They Are So Lovely

run, severus, run! (x7)

Ghost caught on camera

Wow... this made me THINK

YEAH AND ITS LIKE KIM IS THIS WISH FULFILLMENT FANTASY FOR SUICIDAL PEOPLE RIGHT, LIKE HE MEETS YOU AT THE EXACT MOMENT THAT YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO REBOOT YOUR WHOLE LIFE, HE DOESN’T KNOW YOUR PAST OR HAVE ANY PRIOR OPINION OF YOU, HE ONLY GETS TO KNOW THE VERSION OF HARRY THAT YOU’RE TRYING TO RESHAPE AS THE PLAYER. AND HE HOLDS YOU ACCOUNTABLE WITHOUT BEING JUDGMENTAL, AND HE’S KIND AND PATIENT AND EVEN GENUINELY LIKES YOU AND YOUR COMPANY! HE’S LIKE A PILLAR OF STRENGTH AND THE MOMENT YOU LAY EYES ON HIM YOU JUST KNOW THAT HE WOULD LITERALLY DIE TO PROTECT YOU. HE’S JUST SOMEONE WHO YOU FEEL SUPER SAFE WITH IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD, YOU KNOW? SO PART OF THAT HALO IMAGERY IS A REFLECTION OF THAT, LIKE YEAH HARRY HAS A HABIT OF IDEALIZING PEOPLE AND ITS BAD BUT ALSO KIM DOES REPRESENT AN IDEAL TO THE PLAYER. WHAT’S HOLY ABOUT HIM IS THAT IDEAL OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE AND SUPPORT. AND ON TOP OF THAT KIM’S HALO HAS THAT SORT OF DOUBLE MEANING OF A SUNRISE. HARRY IS FIXATED ON THE IDEA OF A SUNSET AND HIS LIFE COMING TO AN END BUT KIM TURNS HIS ATTENTION TO THE SUNRISE INSTEAD. THATS WHAT THAT HALO BEHIND KIM REALLY IS. THE SOUND OF THE KINEEMA AND KIM’S ARRIVAL IN HIS LIFE IS WHAT WAKES HARRY FROM HIS BLACKOUT BUT THE INFERNAL ENGINE ISN’T THE KINEEMA, IT’S HARRY! WAKING UP EVERY DAY JUST TO DO IT ALL AGAIN! AGAIN! GETTING WORSE EVERY DAY BUT STILL HANGING ON IN THE HOPES OF SOMEDAY GETTING BETTER. SUNRISE PARABELLUM, TIME TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY. BUT HARRY DOESN’T HAVE TO FIGHT ALONE! IF YOU TREAT KIM RIGHT HE’LL STICK BY YOU. AND THAT’S THE ONLY WAY TO GET THROUGH IT, YOU KNOW? WITH SUPPORT. BUT THE PROBLEM IS THAT KIM IS STILL A COP, RIGHT? AND HE ONLY GIVES YOU THAT SUPPORT BECAUSE YOU’RE ALSO A COP. THE SAD TRUTH OF THE WHOLE GAME IS THAT THERE’S NO ENDING WHERE EITHER OF YOU STOP BEING COPS. YOU PROBABLY NEVER WILL. WHEN THE GUYS FROM THE UNSOLVEABLE CASE GET DRUNK AND CAUSE TROUBLE, THEY GET BRUTALIZED BY HARRY AND NOBODY CARES BECAUSE THEY WERE DRUNKS. WHEN HARRY GETS DRUNK AND BRUTALIZES CIVILIANS, HE GETS OFFERED A PROMOTION BECAUSE HE’S A COP. AND KIM ISN’T ABOVE ABUSING HIS POWER IN PETTY WAYS EITHER. THE TRUTH IS THAT IF YOU WEREN’T A COP HE WOULD TREAT YOU THE SAME AS ANY OTHER ADDICT ON THE STREET. HE WOULDN’T BE YOUR FRIEND. ISN’T THAT FUCKING SAD? THE BEAUTIFUL HOLY MIRACLE OF DISCO ELYSIUM THAT HARRY AND KIM COME SO CLOSE TO GLIMPSING IS JUST LOVE. GENUINE LOVE AND CARE FOR PEOPLE AROUND YOU AND LETTING IT MOVE YOU TO BE KIND IN MATERIAL WAYS. THAT’S WHAT KEEPS THE INFERNAL ENGINE GOING. THAT’S WHAT SHIVERS MEANS WHEN IT SAYS “I LOVE YOU.” THE CITY LOVES YOU BECAUSE COMMUNITIES ARE NOTHING WITHOUT LOVE. AND ALL OF THIS IS COMPLETELY ANTITHETICAL TO THE POLICE STATE. THATS WHY YOU GET A GLIMPSE OF IT IN MARTINAISE, A TOWN ABANDONED BY THE POLICE. EVERYONE THERE KNOWS WHAT IT MEANS TO BE POWERLESS. EVERYWHERE THEY LOOK THEY SEE THE SCARS OF BOMBINGS AND FAILED ATTEMPTS TO GENTRIFY THEM. HELL, EVEN THE PALE IS CREEPING INTO THE CITY. BUT THE PEOPLE KEEP GOING. YOU KEEP GOING. AND YOU ALMOST REALIZE WHY. BUT YOU NEVER QUITE GET THERE BECAUSE A COP WILL ALWAYS BE A COP FIRST AND A HUMAN SECOND, INCLUDING KIM. HE’LL KEEP DRESSING LIKE A REVOLUTIONARY AND THERE WILL PROBABLY ALWAYS BE THAT LITTLE SEED OF SHAME IN HIM BECAUSE HE KNOWS HE’S LYING TO HIMSELF BUT HE’LL NEVER DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT BECAUSE HE’S RESIGNED HIMSELF TO BEING UNABLE TO CONCEPTUALIZE A FUTURE BEYOND THE FAILURES OF THE PAST OR THE PRESENT STATUS QUO. BUT THE TRUTH IS THAT THERE IS NO FUTURE FOR A POLICE STATE. AND HE KNOWS IT BUT HE WON’T FACE IT ANY MORE THAN HE’LL FACE THE DIFFERENCES IN HOW HE TREATS YOU VS CUNO OR THE KIDS ON THE ICE. HARRY IS THE ONLY ONE WHO WOULD EVER BE ABLE TO SEE KIM AS A SAINT BECAUSE HE’S A COP. AND IN THE END YOU AND KIM LEAVE THE REALITIES OF MARTINAISE BEHIND THE SAME WAY THAT DORA LEAVES THE REALITIES OF DISABILITY AND POVERTY BEHIND WHEN SHE LEAVES HARRY. THE LOVE WAS ALWAYS CONDITIONAL AND ALWAYS WILL BE IF THEY CAN’T STOP BEING COPS. ANYWAY HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF TEHO TEARDO AND BLIXA BARGELD—

Image description: two people at a party or concert of some kind. One person is leaning into the other’s ear and shouting with an arm around their shoulder, the other is standing stiffly and looks exasperated. End description

Ace Attorney parody.

I had a little project but I was lazy so I only made a doodles of it. it’s about them explore their pasts.

God I absolutely love your analysis on Sasha, it’s perfectly in character while also bringing in more complexities and details that fit justtt right and it’s just so good. I love seeing people digging into his backstory bc although his memory vault was played off as a joke it’s? Pretty peculiar? And it makes you wonder what happened afterwards too- there’s so many questions left unanswered with so much potential there. Also your work is stunning! I love your use of color and shading, it makes your work so beautiful while also making the emotions feel so vivid and lively in your pieces, you also nail the expressions! I love the lineless painting look as well, it adds a unique flare! Keep up the good work :)

Thank you...!! I've been thinking about sasha passively for years and it was about time he came around to be the focus of my attention again... overall this is the magical beauty of characters who are a bit two dimensional in their source material. If they're interesting enough as a concept, you can sorta run with it and do whatever you want. Not always, but sometimes. And he's always been fascinating to me.

Regarding what happened directly after he ran away from home, the youth welfare offices (Jugendämter) of the time we're essentially in charge of where homeless youth went after being found; this was a pretty big problem following WWII due to many children being left parentless + DPs + the massive wave of expellees coming in who got separated from their parents.

Here's a general overview of the youth welfare system from a paper published in 1948 ((3) on page 43 aligns, essentially, with the concept of the Kinderheim) (x):

It should be said that even though this article describes some criticisms of the youth welfare setup at the time, overall it's quite rose-tinted in regards to how thing actually were in institutions. These places were not known for being good to the kids there. Physical/sexual/emotional abuse were extremely common, so common in fact that Germany recently held a roundtable to seek reparations for people who grew up in one due to many of them now being incredibly disabled due to what they went through (x) (x). From first link:

I don't really think he'd end up in a facility with "correctional" education, what I've noticed in my reading is that children condemned to those places were a little ODD/stereotypical juvenile delinquent and I don't think that sasha has ever really possessed the disposition to act like that... not that kids who act like this deserve to be put in horrible institutions but I'm pretty sure that goes without saying. The condition in these institutions were markedly worse than general Kinderheime (somehow), sometimes neglecting to offer basic educational services to their charges. (x)

If anything, I think he'd ask for placement himself... I've always pictured him as someone who would've been pretty respectful and obedient as a kid (neglected child not wanting to cause issues), so it kind of makes sense that he'd go by the books so to speak... find the office himself, wouldn't really steal, etc. I don't really think he'd enjoy living on the streets at ALL... the vagrant Halbstarke lifestyle is absolutely not for him. there would've been no community or sense of belonging, for him, to be found in this subculture... interesting book detailing this called Constructing and Controlling Youth in Munich by Martin Kalb btw. Check it out if you so will.

Considering that I've placed his childhood in Bavaria, a historically catholic state, it's likely that the kinderheim he would've ended up in was of Catholic denomination... HUGE amount of Kinderheime were Catholic. Don't have precise percentages but you can peruse a registry here that lists the religious denomination of every Kinderheim in Bavaria ("kath." or "ev."; on p. 78 and onward) at the time it was compiled (1948) which is a few years before I think Sasha would've ended up in one.

There's also this:

“Charitable and evangelical educational homes“ (Catholic vs. Evangelical facilities organized by year, column contents are “Heime Plätze/Betten”; home places/beds, and “Mitarbeiter”; # of staff) (x)

Some of these institutions didn't allow the children to go to school, but that wasn't very common (x). Sometimes the education was either built directly into the institution and was heavily understaffed. As an example:

Station spokesman: From a letter from the Evangelical Lutheran Deanery in Regensburg to the National Association for Inner Mission in January 1950

"There are currently 75 children in the Castle Windsor children's home, including 70 school-age children. These 70 children are still being taught by just one teacher in the elementary school connected to the home. Such a mismatch places a disproportionately high strain on the teacher, who has to teach in two sections, morning and afternoon. Despite this, the children in the middle and upper grades receive too little instruction. Each department only has 3-4 hours of instruction per day. " (deu)

I should reiterate that Bavaria is extremely catholic and loved beating children. In fact, when corporal punishment at elementary schools was banned in 1946, Bavarian parents were outraged because what if they wanted teachers to beat their children. Did you ever think of that? And then when they overturned the ban a year later 61% of the population was glad about it. Just to give you some historical context. And also to help you think about sasha's Volksschule experiences. I don't think he would've been doing anything egregious to solicit physical abuse (e.g., being disrespectful toward teachers or not paying attention/never doing his work), but I do think the absolutely was the "weird" kid who had visible tics and was harassed a lot by his classmates so it's possible they would've set something up to facilitate this happening. Not picturing this as a common occurrence.

Additionally, most children had to perform some form of manual labor for (essentially) free, since these institutions were so egregiously underfunded that the Kinderheime would just loan them as farmhands/quarry workers/etc., often even before the age of 14, though this point is not quite relevant to Sasha because I think he was ~15 when he ran away. (x)

One other potential outcome for Sasha is that he could've ended up in an apprentice home (Lehrlingsheim), but sources on these places are quite difficult to find... the main information I saw was that "In the state of Bavaria there are 66 homes for uprooted youth, which are mainly apprentice homes" (x). This article (from 1949) like the first one I sourced reiterates the "vagrant youth" placement system (might as well share link of relevant passages plugged into a translator for those curious). Looking at the first sourced document it seems they were mostly for older children (16+). Can't imagine the circumstances would've been much better here than a Kinderheim, but if anyone has information about these I'd love to see.

I could continue to go on but I won't because this is already quite long, but before I go I want to share this transcription from the US Senate committee on foreign relations in 1950 because... I enjoyed reading it I thought it was interesting and I want to share. sue me!

(source)

It's quite hard to find sources on this in english, but here's several articles for you to peruse with google translate. I looked at countless more but those are kind of lost to the ether of my web history + these are the only ones I saved. Easy enough to find if you key in some combination of "kinderheim 1950er nachkriegszeit" and jump around.

https://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.kinderheime-in-der-nachkriegszeit-pruegel-bis-die-seele-bricht.c3d5ed02-68bf-42e3-a6a1-84bb7b586e14.html

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.waz.de%2Fstaedte%2Fessen%2Ffrueheres-heimkind-dort-hat-man-uns-die-jugend-geraubt-id214824101.html%3Fservice%3Damp

https://www.br.de/radio/bayern2/sendungen/zeit-fuer-bayern/bayerische-heimkinder-nachkriegszeit-100.html

https://amp.focus.de/familie/erziehung/albtraum-kinderverschickung-wie-kinder-in-erholungsheimen-gequaelt-wurden_id_11460755.html

https://amp.dw.com/de/das-verdr%C3%A4ngte-leid/a-6323736

https://www.wkgo.de/cms/article/print/164

https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article5239904/Die-Gewaltherrschaft-in-deutschen-Kinderheimen.html

https://www.welt.de/welt_print/article2795104/Die-unbarmherzigen-Erzieher-der-Nachkriegszeit.html

https://www.evangelisch.de/inhalte/150261/25-06-2018/die-evangelische-kirche-ekhn-hat-die-geschichte-der-heimkinder-der-nachkriegszeit-aufgearbeitet

I cannot properly express my love for the fact that Rincewind is a wizard not because he does magic or is particularly intelligent, which he doesn’t and isn’t, but because that’s who he knows he is, it’s an integral part of himself despite his not fitting any wizardly criteria other than wearing a hat with WIZZARD written on it, and all the other wizards think this is fair and don’t question it.

more older gaang

First off, disclaimer: This is less theory and more exploration of possible answers to the question of when Sigma’s accident occurred. Specifically, what do they mean for the larger world of overwatch and for Sigma?

The Facts

Sibren De Kuiper is 62 years old

He knows Winston is the creation of Dr Harold Winston. Whether by just knowing the details of Dr Winston’s experiments leading up to his own experiment (and subsequent accident) or by some other means after Dr Harold’s experiment started.

Winston is 29 years old

Gorillas are typically considered adults at about 6, meaning that either genetic modification stunted his growth temporarily (or spread it out?) or the Dr Winston flashbacks take place at least 23 years ago.

Sigma knows Dr Harold Winston is dead. (“Give Dr. Winston my regards.” is his elimination quote against Winston, though it’s unknown if he went into the experiment knowing Dr Winston was dead or if he was informed of this after the fact. Why he would have, I’m not sure? I guess Talon may have used that to throw him off-guard?)

Overwatch was disbanded 7 years ago

Zarya’s gravity well is a creation of or based on the work of “The Tobelsteins'”

Sigma can recognize it as such

Her particle cannon came off a armored vehicle during battle.

Reinhardt’s hero page says the Omnic Crisis happened over 30 years ago

Orisa’s says it was over 20 years ago.

Michael Chu claimed it was 25 years ago, “give or take a few years.”

UPDATE: Zarya’s page says it started “some 30 years ago”

Meaning it’s likely that it just ended 20/25 years ago

Meaning Winston has to have been born sometime during the war, since gorilla gestation takes less than a year and he’s only 29. It’s not impossible that they made giant gorillas first or that the moon gorilla’s where gestated artificially so it would take longer, but that’s way too much biology to be thinking about for a exploration of possible dates for Sigma’s experiment.

Unless the International Space Station changed it’s rules about the heights of crew members or was replaced with a larger version, Sigma is far too tall to be allowed up on it. (This doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t a international or government station, but it should be noted.)

The Speculation

Keep reading

Have you ever noticed how much we use signal degradation as a shorthand for existential “wrongness”?

Like, in horror movies, an otherworldly voice may hiss like radio static, while a creepy monster may jerk and stutter from position to position like a video that’s dropping frames. The influence of a hostile, alien presence may be indicated by visual “tearing”, like the film is being played back from damaged media, or by deliberate audio/video desynchronisation.

Video games get in on the act, too. The use of simulated glitches to represent reality-warping effects in horror gaming is well documented, of course, but it goes beyond that. In the language of gaming, a portal to an alien realm may bleed stylised pixels and crackle like a PC speaker with the volume cranked too high, while the sound effects associated with “unnatural” magic might introduce digital distortion to an otherwise naturalistic soundscape.

I sometimes wonder what it says about our anxieties as a culture that the easiest way for media to freak us out is to confront us with manifestations of the artificiality of the medium.