#there are allegedly no rats where i live

[godasfarasyoureconcerned]

i have to shout out nathan foad on account of the scene where he’s traumadumping to stede feels like almost entirely improv. not sure if it is and i have no evidence other than “this feels like something grotesque nathan would make up” but it does. it’s delivered with the confidence of someone who delivered the line for the first time and had everyone howling with laughter and now he knows it’s a banger. it’s as unhinged as the stuff he says in his lives (thinking of the time he asked kristian nairn about how he allegedly threw a stagehand like a wet rag or whatever lmfao). not sure if i’ve seen anything about his performance in this particular scene so

props to nathan for this. feels like improv it’s so unhinged and if it was written then good on the writers too but this really just feels like nathan got a chance to do some improv with rhys darby and had a great time with it, arguably even showing him up. it’s possible they said “nathan tell him why you’re rat boy and then keep telling him shit as he runs off. rhys you should be uncomfy and run off” and they did it perfectly. nathan is shining. a complete shift from where he was as an actor at this point all last season. i love him

#lucius spriggs #stede bonnet #ofmd s2 spoilers #our flag means death #mine #ofmd

[sellensand]

The truth about the Golden Lineage

Ok sooo I've just had a MASSIVE realization about Godfrey's children with Marika and I need to share it with the Elden Ring lore community. I have no idea if anyone has already put this theory forward, but as soon as it crossed my mind I knew I had to write it down before I forgot about it.

ELDEN RING SPOILERS BELOW.

I had always kind of assumed that Godwyn the Golden was Godfrey and Marika's firstborn child. This is not stated anywhere though, it was no more than an assumption on my behalf. So I began to wonder... what if the omen twins were actually older than Godwyn? What if they were Marika's first children with Godfrey? The Crucible predates the Golden Age of the Erdtree after all...

Once again, I had always assumed that Morgott and Mohg were thrown into the sewers of Leyndell as soon as they were born, which doesn't really make any sense considering:

- They are both quite well-spoken. They don't act like they were brought up by giant slugs and rats with no contact with the outside world. They are not like the feral omens we fight in the sewers.

- They had to use special shackles in order to keep them down there. As if... they would try to escape. To go back home. Someone had to make sure they never got out.

- They brought at least one doll with them. Newborn babies don't play with dolls, children do.

- Godfrey's words towards Morgott ("It's been a long while...") and the way he holds his son's dead body imply they once knew each other. They once had some kind of relationship. And I'm inclined to believe that Morgott remembers and loves his father too: as SmoughTown points out in his latest video, the magic seal from which Godfrey's golden ghost appears is the exact same Crucible seal that Morgott uses when he "teleports". Morgott created a spectral protector of the Erdtree in the image of his father (I'm about to cry).

So, if Mo & Mo once lived in the surface, why were they shunned? Well, here comes the crazy part. Once upon a time, in the Age of the Crucible, horns, scales, wings and other beastly parts were considered sacred, divine. They were the manifestation of the power of the Tree, from which all life begins, where all life is blended together. With Godfrey being a man from the Age of the Crucible (his knights are the Crucible Knights), it is possible that his first children with Marika, Mo & Mo, were actually revered when they were born.

However, at some point, something motivated Marika to change the dogma. The conquest of the Mountaintops of the Giants gave way to the Golden Age of the Erdtree. All things Crucible were suddenly frown upon. Lord Godfrey and his warriors were exiled from the Lands Between. And the omen twins had to be forsaken.

LUCKILY the royal couple had produced another child, one more in line with the religious ideals of the new age: Godwyn, a perfectly built golden boy, without any Crucible in him. A strikingly handsome prince, with a gorgeous set of long, androginous, golden hair, who we've only seen wearing a beautifully embroidered skirt. His looks and his fashion sense always reminded me of a certain red-headed champion of the Golden Age of the Erdtree...

Has anyone else noticed that the items related to the Prince of Death require both Faith and Intelligence? I'm talking about the Prince of Death's Staff (allegedly made out of a fragment of Godwyn's corpse) and all of the Death sorceries (which said staff boosts). You know which other items also require both of those stats, right? Well, as far as I know, only Rykard's Magma sorceries and the Golden Order incantations need both Fai and Int to be used. And the Sword of Night and Flame, yes, a Carian heirloom hidden in their Manor.

HUH. I wonder what the Carian royal family and Golden Order Fundamentalism have in common... OH, I KNOW. They are both connected to Radagon, the champion who aspired to be complete by dominating both sorceries and incantations.

My point is... What if Godwyn is not Godfrey's? What if he's Radagon's? What if he was Marika's first attempt at having descendants by herself? She was devastated by Godwyn's death because he was her favorite, her perfect golden boy, a personification of the Golden Order and a living proof that she was the One True God.

Now let's have some fun with this theory. We all know about Miquella's obsession with Godwyn ("O brother, lord brother..."). Some have speculated that the statue of the older figure embracing young Miquella and Malenia in Loretta's arena in the Haligtree might be Godwyn, because it doesn't sport Marika/Radagon's signature braid and the asset is apparently flat-chested (according to Vaati's Miquella Lore video).

Did either Miquella or Godwyn know the truth? Was Godwyn particularly protective of the Empyrean twins because they were more than just his half-siblings? I honestly don't know, buy it's not hard to imagine what they felt after their older brother's murder...

I obviously don't have all the answers, but if all of the above was true, it would mean that the whole Golden Lineage is built on a lie, because the firstborn male heir of Godfrey was not only not the firstborn at all, but he was also not Godfrey's! This would be so GRRM it's insane! Even Godrick's pride and his fondness of Lion iconography becomes all the more ridiculous!

Am I going too far with this? Please let me know if I'm losing my mind over this game.

(Oh and link me to any similar theories if you know of any, because I can't be the only one crazy enough to have thought about this).

#elden ring spoilers #elden ring lore #elden ring theory #godwyn the golden #miquella the unalloyed #malenia blade of miquella #godfrey first elden lord #godrick the grafted #the night of the black knives #marika the eternal #radagon #morgott the omen king #mohg lord of blood #grrm #myloreposting

[soupandsimple]

Build Up To A Baby (with Sirius Black)

[ some key point moments of your baby having journey ]

* fluff! 🖤

- warnings?: pregnancy/words associated with pregnancies

** kind of long but quick paced (featuring Remus & teen Harry) I’m excited to see what you all think of this one!

This was requested: see ask here

……….

To make a long story short; you and Sirius used to date while attending Hogwarts. He was two years above you which was ultimately the cause of your break up when he graduated. It wasn’t a matter of lost feelings from either side but you both dreaded a long distance relationship so that was that.

Or course, soon after graduating and turning eighteen, Sirius joined the Order to fight in the first wizarding war alongside his friends. At the time, you were unaware of what he was up to since sadly, you had lost contact after the break up, so imagine the surprise you took when you found out Lily and James had been killed and Sirius Black was allegedly the murderer.

You didn’t believe it, not for a second and even made a vow to yourself that if you ever saw him again, regardless if he felt the same or not, you’d tell him one of your biggest regrets in life was not wanting to endure a long distance relationship with him.

As it turns out, it was one of his too.

Sirius was declared free upon the capture of Peter Pettigrew who had been living as a rat for 12 years. You read all about it in the papers and quickly did whatever you could to find Sirius. It wasn’t hard as he too was looking for you and showed up on your doorstep one sunny afternoon.

He told you how he never stopped thinking about you; not after the break up, not while in prison nor the few weeks he had been out of prison. You in turn told him it had been the same for you with him.

You hugged and kissed and laughed and cried.

After a few days of getting reacquainted, he wanted to introduce you to Harry- the 12 year old son of James and Lily, also known as his godson that was now rightfully in his care. You accepted and to Sirius’s delight, Harry instantly loved you and you him!

It wasn’t long before Sirius proposed and you were living in the gorgeous countryside with them both.

A happy life it was but soon, the thought of a baby came to your and your husband’s mind. Oh to make a child that had both a little piece of him and a little piece of you.

The subject was taken into serious consideration in bed one night which concluded in one of, if not the most important, aspect of it all-

“But what about Harry?” you questioned Sirius.

“What about Harry?” he asked, caressing your shoulder as you laid cuddled into his side.

“I’m sure he considers you a father figure and I, hopefully, a mother figure of some sort; how will he feel about us wanting a baby?”

Sirius sighs and kisses your forehead. “We’ll ask him. Tomorrow.”

That next day at breakfast, the question in plan was brought up.

“Harry, we’d like your thoughts on something” Sirius began.

“What?” Harry mindlessly asked while dowsing the French toast before him in syrup.

“Well, me and Y/N have been giving it a lot of thought…and uh..well we want to know how you’d feel if we had a baby?”

Harry dropped the half eaten piece of French toast from his fingers back to his plate and continued chewing the piece in his mouth with a subtle, contemplative look.

You anxiously looked at Sirius and he to you.

“I think that’d be great!” Harry then replied excitedly, face changing to full on joy.

“Really?” you asked, holding back contentment until you were absolutely sure he meant it.

“Yeah! I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to have a younger sibling and had accepted it would never happen but now, well now I have the chance to experience it…if…if you’d be comfortable letting me consider your baby a sibling anyway.”

You pouted at his request, “Oh Harry my love,” you said, coming around to where he sat, “I know I’ve only known you for some months now but I already consider you a part of me in the most motherly way. You don’t have to ask my permission to consider a future baby of mine and Sirius’s as a sibling; in fact, I’ll be honored if you do.”

Harry smiled and leaned into your side at a hug you initiated.

“This is honestly so great you guys” Harry said, looking over towards Sirius. “Now don’t go into detail, but any plans as to when?”

Sirius chuckled at what Harry insinuated by detail and then shook his head. “At the moment, no. We just wanted to know how you’d feel about it happening.”

You nodded in agreement. “It’ll be soon we hope but don’t worry, we’ll keep you updated if it happens while you’re away.”

Harry started his fourth year at Hogwarts in two weeks meaning he’d be gone until Christmas break- giving you and Sirius plenty of time to conceive.

“Sounds good” Harry replied, digging back into his breakfast, heart full of newfound excitement at the prospect of someone coming along that he could consider a sibling.

~ Fast Forward To December ~

By Harry’s Christmas break, you were two months pregnant. You had of course already told Harry beforehand in a letter but he was still just as excited to get the news a second time in person from you and Sirius.

There was still some excitement to be had though since Remus was spending the holidays with you all and had no knowledge of the pregnancy yet.

*ding dong*

The doorbell to your country house chimed and instantly you called for Sirius.

“Siri! Come it’s Remus, he’s here!”

“Coming love” he said unseen, approaching from somewhere further back.

Opening the door, you greeted Remus. “Remmy come in, come in” you happily urged, taking the suitcase from his hand.

Instantly, Sirius arrived up behind you and took the suitcase from your own grip. With pursed lips, you looked up at your husband and graciously smiled at his ever present attentiveness in all that you did.

“Moons,” Sirius said, unintentionally ignoring your gaze, “come on, get in already it’s freezing.”

“That it is,” Remus replied, closing the door behind him.

With the suitcase in one hand, Sirius was only able to side hug his friend unlike you, who was free for a full one.

“We’ve missed you! And we have so much to tell you! Well...one thing to tell you and another to ask you” you refrained, pulling back from his embrace and helping him pull off his winter coat.

Sirius chuckled at your excitement and turned to begin his walk to the guest room to set down Remus’s stuff. “Doll, let’s get him settled before we talk anything baby.”

“SIRIUS!” you yelled.

“Shit..” he mumbled.

“It was supposed to be a surprise” you whined, looking to Remus to see his reaction to Sirius’s word slip.

With a single eyebrow quirked up, Remus broke into a smirk. “Baby?”

“Remus, you’re here!” Harry interrupted, coming into the front room to greet the house guest.

“I am and your guardians here just let me in on some exciting family news.”

“What? You told him already?!” Harry immediately turned to question you and Sirius.

“We didn’t” you stated with a glare to Sirius.

Remus chucked, “Oh go easy on him Y/N, you know as well as I do that Black isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.”

Harry snorted at the insult and you of course played right along with it.

“Hmm you’re right. But we like him that way” you said, going over to him to run your hand through his hair from the top with a kiss to his cheek.

Sirius looked at you with squinted eyes and a smile, then pecked your lips with a kiss. “I’m sorry” he whispered.

“You can go put that suitcase down in the room now you goof” you giggled.

“Be right back,” Sirius said to you all.

“Soooo yeah, baby” you said, returning your attention to Remus by extending your arms out in a gesture to present your current nonexistent baby bump to him.

“Congratulations” he softly spoke with a gentle smile, bringing you in for yet another hug. “And I assume this was no accident, correct?”

You shook your head, “No, it was planned.”

“How far along are you?”

“Two months.”

“Two months?” he hummed. “So you knew and you didn’t say a thing?” Remus teased, looking over at Harry.

Remus was still teaching DADA’s at Hogwarts and saw Harry for chats on the daily; how this news never came up was beyond him right now.

“Well it wasn’t easy but they wanted to tell you themselves” Harry grinned.

“Ahh well, no matter. Come here big brother” Remus fondly told Harry with a hug. “I’m so thrilled for all of you.”

Sirius came back around and embraced you into him by the shoulder. “And that’s not all…” he began. He then looked over at you as if asking permission to continue with the following.

You giggled at his caution, “Go ahead.”

Sirius kissed your temple, then looked to Remus.

“We want you to be the godparent.”

Remus smiled in a subtly shocked way and looked to Harry, then you, then Sirius.

You could tell he had been caught off guard with the question and well truly, no one could blame him for his lack of response. I mean after all, this was all happening at the entryway of the house right at his arrival.

“I- well..I don’t..yes of course I will. I’d be honored” he stuttered, trying his best to compose his nervous and excited energy.

Sirius and him instantly hugged with hearty pats on each other’s backs.

Harry and you happily looked at each other upon viewing the moment between the two friends;

“Yay!” you spoke, clapping your hands a little in joy and bringing Harry into your side.

The men separated and you continued on with words. “Okay, well we got dinner ready in the kitchen, Rem. So let’s get you settled and washed up so we can eat!”

~ Fast Forward To January ~

In days time, it was then just you and Sirius once Harry and Remus left back for Hogwarts.

Coming up at the three month mark, things began getting real. Moods, vomiting and lack of sexual drive were your main obstacles.

“Sirius! Why’d you do this to me!” you whined as you sat at the floor of the bathroom by the toilet.

He chuckled and brushed back your hair with his hand, “We both wanted this love, remember?”

“Ugh, I don’t want your thing anywhere near me anytime soon.”

“Shhh okay darling, okay, I get it” Sirius cooed, holding back laughter as he continued brushing your hair back. “It’ll go into hiding for a bit, yeah?” he crudely joked for his own amusement.

~ Fast Forward To Feb. & March ~

Month four and five things calmed down a bit. Well, Sirius would say anyways, as you didn’t ‘hate’ him anymore for getting you pregnant. Also, the vomiting was no more, in fact, you ate everything in sight now with no consequence at all! It was lovely; although the late night runs Sirius had to make for say, a hard shell taco, were not his favorite.

These months were also when you started showing.

“Baby! Come here!” you yelled one morning to your husband who was still getting some rest in bed.

“What..what is it?” he replied sleepily, hurriedly trudging himself to the bathroom where you stood in front of the mirror.

“Look baby, I’m starting to show!” you excitedly said rubbing your small, barely protruding belly.

“That’s amazing love” he said into your neck as he stood from behind embracing your form.

~ Fast Forward To April & May ~

Being a little over half of your pregnancy now, the gender of the baby was known; not by either you or Sirius though.

You both had decided to have the doctor send the result to Harry at Hogwarts so that he could be the first to know. Harry was then to mail you and Sirius a letter revealing the gender!

Upon getting Harry’s letter, you came to find you were having…a boy! Or a mini Sirius as you liked to think of it.

Boy or girl, you both would have been happy- but you could tell having a boy was particularly meaningful to Sirius for so many reasons, which of course you and him talked about thoroughly for about three days straight, every night in bed.

“…and I just worry, because I don’t want to be anything like my father or mother to my son.”

“And you won’t be honey” you said calmly, grazing a hand over the expanse of his chest as you laid cuddled.

“How can you be so sure?”

“I know you, Sirius Black. To make the same mistakes on your own children as your parents made with you is not in your nature. You’ve been so far gone from having any similarity to them for over half your life…trust me, you won’t be them.”

He sniffled and smiled at your confidence in him.

You wiped a rogue tear that ran down his cheek and kissed its exact spot. “I just know my baby boy is going to have the best father ever…”

~ Fast Forward To June ~

BIG; the baby boy inside you was BIG. Or he felt big anyways which was normal of course as you were only a month and a couple of days away from your due date.

It was here that a spontaneous baby moon occurred. You had already taken an extravagant, out of the country one during your second trimester but because you (finally) had settled on a nursery color there was no time to waste on getting it painted. Obviously, under no circumstances, did Sirius want you anywhere near the house with the paint fumes so he decided to take you into the city for a few days.

Sirius planned the whole thing without a hint of your help and it was just absolutely perfect. He chose a beautiful five star hotel where you were served and attended to, to no end.

The time was mostly spent just hanging out in the cozy room / private balcony and although that sounds boring, it was far from it as it was just what you needed these days that you tired out more easily.

“Can I stay here forever and never leave” you asked Sirius one day, after an employee exited the room upon bringing you a triple scoop strawberry sundae while you lounged out on the balcony.

Taking in the taste of the sweet, cold treat, you shut your eyes and let your head rest back on the cushioned lounge you sat in and waited for Sirius’s response to your ridiculous question.

“I’m hurt love. I wait on you hand and foot at home just as good, if not better than these guys here” he playfully replied, reaching over from his own lounge for the extra spoon to join you in indulging the treat.

“Mhm, but we don’t have a balcony at home” you said then.

“Well then I’ll build you a balcony.”

You opened your eyes and looked at your husband with an ‘are you kidding me’ face, which caused both of you to laugh. You’d like to describe Sirius as perfect but handy he was not.

“Okay okay fine, I’ll bring someone out to build us one. But you’ll get one, I promise.”

~ Fast Forward To July ~

Per Harry’s request, you and Sirius did not set up any of the nursery furniture until he returned from Hogwarts for the summer. It was cutting it close to the due date but you promised him it was something you’d do together.

Harry and Sirius sat on the comfy, round rug in the center of the nursery that next Saturday after his arrival where they began building the first of many furniture pieces.

Meanwhile, bigger than ever now, you sat in the rocking chair off to the side just watching your boys, trying to keep relaxed. Like we learned before, Sirius wasn’t the best with tools but with Harry around you were sure it’d be alright- he no doubt carried the Potter handiness genes.

*ding dong*

There chimed your doorbell and there was no doubt as to who it was.

“I’ll get it” Harry said, quick to get up on his feet and exit the room. You couldn’t wait to be able to do the same again soon.

From afar, you and Sirius both heard Remus’s voice. “Hi Harry. Begun on the furniture already?”

“In here Moods!” Sirius shouted himself after the question.

Footsteps later, Remus and Harry both walked in through the doorway of the room.

“Look what I got” Remus said in a singsong voice, directing his eye contact straight to you.

You gasped at the three famous (but rare!) baby books Remus displayed in his hand for you and with a bit of struggle, stood up from the chair.

“Gimme, gimme, gimme!” you excitedly exclaimed with grabby hands, waddling over to where he stood.

“Doll, babies can’t read,” Sirius joked as you began to skim the books. He was too busy fumbling with screws to look up and see the roll of your eyes.

“You don’t say?” Harry replied, faking amusement as he made his way back out the room for either a snack or bathroom break.

“Of course they can’t read Sirius. But we are going to read to this baby boy constantly so he can be just as smart as his godfather. They’re perfect. Thank you Rem,” you said graciously, kissing his cheek.

Sirius adoringly kept an eye on you as you strategically went to place the three little books upright on the window cell as if it was a bookshelf (this was only temporarily until the real bookshelf was built of course).

The care you poured in everything and everyone was something Sirius had always greatly admired in you.

“She’s going to be such a good mother” he quietly commented to Remus without taking his eyes off of you.

“The absolute best” Remus assured his friend. <3

TagList: @regulusblackswhorecrux

#sirius black x reader #sirius black #post azkaban sirius #sirius black fic #sirius black imagine #sirius black x you

[evita-shelby]

A different sort of man

Chapter 6

Gif by: @bimorgana

Taglist:@thegreatdragonfruta @zablife @look-at-the-soul @midnightswithdearkatytspb @cillmequick

Cw:mentions of a past abortion and pregnancy

“Do you think the other you would mind me redecorating this place?”

Alright, so they were drinking, they said the words and fucked after that.

And they did it exactly and they woke up in the same place.

“We already ruined his life, why not?” Tommy ran his hands through his face as he tried to stomach another day in this place.

Gossip had gotten out of hand like a brushfire, now everyone knew that he had cheated on his wife not even a week after the wedding with a widow two years younger and far richer than her.

Even worse, Lady Smallbrook had allegedly fucked her husband to death.

Had these been strangers, Tommy and Eva would be riveted to follow this scandal from a respectable distance, but they were the suddenly infamous Mr. Shelby and his mistress, Lady Smallbrook and living the nightmare it was.

Section D had briefly reconsidered their contract until Eva decided to turn the tables on them. They were undefeatable, especially now that Eva’s magic is somehow stronger now.

She had managed to find their deepest secrets, all their allies and wore the cursed sapphire like a weapon.

It kills its wearer, now it kills those who wish its wearer harm.

Not even God himself was going to stop her from killing that fucking priest.

It has been ten fucking days since Eva woke up in a universe where not only she is married with a boy of nearly three, she is also pregnant.

The other Eva hadn’t known yet, or if she did, she hadn’t been sure.

“Congratulations, Mr. Shelby.” The doctor ---who she pretends to know--- gives her not-husband the wonderful diagnosis after Eva had a fainting spell propelled by tweaking the curse on the sapphires. “If I were a betting man, I would wager it’s a girl.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

She likes children, does fine with them as Thomas has seen with Carlitos, but this is something she is not ready for.

Motherhood.

The one thing she has been avoiding these past four years is happening and Eva does not have the luxury of discarding the parasite inside her with tansy like she did with the one last year.

“Another one that is mine and yet isn’t.” he said pouring himself a drink.

They had been trying not to fall into old habits, but somewhere between the memories of a future they could have had and their own wretched melancholy, they had sought comfort in the only way they seemed to know.

He is a little tame, but Eva knows no other person has made her feel this way in a long time.

No wonder the other her was so loath to part with her Thomas Shelby.

“Please, you are not the one denied the luxury of choice.” She said fighting the urge to ask for a drink.

“When do you think we can try again?” Shelby asked looking out the window out of habit.

“Next full moon. We have to do everything they did and pray the other two do the same.” The witch answered with a pout.

Tommy and Eva Shelby had been drinking, joked about what their lives would have been if she had never ratted Grace out and fucked around the same time this Thomas had wondered how different his life would have been if he had offered Eva a ride home that morning and regretted ever seeking Grace in London that night.

A shame that it didn’t occur to Eva that maybe the missing ingredient was another full moon and a fuck.

“Once we get back, I can introduce you to some lawyers who could get you your son back.” The perks of being made of money and having as many connections as a spider web has silk.

Her cousin, favorite cousin in fact, had plenty lawyer friends on both sides of the Atlantic especially now that he was the Chief Lawyer for the Family.

And if Ignacio can’t work his lawyer magic, there was Santiago and Tio Patricio’s lover, Frida ‘Florence’ Solomons, to ensure Shelby gets his boy back.

“At least argue for visitation rights on account of her telling you and your family the boy was yours.” She amends when he shook his head at the suggestion of literally removing the boy from Grace’s custody.

“I can fight my own battles, Lady Smallbrook.” He said making sure she knows he doesn’t want to be in debt to another rich overlord.

“Not offering to fight it for you, Tom. Merely offering to fight it beside you.” She said before adding. “As a friend.”

A friend who has held him as he cried from nightmares and pretending to be his wife all while the universe screams at them saying this is the happiness you denied yourself that day.

“Alright, but I get to choose how and who we fight.” He agrees after glancing at the lighter engraved with a quote by Yeats.

God, why does that feel like a declaration of love?

#eva smith shelby #tommy shelby x oc #thomas shelby fanfic #thomas shelby x oc #eva smith riley #a different sort of man fic

[canary-prince]

Jay tell me more about Julian the Priest

Okay, so--

Like I said, Julian the Priest is one of like...SIX characters that are allegedly trapped in the 9 hour director's cut. In the late 2000s my dad found a YouTube channel that had a bunch of these characters' scenes illegally uploaded. The ones I've seen since the channel got banned (my dad ripped some of them onto DvDs cuz he figured that might happen) are the ones pertaining to Father Julian Rose, Mr. Clark, and Lily Black. (Not ALL their scenes, obviously, but, you know, some important ones).

As you can guess from the names, these character mostly deal with the COMPLETELY DELETED "New York" facet of the story, where one of the mob's American branches is facing hardship due to the chaos in Moscow. Julian is the only non-Moscow character that Katya interacts with AT ALL. They share several long distance phone calls in which he takes her confessions. He's an incredibly angry and hollowed out man, but he exhibits a lot of patience with her (there's some hints that he's her bastard father brother; if true, this confirms that her father did cheat on her mother).

He takes a lot of mobster confessions; it appears to be the bulk of his scenes, and forms the heart of his "Faith is a poison" speech. It goes on for over 8 minutes, but essentially boils down to this: Christian faith rots away at human morality by convincing them of two lies. One, that they are special and unique and therefore beloved by the Almighty God and Two, that to apologize and repent is to erase the harm you caused.

Multiple times he urges Katya to leave Goncharov and to "chase true happiness" (yes, this could contribute to the lesbian subtext, because Katya is looking at the bracelet she stole from Sofia as he says it) but never gets angry at her for failing to do so, which I cannot STRESS how odd that is for the character??? He yells at people a lot, even when hearing their confessions, he's a terrible priest.

His other main connection to the "Moscow" plot is via Icepick Joe: yeah, plot twist, Julian ratted on Joe's brother, and most likely did it on the Don's direct orders (the extent to which Julian works for these people is not spelled out super clearly but he obviously DOES). Icepick Joe does speak to Julian over the phone exactly once, and Julian rather harshly taunts him about his numerous failures. He again invokes God, calling Joe a "forsaken and broken thing".

His actor was Richard Talmei, and at the time of filming, he was 55 years old and had been acting for 36 years. Commercials, local live theater, radio dramas, and a few failed TV pilots. Goncharov was his first (and ultimately, only) film. He'd lived a REALLY hard life. A meth addiction, a childhood spent homeless in a dangerous part of Chicago, a serious eating disorder: if that sounds vaguely familiar, it might because you read his post-humously released memoir Dirty Mask, which directly inspired David Sedaris.

During the 1971 April reshoots, which were done to deal with the "missing footage" issue, he had a severe aneurysm on set and collapsed. He was dead before the ambulance arrived and I'm 99% sure that the reason his subplot was removed was because of how traumatic Richard's death was for the rest of the cast.

#the monster speaks #goncharov #icepick joe

[semper-legens]

72. Legends and Lattes, by Travis Baldree

Owned: No, library Page count: 306 My summary: Viv is an adventurer, an orc barbarian who has spent her life honing her craft of killing and raging. Now, she wants to settle down in a little town - and open a coffee shop. Never mind that most people she encounters have never heard of coffee. She’s got an advantage; a stone that purportedly grants good fortune. But she’s not the only one who wants such a useful trinket. While Viv is gathering her team of coffee shop workers, strange things are brewing in the distance. Can she keep the shop afloat, and protect her newfound friends? My rating: 5/5 My commentary:

Well, this was absolutely delightful! A coworker recommended this one to me, as she thought it'd be in my wheelhouse, and she was very much correct. I've now gone on to recommend it in turn to at least two of my friends. It's a wholesome little cosy fantasy - I love the idea of a fantasy story that isn't all drama and struggles and epic quests, something that's a bit more down-to-earth and mundane, about the regular lives of people who live in a Tolkein-esque world. Now I want to write some stuff in this genre! Anyway, this book is very, very cute, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Our heroine is Viv, an orcish adventurer who's decided to hang up her sword and start a coffee shop. This is difficult, mostly because the idea of a coffee shop is a very new one in this world - most people don't even know what coffee is. But Viv is trusting in the mystical stone she has obtained that allegedly will lead her to fortune and success. I love Viv. She's such a nice protagonist. Moral, even to the point where that might hurt her, but not to the point where it hurts others. Strong and vulnerable all in one package. And totally unsure of what she's doing. Her being lightly admonished by the others for not quite thinking this whole enterprise through is cute as hell, especially when people rally around her to make her dreams come true.

Speaking of people rallying around her, let's talk about the rest of the cast! They are all, also, delightful. The main one of that bunch is Tandri, a succubus who takes a job at Legends and Lattes about three hours after it's posted, and essentially becomes partners with Viv, helping her set up and run the shop. And also, they are so obviously in love with each other. Like that's not even a spoiler, they are just in love. Tandri's the sort of sensible one to Viv's hot mess, and they balance each other perfectly. I really like that Tandri isn't sexualised, either - there's a subplot where she's being stalked by a creepy guy, but that's not because she's Supernaturally Hot And He Can't Help It, because he backs off eventually. The other supporting cast are similarly great. We've got Cal, the grumpy hob carpenter who helps build the shop, and Thimble, a quiet ratkin who is a genius baker. It's cool that most of our supporting cast are non-human races! Really adds to the feel of them being misfits and outcasts drawn together by a common interest. Thimble is my favourite, I love me a shy little baker man rat.

This whole post has just been me gushing about this book, but in all fairness, all my thoughts about it are I LOVE IT. It's just nice! It's just nice. It's sweet, the characters are very charming, the world is cool, and I love the idea of a retired adventurer setting up a business and finding a family for herself. It's just sweet, is what it is. I'd definitely recommend it.

Next up, a teenage girl discovers that monsters are still lurking in her home...

#Legends and Lattes #Travis Baldree #bookblr #book blog #book blogger #5

[imperatorium]

is there any chance you might talk a bit about the beauty and the beast au? please please please

Oh, anon, bless you, I would love to.

To on purpose poorly summarize, it’s a heterosexual supernatural romance between two elderly people and every time I remind myself of that, I’m like what the fuck am I writing, but then I realize every single Ghost story I write, no matter what the focus, is...at the end of the day exactly that.

Not that Sister & Nihil are straight. But that’s besides the point.

Anyway!

Sister Imperator is a witch, a necessary evil to the poor, provincial town she’s lived near for the last couple decades. She and her bastard son, Copia, live on the border of the quiet village (every day like the one before, etc.) and a deep forest known as the Devil’s Woods, rumoured to be filled to the brim with the demons the little people of the town associate her with. It’s been this way for as long as she can remember.

But the town attitude towards her and Copia begins to sour, so she sends him to scout out a new residence and the poor, precious little idiot decides he should take an ill-advised shortcut through the woods because if he and his mother say their nightly prayers to the demons allegedly within, he’s got nothing to fear, right?

Of course, he gets lost. Of course he comes across a castle - well, more like a cathedral - in the middle of the forest. And of course, he makes friends with a small swarm of rats who try to make him comfortable, even though he shouldn’t be there - which, naturally, incurs the wrath of castle’s master, a great Beast who must surely be the Devil himself, and provokes the malicious curiosity of the three lesser demon-beasts who call the great one “Papa”.

Smashcut to Sister Imperator waking from a nightmare about Copia’s entanglement with these Hell creatures and angrily setting off on an adventure because a) her precious baby boy is so stupid but b) what the fuck is this dark fucking magic in the center of the woods.

After a series of surprises (sentient rats, Copia is now somehow also a little beast??, oh shit shit shit is The Beast hot???), she successfully bargains for Copia’s freedom (and humanity, but that seems to just be a side effect leveled on him) with her own and inadvertently sets herself on a journey to discover that there really is a place for her in the world she never felt like she belonged in - it just happens to be a cursed Satanic church in the heart of a haunted forest.

Despite knowing she should be planning her own escape, she is overwhelmed by curiosity. How did she not know about this place? What about these unhallowed grounds enhances her magic so? Where has she heard the name “Emeritus” before? Who is the man with the mismatched eyes in the torn portrait, barely hanging on the wall of the forbidden West Wing? What is the significance of the glowing sigil (an upside down cross over an open circle) in the glass bell jar in that same forbidden room? WHY ARE THESE INSUFFERABLE SMALLER BEASTS FOLLOWING HER AROUND EVERYWHERE AND DOING LONG SNIFF EVERY TIME SHE TRIES TO MAKE FOOD.

(Geezus, sorry, this is getting long.)

Anyway, the West Wing is off-limits, but The Beast’s third son is the most stinkbeast of all time and goads Sister into checking it out, then turns (literal) tail and runs to snitch on her to get her in trouble. She is cast out into a snowstorm, only to be chased by Three who has come to gloat about his success in stinkery. Her magic surges, they’re about to come to blows - and then something else attacks.

Their assailants are ghosts, nearly impossible to perceive phantom creatures dressed as plague doctors - and they know her. Worse than that, they want her (and Three) dead, but she discovers has a few life-saving tricks up her sleeves. It probably also helps that The Beast immediately regrets his own stink actions of throwing her out, and comes to join the fight. Together, they at least manage to subdue these awful things and chase them off for the night, so everyone can retire to a cute fireplace scene.

It’s here that Sister starts to learn the secrets: The Beast is called Papa Emeritus Nihil and he used to be human, the antipope of a great Satanic Church, until he and his progeny were cursed by a witch for reasons the dark spell prevents them from remembering. Even if they wanted to leave, they are trapped within the cathedral by the surrounding ghosts of the Clergy, wicked men of the Church who abused their power in life, murdered by Nihil when he was changed into a Beast. They had been just languishing here, expecting to die forgotten and miserable, before Sister & Copia stumbled upon them.

Aaaaaaand that’s when she officially catches feelings - not just romantically for The Beast, but for his stupid children too who all now keep doing their own versions of nuzzling against her leg in gratitude for not leaving Three to die (when honestly, she totally should have). So she makes a really stupid decision of her own: she’s going to stay and break this fucking curse.

So, yes. Healthy helpings of melodrama, reluctant motherhood, and monsterfucking. I promise I’ll finish it someday lmao.

#ghost #that writing thing i do #beauty & the beast au #i have so far been calling it 'an image grotesque & obscene' but that is just its working title

[thisstableground]

@belphegor1982 last week said *chinhands* Can you tell us about your character? (d&d) and i totally forgot to reply because i was busy getting my pride outfit together and then gaying around the streets of brighton but YES I WILL BECAUSE I LOVE HER DEEPLY

her name is Huxley. she is a mage of prismari druid from a sleepy little place called, appropriately, Snore, which is a settlement built around and named after the slumbering form of the local god, who is a giant sheep.

 the religion dictates that above all else it is important for the sheep to stay asleep. that’s what the whole lifestyle is based around. we make our clothes from its wool, build our houses in its shadow, we create a safe haven for  from the ongoing protection spell. once in a generation, we have a Dreamer who climbs up Snore’s giant, woolen back to sit in a little hut and (allegedly) communicate with the consciousness of the god, and that’s what we’ve been told Snore wants for as long as our people can remember. everyone is calm. everyone is quiet. don’t wake the sheep.

Huxley is none of these things. Huxley is loud, and kinetic, and full of lightning that as a younger child she had no control over. none of the other druids in Snore know anything about how to control this, or why this is happening, and so they deal with it how eveyrthing is dealt with here: keep the peace. in this case, by sending Huxley away to live with a nearby spellcaster, Rin, who also has strong elemental magic, though of a different kind.

this did nothing to make her less angry, you may be surprised to know. when your parents say “i don’t fuckin’ know what to do with you so go live in this cave with a stranger” before you’re even a teenager then you’re gonna get some issues about it. but Rin teaches her as best he can how to control her lightning, she carries her holly-branch shillelagh, she turns into a rat sometimes if that’s useful, life is what it is.

some eight years into exile, during what she assumed to be a routine, if powerful, training exercise, something goes wrong and Hux wakes up alone in the void of a dimension in between dimensions, where things that fall through the cracks go, and Rin is nowhere to be found.

huxley is picked up by one of the scavenger ships that traverses the void for lost things and lost people and taken back to Wayheap, the local town. she stays with the ships for a short while, in between getting consistently fired for her terrible and utterly unenthusiastic performance at a number of menial jobs to get by, but all she cares about is finding Rin. she finds, instead, a tabaxi trash cleric called Osmium who has lived in Wayheap her whole life, and also a bunch of horrible void creatures that try very hard to kill them.

and that’s where we began our story! a lot has happened since which i’d happily go on about for hours, but this post is already too long so the tl:dr on hux is: she’s very grouchy, all of her best ideas start as “what if i wildshape into some absolute nonsense” and she is, as far as she knows, 100% a human druid. pay no attention to the way that the lightning sometimes crackles behind her like st elmo’s fire in the shape of wings. pay no attention to the faint scent of celestial when you cast Detect Evil and Good. she’s just a very normal lightning human and she’s here to bring a storm.

#there is a reasonable amount of vanessa influence on huxley's personality #and its extremely fun to be her #and the biggest of shoutouts to our DM for all the backstory on Snore she's done a great job #we've spent soe time there and SHIT HAS BEEN GOING DOWN #its huxley time!

[garretthickey]

1607 00117 All Your Cards Are Belong To Us: Understanding On-line Carding Forums

The section also contains news from all over the world associated to hacking so even when you’re not a hacker and aren’t here to purchase playing cards, it still can be utilized for instructional functions. The information board clearly accommodates data and announcements from the team, although additionally contains an “Introduction” section the place users can introduce themselves to different members of the discussion board. Do not use anything even remotely just like your actual name/address or any other information when signing up at these boards. Discuss different ways to monetize your websites and different methods to generate income on-line. Post your cracking tutorials and other methods which you understand, share with Dr.Dark Forum customers. Sign up for our publication and discover ways to defend your computer from threats. The forum statistics haven’t been mentioned and therefore it’s not clear what number of members, posts, threads or messages the Forum consists of. You can publish or get ccv, hacked paypal accounts, hacked other accounts, fb accounts, bank card, bank account, hosting account and far more all free of change. Share your cardable websites and it is strategies on tips on how to card them right here.To unlock this section with over 10,000+ content material and counting day by day please improve to VIP. Get the latest carding tutorials and learn how to card successfully! So, despite forum credit union credit card that it doesn’t have 1000's of registrations its member depend stands at about 7000. It additionally has a novel, spam-free ad interface, you aren’t bombarded with adverts like different boards, rather small tabs containing the adverts are animated close to the thread names which isn’t that intrusive. The forum additionally has a support-staff which can be reached through Jabber. And as for registration, it’s completely free and you might also use your Google+ account to login. Although it requires no separate registration and hence when you have your accounts on A-Z World Darknet Market, the same credentials can be used to login to the discussion board as properly. The discussion board doesn’t appear to offer an Escrow thread, though the market does for trades carried out through the marketplace. Thread which consists of sellers who have been verified by the discussion board administration. Hence, buying from these group of vendors on the discussion board is most secure. The Unverified adverts thread is where any person can post advertisements about his/her products and the forum doesn’t guarantee security or legitimacy or these trades/vendors. These are typically the types of trades you should use the Escrow with.

A few days later, it was announced that six more suspects had been arrested on costs linked to selling stolen bank card data, and the same seizure notice appeared on more carding boards. Trustworthy carding forums with good playing cards, and lively members are a rarity, and it’s pretty exhausting deciding on that are the trusted and finest ones out of the hundreds obtainable. Russia arrested six individuals right now, allegedly part of a hacking group concerned within the theft and selling of stolen credit cards. CardVilla is a carding forum with 92,137 registered members and 19,230 particular person messages posted till date. Latest and best exploits, vulnerabilities, 0days, and so forth. discovered and shared by other hackers here. Find all of the tools and tools corresponding to backdoors, RATs, trojans and rootkits here. You have to be outfitted to realize access to methods using malware. To unlock this part with over 70,000+ content material and counting every day please upgrade to VIP. Carding forums are web sites used to exchange info and technical savvy about the illicit trade of stolen credit score or debit card account info. Now I certainly not might claim these to be the ultimate word finest, final underground bank card forum , however they certain prime the charts when it comes to a rating system. Carding Team is one other forum which even though doesn’t boast millions of customers as a few of the other options on this record do, still manages to cater to what most customers seek for on such a website. ” thread which lists a number of advertisements from vendors who’ve proved their status on the marketplace. Bottomline, I’ve gone via its posts such as Carding fundamentals, security tips for starters etc. and it seems the individuals there do know what they’re speaking about, atleast most of them, so yeah take your time over there. Starting with the user-interface, most of the top-half screen is bombarded with advertisements and featured listings, which clearly the advertisers have to pay the discussion board for. In fact, the very backside of the forum is what’s extra useful than the highest of it. Show off your profitable carded websites with screenshots right here.To unlock this section with over 5,000+ content material and counting every day please upgrade to VIP. Grab the most recent tools and programs to help you card successfully! To unlock this part with over 50,000+ content and counting every day please improve to VIP. Discuss anything associated to carding the web, information, support, basic discussions.To unlock this section with over a hundred and twenty,000+ content and counting day by day please improve to VIP.

#bank login hackers forum

[the-adventures-of-dave]

One study (there's always at least one...) insists that cats aren't even that good at rat control. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cats-are-surprisingly-ineffective-keeping-urban-rat-populations-check-180970428/

I have seen that one before! It’s a pretty interesting read. I wonder if they are less likely to hunt mice as well in favour of things like birds instead?

#there are allegedly no rats where i live #they're illegal #ive never actually seen a rat before #thanks for the ask! #ask #anon #outdoor cats #kepler #photo #Anonymous

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

Are Melanistic owls really killed by their parents or other owls?

No. This was greatly exaggerated on a one-off case where an owlet european barn owl was killed and eaten by a parent. This is not because owls have any actual opinion on the color of their own species, this was very likely a matter of the parent mistaking the nestling for some of the cached food in the nest.

first thing’s first, owls are debilitatingly farsighted. If an object is an average of around three feet or closer to their face, they have trouble seeing what and precisely where it is. This is why they have incredibly sensitive and elongated crines (the bird equivalent of whiskers) that extend all around and in front of their beak.

Because they cannot see objects close to them, they find their nestlings by listening for the vocalizations and using their crimes to feel for the beak, their young in turn use their crines to seek out the food and their parents’ beaks when they grow them in. From the perspective of the parent, their babies are just a collection of fuzzy orbs in a nest full of cached prey, which are just fuzzy orbs that are a different color and do not generally move or vocalize, though sometimes they do if the male was not thorough in dispatching the prey. A dark colored fuzzy orb in a barn owl nest that’s still moving could be a rat that wasn’t killed, which could pose a threat to nestlings and should be dealt with promptly.

If you want my honest thoughts on this myth? The main source for this information is a particular center in the UK which kept the above barn owl, deeming it unreleasable by argument that owls will kill melanistic owls. I have a sneaking suspicion that this facility exaggerated this claim primarily to have an excuse to keep a uniquely colored barn owl that, as I recall, would otherwise have been left in a wild nest/released. This mutation is far too uncommon in the wild to have a peer reviewed study on how often it actually is that an owl will kill a nestling that is a different color than the rest by mistake, and it certainly isn’t because of owl racism (something this same facility did indeed imply a couple years back when they made a “black lives matter“ comic conflating racist police brutality with… barn owls allegedly killing black barn owls, something that is not even true).

There are numerous examples of melanistic owls, adults, living in the wild with no issue. Plumage color variation hasn’t even been seen to impact sexual selection in owls. There are several owl species which have so many dark-feathered individuals in the population it’s considered a recognized variation of the species.

There is nothing to support this claim at all outside anecdotal instances that can easily be explained by other known owl behavior that occurs regardless of plumage. Owls are territorial and solitary, owls will absolutely kill other owls in the wild if a rival refuses to back down and flee. Owls will also eat smaller species of owls routinely. Just because an owl kills a melanistic owl does not mean it had anything to do with the color of that owl. Its a reach at best, but at its core I stand by the notion it was all started because one facility wanted to keep a unique owl.

[legend-collection]

Tsuchinoko

The Tsuchinoko (dirt child or child of hammer) is a snake-like creature from mountainous regions of Western Japan. These creatures are commonly reported as slithering deep within the watery caves of Shikoku and Honshu. Signs a tsuchinoko may be in your area include hearing a mouse-like squeak coming from a river, or in some cases, a seemingly human voice mimicking your conversations from the depths of a dank cave. They are reported to be between 30 and 80 cm long. The name "tsuchinoko" is used in Western Japan, however it is known as "bachi hebi" in Northeastern Japan.

Although there are some dependencies throughout the various sightings, the tsuchinoko is widely regarded to look like a very wide common snake with a central girth wider than its head and tail. Large, plate-like scales run down its body. It reportedly has fangs and venom similar to common snakes. Some accounts also describe the tsuchinoko as being able to jump up to a meter in distance followed immediately by a second jump while still in the air. It is also reported to sometimes swallow its tail and roll like a wheel, similar to the hoop snake. According to legend, some tsuchinoko are able to speak and are notorious liars. They are also said to have a taste for alcohol.

The tsuchinoko is also referenced in the kojiki, the oldest book about the history of Japan.

The tsuchinoko is a popular and well known cryptid in Japan, with many residents believing in it's existence or claiming to have seen it. On May 3rd an annual Tsuchinoko Festival is held in Higashishirakawa in Gifu prefecture where the roots of the legend can be traced. At this festival, participants go tsuchinoko hunting with a 1,280,000 yen (US$11,449) award for anyone who can find one.

The government of Yoshii, Okayama once offered a 20 million yen (US$200,000) award for the successful capture of a tsuchinoko. In June 1994, a man named Kazuaki Noda and his wife reported having coming across a huge snake with a thick body like a beer bottle and a head described as being like that of a tortoise. On May 8th 2000 a famer named Sugie Tanaka reported having come across two metallic coloured snakes with "tails like rats." In the same year in June, a woman named Mitsuko Arima reported a tsuchinoko swimming along a river. She describes her experience as follows: "I was surprised. I just pointed at it and asked ‘Who are you? Who are you?’ It didn’t answer me, but just stared. It had a round face and didn’t take its eyes off me. I can still see the eyes now. They were big and round and it looked like they were floating on the water. I’ve lived over 80 years, but I’d never seen anything like that in my life."

One notable case involves a farmer allegedly spotting the tscuchinoko while cutting grass. He described it as having a face similar to that of Doraemon. He reported to have injured it with his weed whacker before the creature made it's escape. A few days later, an old woman discovered it's dead body laying by the side of a stream and buried it, not realizing how important it was. When word eventually got out, the local government sent out a team to dig it up and send it the local university for examination. The professor who examined the creature said it may be a tsuchinoko but “scientifically speaking, it was a kind of snake.” Many other bodies and shed skin have come forward but these are mostly thought to be from known species of snakes.

#tsuchinoko #japan #asia

[servicetopkaradanvers]

I'm not sure if this is exactly the right place to say this, but I don't know if there is. And you're a smart person and critical thinker who has talked about this before. If this is totally weird, you can just delete it ofc. I've never properly watched Supergirl but I started reading fanfic around the time my mental health got real bad so it was a comfort thing I didn't bring too much thought to. I really identify with Lena and in the past, part of me has understood her actions-

and I know that they're wrong. The anti-alien rhetoric is obviously an allegory for racism or homophobia. She's violated people's basic human rights. And I'm scared that I'm a bad person because sometimes, I kind of get it. Which is insane because i'm a lesbian enby of color, i mean i get targeted by most of the -ist/ism actions. And I'm also too tired to think about things critically all the time. Supercorp was my comfort fic, content thing-

I knew it was problematic (the whole James thing makes me sick to my stomach, scared and sad) but I didn't know that Lena as a character was written that way. The metaphors never really clicked in my head because I never thought about it, but now I feel absolutely horrible about myself because I like and identify with Lena. I'm not really sure how to move on from here- I'm just tired. I wish there could be just one thing, one piece of media that wasn't prejudiced (granted sg is not the place to go if you want decent rep and the like) and all of those things I said earlier. Its just me somehow trying to justify how I felt and empathized with something I shouldn't have. So yeah, sorry that was really long. I hope you have a lovely day- sorry for the spam

FIRST of all, you’re fine, babe! Both in sending me this and in enjoying The Bad Media. That’s my thesis here: You’re fine. With this in mind, let’s unpack this big ol suitcase:

We’re living in a fandom moment where more than ever before, we’re thinking about the ideas we consume in fiction and how they may or may not affect us. This is a net positive! Fiction is not reality, but it undeniably impacts it, so for this and many other reasons, we should always think critically about what resonates with us and why. Does this mean dissecting every facet of something to find all the ways it might fall in line with oppressive power structures? Absolutely not.

You, as an individual, do not owe anyone an explanation for why you enjoy anything. Period. How you relate to a given character or why you like them is nobody's business but your own.

Supergirl, as a piece of media, is singularly awful in its lackluster lipservice to progressivism while simultaneously refusing to deliver any progressive themes. Socially and politically, it is a useless liberal wet dream. Kara is an immigrant from a dead culture working as the muscle for a secret FBI offshoot with zero accountability for all of the other aliens in diaspora she has rounded up and dumped into a cell without trial. Alex is allegedly a lesbian, but the key points of her endgame relationship are constantly deemed not important enough to get screen time, which is made even more absurd when examined from the angle that this series is marketed directly toward LGBT people. An embarrassing percentage of villains on this show are women of color, which is particularly loud when there are only 2 women in the main cast who aren't white. And "main" is extremely generous, given that Kelly is just there to Give Advice Good and everything M'gann says and does is as dry as toast.

My point here is that the whole show is rotted to its roots, and whatever quietly libertarian or even fascism-enabling bullshit they push onto Lena in a given week is par for the crusty, shitty course. Kara deciding that she's ok with the alien detection device because "there are bad aliens" is a lovely (read: awful) microcosm of why this show sucks so fucking hard. "People are entitled to their opinions" is for debates on whether pineapple goes on pizza, not for whether we should casually out, endanger, and disenfranchise our [insert minority metaphor here] because some of them are mean.

But what I would love for this fandom to wrap its head around, and what I hope you understand, anon, is that just because it happens on the show, doesn't mean we have to give a rat's ass about it. What the hell is The Canon, anyway? Especially in the case for Supergirl, which can't even get its own continuity right. Especially for an IP that has been rebooted dozens of times before and will be rebooted again in the future. We can just decide that Lena realized the horrible injustices she enabled through her position of power. We can even decide that they just didn't happen at all! This is all fake. It's not set in stone. Who came up with it, anyway? A network with a list of buzzwords they want included and a couple of D-tier showrunners cranking down caffeine to meet an absurdly tight deadline. It's not special. I can guarantee that you care about it infinitely more than they do, and you haven't even watched the damn show.

On a more personal level, people who are hurt, depressed, or traumatized have always and will always look for themselves in fiction. Myself included! And despite what lofty platitudes there may be on the matter, suffering does not make us kind. It does not make us better. Sometimes it's just suffering. Often it pulls us further from who we are meant to be. Often it just makes us "worse."

Trauma has made Lena emotionally brittle. A lifetime of manipulation and abuse has taught her to compartmentalize herself and lock her feelings behind a maze of doors. When she does let love in, she accepts it so wild and vulnerable that she can't see the red flags behind the rosy lenses. She latches so hard onto people she deems virtuous that she holds them to a standard none could fulfill. Her pain has to go somewhere, so it oozes out of her, into Non Nocere, into the post-reveal rift. She's a powder keg, and Kara spent 4 years shoveling more gunpowder onto the pile while holding the match between her teeth.

And despite these fatal flaws that make perfect sense through the eyes of Lena's trauma, she is so full of love. Like Kara, her suffering did not make her kind. She is kind in spite of her suffering. These are the characters we are drawn to when we're hurting. Lena’s trauma is an inextricable part of her, but it is not all of her, and neither are her mistakes.

There truly is not and never will be a piece of media that is absolutely innocent of the harmful structures thrust upon us by society, because we ourselves also participate in that society whether we are critical of it or not, whether we strive to change it or not. I'm flawed. You're flawed. Bettering ourselves is not a journey toward an ultimate destination of perfection. It is a garden we nurture in an endless labor of love because the joy that comes from seeing it flourish and change vastly outweighs the work we put into it and the weeds popping up around its unkempt edges. This is a lesson Lena herself could probably stand to internalize. Probably with lots and lots of therapy. Lots. And lots.

So, to circle back to the start of this? You're fine. You recognized the logic in a traumatized character's mistakes because our own gravest errors more often than not stem from the ways we have been harmed in the past. It's what makes Lena (or, at the very least, the many adaptations of Lena that exist in this fandom) a good character. She is, to her core, characterized proof that a crumbling foundation and poisonous soil do not define us. Which is why watching her heal and grow and learn a healthier kind of love is so, so wonderful.

In closing, I think it's worth mentioning that being critical of media does not mean that we stop enjoying the parts of it we like. There is a lot of gold to be pulled from the steaming pile of shit that is CW Supergirl, and that's why we're all here in the first place. So I really hope you can continue to enjoy it in whatever way makes you smile <3

#Anonymous #lena