#hes so fascinating as a concept to me because he is NOT a character in the novel. he is effectively a plot device in the way the book-
Sorry, all other sitcoms. "I'm Larry, this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl" is the funniest concept in the history of comedy and I'm afraid it's unbeatable.
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anyway. nishiki and majima are both borderline and i could do a whole case study on either of them about it. send tweet
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What are you’re thoughts on clayface joining the bat family?
So having NOW read Basil's reformation arc, I think his interactions with the bat family proper in Batwoman and Detective Comics were interesting, but I think as a status quo I enjoy more where he ended up in Ram V's Catwoman run. Even a reformed villain should get to be something of a wild card (and on a meta level, I think Selina deserves a shapeshifter wild card more than Bruce, who despite being brought down to "millionaire" in Tynion's run still has all the toys a vigilante could ever need).
But in terms of having a sympathetic Clayface join the bat family, I think I'd prefer Preston Payne over Basil Karlo. Preston's degenerative metahuman condition was always more interesting than the "if he makes himself look normal too often he'll die!" handwave Basil got in Rebirth, and his extremely limited abilities mean that he wouldn't just be a "Get Out of Jail" free card plot device for Batman to use if he reformed.
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I really. Should sit down and figure out what to do with Shilo in my Fourth World canon
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gingers are black in the jonas la universe
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Behind the jokes and badassness, Captain Marvel is a fascinating character to me, because of how death follows her.
She causes an explosion. That explosion, which gives her powers and her immortality, canonically kills her. The Kree Empire resurrects her and makes her as Kree as they can. She shares Yon-Rogg's blood and his life, she's his creation, she's his victim, she's the one who causes his downfall, she's the one that destroys the system, the society, the planet that allowed her to be abused.
It's the Kree that see her as a killer and Annihilator. She's a monster of their own making, but it influences every species and planet she touches. Her victories cause death and her mistakes cause more death. Carol's triumph, the death of the Supreme Intelligence, results in the death of probably millions of Kree, and by consequence, almost causes the death of Hala's star.
"I'm only human" Carol says, before killing the Empire that is the reason that she can't ever be human again.
"We'll be back for the weapon," Ronan says, but that weapon will kill everything he stands for.
"Your life began the day it nearly ended," The Supreme Intelligence says, coldly, calculatingly. It's an AI. It doesn't have a good concept of death. It doesn't fully grasp that Carol had genuinely been killed that day, because she's still in front of it. Carol kills it.
"Death seems to follow you," Dar-Benn says, before she causes an explosion with the bangles, trying to defeat Carol. The explosion kills Dar-Benn.
Death follows Carol. Death follows Carol! Mar-Vell is dead. Maria is dead. Talos is dead. Soren is dead. Ronan is dead. Minn-Erva is dead. Korath is dead. Dar-Benn is dead. Yon-Rogg is, probably, dead. The Supreme Intelligence is dead. Natasha is dead. Tony is dead.
The only people in Carol's life who aren't dead are Kamala, Monica, Yan, Valkyrie, and Fury.
She watches helplessly as Dar-Benn almost murders Kamala after Kamala tries to save Dar-Benn's life, tries to find a way to solve the violence without death.
She watches helplessly as Monica gets torn into another reality, which for all she knows, she could die in. The tear in reality that was caused by Dar-Benn's death.
She tries to hide Yan's existence from her friends and tries to warn him and his people. The Kree soldiers aren't fighting to maim, they're fighting to kill. He escapes death by his own fighting skills and the fact that the Kree would rather focus on killing Carol than him.
Valkyrie and Carol interact once, and she only calls when she needs help after a fight, not during. Think about it. Valkyrie and the Bifrost could have helped the trio enormously. But Carol doesn't call until the fights are over. It would be very easy for a regular Asgardian warrior to die compared to superhumans.
And Fury... have you seen how often Fury comes close to dying? He's alive from skill and luck. He is lucky that he isn't dead.
Captain Marvel is so, so fascinating. Her story begins with her own death, and the more it goes on, the more death happens around her. Nobody is safe. She causes almost all of them, even the ones of her friends - not directly, but through the consequences of her actions. The consequences of her victories and mistakes. The consequences of her anger and revenge, her power and powerlessness. It is caused by both the Human and Kree sides of her, by both Carol and Vers, Captain Marvel and the Annihilator.
Carol is immortal. She can't die. And death follows her anyway.
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I think one of the uncanny/weird feelings about being in fandom for so long or in the internet in general is stumbling at a particular fanart you've saw literally ages ago. Specially if it's a fanart that stuck with you the first time you saw it.
Wish I could say it's like finding a old friend (and sometimes it is) but it also come with the terrifying feeling of how the time passes.
It's just too much.
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I have the feeling that if you would Touch/lick the horns of the obey me! Brothers they would get turned on.....
Now I need headcanon's to that help! 😭😭
!! Just a little touch | obey me.
Characters: The brothers x gn!reader
CW: none really, maybe a bit suggestive also kinda a bit crack ngl
A/N: I know this took centuries but i've finally done this request > <
m.list
Lucifer
Lucifer was not expecting this today. For the first time in forever, he was allowing someone else to care and groom his wings, he didn't think that a accidental touch of your fingers on his horns would affect him this much.
You're none the wiser to this 'cause Lucifer reacts with nothing a small twitch of his wings. But when you're done with the task in hand, you best believe you're not leaving his room for a while.
Mammon
Unlike Lucifer, Mammon has quite a reaction. You were just innocently cuddling when your hands made contact with his horns while brushing your fingers through his hair. Mammon's relaxed posture instantly stiffens up before he proceeds to turn red in the face, asking you what do you think you're doing?
As he lays back down, still quite flustered, Mammon carefully takes your hand and puts it back on his head, close to his horns, with a mumbled "didn't tell ya to stop"
Leviathan
Oh no, Levi definitely didn't want this to happen. He definitely didn't convince you to cuddle in the bathtub where there is hardly any room between your bodies and he definitely didn't subtly nudge his head in your hands.
When you do brush your hands against his horns, he asks you, in a shaky voice, to do it again which elicits a whimper falling from his lips. You definitely didn't cuddle afterwards.
Satan
Satan almost drops the stack of papers in his hands when he feels you touch his horns. You two had been walking home from a long day at RAD, as much as he wanted to, Satan couldn't entirely focus on what you were chatting about 'cause of how tired he was. All he wanted was to go home and sleep, he missed the way you voiced your curiosity over his horns.
He must have nodded his head to you asking to touch them. Well he's sure his heart is about to burst out of his chest and he probably wasn't going to get much sleep later either.
Asmodeus
Asmo halts his talking, blinking rapidly before a smile stretches over his face. Oh well aren't you just absolutely adorable? Being fascinated by his horns and touching them so delicately, not knowing the thrill that just shot in him.
He can't help it! Your hands are just so soft and he can't help but melt at the affectionate and careful touch. Oh and you're utterly memorizing face as you continue touching his horns, unknowing of the thoughts swirling in his head.
Beelzebub
Beel pauses almost comically when you touch his horns. Retracting your hand, as you quickly begin to apologise for doing that without permission, you feel Beel dip his head more into your hands, "you can touch them", and so you card your hand through his hair, softly feeling the horns.
Beel is thankful for his ability to maintain a poker face, though his cheeks do turn a bit pink, because the feel of your hand is quickly making his current hunger overcome with desire.
Belphegor
Belphie slowly blinks his sleep filled eyes at the touch. Smirking at the way you fumble on being caught, he quickly pulls you down with him in the soft bed and takes your hand to put it back on his head. He must've been too relaxed that his demon form had come out while he was sleeping.
Nevertheless, Belphie doesn't think that he can go back to slumber when you continue to inspect his horns. Yup, he definitely wasn't going back to sleeping.
© hopeluna. Do not copy, translate, modify or repost any of my work in this or any other site. Do not steal or modify my ideas/concepts either.
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For all the inumerous metaphorical comparisons that can be made about Bingqiu my current favorite one is the concept of "do not feed the wildlife" or as i'd like to call "Please don't be kind to me unless you want me to fall in love with you". Like, we all know about Luo Binghe's canon wild animal comparison, he's called a beast by his og Shizun, treated like an animal, he even has a canon animal persona that's a dog, but let's talk abt Shen Qingqiu. We know he's fascinated by the wildlife of the PIDW world, he's by his own words fascinated by unsual animals so much that when he first met Zhuzi-lang, a character whose natural appearence is of a deformed human-snake hybrid, he was able to look at him from a place of affection due to the love he has towards the wildlife of his world. Bingqiu is characterized by Shen Qingqiu choosing to be kind towards Binghe even with the threat he poses towards his life because he's able to look at him from a place of affection and Binghe, a boy who's been treated like a beast his entire life, who has never received kindness outside of his departed mother, taking that kindness and falling so deeply for the person giving it that even when it goes away he's still coming back because that kindness he received ruined him in a similar way that a wild animal's natural survival instincts get ruined by well meaning individuals feeding them
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I keep thinking about the way people write Ghost as a Dom.
There’s a tendency in the x reader part of this fandom to write CoD men as very dominant, kinky, rough, degrading kind of personas. I like the idea of a dominant character about as much as the next smut writer, but I’ve noticed a tendency for folks to really lean into this, and make characters (mostly Ghost) almost malicious in his sex acts. It sits wrong with me because Simon is a victim of some pretty horrific sexual assault in his original comics, and also someone we see who has compassion and tries extremely hard to distance himself from his traumatic past.
However, I also feel like there is a way for Ghost to be involved in dominancy and kink without it being completely antithetical to his character. This is my personal interpretation, trying to closely keep in mind Simon’s past, and you are free to disagree with it. However I think the idea of Simon finding kink/dominancy as a way of reclaiming his sexuality after his trauma is deeply fascinating, and worth exploring.
(TW: Discussions of consent violation and sexual trauma)
Ghost experienced sexual assault in his comics tied to the original series, for those of you who may not know. I’ll spare the details, as I’ve been over this several times before. Like many sexual assault survivors, he has nightmares from his time being tortured. It’s pretty easy to conclude from this that Simon has a complicated relationship with sex. I adore soft Simon, I think the pieces of Simon getting emotional during very tender sex are some of my favorites. I also think there’s layers to character interpretation.
It’s not uncommon for survivors of trauma, sexual or otherwise, to try and use kink as an emotional and physical outlet to work through severe emotions. Kink offers a safe, controlled context for sexual trauma survivors to reclaim sexual confidence and comfort. While sexual trauma like assault is a non-consensual seizure of power and dominance, power exchange in a safe, kinky setting can be a consensual, healthy practice to reframe sexual trauma. Kink centers and emphasizes communication and consent which are vital tenets of any healthy sex. (Source)
For Simon, what happened to him was a complete lack of control which led to physical, emotional, and psychological harm. So, for me, it makes complete sense he would approach kink/BDSM practices through the lens of dominance, where the exchange is focused on retaining control rather than the surrender of control. Personally, I think Simon would be very very hard pressed to ever be a sub, and would only consider it with someone who he trusts with not just his life, but his mental well-being, which for him is a very challenging task.
The idea of Simon being involved in kink related dominancy (Side note, there’s is a difference between someone saying they like to be dominant in bed vs identifying as a ‘Dom’, which I see many many writers make the mistake of) can, to me, be seen as a safe way to explore sex following the events in the comics. Responsible Doms hold consent sacred, and know that partners invest a significant amount of trust in them to keep them safe during kink related activities, sexual or otherwise. It isn’t uncommon for BDSM dynamics to form ‘contracts’ that outline things that are completely off the table. Safewords are an absolute must, and must be respected at all times.
Note: Dominancy =/= Rough, degrading, hair pulling sex. Dominancy can be deeply psychological, in learning your partner’s mannerisms, wants, desires, and most importantly their triggers.
There’s often very definitively laid out boundaries between partners, and it goes both ways. Ex: you may not like being called degrading names. For Simon (In my personal opinion) I think this involves a refusal to bottom, being restrained, and other things that may invoke triggers related to his trauma. A lot of concepts revolving around BDSM ( (SSC) Safe, Sane, Consensual / (RACK) Risk-Aware Sexual Kink) emphasize and hold accountability for both partners to communicate clearly with each other and respect these clearly set boundaries while being aware of the acts they are involved in.
I think this sense of rules, consent, guidelines, contracts, and boundaries of how to participate in kink is fairly relieving for Simon. It provides a clear framework of how to approach his partners and ensure both their safety and his own. I feel like Simon is very hesitant about the idea of dominance, because he often fears perpetuating behaviors his abusers committed against him. So this covenant of etiquette towards partners provides a much needed structure for him to work in. If he’s a man of routine (which personally, I like to think so. He’s in the military, which tends to do that to you) and it is deeply relieving for him, because it acts almost like a boundary that prevents him from abusing his partners. So Simon doing research into BDSM/Kink etiquette is totally feasible in my mind, especially when we take into a concept of him using largely agreed upon guidelines and suggestions to allow him space to reclaim his sexuality without it turning into a victim to abuser scenario. (There’s also room to be explored regarding Ghost and protocol based BDSM dynamics within this same vein, but that’s a different essay)
(Another side note: It is easy for abusers to take advantage of victims by concealing themself behind being a Dom. However, this is why concepts such as contracts, SSC, and RACK exist, to help mitigate instances of this. If you are interested in these types of dynamics, please please do some responsible research to know how to spot people like this)
There’s a lot of nuance to this idea. However, I have seen some AMAZING fics explore this concept of Simon being a responsible Dom while also keeping in mind he is a deeply complicated person with a complex history. Simon’s sexual assault does not define his character, but it is an important facet to it considering that the trauma of his torture formed him into the character we are introduced to- a man who burned his past but continues to carry it with him in the form of a mask designed to separate himself from others.
Here’s some fic recs that explore or touch on this topic, thanks for reading:
Surviving You - WhisperedWords12: SoapGhost BDSM AU that provides a great understanding of consensual dynamics, contracts, consent, subdrop/domdrop, and touches on how irresponsible dominant partners can leave lasting, scarring impressions on their partners
Exfilitration - Vedettare: Similar concept in that Ghost assists Soap through subdrop, and realizes he may be poorly handling the way he engages in his and Soap’s dynamic, which he tries to rectify (Ongoing)
Mine and Yours - Artemis_Neardos: Again, SoapGhost, simultaneously explores Ghost as a Dom as well as his relationship with his trauma, and does a very good job doing so. Bonus: Dom/Sub AleRudy. This series involves under negotiated kink at the beginning, which improves later. Mind the tags
Disclaimer: I am not an expert in this area. I am relaying things I have learned. I encourage you, if you are interested, to do your own research and read critically the things that are available to you. Never engage with partners who do not respect your consent
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culture tips for writing asian settings: calligraphy (pt ii)
in my last post i talked about calligraphy more generally, but here i want to talk about the calligraphy from atla. all of the calligraphy from the show is written by dr siu-leung lee and i'll be using the artbook as my reference.
if you're a writer or artist approaching written chinese, you can think about how script and handwriting might tell us something about a character. dr lee certainly did, and he even tailored writing styles to who he thought might've been writing that text: "If it were a highly cultured royal attendant, he would use a refined, elegant style, but if it were a low-level clerk, he would use a more pedestrian handwriting style."
first thing: modern standard chinese coming out of mainland china uses simplified chinese. this system was developed in the mid-20th century, so it's pretty anachronistic to use this for atla. instead, you should be using traditional chinese as dr lee does (which is still used in hong kong, taiwan, and many diasporic communities). i usually use google translate to switch between the systems.
note the use of simplified 门 (door) instead of the traditional 門 from the aang's unfreezing day comic.
next i'm going to take aang's wanted poster as an example of three different chinese scripts we see in the show. the "title" is in clerical script, the body of the text is in regular script, and the seal is in seal script.
regular script is the standard way you'd learn how to write chinese nowadays. you can see (as i mentioned in part i) how the text is meant to be read up -> down, then right -> left.
clerical script is characterised by fairly compact shapes and a kind of "roundness", and was developed in the late warring states period. this is the script used for the chinese title of the show! in the context of atla, it implies to me that the writer has more specialised calligraphic training than the average person (who, if they can write, would be using regular script). you can compare the difference in styles for the same words between clerical (L) and regular (R):
seal script is the most archaic form of chinese on display; this one wouldn't have been written by the calligrapher, but carved into a seal by a craftsperson and then stamped onto the page.
what's also really interesting is dr lee implies a difference in script between the nations. some of the characters used to write water tribe-related concepts:
this is an adapted form of oracle bone script, the one of the earliest forms of chinese writing. this fascinated me because this script was—as the name suggests—written on bone, and perhaps reflects something about the material of what the water tribes were using to write. (you can input modern characters into this website to see examples of their older forms.)
finally, some cool differences in handwriting! this is from the fire day festival poster:
this uses regular script, but in contrast to the excerpt we saw before, the formation of the characters is more haphazard (excitable?). it's also written left -> right! this suggests to us the writer is a commoner, as opposed to a royal scribe.
these are some things you can keep in mind when you're writing or drawing in this universe—while you're probably writing in english, the characters would be steeped in the writing systems we've been talking about. if a character's sending a letter, what might the recipient notice about the handwriting? what does it tell them about their social status or education? could the shape of the letters signal something about where they come from, i.e. water tribe characters write a more curvy script?
disclaimer | more tips
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“At least it's not ferociously attacking God quite as directly as Steven Universe did…”
Not that I’m surprised by this statement, but can you elaborate on this? Kinda intrigued by your thoughts on Steven Universe.
Okie dokie, you’re not the only one who has asked me about this, so I suppose I’ll poke the hornet’s nest. 😅 I haven’t talked about this before because I assumed that everyone who wanted to hear my kinds of opinions on stories wasn’t watching or interested in Steven Universe.
It’s like asking vegetarian if they enjoyed a turkey dinner. The turkey dinner was so obviously not made for vegetarians to enjoy, so why would the vegetarian even bother analyzing the turkey?
But I think if some people are asking me why I think Steven Universe is anti-God (of the Bible) its because maybe they don’t know what the turkey is. Not completely. (Maybe not you, because like you said, you’re not surprised by my comment.) So I’ll explain my thoughts on Steven Universe.
If you’re just following me because you liked some stuff I posted, but didn’t realize that I’m a Bible-believing Christian and don’t want to hear about it, unfollow me now.
Because I’m going to talk about some hot button issues here and the trolls will come out.
Steven Universe is really well-done. The jokes are funny, the writing is believable, the characters have great chemistry, great design, the concept is fascinating, the slow build-up and reveal of the plot elements is great.
But when you watch the throne room scene in the last episode of Season 5 “Change Your Mind,” it’s alarmingly clear how much the whole show is not just settling for defending and championing the LGBTQ+ worldview—it goes all the way to attacking what Christians believe, on the other side.
Anything that’s pro-LGBTQ+ is doing that by default, but this show goes out of its way to do that.
You have to understand: God created and designed us. Deeper than that; He created and designed romantic relationships, and invented marriage. He didn’t just create love—He is love. So when humans come along and do what we’ve always done since the fall, and say, “I’d rather define what Your thing is and how it works for myself, God,” it’s not only an incredible slap in the face, it’s an attack on God’s actual identity—and it’s destructive for us and the people around us. Like a fish insisting it can breathe oxygen.
But Steven Universe goes beyond that. It knows that the Christian worldview is it’s biggest opposition. It digs right down to the heart of the worldview-battle.
LGBTQ+ worldview says, “I should get to love what I want and be who I am, because I’m me. Love is love. (By which I mean, any action or relationship I choose to call love is love, because I’m the one calling it that.)”
Biblical worldview says “No, wait, you shouldn’t base your decisions on you alone; what you want changes day to day, and you’re broken, so you can’t ever be satisfied based on what you want—the Bible says God made you for something, and you rejected that, and it broke you. You’re not how you’re meant to be: even what you want and what you think love is is twisted up and can hurt you and others. But if you submit to God He’ll help you, He’ll fix what’s broken and give you new life by making you how you were supposed to be: He’ll live in you and through you.”
Are we beginning to get the picture?
See, the whole thing with the opposing views between LGBTQ+ and Christian people is as old as time. It’s not a new debate. It’s Satan and Eve in the garden. She says, “This is not how God said things should be,” and Satan says, “Are you sure that’s what He said? He knows if you do this thing, you’ll be like Him. You’ll be god: you’ll get to decide ‘how things should be’ for yourself.”
He lied and said that disobedience would satisfy her. That she knew what her own heart needed better than the God that made it did. That the very act of being imperfect would make her godlike.
And then Steven Universe comes along and says “if every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hotdogs.”
And has a cast of created being characters who’s imperfections (Garnet’s forbidden “love,” Pearl’s obsession, Amethyst’s insecurity) are supposedly “the best thing about them; what makes them who they are.”
And has a main character who used to be a part of the god-like creator relationship, but used her power to come down to earth and completely change who she is into a fully different person.
And has a godlike Creator character who claims she “doesn’t need” her created beings (just like the God of the Bible) but they all have a little part of their creator in them so she has to repress their imperfections; she holds them all to a standard that’s impossible to reach called “perfection” and punishes them when they don’t meet it even though it hurts them to try; she expects them all to do what they were created by her for; she fixes them when they can’t meet her standard by shining her light through them and making them extensions of their Creator.
And has a main character who argues, fights back, tries to stop her, and is answered with lines that sound surprisingly like what LGBTQ+ people hear when Christians argue with them: “you’re only making things worse; you’re just deceiving yourself; even while you resist it your actual light can’t help shining through,” etc.
White Diamond just wants everything to be perfect. Like her. She just wants her created beings to “be themselves.” But what she means is, be how she created them to be.
And she’s the bad guy. She’s playing God in this show, and Rebecca Sugar is saying, “If God is telling us that can only be happy by being perfect, as He is perfect, and doing what He created us to do, then He’s wrong. Our imperfections are what make us special—unique—individuals—free—and there is nobody who has the right to take that freedom away from us, not even out creator!”
And you know what?
If God were like White Diamond, like Rebecca Sugar believes Him to be, Steven Universe would be right.
But He is NOT.
God is not a dictator who forces us to conform to a standard of perfection and then smashes us when we don’t meet it. He is a King who made us perfect to begin with, and we rejected him, because He allowed us to do that. He knew that true love was love that had to be chosen, and He wanted us to love Him by choice, so he gave us the option. But Rebecca Sugar doesn’t understand—there was never “Choose God or Choose Yourself.” There was only, “Choose God or Choose Nothing.” There was nothing except God. Then He created everything. There is no version of reality where you have something better than God, or even slightly less good but different, to pick. You’re not jumping from one ship into a smaller one, but at least it’s yours—you’re jumping from one ship into a void, and then complaining that there’s no other ship. That’s humans. That’s not God. / White Diamond didn’t make her creations perfect (Amethyst) and she didn’t make them for love. She made them for power. That’s not the God of the Bible.
Even when we did choose to try and love ourselves instead of God, and therefore warped our ability to perfectly love at all, He didn’t smash us. True, everything fell and was cursed, which is exactly what He warned us would happen if we chose it, but it was a natural consequence of breaking ourselves. And then He didn’t leave us that way. He didn’t give up on us. And He certainly didn’t just zap us, snap His fingers, quick-fix it and turn us all into robots who are extensions of Him, who say they love Him but only because it’s His voice puppeting us to say it.
No. He came to us, chose to give up His life at the exact point on the timeline when Romans, masters in the art of slow, humiliating, torturous death, would be the ones to carry out His crucifixion, and saved us Himself. Through the sacrifice of His own life. And even then, we still have a choice. We get to choose to accept that incredible self-sacrifice when we don’t deserve it, and be given new life and a relationship with the Creator who knows us and loves us better than we can love ourselves or receive love from others—OR we can just keep stubbornly insisting that our slavery to the opposite of what God wants is somehow freedom, and our twisted versions of love are genuine, and we’re not broken, and die like that. Die broken creatures who lived their whole lives stomping their feet and screaming “I’m not a creature, I’m a god!”
White Diamond sacrifices nothing, because Rebecca Sugar doesn’t know the God of the Bible. She just knows her idea of Him. She’s never actually gotten to know Him. If she had, she’d learn how silly and twisted her idea is.
Because you know what, yeah, if every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs. But people aren’t pork chops. And hot dogs have flavor (not better than pork chops) but they are awful for you.
Christians aren’t perfect cuts of meat with no individuality or flavor. Just because we all know and love the same God doesn’t mean we have no personalities. It just means we don’t think so freaking much about what we are, or who we get to be, or what we like and want. Jeez, what a self-centered, narcissistic, self-obsessed way to live. She plays Steven like he’s this wonder-child, innocent and full of heart, who encourages his friends to love and keep trying. But honestly?
This is very pretty animation but it’s not real. Steven looks happy hugging Steven but self-love doesn’t ultimately get you that.
That’s all based on the premise that what he’s encouraging them to do is actually good, and will make them happy, and will help them love better. And it just won’t. Not in real life. That’s not how any of this works. Self-love is just self-obsession. And that is a sure-fire way to hurt you, and everyone around you.
You’ll never be free by choosing to run to a worse master. You’ll never be satisfied with your crappy attempts at loving yourself, because you were made to be loved flawlessly and forever by someone who is Love Himself.
And choosing to identify with your imperfections doesn’t make you uniquely you. It just makes you exactly like every other human being marching in the same line since the Fall.
White Diamond’s not relational. She’s up high and distant. That’s not God. He made you to be in relationship with Him. He loves you, totally and perfectly, and He proved it by sacrificing for You.
So yeah. That’s the problem with Steven Universe. Come get me, SU fans.
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Since I think about clones like I’m getting paid for it, I've been rotating those alternate universe "what if Bart and Thad were actually raised together" scenarios in my brain, with Thad either post-redemption-arc or pre-villainy. Because adjusting Thad's character to fit an ally role while still keeping true to his core motives and personality is so so fascinating to me.
Like I think there's an immediate first instinct to slot Thad into a "bad" twin category: ie rebellious and prickly, doesn't get along with people, mean lil shit. And obviously it's not wrong bc we're outside the realm of canon, but the reading still feels a little left of center.
Because Thad is mean and prickly in canon. In the Impulse comics he belittles Bart and Bart’s friends/family constantly in his appearances. He loves to goad, and monologue about his own superiority and intelligence. He’s very Not Nice, and he causes many problems, and he even does it on purpose.
But, I think it’s important to consider the context. From the jump Thad knows very little about anything except which team he’s on and who he’s playing for. He gets his orders from an unseen authority and he carries out his tasks because success means his team wins.
For all his self-aggrandizing talk, everything he does is in service of an end goal that doesn't actually center him. He's trying to get revenge for grievances he's never personally suffered, retribution for actions never committed against him. Everything he does is on someone else's behalf.
Thad sees in black and white, us or them. Up until the final few issues of Mercury Falling, Bart and co. are Thad's enemies, of course he's not going to be nice.
So Thad's motivation seems pretty simple: Thawne Supremacy™.
But it’s in Mercury Falling where this starts to fall apart, and the real core of his motivation gets revealed. Thad pretends to be Bart and suddenly Helen is nice to him. Bart’s friends think he’s funny. Bart’s teachers are impressed with his grades. Max ruffles his hair and gives him hugs and tells him he’s done a good job.
If he was actually an inherently mean and standoffish character, if Thad actually had significant personal stake in the Thawne VS Allen conflict, the weight of such tiny acts of kindness wouldn’t completely break him the way that it does in canon.
Thad thinks his goal is superiority and revenge and Thawne Supremacy™, but he's chasing validation. Thad doesn’t have a personal stake in the Thawne VS Allen conflict. He wouldn't get much satisfaction if he actually destroyed Bart and his family. Thad's personal victory would be the recognition after the fact: the praise and attention from the other Thawnes (a group of people he has literally never met) for his success.
He wants validation. That's basically it. And the fact that he gets it so easily from Bart's family and friends doesn't align with how he's told himself things are supposed to work.
Actually tangentially, Bart and Thad’s respective relationships to authority is so diametrically opposed and tbh kind of subversive in a superhero narrative. Where the hero is the one carving his own path without regard to social or societal rules, no fucks to give what anybody thinks of it. And the villain is a chronic people-pleaser.
Just based on Thad’s reaction to simple praise and affection from Max I really think Thad’s motivation has more to do with the response he gets than whatever the details are of any given task. He has no actual personal convictions beyond getting positive attention, and whatever he did have crumbled as soon as Bart’s friends laughed at his joke one time. Which of course leads into the core of his whole conflict at the end of Mercury Falling. He cares too much about Bart’s friends and family now, he doesn’t want to kill them, but worse than that, he’s faced with the sudden realization that he’s on the wrong side.
The Allens gave Thad everything he actually wanted and needed, but his conception of himself is inexorably tied to the Thawnes: who gave him jack shit. These two facts are in opposition to each other, and he can’t reconcile the reality of it.
Anyway all this to say, in an AU where Bart and Thad are raised together or Thad gets an actual redemption arc etc etc, I think my personal take on Thad’s personality whether it be pre-or-post-villainy would be one that is extremely socially conscious. He is much more of a people-person than Bart. Whether he's actually accurate in assessing people's feelings and how to respond to them can be hit or miss, but he wants to behave in a way that gets people to like him.
Pretending to be Bart isn’t remarked upon as, like, a difficult task for Thad. In his internal monologue he’s literally bragging to himself about how easy it is. But what’s especially notable to me is where his act differs from Bart's typical MO. Everyone notices, and lots of people comment, and presumably if Thad didn’t have the excuse of Max’s illness to “motivate” Bart to do better he would’ve been found out immediately. And those things are, specifically: paying attention in class, doing his chores, staying on task, and being helpful around the house. The one thing about Bart he chooses not to emulate is Bart’s rebelliousness.
Thad wants to prove himself, constantly, to whatever authority he respects (probably Max in this scenario) and will do whatever it takes to make that happen. In contrast to Bart, who only listens to authority when the shit they're saying actually makes sense to him. It’s excessively difficult to convince him to go against his own interests. (And I think a key part of that is Bart’s security in knowing that no matter how much he fucks up or doesn’t listen, the people he loves will always love him back.)
Thad’s got the people-pleaser in him that has to deserve whatever he’s given. It’s why he’s happiest when he’s given a clear goal or objective to complete, because it gives him an opening to prove himself.
All this to say that if we are quantifying Bart and Thad as a "good" or "bad" twin, in the eyes of every authority: Bart is the bad twin. Bart is the bad twin, Bart is the bad twin. Bart is the one who doesn’t care about school and whose grades vary wildly depending on his personal interest. He’s the one who goes off to do dangerous shit for fun and gets in trouble constantly and doesn’t do his chores and is thoroughly unconvinced by any authority figure trying to sell him bullshit.
Thad is the one who needs to know all the rules just so he can experience the joy of following them. Relentlessly obedient. He'll put all his effort into doing all the right things that’ll endear him to whoever he wants to impress - meaning he’s the asshole who reminds the teacher about the assigned homework. Bart might be the most popular boy in school, but Thad is a pleasure to have in class.
Like Thad can (and should) still be high-strung and short-tempered and sarcastic and edgy and mean, because he is. But he can’t be doing all that without rhyme or reason. Colouring every interaction has to be that one-zero binary of ally or enemy. He needs to have somebody he’s proving himself to: a team he’s on and a team he’s against. He’s not an inherently rebellious character. He can go up against The Enemy, whoever he deems as such, but it has to be in service of a hypothetical future in which somebody eventually tells him he did a great job.
And in the interest of continuing to beat a dead horse, it connects to their respective upbringings. Thad and Bart were both raised in VR, but Bart’s experience had the side effect of basically hard-wiring him against insecurity. His world was a playground tailor-made for him, and he was never made to feel bad or insufficient about any aspect of himself. His first interaction with a real human person was Iris moving heaven and earth to save him, without him knowing her, without her knowing him, with no reasoning for the act needed beyond Being Her Grandson. Which is probably a significant factor in why Bart moves through the world with frankly atomic levels of autistic swag.
Thad’s VR upbringing installed self-consciousness in his psyche before any other personality trait. As in: he is immediately made conscious of himself and his relationship with everyone he will ever encounter. He’s told two things: he’s a clone of someone else (inherently derivative, lesser) and that he was made to be superior (a status to achieve). Which is such an instant clarifier for Thad’s everything. Where superiority is a condition that everyone either has, or does not. It’s the one-zero binary again: are they better than me or am I better than them. Being above others is mandatory, and if his superiority is ever challenged by hard evidence or god forbid nuance Thad’s brain physically cannot take it. He needs to be better, to be worse is unthinkable, and there is no other way to be.
And this status of better or worse is, crucially, not up to Thad to decide. He needs The Authority to validate him. Bart never tries to prove himself because he has nothing to prove. Thad’s entire identity hinges on the self-worth he gets from doing a Good Job.
It is such an inherent part of his motives in the Impulse comics canon, which is why it always feels a little off when he’s interpreted as a jackass indiscriminately.
Like I don't think he needs everyone to like him. But I do think he has either one person or a set of very particular people that he needs to like him. Everyone else is either in that circle or outside of it.
(Which is why Bart is such a great foil for Thad tbh. There is no set of words or behaviors that’ll change Bart’s opinion of Thad, because Bart is unaffected by obedience or charm. So ironically Bart is probably one of few people that Thad doesn’t bother to put on even a little bit of an act for.)
While Bart goes with his instincts, his personal beliefs and convictions at all times, Thad is hyper-conscious of big-picture goals. They balance each other out that way. Thad's keeping track of whatever expectations he has placed on him, and how his actions reflect on him and the team beyond short-sighted solutions. He's a team player. AND he's an asshole.
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Something always fascinating to me is the "character who thinks they're in a different genre" phenomenon. The theme of the story you are telling determines what the right and wrong actions to take are; but the characters, reacting in-universe to the situation, don't know what story they're in, and the exact same responses can be what saves you or damns you depending on what kind of story the author is telling and what the story's message is about what life is like.
In Wolf 359, Warren Kepler approaches the mysterious and powerful aliens with threats; he kills their liaison and tries to position himself as a powerful opponent. However, he's shown to be wrong and making things worse: his preemptive aggression is unwarranted and unhelpful and bites him in the ass. The aliens want to communicate and understand humanity and share our music. It's Doug Eiffel, the pacifistic (and kind of scaredy-cat) communications officer who loves to talk and share pop culture, who talks to them and understands that the aliens are scary not because they want to kill us but because they don't understand the concepts of individuals and death. Talking to them, communicating with them, understanding where they're coming from and and bringing them to understand a human point of view, is what succeeds. Openness rather than suspicion, trust rather than aggression. Kepler thinks he's a dramatic space marine protecting the Earth from the alien threat by showing them humans are tough and can take them, but that's not the kind of story this is.
Conversely, in Janus Descending, Chel is in awe of the strange and beautiful alien world around her. She wants to touch it, understand it, get up close to it. When she sees a crystal alien dog, she wants to befriend it, despite Peter's warning. But when she gets close to it, extending her arm in greeting, it attacks her and drags her down into the cave to try to eat her. This sets the inevitable tragedy in motion. Suspicion is warranted; trust will get you killed. Because this is a sci-fi horror, with a major running thematic reading about how racism and sexism will destroy your brain and your society, and how the people who think they're too smart to be prejudiced don't see their own prejudice and will end up ruining the lives of the people they still don't fully see as equals, this kind of trust that Chel shows this strange alien is tragic. However it is also a horror story where there are very real hibernating space snakes ready to wake up and eat the fresh meat that has landed on their planet, and by being too trusting Chel has accidentally introduced herself to one.
Kepler, suspicious and ready to shoot any alien he doesn't understand, would likely have survived Janus Descending; Chel, with her enthusiasm for learning about and meeting aliens, would have been a wonderful and helpful member of the Wolf 359 crew.
In a similar manner, in Alien, Ellen Ripley yells to the rest of her crew not to bring the attacked crewmember with the alien on his face back on the ship and into the medical bay, you don't know what contamination that thing might have; she's ignored. She tells them not to let the crewmember out of quarantine even though he seems fine; she's ignored again. Ripley is the one person protesting this isn't safe, we don't know what's going on, and she is consistently ignored, until an alien bursts out of her crewmate's chest and then eats everyone and Ripley is proven to be right and also the only survivor. (And it turns out that the science officer consistently overriding her protests was an android sent by the company that contracted them, and said android was given orders to bring the alien back so the company could study it and do weapons development with it, try not to let the crew find out about it, and kill them if he had to in order to do so!)
Ripley's paranoia and mistrust of the situation was correct, because Alien is a space horror and the theme is in space no one can hear you scream (also corporations consider you expendable).
Conversely, in All Systems Red, we have a damaged and almost-combat-overridden Murderbot being brought back into the PreservationAux hab medical bay after being attacked by other SecUnits. Gurathin becomes the one person protesting this isn't safe, we don't know what's going on, he doesn't want to let Murderbot out because it's hacked and probably sabotaging them for the company contracted their security and sent it with them. Gurathin thinks he is the Ellen Ripley here! He is trying to warn his teammates not to make a dangerous mistake that will get everyone killed!
However, All Systems Red is a very different story than Alien, and Murderbot is neither a traitor on behalf of the company to sabotage them and steal alien remnants for weapons development, nor a threat to the humans - it's a friend, it's a good person, and it wants to help them against both companies willing to screw them over. Trusting it and helping it is the right thing to do and is what saves their lives. Gurathin is proven to be wrong.
If everyone on the Nostromo crew had listened to Ellen Ripley, they would still be alive (except Kane. RIP Kane), because this is a horror story about being isolated and hunted and going up against this horrifying thing that wants to kill and eat you and just keeps getting stronger. If everyone on the PreservationAux team listened to Gurathin, they would all be dead, because this is a story about friendship and teamwork and trust and overcoming trauma and accepting the personhood of someone very different from you.
Same responses. Different context. And so very different moral conclusions.
Warren Kepler was about how the brash violent over-confident approach to things you don't understand is wrong, and that openness and developing that understanding between people is what's important; Chel was about the tragedy of trust destroying a Black woman who wanted so much to believe in a world that could be kind and beautiful. Ripley was about a woman whose expertise and safety warnings were ignored and brushed aside and everyone who did so died because of it; Gurathin was about how even justified fear shouldn't mean you make someone else a scapegoat and mistrust them because they seem scary.
Sometimes you're in the wrong genre because you need to be, because the author is trying to show how not to react to the situation they set up in order to build the mood and the theme they're trying to convey.
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I think there's definitely something to Dankovsky not being entirely what you'd expect from a character like him, or not what he maybe would like to appear as - that is, him not really being that cold, calculating, purely "logic"-driven archetype at all; that he is actually so emotional and impulsive. I think it's also interesting how he can actually believe in the supernatural - there's the dialogue option in marble nest letting you say you believe in God, but especially in classic I think that's canonical, he talks about the soul, invokes concepts like providence or fate in ways that don't seem entirely just as figure of speech, he can very quickly turn on a dime and believe in Clara's healing powers or Artemy's traditional medicine or the Polyhedron's magical properties once he sees what he deems sufficient evidence, and he also has that line about "knowing there are things beyond our mundane perception". and you know what, I don't even think that's so contradictory. first of all, there are nowadays and there especially have been in the past, with less secular societies, plenty of scientists who also held some kind of religious beliefs. I think it's to a certain degree reconcilable when it's applied to different spheres of life - some things are relegated to spirituality, but where there are cold hard facts, you follow these; it doesn't inherently make you a hypocrite. also in the game, the thing he takes most umbrage with is not spirituality, but superstition - the kind of unreasonable and dogmatically held beliefs that lead people to, oh I dunno, say, burning innocent women for witchcraft instead of listening to experts? which you know I think is kinda fair actually? like I keep harping on about that but fellas I'd be mad too. anyway my point is, depicting him as a reddit atheist is in my opinion definitely a mischaracterisation.
however I was actually gonna talk about the whole "defeating death" thing because it's so interesting to me, people often point out how fantastical, almost mystical it sounds, and he sometimes strikes that tone - "could death be only a whim of the will that has shaped this world" is a fascinating line to me because it essentially implies that the way to attain immortality is to tell god to fuck off, but then at the same time. he is initially skeptical about Simon's immortality, though interested in the claims of his longevity and extraordinary immunity to disease; he says he wants to study tissue samples from Simon's body, which seems to me like looking for a material, physiological mechanism that could be potentially found in or applied to other people (and eventually, out of desperation or fascination or both, he can get into the Kains' whole soul transference/preservation thing, but it doesn't strike me as what he was really looking for before the game. as my friend always says, if immortality of the soul was all he wanted, he'd become a priest instead of a medical researcher). he says in haruspex route that his lab works on medicine against aging; he also notes iirc that death will never not be a thing completely because people will still be killing each other. there is that thing with the reanimated lady, which always struck me as a little off in some ways, but mainly - at the start of the game, he hasn't succeeded in his goal yet, so whatever happened there, he either was unable to reproduce it, or it wasn't what he was looking for either - I mean, the fact that you can resuscitate a person under certain conditions is a great achievement, but doesn't remove the fact that people die, same as, as he says, "doctors defeat death on singular occasions" - you can manage to rescue a person from injury or disease, but it's only postponing the inevitable, so what if it wasn't inevitable anymore? the goal, I think, is so that people don't just die of old age. and the thing about that is - is that really so irrational? I mean especially if you think about the setting, if you think about the incredible, sheer rapid change of the time period from the industrial revolution to mid-20th century, that pathologic sits somewhere in the middle of, is that not something that would appear to people as both fantastical but also within grasp, as taking the witnessed progress to its furthest conclusion? same as people imagined - and correctly so - that the next step from inventing the airplane was inventing a flying machine that will go to the moon, would they not also imagine, seeing the progresses of medicine and the extending average lifespan, that we will exponentially live longer and longer? like we know it's not that simple, and Daniil's goal is meant to be unrealistic, but I don't think it's "unscientific" in the sense that it's based on magical thinking. people don't really shoot for immortality anymore but longevity research is very much a thing and I think that's just essentially what he was doing.
on the other hand, it's funny to me to imagine that him sometimes framing his work in those less-than scientific terms might've been partly what made him unpopular; I think there's more to it, especially regarding his conflict with the authorities I think it's more about him representing "revolutionary" ideals, but with his peers? even what Isidor mentions in his letter, that Daniil's detractors claimed his theories were not scientifically viable - the accusation not being that he's a heretic or a necromancer or playing god, but that he's being unreasonable; and well, if the "groundbreaking theory of human mortality" that he claims to have formulated is in fact "people die because they just let it happen, don't let god or laws of nature dictate what happens to you", well. I can see that.
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Warlord Ratchet: A Fascinating Concept
“And to think, the Doctor of Doom’s mad quest for power continues...! His marauders pursued us to this planet’s orbit.”
What gets me about Megatron telling Orion Pax that the current dilapidated condition of Cybertron was brought about by the Warlord Ratchet, Doctor of Doom (aside from the concept in and of itself) is that he also states that Ratchet has a legion of marauders who carry out his bidding
and because marauders are raiders, and Megatron states they were “pursued by marauders” to Earth, the implication is that Ratchet is not on Earth himself--
-- which is smart on Megatron’s behalf, because this would deter Orion from potentially attempting to leave in order to confront Ratchet and instils a concern that perhaps marauders may appear at any time (at this point, Orion Pax does not yet realise that he is armed and is operating under the belief that he is still an Archivist and therefore not Warrior Class)
but also, this gives us the incredible mental image of Ratchet milling around in some kind of rusted fortress made from the remains of several different Cybertronian buildings, quite possibly the remnants of Iacon -- maybe even the central hospital there, converted into a hive of terror
still living on an otherwise uninhabited planet, with a loyal band of raiding troops who scavenge the remains of their world and possibly other planets as well (as we know these marauders supposedly have space capable vessels), quite possibly doing so in order to source spare parts and other various salvage -- Ratchet is a medic, who knows how he’s been having to piece together his army, repairing them from the remains of random citizens?
and he supposedly, presumably either from his makeshift base in the shadows of Cybertron or from a war ship of some kind, commanded an army of raiders to chase Megatron and his followers as far away as Earth
“I cannot imagine Ratchet capable of such horrors!”
I can only guess at what Orion Pax was thinking in this moment, aside from his immediately stated disbelief: What drove Ratchet to such lengths? What happened to turn his compassionate, caring friend into a warlord capable of carrying out inconceivable destruction? How could such a thing occur, especially at the hands of a respected medic, someone he thought he knew so well?
Would Orion Pax start to blame himself, for what was clearly the brutal decline of one of his greatest friends? I can imagine him starting to wonder if there was anything he could do, any signs of discontent, any indication that Ratchet was headed down a violent, dark path.
And I’m sure he would be concerned about Ratchet himself, as well. How is Ratchet faring, nearly entirely alone on their planet save for his loyal bandits, as aged and worn as he ever has been, possibly accepting a lonely inevitable death on an already dead world?
Or does Warlord Ratchet have yet more plans in store, his instruments of destruction poised to afflict themselves upon other worlds as well?
The Doctor of Doom: How Could This Happen?
It’s somewhat easy to dismiss the idea of Ratchet being this “Doctor of Doom”, because it so wildly opposes what we know of the character and what we know actually occurred with the war.
But when you think about it for a little bit, an unhinged Ratchet would very much be a formidable opponent, especially with his social position in pre-war Cybertron giving him more immediate access to higher class/caste areas than many others would have been able to reach...
...Perhaps this Warlord Ratchet was able to work his way into the Council’s good graces, possibly after attending to one of them after an injury and restoring them to health, gradually manipulating the Senate from the inside in order to secure more power, resources, allies, and ultimately the whole of Cybertron for himself-- Leading to a violent conflict which resulted in the destruction of their world?
With his medical knowledge, even if he started out with a fairly small number of followers and whatever troops he could finesse away from the Council, he may very well have “built” some himself-- We do see in TFP that protoforms may be possible to manipulate into certain frame types, or some types of “cloning” may be possible.
Any version of Ratchet without morals (or at the very least without any medical ethics) is a very dangerous Ratchet.
Repairing the injured via patching them together with the remains of fallen comrades, creating a “zombie” army. Ghoulish, lumbering soldiers, marauders held together with armour designed for other frame types. Instructing his former colleagues (who would likely have at least started out with some inclination to follow him) to carry out “repairs” in such a way.
Warlord Ratchet himself may have chosen to ingest dark energon much like Megatron actually did, perhaps out of a desire to create a new fuel source once Cybertron began to go dark and natural fuel sources began to dwindle. We already know that our actual Ratchet wasn’t afraid to test synthetic energon on himself, with similar motivations.
His base of operations would quite possibly be Iacon’s medical centre, turned into a horrific hive-like structure, some wards actively still in use for repairs (at least for his own followers) and other areas dedicated to terrifying research, with supply basements full of experimental tech and defensive weaponry.
Ratchet’s more support class (as opposed to warrior class) approach to things may well carry over to Warlord Ratchet’s approach to war-- An emphasis on intelligence ops, R&D, indirect and direct manipulation, initial political manoeuvring from within the existing system, and defensive systems to counter any munitions etc. that may come his way from opposing forces.
His initial goals may well have genuinely been intended to improve Cybertron, to help people. Much like Megatron, back when he was Megatronus and wanted a more egalitarian, fair society.
After working on lower class/caste bots who were nearly offlined from a lack of maintenance, poor to no access to healthcare prior to being dragged to him, etc. it may have been the catalyst for his decision to start using his upper class social contacts in an effort to change things from the inside out.
Unfortunately, in this universe in which Warlord Ratchet rose to power, things may have derailed just as severely as they did with Megatronus and his initially well-intentioned efforts.
The longer you think about it, the more plausible it could be.
It would be easy for Megatron to build further upon this idea to manipulate Orion Pax, that Ratchet truly could have done this.
I’m sure Orion Pax did not recharge well, his first night on the Nemesis.
Where did things go wrong? What happened to his friend? How could he do this to their world, a world that Ratchet loved so much?
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IDK I just think “Warlord Ratchet” is an incredible idea, and I would have been totally fine if they did a whole season of TFP with the Orion Pax concept lmao
also holy shit Ratchet in a built up fortress of a former hospital with a band of marauders under his command is such a powerful mental image
[Screenshot: TFP Episode - Orion Pax, Part One]
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