dark place...

Peter: I am trying to help you. What more do you want from me?

Miranda: What do I want? I want to see this whole goddamn city, this city that you purchased with our misery, burn. I want to see you hanged on the very gallows you've used to hang men for crimes far slighter than this. I want to see that noose around your neck and I want to pull the fucking lever with my own two hands! (2.09)

Through this conversation, Miranda receives confirmation of Peter’s betrayal, and more importantly, that this betrayal is central to the existence of civilization. It’s how people like Alfred Hamilton retain power in England and how people like Peter Ashe obtain power over England’s colonies. In other words, the entire colonial project is one of betrayal, of exchanging lives for power, of the oppressor doing anything and everything to retain that power. When Miranda finally realizes how deeply personal and all-encompassing colonial violence is and reacts with righteous anger, she is murdered. Even voicing the desire to execute some aspect of justice is enough for the empire to silence her forever.

Silver, on the other hand, has no such encounter. All he knows of England’s systemic cruelty is what James and Madi describe to him second-hand. Thus, the war for liberation from empire is never his war, only Flint’s war and Madi’s war that Flint draws her into. In his final conversation with James, he tells him, “this isn’t about England,” calling the war “a fucking nightmare”, “your nightmare” (4.10). The “darkness” which he continuously ascribes to James is one born of a desire to do violence for the sake of violence. Because he has no personal experience with systemic violence, he doesn’t conceive of the war as a means to an end, but rather an end in itself; for Silver, the violence––specifically the violence of Flint, of pirates, of himself––is the point. 

The show’s thesis that the fight for liberation is a deeply personal fight is one that Silver dodges. Unlike James, Vane, Jack, Billy, Anne, Max, and Madi, violence enters Silver’s life as a result of piracy, specifically as a result of meeting Flint, and thus he believes that separating himself from Flint will end that violence. At the end of it all, every other character understands that the “freedom” they won is temporary and can be potentially revoked at any time, but Silver understands it to be more permanent. He tells Madi that in ending the war, he returned James “to the world as it existed before he first closed his eyes”, ensuring her that he is “not the villain you fear I am. I’m not him” and that he will wait “forever” for her to come to this realization (4.10). His experiences with violence prevent him from understanding something that every other main character understands: that Flint was a reaction to violence and not the sole cause of it.

#black sails #john silver #james flint #I will never not be mad at Silver for thinking Madi would forgive him for robbing her of her agency #Anyway #Read some theory. Understand revolution as both a personal and a systemic movement.

[grandinventor]

At the risk of sounding like a Jindosh apologist here (I am.) I will preface that Jindosh is a bad guy, he has either killed people personally or got them killed for experiment purposes by his Clockworks and has dissected the dead so he is not good, he is a villain, I acknowledge that.

Now with that out of the way I wanna criticize the narrative surrounding him and his mansion and how it sometimes falls flat on it’s face trying to demonize them thanks to a lot of points my friend @divaythfyr​ brought up. I’ll put all of that below the cut:

Yesterday I was told this line and I won’t lie it is...bad. Line in question: 

Billie: "His home is supposed to be full of marvels. Locals go in as a test of courage, or because they're desperate for a meal. Kids, even. People say you can hear them at night, pounding on the windows, calling for help."

But because I couldn’t live with the idea that he kills children you know the simplest villain demonization tactic in writing history (kick the puppy, kick the child whatever) and I think it’s pretty cheap to try and make him worse than Sokolov, I talked to the Jindosh apologist committee and thot about it so I’ll go over this line by line. 

1. "His home is supposed to be full of marvels.“ - Okay but isn’t his home also supposed to be scary? Isn’t the whole “Why would anyone build a scary mansion like this?” line from Emily/Corvo as they enter supposed to tell us that this is a scary place? Which is funny because in reality the mansion itself isn’t scary at all, in fact it’s extremely logical in the way it unfolds and exposes the rooms. It’s perfectly functional and as someone with a major in architecture, I can say it’s the best designed house in terms of organization in the game. There is no way to die in the mansion unless the Clockwork Soldiers and the guards get you - which goes for literally any important/rich person’s house? You walk in someone’s house uninvited and their guards get you. You can die if you get behind the walls but it’s extremely difficult to do so especially in the places where you can get squished. The house itself is completely harmless. So the whole idea from Jindosh’s end that it’s a maze is stupid on it’s own too, the house is perfectly logical and Stilton’s manor is an actual maze because I got lost 10 times in there. 

2. “Locals go in as a test of courage, or because they're desperate for a meal.“ - okay first part is correct people go in his house to either steal, test their skills or kill him. He says as much himself. He says fabled thieves and assassins died there. Again probably from his guards and Clockworks since you can’t die from the house in any rational way. And then he dragged them half dead or dead in his lab to dissect them. He has a fascination with watching people die because he is like evil and a villain like that. Which brings me to the next point which is:

There are only two ways to get in his mansion without powers. There is the bridge below which is broken and the railway which is guarded and has a Wall of Light on the other end. So how will anyone that is not prepared with a grappling hook or some kind of way to close this gap gonna get in? How is your random average person gonna go in? And most importantly why? Do people just walk in aristocrat’s houses and expect not to get out in a body bag or? 

Besides he has a) a lot of free food and drinks in the lobby which is his threshold as to how far you are allowed to go so if someone wanted food they can just walk in and take it and leave (after you know, scaling a mountain for whatever reason because there aren’t easier houses to steal from) and b) he has an audiograph, because I am sure he assumes people can’t read, which tells you “Do not enter or you will die and I will dissect your remains and this is a promise.” Like why add a warning if you wanna lure people in? Unless those people think they can outsmart him so they come with intent and not just because they need food/shelter. Also he has food right next to that audio. 

3. “Kids, even.“ - okay this one, the scary line. I won’t lie this made me uncomfortable. So like if we assume that normal people can enter by normal means (which in point 2 is clear they can’t unless further elaborated by the game on How? and Why?), a child going in as a dare and dying is possible. Billie after this line goes on to say that she saw a child dare his brother to touch the wall of light which vaporized the child, so the implication is possible. It’s possible a child went in his mansion as a dare and bad things unfolded. It’s also equally possible that it didn’t. We know of adult men dying because we see the bodies. For this one is just a rumor. You can take it either way depending on how you feel about Jindosh. It’s very unlikely a child would get this far though, unless this was some kind of Disney movie. Also Jindosh wouldn’t personally have a reason to kill a child you know, like I know it’s the easiest “this villain is super evil!!!!” writing tactic, but he had a pretty shitty childhood, he felt hated by his mother and probably wasn’t treated so nicely by his (bastard) brother. He likes to exercise his lack of control during his younger years by having control over other people through his house and toying with them. He is very childish in a sense too (with his toy house and toy soldiers), and because of all of this I truly don’t think he would kill a child. He wants a real challenge and to test out his machines and his house against the best and smartest Karnaca can offer, not children. Though my opinion here can be highly biased. 

Also many children can casually pull 6ft tall levers I’m sure--

4.  “People say you can hear them at night, pounding on the windows, calling for help." - we know people have died in the mansion and they have been crying for release, as he says so himself. But again the above points kind of challenge as to who these people that died inside were. However because you know I’ve been playing with his mansion for four years cause I am a dumb hoe, I can say that there are very little windows. In fact the majority of windows that aren’t blocked off by the cliff or the mechanisms are around his laboratory.

 Now yes people could go there and bang on them sure. But they literally...face the lab and chances are no one is gonna hear you bang on that side. The other windows not facing the lab are in the foyer where...you are allowed to be and nothing is gonna happen to you. 

And the windows that actually face a side where let’s say someone could hear if someone was banging are the windows on the front of the house. Only the thing is, there are no windows on the front of the house except in the foyer. 

Here are the buildings from across his mansion which I guess can maybe hear if someone was banging on the windows. But again no windows on the front of the house. 

The fake windows is where the mechanism for the ceiling over the gallery in the upper hall is. The one that kinda extends and unfolds from there. So isn’t entirely possible that the banging and screaming or whatever people heard is just...the mechanisms of his house? The scary evil child killing house? Which is actually moving and making a lot of noise at all times?

So in conclusion? Yes, Jindosh is bad, he has no regard to human life, he divides society as innocent bystanders and criminals. He does dream of an army of Clockwork Soldiers to eradicate all crime. Be, he isn’t a senseless killer, it’s his neutrality and fascination with death as well as his black and white thinking that makes him dangerous. He doesn’t see people as human. In the majority of cases we know of (except one for some reason? That cursed baker who got his brain fried why did you have to do that Jindosh!?) he experiments on people who he deems criminals without sympathy. Also in situations where he thinks it’s justified - breaking in to steal from him or hurt him, the Blade Verbena, prisoners that can actually provide a learning experience for his Clockworks and Sokolov. He doesn’t go kidnapping people off the streets to experiment on them. 

And despite his evilness being completely logical, the whole game tries to paint his mansion as this big puzzle and trap when in reality it’s...really just a house. The level design is beautiful and amazing but I think it doesn’t really carry the point as strongly simply because it’s not any more dangerous than any other mission and it’s just more fun when it comes to gameplay. The design is great but it never gave me the feeling of it being a horror house. So I think that demonizing Jindosh through hearsay instead of through his actual mission is a bit of a weird choice. A lot of things don’t reflect how evil he is, but not in the good way of “The Grand Inventor doesn’t seem evil but he is.” and instead you get it hammered how evil he is from the start without actually ever experiencing a climax of his evilness you wouldn’t expect. It’s not that every story should have a twist, but usually when you say someone is evil, you either make them good at the end or even more evil. Jindosh never has that climax, he is the same start to finish and that is... mildly annoying and slightly threatening. Like his level is pretty but not scary and they keep trying to convince you it’s scary which makes it weird which I guess is because if you listen to a lot of his unused lines and old concept art, he was supposed to be this stereotypical mad scientist but in the end they changed his visual design and lines so much he comes off as lukewarm. I understand what they tried to do with Jindosh but I feel like they failed to do it and had to rely on everyone saying he is super irredeemably evil to justify lobotomizing him.

Anyway this post is too long, sorry if the read more doesn’t go through somewhere and please feel free to counter my points I am open to different and non biased views (or even information I might not know because I haven’t read the books or found everything). 

#kirin jindosh #me putting this with full confidence in the tag #i hope i dont wake up to anything bad

[taurusborus]

someone translated more of the under the tides event on reddit if you're interested in reading wtf is going on.

I'll also add it under this in case it's easier to read.

Warning, if you don't want to leave the slightest bit of surprise for yourself when the event hits global, TURN BACK NOW!!

I made a comment thread yesterday with a story summary. However, I still left out a lot of things, so I thought I'd make a new post, add in more info about plot I left out, organize the Q&A from the thread, and link to the TLs of the new units. Hopefully a centralized hub of info will help people find the information they're looking for and dispel any of the more wild hearsay floating around.

This will be organized into a few sections, the new unit TLs, my original story summary, a bunch of (my new summaries) separate plot threads that tie into the bigger story, and then some common questions.

Skalter profile + lines TL

Gladiia profile + lines TL

Event CGs

Some good supplemental information about the seaborn hivemind

A much longer summary of each stage, 11 pages - courtesy of Lauli. If you want to know more about the townspeople, Inquisitors, and details on Kal'tsit's end conversation with the Inquisitors, take a look.

The original summary I made yesterday, the fastest crash course on the major story points. I have edited some of the references of the new factions to match the updated TLs from MrSkyblock404 so there's no confusion:

First of all, if you've ever read the manga Claymore, you now understand most of the event. Key differences are that the "Organization" is Aegir. They don't SEEM to be the villains here, and they went the Claymore route to fight the sea horrors fully knowing that their Claymores will eventually awaken into the sea horrors that need to be put down.

The "secret" of the Abyssal Hunters is that Aegirians created them as supersoldiers with the bodies of land dwellers but the blood of sea horrors. More on that down below.

The seaborn is part of the underwater cosmic horror hivemind that's been foreshadowed since the start of the game. Its interest is in learning, evolving, and assimilating everything (a la Evangelion's instrumentality more like end goal of Starcraft's zerg). It's acts primitively... robotic? It doesn't understand things like emotions and "Does not compute. We will learn what you mean" is a large part of its exposition. The church in the town is actually the Deep Sea Church hiding in Iberia and slowly indoctrinating remote towns and turning the people to sea horrors. The ending convo with Kal'tsit implies that Iberia is now completely infiltrated by the cult and if they maintain an isolationist policy, they will be destroyed like Aegir.

The seaborn shows up to impale Gladiia, and reveals the big "you [Abyssal Hunters] and I share the same blood. You are us. We are you." Skadi has a mental breakdown over the truth bomb ("I've killed my own transformed family and friends" etc. Glossing over the specifics, just know she doesn't take some past war trauma well), and it seems like the seaborn can somehow "awaken" the blood and turn Abyssal Hunters like Skadi into one of them.

Skadi is right about to awaken [and probably become Skalter, that seems to be the general consensus on CN forums right now, Skalter = Skadi if she gives in to the call] when Gladiia reveals she was sandbagging (yay superhuman regen abilities) so she could listen in on why the seaborn wanted to meet Skadi so badly. Since the seaborn revealed everything, Gladiia promptly kills it and tells Skadi to get her shit together. Skadi gets her shit together. As the seaborn dies, it says its people will learn to understand everything the Abyssal Hunters have told it, and then they will ask them to join the family again. Also, Specter is now free from whatever "control" the Deep Sea Church exerted over her, she's elated over being "free" now. She's still infected but compared to her previous half-dream state, she considers it a minor setback.

Then there's the Deep Sea Church leader dude who had no idea Hunters were also of seaborn blood and also has a mental breakdown. His entire life's work and dream is shattered because the cult crap he made up believed in is a lie, and the seaborn don't put any special weight on his existence and work. He turns into the SV-9 giant tentacle demon that the 3 Musketeers take down. Before he dies, he curses Gladiia and says some ominous things about how she's different and unlike the other 2, her fate is set. Then in the scene with the mirror, she's shitting on herself for being useless and still ending up like an ugly little bitch. The mirror closeup shows part of her neck starting to look like fish scales, so it seems like she's already undergoing the sea horror transformation.

The town situation

The town has fallen on hard times, and the Deep Sea Church has slowly indoctrinated the population with Iberian values twisted into a pro-seaborn slant. These towns become experimentation grounds for the Church and seaborn. Gladiia confirms that she's been busy destroying many of these experiment grounds. The Church now provides the town with food from the sea when the tide comes. There is also a human sacrifice chosen by lottery, which the Church disguises as "the sea has chosen you to take into its embrace and provide a better life." Kind of like how parents tell their kids their dead dog went to live on a farm. The brainwashed people genuinely believe they have a better life and see it as the greatest honor.

The "food" the sea provides are the "dormant" state of severely injured Dinichthys, which regress into a more resilient meaty form while it recovers. This dormant state is edible (ugh) and what the people harvest during the tide. The unlucky human sacrifice walks into the tide to be eaten by the Dinichthys and thus what the sea giveth, it ultimately taketh.

I would like to note that the Church leader has made an appearance before this event. He has a substantial role in one of the story scenes in Archetto's event. I won't ruin the surprise, but if you pay attention to the setting, you'll know which scene it is before he shows up.

Deep Sea Church agenda and the seaborn

The Deep Sea Church are likely the major instigators of this major "sea vs land" conflict. According to the seaborn that shows up in the Church, the general seaborn population are territorial and generally abide by the animal instinct of survival of the fittest, there is no right or wrong if you kill to survive. The seaborn's behavior and inability to lie show that they indeed don't give a damn about individual seaborn, the Church's plans, or even the Church leader.

Distinction needs to be made between the general seaborn population and the seaborn used by the Church, the latter which could be artificially created. The Church leader is Iberian, but somewhere along the way managed to become part seaborn, which is why the seaborn will listen to him. Being part seaborn allows him to "weaponize" the true seaborn population for his own agenda.

The seaborn themselves indeed have a goal to evolve and and expand (from Skalter's profile). But to what degree the Terra conflict can be attributed to seaborn passive expansion vs. the Deep Sea Church's hostile accelerationism is not clear.

Thus, there's an interesting 3-way disparity between how the conflict is perceived.

* Abyssal Hunters: believes all seaborn must be eradicated * Seaborn: not really interested in the conflict * Church: "it is the will of seaborn to subjugate all"

Regardless, Gladiia has constantly repeated she doesn't give a shit about the seaborn's role in the Church's schemes. Her duty is to kill seaborn, and she's not going to discriminate.

Kal'tsit creates a cliffhanger every time she shows up at the end of any event

After the church-leader-turned-giant-tentacle-demon is killed, its enormous corpse is like a beacon calling to all the Dinichthys zerglings to swarm the area. The 3 Musketeers are like "ok fuck what now" and Kal'tsit swoops in with perfect timing to call Mont3r to completely destroy and bury the ground and its secrets.

She's here to direct the 3 Musketeers to leave Iberia and rendezvous with Misery to go back to RI for a vacation (yes, she actually says they get vacations). The Inquisitors also show up to stop everyone, and after giving them her usual condescending finger-wag-and-lecture, she offers to stay as hostage/information source in an Abyssal Hunter's stead. Her agenda is to convince the Iberian powers to ask for help instead of maintaining an isolationist policy. If they continue to keep it internal, they will be destroyed like Aegir.

She has some atypical kind words for the 3 Musketeers before they leave. To Skadi, she makes a throwback to some cryptic bullshit she said in Grani event. To Specter, she makes some banter about her newfound freedom and moving forward knowing her body's state.

And then it turns out she and Gladiia planned for almost everything before the Skadi sets off for Saltwind City.

The state of Iberia and Aegir

Aegir is pretty much sunken Atlantis. Gladiia says that there's no communication in and out of Aegir after the Calamity.

The Abyssal Hunters were created as just one small piece of Aegir's military power. Aegirians are fully aware of the Abyssal Hunters' eventual fate to turn into the enemy, and have special patrols out to monitor and kill any who turned. The seaborn confirms that they had nothing to do with those deaths. The people Skadi killed and watched get killed, those were all done by her own people. This does not help her mental state.

Iberia has likely attempted to replicate Aegir's Abyssal Hunters. We don't have story on the result of this project, but based on clues in her profile, Andreanna might have some connection to it.

In Kal'tsit's "I know everything" exposition, she states that Iberia once had a prosperous Golden Age, and is now a shadow of its former glory. As stated before, the Deep Sea Church has also infiltrated all levels of Iberian government. Thorns' profile says he left because of "religious strife" and how in recent years treatment of Aegirs in Iberia has gotten worse. All the breadcrumbs are building up to Iberia potentially getting the same kind of Calamity that destroyed Aegir. (See Skalter page's TL note on Calamity.)

Bunch of misc info that don't really fit anywhere else, from yesterday's thread Q&A

It's established that Abyssal Hunters are not allowed to bleed, especially on land. The seaborn says the swarms of cannon fodder zerglings can smell the "same blood" on the Abyssal Hunters. But they're a bit stupid, so their brains only know "this is the blood of my kind, but why is it trapped inside hooman skin?" instead of recognizing it's not a trapped comrade.

Their attacks on Abyssal Hunters are attempts to "free" their kind from the trappings of hooman skin. The more the Hunters bleed, the more frenetic the swarms get, because they know they are getting closer to freeing them.

If you are a Specter fan, you will absolutely love the scenes after she wakes up. The ensuing conversations show that the Abyssal Hunters cherish their close connections like everyone else, despite their usual "stay away from me I'm dangerous" vibes. I really hate how Specter's operator record turned out, and I'll keep salting about it, but this event really did her justice.

Question: Is story Skadi already Skalter? She is wearing the same clothes.

Answer:

No, and this is the biggest misconception that needs to be cleared. At no point in the story does Skadi fully awaken. She comes close but pulls back just in time. The in-universe reason Skadi changes into her wandering songstress wardrobe is that she needs a box carrying her "instruments" (her sword and Specter's chainsaw) and to avoid suspicion while sneaking into Saltwind City. There are two high ranked law enforcement officers (something like that) after her, who know she's an Aegir and a possible threat. In story, she's still guard Skadi. Devs probably wanted to keep the red getup on Skalter to differentiate between the two units.

Question: Why did the seaborn want to meet Skadi so badly?

Answer:

It's not entirely clear thanks to hYpErGRyPh oBtUsE wRiTinG. Every time the sea heir talks about how much it wanted to meet Skadi and perhaps why, Skadi or cult leader interrupt with their mental breakdown monologue. My interpretation of its reasons is a combination of desire to share knowledge with her (learning is constantly repeated as a goal of the sea horrors), extend an invitation to join the hivemind, and ask a question, explained below.

There are flashbacks to this one suicide mission she and her Abyssal Hunter squad had against one particular sea horror. Her entire unit died and she barely made it out after landing a fatal strike on it. Based on Skadi's mental breakdown, it sounds like that sea horror is like the Zerg Overmind, a central connection for the sea horror hive mind.

There's some exposition about how the Overmind isn't really dead, and it's gone into Hibernation Mode because though it no longer responds to communication, the sea horrors can still feel its pulse.

His specific question was whether Skadi heard the Overmind say anything before it went dormant. More Skadi breakdown, because she did. It said (rough TL) "[our] suffering is eternal." The "our" is ambiguous. It could be referring to Skadi and the Abyssal Hunters, since she's the one narrating, or it could be the Overmind and the sea horrors, who Skadi is repeating. I'm leaning toward the Abyssal Hunters since "being abyssal hunter is suffering" has been a core takeaway of this event.

And then Gladiia stops playing dead and kills off our sole source of Aegir lore :)

Question: Is Skalter/Under Tides canon?

Answer:

The events that happen in Under Tides is canon. Skalter's canon status is in existential limbo. As MrSkyblock404 has reiterated, devs have directly said Skalter is a POSSIBLE future in which Skadi gives into the call.

Question: But isn't the fate of every Abyssal Hunter to eventually turn into Seaborn?

Answer:

Technically yes. The call will never fade, so the moment it overpowers the Abyssal Hunter's will to resist, it will have won. But I say technically because the other side of the tug-of-war is the Abyssal Hunter's own willpower. There are hints scattered throughout that their fates aren't set in stone. As Gladiia said to Skadi in her "get your shit together" moment, if you don't want to become a seaborn, then you won't. Not to mention, they can always ask to be killed by another's hands before they fully turn, so they can die as "themselves". This is like the black card system in Claymore. Skalter's E2 promotional record also has this part:

Well, but that's not what I want to say to you today. What I want to say is that when they want to acquire a structure, they transform in that direction.

Skadi, since those creatures can become what they want to be of their own volition ...... Then you can also not become a certain way by your own will. You can do what you want to do.

For example, an Abyssal Hunter. Or, a little more freely, a bounty hunter.

The seaborn as a collective are naturally able to "focus" their evolution toward a specific direction. So as an individual, Skadi should also have a degree of control over what she does and doesn't want to become. Gladiia is implied to still be undergoing transformation despite her obvious obstinance, but the Deep Sea Church leader says she's different from the other 2 and her fate is sealed. As one of the first Abyssal Hunter prototypes, Gladiia might not be able to resist like the later Hunter prototypes.

If you made it this far, nice job! I hope that helps the EN community understand the tsunami of information that got dumped on us in the event.

If there are questions, post in the comments and I will do my best to answer them. Corrections to information in this thread and swapping notes with other CN readers are very welcome!

EDIT: Removed the spoiler bars since I got feedback that it was annoying to click on each paragraph. I've also added a new section "Deep Sea Church agenda and the seaborn" to clarify all the relationships defined in the story.

Also loving the connections the comments are making to other media. I personally made this post because I am a massive Claymore fan. Seconding one commentor, I highly recommend Claymore, it's a gem that's passed a lot of manga readers' radars. I'm also giving Bloodborne and Dragon Age a shot after the event.

EDIT 2: Thanks to the awesome ak-lore group on the official Discord, I've since made a number of corrections on key points. They are in the sections The town situation, Deep Sea Church agenda and the seaborn, and The state of Iberia and Aegir.

#arknights #so the abyssal hunters are similar to grey wardens from dragon age #and the seaborn are kiiiiiinda like darkspawn? like the higher thought seaborns are more individuals but the lesser seaborn creaters aren't #there's a comment the op made that explains this bit more if you're interested #also sorry for weird formatting if you see extra spaces #I tried to fix some of them but there's a lot so I gave up LOL

[mantra4ia]

NBC Debris, episodes 1-9: overview of high hopes and adjusted expectations

*Mild spoilers ahead*

I'm rooting for this show guys, really I am. The premise and the two main characters / actors are interesting, or at least try very hard to be. But this series has been slow off the ground despite my excitement during preseason teasers and here's why, in my view.

Pros:

An intercontinental alliance gives room / potential for some interesting spy craft, I just wish it was slightly more artful, less heavy handed.

Alien debris having potential to do good things is also a fantastic promise to expand on. George Jones talked about some terraforming level stuff (whether it goes right or wrong is another story), let's see more of that. Are tech giants fighting over the intellectual property rights to debris-based advances? How are money and favor between industry and the government changing hands (apart from a very literal briefcase full of cash on the black market when we first meet Influx)? How do different pieces of debris interact with one another, maybe it changes some of their properties in unpredictable ways.

Bryan and Finola have good amorphous lead chemistry. We aren't being force-fed where it is going to go, but we know it's a compelling relationship where they're both relying on each other to get through challenging emotional hurdles (marine special ops, family tragedy). And we see them together, riffing off each other from the beginning, and it works as both a personal and professional partnership.

Strongest debris-scifi-based episode was definitely 1x04 "In Universe" with the chlorine- respiration-based biome. To me it's the best of the season so far.

Strongest character episode so far is maybe 1x09 "Do You Know Icarus?" or 1x06 "Supernova"

Cons:

Episodic structure hampers the ramp of tension building. You don't get big payoff because you get short plot points. Yes there's the recurring "ball of light" and Influx references, but those are more phantom thread teasers than a long game of steadily developing insights.

No fully developed villain or antagonist to make the stakes seem tangible and priorities urgent or simmering: is it Influx, Maddox, Ferris, casually mentioned foreign government espionage, the guy who played Michael on The Vampire Diaries? I don't know, and worst of all nor do I really care because I don't feel their immenent threat or ideological purpose. I am more worried about the debris body count, but debris is a problem / quandary, not a viable adversary at this point. We've got a multi-front conflict, and 45 minutes with underwhelming writing complexity to try and meet the task. It's a struggle.

The ABCD action-based plot. I have to do this sequence in order to beat this level. Where's the character building?

Speaking of which, while I like Bryan and Finola's dynamic opposite each other, I can't say the same about their development as individual characters. Their depth and relationship to others has so far been terrible due to superficial telegraphing which tells us rather than a writing structure that shows us why we're supposed to care about them, their lives, or their relationships to others, like Finola and DeDe and George as a family unit, or Bryan and Maddox. Seeing an old family video of sisters dancing to a favorite song does nothing for me when I haven't seen them interact on anything more than a long distance phone call. Can we maybe get a flashback of them at George's memorial so that we can get a sense of how devastated the family was or see the consequences of DeDe's substance abuse habit as a crutch during an emotionally chaotic time in her life? No. We get hearsay. Maddox is supposedly so worthy of Bryan's trust, pulled him from the brink of a dark emotional abyss (1x07), but we get no sense of that bond off the clock like Bryan checking in on Maddox's family, or any sort of personal connection. Just a cold professional relationship with a few one liners.

Telegraphing to ambiguity ratio: certain things the audience gets explained to us, like alternate universes visible in the molecular imperfections of glass or how they damaged George's hippocampus and impaired his memory (like they're just throwing out words to sound sci-fi impressive), and yet some basic details that would help build this world lore and make it believable are left up to off-screen imagination? Come on now, we all know the season one is for world building. Hop to it! Debris falls from the sky, worldwide, and you're telling me no one knows about it and it doesn't impact public life / culture in any way, it doesn't make the news cycle, nothing? You're an Orbital agent, and you're able to fly around in laboratory equipped jets and land in whichever airspace you please, and no one bats an eye? Terrorists are using debris against civilians, and we don't see government restrictions, curfew, lockdowns, etc, we don't get any minor glimpses into ramifications on ordinary life? No, because the focus is always trained on our "field agents" but not the playing field. It's mundane, small stuff questions that keep us grounded, which is a refreshing and needed balance in sci-fi, but apart from a conversation about stale Peeps I don't see attention to daily details of life as we know it.

We are literally told in the pilot by a title card (talk about expedient) that "three years ago images were captured of a wrecked alien spacecraft moving through the solar system" and for 6 months debris has been falling. Has it smashed through any cities causing panic? How is it spun by the media, or how is Orbital keeping it out of public attention? Is there a political power struggle over research access, and what do those higher up agency meetings look like? Where and how is the recovered debris being cataloged and stored when it is not used in active research? Who has clearance to it, what is that clearance called/what does it entail, which government retains agency of debris pieces, or does that depend on where Orbital recovers it? This is like first-five-episode-arc lore building and we are nine hit or miss episodes into the season! I need this show to level up if it's taking the route of being clever and cerebral, which it appears to aim at by focusing on the scientific part of sci-fi. If it's goal is to be a small scale, partner ride along weekly mystery with heavy synthetic sound cues, then it needs to pick a tone that takes itself less seriously.

The dialogue is so lackluster and expository. Please get some of the writer's room to focus on making it sharper, quicker, smarter.

The science of debris: George Jones, as some genius mind behind Orbital tech, isn't believable. We don't get to see any part of his professional life in Orbital in the three year lead up to when we meet our characters, he doesn't even have any dialogue when Finola first finds him captive. We have "science-aesthetic" scribbles on a chalkboard and Finola's word that George is a workaholic research savant. It doesn't ring true and by extension some of the "rules" of this Orbital technology seem murky (not as in we learn alongside the characters, but as in the concept seems under developed). George's biggest contribution thus far is a levity critique of Bryan's driving speed. At this point he's a plot device to further Fin's journey, as is DeDe. That's base.

Lack of interest in supporting ensemble: why should I care about Maddox's family crisis, or DeDe's addiction or George's suicide after he was shut out of his own research at Orbital, etc? Again this ties back to previous points of show don't tell, and build a world, maybe use some flashbacks. Make it personal — why is George's research (apart from a generalized better world) so singularly important to him that it breaks his family, what compelled Brian to transition from military service to Orbital? How are different factions within Orbital — like the research team and the field agents — getting along, who's at the very bottom of the barrel or on the very top of the hierarchy?

I want this show to succeed, but I don't get a clear read on what genre they want to be or more importantly what the characters want. Please increase the focus on dialogue, get the basics of want-obstacle-action done right, and then the debris and the conflict it creates can have a bigger impact.

#nbc debris #new fandom #sci-fi #finola jones #bryan beneventi #renew Debris

[silverwhiteraven]

To Learn - MariBat Brucinette One-Shot (for now)

[Bruce Wayne, still in training to become Batman, is looking for new Masters to teach him. Alfred made a suggestion to go to Paris, looking for a certain "Guardian". Bruce didn't realize he wouldn't be prepared for what he encounters.]  

[ Posted on A03 ]

Bruce Wayne stepped from his private plane and onto the asphalt of the Paris Airport. He took a cursory glance around before taking the swiftest route out of the airport and to the sleek rental car he had prepared for him. 

He was alone on the trip, no Alfred to assist him on this particular journey. It was a bit nerve wracking, all things considered.

Bruce had been training for three years already all around the world in preparation for becoming Batman. Alfred had been the one to suggest this particular ‘Master’. But that wasn't the concerning part.

It concerned him that Alfred had been reluctant to suggest him. He had a look in his eye that Bruce would swear was that of not knowing something. Alfred being clueless was always a cause for concern, *always*. 

But the understanding butler knew what this meant to Bruce, and gave him the instructions to find the mysterious Guardian. Bruce convincing him he was ready for anything that came his way also helped to ease the other’s worries.

As Bruce drove through the streets of Paris, he remembered being shocked to learn that this place, this proclaimed city of love, was where he would be training to fight the crime of the darkest city in the world. It had made him laugh when it reminded him of older children's shows proclaiming love to be able to conquer all evil.

It was a bit ironic since that wasn't what he was quite going for, but he would give the city a try for now, even if just for the lessons. 

He stopped the car, parked at the border of the park surrounding the Eiffel Tower where Alfred had suggested he go when he arrives. He stepped out of the car and leaned back into the vehicle as he looked up at the overshadowing tower and recalled what Alfred had said in his instructions.

“*Stay there as long as it takes, Master Bruce, he will find you. The Guardians have a strange way of knowing where to be.*”

He had tried to look into these ‘Guardians’, and he was a bit surprised at what he found.

Part of his research lead him to an old online archive, more of a blog, really, that detailed and recorded a fight in the city of Paris. He remembered back in college when the news of the three villains, first two, then a third born of the first two’s defeat, spread across the globe after they had all been taken down. Before that, it was mostly rumors and hearsay. Even catastrophic, world-affecting events hadn’t been connected to the Parisian villains until then.

Bruce had also come across on the blog the theory about an order that protected the miraculous, and how that theory questioned if their heroes, Ladybug, Chat Noir, and the other ‘Miraculous’ users, were mantles passed from hand to hand instead of immortal individuals like early the earliest theory suggested.

He had spoken to Alfred about it just before leaving on this trip, and the elder man had confirmed that the Master, the ‘Guardian’ he was sending Bruce to, was indeed part of a kind of order centered around these mystical items. He didn't elaborate too much, but he didn't need to, and Bruce accepted the answer in stride, though still with a grain of salt. 

Bruce watched the tower idly as the sun began to set, and he blinked when he saw two little figures appear on its peak. He didn't get to look for long before a loud *pop* brought his attention forward. 

A tall biker-styled woman with wild reddish-pink, black-tipped hair around his own age was leaning casually on a tree across the road, her eyes locked on him like a predator that already ate but didn't feel like laying down just yet. He looked at her critically in return until his eyes locked with her’s.

They seemed to scream even louder than even Alfred’s; *I know enough secrets to make the world burn.*

He sat up a little straighter, and with the setting sun framing her like a backdrop to a major climax, she shoved off her perch and came towards him.

She stopped before Bruce, looking him over critically before nodding like they were casual friends greeting each other.

“You're the Bat boy.” 

No question, no hesitation, she stated the fact like she knew it all her life. Maybe she did.

Bruce was still trying to formulate an answer when she turned on her heel and started strolling away. “Well, c’mon, won't be learning anything standing around like that.”

He hesitated only a moment before following her. 

He felt tense as they went, he knew nothing of this person or where she was taking him, but it wasn't like he had a choice. His brow furrowed as he wondered if *this* was the Guardian. She didn't seem to fit the role. Her eyes spoke volumes, but somehow they didn't contain what he was looking for.

They stopped before the doors of a boutique, a sign declaring it closed, and the girl went in without hesitance. He followed before she could leave him behind. 

She led him to the back and up a couple flights of stairs into an apartment that resided above the business below. He was directed to take a seat in an sitting area clearly meant for taking on groups of guests, away from the more lived-in areas of the home. 

“Want anything to drink, Bat boy? They’ll be back soon, no point in waiting for them to show before showing a little hospitality.” 

He shook his head and declined, “No, thank you. They?”

The woman only grinned in response before taking a big bite out of a cupcake she must have scavenged from somewhere else without his notice.

He sat in a rather awkward silence while she remained casual as ever.

But soon enough, he heard twin thumps on the roof above, where he had earlier noted a balcony to have been. He stood at attention and alertness as he looked up towards it, but the other person with him remained unphased.

She finally stood up and joined him when quick footsteps came down the stairs and out came a tall blond man that Bruce recognized as Adrien Agreste, a fellow inheritor of a company at a young age. The other man’s eyes lit up at the sight of the woman with them, then they landed on Bruce and they got even brighter. 

“Sup Alix!” Adrien greeted, before he turned back and leaned in towards the stairs, “Hey Mari!” He called up. “You have a guest!”

“What?” Came the confused reply back. “Who is it?”

Now Alix was the one to reply. “I brought you someone, come see!”

There was silence for several beats before, “What day is it?” The voice now sounded panicked, and both Alix and Adrien began to snicker between them. 

“You tell me,” her voice was teasing as Alix yelled up the stairs, “You've been planning this day for years, if you don't hurry the world might end again.”

Frantic noise sounded from above, quieting down as thumps sounded on the stairs once more. Bruce watched as another woman, their age and a bit shorter than the other two people in the room, came gliding down the stairs like Cinderella escaping from the ball. She slowed at the landing and came up before him, a light in her eyes that he didn't expect from someone who moments ago sounded utterly unprepared.

“Hello! You must be Bruce,” he nodded as she continued, and her companions came up behind her like two knights with their Lady.  “I’m Marinette. I’m the Guardian of the Miraculous. I’ve been expecting you.”

Finally, a thought occurred to him as he looked upon the Guardian, Marinette, and he swallowed.

*Oh no*, he thought, *Alfred was right. I am completely and utterly not ready for this.*

#maribat #brucinette #willowbendt

[inessencedevided]

Oh yeah, titles are totes valid. I like yiling patriarch cos when you think about it it doesn't make sense. He didn't create the town of yiling, and he technically doesn't even live there. He sould be called burial mounds patriarch or smth.

Anyway, enough about titles (also if I have made a mistake due to translation error or misunderstanding, whoops). Which OG sect leader do you think was the worst, and which one was the best? And which next gen sect leader is best and worst?

I dislike jgs most, cos yikes. Wrh might have been a tirant and war criminal, but at least he wasn't as big of a dick as jgs. Can't really decide who the best is, cos they all had issues, you know?

Worst next gen would have to be jgy, not cos I dislike him as a person but because he definitely commited war crime and genocide. Idk best here either cos once again, *slaps top of cgl* these cultivators can fit so much trauma and issues. I do like imagining how the now sect is run. One twink mastermind and his hunk retinue? Love that for them

-the axe cultivator

Argh, 🪓-cultivator (there's an emoji! :D). I'm so sorry! I'm terribly behind again in answering you. I promise, I like your asks but I want to give them proper attention and the holidays were surprisingly busy this year.

That question is very creative! And hard ^^ I had to think about all my answers, even the seemingly easy "worst sect leader of the OG". Because while jin Guangshan is definitely a pompous ass and overall shitty person who is more concerned with sleeping with every woman in Lanling than his duties and who didn't step up during the sunshot campaign and then decided to use the power vacuum afterwards to his advantage, he at least, you know, did some sect leading. Which is not something that can be said about one Qingheng-Jun. That guy just left his brother and eventually and increasingly his teenage son in charge. Now what is worse? Bad sect leading or no sect leading at all? I don't know if I can decide ^^

Ah yeah and Wen Ruohan ... 🤷‍♀️ obviously he wasn't great, but he's also the least three-dimensional "villain" so I never really bother with him ^^

The best og sect leader? Does lan qiren as an acting sect leader count? ^^ obviously he too has issues, as you said. I believe lan qiren, as a leader, as an uncle and as an educator was deeply influenced by the things that happened with his brother. I can only imagine how deeply it must have hurt him to see his brother abandon both his people, him, his brother and his own children for the sake of one woman. Whatever your opinion on qingheng-jun, I believe we can all agree that his actions must have deeply hurt and disappointed lan qiren. We don't know what he was like before those events, so we don't know just how mich of his extreme rigidity is due to those events, but I do believe that they hardened him and made him more inflexible. Maybe he was much more of a free spirit before. Maybe he was a lot like Lan Wangji, but instead of loosening and expanding his understanding of the relationship between morality and rules, the events that shaped him let him to harden them. We don't know. But we do know that he picked up the pieces his brother left him. My point is, you can think about his style of leadership and teaching what you want but you cannot deny that he is devoted to the people in his care and that's not something you can say about a lot of the leaders of his generation.

Now, to the next gen leaders:

This is, in a way, even harder to decide ...

I wouldn't call jiggy the worst sect leader so easily. His record, imo, is very much mixed. The watchtowers, if I recall the novel correctly (it's been 6 months since I last read it ^^), were a pretty good way to get help to people who usually fall under the radar of the cultivation sects. So while he definitely sacrificed a lot in his rise to the top, he seems to have tried to help the common people (something that cannot be said about his two predecessors).

But ... who then? I thought a lot about it and I think I'm inclined to say Nie Huaisang. Don't get me wrong, I love him as much as anyone, but I also remember the part in the novel where, when wangxian investigate the "man eating bunker" (i wonder how accurate that translation is) a town's person sais that they don't expect help from the nie sect because ever since Nie Huaisang took over nothing gets done and they neglect to help the people within their territory. Now, we know that Nie huaisang cultivated a reputation of general incompetence so people wouldn't suspect him to scheme against jin guangyao, but in doing so, he obviously neglected his duty to the people under his care. Which is, imo, pretty consistent with his character. Nie Huaisang us ruthless when sufficiently angered and has no qualms to cause casual damage to achieve his goal (see Mo Xuanyu's suicide to bring wei wuxian back). His revenge was his first priority and so he placed being a good brother over being a good sect leader.

Best? Is also dificult. I honestly can't decide between Lan Xichen and Jiang Cheng? There are so many factors to consider here! (There were already woth the ones above, really): what actions count towards the assessment of their leadership? What makes good leadership at all? (Which is funny because I'm doing my masters in political science rn and that's one of the biggest questions in political theory. But I only really know "Western" political theory. Chinese philosophy i have only ever graced the surface of) which is to say ... I can't really decide.

Jiang cheng put his sect above all else. While there's a lot of debate about whether that was morally right, it's certainly what helped him rebuild his sect as quickly as he did. He is brash and sometimes cruel, but his deciples clearly trust him and admire him.

Lan Xichen is an incredible diplomat. He is calm, fair (i.e. when he decides to listen to wangxians accusations against the sworn brother he loved and investigated them himself) and proactive when he needs to be. (I know, he is often accused of being too passive within the fandom, but I don't think that is necessarily the case. In a world where most leaders seem to base their judgement on rumor and hearsay more often than not, he withholds judgement until he listened to all sides. That is not a flaw in leadership) Now, in the end, he seemingly follows his father's footsteps by going into seclusion. I would argue, that still doesn't place them on the same step leadership wise. A. The situation with Jin Guangyao and madam lan, imo, aren't equivalent. It's hard to judge madam lan because we don't know what let her to kill the lan teacher, but I think it's unlikely she deceived qingheng-jun in the process. Jin Guangyao actively deceived kan xichen for years. When lan xichen learned this, he decided to investigate and was badly hurt in the process. The outcome, seclusion, may be the same, but the reasons are different. Also, the novel heavily implies that lan xichen will eventually emerge and take up his duties again.

All of this is to say... I can't decide ^^

I'll answer the other putstabding ask tomorrow. It's past midnight now and I should really sleep. Thank you for being so patient 💙

Btw, happy holidays, if you celebrate 🥰

#the untamed #mdzs #ask #mdzsnetcc #jin guangshan #jin guangyao #lan xichen #jiang cheng #nie huaisang #please don't mind all the typos #i didn't read over what i wrote again #all my past german teachers would be so disappointed

[severalspoons]

Liveblog: Rewatching Trigun, Episode 20

Surprise, this blog series continues! I have no intention of letting it end at episode 19. (I mean, that’s not even a nice round number!) While these aren’t liveblogs any more, they still give me an opportunity to discuss meta. 

Life lesson learned: once you start a series of anything, do not stop until it’s finished--no matter what other projects come up, no matter how shiny they are, and no matter how much you’re dreading watching episode 23. Since I do my best work when feeling inspired, I hate to wait and let my enthusiasm for the new project cool, but jumping ship only ends in two unfinished projects instead of one.

This is going to be arranged by theme, not so much chronologically. Also, it ended up being more about Wolfwood than originally intended.  Including a spoiler, so be careful.

Millie’s Transmitter

Millie reports that the Chief of Bernadelli gave her a transmitter/tracking device, which must be a rare, valuable piece of technology -- to prevent anyone from outwitting her. Meryl replies that this is nothing to brag about. I disagree.

First of all, the chief cares about her enough to entrust her with this bragworthy technology. She must have earned his trust and good opinion, also an achievement. He could easily punish or fire her, but instead gives her a tool to perform better. Countless people with learning disabilities dream of bosses like this. 

People tend to take a harmful all-or-nothing attitude towards disabilities. Either PWD are incapable of doing things and nothing can be done about it, or they are capable of doing things, and shouldn’t need help. Since people with disabilities themselves live in society, they end up indoctrinated and taking the same attitudes towards themselves. Shame and self-hatred often result. People strive for years, often with therapy, to get to the matter of fact acceptance Millie shows here.

***

Vash in Hell

Everything is red, from the beginning. The sand, himself and his clothes, the sky. Knives comes into view, blurry and mostly in shadow, only one eye visible.  What looks like meteors, probably chunks from the ships, fall through the sky like rain. We’re seeing from Vash’s point of view.

When waking Vash, Knives’ voice is normal, sounding like a real child. It doesn’t change to his growly evil voice until Vash accuses him of being a murderer. Then, his eye loses its pupil, and he suddenly appears to have fangs. He looks like he’s become some sort of monster. Not human, as Vash says.

Knives beats him up for even daring to compare him to a human. What hurts the most about this is you know it’ll be a long time, and probably many more such beatings, before Vash leaves.

Was it ever possible to take care of Knives? Was Rem’s last request reasonable?

Vash announces he’s finally ready to face Knives. What impresses me most: he’s finally making a significant decision for himself.

***

Meet the Folks

How is Vash more attractive in normal clothes than his signature coat, even in scenes showing only his face? Speaking of which, this episode is full of beautiful shots of Vash’s face. Wolfwood’s, too. 

How the hell did Wolfwood get here? He said he was concerned about Vash crying then jumping off a cliff, and followed him. However, he seems to have climbed up from below. How would he have found a floating platform? Certainly, none is visible below him. And since he seems to know nothing about the flying ship, he can’t have taken Vash’s strategy and jumped onto a platform at just the right time. 

“Come meet the folks!” Yes, they actually do have a summer cottage in the sky. Ever wonder why Vash’s head is always in the clouds? ;) 

Wolfwood actually says “I’m getting sick of your lies.” Hypocritical much?

Wolfwood is the first guest Vash has brought “home” in over 20 years (in other words, since he became The Stampede)! 

Does that mean that the whole time Vash has been on the run, he hasn’t visited the SEEDS ship (probably to prevent anyone tracking him from discovering it)? Vash could have simply hid out for the last 20 years in the SEEDS ship; it’s his home, after all. Instead, he chose to go out and protect people from Knives, and each other. (How many of us would have made the same choice?)

***

Inside Legato’s Lair

What does this informant know about Chapel’s duties? From the way Legato dismisses his concerns, it seems like Knives’ followers aren’t given much information about each other.

Wolfwood is now doomed. “You’re such a fool. Had you behaved, you might have lived to see Doomsday. But I’m pleased, for I now have the opportunity to carry out another of my master’s wishes.” 

A surprisingly restrained evil chuckle from Legato. Thank you for sparing us a full-on villain laugh.

How does Legato get shoulder padding that sticks out that far? Each shoulder is almost twice as big as his head.

***

A Series of Awkward Events

The ship has a whole observation team. No one should be able to get up here without the SEEDS leaders knowing, right? Right? ...

The old man tells Brad Vash has changed over the years. How? 

After all this buildup, Brad opens the door, letting in blinding light, and this is what he sees:

The legend acting like an idiot and getting his butt kicked. Very dignified. 

This is Brad’s reaction:

“Is that your great legend?! Huh?!” “What a relief! He hasn’t changed at all.” (A relief? What were they afraid would have happened to him?)

Brad is not amused by Wolfwood’s touchy-feely ways.

“Who’s he?” Vash, looking embarrassed: “I’m not sure.” Fair enough, but not very helpful, and Wolfwood doesn’t elaborate. We already know and love Vash’s embarrassed grin, but I can’t get over Wolfwood’s almost sinister smile in the mirror. 

A cute moment where Vash looks back like, “isn’t my place great?” and Wolfwood just gapes like an idiot. (Close your mouth, my dude. Flies are gonna get in). 

Vash last visited about 20 years ago, and Jessica was a small child then, so she should be about 23 or 24. However, she looks and acts like a teenager. Vash inadvertently becomes part of an unwanted love triangle.

To his credit, Vash tries to put her off, in a joking way (”I have a reputation for being easy but even I need a bit of advance warning”). Wolfwood makes the whole situation worse by teasing Vash about his “girlfriend” in front of a fuming Brad. It’s as if he were going out of his way to antagonize the people on the ship.

When Vash actually has a chance to look at Jessica’s face, he remembers her. Think about that. He may only have met her once, it’s been 20 years, and he still recognizes her and remembers her name. How many other people does he remember from the past ~130 years? This is how he uses his powerful plant brain--Knives would view it as a waste.

Jessica cooks a feast for Vash, which, tragically, he won’t get to enjoy. How did she cook all this food so fast? It’s enough to feed the whole ship.

***

Wolfwood is mistrusted for the wrong reasons

Wolfwood actually takes off his shades and armor of acting like a jerk while introducing himself to Jessica. This is unusually open and vulnerable of him. He actually is trying to behave. But Brad, worried about “a bunch of outsiders” bringing war to their flying paradise, hits him where it hurts.  

...Did I mention Wolfwood has beautiful eyes?

Anyway, everyone gathers around staring at Wolfwood from a distance, while he drops cigarettes on the ground. There’s an entire pile lying at his feet. The whole scene is the definition of passive aggressive. 

What seems to anger Wolfwood is not so much how they treat him personally, but their denial combined with moral superiority. Not to push a metaphor too far, but these folks are able to take the moral high horse because their literal high position keeps them safe. Yet, they use this immense privilege not to help the world below, or to prepare for the ship’s inevitable fall, but to hide in their castle in the sky. It clicks for me that Wolfwood probably feels about running away the way Vash does about suicide (think back to episode 11). 

The SEEDS dwellers do not seem to understand that Wolfwood is both trying to help them and a little resentful of what they have. To them, he is everything they’ve been taught to fear and hate, up here poisoning Paradise for them with his unpleasant ideas. Of course this sort of dynamic never happens in real life.

Also, keep in mind that none of them know anything about the people below directly, only from hearsay. They’re not wrong about Gunsmoke as a whole, but they treat Wolfwood like a monster rather than a person.  That also never happens in real life.

Then he gets to the scene of a crime too late--but just in time to look like the one responsible. Although the ship dwellers would love to see him dead, he leaps to defend them against his own colleague. Knowing, perhaps, that doing this would confirm he switched sides, and his own days might be numbered. He doesn’t even pause to think, he just goes, the same way he did when the child went missing in episode 9.

***

Vash Will Save The Day

“Like you care. Five years is probably like a blink of the eye to you anyway.” Vash denies it, but the second part is probably true. He looks so surprised to hear it’s been five years.

It can’t be easy for Vash to admit that he was responsible for the “Fifth Moon Incident,” and is probably more dangerous than Knives. Once again, his only argument is “please.” But there’s no buffoonery or melodrama here. He’s dead serious, and that’s more convincing. 

Wolfwood tries to stop Leonoff from saying his name. No one who would understand the significance or matters to him is present, just Brad and Jessica. Is he merely afraid others will hear? Does he still consider himself to be Chapel?

Even facing Leonoff, Wolfwood still hasn’t put his shades back on.

Now imagine if Vash managed to find ways out of no-win situations and save the day without all the whining and crying.

Wolfwood can pause and wait for once, having faith that Vash will show up. He knows there’s always a third option for Vash. He does not yet see any for himself. Still, progress nonetheless.

***

Unfortunately for me, Vash is back with his red coat in Vash the Stampede mode, yellow glasses hiding his face.

OK, I can see how Leonoff’s puppets get into the ship without being noticed, but how on Earth did the big guy even get here?

#liveblog #liveblogging #trigun anime #trigun #millie thompson #meryl stryfe #vash the stampede #nicholas d. wolfwood #seeds ship #legato bluesummers #gung ho guns #leonoff the puppet master #character analysis #meta #brad and jessica #love and peace #ethics #faith

[wizardofahz]

Springing the Trap

A/N: Oh good, we’re talking about accountability now. This is set after 5x08 and disregards everything after.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Come to kill me yourself?” Lena says the moment Alex walks into her office, almost daring Alex to prove her right.

“I never wanted to kill you,” Alex replies. She’s made the deliberate decision to come clad in a leather jacket and jeans. She’s still armed of course, but she hopes the lack of DEO uniform will make this conversation a little less fraught.

“Aiming a Claymore satellite at me says otherwise.”

“No, it says I wanted to keep my sister and everyone else on this planet safe.” Also Alex would personally appreciate it if everyone, Lena included, would leave her brain alone.

“Kara,” Lena scoffs.

“Yeah, okay, let’s talk about Kara,” Alex says. That is the reason she’s here after all.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Lena almost snaps despite the fact that she was the one to focus on Kara. It’s not her fault. She doesn’t realize Alex set the trap.

“I disagree. You’re mad because you think Kara didn’t trust you, that she made a fool of you, but, Lena, it’s not that simple.” Alex plants the bait. “Knowing Supergirl’s identity is a tricky thing with so many potential consequences. Kara just wants to protect us. If people know her identity, they could use it as a weapon.” Alex lures her in with a pointed look. “Other people have.”

Lena bites. “I would never--”

“Funny you should say that,” Alex interrupts. “I had an interesting conversation with Andrea Rojas. After a couple run-ins with Acrata, I started putting two and two together.” Given all the masked heroes she works with, Alex has gotten good at seeing beyond the mask. “Don’t worry. She kept the details around your involvement rather vague.”

“At least someone knows how to be a good friend,” Lena says with her own pointed look.

Alex hums skeptically. “Well it’s certainly not you. Andrea made this offhand comment about you promising an exclusive the night Kara won her Pulitzer but suddenly backing out, and I started thinking to myself, what changed that night?”

Alex pauses, inviting Lena to answer. She’s practically monologuing. She knows this. It’s stereotypical villain behavior--and in this scenario, she probably is the villain from Lena’s perspective--but she’s not doing it to hear the sound of her own voice. She’s doing it to lay out the facts as she understands them and watch how Lena reacts to them.

Lena shifts, glancing away briefly before defiantly returning her gaze to Alex. “I imagine a lot did.”

Alex smiles wryly at her deflection. “I’m guessing that the biggest thing that changed in your life was that Kara told you she’s Supergirl, and see, that’s only relevant if you were planning on selling her out. So tell me again that you would never. Because I’m going to need more than a little performative indignation to convince me.”

It’s a little bit of a stretch, but this is the worst case scenario, and Alex has been trained to always account for the worst case scenario.

“I didn’t--”

The trap is sprung. Alex gets her confirmation in Lena’s shift from the all-encompassing “never” to the defensive past tense. “I thought so.”

Alex’s stomach twists at the thought of what a reveal like that could’ve done to Kara, and she has to remind herself that it didn’t actually happen. She’ll still have to tell Kara though.

Lena bristles at Alex’s knowing tone. “You have no right to come in here and accuse me of things I haven’t done.”

Alex sighs and rubs a hand against her forehead. “Lena, believe it or not, me being here like this, this is my way of showing you I care. You hurt my little sister. I’ve done much worse to people who’ve done less.”

“And you say I‘m the bad guy,” Lena quips.

But she misses the point. This isn’t about good guys vs. bad guys. This is about self-awareness, about understanding where on the morality spectrum someone’s choice of action lands.

Arresting Lena might be the kindest thing Alex could do for her--a decisive action to prevent her from really hurting anyone--but she can’t. Humans don’t fall under the DEO’s purview, and all she has to pass along to the appropriate authorities is speculation and hearsay.

Lena is not like Maxwell Lord. Illegally arresting Maxwell Lord did nothing to change his world perspective. He understood the rules of the game. Lena, on the other hand, has a confused, fluctuating schematic of the world of morality. Doing the same with Lena would paint Alex as the villain and probably provide a justification for her actions. She could make Lena worse, but then again, Lena seems capable of making herself worse.

Lena continues, “Seeing as you don’t have any jurisdiction over me and no evidence, I suggest you leave.”

Alex nods her assent, but she stops short at the door. She has one last thing to say.

“All of this,” Alex says with deliberately generic phrasing. She’s sure there’s so much more that she doesn’t even know about. “It’s going to catch up to you. You’re paving your own way to hell with all your good intentions. I know you don’t believe me. You think you’re smarter than me, that you know better, but I hope you figure it out for yourself soon because if you don’t, and especially if you keep hurting Kara to do it, my next visit won’t be a courtesy one.”

#i'd hesitated to post this but here we are #i'm glad kara had her moment #i'd only written this bc i wasn't sure if/when it'd happen for her #so i immediately thought it's best big sister alex time #alex danvers #lena luthor #supergirl #moments in the life of superfam

[currentlylurking]

The Ancients

(a clip from Reign Storm I’ll be referencing - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x3EwfbWH0DuFXKfwlta1bYHkO7wXefpg/view?usp=sharing sorry for the google doc link, copyright kept hunting me down)

So! If you know me, you know I have Several Feelings about the Ancients. For the Folklore portion of today’s World Building Week prompt, I’m going to over-analyze this brief bit of hearsay-history and a few other scenes to explain who some of the most likely canon candidates for the Ancients are.

Now, starting from the beginning:Skulker’s first lines are “it was many years ago. Before you,” (the shot focuses on the trio) “before me,” (the shot focuses on him and the Box Ghost) “before most of us.” (the shot focuses on Walker, Sidney, and Dora.)

Sidney is from the fifties. We are told this. Walker speaks with a southern drawl that can’t place him more than a couple hundred years back - something easy to hear. But Dora? Dora, the dragon-shifting princess who lives in a realm trapped in the past, who spends her earlier episodes upset and enraged that her mother won’t let her go to a ball, and has allegedly spent fourteen thousand years being oppressed by her brother? Skulker said most, and Dora fits the bill to be the exception perfectly.

But that still leaves the issue of her missing mother.

Obviously, Beauty Marked takes place after Reign Storm and suffers a case of unaddressed missing mother syndrome. It’s also worth noting that Dora spends the entirety of Reign Storm as a dragon, implying that she is furious. Ember also states that Pariah, while only being free for a day, has already started to destroy their homes.

It’s reasonable to assume that Dora fled because her realm was targetted. It’s reasonable to assume that not everyone else managed to.

I’d like to introduce our first likely Ancient: Dora’s mother, and potentially her other parent as well, who were killed by Pariah in an act of vengeance during Reign Storm.

Of course, depending on the shot, there are between six and seven ancients, so that’s not much of a dent in the mystery. Granted, as you can see in the clip, there are only seven in the final shot - the implication there being that one was in Pariah’s Keep. The question is, why? Were they a spy or a prisoner? Or perhaps... something worse?

I’d like to introduce you to our next potential Ancient: Fright Knight, the traitor.

Vlad refers to Pariah’s Keep as “home of the Fright Knight, and before that, the Ghost King.” Here he implies that Fright Knight occupied the tower after Pariah was sealed away. Given that Fright Knight himself was eventually sealed away as well, it’s reasonable to assume that he did something awful to warrant it.

It’s worth noting that the Crown of Fire, aside from colour, matches Fright Knight’s aesthetic more than Pariah’s. The legend also shows Fright Knight riding in to present it to Pariah, who does nothing but sit on his throne and wait. This can explain how despite the Ancients taking away the Crown of Fire from Pariah, he is still locked up with it.

It’s also worth noting that Fright Knight and Pariah have very minor struggles for control - when Fright Knight tells the skeletons to act “on my orders” Pariah cuts in, much more forcefully, “on MY orders.” Fright Knight is quick to abandon Pariah for Vlad, and past that, for Dan. 

Fright Knight, for whatever reason, gave Pariah the crown. The other Ancients, for whatever reason, still believed him to be on their side. I don’t have an answer for whether they thought of him a prisoner or a double agent, but they did not consider him a threat. Inevitably, he proved them wrong and was sealed away in a pumpkin.

 For our next two, I’m going to talk about scars

Here’s Pariah, our local tyrant.

Here’s Clockwork, our next Ancient (and a very popular pick for one).

And finally, Nocturne - yes, I know there’s no E at the end of his name. Unfortunately, I do not care. I think it looks so much better with one, so the E stays.

Clockwork is the Master of Time and demonstrates that by constantly shifting ages. It’s not unreasonable for his scar to still be fresh. 

Pariah was locked away. The mark on the eye he still has could still be fresh. But on the eye that matches the other two, as you can see, there’s a faint outline of a scar under the eye patch. It could be a coincidence - or it could be a consequence of turning against the other Ancients.

(it’s worth mentioning here that, obviously, we never see any hint of Fright Knight’s eyes beyond the glowy orbs under his helmet. Who knows what marks or scars he has?)

Now, Nocturne does not have time powers. He was not shoved in a magic box for who knows how long. There is no reason his scar should be fresh.

Clockwork, as he appears in the show, seems to be under contract work with the current judicial, if not full-blown ruling power of the Ghost Zone. If that’s his relationship with the Observants, it could have been the same with Pariah - or maybe it never was. Maybe the Observants pointed their Master of Time at this new ‘Ghost King’ and told Clockwork to get rid of him! Or maybe Pariah and Clockwork were close once, and this was personal. 

And then there’s Nocturne. 

Oh, Nocturne. Why would he be an Ancient? He proclaims himself to be the ghost of sleep - something that is to a blade of grass as the Master of Time is to one of those ancient redwood trees. Nocturne wants to be all-powerful, as he says in Frightmare. Ergo, he wants to become equal in power to Clockwork. He also calls himself the King of Dreams, despite being unable to fight without any dream energy to harvest.

You could say that Nocturne was the true traitor and Fright Knight was in the way - that he helped Pariah, and let Fright Knight take the fall. Or you could say that he wanted to learn from the Ancients who were, as Skulker said, powerful. With Nocturne, there’s a lot of uncertainty - an unfortunate consequence of being a season 3 villain and having most of his episode dedicated to Danny and Sam’s budding romance. Regardless of his intentions, he was the fifth Ancient.

Of course, that still leaves two to reach our final seven. Now, as I mentioned before, Pariah has Nocturne and Clockwork’s scar. He could have been one of them once, and that fact could have been lost to time. But even then, even if we want to consider that, there is still one spot left. Who was the last Ancient?

To that, I say; Fright Knight had to do something particularly awful to be sealed away, and the Frostbite’s people had to be so ecstatic about Danny’s defeat of Pariah for a reason. The last Ancient was a member of the Far Frozen - maybe even the leader before Frostbite.

So, those are my picks for the Ancients! Dora’s parents (particularly her mother), Fright Knight (the perceived traitor), Clockwork (the mercenary), Nocturne (the shifty, power-hungry one), a member of the Far Frozen who was unfortunately killed (maybe while defending the Infi-map), and Pariah (who simply was never taken off the register of Ancients, even when they were fighting him).

#Danny Phantom #Currently Talking #World Building Week #wbw19 #wbw19 day 2 #these aren't even all my headcanons lmao I can go so much more in depth #watch me ramble about skull symbolism for 500 words just for funsies #headcanon #I've had drafts of this post in the works for YEARS so TAKE IT

[cruzrogue]

You’ll have to trust me

explicit#Fictober19 @fictober-event

————————————————————————

for fanfiction:

Prompt number: 10 “Listen, I can’t explain it, you’ll have to trust me.”

Fandom (AU if applicable): #arrow fanfiction #olicity

Rating:PG13

Off: P.S. Hong Kong: Was it Real?!?

Warnings/Tags: none for this prompt but explicit for the whole story.

Summary: Oliver is getting ready to train with Talia al Ghul, he wants his wife safe which includes that she not be her bubbling, cheerful smart self. He doesn’t want her even in the mix or radar of these Shadow People.

Notes: Off of what is being written for those moments before heading to Russia and after Lian Yu’s time with Baron Reiter.

~~~~~~****~~~~~~~~sp@ce~~~~~~****~~~~~~~~

You’ll have to trust me (on A03)

 “Wait! Aren’t you the one who always says it’s too dangerous?”

He knows she’s right in her usual assumption of him being way overprotective at times, “Listen, I can’t explain it, you’ll have to trust me.”

“As if there has ever been any doubt.”

“Usually I’d rebuttal that statement and tell you not to trust anyone.”

“Yes, that is basically what you said early on in our marriage.”

“I am going to meet with a woman who can teach me to hone my skill I don’t want you in any shape or form to be in her radar.”

“Oliver, I’m your wife. I think I’m already on her radar.”

He shuts his eyes that isn’t what he really means he stops to think of the right words that won’t offend his wife but make sure she knows how important it is that she listens.

“I don’t want her to know how intelligent you are. How tech savvy you are. I want you to play a cookie-cutter housewife in the next few weeks.”

“Oliver! You’re asking me not to be myself.”

“Exactly!” Oliver takes a deep breath before continuing, “This woman is even more dangerous than Waller. We both know Amanda Waller took to you for some unforsaken reason but she also used us to her extreme endeavors.”

“Okay, I know how much you detest her but this Talia woman lives secluded teaching some sort of weaponized art.”

“When you were digging dirt for me and I told you to stop when you started talking about Shadow People. There is a reason for that.”

“Okay Oliver? What gives?”

He sighs he really didn’t want to get into the hearsays and folklore of the legendary league of assassins but this is his wife and her safety is the foremost important thing in his life so far. He’d throw all these ambitions out even if she’s is so on par with him doing all this.

“I don’t know as much, only what has been mentioned of an organized group that keeps to the shadows but they’re powerful and Talia is known to associate with them and I want… no need to know that your skills won’t be found out. Felicity we are commodities to these people. I need some more training and with Tommy coming to live in Japan with us soon I’d like to show him some moves before you both go back to Starling.”

“I thought you wanted me to go to Russia with you?”

“I do and I don’t. I haven’t made up my resolve in which life is safer for you and our unborn child.”

“I can’t believe I gave you that control. I must have been high on something.”

“It was a promise to me that you’d do anything to protect not just yourself but our baby.”

“If I knew I was pregnant I would have kept my mouth shut.”

He huffs, “Glad you didn’t than.”

“Ha, ha. I just hate the feeling of not having control over my own life.”

“Felicity? Since when do you actually not put in your two cents? Actually listen to me?”

“I do plenty of times. Like…”

“Like when you went to Lian Yu knowing exactly I would be against you putting yourself in harm’s way?”

“You don’t actually think I’d just hope and pray for your safety an ocean away? That isn’t me. Especially knowing Amanda Waller kidnapped you in the middle of one of your recons while we were living in Coast City.”

“No, even though I hope you’d keep from danger it wouldn’t be you if you did. Especially if you had an inkling that you could try to save those you love.”

“I knew I married a smart man.”

“Yea, we both know you just woke up to the most absurd marriage proposal under the sun.” She goes to his now outstretched arms and happily sighs as he wraps her deeper into his embrace. “I’m so glad that there were those weddings taking place at the park.”

Their just comfortably now in each other’s arms. Oliver knows that his training will have him on edge and this certain comfort will be a weakness so he’ll keep from coming home while she’ll be awake. They’ll be like passing sailboats in the night. He doesn’t want Felicity to worry for him but he is going to be welcoming darkness into his world. The League of Assassins are not known for the pleasantries.

Felicity can feel her husband is pulling away emotionally. He is intentionally doing it so she knows whatever he is planning is serious. A part of her wants to ask but Oliver already indicated that this would be happening. He at first, tried to sugar coat it but as realization dawned on him that he didn’t want to lie to the woman he is calling his always. She isn’t a fool she understands people like Waller are opportunists. She can only assume an organization that works behind shadows and ghosts must be intense and her husband wants to ultimately keep her safe. She gets it. Now that she’s carrying a piece of their future she wants to protect she won’t put that important little mix of them in danger.

She’ll try this meek version and play dotting wife on the outside. Let the world think she is a sweet sacrificial lamb. If it will help him feel more confident with his ever increasing skills, she’ll try to sit down and think of building a world for them. She has her own template of skills. Not everything needs to be done online. Maybe creating designs and planning an arsenal for their outlandish hobby. Her mind is her ultimate weapon. Its time she utilizes it.

“Okay, I’ll keep to myself. The less conversations I have is for the best. We both know I can overstep in those.”

“I love your babbles but you’re right. My need to keep you close but yet a world away is a lot to ask for. I’m sorry, you truly deserve more.”

“What I deserve is to know my husband is with me. Thick or thin we are in this together.” He nods. “I know exactly whom I’m married to and yes I may be overeager and try to pry into your training because it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t but know that emotions aren’t a weakness. Being in love isn’t a feeble pursuit.”

“Felicity?”

“No, you listen! I can tell by your demeanor that is what your pushing on yourself. You are strongest when you fight to live. Otherwise you let yourself realm in doubts.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Says who?”

“Because I’ve seen and done things. I’ve been the one who…” He shakes his head. She doesn’t get it. He had to do things to survive. He was the one at first getting the short end of the stick. He’s lost a lot. He understands pain.

“Who what? Seen your father kill a man and then himself? That you’ve gotten those scars and people along the way that you’ve come to care have died?”

“It’s not that simple. There are evil people in the world with nothing but power as their goal. These people see love as a weakness.”

“Yea, that makes them villains.”

He’s just flabbergasted by her outlook into this, “Felicity!”

“You forget that I’ve been reading those books from Baron Reiter. Shadowspire had an interesting library. I still hold some magic. Understanding it is a paradox in itself but I know one of the greatest powers is love. Not the cutesy true love blah blah… I mean love.”

Oliver doesn’t know where she going with this. She’s never talked about her reading other than making cute little sighs as she would flip a page after mumbling some complex gibberish. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you chose who you want to be. Allowing darkness in isn’t a death sentence. We all have the capability on each very action we create daily. Making mistakes is vital not that you should in your endeavor with Talia but what I’m saying.” She makes sure to look at him and hold her stance in this belief if he is to understand. “You don’t have to have your heart on your sleeve. You working with them is to improve yourself it is a worthy cause. Allowing yourself to forget who you are is the mistake you shouldn’t make.”

“I still don’t want them to know how important you are to me.”

“I get that. I don’t want to be that damsel-in-distress either. Though I’m your wife. I’m not going to make anything harder for you but don’t think you’re going to hide how you feel from me.”

“I don’t want to burden you either.”

“That is ridicules.” She wants to whack him. “The whole point of marriage is for us to lean on each other. I’ve got you, those vows to you weren’t empty. I meant every word. I love you and we may be entering the unknown. I need you to know as long as I am breathing I’m with you.”

“Okay, I get it. I’m not alone in all this. I may need a pep talk here and there.”

“Don’t worry I know what to do when you have your head so up your ass that...”

“I get it. Sometimes I’m hard to live with.”

“Awe baby, you are my pain in the ass and I love you for it.”

-The end for now. This is the taste what lies ahead as Oliver trains before they meet up with Tommy.

#fictober19 #olicity #felicity smoak #oliver queen

[radio-super-one]

“Up next, our topical chat with our resident in house society guru Brent Alexander! Always here, always insightful!”

Cindy Chase: "Well, I gotta say Brent. This whole villain charade is utterly ridiculous, I'm finding them to be nothing more than posers that are just trying to spook the people. But in reality who has really even heard of them these days. I feel it's the age of heroes again, especially since Black Viper took off after killing Lucky Day. I'm just hearing alot of hearsay. I'm being told by my producer that our phoneboard is lighting up with people that have opinions on the subject, so why don't we take a few calls. So caller, what are you thinking on the subject?"

Allendra: A static is heard from the other side of the phone line, an incessant buzzing which screeched through the other side, until finally, a voice spoke up.

"you shouldn't have said that... You jinxed it now"

Flames hurtle through the door, burning away at the wooden door and turning the hinges red hot. A petite young woman saunters through it, azure flames licking at her form.

Cindy Chase: Cindy gasped and turned to stare at the door that burned away, the producer getting up and trying to run out before a blonde woman in a suit stalked over and then lit up her eyes with a bright light before picking up her silver tipped cane and striking the man with it, launching him across the room and slamming him to the wall. "Enough" she said to the man who was now out for the count, the blonde stalking to the side to let Allendra speak if she so desired. Cindy widened her eyes, frozen in her spot "W-who are you?"

Allendra: The brunette girl quells the flames about her body and approaches the terrified radio presenter, kicking aside the ashen remains of the door behind her burnt to a crisp. "You'll know soon enough. Now get out my way"

Cindy Chase: Cindy immediately moved and tried to run until the door was blocked by Whirlwind who held a sour expression, Cindy Chase was going no where. Silverbeam nodded to Allendra and broke the glass to the room that held the sound boards and climbed through the gap, turning on the lights, a small red lamp with 'On air' turning on, she then pointed to the light and then to Allendra, slipping on her own headphones.

Allendra: Allendra settled into the seat that Cindy just vacated, pushing her hair out of her face and bringing the mic closer to her. Once Silverbeam gave the okay, she started her address. "You thought we would sit idle while you called us posers, that we were a group of wannabes who were just playing a game? Well you were wrong. We are entirely serious. And we are here. You thought we were broken after you killed our leaders, but it only made us stronger."

Cindy Chase: Cindy panicked quietly until Whirlwind forced her down into a seat and pushed the microphone in front of the woman, glaring at her before nodding to her leader and standing guard, holding Cindy by the hair to force her to conduct an interview. Cindy looked confused and then cleared her throat "And your name is, Miss...Uh...?" she wondered, speaking into the mic "YOu have something to say, now you have the time to do so....You have the public" she stammered, wincing as Whirlwind yanked her hair.

Allendra: "My name is Allendra, and I'm here to tell the heroes that their little dream of peace is over. Consider this a warning. We... the Shadow Society are coming for you all. We're not going to stand aside any longer" she smirks

Cindy Chase: Cindy swallowed thickly "And here I thought things had been disbanded..." she almost peeped, this getting a scoff of amusement from Silverbeam in the booth. "Why now?" Cindy had to ask, not receiving a yank from Whirlwind so guessing it was a valid question "It's been over fifteen years since a serious threat"

Allendra: Allendra let a few flames weave through the spaces between her fingers, her eyes narrowing when Cindy made a comment about why it had been so long since the last threat. "You should know why" she growls, her eyes almost lit with anger "When I was a child, A hero killed my parents... The Shadow Society was left without a leader, until now. I have taken over"

Cindy Chase: Cindy raised her eyebrows "LISTENERS! THis is brand new information, thought to only be rumors until now." She gasped, sitting forward as her interest only peaked, Whirlwind still keeping a hold of her hair "And who were your parents, Allendra, let us know their names?" she wondered, knowing how even in the pain and destruction how much this would make the shows ratings soar. Allendra: Allendra looked over at Whirlwind, nodding to her to pull Cindy's hair again, just as a warning not to get too excited. "Getting excited? The ratings will be peaking wont they" she glares at the woman. "Well I'm sure they wont be when I break your fucking fingers live on radio if you don't wipe that smile off your face" Allendra's flames tried to flare up with her anger, but she maintained a degree of control over them. "As for my parents? I'm sure your listeners remember Starstorm and Temptress"

Cindy Chase: At the order given Whirlwind yanked Cindy's hair making the woman loudly yelp "Well, you know how we are here, we care about the ratings because it means that our listeners are getting what they wish to hear" The host said with gritted teeth, her scalp aching, her eyes widening at the threat that the girl gave. A smile gracing Silverbeams lips as she heard her daughter in action, it warmed her heart. "Starstorm, THE Starstorm? As for Temptress I feel she was on a Playboy cover..." she then only screamed out when Whirlwind them gripping the host by her throat for the comment, looking to Allendra for the next order if it was needed.

Allendra: She leaned forward in her seat when the woman spoke ill of her birth mother, leaving burn marks on the table and equipment, the flames spreading. "You have some nerve" she spoke lowly, slinking over to Miss Chase and grabbing her by the hair, "Maybe I should burn off your hair for that. See how popular you are after you lose half your face"

Cindy Chase: Whirlwind kept her vice grip on Cindy, watching Allendra with utter admiration for her leaders power. At Cindy's words SIlverbeams face changed and she tensed up completely, her jaw locked. Cindy looked back to Allendra and began to whimper "I am just stating about the issue she did for Playboy in 1997" she said quickly. "WHat good will harming me do?"

Allendra: "Just because she did a cover for a magazine, doesn't mean that she was any less. It shouldn't define her" she practically hissed her words, keeping her grip firm on the woman's hair "As for harming you. It will serve as a good example for people who decide they can speak shit about my family or any of my comrades"

Cindy Chase: "Well, it was what her whole allure was based on. Then again, the nineties was a different era, listeners" she sighed, then hissing out at the pain from the grip on her throat and in her hair "Comrades, are you Russian now?" she wondered before conceding defeat "Please, just tell us what you want from us, you must want more than just telling people you are here.."

Allendra: "You know what, for that comment, I think I *will* make an example of you" she hisses, nodding to Whirlwind to step back so she wouldn't be caught in the flames. She lit up her hand that was holding Cindy's hair and set her alight, the flames spreading down her hair and to her face. She pulled back and smirks, pulling over the mic and leaning in "This is a message to all the heroes out there, Especially American Liberty. We're coming for you, None of you are safe... And i look forward to making you all suffer for what you bastards did"

Cindy Chase: Cindy screamed out when she was burned, the red head trying to pat herself, but the damage was already done. Whirlwind couldn't help but laugh out, SIlverbeam now standing and smiling herself at the sight. Cindy fell off her chair crying in pain loudly. Silverbeam stood and came over to Allendra "We should leave before a larger fight comes our way" she said, sure she wasn't scared to fight the heroes, but that wasn't part of the plan. "That'll come later, when they're broken and scared"

Allendra: Allendra nods and snaps her fingers, quelling the flames on Cindy since the damage was done as she passed her by "we're done here. Let's go" she instructed, leaving the injured presenters of the radio in her wake.

Cindy Chase: Cindy stayed on the floor, whimpering, Silverbeam typing on a computer before leaning over the mic "And now listeners, for our next request it's Johnny Cash with Ring of Fire" she purred, before stepping over the broken presenter and following her daughter out of the studio.

#bemyhero: plotdrop #we're taking requests: broadcasting #this is important guys! #tw: violence

[pluckyredhead]

Daredevil 101: Kingpin Murdock

Last time, Matt went out on a disastrous date with Milla Donovan and took out the Owl’s criminal organization. Things continue to go wrong personally and right criminally in this installment.

Content warning: harmful displays of mental illness, violence against women, domestic violence, some fairly sadistic violence from Matt, mention of suicide, threats against sex workers.

We begin with Fisk - out of the hospital and with his vision restored - putting his house back in order. For starters, he gives the FBI enough evidence to put the Owl away for a very long time:

FBI Man Whose Name I Forget isn’t thrilled to be working with Fisk, but he doesn’t have anything on him so he has to go along with it.

Fisk also finds Typhoid Mary. She has had extensive therapy, mostly hypnotism focused, that has helped her lock away her Typhoid personality and actually become a successful soap opera actress in her Mary personality. Fisk basically backhands her across the face, which undoes the hypnotism and turns her back into Typhoid. It’s pretty fucked up.

Meanwhile, Matt has asked Milla out again and despite the misgivings we saw last time she accepts. Once again, we don’t see the date itself, just see them returning home, accompanied by Jessica as Matt’s bodyguard...when Typhoid attacks and uses her pyrokinesis to set Matt on fire:

Luckily, Luke has just arrived on the scene to take Jessica to lunch, and between him and Jessica they manage to take Typhoid down:

Yeah, I’m pretty uncomfortable with two superpowered people beating up a deeply unwell woman while she screams. I think this scene is supposed to be funny? But it’s just disturbing.

The police take Mary away, Luke and Jessica go on their date, and Foggy puts Milla to bed (she’s very shaken) while Matt meditates in his underwear because, well, he’s Matt.

Once Milla wakes up, Matt climbs in bed with her. She starts feeling out the scars on his torso, but accidentally touches the wrong one:

Okay. So this scene is legitimately pretty hot - the low light and the intimacy and the fondling and the hey hey. I’m into it. It’s the first time we’ve been allowed to see real chemistry between Matt and Milla...

...and then he hits her.

It’s just a smack on the hand, and he doesn’t really hurt her, even if she is still rubbing her hand in the next panel. But. This is only the fourth time they’ve met, and their second date. Milla knows Matt’s a vigilante. She knows he’s a person of interest in a murder. She knows after their second date, he went and beat the Owl to a pulp. Their first date ended with a police investigation, and their second with Matt’s ex setting him on fire. And now he’s telling her that two women he loved were murdered. AND HE HIT HER. Surely this is where she walks out the door, right?

Again: we haven’t seen either of their dates. We have no idea why Milla is fond of Matt. And this is what frustrates me so much about how Bendis writes women who aren’t Jessica, because - okay, so I like to joke that Bendis has a crush on Matt, because every single other character he writes does. Every woman in the world falls in love with him. (At one point in her own series even Jessica thinks she’s in love with him.) None of them ever get over him. Natasha and Elektra are constantly trying to get into his pants no matter how married he is. There is an issue of Avengers written by Bendis that is almost entirely talking heads of all the Avengers talking about how wonderful Matt is, and in the next issue Squirrel Girl hits on him. As far as Bendis is concerned, Matt exists and that’s a good enough reason for Milla to want to stick around (and Milla’s feet smell like vanilla for some reason, which is apparently a good enough reason for Matt to want to subject her to the horror show that is his love life).

Every other love interest Matt has ever had up until now either fell for him as Matt Murdock and then had to deal with Daredevil, or was a ninja. But this comic has not shown us any reason Milla would want to be with Matt except hearsay about how nice his tushy is. AND HE HIT HER. ON THE SECOND DATE.

Note to all of my readers, especially the young ones: IF SOMEONE HITS YOU ON THE SECOND DATE (or ever), THAT IS A SCREAMINGLY HUGE RED FLAG AND YOU SHOULD LEAVE.

(And no, Matt is not habitually physically abusive, but MILLA DOESN’T KNOW THAT. What she does know is that Matt hits people until they’re unconscious every single night. And Matt was physically rough with Heather, and also emotionally abused her, so there’s precedent.)

So yeah, Bendis writes women to have no damn sense around Matt, and it pisses me way the hell off.

ANYWAY. Matt knows Fisk is behind Typhoid’s attack, so he heads off to deal with him and tells Milla that she’s welcome to stay, which she does. As soon as Matt leaves, Milla gets a visitor:

This is around the time that writers were not only fridging female characters left and right, they were really reveling in it by giving villains lots of creepy speeches about how much they loved hurting women. Milla isn’t fridged (...yet), but this is very, very on trend. And gross.

Also please note Bullseye’s new look to match the movie.

Luckily for Milla, Matt returns!

Yeah so I guess Bullseye’s real first name is Lester? We never find out his last name or any of the other stuff Matt’s talking about.

Then Matt, as he tends to do when Bullseye’s involved, kind of goes off the deep end:

I’m not going to transcribe all of that dialogue, but basically Matt is screaming at Bullseye that his tattoo is dumb and he should kill himself. Then he picks up a large, jagged rock (of which we have so very many on the streets of New York City) and carves a bullseye over the tattoo, screaming that the first circle is for Elektra and the second is for Karen.

Luckily for Bullseye, the FBI (who are constantly surveilling Matt anyway) show up at this point:

Despite all this secret identity stuff, Matt’s willing to unmask if he needs to to keep Bullseye in jail.

He leaves Bullseye with the FBI and heads back inside to Milla, who is hiding, terrified, in the closet, which: fair enough, God knows I would.

Milla, he CARVED OPEN A GUY’S FOREHEAD. Please think this through.

Despite the close call, Matt decides to leave Milla again, this time to deal with Fisk for realsies. But first, a very important cover:

YOU’RE WELCOME.

Anyway. Fisk is pleased to see Matt because it’s tauntin’ time:

They fight. Matt wins:

But dressing up like the devil and beating up a crime boss isn’t nearly Extra enough for Matt anymore, so he takes Fisk’s unconscious body, loads it onto the hood of a car, and drives it through the front window of Josie’s. And he doesn’t even have a license:

Matt, Josie didn’t do anything to you.

Anyway, you think Matt’s gone extra now? YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHING YET:

HE UNMASKS!!! AND TELLS THEM HE’S THE NEW KINGPIN!!! WHAT!!!!!!!

(Matt Hell’s Kitchen isn’t a city.)

(Matt leave the prostitutes alone, go after the pimps.)

(Milla please dump him.)

Next time: Matt’s the fucking kingpin you guys, I don’t even know.

#daredevil #daredevil 101

[aion-rsa]

Doctor Who: What Do We Actually Know About the TARDIS?

https://ift.tt/3mT90ZZ

We all know the TARDIS. Blue box. Travels in space and time. Bigger on the inside. May contain a hat stand. For the Doctor and her friends it is home, it is a safe port of call from monsters and cracks in time and the combined hordes of Genghis Khan. But how well do we really know the TARDIS? In many ways it is the most mysterious part of Doctor Who lore. After all, every other mystery in the universe is one the Doctor quickly sets about trying to solve- even those about herself. The TARDIS, however, is just how she hops between mysteries. The Doctor has no time to worry about the inner workings of the TARDIS because she’s always leaving it to go somewhere else.

However, over the years we have gleaned some tidbits about the workings of this marvelous time ship, so let’s answer a few of the big questions.

What’s it called?

Let’s start with what it’s called. That’s “the TARDIS” which stands for “Time And Relative Dimension In Space”. Or sometimes “Time And Relative Dimensions In Space”. The name was coined by the Doctor’s granddaughter, Susan, although also we’ve seen people refer to TARDISes by the name before Susan could have come up with it. The Big Finish audio “The Beginning” tries to reconcile this by having Susan come up with a name herself that coincidentally is also the name Time Lords used for them anyway.

Only as Bill points out when she first learns about the TARDIS, the acronym “Time And Relative Dimension In Space”, spelling out the word “TARDIS”, only works in the language of English on the little-known planet of Earth. In German, for instance, it would be called the ZURDIR, so goodness knowns what Gallifreyans actually call it.

So the answer to our first question is “We don’t know”.

Why does it look like a police telephone box?

All TARDISes (or whatever they’re called) come equipped with a Chameleon Circuit as standard. As the Doctor explains in one of the TARDIS minisodes from the Season 5 DVD box set, “Every time the TARDIS materializes in a new location, within the first nanosecond of landing, it analyzes its surroundings, calculates a twelve-dimensional data map of everything within a thousand mile radius, and determines which outer shell would blend in best with the environment… And then it disguises itself as a police telephone box from 1963.”

This has been a long-term problem for the Doctor. The TARDIS transformed into a police telephone box when it landed in London in 1963, and remained that way when it was discovered by first companions Barbara and Ian in “An Unearthly Child“. When the TARDIS teleported backwards through time, however, the Doctor and his granddaughter were confused to see it was still the same shape. It has stayed that way ever since, despite some attempts to repair it, and we largely get the sense from the Doctor these days that she prefers the TARDIS that way.

But there is still some puzzlement over why the TARDIS got stuck that way in the first place. One theory has been presented in the 50th anniversary comic story in Doctor Who Magazine. In “Hunters of the Burning Stone”, the 11th Doctor goes back in time to the events of “An Unearthly Child”, sneaks into the TARDIS and busts the chameleon circuit so that the “blue box” would become a recognized image throughout history.

Except, now we’re thinking about, if you were a super powerful alien AI landing in a junk yard in Shoreditch in 1963, and you wanted to seem as inconspicuous as possible, you’d probably look like a dustbin, or a wrecked car, or just “some rubbish”. A police telephone box… stands out a bit?

Only it gets weirder. The events of “The Fugitive of the Judoon” and “The Timeless Children” introduce us to Ruth, or “the Fugitive” Doctor. Some have suggested this might be a secret Doctoral incarnation between the first and second Doctors, but it is looking increasingly likely that this Doctor is one of the previously forgotten versions that predate William Hartnell.

And she travels in a TARDIS shaped like a police telephone box, years before it ever landed in Shoreditch 1963. So the answer to our second question is “We don’t know”.

Read more

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How big is the TARDIS on the inside?

We know it’s bigger on the inside, but how much bigger? Most of the time the only room we see of the TARDIS is the Console Room (or one of the console rooms, anyway). This can vary between being the size of a cathedral, to the size of a soundstage in Wales.

But we also know, either through seeing them directly, as in Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, or through hearsay from its passengers, that the TARDIS contains many other rooms. These include an unknown number of bedrooms for the Doctor’s companions (some with bunkbeds), a library, a swimming pool, an enormous walk-in wardrobe, a garage, the cloister room, a “Zero Room”, squash courts, a kitchen, a garden, an art gallery, a salon, a sick bay, a boot cupboard (that is enormous), water slides, boating lakes, a rainforest, and perhaps most bafflingly of all, some bins.

These are all handled by the architectural configuration system, which as near as we can tell allows the Doctor to add and delete rooms at will, like a house in the Sims. So any of these rooms might have been deleted, or deleted and re-added later, any number of times. So we don’t know how many rooms are inside the TARDIS, but we should at least be able to guess at the dimensions, right?

Fan-favourite companion Sarah Jane Smith asks this question in “The Masque of Mandragora”. The exchange goes:

SARAH: Just how big is the Tardis? DOCTOR: Well, how big’s big? Relative dimensions, you see. No constant. SARAH: That’s not an answer. DOCTOR: How big are you at the moment? SARAH: Five four, just, and that’s still not an answer. DOCTOR: Listen, listen. There are no measurements in infinity.

And then the Doctor goes on to insult puny human minds, because he’s like that. But the trouble is, he’s right. As far as we know, the TARDIS interior exists in its own pocket dimension, outside of our universe. Which means there is nothing to compare the TARDIS interior with. That, or maybe the Doctor is just covering up the fact that he doesn’t know. So take your pick. “There are no measurements in infinity” or “We don’t know”.

How many people can the TARDIS transport?

The Doctor famously nicked her TARDIS all that time ago, when it was in a scrapyard waiting to be decommissioned. At the time its passengers were the Doctor, the Doctor’s granddaughter, Susan, and according to the Big Finish audio mentioned above, a guy called the Quadrigger who was a sort of TARDIS mechanic.

This is not even close to a full crew complement. As we discover in “Journey’s End”, the TARDIS console is hexagonal precisely because there should be six people manning it at any one time, explaining why the Doctor pilots it by running around like a headless chicken, occasionally having to resort to pieces of string or an outstretched umbrella to activate controls on two sides of the console at the same time.

But in “The Invasion of Time” the Doctor’s TARDIS is able to transport a full Sontaran army, while in “Revolution of the Daleks” the Doctor tricks an entire Dalek army into trapping themselves in another TARDIS.

As we’ve already said, the interior of the TARDIS has unknown and possibly unlimited dimensions, so there’s no reason we know of why you couldn’t fit an entire civilization in there. It does make you wonder why more Doctor Who episodes don’t feature the Doctor organizing an entire planet’s population into an orderly queue to evacuate. So once again the answer is “We don’t know”.

What powers it?

Sure, why not. We’ve failed hard at what it’s called, why it looks like it does and how big it is. Why don’t we just flat out ask what powers the dimensionally transcendental spacetime machine? That’ll be an easy one.

Well it’s the Eye of Harmony, an exploding star preserved at the moment it collapses into a black hole. The Fourth Doctor story, “The Deadly Assassin” revealed that it can be found hidden under the floorboards of the Panopticon on Gallifrey, except that Gallifrey has blown up (at least) twice, and in the Doctor Who movie we discovered that actually the Eye of Harmony is on board the TARDIS under a big stone trapdoor and can somehow be used to steal all of a Time Lord’s remaining regenerations, but then in “Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS” we find that actually its just hanging in this massive space void inside the TARDIS with a walkway going through it. Are these all the same Eye of Harmony? Did the Doctor pinch it, or were all the TARDISes connected to the Eye of Harmony through wormholes or subspace or something, allowing it to be in multiple places at once?

I will let you guess.

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Doctor Who Series 13 will air this autumn on BBC One and BBC America.

The post Doctor Who: What Do We Actually Know About the TARDIS? appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3BzSzpA

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[play-read-write]

Shipping Wars

Fandom: RWBY Word Count: 1692 Characters: Team RWBY Description: Of all of team RWBY the only two to never fight were Blake and Ruby. Weiss and Yang walk in to find there’s a first time for everything.

They were close to the room before they heard it, almost to the door. Yang looked over at Weiss, who met her confused look. “You hear that too?”

“Yes.” Weiss says, “I do.” They moved closer, standing just outside the door to their dorm now, the muffled sound of raised voices coming from inside.

“But… it can’t be.” Yang says, “Those two never fight.”

“I certainly don’t recall them ever being in an argument with each other.” Weiss says.

“What do you think happened?”

“How should I know? Open the door and find out.”

“Alright, here we go.” Yang says, opening the door and stepping in.

“HOW can you possibly think that?” Blake asks, waving her hands, “It’s absurd!”

“How can you NOT?” Ruby asks back, “Its plain as day, you just don’t want to see it!”

“What I want is for you to start making sense; nothing you’ve said has had anything to go on!”

“It’s had everything to go on, you’re just pretending it’s not there even when I point it out!”

“Um, you two okay?” Yang asks, “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on,” Blake says, “Is that your sister is being ridiculous.”

“No I’m not, you’re just being stubborn.” Ruby says.

“Your idea is based on circumstantial evidence and a bunch of hearsay. You’re just deluding yourself.”

“Don’t think breaking out big words means you’re right.” Ruby says, “Just cause I can’t word it as fancy doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

“No, the facts mean you’re wrong, how is it even a question?”

“Did we even read the same book?” Ruby asks, “If you honestly believe that after reading it then you need to read it again.”

“I have, six times, and I still don’t know what could prompt someone to think such a thing?”

“Wait, this is about a book?” Weiss asks.

“Not just a book.” Ruby says, “The Hidden Huntress, only the best book to come out in like, decades!”

“At least we agree on something about it.” Blake says, “It’s a great book, and the first in a series, but SOME people” She glares at Ruby, who glares back. “Seem to have some insane ideas about it.”

“Yeah, and one of those people is named Blake Belladonna.” Ruby says.

“Oh real mature.” Blake says.

“So you two are arguing over a book you both like?” Weiss asks.

“Not surprising.” Yang says, “Ruby can get really really into those fictional worlds. As much as Blake reads, I’m guessing it’s the same.”

“But what on Remnant could they be arguing about in something they both enjoy?”

“It’s easy.” Blake says, “I read the book and, with my literal thousands of books of experience, saw that they were clearly developing a relationship to be explored in the later series. A very good one too. Ruby read it wrong for some reason.”

“I did not!” Ruby protests, “I may not have read as many books but I’ve played games and seen movies too. I know what was happening. She wasn’t falling for her at all, she said she hated her!”

“It’s called character development. And you’re one to talk. You really think she’d be going for the other girl, they’ve barely spoken!”

“It’s called character development.” Ruby repeats, “Besides, they’re relationship is clearly better. Even at the end of the book when they were friends she was still all rude sometimes. The Hidden Huntress would never go for her!”

“Right, because she’d go for the used to be villain.” Blake says sarcastically, “She’d have nothing in common with someone with that past. Besides, they are clearly interested in someone else.”

“Oh don’t even get me started on that one!” Ruby says, “They had ONE important scene together, the only other thing they’ve done is stand next to each other.”

Weiss and Yang look between the two arguing girls, confused and somewhat nervous. “Wait,” Yang says, “You guys are fighting… over a shipping war?”

“No!” They both say at the same time.

“It’s not a shipping war.” Blake says, “I’m just trying to talk some sense of reason into your sister here.”

“She’s right that it’s not, but she’s the one who needs to see reason.” Ruby says, “They’re amazing characters and I won’t have her thinking of them like that, they deserve better.”

“Oh because yours is so much better. Two of them you like are polar opposites, they’d never get together!”

“I could say the same about yours, twice!” Ruby says, “But at least mine aren’t actual opposites, they’re the same at heart.”

“One is a criminal and one of them beat a guy to nothing for just stealing.”

“Yeah well one of yours is all mean and one is all happy.”

“So the happy one makes the mean one nicer it’s called balance.”

Yang walks over to the bookshelf as they keep arguing, pulling the book off, and then getting the other copy off of Ruby’s bed. “HEY!” She shouts, getting their attention. As soon as they look she activates Ember Celica. “You two stop right now, or the books get it.”

Both of them immediately change their tone. “Be reasonable Yang.” Blake says, holding up her hands passively, “You don’t want to do that.”

“And I don’t want my best friend and my little sister fighting, which one is more important do you think?”

“Yang.” Ruby says sternly, “As team leader I demand you return those books unharmed.”

“Sure.” Yang says, “As long as you two promise to stop fighting.”

“She started it!” Ruby says.

“Oh I so did not.” Blake says.

“I was just asking about the book, I was being friendly, and you had to go and say my ideas where stupid!”

“I did not say that, I just pointed out how you were wrong.” Blake says, “But yes, that idea is stupid. I’d have thought a Beacon student would be smart enough to realize it.”

“You’re the one with the stupid ideas. There’s no way that could happen.”

“It’s going to be canon!” Blake says.

“Only if you write it down and put it in the barrel of a gun!” Ruby says.

“They love each other!”

“Of course they do! It’s just not romantic!”

“It is! Why else would they put it in there?”

“Because they want to show how close they are as friends! Friends do that kind of stuff together all the time!”

“Not in stories they don’t. They can’t waste a minute so they only put it in if it’s relevant.”

Yang tosses one of the books into the air and fires a shot, causing it to rain down singed pieces of paper. Blake and Ruby both jump at that.

“NO!” Ruby cries out.

“Yang how could you?” Blake asks.

“I told you to stop. Still one more here you could share, no idea whose it is. I’m sure such a popular book would be sold out so you better stop.” Yang says.

“Yang.” Ruby says calmly, taking a step towards her. “Just give us the book.”

“Nope.” Yang says, “Not until you promise.”

“Fine.” Ruby says, “I’m sure we can come to-“ mid-sentence she bursts forward in rose petals to snatch the book from Yang’s hands.

Yang saw this coming and quickly raised it up over her head. “Ha, I’ve been your sister long enough to-huh?” She looks up just in time to see Blake jump over her, snatching the book while she was distracted and landing on Ruby’s bed. Jumping she tries to grab it, only to go through one of Blake’s clones as she jumped over her, tossing the book to Ruby.

“Run for it!” Ruby says, flying out the door and leaving rose petals behind, Blake following behind in a black and purple blur just a second later, both of them running past Weiss.

“Well, that should take care of that.” Yang says, dusting her hands off.

“What just happened?” Weiss asks.

“They were fighting, so I gave them something more important to focus on. Hopefully they shouldn’t go back fighting again.”

“I see.” Weiss says. “Well they’ve always gotten along before, I’m sure this will pass. Though they’ll likely be mad at you for destroying one of their books.”

“Eh, I can take it.” Yang says with a shrug, moving to her own bed. “Better than having them fight.”

“I still can’t believe those two fought, and over something so silly.” Weiss says as she sits on her bed as well.

“It happens.” Yang says, “As long as they don’t let it come between them.”

“I guess some people get caught up in the most ridiculous things.”

“Yeah, they’re smart though; they’ll calm down and apologize. Probably already are.”

“I hope so.” Weiss says.

…

Ruby and Blake ran down the hall until they realized they weren’t being followed, not that Yang could catch them anyway. Finally coming to a stop they stood there, Ruby holding on to the book. “I think we’re safe.” She says.

“Looks like it.” Blake says, “I can’t believe she destroyed one.”

“Yeah.” Ruby says, looking at the one she had. “Here.” She holds it out to Blake.

“What?” Blake asks.

“It’s yours.” Ruby says, “It’s got your name inside it.”

“Oh, thank you.” Blake says, taking it. “I suppose Yang was right, we can share until you get a new one. It’s my fault it happened anyway.”

“No it’s not.” Ruby says, “It’s Yang’s. Kind of mine too. I shouldn’t have gotten so worked up over that, sorry.” She twists one foot on her toe as she looks up at her through her bangs.

“No, it was mine too. I shouldn’t have either; I usually try to be more composed than that. I just slipped up a bit.”

“It’s alright, we both messed up. You liking… that other one doesn’t change the actual book when I read it so it’s not a big deal.”

“And the same for you.” Blake says, “You want to go see if we can find you another copy?”

“Sure.” Ruby says, “Then we can come back and mess with Yang for threatening the books.”

“Sounds like fun.” Blake says with a chuckle as they head out.

#RWBY #Blake Belladonna #Ruby Rose #Yang Xiao Long #Weiss Schnee #My Fanfic #February Challenge #i thought ''ruby and blake fight'' sounds interesting #took me a while to figure out what the heck those two would fight about #also a bit of a joke in there with who their shipping if you can pick up on it