#(i don't think i can illustrate what i'd need to tell in those last two minutes)

[tblsomedoodles]

Me *whenever i'm planning a video*: oh boy, i should apologize now for giving people emotions in anywhere between 2-6 month when this is finally complete.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Lol remember the early days when there was an about-even split between people who thought that Gabriel would be Hawkmoth and people who thought Alim Kubdel would be Hawkmoth? Good times, good times. Speaking of Alix’s dad, how would you have had the show pan out with him being Hawkmoth instead?

I wasn't around to see it in real time, but I browse fanfics in rough chronological order starting from the beginning of a fandom, so I'm aware that this theory was a thing because I've read a good portion of the fics that were written pre Origins. (AO3 has a last update filter if you want to pair down your options for a less overwhelming selection or just enjoy fics from before certain plot points came to be.)

While I'm aware of the theory, I'm a little confused as to where it came from. Alim only has two brief appearances in season one. The first is from the start of The Pharaoh. In it, we see Alim telling Jalil that historical artifacts are not meant for testing crackpot theories:

Mr. Kubdel: Jalil, these types of frescoes are almost always the illustration of a legend. They called it a legend for a reason... Jalil: That's what everyone thinks. But I know it's real. I can prove it! Mr. Kubdel: Really? And exactly how are you going to prove it? Jalil: I just need to get my hands on Tutankhamun's scepter and recite the spell! Mr. Kubdel: Are you serious? Don't even think of touching that scepter. I'd lose my job on the spot. It's a priceless historical object! Not a toy! Jalil: Come on, dad! We have to try out the spell! What if Tutankhamun had found out how to bring people back to life? Mr. Kubdel: Listen, Jalil! That's enough! Get your head out of those papyrus scrolls and focus on the real world! This one! (leaves)

And his other appearance is from the start of Timebreaker. In it, Alim gives Alix the watch that is later revealed to be her miraculous:

Alix: They're Marinette's parents. You know, one of the chicks I hang out with? Mr. Kubdel: Yes, I remember. They make the best bread in the whole of Paris. (he notices one of Alix's sneakers) Couldn't you have made more of an effort to dress nicely? Alix: What do you mean? I took off my cap. (points to her cap) Mr. Kubdel: But this is a special day. Alix: Well, it's only a birthday. Mr. Kubdel: No, this is a special birthday (reaches inside his jacket pocket and brings out a watch) This family heirloom was made by one of our ancestors many, many years ago. It's been passed down from one generation to the next, on their 15th birthday. And today, it's your turn to inherit it. Alix: It's pretty sweet, dad. But I've already got a watch, synced up to my smartphone. Mr. Kubdel: But sometimes there's more to things than meets the eye. Let's just say that our ancestor was… (opens the watch) Ahead of his time. (Alix gasps) Of course, I'd understand if you'd rather me buy you a new pair of rollerblades. Alix: No, Dad! I'm stoked to have it. It's awesome, thank you! (her phone rings) Mr. Kubdel: Are your friends waiting? Alix: Yeah, but I don't wanna bail on you. It's cool. Mr. Kubdel: No, no, go ahead. (Alix stands up and grabs her cap) Now, take good care of it.

Based on these two scenes, Alim doesn't read like a villain to me. He reads like some sort of protector. If I had to pick a role for him, it would be the guardian, not the villain. After all, what better way to find missing miraculous than to go into a field that has you informed about all sorts of interesting archaeological discoveries? The fact that he's handing out a miraculous only elevates that potential, especially since Alim was smart enough to give it to the kid who was suited to be a hero while leaving Jali is be his conspiracy-theory-loving self.

Another variation of that is to have him (or Alix's other parent) be the rabbit holder and Alim is passing on the torch to Alix because it's time to start her training. He did say that the watch is handed down through their family and, if there's one miraculous that would need a lot of training, it's the rabbit. Plus a history related field is a perfect fit for a rabbit!

Of course, a villain might also go into a field like curation in order to find miraculous, but I'm really not getting villain vibes here. Part of the reason Gabriel makes such a good villain is that he has a clear, understandable goal: bringing back his wife. Alim has nothing like that, so to make him into a villain, I'd have to come up with a motivation for him and the only thing that I can think of is wanting to bring back his own seemingly missing spouse. That's not a very interesting route, though, since it's just a copy-paste of Gabriel's plot and I'd want Alim to be something unique unless you wanted to swap Adrien and Alix for some reason and just tell the same story with a focus on different characters.

I mean, you could make Alim have a motivation like protecting historical artifacts, but then why would he want the ladybug and the black cat? What wish would he be trying to make? Rewriting history won't protect it! I could maybe see a goal of rewriting history to stop a bunch of atrocities, but any historian would know that undoing a given set of atrocities means massive changes to history and it would likely just lead to different atrocities. You'd have to change how humans work or something equally messed up to make a world without atrocities, which makes it a pretty poor motivation as it would make Alim too cartoonish to really work. He'd feel like such a massive step down from Gabriel's complexity...

All of this is why I don't think that the show should have continued post Gabriel. I just don't see what motivation you can give a villain that isn't either derivative or a cartoonish downgrade. "I want to resurrect my wife" just hits different from "I want to take over the world."

To make Alim a villain in his own right, you'd have to redesign major elements of the show. I think a character with his background would work well as a master thief who collects historical artifacts for his own collection or to sell them so that he can live in luxury, but I can't picture his character sending out akumas to terrorize Paris. Ladybug and Chat Noir would go from action heroes to something more stealthy. Spies who are trying to track down Alim and stop his network, returning artifacts to their rightful owners. Not a bad concept for a show, but too different from Miraculous for me to pretend it's a good concept for a series reboot.

[justserahtonin]

Let's talk about Moonvale.

Ok, phew, it's been a while since I used tumblr and needed a new one.

I've been in the Duskwood fandom since pretty early on the game, so I wanted to jump on the thousands of opinions on Moonvale. Now, I'll state first the negative facts but also the good ones. I've seen tons of nasty opportunists trying to throw hate, including other devs.

Also, IMPORTANT, Moonvale is NOT Duskwood, we know. But I'll be referring to Duskwood to point out exactly why the fandom or at least I feel negative about.

First of all, let's go with the bad stuff. I'm not even going to say anything about the diamonds and their price, I just refuse. But what I want to talk is about the minigames and the AI art. AI art is just... oof. I know some people don't mind, but as an illustrator, let me tell you how much it hurt me. This community has always valued artists, I remember I had a blog where I drew other people's MCs and that made me make some cute and valuable friends, I remember how much the fandom loved artists, so seeing this... just hurts. I get the "we want to give your new friends their own spotlight" but Everbyte did that in Duskwood beautifully with stock images, with the gang trying to add us in more activities or chatting with us. You don't need stolen art to give someone a spotlight. Those new to Duskwood may not remember it, but Richy was faceless for a big part of the game until they got an actor for him and no one was mad about it. In fact it gave Richy some kind of shy guy charm.

About the minigames... Look, last time I played Duskwood, I did without any extra moves and those were hard, more or less like Moonvale's. But you know where the real problem is? In how the interrupt the story. And how little immersive they look and feel like when playing them. Let's look back to Duskwood. The minigames had a goal: hack Hannah's phone. Whether it gave us a clue or not, it felt real and, in words on MC in Moonvale "not every lead will take you to a clue". But you put work in there and when something unlocked, it felt good. And if you didn't, you had at least one or two credits and a character praising you for the good work (thanks, Jake). In Moonvale, it feels like "oh, nobody's here, let me play some candy crush". Also, the vibe does not match the tone. In Duskwood, the minigame design felt like you were hacking, you were decoding something. But here it really feels like some Project Makeover game.

NOW, let's get to the good parts. I feel the story might be interesting. Who's Unknown?, how can Charlie help us?, what happened to us and that fame we got in Duskwood? I find Eric quite lovable and Charlie kinda like a big mouthed friend with good heart. Ash is like the mom friend or lil sis friend, worrying but being kinda childish and Violet being the shy one. There's something with the mysterious figure in Eric's call that looks familiar. Was the figure wearing a cap? Am I imagining stuff?? And the last call??? Let's be real, Duskwood had real plot holes and was a bit bland the first episodes but we grew to like it as the story kept going. I see real potential in there and some theories I'd love to share once sometime has passed, but not now.

Why am I saying all this without mentionion UI design, lack of premium choices, message history and so on? Because those are easy fixable things. Those are little changes that can happen over the time, like Richy's gallery in Duskwood or little sponsorships, packs and so on. I think I'm not the only one who wouldn't mind paying up to 10€ for a premium pass, I can save the money. Everbyte heard their fandom before and I really hope they do now. Let's be honest, we are to blame too. Half of us went looking for a "Duskwood 2", but Moonvale is not that. Expectatives can often be harmful to both sides. I really think Everbyte didn't wait for such backlash, so I want to have faith, I want to believe they will read these reviews and stop to think "why was Duskwood so beloved? Let's go to the core".

Have faith in Everbyte and in Moonvale, we still don't know who Adam really is, what people know about us and how is it that two people in danger had our contact. Maybe this story can give us some clues to MC's past. Maybe Adam turn out to be Jake. Who knows, there's a lot of space for plot twists and I'm here for it.

Let's keep the Duskwood community as peaceful and chill as it has always been. Let's leave no room for free hate and put logic and reasons to our opinions so everyone can learn and so Everbyte can know exactly why are we angry or disapointed.

[kogarashi-art]

It's the last previews for Falling Into Darkness!

Important note before I go into some details on the pictures: I will, in general, not be doing this for other fanfics I post. The main reason I did this series of illustrations was as something of a treat for finally crossposting this 10-20-year-old story to my AO3 account. I don't really plan to draw a ton of illustrations for other fics I do.

That being said, I may do occasional images that will be posted with future stories on AO3 (I have a quick one for the first chapter of the next fic I plan on posting, for one), and if I do other fanart, related to a fic or not, I still plan to post art here.

But I'm glad for all the kind comments and everyone enjoying this series of illustrations with me. :D You guys are awesome.

With that, description-stuff (including more behind-the-scenes than usual) below the cut. 'Tis long; be forewarned.

First up, arguably the easiest illustration to do in the whole set. It's a silhouette, so the foreground wasn't really an issue (other than trying to get the edge glow just right, and I still don't think I quite managed but I'm definitely telling myself not to mess with it any further). The background was already painted for the second illustration in the whole set:

I just fixed up the paths and the treetops and added a little lookout stand to the building on the right, now that Sonic and Sally weren't blocking those spots. After all, it's supposed to be the same view anyway, so I figured I'd make it easy on myself and not have to completely repaint the scene.

The second image employs some little cheats here and there. Here's the original sketch from my sketchbook for comparison:

Very loose, lacking detail. Straight lines are more like suggestions. The robots are spiky blobs. I have a literal note next to a stick figure and a hollow shape telling me to get some references. There's the barest hint of the alcoves the robots are standing in.

I didn't show this level of behind-the-scenes off with other illustrations in this series (though I suppose if anyone's ever interested, I could do a process post about how I worked on these), but one of the first things I did with this series of illustrations was sift through the roughly fifty individual sketches I'd drawn to illustrate various parts of the story (not counting redraws of portions), ranging from vague shapes to much more detailed drawings, to narrow it down to the ones I was actually going to finish for this project. I ended up with 27 total images, including the two I'm previewing today, focusing on having at least one but no more than three images per chapter.

Once I'd determined which sketches, like the above, were going to become a finished piece, I then went through each and every one of them in Photoshop with a sketch pencil brush and filled out the sketches to a point where I could reliably ink them. That meant things like swapping out figures that didn't work with redraws of them or making size adjustments, like so:

The first image is the second illustration, and you can see I redid Sonic because his initial pose didn't work. The redraw was actually a pose of him I did to draw his post-Mobianization robotic elements from the end of the story, but the stance was actually good for what I needed, so I Photoshopped it in and then sketched the rest of the replacement drawing digitally. The second image is Sally watching Knuckles walk away, and you can see that I changed her left arm, and also reproportioned her body prior to inking (bigger head, smaller body).

And for pieces like the final one in this illustration series, I sketched in all the details that were missing from the initial sketch (which, as I said, was pretty barebones; in my defense, it was the last one I drew, and by that point I was pretty tired of drawing robot hedgehogs so Sonic was something of a stick figure in most of the last chapters' sketches).

And here's where one of the cheats comes into play. I drew one robot hedgehog. Specifically the one you see the most of, near the tip of Robotnik's cape by the drafting table. I drew it on its own layer in Potoshop, then copied and pasted it into all of the other holding bays, erasing parts that wouldn't be visible as I went along. I also went and found those references I needed for Robotnik and Snively and drew the two of them properly.

And then, because I much prefer physical pen-to-paper inking over digital (my tablet is not one of the fancy screen ones, and I've yet to really get comfortable digitally inking with it, despite owning it for nigh on twenty years), I colored all of the sketches red, assembled them in groups on letter-sized images, and printed them out onto cardstock (my preferred medium when I'm going to be traditionally inking). I inked them with my various inking pens (some Sakura Microns, some Faber-Castell PITT pens), scanned each sheet back into my computer, and cleaned up the lines in Photoshop (the reason for the red printout was to make it a bit smoother removing the sketch from the inked lines, though it wasn't as clean as I would've liked; oh well).

That left us with the above. Because I inked them each by hand individually, the robots don't look copy-pasted, because it was the underlying sketch that had been, not the ink work. The tables and holding bays also have straighter lines thanks to using a proper ruler for those (though I didn't concern myself too much with things like perspective and right angles), and after drawing the straight line, I went back freehand over spots to give them a bit of that hand-inked wobble.

From there it was a matter of laying down the flats in Photoshop, then shading, adding effects, etc. I like the cold yellow light I've got on the robots, and the overall shading on the yellow cape. Also that sense of satisfaction when I called this one done, because it was the last one. Huzzah.

I'll see you on Monday for the last chapter!

[astrronomemes]

THE ILLUSTRATED MAN: STARTERS

a collection of quotes, phrases, and sayings from the 1951 Ray Bradbury novel, The Illustrated Man. change & alter as needed.

"Do you know where I can find a job?"

"You'll be sorry you asked me to stay. Everyone always is."

"You smoke a little more every morning, and drink a little more every afternoon, and need a little more sedative every night."

"Long before you knew what death was, you were wishing it on someone else. When you were two years old, you were shooting people with cap pistols."

"Nothing ever likes to die — even a room."

"There's a chance we'll be found."

"I know how you feel, [name]. I don't take it personally."

"I don't know why I said that. I guess I wanted to hurt you."

"There wasn't anything there for me, or you, or anybody like us. I've never been sorry I left."

"[Name], I can't be made to do nothing like that."

"It doesn't matter who I am. I'd be just a name to you, anyhow."

"We destroyed everything and ruined everything, like the fools that we were and the fools that we are."

"What happens next is up to all of us."

"Haven't you heard? It's happened."

"Oh, I want to be home. I want to be home."

"You can't trust anyone anymore."

"[Name], if you don't understand, there's no way of telling you."

"This is what I came looking for. I didn't know it, but this is it."

"You're crying like a baby. Stop it."

"Stay if you like. But I'm going on, with the others, as far as I can go."

"It's been a long time, a long, long time, since I relaxed."

"We've enough food for another two days if we're careful."

"I'm not crazy yet, but I'm the next thing to it. I don't want to go out that way."

"Promise me you won't be like me."

"Next time I come home, I'm home to stay."

"We have reached a new land, so we must have new eyes. We shall hear new sounds, and must needs have new ears."

"Love has to do with humor, doesn't it? For you cannot love someone unless you put up with him, can you? And you cannot put up with someone constantly unless you can laugh at him. Isn't that true?"

"I haven't feared death for a good many years, [name]."

"Can't you recognize the human in the inhuman?"

"May I come again, someday, that I may learn from you?"

"What would you do if you knew that this was the last night of the world?"

"It's not a matter of deserving. It's just that things didn't work out."

"I'll have nothing to do with you terrible people!"

"War begets war. Destruction begets destruction."

"Memories, as my father once said, are porcupines. To hell with them! Stay away from them! They make you unhappy. They ruin your work. They make you cry."

"You die each day, and each day is a box, you see, all numbered and neat. But never go back and lift the lids, because you've died a couple thousand times in your life, and that's a lot of corpses, each dead a different way, each with a worse expression. Each of those days is a different you, somebody you don't know or understand, or want to understand."

"We're all fools all the time. It's just we're a different kind each day. We think, I'm not a fool today. I've learned my lesson. I was a fool yesterday, but not this morning. Then tomorrow, we find out that, yes, we were a fool today, too. I think the only way we can grow and get on in this world is to accept the fact we're not perfect, and live accordingly."

"I'm getting worse, aren't I? I thought so. This morning, when I woke up, I thought, I'm getting worse."

"I've never enjoyed myself so much in my life."

"You've got the wrong person. My name is not [name]."

"The rabbits may hide in the forest, but a fox can always find them."

"Really, you've both been incredibly romantic, running away from your responsibilities."

"The car's in the repair shop. It'll be ready at four this afternoon. Then we'll get the hell out."

"Don't you realize what'll happen when they discover your talent? They'll fight over you. They'll kill each other, kill you, for the right to own you."

"Oh, but I don't belong to anybody. No, not even you."

"Your first night out in years, and you go home at ten o'clock."

"I recall that I was quite firm on the subject."

"You won't mind waiting a moment, will you? I have to make a phone call."

"In order to make a good fight, you got to have a new way of surprising people."

"Someone should go who could tell it well on returning. You have a way with words."

"I will buy your ticket today. You can leave next week."

"I can go, can't I? And you'll like me when I come back?"

"We will remember it for always, [name]. We will never forget."

"You're the best father in the world."

[maniculum]

[Image ID: Two fairly-normal-looking scorpions in a manuscript illustration. They are colored a light brown, and the ground beneath them has been given texture in a dark yellow.]

I'm going to try and get into the habit of putting my rambling thoughts below a cut:

So, first of all, for anyone curious, this is apparently MS Plut.40.52 in the collection of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, and has been digitized (link here, the URL looks weird so I hope this works). The text is the Acerba, a work by Cecco d’Ascoli (1257–1327) -- I am sharing that detail because when I Googled it, I found this line in the author's Wikipedia entry:

The book by which he achieved his renown and which led to his death was the Acerba (from acervus), an encyclopaedic poem of which in 1546, the date of the last reprint, more than twenty editions had been issued.

Following the citation, I found that this sentence is verbatim from the Encyclopædia Britannica. Their entry isn't super clear on why it led to his death, but it kind of sounds like he was burned for heresy.

So that's fun. Anyway, scorpions. This particular manuscript is from 14th-century Florence, which you may recognize as being in Southern Europe, so this artist has probably seen a scorpion. I actually almost just ignored this because I was like, "I just did one where the scorpion drawing was accurate, I don't need to make a habit of posting just regular scorpions"... and then I looked closer. I'm going to go ahead and suggest that while this author may have seen a scorpion, they didn't examine one that carefully. So we can do these. I'm rating them together, because they're getting the same score (albeit for different reasons).

Now, I wanted to check the text, but I don't speak Italian. There is apparently an English translation out there by one Diane Murphy, but I'd have to either buy a copy or use Interlibrary Loan, either of which is more effort than I want to put into rating scorpions on the Internet. Anyway, the thing that really caught my eye about this... check out the one on the left.

That bastard has wings. They look more like insect wings than the feathery ones we see on the others, which one would expect from an artist who has seen a scorpion. If you have a general idea of what a scorpion is, and someone tells you that they can have wings, you're going to think of the wings you see on other bugs. (I'm assuming our artist does not know the term arthropod.)

This is why I wanted to check the text, to see if it mentions the wings. Those are, I think I've mentioned, a running theme because of medieval authors drawing on classical sources. I refer you to Pliny the Elder here:

For this pest of Africa, the southern winds have provided means of flight as well, for as the breeze bears them along, they extend their arms and ply them like so many oars in their flight; the same Apollodorus, however, asserts that there are some which really have wings. The Psylli, who for their own profit have been in the habit of importing the poisons of other lands among us, and have thus filled Italy with the pests which belong to other regions, have made attempts to import the flying scorpion as well, but it has been found that it cannot live further north than the latitude of Sicily. However, they are sometimes to be seen in Italy, but are quite harmless there; they are found, also, in many other places, the vicinity of Pharos, in Egypt, for instance.

Bostock, our translator here, thinks this is referring to the scorpionfly, which... sure, maybe. I have no idea, by the way, why Pliny thinks the Psylli are profiting from importing venomous creatures into Italy. A quick Google tells me they were an ancient people of North Africa who had a reputation as snake-charmers, so maybe that's the connection? Or maybe Pliny is just being bigoted.

The point is, Pliny thinks scorpions can fly on the wind by using their legs like oars, and refers to a previous writer who claimed they actually had wings (which makes more sense, let's be real). And a huge chunk of the medieval bestiary can be traced back to Pliny, so that's why so many scorpions have wings.

The artist of these particular scorpions gets them mostly right, though -- apart from the wings and those feet, which I am not convinced by -- and so let's move onto the points.

Small Scuttling Beaſtie? ✓

Pincers? ✓

Exoskeleton or Shell? ✓

Visible Stinger? left ✓, right ✘

Limbs? 10

As with a regular scorpion, I feel neutral-to-positive about these critters but do not want them in my house. 3/5.

And as previously mentioned, the one on the left has wings, which is an automatic -1, bringing both of them to the same score:

7 / 10

I'm still thinking about scorpions just rowing about in the air.

@maniculum Found these scorpions on the gallery section of bestiary.ca. How would the rate?

(I found your blog through your initial scorpion post, and I fell in love.)

[nachosncheeze]

Blindspot Mid-Season 3 Parallels

I made a thoughts post for the beginning and middle of the season, and I said there that I'd make another post about parallels because, while I am still working on some gifsets, many of the biggest parallels this season are wider themes that are sort of spread out over many episodes and harder to encapsulate in small clips; words might do them more justice. My thoughts are interspersed here too, but I've tried to keep most of it more observational than opinions.

*** Okay first a side note. A lot of content I have seen for mid-season 3 seems to have felt the need, as I have up to now, to add extensive “I don’t support it” disclaimers about Jane's secret, but it can get a bit exhausting to repeat. So before I say anything else, here’s my blanket disclaimer: Cheating and infidelity suck. Jeller were not a couple when Weller kept tripping over his own penis every time he got a little sad. This post is about thematic parallels, not infidelity per se, so while it's impossible to not reference it, I'm not here to pass judgment on the semantics of whether or not what either of them did “counted” or "was worse". I also recognize that lying to someone about their own child is a dick move no matter why you did it. I'M NOT SAYING ANYONE'S NOT A JERK. EVERYONE SUCKS HERE. Last thought: BLESS the writers for their lil self-pisstake vis-a-vis fan reactions when Rich was talking about Friends in season 4. Anyway, I’m not gonna rehash any of that so I trust anyone reading this to keep this disclaimer in mind from here on out.

On to the parallels.

1. The Return of Ye Dreaded Season 1 Baggage

In my other post I mentioned that a lot of people have identified issues/challenges with the writing this season, but I have to give props to the creative team for finding what each half of Jeller would probably see as the single biggest gut punch and betrayal possible, calling back to their baggage from all the way back in season 1. Weller lied to Jane and withheld critical information about her past and identity; Jane went behind Weller's back working (and also briefly working, wheyyy) outside the law with another man.

Could the writers have found other ways to dredge up those wounds? Maybe, but personally I really don't mind the routes they chose. (To be clear I also don't judge or begrudge anyone who comes down on either side, and I’ve enjoyed fics that explore or give more weight to different sides of the drama.) I also don't mind that this parallel is so much more subtly displayed - and it is a little subtle; I'm working on a gifset for it and it's hard to pick and choose moments that encapsulate or illustrate it in just a handful of images. So many of Blindspot's parallels are case-by-life or shot-by-shot or phrase-by-phrase, I think it's neat that there are some you kind of have to think and squint to see, even if they're annoying to gif.

2. I'm sorry, you did WHAT while I was in hell? And you're telling me this now?!

I think this one probably gets lost in all the surprise/anger about the cheating and disappointment over the cursory on-screen reunion, but I think it’s really worth noting the circumstances in which each half of Jeller found out about the other’s dalliances while they were apart in the hiatuses. Jane found out that Allie was pregnant - and you know she did the math on when that happened the moment Allie said how far along she was - in the middle of a dangerous mission; and Jane had to completely shelf her feelings to complete the mission, get Allie to safety, and save Kurt's unborn child. Weller found out about what Jane had done with Clem just as they were about to embark on a dangerous mission, and he had to completely shelf his feelings and work with Clem to rescue her kidnapped child.

What you have here is two heartbroken people who are barely even on speaking terms at the time, but are nonetheless so devoted to each other and so dedicated to doing what’s right that even in the awful moment they received gut-wrenching news that makes it seem almost hopeless that they could ever bridge that gap... they lock down the pain and rise to the occasion in the fiercest way to keep each other's daughters safe.

I've already made a gifset about this one. :)

3. How Very DARE You. (a huge betrayal of trust)

I’ve seen a lot of commentary to the effect that “Allie wasn’t the same” or "Nas wasn't the same" because of the relationship status, i.e., Weller was single. Absolutely true! At this juncture, please recall my disclaimer. Because there's another parallel there that does make Jane and Weller's betrayals pretty much equivalent imo, but trying to compare the two situations on just "shipping"/sexytimes grounds leaves out a giant elephant from the season 1/2 rooms.

In season 3, Jane holds Weller's heart in her hands, and she betrays that trust in a huge way. But long before wedding rings were involved, Weller was bound to Jane in a very serious, albeit non-ship way. And he, too, made shitty decisions that were clear violations of that particular brand of trust. In season 2 (and even season 1 after Mayfair's arrest) Weller was Jane's boss at times when Pellington was no fan and every other agency was gunning for her. She was entirely dependent on the FBI for her income, the roof over her head, and by season 2 even her freedom and her human rights. His advocacy was sometimes the only thing standing between her and the loss of every one of those things. And the worst part? He wouldn’t have even had to do anything to cost her everything. His inaction was all it would have taken - if he’d gotten angry enough to glance the other way again, or even just gotten distracted at the wrong moment, she could have found herself destitute if not back in an actual torture chamber.

Her position only got more fragile and her dependency on him more intense once her cover was blown and Roman was in custody, when they could hang all those same threats against her brother over her head, too. In my opinion, it’s not an exaggeration to say that in the early days of the Sandstorm mission, Weller literally held Jane's whole life in his hands. But he still ostracized her; he called everyone out in a briefing but made little attempt to set a better example for the team to treat her civilly. We also shouldn't lose sight that it was his refusal to talk or listen that created the circumstances leading to her torture, and there didn't seem to be any explicit assurance in those early days afterwards that her personal safety was anything more than a coincidental byproduct - or maybe even a necessary evil - of the transaction forced upon her by the NSA. Those alone go hard against the duty of care, and then somewhere in there, even as the camaraderie between them improved, he still knowingly chose to keep sleeping with the person who was leveling these threats and spying on her most intimate thoughts almost daily. Kurt's shitty behavior didn't come in the form of a single act with a big reveal like Jane's did, but workplace bullying, or a series of middle fingers and emotional slaps to the face against someone who can't leave spread liberally across many episodes, is still a betrayal. When we zoom out from the "ship", each took their turn failing in their responsibilities to the other in a pretty spectacular way.

4. The audience is angry because we empathize (structural parallel)

The lovely @kate-dammit-run and a few others made some really excellent discussion posts back when 3x09-12 aired, that pointed out some pretty significant similarities in story structure between seasons 2 and 3 (and also, how the fandom mood was similar in each case, though I wasn't here at the time so can't personally comment on that). To summarize:

In the front half of each season, the audience is overwhelmingly shown only one half of the pair's experience when they were apart in hiatus, and that sets us up to take sides emotionally. In season 2, we see that Jane was tortured, and continues to feel guilty and beat herself up over everything, taking reckless chances and accepting all the poor treatment leveled at her; in season 3, we're shown that Weller had an awful time the whole time she was gone and that something happened in Berlin that was so dire Roman can blackmail him, and he's continuing to beat himself up over whatever it was. The only thing we know about Weller in the s1/2 hiatus is that he [maybe] knocked up Allie fairly quickly after Jane was gone; the only thing we know about Jane in the s2/3 hiatus is that she was doing K&R and met a host of shady characters that we only know a few of by name. In either case, we watch one of them suffer while they struggle - almost one-sided - to restore and preserve the bond they had, while the other kind of just gets on with things as if nothing happened. The audience is primed to be more sympathetic to one than the other. So while Jane is absolutely a hypocrite this season to be so mean to Weller over Berlin when she was hiding something too, Weller was a hypocrite last season to be so mean to Jane when telling her they thought she was born in Africa could have stopped the whole damn conspiracy in its tracks, and the audience is systematically primed to be angry at each in turn.

5. This hurts... FUCK EVERYTHING *Tasmanian Devil/human tornado noises*

In each season, one of the two is really not in their right mind. For Weller this was obvious from the moment he found Taylor's bones, and was confirmed time and again by his bottles of scotch among other things. Jane loses some stability when she first finds out she had a daughter (seriously, the way she visibly begins to retreat, bit by bit, from those first few episodes as the "your Remi is showing" treasure that is Fewer Fucks Jane™ into something more like the Jane we knew in seasons 1 and 2, is a great move from the writers imo and a brilliant bit of acting by Jaimie). She really loses it though when she finds out about Berlin, and then she's every bit as irrational as Weller once was. The contrast in how they each approach pain and their character growth in that arena are roughly parallel too, even if they're moving in opposite directions. Jane once dealt with pain by lying down and taking it, but after being forced to "find herself out there", she comes back with an approach that's more Remi-esque, which is to say, pain prompts an almost immediate defense that manifests as anger. Weller, on the other hand, used to deal with negative emotions by turning into a bit of a human volcano and erupting everywhere, but after he has Bethany, he's more prone to pleading and earnest displays of emotion as Jane once was, than he is to seething anger.

Love two crazy people who manage to kind of even each other out once they finally talk about shit.

5.(a) You were protecting yourself

This isn't a big theme parallel, but I wanted to add it as an adjunct to the above. @indelibleevidence has pointed out the excellent parallel between how Jane responds to the Avery's death reveal versus how Weller once responded to the Emma's murder reveal. I may gif this later if I have time, because it's really, really apt, and not only does it stand as a parallel on its own, it also illustrates to an extent how Jeller's responses to pain have gone through a role reversal.

There are undoubtedly tons of other parallels between season 3 and seasons 1/2, but those are the big ones that I'm finding most challenging to summarize in gif form. So there you have it! Let me know if you spot any more, I'll make gifsets as part of the series, or add them here!

[soryualeksi]

So I decided to continue translating more Rays, starting with the scene immediately after the one I already did, because I need Kharlan Heroes interaction in my life.

I decided to cut it into two parts, because the first part is Kharlan Heroes and then the scene changes to the TOS party and tumblr only allows 10 images per post and that would look so boring...

So this is part one, under the cut. Yuan, Martel and Kratos apologizing in a circle and Mithos, who STARTED the chaos, just standing there like "man I sure love that this has nothing to do with me :D", lol.

Disclaimer, again: I might not always get the exact tonal nuances perfectly right, but I'm trying my best.

Chapter 7 - Wandering Spirit of the Great Tree 8: A Sense of Unease (PART 1)

Martel: Uhm... I'm sorry. It was me who's been saying strange things...

Yuan: No... It's my fault. I still haven't fully processed the fact that Martel is... alive and in front of me. I don't know what to make of this. ... I don't know. Really.

Yuan: But I haven't been in love with another woman. I want you to believe me that.

Kratos: I see... So that was the misunderstanding. My bad, Yuan.

Yuan: No... I also made Martel worry about things she didn't need to worry about. I'm sorry.

Martel: Really, it's okay. I'm the one who made you worry.

Martel: Anyway, let's go quickly. I've got it.

Mithos: You've got it? Spirit Martel?

Martel: Huh? Yeah... Spirit Martel... I think so... I can hear voices. They're calling for help. That's why we have to hurry...

???: (... Yes... Come quickly... You have to help us... Let me take back...)

Martel: (I've heard it again. Is that the voice of Spirit Martel? If so... Then why do I feel like it's coming from inside of me...?)

All three: ...

Kratos: ... I see. Can you show me the way?

Martel: Yeah...

Mithos: ... Yuan. What do you think? My sister.

Yuan: If Martel hasn't changed in the 4,000 years since I've known her... something is wrong. There's no doubt about it. But we can't know for sure what it is...

Mithos: Yeah... I agree with you. After all, you're watching my sister so closely, I thought you might just know what is up...

Yuan: ...

Mithos: ... What? You're making a weird face.

Yuan: You are Mithos, aren't you?

Mithos: Isn't it obvious? Did they turn your brain into electric jellyfish when you were exoflected?

Yuan: E-Electric jellyfish!? Don't use such weird metaphors on people. I...

Yuan: No, forget about it. I just thought it was kind of nice to talk to you like this. I'd never thought I'd see that day again.

Mithos: ... It's just a dream. An illusion, if you will.

Yuan: Only an observer from outside of our cosmos could clearly differentiate between what is a dream and what is reality. That's why it doesn't matter what we, from inside of it, decide is which.

Mithos: You are probably right...

---

Some notes: I had some issues translating the very last bit, because what Yuan is talking about is 理 and that in this context is like... logic? Logic system? Logic system of a cosmos? Basically what he's saying is that the actual "true nature" of his universe doesn't matter to his everyday life. If I'm getting it correctly. Since they wouldn't be able to tell if it's ultimately a dream or not, anyway. Because you can't fully understand a system when you're *in* the system. Which is like, okay, Miyajima, you're a genius?? To illustrate the different attitudes of the characters. Because Mithos, on his own time, probably questions the fabric of the universe, basically, and what's "real" and "unreal" and by extension where the Rays continuity is situated in regards to his "actual" timeline... And probably what the "ideal world" would be. And Yuan is all about dealing with the world as it IS and being like "that's nice and well but I still need to eat every day so it doesn't influence my life, also there's no way we could tell". Which also makes me think he's read books on those philosophical issues. They're probably next to his books on art scholary stuff... ... ... ... Oh no. He's a Humanities guy. My life is now complete. It's perfect with the weird glasses from the OVA, too... *incoherent rambling*

[fycarmensandiego]

A chat with author Melissa Wiley

In 1996, HarperCollins published six Carmen Sandiego chapter books, featuring VILE villains from the then-current "Deluxe"/"CD-ROM"/"Classic" generation of computer games and a new lineup of Acme agents, headed by a Black female Chief (Lynne Thigpen ha impact), and focusing on kid detectives Maya and Ben.

The series included two books each by two writing teams and one solo act, Melissa Peterson. I got in touch with Melissa, who now uses the pen name Melissa Wiley, and she graciously answered some questions about writing the Carmen books and beyond.

To get you caught up to my knowledge before the interview, here's Melissa's website, and here's her bio as printed in the two Carmen books (accompanied by the caricature above):

Melissa Peterson is the author of several books for young readers. Born in Alamogordo, New Mexico, she has lived in eight different states and visited Germany and France. She has never ridden a dolphin, but she did eat a great deal of sour cherry ice cream outside the cathedral in Cologne. [Note: These are both references to plot points in Hasta la Vista, Blarney.] Her research for Hasta la Vista, Blarney included many hours playing Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? An official ACME Master Detective, she lives in New York City with her husband and young daughter.

FYCS: Thanks so much for agreeing to this interview.

Melissa Wiley: What a fun blast from the past! The Carmen books were my first professional writing gig and I had so much fun working on them.

That's so exciting to hear! With that being the case, how did you get involved with the books?

I was an assistant editor at HarperCollins, working for the wonderful Stephanie Spinner. I started out as her editorial assistant at Random House right after grad school and moved to Harper with her a year later, shortly after [my husband] Scott and I got married. Stephanie knew that I wanted to be a writer, and she often sent in-house writing assignments my way (lots of cover copy). When I left Harper in 1995 to have a baby, Stephanie recommended me for several book assignments, including the two Carmen Sandiego novels. That project had been underway for several months—Harper was doing a tie-in with the game and TV show. There were six books in total; two were assigned to me and four went to other writing teams [Ellen Weiss and Mel Friedman, and Bonnie Bader and Tracey West]. I often joke that I got my first modem, my first baby, and my first book deal in the same month!

I loved working with my Carmen Sandiego editor, Kris Gilson. The two books were a blast to write and a great learning opportunity for me. Ellen Weiss remains a good friend of mine. She's a true gem of a person!

Have your experiences writing the Carmen books influenced your work since then?

With Carmen, I discovered how much I love writing humor. Before that (in grad school), my poems and stories were on the serious side. I had so much fun with the playful, sometimes goofy tone of the Carmen Sandiego books that I definitely shifted afterward to more of a focus on humor in my books. I still find writing from a place of playfulness to be my most satisfying kind of work.

Were you familiar with Carmen Sandiego before writing the books?

I loved the computer game! I'd seen several episodes of the show—it's all a bit blurry now and hard to say which I encountered first—and really enjoyed it, but I especially loved the game. Instant classic!

How much guidance did you receive from HarperCollins / Brøderbund? Were the plots your own, or were you given plot outlines?

We were given the basic descriptions for the two kid detectives, and I had a couple of meetings with the editors and the other writers to flesh out the characters a bit more—give them personalities. I don't think Mel was in the meetings, but Ellen was there, and Tracey and Bonnie.

Then I wrote outlines for my two books and the other writers outlined theirs. I was assigned one "Where in the World" mystery and one "Where in Time" mystery. I think I submitted several plot ideas for each—the big challenge was thinking up interesting objects for Carmen and her henchmen to steal. The Blarney Stone and cocoa beans were my favorite ideas and I was thrilled that they got picked!

How did you research the books?

Those were AOL days, and the web wasn't yet a place for intensive research, so I spent a lot of time in the library. For The Cocoa Commotion, I conducted phone interviews with staff members at the Hershey chocolate factory—lots of fun. But I never did get to visit the Blarney Stone!

What was your favorite part of working on the books?

Researching the history of chocolate! Naturally I had to do a lot of sampling in order to describe it properly. ;)

Your author bio in the books mentions that the scene in which Maya and Ben eat sour cherry ice cream in Cologne, Germany was inspired by an actual experience of yours. Did any other experiences of yours make it into the books? Have you had any other travel experiences that notable? (Note: I'm originally from Northern Michigan, so travel experiences involving tart cherries are a high bar to clear for me.)

Ohhh, that sour cherry ice cream! I hope I get to taste it again someday. Apart from eating a lot of chocolate, I can't remember any other personal experiences that informed the books. If I were to write one today, I'd make sure to set a scene in Barcelona. My husband and I spent a week there in 2008 and it was an incredible trip. The paella! The Gaudí buildings! Art on every corner! I'd love to go back someday.

The bio also features a caricature of you with your baby daughter...

That drawing was made by the brilliant comic book artist Rick Burchett, who was working with Scott on Batman comics at the time. Scott was an editor at DC Comics and Rick was one of his favorite artists to work with. When I needed a bio illustration for the Carmen Sandiego books, we commissioned Rick to draw it. I love that piece so much! The baby is my oldest, Kate, who was born right around the time I started working on the books. We still have the original art!

You've written over 20 children's books for a variety of ages, in a variety of genres. Do you have any favorites among them?

That's so hard to say—I'm fond of all of them and I dearly loved creating worlds and adventures for Charlotte and Martha in my Little House prequels—but The Prairie Thief and The Nerviest Girl in the World are extra-special to me. I grew up in Aurora, Colorado and had a summer job at a wildlife refuge on the prairie, a landscape that served as the setting for Prairie Thief. I loved getting to weave secrets into the prairie setting that means so much to me.

Your most recent book, The Nerviest Girl in the World, was published last August. Can you tell us a bit about why you wrote it?

I lived for 11 years in La Mesa, California, a small town just outside San Diego. While I was there, I learned that in the very early days of silent film, there had been a film studio in town. Eventually the studio moved to Santa Barbara, but it was exciting to discover that before Hollywood was the center of the American film industry, little old La Mesa was a moviemaking place. I began reading everything I could find about the studio, and when I learned that many of the cowboys in those early Westerns were real cowboys and ranchers, an idea for a book began to take shape—the story of an adventurous girl who stumbled into work as a daredevil film actress along with her cowboy brothers.

Of course, I'm legally compelled to ask the question that literally every interview currently includes: how has the pandemic changed your job?

LOL! Yes, it's the question right now, isn't it! Well, I've worked at home since the Carmen Sandiego days, and I homeschool my kids, so in the biggest ways our lives weren't hugely affected by the shutdown. But I used to do a lot of my writing in cafés, and I miss that like crazy! I had to think up all sorts of new strategies for staying focused at home this past year. I'm hoping to get back to the coffee shops this summer!

Something I found really interesting is that you have a Patreon, which you explain you started to help pay for medical bills. How has that experience affected your work as an author?

I've played with lots of kinds of content on Patreon and really enjoy having a space to share behind-the-scenes stories. It's a more intimate and personal space than social media, so I feel free to let my hair down and be really frank.

Thanks so much for these fantastic questions! I had so much fun reminiscing about the Carmen Sandiego adventure!

[chuuyas--boo]

The "Judge" and The Sinner.

Tw: Violence, language, murder, Self harm

(Partially based off of 3 episodes of Angels of Death; Episode 4: A sinner has no right of choice, Episode 5; Don't let me kill you just yet, and Episode 6; Zack is the only one who can kill me. Some torture methods will be skipped over/changed slightly because most human beings can't endure all of the torture Zack and Rachel (Mostly Zack cause he's an idiot) went through without dying.)

The elevator doors opened and Riley slowly walked out onto B3, immediatley noticing the machine guns mounted on the walls, as if the last floor wasn't difficult enough; Running from the sweet but obsessive and insane ginger haired grave-keeper; Eddie.

A single bullet was fired from one of the guns, just barley missing Riley's arm causing her to stumble back, just as more bullets were fired rapidly, getting closer until they stopped, only inches away.

"Great...trying to fill me with bullet holes huh?"

"Hiii~! Terribly sorry I'm late! It took you so long to get here...I nearly dozed off! Still...I'm surprised you weren't killed just now! You sure have incredible intuition dear~"

"What..."

"Y'know something? I had a feeling you'd be a great sinner~! ...I must've needed some excitement cause that woke me right up!" "That's great and all miss...but I don't really care...Could you just let me through...?"

"I supposed I can do that~"

Bright lights shined on Riley and she narrowed her eyes so it wasn't so harsh.

The iron bar door slid open and Riley walked through, and walked down the hallway to a room with locked doors.

"You said you'd let me through..." her voice was calm yet slightly irritated.

"My~ You're so impatient! At least let me finish putting on my makeup!"

Riley let out a huff of annoyance.

"There's a certain procedure each criminal must go through before their punishment is assigned~ If I were you, I'd start getting ready now. In fact I'll even open up a room for you~"

One of the doors unlocked and Riley went in.

(ignore the fact Zack and Rachel are there, it's a room with the mugshot board(?), a camera, and a table with a bin with the name boards)

"Every legitimate criminal has a mugshot, right~? Take a pretty one for me! ...Oh and it's not a proper mugshot without your name board, of course~"

Riley walked over to the table, grabbed her name board out of the bin which said "Riley Morgan" on it, in letters that looked as if they were painted with blood...which wouldn't be surprising if it WAS blood.

"How am I supposed to do this by myself..."

Riley huffed, and moved the camera closer to the wall, hung the name board around her neck and quickly took a picture, narrowing her eyes slightly at the flash.

"There..."

Taking the name board off and tossing it to the side, Riley grabbed the photo and held it up towards the security camera, and the iron bars slid out of the way.

Walking out of the door; into another hallway, but this time with poorly drawn images of what seemed to be torture methods.

"They're illustrations of punishments I designed, for sinners just like you~! I'll give you a choice,...there's more than one way to punish a sinner you see~, So I've got a variety of painful options waiting for you! Of course...if you'd rather spend the rest of your life rotting in a cell...it's always on the table~!"

"What kind of pathetic person would decide to rot forever..."

"Oh~? Too bad...and here I was hoping I'd get to keep you forever! ahahah~!"

Silently Riley walked into one of the rooms, filled with dolls...life size wooden dolls in rows of chairs...with what looked to be an electric chair in the front. "She- She's really trying to fry me to death!"

But suddenly the iron bars slid open.

"Ahaha~! I know you wouldn't survive that kind of punishment! I'd like to see a little sinner like you suffer for longer~ So I ever so kindly let you through!"

Riley hesitated before walking out of that room, into another hallway, with a door that had a warning sign on it. "Doesn't seem like the best of ideas...but it's the only chance I've got"

Opening the door open, Riley imagined sitting in the electric chair and being shocked over and over until she eventually died and shuddered, once inside the door locked behind her. "Great..., as if it wasn't bad enough to be locked in here, it really stinks!" scrunching her nose at the smell, she noticed a corpse in the middle of the room.

Sighing, Riley walked over to one of the blood stained windows, pulled her knife out of her pocket and bashed the handle against the window as hard as possible, but nothing happened, not even the slightest crack.

The TV's in the room turned on, showing Cathy.

"Hiiii~! Did you miss me dear?"

"Like the plague." Riley said flatly.

"Let me give you an explanation of the room you're in right now! And you'd better listen closely if you want to live. I got a little carried away with the design~ It's completely sealed, making it impossible for air to get in or out! The window glass has been reinforced, so you won't be able to break it! And the best part...I'm about to fill it with something veryyy special! If you stay in there long enough, you'll be on your way to a nice, peaceful death. It's poison gas~! Obviously I wouldn't confine you to a place like that with no way out...in fact, here's a gift~ I've mercifully provided a gas mask! As long as you do your best, of the utmost faith you'll escape! Oh, and of course I think it'd be a bit boring if I let you sit in there forever, so I've added a time limit! I knowwww~ I'm sooo thorough! After your time runs out you'll be given another gift! A gas so potent the mask won't do any good against it! That's all for now, have yourself a good time in there, and try not to die, okay~?"

Sighing, Riley glanced at the gas mask in the middle of the floor as the poison gas began to flow into the room, noticing the cracks in the eye lenses "Yeah...that won't be all that helpful..." and then walked over to the corpse on the floor and crouched down.

"There's writing..."

Riley gently shoved the body out of the way and read it

"The one with the ugly foot, the foolish killer who stomped out life with the right foot..."

Pausing as the writing got more difficult to read Riley huffed and then continued.

"It says something like...if you feel guilty get rid of your right foot, if the crime and punishment are equivalent, light will shine in hell."

Riley hesitated before grabbing the right foot, and walked over to the scale and placed it on one side, then grabbed the bag that was placed on the table and set it on the other side of the scale and watched as it balanced out.

The gas started to get to her, and Riley started coughing as it got harder to breath, quickly running over to the gas mask and putting it on, despite the cracks in it, it'd be better than nothing. The gas mask helped a little, but made it harder to see.

"This is stupid! Why the hell bother providing something if it's only going to make it harder you sadistic bitch?!"

Letting out a sigh of frustration Riley looked around hoping something had happened, and noticed the safe in the corner of the room had opened slightly, inside was a wire and a key card. Grabbing both, Riley walked over to where the key card would be inserted and put it in.

The gas stopped slowly and Riley smiled to herself, glad she had figured it out.

"My, my~ What a smart sinner you are~!"

"You're the one that made me come in here in the first place..."

"And you're the sinner who got yourself into this place~! You coulddd chose to rot in a cell~ It's still an option on the table dear~"

"Like I'd decide to do that! I'd rather die immedatley."

"My, my~ someone's eager to be punished for her sins~!" "Not like I can leave this floor till I'm "punished" anyway..."

Cathy laughed as Riley walked out of the room, down a hallway very slowly, the gas still taking its toll. Eventually she sat down against a wall where the cameras wouldn't see her and fell asleep.

Waking up with a jolt, Riley shook her head trying to get rid of the thoughts from the nightmare. Getting up and slowly down the hall, into a room with a smashed doll house, half expecting to be required to do something, she sighed and glanced at the TV in the room.

"I'll let you pass through this one~ I didn't know enough about you to mentally torture you so you're lucky!"

"and you said I took a long time to get here, in that time you could've figured out more about me, but why would you want to? I'm just an ugly, pathetic, useless, boring bitch."

"Oh~? I don't think you're boring! You're actually quite an interesting sinner~ You're smart and I like that about you~ You remind me of that gorgeous sinner; Eddie~!" Not knowing if that was a good thing or not, Riley slowly walked down another hallway, separated in two by a wall in the center with barbed wire on the top, stopping at the table. The door up on the ledge opened and Cathy stepped out.

"How nice to finally meet you in person~!" Riley just gave her a cold glare "You gonna let me through or not?" "My! You shouldn't be so rude to a pretty lady like me~! In order to continue, you must inject yourself with those syringes, one contains vitamins and the other contains dangerous drugs!" "Which is which?" "AHAHAHAHA~!! It doesn't matter! I won't tell, besides I forgot~! Once you inject every last drop I'll gladly open up the door for you! You might wanna hurry though...or else someone you love will die~" and with that, Cathy went back the way she came.

"Great...this could kill me, I'll probably die anyway..."

Grabbing both syringes, Riley looked at them; one of them contained green liquid and the other was yellow, but the colors didn't give any hints as to which was the vitamins and which was the drugs, it wouldn't matter since she'd have to inject both. Quickly Riley injected both into her arm, tossed the empty syringes to the side and the door opened.

"Stupid bitch...my heads pounding..." Riley stopped in the dim hallway and leaned against the wall with her hands against her head.

The so called "dangerous drugs" just brought out the voices in her head, telling her to kill someone, or something and they only got more persistent by the second.

"SHUT UP! JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Riley's voice had gone shrill, laced with insanity as it echoed through the dark empty hallway.

Continuing to walk down the hall as the voices got more and more persistent until she walked into a large room and the door slammed shut behind her, locking.

"Glad you could finally join your sister and I~! It took long enough..." There was a girl standing in the middle of the room with long dark brown hair and blueish green eyes.

"What does she have to do with this? I want nothing to do with her! She left me and Jack, and Jack died!!"

"Oh~, you don't want revenge~? All those voices in your head telling you to kill her but you just can't? Maybe you aren't as great of a sinner as I thought..." The brunette glanced at Riley "R-Riley don't...please..."

"Oh but why not!? Huh? WHY NOT LEXI!? Why shouldn't I? You left us alone, and Jack died. Why shouldn't I rip your throat out right here right fucking now?! So you can go be pathetic somewhere else? Nahhh~ I'll kill you myself, slowly and painfully and see how you like it!"

Fear shined in Lexi's eyes as Riley stepped closer

"Scared~? You should be!" Cathy laughed as she watched the two

"AHAHAH~!! I've provided you with a gun as well~ Kill her as you'd like!" Riley grabbed the gun and pointed it right at Lexi's head.

"You could've avoided this y'know? But you didn't...and now you'll pay for it!"

"RILEY PLEASE!" "You're gonna beg to live? Pathetic. If you're gonna beg, do it right, you don't look nearly as pathetic as he did." "W-wh-who d-did?" "You don't know? AHAH! Go on~ Tell her~!" Riley shot a cold glance at Cathy, enough to make her shut up, temporarily. "You're clueless...Jack? Yeahhh...I did it. I killed him." "YOU WHAT?"

Lexi attemped to grab the gun out of Riley's hand only to have it pressed to her chest.

"He begged me to, so I did." "You whore-" "Do you WANT me to pull this trigger? The trigger that'll end your pathetic existence?"

"Do as you please...it doesn't matter anymore..." Riley pulled the trigger but nothing happened.

Cathy giggled and then bursted out laughing.

Silently Riley pulled the knife out "You'll die one way or another~" and pointed it at Lexi's throat.

"Please...-"

Without saying anything, Riley took the knife and slid it across her arm, blood gushed down her arm but she seemed unbothered.

Silently Cathy got up, and walked down the stairs to where the siblings are "WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!? YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE KILLING HER!" "Did I say I wasn't going to..?" The drugs would've worn off at this point, but because Riley was younger and smaller they hadn't yet, without hesitating she flicked the knife back towards Lexi

"RILEY PLEASE! Can't you hold back?" "Hold back!? IF I COULD I WOULDN'T BE HERE!" "Sinners can't control their bloodlust~ Just accept it!" Lexi stepped back only to stumble and fall

"Get up. Now." Lexi didn't get up, so Riley grabbed her arm and jerked her up making her stand up and quickly plunged the knife into her stomach over and over, blood gushed out and covered the floor around them, Cathy laughed as Riley plunged the knife deeper every time until she stopped and Lexi's body fell to the floor, limp and dead.

"My, my~ You ARE a great sinner~ Now you'll get your punishment~!"

Riley just glared at Cathy silently, her eyes seeming cold and dead.

Without warning the 4 guns in the corners of the room began firing, not knowing what to do, Riley ducked hoping they'd stop before they got to her, unfortunately they didn't and one shot her in the leg.

"You'd look great filled with bullet holes~" Collapsing on her knees, Riley glared up at Cathy "So would you" and pointed the gun at her, forgetting nothing had happened when she pulled the trigger last time.

"Go on~ Shoot me~!" "Why are you so eager to be shot?"

"Just do it! Unless....you aren't as great of a sinner as I thought~" Riley pointed it at Cathy's head and pulled the trigger but nothing happened "AHAHAHA~!! Foolish of you to think I'd actually give you a loaded gun!"

Despite the blood gushing from the bullet wound, Riley shakily got up "So...are you gonna kill me or..." "No. A sinner like you is much too interesting to be killed~!"

Riley sat on the floor, watching blood pool around her, and her sisters dead body in silence.

[air-in-words]

The Phantom of the Opera: Sorting Hat Chats System

I have returned! This time, I'm talking about one of my longest running obsessions: The Phantom of the Opera musical. Keep in mind, this will only be in reference to the way the characters are presented in the musical, so the housing may be different in different media.

Also, if you have any questions about the system, I'd direct you to my last post about Scooby-Doo, or to @sortinghatchats (the originators of the system) and @wisteria-lodge (my personal favorite fan sorter.)

First off, as discussed elsewhere, stories themselves can have houses as well! Since this musical is my absolute favorite and I have dissected it on more than one occasion, I feel I can speak on the houses this story comments on. At it's core, Phantom is a story that sets the Gryffindor Primary way of life against the Slytherin way, and forces the heroine to acknowledge what kind of person she is. Is she a fighter or a lover?

In this story, Gryffindor Primary says that your ideals are most important. What is right and what is good should win out in the end. Those who are wrong should be punished and evil and good truly exist in this world. There are angels and there are demons, and only the angels have earned their right to love.

Meanwhile, the Slytherin Primary says love is the final word. It argues that you love who you love, and all is fair in love and war. And that doesn't just mean romantic love. Creative love, familial love, friendly love, love of one's career.... all of these are beyond "good" and "evil," "right" and "wrong." Love is not created by seeing the goodness of a person, and can exist despite the existence of evil there, and that is okay.

The moral of this story, in my opinion, falls in the Slytherin camp. And that is because two of three main characters are Slytherin Primaries, and it is through their love, of art, of creation, and of each other (romantically or not) that the main conflict is resolved.

I'll only be sorting the three main characters, as they're really all I need to illustrate this point. Here we go!

The Phantom: Slytherclaw (Exploded Slytherin Primary, Ravenclaw Secondary)

The Phantom is an ultimate example of the "Jack of All Trades" Ravenclaw Secondary. He is a scholar, musician, composer, singer, architect, inventor... the list goes on. He is a collector of tools, and these tools he uses to compensate for his deformity. He has made himself overly competent to feel better and as though he might deserve a place at humanity's table. He uses careful planning and control over an environment he claims is his to give the impression of being a ghost. That brings us to his Exploded Slytherin Primary, or rather, his initially Petrified Slytherin Primary. Being a ghost is the dream of any Petrified Slytherin. To become a literal non-entity, unable to be hurt, unable to love, unable to care for anyone other than themselves. He was very unfortunate to be born with a Slytherin Primary housing, as the rejection of those he loved lead him to his petrifying. He wanted no one in his circle but himself and sought to other himself purposefully, removing himself from society. Until, he met Christine. Her love of music and creation, a love he had used to replace his need for chosen people, helped him to connect, and he slowly began to un-petrify. This could have been a healthy thing for him, a way for him to return to life, but no. He was so certain he'd never need anyone else, never want anyone else, never find anyone else that he clung desperately to her, became obsessed, and we watch his explosion throughout the musical. In one fell swoop, he went from entirely petrified to an explosion of pent-up love and devotion aimed only at her, all his love for the chosen people before him aimed only at her. And, with his newly ignited love, he tries to convince Christine to be only with him, care only for him, which as an Exploded Slytherin Primary, feels like the only way to properly love someone, the only right way to live, and murder and extortion are perfectly respectable ways to attempt to hang onto that love. So, he asks her to give in to the "music of the night." Her love of music, creation, and her devotion to him as her Angel of Music. But, there is another man in her life, telling her there's a higher calling, a higher judge of character than love.

Raoul de Chagny: True Gryffindor (Gryffindor Primary, Gryffindor Secondary)

I know Raoul has a reputation of being a soft-hearted guy, but this guy is most definitely a Gryffindor Secondary. After not seeing Christine for years, he has no problem coming into her dressing room uninvited and inviting her to dinner, and expects no pushback from her. He is quick to judgement, confronting the managers about sending him a note that he has little proof they sent. He makes himself as a barrier against evil, as he swears with confidence that he will protect Christine from a man who has already killed once. He is filled with fiery passion for doing what is right above all else and will barrel over any evil-doer who stands in his way, an old school Knight in Shining Armor. But, his Gryffindor Primary ultimately leads him into conflict with the woman he loves. After having seen this monster attack innocent people, he is sure that Christine would want to run away with him and condemn the Phantom for all time, but he is utterly confused by her reaction. Not only is she not running away, she's actively refusing to help capture him and pushing against him! Why?? Raoul's extreme Gryffindor-ness leads him down into the lair to save her when she is taken, to be immediately rendered useless by both the punjab lasso and the plot. His righteous nature is not wrong, and in many other stories, he would be the hero of the day. But, this is a Slytherin story, and so love is the only solution.

Christine Daaé: Slytherpuff (Slytherin Primary, Hufflepuff Secondary)

We spend a lot of the musical inside Christine's head, more than we spend watching her physically act in reality, but we can still figure out her secondary. Her Hufflepuff Secondary comes out in her devotion to her craft. She is a hard worker and takes her art very seriously. But, Christine can also be a doormat, allowing people like Carlotta to walk all over her for far too long out of fear of rocking the boat. She is regarded as a quiet and kind woman who works diligently at her craft, so Puff Secondary felt right. Now, for her most defining trait in the musical, her (almost unhealthy) Slytherin Primary. Christine has never quite petrified, but she has come very close. Her father was, and, for a while into the musical, still is, her entire world. He was her only companion in life for a very long time, and all of her creative energy came from her love for him. Then, she met Raoul as a child. The young and charming True Gryffindor was easily able to slip past her shyness with his Gryff Secondary panache, and she had found another chosen person to bring into her life. Even after they were separated, she never forgot him and continued to love and appreciate him. Then, her father died. She nearly petrified, wanted to push most people away, especially with Raoul nowhere to be found, but the Angel of Music her father promised her came to her. The Angel replaced her father in her circle of chosen people and became the most important person in her life. She would sing for him out of devotion and love, just like her father was a muse to her. But, Raoul's sudden return into her life creates the conflict. Things have changed, Raoul. She has someone she feels a loyalty to that she cannot break. Even as her Angel is proven to be a deformed man, even after he has murdered, even then, she cannot bring herself to despise him and shun him. When you're in with a Slytherin, you're in hard. It is only when the Phantom tries to take advantage of her grief at her father's grave, only after she fully confronts that her father is never coming back, that she can bring herself to fully side against him with Raoul. The Phantom should know how much her father means to her. He should understand. A Slytherin using another Slytherin's person against them is the ultimate betrayal. The next betrayal came when he threatened to take away Raoul, her last chosen person beyond the Phatom himself, trying to force her to become like him and live in the darkness alone. Instead, it is through Christine's Slytherin-like act of love towards Phantom, even beyond his horrible acts, that ends his tirade.

Let me know what you think of my analysis! [And, if anyone in the Phandom sees this: yes, I love Raoul. No, I don't like LND. I'm technically a fan of both E/C and R/C, but I believe R/C is ultimately canon and better aligns with the moral of the original story. Meghan Picerno is my current favorite Christine (love me an operatice Christine,) Jordan Donica is the best Raoul to ever grace the stage and deserves a spin at the Phantom, and Earl Carpenter has my favorite acting interpretation of the Phantom even if his singing was only okay.]