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half-dead-ham · 1 year

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Friends of a future

Soooo, instead of making continuations of all of the rest of my fics, I have instead decided to write another plot bunny!

I think this'll be my last bit of writing for now, as I wanna prepare for ship week. I got a few interesting things planned for it, so keep an eye out for some cool fics!

Ao3; [here]

~~~~~

Danny didn’t know where he was.

Not that that was completely abnormal for him. He’d been tossed through enough portals and rips in space-time that at this point he didn’t question it too much. But this was a little different, if the similar consistency of smog and looming neomodern architecture was anything to go by.

Not to mention that this shift was completely out of left field, usually he had some idea of how he got to a different time and/or place. Danny did think his being here in what he could only guess to be a future Gotham had something to do with where he was before, at least. So what happened before?

Well.

Danny had gotten a call. A call from the Justice League. A call to help deal with one of Lex Luthor’s newest inventions to deal with Superman and his posse of super friends with some sort of annihilation ray. That was pretty normal, as Danny had been on the roster for about a year and a half by now.

They had beaten Luthor and his goons with only a little bit of a struggle, as alongside Danny, they had also called Shazam and a few other unorthodox heavy hitters to help deal with whatever Lex had up his sleeve. They had taken out Lex early on, and after they did the men Luthor had hired ran for the hills. Hopefully they still got their pay for this job.

What else… They had just regrouped, and were waiting for the B team to come and safely dismantle the device Luthor had paraded around when it went off… Oh.

It must’ve hit him.

Or he moved someone out of the way of the beam? Everything was a little fuzzy at that point.

What did Luthor say in his villain monologue about what his newest death ray did? Something about transferring particles to a dimension where they couldn’t arrange into anything of substance? Something along those lines. Maybe. Danny wasn’t really listening. But he does remember a stray magic blast hitting the machine, with some worrying sparks coming off it for a bit afterwards, so maybe its function was messed up a little because of that. Also Danny being made of an extradimensional substance that spans the multiverses might have something to do with it…

The pain in Danny's back flared, reminding him where he was currently. Right. Gray sky, smells of smog, tall glass buildings and flying cars, billboards for unrecognizable products. Focus Fenton, focus.

Reaching up, Danny grabbed the ledge of the crater he must’ve made as he fell. He sat up, noticing that he was currently on the roof of a building. Ancients, he hoped he didn’t have to pay for that. He peeled himself out of the Danny-shaped hole and stood, taking a better look astound with his better vantage. It seemed to be almost sunrise, if the mornings here were anything like the mornings in his Gotham, the smog that constantly covered the sky turning a lighter shade of gray to his right. So morning, maybe. New dimensions had weird natural laws sometimes, but for now let's go with morning.

The flying cars were new, nothing like anything Danny’s seen while universe hopping for the League or CW, so another checkmark for this being a reality he hadn’t been to yet.

Letting his feet leave the ground and turning invisible, Danny floated off the roof and towards the street below. Not many people were out walking at what he could only guess to be god awfully early, so the streets were quiet. The multi layered roads threw him off for a little, but he supposed if you had flying cars you didn’t really need roads. He wondered if this was actually the future, or if this was just some place more technologically advanced. (Did that matter? Was there a difference? Why was Danny so fixated on the fact there were flying cars here when he regularly meets with superheroes in a satellite?)

“Good morning Neo-Gotham! Beautiful weather we're having, expect partially cloudy with a seven percent chance of rain!”

Danny’s head snapped to one of the display TV’s on the other side of the street, the announcer reading off the morning weather report. The TV display gave him good information within a few minutes of listening in after moving nearer to it.

He was in Gotham, at least, a future version of it.

It was a Tuesday.

And he was at least thirty years ahead of his own time.

Thirty years… Danny shook his head, no time to run down the rabbit hole of where he and his family might be at this point. For all he knew, he might not even exist in this universe.

He flew straight up to better get his bearings. Even with the different look, Gotham was still familiar to him. Practically a third home away from home with how often he visited the city. A final look across the horizon and Danny started flying. There was one more thing he had learned from that TV.

There was a Bat in this Gotham too.

The trip to the Wayne estate was easy, though its look in this dimension was noticeably more gothic than the one he was used to. Even in the morning partial sun the house's figure cast an imposing shadow in the grounds. Still, the place said Wayine on the gate, so he knew there was someone in there he could plead his case to. Maybe he’d even get to see a grown up Damian. Now wouldn’t that be fun, a Damian Wayne all grown up and CEO of Wayne Enterprise. Danny had to snort at the idea.

He floated himself through the front door, taking a moment to observe the almost familiar surroundings. Everything was… off. It was like someone had someone read a description of the manor's interior, then built a new manor off the description alone. It was large, with cavernous high ceilings in neutral grays, with entrances leading off to a sitting room and study. There were stairs and a hallway leading further into the manor and to the second floor, and Danny knew if he phased down he’d find a bat-shaped secret hiding in the basement.

The whole place was eerily quiet though, and empty, and if Danny looked close enough he would be able to find dust on the frames hung on the walls. Alfred would never let it get dusty in here, and there would always be at least one person up by now. Maybe they’d all moved out? They weren’t really the ones he was here to see anyways.

Now… would a certain Bat be up and about in the cave by now?

Knowing Bruce, probably.

Danny let his feet drift to the floor, then through the carpet. He sank through the ground, until he hit the pocket of caves hidden underneath the estate, illuminated only by the monitor and display case lights of Batman’s souvenirs.

“Damn, even the cave got the uncanny valley treatment…” Danny grumbled to himself.

He must’ve come at a bad time, as just before he regained tangibility a batarang flew through him, rebounding on one of the stalactites behind him.

“Woah!” He exclaimed as he watched the throwing weapon clatter to the concrete floor. Danny whipped his head around to where the batarang had come from, only to see-

“Holy shit, you’re so old!”

A glower was all Danny received for his comment from the man sitting back down in his chair. The man -who Danny really hoped was Bruce, or his comment would be really insensitive- was built, wide in the shoulders and bulky, like he worked out regularly. Despite this he was hunched, shoulders slightly dropped as he held a cane in one hand. His gray hair and wrinkles made sense for his age, but Danny jokingly wondered just how early he had started getting that colour.

“Phantom,” Danny perked up at that. Bruce knew who he was, that was a good sign.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t come back to the mortal realm after you died,” Bruce added as he turned back to face the batcomputer.

That was… Damn.

… At least he knew there was another version of himself in this universe? Positive thoughts, Fenton, think positive thoughts.

“Yeah, uh, ‘bout that, Bruce…” The older man kept his chair at a half turn, keeping one eye on Danny from his periphery as the ghost descended to the floor.

Danny scratched at the back of his neck as he walked forward, stopping just far away enough that he wouldn’t make the bat overly paranoid. He didn’t know where to look as he explained this next bit, so he let his gaze wander over the memorabilia as he spoke.

“So I’m not the Phantom you know?” He started, getting a single raised eyebrow in response. “Like, I’m probably at least somewhat similar since you recognized me, but… Y’know… League stuff came up, and I got hit with something…”

“You’re saying that you are a Phantom from a different universe to this one, that was most likely hit with something that transported you here, to this dimension?” Bruce filled in. Danny smiled at that, letting his gaze rest on Bruce again.

There was one thing you could always count on a bat for; their sharp minds and ability to read inbetween the lines.

The half-ghost snapped his fingers and pointed at the seated bat, “Exactly!”

Bruce just narrowed his stare as he inspected the being before him, taking a more in-depth look with their decreased distance. One long inspection later and the bat finally asks, “Why do you think I can help you?”

Slightly confused, Danny deflated. “Uhhh, ‘cause you’re Batman? Even if you can’t help, there's still the League we can contact. One of the magic users has to have a spell that could send me back, right?”

Bruce swings his chair back to face the batcomputer, hiding his expression away from Danny's view.

“The League disbanded years ago, Phantom. I’m retired.”

“What‽” Danny exclaims. “How are you retired‽ Everyone thought you’d be the caped crusader till you keeled over, and even then you’d fight out of your grave if you had to!”

A huff was heard from behind the back of the chair. “I had a minor heart attack,” Bruce lied. Danny could smell the lie too, which meant that even for Batman it wasn’t good.

Danny sighed. As much as he knew that was a lie, he also knew that right now Bruce was the only one that could possibly help him at that moment. He didn’t know what had happened to the other members of the League, and if what the man in front of him said was true (and that is a very real possibility) he wouldn’t even have a good way to contact them if he tried. Danny could let a blatant lie slide if it meant getting help.

“Okay, so I got no Batman, no League, and no sure way to get home. My only options are to try a random portal in this dimensions’ Zone or wait to see if someone will come to my rescue.” Even as he mumbled them Danny knew neither option sounded good. Going into this dimension's version of the Ghost Zone would run the risk of not only him getting lost but also him finding himself from this universe. Danny didn’t know what this dimension’s version of him was like, but he could think of a few reasons for why he would swear off the mortal realm, none of which he particularly liked. As for getting lost…

But the ‘stay where you are till help arrives’ method might not work in his favor either, if it was just that one blast that hit him that was changed by the magic, and not the whole weapon. Using the thing again would run the risk of someone ending up in a dimension they couldn’t be in, a thought that did very unhappy things for his core. That leaguer would effectively die trying to save Danny, and it would eat him up inside if that ever happened. Even if they did manage to get someone to this dimension using the weapon, that still left them with no way out. The person that came here to get him would be stuck here, same as Danny, unless they come with a fix-it to bring them home too.

Who knows how long that would be in the first place. Days? Weeks?

“Phantom,” an unusually soft tone broke Danny from his thousand yard stare. The ghost refocused to see Bruce giving him an uncharacteristically soft look. He tried to give a smile to the old bat, but he was sure Bruce wasn't fooled by it.

“What’s up, B?” Danny asked with forced levity, to which the softness only grew.

“You don’t have to figure this out on your own, you know. I may not be Batman anymore, but that doesn’t mean I’m above helping someone in trouble.”

“Even for someone you don’t actually know?” Danny hated how wet his voice had suddenly become.

“If you’re anything like the Phantom of my universe,” Bruce gave a small grin. “Then I’d really just be returning the favour.”

There were things behind that smile, stories and memories shared with someone who shared Danny’s face. If it were anyone but Bruce offering aid like this Danny would almost say it was out of pity. But Batman didn’t pity people, not like this.

Danny chuckled wetly, clearing his throat before he spoke next. “Heh, you must be getting soft in your old age, B. I gotta remember to tease my Bruce about it when I get back.”

Bruce rolled his eyes at the joke as he hefted himself out of his chair. “Come on, Phantom,” he called behind him as he shuffled to the stairs. “We need to get your cover story set up.”

Danny just grinned away the damp in his eyes as he followed behind the older man, changing forms as he walked up the stairs.

~~~~~

Terry had just come through the door to Wayne manor when he heard a voice. It was unusual, as regularly he met Mr. Wayne in the cave or outside when he had to chauffeur him to Wayne Powers Enterprise. The voice sounded young, maybe just a bit deeper than his. Terry followed it through the halls, keeping quiet in case it was just some robber trying to make a quick buck of a billionaire's stuff.

“So you really think you can get paperwork for me while I stay here? Wouldn’t it be harder to forge an identity in the future than easier?”

“You’d be surprised, technology has only gotten easier to hack into as advancements continued, and Wayne-Powers is usually at the forefront of that development nowadays.” That was… Mr. Wayne? And he sounded almost… Happy? Terry turned the corner to the kitchen, very confused at the tone his employer was using for the unfamiliar voice.

Two heads turn to him from a small table by the window, two mugs of coffee steaming in front of them. Mr. Wayne was probably the most relaxed Terry had seen him outside of his public persona, just ‘cause he was sitting next to this, this, this guy.

The dude was tall, and skinny. But like, the kind of skinny you get when you run or swim a lot? The kind of skinny that gave a guy lean muscles, even if said dude was trying to hide those muscles under a baggy sweater and loose jeans. Honestly he looked like he came out of one of his mom’s old yearbooks, with the old clothes and haircut, would fit right in with kids from when she was young, it was weird. The guy looked him over, eyebrows raised in mild surprise before turning to Mr. Wayne, eyes still trained on Terry.

“So this is your new assistant? He looks… different to how I would imagine.” Terry bristled at the comment, and this guy just smirked at him in response! The nerve of this guy!

“Terry,” Mr. Wayne redirects his gaze warning laced in his tone. “This is Danny Fenton, he’ll be staying with me for the foreseeable future and starting as my bodyguard.”

Bodyguard? Bodyguard‽ Mr. Wayne doesn’t need a bodyguard! He was Batman! The guy could still throw Terry on his ass on a good day! Why would he hire this skinny dreg to be his bodyguard?

“Is this telling me you’re replacing me, Mr. Wayne? Cause I’m sure I can take this dreg any day of the week, just give me a chance!” Terry begged as the two sat at the table just looked at him. After a few beats Danny burst out laughing; fully clutching his gut, tears in his eyes, gasping laughing.

It was a little insulting.

“Ancients! Oh Ancients, it's just like what I heard about when Tim and Jason met! Holy crap!” Danny managed to squeeze out between gasps as Mr. Wayne pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. This didn’t relieve Terry, but it did make him so much more confused.

“Terry,” Mr. Wayne huffed as Danny’s laughter started to die out. “Danny isn’t replacing you, he has his own hero persona. He’s simply going to be staying with me until he’s able to return from where he came from,” He explains.

Well that was a relief, Terry dropped his shoulders as he relaxed slightly, still staring at the guy sitting with Mr. Wayne. Now Terry just had questions, like what did Mr. Wayne mean by ‘returning Danny to where he came from’? And who was Jason?

Mr. Wayne stood, moving to put his coffee mug in the sink for washing later while Danny took a sip of what was left in his. Silence fell on the kitchen then, Terry stewing in his questions, Mr. Wayne shuffled off to his study, leaving Terry and Danny in the kitchen alone.

“So,” Terry drawls awkwardly as he moves to take up the spot on the table vacated by his employer. “You’re a hero?”

Danny snorts into his mug, “Yeah, I am.”

“Anyone I know?” Terry asks curiously. He’d met a few heroes since he started working for Mr. Wayne, but someone matching Danny's ice blue eyes and messy black hair didn’t fit anyone he knew.

“Not likely,” Danny replied with a huff. “Apparently in this dimension I’m a dead recluse, so even if you had seen me, you wouldn’t’ve recognized me.”

… What?

“The hell you mean ‘I’m a dead recluse’? You’re either one or the other, no way you can be both.” A ‘dead recluse’ made zero sense, maybe he died a recluse? Or he’s so reclusive that everyone thought he was dead?

Dany chuckled at the face Terry was making, laughing at his confusion. “Oh no, I’m definitely both,” he remarked. “Or, well, just one right now, I haven’t gone recluse yet and I hope I don’t for a while.” He added, glancing away with a thoughtful expression. Terry just scrunched his face up.

“No offence, dude, but you don’t look dead?” Could he take offence to that? Terry didn’t know how someone could look so alive while dead (or is he just messing with him by saying he’s dead?) but Mr. Wayne had mentioned in passing a few of his old colleagues that have come back from the dead, so maybe it wasn’t that rare?

“Also that doesn’t really answer my question,” he adds. “You’re a hero, and I’ve met a few heroes, so do I know you? Or of you maybe?”

Danny tilted his head in thought, twisting his lips as he considered. Terry waited on baited breath as the teen across from him thought.

“I don’t know?” He finally landed on. “Not really sure what you’re learning in school here, so I wouldn’t be able to tell you.” Danny took another sip of his coffee with a shrug.

Well that was unhelpful.

Terry was starting to get a weird feeling crawling up his spine, like someone pressing ice onto his back. Was he imagining things, or was Danny breathing slow? And not just like really deeply or holding his breath, no, like really slow. He just watched Danny for a minute, trying to count the seconds between the other teens' chest movements.

Yeah, way too slow.

Trying to forget that he noticed anything, he looked up, only to notice his hair. It was swaying slightly. The window behind them was closed, and there wasn’t a draft in the kitchen. Terry looked away entirely then, thinking he may have stayed up too late after patrol last night if he was starting to see things.

“Okaaayyy,” Terry drawled, deciding that just looking at the guy was gonna make him question his sanity. “Who’s Jason then?” He asks instead to get the conversation going again.

Danny froze, mug halfway to his lips. He turned to eye Terry with an odd expression, as though it should be obvious who Jason is.

“Jason? Y’know, Jason Todd?” Danny tries, only to receive a blank look from the other teen. “Jason Todd? The second Robin Jason Todd? The Red Hood Jason Todd? Crime lord and anti-hero extraordinaire?” Danny tried to keep up the lines, but nothing sparks recognition in Terry. Was there ever a crime lord in old Gotham named Red Hood?

“The second Robin was Tim Drake?” Terry corrects confusedly, receiving a shocked expression from the other end of the table.

“No? Tim was the third?” Now both of them were lost. They stared at each other, confused and concerned. Terry knew there was no third Robin, unless you counted commissioner Gordon as Batgirl, but it didn’t make a lot of sense if you counted her. Danny’s face twisted so much it looked like it hurt (and hurt to look at) until something passed and the look cleared, leaving comprehension, like a light blinked on over his head.

Terry followed as Danny stood up, heading straight for the hallway and leaving his mug on the counter, leaving Terry to clean it up. Putting the cup in the sink beside the other one, Terry hurried to catch up to the other teen, jogging as he saw Danny duck into Mr. Waynes’ study. He made it just in time to catch Danny walking through the grandfather clock.

Danny speed-walked into Bruce’s office, eyes set on the grandfather clock against the wall.

“Gonna go into the cave for a sec’ B, somethin’ I wanna double check.” He didn’t wait for an answer before he phased through the clock and descended the stone stairs into the basement. Jumping the last three stairs, Danny turned to face the costume display.

The five costume displays.

The old Batman suit, the Nightwing suit, the first Batgirl suit, and Tim’s Robin suit. The last case is empty, but that hardly matters.

“Where are the rest?” Danny mumbles to himself forlornly, searching for where the other suits might be stored. There’s nothing. No Orphan suit, No trace of Damian’s weapons, none of Jason’s extra helmets. Just the four suits in five cases.

“What do you mean, ‘where’s the rest?’” The new kid, -the one that looks like Damian but wrong- Terry panted as he half-ran down the stairs.

“I mean, where are the other suits? Where’s Orphan? Signal? Spoiler? Red Robin? Even if they moved out Bruce would still have a duplicate of their suit!” Danny’s voice was rising to something slightly hysterical, but there was just no way Bruce didn’t adopt the others here. It was Bruce's thing! He had an adoption problem, everyone knew that! His kids made fun of him for that!

“Those other heroes? I haven’t met them if they are, and I don’t know why you would think Mr. Wayne would keep their suits on display.”

Danny felt heavy at those words. Heavier than even before he died. His knees gave out under the weight and Danny sank to the floor, thoughts going a hundred miles an hour under a sheet of ice.

Terry didn’t know Red Robin even though he knew Tim? Did Bruce just never meet Jason as a kid? Damian’s mom just never dropped him off at the manor? Was he even born? Was Cass being used as a weapon for the League of Assassins here like she was going to be in his universe? Where was Steph? Were Duke's parents still in the hospital? Batwoman? BlueJay?

Did they just not exist here?

Danny’s ears were ringing too loud with his questions. He didn't notice Terry (Blue eyes, angular jaw and cheekbones like Damian but the eyeswerewrong) kneeling down in front of him, confused and worried, until he was flinching back from a hand on his shoulder. Groaning, Danny leaned back on one arm, grinding the other hand's palm into his eye to ground himself.

Now was not the time, Fenton. You do not freak out about universal differences on the floor of the batcave with some random Bruce adoptee in front of you. Get it together.

Taking a large breath in through his nose, Danny took a moment to clear those panicked thoughts, pushing them in a far off corner of his mind to be addressed later, preferably alone (probably while he was trying to sleep) and shutting a mental lid on them with an exhale through the mouth.

Okay. Okay okay okay okay. He can do this. Just, breathe.

Danny opened his eyes, not remembering when he closed them, to see Terry still crouched in front of him looking like he was trying not to look concerned. He was failing.

“Terry,” Danny murmured, “I’m going to say some names, and I want you to tell me, yes or no, if you know them.”

“But wh-”

“Just, please.” he stressed, “I just really need to know if you know these names.”

Terry’s face contorted, but he gave a nod. Giving himself a moment, Danny collected himself enough for whatever potential outcome he could receive with this. He can do this, it’ll be okay.

“Dick Grayson-” “Yes,”

“Stephanie Brown-” “No,”

“Barbara Gordon-” “Yes,”

“Cassandra Cain-” “No,”

“Duke Thomas-” “No,”

“Selina Kyle-” “Yes,”

“Kathrine Kane-” “No,”

Okay. That's four to three against him. Danny didn't know how to feel about that exactly, but it wasn't great. He had one more name on the tip of his tongue, but with how things were going he didn’t know if he should say it. If Damian did exist in this universe, then he had the potential to put everyone around him in danger just by saying his name, something he wouldn’t stand for. If he didn’t… Terry was loyal to Bruce, and Danny didn’t want to get the old man’s blood pressure up with any of the names attached to the youngest Robin. Damian was the last one to check, but could he deal with almost every one of the bats he was close with not existing here?

“Damian,” he pushed out after a long moment, unable to decide on the ‘Wayne’ or ‘Al Ghul’ surname.

“What, no last name?” Terry asked sarcastically, to which Danny gave an eye roll and a shake of his head.

Terry sighed, standing up to let his strained legs stretch. “Then that's a definite ‘no’. Was that the last one, or are we playing more guess who?”

Danny huffed, putting his own feet under him to stand as well. He began to walk back to the stairs, not really sure what he should be thinking right about now, so he deflected instead. “They still make that old game?”

There was a set of eyes boring into the back of his head, Danny could feel them, but he ignored them as he started trudging up. A grumble from behind him, followed by soft steps and Terry was on his right, looking every inch the irritated teen he probably usually portrayed to others. There was still that undercurrent of concern, but it was mostly covered by the glare he was shooting Danny’s way. Danny didn’t mind, this new kid had yet to master the bat-glare, so he was basically trying to melt a glacier with a hairdryer.

~~~~~

Mr. Wayne was still in the study when the two came up. Terry was trying to glare a hole into the side of Danny’s face, with little results.

“Ah, Danny, Terry, I just got a call from Wayne-Powers, there's going to be an urgent meeting there in about half an hour, so I need you both to get ready.”

They watched as Danny gave an absent nod as he walked out the door and down the hall, silent as a mouse and deep in thought.

Terry turned to Mr. Wayne, who let out a huff at the other teen. Teenagers.

“So,” he drawled, “you gonna tell me what his deal is? ‘Cause that guy is seriously cryptic.”

“Not surprising,” Mr. Wayne replied with a small shake of his head. “Do you know why he needed to go down there all of a sudden?”

“Not really,” Terry turned his head back to the doorway, trying to listen for the other teen moving through the house. He couldn’t, and that unnerved him. “He just looked at the suit displays, had a bit of a meltdown, then asked me if I knew a bunch of names.”

“And did you?” Mr. Wayne asked in the way he did when he started getting into detective mode.

“Some I did, some I didn’t. I already made a file on the computer you can take a look at later.”

A hum made its way from the space behind Terry, then the creak of the old chair sounded as Mr. Wayne heaved his way out of it. He shuffled his way over to Terry, placing a hand on his assistant's shoulder.

“Be careful Terry, he may be friendly, but he isn’t from this dimension. There's no telling what he could be keeping from us. Make sure to take note of everything, no matter how small it may seem.”

Terry nodded, taking a second to process what his mentor had told him as he watched the retired vigilante shuffle out the door. His brain finally caught up with what was said as Mr. Wayne rounded the corner.

“Wait, another dimension? Mr. Wayne wait!-”

#Batman beyond x Danny Phantom #danny phantom #batman beyond #terry mcginnis #danny fenton #dp x dc #dpxdc #dp fic #dp x dc fanfic

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most-likely-shadowhisker · 1 year

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The Hypocrisy of the Spacians (or, why worries about Kessler Syndrome are bullshit)

So, a number of things happened in the latest episode of G-Witch. A number of them were, uh, traumatizing. For both the cast and the viewers. To keep myself distracted, I'm going to focus on a little detail mentioned in episode 12. (Spoilers under cut!)

Specifically, this line. Now, a lot of people have pointed out it's perfectly reasonable to ban kinetic space weaponry in favor of lasers; lasers don't leave behind any bullets or casings that can drift through space until they hit something and cause a Kessler Syndrome. And this is reasonable- until you look deeper.

Norea here immediately points out the first layer of hypocrisy (the Spacian military-industrial complex being more than happy to pollute Earth while at the same time worrying about the pollution of space). But there's something more that undermines the kinetic weapons ban and it's stated reasoning entirely, that being that guns aren't the only thing that leaves behind space debris.

Every laser that misses and hits a building or asteroid or whatever, every limb of an enemy MS that's sheared off, all that sends little shards and particulates of material flying off into space, where they'll keep flying until they hit something, normally at high velocity.

For an example, let's look at the Vim/Bob fight in they very same episode:

The elder Jeturk is more than happy to shear off limbs and leave them drifting, not to mention his using very fucking physical cluster munitions. (How are ordinary guns banned but cluster bombs aren't?! Or is this a case of Vim's money allowing him to get away with flaunting the rules? Either way, more Spacian hypocrisy.)

And that's before we get into what happens to defeated combants; the mandatory post-kill explosion. That explosion doesn't atomize the defeated mobile suit to take care of resulting space debris, it just sends that space debris flying in every direction, making it all the harder to clean up. Here's a couple shots of Vim's MS blowing up:

Look at how the Dilanza Sol visibly bulges outwards before the explosion completes, and the debris field left behind afterwards. A few weeks, years, decades, I dunno how long, but one day those little Dilanza Sol bits are going to drift into just the right position to ruin some freighter's day.

Now, one could argue that all this is just Vim's flaunting of the rules, or a result of Benerit Group being confronted with someone who doesn't obey the laws of war anyway. Problem is, they left behind plenty of space debris in other conflicts. Look at the aftermath of the Vanadis Incident:

Or, hell, the duel between Suletta and El4n, may he rest in peace.

Benerit Group and it's subsidiaries are more than okay with leaving behind fields of space debris from all sorts of sources, as long as those sources aren't guns. Even fore something as petty as a duel among students.

In conclusion, the ban on physical weaponry in the Ad Stella timeline isn't out of any genuine sense of care for the cleanliness of space, or worries about a Kessler Syndrome. The true reason is most likely moral grandstanding, similar to Imperial Germany kvetching about American shotguns in WW1. Alternatively, it could be as simple was wanting to deny what I assume are cheap, easy to manufacture weapons that could prove comparable to lasers to the poors/revolutionaries/poor revolutionaries most likely to buy and/or make them. Either way, the hypocrisy of the Spacian military-industrial complex is on full display here. The solar system of the Ad Stella timeline won't see someone fully dedicated to keep space clean and safe until the military industrial complex is dismantled- preferably in favor of a dictatorship of the proletariat that incentivized to care about the safety of freighter crews and so forth, instead of the corporatocracy incentivized to care about profit, damn everything else.

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goblinpuppy35 · 4 months

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Bright Eyes

(Previous Chapter) - Part 7 - (Next Chapter)

Student Remus x Male Reader

Summary: The Marauders start to hang out with an unexpected new friend who Remus falls for.

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Y/N and the Marauders had anticipated their plan to house Y/N secretly in their dorm room attic to be discovered and subsequently dismantled within a week. However a fortnight came and went without trouble to all four boys surprise. Seemingly no one in Slytherin, including the teachers had noticed Y/N's absent, or at least not enough to make any sort of inquiry. Luscious and his crones were no doubt vexed by this blockade but the Marauders preferred seeing Y/N not rocking up to every class black and blue.

Each morning once all the other Gryffindor students had made their way to breakfast, one of the boys with lift up the ladder and open the hatch for Y/N to climb down. Pulling James invisibility cloak over himself Y/N was then able to exist to Gryffindor dorms without detection, after this primarily sneaking around the four boys were able to go about their day as normal. Joking through class together, losing hours at a time in the library researching advance spells instead of doing their classes assignments and taking free periods to lay in grass fields outside Hogwarts grounds. At least Remus and Y/N laid around while watching Sirius and James practice their quidditch skills and see who can fly around the entire castle the fastest. For the first time since arriving at the school Y/N felt like he had found his place.

One afternoon he was laying in the grass, he was supposed to be timing James and Sirius' laps but Y/N had his eyes closed and his hands behind his head as he focused on the levitation spell he was casting on the sliver ring In front of him. The was rotated slowly in the air a few inches above his chest, he could feel the energy in the space between. The grass around him began to rustle and then a loud fluffing sound came from behind as someone sat down in the grass just above Y/N's head. Y/N opened one eye and squinted upwards to see the hunched over figure of Remus, his feet spread out on either side of Y/Ns head as he rested a book on his knees, clearly focused on the text within.

Y/N half open eyes flouted down and stopped ridged upon reaching Remus' crotch which was a hand lengths away from his head. Y/N's cheeks started to prick and he frowned, pupils darting to find anything else to focus on, eventually he landed on Remus' hands. His long fingers and hard knuckles clutching the book firm, he had several faded white scars across his hands but Y/N could see a fresh and painful looking cut across Remus' right hand, dragging across all his knuckles and sinking down to the base of his thumb. Y/N was confused, he knew Remus didn't get into fights nor was he particularly clumsy and yet every few weeks he's show up with more scratches and scares.

"Your losing focus." Remus said bluntly taking Y/N out of his thoughts as he stares at the taller hunched boys who staring into Y/N's big Y/E/C eyes. Looking forward Y/N realised his levitation spell had lost all control and was sporadically rising and falling in the air, ending with the ring ungracefully dropping onto Y/N's nose causing him to curse under his breath. Remus laughed and this made Y/N blush, "You were detracting me!". A shadow spread across Y/N and Remus' whole torso arched forward and leaned over Y/N's body, his head hovering just over Y/N's. The Slytherins boys eyes grow wide in surprised which made Remus smirk, Remus found Y/N's eyes so eluring, their bright Y/E/C rings circling around his large pupils. Remus felt like he could stare and drink them in for hours, but he had to remain cool and aloof. "Well I'm sorry" he cooed sarcastically but with a playful smile. Remus stayed in his position over Y/N a little too long before falling back into place above him on the grassy hill and returning to his book. Y/N lay immobile, gourping at the clouds were Remus' head had just been. He couldn't control his cheeks from turning crisom, not wanting Remus to notice with a huff Y/N lifted himself up and rearrange to be laying chest down in the grass, placing his books and then ring in front of his face to concentrate on his spell more effectively, as well as get as far away from Remus crotch as possible.

Remus looked up from his page and took I'm Y/N's new position. With his elbows propping up his upper torso his back arched perfectly down to his arse were Remus eyes were now fixated on. 'Come on Y/N. Don't do this to me' he thought. Despite still being weak after his transformation a few nights ago he could feel something build up in his stomach, he held onto his book harder and urge the thoughts of crawling on top of Y/N to leave his mind. "Enjoying the view mooney!" called out Sirius as he flew by bring a gust of wind with him which made the grass and the two boys hair fly forward, "Fuck off pads!" Remus yelled as his friends laughter drifted away. "Why dose he call you that?" Y/N had put his weight to one side and turned back to face Remus "Why does he call you Mooney? Why him pads and James Prongs?". "Just childhood nick names you know" Remus' stared blanking at his open book refusing to make eye contact with Y/N, Remus knew Y/N wasn't satisfied with that answer.

It wasn't the first time Remus had to awkwardly lie to Y/N. On several occasions Y/N had questions Remus on his fresh new scars, obviously considered which Remus found tragically endearing but he had to shrug them off. Remus hated not telling Y/N the truth and saw through Y/N ill-veiled face that he didn't believe him however Remus had no idea how to approach the topic, so chose not to.

It was late into the night and rain was hammer hard on the windows in the marauders dorm room. James had the radio on while the others were settling down. Hoping onto his bed Sirius knocked onto the ceiling with his brooms "Are you alright up there Y/N?". "Err yeah fine" came back a muffled response "err do you think you can give me another bucket up here?". "Didn't we already give you one?" called out James putting his paper down "honestly Y/N how much are you pissing up there". "It's not for that you idiot. come up and see" the muffled voice sounded a little more desperate so the three boys brought out the ladder and climb up. Peering through the entrance in the ceiling they then saw Y/N on the other side of the attic with a bucket over above his head with the sound of droplets falling into it in rapid succession. The boys saw there were at least two other leaks in the attic and as the wind howled outside the window panes rattled and shook violently, "Bloody hell Y/N you could have mentioned we booked you into the room from hell a little sooner" cried out James, coming over to take the bucket from Y/Ns hands. "It's only this bad when it rains" Y/N explained bashfully, "Yeah well there's supposed to be a storm over the next few nights so come on" instructed James leading Y/N back down to their room. Sirius collected the pile of blankets and pillows he can brought up for Y/N and remade him a bed in the floor in between his and Remus'.

They talked until the early hours of the morning, complaining about teachers and showing off their newly learnt charms. Eventually James and Sirius fell asleep both erupting insanely loud snores as they slept leaving Remus and Y/N awake snickering. "God, I'd almost be better back up there" mused Y/N, "but we can't have you freezing the death up there. Just imagine how many pints they'd take away from Gryffindor if that got out" jested Remus as he signed and settled further into his duvet. There was a natural pause in their conversation as the two boys listened to the storm outside.

"Remus .." Y/N began slowly "I know your keeping things from me" they both lay perfectly still, looking up as the ceiling as Y/N continued. "I'd ask you tell me the truth but I know that's not fair, it's up to you whether you want to tell me what's going on with you. But for the time being .. can you just not lie to me, because first of all your bad at it. It almost makes me feel like I'm not as good as friend with you like the others". James snoring rose in volume as this moment as if picking up on the reference to him. Y/N waited for Remus' answer for what felt like a whole minute. "Actually out of all of you your the one I feel the most comfortable with. I really like it when it's just you and me, everything feels easy", this wasn't the response Y/N had expected "Then why don't you tell me the truth?". Another minute of silence went by. "I'm scared. I'm scared of I tell you everything you won't want to spend time with me anymore and I really don't want that. I like you, I mean, as in I like spending time with you" Remus' mind began to panic. Why was it so much easier to tell the truth in the dark?

With each second Y/N didn't responses Remus was preparing to take back everything he'd said until 'I like you too Remus, as in I like spending time with you too". In the dark Remus let out a sigh and his muscles relaxed. "Just promise not the lie to me anymore?" ask Y/N, he'd turned his bed slightly to see Remus' hand was hanging out of the bed just above Y/N's own hand resting at his cheek. His he moved a fraction he could touch the other boys hand but he couldn't move at all. "I promise" said Remus and they both closed their eyes.

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probablyhuntersmom · 8 months

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"i don't mind therapy questions relating to hunter" ahh i don't really have any at the moment so i'm willing to throw it to you! here is a carte blanche to talk about any sort of hunter therapy gunk you can think of. i'm eager to hear what you have to say

Oooh very cool, thanks for this ask @lewvithur! Thanks for your patience as I've been working on it bit by bit. I could def infodump about how counselling microskills work, which all exist to aid in the main objective of therapy i.e. building rapport. And I'll explore this in the context of a therapist seeing Hunter as a client. Let me see if I can more or less sum it up without being too wordy.

The 3-year training program I was in (it was supposed to be 2 years, but worldwide Covid slowed down my internship hell of a lot), had this model in arguably our most important textbook:

It's called the hierarchy of counselling microskills, and it's arguably our fundamental guide (of the particular course I was in anyway, I'm sure there's a variety of textbooks, authors and supervisors that different training centers use) on how to achieve results in therapy sessions. In the pyramid, we work from the bottom and go upwards. The pyramid's foundation is about being sensitive towards our clients and how to listen well in order for them to feel heard and to build good rapport and trust with them.

The textbook's authors also came up with a 5-stage interview structure (Relationship—Story and Strengths—Goals—Restory—Action), that you could say is the bigger umbrella under which this pyramid is placed. The 4th stage, restorying, is particularly interesting since it involves reframing or introducing new and more helpful perspectives, especially for how a client can look at terrible things that have happened to them (this doesn't mean that they aren't allowed to say those things were and are painful to remember).

The 1st stage - trust between therapist and client - is the ultimate driver of their sessions.

Notice the word "strengths" in the 2nd stage: it's related to empowering the client by reminding them of resources they already have within themselves e.g. proactiveness, compassion, sensitivity. It's related to how the therapist doesn't supply these to the client but instead draws them out of the client in the safety of the therapy sessions.

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Coming back to the pyramid - the rest of this post will be a little crash course on some of its levels from bottom to top.

Below are the foundations of what a therapist does, some of it overlaps with other fields like nursing and social work...

Ethics and Multicultural Competence:

Hunter spent the majority of his foundational years in the Emperor's Coven. What more, he was raised in it. I believe that in parallel with the relevant authorities investigating what happened behind closed doors in the castle, and investigating the particularly toxic culture within the Emperor's Coven...Hunter would be on his way, via therapy, towards dismantling and unlearning a lot of unhealthy practices and habits that were previously normalized and even encouraged during his years as a scout and as the Golden Guard.

His therapist would have to ethically protect him and balance out some core ethical principles e.g. encouraging him to make his own decisions, ensuring his welfare, doing no harm, and honouring commitments with him as their client. Plus be sensitive towards his cultural background. I personally doubt that Steve's therapist was also in the Emperor's Coven with him; even if they were, their hands would be tied for so much of the time or worse, they may have been encouraged to engage in malpractice, which is a possibility that disturbs me the most. I can't imagine what manner of malpractice Coven Heads such as Hettie Cutburn were getting up to. Though...it's even possible that Steve kept the therapist's existence a secret from the Coven(s).

A clear example of multicultural competence applied here is that the therapist should take note of any assumptions or biases that may pop up in their own mind, once they learn that their new client Hunter used to be the Golden Guard and is a grimwalker.

One big question here would be whether the therapist already knows in their first session that he used to be Belos's right-hand man, or that Hunter doesn't disclose this yet (it's very possible! Maybe his parents ensure that he's protected like this and is given full choice re: when he will disclose that huge piece of info to the therapist). I don't think he'd keep major info like this a secret from his therapist forever; from my perspective, if it isn't ever disclosed it would not be effective for his healing because it provides pretty much the foundational context for the difficulties he faced.

Attending Behaviour:

The program I trained in encouraged us to follow the "SOLER" formula. Sit squarely, Open posture, Lean slightly forward, Eye contact, Relaxed body language. Basically letting our clients know that we are interested to hear all that they have to share, and that we aren't closed off, unreceptive or tense in any way. There is the annoying pattern I often see in fictional media where therapists cross their legs while sitting, which is absolutely discouraged irl.

There's also the 3V's + B formula: Visual (appropriate eye contact with client), Vocal (warmth and no judgment in voice), Verbal (tracking whatever the client is saying), Body language (being yourself: clients are often pretty perceptive of how genuine a therapist is).

While the therapist should definitely sit squarely to face Hunter, there are sensitivities that I keep imagining such as getting the distance between themselves and him just right. We know that Belos has cornered him in close proximity, torsos directly facing one another:

So depending on the intensity of any given session for Hunter, the therapist might want to try a softer, more diagonal seating angle:

It matters because the therapist has to bear in mind how short a leash he was on, with Belos.

Observation Skills:

It's about picking up on the client's behaviours, observing what's going on between therapist and client, both verbally and non-verbally. Every client's story is unique, and they would have key words that lead their therapist closer to themes in their life.

"Help", "family" and "supposed" seem to be Hunter's key words.

His therapist would have to listen out for repetitions of these words and possibly other relevant words or phrases too. Along with his voice tone, posture etc and whenever any of those shift, and gently exploring those shifts. In this case, observation matters in order to pick out the things that hold a lot of meaning for the client.

With an average session lasting an hour, each session could be said to be broken down into "chapters" based on whatever the client is sharing that day. The vibes in a session can shift, e.g. when the therapist gently confronts the client, and say, the client's body language drastically changes when they start to clutch a pillow to their chest and curl up their body, to feel safer and self-soothe, putting more of their guard up.

Observation also involves looking for signs of contradiction or conflict, whether in the client's verbal story and/or non-verbal language. After all, stress is the result of such conflict or incongruity and therapy could help guide a client towards managing that stress.

Monitoring how guarded/tense/uncomfortable vs. open/relaxed/comfortable Hunter is during his sessions, would be a way to sum up this section.

It's fairly common to encounter something called a "doorknob confession" where a client opens up about something significant only in the final minutes of the session, after being nervous and reluctant to address that matter in almost the whole session. They might burst into tears suddenly, become chatty after almost complete silence, etc. We'd have to prepare for that and set the appropriate boundaries, yet tend to their pain so they are stable and equipped as needed, to leave the session.

Sudden shifts like that have happened before to him

(If you listen back to his voice here, it becomes raised, high-pitched and reflects how much pain he's in. Being distracted by the two palismen struck a raw nerve)

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Next are some basic listening skills...

Questioning:

The general rules are that open questions (like those starting with "what" and "how", or instructions like "Tell me more") are for encouraging clients to open up, to talk about their emotions. We call this being "process-oriented" and it is emotion-focused. Closed questions (starting with words like "are", "is" or "were") are generally for getting info and facts, or being a bit more direct if using open questions isn't effective. This is "content-oriented", which is fact-focused/information-focused. Some questions like "where" questions are interesting since they could be either open or closed, depending on he context in which you ask them. "Where is this feeling coming from?" is open (to encourage exploring the emotional process), while "Where did X happen?" is closed and is asked in order to obtain factual info.

There's no fixed formula as to what ratio a therapist should use the open and closed questions in, since each client is unique. But it's about following the client's rhythm, behaviour and personality, getting a sense of how to lead them towards how they wish to benefit from the therapy sessions. There are general pointers, though: if a client is getting too comfortable talking about content e.g. describing events in a flat cold manner, in order to detach from and avoid emotions that they should be connecting with, the therapist would want to use more open questions to steer the session towards the client's emotional process. If a client is experiencing intense emotional flooding due to feeling intensely triggered, open questions may not achieve much to stabilize and ground them. Closed and more directive questions to get info and facts may work better to check in with them, since the client could benefit from a sense of clarity.

Hunter is no therapist, but! He is empathetic, sweetly asking a distressed Willow a closed question here, to help in reeling her back:

Hunting Palismen and Labyrinth Runners each have a fantastic example of open questions, even though Luz and Gus aren't even therapists:

Luz and Gus each ask an open question, a "what" question, which prompted Hunter to take a risk and be more vulnerable with emotions. Open questions are designed for their recipients to take ownership and do the legwork. Therapy is a chance for Hunter to experience much more of this feeling of being heard and welcomed.

On top of the above, a therapist can phrase questions as more directive or non-directive. "Tell me about what happened that day", "What happened that day?" and "Would you like to tell me what happened that day?" each have a different feel, though of course they all must be asked with a warm and open voice tone. Obviously one shouldn't be too directive with Hunter at all, since that can be too Belos-like, it'll more easily feed his deeply ingrained shame and he might see the sessions as an assessment for how well he can please the therapist (big no-no...).

There are times where I imagine one should be firm with him, but overall it is extremely important to empower him by offering him options/choices and letting him learn ownership of his newfound freedom.

Showing Empathy using Active Listening:

Involves three components: using encouragers, paraphrases, and summarizing. They would be great for Hunter since he will feel fully heard and seen, compared to being used to Belos cutting him off and dismissing him.

Encouragers are used in order to keep a client talking. Examples are the therapist nodding their head, and saying the classic "Mhm", "Right" or similar. Even the use of silence at the right times can be an encourager. Silence can be powerful and a gamechanger, since I think it's never exactly a "quiet" period: because that's when the client's having an important internal conversation with themselves via their thoughts.

Paraphrasing is basically reflecting what the client said back to them, in the therapist's own words. It is needed to "help a client complete their storytelling". It also says in the textbook that "A client who has been through trauma may need to tell the story several times", and the paraphrases of a therapist add to this repetition of the story. If e.g. a traumatized confused client is finding trouble to describe and understand what happened to them, paraphrasing from their therapist is important.

Summarizing is roughly done at the beginning, middle and ending of a session to mark "chapters/sections" in the session. It helps to structure the session, helps both client and therapist be up to speed with what has been shared so far, also to check in with the client if anything has been left out in the conversation. Doing this may also alert the client of any themes etc that might stand out to them, helping them have a "light bulb" moment.

Reflecting A Client's Feelings Back to Them:

Sometimes I tell my clients that I'm a person who holds up a mirror for them to see themselves, instead of simply dispensing easy advice for them. I'm there to empower them to feel their emotions and make their own decisions, instead of me doing that work for them.

The skill of reflecting feelings back to a client can help them get more comfortable with emotion language (examples: mad, scared, confused, frustrated, disgusted, devastated, numb), especially if they have come from an upbringing where emotional expression was frowned upon or even dangerous.

They can be encouraged to enter more depth of emotions, like digging through layers, to get closer to connecting with their pain before deep healing takes place. Sometimes they may want to stay in safer zones such as confusion, numbness or anger, and may need time before taking a bold step to connect with the hardest emotions such as shame, terror or loss.

Hunter having his feelings reflected back to him would be a good next stage beyond subplots such as Gus's efforts to help him open up in Labyrinth Runners.

In the two scenes above, there isn't emotion language yet.

But his "I'm just scared" here, a few episodes later? Tadda! Emotion language. It's a good sign of naming and owning his feelings, and of him trusting Flapjack as a safe trusted space for him to even say that. Notice that he only spoke like this with the one he trusted most: Flapjack.

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Next are the more intermediate skills...

Focusing:

This involves directing the conversation towards relevant areas, e.g. if a client has not shared enough about their family background. A therapist would have to use this skill differently with clients who have stronger and more headstrong personalities versus those who are more accommodating.

A therapist can choose from different areas to focus in more depth, depending on what they feel is best to get the client closer to their goals. Such areas include the client themselves, their main theme/issue, other people in the client's life, the client's cultural background, or what is specifically happening in the moment in the therapy session.

Empathic Confrontation and Challenging a Client:

There may be times where a client is encouraged to look at contradictions or areas in which they are stuck, which produce more stress. Such confrontation by a therapist must be gentle, it must be an invitation instead of coercion, and must make the client feel that the therapist is still rooting for them: and both can work together towards possible resolutions for those conflicts in the client.

When done right, this kind of confrontation makes room for new levels of creativity, courage and other positive qualities in the client. It's not recommended to try this out in any early stage of therapy until rapport is more solid between therapist and client. Sometimes, a client does this work and reaches this awareness all on their own, knowing how stressed they are e.g. when they express "I'm torn between X and Y".

We see this to some extent below i.e. the contradiction between the Golden Guard never being scared, versus him feeling scared in the current moment:

It shows that there is still some Golden Guard in him, but the rest is unchartered territory which is making him frustrated. He is torn between places.

Other clients may require a gentle push from the therapist to reach this place, and there's nothing wrong with that, but Hunter definitely has his moments of determination and being proactive.

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Next are what are called "influencing skills" which are usually only used in later sessions once trust between client and therapist is strong...

Reframing:

Helps to potentially generate new angles on something the client has shared. Hunter's therapist might ask him for example, "How might you bring Flapjack's gift of restoring your life, into the new things that you would like to learn?"

It's a very open question that would prompt Hunter to reflect deeply. He really needs to trust his therapist first in order for this to work, because if it's done too early in their relationship, he might be overwhelmed or intimidated. Open questions like this, where an attempt at reframing is in action, are often followed by periods of silence in the client which is completely normal. It would afford Hunter a very important amount of headspace to have an inner dialogue with himself.

Self-Disclosure:

May be used depending on the difference in power between therapist and client, but it has to be used with particular caution. It'll more likely be used if the client is from a minority group, or if the age gap and life stage between therapist and client is wider.

While I can't share details of the toughest case I've handled so far in my career, I'll say that this skill was needed for the first breakthrough to happen with that client and earn their trust.

Safe to say that Hunter's therapist might utilize this skill more than in the average IRL therapy session: because the Isles would be experiencing collective grief while rebuilding is taking place. Belos was happy to have genocide on his list, after all. And Hunter was highly isolated growing up which puts him in a very vulnerable position.

Immediacy:

A bit of a wild card skill. It is risky but in some cases, may be the best way to repair/enhance a conflict between therapist and client, shortly before the client might decide to never come back to further sessions.

This skill overlaps a bit with confrontation/challenging above: because it is also used to point out contradictions in the session, but the distinguishing feature of immediacy is it's about something that's happening in the current moment and which has happened a few times e.g. a client's suddenly clenched fists, or them avoiding a certain topic.

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A therapist has to draw upon multiple frameworks per session, which would have to work together like a nicely oiled machine, and be prepared for any sort of shift or development from the client's end. For example, affirming the client's strengths at regular intervals throughout the session, and helping the client take note of their resources so that it's not just about the negative stuff i.e. client sharing unsavoury details and experiencing unpleasant feelings in session.

Intuition and instinct combined with experience and these skills...all make up the therapist's personal style of conducting therapy, which is refined over time. All this translates into the treatment that Hunter's therapist would provide for him, knowing when to invite him into exploration mode, to be curious about his pain as opposed to shutting it out

versus slowing him down and grounding him when an emotional flashback sends him into a flurry

Thank you for the ask - it gave me the opportunity to geek out like this! :D

#loz's ask box #loz writes a meta #hunter goes to therapy #toh hunter #huntlow #the owl house #ahahaha as usual this got lengthy

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clonerightsagenda · 6 months

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Ok last 'the gang is working at Goddard now' post from discord before I call it a night, assuming tumblr will let me post this one

Kat only loosely related, but although the Hephaestus doesn't have a CAPCOM (too far away) I wonder if closer low Earth orbit Goddard installations have one and if they, like NASA CAPCOMs, are all former astronauts. Probably not, I would think, since if you've got 1 person filtering all communication you'd probably want it to be one of Cutter's more… informed people. now imagining Jordan doing a CAPCOM stint since she's comms Jordan: What, you say the hull isn't damaged but you were hit by something. Was it round? Perhaps…. melon-shaped? Klein who's up doing a satellite launch from a station or whatever: I'll kill you Gill Klein’s just never gonna live that down huh Kat unfortunately he literally didn't Gill Rip Kate : ) but also :’ ( Also remind me what CAPCOM means because I’m like “the video game company?” Gill Concept: the Hephaestus crew doing a shift or two on CAPCOM to unwind after a long day of dismantling Goddard Futuristics from the inside out Kat capsule communicator basically they're the single line of communication between astronauts and the ground, to streamline stuff and they're usually astronauts because they know what the crew is doing more personally "In the context of potential crewed missions to Mars, NASA Ames Research Center has conducted field trials of advanced computer-support for astronaut and remote science teams, to test the possibilities for automating CAPCOM." hm. Maybe Goddard has AI capcoms Gill The Sensus series’ predecessor line, perhaps Kat Some poor asshole on a low orbit station: We've got an ammonia leak Automated CAPCOM: Please choose from the following options. Press 1 for a personnel issue. Press 2 for a maintenance issue Astronaut: We're dying Kate Pfff Kat someone: we've got some crew hostility in one of the low orbit stations Minkowski: Put Eiffel on CAPCOM for a few days. Either they'll calm down or they'll unite in being annoyed by him instead. Win win Kate Their secret weapon Gill Minkowski likes doing CAPCOM to unwind but Lovelace finds it stressful bc she’s way worse about being a backseat driver Kat Minkowski: Finally normal simple problems to solve. It is usually a pretty simple, boring job. Until something goes wrong Gill meanwhile, Lovelace: What do you MEAN you've never had to duct-tape a water reclamation system back together?? Kat Haha yeah. Former astronaut capcoms have creative solutions LEO crew who can get new supplies shipped up basically whenever: We could just… trash this broken part and order a replacement Lovelace: Why when you can mcgyver this solution with only moderate risk to life and limb Gill the Hephaestus Mission and the crew themselves gain such a reputation that when the rumors start circulating that Minkowski got her current job by killing Marcus Cutter ("and did you ever meet Marcus Cutter?") half the company is lowkey terrified of her Kate “Ohhh look at YOU with your cushy life, you can just order a NEW part. Back in MY day my boss came up there personally with a gun and shot at us” Kat Haha It’s a very different life being right next to earth easy mode Gill LEO crewmember whispering to another one while their commander is on the phone: God, I hope we don't have to go through a teambuilding exercise run by Isabel Lovelace… Kat Although I suppose it makes it even easier for cutter to send goons up to harass you Kate True… “Hey, can we have a new part?” “No, but you can have Victor Riemann! Have fun!”

Gill Alternatively: "Uh… we think we need a new part… ma'am." Minkowski: …okay? Let me get the word out to the supply team. "You're… not gonna send Warren Kepler and his minions with them like Mr. Cutter used to, are you?" Minkowski: What? No. Most of them didn't even come back from Wolf 359. "/sighs and other noises of audible relief, oh thank god!" Kat now imagining SI5 showing up for no goddamn reason on a resupply shuttle and the mission commander being like "i didn't order you" and closing the hatch crewmember: don't those burn up on re-entry commander: not my problem Gill Telling command you need help? Admitting human weakness? That's a Kepler-ing. Kat Yeah well does it admit human weakness to have to be let onto the station before you burn up with all the dirty laundry and other garbage when the capsule gets sent back thru the atmosphere Eiffel hearing about life on LEO stations: I can't believe this. They got new underwear sent up to them though it's a dangerous game… .Terry Virts had two consecutive underwear shipments explode thanks space x Cutter: The Andromeda station's psych evals are too far in the green. Blow up their next three laundry shipments.

#tales from the groupchat #wolf 359

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amateurphilosophybullshit · 1 year

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I'm on the fence about the "mad pride" community, specifically on tumblr. I am mentally ill. I am proud to be mad. I want to be understood and I want to be treated better by society. But there is something off about the thing I see on tumblr.

I want a world where people can be healthier, not "more normal". However, some of the rhetoric on here seems dangerous, such as anti-recovery. Sometimes we do have to get help if our conditions will hurt us. I need help to make sure I don't kill myself. If left alone to my own devices, my condition only worsens.

We should absolutely distrust those who want us to be more "normal". We must get rid of the violence that oppress us, but we have to be wise and strategic about it. We mustn't shame those who wish to get better, and we shouldn't make ourselves more vulnerable to those who wish to hurt us. If we risk hurting ourselves, or if somebody is taking advantage of our condition in order to abuse us, are we truly changing things for the better?

Not to mention, there is some odd takes on healthy/neurotypical people, such as them being stupid and unable to see the world in a complete way. While most of the anger I saw was righteous, this seems a bit misguided.

Nobody sees the world in an "incomplete" way. We experience what we experience. We all provide different perspectives on life.

The only way to dismantle the systems of oppression that harms all people is for us to communicate and help each other. The revolution can only be successful if it is born out of love for humanity, not hate for another group.

I may be misguided, but I am confused.

I feel like a terrible person for feeling so suspicious and uneasy. I wish everything was clearer. The only reason I feel this way is because I want a community for people like me, but I need one that'll help me heal. If a community only wants me to suffer just for political gain, do they really care about me? If I am a political enemy for finding that therapy and medication helps me, then what am I guilty of?

We need to make a new system that relies on the autonomy of the patient instead of coercing people into psych wards and hospitals. Therapy helps me, but that's because everybody is different. What helps me doesn't work for another. Why force somebody to do something that doesn't help them? Why destroy something that helps me?

Society dehumanizes us, but we cannot throw away the field of medicine just because they weaponize it. Unlike the policing system or the prison system, we cannot live without doctors and medicine. Unlike the policing and the prison system, it'll benefit us to reform it. The reformation will rely on autonomy rather than coercion.

#mad pride #madpunk #feel free to discuss #tw sanism #tw ableism #tw suicide mention #politics #on tumblr #philosophy #pro recovery #anti psych #anti recovery #psychology #psychiatry #left wing #leftism #actually mentally ill

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alexthegamingboy · 10 months

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Toonami Weekly Recap 06/17/2023

Dr. Stone: New World (Age of Exploration Arc) EP#38 (03) - First Contact: Despite the aerial photographs the oil field remains hidden. Autumn arrives so the wheat is harvested. Francois plans a gourmet celebration dinner, so Kohaku gathers boar piglets to raise on the farm for meat and while searching the photographs for a good spot to forage truffles, she accidentally locates the general location of the oil field. When they still cannot locate the oil Senku remembers the Sagara oil field was originally discovered by pigs bathing in oil-soaked mud. Managing to stop Francois in time they instead use the boars as sniffer-boars who lead them directly to the oil. Suika adopts a boar as a pet, naming it Sagara. After processing oil into gasoline Senku builds a rudimentary engine powered speedboat, allowing them to visit the ocean. Chrome begins to realise just how big the world is. Senku announces his next goal, to create a GPS powered by a massive radio tower and Senku’s wireless telephone. At Ginro’s urging Ruri almost uses the system to confess to Chrome but is interrupted by another signal. With his enhanced hearing Ukyo confirms the signal is coming from a second, functional radio tower, meaning other humans are alive somewhere on the planet, endlessly broadcasting the question "WHY?".

Unicorn: Warriors Eternal EP#08 - Darkness Before the Dawn: While they are on the train, Edred is still upset that he can't go home again and his own body is no longer with him. He begins to question what will happen to them once they successfully destroy the Evil. They suddenly hear a commotion and they run to see an attack by a werewolf, who is revealed to be Winston. Melinda accuses Edred who left him stranded instead of placing him to safety. Winston tells them what happened and is now cursed to be a werewolf, Winston says this is a good thing as he is part of the group so he can be with Emma. Merlin arrives and tells them the Evil is Otto and they go to the jungle, Merlin informed them as he continues his search, he joins up with the guardian spirit Rakshasa and destroys Otto's ship by which he didn't mention what happened to them in the end. Merlin decides to splits the group up to investigate the wreckage. As Edred and Winston go together, Winston confronts Edred of his actions but because of Edred he has become one of them now, Edred then tells him once they leave their hosts Emma becomes normal again while Winston has his curse, their arguing leads them to a fight. Seng and Copernicus discovers the deceased bodies of Rakshasa and Otto, which the Rakshasa's soul reveals to Seng not everything is as it seem. Melinda asks Merlin to remove Winston's curse for Emma's sake. However, Merlin has been possessed by the Evil and begins attacking Melinda causing Winston and Edred's to stop their fight and regroup with Seng and Copernicus.

Food Wars: The Fifth Plate (The BLUE Arc) EP#86 (13) Finale - Food Wars: Soma sets about making a new version of the egg tempura bowl he first served to Erina during his entrance exam, having incorporated techniques he learned during his time at Totsuki. Both Mana and Erina are caught off guard by how well it is cooked, which causes Erina to release the most powerful version of the Gifting seen yet. However, Erina still refuses to acknowledge the dish as delicious, since she will cook an even better dish. As Mana observes, she realizes that Soma's refusal to quit and his dedication to cook for someone he truly cares about are the elements needed to satisfy the God Tongue. Erina manages to present a dish that defeats Soma's, making her the winner of BLUE. At Soma's 2nd place victory party, the rest of the current and former Elite 10 reveal that they had been quietly dismantling the entire Noir organization while its leadership was distracted at BLUE. Frustrated at having lost to Erina, Soma decides to go on a world tour to improve his cooking. Meanwhile, Erina welcomes Mana home. Azami also returns and admits that Asahi is actually his illegitimate son, making him Erina's half-brother. Erina invites Asahi into the Nakiri family so she can finally fulfill her wish of having the entire family eat a meal together. Six months later, Soma returns to the Yukihira diner, inviting Erina and all of his friends and classmates. Erina arrives first and quietly realizes she has feelings for Soma just as the rest of the guests arrive to celebrate Soma's return.

youtube

#Sorry if I posted this late I was at my sister's house.#Toonami #Toonami Weekly Recap #Toonami Game Review #Dr. Stone #Dr. Stone: New World #Age of Exploration Arc #Unicorn: Warriors Eternal #Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma #Food Wars: The Fifth Plate #The BLUE Arc #Final Episode #Final Season Episode

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saurabhsharmadigitalmkt · 4 months

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From Hazard to Harmony: Navigating Needlestick Injury Prevention

Needlestick injuries, the accidental pricks by contaminated sharps, cast a long shadow over healthcare workplaces. These seemingly minor incidents can unleash a whirlwind of anxiety, uncertainty, and potential exposure to bloodborne pathogens like HIV and Hepatitis. For healthcare workers, every prick carries the weight of a gamble, the stakes measured in months of agonizing tests and the fear of lifelong consequences.

However, navigating this hazard-laden landscape doesn't have to be a solitary struggle. By embracing a holistic approach of needlestick prevention,we can transform the sharpscape from a field of danger to a terrain of harmony, where safety reigns supreme.

Shifting the Paradigm:

From Compliance to Culture: Instead of mere adherence to protocols, fostering a culture of safety becomes paramount. Leadership champions safety, empowering workers to voice concerns and participate in shaping safe practices. Open communication dismantles the fear of repercussions, paving the way for proactive incident reporting and prevention.

From Equipment to Empowerment: The right tools are indispensable. Retractable needles disappear behind shields, blunt cannulas minimize punctures, and needleless connectors eliminate sharps altogether. But mere availability isn't enough. Training equips workers with the confidence and competence to wield these tools with precision, transforming them from passive recipients to active guardians of their own safety.

From Knowledge to Mastery: Information alone is a flimsy shield. Regular, engaging training sessions hone skills, reinforce best practices, and address emerging risks. Simulations immerse workers in realistic scenarios,solidifying their grasp of safe sharps handling in the crucible of pressure. Knowledge becomes muscle memory,etched into every movement, every decision.

From Individual to Collective: The responsibility for safety transcends individual workers. Institutions prioritize resource allocation, ensuring adequate availability of safe sharps, training opportunities, and supportive infrastructure. Policymakers enact regulations that incentivize safety innovations and hold facilities accountable.Every stakeholder becomes a conductor, orchestrating a harmonious symphony of preventive measures.

Harmonic Outcomes:

By shifting the paradigm, we witness a remarkable transformation. The fear of needlestick injuries fades, replaced by the confidence of a workforce empowered with knowledge, tools, and a robust safety culture. Reporting becomes normalized,enabling early intervention and continuous improvement. The potential for exposure shrinks, anxieties dwindle, and families breathe a sigh of relief.

From hazard to harmony – this is the journey we must embark on together. Let us be architects of a healthcare landscape where safety is not just a priority, but the unwavering symphony that governs every action, every procedure,every step taken within the hallowed halls of patient care. By working in unison, we can ensure that every healthcare worker returns home not just healthy, but whole, their song of service unsullied by the fear of the prick. Remember, a safe healthcare environment is a healthy environment for all. Let us create a needlestick prevention symphony of safety that resonates through every needle, every sharps container, every interaction, finally silencing the discordant melody of needlestick injuries.

#health

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hapserv · 1 year

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BEST AC REPAIRING SERVICES THAT YOU MUST HAVE

Looking for the best AC repair and service center in Coimbatore? Yes, then you have reached at the right direction of Coimbatore Ac service center.

Read below a glance of our achievements and services we serve.

It is quite normal to have Air Conditioners appliances at home, office, factory, as now these are available in the market at a very affordable price but somewhere in the technology era, the working system of every electric equipment including AC keeps on changing. There are numbers of technical issues arise including AC Dismantling, Fitting, uneven cooling, voltage fluctuations, Ice formation problems, and not everyone can resolve those issues and it needs regular maintenance, up-gradation or repairing services by some good service provider.

Sometimes, while repairing one part of the AC, it damages the other part, which consequently leads to various major problems in the AC and can even bind you to change the overall AC.

Meanwhile getting a new AC could be challenging and expensive for you. Therefore, choosing though best service provider plays a crucial role here and you should never compromise in that otherwise you have to bear the ultimate double loss as you may end up paying more cost than required.

While looking at all the daily AC technical challenges which you might face, we are here to provide you the best AC repair and service center in Coimbatore at a reasonable price. Our AC repair and service center in Coimbatore is the best place you should visit for any type of AC repair and services for its better working.

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All these services we provide meet our customers. All the services are very much special and unique that hardly any service center in Coimbatore provides. You must have understood why we quote to be the best ac repair and service center in Coimbatore.

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We look forward to providing you the best repairing services in Coimbatore so that we get a chance to help you and serve you better than the other service providers in the market. And it is for sure that once you choose us, you will never look for an option of choosing someone else for the AC repair services.

Meta tag: Our Coimbatore Air conditioning (AC) service center one of the top quality AC repair and service centre to serve you whenever you need solution along with our free genuine advice, just pick your phone and call us.

#AC Service #AC Repair #AC Repair and service in coimbatore

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kirnet · 2 years

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creation

kirnet & bao-dur, 1.5k words

“Does everything look good?”

Bao-Dur poked through the collection of objects in his other palm, his calloused finger gliding over the metal components. “Energy cell, emitter, focusing lens.” A wide smile pushed his cheeks up and crinkled his eyes. “Looks like you’re all set, General, except for the crystal.”

“Which I’ve got right here.” Kirnet dug into her side pouch and pulled out a small white kyber crystal, just like the one she had plucked from the caves on Dantooine as a youngling, though this one had more dubious origins. Countless battles had been waged for control of kyber crystals and their power, and even though the one in her hand was barely the size of her thumb, Kirnet could feel the concentration of energy within it crackling against her skin. It was calling to her, resonating against her, begging to become one with her.

“Then we’re ready to get started. If you’ll allow me to watch, of course,” Bao-Dur whispered, a hopeful glint in his eye.

Kirnet chuckled, a melodious sound that danced through the angular hallways of the Hawk. The parts gently lifted from the engineer’s hand and floated through the recycled air. They arranged themselves over the work table, following the gentle command of her outstretched hand, and a few other spare components drifted up from the table to join them. The first time she had built her lightsaber as a youngling had been under the watchful eye of a Master, and all of the parts, sans kyber crystal, were provided for her. Now, instead of elegant polished onyx and gold filigree, Kirnet had collected an assortment of discarded droid parts, spare components from the bowels of the ship, and any other metallic scrap she could find. “How could I say no? Though, I’m afraid I won’t be able to show you all of the steps,” she sheepishly admitted, her braids swinging slightly as she shook her head. “I barely remember what I’m doing.”

“You seem to remember more than you think.” Bao-Dur gestured with his head to the floating assortment. To Kirnet’s surprise, almost every piece was set in its correct place, with the exception of a few pins and the rotation of the cycling field energizers. She had taken her own saber apart many times during the war, usually to repair damage from a powerful Mandalorian EMP or from any harsh weather conditions, so she had once been well practiced with the mechanisms. She closed her eyes, letting the pieces drop for a moment as she allowed muscle memory to take control. When she opened them, the dismantled lightsaber hung perfectly in the air. Bao-Dur approached the display, his face millimeters from the parts as he scrutinized every individual piece. “Everything looks correct to me.”

“An engineer with an approximate knowledge of lightsabers and a flunked out Jedi.” Kirnet whistled as she came up to Bao-Dur’s side. She reached out and plucked the crystal chamber from the center of the display. Normally, she would have just tossed her kyber crystal into the air and closed the saber around it, but given the janky supplies, she needed to hook it in by hand. She pushed the hanging mess of wires to the side with her thumb and inserted the crystal, wiggling it a bit when it didn’t easily slide in. “I give this a nonzero chance of exploding.”

Bao-Dur tittered as he watched her fight the chamber. “With your track record, I believe it.”

Kirnet unceremoniously threw the chamber back up in the air. “I can do this by myself, you know,” she threatened emptily. She raised both hands now, then double and triple checked the placement of everything to the best of her ability. When she was satisfied, she slowly brought her hands together, the lightsaber following suit and collapsing.

The lightsaber was… hideous. Truly hideous. It was completely asymmetrical, as if Kirnet had cleaved two separate sabers in half and tried to weld them together. One half, taken from the arm of a scrapped astromech droid, was finely engraved, if not a little scuffed, while the other, a busted pipe that Bao-Dur had replaced during his first few days on the ship, was dull and slightly stained. The crystal chamber was completely exposed, and if she hadn’t jammed the crystal in there as hard as she did, she might have been worried about it coming loose during battle. There was no color consistency, and various shades of gray and gold fought for dominance along its length.

It was glorious.

The saber flew to Kirnet’s waiting hand. Her fingers glided over its different planes and textures before coming to a rest on the ignition button. She hesitated, her thumb nudging the edge of the button as she silently turned to Bao-Dur. There was a chance of the crystal overloading when she turned it on, which would send shrapnel careening towards every inch of the ship. Or maybe it would misfire, and nothing would happen, and then she would have to sort through each individual part to determine which one was the culprit. There was no Master to guide her hand now, and any mistakes she had made would be hers alone.

Bao-Dur offered a small nod. It was a tiny thing, barely a shake of his horned head, utterly inconsequential. But it was offered in kindness, in solidarity, a reassurance that whatever happened after the button was pressed would be shared between the two of them.

With a small breath, Kirnet ignited the saber. It crackled, and then hummed, two blades springing out of either end. Her original blades had been a shimmery silver, the color of an ocean’s spray as it tumbled against the shore. The blades that murmured between her fingers now were similar, throwing white light around the garage, but the purity of the color was tainted. A dirty green color was barely visible around the cloud of light. “Fitting,” Kirnet thought as she experimentally turned the saber in her hands, its gentle buzz growing more insistent as it moved, “for a failed Jedi.”

“The blades are too short,” was the first thing Kirnet managed to choke out, not trusting her voice to elaborate further. She busied herself with fiddling with the adjustment knob, the blade growing longer as she turned it.

“And the rest of it?” Bao-Dur’s eyes were alight, and not just with the saber’s glow.

Kirnet pondered the question. The sensation was new and nostalgic at the same time, gut wrenching and alien. It would take some time to get used to the old sensation, just as it had when the first tendrils of the Force had snaked through her veins on Peragus. “Well, it hasn’t exploded yet.” She turned the lightsaber again, faster this time, the spinning blades blurring into thick triangles. Kirnet wanted to feel elated; she could feel the excitement bubbling up in her chest, but she couldn’t shake the horrible feeling that this small victory would be stripped away at any moment.

“Your lightsaber is your life.” Kavar had driven that mantra deep into Kirnet’s subconscious, and the war had driven it even deeper still. It was a weapon, a tool of destruction, but in the hands of a Jedi it was something more. It was a symbol of hope, a beacon of light that could be used as a shield as much as a sword. Kirnet’s hands were too stained for her to call herself a Jedi any longer, but the saber seemed to know that already. This lightsaber was not Kirnet’s life, not yet, but as long as the Sith insisted on making themselves her problem, it would be.

“It’ll take some getting used to,” she finally concluded as she turned off the saber. The dimly lit garage seemed almost as dark as the void beneath their feet without its light. She clipped the hilt to her belt, and experimentally swayed her hips to feel its weight. “But I’ll get used to it.”

Apparently satisfied, Bao-Dur got back to work on the seemingly endless stream of repairs the Hawk needed. His remote obediently flew in from the direction of the engine room and started firing its laser at any imperceptible damage it noticed. Taking her cue to leave, Kirnet started to back towards the blast door, her lightsaber swinging awkwardly against her thigh. “General?” She stopped mid step as Bao-Dur looked over his shoulder. He gave her a long look, his eyes trailing from her face to her feet, before his face split into a grin. “It suits you.”

“He’s right,” Kirnet thought as she thumbed the mismatched metals. “It does.”

#can you tell i had no idea how to end this lmao #something something malachor destruction something something act of creation #my writing #kirnet cavira #kotor

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agape-philo-sophia · 3 years

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➝ Deocculting 911, Occult Numerology & Gematria, SpiritualWarfare. ⏰

The spiritual supporting pillars of the world’s societal structure were essentially demolished on 9/11…symbolically, allegorically, ritualistically and literally. It was quite a sinister “stroke of genius” and so exemplifies how these dark controllers operate. This is why the wake up to 9/11 Truth is so shocking to people’s systems and they just can’t handle it. It’s overwhelming, which it was designed to be. And so the vast populace rolls over and buries its head back in the sand... Tell A Big Enough Lie …and you’ll eventually get exposed. So full of lies are these controllers it’s beyond the grasp of normal sentient beings. And they revel in the power of that. It’s amazing they can be so brash yet hidden in plain sight. The Twin Pillars Archetype, The effect of occult (hidden) symbolism on the human psyche is a nicely kept secret. Even though psychologists such as Carl Jung have written extensively on this and it’s clearly pointed out by the esoteric community. People just do not realize they are daily the subject of the sophisticated manipulation of these terribly powerful symbols. Like scientific breakthroughs are garnered by the military, these elite psychopaths have to weaponize everything, instead of using it for the betterment of humanity and our world. “Signs and symbols rule the world, not words nor laws” – Confucius There’s much more to this subject. And it wasn’t just Freemasons involved in all this, but they’re a major arm that encapsulates a belief system much of the Illuminati share. Members of this dark cabal are almost always associated with some sort of secret society or practice like Freemasonry or witchcraft, often under a religious cover like the Vatican, Mormonism or Evangelical groups. Rothschild Zionists use both the religious cover and the financial “institution” to disguise and justify their perfidy. At the occult level the 9/11 event was a ritual, empowered, as is often the case, by performing human sacrifice. War is another such ritual, usually instigated and financed by this same dark cabal loosely labelled the Illuminati. I can’t begin to cover the extent of the symbology and esoteric meaning injected into the 9/11 charade, but I hope this opens up a few things for you to look into further. These same tactics are used constantly on an unwary public at many levels. The lie is exposed, the spell is broken and the illusion loses its power over you. But the secret weapon of 9/11 was this: it was riding high on the amplified occult, symbolic preparation of not just decades, seeing the “twin towers” as a symbol of world commerce and the “triumph of the human spirit”, but seeing “twin pillars of society” throughout architecture and logos and literature for millenia, both conscious and subconscious, being destroyed before their eyes, over and over and over. In Revelation 9:11, and please note the time code as well as the number code of 911, Abbadon is described as the Destroyer, the Angel of the Abyss, the King of Plague of Locusts, resembling horses with crowned human faces, women’s hair, lion’s teeth, wings, iron breastplates, and a tail with a scorpion’s stinger, that torments for five months anyone who does not have the Seal of God on his forehead. It is clear that this is a Demon, Fallen God or Black Star, that is directly connected to powering up the Armageddon Software through the Yahweh Matrix. The Black Star Abbadon in the center of the Milky Way is what holds together the 666 Beast Configuration, along with the Yahweh Matrix that creates the Inorganic Four, the Yod-Hay-Vod-Hay system. This system feeds off of living creatures and sends the life force back to the black hole entities. As we have been discussing the shift that has been occurring with the Planetary Staff, the Planetary Staff of earth was tilted in order to align it to the Black Star Abbadon in the center of the Milky Way. This artificial axial tilt in the planet is shifting its alignment now. This shift has activated doomsday prophets wired into the Yahweh matrix that believe the current events are the sign of the alien God’s narrative, that the rapture is coming or that we are entering into the global Armageddon-Megiddo showdown, when we transition out of the final stages of the Piscean Alchemical Law. The current theme during the Paliadorian Activations is the clearing of the Yahweh Matrix and its blood covenant bindings out of the Human 12 Tribes genetic records, with the transmissions and support of the Blue Feathers of Aquaferion. As a result of dismantling this blood covenant network, those who are controlled by the Yahweh system will be agitated and activated to play out these mind controlled biblical dramas. Because the original 5D Ascension plan was not achievable becasue of the False Ascension Matrix and the damage caused through the False Navel and False White Webbing, it required our evolution through the time fields in the Harmonic Universes in the Universal Time Matrix to be drastically sped up. Those serving the Law of One, are moving through extreme amounts of the future timelines, observing its collapse, in order to arrive at the Gateway Octave where the Organic and eternal light is overriding the Artificial Machinery and replicated alien coding. False Timelines and False Software to Mind Control humanity was used to deter humans from their organic and natural ascension evolution. This is why this planet is called, “prison planet”. Meanwhile the negatives desperately cling on to the artificial timeline programs to influence humans through fear to manifest into their enslaved future selves as Negative Form. (Some examples: Nostradamus Prophecy, Armageddon Software, Pestilence Programming, 911 Military Industrial Complex Revolution, any terrorist and cataclysmic inorganic event generated by the Negative Aliens. None of these manipulated programs are sourced as “natural events”. ) Because the planet is ready to drop and collapse timelines from the previous 3D cycle where the planet is playing out the result of the Luciferian Rebellion from Atlantean time cycle, there is a struggle to dominate upcoming events that would influence these future timelines to be solely in Negative Alien or the NAA control. These groups have infighting, and the two primary groups have infected their headquartered control mechanism in two major stargates and power vortexes on the planet. Black Sun Program have headquartered themselves in the 10th Stargate or Iran Gate of the Golden Eagle Grid and lodged their technologies in Iraq/Iran to gain dominance over the power spots in Giza, Egypt. Most of them are Reptile Insectoid Collectives from out of the Phantom Matrix spaces in the parallel systems, which formed alliances with the Fallen Angelic Annunaki Groups to take control over the earth, which are referred to as the NAA. This is why they chose that area of the planet to dominate, it was easier to invade from the genetic key level. The Sons of Belial, the Nibiruian-Annunaki reptilians of the New World Order crews that engineered the 911 Timeline Agendas, have headquartered themselves in the 11th Stargate area in the United Kingdom, this is also known as Stonehenge. These are the creators of the teeth chomping technology of the Nephilim Reversal Grid (NRG). Comprising primarily of Fallen Elohim genetic lines, this reversal network was a rebellion to the hybridization attempts of Lyran-Elohim races, who were responsible in commissioning Nephilim races for genetic hybridization healing. The failure of that program, the banishment of Nephilim (The Giants) and killing of that race, resulted in Wars, and subsequently, the NRG was placed in the UK to reverse all hybridized genetics, especially any genetic material (like the Krystal DNA Silicate Matrix) that was designed to “unify” or “marry” genetics. The unification of polarity within genetics may evolve to Unity Field consciousness which is a part of achieving the Christos consciousness. There is a consciousness war to stop Krystal Star consciousness from potentially evolving and embodying in human beings on this earth. It also is clear that all matters of Blood Sacrifice, whether human, animal or of any living thing, are made to the conjuring of elemental forces that directly connect into this collective Satanic force of the Baphomet field in the underworld realms. Satanists, witches, Santeria, voodoo, violent religion or other related rituals involving drugs or killing, one is allowing their body to be possessed by lower spirits and are being controlled, addicted or feeding into the spreading of this Satanic force field. It is like an viral infection. The act of feeding this force through ritual offering and Blood Sacrifice is purposed to produce Satanic humans running the earth and to keep enslaved the female Christos-Sophia from reclaiming her body parts and creations in the earth. This is enslavement of the Mother principle. Satanism effectively is the worship of earthly forces through patriarchal domination and their False Father earthly conjured gods for selfish material gain. The world of forces can be ritualized through offerings, Blood Sacrifice SRA and its intentions made manifest through superimposing forces or binding others energies without their consent or free will in physical matter. Apparently, it is believed when the luciferian ritualist opens the portal of Daath, the heart complex and physical heart chambers are filled with life force, which supposedly grows a soul from those sacrificed and harvested, on behalf of those who are soul-less. For those of us aware that the Sons of Belial are behind the New World Order and the 911 Timelines, it becomes clearer that humanity was held captive at a global scale, to witness the sophisticated orchestration of an Adam Belial Luciferian ritual that destroyed the Twin Towers and killed many innocent people for the purpose of Blood Sacrifice for the soul-less. The Belial Program described is one faction of the NAA attempting to force the planet to serve the multiple invading species agenda, through imposing artificially replicated time fields, inverting the system and generating a false reality based upon masterful lies, deceptions and illusions. The NAA effectively declared an edict of war against the Christos Founders, and all of the Maji Grail King lines, Indigos, as well as the earth population on September 12, 2000. Exactly one year later they staged an Adam Belial ritual in order to institute a public ceremony announcing their New World Order plan with the culmination of the tragic events of September 11, 2001 in New York City. The destruction of the Twin Towers and Blood Sacrifice of those killed at the World Trade Center, was intended to be the line drawn in the sand to show the NAA were proceeding with their full domination and slavery agenda of humanity and earth. This event brought forward what became known as the 911 Timelines, the institution of the false reality timelines in order take the planet into AI Assimilation Timeline which is the Fallen AI Timeline Loops that the NAA fully control from within the Phantom Matrix. The day of the attack: 11 The Date of the Attack, September 11 or 9/11 = 9 + 1 + 1 = 11 911 is emergency number = 9 + 1 + 1 = 11 September 11th is the 254th day of the year: 2 + 5 + 4 = 11 After September 11th we have 111 remaining for the end of the year. 119 is the Area Code for Iran & Iraq 1 + 1+ 9 = 11 The first plane to hit one of the buildings was Flight 11 The State of New York was the 11th State to join the Union New York City = 11 letters Afghanistan = 11 letters The Pentagon = 11 letters Flight 11 had 92 passengers, 9 + 2 = 11 Flight 77 had 65 passengers, 6 + 5 = 11 Twin Towers look like an 11 Twin Towers had 110 floors George H.W. Bush’s famous New World Order speech to congress was on 9/11/1990. Exactly 11 years before the attacks. In that speech, Bush encodes another 9-11. “Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective, a New World Order” → 5. “An era in which the nations of the world: east and west, north and south…” → 4. 5+4=9. “100 generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while 1000 wars waged across the span of human endeavor” →100+1000 = 1100 → 11 Through gematria we see the first plane, American Airlines Flight 11, actually encodes two 11s. A=1, so AA-11 = 11-11. This also hearkens to the spiritual organization founded by Aleister Crowley known as A∴A∴ The North Tower (WTC1) was impacted at 8:46:40 and collapsed at 10:28:22. An interval of ~101 minutes. The South Tower (WTC2) was impacted at 9:03:00 and collapsed at 9:59:00. An interval of 56 minutes, 5+6=11. (Yes, those times times are exactly at the minute marks. 9:03:00 is the impact time given in the 9/11 Commission Report. However, NIST established this time as 9:02:59… Shucks, only one second off.) September 11th was the 254th day of the year. 2+5+4=11 Thus, there were 111 days left in the year. September 11th in the Gregorian calendar is New Year’s Day in the Coptic calendar, the calendar originating in Egypt, traditionally the source of all the Hermetic traditions. Quran (9:11) - "For it is written that a son of Arabia would awaken a fearsome Eagle. The wrath of the Eagle would be felt throughout the lands of Allah and lo, while some of the people trembled in despair still more rejoiced; for the wrath of the Eagle cleansed the lands of Allah; and there was peace". (Note the verse number!)

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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RWBY Recaps - Volume 8 “War”

Hello, everyone! Story time.

Yesterday food was delivered for my two idiot dogs (they’re thrilled about it) but, because it was delivered by Fed Ex, shenanigans were bound to ensue. These particular shenanigans involved realizing that the food had not been left at the front door like tracking said it had. Instead, it was down the very long driveway by the mailbox. Specifically, it was on a low wall beside the mailbox, currently inaccessible due to a mound of plowed snow.

Now, how the delivery guy managed to get it there I’ll never know, but given that our postal system is currently killing itself to get us our Amazon orders for Christmas, I shrugged, let it go, and resigned myself to lifting an 18 pound bag plus box over that snow without dying. Which meant that in reality I just dragged it, uncaring what bumps the bag might accumulate along the way. What are the dogs gonna do? Complain about presentation?

Snow successfully circumvented; I was home free!

… until I was lifting the box into the car, hit a patch of black ice, and was suddenly looking up at the sky, my right hip and leg screaming.

I’m fine. Bruised, but fine. It’s 2020. Did I expect to not fall? C’mon, Clyde. Be sensible.

The reason I'm telling you all this is because falling on ice at 10:00pm with an oversized bag of dog food was less painful than watching this episode.

I jest... but only a little. To be fair to RWBY, it admittedly wasn't painful in any new way. Everything that's a problem this week has been a problem for years now: confusing motivations, changing semblances, unpersuasive character beats, etc. So in some ways this episode — especially as a hiatus episode — is rather underwhelming. I expected RWBY to do something big before taking six weeks off, but this episode simply set the (unstable) stage for what's to come. With the exception of Ren, nothing changed this episode, which makes for a rather "Okay..." note to end on. It's not inherently bad, it's just a bit of a letdown after hyping ourselves up over the expectation that something even crazier than grimm soup will happen. Which, to again be fair, is on us as opposed to the writers. But that feeling of, "If this was last week, what in the world will we get right before an unpredicted hiatus?" was palpable. Turns out the answer was, "A pretty tame episode."

As always though, let's start at the beginning. This episode is titled "War" — straight to the point — and it's actually a little shorter than our last three episodes, adding to that "Okay..." feeling overall. We open on the outskirts of Atlas, amidst what appears to be a wheat field, or something similar. Upon reflection, it makes sense that the bubbled city would be able to grow things not normally growable in the tundra. This might also explain Cinder's strange beginning. Perhaps her orphanage existed on these rural outskirts and then she was brought into the city proper? We'll probably never know for sure, but at least this is a simpler answer than, "The Madame went off to an entirely different Kingdom to secure her child slave." Occam's Razor and all that.

Ironwood's army has assembled to hold off Salem's army. Wow, aren't we glad Ironwood invested in thousands of trained professionals rather than a handful of independent fighters? Seriously though, this is now a battle of numbers. May says later in the episode that Ironwood's forces are doing their best to assist Atlas, so they should go help Mantle... but that help only exists because years ago he recognized that the tiny class sizes of the Academies, this

wasn't going to be enough if grimm attacks suddenly increased. Sure enough, now they're in a situation where Ironwood needs even more men to keep up with Salem's creation magic. The fact that he has any at all is crucial to what little hope is left. How do Jaune, Yang, and Ren think they're going to get the time to look for Oscar without everyone dying while they're gone? Because Ironwood's army is keeping the attack at bay. I love how the story keeps angling for the "Military people are evil" message while actively showing us how much a military is needed in this world. If Ironwood had been a generic Good Guy who dismantled his armed forces because others wanted to ignore that they've always been at war against objectively evil creatures — both the grimm and Salem — then there would have been nothing to hold Salem off until small team rescue/bomb plans could be implemented.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. As usual. The army is on the front lines and one guy is scared enough that he's shaking. Can't say I blame him. As always, RWBY functions best when it leans towards horror, with skeletons rising alongside the normal grimm and intense music playing to convey the stakes. Ironwood watches the onslaught and immediately calls for a civilian evacuation into the subway system. Get people below ground, behind a few, defendable entrances, rather than wandering about the city where land or sky grimm can pick them off easy-peasy. Makes sense. Yet I'm already seeing fans make snide comments about how Ironwood is "still running," which just demonstrates how many viewers take the emotions of the show at face value — who is Good and who is Bad — rather than considering the situation and deciding for themselves. What's far more egregious than viewers enjoying a story however they'd like on a Saturday before the holiday though (seriously, my salt aside, no one has to enjoy RWBY any one way) is that RT again tries to paint Ironwood as crazy when he's... just not? Beyond the choice to animate him with scary expressions

once he gives the order the soldier starts to say, "But sir — " and Ironwood yells for him to obey right now. The scene makes it look like Ironwood is doing something shady again. Here's this goon balking at the order, but we're not told why. What's bad about getting the people to (relative) safety? Why is this order treated like something to question at all? We're not told and, from what we do know, it's not something that would be questioned, so unless we learn something new post-hiatus, that line exists only to make Ironwood look bad. It's a (nonsensical) excuse to have another ally turning against him (slightly) and to give Ironwood the chance to look scary and violent again. Nevermind that his city is under attack and if a subordinate started questioning a completely sensible and time-sensitive order? I might yell too.

So we're off to a great start. The above looks particularly stupid given that we immediately see the flying grimm arriving in a populated area, terrifying all the civilians there. Everyone bolts for the subway and we cut away from a man trying desperately to reach his daughter, unsure if either of them survive. But people want Ironwood to not use what few resources he has? See, this is why generic messages like, "You have to stand your ground" don't work. Sometimes there are situations where you should run and that doesn't automatically equal being a coward. It means you're smart enough to take the actions necessary to save as many lives as possible.

Later on we'll have a similar issue with the message, "You have to trust people" when my darling Oscar briefly loses his mind.

Now though, we see that the "fugitives" Yang, Jaune, and Ren have been taken into custody. Of course they have. Look, when the preview dropped yesterday I saw a number of takes along the lines of, "How dare the Ace Ops do this. They need to put aside their differences until the attack is over!" but no, they really don't, because it's no longer their responsibility to extend trust towards this group. Especially when doing so, to their mind, has a high chance of making a horrific situation that much worse. What are they going to do if, in the middle of a Salem attack, the kids they decided to trust betray them, attack them, and leave them knocked out somewhere while the world burns?

...Oh wait, they already did that.

See, the group broke trust first. Numerous times. The Ace Ops listened to Yang admit that she and Blake had betrayed Ironwood days ago. Then they watched Ruby betray him again by alerting the rest of the team, turning them against him. They swore they wouldn't attack, so Team RWBY attacked them first. They learn that Qrow had a hand in murdering their leader. They encounter the group again and Weiss gleefully asks if they want a second defeat. They watch Ruby tell the entire world to dismiss Ironwood because he’s the one who can’t be trusted. Outside of JYR not immediately attacking them when they arrived to help (something I praised them for), this group has never put their trust in the Ace Ops. So why do they — and we — expect the Ace Ops to do so now? Imagine for just a moment that it was reversed. We find out that someone betrayed the group for no good reason, set themselves against them, continued to do so as everything fell apart, told the rest of the world they’re the enemy, and then a close associate is involved in Ruby's murder. How many people would expect the group to just shrug all that off? Would they put their differences aside and embrace these people because blind trust is (supposedly) the right thing to do? Of course not! Yang would punch their lights out and everyone would cheer, but that's because they're the established heroes. Outside of that role, no one else is allowed to mistrust those who have proven themselves untrustworthy and take precautions against getting betrayed again. To say nothing of how these characters don’t have our meta perspective. Meaning, they live in a world where this trio is not a part of a protagonist group destined to remain a part of the plot because that’s how story conventions work. They’re three random teens who were promoted to huntsmen early. They’re three soldiers out of many who can, at any time, be taken out of the fight. No one on the Ace Ops is working under the belief that they “have” to be a part of this fight. From their in-world perspective, you could toss them in jail for the rest of the battle and that’s that. Outside of their fugitive status they are entirely unimportant.

So yes, Jaune, Ren, and Yang are in handcuffs. They deserve to be. Don't worry though, they get out very soon.

Yang makes a snide comment about Winter "Still just following orders" and honestly? I've lost the love I used to have for her as a character. Yang is just an exercise in frustration whenever she speaks now. Thus far she's blamed Ruby for everything that's gone wrong (ignoring her own choices there), did a 180 to yell at Ren for acknowledging how bad things are, worried nonsensically about Blake being disappointed in her even though Ruby is the one she fought with, and is now back to the "You just follow orders" shtick. Yang will label anything she personally doesn't like as evil order following, but conveniently ignores how following Ruby's orders helped get them into this mess, and how the one time she went AWOL made things even worse. These characters don't actually have beliefs they stand behind, they just say whatever is currently necessary to make themselves look good, even if that contradicts previous statements or actions.

She also gets mad at Vine for saying that grimm don't take prisoners, ignoring that she only found this out a few hours ago. No one in the group is equipped to navigate the emotional minefield that is this war because they can't even take two seconds to put themselves in another’s shoes. Weiss doesn't bother to consider Whitley's situation. Jaune points at the snow and gets frustrated that Harriet doesn't magically know there's grimm soup flowing nearby. Yang snaps at Vine for stating what she also knew to be a basic fact about grimm up until Oscar's kidnapping. It's all framed as, "How can you be this stupid?" rather than, "Oh yeah, these people haven't had the experiences I have. If I was randomly told this I'd doubt it too. I should try to explain this in a way that will make sense to them and increase my chances of being believed."

This is the group who decided it was a good idea to tell the whole world about Salem and did it just as badly as I suspected they would. The story has shoved a delicate, information-based war into the hands of punch-happy teenagers and refuses to grapple with how that's a bad thing.

Anyway, Ironwood comes on the radio to say that the whale is pretty indestructible on the outside, but it might be vulnerable from the inside, so let's get a bomb in there. Seems like a good enough plan as any, especially given that the grimm is currently on the very outskirts of the city, away from the civilians if/when it's blown up. What kind of bomb might this be though?

Could it, perhaps, end up being a now severely damaged android who is based off of Pinocchio?

Time will tell. For now, the group is quite obviously upset that Ironwood is planning a big BOOM while Oscar (and Ozpin! Tellingly, no one mentions Ozpin...) is still inside. Here's the thing: Both sides are right here. YJR are right to be worried about their friend, while the Ace Ops — who have no emotional ties to Oscar and, as just established, are questioning whether or not a grimm really kidnapped him — are right that they cannot prioritize a single life over the entirety of Atlas. They just can't! And any hero worth their salt is going to recognize this. You cannot knowingly sacrifice thousands of people (if not more) for one (admittedly awesome) farm boy. It would be a different situation if the people of Atlas volunteered to remain in danger to give Oscar a chance at escape, but that obviously isn't the situation here. If someone told me, "Sorry, Clyde, we can't get you out because the place you're in is super dangerous and attempting to extract you would likely cause the rescue party to die. Also, the longer we don't blow this location up the longer lots of other people die" I'd be like, "Fair enough. Have a nice life!" I mean, obviously anyone would be terrified and devastated by the news, but if you're still thinking straight and have even an ounce of compassion for others, you don't trade all those lives for your own. Spock does not open the door to flood the whole Enterprise with radiation!

And notably, neither does Kirk. Oscar isn't given the chance to sacrifice himself — ignoring his choice to try and undermine Salem's forces rather than escaping — so Jaune, Ren, and Yang are deciding that for him. Which, again, makes sense for them emotionally, but it's still a selfish choice. They're prioritizing their family over everyone else's. If someone ever told me they’d risked a whole city for my sake I’d be touched, but also pissed as hell. Because what were you thinking?

Which is really my biggest issue with this divide. It would have been nice if the show had done more to make me believe these three are that ride and die for Oscar. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that they are and I'll take this characterization over the apathy we had in the past, but let's be real, it kind of came out of nowhere. The group as a whole pretty much ignored Oscar up until the movie invite and two of these characters — Yang and Jaune — have actively hurt him in the name of getting at Ozpin. Now suddenly they're willing to toss aside their huntsmen duties — protect the people — in order to save him? Nice sentiment, it's just that, as always, we have very little development for it, especially given the level of emotion shown. Particularly when it comes to Ren. The prospect of someone sacrificing Nora? I 100% believe that he draws a hard line and this kick-starts a change in his semblance. Ren is shown to be thinking about how he lost his teammate Pyrrha? Totally believe it! Someone is sacrificing the kid I'm not sure he's ever had a conversation with? That's less persuasive. At the very least, it would have been nice to have the trio grapple with whether they can or should prioritize Oscar over everyone else, rather than taking such a black and white stance of, "Of course taking the time to save this one guy while everyone else dies is worth it. You're evil for thinking otherwise."

We even get a shot of Winter's hand shaking and clenching like Yang's used to, just to hammer home who the correct party is.

While they begin this argument we cut to Salem who is literally conducting her grimm in their attack against Atlas.

Very nice. I love when a villain has

Emerald watches her, clearly freaked out, and then sneaks off to where Oscar is held. In the hallway she encounters one of the jellyfish grimm, so she casually makes it not see her until it has passed.

Her semblance works on grimm, but not “real girl” androids? Okay.

We all realize how crazy powerful Emerald is though, right? The stuff that she could do in a fight is staggering and I'll be forever salty that all she managed in the Penny battle was to create a couple different Cinders. Emerald, Marrow, Salem herself... RWBY has a real problem of having the antagonists conveniently not use the power at their disposal when the heroes need to win.

So Emerald starts listening in on Ozpin's torture. We learn that Hazel was recruited when he tried to kill Salem numerous times and had to watch her keep reforming. Which, if I remember correctly, is a technique she used back when she and Ozma were playing at Gods. It worked and now Hazel believes that they "share a vision. She's going to create a new world order," one without Kingdoms or Huntsmen Academies. No, says Ozpin, she's going to divide humanity past reform, summon the Gods, and hopefully die when they take out all of Remnant.

...My god, did we finally get Salem's motivations after seven years?

Seriously though: seven years. It's way too late, especially when we now have so many questions attached to this supposed goal. If Salem always wanted to divide the world irrevocably, why didn't she attack, oh, say, a thousand years ago? Why has she kept to the sidelines until now? None of this answers why she held off until our simple soul was conveniently ready to fight her. We also have the issue of Salem's knowledge, or lack thereof. So she obviously knows about the Relics and that they'll summon the Gods, but not how to work them? How did that come about? Even Ozpin's motivations are murky now. He repeats Salem's curse word-for-word — though notably, minus the "You must learn the importance of life and death. Only then may you rest" part — yet unless Salem told him this herself when they first reunited — and we know they both hid things from the other — Ozpin could have only gotten this line from the lore episode, something he witnessed along with us just a few weeks/months back. So is he only now realizing that this is what Salem wants the Relics for? Might he be wrong? Or did he somehow figure this out lifetimes ago and we're just not told how? If this is the case, why haven’t Salem’s motivations come up before now?

This sudden, "Oh yeah, she's always wanted to die" feels pretty tacked on. Like RT had Salem arrive last Volume because that's ~cool~ and then suddenly realized that they have to deal with her motivations now, so they hastily cobbled this together. But, as said at the start, this is entirely expected for RWBY nowadays. A problem to be sure, though one we've been putting up with for a couple of years now.

During all this, Hazel shouts that this is what Ozpin deserves and the first word out of his mouth is, "Yes."

But Oscar and the rest of Remnant don't deserve it, so make the right choice for them. How did RT think they were going to make this guy an antagonist? Ozpin has so much self-hatred and yet is still trying SO HARD that he makes Ruby Drinking Tea While The World Burns Rose look laughable.

Oh yeah, we'll be getting to that scene in just a second, but for now I just want us all to appreciate Ozpin as a character, even if the story won't.

....

.......

..............

...Okay, moment done lol. Sorry, Oz, there's a lot to cover this episode.

We cut to a semi-conscious Nora who asks Weiss, "Now what am I good for?" So that’s a double serving of oof. That's when Ruby arrives with fine china steaming with tea. Or coffee. Or hot chocolate. Whatever it is these girls are drinking. What comes next is accompanied by a strange kind of vindication for me. I mean, the fandom dragged me so hard for taking issue with their snuggly smiles during Ruby's message, yet now we literally have the girls sitting back in a mansion as everything goes to shit around them. I know the knee jerk reaction to this will be, "They have to watch over Nora" and “They deserve a break” but really? All three of them need to watch her? And a break during the height of the action? Blake says she hopes everyone else is okay, but who is actually out looking for information about the rest of their team? May. Who's going to do something to get Nora help? Whitley. These characters are so good at telling us they're the heroes while rarely ever displaying those traits. They all (somehow) saw the attack on Atlas and have the ability to get out there and defend people — the job they wanted — yet Ruby looks out the window and asks, "What can we even do?" while taking a long sip of tea. The people of Mantle are (supposedly) freezing to death, yet one of the few with aura, Weiss, sits by a roaring fire going, "Do we just wait for someone to come? If they even come.” I'm sorry, you didn't consider this before you told the whole world about Salem? No one questioned whether asking for potentially non-existent help was worth the risk and what they'd do if it never came? Or even just what they’d do in the meantime? I’m not saying the girls can’t have basic necessities like drinks, or that it can’t be done in style when that’s conveniently available. I’m saying them enjoying the food, warmth, and relative safety of the Schnee household (built on racism) while casually talking about what, if anything, they should do for the people dying outside looks a bit Not Good. "Should we wait for the fire department?" Asks the character as their kitchen burns, sitting beside a number of water buckets that could help slow things down. "If they even come," they sigh, taking another sip of tea. This is ridiculous! The city is currently under attack by the series' Big Bad and half our heroes are just sitting around, watching the evil lightning, wondering if they should try to do anything about it.

"How did it all get like this?" Ruby asks her cup, ignoring the many steps she took to make things this bad. It continually boggles my mind that Ironwood is out here trying to keep people safe in the subway, coming up with a plan to blow up this whale, sending out an army to kill countless grimm... yet "What can we even do?" Ruby is supposed to be the hero here. You know, the one who has silver eyes and could one-shot huge numbers of Salem's army if she actually went out there and tried to help.

Ironwood is taking action... and so is May. As said, she's the one out looking for info on their teammates and when she returns says that they should all get back down to Mantle. Why? Because, as mentioned earlier, Atlas at least has an army to help with things. Mantle only has them.

Yet suddenly, Weiss doesn't want to leave.

Where did this come from? They succeeded in their preferred plan of telling the world what's going on over Ren and Yang's plan of helping what people they could, and now they're looking for something to do. Why wouldn't they head back to help? (Especially now that the shields are down.) Weiss yells that there are people dying in Atlas too but, as established, Atlas has the army. And where was this concern when they refused to let Atlas leave? After a Volume and a half of pro-Mantle content, this seems to come out of nowhere. Worse, Weiss tries to guilt May by asking if she has family in Atlas, which leads to the reveal that she's trans. Her family rejected their daughter.

I want to be clear that I'm very happy RT made this canon. For what she is — a side character we know incredibly little about — I really like May and the fact that they were clear in her identity rather than keeping it to twitter deserves recognition. Yet I'm not going to pretend that the reveal didn't leave a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, simply because we have this incredibly privileged cis girl, who knows a great deal about shitty families, hearing how horrible May's was and still trying to tell her she needs to suck it up and help Atlas over Mantle. When May angrily asks whose side she's on, Blake makes a comment about hearing that before, comparing her to Ironwood. May is painted as the misguided one here, but can you imagine if someone told Weiss to go help Jacques over her found family, Team RWBY, regardless of what he's done to her? The fandom would explode, and rightly so. There's something to be said for realism here, showing us Weiss and Blake's inability to see where May is coming from... but it doesn't feel like a commentary on that. It feels like another Penny situation: May is put in her place for being inconsiderate, even though this time it's her choosing to help people who are ALSO in danger over the people who represent family she's broken with.

I wanted conflict this Volume and I absolutely got it, but damn if it isn’t badly thought out at times.

Because rather than grappling with these personal motivations, Ruby brushes them aside by yelling, "There are no sides! We want to help everyone."

Does that extend to Ironwood? Ruby's speeches started falling flat when she betrayed Ozpin, attacked Cordovin, betrayed Ironwood, attacked the Ace Ops... This girl does not want to "help everyone." She wants to help those who agree with her.

Yet her rock solid optimism generates the question, “So how exactly do we get out of it?” which, as expected, Ruby has no answer to. The story keeps showing us how bad a leader Ruby has become, yet no one is actively responding to that. They kinda disagree about lying to Ironwood, but still go along with it. Yang kinda criticizes her sister, but that's then lost to general worry as they split (on Ruby's end, anyway). They want to know how she'll lead them next and are seemingly fine when Ruby continually says, "I don't know." At this point I'd be like, "Well... you didn't like May's plan of going back to Mantle, but apparently can't come up with a plan yourself... so I'm going to go with her."

This is the same conflict we had last Volume: Ruby spoke optimistically about saving everyone, yet was unable to come up with a way to do that. Ironwood had a plan that, while horrific, might save a lot of lives. Yet Ruby is presented as the one to back. Now here she is, hours later, still unable to figure out a way to achieve her perfect outcome. Ruby wanting things to be a certain way is not going to make them so and I’m wondering when someone within the group is going to recognize and act on that.

As Ruby fails to answer this crucial question, we pull back to see Whitley listening in at the door.

Cutting back to Ozpin and Oscar, Hazel has listened to all this craziness about Gods, immortality, the destruction of Remnant... and literally goes, "Cool story, bro."

Okay, he says "Nice story" but the emotion is the same. Which I'm really happy about! I mentioned in a recent post that, as far as we know, Hazel hasn't been told anything about the Gods up until now. What Ozpin is telling him sounds like gibberish at worst, incredibly hard to believe craziness at best. Now chuck in Mercury's point that as a tortured prisoner he'll say anything to get free, as well as the fact that this is Ozpin talking to Hazel... and I'm really glad Hazel just ignored his speech (for now at least). It wouldn't make sense otherwise. Granted, this means that the plan literally amounted to, “Let’s info dump a bunch of nonsense-sounding lore on our enemy in the hope that he’ll believe us and betray Salem.” It’s something to try, certainly, and it admittedly is a much better plan than what Oscar is about to cook up.

So since Hazel won't listen to Ozpin, Oscar wants to try instead. Why did you two switch in the first place? It's really obvious that RT is having the characters do weird things in order to stretch out the plot.

Either way, our farm boy is in control again. What new strategy will he try?

"Her name is Jinn."

This is BEYOND stupid. No, none of this "You have to trust people" nonsense. This is not “people,” this is Hazel. There is a Grand Canyon's width of difference between learning to trust your allies and blindly trusting an active villain who just rejected your "Please defect :(" speech. Even if we remove Hazel from the equation, this is still a monumentally foolish move. I mean, has Oscar considered where he is? This isn't some random warehouse he's been taken to, this is a semi-sentient grimm, a creature creating other creatures out of its ceiling

and whose doors automatically open when people need them to (Mercury). This is a living being created by and connected to Salem herself. How does Oscar know Salem can't hear everything he says? Or that the whale can't relay information to her? That the grimm in the walls won't pop out and run to their master? Or even that a normal person isn't listening in at the door — like Emerald is. If that had been Tyrian instead, that's it. They're done. Game over.

Someone: "Wow. Salem got the Lamp and managed to ask where the Beacon Relic is. Since the school is still overrun by her army, she snatched it up quick, finished destroying Atlas, and is now on her way to Vacuo. She's nearly completed her plan in days! How did all this happen?

Oscar: I, um... told her what she wanted to know?

Someone: You what?

Oscar: But not Salem! I just told Hazel! ... and then the information somehow got back to her.

Someone: "Somehow?" You deliberately told one of Salem's henchmen this crucial piece of information, in a place where there was a good chance you would be overheard by conventional or magical means, and you're surprised that she "somehow" learned it and used that information to doom us all?

Oscar: ...Yes?

This is so staggeringly stupid it... well, it could only have been done by a kid. So at least that fits lol. Oscar, I love you, but Ozpin should have been screaming in horror the second those words left your mouth. Generations of precautions undone because a kid wants to believe the best of the guy currently pummeling him. Sweet, but stupid. I’m all for optimistic characters, they just can’t risk the whole world on that optimism. Oscar risking himself on the seemingly doomed plan to turn Hazel is one thing, Oscar risking all of Remnant on the seemingly doomed plan to turn Hazel is another thing entirely.

Even though you know this is precisely how the story will go. Oscar willingly hands over Jinn's name to Salem's forces, but happily none of the THREE who hear about it will tell her. The story's unwillingness to follow through on consequences doesn't change what a bad move this was. I mean, Oscar himself accused Ironwood of playing into Salem's hands by disagreeing with them about how to not die, yet a few hours later he will willingly give Hazel the one piece of information Salem needs to move closer to world-wide destruction? That's uh... well, that's something.

They should have just had the poor boy be tortured, spill the beans to make it stop, and start an arc of self-forgiveness. Oscar can be awesome without coming up with world-dooming plans.

So yeah, Oscar is hoping that Hazel will use the Lamp himself and find out the truth. He wants Hazel to trust him and the man he despises most in the world enough to go against the immortal woman he's terrified of, get the Lamp away from her somehow to use for himself, wasting a once in a generation question to confirm all this, so that Salem will lose a guy with muscle who, to be frank, is absolute insignificant in the grand scheme of her power. Fantastic.

As said, Emerald overhears all this and immediately runs to Mercury, who is less than convinced by her "Salem wants to destroy the world" talk. Just as he's expressing doubt, Tyrian appears to confirm that this is exactly what she wants to do — and he's loving it.

“Of course she is! You’re surprised? Salem is destruction incarnate!”

It's a legit point. Are our villains so dense they never considered that Salem might do something to the world they didn't like? It's like the group not thinking about how Salem is still around if Ozpin has been fighting her for a thousand years. RWBY continually gives the impression that these characters don't think about their situation past what they're doing at any given moment.

Tyrian maintains his title as best villain though, simply because I understand what he's doing, why he's doing it, and he's so damn good at it.

Also, can we appreciate Mercury's face here?

Amazing. This is the kind of humor we should be getting in such a tragedy-laden Volume.

The two of them, Tyrian and Mercury, head off to Vacuo for the Secret Mission, despite Mercury's newfound hesitation. I quite liked these quiet moments between him and Emerald. It has a very "Do what you've gotta do" vibe while showcasing their care for one another, something we haven't seen in a while.

Back with the airship group. YJR are still horrified that Ironwood would blow up Oscar (even though he has no idea Oscar is there), begging the Ace Ops to give them "a chance to try to rescue him first.” Ren goes pretty hard on the "no one is replaceable" bit, which is frustrating not being what he’s saying is inaccurate (it’s not), but because that's not the issue here. The writing has Harriet start yelling about Marrow replacing her old teammate and Winter replacing Clover, but the question is not whether you'll just forget a teammate and move on with someone new, but whether you're willing to sacrifice them for the greater good. That's the stance: Should we sacrifice one life to save thousands? Will you, as a protector of the people, put those people before your own found family? Yet what RT has Harriet say is: Oscar is replaceable. Which obviously makes her come across as an ass. Like the random soldier questioning Ironwood — or making Elm about to punch a defenseless Ren in her anger — it exists solely to show how bad these character are... even as they say pretty persuasive things.

The writing also continues to be confused about whether the Ace Ops are friends or not. Yang certainly didn't think so... up until she asks (rhetorically) whether Marrow would sacrifice himself for Elm, Harriet, and Vine. Since their introduction, the story has loudly insisted that the Ace Ops aren't friends... up until it's revealed ("revealed") that Harriet is actually gutted about Clover. So which is it? Are we supposed to believe that these are cold soldiers who only work together out of duty, or that they're a team who clearly love one another? I'd say that show has shown us the latter, but it doesn't seem to understand what point it's trying to make. Does this look like a soldier who doesn’t care?

It’s especially weird when Ren again makes the claim that this is why they lost to Team RWBY. Because they're not a team.

...So is this why they did such a fantastic job fighting the geist, demonstrating such perfect teamwork that the group was open-mouthed impressed? Is this why they nearly took down a Maiden together? Is this why Ren, while furious at Yang and Jaune, was still able to work seamlessly with them to try and rescue Oscar? Do we think if Yang was suddenly beside Ruby again that the two would fail spectacularly in a fight because they had a minor disagreement?

This is now the third time RT has tried to excuse nerfing the Ace Ops with, "They disagree about things and are thus not friends and thus can't fight well together" — despite all evidence to the contrary — and it's getting really old.

At one point Harriet tells Ren, "I had you pegged as the most level-headed of the bunch, but I guess you’re just as naïve" which, ignoring her then random claim that people are replaceable, is correct. I also pegged Ren as the most level-headed of the bunch considering he was just yelling at Yang for how much damage they've caused, all the mistakes they've made, and that maybe — just maybe — they should have tried harder to work with Ironwood. Yet now here he is, in a position to start that process, and the Ren we got in the snow is simply gone. He's fully Team Yang and Jaune again, facing off against the evil Ace Ops.

I knew this was going to happen, but it's still disappointing. The story gave Ren a great speech to appease those of us frustrated with the direction the story has taken... and now we’re back to ignoring that. Ren was told off for daring to question how great the group is, apparently thought it over in the snow, and is now of the opinion that yes, they are that great. People are going to die because of us? Who cares about that anymore! We will absolutely, single-handedly rescue Oscar and there's no reason why this might be a questionable choice when an entire city is on the line. Again, emotionally understandable (if we buy into the group suddenly loving Oscar this much), but it rings hollow right after making Ren the one person who was willing to look at the big picture.

Good news though: Jaune got the braincell this week! He suggests that they go in to try and rescue Oscar/provide intel, but won't stop the Ace Ops from launching the bomb when necessary.

See, this is heroic. This is what the group should have done during the Mantle conflict: Volunteering to take the personal risk of facing off against Salem while letting Atlas try to escape. Basically, not forcing everyone else to risk their lives for their pipe dream, which is what Ren and Yang want by rejecting the bomb entirely. Jaune recognizes here that they can't prioritize Oscar over an entire city, but also that they may still be able to save him before the bomb is complete and ready to go. So they compromise, with JYR the only ones at risk.

Good job, Jaune!

Winter agrees to this plan with a firm, "I outrank you" to Harriet. People are going to love that.

Oh, but in his anger Ren's semblance suddenly changes. So we're back to the ridiculous.

Truthfully, I like this direction. Granted, I would have liked some buildup to it, especially since this is the second time this Volume that RWBY has dropped a major semblance change on us, but the idea itself is really cool. Ren can now see emotions! Awesome! And I don't mean that sarcastically. I actually think that’s a neat extension of his original semblance.

Too bad the story seems to think he's a mind reader.

Seriously, take a look back at the dialogue. What Ren sees are confetti-like petals floating around a person, their color seeming to determine their emotional state. Red means Harriet is mad, blue is sadness for Marrow, etc. But what Ren ends up saying is a great deal closer to mind reading. Harriet is angry about Clover and is gutted at his loss. Marrow is questioning his place here and wants to leave. These aren't base emotions, they're targeted thoughts and feelings about situations not immediately apparent from the verbal conversation. “In fact, you don’t want to be a part of it at all anymore." How does Ren know that? They just gave him telepathy instead of the cool power with firm limitations that the imagery suggests.

There are also some, uh... iffy implications in all this. For example, Ren allows Yang privacy by not reading her mind emotional state, but has no qualms about reading every one of the Ace Ops’. So privacy is only for the people you care about, huh?

We could also say something about RT perpetuating unfortunate racial stereotypes: the two women of color are pure anger, the marginalized man is pure sadness, the Asian coded character is pure calm... and the white woman set to turn against the others gets a mix of all emotions. AKA, human complexity.

To be clear, I don't think RT is doing this deliberately. Rather, they’re writers who have demonstrated time and time again that they don't have a good handle on depicting the sort of sensitive material that RWBY is infused with, and that extends to the mild, but still unfortunate, implications in scenes like this. Even if we ignore the iffy details — a benefit of the doubt that, at this point, many fans aren’t willing to grant — we're still left with the continuity errors. Visually, we're presented with a woman who is experiencing multiple emotions at once and is, therefore, torn. Yet Ren reads Winter definitively: "I know you [don't want this] either." It's yet another moment that makes me wonder how much communication there is between the writers and the animators, because too often the two seem to be at odds with each other.

As the group prepares to go into the belly of the beast (literally!) we return to Ruby who is, once again, failing to make me believe she's this super compassionate person.

“Wait! What about Qrow and Robyn? Maybe if we get them out of wherever they’re held—”

Please tell me I'm not the only one who took issue with this? Ruby doesn't express an ounce of worry for her uncle, not even when she learns he's been arrested, and the one time she brings him up it's in the context of what he can do for them in this fight? Ruby doesn't grapple with whether to rescue her uncle (personal desire), or get the message to the world (her version of the heroic action) and then realize that, now that her duty is done, she can finally turn to the more selfish act of helping her immediate family. Instead, Ruby seems perfectly happy to let Qrow stay in prison up until she's unsure what to do next and thinks that maybe he has the answer. Heaven forbid Ruby think about rescuing him because she loves him.

Sadly, this Ruby is long gone.

In recent years she's expressed no gratitude for him saving her life, no respect for him as her teacher, demonstrated incredibly little compassion for his own struggles, and outright told him that if he wasn't going to listen to her then he doesn't need to be part of the team. Then he's arrested and she doesn't care until she deems him useful again. Like the fandom wondering where the sisterly bond between Ruby and Yang went, I'm likewise wondering where the bond between Ruby and Qrow went.

May outright rejects this though, yelling that they still don't get it. “This is not a situation where everyone wins!"

She tells the trio they have to choose for once: Are you going to help Mantle, or Atlas?

...which means there's immediately a knock at the door, interrupting the moment where they have to decide.

See, this is just like Ren. The story keeps giving us moments where characters speak absolute truth, dangling the potential for the group to grow from these realizations... only to pull back before it goes anywhere. Ren is once again aligned with Yang and Jaune in their desire to save Oscar. May's demand is interrupted by the plot. If means nothing to give us these moments unless the story acts on them.

It's Klein at the door. Whitley called him to help with Nora because I guess he's a doctor now, as well as a butler? Fine. Let’s run with it. Weiss is super pleased to see him and hugs Whitley for the good deed.

Why so shocked that Whitley would look out for another, Weiss? Could it be because he's had so little reason to be kind when everyone, including you, has treated him horribly? If Klein always had these medical skills — if you’ve grown up with a doctor — why didn’t you talk to your brother and ask if he knew how to contact him? And of course, she apologizes to Klein for her father’s actions, but not to Whitley for her own. Whitley's surprise isn't cute to me.

Weiss stuck a weapon in his face, insulted him, sent him to his room like a toddler... and now is randomly hugging him because he did something she liked. The context of this scene doesn't paint Weiss in a good light. Like the rest of her friends, she only extends basic respect and kindness towards others when they're assisting her. Whitley was nothing to her until he suddenly proved himself useful. That's not cute sibling love, it's a love that's going to run out the moment Whitley puts a toe out of line, according to Weiss' unspoken list of what behavior keeps him in her good graces.

I believe that Klein cares for Whitley because he greets him kindly and gives him that shoulder pat on the way up. Whitley didn't need to first prove himself to Klein somehow and Klein didn't start this interaction by shoving a gun in Whitley's face, just in case he wouldn't let him through the door. They feel more like family than this hug does.

So yeah, Whitley and May have done more good this episode than our entire main cast. How about we just make this story about the side characters instead?

We then hear a massive boom and the group runs out to find a crater. Penny has landed in front of the manor, which is pretty convenient considering we saw her pass out as she fell.

She's somehow still in control despite the hack and apologizes to Ruby, then falls unconscious (again).

And that's where we end! Definitely a cliffhanger, though a rather underwhelming one considering we already knew Penny was in serious trouble. As said at the start, this episode felt rather underwhelming to me, especially as a halfway point before a hiatus, and compared to some of the stuff we've seen previously. It's not bad per-se — especially if we ignore the issues that have been around for an age now, which is most of what this recap deals with — it's just not terribly exciting either. Everything of importance — Salem's attack, Oscar's rescue, Penny's demise, subordinates turning, Nora's condition, etc. — had already been established in previous episodes and very little of it moved forward. Ren's semblance is the only thing the episode gave us that we couldn't have (generically) guessed for ourselves between last Saturday and now.

So yeah, underwhelmed is the mood of the day, with a hefty dose of salt for everything that continues to be a story-breaking problem in this show. I will say though that, as has become the trend for this Volume, all the establishing shots are gorgeous. RWBY is, at the very least, pretty to look at.

As a final note, in lieu of the Bingo board (since, again, not a whole happens plot-wise) I want to point out something mentioned by a friend: how absolutely bonkers our timeline is now. We began the second day last episode with the sun rising (recall that Jaune had tried to sleep that night at the outpost. So it’s definitely sunrise as opposed to sunset).

And we re-confirm that it’s sunrise at the start of this episode.

Yet throughout the episode many of our shots take place at night (note the stars behind the trio).

These moments with Ruby can't take place in the past because they're talking about the attack, an attack that only happened after Jaune's group met up with the Ace Ops and the geyser attacked — during early morning. I doubt I'm supposed to believe that it has been another full day of Salem starting an attack, a full day for the group to fly to the whale, a full day for Penny to fall, a full day which would put us at the end of the Volume’s timeline at only the halfway point... so I think RT is just going for the aesthetic of night shots without thinking about what that does to the continuity. It's a mess.

Not the highest praise to end on, but I’m working with what I’ve got lol. I feel as naïve as Oscar when I say that maybe Part II will be better.

I will, of course, see you all in six weeks. Until then, I'll do my best to catch up on asks. Another doomed endeavor, but one can try!

A very Happy Holidays to all of you who celebrate and, as always, thanks so much for reading! 💜

[Ko-Fi]

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #rwby recaps #rwby war #mymetas

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timextoxhajima · 4 years

Audio

Member: juyeon bec idk

Genre: fluff and lots of uwu because i’m feeling it :<

Category: Playlist Feels One Shot

Word Count: 1.7k

“time will be frozen for us”

most people associate something with someone.

be it the watch your father gave you, or the stuffed plushie that your mother used to play with you before you fell asleep.

yours was the sound of the door clicking open, even when it’s past midnight.

usually you would’ve rolled yourself out of bed and ran for the door like you had five seconds left to live, but the ache in your back and the mild headache throbbing inside your skull was making the regular chore too much of a hassle.

“i’m back-- oh?”

you take a deep breath, legs warm under the blanket and the night light of your room painting the walls an amber yellow. the shuffling of his feet against the floor tells you he was walking towards the bedroom where you were stuck to your bed, and you look up at him, one arm under the pillow.

he looks down at you, his blank expression quickly replaced with worry and concern when he realises you wouldn’t be in bed on any other normal day, especially not when he’s returned from his busy schedule.

“are you... okay? i was expecting you to jump on me or something when i walked through the door,” he doesn’t bother to put his bag down, his free hand dropping his keys on the nightstand next to the bed near to you.

the feverish sensation washes through you with each small breath you took as he presses his palm onto your forehead, and flips it over to press the back of his hand.

“aw... no,” he kneels down next to you and lays his head on the mattress, pulling your hand into his. “are you aching anywhere or is it just fever?”

“my back’s aching and my head’s going to kill me if it doesn’t go away soon, otherwise i’m fine.”

juyeon pouts and trails his eyes from your face to your fingers, playing with the edge of your nails while you let your fever runs its course.

“okay, well...” he pulls away, and him taking his warmth with him makes you feel slightly empty. “i’m gonna go make you some tea before i hop into the shower and--”

“noooo juyeon,” the whine was so annoyingly apparent, you couldn’t stop the laugh that ran up your throat as you reached out and grabbed his wrist.

juyeon smiles and chuckles at your whining, thumb reaching down and brushing your forehead. “no tea? what is it you need then?”

you gulp and start to press and play with the veins and knuckles on his hand. “i want to go out and see some stars.”

his face brightens, but dims back into confusion and disapproval, despite the smile never once leaving his lips. “stars? it’s one in the night, sweet pea. and on top of that, you have a fever.”

“what if i said i knew stars would make me feel better?” your other hand finds his wrist and you gently tug on it, your neck slowly aching from the need to look up at him even though you were lying down. he scans you from head to toe, and he watches you with skepticism while you fiddle with his hand.

“pleeeeaaaassseeeeeeee?” pulling up his palm to your face to let him hold your cheek, the pout on your lips only making you wonder if it was the fever talking.

you see a flash flit across his pupils, and he sighs in defeat, his heart completely giving into what you wanted instead of what you needed.

“yay,” you giggle and use his arm as a support to sit yourself up.

“but we are coming back once your ache starts to worsen and if you sneeze -- just once -- and we’ll come back immediately, okay?” he helps you off the bed and he hands you one of his sweaters to pull over your already thick, baggy shirt. “you’re lucky my schedule tomorrow isn’t in the morning.”

you bare your teeth in mischief with a smile, and the sight of him wrapping his fingers around the car and house keys makes you feel instantaneously better.

the pick-up truck was given to you by your father, and that was the thing you associated him with. he’d always wanted to get you a nicer, newer car, but all the memories you had with your parents in that old vehicle was just priceless.

you were lucky your boyfriend knew how to work his way around cars, else your father would’ve sent the pick-up truck to be dismantled.

juyeon throws some pillows and blankets into the backseat of the truck while you get in the passenger’s seat, and it wasn’t a surprise to see him climbing onto the cargo bed and spraying some disinfectant on it.

the drive to the field nearby was nothing short of juyeon telling you how his day went; and you couldn’t help but laugh at eric falling off the chair during the vlive they did in the evening.

the boys weren’t the only ones who actively teased him about it.

it wasn’t long before the pick up truck rumbled it’s way through the tall grass of the field and away from the trees that lined the roads. you were short of sticking your entire head out the window like a dog, the cold, midnight wind brushing past your skin and leaving light, delicate kisses. naturally craning your head to look upwards, you immediately start to gape and wander at the beauty of the little markings the heavens provided you.

once in the middle of the field, juyeon pulls the car into parking and turns off the engine. you walk round the car and open the backseat to take some of the pillows while he took the blankets, and the both of you throw it into the cargo bed. he picks you up and you crawl under the blankets, eyes starting to glue themselves to the breathtaking view of the sky.

the entire vehicle jerks when juyeon hops in on his own, and he crawls under the blanket with you, arm sliding under your neck and around your shoulders to hold you close to him.

your right ear presses against the left side of his chest, and his slow heartbeat becomes music to your ears, alongside the peaceful chirping of crickets in the grass all around you.

juyeon had brought you out to stargaze on your first date, in this very spot, with this very pick-up truck, and it’s been your favourite place to heal since then. you don’t remember a time coming here without juyeon either.

the scent of grass and dew filled your nostrils and the gentle breeze was making it all the more easier to breathe. you would’ve caught a cold if you were alone, but the blankets coupled with the warmth you were feeding off juyeon was enough to make you forget about your fever.

“if you’re uncomfortable or you feel your fever getting worse, we’re going home, alright?”

he whispers into your hair and pecks you on the crown of your head, his free arm reaching behind his head to prop it up atop the pillow. your left hand circles around his stomach, and your legs start to tangle with each other’s under the blanket.

“i could totally sleep right now,” you smile into the material of his hoodie, and you snuggle into his comfort as if you weren’t already glued to him like tape.

“it’ll be really funny if we both fall asleep here and we’ll get cooked by the morning sun when we wake up tomorrow.”

you laugh at his comment, and your eyes automatically open again to revel in the gorgeous sight of faraway planets and stars.

you stay quiet against him for how long, you weren’t sure. time always seemed to fly past like it was nothing when you were with him. though it made you sad sometimes, to know that every second couldn’t be pulled into eternity, but you also knew that juyeon must’ve been someone special for you to feel so happy with, you couldn’t feel the effects of time.

his gentle fiddling with your hair and circling on your shoulder drives you further into bliss, the scent of him starting to mix with the calming dewy scent of nature.

if only this really could be your eternity. the things you’d do to drag this moment out forever.

time did it’s job and continued running relentlessly, and juyeon squeezes your shoulder to tell you that it was now three, and you needed to get home to rest up properly.

you were reluctant at first, but wherever juyeon was, it would be home to you.

juyeon lets you shower first, so by the time he was in bed with you, your spirit was already half gone into the wonderland of dreams and cotton candy.

instinctively, you lay your head on his chest again, palm flat right next to your nose and his arm absorbs the warmth of your neck, fingers resting on the skin of your shoulder.

“are you feeling better though? after seeing the stars?” his voice rumbles through his chest, and you grin to yourself upon knowing that you heard it through his skin.

“i don’t need to see stars to feel better, i just had to find an excuse so the both of us won’t pass out so early.”

you feel him shift his head and a small laugh exposes itself as little bursts of air into the crown of your head.

“aw,” he cooes, kissing you on the forehead. “i’m sorry i’ve been so busy these few weeks. my schedule will definitely lighten up in a month or so, so please bear with me, would you?”

you hear the apologetic tone in his voice, and it breaks you a little. angling your head upwards, you push yourself up with enough effort to peck him on the lips for comfort.

“i’ll wait for you no matter how long it takes,” you return to your previous position and snuggle even harder if it was possible. “even if it takes a million years.”

his left hand finds the one that was on his chest and he interlocks his fingers between yours, the sensation drilling warmth and bliss throughout your entire nervous system.

“if that’s your way of saying ‘i love you’, then i love you too.”

#timetohajima #timetohajima playlist feels #juyeon #the boyz juyeon #juyeon fluff #juyeon one shot #the boyz fluff #the boyz one shot

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little-chattes · 3 years

Text

Ok so I’ve done a complete re-read through and one thing that kept nagging at me was how little Gideon and Harrow’s relationship makes sense given its quite frankly abusive origins. Harrow spends her whole life making Gideon’s a living hell and Gideon just… forgives her. Total and complete forgiveness for an irredeemable girl.

At first I took the sudden shift in their relationship as lazy writing to rush along the end of the story, but that didn't make any sense either. Muir strikes me as an intensely purposeful writer. Then I remembered that Muir is also an intensely Catholic writer and it hit me. Muir isn’t writing a story about a healthy human relationship, oh no, she’s writing a story about Christ’s relationship with The Church… if Christ was a sword toting butch lesbian and The Church was a sardonic bone witch. Call it tender blasphemy.

Now Gideon’s role as a Christ figure is fairly easy to parse out given that her dad is… God. But for the sake of self indulgence (I have to put my 15 year long flirtation with Christianity to use somehow) I’m going to go through all the parallels anyway. There are a LOT of them.

Let’s start at the very beginning (a very good place to start).

Miraculous Conception

Luke 1:34-38

34 But Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I [e]am a virgin?” 35 The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; for that reason also the [f]holy Child will be called the Son of God.

Gideon is conceived by artificial means when one of God’s own servants (Mercy) delivers a sample of John’s genetic material to Wake, a ‘normal’ human woman who chooses to carry Gideon in her womb. Notably, the sample lives far beyond its point of expected viability, thus making the conception somewhat miraculous (“Only the sample was still active, no idea how considering it was twelve weeks after the fact” HTN 441).

The Cuckold

Matthew 1:18-25

18 Now the birth of Jesus the [a]Messiah was as follows: when His mother Mary had been [b]betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit. 19 And her husband Joseph, since he was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her, planned to [c]send her away secretly.

Gideon the First decides not to kill his lover, Wake, and releases her out the airlock (AND HE TOOK PITY ON ME! HE TOOK PITY ON ME! HE SAW ME AND HE TOOK PITY ON ME” from Harrow’s vision of Wake’s note, HTN 124) just as Joseph took pity on Mary, his betrothed, by deciding to divorce her quietly instead of making her infidelity public which would condemn her to death by public stoning (Deuteronomy 22:21). Gideon the First knew that Wake was pregnant and didn’t tell John because he thought the baby was his. Similarly, Joseph goes on to raise Jesus as his own son.

The Birth

Luke 2:7

And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a [f]manger, because there was no [g]room for them in the inn.

Neither baby Jesus nor baby Gideon were given a proper cradle, one being laid to rest in a manger where the animals ate and the other stuffed in a transplant bio-container (GTN 23).

The Dead Children

16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.

King Herod intends to kill the prophesied King of the Jews and instead of finding the specific baby, he just has a bunch of them slaughtered. However, Jesus escapes the slaughter of the innocents by Herod when his parents secret him away to Egypt.

When the great aunts gas the nursery and kill the 200, Gideon is meant to die along with them but escapes her fate.

Now this event has a completely different biblical connotation for Harrow.

Firstly, the murder of the 200 children represents Original Sin. In the bible, Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, and as their descendants, all of humankind is doomed to also bear the weight of that sin from the moment we are born until the day we die. This is a fact that is drilled into Christians as soon as we’re able to understand it, we are born wretched and unworthy sinners, and there’s nothing we can do ourselves to fix that.

“I have tried to dismantle you, Gideon Nav! The Ninth House poisoned you, we trod you underfoot—I took you to this killing field as my slave—you refuse to die, and you pity me! Strike me down. You’ve won. I’ve lived my whole wretched life at your mercy, yours alone, and God knows I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you.”

Harrow is a multitude, she is 200 children, the entire future of her house. Shes not just one human being,, she’s the whole damn church.

Naz/Nav

he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

Although Gideon is not from the Ninth, she is given the Ninth name Nav when she arrives as a baby. Similarly, Jesus is known as Jesus of Nazareth, though that is not where he was born.

The Poor Bondservant

Jesus' role as a servant is emphasized many times in the bible. He was a carpenter's son born in a stable

Philippians 2:5-8

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Gideon is described as being made “a very small bondswoman” (GTN 24)

The Sword

Matthew 10:34

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

The Wretched Sinner

Harrow is wretched, self loathing, and cruel.

She is in thrall of the enemy of god, a figure who was once gods most favoured warrior, cast into hell.

She is like the depiction of the sinner who loves the devil

It's important to note that Harrow isn’t a single person, she is a multitude, the entire future of her people condensed into one body.

The Enemy of God

20 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, nholding in his hand the key to othe bottomless pit1 and a great chain. 2 And he seized pthe dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and qbound him for a thousand years, 3 and threw him into othe pit, and shut it and rsealed it over him, so that she might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.

Before the fall, Satan was described as a “guardian cherub” who resided in the garden with God (Ezekiel 28:14)

(a funny aside, in the bible the devil is known as the great deceiver but in HTN Muir specifies that Alecto is incapable of lying)

A Life of Abuse

Isaiah 53:3

"He was despised and rejected by mankind,

a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Like one from whom people hide their faces

he was despised, and we held him in low esteem”

They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff" (Luke 4:28–29).

Gideon lives a life of mockery and is abused by Harrow.

An Unlikely Savior

Despite the fact that Gideon does not fit the expected image of a Cavalier, Harrow chooses Gideon to be her sword and protector.

Despite the many openings Gideon has to make Harrow pay for the pain she caused her, she remains loyal to her

Trust

Harrow realizes that she cannot face the lyctor trials without Gideon, and places her trust in her

Christians are told they must place their trust in jesus in order to reach salvation

Purifying Water

Acts 2:38

Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Harrow confesses her sins to Gideon and puts herself at her mercy

Gideon forgives Harrow totally and completely, she baptises her

One Flesh

Mark 10:8

and the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh.

“The imagery and symbolism of marriage is applied to Christ and the body of believers known as the church. The church is comprised of those who have trusted in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and have received eternal life. Christ, the Bridegroom, has sacrificially and lovingly chosen the church to be His bride” (x)

Ephesians 5:25-26

25 gHusbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and hgave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by ithe washing of water jwith the word,

They take the vow of necro and cav, one flesh one end

Gideon’s forgiveness of Harrow is reaffirmed

Harrow risks her life to stay and fight with Gideon, even if it means her death and thus the destruction of her death. Her love for Gideon is now greater than her love for the Body.

The Sacrifice

John 19:34

Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.

They will look on the one they have pierced'" (John 19:36–37).

Gideon chooses to die for Harrow, death by piercing

and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

In order to complete the lyctor process, Harrow both physically and spiritually consumes Gideon

Because of Gideon’s sacrifice, Harrow attains eternal life at the right hand of god

The Tomb

The Resurrection

1On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus

Harrow turns her body into a tomb for Gideon, a tomb fashioned after that on the Ninth

Resurrection on the Third Day

Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Luke 24:46-47

“So many months had passed: and yet, at the same time, she had only lost Gideon Nav three days ago. It was the morning of the third day in a universe without her cavalier: it was the morning of the third day—and all the back of her brain could say, in exquisite agonies of amazement, was: She is dead. I will never see her again.” (HTN 374)

Just in case you missed this important piece of information, Muir repeats it three times.

Go, and tell them, then, that he that was dead is alive, and lives for evermore, and has the keys of death and the grave,"

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girlsbtrs · 3 years

Text

How Countercultures turn Politics into Culture

Written by Lila Danielsen Wong. Graphic by Paula Nicole

In 1969, an academic named Theodore Roszak published “The Making of a Counterculture” and coined the term “counterculture” in order to describe the ant-mainstream youth movements of the 60s. Counterculture’s are not inherently good or progressive, both the punks and the skinheads are countercultures. Counterculture just means, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a culture with values and mores that run counter to those of established society.

I’m not here to critique these movements. I am not writing this to critique how the Bohemian Romantics won respect for the arts because they mostly came from upper class backgrounds, and I’m not here to discuss the lack of intersectionality in the riot grrl movement. After starting this article I realized I had pitched a whole academic thesis, and maybe bit off a little more than I had intended to chew (why can’t I just pitch a listicle?). So, instead of focusing on the nitty gritty of what prompted these social movements and academically exploring their effects, I want to talk about the “culture” part of counterculture.

Nearly all countercultures are birthed around shared political ideas, but many seem to start within the culture itself, perhaps as a musical movement, a literary movement, a visual art movement, or even a fashion or aesthetic. As the movements expand, they come to encompass more of those aforementioned arts, and thus the politics that prompted the original movement become a culture.

An early example of a western subculture is the Bohemian Romantics of Europe of the 19th century. In pre-revolutionary France, artists were lower class tradesmen. Artists were seen as dirty and immoral. However, in post-revolutionary France, disillusionment prompted young bourgeois men to reject the typical hierarchy and launch the bohemian artist lifestyle we are more familiar with today. A critical event on this timeline was Victor Hugo’s “Romantic Army,” or his mob of young men that he assembled to protest theatre censorship by absolutely trashing a theatre. The Bohemian lifestyle often manifested as wealthy young artists electing poverty to reject the traditions they were born into, and to spend their time creating art unrestricted. Bohemian fashion was more utilitarian and rustic than the upper-class styles. The music of the Romantic era is categorized by its vigor and passion, pioneered by Beethoven himself. Beethoven challenged the strict and sometimes formulaic sonatas and symphonies of the past, favoring expression and inventiveness. Thus, prompted by the rejection of bourgeois values and principles, a culture was created: a lifestyle, an aesthetic, a literary movement, a new musical style.

Nearly 150 years later and 5000 miles away from Bohemian France, the riot grrl movement was brewing in the Northwest United states. The riot grrl movement, created by a group of women working to combat sexism in the western Washington punk scene, was a counterculture within a counterculture. While the Romantic movement originated in literature, the punk movement, and then the riot grrl movement, was born as a musical movement.

In 1970s Britain, the government was nearly bankrupt and giant cuts to social services were making life hard and creating a sense of alienation between the ruling class and the working class. British Punk emerged from this alienation. The youth used music to communicate their frustrations and anger. The rips and safety pins of punk fashion weren’t originally fashion, the punks just owned ragged clothing. The disillusionment with the political landscape and frustration with older generations resonated with youth all over the world, and it’s not hard to see why a Post-Vietnam and Watergate America would embrace the Punk movement with open arms. However, where British Punk was rooted in working class frustrations, American Punk took root with the middle-class suburban crowd, who, similar to the Bohemians, choose to reject the comfortable life they were born into. A notable difference that this created in the music was British punk had more pointed and explicit politically leftist lyrics, whereas this was not the focus of American punk lyrics.

This is especially important to understand when talking about the riot grrl movement because they put the politics in American Punk lyrics. In the early 1990s, a group of women from the Olympia, Washington punk scene had a meeting to address the sexism they faced in Punk. They started writing lyrics centered around the sexism and misogyny they face in Punk and in life. They created their own literature through zines when they could not get coverage. They wore clothing specifically intended to look like what respectable women weren’t supposed to wear. Again, we watch a group of people turn their politics into a culture, as a way to spread and practice their ideologies.

If you want a modern example of turning politics into culture via a counterculture, look no further than cottagecore (yes, really).

As I said at the beginning, countercultures don’t need to be radically progresive to be countercultures. Cottagecore dwells on romanticized pastoral ideals of a fantastic yesteryear that never really existed. Cottagecore gained some traction on TikTok as an “aesthetic,” made up of imagery such as women in long button up dresses flouncing through fields and making picnics. Absent were the rise and grind aspirations of pre-pandemic America. Absent were any signs of the labor often associated with pastoral living. It is no surprise that a counterculture that emphasizes solitary retreat, rest, nature, and crafting blew up during the first year of the covid-19 pandemic during which many experienced forced solitary retreats, a change in work environments (not to mention the want to not work), and boredom that could only be remedied with solitary activities such as crafting and enjoying nature. The pandemic dismantled all of the systems of normal life as we knew it, and cottagecore invited us to grow from this space, perhaps embracing a simpler, slower life. This political message was so subtly delivered through our social media scrolling that if you weren’t paying attention, you might not have even realized cottagecore had political ideals at all.

The rise of cottagecore is important in the conversation of how countercultures turn politics into culture because it showcases very blatantly how countercultures are not created, or at least do not catch on, without need and reason. Taylor Swift most likely did not create her surprise albums Folklore and Evermore (the unofficial cottagecore soundtrack) solely to cater to the cottagecore TikTok crowd, she created these albums as a form of personal escapism from how her own life was turned upside down by the pandemic, as a form of connection with her fans who were also experiencing the effects of the pandemic on their lives, and as art that represented certain feelings that came along with the pandemic.

Her albums came about for the same reason that cottagecore really caught on in the first place: it was what some people felt that they needed due to the circumstances of the time. It was for this reason, I would argue, that Folklore won album of the year. It was indicative of the times.

So, countercultures are born from a need. From this need comes politics, be it post revolution anti-bourgeois sentiments, mid-century British leftism, or a quiet call to slow down and reject hustle culture for a simple life. From politics comes art, and from art, culture.

Let’s talk about this in terms of an up-and-coming counterculture, hyperpop.

Though Wikipedia currently defines hyperpop as a “micro genre,” hyperpop’s rise is looking anything but “micro.” Hyperpop is described in The Spectator as “catchy synthpop or bubblegum bass tune with elements of EDM and typically a focus on either queer culture or Internet futurism”. The term “self-referential lyrics” is often thrown around. In the least complicated words possible, hyperpop uses it’s sounds and lyrics to make a camped-up parody of popular music. Hyperpop pioneers that have some mainstream following include SOPHIE, Charli xcx, and Caroline Polechek. Hyperpop often uses carbonated synth sounds and vocal modulation, and many of the trailblazers are part of the LGBT community.

What will hyper pop fashion and literature look like? What are hyper pop’s politics?

As for politics, there is something inherently political about queer artists carving out a space for themselves in pop music. Orange Magazine describes this as “pushing pop music to its limits and satirizing the gendered music industry. There’s an enjoyable sense of irony and juxtaposition.”

As for fashion, if we’re following the patterns we’ve established, hyperpop might bring gender non-conforming fashion that satirizes what’s been proclaimed normal. In terms of literature perhaps a Hyperpop literary movement will come from the controversial direction of Alt Lit, a community of minimalist writers that use the internet form and often reject intellectualized creative writing, create things that are weird for the sake of being weird, and use all caps and other purposeful spelling and grammar mistakes. A hyperpop literary movement might share the “self-referential” themes of hyperpop movement, while examining gender, sexuality, and personal identity in the internet age, seeing as the need to examine these themes in music indicates a need to examine these themes in other art forms. Maybe it will find creative ways to use internet platforms, as Alt Lit originators such as Steve Roggenbuck, a YouTube poet (well, a poet depending on who you ask), already have.

What I find most exciting about hyperpop is that it has the potential to create a culture guided by music first, similar to the punks or to disco. Fashion and visual art and literature all inspired by the glittery new sounds created in music. Maybe hyperpop will stay a “microgenre,” but maybe we will get to witness the rise of something new.

SOPHIE once said “I think all pop music should be about who can make the loudest, brightest thing. That, to me, is an interesting challenge, musically and artistically… just as valid as who can be the most raw emotionally,” and isn’t that a phenomenal thing to bring with us into a pent-up, fed-up, thoroughly exhausted, and newly vaccinated decade?

Sources

https://monoskop.org/images/b/b4/Roszak_Theodore_The_Making_of_a_Counter_Culture.pdf

https://www.sfgate.com/books/article/When-the-counterculture-counted-2835958.php

https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/periods-genres/romantic/

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist255/bohem/tlaboheme.html

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

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roszak_(scholar)

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

https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/brief-history-riot-grrrl-space-reclaiming-90s-punk-movement-2542166

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/03/arts/music/riot-grrrl-playlist.html

https://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/06/19/riot-grrrl-movement

https://wildezine.com/3528/opinion/a-brief-history-of-punk/

file:///C:/Users/8lila/Downloads/history_initiates_vol_iv_april_2016_01_brooks_alison.pdf

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/03/hyperpop/617795/

https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/9595799/hyperpop-history-mainstream-crossover/

https://www.stuyspec.com/ae/hyperpop-the-defining-genre-of-the-digital-age

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YRl4Kdnl2E&list=LL&index=4

https://theface.com/music/sophie-behind-the-boards-pop-scottish-producer

https://orangemag.co/orangeblog/2020/10/15/exploring-the-trans-roots-of-hyperpop

https://thebluenib.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-alt-lit-by-ada-wofford/

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pc-music-are-for-real-a-g-cook-and-sophie-talk-twisted-pop-58119/

#lila danielsen wong

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