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artemis-entreri · 1 year

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Hello! I am super new to the Forgotten Realms and very happy to have found your blog. I'm currently going through your posts like daily reading material :) I was wondering if you happen to have a recommendation of a sort of "people, places, customs" book or site for a beginner like me (wiki has honestly been a bit overwhelming) and also which true-to-character Artemis books you would recommend outside of the Sellswords trilogy. Thank you!

[[ Greetings and well met!

I feel that the best way to get to know the Forgotten Realms is to start small. I've found that to truly get a feel for what a world is like, one should get to know those who give it life: its inhabitants. There are over 300 novels published in the Forgotten Realms setting, I would suggest finding something you're interested in and starting from there. You might not be getting the broad strokes right away, but it's a lot more personal and interesting this way, as reading sourcebooks can be horribly dry. 😜

A lot of people who start their foray into FR novels with Drizzt find other drow-related novels the easiest to branch out into, so if you like drow, the War of the Spider Queen series is a suitable second step. There are some issues with that series, but it's mostly lore-related so I won't delve into them here. For an FR beginner though, it also lets you experience six different authors' writing styles, and if you especially like any particular author, you can look up what other novels they've written in the Forgotten Realms to read next. An author who didn't write any of the WotSQ books but who nonetheless is a must read is Elaine Cunningham, whose Starlight and Shadows trilogy bring more life and nuance to the drow than any Drizzt book does, which is saying a lot given that there are only 3 drow-centric books by Elaine compared to ~40 Drizzt books (and counting).

If you don't care much about drow, Azure Bonds by Jeff Grub and Kate Novak is a good place to begin. It is the first of The Finder's Stone trilogy, so you can continue the tale if it interests you, but Azure Bonds also works well enough as a standalone if you're not interested in continuing. More often than not however, many find that three books is not enough and wish for a continuation of their story, but sadly there are not more books continuing that tale.

The Ed Greenwood Presents Waterdeep series, which consists of six stand-alone novels, is also something I'd recommend for expanding your knowledge of the Realms. Like WotSQ, it's penned by six different authors, but unlike WotSQ, each book tells a separate story, all set within one of the most well-known and iconic cities of the Realms. So much about Waterdeep is so representative of the feel of the world in general that it's no wonder that a lot of FR products visit the city, such as the 5e adventures Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Some of the books in the Waterdeep series spin off into their own series, so if you liked any of them it might be possible to continue. For those that don't have spin-offs, their authors have published other books in the Realms, so you can follow those for new reading material.

Other FR series that are regularly praised are the Erevis Cale books by Paul S Kemp and the Brimstone Angels books by Erin M Evans. The Erevis Cale books follow a morally gray protagonist and in general feel more mature than some of the FR novels. Brimstone Angels feature a pair of tiefling sisters and contains a lot of dragonborn lore. I enjoyed both sets of books well enough, but I'm mostly recommending them because a lot of other people enjoyed them. I personally feel that the Brimstone Angels books are wordy and juvenile, reminiscent of some books I read in middle school called "Sweet Valley High", but a lot of people absolutely love them. Elaine Cunningham also has books aside from the Starlight and Shadows trilogy that are very good as well; I wholly recommend all of her books. Elaine's book on Waterdeep, penned together with Ed Greenwood (and not part of the Waterdeep series) does start off somewhat slow, but grows into a deep, compelling, and moving work, in other words, Elaine's signature type of writing.

My personal favorite trilogy in the Realms is Blades of the Moonsea by Richard Baker. It is set in the 4e era of D&D, which is a very unpopular edition due both its rulesets and what it did to the setting. I love it because it embodies through and through what made me fall in love so hard with the Realms. The protagonist, Geran Hulmaster, is just your average Joe in the world. Sure, within his own circle he's got some traits that elevate him from his peers, but he's far from the all too often trope (especially in the Drizzt books) of competing to be the biggest Mary Sue he could be. It's easy to slip into Geran's shoes and experience the problems that, for him, are bigger than the world, but in the global scheme are barely a blip. I find this sort of scenario really relatable because in real life, all we can do is strive to do the best that we can with what we're given, celebrating our accomplishments even when they aren't world-shaking, and enduring our failures even when they aren't world-breaking. Not everything is nor has to be, "And the whole world will never be the same again", and it's really not much different in a high fantasy world with tons of magic. Worlds are made of individuals, and there's no better way to understand it than seeing the world through the eyes of those who live within it.

If reading a bunch of novels don't appeal to you, video games are another good way to get to know the Realms, for the same reason of starting up close and personal. The classic games are definitely a step up in difficulty compared to modern games, for instance the original Baldur's Gate games will absolutely murder you if you go into them unprepared. Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 aren't as bad in terms of difficulty, but they start slow, and definitely show their age to those who are accustomed to modern games. Sadly, there aren't that many options as far as modern FR games are concerned. Baldur's Gate 3 looks extremely promising, but it isn't complete yet (and I've not played the beta to know how complete the story will be upon release). Sword Coast Legends had good voice acting but was a big flop otherwise. Neverwinter Online is a pay to win MMORPG that requires as much understanding of the lore as it gives (which is to say, not a lot). I do mention Idle Champions on my blog, but it isn't really an interactive game as it belongs to the "idle clicker" genre that differs a lot from what most people would consider gaming.

If video games also do not interest you and you just want a general overview, a good starting sourcebook would be Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms. For disambiguation, it's the one that looks like this:

Please note that it is dry if not paired with a narrative. The 3e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting is also good, but is more suitable as a step 2 after Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms, for it is a bigger scope. Both of these resources are several editions out of date, but it is unfortunately the case that the current edition (5e) has all but reduced the Realms to only the Sword Coast, and not a really deep coverage of it at that. 3/3.5e was really the golden era for FR, and with 5e all but resetting everything back to what it was then, it's almost never wrong to pull a 3/3.5e sourcebook for some deep lore delving.

I realize that I've probably beaten the dead horse to a pulp about this 😜, but the best way to get to know the Realms is really through the novels. I personally had a lot of fun looking up things I'd encounter in the novels that I didn't understand at the time on the FR Wiki. It totally isn't necessary to do so, that was just my personal approach; you learn a lot about the world just reading the books and enjoying the journey they take you through. Depending on what kinds of creatures/characters/subjects/areas you're interested in, I can point you in all kinds of directions on what to read.

As for Artemis, I would say that Night of the Hunter would be the last book in which his characterization is consistently true (even if the back side of the cover shows him as a white guy yet again 😑). The first dramatic decline of the quality and consistency of his characterization is in the Homecoming Trilogy, with the final book ending in what I felt to be the worst of all time in those regards. That, however, was before the Generations Trilogy came into being, and performed what I didn't think was possible: the worsening of Artemis' characterization than in Hero. The current The Way of the Drow Trilogy feels very much like RAS is taking a stance with Artemis the way that he did with Wulfgar post-reincarnation: He has no idea what to do with him but includes the character for old time's sake, then moves him around without putting any thought into if it makes sense and/or is consistent with his past development. RAS might not have ever been the pinnacle of literature, but he has demonstrated the ability to write quality that isn't the trash that he's been putting out recently. I continue to read each book hoping that things will improve, or at the very least go back to the quality that they were in the past. It might be a foolish endeavor, as those older books were written by a man who still knew humility and humbleness, but at the very least, I want to know what's happening to the character that I love, if for nothing other than to figure out sensical ways to reconcile what's being done to him with what's going on in the wider world and what would be reasonable/sensible. ]]

#Forgotten Realms #legend of drizzt #Artemis Entreri #the legend of drizzt #book recommendations #ooc #ama

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danepopfrippery · 2 years

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Wtf is happening over on ofmd Twitter??

I dont tag in much so last i was aware was the ‘stede bonnet is a racist and u are too’ fluff. And this is of course my take. I only peak in anymore someone more involved might be able to explain better.

Theres some lovely ppl over there, gorgeous art and nsfw art too. But starting lets say may-ish a group of mostly young fans (judging by their profiles most were under 22) started saying most fans were racist for liking Stede Bonnet or Izzy and basically white people and straight ppl shouldnt be allowed to watch or be fans. If u like Con or Izzy (yup both) you were basically a klan member cuz clearly he thinks Ed is his slave etc. it goes on.

Look im white and cishet so im basically 3% of most of the fandom. But i found this particularly interesting cuz a lot of these people crossed over with Wwdits and no one wanted to talk about Kayvan Novak doing repeated blackface starting in 2015. They also didnt want to acknowledge Taika said some real terfy shit when he was my age in 2014 (mustve been an asshole era). Neither man has apologized (or mark proksch) and Kayvan doubled down on it last year.

So look i absolutely can not say how poc are allowed to feel. I just find it very odd they want to lynch Rhys and Con but are fine with Kayvan especially. Blackface to me seems like an ultimate sin.

So moving along… by the C2e2 they wanted to cancel Con for playing Izzy and slammed anyone who fangirled over him. A few weeks later Con made an insensitive comment about a tory having a coke nose, comparing it to a latine country. For some reason that didnt blow up til August. He did apologize and deleted or paused his twitter (he claimed before it blew up he would for filming and this coincided with filming beginning so hard to say). Most of them felt apologizing was no good and this was proof he was truly a racist playing a racist character.

(Fyi my personal belief is ppl should take responsibility, sincerely apologize, and never do x again).

Rhys’ wife is a royalist and when the Queen died they went after her and Rhys for saying Elizabeth’s death was sad. Wife doubled down. Ppl said proof shes racist and he should divorce her (i mean…i didnt love it but they really went after them. Im no royalist and think the queen was a colonizer.)

So then a few weeks ago Rhys Darby briefly replied to a friend that he felt playing Stede Bonnet was like reliving a past life. It was like 2 sentences. Ppl first thought it was cute, then this mob came to feast. They attacked any fan who liked it and attacked rhys so much he declared this is why he doesnt tweet much.

I personally took the tweet to mean he felt like he was reliving a life, not necessarily Stede Bonnet the real dude. But i mean shit if ur playing (or claiming) a rich white man pre 1860 the dude was likely a slave owner. Not a justification but liking a fictional character doesnt mean u think the fictional character is the real dude. I didnt know Stede Bonnet existed before ofmd. Real dude was a cunty slave owner who was prbly mentally ill and an asshole to his crew. I dont conflate Rhys’ bird of paradise bitchy queen with that dude. In my world Stede Bonnet is a fictional character. Fuck the real guy.

Soooo ive ranted nice and long here (sorry i have feelings). But the summary is theres a young mob of ofmd fans on twitter who want to prove they are activists by being assholes to real ppl who arent doing anything worth calling out…while also not calling out actors who really have done shit. Basically baby bullies. And oddly many of them are white so its even weirder. But thats that. I dont recommend bothering with it.

#ofmd #our flag means death #twitter drama #twitter ofmd #con o neill #rhys darby #izzy hands #stede bonnet #kayvan novak #cw racism

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ladylilithprime · 3 months

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Knit The Raveled Sleeve

Series: Fluffy Faerie Tales

Fandom: Supernatural

Tags/Warnings: Half-Fae Sam Winchester, Jimmy and Castiel Are Twins, Selkie Jack Kline, Sam Winchester Is Jack Kline's Adopted Father, Brief Allusions to Canon-Typical Violence, Injury Recovery, Knitting, References to Faerie Society and the Balance of Debt, Gifts Are Hard Among Faeries

Pairing: Sastimmy/Jamstiel (Jimmy Novak/Sam Winchester/Castiel)

Rating: Teen and Up

Summary: Convalescence sometimes leads to picking up new hobbies. In fulfilling a recpriocal promise to his cousin, Sam picks up a hobby that leads to comissioning his cousin's help in making a very special gift for his boyfriends.

For: @fluffyfebruary challenge!

Prompt: Day 10: Care

Read on AO3

THERE ARE OCCASIONALLY times in one's life when the Universe at large conspires to force one to slow down and take a mandatory break, whether one desires such a break or not. These times also tend to happen more frequently, comparatively speaking, when one is prone to measuring one's lifespan in a few dozen centuries rather than merely years. There is also no rhyme or reason to it. For instance, one might attempt to argue that settling in one place with intent to stay there for at least half a dozen decades in order to raise the selkie child one adopted and taking up with a couple of adorable humans counted perfectly well as a break.

And yet, one might still be impaled by an alicorn while protecting your human lovers because the term lover referred only to feelings and a pair of magic-touched technical virgins smelled tasty to the one-horned flesh-eating menaces. One might also then decapitate the alicorn impaling one, break the horn from the decapitated head, and proceed to fight and kill six more alicorns with the horn of the first still shoved through one's right side just below the ribs until the incursion was fully dealt with and the drifting portal closed and sealed. One might also ensure one's lovers were alright (mostly, some shock) and could handle collecting one's adopted son before one consented to being taken to the hospital, where one would be obliged to sit through a lecture from an unhappy dragon who has known one for most of her life and does not wish to see her mostly-immortal friend die before her.

One might be stuck on mandatory bed rest while one heals from the magically-complicated impalement.

Serendderch, second-born half-human son of Muireann, the Cerulean Princess of the Summer Court, known to the Seelie and Unseelie Courts as the Steel Prince, and now going by the name Sam Winchester in the mortal realm, did not like bed rest. He understood the necessity of allowing his body to heal, and even agreed with the need not to push himself too far too quickly and risk setting himself back. This did not mean he was happy about it, especially since he had quickly exhausted the fraction of his personal library that he kept in his apartment and trips to the mainland to visit the public library for more books were limited by his injury to "send either Cas or Jimmy with a list from the online catalogue and hope they're still available".

"You brought this one on yourself, what with trying to run that cafe of yours alone for so long on top of raising your son and only ever taking one day off a year," his mother had scolded him when she had called and he had dared complain about being stuck in a nest on the couch while his son and lovers fussed over him. "Maybe think about actually hiring more staff so you can take a couple days off a month with your boys and go do more of those little family outings. Go on dates, for Summer's sake! And don't worry about your brother, he'll get his head out of his backside eventually, I swear he gets it from your father...."

She must have talked to Sam's cousin in DC shortly thereafter, though, because Cadi sent him a box via portal that contained a full set of wooden knitting needles and far more yarn than should have fit into a box of that size. Cadi included a fairly basic instruction booklet on beginner knitting and a note admonishing him, You didn't break your arm or hand or dislocate your shoulder this time, and you promised after making me learn leatherworking. He sent most of the yarn back after asking Jack, Jimmy, and Cas to touch-test it and finding far too many of the skeins provoked sensory issues. To her credit, Cadi paid attention, and the yarn she packed up and sent to him in the second box was all acceptable blends of alpaca, silk, cotton, and bamboo fiber.

After some back and forth with Cadi - if he was going to give in and do this, he was going to do it right - Sam picked a skein of 100% cotton to practice with. It wasn't as stretchy as the other yarns, which worked in Sam's favor as far as getting the tension on the stitches right, and was easier to unravel whenever he made a mistake than the more wool-like alpaca would have been. And he did end up ripping out his work several times from accidental increases or dropped stitches or miscounting before a knit or a purl switchover. Calming and meditative, my ass, he thought more than once that week, but gradually he got the hang of it and even started to enjoy it some, at least once Jimmy brought him some audiobooks to listen to while he knit and Jimmy, Cas, and Jack took turns cuddling with him. At the end of the first week, when he finally could not take another day stuck sitting at home on the couch no matter how pleasant the company, he had a handful of reasonably serviceable knitted cotton dishrags to use in the cafe.

"Cadi won you over?" Charlie said knowingly when he brought them in.

"I did promise," Sam sighed.

To nobody's surprise, except perhaps Gabriel's when he noticed, Sam kept up the knitting. He appropriated one of the official Lighthouse CommodiTeas tote bags to be his knitting bag and began bringing in various small projects to work on during his breaks which Charlie, Jimmy, and Cas all conspired to ensure he took regularly. This had the effect of drawing in other knitters who came by the cafe, and soon there was a twice-a-week stitch'n'bitch group meeting up to share patterns and project help and trade yarns across their respective stashes. Sam ended up learning a lot of extra tips and tricks from the group, and he paid them back with knitters' circle discounts on meeting days and doing the legwork for organizing a donation drive of knitted baby hats and tiny socks to the maternity ward at the hospital where Meg worked. Other people who saw them knitting and talking came over to see if they offered lessons and were quickly drawn into the group as well.

Sam had a more personal project in the works, however, and it was also a bit more complicated. It involved more private conversations with Cadi and another portal delivery followed by a slower ground-shipping package to DC thanks to the limitations of shipping magical items. His own part of the project was carried out casually in the midst of the knitting circle every third meeting, working with pale blue alpaca and silk yarn as he knit with increases and decreases to match the shapes of the paper pattern Cadi sent him. He played it off as rotating his projects so as not to get bored or forget what he was doing and end up with fifteen projects going and no spare needles. The joke got him plenty of laughs and sheepish looks from the rest of the group.

"I should preface that this is not a holiday or anniversary and there is no expectation of reciprocation," Sam began as his boyfriends eyed the packages. "I did consider waiting until a more traditional gifting holiday, but there are nuances to faerie gift exchanges and equivalencies that makes these unsuitable for such a thing. Therefore, I am choosing to be very human about gifting these to you now."

It still took months, which meant it was well past the alicorn attack and well past Sam being fully healed and completely done with Dean refusing to apologize to the twins for being an ass. With Cas and Jimmy's birthday (and the more personal Separation Day) behind them, it was almost tempting to wait until Yule when an exchange of gifts was to be expected. Practicality won out over patience in the end, the desire to see his mortal boyfriends better protected overriding his faerie instincts regarding balancing debts, and so Sam waited only until the next time Jimmy and Cas came over to spend the evening with him and Jack, biding his time through the after dinner ritual of Jack's bedtime stories which Jimmy and Cas both listened in on, before bringing out the matching packages wrapped in brown paper and placing them on the coffee table in front of the couch.

Jimmy and Cas exchanged one of their speaking looks, the kind not even Sam could parse unless they wanted him to, and then reached for the packages. For his own part, Sam tried not to hold his breath or appear obviously nervous as he watched them. Jimmy tended to start at the middle of the tape and rip, whereas Cas preferred to peel open one end and slide the contents out like the wrapping was a bag, but they both got the packages open about the same time.

The packages contained two nearly identical long jackets made from dark blue dyed leather. There were protective runes nestled among traditional Seelie filigree motifs in navy, cerulean, and sky blue embroidery with silver accents at the lapels and cuffs, and the buttons were hand-carved bone with the same filigree.

"Is this...?" Jimmy started, then faltered, glancing at Cas.

"Alicorn hide," Sam confirmed.

"And the buttons?" Cas asked.

"Carved alicorn bone."

"These embroidery patterns?"

"Traditional Seelie motifs from the Summer Court and runes of protection."

Jimmy unfolded the jacket and opened it, his eyes widening as his fingers brushed over the pale blue knit lining. "This is..."

"That alpaca silk blend you both liked best."

"You knit the lining," Cas stated. "And it's reinforced."

"Canvas interfacing woven with alicorn mane and tail hairs on the crossgrain. I did have most of the materials already," Sam added with a slight shrug.

Jimmy and Cas glanced at each other again with another of those speaking looks. "Jack knows?" Jimmy asked. "He approves?"

"He chose the colors," Sam said, trying not to fidget. He didn't think their reaction was negative, exactly, but there seemed to be a weight to the moment that he hadn't fully intended but couldn't seem to deny as they pinned him with twin piercing looks.

"Marry us."

What?

"The value of these jackets far exceeds anything we could hope to afford, so you chose to give them to us outside the bounds of expected reciprocal gifting," Cas began when Sam could only stare.

"The motifs are distinctly Seelie in nature and the colors are of your family, which would mark us as under your family's banner to anyone who knows what to look for," Jimmy picked up, his thumb brushing along the embroidery on the lapel of his jacket with a near reverent care.

"And you personally knit the lining, which could be construed as you knitting us sweaters," Cas finished. "By the lore of knitting, we must now either break up with you or marry you. If Jack approves of these gifts, we can assume you do not wish us to break up."

"Please don't," Sam blurted out, his face heating from embarrassment. "But you don't have to... to propose marriage just because... I mean, unless you really want...." To his floundering relief, the twins smiled at him and reached out to take his hands in theirs.

"We would be honored to be a part of your family and have you be a part of ours," Jimmy told him, lifting the hand he held to brush a kiss across Sam's knuckles.

"Mom might take a while to come around," Cas admitted as he lifted Sam's other hand in mirror to Jimmy, "but then, Mom's the reason you can have us both. And we already know your mother likes us."

"So will you?"

"...Yes."

#fluffy february 2024 #rk writes #supernatural fic #sastimmy #urban fantasy au #coffee shop au #knitting fic #proposal through commissioned clothing

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irritablepoe · 4 months

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WAIT IM ALSO CURIOUS is there any poetry or maybe a poetry collection you really like??? IT JUST ENTERED MY MIND WHILE I WAS USING MY LIT BLOG PLS FEEL FREE TO IGNORE HSUWHSUWHS

THANK YOU FOR ASKING TOBI AND I'M SO SORRY I TOOK SO LONG! i was thinking which i would pick as favs and then i went to reread them all and then i forgot about this and then i reread them again💀 anyways, i made a short list and wrote a lil bit of why i like it ig?

sooooo, i only have 5 collections:

rachel oates: reflections on healing

the poems of nakahara chuuya

kurt tucholsky: zwischen gestern und morgen (verbatim translation: between yesterday and tomorrow)

berklie novak-stolz: lazarus rises (amongst other things) (idk if you know her from tt maybe, she's really cool and does fandom stuff!)

the poems of edgar allan poe

i have other online books as well but these are like collected works from multiple mostly german poets yk :3

ok i'm probably forgetting so many poems but i'll try to list as many as i can that i really like (a few will be german tho and idk how to translate them really but i'll try if i use direct quotes)

Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland - Fontane: someone will hit me for this bc it's such a silly poem about a dude that has a pear tree and on his death bed he says to lay a pear into his grave and ofc a pear tree grows out of it and continues his tradition of giving away pears. and idk it's such a nice thing to think about like your good actions can be carried on after death? it's very nice

The Haunted palace - Poe: reminds me so much of that one short story i wrote in which i personify the house, otherwise i just love poe's flowiness in his poems so so much

continuing with Poe - The city in the sea: oof such feeling of doom, it cannot be compared

A dream within a dream -Poe: there's a reason this is my header, idk why it scratches my brain so much

The Raven - Poe: i don't think i have to explain that one it's just a classic

just like Annabel Lee -Poe, god i'm in love with this poem

Zum Lazarus - Heine: reminds me of Ivan Karamazov, i don't think i can explain it well but it's kind of a criticism of guessing and hypothesizing in regards to god when we don't know what he's up to?

Sonnet 112 - Shakespeare: i'm sorry, but i might as well be frothing at the mouth at "you are so strongly in my purpose bred, that all the world besides methinks are dead"

same with sonnet 139 - Shakespeare

shakespeare in general ig?

(in the collection:) XXIII - Berklie novak-stolz: i mean "hope is a feathered thing i thought to be lost" COME ON!!

III - Berklie novak-stolz: "these words must be pried from my teeth" again. i have no words.

shame - nakahara chuuya: "why, oh why, this shame?" sfskdfhksdhk at this point i can't be coherent anymore i suppose; i've not read many of his works yet but i'm excited to read them

Loreley - Heine: captain is so mesmerized by a woman he sends his ship into the ocean; a classic, very nice, very enjoyable read

der spinnerin nachtlied - brentano (translation: the spinners (?) lullaby)

goethe and schiller are ofc very good poets but idk i haven't been hit in the face by them yk (at least not yet? or maybe school has made me immune to their writings idk, i did like faust a lot tho)

die brück' am tay - fontane

fontane in general has made some nice poems but i'm a bit traumatized by john maynard, like yeah good hero man and stuff but i can't take this serious anymore when i still hear my classmates and me singing that poem

elizabeth barrett browning!! probably especially "my heart and i", i've not read much of hers tho

okay that's like a good overview of what i like :3 again, sorry it took so long and this isn't nearly as long as i'd hoped it to be, but maybe i remember a poem or two later on that i've forgot to mention?

now i wanna know what yours are tho, if you have any👀

#i hope this post is working now and doesn't get eaten by tumblr pleaaaasee #-johnny's asks #ty again tobi this has send me down a rabbit hole multiple times :3 #edit: OMG IT WORKED!!!

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shallowseeker · 1 year

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Dean wants what he can never have...so what's stopping him?

A consideration of Pamela as specter of Guilt in Rocky's roadhouse, SPN 14x10

At first glance, Rocky's bar has got everything: lots of family beer and cheeky references to Dean's pop culture, family, members, and friends.

So, why then, is Rocky's bar so anemic? It's a long way from the swing-for-the-moon El Sol type of contentment shown in Dean's prior djinn dreams. It feels peppy and hopeful through its decoration alone...but in actuality, it feels lonely, scared, and sad.

Dean is a social animal, and this is a bar devoid of people except for a dead psychic, a shady real estate developer, and a handful of enemies. There are no customers.

This Michael is clever. Dean, unlike other soldier-coded characters in SPN, is usually very attuned to knowing "what's real." (Families! People!) He has not fallen prey to frank nihilism or despair as often as other characters, at least not in that existential, what-is-real way. (Usually, his despair is about saving loved ones, or the horror of loss and abandonment.) This time, Dean is broken. Michael crows in triumph 14x09:

MICHAEL DEAN: So I left but not without leaving the door open just a crack.

CASTIEL: Why wait?

MICHAEL DEAN: To break him, to crush and disappoint him so completely that, this time, he'll be nice and quiet for a change -- buried. And he is. He's gone. [ Takes a drink of whiskey ] And now I have a whole army out there, waiting, ready for my command, ready for this. [ Michael Dean’s fingers prepare to snap ]

That explains Michael's choice of illusion here, and it foreshadows the nihilism and break with reality that Dean will experience in seasons 14 & 15. ("His life's work, a hoax.")

Dean is about to lose sight of the meaning of his life and will be set up to bear the ultimate disillusioned-soldier's burden: he will be unable to determine what's real.

Sam and Cas have already gone through this,. In fact, most soldier-coded side characters have consistently experienced this: Bobby, Charlie (not soldier-coded but grief-coded for sure), Benny, Mary, AU!Charlie, etc.

Arguably, Dean has broken with reality only a handful of times, but not to same severity and not with the same level of disillusionment as compared to someone like Cas, who was faced with both moral injury from his superiors in Heaven and a complete psychotic break.

///

Dean's heartbreaking self awareness

I think Dean's actually a pretty astute guy, and when you look past all the smack-talk and the witty one-liners, he's one of the best at reading people. Whereas Sam can at times sound like he's reading from a psychology how-to pamphlet, Dean often more easily navigates when to push and when not to push with strangers. He'll talk down on their level, too, which helps to keep it from coming off too scripted or condescending.

An example is 13x05 Nightmare Logic: Dean starts off quippy to a grieving Sasha, but he quickly builds rapport with her by being present in the moment and not trying too hard to psychoanalyze her. When Sasha says she isn't up for a heart-to-heart, he doesn't shame her. He says Okay. He show similar intuition with Claire Novak.

Emotional intuition aside, Dean's too much inside his own head a lot, too. And his fear of abandonment is crippling. If his rapid-fire speech pattern is anything to go by, I imagine Dean's mind is an equally rapid-fire flurry of intrusive thoughts. I wouldn't be surprised if he's prone to rumination.

His self reflection is a torment. We see this in early seasons and especially in 3x10 Dream a Little Dream of Me, when he meets his dark doppelganger.

And, of course, Dean feels guilty. He feels like everything is his fault because he was the primary "rock" of his family for so long. Sam is his brother but also his child, so he can't quite relate to him normally or always accept Sam's attempts to reach out to him. Furthermore, Sam tends to push when he cares, and Dean doesn't always take kindly to being pushed:

SAM: Dean, like it or not, the stuff you don't talk about doesn't just go away. It builds up, like whatever's eating at you right now.

DEAN: There's always something eating at me. That's who I am. Something happens, I feel responsible, all right? The Lindbergh baby – that's on me. Unemployment – my bad.

Dean often turns to alcohol to deaden the absolute tempest he's got inside. I feel like Dean might not be as robust as Sam is at frank compartmentalization.

///

An endless loop of status quo + threat

Dean has very rarely "completely checked out of the fight." In the dream world of Rocky's Bar, Dean has retired Baby, but there's still a horrible storm raging outside. Interestingly, Dean doesn't actually go out in the storm in 14x10; Pamela does. Her recounting of the outing feels stressful, like people are panic buying in preparation for an approaching disaster:

PAMELA: Everybody's shopping at the store like it's the End Days. The milk and bread aisles were a war zone. But I battled through it all for your stupid bag of limes.

Dean is no longer one who braves the storm; so, he's trying to be a shelter from the storm. He's checked out of the fight.

Dean's mind resolves the need to face the storm by mentally assuring himself that the burden of hunting is shouldered by trusted, competent, strong family members: Sam and Cas. Dean wants to be a safe harbor, but he's also hiding from the storm and drowning himself in booze (his preferred coping mechanism). Here, the beer isn't completely celebratory; it's replacement of people and the deadening of emotions. Michael is still drowning him. There's no Mary or Jack to be seen. It's the stasis of being useful, of being available as safe harbor but keeping everyone at arm's length. It's a bare bones kind of happiness.

Meanwhile, Dean and Pamela fight vampires in an endless loop. This shows that, outside of hunting, Dean struggles to have confidence and meaning in his life. He crows that he's famous:

PAMELA (wiping Deans face) Worst part of working here is having to clean up the blood after some pissed-off monster busts in to kill you.

DEAN (smirking) Well, what can I say? I'm famous.

It reminds me of the distraught high-schooler Dean, insisting loudly that he's a hero in After School Special.

The negative reading is that Dean in Rocky's Bar is checking out; it's a bit similar to Cas in season 7; he also wanted play support and let his trusted companions handle things. The root of it is the shame and crushing disappointment that Dean suffered when he choked during Michael fight. Dean was the weakest link. He failed.

And so, now we find him, happily fighting on the sidelines here, serving as Ellen Harvelle 2.0 with his own Roadhouse. (It's like Sam with Amelia in season 8; it COULD be a good thing if it wasn't representing Sam primarily checking out of his duty to Kevin. The same way Cas hunting in Hunter Heroici COULD be a good thing, if Cas wasn't primarily doing it to escape the consequences of his Heaven genocide. As usual, it's all about the balance, at least in the world of SPN.) Indeed, most of the new side relationships and new roles in season 8 are idealized, fantasy-esque ones, without the baggage characteristic of real-life relationships/jobs. That's on purpose. Season 8 is all about fantasy escapism-idealization, which is what gives it its dreamy, "is it even real?" quality.

On a positive reading, Dean has his own business, and he's putting his own stamp on the family business.

Interestingly, even this dream is under threat...from a shady real estate developer. 14x10:

WOMAN: (looking around the bar) Rocky's looks pretty dead. It's a very generous offer.

DEAN: Well, all the same, this bar? I've never had anything this nice. So that sale that you want so bad, well, it's just not gonna happen.

Only small amounts of happiness can be allowed, and this threat to happiness must exist to make even that small amount seem believable.

///

The Pamela of it all

Is the appearance of Pamela related to Cas? I think Yes. But not in the way you might be thinking. She's definitely complex:

CASTIEL You're just a complex manifestation of Dean's memories designed to distract him.

PAMELA You really know how to talk to a lady, don't ya?

I think her set-dressing, sexual symbolism, and stand-in for potential repression have been discussed to death, so I wanna focus instead on what I think the crux of the issue is: her presence as Guilt. See, it's clear from her words that Pamela knows that *Dean* knows what he wants.

On the surface, she's easy company, requires no explanations, and Dean can flirt with her, despite her not being "what he wants." She understands that, and she won't get the wrong idea. The part most people key into is that, she, Dean's subconscious, she chides him that he "always wants what he can't have."

But what can't he have? Peace. Why can't he have it? Well, lots of reasons. But chief among them is that he doesn't deserve it.

So, Pamela. Why Pamela, specifically?

One, this is what keeps Dean up at night: it's the people he couldn't save. He alludes to this rumination all throughout the series. So, of course, he thinks about Pamela. And Pamela was heartbreakingly angry when she died:

PAMELA: Yeah, I don't. I told you I didn't want anything to do with this. Do me a favor? Tell that bastard Bobby Singer—to go to hell for ever introducing me to you two in the first place.

Two, her blindness is because of what first connected Dean to Castiel. Therefore, Pamela is a reminder of the awful fact that one of Dean's cornerstones of happiness (Cas) came to him through great trauma and evil circumstances, kind of like a Leviathan blossom out of a corpse.

But to Dean, having happiness at the expense of others would make him "like a vampire," leeching life and happiness from the living, and that's uncomfortable. Because of Dean going to Hell and being resurrected, Pamela was pulled into this mess, lost her sight, and died. Cas burned her eyes out, something Cas is also horrified to revisit:

DEAN (looks at Pamela, whose eyes are now pure white) You're blind?

PAMELA Yeah, I've been blind for a while. Thank Feathers here for that one.

CASTIEL That was -- Dean, that was an accident.

Subconsciously, this was on Dean's mind, even before he remembered her blindness. But who is blind to what?

I think there are two layers to this. The first layer is that Dean cannot easily resolve being glad that Cas is in his life with the fact that Cas being in his life cost so much in the first place. The second layer is that Dean has experienced the trauma of being vessel now, and that not only re-contextualizes the horror of Sam and Cas's internal battles with Lucifer, it recontextualizes Cas and the Novaks. Dean was already thinking about these things in the previous episode, The Spear 14x09:

DEAN: [ Stopping Cas ] Listen to me. Michael conned me. Kept me trapped and drowning inside my own body. Now, when you and Sam were possessed by Lucifer, I -- I thought I understood, but I didn't, not really. So, yeah, if we get a chance to trap him, I'll take that, but I won't be truly happy until he is dead and I kill him.

Here, Dean is completely sidestepping the fact that Cas also possessed vessels, possibly all throughout his long life, forcing humans into submission and completely dominating them.

But Dean's subconscious isn't sidestepping it.

Loving Cas often makes Dean willfully blind to what he was, because Dean loves the person Cas has become. That's still a hugely burdensome cosmic horror, and it's been cast into a fresh light.

It's something that Cas struggles with, too, of course. (Indeed, in season 15, that's what the specter of Belphegor is all about; thus the "wearing him like a coat" line. Body snatching and angelic brutality are incredibly underestimated components of Cas's self-loathing. (Even the Empty calls them out in all of The Big Empty scripts.)

From 10x09:

CLAIRE: Why? Like you don’t have it coming? You stood there while this monster took my dad. [She puts the gun down, then turns to Cas.] I used to pray to you, Castiel. Every night. I would beg you to bring him home safe.

CASTIEL: I know.

CLAIRE: You know … My father was a good man. In what messed up world does he have to die and you get to live?

CASTIEL: I’m sorry.

CLAIRE: No. You feel guilty. There’s a difference.

///

From 14x02:

NICK: Castiel, you’re just a stone cold body snatcher. You’re no different than Lucifer.

CAS: I...I need to look in on Jack. [CAS walks past NICK, but stops before he gets to the door] You know, in all my thousands of years, what happened to Jimmy Novak and his family are my greatest regret.

///

I don't deserve to be happy

People struggle to accept their lives when they feel they've committed too many evils to be worthy of actually living it. (Like, that's the whole APPEAL of religion for a lot of folks, you know?) Some people set out to do penance or self-punish. But when does noble penance go too far? How much pain and self-flagellation absolves you of sin?

AMARA: I wanted you to see that the real, complicated Mary was better than your childhood dream because she was real. That now is always better than then. That you could finally start to accept your life. I thought having her back would release you, put that fire out. Your anger.

At the point in the story that Amara says this, she is mostly reacting to Dean's anger and nihilism at being cheated in life, but she has a fair point about accepting your life. (Dean swings wildly in season 15, going from the his more typical early-seasons, "I don't deserve a life, but what I do has meaning," to an embittered "I deserved a better life than this, and nothing matters, not even family, not even saving people; it's all rigged!"

///

For Dean and Cas, I feel like Guilt is largely what the "something I can never have" stems from. It's the deep shame at the idea of being happy, of being selfish, at the expense of the more-deserving others. It's also about being bad luck--about being poison.

Cas shields himself from the weight of his guilt by appearing to be motivated by altruism. He likes to appear as if he's adhering to duty, something that Lucifer and Metatron are both shown to be absolutely bitter with him about. It's also why Jack was Cas's perfect raison d'état to feel good about staying on the earth and existing within a human family. It's more than that, too, but a huge attraction to the idea is exactly that.

From 10x10:

CASTIEL: This isn’t about me.

METATRON: (sarcastically) Of course not. The great Castiel never stoops to such selfishness.

///

Dean's self-worth is so abysmally low, I could chunk out a bunch of examples.

From 3x10:

DREAM DEAN: Dad knew who you really were. A good soldier and nothing else. Daddy's blunt little instrument. (angry) Your own father didn't care whether you lived or died. Why should you?

Nevertheless, throughout the series, Dean is incredibly in tune with his inner emotions. He has mini-crises about what he's willing to do for family, he quotes existential literature, he gives everything for his little brother even when it lurches into parental-authoritarian nightmare. He genuinely checks in on his suicidal war companions, and he showers Charlie and Claire with affection.

He was mentally prepared to say "I love you" to Cas in season 7. He creates a mixtape for him in season 12. He was originally drafted as telling Cas, "You're more than a weapon," in Good Intentions 13x14. He comforted Jack about his nightmares, and in Game Night 14x17 was at first super relieved that Jack was safe, "because he was safe with Mary (from Nick)."

Fuckups aside, I think we shouldn't underestimate Dean's amount of "sitting with the emotions in the dark of the night" type of introspection. I'd wager Dean still thinks about how he is only alive because John is dead. He still thinks about Layla and what happened in Faith--about taking another's heart to live. He even thinks about Adam, but he also feels powerless about a lot of these things.

I 100% think it's possible that Dean was suspicious of Chuck AND Chuck's entire family in season 15. Internally, it was a push-pull war of "Cas and Jack are family," and "Cas and Jack are Chuck's family...is he messing with me? Are they messing with me?"

///

How dare you fall in love when so much bad had to happen for you to even meet

(In a kinder world, you'd have NEVER met at all)

What I'm trying to say with this rambling brain exercise, I guess, is I just think it's more interesting to me personally if the Dean-Cas struggles in latter seasons are more about the happiness they feel they don't deserve. The rest is okay: the stigma of society, or shame for attraction, or a lack of self-awareness, or even the popular 2D bigoted bruhaha depictions of a cartoonishly homophobic John. But I feel like you have to work harder for those when the cosmic horror of existing as they are is already baked into their self-loathing.

I don't tend to view Dean as unaware of his emotions; if anything, it feels like he is psychotically over aware of them. I think he suppresses the expression of them, sometimes, but not the emotions themselves. That's why he drinks as his coping weapon of choice.

If anything, it's Cas that has been trained that angels don't have emotions, and when they very obviously do show emotions (because hey, guess what--ALL angels canonically do), they get compartmentalized. Angel emotions "don't count" as real emotions, because they've been told they don't have them, and because they don't feel exactly like human ones. (It's like a person starting hormones and mistaking a change in the expression of emotions for either an absence or addition of feelings.)

Cas typically solves for this by cloaking his own selfishness in angelic duty, as Metatron and Lucifer so astutely note. It isn't until very late SPN that I'm convinced he is willing to honestly "read" his own emotions at all. Cas has to start loving Sam and Claire Novak and the world to even begin to parse why he's attached to Dean in a more-than-the-charge-I-must-protect fashion. I think this is partially why, in season 10, Cas starts out being willing to kill Demon!Dean in the early part and winds up NOT being able to do so in the latter part.

There's a major shift occurring with Cas in seasons 9 onward. I don't feel like he lost his grace and WHAM he suddenly parsed his own emotions. It takes awhile. He actually MARVELS that he has sharper sense of empathy as late as 9x11.

CASTIEL: You know, old me -- I would've have just kept going. I would've jammed that needle in deeper until you died because the ends always justified the means.

Season 10 deleted scene:

Cas: Glory? Oh, I’ve seen glory. And I’ve seen defeat. But I have seen the glory. I have won epic battles, and I have reaped vast rewards. And none of it has meant as much to me as the relationships that I’ve formed on Earth. Sam and Dean? They are like a family to me. Claire Novak? When she smiled at me? Nothing, no angelic crusade or victor’s bounty, none of that could ever hold a candle to that sweet, crooked smile.

What do you want?

Everything Michael says is opposite. We know that Dean was gutted when Jack died, he was devastated when Sam left him alone with John, and he doesn't want Cas around out of obligation...he just wants him. Michael is The Character that goes around asking people, "What do you WANT?" So, he knows, too.

He's also astute enough to realize that he can't give Dean something too nice, or he'll realize he's in a dream. He can't bury him in trauma, because Dean thrives in that. He also can't bury him in blissful happiness, because he'll clock that. So instead he chooses a low-level, threats-on-the-horizon kind of contentedness--having something nice but not indulging too much.

In fact, in the terminal seasons, Dean and Cas seem low-key aware of how happy they make each other, but they can't LET themselves be happy. It would be selfish to seek more. They can't have it. But not because of what the other feels. It's largely because they feel they don't deserve to have this happiness. In Dean's case, happiness might even be dangerous, an invitation for more death. By the time they're on the cusp of something, The Empty strikes.

From 7x21

CASTIEL We live in a "sorry" universe...I mean, why should I prosper from... your misfortune? [CASTIEL puts down a marker and moves DEAN’s marker back to the start.] But these are the rules. I didn't make them.

And that's a real shame.

#queue #december writings #shame in spn #destiel explorations #for the record i'm not opposed to any of the other readings per se #it can be many things simultaneously #i just feel like the backdrop of the world is brutal OUTSIDE of how they feel about each other #the mere fact they're both EXISTING is a crime #and they're both aware of this

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mariacallous · 3 months

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The Constitutional Court has long aided and abetted Orban’s nationalist-conservative government, with Tamas Sulyok as its president taking the lead in decisions that helped it greatly.

On Monday, Tamas Sulyok, previously president of the Constitutional Court, was elected as the new president of the state by the Hungarian parliament, after his predecessor, Katalin Novak, had to resign when it emerged that she had pardoned a man who helped cover up child abuse at a children’s home.

Compared to Novak, formerly a minister and a member of the ruling Fidesz party, Sulyok might be seen as a more independent pick for the position of head of state, as he is a lawyer and academic who has never been involved in party politics. However, when examining his record as a constitutional judge, it becomes clear that Sulyok has, over the years, acted as a useful agent for the governing party in several matters of great political importance.

Since 2010, Viktor Orban’s governments have gradually eliminated institutional checks on their power. As part of this process, the competences of the Constitutional Court were partially restricted, and the court filled with loyal judges. This was straightforward, as Orban’s nationalist-conservative Fidesz party enjoyed a two-thirds majority in parliament for most of that time. Such a majority is required for making changes to the constitution and so-called cardinal laws regarding constitutional institutions, as well as for electing officials, including constitutional judges, to nominally independent institutions.

In the process, the new Fidesz-loyalist Constitutional Court ceased to be a counterbalance to the government. In politically relevant cases, it usually favoured the government, or it avoided or delayed substantial decision-making instead of taking on the parliamentary supermajority.

Sulyok was elected as a constitutional judge in 2014. In 2015 he became the court’s vice-president, and in 2016 was elected as its president. In this capacity, he was responsible for designating the rapporteur judge in each case before the court. The rapporteur judge writes the draft of the judgment, which is finally subject to a vote at a full session or five-member panel of the Constitutional Court.

Interestingly, Sulyok kept many politically sensitive cases for himself. Although he claimed in an interview that he had never been interested in politics, there are at least a dozen decisions where Sulyok, as the rapporteur judge, greatly helped out the government.

In matters of elections and referenda

It has become common practice in Hungary of late that the government campaigns for the ruling Fidesz party ahead of elections, which is contrary to the respective laws. Accordingly, Hungary’s supreme court, the Curia, has condemned the government several times. However, the government has tended to seek a way to challenge such decisions before the Constitutional Court, which, inevitably, found the government to be in the right.

The latest case ahead of the 2022 general election was especially egregious. The government sent out email ‘newsletters’ to citizens who had registered for COVID-19 vaccinations. However, these had nothing to do with their vaccinations, but were campaign letters stating that if the opposition won the election, they would send soldiers and weapons to Ukraine. Yet the apparent violation of data protection standards did not trouble the Constitutional Court; instead, it (or more precisely the rapporteur judge in the case, Tamas Sulyok) reasoned the emails were not a form of illegal campaigning because the government has an explicit responsibility to inform citizens, especially when there is a war happening in a neighbouring country.

The Constitutional Court has displayed double standards in matters of referenda as well. Before any referendum – be that initiated either by citizens or the government – it must be examined whether the questions involve prohibited subjects for referenda (such as the central budget, constitutional matters and so on). This examination is conducted by the National Election Office, and, on the second instance, the Curia. But in certain cases, the decision of the Curia can be challenged before the Constitutional Court. Sulyok was the rapporteur judge in several decisions regarding referenda and a clear tendency can be observed: questions initiated by opposition voices somehow always concerned a prohibited subject; the government’s questions were always in order.

The case involving the government’s so-called “child protection referendum” in 2021 particularly stood out. Orban wanted to mobilise his supporters for the 2022 general election, so he announced a concurrent referendum with five questions, each of them about protecting children from the “transgender lobby” and from gender reassignment surgeries, which he claimed were being pushed by “Brussels”.

Out of the five questions, four were passed by the Curia, which is a notably higher success rate than opposition initiatives have typically enjoyed. The Constitutional Court (again, rapporteur judge Tamas Sulyok) appeared so eager to prove its loyalty that it declared the Curia’s decision to reject the fifth question as unconstitutional and annulled it. Ultimately, the government decided to waive the fifth question and the referendum went ahead with the remaining four questions.

Making life difficult for opposition towns and universities

Although the government has practically untrammelled power due to its two-thirds majority in parliament, it often comes up with cynical measures against the few remaining actors not yet under its control. Most recently, these have included local administrations led by the opposition and universities.

Under a law adopted in June 2020, the government is empowered to establish so-called “special economic zones” for certain investments above 5 billion forints (about 13 million euros) if they have significance for a “large part of the county” and if they serve to create new workplaces. These special economic zones are taken out of the jurisdiction of local governments and instead are governed by county municipalities, all of which happen to be under Fidesz control. The business tax is also collected by the county, which means a huge loss for the budgets of affected towns and cities.

Two opposition-led municipalities launched lawsuits and constitutional complaints on the matter, but both applications were refused (at the suggestion of rapporteur judge Tamas Sulyok). Even though in one of the cases the Constitutional Court underlined that sufficient sources must be provided for local governments to fulfil their obligatory tasks – which aren’t much, as the powers of local governments have been drastically reduced since 2012 – it did not prevent the applicant town, God, from losing an amount worth about two-thirds of its annual budget.

In order to control state-run universities, in 2021 the government outsourced their management to so-called “public interest asset management foundations”, which are overwhelmingly headed by allies of Fidesz (later, under pressure from the EU, active ministers resigned from the boards of trustees, but this has not resulted in any substantial changes).

Students and teachers of Budapest’s University of Theatre and Film Arts started lengthy protests and launched proceedings at the Constitutional Court, but all of their applications were rejected: no violation of academic freedom was found by the court (in each case, by rapporteur judge Tamas Sulyok).

The law about the general framework for those “public interest asset management foundations” was also challenged before the Constitutional Court by opposition MPs, but this has been completely ignored. Even after two and a half years, not even the rapporteur judge has been assigned – a task of the president of the court, namely Tamas Sulyok.

Fight for national sovereignty

There has been a long-running clash with the EU over Orban’s government undermining the rule of law and eliminating checks and balances. The government has consistently linked this issue to migration and has depicted this debate as one where “Brussels is punishing us for rejecting the settlement of migrants”.

To create a legal basis for avoiding EU legislation in the field of immigration and asylum, the government wanted to insert a reference to “constitutional identity” to the Basic Law in the autumn of 2016. This concept refers to core principles of a constitution that must not be changed or overridden. The idea is strongly present in the German constitutional order, but is alien to Hungarian constitutional law. As the government temporarily lacked the two-thirds majority in parliament at the time, the constitutional amendment did not pass.

Yet a few weeks later, the Constitutional Court (freshly presided over by Sulyok, who was rapporteur judge on the case) delivered a judgement declaring that the court can review EU law if Hungary’s constitutional identity, sovereignty or fundamental rights are violated. However, the court did not specify what this “constitutional identity” entails.

Orban was so delighted with the decision that he told an interviewer he “threw his hat up in the air”, because the court had provided “an enormous amount of help in the battle” with Brussels – even if the court did not say anything concrete and did not deny the application of any piece of EU legislation.

Following that, the government initiated more constitutional interpretations from the court to provoke harsher statements on migration, constitutional identity and EU law. Finally, in December 2021, the Constitutional Court (rapporteur judge again Sulyok) delivered a reasoning akin to far-right ideologies. According to the ruling, settling immigrant populations in Hungary at the command of the EU would violate the human dignity of Hungarians because the social environment would change without an opportunity for citizens to influence this via a democratic vote.

2024 is going to be a supercharged election year in Hungary: on the day of the European Parliament elections in June, the election of local governments and mayors will also take place. In 2016, Tamas Sulyok had been president of the Constitutional Court for only about two weeks, but already made the prime minister so happy that he threw his hat up in the air. What can we expect now he’s president of the Hungarian state?

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loveforalexzverev · 8 months

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🎤 QF press-conference following his loss to Alcaraz:

youtube

Transcript:

Question 1: Sascha, you were hitting the ball really well, you had your chances, and you were right in that match, despite the scoreline. Do you feel that way, that it was just about him being able to play the break points, and just being able to be fortunate to play good, but also, maybe, a little lucky on some?

Alexander: I was in the match the first set, yeah. I could have broken, it could have gone my way, it didn’t, and then in the second set, I felt something in my hamstring glute, left side, I couldn’t push off on my serve anymore, and my serve speed, I think, was down quite a lot, compared to the other days. Against him, especially, I needed a good serving day, otherwise it would have been difficult, and, yeah, I think my biggest weapon was, kind of, taken away after the first set, and… yeah, it’s difficult to even compete if you don’t have that.

Question 2: On that, was that something that was troubling you after that lengthy match against Sinner?

Alexander: No, I felt nothing going into the match… yeah, it just, kind of, appeared, and the problem is that it bothered me running a little bit, but the biggest problem is pushing off on my serve, and, yeah, I think if the serve speed goes down, percentage goes down, it’s very difficult to compete with Carlos.

Question 3: Aside from the injury, how much did it take out of you, that match against Sinner, tonight?

Alexander: Oh, yeah, I mean, everything, to be honest. I think we were both physically done after that match, I thought I recovered quite well, you know, just looking at the facts, I think we finished at 1:30 at night, you know, we played 4 hours, 40 minutes, I think, for that, I recovered quite okay. But yeah, today wasn’t enough to be competitive.

Question 4: How would you describe Carlos’ game right now and the challenge that he poses for anybody, for yourself, and all the best players who are competing with him for the top of the game?

Alexander: I mean, I played Novak in Cincinnati, I played Carlos here, I think they’re very, very similar, from the level of the game. There are some things that Novak does better, there are some things that Carlos does better, I think they’re at a level of their own, at the moment, but yeah, other guys gotta catch up, it’s as simple as that.

Question 5: If I could, sort of, follow up on that: with Carlos, I get that from the second set on, you weren’t yourself. But earlier on in the first set, especially 3-3, there, you had those chances, does he raise his level on those key points? And did he do anything that troubled you particularly on those break chances you had at 3-all?

Alexander: If I remember correctly, I think, we were in a rally once, and I missed a backhand down the line, I think, maybe, I shouldn’t have gone for that, ‘cause I was winning quite a lot of rallies till that point. Second break point I don’t remember, to be honest.

But… (sighs), I mean, I don’t know, it’s tough to say, because there was only a few important moments in this match, to be honest. He played well, maybe I went for a wrong decision, wrong shot, in a way. But I thought, even though I lost the first set, I thought it was gonna be a competitive match. I thought my level was there, I thought his level was there, I thought it was gonna be a fun one. And then, I think, first or second game, I think, first game already in the second set, I felt something wrong, and then… I didn’t give up, but there’s very little you can do, in a way, against Carlos, then.

Question 6: What made you not call for the trainer? Did you wanna call for the trainer in the third set?

Alexander: No, I hate calling the trainer. I think it’s… I mean, a lot of players do it to disrupt the rhythm. I mean, a lot of players do it for the wrong reasons, and I just hate it, because, at the end of the day, you call the trainer, but if you, I don’t know what I have, right? But if you have a muscle tear, or if you have, you know, something wrong, what the hell is he gonna do in 3 minutes, you know? He’s not gonna heal it in 3 minutes, that’s not gonna happen.

I think a trainer is good for, maybe, taping, re-taping your ankles, maybe taping something else. But at the end of the day, you know, I came in the locker room, he pushed it a little bit, he felt that something is wrong, he told me that, you know, it might be small tear, but obviously I don’t know, so don’t say that I lost because of a tear.

But at the end of the day, it’s not gonna go away, especially if you go out there and have to sprint for drop-shots, you know, 3 minutes later, so… for me, yeah, I’m not that type of player, I don’t like it, I don’t like when other players do it, so I really leave it till the last moment, kind of.

(Alexander then thanks the journalists and the moderator).

#zverev #alexander zverev #alexanderzverev #sascha zverev #saschazverev #us open #usopen #uso2023 #grand slam #grandslam #atp tour #atptour #atp tennis #atptennis #tennis #Youtube

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inferno-principe · 11 months

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The Boys

Now that they're finally plot relevant, have my references and some info for Yev and his boys!

TWs ahead for Trafficking

Yevgeny Alaxandrovich Novak is a 289 year old Demon of Avarice and a bounty hunter, focusing on acquiring cambions for rich nobles. He was a former human from Belarus, born to a poor family, and eventually was shipped off to Russia to work as an indentured servant. Later, he became an assassin for hire and when he was killed, was reborn in Mezora. Currently, he uses his networks throughout Sheol and Gaia to obtain cambions under the guise of philanthropy. He has known Sasha since childhood and is closest to him out of the others. He speaks fluent English, Russian, and Belarusian, but has since abandoned his mother tongue in favor of the Russian language.

Anatol Nazarov is a 97 year old Demon of Avarice and Yev's second in command. He was also born in Belarus to a poor prostitute and lived as a poor child. When war struck and killed his mother, he was found by a kindly Russian military officer, Captain Mikhail Nazarov. He took the boy in and allowed him to work as a stable hand. Anatol was best friends with the captain's daughter, Fyedora. When she attacked French soldiers in the invasion of 1812, Anatol sold her out, causing both of their deaths. Currently, he is a Mezoran demon and Fyedora is a Brakhavan Major General. He oversees Yevgeny's black market nightclub in Reinach, Mezora. He's closest to Yev in the group, but often butts heads with Caishen.

Henri Montagne is a 12 year old avarice demon and son of two former humans. He grew up in Mezora's commoner slums where survival was a difficult task. Soul supplements were price gouged, crime was rampant and many starved or went rogue, including Henri's family. He was found in Reinach by Yevgeny after he attempted to pick his pockets. He was taken in by the group and became their errand boy. Yevgeny will often take him along on business calls in Mezora to appear more sympathetic, especially when dealing with noblewomen. He speaks French and English and is learning bits of Russian. He calls his crewmates by their diminutive nicknames. He is closest to Sasha in the group.

Aleksander "Sasha" Volkov is a Russian former human and Demon of Avarice, at 301 years old. He was a glassmith on the outskirts of Moscow when he met a young Yevgeny. Taking pity on the scared boy, Sasha became a friend and big brother figure for him, teaching him the Russian language and customs. After a stint in the military, he settled down with his husband and child, while Yevgeny became a deadly assassin. Fearing for his family's safety around Yev, he botched the man's final hit, causing his death. Ever since, Sasha has grown quiet and was consumed with guilt. After his death he was born a demon and eventually met back up with Yevgeny and supported him in his bounty hunting. He is closest to Henri in the group, as he reminds him of his own son.

Caishen Liao is a 2,490 year old nobleman from Reinach, Mezora, and a demon of avarice. He is the son of wealthy nobles and grew up learning his father's trade business. Compared to the others in his group, he has lived a comfortable life. He is currently a successful jewel and ore merchant, with connections in Akri'qar, Dis, and Isiqu, as well as being the personal jewel merchant for Queen Mammon. He chose to financially sponsor Yevgeny, as he found the investment to be worth his while. He aids in wooing cambions, as well as using his business as a guise to further their needs. He is cunning and ruthless and cares solely for the financial gain. He is closest to Yevgeny in the group and despises Anatol, finding him to be uncouth and obnoxious.

#ooc #tw trafficking #{ bounty hunter }

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alicesadventuresintherye · 1 year

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💝Throughout February, I’ll be posting 28 unforgettable outfits from film and television that I love. I even made an original logo for this series! My seventh FebruWEARy pick: Edith Head’s brilliant and beautiful costumes for Kim Novak in Vertigo really elevated the story, with each outfit having a clear narrative objective that it effortlessly embodied. While the gray skirt suit is iconic and important to the plot, it’s this green ensemble that she wears as Judy Barton is first introduced that has always stayed with me. And ironically, this look is supposed to be unattractive—a downgrade. It serves as a dramatic shift in tone that the entire film hinges on. Without any context, this look is really charming, I think— I’d absolutely wear this! However, in the film, it abruptly divides Novak’s duel roles of Judy Barton and Madeleine Elster (it is no secret that Novak plays both). She doesn’t get enough credit for how impressively she pulls off something most actors would find impossible to so subtly convey. Alfred Hitchcock always has a very particular vision for every aspect of his films, especially when it comes to his precious “blondes,” as he feels the audience finds them more trustworthy and therefore more devastated if they are deceitful and or the victim. Novak gets the distinction of living on both ends of the spectrum as a blonde and a brunette in Vertigo. Judy’s first outfit is sadly domestic and frumpy compared to Madeleine’s chic and sleek looks. Judy’s polka dots, monochromatic green tones, and commercial garments are so mundane compared to Madeleine’s sophisticated, classic silhouettes in black, white, and gray that are modest yet sexy. Plus, Hitchcock famously associated green with… maybe I should stop my analysis before some of my insights about this look accidentally give something away for those who have yet to see it. Is there such thing as “spoiling” a movie that was made in 1958? It’s a masterpiece and I wouldn’t want to give anything too big away incase you want to see it. 💘 #februweary #fashion #puns #myart #vertigo #classicfilm #kimnovak #judybarton #hitchcock #alfredhitchcock #edithhead https://www.instagram.com/p/CorI6x0u5Zd/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#februweary #fashion #puns #myart #vertigo #classicfilm #kimnovak #judybarton #hitchcock #alfredhitchcock #edithhead

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stateofsport211 · 2 years

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Tel Aviv Finals Recap: Djokovic Snatched 89th Career Title, Bopanna/Middelkoop Won 1st Title Together

There that was. The last match points of this year's Tel Aviv Watergen Open concluded the week-long tournament held in Expo Tel Aviv. Countless actions took place since the first day of qualifying, which was sealed with an ace during the singles Finals.

Novak Djokovic successfully snatched his 89th career title, as well as becoming the first man in 2022 who won titles in 3 surfaces: hard (Tel Aviv), clay (Rome), and grass (Wimbledon). In doubles, Rohan Bopanna/Matwe Middelkoop grabbed their first title together after dominantly defeating the fourth seeds, Santiago Gonzalez/Andres Molteni. And these are how their matches unfolded en route to the title as a small recap.

Doubles

Rohan Bopanna & Matwe Middelkoop with the title (📸 Tel Aviv Watergen Open)

Rohan Bopanna & Matwe Middelkoop's converted match point (📸 Sport 5 IL)

Rohan Bopanna/Matwe Middelkoop set the momentum early in this match by breaking early from Middelkoop's net point (at 1-0), followed by them successfully holding their serves. They solidified it further by a successful baseline winner, also from Middelkoop (🎥), thus being up a double break and successfully took the first set 6-2.

Matwe Middelkoop's baseline winner to secure the double break (🎥 Sport 5 IL)

Their dominance was confirmed in the second set, that even if S. Gonzalez/Molteni tried to raise their level and came in clutch to save their service games, it was not enough to counter Bopanna/Middelkoop's "demolition." Especially on pressure points, Bopanna/Middelkoop controlled most of the rally flows, placing their shots carefully, added with some "smooth" service games in between. They sealed the set and the match with an unreturned serve, which won them the tournament.

Singles

Novak Djokovic & Marin Cilic during the awarding ceremony (📸 Tel Aviv Watergen Open)

Novak Djokovic's converted match point (📸 Sport 5 IL)

A few moments later, the classic singles final between Novak Djokovic and Marin Cilic was contested. It was their twenty-first meeting, with Novak Djokovic leading 18-2 in their previous 20 meetings.

It was even in the beginning until Djokovic set up the pace from a forehand winner in 2-1* 0-15 in one of his notable points, before he broke at the expense of Cilic's double faults at 3-1, likely succumbed to pressure. Djokovic managed to stay solid in his shots, with one of those being at 5-2* 40-15 (📸), hence taking the first set 6-3.

Novak Djokovic's forehand winner in the first set (📸 Tennis TV)

Furthermore, Djokovic strengthened his dominant momentum in the second set by breaking early 1-0 at the expense of Cilic's failed backhand return, which confirmed that Djokovic was in control with the rallies' pacing throughout the match. He faced one break point in this set (compared to 2 in the first), where he managed to come in clutch with either a solid service game (an ace or an unreturned serve) or a cruise-controlled return, which combination proven solid until the end of the match. Djokovic thus sealed the match with a perfect service game, with a winner and an ace as his last 2 points to take the set 6-4, winning the tournament as a result.

#atp tour #atp world tour #tennis updates #tennis news #match recap #tel aviv watergen open #tel aviv open #marin cilic #novak djokovic #rohan bopanna #matwe middelkoop #santiago gonzalez #andres molteni #WatchMoreDOUBLES

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elvencantation · 3 years

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Shadow and Bone is loosely inspired by Russian culture it is not actually supposed to represent Russia or be a such a direct influence

Anon, what country are you from? I want to create a fantasy world, fill it with stereotypes and misconceptions about your culture, name things with words from your language that mean other things, use basic grammar completely incorrectly, and then claim it was only "inspired" by your culture when you and everyone else from your country complain

in reference to this post

#im not sorry about being frustrated with sab #im not saying its BAD #i didnt like it but if u did im glad #its not my thing #but since it comes up so much #and i am russian #yes i am annoyed by it #especially when i have stuff like novak to compare #that's some truly wonderful and respectful russian inspired fantasy #blue answers #anonymous #also im writing some russian inspired fantasy myself #and i know itll never get as popular as sab #cause for one my story doesnt have a romance #and for two my mc is trans

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casmick-consequences · 3 years

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Cas&Dean VS Claire&Jack

So I wrote [a small little theory] a while ago as to why I think Claire and Jack wouldn’t have been shown on screen together/have any connection throughout the show on-screen/off-screen at all. And so here I will some points as to why I think that is.

AKA here’s the long awaited essay/conspiracy theory y’all have been asking for.

First of all; let me start off by saying this is 100% meant as a joke (no it’s not) and it’s not to be taken seriously (yes it is) as it’s literally just a dumb theory (it definitely isn’t). And second; fuck the C*W for contributing to every little bit of tinhatting this fandom (especially us hellers) has succumbed to.

Now; for this theory we have to understand a few things:

How Dean and Cas work as individuals

How Claire and Jack work as individuals

How Dean and Cas work as a duo

Let’s start with the first two things.

How Dean and Cas work as individuals

Dean Winchester is a masculine, tough but loving hunter. He cultivates a “bad-boy personality”, and makes sarcastic jokes at even the most morbid times. Underneath, though, he's become hardened by life as a warrior (as Daddy’s blunt instrument, if you will). He’s been taught to fight his father’s battles, and protect the ones he loves and cares for. But soon began to see that neither of his parents (especially his dad) did the job they were given when they had children. He didn’t just have to be a brother; he had to be a father and mother. He’s had to grow walls around him to stay strong for his little brother, but over time, after making a family for himself, it became easier to tear those walls down. However, he has his weak spots and is an emotional and loving human being through and through.

Castiel, the Angel of Thursday, is an angel of the Lord. He’s lived for aeons, and as an angel has (just like Dean) been taught to fight the battles of his creator and father. He’s a warrior, and he’s been given the job to follow the orders of said creator. Only for those orders to be thrown out the window once he meets Dean Winchester. The man who showed him that hate and anger isn’t always the true answer and that you can choose to be good. Everything that he has been taught slowly breaks away as his hard exterior crumbles, and he develops into a being with emotions, as he slowly but eventually learns to love and care for this man, and with that; humanity.

How Claire and Jack work as individuals

Claire Novak, a woman who has lead a tragic life, where she lost both her parents early on. Her father said yes to be the (permanent) vessel of an Angel, and her mother just disappeared after dropping her off to her Grandmother. After the grandmother had passed away, she was left alone. She had to fight through the world on her own, as she put a wall around herself to make herself stronger for the people around her. It took a while before she found her place in a loving family filled with strong women, who didn’t just help bring her walls down, but build a home instead.

Jack Kline is an innocent, naive but loving Nephilim. The son of the human Kelly Kline and the archangel Lucifer. He was destined for evil, as a Nephilim is one of the most powerful creatures in existence. But, with the help of his three Godfathers (heh), he learns that he doesn’t have to be evil. He can be whatever he wants to be. Controlling his powers has been hard, but no matter what happened, his mindset never changed as he grew to love the people and love the things around him. His biological father saw his power, but his chosen father saw his kind soul. Castiel believed he could create paradise, and he did, as he became the God that the universe deserved.

There are alot of parallels between Dean/Claire and Jack/Cas that can be compared to here. Let me show you a few:

So we’ve established that with Claire being Dean-coded, and Jack being Cas-coded, there could’ve definitely been potential for a cute Claire/Jack dynamic in the show. Why wouldn’t they have done that, you think? Perhaps this question can be answered when we look at thing number 3:

How Dean and Cas work as a duo

Destiel is the relationship between the hunter Dean and the angel Castiel. Castiel was ordered by God to free him from Hell, and afterwards he was supposed to do as he was told while Dean was supposed to figure out how to “stop the apocalypse” which happened to be a bunch of garbo afterwards knowing what we know now. Nonetheless, Castiel didn’t listen, as he quickly grew fond of the hunter and, because of him, developed a sense of emotion and free will. This lead to Castiel helping Dean throughout the Apocalypse, and beyond, and they’ve been best friends ever since.

There have been MULTIPLE essays on Tumblr about how this relationship works, and it would be silly of me to try and summarize stuff that hasn’t been said a million times already. But basically; What they have is quite a bit more than best friendship. It has been confirmed in 15x18, Despair, that Castiel has been in love with Dean for quite some time, as Dean’s own feelings are kind of all over the place. Nothing has been confirmed, yet nothing has been denied. But, seeing as all the insane things Dean has done for/because of/regarding Castiel... for instance:

defended his behavior to his brother and father when neither trusted him in season 6

kept his trenchcoat when he “died” in season 7, and keeping it with him in the trunk of his car(s) for the entirety of Castiel’s absence.

absolutely despises angels, and hates praying, yet he only ever prays to Castiel when he needs anything because he’s the only one he trusts

couldn’t get his mind of of him when he was possessed by Lucifer, and later taken by Amara in season 11

Has Castiel being referred to as his Colette by Cain (subtext but not really subtext because it was so incredibly obvious)

was supposed to be completely enamored by Amara and was supposed to be so hypnotizingly attracted to her that he couldn’t focus on anything else, yet he called out for Castiel’s name when it came down to it (aka the equivalent of calling out someone else’s name during sex)

keeps looking at him like that

acted like a grieving widow when Castiel died in season 13

gets down on his knees to pray to, cry for and apologize to Castiel in Purgatory when there’s millions of creatures hunting his ass

...it’s easy to say that this is more than just a “brotherly friendship” between the two. There is dialogue that would NOT have worked between Sam/Cas because it would’ve felt weird. I wonder why.

So now to get back on topic; why is it that we’ve never seen Claire and Jack on screen together?

Is it because the writers didn’t have time to put them together in any given scenario whatsoever? Is it because the writers didn’t care enough for Claire to give her some more airtime with the boys?

Or is it perhaps that if there was a possibility that they’d be on screen together, that they’d have a very similar (if not the same) connection to one another as Dean and Cas, only written as an actual little brother/big sister friendship dynamic?

So yes, TL;DR: the actual reason that Claire and Jack never met is because they would’ve had the exact same dynamic as Dean and Cas, but in this case platonic. Which would’ve meant that the audience would’ve seen a clear difference between the Dean/Cas dynamic and Claire/Jack dynamic, and it would’ve shown that the way they’ve been writing and directing the Dean/Cas scenes is romantic.

thank you very much, and I bid thee a very good night. <3

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angelhummel · 3 years

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could you rank the degrassi next class characters?

gladly!! also sorry in advance if you love any of the characters im about to shit on lol

20. Frankie Hollingsworth. Almost had her second to last but. No. Klu Klux Fran?? The ZOO?? I can't even talk about her she's just so damn annoying and racist and omg. And she was being pushed as the new Main Girl which made everything all the more offensive and unbearable

19. Esme Song. Sorry but I do not think she had a single redeeming trait. She had nothing she stood for, no actual character beyond being an antagonist to every single other person on the show. Like she thinks Shay is stupid for being embarrassed about getting her period on her boyfriend's pants, and yet she calls Yael disgusting for having armpit hair?? So what's the truth? And people are like "well she's mentally ill" to excuse all she does. Well Maya is mentally ill and Esme makes fun of her too. So who's side are we on? Like I would've liked to see her get help and develop but we didn't get that so.

18. Hunter Hollingsworth. Terrorist. Not even interesting enough to be an actual school shooter. Just a waste of a character. Sexist, violent, had a plot about wanting to play video games at school. I'm so bored. Only not at the bottom bc I feel like he wasn't in my face as much

17 & 16. Baaz Nahir & Vijay Maraj. Thing 1 and Thing 2 to the would be school shooter. Clowns. They were a terrible group and I cringed any time they had a plot together. Annoying together, useless on their own. Hard pass

15. Yael Baron. The final member of the above group. Was mostly boring and annoying and especially dumb for being romantically interested in Hunter. Only gets bonus points for their coming out as nonbinary plot. After their makeover I was literally crying

14. Jonah Haak. Mostly disliked him for being in a relationship with Frankie. Like I'm sure they were only a year or two apart but he felt so much older than her. It was gross. And mostly he's just really blah. The attempt at a straight edge character at that point was. Hilarious. at least.

13. Winston Chu. Seemed harmless at first but idk all the boys were shifted high into clown mode when this show hit netflix. The incident with the geisha and Japanese soldier costumes? Defending Zoe against Esme? Then later telling Goldi maybe she should take her hijab off to cause less of a fuss? Bruh.

12. Saad Al'Maliki. Honestly I felt like he was the one with the most braincells most of the time. Probably pissed me off the least. But he was also in the least amount of episodes and didn't make much of an impression on me. Was mostly just boring. But I'll take boring over everything that came before

11. Lola Pacini. Degrassi has a knack for introducing the worst and most obnoxious characters and then eventually making you love them. Lola was not quite that. I hated her for the longest time but it decreased a bit near the end. I got emotional when she had her abortion. And when she gave Yael their makeover. And when she reached out to Saad and convinced him not to leave. I feel like I could've grown to like her more if the show went on, but again... Oh also I hate her and Miles together sorry

10. Grace Cardinal. Ugh Grace is confusing to me. I wasn't the biggest fan of her story with Zoe. I mean sure you're allowed to hook up with someone and then realize "oh that's not for me" but it was handled so awkwardly. Like she slept with Zoe just to be like "damn i hate when everyone thinks i'm a lesbian :/" like why. Idk she was fine but I'm not over the moon about her

9. Goldi Nahir. Ugh okay I feel like they didn't know what to do with her. Like she had the plotline about if she should take off her hijab or not. And she had to teach the poor whities about racism. That was about it? She was adorable and sweet and a bright spot in the show but ugh she deserved better than what she was surrounded with lol

8. Shay Powers. Again, it's not her fault she's stuck in a show written by 70 year old white people. But the black girl is completely oblivious to the racism of her friend? She has to ask her dad if a racist thing is really racist? She's never experienced racism? Ok Degrassi. They treat all their black girls like shit and I feel like I just stan them out of spite bc of that lol. But she's cool and a nice person and she's into sports so she's at least doing stuff

7. Rasha Zuabi. Another generally nice and cool character that I have positive feelings for. Also she was gay so yay. Loved her story with Zoe. I think there was just one moment where I was like "wtf are you doing" but compared to everyone else it's not a big deal

6. Zig Novak. I have to admit that all my enjoyment of his character comes from before Next Class. He was such a sweetie and then he left and came back acting dumb as hell. That was not my boy in Next Class. But ahhh he's still my boy sorry I love him <3

5. Deon "Tiny" Bell. Basically the same as Zig above. But I feel like he maybe had a few less moments of being an asshole? Also his promposal for Shay was cute <3 Wait didn't he also date Lola? Wasn't a fan of that either.

4. Zoe Rivas. She was the one dressed up as a geisha lol (: Oh boy Next Class was something else. Umm it was nice to see her process of accepting herself as a lesbian. I feel like it took forever tho. Which is understandable irl but this is a tv show lol. I didn't enjoy her sucking Zig off in the woods. Not fun. But her relationship with Rasha was one of my fave things about NC

3. Tristan Milligan. The amount of hate Tristan gets is faaaar too much. He's one of my favorites of the whole show honestly. I think he's funny and dramatic and a great addition to the show. But he gets knocked down bc I can't remember anything he did in Next Class other than BEING IN A FUCKING COMA FOR A WHOLE SEASON. He's already Owen's brother, he's suffered enough. But I love his relationship with Miles. And him helping Zoe accept herself

2. Miles Hollingsworth. Yes another character I wasn't fond of at first. Hated his relationship with Zoe and thought he was just boring. Truthfully I think I only became interested when he started dating Tristan lol. Plus omg with his family?? It's a miracle he got out at all. He went through so much bullshit and he was especially going through it in Next Class. He was kind of a hot mess but also I just care a lot about him. He deserves the world <3

1. Maya Matlin. Is Maya really my fave?? I guess so! Yet another character I wasn't fond of at first. Which is insane bc we just got to the part in our rewatch where she first shows up and I'm like !!! baby girl!! So precious!!! And I wanted to cry thinking of what she's about to go through. I feel like her character is treated with some of the most respect and care. Her motivations and mental health decline all make sense storywise. I just care a lot about her and got super emotional watching everything in her story, especially the later parts in NC

Wow this is a lot!! But I hope you enjoyed my ranking and explanations lol. Also like. Everyone was racist. Everyone was mentally ill. That was the whole show. It was a hot mess and truth be told I am not a fan. Even the characters I love, they were acting weird here. Like I said about Zig and Tiny and their character regression. And I think it was the same for like Tristan and Zoe and plenty of others too. Everyone was off, idk how to explain it. But that's my ranking for the hot mess that was Next Class!!

Thank you for the ask, ily <3

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