#and add more purpose to what i post

[huellitaa]

honey, was it enough?... ♡ 🎀🍂🧸 ྀ𓂃 ࣪˖

[verflares]

(click for higher quality!) draconified link concept ive been chipping away at this past week ..... here's my funny little compendium concept for him:

"A heroic spirit has taken the form of this bestial dragon. Unlike it's kin, this creature exhibits an extremely aggressive disposition. It appears highly territorial, and will relentlessly chase down those who disturb its skywide patrols - of which it seems to be endlessly searching for either a long-time vassal or foe. Unfortunately, it seems the spirit within has long since forgotten exactly who it was looking for…"

[origami-butterfly]

Hate it when j&h adaptations give Jekyll a female love interest, like bitch, he HAS a love interest who is introduced on the first page, and his name is MR UTTERSON THE LAWYER.

[svampira]

my dark urge kitty^^

(a year before the game - act one)

[firestorm09890]

FUCK what I said about the majority of significant changes to dialogue in Re:CoM being to adjust Axel's characterization, the most egregious change is actually this

(GBA CoM)

(Re:CoM)

if I had to guess, the reason for this change was because in GBA CoM, The Superior was a spooky, unknown being at the head of this Organization we had very little knowledge on, and for Vexen, the guy who runs his mouth constantly about how much better he is than the others, to be terrified of him, he must be some pretty scary dude. But then after kh2 we know him, it's Xemnas, he's very dramatic, he likes to talk to the moon, and the effect of your mind filling in the gaps about what "The Superior" must be like is gone. So it wasn't really necessary anymore, right?

(rest under cut because it's long)

Except... the way they changed it is so weird. In the GBA version, what's happening is pretty clear:

Marluxia tells Vexen that his project is a failure

Vexen demonstrates that he does not give a shit about Marluxia's opinion

he does care very much about The Superior's opinion, though, and Marluxia uses this to blackmail him into eliminating Sora- an action which is nonsensical, as the entire point of what they're doing needs Sora alive, making it clear to everyone in the room that he is deliberately sending Vexen to die

and then after that, when Vexen shows up to fight Sora, he goes "if you want to fight me for real you've gotta do it in the memories from the other side of your heart lol bye" and Sora goes "huh? other side?" and then it cuts to a scene on the top floor:

and then this gets more into subtext but here, Vexen has realized he's totally fucked and his only hope is to mess directly with Marluxia's plans (well, they were the Organization's plans, but it's pretty obvious by now Marluxia's abusing his power for his own purposes) by giving Sora more information than he should know. This does get the traitor gang worried enough to send Axel to go kill him (as opposed to just letting Sora take care of him, which was presumably the original plan)- he very specifically cuts Vexen off to keep him from saying too much (this is retained between the original and the remake)

Anyway, what happens in Re:CoM sort of follows the same order of events, but everything is changed slightly in a way that just makes things more confusing.

Marluxia tells Vexen his project is a failure and Vexen demonstrates that he doesn't give a shit about Marluxia's opinion, as before

Marluxia threatens Vexen with a weapon, rather than threatening to tell the Superior

this, notably, does not seem to faze Vexen very much. he continues to run his mouth while having the scythe pointed at him.

Xemnas is still leveraged- Marluxia points out it was the Superior who entrusted him with the castle

...even though reasonably Vexen would already be aware of this, and has still demonstrated that he has zero respect for Marluxia despite it

the lines about betraying the Organization being a capital crime are retained, probably because it's super relevant later, but then that line of thinking is abandoned in favor of Marluxia and Larxene just taunting Vexen instead

The part where Marluxia says "do it. you won't" could be seen as a sort of threat... if not for Axel's line: "You give a challenge like that to Vexen and he'll seriously want to eliminate Sora." It frames it all as though Vexen went to fight Sora out of some sort of pride.

And look, Vexen may have a temper and a superiority complex, but he's not stupid. They're obviously baiting him. Plus, what happened to him seeing himself as above the others and countering things he doesn't like with "well actually I'm higher ranked than you and also you're an idiot"? Is he that insecure in his fighting capabilities? I could deal with characterization changes doing him dirty if it didn't also make no sense in the context of the plot.

So now we have Vexen going to try to kill Sora, something that really makes no sense to do, out of pride. What was the purpose of sending Sora to Twilight Town? Also pride, over the fact that he managed to get that information? Giving the writing the benefit of the doubt, I could say that these nonsensical actions can be explained as evidence that Nobodies can have hearts and people with hearts do strange and rash things, but that just feels like a reach, which is bad because what they had in GBA CoM worked perfectly fine and made sense without any reaching for the "idk emotions make you do strange things" explanation.

It continues. After Vexen gives Sora the Twilight Town card in Re:CoM and Sora wonders about what the "other side" means, this is that version of the conversation the top floor members have:

...what? "If Sora disappears, that would mess up the Organization's plans"? what are you worried about? the only reason Sora would disappear is if Vexen killed him. there's no way they think Vexen being in Twilight Town would give him an advantage, right? they know he's a pathetic fighter. "Vexen has clearly committed a treasonous act against the Organization" HOW? HOW IS IT CLEAR? they don't express any worry about Sora learning too much, up until Axel says "I came to stop you from talking too much" when killing Vexen- and that being there makes it seem like they were worried about Sora learning to much, but if that's the case, why would they replace the perfectly serviceable lines in the above scene? it's just... baffling that they would want to lean into the narrative that Vexen going to kill Sora (which he'd been goaded into doing) is the problem here, because it just makes so little sense compared to what it was originally.

once again giving them the benefit of the doubt: Marluxia's real plan was to take over the Organization, and he saw an easy way to pick off one of the members, so he took it. the motive for stopping Vexen doesn't actually matter.

buuuuut it's the same as with Vexen earlier. Marluxia may be too self-absorbed and power-hungry to notice Axel is scheming against him, but he, too, is an intelligent man. he's plotted for a while, getting into Xemnas's good graces in order to be put in charge of the Castle. this is incredibly sloppy for him. I guess it could be said that getting so close to his goal would make him sloppy, but again, if they'd just left things the way they were in GBA CoM, I wouldn't even have to be saying this

in conclusion: GBA Chain of Memories' intra-Organization strife subplot is so tightly woven with calculated moves on all sides that Re:CoM changing certain things without taking into consideration the consequences makes certain parts of the plot fall flat and become far more confusing than in the original story

[simmyfrobby]

― ”The Hollow Men”, T.S. Eliot.

Hockey Poetry Post 25/?

(Photo credit: Steve Babineau, Maddie Meyer, Maddie Meyer, Maddie Meyer)

[digirainebow]

things that are (probably) true now that we have canon birthdates for the oxenfree characters

the events of the original oxenfree take place on june 4th, 2016. if taken into town, nona reveals that her birthday is in 3 days. since we now know that her birthday is june 7th, and that lost signals takes place 5 years afterwards in 2021, we finally know the exact day the first game happens. yay!

clarissa's birthday happens to fall on the same day that anna was killed. as maggie writes in adler letter 9, april 4th is the day in 1952 that she and anna tried to bring the sunken back.

last year, ren went to the movie theater and watched oppenheimer with nona (and clarissa) because she wanted to see it, even though he wanted to go see barbie, and it was his birthday that day.

[st4rstudent]

Ok the fandom wiki is back to normal as of earlier, so if you accidentally stumble upon it, it'll be fine.

However please make sure to keep using the New and Improved Wiki, which is not only easier to navigate and is more pleasant, but also the new preferred wiki. (Not only to mention the various issues that Fandom wiki has). Bookmark it or something if you need to.

As future reference, it should be noted that vandalism on the fandom wiki will not help take the wiki down due to fandom's policy, despite previous otherwise thoughts (myself included) and the continuous vandalism only brings traction to it. As well as, mentioning the new wiki will have the possibility to demote and ban the current mods of the fandom wiki.

As silly as the entire thing was, please make sure to use the new wiki and refrain from going back to the old one. Especially since last night made the fandom wiki get a lot of traction.

As a reminder, here are some extensions you can use to help avoid using the fandom wiki: 1 (redirector) 2 (wiki.gg redirector) 3 (wiki indie buddy)

and here's the reddit post about it

[rubysparx]

I’ve done my part to de-sexualize genitalia especially penises and the problem is this seems to only effect me. As it happens many people are still saying things like “the artist/op would not draw a penis because they are good” and “the implication of genitalia is an implication of fetish which is bad” what if I killed you. I don’t know how to tell you this man but the individuals body just looks like that. And if you cannot see it without immediately thinking “this is sex!!” I need you to sit down with me and de-sexualize genitalia. I don’t care if you’re jumping around going “yayy yippeee yayy I love bulge ^_^” or if you’re going “ahh sin!! This is sin!!!!!” both of you need to shut the hell up actually

[batsplat]

your negative takes on recent tennis rivalries pleaseeee🙏🙏🙏

ps. you’re a treasure

okay so I'll do the copy paste thing from what I did just cut from the initial post, which was my polite 'I'm attempting to write a reasonably neutral post' approach

so, this may come as a shock, but obviously I'm a bit of a fan of rivalries. we do have some bangers in tennis history, rich narrative texts, but... well. the landscape out there hasn't been great for the past decade or so. sometimes you can get invested in match-ups between specific players that are fun to watch and interesting tennis-wise, but it's all very much about the sport rather than the personal relationships between the different players. I enjoy matches between all three or ryba, sabs and iga!! but also. they are coworkers. you do kindaaaa get the sense sabs and iga aren't particularly fond of each of other, but it's all perfectly cordial. again, the tennis is great, I support them in all their endeavours, but it's very much the tennis itself you need to look for for the drama (also they don't play each other as much as I'd like, but that's a conversation for a different day)

you do still sometimes get some fun beef but it's very much isolated dumb stuff like the fritz/rinderknech "have a nice flight home" thing. this isn't going anywhere story-wise but it's fun in the moment

speaking of men. obviously the most important rivalries for the last however many years have been between various big three/four members, and federer/nadal specifically is extremely popular. tennis-wise, I still think federer/djokovic was the most fun match-up, and at least there was a little tension there because federer used to hate djokovic. they've played a lot of matches that are worth watching!! also they've finally mostly retired so it's not super relevant any more, but well tennis fans as a collective are very big three-pilled so you'll hear a lot about these blokes

and now there's alcaraz/sinner. they've only really had one match that was good start to finish (uso 2022), but definitely some fun ones (miami 2023 and wimbledon 2022 are probably the other ones that stand out, their most recent match was very much in the 'long does not equal good' category). plus, they're quite good at producing highlight reel content, like this one point everyone remembers (shown here from every angle... tennistv produces longer videos for single points than the wta releases for most finals). it's an interpersonally warm rivalry between two young guys who are both very successful and will presumably win everything for the next decade. again, I'd suggest trying to become a fan of one of those two

this was the polite way of phrasing it!! everything below here is quite rude and negative, peace and love to all

okay, let's ditch the thin veneer of neutrality, here's what I actually think: it is completely baffling to me how popular quite a few of these rivalries are, I don't get it, I have never understood it, I will never understand it. tennis went 'what if we had rivalries without narrative tension' and everyone just kinda rolled with that? mind you federer/nadal early confrontations were happening at the same time as clijsters/henin, who were like?? dude it got so bad henin said she had never been friends with clijsters so nothing clijsters and her father said could hurt her ("nothing was broken between us because there was nothing to break" ???? ffs). which is obviously not true!! but it's so... she denied the friendship ever existed and called it all pr like that's so SAD! look, this is beside the point, I'm not talking about henin/clijsters here, I do understand why people aren't that into a rivalry that was at its peak like two decades ago and federer/nadal were still playing slam finals in 2k17 (a dark dark time for some fans, federer had already HAD his decline and then he was suddenly winning slams again like tf). and to some extent I go 'well clearly people will just be into anything if you have two successful blokes' but there's clearly quite a lot of genuine passion there? like I'm not denying the passion EXISTS, people do clearly care about these guys, it's not all a psyop by Big Fedal who have suckered people into caring for these two dudes. and I'm not denying the tennis is great! I still personally prefer the match-ups that involve djokovic, and also the match-ups that involve none of those three, but fundamentally I have been watching these matches for like!! so many years! it's part of my childhood, I have enjoyed plenty of these matches, the tennis is obviously otherworldly. I have hot takes on a bunch of their matches, I can have the goat debate with you, I can give you the rundown on surface-specific match-ups and how long since nadal won a set on hard court against djokovic and federer's peak year domination rate and what they all did at madrid and blue clay and yec and golden masters and all that shit, of course it's part of my dna as a tennis viewer too!! I did usually have a slight order of preference in my head when I was watching big three match ups to have someone to root for (it's different now but back when I was a kid it was djokovic > nadal > federer, these days federer's redeemed himself a little bit in my eyes by having the decency to retire and I was radicalised against nadal). but like!! what's the narrative hook! I need somebody to explain to me what the story here is. these guys are all very good at tennis and they are racking up their titles and it's so!! whatever!! no tension no arc no real interpersonal development once federer stopped being so bitchy about djokovic. twenty plus slams who CARES, what are they doing this for! it's all so?? ugh

anyway now that I've taken a potshot at the most popular rivalry in men's tennis, I should quickly back it up by saying I feel almost the exact same way about the second most popular one (at least on tumblr) and also feel nothing for alcaraz/sinner. that one was still like... vaguely palpable? when alcaraz was clearly a way better player but struggled in that match up and also was way more invested in the rivalry than sinner was. but well, sinner is world number one now so THAT'S been ruined. again, sit me down and explain to me what the narrative stakes here are. like, if sinner wins that roland garros match, he'll be fine? alcaraz will be fine? everyone will be fine? their relationship is basically 'friendly coworkers', zero chance of anything more substantial developing there. now, don't get me wrong, I'm not gonna pretend like I'm massively into the current state of the women's game when it comes to rivalries either, but at least I have a base level of fondness there for the top players and am ideologically inclined to hype up any rivalries there whenever they come along. also, quite frankly, it DOES matter viscerally more to them!! iga spends a lot of her time kinda like,,, on the edge, the way she was in tears when getting physio after the naomi match, united cup last year, a bunch of her 2021 matches, like she's so intense and so tightly strung on the court that you do really get the sense that a loss could just cause her to have an existential crisis. there's so many unanswered questions about her ultimate potential off clay, I'm still proper curious about her story develops. and then with aryna, she's obviously ALSO so intense but in a different way, and she feels every single emotion so completely and entirely and iga has beaten her in one of those infamous semifinal chokes and it's kinda... you know, aryna also feels like she has something to prove, and you can tell they both really really want to beat each other. there's something there!! it's something real! I'm always seated whenever we actually get to see them play

that being said, yes, obviously I do think we're not exactly peak rivalry potential in either gender. the men's is more egregious because the way the game has shaken out since like,,,, 2004, is incredible top level domination by just a few guys. and now, yes, I'm aware I'm a fan of another sport where this was also incredibly true. but. the key difference is that the aliens had the decency to not be so fucking boring about it. sure on paper they were as a PACK winning everything, but good lord were they screaming crying throwing up whenever things went mildly wrong for them. like!! they despised each other and they needed to beat each other, which makes ME care!! I'm not saying I NEED rivals to hate each other, though it sure does help for my investment levels, but I need a narrative hook! borg/mcenroe had a narrative hook, evert/navratilova had a narrative hook (unfortunately that narrative hook these days is 'being united in transphobia'), agassi/sampras had one HELL of a narrative hook. noughties wta tennis about fifty million narrative hooks!! when I watch alcaraz/sinner, I just try and enjoy the tennis (though their roland garros match was mid as shit so what's that all about) but like... I don't care? or I care because one of them has pissed me off recently. I do fundamentally watch most of men's tennis as a hater, and admittedly this is accumulated bitterness over way too many years, but I do also think it's frustrating! tennis gets in its own way with this whole gentleman's sport business, the amount of wanking people do over federer/nadal in particular is truly insufferable... this is a sport filled with millionaire tax evaders and they'll have you believe that smashing a racquet is not only not fun (obviously it is) but also some kind of arbiter of morality. congrats to nadal for not smashing a racquet in his career!! could we please get his thoughts on gender equality in prize money? oh... okay. hm. this isn't supposed to be some gotcha, these guys all suck. but ultimately I would prefer not to engage with this sanitising and pearl clutching, given they do all suck, over shit that fundamentally does not matter while giving them a pass over all the stuff that DOES and instead maybe just have some fun. maybe you need to be single-minded and kind of dull to be good at men's tennis these days, maybe it's inevitable, doesn't mean I don't find them boring and pointless. there's some people who just enjoy like,,, watching greatness, endlessly racking up numbers and reaching the pinnacle of the sport or whatever, that's not me, I need there to be a story

thing is, right, obviously I'll still watch these matches (though I have massively turned it down this year, especially on the men's side - I did have a kind of breaking point this january where I was like 'wow I don't think I can ever care about anything any more?' and broadly speaking this has proved to be correct). I've tried hard to like a lot of these men because, god knows, it'd be a way more pleasant experience if I could trick my brain into it, but I can't! I think they're dull! fundamentally I'm too embedded in this world to ever be able to leave it. but I think it's funny when fans go 'oh people who are into drama don't appreciate the actual sport' like buddy I can basically guarantee I know more about the sport than you do. I Just Think that actually interpersonal relationships do also enhance the actual sports, like this shit is a conversation right,,, it has its history, it's a development over time in terms of your tactics and your knowledge of your opponent's tactics and so on, your expectations going into every match. when you have an interesting interpersonal dynamic, the sport also becomes more interesting... it's actually pretty straightforward lol. a lot of tennis is in the head, rivalries are also in the head, you're playing the other guy (gender neutral) as much as you are the actual ball. I get super annoyed by fans who are too busy being nostalgic to actually enjoy the players we have now, and I really don't like it when people call iga boring for instance, but I do also have a little bit of that. love the game, hate a lot of the players, simple as. bring back agassi calling his pet parrot more interesting than sampras in his autobiography, we used to be a proper sport

[noirandchocolate]

Me: *listening to my big shamisen playlist while I work at home reading cases* Hehe strings go twang nicely for my braincells

Spotify: *hits me in the face with “Blue” by Aun J-Classic Orchestra again*

Me: I am going to die. ToT

[goldentigerfestival]

Using this as an audio reference for the posts I'm making, but to summarize:

Yuri starts out mad.

Yuri tries to calm himself down with a deep breath to ask for details instead of going through it angry.

Flynn doesn't say "like a good knight" in the sense of putting himself down. He simply says "as a knight" (the tl here doesn't use that, but with that included it's basically along the lines of "even though I had doubts, as a knight, I was determined to follow my orders").

Once Yuri has answers he calms down significantly.

Yuri uses " 'ttaku", which is a shortened down version of "mattaku" (Yuri often shortens words and speaks very casually), which in this particular situation basically would mean "geez", or "good grief". In this manner, it's expressive of exasperation/frustration/etc.

Yuri never mentions that "Flynn told him what to do" like the dub does (because in fact Flynn did not ever tell Yuri what to do. He only gave Sodia and his other knights orders. He expressed his own desire to take responsibility, but never told Yuri and his friends what to do).

At this point you can tell the anger has gone out of him and that he's calmed down, now that Flynn is approaching this with admission and responsibility.

Sodia is asking that Flynn returns as soon as possible (I believe this was a general translation error).

Flynn's thank you to Yuri is tonally much more heartfelt.

Yuri's response and gratefulness at Flynn coming back to himself is tonally much more heartfelt, relieved and sincere.

[neptunevasilias]

One of the reasons that, despite almost 4 years later, I still haven’t fully adopted book canon Scarlet into my personal perception of him (or rather, shifted my perception to be solely how he is in the book) is because of Sage’s lack of character. I do not think that you can get a full picture of Scarlet without also looking at Sage; they have to be a package deal. Team dynamics and partner dynamics are very important in RWBY, and in writing in general characters are defined by their relationships with each other. Most of what we know about Neptune we know from his time with Sun or his relationship to him, and likewise trying to introduce Scarlet without telling us anything about his relationship with Sage (or any other member of the team besides that he’s mad Sun left) is always going to paint an incomplete picture. Ever since their introduction there’s been a huge question mark in the air about what the other half of Sun’s team looks like, especially since Sun and Neptune are seemingly joined at the hip, making the other two’s relationship presumably equally unique (how do they interact when the other two are off in their own world?). Only giving us one of them doesn’t fully answer that question.

How did the team manage while Sun was gone? Well, since one of them is a non-character and the other has almost no established relationship with Neptune (their most revealing detail, which is that Neptune tells Scarlet all his secrets, comes from volume 2 and not the book), it’s impossible to say. I may have just missed this, but I can’t even find where in the book it says that Scarlet was the temporary leader (just that Neptune definitely wasn’t). And even if he was, then what? Scarlet is just the one person who held everything together? That doesn’t play off of any of the other characters. Sage might as well not exist, which means Scarlet suffers too because a character that can’t properly interact with other characters is an incomplete one. Scarlet walks and sits with Sage, but it’s never said why. Why does Scarlet like to be with Sage? Is he even making any particular effort to do that, or is he just the best place to stick Sage so that he doesn’t take up too much space in a scene? Because so far all of Sage’s opinions have been Scarlet’s opinions, except for the epilogue when Sage thought Sun would someday apologize and Scarlet didn’t. His only real purpose in the book is “and there’s another guy who also agrees with all of the accusations Scarlet makes towards Sun, so he’s not alone in thinking them.” That does nothing for Scarlet’s character. And so Scarlet exists in a vacuum, without any sort of substantial connection to any of his teammates except that he’s mad at one of them and wants to get away from him.

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

You know, something I think about sometimes... There’s not that many Guild Halls to choose from. Two in Heart of Thorns that look fairly similar, one in Path of Fire, and now one in End of Dragons. That makes a total of four options.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’d love to see a Mists-themed one. Or, at least, a few more unique locations to choose from-- like Halls set in Ascalon and the Shiverpeaks, for example. Having some futuristic Mists pocket that feels similar to the Mistlock Observatory and Dessa’s Fractal lab, or a repurposed Ascalonian fortress still shimmering with the light of ever-burning foefire, or a forgotten Deldrimor outpost carved deep into the side of a snowy mountain, overlooking the frozen wastes below...

C’mon, it’d be neat! And offer a bit more theming options for guilds, too.

So, let’s hear it: what sort of locations would you like to see as a Guild Hall?

[sunflowerpie]

I LOVE when i know things the characters in a story dont, it goes from tense to amusing real fast. Big fan of foreshadowing big fan of picking up on little hints before something big happens big fan of rewatching/reading the same thing over and over and knowing exactly what the big plot twists are before they happen. Big enjoyer of narratives

[allisonreader]

Whenever I read Hard Enough Left, I am struck once again by how much I love this story. When that feeling strikes, it always takes me a little off guard by how strong it is. I always know that I love this story, but why it always strikes me hard that this is why I love this story.

I don't know that I can ever fully articulate how much I love Hard Enough Left (and all of the related stories, starting with Life's Highway which started it all) and how much they mean to me. Both of these stories are comfort stories. I read pretty much all of Life's Highway last week when it was such a hard and sorrowful week for me.

I admire the writing so much and honestly wish that my own writing could be half as inspiring as I find @nurfhurdur 's. (And it has done a lot of inspiring for me over the past few years.) The sound and flow and even the details are all something that I wish I could do. Though my particular voice and turn of phrase seems to be pretty set already as in comparing older and newer stuff.

I love Hard Enough Left enough that I want to share it and recommend it to everyone, even if they don't care one whit about Pixar's Cars or racing history. One day I want to get my parents to read this story. I want to share it with my boyfriend. I want to make or have an audio copy so that I can listen to it while driving up to the lake or when visiting my boyfriend.

I love these stories as much as the two movies that they are inspired from. (Which I also had just watched again and had that same feeling of "I love this so much, it feels like home.")

I'm also so grateful that I have been able to play with your OCs and get to share what I have done for playing with them, with anyone who will listen. I always hope that I do them the justice that they deserve, as I do my writing out of love.