#none of us could fight in primary

[balkanradfem]

I remember back in the old days, when I first found radfems, I kept feeling it is inevitable that something will destroy them, someone will argue them down, shame them, point out that they’re doing something they’re not supposed to, and I kept reading on and on just waiting in fear, waiting for men to attack them and to humiliate them for speaking against the system.

But it didn’t happen. Instead, I found radfems arguing directly with men, over and over again, and defeating every single argument like it was nothing. Being raised in patriarchy, it was something I had never experienced before. I couldn’t understand the courage, the boldness and the dare to do it, I knew they were doing something dangerous, and I didn’t understand how was it possible that they couldn’t be shamed, couldn’t be guilt tripped, could not be humiliated or bullied into backing down.

They weren’t arguing with men for the chance they would persuade men to change their opinion, they were only showcasing for the other women, how to defeat those arguments, why are they wrong, why was it okay for a woman to fight back, to argue back.

I can remember the exact moment of reading one of those arguments, that reprogrammed my brain. I only wish I could find it again.

A woman was arguing against a man who kept saying things like ‘And how does this benefit us? Feminism is for everyone? You’re not helping anyone by being sexist and excluding men! What about the men who are abused, who are dying, traumatized, disabled? You’re uncaring and selfish **** and you should be shut down! You’re generalizing and demonizing half of the population! What about what we feel? What about our mental health? Men are victims too!’

And these arguments are something I’d heard so often I had them memorized, and reading radfem ideals, these arguments would constantly activate in my head, that we’re selfish and cruel if we don’t take care of the men in need, that compassion towards men is something we absolutely must have if we are good, normal human beings, that it’s only reasonable for men to despise us unless our movement is also proving useful to them, that they must have benefits too otherwise we’ll never get their support, never get anything done.

But the woman arguing back was having none of it. She asked right back ‘Why should you benefit out of it? Why should men get anything from a movement of women’s liberation? Do you only support women’s freedom and women’s rights if you directly benefit from it? Women are a half of a human population too, and you never once sacrificed anything to benefit us, yet you expect every single time that we sacrifice ourselves in order for you to get more benefits.

Why would I be uncaring and selfish if I don’t care about the men? You’re our primary predators, you are the number one cause of death in women, you are the reason we cannot go out safe at night, you’re the reason most if not all of our ancestors spent their lives in servitude, never getting to pursue their passions, never getting acknowledgment, money, land, legacy and matriarchal line of last names they deserved. You are shaming me like a wolf would shame a prey for running away from him, do you think a woman’s morality is to be questioned if she doesn’t feel compassion for a man who is holding a boot on her neck? Who is most likely to kill her? We have to put our safety before your feelings, for the sake of our own survival.

Why would men be what everyone and everything else must benefit? You think the rest of the world exists as resources to you, you believe we exist for you, to be used and violated and exploited by you, and you treat us accordingly, shaming us for having one place where we care about ourselves, and not you.

We have said nothing but the explicit, factual truth about the men, and if you find this demonizing, that’s on you. If mankind hasn’t oppressed and violated women’s freedom and lives for thousands of years, there would be no such facts to tell. If the truth reveals something rotten and demonic in you, that is not on us. We won’t shut up about what happened just because it makes you feel bad. Your feelings do not trump reality.

When men are victims, it’s primarily caused by other men, and in those situations, what do you expect us to do? Fight other men to save you, when we’d likely be killed? Fight for men, even though these exact victimized men are more than happy to go and victimize women, because now they have a great excuse of being victimized themselves? Men use everything, even their own victimization, against women. We do not have to feel compassion for those who have never, and will never feel it for us.’

-

It was while I was reading this, that I realized. I have been living all my life, until that moment, brainwashed to believe that I exist for men. That we all exist for men, that we’re around to make their life easier, that giving them whatever they want is mandatory, that we’re to be used. I believed my every word, action, thought, even appearance, has to be pleasing and approved by men in some way, or I would be shunned, punished, despised, and eventually, tortured and destroyed, for not being of use.

I believed that was reasonable, because men kept claiming it was, because they were arguing it loudly, with a threat of violence and humiliation for everyone who disagrees. I also believed it because I’ve never seen anything else. I’ve only ever seen women in servitude, acting like it’s natural to be so. All women in my family were servants of their husbands, almost all women in media were sexualized for men’s pleasure, almost every grown woman I’ve known was inclined to jump at male attention. Institutions, jobs, education, everything was favouring men, and we could have a try at it, but would ultimately be expected to be caretakers, or if we have a job, contribute money to men, to take off pressure from their responsibilities. We were supposed to believe they knew ‘better’ about what to do with money anyway. I’ve never dared to question it because the backlash was so hateful, violent, abusive and terrifying, I believed I would be a bad person if I thought otherwise, if I shut my compassion down.

But now, a handful of women online could argue it out without any fear of retribution because they were anonymous, they could not be touched, they could say anything, and no violence would reach them because it was anonymous platform. Men could rage at them but not touch them, never beat them. The power in that was unbelievable.

Realizing all this made me enraged, distressed, mortified, and determined to get free. From that moment on, I’ve not spend a second longer believing I exist for men. I never again considered if anything I wanted to do benefited them or not, or if anything that would benefit me would be well received with them as well. They never did this for us. They never took us into consideration when building the entire goddamn world. We do not exist for them. We are humans too. We are not selfish for not extending our patience and compassion to oppressors and predators. We are not responsible for troubles they create for themselves. And we do not have to sacrifice our rights for their convenience.

#radical feminism #radfem #anti patriarchy #old radblr #male arguments #anti male

[rumor-weed]

JOHN MULANEY STARTER PROMPTS

Kid Gorgeous Edition.

“He was a man most acquainted with misery.”

“None of that matters, but it's important to me that you know that.”

“He did not look like his job description.”

“He looked like he should be the conductor on a locomotive powered by confetti.”

“But, instead, he made his living in murder.”

“He was the weirdest goddamn person I ever saw in my entire life.”

“He could look at a child and guess the price of their coffin.”

“Shut up! You're all gonna die. Street Smarts!"”

“You remember the scourge of muggings when you were in second and third grade.”

"Man, I need cash for drugs right now.”

“Okay, you can get these at any haberdashery.”

“Buy a money clip. Engraved, question mark?”

“Hey, Dad. Can I have a silver money clip with a $50 bill in it, please?” (Or sub “dad” for character name, if you’re a coward)

“The man with the mustache told me to do it.”

“Let's say a kidnapper throws you in the back of a trunk.”

“You kids have no upper body strength.”

“Yeah, he was not a "spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down" kind of guy.”

“Brush your teeth. Now, boom, orange juice. That's life.”

“Fight the guy off using weird, psych-out, back-room Chicago violence.”

“I chewed up a tab of Alka-Seltzer I carry with me at all times. This created a foaming-at-the-mouth appearance that made it look like I had rabies.”

“Now I've thrown him off his rhythm.”

“Okay. Your odds of coming back alive from the primary location, about 60%. But if you are taken to a secondary location, your odds of coming back alive are slim to none.”

“I am 35 years old and I am still terrified of secondary locations.”

“Nah, sister. You're not getting me to no secondary location.”

“I thought I was going to be murdered my entire childhood.”

“Top three colleges? I thought I would be dead in a trunk with my hand hanging out of the taillight by now.”

“I just got a letter from my college, which was fun 'cause mail, you know?”

“So then I had to speed to Goodwill really fast.”

“It was charitable, but it was also fast and violent.”

“I was throwing boxes at people. The boxes were so heavy I couldn't even say what was in them.”

“This one's shirts. I got a bunch of shirts! Take 'em away!"

“How do I write that on my taxes?”

“My mom said it could be a sleep shirt. Please deduct this from my 2017 income.”

“So rather than violate these meaningless politeness rules, I'll just go to bed in a smock like goddamn Ebenezer Scrooge.”

“I'll tremble off to bed in my long Victorian nightgown.”

“Was there ever even a ghost, Mother, or was the dead Victorian girl you saw just me all along?”

“And that's why you shouldn't give to charity.”

“I found out recently that jokes don't do well in court.”

"Hey, that lawsuit with my neighbor is still dragging on.”

“Hey, do you want me to kill that guy for you? Because it sounds like he sucks and I will totally kill that guy for you.”

“Okay. See you at improv practice.”

“Strange, the passage of time.”

“I'm not that old. I'm 35, that is not old.”

“I never knew about this, but I am now gross.”

#ask memes #John Mulaney #kid gorgeous #RP starters #starter prompts #John Mulaney RP starters #John Mulaney starters #John Mulaney kid gorgeous #alter as needed #if I make another it’ll be the new special #John Mulaney ask memes

[thewebcomicsreview]

A lot of the best writing is just doing simple basic obvious shit and doing it consistently. This page from Clown Corps is a great example.

For those who don't read Clown Corps....read it, it's great. Anyway, Morgan is a Clown (which in this setting is a superhero), who just learned that the mime-themed supervillain Echo, who has the power to mimic clown magic but had her mouth sewn shut against her will, is her long-lost sister Maggie, and now we have a flashback to happier times when the sisters go to a carnival (i.e., a place where clowns are).

This actually started on the previous page, where Maggie is winning stuffed animals and giving them to kids. Superficially, this is just a cute stage-setting scene, but every panel here is ironic. First, Maggie is accused (jokingly, but still) of being a criminal. "Suddenly you can't miss" lets us know that she sucked earlier but then became incredibly skilled at hitting targets. Maggie attributes this to being a "fast learner", a reference to the powers she'll later develop. That she's giving the toys away shows that she's not doing her "hustle" for nefarious reasons, much like as an adult her ethics are murky. And then the "fun's over" when her sister the future superhero shows up.

Then, in the next page, Morgan is mad her sister disappeared, and Maggie is mad she was expected to stand around quietly. This sisterly fight is foreshadowing Maggie's fate.

In the next panel, Maggie does a 4th-wall-breaking joke about how "it's not that kind of flashback". The primary source of jokes like this in Clown Corps is series protagonist Mary McBell

This joke is incredible

And in present day, it's Morgan who's most supportive of McBell. This panel recontextualizes the Morgan/McBell relationship. Morgan likes McBell because McBell reminds her of her long-lost sister. This connection would also serve to shorthand Maggie's personality for us, if it wasn't already coming through clear.

Morgan complains that mom made her bring Maggie along, which kind of establishes the relationship between then, and then Maggie hits Morgan with this savage burn. The out-of-nowhere horoscope reference is great, it's a specific hit on Morgan, not something that would be obvious to a reader from from these two pages. It feels more real than if she'd referenced something that we'd already learned about Morgan. Also "My nail polish doesn't match my horoscope" is just a funny line.

Oh yeah, and also this is the future Echo mimicking a future Clown. Don't forget that part.

And then the final panel is Maggie fully aware of what an annoying little shit she's being, but her expression is that of a girl who expects that Morgan is going to buy her that corn dog, glare be damned.

And, like, none of these panels are super mind-blowing genius moves that you'd need to be a twelfth-level intellect to come up with. Individually it's all really basic. It's impressive that all this referencing stuff feels like a natural conversation, but you - the girl reading this - could do that. What makes Clown Corps great is that it does this nearly every panel. Nothing is wasted, nothing here is doing just one thing. It's a sublime example of asking "Can I get more out of this" every single panel, because the answer is usually "Yes".

#Clown Corps

[mysticsublimeperson]

Part 1 >>

Merlin was disappointed, but mostly at himself. He always knew that Arthur would never actually be in a relationship with him, he will humor Merlin sure, he would tell people as long as they didn’t know Uther, and there weren’t risks of his father finding out, he would say that he loved Merlin but then did shit like this all the time. He would cancel plans and dates, and once even a week long trip that they had planned in favor of his father, and his company. Sometimes he would even cancel Merlin to have a date with one of the girls that Uther threw his way.

Usually it didn’t bother him that much, of course it hurt but he had known Arthur for most of their lives, they had been friends before… whatever they were now, he had always been like this and Merlin had always permitted it. He guess he never thought about asking for a change before, so that’s also his fault.

But he had been trying, it was sad enough when Arthur missed his birthday dinner Merlin had cooked, because his father had booked a flight to France, but he could understand it, it was his birthday, it was normal to spend it with one’s family. He made a point to tell him, tell him he was sad about this stuff, tell him when a plan was important to him, tell him when his words were too harsh or hurtful. It usually didn’t stick, they were to used to say shit jokingly but a few things he did, and he’ll try his best to keep his promises unless Uther was in the picture.

He knew the situation with his father was tense at best, Arthur had always fought for his approval, and, aware or not, that was still his primary concern. He knew he had no right to get between their relationship, and knew he would be losing that battle before it began. He didn’t doubt Arthur’s feelings for him, but he could not help but doubt whether they were worth fighting for in his mind. In the end Merlin had always been there, he had always been prone to forgiveness, because he cared for Arthur above all, in the moment he didn’t really notice but in retrospect he really didn’t put much of a fight.

But he had done it this time. He had made sure his voice was heard. He had said that this night was important to him, he had made sure to tell him to save the date in advance and to explain several times what this night was about and what was important to him. He made sure Arthur knew the date, the time, the place, the dress code and the reason.

Merlin was excited.

His organization and research were going to be awarded, and if it all went well he may end the night with the funding necessary to keep the NGO going and even maybe expand some projects.

But then Arthur had wrote, “my father is in town” and then a couple of minutes later “sorry”

When Uther was in town, that meant that night he had to have a dinner with his children, a boring and stuffy dinner in a top restaurant to expensive for Merlin to even look at, and sometime he invited the daughters of some friend of his just for them to get to know each other.

He breathed slowly, looking at the message, here in front of the theater where the Gala was going to take place, dressed up all fancy. Trying to decide how to convey in a text message all the things that he was feeling.

He was going to be awarded, celebrated god damn it. It was unfair, it was terribly unfair for Arthur to do this just before the Gala, he was supposed to be happy and now he only wanted to go home.

He had wanted to share this moment with him and maybe He had also hoped to show off a little, Arthur was a very important person by definition. Maybe he had wanted to show Arthur that Merlin also had value.

But none of that mattered now.

He had gone to the Gala, alone. Regretting the moment he decided to invite Arthur instead of Gwen, he had put a smile on his face and turned off his phone, he had drunk Champagne and eating those mini tart of savory food with strange textures and tried to enjoy the evening with his colleagues. He had gone up the stage a grand total of three times, one to present, the other two to receive the great honor that were those awards. He had smiled, and changed the speech on the go to not mention “one special more than a friend” he had answered the questions of the reporters and declined the offer of his colleagues to extend the evening.

And now he was there. In a bench in a park eating a Kebap in a too-fancy-for-this place suit, next to a fancy bag, which contained two fancy boxes of two really important awards, while questioning his relationship.

He had seen cases like this all the time, he dedicated his life to help people in this kinds of situations, more or less, his relationship wasn’t dangerous of violent, and he was very much independent but the root of the problem was the same. The relationship was destined for failure.

They clearly wanted different things.

They had different ideologies, and priorities.

It was a disaster waiting to happen.

But it hurts so much.

He was freezing, but he still ordered another Kebap, he hadn’t been able to eat because of the nerves all day and it was catching with him.

He needed to make a decision.

He couldn’t keep going like this.

This was supposed to be a happy night.

He walked up to his flat, quietly thinking to find Arthur sitting in front of his door.

“Where were you?” Arthur accused upon seen him.

Merlin let his eyebrows go up. Trying to remember that it was early in the morning, and his neighbors were sleeping.

“Shit, sorry… it’s just… I been calling you and…”

“Get away from the door Arthur” he let the voice come out angry but he didn’t really want to talk right now.

“Of course, yeah, sorry” If this were any other situation, Merlin would had joked about the fact that Arthur never tended to say sorry, but right now that made him rather sad.

He opened the door and walked inside, and blocked the way when Arthur tried to do the same, just letting his tired expression do the job, he was way too tired and he had eaten two Kebap in a shop open at 2 am, and was starting to regret it.

“Merlin, I… Look I know today… I am sorry Merlin, it was a shit show at work, and my father came at the worst possible moment and…” he said trying to coax his way into the flat, but Merlin didn’t move “Can I enter? I think we need to talk… I need to apologize properly and explain my self and…”

“No” he stoped the Arthur’s babbling “It’s been a rather long day, and I want to rest” his voice was maybe a bit too loud and hard “and I don’t wanna talk right now” he added honestly.

“Ok.. yeah, I understand” he clearly didn’t, but at least was trying to or having a stroke, either way not Merlin problem right now. “Can I..?”

“Go home Arthur” Merlin stopped Arthur again.

“I hoped this was it” Arthur said sharp. And Merlin didn’t have the fight to shout all the shit he wanted to say.

“Not while your father is in town”

Merlin closed the door. He stunned Arthur enough to do it without a fight. And he could only hope that he had the common decency to not bring his door down at four in the morning. He had wanted to do a lot, but he was way to tired, physically and emotionally so he just laid off the bed and slept.

#fanfic #merlin #arthur pendragon #au #bbc merlin #fanfiction #idea #merthur prompt #merthur au #merthur #merthur fanfic #modern au #hurt/confort? #hurt/comfort #drabble #part 1 #uther pendragon #fuck uther #hurt!Merlin

[backofthebookshelf]

Okay, fine, you've finally pissed me off enough that I'm willing to talk politics on tumblr

I can't speak for all leftists, but when THIS leftist says they're having a hard time voting for Biden this time around, it's not because I don't want people to vote or because I genuinely think Trump wouldn't be any worse

It's because this is the administration that made me finally realize, on a deep and profound gut level, that none of these people actually care about us. That electoralism won't save us - HASN'T saved us, not from COVID, or wildfires, or cops, or billionaires, or genocide.

"But Trump will make all those things worse--" Yeah for sure! But things are bad enough right now that we can't, at least I can't, continue on like things are now, even if I felt like I could trust Biden (or any Democrat, let's be honest, this isn't about him at all, we're not even fighting about primaries this time because we aren't being given a choice) to keep them from getting worse.

By all means, we should vote for Biden, because things getting worse more slowly is better than things getting worse faster. But we deserve better than a life that only gets a little bit worse every year, and I'm sick of people telling me I'm being ungrateful for wanting more than that.

Again: THIS ISN'T ABOUT WHO TO VOTE FOR. this is about spending your time on something, anything - union organizing, clean air advocacy, bringing food and shelter to the houseless, physically preventing the movement of weapons and military contractors - that has a better chance of saving lives than any politician.

"The revolution isn't going to come next year -" okay, well, neither is pushing Dems far enough left that they stop supporting Israel or do anything about emissions or anything else that treats human lives as more important than a billionaire's profit margins. The presidential election happens once every four years, WHY are we ceding an entire year to defending a piece of shit because he's slightly less of a piece of shit than the other guy? What if I told you there's a secret third thing, and that thing isn't voting for a third party but making a once-every-four-years vote as unimportant to you as your wants and desires and hopes and dreams are to any of the people you'd vote for and working your ass off on SOMETHING THAT HELPS PEOPLE instead?

#and look #i am not an accellerationist but every one of y'all who vaxxed & relaxed is testing my patience #because personally my life was a lot better in 2020 than it has been since #and every disabled person i know (who was disabled before they got covid) tends to agree #at least then y'all acted like we were in a crisis #i do not want to be an accellerationist because revolutions are BAD to live through #but y'all could help by actually treating anything like it matters before it impacts you personally

[valc0]

Hannibal rewatch and Baldur's Gate 3 ramblings

I recently re-watched the first season of Hannibal after almost 8 years and since I’m now deep into another fandom (BG3) I analyzed some of the themes of the show and how parts of it could tie in with the story of the game, particularly when it comes to the Dark Urge.

I’m also doing a review because why the hell not. I divided the text into sections for convenience, so if you want to read only the review or are exclusively interested in my speculating ramblings on BG3 you can easily do that.

It’s a long one so let’s start.

REVIEW

THIS REVIEW IS NOT SPOILER FREE AND WILL GO INTO GREAT DETAILS ABOUT THE TWISTS AND PLOT POINTS OF THE SHOW.

If you didn’t watch it and you like thriller/crime/horror please do yourself a favor and watch this show now!

I’ll start by saying season one, to me, is almost perfection. It’s 13 very well crafted and acted episodes and almost none feel like filler (almost but we’ll get to it). The crime of the week structure is integrated with the horizontal themes of the season seamlessly and the story avoids exploring too many parallel plots, making the theming very cohesive.

I remember watching this show for the first time and finishing season 1 in about 2 to 3 days, but I’d never think the same would’ve happened a second time. The first 5 episodes had me in a clutch from the start. Every character is fleshed out and extremely well written, the acting is impeccable, the writing is phenomenal and the visual, even when getting symbolic, never seem gratuitous or nonsensical in their use of analogies and dream-like visions.

The photography is also phenomenal, with great use of contrast that makes the image and scene clear even though it's set in the dark or at night.

If I had to rate the season I think I’d definitely give it a 9/10, and the 9 is only because of two small things that I figured I’d get out of the way first:

(I must remember whoever is reading this that these are my opinions, they don’t mean to offend anyone else differing opinion. You’ll see what I mean in a second.)

Alana Bloom x Will Graham is forced, comes out of nowhere, and makes Will act out of character most of the times.

I’m not getting into ship-fighting, this is not about shipping, I like Hannigram but I have no dog in this fight so this is totally not about it. Episode 8 is great, it has one of the best kills in the whole season and Will deteriorating stability makes for great lines and visuals, other than a lot of tension since he can no longer be predictable and ends up disrupting Hannibal plans.

And though I could attribute the way he acts towards Alana as something he does because of this deteriorating mental state, it doesn’t really feel like it. He seems very present during those scenes and acts weirdly romantic for the reclusive stray-collector, whose primary hobby is fishing and who’s been plagued by visions of death in the past episodes.

I would have rather see them to grow more of a non-romantric connection that may or may not have become romantic in later seasons. It all seems a bit rushed imo.

I also know they are setting up the Alana x Will x Hannibal. Which I’ll be honest I don’t remember liking the first time I watched it...but we’ll see.

2. Episodes 9 and 11 slow the show and kind of drag the pace.

Episodes 9. The totem of bodies is a very striking and memorable visual, but the crime in itself is very bland and the killer only gets a 5 minute scene towards the end which is anticlimactic and kinda too much tell with too little show. It’s honestly a shame because the murders in the previous episodes were very well crafted and paced. This one, not so much. I understand the need to connect the themes of “legacy” and “family” with Abigail’s actions but I feel like there could have been better ways to do that in previous episodes.

Episodes 11. I loved the whole Chesapeake Ripper fake-out, but I’ll be honest I don’t think I needed a whole other episode of Abel Gideon’s story. Didn’t really care for the plot of this and the pace was a little too slow. Good things about this episode are the ending with Hannibal at his most manipulative, and the fact that it starts Chilton’s comedic chain of misfortunes– which cracked me up the first time I watched the show because come on!! this guy is awful and can’t catch a break, you love to see it.

Now that the “bad” is out of the way let’s talk about the good, which is honestly everything else.

Episode 1

Banger of a pilot. Everything for the rest of the show is set up in only 42 minutes if you can believe that. Characters are fleshed out, themes are placed, conflicts are started. By the end of the episode all you want is MORE. I have very little else to say other than the pacing of this one should honestly be studied, a lot of modern series would need the lesson imo.

Episode 2

Interesting case with a lot of great scenes that reinforce the characters and their relationships. You get a first glance at how campy? the show can be, which is honestly something I love, I’m kinda tired of the “realistic to the point of boredom” trend I’ve been seeing lately. Freddie Lounds is properly introduced as the disrupting force she is and we get a jumpscare that made me curse. Sorry, did I forget to mention I’m watching Hannibal and I cannot stand horror? Lmao

Episode 3

LOVE this episode, the way this show makes you feel powerless as you watch the events unfold knowing full well what is happening and who is responsible...amazing! I love Abigail’s character and the very innocent and pristine way she is portrayed when you know later on the truth will come out is chilling.

Episode 4

I remember how grim I found this episode the first time and the feeling returned the second time around. Hated the killer with every fiber of my being and the fact that she kinda looks like Catherine Tate made me die a little. Also the scene of Hannibal making himself a family through gaslighting and creative use of drugs and lies was amazing.

Episode 5

I loved this crime and the way the episode paces the killings. The angel symbology was great, I’m a sucker for catholic and religious themes tied into vicious crimes. The series also introduces Bella, Jack’s wife, which I’ll be honest I don’t remember having a good ending...I don't remember exactly how, but I know I will cry.

Episode 6

Favorite episode by far, the tension in the flashback scene is palpable and when you see Miriam looking at the sketch with the silhouette of Hannibal pacing towards her in the background AAAHGGG- RUN Miriam OMG! This is the episode where you realize how absolutely scary Hannibal’s physicality can be. Mads Mikkelsen is 1,83 (5ft 11) but he feels like a giant in those scenes, like you can do shit about it.

Episode 7

The episode’s case is a botched transplant one and it’s just okay, nothing too spectacular, but the way this series makes me hungry should be concerning, since I just watched Hannibal kill and butcher people who slightly wronged him to make a feast out of them. I’m sorry, whoever is directing the shooting of the food is doing a good job, okay?

Episode 8

My second favorite episode yay! I love this kill because it’s so over the top. Also the visual of a person played like a cello is haunting just as much as the sound they decided to give it. “He had to open you up to get a decent sound out of you.” okay Will go off?!?! A bit sad they took this murder from Hannibal since I believe it was his in the books, but the end fight was worth it (though when Tobias started swinging his impromptu cello string weapon I did cackle because omfg calm down)

Episode 9

See section above

Episode 10

I shat myself watching this episode with all the horror vibes I’m dying please, I’m watching this through my fingers like a baby. I did love this episode though, and the final twist of Hannibal going to such lengths to be sure he leaves NO ONE behind is terrifying. Dr. Sutcliffe even agreed with him and didn’t show signs of wanting to betray or rat him out, and yet in the big scheme Hannibal still found it better to kill him. Scary stuff.

Episode 11

See section above

Episode 12-13

Putting these together because they are the finale and are closely linked to each other. There is no real “crime of the week”, though Georgia Madchen dies at the start of episode 12 and Abigail...dies at the start of episode 13. Will continuously declining psyche is very well portrayed, you really feel powerless with him as his brain keeps betraying him over and over at the worse possible times. Also Hannibal fake-empathy is so uncomfortable to me...knowing the lengths he’d go to manipulate the situation after seeing all the “behind the scenes” is chilling. All in all it’s a good finale though it really doesn’t feel like one. By the end Will managed to see Hannibal’s true colors, but I don’t think he’ll fully understand what he’s fighting against until he actually sees Hannibal in action, so it does feel inconclusive in a way. We do get Hannibal funny naked fursona is all its glory though so, big happy for me!

Now let’s get in my current fixation and tie in some of the themes of Hannibal with Baldur’s Gate 3. YAY!

BALDUR’S GATE 3 – Dark Urges, Bad Dreams and Worse Influences

Let’s get something out of the way first.

The Dark Urge is a very flexible and versatile character which is mostly – if not completely– shaped by the player. We get to decide if they refuse the Urge, with the bittersweet realization they still took all those lives and will have to deal with that guilt. OR we could make them machines of slaughter and death, embracing their father’s plan for them to be the killer they were made to become.

There are other variations of this and from what I’ve seen many Durges have very different characteristics depending on how the player interpreted and played the game.

This to say, all of the following dissertations on BG3 and the themes of Hannibal are my personal view of MY Durge or the way I see the character in general, which is extremely personal and could crash with someone else’s interpretation or headcanon. Keep that in mind while reading, if you see me using absolutes or if I forget an “imo” at the end of a sentence, remember this is ALL In my opinion, none of this is to be considered as a general and all-encompassing statement for every Durge out there.

That said, you’ll be surprised to know in my interpretation the Dark Urge isn’t Hannibal, what’s funny is that the Dark Urge isn’t Will either.

Durge is both characters at the same time, and depending where they are in their journey, this may change.

In the case of Will, towards the end of the series you get a more “start of the game” Durge. The memory loss, the confusing thoughts, the haunting dreams and then this weird hellish creature (Sceleritas Fel) guiding them. By this point Durge is still a victim of their circumstances, they can’t really grasp who or what they are and their mind is in complete shambles.

I can see a Resist!Durge in this scenario, someone completely horrified by their actions starting to question who they are, what they did, and if they can ever change. This point in the game isn’t spelled out as much, the narrator often refers to it but the real extent of psychological damage a Resist!Durge must face is left completely to the player’s interpretation, that’s why I think Will is such a great starting point to understand and visualize the character of Durge from a distant POV.

With Hannibal you get a more pre-tadpole pre-Orin-meddling Durge. Someone who knows what they’re doing and how to get what they want. I personally never saw my own Durge as this calculating, something in the feral way the Urge gets to the character in game made Hannibal a tad too composed to fully be an inspiration for Durge, but I’ve also seen other people Durges as cool and collected killers, and the comparison in that case works really well.

Another interesting characteristic of Hannibal we can see in Durge is the twisted way he thinks in relation to others. Hannibal calls himself Will’s friend, and I believe he’s genuine in his affection since the way he helps Will is in done in earnest.

This helping though, it’s monstrous in all sense. Hannibal lies, literally gaslights Will, meddles with his head and denies him medical help. He manipulates him into killing, only to watch what unfolds simply because he needs someone who understands him. By dragging Will deeper into his world and making him a killer, Hannibal cultivates what he perceives as Will’s true nature and potential, making the man a suitable friend for himself.

It speaks to Hannibal narcissism that he would consider helping someone as making them more like him. But then again that’s also why Hannibal is so drawn towards Will, because he thinks differently and he IS different from him. He doesn’t have the same amount of interest or even respect for someone like Tobias, who’s probably the most Hannibal-like killer we get to see in season 1.

He needs the challenge, he needs to feel in control. And ultimately, though not in an usual sense, Hannibal needs a friend. He is lonely.

This works a lot for Durge in the sense that they may or may not corrupt people around them. As a player we get the choice and power to influence how companions act and react, and this kind of duality of “I like them, I want to help them” and “I want to make them like me” is a good motivation to give a Durge who may, for example, ascent Astarion, or turn Shadowheart more towards Shar, or give Gale a power complex (more so than he already has) ect.

BONUS! And then came Durgetash

In episode 1 Hannibal visits Will and brings him breakfast. While they chat in a honestly beautifully lit scene, this exchange happens.

Hannibal: You know, Will, I think Uncle Jack sees you as a fragile little teacup. The finest china, used only for special guests. Will: How do you see me? Hannibal: The mongoose I want under the house when the snakes slither by.

Did I mention I love Durgetash? Did I mention I go completely feral over unhealthy dynamics and specifically this kind of dynamic?

“The mongoose I want under the house when the snakes slither by.” is an amazing line for Gortash because I do believe the reason he wanted Durge to side with him was that Durge was extremely good at being undetected, and even more so skilled at killing the right target at the right time.

I love the idea of Gortash using Durge as a shield/weapon, and Durge using Gortash to economically sustain and socially shield Bhaal’s cult. I love to think their relationship was born because they were useful to each other and that in this completely selfish ecosystem they somehow found company.

Because I’m sure Durge pushed back. I’m sure they realized they were being used and didn’t like it one bit, and Gortash kept Durge around even though they may pose a threat, for the same reason Hannibal keeps running circles around Will. Gortash needs a challenge. Being head of Bane’s cult means that other than his God, no one else is above him, and I think a man who’s been fighting his whole life to gain control would feel a bit lost when this control is automatically given to him without a fight.

In the same way I think Durge would yearn for something more, something different than what they’re stuck with, which is a dying cult forced to hide beneath the city, and a jealous and over-zealous sister who I’m sure tries to kill them once a week. I think they would get pulled in by the promises Gortash would make. To rule together, above ground, for once not having to hide, getting back the power Durge feels like belongs to them.

The similarities I found between these characters are way more than these but I think I’ll have to make a part 2 of this once I’m done re-watching season 2. I’m aware the series has been out for a while and I’m sure people already made way more interesting and in-depth analysis. I still hope you liked my little morning ramble that turned in a full on essay on the subject.

Thank you for reading!

#bg3 #hannibal #the dark urge #baldur's gate 3 #nbc hannibal #durgetash #hannigram #i love murderous idiots what do you want from me

[lorei-writes]

HC: Crochet! Princes - Foreign Affairs Faction

Clavis, Chevalier, Luke, Nokto Content Warnings: none Word Count: ~1.3k Inspired by @keithsandwich 's work :)

Quiet. Be quiet, little ones. For what would have happened if humans saw you come alive, with your little crocheted heads and wire spines? Children of yarn do not see eye to eye with those born from blood.

So be quiet.

At least for now.

Clavis

He falls asleep come midnight, so he spends his days wandering in the shadows of his human maker. (Who, as it happens, is now certain that Clavis doll is possessed — how else could they explain the fact that it is him and him alone who is always misplaced?)

A multitude of legends has grown around Clavis the possessed doll. Likewise, rules followed. For the protection of his co-habitants, naturally.

Rule #1: If you see Clavis doll appear in the kitchen while you’re cooking, do not turn your eyes away from the food. Otherwise, it will be magically transformed into gruesome in appearance, although technically edible, abomination.

Rule #2: If you hear the plink of glass out of nowhere, pinch your nose and proceed as usual. If you see any colourful vapours, run.

Rule #3: Say “I adore you to the moon and back, Clavis!” whenever you hear hyaena laughter.

Rule #4: If you see Chevalier doll fighting with Clavis doll — no, you did not. Follow any steps specified by Clavis doll until you’re outside the reach of Chevalier doll. Were you to fail at the task… Clavis doll does enjoy digging in the ground.

Cyran doll is still in the making. As such, Clavis doll is… Well.

His ambition is to find a needle and to add certain “adjustments” to Chevalier doll. However, he’s been unsuccessful thus far – largely because any yarn needles are held within the big tin box of doom on the upper shelf, guarded by a hedonist-doll-hater orange cat by the name of Potato.

An ancient prophecy says that on the day of final judgement Clavis doll with descent from heavens riding on an orange lion. It is highly likely that Potato’s disdain for all things Clavis is what prevents the apocalypse.

Whether that will remain the case is still unclear, as Clavis doll has taken interest in growing plants… including catnip.

Chevalier

Chevalier doll can generally be found somewhere around any large bodies of books — bookcases, attics, perhaps his maker’s backpack (whenever their route leads by a library). That being said, it “conveniently” always so occurs that it’s perfectly reasonable for Chevalier doll to be there. As such, nobody ever questions it.

The people who have seen Chevalier move do not make it far. (Typically not outside the door; provided that they do not execute the instructions of Clavis doll).

The house hosting Chevalier doll is rather old. As such, the primary focus of Chevalier doll is the maintenance of his kingdom, for the benefit of the doll kind. Using his superior wadded (with polyester) brain, he slays mice and moths with toothpicks, unclogs toilet bowls, calls appropriate companies to fix the roof… The list goes on.

That being said, Chevalier doll does indulge from time to time. Not only that! He finances his endeavours on his own!

Can you really be sure the person you talk with online is a person and not a crochet doll? Can you? CAN YOU NOW?!

With the internet at his non-existent fingertips, Chevalier doll can accomplish things no ordinary (meaning lifeless) doll could dream of. An inconspicuous doll by day, Chevalier spends his nights as an editor for an established publishing house — the fearsome Bloody Tiger who will not let the smallest error slide!

His work laptop (and personal e-book reader) is hidden below his makers bed, next to their secret toy box. They do not dare question it. The placement of the device was meant as a threat and it clearly has worked.

Yes. He has his own bank account.

And somehow, a driving license.

Nothing is impossible for the rare genius crochet doll born made every 1 000 years.

But maybe let’s not think about that too deeply. Lest we are to arrive at human-doll hybrids.

Luke

Luke is one of the few dolls who have actually befriended a human.

Her name was Leila. She was the niece of his maker and she instantly took a liking to him. She’d take him out on walks, make clothes for him, sing him songs, feed him pretend honey cakes… and she’d also tell him things. Things she’d never tell to anybody else.

In turn, Luke protected her — whenever she was afraid of demons living under the bed, he’d go and “scare” them away. He’d check inside wardrobes, hush any mosquitoes, bring her cookies after she had already brushed her teeth. He’d keep a flashlight on the ready and he’d do his upmost to present her with shadow theatre whenever she couldn’t sleep while visiting.

However, Leila grew and she continued to grow… and eventually, she convinced herself that she had merely dreamt of Luke coming to life. It all must have been a silly game played by a child bored with yet another visit to her relatives.

That being said, Leila still comes by. She also still plays with Luke, or at the very least takes time to greet him properly and shake his hand. She often brings (now an actual honey) cake and sets a good portion of crumbs aside aside, just for him… Although she tells herself it must be mice that eat it. Surely. Just old mice.

Luke finds it hard to accept this reality. The little girl that has once played with him is no more. He is happy to see her well, however, he also struggles with the fact that their lifespans clearly differ. Luke the doll will go on living. Leila the human is already an adult. She will age, and then… How does one mend humans? What does one do when their stitches become loose? When moths eat away at their cotton flesh and their strange button eyes fall off?

Nokto

Nokto doll is an absolute hit with women of all ages. For… vaguely unexpected reasons, perhaps.

The way Clavis doll is seen as cursed, Nokto doll (together with Licht doll) is thought to be blessed. Having Nokto around supposedly brings good luck during job interviews, dates, social gatherings of any type, and language classes.

Given the above, he is brought… everywhere. Nokto doll enjoys a rich social life. His wardrobe is expansive — how else could he become the high fashion accessory craved by many but possessed by few? Some of his outfits are downright scandalous… not that he complains. (That being said, he may consider it most curious, given the intricacies – or lack thereof – of his crochet anatomy).

The sad truth of Nokto’s life is that he never stays for long with anybody. It may be that he’s grown to accept it, or to even prefer this state of affairs (although he cannot say why that could be the case). He sleeps in many beds, just to be brought home in the morning, to sleep away all day and be back at his post at night.

The secret behind Nokto’s “magical qualities” is that, whenever people aren’t looking, he disappears from the crowd and sneaks in below the floor, to converse with local rats.

Nokto doll is the best cheese dealer in town. And other-things-dealer too, but we do not talk about that. The rat king sees him as a valuable ally and so, his subjects are to do as Nokto commands.

Since one of Nokto’s commands is to avoid his own house of origin, Chevalier doll does not see this situation as a potential threat. Even though Nokto may be actively working to overthrow the major of their town. For what purpose? Well… That still remains unclear, although the recent evidence suggests a certain eyepatch has been crocheted. Who knows, perhaps somebody else is pulling all the relevant strings…

You've seen a typo? Please, tell me!

--

Tag List: @lancelotscloak @violettduchess @pathogenic @fang-and-feather @tele86 @rinaririr @keithsandwich @cheese-ception @bis-enti @claviscollections

Tell me if you'd like to be added to my tag list :)

#chevalier michel #ikepri chevalier #ikemen prince chevalier #ikepri #ikemen prince #ikemen series #clavis lelouch #ikepri clavis #ikemen prince clavis #nokto klein #ikepri nokto #ikemen prince nokto #luke randolp #ikepri luke #ikemen prince luke

[the-saltiest-saltine]

Chrollo w reader that doesn't mind being kidnapped as long as she can have her pets/dogs?

Well, I guess you would mind being kidnapped. The chances of him letting you take your beloved animals is slim to none.

How you’d be able to keep them is beyond me tbh. I think I could maybe see him with a cat (black, of course) or maybe a tarantula??? But I would see them as pets that were bought (read: snatched off the streets) a while after he’s kidnapped you. Some symbol of your relationship, something to bond you together as you both co-parent it.

Not that he particularly hates animals or anything - it’s more indifference - but he doesn’t want you to have any reminders of your old life.

I can’t see him allowing you to keep your dog, unless there was something that was different about this relationship compared to your usual Yan!Chrollo relationship. Generally, he barely even lets you out of the house. The maintenance required for a dog, especially with the mandatory walks, would just make him not even consider it in the first place. Maybe if you were under the influence of his Nen, something to keep you compliant if you were manipulated into thinking your relationship was normal...even then, I can't see it lasting too long.

Regardless, even if you were more… compliant in your situation due to the presence of your pets, he’d still not be too happy with the whole thing.

It’s a conditional relationship - and the condition isn’t even permanent. If your pets got hurt or died, then you’d start putting up a fight again. What he’d want is to be able to have you put up with your situation in whatever conditions he sees fit. Generally, those conditions are pretty solitary, with him being your primary form of human contact.

He sees you not minding being kidnapped as an inevitable revelation in your dynamic - it’ll happen eventually, with or without pets. So why allow such an inconvenience if the end result will be the same regardless?

He’d threaten the pets, if you were showing the slightest bit of noncompliance. He’ll smile sweetly, patting it (if that’s possible) and threatening to give it away. 

I don’t think he’d necessarily threaten to kill it, at least not in front of you. He’d phrase it as getting rid of it. You’d never know if he killed it, or gave it away, or dumped it on the streets or in a pond, or used it as a test subject for a newfound Nen ability. The lack of knowing what happened to it, whether it’s dead, or adopted by a loving family, or prowling the streets as a malnourished stray, or being skinned alive for a coat, is something that’d haunt you for a very long time. 

Transporting the pets would be a nightmare. They’d be really distressed from all the constant environmental changes. Chrollo would do little to help, only offering to give it away if taking care of it was too hard.

Overall, even if you do get what you want by convincing him to let you keep your pets, it’s a nightmarish experience for both you and them.

#chrollo #yandere chrollo #hxh #hunter x hunter #chrollo x reader #chrollo lucilfer #yandere hunter x hunter #yandere chrollo x reader #chrollo hcs #yandere chrollo hcs

[sleepingdeath-light]

poly dating hcs ; eda & raine

requested by ; anonymous (03/04/22)

fandom(s) ; the owl house

fandom masterlist(s) ; here

character(s) ; edalyn clawthorne & raine whispers

outline ; “More Raine/Eda poly would be nice 👀”

warning(s) ; none — i don’t think so, anyway

you and eda are raine’s primary muses and you and raine are eda’s inspiration to keep on fighting

you will all end up making music together and even if you’re not the best at what you’re playing/singing, they’ll still cheer you on

the most supportive partners you could ever ask for — you’re all each other’s cheerleaders

eda is more easily flustered than you’d think — which you and raine take advantage of, often

whenever raine has a performance scheduled, you and eda will be in the front row cheering them on with everything you’ve got

you sleep in a pile in eda’s nest and whoever sleeps where depends on who gets in first

the owl beast will lovingly tackle you and raine — it’s adorable and you miss them after eda takes fully merges with her curse

eda uses her harpy form to fluster you both and will show off every chance she gets

eda is the type of partner to dedicate something to you and raine before messing everything up completely

you’re the best three parents to king and the best bonus parents to the batts and to luz

you all exchange jewellery which means that everything gets mismatched and you lose bits all of the time

eda carries all of your favourite snacks and drinks in her hair

raine has written songs for you and eda and they’re so heartfelt that you end up in tears the first time you hear them

eda has a picture of the three of you on her desk at the university of wild magic

she also brags about you both to everyone she can — whether the other person actually comments on your relationship or not

raine carries a small picture of you and eda in their pocket when they’re out at the hospital helping to remove coven sigils

they don’t brag about you two, per say, but they’ll happily talk about your achievements if someone asks about you

you try to cook food for each other or as a group — but whenever you’re in the kitchen together it devolved into sheer chaos and you spend more time having a good fight than doing anything remotely productive

eda makes lots of hand/hook prosthetic related jokes — it’s 50/50 whether you and raine laugh and indulge her or sigh and roll your eyes/pinch the bridge of your nose

whilst eda’s hair is absolute chaos, raine has more of a set hair routine and has a good set of products they rely on — they try to help eda get her hair under control but that’s more than a lost cause (and very funny for you to watch)

your matching sleepwear involves some spare ‘bad girl coven’ shirts that eda had left over from before the day of unity

#sleepingdeath #gender neutral reader #dating hcs #toh x reader #poly toh x reader #the owl house x reader #raeda x reader #raine whispers x reader #eda clawthorne x reader #eda x reader #eda x reader x raine

[donutwatches]

MHA 2.11 - Fight on, Iida - part 2

Oh no. No, no, no, no. Nothing bad is allowed to happen to Iida. I have such a bad feeling about this. 

Well I would root for my favorite Lil’ Red Dinosaur, but unfortunately there is no way Bakugo is going to lose. Boo. 

Bakugo is so dramatic, honestly. 

Haha, standing long jump, that reminds me of the Sports Days I used to have at Primary school. My favorite event was always the spoon race, because it was the only thing I could win at. 

Toss him like a bowling bowl, Iida! He has about as much of a chance against Todoroki as Kirishima did against Bakugo. That is, none at all. 

Can you imagine being locked in a giant ice pile like that would feel like in real life? I can’t even stand holding ice cubes in my hand for too long without giving up like a baby. 

Why does this feel like animal cruelty? Bakugo has got the emo bird shadow shedding TEARS. 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooO!

What do you mean “got him”, “got him”, as in dead?! 

I am also looking for Stain, looking to kick his noseless turtle ass face!  Also how dare he look kind of cool. 

This void dude is surprisingly polite for a villain. So this new villain, Stain, is going to connect with Crusty Hands? Is it going to be a team up? 

Click for episode 12

#mha #bnha #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #anime #tenya iida #iida #bakugo #katsuki bakugo #kirishima eijirou #kirishima #todoroki #todoroki shouto #dark shadow #stain #kurogiri

[emblazons]

i’m about a month late to the ffvii rebirth fanfare but i saw your study/shot comparison for the ending while scrolling through some tags and was really curious to see if you had come up with any more conclusions since then! i just finished it a couple days ago and still reeling from it and have been enjoying hearing people’s thoughts about what the heck they think is going on. obvs cloud is not ok, but i’m still trying to decide just how much of what we’re seeing is due to his sanity going out the window and how much of it (if any) is aerith actually speaking to him and/or sephiroth messing with him. the way he tells the rest of the party to not look up at the sky though and none of them see what he sees, just clues them all in to the fact that he isn’t entirely all there anymore. a collective very concerned side-eye lol. somebody help him pls.

!!! oh friend, you're in a TON of luck: I actually started a few different commentaries on how I saw the ending on this weeks back, but didn't post them because I got distracted by other fandoms? I'm more than happy to share them though—not as developed as they could be, but some congealing of where my mind went upon finishing the game and rewatching the gameplay.

forewarning: FFVII ending spoilers + a long af post lmao

So I wrote this on my twitter (where I go to see things only on twt lol) the other day because of a bunch of concepts were clarified by the Ultimania + translators, which kinda sums up where my thoughts are:

Which...yeah. As I see it: as of the ending, Aerith is in fact dead in our current world (the one of the player narrative). How I see it, she's died in our primary timeline—though likely "alive" in the same way Zack is in some other timeline, in addition to her connection to every "universe" through the power of her connection to the planet as the last Cetra.

The white whispers (which represent Aerith/the will of the planet) as well as the “confluence of world” colors we see with Sephiroth are all around when Cloud supposedly “sees her alive" during the classic death scene—

—an indicator that the event itself was the "confluence" Sephiroth was trying to achieve, with Cloud experiencing several versions of it due to his own connection to Sephiroth/the lifestream/his fragmented mind. We see this both in what Sephiroth says around the event itself....and also the contrasting experiences of our party with what Cloud sees in the moment (+ through end of the game).

As I see it, Cloud’s consciousness by the end of FFVII:R-II is fully fractured; throughout both Remake & Rebirth he is already seeing visions affected by Sephiroth’s influence on the planet (the black whispers, the way hooded men and thin air turn into Sephiroth before his eyes)—and now, during the “confluence of emotions / worlds / reunion” mentioned (Aerith's death), Cloud’s already broken mind is slipping further into seeing “the middle space” of the worlds joined and prepared for destruction by Sephiroth in real time, rather than following the timeline of events in the world we play—a la the post that inspired your ask. :)

All that said: the reason he’s seeing Aerith (not just sensing her the way Red does in his own Lifestream connection) is because she’s a Cetra, and now (in death) the embodiment of the positive!Will of Gaia across worlds—so because of Cloud's connection to that "middle space" / ability to traverse different versions of reality because of his connection to Sephiroth, Cloud is interacting with her presence…despite it not being there for anyone else.

It’s also why he can see the sky split no one else can.

ADDITIONALLY:

The Aerith we see fight alongside Cloud in the final battle and the one we see walking around everyone as Cid fixes the plane…that’s the spirit of her person (think the Aerith of Advent Children). Aerith didn’t live this game—her spirit can communicate because of Sephiroth's successful confluence, though she’s ALSO "alive" in the same way Zack and Biggs are to us: aka she died in the world she was in but still exists in others, which Sephiroth confirms/explains both when Aerith pulls Cloud into another “doomed” world—

when he’s trying to manipulate Cloud in the Lifestream—

and when you’re fighting Sephiroth alongside Aerith in the void during the final battle (after she’s died).

Even so, Aerith “living on” as the last Cetra/the spirit of the planet + someone with access to multiple worlds through the "reunion" means she’s now as able to infiltrate Cloud's ongoing visions as Sephiroth is...and is likely trying to keep him even somewhat present despite his clearly fractured mind.

I think that’s implied repeatedly by through the hollow Holy Materia (implying both Aerith is no longer “there,” but still present + that cloud himself is now hollow)—

—and why/how the Black Materia (Sephiroth) is still manipulating him and very much driving his fractured thoughts, visions and actions.

As for the rest of the party: it's because no one but his “vessel-connected-to-Sephiroth” self (+ now dead-but-living-on-in-the-Lifestream Aerith) has any idea what he learned about worlds in the Lifestream that what’s happening to Cloud is lost on everyone (and why they look painfully concerned), and also why spirit!Aerith repeatedly gives him reminders to 1) not listen to Sephiroth and 2) focus on finding himself again.

All that said: because Cloud’s actual self is already slipping away from our present game TL by the second half of the game, it will have to be retrieved and rearranged—which we know will happen in game 3 (assuming you know the original FF7 plot where Tifa rearranges him in the Lifesteam) but that has to be changed from “Cloud finds out about Zack and finally cracks" because Cloud already knows about Zack in some capacity by the middle of Rebirth.

I personally think this sets us up for a really interesting resolution in that Tifa is going to probably have spirit!Aerith’s help putting Cloud back together in the Lifestream in game 3—and that she will likely play a bigger part in helping Cloud “find himself” in his own world again because it’s been made more apparent that she’s a full consciousness in the Lifestream/able to affect multiple worlds now because of Sephiroth completing the first step in his plan. That's more just hopeful on my part going into the next game than something rooted in analysis though.

But yes! those are my thoughts! I hope this gives you (more than a little) something. Feel free to ask if something isn’t clear though lol this was like 4 different half-done drafts combined 😂 Regardless, ty so much for the ask / giving me a reason to post them!

#I hope this made even one (1) iota of sense. I can clarify in a full post later if you'd like because this was a lot of bits and bobs LOL #still. its been made clear by Nomura and Co she is no longer with us at least in THIS world #and context clues as to when cloud sees her + the streak in the sky + the visions of sephiroth etc...his connection to Sephiroth #through Mako/SOLDIER/something similar to the Sephiclones is why he's out here going THROUGH IT #as Sephiroth converges the world. at least in MY reading #cloud strife #aerith gainsborough #sephiroth #ffvii analysis #ffvii spoilers #ffvii:r spoilers #ffvii #final fantasy #the me tag #asks

[sizzlingpatrolfox]

You mentioned competition being one of the primary reasons for JK & Tae fans hating/resenting Jimin, and I think you're on to something there.

Jimin was not supposed to be popular. He was supposed to be cute, a good dancer(but not as good as Hobie) and the one who can't sing or write his own music, but tries and oh, isn't that a sweet little Jominie?

Sexy and handsome,? That's Tae's thing. A musical powerhouse? That's the Golden One. Why can't Jimin just remain in his role as BTS #1 cheerleader?

It drives these fans bat-sh*t crazy. The natural order has been abandoned. Their fave has been disrespected. All because Jimin--and the people inwexplixably drawn to him--don't know their place.

Imagine posh spice suddenly doing cartwheels and sporty spice's whole identity and thing that made her "unique" in the group, is not so unique anymore.

This happens in every group, tho. Kpop or not, that characterization is a must when groups are being formed. All members are supposed to have that one thing that makes them different from the rest, and that it will cater to certain people. Even one direction members had a certain moniker that made them "special" within the group. You mentioned some of those things with BTS, and it's true. They might be real traits of the members, but they actually choose what to put forward so other people would remember them by that.

The truth is Jimin never really did that lol 😆 he never really tried to push certain hobbie as his whole identity, or talked about himself in limiting ways. Even with dance, he's always been excellent at it and was doing the hardest parts of BTS choreographies since the beginning, but it wasn't until like 2018 that he actually started talking about dancing in a way that you could tell it meant something really important to him. He didn't even have other members talk that talk for him, the way Hoseok did. All the members, year after year, would talk about Hoseok's dance this or that, but they never mentioned Jimin. Armys didn't even know Jimin is a main dancer too 💀

A lot of them are solo fans of other members, point blank. They might type a little seven and pretend they're not, but they are.

I've talked about this before, but there's always going to be competition when someone else is able to do the same thing you do. Jimin sings and dances. Jungkook sings and dances. Taehyung, well... he sings I guess. All three are maknae line. There's a lot of clashing interests and a lot of space for competition because their areas and "identities" overlap so much. Same with some Jin akgaes that have gotten to drag Jimin over vocals in the past few years; because both sing. If Jin was a dancer, I bet you they would fight about that too.

That's why nobody is fighting over Jimin being a better rapper than Hoseok. No, they argue about fashion and dance -things both of them have in common.

Now, it's 2024 and Jimin sings, dances, writes, produces and composes his own music. He coreographs his own coreographies, he's topped major charts. Everything, literally everything that was expected of, or that armys swore only rapline or other maknae line member could do. Armys will still talk about Yoongi as if he was the only producer in the group like Jimin isn't there, only because it's easier, it's repetitive, it's the story they've been telling for a decade.

As I've said not too long ago (but can't find the post): armys have always been uncomfortable when Jimin showed them they were wrong about him.

"X member is going to have a huge fashion career" - Jimin has objectively had the best deals with fashion so far.

"X member is the most popular in US" - Jimin doing just as good or even better than said member.

Everyone expecting Jungkook and Taehyung to release full albums of 309483 songs written by them - not only none of them did that, but Jimin did it.

This fandom doesn't like their ideas being challenged, and all Jimin has been doing is exactly that. Making them see something that they weren't aware existed, or didn't want to acknowledge. It's even worse because Jimin doing the same things other members do, makes those members seem less special than armys or solos thought they were.

It's also one of the reasons why Jimin was basically pushed out of the makane line by the fandom, as I've mentioned here:

They didn't want more competition for the ones the fandom wrongly thought were supposed to be the "biggest" soloists of the group (taekook). It was all about "wait for taekook's debuts" blah blah blah. Notice how hyung line stans (even those who are allegedly ot7 army) get upset about Jimin being more successful than hyung line, but they don't get upset when taekook do better?

I think one time that it really dawned on me how willingly oblivious armys were, was when this ad was released. I remember tweeting something about why was Jungkook considered the most athletic member in BTS when he has never done stuff like that. That looks athletic to me, at least. Jimin has been doing these flips for a decade and no army has ever pointed it out, have they? It's like "oh Jimin doing another flip, cool". Or worse, not even acknowledging it. If another member, especially Hoseok or Jungkook or Yoongi, had spent a decade doing this, you bet that army would be doing compilations about it every single day. It really made me wonder why has Jimin never been in the center of "the athletic ones in BTS", when he so obviously has always been good.

#Jimin #fandom

[bestworstcase]

Wait could you go more into Salem being glinda? (<- person who is bad at allegories but loves your metas)

ok!!

step one is to clear out everything you’ve ever read about rwby’s ozian allusion from your brain because this fandom keeps trying to make it about the wizard of oz and it’s… nnnot about the wizard of oz. the book we’re going to be talking about as the primary text of reference is the second oz book, ‘the marvelous land of oz,’ which is about what happens after dorothy and the wizard go home.

the reason nobody can figure out who rwby’s “dorothy” is is… there is no dorothy. she’s in kansas and not really relevant to this story except insofar as her journey through oz resulted in the wizard’s departure and the end of the wicked witches of the east and west. she’s The Backstory. and—actually as i write this there, um, there IS a dorothy and now i have to go stare at a wall for a little while. 

…

we’ll get there.

context:

at the end of the first oz book, ‘the wonderful wizard of oz,’ the wizard leaves and glinda, the good witch of the south, tells dorothy how to return home to kansas with the glass slippers (which fall off her feet and are lost forever whilst carrying dorothy home)

(the classic film makes something of a mess by combining glinda and the good witch of the north into a composite character, creating the problem of why glinda would not simply tell dorothy how to use the slippers right away. in the book, the good witch of the north sends dorothy to the wizard, who is secretly a fraud, and after he inadvertently leaves dorothy behind she is advised to travel south to consult with glinda instead.)

now, the wizard was the ruler of oz, so his departure created a political problem that he attempted to solve by appointing the scarecrow to rule in his absence. that choice is what ‘marvelous land’ is chiefly about because, you see, before the wizard came along, oz was ruled by a king named pastoria, who had an infant daughter named ozma. then the wizard deposed pastoria, and princess ozma disappeared.

the book’s protagonist is a boy named tippetarius (tip) who’s been raised all his life by the bad witch mombi. tip is in fact ozma, stolen by mombi and transformed into a boy to secure the wizard on the throne of oz. he has no idea; he just knows that mombi isn’t very nice to him and he wants to leave. 

when he runs away, he takes with him jack pumpkinhead—a fellow tip made by carving a jack-o-lantern head for a wooden man, animated by mombi’s magic. their relationship is quasi-parental (jack calls tip “father” but tip is, you know, a boy and not especially fatherly). they’re joined by a living saw horse en route to the emerald city. the trio is briefly separated, with jack and the horse rushing ahead and being received by the scarecrow while tip is waylaid and meets general jinjur, who is leading an army of revolt to the emerald city to overthrow the scarecrow.

that happens. jinjur wins more or less by default because the soldier with green whiskers, who guards the emerald city’s gate, is too cowardly to fight them and simply lets them into the city. the scarecrow flees, along with tip, the sawhorse, and jack. this motley crew heads west to winkie country, once the domain of the wicked witch of the west, now ruled by nick chopper—the tin man. en route to winkie country, the scarecrow mentions to jack that pumpkins rot and jack spends the remainder of the story in a state of ever-present existential dread over his imminent decay. 

anyway, nick accompanies them back to the emerald city, along with the woggle-bug—a very large, knowledgeable bug whom none of them like particularly and whose backstory involves transformation by a professor, an incident about which the woggle-bug has ambivalent feelings—whom they meet along the way. they’re hindered by various illusory traps mombi throws at them because she’s trying to get tip back under control.

reclaiming the emerald city from jinjur does not Go Well. they’re forced to flee again, briefly end up stranded in an inhospitable place on the far side of the desert and attacked by birds. the woggle bug saves them by using a silver wishing pill to repair their means of transportation so that they can reach glinda’s home, in southern quadling country. 

they want glinda to help them restore the scarecrow to the throne of oz. glinda has other plans, because she’s spent all this time trying to find ozma and set right the wizard’s various injustices. she’s narrowed it down to mombi as the culprit, and upon learning that the witch has hidden herself in the emerald city, she… um, immediately lays siege to the emerald city to “starve it into submission” and flush mombi out, then chases her to the impassable desert at the edge of oz, ties a rope around her neck to silence her magical powers, and bodily drags her back to the emerald city to account for her wrongdoing on pain of death:

Glinda had been carefully considering what to do, and now she turned to Mombi and said: "You will gain nothing, I assure you, by thus defying us. For I am determined to learn the truth about the girl Ozma, and unless you tell me all that you know, I will certainly put you to death." "Oh, no! Don't do that!" exclaimed the Tin Woodman. "It would be an awful thing to kill anyone—even old Mombi!" "But it is merely a threat," returned Glinda. "I shall not put Mombi to death, because she will prefer to tell me the truth." "Oh, I see!" said the Tin Man, much relieved. "Suppose I tell you all that you wish to know,". said Mombi, speaking so suddenly that she startled them all. "What will you do with me then?" "In that case," replied Glinda, "I shall merely ask you to drink a powerful draught which will cause you to forget all the magic you have ever learned." "Then I would become a helpless old woman!" "But you would be alive," suggested the Pumpkinhead, consolingly. […] "You may make your choice," Glinda said to old Mombi, "between death if you remain silent, and the loss of your magical powers if you tell me the truth. But I think you will prefer to live." Mombi cast an uneasy glance at the Sorceress, and saw that she was in earnest, and not to be trifled with.

thus mombi is forced to tell the truth, remove the curse she placed on tippetarius (turning him back into ozma), and take glinda’s potion to strip all of her magical power away. 

folds hands. 

here are some facts about glinda:

she rules over quadling country—in the oz books, the cardinal kingdoms are all color-coded; northern gillikin country is purple, eastern munchkinland is blue, western winkie country is yellow, and quadling country? red. (glynda goodwitch’s purple is the first hint that she is not glinda, but rather the good witch of the north who believes in the wizard’s power. her absolute faith in ozpin is the second hint.)

glinda is, despite her youthful appearance, implied to be thousands of years old, and by any measure the most powerful sorceress in all of oz. 

in demeanor, she is always calm and collected and resolutely truthful; so great is her dedication to the truth that she has no power over mombi’s magical deception and illusions, hence the need to force mombi to undo her own curse. she always knows when she’s lied to, but she can be fooled (fleetingly) by powerful illusions. and she can be utterly ruthless in pursuit of what she believes is right for oz. 

she, as noted in the last post, is responsible for freeing the flying monkeys from their enslavement by the golden cap. 

now!

the allusions rwby is making to ‘marvelous land’ are really very straightforward—much like cinder and cinderella or salem and maiden-in-tower stories. it is impossible to read the book with rwby in mind and not see the connections:

the god of light is mombi.

ozma is ozma; as ozpin, he has become the wizard (complicit in his own cursed imprisonment), and within oscar he’s tippetarius (a boy who’s lost his true self).

oscar is jack pumpkinhead, ozma’s heir (thus, symbolically, his “son”), brought to life at least symbolically by light’s power (he’s in the story at all because he’s ozma’s vessel), and preoccupied with existential dread inspired by the looming immediacy of his spiritual death.

qrow is the scarecrow, left to carry the symbol of ozpin’s authority in ozpin’s absence and forced to flee beacon, the “emerald city,” by

summer rose, who is general jinjur, holding beacon academy while she searches for the crown. (jinjur spends a considerable portion of the story trying to get the royal crown.)

lionheart is the soldier with green whiskers: not the fearful but truly courageous lion, but the cowardly old soldier who all but hands jinjur the keys to the city in his terror. 

ironwood is the tin man, ruling over a land once subjugated by the wizard’s bitter enemy (pre-war, fascist mantle) now remade into a shining and prosperous kingdom under the command of the wizard’s ally (atlas)—and it is he who gives sanctuary to the scarecrow and tip’s party after the emerald city falls, and he who leads the failed first attempt to take the city back by force. 

vacuo is the nest of jackdaws where the party ends up stranded, far from oz—they cross a desert to get there and i suspect the point of theodore is to signal that vacuo isn’t “in” oz but rather standing in for the deserts and the lands beyond. because dorothy is in kansas, you see. (he’s not the Real Dorothy, though, we’ll get there momentarily).

the woggle-bug is raven, the maiden of knowledge who knows the secret that will bridge the impassable divide between vacuo and salem; her knowledge of what summer did is the silver wishing pill which, incidentally, poisons tip when he tries to use it. 

and salem is, of course, glinda: ancient and aloof and coldly ruthless in her pursuit of the truth, searching for ozma (<- note the congruence here with rapunzel searching for her prince in the wasteland!) and ready to GO TO WAR to bring the god of light to account for what he’s done. i really must emphasize the GOING TO WAR bit: the glinda of the books is not the soft, mistily benevolent lady the classic film makes of her. she has an extremely well-disciplined standing army which she marches on the emerald city with the explicit intention of delivering a siege to “starve it into submission.” mombi looks this woman in the eye, sees death staring back at her, and surrenders with a whimper. glinda is ruthless.

so it isn’t even “glinda would go to war if she thought it necessary” it’s that glinda does in fact go to war and rwby is, with salem, taking glinda’s decision to go to war to achieve her ends very seriously and putting that in a context where salem isn’t revered as a protector and loved by all. the only difference between salem and glinda is that glinda is beloved by the people of oz!

but i also promised you dorothy. so:

allow me to direct your attention back to what glinda does to mombi after ozma’s curse is lifted. mombi is made to drink a potion that causes her to forget all the magic she’s ever learned, leaving her to live as an ordinary old woman—but she is not left alone to suffer afterwards, because ozma makes arrangements to provide for her indefinitely.

this is, of course, what’s in store for the god of light. he’s going to ascend—that’s obvious—and the fairytale ‘the two brothers’ hints quite strongly that he’ll come back as a man (i’d wager a faunus specifically), leaving his power and memories of divinity behind and given a peaceful life in return. mombi’s resolution in ‘marvelous land’ offers a direct 1:1 comparison to ascension. 

but what about the god of darkness?

he’s– he’s dorothy.

dorothy doesn’t appear in ‘marvelous land’ and she has no presence in the book whatsoever except as one of the two characters whose departure at the end of the last book created the circumstances that allow this story to occur: it is dorothy’s adventure that convinces the wizard to leave oz, and then she leaves too. the wizard—through mombi, the real power behind his throne—retains his influence and authority over the land of oz until she is forced to undo her wrongs, but dorothy is simply… gone. she went home, she’s remembered fondly by her friends, she has nothing whatsoever to do with this story, and the silver shoes that bore her home at the end of the last book fell from her feet and were lost forever. 

(she does eventually make it back to oz, in a roundabout way, by accident. but for rwby’s purposes, and within the context of ‘marvelous land’ taken in isolation, dorothy is Gone Forever.)

afterans refer to the tree as home; they think of ascension as returning home to rest and find renewal after a long journey through the world outside. at the end of her journey through oz, she asks glinda to send her home, and glinda tells her:

“The Silver Shoes," said the Good Witch, "have wonderful powers. And one of the most curious things about them is that they can carry you to any place in the world in three steps, and each step will be made in the wink of an eye. All you have to do is to knock the heels together three times and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to go.”

and, as i noted, the shoes carry her home but are lost in the process, never to be found again. 

glinda teaches dorothy how to go home. likewise, salem is a repetition of jabber—the argument between the brothers comes full circle—and through this experience dark realizes that he needs to “go home,” i.e. ascend. he’s been trapped in this same disagreement for thousands of years and nothing has changed; nothing will change unless he tries something new. he shatters the moon on his way out and, unlike his brother, there’s nothing to suggest he’s still present in this world or relevant to this story as anything but backstory… because he ascended and became something new.

(the spirits in the relics.)

(which in terms of the ozian narrative, represent the golden cap, which glinda receives from dorothy before she gives it to the king of the flying monkeys to set them all free, so the symbolic through line between dark-as-dorothy becoming the spirits-as-flying-monkeys through his and their relation to salem is relatively straightforward.)

anyway, behold.

toto.

#i just—brgdgks #DOROTHY. #''GIFT OF GOD.'' #it’s another goddamned stealth pun

[antianakin]

@theneutralmime

I mean, as per TCW canon, we know that Rex at least has THOUGHT about the inherent contradiction with the clones' relationship to the war, enough to have seemingly made his peace with it. So it seems reasonable to assume that the other clones around his age who've survived to this point, too, have at least thought about it (so this would be people like Jesse, Cody, Bly, Gree, Fox, Thire, etc, basically anyone we might've met within the first season or two of TCW that is clearly still around by Order 66). Cody has his line about how it's hard to be the one that survives in season 7. So yeah, I'd say it's fair to assume they have a complicated relationship with the war itself and that this is something every clone would have to come to their own conclusions about. Not all of them reach the same one, though. Cut chooses to desert peacefully and Slick chooses to betray them all for a chance to escape. So while someone like Rex (and probably Cody) has made his peace with being made to fight in a war, not necessarily everyone does.

As for their relationship with the JEDI, I imagine that's also going to vary from clone to clone, but what we know from higher canon is that they honestly DIDN'T feel all that complicated about the Jedi. Rex discusses his complex emotions about the WAR, but he never seems to feel that conflicted about the Jedi themselves. He's always pretty positive about his relationships with Anakin and Ahsoka, to the point that he can't fucking STOP gushing about Anakin in Rebels. He also doesn't show any discomfort around Kanan and Ezra (unlike the obvious discomfort we see on Kanan's end) and pretty happily starts to build up a friendship with Ezra. Wolffe on the other hand DOES seem more conflicted about it, but his primary issue is fear of the Empire and the attention that the rebels' presence could bring, not necessarily fear OF THE JEDI themselves. During the chip arc in season 6, Fives explicitly calls the Jedi the clones' best friends and seems equally as upset about the fact that the chips would make them kill the Jedi as he is about everything else.

Even if we look at Cut and Slick, ONLY Slick has a complicated relationship with the Jedi, while Cut never even brings them up as part of why he deserted. So that's one example among many many many examples of the clones loving their Jedi and considering the Jedi their best friends. While you can certainly use Slick to argue that it's possible not every clone loved the Jedi and that some of them might've seen them more negatively, there is OVERWHELMING evidence of that being an exception, not the rule.

As far as what's in TBB in terms of how the clones feel about Order 66, there is... very very little. TBB's main characters don't actually care about the Jedi really at all since, other than Echo, none of them served with Jedi all that much so far as we can tell and never built up any kind of relationship with the Jedi. And Echo's relationship with Anakin (and potentially Ahsoka, we never actually get to see them together outside of the Citadel arc, so I'm not sure how much time they would've actually served together canonically but it can't have been much) isn't touched on at all in TBB and doesn't seem to impact his reaction to Order 66 in any way. Hunter seems upset by Caleb's lack of trust during Order 66 and does go out of his way to protect him by lying to Crosshair about killing him, but after that moment, there's no real attention paid to the Jedi. We saw Cody in season 2 and he says a few very vague things about how maybe they made some bad choices because at this point we have to assume Cody still HAS a chip that might be making him feel like he'd CHOSEN to turn on the Jedi even if it's weakened enough to let him doubt his actions. But because he's speaking to Crosshair, he's not saying anything particularly explicit and he's in one episode before he disappears. Most of the other real clones we meet in TBB are either freed of the chip already (Rex, probably Gregor), didn't have Jedi to turn on (Howzer, Cut, Mayday, also probably Gregor), or seem to be fully under the chip's control still (Wilco). So what discussions ARE had about the impact of Order 66 don't really center on the Jedi much at all, leaving us a little in the dark about how the clones feel about that in the more immediate aftermath of it.

However, given the way we see Rex, Gregor, and Wolffe reacting in Rebels, the way Rex reacts in TCW season 7, and everything else we see about the clones in high canon during the war itself, it's pretty safe to say that while there might have been some clones who weren't that upset about killing the Jedi regardless of whether the chip was active or not, the VAST MAJORITY of the clones would never have turned on them at all and have to spend the rest of their lives either mourning the Jedi and feeling guilty about what they were forced to do, or struggling to figure out why they'd even done it in the first place when something in them is telling them it was wrong.

#star wars #jedi #clone troopers

[mariacallous]

The prospects of a united front preventing Donald Trump returning to power in the US looked a little bleaker this week.

Let’s be frank they weren’t great to begin with. To an outsider Joe Biden just seems to be too old to be a viable candidate. He doesn’t pas​s the first impressions test. Look at him and you do not see someone capable of serving another four years.

True, he won Michigan's Democratic presidential primary a few days ago– but he was hit by a significant protest vote from left-wing and Arab-American voters angry about his qualified support for Israel's war in Gaza.

And at this point that second cause for worry, and, frankly, panic kicks in.

The left urged registered Democrats to vote for the "none of the above" category to express their opposition to Biden's Israel policy – and about 100,000 did. Their votes represent a wider chunk of the electorate who could well stay at home or vote for minor Green or left-wing candidates and deny the Democrats key states.

In a deeply divided country with a warped electoral system that favours the Republicans, it does not take many voters abandoning the Democrats for Trump to retake power.

I wrote at the weekend about how the Trump example shows how hard it is to unite against a dictatorial threat.  People, or to be fair, many people, cannot put aside their commitments and ally with men and women they profoundly disagree with for the greater good of defending democracy.

On the one hand, they cry that Trump is a fascist and white supremacist. On the other hand, they refuse to use all available means to stop him. Mainstream liberals do not moderate their demands to win over wavering conservatives. The far left sees the Biden administration as its true enemy.

The history of the struggles against Nazism are highly relevant to the dilemmas and the dangers we face today.  

As Hitler began his rise to power at the end of the 1920s, the European far left was in the same place as a section of the modern US left.  

The threat of fascism was as nothing when set against its hatred of moderates.

 In 1928 the communist movement adopted one of the cruellest and stupidest policies in its history, which considering the history of Soviet communism was nothing more than a history of cruelty and stupidity was quite an achievement.

Partly because it helped Stalin in his internal power struggles in Russia, Moscow ordered all Europe’s communists to follow an ultra-leftist policy. They were told to denounce moderate leftists as “social fascists”, and fight them to the death.

Communism’s triumph was inevitable, the party line went. No compromise was possible with anyone who stood in history’s path. Reformists were opportunists and traitors. They were social fascists who were as bad as the Nazi gangs which were already gathering on Berlin streets.

Or perhaps they were worse….

For an argument that is still heard today held that, say what you like against them, at least fascists were honest in their way.

By contrast centre-leftists were traitors who had been “bribed by the bourgeoisie” to deceive the masses, as no less an authority than Lenin had said.

They were hypocrites who pretended to want change while watering it down. Nothing could be achieved until they were swept away.

When Stalin’s enemy, Leon Trotsky, who was hardly a moderate, warned that instructing left-wingers to fight other left-wingers was a sure way of allowing fascism to “ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank”, Ernst Thälmann, the leader of the German communist party, denounced him for his ‘criminal counter-revolutionary propaganda’.

The result was a disaster. The communists and socialists fought each other instead of the Nazis, making Hitler’s rise easier. Thälmann went along with Stalin’s categorisation of social democrats as “social fascists”  until actual fascists came to power in Germany. They taught him the difference by holding him in solitary confinement for 11 years at the Buchenwald concentration camp, and putting him before a firing squad in 1944 and shooting him dead.

Today there are plenty of Thälmanns who believe with absolute certainty that the discredited centrist mainstream is the enemy.

Here is a columnist on the Washington Post greeting the Michigan result

As I emphasised in my previous piece, his stance is absolutely fine in normal circumstances. US leftists are perfectly entitled to refuse to support the Democrats if Biden’s behaviour outrages them.

But surely only enormous levels of delusion prevent them acknowledging that Trump is a threat to democracy.  If he wins, the American republic may be so gerrymandered and its civil service so politicised that it will be a Herculean task to remove Trump and his successors. There are plenty on the US far right who cite the rigged democracy of Viktor Orban’s Hungary as their model and dream, after all.

The​ alternative is to build alliances and once again history is a guide,

Having seen that their previous policy of treating moderate leftists as Nazis had resulted in Hitler coming to power 1933, the geniuses running the Soviet Communist party decided on a U-turn. Henceforth communists were instructed to support “popular front” movements where everyone opposed to the fascist threat would be welcome.

Some of the most interesting US writers have reached back to the 1930s to find ways of dealing with Trump. In How Democracies Die the US academics Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt found an example in the little-known story of how fascism was stopped in Belgium in the 1930s.  

Belgium might have gone the same way as fascist Italy or Nazi Germany. In 1936 far-right outfits —the Rex Party and the Flemish nationalist party, or Vlaams Nationaal Verbond (VNV)—surged in the polls, capturing almost 20 percent of the popular vote.

They challenged the historical dominance of three establishment parties: the centre-right Catholic Party, the Socialists, and the liberals.

The leader of the Rex Party, Léon Degrelle, was a classic far-right figure.  A journalist (like Mussolini, and so many other believers in simple solutions) he would go on to become a Nazi collaborator in the Second World War.

Levitsky and Ziblatt wrote that, “the Catholic Party, in particular, faced a difficult dilemma: collaborate with their longtime rivals, the Socialists and Liberals, or forge a right-wing alliance that included the Rexists, a party with whom they shared some ideological affinity.”

 Unlike the mainstream conservative politicians of Italy and Germany, who brought Mussolini and Hitler to power, or the mainstream Republican leadership who collaborated with Trump, the Belgian Catholic leadership declared that any deals with the far right could not be contemplated.

"Catholic Party leaders heightened discipline by screening candidates for pro-Rexist sympathies and expelling those who expressed extremist views. In addition, the party leadership took a strong stance against cooperation with the far right. Externally, the Catholic Party fought Rex on its own turf. The Catholic Party adopted new propaganda and campaign tactics that targeted younger Catholics, who had formerly been part of the Rexist base. They created the Catholic Youth Front and began to run former allies against Degrelle."

Right-wing Catholics knew that they must ally with socialists and liberals they normally deplore in a popular front. And it worked. The far right was beaten.

I think popular front politics are essential. But they are not easy or even particularly principled. Go back to the 1940s and you find George Orwell was utterly repelled by communists and conservatives allying to stop Hitler

He looked back with mockery on

“The years 1935-9 were the period of anti-Fascism and the Popular Front, the heyday of the Left Book Club, when red Duchesses and ‘broadminded’ deans toured the battlefields of the Spanish war and Winston Churchill was the blue-eyed boy of the Daily Worker.”

To Orwell, the idea of covering up the crimes of communists for the sake of the greater anti-fascist good was horrific. But that was what the left of the 1930s did. And that was what the British and American governments did during the Second World War. Defeating Hitler came first. They were prepared to forget about the millions Stalin killed until the war was over.

It's a hard choice. But in the circumstances US progressives face, it is an obvious one. There is no argument against making every necessary compromise to prevent a second Trump term. You will have no right to protest, if you do not.

[mdhwrites]

whats your opinion on caleb and evelyn (at least from what very little we know of them-)

imo the whole caleb clawthorne thing is like. one of the most pointless things in the show ever

I have called them and their connection to Belos "TOH's final trick". TOH has a single trick up its sleeve that is great for fanfic writers and TERRIBLE for a narrative. They introduce really compelling relationships and ideas and then they never do anything with them. It happens with Amity and Luz, Amity and Willow, the Hexide Squad and the Coven System, Hunter and Belos, etc. etc. All of these concepts present tantalizing issues that one could really delve in deep to and find a lot of meaning... But TOH isn't interested. It is more interested in a blog about how deep Amity's character is implied to be rather than doing anything with that depth, hence why so many people hooked onto how awful the confrontation with her parents would eventually be and then the show itself just... Has her in like three minutes of that episode and her confrontation doesn't feel like the main point of it even if it's the climax. And then it's effectively over and any issue between Lumity is never brought up again.

Caleb and Evelyn are the same but with a bit of FNAF storytelling thrown in. The pictures are vague after all so people can interpret them in different ways for what they mean. The cast has been coy as to the actual events. It's a multiple choice backstory for your villain that ranges from irredeemable monster to sympathetic villain. That way the show can claim to have a complex villain that doesn't technically invalidate the fact that they have no interest in writing a complex villain, nor do they want to need to.

But it was also one straw too many. Lumity getting together paid off in some way that old narrative baggage of Amity's, even if less powerfully than it could have. Hunter being possessed and fighting off Belos doesn't have the weight it should and I have problems with how selfish the reasoning is rather than ideological but it is a payoff to that relationship. However, a genuinely real amount of time is spent in S3, and S2, building up that Belos is something more than a genocidal, egotistical asshole. Caleb and Evelyn are a LOT of this. So what's the payoff?

There is none. Beating him isn't an ideological victory. They don't come up like Lief did for beating Andrias to pay that off. In fact, they come up less in the final fight than they do during the fight in King's Tide where the heroes LOSE. So they spent some of the very limited time they had to wrap up their story on a subplot about Belos' backstory that doesn't actually inform us of anything, doesn't affect anything and has no payoff except the most obvious one.

It's literally Willow's story except for your PRIMARY ANTAGONIST'S BACKSTORY.

The fact that the majority of the meat of it is done in a really just AWFULLY animated set piece who's literal writing is boilerplate at best does not help it at all. The best parts of this mechanically are the portraits in Hollow Mind and they're vague and that's IT. Otherwise, it's clunky for the most part. I'll give the moment when monster Belos sees Caleb as he tries to take on a new form is neat but it tells us nothing and feels out of character in the end that he'd give enough of a shit to be haunted by his brother, especially after he's killed his brother so many times. Honestly, the Golden Guards looking like Caleb even NOW just makes me think the Collector is right: He likes hurting his brother. Why else would he not finally stop after the hundredth betrayal? Unless he gets off on the moment of their betrayal I guess.

It's just not good and a casual fan is going to like it even less because they won't really absorb and think the portraits so to them, it's just one really awkward sequence in the first special, an eerie sequence that doesn't add to anything in the second and then is sir not appearing in the third. That's not engaging.

Since little of it is engaging, it fails to function as a trick. After all, any magician will tell you that everything is about misdirection in their craft. Without it, a trick becomes nothing but smoke and mirrors instead of magic.

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Btw, mentioned FNAF so may as well say here: Saw it and really liked it. I keep considering making a blog about it and then just... not.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

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#the owl house criticism #toh critical #philip wittebane #caleb wittebane #evelyn clawthorne #belos toh