#this is all like. very much an analysis of the modern age reactions to such bands of course

[imeminemp3]

ive made this post before but it's so weird being a fan of queen the way i am cause they're world fucking famous but those are just... my four guys!! my buddies. my pals.

#im fully in it i don't just. believe what i saw in bohemian rhapsody 2018 i did my own research i read books i can distinctly tell their #writing styles etc but like #they are just 4 funny guys to me!!!!!!! and i love them!!! #it's so different to like. being a fan of the beatles bc everyone knows all of their drama and stuff they're taken like.. way more for #granted than queen bc to ppl #wait maybe i meant it the other way around sorry queen are taken more for granted? do i know what that phrase means? #anyway people are just. used to queen without knowing much about them ig??? #average casual queen fan: ummmm freddie was gay and he died. #and that's like all they know about the band #i feellike ppl are more likely to know beatle bsides than queen bsides #it's also different from being a monkee fan bc LITERALLY all ppl know abt the monkees is that they did im a believer #it's not even that people only know the surface level stuff abt them like w queen. it's that no one rlly knows much at all!!!! #this is all like. very much an analysis of the modern age reactions to such bands of course #at the height of their careers ppl were more invested but now? not so #diary

[isychiaa]

i know that people joke a lot about reading comprehension being low in the modern day, but srsly THERE IS A LARGE CHUNK OF PEOPLE THAT HAVE UNDERDEVELOPED CRITICAL READING SKILLS AND THAT'S REALLY CONCERNING!!!!!!!!!!

"oh that character is morally bad because they did something Wrong one time/a bunch of times, they are a Bad Person and there is no point in interrogating their fictional actions within the setting of this peice of media"

"oh i'm going to hyperfixate on a single statement made by this user without considering the context in which that statement was framed"

"oh i disagree with this person based on the first sentence of their post, i'm not going to spend the time reading the rest of their post to understand exactly what it is i disagree with, i'm just going to send a death threat"

I am very concerned about the ramifications of this lack of critical reading skills. Not only because it causes needless internet slap fights, but because it has real world impact: there is an atmosphere on the internet currently in which you CANNOT have a nuanced opinion. You either wholeheartedly agree with the surface message of a piece of media, or you disagree entirely. If there is a book about a serial killer and you like the manner in which the author presents the serial killer as a protagonist because it provides an insight into the perspective of someone who otherwise would not be afforded any consideration or empathy, you are a Bad Bad Person because you are endorsing the murders of all victims across the world.

Which is demonstrably untrue.

This lack of reading comprehension and contextual understanding means that large swathes of literature are labelled as "problematic" and immediately discarded. Now clearly there is a variety of literature that does not align with modern values, but without evaluating that work critically, how can you understand your own views?

Let's look at a very mild example: Emma by Jane Austen. This book features an age-gap relationship between the titular character and Mr Knightly, in which Emma is 21 years old and Mr Knightley, 37 years old. I'm sure many people nowadays would be suspicious of this kind of age gap and rightly so, as it doesn't align with a western cultural understanding of what a healthy, equal relationship appears as. But to turn your nose up at this fact in a vacuum does a great disservice to the context of the work. Emma at 21 is not considering young, and Mr Knightley says himself that he fears his age is a barrier to their relationship. To collapse a 500 page novel into a few lines of analysis, the historical context of the work matters, as does Austen's authorial perspective. I would argue that Emma is proto-feminist; many people may disagree. But critical discourse about this relationship is much more productive than simply labelling Emma as a Bad Problematic Book.

In the current age of the internet, people want to be fed information and move on, but this learned informational helplessness is so destructive. There are clear root causes of this: the post-truth era, charismatic politics, defunding of the arts and humanities in schools, covid causing educational delays. It just really worries me that people cannot truly read anymore, and what that means for social interactions when we are increasingly spending our time online.

Let me be crystal clear: I do not believe that this is a case of people online bringing intentional bad faith reactions to media and social interaction. Maybe like 5% of the time people are looking for a fight, but mostly I believe that it is because these people have been failed by their environments. Although we can't singlehandedly fix the education and political systems across every single country on earth, we can engage with people in a good faith way. Yes, it takes work, and no, you do not have to do anything. I completely understand if you don't want to engage in these kinds of discussions, especially if you're providing an uninvited contribution.

If the opportunity arises, I find bringing a good faith response to a reductive take on media, and continuing to engage that person in a way which explicitly attempts to understand their perspective yields positive results. And you can always walk away.

Shock upon shock, I have even been able to have a good faith discussion in a Tiktok comments section, so there is hope.

TL;DR - poor reading comprehension = needless moralising, but if you just chat to people it's really not that bad.

#tumblr #reading #media #fandom

[qqueenofhades]

Hi, I’ve been tasked with researching Richard Plantagenet for a paper and thus far found extremely negative accounts of the king, his religious bigotry being a reoccurring theme (his treatment of Jewish dignitaries attending his coronation and his reasoning to join the third crusade etc)

I stumbled across your wonderful tag for Richard at the weekend and wondered if you wouldn’t mind sharing your informed opinion of Richard and his views on religions ? Your writing seems very well balanced regarding his attributes and flaws. Thanks :)

Oof. Okay. So, a short and simple question, then?

Quick note: when I was first reading your ask and saw "Richard Plantagenet," I briefly assumed that you meant Richard Plantagenet, father of Edward IV, or perhaps Richard III, both from the Wars of the Roses in the fifteenth century, before seeing from context that you meant Richard I. While "Plantagenet" was first used as an informal appellation by Richard I's grandfather, Geoffrey of Anjou, it wasn't until several centuries later that the English royal house started to use it consistently as a surname. So it's not something that Richard I would have been really called or known by, even if historians tend to use it as a convenient labeling conceit. (See: the one thousand popular histories on "The Plantagenets" that have been published recently.)

As for Richard I, he is obviously an extremely complex and controversial figure for many reasons, though one of the first things that you have to understand is that he has been mythologized and reinvented and reinterpreted down the centuries for many reasons, especially his crusade participation and involvement in the Robin Hood legends. When you're researching about Richard, you're often reading reactions/interpretations of that material more than anything specifically rooted in the primary sources. And while I am glad that you asked me about this and want to encourage you to do so, I will gently enquire to start off: when you say "research," what kind of materials are you looking at, exactly? Are these actual published books/papers/academic material, or unsourced stuff on the internet written from various amateur/ideological perspectives and by people who have particular agendas for depicting Richard as the best (or as is more often the case, worst) ever? Because history, to nobody's surprise, is complicated. Richard did good things and he also did quite bad things, and it's difficult to reduce him to one or the other.

Briefly (ha): I'll say just that if a student handed me a paper stating that Richard was a religious bigot because a) there were anti-Jewish riots during his coronation and b) he signed up for the Third Crusade, I would seriously question it. Medieval violence against the Jews was an unfortunately endemic part of crusade preparations, and all we know about Richard's own reaction is that he fined the perpetrators harshly (repeated after a similar March 1190 incident in York) and ordered for them to be punished. Therefore, while there famously was significant anti-Semitic violence at his coronation, Richard himself was not the one who instigated it, and he ordered for the Londoners who did take part in it to be punished for breaking the king's peace.

This, however, also doesn't mean that Richard was a great person or that he was personally religiously tolerant. We don't know that and we often can't know that, whether for him or anyone else. This is the difficulty of inferring private thoughts or beliefs from formal records. This is why historians, at least good historians, mostly refrain from speculating on how a premodern private individual actually thought or felt or identified. We do know that Richard likewise also made a law in 1194 to protect the Jews residing in his domains, known as Capitula Judaeis. This followed in the realpolitik tradition of Pope Calixtus II, who had issued Sicut Judaeis in c. 1120 ordering European Christians not to harass Jews or forcibly convert them. This doesn't mean that either Calixtus or Richard thought Jews were great, but they did choose a different and more pragmatic/economic way of dealing with them than their peers. This does not prove "religious bigotry" and would need a lot more attention as an analytical concept.

As for saying that the crusades were motivated sheerly by medieval religious bigotry, I'm gonna have to say, hmm, no. Speaking as someone with a PhD in medieval history who specialised in crusade studies, there is an enormous literature around the question of why the crusades happened and why they continue to hold such troubling attraction as a pattern of behavior for the modern world. Yes, Richard went on crusade (as did the entire Western Latin world, pretty much, since 1187 and the fall of Jerusalem was the twelfth century's 9/11). But there also exists material around him that doesn't exist around any other crusade leader, including his extensive diplomatic relations with the Muslims, their personal admiration for him, his friendship with Saladin and Saladin's brother Saif al-Din, the fact that Arabic and Islamic sources can be more complimentary about Richard than the Christian records of his supposed allies, and so forth. I think Frederick II of Sicily, also famous for his friendly relationships with Muslims, is the only other crusade leader who has this kind of material. So however he did act on crusade, and for whatever reasons he went, Richard likewise chose the pragmatic path in his interactions with Muslims, or at least the Muslim military elite, than just considering them all as religious barbarians unworthy of his time or attention.

The question of how the crusades functioned as a pattern of expected behavior for the European Christian male aristocrat, sometimes entirely divorced from any notion of his private religious beliefs, is much longer and technical than we can possibly get into. (As again, I am roughly summarising a vast and contentious field of academic work for you here, so... yes.) Saying that the crusades happened only because medieval people were all religious zealots is a wild oversimplification of the type that my colleague @oldshrewsburyian and I have to deal with in our classrooms, and likewise obscures the dangerous ways in which the modern world is, in some ways, more devoted to replicating this pattern than ever. It puts it beyond the remit of analysis and into the foggy "Dark Ages hurr durr bad" stereotype that drives me batty.

Weighted against this is the fact that Richard obviously killed many Muslims while on crusade, and that this was motivated by religious and ideological convictions that were fairly standard for his day but less admirable in ours. The question of how that violence has been glorified by the alt-right people who think there was nothing wrong with it at all and he should have done more must also be taken into account. Richard's rise to prominence as a quintessentially English chivalrous hero in the nineteenth century, right when Britain was building its empire and needed to present the crusades as humane and civilizing missions abroad rather than violent and generally failed attempts at forced conversion and conquest, also problematized this. As noted, Richard was many things, but... not that, and when the crusades fell out of fashion again in the twentieth century, he was accordingly drastically villainized. Neither the superhero or the supervillain images of him are accurate, even if they're cheap and easy.

The English nationalists have a complicated relationship with Richard: he represents the ideal they aspire to, aesthetically speaking, and the kind of anti-immigrant sentiment they like to put in his mouth, which is far more than the historical Richard actually displayed toward his Muslim counterparts. (At least, again, so far as we can know anything about his private beliefs, but this is what we can infer from his actions in regard to Saladin, who he deeply respected, and Saladin's brother.) But he was also thoroughly a French knight raised and trained in the twelfth-century martial tradition, his concern for England was only as a minor part of the sprawling 'Angevin empire' he inherited from his father Henry II (which is heresy for the Brexit types who think England should always be the center of the world), and his likely inability to speak English became painted as a huge character flaw. (Notwithstanding that after the Norman Conquest in 1066, England did not have a king who spoke English natively until Henry IV in 1399, but somehow all those others don't get blamed as much as Richard.)

Anyway. I feel as if it's best to stop here. Hopefully this points you toward the complexity of the subject and gives you some guidelines in doing your own research from here. :)

#anonymous #ask #history #medieval history #richard the lionheart #long post

[variousqueerthings]

Daniel LaRusso: A Queer Feminine Fairytale Analysis Part Two of Three

Part 1

Part 3

6. Sexual Awakenings part 1: Love, Obsession, & Size Differences

[Insert that post talking about the creators making sure that Daniel’s antagonists were much bigger than him so that the audience would sympathise, spawning 10000 size kink fics]

I’m sure this won’t awaken anything in Daniel

Corporate wants you to find the difference between these two pictures

The hallmark of feminine fairytales tends to be growing into womanhood, with all those symbolic sexual under/overtones, searching for a prince, encountering monsters (or evil stepmothers), on the surface tending to be quite passive/reactive, but actually being about young girls and women getting out of their environment and choosing to tussle with those deep, dark desires – monsters. They’ve got to function within the limitations of power that they have – escaping an abusive situation through marriage, chasing forbidden desires under the guise of duress, asking questions about sexuality through things like symbolic plucking (flowers) or consumption (fruit) or pricking (needles), etc.

Daniel isn’t striking out to find his fortune or win a girl or a kingdom Like A Man, he’s not a threat to Silver, who – like Jareth in Labyrinth – is in control for almost the whole of the narrative, he’s not actually able to do much more than react until he makes the decision to stop training, and even then he’s immediately ganged up on and assaulted, needing to be saved by Miyagi while he stands and watches, bloodied and bruised. 

Daniel’s journey in the third movie is to be forced into an impossible situation, seduced by Silver, and then prove that whatever violence Silver did to him isn’t enough to destroy him. It is incredibly similar to Sarah’s in Labyrinth, who by the end declares: “you have no power over me,” and that’s her winning moment. Not strength, not wits, not a direct fight, (although Daniel does fight Barnes and gets beat up again – only winning in in the end by taking him by surprise, unlike in TKK1 or TKK2 where you could argue that he proves himself to be a capable physical opponent to Johnny and Chozen), but by declaring that whatever power was held over her is now void.

Daniel’s narrative isn’t satisfying in the same way, because the dynamic of Silver and Daniel only accidentally emulates this - it’s not an intention on the side of the film-makers.

When Miyagi tells Daniel that he has strong roots, when he tells him not to lose to fear and Daniel wins over Barnes (in an almost fairytale-esque set of events), on paper he’s defeated whatever hold Terry Silver has over him. In the film itself though, Daniel never defeats Silver (which will likely be confirmed once he returns in Season Four). Daniel cannot simply say “you have no power over me,” and see Silver shattered into glass shards. 

The film is a contradiction: It wants to be a masculine sports film, but it exists in the same realm as Goblin Kings seducing young girls with the promise of: “Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave.” Unlike Sarah, Daniel doesn’t claim the power that’s been promised to him on his own terms. His subtextually sexual awakening is so corrupted that all he can do is pretend it never happened.

Still, Daniel proves in the film that his strength is not in his fists. It’s in his praying to the bonsai tree that’s healed despite a violent boy brutally tearing it in two.

These looks on Daniel and Silver though?

So why does Silver become obsessed with him? What’s up with all those red outfits (that he doesn’t wear in Cobra Kai)? What does the temptation reveal about Daniel? How does it recontextualise TKK1 and TKK2? Is Daniel bisexual? (yes).

Ah, beach-Daniel, in your red hoodie and your cut-off jorts. Iconic hot-girl summer vibes. 

If you didn’t want me over-analysing this, you shouldn’t have put him in so many red outfits and then have this man leering at him like he wants to eat him alive.

Surface-level it’s not hard to read into a Dude Story: Masculine power fantasies are about strength in a very direct way. Fighting, control, suaveness – and if you’re not the most traditionally masculine of guys, asserting dominance through being a good lover or intelligent or overcoming that unmanliness in some way through beating the bully or convincing the hot girl to go out with you, levelling up in coolness. Being A Man. It’s not too dissimilar from Daniel’s arc in the first movie, if you watch it without taking later events into account, although Daniel is never interested in proving himself as a man, and more in making Miyagi proud. Still, he does win and gain respect, and arguably “get the girl,” although Ali’s interest in him was never dependent on the fight.

7. Sexual Awakenings Part 2: Sexual Assault, Liberation, and Queerness

Feminine power fantasies are often about sex. Metaphorically. More accurately it’s “owning sexuality.” Even more accurately: “Freedom.” They also inhabit a fluid space in which empowerment through monstrous desires and non-consent can happen at the same time. And on top of that, many of these “fantasies” are actually being written by men, so whose fantasy is it really? A lot of them are based in oral traditions so presumably they were originally from the mouths of women, even if modern iterations (starting with Grimm’s collections) are filtered through cis men’s perspectives.

All of that being acknowledged: In Angela Carter’s “The Company Of Wolves,” Red Riding Hood unambiguously sleeps with the wolf. Belle discovers her freedom from expectations and unsuitable suitors (and in some versions, evil stepsisters) by falling in love with a Beast (the original novel was written by a woman, the 18th century Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve). Jareth informs Sarah of his obsessive devotion to her in Labyrinth. To lean into horror for a moment – Buffy is stalked and eventually has relationships with both Angel and Spike, Lucy in Coppola’s Dracula (which I have mixed feelings about) is raped by the werewolf and Mina is stalked by Dracula, The Creature Of The Black Lagoon kidnaps Kay (the lead’s girlfriend) – subverted in both The Shape Of Water in which Eliza forms a consensual relationship with the amphibious sea-god and in the short-lived horror series Swamp Thing, in which the connection is purposefully framed as seductive…

and in The Karate Kid Part Three Daniel LaRusso punches a board until his hands bleed because an attractive, older man tells him to and in this moment he gives in to what he (thinks he) wants.

Not all of those examples are equal. Some are consensual, some are hinted as abusive and/or stalkery, all of them have large age gaps, and a few are outright non-consensual.

But they’re all fantasies.

They’re all power-fantasies.

Except for Daniel, because he’s a man and the idea that being obsessed (lusted) over by an older man who keeps you in his thrall, specifically because you tickle his fancy for whatever reason, because you’re beautiful, breakable, different – could in any way be considered empowering is a difficult concept to wrap your head around. It doesn’t contain that “but I’m a good girl, I’d never go off the path and pluck flowers if a bad wolf told me to, honest,” societal context or the social context of rape culture. It’s closest comparison is closeted (perhaps even unknown until that point) queer identity.

There have recently been some comparisons of Daniel LaRusso to Bruce Bechdel in Funhome (and everyone who says that Ralph Macchio ought to play him in the upcoming movie: you’re right and I’m just not going to enjoy it as much without him). I’ve written a post about Sam being the heir to his legacy and trauma, specifically as a queercoded man. It’s not dissimilar to the plot of Funhome in a lot of ways.

The other interesting source that’s been going around in connection with Daniel is the essay “The Rape of James Bond,” which discusses the use of sexual assault as a plot device for women and not for men: “About one in every 33 men [in the US] is raped. … [your statistically average, real life man] … doesn’t have a horde of enemies explicitly dedicated to destroying him. He doesn’t routinely get abducted, and tied up. Facing a megalomaniac psychopath gloating over causing him pain […] is not the average man’s average day at the office.” That last bit is just a descriptor of Terry Silver, (although I take issue at the blasé use of psychopath).

The two part youtube essay  Sexual Assault of Men Played for Laughs posits that there is nothing more de-masculinising than the threat of sexual assault and therefore any narrative that features this “rightfully” must mock any man who has been a victim or who fears being a victim of sexual assault. It is feminising. There is nothing more humiliating – and therefore unheroic – than a man dealing with sexual assault.

So what do we feel when we see an attractive young man being put into a vulnerable position by an older man? A trope associated with female characters, a trope that is considered unpalatable for men (see reactions that happened when the hint of sexual assault was introduced in Skyfall).

Was it the fact that he was being threatened, or the fact that James’ next line is: “what makes you think this is my first time?”

Some thoughts added by @mimsyaf​ are around the idea of safety in how a lot of cis women might relate to this narrative through Daniel’s eyes. He’s not a woman, he has – societally – more power than a girl or woman would have, which makes this a different watch to, say, if Danielle were to go through the same narrative. Daniel doesn’t carry that baggage of rape culture, or of the male gaze that you might find in a similar scenario of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Christine in Phantom of the Opera (and once more the age differences between these characters and the men who love/lust over them are substantial), which makes the narrative “safer” to engage with.

I agree with that, although as a transmasc person I also come at it differently. I specifically like to headcanon Daniel as a trans guy and find his fraught interactions with masculinity through his own non-toxic lens relatable, as well as the way other boys and men react to it – also I think Terry Silver is hot. I know there are people who write Terry Silver with female OCs, which is also a form of empowerment.

On the flipside putting Daniel in this space runs a risk of fetishising him as a queer youth who is either Innocent and Pure, or a bisexual stereotype that deserves to be assaulted for not being a real man. After all, Real Straight Men don’t run the risk of sexual assault.

 Alas, the road to empowerment never did run smooth. 

The comparisons between the way Daniel is treated by the text and how female characters are often treated in texts are undoubtedly there. Through Ralph Macchio and TIG’s casting and the direction and acting, but also within the text itself. 

It might not be with the same purpose as Neo’s symbolically trans journey, but it puts the whole narrative that Daniel’s going through from TKK1 under a different light than if there had only been one movie that ended on a triumphant sports win and a girlfriend.

Johnny’s masculinity and the use of tears as liberation, now that’s a whole other analysis….

#daniel larusso #terry silver #the karate kid part three #the karate kid #cobra kai #ck #cobra kai meta #part two of three #we're going into labyrinth and james bond in this one fellas #(non-gendered fellas)

[beevean]

SEGA and its most recent Sonamy side – more canon than ever

[Translator’s note: this article was originally written in Spanish by @latin-dr-robotnik​]

Hello again! Today we’d like to discuss about something that’s been happening recently, and probably taking Sonic fans by surprise: what is going on with SEGA and its stance about Sonamy?

At the beginning of this year, to celebrate the 200 articles on Seaside Hill Paradise, I finished what I call “the Sonamy trilogy” of articles that I started in 2018 and which cover different themes, such as:

SEGA and the eternal issue of the Sonic-Amy dynamic

“I love you” – Forbidden words in Sonic

SEGA and the eternal issue of “Sonic’s girlfriend”

The idea was to offer a more-or-less complete analysis about the many facets of their dynamic in the last 27 years; a dynamic that, you may have noticed, is not that easy to pin down, and that we’ve been updating almost regularly (although I also intended to investigate on other dynamics, like Knuckles and Rouge’s for example, and write about them). Generally speaking, in these articles I don’t draw objective conclusions about the status of the ship in canon (despite the fact that the available information tends to confirm it in various occasions). I also like to repeat myself and say that shipping is supposed to be for fun, not for tearing each other’s hair in that black hole of misery that is Twitter, but recent events left us slightly perplexed, and this is why we’re here once again.

We left the status of the Sonamy canonicity with these two peculiar instances back in August: Sonic mentioning his “girlfriend” in the Japanese version of Sonic Battle, and the Twitter account of SEGA of Europe saying Sonamy is their “favorite videogame romance”. Now, let’s recap a bit…

Sonamy in Sonic IDW... Round 3

[SPOILERS ALERT FOR IDW SONIC #14-#35]

In 2018, when IDW just started, I decided to study a little how the Sonamy dynamic worked in this new universe. To our surprise, the comic didn’t waste time in dropping its biggest bomb, in one of the cutest scenes we had seen in ages. Since the very beginning, IDW proved that it didn’t intend to deceive those fans that looked for a bit of development of both characters.

I wrote an article about it in June 2019, and it coincided with the beginning of one of the most infamous arc I’ve seen in a Sonic comic for a long time: the Metal Virus Saga. The question is, what has happened since then?

Well, in 2019, with the same accuracy of an aimbot, I said “We’ll probably see some new interactions between Sonic and Amy sometime around IDW #20”. And wouldn’t you know, as misery and tragedy settled in that arc, it was exactly around IDW #20 that we saw some Sonamy interactions: both exhausted, to their limit, with a Sonic that couldn’t even touch Amy to soothe her pain, due to him being infected with the virus.

The arc developed like this in what felt like an eternity, to finally conclude in one the most absurd ways in Sonic history. But it wasn’t a complete disappointment, as, after months and months of asking and discussing on the internet about how much Sonic and Amy deserved a hug at the end of the arc… it actually happened.

Since that moment in IDW #32, we shippers thought that it was what both of them deserved after so much time spent separated and pushed to their limit to survive, but also that after the end of the arc everything would go back to normal. However, what we didn’t know was that the Sonamy train had no intention of stopping, not in IDW, nor anywhere else.

A recurring detail in IDW Sonic is that Amy’s tail starts wagging every time she sees Sonic, as if she was a happy dog. I swear, it happens every time.

Come IDW #35, once again we have some hugs and bits of dialogue between our hedgehogs. For sure, the question here isn’t their relationship itself, as it was for IDW #2, but rather the issues this arc is slowly dealing with. But it’s really nice to see them again, sharing that closeness that they’ve had in the comic since the beginning– be it with some gestures of affection, a wink, a gesture, a private joke.

My favorite image is the first one, Belle’s reaction to seeing Amy hugging Sonic. It’s like she’s thinking “oh, is she his girlfriend?”, and she wouldn’t even be wrong in thinking that.

It can’t be denied that IDW Sonic provided us the conversations and the emotions that the games seldom do. Certainly, the comic has its share of issues and it’s not really a story that I personally follow for its own merits (it’s more because it’s still Sonic, for my interest for things like this, and Belle’s existence… whom I already ship with Tails, sorry not sorry), but what it does well it does really well.

For now, we have to see how IDW Sonic will follow the development of the characters, especially in view of the closure of the current story and beyond. And we may be done with this part of the article, but there is still a lot left.

Sonamy in merchandise

Taking us completely by surprise, recently SEGA launched, in collaboration with Hot Topic, a series of Sonamy-themed t-shirts. No, seriously.

So many people told me this as soon as the voice spread (you know who you are, thank you guys for thinking about me <3), and I can’t help being still surprised that this is actually a thing. T-shirts with lines like “You’re my favorite”, “Love in the fast lane”, and my personal favorite, “S&A Forever”, with drawings of Classic Sonic and Amy… in SEGA-approved products. I don’t know if you realize how much of a big deal this is, even more than “Celebrate the 25 years of Sonic’s girlfriend” from 2018.

One of the things that surprised me the most (aside from how explicit they are in officializing the relationship, and the fact that there are still 2 months left before Valentine’s Day 2021), was the decision to use Classic Sonic and Classic Amy. I tried to understand this decision by analyzing the simplicity and easiness with which the Classic designs convey a message (let’s not forget that Classic Sonic was so iconic because it was specifically designed to convey his expressions without words), besides the fact that they’re inherently cuter than their modern designs. There’s also the controversial aspect of post-Adventure Sonamy, with all the dubbing and weird interpretations that the fandom made over the years… By comparison, the Classic design are a much simpler choice.

What is actually going on?

Well, let’s take a step back and think about what we just saw. The way SEGA has been recently trying to push Sonic and Amy in front view (and for the entirety of 2020, based on the articles I mentioned in the beginning) tells us the harsh truth we all have to accept sooner or later: Sonamy sells, and it sells a lot.

From a strictly business point of view, the ship is so iconic and popular, with fans and detractors alike, that it would be absurd for SEGA to ignore the chance to print these two characters and get a load of money. As I said in my 2018 article, despite the fact that in Japan Sonic isn’t as big of an icon as it is elsewhere, they know pretty well that Sonic + Amy = love, and they have huge amounts of merchandise to back it up. It’s in the West that because of different cultural values, of which we’ve already talked about, along with some internal resistance, left this aspect of the franchise a little on the side. But they’ve been trying to fix it… and how…

Let’s not forget that a decade and a half ago Sonic Team seriously favored Sonamy. They officially said it, Sonic X was their purest view of Sonic they had at the time.

Outside of the business perspective, I believe we’re facing the moment that we’ve been waiting for: it’s time they’ll establish once and for all the dynamic of these two characters, following more closely the original Japanese vision of Sonic. I said many times that, in trying to change canon, the West, especially SEGA of America, did nothing but confuse fans and generate more discussions than needed, by introducing different data and portrayals that contradict the canon established by Sonic Team.

We’ve talked about Unleashed and emotional support, about Sonic X, about the major moments that opened the door to interpreting this dynamic as something more. We don’t threaten at gunpoint those who would rather stay away, but we respond to those declarations that still try to violently discredit the simple fact that Sonic and Amy, who are most of all close friends, form in some measure a couple that, even with its imposed limitations, manages to captivate fans and not fans everywhere in the world. Even the Simpsons used it as a joke, and that says a lot.

What the future has in store for us.

Unless something else happens in this last month of 2020, this is the most complete compilation I can offer at the moment about the status of Sonamy in the fandom and in the official canon. Yes, canon.

It’s impossible to ignore the signals. As you may have noticed, I’ve been considering Sonic and Amy as an official couple, with its clarifications (for example, that at the end it’s more of a friendship, that it’s not a romantic relationship in the most explicit way, that it’s more of a personal perspective to justify a more mature vision of the relationship in the future, not right now), but nowadays I think that SEGA has spoken loud and clear. I think canon is ready to negotiate the idea that Sonic and Amy, apart from being excellent friends who would risk their lives for each other in a heartbeat, have something else on their hands (probably the other’s hand). This won’t automatically translate into a kiss, or a complete love declaration (although Sonic X came close…), or a commitment to a formal relationship like we know them in real life. SEGA canon affirms that Amy is “Sonic’s girlfriend” and nothing more. Outside of that detail, they still pretty much function as friends interacting with a little flirting here, and a little Sonic running away there. It’s the basis of their dynamic, now enhanced by the fact that SEGA is giving us a clearer message.

I think that this all may culminate in a game or an animated series, but I wouldn’t completely count on that. It is good to recognize how far the official position goes on this issue, but at the same time I want to reaffirm that there are things that are better left in the hands of the fandom, and in the meantime that IDW or any other continuity gives us hugs, winks, gestures and words of encouragement, we as the fandom will take care of exploring other avenues and hypothetical scenarios.

This is all I have to say on the matter for now, and I hope you’re happy with this wonderful Sonamy experience we’re going through – I certainly am. See you next time!

#sonic the hedgehog #sonamy #amy rose #translation #long post #whew #this one was a doozy #but super interesting #thanks again latin for writing these long ass sonamy posts

[grinoir]

Religious Medievalism: “Stregheria”, Wicca and History - part 1

[TN: This article will break the Introduction to Stregoneria series for a second, but I believe it’s important to set things into perspective about both Witchcraft and this blog. My goal is to put out content, translated or redacted by me, in order to give people the correct historical information. I see a lot people on TikTok messing with things they don’t know, appropriating and distorting practices and cultures and profiting off of it. The only focus of this blog is the practice and the history behind it, I don’t want to “put people down��, I want to make the information available so you won’t hurt yourselves.

Also, I do not support fa***sm, na**sm or any other movement/ideology that oppresses and discriminates people. I’m specifiying this because I’ve received an anonymous ask about it and it kind of hurt just reading it. I hope this will clarify things and make whoever asked me that more confortable with my blog and my content. I’m a history nerd Strega, nothing more.

This article will be a translation, synthesis and re-elaboration of the following articles

https://tradizioneitaliana.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/medievalismo-religioso-stregheria-wicca-e-storia/

https://medievaleggiando.it/la-legittimazione-storica-della-wicca-margaret-murray-e-la-manipolazione-delle-fonti/

https://medievaleggiando.it/il-vangelo-delle-streghe-e-linizio-della-wicca-il-fascino-di-un-falso-storico/

The first being a rectification of the two that follow.

This article will be divided in two parts because it’s way too long to read and to translate, i’m drained af]

THE DEBUNKING OF MURRAY

Margaret Alice Murray (1863-1963) was a British Anthropologist and Egyptologist, well known in the academic environment for her contributions in the studies of folklore. Even if she was very criticized and her reputation as an historian was poor, her work became popular bestsellers from 1940 onward.

The most well-known and controversial one is “The Witch-Cult in the Western Europe” published in 1921. In this book, Murray alleges that there was some sort of secret model of pagan resistance to Christianity spreaded all across Europe, and that the witches’ hunt and the proof presented to the trials were an attempt to eliminate a rival cult.

This book was clearly influenced by “Satanism and Witchcraft” by Jules Michelet, that alleged that Medieval Witchcraft was an act of popular rebellion against the oppression of feudalism and the Roman Catholic church, that took the form of a secret religion inspired by paganism and organized mainly by women.

To support her narrative, Murray chooses to analyze some of the trials that took place during the great hunt and employs 15 primary sources, mostly British or Scottish (not paneuropean, or sources from the european continent), that describe famous trials. Murray’s analysis of the Somerset Trials in 1664 offer a good example of her work ethics; quoting the testimony of Elizabeth Styles:

“At their meeting they have usually Wine or good Beer, Cakes, Meat or the like. They eat and drink really when they meet in their bodies, dance also and have Musick. The Man in black sits at the higher end, and Anne Bishop usually next him. He useth some words before meat, and none after, his voice is audible, but very low.”

Murray conveniently seems to “forget” to quote the immediately preceding phrase:

”That at every meeting before the Spirit vanisheth away, he appoints the next meeting place and time, and at his departure there is a foul smell.”

Other details offered by Styles are omitted, like when she alleges that the Devil presented to her in the shape of a dog or a cat or a fly, that the Devil offered her followers an oinment to use on their heads and wrists that made it possible to move them from a place to another. Or that sometimes the reunion involved only the spirits of the witches, while their bodies stayed at home.

Murray was fully aware of the fantasy element in the testimonies she included in her books, but she was able, by deliberately manipulating historical sources, to make people believe the fake narrative that a Medieval religion of witches with covens, rites and their own beliefs that relentlessy opposed Christianity really existed.

In her “The God of the Witches”, published in 1933 and clearly written for a commercial audience, she further broadened the scope of her claims on the witches’ cult. In this book, she alleges that until the C17th BCE the there was a religion, older than Christianity, that kept existing in all of Western Europe. Said religion, was focused on the worship of a two-faced horned god, known to the Romans ad Diano; this god presided the witches’ gathering and was mistaken by the Inquisition of the Devil, conclusion that made them associate witchcraft with a satanic cult.

Murray claims the existence of a *specific* non-christian organized cult spread all across Europe that worshipped Diano and relentlessly opposed the Roman Catholic church, but the sources she quotes are late and recount the flattening of the various “pagan” cults to the assimilation with the christian Devil, operated by the Church.

In fact, the Devil that the trials report on, depending on the religion, overlapped with different figures: in British and Scottish traditions the Devil was the result of the demonization of the King of Elphame. In the Basque country, the Devil substituted Mari. In Northern Italy it overlapped with the Donna del Buon Gioco. This means that the “Northern Italian Devil” is different from the “British Devil” and the “Basque Devil”.

This “Devil” is a figure that flattens everything and overlapped and substituted so many different figures, depending on the religion and the figure it ended up overlapping with.

Therefore, Murray’s narrative of a paneuropean cult of the Horned God stems from the analysis of late sources and to the false equivalence of the Devil that presided the Ludus (Sabba) in Scotland (where he masks the King of Elphame) and the Devil of other countries (where he masks other entities).

Since the Devil isn’t the same entity in all of Europe, the narrative of a counter-christianity organized paneuropean cult of prehistoric origin falls too. Instead, what we’re dealing with are Medieval, non-christian rielaborations of different remainders of the Religions of the Gentiles that survived in the Christian age and were absorbed in the legend of the Faery Procession/Procession of the Dominae Nocturnae first, and the legend of the Ludus (Sabba) later.

The following quote by Ronald Hutton, English historian who specialises in Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and Contemporary Paganism and professor at the University of Bristol, confirms this:

“Over a quarter of a century ago, I adopted the expression “Pagan survivals” to describe elements of ancient Pagan culture that had persisted in later Christian societies. In doing so, I was drawing a distinction between such survivals, of which there seemed to be many, and “surviving Paganism”; that is the continued self-conscious practice of the older religions, of which there seemed to be none. This point was worth making because even in the 1980s, there was a persisting belief, based on outdated academic texts, that Paganism had survived as a living force among the common people in much of medieval Europe: it was widespread in other scholarly disciplines than history, let alone among the general public. My formula and approach was adopted by other authors in the 1990s. During that decade, however, a reaction set in against it among historians who preferred to stress the comprehensive Christianization of medieval European societies and to relegate elements that had hither to been identifed as of pagan origin to categories of religiously neutral folklore or of lay Christianity. Some emphasized that the undoubted tendency of some Christians at the time to condemn such beliefs and practices as pagan was a hallmark of a highly atypical, reforming, intolerant and evangelical strain of churchman. Michael’s system of classification, in this volume, may be said to take its place in this, apparently now dominant, set of scholarly attitudes. Revisiting the issue myself, I am inclined to meet it halfway. I am startingto agree that to speak of aspects of medieval culture as “Pagan” might indeed be misleading and inadequate. Moreover, it would be especially inappropriate to characterize fgures such as the lady of the night rides, the fairy queen or the Cailleach as “Pagan survivals” when they seem like medieval or post-medieval creations. However, I have equal diffculty in describing them simply and straightforwardly as “Christian” because of their total lack of reference to any aspect of Christianity, including theology, cosmology, scripture and liturgy; all of them would indeed fit far more comfortably into a Pagan world-picture. […] It may be that the old polarized labels are becoming inadequate to describe a medieval and early modern religious and quasi-religious world that is coming to seem even more complex, exciting and interesting than it had seemed to be before.”

Also Michael Ostling, religious studies scholar focusing on the history, historiography, and representation of witches and witchcraft, confirms this in Fairies, Demons, and Nature Spirits: “Small Gods” at the Margin of Christendom, published in 2018.

“Christians encompass aspects of their prior paganism both by inversion and revaluation. But where traditional spirits remain salient to a Christianized culture in encompassed or inverted form, their ongoing reality ought not to be counted by scholars as a pagan survival—though it is likely to be so construed by Christians themselves. Such “surviving” spirits are not just marginalized or diabolized pagan remnants, they are continually re-performed, recreated through Christian ritual and Christian discourse. We find such re-creation of the small gods throughout Christian history, and throughout this volume: when the Urapmin drive out the motobil by the power of the Holy Spirit, when Andean people frame their propitiation of the yawlu with devotion to the Christian God, when Mami Water appears primarily as a trope of Pentecostal deliverance ministry, when thirteenth-century Frenchwomen see, in an unoffcial Christian saint, their best hope of negotiating the return of their stolen babies from the follets, when the brownie and Robin Goodfellow appear in prayers of protection against them, in assertions of their diabolical status, or in tolerant mention of superstitious old wives who stillbelieve in such “harmless devils,” when cunningwomen insist that they only use “good devils” or that the fairies who facilitate their divination have no fear of the cross, this is because the beings involved have succeeded in taking up a niche within Christian discourse. The “good people” have not departed, have not been driven out by the sound of church-bells or the smell of gasoline. There are no pagan survivals: small gods are Christian creations with which to think the limits of Christianity.”

In essence, Murray’s version of events that describes Paganism as an anti-church, anti-society isn’t backed by any historical evidence.

Sources:

https://tradizioneitaliana.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/medievalismo-religioso-stregheria-wicca-e-storia/

https://medievaleggiando.it/la-legittimazione-storica-della-wicca-margaret-murray-e-la-manipolazione-delle-fonti/

https://medievaleggiando.it/il-vangelo-delle-streghe-e-linizio-della-wicca-il-fascino-di-un-falso-storico/

Michael Ostling. Fairies, Demons, and Nature Spirits: ‘Small Gods’ at the Margins of Christendom. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

#witchcraft #wicca #reconstructionist traditional witchcraft #traditional witchcraft #stregoneria #stregheria #witch #medieval witchcraft #spirits #familiar #familiars #pantheon #italian witchcraft #sabba #sabbat #strega #streghe

[theonceandfutureking6481]

BBC's Merlin Season 1 Episode 3: The Mark of Nimue Analysis

*SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE SHOW*

First off I always look fondly on this episode, mainly for Morgana being hilarious and epic, I mean she has the best line in the whole episode:

Arthur: You could get hurt

Morgana: So could you.... if you don't get out of my way

This episode is also fun and interesting from the perspectives of plot, characters and themes. Sorry, this is extremely long, I have a lot of opinions about Merlin.

Gwen and Merlin

This episode is in many ways about Gwen and Merlin's friendship, it is the driving force behind all of Merlin's actions within this episode and is the stepping stone for this show considering how to find a balance between acting for the greater good without suggesting that the ends justify the means.

Merlin and Gwen are first off just very sweet, their friendship is really characteristic of this show's representation of friendship overall, just genuine love and consideration for others. It is also self-sacrificing, that's one thing about the relationships in this show they are so self-sacrificing.

When Merlin says to Gwen "I didn't like to see you upset." It reveals a wonderful fact of Merlin's characterisation that I would argue stays consistent for the whole show. His motivation is always grounded in how much he cares for the people around him. He cares deeply about his friends and they are largely his reason for doing the things he does. This line is a wonderful parallel to in season 3 when Merlin decides to let Morgana die (after he accidentally trips her down the stairs), but then in the end he heals her because he couldn't watch everyone's grief. Merlin cannot separate his actions from the people he's doing them for, and he can't stand to see people hurt when he has the power to fix it because the people he loves are his motivation, they are the reason he wants a better world. This show does establish (as I'll discuss further down) that what seems immediately right (healing Gwen's father etc) isn't necessarily the right decision to make for the greater good. This is some ways always questions the validity of Merlin's motivations and his actions, but I'd argue it more seeks to find a balance. Besides a Merlin who didn't act motivated by his love for others is not a Merlin that could have helped Arthur build Camelot.

Medievalism: duty and social obligation

Quick disclaimer cause I'm touching on a more scholarly issue here that I have limited knowledge of, so I will undoubtedly make mistakes and this is my opinion. Everything I write is my opinion, but that's more obvious when I'm commenting on the themes of a fictional world rather than making a comment on actual fields of study which is what I'm doing here.

BBC's Merlin is an example of medievalism, it is an engagement with the medieval era (or ideas/images associated with it) for modern times. I honestly don't know that much about medievalism, or the medieval era, certainly not enough to make an extensive commentary on its representation in Merlin. One thing I would argue is that Merlin's representation of friendship has its roots in idealised views of the virtues of the medieval era. For many people the Middle Ages represents a time of duty and social obligation, this on one hand does lead to a stringent class divide but it also finds its idealisation in the sort of friendship represented by Merlin. The premise in most societies that place great value on social obligation is that the needs of the community outweigh the needs of the individual, that people should sacrifice themselves for the community as a whole. Every society places emphasis on this in different ways and to greater or lesser extents and our view of it as being prevalent in the medieval era is largely an idealisation based in some historical reality but also our own desires about what this era represents. There is a kind of social responsibility in the relationships in Merlin, there is a great emphasis on loyalty which is part of this idealisation. However, Merlin makes it more personal than is often depicted. We idealise social responsibility and obligation, it is often tied into the social roles of people such as loyalty to a king, or paying back debts of honour which is a form of social obligation. Merlin is more about friendship, it takes our idealisation of medieval social obligation and makes it the obligation and loyalty we owe to people who love us and who we love. I will always say that fundamentally Merlin as a show is about love, and it emphasises what we owe to people in our lives in a way I believe echoes idealisation of medieval loyalty.

This idea can also be seen in Arthur's fundamental trust of others, his fundamental assumption that everyone around him is not seeking to harm him, and that people are generally good. This ties a bit into the idea of social obligation. Arthur's idealised world is one in which people have bonds of social obligation towards each other, that people are seeking to act in the interests of the community. It's an idealisation, both of the medieval era but also an idealisation in Arthur's own head of the world he lives in.

Morgana and Gwen

Their relationship is somewhat expanded on in this episode, and they are just so sweet. Gwen gives Morgana flowers to cheer her up and its just lovely. They have a very genuine and close relationship. Morgana also has great respect for Gwen, for the work she does, and she treats her with respect.

Morgana: "If she was a sorceress, why would she kneel on the cold stone floor every morning if she could make these things happen with a snap of her fingers, like an idle king."

Aside from being one of Morgana's many quality burns towards Uther, this also illustrates one of her greatest characteristics, her empathy and genuine respect and admiration for what Gwen does everyday. She doesn't see the class divide in the same way Uther sees it or Arthur pretends to see it.

Also interesting note I heard in a Merlin podcast (I can't remember which episode), it could have been the episode about this episode. It's called Destiny and Chicken (you can listen to it on Spotify and anywhere else you find podcasts- they even did an interview of Bradley James who plays Arthur at one point), and its very good. But, they said something interesting about the paralleling between the relationship between Merlin and Arthur and the relationship between Morgana and Gwen. Both are fundamentally important and genuinely caring relationships for the character. However, for Morgana and Gwen (unlike Merlin and Arthur) the class divide remains much more in place, Gwen treats Morgana like her friend but she also treats her like her mistress in a way Merlin just doesn't with Arthur (especially not so early in the show when he's not so admiring of Arthur). This isn't to say their relationship is bad or has problems, its just different whilst still acting as a parallel. I'm not sure exactly the extent to which I agree or what this says overall in themes but its definitely interesting to think about.

Uther: "A Good and Terrible King."

This episode shows Uther at both his best and his worst which is always fun because Uther is a genuinely interesting character. I got the line from my favourite Merlin fanfiction Coronation by rageprufrock, which you should definitely read, I'll link it down the bottom, it's not too long so you can read it in half an hour. It's a character study of Arthur more than anything else and its amazing, wonderful and deeply poetic. Uther is not a huge part of this fanfic, its about Arthur's character and his relationship with Merlin and his kingdom, I'm not even sure he actually appears. This line though perfectly tapped into how I always felt about Uther so it connected:

"He's been a good and terrible father, a good and terrible king."

I often think in characterising Uther we do tend to villainise him to an extent which I personally don't find accurate. This is obviously just my opinion, and I have a tendency to think the best of people so more intensely negative views of Uther are very jarring for me. He did terrible things and I truly believe he is the ultimate villain of the show but he is very human and he could be a good king and he loved his children more than anything else. We cheapen Merlin's point if we cast Uther as pure evil, everyone is capable of evil just as much as goodness. Uther is the tragedy (like Morgana) of a person who could have been good or at least halfway decent corrupted and destroyed by his own hate and ignorance. That's the point of the parallels between Uther and Morgana, we love Morgana and she was capable of so much good, but she corrupted herself with hate.

Onto this episode, Uther shows both his capability and goodness as a king in this episode as well as his hatred and ignorance. Uther's initial reaction to the fact that the plague is caused by magic is a concern about his own authority, which isn't entirely unfounded, but does reveal a huge priority of his which is control. He fears not being able to control, that's were his cruelty as a father comes from and to some extent his opposition to magic. This does not show Uther in the best light, but his actions later in regards to dealing with the plague show a decent king who cares about his people. This scene in which he tells Arthur to shut off the lower town perfectly illustrates this:

Arthur: But what about the people who live there

Uther: Don't you think I haven't considered it? What else can I do? I have to protect the rest of the city

In this situation Uther is right, there is very little other choice, he's making a hard call but it's one he has to make, and he seems genuinely distressed at having to make it. He does care about his people's well being, and he feels the burden of their protection, he can be a good King. Much of Arthur's story is in breaking away from the legacy of Uther, and rightly so, but Uther also taught him many things and one of those things is the duty Arthur has towards his people, it's a duty he takes even more seriously than Uther, but nonetheless he learnt it from him.

This however, as I've hinted, is not the whole story of this episode, Uther is also shown at his worst, and his worst is his ignorance and prejudice towards magic. He is willing to sacrifice justice and even sacrifices logical thought to his blind persistence that magic is evil.

Arthur: She's right Father. You hear the word magic you no longer listen.

Uther: You saw it for yourself, she used enchantments.

Arthur: Yes, maybe. To save her dying father, that doesn't make her guilty of creating a plague. One's the act of kindness, of love, the other of evil. I don't believe evil's in this girl's heart

Aside from what this says about Arthur. Arthur's comment about Uther hits right to the point of things "you hear the word magic you no longer listen". You no longer listen implies its a choice, and it is. Uther has made the choice for the last 20 years to choose to go on a dogmatic campaign of hate against magic because its easier than considering the alternative, that he was complicit in his wife's death. What Uther says immediately after "there are dark forces threatening this kingdom." is the argument used by so many people throughout history, used to justify so much hate. That there is an evil out there threatening the stability of life, that the world must be controlled and people have to live a certain way or risk destroying their own lives. It's an argument that justifies campaigns of hate and makes them personal to ordinary people who usually wouldn't care, and it is always a lie, that's not how the world works.

This episode thus shows Uther at his best and his worst, both a dutiful king and a stubborn tyrant. It's a tragedy of what he could of been, and shows how twisted up people can become when they justify their decisions with hate and fear.

Arthur

This is the first episode where Arthur really opposes Uther, he directly questions Uther's indiscriminate hatred of magic, and an episode where he realises to an extent he perhaps hadn't before some of the ways in which Uther has failed as a king. He also consciously acts in deception of Uther, because he can see Uther can't see sense. Arthur shows far more nuance of view than Uther does, understanding (even whilst still accepting as he will for a long time that magic is dangerous and it corrupts) that using magic doesn't make you automatically evil. To see the world the way Uther does is a conscious choice, you have to choose to be blind to the virtues of every apparent magic user you come across, you have to believe harmless spells are the signs of greater evil. Arthur is not someone who lets his own cowardice blind himself to reality, and so his worldview can see far more nuance than Uther can.

"One's the act of kindness, of love, the other of evil. I don't believe evil's in this girl's heart."

He further has a very positive view of others, Arthur will always see the good in people and that is a great strength in my view. In a lot of versions of the story Arthur's not just inspiring because he's good but because he assumes others are good too, he trusts people to do the right thing and I do believe that, that can inspire people to do the right thing. It's funny in Merlin Arthur's trust gets betrayed so many times but it never really hardens his heart, he continues to trust people no matter how many times he gets betrayed. This can be seen in his perception of Guinevere here, he will not assume she is evil because she has made a mistake, he can see the virtue in her actions, and he will assume goodness until proven otherwise. Innocent until proven guilty, in other words. It's its own form of justice, a justice Uther is forgetting, its a tenant of many legal systems and its a tenant Arthur clearly supports.

Arthur is also seeing his role as the king of Camelot in creating a Camelot that he would like to live in.

"Yes I am yet to be king, and I don't know what type of king I will be. But I do have a sense of the type of Camelot I would wish to live in. It would be where the punishment fits the crime."

It's not the Camelot he would wish to rule, its the Camelot he would wish to live in. Arthur wants to live in a just world, he wants his people to be treated with justice just as he would like to be treated with justice. This further illustrates that unlike Uther he is not letting anger or ignorance blind him to reality, he wants the world he lives in to be fair without exception.

Finding the Balance between The Greater Good and The Immediate Good

The Greater Good is a tricky concept, you can justify any amount of cruelty if it will lead to good later on, but do the ends justify the means? It's not really a question its ever possible to provide a definitive answer for. It's easy to say that they don't, that you should just do the right thing, the nice thing, the good thing in the moment but actions have consequences and doing the good thing all the time (especially in a position where thousands of lives depend on you) is not usually possible. Merlin tackles this theme, I believe, quite well, trying to find a balance between acting for the greater good and acting with what is immediately good, and this episode is a good example.

In a just and fair world you would be able to do good all the time, but this is not the case for everything, though you should never use the worlds not fair as an argument for not doing good things but I digress. Merlin's decision to save Gwen's father ultimately backfires on Gwen because the world is not fair, the world Uther has created mean even these acts of love are punishable with death. Because, for Uther, magic is magic, and magic is evil. Gaius was, in this situation, ultimately right, Merlin can't always do what is easy and what feels right because the consequences may not be good. In other matters like closing off the lower town, Arthur's initial response is concern for the people who live their, but Uther's right he has to make this one tough decision because otherwise he risks the whole city.

However, Uther's attitude to Gwen (aside from revealing his own stubbornness and prejudice) is an example of the greater good taken too far. He has absolutely no evidence that killing Gwen will stop this plague, but he's making that sacrifice anyway because it might, that is not justice or fair or anything resembling goodness. And he justifies his decisions with what I've already said is an age old argument- "These decisions must be made. There are dark forces threatening this kingdom." This is just another version of any easy choice, acting without regard to the greater good is an easy choice but so is ignoring what is immediately right in pursuit of some ambiguous goodness. He's confusing his own weakness and ignorance for strength.

The point Merlin is, I believe trying to make is that there must be a balance. Sometimes you have to pursue the greater good, but the ends don't really justify the means.

There is a reason Arthur and Merlin will create the Camelot of legend and Uther and Gaius don't, Merlin and Arthur aren't going to sacrifice their own goodness for the sake of the greater good. Merlin for one ensures Arthur never has to, its sad but Merlin in many ways makes the harsh and cruel decisions that Arthur never has to make. However, he also often doesn't make those decisions. He reaches a point where he wants to let people die, but he never actively attempts to kill Morgana or Mordred by himself unless it is an absolute in the moment choice between them and Arthur, and even though there is plenty of moral ambiguity about that and plenty of debates you can have about that. Fundamentally the point remains, Uther would have killed them and that's why he could never be the king Arthur would be or the influence for decency Merlin would be, the ends don't ever entirely justify the means. Besides if Merlin had thought that and killed Mordred and Morgana for their possible futures he would not have been the decent person he was and he could not have helped Arthur build a good Camelot, Camelot would not have existed if Merlin had acted entirely with the greater good in mind to ensure Camelot's future.

Other Stuff

Gwen's scene in the cell is so terribly sad, she's trying to be brave and her final request to Merlin is just so sad, "Remember me." She's so young and its the injustice and cruelty of Uther's kingdom that's condemning her, his own blindness to anything involving magic. We all want to be remembered don't we, especially when you die so young that you've barely had the chance to live. -----Also Guinevere will be remembered, she is a legend so there's something very bittersweet in this. She is not forgotten, then or ever

It's funny watching back to season 1, Merlin spends a lot of the time complaining about how Arthur will never recognise him for who he is. He wants recognition. But by the end of the show, yes of course he'd like recognition but he's learnt to just put up with never getting it. His priorities have changed so much.

There's this thing that happens a lot in season 1 and 2 (and I think a bit in season 3 but its less funny then) where Morgana persuades Arthur to do things by insulting him and its the funniest thing ever, and the first instance of it is here. I like to call these her 'epic sibling powers' cause they are just such siblings and its hilarious every time

"You are one side of the coin, Arthur is the other."- Kilgaharrah--> Just, yes.

Also when Arthur gets Merlin out of when Merlin confesses to being a sorcerer—> he's obviously making stuff up on the spot—> like he might sort of believe it (the stuff about Gwen) but fundamentally he's just trying to protect him without really knowing for sure why Merlin's lying

"One day people won't believe what an idiot you were."- Gaius--> Fun little nod to the audience who know Merlin of legend (as nothing like the BBC Merlin)

Also at this point we don't know why Uther really banned magic so there is an element of moral greyness to it all. We know magic's not evil, we know Uther went too far but at this point there is still a question about 'how too far' did he go?

Coronation by Rageprufrock (seriously read it. It's amazing): https://archiveofourown.org/works/5749

#merlin #bbc merlin #merthur #arthurian legend #arthur pendragon #king arthur #merlin bbc #Morality #the greater good #sacrifice #magic #two sides of the same coin #guinevere pendragon #gwen pendragon #morgana #morgana pendragon #gaius #uther pendragon #bbc uther #camelot #analysis #merlin analysis #merlin duty

[itsuki-minamy]

“K - THE FIRST STORY”

CHAPTER 13: ADDY (Complete)

* K - The First Story (List of Chapters) * Projects & Chapters

Translation: Naru-kun Raws: Ridia

His world was made up of many books and his sister.

Immediately after being called a genius brother, his life changed. They took him out of a school where ordinary children gathered and told him to study in a place where all the people around him were adults. There was no dissatisfaction or loneliness about it. He did not find anything funny in the school lessons that tried to teach what he already knew in a simple and one-sided way, and even in an environment without children of the same age, there was no problem as long as he had his older sister.

For him, a large number of books was better than a teacher, and the knowledge he gained from discussions with his sister became more and more profound. With his sister, he was absorbed in learning various things with his intellectual curiosity. The adults around them generously gave them what they needed to learn.

They told him to take part in the German military investigation when he was fifteen and his sister was seventeen.

They joined the military investigation team as requested. It was a tribute to the fact that they were given an environment to learn, and he also thought that the research and development site would be a place where they could play an active role.

Starting with the development and design of new weapons in the Artillery Board, they achieved several results. Apart from military research and development work, they wrote several treatises and obtained a doctorate. The teenage brothers' medical advancements were well received and sought after in the military, architecture, industry, and many other fields, and they did well everywhere.

It was in 1943, when he was 20 years old, that they were appointed chief and deputy director of a strange investigation.

"This is the Slate."

In the basement of a church in Dresden, he crossed his arms in front of the huge stone. Next door, his sister, Claudia, looked at him with a serious expression.

"Yes. This was embedded in the innermost wall of this underground worship hall until two years ago. There were rumors that a believer might see a miracle, and the institution of 'ancestral inheritance' excavated it. Due to this size, they did not carry it out and keep it here. Two months ago, in front of the guards, the same miracle that the believers saw happened."

He stood with his head held high when he heard the words of an investigator who was to be a subordinate in this investigation.

"It is a procession of the Holy Sun Han. A few feather insects formed a procession with a bright red light in front of this 'stone slate', and finally they were burned."

Well. The researcher looked deeply.

He approached the "Slate" and gently touched the surface with a geometric maze-like pattern.

It felt like a smooth rock. The hardness did not appear to be that high to the touch. However, the usual method has been found not to harm one.

"I wonder if the 'Slate' emits some kind of energy that affects living organisms. What do you think, sister?"

The older sister squeezed her kind expression, always smiling, and looked at the "Slate" with investigative eyes.

"It is too early to hypothesize that this bedrock itself is energetic. Perhaps the cause of the St. Johann procession was direct contact with the energetic magma or residual heat from the rock. I need a verification multifaceted."

"Yes. It seems that the truth of magma is a long way off, but let's start with the observation. It is very interesting. This 'Slate' has tremendous potential that no one has touched yet."

"I am also curious about the inscription on the stone monument that was excavated with the 'Slate'. The word 'King' written in modified Latin letters."

"I think the investigation begins in that area. It is a good place to probe, but it is very exciting, sister!"

When he returned his smile with his growing expectations and curiosity, she smiled as if she was in awe.

"Addy. You're like a kid again..."

Even if they called him a doctor, he would still be a child. With his sister, he was a free-spirited younger brother who was intellectually curious and enjoyed chasing what was in front of him, much like a child playing with toys.

"I feel like I can do it if you are with me, sister."

That said, the investigation on the "Slate" was extremely difficult.

He was appointed principal investigator of the investigation called "Project König", and his sister was appointed deputy director, and the elite investigators and the most modern equipment were prepared, but it was difficult to see the progress that seemed to be progressing.

To study the miracle, they first had to recreate the miracle. However, there was a long way to go to find out what factors could cause it.

For the moment, it took time to prepare all the measuring equipment, restore and decipher the pieces of the stone monument.

The investigation progressed dramatically after a Japanese officer arrived from Japan, an ally of the Third German Empire, in March of the following year.

Lieutenant Daikaku Kokujoji.

The encounter with him was important in his investigation of the "Slate" and in his life.

"It was an idea that he couldn't reach unless he met the Japanese magic lieutenant."

As he walked down the hall with his research materials, he said that he was ill. The lieutenant walking beside him flirted with a serious face.

"The opinions of the magic side would have been unacceptable to you, but thanks to the fluid understanding of the theoretical system based on the Five Element Thought, the progress of the investigation was rapid."

Lieutenant Kokujoji seemed to come from an "Onmyouji family" and was connected to a path that could only be described as "Japanese magic". The analysis of the "Slate" that the lieutenant had made from that perspective had taken a leap forward in the investigation of the brothers.

The Five Pillars is an idea based on the five elements of wood, fire, earth, gold and water. It seems that the "Slate", which suppresses the original power by sealing one of the items, was simply sealed like this.

The lieutenant used his technique to break a part of the seal and gave him knowledge. To be honest, he was too unknown to come to a full understanding, but he was able to continue developing equipment to operate the "Slate", and his sister and he built the theory of the energy that the "Slate" possesses.

"I don't think science is everything. If you stick only to the world you are aware of, you cannot wait for development. Thanks to the lieutenant, my world has expanded and I am sure it will expand even more in the future. W deflection modulator seems to be able to start early next year if it is in this condition."

He and the lieutenant were in the process of carrying out the institute's reports.

The Institute of the "König Project" uses the basement of the church where the "Slate" was found as it is. The place that should have been harsh is sacred because it is buried with various research equipment and materials. The air had completely vanished, but it was a familiar place to him, like his nest. In fact, his sister and he were building a house in a corner of this church. It was a small place for the brothers to live while they remodeled.

"Addy."

He hears a soft female voice. When he saw her, Claudia was across the hall.

The older sister who left the area where they lived approached them with a short run.

The lieutenant who stopped next to her seemed to stiffen his spine and was a little nervous. But this was not a bad tension. It is a thoughtful attitude of a young man towards a woman of strange age, and a reaction of a man named Kokujoji Daikaku towards a woman named Claudia Weismann who is "a little excited".

When she arrived in front of them, she first bowed slightly to the lieutenant. Her silver hair flowed smoothly from her shoulders. She had a soft smile on her gentle and delicate face.

His sister's facial expressions and movements were very graceful, but this is a bit different than when they were alone. In front of him, she came out more "squeaky", but with the lieutenant, she became a little softer and more feminine. A woman named Claudia Weismann was shown in front of a man named Daikaku Kokujoji, like a cute kitten.

"Thank you for your hard work, Lieutenant Kokujoji. Addy, are you ready to go to Berlin?"

"Yes. These are all supplies to bring."

He slightly lifted the box of supplies he was holding on his arm.

He was about to go to the party headquarters in Berlin to report on the current status of the "König Project". His sister and he were heading to Berlin with the lieutenant to explain that the long-defeated "Slate" investigation had finally progressed.

When he got up from the basement and opened the church door, it was raining outside. Large raindrops fell to the ground.

"It's raining. It's bad if the material gets wet..."

"No problem. I have an umbrella. Use it."

The lieutenant said that and opened an umbrella.

It was a red Japanese umbrella.

The skeleton was made of bamboo and lined with elegant red Japanese paper. The waterproof Japanese paper had a low sheen.

"Wow, a Japanese umbrella? It's cool."

"It's called an umbrella."

His sister, not the lieutenant, replied him, who gave a voice of admiration.

His sister had become thoroughly familiar with Japanese culture since she met the lieutenant. After the lieutenant sorted the Japanese ingredients that he received from his homeland, she became very interested in Japanese food, and had recently been thinking about it herself.

His older sister slid her slender finger over the bamboo handle of the lieutenant's umbrella.

"This is the first time I have seen something real. The skeleton is very beautiful."

His sister looked happily at the umbrella with a face that seemed delighted. The sound of raindrops falling on Japanese paper was a bit different from the sound of an ordinary umbrella and was pleasant to the ear.

"I want to go to Japan one day. In fact, I will see the culture and climate of the country where the lieutenant was born and raised."

His sister's suggestion made his heart stand out.

"I like it! Lieutenant, please give us a guide at that time."

She wondered if she would get a small answer, like a little carefree, but the lieutenant moved the military cap a little to hide his eyes from her and replied: "Yes.", in a shy way.

"I'm sure you will like it."

His sister and he looked at each other and smiled.

The three of them huddled like little birds in the lieutenant's red umbrella and walked a short distance to the car in a playful way.

The lieutenant was a collaborator in the investigation and at the same time the only friend to him and his sister.

The presence of the lieutenant blew a new breeze on both brothers who lived in a closed world with a wide range of knowledge, dedicated to study and research from a very young age.

Of course they talked about the "Slate" investigation, but they also talked a lot about other things.

The lieutenant listened with interest to the story of the investigation that his sister and he had done so far, and both he and his sister loved hearing the story of Japan from the lieutenant. The discussion with the lieutenant, who gave a sharp opinion from a different point of view than his sister, tended to be enthusiastic.

When the investigation got off to a good start, they had more work for their investigators than the lieutenant, and they loaned several books to the lieutenant who used to have more time. The lieutenant was a good reader, he read romantic poetry books that don't look good on his face, he read military books that fit his face and other books like history books, literature, plays, political science books, books of economy and several specialized books. He read anything. For Christmas, he also loaned her the first edition of "A Christmas Carol" that he read as a child. It was nice to see that lieutenant reading the fairy tale with a serious face.

He liked the printing of the book the lieutenant had.

Initially, the party headquarters in Berlin, rushed towards the outcome of the "König Project" and eager to hear the report, gradually waned interest in the investigation. The war situation deteriorated and there was no space to devote to research and other non-immediate effects.

Still, he was not told to stop the study. They continued the investigation of the "Slate", they left it half abandoned and unexpected. In a war that was to be ruined like an avalanche, they lurked in the underground laboratory of a quiet church in Dresden, on an isolated island, as they watched the violent muddy currents around them.

It may sound unscrupulous, but for him, the time spent there was a modest amount of happiness. He was able to dream the biggest dream of his life in a miserable time.

He hoped that, if this dream were to come true, it would glow in an era closed to darkness, leading to the realization of a world where everyone can be happy, regardless of war, enemies, or allies.

Almost a year after the lieutenant's arrival in Germany, the experiment that he believed in took shape and that led to the realization of that dream.

Based on the theory brought up by the lieutenant, his sister-designed W deflection modulator was completed by the end of the year. The functional test had been repeated since the beginning of the year and the results were obtained.

"Today, a formal initial experiment of the 'Slate' will be conducted with the presence of the lieutenant."

Before going to work, he put on a new lab coat to get excited. Commuting to work was just a short walk down the hall to institute. As he dressed in the living room shared with his sister, he suddenly noticed the carved wooden doll that was carefully displayed on the shelf and smirked.

It was a hand-carved klippe for him, the lieutenant, and everyone in the lab at Christmas. A set of dolls showing the Nativity scene. Centered around the Virgin Mary and Christ, Saint Joseph, the Magi and the angels are aligned. Between them, the two magicians, Gaspar and Melchor, were the work of him and the lieutenant. The personality and characteristics of each creator were reflected in strange ways, and it was strange that he and the lieutenant seemed to be lined up with mysterious faces.

It was the Christmas they held to hold their breath during the war, but that night, where he rode around the klippe he made for his sister, and a little gift with his sister and the lieutenant, was probably the most fun he'd ever had, can have been a holy night with hope for the future

Hope, yes, hope. He had hope beyond the miracles that this "Slate" brought. The lieutenant often raised concerns due to his personality, but is also passionate about the possibility of the "Slate."

He had never had a friend, but he thought he would be fine if he was with his older sister, but found the joy of working toward the same goal as his friend.

"Today I have to show the results."

Hoping the world would change, he turned over a new lab coat and headed for the "Slate".

That day there was tension between the investigators around the "Slate" due to an experiment that left an official video record to inform the top management.

"Ready to measure."

"Checking the Camera Operation."

"There is no abnormality on the 'Slate'."

"You can start the experiment."

"What about the example mouse?"

"Dr. Weissman will bring it in now."

With the serious voices of the aspirants flying around and the cage with the mouse in it, he walks to the experimental field connected to the "Slate".

The back of the mouse in the cage was marked in blue with ink. This mouse was a small creature with great "potential" that woke up during the "Slate" test the other day.

An experimental field, a dozen white mice had already been released into a large mouse maze almost 10 meters long, and they moved as they wished.

After confirming the situation, he lifted the mouse bearing the blue mark from inside the cage as if picking it up with both hands.

When he looked up, she found a serious-looking lieutenant standing in front of the experimental field. That day, it was the first time that he would witness the results of an experiment. After involuntarily smiling, he gently stroked the back of the mouse in his hand.

"Alright, it's time, little mouse. Show the good points to the lieutenant from Japan."

Showing the mouse he was holding, one of the researchers asked the lieutenant to listen.

"It is an experimental organism of the EX-Alpha group. It is under the influence of the 'Slate'."

EX-Alpha, that's what the "King" shows engraved on the stone monument excavated with the "Slate".

He gently left the mouse in a labyrinthine experimental field. An investigator in charge of the recording announced the start of the experiment.

"The blue mouse is ready."

The mouse was clearly different from the other mice that roamed the maze in an irregular manner. Lifting and wiggling his little nose, he catches the light of reason in his eyes and look around.

Suddenly, the "Slate" began to emit a faint blue glow. Just by looking at the sacred blue light from the "Slate" that had been there for a long time, he felt the unholy joy of receiving a colorful reaction from a person who had refused to approach for a long time.

A blue mouse in the experimental field was stained with blue light in response to the glare from the "Slate".

The bright light was also generated in the air one meter above the blue mouse. A sword-shaped crystal appeared from the round blue light.

"There is a reaction to the 'Slate'."

"Sword-shaped glow confirmation."

As the researchers watched, the blue mouse stood on its hind legs, wearing a blue light, and looked at the sword that appeared above it.

It was a beautiful blue sword with a hard mechanical shape. To humans, the little sword would appear huge to the mouse. The sword gleamed solemnly, point down. He believed that the sword-shaped blue glow is a symbol of "order."

After a while, the blue mouse started running through the maze of the experimental field without hesitation.

He never hit a dead end or wander in the same place. With a movement of being convinced of the way forward, he ran through the maze without hesitation.

Then the other mice moving through the maze suddenly changed their movements. They began to run with will and determined stride, and followed the blue mouse.

The mice formed a group and began to take in the same blue light as the blue mouse running in front.

The mice quickly went through the maze in the shortest distance, and when they reached the open area, they lined up behind the blue mouse and stood on its hind legs.

It was a strange sight. It didn't look like the action performed by a mouse, and he wondered if it was a mouse-shaped toy made by a human. However, this was the power of the group with the EX-Alpha of an individual "King". The group, led by the "King", with its sword-like blue glow, exhibited controlled demeanor and abilities comparable to trained human soldiers.

The lieutenant overseeing the experiment was impressed.

"Incredible! Will such power appear in humans?"

"Sorry, but this is just the tip of the iceberg."

Satisfied with the lieutenant's reaction, he smiled. He began to explain with an excited heart, illustrating on the board.

"The strength of the link with the "Slate" is proportional to the complexity of the brain. To be more precise, the deviation from the law of chance creates a force field that envelops the Beta bodies in the vicinity, as it increases its intensity in the form of a geometric progression. As a result..."

"Will an army of super humans be born...?"

The lieutenant said in a heavy voice.

Certainly, that is why the party is investigating the "Slate". Bring the miracle of the "Slate" to humans, create immortal soldiers, form an invincible army, and finally create an immortal realm of the Aryan scientific race with the "Transcendental Master Race". Of course, he knew that "miracles" were needed to reverse the crisis.

But besides that, he denied the lieutenant's words.

"No, lieutenant."

He wrote "Freude!" on the blackboard and laughed at the lieutenant.

"This will bring happiness to everyone."

What he saw was not the victory of the country. This "Slate" shouldn't be used for something so small. What he saw was the happiness of humanity that would enter a new horizon after ending such a foolish war.

When the lieutenant answered something, there was an explosion.

"Red mouse, shot down!"

One of the investigators yelled.

When he saw it, a mouse maze that was not the experimental field where he was filming exploded and broke.

A mouse with a red mark on its back lay in the rubble of a maze that was broken and strewn across the ground.

The power of the red mouse seems to have escaped. A red, sword-shaped glow spawned in the air a meter above him.

The red mouse had been confirmed to have a tough temperament and the ability to provoke a firing phenomenon. Since he doesn't do well with the blue mouse, he let him play in a remote-placed maze, but it may have been stimulated by the generation of the sword-shaped blue glow.

He giggled cheating as he pondered the fact that he should have kept it in a separate room, and he heard a woman's voice saying "Addy!"

Perhaps he rushed after hearing the explosion, his sister was standing. Recently, his sister was doing research on her own and she was often in charge of the "König Project".

As always, he was glad to see her face and shouted: "Sister!", and raised his hand. The lieutenant was worshiping in silence.

His sister ignored him and spoke to the lieutenant.

"That... is there a problem with my little brother?"

"I just showed you the experiment. Right, Lieutenant?"

"We have confirmed the remarkable results. It is truly surprising."

"Well! But the lieutenant thinks these kids are like tools of war or something! It's terrible, isn't it?"

When he made a fool of himself, his sister yelled at him, scolded him like a son, and pinched his side hard.

"You shouldn't say such things out loud. We are receiving a stipend for your research."

"That hurts, sister!"

The older sister who scolded him like when she was alone with her brother, she remembered being seen by the lieutenant, and she smiled a cute smile that seemed to repair itself when she hastily let go of her hand.

"Ah... Lieutenant Kokujoji. Please... ignore what I just said."

She wondered how he reacted to her. The lieutenant, who always maintained his strict demeanor, wandered his gaze in slight consternation and replied.

"Hmm... Don't worry, I don't understand technical jargon anyway."

Before the serious answer, his sister and him, looked at each other and laughed at the same time.

In front of them laughing, the lieutenant was trying to put on a serious and expressionless expression, but when he saw his sister, he lowered his gaze a bit embarrassed.

The miracle caused by the "Slate" would create a world where everyone was happy. It was the day that the dream they had begun to take concrete form and he took the first step.

It was supposed to be like this.

Dresden was a city that remained beautiful during the long war, with little damage from air raids.

Many Germans said that Dresden, which had nothing to do with the munitions industry and had little military importance and was lined with beautiful historical buildings or had high cultural value, would not be damaged by airstrikes.

It happened on February 13, 1945.

A myriad of Lancaster bombers flew over Dresden, showering blocks and incendiary bombs.

The city became a sea of ​​fire and many people died. They were evacuated to the bomb shelter, but many of them were vaporized.

The city of Dresden, where the anti-aircraft guns were no longer working when the air defense organizations moved to the front, was left unprotected and unilaterally conquered.

His sister, Claudia Weismann, also died there.

"Sister! Sister!"

A roar shook the underground laboratory intermittently. The smoke rushed in and visibility was poor. The upper church could be on fire. The air was terribly hot. It was painful from the lack of oxygen.

He moistened the washcloth with the jug beside the bed, covered his mouth, and crawled across the floor.

His sister was not in her room. Recently, his sister seemed to be studying the "Slate" from another direction by herself. Not being in the room probably meant that she was with the "Slate". He whispered to his consciousness from afar and crawled desperately forward.

"Sister! Uh, ugh…"

As a consequence of calling his sister and screaming, he inhaled smoke and suffocated.

Still, he didn't stop and called his sister many times in a weak voice.

It took an enormous amount of time to walk down the corridor, which would normally walk too fast, and push the door to the lab room with the "Slate" to open it.

Immediately after that, heat rushed from the hall to the point that it was incomparable to the hallway. He accidentally closed his eyes. He managed to open his eyelids, which he didn't want to open to protect his eyes from the heat, and he saw the scene from the hallway that was in the lab.

The roof had fallen.

The collapsed rocky shoreline was crushing the experimental equipment. It was the "Slate" and the body of the woman that collapsed in front of it that left a safe form.

"Sister!"

He ran as best he could and hugged her. His sister's body had lost all power and felt heavy. She had almost no scars on her body and she closed her eyes with a calm expression to sleep, but she was not breathing. There was no pulse.

His sister, Claudia Weissman, was dead.

On the roof of the collapsed hall, the part of the church on the floor was raging with fierce fire. The air was boiling. The moment the roof came off, he breathed in the hot air that had entered, he burned his throat and suffocated.

He was looking up in a daze as he held his sister.

He couldn't think of anything. They, who were said to be the two-headed geniuses of the Third German Empire, were once again unable to think of anything, and one was useless and vaguely gazed at the sky.

The flame swirled. The roof of the church had already disappeared, either from flames or bullets, and he could see the sky beyond the flames.

The bomber was flying. Although that was hell, they never got tired of it and kept dropping bombs. From above, despair fell one after another.

He vaguely thought that he wanted an umbrella.

A soft umbrella that would protect him from this despair.

One rainy day, he remembers that the three of them got into the Japanese umbrella that the lieutenant was carrying.

The lieutenant protected him and his sister from the rain, while he wet his shoulders and back.

The sound of the rain hitting the umbrella was soft.

His sister was laughing happily.

(I want to go to Japan one day.)

When he realized it, he didn't feel the heat or the pain that had been bothering him.

He looked at his body slowly.

His body glowed pale silver.

He looked away from him. The "Slate" also emitted the same silver light as his body. He knew that scene. That was a luminescence phenomenon that occurred when an EX-Alpha individual was born in an experiment with mice, in which a W shift modulator activated the "Slate".

He looked up again.

A silver light was born in the night sky where black and red mixed reflecting the color of the flame.

The light fell apart and spread like an umbrella.

The umbrella of silver light that appeared above his head glowed for a while and then lost its shape and became the shape of a pointed down sword.

It was a sword-shaped glow.

A huge sword-shaped silver glow that was incomparable to what appeared on the mouse, was silently floating in the night sky that dispersed despair.

A bomb fell next to him. He could feel it. The detonation would take his eyesight and the scattered projectiles would hit his body.

However, that which would have ripped his limbs apart in an instant, did not inflict a single scratch on his body.

He, his sister's body, and the "Slate" that stood abruptly while the surrounding substances could not retain their original form, were there without any damage.

He was an EX-Alpha individual, that is, the "King" who displayed the stone monument, the "transcendental master race" who sought the party headquarters, and had the power to "make everyone happy". It was what he believed.

"Sister?"

He shook his sister in his arms and called out to her. If he had become a "King" with paranormal power, he now only had one wish.

"Sister, get up."

By incorporating others into the feedback loop of the causal bias generated by the EX-Alpha individuals, a new causal bias is generated and 8 individuals are produced. In other words, it is possible to give birth to a "member" who has shared the power of the "King".

He instinctively knew how to do it. The brain naturally understands more than the knowledge acquired as a result of research and experiments. Upon becoming an EX-Alpha individual, a strong resonant action occurred between him and the "Slate", and what could be called the memory of the "Slate" was flowing.

"Sister, take my power. I won't hurt myself anymore. The sore throat that just burned me is gone. I won't hurt myself or die. So, sister, you too."

He developed his own strength and continued to pour it into his sister. Waiting for an answer from his sister. If possible, he wanted to give everything he had to his sister.

But his sister never opened her eyes. His sister was dead. The power of the "King" cannot bring the dead back to life. Everything was slow.

He was supposed to be the "King", and he only held the corpse of a single family member helplessly.

How long had it been like this?

Before he knew it, the hellish night was over and the bombardment had stopped.

The sky was white and the early morning air was rapidly cooling the rubble of the city, which had been set ablaze by fierce fire.

He heard the sound of military boots running in the quiet that made him think that all the creatures had died.

When he raised his face, he saw a lieutenant out of breath.

The lieutenant was supposed to have been in Berlin, but hurried after hearing the news of the Dresden bombing.

He laughed softly at the lieutenant who stood up with a clear face. His cheeks shook his smile, and for the first time he realized that he was crying all the time.

"Lieutenant. My sister..."

His sister's body was already cold.

The lieutenant moved to Berlin with him, which was completely useless.

The Dresden bombing was divided into several waves and continued into the next day, resulting in a tremendous number of deaths. Due to the large number of evacuees and refugees in Dresden, which was thought to be safe, it seemed difficult to determine the exact number of deaths. Many of the bodies were burned by a whirlwind of fire and suffered indistinguishable damage.

For a few days, he was dumbfounded. The lieutenant told the party headquarters that he had become the first of what they called a "transcendental master race" by the "Slate." In fact, at that time, he was like a wooden puppet, far from being a "transcendental master race" or a "King". As an investigator that he was pitifully burned to no avail, he was left unguarded.

"The reason for the bombing was found."

One day, a few weeks after the Dresden bombing, the lieutenant approached him and said.

"It was a leak of information. The allied forces that seized the existence of the 'Project König' decided that it was a threat to eliminate."

The lieutenant's voice was clear. No anger or sadness appeared on the surface, and he made a calm, unwavering and firm voice.

"Weissman. If you still desire the realization of your ideals, abandon your human life from this moment on."

Hearing the lieutenant's voice, he couldn't even lift his face as he sat on a chair and was choking.

"He reigns as the only 'King' and rules all human beings. He condemns the fools. The equality and prosperity of humanity can only be achieved by having the power of ruin beyond human intelligence."

He understood the lieutenant's words. They had been thinking of ways to make the miracle of that "Slate" desirable as they progressed with the investigation. That was probably the lieutenant's answer.

On the other hand, he had been thinking about it. How to make everyone happy.

But now he couldn't quite remember his thoughts.

"Fulfill the "King's" responsibilities."

He couldn't think of his thoughts. Of course he couldn't even put it into words. Still, he had the feeling that the lieutenant's words were "different."

He just shook his head wordlessly.

"Actually…"

The lieutenant said in a low voice and took the holster from his waist. He pull out the pistol and point it at him in one fluid motion.

"If you don't, I will. But there shouldn't be two 'kings' on earth."

The lieutenant's finger went off. He looked up and slowly compared the barrel, which was aimed at his forehead, with the face of the lieutenant, who was determined to look.

"A bullet... Is that the punishment for the great dream we had?"

"No. Weissman, you don't have to suffer anymore. If your dreams are sins, I will take full responsibility and punishment."

The lieutenant's voice remained calm. It already seemed to carry everything. The prayers of the late Claudia, the work of his trying to get rid of the great responsibility of the "King" and the lives of the people of Dresden who were burned due to the investigation.

"As the only 'King', I will carry all the hatred and resentment of the earth on my back and fall into hell. Therefore, I will not meet you in that world... Say hello to Claudia."

The lieutenant fired.

Shots rang out, but the bullet missed his forehead.

The bullet was still in midair in front of his head, as if it had driven into a transparent wall.

"It's useless…"

He said he, powerless in words.

"That's not good... Lieutenant, fear cannot make people happy."

The form of the dream he had was no longer uncertain. But he did not want to make the in-between world brought about by the rule of a lonely "King" beyond dreams.

"Give me time. The answer is... I'm sure there is a way to happiness."

The bullet that was parked in the air exploded and disappeared. No matter what the shell is, he was already a "King". Nothing could hurt his body, he was the "King".

The lieutenant waited without lowering the weapon.

"Do you think I can believe your words right now?"

"I do not know..."

He got up slowly and managed to laugh at the lieutenant, feeling that he was crying.

"If she was my older sister, I'm sure she would say that."

At that moment, the expression of the lieutenant that he hadn't trembled for a long time was distorted.

He said that with a mixture of anger, sadness and various other emotions and stopped.

In the end, the lieutenant never let go of the passion he had been through, but simply turned his back on him silently.

Two days later, he was kidnapped by a command unit of the United States Army.

"Dr. Adolf K. Weissmann, right?"

The men who intervened were camouflaged in German army field clothes, but it soon became clear that they were American special forces who came to seize the technology related to the "Slate".

Information about the "König Project" was leaked to the Allies, which was revealed in the event of the Dresden bombing. Not only did the "Slate" study eliminate the potential threat from the Third German Empire, but the United States seemed to have been interested in the technology itself. It was a plan that was about to be abandoned by the German center, but he vaguely thought it was ironic.

They stopped and seized him, and began a march into the mountains with the goal of joining the Allied forces clinging to the Western Front.

He did not resist at all. He was not afraid of the multiple weapons pointed at him, they handcuffed him and a soldier grabbed his arm roughly. It would take the power of the "King" to break the steel handcuffs that had been placed on both wrists. He was afraid of him.

It was not the judgment that he should hide the fact that he was a superhuman created by the "Slate". But stronger than that, the reason why he made the decision not to resist was an unmistakable "fear".

Without using the power of the "King", he killed his emotions and was attracted as he was, and on the second day of walking through the mountains, the march of the commando was greatly disturbed.

It seemed that the enemy had already started to take over his personality. The command unit, which had no land, was blocked by the pursuit unit, and gradually driven east, facing its original destination, the Western Front.

If he headed east as he was, he would reach the Eastern Front. While American and British troops were invading the Western Front, the Eastern Front was pushing the Red Army of the Soviet Union to the point where an all-out attack on Berlin was imminent. For the US commando unit, joining the Soviet Union's Red Army ran the risk of failing in the mission of stealing Adolf K. Weissmann's special confidential information from the Red Army's side, or worse, assassinating all members of the unit.

Looking at the faces of the Commando soldiers, who gradually became impatient and frustrated, he kept thinking vaguely the entire time.

If they could complete their mission and he was handed over to the United States Army, would he tell them about the "Slate" as they asked? Still, if they believe that "Slate" can bring happiness to humanity and he entrusted them with that dream, it was not an impossible option. He was like a salesman, but in any case, this war would soon be over.

On the other hand, what should he do if they joined the Red Army and fell into a life-threatening situation, or if they were captured and executed by a pursuit unit? Apart from the former, the latter was not something to be avoided for him, who was a German military officer. Rather, he would normally consider being rescued and punished by enemy soldiers a pleasure.

(No, Lieutenant. Everyone will be happy.)

The words he said circulated in his head many times.

Without an answer, he wandered through the forest surrounded by soldiers who were being chased and tired, that night they threw him directly to the ground and he fell asleep.

Feeling the cold that permeated his body from the cold ground, he dreamed of a conversation with the lieutenant again in a light sleep. From that day on, he remembered the exchanges many times and rebelled.

"He reigns as the only 'King' and rules over every human being. Condemn the fool. Human equality and prosperity can only be achieved by having the power of ruin beyond human intelligence."

The lieutenant said that in a strict voice.

What is a prayer? What is damnation?

For example, is the enemy who killed his sister and burned the people of the city of Dresden a sinner to condemn?

"Fulfill the "King's" responsibilities."

He denied with his head. He just shook his head weakly. Like a child throwing a tantrum.

"Lieutenant, fear cannot make people happy."

So how could they be happy? He believed that the potential power of the "Slate" would make people happy. What should he do to make everyone happy?

"The answer is... I am sure there is a way to happiness."

Really?

Could he really find something like that? No, did he really want to find the answer in the first place? Can he realize the method of happiness when he search for it and find it?

To himself with such muddy despair.

For himself bound by sadness, anger and fear.

If he really wanted to make everyone happy, what could he do now?

He was surprised when they called him and woke up from his dream.

"Hey, get up."

There was a grumpy voice. Realizing that the soldier had kicked him in the back, he slowly looked around him. The vague head of awakening slowly recognized reality.

"Go to the Captain."

The soldier said coldly and turned his back on him.

He got up off the ground in handcuffs. He went to the commando captain as he was told, looking at the passing soldiers, wearing dirty clothes with damp earth and leaves.

The handcuffs were heavy and would normally hurt his wrist, but his skin wasn't hurt at all. Nobody cared about the body of a prisoner of war, so he wouldn't suspect him.

"You called me, Captain?"

The captain was looking at the map surrounded by his subordinates. He looked at him with a flat face that didn't show his emotions.

"I'm sorry for the circumstances, Dr. The pursuit team is getting very close. Today we will move soon without waiting for the night to pass."

"Is that so."

"Dr., please provide topographic information to supplement this map."

"I'm not familiar with this area, so I won't be very helpful."

When he answered flatly, the NCO next to him showed frustration with the situation and hatred for him, and bit him.

"I can't take it, hey, stand up! Are you a genius and didn't even memorize a map of the country?!"

"Yes, Charlie. What happens when you say you know something you don't know?"

The captain controlled in a calm voice, but the surrounding NCOs tuned in to a man named Charlie and made a barking voice.

A voice that fears parting with the Red Army and contempt are mixed.

Dr. Occult Charlie, who was really delusional and investigating the "mass production of psychic bodies" pointed it out and cursed. The officers agreed and showed frustration.

US military executives may have had some interest in the "Slate", but for those executives tasked with stealing that information, it was a perception where life was at stake.

He was listening to his words in silence. There was pain. The dreams he had were scorned, pushed away and spit on. There was anger and sadness, but it was stronger and filled with a feeling of emptiness to give up.

The captain opened his mouth after hearing the resentment of his subordinate.

"I am also going to avoid joining the Red Army. I was thinking of getting further away from the chase, but they were unexpectedly quick. If we go any further, I would be behind the German front. Before that happens, I will look for terrain that will hide the entire unit. and I will move on to the pursuit unit. I will confront them and clear the way if necessary. Then, we will force the march to the western front. That is the mission."

With a dignified voice, the captain declared so. The NCOs cheered for inspiration from the stated life policy.

It was a thin thread of hope. The entire unit was desperately trying to hold on to the thread. However, he knew that the thread was easy to break, and that if the thread did break, death would be waiting for him, and everyone here, not just him, would hate him.

He was reflecting on their lives. What were his options?

"As a doctor here, it doesn't matter as far as I can see on this map. A ground where we can hide, please check together."

At the captain's words,

"Okay, that's it."

"Hey, how much did you help kill your countrymen?"

Charlie slapped him maliciously. The captain didn't scold him, but he said to Charlie, "We'll get out of here as soon as the scout gets back. Tell the soldiers.", And he hardened his attitude.

He also skipped instructions to drop off other subordinates, and the NCOs began to move accordingly.

In it, another malicious word hit his ear.

"If only my sister had survived, she could have enjoyed various things while she stalked."

The whole body was full of hair.

Instantaneous anger and hatred filled his thoughts with black, and he was taking a step forward.

The step lightly shook the ground with a loud noise.

He didn't know what the step was for. He didn't, but there was an undeniable killing intent in him at the time.

His sister's smile, the flames of hell that surrounded the city of Dresden, and his cold, hardened body shuddered at the same time.

"What? I mean, let's do it."

Charlie shuddered with a scared face.

What the hell was he going to do?

The passion cooled as fast as the moment it arose.

"No."

He coughed silently and stepped back with the power of the "King" that was about to express his emotions.

He couldn't do anything.

After all, he could do nothing and choose nothing.

(You reign as the only "King" and rule all human beings. Condemn fools.)

(Everyone will be happy.)

"Captain, the map."

He turned her back on everything and muttered in a dead voice.

After that, everyone turned around and didn't become obnoxious or talkative.

He made some supplementary corrections to the extent that he could see from the inaccurate map presented and, as he was told, showed where it seemed most suitable for the troop to hide.

Without including any other intentions, he simply derived and submitted the requested response. Deep in the forest that stretched across the mountains, there was a depression on the north side of the ridge that looked like an indentation. It seemed that there would only be one place where this number of people could hide.

Immediately the troops left and marched into the depression. They reached their destination before dark that day.

Here, they caught up with the pursuit unit approaching from behind and changed the direction of the march to target the Western Front. Since it would be a march of considerable strength to the western front, they had begun taking turns resting while preparing for the engagement when the pursuit unit found them.

But no one was willing to go to bed.

Suddenly, the sound of planes cutting through the air echoed off the trees in the forest and was heard eerily bulging, and the trees near him exploded.

It was a bombing.

Everyone in the unit immediately tried to lie down on the ground, but some were delayed a bit. The next bombardment came in rapid succession, crushing the last like clay dolls.

Within that, he was standing alone.

He quickly realized what had happened.

The impending manhunt was a move to bring the Command into that dead end. Germany decided not to recapture it, but to destroy it.

Without a recommendation of surrender, they unilaterally massacred with the arms deck of the tank unit that he had prepared.

A grenade-like thing hit his cheek and burned him. But he didn't even rip it off and he wasn't affected by anything.

He was stunned when the soldiers around him crouched on the ground and had to wait, trembling as they were hit by a projectile that crushed his body.

Explosive smoke, smoke from the dirt and body parts of the soldiers that were ripped apart by the projectiles splattered, blocking their view.

With the roar that even the screams near him couldn't reach, the smoke in front of him suddenly vanished and he could see Charlie crouched down.

He was crying. His eyes met. Until now, he had only faced malicious and hostile faces towards him. But now, they had all fallen off him and were there in a state of helplessness, trembling from the water that flowed from his eyes and nose.

A projectile entered before he thought of anything about it. Charlie's arms and part of his head grasped right next to him.

He was crying too before he knew it. He began to walk aimlessly, leaving it dripping without drying it.

"What should I do with them?"

There was no one around him who held the shape of a person.

"Everyone, then... should they have forgiven and saved them?"

He had that power. There should have been power so that no one could die.

But he didn't do that. No one was saved. That said, he doesn’t fight anyone.

He did nothing, they did not confront each other, they did not step on them, there was only slaughter.

The person who did it had his own dream, but he was dead.

"What did you want to do...?"

It was the lieutenant who protected him as he exited unharmed by the missile storm.

It was the Japanese lieutenant, Daikaku Kokujoji, who was entrusted with a power by the Führer, organized a pursuit unit and acted as a repellent himself.

The lieutenant who saw him said nothing. He knew the situation he was in and what he did or did not do, but he silently welcomed him.

The captain, who was in command of the pursuit, was terribly surprised to see him intact and protected, but the lieutenant cheated. The commando took him away, but he miraculously escaped just before the bombardment.

The lieutenant gave him winter clothes and rice balls made from rice cooked in Iikura. With the handcuffs removed, he received the rice ball from the lieutenant.

By the way, his sister, who was interested in the Japanese food that the lieutenant brought from time to time, served rice balls and pickles. His sister, who started her own research on fermented foods, which was considered the heart of Japanese food, produced a lot of terrible prototypes, but the pickles were good. Those went well with rice.

The lieutenant's rice ball he ate was sadly delicious.

There were various memories of the lieutenant, his older sister, and the three of them.

The meeting of his older sister and the lieutenant, who brought a new breeze to the world of the two.

Investigation of the "Slate" by trial and error of three people.

The Klippe that he carved with the lieutenant for his sister at Christmas. A little party that night.

Successful start-up experiment of the "Slate".

A dream told on the banks of the Elbe river.

"The "King" will open many possibilities and bring prosperity. With great power, he can provoke violence, or, on the contrary, squeeze it in order. However, he can be a force to protect what is important and, above all, he will change this situation. It has the potential to be anything."

On the banks of the Elbe river, he said that to the lieutenant and his sister. After a successful start-up experiment, he was fascinated by the light of possibility. The light looked like sunlight shining on a dark night.

"The dawn of humanity."

He does not cry anymore.

"Lieutenant."

He called out to the lieutenant as he looked at the half-eaten rice ball.

"EX-Alpha, the individual "King" creates an individual by incorporating others into the feedback loop of causality bias. You can share your strength with different strengths. My power as a "King" can be said to be to be immutable, a power that is unaffected by any tangible power, other than blue that has excellent mastery and red that specializes in destructive power expressed in mice. In other words, my individual B will have similar, if not immutable properties. I thought I would do that for my sister that night, but it was too late. My sister was dead. However, it works in the living. I was alive until then..."

He didn't quite understand what he was saying. Maybe the lieutenant wanted me to blame him.

He did nothing until they found him, because of his anger and the emptiness of his nest. He didn't even resist because he was terrified.

The lieutenant, who was silent the entire time, muttered a single word.

"Isn't there an answer, Weissmann... What do you say, the path of happiness?"

He couldn't return any words.

He was involved in aircraft design when he was on the Artillery Board.

He planned to organize it into an air fleet as a flashy new weapon, but when it was completed, the situation had changed so much that he was put to sleep in a bomb shelter without even flying.

The name of the aircraft was "Heaven".

At Tempelhof airport, on the outskirts of Berlin, he was about to leave with the Himmelreich.

The lieutenant who was walking a little behind him, had a stern look the whole time. The lieutenant knew well that what he was trying to do was not express the departure in neat words, it was just an escape.

"Are you sure you can break through allied air defenses?"

The lieutenant asked in a firm voice.

"Yes. Even at that size, it is possible to adjust the composition of matter and adjust it to me. Then it becomes an unbreakable shell that no one can invade. It is easy to get out."

Even his power, that he couldn't do anything, could easily create an escape route for him. Looking away from his own feelings, he asked the lieutenant.

"Is it okay for the lieutenant to be better than me? After finishing the cleaning, you will return to Japan by submarine."

"Yes."

"Are you really taking the 'Slate' to Japan?"

The lieutenant had already begun to deliver the "Slate" to the Japanese army and carry it out. Nobody was still worried about the abandoned "Konig Project" in the worst case, and he was able to handle it with the authority of the lieutenant.

"Oh. I should have said it by now. If you don't, I will."

The lieutenant's voice was unwavering. However, he was distressed by the lieutenant's determination and told him.

"Will you become 'King'? It's not an easy thing."

"I know." Said the lieutenant.

However, the lieutenant said throwing it out wouldn't help.

That's why he would.

At least to achieve the desired miracle.

Hearing the lieutenant's words, he felt like crying over defeat.

Unlike him, who was so desperate that he couldn't move, the lieutenant faced the light. He wondered if he would really realize the scene of the dawn of humanity that he one day dreamed of.

He narrowed his eyes and looked up at the sky. The color of twilight was spreading as the sun had just dropped beyond the horizon. The night would come soon. He would go to the night sky.

Crushed clouds flowed across the twilight sky.

"Everything flows and disappears. This war is over."

"Nothing ends."

"It's over for me."

Still, the words of a friend declaring that it was not the end under any circumstances, it was the only joy in the cold darkness.

"Finally, I ask again..."

"Bye, Lieutenant."

With his back to the lieutenant, he began to walk.

The distance between the two disappeared.

A huge rigid aircraft shaped like a whale. He walks to where his last home would be, traveling without destination.

"You run away..."

He heard a low voice.

An angry and scolding voice hit him on the back because he hadn't abandoned him during that time.

"You're running away, Weissmann!"

++++++++++

He drowned in the torrent of memories.

"Kukuku." A laugh rang out.

"You ran away. You turned your back on everything and chose not to get involved."

That's how it is.

He sent all his dreams to a single friend and he ran away.

"You didn't choose anything. You didn't save anything. You didn't do anything. You were afraid of your bloated dreams and you threw them all away."

Like a prosecutor reading the indictment, his voice pinpointed the crime.

"I won't blame you."

His soft voice stroking him suddenly, tickled his soul.

"Once again, throw everything away. I will pick it up and use it carefully. Anyway, you are empty. You have no intention of using that power for anything, you just have a surplus. Doesn't your heart seem to no longer is there?"

The voice laughed as he caressed the softest and weakest part of his heart.

"Leave it to me. I'll take all difficulties with you. You can also inadvertently close your eyes and dream of a happy high school student who has no responsibility. You don't have the power or the right to reject me, do you?"

He felt as if he were dragging him slowly to the bottom of the swamp. He couldn't resist, and was tempted to think that it would be easier if he slept like he was, as that voice said.

Yes, he had no power or right. He was a mindless creature who could do nothing, did nothing, and just floated alive. Whether his eyes were open or closed, nothing would change. He was caught up in those arrogant thoughts, and the world was going dark.

However, another voice emerged in his consciousness that was obstructed.

"I haven't given up yet."

"Neko is from Shiro and Shiro is from Neko!"

Kuro. Neko.

They kept looking at him the whole time.

He taught him the strength to never give up. She taught him the power of pure affection.

She gave him a name and kept calling him when no one else had.

As long as they were there, he could not abandon them.

He still didn't know how to be happy, but this time, he wouldn't run away doing nothing.

++++++++++

"Tsk."

The "Colorless King", who was repelled from the boy's body, returned to Kukuri's body with a pitiful voice.

"Kukuri!"

"Well, you're putting it off!"

The fighting voice of Kukuri and Kuro, whose body was taken over by the "Colorless King", was heard far from the boy's ears.

The boy was lying on his back on the floor and was looking vaguely at the ceiling. He still couldn't move well because his consciousness and his body were too big. He breathed quietly, so he was doing his best.

Neko, full of tears, was reflected in the boy's vague vision.

"Shiro! Shiro! Hold on!"

Oh, he wanted to tell her that she didn't have to see him that way.

Kuro, who had abandoned the pursuit of the "Colorless King", knelt beside the boy with a worried expression.

"Don't move! You were just attacked..."

He try to tell him that he didn't need any help. The piece of glass that pierced his abdomen finally fell off and his wound had been healed. Even if he forgot everything and became a helpless high school student, his body had unvarying power.

Before Neko and Kuro's words came out, silver power flashed on the boy's body. The power of the "King" that he obtained under a shower of bombs in Germany in 1945. However, after that, he did nothing and stayed alive.

Neko and Kuro stared at the boy who was glowing silver, speechless.

The boy slowly stood up and smiled to reassure the two with anxious expressions.

"Macht nichts, ich bin unverwundbar. (Don't worry, I'm immortal.)"

He then said that he was not hurt, but his facial expressions remained confused.

The boy kept talking to tell who he was. "Endlich habe ich verstanden. (I finally got it.)"

"So you're really the 'Colorless King'?"

The boy shook his head at the confused Kuro, saying that was not the case.

"Mein... (My name...)"

Only then did he realize that he had just spoken in his mother tongue, German, due to the sudden return of his memory. The boy changed the language to Japanese, which has been familiar to him for the past decades, and responds.

"My name is Adolf K. Weissmann. The first king, the 'Silver King'."

#k #k project #k the first story #k novel

[wolfcha1k]

An analysis on Guy, Eep and Grug NOBODY asked for in Croods - A New Age but tough shit

help

So its theory time :U Since this trailer seems to finally go into Guy’s perspective over things happening in the story. It seems like though Guy has been accepted into the Croods family, its not peaches and cream as one would think. Guy is used to having personal space, basically being able to have peace and quiet. Now after a lifetime of solitude [srsly, how long has he been alone??], this is a big adjustment for him. I don’t doubt he doesn’t care and love the Croods like family because they are his family now, he gave up a lot for them and Eep. There’s something of a culture difference between the family and him, with the Croods being used to being jam packed together and Guy who is more used to personal space.

Look how excited he gets over having his own space once they get to the Betterman Farm!

This also translates into his relationship with Eep. If you notice in a lot of the teasers so far, they’re never alone together. Grug is usually looming in the background or the family is there, they’re even using Chunky of all things to try getting away from them.

[also judging by the weave work here on the wood she’s probably in one of the spare rooms at the farm and the fact the clip launched with ‘World’s First Crush’, it might be safe to say even Eep starts to enjoy having privacy since this means you know, more Guy time but I’ll get more into Eep and what I think their ‘conflict’ will be later!] 

but ofc Grug is still there getting in their way, and if you’re a teenage boy in love with a girl, it bites hard that you can’t just enjoy one on one time alone with her. They keep getting interrupted whether it be by animals, the family, Grug or nature itself; that would cause tension for anyone’s relationship. Guy even needs to explain to Eep what privacy is and knowing how she lived, ofc this is a real weird and exciting concept for someone so used to having other people breathing down her neck.  

This translates into his relationship with Grug because I personally feel this has nothing to do with Eep herself and Guy doesn’t hold that against her. Grug is mentioned in interviews that he’s “not ready to accept Eep is all grown up and has her relationship with Guy” and that “she’s ready to leave the pack”, as Grug calls it. 

They survived the end of the world, but dynamics change, and I love continuing with where do Eep (Emma Stone’s character) and Guy (Ryan Reynolds) leave off (with their romantic relationship) and how does Grug (Nicolas Cage) accept the change that his daughter is now grown up? So we definitely further those themes of a father not wanting his daughter to leave “the pack” – as they call it – but she’s ready, and her relationship with Guy starts off where it ended in the first film.

Guy even causes what seems will be quite a fight when he tells Grug to chill out after Grug mentions “the pack is stronger together”. 

Grug probably wouldn’t be having this kind of fear if there was nothing to fear. It might be safe to say Guy and Eep are planning to leave the nest to be on their own. They’re both young adults and in love, its a natural step in a relationship to want to fly the coop. This snippet here really gives me those “engagement/promise ring” vibes with how Guy is holding the rock drawing and Eep is reacting. 

Just what did he say before this? They’re also huddling away and discussing privacy, perhaps it was the lead up into “Hey Eep, let’s move out”, or whatever the caveman version of it is.

and Grug is watching them very worriedly. 

There is something up going on with them now, and though Grug has accepted Guy and Eep, this isn’t a step he’s ready for as a father [and honestly probably after surviving The End/repaired his relationship with Eep, didn’t think would be coming this soon]

This segment in the interview really heavily implies these sort of things too:

The world is always changing, and families also change. As a father, Grug’s maybe not ready for the next step of his daughter leaving home. And with Eep and Guy I thought, “This is a great opportunity to now hand it off to them.” In the first movie it’s like puppy love between Eep and Guy. They meet each other, and they’re in love. But they’re the only two teenagers in the world, so of course they love each other. This story answers the question of why they actually belong to each other. Through the course of this story, we challenge what their relationship means, and why they should spend their future together.

You don’t talk about challenging what a relationship means and what their future will be without planning something surrounding that. They are planning and its freaking Grug out.

I also think in Grug’s own way he doesn’t want to see Guy go either, since it must say a lot about how different the dynamic of Guy and Grug’s relationship as a son and father figue have shifted if Guy feels he can tell Grug to calm down and also flirt/court Eep with protective daddy vision on him all hours of the day. When the Betterman’s show up, I am convinced Grug is going to get defensive over Guy bc he’s now as good as his son.

There’s also these little moments which seem pretty small but:

[as sour as Guy looks here, it probably means a lot for Grug to actually let Guy be in their sleep pile]

[also look how pure and excited Guy is to share about the shower with Eep and Grug]

I feel Grug does care for Guy but being how Grug is has unintentionally made Guy feel like an outsider in the Croods clan.

Now, back to the Bettermans and Guy. The lifestyle they live is clean, modernized and has routine, things Guy is probably craving with an inventive mind such as his. He’s just in heaven rn. These people are more like him than the Croods are, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. The Croods are still important to him but it probably feels invigorating to meet likeminded people.

You can already tell in the trailers Guy is going to form a bond with them. Part of me doubts they’re actually related to Guy like as parents and a sister but I won’t rule out the possibility, considering how invested Phil seems to be with Guy in a lot of the teasers and trailers. Perhaps they’re extended family or old family friends who knew Guy’s, we won’t know yet.

This bond I feel will be the prime focus of the film and conflict as well. [and no, not in the love triangle way concerning Dawn, there’s already an interview disproving that!]

“It seems from the trailer that Kelly Marie Tran’s Dawn and Emma Stone’s Eep hit it off immediately…” There’s definitely a lane that is driven a lot in romantic comedy type things where the new girl is the cause of jealousy. With Eep and Guy, when this other girl comes into the picture it would have been easy to go, “Oh, she could be the romantic rival.” We made the purposeful decision to not go down that lane.

However I do think his friendship with Dawn will be something as a compare/contrast with how Eep treats her. Both are doing what they feel is better and right for the sheltered girl, with Eep wanting to take Dawn outside the wall and Guy getting upset when he finds out Eep took her out.

He’s obviously going to catch them and lecture Eep about this. Now, how does Eep feel about Guy’s shift?

At first, I really think she supports him on connecting with the Bettermans and all the stuff he wants to do. Guy is quirky, he’s inventive, and likes to push the mold in what he can change to make life easier on himself and the people he loves. This place is his Utopia and considering the exchange she has with Grug over “a little change isn’t the end of the world”, she probably is willing to give the farm a chance because she knows Guy has been feeling lost and probably the butt of the joke lately [least where Grug is involved]

We also know Eep loves to try new things, she just in general loves new. Its what attracted her to Guy and even after it all, still loves Guy. 

However, this is what I believe is going to be the start of the conflict between Eep and Guy too. Guy starts to change too much and Guy being Guy probably doesn’t realize it. She starts seeing the farm as another cave, another place to hide and seeing Guy thriving here probably makes her feel worried about what this means for them as a couple. That wall like Eep said is Dawn’s cave, and Guy probably doesn’t think of it that way after a lifetime of danger and being on the run from The End. Also the private bedroom probably helps

Anyway, what was I saying?

also something I noticed was when they first arraive in the elevator you got Guy looking at Eep to see her reaction to this place. He’s obviously hoping she’s finding the Bettermans has amazing as he is.

and just look how happy he looks seeing Eep isn’t going to freak out at Dawn I guess??? lol 

Just “these two worlds are melding nicely”

However something I think is going to happen as the premises of the movie is both families settling their différences aside/celebrating them, is that somewhere along the line as Eep and Guy get closer to Dawn, there’s going to be a shift. The Bettermans perhaps act uppity with the Croods since they are cavemen and deemed less intelligent, so you got Guy stuck in the middle with his two found families trying to co-exist [also Eep too, bc her friendship with Dawn is obviously a major plot thread of the film]

Eep takes Dawn out for a joyride and the two bring in danger that followed them there.

“What’s on the other side of the wall?”

also totally predicting some kind of reveal that makes Guy have a temporary fall out with Phil, I don’t know why but its just a vibe I’m getting. Phil looks scared and Guy looks pretty pissed off while asking about the wall. That or he says something about the Croods themselves he feels is too far, I mean, Guy looks rather uncomfortable here as Phil says “We’re an evolved people” pretty smugly. 

“Phil those are my future in-laws, stop”

He’s also seated on their side of the table, keep note of that with the Croods on the other. There’s going to be a sense torn between both worlds going on for Guy in this film, at least I think so. And its going to challenge him and how he cares for Eep and the Croods. 

Leading into Eep and the Croods.

The big bad shows up, wrecks some shit and abducts everyone, at least it seems like it here.

“The only way to survive is if the pack stays together”, this whole adventure reminds Guy of his place in the Croods family and gives Eep and Grug a better understanding of what Guy is feeling/going through.

People loved The Croods, and they’d been trying to make another one… but it’s a high bar. I can say this because I didn’t work on [the first film], it’s a beautiful movie. It’s funny, and it’s about family. I was like, “I want to see the continuation of where we left off with these characters.” Especially with the father/daughter aspect of the first one, and going, “Now that Grug has accepted Guy into his pack, and has this great relationship with his daughter, where do they go from there?”

Something tells me Guy and Eep have their big blow up somewhere around Rafikzilla shows up, and after getting separated, Guy has a heart to heart with Grug about Eep and just their strained relationship in general. They patch things up, and together with Phil go forth to kick some monkey ass. And they reunite and things are okay again. Blah, blah, blah. Wow this got weak near the end, um but this interview sums it up pretty good for me tho.

“Was it always the idea to introduce a second family?” Yeah, that was there in my first pitch. You have the Croods come across another family, the Bettermans, who are a more evolved family, and these two families couldn’t be more different. The Croods lead with their heart, and the Bettermans lead with their brain. Of course, there’s conflict, they face challenges, but they learn to appreciate each other’s differences – not just to live with each other’s differences but to almost celebrate them. There’s a lot going on. There’s a lot of characters in this one. There’s a lot of wonderful, powerful themes. But it’s a ridiculous comedy too.

Basically, Guy is having a midlife crisis at the age of 19 and gets his shit together, Eep gets a better understanding of her boyfriend, and Grug finally backs tf off so we can get Croods 3 where Eep and Guy have a kid :U also I’ve been calling A New Age the “Shrek 2″ of the Croods in terms of how the story seems to be shaping up with Guy, Eep and the two families, I’m hoping I’m right because that would be some delicious development to see.

#the croods #croods #thecroods #the croods a new age #thecroods2 #croods2 #the croods 2 a new age #look at mr sourpuss over there

[ibijau]

chap 2 of the modern xisangyao, also on AO3

Against his better judgement, Meng Yao finds himself quite charmed by the too handsome researcher who wants to meet his employer

Mister Shanzi will be unhappy when he discovers that Meng Yao has agreed to meet with a researcher without first consulting him, but he is simply too curious. It is so odd for anyone to be so interested in that obscure painter, and so desperate to see more of his work. Of course, Mister Shanzi himself holds a clear interest in Nie Huaisang, one that he has unwillingly transmitted to Meng Yao… But mister Shanzi is an odd man, and ordinary people cannot be compared to him. 

For this reason, Meng Yao's first instinct upon being contacted by Lan Xichen had been suspicion. Mister Shanzi has his enemies, as Meng Yao knows well, and they try to act clever sometimes. 

His second instinct, after a quick internet search, had been amusement. Surely nobody expected him to believe that this man, handsome enough to play the lead in a drama, was a mere university teacher. 

A more thorough search had confirmed it though. Meng Yao knew enough about running a con to spot modified photos and fake credentials, and he had found none of that. Digging further, Lan Xichen appeared in the background of photos and was referenced here and there on relatives' social media, with no incoherence to the presentation he'd given in his email. 

So Meng Yao had found himself intrigued, and offered to meet and chat. 

A decision he half regrets now, because somehow, Lan Xichen is even more handsome in person. He is, in fact, the single most beautiful person that Meng Yao has seen in his life, easily outranking mister Shanzi who had reigned there supreme since the day Meng Yao met him during a con gone wrong. 

"I am so glad you offered to meet me," Lan Xichen says with a warm smile. "I am really sorry that I was so insistent, but it is so rare for several of Nie Huaisang’s works to be in a single place."

“I understand,” Meng Yao replies, trying to match the warmth of that smile when he can’t help being a little dazzled by that handsome stranger. “Though at the moment, my employer is a little wary of showing any of those paintings in his possession until he has inspected them all again. It is very embarrassing that several fakes fooled him, and mister Shanzi wants to restore his reputation. He is still getting used to modern technology, and how much it has changed the art market in recent decades.”

Mostly, mister Shanzi complains a lot on the matter, and keeps saying he’s going to have to change career soon. Apparently, back in the days, it was much easier to sell a decent fake as long as you also sold enough real things. But now with age testing of the paper and analysis of the ink, it’s nearly impossible to do a good enough job.

Of course mister Shanzi could quite easily make as much money only selling legitimate art, he has the connections, the collection, and impeccable taste. So Meng Yao suspects it’s not just about money, and more about the twisted joy of deceiving others. He can't fault him for that.

“Yes, that makes sense,” Lan Xichen sighs. “I was fooled as well, so I understand the feeling. It’s so disappointing, but not unexpected. Nie Huaisang attracts forgers like no other artists.”

Meng Yao nods sympathetically. He’s heard mister Shanzi boast that well over half of Nie Huaisang’s paintings in circulation are copies he made himself, and perfectly undetectable unless one runs those ‘damn new tests’ on them.

“If I may be so bold, why the interest in that particular painter?” Meng Yao asks. “Surely you could have found someone less complicated to study.”

Rather than to answer immediately, Lan Xichen considers the question. He takes a sip of tea with more elegance than this café deserves, and Meng Yao is struck once more with the idea that this man should be acting in drama, not writing essays nobody will ever read. It’s easy to imagine Lan Xichen playing the role of a noble prince, or even a god. 

“He’s just a fascinating character I suppose,” Lan Xichen says at last. “Outside of his art, we know so little about him. We don’t even know his real name.”

“What?”

Lan Xichen smiles, clearly very pleased to have gotten that reaction.

“He wasn’t born Nie Huaisang,” he explains. “That’s only his courtesy name. You see, he belonged to that… well, they called themselves a sect, though at the end of the day they were closer to nobility, with the same inheritance problems and power struggles. Still, Qinghe Nie held a number of beliefs, and one of them was that the birth name of its members had to be kept a complete secret… and Nie Huaisang is among those who succeeded at obeying that rule. So we don’t know his name, we don’t know his date of birth, and we don’t know how he died or when.”

“Is there anything that is known about him?” Meng Yao teases, more endeared and intrigued than he would care to admit.

Lan Xichen must notice, because he smiles again, as if delighted to have found someone willing to listen to his impromptu lecture.

“We know he was raised by his brother because their father died when they were young,” Lan Xichen says. “Well, half-brother. Nie Huaisang was the child of a concubine, or even of a servant. His father recognised him, but his legitimacy was called in question a few times. We know he survived a local insurrection nicknamed the Sunshot Campaign, though it’s unclear if he was old enough to have taken part in any fighting. His brother did though, with great success, but died without heirs a few years later and Nie Huaisang found himself in charge of a fief.”

He pauses there, his expression turning sadder, as if he were talking of a personal friend rather than a long dead man. Meng Yao finds it ridiculous and a little endearing.

“A few anecdotes from the lives of contemporaries tell us that he must have had a rough time at first,” Lan Xichen continues, “and he was suspected for a while of being implicated in the murder of the head of the Jin clan, but nothing ever came out of that. He’s just thirty at that point, still fairly young, and he lives on for another fifty, maybe sixty years… and we don’t know anything about what he does during that time. Nobody really talks about Qinghe Nie again until his successor rises to power and brings the clan back into the political sphere. Nie Huaisang’s life is a mystery. What little we think we know comes from the few poems he left, and whatever clues we can gather from his numerous paintings. Isn’t that fascinating?”

What’s fascinating, Meng Yao thinks, is the way Lan Xichen’s eyes light up when talking about something he’s passionate about. If it’s an act, then it’s an excellent one… but Meng Yao finds himself hoping that it’s sincere, that Lan Xichen really is just an odd man who is apparently half in love with a painter who died a millennium and a half ago.

There is no way that mister Shanzi would ever let anyone see his private collection. Even Meng Yao is barely allowed to go to his employer’s house, to avoid attracting attention to the place. Lan Xichen’s request is never going to be granted.

But it has been a long while since Meng Yao has been so intrigued by someone, not since first meeting mister Shanzi in fact. And mister Shanzi, in spite of the mutual attraction that Meng Yao knows to be there, has made it quite clear that he isn’t interested in anything but a professional relationship. Meng Yao has satisfied himself with that so far, because his life really is pretty good as it currently is, but Lan Xichen changes that. Surely there’s no harm in pretending that there’s a chance he might get to see the painting, at least until Meng Yao can decide if that too handsome man is trustworthy or not, dateworthy or not…

“It does sound interesting,” Meng Yao admits. “I’m sure mister Shanzi would…”

His phone starts vibrating, interrupting him. Meng Yao can’t help a slight frown, which turns to a deeper one when he sees the message he’s just received.

“Well, I have to go,” he sighs. “I’m really sorry. But… mister Lan, if I may be so bold, would you agree to exchanging numbers? That way we can continue talking about this more easily.”

“Yes, of course,” Lan Xichen replies. There is a trace of pink on his cheeks as he takes out his own phone, which Meng Yao finds both very fetching and rather encouraging.

He’ll have to be careful, this could be a trap, Lan Xichen might be an excellent actor, part of a team skilled enough to have fooled Meng Yao, but… but he might not be, too, and it would be a shame to miss this chance.

After having exchanged numbers and promised to be in touch soon, Meng Yao quickly heads home. He lives on the edges of the city, in a building that already looked ancient when he was a kid. Today’s a good day, because the lift is, in fact, actually working for once.

Upon getting to his floor, Meng Yao goes to knock on the door next to his. It opens nearly immediately.

“Meng Yao, you’re saving my life,” the young woman who lives there greets him. “I’m really sorry, I’ve tried everyone else, but I’ve been called in for an extra shift and I need the money so bad, I’ve had to buy her new shoes this month, and…”

“It’s fine, I don’t mind at all.”

His neighbour thanks him again, and rushes inside. She’s back quickly, her daughter in her arms. The child nearly throws herself at Meng Yao, and her mother runs off to work, leaving them alone.

“Well, Beastie, it’s just you and me,” Meng Yao says, walking to his door. “What are we going to do tonight?”

“Watch fighting movies! Eat candies!”

“And what will we tell mama we did?”

“Watch documentaries and eat greens and I went to bed and I was good!” The little girl roars.

Meng Yao laughs, and puts her down while he unlocks his door. Beastie runs inside to check the tv, while Meng Yao makes sure they actually have something to eat. He tries to keep his fridge full and his cabinet fuller, especially since Beastie has become a regular at his place. Her mother is a hard working girl who, like Meng Yao’s mother, got pregnant too young from a man who didn’t stick around. He used to babysit Beastie for extra cash before meeting mister Shanzi, and for some reason he never really stopped, even if he refuses to take money for it now. He just likes Beastie and her mom, and he remembers how much his own mother used to rely on neighbours too, whenever things became rough.

As Beastie and him settle down for the night, ready to watch one of those cheesy, over the top old kung-fu movies that they both love, Meng Yao gets a text from Lan Xichen, thanking him again for meeting him. After only the briefest of hesitations, Meng Yao quickly answers that he’s sorry he had to leave so fast, because he loved chatting with Lan Xichen. This prompts another text from the handsome teacher, to which Meng Yao replies as well.

His phone doesn’t stop buzzing all nigh, and Meng Yao doesn't stop smiling. 

-

In the days and weeks that follow, Meng Yao and Lan Xichen manage to meet in person a few more times, and text nearly constantly. At their second meeting they’re still pretending that this is only about Lan Xichen’s research, but by the third one they start openly chatting about other things.

Lan Xichen is very open about his life, and everything he says fits with what Meng Yao had found during his initial investigation. He has a little brother nearly fifteen years younger than him who lives with him, he enjoys teaching and researching equally, he has a pet rabbit called Liebing he dotes on, he can’t handle spice at all, he has, in fact, been asked more than once if he was interested in a modelling or acting career but always refused because academia is his calling.

Meng Yao is more careful with the information he shares. He admits to having worked for mister Shanzi for nearly five years, but doesn’t elaborate on how they meet because that's not a story for honest people. He confesses he didn’t have any particular interest in art until taking the job, though he has tried to educate himself on the subject since then (Lan Xichen offers to go to a museum together someday, and to his own surprise, Meng Yao agrees). He doesn’t have pets, but he does have Beastie and he’s pretty sure that counts.

The way Lan Xichen’s eyes go soft over that… it does things to Meng Yao’s poor heart.

As does almost everything Lan Xichen does or says, in fact.

Meng Yao is half appalled at himself for how fast he’s falling for Lan Xichen. He tries to resist it, tries to be reasonable, but Lan Xichen just has to smile the right way, and Meng Yao’s heart flutters in his chest. He feels like a teenager with a crush.

He starts thinking like one, too.

Ever since meeting mister Shanzi, Meng Yao has been loyal to his employer. There is something about the man that demands it, and though he has never made threats of any sorts, Meng Yao can feel that mister Shanzi is not a man who takes kindly to betrayal.

And yet, it would be so easy to arrange for Lan Xichen to come to mister Shanzi’s home without his knowledge. Meng Yao is in charge of his employer’s schedule, so he knows where he is at any given time. He also has the keys to that isolated house in the middle of nowhere. It would be so easy, and Meng Yao has never been too good at resisting temptation.

At this point, he knows that if he tells Lan Xichen he won't see the paintings, the other man will be disappointed but will ask if they can keep seeing each other anyway. This isn't about finding a way to keep his attention: Meng Yao knows he has it already. 

It's about Meng Yao guessing how happy Lan Xichen will be to see those paintings, and deciding surely that's worth the risk. 

That’s how Meng Yao and Lan Xichen find themselves in a car one day, heading out of the city together. Meng Yao feels his skin buzzing with nerves, though every time he takes his eyes from the road to glance at Lan Xichen and finds him glowing and as excited as a child, he knows it was the right choice. It takes them a few hours to get to the house, which they spend chatting about a number of things. About midway through the trip, when they take a break, Meng Yao announces that due to a last minute problem, mister Shanzi won’t be able to meet them at the house, but welcomes them to check the paintings without him. Lan Xichen is of course disappointed and offers to try again another time, but Meng Yao convinces him it’s more convenient to go that day.

The house, hidden in a bamboo forest, takes Lan Xichen’s breath away when he discovers it, just as it did for Meng Yao the first time. It’s not particularly big or extravagant, but there’s something about it that makes Meng Yao’s heart ache every time he sees it, as if he’s known it before. It’s ridiculous, of course. He’d never really left the city before starting to work for mister Shanzi.

“It looks like home,” Lan Xichen whispers as he exits the car.

“Does your family have a place like that?”

Lan Xichen frowns, and shakes his head. “No, not at all. But it still feels like home. I can’t explain why… Ah, don’t mind me. Let’s just go inside.”

Meng Yao hides a smile and goes to open the door. In truth, he’d like to get this over with as quickly as possible. Mister Shanzi has no reason to be back from his trip until tomorrow, but Meng Yao won’t feel safe until they’ve left. It really is stupid to have come here at all, and even Lan Xichen’s happiness is starting to not feel worth the risk.

The house is quiet when they go in, and a little cold, making them shiver. It’s always fresh in there, which Meng Yao assumes is why mister Shanzi has taken to calling his home the Hanshi. 

“It’s not a very welcoming name for a home,” Lan Xichen says as he looks around, sounding a little distracted.

“It’s not much of a home anyway. He doesn’t live here most of the time,” Meng Yao explains as they head for the kitchen. “It has his private collection, a few personal belongings, and that’s it. He prefers to stay with friends or at hotels if he can. Check the fridge and you’ll see how bad it is.”

While Meng Yao pours himself a glass of water, Lan Xichen does check the fridge, and finds it predictably empty except for some forgotten leftovers. Sometimes, Meng Yao suspects that mister Shanzi doesn’t eat at all unless he has company.

After taking a moment to rest from the long trip, Meng Yao takes Lan Xichen toward the workshop in the basement, where he knows his employer usually keeps the best parts of his collection, fake and authentic paintings carefully divided according to a system he taught to Meng Yao.

It really feels more and more like a betrayal to be doing this, but Lan Xichen is glowing, and mister Shanzi will never know.

Meng Yao starts opening the door.

His blood turns to ice when he realises that there’s light inside the room.

He thinks, for a second, to stop and run away while he can, but it’s too late already. Lan Xichen would ask questions, and he wouldn’t like the answers. It could save him from also dealing with mister Shanzi’s fury at least, but even that won’t be afforded to him. When Meng Yao peaks inside, mister Shanzi’s swivel chair is turning toward the door, with mister Shanzi sitting crossed leg in it and looking curiously at the intruders.

It is painfully obvious that mister Shanzi isn’t expecting visitors. Instead of the polished outfits he favours in public, he’s wearing a pair of novelty boxers with emoji on them, and a hoodie two sizes too big with ink stains on the sleeves. His long hair isn’t in a neat braid, but in a messy bun held in place by some cheap chopsticks. In short, mister Shanzi doesn’t look like the refined young man he endeavours to be when he has to show his face somewhere, and more like a college student who has forgotten the taste of any food except instant noodle and energy drinks.

That impression is only made worse by the headphones he’s now lowering, and the game console on his lap. They must have caught him taking a break.

“Meng Yao, why are you…” mister Shanzi starts asking, unfolding his legs so he can stand up, only to interrupt himself when his gaze falls on Lan Xichen.

His hands start shaking, badly enough that his console falls from his grip and onto the floor, its screen cracking upon impact.

“You!” mister Shanzi gasps, eyes wide with terror.

#xisangyao #xiyao #lan xichen #jin guangyao #xisang #mostly just hinted but still #jau writes #counterfeit au #next chapter will probably be pretty short

[kannra21]

Isn’t Suzue Daisuke’s sister?

She is and she is not. You can be right and wrong, I can be right and wrong.

Personally, I think she's his fiancée/wife. I can be right and wrong.

But-

There's evidence-

1) In the OP song Suzue was featured lying on the hood of a car and Daisuke's silhouette kicked the camera, preventing us from looking at her exposed body. It's like he's trying to protect her innocence. Ofc this could also be Haru's silhouette but no. Here's the evidence-

This is clearly Daisuke's silhouette since his hair is slicked back and he also has a cut-out line on his jacket.

Haru doesn't have that.

2) Also OP song, the creators had left us so many clues I'm still surprised that no one payed attention to details.

In every picture Daisuke's sitting on the sofa and serving looks. He doesn't care about Modern Crime Investigation or First Division Investigation squad, he looks at the camera and smiles. The only odd pictures are with the grandma and Suzue. With grandma he's not smiling, probably bc his parents deceased when he was very young so grandma is the only family member left. And then we have him smiling again but not at the camera, he's smiling at Suzue this time. I mean, she's sitting on his lap and they're looking at each other smiling. It looks pretty romantic if you ask me.

3) Creators never called her his "sister", only a "woman". She's also not addressing him with "brother", she's calling him by his name. Only older sisters are supposed to call their younger siblings by their names without using honorifics. But younger siblings should call them "older sister" in return, that's how Japanese tradition works. But we never heard him using any honorifics for her yet.

Furthermore, in the latest tweets it has been confirmed that Suzue is younger than Daisuke. She's 25 and he's 27. Normal couple's age. She's not his older sister.

4) When he talked to Haru about his past he said "I had a father and I had a mother", he never mentioned having any siblings. + When they finally reached Suzue they never said that they were family-related. The only clue we have is their shared surname Kambe. She can be his sister or she can be his wife.

Sure I can't deny that they both have dark hair and that his eyes are bluish and her grayish, but hey it's not like these features are rare in Japan. Moreover, it's been scientifically proven that people choose their love interests that resemble either their family members or themselves. They look similar but on the other hand they don't look that much similar.

In her character sheet doesn't stand that she's his sister. It would be appropriate to write "the other heir of the Kambe fortune". Why are they making her so secretive? There's no point in hiding who she really is.

5) This picture-

So this post is from the official FKBU instagram account announcing the broadcasting of episode 2. What is that ring emoji doing there? At first I thought it might even be mistaken when you write the word ‘airing’, changing the last word into a ring. But the thing is, this was originally written in Japanese so that emoji was deliberately placed along with a picture of Suzue.

"Stay tuned" + ring? I'm waiting for the confirmation.

6) Many noticed that Daisuke and Suzue aren't wearing any rings.

The reason for this is probably because she’s working a lot with her hands, we saw her doing something in her workshop so she’s obviously putting it away. Daisuke probably doesn’t wear it in order to protect her, people who seek revenge usually choose to hurt the person through their loved ones so it just makes sense. Detective job is dangerous and it mustn't be taken so lightly.

This is the only time she wore rings. Maybe the shining one is there for a reason?

7) When she seduced Isezaki Daisuke didn't have a reaction. He insisted that they should tail Isezaki in order to find his drug dealer. This proves that Daisuke has trust in her and that there weren't any awkward moments between the pair because they knew that it was all for the mission. On the other hand, I don't think that he'd allow something like this to happen to his baby sister.

8) People speculated that Haru will leave the two at some point because he disappeared from the picture.

This will allow some room for further analysis and explanation of their relationship. This could be the moment where we'll get the actual reveal.

9) In the novel she was in love with him and he was oblivious of her feelings. The story has an open ending in which they could either end up together or not. Tbh I'm just cheering them on. He also bought her a turquoise ring for her birthday. ^^

10) That's it. Let's ship them with all we have. 💍👰🤵💖💫

#fugou keiji balance unlimited #fugou keiji balance: unlimited #the millionaire detective balance: unlimited #the millionaire detective balance unlimited #daisuke kambe #suzue kambe #daisuke #suzue

[perkwunos]

David Graeber was somewhat known for being a bit snappy and quick to anger over some criticisms of his work--on the internet, anyways. As Astra Taylor put it, “his in-person kindness contrasted rather dramatically with his persona on Twitter, where he could be a bit punchy”. It’s hard not to be a bit sympathetic, though, if you look at some of the unfair criticisms he had to deal with--including from people I might have otherwise expected fairly serious and high quality discourse from. Ingo Stützle’s review of Debt, for instance, was filled with misinterpretations seemingly done for the sake of easily and cheaply drawing important-sounding political conclusions from theoretical disagreements. Take, for instance, the statement that “Graeber concludes that markets and money will continue to exist after capitalism”--a supposed conclusion, which, Stützle claims, it is “no wonder” that Graeber draws, due to not accounting for the historical specificity of the money-form and its markets under capitalism. This hasty attempt to depict Graeber as something like a Proudhonite market socialist is, of course, unrealistic. In Debt itself he even engaged in trying to give a (perhaps a bit popularized) positive meaning to the term communism that he explicitly opposes to exchange.

Stützle goes into more detail--and, perhaps due to an initial harsh reaction (on twitter) from Graeber, approaches somewhat more soberly--in his “Addendum on Graeber’s Debt.” Here, still, his writing is marred by cheap statements, as for example the pompous pronouncement that Graeber “amasses a lot of historical and anthropological material, but does not penetrate it theoretically and conceptually”, and the conspiratorial-sounding observation that Graeber has “been elevated by bourgeois forces to pop-star status.”

Stützle accurately points out a need for conceptual definition of categories with an eye to their historical and social delimitations: “Terms like population, class, or even money and credit, are therefore only concretely determined if they have been theoretically penetrated as expressions of multiple determinations and relationships. That’s important to Marx because otherwise the historical specificity of capitalist relations is projected onto the past, and only the relations of modern capitalism are perceived there.” He immediately draws a far more sloppily expressed conclusion, however, while trying to argue against Adam Smith’s universal human tendency to exchange: “exchange is not a basic human need; rather, it is a form of social intercourse which is the expression and result of the reign of the capitalist mode of production.” The exchange of commodities is not itself the result of the capitalist structure; rather, the exchange of commodities according to their value, expressing abstract labor, is what is historically specific. Marx recognized that Aristotle was able to make an accurate analysis of the value-form to the extent that he analyzed it as a relation of equivalence—because there already were, to a significant degree, social relations defined by the exchange of commodities, mediated by a general equivalent, with the notion of this thereby being a quantitatively equal exchange. The crucial difference is that Aristotle was not able to recognize any substance within that equivalence, finding it to be purely makeshift, fictional. This was not an analytical defect on his part, but an accurate analysis of the conditions of his time: these exchange relations did not consist of any such value—because there was not yet a social totality of abstract, homogenous labor to be represented by money. Aristotle could analyze the formal relation of exchange-value, but not value, because his society had exchange-values and not value.

The “real abstraction” Sohn-Rethel found already within Greek society wherever commodity exchange mediated by coinage occurred, isn’t the abstraction Marx analyzes as the substance of value, i.e. abstract labor. And yet, it may be accurate to say this earlier form of abstraction shares in a more general form, of which later capitalist exchange was one specific development. Certainly, it’s not on the face of it wrong to argue these earlier forms of exchange had an element of reification and impersonality that is quite significant, and shares similarities in that reification and impersonality with the later capitalist value-form. 

Stützle complains that “Graeber constantly refers to the character of impersonal domination. However, to Graeber this is neither characteristic of capitalist society, nor does he establish why domination takes on an impersonal character.” Graeber is fairly clear in what he sees this impersonality to be (one may say he managed to “penetrate it theoretically and conceptually”). As he puts it very early on in Debt:

A debt is the obligation to pay a certain sum of money. As a result, a debt, unlike any other form of obligation, can be precisely quantified. This allows debts to become simple, cold, and impersonal--which, in turn, allows them to be transferable. If one owes a favor, or one's life, to another human being-it is owed to that person specifically. But if one owes forty thousand dollars at 12-percent interest, it doesn't really matter who the creditor is; neither does either of the two parties have to think much about what the other party needs, wants, is capable of doing-as they certainly would if what was owed was a favor, or respect, or gratitude. One does not need to calculate the human effects; one need only calculate principal, balances, penalties, and rates of interest.

In premodern conditions, such impersonality indeed was not the universalized basis of society. As Michael Heinrich puts it, “exchange has been practiced for thousands of years, and coin money has existed at least since 500 B.C.E., but commodity- and money-relations in precapitalist eras were always “embedded” in other relations of production; they were never comprehensive, and the economy was not dominated by them. This is only the case with the spread of the capitalist mode of production.” This does not preclude the premodern emergence of impersonal forms of exchange that, while not universalizing themselves into the guiding regulator of the social totality, nevertheless play significant roles--and this is all that Graeber’s account concerns. He certainly goes quite a bit of the way in explaining why some forms of domination can become impersonal in this way, especially once we reach the “Axial Age” and Graeber supplies his account of the "military-coinage-slavery complex.” 

Stützle did have worthwhile things to contribute to Graeber’s account in Debt, in better defining a specifically capitalist structure of exchange. Graeber’s accusation of this value-form analysis being scholastic, a mere play with formal definitions with no practical distinctions to be gained, isn’t entirely fair, but I can’t blame him for seeing it that way in reaction to Stützle's piece. When attempting to criticize a work representative of such width of direct, positive research, only making quick and easy arguments (including many bad misinterpretations), and relying on just briefly reasserting previous, older research/theorizing, is bound to make one look not much more than scholastic, if one thinks one’s making any really definitive judgments. Of course, asking for more than that is asking for a lot of work, but that’s probably just what one needs to do to consider themselves worthy of a really intellectually sound judgment--especially when one’s going to make judgments such as that the thinker in question “amasses a lot of historical and anthropological material, but does not penetrate it theoretically and conceptually”, to say the least.  

[bedbathbrainfart]

Yael and Mulwarra

Hello readers! My apologies that this post is late, it will be the last post in the storytelling series other than my concluding remarks. Thanks for reading!

“Yael and Mulwarra” in Ancient Tales for Modern Kids Stories From Far Away Places. Illust. Vesna Krstanovich and John Mardon. 43-52, Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2000.

Summary:

Yael and Mulwara is an Australian tale about a bird spirit who lives in the sky world, and knows little about humans despite being half human himself. For the spirits who live in the sky world humans are clumsy creatures who lack grace and power. One day during his flying, Yael notices a rather graceful human walking along a cliff and watches as she slips and falls off. Yael rushes over and catches her mid-fall, returning her to safety on the solid ground. Once the girl regains her senses she asks “where am I? And who are you?” Yael explains that he is a bird spirit who can fly, and he saved her from falling off the cliff. The girl introduces herself as Mulwara, and soon the two begin to get along quite well. Yael asks to show Mulwara the world, and does so by holding her while he flies high above clouds showing her all of the beauties from above that she would not otherwise see. The two discover their shared love of nature and fall in love. Yael takes Mulwarra back up into the sky world to meet his father Yarnu, who is very displeased at Mulwara’s presence as humans are forbidden in the sky world. Yarnu was the leader of the sky world, and tried to trick his son into dropping Mulwarra back onto earth to no avail. The two leave the sky world without Yarnu’s blessing and are very disheartened. Yael decides to return to the spirit world by himself to consult his father. His father is pleased and claims Yael has returned to his senses, thinking Yael has abandoned Mulwara. However Yael instead asks for Yarnu to use his power to change Yael from a bird-spirit into a full human. Yarnu is enraged and cannot believe the audacity of his son, he gives a resounding no to Yael.

After some time and deliberation Yael approaches his father with his request again, and his father agrees. With Mulwarra in his arms, Yael stands prepared for his father to cast his magic unto him and turn him into a human. This will leave Yael forbidden from the sky world forever, he will not be able to return but accepts his fate. Yarnu turns Yael into a human and gently guides his son and Mulwarra down to the earth. Upon their arrival back to earth Yael and Mulwara are excited and Mulwara wants Yael to meet her family. When they go to leave however Yael tumbles over, not used to using his human legs yet and has quite a bit of trouble walking. After gaining some stability it was time to meet Mulwara’s family, who are all incredibly suspicious of Yael. Yael has different customs than most humans, and some human customs are also very off-putting for Yael - such as eating poultry. The family eventually asks the two of them to leave, which they do very sadly. The two walk together to the beach, and speak softly to each other wondering if they will ever be accepted by the others’ families and if they could love one another for a long time. While sitting, they notice a large colourful glow coming from the Ocean, it is Yarnu, Yael's father. Yarnu comes to the earth and very quickly spreads a warm blue light over Yael and Mulwarra, they watch as their feet turn to tails and Yarnu tells them he wishes them the most happiness in a place where they can be happy together. The two now-merfolk are ecstatic and lunge into the water, swimming and splashing until they disappear into the horizon forever.

Analysis:

Let me just start off by saying that this story is amazing and it was easily one of my favourites to tell. It is full of adventure and action when told, and the kids absolutely loved it. The best moments in telling this story came at the very end, when Yael and Mulwarra become merfolk and get to live happily ever after in the ocean. I found that this story worked for just about every age level being that it does take about 20 minutes to fully tell. The older kids found the adventures and scariness of Yarnu’s wrath to be really exciting and intriguing, the younger kids hung onto other details like how Yael needed help to walk once he was a human. What everyone picked out as interesting was neat to see in the classroom, kids brains are so cool! Now the story itself had TONS of symbolism throughout it that most if not all of the kids would not have picked up on in the same way adults would, but still understood those small changes. The biggest example in the entire story is that Yael and Mulwarra are both transgender.

Yael is half-bird-half-human and so he has legs like a human but wings like a bird, and a bird-like face. Ther narrative that begins the story tells us that spirits from the sky world see humans as undesirable, that they are clumsy and slow and have nothing to offer of value. Yael did not think these things of Mulwarra though. Firstly we see the immediate connection and that Yael comments on how he has never felt so free with anyone else before, Mulwarra agrees the same. Eventually Yael decides to ask his father to essentially transition into a human from his bird-spirit body, and is met by disdain from his father who does not agree that Yael should become a human. This is devastating for Yael as he can’t be with someone he loves very much. Mulwarra feels similarly and after Yael’s transition she too receives a poor reaction from her family upon introducing Yael to them.This narrative is incredibly similar to many of the coming out stories of transgender youth heard today. Someone comes out to their family members, is met with a negative or un-accepting reaction, and is forced to live as someone they do not want to be or to stay away from those who do not accept them.

Children’s literature does not often represent transgender people, not outwardly, so I found this story to be remarkable in that both characters were made to obviously be transitioning. It is a great way to introduce kids to the LGBTQ community, as many adults and educated are often fearful of explaining to younger audiences that people can love people even if they’re different from one another. However despite there being representation of transgender characters there is also the romanticization of transphobia and the trauma associated with family disapproval. Both families ultimately at first reject their children when they approach them with new partners, and this is romanticized when emphasis is placed on the idea of Yael and Mulwarra running away together. This is a common romance trope used in writing but it must be made clear that there is nothing romantic about being disowned and shunned by your own family. To follow this and add to the romanticization, at the very end of the tale Yarnu reappears with a sudden urge to support his son. This comes after telling Yael that he would be banished for life, his lifestyle choices were unacceptable, that he was no longer a part of the original family he had come from. This is a confusing shift in tone as readers by this point are convinced that Yarnu does not support his son.

Ultimately I found that this story was great for older audiences in the grade 4-6 range, but could easily be modified to be suitable for younger listeners as well. Having a story with marginalized main characters (even in fantasy) helps to show kids that there are many diverse people in the world. I found telling this story to be incredibly fun and challenging, the tale itself requires lots of acting and animation to make it come to life. This was great as it made me harness my best acting skills and pay close attention to what skills would need improving for my public speaking. Overall this story taught me the importance of animation and knowing your audience.

[meditationnearme]

Is This Crazy New Treatment The Cure To Your Insomnia? - how do you reduce stress

NuCalm promotes itself as neuroscience-backed tension and sleep technology. In practice, though, it simply helped me nap. I recently awakened from a delightful 20-minute nap. Really, it was more of a 10-minute half-nap half-trance, preceded by ideas of what I required to accomplish today that slowly liquified into the types of non-sequitur visions that take place because earliest phase of sleep.

In some way, this was rejuvenating. For the last week, I have actually been checking out the NuCalm system. According to its website, NuCalm is "the world's only trademarked neuroscience innovation clinically shown to deal with stress and improve sleep quality without drugs." It includes a neuroacoustic software application app utilized for 20- to 120-minute increments, an eye mask and the abovementioned processing discs, and in practice includes listening to ambient, cinematic sounds (comparable to this) with your eyes closed and a sticker label stuck to your inner arm.

Each of the elements are designed to set off the body's parasympathetic nervous system, which aids with recovery and relaxation. The disc is created to launch gamma-aminobutyric acid, a neurotransmitter that inhibits cortisol and adrenaline. With this and the app, NuCalm halts your body's tension action and therefore the mental and physical toll tension can handle the body.

military, 49 sports teams and in over a million surgical treatments. Some dental offices even utilize it for clients who hesitate of the dental expert. NuCalm's 'bio-signal processing disc' Although the product is touted as a way of possibly healing the body from injury, addiction and physical concerns, it appears predominately useful for relaxation and anxiety.

By this procedure, my use of NuCalm was a success: After my 20-minute session this afternoon, I certainly felt far more refreshed and awake. While a few of my sessions kept me conscious the whole time, I at least felt a bit more relaxed than previously. At the start, I 'd believed I was supposed to treat the session like a meditation, preventing letting my ideas roam.

Why I was so focused upon events of this age during my session is a secret to me, but regardless, I think I still dropped off to sleep for about five minutes. Unusually enough, a FAQ section of the app states that memory recollection is a typical characteristic of "theta brainwave variety," and that recalling memories in this phase allows you to dissociate negative feelings from them.

Overall, NuCalm did enable me to take best little afternoon naps in a structured method. I am decent at sleeping as it is, but I do believe something about NuCalm, whether it be the discs or the noises or the timer, made those naps more effective than usual. One glaring problem with NuCalm, nevertheless, is its rate.

Perhaps as I keep utilizing it, I'll find that this is a totally reasonable expense for the advantage of much better relaxation, health and sleep. At this moment, however, I 'd pay possibly $10 a month. The app likewise requires some major upgrading, as it presently only uses 3 various session types (recharge, reboot and rescue) at differing lengths and with a rather cumbersome layout.

Instead, it feels rudimentary, with lesser parts of the app like the post-session debriefing FAQ totally nonfunctional. I have actually taken some fantastic naps this last week, and I'll keep utilizing NuCalm for this function. It's a nearly simple and easy way of fitting 20 minutes of pure relaxation into my day. Whether those bio-signalling dics do anything, I'm still suspicious in addition to a cleaner app, I 'd need to get a bit more trust in the science to pay $60 a month.

Magdalene Taylor is a junior staff writer at MEL, where she began working two weeks after finishing college. Her work is a mix of cultural analysis and service, covering whatever from reconsiderations of low-brow hits like Joe Dirt and Nickelback to modern disability issues, OnlyFans and the kinds of small concerns about life like why baby carrots are so wet.

According to the company, thirty minutes of NuCalm is equal to 2 to 3 hours of corrective sleep. The NuCalm website boasts that the de-stressing treatment takes simply 2 minutes to administer and less than 5 minutes to accomplish its effects, making it the extremely meaning of a quick repair.

With its sleek website and claims of high-tech, borderline-magic outcomes, I half expected my NuCalm experience to occur in the literal future or, at really least, a center that reeked of sci-fi vibes. I believe I was imagining a workplace that looked like the ship from Passengers and a large set-up reminiscent of the memory-implanting tech from Total Remember or possibly even a coffin-like pod directly out of The Fifth Component.

My NuCalm treatment was not administered on the set of a motion picture, but it also wasn't administered in a dental expert's workplace. On the early morning of my visit, I drove across Los Angeles to Santa Monica to the workplaces of an authentic medical professional to the stars, whose Hollywood customers includes starlets, authors and motivational masters, and who boasts know-how in energy medication, integrative medication and bioidentical hormone replacement treatment.

Rather, my NuCalm experience began in a (actively) dimly lit waiting room that looked more like the living-room of an eccentric, well-traveled college professor than a medical center. The doctor was fashionably late not with another patient, simply in getting to the office. While the tardiness might usually have actually frustrated me, here, it appeared like part of the experience, almost like a sneak peek of the outcomes of the high-tech treatment that awaited me.

Throughout a quick consultation, the physician discussed the NuCalm procedure and summarized the science behind it (more on that later). The gist of the system, I learned, was this: I would chew a tablet of gamma-Aminobutyric acid, or -aminobutyric acid (or GABA, for short), a repressive neurotransmitter suggested to decrease activity in my nerve system.

I would listen, through headphones, to binaural beat music music with two various balanced pulses that activates Alpha and Theta brain waves, which are connected with the very first stage of deep sleep and meditation. Likewise, I would be blindfolded. And, in Doc Hollywood's workplace, I would do all of this while lying on a waterbed although the waterbed, I learned, is not a standard or needed element of the treatment.

I was led to a small exam space (or, possibly, a large closet), where I was offered a big GABA tablet and told to chew but not swallow it while the medical professional marked time the binaural beats and connected the Biosignal Processing Disc to my wrist. Lastly, after what seemed like a much longer duration of time than it possibly could have been, I was informed to swallow the GABA vitamin sludge, which had the artificially sweet, fruity taste and distinctly milky taste and texture of Flinstones vitamins that are a couple of months past their expiration date.

The NuCalm treatment itself was completely pleasant. The music was calming but interesting (I've since registered for a binaural beats playlist on Spotify bless the web). The milky, orange-adjacent taste of the GABA tablet didn't remain in a particularly noticeable way. And the waterbed was warmed, that made for a relaxing place to lie down and rest.

What am I doing incorrect? Why don't I feel calm? If science can't make me chill TF out, am I just a lost cause? Perhaps if I do a body scan, I'll be able to feel the results. That's a good concept. I'm going to do a body scan. This will resemble mindfulness on steroids orange-flavored, healthy steroids.

I am broken. I was wrong. It was not practically over. Maybe it's the kind of thing you can't feel in the moment, however I'll observe a substantial distinction when it's over. I have a lot work to do. Stop thinking of work and being stressed. That beats the entire purpose.

I asked how typically he advised that individuals come in for NuCalm treatments and he stated that it differs, but that some individuals "need it daily." I couldn't help however think, based on my experience and the lack of concrete outcomes, that that appeared excessive. He handed me some research study further discussing the science behind NuCalm prior to rushing off to his next appointment, and I left sensation disappointed and a little anxious about my failure to feel less distressed through the treatment.

For the record, it's not. I discovered the experience to be a little New Age-y in practice, however the system really is based in science. Drawing from neuroscience research into the patterns the brain goes through throughout natural periods of relaxation, every component of NuCalm is created to simulate that process and prompt a stressed brain to switch gears to a more relaxed state.

NuCalm works specifically on the body's inhibitory system, the GABAergic system. This gadget is bio-mimetic in that it resets the naturally taking place negative feedback loop of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which when properly functioning is expected to shut down and stop releasing cortisol from the adrenal glands after the end of a stressful occasion.

Individuals in this state are physically not able to have a distressed reaction. Within moments of application, users will start to feel remedy for the 'fight-or-flight' considerate nervous system action and their tension hormonal agent (cortisol) levels will start to decline as the HPA axis is hindered." Here's a quick breakdown of the science behind each phase of the NuCalm process.

It's really the primary repressive neurotransmitter system in brain circuits. Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid is a relaxation neurotransmitter that the body produces naturally when we're preparing yourself to sleep, so the strategy of utilizing GABA supplements to signify the brain that it's time to relax makes good sense. What's not completely clear, nevertheless, is how effective oral GABA supplements remain in triggering those advantages.

While some studies have actually revealed that GABA can cross the blood-brain barrier, others have shown the opposite, suggesting a possible placebo result behind perceived benefits of the supplements. Researchers agree that more research is needed to figure out how useful GABA supplements really are. According to NuCalm's website, the disc "simplifies the process of triggering the parasympathetic worried system, by tapping into the body's Pericardium Meridian with specific electromagnetic (EM) frequencies." The disc (which, again, was a round sticker, about the size of a quarter, that was used to the within of my wrist) was, undoubtedly, my greatest source of apprehension at the same time, and NuCalm's official explanation of the science behind it highlights the most Brand-new Age-y vibes of the company.

It is hypothesized that if you can restore the frequencies that take a trip through the Meridians you can reinstate ideal physiology. Each NuCalm disc holds the EM frequency patterns of GABA and its precursors to provide a pure biological signal to your body. When put on the within your left wrist, at your Pericardium-6 acupuncture point, the disc sends a signal to the pericardium of your heart to trigger regional parasympathetic nerve fibers, which then transfer the signal to your brain telling it to increase vagal nerve output and start the process of decreasing the body.

In 2017, Gwyneth Paltrow's GOOP promoted a $120 brand name of bio-frequency stickers, leading to a short-lived viral moment for the tech. Sadly for proponents of the devices, the action wasn't fantastic, with Mark Shelhamer, previous chief scientist at NASA's human research division, significantly decrying the GOOP-endorsed product as "snake oil." Although the NuCalm site describes that "each disc holds the electromagnetic frequency patterns of GABA and its precursors to provide a pure biosignal to your body," it's unclear exactly how putting the sticker on your wrist sets off that shipment.

#meditation for sleep

[aion-rsa]

The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone Proves a Little Less is Infinitely More

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This Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone analysis contains spoilers.

The ending will be discussed at length. If you haven’t seen it, I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse. Find the film, watch it with fresh eyes, then come back and celebrate The Death of Michael Corleone.

“The power to absolve debt is greater than the power of forgiveness,” Michael Corleone observes in the revelatory new opening of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. He may well be speaking for Francis Ford Coppola. The Godfather Part III concluded the family saga, made a profit for Paramount Pictures, and garnered seven Oscar nominations in its time, but Coppola has never been forgiven for it. The 1990 film has such an undeserved reputation, it almost feels like there was a vendetta against it. Having seen the new cut several times, the director can finally be absolved of sins he never committed.

Coppola’s finale has been bashed for its structure. Critics said he was just going through the motions and the arc of the first two films, and doing it much too slowly. However, the filmmaker was making one long film, and this is the conclusion. It references the other two films because the reality which forms this family history is well known. It is canon, the arcs are similar because each film dissembles William Shakespeare’s King Lear. The Godfather, Part III also has the balls to wear its opera cape up front, and it’s a Sicilian one. But does it move as slow as critics accused? We get an ear bite in the first quarter, a helicopter mass execution, and enough intrigue for three Hitchcock films.

The Godfather, Coda is not much different than The Godfather Part III. Coppola only cut five minutes from the 162 minutes of the original. But like a good haircut, it makes a difference, even though I think he took too much off the top. The streamlining speeds it up and makes it feel more tragic. Michael’s regrets are palpable, the dangers he and his family face are recognizable. It’s the same movie but tighter. The Godfather and The Godfather Part II are perfect films, like Casablanca or Citizen Kane, not a single scene is less than flawlessly framed, acted, and situated. The third one is a little sloppy. It happens. Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets is sloppy and works perfectly because of it. To this writer, Mean Streets packs more of an emotional punch than Goodfellas, which is also cinematic perfection from setup to cut. The Godfather III is rough around the edges.

Coppola loves the editing room as much as any wine vineyard. He recut Apocalypse Now Redux, and added scenes which may not have been imperative, but are wholly welcome. Coppola filled in the storyline to The Cotton Club for his reworking. When The Godfather trilogy was recut and re-released as a seven-hour chronological saga, it was like hearing the Beatles’ White Album with discarded tracks included. Scenes which landed on the cutting room floor were put back in. The Godfather, Coda takes scenes out. We get less of Eli Wallach’s Machiavellian cannoli-lover Don Altobello, which is a shame because his performance has grown on me since my initial viewing. Coppola also cuts Talia Shire’s Connie Corleone when she goes full-on Lucretia Borgia, ordering an execution in a chapel.

The Godfather Part III is the purest of the saga’s films in terms of cinematic input. The first film was a masterful adaptation of Mario Puzo’s book. The second one also drew heavily from the book. By the third, the motion picture saga was on its own. Part III was also the first of the films which didn’t have the Godfather himself, Vito Corleone, in it. Marlon Brando’s performance is more than iconic; it is Americana itself. Robert De Niro bridges generations as the young Vito in The Godfather Part II. Al Pacino’s Michael is the only godfather here.

“The Pope, the Holy Father, on this very day has blessed Michael Corleone. You think you know better than the Pope?”

The original cut of The Godfather Part III opens on the flooded Corleone compound in Lake Tahoe and dissolves to Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Lower Manhattan’s Little Italy. The Godfather, Coda opens with a low-angle establishing shot of the exterior of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It looks like a relic of another time. It is surrounded by the cold steel and glass of modern architecture. The midtown cathedral represents old money.

The first scene is a meeting between Michael Corleone and head of the Vatican Bank, Archbishop Gilday (Donal Donnelly). The Vatican is selling controlling shares in real estate conglomerate Internazionale Immobiliare to the Corleone family. These details don’t come out until 30 minutes into The Godfather Part III. By now putting the Vatican meeting at the beginning, followed by the Vito Corleone Foundation celebration, it fits better into the structure of The Godfather, and gives the proper weight to the deals with the Holy Roman Church.

The scene also reestablishes the Corleones as a family of great wealth. They have so much money they can bail out the Vatican. We don’t know how they made that money; we get very little detail about the years between The Godfather Part II and the late 1970s, when The Godfather, Coda is set.

We assume the Corleones had nothing to do with heroin, probably sidestepped any involvement in the Kennedy assassination, and stuck with the traditional vices, which could be best maneuvered into real power. We can imagine a Hoffa scenario because of their union involvement, but we get little indications of business beyond the chase for legitimacy. With this deal, Michael will be one of the wealthiest men in the world.

Moving the meeting also casts the archbishop in the same role that the funeral director played in the opening scene of The Godfather. The priest’s favor becomes his regret, but in a way that inverts the structure of the original film. The funeral director came to Don Corleone seeking justice after chasing the American dream, believing in it with all his soul as much as he believed in holy Mary, mother of God.

Archbishop Gilday’s impossible dream is to turn that around, to siphon the American success of the Corleone family back to Italy, after skimming his part, of course. Michael is awarded the Order of St. Sebastian from the Catholic Church after the charity run by his daughter Mary (Sofia Coppola) donates $100 million to the institution. Immobiliare is the other side of the coin, and it is a beautiful flip.

The move also fits the film closer to the original 1972 classic, positioning the Vito Corleone Foundation ceremony as the wedding scene, and introducing us to the players, and the ones who don’t play well with others. Joe Mantegna plays Joey Zasa, who is a stand-in for the John Gotti ascendancy, running Don Corleone’s old territory now that the family has moved up. Eli Wallach ties us into the family behind the family. Vincent Mancini is the bastard son of Sonny Corleone and his mistress Lucy. Actor Andy Garcia clearly enjoys this part. He turns into James Caan a few times.

Sofia Coppola’s performance has been called flat, amateurish, and not in the same universe as the rest of the film. Mary is an important part. For most of the audience, she is the most recognizable character as far as an entry into the world of the underworld. Sofia did it because her father needed her, and quickly. Winona Ryder’s unexpected bout of physical exhaustion didn’t fit with Paramount’s time schedule, and the studio’s replacement options didn’t fit the age of the character.

Coppola’s 18-year-old daughter, Sofia, still had baby fat on her face. She’d made appearances in Rumble Fish and Peggy Sue Got Married, and was used to working with her father, even though she was not an actor. European filmmakers cast non-actors all the time; they bring a real quality to roles. Lenny Montana, who played Luca Brasi in The Godfather, was a former wrestler who came to the set as the bodyguard of a ranking Colombo family member. Martin Scorsese’s mother Catherine makes an appearance in The Godfather Part III. Sofia is playing herself, a college freshman who wants to help her father.

This makes the gnocchi scene feel almost uncomfortably incestuous. Mary is Vincent’s first cousin, and we can see in the way they look at each other; it’s wrong even though it feels so right. Sofia is natural in her scenes, not emotive. She is the tourist the audience needs to circumnavigate the treacherous waters. Mary is the civilian who becomes the collateral damage of the Corleone family life. She takes the bullet intended for her father, Don Michael Corleone. Sofia did the same for her father, becoming the scapegoat for a job she took to get his movie in on time.

Read more

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Mary’s death scene has been called the worst in the history of motion pictures. It never was, and as presented in the recut, it’s entirely, emotionally effective. It’s not Bette Davis in Dark Victory, and even though it happens on the stone steps of a church, it isn’t James Cagney’s death scene in The Roaring Twenties. It isn’t meant to be. It is sad. The death itself is one of the most underplayed in film, but the music gives it the tragedy to match Michael’s reaction.

It is hard to resist the pull of the music when considering how much of a worthy ending this cut is to The Godfather saga. The themes are the trilogy’s blood and wine. Composer Nino Rota tells us when to celebrate and how to mourn. We relive Michael’s lost love Appollonia more through our ear’s memory than we do from the faded black and white photograph in the old Sicilian villa. And his reunion with Kay evokes the post-war era they met in. The music ties the film together so beautifully that this time around it feels like the skin of the original, rather than its clothes.

By the end of the film, the emperor has no clothes. Michael thinks he can break a glass ceiling through legitimate business but admits “The higher I go, the crookeder it becomes.” Senators and presidents have men killed. The church is no different. Legitimacy is an illusion. Coppola saw The Godfather Part III as an epilogue. Paramount wanted to grow a franchise. Coppola had to be persuaded to make a sequel to the first film. Paramount wanted Coca-Cola instead of wine. And they treated The Godfather Part III like the Fredo of Godfather movies.

Fredo is all over this film. How he died is the first question Mary asks Vincent. It’s the last rite in Michael’s confession to the Vatican priest who will become Pope, a scene which contains one of the funniest exchanges in the film. Michael tells Cardinal Lamberto (Raf Vallone) a list of his sins would take up too much time. The first cut may have been the deepest, but the final cut in The Godfather, Coda is the most ironic. Coppola adds the subtitle, in quotations, apart from the puppeteer logo of the films and book, and then takes exactly that promise away.

The final scene cut from The Death of Michael Corleone is the death of Michael Corleone.

The Godfather Part III ends as Michael is sitting alone outside a villa in Sicily. All family debts have been settled, but he has no family left. He is wearing dark glasses, slumps in his chair, loses his grip on the orange in his lap, and falls dead to the ground. Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone ends, not only with him still alive, but wishing him Cent’anni, telling the audience it means “for long life” and reminding viewers “a Sicilian never forgets.”

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The phrase actually translates to 100 years. Imagine how many Godfather sequels could be made in that time. Michael is left alive, alone. Atonement is beyond him. He loses his family just as he is on the precipice of finally being able to give them what they need. But the coda to Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone is an allegory to what Paramount wanted, more life. Yes, Al Pacino’s Don Michael Corleone spent all this time waiting for them to pull him back in.

The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone is available now on Blu-ray and digital.

The post The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone Proves a Little Less is Infinitely More appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[marjanefan]

‘Dead Line’ and ghosts in the machine

This review will contain extensive spoilers for the episode (and A Quiet Night In) so only continue if you have watched the episode. It also contains spoilers for ‘The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse’

Along with ‘The Twelve days of Christine’ ‘Deadline’ is one of the most discussed and analysed episodes of ‘Inside no.9’ with numerous vlogs and blogs dedicated to it. There are even several affectionate pastiches on Youtube. There is much in the episode that is worth discussing so I hope I can bring something interesting to analysing this astonishing episode.

I will be referring to both Stuart Hardy’s (Stubagful) and Inside an Mind’s vlogs about this episode so and the Q and A with Barbara Wiltshire (who directed the episode), Adam Tandy, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith at the BFI in April 2019 here are links to.

Stubagful’s review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrlU9jaMP2k

Inside a Mind Analysis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUN6zqCHh18&t=58s

BFI event

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4RgjPJKNkI

Both Stuart Hardy and Inside a Mind explore the importance of experiencing this episode as a live experience on October 28th 2018 (the date of broadcast). As someone who did watch it live all the way through on broadcast I can confirm that it was a very rewarding experience to watch live that could never be replicated. There has also been considerable analysis of how Pemberton and Shearsmith utilised the process of pre broadcast publicity (such as their interview on the One show a few days before broadcast) to set up the misdirection and theme of the episode. However this is an episode that stands up to repeated viewings (as does every episode of Inside No. 9). The episode can be enjoyed as a ghost story with a very modern sensibility and as a meta commentary on the nature of television. There is an underlying message that allows this episode to retain its power.

The very title of ‘Dead line’ hints at obsolesce and broken down technology and communication. Under the surface of both the Arthur Flitwick storyline and the actual story of the episode we see the voices of the dead come back to avenge themselves on the living who have failed to respect them. You ignore them at your peril. /p>

The ostensible story of ‘Deadline’ -Arthur Flitwick’s fateful finding of a mobile phone is worth looking at in more depth. The story is run through with references to aging and mortality. Arthur lives alone in what may be either a retirement community or sheltered housing for older people. The classical music radio station he listens to aims its adverts at older people. We see Arthur get annoyed at a radio advert for a will writing service yelling ‘We’re not all one foot in the grave!’ (possibly a reference to the long running BBC TV series). Moira refers to the fact that Elsie and herself are apparently widows. It is worth noting that Stephanie Cole who plays Moira is well known for playing Diana Trent in the long running comedy series ‘Waiting for God’ which was set in a retirement home. Arthur and Moira are dealing with the fact that they are nearing the end of their lives and the particular forms of loneliness that affect the elderly. Arthur’s eventual breakdown and murder of Rev. Neil reflects his anxiety about the intentions of younger people toward him and his generation and his isolation(it says something that he choses to befriend a ‘ghost’). This also links this plotline to the main plotline as like Arthur, Alan Starr believed he was hearing the voices of the dead. This eventually drove him to suicide.

Rev. Neil is dealing with an ever aging and dwindling congregation. The physical disrepair of his church (referred in the second clip from the Arthur Flitwick story) symbolises this decline. (Is this also a comment on the decline of the influence of organised religion?) He makes a quip about his church always being on the lookout for ‘new blood’ which can be read as being about the graveyard where Elsie is buried. This links back to the main storyline of the episode being filmed in Granada studios which is apparently built on the site of a Victorian cemetery. (The ghosts recruit the ‘new blood’ of the unnamed continuity announcer, Stephanie Cole, Steve and Reece to their ranks).

One of the most interesting things for me about the ‘Arthur Flitwick’ section is the fact that the mobile phone Arthur finds is an old style Nokia phone. This type of mobile phone has been out of fashion for several years being overtaken by smart phones. This type of phone cannot be used to access the internet or online services such as TV streaming services. It could be a nod to a time where there were no streaming/catch up TV services and where social media was not prevalent. Television was experienced very differently and as Stuart Hardy noted in his review was more of a collective experience. ‘Dead line’ is almost a comment on what has been lost for audiences and those who work in television in the age of television on demand. The pleasure of watching a programme along with millions of others and being able to share simultaneous reactions (and not spoil the programme for others!) has been more or less lost.

The first reaction of Reece and Steve to the apparent break down of the show is to reach for their smart phones to try and find out what is going on. We see Reece moan he cannot connect to his smart phone via WIFI until Steve shows him the password (there is a joke about Stephanie Cole being able to connect to WIFI while Reece cannot). Steve uses his phone to research the history of Granada studios for clues as to what is happening. Reece uses his phone to check the reaction on Twitter, getting angry at people asking if ‘the breakdown’ is part of the twist (playing on his twitter persona). It is no accident that later in the episode Steve is so engrossed with his phone that he both fails to notice Stephanie kill herself on camera or ‘Alan’ advancing toward him in the mirror, commenting on the fact that people have become so engrossed at looking at their smart phones they ignore what is actually happening in front of them.

Steve gets Reece to post a tweet asking people if they are live on BBC Two at that moment. This tweet both proved that events were happening live and comments on the way that social media has changed how audiences interact with television shows and those involved with them. For better or worse platforms like Twitter has changed this permanently. Both Stuart Hardy (Stubagful) and Jamie (Inside a mind) discuss the importance of the Twitter reaction to the show in helping build the experience for the audience during broadcast. Steve Pemberton continued this, posting a photo of himself on Halloween itself looking none the worse for his adventure bar an apparently injured arm (from apparently being electrocuted duing the show)- however a 'ghost' seemed to still be following him! (he also joked if ghosts were going to take over the episode of 'The Apprentice' that was due to be broadcast that night)

https://twitter.com/SP1nightonly/status/1057690095996858368

Many people have discussed the influence of the 1992 drama ‘Ghostwatch’ on ‘Dead Line’. Pemberton and Shearsmith acknowledged its influence at the BFI screening of the episode. Ghostwatch was itself intended by its writer Stephen Volk as a commentary on the direction of television at the time, with the growth of docusoaps and reality TV, and how audiences perceived what was presented to them on TV. It made use of the methods of viewer interactivity of the day with its live broadcast/phone in format. There was a dedicated telephone line for viewers to call into (they were supposed to get a message that ‘Ghostwatch’ was a drama). This is echoed in ‘Dead line’s use of social media. ‘Ghostwatch’ itself references the past as it was in part inspired by the story of the Enfield Poltergeist and its coverage. Television programmes referencing back and paying tribute to earlier programmes is nothing new. It helps to build continuity and tradition in what is still a relatively new format, and helps to show that television can produce work that is lasting and worthwhile. Indeed ‘Dead Line’ helped to create interest for a new generation in ‘Ghost watch’.

Pemberton and Shearsmith decided to set ‘Dead line’ in Granada studios after researching alleged hauntings of the studio. This is referenced in the ‘Most Haunted’ episode that ‘Dead line’ includes clips from. Pemberton mentioned at the BFI that it was this episode that inspired the plot involving ‘Alan Starr’, the technician who killed himself after been haunted by the voices of the ghosts of Granada studios. The original plan had been to film the episode at Granada Studios itself but at the last minute this was not possible, so it was filmed at Maidstone Studios instead. The archive material included in the show is not just furthers the story of the apparent haunting but refers back to the studio’s important status in UK television. Granada Studios had been closed for a number of years before the filming of the episode. Even if it is not actually physically haunted, it is now a dead space which carries the memories of the programmes that were filmed there and the people who worked on them. The television industry may have physically moved on, but the programmes made there remain. I wonder if this was part of the appeal for Pemberton and Shearsmith in setting ‘Dead line’ there.

It was also not the first time that Pemberton and Shearsmith had used meta commentary or included themselves as characters in their own stories. They had of course both played themselves (or versions of themselves!) in ‘The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse’ film. At least one podcast noted this and how the ‘Reece’ and ‘Steve’ we see in ‘Dead line’ are similar to the ‘Reece’ and ‘Steve’ of the film. They have great fun in playing themselves as arrogant and self-centred. This is in part self-mocking and self-depreciating but also shows an awareness that in order to be successful in the entertainment industry you do require a certain level of self-confidence and self-centredness to get your vision realised. ‘The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse’ was an attempt by the various members of the League to explore the legacy of the League and what it meant to be the creators of this very specific world and characters at a point where they were beginning to develop their own separate careers away from the League. ‘Reece’ and ‘Steve’ die in ‘The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse’ as they do in ‘Dead Line’. This represents them acknowledging that the work and characters they have created have a life beyond them and that they will outlive them. The use of ‘A quiet night in’ in the episode also comments on how creators can recontextualise their work to give it a very different meaning. Indeed some fans of the show joke that they cannot watch ‘A quiet night in’ the same way since watching ‘Dead Line’.

As mentioned at the beginning, the episode has much to offer those who have not yet seen it beyond it being a ‘live’. It certainly got a great deal of publicity for the show with several UK newspapers discussing and praising the episode and complementing Pemberton and Shearsmith for how they pulled off the twist. Inside a Mind's analysis of the episode has had over three million views. WeeLin in her Youtube analysis suggests showing the episode to someone who has not seen it each Halloween. Reece Shearsmith still gets regularly asked on Twitter if the BBC has ‘fixed’ the apparent technical faults or if they plan to try and do the episode live again. There are still people who started watching the episode on October 28 2018 or who began watching on iplayer who stopped watching after ‘the breakdown’ who are discovering or yet to discover that they need to continue to watch beyond the ‘breakdown’ at nine minutes. People are also still discovering this episode. Steve Pemberton discusses how this is part of the narrative of the episode in the Q and A after the BFI screening. The number of affectionate homages to the episode that appeared on Youtube in the months after broadcast testify to the fact the episode has a very distinct feel and structure that makes it stand out. It has become one of the most acclaimed and beloved epsiodes of the series

#Inside no.9 #Dead line #reece shearsmith #steve pemberton #ghostwatch