#siblings doomed by the narrative my illness | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs | Tumgik (2024)

ough man first sksx comic i ever made (u can tell bc they all still look essentially the same) i am a swords and sais fan foreva, if raph and leo have no fans i have died

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rambling about episode 7

spoilers below!

OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDrip Tessa you will be missed (SHES NOT DEAD YOU f*ck-)nuzi is canon. nuzi is canon. SAVE ME STRAIGHT PEOPLE SAVE MEcan I call NUZI gay? they're so mentally ill its gaythat sh*t deserves its own thing under lgbtqiacause its how I feel rnnuzigender.chronically insane and doomed by the narrative.IM GONNA f*ckING KMS it was so goodhko+K)h ef*ckncuncsimkozl,xbvcshnizschbewidu bhucwkfjustice for my Uzi plush you guys I was punching her so hard she ripped a stitch </3 shes a bootleg but stillme and my friend were on call the entire time she was screaming I was stimming(we played adopt me in the aftershock)J MENTION J MENTION J MENTION J MENTIONlove hertessas still pretty asf corrupted by the solver </3save me tessa save melizzy and thad r so sibling coded </3and yeva and nori r so sibling coded aswell.. like doll and uzi r cousins its canon in my head"this is my strange cousin doll.""f*ck you bitch.""whatever you say,""UZI DOORMAN THOSE THINGS KILLED YOUR MOTHER!!"growls...... growls at you... get away I'm insanev's still dead </3

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My Universe Round-Up

This was a series of 2-part short stories, essentially each the length of a movie but they're more episodic which makes it an interesting format to get a wide variety of actors, directors, stories, and tones. And all of these vary widely. Most of the actors are very green, which means the performance quality falls all along the spectrum, but overall emotions often fall flat. There are a handful of different directors too (each directs a few of the stories), so these really feel different. The only two things that don't vary are the production quality (middling; sometimes some decent camera shots, but few sets and extras, sound is sometimes shirt-muffled or otherwise messed, the usual hilarity of royalty-free music choices) and awkward subtitles.

The subtitles deserve their own paragraph because I think they're potentially the worst kind, in that they look fine but then every once in awhile the translation is the opposite of what it should be. Having a bit of Thai knowledge and experience with Thai pulps really helps navigate these.

The other thing to say about the structure of this series is that there is a neat thing where each story sets up the next with either a character appearing in the next one or having been mentioned in the previous one. So they're all in the same universe but are otherwise unrelated. Sometimes you can guess whose story you'll get next (like a side character), sometimes it's a real stretch (like the waiter at the noodle place the characters ate at once).

As a really brief summary of what these are actually like in terms of narrative, they took as many tropes as they could think of and then treated them seriously. It could have been interesting, if they had something to say, but I'm really not sure they did. There are a lot of difficult circ*mstances covered, sometimes with hope, sometimes with nihilism, and it often feels like the story is about the characters around those who are dealing with difficult circ*mstances rather than those who are experiencing it themselves. Honestly this felt like a film school project about trying out difficult tropes, rather than folks with something to say about a specific topic.

Tropes [note, almost all of these are a dark/sad version of these tropes and end sadly or open]: bodyswap, mistaken identity, in-love-with-your-sibling's-friend, destined lovers, enemies-to-lovers, love triangle, coach/athlete, fake-date-turns-real, twincest, age gap, paid companionship, terminal illness.

Warnings for this series overall: murder, attempted sexual assault (in multiple miniseries), incest (only very lightly speculated about), ambiguous relationship with a minor, cheating, intimate personal violence, death of parents, death of a partner

If you're going to try any of them, I'd recommend episodes 5-6, which were the story Right Time, Right You as a starting point--it has some of the better acting, an open ending, but still some of the dark themes (treated not as dark as some of the other segments) so it's a good litmus for if you should try any of the other parts out.

The one I most enjoyed watching was episodes 7-8 You Are My So(ul) Mate which unsurprisingly had actors who have acted before, and was one of the rare happy endings. The last one, I Wish You Love episodes 23-24 was maybe the best done overall (least annoying flashbacks for sure, decent pacing in the romance, comparatively decent acting) but warnings for the ending.

Details of each 2-part miniseries with rating and specific warnings beneath the cut for anyone still curious about any of these stories! My goal here is to give you enough info to watch whichever ones might interest you so I do spoil twists below when I think it's important to help people decide whether to watch. Feel free to ask questions if you're still not sure or have specific things you want to avoid.

Ep 1-2: Casanova Begins

4/10: Not recommended unless you like bodyswap

This plot was doomed to never fly with me; a dead lover tries to seduce the man he left behind in the body of the man he thought his lover was going to cheat on him with. I love supernatural stuff but bodyswap is a hard hill to climb and 2 episodes just isn't enough time to do it well. That being said, the actors did surprisingly well in the scene where all is revealed and they're saying goodbye. There's a stinger, and it did NOT work for me--people are not interchangeable.

Ep 3-4: Marry Go Round

6/10: Decent pulp with a good underlying message, but you have to not mind slapstick

I like the way one side character from the previous series brings us into the next, it's a neat way to tie these otherwise unrelated stories together. For a slapstick comedy of errors, this worked surprisingly well. The misunderstandings are well set up and make sense, characters have motivation for continuing the shenanigans and the continual additional complications build to absurdity but it all holds together in a very slapstick comedy way. Mei being willing to marry her friend's boyfriend to help keep their secret is top tier allyship. I wish the fujoshi had been chewed out more; she was invested in exposing them as a couple for her own curiosity/excitement and that's gross, and I don't like that she got any credit for their happiness. The mom being a secret fujoshi herself [and, it's implied, very ok with their relationship as a result] was a little on the nose lol The performances in this one were a little weak on the comedy; slapstick like this isn't easy to do well and the comedy suffers from this not being these actors' strengths. All that being said, the underlying message that marriage equality is the right thing and having to stay in the closet causes so much strife for everyone is one I can get behind.

Ep 5-6: Right Time, Right You

7/10: Decent plot, acting, themes. A bit rushed, but good pulp. Warnings for references to intimate partner violence. Ambiguous ending.

I enjoyed this one; I love the in-love-with-your-sibling's-friend trope, I love smiling-to-hide-pain, and I love pining. I love the complicated feelings around not being ready to let go of the love you have for someone even if they hurt you. I love wanting to do something for your friend because you see them hurting, and not knowing what will help. I love your sibling and best friend always being able to read you and ferret out your secrets. The framing in this one was interesting, there were a lot of on the nose imagery with the fence, the rope, the cigarettes. I really liked the dynamic between these characters, Mhok really felt like a younger sibling; a little willful, pouting when he is ignored, or not taken seriously, stealing his sister's breakfast, tagging along. And the ending was sweet. It's clear that Phat feels something, though he's been explicit that he's not ready to open up to anyone. And we basically end with very tenuous possibility. Not for anyone who is not ok with ambiguous endings.

Ep 7-8: You Are My So(ul) Mate

6/10: Fun trope-y pulp. Again you have to be ok with slapstick comedy, and I docked this one for internal inconsistencies but the chemistry was on point.

Ahhh one of my favourite romance tropes, dreaming of your destined person before you meet, and then experiencing the dream in reality! I appreciated that Butr's mom really did have a gift, and that he didn't believe and wrestled with the ethics of that. I also really liked that they tried to engineer a coincidence and had one anyway; I'm a sucker for magic/fate is what you make it. The actor playing Butr looks like a Footloose-era Kevin Bacon when he smiles while ducking his head, and the other lead is from My Cuisine, so I was pre-disposed to find them extremely cute. I do love shy4shy. That being said, a lot of the melodrama was around coincidence, and it was clear the overeager senior was just scouring campus for the guy, so there was a double-standard with the "coincidence" that would work (at least in the eyes of the protagonist) so a lot of it doesn't really hold together if you think about it very hard.

Episode 9-10: Lucky Love

5/10: rough especially with the language gap, but the leads have an interesting dynamic

Content warning for an attempted asault in this one. Annoyed-strangers-to-lovers where one guy has just broken up and is drunk and belligerent about it, and the other is not taking his sh*t. I really like Jeng as this taciturn dude who shows caring through food. The ex is still around, Meen is still clearly not over him, and goes through the stages of learning to prioritize his own feelings and truly let Noll go. Jeng talks mostly in innuendo, which paired with the bad subs (bad enough that sometimes they say the opposite of what's meant) means that a lot of this one is lost in translation. Because of the short runtime and the amount of time Meen spends getting over his ex, they can't get far, but the show gives the sense that they'll just keep on as they've been going. All that being said, Meen wears dangly earrings and has a femme best friend who is fantastic, and I am a simple person who enjoys her simple pleasures, so I actually didn't mind watching this one.

11-12: The Camp Fire

4/10: really disliked the twists in this; the horror was ok. Warnings for blood, ghosts, references to drowning, on-screen death.

Content warning for blood, ghosts, death (more details follow). Horror BL starring Kaonah and Turbo. Two guys who have been chatting online agree to meet in person but it turns out they already know and dislike one another; now they're stuck toughing it out at the campsite rather than let the other chase them home. Turns out this is a classic BL love triangle wherein one of the boys thought they were competing for the same girl, but his "rival" loved him the whole time (this is not the twist, it's fairly obvious). And that was my first frustration; Talay was unwilling to admit any kind of feelings for Camp even though Camp tries to reach out, even though he's clearly been in love the whole time and now has the excuse of their anonymous conversation and meeting. But then we get into the real spoilers, with the double-twist that honestly ruined this for me. First, it's revealed that June the girl who Camp loved is dead, and she died after being rejected by Talay (implying she killed herself) after Talay pretended to be into June so that she would not take up Camp's offer to be together. This made me really not want to root for this couple at all, Talay's character is awful at this point. Then Camp hears this story and decides to admit he likes Talay anyway, which felt extremely rushed if not absurd, and then June haunts them in earnest and snaps Camp's neck on screen. And then in a second twist, we find out we've been watching a film within a film the whole time, and Talay and Camp just met for the first time for filming this and have just started dating in real life. But we spend so little time with the "real" Talay and Camp that I wasn't invested in them at all as a pair.

13-14 Friends Forever

4/10 friendship in this is great but upsetting on the romance front, and the actual execution was rough and full of unnecessary flashbacks; content warning for coach/athlete, unnegotiated kink (slapping during intimacy), dubious consent (for the slap not the intimacy), murder (not shown on screen), and ghosts

So spoiler based on the content warning, this is a story about a coach who seduces one of his athletes and then murders him so that the athlete won't expose their relationship and get him fired. The sexy scene is consensual but the coach introduces pain without any context or consent, and it's just kind of shrugged off. The coach is creepy from jump so I enjoyed none of the couple's scenes. Beyond that, my issues with this were the massive use of flashbacks in a 2-episode short. They basically re-showed ep1 in ep2. The acting is ok, and the friendship (which is the actual story) between the guy who is murdered and his team is extremely cute, it was heartening how much this team supported their teammate dating the coach and how much they missed him and cherished his memory after his death. But this could have been one episode, or they needed something more to do.

15-16 Fake Love

4/10 flat acting and more flashbacks than actual new shots (half of ep 15 is a flashback of the other half of ep 15, and then we get it AGAIN in ep 16).

In this story a university student is trying to show up his pushy ex by blackmailing a campus 'prince' to pretend to date him. He finds out that his fake boyfriend used to have sex with his ex, and gets upset. They make out and then avoid one another. Fake boyfriend gets beat up and they reunite and admit they both lie to protect their reputations. There's an implication that Pol was being judged for being slu*tty and Peem was being judged for being poor, which I would have liked as a theme if they then hadn't undermined this by framing Pol as being "good now" at the end. Open but tentatively happy ending.

17-18 Pisces of You

3/10 WHY IS THIS SO DARK DANG. TW attempted sexual assault, blackmail, speculation about incest (really mild),

Ok so this is about twins being jealous and confused about their feelings; Mild is here and he sexually assaulted one of them (idk how young these actors are but this was hard to watch though he doesn't get far). I don't mind what they're doing around twins pulling apart, falling for other people and putting them first, being confused about their feelings, throwing away their future for an unrequited love (this is actually super realistic), regretting their decisions. But goddamn that was painful AF and these baby actors really struggled to actually deliver on these difficult and complex emotions.

19-20 1626

6/10 decent short story but barely a romance. Warnings for age gap.

Follows one of the twins' love interests from Pisces of You; we find out why he wasn't interested in the twin, it's because he has his own love interest in his former tutor 8 years older than him (16 and 24). For what could have been a really cringe story, this was handled relatively well. They were careful that these two characters barely touched, and made the feelings between them very ambiguous and confused. The ties between them were very confused too; they both had family trauma and had helped one another to the point where desire and debt seemed to be inextricably mixed up. I appreciated the choices made in this one. Again, not what I would consider a "romance" story per se. And again, the ending is ambiguous.

21-22 Refund Love

2/10 incomprehensible, terrible acting, terrible plot, zero chemistry, infidelity, manipulation, and weird unclear moralizing around a thinly veiled allusion to sex work

This one, I don't even know what to say. It's trying to be clever with the way it parcels out information, but it ends up being just frustrating and, in the end, nonsensical. I won't even try to avoid spoilers or fake impartiality here, because I really think nobody should watch this one. This is all about jealousy of your significant other taking a job as a "companion" for other people. There's lying, manipulation, and attempted fake relationships for jealousy purposes. I'm sad because this also has a side GL couple, but they made no sense. This couple claimed to have orchestrated their boyfriends deciding to spy on them together (how?) in order to....see if they cared enough to fight for them, after one had already broken up with her man and the other was going to? What in the world was the endgame?! MAKE IT MAKE SENSE. Anyway they really shoehorned in a relationship in this one with two guys--one of whom just broke up, the other who is thinking about whether or not to break up, and who spent only one day together, most of which under false pretenses--and I didn't buy a second of it.

23-24 I Wish You Love

5/10 big themes, decently handled to a point, but the story was about how helping the terminally ill character helped the abled character find purpose, and that sat wrong with me. Warnings for discussions of terminal illness and character death (not shown onscreen), as well as loss of parents.

This episode was set up as a ghost in the mirror story, but the supernatural element disappears pretty quickly and is actually just an excuse to bring together the two main characters (who knew each other before but one thought the other was dead) back together. This story is trying to deal with the very serious issue of chronic illness and what it's like being young and unable to do the things other people do, and the suicidal ideation that can come from being isolated and having a limited time left anyway, as well as the regrets about missed opportunities. It was also dealing with the sometimes awkward feeling of sorting out the love of friendship and the love of romance, and transitioning from P'-Nong to Faen, especially with the additional fear of loving someone when one of you has limited time. The supernatural element comes back at the end to grant one wish, and to give the character who is sick a chance to undo one regret. It's implied Marwin died, but we don't really see him process having completed their bucket list, instead we get Pond reflecting on what he'll do next and how this experience has given him meaning. This episode had fewer egregious flashbacks than the other episodes, and better acting (one of the main characters is actually one of the series directors, and the other is Winner aka Wai from My Dear Gangsta Oppa, as well as War of Y and Nitiman), but did also use an instrumental auld lang syne in the background of a dramatic scene that was distracting, and some awkward we-don't-have-budget-for-an-actual-ambulance-or-emergency-personnel moments. Overall it was one of the better offerings from this series but I wasn't thrilled with how it made the terminally ill character's death a teachable moment for the one left behind, even though that was honestly flagged as the point throughout the two episodes, so is maybe my hang-up and a little unfair. At least this series framed that it was about Pond the whole time (we start and end with him).

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Can you tell more about your cannibal shaymin OC who hates being in land forme? idk her name but she seemed cool... I like pokémon OCs and she had a really neat look and vibe about her... any other poké OCs you have would be neat to learn more about too!

(Under the cut for courtesy.)

Whoa, so interesting for her to be remembered, I made her years ago... (2019 mayb?) She wasn't as developed as some other concepts of mine, I never settled on a name proper, but I think of her as named something kind of severe. Like 'Clarity'... in contrast with her very sick, hazy mind.

She's genuinely just a vvvvery very ill, disordered individual, I imagined her very troubled when developing as a baby, put-off and violent towards any littermates or parent figure. She's not very old... young adolescent? And her diet is 'improper', as shaymin aren't meant to predate on other pokes, so she is underweight as her body isn't absorbing nutrients properly. Though I think unlike our world, pokemon are magical, enough that there is some wiggle room, esp as a pseudo-legendary... so her diet won't kill her, just hobble her, maybe further her unwellness. It's not exactly a hunger like a normal predator, it is something possessing her to do this, I would say almost like a delusion (that this is her 'destiny' in some manner, that's why it 'feels so good'.)

Eventually she was slated to have a mate that was a very overweight vaporeon my wife developed, one that got really good at hunting in its own habitat ww... I knew my wife was thinking about her being drowned, pulled into the lake by him.

As for OCs, I have several, many were made during a particular winter in 2017 where me and my wife sat down to design several pkmn to pair with one another. :3 Most of them compiled here & most didn't get a name. I think only the zigzagoon had one, 'Dart'... His mate, the persian with a blue gem, is named Lapis. I remember their narrative was one where her owner desperately wishes to breed her for her rare color mutation, but she is so persnickety and will not deign any proposed sires... The owner isn't cruel so doesn't force anything into her. But then she becomes charmed by a dirty little stray zigzagoon and instead obsessively wants to groom, cuddle, mate with him lol, and the owner just has to be like sigh, if this is what she wants....

I believe the chinchou was paired with a goreabyss that was very saturated (from her successful diet, much bloodsucking done ww), they meet oneday and she decides to not... kill him, for now. (?) The shuppet paired with a swirlix that is repulsed by sweets, thus suffers from a poor diet also. When the swirlix is unwell, the shuppet is able to feed on her negative emotions, and when the swirlix gets nursed back to health by shuppet, then it is his turn to become lethargic and unwell (no longer able to feed from her.)

Butterfree, electrike etc. were all just design pitches, not developed.

Since I really like the 'chu line, I had various sonas of them also. I had a 'set' of 2 pichu which were 'composite sonas' to represent myself, born from the same egg but instead of recognizing one another as siblings, saw each other as halves of the same whole. Technically they have defects effecting their development, improper tails and one has lop ears (cartilage issue?) Their egg was abandoned, so they have no troupe, and they're unable to be kind to one another actually... so they're sort of doomed to die if no one takes care of them. There's alternate timelines where, if they're somehow very lucky, they are able to evolve into pikachu/raichu... but then just become absolute monsters like that. Like I mean flat out going to become rapists kfkfkf

The pikachu, Muka, was an exploration of if those pichu weren't born separately, instead combining into 1 being. In this case, the lop-eared one would be melanistic (which I sometimes think of 'shadow' pokemon as being that in this world) ; the result is Muka is very visibly a chimera. He is still abandoned as an egg, and development was very difficult, but he has a 'more complete mind', less fractured.

One of my most recent sonas was Hondew, I made him like, early ~2021 or something... another chimera. (This concept stuck w/ me for a sec...) I have a write-up of him still:

"As a trapinch (and vibrava) he was a very simple minded creature, highly food motivated. would overeat if he could. but he was just getting by in the desert and could only do so much. Surviving to his final evolution was good fortune. The resulting intelligence and stats boost... are used all towards his high food drive. but now he also has the ability to enjoy playing with his food, and devise ways to hurt things.

his moveset is focused on paralysis (mean look, thunder fang) to slow things down and avoid giving chase(or being chased). he's not a fast flier, nor can he fly very high. as he gets fatter and less mobile, it means he problem solves how to work around these things. enabling him further..

he delights in eating baby pokemon and eggs, there's a sick enjoyment in doing so. and he clears the area of unwanted competition by making an inhospitable environment where there's a dirty rotten baby eater on the loose ! :(

He'll never pick a fight directly with a pokemon as high leveled as him. he has patience and tenacity on his side. he will play the long con of harassing you, tormenting you, and evading you with a tricky moveset. and most pokemon just would rather live elsewhere, where the competition is more manageable and there isn't a huge jerk nipping at your heels every second.

he likes to manipulate things in his hands, and the frequent use makes them more dextrous than most flygons. he can often be seen holding something. meticulously running his claws over it. in the case of avvy's shinx, he loves to touch her fur and carries her around everywhere. she's very novel, as shinx are not native to his deserts. he keeps her on a whim, but grows very attached to her over time"

Aside from him I think my most recent exploits were these other unnamed ones, a salandit and a togekiss. The togekiss is there to love and fuss and chuff over the little archen that nips at it, and the salandit is endlessly consuming cutiefly. I have a liepard and nidorino in the works, but they're indistinct in my mind still...

(Often I suppose naming the pokemon doesn't always come to mind bc they are equivalent to wild animals & sometimes it just doesn't really feel important or cross the mind.)

My only other OCs I belieeeve are in PMD verse, compiled here. Their narratives are not very different from the plot of their respective games. I think only the PMD sky set of phanpy (Vvyrd) and vulpix (Vivi) deviate, as Vivi evolves and her nature changes as a ninetales, she eventually steals Vvyrd away into the mountains to live in isolation. The skitty/mudkip were only from playing the demo fr DX so I don't think they had proper names... The super team was of a bulbasaur (Periwinkle) and fennekin (Wish) !

That's!!!!!!!!! Everything I think...........

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guys this polygun roadtrip fic is driving me insane. i have their entire lives planned out in this au i’ve got a timeline in my head. they meet in college. everyone’s got trauma except milly and meryl but HOOO BOY MERYL’S GONNA GET THERE!!!! also Milly is homesick but feels like she can’t complain because everyone’s got it worse yk!!! milly and meryl are roommates (oh my god they were roommates) and are the first to start dating. Meryl was an intern for Roberto back home and he’s like a weird uncle to her and he visits often. he dies in her second year!! doomed by the narrative ass. so now she’s got issues <3 eventually all five of them start dating, still trying 2 figure out the order tbh but they do get there and they help each other heal and recover and they love each other so so much <3 i might actually. write a fic abt their college days but idk

and then!! they get an apartment together!! it’s small and cramped but it’s theirs and they love it. and then the road trip shenanigans occur. and then after that Meryl gets a job as a reporter and Milly starts working at an insurance agency and Vash works as a barista but he’s kind of terrible at it <3 and Wolfwood does sh*t like officiate weddings and Livio tries to work customer service for a while but he cries whenever a customer yells at him so eventually he gets really into art and stuff and does some other busywork on the side. and then they can get a house!!! they have a kid and she is the light of their life. they start fostering a sh*t ton of kids as well and their daughter is never without friends or siblings. they have so so much love to give.

wolfwood. dies in his late fifties/early sixties. lung cancer gets him. the others are devastated but they knew it was coming like a year before it happened so they hope they did everything he wanted before he died. their daughter, ambitious go-getter that she is, starts a full charity in his name. she takes care of the orphanage when miss melanie retires.

livio goes next, years and years in the future, maybe early eighties. he’s been through a lot but he’s okay, yk? he’s ok now. it’s an illness that gets him, and his old immune system can’t take it, but he knows he’s on his way out and he’s ok with it. (the others are far from okay, especially vash, but they try not to let it show until after he’s gone.)

milly’s next. she makes it to ninety. she goes in her sleep, just goes to bed one night and doesn’t wake up. it’s peaceful. meryl and vash take solace in that.

meryl makes it to ninety-eight. she goes the same way as milly does. vash is tired.

nai and vash both make it to a hundred. nai dies just before their one-hundred-and-first birthday. vash dies just a day later. he outlived everyone, like he does in every universe, but this time he got to spend it all with the people he loves. and he’s ok with that.

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i love being lightheartedly critical about any character so i have a tier list again. me rambling about some of the characters for each category below

ill skip explanation on the "overrated characters" since. they're overrated and many would know why PFTTFT

i dont even have to explain myself for the first bracket. for the first two at least..... so..... i'll skip them or this becomes an embarrassing love letter. (OKAY BUT HOLLOW IS LITERALLY DOOMED BY THE NARRATIVE AND I AM VERY EMOTIONAL OVER THAT) anyways i LOVE white lady i love her so much part of it is simply because of her motherly nature and voice and her cute eyes its just so adorable asdfhfashfuas i like the way the fandom characterizes her. maybe the humor on that specific trait of hers is one reason why i like it so much (SHUSH ITS FUNNY BECAUSE SHE'S REGAL) if dryya was here she would've been placed in this bracket but she isnt here :[[[

i came to really like the 3 brothers but sheo is probably my better favorite (just because he's the only one taking it easy and his battle is fun with the paint mechanic). cloth became an immediate favorite because of our battle with the traitor mantis... despite her unfortunate demise but that's also why, i respect her so much and her enthusiastic battle cry gets me going :']]] also the mantis lords are just so cool - game, lore and design wise.

im a big fan of the vessels and the siblings so the lost kin is no exception to this and i really like fan portrayals where they're around same age as hornet and act like the middle children. collector is. um. im not immune to this kind of design,,, + i loved the battle so much and the ridiculous sounds they make.

i have a very love hate relationship for radiance thats all i can say. nosk should be buried 6 feet under

skipping to the very last category uhhhh i just love how every meme i see for pale king always consists of him being an absolute piece of sh*t and everyone beats him up for it - that or he's a smug prick. if it werent for those memes i could care less about him.

must i even elaborate on gorb? gorb is gorb. Gorb.

i dont like zote anymore i thought he was funny at first but NOW HE'S JUST REALLY ANNOYING HADUHUASUFHSUAFH BUT AT LEAST EVERYONE IN THE COMMUNITY TAKES THAT MUTUAL RESENTMENT AND BULLIES HIM FOR THAT AGSDUHFAHFSA

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AU Masterlist

For ease of reference, all AUs will be linked to their respective tag on the blog; for fics marked as ‘In Progress’ or ‘Complete,’ status will link to AO3 if the work has an entry there; for fics marked as ‘One-Shot,’ status will link to either AO3 or Tumblr; for fics marked as ‘In Development,’ status will link to a Tumblr summary or outline of the complete work; all ‘In Planning’ works will be left unlinked.

Fire Emblem: Awakening

The Future Built Upon the Past (In Progress) - My Awakening magnum opus; a look at the events of the doomed timeline and how it led to the course of events that eventually sent Lucina back in time to alter the course of fate.

Affectionately Yours (Complete) - Accepting Plegia’s invitation to visit in his sister’s stead, Chrom rapidly comes to realize that everything he thought he knew about the halidom’s neighbor is at best a wild exaggeration thanks to the guidance of Plegia’s sovereign, Robin.

Cursed Fate (Complete) - A Shadow of the Colossus AU; following Robin’s death, Chrom takes his body back to Plegia for burial; when a disembodied whisper confirms that there may be a chance to restore Robin’s life, Chrom goes on a quest through the Grimleal nation to bring together Grima’s remains.

Crown of Shadows (Complete) / The Shrouded Throne (Complete) - A split-path narrative where, to stop the civil war raging in Plegia, Robin comes to Ylisse to beg aid from Exalt Emmeryn. After getting drafted by accident into the Shepherds, the Plegian and the Ylissean prince become fast friends – and very soon, something more.

Accursed Divine (In Progress) - Robin is trapped in a curse that transforms her by day into a fell beast. Once the curse is broken, the ensuing political drama follows Robin and Chrom uniting their countries after Robin’s ascension to the Plegian throne.

Sigh No More (In Progress) - An arranged marriage AU where following a crushing defeat at Plegian hands, Chrom’s father is forced to wed his son to Robin, who due to Validar’s ritual in her early life now bears more than just Grima’s mark as a sign of her fellblood; despite a rocky beginning, the two become friends and even find love in the union that had only ever been part of politics and power.

Beyond Twilight’s Veil (In Planning) - When Risen begin appearing in Ylisse, Chrom ventures into Plegia on Emmeryn’s behalf to try to find a joint solution, meeting and readily befriending Robin along the way. When things go wrong, leaving Robin half-transformed and Validar dead, the Shepherds are forced to flee Gangrel’s pursuit; two years later, Robin claims the Plegian throne and reaches out to Ylisse in an attempt to rebuild lost friendships.

War Crimes (In Planning) - A collab with anankos; the Exalt of Ylisse becomes a willing host to Naga’s power in a bid to wipe Plegia off the map, but the Fell Dragon’s return puts the war in a deadlock. Chrom is kidnapped and brought to Plegia in a desperate bid to open diplomatic channels, but when that fails he ends up as as a guest and becomes unlikely friends with Robin, the son of a Plegian tactician (who has more than a few secrets).

Manwearer (In Planning) - After becoming separated from his mother, Robin is raised by the taguel of Panne’s warren. On hearing about a threat to the Exalt’s life, the warren mobilizes to her aid, and Robin and Panne ally with the Shepherds to uncover the deeper mystery behind the attack.

Assassin’s Creed: Awakening (In Planning) - An Assassin’s Creed AU; when Emmeryn is kidnapped and slated to become a Grimleal sacrifice, Chrom and the Shepherds rush to save her – only her rescue comes at Plegian hands, instead. Defying his crusading father, Chrom chooses to stand by Robin and ends up embroiled in a millennia-old conflict between secret forces.

Smoke and Mirrors (In Planning) - A Pokemon crossover AU; Robin and her Zoroark Reflet (who prefers a human guise that passes for her brother) join with Chrom, a Pokemon Ranger branching out into competitive training; and his sister Lissa, an aspiring pokemon medic. This brings them into conflict with the Grimleal who are hunting for the Legendary Pokemon Giratina – a pokemon that Robin and Reflet have a very curious connection to.

Sibling AU (In Planning) - Grima is Robin’s older brother and unwilling puppet ruler of Plegia; when Emmeryn invites the recently-crowned king to Ylisse for diplomatic discussions, Grima sneaks his younger brother along to show him the world he’s never had a chance to see, and both unexpectedly find new friends in what they long believed were enemy lands.

Cardcaptor Lissa (In Planning) - A Cardcaptor Sakura crossover AU where Lissa accidentally unseals the Book of Naga and releases magical cards into the world; with the help of a tiny dragon named Tiki, she has to recapture them all before Grima reawakens to usher in the end of days.

Promare AU (In Planning) - A Promare AU; after Chrom thwarts a group of Grimleal dark mages from kidnapping an Ylissean family, his world is turned upside down by a series of shocking revelations, and he chooses to side with Robin to save the Ylissean Grimleal imprisoned by his father’s orders.

As You Are (In Planning) - Robin comes to Ylisse on a diplomatic mission, hoping to warn the Exalt of a potential threat; when an attack leaves the Plegian blind, Chrom confesses his feelings – only to be rebuffed as Robin believes that the feelings are born of guilt, leaving Chrom to grapple with what he fears are unrequited feelings.

Pride and Joy (In Planning) - Raised in Plegia under Mustafa’s care, Robin is drafted into Validar’s assassination attempt on Emmeryn – but decides that the orders should not be fulfilled and defects, saving the Exalt’s life. In the trials to follow, Robin tries to keep the Ylisseans safe from Gangrel’s forces without exposing her own wavering loyalties.

Prisoner of War (In Planning) - The Exalt’s war has left Plegia in ruins, its citizens scattered and the remnants of the army using guerrilla tactics to oppose the crusade. When his father calls him to the front, Chrom is captured by the Plegian resistance, and rapidly discovers that everything he thought he knew about Plegia (and the Heart of Grima who took him captive) is wrong.

Speaker for the Dead (In Planning) - Raised under Validar’s cruel abuse, Robin exists as little more than a hollow shell, surviving each day on the battlefield. When Chrom reaches out to him and offers a glimpse of something better than the threat of death, Robin cautiously accepts and gradually begins to recover from the traumas of Validar’s upbringing.

Design Defect (One-Shot) - A modern AU where Robin is the son of the head of the Grimleal mafia who enters Ylisstol University and meets Chrom, son of Exalt Corp’s CEO and the heir to the family company. While Robin might have some ulterior motives for getting close to Chrom at first, he quickly gets in over his head.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Kintsugi (In Planning) - A Golden Deer-based golden route, where Claude decides from the moment he reunites with Byleth that they’re going to save as many lives as possible.

Pre-Timeskip Fix-It (In Planning) - A Black Eagles-based fix-it AU where Byleth gets to shut down Edelgard’s alarming rhetoric every time she opens her mouth, and the Imperial princess stumbles her way through the process of becoming a better person.

Spite Project (In Planning) - A canon-divergent AU where the question of “what would have happened if Edelgard had hired Miklan to kill Claude and Dimitri at the start of the year?” leads to Claude and Dimitri saving each other in more ways than one.

Bad End AU (In Development) - A Crimson Flower AU exploring the logical consequences and fall-out associated with Edelgard’s conquest of Fodlan, her deceptions regarding the Agarthan menace, and her choice to kill Claude at Derdriu.

Proof of Life (One-Shot) - After establishing an uneasy alliance at Gronder, the joint Kingdom and Alliance forces proceed north to free Faerghus from Imperial control. On the way, Dimitri and Claude are ambushed by an Imperial assassin, leaving Claude seriously injured; on the way to safety, though, Dimitri is shaken by the Alliance leader’s words, and begins to question his purpose and his ultimate goals.

Fire Emblem: Heroes

Hard Reset (In Planning) - A bad-end Heroes AU where Muspell invades Askr and wipes out the Order of Heroes – but before Surtr can kill Kiran, they fire Breidablik, which somehow transports them to another Zenith. Taken in by the Emblians, Kiran sets about trying to prevent the ruin that befell the world they were first summoned to.

Controlled Chaos (One-Shot) - In the midst of battle against Muspell, Kiran is taken prisoner by Laegjarn and whisked away from the field; when the leaders of the Order elect to wait, the Heroes take matters into their own hands -- led by the last Hero anyone would have expected.

To The Last (One-Shot) - Though peace has finally established between Askr and Embla, Kiran is unexpectedly struck down by an old illness from their life before they were summoned; the Heroes band together in hopes of finding a cure...but in the end, it all comes down to a prayer.

Promare

Life Goes On (In Planning) - My Promare magnum opus and a direct sequel to Send the Scourge, Send the Swarm exploring the Parnassus aftermath, the Promeopolis Burnish and their recovery and reintroduction to society, and the gradual evolution of the city through the combined influence of the wider Federation and the growing Burnish activism movement.

The Enemy of My Enemy (In Planning) - A canon-divergent AU where Lio and the Mad Burnish managed to save those captured by Freeze Force before they were taken to the Lake Friege detention center; after awkwardly helping the Mad Burnish slip through Kray’s trap, Galo inadvertently becomes entangled with the affairs of the terrorist organization.

Pokemon

Project: Elements (In Planning) - My Pokemon magnum opus following a scientist in Team Rocket who discovers that her genetic theory has been put into practice without her knowledge or consent; taking charge of the project herself, she finds herself warring with the ethics and morality of her work when young lives hang in the balance.

Pokekids (In Planning) - Based on an FYCD prompt meshed with an original story in development; the story revolves around an original region and original characters setting out on their journey, the challenges they meet along the way, and the friends they make in the process.

InuYasha

The Rising Wind (Complete) - An AU fic based on loveyou-x3000′s Wind Prompt, exploring the aftermath of Kagura’s death, her revival in a borrowed human form, her developing bond with Sesshomaru, and their eventual family.

Maelstrom (In Planning) - A canon-divergent AU where Sesshomaru diverts Kagura after she betrays Naraku, preventing her death at his hands; as she becomes ingrained within the group, though, Naraku sees an opportunity to make use of her even when she is not within his direct control.

Ace Attorney

Crime of Passion (In Development) - My Ace Attorney magum opus; Miles Edgeworth is once again accused of murder and taken in by police, but this time Phoenix Wright won’t be able to take his case -- because the victim of the crime is none other than the defense attorney. It’s up to Maya to defend the prosecutor this time, while Miles is forced to confront the hard truths about his relationship with the missing lawyer.

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Brick Club, 1.4 entire (retro)

Cosette's story often has such a fairy-tale feel, and it starts with this section (what should I be calling these chunks of text? the X.X sections as a whole, not the X.X.X ones? Volumes?) .

And yet I'm not at all sure why I get that feeling quite so strongly, in terms of narrative technique. The initial namelessness of the cast, with Two Mothers echoing the way people in fairy tales are Mothers and Millers and Eldest Daughters? But ifFantine is presented as if she was s stranger to us again, it's not different than what happens with JVJ, and his story never feels this way. The Three Sisters made by Cosette, Eponine , and Azelmamaybe? That's a very fairy-tale motifindeed. Something about the way the inn itself is described..?

Augh, I absolutely cannot put my finger on it. Still, something about this passage feels as ominous and certain and doomed as if the inn was a gingerbread cottage and Fantine was vowing to keep silent for seven years while making shirts out of nettles.

Notes on Various Things under the cut:

- love that the inn sign is really badly made. I've seen several attempts at it in various adaptations and they're always a disaster and it's excellent, I want a collection.

- the cart is covered with "the same ugly yellow mud sometimes used to decorate cathedrals". The cart that is AMetaphor for outdated social institutions. I see you, Hugo.

- I will FIGHT Hugo about peasant/working class women's clothing in this era, this outfit would be super charming! But it's definitely more about utility and practical wear than Fantine's old outfits. There are roughly a billion dissertations to be written about the way that things working class people do and use are , through history, treated as inherently ugly/undesirable, regardless of how much art and beauty might actually have gone into it; I feel like the classism kinda speaks for itself on that. And then,since Hugo's already drawn a huge Romantic Aesthetic defining line between the Useful and the Beautiful in this book, I think I can fairly just quote Gautier's explanationof the issue -- "Nothing is really beautiful but that which cannot be made use of; everything that is useful is ugly, for it is the expression of some need, and the needs of man are vile and disgusting, like his poor, weak nature" -- and leave this for now. I suspect it will come up again.

- Fantine has been "marked by irony" --that is, scarred by her time with Tholomyes. I do like the way this new line on her face sounds almost like a dueling scar. Fantine's a fighter in her own way!

- ...Tholomyes is gonna make it to at least 1828, meaning he'll outlive everyone we love in this story except Cosette and Marius. And he'll do it while being"always a man of pleasure"--I feel like there's an implicit suggestion that Cosette has a lot of half-siblings in the world, all of them with a story as important as hers, if only people wouldtake them seriously.

- ...as a Somewhat Taller Than Average woman myself, I am rather delighted by Hugo's obvious terror of women who are Not Tiny. ( And I realize I'm probably Reaching to think that Mme T might have been much happier and more well-adjusted if she weren't trying to cram her giant self into a tiny box of Ideal Femininity? Maybe she'd have been much more ok if she'd been able to go into showbiz and get famous as a weightlifter or something. )

But I do think there's a real sort of sadness to her introductory chapters. She had an ideal dream for her own life , and it wasn't even a particularly ambitious one--just a love story, really-- and it's fallen through as much as anyone else's hoped-for Ideal in the novel. She's still trying to hang onto it at this point, but we're already given a glimpse of the future when she'll not only have given up on that ideal, but come to despise herself for it. This is no way absolves her of her cruelty towards others, but I think she's a more complex villain (and sheisa villain) than she's sometimes treated as.

- Fantine does try to lie about having been married, here! ...but she also comes right out and tells people she's making a financial Deal with exactly how much money she has, and how much she's able to give over, before it's all settled. It's painful how ill-prepared she is to deal with this kind of economic manipulation (and I think "prepared" is really relevant; she's had no one more naturally skilled or experienced to teach her how to handle these things, and business negotiations, which this is, are incredibly complicated) .

Seeing how much money Mme T gets for Cosette's fine clothes makes me strongly suspect that Fantine was severely underpaid for pawning her own fancy things--unless, and I guess this is possible, her"putting all her finery" on Cosette is meant to be literal, and Cosette's current clothes are directly made of Fantine's old fancy outfits.

- Fantine tries to lie about having been married , and the neighbors *see* her crying as she leaves Cosette, and Cosette must have been well dressed and all for that first months or so...but still, everyone believes the Thenardiers when they start telling the town that Cosette is an abandoned, illegitimate child. They believe it because Cosette looks the part, and Cosette looks the part because the Thenardiers force her into it. In so many ways, Fantine is never in control of the narrative about her child, and What People Say about them does indeed matter more than anything she does--no amount of effort, no show of love, can save her and Cosette when everyone else has decided they're socially damned.

...but on the less thematic and more practical side,how on earth are the Thenardiers learning about her marital status? Seriously, was this freely avaialable info? This issue is something that comes up several times in the novel and I really have no idea what access to people's family records was like?

- we get our first negative association with a cat , hm

- ...workers have "generous impulses", huh? (also I am not at all sure if the corresponding Bourgeois Respectability is meant to be entirely a good thing, but I'm not sure it's NOT , like I would be with Some Writers? Agh)

- The Thenardiers' animal souls are :

French:écrevisses

Hapgood: crab-likeFMA: crabsRose: crayfishDonougher: lobsters

Google Translate agrees with Rose, but I wonder if this isn't one of those words that was colloquially used to mean a general category of creatures in its day --Things Like a Crayfish/lobster/crab-- and has come to mean something very specific now?

- ..y'know, what really kills me about Cosette in this every time is how everyone , *everyone* in this town really either believes she deserves her abuse, or thinks it's BETTER than she deserves. This is not happening in secret, behind closed doors, in a private house; it's at the public inn and very blatant. Everyone knows she's out in the cold , first up every morning, starving and beaten, in a home where the other kids somehow have more than enough (because their parents steal it from Cosette, directly). And not oneperson in this discount Omelas even thinks it's bad , much less intervenes. It's a point in the Thenardiers' favor, socially. This isn't just the gamins of Paris being brushed aside,this is a whole town actively citing horrible child abuse as the Moral and Good Option that elevates the people doing it.

And in this, I suppose, Cosette shares a history with Valjean-- they're both put through absolutely horrific abuse , which is not just societally ignored, or accepted with jaded apathy , but openly lauded as morally correct. I hate Montfermeil so much-- but Montfermeil is not really different from Arras, or Digne, or any other place where people think that abuse of the "deserving" is a Good Thing.

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On fandom and tragic romance tropes, from someone who's lived it.

Okay, this is kind of…. Idk a very specific vent and tbh one I feel kinda bad about because I genuinely don’t want to make people feel bad for liking reading/writing romantic angst or tragedy and it’s really less of an individual issue than an overall attitude in fandom.

Like, it’s absolutely okay to like not happy endings, and angst doesn’t have to just be for cathartic relief. Angst isn’t only acceptable if it’s to process trauma, you’re allowed to like it just because that’s your taste.

But at the same time…. I can’t help but have very personal feelings about how a lot of fandom spaces treat tragic romance tropes…

(this got really long but... it's something I've wanted to address for a long time)

I'm far from secretive with the fact that when I was 20, my girlfriend Emma (19) was killed in a car crash, along with her younger brother, mother, and aunt, and that a lot of my art and writing is purposefully about processing and accepting that grief. Fandom has been a very important part of how I’ve gotten through the last five years, which I’ll get into a bit more in a minute, but tbh it’s also been a lot harder navigating fandom and especially anything ship-related since Emma died, because of how people tend to romanticize a character tragically losing a partner.

And honestly, it’s not just fandom, it’s media in general. And mainstream media focus on tragic sob stories, shock factor, and BYG tropes is definitely a big part of the problem.

But as much as fandom pushes against mainstream overuse of such tropes, there is a good portion of fandom that falls into the same type of issue. And not just ‘fandom’ in the usual sense, but literary communities, poetry, etc…

The amount of times I see stories or prompts about characters tragically losing their partner, and that being the climax of the story, and then next to nothing about that character actually navigating their grief or being able to eventually start a new relationship or just be happy is just…. It makes me feel physically ill.

Like, people saying how tragic love stories are more interesting than happy endings. Or seeing a post about tragic pairing prompts and people saying things like ‘or they think it's unrequited but then A dies and B finds a letter confessing and they really loved each other but now it's too late’ and more people being like ‘YES YOU GET IT THAT'S THE GOOD STUFF’

Just… really, honestly. It's okay to like angst, even really tragic angst. I’m not trying to guilt anyone out of that.

I just….. Most of the time people just talk about it like ‘oh yeah I love some of that good tragic love story sh*t’ and the stories focus on the build-up and the shock/trauma of the death as it happens and then the excruciating reaction of the survivor and then maybe a time jump to show them happy again.

But very rarely do people take the time to actually handle the grief. People like the good cry of a character mourning their partner, but the vast majority of creators and fans rush through or skip over everything after the initial drama and aftermath. The ‘tragedy’ is the only part they focus on, and then the story ends and they move on.

And like. sh*t. I liked that stuff too, I wrote some of it, years ago. And I’m not saying you can’t ever just leave it there, or that if you want to write tragic romance you always have to explore all the long-term emotional consequences.

But try to have it in mind, to consider what message countless grief narratives that end after the funeral, or maybe a few weeks or months later, teach people about real-life grief. This goes for any kind of grief narrative, but the one I see most, the one I used to ‘enjoy’ most myself, is romantic.

But, after having actually lived it? And knowing I'll have to live the rest of my life as the part of the story that usually isn’t told? It turns my stomach the way it’s often handled.

Like seeing people gush about how angsty a fic/idea is, and ‘OH MY GOD SO SAD CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW TRAGIC HOW DARE YOU. I LOVE SEEING/PUTTING THEM THROUGH SO MUCH PAIN’ gets a bit uncomfortable.

Not because there’s something inherently wrong with ever reacting like that, but because most often I can turn around and have the same people not know how to react when I tell them about Emma, not know how to handle the same grief they were just gushing over in fiction, when it’s real.

Grief is isolating enough on its own, but then it just doesn’t feel great when the worst thing to ever happen to you is a huge trope that people gush over, while very rarely fleshing out the actual reality of what it feels like to go through that or how to respond to someone actually dealing with grief, and eventually having to deal with your own grief.

Tbh it’s why I really just kinda have an aversion to the word ‘angst’ in general, and don’t really like to refer to my own writing as angst, even though I know plenty of people might think of it as such. So much of fandom's handling of ‘angst’ has come to feel like voyeuristic tourism of the grief I deal with every day, and will for the rest of my life.

Just, I know people are always going to like tragic angsty romance, and that’s fine, and honestly, it's not even an issue of individuals, but of how fandom in general treats it.

And again, I really don’t want to make anyone feel bad for liking it, and it has its purposes. And even when it’s not for catharsis, it's okay to just like sad stories just because.

I just… I wish more people would keep in mind that it’s not just a tearjerker story trope. People really go through this. And they then often end up feeling very isolated because people around them don't know how to react to their grief, because their grief makes things awkward and a mood killer.

Like, if you love this kind of angst (and not because you personally relate to it or find it cathartic, but just because, just for fun) but then feel awkward around people talking about their real-life grief, maybe spend some time with that, and think about the topic as a real-world trauma and not just a dramatic story trope. (this doesn’t just go for grief. Any kind of trauma you don’t personally deal with, if you love reading/writing it but avoid actually listening to people talking about their real-life experiences with it, think about why that is.)

I just hate seeing loss and initial dramatic grief responses being this shock factor/tearjerker trope, without ever really seriously addressing long-term grief. Especially when it doesn't even do a time jump or anything, and just ends on the surviving character being forever destroyed; when it focuses on the idea of how sad it is for your favorite character to have to spend the rest of their life alone.

And that’s not even folding in any kind of BYG/queer tragedy tropes in canon or fandom spaces.

And like… on a much more individual, less practical point, I just… there’s nothing wrong with angst but honestly (and especially for characters whose canon is in no way tragic) every time I see it I just want to scream WHY…. Why do that to them!? I’m not saying you have to stop, or that you’re not allowed to write trauma you don’t deal with personally. But I will never not cringe a bit at the ‘painful enjoyment’ of a character going through the traumatic loss of a partner. And it’s a sentiment I don’t really see people being okay with in regards to any other kind of trauma.

I don’t have actual numbers, but it sure feels like fandom treats stories about romantic grief very differently than most other traumas. Other trauma, even other kinds of grief, like a close friend or a sibling or parent, etc. tend to at least try to touch on a theme of recovery, or that the emotional turmoil being covered isn’t just a fun angsty trope to spend a little time in and then move on. And of course, this isn’t universal and plenty of people don’t handle these other traumas respectfully or as anything more than dramatic fuel, but this is the trend I’ve personally seen in over 10 years of tumblr fandom. And to that point, even when traumas aren’t respectfully handled I’ve at least seen people try to bring attention to that, with posts about how to respectfully handle disability or addiction or mental health or abuse. I can’t remember off the top of my head a single post like that about grief, let alone specifically romantic grief. It seems to be commonly accepted that while most kinds of trauma can be explored, but still handled respectfully, the death of a partner can just be done for the Drama. People tend to try to learn about abuse or addiction experiences before attempting big angsty stories addressing that. But doomed romance and a grief-stricken lover (it feels like, in my experience) are much more likely to happen on a whim.

Generally, it feels like other kinds of trauma, while still part of ‘angst’ also keeps a sense of awareness of how that narrative reflects real people’s experiences. It’s not just heavy because it’s big dramatic fictional angst, but because it’s grounded in real-life trauma that everyday people who come across it might relate to. Like... I just feel like a lot of fandom spaces treat ‘major character death’ and tragic romantic trope tags as just filters, like they’re needed because ‘not everyone likes angst, it’s just not their thing’ without really acknowledging that it’s a real trauma that everyday people deal with, where (again, often, but of course far from always, and certainly not in mainstream) other tws and tags like assault or substance abuse, people understand that people they interact with might really deal with those issues and they try to not just use them as dramatic fodder and to portray them respectfully.

But grief, especially romantic grief, seems different. The number of people who will come across a fic or edit or piece of art about a tragic love story, and will have had that personal experience of losing a partner, is much lower than people with real experiences with abuse, or addiction, or mental illness. That’s not a bad thing. I wish none of you ever have to know what that feels like.

But because of that, tragic romance ends up seeming like this distant thing. Like it’s only in dramatic tv shows or movies or literature, or lives solely in angsty fandom spaces as a way to get out a good cry. It seems grand and Tragic, off in its own world of dramatic emotional story tropes.

It’s solely pretty dark edits put to song lyrics, or striking art, or beautifully written prose that rips your heart out. It’s Tragic Romance.

And there’s nothing wrong with that inherently. But for many people, it seems like that is what it becomes: fiction. An angsty trope.

I genuinely hope that’s all it ever is for all of you. I wish I could ensure that that good angsty hurt will only ever be a trope you visit when you need a good cry.

But it’s not just fiction.

It's not just angst for sake of drama or fun or poetic storytelling. It’s not grand or romantic or beautifully tragic.

It’s unbearable. It’s physical pain.

That’s not exaggeration or metaphor. It sneaks up on me out of nowhere and it literally feels like someone is crushing my chest. I’ve nearly broken my hand punching a wall because I needed to make something hurt more than this thing in my chest that isn’t even actually there but it hurts so much.

Tbf I think a lot of my attitude towards this really stems more from fandom trends from when I was younger, and I think a lot more people actually try to flesh out grief more these days. But I just remember so much tragic romantic fic and fandom love from when I was a teenager that didn’t go deeper than ‘look how heartbreaking this is it’s so sad, I wanna make everybody read it and cry and it’s just fun and a story, oh my god I couldn't live with that’

no, of course I don't have a few specific old fics or posts from like superwholock days in mind, that I used to gush over too, and now just the idea of makes me feel actually sick

Idk… like I said. I don't at all want to make anyone feel bad for liking that type of angst, and I feel kind of bad for criticizing it. It just…

It hurts seeing basically your exact situation on angsty prompt lists with people gushing about how good it hurts. Especially when the same people would be (and have been) deer in headlights when they find out you’ve lived the same thing. (Again, this goes for any kind of trauma trope, but most others I’ve seen at least some kind of discussion about before)

Just please, try to be mindful of not just how you write stories about grief, but how you talk about death angst in general. (again, certainly not everyone, but more and more) People know to not just romanticize abuse trauma or addictions or mental illness, and to research, and ask for advice to try to be respectful.

And it’s much more common for someone in fandom spaces, in their teens or 20s or 30s to deal with those sorts of trauma than having experienced losing a partner.

But we exist. And while there is plenty of media out there showing tragic young romance, there is very little (in my experience, after nearly five years of desperately looking) real-world acknowledgment and support, or proof that you’ll be able to survive that kind of loss and still be happy, and even less so if they’re queer.

In a couple of months, it will have been five years since Emma’s death. From day one I have not been private about my loss, whenever possible.

And in five years of saying “When I was 20 my girlfriend died.” to new friends, classmates, potential dates, fandom spaces, therapists, grief support forums, etc… do you know how many other people have told me that they also lost a partner as a young adult, whether queer or straight, by accident or suicide or illness?

Zero.

No one. I’ve had people say how they lost a best friend or a sibling or a parent. And those losses, those kinds of grief are certainly not any less traumatic than the loss of a partner. But even in real life, they’re different. Losing a partner, especially at a very young age when it’s likely your main romantic experience, has different emotional effects, and can be harder to find people who directly relate.

Five years. Zero people dealing with the specific facets of grief as me.

The ONLY times I have ever heard about stories like mine in real life are either the rare article or essay or celebrity story, of which I can probably easily count on two hands.

All the other representation I’ve found is in mainstream fiction and fandom.

And of those stories, those fics, that art, the vast majority have had the partner die in the last half, probably closer to the 75% mark, of the story or arc.

If I’m lucky, that last 25% will focus on the immediate aftermath and grief (especially in fic, while a lot of media might give you a few scenes, and then move on to other character arcs).

If I’m really lucky they’ll show some kind of time jump, to say ‘see, they’re still haunted by their lost love but they’ve tried to move on or can pretend to be happy’.

And so much fandom reception is centered around ‘it’s soooooo SADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD MY POOR HEART IT HURTS SO GOOD. LOVE ME SOME ANGST’, or romanticizing the idea of being unable to live without them, and if they can, it’s often never really putting focus on all the pain it took to process their grief.

Again, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this individually, or that you shouldn’t gush and scream over fic or art or prompts that hook you because of angst. But it adds up really quickly, especially when, even when getting good genuine support from people, you still see no one else actually living with that feeling like you. The only place you find it is stories, and then you see people mostly excited over just how beautifully sad it is.

And that just feels… I can’t explain it honestly.

Just, think about how you react to or talk about fic or prompts or art about a character crying over their partner’s body, or attending their funeral, and think about whether you’d feel appropriate doing the same if instead, they were dealing with abuse, or addiction, or self-harm.

Again, that’s not to say you can’t ever gush or key smash or such, but is it all you do?

You don’t have to stop enjoying angst and tragic romance. But think about how I just said that.

Enjoy.

Do you only ever act like you ‘Enjoy’ it (and yes, this includes the ‘I’m such a masoch*st I just love to cry over them, it’s emotional release that doesn’t trigger me’ reaction), and romanticize it?

It’s fine to, sometimes. But do you also appreciate it, and try to understand the real-world weight of it? Do you know what you’d say to a friend if they told you they’d lost a partner?

That ‘love me some good angst’, Dramatic grief, being the main fandom attitude doesn’t just hurt me or others who have lost people close to them, partners or not.

A big part of fandom, and of just society, has no idea how to deal with grief, their own or others. It’s not a light conversation topic, it makes people feel awkward, or walk on eggshells around you, or tell you how they can’t possibly imagine having to go through that (btw, y'all don’t say this to people. About grief, or trauma, or disability or anything like that, just don’t. I’m begging you. And a rant about that kind of thing is for another day but... )

And then, when people inevitably face some form of major grief themselves, they feel ashamed for not handling it ‘right’.

It hurts, to try to find some acknowledgment of your grief, and only ever see stories that show just the first few weeks or months; the feeling of it never possibly being anything but constantly excruciating. Stories that end on ‘they were alone and sad and that is what their story, their love, will live on as; Tragic’. Or, that skip all the work and the doubt and the backsliding, and just show years down the road, when they’ve got a whole new life, and that grief, that love, is just a sad memory that they have ‘moved on’ from. Just a tiny trinket call back.

It feels impossible to survive, to ever be happy again, when you never see grief being treated as more than a tragic story point. And then, as you try your hardest to keep going, to process and heal, and connect to new people, while not forgetting the person you love, not letting them just become your tragic backstory, you see people gush over tragic love stories, over how romantic it is, over how characters loved each other so much they couldn’t live without them. (Thankfully a good bit of fandom seems to be pulling away from this, but it’s still common)

And, if that’s what it is to lose a partner, your soulmate… then… then how am I able to keep living? Even as painful as it is? If true love means not being able to live without the other person, does that mean I didn’t, I don’t, actually love them enough? Am I selfish for still actually wanting to live the rest of my life, even with this pain of the person I love being gone?

Would people read my, our, story and ‘enjoy’ it? Would they find this romantic? Would they scream over a prompt based on the worst event in my life, and have a good cry, and then move on, thinking how sad and beautifully tragically romantic that story would be? Would this person I love and miss more than anything, become just a Tragedy? Just an angsty sob story to gush about how wonderfully painful it was? Would it become about only my pain and heartbreak, and not about the cruelty of this other complete, unique, independent person who was robbed of their entire future?

Maybe that seems melodramatic or putting too much weight on tropes, or fandom. But remember.

Five years.

Zero real people saying ‘I’ve been there too’.

The only places I have seen my grief reflected (beyond a rare celebrity interview, or article) is in fiction, and mostly in fandom.

For over a decade I’ve seen people key smash and gush over angsty ships in fic and art, and I was one of them for a long time.

And then, when it became real life for me, all too often (not always, of course) people wouldn’t know how to handle my real grief. Even when I didn’t want to grieve, but wanted to remember all the reasons I love Emma. My real-life moments of ‘fluff’ that I cling to, become uncomfortable when they know the ‘angst’ to come.

And I don’t blame them. I’m not angry at them for not knowing what to say, for walking on eggshells. They’re not cruel for that, they’re not unsympathetic, it’s not that they just don’t try.

Because, if I’ve found so few real-world stories about this kind of grief, after looking so hard for so long, how can I expect them to have had much more luck?

If the only places I find stories about grief never focus on the reality of life after the funeral, and the process of not moving past, but learning to handle grief, then how can I expect broader fandom to know how to be comfortable around the ugly, boring, repetitive, not at all romantic parts of that grief?

Just, yes. Write, read, love your angst. But please just remember that ‘tragic love story’ happens to people, and while plenty of people might not want to read it because it’s just not their thing, or too depressing, there are those who see those dramatic prompt scenarios, and personally relate to them (I quite often say the events around Emma’s death read like a heavy-handed soap opera, or Queer Tragedy movie, and had had plenty of people agree, even before hearing all the details. And I have literally seen multiple prompts of ‘best friends secretly have feelings for each other, and then finally confess, only to get a short bit of happiness before one dies tragically’)

Write, read, love your angst, your tragic love stories, just please, be as respectful of grief (in any form, but this is mostly a shipping issue in my experience) as you would be (or should be) of other major trigger warnings. Gush and scream about the big dramatic ‘romantic’ tragedies, but don’t then ignore the raw, uncomfortable, vulnerable, cathartic explorations, or the real people dealing with real loss.

Because damn y’all, I’ve seen ‘I just love a good romantic tragedy trope, yes please rip my heart out’ said so many times, with the same tone as saying ‘That fake dating trope, that’s the good stuff’.

I’ve seen people gush over how much more interesting and beautifully cruel it is for young love to end tragically.

And I promise you. It’s not. It just f*cking sucks. It’s not romantic or tragically beautiful or poignant. It’s devastating. And it goes on for so much longer than that last quarter of the story.

My grief is more than an angsty prompt. Our relationship, my love for her, is more than a dramatic sob story, more than just awkward sadness that kills the mood. Emma’s life, her memory, is more than my tragic backstory.

I want to be able to find my story in more than just fiction, I want to be able to get support from people who live with similar grief.

But I also want to see grief in fiction, in fandom, become more than a final character arc or Tragic love story; used for dramatic effect; grand and huge for a moment and then never fully processed, or mentioned again; just tragically romantic and heartbreaking and soooo good and angsty.

Grief is one of the only things we will all have to face throughout our lives.

I’m not just asking you to respect my grief or the grief of those around you. But your own future grief. I don’t want you to get there and feel like your grief is wrong, or means that you didn’t love someone ‘enough’ because it doesn’t manifest in a certain way.

Learning to accept grief; to be comfortable around raw, unpoetic, grief; to not hold up certain expressions of grief as Romantic or Poetic, but just honest, will eventually be personally useful for all of us, as much as I wish it wouldn’t.

I want my grief, everyone’s grief, to be seen, and understood, not just romanticized and dramatized.

My love story, Emma’s love story, isn’t beautifully tragic. It isn’t more interesting or poetic than a happy ending. The pain that I will carry with me for the rest of my life is not romantic.

But it is important.

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The Last of Us Part II: Abby and Plot Review (Sometimes, The Straightforward Approach Really is the Best Way to Execute a Story) MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR BOTH GAMES!

Yo, fellow gamers and geeks alike! How goes it? Don’t mind me. Just the dragon coming out of her den to rant/review within the realm of geek culture yet again. Since the beginning of The Last of Us Part II’s release, there have been some pretty strong opinions on the plot of the game (to put it lightly….).

I’m still in the middle of completing the game myself, but I’ve pretty much been spoiled the entire story anyway, enough to express my opinion about certain aspects of the game, particularly my feelings on the odd narrative framing choice for what (IMO) should have been a fairly straight forward executed plot line. I was going to wait until I’ve completed the game for myself, but time just doesn’t allow for a lot of gameplay for me at the moment, so I’m writing this review fairly prematurely (though I have watched everything on youtube). I’ll probably post a part II of this review after I finish the story for myself if anything changes.

Anyway, based on what I’ve personally seen and heard (both from personal gameplay and online), my main opinion (so far) is that the ideas, the themes, and the concept behind TLoU II’s story itself are overall decent to me.

However, the way Neil Druckmann and the rest of Naughty Dog chose to frame the narrative is decidedly not.

And a large part of it IMO is how they chose to implement this new character named Abby in the story. Not to mention the over reliance on shock value, and trying too hard to illicit certain emotions and reactions from the player, rather than just trusting the content to steer the narrative and giving the player space to have their own personal experience with the story, something the first game understood and did very well.

Needless to say, there will be MASSIVE SPOILERS for both TLoU I and TLoU II plots from this point onwards. Last chance to back out the den now!

To try and make my point, the original game did a wonderful job of establishing its dark premise, its major characters and getting the player emotionally invested in wanting to know more about both from the outset with a good prologue set up, taking place 20 years before the main time period of the story proper.

During the prologue of the first TLoU, we (as the player) are introduced to (main character) Joel and his cute, young, (but sadly ill-fated) daughter Sarah shortly before the outbreak of the Cordyceps plague. The player gets the opportunity to see Joel at probably his “(moral) best” in the game prior to everything going to hell (and even then the game still establishes the darker parts of his overprotectiveness rather well).

We see him depicted as a very loving and protective father, hardworking, and just generally and average everyday guy (neither “good” or “bad” just “normal”) trying to make a living in the world as he’s talking to his brother (Tommy) on the phone trying to secure a business deal. And then the world begins falling apart at the seams with the trio forced to flee from their now infected neighborhood, doing whatever it takes to get out alive (even if it means now they have to kill other people, something neither probably would have fathom doing prior to the outbreak), setting up a very miserable, but soon to be familiar pattern for them and any other people determined to survive in this devastated world.

Unfortunately, just as they make their way out of the area, Sarah is fatally shot by a soldier tasked with killing any stragglers in an attempt to contain the chaos. And all Joel can do is watch the light leave his “baby girl’s” eyes….

During this short, but very meaningful first hour or so of the game, we have Joel’s dynamic with his biological daughter established (a very fun-loving and healthy and overall heartwarming bond between them), the overall sibling yin-yang world perspectives between Tommy and Joel (how the former is more idealistic and more willing to help others even amidst a crisis, while the latter is cynical, lives more in the moment, and primarily focused on the survival of himself and his closest family) and how those respective character traits subtly foreshadow several major events to come between Tommy and Joel, how and why they eventually drifted apart from one another over the years, as well as the latter’s final choice regarding Ellie and the Fireflies in the finale.

Also by this point, we as the player are invested in these characters from the jump, and have a good idea of what’s going on in the larger scheme of the story (and the direction it’s going….pretty bleak but engaging), and what’s to come so that by the time we’re at the end of the prologue and Joel is getting emotionally shattered by the death of his only daughter, we as the player are right there with him. It was clear that Naughty Dog wanted to make the player sad and emotionally invested in the moment.

The difference in the first game from the second is that the creators seemed more willing to trust their own content to carry and convey the emotional weight of the story and the scene. Shock value is still very much there in the prologue (Sarah’s death was somehow expected and out of nowhere at the same time and it worked because it was just heartbreaking to see such an innocent and nice girl gunned down in her youth), but it’s not the sole driving factor behind the scene itself. Then we jump 20 years into the present day, the world is a very different place and Joel is a very different person.

He’s not the most likable, moral, or friendliest old dude around, but his brutality, his cruelty, his bitter resentment towards humanity over the course of the game is very understandable and the player has been given the time to understand the deeper nuances of his character and establish a bond with him and understand his later feelings and actions regarding Ellie and the Fireflies at the end of the game. His actions certainly weren’t “right” but they were definitely human and understandable.

Well, certainly a lot more understandable/human than it would have been had the game opened with Joel dooming all of humanity from a cure by killing all the doctors with no other context and then trying to force us to empathize with him after the fact.

That’s the problem with Abby’s implementation at the core of the second game’s story, and sadly, it’s enough to mar nearly the entire experience. When Abby first appears, we as the player know nothing about her (and I mean nothing. We don’t even get her name until at least an hour or so after controlling her. That’s not the best introduction for a soon to be major character….).

We get nothing about her, then she kills Joel from the jump (about barely 3 hours into the game), and puts Ellie on a warpath and all of it goes down from there. By this point, we still know nothing about Abby (but hey, at least we as the player get a name before she bashes Joel’s brains in with a golf club). And not only do we not know anything about her, but Naughty Dog didn’t realize that this framing choice effectively prevented the player from wanting to know or care about her as a character.

At this point, later forcing the player to later control her and empathize with her for 10-12 hours is out of the question. She should have remained squarely in the villain role (from Ellie’s point of view). The shock value of Joel’s murder is there as they wanted (whether good or bad is up to the player), but without knowing anything about Abby beforehand, all it really does is completely alienate Abby from the player before we could have gotten a chance to know anything about her, or even want to know anything about her. That’s what I meant earlier about TLoU II not giving the player space to understand and relate/connect to/with the newly introduced characters, to have the scenes and the content convey the emotional intent without the need of these unnecessary forced framing choices and over the top shock value instances.

Seriously, how hard would it have been to let the player know from the outset that Abby was associated with the Fireflies, and that her father was the lead surgeon that Joel killed to rescue Ellie five years ago? From what I understand, it’s several hours into the game before this information comes to light.

The game makes the mistake of introducing Abby in such a way that the narrative (almost to an absurd degree) assumes that the player is already invested in her. We’re not. We’ve literally just met her. And we as the player are given no room to get emotionally invested in her as a character, and when the game finally realizes that “oh, without some context on this matter, no one will care about Abby” (roughly 12 or so hours after the fact from what I’m understanding) it feels like it’s too little too late.

We as the player never received the opportunity to understand who she is, who she’s after, what her deal is, nothing prior to the controversial murder scene (it all happens after the fact, but by then, people are typically closed off from truly caring or able to change their minds about her so the whole 10 run feels more like a slog narratively rather than a deep, engaging “walk a mile in this person’s shoes” thing.

We’re just forced to continuously bounce back and forth between controlling her and Ellie throughout the game from the beginning. That’s honestly not the best story structure….ND....you can’t shove Abby down our throats later and expect us to truly care about her. That’s not how it works. And even the whole“well, we wanted the player to hate Abby” thing falls apart because the later scenes where we’re forced to control her feel very unnatural and are often trying too hard to FORCE the player to empathize with her rather than just again, trusting the content to allow us that (again, give the player some space to experience the narrative, build things/people up better, stop relying on shock value without the adequate suspense) for ourselves in a more natural way like with the characters and the way they were presented in the first game.

And Why? Because Naughty Dog was so focused on trying far too hard to illicit certain reactions/emotions from the player. Yes, the overall framing of Joel’s untimely murder at Abby’s hand is bold and (to a point) brilliant in getting us to feel exactly (and I do mean EXACTLY) what Ellie feels in that moment because she doesn’t know any more about this Abby chick than we do. That definitely works for getting us to feel something for Ellie and truly understanding her pain and sorrow in the moment, however, in the larger scheme of the narrative, it was unnecessary. We’re ALREADY just as emotionally invested in Ellie as a character by this point as we are Joel. They are both returning characters.

If they knew that they were going to have Abby (an entirely newly introduced character) kill off one of their major (returning) characters in the first few hours of the game, and ESPECIALLY if we were going to be forced to control her later, then all of their efforts should have been made into making Abby as emotionally understood as possible from the very beginning. This easily could have been rectified with a montage, or a playable prologue or something explaining exactly who she is and her friends were. THEN have her kill Joel somewhere in the middle of the game (while having her conflicted over doing so in part because he saved her life multiple times). People would have still hated her as you wanted ND, but her story is much more understandable and less convoluted and infuriating for the player to experience (and not in the genius way that you think, but just in the “bad story structured way”). The canon structure of Part II might have worked for a novel, or a movie or TV show or something.

This is a story driven VIDEO GAME. Players directly experience the narrative, not just read or watch it. It has to work in a way that doesn’t feel like an outright HATE message directed to the player themselves. There’s a difference in“exploring the themes of hatred and revenge” in a game, and“deliberately creating something that people are going to despise” (something Druckmann said. He literally said that he’d rather people passionately hate the game rather than just saying“eh, it was ok”).

To me, I think it would have been more conducive to focus their efforts on creating an experience that people would ultimately LOVE TO PLAY AS A GAME, as Naughty Dog explored the themes of hatred/revenge solely within the realm of the game’s content, rather than this borderline preachy way they presented this current flop of a story. Just IMO.

It’s sad too, because it would have been a great opportunity for Naughty Dog to fill in some of the gaps in the first game regarding the Fireflies, getting more of major key moments from the Fireflies’ point of view (since their movement was largely in the background of the first game, but still prominent enough) and she could have served as an interesting foil or something to both Ellie and Joel.

Abby is a character who lost her father at the hands of Joel, while Ellie never knew hers and found a father figure in the very man who took Abby’s father away from her. Joel in the first game was depicted as a man who had largely given up on humanity after everything that happened to him, more than likely didn’t believe humanity deserved a cure, or at least damn sure that to him it wasn’t worth losing Ellie over, and killed a lot of the Fireflies to rescue her.

Abby had a direct connection with the group, her father probably a hero in her eyes for still wanting to do the right thing and help humanity (what was left of it anyway) and was brutally murdered by someone who, by all accounts was nothing but a thuggish criminal and smuggler from her point of view.

All of those things could have been compelling and made Abby more understandable and relatable from the start. Would her killing Joel in such a brutal fashion so early in the game still have been bad? Absolutely. However, to me, the difference in knowing who she is and what her deal is before hand would have at least given the player the space to decide how much so for themselves. The overall framing choice of the narrative made this story more convoluted than it needed to be unfortunately. I get what Druckmann was going for overall, but the over reliance on shock value and screwing around with the player’s emotions in this game ultimately came at the cost of good story structure in the process. Sometimes, the straightforward approach is the best way to execute a story….

Well, that’s it for part one of my review. What do you all think? Agree? Disagree? Let me know what your thoughts are on the matter. But for now, I will return to my Den. Thanks for reading! If you liked this review, then stay tuned for my follow up after I complete the game.

Edit: Part II of my review is up! If you liked this, and want to read about how I would have personally structured this story, here’s the link to that!

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I’ve thrown some time into getting this blog ready, and I’m ready to start writing even though it’s not completely finished. Notes & thoughts -

Kafei and the elves are ready to go! I used to write Kafei on a blog called @/imtwentyf*ckingfour, and I used to rp elves with my sibling way back when. Looking forward to picking them up again. Jason and Ser are reboot characters too, I just have to explain their original world thingy because they’re from an original setting.

I made the elves couriers because I don’t want to write about...border patrol agents, of all things. so we’ve got courier elves. mailman elves. let’s go. If they’re couriers, that also gives them an excuse to turn up in lots of different places, which is very helpful for plotting.

I still need to finish re-reading the Eragon book Durza’s in, so I don’t have a perfectly canon-accurate Durza right now. But I know they’re like. Pure solid evil in there, like an evil essence puppeting a stolen human body. I’ve never written a character like that, I’m curious to see how it goes. I’m giving this Durza they/them pronouns.

I think I’ll hc that, with Durza, it’s technically possible to untangle the evil essence from the host, & that the host would regain the freedom to choose between good and evil if that happens. But as long as the host remains corrupted by the evil essence, you get a cohesive perspective that’s going to make intentionally evil choices, and it’s acceptable to label that perspective as evil. Like if you run DOOM on a calculator, you can’t use the calculator while it’s running DOOM. It has the potential to become a calculator again if you stop running DOOM, but for the moment it’s a little machine that runs DOOM. The host, and Durza, are two different people, and Durza is evil. It’s not a black and white situation, like Durza the entity is a misguided victim and innocent! or the person who was the human host is evil and deserves no sympathy! but like if we write a thread & Durza Chases your muse, they’re ‘supposed’ to try and throw Durza off a cliff because they’re being a bastard, not try and Understand Why They’re Doing These Things. And this isn’t a mental illness narrative, in the same way a calculator is never going to glitch in a way that makes the calculator suddenly start to run DOOM.

I’m designing my Flight Rising dragons a tower to live in (still a wip), & I’d love to use that as a setting for threads. The basic lore of my lair is that some feral ‘mirror dragons’ built a clan out of lots of other kinds of dragons, rather than only forming clans with other mirrors like most mirrors do. So the end result is like, a harmonious community where dragons accept and embrace each others’ differences...and the leader also likes to wear a skull on their head and scream really loud for the sheer exhilaration of making Noise.

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Let’s dissect the titles of each track on Seazer’s upcoming new Utena album!!

(EDIT: IMPORTANT UPDATE: J. A. Seazer made some last-minute changes to the tracklist after I made this post; I discussed those changes here).

1) 青銅製の人形俳優譚 オルフェウス洞窟劇場/Chant of Bronze Puppet Actors: Orpheus Grotto Theatre

There was a famous real-life “Grotto of Orpheus” that Seazer is most likely referencing! It doesn’t exist anymore, but you can see a detailed engraving of it here. It was made by Tommasso and Alessandro Francinifor Henri IV of France. You can read about it and see another engravinghere.

My guess as to what the song will be about: The grotto of Orpheus existed to glorify the prince by showing that he had so much power at his command, he could create a marvel like this. However, the object of wonder was a mechanical illusion: empty movement, so to speak. This was around the same time that some scientists began voicing the idea that perhaps the whole cosmos was like a machine built by God. This suggests the question, though it went unvoiced, of whether we ourselves are merely puppet-actors upon a cosmic stage.

(More under the cut--this will be long).

2) 宇宙卵プロトゴノス ―すなわちアンドロギュヌスのポラリザシオン(分極作用)―/Cosmic Egg Protogonos ―Namely Androgynous Polarization (Polarizing Action)―

This one is actually pretty straightforward if you understand Seazer’s language.

This song makes use of the Orphic creation narrative. Seazer used it before in a now lost version of Absolute Destiny Apocalypse(original source now here). Note: At the time when I posted that translation, I was under the mistaken impression that it was the same as the version on the Ohtori Kuruhi CD (because Seazer frequently does use pronunciation totally different from how something’s written). It is not; that set of lyrics is in fact the one used again more recently in the“complete version” in the Barbara CD.

Protogonos (literally “first-born”), also called Phanes (“bring to light”) ( "You scattered the dark mist that lay before your eyes and, flapping your wings, you whirled about, and throughout this world you brought pure light. For this I call you Phanes.") was described by Damascius as“the first [god] expressible and acceptable to human ears.” They hatched from the primordial Cosmic Egg, generated by Time (Chronos) and sometimes also Inevitability (Ananke).

Another tradition claims that a triad of the first three “intelligible principles” hatched from the egg.“What is this triad, then? The egg; the dyad of the two natures inside it--male and female--[Ouranos... and Gaia... Heaven and Earth], and the plurality of the various seeds between; and thirdly an incorporeal god with golden wings on his shoulders, bulls' heads growing upon his flanks, and on his head a monstrous serpent, presenting the appearance of all kinds of animal forms . . . And the third god of the third triad this theology too celebrates as Protogonos (First-Born).”

Another fact about Protogonos: They were a dying-and-rising god.

Since the title seems to focus on the severance of male from female (androgynous polarization), here are some passages that focus on that (source).

And he [Epicurus] says that the world began in the likeness of an egg, and the Wind [the entwined forms of Khronos (Chronos, Time) and Ananke (Inevitability)] encircling the egg serpent-fashion like a wreath or a belt then began to constrict nature. As it tried to squeeze all the matter with greater force, it divided the world into the two hemispheres, and after that the atoms sorted themselves out, the lighter and finer ones in the universe floating above and becoming the Bright Air [Aither (Aether)] and the most rarefied Wind [probably Khaos (Chaos, Air)], while the heaviest and dirtiest have veered down, become the Earth (Ge) [Gaia], both the dry land and the fluid waters [Pontos the Sea]. And the atoms move by themselves and through themselves within the revolution of the Sky and the Stars, everything still being driven round by the serpentiform wind [of Khronos and Ananke].

Ere land and sea and the all-covering sky were made, in the whole world the countenance of nature was the same, all one, well named Chaos, a raw and undivided mass, naught but a lifeless bulk, with warring seeds of ill-joined elements compressed together.... Though there were land and sea and air, the land no foot could tread, no creature swim the sea, the air was lightless; nothing kept its form, all objects were at odds, since in one mass cold essence fought with hot, and moist with dry, and hard with soft and light with things of weight. This strife a God (Deus) [probably Phanes], with nature's blessing, solved; who severed land from sky and sea from land, and from the denser vapours set apart the ethereal sky; and, each from the blind heap resolved and freed, he fastened in its place appropriate in peace and harmony. The fiery weightless force of heaven's vault flashed up and claimed the topmost citadel; next came the air in lightness and in place; the thicker earth with grosser elements sank burdened by its weight; lowest and last the girdling waters pent the solid globe. So into shape whatever god it was reduced the primal matter and prescribed its several parts.

Incidentally, the repeated severance and rejoining (solve et coagula) of male/female and above/below, was a key component of alchemy (of course, the materials they worked with were inanimate, but the alchemists insisted on gendering and even sexualizing them, always).

Protogonos bears some resemblance to the Gnostic demiurge, (shaper of the material world, creator of humans, associated with severance and procreation). However, the Gnostics denigrated the demiurge, whereas Protogonos was venerated. One could also make

3) ミッシング&ブーピープ ―快楽の園の修道院のイメージ― /Missing and Bo-Peep -Image of the Monastery’s Garden of Earthly Delights-

Okay. Bo-Peep is, of course, a little girl in a nursery rhyme who’s lost her sheep but gets them back, wagging their tails behind them (wagging meant bringing). There’s an extended version where it’s specified that they’d actually lost their tails (but she found those too and reattached them). Before all that,“bo-peep” was used to refer to the children’s game of peekaboo, and in the Middle Ages, it was also a euphemism for being stood in a pillory. The Garden of Earthly Delights is a triptych by Bosch (viewable in detail here--arguably technically safe for work but only because it’s Art [tm]). From Wikipedia:

As so little is known of Bosch's life or intentions, interpretations of his intent have ranged from an admonition of worldly fleshy indulgence, to a dire warning on the perils of life's temptations, to an evocation of ultimate sexual joy. The intricacy of its symbolism, particularly that of the central panel, has led to a wide range of scholarly interpretations over the centuries. Twentieth-century art historians are divided as to whether the triptych's central panel is a moral warning or a panorama of paradise lost.

There’s also speculation that Bosch’s art (as a whole) is based on“esoteric knowledge lost to history.” The ambiguity is perfect for RGU.

I like this interpretation:

According to art historian Virginia Tuttle, the scene is "highly unconventional [and] cannot be identified as any of the events from the Book of Genesis traditionally depicted in Western art".Some of the images contradict the innocence expected in the Garden of Eden. Tuttle and other critics have interpreted the gaze of Adam upon his wife as lustful, and indicative of the Christian belief that humanity was doomed from the beginning... Art historian Charles de Tolnay believed that, through the seductive gaze of Adam, the left panel already shows God's waning influence upon the newly created earth. This view is reinforced by the rendering of God in the outer panels as a tiny figure in comparison to the immensity of the earth.According to Hans Belting, the three inner panels seek to broadly convey the Old Testament notion that, before the Fall, there was no defined boundary between good and evil; humanity in its innocence was unaware of consequence.

This is of course very different from the traditional Christian view of Genesis, which is that before the Fall, there was no sexual desire. In many Gnostic texts, however,“original sin” is something that existed before the creation of the world; thus there was no innocence of any kind in Eden. The“original sinner” in this view was generally said to be Sophia (Wisdom, an Anthylike figure sometimes known as “the Bride,” who was both revered and maligned), an attribute of the Godhead, which was made up of syzygies, complementary pairs of principles, described variously as spouses and/or siblings, who (because they were God) reproduced without lust. But it was this same Sophia who breathed life and spirit into humanity, making them more than just bodies.

In this belief humans were inherently sinful creatures from the very beginning; it was also said that it was wrong for the demiurge to separate Eve from Adam (I believe this was the same text that said“This world is a mistake”--by the way, the demiurge was supposedly brought into existence by Sophia, but they’re enemies).

There’s also this idea that Bosch followed the ideas attributed to a Gnostic sect called the Adamites (unfortunately, the only contemporary sources we have on them are anti-Gnostic propaganda, so we cannot know how much of it is based in reality), which basically advocated freedom from all moral laws; the last image seems to suggest otherwise, but it certainly is, at least, a theme.

Incidentally, this triptych has been used for the covers of at least two books by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, whose works Seazer draws on extensively according to my research.

Anyway, for my attempt at putting the pieces of the title together... However you interpret the triptych, it’s not something you’d expect to see in a monastery. Wikipedia indicates a general consensus that it was probably commissioned by a lay person, not a member of the clergy. So the title suggests a contrast, or a confluence of opposites, rather like that title from his last Utena album, “Monastic Life is a Flesh Apocalypse.”

4) 幾何学とエロス/Geometry and Eros

This is, word-for-word, the title of a 1974 essay by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, whom, as I said before, I have known Seazer to draw from very frequently. It was published in this book, which also contains an essay on the “cosmic egg” concept and an essay on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.

I have it from book reviews that“Geometry and Eros” discusses the 18th-century French Neoclassical architext Ledoux and the supposed“spiritual analogy” between his works and those of his contemporaries Fourier and Sade. Now, unfortunately, there are two different “Fourier”s from this time period that are both feasible candidates: the mathematician Joseph Fourier and the utopian socialist philosopher Charles Fourier. I lean towards the latter, however, because Shibusawa had published a translation of his essay“Archibras,” which Seazer drew on for Tsuwabuki’s duel song, Conical Absolute Egg Archibras. I suppose Ledoux would represent “geometry” and the other two“eros,” assuming I have the right Fourier.

Apparently, Shibusawa criticized Emil Kaufmann’s commentary on Ledoux, but I don’t know specifics on that.

5) 少女錬金術師/Girl Alchemist

The main question is whether this is Utena or Anthy, because the meaning would be different in either case. But alchemy is about unifying opposites, and they both do embody opposites, just in different ways. And they are opposites of each other, even though traditionally, in alchemy, the union of opposites is exclusively framed in heterosexual terms--think Angel Androgynous. This heterosexual union--often, incidentally, described as one of brother and sister--is meant to lead to the birth of the“philosophical child,” which can be interpreted as a new self. It’s kind of like Nanami’s Egg, actually, though that did not use the incest metaphor since one of RGU’s themes is how incest inhibits individuation.

Interestingly, while almost(?) all the surviving alchemical texts (at least in the Western tradition, which is what I’ve studied) were written by men, many of them stated that the first alchemist was a woman, and a Jewish woman at that. Unfortunately, all we know of her is from what men wrote about her.

There’s a quotation attributed to her that has an interesting interpretation by Jung, which you can read about here. Alchemy as a metaphor for psychological individuation is something he wrote about extensively, and it definitely makes sense in this context although it’s not, imo, the only meaning alchemy has in RGU. Marie Louise von Franz wrote about it extensively also! The two of them worked closely together as well as individually.

6) 人間人形 ―空想・イン・ザ・架空―/Human Puppet -Fantasy in the Imaginary-

(I’ve got nothing, other than the metaphor of puppets which I already touched on).

7) 絶対天秤卵/Absolute Balance Egg

This is not a new song. It’s taken from 2006 Banyu Inryoku production, Illusion-Flesh Verse Drama “Black in the Dark.” Of course, this is nothing new; even the duel songs were recycled (and this was Ikuhara’s idea, not Seazer’s), so this is just an extension of that. I found its tracklist in this review; it’s described as an“improvised reverberation poem of flesh burning up in the dark,” which must be from a playbill or something because it’s such a Seazer description.

Apparently, the“intro” (written in katakana) to this song was taken directly from“Paint it Black.” I can’t guarantee this will carry into our version, but if you hear anything that sounds suspiciously like The Rolling Stones... I called it.

Actually, I should note: It’s possible that Absolute Balance Egg is from an even older Seazer production and was recycled in both this play and this CD. One can never rule that out.

8) 人間人形 ―空想・イン・ザ・架空―/Philosophical Bread (?) Seed

This sounds like an alchemy thing, and I’m not ruling that out, but the results that I found searching “philosophical bread” showed me it’s a very common metaphor used in many contexts. Generally it refers to“higher learning” of spiritual matters, sometimes specifically“to know the mind of God.” Sometimes it’s treated as the ultimate endeavor, sometimes as pointless. Seeds, I suppose, would be the beginning of that.

Note: "Bread,” in Japanese, is パン (pan) , and the Greek god Pan sometimes has his name written the same way. It’s very possible that パン is actually referring to the god here and shouldn’t be translated as“bread,” but we don’t know at this point. Either is plausible.

9) 法王驢馬寓意画意オペレッタ1 ―その声は人間の鳴き声に似る―/The Pope Ass Allegory Symbolism Operetta 1 -That Voice Is Like the Cry of a Human Being

The Papal Assor Pope Ass, known from its use in a highly influential pamphlet by Martin Luther and Melanchthon, is often described as a caricature of the Pope. However, it’s not satirical like most modern political cartoons.It’s in fact based on the “monstrous birth” reports that were very popular at the time; this genre was referenced in the Rose Egg Sophia CD. To fully understand what the Papal Ass meant to its original audience, it’s necessary to have some understanding of the genre, so I’ll go into that.

It’s important to understand that such records are not always made-up, although they are frequently exaggerated. For instance, researching the term クシュポデュメー (no, I don’t know how to spell it) from Rose Egg Sophia’s Puchibanshou song (doragon no kodomo, offspring of a dragon) led me to a description of a“dragon” born with two heads, four arms, two legs, and one pelvis, said to have been part of the court of James III of Scotland. As a matter of fact, this bodily description corresponds to contemporary reports of a pair of conjoined twins known as the Scottish brothers, who were part of this king’s court. Many so-called “monsters,” from medieval times up until the xth century, were people. This particular one, however, was an animal, an actual donkey (or ass).

Luther wrote this for an updated 1535 version of the pamphlet:

The Papal Ass is itself a dreadful, ugly, terrifying picture, and the longer one looks at it, the more terrifying it seems. However nothing is so completely terrifying as the fact that God himself made and revealed such a wonder and such a monstrous image. If a human had invented, carved or painted it, one would scorn or laugh at it. However since the highest Majesty himself created and depicted it, the whole world should be dismayed and quake, for from it one fully understands what he thought of and intended.

FromMonstrous Births and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century Germany by Jennifer Spinks:

I was able to find a book, Monstrous Births and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century Germany, that goes into great detail on how this was used by the early Protestant movement and has an entire chapter on this pamphlet: “Monstrous births could be viewed in positive and sympathetic terms, as the previous chapters have demonstrated. Yet this 1523 pamphlet by the two most important figures of the Lutheran Reformation forms a decisive shift in attitude, in which interpretation and representation became not only more polemical – and particularly anti-papal – but took on a notably apocalyptic aspect.” Of the Papal Ass and one of its contemporaries, the moon-calf, the author says,“The bodies of the monsters became texts to be read and argumentatively decoded using highly visual language.”

Notably, Luther and his coauthor did not invent the Papal Ass; they only named it. As Jennifer Spinks writes in this book:

The Papal Ass, washed up on the banks of the Tiber in Rome in 1495, made its way to Germany in visual form via an engraving by the Bohemian artist Wenzel von Olmutz, published in the late fifteenth century. Several decades later, and perhaps prompted by his colleague Melanchthon... Luther first became intrigued by the then-nameless monstrous birth and sought to incorporate it into his eschatological world view. He wrote a homiletic epistle that year (on the second Sunday in Advent, concerning Luke 21:25–33) titled ‘A Christian and well-substantiated proof of the Day of Judgement, and of the signs that it cannot now be far off ’. Although they were not referred to in Luke, Luther explicitly added monstrous creatures to his list and framed this addition as an attack on Rome and the papacy.

As for the pamphlet that made the Papal Ass famous, however, the section devoted to the Papal Ass was written by Luther’s coauthor, not Luther himself. Spinks states:

Melanchthon analyses the creature one body part at a time, utilizing biblical references, and conveying a central message about the corruption of the church in Rome as revealed by its bizarre physical structure. He begins his analysis of the Papal Ass with a reference to the Book of Daniel: ‘God has always indicated his grace or wrath by many signs, and in particular He has used such miracles for speaking to the rulers, as we see in Daniel’.

Melanchthon, she writes, “presents God in the guise of an artist who uses his creations to convey visual messages.”

The Papal Ass... has an almost jarring, collage-like combination of sharply delineated but ill-matching body parts. Step by step, Melanchthon describes and interprets these individual elements. He begins with... ‘Firstly, the head of the ass represents the Pope’. The Pope, he indicates... has brought the church into a worldly and physical, rather than spiritual, state. The low state of the ass in the animal kingdom is underscored through a reference to Exodus 13:13, in which first-born children and animals are consecrated to God: ‘but every fi rst-born donkey you will redeem with a lamb or kid; if you do not redeem it, you must break its neck’. That is, God does not value donkeys (or asses) as he does other creatures. That the head of the Papal Ass is formed in this way is a true sign of the creature’s low state.

Next, Melanchthon addresses one hand, which ‘like an elephant’s foot rep-resents the spiritual regime of the Pope’. As forcefully as an elephant, the Pope’s ‘regime’ makes its way into and corrupts souls with innumerable and intolerable laws. Melanchthon adds, in a metaphor that it is easy to imagine seizing the imagination of audiences: ‘like the great heavy elephant it tramples and grinds down everything that it comes across’. The human-shaped other hand of the Papal Ass, in turn, represented the Pope’s worldly ‘regiment’; that is, those secular rulers who gave support to the papal office. In Cranach’s woodcut accompanying the text, these hands are neatly displayed one above the other, emphasizing through contrast the peculiarity of the elephant hand. The right foot of the creature, in the form of the foot of an ox, is aligned by Melanchthon with the elephant-shaped right hand. The foot represents the servants of the church: ‘the papal teachers, preachers, priests and confessors, and particularly the scholastic theologians’. That is, it refers to those responsible, in the Pope’s name, for oppressing the ‘poor folk’ (‘arme volck’) with their activities. Identifying papal supporters with the End Times, Melanchthon refers the reader to Matthew 24:4: ‘There will come false Christians and false prophets’. The other foot, in the shape of a claw, is aligned with the human-shaped hand. It represents canons, as worldly servants of the popes. Melanchthon’s language becomes still more physical in the next section, in which the female belly and breasts of the Papal Ass are described: “[these] represent the body of the papacy: that is Cardinals, bishops, clerics, monks, students ... their life is simply guzzling food, boozing, unchaste lechery, and leading the ‘good life’ on earth.”

Melanchthon’s understanding of the belly and breasts as especially potent symbols was to be intensified in a revised 1535 edition of the pamphlet... In this 1523 version, however, he turns fairly rapidly to the arms, legs and back of the creature, with a metaphor that is a little less obvious: the scales on these body parts represent secular rulers, who tolerate the failings of the papal system, effectively protecting it as they cling on to its ‘body’. This passage makes a particularly intriguing visual appeal to the reader or listener. The innocuous scales represented in the woodcut must be imaginatively reconfigured by the reader into a multitude of earthly rulers. Much more anthropomorphic in form are the faces of the old man and dragon (‘trach’) that emerge from the Papal Ass’s backside. The man represents the coming end of the papacy, already growing old; the dragon represents the bulls and books published by popes with the purpose of universally enforcing their will. Melanchthon’s tenth and final point shifts away from the body of the creature and to the location where it was found: Rome... The distinctive shape of the Castel Sant Angelo in Rome is carefully delineated, and for those not familiar with the famous tower, the fluttering flag with the crossed papal keys could inform even the least educated of the connection with Rome and the papacy. The tower to the right is the Tor di nona, used as the papal prison. Dramatically, in his final point, Melanchthon claims that finding the creature dead, ‘confirms that the papacy is coming to an end’.

Also:

In 1535 Melanchthon prepared a new edition of his text on the Papal Ass, still illustrated by the original Cranach image. Melanchthon’s expanded text takes sharper, more polemical aim at the papacy in a number of short new passages, including one on the ass’s head as a demonstration of the foolishness of the Pope, and another on the human hand as a sign the worldly, aggressive ambitions of the Pope. Two particularly substantial new sections dramatically increase the anti-papal and also the apocalyptic import of the Papal Ass. Several new pages on the breasts and belly of the creature emphasize the themes of whoring and sin (and implicitly, perhaps, refer to the whor* of Babylon), while the ‘shameless female belly’ (‘vnuerschampt frawen bauch’) represents the Antichrist’s worst excesses.

More from Spinks about what made this method of symbolism unique:

Some pre-Reformation publications had ascribed specific meanings to individual body parts in monstrous births, like the conjoined foreheads of the Worms twins. Yet none had so rigorously and polemically done so as Luther and Melanchthon’s publication. This pamphlet is at the heart of a tangible shift in the representation and interpretation of monstrous births, and one that fitted the aggressively polemical culture of the early Reformation... This period saw the rise of vigorous debates and fundamental shifts in visual culture. The most famous of these developments was the wave of iconoclasm, which saw the destruction of religious images and objects. More moderate ‘reforms’ of imagery included a move to remove any hint of lasciviousness (especially in female figures) in the images on church walls. Martin Luther had a pragmatic attitude towards the use of religious images, and contributed to a culture of visual propaganda that stood on the borderline of the religious and the secular. One of the most important aspects of the visual culture of the Reformation was the vigorous use of printed propaganda, deployed.. with remarkable success. Robert Scribner observed that ‘Luther and other reformers spoke of pious images as masks (larvae) behind which the devil lurked, hoping to lure souls to damnation’. This did not mean that Luther rejected the use of images, and Scribner provided examples of how what he called the ‘semiology of arousal’ (which went well beyond the sensual) could be ‘employed also for its revelatory effect, especially in Reformation propaganda, putting into practice Luther’s notion of the masks of the devil disguising diabolical reality’... Religious imagery nonetheless increasingly moved outside relatively controlled environments like church walls and elite manuscripts, and into the turbulent new world created by the widely available printed image.... Luther’s ideas about visual images are closely bound up with his views on the apocalyptic Book of Revelation – a connection seen in microcosm in the 1523 pamphlet.

The ApocalypseWhile Albrecht Dürer had created what many regard as the definitive illustrated series of the Apocalypse in 1498, a flood of other versions appeared in the first half of the sixteenth century.74 The increasing popularity of the Book of Revelation as a subject for illustration during the sixteenth century was evidently connected to the growth of an apocalyptic world view... In this environment there was a tangible value in giving shape to apocalyptic imagery, and a ready audience for the new editions that came onto the market. As Bernd Moeller has identified, the End Times (‘Endzeit’) were one of the four most popular subjects for sermons preached in German towns in the early Reformation period.

Another updated version was published in 1549 without Melanchthon’s permission, edited to include past writings of his that he had since renounced in favor of compromise.

Flacius... uses Melanchthon’s text on the Papal Ass... as a springboard to oppose any religious compromise... In an introductory text, Flacius argues that the papacy can be represented in both words and images as worse than the devil or the whor* of Babylon from the Book of Revelation. He maintains the highly visual language used by Luther and Melanchthon, and even concludes by claiming that the arts of geometrical and arithmetical proportions are inadequate for the present times, which demanded instead a ‘new swinish art’ (‘newen Sewkunst’). Later in the pamphlet, Flacius adds additional texts that talk of the disastrous events leading up to the Last Days, specifically identifying the Pope as the whor* of Babylon, holding up her goblet, drunk on the blood of Christ, and seated on the back of the seven-headed beast which represented Rome itself (and also the ‘Roemische Reich’, or Roman Empire) and its support of the papacy. The increasingly voluptuous body of the Papal Ass accords with this emphasis on the Babylonian woman.

After this point, “wonder books,” which“collected together monstrous births and various other wonders and disasters across decades, centuries or even millennia,” became more and more common. Apparently, “negative and also apocalyptic rhetoric about monstrous births became still more deeply entrenched in this genre.” By 1569 (when Catholics started appropriating this trend for their counter-Reformation), “Monstrous births and the apocalyptic Book of Revelation were closely enmeshed, and overwhelmingly presented as such in German Reformation and Counter-Reformation print culture.”

Final note: The way“Pope Ass” is written in the title is nonstandard, which is why I went with the literal translation rather than the more common phrase “Papal Ass.” I did find one search result for this phrase that wasn’t about this album, indicating that it’s used in yet another Shibusawa book, 夢の宇宙誌 (this was also the only pre-Seazerian source I could find for クシュポデュメー).

未来のヒユネロトマキア ―狂恋夢・薔薇物語・愛の秘法伝授―/The Future Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Love in a Dream・The Tale of the Rose・Love’s Secret Initiation -

So... there are many parts to this.

The Future Hypnerotomachia:

That's a reference to theHypnerotomachia Poliphili(”The Strife of Love in a Dream” is included at the end of the title in some editions; it’s a translation of hypnerotomachia) and possiblyalso The Future Eve (referenced in the Rose Egg Sophia CD, specifically in its version of Saionji’s duel song). You can look in my tag on tumblr for my thoughts as to what that book might signify in relation to Utena.

As for The Tale of the Rose, we all know it as the play in episode 34, but there’s another“Tale of the Rose” I think Seazer is referencing here as well. Seazer mentioned“the medieval Tale of the Rose” as one of the inspirations for the Rose Egg Sophia in its liner notes (I’m working on a translation, off and on). It’s this book. The Japanese title is written the same was as the title of the play is written on the tickets in episode 34; it does not have much in common with the play, but you can think of it as“a way duelists look at Anthy.” You can also think of it as something possibly taught uncritically at Ohtori; you can certainly see its worldview reflected in, say, Miki.

The last part of the title isn’t a specific text, as far as I know, but it does have a traceable origin in, once again, Shibusawa, specifically his essay collection胡桃の中の世界.

Since this title is about the themes of two or threeentire books, I think I will make a Separate post for how those texts relate to Utena--and, of course, a new, updated one once we have the actual lyrics.And possibly another one several years from now when I inevitably translate 胡桃の中の世界.

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tony & nat

tony

How I feel about this character

the realest mcu character out there, i love him. he isn't perfect, he makes a ton of mistakes (usually with devastating consequences) but he tries to learn from them. his mental illness isn't glossed over or sugar coated to make it cutesy. he is smart, he doubts himself a lot, and he cares about the people close to him. his complexity makes me really happy because even after 11 years we can still breakdown the character and closely examine his motives spread across a decade.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

mcu: rhodey, pepper, loki (i miss the old frostiron fandom lol), steve

616: steve, rhodey, jan, pepper, doom

My non-romantic OTP for this character

tony and nat. they understand each other's flaws and do not hold the other to impossible standards like mcu steve does (despite his own evident flaws). they come across as siblings in the mcu, who may rat each other out or try and sabotage one another occasionally, but in the end they always have each other's backs.

My unpopular opinion about this character

he was right all along. i mean he made mistakes along the way, but he was right when he said you couldn't win against a threat like thanos with the power of love and friendship. if ultron was developed the proper way tony had envisaged, maybe thanos would never have gotten all six stones in the first place.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

i wish the clown brigade had let him live. as much as he went out a hero, i hate the strawman reasons why they said they killed him off.

.

.

nat

How I feel about this character

i really like nat. besides tony, she's the most complex of the original avengers, and, as usual, the narrative punished her in so many ways thanks to wheat grass and the clown brigade (russos, m&m). for starters, everyone always questioned her motives, even when they were genuine. wheat grass literally wrote lines where she had to insinuate she was a monster because they forcefully sterilised her in the red room. she deserved so much better.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

back in 2012, i always thought she'd end up with clint before he turned into a massive jerk. i do like nat and pepper tho because their chemistry in iron man 2 was lit 👀

My non-romantic OTP for this character

probably tonynat for the same reason as above. i don't know why halfway through marvel changed tracks and put her on the cap franchise.

My unpopular opinion about this character

the clowns really did her dirty in endgame. a founding member of the avenger, she didn't even get to take part in the final battle. instead, she was fridged so we could all watch jeremy try and emote close up.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

apart from her getting to live and, maybe start a family of her own, i would've liked for the narrative to at least acknowledge her guilt/trauma/ptsd like it did for tony. it would have given so much more onscreen nuance to her character.

send me a character and i'll break it down.

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𝐎𝐧 𝐂𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬

a little bit about tyelko and his siblings, his relationships with them in an overview, and ( slightly more deeply ) his relationship with curufin.

First, on names: ( maybe it’s been apparent in my rps, I do have my own thoughts and formulae that I try to stick with after all ) Celegorm usually calls his elder two brothers by their mother-names. respectively Maedhros he’ll call Maitimo and Maglor he’ll call Makalaurë, both talking to them as well as to others of them*. His younger brothers Caranthir and Curufin are Morifinwë and Curufinwë, by their father-names. Ambarussa, again on the other hand, are Ambarussa to Celegorm as well.The explanation is this: Both Maedhros and Maglor were known to Celegorm by their mother-names from the beginning ( aka when he was born ), most often went by them** and so would have spoken of themselves most often and moved their little brother to call them the same. As for his younger brothers, the father-name is usually the name given soonest, the name an Elf is earliest known by earliest; so it’s a habit hard to break. Regarding Ambarussa, we know there was much debate on their names between their parents, but we also know that they called each other the same between the both of them and – I would wager Celegorm more or less simply picked their and their mother’s “side” in calling them ( except shortened names, Minyo and Atyo, and as they were most often called Minyarussa and Atyarussa in their days in Aman ).

----- [ *1) There are some exceptions to this, for him at least; speaking to his mother and father Celegorm also speaks, to them, of his brothers respectively by their mother- or father-names. Joining Fëanor in exile at Formenos, for example, it’d seem he abandons his own and his brothers’ mother-names entirely from use.

**2) I might be author’s intent-ing this but – we know the father-name was an Elf’s official name, even if no other name was known ( or preferred ). But we do know the mother-names of the sons of Fëanor and most of their Sindarized names, also, are clearly derived from their mother-names ( Celegorm’s as well ), so I would guess they preferred their mother-names in their daily-lives in Valinor as well. ] -----

On relationships among the seven sons: Celegorm is closest to Curufin, as we are plainly shown, told, etc. and it goes to assume also close to the twins since they are mentioned almost in the same breath when introduced and share an interest. More on Curufin specifically later. Then as for–

Maedhros: the eldest, and thus in age somewhat more removed from Celegorm, he understands to hold against that awfully volatile temper, or at least how to endure it. And Celegorm finds, then, even his reprimands not so harsh when his eldest brother points them out because he has been so often shown that there is goodwill behind that. That’s not to say that they don’t have their points of contention; Celegorm is one of the hardiest disagreers with Mae’s decision to give up the kingship of the Ñoldor, and they differ vastly in their understanding of the events at Nargothrond ( as well as in my survival verse, leaving Dior’s sons behind ). Maedhros doesn’t fail to fulfil his wise-older-brother role with Celegorm. And Celegorm has an appreciation for the more tender moments between them, and the things unsaid... On a slightly less gentle note, Celegorm does feel a lot of guilt ( more than Maglor, he might argue, and yet not argue because he won’t speak of it ) for deciding not to pursue Morgoth’s offer or to attempt his brother’s rescue from Thangorodrim. In fewer words, Celegorm holds fast to the authority Maedhros has as the eldest.

Maglor: I would argue Celegorm and Maglor are the least close; in terms of shared interests, they don’t seem to have (m)any, and neither does Maglor seem too easily swayed by Celegorm’s moods and attempts on his ( like Caranthir ) that this side would be entertaining in a way. I think they can easily come together over some certain music, but clearly they prefer other company. However, ultimately they also come to share the burden of deciding Maedhros’ doom at Thangorodrim; in those 30 years, maybe they stray closer to each other than ever before and after; misery loves company.

Caranthir: Like already briefly touched on, Celegorm’s own temper lends itself to riling up Caranthir. And I can not get around mentioning again at this point, but I do believe Caranthir received unfair narrative bias and was not in fact the most volatile among his siblings, so that title would stay with Celegorm. However, I do think that Celegorm had a special talent for riling him up ( though at times then twisting it around on himself ), and that it was worse still for being his most immediate younger brother; Celegorm had a lot of teasing to try on him. Still I think they’re fully able to share peaceful moments together, and certainly that Celegorm doesn’t always mean ill towards Caranthir, doesn’t only tease him.

I’ll skip Curufin to talk about him more extensively in a second.

Ambarussa: Though already having an equal number older and younger brothers by the time the twins are conceived, he surely didn’t not wish for them. At the latest with Curufin, Celegorm fell comfortably into his role as an older brother and he certainly looked forward to the prospect of more such. Bittersweet when their father named them with being the last two in mind. Like Celegorm they like to hunt, and there is lots they can share in from that – unlike with Caranthir or Curufin. Undoubtedly they went out much together still in Valinor, and I don’t think their placement in Beleriand was for a sudden misalignment so much as a tactic to move the youngest of the family furthest from harm’s way. As Celegorm left Himlad to ride with Caranthir at whiles, he also visited the Ambarussa that way south. -----

Curufingets his own section because ...Because he is plainly who Celegorm is closest to among his brothers. They may not share interests as much, but they surely share ambition and greatest likeness to their father ( Curufin for his name, his skills of course, and while Maglor is mentioned for his voice Celegorm is mentioned for his voice specifically in relation to Fëanor ); that also later turns them into the most vicious of the brothers... more on that in a moment.

Curufin is very much the quiet cunning counterpart to Celegorm’s louder voice and forward moods and actions, but neither are they dull to each other’s temperaments nor unwilling to play on them. Specifically in trying to take over rule in Nargothrond they constantly play off of one another to move the people there over onto their side and you can’t say it doesn’t work until the very end. They look quite different each if looked at superficially, but I think being the two with greatest likenesses to their father it’s plain that they would best get along ( not always the most easily, but as in complimenting each other’s strengths ).

While Maedhros understands better to soothe or at least somehow handle Celegorm’s temper, I don’t think Curufin often needs to try to accommodate it despite the understanding he might bring up for it. Curufin besides having the penchant to understand from their father’s likeness in each other, also has the benefit of being the younger brother – and on top of that being the second younger brother to Celegorm. By the time Curufin is conceived I think Celegorm has better fallen into the“role” of it – maybe dejected that Caranthir did not share his interests so much, even though Curufin doesn’t, on the surface, seem to either, he has come to greater acceptance of that fact and an understanding in where and how they do have things in common.

Frankly also – being most like their father both – obviously Fëanor was greatly loved by all seven. Perfectly being their own people, still seeing the likeness of him in each other must be some comfort.

They might not always balance each other, then, and become a “milder” more neutral force in that process, no, but they certainly compliment each other and bring out their greatest feats and skills ( for better or worse, whoever is on the receiving end ).

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@slamncram replied to your post

“i have determined what makes the difference between being redeemable...”

But what happens when the murder of said dog may or may not have been put into action due to outside factors (i.e. five years of gaslighting and conditioning)? Discuss. (I'M JOKING IT JUST SOUNDED VERY ACADEMIC)

okay but this is the thing, like this is what makes me so angry sitting here being like angry at how my fave baddies from legends of tomorrow basically have half of wards backstory each (and are way bigger f*cking villains) but still end up being considered good guys on their f*cking team like how does this happen? is it better writing? is it fandom being better? is it the fact that nobody killed a f*cking dog

so for those of you that follow me for aos and dont know any lot (because its my new obsession) this will contain some lot spoilers

which is why its under a cut, also it got f*cking long, if nobody reads this but chris i will still be content tho cause im upset

lets refresh what some brief bullet points we know about grant ward and how aos did him so dirty

has an abusive childhood (parents/older brother)

sets house on fire to try and kill his abusers fails and goes to juvie

gets busted out of juvie by hydra agent, gets dropped off in the woods, major gaslighting

may or may not have killed a dog

because hydra spy inside of shield

joins the team

caws f*cks up aos plot reveals that he is hydra and kills hella people

drops fitz & simmons (cute nerdy scientists) into the ocean

gets captured by aos team, locked in glass box of doom

while depressed and in glass box told to kill himself by his romantic interest (for all of season one at least)

gets sold off to his abuser (older brother) - but then busts out and finally succeeds in kill his abuser (burns them alive)

hydra agents some more

dies

becomes possessed by alien demon thing

eventually gets blown the f*ck up but was basically dead earlier and we just kept the actor around for some reason

(okay this is short but i tried to delete most of aos from my memory)

like - when we break this down as bullet points we can see this is sh*tty right?

now lets compare mick rory and leonard snart’s combined narratives from lot/the flash

(both) grow up in abusive house hold - abusive fathers in both cases i believe

(mick) has severely untreated pyromania, lights a fire in his house that gets out of control, and is so anxious about his family finding out that he doesnt tell them when he runs outside and they all burn alive

(mick is also briefly kidnapped by his future time traveling self right after this but we’ll assume he forgets this)

(len) is forced to commit crimes by his crooked cop father, eventually is forced to take the fall for one of them, and ends up in juvie

(both) meet in juvie, become bffs / partners for life / future husbands

commit a bunch of crimes together and basically just be hardcore criminals that break into places and steal things - oh and kill people, they def kill people

(also they basically raise len’s sister lisa during this time)

(len) steals/kills someone for a cold gun, so he can go from basic criminal to supervillian and fight the flash. literally kills hella people with the cold gun

mick gets the fire gun

mick also kills hella people

kidnaps cute scientist friend of hero caitlin snow and straps her to a bomb at one point just to be extra (tm) super villains

kidnaps cisco (the other nerdy science friend), forces him to make weapons, tortures cisco’s brother (like freezes his hands?!)

(len) eventually after his sister is threatened gets a chance to get back at his abuser and literally freezes his heart and kills him (in front of the f*cking superhero)

and when superhero visits len in prison he is literally like“there’s good in you”

(both) get recruited to a time traveling team in which is basically a time captain, four superheroes, and these two villains

somehow this turns out to be the best found family combo in the f*cking history of ever? like even tho they are baddies their bad skills are still put to use to help out with the mission and generally (at least len) is always considered to be part of the team in spite of the fact that they are super villains normally.

mick maybe sells them out to time pirates after their captain mentions that he was only brought along cause he and len are a packaged deal

len is forced to kill mick??? (or so we think for far too f*cking long, even for someone just binge watching the series)

jk mick isnt dead he’s the bounty hunter working for their worst enemy (evil org) who has been hunting them since the pilot

as bounty hunter mick kidnaps len and is like“im gonna go back in time and kill your bby sister (aka the only person you love)” and like somehow in the span of this episode len is still like“dont kill him” to the rest of the team when he gets captured

gets put in glass box of doom on ship, and the team has like restorative convos with mick? wants to help him even tho he went evil and tried to destroy the team / threatened people that they cared about

mick is eventually given the chance to kinda heal and is brought back into the fold of the team and a full functioning member again even though he went extra bad for a bit there

one of them gets blown up and dies a f*cking hero (also is probably not actually dead, but its been half a season and im not even f*cking sure)

the other one is currently very depressed and not getting the treatment he needs for that, but ill fight those battles later.

so in summary for comparison

all three grew up in abusive households

mick and ward both burn their childhood homes down (but mick actually killed his family)

len & ward both have younger siblings they tried to protect from their abuser (but lisa actually likes len and theyre super close, where as you now aos....)

all three ended up in juvie (tho ward got broke out by garrett and that f*cked him up good) (whereas mick & len meet to becomes criminal partners)

all three are bad guys (ward is a double agent) (while mick/len are major criminals and then super villains)

they all kill all kinds of people

they all hurt the fan favorite good guy scientist characters (mick & len with bombs and cold guns) (ward by dropping them into an ocean in a pod that shoulve floated) (i mean honestly like ward was the nicer one when you look at it like this)

all three kill their abusers (though micks was technically on accident)

all three get thrown in prison/glass boxes where their super counter parts come to see them (ward gets told to kill himself) (len gets told there’s still good in him) (mick gets help getting back to a stable mental state)

mick & ward both betray their found family team for their own person interests (and do get kinda shafted by this, like wards whole plot line vs mick’s time as a bounty hunter)

len & mick are both really bad guys that are given hero arcs (len is season one, mick in season one/two ish) and given a chance to redeem themselves while still being a-holes at times. (whereas ward gets murdered by his old team leader and gets possessed by an alien monster)

in LoT the character dies a hero. whereas in aos... you know how that goes

the thing that gets me is

the plot lines are so f*cking similar

and like these characters have been around as minor characters/villains for two seasons of the flash, and then as main characters for a season and a half (so far) of legends of tomorrow

and the villain with an abusive childhood story line is just handled so much better over there. with the characters given chances to heal. rather than pushed off to the side and made worse and worse

and as someone who lived in an abusive household for far too long

getting to see the snarts story line (and mick’s too) is just such a relief after suffering through all that was aos okay

this is why im so angry.

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China Still Censoring Google, Now Globally

Google Gets Out of China

In March of 2010 Google announced they would no longer censor their search results for China:

earlier today we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong.

While the move was pitched as altruistic, it came only after the state put their thumb on the scales to promote domestic competitor Baidu in part by periodically blocking Google search from working.

The Value of Leaving China

By leaving China on their own accord, Google controlled the narrative for investors. They didn't "lose" a market, they chose to not operate in a market.

If you are destined to lose due to political interference, you may as well look principled in the process. The idea of staying the course (being highly compromised while also losing) would have lowered Google's leverage (over publishers and governments) as well as their brand value elsewhere.

Think of how long Google has kept the EU at bay in terms of their anti-competitive practices in search.

Countries like France and Australia are just now beginning to require payment to publishers from Google.

In spite of being in fifth place with about 2% search marketshare in China, one could easily argue that today Google is *still* being censored by China, except now it is global.

Official != Legitimate

Whenever there is a crisis Google has the ability to adjust their news algorithms (and rankings on other sources like YouTube) to prefer authoritative sources. If China lies but gives a direct quote that is an official response which can be reported in the media. Speculating, on the other hand, is not news, and thus is not likely to be done at scale on official sources.

The WHO parroted the official line of the Chinese Communist Party for months before sending in a team to begin investigating the virus which was quietly spreading globally in the background. This is evil (or, more charitably, ill-informed) their advice was:

Tedros said there was no need for measures that “unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade,” and he specifically said that stopping flights and restricting Chinese travel abroad was “counter-productive” to fighting the global spread of the virus.

Evidence is Backward Looking

Promoting "consistent, evidence-based" risk control is utterly stupid because the evidence that you are dead only appears after you die.

It is not a game of 50/50 chance.

One outcome is death. And at the other end of the spectrum you spent $15 needlessly on a facemask.

How lowly must you view the value of a human life to determine a $15 spend on risk mitigation is reckless behavior?

Don't exceed the global standards based on China's misinformation. OR ELSE!!!

WHO can hold countries to account when they needlessly exceed these global standards. This is critical to ensuring the international response is evidence-based, measured & balanced to protect human health in ways that are neither over-reactive nor under-reactive.- Dr Houssin pic.twitter.com/HaRMNXpmOb— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 30, 2020

Evidence is backward looking even if the sources are not lying scum. When lying is vital to maintaining political power many people die while waiting on the true.

Can anyone who followed official anti-warnings get a refund on their death?

Better luck next life?

Evidence

Later, as evidence emerged, we find that wearing a facemask is a great idea, in spite of early media reports they would not help you.

Later, as evidence emerged, we find the WHO sponsored doctors who published studies which showed official Chinese numbers were bogus.

Later, as evidence emerged, we learn that the CCP are lying, jackbooted thugs. They had coronavirus research destroyed, arrested doctors who mentioned the issue, and held secret internal meetings discussing human to human transmission even as the WHO stated the risk was low & there was no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission, so there should be no restrictions on international travel.

Later, as evidence emerged, we find that closing borders is a great idea - even China does it. Of course early media reports were to not be xenophobic or racist and accept this global problem: "Ultimately some pandemic responses will require opening borders, not closing them. At some point the expectation that any area will escape effects of COVID-19 must be abandoned: The disease must be seen as everyone’s problem."

Later, as evidence emerged, we learn that Taiwan warned the WHO of human to human transmission last December.

Later, as evidence emerged, we learned that WHO representatives Bruce Aylward hung up on a journalist who brought up the topic of Taiwan. This problem got "solved" by the news organization being reprimanded.

‼️WOW‼️ Bruce Aylward/@WHO did an interview with HK's @rthk_news & when asked about #Taiwan he pretended not to hear the question. The journalist asks again & he hangs up! She calls back & he said "Well, we've already talked about China."ENJOY+SHARE THE MADNESS! #CoronaVirus pic.twitter.com/jgpHRVHjNX— Hong Kong World City (@HKWORLDCITY) March 28, 2020

While China's CCP was lying to the world, the WHO shared appreciation for their commitment to sharing info.

Not Just China

Health officials the world over were guilty of the same sort of "evidence-based" stupidity.

Here is a video from February of NYC health commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot advising people to go out and take the subway and live their lives, noting that city preparedness is high, their personal risk is low, and casual contact was not a large risk.

How much of a risk is the new coronavirus to New York City?Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot explains to @InsideCityHall how likely it is to transmit the virus. #NY1Politics pic.twitter.com/mUbU8F0p3N— Spectrum News NY1 (@NY1) February 7, 2020

You can see the stupidity in the circular logic here: "we also know that if it were likely to be transmitted casually we would be seeing a lot more cases."

Yes we would!Or soon would be.And did.

Time shift that statement a couple months and lawmakers are asking her to be fired.

May you enjoy a happy Lunar New Year:

“We are very clear: We wish New Yorkers a Happy Lunar New Year and we encourage people to spend time with their families and go about their celebration,” Dr. Barbot said.

Later, as evidence emerged, we learn from serological studies that around 24.7% of people in New York City & 14.9% of New York state had antibodies for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

If you are a poor minority you are more likely to die as you have less of a cushion to do things like taking time off work and AVOID TAKING THE SUBWAY.

Thank you Dr. Oxiris Barbot!

Even the New York Times warned against quarantines, virtually guaranteeing the city would get one.

Protecting Yourself from Dr. Oxiris Barbot & the CCP

How many billions of dollars do people spend buying lotto tickets?

A high-quality facemask was a $15 lotto ticket that might save you from death. But buying one was ill-informed & xenophic & antisocial and and and.

Back in January I saw a video on Twitter of a guy walking down the street in Wuhan and then just fall over and die. Upon seeing that, I quickly ordered facemasks for my wife, our babysitter, my wife's parents, my mom, and my siblings.

My mom thought I was crazy for spending hundreds buying so many masks, but it was a fairly simple calculation. Whatever China was saying was hot garbage as they were literally welding apartment complexes shut.

Ongoing Disinformation Campaign

They accosted doctors who warned of the pending pandemic, locked down millions of people, and held internal briefs about human to human transmission was happening while lying externally about it. China then pushed some garbage about how the US Army created the coronavirus which caused COVID-19, then they both claimed it was racist to state the disease came from China while also claiming it originated in Italy.

That's the CCP - literally zero shame.

You can be against the jackbooted CCP while not hating Chinese people. I would rather be wrongly called a racist and not die of coronavirus than virtue signal my way to death via Italy's "Hug a Chinese" day.

As a general rule of thumb, life is more important than the feelz.

My wife took a DNA test and a big part of her ethnic background is Chinese. When she and I are in the Philippines many people think she is a foreigner. When I was walking with my wife in Hong Kong years ago a local street vender started talking to her in Chinese thinking she was a local. And there's nobody in the world I love more than her, but that does not mean she or I are planning a trip to Wuhan anytime soon or wanted to end up as statistics as a side effect of virtue signaling.

To this day China is using their ability to purchase foreign debts & infrastructure across weaker European countries to push the EU to understate the culpability of the CCP:

"Bowing to heavy pressure from Beijing, European Union officials softened their criticism of China this week in a report documenting how governments push disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, according to documents, emails and interviews. Worried about the repercussions, European officials first delayed and then rewrote the document in ways that diluted the focus on China, a vital trading partner ... China moved quickly to block the document’s release, and the European Union pulled back. The report had been on the verge of publication, until senior officials ordered revisions to soften the language."

Maintaining The Illusion of Stability

The doom scenario for China would be one where the disease spread widely across their society while not directly impacting other economies. Currencies float and trade can eventually be re-routed if supply chains are unreliable. If a place where repeated coronavirus outbreaks happen has massive hidden debts in their shadow economy the propped up currency peg would likely fall as those debts go bad and their economy crashes. Hot money has been rushing out of China for years: their companies buying foreign companies, individuals buying foreign real estate, short domain names, Bitcoin, life insurance policies, etc.

China already faced sharp food price inflation last year as African Swine Flu killed a lot of their herd. When people can't afford to eat they are more likely to push for political change. Hyperinflation is the reciprocal of political stability. Maintaining a stable food supply is a core requirement of staying in power.

Masks might make no difference, but if I spend a fraction of a percent of my income protecting my immediate and extended family even slightly then that is a good investment.

What is the price of a single needless death?

That is the calculation one should use when adopting simple & cheap life changes that can protect their families and society as a whole.

The mainstream media not only downplayed Covid-19 to pitch Trump as xenophobic & neurotic, but after the most important story they got entirely wrong was revealed as the disaster it was, they also warned about the wrong people hoarding much needed supplies.

If people would have rushed to buy masks in January it would have sent the market signal to make more. Virtue signaling was considered more important than life.

Instead of any attempts at truth we got communist-fed false assurances to provide the illusion of stability. Lives lack value when compared against maintaining political power:

In 1989, when Chinese citizens raised a Goddess of Democracy on Tiananmen Square, some pinned their hopes on the People’s Liberation Army: Surely the people’s army would never fire on the people. In fact, PLA soldiers proved quite adept at firing on the people. And to this day Beijing refuses to come clean about how many it killed at Tiananmen....Communism has always been far more about Lenin than Marx—that is, about getting and holding power, rather than any economic arrangement. And it’s extraordinary how consistent the lies and violence have been across time and geography, given the many different flavors of communism.

Fake News About Fake News

As China was lying to the world, setting hundreds of thousands of people up for death & destroying the global economy, we suggested the problem was not lies from the CCP or the disease that spread globally in part due to their lies, but rather we should fight "fake news"

The rise of “fake news” - including misinformation and inaccurate advice on social media - could make disease outbreaks such as the COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic currently spreading in China worse, according to research published on Friday.

The WHO shills for the CCP:

The lengths to which the WHO went to sacrifice its scientific- and health-related mission for political considerations relating to China were at times both absurd and trivial. For example, in the Coronavirus Q&A that was first posted to its website, the WHO maintained multiple versions. The original English language version of the Q&A counseled that there were four common myths about preventing or curing a COVID-19 infection: smoking, wearing multiple masks, taking antibiotics, and traditional herbal remedies. The original Chinese version omitted ‘traditional herbal remedies’ as a myth. Then the WHO took down ‘traditional herbal remedies’ in both languages. Politics over health. Politics over science. At even the smallest, silliest level.

As the WHO praises the CCP we learn fake news is anything which counters the WHO.

And to protect people globally and fight sources of fake news Google is working with ... the WHO:

WHO is also battling misinformation, working with Google to ensure that people get facts from the U.N. health agency first when they search for information about the virus. Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Tencent and TikTok have also taken steps to limit the spread of misinformation and rumors about the outbreak.

YouTube is also removing medically substantiated content about coronavirus.

Even the China Uncensored video about the CCP's coverup has a COVID-19 learn more banner redirecting attention back to official sources.

Now there are some horrible and ridiculous official statements being made & a whole bunch of crazies spreading "eat aquarium cleaner, protect yourself from COVID-19." I even read a story about a guy who committed suicide because he feared he had COVID-19. All that stuff is horrible, but any and all attempts to defuse those horrible issues & clean them up should come with a note about how the CCP lied broadly, extensively, and is to not be trusted in any way, shape or form.

The AP report continues...

Chinese officials are increasingly speaking out.

And so should we! At least while we still can:

Where possible, China wants to criminalize any speech … any social media … that does not follow the official party line. Where it’s not possible to criminalize that speech, China wants to ban it through the cooperative censorship of global tech and media platforms. Where it’s not possible to ban that speech, China wants to shame it into the shadows by getting us to reject it as “fake news”.

And if you don’t see that the United States is about two minutes behind China in doing the same damn thing, then you’re just not paying attention.

Categories:

google

publishing & media

from Digital Marketing News http://www.seobook.com/china-censoring-google

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