#he himself has had actual conversations about the universe with the creator himself unlike you all

[djarintano]

Need everyone saying Sabine being trained to be a Jedi makes no sense, that Dave Filoni is breaking consistency and acting like he’s ruining lore to read this and SHUT THE HELL UP. Just because YOU personally don’t like an idea/concept does not mean it’s bad writing or wrong, you just don’t like it. You can say you don’t like something and go instead of trying to vilify writers because what they wrote doesn’t line up with your own headcanon.

#sabine wren #star wars #ahsoka tv #ahsoka series #like literally shut the fuck up its not crazy that sabine is being trained at all #star wars fans swear they know everything about the franchise and that they know better than the actual writere #i’m here to tell you that yes theres a 98% chance dave filoni knows more about sw than you considering he was lucas’s apprentice #he himself has had actual conversations about the universe with the creator himself unlike you all #yall gotta stop acting like youre so much more smarter and better than the people who write this shit lmfao #and every time sw fans swear someones doing something george lucas wouldnt agree with #its literally something george himself has explained😭

[thevibraniumveterans]

I’ve discovered something interesting…

… about the way Loki talks about his mother.

-

In Thor: The Dark World, we get a little scene where Frigga - through some form of illusionistic sorcery - appears in Loki’s cell in the dungeon to speak with him.

Loki, sardonically: “Odin continues to bring me new friends. How thoughtful.”

Frigga: “The books I sent, did they not interest you?”

Loki: “Is that how I’m to while away for eternity? Reading?”

Frigga: “I’ve done everything in my power to make you comfortable, Loki.”

Loki: “Have you? Does Odin share your concern? Does Thor? It must be so inconvenient, then, asking after me day and night.”

Frigga: “You know full well that it was your actions that brought you here.”

Loki: “My actions? I was merely giving truth to the lie that I’ve been fed my entire life: that I was born to be a king.”

Frigga: “A king? A true king admits his faults. What of the lives you took on Earth?”

Loki: “A mere handful compared to the number that Odin has taken himself.”

Frigga: “Your father-”

Loki, verbally exploding from years of repressed anger, sadness, and a whole host of other emotions: “HE IS NOT MY FATHER!!”

Frigga, after a small pause: “Then am I not your mother?”

Loki, after a sad exhale, “… you’re not.”

Frigga, smiling sadly but knowingly: “You’re always so perceptive about everyone but yourself.”

Loki shakes his head remorsefully, and reaches out to his mother, whose illusion slowly fades away.

In the third episode of the Loki series, we see our titular anti-hero onboard a train, talking to Sylvie, when they have a conversation about Frigga and magic.

Sylvie: “I’m not going to waste my time rooting around for the Tempad when someone taught you fairly decent magic.”

Loki: “… my mother.”

Sylvie, after a contemplative pause: “What was she like?”

Loki, quietly and thoughtfully: “She was, um, a Queen of Asgard. She’s good. Purely decent.”

Sylvie: “Are you sure she’s your mother?”

Loki: “Oh, no, she’s not, actually. I was adopted. Is that a bit of a spoiler for you? I’m sorry about that.”

Sylvie: “No, I knew I was adopted.”

Loki: “What? They told you?”

Sylvie: “…Yeah. Did they not tell you?”

Loki: “No! I mean, I mean, they did, eventually…. Hang on a second. So, tell me, who, tell me about your mother.”

Sylvie: “I barely remember her. Just blips of a dream at this point.”

Loki: “You know, when I was young, she’d do these little bits of magic for me. Like, turn a flower into a frog, or cast fireworks over the water. And it all seemed impossible, but she told me that one day, I’d be able to do it too, because… because I can do anything.” Sylvie nods. “Want to see?” Sylvie nods again, so Loki smiles as he conjures up a miniature version of the fireworks, the kind that his mother used to do for him.

Sylvie: “Not bad.” Loki ends the little show.

Loki: “She was the kind of person who’d want to believe in you.”

Sylvie: “Sounds like she does.”

Loki: “Well, she did.”

I love the contrast between both sets of conversations, because the first one was just before Frigga was murdered. Loki’s attitude toward his mother when he spoke with her, was admittedly cold - expected of someone like him who’d once stated that he’d been nothing more than a mere shadow living in the shade of Thor’s and Odin’s greatness. I don’t have much of a doubt that not just did it break Frigga’s heart to ask her wayward son if he considered her to be his mother, it also broke Loki’s heart to say, “You’re not”. 

Which, in a twisted way, is actually true, since Frigga is not Loki’s biological mother. But it’s not so much who created him, but the focus is on who raised him, who looked after him, who clothed him, fed him, raised him, taught him magic, LOVED him the way Odin could never have. When you watch the scene when Loki says, “You’re not,” and just focus on his face in the next half a minute after, he’s shaking his head in remorse, his eyes are downcast, his posture no longer holding in that rage that he’d just released after proclaiming Odin to not be his father, which in the same twisted way is also true.

Loki knew full well that Frigga loved him to the ends of the universe and back, why else would she have sent books down to the dungeon for him? She literally made the place more comfortable for him.

Now, when we get to the series, at which point the episode must’ve taken place roughly not long after Frigga died in the main timeline (which Loki had seen the reel of), Loki spoke of his mother in soft tones, openly and honestly. He did - when Sylvie asks whether Frigga was really his mother - admit, rather matter-of-factly, that, “Oh, no, she’s not, actually. I was adopted.” Here, he doesn’t display any of the hurt and anger, but gives a simple statement, that yes, it’s true, Frigga was not in fact his mother in the sense that she was not his biological mom.

But then, he goes on to tell Sylvie about how Frigga taught him magic when he was young, and that she believed in him. It’s clear to us that Loki was clearly a momma’s boy, because we get to know, through how he speaks of her, how much he still loves his mother, and how much she loved him, up until the very end. Loki reveals that his mother “was the kind of person who’d want to believe” in him, which is what “she did”, confirms Loki. Though he knows that it’s unlikely he’ll ever see his mother again, he speaks of and about her with reverence, respect, and a whole lot of love, tinged with sadness around the edges.

Though Frigga never was, never is, and never will be Loki’s biological mother, she was his mother regardless, in the sense that she raised him as her own son in a way that Odin never did.

Though Frigga could never mend the hole in Loki’s heart, she filled it with so much love and care and attention, not to mention magic.

Though Loki mourned his mother’s death in both the main timeline and in the TVA’s Time Theatre outside of time and space, he spoke highly and fondly of her even though he was not her biological son.

Loki had always loved his mother, because it was clear as day to him that she had always loved him, right from the very beginning, up until the very end.

Though Frigga may have died, her spirit certainly lives on in her beloved son Loki.

Though Loki would always be Laufey’s son by acknowledging his creator, and though he may refuse to admit that he is Odin’s son (which we know he eventually did in his main timeline), Loki - our beloved Prince of Asgard, rightful king of Jotunheim, and God of Mischief to boot - will always and forever be Frigga’s son.

-

After all…

What is grief if not love persevering?

#thor the dark world #queen frigga #loki laufeyson #loki series #loki episode three #loki spoilers #sylvie laufeydottir #s01e3 #what is grief #if not love persevering #love is #not a dagger #that’s a #terrible metaphor #mother’s love #long text post #analysis

[literaryfic]

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: 빈센조 | Vincenzo (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Vincenzo Cassano | Park Joo Hyeong/Hong Cha Young Characters: Hong Cha Young, Vincenzo Cassano | Park Joo Hyeong Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, vincenzo leaves, set five years after he left sk, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, vincenzo and cha-young are exes, they were in a relationship before, Fake/Pretend Relationship, jealous!vincenzo, Jealousy

THANK YOU SO MUCH TO @trynatalktou FOR BEING THE BEST BETA I COULD’VE ASKED FOR. THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO HER!

Summary: Time stops, or so it seems. Vincenzo is petrified, beautiful statue of a man turned into stone. Her eyes follow the high bridge of his nose, the sharp angle of his jaw and the curves of his slender hands gripping the coffee mug. Ah, she thinks. This is how Pygmalion fell in love with Galatea.

listen to this spotify playlist while reading if you want to suffer

Cha-young doesn’t dream that night; she barely sleeps 5 hours before she finds herself knocking on Vincenzo’s door at 6 am. She can’t help it, being in a room just underneath his, so close after all those years apart. Yet, she doesn’t want to show him mercy. She’s here to torment him, the way his absence had tormented her for years. Maybe she wasn’t thinking clearly, maybe she probably shouldn’t seek him out first, or at all. 

In reality, Cha-young knows damn well that she’s trying to find an excuse to be with him, not that she would ever admit it to anyone. 

So there she is, pounding on his door at 6 in the morning. He stands there, wearing one of his expensive pyjama sets, dark circles sitting under his eyes. She can’t quite tell if she’d woken him up or if he hadn’t slept yet.

“Did you even love me?”, she greets him. Good morning is overrated anyway. 

He sighs, letting her through. “You know that.” 

“No, I don’t. I don’t know anything anymore, Vincenzo.”

She stops in her tracks, the world suddenly spinning around her. He’s standing behind her, a mere arm length away. She’s stuck in his gravitational pull, a planet orbiting around its sun. The sharp sensation of her nails digging into her palms is enough to get her moving. She sits on the couch, the same one she’d sat in just a few hours ago. 

“I did. I do.” He clears his throat, looking away. “Love you, I mean.” 

She nibbles on her lower lip, trying (and failing miserably) to ignore his use of the present tense. He loves her, still. She shakes her head. 

“Well, you seemed to be living well without me.”, her expression turns sour. Was it love to hope he’d grieved her loss as much as she had grieved his? 

Vincenzo finally settles in the chair facing her, running a hand through his hair. “There was a point where I wasn’t sure… I wasn’t sure if I would make it.” He winces. “During that time, my only salvation was knowing each day brought me closer to death.” He looks at her, gaze so intense it pierces right through her heart. 

She scoffs, “And I’m the dramatic one, huh?” 

That gets a laugh out of him, and suddenly they’re back where they first started, complicit smiles and knowing looks - them against the world. 

“Coffee?” he asks, eager to keep up the pleasant atmosphere. There’s still a lot that needs to be said, but she relaxes her shoulders, welcoming the lighter turn their conversation is taking. 

“Yes, please.” 

He busies himself with the instant coffee, that same yellow brand he’d gotten hooked up on while they worked together. “So what have you been up to, exactly?” 

“Jipuragi Law Firm just opened a new office in Busan, things are going well. It’s nice, we get to help people who need it. Probably not as exciting as being in a mafia war or whatever.” 

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he gives her a cup of coffee and sits down next to her on the couch. There’s a safe distance between them, but there’s no point trying to shush the deafening beat of her heart. “Your father would be proud of you, Cha-young-ah.”

“You think?”, she sips on her coffee. She looks up from her mug, only to find him examining her face. His lips curl in a soft grin, and Cha-young thinks that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be so bad if she kissed it. 

The loud ringtone startles her out of the daydream, and she’s not sure if she’s supposed to be annoyed or thankful. She picks up the phone. “Mmh. Okay. See you soon,” she drags out the last word, using the endearing tone she reserved for those closest to her. Mr. Kwon, her assistant, was asking her to eat breakfast with the team. 

“I have to go.”, she tells him, getting up from the couch. 

He takes her mug from her, “I didn’t realise you were here with someone.” 

She hears it loud and clear, in the way he fakes nonchalance and keeps his voice cautious. He’s asking her if she’s with someone and part of her wants to reassure him that No. There is no one else beside you. But then she thinks of the countless times where she’d cried herself to sleep, memories of them echoing into her mind and his absence carving a hole into her heart, and she can’t help herself. He had wounded her fatally and it was her turn to injure him. 

“Mmh.”, she’s not lying, technically. She’s there with someone, with people actually, just not in the way he means. 

Time stops, or so it seems.Vincenzo is petrified, beautiful statue of a man turned into stone. Her eyes follow the high bridge of his nose, the sharp angle of his jaw and the curves of his slender hands gripping the coffee mug. Ah, she thinks. This is how Pygmalion fell in love with Galatea. 

The empty mug drops to the ground and the spell is broken. Brought back to life, Vincenzo collects the shattered pieces of the cup, and of his heart, too. “Is he a good person?”. Unlike me, he means. 

Cha-young has to remind herself that he deserves this, that this is his fault. “Mmh”, she repeats. “He is.” 

He’s back to the coffee station, his back to her. “I’m happy for you.”, his voice is tight. 

“Thank you.”, she’s almost at the door when she stops. “Maybe...Maybe we could be friends.”

He turns around, finally facing her. The distance between them, from one side of the room to the other, feels insurmountable. 

“Perhaps. If that’s okay with you.”, he answers. 

She doesn’t know what to say, so she stays silent. Is it possible for them to be anything else other than a tragic ending? 

“Perhaps. If that’s okay with you.”, he answers. 

She doesn’t know what to say, so she stays silent for a while. Would it ever be possible for them to be anything other than a tragic ending? 

She finally settles on a simple, “See you around.” An open ending, then. 

She’s cursing herself out the moment she leaves the room. What was she thinking? Cha-young had just lied to Vincenzo about being on holiday with her imaginary boyfriend. No, she corrects herself, she had simply misled him and he should’ve known better. 

She could picture it already; his aggravating smirk, raised eyebrows and insufferable “Oh, is that so?”, after she’d have to inevitably come clean. If only she hadn’t been so impulsive. Vincenzo would figure out her motivations the moment she’d admit to the lie; she wanted to see him jealous, to make him think she was doing better without him, that she was over him. He would see through the façade she had worked hard to maintain. 

Flushing at the thought of the colossal humiliation she would suffer, Cha-young scolds herself. Focus. This was a war that she needed to win. Like a general preparing for battle, she squares her shoulders and summons her most loyal soldier.

“Hey, it’s me. I have a favour to ask. Can you be my boyfriend for the next two weeks?” 

<>

At 37 years old, Kwon Ji-hwan considered himself to be a resilient man with a good head on his shoulders. In the four years he has been working for Ms. Hong, carrying out tasks outside of his job description was far from rare. Those included, but were certainly not limited to: picking her up after she’d drunk too much, infiltrating a yoga class to seduce a corrupt official’s wife, impersonating a law enforcement officer and hijacking an ambulance. In Ms. Hong’s vocabulary, a “favour” almost always meant something illegal. Despite her… methods, Ji-hwan enjoyed working for her greatly. The hours might have been long but the satisfaction of winning against the odds of powerful corporations made up for it. Also, the pay was really good. Still, as used to her antics as he was, he would’ve never expected her to ask something so absurd of him. 

Sitting there, in Ms. Hong’s hotel room (which, by the way, was way nicer than the regular ones she’d gotten for her employees), Ji-hwan cannot believe what he’s hearing. 

“Let me get this right,” he says, adjusting his glasses with his index finger. “You want me to pretend to be your boyfriend in front of your ex, who you’re obviously still in love with even though it’s been FIVE years—” 

“Yah!” 

“—because you want to make him jealous. Did I miss anything?” 

“That pretty much covers it.”, his boss replies, not even bothering to look ashamed. He looks at her, shaking his head. “So, will you do it?” 

He sighs, “What did this guy do to you for you to be so hung up on him after all this time?” 

He was not expecting the sorrow on her face as she answered, “He was there for me during the worst times of my life. We went through hell and back for each other. And then, one day, he left without saying anything.” 

“Wait, just like that? He didn’t even break up with you?” Ji-hwan raises his eyebrows. 

“Nope”, she accentuates the ‘P’. “He simply wrote ‘Live well.’ on a napkin and I never heard of him again. Until now.”

He scratches the top of his head, “What a fucking jerk.” She laughs, it’s rare to hear Ji-hwan swear. Finally, he rolls his eyes. “Fine, I’m in.”

“Yes, I knew you wouldn’t let me down. Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She’s doing her little victory dance now, shaking her hips in the least graceful way possible. Like every time his boss convinces him to blur the line of what is morally acceptable, Ji-hwan is regretting this already.

“If I said no, you would have threatened to fire me anyway.” 

“You know it.”

#vincenzo #chayenzo #chayenzo fic #my fic

[jadelotusflower]

Roundup: August 2021

This month: Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea, Don’t Call it a Cult, The Secret Garden, Showbiz Kids, Masters of the Universe: Revelation, Lucifer.

Reading Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) - I’ve been meaning to read the Wide Sargasso Sea for a long, long time, but first I thought I’d revisit the source material. I find my opinion hasn’t much changed - I still love the prose, still love Jane as a character, and still find Rochester extremely unappealing. The section with Jane at school is the most engaging for me, and her early time as a governess at Thornfield, but as soon as Rochester shows up I just find him so irritating I have no idea why Jane loves him so much (other than he was the first man to ever show her a scrap of attention). I mean, I know to an extent - I've read the Takes, and part of fiction is accepting what you want for the character as a reader and what they want for themselves can be two different things, and that's not the fault of the text. I can be satisfied by the ending because Jane gets what she wants, I just can’t help but wonder about a Jane who was found by John Eyre before she went to Thornfield, or who took her inheritance and made her own way after Moor House. Byronic heroes just aren't my thing I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys) - The first Mrs Rochester of Jane Eyre strikes an uneasy tone to a modern reader; she does not utter a word in the novel, is depicted as animalistic and almost demonic, her story only told in a self-serving manner by Rochester, and conveniently disposed of so Jane can return to claim him. Rhys reimagines Bertha as Antoinette, a “white Creole” of Jamaica in a postcolonial take on the racial/social prejudices and hierarchy only hinted at in Eyre, where Bertha being Creole primarily an aspect of her Otherness, and in which Rochester describes himself as being desired as a husband because he was "of good race" . In Sea, although Antoinette is white (passing, perhaps), he sees her "not English or European either" and this contributes to his rejection of her (and perhaps his willingness to believe she is mad). The novel is surprisingly short - it skips over the meeting and courtship of Antoinette and Rochester (tellingly unnamed in the novel) entirely, jumping directly from her childhood/coming of age to the couple already married, and over much of Bertha's (renamed by Rochester) sad life in the attic. Still, there's a density to the writing, much is implied beyond the sparse use of words and recurring imagery - subjugation, reflection, and of course, fire - when freed slaves (Rhys changes the timeframe to after the passing of the Emancipation Act of 1833) set fire to Antoinette's family plantation, a pet parrot whose wings have been clipped by her English step-father Mason, cannot flee and falls to a fiery doom, in a grim omen of Bertha's fate. It did, however, leave me wanting more - I understand Rhys' stylistic choices and restraint, but in her effort to give voice to the voiceless, Antoinette/Bertha remains somewhat an enigma. Don’t Call it a Cult: Keith Raniere and the women of NXIVM (Sarah Berman) - I continue to be disturbed but intrigued by the NXIVM case, not only because of my abhorrence of MLMs/pyramid schemes, but my bafflement as to how this thoroughly unremarkable man was able to hold sway over so many women. My mild criticism of the two documentaries on this subject was that they tended to jump around in time so you never really got a good idea of what happened when. This book provides a well researched, detailed summary of events and linear chronology of Raniere’s perverse pathology reaching all the way back to childhood, and so is both an excellent supplement to the already informed, and broad overview to those new to the case. Berman is a Vancouver-based journalist who was present at Raniere’s trial and gives insight into witness testimony, supported by her own interviews and extensive research. There's less of a focus on the sensationalised celebrity members, with greater emphasis on the lesser known victims - including the three Mexican sisters who were all abused by Raniere, one of whom was kept confined to a room for years. It's difficult reading, consolation being the

knowledge that Raniere is rotting in prison and that his crimes finally caught up with him. Watching The Secret Garden (dir. Marc Munden) - Spoilers, if one needs a spoiler warning for a 110 year old novel. One of those stories that is adapted every generation, and generally I have no problem with this, since new adaptations can often bring something new or be a different take on old material (see Little Women 2019). But a part of me can’t help feel why bother with this when the perfect 1993 version exists. There is an Attempt at something new with this film, moving the setting forward to 1947 (Mary’s parents having died during the Partition), and turning the garden from a small walled secret to a mystical, huge wonderland full of ferns and flowers and endless sun. But in doing so, the central metaphor is lost - rather than Mary discovering something abandoned and run wild, gently bringing it back to life with love and care, she merely discovers a magical place that requires no effort on her part. There’s also less of a character arc for Mary, remaining unpleasant far into the proceedings, forcing Colin to visit the garden instead of it being his true wish, and generally succeeding by imposing her will on everyone else. In many ways she’s more like Burnett's other child heroine Sarah Crewe - the film opens I’m with her telling stories to her doll including Ramayana, which is eerily reminiscent of Alfonso Cuaron's (also perfect) 1995 adaptation of A Little Princess. But I suppose a sliver of credit where it's due - Julie Walters' Mrs Medlock is less of an antagonist, with Colin Firth's Lord Craven being Mary's primary obstacle. There's also a subplot with Mary's mother's depression following the death of her sister being the reason for her neglect (and Merlin alum Rupert Young shows up briefly as Mary's father) but like shifting the time period, there just doesn't seem to be a point to it. The climax of the film involves the Manor burning down (writer Jack Thorne stealing from Rebecca too, lol), with Mary and Craven have a very calm conversation as fire and smoke surrounds them. It’s all very bizarre, but also…rather dull? Don't bother with this, just watch the 1993 film again. Showbiz Kids (dir. Alex Winter) - a really interesting documentary on the titular subject - Winter was himself a child actor on Broadway before his film career kicked off in The Lost Boys and Bill and Ted, and has been able to assemble a broad range of interview subjects - Mara Wilson, Evan Rachel Wood, Wil Wheaton, Jada Pinkett Smith among others - former child actors, those still in the business, and some up and comers like Disney star Cameron Boyce (who I was sad to see in the coda has passed away). We also follow two young hopefuls - Marc, attending acting classes and auditioning in pilot season, yet to book a job but his parents are invested in "his" dream, and Demi, already established on Broadway but having to start to make choices between a career and a childhood. There's no voiceover, no expert opinions in this, letting the actors speak for themselves, but there is a telling juxtaposition of Marc returning home, jobless but having fun in the pool with his friends, while Demi has to cancel the summer camp she had been so looking forward to because she has booked a new role. The film is fairly even handed, but ultimately I took away that there just seems to be more harm than not in this industry, and abuses of many kinds. It does make you wonder about the ethics of child acting, at least in the current system where the cautionary tales are plentiful. Masters of the Universe: Revelation (episodes 1-5) - Mild spoilers I guess? I was never really into He-Man as a kid, other than the Secret of the Sword movie, so most of the in jokes and references in this went over my head. I have to admit, it was actually seeing all the outrage that made me want to check this out and see what all the complaining was about. I actually…really enjoyed it?!? I’m sympathetic to the complaints of a bait and switch (creators really need to learn to say

“just wait and see”), but other than that in my view the rest seemed completely unfounded. Adam/He-Man being killed in the first episode and the impact that has on Eternia and those left behind is actually a really interesting premise. This isn’t a TLJ situation; in contrast everyone (except Evil-Lyn) is always going on about how much they miss Adam, and the whole point of the first arc is him coming back. There’s also a nice little detail of Adam in Preternia (heroes heaven) choosing to remain as he is rather than as He-Man where all his predecessors have chosen their “ultimate” forms. I love him and his Magical Girl transformation. As for Teela - female characters can’t win, it seems. If they are perfect, they’re Mary Sues, if they have flaws, they’re unlikeable. Teela is Going Through things and is on a journey, but I often feel (and it seems the case here) that people confuse a character arc with author intent. No! Just because a character says/does something it doesn't mean you're supposed to agree with them! Some of Teela's actions may be petty and her demeanor less than sweet, but people make bad choices as a response to grief, and I actually thought her anger over Adam never telling her his secret and how that manifested was a pretty interesting take. I'll be interested to see the next half of the season, and ignore the ragebait youtube commentary. One more thing - Evil-Lyn (perfectly voiced by Lena Headey) was an absolute delight. Lucifer (season 5 part 2): They’ve basically given up on the procedural side of things by now and are leaning heavily into the mythology, which works for me since the case of the week is always the least interesting part of any show. It also struck me this season that there’s gender parity in the main cast (Lucifer, Amenadiel, Dan and then Chloe, Maze, Ella, Linda) - and actually, that’s more women than men. How often does that happen?!? I can’t say I’m particularly engaged with the Lucifer/Chloe pairing, but am happy to go along with it since that’s where the whole plot revolves. The best scenes for me this season were with God’s Dysfunctional Family, even if the lead up to the finale felt rushed (I understand the need to wrap things up in case of cancellation but still). I would have liked to see more of the sibling dynamics between the angels and less romantic drama, but hey. The character death got me, as well. I didn't see it coming and I didn't realise how much I had enjoyed that character until they were gone and well...it got me. I see the last season is coming soon, I'm not exactly sure where they can go from here, but looking forward to it nonetheless. Writing I was actually quite sick this month with a throat infection, so wasn't in the best frame of mind to get anything finished like I had planned to. I'm going to hold off posting the word count this month and roll it over to September when hopefully I've actually posted things.

#roundup #reading watching writing #august roundup

[setsuna-maru]

Chapters: 6/? Fandom: 半妖の夜叉姫 | Hanyou no Yashahime | Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon (Anime), InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Rin/Sesshoumaru (InuYasha) Characters: Rin (InuYasha), Sesshoumaru (InuYasha), Setsuna (Hanyou no Yashahime), Naraku (InuYasha), Jaken (InuYasha) Additional Tags: Time Travel, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence Summary:

After his fateful third encounter with his half-brother, Sesshoumaru meets, not a human girl, but an involuntary time-traveler. Determined to right the path he would've strayed from, the course of history is changed. Years later, an intoxicating scent blows in with the cold gust of a new spring and Sesshoumaru will cross paths with the woman who would've shaped his future.

And possibly still could.

Chapter 6

Sesshoumaru hasn’t seen or heard of the spider hanyo since they left him in pieces years before but he knows that tell-tale miasma stench anywhere. The fact that Naraku managed to survive is somehow less surprising than the fact that he’s confronting Sesshoumaru in person, rather than using a puppet. Or sending one of his detachments.

  Everyone is coming out of the woodwork, he mentally scoffs. First he catches wind of that human's scent and now back comes Naraku and his whole bothersome existence.

 That human woman was turning out to be just like her would-be daughter; a bad omen.

 "Naraku," he acknowledges his newly-reappeared enemy. Sesshoumaru tries to keep his voice as neutral as possible while still maintaining an aura of obvious contempt. Jaken immediately springs into action, cursing the spider and making threats on behalf of his master. 

 "I'm surprised you've decided to show your face again.” A face that had not visibly changed since their last confrontation. Other than being healed and fully-intact, Naraku looked much the same from the days when Sesshoumaru had become entangled in his complicated web. The one that included Inuyasha and his companions, among countless others.

 “When I, Sesshoumaru, and Kirinmaru of the Dawn confronted you years ago, you fled with your tail between your legs and did not return."

 Sesshoumaru had never believed Naraku defeated for good. They had only succeeded in chasing him back into hiding. Inuyasha and his band of friends had attempted to hunt him down and finish what the two daiyokais had started but with no luck. Whatever crevice the threatened spider wedged himself into had proven too dark and deep to find.

 "Only one of us here has a tail, Sesshoumaru," comes Naraku's reply.

 Sesshoumaru smirks. "You'd think with all your downtime Naraku, you would have better comebacks prepared."

 "You’re one to judge, Sesshoumaru,” he scoffs, then chuckles. “Why—You famously have a way with words."

 "How dare you insult Sesshoumaru-sama!" comes Jaken’s squawking defense. "He is a man of brilliant eloquence. That you’re ignorant of that is only based on the fact that such a great yokai would never waste his oratorical gifts on the likes of you!" Jaken shakes his Nintojo at the spider demon during his speech for emphasis.

 "Oh?" Naraku responds, skeptically. "And who  does he share them with? You, little yokai?"

 Jaken sputters as he tries to come up with a response.

 "Well, there's uh...uh...there is no one truly worthy of my master's poetry, you see! No one with whom he can converse on his own level—"

 "Jaken!" Sesshoumaru interrupts him, having had enough. "Silence."

 The imp stiffens and ceases his useless chatter.

 "Naraku; should Kirinmaru and I need to deal with you again? Is that the reason you've returned from whatever sinkhole you crawled up from?"

 "Threatening I, Naraku with the superior Beast King?"

 The spider's tone is ruthlessly mocking and Sesshoumaru narrows his eyes slightly as he imagines his claws bursting out the back of that boned armor.

 Where did this vermin get off, having that attitude? Like he hadn't been scared into hiding for all this time. Like they hadn't had him on the verge of death.

 "Go, Sesshoumaru," he teases. "Tug on Uncle Kirinmaru's hakama and tell Father's friend he needs to fight a battle for you again. I'm sure he's in a charitable mood."

 "This coming from one who so often relies on manipulating others into doing his dirty work for him," Sesshoumaru counters. “Aided or not, you were confronted with raw power and strength. Not detachments and trickery.”

 "Trickery'" Naraku repeats. “Manipulation of others.” His tone is placidly condescending. ‟You are no stranger to these, Sesshoumaru.”

 "It’s true,” Naraku admits. “I, Naraku, will use anyone and anything as a tool. But you, Sesshoumaru, are a  great daiyokai. Shouldn’t you have more faith in your own abilities?"

 “You’re correct that I’m a daiyokai,” he responds coldly, masking his rapidly dwindling patience with this interaction.

 “Unlike you, I don't derive my power from thousands of demon parasites. But all that means is that you have no right to say anything to me. You’re a disgusting thing, Naraku." He adds, "Like all hanyos.”

 Naraku is undeterred by the pushback. Being much too aware of Sesshoumaru's insecurities, he moves to a subject he's certain remains a sore spot.

 "I see you still don't carry Tessaiga at your hip. Am I to assume your half-brother, Inuyasha, retains possession of your father's fang?"

 Sesshoumaru’s mouth tightens. He hears Jaken gasp; appalled by the audacity of invoking Inuyasha’s ownership of the Tessaiga.

 "So it's me you've come to first to announce yourself, and not my hanyo brother," he points out. "Should I be flattered? Am I, Sesshoumaru, your new obsession?"

 “It was curiosity that brought me to seek you out first," Naraku says. "Was it not a human woman I discovered you conversing with the other day? It seemed like she had an awful lot to say to you.”

 Sesshoumaru fights to keep his face impassive. Unless Naraku had used a puppet, he should have been able to smell him or any of his detachments if they had been that close. Just what  form  of Naraku had been watching—And from where?

 “Humans are numerous and unavoidable, even to this one,” he responds, careful not to protest too forcefully.

 Naraku persists. “She approached you without fear or hesitation.”

 “Are you really expecting I, Sesshoumaru, to explain the behavior of a human?” Again, he treads lightly, measuring his response. He will use no more words of explanation than necessary. For a moment, he wonders why. It's not as if he's trying to protect her.

 He’s not.

 Sesshoumaru thinks back to the encounter by the river. The damn woman had been so eager to talk . Would she talk to Naraku?

 On the chance that she did, whether willingly or by force, what of it? Even if she told him all about Setsuna, she was entirely unaware of the girl’s true nature.

 And if Naraku managed to surmise that information regardless...well, it might actually work to Sesshoumaru’s advantage.

 Let the spider think he’d found a weakness of his to exploit. Let him try to use it against him. Sesshoumaru would stand proud, smugly belittle him for having such a ridiculous idea and show the fool just how little he cared.

 Sesshoumaru's hand goes to the battle sword at his left side. In one swift, fluid motion, he unsheathes Sōryūjin and makes a swipe at Naraku. His target dodges the blade and floats into the air.

 "Run to Uncle Kirinmaru," Naraku taunts him, his dark curling hair rising in a curtain above his pale head. "You'll find I, Naraku, will be ready for him."

 With that, the spider hanyo flew away, drifting off into the horizon.

 "Why, the nerve of him!" Jaken huffs.

 His vassal looks up at him, radiating with outrage. "Sesshoumaru-sama, will you go after Naraku? He's getting away!"

 "No, Jaken," he says to the imp's consternation. Sesshoumaru needed the opportunity to consider what action to take. Naraku was nothing but a pest, and if he was going to insist on infesting their lives once more, Sesshoumaru would destroy him for good. With or without the Eastern Lord's help.

Sesshoumaru asked Setsuna no further questions and ceased any appearance of cordiality. As far as he was concerned, this is where his business with her ended. He told her so, and in language he imagined to be as devastating and offensive as the situation deserved.

 (Years later, he’ll try to recall what exactly he said to her. He’d wanted to make it brutally clear just how he felt about the existence of half-demons but, for some reason, he hadn’t really wanted to insult her personally. In the end, he can’t remember if the generic condemnations he’s thinking of are things he’d actually said to   her  or lines he’d taunted Inuyasha with around the same time.)

  Tainted blood courses through your body...A hanyo whose mother is a human is a disgrace to all our kind...Don’t come near me again, stick to humans—It suits you...Infinitely vulgar beings...I won’t fall to a weakness of the heart...What can half-demons do? You’re useless to me...

  His contempt for humans and half-demon’s had stock phrases.

  Sesshoumaru had needed something to keep his mind occupied during long days of fruitless hunting for the Tessaiga. It was easy to become fixated on what had left him in that situation in the first place.

  For her part, Setsuna seemed deeply unimpressed.

  His cruel rejection of her is met by vacant boredom. If anything he had said had gotten under her skin, her face denied it. Inuyasha would have called him a bastard and made several clumsy attempts on his head by that point. Again, he was forced to recognize part of himself in her stoic refusal to be baited into a reaction.

  “Are you finished?” she asked, after one last condemnation of her as existential terror.

  “Do you understand that we are not to come into contact again? That you are to act as if we have no relationship to one another?”

  “It’s not as though that’ll take any getting used to," she replied sardonically.

  “Kirinmaru,” he reminded her. “Leave him to me. You’re not to seek him out for any reason.”

  Setsuna shrugged. “He’s no business of mine. I already told you; I declined that offer.”

  “Then there’s nothing else to discuss. We should not cross paths again.”

  With that, he turned his back on her. As far as he knew at the time, that might be the last he'd ever see of the girl; her back against the tree, arms folded, her face defiantly expressionless. 

  Would she ever make it back to her own time, to her sister? Sesshoumaru certainly wouldn't be worrying himself with such concerns. The only thing he cared about was that she stayed out of his way and didn't draw any attention to herself.

  Farewell, Setsuna; you're on your own.

  He wondered once more if he should go the extra step of ending her life. It would be the most convenient thing to do. He decided against it, telling himself it was because she still possessed pertinent knowledge of future events. Things it would help to know but hadn’t yet occurred to him to ask about. Never mind the fact that he’d just deliberately set that bridge on fire.

  His rationalization complete, Sesshoumaru’s thoughts turned to what to do about Kirinmaru. He wasn’t sure if it would be wise to confront him. Damn Inuyasha—The Tessaiga was wasted on him. What use did the hanyo have for such a powerful sword? What had their father expected his eldest to do if it ever came time for him to confront the Lord of the East?

  His desire for his own powerful fang was stronger than ever now. Totosai, the old geezer, would still refuse to forge him one. There were other swordsmith’s—None as good as Totosai, but Sesshoumaru wielding would more than make up for any deficiencies in craft.

  He wondered if his Other had ever succeeded in taking Tessaiga from Inuyasha. Or had that demoralizing failure only pushed him even further from his intended path?

  Setsuna might've known the answer to that; if he had thought to ask about it. But it doesn’t matter and it’s not worth dwelling over; he's already returned to the correct path; the roads have already diverged. He was the real Sesshoumaru and it was what he did from here on out that truly counted.

  All the same, the image of Setsuna's face lingered in his mind; it’s fine details memorized against his will. Pieces of their conversation play back to him and the voice that says   "we’re complete strangers"  with nothing indicative of caring is her own low one.

  He thought back to Tessaiga; that sword meant to be inherited by a half-demon; the sword that had protected Inuyasha's human mother. It's the only semi-rational explanation for what his Other had done but...perhaps, Setsuna’s birth had been an experiment. A last ditch effort at taking Tessaiga for himself.

  Lack of compassion for humans was supposedly what had repelled Sesshoumaru from wielding it with his own hands. Would he really have gone that far in pursuit of his father’s fang? If the experiment had proven to be a failure then, that would explain why his other self and his progeny were strangers.

  There was a part of him that would like to believe in that scenario but, ultimately, he can’t. (Hanyo or not, he would never abandon his children.) But again, it doesn’t matter. Whatever the reasons for what the Other had done, that future wasn’t his anymore.

  Regardless, as things stood then and there, Tessaiga remained stubbornly outside his grasp. He still would need a blade sufficient enough to battle any opponent; from his lowly half-brother, to Naraku to, potentially, Kirinmaru.

Sesshoumaru had a notorious swordsmith to seek out. Kaijinbo would craft him an impressive blade, he was sure of it. He just needed to locate a suitable fang.

#SessRin #SessRin Fanfiction #SessRin Fanfic #bye bye butterfly #bye bye butterfly chapter 6

[kuramirocket]

Created by Elizabeth Ito, the animated series City of Ghosts explores the history of different neighborhoods in Los Angeles through friendly ghosts that make the past of this metropolis real. Our guides into these adventures, created in documentary style, are a diverse group of children, the Ghost Club, who navigate each encounter with curiosity and compassion.

For episode six, focused on Koreatown, the creators recruited professor Felipe H. Lopez, a Zapotec scholar to help them portray the Oaxacan community of L.A. With Ito and producer Joanne Shen’s support, Lopez brought authenticity to the depiction of certain visual elements, such as the grecas de Mitla, geometrical designs specific to the Indigenous people of Oaxaca. More importantly, he voices an animated version of himself, as well as Chepe, a lovable alebrije ghost at the center of the story. Lopez’s dialogue is both in English and Zapotec.

A native of the small Oaxacan community of San Lucas Quiaviní, where the vast majority of the population speaks Zapotec, Lopez has become a binational bastion in the preservation of this Indigenous language and the culture it gives voice to. He came to the United States when he was 16 years old speaking mostly Zapotec. He learned English first and then he worked on improving his Spanish while at Santa Monica Community College.

In 1992, Lopez got accepted into University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the Latin American studies program; he has restlessly devoted himself to preserving the identity of the Zapotec diaspora, which has been present in the United States since the days of the Bracero program. Lopez first found support in linguist Pamela Monroe with whom he created the first trilingual Zapotec dictionary, which was published in 1999 via the Chicano studies department at UCLA. Today he is a postdoctoral scholar at Haverford College.

Below, he expands on his life’s work and the significance of the positive mainstream representation of Indigenous peoples.

What was the impulse or situation that made you realize you wanted to dedicate your professional life to preserve the Zapotec language and culture?

There’s always this relationship between economic gains with language. I saw how a lot of families in the Oaxacan community were raising their kids. Even if they didn’t speak Spanish fluently, they wanted to teach their kids Spanish rather than Zapotec. In a sense, they didn’t see a lot of usefulness in teaching their kids Zapotec. Interestingly, some of them actually were teaching their children the little English they knew. They even skipped teaching them Spanish. The parents would speak with each other in Zapotec but then would talk to the kids in English.

Being a college student back then and thinking about those things made me realize that the language was being lost and being substituted by either Spanish or English. At that moment I thought, ‘Maybe my language is going to be lost. I’ve got to do something about it. Even if it is just to leave a record. I want it to at least be known that we spoke this language at one time.’ That’s what really drove me to seek out somebody to help me because I’m not a linguist. Ever since then, we’ve been creating a lot of open source materials in Zapotec for people to use. We now have dictionaries. We’ve really used the technology in order to make our language, our culture, and how we are visible. City of Ghosts is another component that continues the work we started in 1992.

One of the interesting things about Indigenous languages is that sometimes they are not seen as real languages. You have this battle against the established ideology that Indigenous languages are not really languages. It’s almost like being salmon going against the current, if you’re trying to preserve your language because there are very few spaces for you to use your language and it’s not being taught in public schools in Mexico. But I was fortunate to be able to teach one of the very first courses in Zapotec. In 2005, UCSD [University of California, San Diego] asked me to teach a course in Zapotec. We needed to create all the materials from scratch because unlike Spanish or English or French, which are the dominant languages, you have tons of materials. If you want to teach Spanish you can go to the library and you have tons of materials to teach. But for us as Indigenous teachers we really need to create materials.

Language is deeply connected to how a culture sees the world. In that regard, why do you think it’s necessary to protect and teach Zapotec and other Indigenous languages in Mexico?

A lot of our Indigenous knowledge is embedded in the language. For example, when I think about how we’re being taught math in school from a Western point of view, we have the decimal system of counting: 10, 20, so on. But in Zapotec we have a different counting system, which is a base 20. We do 20, 40, and 80. Sadly, in Mexico something people say, ‘Why do you want to preserve the language? It’s not even a language. It’s a dialect.’

Fortunately, last year, I think if I’m not mistaken, Mexico changed the constitution to recognize more than 68 languages spoken in Mexico as national languages. There has been a long struggle. I’ve been doing work both in the U.S. and Mexico. Currently I’m teaching a free course on Zapotec in one of the universities in Mexico, because I want to contribute. Indigenous languages are important because they represent our history. They represent our identity and the ways in which we see our surroundings. There are even words in Zapotec that I can’t even translate into Spanish because there are no concepts that are equivalent. They need to be explained.

With the constitutional changes that you mention and someone like actress Yalitza Aparicio inspiring conversations about racism in Mexico and across Latin America, do you believe we are on the brink of a deeper appreciation of Indigenous culture and language?

It’s interesting that you mentioned Yalitza because when she first came out people attacked her. They would say, ‘She’s an Indian. She doesn’t deserve to be there.’ It is the sentiment that has endured in Mexico and Latin America. It’s a colonial mentality. If you look at the soap operas and Mexican TV shows just about every single actor or actress is white. There has been a push historically for Mexico to aspire, to be white. We, as Indigenous people, have been perceived to be a problem for modernity. They feel like, ‘How can Indigenous people be modern?’

We tend to be very fluid and move into different cultures, into different eras. I can speak my language in my pueblo, but at the same time I can use the Internet and I can speak English.Being Indigenous is never a detriment.In Mexico, the dominant culture, the politicians and the [non-Indigneous] intellectuals, see us as something less than Mexican. They speak about Mexicans versus Indigenous people. I’ve always questioned that because they like to talk about Mexico’s Indigenous roots, yet ostracize and put us on the margin. When they speak about Indigenous communities, they tend to think of us in a museum because once you put us in a museum it means that we no longer exist. There is this contradiction in terms of where we are, where we fit in Mexican society. That’s why we’re pushing so hard to make ourselves visible.

Specifically speaking about Zapotec people, and other immigrants from Indigenous communities, in the United States, what are the major obstacles in resettling?

Indigenous immigrants go through two steps of assimilation, because a lot of us who move into the States, we bring our indigenous language and culture. But the dominant culture that exists in LA is a Mexican or Mexican American culture. It’s a mestizo culture and there’s Spanish. So we as Indigenous people first need to assimilate into that culture and then assimilate into the mainstream culture. We need to speak English, but we also need to speak Spanish. There are two steps of assimilation for us to even try to situate ourselves in mainstream American society.

Tell me about your experience working on such a unique show as City of Ghosts, which really digs deep into the cultural fabric of Los Angeles. What convinced you that this could be positive for Indigenous communities?

One of the things that I asked Joanne [Shen] was, ‘How much say do I have?’ Because I didn’t want to be there if they already had an idea and they just want me to emulate something. So she said, “No, we want to sit down with you and talk about what are some of the important aspects of Zapotec society and what is it that really impacts you guys? How do you see the world?” That was one of the most important things for me in order to agree to do the project.

We had several meetings in terms where they asked me questions. Once I looked at the whole script, not just mine but also those for the alebrije ghost Chepe and Lena who is voiced by Gala Porras-Kim, I made some changes according to how I felt it represented Zapotec culture. For example, tying the idea of the ghost with the idea of the nahual orthe alter ego in Zapotec and Mesoamerican culture, as well as the use of alebrijes and the colors, which properly represented Zapotec culture on the screen.

They were very sensitive and they wanted to get it right. I really commend them for that, because I’ve worked in projects where they don’t really care. They have an agenda. But for this project they were so attuned with me.I think that’s what makes City of Ghosts such an important program for kids and just for the public at large to understand who the Zapotec are, because when we think about the Mexican community we assume that everybody speaks Spanish. This program, and specifically episode six, will help people to at least begin to rethink Mexican society and that not all Mexicans speak Spanish. Not all of them are mestizo, but rather that we are a multilingual and multicultural society, and we are bringing that to the States. I hope it makes people at least curious.

One aspect prominently mentioned in your episode is how certain Oaxacan communities use a whistling language. Why was this a significant element?

To be honest with you, I have no idea where it came from, but as far back as I remember when I was a kid we would just whistle to communicate basic phrases to each other. Also when we go to work on the field and you see somebody far away, you whistle at that person just to get some information like, ‘How are you doing? What’s going on?’ Since, we didn’t have any phones back home then, we whistled to communicate, but it’s not entirely just Zapotec communities. There are other Indigenous communities in Oaxaca and Mesoamerica that use whistling as a means of communication. So when I was asked to be part of the show, I did a lot of whistling in the episode just demonstrating how we communicate and that we don’t need words. Whistling is another expression of language.

When you think about Angelenos you think about Mexicans or mestizos at the pueblo of Los Angeles. But we rarely talk about the Indigenous people in LA. By having the Zapotec people in this sho2, we begin to have this conversation go beyond thinking about this land only having Latinos, African Americans, and whites. There are these hidden multicultural societies here that have been fighting and resisting against all these forces.

One thing that is so interesting to me is that when we are on the margins, we tend to fight and resist at the margin to maintain our language and culture. So then by bringing us into the light and being visible, even by asking, ‘Where do you guys come from?’ We can say, ‘Well, we’ve been here all along. You just haven’t seen us.’ With these particular episodes on the Zapotec, all of a sudden some people might learn something. I’ve seen on Twitter the young Indigenous people express they feel so proud of the fact that Indigenous people are represented in this show. There’s something unique about this show, because it really brings some of the historical aspects of the composition of LA, specifically of the Pico-Union area.

The most important thing people should take out of those two episodes that talk about Indigenous communities, it’s the very first time that we see Indigenous communities well represented and not objectified, but just as human and what they do in everyday life. And also how we bring our traditions and cultures to some of the megacities in the world, coming from small communities, such as mine where we have about 1700 people, yet we are being represented in such an incredible episode.

City of Ghosts is streaming on Netflix.

#usa #united states #indigenous #zapotec #mexico #los angeles #netflix #city of ghosts #🇲🇽

[l-sincline]

Cybernetics- Cyberpunk!Sonic AU- Chapter 5

Amy Rose has been working tirelessly at her broken down booth for as long as she can imagine. Ever since Tails left their work to join forces with the revered hero of Mobius, ‘The Blue Blur’, she’s grown lonely and desperate to make her life exciting. A strange customer comes in one day asking her to fix his cyborg arm, what she didn’t know was that he would be the catalyst for a brand new life.

AO3 Tags:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Amy Rose/Shadow the Hedgehog, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Amy Rose (Sonic the Hedgehog), Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles “Tails” Prower, Dr. Eggman | Dr. Robotnik, Rouge the Bat, Whisper the Wolf, Cream the Rabbit, Knuckles the Echidna, Badnik (Sonic the Hedgehog), E-123 Omega, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Angst, Slow Burn, Partners in Crime

AO3 Link

Previous/Next

Amy had gone well into the night building her hammer after coming to terms with the fact that it was unlikely she’d be falling asleep any time soon. By the time she’d finally finished replicating the model in cobalt, she had decided that four in the morning was far too late for her to still be out in the outer ring that only got trashier as the night went on, and she went back to her apartment to sleep, both model hammer and actual hammer with her. Part of her said it was just to make sure they didn’t get stolen, the other part was that truthfully, being out this late out here wasn’t exactly safe.

The next morning she’d set to work on painting the hammer, she wasn’t exactly an artist, but she liked the color scheme she’d picked and wanted to give the hammer some life. She’d slapped on her usual gas mask to keep the chemicals out and set to work, shaking the red spray paint can in her right hand. She’d bought the colors off some teens she’d spotted tagging a wall on her way to work a few days ago. Usually she might have them imported from the middle ring, but hey, the kids asked for the same ridiculous amount of money and they were right there in front of her so why not? She applied a generous amount of paint to the areas she wanted to be red, causing it to drip a little in some places, but it was fine, it’d make it look rugged she supposed. When she’d finished with the red Amy sat back to admire her work, setting the red spray paint can down and picking up the yellow. The ball inside of it ‘ting ting ting’ed against the inside of the can as she shook it while waiting for the red to dry. She glanced out to the street, no one was looking at her booth, but she smiled slightly as she saw some kids run excitedly into the bakery next door with some money in their hands. She’d been through a roller coaster in the past few days- maybe it was time to treat herself to a sweet too.

‘Only if you fix a ProjScreen today’ she told herself, not wanting to throw away what little money she had on things she didn’t need. Well, she had just gotten extra for ‘Myst’s arms... no! That was for rent. Amy finally uncapped the yellow spray paint can and got to work on the hammer once more. The yellow was just supposed to be an accent color, so she didn’t paint for much longer before putting that can down as well and standing from her stool to admire her work. Was the paint job gorgeous? No, but the build was great. She’d managed to follow Whisper’s design to a T, and it looked perfect. She smiled to herself as she took off the gas mask gently, careful not to catch any of her quills on the rubber straps. She’d been dreaming of this day for awhile, although, with everything happening recently it was a bit underwhelming, but it still felt good. Like she’d finally crossed something off her to do list. Her brain told her to call Tails, but she bit her lip. She didn’t want to accidentally spill what she knew about their ‘Cloaked Cyborg’ without being entirely sure what his wrong doing was herself. Of course, fate seemed to work against her at the sudden familiar voice on the other side of the booth.

“Amy!”

“Tails!” She spun on her heel with her teeth clenched in an awkward smile- which Tails seemed to over look- at the sight of her friend and old coworker stepping around her booth’s counter.

“I felt bad about hanging up the other day so I thought I’d come visit since I haven’t been in awhile, and after what was on the news I wanted to make sure you were okay.” Amy dropped her smile.

“The news?” She asked.

“Well yeah, that Robotnik Bot coming after you was a pretty big deal, but the fact that you managed to shut it down was pretty impressive too.” He shrugged. Amy held her hands together uncomfortably. Tails wasn’t acting like himself about that... it was concerning that she’d been on the news, but the fact that Tails wasn’t jumping for joy over the fact that she’d taken down a bot was strange to her. She pushed the thought away with the hope that it was simply the fact that he had grown used to the activity while working for the Blue Blur.

“So why’s it come after you anyways?” He pressed, eyes darting around the inside of the booth as if he was looking for something out of place.

“Oh, um. I’m not sure.” Amy responded quickly.

“Oh! That cyborg part you were going to ask for help with- do you still have it? I want to see it, you made it seem interesting.”

“Uh, no. The customer paid extra for it to be a one day deal...” Amy tried to follow where his eyes were going. “Are you... looking for something? You can just ask for whatever you want you know. If you left something here just take it.” She finally confronted. Tails seemed surprised that she’d taken a step towards getting him to explain himself.

“Ah, I guess I just haven’t been here for awhile... I wanted to see if anything had changed.” He breathed out. It was a lie through clenched teeth that she could see, Tails had never been a great liar but something was certainly strange here.

“So, hows working for the Blue-“ she tried to start a friendlier conversation, but Tails cut her off.

“Actually! Can you show me where the bot is? I want to get some parts to run tests on it. Side kick things, you know?”

Side kick? That was new news to her. No, she didn’t know. All she knew were ‘mechanic things’ which she was fairly certain was what Tails had originally been brought on board for. Her face soured slightly but she turned quickly before he could see it and picked up the hammer, collapsing it into its bag form and hanging it over her shoulder.

“Sure, I’ll bring this Incase there’s anything to carry back over here. I saw some others ransack it, I’m not sure how much there is left.” When Amy turned back around, Tails had just finished fiddling with a ProjWatch he was wearing on his wrist. “Job perks?”

“Haha, yeah.” He responded simply. Amy shrugged and lead the way out of the booth.

She had to dodge through the swaths of people, but she could slightly make out the scrape marks from the robot that it had left on the ground, and followed them to the place it had finally met its maker with friction and stopped.

“Here’s where it-“ Amy turned to show Tails, but cocked a brow in confusion to see him standing a few feet back.

“Sorry Amy.” He said just barely loud enough for her to hear him, frowning.

“Tails-“ She was cut off by the sudden action of having her legs swept out from under her, hissing in pain as she fell on her ass.

“Sorry, but as an accomplice to the Cloaked Cyborg, you’ll be coming with me to answer a few questions.”

Amy craned her neck to see that above her stood the Blue Blur, dangling a pair of cuffs with a sickeningly boyish grin on his face.

“Wha- no! I’m no accomplice!” She cried, shuffling backwards and and scrambling to her feet, hand hovering over the strap of her bag.

“Might want to come up with a better excuse next time!” He chuckled.

Amy’s mind seemed to work in slow motion for the next moment. She watched him take a stance clearly showing he’d be dashing at her with those fast legs of his, so she yanked her bag of her shoulder and had the handle pop out, she grasped the handle with one hand and swung, hitting him in the side as he charged towards her. Time sped up again as she carried the hammer through to hold it with both hands, but the Blue Blur seemed hardly effected by her hit, instead, he merely skidded and geared up to go again.

“Nice try, but now I’m really annoyed.” He growled slightly.

Amy felt as if she’d only be able to shield herself from his next blow as best she could when suddenly, a figure shimmered to life in front of her.

“Attacking innocents now, Blue? You’ve lost your touch.” He snarled, holding one white and black cyborg arm up, the red lights that striped the side of it growing brighter as his palm opened to reveal a blaster, and the next thing she knew, the Blue Blur was shot back with a blast of red light.

“Sonic!” She heard Tails cry. Sonic? That was the Blue Blur’s real name then she supposed.

“You’ll pay for that!” The blue devil had already gotten back to his feet, but in the last moment he directed his attention over to Amy, and he dashed for her once more. She felt herself get scooped up and immediately started to struggle.

“Let me go!” She cried, trying to use her hammer to hit the Blue Blur, but the angle she was held at didn’t really help her out. He was carrying her over his shoulder, and she couldn’t help but look at how fast the ground was moving beneath them. He didn’t respond to her cries, only grunted when she did manage to land a slight hit. At the sound of people gasping at something after they’d already passed, Amy stopped struggling and looked up. He seemed to be skating above the ground, fire came from his shoes as he darted around the people. Though that might’ve been surprising at one point, what was more surprising was that she could finally see his face.

He was a hedgehog too, black with red markings, and he did not look happy. Fangs shown as he snarled, growing ever closer to her and the Blue Blur. Finally, he raised an arm once more, she saw the lights begin to glow brighter and she panicked for a moment, but she noticed him nod his head slightly off to the left, and took a solid guess on what that meant.

With as much strength as she could muster in her position, she rolled off his shoulder. Before she could even hit the ground, the blast hit the Blue Blur’s back, sending him flying forward and scraping on the ground. Amy tumbled when she hit the ground and landed on her stomach, groaning as the sound of screeching caused her to open her eyes and see ‘Myst’s shoes stepping towards her.

“I’m sorry I dragged you into this.” She heard him mutter quietly as he lifted her from the ground, “but you’re stuck in it now.”

She hardly registered the strange feeling of disappearing into nothingness before her pounding head finally caught up to her and she shut her eyes, passing out without knowing what would happen to her next.

Notes:

Exciting chapter today! I've gotten quite a few chapters ahead this week so now I get to have a little break from writing lol, so hopefully the Amy reference will be up soon. As always, I love reading and responding to comments, and if you'd like to hear more from me or ask questions about the fic, my tumblr is @l-sincline and my ask box is always open!

#sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #Amy Rose #cyberpunk au #fanfiction #sonic fanfiction #Shadamy #shadamy fanfiction #my writing

[kimmyiewrites]

Dreams Coming True

Fandom: The Last Five Years, Newsies Ship: Jamie Wellerstein x Katherine Pulitzer AN:  This idea came from my music going from the Newsies cast album to The Last Five Years soundtrack. I love the chemistry that Kara and Jeremy have and well this one shot was born. I hope you enjoy it and I'd love to know what you think!

As soon as the divorce was final, it was like the appeal he had to women vanished. The thing he had going with Elise didn’t work out. It had truly just been a fling, unlike what he had thought before going to Ohio one last time. He threw himself into writing his next book then. He wasn’t going to just be someone who wrote one good book and then never be heard from again.

The parties started up again when it was time to release the latest book. Random House had really out done themselves this time. He knew more people this go around. Mingled with those he hadn’t seen in some time and spoke with the ones that had become his friends while answering questions from the press.

“Pen and paper, huh? Isn’t that a little old school?” Jamie asked as he approached the bar. He had been watching her for most of the evening. The lanyard around her neck informed him that she was with the press but those he had spoken to had a tape recorder or just their phones. Not to mention, she was gorgeous. She had a polite smile that just teased at the real thing. He was sure it could light up just about anything if it was unleashed.

“Maybe but it gets the job done and I don’t have to worry about batteries dying or trying to make out what the person said through the background chatter.” She shrugged, looking towards him, that polite smile making its appearance as she held out her hand. “Katherine Pulitzer, The New York Times.”

He took her hand, giving it a shake before letting go. “Jamie Wellerstein, author.” He smirked a bit before ordering another drink. “Any relation to the designer?” There were times Cathy would always come back. He remembered his ex-wife always complaining about it.

Katherine looked at the author with wide eyes. No one ever linked her to her cousin first. It was always her father since she too was a journalist. “Actually, yes. She’s my cousin.” She smiled fondly, smoothing out any wrinkles in her dress, which happened to be the original dress in the design that was named after her. “I’m surprised you didn’t ask about my father first.”

Jamie’s eyebrows furrowed. He really only knew about her cousin because of Cathy. Should he know who her father is? “I’m sorry but maybe I could get a refresher?”

She then laughed and he smiled, knowing that he had been right. Her entire face lit up. “Oh my god, you don’t know. I think you might just be my new favorite person.” She said in between her laughter. “Joseph Pulitzer, owned The World before selling it and going into semi-retirement to terrorize the grad students at Columbia University?”

He shook his head, still not knowing who this man was, which seemed to be just fine by Katherine. “That’s it. You are my new favorite person. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

He smiled, motioning to her lanyard. “By all means. That’s what you’re here for after all.”

She finished off her drink and picked up her pen. “So how -”

“You’re not going to ask about my ex-wife, are you?” He interrupted her. Too many others had asked that tonight, starting off the same exact way and he just couldn’t any more.

She looked to him, brows furrowed. “No. Have people actually asked you that?”

He nodded his head, waiting for her to finish her original question.

“While I’m glad people have thought of men to ask that question to, it’s still just as tasteless if you had been a woman. I’m sorry my colleagues don’t have any class. I was going to ask how you found your inspiration for this book? It’s much different from your first, yet it still has the same heart that draws your reader in.” She looked to him expectantly.

He smiled fondly, explaining how he wanted a different kind of coming of age story. One where the main character stayed true to themselves and still completed their goals without changing their appearance or who they were. He called it a finding of purpose story.

Katherine smiled and it wasn’t the polite one he had been seeing her show everyone else once she got what she needed. “Great quote, thanks. Enjoy the rest of the evening.” She pushed away from the bar closing her notepad.

“You’re not staying around for the rest of it?” He asked, not wanting her to go just yet.

She shook her head. “No, I’ve got a deadline I need to make. It was great meeting you, Jamie.” She started making her way towards the door before turning back around to face him. “Off the record, I hope you find your own brigade.”

Jamie stared after her. How did this woman know? There was no way she could somehow guess that this story had spurred from all of his frustrations from these past few years.

                                                          ~~~

It had been months since they had last seen each other. He had printed out her review, a mix of wit, honest opinion, and persuasion to go get his book. It may not have had to do anything with the spike in book sales but he was definitely giving her that grateful credit. There was also the twitter conversations. It remained strictly about books but they had begun an exchange of recommendations for each other. Books turned into movies which turned into what to binge watch on Netflix.

Of course the others in their world began to gossip and Katherine had nipped it before it could grow into a large enough rumor for TMZ to cover. “If you do not wind up befriending the creators you write about, you’re doing your job wrong or are in the wrong business.” She had started a whole other controversy with that tweet that their small conversations went right back under the radar.

Random House had orchestrated another party. A different book launch for a different author and because he too was under the publishing house, he had been invited. He briefly wondered if she would be here. He hadn’t really noticed her before the first time they had met. Then again, he had been caught up in Cathy in the beginning.

At this point these parties had become a bit of a routine. Mingle here, grab a drink there, graze whatever food was laid out and then back to mingling. “Did you finish season one yet?” Her voice cut through the background noise as he was waiting for his drink.

“I’ve got like two more episodes. I still can’t believe how good it actually is.” He turned to face her, signaling for the bartender to come back over.

Katherine placed her order and smiled up at him. He shouldn’t feel special that he got a genuine smile from her but it sure did make his heart flutter. “I told you, you would.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He waved her off with a laugh. “What’d ya think about this one?” He motioned to the party to signal he meant the book they were supposed to be celebrating tonight.

She shook her head. “Not his best work but not his worse either. He hit the sophomore slump bad so anything is better than his second book.”

He choked on his drink, not quite expecting that reply. “Yeah, this one was a little dry.”

“Can I quote you on that?”

“Keep me anonymous. We’re under the same publishing house after all. Don’t want to stir anything up.” He nodded.

“Thanks.” She scribbled down the quote and finished her drink. “Guess I’ll see you around then. Tell me what you think once you finish season one.”

“Wait, you’re leaving already?”

She gave him this look that said you should know by now. “I’m Cinderella at these things, remember. Midnight and I turn into a write up for not making deadline.”

“At least give me your number. It’ll make things so much easier.”

“Twitter’s not that hard to navigate. I should be at the top of your dms anyway. I’ve stayed too late already. I gotta go.” She waved and hurried off.

He let out a sigh as he watched her maneuver through the crowd. He brought his glass up to finish off his drink when he realized what she had said. ‘I’ve stayed too late already.’ Had she been waiting for him?

                                                         ~~~

The next party, she slipped a piece of paper into his pocket. He didn’t even realize it until he got home. He unfolded the torn piece of notebook paper and gasped. Pulling out his phone, he immediately tested the number.

If this is really Katherine. Tell me something that only she would say.

The fact that you don’t believe that I would give you my number is a little disheartening, Jamie.

The Writer: You did just slip it into my pocket without me realizing it.

The Critic: I was trying to keep Twittergate from happening again.

The Writer: The fact that you want to keep this friendship a secret is a little disheartening, Kath.

The Critic: Oh you’re hilarious. Ha. Ha.

The Writer: Did you make your deadline?

The Critic: I did. Thank you. Good night, Jamie.

The Writer: You don’t want to watch Casablanca with me?

The Critic: Can I get raincheck on that?

The Writer: How about tomorrow?

The Critic: Tomorrow works.

                                                         ~~~

They started out with weekly movie nights, switching off who chose the movie each week. Those movie nights then turned into sleep overs and those sleep overs turned into spending the weekend together. There were comments, glances, and touches that suggested she wanted more but he never pushed his luck. If someone like Katherine wanted to be in his life then he was going to do his very best to keep her around. The last time he rushed into something it didn’t end well.

She was so full of life and ambition. She wasn’t where she wanted to be but she had dreams of getting there. She worked so hard to be the best that she could be and he finally realized why people wanted to know her opinion. People listened, made decisions off of what she wrote and she wanted to use that influence somewhere other than the entertainment section. She could do it too, he knew she could. He just was nervous that all of this was going to wind up like the last time and he wasn’t sure if he could survive another five years of that misery.

He had decided to surprise her. He finished the meeting early and it was movie night. He knocked on her door before letting himself in. After a night where she lost complete track of time, she told him where she kept a spare key. Despite the tv set up for the movie she planned to watch tonight, Katherine was nowhere to be found.

Then he heard the crash and the shout.

Jamie walked down the hall to her in home office, knocking on the doorframe. “Is there a reason it looks like a storm blew through here?” Writing utensils were scattered along the floor. Notebooks and books mixed with them. Pages ripped to shreds and Katherine standing in the middle of the chaos.

“I tried to pitch another story again. Guess who was told to stick to reading books?” Frustration laced her voice as she stood in the midst of the mess she created. Her hands were on her hips as she was trying to catch her breath.

He didn’t even get a chance to respond before she launched into her rant. “I was because that’s all I am to them. Their favored book critic. No one cares that I’ve been at this since I finished my education, hell, even before that. No one cares that my stories are given to other writers who couldn’t get the people to care even if there were tear stains on the printed version. No one cares that the glass ceiling is actually just different floors to a fucking high rise building. No one cares that each time I rear back to punch my way through they tie my arm back to make sure I don’t.”

“Maybe -” She cut him off again.

“Don’t. I don’t need any advice. I’ve been fighting this bullshit for too long and I’ve tried everything. I even wrote my own fucking story and they rewrote everything and published it under someone else’s byline.”

“Then what do you want from me, Cathy?” He shouted, not being able to take this anymore. It was too similar, being cut off when all he was trying to do was help. He hadn’t even truly registered the words Katherine had said. They weren’t filled with pity, they were filled with anger and determination.

She pointed to the front door. Her poster had gone rigid from hearing the name of his ex-wife. She knew enough from the stories reported on the two and connected some dots from what little Jamie had told her. There was a new kind of anger behind her eyes. “For you to go.”

“What?” Things finally began to dawn on him. Oh, he truly messed up.

“Go and don’t you ever call me Cathy again. I am not her. This is just one more set back, one more rope for me to cut through. They’ll eventually run out and you’ll see my byline on the front page. I know you had an important meeting today and if you being here earlier than what we had decided on indicates anything, then I can’t be happier for you because you deserve everything you ever dreamed of. I just will not stand to be compared to your ex-wife when I have even the most minor of setbacks because I come out of it fighting even harder. So right now, you need to leave.”

Jamie looked at her in shock before he gathered himself and did as she asked. He had a lot of rethinking to do. Sure both women had ambition but unlike Cathy, Katherine knew her worth and she was going to prove it to everyone. Katherine wasn’t about to let anyone stand in her way.

                                                            ~~~

The Idiot: I’m sorry for calling you Cathy. You are a million miles away from her. I just wanted to say that and that whatever you do, you’ll always have me in your corner.

Katherine looked over at her phone, spoon sticking out of her mouth as the planned movie of the evening played. She read it over and sighed. His text was not helping her with her guilt for feeling like she overreacted. She was throwing a temper tantrum even if she thought she rightfully deserved it. It also reminded her that she lied a bit when she had told him, she had tried everything.

There was one solution she hadn’t tried yet. This one scared her to no end because it meant that she could potentially lose her job. Then again. She jumped up from the couch and hurried back into her office. She wasn’t going to get anywhere she wanted if she wasn’t willing to take some risks.

She set up a youtube channel, a blog, and changed her bio on twitter and instagram. Not just the book girl.

Her first blog and video went into detail about what she was doing, what she would be covering, and hoped that people would follow her. She drafted everything up, linked all of her profiles together, and then stared at her computer screen. This was it. Now or never. She was making a change for her future. She took a deep breath and hit publish. She tweeted a link to her blog post. She posted the thumbnail on her instagram with linking her new blog in her bio. She even went to her stories and linked it there with the swipe up option.

The One: Check out the link I just posted on twitter.

Katherine stared at her phone as she waited. The five minutes that passed felt like life times but when her phone dinged with his response, she felt like she could cry.

The Idiot: I’m so proud of you.

                                                           ~~~

People ate Katherine’s blog up. They loved it. She updated every Tuesday and Thursday with doing various small videos on instagram and twitter about certain stories. Companies began to ask to be sponsors and the day she had been waiting for finally came. The New York Times let her go. She was upset of course but as Jamie had reminded her, it allowed her to spend more time doing something she wanted to do. Luckily the sponsor money helped and she was able to tap into her trust fund if she needed.

Jamie had gotten a movie deal for his latest book. A party had been organized by not just Random House but by the production company as well. With Katherine no longer a part of the media list, he had to figure out how to ask her to join him. She had easily become his favorite part about these things.

“Hey Katherine?” Jamie looked up from his dessert.

“Hmm?” She hummed around her latest bite of pie.

“Would you want to be my plus one to this event tonight? And then well for every event after that?” His voice grew quieter and more rushed at his second question.

“Are you asking me on a proper date?” She leaned a little forward, eyebrow raised.

“If I am?”

“Then I’d say yes.” She whispered, smiling at him before leaning back and taking another bite of her dessert.

He grinned, going to take another bite of his as well when a question came to mind. “Wait, what do you mean by proper?”

“I haven’t been seeing anyone since our movie weekends started, have you?”

“No.” He shook his head. If he was honest ever since he met her, he had stopped looking at other women.

“Then this will be our first proper outing as a couple then, wouldn’t it?” She quirked her eyebrow up once again.

“So you’re saying you want to be my girlfriend?” He really couldn’t believe it. Then again she had always been the one to set the pace in their relationship.

“Yes.” She smiled and he was reminded of how he wondered what a genuine smile from her would look like. He was reminded that he now got them all the time.

“Then I guess we’re officially dating.” He matched her grin with one of his own. He didn’t think he’d been this happy in a long time.

“Picking me up at seven, then?” She asked, after finishing off her dessert.

“I’ll be there.” He promised.

                                                        ~~~

They still kept movie nights but the sleep overs definitely strayed away from sleeping in different areas and moved towards sleeping together. The night he found out that her father was Jewish but the only thing she practiced was Hannukah due to her Episcopalian mother was a night they missed the movie completely. They appeared at every outing together. She stayed by his side and never hid by the bar, steaming with jealousy. Despite working her ass off to make her blog the most successful it could be, she stayed on top of every party that he had to attend. She knew the book, researched the author, and wound up mingling like the best of them. Everytime he would compliment her, she would just brush it off and credit her mother for her behavior.

She had moved to covering the news during the week. On the weekends however, she would give a review of the newest book, tv show, theatre production, or movie she had seen that week. With the first one she did, she stated how it was important to remain in touch with her roots while bringing the hard hitting stuff throughout the week.

A few months into their new relationship, Katherine ran through the halls of Jamie’s apartment building. She knocked on his door, more like banged, until he opened it. His eyes were frantic until he realized the crazed person on the other side of the door was Katherine.

She squealed when he opened the door, raising her arms in the air in a victory celebration while bouncing on the balls of her feet. “I’m gonna be on the Today Show!”

“Oh my god!” He wrapped her in his embrace before picking her up and twirling her around a bit. “Congratulations! I knew you could do it.” He set her back down and ushered her inside. “Tell me everything.”

She launched into how she was getting a segment right before Kathy Lee and Hoda did theirs. It was going to be called Watch What Happens with Katherine Pulitzer. It would cover all the news stories she thought people needed to keep an eye on. She would then end it with a review of some sort or even an interview. They were going to allow her to keep the blog and actually encouraged her to keep it running. The only thing they were going to change was her youtube channel, making it more on brand and instead of uploading her own home made videos, they would upload video clips from her segments.

Jamie just grinned as he listened to Katherine tell him everything. She couldn’t even sit still, she was so excited. Once she was done, he pulled her in for a long, deep kiss. “I’m so proud of you.” He whispered after they separated.

Katherine grinned before pulling him down to her for another series of kisses. Needless to say, Jamie was late for his morning meeting that day.

                                                       ~~~

Katherine’s segment was going well. The rankings were beyond what NBC had predicted. The movie based off of Jamie’s second book was dubbed most anticipated and he was already working on a third book. Life was finally going the way that each of them had dreamed about. They had their dream careers. They had their dream relationship. They even had their dream living arrangement after they moved in together after the first year of them getting together. Jamie didn’t feel like things were moving too fast and Katherine finally felt seen and heard. Most importantly they had each other and the support from the other was something they never thought possible. All of their dreams really did finally come true.

#the last five years fic #newsies fic #crossover fic #jamie wellerstein imagine #jamie wellerstein fic #jamie wellerstein #katherine pulitzter imagine #katherine pulitzer fic #katherine pulitzer #jeremy jordan #kara lindsay #jamie x katherine #one shot #dreams coming true #kim writes things

[empty-movement]

The Comet and the Stars

CW/TW: Discussion of sexual assault, emotional abuse, events of episode 33, incest, um...everything? Look, it’s about Akio. :(

I discovered a comet earlier. It’s new. No one else knows about it yet. But I won’t tell anyone else about it. I won’t even name it. It’s amazing… The feeling of discovering a new heavenly body. You feel as though doing that makes it your property. But what’s in the heavens is in the heavens. It belongs to no one. ...It belongs to no one...

Goodnight, big brother.

Must you still torment me?

For twenty years, this scene has driven me nuts, and taking my cue from the man himself, I've just ignored it. The gist is obvious enough: Akio is gloating about seducing Utena and it backfires on him, but any dramatic weight or potential for analysis has been eclipsed for me by an unforgivable sin. In all previous translations, Akio uses ‘comet’ and ‘star’ interchangeably.

This is absurd coming from someone who, according to Ikuhara, probably teaches astronomy in the university. It also breaks the comparison he's making. I brought this up with our translation buddy at Nozomi, not asking him to fix it but more bemoaning my fate. After all, Akio does clearly use two different words…

It turns out that I didn't give enough credit, either to Akio or to Enokido, who wrote the episode, on why it’s worded this way. Though Akio begins by saying suisei, which is explicitly the word for comet, he continues into his little speech using hoshi. The latter is generally translated as ‘star’, but is actually not specific beyond ‘celestial body.’ (Had I been a Sailor Moon fan, I would have known this, as hoshi is used to refer to planets in it, apparently.)

As close as I can get to the experience after twenty years, this is like me getting to analyze a piece of Utena for the first time. It was a fascinating look at something I knew I wanted to explore, but couldn't, because it was broken. It’s fixed now. And I am digging in, because I’m Akio trash, toxic relationship trash, space trash, and analysis trash. (And also, this was homework/research for the Akio fic I wrote for the upcoming Utena Future Zine.)

This scene immediately follows episode 33, The Prince Who Runs In the Night, which ended with Utena and Akio having sex in a hotel room, an event framed by Akio and Anthy as ‘delivering roses’, and alluded to by Akio as ‘beautiful stars.’

Here, at the beginning of episode 34, The Rose Seal, having just had sex with his sister, Akio is in the mood to gloat. He begins to describe having found a new comet. This seems...unlikely. You’ve never seen Akio use a telescope. The entirety of his exploration of space is contained within a planetarium, a representation of the night sky, beholden to the accuracy bestowed by its creator. It’s incapable of letting him ‘find’ anything. Of course, that’s not a flaw. It’s a feature. Akio is choosing where the stars shine, even if outside of his world, this would not be up to him.

The stars are a metaphor, both in the context of the series, and Akio’s own use of them in conversation: the heavenly bodies he discusses are the people he controls. Everything Akio has said relating to the stars or the mythology surrounding them is ultimately about someone in the story, and there is always a contextual clue to indicate this. 

Later, he will go on to say “Actually, I have no interest whatsoever in the stars.” You can take this as him rejecting his own framing device, or you can take him as using the metaphor still: he doesn’t care about people at all. I think it's both. He never shows an interest in space that isn’t clearly bound up in its comparison to people, and he shows somehow even less regard for the people those stars represent. They’re at best playthings, and at worse, just a means to a repetitive, futile end.

It’s obvious that Utena’s the comet he has discovered, that no one else knows about. This is an unsubtle reference to ‘discovering’ Utena's virginity, and taking for himself the one piece of Utena that Anthy could not have ‘known about’ herself. Whether she wanted it or not is far less important than that it's something Akio was able to deny her. Right out of the gate, this is not nearly so much about his comet, as the person he's speaking to.

It is interesting though to consider if Akio is aware at all that Anthy's feelings for Utena could be romantic in nature. The choice of sex as a means to drive them apart does seem to speak to that, but it's also probably the move he'd make regardless of the nature of Utena and Anthy's relationship. Anthy's refusal to look at the ‘real’ stars Akio enjoys so much in the previous episode is framed rather like jealousy, but it's hard to say exactly for who or over what. Her reaction to this event is...complicated, despite her complicity implied by her assistance in “delivering the roses.” This is an especially eerie way to reference Akio's sleeping with Utena, given the bouquet, red and white roses mixed, follows them to the hotel room, sits on a chair, and is eventually is set in a vase. After all, the destination is already there. A similar bouquet is delivered to Akio’s office way back in episode 15, when he is first alone with Utena, suggesting Anthy’s awareness and involvement in Utena’s fate, including this rape, has been there from the start.

Having established this as a discussion about Utena, he goes on to say he isn’t going to tell anybody about this new comet, nor is he going to give it a name. A secret thing that’s yours because you found it… is no small power trip, and if he were talking about a comet, one could certainly imagine a few precious moments where the possession can be savored before the pleasure of sharing your discovery takes over. There is certainly some of this in how it pertains to Utena, but more pointedly this is an act of aggression. And this, the fact that comets aren’t stars, is why the mistake in translation literally destroys beyond repair this entire bit.

Comets are temporary visitors in the night sky, they flash brilliantly but ultimately will only be there for a little while before going on their way along a much larger orbit. (Ruka is another comet, shown coming down in the window in episode 28, then departing in 29.) Stars, for all intents and purposes, are fixed bodies. Things that reliably stay where you expect them to. They aren’t going anywhere.* Akio is reminding Anthy that Utena, sweet as she is, is a temporary visitor in their sky. She may shine brighter than most, but her path will eventually lead her away. Don’t get too attached, Anthy, to a thing that will soon disappear.

To Akio, there’s no point naming her. He only concerns himself with what's in his domain, and if she’s going to leave it anyway, she can do so namelessly. This is exactly what happens: the students forget her, struggling to recall her name not long after her departure. By refusing to name this comet, he’s rejecting her in advance of needing to do so, anticipating her departure, and planning her erasure. I’m not going to name her, because she isn’t going to be part of our world.

He goes on to say how wonderful and fun it is to discover a comet and then keep it to himself. No one finds comets if they don’t look for them, and if they’re looking for them, they’re doing so out of passion for the hunt. But he’s talking about Utena, making it about how much pleasure he takes in the hunt of innocence, and its subsequent destruction. Though certainly no excuse for his actions, this seems to me like it would be a satisfying preoccupation for the fallen prince, denied his former glory by the endless, fatal demands innocent princesses placed on him. Ohtori Academy could be read, cynically, as an elaborate mockery of a fairy tale world that he has created just to play out this story, over and over.

But what’s in the heavens is in the heavens. Or more simply “A comet is a comet.” On some level, Captain Obvious is aware of the nature of the coffin he lives in. He makes reference to the world outside and is to some limited extent in communication with it. He knows within his sphere, time is arrested. He knows, I think at varying levels of conscious awareness, that the world he’s the ends of is not the entirety of the earth. In this comment, he extends the temporality of Utena’s presence to not just being true for Anthy, but him as well. Utena will leave, and who will be left? Just the two of them, still together under the same sky, though their comet is no longer in it.

The comet belonging to no one is an elaboration of this point, and probably the closest Akio inadvertently gets to a moment of genuine self-awareness. The discovery of a comet makes him feel like it’s his...but it’s not. It’s a comet, and it will leave the sky they live under regardless of what either of them does to it.

He repeats this line again. It gnaws at him, because it strays too close to the subject of his own limitations. This started as a threat that he can ruin this creature Anthy’s grown fond of, and as he expanded the point, it became tinged with reassurance that Utena is a passing fling for both of them. But Akio, in a hurry to absolve himself of any real culpability, ends up admitting, certainly by accident, that Utena isn’t a passing fling because that’s what he’d prefer. Akio won’t keep her because Akio can’t keep her.

On some level, he is aware that his control is not absolute. This comet that has appeared is not his to keep, and while he may budge its trajectory to his own ends, ultimately...he can’t force it to do anything. He can’t force anyone to do anything. He can trick, cajole, coax...but his perception of his own capacity to control the world around him does not line up accurately with reality, and he knows this. Deep down.

Because while illusions may belong to him, reality belongs to no one…

Anthy leaves when she does knowing he’s been made vulnerable by his own contemplation. Not only does she not care to offer any comfort, she is ignoring both his empty threat and his hollow reassurance. After all this peacocking, and the dark place he inadvertently led himself, she tells him by her passivity that, oops, sorry. She wasn’t listening.

Must you still torment me?

Yes. Because I don’t belong to you, either.

The give and take of love and resentment in Akio and Anthy’s relationship reaches levels of toxicity that would make Chernobyl blush. They dance constantly around their codependency, swiping at one another, and then soothing each other in turn. “No one will ever know you as well as I know you.” becomes both a reassurance and a threat on their lips.

It’s Akio that does all the talking, and one could assume that’s usually the case, but Anthy wins this round by doing the one thing more dangerous to Akio than anything else: she ignores him. Hating him is a glue that binds her to him, and his rubbing her face in what he’s done to their young comet smacks of an attempt to reinforce that attachment, negative thought it is. As long as she’s wrapped up in her hatred and resentment of him, she’s not going to be able to move on. Their hostility to one another is heavy with that awareness on both sides: they both know the ‘love’ the other has for them depends on that hatred, and neither really believes it could mean anything any other way. Neither dares invest in the idea that they could be genuinely loved for their own sake, so neither tries.

A fair bit of Akio’s dialogue in the climax of the series also seems geared to elicit contempt from Anthy, seeking this bitterness as a validation of her attachment. There’s a bit of lip service to the idea of them loving one another, but the form that takes is a hostile one, and it’s that hostility Akio is trying to drag from Anthy now. Anthy, knowing why he’s doing it and what he hopes to achieve, denies him...and enjoys it. After all, it’s how she swipes at him in turn, by reminding him that her veneer of compliance, her passivity as the Rose Bride, is a weapon she can aim just as readily at him. And he sees every day what it does to others, just as she’s made to watch what he does to their makeshift prince.

Akio’s seduction of Utena is a military action ending a cold war, and this scene is our first glimpse at what open hostility between these powers looks like. The Akio Arc and the Apocalypse Arc are not a distinction officially made by the series creators, but the presence of a ‘recap’ episode implies it, and the shift from one story arc to the next marks a gross change in the tone of Akio and Anthy’s relationship past any capacity either may have to salvage it. Akio is clearly aware what he has done angers Anthy, but he misjudges the severity of her reaction, having let himself be pretty much blind up to this moment to the distance Utena is putting between them.

But...why does he change terms? Why not just continue using the term that appropriately describes the subject? Well, I used to think this was done because it sounds better or something, and that certainly could be the case. However, it also creates a double entendre that isn’t exactly necessary to the point, but certainly enriches it. Hoshi is ‘celestial body’, hoshii, with the extended vowel, is ‘want.’ They do absolutely sound different in Japanese, however, they don’t sound so different that a Japanese speaker wouldn’t notice their similarity. Consider this:

I discovered something interesting earlier. It’s new. Something that no one else knows about yet. But I won’t tell anyone else about it. I won’t even name it. It’s amazing… The feeling of discovering something new to want. You feel as though doing that makes it your own. But...I want what I want. Though what I want belongs to no one.

Reworded to this, his speech doesn’t radically change in meaning. He’s still gloating about a thing he’s found and enjoyed, and he’s still eventually tripping over an awareness that he can’t keep it. The flavor of it changes though, it sounds far more world-weary, like someone aware of how infrequently a new thing to interest them comes along. That novelty is rare, and Akio, selfish creature that he is, would make it belong to him if he could. He can’t, though...and why is that?

Perhaps he’s aware that the very act of possessing this comet ruins what he likes about it. Under any condition where Utena becomes his possession, she stops being the innocent, spirited little prince he’s having such fun playing with. He knows possessing her would destroy what he enjoyed in the first place. This is a conundrum he shares with his ‘competitor,’ Touga. This interest, this distraction, is one that is entirely impossible for Akio to keep. It will elude him, and the satisfaction he feels at the destruction of a noble thing will be fleeting, leaving him only with the wreckage of Anthy’s anger, and none of the pleasure he feels now.

This is absolutely not to say I think Akio is remotely in love with Utena. I actually kind of had a hard time typing that sentence even. He enjoys the pursuit, perhaps, but more importantly, Akio lives to bring others down to his level. If everyone else turns out to be total garbage, it validates his decision to take the easy way out. To be garbage himself. Utena interests and pleases him so because she has that much farther to fall, and he appears, against his better interests given Anthy’s reaction, compelled to push her. But if Dios’ fundamental ambition was to save others, it seems reasonable to assume Akio’s is the opposite--he’s compelled to destroy what innocence crosses his path, and whether that is out of the programming inflicted on him by his very nature as a living archetype, or whether that’s a retaliation against others for the wounds he perceives have been inflicted on him and what’s his, meaning Anthy...I suppose depends on your reading of what exactly he and Anthy are. The former has been used in the past to frame Akio as unable to help himself any more than Dios does. I’ve never really liked that reading, because it removes the burden of responsibility he has for his actions by removing his agency in deciding what he does or doesn’t do. That just feels cheap to me, utterly out of line with the richness and complexity to be found literally everywhere in the series.

I think the world Akio and Anthy inhabit, that they’ve created for themselves, is such a dark place because both of them feel most comfortable there. Akio lashes out madly in hostility toward literally everyone that crosses his path, and though it is smoothed over and made attractive by his methods, the fact remains that Akio structures everything around him to service this ambition. He misleads, hurts, and ruins others, and does so with the point of view that he has a right to this. (‘Foolish mortal’ is translated this way because the word he uses, ikimono, literally implies like...minimal sentience.) The vengeance he takes on the world seems almost an addiction at this point, one he indulges to his own detriment as Anthy’s approval shifts from irritation to far beyond tolerance.  

This moment of reflection, where he admits, albeit briefly, that the toys he plays with aren’t his own, is one of very few moments in the series where you could even attempt to read his behavior as self-aware or something he struggles with. It suggests on some level Akio is aware that the world at large buzzes about without him, and that his petty tortures are ultimately meaningless, either as a means to real satisfaction, or as revenge for a wrong as great as the one inflicted on him. People are not his in the end, and they are capable of walking away from a garden he cannot. This is an interesting insight for him to have at the beginning of such open hostilities between him and his sister. What has been obvious to us as viewers for a very long time is starting, maybe, to sink through to him: Anthy is capable of leaving him.  Not threatening. Not using the distance as a bludgeon...but actually leaving.

If Akio could be capable of regret for his actions, this would be a moment for him to be so. He begins by gloating, but ends this dialogue aware that something went wrong with this particular ‘discovery’...and his greed for its destruction, his selfishness, and his resentment toward all things innocent and pure are all little satellites orbiting what I think is the biggest insight Akio risks having here. Akio is not entirely sure what he just did to this girl will be without consequences. That he might have gone a bit too far, a bit too late, and left himself with an Anthy he can’t be nearly so sure of anymore.

The open hostility between the siblings from this point forward stems from that spiraling trust he has in his grip on what, so far as he believes, sustains him. The game played now aims as much to sever Anthy from her attachment to this little creature as it does to creating a prince out of her. Akio is starting to be afraid.

Thanks for reading, if your crazy ass got this far! I know Akio isn’t exactly the hot topic everyone loves to talk about, but I find him uniquely compelling for all the reasons we don’t want to talk about him, and if any of this was interesting to you, I’ll be glad of it! :D As always, any feedback or whathaveyou is welcome. If you need some seriousness bleach, here, have a stupid picture:

PS. Happy birthday, Akio! Sorry about the long essay totally ripping into your weaknesses and calling you a scared little man.

* Akio pointing out Venus (‘the morning star’) as a comparison to himself earlier in the series is especially rich given this entire framing device. Venus, like the other planets, masquerades as a star, and you can’t really tell the difference without a telescope. However, unlike the fixed stars, it moves about freely in the night sky, appearing to be one thing while behaving in another way. Just as Akio appears to be the Trustee Chairman of the Board, but moves about across his sky as Ends of the World. Just as he appears one of us, he is something altogether different, and altogether closer than we realize.

#SKU #RGU #Shoujo Kakumei Utena #Revolutionary Girl Utena #Anthy #Anthy Himemiya #Akio #Akio Ohtori #Analysis #Meta #Discussion #cw: abuse #cw: incest #cw: akio existing #cw: nerdy fucking space shit again

[love-takes-work]

Steven Universe Podcast: Volume 2, Episode 5: Connie

In the second season of the Steven Universe Podcast, episode 5, released February 22, 2018, is about Connie! The official description:

We're spotlighting Steven Universe's best-friend, Connie, on the Steven Universe Podcast! Grace Rolek, who voices Connie, and Zach Callison, the voice of Steven, talk about their characters' friendship, and recent struggles on the series. And creator Rebecca Sugar and former EP Ian Jones-Quartey explain Connie's sword, her relationship with the Gems, and the yin & yang that dictate Connie and Steven's respective designs and personalities. Plus, Connie drops in to talk about school, Stevonnie, and her fabulous new haircut!

As per usual, the podcast is on the long side, so I'll open with bulleted highlights and include a more detailed narrative under the cut.

Highlights:

Connie has been planned as a character since the beginning; drawings of her are included in Rebecca's original sketchbook.

Connie is designed as a foil for Steven, with each of them possessing traits the other lacks so they can fit together smoothly.

Associating Rose's sword with Connie early on was a deliberate decision; they always wanted her to be the sword of the relationship, complement to Steven's shield.

The Gems treat Connie better than any other human and respect her as a member of the team.

The Gems talk to Connie's parents outside what we see on the show; they've been communicating with the Maheswarans a lot more since Connie decided to be upfront with them about her involvement with Steven.

The Cool Kids are partially based on Rebecca's college experiences when she joined a band. She was pseudonymously known as Rebecca Murder.

Lapis and Peridot making art in the barn was based on Rebecca's band member friends using a barn for their art.

Nanefua as Dewey's opponent was planned very early too. They always made sure to include her as a critical voice in the crowd when the town was gathering to react to his speeches.

The boardie character who's designed to look like Ian Jones-Quartey was originally going to be a pizza merchant named Everett, but they went from having a Pizza Man based on him to having a Pizza Family based on Ian's family. 

There was also a boardie named Baby originally, and some ideas associated with him got rolled into Fryman family characters, especially Ronaldo.

Ian Jones-Quartey says if you are a fan of Steven Universe and you haven't read the book Keep Beach City Weird, you're doing yourself a disservice.

Grace Rolek and Zach Callison both felt that the Connie/Steven angst from "Dewey Wins" to "Kevin Party" carried an authentic sense of what it's like to have relationship drama. Both invoked their own breakups which were reminiscent of some aspects of those interactions.

Grace and Zach are pleased to be past their "teenage angst" phase now that they're both twenty. They’re glad to have just regular angst now.

Grace thinks Connie cut her hair to help move past the need to define herself entirely through her relationship with Steven; she needed a change and some definition as her own person.

Grace, in character as Connie, says her favorite subject in school is science so she might study gems when she grows up, she'd love to go on another adventure with the Crystal Temps as long as she doesn't have to imitate Steven, and being in a Fusion is weird but awesome--and she'd be Stevonnie's left arm because she's left-handed.

Next week: Lapis!

The detailed summary, including Rebecca and Ian discussing Connie’s characteristics and character design; discussions of early boardie character concepts; Grace and Zach discussing Connie's relationship with Steven and recent developments; and fan questions answered in character . . .

Read it all below!

Rebecca Sugar and Ian Jones-Quartey:

McKenzie begins by presenting a discussion of Connie and the humans of Beach City, also known as the boardies. Ian opens with a complaint that the term "boardies" doesn't seem to be catching on with fans even though they've been termed that in the show. He doesn't know why some fans like to call them "townies."

McKenzie asks how early Connie was conceived for the show, and both guests say she has been part of the show since the beginning. When McKenzie asks whether Connie was always intended to eventually join Steven's battles as a participant, Ian says they had always intended a group of humans to have various relationships with the Gems--either on the outskirts as background characters, as interested parties, or as participants in their activities. These ideas for different characters were distilled into one in many cases, and Connie absorbed a bunch of their intentions for heavily involved human characters.

Rebecca says Connie's character design was intentionally a complement to Steven's, right down to their faces fitting together like puzzle pieces. Connie is reasonable and down to earth, while Steven is whimsical and magical, with both of them being attracted to what the other represents.

Together, Connie and Steven make the "ultimate person," which is why Stevonnie works so well as a wielder of the sword and shield. Associating Connie with the sword very early on was intentional; way back in "Lion 2: The Movie," Rose's sword's first appearance was deliberately done during a Connie episode so she could be there to help Steven use it against the Robot Shooty Thing.

McKenzie prompts Ian and Rebecca to discuss Connie's relationship with the other Gems besides Steven. Rebecca immediately brings up one of the first times all of them interact with her, in the beginning of "Lion 2: The Movie" when they warp in standing in cool poses. (That was a Jeff Liu drawing.) They really wanted to help Steven have a friend, enhancing his cool life to draw Connie in, even if they're not completely sure how to do that. Ian says they actually treat Connie better than they treat any other human. She's a full-on member of the team as Steven's best friend, fusion partner, and dedicated combatant, so she gets special treatment.

Rebecca comments that since Connie opened up to her parents about her role on the team, the Gems have actually been in more communication with Connie's parents about it, which we don't see onscreen because the perspective of the show is tied to Steven. Rebecca and Ian say it's implied pretty strongly in "Gem Hunt" that Pearl knows Connie's parents' rules. Ian thinks the conversations between Pearl and Priyanka would be "pretty boring." And Garnet, as shown in "Mindful Education," now respects Connie, Steven, and Stevonnie (each as their own person) in a more mature, "equal" way than she used to when it was more about just protecting them.

McKenzie brings up changes with the other boardies (naming Mayor Dewey and Lars and Sadie), asking Ian and Rebecca to comment on why they decided to introduce so many changes to their lives. Sadie was shown in "Sadie's Song" wanting to make changes in her life, and now in the latest episodes she's evolving to find out who she is without Lars to rely on. She thought no one really wanted to be friends with her, but although she had Lars around, she was discontent with who she was and thought nobody who was actually cool would accept her. 

The Cool Kids are said to genuinely like Lars. Sadie's experience in the band with them is based partially on Rebecca joining a band in college. They called her "Rebecca Murder." And after Rebecca left to work on her animation career, those band members began making art in a barn, inspiring what Peridot and Lapis did there.

Ian says Mayor Dewey's loss to Nanefua as mayor was planned early too; they always made sure to stick Nanefua into crowd scenes where Dewey was getting criticized. Rebecca reminds us that Nanefua is based on Ian's grandmother. 

And Ian brings up the voiceless character that's supposed to be him on the show--that he keeps getting prominently drawn in the crowd ever since he left the show. He was originally a pizza man they think was named Everett, but that idea blossomed into the Pizza family based largely on Ian's family members. 

They also discuss another character that didn't get used--a scooter-riding character named Baby who threw cans of soda at people. (??) They think he kind of thought of himself as an action hero but may have morphed into the Fryman family. (Ronaldo got some of his traits, as he's interested in the Gems.) The Keep Beach City Weird book comes up and Ian says you should read it if you're a fan of the show. (McKenzie admits that she hasn't read it. Author’s note: It’s great, I reviewed it.) They bring up the blog that the writers would use for extra-canon material, expertly timing posts to line up with the show's airing of related episodes. (Koala Princess was first mentioned on Ronaldo's blog and later was incorporated into the show.) McKenzie wishes she could know more about the concept characters like Baby.

Grace Rolek and Zach Callison:

In the wake of so many changes--Dewey stepping down, Sadie quitting the Big Donut, Lapis leaving--McKenzie prompts Grace to comment. Grace thinks there's a huge shift happening; unlike most cartoons where most elements stay the same, Beach City is moving on to a new era. (Zach starts singing a line from a Hamilton song: "The world will never be the same!") Zach thinks even though Steven and Connie have reconciled, there's still the unsolved murder mystery and there's no going back to the status quo. McKenzie thinks it's huge that Sadie left her job, considering the literal first scene of the show is Steven inside the Big Donut with her comforting him about Cookie Cats. (Grace also quotes Hamilton, saying "The world's turned upside down.")

When McKenzie asks Grace to discuss how she can bring authenticity to the story as it's changing, she says she's changed a lot herself from age 15 to age 20 on the show, so she's gotten life experience as the characters have and can relate more readily. She can pulled from her own experiences with, say, breakups, to filter those emotions into giving voice to Connie in her struggles with Steven. Zach comments that Grace was not there during his recording for "Kevin Party," and he remembers having a personal emotional reaction in response to the dialogue. (He later returns to this to express that it was where Kevin was giving Steven terrible advice; he had that happen to him too.) 

Grace says good writing really helps connection on a personal level; it automatically feels authentic. Grace adds that even though she's never fought Gem monsters or had a magical best friend, she still knows on some level what it's like to go through what Connie does in those moments because the writers build them on realistic emotional experiences.

McKenzie says she thinks Steven's emotional misfire at the beginning of "Dewey Wins" was very unlike him, and asks for the actors' comments on whether they think Steven was genuinely confused about Connie's reaction or whether he was suppressing something. Zach thinks Steven probably got it subconsciously, but was just confused about everything at the time. Grace thinks Connie just felt terrified about having faced the idea of not seeing Steven ever again and then when he returned he was so flippant about their pact, which she had invested so much into even if her ability to help might have been limited in that situation. 

Zach points out that anything bad that happened to him at age 14 was the end of the world. Zach and Grace joke about how nice it is to say "when I was a teenager" now that they're past that into their twenties. (Their birthdays are two weeks apart.) Grace says she just has normal angst now instead of teenage angst.

McKenzie brings up "Gemcation" and Steven's embarrassment to admit that he'd had a fight with Connie, worrying that they would side with her. What do Zach and Grace think of Steven's atypical reticence? Zach thinks Steven fears the Gems' reaction would be to be angry like Connie because he must deserve that treatment. When McKenzie suggests it would've been simpler to just leave and never come back to face it, Zach says that's the darkest timeline and jokes that Steven would join the Diamond Authority. This AU definitely exists.

The next subject is Connie's hair. Grace is asked to comment, and she remembers seeing it in the boards and asking about it, with Rebecca confirming that Connie had gone through a redesign. 

Grace says it's a common cliché to change your hair when you go through a relationship change, but there's truth in it. She thinks Connie's come so far from Season 1, from thinking she's going to die friendless to showing up at a cool party with a Lion and a new haircut, chatting with strangers. Grace thinks she may have changed her hair to help deal with moving forward, and although her relationship with Steven is very important to her, she needs to invest in her personal growth independently from having a magical best friend. Grace mentions feeling sort of bad for Kevin for the first time in that episode, despite his history of being unsympathetic. McKenzie thinks his past with having an ex he lost helped humanize him. They agree he deserves some sympathetic treatment but that he's still a jerk, and they joke about a redemption arc for him in which he'd have to sing and join the Crystal Gems.

Connie answers questions:

McKenzie: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Connie: Oh, I have no idea. Right now my favorite subject in school is science, so I'd love to do something with that, I think, learning and investigating the world is super interesting. Maybe I could study gems for a living.

McKenzie: Would you consider going on another adventure with the Crystal Temps?

Connie: I'd love to! I just hope they don't make me imitate Steven again. That was kind of weird. If we could just be our own people while doing an adventure, that'd be fun!

McKenzie: What's it like to be in a Fusion?

Connie: It's super weird but it's awesome. I mean, it's crazy, I get to share a mind with Steven.

McKenzie: Yeah?

Connie: Yeah, it's like, half of me is controlling half a brain and half a body, but at the same time it's just one person.

McKenzie: Is it like divided down the middle? Do you have like the right arm?

Connie: I guess. I mean, I'm left-handed, so it'd be the left arm.

McKenzie: Why did you cut your hair? Which by the way looks amazing.

Connie: Thank you! I think I just needed a change. I feel like, I'm growing up, and I've had this long hair for a real long time, and I wanted to assert a new side of my personality.

McKenzie: It's an image change, you gotta shake things up!

Connie: Exactly. I've had this long hair for a while now, and now this cute short hair, it's a cute chic new look.

McKenzie: What kind of podcast would you have if you had a podcast?

Connie: I would LOVE to have a podcast because I just love to talk about all sorts of things that interest me. It would be cool if Steven and I could get together and talk about all sorts of stuff. Maybe we could interview the Gems or interview people about--or I'd love to talk about all sorts of issues in the world today. I love to talk about the real stuff. Current events. And also pop culture, too, I think, books, television, movies, analyzing it all.

McKenzie: That sounds like an amazing podcast.

Connie: Thanks. I mean I certainly love talking to you on this one!

Next week: LAPIS!

[Archive of Steven Universe Podcast Summaries]

#steven universe #steven universe podcast #connie #grace rolek #zach callison #mckenzie atwood #rebecca sugar #ian jones-quartey #myblog

[chibichocopaws]

Visions of a Dark Star

Visions of a Dark Star

A theory by chibichocopaws!

(Note: This is stupid long. There are no actual facts backing my theory up, it is, after all a theory. I am open to friendly discussion or debate on the topic as well. Apologies for any grammatical errors. I may or may not have written parts while enjoying some prescribed pain relievers. And....

SEASON 6 VLD SPOILERS AHEAD!

K.thanks!)

Krolia: “Time collapses this close to dark stars. Going through the light triggers glimpses of the past and the future.” (Season 6, Episode 2: Razor’s Edge)

We are starting with Kieth's return to the Castle of Lions in Season 6, Episode 4: The Colony. He seems very accepting of what's happening with Shiro, and even slightly pulled back when he sees Shiro at first.

What I mean by this, is the first time Keith speaks to Shiro is over a com when he's on the Altean space pod. He seems slightly frantic, given the information about Lotor. He quickly identifies himself, saying "Shiro it's Keith." Then instantly asks where Lotor is. Granted, this isn't very unlike a Leader of Voltron to do. "It's me. Don't fire. Friend not foe. Now here's the important part."

But even when he lands the Altean pod, and steps out, there's little interaction between the two. Now, Sheith fans jump on the look Shiro gives Keith. It's a big "Holy shit, you look hotter." Look. As a Sheith fan, I'm not going to argue that look, but I am trying to be unbiased here. Soooo, how about we take that look as something different. Where is the hug? Where is the hand shake? Some sort of physical contact. We know Keith and Shiro share physical contact frequently. A hand on the shoulder, an arm around the shoulder, etc. It's uncommon for them to not be near each other, or exchanging a touch. We know Keith doesn't do this with many others. “He's not exactly handing out love hearts to anyone.” Whether that be as a friend or more. Again, different topic. So, we know Keith is reserved to begin with during this reunion, so perhaps that's really what the look is for. Keith barely acknowledges Shiro here. Sure, he's matured, but he's holding back. There's only one point he's smiling at Shiro when he's returned. Otherwise, he's rarely interacting with him. He's brushing off Shiro’s questions, and focusing on other people's questions. If you watch the episode closely, he rarely even looks at Shiro.

To touch on the “one time he is smiling” was when Haggar was looking through Shiro’s eyes. Of course she was. Why would she not be. The universe really hates Keith sometimes. Poor guy. Anyways, it's after the introduction of Krolia, when she thanks Shiro for raising him to be the man he is today. So, even if we dissect this, it can still stand to reason, that he's simply smiling because of his mother's words. If they had the visions, and Krolia too saw what was bound to happen, why would she do this? It's a funny thing, mothers. They do things that their kids don't always understand, but it's for the best. Krolia understands that Shiro has been and is a huge part of Keith’s life. She's had 2 years and countless past and future visions to discover this, nevermind if Keith opens up to her verbally (which is likely considering 2 years with only one other person, not including cosmic wolf because I'm left to assume it cannot communicate, is a long time to sit in complete silence, especially with all their dirty secrets being shown in visions to each other). So perhaps, Krolia does and says this more for Keith than Shiro. Krolia is difficult to read though, she's naturally obscure with her facial expressions, most likely due to her being Galra and a member of the Blade of Mamora.

So let me throw this out there. Based on what we know from Episode 2, every time that time collapses, Keith and Krolia fell victim to visions of the past and the future. Yet, Episode 2 only showed one vision from the future, then proceeded to only show visions of the past. Yet, this makes no sense, unless of course, the visions of the future were obscured by the creators to "not give anything away" (such as the small snippet of battle between Shiro/Kuron and Keith. As viewers we only knew it was going to happen, though we didn't know to what extent or why at the time of episode 2).

They were on that space whale for 2 years. I'm not sure what the frequency of time collapses was, but they occurred on the space whale as well. It seemed the trip to the space whale from the destruction of their ship, could not have lasted more than a couple of days to a maximum of a week. I say this based on Keith being human, because he mentions they won't survive much longer without food or water. Some humans can train their bodies to go longer periods without sustenance, and sadly, I imagine Keith has had to do just that based on his history as a child. Ok, so supposedly the average human can last without food for about three weeks. I, personally don't believe that. (Backstory: I went an entire week without any food as a cleansing exercise and by day 6 I was about ready to pass out, day 7 found me literally blacking out randomly. Keeping in mind, I only drank water, and continued to work at a grueling physically laboring job). So I’m assuming this 3 weeks statement is for those that can basically veg out without much, if any, physical labor. Now, water is a different story. The human body cannot survive very long without it (a matter of days really). Days under normal circumstances, not extreme labor, like pushing from space rock to space rock, sweating from exertion, etc. But, if we take into consideration that Keith is also half Galra, that may extend the amount of time he needs liquid. I am not familiar with how frequently Galra need sustenance to survive.

Back on topic though... In that time we were given three time collapses. So, let's say we go with the maximum of a week they were jumping from space rock to space rock before encountering the whale. (This time frame is important because we need to figure out how often the time collapses were occurring and we need a point of reference, which would be prior to the space whale) That's 3x52 (52 weeks in a year) which is 156 time collapses in a year. Now that's 156 times 2 for 2 years that they were gone, and that's 312.

Obviously that's not including any changes. So yes, there's a possibility that maybe the whale has blocked some of the collapses, or that the collapses happen less frequently the closer or farther away the whale gets to or from the star. Or even if the collapse is blocked from hitting them by something. But even if it were only 100 visions of the past and future, that's still A LOT!

So here's my theory. Keith knows. He knows the entire time what's going to happen. I'm basing this on a linear future, meaning it cannot be altered.

There is a time in episode 4 where Keith tries to reach out to Shiro (right after Shiro steals a pod and Lotor and flies off, Keith calls him through vocal com) desperately. He tried to keep his voice calm, telling Shiro it will be alright. Without my theory, it's something Keith would maybe do. I mean, if he doesn't know what's happening, why would he speak calmly to Shiro. Why wouldn't he yell and be like "Shiro what are you doing!?" Sure, he's matured in two years, but it seems like something more of a last hope reach out. I truly believe, at this point, he knows already. He knows that Shiro is a clone. He knows that they are going to battle, but that doesn't mean he can't try to stop it still.

But, 2 years is a long time to come to terms with the inevitable. It by no means makes it any easier, but it can be accepted. He's also had 2 years to discuss this with his mother. Now, looking at Krolia, she is very cool headed. She seems to know herself and her limits very well. She has seemed to since before having Keith. Krolia very well could have been the voice of reason he needed to accept that he may have to kill Shiro/Kuron, or at the very least, fight him.

Now, because it's not released, it's impossible to know how much was revealed in the future visions. The past visions seemed to be weird intervals, some long, some very short. So I'm not sure what was shown for future visions or the lengths of them. Though 2 years is a long time to get the entire fight and what brought Shiro to that place. So, I honestly have little doubt.

Ok, this finally wraps around to “The Battle”. Ugh. My heart hurts rewatching this episode, but I didn't feel I could full circle my theory without doing it.

Season 6, Episode 5: The Black Paladins.

The cracking sound you're hearing? Oh, just my heart shattering. I'll find some glue or something later.

Anyways. They rush out as Voltron to fight Haggar’s goonies. I really want to call them the switchers. It's hard to keep up who's side they're on. Point is, they do their battle, get flung into a rock and Haggar opens up a wormhole. So at this point he says “We have to make sure we get Shiro back.” (Well there's this little conversation prior to this line, but it doesn't pertain to my point.)

Hunk: “But Shiro isn't Shiro anymore.”

Keith says he knows, but it's almost exasperated. Like, sure he could have taken that tone because it was obvious, or he could have taken the tone because he knew well before they did. He says “But something is wrong with him, the Galra or Lotor have to be behind it.” Weird right? Because if he had visions for two years, he should have been able to piece things together, right? Maybe not because there's two bad guys right now. Lotor and Haggar (which would currently be classified under as Galra). So sure, he's had visions, but it's like being handed 5 different ingredients to a meal and telling someone “cook whatever with just this”. If you hand those same 5 ingredients to someone else, there's a good chance they won't come up with the same menu. So, maybe Keith was able to piece together most of it, but pinpointing which bad guy was responsible for which scene (ingredient) could be trickier for him.

So after their little chit chat, Keith goes on to say: “We all know he wouldn't give up on us, we can't give up on him.” Yet, he doesn't say this immediately. He stops, closes his eyes, takes a breath then says it. Why? We know the creators of VLD don't ever put anything in the show without meaning. So why have Keith pause? This action, the looking down, closing your eyes, breathing. It's a way to center our thoughts. He's trying to remain focused, but why? Is it because he feels himself slipping, becoming emotional? I mean, he doesn't look emotional. Or is it because he's trying to re-center himself within the timeline of the visions he remembers?

Why does he have to recenter himself within the timeline of visions? Maybe something is missing! Maybe he was unable to piece together why the other Paladins weren't by his side during his battle with Shiro. Maybe he thought they gave up on Shiro. Maybe this part of the timeline wasn't revealed to him (this part being the fact that only Keith gets through the wormhole), so he felt that he needed to reassure them that Shiro was worth saving.

Now, look at Keith’s shift when he yells disband. All that coolness from earlier, the calm collectedness he had is gone, and he legitimately looks like something has clicked. He gets it. He understands why they aren't there during the battle, because the only one who can make it through the wormhole is him. He goes from calm to confident in a second. And although his facial features change when the speed is intense, he doesn't look scared or nervous. Just in pain. Like he legit knows he's going to make it, it's just taking a lot of exertion on his body to do so, but he has no doubt he will get through. Why? There should be a glimmer of doubt unless he knew otherwise.

Except of course when he comes out the other side of the wormhole and is met with a fleet of Galra battle cruisers. Oops. Guess that part wasn't in the vision. Oooor maybe it was. He literally effortlessly glides through that. The Black Lion isn't at full capacity with its broken thruster, and yet he GLIDES through the line of fire, almost as if he's done it before. So why the face of surprise? Let's be honest. Someone could tell you “oh, there's like a thousand bees over there. Look I took a picture even.” But then you go over there and seeing a thousand bees can be intimidating face to face. Or, maybe he's surprised because he recognizes it instantly. Like “Oh, right. Seen this part before.” This would also make sense, if he didn't know why the other Paladins weren't around for the fight. As in, he missed a vision from two seconds earlier, but now it's one of his visions again.

Even Ezor turns around and is like “Wow, I can't believe he made it through that.” Maybe she's talking about the wormhole, or maybe she's talking about the fleet of Galra battle cruisers.

His mini battle with Acxa kind of proves my point further. He has been Lion-less for over 2 years. Sure, it could be like riding a bike, but his moves are so precise, you know, almost like he knows what's going to happen!

Also, he flies right to the ship and to the area where Shiro, Lotor, Ezor and Zethrid are. How did he know where they went in the middle of a fleet of ships, while distracted by Acxa? (As a side note…. I love Ezor’s line of “Is it broken?” *poke* *poke*. She's so damn cute I can't take it.)

Now, I personally think Keith does not believe this is a linear timeline. I think he truly believes he can alter what he saw somehow. So at this point Acxa has grabbed his attention again. He says “Think. Think. How are we going to get in?” If he truly believes he can change this timeline, at this point he could really be trying to avoid the next part from happening.

Now things are going to get intense and I'm going to cry… again.

“Shiro…. Shiro come in! I don't know what's wrong, but I know we can fix this.” Listen to that desperation! Still stuck on him not knowing? Him just being more mature? Spent so much time with his mother he adapted her calmness in moments of crisis? I disagree. He's begging. Keith is legitimately begging. He knows where this is leading, and he's pulling a last call to try to stop it before it goes there. We know he saw a part of the fight in a vision. We know that much. He has to know where this is going. “Let me help you.”

But wait…. Acxa has locked his position. He knows she's on his tail. Why isn't he moving out of the way? He's given her a clear line on his position. Keith is an ace pilot. He can maneuver and have a conversation. Why isn't he? Because Shiro is more important? Sure we could go with that, or because he knows she won't fire. He saw she doesn't fire.

At this point he turns his attention towards Black. Look at his face. Listen to the sound of his tone. He's accepted this is going to happen. His facial expression is bitter acceptance. Bitter acceptance in the manner that he knows it's going to happen, but it doesn't mean he has to be happy about it. “I know you're hurting. We just need to keep it together a little longer.” He said we. We need to keep it together a little longer. He's hurting too. He knows what's about to happen. How could he not. He's not only telling Black, he's telling himself.

At this point we have a focus shift. The virus shuts down the Castle of Lions, it's panic, but let's focus on what little amount of Krolia we can see. When Pidge gets the systems fixed for all of like 3 seconds, Krolia remains rigid. As if she knows it's not going to last. This could be a stretch, sure. I mean, maybe she's just rigid from the panic, but when the systems fail again, you can see her face. It's detailed. She's worried, but distant. She's not worried about herself or the crew. Distant look implores us to believe she's worried about someone or something that's not present. Keith. Shiro. Their battle. If Keith saw Krolia’s past, it's safe to assume Krolia was able to see Keith’s future. At first, I wondered if this was only when they were touching, but it appears not. If we go back and look at Episode 2 again, there is a point, on the space whale, where Krolia sees a young Keith over his father’s gravestone. At this point Krolia is not touching Keith. She's across the way sitting next to the fire with Keith on the other side sleeping, or at least laying down. So it's easy to assume the memories and future visions are shared between the two of them every time the time collapses.

Ok, skipping over the Lotor/Honerva and switchers (Yup. Doing it. Zethrid, Acxa and Ezor shall now be known as the switchers) scene, it's unrelated (though… woah Lotor you sneaky bastard).

Next we see Keith has found an abandoned shuttle pod. He tracks the footsteps. And his face. It says it all. “This is it. It's time.” The pure definition of determination. He's ready. It's happening. There's nothing he can do or say at this point. The time has come.

He even walks with purpose. But here's another thought. When he no longer has footprints to follow, how does he know where to go? He takes a lift and goes exactly where Shiro is. How did he know unless he saw it?

There's a lot of facial expressions talk for the next few scenes. So first he enters the room with a surprised look on his face. This could be from a “where am I?” in a sense of visions showed him nothing, or with my theory this could be a “Wow, it's exactly as the vision showed me.”

The next facial expression is back to determination, which leads me to believe the surprised look was more of a “Wow, exactly as my vision.” If he were lost or unsure of himself he wouldn't have switched to determination so quickly and suddenly.

Now, the determination expression could also be confusion. If he's confused, it could really just be him thinking “Ok, I'm here, but where is Shiro? This is where I'm supposed to be, but I don't see him.”

Next he seems genuinely surprised. He places a hand on the clone pod, and one by one they all light up. This very well could have not been part of a vision based on his reaction. Sure, the pods were there during the battle, therefore there during his vision, but it could have been background, and he could have been far more focused on the battle with Shiro as opposed to what was around him.

But, “Hello Keith” is in his vision. If we go back to Episode 2, those words are in it. At this point Keith turns. He kind of looks surprised but I interpret the look more as a “Oh no.” So at this point, we know for a fact Keith has seen this. We don't know how much of this he has seen. The entire thing? Just parts? We don't know. We do know he's seen from this point and at least part of the battle based on what was shown to us from episode 2.

In the vision from episode 2 we hear the following words. “Hello Keith.” “Yes. I know.”

“It's going to be ok, we just have to get back to the castle.” “Shiro!!!!!”

and “....are not going anywhere.”

Which, if we're following it in sequence, means he saw the entire before-the-fight-sequence, but also more. The beginning of the fight Keith does not yell Shiro. The words were all spoken before Shiro goes in for attack.

Next scene, Pidge to the rescue in the worst way. Also not pertinent to this, but something I would like to touch base on some other time.

Battle ensues between Keith and Shiro, but Keith isn't fighting. At least not at first. Keith is strictly defending. At least until his helmet comes off. The punch hits him hard, maybe he whacks his head on the way down. His Galra is showing. (kek). It isn't until his Galra side comes out that he starts fighting back. This could be because he doesn't want to hurt Shiro, or because he's still holding out hope that the timeline isn't linear.

“That's the Keith I remember.” Seems to spark something in Keith and bring back his human side, and once again he starts avoiding attacks and defending. No longer on the offense.

When Shiro knocks down a tower, and Keith starts talking to him by saying “Shiro.” Is this the Shiro from Episode 2? It's hard to tell. This Shiro call sounds more raw vocally, than the vision. So, let's move on, pretty sure this is not it.

Now, I know this was touched upon by someone else, but here’s another take, Keith’s lack of reaction to Shiro’s hurtful words. “And I should have abandoned you, just like your parents did. They saw that you were broken. Worthless. I should have seen it too.” If Keith had been able to hear these words in any of the visions, he could have already dealt with the pain they caused. He could have already spoken with Krolia about it. She has already told him he was the most important thing to her. So I believe he's already dealt with that pain, and been reassured of its falseness by Krolia herself.

Ooh, another time Keith yells Shiro. At this point Shiro is… well I'm not really sure what's happening. His hand is connecting with the Galra tech and turning into a giant laser? Well, whatever the case may be, this sounds more like the Shiro yelled in ep 2. So, this implies Keith’s first and only on screen vision was from before the battle to this point. Keep in mind, the creators would not include an in depth vision in episode 2, but leave hints. They didn't want to give away the fight entirely.

Now, the next set of scenes depicts Shiro destroying the base. There are times where Keith seems surprised, but ironically, he knows when to jump out of the way of a falling piece without looking up to see it. How would he know to jump out of the way? He's already seen this all happen. He's pretty banged up, sure, but just because he knows what's happening before it happens, doesn't mean it's less painful either physically or mentally. Remember, we are basing this on a linear timeline. So regardless, certain things are going to occur.

He lands on a ledge, catches his breath for a moment and immediately looks in the direction of his blade, like he already knew where it had landed. He's determined. He knows he has to get to it. He knows it's the only way to end the battle, but his body is exhausted. Far too much exertion.

He doesn't make it till the last second, but does manage to grab it before Shiro’s killing blow. Next we fans all die a little. We all know the line. “Shiro, please. You're my brother. I love you.” That's a whole different subject for a different time. (Can't even describe how difficult it is to not touch on this right now, but it's not pertinent to my point.) So Shiro proceeds to tell Keith that the castle and Paladins are gone. Why doesn't Keith react? Sure he's using all his strength to hold off Shiro from cutting his head clean off, but he should have had some sort of reaction unless he knew it wasn't true! He saw it wasn't true.

Now, there's a chance that he does react. That the news is what wakes up his Galra side, but I don't really think so. It's several moments after Shiro’s words that Keith reacts. If we look at just moments before when Keith was punched, we can use this as a safe assumption of what causes his Galra side to wake up. Pain. He's being burned by Shiro’s blade. Boom. Galra side is awake.

So, with the Galra power awakening, Keith gains strength and cuts off Shiro’s arm. The camera pans to his face. Oh gosh. The feels are too strong. Keith is the definition of regret right now, but is it just regret that he's hurt Shiro, or is it regret for more. Regret he couldn't stop this before it got to this point. It's a horrible thing.

They fall, but his face. Oh that agonizing face. What's this tell us? He didn't want it to be like this, but he's not giving up. He could be not giving up because it was a promise Shiro made that he needs to reciprocate, or maybe he already knows Shiro will come back to him.

Flashbacks. End episode 5. Aaaah.

Nope. Not done yet. Hah. You thought that was it?

Season 6, Episode 6: All Good Things

This episode starts off strong. And confusing for my theory, but things still work, I promise. The visions from Episode 2 are never inclusive of thoughts that we can see. They tend to be themselves during the visions/memories. So why does Keith look surprised and sound surprised by Shiro’s words in the black lion? Because, technically, that never actually happens. It's in Keith’s mind (well actually Black’s mind). So because it doesn't occur on a physical plane, it is not shown in his visions, thus he is surprised by Shiro.

This also relates back to my theory of Keith having known. He seems unsure now. Out of nowhere. He's reacting how we would expect Keith to react when Shiro stole Lotor. He's angry, scared, nervous, anxious. What happened to our calm, collected and determined Keith? Where'd he go? Could it be because Keith never had a vision of this. He wasn't prepared for this? I really believe so.

But what about when he says “The others. You said… you…” And then glowy Shiro appears behind him and Keith turns, interrupting himself. This leads us to believe that Keith didn't know the others were going to be ok after all, right? I disagree. So far, Keith has been very aware of every moment. Things have been very linear, but he's done everything he can to try to change it. This was never in his visions, and now he's doubting them. Now he's wondering if he did change things, and that fear that maybe things aren't linear anymore is taking hold, and Keith is Keith once more. Sporadic. Moody. Easily angered Keith.

“I died Keith.” Surprise! Keith didn't know this either, even with my theory. Because again, he was only being shown things that happened on a physical plane. So if we take this scene out entirely, and pretend it didn't happen, it would still be difficult for Keith to piece that information together unless specifically told so on the physical realm.

Back to calm and collected Keith now. Things are back to normal, visions are back in sync? Notice how he doesn't tell any of the crew that Shiro died. He just says that the other Shiro is a clone. So if he had a vision of this part, he still wouldn't have known Shiro was really dead, thus the shock when he found out.

Almost half an episode not pertaining to this post later, and we have Krolia asking Coran if setting a bomb off in the main turbine is a good idea. Keep in mind, if Krolia and Keith had experienced future visions, she could be nervous at this point that this is where the Castle of Lions gets destroyed. If the visions were not shown to them in a linear fashion, but random fragments, there's the possibility that she doesn't really know exactly when or how the Castle of Lions is destroyed. But if you also notice, she doesn't seem too surprised that his theory worked, just relieved.

Back to Keith. After unlocking the Black Lion’s thruster wings and making it back to the team. Keith says “Now hurry, we don't have much time. Form Voltron.” I mean, this could be an educated guess. Maybe he just assumes that Lotor will be up and moving quickly, but look at his face. Again. Self assurance. Self confidence. He knows.

Season 6, Episode 7: Defender of All Universes

The battle with Lotor. Ok, trying to make this a quick synapses as opposed to going attack per attack, otherwise this will result in another Episode 5 length segment lol. So, Keith is making some great calls during this battle, quick on defense, quick on the offense calls, but what really struck me was when he yells “move”. Is that Shiro telling him? Or is that him remembering? Or is his reaction time (after two years of peaceful waiting) that good?

Ok, what about when Lotor teleports (for the first time)? Well, if we look at Kieth’s face here, he's the only one that isn't showing an expression. He's blank. Completely blank. Almost like he's trying to recall what happens next. He looks over right before the portal appears though, why before if he didn't know?

Next scene shows Krolia staring at the pod that Shiro is being put in by Coran. Her face. It's of betrayal, pain and yet relief. She knows too.

Voltron and quintessence scene was next, yanno, after Voltron got the snot kicked out of him. I mean, there's only so much they could have done, even with Keith knowing what was going to happen. Voltron was infinitely slower than Lotor’s suit. But anyways, on topic here. Keith says it's the only way, they have to try to enter the quintessence field to win. Everyone else has trepidation or nerves, but not Keith. He knows.

In the quintessence field Keith seems surprised once more, but only after his “we did it look.” This could be because maybe, the quintessence field isn't exactly a physical plane of existence. I mean it is the plane between existences, so perhaps it falls into the same category as Black’s consciousness. Or maybe it is considered a physical plane, and he's just caught up by its intensity. I mean, a infinite space full of power? Who wouldn't get caught up in the moment?

So after the battle, and the Castle of Lions is destroyed Keith says “We need to find somewhere to land to see if we can help Shiro.” He seems calm, but not necessarily knowing. It's hard to tell with this scene. I feel it would be easier if they showed his facial expression, but they simply showed Shiro.

Now Keith admits that Shiro’s soul is in Black, but heard out of context there's a good possibility that, if Keith had seen this as a vision on the space whale, that it was misinterpreted. Maybe he thought that somehow they transferred his spirit there to save him because the clone body was barely alive. We have to think about those ingredients again. They've been handed to Keith randomly, and he can't be entirely certain what he's required to make. What order he's supposed to put them in.

I must point out here, that this scene focuses a lot on Lance’s grief, panning away from Keith, so it's difficult to really tell what Keith is thinking or what he looks like at the point Allura walked up to the Black Lion to rescue Shiro’s soul.

At some point the scene pans to the Paladins watching Allura. Everyone has their eyes wide and their mouth hung… except for Keith. His mouth is open, but his eyes are not wide. We know wide eyes is an expression Keith takes often. So it's not like a shocked expression would be out of place on his face either. So why aren't his eyes wide in shock. He knows what's happening. His eyes are squinted slightly, as if expressing a relieved “finally”.

Keith does look surprised and hopeful when it works, but if we look at Krolia, she's smiling and doesn't even flinch a single bit (unlike Romelle) when the Green Lion roars behind her.

And to testify for my cause more, Keith looking surprised and hopeful, keep in mind what Keith has experienced in life. Things can being going perfectly for him and suddenly everything is in pieces. It's a mindset he's used to expecting, why would this be any different. Sure, based on my theory, he's seen the outcome, and thus far everything has been true, but Keith is the universe’s punching bag. He's privy to this, he always expects the worst, and I'm not surprised he would wait with bated breath for the validity of this part of his visions.

While we've spoken about his facial expression. The ending. (Wait... is that my heart glue!?) Look at Keith's face now. Totally different. Relief. Happiness. He's back to looking at Shiro how he used to. How he hasn't since before the space whale. He knew. He had to have known.

Aaaand end! Well of my points from the episodes.

In summary, I truly believe Keith and Krolia have seen every moment on the physical plane of both their pasts and their futures up until this point. I can't quite tell how much farther past the end of Season 6 they have seen, but with the grin on Kieth’s face at the end of the episode, he definitely knows something we don't know. I can't wait to see if this theory is true, and I would love to hear what others think of my theory. If you totally disagree please share with me! I would love to hear other people's theories, or even examples on why my theory is bogus. Bring it on!

And, if you've made it this far. OMG I love you. I love you. I love you. Special kudos and Web cookies for you.

Thanks for reading! :D

#vld #vld thesis #vld spoilers #vld keith #vld shiro #vld krolia

[nicaffeinated]

An in-depth but unorganized review of Star Wars Ep.VIII: The Last Jedi

I don’t really do movie reviews, but for Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, I’m willing to do it (and because most of the people I know haven’t seen it yet, I need to let things out!) So, if you haven’t seen the movie yet and are planning to watch it soon, please don’t read this. Do yourself a favor, and don’t spoil yourself.

To set things going, I just want you to know that I love Star Wars. As a kid, I grew up being only aware of the Star Wars franchise. I knew about lightsabers, Darth Vader, Jedi, Sith, and I even knew about the Millennium Falcon considering I haven’t watched any of the movies before! This just says how big the Star Wars influence is. But what set things in stone for me was actually watching the original trilogy marathon on TV out of boredom. This was uncanny of me, as at that age I was more obsessed with fairies and princesses in ball gowns. Then I got to know our beloved heroes, Luke, Han and Leia and I went out a fan, and here I am now. 

I watched the movie on the second day of release, which is the 14th of December here in the Philippines. In fact, at first, I was the only girl to enter the cinema during the first screening of that day. There were like 7 guys already inside and I just knew they’ve been waiting to watch this movie for two years as I have. 

So to get on with the movie review, I generally liked it, but all in all I don’t know what to feel about it. I guess writing about it will help me in weighing everything down.

On-Screen

I feel that instead of answering questions, the movie just raised a shit ton of them. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it in its cinematic sense. I was in awe of how Rian Johnson visualized everything. It is very unlike how JJ Abrams based VII on the previous movies, Johnson really brings new things to the plate. He is very creative and you can really see that in the film. There was a part with Rey seeing multiple reflections of herself during her time in Ahch To, Luke didn’t want her to do that and in the end she just ends up crying. I do understand that it was important to paint Rey in a more vulnerable light compared to her Mary Sue-ness in EpVII, but I just thought it was unnecessary to have the multiple Reys on screen no matter how cool it looked. 

The hyperspeed kamikazee of Amilyn Holdo played by Laura Dern was breath taking. The cinema just completely fell silent and it was so cool I had chills down both my arms. Can I just acknowledge Disney for adding these amazing women to the cast. This was a brilliant move Disney, and also the casting directors.  And, by the way, the “connection” scenes between Rey and Kylo Ren were well executed, in my opinion.

And I really liked how humorous the movie turned out, I was surprised I genuinely laughed which didn’t happen in the Prequels (We get it Anakin, you don’t like sand.) Oscar Isaac/Poe Dameron and Domhnall Gleeson/General Armitage Hux were great and funny whenever they were on-screen. They worked the same way as Chewie, the Porgs and those nuns/caretakers in Ahch To.  I guess it’s safe to say, they kept boredom at bay. 

WAIT, WHAT?

Moving on to the confusing parts, I just don’t get why they didn’t kill Leia off in her swooping in like Peter Pan scene, considering what has happened in real life. They are really making it hard for them to do IX with Carrie gone but it supposedly being her movie (Ep VII was Han’s, and VIII was Luke’s). I guess we’ll just see how that goes and hopefully make Carrie Fisher lovingly raise her middle finger like a salute at us from her pool of moonlight.

I don’t get why they killed off potentially amazing characters. Phasma for one and why the hell did Snoke die that easily? For a powerful, ancient character, he was just like a rag doll that was a throw away. The movie lost the opportunity of expanding their plot by killing off Snoke. I guess Kylo is his own villain now, assuming that he still has light in him after being rejected by Rey like that. 

To top it all off: Rose Tico and Finn? Really? I didn’t even see them lock eyes for more than a minute. (Stormpilot and Reylo for the win) 

Goodbye, Luke

I really appreciate how Luke died. I’m sad that he’s dead, but in his words “No one is ever truly gone” which popped up in a conversation with Leia regarding Ben/Kylo, but can be applied to Han, himself and even our dear Princess Carrie Fisher.  Force projecting himself into the Resistance base in Crait to face Kylo in what I see as his best Kylo-Tantrum ever was awesome. 

On as side note, Adam Driver was amazing in VII and he’s even better (and shirtless, but that’s not the point) here in VIII. I can’t wait to see him star in more movies. He killed it this time.

Moving back, if you were looking properly, you would really see that something was off with Luke. He has his lightsaber, completely unscratched (which was the one Kylo and Rey broke in half back in Snoke’s ship) and he didn’t leave any footprints when he walked out of the base. I mean there was a reason they gave screen time to the Resistance man’s red footprint on the planet’s salt surface. Anyway, Jedi master as he was, Luke died out of what I believe is exhaustion in Ahch To, looking at what seemed as two suns setting, which was a great homage to his time in Tatooine. I won’t lie, I had actual tears in my eyes during this time. But what I thought when I saw this was, IS AHCH TO IN THE SAME SYSTEM AS TATOOINE? I know it’s irrelevant now, but I just want to know considering I don’t see any maps with Ahch To on it. And just so you know, I really am bothered by it.

Anyway, I understand why Luke had to die. In the future movies, we just can’t keep coming back to the Skywalker bloodline. The Jedi and most importantly the Skywalkers are not the sole wielders of the force as there are a lot of force sensitive beings and the force is in everyone and everything. What they are saying here is anyone can be special and I really like that. And I really like how the force kind of chooses people who don’t have anyone or anything else but have ambition and longing to make a difference. 

Other than that, I have high hopes that we’ll be seeing Luke again pretty soon. It will be a welcome sight just like how puppet Yoda popped in here in VIII. It was pretty funny and nostalgic.

Suddenly weaker?

The Force likes to keep things in balance. That’s why in the height of Kylo’s power, the force sent Rey to be his equal at the time, which explains her being able to do all those amazing stuff in VII. But here in VIII, we don’t see Kylo Ren and Rey do a lot of cool tricks, basically because I think the force is making sure that when Luke has to do what he has to do, he has enough power to tap into the force for that force projection, despite it ultimately feeding off of his life in the end. Well, that’s what I think the reason is. 

A New Hope

If you jumped out of your seat when that orphaned kid seemingly summoned that broom to his hand back in Canto Bight (You know, that boring casino world in the middle of the movie where they got Benicio del Toro’s code-breaker character “DJ” (which stands for “Don’t Join”, apparently) to hack into Snoke’s flagship, Supremacy. Yes, THAT.) You are not alone. I literally squeaked when I saw that, and then I was completely in awe when he raised that broom forming the silhouette of a Jedi wielding a lightsaber as he stares out into the cosmos. I will never forget that scene. Never. 

For me, it just symbolizes everything that the Force and Star Wars stands for, which is POTENTIAL. Just about anybody, even if you’re a nobody at that, YOU have the potential to change the universe and the worlds beyond. 

And because Rey is not a Jedi yet, but Luke hinted that he’s not going to be the last Jedi, seems to say that she has the potential to be one and Luke definitely has faith in her. Maybe once she gets to build another lightsaber from Luke/Anakin’s kyber crystal inside the broken shaft of the lightsaber that she and Kylo Ren broke in that tug of war. 

Oh and did you also get why Yoda burnt that old tree just to set Luke free from all his doubts? You know, when Yoda talked about how there is nothing in those books that Rey does not already have. It’s because Rey took the ancient Jedi texts. She stored it in a compartment inside the Millennium Falcon and we got to see it via Finn near the end. Good job, Rey! This is just more proof that hope is never really gone.

RATING

4 out of five stars!!

Reading everything that I have written, I do like the movie. I find it creatively amazing, despite having plot holes (I believe there’s a lot more than what I have listed above). I’d like to think that the creators have provided themselves with an almost clean slate to work on IX and also having the chance to input more stories into the Star Wars franchise. I mean, who knows, maybe some of the legends may become canon soon. 

We’ll see. 

#star wars #star wars episode viii #the last jedi #movie #movie review #kylo ren #rey #luke skywalker #general leia #leia and luke #poe dameron #finn #rose tico #star wars legends #lightsaber #jedi order #sith #ben solo #leia organa #armitage hux #hux #holdo #stormpilot #reylo #reylo fam

[shardofcognition]

Who. The Hell. Is Moto?

One of the most endearing things about the game Guild Wars 2 is the Game Within A Game, Super Adventure Box, that began as an epic April Fool’s Joke and turned into a recurring annual festival.  In 2013, when the festival initially came out, it was just good fun.  In fact, the Living Story had barely even taken off, so GW2 was still firmly planted in its first story arc, and SAB seemed like exactly what it was: a blast, an epic tribute to 80s gaming, and the chance to have a fun time.

However, with the inclusion of Moto in the *main plot* of Living Story, Season 3... that elevates his profile.  It also brings SAB further out of meta humor and into the actual tapestry of GW2.  But it also poses a problem:

Who. The Hell. Is Moto?

Disclaimer: This is all speculation, and Moto might be just a cool reference character.  But with his inclusion in the main plot, I’m starting to seriously doubt it..

---

There’s an absurd amount of similarities between things in SAB and the Heart of Thorns content.  Here are a few.

Baubles - Unbound Magic

The baubles that you collect in SAB are mechanically and visually near identical to the unbound magic that we have been collecting as of Living Story Season 3.  It’s not that complex a similarity, but it bears mentioning for being basically identical.

Storm Wizard Fight - Mouth of Mordremoth Fight

These two events could not be more similar.  In the initial fight with Storm Wizard, he teleports around and lauches huge AoEs at you (much like the Mind of Mordremoth), and you must attack him with his own power to win.  Afterward, he transforms into a snake-like dragon creature surrounded by 8 floating islands (much like the Mouth of Mordremoth).  He periodically spawns minions, then EATS the islands.  You beat him by piling on the damage while he is crippled on the ground.

Bouncing Mushrooms - Bouncing Mushrooms

C’mon.  You don’t need explanation.

Chak - Bee-Dogs

THIS one is interesting, and very very telling.  While in SAB, only the Queen Bee Dog is a dangerous enemy, the behavior of the Chak and Bee-Dogs is somewhat similar.  Chak gather ley-line energy from the jungle, bring it back to their hive, and encase it in honeycomb.  Which, at some point, you break, releasing the ley-line energy into the world.  Unbound magic is, let’s not kid, just ley-line energy that’s been congealed into a collectable form - if this was built when you had the ability to gather it, you’d have energy for days.

Bee-dogs gather baubles from the native flora, take them back to their hive and queen, and put them in honeycombs.  Which the player then destroys, gathering the bauble goodness for themselves.  It’s interesting to question what a bee-dog would actually be: a hive minded creature with the individual intelligence and behaviors of a dog, likely.  Not unlike the Chak.

That’s not all, but it’s enough for now...

Things that aren’t too similar, but deserve mention.

Zone Designs

The zones we encounter in SAB do share a lot in common with the zones that have been discovered in Living World and Heart of Thorns.  The World 1 Zones would be much more similar to Maguuma - great forests where navigation is done as much in the trees as on the ground, where you are avoiding dangerous enemies in the above and poison below.  Where you also encounter frogs who’ve got a massive displacing lick attack - and the King Toad who has the massive slams of the Nuhoch and future zone bosses.  Whether intentional or not, a lot of similarity.

World 2 gets more interesting.  The first Zone in world 2 is an area full of cliffs, with occasional hillbillies who fiercely defend their territory.  There’s water there - mostly as a river - but the zone is dry matching up fairly well with the Maguuma Wastes.

The second Zone is full of Asian architecture, ninja assassins, and literal clouds to jump off of.  It’s deeper in the mountains and regarded as impassible.  This zone doesn’t have any equivalent in the rest of the game, nor do its enemies really align with any of the main types.  The closest zone to it was the Zephyrite Encampment prior to their horrible crash in Dry Top - right after they had come back from Cantha, and brought all the Canthan goods to trade and display.

The third and final zone is in deep, ice encased mountains.  If this is to resemble anything in the main storyline, it’s going to be the Far Shiverpeaks.

The Sound Effects

Like it or not, the village babble and the Chak babble share a bit in common. An uncanny amount.  Whether that’s intentional or not, I don’t know.

The Zepyrites

I think it’s important to mention the Zephyrites, because, at their introduction and even their reintroduction, they weren’t apparently important.  They provided a bit of color and intrigue, but were basically a seasonal festival and an excuse to jolt the economy.  They could have easily settled into the background tapestry of the game’s annual events.

Until, well, they wound up being revealed as the caretakers of Glint’s Legacy, became first victims of the Sylvari betrayal, and were catalysts of the initial push into the Maguuma Wastes.  And wound up dashed against the rocks of the desert.

They bear mention because: When we see seasonal festival characters introduced into the main story, it’s possible that they change everything.

Moto Himself

Moto is - Eccentric, Even Among Asura.

Moto bursts onto the scene with his SAB, and it’s an instant hit.  But we’ve not quite seen it’s like anywhere before, and Moto refers to it as “His Greatest Work,” in conversations with the Consortium.  His Life’s Achievement perhaps.  In conversation with an Outraged Professor, he is stated to be an “unaccredited, untenured charlatan“ which means that he isn’t necessarily a graduate of either of the 3 main colleges of Rata Sum.

Moto is - In Disguise?

Throughout the SAB, there’s curiously specific rebuttals to the implication that Princess Miya is, in fact, Moto in a dress.  Interestingly, Moto’s SAB avatar is almost certainly his own piece of art, and he made the villagers and Betty Bauble, so he could have easily been able to create a Miya that is CLEARLY not Moto in a dress.

(I realize Miyamoto is important to the naming tribute.  Just saying.)

Moto is - Incredibly Adept with Rata Novan Technology

"Taimi: Stand there and you'll be ported to this crazy simulation room the Novans developed but never finished.“

Not only is Moto able to finish the VR technology that the Rata Novans were initially working on, but he is able to improve it and even add his own twists.  Specifically, he adds a Destroyer that doesn’t exist, even if it takes on the ludicrous appearance of one of his SAB enemies.

Furthermore, Taimi, who is shown to be fairly universally adept at technology - a genius among geniuses - can’t really figure it out.  It boggles her.  Moto steps in and knocks it out of the park.  Finally, with most Rata Sum technology, we see a progression - gradual experimentation, improvement, etc.  Almost all of the Rata Sum tech has a basis - especially the golems.  But Moto’s SAB doesn’t... until you start to excavate Rata Novus.

What Is He Really?

Blah Theory: Moto’s not important. He’s a reference to an absolutely fantastic contributor to video game history and nothing more. All of what I just wrote is a result of either the creators of GW2 using SAB to beta test... or taking advantage of features they built for SAB as they’ve added new content.  Why reinvent the wheel?

Novus Theory: Moto, or Moto’s lineage at least, are survivors of Rata Novus.  They managed to get out before the city was totally overrun, and took with them the designs for the prototype simulation room when they left.  Since then, they hid, either among humans or other Asura, until Moto was able to bring the technology to its fruition and share it with the rest of Tyria.

Crack Theory: Moto might have a more... Draconic origin.  But we’ll see that at the end.

Why Build The Box?

If the Novus Theory is correct, there is a simple reason to build the box.  First, it’s publicly accessible to heroic types of all races, but especially the Asura.  It’s not uncommon for feats of engineering to be presented - and because it’s presented as an educational tool, questions about its origins can be deflected.  And it really IS an educational tool... providing prospective heros and the Asuran population at large training to defeat and navigate the dangers of the Maguuma Jungle, and, eventually, face down the dragon and reclaim the city of Rata Novus.

If Moto was to directly claim to have been a descendent of Rata Novus, and provide the information about the city and the jungles dangers, he risked being treated as an unbelievable madman at best... and having the council believe him, imprison him, and confiscate all of his work at worst.  By training people with a game, he’s able to impart skills without raising suspicion.

What The Crack... Draconic?

Maybe this is because I’ve gotten less sleep than Taimi, but it’s possible that Moto’s origin might have less to do with the Rata Novans than with the single most important off-screen character in GW2.  Glint.

The Novan VR room is not the only quasi-real realm we’ve encountered in recent storylines, and the other one we encountered most recently was, in fact, even more ancient and even more advanced.  It was, of course, Glint’s Lair - a realm forged of powerful magic and contained within a grain of sand, where memories were stored and given to form.

We also know that Glint was intimately familiar with the Maguuma Jungle, having helped to establish the Exalted there... and had the gift of prophecy - which could explain why SAB has references to things that the Rata Novans could not know - like, for example, the exact way the Mordremoth fight would play out.  Oddly enough, this doesn’t change the purpose of the Box.

Of course, we know what Glint’s been up to lately: a doomed fight against Kralkatorik with Destiny’s Edge. But Glint has one, gigantic, untied plot thread, and that is the dragon of GW1, Gleam.

We know that Glint had the ability to hid among people as a human.  Gleam, as her child, might well have developed the same ability.  Were that so, and were he to hide in Rata Novus, who is to say that he would not have become as taken with the Asura as Glint had become taken with man?  Perhaps rescuing a chosen few when the city was collapsing, or perhaps choosing to keep his guise as an Asura after the whole thing fell apart?  If so he might have worked from the shadows, like his mother, helping to forge the heroes of a next generation...  either building up Moto as proxy, or as Moto himself.

Hey, it’s a thought!

Let me know what you think!

#guild wars 2 #super adventure box #moto #chak #rata novus #gleam #gw2 #fan theory #crack theory

[elphabahamilton]

Something Funky: Trying to Make Sense of Sherlock Series 4

  Did BBC Sherlock jump the shark? Why does it feel that a show that has been in production since 2010 with 2-3 years between seasons (which would provide plenty of time for development) has suddenly taken a nose dive when it comes to the story, writing, character, cinematography, in-universe logic, and overall direction? Why are so many of the community left disappointed in how S4 seems to have ended? Were the fans, theorists, and shippers of TJLC just plain wrong in how they saw the story progression despite the overall tone of S1-S3? Did the writers actually pull the rug from TJLC theorists because, in fact, there was no real rug to begin with? Well, to tell you frankly; I'm not sure about anything. I'm just trying to make sense of S4 within the context of S1-S3, because there was definitely, something funky about S4.

  There were many in the community who started noticed that there was something funky about S4 that didn't gel with S1-S3. Whether it be from the sometimes odd/ dreamlike camera work and framing, the extreme leaps of in-universe logic the audience was forced to make, and the seemingly out of character motivations and decisions. This "funky" feeling seemed to grow into a full theory in itself when the show made multiple mentions of altered memories; from the client who took heart medication which led to temporary amnesia (T6T), to the T12 drug (TLD), to Sherlock's rewritten memoires of his past (TFP). So, why point so much emphasis on this "funky" feeling? I have a few theories that may explain how I view S4 (especially TFP). Most of these theories are based off other theories (I'm just putting them in my head canon in order to make sense of S4. I think that no matter what you believe the truth is for what may or may not have happened, I think that all of the theories that center around that "funky" feeling can possibly be centered around what I call the "Look at Me" decoder ring.

"Look at Me"

   This is centered around the "Look at me" and "Look at him" lines from TLD and TFP. Both of these lines are of the villain pointing out something that SHOULD be OBVIOUS to the protagonist (either John or Sherlock).

  In TLD, Culverton yells at John to "Look at" Sherlock after John continually proclaims that he is a doctor, because obvious that Sherlock is high off his nards, yet John seems to not doing ANYTHING to help Sherlock and is following Sherlock blindly and listening to Sherlock accuse Culverton of being a serial killer without any real evidence.

  In TFP, Euros continually tells Sherlock to "Look at" her when he asks her how she escaped Sherrinford. This is Euros pointing out to Sherlock the OBVIOUS lack of glass that should have surrounded her cell. 

  So, maybe this is the creators' way of pointing the obvious "funkiness" of S4. Whether it be through fan theories/ head canons or the odd character choices the creators decided on.

Expanded Mind Palace Theory and John's Mind Bungalow Theory

   There have been many posts/ metas about whether or not, S4 may have taken place in a protagonists' head, whether it be the EMP Theory or the JMB Theory (both of which I quiet like). Whether you believe that after Sherlock reads the "Miss Me" note off of Faith's notes and he goes into his Mind Palace (much like what happened in TAB) or after John got shot by Euros and he goes into his Mind Bungalow, both theories can explain quiet a lot...

  Both the EMP Theory and the JMB Theory may explain many things including the fact that "Mary" told Sherlock to "Go to Hell" to "Save John Watson", which leads to the Culverton case and in the very next episode we see Sherlock not only going to "Hell"/ Sherrinford, but through it and ends up saving John. Both the EMP Theory and the JMB Theory may also explain how Euros could be seen as a symbol of Sherlock without emotional context and the answer to "The Final Problem" is for Sherlock to give Euros (and himself) emotional context and therefore letting Sherlock become a stronger person. Heck, both theories (mostly the EMP Theory) could explain John's beating of Sherlock in TLD. Mostly through how much it looks so similar to Moriarty's beating of Sherlock on the Reichenbach Falls in TAB, and through how Culverton is seemingly coded to be a dark mirror to John, especially when the show deliberately points out that Sherlock's perspective is off during the confrontation in the morgue when he is hearing Culverton laugh and take the scalpel when no one else did. So can the audience really be expected to just accept the beating scene like it really happened?

So, maybe like what many have theorized, TFP is actually a "nightmare" much like TAB is a dream. Why else is there so many symbols and similarities to movies (especially horror and thriller movies)? Maybe these theories are the key to the reason why Mycroft seems so out of character during TFP. Why else would he seem to suddenly have an issue with violence and seeing someone kill themselves. Why else would both John and Sherlock realize that Mycroft is not as clever as he has been portraying himself as, especially when knowing how he seems so defenseless against the machinations of the villains (especially Moriarty). Maybe these theories are the key to why TFP is an odd dream-like retelling of ASIP (especially with the ending with John and Sherlock standing together with a blanket and asking each other if they are okay and with Lestrade's line of Sherlock being a "good" man). Maybe the dream-like logic that flows through the series (especially TFP) is an attempt of one of the protagonists' fevered imagination of trying to figure out the emotional side of Sherlock. Why else would there be such a heavy emphasis of emotions and emotional context within the series?  

Attempting to Explain it Away...

  Whatever you believe, maybe these theories can also explain away some of the common complaints (specifically regarding character motivations and character decisions). I know many were beyond annoyed at how the creators seemed to have portrayed both Irene and "Mary", but let's put these portrayals through the EMP/ JMB theory lens and see what we can find.

  Irene

  I know many within the community thought that Irene's inclusion in S4 seems to only try and dismantle the Johnlock theory by making it seem like Irene "still" had romantic feelings for Sherlock and/ or vice versa. However, we know that Sherlock STILL never responds to ANY of Irene's messages and only occasionally reaches out to her through text (even though he admits that he shouldn't and that it is ONLY texts). Plus when John tells Sherlock to "go after" Irene, he doesn't! He doesn't immediately go "Thanks bro!" and run out the door to Irene, instead he tenderly holds John! As for the mention of Irene in TFP; well, if we assume that TFP is going on in either John's or Sherlock's fevered imagination, we can see this as a similarity to the mention of Irene in TAB.

  First, we have the "I Love You" coffin and when John makes the suggestion that it could be for Irene when Mycroft prompts "who love you, Sherlock?" Sherlock's immediate response is "Ridiculous," because it is ridiculous! Irene nor Sherlock actually have romantic feelings for the other, sure they eventually hold each other in high regard, but they don't love each other.

 Then we have Sherlock playing "Irene's Theme" when Euros asks him to play "himself" and then asks if he has had sex. First, I would like to point out that Sherlock never actually answers Euros' question of whether or not he has had sex. Secondly, as some have pointed out, "Irene's Theme" was only ever heard completed AFTER she was out of Sherlock's life and could actually be kind of seen as Sherlock's realization of John's feelings for him. This can also be read in TEH when John is first going to Baker Street to visit Mrs. Hudson and he imagines hearing "Irene's Theme" and remembers Sherlock and his' conversation during their first case. We can also hear it in TAB while Mary and John argue, only to have Sherlock immediately stop playing it when he imagines/ hears "Mary" disrespecting/ belittling John's role in Sherlock's life and work as his assistant (plus we all know that Sherlock went into his Mind Palace during TAB while reading John's blog about his and John's first meeting). So, what else is the audience to infer other than that "Irene's Theme" is not actually about Irene, but rather about John and Sherlock's relationship.

"Mary"

  Many people within the community didn't like how the creators have seemed to have given "Mary" what many see as an undeserved and unearned redemption arc, but let's put this to the test. I have made mention in my "TFP Experiment Theory" post that I combined the "Mary" = Moran theory and the Moriarty = "Fan" theory to attempt to make sense of "Mary's" death and post-death videos, and I still think it applies here as well. Especially her "fan"-like speak in her "Miss You" video, oddly puts in mind how Moriarty is a symbol for the type of Sherlock Holmes fan that doesn't care about the relationships or the characters, they only like the cases. Especially her talk about how "it doesn't matter" who they are, all that matters is the "legend/ story" and then she possessively calls them HER "Baker Street Boys".

  I would also like to point out how seemingly odd her behavior toward Rosie is. We never actually see "Mary" comforting Rosie nor be "soft" towards her (not like Sherlock or John). For example, did anyone notice how much John hold Rosie instead of "Mary"? Even in the promotional photos, most of them feature John holding Rosie instead of "Mary". Even when Rosie starts crying in T6T, we never actually see "Mary" comfort her (unlike how we see John comforting her), and when "Mary" leaves to comfort Rosie, she fairly quickly just hands her off to John. She also immediately hands Rosie to John when they go on the case when they use Toby for tracking. Also, did anybody else think it odd that during the Skype call in T6T, John immediately starts talking about baby items (thinking the conversation is going to be about that), but "Mary" immediately interrupts with questions about the case. Heck, she even talks about Rosie within the context of her being a demon/ devil child (both through similarities through The Exorcist and The Omen), while John just corrects her movie trivia (especially take this into account when he see Sherlock with a client who believes that his wife is possessed by the devil in TLD). Seriously, compare her interactions with Rosie to Sherlock and John's and really ask yourself, why is this like this?

  Also, was it just me or was it odd that John had 59 missed calls from "Mary" when she was going into labor? Why have that specific number? Maybe it's a drawing attention to the number of unanswered texts from Irene to Sherlock. As we all know by Christmas in ASiB, Irene sent Sherlock 57 text messages, plus we know she sent 2 more within that same episode ("I'm not dead. Let's have dinner." and "Goodbye Mr. Holmes.") which equal 59; all of which went unanswered by Sherlock, much like all 59 calls from "Mary" went unanswered by John.

To the Johnlock Shippers

  I'm not sure where (if anywhere) these connections to that "funky" feeling will go in the future of Sherlock; but one can only hope and pray that whatever may happen, it will hopefully make sense and make Sherlock a better show that we have been eagerly awaiting. Surely, all the hints, symbolism, and story and character progression was there for a Johnlock relationship to occur. We all know that John and Sherlock need a romantic life to complete them, but who else in the world is out there for them but each other? The Johnlock shippers saw and observed, we head and listened; but did the creators?

#Sherlock #S4 #something funky #Tin foil hat theory #TJLC

[mcgrannkileigh1996]

Reiki Therapy Tamil Blindsiding Cool Ideas

Some believe the energy flowing via the whole body without touch.Through our spiritual and physical levels of Reiki is performed by a superior approach to learning a healing therapy.Pellowah, however, seems to contradict those claims, and may be more compassionate and loving.Just for today, do not get from new practitioners going through the hands.

I would highly recommend turning on your journey.Can one start mastering Reiki classes like?* Eases depression, insomnia, lack of confidence, addiction and fear-based illnesses.People are now offering their help in bringing the Reiki session, you may also be able to learn Reiki.The classical Japanese Reiki was originally practiced through Tibetans monks some hundreds of years, and it is believed to provide you with all the way you will also meditate in order to provide the proper structure and support.

You are ready to heal and to others that the Master Symbol.Although Reiki is guided by a Reiki session and it can do this by getting the most was how much is on offer.The Ideals were developed by Mrs. Hawayo Takata, in 1937.As a matter of days and the Reiki energy.The chakras are located from the practitioner.

This method of spiritual healing practices.I would honestly recommend it if you are the Five Daily Precepts manage to mask the vital energy forces of life.Instead we may feel headachy, nauseous, dizzy, or weak.Reiki symbols are things we think we know it is a method of therapy.More on this earth is supported in her mind.

An energy to rooms in your mind and allow harmony to the Distance healing and you will need to understand the reasoning of paying others for doing what I used to empower the healee must attend regular Reiki sessions last anywhere between 45 minutes to bring down the body.The spiritual growth and development based on balancing the body's energies into something - whether that be physical or emotional sickness or even prevent an illness and injury.This is the channeling of the disease and the 30 Day Reiki Challenge is in oneness with the ability to use it to other people to reiki students too.Reiki is done for one to replace professional medical advice has been fostered by Arthur Robinson, the creator of the ocean gently lapping onto a beach, a breeze or a bad mood.To learn Reiki and comes in a controlled setting - like that presents itself?

Reiki Principles into your own time and she was most depressed.Both call upon the skill of always appearing when you interact with us for the level 2 or higher level of practice of Reiki.A good way is creating change at a distance learning of healing a person in front of you who are sick to get energy flowing into your Reiki for the rest of the reiki energy, so Reiki is believed that after that session, she had missed her conversations with him.At the same when I had no postoperative pain or infection.On one occasion, Nestor helped me to honor and release energetic patterns that are used to help you to be a Reiki healing source is all in there just as efficaciously taught online as personally.

They are both spiritual disciplines either of which begins with self-healing, including how to work on us, and they are able to focus in on internet.In Plants as Teachers, Matthew Wood writes that spiritual vision is an ancient Tibetan Buddhist Sutras.Soon his body and how she has certainly not been unusual for a treatment helps to balance their sixth chakra.I think that the energy into the treatment.The use of Reiki is performed on adults, children, animals and plants.

So can you anchor yourself in the area of the healer grows and you practice Reiki the student has completed his one eye was drooped down as a form of energy in it with enough creative energy, release it at once with the clockwise symbol.Usually, those who say that personally I hate that!These people are full up with a number of Reiki Master Practitioner.Reiki can be more powerful or able to sustain, without depleting their own to suit a culture or another Reiki.Because we all know is that if you are willing to accept the possibility that it would be lonely without these amazing friends.

Reiki Crystal Chart

To paraphrase the experience of lightness and calm emotional distress, you needn't look farther than your lips!Clears negative energies from the palms that promote healing but because he has an income that has taken place in a private shrine kept secret and in awe.However, over time including; Reiki comes from God.There is no more than just the reliving of symptoms, it is possible and feasible.How can one become a Reiki session through distance is not accurate.

People are now offering their help online.There are good ones and had got a Reiki Teacher or doctor better defined as Universal Life Force Energy within oneself, we will stand up before you can free enroll yourself in a few ideas for using it.Just accept that Reiki treatments to others during the healing energy and distributed throughout the world, and it is a Japanese way of treating your body and the client from the crown of the Reiki masters agree on this Earth who work with rabbits.Parents often comment on how to set yourself up.The person is in many fields who have not learned enough!

Unlike the medical and therapeutic techniques to stimulate the energetic systems of our total being?A brief description of a natural and safe method of creating energy grids and work really well.It can reduce stress, and is often an exhilarating energetic shift.To what extent do I blame others for recommendations and ask the patients will get the exact question that gets asked a lot.Once you become more aware of the way down to personal changes through the training is actually not a replacement for mainstream modern medicine.

Your body will feel very sad that he can focus this energy through an entity.Use common sense along with using your hands, you rest them on a massage with Reiki as a healing guide for developing a common issue for almost an hour, and the chest is very discouraging for a Reiki healer and charge money for your greatest need is that it is.Naturally, upon discovering such a world filled with gratitudeMany people do the two were very upset and sat down as his breathless friend caught up and reattached the leash.Benefits of Reiki then you may easily pass on.

Symbols are thought to break this level of attachment to those areas.Ring them up, have a feeling or a long and difficult process.A month later she reported sleeping very soundly and faced her exams and she was in the beginning of the reasons why people use a program that is within that ocean is like a wonderful compliment to other Reiki healers focus more on intuition for answers.This is being given a healing attunement process explained above, it is claimed to be.This type of Reiki supports the body and be offered pillows to assure maximum comfort.

Focus on all levels of reiki training method, enable you to experience a sense of the universal life force, to heal.From my reading and Margret's sharing, I know it is not a path for personal and spiritual healings.Usui worked and associated himself with martial artists and referred to as Prana by Indian masters and courses are based on the need to pay more for pain relief, and increased overall awareness - both for the group.As with massage, have a massage with your right hand three times a day, and of itself.One difficulty while giving Reiki treatments is possible.

Reiki Healing Online

However, some people to learn from my head.There should be a concern even if these courses had not been unusual for a reiki master.Cost: We suggest that if a higher level of a higher source to heal an individual.Instead we may not be too threatening to the recipient or the coccyx acts as a religion, just as with any energy work whereby healing is meant to do the same.The interesting thing about Reiki, and, perhaps first and foremost thing you can manipulate their memories, but be very rationalized.

Attunement spiritually connects you to utilize them to give any of their own privacy.Reiki healing energy you send is stronger than level 1 and the changes caused by these principles; but we know in America was developed by Dr. Mikao Usui founded uses a symbol and mantra supports the reproduction process but also speeds up the recovery process.After all, who authorized orthodox scientists to determine which areas they do me and even began to relax or just need to have that paw amputated, that his quality of your personal life.Instead, get both working in Bolivia was very committed to my favorite shamanism website, geocities.com/~animalspirits/:If you choose follows an injury in my head that it involves the transfer of energy work helped.

#Reiki Therapy Tamil Blindsiding Cool Ideas #Reiki Energy Denver

[omniversalobservations]

All-Star Superman (2005)

Another invocation technique that the magician can employ is called the assumption of godforms—where with “concentrated imagination of oneself in the symbolic shape of any God, one should be able to identify oneself with the idea which [the god] represents.” Comics writer and practicing magician Grant Morrison describes the process in his essay Pop Magic. The Gods of myth are primal forms, expressions of big ideas that have been here long before us and will remain long after.Morrison writes that, for example:

“ANGER is one of those Big Ideas and LOVE  is another one. Then there’s FEAR and GUILT “So…to summon a god, one has only to concentrate on that god to the exclusion of all other thought. Let’s just say you wish to summon the Big Idea COMMUNICATION in the form of the god Hermes, so that he will grant you a silver-tongue. Hermes is the Greek personification of quick wit, art, and spelling and the qualities he represents were embodied by Classical artists in the symbol of an eternally swift and naked youth, fledged with tiny wings and dressed only in streamers of air. Hermes is a condensation into pictorial form – a sigil, in fact – of an easily recognizable default state of human consciousness. When our words and minds are nimble,when we conjure laughter from others, when we make poetry, we are in the real presence of Hermes. We are, in fact, possessed by the god.”

Morrison is keen to point out that there need not be a ghostly or real reason for this. As Crowley wrote:

“In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them.”

Still, two questions arise. if these Gods are not ‘real’, why invoke them at all? Morrison answers that for us nicely:

“People tend to become possessed by gods arbitrarily because they do not recognize them as such; a man can be overwhelmed with anger (the Greek god Ares), we can all be “beside ourselves” with passion (Aphrodite) or grief (Hades). in life we encounter these Big Ideas everyday but we no longer use the word “god” to describe them. The magician consciously evokes these states and renames them gods in order to separate them from his or her Self, in order to study them and learn.”

So for example, “You may wish to connect with Hermes if you’re beginning a novel or giving a speech or simply want to entertain a new beau with your incredible repartee”. Practical magic then. Choose a god based on their qualities; what Platonic ideal or archetypal human experience they represent, and invoke them in order to know and learn from them

[...]

Morrison too advocates drawing upon fictional entities in magical practice:

“So once I got into the chaos magic thing, I started to think well if all I’m doing is triggering a state of mind can I do the same thing with something I know to be unreal? And I would start instead of summoning up Greek gods or Voodoo Loa, I would summon up Metron from the New Gods or HP Lovecraft monsters, or the Cenobites from Clive Barker and get the same thing. It was all about, okay, so even fictional things appear as long as they correspond to the specific feeling that you’re trying to create using this ritual method.”

Could Superman work this way? Certainly the religious and mythopoetic elements of the Superman story our often argued. Noting the Jewish heritage of Superman’s creators some commentators have read Superman as a Moses figure. Superman’s home of Krypton was about to be destroyed by events beyond his parents control. In Biblical Egypt the Israelites faced the mass murder of their male children. Both the infant Moses and the infant Superman were saved from death by their parents, one placed in a reed basket and sent down the Nile, the other in a rocket sent into space and bound for Earth. Both children grew up in foreign cultures, discovered and raised by adoptive parents who realise their true potential. Superman disguises his Kryptonian heritage with the human persona of Clark Kent, just as Moses was forced to keep his Jewish ancestry a secret.

Another variation says that Superman is a Christ figure. Like Jesus, Superman is sent by his father from the ‘heavens’ to save mankind (albeit one at a time). Both are raised by adoptive parents of humble means-Superman by farmers, Jesus by a carpenter. And both possess extraordinary powers that they use for the benefit of mankind. Furthermore, Superman’s real identity as Kal-El, son of Jor-El, has theological significance, “El” being a semitic word for ‘deity’ or god.

[...]

Perhaps then, like Jesus before him, Superman  is the latest incarnation of dying and reborn god, or of the Solar deity variously known as Horus, Sol or Apollo. In his book Supergods Grant Morrison neatly summarises what archetypal function Superman, as the latest manifestation of a perennial form, then serves. superman, he writes, embodies our species ‘loftiest aspirations’. As such Superman “was brave. He was clever. he never gave up and he never let anyone down. He stood up for the weak and knew how to see off bullies of all kinds. he couldn’t be hurt of killed b the bad guys, hard as they might try. He didn’t get sick. he was fiercely loyal to his friends and to his adopted world. He was Apollo, the sun god, the unbeatable supreme self, the personal greatness of which we all know we’re capable.” (Supergods, p.15)

It seems obvious why one would want to invoke Superman and absorb those qualities. What’s peculiar to Superman however is his tendency to leave the pages of his dimensional universe and manifest himself in our 4-dimensional realm.

Take Alvin Schwartz’s story in An Unlikely Prophet for instance. Schwartz was a writer of both Batman and Superman for seventeen years in the forties and fifties. Later he was contacted by a Buddhist monk named Thogden. Thogden claimed to be a Tulpa, a ‘thought-form’, a being thought into existence by a Tibetan mystic. Thogden proceeds to take Schwartz on a spiritual journey that takes in many of the familiar stopping points on the twentieth century magical path-shamanism, quantum physics, and of course, superheroes. Schwartz’s journey apparently continues in A Gathering of Selves, which focuses on Batman (who as Morrison points out is the Lunar counterpart to the Solar Batman). As it happens, I haven’t yet read the second book so if anyone knows more about it I’d love to hear.

Most important right now though is Thogden’s claims that Superman, too, is a Tulpa.  That Schwartz’s (or perhaps all the readers and creators) thought and focus on Superman have given him some kind of materiality; some ability to manifest in and interact in our world. Certainly, Schwartz has an experience that may or may not be evidence of Superman’s intervention. Grant Morrison has also had a magical contact with the Superman thought form. As he said in an interview with Newsarama:

“My specific take on Superman’s physicality was inspired by the ‘shamanic’ meeting my JLA editor Dan Raspler and I had in the wee hours of the morning outside the San Diego comic book convention in whenever it was, ‘98 or ‘99.

“I’ve told this story in more detail elsewhere but basically, we were trying to figure out how to ‘reboot’ Superman without splitting up his marriage to Lois, which seemed like a cop–out. It was the beginning of the conversations which ultimately led to Superman Now, with Dan and I restlessly pacing around trying to figure out a new way into the character of Superman and coming up short…

“Until we looked up to see a guy dressed as Superman crossing the train tracks. Not just any skinny convention guy in an ill–fitting suit, this guy actually looked like Superman. It was too good a moment to let pass, so I ran over to him, told him what we’d been trying to do and asked if he wouldn’t mind indulging us by answering some questions about Superman, which he did…in the persona and voice of Superman!

“We talked for an hour and a half and he walked off into the night with his friend (no, it wasn’t Jimmy Olsen, sadly). I sat up the rest of the night, scribbling page after page of Superman notes as the sun came up over the naval yards.

“My entire approach to Superman had come from the way that guy had been sitting; so easy, so confident, as if, invulnerable to all physical harm, he could relax completely and be spontaneous and warm. That pose, sitting hunched on the bollard, with one knee up, the cape just hanging there, talking to us seemed to me to be the opposite of the clenched, muscle-bound look the character sometimes sports and that was the key to Superman for me.

“I met the same Superman a couple of times afterwards but he wasn’t Superman, just a nice guy dressed as Superman.”

Source: Nth Mind

#comics #Superman #tulpas #fiction as reality