#they focused on the supposed strength aspect of it opposed to the fact it was meant to represent mine's loyalty to daigo

[todayisafridaynight]

I think it's mad suspicious that people are quick to jump to believing Daigo is definitely only or very into women based on him being a cabaret club once onscreen, and that Mine is definitely into women because his secretary. Never mind one of these characters had an onscreen love confession about the other man because they don't even want to acknowledge it as something that was 100% romantic. Idk HOW so many insecure men started stapling themselves to Mine (oh it's probably the sigma grindset) but here we are I guess 💀 People can see things how they want, but... there's some braindead Reddit posts/threads about both of them on this topic.

My favorite moment was when one guy started projecting onto Mine saying he only dates supermodels 😭 Mans had a whole ass speech about hating fakeness, feeling unfulfilled and uninterested in the wealthy life of money and women, and longed for a genuine relationship. All of that? I don't know her.

they could have had mine and daigo make out for 5 minutes straight on screen in 4k and there would still be people arguing either of them were straight. but for a Real Talk and rambling moment look below the cut 🥴

i think the funniest bit about people saying mine's straight is when they reference the line where he says he could have any woman with all the money he collected- but that line like. is Immediately followed up by him saying he wasnt happy that way and judging by the rest of his speech, we can deduce he was just doing what he assumed would make him happy based on societal norms of having money, power, and women.

and theres nothing bad about saying mine's slept with women btw- i wouldnt turn the idea away, esp if you wanna consider it as comphet behavior. but even despite all that, it's really hard to say that mine didn't love daigo romantically when in official rgg guides and rggo stories it was stated one way or another that mine explicitly fell in love with daigo, the phrase being used only ever associated either with romantic feelings or immense adoration that you probably wouldn't use for a typical friend

also the bit about mine and his secretary is so funny cause i remember my friend- who didnt know a thing about rgg- was making me a mine amv as part of an art trade and when they saw him and katase they automatically assumed they were A Thing so i think its just instinctive heteronormativity: if man and woman on screen surely theyre together 🥴

with daigo it's so like. 🤷‍♀️ rgg's inability to have a woman on screen for more than five minutes without her dying kills them in shit like this cause aside from that cabaret scene where daigo's at his lowest and very-easily resorting to hedonistic practices to numb his pain, we never see him with another woman or even mention another woman. if you wanna add more to it, during an rggo story mine finds the concept of daigo spending the night with a woman instantly suspicious (for context, daigo was actually kidnapped and just lied to a bodyguard he was with a woman), suggesting that daigo isn't really known to do as such to people who really know him.

i forever live by the joke hc that he only ever hired hostesses just so he could vent and they contractually had to deal with him LMAO

#snap chats #i avoid reddit and general fandom talk for the most part it just gets messy and i dont deserve a headache #i love myself too much for that i just mind my business in my corner LMAO #ill never forget people misunderstanding mine's tattoo like thats how i knew reddit was hopeless #they focused on the supposed strength aspect of it opposed to the fact it was meant to represent mine's loyalty to daigo #literally one of The Most blatant In Your Face pieces of symbolism and they somehow still fucked that up #i dont trust people who say they relate to mine without actually understanding him #mine's whole motivation is love and wanting sincerity- money is just a tool for him #but as kiryu said he let it overtake him in a way #mine is a relatable character im not going to act like he isn't but you have to actually understand him to Get It yk #anyway im rambling and ive prob said some shit thats gonna stir a pot somehow somewhere #so ima just go and finish up a doodle i was doin

[makingspiritualityreal]

Numerology Life Path 4 - Your Birth Card and its Ruling Planet

Numerology Life Path Numbers and their assigned Tarot Card Meaning Series

This is a post in my new astrology/numerology/tarot series, that only concerns you, if you are a Life Path 4. Posts on consecutive Life Path Numbers will follow. Originally, I wanted to do them all in one post, but my writing turned out to be so long, I decided to split the post and seperate the Life Path Numbers. The introduction part of the post will be the same for all Life Path Numbers, in case you only read a post about your own Life Path Number, and nothing else.

Introduction   

The concept of a Birth Card links Tarot and Numerology together, in order to deepen our understanding of a vibration of a Life Path Number we are born with. The Birth Card, or rather Birth Cards, are Major Arcana Tarot Cards with assigned numbers, which correlate with Life Path Numbers. Understanding the meaning of tarot cards, mixed with the knowledge of Numerology Vibrations, helps create a more unique vision of your life experience.

A person with any given Life Path Number, having several Major Arcana energies present in their lives, usually struggles with one of the energies more than the other. As a result, life will probably force them to focus on mastering one of these energies. In general, however, any Life Path describes both your biggest downfall and ultimate triumph - just like with an Astrology Chart, the highlighted numbers/astrology houses point to your biggest strengths and weaknesses. For a better understanding of this concept, visit my article “Natal Chart - A map of your issues?”

Remember, that everyone, besides their Life Path Number and Birth Card also has a unique astrology chart. Thus, for some people embracing the higher expression of their energy is easier, for others it’s harder and it takes more time to master, and some energies become easier to deal with than others. Most human beings are somewhere in between, working on their path and having some achievements while struggling with difficulties at the same time. 

In the spiritual community, there are differences in opinion on linking Astrological Planets and positions to specific numerology numbers energies. My take is a result of my own personal experience, conversations with other people in my field and research, in order to give you the widest possible spectrum of ideas and increase the understanding of every Life Path Number.

If you are a Master Number 11, 22 or 33, there will be a seperate post on how the Birth Cards apply to you as well. 

Even If you have only a basic understanding of Astrology, Tarot or Numerology, this post will still be helpful to you, because it describes the unique vibrational mix that comes from the expression of both these spiritual sciences mixed together. To calculate which Tarot Cards and what Life Path correspond to your birthday, click here.

Life Path 4 - The Emperor and Death

Number 4 throughout cultures has many interpretations, both in Numerology and Astrology. Since there are different opinions on what Astrological planet is ruled by this number, I will give interpretations for all these planets influencing the vibration of Life Path 4, with the additional benefit of my personal experience. Astrological energies associated with this Life Path are linked to the Sun, Saturn, Uranus and Rahu, depending on the cultural context. One thing that these placements all have in common, is that this is definitely not one of the carefree energies. The common theme of Life Path 4 is substance. This is the energy, that will throw all the superficial, light-hearted themes away in search for something more meaningful, or at least the idea of building it. Prioritising and groundwork are huge themes for Life Path 4s, as this is the energy that doesn’t like to stay idle or waste its time. 

Life Path 4 represents the shadow expression of Sun, as opposed to Life Path 1. It is important to note, that “shadow” doesn’t mean inferior, and both aspects of the Sun energy have their positive and negative side, each contributing to development of the human condition in its own unique way. The Sun expressing itself through Life Path 4 results in hyperfocusing on the material realm. Since the Sun burns what it touches, at its lowest it can lead to selfishness and insensitivity, and make a person out of touch on the inside of themselves, even if on the outside they are accomplished. However, this also makes the native very mature and dependable. Unlike the carefree, childlike Sun for a Life Path 1, this Sun is very committed to building something for both themselves and the world, thus being focused more on the practical support role than the more so innocent 1 vibration. The key here is finding balance and not falling into destructive practical habitual cycles. 

A Life Path 4 under stress can have workaholic tendencies, as a way to quell the constant urge to build stability, and avoid the chaos that every human being has inside themselves. This is the expression of the shadow side of Rahu rulership, witch chases the illusion of fulfillment through material success, without looking at the spiritual truth of things. However, not confronting one’s demons, a Life Path 4 can struggle finding emotional comfort, that comes from emotional purging, and truly knowing yourself. As a result, this Life Path number can seem ruthless when unhappy in how it can cut things off - a darker expression of Sun turning off it’s shine, which in turn relates to the Death card in tarot, and also links the Sun energy to the Saturnian vibe of Life Path 4. A mature expression of Life Path 4, that is associated with the Sun ties in with the connection to Rahu energies of building constructively in the material world, and self sufficiency, which is also linked to the Emperor Tarot card, indicating his supreme rulership, and mental control over the material world. This is the more difficult path for the Sun, and it exposes, how the Sun can stop shining and giving life, and how it can also burn as well as nourish, which again ties in with the karmic lessons of Saturn of the duality of the spiritual reality of the world.

Other keywords for Life Path 4 are Power and Struggle  - Saturn themes. Just like Saturn in Astrology, the Death card in Tarot takes something away, but only to teach you the value of what you have or the deeper truth of the matter - things that die, go away from us, because they were supposed to. The Emperor in tarot points to the ultimate power of the mind, that we all possess, the ability of discernment, that we can chose to use even in the most difficult situation, the ability to build something solid and powerful out of nothing, even after difficult events, represented by the Death card. We have the possibility to accomplish those feats with our sheer willpower and discipline, through the use of Saturnian energies. 

Life Path 4 is also linked with Rahu and Uranus, tying it with Saturn through Aquarian energies. Uranus expresses itself through powerful intellectual inspiration, a sudden appearance of an idea inside a strong mind, that The Emperor represents. Uranus also shows us, that the idea can come seemingly out of nowhere, after the Death card process. Saturn tying in with Uranus teaches us, that whenever we have a brilliant idea, we have to take a chance, and use this idea to capitalise and build on it. 

Rahu for a Life Path 4 gives the ultimate power of the logical pursuit of the material realm, which the Emperor has a gift for, but also warns us of the endings that will come, if we allow ourselves to emotionally decay. Then, the Death card steps in, to lead us to a new beginning. 

Tarot cards associated with this Life Path show us how to use its energy best for a fulfilling life.

The Emperor - This cards points out to Life Path 4’s need to have a functioning structure in their life. Any situation, either practical or emotional, no matter how difficult, can be handled with organisation over time. A good way for a Life Path 4 to manage their life is to have a system, that they can design to address all their needs, satisfy all parts of themselves, and not lose themselves in the process. This is their way of keeping up with reality, while dealing with human fragility at the same time. It’s important that the system stays logical and functioning, and constantly kept in check, or it becomes a coping mechanism, that traps a Life Path 4. However, the Emperor has the ruling power to make a good judgment call. 

Death - Points out to the spiritual truth, that sometimes in life, no matter how hard we were building something, things fall apart, as their life cycle comes to an end. Death here gives us the gift of mercilessly cutting off what is no longer working and thus not needed. Death appreciates the brutal facing of the facts and necessary endings, all in order to clear up space for more constructive, future building. A Life Path 4 struggles in this department, because it wants stability so badly it can hold on to a familiar system desperately. However, Death teaches us, that transformation is a necessary part of the process, in order to actually build anything solid and authentic in life. 

Number 4 is known to have negative associations in the mass consciousness, being a hard number to master. It expresses itself in Feng Shui, but also for example in Japanese culture, where the number is avoided in buildings. To a common person, it’s simply a mix of superstition and cultural habits, but there is energetic truth, long forgotten by the masses, behind the seemingly sinister vibration of this number. If you want proof, look at 2020, a universal Number 4 Year and what a mess it was, what a trial, for so many people. 

However, the energetic frequency is always polarised, and no number is purely negative. Behind the obstacles and difficulties presented to this Life Path, lies enormous stability and the ultimate building power. Why the negative association then? The answer lies in the human condition. As human beings, collectively, we fear death, we both desire and demonise power, and we underestimate, how much strength and hard work lies beneath the frequency of Life Path 4.

If you are a Life Path 4, embrace both the power and the challenges that come with it. Remember, that your birth is a divinely orchestrated event. You were given these gifts for a reason, and only you can use them. Don’t listen to the collective narrative, and make the most out of your life. More than any other Life Path, you know exactly how to.

#numerology #tarot #astrology #making spirituality real #birth cards #birth card #the emperor #death #sun #saturn #rahu #life path #numerology life path

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Lygia Clark, "Óculos" ("Goggles"), 1968

* * * *

Joohn Choe

Did you know that half of U.S. adults can’t read a book written at the 8th-grade level?

It's a constraint on victory outcomes in counter-disinformation work; it's a problem when you declare war on things like QAnon or the Republican industrial lie complex.

It arises when you use a technique from military planners called "thinking backwards".

This doesn't mean "be old-school and nostalgic" (I mean, you'd think), it means "start from the outcome and work backwards".

Illiteracy turns out to be a problem when you consider the basic problem of active measures defense as an exercise in thinking backwards. You get new solutions and new problems; illiteracy, and being literate but not reading, or alliteracy (irritatingly not a word in spell-check), are some of those problems.

First, let's talk about the outcome.

The fundamental problem with disinformation studies is that you can't define what disinformation is unless you take a stance on what information is, and how it's used in society.

It's meaningless to point your finger and say "liar!" as we are wont to do in this field if you're not even clear on what role that should play in society, or how things are supposed to work normally. You can't diagnose a dysfunction in how society produces and consumes information if you don't even have a view on how it functions.

You need to have a defensible, testable theory of how America's information economy operates normally if you are going to put yourself forward as some authority on how it's functioning abnormally. You cannot be a counter-disinformation operator without being a philosopher, and to some extent, a systems theorist and, increasingly, I'd argue, an aestheticist (as in "studies aesthetics", not "aesthetician who does your nails").

This is incredibly basic. I still find it odd that even very professional people and companies in this field don't grapple with this issue. Even the data is meaningless, no matter how impressively objective it is, if you're lacking that kind of context; you end up having anomalies with no baseline, like an endless stream of singleton events.

That's no way to run a railroad, like the old saying goes.

So, back when I had a startup, with advisors, I talked to one of them who actually taught a class at Berkeley on startups about this crazy recording of a Federal crime I'd gotten in Alabama, and I asked for advice for what to do about it in terms of the fight against disinformation.

The answer he gave ended up being a lead-in to thinking about this in a systems-oriented, long-terms sustainable kind of way. I still come back to it as a recurrent point in shaping outcome scenarios.

He suggested, first off, in this sort of infuriatingly wise way that he has (he's an old Asian dude, so) that you have to ask, first: is zero percent really possible?

What kind of victory state are you after, if this is actually a lie that involves disinformation on the scale that you observe it?

He argued that you have to fit disinformation into a place with other aspects of how we talk to each other. On his account, there was potentially value in giving people the ability to create and pass on value in determining what was disinformation and what wasn't, and it verged into a discussion of a crypto-currency based anti-disinformation app that I ended up not really wanting to do.

Credit where credit is due, though: his argument about the achievability of zero percent disinformation made a lot of sense.

The outcome state we're after can't be "zero active measures" and "zero disinformation". Not only is that unrealistic, if you even did manage to achieve that, you'd have North Korea. They have no problem with differing versions of state truth and reality, because everything is state truth that excludes reality.

Diversity in viewpoints is one of our strengths as a country, too; reducing everything down to one version of truth, even as generous as the boundaries might be on that, would inevitably end up flattening society. Like, no one wants "information socialism", that just... sounds bad.

You could argue that disinformation is a flipside of a coin, actually. Disinformation is in a state of mutual entailment with socially accepted official truth; there can't be one without the other, in one way of looking at it. And that's what I think my advisor was getting at.

It's like that old cliché about "tHe sIgN fOr cRiSiS aNd ChAngE ArE tEh sAmE iN cHiNeSe" which is like, you understand, up there with Sun Tzu quotes and "your people are so hard-working!" as far as Things I Ain't 'Bout As An Asian Person, You Feel Me Though (the game show!).

And don't even get me started on people ripping off strategy ideas from theorists of Chinese stick-poking and rock-throwing warfare.

In a normal time, you could say that there's a balance between disinformation and truth, and truth is usually the winning side on that, because normally, the President and the ruling party aren't active sources of disinformation with the veneer of authority on it.

We're getting out of a period of time in which that balance was badly, badly disrupted on the side of disinformation. The kind of abnormalities we see as a society - from the Capitol insurrection to how weird people around us are, compared to what they were like in 2015 - those can all be seen as stemming from that state of imbalance.

The outcome, the advisor argued, was fundamentally about balance. Not about destroying disinformation, or striking it until it wasn't a problem; the paradigm was rebalancing, he argued.

Winning isn't reducing disinformation to zero. It's achieving a new balance between disinformation and truth where the boundary favors truth more.

Almost every victory state for "The War On Disinformation" boils down to that, actually.

If you see it as rebalancing, then new ways of achieving achieving victory by restoring balance open up.

For starters, you could add to the flow of information coming out; you could even make oppositional truth part of it. That's really what "fact-checking" is on social media - Politifact and LeadStories aren't "fact-checkers", because fact-checkers are people at media institutions who run quality control on news, and they are not that. They pick and choose what stories to oppose, at times seemingly arbitrarily, at times politically, and calling them "fact-checkers" hides the essentially subjective nature of that practice.

You could create personal truth, give people new ways to be, new role models to emulate and new social roles to fulfill - "offensive fact-checker", "Nazi-hunter", "deplatformer", and the like. And you could even amplify it and try to drown out the misleadingly framed truth, and the outright mistruths, coming out of the disinformation industry.

You could mobilize the truth to create political crises, and work to reset the boundary on allowable lies. This is the core methodology of an activist, it's creating strategic dilemmas for institutions based on public perception and the pressure to do the right thing.

Outcome-focused political activism, where you're trying to get a specific candidate elected or voted out of office, is one way of specifically mobilizing the truth, instead of just sitting on ass and feeling good about having it (this is common, I'd argue). We can not only reduce disinformation better - interdict it better, ban it better, find it better, track it better - we can also get better at producing alternative presentations and modes of appeal for truth.

The problem with all these solution scenarios, though, and the area that I see where we could really stand to improve, and maybe even something that I'd work on for a minute, is our culture.

I'd argue we just don't have the kind of intellectual culture that supports a lot of these solutions. We can't, not with fundamental adult literacy the way it is; not with the state of the public intellectual the way it is.

There was a point around 2015 when people were declaring a crisis of the French public intellectual tradition; since Henri-Levy, basically, Pierre Bourdieu if you count him, there just haven't been globally notable, famous French philosophers like there used to be. That traces to any number of factors with them, but a lot of them are factors we share, like the ever-wider spread of spectacular culture and its increasing efficacy at exploiting us, drawing us into addiction loops, even, with social media and "binge-watching" TV shows.

I'd argue that the best counter-disinformational solutions we have right now come down to art and aesthetics, actually, because we are so bad as a culture at reading.

Militarized truth, and grassroots truth, and offensive truth, are forms of rebalancing between disinformation and truth, yes, but it's a reactionary, almost frantic kind of truth. The jobs that it gives people, the roles that it puts people into - content moderator, offensive fact-checker - eat people up in the long run because they're in a race against disinformation, and disinformation keeps winning.

And it ends up repeating the basic problem of piling truth upon truth without mobilizing it, positioning it in a way to get through to people.

If it takes a pretty image and a witty notion to introject a critical idea into someone's head; if it takes a song and a dance, even, to get someone to have a bullshit filter... I say, do it.

Call it less "Art of War', more "War of Art".

---

Lygia Clark, "Óculos" ("Goggles"), 1968

https://www.politico.eu/.../decline-of-french.../

https://www.wyliecomm.com/.../whats-the-latest-u-s.../

#Lygia Clark #Oculos #1960s #quotes #articles #propaganda #disinformation #counter-disinformaltional #Joohn Choe

[ohkimani]

tbh.

Besides the obvious decisions I’ve had to make, the biggest decision I’ve made as an adult is dedicating my time to living and growing as an actual adult as opposed to spending my time fighting an endless fight on Taylor Swift’s behalf like I used to.

Though I would still go to hell and back for her, I just...have better things to do. 

For instance, valuing my career and future over a multimillionaire who has not only her own but her great-grandchildrens’ futures figured out financially just seems far more important to me now.

Taylor has laid the foundation for so many young artists in ANY field to succeed and have their art valued, as it should be. I love the idea that there have already been so many thriving musicians succeeding because they were encouraged and inspired by Taylor's strength.  I love the idea that there are women in different fields who may have at least an extra ounce of strength within themselves to fight for the greatness, rewards, and respect they deserve.

However, in my time, spending countless hours, days, weeks, months, and years fighting for a woman who, in the end, doesn’t need to be fought for feels almost....humiliating?

 I’m grateful for every second I’ve ever gotten to speak to Taylor and even share the same air as her. yet in the back of my head, i have always thought back to how many nights I've sorted through some mean, sometimes racist, threatening, and discouraging messages because a woman made music that i deeply appreciated.

The social media aspect of Taylor's relationship with her fans has always struck me as bittersweet (as it has most of her fans). I made my first Tumblr account about two years before Taylor joined, forgot the password to that account, then made a new account exactly a week BEFORE she began her first bunch of unbelievable interactions with fans. 

I had the privilege of briefly experiencing genuine and warm feelings that came with everything every fan posted. though it was such a brief time, I got to know what it felt like to be a part of a real online fandom. It wouldn't be another 5, almost 6 years until I find this feeling again upon reactivating my twitter account (where Taylor's eye hardly reaches) 

Amidst these 5 years, I would find myself almost collecting badges of approval from Taylor, and finding that these badges would provide me an image of invalid importance in the eyes of numerous people which happenstance would find me in the presence of. 

One blog would continuously be spammed with likes from Taylor which drew me to an entirely different blog. With this blog, I would face the same supportive spam though coupled with (in hindsight, well deserved) anonymous hate and scrutiny. By the time I had settled onto the third blog (which had been there all along, just not as active) I was smart enough to figure out the formula.

I discovered the simplicity of what not only attracts Taylor's heart but her fans/followers. [this part is incredibly blunt and I would very much appreciate if there was just like....understanding about how undiplomatic I could possibly state this] Something short, particularly sweet, relevant, including the word “y’all” at least once, and rapid-fire posting. That was it. It wasn’t self reblogging constantly. It was posting what you knew everyone wanted to read and repost for themselves. That’s not to say it wasn’t what I actually felt. God knows i said these things MULTIPLE times before I actually posted them. I just knew everyone else could relate.

Pretty soon, this all got to my head (if the above paragraph wasn’t obvious enough). My follower count skyrocketed, Taylor herself was a frequent active follower and all I had to do was abandon my sense of self, devote myself to everything she said and did, and i was in her good favor. simple enough-- right?

It wasn’t until after I started paying attention to my own life that I realized where my priorities should be. Not only that, I noticed something incredibly immature, and VERY human about myself: I had abandoned my one source of validity, and in finding others receiving this attention, jealously racked my nerves beyond comprehension. 

Luckily, I didn’t deal with this jealousy in the way most people do where they take it out on others. I, instead, began focusing on what made me who I was beside my passion for Taylor Swift and everything she has ever done in her life. I began to give myself the same love and support I used to give Taylor and when I transferred that energy, I found that valuing the validation her brief moments of attention used to give me wasn’t a bad thing at all. V

aluing the fact that her eyes wandered to my tiny corner of the earth every now and THAT small act giving me new confidence for months to come, didn’t make me less of a person. It made me a lost person.

Embracing the fact that I used to have Taylor's attention--and that this was actually important to me and my self-esteem--became the breaking point I needed to know that I was me before I was a Taylor Swift fan. Embracing this allowed me to love me even more because I knew I had that love to give, I just needed to know where that love belonged.

I’m incredibly drunk and every time I’ve been drunk these last few weeks, I’ve thought about how to formulate these thoughts into something cohesive. I guess this is supposed to serve as a statement to the many anons I’ve received asking why I don’t talk about Taylor as much or even why I’m not as active anymore.

I am well aware no one will read this but I felt it was important for myself (and my blog for that matter) to be laid out as plainly as possible. 

A rich white woman does not need my help living her life any easier and I think she knows that.

I love you and hope you love you as much as I do 

xoxo

#p #taylor swift #taylor #reply #music

[flowerslut]

Request if you want: reylo wedding

note: alright reylos lets go reylos. also I’m discovering that only good at writing them when the entire space aspect is removed from the situation. honest to god I can only spend so much time on wookiepedia researching correct phrases and planets and force abilities before I feel like my brain is going to explode. here’s a simple trope-heavy moment for you (that pointedly ignores a handful of TROS aspects 🤡)

warm feet

She’s pacing when he arrives, but she doesn’t look up to acknowledge him. Instead, she stares at her white shoes; the newest, cleanest things she’s ever owned in her life up until this point.

 She’s shocked she hasn’t worn any grooves into the floor yet as she moves. Leia had (bless her heart) provided her with plenty of options in terms of footwear. Thankfully most of them had been flat-heeled. She’d attempted a pair of heels, just to see what the fuss was about, and had absolutely hated them.

Besides, she’s always enjoyed the fact that Ben has to bend down to kiss her. She is not about to make it any easier for him. Especially today. When he’ll have to do it in front of other people and…

Suddenly the same panic that seized her before resumes it’s grip of her.

“Good luck,” she can hear Finn mumble, his exasperation not even hidden now, as he closes the door behind them. Rey concentrates on his force signature as he walks further from the rented room and toward where their tiny ceremony is about to begin.

Well, where it is supposed to begin.

She can’t blame her best friend for being at his wits end with her. She’s never been an anxious person, but for some reason the idea of having to partake in such an intimate ceremony, but with an audience, is sending her into fits…

“It’ll be over in a few minutes,” Ben supplies right off the bat, because he knows why she’s so frantic. He can feel her panic and fear through the force as if it’s his own. Usually, she loves the convenience of their bond. Adores it, even. But today, it’s only fuel for her frustrations.

“It was your idea to make this a,” she searches for the adequate word, but in her frustration finds herself coming up short, “an event!”

His wide, expressive eyes are suddenly confused as he stares back at her. “An ‘event’?”

“Yes! An event!” She’s stomping around the room now, looking for something to busy herself with, but there isn’t much to tend to. Not even any scraps or trinkets lying around to busy her hands with. Suddenly, she wants to pull the screen off the pad by the door, tinker a bit, and lock the two of them in there. Then, she’ll be content.

“This is hardly ‘an event’,” he half-shrugs as he approaches. He steps are slow and even, as if he’s approaching a scared animal instead of his intended. And honestly, Rey feels every bit like a frightened mongrel, ready to flee at the first opportunity. “You said you wanted to do this right.”

“I do,” she insists, fingers fiddling at the white lace on her sleeve. “But this is just…”

“Too much?” He grins crookedly down at her, and despite her anxiety, Rey can’t deny that he looks absolutely beautiful right now. 

She finds him beautiful always, and she tells him enough to know where exactly he blushes when he gets flustered. The robes he wears are long, dark, and ceremonial, and as she eyes the layers he wears she wonders how long it will take to undress him later.

He clears his throat loudly, feeling her thoughts begin to wander. “Rey.” She meets his eyes again, and they’re twinkling. His lips quirk again and suddenly she’s embarrassed. “Just a few minutes. And we’re done.”

And the reminder of their waiting guests is suddenly at the forefront of her mind.

“I think I like your first idea better actually,” she suddenly supplies, reminding him of their original plan to simply marry somewhere quiet, only themselves and no one else. But then she had felt poorly. There was no way they could exclude his mother. And it would feel wrong to marry the love of her life without her resistance family watching.

It would feel like a betrayal to abandon them and start a new life with the man she loves, especially if she had to do it in secret. She’s tired of hiding, and of living half-way. She wants to do things right, and unashamedly, and with Ben at her side.

“The hard part is over,” he reminds her, finally approaching her, pulling her into a warm, firm embrace.

And he’s right. Loyalties shifted. The war is won. Ben had spent three long, hard years atoning for his crimes. Rey had fought the same amount of time for his freedom. And now, almost five years after the final warship had fallen from orbit, she’s going to marry him.

She turns in his embrace, allowing his arms to shift around her. Gripping his forearms tightly with her own, she leans back into him, letting his love surround her. When his right hand drifts, pressing softly against the swell between her hipbones, she feels complete and utter happiness begin to warm her from the inside out.

“Cold feet?” He mumbles in her ear as his hand caresses the small bump.

She shakes her head and hums, leaning back against his chest. “Warm.” Pulling his opposite arm tighter around her she realizes that this is where she wants to spend eternity. In his embrace.

“Soon,” he presses a kiss to the side of her head and she nearly groans in disappointment when he begins to pull back. “Our guests are waiting.” She finally looks back up at his face and frowns at the amusement that’s taken over his expression. “All eight of them.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“It’s very funny. You can crumble an empire through sheer strength and power but can’t face a small group of friends without freezing with embarrassment.”

“Ben,” her tone is warning.

“Is it that bad, to kiss me in front of your friends?” He’s outwardly grinning now as he teases her. “You don’t exactly have to, you know.” His hand finds her stomach again and caresses it. “The proof of it all is right here.”

And if she’s being honest, the tiny life growing inside of her is causing her to fear a little more strongly today. Because while her friends know she’s marrying this man—after all, they’re there—only Finn and Leia know about the baby. And that’s only because they can sense it.

“It’s going to be okay.” He sighs as he lifts his other hand, caressing her cheek with the same tenderness that he uses to cradle her stomach. “You’ve never cared what anyone thinks,” he reminds her kindly, “why should today be any different?”

Because of the finality of everything. Because of the fact that this union between them means something. Because the proof of their love is growing beneath her ribs for all to see. Because his mother is so excitedly awaiting this moment.

Rey can list dozens of reasons why today is different. But at the end of the day, Ben is right. It’s going to be okay.

He’s never lied to her before, she reminds herself. Today will be no different.

“Okay,” she nods finally, inhaling deeply as her eyes close and she concentrates, focusing hard enough to expel all the nervous energy from her system as she tempers her breathing. “Okay.”

Before she opens her eyes, she feels his lips press a ghost of a kiss against her own. She smiles as he presses their foreheads together and her eyes flutter open.

“I love you.” It’s a promise and a confession and a breath of air, all wrapped in one. His joy makes him look younger, and for a moment Rey finds herself wrapped up in what-ifs. But the idea lasts half of a second. It doesn’t matter what would’ve happened had they found each other earlier, or if they hadn’t been on opposing sides of a war, or if he’d turned earlier.

What matters is what lies ahead. And as the growing life inside of her flutters, she sighs blissfully. “I know,” she sighs.

Because she has a family now. And they’ll always be there for her. And they’ll always come back to her. And that’s all that matters now.

#reylo #my writing #this was SUPPOSED to go in the queue but oh welll!! #too late now #reylo fanfiction

[theorynexus]

50.

Before returning to liveblogging, I’d just like to say that the organization I used for the Aspects (3 sets of 4, with Freedom, Fate, and Mixed categories) in my last post is one of many different possible ways of categorizing the Aspects.  Their nature is complex, and they individually preside over such broad aspects of reality that any one system of dividing among them is not necessarily going to capture all the nuances and connections to be found between them. The one way that is known canon to organize among these would be the Aspect Pair system, which, as one can see due to the way I described the four categories, is not mutually exclusive with the schema which I utilized in the post. To clarify: I mostly chose this particular way of organizing the Aspects for my counter to Dirk’s train of inquiry for the sake of showing that while many of the Aspects lend themselves to a Fate reading, Free Will is just as well supported. ...

***snickers***    Well, that’s certainly one way to describe the blurring resulting from the intermingling of numerous shards of her soul which is now occurring. On a side note:  It is very interesting that his control is ongoing in pseudo-real time, for his frame of reference, and that his ego is so narrowed/focused at the moment (possibly as a result of the difficulty in maintaining narrative control?) that he can possibly have such slips as a result of distraction on his part. I wonder if Rose not speaking is more a result of the general narrative pause that he is implying might happen if he is not focusing (unlikely, considering all indications are time flow continues) or his manipulation/entanglement of Rose.

How benevolent of him. That said:  Yes, indeed, what he is saying does make quite a bit of sense, especially with the tense “could have been,” suggesting that this is a matter of present and past intermingling, such that the future selves that split off from at least her current main node of being (from her perspective) are not integrated preemptively, for that would probably skew their creation, mess with possibility, et cetera.        Moreover, what he is saying with regards to the psyche needing to be at a certain level of strength very much makes sense, as well. His own is only capable of this because of his Unbreakable Soul personal trait, most likely. He cracks, splinters, bends, but doesn’t fully break~ (And no, I don’t think that Dave being able to cut his Unbreakable Sword suggests that this is no longer the case; rather, it is most likely a sign that he achieved greater mastery of his soul and was able to divest its connection with the sword temporarily, showing an increased degree of flexibility on his part.)

I don’t entirely trust this, insofar as I am not entirely sure Rose is ready to open them, but if Dirk is being truthful as far as his intentions go, at the very least this suggests that his agenda of “becoming a single god” might be more benevolent insofar as it might be more local (meaning specific to him).   If that is so, it could explain the discrepancy that seemed to crop up with Rose being able to actually talk/think in presumably her own (that is to say, deviant from Dirk’s) manner / persona, and might suggest he at least intends for this measure to be temporary.

Hmmm. Well, this all makes it seem somewhat sinister again, insofar as “what I want her to see” could be interpreted as being “only” what he wants for her to see, and the antagonistic “martyr” comment a moment before makes that vibe a bit stronger; however, I DO think that she at least eventually needs/needed to have opened her eyes for the sake of her cohesion and development, so I am quite conflicted on this matter, and in my opinions of it. (Note: I think she needs this because she’s presently quite restricted and narrowed in her field of vision, for her expanded Vision as a Seer of Light is being constantly resisted by her, and thus she is essentially putting blinders on to the burning rays of the sun.)

This could be interpreted both as dangerous, psychically subsuming, insinuating behavior on his part, or as the natural result of her Seer status making things happening seem like noise in her wider-opened consciousness.

Well, that’s a very interesting act of metaphorical/-physical manipulation. So very subtle and questionable and interesting~

LET’S TAKE A FIELD TRIP TO CANDYLAND!!!

That is a weird and silly way of viewing things.  Of course there can be regret. Humans agonize over things they can’t help/change all the time, dummy. :P

Yes, indeed, I do appreciate that spoiler protection, Narrator. Though perhaps a hint might have been more interesting. Perhaps a hint might still be yet to come. Indeed, though: it is likely that no change would happen while I was gone, if I randomly flipped to the equivalent page, Candy 25, and looked back.   I will not do so, regardless of the temptation.

***chorus of Cherubic laughter***     Negatives and positives. Very interesting, indeed.  For some reason, I am suddenly struck with a desire to know whether and/or how these epilogues might intermingle in Homestuck^2, should it be a direct sequel to them.

Now... that is a particularly interesting manner of describing things. I wonder: does this describe the uncertainty/opacity that was naturally supposed to emerge from the narrative End of Homestuck gap in the works that allowed for the escape out of canon in the first place? The “blend ingredients responsibly” comment probably refers to the fact that Lord English presented the primary force that insisted on there being a single Alpha Timeline that, regardless of the retcons, Scratches, and narrative loop-de-loops required to reach its conclusion, ensured his ascension and the natural progression of his being, within Canon.    Presumably, outside of Canon, reentry might be both possible and required in order to maintain the balance of that narrative shell that protects the rest of meta-textual reality from LE’s ire-filled gaze, and thus there are multiple “pathways of promise” that have equivalent legitimacy, and which can simultaneously take place, so long as one of them actually leads to LE’s most important battles’ proper conclusions.     A similar situation to this actually happened in Homestuck’s canon, with the splitting of Vriska, though I’m sure you knew that already.   Of course, only one timeline in this scenario actually successfully left to the exit of canon, along with the kids’ victory state, and presumably the situation is now majorly different. Anyway: I do again wonder how these two main branches shall combine and/or split off in the future-- what sort of interactions they might have~

I am very curious what actual mechanics might have led to this particular sweet and rancorous set of circumstances being forced into being. Is it just random chance that leads to this “irresponsible” outcome?   Is it a necessary sacrifice for the narrative “oomph” to oppose Lord English, in order for the measure of wills to be balanced?   Very curious, generally.

Wow, indeed that sounds incredible. Also ominous. Particularly the use of “bleed,” and the contrast of majesty+disheveled, light and shadow.

Somewhat creepy, but okay.  (I guess the fact that Doc Scratch was a creepy uncle figure always meant that Dirk was intended to be creepy like this, to some extent.)   That said:  Indeed, I agree that this is probably very reflective of her true/Ultimate self.

Again, somewhat creepy.  Additionally: Interesting that he seems uncertain-- unable to truly penetrate her mind, just then --and that this comes across almost as him reassuring himself.

I do truly appreciate this semi-blind, selfish desire of his.   Truly, that is one of the greatest needs of the thinking being: acknowledgement. 

That is a very complex thought. It certainly will be her, but it will be more. Regardless, as will have been elaborated upon by the later passages: she absolutely needs to let go if she is to survive. Her physical form is dying, and the only choice is to either perish, or to allow herself to naturally develop as her godly self is naturally designed to.  While there is technically a choice, as is the case with The Choice that the Denizens present, there is really not much of one to begin with. She will know what is right in her heart, when the choice is made, and her own character will not have permitted her to turn another way.  The only question is if there’s a third option. I would just like to say that Dirk’s statement of “better” is somewhat untrue, likely. There are likely positives and negatives of the choice-- things Rose will have to sacrifice in order to make it work.  Thus, while her Greater Self will be better in some ways, she may well be deficient in others.

Her earlier statement, as I laid out earlier, was in fact incorrect. That said, it is indeed necessary to have abandoned humanity at the point.  Whether or not it was additionally necessary to break down quite all those barriers is another matter. I would suspect that this is in fact not the case.   I do wonder: shall individuality between the two of them actually buckle with the entanglement of their being on a psychic level?     For some reason, I suspect that their cores shall in fact remain somewhat unfused. However, this is mostly intuition, based on the fact that he is/intends to struggle to maintain her physical body for at least a while, yet.   We shall see how things truly turn out, either way.

***lip curls into a snarl***     What disgusting, wretched nonsense.   That kind of verbiage directly contradicts your desire for an understanding equal, Narrator.   Why does your intelligence have to outstrip your wisdom to such a degree?    ***sighs***

Yes. Yes, it does.  Whilst it is not such a linear or meta-stable structure as might otherwise be thought, anyone knowing the nature of Narrative should be aware of the key time-based interactions which allow it to function. I am beginning to absolutely loathe Dirk’s arrogance. ~~~ Post Script Note:  It is very interesting to see the “You” at the end, there, for it could represent Rose, rather than the Reader, at this moment, and the aforementioned blurring of their consciousnesses which I suggested some time ago. 

#Homestuck Spoilers #Homestuck^2 #Homestuck Epilogue #Homestuck Liveblog #Meat or Candy #Homestuck Analysis #Unreliable Narrator #Dirk Strider #Rose Lalonde #Abandoning Humanity #Humanity #Philosophy

[makeste]

more essaying about AFO and whether or not he’s the final villain

so @thequietmanno1 , I finally have some time to sit down and answer your asks so let’s get to it lol. I’ll start with the most recent one.

Gonna put my hat in the ring with you and @addermoray about AFO. I agree that currently he intends to turn everything over to Tomura. That was a good point about his little private insight into what makes a good teacher and how it reflected on his intentions going forward with his student. It makes sense for a successful villain like AFO to have the kind of personality and quick judgement to know when to fold em, or change the game up if your current hand won’t get you a satisfactory result. He’s has literal generations to learn how to be an effective evil overlord, so he must be used to playing a mean game of Xanatos speed chess depending on the situation so he always walks away with an advantage.

Switching from raising Tomura to be his loyal tyke bomb to being his own independent villain and leader may explain why Tomura’s development seemed so incomplete in his first appearance. I know that he needed to experience defeat to begin maturing into someone more competent and capable of handling himself, but at the same time, his attitude during the USJ invasion seemed a little too immature for someone his age- like he wasn’t exactly on the same emotional maturity level his body and mind were at after AFO had finished giving him basic training to prepare him. I guess AFO losing his head and not being able to push Tomura’s development forward in a new direction means Tomura got stuck emotionally for a few years whilst his master semi-recovered, not helped by the fact that AFO’s previous grooming attempts were intentionally preventing him from dealing with the emotional scars of his familial massacre. So he kinda stagnated for a bit until All Might and Deku knocked him off his high horse.

(you know what, I’m gonna put the rest of this under a cut; it’s a very long post lol)

After AFO realised he’d basically permanently lost his dream to take over the world, I can totally see him reacting to that in a very thought-out and methodical - but still very immature - way, not unlike the tantrums his pupil used to pull. Destroying the whole board so it’ll end on his terms. I don’t know if he planned for Tomura’s vision of the future to be one where you can rebuild society however you want and the survivors will be free to act how they please, or if he wanted Tomura to turn Japan into a living hellhole for everyone until there’s nothing left for anyone to work with, both heroes and villains. It could be both, frankly; given his adaptability levels I mentioned earlier, he could be fine with either outcome, so long as the society All Might created is destroyed in the process. In any regard, it’s quite likely that he planned the whole situation under the assumption that he’s going to kick the bucket at some point before he got thrown into Tartarus. But if he learns about Eri’s rewind quirk, I think that’ll prompt another change in priorities for him- though obviously that won’t happen until he’s outside.

I’m not sure if Tomura will kill him himself, unless there’s a drastic change in priorities. Like addermoray said, even if he did give Tomura his quirk, he’d still be grateful for it after his recent liberation, so he won’t kill him for his family’s deaths and whilst AFO still has such a highly useful quirk to pass onto him. His dialogue very much stated that was the eventual plan, so AFO is probably safeish until then. Besides, in either scenario, Tomura feels indebted to AFO for being the only one who noticed him and ‘saved’ him from his abused and ignored lifestyle. Really, I think, if anything, AFO would probably set himself up to kill or be killed by Deku in a final confrontation to further motivate Tomura to become the new Symbol of Chaos and focus his efforts on destroying Deku’s fledgling Symbol. See, going forward, I very much see AFO getting out of prison, but then choosing to leave Tomura running the organisation he’s built up in his absence- which won’t require any management from AFO himself anyway- and focus all his effort on analysing and psychologically manipulating Deku from behind Tomura’s back whilst the latter is focused on his current campaign of societal collapse, like the Joker focusing on breaking Batman’s spirit.

See, the thing I think a lot of people miss about Deku is that he is by far the youngest inheritor of OFA so far. I mean it seems obvious given his age and inexperience with the power that is way beyond what his predecessors had to deal with, but in All Might’s flashback to what I presume is his first meeting with Nana and his own Origin story, it looked like teen Might was a few years older than Deku at the time, and that was before he had to be trained to handle the power. We know that at the very least, he had the quirk and was doing heroics against AFO by 18, but you’ve got to remember that AFO being on the scene and in his prime meant Yagi’s era was more chaotic and dangerous for everyone than Deku’s is, so it’s likely that Yagi was already more prepared for the combative lifestyle that Deku was, even with the fact that he inherited OFA a few years later than him and having had time to sort out his resolution with the power. As opposed to Deku, who basically wanted to be All Might and spent a lot of time getting that hammered out of his skull, and has had issues with sorting out what kind of hero he’s supposed to become through his own merits, given his vague terms of describing his ambition.

Whilst it’s not determined when everyone got the power, we know that the First Wielder was an adult when it first manifested, and given the ages of the other generations that we’ve seen, I think it was implied that they were all chosen after they’d proved themselves capable of using the power against AFO, meaning they all had various heroic and emotional experience before getting OFA. Actually, I’m not certain, but I think it’s implied that Yagi was the youngest chosen before Deku, which, given his quirklessness and youth, makes it more poetic that he was ultimately the one to take him down twice.

That said, Deku is clearly not as prepared for going up against someone like AFO as the other Wielders were, either physically or mentally. All Might ushering an era of peace means that Deku doesn’t have nearly the same level of experience the others did by his age, and his whole 100% power/7 quirks thing is further complications in him becoming a new symbol asap. One aspect of this was time- All Might’s wounds and weakening health were pressuring him to find a successor more than AFO, who already had a handy-dandy prepped tyke-bomb in Tomura available- the perks of planning ahead. So when All Might Found Deku, it was a snap decision, and one he feels justified in, but it also meant Deku was rushed through the basic requirements of being able to Hold OFA without being prepared to actually ‘use’ it. His first smash came whilst he was under fire in the middle of a high-level exam for Christ’s sake, and All Might getting his own teacher taken away from him when he was still in school means he’s never been taught by someone else on how to be a good teacher, or how to recognise when he’s being a bad teacher. Not to mention the whole natural genius thing.

Point is, I don’t think any of the other Wielders made their choices so soon after meeting them, and probably not before they’d given them some advanced preparations for passing the power on to someone who was ready and capable of using it for a good cause. Adding to that, AFO’s got an unexpected advantage over Deku compared to the others- he knows who he is and where to find him. I think it’s heavily implied that past the first wielder, the others had to raise their successors in secret once they’d outed themselves to AFO as the next wielders, so he couldn’t pre-emptively cut the chain of succession, since if AFO knew who the next person was, he’d have ended them before they got a handle on their new power. Being in a more chaotic age- and the implication that they were older and more independent than Deku- meant the successors were capable of avoiding AFO’s gaze when needed, so they made up for their lack of All Might strength with subterfuge and tactical thinking whilst the power grew. Heck, All Might himself had to leave Japan for America so he’d be capable of handling himself and his abilities to the fullest when he returned. Deku doesn’t have that advantage- he’s in a school, with close friends and family, all of whom AFO can use to force him to fight him if needed. But I see him taking his time with this. Deku’s an unknown variable to AFO- he didn’t know about him till the USJ attack was finished, and after that the ball was already rolling on his incarceration scheme, so he didn’t make any moves. But once he’s out, I forsee him using his new lease on life to learn all about the new OFA holder and what makes him tick, as well as subtly messing with him in indirect means.

Given his declining health, and based on the fact he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to waste away in a medical bed, I totally believe there’s going to be a showdown between them at some point, with AFO banking on either killing Deku and ending OFA for good, or further motivating Shigaraki if he falls. Granted, Eri’s quirk may change his mind on this, but again, AFO’s adaptable- I can totally see him having thought that outcome up after learning about Deku, and considering it a good way to go out. Regarding that Showdown, whether in his prime or at the end of his currant lifespan, I totally believe that’s when AFO would bring up any revelations about Tomura’s fall from grace. Like Addermoray said, it wouldn’t affect Shigaraki anymore- but it would affect the previous wielders through Deku, specifically Nana. I can totally see AFO using that family drama and revelations against his deceased nemeses by emotionally compromising Nana, and through that, perhaps disrupting whatever “avatar state” setup Deku goes into when he converses with them before getting down to brass tacks with him whilst he can’t contact them for advice.

In any regard, AFO’s definitely gonna be focused solely on Deku when he gets out- he’s totally done with All Might, having done everything he could to undermine him as a heroic symbol of peace before he was taken out. And leaving him to rot, powerless to help in the rising chaotic times, would be sweet revenge for him, forcing All Might into a similar position he himself was in. Shigaraki will be running whatever Empire he’s building just fine without AFO, and even if he intends to replace him eventually, AFO will probably consider Deku the more pressing engagement now that he’s got some room to think and work on his own terms. Running an evil empire is probably very taxing work, and very time consuming, which is probably why he didn’t take the OFA wielders as seriously as he should have until All Might’s time. So now he’ll be free to relax and get to know Deku before he attempts to utterly break him. Whichever way that turns out, I do think there will be some genuine Villain respect on his behalf towards Deku- there’s a lot of points those two have in common, so I think he’ll see a little of himself and his brother in this newest successor.

--- 

okay, a lot of different points here, so I’ll try to break them down and address them one by one. these aren’t necessarily in order either:

(1) good points about AFO probably shifting gears on Tomura after receiving his injury. clearly that would have thrown a wrench into his plans, regardless of what said plans actually were.

(2) about Deku being the youngest inheritor of OFA “by far” -- I have doubts that this is the case. young Toshinori was wearing a middle school uniform in the anime flashback when he spoke with Nana about wanting to become society’s pillar, so that would put him at the same age Deku was in chapter one, if not younger. moreover, you have to consider that young All Might was very much in the same boat Deku was as far as wanting to attend U.A. despite being quirkless. so it’s very likely that Nana pulled something similar to what he himself later did with Deku. otherwise it’s hard to envision how he could have passed the U.A. entrance exam. so I’d say chances are good All Might was the same age as Deku was when he inherited OFA, if not younger.

(3) I think Deku is actually more prepared than the other wielders in some ways, even as he lags behind in others. consider, first of all, the fact that he managed to pull off something none of the other wielders even knew about, much less came close to achieving, with the SIXQUIRKS. so there’s that. and then the other advantage that I think he has over the past wielders is that the other OFA users appear to have been loners, by and large. most likely for the reasons you laid out -- they had to lie low so as to prevent AFO -- who at the time was at his full power -- from taking them out, along with their loved ones. by contrast, Deku is exposed, so in that regard he’s much more vulnerable. but he also has a great advantage that none of the other wielders so far have had -- he’s not alone. it’s not just the bad guy who knows his secret. his teacher knows. his rival knows. he’s not fighting this battle alone. and that’s going to be critical moving forward. AFO may find it more difficult to break him than he anticipates. and frankly, his emotional naivete may prove to be as much of an advantage as it is a weakness, if not more so. he has resilience and optimism and those are critical strengths.

(4) I think we have different ideas as far as Horikoshi’s endgame plans for the series. the main thing I keep coming back to is Horikoshi’s pacing. this is a remarkably fast-paced story as far as the shounen genre typically goes. the one time he intentionally dragged an arc out, (a) he got bored his own damn self, and (b) despite his best efforts he couldn’t make it longer than 40 chapters. compare that to your average arc in Naruto or One Piece. compare that to fucking Dressrosa arc, or the damn Soul Society arc in Bleach. my point is, Horikoshi knows how to be concise. and a key thing is that he’s said in interviews that he doesn’t intend for the story to drag out forever. he’s a perfectionist, and he knows he doesn’t have infinite energy or infinite ideas, and I think he’d like to end things while he’s still on top. he also knows how he wants to end the story, and he’s mindful of making sure he’s constantly driving the plot forward. in this interview, he mentions he originally wanted the story to end around volume 30 (we’re currently in what will become volume 25), but he’s acknowledged he’s still got a lot of stuff he needs to set up, so the original target is clearly way off. but still, I think it’s a safe bet this series won’t be dragged out as long as others.

so that being said, when we consider future developments in the story, I think we need to take into account how much time there is left in the story. there isn’t time for characters to be slow and crafty in their schemes. we’re at a point where just about all the pieces needed for endgame have to be in place already, or at least established. we can’t expect new plot twists to keep being introduced. so while I like the idea of AFO playing the long game when it comes to Deku, I’m not sure how likely that actually is to happen. proper mind fuckery takes some time to pull off. I think it’s more likely we’ll see an accelerated version of that, if anything, with their relationship being crafted in the span of just one or two arcs rather than it being a more drawn out thing.

(5) so basically, here’s a quick rundown of where I personally see the story going 

Tomura completes his Rise to Power and starts to make good on his vow to end the world

the pros and police struggle and take heavy losses in several high-profile incidents, resulting in further instability to a society already beginning to show its cracks. things begin to look kind of bleak

Deku -- now under intense pressure to unlock the rest of his new powers as quickly as possible -- is of course somehow intricately tied to every single one of these incidents, and continues to grow stronger while somehow escaping through the skin of his teeth

rinse and repeat as things build to a head

AFO breaks out of prison and joins the League in an attack on U.A.

he steals Eri’s quirk and is restored to power. meanwhile, Tomura kills All Might, but also learns of AFO’s manipulations in the process. he has conflicted feelings about this

Deku meets the Obi-Wanned All Might in the Avatar State, and unlocks the rest of his powers, preparing for the final showdown

there is a final showdown. it’s fucking epic. in the end Tomura delivers the killing blow to AFO in a move that surprises him as much as anyone

that’s the cliff notes version, more or less. pretty straightforward, but I think the purpose of a story shouldn’t be to surprise and shock so much as it should be to move and excite and thrill the audience, and reward them for their investment in the story and the characters. and this is a classic hero’s journey outline, and it’s a classic for a reason.

anyway, to bring this all back around on track and conclude things, the story could probably work both ways -- with either Tomura as the final villain, or AFO. but based on the pieces we have so far, I think AFO being the final villain is the more logical and satisfying story. and I just really like the thought of him being done in by all these pawns he overlooked and underestimated. Deku, who barely seems to be an afterthought in his planning thus far; and Tomura, whom he’s manipulated to be this devastating agent of chaos and destruction, but whom he arrogantly continues to think of as being his. if he dies in prison, and Tomura does become the final villain, and is only redeemed at the end of the story, when he either dies or goes into exile or whatever -- that’s not satisfying. it disregards all of the worldbuilding being done to explore the mythology of OFA and AFO. it leaves us frustrated as we’re forced to side against a villain we now empathize with. it’s too fucking dark. so for now I’ll continue to root for AFO being the final villain. because it’s something I want, just as much as it is something I think things are leaning toward.

#bnha #boku no hero academia #all for one #shigaraki tomura #midoriya izuku #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #bnha meta #asks #thequietmanno1

[queenofmoons67]

AkaYona Ladies Week 2019: Sports: Figure Skating AU

@akayonaladiesweek​

Summary: In which I drop a large portion of the AkaYona cast into modern figure skating.

Word Count: 1181

Ok, this has been in my drafts for waaaaay too long. This sports prompt is my excuse to shove it out of the nest, so to speak. Because it was written before ladies week, though, the entire HHB, plus a ton of side characters, are all featured. Ladies focused on are mostly Yona and Lili, though Kaya, Yun-ho, Ayura, and Tetora are also mentioned!

SPOILERS for Zeno’s backstory, Tae-jun’s arc, and any characters you don’t recognize.

I do not own Akatsuki no Yona.

Many thanks to @bookdancerfics​ for all their help!

In which Kouka is one of the top figure skating nations of the modern world:

Soo-won was supposed to be Yona’s ice dance partner, but bailed in favor of being a singles skater

He left her in the lurch right before their first senior worlds, and faced zero consequences because the Kouka Figure Skating Federation took his side in the matter

This also involved taking Kye-sook as a coach, instead of continuing with Il

In the final olympics of their joint career, Il overcame Yu-hon to take gold. Yu-hon never had a chance to redeem himself because he suffered a career-ending injury soon after. Soo-won always blamed Il for it, saying their competitiveness drove his father beyond what his body could handle

Doesn’t dominate in any part of the sport, instead being proficient in every aspect

Tends to skate historical ballads

Yona was supposed to be an ice dancer, but after everything with Soo-won, she decided to a, get as far out from under the KFSF’s thumb as possible, and b, abandon dance entirely to become a pair skater

One of the consequences of this was also leaving her father’s coaching behind, as he refused to teach her anything but ice dance; in the wake of having his top ice dance pair split up without him, Il faded out of the figure skating world

She’s been held up as the reincarnation of her great-grandfather Hiryuu, one of the figure skating greats, because of how similar their skating styles are

Part of this stems from the fact they both began as ice dancers, though Hiryuu turned to singles while Yona went to pairs

Their skills as ice dancers shows through their precise, accurate steps and their rhythm with the music

Hak, who had been one of Il’s singles men’s skaters, turned to pair skating in order to help Yona

In their partnership, Hak has the stamina and strength for lifts, and Yona wants to learn it

One of her goals is to be strong enough to lift Hak and surprise everyoneTM

With no coach after leaving Il behind, Hak and Yona formed the Happy Hungry Bunch Figure Skating Club and coach themselves

Slowly but surely, more Koukan skaters are joining them

They avoid romantic skates; Yona isn’t used to them after growing up as a pair with her cousin and coached by her overprotective father, and Hak isn’t comfortable performing them with Yona—not that this stops fans from thinking they’re a couple

One of their more well-known skates was a battle reenactment, in which they played two opposing soldiers sword-fighting across the ice

Yoon joined the men’s singles senior division early after taking gold at Junior Worlds

With encouragement from his initial, small-time local coach Ik-soo, he joined the HHBFS Club

This gives him more viewership, and in payment he helps coach everyone

He’s best at steps and spins, but is slowly and steadily working towards quads

If for some reason something goes wrong, he’s able to configure the rest of his routine to get the points back

Tries not to skate to any one genre

Won Junior Worlds with his short program “The Fire God”

Kija used to be a pair skater, but couldn’t hold onto a partner for long despite having incredible arm strength

His great-grandfather used to be part of Kouka’s number one pair

His grandmother was his coach and kept pushing new partners on him

Faced with this pressure, he left the White Dragon Training Facility and joined the HHBFS Club

Once there, he decided to turn to men’s singles in an effort to take revenge on Soo-won for Yona

Absolutely refuses to skate romance, and tends to skate to pop music as a result

Shin-ah is a recent dark horse in men’s singles; he never did well in juniors but his recent transition to the HHBFS Club has changed how he skates

He makes his own choreography

It’s been known to be so beautiful the judges don’t know what to do with it / bring the entire audience to a tearful standstill / stun even the most talkative reporters into silence

He rarely skates to music with lyrics, leaning instead towards the instrumental

He has a squirrel tissue box named Ao

Jae-ha is a renowned jumper and one of the top ten single men in the world

Despite nearing retirement thanks to his age, he’s predicted to land the first quad axel

This is in large part due to the height and distance he gets on his jumps; he’s often described as “flying” across the ice

Learned the Bonaly because he Could

Persuaded by Gi-gan, his mother and a slowly disappearing-from-relevance coach, to join the HHBFS Club

Has skated everything from Les Miserables and Romeo and Juliet to Pirates of the Caribbean and Lord of the Rings

Zeno is a singles men’s skater with a reputation for crashing and getting back up again / just managing to stay upright and get those points

He used to be a pair skater, but after his partner Kaya died, he refused to take another

No one is sure how long he’s been with the sport—of course, you can look up his age and everything (30) but when the question is immediately posed, no one can tell you the answer straight off the top of their head

According to skating fans, he definitely took an eternal youth potion at some point

Zeno will always skate to one of two things: romance or something fun. There is no in-between

Geun-tae and Yun-ho are Kouka’s leading ice dance pair

They tend to skate romantically, but occasionally like to surprise people by doing something else

Tae-jun’s father wanted him to be Yona’s partner, but right now he’s partnerless and taking a break

When he finds the right partner, he wants to return to competition

Occasionally joins an exhibition for fun

Currently practicing to whatever music strikes his fancy

Lili’s father wants her to be an ice dancer, but she wants to do pairs

Ayura and Tetora, despite being a pair themselves, are coaching her

Right now she’s partnerless though, so she’s competing in women’s singles

Unlike Tae-jun, she thinks the way to be the best partner possible is to focus on herself individually, not herself as part of a whole

Loves skating to musicals, Disney, anime, etc.

The Original Dragons

Hiryuu was known as Kouka’s Red Dragon, and in his time was accompanied by the Yellow, White, Blue, and Green Dragons

At Kouka’s nationals, Hiryuu nearly always took gold for men’s singles—occasionally the Blue Dragon managed to kick him down to silver

The White and Green Dragons were Kouka’s number one pair

The Yellow Dragon always took third place in men’s singles, despite being nearly on-par with the other dragons, and as such has been largely lost to time. His near erasure solidified when all the video of him disappeared in a fire before the internet was invented

It’s well-known that the current Zeno shares his name, though he keeps quiet on whether or not they’re actually related (he’s actually the original Zeno’s reincarnation)

I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it, and please let me know what you think!

#akayona ladies week #anylw #Yona #son hak #soo-won #hak #happy hungry bunch #Yoon #Hakuryuu Kija #Shin-ah #ryokuryuu jaeha #Ouryuu Zeno #king il #geun-tae #yun-ho #tae-jun #an lili #ayura #tetora #hiryuu #abi #shu-ten #gu-en #akatsuki no yona #akayona #yona of the dawn #Akayona fic #fanfic #mine #my fic

[austencello]

Brothers and Sisters - Arrow Music Notes 7x14

Oliver seeks to bond with his half-sister, Felicity seeks to protect her baby from Diaz, Diggle and Lyla seek to protect the world from Dante, and William and Mia connect over searching for their mom in an episode about family.

Felicity and her family - present day

The episode begins with a nightmare of Felicity’s.  It echoes Oliver’s nightmare from 7x01 in two ways.  One, Felicity is running from Diaz trying to protect her child and then getting shot and two, the music is the same in both dreams. Both Oliver and Felicity’s inward fears come to light as they feel helpless to protect their children and Diaz is the manifestation of those fears.  The metallic percussion and electronics add to the fear and disorientation. The low brass that plays as Diaz points at the gun at Felicity is not Diaz’s theme but is instead an echo of Damien Darhk’s theme and other villains who have low brass themes.  Since it is a dream, it embodies the villains who have sought to hurt their family, bringing a sense of terror and helplessness before they wake up.

Diggle comes clean to both Felicity and Oliver about bringing back Task Force X in the Ghost Initiative including Diaz on the team. Oliver trusts John to do what is best but Felicity is furious and upset. A repeated cello note plays as Diggle tries to explain that it is a small price to pay to bring down Dante and keeping the world safe.  String patterns grow in the violins and the lower strings echoing the emotions growing and churning as Felicity is upset that Diggle has once again chosen the mission over their friendship and keeping them safe. Harp begins to play (Felicity’s instrument) as she leaves and texts Laurel about Diaz and then brass plays Oliver’s hero/Arrow theme as Felicity is determined to take down the villain that threatened her family.

Laurel comes by as Felicity hacks into the bomb in Diaz’s head.  However, Laurel wants to keep on the good side of the law as she is enjoying her place and job for the moment. She then hones in on Felicity wanting to protect her family.  The music changes to major with piano and strings, providing light and humor as she notices all the signs that point to Felicity being pregnant. While not the same humorous strings that are often used for Felicity, it definitely has the same style and mood as many of her cute, flustered moments throughout the series, especially season 4 (Ivy Town, Donna Smoak).

Later on, Laurel reminds Felicity that she is a strong woman especially in creating her security system and that her baby will be lucky to have her as a parent.  As she does so, a string pattern plays in the lower strings.  This is very similar to the opening flute melody in “Let Each Other Go” (4x16) as Felicity remarked that being kidnapped by a psycho killer was kind of a theme in their relationship (having set a trap for Cupid to attack their fake wedding). While a lot has changed, this idea is brought up by Laurel, that there will always be a villain after the Green Arrow and his family. All the people in her life recognize that she is one of the strongest people that they know.  She has nothing to be afraid of and if she kills Diaz, it should not be out of fear.

John calls Oliver for help in a mission against Dante but it means working alongside Diaz.  Oliver talks to Felicity leaving the decision in her hands. As they talk, “Why do they all leave” (6x18) plays in the harp and later guitar harmonics (Oliver’s instrument).  This theme was first used when Oliver believed Felicity was leaving him due to Vertigo in his system but then decides later on that he needs to do his mission on his own, without Felicity.  This comes up again in 6x22 as Felicity needs to be in the field much to Oliver’s concern now that they are both parents. He opposes this and then later they have a fight as Felicity tells him that since they are married, he is not alone anymore, and that they are each other’s strength. It is a theme of growth and challenge as Oliver comes to trust and depend on Felicity as a team member in a new way once they are married and parents. It perfectly showcases his growth as he leaves this current decision and her desire to kill Diaz in Felicity’s hands, telling her that he will support her no matter what even if he thinks there is another way. In Season 6, she had to remind him that she had his back and that he couldn’t work alone.  Now, he has hers, wanting her to find closure so they can move forward together.

Felicity has her opportunity to kill Diaz as he betrays the ARGUS team to Dante. His low themes “The Dragon” (6x19) play as he taunts her that they have been in this position before and she won’t be able to pull the trigger.  She responds that she could but then harp plays a few notes as she says “I’m stronger than you” and decides not to kill him right before Diggle knocks him out. Her love for Oliver and her family was stronger and she finally recognized that strength was important than vengeance or fear.

Oliver and Felicity talk about this decision as Felicity explains that she wants a fresh start with him in the light, wanting their children to know that they are the most important thing to them. At this point, a version of the Olicity theme “The One I Love” (2x23) begins in piano as Oliver processes the fact that she said children and then she tells him that she is pregnant, bringing joy to Oliver’s face. This child is the culmination of their love and what better theme than the one that is used for their love throughout the seasons since he first said “I love you.”

Oliver and Emiko

Oliver and Rene catch up about Emiko as Rene fills Oliver in about her search for justice, looking for her mother’s murderer.  As he does so, music from 7x10 plays. This theme was used during a conversation between Emiko and Rene as she both was starting to let him in and push him away after being patched up at his place and then later as she asked him why he kept insisting on helping. What is interesting is that the first three notes are the same as Oliver and his family theme: “I forgot who I was.” (1x05)  It echoes Oliver’s journey but turns into her own: each so focused on their mission for justice and revenge that they have a hard time letting people in. Now, Oliver begins to understand why Emiko is hellbent on her mission for justice in the city because it always comes back to family.  It is a theme of trying to figure out if she can trust others to help. Rene explains that he had to prove that he could be trusted and Oliver is determined to prove himself as well.

Meanwhile, Emiko and Oliver butt heads as he tries to help but ends up taking over. As he and Rene attack the bad-guys, Wild-Dog’s theme plays, a variation of the Arrow strings play (but slightly different in ascending...because of the lack of mask?) and then a higher electric sound alternates between two notes as Emiko swoops in.  This sound was used near the end of 7x01 when she also swept in, both times determined to keep going on her mission. Part of Oliver’s hero theme plays in the horn as he steps in and arrests the man.

After all of this, Oliver apologizes to Emiko for overstepping and taking over her mission. As he does a version of the guitar harmonics from “I know you’re the Green Arrow” (6x02) plays.  The first time this occurred was during a conversation between Rene and Oliver as Oliver struggled with being a parent and recognizing that William worried about him being in the field. The rest of the strings and melody is gone but the harmonics scales return here as he seeks to make amends with another family member, trying to be a new brother just as he had tried to be a new father last year.  Above all, he is trying to give them what they need and be there for them.

Extra Notes:

- Diggle’s motif played twice: when Connor Hawke revealed he was the adopted son of John Diggle and then most of the motif played as John and Lyla  discover where Dante was going to be. All the sacrifice to find Dante was about to pay off.

- The villain themes of the Ghost Initiative all played briefly as they surrounded Virgil: Deathstroke (1x09), Cupid (3x05), and China White (1x02). Diaz’s was not played at that moment.

- However, all of Diaz’s themes were played in this episode between the moment with Felicity and as he was burnt alive in prison, especially the repeated drum beat.  Payback and vengeance.

- There were several moments where electronic music (a repeated rhythmic note) similar to the Suicide Squad sound played as Diggle and Lyla dealt with ARGUS, the Ghost Initiative and Virgil: when they broke up the “training”, looking at the coin (which also had some interesting music with higher bells...I’ll keep my eye/ear on that), as well as the end of the fight with Dante.

- The scene between Mia and William in the flash-forwards had a beautiful new melody as they talked about their parents.  The music started with higher electronics matching the flash-forwards sound but it changed once William brought out the hozen to horns over strings. Oliver’s hero theme played as she asked if their dad was a hero. A new electronic theme (almost like a piano, harp and bells mixed together) began like Oliver’s hero theme and then changed over strings and horns as he tells her that their dad was a hero. The chords changed a bit to major (reminiscent of Oliver’s mayoral music “Home of the Brave” 5x13 - giving hope) and that the rock was supposed to bring him to her.  Bringing the siblings together brings hope both to William and Mia.  I don’t know if this new theme is for both of them, Mia, or just this scene, but it is beautiful to see aspects of Oliver’s music mixed into this moment as Mia tries to make sense of who her dad was after seeing and living in what Star City had become.

- Life has been a bit busy since the announcement of Arrow’s shorter and final season next year. I will admit I was both saddened and a little relieved.  I have loved writing these notes every week and I will miss analyzing its music and story.  But there is also a lot of freedom in imagining what could come next. (I have so many Jane Austen projects that I want to do and writing original songs as well.  But don’t worry...a few more Arrow projects are also on the horizon and we still have almost a year of episodes left!) 

I am happy that that they can end the story on their terms with the main players.  We couldn’t ask for more than that.  (I’ll probably write more about this once I have more time to process it!)

@academyofshipping @herskirtsarentthatshort @smoakmonster @ah-maa-zing @mel-loves-all @almondblossomme  @scu11y22 @dmichellewrites @green-arrows-of-karamel @jorahandal

#arrow music notes #arrow 7x14 #oliver queen #emiko queen #felicity smoak #olicity #laurel lance 2 #john diggle #ricardo diaz #mia smoak #william clayton

[21tailsofwoe]

I was going through your blog and I saw a post where you said Itachi was your favorite naruto character, like me. I come across different posts on tumblr that claim Itachi to be a bad person and a psychotic abusive murderer and I wanted to know what you thought of this since he is also your favorite character.

Well, Itachi isn’t my top favourite character, because I have a lot of favourite characters, but he certainly is my favourite antagonist. Yes, that’s right: antagonist.

Note: Before I answer, let me just clarify that this is my opinion, and my opinion only. You can choose to agree or disagree with this because I am not claiming any of the following facts to be accurate. Perception varies from person to person and mine will probably be different from yours. Just don’t be a dick about it.

THIS IS GONNA BE LONG BECAUSE I REALLY WANT TO COVER ALL ASPECTS OF ITACHI’S CHARACTER AND MY PERSONAL VIEW OF HIM

I think, anon, that you want me to justify whether Itachi was really a good guy, as opposed to all the blogs that claim him to be this evil person. Sadly, I cannot say Itachi was “good”. I don’t think that after killing so many people (innocent or not) and being responsible for what Sasuke became, Itachi cannot fit the definition of a “good” person. I don’t think of him as some sort of ninja Jesus that people make him out to be.

However, I don’t think Itachi is a “bad” person as these blogs think him to be. No, Itachi’s character is a lot more complex than to just label him as a “bad” guy. The fact that these blogs that you mentioned would call Itachi an abusive, psychopathic murderer is redundant and means that they missed the entire point of his character arc. I mean just look at this panel:

Does this look like a psychotic murderer to you? Do you really think Itachi enjoyed killing all those people, even his parents? How does this make him ‘psychotic’? His father, the one who was about to be killed by him, called him out to be a “kind” (gentle) child and understood what he was doing.

And how can we ignore the fact that Itachi was around the age of thirteen when he undertook this mission? You might argue “But hey, this is the Naruto universe. A lot of fucked up shit happened to little children, Itachi isn’t special.” But what was Naruto’s generation doing when they were around that age? Babysitting, finding lost pets, weeding out gardens, helping civilians out with their shopping. Also, no thirteen year old kid should be faced with a decision to murder his entire clan. And he was just twenty one when he died, giving us an entirely different view on how he lived his life in such a short amount of time.

Itachi’s motivations are a lot different from the motivations of other Naruto villains (yes, I consider Itachi as a Naruto villain). He never wanted power, he never did this for himself, his goals weren’t selfish per se. He wanted to avoid a potential war that was most certainly going to be a consequence of the Uchiha’s coup d’etat, which a lot of people seem to forget. Kill hundreds of people in order to save thousands of lives. It was either this, or that. And he had no other better option at that point of time. The only other way was Shisui’s Kotoamatsukami, a plan which also wasn’t that dependable and failed because of the lovely Danzo Shimura. What could he, as a kid, possibly do when even the elders of the village couldn’t figure a way out?

Itachi was faced with a horrible decision. What he did wasn’t morally right, at all. But it was necessary because there was nothing else they could’ve done. Time was running out and a lot was at stake.

Again, in no way am I trying to paint Itachi as a saint, when he clearly isn’t. I am just trying to say how fucked up of a situation Itachi was in and what measures he had to resort to. We were told time and again in the manga that he was a prodigy, a pacifist who hated war, and that he would grow to be a great shinobi (and who apparently had the wisdom of the Hokage by the age of seven, which I personally believe is a bit too much of a stretch on Kishi’s side, but that’s a rant for another day). The way his life ended is sad in its own way. He could’ve been so much more, but he had to live his life as a criminal, have his name tarnished forever. 

Now for his treatment of Sasuke, which prompts many to call him sadistic and abusive. Keep in my mind that this is, again, my interpretation of what he did and why he did it.

His treatment of Sasuke is his character’s biggest flaw. By solely focusing on directing Sasuke towards killing him so that Sasuke could be considered as a ‘hero’ of the village, he forgot about Sasuke’s mental state completely. He thought he was keeping Sasuke ‘safe’, but in reality, somewhere along the line, his goal became more about keeping Sasuke ‘alive’. He thought he could do it completely on his own, shoulder all that responsibility on himself and in the end, he just fucked up. Big time. 

What I believe is that starting from the Uchiha massacre, Itachi being at a very unstable state of mind, came to this conclusion that only harsh actions yield results and that only he himself could take such harsh decisions. This lead to his terrible choice of mentally torturing Sasuke, so that Sasuke could stay on this path of ‘revenge’ and ‘justice’.

The first time, right after Sasuke discovered Itachi standing over the corpses of their parents, it’s sort of understandable (key words: sort of) that Itachi made him go through Tsukuyomi because he really wanted Sasuke to see him as a bad person: as someone who represents all the bad in this world and that killing Itachi would be the only way to get the clan justice. He didn’t want Sasuke to think less of his clan. These panels show how hard it must have been for Itachi to do so:

It shows how much it hurts Itachi in order to make Sasuke go through all this. Calling him ‘sadistic’ is ridiculous because he isn’t deriving any pleasure from this far from it. There’s no doubt that the next time they met and Itachi used the Tsukuyomi yet again, he would have felt great regret. It is, again, something Itachi felt was a necessity in order to set Sasuke on the path of revenge. Of course it was wrong. Of course it wasn’t justified. But it was what he felt was right, because according to him, only extreme measures work. He saw how weak Sasuke was even now and Itachi felt that pushing him would get him to desire more strength.

Alas, Sasuke then decided to go to Orochimaru for more power, of all people. So now Itachi had two goals for Sasuke: have Sasuke kill him, and free Sasuke from Orochimaru’s curse mark. He achieved both these goals in their final fight. Keep in mind that Itachi’s flaw is still at play. He thought that only he could lead Sasuke to his future as a ‘hero’. His love for Sasuke made him blind to what he was doing and how his actions were affecting his younger brother. The fact that he wanted to keep all of this from Sasuke and even in his death wanted to keep him away from Tobi tells great volume as to how much he had planned for him.

Another important thing to note is that Itachi never saw himself as a good person. He hated himself for what he had to do. He barely kept himself alive so that Sasuke, an Uchiha, could kill him because he felt that would be justice for Sasuke, as well as the ones he killed in the massacre. He felt that it was the perfect end for him, to die by the hands of an Uchiha.

This was all supposed to be over for Itachi but then he was reanimated and was made to see how much he had screwed up. His final confrontation with Sasuke is what sealed it for me. 

“You never have to forgive me…”

He recognised his fault, he realised where he went wrong, and he understands if Sasuke doesn’t want to forgive him for what he has done to him because he knows what he did was wrong. He acknowledged it. And for me, personally, I feel this was the perfect end to his character arc. 

I am a sucker for villains and that’s what drew me to Itachi in the first place. I was initially unsure about the revelation that he was “the good guy all along”, because I really liked him as a baddie and I did not see this twist coming. But knowing how hard this must’ve been for him, it drew me even closer to his character. 

Overall, he was a good kid forced to do terrible things for the greater good, and further made decisions that wrecked more than they fixed, even though he thought he was doing the right thing (using harsh methods). He was neither good, nor inherently evil. And he certainly wasn’t a psychopathic murderer. 

That’s all I have to say I guess.

Good job if you read all that.

[PS: I really enjoyed doing this character analysis so if you liked this one, let me know if you want my views on any other character.]

#character analysis #itachi uchiha #itachi #metalks #naruto #anime #manga #naruto shippuden #shippuden #sasuke #itachi meta

[ms-m-astrologer]

Lunar Nodes, 4/? - South Node, 3/3

“Healing takes place when we are able to use the skills and talents of our South Node past in ways that enable us to stay focused and acting skillfully upon what lies ahead. New growth takes place when we stretch to incorporate the North Node’s sign and house qualities into our ever-evolving self.” - Finding Our Way through the Dark, Demetra George

We’re not supposed to stay in our South Nodes. We’re supposed to reach out for that North Node. But how?

First, consider that the planets which oppose the South Node, must therefore conjunct the North Node. That is to say - what was denied us in the past, we must strive to become now. I’ll talk about that more when we get there!

Another way is to look at the positive, “flowing” aspects made to the Nodal axis. In his book Yesterday’s Sky, astrologer Steven Forrest wrote that these show who “comforted or supported” us, who “offered encouragement or support in folly,” what “temptations were not resisted,” who “seduced or conned” us - and adds that too many flowing aspects suggests that things “might have been too easy and led to lassitude and loss of evolutionary momentum.”

Although our main focus must be on “fixing” the squares and oppositions to the South Node, we can use the flowing aspects to “bulk up” for that process.

My Saturn Rx/Sagittarius/2nd is trine my South Node/Aries/6th. A personification would be a father or grandfather, or an elder/authority figure, offering moral (Sag) support. As it’s in the 2nd House, it implies that I dealt with “lack” or “doing without” - making the most of limitations - or, less pleasantly, “self-limitation, sticking with the tried and true.” The trine means I was okay with that; in fact, I may have been something of a reverse snob. It would make me a responsible parent, and happy to be so. Ideally, it would give me a sense of “think globally, act locally” (Sag/2nd).

Chiron Rx/Aquarius/3rd is sextile my South Node. It’s also conjunct my IC, within two degrees. What do you think happened, in the not so distant past, to unwed mothers? They got sent away - exiled, so as not to bring shame upon their family. Since this is a sextile, I was at least accepting of that. However, it’s the wound I carry into this life (Chiron). Forrest adds that “caretaking” can be involved, as well. With a strong Chiron, I was the caretaker; were my Chiron weaker, I would have been the one being taken care of. And - being away from family meant no family to help with the child-rearing. That’s eventually going to result in tremendous self-reliance (South Node/Aries/6th). There would be some dissociation with the entire concept of “home” and “family” with Aquarius there - and again, it’s a “flowing” aspect, so I was more or less fine with it.

Both my Saturn and my Chiron are also in flowing aspects to my Moon (conjunct my South Node) and Jupiter (opposite South Node). My MC/IC axis is also part of the picture, showing some conflict between “career” and “family” matters. That all seems to hint at ultimate “self-limitation, sticking with the tried and true,” doesn’t it? At the same time, I think we can argue that these aspects helped me become a successful mom - by endowing me with a powerful sense of parental responsibility, and a sense of how not to bring up baby.

In contrast, the final major aspect - a trine from Pluto/Virgo/10th - fits in more with the square from Juno and the opposition from Neptune to my South Node. (I split my Nodal message into two parts: the parenting side which we just discussed, and the relationship side.) Pluto in the 10th can indicate a fall from grace, and in Virgo there’d be some humiliation involved; as Pluto would represent a specific person we’d look for an authority figure, someone in a position of power, or someone “famous” - though with Virgo, it’s not a flamboyantly famous person. Someone in a health-related field, or perhaps a craftsman at the top of his game. Remember that Forrest says this could be “a person who seduced or conned” me. Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side.

This is a trine aspect, true, but it’s out-of-sign. And with flowing out-of-sign aspects, I’ve found that the key phrase is almost always “this should work, but it doesn’t.” Virgo is humiliated by Aries’ lack of forethought; Aries is hamstrung by Virgo’s timidity and caution. Neither sign is particularly relationship-oriented either. I don’t believe “clueless” is too far off, not to mention (with the sort of double-Virgo influence of South Node in the 6th, Pluto in Virgo) “incompetence.”

How is something so negative supposed to be helpful and supportive? Well. if I’m aware that there’s a malfunction, I can try to fix it, right? Perhaps (keeping Virgo/6th in mind) by acknowledging that relationships take work. Or finding a way to integrate romantic idealism (Juno/Leo/9th) with basic human imperfection. (Interesting that this appears to be a separate issue from the parenting piece, isn’t it. I am a Gemini.)

Finally, there is a double septile (51 degrees, 25.7 minutes) involving the South Node: it’s septile my natal Sun/Gemini/8th, which is also septile my natal Ceres/Leo/9th; that means my South Node is biseptile my natal Ceres. These are “fated destiny” type aspects - my interpretation of this for myself is that it has everything to do with the fact that after my son was born, my astrological studies really kicked into high gear.

So let’s sum up these South Node strengths:

Courage and strength in my daily routines

Ability to take care of myself and my kids just fine

Sense of ethical responsibility

Can leave behind tribal traditions that don’t work

Astrology

Awareness that I’m crap at relationships

Somehow, some way, all of that has to work together to propel me toward my North Node/Libra/12th. Good grief.

#Astrology #Lunar Nodes #South Node #Ms M astrologer

[dany36]

SIGH so i’m done playing breath of the wild. i beat it about two weeks ago but i just now completed all shrines and sidequests. i thought about hating myself even more by trying to collect all 900 korok seeds but it’s not worth it just to have that 100% in the map screen (plus korok seeds stopped being useful a long time ago). i have 100%d all zelda games i own (except OoX) but i just can’t be bothered for this one.

having replayed all zelda games at least twice, i can’t say i will be doing the same for botw. here are my [long] thoughts about it (spoiler-free):

i can’t say i loved it. i think i was just playing just for the sake of playing it because....duh, it’s a zelda game (plus i sort of spent a crapload of money on the game+console). as a long-time zelda fan, it just...didn’t feel like a zelda game to me. i’m not opposed to change, in fact i was extremely excited to finally play this game, but the overall product just didn’t satisfy me at all. it just felt like a very dull and unfulfilling experience.  

- the overworld. i kept saying it over and over in my head while playing this game: it’s just too damn fucking huge for its own good. and it’s boring as hell to traverse. there aren’t really that many interesting things to do other than look for shrines. oh cool you can climb that mountain way over there? for what? oh haha a korok seed. most of the time, nothing. good job. it just felt tiring and bothersome to explore huge empty spaces of nothing. horses aren’t very useful since most of the time i was warping to try to not bore myself from wandering around empty spaces. i replayed the original loz at least like 5 or 6 times and i absolutely adored exploring every corner of the overworld. botw’s? yawn snore zzzz.

- weapon durability. i mentioned it in an earlier post but i hope this is something that never comes back to a zelda game. it’s especially shitty when you beat a shrine and your reward is a weapon. oh, a weapon that will break after 20 hits or less. so your reward disappears instead of it being something useful that you can actually keep for the rest of the game. this might just be a personal preference but i just hated the weapon system, especially when you find out that the master sword and the hylian shield can actually also break instead of being able to use them infinite number of times (and don’t tell me “oh it’s because otherwise you would never have used any other weapon!” bc idgaf, frost weapons and spears are cool and i would have used them either way)

- the story. oh my god. i know this is supposed to be a throwback to the original zelda, where you can go straight and kill ganon, but my goodness....it’s 2017. how is it that we got such a barebones story?? when i finally got to zora’s domain i was excited. i was finally getting to the story. boy i was wrong. the game gave me zero reason to care about saving the world and its inhabitants (except the gorons, which i think were the greatest in this game). i fucking hate that the story is mostly told through memories. the worst part is, the story told through the memories is more exciting than the one you play through the game. i hate that we are told from the start “you have to save hyrule and the princess because um....you’re a hero, you just don’t remember haha! so GO!!!!” instead of showing me actual, emotional reasons to want to save these people. through the memories we just become spectators, instead of the story actually making us bond and feel something for the people we are saving (except, again, yunobo, who i will save 1000 times if i have to). not even princess zelda’s incredible character growth (which, once again, HAPPENS IN THE MEMORIES and NOT in the present) can save the story from being lackluster. i would talk more about this but then it’d take up the whole post.

- the music. i’ve also complained about it before, but it’s a fucking joke, especially since it’s a zelda game, which are mostly known from having really good soundtracks. for me, there are zero memorable soundtracks. i think i only liked two, the one where you are near a Tower and when you are near a shrine. even minecraft, a freaking indie game, had better ambient music than botw. exploring the overworld becomes 3600% more BORING because as you’re walking, all you hear is link’s footsteps and clanky armor. so the overworld becomes twice as empty because 90% of the time, there is no music. except the five random ass piano keys you hear from time to time. it’s just bad and it makes me sad. people seemed to have hated SS’s OST, but at least it gave us Fi’s Theme and the magnificence that is the Lanayru Sand Sea theme. now THAT’S music that truly takes you into the game and gives it the proper ambiance that the overworld tries to portray. botw? a sad, sad attempt. i’m honestly wondering what they will play during botw’s section at the symphony of the goddess’s tour.

- the sidequests. 90% of the sidequests are boring fetch quests and “kill this type of enemy plz”. it’s just boring and tedious and the rewards are a joke (mostly, rupees, materials which you can easily find ANYWHERE, or food). it’s time for zelda to step up in the sidequests department and give me good, engaging, emotional-investing sidequests that tell me more about a certain character, or which tell me more about the world, or overall just make me CARE about its inhabitans that i’m trying to save. MM is the king of sidequests and botw once again pales in comparison.

- the dungeons. the first one (Vah Ruta) was cool. then it got boring and repetitive, really fast. all the dungeons look identical. the dungeons are for the most part short. there are no enemies inside the dungeons except these flying skeletons that die with one hit. oh yeah and maybe a robot here and there. so there’s some enemies but nothing tough. the premise revolves around manipulating the dungeon by rotating it to discover new areas. so it’s like playing four Stone Towers from MM. Except i guess the Gerudo dungeon, which added an element of electricity (that was cool). but other than that, all of the dungeons are pretty much the same and after you’ve played one, you’ve pretty much played them all, which is sad because it takes away the element of surprise and “oh man i wonder what the theme of the next dungeon will be?”

- the enemies. the lack of variety is a joke. there’s like 4 or 5 types of bokoblins, which just differ in their color and strength. oh and that’s the same for octoroks, moblins, lizalfos, chuchus, lynels, and wizzrobes (which are a fucking joke in this game. remember when wizzrobes were actually tough in the original game?). oh crap, i’ve actually mentioned 90% of the enemies you will face in the game... i think in total there might be 10 or 11, which is PATHETIC when you consider how fucking huge the overworld is. sad sad sad.

- stamina is stupid and so is climbing. stamina was tolerable in SS because of those silent realms you had to beat: you had to be careful of running and climbing and wearing out your stamina because of those crazy-ass guardians. so it made sense because it adds a challenge to the silent realms. in botw, for a game that focuses so much on exploring and climbing, stamina becomes a hindrance that actually makes it annoying to explore the world. you better not run out of stamina while trying to climb that mountain over there lest you run out and have to start all over!!! joy.

- the graphics. can nintendo please try something else with zelda graphics now. don’t get me wrong, i loved TWW and SS, but....these cel-shading graphics (or whatever they’re called) are getting tiresome. i didn’t like how most of the time the game looks bloom-y and blurry af (it’s especially bad when it’s raining or snowing). people complained about TP’s bloom effects but i feel like botw’s light effect (or whatever the hell that causes it to look like someone just put 200% of brightness on an image using photoshop) really takes away from trying to enjoy the scenery and view that the game tries to offer. for the next game can we try something like hyrule warriors or tp or hell even mm 3d? thx.

- the rain. it. rains. so. fucking. much.

haha oh man i never realized how many things i didn’t like about this game. i think i’ll stop here and talk about the things i did like:

- the shrines. although i didn’t like how all of them had the exact same design, the puzzles in them were cool and very zelda-ish.

- the warping system. thank god there are so many warp points to traverse the overworld because otherwise i would have never finished this game.

- the clothes system. i really liked all of the costume options the game gives you, and the fact that you can change the color of the clothes. it takes me back to the OoT days except with more variety. very nice.

- the runes. i loved not having to worry about running out of bombs and the ice rune was very cool and useful: it’s like having infinite ice arrows from MM to make platforms on the water! also the puzzles that involved stopping time with the statis rune were awesome. oh and grabbing treasure from underwater with magnesis never gets old.

- yunobo. yunobo is pure and great and needs to be protected at all costs.

- lynels. for once, a deadly enemy you actually have to be careful with and prepare yourself with good strategy to beat. i remember when i saw my first lynel i was so scared to approach it. they gave lynels such a great treatment and it’s the same one that wizzrobes should have gotten.

- the variety of the weapons.

- revali’s gale. saved me from having to climb so many mountains with its gust that elevates you so high. also after 3 it re-generates in 5 minutes. a blessing.

- the towns. i loved how lively they look. it’s like clock town from mm and it’s great.

- princess zelda. great character development and she has become my second favorite zelda (behind ST Zelda which will always be the best [while oot zelda continues to be the worst])

summary: while i enjoyed some aspects of the game, overall it just was very tiresome and unfulfilling. for a game that boasted about being open world, the world itself was just so barren of interesting things to do and explore. exploring the world of Xenoblade Chronicles, a fucking Wii game, was way more exciting because the environment, story, and music had more to offer. if there’s one thing i can thank botw for, is that it re-awoke my love for zelda games such as TWW, TP, and SS, which i will probably re-play next. i’m all for evolving the zelda series, and i thank botw for trying, but i honestly hope this game will not be the new zelda formula to follow. PEACE OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#zelda #botw #junk #wow i didn't expect this to be so long #but it just had to be done #this was very therapeutic :y #sigh #botw criticism

[iwriteaboutfeminism]

Trump vs. The Resistance: : Week 1

January 20-27, 2017

A lot’s been going on. Let’s review.

Trump’s inauguration was attended by between 250,000 and 300,000 people, on the smaller side in comparison to other modern inauguration crowds yet in line with his abysmal approval ratings. Entering office (a time when, historically, a President’s ratings are at their highest) trump’s popularity is sitting at 40%. If this is the high, I can only imagine where he’ll go from here. Especially after what he’s been up to this week…

Within his first few hours as President, one of trump’s first orders of business was to reverse an executive action by President Obama from earlier this month, which, as of January 27th, would have decreased insurance premiums for homeowners with FHA mortgages by an average of $500 a year. What trump has done will mean that low-income homeowners will have to continue to pay higher fees.  

The day after the inauguration, 500,000 people packed DC for the Women’s March. They were joined by sister marches in over 600 cities across the US and around the world, totaling over 4.1 million protesters in the US, making this the largest one-day protest in US history. They were an overwhelming force of resistance and solidarity, uniting around the principles of intersectionality.

Organizers of the march have provided participants with tons of resources on ways to stay involved going forward. The first step in their 10 Actions in 100 Days campaign, for example, is to mail a postcard to your Senators on the issue(s) that matter most to you.

Since the Women’s March, three more marches on Washington have been announced. They include the March for Science, (on April 22nd), the People’s Climate March (on April 29th), and the LGBT National Pride March (on June 11th).

This show of strength from the Women’s March, right on the heels of trump’s own ego-bruisingly low turnout, was something he couldn’t let pass without comment. Against the advice of his aids, he forced his Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, to open his first press conference by deliberately lying about how many people attended his inauguration, claiming it was “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration. Period.” An objectively false statement, easily disproven, yet forced forward in order to stroke the president’s hurt feelings.

When Kelly Ann Conway, trump’s aid and former campaign manager, was asked on Sunday why they put out this absurd falsehood, she stated that while the media reported the fact that trump’s inauguration was clearly smaller than Obama’s 2009 inauguration, Spicer was merely asserting an “alternative fact.” Let the memes begin.

At a speech at CIA headquarters on Saturday, trump doubled-down on the lie, claiming that the real number of attendees was “like a million, or a million-and-a-half.” Video of the speech appears to show a receptive crowd, yet reporting on the event includes the claim from some CIA officials that the first few rows were deliberately filled with trump supporters, brought in by the president’s team in order to cheer and clap for him. They also dispute the White House’s claim that “there were people waiting to get into the event,” by saying that of the thousands who were invited to attend the event, about 400 showed up. In fact, instead of describing the crowd as receptive or supportive of the new President, sources described the impressions of the crowd as “uncomfortable,” “stunned and at times offended,” and feeling as though the visit actually “made relations with the intelligence community worse.”

The CIA is certainly far from the only agency to feel put off by trump this week. On Tuesday he forced a social media ban on the Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Agriculture. This bans them from posting any information on their social media sites, providing any information to journalists, issuing new contracts, grants, or work assignments, and publishing any press releases, fact sheets, or photos.

Lucky for all of us, employees of these agencies and related departments have created alternative social media accounts, most notably the @AltNatParkSer and @RogueNASA, (among many others) where they have “gone rogue” by posting scientific facts about the environment and climate change.

The ways that restricted or selective access to scientific work may impact global climate policy will soon become clear, but we have a very good idea right now on the immediate impacts of trump reinstating- and expanding- the Global Gag Rule. Also known as the Mexico City Policy, this executive order bans all funding to foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which provide health care that includes even the availability of information about abortion.

We have seen firsthand how the giving and taking away of this funding over the past three decades, depending entirely on the party affiliation of the president, severely impacts the health, well-being, and even mortality of people dealing with pregnancy across the world. By reinstating the Global Gag Rule, trump has opted to let people die rather than provide them access to information on a range of healthcare options, including birth control methods.  Restricting information on and safe access to abortion does not reduce the number of abortions, but rather increases the number of people who will experience complications from unsafe, often self-administered, procedures. Thousands will die, and millions will lose access to birth control, HIV treatment, and maternal and pre-and post-natal care. We know this. And trump knows it too.

In response, the government of the Netherlands is organizing “an international fund which would finance projects relating to access for birth control, abortion and women’s education, throughout developing countries,” in order to “compensate this financial setback as much as possible”. They have committed $10 million to the project, which, while dwarfed by the amount being withheld by the US- $600 million over four years- is greatly welcomed nonetheless. The Canadian government is currently considering options for assisting the Netherlands in this effort, though they have yet to commit a dollar amount.

Trump followed this executive order the next day with several others which call for a fast-tracking of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines and a general fast-track for all new infrastructure projects which would radically limit the depth and time given to current environmental impact studies of proposed projects.

Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, spoke out strongly against the order which violates his tribe’s long-standing legal right to the land. “By granting the easement,” he said, “trump is risking our treaty rights and water supply to benefit his wealthy contributors and friends at DAPL. […] Creating a second Flint does not make America great again.” Organizers around the county called for emergency protests to take place that evening to oppose trump’s strong-arming, resulting in thousands of activists mobilizing in cities throughout the country, including Washington DC, New York City, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Philadelphia.

On Wednesday, trump signed two more executive orders, this time on immigration. The first calls for “the immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border,” yet outlines no plan to pay for this massively expensive- and ultimately ineffective- project. He also called for the hiring of an additional 5,000 Customs and Border Patrol agents, and 10,000 additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, increasing their current numbers by 50 percent.

Under Obama, priority cases for deportation were (relatively) limited to those who were “convicted of a felony, serious misdemeanor or multiple misdemeanors.” Now, any undocumented person charged with any crime, even wrongly, could face a fast-tracked deportation. But that’s not the only threat. ICE officers have also been granted expanded authority, allowing them to deport any undocumented immigrant whom, in their opinion, poses “a risk to public safety or national security.”

His second executive order also calls for the withholding of federal funds to the approximately 300 cities and communities which have policies protecting the undocumented. These communities are commonly referred to as sanctuary cities. In his executive order, trump described these cities as having caused “immeasurable harm to the American people and to the very fabric of our Republic,” and likely intends to have Jeff Sessions, should he be confirmed as Attorney General, “sue [sanctuary] cities on the grounds they are violating federal law by refusing to cooperate with immigration enforcement.”

Yet another frightening aspect of his order on sanctuary cities is the call for a comprehensive list to be made public on a weekly basis outlining crimes committed (or, allegedly committed) by undocumented immigrants. Ostensibly for the purpose of “better inform[ing] the public regarding the public safety threats associated with sanctuary jurisdictions,” such a list, especially if “comprehensive” means the inclusion of personal information, can only result in a lessening of public safety.  

Historian and author Andrea Ptizer compared the impetus behind such a list to a feature in an old Nazi newspaper called Der Stürme. “…They had a department called "Letter Box," and readers were invited to send in stories of supposed Jewish crimes. And Der Stürmer would publish them, and they would include some pretty horrific graphic illustrations of these crimes, as well.” Speaking with Juan Gonzalez on “Democracy Now,” they explained how purposely focusing on the alleged crimes of one marginalized subset of the population makes those alleged crimes appear more common or depraved than crimes committed by others, despite the proven fact that crimes rates among immigrants in the US are actually lower than crimes committed by those born here.

Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, has described the President’s actions as “extremist” and said that he is “taking a wrecking ball to our immigration system. It shouldn't come as a surprise that chaos and destruction will be the outcome."

Fortunately, several Mayors (most notably from New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle)are taking a strong stand, defending their status as sanctuary cities and vowing to remain welcoming and safe communities for all of their residents. Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel spoke clearly about his commitment to remaining a sanctuary city. “We’re going to stay a sanctuary city,” he promised. “There is no stranger among us. Whether you’re from Poland or Pakistan, whether you’re from Ireland or India or Israel and whether you’re from Mexico or Moldova, where my grandfather came from, you are welcome in Chicago as you pursue the American dream.”

The Mayor of Boston, Marty Walsh, likened the order to “a direct attack on Boston’s people, Boston’s strength and Boston’s values.” He stated that 28% of Boston’s residents are immigrants, and that nearly half have at least one foreign-born parent.  “I want to say directly to anyone who feels threatened today or vulnerable you are safe in Boston,” Walsh vowed. “We will do everything in our power to protect you – if necessary we will use City Hall itself to shelter and protect anyone who is targeted unjustly.”

To finish out his first week in office, trump published yet another executive order on Friday, instituting a 90-day ban on any non-citizen trying to enter the country from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen, including legal immigrants  and permanent residents who have already been vetted and issued valid visas.  Travelers with dual-nationalities are also denied entry by the ban. Refugees have been banned for 120 days, even those who have already been through- and approved by- the toughest, longest vetting process in the world, and have already waited between 18 and 24 months to enter the country.

The executive order also calls for cutting the number of refugees from any country accepted into the United States for 2017 by more than half, down to 50,000 from 110,000. In 2016, 12,486 Syrian refugees found safe haven in America, but now refugee applications from Syria have been suspended indefinitely. “I hereby proclaim,” the President said, “that the entry of nationals of Syria as refugees is detrimental to the interests of the United States.

Americans disagree.

Protesters quickly mobilized at airports around the country, with the largest groups at Dulles in Washington D, JFK in New York City, and O’Hare in Chicago, to make sure that immigrants and refugees were being treated civilly and knew that they were welcome. They were also there, of course, to express their anger at the trump administration for instituting a Muslim ban to the United States, a country founded on the principle of religious liberty.  Throughout the weekend, nearly 100 airports around the country saw large solidarity rallies.

While trump’s administration likes to say this isn’t a ban specifically on Muslims, they show their hand when they admit that, as refugee applications re-open, priority will be given to Christians who have faced “religious persecution.” In an interview Friday, trump seemed to believe that for the past several years the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security had been favoring Muslim refugees, making it “impossible, or at least very tough” for Christians from Syria to enter the US.

He provided no evidence of this, which would have been impossible, or at least very tough, because there is no evidence that such a policy was in practice. In fact, of all refugees accepted into the country last year, 50.9% were Muslim and 49.1% were Christian. In Syria specifically, 87% of the population is Muslim, and 10% is Christian. Among those accepted in the US as refugees in 2016, 99% were Muslim, and 1% Christian. Still, as trump has halted all refugee immigration from Syria, it’s unclear how he intends to prioritize any of them. It should also be noted that trump’s claim that Christians in the Middle East are specifically targeted by terrorists is false. The vast majority of people that ISIS kills are Muslim.

People in Syria find themselves and their families in grave and immediate danger every day. They want to get away from extremism. They want to be free from terror. And when we close our doors to them, we are the ones responsible for their deaths. Our president may be willing to turn his back on them, but we never will.

We have seen a truly amazing outpouring this week of love in action. We have seen solidarity and intersectionality and hope. We have stood by each other, stood for each other, and proved to each other and ourselves that we are not alone.

Week two; we’re ready.

#written by me #TVR #inauguration #muslim ban #women's march #NoDAPL #protest #reisistance

[pri5cillasanchez]

3/24/17

Thoughts:

-I attended a group therapy session of some sort at Metropolitan State Hospital last night. I had no intention of going, however, my supervisor recommended I try it out and see if I gain anything from it. So I figured, why not? If it gets him to shut up about it, sure. A lot of deep emotional talks and conversations were exchanged at this session, but one of the saddest conclusions of what I got out from it.. was how alone and emotional detached I am from things that should affect me. And how terrible it is how far along I’ve let myself get messed up inside, without consulting help or reaching out to anyone about how I constantly feel inside. The session began by going around the group, introducing ourselves and stating something we do that makes us feel better. Everyone was mostly saying listen to music, hangout with friends and family, be around people etc. When it had reached my turn, I simply stated that I enjoy being alone with a pen and a journal in order to feel (and maybe some alcohol as well, I thought to myself). I can’t be around people during times I feel down, which is a lot of the time actually. I told them that I’d always felt like the outcast of my family growing up, the neglected one, was never close to my parents and barely talk to them to this day. And so when you’ve been as lonely as I have felt throughout my entire life, writing in a journal almost everyday (something I still do today) makes me feel sane. It makes me feel less alone knowing that theres something that is taking the time to listen to the things going on in my head. Writing releases this hurting built up inside of me, you’ll know the real me and everything I feel through writing. As opposed to me attempting to verbally express myself, you’ll be lucky if you get one word out of me. They applauded and welcomed me after that. Then as people began to talk about something that was bothering them and whatnot, there was one that almost made me emotionally breakdown because I started to think about my own relations with my family. There were these parents that were at the session, talking about their kid with mental illness, I assumed generalized anxiety disorder and an attachment disorder? But they were explaining how when their son was first diagnosed, the father didn’t believe him and thought he was making it up. Then they found out it was real after the doctor confirmed it. The parents used to fight a lot over it because they blamed each other for why their son developed a mental illness. But later, they chose to work it out, educate themselves about mental illness, and attend groups like these to gain a better understanding on how to connect with their son and whatnot. And at the end of their story, the father said they go through all this trouble to understand him better because they love their son that much, regardless of mental illness. And I remember hearing this story and something in me broke. Or more so, my heart deeply ached. Because I am so happy that the parents developed patience and understanding for their son and so extremely thankful that the son has loving parents that will do anything for him. And this other part of the ache, came from the fact that I have absolutely no idea how it feels like to be loved by your parents to that extent. I can’t remember the last time I hugged my parents or told them I loved them or vice versa, it must’ve been maybe when I was around 5 years old or so. I remember watching the way this father talked about his son in such admiration and partly tearing up simultaneously, and thinking to myself how heartwarming it must feel to have family members talk about you like this. Because I have no idea. I don’t have a family like that to turn to in times of need, i don’t have parents I can talk to about things going on in my life. I remember being in high school and my parents finding out I needed a therapist for severe depression self harming and suicidal thoughts, and I got laughed at and dismissed for having the strength to finally voice what I was feeling only to be mocked at. They generalized my negative feelings as a phase every teenager goes through, but the depression was real and they failed as parents to recognize that. To this day, no one has any idea how jealous I get seeing happy families, seeing my friends being close with their mothers and fathers and siblings. You have no idea how lucky you are to feel loved by people who are supposed to love you. That’s why this moment in the therapy session killed me. And I remember feeling empty inside in that moment, because I don’t really have a family like that for me and being alone and depending on myself is something I was forced into my entire life. Another thing I got out of this session, I think it’s time to finally start seeing a therapist because this sadness isn’t going away.

-I’m second guessing my career path again. I’ve been set on being a psychiatric nurse practitioner for years now. However, interning at metro state hospital and consulting with nurses at st jo’s hospital, I see and hear the same thing about psych nurses. They simply give medication to their patient, maybe a bit of interaction, then that’s it.. I don’t want to study psychology and nursing for years only to give these patients medication and not even interact with them. I’m not sure what I want anymore. I enjoy the nursing aspect of what I do. I do enjoy knowing medication, handling patient care, interacting with patients every now and then. But then I miss the psychology aspect, what my college education has consisted of, being able to speak with clients and gaining their trusts and getting to know their stories, hearing about their problems, developing ways in which life improvements could be implemented. So I don’t know. Part of me wants to be the psych nurse. The other part of me wants to be a therapist for adolescents/adults going through depression anxiety bipolar or other mood disorders. Knowing myself.. I have a feeling I will end up pursing and excelling in both.

-Lately, I’ve been feeling lonely again. But I’m doing okay being with myself. I told myself i’m no longer using people as medicine or one night stands out of loneliness and whatnot. And i’m doing well! I’m keeping my word and I feel a lot better about myself in doing so. I’ve been extremely productive as well lately now that I have no distractions holding me back. I plan on keeping it this way until someone proves to me that they are a good one worth putting my time and effort towards. Other than that, i’m going to continue focusing on school and my future and being enough for myself.

-I am so excited for my roadtrip to Utah Nevada Arizona next week. Nature is one of the few things that relaxes me. I can’t wait to get away from everyone and everything for a little while.

#130am

[terryblount]

DSOGaming – Here are our Games of the Year 2019

There have been a lot of great games for the PC this year. As such, and contrary to all previous years, we’ve decided to share with you today our Games of the Year 2019. In this list, you’ll find the games that DSOGaming’s writers enjoyed the most. Do note that this isn’t our “Top 10 Most Optimized” and “Top 10 Worst Optimized” lists; these lists will be published next week. So without further ado, here are our best PC games of 2019.

Chris Kountouras – Red Dead Redemption 2

My game of the year is Red Dead Redemption 2, simply because the game wipes its ass with every other open-world game out there. This Western ‘simulator’ provided me with a grand array of feelings throughout its very long single player story, and what a glorious story it was. Arthur Morgan might be the best developed character I ever played.

I laughed, I raged, I robbed, I saved, I killed and I died, time and time again. I lost my way an infinite number of times in this game. Going from A to B had never been so hard in a game before. There are so many things to do, that sometimes you even forget what you were suppose to do in the first place.

And now having the game on PC is a bless. Playing the game on sixty frames feels almost like a completely different game. The perfect gift for Christmas!

Happy holidays and merry Christmas DSOG readers.

Pieter Naude – Mortal Kombat 11

When thinking about the games I played this year, I noticed that most were either sequels or remakes for pre-existing franchises. Honestly, I wanted to choose my GOTY from new IP’s since our industry desperately needs some freshness with this sink or swim climate. As such, I decided that this had better be a sequel or remake that took its franchise to new levels. It had to sustain its longstanding identity, and yet improve on every single aspect from visuals to gameplay. There was only one such candidate for me in 2019: Mortal Kombat 11. Ed Boon and his team had made, in my opinion, their best fighting game ever. The fatalities had never felt more visceral, the story provided the perfect excuse to reintroduce some old-school MK, and the mechanics introduced a playing style that focused more on strategic fighting than lighting-fast reflexes. Truly an excellent accomplishment for Netherealm, and without any doubt the best I played in this year.

Spencer – Halo: Reach

I’m selecting Reach as my Game of the Year, it’s new on PC and the fact is this is absolutely how this game was meant to be played. A couple years ago Sega’s Rez came out on VR and I said it felt like Tetsuya Mizuguchi had designed this Dreamcast game as a VR title long before VR was an actual mass consumer product — but VR added so much to the experience that it made that title feel reborn.

It’s the same story for Halo, this is a franchise that has belonged on PC since its inception but was limited by the console hardware that hosted it so that Microsoft could use the strength it lends as an IP to move hardware. Understandable! But not so great for us PC gamers! Well thankfully Microsoft has decided the IP would be better off coming to PC as well as its Xbox line of consoles. Reach is the first arrival from the Master Chief Collection, which will include Halo CE, 2, 3, ODST, 4 and Reach.

The addition of mouse controls adds a fluidity that was never there on a dual analog gamepad and it feels like the premiere modern FPS franchise has come to occupy its rightful position on the premiere FPS platform.

The PC release, much like the MCC isn’t perfect. The compilation suffered from issues on Xbox One and I imagine it will on PC but it cannot be argued that these are some of the strongest games on offer in this industry and that this compilation is one of the best gaming values out there, ever. Some of the issues I’ve noticed on PC for Reach: muffled audio, crouch doesn’t seem to work correctly and occasional front end menu crashes.

In time I’m confident these issues will be ironed out but in the meantime this is a playable and definitive version of one of the best FPS games released in the last 10 years. Mouse aiming is a revelation, the multiplayer is excellent and the campaign is depressing and somber making you feel vulnerable and doomed even as a Spartan war machine. At the end though, Reach is reborn in our world as well as 117’s.

Here’s to Halo on PC, keep it coming.

Nick McCaskey – Anno 1800

Given the limited time I had to play games in 2019, my game of the year choice is less about a definitive selection and more about my personal slice of gaming. Therefore, the 2019 release I loved the most was Anno 1800, and my 100+ hours of playtime proves it!

I’m a long-time Anno fan, and 1800 was a homecoming for the franchise. It delivered the hallmark mix of soothing city-building, vast empire management, and complex economic simulation while also being the most graphically astounding and technically impressive entry in the series.

Moreover, now is the best time ever to play Anno 1800. The developers deserve kudos for steadily releasing significant patches to improve the game and add free features like a day/night cycle and much better empire statistics screens.

Another reason to jump in now is the Season Pass content is now completely released. I’m morally opposed to paying early for promises, but just last week I’ve purchased the Season Pass at half-price and look forward to enjoying the three excellent content additions to the game.

In conclusion, there’s a time and place for high-energy, scripted story games, but Anno 1800 is my fallback game when I need to sit down for a couple hours and do nothing more than leisurely expand my empire-wide bread production chains. Ah, it’s good to taste life’s simple production pleasures!

PS: As far as other “could have been GOTY if I’d played them” titles, I will mention Control, Disco Elysium, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. All three seem outstanding and worthy of consideration!

John Papadopoulos – The Outer Worlds

2019 was a great year for PC gaming as we got a lot of amazing games. And, to be honest, it was pretty difficult deciding my GOTY 2019. I really loved Resident Evil 2 Remake, Gears 5 and Devil May Cry 5. A Plague of Tale: Innocence was also a stunning title, and Metro: Exodus was awesome. Still, there was “something” missing in these games.

Ultimately, I was left with three games that were the closest I could think of as a GOTY 2019. These three games were: Red Dead Redemption 2, Control and The Outer Worlds. RDR 2 is Chris’ GOTY 2019 so I believe I should choose another game.

So, The Outer Worlds or Control? To be honest, I enjoyed both of them. The Outer Worlds is a great RPG that even lets you kill anyone and avoid combat via the dialogue tree. Contrary to Fallout 4, its combat mechanics are amazing and it was a truly amazing experience. Yes, there are some shortcomings here and there, but I really, really enjoyed it.

And then there is Control. I’ve always been a huge fan of Remedy’s games and despite a lot of players, I really enjoyed Quantum Break (I love “time travel” so give me more of these ideas/scenarios please). Control is easily one of Remedy’s best games to date. Not only that, but it’s pretty fascinating witnessing its older IPs, like Quantum Break and Alan Wake, being present in the very same universe. It’s a game you should definitely play as it has a lot of special moments, like the Ashtray Maze or what happens to Jesse towards the end of the game. However, its ending did not satisfy me as it’s undoubtedly building towards a sequel. And perhaps this is something in which The Outer Worlds excelled.

When I finished The Outer Worlds, I felt a weird satisfaction. I didn’t get any “The game ended? That’s it? It was really short. But what about this?” feeling. The game felt complete. Moreover, and while writing everything you just read, I was constantly recalling my experiences in The Outer Worlds rather than in Control. Therefore, my GOTY 2019 is The Outer Worlds.

Merry Christmas everyone and happy holidays!

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Why After-Action Reviews Are So Important

Military Strategy Could Help Take Your Organization to the Next Level

One of the critical differences between military and civilian organizations is that most military organizations can only simulate their wartime missions in peacetime, and must therefore conduct training which seeks to mimic combat conditions as closely as possible. This is not something that most civilian organizations do with their more high-pressure tasks.

The thinking behind that might be that ongoing operations provide sufficient training opportunities to learn. But if you want members of your organization to learn lessons faster, consider instituting something like the military’s After-Action Review (AAR). I’ll walk you through how that works here.

What is an AAR?

Training Circular 25-20, A Leader’s Guide to After-Action Reviews, defines the AAR as a “professional discussion of an event, focused on performance standards, that enables soldiers to discover for themselves what happened, why it happened, and how to sustain strengths and improve on weaknesses.”

Simulation of combat is resource intensive and demanding, and it is critical that each training event provide the maximum amount of benefits for the costs incurred. In order to ensure this, each major training event incorporates a process of review from beginning to end; the AAR.

Unlike a critique, which may only present a limited number of points of view, an AAR includes feedback from all participants—from the senior leaders to the individual soldiers—whose observations are often just as critical to the success of the unit mission.

Two types of AARs

AARs fall into two general categories, Formal and Informal. The formats are essentially the same, but the determination of whether to conduct a formal or informal AAR is generally based on the level of the unit conducting the training (Company and below tend to be informal, while Battalion and above tend to be formal, although certain squad, crew, platoon and company training events, such as gunnery exercises, may be formally reviewed).

Formal AARs are planned well in advance of the execution of the training event, with extensive preparation. There will be a reproduction of the training area (either on a terrain model, or sand table, a map blow-up or a projection), dedicated observer controllers (OCs) and are conducted where they can be supported most effectively. The formal AAR will also include the data captured in informal AARs conducted by the OCs on site with smaller units. Informal AARs are conducted immediately after a training event by the internal chain of command, at the training site, and require less preparation.

As a Second Lieutenant, I used to conduct platoon AARs with a pocketful of Micro-Armor (miniature vehicles cast in metal) and a hastily sketched out terrain board between our vehicles. I also used to conduct Rehearsal of Concept (ROC) Drills the same way before the event.

In fact, the amount of detail that goes into the ROC Drill is usually a good indicator of the amount of detail that will go into the AAR. The AAR for a Brigade Combat Team (BCT) exercise will almost certainly mimic the level of detail of the ROC Drill, especially since the site preparation, training aids and Operations Order (OPORD) will be used in both events.

Key points and formats

All AARs, whether formal or informal, share the same key points. AARs:

Are conducted during or immediately after each event

Focus on intended training objectives

Focus on soldier, leader, and unit performance

Involve all participants in the discussion

Use open-ended questions

Are related to specific standards

Determine strengths and weaknesses

Link performance to subsequent training

The AAR format, regardless of whether it is formal or informal, should include the following:

Introduction and rules

Review of training objectives

Commander’s mission and intent (what was supposed to happen)

Opposing force (OPFOR) commander’s mission and intent (when appropriate)

Relevant doctrine and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs)

Summary of recent events (what happened)

Discussion of key issues (why it happened and how to improve)

Discussion of optional issues

Discussion of force protection issues (discussed throughout)

Closing comments (summary)

“ An AAR includes feedback from all participants—from the senior leaders to the individual soldiers—whose observations are often just as critical to the success of the unit mission.

—MIKE HARRIS

Planning and execution

The AAR is part of every training event. There are four phases, which are run as the training event is planned and executed.

Phase 1: Planning

During this phase, the trainers select and train qualified OCs review the doctrinal inputs to the training event and begin identifying the data to be captured, schedule the AARs, identify participants, select the sites, select training aids and review the planning for the AAR.

Phase 2: Preparation

The trainers will review the Operations Order (OPORD), Mission Essential Task Lists (METL) and doctrinal guidance and extract the training objectives and determine which key events OCs are to observe. Once the training event begins, the OCs will record their observations and these will be collected and organized in order to reinforce teaching points. They will also recon the AAR site and begin site prep and rehearsals.

Phase 3: Execution

Following the format, the trainers will conduct the AAR. Goals are to seek maximum participation from members of the training unit, focus on training objectives and teaching points and to record key points derived from the observations of all participants.

Phase 4: Follow up

As the training unit recovers from the exercise, the chain of command will incorporate the AAR findings into identifying and correcting weaknesses through retraining and revising Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). These changes in training will be incorporated into the Yearly Training Plan (YTP) and Yearly Training Calendar (YTC). The AAR will also be used to refine the commander’s readiness assessments in the Unit Status Report (USR).

Safety, on!

Safety cannot be overemphasized in training exercises. Simulations of combat carry risks to participants, and the more realistic the simulation, the greater the risks. Pyrotechnics used to simulate artillery can cause injuries, vehicular accidents will occur, even something as simple as food storage can have catastrophic consequences if not properly executed. During an exercise at Fort Irwin, one of the units that we were working with suffered two fatalities when a HMMWV overturned in a ditch while speeding.

Never underestimate the impact of Murphy’s Law. Safety and force protection should be specifically addressed in every phase of the AAR, just as they are incorporated into the training events. As my first squadron commander used to say before each event, “There is nothing that we will do here today that is worth your life.”

How to AAR

In a military environment, an AAR provides critical data to a unit commander, who will then incorporate that data into improving unit performance and, ultimately, securing victory on the battlefield. There are aspects of the AAR that civilian enterprises are finding useful, and I strongly recommend that those managers and other leaders who seek to incorporate AARs into their operations review Training Circular 25-20.

from Michael Hyatt, Your Virtual Mentor https://ift.tt/2MT5FVP via IFTTT

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