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tempest-toss · 1 year

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The Reunion

[Takes place immediately after this. As such it is an event that happened in the past, and if asked the muses would treat it as such. Think of it as information finally coming to life :) tw: death, decapitation]

The room was silent as Eleven’s head, or at least the top half fell to the ground. An internal threat had been dealt with, the Foundation was safe once more, and Seven was very tired.

“What happened here?” a voice familiar to Seven could be heard. Everyone turned to the doorway.

“Wait, what?” Five spoke out. “It’s you!”

There were two familiar figures in the doorway. One of them was dressed in a nice white suit with bright golden eyes while the other had a more ragged cloak with what looked like a piece of his face missing, except instead of flesh the underside revealed a robotic face. Despite looking odd, the council could recognize them immediately.

"Three, Nine! You're back!" Thirteen exclaimed. Three nodded.

"Yes we are but, uh, why is Eleven dead?" Three asked, pointing at the head of Eleven lying on the floor. The room was silent for a beat before One spoke up.

"How about we talk about it over some coffee?"

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A little bit later the remaining council members were in the Council room, each nursing tea, and coffee, except Five and Ten, who were drinking Caprisuns instead. After One finally finished brewing her fourth cup, she turned towards the prodigal O5s.

"So. You," she pointed at Nine, "Were sent with Two to rescue Three from Dr. Wondertainment. Now you and Three are back, but Two is nowhere in sight. What happened?"

Nine shifted uncomfortably. "We had to navigate through the factory to find Three. Two was, oddly antagonistic going through it, so willing to kill the Little Misters. Eventually, we got separated thanks to Mr. Beast, and I ended up falling into the testing room, with the prototype Little Misters. There they told me that I was actually a synthetic human designed to look like a robot and Two was a traitor. They helped me return to the main room, where Three was and Dr. Wondertainment lay wounded." At this Four seemed to shudder. "Three turned him to quartz and I kicked his head off, and he shattered. I then got another bombshell dropped on me."

"I am a little mister," Three spoke up. "You could probably tell by my eyes, but I am one of Dr. Wondertainments' sons. It's been so long since I stepped foot in the factory, I guess it was gone from my brain." He smiled at his colleagues. "I was offered to stay at the factory, but I chose to be with you guys instead. I want to share the fun ideals of my father, but I must help the Foundation. If there isn't a world to give fun in, then my father's plans are ruined!"

There was a beat of silence where everyone smiled at knowing where Three's allegiance fell. Soon Four spoke up.

"Uh, Three. How's um... How is the Good Doctor?"

"Hm? Oh your husband is fine, father." At this nonchalant answer, One choked on her coffee. All eyes turned to Four, who sighed.

"Yes, I am married to Dr. Wondertainment. He is in fact, one of my partners. I have been married to him back when he was one of the founders here, O5-VII. The “Family-Man”. After the Three Catastrophes I was presumed dead and couldn't find him. If he is okay, then after this meeting I will call him immediately."

"I don't know what's more eyebrow-raising," Seven spoke up. "That you're married to Dr. Wondertainment, Dr. Wondertainment was one of our founders, or you are that old." Four shot Seven a glare, but it wasn't filled with any real anger.

"Greetings O5-3, The Noble, and O5-9, The Alchemist,"

O5-13-ii spoke up.

"It is a pleasure to meet you. However, I want to say something to the rest of the council. In the past 24 hours, we have learned of two of our own who have defected and have made actions that threatened the safety of our lives. This cannot happen again. I propose stricter checks to make sure that the incoming O5s can be trusted. That or perhaps if you can 100% verify them as being trustworthy."

Everyone agreed with what 13-ii said. These were some close calls, and next time they may not be so lucky.

[STATUS QUO CHANGES: O5-2, "The Western" IS DEAD O5-3 "The Noble" AND O5-9 "The Alchemist" ARE BACK AND CAN NOW BE ASKED QUESTIONS! ONE OF FOUR'S PARTNERS HAS BEEN REVEALED: Dr. Wondertainment]

#[Also Four is Three's stepdad]#lore piece #status quo changes done for a while...]

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ferociouslycreativemystery · 2 months

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Me: I'm fine about my autism now btw, like I've come to terms with my fixated interests, limited tolerances and social inabilities. The alienation it brings is not ideal but it's just a reality I've gotta deal with now that I know it's just a part of who I am. I mean, it's not like an awkward conversation is gonna ruin anyone's life, is it? We'll both move on from it eventually. This is fine!

Also me: physically unable to watch beyond the first word of the first question of The Assembly because oh my god what if someone says something awkward or controversial or someone can't make themselves understood people are gonna get mad and scream about it online and I will freeze up and be stuck in the backlash forever I don't know how to handle conflict AT ALL let's just hide in the corner behind the sofa instead wait what if I became a hermit actually yeah yeah yeah that sounds good let's do that

#unresolved trauma? never even heard of her haha 😅#maddie debrief #that 2-minute intro/taster did nothing to calm me down either btw #I'm never comfortable around the types of shows where 'difference' becomes the core conceit of the premise #oh. so you've created a format dependent on making a socially alienated group face the social rules that made them alien in the first place #and then deriving your conflict from the 'natural contradiction' between the two?#sounds like the exact kind of conflict-seeking environment where I can let my normal guard down enough to meaningfully challenge #my deeply rooted feeling that people generally find me cumbersome to be around and mostly just tolerate my presence out of necessity #lovely that #(like i say I haven't seen the show #so idk if it is actually like that or if it's just the promo material stirring shit up as per usual #but as of rn I do not feel welcome in this room)#why does the 'we're not so different after all' always have to come at the climax and never the midpoint of the story?#why can we never find more than personal gratification in that realisation?#why do we always focus on the difficulty of coming to the realisation rather than the conflict of putting the realisation into *practice*?#I know why #it is because the human imagination is far more limited than we like to believe #and we find it hard to even *imagine* a world that we haven't seen functioning for ourselves yet #let alone find a purpose in *acting* on the idea #(especially if we ourselves currently feel dependent on the status quo for our personal welfare #which is why shows made to depend on 'difference = conflict' make my blood run cold)#so if we have to see to believe - how many cases of real world functioning equity does the average person understand?#very few. so let's instead lazily invert the state of power in an existing dynamic that people are familiar with #thereby reaffirming its false dichotomy through perpetuating what is essentially the same old conflict #while claiming to subvert it when in fact all we have done is reverse the dominance while keeping everyone locked in their roles #can someone just put some thought into how we might create a format that aims to loosen up the underlying skewed power dyanmic #so that everyone has to work together to prevent the elevation of a single way of being over all others #because that just becomes suffocating to *everyone* in the end #and that can still *acknowledge difference* but not as a source of conflict - rather as a source of collective strength?#but the story of changing one perspective will always be easier to both tell and enjoy than the one about building something new

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snekdood · 1 year

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the problem with conservatives is they think you challenging their beliefs is somehow oppressing them

#this is why i dont think punishing them physically necessarily works. while its a short term solution in the long run- if they have a #victim complex- which most conservatives who aren't just purely evil politicians kinda have been conditioned to have- they're just gonna #dig their heels in and count that as part of their supposed 'oppression'#they think you challengeing their precious binary. etc. is somehow oppressing them bc you challenge everything they've known and #have now since kinda grown attached to and the only lense they've seen the world through since forever #basically rocking their foundation of how they see reality- and since conservatives are afraid of change (kinda in the name) rocking #what they know makes them think you're oppressing them by making them actually think and be critical baout what they know #its like they take it as a judgement also. idk. as if their way of life is bad (which it for the most part kinda is) and that we're somehow #punishing them for believing in that life. it really does boil down to fear of the unknown and a desire to cling on to whats familiar.#'how dare you question my status quo lifestyle! everythings fine!! i swear!! im totally not in denial about how shit things've become!!!'#'everythins worked for me so far!!' aka they havent died yet. and are ignoring that other people are. and think their depressing life #somehow has something to do with other average people who are what. wearing make up and feather boa's. gods greatest sin of course dfhbhg #rather than the ruling class reinforcing a system that oppresses them and sucks them dry of their labour.......#but its fine!! guys!! remember?? its familiar. and we havent died yet. so its fine. man my back hurts and i wish i could take a 3 day break #i think we gotta also acknowledge that they're probably victims of abuse (since most conservatives are abusive too and probably inhereted #that trait from their even more conservative parents) and as victims of abuse... they probably do the same thing plenty of us have done #before too- where we didn't think anything better was possible/we could escape/we deserved better so we stayed in shitty situations for #longer than we deserved. and had to just think of it all as. fine. we havent died yet. whoevers abusing us has spared us from death.#so its fine. better than death. i guess.#how bleak of a worldview.

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halemerry · 10 months

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I’m doing it. I’m breaking down the Scene. You know the one. I've been tearing it apart for a week straight now in discord and figured I should leave my observations here. So, uh, yeah, this one's a big one so buckle up folks!

I want to start with the build up because I can never leave well enough alone and because I think the framing we have coming into this sequence is important. We start with the camera on Mr. Acts of Service himself. Crowley, after banishing Muriel, starts cleaning up the bookshop. The music playing is the soft slow rendition of the opening theme. He is returning this space to the status quo, resetting back to normal, fully intending to do this for Aziraphale before dragging him out to the Ritz, falling back on their typical pattern of going out together for food and drink.

Now in a moment he's going to get interrupted by Nina and Maggie but before we get there I want to take a second to draw attention to the area of the bookshop that Crowley will be operating in for the bulk of this. This space is one we very frequently see Aziraphale in. It's his desk behind the till - a spot linked intrinsically to him, even down to the fact that it's located on the east side of the shop. The windows are throwing beams of light onto Aziraphale's chair and onto the same spot Crowley will stand during The Scene. This lighting choice will not change from now until our last shots in the bookshop and the way the blocking plays around these sunbeams is very aware (as Good Omens nearly always is) of exactly where they will land.

Nina and Maggie enter the scene to have a chat about boundaries and communication. Maggie, his own mirror, tells him flat out that he can't play with their lives like that. Maggie and Nina then both tell him that he and Aziraphale need to talk. And I don’t think they're wrong, exactly, but I do think that Aziraphale and Crowley are actually a lot better at communicating in general than they are in these following high stakes scenes. But that's some meta for later - for now I want to just focus on the particular way Crowley's been primed for the conversation he and Az are about to have. Nina in particular does something really interesting. She does exactly what we as the audience did when we first saw Nina and Maggie: she mistakenly projects herself onto Crowley. She says he has trust issues because she does and in the process accidentally frames the core of their problem as Crowley needing to allow himself to trust Aziraphale, a thing that he actively already does and has done for quite some time and has been shown to us several times throughout the two seasons.

Now the build up we get for Aziraphale going into this conversation is very small. By which I mean practically non-existent. We start at the end of his conversation with the Metatron who tells him to go tell his friend the good news - which notably does not imply that the news is something that would require Crowley to make a choice - and sends Aziraphale on his way. Now the most crucial thing in this sequence, to me, is the expressions Aziraphale makes when he thinks the Metatron isn't looking at him. While polite and smiley when engaged with him, Az's expression falls as soon as he doesn't have eyes on him. Something is wrong and Aziraphale knows it.

Aziraphale enters the shop. The doorway is dark and shadowy and he hasn't composed himself yet - though he does give Nina and Maggie a little smile as they leave. Then, as soon as they're not looking at him, but before he approaches Crowley, the tension is back.

He hesitates, then smiles and approaches Crowley. Crowley, planted dead center in that beam of light from earlier, takes off his glasses and promptly starts nervously rambling. The music cuts off here entirely, giving us nothing to focus on but the noises coming from our lead actors, the background noise from the street, and the ticking of the clock in the background. Aziraphale puts up his hands like he's going to interrupt then lowers them again as Crowley keeps talking, his face shifting into this helpless sort of smitten look.

Now look at the light and how it hits the bookshelves behind Crowley as he tries to get his confession going. It's in the shape of a wing. Keep an eye on that - when the camera chooses to show us this one wing of light is important.

Aziraphale then interrupts and there are two things I want to draw attention to here as Aziraphale fumbles for words. First of all is the fact that he glances in the direction of the door (and the Metatron) at least three times as he's struggling to speak.

Secondly, I want to draw attention to the words Az actually says here. He first echoes the Metatron's earlier statement about good news. He then does not roll into the news itself and instead glances at the door and says the Metatron. He starts rambling about the Metatron to a very confused looking Crowley and evetually talks his way into that the Metatron said something. He then hits a wall again, scrambling to find words and instead of explaining the context of what the Metatron says he lands on Gabriel. His brain latches onto someone obviously on the forefront of both their minds and something vaguely relevant to the news he's about to share. He rambles more about Gabriel's job, glancing once again at the door in the middle of this, still avoiding getting to the actual point or perhaps even synthesizing said point as he goes.

We then cut to what is framed as a flashback. I think it is very notable we only see this as Az is telling it to us. In other words that this is not us witnessing an event happening but us witnessing what Aziraphale is telling Crowley. This sequence is the single scene where the Metatron calls Crowley by name despite actively avoiding it in any real time continuity sequences. He uses it twice here which I think also is the strongest thread in here that tells us that we are seeing what Crowley is being told not necessarily what actually happened.

The instant the idea of restoring Crowley comes up the wing of light behind Crowley loses visibility. Crowley's speechless for a moment so Aziraphale fills the silence, already looking like he wants to cry as he talks about the old days. (I also can't help but to notice that the lights behind Az in this shot look like eyes.) Crowley finally speaks and circles around the beam of light he's been standing in like an object seeking to re-establish a source of gravity. The music cuts back in here with tense drawn out notes.

Crowley talks about how Hell offered him his place back and he turned them down. Aziraphale in turn presses on ideas that we know he doesn't really believe. It's a echo of the bandstand and uses a lot of the same language of that fight - another fight we know features Aziraphale saying things he knows aren't true. By now, we have seen him multiple times this season express he does not want to go back and make it abundantly clear that the side they have made for themselves is important to him. We see him actively calling angels bad and incompetent, contrary to everything he's telling Crowley here. We see him be the one to repetitively remind Crowley that they are on their side and be the one that always draws attention to that first. Yet here he says Heaven is the side of light to Crowley - who by the way is literally framed in light. The frame is telling us outright that Crowley is already Good as he is, while Az's expressions are telling us he knows Heaven isn't.

Aziraphale can't tell him that he did not turn down the job and Crowley does another orbit. The music cuts again. This time, he stops with his back to Az, tilts his head upward and decides to ruin me by invoking God.

Here he is, hearing these awful things that he was sure they had moved on from, hearing these things he has tried for so long and so hard to help them both unlearn. But these sorts of habits and lessons are insidious and he knows that and he himself is even a victim of that himself. I mean, don't get me wrong, he recognizes this is weird, I think, but between his own self worth issues and the stress of the few days they'd had can't work out what exactly is off here. He's confused and lost and just been told, in his mind, that he is not good enough as he is - a thing he has always on some level also believed. Yet he reaches out to the parent that taught him that lesson in the first place for strength and grounds himself with that. He circles back to stand in the beam of light and, with that wing of light finally backlighting him again, he is brave and tries to be enough anyway. He bows his head downward, fully emerging the line of this body in the light and tries again. Because even now, even after that emotional blow, Crowley is an optimist who can't help but to try.

At first Aziraphale can't figure out quite what is going on here. He squints at Crowley and glances at the door again. Crowley meanwhile keeps continually glancing upward, whether at God or to hold back tears or some combination of both. In most of these shots Crowley bisects the room, creating a dark half to his left and a light half to his right.

Crowley says he relies on Aziraphale. Even here, even now when he's just hurt him. Because it is the truth. Because Aziraphale makes him feel less alone. Because Aziraphale proves to him that no matter how fucked the system is that there is still good in the world, even if he doesn't always agree with it.

It is only once there is no doubt what Crowley is doing that Aziraphale starts shaking his head in very small quick shakes. He looks panicked even as they both physically draw closer to each other. It's huge not here, not like this energy to me. Aziraphale asks Crowley to come with to help him run Heaven. This is the point where Crowley starts tearing up.

Crowley then says you can't leave this bookshop, trying to say you can't leave me. Az, nearly in tears himself, says 'oh Crowley. Nothing lasts forever' as a means to convey that the books aren't what is important here. Crowley, naturally, hears 'including us.'

Crowley looks down again, quietly agrees, and puts on his glasses, covering himself up again. He then wishes Aziraphale good luck and the music starts up again, still tense but sorrowful now. He leaves the light and heads to the door. Az can't help but to call after him. Please wait. And Crowley can't help but to listen. It's worth noting here that even as he rotates toward the north door, the light still gently hits his face. The shots in general are darker though. He's moved away from the light but it still can't help but to touch him.

"Come with me," says Aziraphale and then after a pause adds "To Heaven." Aziraphale, looking heartbroken, starts one of two 'I' statements he will struggle around in the next few moments. He lands on I need. Which. I want to pause there a moment because holy shit. That is not something they say out loud either. Az looks at him a moment, visibly struggling before he says his dialogue about Crowley not understanding his offer. Like he's said something he didn't mean to and needs to cover it up or like he can't handle the silence after such an honest statement. And on some level he's not wrong there. Because Crowley doesn't understand what Aziraphale is trying to say. But Aziraphale doesn't understand the way Crowley is reading it to course correct either.

Crowley says that he does understand and that he understands better than Aziraphale does. And he also isn't wrong either, from his perspective. Because he does understand the implications behind the offer theoretically in play here. Because he does know that the position Aziraphale is presenting him is not going to result in the outcome Aziraphale is presenting him with. There are some things you can't undo just like memories slipping through the cracks.

Az says there's nothing more to say, trying to dismiss Crowley despite having been the one to pull him to a stop moments ago. He puts on a fake polite smile for a beat but then his is jaw sets, mouth working as his eyes drop - unable to look Crowley in the eye.

Crowley tells him to listen as the music fades out and points upward. Aziraphale humors this, glancing up a few times before looking frustrated, saying he can't hear anything. The light from the window shines down in his direction without actually touching him. Crowley tells him "That's the point. No nightingales." The shot he's on here is a dark one without even any of the book shops pillars visible in it to brighten the shot.

Aziraphale looks frozen a moment here and then as Crowley calls him an idiot and says 'we could have been us' his face completely crumbles. He rapidly glances away to hide his face and Crowley moves and reaches to pull him back. They're both distraught. Az is clearly already holding back tears even before Crowley touches him. The angle of this shot frames Aziraphale in the light of the window. For the first time in this whole sequence Aziraphale is in the light, literally being physically pulled into it by Crowley.

The music swells, playing a similar theme to the one that plays as the Pillars of Creation are formed at the start of the season. They shift back and forth, the camera focusing on Aziraphale's face and hands. His hands move uncertainly, trying to reach out even as he's struggling emotionally. He is visibly shaking but he crucially does not pull away, not even a little.

His hands settle on Crowley's back, right where his wings would be, and for a brief moment gets taller, like he's allowing himself to lean into the kiss. They press together tightly, their mutual gravity sending them crashing together before they break apart. When they do Aziraphale looks devastated and his eyes move pretty much instantly to look out the window where the Metatron would be.

Crowley's glasses make him harder to read here, but he looks at Aziraphale like a man awaiting judgement in a trial he knows he's already lost. He's sad too, but as always, is waiting for Aziraphale's reaction. Because he might push continually at he boundaries of them as a unit but he has always let Aziraphale decide where to set them in stone.

Az fumbles over words here. He gets stuck on "I" here and lets it hang in the air. He then visibly thinks his words over, his expression slowly filling with resolve as he comes to some sort of conclusion. Then, like it's difficult to say, he falls back into old coded language. "I forgive you." A thing he has always said in response to things that he agrees with but cannot or should not allow himself to have.

Crowley sighs and tells him not to bother, refusing to fall into the old pattern that Aziraphale has. He is setting a boundary, for once, and even if it is one born from misunderstanding I am proud of him for being able to. He turns away and leaves. And this is where Az seems most in danger of falling apart. His lips move as Crowley goes, forming the start of a 'no' after him. He draws back from the door and turns his body away from it, physically distancing himself from anything that would feel like following Crowley. Except he can't help himself. With shaking hands he reaches up to touch his lips. He presses in, like he's trying to recreate the pressure and then his jaw works a moment and his expression sets as resolved.

The Metatron enters through the front door, which is framed in dark lighting. Aziraphale looks panicked and immediately turns his whole body away from him to hide his face while he collects himself.

He turns around after a beat and the Metatron asks 'how did he take it?' This is an odd question that only sort of half fits the fact that we are meant to believe at this point - that Aziraphale should be obtaining a yes or no from Crowley. It's not asking Crowley's choice at all. It's like the Metatron assumed a different conversation had happened or perhaps that he already knew the answer.

Aziraphale says he took it badly and the Metatron just takes a moment to direct a few casual digs at Crowley. He references him being stubborn and too curious - all the while avoiding the use of this name. At this point Az's eyes are locked out the window in the direction Crowley vanished to. The Metatron asks if he's ready to start despite originally having promised Az time to think over his answer. Aziraphale keeps glancing out the window.

For a moment he cracks, stepping away from the Metatron and back toward the east side of the bookshop. For the only time in this whole sequence he steps right into the sunbeam Crowley started in. It notably never illuminates his face as he mentions the issue of his bookshop (a statement absolutely not about the bookshop).

The Metatron explains Muriel will take care of it. Aziraphale looks back out the window with the start of an objection.

The Metatron interrupts him asking if there's anything he needs to take with him. Az's mouth takes a moment to try and form words. He steps out of the light again, starts to object, and then cuts off, eyes back to the window. Then his expression shifts again, settling in another state of resolve before he puts on his falsely polite face and follows the Metatron out.

As they leave the shop we cut back to Crowley. Crowley, who could've left to go handle his own emotions, did not leave. Instead he planted himself there, nice and noticeable. Like he wanted Aziraphale to see and know that he still has a choice. Like he needs to see Aziraphale make that choice for himself. Like he can't quite bring himself to be the one to close that last door. He stands there, framed by light, and doesn't move until the doors to the elevator to Heaven close behind Aziraphale. He then glances at Nina and Maggie and then gets in the Bentley, which starts playing the song that we now know he knows is supposed to be theirs. He turns off the music and drives away.

So there's a lot in these sequences and most of it probably won't help us figure out exactly what comes next, but there are definite signs that all is not as it's being presented to us. Whether he's actively lying or not, something is wrong that Aziraphale either can't or won't talk about frankly with Crowley. I suspect, whether it's under stress from a literal threat or because he believes that it is the safest option for them, that Aziraphale is doing all of this to protect Crowley.

There are also all sorts of signals here, especially in the lights, that gesture at the fact their togetherness is a net good. Together they are balanced and stronger for it and likely more in alignment with the Ineffable Plan. And, more importantly than that, that said togetherness is so clearly what they both want. They have loved each other longer than anything alive has ever loved anyone and none of this changes that. They both are saying that in their own ways here, even if those ways are not ones the other is particularly good at picking up and I for one cannot wait to get to see the payoff of them learning how to.

#good omens #gos2 spoilers #good omens spoilers #good omens meta #kind of #is it meta if its mostly me pointing and yelling?#come suffer with me #you have no idea how many times i had to watch these sequences for this #crowley #aziraphale #the bookshop

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fernthewhimsical · 2 months

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Hopepunk Primer pt. 2

Philosophy of Hopepunk

I cannot express this better than other people have done before me. So I'll start with an interview Kayti Burt had with several hopepunk authors in 2019.

"What is hopepunk? It depends on who you ask…

Rowland, quoting her essay “One Atom of Justice, One Molecule of Mercy, and the Empire of Unsheathed Knives,” says: “Hopepunk is a subgenre and a philosophy that ‘says kindness and softness don’t equal weakness, and that, in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a political act. An act of rebellion.’”

To understand hopepunk as a concept it helps to understand what it stands in contrast to. Grimdark is a fantasy subgenre characterized by bleak settings in which humanity is fundamentally cutthroat, and where no individual or community can stop the world’s inevitable decline. Hopepunk, in contrast, believes that the very act of trying has meaning, that fighting for positive change in and of itself has worth—especially if we do it together." [4]

When Alexandra Rowland was asked on Tumblr to expand on the initial statement she made she elaborated:

"Hopepunk says that genuinely and sincerely caring about something, anything, requires bravery and strength. Hopepunk isn’t ever about submission or acceptance: It’s about standing up and fighting for what you believe in. It’s about standing up for other people. It’s about DEMANDING a better, kinder world, and truly believing that we can get there if we care about each other as hard as we possibly can, with every drop of power in our little hearts." [5]

I also love the definition of the Tumblr blog @hopepunk-humanity:

"What is Hopepunk?

Wild laughter from ragged throats

Flowers growing choked from crumbling asphalt

A warm bed after a long, hard journey

Your partner’s hand cupped in your own

Bright graffiti on cracked tunnel walls

The chains falling loose to the stone floor

A glint of silver beneath a century of tarnish

A long rain after a blistering wildfire

Just one more step, and then another

A single candle flame joining the stars against the night

A loved ones voice calling your name after hours lost in an unfamiliar place

A hand taking yours, just when you’d given up on reaching out

Smiling, laughing again, when you thought you’d forgotten how

Knowing, despite everything, that humans are inherently good

It’s not simply blind optimism, or naivety. It’s choice. It’s taking the human race by the hand and saying, “I will love you, because I am you”. It’s facing a world dripping with cynicism and fashionable hopelessness and saying, “no, I will not give in”. It’s putting kindness out into the world, knowing you might not get it back, knowing you may be scorned for it, knowing it might not change anything, but with a certainty that kindness is what the world needs the most.

It is choosing hope" [6]

Hopepunk is choosing hope in a world where they want us to have none. It's choosing humanity when they want us to forget we are human. It's choosing community when they would benefit of us staying individuals. It's choosing action and hope when they want us struck down and paralyzed.

Alexandra Rowland emphasizes to not forget the second part of the word: Punk. In another interview with Kayti Burt for Den of Geek she says: "it’s important to remember that punk is the operative half of the word – punk in the sense of anti-authoritarianism and punching back against oppression." and "The instinct is to make it only about softness and kindness, because those are what we’re most hungry for. We all want to be treated gently. But sometimes the kindest thing you can do for someone is to stand up to a bully on their behalf, and that takes guts and rage." [7]

What is Hopepunk to me?

That spark that is both love and spite that keeps me going. It's seeing the good in humanity, while also acknowledging the harm. It's refusing to lay down and die, refusing the accept the status quo, refusing to believe that this is it. It's believing in a better world. In kindness. In the inherent sense of community in humanity. It's believing in the power of stories. It's seeing kindness and hope as an act of Sacred Rebellion. And spreading that kindness and hope is a Vow that I have taken. It's taken the anger I have against corporations, injustice, bigotry, capitalism, oppression, and letting it fuel the fire within me in a constructive way. It's working to dismantle systems that are oppressive to work towards a more inclusive world. It's pruning the garden of dead weight so new things can grow. Late stage capitalism wants us all to be docile, to work, not to live. So I will shout my small joys from the rooftops. I will create for the sake of creating. I will practice radical acceptance so that I stand strong above the masses of ads that wants me to hate myself. I will choose to see the good so that I can believe change is possible. Hopepunk a fire that says "Rage. Rage against those who deserve it. Stand up for those who do not and show them a better world is possible."

[4] Den of Geek - Are you afraid of the darkness: a hopepunk explainer [5] Alexandra Rowland tumblr post [6] Hopepunk-humanity - what is hopepunk [7] Den of Geek - a hopepunk guide: interview with Alexandra Rowland

Part 1: Intro and history Part 2: Philosophy of Hopepunk Part 3: How to practice hopepunk and further reading Part 4: Extra! Hopepunk and magic

#witchblr #hope #hopepunk #personal #mine #divider by saradika

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sophistopheles · 4 months

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hey!! ty for posting about the article talking about continuation of aa. I don’t know as much about the production of aa5 and 6 but you mentioned a person names Eshiro being responsible for the “no spoilers” rule being replaced. what/who is that? just in general giving u the floor to rant about aa5 and 6 beyond what u were able to say in that post and ur hopes for the future 💙✨ ok bye! :)

hiya!! (post here)

So, the story of why aa5 and aa6 are so different to aa4 basically boils down to a change in the team making it (and Eshiro was part of this).

Most people know Shu Takumi wrote and directed the original trilogy of Phoenix Wright games and then worked on Apollo Justice (although the director was technically Mitsuru Endo, people tend to think of AJ as the last "Takumi" mainline game). After that, he left the Ace Attorney team to complete and release Ghost Trick in 2010, and then he became involved in the development of Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright, which released in 2012.

While he was doing all of this, a "secondary" Ace Attorney team had arisen to keep working on the franchise - they had almost all worked on previous AA games and in 2009 and 2011 they were able to release the two Ace Attorney Investigations games.

The two most well-known members of this "team" are the producer Motohide Eshiro and the director Takeshi Yamazaki, and the fact that AAI2 is so beloved shows that they are by no means unable to make really, really good Ace Attorney games. But, with Takumi still busy with his other projects, and a good few years having passed since AA4, this team was asked to create a fifth Ace Attorney game in his absence.

This was, obviously, a challenge, and Capcom were likely in quite a rush to get a new mainline game out soon. Additionally, initial fan reception of AA4 was really not that good - many people hated the decision to disbar Phoenix in particular - and the game itself had many loose ends.

Eshiro, as the producer, decided that for AA5 it was better for the writers to not be held back by previous games, which manifested in what people think of now as the "no spoilers rule". This is why AA5 does not follow up on AA4, and likewise for AA6. Nowadays this decision is widely regarded as a very bad move, but on some level I empathise with it - AA has always been kind of reluctant to spoil past games, and you were always operating with the presumption that the player might be new to the series and wanted to go back to the previous games. Writing a follow-up that addressed AA4, while being acceptable to newcomers and not spoiling almost all of AA4's biggest twists, without the guy who originally came up with the story, would prove really difficult.

So they wrote Dual Destinies as a new story which followed AA4 but didn't really address it, and indulged in fanservice to try and restore the series status quo. It seems like the scenario changed a lot during development and they were pretty crunched for time, too - the final villain's models are apparently called FINALBOSS in the game files and completely broken if you look at them from any other angle.

After working on AA5, Yamazaki was apparently exhausted and didn't really want to make another Ace Attorney. Unfortunately for him, Shu Takumi was still off on his Sherlock & Souseki Victorian-Meiji Adventure, writing the Great Ace Attorney duology, and he wouldn't get done until 2017 when DGS2 came out.

Eshiro managed to persuade Yamazaki to work on AA6 by bringing him to conventions, and having seen the passion and overjoyed reactions from fans after AA5 came out, Yamazaki agreed to direct the sixth game, with Takuro Fuse (AA5 and 6's main artist) acting as co-director to ease the load. Some of AA6's cases were also created by guest writers; the SOJ artbook mentions a struggle for ideas, which explains the outlandish setting of Khura'in.

To the best of my knowledge (and I'm not sure this account is 100% accurate so anyone please feel free to correct me) this is why AA5 and AA6 are the way they are. Nobody is particularly to blame for how things turned out; there were just a couple of bad decisions along the way which has resulted in the games being looked back on by a lot of people with some contempt. Given the circumstances, I'm actually pretty impressed with how enjoyable Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice are, even if they don't reach the heights of the trilogy.

Yamazaki left Capcom in 2019. Eshiro went on to produce Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2, and I'm pretty sure he's still at Capcom.

What all of this means for the next Ace Attorney title is completely speculation, but the short version of the story is that Shu Takumi has finally come back from getting milk Herlock Sholmes Jail writing other games, and seems to be getting hyped up by capcom as the "Director of the Ace Attorney Series". This makes it very likely he will direct and write the next Ace Attorney game. At present we have no idea what this means - he could follow up on AA4's story as well as he's able, he could write another Phoenix game, he might go rogue and write an Athena game, he might do something completely different. But the next AA game will likely be around the quality of AA1-2-3-4 and DGS, not another AA5/6 situation.

As for the producer, this comes from the November 2020 leaks (which was very real - it's where we first got the TGAA localisation confirmed), but the only thing we heard about their projected AA7 was that it would be produced by a guy called Yasayuki Makino. He also produced The Great Ace Attorney collection, and if you read his dev blogs from that release, he credits AA4 for getting him into the series initially, and generally seems to be a huge Ace Attorney fan himself, pushing hard for TGAA to get a worldwide re-release after its unimpressive initial sales (and look how well that's worked out...!)

That's basically the story. I think AA7 will be great, actually, but at this point I will literally take anything, Capcom please my family is starving

#ace attorney #asks #sophblog #dual destinies #spirit of justice

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mcflymemes · 7 months

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INQUISITION PARTY BANTER * assorted dialogue from dragon age inquisition

you... actually look like that?

thank you for remembering. sometimes people forget me.

it's interesting watching you. the way you carry yourself when you use magic.

why are you so angry at your father? he wants to help and you know he does.

no one needs to see my arse.

you're set on being sad forever.

remember, do not use it like a sword.

i'd just eat the cheese.

always knew you were up to something.

you didn't always have a beard.

sometimes love isn't enough.

there were so many wonderful hats.

you're happier now, [name].

you have so many feelings.

i am uncertain whether to believe you.

the world doesn't make sense to them. it's too real.

you're right about that. they would.

do you need to eat? or sleep?

you would stop it if you could.

i can't tug it loose without tearing it.

stop. it isn't about you.

i believe i can work with that.

you have other things to carry.

you're serious, aren't you?

you let it keep hurting because you think hurting is who you are.

it is because you think you have to?

you ask a lot of questions, [name].

why be ashamed? power should be respected, not swept under the carpet.

i'll have to steal that one.

hey, when this is all done, if you ever need my help for anything, you just ask, all right?

maybe you're not a complete moron.

we were having a moment, and now you've ruined it.

i can't believe you drank that swill at the tavern.

i'm well aware you lied to me.

that is... remarkably decent of you.

i don't want to think about that right now.

you need a hairbrush.

when you charge at them, you make them hit you.

i'm curious about you. i had no idea something like you was possible.

how do you want to be remembered? valiant yet sexy rebel against the status quo?

it's not easy finding people willing to shoulder such a terrible responsibility.

it's not such a terrible thing. some of my best friends are murderers.

who's judging now?

i know your kind.

i know that what comes out of your mouth is the same drivel that comes out of theirs.

careful i don't club you on the head.

if i had something to say, i'd say it.

if we're going to fight at each other's side, we need to get along.

enough, both of you.

you said i could ask you questions.

how do you get your hair to do that?

do you think we could ever be friends?

killing him won't make anything better.

if you really cared, you could ask.

you caught the eye of a young woman in that last village.

i just need to know you're capable of higher thought. for my own comfort.

i question your reasons for being here.

my reasons for being here are the same as yours.

i think that's the first time i've heard you admit anything is complicated.

what made you change your mind?

i will try to be more like you.

you should learn to watch your back.

i mean. could be naked more. that'd be better.

beardy people are supposed to be jolly.

why are you complaining?

you're smirking again.

right, here we go. what is it from you?

there is no need to tell anyone that.

does yelling while we're walking around count?

stop pointing that at me!

you need a drink or something, you tell me.

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #rp meme #rp memes #rp prompt #roleplay memes #rp starters #roleplay prompt #ask memes #ask meme #roleplay meme #roleplay inbox prompts #rp inbox meme #inbox prompt #inbox meme #sentence starter prompt #sentence starter #sentence starters #mcflymemes

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gonzo-rella · 6 months

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Headcanons: Starting Your Freshman Year at Greendale and Joining the Study Group

MASTERLIST | AO3 | KO-FI

Requested by: Anon

Headcanons for being a new freshman at Greendale and becoming a member of the study group?

Ohh sorry i didn’t clarify! it doesn’t matter to me, i just liked the idea of the reader kinda being the baby of the group, so maybe everyone is in their later years at greendale?

Relationship(s): The Study Group (Jeff, Britta, Annie, Troy, Abed, Shirley and Pierce) x gn!reader (platonic)

Warnings: References to underage drinking. (Let me know if I need to add any)

(A/N: I started writing this literal years ago, but I rewatched the Community Christmas episodes today and it’s made me want to rewatch all of Community and start writing for it again. Not enough people write for it, and not enough people write gender-neutral-reader fics. This was like 90% done so it was a good place to start again. I went with making it so the reader joins the Study Group during season 3, since I had the idea of using the reader to replace Todd in the episode where none of them want to work with him. I haven’t followed the canon of season 3 verbatim, since it’d have made writing this kinda difficult (plus I haven’t seen season 3 in years). So, this is more general. I’m hoping to work through my list of Community requests from years ago throughout 2024, since I’m hoping to get more into the habit of putting aside time for writing.)

When you decided on taking Biology 101 during your first semester at Greendale, you were bound to learn of (and witness first hand) the notorious Study Group.

Your hope that you wouldn’t be roped into their borderline-narcissistic antics was killed when you were given Pierce Hawthorne as your lab partner.

To say he was annoyed would be an understatement.

Oh boy, did he make it known that he abhorred having to be your lab partner.

In fact, most of them seemed to hate the idea of being stuck as your partner, which was at least a little hurtful.

When Abed rearranged the lab partner pairings based on some mental computer wizardry, you got put with Jeff, who was a bit more subtle with his annoyance.

You spent most of that night standing there awkwardly while Shirley cried about being the least popular member of the Study Group, or trying to be some kind of mediator between these friends who you knew only from rumours and observing them.

You also had to rescue a turtle from being burned alive by Britta, which sent you over the edge into a fit of fury.

Annie was the one who apologised to you for everything, and, much to the chagrin of everyone else, invited you to join the study group.

Perhaps she didn’t expect you to take her up on the offer, but you did anyway.

Your first study session with them made them realise that you fit in well with the group.

Even Abed liked your presence, because he believed it ‘changed the status quo without being like when sitcoms add a kid character in a desperate attempt to boost the ratings’.

(He compared you to Frasier from Cheers)

For a while, though, you did feel a little isolated from the group, considering you were often the only one to comment negatively on the group’s questionable behaviour, which they saw as perfectly normal.

However, you adjusted to being in the group alarmingly fast, to the point of getting carried away in the Study Group mentality like the rest of them.

As the baby of the group, you were treated as such, despite being at least a bit more mature than Troy and Abed.

For example, if Jeff and Britta were in the middle of a heated discussion, you’d be told to ‘stay out of it’.

Abed, early on, would analyse you to figure out how exactly you fit into the group, such as deciding what archetype best describes you.

There’s also a chance that he would create and manipulate situations in order to test your personality.

Jeff would shut this down as soon as he figured out what Abed was doing.

In an effort to try and include you more, Annie would force each member of the Study Group to do an activity with you.

Annie invited you to a one-on-one study session.

(Also, if you’re taking any classes that she took in her first or second year, she’ll lend you her old materials, like notes, textbooks, study cards etc.)

Shirley took you to the mall with her and her kids, treating you like one of her own kids.

Troy and Abed introduced you to Inspector Spacetime, which you quickly became a big fan of.

(Watching it became a Saturday night ritual for the three of you)

Britta brought you along to a protest which ended in the both of you in jail.

(An irritated Jeff would have to come bail you both out, and Britta would beg him not to say anything about it to Shirley or Annie)

Pierce gave you $1000 to tell Annie that he’d taken you to the zoo.

Jeff invited you over to his apartment for beers, which resulted in you both getting wasted and having a tearful heart-to-heart with one another.

Despite adopting the Study Group mentality to a certain degree, you would be the least susceptible to the group’s dumbassery due to joining so late, which meant you’d often be the one to pull the group out of the stupid shit they were doing.

At the very least, you’d pull Jeff out of it, and he’d take the lead and sort out everyone else.

If you weren’t that close to your family, you’d probably spend holidays over at Shirley’s upon her insistence.

(I love love love the idea that she makes a custom Christmas stocking for you the first year you come over)

In a weird way, the Study Group became your family, albeit a dysfunctional one.

After your friends all graduated, you stayed in touch with most of them, even before you were reunited because of the Save Greendale Committee.

It’s safe to say that, even if you do join late, you’re still accepted as one of them, for better or for worse.

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kokonqui · 21 days

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Walks in, people are really doing the “my white man has done nothing wrong in the narrative ever because he is autistic and autistic people can do nothing wrong actually” with Dungeon meshi

Read down below for my thoughts on people pulling this shit

Before I start, maybe pick up a book from school and practice how to read a narrative and learn content analysis,

it’ll really help because I don’t know what the hell else to say to people who are bad at reading subtext and putting context into practice at this point

I see the sentiment of “Kabru is actually evil because he actively murders people-“ as if the story isn’t actually like super nuanced and complex in its’ dynamics between races

and y’all can only really see a man that has personally gone through nothing but tragedy have a proper reaction to not having that tragedy handled properly and go “because he is a brown man he is inherently violent and therefore bad for my white man because of these story beats” with the type of stupid white person reaction.

The subtext went out the window huh, he gave the viewer ample context and reason as to why it happened he was going to kill the body retriever group, WHO WAS TRYING TO SAY TO HIM THAT THEY WERE GOING TO MUG HIM. AND KILL HIM AND SPLIT THE MONEY THEY MADE FROM GAMING A SYSTEM THEYVE BEEN EXPLOITING, WHICH HE DIDN’T DO.

Dying to monsters is one thing but someone like a retriever artificially upping the amount of people who die in a dungeon while also actively disrespecting the rules that the dungeon has by doing that fits perfectly into Kabru’s moral compass and motivation. Do you think that wouldn’t bother him? Sure, he has learning to do himself in regards to monsters and all, but do people really think he’s a monster actively incapable of change, when he’s stated in text that he believes himself to be a monster due to the things that have happened to him? Do you think he doesn’t blame himself and have survivors guilt from what he went through? Or do we think because Kabru lies and he warps and he cheats only to start realizing that the Kabru we’re shown doesn’t even know where he himself starts or ends. This is not trying to justify his actions. I am explaining his thinking. Of course He’d kill the retrievers.

And I think he would kill the Canaries if he had the chance to. I think the Retrievers were an active stand in for his feelings towards the Canaries.

When you build a life speaking lies after your previous status quo crumbles, how the fuck are you supposed to differentiate your own behaviors from the lies you grow into saying to make sure you don’t get close enough to people to be hurt as badly as he was as a kid. He is a sole survivor of a tragedy, and he reacts accordingly, and you all just want to antagonize him.

Did we forget who we’re talking about in comparison here, or are you guys that focused on justifying a man who clearly was used, exploited, and literally lost his mother because some group who thought themselves to be higher than due to their longer life cycles decided to destroy his whole life because it created a slight inconvenience

god you lot are truly fucking insufferable and can’t let characters be complex without woobifying or flanderizing them to be more digestible.

Let characters be complex.

You don’t have to like them all the time, You don’t have to agree with their actions.

You don’t have to agree with a character all the time for you to like a character’s writing.

#babble.com #dungeon meshi #laios touden #laios dungeon meshi #dunmeshi #kabru of utaya #Kabru #kabru dungeon meshi #can y’all shut up with your shitty ass fucking takes for a second #dunmesh spoilers #dungeon meshi spoilers #delicious in dungeon spoilers

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wherevenusholdssomeofficespace · 2 months

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Why the Llama Incident works

The noodle incident is a trope done in A LOT of shows (PNF has a whole TV tropes page dedicated to its noodle incidents). Technically getting disowned and raised by ocelots is a noodle incident in pnf... we never do know what gets him officially disowned and how he ends up in the care of the ocelots). The noodle incident is meant to just showcase that this character has a history of some sort.

Generally speaking, explaining a noodle incident is a bad idea because the unknown has infinite potential. The intrigue is part of what makes it interesting. People can come up with ideas that are absolutely out there themselves. Usually, coming up with something that will live up to the hype is impossible because the hype of the event has built it up to impossible levels.

Emphasis on the usually.

They literally called it a llama incident. They knew what a noodle incident was, and were purposefully playing with our expectations that it would be an unrevealed event. And, as I said before, PnF has already dealt with its fair share of noodle incidents that go unexplained.

And as a noodle incident it served its purpose. Generally a noodle incident will provide context on what the status quo is without spelling out the details. In Rollercoaster the Juggling Monkey's noodle incident tells us that this is not the first time Phineas and Ferb have had a Big Idea (in fact we never do get what Phineas and Ferb's first Big Idea was). In Milo Murphy's Law the Llama incident tells us that Milo and Melissa were getting into Murphy's Law shenanigans long before Zack came into the picture. Showing us that they're so familiar with each other that situations that might require more context to another person doesn't.

Now bear with me as I go on a bit of a tangent that I promise is related.

The main cast of Milo Murphy's Law is a trio, and one of its members is defined by being the new guy. Zack is kind of an audience surrogate. Melissa is Milo's childhood friend and Milo has lived with this all his life. Generally, they don't need to explain anything to each other, nor do they need to explain anything to their class who is already at least passingly familiar with Milo. But they do to Zack.

I don't necessarily think MML NEEDED the audience surrogate character per se. Quite frankly I think audience surrogate characters are rarely necessary. You can always just start with a group of friends and fill in context via implication. I think it's just significantly harder, because you run the risk of alienating your audience by not allowing them to get settled in what is going on or having your characters talk about things like they don't already know what is going on.

But I don't think its at all an inherently bad storytelling method. I personally find outsider POVs delightful, and a good audience surrogate character is an outsider POV, at least at the start. Zack being new to the whole Murphy's Law allowed him a story about choosing to engage with the hazardous kid, winning him loyal friends and a set of skills he never would have dreamed of before. We get to see him grow, and we wouldn't have seen that if he was Milo's friend the whole time.

On the other hand he also has a bit of a wild background, as the former lead singer of a locally famous lumberjack themed boy band. Which gives Milo and Melissa the chance to join a band. Or for Milo to have a real birthday party. A change in status quo provides opportunities for growth and change, for the whole cast, which is useful in more overarching stories... like MML. It's not NECESSARY of course. Zack could have been a classmate that had always kept his distance before he accidentally got tangled up with Milo and decided he was cool. But there's nothing wrong with him being straight up new either.

And at the most basic level, Zack's complete unfamiliarity provides a nice contrast to Melissa's familiarity and Milo's day to day life. Zack is starting from 0 while Milo has been dealing with this every single day of his life.

So Zack isn't going to know what the Llama Incident is. And while noodle incidents being unexplained is fun for the audience, it isn't going to be so fun for someone who is constantly living with people who know what this Llama Incident is. Of course they could have told Zack the noodle incident off screen, it would have made for a good gag to cut into the story with Melissa and Milo finishing telling Zack the story. But instead, we are treated to an episode that has Zack really beginning to slot into his life as Milo's friend.

Back to the main point.

MML is one of the only shows with enough sheer chaotic energy that it could actually pull off making a group of seemingly unrelated references into a cohesive genuinely interesting story. The whole show is things that could feasibly be noodle incidents, which makes it easy to get a baseline for what could have happened. Milo uses stuff in strange ways all the time, getting tangled up with weird animals and ending up in strange situations. There's no REAL reason to feel like we're missing out on too much. It sounds like a normal Milo situation, just with only him and Melissa... and the fact they keep bringing it up.

And really, if you think about it, its just Planned in Advance Meapless in Seattle. Meapless in Seattle was meant to be a bunch of unrelated clips meant to be a noodle incident of sorts. We wouldn't know what exactly would go down in that fake episode. But they managed to bring everything together into a really fun episode that made sense and honestly lived up to the hype. (At least for me). I mean. They somehow made it work. That's a feat in of itself.

The episode "Llama Incident" starts out implying a completely different noodle incident. We never learn how the kids end up on that branch. That's not important. That stuff happens all the time. Is the Llama Incident more interesting than the other stuff Milo gets into? Not particularly, but it DID involve him using more stuff he didn't normally use.

And the Llama Incident is told in the format of a story. Changing up the format of the episode is always a good way to make an episode feel fresh. I mean, look at The Remains of the Platypus. It's just an episode told backwards but its delightful chaotic fun. Or Delivery of Destiny. Really the only difference is the day follows the perspective of a delivery guy, but we get all our normal plot beats. But both are some of my favorite Phineas and Ferb episodes. If you remove their gimmicks they're pretty basic. Phineas and Ferb build a cheese themed amusement park, and Doofensmirtz's plan is only slightly more novel with brainwashing Perry. Phineas and Ferb building a ride and Doof juicing city hall are pretty typical of them, but Paul's semi-outsider POV (and being one of the closest characters we get to having the full picture of the story we the audience see), makes it feel fun and fresh. It makes the Llama Incident feel special. Even if it isn't my favorite unique episode format, it's still something fresh and fun.

So Milo and Melissa sort of tell the story a bit out of order, because they forget what pieces Zack would and wouldn't have context for or would or wouldn't find interesting. And, again, it's told as a story to Zack, so he asks questions. It's told while they are hanging from a branch, where they cut back to every once and a while to remind us that hey, the group is in the middle of a whole other Murphy's Law incident. We're getting two for one today.

But through the episode we get a bit of a Zack character arc. We've already established that Melissa and Milo are used to this, even if you weren't aware the way they were casually rating it at the beginning of the episode should tell you all you need to know. But Zack isn't completely used to this yet, so he's just nervous. He spends the episode using the story as a distraction, but being genuinely invested. In the end, the story acts as an inspiration to Zack, and he's able to help the group get out of the situation. AND for his trouble, he gets his own mysterious incident to reference. After half a season, he's truly part of the group now. He will continue to grow of course, trying to become braver and cleverer, and he's already made strides since the first episode. But even if Zack isn't really any less part of the group before or after its still a significant moment in Zack's character arc.

And then the Llama Incident comes back the next episode. The date was memorable to Milo, even throughout all of the other chaos in his life. And sometimes that's just how life is. And he uses his knowledge of the event, the way it stuck in his mind, to save him, Dakota and Cavendish from Pistachion's in Missing Milo. What we thought was going to just be a noodle incident, a running gag that functioned to establish just how used to this stuff Milo and Melissa were, turned out to be a plot point. To be fair we didn't NEED to know what the Llama incident was for Milo to choose to go there. We didn't need to know about the Llama Incident to know it was typical Murphy's Law shenanigans. It could have just been more out of context llama stuff. But now we the audience are in on the joke, so when Cavendish and Dakota express confusion, we can revel in the fact we know something they don't. Especially about two characters who themselves were slow revealing information about themselves to us... sure by that point we know their deal but at one point they were as mysterious and out of context to us as the Llama incident. And now we know what the Llama Incident is, and what their deal is.

The Woodpecker incident also is vaguely referred to later with the woodpecker whistle. We may not know the full story there, but it is still satisfying to see Milo's adventures giving him the skills and tools to deal with bigger, actually hostile, threats.

And at the end of the day, even if the Noodle Incidentness of the Llama Incident is ruined, it was immediately replaced with the Woodpecker incident. Which admittedly is never mentioned, but it doesn't need to be. The point of the Llama Incident was to draw attention to a specific incident to make a gag out of it. But they have incidents all the time. And we're privy to most of them. We sometimes get references to other incidents that we never fully get the context for. But we don't need context. We know how it'll go anyway because we have a whole show of effective noodle incidents.

#mml #milo murphy's law #zack underwood #I talk a lot about him specifically so he gets special mention

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angrybell · 7 months

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The West - including the Biden Administration, the United Nations, the EU, and a host of “liberal” democracies - put the gun in the hand of the Hamas terrorist who killed her. They have excused, ignored, and funded Hamas and PA. They do this under the guise of “humanitarian” donations.

All those donations have done have ensured that something which should have been settled in one war in 1949 continues to this day. No other nation on this planet has had to deal with a situation like this. No other set of “refugees” are treated like the Arabs who fled during the 1948 - 1949 Israeli War of Independence.

Gina is dead because the rest of the world never said “enough”, the matter has been decided and moved on. They never required the Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians, and Lebanese to end the apartheid practices, practices which deny basic liberties to people who are born with their borders from attaining, among other things, citizenship, employment in their chosen professions, ownership of land, and host of other things that reduced the Arabs to islands of concentration refugee camps in Arab countries.

Egypt and Jordan bear particular blame. Both controlled sections of occupied Israel, sections that they cynically renamed as colonizers do. Changing the Judea and Samaria into “The West Bank” while Egypt kept the Gaza Strip. Both had the power to establish a “Palestinian State”. Neither did. Rather they incorporated the land into their countries but denied the people living there full citizenship. They keep the camps quiet by promising them that they would eventually help them establish a “Palestinian” state once Israel had been eradicated.

And the West allowed this status quo to remain. They allowed and funded a network of refugee camps to exist. They turned a blind eye when they were transformed into cesspools of hate, preaching revenge against an enemy that had the temerity to not roll over and die. UNWRA schools for generations have taught antisemitism that even Hitler would say was over the top.

So, financed by the west, with no incentive to do anything but remain obdurate and unwilling to compromise, fermented terror groups, each more extreme than the other, sometimes only distinguished by whether they were Marxist in their ideology or whether they were Islamist.

No matter what atrocity, the money never stopped flowing to the Arabs. Raid across the border? Here’s your money. Smash the head of a baby open with a Kalashnikov becuase you don’t think the Jewish baby is worth the cost of a bullet? Here’s money to pay for more. They always claim that the money is subject to oversight, to make sure what it is not spent on anything but “humanitarian” goods. But the fact of the matter remains that every dollar, pound, duetschmark, and euro that the Arabs don;t have to have to spend on infrastructure is one that they can spend on the next bomb, suicide attacker, rocket, or rifle.

And, for all the “humanitarian” supplies that are purchased with the West’s money, does it make it to the, supposedly, innocent Gazans? Most of it doesn’t. Hams doesn’t even try to hide it. They released a video showing how they took pipes meant for Gaza’s water infrastructure and turned them into rockets. What did the west do? Protested Israel’s attempt to deprive Hamas of more materials to built rockets and tunnels.

And is Hamas ever held accountable for what it does? Have the Bow Street runners ever tried to serve a warrant on one of theirs when they visit the UK?

No.

Instead they target, harass, and hold back Israel. When Israel had the gall to destroy the nuclear weapons facility at Osirak, was it congratulated? No. Reagan with held weapons supplies.

Has Biden ever turned off the funds to Hamas prior to the most recent attack? I can’t find any evidence of that. Actually, we may still be funding the UNWRA camps right now. The progressive do a good show of commiserating with Israel and the Jews when Hamas kills Jews. Personally, I think they like seeing dead Jews. I think it allows the progressives show some moral outrage.

But is it followed up by anything concrete? Not really. They say “oh we’re sorry your people died. … But no, you can’t go in and finish off the people who kill your people. You have to follow all the rules that the terrorists brazenly ignore or we will sick the ICC - which admits it has no jurisdiction but is willing to say it does have jurisdiction despite its own rules - on you so that your people will be subject to arrest if they travel anywhere.

Is that unfair? I don’t really care.

Progressives/Liberals, whatever they are called, don’t care about Jews unless its how much the Jews are donating to their campaigns. The fact that Reform Judaism does not recognize this is as serious a lapse as when the American Jewish community gave FDR a pass for not calling out Hitler’s treatment of the Jews prior to and during the war. We as a Jewish community in the US and the world need to recognize that blind obedience to leftist groups is not something we should be doing, and quite frankly, is not something we will survive given the bigotry festering those parties which is becoming more and more mainstream.

Don’t believe me? Ilham Omar and Rashida Tlaib are congresswomen who have repeatedly made it clear they hate the Jews. And they have been barely censured. They have been funded by the Democratic Party and suffered no lack of support in primary season.

The argument is always that Israel hasn’t gone far enough to appease the Arabs. What more did Israel have to do to show they would appease them than when they put Jerusalem on the table back during the Clinton Administration’s brokered talks. Arafat rejected it because it wasn’t enough. He wanted an undefined more.

And the argument is even more ridiculous when it comes to Hamas. Hamas’ charter and statements are clear: they will not negotiate any settlement with Israel. Their goal is the destruction of the Jewish state and the removal or death of all Jews between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Incidentally, for those who don’t know, that is exactly what the various terror groups mean when they say “From the River to the Sea, Palestine shall be free.” Its is a statement of intent to commit genocide.

But the West keeps trying to a force a settlement where the PA and Hamas do not want a settlement. Only Israel does. That has been the same story since 1947 when the UN tried to create two states and failed. It failed, not because the Jewish yishuv rejected the plan. They accepted the plan even though it would mean the loss of Jersusalem and a small country bisected in part by an Arab state filled with people who had demonstrated history of trying to kill them. No, the Arabs rejected the proposal.

A Hamas coward killed her. But the West handed him the loaded weapon.

#Israel #antisemtism #Hamas War 2023 #Jews #why are we so stupid?

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ask-james-madison-stuff · 2 months

Note

Josephine Payne

(My fankid of James Madison and Doley Madison when James left Doley she was pregnant but Doley but never told James and Doley raised Josephine making her believe James abandoned them so she is acting like a bitch to Caroline but Caroline doesn’t say anything about Josephine to her dads but she also didn’t knew Josephine was her half sister)

Josephine:

- That fucker is back!

Diane(Josephine’s girlfriend):

-Yeah, I thought he was gone for good too

Josephine:

-It’s been so long!!!

Diane:

-You still pissed she almost beat you that time?

Josephine:

-Uh, fuck you!

Diane:

-Just saying