#i think its more the warring desire of wanting your name known vs knowing better

[wolfythewitch]

I love you Odysseus and your warring desire to be home and be known

#well it isnt really warring he wants both #i think its more the warring desire of wanting your name known vs knowing better #ala polyphemus

[zoopzopp]

A post for some BAMF Izuku fics <3 (more of these will be added and the list will be updated as i read them)

Fics i've read:

The Secret Ingredient is Crime- Izuku only had a whole month to further prove himself worthy of Yuuei's golden acceptance, and he was going to do whatever it took to make it in. Yuuei would never truly know what hit them until it was too late. (The secret crime AU in it entirety is fucking amazing and what wouldn't i give to read more stuff with it)

Deku the Villain Hunter: Support Hero - We all know the story: After being told he couldn't be a Hero by All Might, Midoriya Izuku still wandered over to a supervillain attack where he could save Bakugou Katsuki. But what if he had made the other turn? The answer is a butterfly effect that would lead him on a path to paving his own future. A path of revenge, finding his own moral compass, and doing the impossible. (OKAY MANY THOUGHTS. Very cool story and aspects. I binged it overnight and lost a bit of sleep the next night as well.)

The Story of How Midoriya Izuku Asserted His Dominance (And Traumatized Japan) - The Sports Festival was supposed to be a break from stress. Shouta should have known there is no such thing as a break with his class.

making it right (for real this time) - - Izuku is a support course student at UA, and Katsuki's neighbor, best friend, and former bullying victim. After Izuku's performance at the sports festival, Katsuki realizes something. He has to make things right. -

Hero Fall (UA Civil War Exercise) - It's now the end of the first year of UA for our students. Nedzu had decided to bring back the annual Heroes vs Villain fight. The fight shall last 5 days and the villain leader is Izuku Midoriya, with the commanding officer of the hero team being Katsuki Bakugo. But, what happens when Izuku is left alone?

Hero Class Civil Warfare - Heroes lead by Bakugo. Villains lead by Midoriya. Seven days prep time. Three days for Izuku Midoriya to show why they should be glad he's not a real villain.

"I Didn't Know You Had It In You." - Midoriya goes feral rage mode in his fight against Overhaul. The beat down still happens, but with Eri no longer at his back, he gets more violent. One For All reacts in an interesting way and Midoriya commits a terrible and unheroic act - the cold blooded murder and maiming of Chisaki Kai. Shigaraki is there to watch it all unfold.

Plan C meets Plan A - Even if All Might is right and Izuku can't be a hero, Izuku refuses to be useless. So Izuku uses his analysis skills to develop Plan C: Consulting in order to help the heroes. Eraserhead is impressed by this mysterious new consultant but alarm bells in Deku's behaviour quickly have Aizawa recruiting help for Plan A: Adoption.

Q. A. B. - One month after @hawks_unofficial's initial viral post, the blog titled "Quirk Analysis Blog for the Future", otherwise known as "Q. A. B.", has gone from an average of 10 views per post to an average of 20,000 views per post. Midoriya Izuku does not know how to view the impressions analysis for his suddenly popular blog, and only notices that sometimes, people actually comment on his posts now. He does not google himself or his moniker and thus does not see the rise in online articles and speculation. He is unaware that the "kyuu-ei-bee" he begins to hear about in passing refers to his own blog. He does not have a Twitter account. At the time, Midoriya Izuku is 15 years old.

How to murder your father - It's dangerous to be a bad father when you have a life insurance. Just saying.

Negation - Passive Quirks are a bitch. Izuku is reasonably done with the situation.

Thanks For Your Support - Izuku has the talent and the intellect to be the first Quirkless pro hero, and everyone at UA knows it. Unfortunately, his desire to become a hero has long since been buried thanks to the words of his childhood friend and childhood hero.

Policed To Meet You - Izuku takes All Might's advice and becomes a cop.

Vigilante Work And Other After School Activities - Izuku is a vigilante, Aizawa likes cats and therefore kids who help cats, and sometimes breaks must be forced upon overachieving teenagers.

When the Commission Lost Total Control - The hero polls have a small part where one can suggest their own hero. This is done just because of the amount of heroes is to great to name them all. This creates a little problem for the commission because a vigilante is assumed to be a brand new hero by the public- and ranks pretty high. Because of that, this vigilante now is too popular to hide and they can't come out with their mistake either! Think of the chaos that would bring.

Izuku being Badass but like in not that grand of a way but still tearing-people-down-in-some-way kind of way

He Was Quirkless - Midoriya get's sick of discrimination against the quirkless and decides to do something about it. It leads to some interesting situations. A trilogy.

bloody, but unbowed- It's Advocacy Week for Yuuei's hero students and it gives Midoriya Izuku a lot to think about about what kind of hero he wants Deku to be.

Called Out - When Izuku is hit by a quirk that will cause him to call out the first person to be rude to him on the way to school with every mistake they've made in the affected persons presence or have otherwise effected said affected person, Aizawa is in for a rough ride. In other words, with some help from a quirk, Izuku rakes Aizawa over the hot coals until he gives out. (a great fic but i've got mixed feelings on this one because on one hand, izuku is badass but on the other its Aizawa bashing and really like him skhdskdb so yea! Read it as per your tastes!!)

The time when everyone learned that izuku respects Bakugo more than all might. - I didn't like how Bakugo was tied up during the sports festival and so izuku didn't. Badass izuku roasted all might and midnight.

Villainous Sunshine - After an innocent question, Class 1-A learns just how terrifying Izuku's analysis is. Nedzu's along for the ride.

Never understand ( and you can't ) - Midoriya is sick and tried of his classmates bias and prejudice against the quirkless community and finally breaks

Mastermind: Strategist For Hire - Izuku Midoriya never got the chance to save Bakugo from the sludge villain and impress All Might. With his dream crushed, Izuku becomes bitter and angry. It also doesn't help that he faces discrimination at every turn. All he ever wanted was to be appreciated, so when the villains are the ones to recognize his talents rather than the heroes, well, Izuku just can't resist. He might as well help those who actually want him around. Mistakes were made, and now society must face a villain of their own making: Mastermind.

Malignance - Deku is far scarier than anyone gives him credit for.

Fics in my to read list which has/probably has BAMF izuku

Young Midoriya - Izuku Midoriya couldn't help himself when he saw someone in trouble. Even at 12 years old, his instincts drive him to help those in need. So when he sees Kacchan and his goons about to ambush another student, he has to step in, right? It's not like this hasn't happened before. What is different this time though, is that he's never had an audience that consisted of the Number One Hero.

Heroics and Other Things That Don't Require Superpowers - Izuku doesn't have a quirk. That's the long and short of it. After being told his whole life he can't be a hero, General Education at UA is the best he can hope for, right? Wrong. Dead Wrong. So super wrong that his best friend from Gen Ed, all of Class 1A and a whole mess of Pro Heroes are going to prove to him how wrong he is. Izuku has the makings of a hero, and his lack of a quirk only throws those qualities into starker relief. After all, who wants to be as strong as All Might when you can be the cleverest hero in the business?

Cases of More Than - Izuku is known as Deku online. He's an analyst of quirks, sometimes even working with the local detective, Tsukauchi, on a case. He meets new friends, builds a few relationships, and slowly crushes on his best friend. But then he's thrown into the General Studies Course at U.A. It doesn't help that All for One is showing an interest in him at all.

No Regret - In this world there is no hard set villain or hero. No victim and aggressor. Everyone is at fault for something and Izuku, with his own villain group, will make everyone pay. Even the bystanders who did nothing. This is what society gets for abandoning it's people. Deku will manipulate everyone and be the greatest villain, all so the world can be a better a place. With the stakes so high there is no time for regret.

We Are a Different Kind - Mirio doesn’t think he can be a hero anymore now that he’s quirkless, Izuku calls bullshit.

Live a Hero - "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." Or, you're raised a villain, rebel when you're nine, and fight against the odds to become a hero anyway. That's how it is in Izuku's case.

Prodigal - After being convinced to give One for All to Mirio, Midoriya Izuku must rebuild his shattered dreams with bloody hands.

Two Sides of the Same Coin: Vigilante - Izuku is orphaned at the age of four and is sent into the Japanese Foster Care System. After multiple failed attempts at finding a forever home and some unfortunate circumstance, he ends up on the streets. Eventually, the vigilante, Deku appears. Eraserhead must gain his trust to bring Deku back to the right side of the law. If he he does, however, the untrustful but pure-hearted boy may just be a bit more than Aizawa Shota can handle.

From Muddy Waters - - but the sleeve of his tracksuit was bulging, tearing and ripping and a mass of twisted flesh, nearly as big as the boy himself and nauseatingly familiar (the arm of the man that had torn a hole in his side with a grin and left him a frail shadow of himself) swung forward and slammed into the flat face of the giant robot. Izuku wants to be a hero more than anything.

Pieces are easily sacrificed when they're nameless - Nobody ever thought quirkless, weak, weird Midoriya Izuku was dangerous. This perception carried over to his first year high school class, because really despite the super strength Midoriya didn't have it in him to be dangerous. That was their first mistake. And the one that would see them fall.

Not exactly BAMF izuku but i just wanted to rec these fics <3

In the shade of a sunflower - Being biologically quirkless came more with an extra pinkie joint in the toes and a stunning lack of vestiges mutations. It came with smaller things, like extra teeth that did virtually nothing, exploding organs, and weird exposed nerves that weren't designed to feel pain.

Throat Punch - In which Aizawa attempts to teach Izuku how to use various battle tactics and it goes just about as well as you'd expect. At least Shinsou is there with his fantastic commentary. (just a fun lil thing where izuku is really stronk and trains with shinsou and aizawa)

So Be It - He could still do good. Midoriya could show them all what a hero without powers looked like. If he had to break a few rules to do it, so be it. So be it… (as stated not exactly BAMF but its a vigilante izuku so ye-)

Never Enter a Drinking Game with Bakugo or Izuku - Izuku walks in on Kirishima and Kaminari having a drinking competition (no alcohol involved). And it reminds him of an old story.

5 Times Midoriya Taught Class 1A about Memes and 1 Time they Found a Villain that Understood Them - After being diagnosed as quirkless, Midoriya gets into pre-guirk media and finds memes. He shares them with Class 1A. Aizawa doesn't get paid enough for this. (THIS FIC???? FUCKING AWESOME. LITERALLY WHAT I WANTED TO SEE)

Midoriya: JD Version - Nedzu has decided that a play should be put on so that the students can learn how to "go undercover", an idea which Aizawa thinks is utter bullshit. They're putting on Heathers and when Nedzu chooses to cast Midoriya for JD, everyone objects. Midoriya is a much better actor than they thought.

that is a lot!! I hope you have fun reading it!!!

#fic recs #bnha #bamf izuku midoriya #izuku midoriya

[graffiastrology]

The archer, a musical birth chart.pt 5 Does a scorpion sting when fighting back?

Pluto, Lilith and mars in Scorpio:

“No, I could never give you peace”

So yeah, danger does indeed live in you and your birth chart, and she was aware, Battles, revenge, death and transformation will come ahead.

And she knew, since Picture to burn to Better than revenge (songs that are not in the playlist since they may get changed in the new versions) this scorpio force within her, and she has lilith right in the midheaven, and I think of what she said in the “73 questiosn with vougue” What would you say to your past self?

"Hey, you're going to date just like a normal 20-something should be allowed to, but you're going to be a national lightning rod for slut-shaming,"

Lets remember who is Lilith, the mother of demons, the rebel woman,the "bad" wife now a feminist icon, she was expulsed from heaven for having her own desires and thoughts. Having this placement in the MC (the house of public career) can manifest in complicated ways where men and their good wives can point the finger at the MAD WOMAN and project everything you hate on her.

But Lilith in scorpio also has a power of transformation and fighting for women's rights

That event transformed her, and finally stepped into her raw female power.

But now lets go back in time where the narrative was very different, and painted her as a woman with BAD BLOOD putting other women down.But her enemy was not any woman, the triple scorpio herself: Katy Perry.

Scorpio vs Scorpio

Back in 2015 Taylor and Katy stared a big mediatic feud, 5 years from that we can analyze this in a very different way

So lets recap what happened and how everything went off the trails

From the POV of Katy she lent a couple of dancers to Taylor, and she should have known it was a temporary thing, since they have that in the contracts. She must have read the whole contract, right?

From the POV of Taylor from one day to the other she lost a number of dancers of the tour she carefully put together, but they cant go just away, they have a contract oh what it is? Katy told them to put a clause so they could leave the RED tour ? oh this is enough I don’t need a bunch of traitors in my tour, go away!

And they used to be so close, from her POV it looked like she knew what she was doing, and from the Katy perspective it was not a big deal, you tour didn’t fall apart, you had time to plan in advance, but no, band aids don't fix bullet holes

Make no mistake BAD BLOOD was a intimidation tactic, it was a display of power, and it show a side of Scorpio mars in the 11th house (house of frienships)

it was like "look at my army, look at my powerful friends, do you want to mess with us?" Little did she know she had traitors in her army, one of them will be the one to strike low and give her the punishment of a low libra sun pisces moon: destroying your image with lies and illusions.

And then Katy took an opportunity and kicked the horse when she was dead with SWISH SWISH, but Katy you should have known that Mars, your chart ruler, doesn't like this, because if you beat down your enemy when it is down it speaks volumes about your confidence and real power.

But surprise bitch!

She came back from the dead, Pluto in Scorpio in action, babey!

LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO, a power move like no other, just think about it, she could have:

Release Me! as planned and get a shit load of hate "you don't have the right to feel good about yourself, snake!"

Release an “apology” song, submit to the liar, and disappoint all the fans who stand her in her darkest time

Or this, take control of this whole snake narrative, loyal fans have already endured the storm, and it will create a new image, a powerful woman, one that attracted new fans (me included)

And so she was back at the top of the game while Katy was entering a dark era (probably going to make a playlist for her too) in these times she reflected in what went wrong and what was more important, because IT TAKES TWO to make a fight, she send a letter and Taylor recognized she may have blow things out of proportion and forgave her when they meet in the AFTERGLOW of their war.

But let's pause a moment, can we recognize the amount of growth that must take for 2 scorpio women to forgive and forget, to make amends? and that is something she always did, she believed people can be brand new, 32 and still change to grow up, still INNOCENT everybody makes mistakes, everybody makes impulsive choices that are not for the best...but what not everybody does is trick you, get you on the phone and mind-twist you record a call, edit it and re frame it to destroy someone. I am going to put the most interesting part of the call right here:

West: So it says “To all my Southside [N-word] that know me best, I feel like Taylor Swift might owe me sex.”

Swift: [Laughs, relieved.] That’s not mean….. oh my God, the buildup you gave it, I thought it was going to be like, “That stupid, dumb bitch.” But it’s not. So I don’t know. I mean, the launch thing,

West: You don’t have to do the launching and tweet. That was just an extra idea I had. But if you think that that’s cool, then it’s cool. If not… I mean, we are launching the s—

FAMOUS: I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex Why? I made that bitch famous (Goddamn) I made that bitch famous"

Sigh….THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS

Okey let's analyze this, the song was released, Taylor did not promote it, he said that she didn't have to do that, there was an official statement and then the Grammys speech.

People gave him some flak, but nothing extraordinary...somehow he convinced himself he was the victim and as revenge he and his good wife put the edited phone call and used their platform to destroy her, truly a case of how to make the worst of their Gemini, Pisces and Libra.

And after the plutonic transformation and the power move move that was reputation, is time to sit down, and contemplate the pain, because yes, Scorpio is a tough cookie, but still a water sign, and the hurt is intense and after the war, there is pain and even after the years the shape of their name still spells out pain so yeah she doesn't need to forgive however send that letter so they can have their CLOSURE they can have my middle finger instead.

Because when a scorpion cries they will make sure their TEARS RICOCHET, and think about the themes of the scorpio house (8th) how death creates a ripple effect, a death like hers can't go unnoticed and can’t go without consequences (at the moment they are going to divorce) and that is the thing with the scorpio energy it is about action and consequences, its about death and transformation, it's about crime and punishment.

But LONG STORY SHORT: She survived

And I don’t see a better way to go from scorpio to Sagittarius than with that song, so lets JUMP AND THEN FALL into it.

#pluto in scorpio #lilith in scorpio #scorpio midheaven #mars in scorpio #taylor swift #reputation #birth chart #birth chart analysis #evermore

[bettsfic]

do you know anything about like, the development of the purity rhetoric that now seems to be ubiquitous in fandom and how it got there? i used to be on tumblr in like, 2014 and only recently came back to fandom and i remember everyone being generally kind of cool with things like incest ships and morally grey characters (speaking specifically re the frozen fandom and elsa/anna here lmao) whereas now it seems like the conversation about those things has drastically shifted and i am..puzzled by it

this is what i imagine that experience was like for you:

according to fanlore, purity culture started in the homestuck fandom which. based on what i know of homestuck, that tracks. however i’ve never been in homestuck so i’m not sure what that transformation was like. all i know is my personal experience with the disk horse. afaik there’s no cohesive timeline of events across fandom, and i lack the time and resources to be able to make one myself. if anyone knows of one, or wants to make one, please let me know.

i do know that purity culture is a movement started by very young teenagers, who were maybe 13-15 in 2014 and are now 18-20. they were 8-10 when ao3 was founded, and therefore seem to have a limited knowledge of fan history, censorship, and critical thinking. i’m hoping that since they’re now entering college, they’ll get some insight and broader social awareness, and this movement will finally die out in the next few years. 

on any other platform, at any other time, their toxic rhetoric would not have gained traction. but here and now, on tunglr dot com where anyone can gain a platform, where mob mentality thrives and inciting an anonymous dogpile is as easy as hitting Post, where the brokenness of this place makes it difficult to control the content you’re exposed to -- it’s the perfect storm. we live in an age of hopelessness. young people grow up with social media as an extension of their identities, tethered to devices that hold all the information in the world. i think it’s fair for them to be afraid of their futures, and i can understand the desire to control the online spaces where they have the most agency, where their voices are the loudest. 

that may explain why, but not how. as in, where did they pick up this mentality at all? @freedom-of-fanfic (whose work is a necessity in understanding the disk horse) connected anti-shipping to TERF rhetoric. i’ve linked the fanlore page because it has all of the links and some of the responses. i honestly do believe that the language surrounding purity culture has its ugly roots in TERFdom. at its core, purity culture -- the policing of female and queer sexuality -- is misogyny. 

when i started writing destiel circa 2014, fandom was as you described. wincest was a juggernaut on par with destiel. teen wolf was full of underage and noncon. a/b/o was on the rise. it seemed like fandom was a genre without restraint -- anything you wrote, if it found the right audience, would be celebrated unabashedly. people who have been following me for a long time know that i was addicted to adderall at the time and pounding out all sorts of manic nonsense. i remember living on the validation of comments (and at the time, there were lots of comments. not so much anymore, but that’s another story). i got critical comments only rarely, and they were the type that i admired -- readers without judgment thinking through the story, reacting to it earnestly. i made some of my best friends because they left long, critical comments on my work. sometimes they didn’t like it, sometimes they did, but ultimately, they were engaged, and that’s what counted.

i remember my first policing-type comment, i think at the start of all the purity nonsense. it was a destiel fic, and someone very angrily told me i should tag my bottom!cas because it was triggering. i’ve thought about that comment a lot over the years. top/bottom discourse is nothing new, but to say that bottom castiel is triggering? that was ridiculous. but then i realized -- there was a writer in fandom at the time i won’t name, who was known for being extremely sensitive (for bottom!cas especially, which they found triggering), and their very dedicated following offered fic that was safe for their fave to read. i have nothing against this person at all. they were not part of the purity discourse, they were up front about their sensitive nature, and as far as i knew (i believe i met them at a con once?) they were very kind. 

but that commenter had been clearly influenced by this person and believed that a specific fictional character receiving anal sex from another specific fictional character was actual, real triggering content, and it was my obligation as a writer to tag for it. which i did, because i felt bad, and i was baffled by that request. at the time, i wanted more than anything to be liked, and conformed wherever i could. if i got such a request now, i would ignore it because it was rudely written and honestly kind of bonkers. i’d happily add a tag for something i may have missed, or even something i’d never considered before, but there’s no reason a person can’t make that request politely. 

this situation isn’t about purity discourse proper (the commenter didn’t tell me not to write the fic, and it had nothing to do with morality), but it’s the earliest example i can think of where the process of policing had occurred: a person of influence on tumblr affected their follower’s thinking, and that follower felt entitled to command another writer to conform to that ideology.

i could be completely wrong about making these connections. maybe that commenter truly believed bottom!cas was a legitimate widespread trauma. they did not say the fic was triggering to them, but that it might be to some other people, in the same way purity police say “think of the CHILDREN” when in fact they don’t give a fuck about children at all. 

after destiel i moved to stucky, which was, at the time, a juggernaut ship where anyone could write anything. this was also the time when the term “cinnamon roll” became incredibly popular, circa 2015. it was a fun and seemingly innocuous meme, but it positioned the ideas of “purity” and “wholesomeness” in sharp relief, and cemented these ideas by beginning to give it a distinct vocabulary. “trash” was pitched as its opposite. stucky is where i first came into contact with “antis.” in destiel, there had been ship wars, sure, but it was of a different flavor than antis. destiel vs wincest wasn’t about morality in 2014. it was about everything but.

in stucky in 2015, however, the disk horse was running rampant. the MCU had a sub-section of fandom called HTP (hydra trash party) in which steve and/or bucky have dubious or nonconsensual relations with various or many members of hydra. this is the first time i remember being aware of morality becoming a cornerstone of shipping. HTP was loathed by purity police. by the time i wrote a stucky bdsm au, i’d accumulated multiple nasty anons, rude comments from entitled readers, and other nonsense that all said the same thing: your filth is not welcome here in our space of purity. go away.

but the release of the force awakens is what really turned the tide. TFA offered three major ships: stormpilot (as it was called at the time, now finnpoe), reylo, and kylux. the fandom that developed around the sequels was firmly divided. franzeska wrote an amazing meta about this phenomenon which gives some insight into the seeds of purity policing. in short, stormpilot should have been the primary pairing of the sequels, but instead many of the badwrong writers from other fandoms (and HTP specifically, which was how i entered the fandom) flocked to the blank slate of kylux. 

it took a long time for the ship to gain traction. a friend told me that kylux had started with angry star wars racists who hated that there was diversity in the sequel trilogy. and i told them no, i was there, there were twelve of us and a cornchip, and all we cared about was the dirty/darkly comedic potential of these two ridiculous villain characters in one of the biggest franchises of all time. it wasn’t that complicated. i don’t mean to dismiss the discussion of race in fandom; i think it’s important to acknowledge that racism, as franzeska describes far better than i can, plays a huge part in fandom, particularly in star wars, and it’s an important and ongoing discussion to be having, especially given what kelly marie tran has gone through, and how it affected (presumably) rose tico’s extremely limited presence in TROS.

the early fics of kylux weren’t particularly taboo. they were post-TFA hurt/comfort mostly, then slowly the bdsm and power dynamics crept in. those of us who wanted to get away from purity discourse had finally found a new home. for a while. 2016 was the golden era of kylux. we were all very happy.

i remember talking to a friend about how there were certain things i couldn’t write in certain ships. being from ye olden days of fandom, she was appalled by this idea, and told me i could write anything for any ship i wanted, wasn’t that was the whole point of transformative works? and i agreed! but i tried to explain, if you post badwrong for a fandom of purity police, you’re going to, at best, get dogpiled in your comments/inbox. at worse they will find you, call your employer, and try to ruin your life. people will tell you to kill yourself. they’ll report your tumblr and try to get your blog shut down. there are real-life, harrowing consequences to writing taboo fic, and many who write fic as a hobby don’t have the emotional energy to field these risks.

around this time, discord became popular, which offered a private space for badwrong writers to congregate. i had started grad school and didn’t have much time to write fic. metoo was happening. tromp got elected. kylux was slowly turning mainstream so a lot of us turned our attention to gradence in fantastic beasts. some went on to hannibal and other fandoms that hadn’t yet caught the attention of purity police (but it was, as it is now, just a matter of time). kylux, i feel, was specifically decimated by a single fan creator, who was like a police chief. they would get wind of someone writing underage or noncon and write a call-out post about them, and that writer/artist would get pitchforked. a few times, my comments or posts got screencapped, and posts were written urging people to stop reading my works because of how heinously immoral i was. this happened to several of my friends too. 

the great tumblr tittyban of 2017 happened, which only added fuel to the fire and further legitimized the purity movement. i shifted hesitantly to the 100 fandom, which seemed small in comparison to supernatural, marvel, and star wars. i thought it was a chill place. i was wrong; it was just as toxic as other fandoms. but i also didn’t care anymore, and i appreciated that i was mostly left alone. more importantly, i found a lot of support from other people who were as tired of the purity as i was, and @the100kinkmeme was reborn. 

the state of things is pretty abysmal. there are some really amazing writers out there writing under multiple sock accounts, keeping their fandom identities shattered so as not to call attention to themselves. as much as i understand why writers do that, and i respect that decision, i also think it’s sad. it deprives readers the chance to read that author’s other works. it limits the sense of community and our ability to make friends. it fractures the future of the genre.

what’s most important to acknowledge is that none of this is happening solely in fandom. i went to a writers’ conference where 2 of 3 panels were about the history of moral policing and censorship in art. it is worth noting that of the 40-ish visiting writers on faculty, only one (1) was a woman of color (jaimaica kincaid). naturally, older rich white people who have spent their life in the arts are all about death of the author, separation of art and artist. they’re on the total opposite side of purity police, and they won’t acknowledge at all that racism and sexism are a problem in the creative world. they don’t have any nuance on the discussion, or modern perspectives in light of metoo or popular culture. 

this went on longer than i anticipated. i neglected to mention YFIP (your fave is problematic) an old blog that started the idea of call-out culture by pulling receipts on celebrities, and how call-out culture led to cancel culture, which also aided in the purity disk horse. i think a lot can be said about how some of this stuff is genuinely good (metoo and holding men accountable for their bullshit) while also being profoundly toxic (punishing criminals via mob mentality, ruining their careers and livelihoods through social media, rather than giving them their due process in court. i understand it -- the judicial system is built by the hands of the very predators we seek to condemn, but still. the jury of the internet is never a fair trial). 

if you want to read more, my tag is tsatp (the sacred and the profane). i’m sure i’ve left out a lot, but i can only speak to my experience. i think it would be good if people would share their experience dealing with purity policing, too, so we might get a cohesive timeline in place. feel free to reblog and add your story.

#tsatp #my fic #Anonymous

[eclipsemanipulation]

Choose: YES or NO to photo Manipulation.

Introduction to photo manipulation:

Photo manipulation involves transforming or altering a photo using various methods and techniques to achieve the desired results. Some photo manipulations are considered skillful works of art, while others are considered unethical practices, especially when used to deceive the public. Other examples include use for political propaganda, low-turnout rallies, but images of people are added to the photo. The photo itself is manipulative in shooting by finding the right angle to display as many people as possible, or to improve the appearance of a product or person. It can also serve for fun and practical joke like the latest case of Bernie Sanders meme. Depending on the application and the purpose, some photo manipulations are considered to be an art form because they involve the creation of unique images and in some cases, the signature expressions of art by photographic artists. Other examples of photo manipulation include modifying photos using ink, paint, airbrushes, or duplicate exposure, snippets and negatives together in the darkroom, scratching instant movies, or using software-based manipulation tools applied to digital images. This technique was used in the former communist countries to retouch photos of the history, such as the disappearance of political leaders from historical or other meetings. Software applications have been developed for digital image manipulation, ranging from professional applications to highly basic image software for casual users.

"Pollution" photo:

Edited photo

Original photo

Pollution is a global problem that affects all of us. We are all aware of its existence but very few people try to make a change in the current situation. I covered the faces of the couple to protect the privacy of the people in it. The photo could be used to illustrate an article about the pollution of the marine world, and it would be somehow sarcastic. The biggest problem of this century is pollution which is not only warming the climate, but also making our lakes, rivers, oceans and seas acidic. Thousands of debris are dumped into the sea, which is why many countries are protected by wetlands and sanctions. I also added a can of Coca-Cola next to the swimmers to raise the alarm for urgent measures. An article a few weeks ago pointed out that in the beautiful beaches of Bali the debris has invaded the sand, because due to the pandemic, many hotels that take care of cleaning them have closed. This pollution endangers not only human life but above all water’s life. Due to the pollution many animals that communicate using ultrasound now have difficulties communicating with each other. I think that the manipulated photo is an outcome of millions of photos that show the same situation of pollution (but the others on the internet are without people on it). I don’t think that tourists would ever go on vacation in places where the cans or other debris are floating at the surface of the sea. The non-edited photo could be used and give the message to the viewer: Love your planet and do what you can to protect it, to prevent pollution and to spread the right message. Whereas, the edited photo gives the wanted message to the public, it can be misguiding as it doesn’t represent the truth in the moment and place when the photo was shot. In my opinion the edited or unedited photo cannot be used as press photography, because it doesn’t represent “pure” news. It is not linked to a specific event or lifestyle and the purpose of the edited photo is just raising awareness toward people and pollution. If an article would be realized, this should not be the main photo, but serve as an attractive photo to read the news, and after reading the article, people could do extra researches and get more information about the topic. In both cases, if we use the original or not original photo, we fulfill the meaning that the photography has. As in the Smithsonian Project, the impact on the society in this case will be how photography changes a full cycle of what we see, what we remember, what we do, the place we choose to go, and also what we want (to change or not the future).

“War” Photo:

Edited photo

Original photo

In the case of this photo I covered the face of the little girl for ethical reasons, and I also intensified the colors of the writing in order emphasize directly on the message. The photo was taken in peacetime, in a place where no fighting is taking place, but where an artist has written a well-known slogan all over the world (if I were to choose a picture of war there could be mutilated, dead, massacres as in the case of Syria or Iraq). We could use this photo best in an article on world wars, to give a message of peace. Since 2011 over 800 thousand people have lost their lives in war, and 108 million people were killed in wars in the twentieth century, so it is very important to focus on the bright side of that. The photo is an artistic realization, not a direct image from the war, which makes it more unique, and the purpose is to raise the sense of peace and positivity. It shows the future and the faith of rebuilding and healing the traumas of the new generation.

I think it is a perfect tool to deliver and promote the reality of peace and the impact of the wars on societies. In my opinion, it can also be used as press photography to impress the viewer and raise the curiosity of reading the article linked to this photo (but I would not prefer to use this photo as press photography). Edited or unedited image, both lead to the truth and they do not misguide the public as the message to deliver is clear.

Advertising photo:

Edited photo

Original photo

Shades and colors in this photo were edited to add sharpness and contrast making it look more appealing. It can be used for articles in magazines or advertisements online as well as in advertisement for fashion, perfumes, promotion of a new song (as a cover of the album), or for an artistic exhibition. It can also be used as press photography to record an event where the image was used, to show the sales that was done, or for lifestyle stories. My inspiration for this creation was retracted by Richard Avedon’s work. Today more than never, the photography is the core of marketing.

The better a “product” is presented the more it will sell. Since the manipulation of this photo is not touching the ethical rules, it can be used freely whenever is needed. The photo above will not mislead the public and it will showcase the product it was created for. The photo doesn’t have added objects and has a wide range of use. It will serve the purpose even if the public will not see the original image, meaning that we can use the edited or unedited image, even though in my opinion the edited image is more powerful. It can be used as press photography for the purpose to write about an event that will occur or had occurred, or as an article linked to the design field, and even to the tendencies of the lifestyle.

Art vs press photography:

The difference between an artistic photo and a press photo lies in serving the truth. In the case of the photos I used, they are more artistic. Art photography is open to interpretation, whereas press photography uses images without any explanation. Press photography is spontaneous, and is used in recording news, lifestyle stories and different events with the intent to capture the image and to write a story without leaving room for bias and attract the public to read more about it. On the other hand, art photography is a created vision of the photographer. The artist in this case is free to capture images that make sense for him and have an interpretation of the subject.

These photos were taken from www.pixabay.com website, there is no mention of author name. These images are not protected by copyright and are for free use.

References:

www.pixabay.com

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/23/bernie-sanders-inauguration-meme-heres-the-story-behind-the-photo.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photograph_manipulation

https://www.history.com/news/josef-stalin-great-purge-photo-retouching

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_Soviet_Union

https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/press-photographer#:~:text=Press%20photographers%20take%20photos%20for,current%20events%20and%20lifestyle%20stories.

https://sites.google.com/site/shootingthetruth/Home/modules/module-1/learning-activities-week-1

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/marine-pollution/#:~:text=Marine%20pollution%20is%20a%20combination,and%20to%20economic%20structures%20worldwide.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-trash-keeps-coming-bali-s-iconic-beaches-are-buried-in-rubbish

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/books/chapters/what-every-person-should-know-about-war.html#:~:text=How%20many%20people%20have%20died,150%20million%20to%201%20billion.

https://sites.google.com/site/shootingthetruth/Home/modules/week-7/course-notes-week-7

https://www.avedonfoundation.org/

https://gagosian.com/artists/richard-avedon/

[weptfire]

THE IMPERIAL COURT.

This was originally asked by @extravagantliar​, but tumblr fucked the formatting so I’m reposting.

THE MORE I LEARN ABOUT Louis XIV, the more of an inspiration he becomes for Celene. They’re not exactly like each other, of course, but there are similarities to be found not only in the historical figure but in how he’s often portrayed in historical fiction. The sun motif, the uncompromising vision, the “I am the state” mentality, the desire to make their nation an example to others, the arts and the way they managed power — not identical, but there are VIBES. Some inspiration is drawn from his court in this matter as well.

         The thing to understand about all aspects of Orlais since Celene was crowned is that she is Orlais. The empire was brought to the brink of collapse by Florian, and when she took the throne, she not only pulled it back, she reinvigorated it. Some believe her overtures of peace and emphasis on art / scholarship over war weaken Orlais; on the contrary, she’s made the nation strong. She’s not expanding, but expansion is not what Orlais needs, in truth. Instead, she’s made it stable, peaceful, and prosperous. She made the University of Orlais (previously a dumping ground for the kids no one wanted) the envy of Thedas. She reinvigorated its culture. Orlais, as we know it, is all her. (Well, not ALL, but so much of it.) This isn’t to dismiss the rot in the empire, merely to note how she’s shaped it.

         Her court was far from exempt from this. In many ways, she reshaped it to not only reflect the Orlais she wished to build but to give herself the upper hand. “The nobles in the crowd were fickle, bloodthirsty, and vain, but above all, they were hers. As much as they would have enjoyed the scandal of a bloody duel, they admired a good display of wit.” This is not to say that it is full of only people she believes to be allies. She purposefully keeps enemies or those of dubious loyalty near her — and even in important positions, when appropriate — for a number of reasons. She’s not the type to arbitrarily banish anyone who displeases her or to even make her displeasure overtly known. That is not how she plays the Game. Rather than remove disagreeable nobles publicly, she either wins them over or finds a way to ensure they slip up and essentially remove themselves. Every day she is walking in a minefield, and she knows it.

         Back to Louis: Versailles really concentrated power with him. If you wanted absolutely fucking anything from him, you had to make your request in person which meant a trip to Versailles. But, actually getting an audience took AGES, during which time you’d be obliged to take up residence there. Seems harmless enough, yes? Except life at court was so fucking expensive, and these expenses were in addition to expenses from your actual estate, but you weren’t at your estate to manage finances in the most effective manner. Many nobles ended up falling into debt trying to keep up with their peers, which played right into Louis’ hands. You couldn’t actually take up a job, so the only option for additional income was through royal posts, etc. which could only be granted by Louis. Even leaving Versailles wasn’t a very good option because among the benefits of living there (and there were benefits) was that your property couldn’t be seized when you didn’t pay debts. If you left, you lost what was yours; if you stayed, you kept it, but you were still in this hole. And, there were other benefits, such as keeping all these nobles right where he could spy on them with ease. Prior to this, the nobles held quite a bit of power, but by making them dependent on him and instituting stringent rules of etiquette, he kept them all walking on eggshells.

         Obviously, Celene’s court isn’t quite at that level. It’s not the same trap as his — and isn’t as large as his — but similar principles apply. The nobles of Orlais still hold considerable power and are not trapped at court. However, she’s found ways not to centralize power exactly but to accumulate it at court. Part of this comes from gathering all manner of noteworthy nobles to her regardless of whether they’re her allies; even if your business isn’t with her, you’ll likely still have to make your way to court to find the noble you need or else wait until they retire to their estate. Additionally, it’s the place to be to strike a decent match, forge a worthwhile alliance, really accomplish anything of note. Sure, you could survive and even do well away from court, but if you want to thrive, if you want to rise, if you want to play the Game, you have to go to court. And, that is what every Orlesian wants. Being away from court, even for a short time, can put a person a few critical steps behind in the Game. (Which is why sending Gaspard off to do things like hunt Darkspawn can be so effective.)

         It should be noted, however, that one can only make their way to court by invitation, and presumably, this invitation can only be extended by Celene. I think that’s one of the things she would’ve tightened — that those who are at court are there at her pleasure — because it’s a subtle way of giving herself power. “Oh, you want to bring your daughter to court so she can strike a good match? Dance, monkey, dance.”

         There are undoubtedly other benefits like tax cuts or exemptions from / leniency with regards to certain sumptuary laws, but that’s a rabbit hole for me. I’ll end up trying to write laws and shit, and nobody wants that.

         Along that same vein, though, a place in Celene’s court is expensive — not as expensive as Louis’, I’m sure, but nothing to sneeze at. Her court is the height of art and fashion. In addition to normal expenses (i.e. servants, horses, etc.), there is no end of functions to attend and things to know. Balls, salons, hunts, books to read, performances to attend, scholarship to know, art to display: the empress values learning; thus, the empire does as well. To enter court uninformed in any fashion would be to enter stark naked; knowledge is power. But, one cannot be literally naked either. Fashion is wearable art as well as a language unto itself.

Celene smiled. “Always. The sapphire hairpin, do you think, or the Antivan diamond-lace?”

Briala frowned and held both up for a moment, looking at Celene critically. “The sapphire suits you better, but to meet the merchants . . . Antivan diamonds are a reminder of our trade.”

Celene had been thinking the same thing. “Then we sacrifice my fashion upon the altar of appropriate symbolism.”

          Under Celene’s rule, Orlesian fashion reaches its height not just in terms of what styles to wear but in terms of its language. There is so much more to Orlesian fashion than mere ornamentation. Although the empire is often said to place aesthetics over function, it does serve several functions; it’s never comfortable, but it’s worth the pain. Even something as small as the placement of a beauty mark can give away one’s allegiances or intentions. They can have a whole exchange with each other without speaking just by how hair is arranged and fans are held. More than that, Celene changed certain rules of etiquette, introduced new ones, and impressed on the court their importance. She changed the rules of the Game and made herself its mistress. It’s complex and expensive to navigate court life. Most nobles are too busy trying not to misstep to pose a real threat, and many lose the Game simply forgetting their manners.

Varric: I have a serious question for you, Iron Lady. Vivienne: I can hardly wait. Varric: In the Imperial Court, if someone uses the wrong fork at dinner, is that worse than death or just social suicide? Vivienne: It’s impossible to say, my dear. Anyone who is ever so mis-stepped would be stabbed to death with the proper fork.

          It is interesting to note that if Gaspard is made emperor in DA:I and Michel is sent to court, Michel will comment on how starkly different it is. This could lead into an interesting discussion of gender roles in the empire. Celene and Gaspard, at the cores of their character, are strikingly similar, and I believe that if they had been able to play by the same rules, they would’ve developed in a similar fashion as well.

It had been Celene who had taught Briala to watch, since a girl, especially an elven girl, could not act as a man did. A man who acted quickly and aggressively was praised as bold and daring. A woman who did the same was foolish or desperate.

          To be honest, the Game is stacked against Celene — a situation which the deaths of her parents did nothing to help. She is forced to behave very differently from Gaspard by virtue of being a woman, and her courtly persona is as much a mask as the gold on her face. When she came to power, she didn’t so much change the rules that bound her as stacked the odds in her favor by forcing others to play by them as well.

         Going back to Louis, though, one thing I think he managed to do better than her is handle his relationship with his military. By which I mean that Louis, although not a soldier himself, found other ways to earn his troops’ loyalty. This included building the Hôtel National des Invalides. (He was knowledgeable in war, but it was more Philippe’s realm than his.) In fairness to Celene, Gaspard was always going to be favored over her in that regard, and his inability to play the Game at court with the same effectiveness as, say, Florianne is undoubtedly why he sought power via becoming a chevalier. Celene and Gaspard are counterpoints in this respect.

          Louis’ lack of military acumen was made up for by his brother with whom he maintained a close relationship, but Celene was at odds with Gaspard from the start. And, it’s interesting because his inability to woo the court is why she was able to seize the throne via the Council of Heralds, and her inability to get the military (namely the chevaliers) on her side is why he’s potentially able to seize the throne via civil war. Courtly intrigue vs. military prowess has been the difference between them from the start, which also comes back to Orlais’ gender roles! I’m getting off topic, but it’s neat.

         Final point: Celene only has the three ladies-in-waiting which is unusually low. I haven’t decided what families they come from, but they’re likely from House Valmont’s four cadet branches. It would be a way to secure those family’s loyalties; perhaps the fourth is loyal to Gaspard or doesn’t have any daughters. In addition to a lady-in-waiting’s normal duties and acting as some of her closest confidantes, they are trained to perfectly mimic her voice, speech patterns, and body language. They were chosen in part for their incredible resemblance to her so that, should the need arise, they could take her place. Think the Queen of Naboo and her handmaidens. This is not well-known, however, leading several nobles to become irritated because she won’t take on their daughters — won’t even seem to consider it. Her standards are high not only in terms of their aptitude and loyalty but in terms of their very appearance.

#⊰ headcanon | primary ⋄ you forget to hide the little tells ⊱ #⊰ headcanon | world ⋄ you forget to hide the little tells ⊱ #⊰ queue ⋄ I chase the memory of it still ⊱

[invisibleimpossibilities]

just a fun little character game. fill in the below categories with 3-5 things that your character can be identified by.  repost & tag away!

TAGGED BY - @flamecrest, ty baby I’ve been wanting some aesthetic memes to get back into Robin feel and imagery!! I didn’t even have to hunt them down this is perfect!

TAGGING - lmao idk who else is still here for fea or how multimuses would want tagged?? Take it if you want it, I love reading these.

EMOTIONS / FEELINGS:

I. Useful – Is this an emotion? Uncertain, but dear gods let her feel it. Let her do something, be something, find a place for all these skills in her hands and thoughts in her head. She was destined to do something for someone, she knows it.  II. Empty – There are spaces in her head and her heart that are missing. That are blurry, that at times even feel scratched out and overwritten. Others reach into their chest and pour emotions from their hearts on their sleeves at times when she feels nothing. No shame, remorse, butterflies, excitement when others cry or titter. She thinks she should, sometimes, but she doesn’t. It can’t be normal. III. Fear (Paranoia?) – Death lurks in every battlefield, behind every tree. Danger is along each and every path. This is war and it is her duty and desire to keep everyone safe. She must plan down to every detail and consider every possibility, or the fear of losing any precious life may just consume her. IV. Rage  – Harm those she loves, threaten her plans, violate her values, insult her insecurities, and be prepared to bruise and bleed - likely in vital fluids, possibly in humiliation. Survival is not ensured. V.  Silly – At least, let it not be said that she doesn’t have a sense of humor. A cunning mind can let loose some steam with playful banter, pranks, and reckless abandon possibly a bit uncouth for someone of her position.

GREETINGS:

I. Any standard hello, but she will use your name. It is important. You are valid. She knows you. II. The flicker of a gaze over the page of a book, begging pardon for just a moment before she can offer you her full attention ( or... uh... continues to ignore you.) III. A cry of warning as she rushes to your side. IV. She doesn’t greet you, she’s too busy talking to herself. Please save her from her own mind. V. Right to business with a directive, request, accusation, question.

COLORS:

I. khaki #D2C5B5 II. matte gold #D5C990 III. leather belt brown #5F5855 IV. grimleal grape (plum) #6E6672 V. charcoal gray #444650

SCENTS:

I. earth - soot, metals, minerals, oils, dirt. She is a nomad and she carries the land she traverses and fights upon with her. II. campfire smoke - they are frequent and the scent is permanently held between the stitches of her cloak III. incense - rituals require it, a secondary type of smoke which leaves its enchantment upon her IV. ink - her hands are stained with it, even when it’s invisible. V. perfume - whether musk and camphor from lotions and baths of her own purchase, or a more soft, romantic floral from gifted bottles.

CLOTHING:

I: tactician’s cloak. Of unknown origin, but it appears to be a uniform and handed down. Enchanted for safety and for temperature control. II: boots. Leather. Practical. She added the calf-guards herself. III: leather waist cinch and belts. For added protection and storage. IV: gauntlets. Important protection for melee fighting.

OBJECTS:

I: invisible ink. Used for secret plans... and secret letters.  II: self-portrait. A gift from Libra which keeps her believing in herself and reminds her of her bond with another, as well as the beauty in the world. III: black pearl hairpin. another object of mystery she was already carrying on her when her memory begins. It must be something good, though, for she feels happy when she holds it. IV: bandages. Every army mom needs them. V: weapon. Tome, sword, her personal runic sword, a poison or potion perhaps, possibly a dagger. Something for protection at all times.

VICES / BAD HABITS:

I. competitive. Distractably so. She will latch on to a task, hyperfocus and not stop until she’s the best or is absolutely miserable. May do absolutely absurd things at her own expense in the name of proving a point. II. stubborn. Her overthinking mind means you have to be equally as loud and convincing to overcome her sensibilities and get her to change behavior or see something a new way.  III. blunt. Sugarcoating is very rare. If she has an issue with you, she will confront you and she may or may not have tact about it. Unrelenting in making her opinion known, especially if she thinks you’re being stupid or putting something at risk. IV. hypocrite. A million possibilities in a million different contexts means she’ll often contradict herself, though arguably it is because some thoughts and values are circumstantial. Will definitely hold double standards when it comes to her loved ones vs everyone else vs possibly herself. V. bloodlust. Fell blood makes her enjoy when she has to be violent more than she probably should. Sometimes it’s hard to stop.

BODY LANGUAGE:

I. judging you. eyes squinted in contemplation. crossed arms. hips shifted slightly askew. you can basically hear the flickering of thoughts in her head, the scrawling of mental notes. You have no idea if she’s admiring you or finding you wanting.  II. carrying something. Usually stacks of tomes and maps, often bags of armory or baskets of supplies. Never too much to handle on her own, but never so little she’d refuse help.  III. slumped over the tactics table. Head in her arms, cheek probably smeared with her last lettering. She stayed up too late again ...zzzzzzzz IV. fighting stance. Ready to spar. Ready to kill. Ready to tip the scales. V. At ease. Gentle touches, reassuring proximity, relaxed shoulders, soft smiles, tucks of twintails behind her ear. She is around people she cares for and trusts. 

AESTHETICS:

I. a desk completely covered in parchment, quills, inkwells, and tomes, illuminated by the glow of a nearly-spent candle II. the clang of steel swords, the crackling residue of magic burning in one’s nose, the shift of leather against chainmail III. gray clouds releasing a crack of lightning, the ground aflame as thunder follows IV. a sky of darkness giving way to the warm tones of a cloudless new dawn, witnessed by the ever-watchful gaze of a six-eyed glyph V. a dusty old library with fingerprints left upon carefully selected books

SONGS:

I. "Keeps Gettin’ Better” - Christina Aguilera II. “Brave” - Sara Bareilles III. “Limitless” - Jennifer Lopez IV. “It’s the Fear” - Within Temptation V. “I’m Never Gonna Let You Down” - Colbie Caillat

#( I study whatever I can get my hands on || musing ) #( We're not pawns of some scripted fate || aesthetic )

[isuzukuretsuki]

Ikemen Revolution - Edgar’s Route

Sirius | Lancelot | Fenrir

aka the sexiest man in the entire red army the entire cast. the hottest stud in the military. the most gorgeous boy in Alice’s harem. the man who will satisfy your wishes and desires, the man who will make your hopes and dreams come true.

THE SMOOTHEST TALKER EVER

it’s been over a month since I finished Edgar’s route but here is his long awaited and very delayed scream fest. I wrote this up bit by bit over the course of two months but I never had the time to sit down and proof read it until now because of school and I didn’t want to post something half assed because it’s Edgar! Also this is uhh... really freaking long LOOL. As usual, if you you want my actual serious final thoughts on the route, just skip to the final blurb. 

Now with literally every red army route so far (except Jonah), OF COURSE the Black Army mofos send Alice off with more NAMELESS, FACELESS soldiers who can’t do shit in the face of kidnappers, and end up getting their ass kicked, leaving poor Alice completely defenseless. This time around, the kidnappers make off with Alice’s belongings into the sunset so Alice can’t return home.

That is until our dashing gentleman aka Edgar comes in going like hey baby I’ll help you find your stuff so won’t you please come home to bed with me and of course Alice accepts because he’s a damn hot stud.

Aw Kyle don’t say that ;;;;;.

SO PRECIOUS.............

I’m going to say it right now but Edgar is ADORABLE. Literally the first half of his route is just him and Alice bonding over their love of candy and playing with animals. Edgar even takes Alice out to see a family of ducks he takes care of and he refers to them as his own family and fucking named them “The Creeks” JUST HOW PRECIOUS CAN HE GET???? Considering how Edgar is portrayed as that “evil scheming asshole here to ruin everyone’s day” in everyone else’s route, I didn’t expect him to be so sweet BUT HE IS SUCH A GOD DAMN SWEETIE as you can see I’m infinitely biased towards LIs who like animals.

What... a .... fucking... dork

lmao @ Lancelot trying to act like a do-s when he’s the complete opposite of that. This man doesn’t have a single sadistic bone in his body... he’s just a big mushy teddy bear.

WHAT A FUCKING BIG MUSHY TEDDY BEAR, BOTH OF YOU.

The red army boys are a bunch nerds you just can’t help but fall in love with after going through their routes... especially Edgar’s! I love them all so much.

OH NO MY BABY DON’T SAY THAT PLEASE.

lmao I love the blatant acknowledgement. But also mood.

Anyway after Zero zeros in on Edgar being a sketchy prick, Edgar mopes around some more because “shit Zero is exactly right” and he has a realization that he has Feelings In His Chest. Of course Alice catches on so she bakes him some super unhealthy cookies to make him feel better (ღ˘⌣˘ღ).

I MEAN... I DON’T BLAME HIM, BECAUSE SAME.

Edgar starts disappearing into the night to do “”family business”” for his totally-not-evil-uncle and I SWEAR to god at the time I was like “this mofo’s deadass going around murdering people” and now I’m just like .... ha ha.

One day Alice stumbles across Edgar coming home from “”family business”” and rushes out to greet him, only for him to freak the fuck out and hide his hands behind his back. SERIOUSLY I THOUGHT HIS HANDS WERE BLOOD SOAKED. Alice’s like wtf you doing and yanks his hands out only to find them freezing cold BECAUSE HE WAS BUSY WASHING THE BLOOD OFF OF THEM.

This is one of my favourite scenes JUST.... WARMTH... THE TENDERNESS.... THE FONDNESS.... THE SHEER AFFECTION SHE HAS FOR HIM IS SO MAGNETIZING. The god damn romantic connotations is overflowing it’s practically on the same level as a damn love confession without the actual confession of love.

I love that sort of duality between their relationship being built on fake premises, but is actually very genuine at its core. Edgar may have saved Alice with ulterior motives, but his kindness towards her both when they first met and their interactions after that was very real. It’s through little things in the writing like Alice commenting on how Edgar’ hands were warm that makes it all the more endearing and heart wrenching.

AGAIN--OH NO MY BABY DON’T SAY THAT PLEASE.

lmao never change, Jonah. Never change.

narrator: she was not fine.

look everything in this game may be a rip off but those LI-perspective side stories are just..............IT’S OKAY MY HEART IS ALREADY MADE OF DIAMOND.

Anyhoo the war between the two armies are starting to get Heated Up™ and Edgar requests Lancelot to go scouting in enemy territory alone, but Lancelot refuses bc it’s dangerous. Honestly idk what’s so dangerous about it considering how Sirius’s route was pretty much Edgar vs Black Army and the Black Army still had trouble but ANYWAY. Alice finds out and gets pissed and they end up arguing, to which everyone starts celebrating and clinking wine glasses in toasts because “holy shit Edgar actually has emotions?!” 😂😂

MY GUY LOL WHAT IS THIS.

In Edgar’s route, you don’t say “I love you”, you say THIS. SERIOUSLY MY HEART HURTS SO BAD ESPECIALLY WITH THE CONTEXT OF EDGAR’S CHARACTER AND THE STORY OF THIS ROUTE.

After Edgar’s leaves on his scouting trip Claudius decides it’s a good time to come out into the limelight and ruin some people’s lives for fun so he sends Alice a letter going like “yo here’s a plot convenient key to Edgar’s safe where he keeps his weed stash so you can see the truth that your boyfriend is a PIECE OF SHIT”. And Alice is all like “ay Edgar isn’t a piece of shit, I’m sure this is just a prank!”

too bad it isn’t.

Zero takes Alice to Edgar’s safe and seriously I was on the edge of my seat wondering wtf was in his safe. I suspected it was gonna be her belongings but with the suspense they kept building in this part I wouldn’t have been surprised if there were fucking dead bodies in that locker.

So on the bright side, there were no dead bodies in the safe. On the not so bright side, Alice finds all the letters she wrote to the Black Army, as well as warning letters from them she never received so it turned out Edgar was fabricating the letters she was exchanging with the Black Army all this time. OH GOODIE.

GAHHHH NO EDGAR. 

SERIOUSLY can we talk about how good the writing in this route is?!?  All the dialogue and monologues are just structured in a way that gets to my emotions. I fucking cried during this scene because Alice’s emotions and despair was so raw and powerful and the way Edgar just silently took all her verbal abuse because he couldn’t defend himself but he was breaking with every word she said ...... ABLHEAJTARTHEATHJAEKHT.

Anyway Alice miraculously somehow escapes the Red Army Headquarters and races back to the Black Army in one piece seriously girl did you run an entire evening without stopping to black territory??? Adrenaline mixed with terror is something only for the surprise plot convenience robbers to make a reappearance. Fortunately, our MVP Luka dashingly swoops in and saves her. He brings her back to Black Territory and cooks her dinner and is there to comfort her MPH...BABY BOY IS SO SOFT AND SWEET...................

Alice completely breaks down and ME FUCKING TOO. She can’t really say much other than a strangled sob of “You know Luka, I had a lot of fun at the Red Army. Edgar treated me really, really well” or something like that and honestly that’s also she really needed to say to convey her heartbreak and betrayal. 

lol I can imagine Edgar doing that.

THANKS I’M FUCKING DEPRESSED NOW.

Luka reveals that he and Edgar were long time friends and muses to Alice on what he’s known about Edgar throughout the years. He drops this information on Alice not to necessarily tell her how to feel, but just as food for thought for Alice as she sorts out her feelings.

THANKS I’M EVEN MORE FUCKING DEPRESSED NOW. Also this is hands down the most powerful admittance of love this game has given me.

lmao never change Seth, never change.

Anyhoo Claudius McDoucheMuffin gets into contact with Alice and is all like “hey girl I got your purse.” And for some reason, Alice thinks he’s perfectly trustworthy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯¯.

ALICE....ABOUT THAT....

OH NO.

Well yeah what do you know ha ha, Claudius kidnaps Alice because THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS EVERY FUCKING TIME THE BLACK ARMY SENDS A NAMELESS BODYGUARD OUT TO PROTECT HER.

Claudius takes Alice to outside Amon’s sex dungeon where Edgar is there lovingly waiting for her. Edgar is slightly surprised to see Alice and is rurl pissed over his daddy uncle manhandling her so he makes Claudius give them some alone time in the carriage while he removes Alice’s ropes and dresses her wounds. Alice isn’t keen on it but she realizes that “holy shit Claudius may be a bigger piece of shit than Edgar” so she lets him spill his token tragic backstory to her.

This is so god damned painful.......

jesus christ this puts the whole “In the Bright family, loving people is practically forbidden” into context. 

This makes me wonder what would become of Edgar in the other routes where his pact isn’t abolished-- would he really marry if this was the fate he knew his wife and children would go through, or would he just stay single and let his lineage die with him?

Unfortunately, their touching reunion doesn’t last long because Claudius is pretty much banging on their carriage door going like 

“time’s up bitches we got work to do” and pretty much barges in and yanks Alice away from Edgar.

Bring it, asshat.

Claudius unceremoniously marches Alice straight into the thick of Amon’s sex dungeon while Edgar reluctantly dallys along with the Concerned Kermit Face the entire time. Amon pretty much ditches Lance for his new buddy Claudius so they can TAKE OVER THE WORLD HUR DUR. Him and Claudius cackle about their evil plans and Alice realizes that Edgar was more or less being manipulated by them and he’s not the Actual Worst. Amon then orders Alice to be thrown into his Personal Chambers™.

Jesus christ, YOU ARE SUCH AN ASS, CLAUDIUS.

DON’T MIND ME I’M JUST BEING EMO.

We cut back to Amon and Alice and Amon does his typical evil villain monologue, takes off his hood and....

(屮゜Д゜)屮(屮゜Д゜)屮(屮゜Д゜)屮 HE HAS A CHARACTER DESIGN?!?!?!?!

I KID YOU NOT THIS WAS THE FIRST TIME I SAW AMON WITHOUT HIS HOOD AND I WAS SHOOKED TO MY FUCKING BONES. I DIDN’T THINK HE’D ACTUALLY HAVE A PROPER CHARACTER DESIGN. It was three in the morning when I played this and I literally just put my phone down and laid in my bed staring at the ceiling as I contemplated my life choices after that.

After that shocking revelation, Amon throws Alice into the dungeons for Edgar to dashingly swoop in and save. It’s the full moon so he takes her to the gates of hell Hole That No Player Ever Wants To See. Now if this was a black army route, the suitor would have thrown Alice’s sad ass straight down that hole but this isn’t a black army route so we’re spared from that. Instead we have Alice CHUCKING ALL OF HER POSSESSIONS INTO THE HOLE ((((；゜Д゜))), effectively sealing her fate of ever going back. I get it’s supposed to be a power move but my only thoughts were “WHAT IF EDGAR DIDN’T ACTUALLY RETURN YOUR FEELINGS LMAO?!” I mean it’s an otome game so of course Edgar loves her back but can you imagine how awkward it’d be if Alice was like “I’m not going back because I love you!” and Edgar’s just like “...but I don't  feel the same”. YEESH.

On a less superficial level, I was still really sad because didn’t they make a promise to go to London together one day? ໒( •́ ∧ •̀ )७ I know it wasn’t really a promise but still! Chances are all gone now.

Edgar: Alice, I’m an actual murderer. Alice: NAH, YOU’RE JUST A WEIRDO, EDGAR! (´∩｡• ᵕ •｡∩`) ♡

I AM SO FUCKING EMO.

Also!!! HE’S THE ONLY BOY SO FAR WHO HAS A KISS CG IN HIS ROUTE. (haven’t played Ray’s route yet so idk about him). You have all these Spicy CGs of the boys and Alice in sexually compromising positions and you have Actual Sex Scenes and yet this game barely has any kiss cgs LOL?! What gives?! 

He’s so romantic (ఠ్ఠ ˓̭ ఠ్ఠ).

Since Edgar’s officially betrayed Claudius, he pretty much duels him and kicks his ass and arrests him. Unfortunately, arresting Claudius doesn’t absolve Edgar of his crimes and he’s still put on trial with Lancelot and Ray as the judges. This scene kind of weirded me out because Edgar says some mumbo jumbo about how he’s going on trial so he can “become a man worthy of Alice’s love” like uHHH boy you being worthy of her love ain’t gonna mean jack shit if you’re in jail. Unless you want a nice steamy serving of this ending.

Okay I’m not trying to sound like I’m justifying murder but akjheakthake just FLEETING THOUGHTS YA KNOW. This scene was hella predictable and played out exactly like we’d all know (Edgar doesn’t go to jail hurray!) but even still the trial made me SO EMOTIONAL I STARTED CRYING LMAOO.

Oh Jonah, I know a game you’d love.

Romantic Ending:

Now that things finally calmed down, Alice and Edgar go on a date with Luka tagging along and  Jonah acting as the fourth wheel, much to Luka’s chagrin. (ღ˘⌣˘ღ) ♫･*:.｡. .｡.:*･

NEVER CHANGE JONAH, NEVER CHANGE.

Out of all the pet names my fictional boyfriend could give me, being called an angel is my number one favourite IT’S JUST SO SOFT AND MAKES MY HEART GO DOKI FUCKING DOKI YA FEEL.

is it a sin that I imagined Edgar going full blown chokemedaddy yandere jealous.... not exactly a romantic thought in the romantic ending, bUT FLEETING THOUGHTS, FLEETING THOUGHTS.

LUKA IS SO GOD DAMN PRECIOUS KILL ME NOW.

AHHH WHY ARE YOU SO CUTE.....

-------

Honestly I’m not even gonna mince words-- I loved this route and everything that came with it.

Before I go on my rampage, shout out to Luka for being the MVP supporting character in Edgar’s route. It’s hard to imagine them being friends considering how clashing their personalities are but their friendship was surprisingly heartwarming and endearing. 

I don’t even know how to articulate my thoughts on what made this route so perfect. For starters, Edgar and Alice have amazing chemistry and their personalities compliment each other well. Their bonding and budding friendship was really endearing and felt very believable. From little superficial antics like sharing candy and taking care of animals and going on silly dates, to more blatant portrayals of the depth of their love like Alice cupping Edgar’s hand to her cheek when he was vulnerable, or Edgar straight up betraying his only family to save her. 

Alice’s circumstances of being someone from another world really complimented Edgar’s character. Edgar is a character who lived in a gilded cage his entire life--trapped by his occupation and bound by dirty blood. He’s never once known freedom or has ever had any agency over his life, but Alice shatters that equation. Alice is completely unrelated to the Red Army, or Cradle entirely. She knows nothing about his occupation or his history, and so Edgar is drawn to her because there are no division of titles between them. To her, him being the Jack of Hearts is irrelevant.

He says that without her, he gets “bored”. In the game, he complains that he’s “always bored”. Using “bored” to describe a character usually makes that character seem fickle and that they can’t be serious about anything because everything is just a means to kill time. But in the context of Edgar’s character, “bored” really means “dull”, “lifeless”, or “forced to find happiness through short lived and temporary means”. He copes with his oppression and lack of freedom by chalking up all of his feelings as just boredom. And he’s not wrong-- a life where you can’t make any of your own choices or choose your own path is indeed, very boring.

He constantly calls Alice his “special guest” which on top of being an adorable nickname, carries really heavy connotations. She’s an ethereal guest from another world, from outside of Edgar’s tiny world which he always wanted to expand. I LOVED the scene where Alice says she would like to take Edgar to London with her one day, because it’s the first time you see Edgar start to doubt his world. He’s accepted that his world is small and oppressive, but the first time, it’s almost like Edgar entertains the idea of breaking free from his bird cage.

I want to compliment the relationship development between the two, which was WONDERFULLY paced, something that pitifully cannot necessarily be said about in some of the other routes. Them falling in love felt very natural and the writers did not have to rely on shallow monologues like “he breathed in my direction, what is this feeling in my chest?!” to convince me that they were in love with each other. And when the admittance of love finally happens, it happens at very pivotal moments in the story that just makes the scene so much more emotional. 

Freaking 3k+ words and I still don’t think I did Edgar’s route justice. His route was amazingly written, and Edgar is an amazingly multifaceted and endearing character. Best boy truly got best route.

Anyway I’m almost done Loki’s route; Ray is next. After that, the routes I’m REALLY looking forward to and hope do not disappoint are: Harr, Seth, Kyle, and Luka.

#ikemen revolution #edgar bright #ellie plays ikerev terribly #ellie plays

[samscns-blog]

      *    𝖎𝖋   ur  ready  to  two  step  into  some  absolute  BULLSHIT  tomfoolery  ,  ya  girl  𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧  is  ready  for  u  with  my  lil  firecrotch  son  ,  𝖘𝖆𝖒𝖘𝖔𝖓  .  strong  silent  type  ,  ABSOLUTE  buffoon  ,  barely  keeping  it  together  so  hopefully  by  the  time  we’re  done  w  him  he’s  still  in  something  resembling  one  piece  :’)  all  my  love  to  u  and  u  cute  asses  !  i’m  so  excited  to  get  this  all  poppin  !

⋆  ╰  another   year   at   hollingsworth   ,  another   year   of   the  big   six rivalry   .   i   hear   that  SAMSON  MAILOTO   is   ensuring  SIGMA  ALPHA  NU   gets   a   solid   pledge   class   and   stays   at   the   top   of   the   ranks   .  oh   ,   you’re   not   familiar   with  HIM  ?  SAM   is   the  KJ  APA   look   alike   from  THE  BRONX   ,   NEW  YORK   .   a  part   of   PC  ‘16   ,  he  is   majoring   in  KINESIOLOGY   and   has   plans   to  ENTER  THE  MMA  AND  ESCAPE  FROM  THE  PUBLIC  EYE   after   undergrad   .   it   makes   sense   they   pledged   their   house   ,   their  PHLEGMATIC   &  SOLICITOUS   attributes   make   them   perfect   matches   .   however   ,   their  TREPIDATIOUS   &  AUSTERE   attributes   keep   their   name   alive   on  greek   rank   .   if   you   don’t   catch   them   dancing   to  BLEACH   -   BROCKHAMPTON   at   a   fraternity   band   party   this   year   ,   you’ll   be   sure   to   catch   them   nursing   their   morning   hangover   at  THE  SNU  HOUSE   .  cheers   to   another   wild   semester  !

⋆ ╰   𝑺 𝑻 𝑨 𝑻 𝑰 𝑺 𝑻 𝑰 𝑪 𝑺  .

𝒇𝒖𝒍𝒍    𝒏𝒂𝒎𝒆 :     samson  ioaleki  mailoto

𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬     :    sam  ,  sammy  

𝒃𝒊𝒓𝒕𝒉𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒆    /    𝒂𝒈𝒆 :    february  4    ,    twenty

𝒛𝒐𝒅𝒊𝒂𝒄     :    aquarius

𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓    𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒕𝒚    /    𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒔     :     cismale  identifying    with    he  /  him  /  his  pronouns    

𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏     :     heteroflexible  and  pansexual  ;  he’s  never  actively  considered  himself  as  lgbtq+  but  has  also  never  given  it  much  thought  ddjdjdjdkjdk

𝒐𝒄𝒄𝒖𝒑𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏    :    kinesiology  major  at  hu  ,  aspiring  welterweight  mma  fighter  ,  us  olympic  representitive  for  men’s  boxing  in  the  2020  olympics

𝒉𝒐𝒈𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒔    𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒔𝒆    :    gryffindor

𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏    𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒑𝒊𝒓𝒆𝒅    𝒃𝒚     :     eliot  alder  from  mr  robot  ,  kylo  ren  from  the  new  star  wars  series  ,  detective  elliot  stabler  from  law  and  order  svu  ,  steve  rogers  from  the  mcu  

𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒕𝒔    :    -    trepidatious  ,  austere  ,  apprehensive  ,  hesitant  ,  antisocial  ,  hostile  ,  bellicose  .

+        phlegmatic  ,  solicitous  ,  benevolent  ,  rational  ,  stalwart  ,  loyal  ,  reliable  ,  optimistic  .

𝑃𝐼𝑁𝑇𝐸𝑅𝐸𝑆𝑇  located  here  !

⋆ ╰    𝑨 𝑵 𝑻 𝑬 𝑪 𝑬 𝑫 𝑬 𝑵 𝑻 .

bullet  points  for  the  win  bc  who  has  time  for  all  the  tomfoolery  i  could  spew  from  my  ass  !

sammy’s  mom  was  a  housekeeper  in  upper  manhattan  for  some  fancy  dancy  homes  who  needed  their  gold  toilet  seat  covers  sanitized  3x  a  day  ,  u  know  the  type 🙄

samson  grew  up  in  a  run  down  apartment  in  a  small  samoan  community  in  the  bronx  and  has  always  been  a  lil  antisocial  weirdo  since  those  warm  dark  eyes  came  into  the  light  .  he  rlly  minded  his  own  business  n  wasn’t  really  curious  about  literally  anything  besides  running  and  wrestling  w  his  cousins  .  his  mom  struggled  to  keep  him  fed  and  housed  and  dressed  and  worked  relentless  hours  but  never  left  sam  needing  anything  ,  a  literal  fucking  legend  of  a  woman  and  he’s  proud  to  carry  her  last  name  !

sammy  always  felt  the  weight  of  never  wanting  to  be  an  extra  burden  to  his  mother  and  learned  to  really  be  self-sufficient  ,  likely  explaining  his  satisfaction  with  being  so  alone  

he  vaguely  remembers  the  night  his  life  changed  in  middle  school  ,  the  hushed  strained  whisper  from  the  living  room  ,  he’s  your  god  damned  son  too  ,  think  about  him  for  once  in  your  fucking  life  .  it  hit  like  a  fucking  train  once  the  story  picked  up  ,  5  time  nfl  superbowl  champ  father  to  secret  love  child  .  think  arnold  schwarznegger’s  secret  son  level  scandal  !  suddenly  his  shithead  of  a  dead  is  trying  to  salvage  his  image  ,  fighting  for  split  custody  arrangements  ,  telling  the  press  how  much  in  child  support  he  payed  ,  anything  to  save  his  ass

this  is  the  first  time  samson  remembers  being  fueled  by  rage  in  his  life  ,  as  a  relatively  well-tempered  child  ,  the  injustice  of  having  this  near-stranger  try  to  be  a  “  DAD  ” to  him  while  shitting  all  over  his  mother’s  name  made  his  fucking  blood  boil  and  becomes  a  theme  for  his  future

he  spends  the  next  chapters  of  his  life  going  to  the  fancy  private  schools  in  new  york  his  dad  picks  for  him  and  tearing  his  tie  off  on  the  ratty  bus  ride  into  the  bronx  to  go  home  to  his  mom  .  he  hates  having  to  haul  ass  back  and  forth  ,  wishing  he  could  stay  with  the  only  family  he’s  actually  given  a  shit  about  ,  but  bears  it  for  the  sake  of  not  causing  his  mom  any  more  torment  .  his  father  is  as  awful  as  could  be  imagined  ,  and  samson  hates  every  second  of  existing  with  him  ,  the  snarky  little  comments  at  school  and  in  the  ritzy  wealthy  circles  that  make  him  feel  more  of  a  black  sheep  than  he  ever  asked  to  be

this  becomes  the  root  of  his  anxiety  ,  bearing  the  weight  of  the  world’s  expectations  on  his  young  shoulders  and  repressing  his  own  needs  and  desires  as  a  result  .  he  goes  into  every  sport  imaginable  ,  his  father’s  DNA  being  increasingly  difficult  to  deny  ,  but  finds  a  particular  talent  with  fighting  and  takes  on  as  many  fighting  styles  as  he’s  able  to  master

turning  18  should  mean  freedom  for  sam  ,  but  nothing  is  ever  as  simple  as  he  could  ask  in  his  life  .  in  order  to  keep  the  child  support  payments  that  admittedly  help  keep  his  mother  afloat  ,  his  father  asks  one  more  thing  of  samson  :  hold  off  on  his  pro  mma  dreams  for  just  a  little  longer  in  order  to  attend  his  alma  matter  ,  hollingsworth  university  ,  as  a  publicity  move  and  then  he’ll  be  out  of  sam’s  life  in  every  way  except  financially  .  with  the  dream  of  completing  college  like  his  mom  always  aspired  for  him  ,  sam  agreed  and  went  on  to  appease  the  man  one  last  time  ,  joining  his  former  fraternity  to  sweeten  the  deal  (  and  secure  a  lovely  brownstone  in  his  childhood  neighborhood  signed  in  his  mother’s  name  )  and  is  a  year  out  from  graduating  and  letting  mma  be  the  only  reason  his  name  would  ever  appear  in  the  tabloids  .

⋆ ╰    𝑨 𝑵 𝑨 𝑳 𝒀 𝑺 𝑰 𝑺 .

personality  wise  ,  i  describe  sam  as  the  stupid  bitch  w  big  npc  energy  ,  if  u  want  him  to  talk  u  gotta  talk  to  him  first  and  even  then  he  might  just  give  u  that  hostile  stare  and  just  .. . .  remain  silent  KSDFSDF

he’s  about  as  NOT  a  people  person  as  physically  possible  ,  would  really  be  content  just  sticking  to  his  inner  circle  for  like  the  rest  of  his  life  without  concern  .  he  seems  like  this  rude  stand-offish  dick  but  the  truth  is  he’s  PAINFULLY  SHY  and  has  a  p  severe  case  of  generalized  anxiety  disorder  so  interactions  ?  w  new  ppl  ?  are  a  HARD  pass

did  i  mention  he’s  on  steriods  bc  that  def  adds  to  his  anxiety  and  hostility  !  lmao  !  he  started  juicing  in  high  school  when  his  dad  kept  pressuring  him  for  football  and  how  he  was  “  twice  your  size ”   at  that  age  ,  n  he  HATES  the  dude  but  he’s  also  lowkey  insecure  abt  his  lack  of  a  father  figure  so  ?  used  daddy’s  money  to  start  his  first  cycle  and  pay  off  to  test  clean  and  now  he’s  been  hooked  on  and  off  .  he’s  currently  starting  a  new  cycle  to  bulk  up  for  the  new  season  and  prep  for  the  2020  olympics  but  swears  he  wont  be  on  them  forever  :/

they  make  him  SUPER  aggressive  when  set  off  ,  it’s  a  decent  thing  that  sam’s  so  monotone  and  shy  that  he’s  also  pretty  laid  back  and  kinda  hard  to  rile  up  .  he  really  doesn’t  take  much  personally  and  won’t  do  a  huge  “  chest  pumped  bro  lets  do  this ”  show  bc  he  ?  thinks  all  those  guys  who  do  that  are  tools  LMAO  but  find  the  right  button  to  push  n  he’ll  become  the  very  thing  he  despises  !

if  u  can  get  past  the  literal  awkward  silence  and  resting  bitch  face  ,  sammy  is  actually  really  well  known  for  being  just  a  generally  decent  guy  .  the  perception  is  often  that  he’s  a  dick  bc  he  think’s  he’s  better  than  a  lot  of  ppl  ,  but  the  truth  is  he’s  just  too  nervous  to  start  conversations  n  most  ppl  assume  its  an  ego  thing  vs  a  “  i’m  about  to  piss  myself  thinking  abt  all  the  ways  this  convo  can  go  wrong  so  i’ll  just  not  talk  and  glare  @  u  instead  ”  thing

if  he  had  his  shit  together  he  would  definitely  qualify  as  a  dad  type  ,  but  since  he  doesn’t  ,  he  won’t  SSHSHSHSH  but  he’s  really  just  a  softie  deep  down  ,  he  has  a  stupid  as  HELL  sense  of  humor  and  is  really  objective  and  level  headed  .  the  gryffindor  in  him  is  DEEPLY  loyal  ,  like  to  the  death  ,  but  he’s  got  lots  of  hufflepuff  in  the  sense  that  he’s  really  willing  to  get  his  hands  dirty  to  help  those  in  need  .  u  need  help  moving  ?  someone  to  keep  u  company  while  u  babysit  ?  feel  nervous  walking  alone  after  class  at  night  ?  sammy  might  leave  u  on  read  if  u  text  him  bc  he’s  a  Dumb  Bitch  like  that  but  he’ll  show  up  on  the  dot  ,  hands  in  pockets  ,  exactly  where  u  asked  him  to  be  ready  to  do  what  u  asked  him  to  do  .  the  mans  is  a  super  hard  worker

he  def  still  feels  kinda  weird  at  uni  ?  he’s  p  smart  but  some  of  the  classes  unrelated  to  athletics  and  anatomy  have  given  him  a  REALLY  tough  time  (  dance  appreciation  for  his  fine  arts  credit  almost  tanked  his  gpa  LMAO  )  and  he’s  not  top  of  his  class  or  anything  but  ppl  still  try  to  talk  to  him  bc  of  the  whole  “  famous  dad  ,  future  olympian  ”  thing  ,  which  he  can  pick  up  from  a  mile  a  way  and  makes  him  super  uncomfortable  .  even  being  in  a  frat  w  a  bunch  of  old  money  rich  boys  makes  him  DEF  feel  like  the  odd  one  out  ,  and  he’s  just  counting  down  the  days  until  he’s  OUT  OF  HERE

in  conclusion  :  i  love  u  all  .  lets  suffer  together  .  :~)

#rank:intro #love u all sm :' ( #i'll have emmy's done tomorrow i hope !

[rosinapowrie-blog]

The Teacher Dichotomy: the problem with hero teachers.

“The only thing I know for sure is that I know nothing at all, for sure” – Socrates

Learning isn't just about passing exams.  Since starting a career in teaching four years ago, I have struggled to remember this myself, let alone show pupils what they could be missing out on.  In response, I set up a school society mimicking TEDx Talks, giving kids the chance to listen to in interesting lecture at lunchtime with no hidden agenda: simply to try to show them that academia goes beyond mark schemes and box ticks.  This was my opening address entitled 'The Teacher Dichotomy: the problem with hero teachers.'

_______________________________________________________________________In my first fortnight of teaching at a prestigious new school, once we got over that slightly awkward unsure phase of ‘nu teacher who dis,’ a student asked me where I’d been to university and what I’d studied...

‘St Andrews, in Scotland... where Prince William went’ (I added after only a minuscule pause which I have become accustomed to when speaking of the tiny town on the East Fife coast). ‘I read English Literature, but did loads of modules in Philosophy, Classics, Art History... it was good.’ ‘Wow’ the student replied, ‘that’s like really good isn’t it? You must be... like... really clever..!’ And then the student said the 10 words that have shocked me the most in my haggering career as an educator... ‘So why did you end up as a teacher then?’ Now I am not so naive as to think that this is simply one view held by one teenager in that particular moment... What this delightful girl had uttered was probably the ultimate Freudian slip of today’s youth... you lot just don’t see the value in education for its own sake... you think that school is just something you have to get through, preferably do well at, then you can start living your best life. But this must be challenged: if we know and accept that gaining knowledge is a vital crevasse to conquer whilst mountaineering the Range of Success, why do we see it merely as a means to an end? Why can we not enjoy the ride, live in the moment, and value our opportunity to learn new stuff? Why is it that, still in 2018, when teaching is known to be one of the most draining and stringently trained professions, requiring the skill and discipline of an artist, athlete and jail warden simultaneously all before 9am 5 days a week, do our very target audience view our profession as a sort of embarrassing accident that losers happen to fall into? Perhaps you are already outraged by my cynicism. I am aware I am currently preaching to the converted - you guys have chosen to spend your lunch time in this room pursuing knowledge and discussion. But I vehemently believe that this modern apathy to education is due largely to the portrayal of teachers in the media and popular culture. I don’t solely mean the ludicrous click bait that floods your newsfeeds every day (I’m thinking headlines such as ‘boy of 1 wins Nobel peace prize for finding cure to cancer despite failing all GCSEs - who needs em anyway’ or even just the multitude of distracting cat videos you’d much rather be watching), I mean those subliminal messages in books, TV and film that have been drip fed to my generation and yours in our formative years. I’m talking about The Teacher Dichotomy: heroes vs villains. By this, I mean that teachers are firmly type cast into two roles: the sickening sycophant who inspires their flock with their unconventional quirks and flagrant disregard for any sort of teaching standard... that one who really gets down to da youf’s level. Or, worse, the maniacal villain who struts around with a cape and cane doling out detentions and appearing entirely inhumane. The inability to portray teachers as warm blooded mammals with the same instincts, desires and fears as the rest of the world has not only devalued the joy of education, it actually undermines the incredible passion and hard work that goes into just the average, unmemorable bog standard Mr or Mrs Bloggs’ daily job as a teacher. On demand, could anyone name an example of just a regular teacher that a) exists in a book/film etc and b) fulfils meaningful purpose in the plot purely in his or her role as educator and not for any other reason? Three examples analysed... Firstly, our heroes: I’ll start with that that ever hilarious, ever chaotic excuse for a school teacher portrayed by loveable comedian Jack Whitehall in popular BBC3 series ‘Bad Education.’ Alfie Wickers, the History NQT at Abbey Grove School, prefers to befriend students rather than enable them responsibly to achieve their potential. His typical pedagogy includes such escapades as practical re-enactments of battles, or ‘Class Wars’, where any Ofsted inspector would literally have a fit at the flagrant violation for safeguarding an 'ealf and safety. Yet Mr Wickers is respected by Form K – they even like him and learn from him – but do we see any assessment, formative or summative? Do we see him planning or marking? Do we see him tracking progress and planning interventions? While it may be a TV show, and art does not need to imitate life, the point is that Mr Wickers is seen as a fun, likeable teacher.  If he did anything that he was actually supposed to, he would be seen as boring.  And what sort of message is that sending a young audience – that the people who dedicate their lives to ensuring their progress in a conventional way are not heroes.  Only those who offer them fun and entertainment, and no actual learning, are.

At the other end of the positive spectrum, there are those sorts of hero teachers who move students emotionally, yet still wouldn’t actually pass an observation. The epitome is John Keating – the maverick English master portrayed by Robin Williams in the classic ‘80s film, ‘Dead Poets Society.’  Keating encourages his vulnerable student, Anderson, to come out of his shell by joining the eponymous banned extracurricular club.  Here, he forges friendships with unlikely characters and experiences true life and love by looking at poetry differently and forgetting the pressures and requirements of school.  Professor Keating is eventually called out for his disregard for school standards and duly sacked, leaving the boys chanting a heart-wrenching chorus of Whitman’s ‘O Captain, my Captain’ whilst standing on desks.  It’s the ultimate bildungsroman: the boys have come of age, and Keating helped them get there.  Yet again, his inspiring nature is not at all borne of his skill in traditional education methods, but rather the fact that he ignores them completely.  Yet another example of the hero teacher, shaming regular teachers into the background of mediocrity.

And now the other end of the spectrum – the villains.  Who better to analyse than Rowling’s malevolent Professor Umbridge, who swans into Hogwarts in The Order of the Phoenix with the sole aim of making monumental, ‘Ministry approved’ changes to the school curriculum and generally shaking the status quo.  Fans of the series, let’s forget the reasons behind our negative view of Umbridge’s changes for now (the government’s refusal to believe that Voldemort has returned, etc) and read this simply as a teacher trying to raise standards by reviewing current practice and attempting to embed systemic change.  We see this when she addresses the school for the first time: ‘some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited." This sounds rather like a forward-thinking teacher, school leader or governor wanting to make improvements, yet she is completely slated and seen as evil.  For example, what are her actual crimes: conducting lesson observations of fellow staff?  Holding staff accountable for their performance and the progress of pupils, and removing them from post if they are not up to scratch? Ensuring that the curriculum is standardized? Essentially, all things that normal teachers do in normal schools to meet the teachers’ standards and provide robust education systems.  However, she is utterly vilified for doing so: so much so that Rowling chooses to portray her as committing the ultimate teacher-sin – failing to safeguard students and actually physically assaulting them in her detentions.  This is a choice the author has made: to show traditional schooling and education standards as petty compared to the great, heroic things that the rest of the Hogwarts teachers inspire the heard with.  The irony is that Umbridge is certainly the only member of staff who would even pass a PGCE, let alone be promoted to senior leadership, in real life.  Yet again, we see the dichotomy in action, reinforcing that subliminal message that traditional education is nasty, negative and pointless.

The glass ceiling must be broken and education needs to be esteemed once more.  The conditioning we’ve been subjected to through popular culture has not helped, but now we have been enlightened to our ignorance. The great irony is that if we enjoy the ride, stop seeing education as a means to end, but rather an end in itself, then you will get further in life if you have become a fully rounded person with a broad cultural capital.  Take umbrage with Umbridge: value your current opportunities and enjoy learning your subjects even if you never need to use that information again.

#teaching #englishteaching #cultural capital #tedxtalks #heroteachers #doloresumbridge #johnkeating #deadpoetssociety #bad education #socrates #knowledge #teachingandlearning #pedagogy #academia

[royallypsychotic]

Saint Laurent Tote Bag

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[aryas]

Targ Restoration Rant (aka I made the mistake of venturing into the pro -Targaryen tag & discourse)

"You know nothing, Jon Snow. A true man steals a woman from afar, t'strengthen the clan. Women who bed brothers or fathers or clan kin offend the gods, and are cursed with weak and sickly children. Even monsters." --- Ygritte, ASOS

Clearly, GRRM has never painted Cersei x Jaime or Craster x his daughters in a very favourable light. But suddenly, incest between the 2 good and heroic guys (though the jury is still out on Daenerys) of the story is a-ok? Is it because they are a couple of magic übermenschen and are thus above morality and law of nature? Am I supposed to think GRRM now advocates for incest? But only under certain conditions, only when it involves the special and God-like Targaryens? Why do fans suddenly rejoice about this and wish for a Targ restoration? What kind of fresh hell has this fandom turned into?

[Cut for length]

Their main argument seems to be

Jon and Dany are nephew/aunt which is not considered incest in Westeros so it's all good! No one would bat an eye because even outside the Targs, there are cases of avunculate marriages.

And then they bring up the two known cases; Jonnel x Sansa Stark and Edric x Serena Stark. The former was (probably) a purely political union without issue. The latter did yield heirs but Serena was the daughter of Edric's half brother, so they weren't as closely related (same goes for Sansa, who was Serena's sister and Jonnel's half brother's daughter). Both probably happened for political/practical reasons and to solve major succession issues as Rickon Stark & Jeyne Manderly had two daughters but no male heir.

This comparison is not a very pertinent one because a marriage between Jon & Daenerys would be neither purely political nor practical as they are already involved and supposedly in love. Additionally, what kind of political gain would there be for either of them if we assume Jon's true parentage will be revealed publicly, combined with his ostensible betrayal of bending the knee and falling for a "foreign whore woman" (from the Northern lords' viewpoint), resulting in the loss of his already tenuous hold over the North or the election of another KitN or QitN? Over the last few seasons, the show dropped numerous anvil sized hints about how unwelcome foreign leaders are in the North, especially Targaryens. The Northern lords were already ready to unname Jon because they deemed he'd been away too long. It makes little sense that a Jon x Daenerys marriage would placate them post R+L=J unless they inexplicably decide to suddenly support what would essentially be the restoration of a dynasty they despise. It would also mean R+L=J and Jon's actions in season 7 (i.e bending the knee to a Targaryen, consorting with said Targaryen while being a secret Targaryen himself) would have little to no long-lasting effect and any conflict it caused would be resolved by a marriage that would have happened anyway if Jon had remained Ned's natural son.

Jon wouldn't need Daenerys if he decides to pursue the Iron Throne since his claim trumps hers. What's more, the people of Westeros are more likely to accept him as king of the 7 kingdoms over Daenerys given his Stark blood and the fact that he was raised and groomed for leadership in Westeros. He could potentially have the loyalty and allegiance of the Starks and their bannermen, the Wildlings, the Reach (through Sam), the Iron Islands (through Theon), the Vale (through Sansa and Sweetrobin) and possibly the Riverlands (through his Stark cousins' Tully heritage), in contrast to Dany whose sole remaining Westerosi ally is Jon. If they were to support a Targaryen candidate for the Iron Throne, I think they would favour Jon alone (or you know, married to someone who isn't a Targaryen conqueror).

And while Daenerys could absorb Jon's claim (and potential allies- though again, why would they support Jon x Daenerys over Jon on his own?) and make hers stronger by marrying him, she doesn't need him to lay claim to the 7 kingdoms either, what with her dragons and huge armies. Moreover, an "alliance" - if you can call giving up your kingdom as such - already exists with Jon seemingly having pledged himself to her and Daenerys naming him Warden of the North. She would have been better off marrying someone else to extend or strengthen her control over other regions and territories if there weren't so few candidates left on the show. The most logical way to strike an alliance would have been to marry Jon while he was KitN, pre parentage reveal, but for some obscure reason, the show completely bypassed this option.

But R+L=J turns everything upside down and Jon, once revealed as a trueborn Targaryen, would need to marry into a Northern house if he wants to keep/take back his kingship of the North. Marrying Daenerys would only strengthen his ties to the South and house Targaryen, which would be counterproductive and work against the desired outcome- uniting North & South or two major Houses.

In short, neither party would truly benefit politically from a marriage if Jon's parentage is made public and/or he ultimately loses the North, which is very likely. This is particularly true for Jon. Only Daenerys could somewhat profit from a political union but it would be at the risk of becoming Jon's queen consort in practice if not on paper (something I doubt she would accept) and, more importantly, it would be opening a whole can of worms given the stigma of Targaryen x Targaryen unions.

Because no matter of how (un)common and (un)acceptable avunculate marriages are in the universe of Westeros, Targ restoration fans usually ignore the fact that it wouldn't be just any nephew/aunt, it would be a full Targaryen union, which would have wholly different connotations for the people of Westeros given the fairly recent trauma of their reign. A reign that ended with a mad king whose madness is believed to be hereditary and blamed on generations of close interbreeding. I doubt the people of Westeros would readily accept a Targ power couple back at the helm if they have any say in it.

Plus, Daenerys' first impression didn't exactly help matters: a Targaryen conqueror with huge armies and grown dragons in tow who roasted a father and a son of a prominent House alive and destroyed the last harvest of the Reach in the beginning of winter and unwittingly handed over the greatest weapon of all times to their greatest enemy of all times and indirectly caused the Wall to fall and wants to marry her only other living Targaryen relative, of all people? The sense of déjà vu would be pretty disconcerting, to say the least.

These Pro-Targ fans also tend to dismiss the fact Jon & Daenerys are genetically closer to full siblings than aunts/nephews by claiming modern notions such as DNA conveniently have no bearing in a medieval-fantasy setting such as ASOIAF. In other words, people in-universe wouldn't realise or be bothered that Jon & Daenerys are more closely related (44-47%) than typical nephew/aunt (25%). I think they must have an inkling of the notion and dangers of consanguinity, however basic it may be, if cousin marriages are considered quite normal for the highborn while anything involving more closely related people is frowned upon or downright forbidden. As mentioned previously, even the two known cases of avunculate unions were between uncles and their half nieces, their degree of consanguinity being thus less than that of full uncle/niece and comparable to first cousins (12,5%). So people could at least vaguely understand that Jon & Daenerys share a higher degree of consanguinity than their relatedness would suggest.

All this begs the question; if GRRM wants the restoration of this dynasty and wants us to perceive this as a positive development, wouldn't he aim to improve it and stop the perpetuation of the very proclivity that precipitated their downfall and was at the root of so much suffering in Westeros? Would he "reward" an incestuous and destructive house by having it win out while others are extinct/on the brink of extinction?

If there is supposed to be a Targaryen reinstatement, there has to be a clean break from this dynasty's nefarious characteristics and habits i.e. imperialism, tyranny and incest. What would otherwise be the narrative point of Robert's (very justifiable) Rebellion and everything that unfolded in its aftermath? There should be some kind of progress. Jon & Daenerys, if they decide to take back the IT and get married after the R+L=J reveal, would mean regression. It would be synonymous with more incest, more super inbred and possibly cray-cray Targ heirs and more political (and genetic) isolationism. And with 2 grown dragons/WoMD (if they survive), their reign would equal more subjugation, intimidation and fear for the people of Westeros, even if Jon & Daenerys' initial intentions would be to create a new and better world. In other words, a repeat of everything that was toxic and problematic about the Targaryen dynasty. This scenario seems particularly unlikely when you take the author's personal anti-war/WoMD stance into account.

And lastly, this is what GRRM said about Targcest:

"The Targaryens have heavily interbred, like the Ptolemys of Egypt. As any horse or dog breeder can tell you, interbreeding accentuates both flaws and virtues, and pushes a lineage toward the extremes."

ASOIAF is a meditation on war, power and corruption but it's also a story about extremes --- wights/WW/Ice vs Fire/Daenerys/dragons, the inevitable clash and destruction they bring about and the importance of seeking balance, moderation and finding a middle ground in all things: justice instead of vengeance, sovereignty instead of oppression etc. Even Jon himself is the embodiment of the metaphorical balance between ice and fire. As such, the Targaryens/Targcest can be viewed as another extreme to be avoided. It's the antithesis of "balanced". What he says about accentuating both flaws and virtues is evocative of this famous passage:

"King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land." 

Some Targaryen fans like to think what the coin metaphor refers to is nothing but a myth but I would think the fact the author alludes to it in the above quote kind of refutes this theory. I also happen to think Jon & Daenerys each represent one facet of the coin. This analogy also effectively illustrates how unstable and inconsistent Targaryen rule truly was and could be again. Even if Jon & Daenerys end up being fair and progressive monarchs, what of their inbred children? On which side will the coin land for them? If there is anything Westeros needs after years of war waging, power struggles, political instability and the probably disastrous aftermath of the battle against the Others, it's consistency and stability.

Furthermore, the fact GRRM compares them to the Ptolemaic dynasty is not exactly a ringing endorsement. The Ptolemys were originally from Macedonia/Greece and ruled for close to 300 years over Egypt. Because they never deigned to mix their blood with outsiders and only wed brother/sister and occasionally uncle/niece and cousins, they never actually became Egyptian. Even Cleopatra was genetically Greek. They didn't assimilate with the local people, culture or language (Cleopatra being the only one who bothered to learn the language) and justified their incest by drawing comparison to Greek mythology and thus perceived themselves as Gods. The intermarriages also exacerbated feelings of jealousy and rivalry. Complot and murder within the family were a common occurrence. Aside from a couple of exceptions, they were quite inept rulers and the last +/- 200 years of their reign kind of sucked.

Sounds familiar? In broad strokes, this is pretty much a copy/paste of the history of the Targaryens. Does this sound like something we're supposed to root for? Their reign ended when Egypt submitted to Roman rule. And no, there was no Ptolemaic restoration.

#anti targaryen #anti targaryen restoration #aegony #anti jonerys #incest in asoiaf #anti targcest #fandom wank #jon snow #daenerys targaryen #an aegony political marriage #pre parentage reveal? sure. post parentage reveal? nope #got politics #got meta #parallels with irl history #*mine

[revolutionary-pirate]

Historical Figure Tag Game

Tagged by: @little-lion-rampant  and @sonofhistory Thanks for the tags!!  1. Who’s your historical person?

I honestly... don’t have one? I like too many people? But the first that come to mind are Richard Kidder Meade (because that’s who I’m known for and am writing a biography for) and John Paul Jones (because that’s who I last read about and am basing my graduation project on). I mostly think in groups, though. The Aides-de-camp and the Continental Navy are my historical faves in general. My bio on Meade is just a part of my grand project to one day complete a full and fleshed out account of all of Washington’s aides-de-camp (especially the lesser known ones). I suppose I’ll simultaneously talk about Richard Kidder Meade and John Paul Jones cuz I can’t decide between the two. [I’m probably one of the only people on earth that knows Meade well enough to do something like this for him now that I think about it xD]

2. What is it about them that draws you to them like a magnet?

For Meade, it’s his obscurity. He’s a mystery. There isn’t a whole lot about him out there, but a lot more than I was lead to believe there might be. But even despite everything I know about him, It’s hard to know him. I can tell you what he was involved in, but I can’t tell you what he specifically did while involved with it or why he became involved at all. I can’t tell you what he thought about things and what was going on 98% of the time. I can speculate about his beliefs and reasons all day by looking at the people he surrounded himself with, but, in the end, I still know nothing because They’re not Him. I might know his story but it’s impossible to actually know him and that is frustrating as all hell. He’s A puzzle that’s missing 90% of its pieces. John Paul Jones is one of the most mythologized figures of the American Revolution, second only to George Washington himself. He is also a magnet for misfortune. I’m a sucker for tragedies and rags to riches underdog stories and Jones is both of those things at once. He was able to rise above his circumstances to fame and riches but plummeted back down into obscurity - never achieving his life goals. He’s also a walking contradiction, a man always at war with himself, who he was vs his ideal image of himself and who he wants to be and I find that to be fascinating. The misfortunes of his life also draw my attention. So many things went wrong in his life and looking at the whys is simultaneously fascinating and frustrating. To tangibly see how he changed over time because of these failures, wrongs, and slights is an intriguing study. His life, in general, is just interesting and dynamic to me. There are constant highs and lows and you never know just what to expect when first reading about him.

3. Favorite thing about them?

My favorite thing about Meade has to be his kindness, patience, consideration, and genuineness that’s balanced perfectly by a dry/condescending sense of humor that I wish there were more examples of. My favorite thing about John Paul Jones has to be his persistence. In the face of repeated slights and backstabs, he kept pressing forward. He believed so much in his vision and in the cause of the Revolution that he refused to hesitate or back down in the face of his misfortunes. His endless pursuit of a better version of himself and his attempts to correct his flaws sits in the same vein as that. Every time he stumbled and reverted back to his incredibly flawed self, he picked up and tried again. Granted, a part of his persistence lies in the fact that he wanted to be remembered for something. “My desire for fame is infinite” he once wrote. He wanted fame because without it? He was no one. He was a Scottish servant boy living a false life under a false name and trying to be someone the world told him he couldn’t be. So he had to be persistent in order to stay ahead of the looming fear that he would die a forgotten man.

4. Least favorite thing about them?

My least favorite thing about Meade would be the fact that he owned slaves, but that feels like a cop-out answer to me. So another one of my least favorite things about him is that he hardly ever wrote things down. He seems like he never wrote about his opinions on paper if he could avoid it. Too many times have I read what was, in essence, “I’ll talk about it when I see you next.” He was incredibly prudent when it came to the written word, knowing that there was always a chance that a letter could be intercepted or read without his consent. He also, admittedly, wasn’t a fan of writing letters. So, he either kept his opinions to himself or only voiced them in private conversation. This, of course, means that I know next to nothing about his opinions, beliefs, and experiences. Then again, not many of his letters have survived in general. Some of the ones that I have found were lengthy and honest, like his letter to Hamilton in January of 1781. Or his letters to Theodorick Bland and his brother, Everard after the battle of Great Bridge. The latter two, however, were written before he was acquainted with the intrigues and politics of war and the former was written after he’d already left the army and wasn’t sure he’d ever see Hamilton again. So it can be argued that his prudence extended only to his time as an aide-de-camp. Regardless. He rarely wrote things down and I hate it. But the slave thing again. If Meade could fucking afford to give away so much of his money to charity and to help all the poor and needy in his community and lived like he himself was poor and made everything on-site instead of purchasing it, he probably could have fuckin afforded to manumit his slaves and then hire them to work for him if he was so concerned about them finding work in Virginia or getting forced back into slavery by some asshole who decided to claim they were a runaway. I don’t care that he never made them do anything that he himself wasn’t prepared to do alongside them and that he continued to work with them every day until his body started to fail him - he still fuckin owned them. That’s not cool. The least he could have done was tell his wife to manumit them when she died (she wrote in her will that the slaves were to be allowed to choose which of the children they wanted to go to. I have no idea which they chose. Hopefully, it was one of the kids that went on to free slaves and be an abolitionist). He treated his slaves so well that his daughter, Anne, didn’t realize slavery was a disgusting institution until she married a man who owned 400 which is, like, bravo on Meade’s part for being so great to his 19 but also somehow shittier because his kids didn’t think that there was much of anything wrong with the institution and he never taught them otherwise. Meade was an abolitionist(TM) and needed to be an Abolitionist.

My least favorite thing about John Paul Jones is his Brittle Ego and the fact that he got to a point where he stopped making friends and only took lovers because he could no longer trust anyone. He had felt betrayed so many times that he gave up on people ever being genuine with him and that’s just... it’s sad. He got so paranoid and convinced that everyone was out to get him that he pushed everyone away because of it. The only person he ever trusted, the person he considered to be his best and only friend... betrayed him and turned his back on him (and it wasn’t even his only betrayal. Jones never learned that his ‘friend’ was a British Spy feeding the enemy all of Jones’s plans and schemes from the beginning and was probably never his friend at all) and that was one of the last straws for Jones. Even the people who were genuine with him ended up hurting him in some way and he was unable to forgive them for it. Even if what they did was an effort to look out for him, was something outside of their control, or was just them trying to do what was best for him, he saw it as a complete and utter betrayal. Like it was them turning their backs on him just like everyone else. It was that tendency of his that I hate. His fragile ego, large but haphazardly built. He was insecure, constantly in need of validation, and always spinning the story in his favor in an effort to save face. He was constantly complaining about this thing or that thing (he also offered solutions to those things he was complaining about that everyone ignored because they didn’t care) and he was honestly an exhausting human being to be around at times. The thing about him, though, is that he was aware of that. He was aware of his faults and he was sickened by them but, try as he might, he could not overcome them. Benjamin Franklin once wrote him a scathing letter telling him to shape up and get over himself. Jones was hurt by it at first, but he ultimately took it to heart and tried. Tried so fucking hard because Franklin was like a father to him and he trusted his judgment... but he'd always end up back at square one: hurt, tired, miserable, brooding, and alone with all of his inner demons. Jones needed to stop blaming everyone for things that were outside of their control, blaming other people for things that were his fault, give credit where credit was due, and calm the fuck down and learn to let some things go. (And he tried. tried all of those things. made efforts to do all of those things... but people made that pretty difficult when they didn’t return the favor).

5. If you could fix one thing for them?

The one thing that I would fix for Meade would be him getting to see Alexander Hamilton at least one more time before both of them died. Ideally, they’d get to see each other frequently... if not all the time. The Meades and the Hamiltons would get to go on double dates together like they joked about. Anne and Philip would get together and maybe even get married someday like they hoped they would. Betsy and Molly would get to be best friends. I, just, UGH. I think about those letters all the time and I just want a happy Hamilton and Meade post-war friendship just like the one that they dreamed they could have. Gaaaaah. For Jones, I just want him to be happy. John Paul Jones x Happiness is one of my OTPs. So I'd give him a ship - a fast ship, not a crank ship like all the ones Congress gave him, but a fast ship to sail into harm’s way with and that ship would come with his best first lieutenant, John Rathbun. His perfect balance. The man was a skilled First Lieutenant who knew what he was on about, smoothed out all of Jones’ harsh edges, calmed Jones’ temper when it began to rise, and also served as the perfect mediator/buffer between a captain like Jones and his crew without ever putting Jones’ authority into question. I’d make sure that, no matter what, Jones never lost Rathbun again because while Rathbun was there... Jones was happy. So if I can’t give him a ship... I would still give him Rathbun and, through Rathbun, Jones would have a mostly cooperative, loyal, and content crew and that’s all I ask for. Jones reflected that the happiest time of his life was when he was sailing aboard the Providence with Rathbun and their crew, which was the best he’d ever had, and I just want him to have that back. 

6. If you could change their history, would you? If so, what?

This question is pretty in-line with the previous one. Are we talking about childhoods? I’m going to assume childhoods as being like their ‘history’. With Meade, nothing comes immediately to mind. I don’t really know enough about his childhood, really. But with Jones, I would change the fact that his father locked him inside of a glorified shed with no explanation or real reason to do so aside from wanting to make a sarcastic jab at their master about symmetry? Like, what the fuck? Little J.P. Jr. did nothing wrong??? He had no idea why his dad did that to him??? He was so confused????

If we’re talking about life in general. I would tell Jones that he needed to be nice to John Adams and that John Adams was not, in fact, out to get him like he was convinced he was. And then I would tell John Adams that he needed to be nice to Jones and that Jones was not, in fact, plotting against him like he was convinced he was. And then I would make them be friends so that they could build a navy together because they were pretty much the only two people in the entire god damn country that gave a shit about building a Navy in America and if they would have just, you know, worked together maybe Jones would have achieved his dream of playing a part in America becoming the naval power of the world in the near future and of becoming an admiral. WhICH IS ANOTHER THING? The fucking Jackass!!!! The guy who was #1 on the Navy commission list!! James Nicholson! That Asshat who did nothing to deserve or maintain that position!! I would prevent him from learning that Jones was lobbying to be made Admiral of the Continental Navy (which was a rank still unassigned) so that he wouldn’t be able to walk into congress one day, tell them not to do it because Jones was x.y.z. and causing Congress to nope the fuck out of there because they didn’t want to be caught in the middle of a feud between captains. And then maybe give Jones a commission as Admiral. But, in the end, the way it worked out was probably for the best? Because Jones probably would have made for a shitty Fleet Admiral. He did not have the temperament for it. But it’s what he wanted? So now I’m torn. John Barry was a better option than him, really (which is why Barry became the first Admiral of the U.S. Navy) Regardless, changing history is a no no in any situation because the ripple of those changes may cause some unforeseen changes down the line. So. yeah.

7. First thing you would say to them?

I’d probably say a greeting of some sort. Break the ice. Work my way to becoming a level 4-6 friend so that I can unlock their tragic backstories and gain access to the inner working of their minds. Learn about all of their hopes, dreams, fears, anxieties, desires, etc. from their own mouths and learn why they did the things they did and all of the fun stories. 

8. Bring them to 2017 with you... what does that look like?

With Meade? I honestly have no idea what that would look like. With Jones? He’d be thrilled that the US has the navy of his dreams, the naval academy of his dreams, the everything about the navy of his dreams because someone finally believed in him. Also, I’d tell Jones it’s okay to be Bi in 2017.

9. What WOULDN’T you tell them about the future?

I wouldn’t tell Meade that I’m writing a biography about him, that would be uncomfortable and awkward. I wouldn’t tell Jones that it took almost 200 years for America to appreciate him and that his fear of being forgotten and dying in obscurity came true. All he needs to know is that he’s a naval hero now.

10. Favorite story about them.

Meade was worried that his trusty black mare wouldn’t be able to hold up to the more rigorous riding duties his new station as aide-de-camp required of him. He decided that he would need another horse to rely on for sudden riding missions that required speed just in case because he didn’t want to push her too far. So in September of 1777, he asked his brother to send him one of his younger horses and requested a specific one that he believed should be good for the job, but then it takes almost a year for him to get this horse and he wrote his brother a couple times being like “...horse??????” When he finally got news that a man would be arriving with his requested horse in July of 1778, he got super excited and was anticipating the man and the horse’s arrival every hour. The horse finally arrived but it was injured/lame and sickly. He then spent time nursing this horse back to full health and taking care of it and it’s injuries himself until they were healed. Meade was not impressed with this new horses’ attitude, though. He ended up sticking with his trusty black mare, who had been able to get him out of many dangerous pinches with ease despite his former fears that she wouldn’t be able to handle it while he’d been waiting for the younger one to arrive. After years of war together, his old mare was handling the rigors of his position as aide-de-camp just fine so he continued to stick with her until the end of the war.

One of my favorite stories about Jones is the fact that he was the most wanted man in all of England and he just... walked into London? The guy he was traveling with was like “...I don't think this is a good idea. You know that everyone in England wants to see you hang, right?” And Jones was like “Well I have some secret letters to deliver to John Adams and I think I'll be quite alright.” So the guy reluctantly agreed and dropped Jones off in England.... and no one recognized him. The newspapers had distorted the image of “The Pirate” John Paul Jones so much that when the real man walked into London undisguised not a single person recognized who he was. They didn’t even realize he’d been there until he’d already left and arrived safely in France.

11. Reblog with a picture or painting or depiction of them.

There is nothing depicting Meade that has survived to this day (and potentially nothing ever made depicting him at all. Which is weird because both his older and younger brother had portraits done when they were 8-9 years old), but here’s a portrait of Jones painted in 1904 by Cecilia Beaux. His waist coat was actually White, not red. But I still really like it.

And here’s a copy of the bust of John Paul Jones made in 1780 that was the closest to capturing his likeness of anything else ever made of him during his lifetime and is the only thing that he was 100% satisfied with and wanted to flaunt to everyone. In the early 1900s, we were able to use the copy of the bust that he’d gifted to Jefferson to compare with his mummified corpse in order to confirm that the body they’d dug up from underneath a laundry mat in Paris was, in fact, John Paul Jones.

I’d tag others but I’m pretty sure that everyone I’d like to tag has either already done it or has already been tagged to do it. If you want to do it and haven’t been tagged, then feel free to claim that I tagged you and have at it! 

#tagged #John Paul Jones #Richard Kidder Meade #speculation #personal i guess? #idk #I'm going to go eat food now #i've been working on this since i woke up this morning. #there might be errors i did this all off the top of my head and then didn't check it over again #too hungry #I haven't eaten in 24 hours

[pupinpants]

Week 7 Lecture Reflection

Going to try something new, I’ll write my lecture notes throughout the lecture so that I won’t forget anything and will encourage me to take better notes.

Diffie Hellman Protocol:

We talked about keys lasts week is that the only way to authenticate someone is with a shared secret. Thus Diffie Hellman has a solution to share a secret without being close to each other.

It uses the concept of exponentiation (raising to the power) where (2^3)^7 = (2^7)^3. 

Vulnerability is a potential weakness and an exploit takes advantage of it. The type of vulnerabilities that we are interested in are:

Memory corruption- Changes the memory as a user. This includes buffer overflow which involves stack and heap.

Stack is a first in last out and is used for functions which may call other functions. The heap memory segment is an area of memory used for dynamic allocations,meaning that blocks of memory can be allocated and freed in an arbitrary order and accessed multiple times (Essentially dynamic memory and it’s different from stack since stack has fixed access last in first out). Integer overflow for example negative number in an unsigned integer will cause the value to become exceedingly large rather than become a negative number. 

Google hacking- Searching in google for format strings will show repositories that have those vulnerabilities. 

Format strings: C uses printf which is a function that expects a certain amount of variables to be passed in. It requires a format strings which is designed to identify other arguments such as printf(”%s\n”,”hello world!”). However, originally, individuals wrote printf(”helloworld!\n”).

Thus when you want to print our your name, you can add special characters in a format string. printf(”Richard %s”);. The %s will look into the stack and print it out. So with this in mind, you can try %x continuously which will display all the bytes in the stack and therefore it wil show all the functions in the system. It’s an informational attack but then you can try %n which will write to memory.

Swiss cheese analogy of safety is when there’s alot of holes in them, each slice of cheese will eventually have a hole that is aligned. 

NOP sled or NOP ramp is a sequence of NOP (no-operation) instructions meant to "slide" the CPU's instruction execution flow to its final, desired destination whenever the program branches to a memory address anywhere on the slide.

CVE is a national vulnerbability database which is the list of all bugs found. These include things like Heart Bleed, Dirty Cow, WannaCry etc.

OWASP top ten is a list of common vulnerabilities.

Assets is what we want to protect. For example, during the Cold War, the asset both countries that wanted to protect was man kind. 

How to identify assets:

Regularly surveying the values of people of the involved in what you are protecting.

Develop a sensible plan - well designed to tease this information out of them.

Periodically revice current list of assets.

Infosec courses all have standards and policies.

Exercise to think about- Property title database

Coke: Asset to protect is reputation. Coke actually has cocain.

Intagible assets- Not easily defend and objectively valued.

Mission Impossible- Triple encrypted.

Diffie hellman does not give authentication- it gives share secrets to open up confidentiality and integrity.

In the public space between user A and B. Need to agree with g = 5 and p - 17. Let’s say A = 3 and B = 7. Hence g^A % p for User A and g^B % p for User B. Send to public space and hence you don’t know their initial secrets. However, the value can be from many different secret keys. Hence it is vulnerable to man in the middle attack since it doesn’t provide authentication.

How to detect man in the middle:

Find a way to avoid requesting the public key. Thus PKI comes in.

Web of trust- Open source with reviews

PKI- Public Key. When we are communicating through SSL/TLS. It’s like a passport as it links the photo to the name. Thus it links its public key to something and is certified by someone that it trusts. SSL is the public key of the signer which is who checks if someone is certified. Thus whoever has an SSL, is usually trust worthy. Thus it’s a method of an authenticator.

Nobody can send fake key by website as the only public key they accept is from the SSL.

It was the blockchain of 2000s.

Certificate authority can be bought with money. Hence, bribery can occur and thus bogey websites can also have certified keys. 

Companies for CA can be hacked and thus could be breached and falsely provide certificates. Hence many issues with PKI.

Conflicts of Interests.

However for ten years now, people have been pushing extended verification where there is a certificate authority for CAs as well. generates more money for CAs.

Extended verification can be seen when the URL itself is green.

Self signing.

Safety vs Identity as PKI is more about showing identity rather than providing any real safety

Homework- How does TLS handshakes work

Read Bruce Schneiers paper on pki

Research about the use of session keys rather than RSA.

Find examples of fradulant certificates being issued.

Afternoon 6841 things:

Fuzzing - technique to look for bugs

repeatedly give input to program to monitor for unexpected output.

American Fuzzy Lip

Used for C programs

AFL keeps generating input

DEMO:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/28/root_access_bypass_macos_high_sierra/

Pentesting:

-is an authorised simulated cyber attack on a computer system to evaluate security risks.

Test is performed to identify both weaknesses (also referred to as vulnerabilities) as well as strengths.

Types of attacks: Data breach, ransomware

Steps of Pentesting:

Recon

Planning

Exploitation

Post Exploitation

Additional certification- OSCP

Tools - Metasploit, Burp, WireShark, Kali, nmap

NMAP- Used for exploring networks, perform security scans, network audit, finding open ports on remote machine.

Kali - A lot of available tools in Kali

Metasploit

Gobuster- Bruteforce for the actual server in which we usually can’t usually find.

HOMEWORK:

How does TLS handshakes work and also Research about the use of session keys rather than RSA:

TLS is an encryption protocol designed to secure Internet Communications. A TLS handshake occurs when the user navigates through a website in HTTPS and requests for certain information. This begins a TCP connection in which both communicating sides (the user and the server) will be exchanging messages to acknowledge each other. It is essentially a TCP connection however they will also agree upon encryption algorithms and session keys.

An example of what happens:

1. Client sends a Syn packet for synchronisation (Open communication between user and server).

2. Server responds with an acknowledgement to the Syn packet (SYNACK)

3. Client acknowledges that SYNACK and sends a “hello” message which includes things like what the TLS version the client supports, the cipher suites supported and a string of random bytes known as the “client random”.

4. The Server replies to the hello by sending the SSL certificate, the server’s chosen cipher suite and the “server random” which is another random string of bytes generated from the server.

5. The client then acknowledges the certificate and thus processes the authentication of the certificate to see if the server really is the server they want. They then send another random string of bytes to the server which is encrypted with a public key and can only be decrypted with the private key by the server. This will utiliise the Diffie Hellman handshake protocol.

At the same time, it also starts generating a session key.

6. The server decrypts the string of bytes with their private key and use that to generate a session key. Then both the server and client send each other a “finished” message with the session key.

7. The handshake is complete and now communication begins utilising the session key.

Read Bruce Schneiers paper on pki:

Risk 1: Why do we trust the Certificate Authority? They don’t encrypt anything, only provide a statement saying that something is “trusted”

Risk 2: Is there any way to protect your side and the private signing key you use?

Risk 3: Certificates don’t encrypt anything and don’t stop  hackers. Even with the green lock to make it look “safe” how do I know that the other side is not compromised?

Risk 4: How do I know if the Certificate authority is who I want it to be? Many organisations with similar names and hence could effect trustworthiness.

Risk 5: Does the CA provide authentication for the certificate itself?

RIsk 6: Is the user part of the security design? Is the user required to do anything more with the certificate or are they even clued in about the certificate itself.

Risk 7: Does the CA have an authority that confirmed it as well?

Risk 8: How does the CA find or determine their certificate holder?

Risk 9: How are the security practices for the CA?

Risk 10: Isn’t CA redundant anyways since there are so many flaws in it regardless?

Find examples of fradulant certificates being issued:

https://www.wired.com/2013/01/google-fraudulent-certificate/

Google’s Chrome web browser detected a certificate impersonating google.com to cause a “man in the middle” attack. It was used for a Turkish government agency in order to get log in passwords.

[swissmissficrecs]

Fics Set in the TAB Universe

Fics set in the TAB universe    

These are BBC Sherlock fics set in the universe of the Victorian parts of ‘The Abominable Bride’, not to be confused with fics based on the ACD book canon or any other Victorian-era adaptations.

The fics are grouped here by ship, and listed by length within each pairing. All fics are complete except as noted.

Johnlock

Upon Whom Shall You Call? by May_Shepard. Explicit, Johnlock, 33K. In the two years since the loss of his friend Sherlock Holmes at Reichenbach Falls, John Watson has tried his best to move on. When his maid, Jane, reports hearing noises in the attic of John's house, he begins to hope that Holmes means to contact him from beyond the grave. Unprepared for dealing with the realm of spirits, John agrees to consult with four lady scientists, who promise to use their groundbreaking technologies to help him deal with that which haunts him.

Your Bed Should Be A Refuge by TooManyChoices. Explicit, Johnlock, 11K. Sherlock and John finally face their mutual attraction, but is it too late? John’s married (and happily so). Is there any way that John can have it all?

Impulses by Junejuly15. Mature, Johnlock, 6K. Sherlock and John’s talk about ‘impulses’ in The Abominable Bride’ was touching and rather interesting. This is my take and one possible outcome when John and Sherlock talk about feelings and impulses, and maybe act on them, too…

five times sherlock holmes lied to john watson (and one time he finally told the truth) by miss_frankenstein. General, Johnlock, 6K. “Something in Wilde’s persecution has touched a nerve in Sherlock – snapped that tenuous thread of hope holding him upright – and it feels as if he has taken to bleeding internally.” Set in “The Abominable Bride” universe, this piece adopts a familiar format to chronicle Sherlock’s quiet suffering in the wake of the 1895 Oscar Wilde trials and the particular way they affect his relationship with (and feelings for) John.

Matters of the Heart by VictoriaAGrey. Mature, Johnlock, 4K. After Watson moves back into 221B, Holmes is presented with a case that makes Watson reconsider the nature of their relationship. ///Assume this takes place in the Victorian world Sherlock envisioned in TAB and you’re good to go.///

We Survived by girlofthemirror. Explicit, Johnlock, 3K. Answering two of the important questions left from The Abominable Bride….. 1. When Dr Watson was talking to the paper vendor - where did Holmes poke him to make make him jump so much? 2. When they got back to Baker Street - what was in the hat box? This is celebratory, thesis submission smut. I do hope you enjoy it.

The Greenhouse Affect by sherlock_addict. Explicit, Johnlock, 3K. I am sure the ghost bride appeared enough time later to let the boys finish what they had started. My version of the events that took place in the darkened greenhouse. Smut on its way, you’ve been warned!

Like that wound of mine, Of which none knew by Solitary_Endeavor. Mature, Johnlock, 3K. Holmes wouldn’t be able to help himself, he never could, when it came to John.

The Trial of Sherlock Holmes Series by jenna221b. General, Johnlock, 3K. Scripts based on speculation that Sherlock will be put on trial in The Abominable Bride to parallel the Oscar Wilde Trials of 1895.

Always Wrong, Never Wrong by redscudery. Explicit, Johnlock, 1K. When Sherlock says “Correct me, Doctor”, he means “Please pull my hair and make me come in my fine linen drawers.” John is only too happy to oblige.

One Beard and Two Moustaches by JohnlockInferno. Teen, Johnlock, 1K. Holmes & Watson have a problem. So does Molly. They fix it. Inspired by The Abominable Bride.

Fem!Johnlock

Bloody Balzac! by okapi. Teen, Fem!Johnlock, 17K. Genderswapped Holmes/Watson. Canon-based hijinks.

Indigo by okapi. General, Fem!Johnlock, 1K. Sherlock receives a belated birthday gift from John. Inspired by the blue dressing gown from “The Abominable Bride.”

Viclock

Any Port in a Storm by dioscureantwins. Mature, Viclock, 8K. No, he really should let Trevor run ahead with his dastardly plot and merely twist and knot the manoeuvre into the rope for the rascal to hang himself with.

Sheriarty

Crossed Your Mind (Like a Bullet) by PoppyAlexander. Explicit, Sheriarty, 10K. On six occasions, Moriarty visited Holmes’s manly-smelling rooms, and wanked to the smell of his hair oil on the pillow of his surprisingly comfortable bed.

Distraction by fiveainley_ohmy. Teen, Johnlock, 0.8K. Or, an alternate way the gun blowjob scene I MEAN Holmes vs Moriarty scene could have gone.

Holmescest

Sins of the Flesh by daasgrrl. Explicit, Holmescest, 1K. He stands once more in the Stranger’s Room at the Diogenes, afternoon sunlight filtering weakly through the windows. Dust motes swirl in the shafts of light, the remnants of dead things. Dead hopes, dead dreams, dead desires. Holmescest meta in the form of fic. May be read as a coda - possibly AU - to The Abominable Bride.

MorMor

I’ll Be Your Number One With A Bullet by pocket_companion. NR, MorMor, 1K. The waterfall scene from The Abominable Bride - with one, significant change: Instead of Jim Moriarty gaining power over Sherlock Holmes, it is the other way around. Fortunately, a pretty damn clever handyman reaches the scene just in time…

Mystrade

Share the Stars with You by EventHorizon. Mature, Mystrade, 237K. Set in Victorian times, we find Mycroft as a sedentary man of wealth and power and Greg as an explorer, a true man of action.  Given their opposite natures, could it be these two might actually achieve the one thing neither has ever thought possible - finding someone to love?

Mollstrade

The Case of Doctor Hooper and Inspector Lestrade by Sapphire_Princess. Teen, Mollstrade, 17K. Inspector Gregory Lestrade liked Doctor Hooper and found that the more he spent time with him, the more he wanted to do so. But he wasn’t naive - not in the way Sherlock Holmes thought he was, and he was unfailingly honest with himself. His growing attachment to Doctor Hooper shouldn’t go any further than it had already. Equality for the sexes was one thing, this was quite another.

Mollcroft

Loosening the Strings by bookjunkiecat. Mature, Mollcroft, 2K. It is 1895, London is still firmly ruled by Victorian morals, and women are very much a second class. Molly Hooper has been living a lie for years, presenting herself to the world as Doctor Milton Hooper. Only one man knows her secret, and every Tuesday afternoon she and Mycroft Holmes explore their boundaries together.

Sherlolly

And A Garden, Drenched In Delights by hobbitsdoitbetter. Mature, Sherlolly, 45K. Holmes has always appreciated Hooper’s intellect; It takes a clever woman to fool him, after all. But when he discovers her rather… unladylike reading habits he finds himself distracted beyond all reason: After all, though she pretends to be a man she is a woman, sweet and docile as all her kind are… Isn’t she? So why is she reading contraband books? And why oh why does it bother him so bloody much? AU Abominable Bride Universe, pretty much an excuse for smut.

A Marriage of Minds by Carice. Sherlolly, 13K. I loved 'The Abominable Bride' and our Victorian Holmes and Hooper, so decided to allow myself a little carrying on of the story for Molly. It interested me to think about how things would be for her once she had 'outed' herself to Holmes and the Watsons, as a woman. I guess this is AU because in my story it's genuinely Victorian and not a figment of modern Sherlock's mind. In terms of Molly's role at Bart's as a woman, female doctors, etc. I have not worried too much about period detail because if Moffatt/Gatiss can play around with the timing of the Suffragette movement for dramatic purposes, then I reckon I can be a bit cavalier with some details too.

The Adventure of the St Bartholomew Vampire by darnedchild. Mature, Sherlolly, 19K. Bodies that had been found drained of blood are mysteriously disappearing from the morgue.  Could it be the work of a vampire?  Or is there something even more sinister stalking the dark streets of London? - Written for the Halloween at 221B - A Sherlolly Celebration Fest.  A Victorian vampire story written in several short chapters.

Victorian Secrets Series by MizJoely. General to Explicit, Sherlolly, 13K. Victorian Sherlolly fics and ficlets.

Holding On To You by MangoMartini. Explicit, Sherlolly, 7K. “If I didn’t know any better, Mr. Holmes,” Molly smiles, “I would think you are trying to take advantage of me.” Holmes doesn’t move away. The corners of his lips quirk up into a smile that becomes a laugh that becomes the press of his forehead against hers. She can feel, vividly, the places where his forehead presses against the fringe of the wig. “If I had known that in order to take advantage of you all I had to do was offer you some cocaine, I would have done so years ago.”

Marry Me, Obviously by surrenderdammit. Teen, Sherlolly, 5K. Or, “surrenderdammit’s self-indulgent Victorian!Sherlolly fic”. What is the price of getting Sherlock Holmes to help a hostile morgue director with a secret to hide? “The price, Doctor Hooper, is the truth,” Holmes declared after a few moments of silence. Gesturing for him to sit, Holmes settled down on his preferred armchair and reclined. “I cannot offer my help and discretion if I don’t know exactly what this secret is, lest I end up inadvertently aiding you in whatever sinister business you are hiding.” Taking a deep breath, Hooper nodded. “I suspected as much, though I had hoped I could avoid it. Well, Mr. Holmes….My blackmailer is a man named Thomas Benton, and he wishes to…marry me.”

A Letter to Mary Series by darnedchild. General, Sherlolly, 3K. A short ficlet for Sherlolly Appreciation Week 2016 - Day Two (Canon Compliant - The Sherlock Special (TAB))

A War He Must Lose by Writingwife83. General, Sherlolly, 2K. Molly Hooper believes London can no longer hold a place for her after the things she'd recently done, but Sherlock hopes he can change her mind.

New Beginning by Dreamin. Teen, Sherlolly, 1K. Holmes has a realization about Hooper.

The Work by DamselInDeduction. General, Sherlolly, 1K. “Dr. Hooper, The Work is what sustains me. Without it, I would have no purpose and I’m not sure what my life would become. And that Work is incomplete without you and all you have done for me. ”

Warstan

The Case of the Abominable Bride by Radar_Girl. Teen, Gen, 35K. The Abominable Bride story, but in this version it’s John who’s dreaming of the 19th century. There will be differences in how he views the Victorian world and its characters. He still has to figure out which world is real, how to fix his marriage, save Holmes from drugs and Moriarty, and solve the case of the Abominable Bride. And if he can wake up, where and when will he be? (Hint:not on a plane). Don’t worry, John loves this sort of thing.

Gen

It’s About Time by midnightsnapdragon. General, Gen, 2K. Even when his work brought him to the morgue, and he was met with contempt and a scathing remark, even when Lestrade made a point of forcing her to cooperate, it was a little while before the renowned detective took the trouble to give Dr Hooper a proper once-over. (The church scene in “The Abominable Bride”, from Holmes’s point of view.)

Lessons Learned by sfmpco. Not rated, Gen, 1K. When Billy steals from Mrs. Hudson, it is Sherlock he must face to deal with the consequences.  What Sherlock learns, however, is far more valuable.  Based on the portrayals in THE ABOMINABLE BRIDE but pre-TAB.

#rec list #tab #other pairing

[livingwithashipname-blog]

Ermanda's Inner Sanctum: Scorpion 3.17 "Dirty Seeds, Done Dirt Cheap"

This is a really great episode!  It is all about the cyclone.  Ray comes back to troll Cabe in his hallucination.  Happy keeps breaking our hearts.  Toby kills us with his fluffy, romantic self.  Young Happy and Toby will be with us forever!  Ralph is a darling!  Walter and Paige amuse me to no end.  Callie makes me smile!  And Sly makes me wish I lived in West Altadenia so I could vote for him.  He throws down the gauntlet and I am so proud him!  As great as the episode is, it is a victim of “too many elements” and some great dialogue is cut that would have melted us even more if we weren’t at that point already!  There are so many things to discuss!  It all centers around the episode’s core message on the relationship between logic and fear.  Let’s get to it!

Waige: Toby and Ralph

The episode’s theme is first explained through Ralph’s conversation to Toby about Walter and his mother in the midst of his history lesson.  Ralph sounds like hallucinatory Walter from 3.03 It Isn’t the Fall that Kills You.  He knows the logical plan is for Walter to ask Paige out, but that didn’t happen.  He hopes that Walter’s ability to use logic to beat a fear of snakes can extend to his fear to romantically pursue Paige.  Toby explains that this is a possibility, but concludes that Walter and Paige are likely going to remain friends.  I suspect Toby comes to this conclusion given everything that has happened between Walter and Paige since she started dating Tim.  Walter would need a bold, respectable move to change the course of events.  Even Veronica, with her wacky plan, tells Walter that he has to think of something because Tim is “planting roots.”  Toby is doubtful that Walter is capable of working past that fear and coming out successful.  The last time Walter tried he hurt Paige in the process.  Toby is also aware that this is in addition to a series of opportunities that we’ve seen as the audience since season 1.  So his statements to Ralph are likely said to protect him.  This is unfortunate but understandable.  

So Ralph seems to be the only person actively captaining the Waige ship right now because they feel like Toby or are busy invested in their personal relationships.  Let’s all give a collective “Aw!”  On another note, I am laughing out loud at the visual in my head thinking about this because I am a Deadliest Catch fan.  I have this vision of Ralph driving one of those crab boats, named Waige, in inclement weather! 😂😂😂😂😂😂

Paige’s Internal Conflict

The secret is out!  Walter is on an apology tour.  The team is all like, “say what now?”  Kudos are given to Paige for getting Walter to do something that, in Happy’s words, is a sign of the apocalypse.  Lol!  This is good news since Walter and Paige have renewed their friendship.  They are spending time together like they have in the past.  And it seems as if this has inspired Walter to jump onto an accelerated path to improvement.  

Paige is in mother mode when it comes to the froyo.  No desserts before lunch children! 😂😂😂😂  As she places the items in the fridge, Toby approaches, or shall I say scares her, to commend her on the adjustments she has made with Walter.  But before he speaks, she assumes that Toby is coming to tell her something about Walter and her spending more time together.  She is mildly surprised when he doesn’t say that.  Yet, we all can see that Toby is also trying to butter her up to get his froyo!  😂😂😂😂

This exchange with Toby is another depiction of Paige’s hesitations that started in season 2 but are more apparent in season 3.  The most notable examples are 3.01 Civil War with Tim, 3.05 Plight at the Museum with Toby, 3.14 The Hole Truth with her mother, Veronica Dineen, and this episode with her own mind’s manifestations.  These moments highlight the episode’s theme, but the main component of that message is choice.  Walter has his emotional struggles, but some of his difficulties this season stem from his choice to ignore that which he already knows (e.g., episode 3.14).  Paige’s hesitations expose an internal conflict with her own choices.

I think it is interesting that Paige’s short hallucination is an image of Walter with another woman.  Isn’t this the first reason why she starts a relationship with Tim?!  Allow me to recall events that lead  into the Walter/Linda and Paige/Tim rooftop scenes of 2.22 Hard Knox.  Walter takes Paige’s advice to put himself out there and make new friends.  This manifests into speed dating as a social experiment and eventually dating Linda.  Paige doesn’t anticipate that Walter would take her advice in this manner.  Tim comes as a Homeland trainee assigned to Scorpion detail.  Paige spends time with him, but their relationship does not become official until that moment on the roof.  Walter breaks up with Linda after Toby reveals to him that her infatuation with him is a result of “damsel-in-distress syndrome.”  At the same time, Tim asks Paige out on an official date.  Before Paige answers, she looks at Walter and sees him sharing a laugh with Linda, which doesn’t look like a amicable breakup to her even though the audience knows otherwise.  The disappointment is shown in her facial expression.  She turns to Tim and accepts his request.  This link is about to come full circle.  If you have been following my reviews, then you are aware of the pattern that is unfolding.  If this episode on its own doesn’t give you a big hint about what is next for Waige, you must be sleeping!  THE WAIGE FLIP IS ON FIRE!!! 🔥🔥🔥 THESE ASSOCIATIONS GIVE ME LIFE! 🙌🏾🙌🏾 WAIGE IS ENDGAME YO! 💙💙💙💙

Immediately thought of this song!  I think it is fitting! 😂😂😂😂😂😂

Logic vs. Fear feat. The Cyclone

Cabe/Callie

Cabe: I don’t want to play this game.  Ray: Well, nobody does, but we all have to play it eventually, even badass, ex-football-playing Marines.

Cabe enjoys Allie’s company.  Their relationship is getting off to a great start, but he still feels uneasy about their age difference.  In addition, he really feels his age when he considers that he uses reading glasses.  He’s so insecure about these things that they mostly have dinner dates at places that match her vegan interests, Cabe supplements the loss of meat with beef jerky, and he accidentally orders unfavorable meals because he can not read the menu without his glasses.  (Side note: I am glad that Allie’s veganism is pushing Cabe to eat better because he was inching himself close to an MI with those meat-filled sandwiches he would make for Happy. Lol!)  So it is no surprise that his hallucination is a short version of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. 😂😂😂😂 He fears that his age will make him unwanted because he can’t keep up with the younger generation.  He is already a father figure to the team and multiple times the team has reminded him of his age when he drops pre-1980s pop culture references.  He has already felt the pressures of his age with Tim as a younger version of him and Walter’s speech in 3.12 Ice Ca-Cabes on how everyone is replaceable.

During his hallucination, Walter manages to get his attention by reminding him that his fear is not aging.  He fears weakness.  His age gives him a unique advantage and his headstrong personality pushes him to do anything he desires!  In result, Cabe mobilizes himself, drops the white hair and the age spots, puts on his signature glasses and flips the breaker!  The glasses bit is GOLD!!!  Reminds me of Horatio Cane from CSI: Miami and his sunglasses.

His path to enlightenment doesn’t stop in the vault.  When he sees Allie again at Sly’s debate, he asks her to accept him as he is.  Allie confirms that she is all in.  What a great win for Cabe! 

Sylvester & the W. Altadenia Alderman Election 

Patel: The matter at hand is taking private property to help, not the populace, but a big box store.  The kind of store grown-ups go to.  Sly: Yes.  I patronize the Warlock’s Chest.  I had a tough childhood, I was picked on.  Make-believe was my refuge.  I found solace amongst the fantasy and I would gather up my courage to face another day.  And trust me, when I was a kid, I needed courage just to show up at school.  And I need it now for my job.  But the difference is, with Scorpion, I have a team to help me remember that I can be brave.  And if the Warlock’s Chest will provide refuge for more kids who don’t know they’re brave yet, well… I want it to stick around.

Sylvester is really coming into his own as a politician looking to achieve the greater good for his county.  The chickens in his hallucination are both literal and metaphorical representations of a childhood memory.  Sly is a world class ornithologist, but he is terrified of birds (mentioned in 2.24 Toby or Not Toby).  This is why he asks Cabe to handle to falcon during the mission in 3.05 Plight at the Museum.  Sly is also a germaphobe and chickens have been known to spread disease.  Furthermore, the label “chicken” is thrown at those who fear confrontation.  Sly was bullied as a child and relives the fear of that moment when Bucky Hanson and other jocks locked him in a chicken pen.  But Sly is a man of facts.  Facts are his life!  When Paige reminds him of all the brave things he has accomplished with Team Scorpion, he comes out of hiding, moves his bully to the side, and moves a chicken out of the way to pull the lever.  Go Sly go!!!  The way he screams from the time he lifts the chicken to when he drops it is HILARIOUS!!!  At the debate, he applies the same lesson and creams Patel!  Sly is getting more people on his side each time he shows his courage.  His courage is giving him a voice and I love that we are seeing this unfold in Sly’s story this season! 

Walter & the Emotional Conundrum 

Walter: I don’t know how to talk someone out of being scared.  I can’t relate to that kind of emotion.  Paige: Really?  'Cause you seem pretty scared now.  Your biggest fear isn’t snakes, was it?  It’s problems you can’t solve.  Now do what you did with the yogurt guy, and put yourself in Cabe’s shoes.

This episodes features another moment where Walter uses what he knows in order to find a way to relate to emotions.  He just needs a push.  Holy character development!  As I have said in past reviews, he has the tools.  He just needs to unlock them when the time comes.  Therefore, it is possible that Walter can independently do this in some instances, gaining more experience each time he does it.  This links to what he says to Cabe about his age giving him knowledge, wisdom, and experience.  In that moment, he uses the feeling of powerless in encountering problems he can not solve with Cabe’s fear of weakness.  He has done the same in previous episodes (e.g., episode 3.14).  

His doubt in this moment also parallels Happy and her judgment of her own emotional capabilities and expectations.  One can say that this extends to Sly and Cabe too (when they’re not hallucinating), but here’s the difference.  When Cabe and Sly finally do something they thought they couldn’t, they do not doubt it later.  They recognize the change and use it to their benefit.  For example, Sly jumps off a boat in 1.16 Love Boat, which is something he never anticipated doing in his lifetime.  He was fearful, but he mobilizes himself and succeeds.  He does this again in 3.04 Little Boy Lost when he climbs over the silo’s railing to jump on canisters to pull Walter and Daniel to safety.  In the second scenario, Sly doesn’t say that he can’t do it.  He just whines a little about it and puts himself into action to save the day.  

Walter and Happy’s doubt have caused them to question pivotal moments in their lives.  This has affected their romances.  Walter walks away from the Tahoe situation, but Cabe gives him hope that self-improvement will give him a fighting chance if the opportunity to win Paige arises again.  He has struggled in this endeavor, but he is now gaining new ground.  For Happy, doubt is evident in her hallucination, which continues off of her development arc from 3.15 Sharknerdo and 3.16 Keep It in Check, Mate.

Happy & the Abandonment Saga

Dr. Curtis: I’m not sure about this.  You know, if I commit to her, I’m stuck with her for the rest of my life?  There’s got to be something wrong with her if she’s here, right?  Hallucinatory Happy: I try hard.  I’m just a little bit different from the other kids.  Dr. C: Well, I’m not so sure this will be the right fit.  HH: No, you promised to be with me for life.  You proposed to me.  Dr. C: Quick to anger.  Volatile.  I think I’d regret this decision.  Sorry, I… I don’t want her.  Not for me. […] HH: But I’m perfect for you.

This version of Toby is rigid and noncommittal.  Happy is envisioning Toby as a man who uses psychological logic to reject her for her differences.  THIS IS THE ANTITHESIS OF THEIR ENTIRE RELATIONSHIP!!!  Happy has experienced a lot of rejection.  Her father’s recent imprisonment feels like another wave of abandonment.  Yet, she finds happiness in her relationship with Toby.  When he accidentally flakes on a promise, Toby asks for second chance.  Happy gives it to him even though it took some time.  He consistently loves her despite her faults.  Happy notices that Toby is a chance at family and marrying him represents stability which he has never experienced with others.  She may be the world’s unfunniest person, but she makes Toby want to be a better man.  And she acknowledges that they are perfect for one another!  In essence, her doubts are like pre-wedding jitters that are projected onto Toby in this hallucination.  The realities of their relationship continue to manifest in Toby’s words to her through young Toby.  In the end, her dreams match reality.  Just… just call the morgue already!  I AM DEAD OVER ALL THE FEELS!!! 💕💚💚😍😍😍💀

Dannii (aka. @tobiasmquinn​) questioned Dr. Curtis’ outfit in Happy’s hallucination.  I first get Dr. Rizzuto vibes from the wardrobe, but the mannerisms of these two men do not correlate.  Dr. Rizzuto is witty and charismatic.  So I think the wardrobe is fashioned after Sigmund Freud who has several images of himself holding a cigar.  Plus, Toby dresses as a famous psychiatrist from the past each Halloween.

Drabbles…

Callie is killing me with their cuteness!

Can we take a moment to freak out over the open Quintis PDA in front of the team?! Happy has her legs crossed over Toby’s leg and Toby is resting his arm on them! 😍😍😍😍🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾

Scorpion trivia: The words “not good” are said by Happy in every episode.  Now Toby is the one to deliver it… love it!!!  More Toby being Happy! 🙌🏾

Happy (to Cabe): You don’t need to warn me about getting lost in a blizzard.  Been there, done that. 😂😂😂😂😂😂

Sly: Back away, hens.  I will deep-fry the lot of you. 😂😂😂😂😂😂

I died with Ray’s appearance in Cabe’s hallucination! That was perfect!

Have you seen the titles on the game show wheel from Cabe’s hallucination?!  They are hilarious!  Kudos to the art department!

Young Toby/Toby: You know who I am, and my biggest regret in life is that we really didn’t meet when we were eight because I would’ve fallen in love with you from that moment.  The truth is you’ve never been alone.  My love for you has always been there.  It just took a while for our paths to cross so I could share it with you.  And under all those neurotoxins in your head, you know I’m right.  You have nothing to be scared of, ever. 💚💚💚💚💚💚😍😍😍😍😍😍 *swoons forever*

The mother/son moments between Ralph and Paige in this episode are so sweet!  I love them! 💜💜💜💜

Walter: You are a military man, a government agent, someone who is strong for their friends, but when you fear weakness, you feel that you’ll lose your identity because of it, and the people that you care about, like Allie.  Is that right?  Cabe?  Cabe: God?  Is that you? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Walter: That’s because I’m worried about you, but I shouldn’t be because getting old is not a detriment.  It is a strength.  Now, with age, comes experience, knowledge, and wisdom.  What you’ve forgotten, others will never know.  Now what you’ve lived, others will only read about.  What you can do, others can only dream about.  Cabe Gallo is stopped by nothing.  Me: I’m not crying, you are! 😭😭😭😭😭👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾

Paige using her phone to grind the seeds… 😂😂😂 Total “make it work” moment! 👏🏾👏🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾

That fire is really pretty!  Excuse me, I was a chem major!  Lol!  But let’s clear up something here.  Oxygen is not flammable!  It’s not a fuel.  Toby states this as a potential danger in the episode.  The process that creates the fire is described correctly, but the designation is incorrect.  It’s a misnomer.  Probably done to save time considering that this moment is happening close to the 50 minute mark.  Plus, it is easier to communicate the danger of adding oxygen to a flame by making such a statement to a general audience who may not know this.  I know, I know… kinda weird for a show about geniuses, but everyone who watches this show isn’t.  

My only disappointments: 1) We didn’t see Riley Go as Young Happy in the middle of Happy’s hallucination.  2) Funky age moment… if Happy is technically 29 going on 30 now, then she should be 12 going on 13 in the year 2000.  However, she says she is 8 and Toby doesn’t make that adjustment because it’s not insinuated by his statement, “we just exited the 90s.”  The year (1996) was right in the sides.  Maybe this is done to save time or Toby made his statements to account for all the years Happy had been rejected for adoption.  3) I wish young Toby moved more in the scene to be a little more animated like adult Toby.  4) The line, “I know you’ll never let go,” was cut from the end scene.  I thought it was perfect and I am disappointed it ended up on the cutting room floor.  Maybe it was taken out because of time or because of what’s to come for Quintis in the season finale storyline.

Last edited: February 22, 2017

#ermanda's inner sanctum #cbs scorpion #s03e17 #dirty seeds done dirt cheap #scorpion cbs #team scorpion #episode review #livingwithashipname