#But also.... WHERE'S THE CIPHER DAVID

[sacrificialarrow]

I honestly love my brain sometimes bc having used the bits of Elvish we know for writing and that, I'm pretty sure Solas' statement to Elgar'nan ( "Ma banal'evanuris. Ma salin ar ghilana?" ) when he's helping you free the Dalish from Elgar'nan's ritual translates as thus: ( or something very similar. )

"You are a terrible leader. With you to guide me, what did you expect?"

[dedalvs]

Hey! I'm David Peterson, and a few years ago, I wrote a book called Create Your Own Secret Language. It's a book that introduces middle grade readers to codes, ciphers, and elementary language creation. The age range is like 10-14, but skews a little bit older, as the work gets pretty complicated pretty quick. I think 12-13 is the best age range.

Anyway, I decided to look at the Amazon page for it a bit ago, and it's rated fairly well (4.5 at the moment), but there are some 1 star reviews, and I'm always curious about those. Usually they're way off, or thought the book was going to be something different (e.g. "This book doesn't teach you a thing about computer coding!"), but every so often there's some truth in there. (Oh, one not 1 star but lower rated review said they gave it to their 2nd grader, but they found it too complicated. I appreciate a review like that, because I am not at all surprised—I think it is too complicated for a 2nd grader—and I think a review like that is much more effective than a simple 10+ age range on the book.) The first 1 star rating I came to, though, was this:

Now calling a completely mild description of a teenage girl who has a crush on another girl controversial is something I take exception to, but I don't want to pile on this person. Instead I wanted to share how this section came to be in the book.

The book is essentially divided into four parts. The first three parts deal with different ciphers or codes that become more complicated, while the last part describes elementary language creation. The first three sections are each built around a message that the reader can decode, but with language creation, the possibilities are too numerous and too complicated, so there isn't an example to decode, or anything. It would've been too difficult.

For what the messages to decode are about, though, I could do, potentially, anything, so at first I thought to tie them into a world of anthropomorphic animals (an ongoing series of battles between cats and mice), with messages that are being intercepted and decoded. My editor rejected that. Then I redid it so that each section had an individual story that had to do with some famous work of literature. My editor rejected that as well. He explained that it needed to be something that was relevant to kids of the target age range. I was kind of at a loss, for a bit, but then I thought of a story of kids sending secret messages about their uncle who eats too many onions. I shared that, my editor loved it, and I was like, all right. I can do this.

The tough part for me in coming up with mini-stories to plan these coded messages around was coming up with a reason for them to be secret. That's the whole point of a code/cipher: A message you want to be sure no one else but the intended recipient can read in case the message is intercepted. With the first one, two kids are poking gentle fun at a family member, so they want to be sure no one else can read what they're writing. For the last one, a boy is confessing to a diary, because he feels bad that he allowed his cat to escape, but no one knows he did it (he does find the cat again). For the other, I was trying to think of plausible message-sending scenarios for a preteen/teen, and I thought of how we used to write notes in, honestly, 4th and 5th grade, but I aged it up a bit, and decided to have a story about a girl writing a note to her friend because she has a crush on another girl, and wants her friend's opinion/help.

Here's where the point of sharing this comes in. As I had originally written it, the girl's note to her friend was not just telling her friend about her crush, it was also a coming out note, and she was concerned what her parents would react poorly.

Anyway, I sent that off with the rest of my draft, and I got a bunch of comments back on the whole draft (as expected), but my editor also commented on that story, in particular. Specifically, he noted that not every LGBTQ+ story has to be a coming out story, the part about potential friction between her and her parents because of it was a little heavy for the book, and, in general, not every coming out story has to be traumatic.

That was all he said, but I immediately recognized the, in hindsight, obvious truth of all three points, and I was completely embarrassed. I changed it immediately, so that the story beats are that it's a crush, she's not sure if it'll be reciprocated, and she's also very busy with school and band and feels like this will be adding even more busy-ness to her daily life as a student/teen. Then I apologized for making such a blunder. My editor was very good about it—after all, that's what drafts and editors are for—and that was a relief, but I'm still embarrassed that I didn't think of it first.

But, of course, this is not my lived experience, not being a member of the LGBTQ+ community. This is the very reason why you have sensitivity readers—to provide a vantage point you're blind to. In this case, I was very fortunate to have an editor who was thinking ahead, and I'm very grateful that he was there to catch it. That editor, by the way, is Justin Krasner.

One reason I wanted to share this, though, is that while it always is a bit of a difficult thing to speak up, because there might be a negative reaction, sometimes there is no pushback at all. Indeed, sometimes the one being called out is grateful, because we all have blindspots due to our own lived experiences. You can't live every life. For that reason, your own experience will end up being valuable to someone at some point in time for no other reason than that you lived it and they didn't. And, by the by, this is also true for the present, because the lives we've lived cause us to see what's going on right before our eyes in different lights.

Anyway, this is a story that wouldn't have come out otherwise, so I wanted to be sure to let everyone know that Justin Krasner ensured that my book was a better book. An editor's job is often silent and thankless, so on Thanksgiving, I wanted to say thank you, Justin. <3

[wittymumbledon]

been tinkering with this self-indulgent little thing for a lil' while now, but I think it's finally ready to release into the wild - I've seen a few takes on the concept of a Gravity Falls and Jekyll and Hyde crossover already - and with the nature of things there's likely going to be quite a bit of overlap - but nonetheless I wanted to try and make my own take on it. (I will note, though, that I was quite inspired by @maruchanart - especially in regards to Bill's design :])

Now - "The Strange Case of Dr Pines and Mr Cipher" is quite the mouthful (and no doubt quite the painful hashtag) - so from here onwards I will simply refer to this as

The Strange Case AU

I haven't worked out the details yet - and the details that I have are likely to change considering I originally based this off the musical and am now also reading the original novel but- As it stands -

This AU will be loosely based on a combination of the original Robert Louis Stevenson novel and the later Jekyll & Hyde musical. If I end up making any sort of animated content I will likely use the original 1994 recordings (they're gorgeous, can you blame me?), but I am most visually inspired by the 2001 production (the one with David Hasselhoff in it - I've already stolen his ponytail for my Ford lol)

Though the AU features the GF cast (those of them that were around in the 70s and 80s anyway), it will be set back in the early 1800s like the original story. We'll sort out the time anomalies as they arise - I don't want to think about it too hard right now I imagine there might be some shifts to a couple family trees though...

The roles of Jekyll and Hyde will - understandably - be played by Dr. Stanford Pines and Mr. William Lucipher

Stanford's character remains mostly the same - he is still a brilliant scientist, curious about the strange and a workaholic to the core - but he leans more towards the egotistic (there's a lot more of his "Why didn't Rudolph use his red-hot nose to burn his oppressor's workshop to the ground?" side showing through)

The main roles get a lot muddier from here - especially considering some of the character changes between the novel and the musical - but Fiddleford mainly plays a joint role of Lanyon and Emma, with some Utterson thrown in where suitable (and potentially a bit of Lucy too--see I told you it gets muddy real quick). A brilliant mind for mechanics and mathematics, but also a mind prone to paranoia. He is in perpetual conflict over his feelings about Stanford's experiment and his feelings about Stanford himself.

Stanley mostly replaces Utterson from either version of the story, an likely whatever parts of Lanyon that can't taken over by Fidds. After getting disowned - and lacking his twin's much higher social reputation - he ends up working at a factory.

Feel free to ask about more details (might get me to finish the artworks faster lol) or make your own suggestions/speculations! :3

[4belg]

Gravity Falls Doodles

young Stans, mistery twins and some weird shit.

showing some more of my Gravity Falls sketches because I have a LOT of stuff about the twins

some of the drawings have doodles from some of my friends (i like it when they leave drawings in my notebook, I rarely erase them because I leave them as a souvenir)

I really love Relativity AU and the young Stan and Ford, so I usually draw them on my sketchbook :3c

Moving on from the drafts a bit, I'm watching the movie Labyrinth where David Bowie plays Jareth, the goblin king. I thought a lot about my Bill Cipher design and thought about taking elements and the story to create an AU, because since I'm going to take the reference costume, why not the story too?

Well, here's the first sketch of Bill!! (they/them)

I also saved some pictures of potential characters that I can draw inspiration from some pre-existing ones. I have plans for these pals....

[karatridere]

eng (rus after eng)

!warning! bad english

It's never too late to be late! And when hype around Gravity Falls decreased I finally drew my humanization of Bill Cipher. And what i can say about it?

The mirror in the shape of triangle. It's meaning that all humanization of Bill and (lately) billsons are more about who we are then who is Bill.

Golden elf ears. It's like silicone, but golden, and from backside it like alchemic symbol of gold. You also can see this symbol on his cane. Does this mean that he can turn into gold smth with it? Maybe.

The Star of David. It doesn't make much sense, just Pineses are Jews, and they play an important role in Bill's life.

Why does he look like an androgen girl? Because for first he is a triangle-demon and human sex/gender is rather simple for him. I also tried to do him out of any ages.

The henna. Others was realizing this with gloves or a gradient, i chose henna. But more interesting that what had drawn with it.

The Behenian fixed stars. It used in the Interdimensional Portal design. Does this mean that he can open portal in other dimensions by himself? Maybe. What is the principle of their placement? I have 15 stars and 5 fingers from what follows that I should to draw three stars on each finger without any repeats. The rule that I have created: every star respond to two planets (or a planet and a moon, or a planet), from the planet where one pair ends, the other begin. (For example: Spica, Procyon, Arcturus – Venus-Mercury, Mercury-Mars, Mars-Jupiter). Can he open any locks with index fingers? Maybe.

The Venus symbol ♀. Did you know that in the Paleolithic era, statues of the Mother Goddess (Paleolithic Venus) were designated not only by the vulva, but also by the pubic triangle? Bill is a pussy.

The Saturn symbol ђ. It has something to do with me. But how? It's secret🤫

Blue stones. It give some magical powers to Bill in his "human" body. LIke telekinesis and possibility to influencing people's actions. Does it remind smth?

Triangles on the nails. There are alchemic symbols of fire on the fingers that are clicked. Does this mean that he can burn out fire with it? Maybe.

Skirt. W2H2 was recently released. Have you watched it? The design of Sock is my beloved forever.

рус

Никогда не поздно быть чёртовски не вовремя! И вот когда хайп спал, я наконец-то вымучила свой концепт-дизайн для хуманизации Билла Сайфера. Сколько я сама видела разных вариантов, не пересчитать никаким образом. Сейчас буду пояснять за свой глубокий замысел (если он есть).

Зеркало в форме треугольника. Ну вы понимаете, сначала был тренд на хуманизацию Билла, потом на биллсон. Я бы сказала, что все эти дизайны – это зеркало нас самих. Ну и собственно я это и "сказала" посредством своего рисунка.

Золотые "эльфийские уши". Да по сути эта штучка, она как силиконовые накладки на уши для косплееров, но из золота. Сначала в этом был только смысл, что она треугольная, а уже потом я посмотрела на алхимический символ золота и модернизировала эту деталь. Кстати, этот же символ помещён на трость. Может ли он обращать предметы в золото ею? Не знаю, вполне может быть.

Звезда Давида. Пайнсы сыграли значительную роль в жизни Билла, а они евреи. Всё, больше никакого скрытого смысла.

Почему вообще такая вот андрогинная "девочка"? Ну я исходила из крайностей и того "чего ещё не было". У треугольника не может быть "человеческого" пола, а с возрастом у него как известно всё сложно. Я старалась сделать так, чтобы не было понятно ни какого он пола, ни какой у него возраст, этакое веяние современного интернета.

Хна. Мне как-то хотелось реализовать то, что обычно рисуют как ��ёрный градиент, растянутый от ладони до локтя, или перчатки. Тут гораздо интереснее другое.

Неподвижные звёзды Бегениана. Они используются во Вселенском портале, тут они как знак, что Билл материализовался "своими силами". По какому принципу они расположены? Сложно. Объясню на примере: большой палец –Spica, Procyon, Arcturus; Spica соответствуют две планеты – Венера и Меркурий, Procyon – Меркурий и Марс, Arcturus – Марс и Юпитер. Наблюдаем закономерности: чем кончается одна пара, тем начинается следующая (в дальнейшем есть только одно исключение – Sirius, Alkaid), в тройке звёзд "соответствующие" им планеты при иных обстоятельствах не повторяются. С чем связанно именно такой способ разделения? звёзд – 15, пальцев – 5, соответственно по три звезды на каждый. Может ли он открывать любые замки указательными пальцами? Не знаю, вполне может быть.

Зеркало Венеры ♀. А вы знали, что в палеолите на равне с ярко-выраженной вульвой, "Венеры" (статуэтки матери-богини) обозначались так же лобковым треугольником? ( Сначала Билл был бы для людей символом матери-богини, потом пирамидой, потом символом алхимического огня и вот уже только в конце всевидящим оком – символом масонства. Насыщенная жизнь, что сказать.)

Символ сатурна ђ. Этот символ как-то связан со мной, но как же🤔секрет🤭

Головной обруч. Мне нет оправдания, просто захотелось.

Голубые камни. В телах людей, которые Билл захватывал, он не обладал магией, поэтому кто-то добрый подарил ему эти камни. Функционал такой же как в сериале у амулета Гидеона (только эти вряд ли отбеливают волосы).

Треугольники на ногтях. Это те пальцы, которыми щёлкают. Может ли он разжигать ими огонь? Не знаю, вполне может быть.

Юбка. Недавно вышел W2H2, видели? Я по жизни руководствуюсь стилем Сока, поэтому получите, распишитесь.

Сапоги. Ну он типа оленям зубы вырывал, помните? Вот и я не помню.

На третьем концепте у него из своих шмоток только сапоги и трусы.

Канец. Всем хорошего дня, если дочитали русскую ча��ть до конца, можете заглянуть в фф моих друзей (сама так решила), он по гф с пометкой "как ориджинал" (это я, кстати, тоже сама так решила) https://ficbook.net/readfic/0191b4bd-c252-7af0-9375-63f61b8faadd Спасиба😊

[newx-menfan]

Unpopular ships I have-

Decided to post this, in lieu of my Angel/Jean post!

————————————————————————

Hellion and X-23: top most controversial ship for Laura, despite also being the most popular and the one I regularly get criticisms about…

Angel and Jean: Talked about it before, but it’s the only time I really enjoy Warren, admittedly. There’s just something about their dynamic that I like and I feel like Jean brings out the best in Warren/Warren legitimately seems to love Jean unselfishly and would be a much healthier relationship…

Logan and Mariko: It’s the only relationship of Logan’s that I like, despite it being forgotten. I really liked how Mariko brought out a gentler side in Logan.

Cipher and Psylocke: I KNOW it’s problematic

Kitty and Cipher: He OBVIOUSLY had a crush on her

Kitty and Karma: The less popular Kitty ship. While I DO love Kitty and Illyana…I think Karma forced Kitty to grow up a bit and I liked that! Also I don’t know if I would want to risk Kitty losing her friendship with Illyana over a relationship…

Kitty and Colossus: I know- I KNOW it’s problematic but I still have some nostalgia for it

Magma and Rachel Summers: the issue where they break into the Hellfire club gave them a TON of chemistry AND they both hate Selene so…maybe it’s just because they were both in fetish gear lol 😂🤣

Surge and Prodigy: I know people prefer him with men…but I really enjoyed their dynamic and none of David’s partners are as brutally honest with him as Nori was.

Elixir and X-23: Their dynamic in “X-Force” was cute…even if Josh is a bigger fuckboy than Hellion lol 😂

X-23 and Kiden: Going to be honest; I don’t like Jubilee and Laura together. Maybe it’s Laura’s jealousy over how Logan treated Jubilee better than her… maybe it’s Liu… but I just don’t like it. Kiden and Laura seemed way more organic and I don’t like Laura constantly being tied to Logan anyway

Monet and Synch: I know it’s pretty popular but it’s less talked about after Talon’s introduction

Jubilee and Synch: I admittedly didn’t care for Jubilee and Chamber- I think I could have gotten on board if the writing was better but I just didn’t feel like it made much sense (ironically I don’t like Husk and Chamber either). Jubilee was madly in love with Everett and I feel bitter that if we weren’t going to get him back with Monet, this should have been the next best thing. They really suit one another perfectly!

Hellion and Illyana: I really liked the M-day story and their chemistry lol

Anole and Striker: Let Victor have a long term boyfriend!

Hellion and Wallflower: I actually would want an AU story with this or just to see them interact again because Julian bullied her like crazy and I could see Julian feeling bad about it (Honestly he was way meaner to Laurie than he ever was to Laura…)

Wallflower and Wind Dancer: I stand by that the most chemistry Laurie had with anyone was with Sofia lol 😘

Hellion and Dust: They always had an interesting friendship and I again would be interested in an AU with them together, since Dust kind of WAS Julian’s “Jiminy Cricket” and Julian would bring Sooraya out of her shell

Hellion and Surge: I actually think they’re made for each other and it would be the healthiest relationship either one of them had lol, the only issue is that they’re TOO MUCH alike 😂🤣

Mercury and Wither: I KNOW it’s not popular and was super toxic but I admittedly wanted it to work out because I felt so bad for Cessily wanting someone to love her🤣😭

X-23 and Mercury: While I admittedly prefer them more as friends, I do like them together … I don’t really care for Cess’s relationship with Loa…I like Bling! but I wish the relationship hadn’t started out terribly…

Hellion and Mercury: More as a “What if it happened?” Then actually outright shipping it lol 😂

X-23 and Wither: Actually want that dynamic in an AU after @dont-miss-me mentioned it 😂🤣

Havok and Madelyn: Only time that I liked Havok

Forge and Storm: least popular ship but now catching on… I LOVE “Life Death”… it is HANDS DOWN my favorite X-Men story!

Hellion and Blindfold: I KNOW it’s sacrilegious because of David and Ruth… but I really liked the weird dynamic they had and how nice Hellion was to her in Whedon’s book…even if Carey kind of killed it lol

Hellion and Jean: Was kind of shocked writers DIDN’T do it with teen time-displaced Jean honestly… I could TOTALLY see a future time displaced adult Hellion and Jean having an “Emma and Jean/Scott” dynamic tbh 😂🤣🤣

Sophie and Ms Marvel: JUST for the Korrasami lols 😂

Ms Marvel and Hellion: COME ON… it WOULD be funny and her having a crush would be hysterical 😂🤣🤣

Local and X-23: He’s so underdeveloped that I wouldn’t say I ship it… but I do want to like them together after years of shitty Laura relationships

Hellion and Tag: I get why people ship Elixir and Hellion (Julian definitely had a bit of a bro crush on Josh before their friendship soured)… but Tag was madly in love with Julian.

Prodigy and Idie: I don’t know what her age is in comparison but I do like them together/ would want an AU with them together- honestly it sucks that Marvel has pretty much ZERO black couples consistently

Rogue and the Human Touch: Love Rogue and Gambit… but it WOULD be way healthier…

Rogue and Michael Rossi: Would have been interesting to explore more since #182 WAS a great issue! (It’s another weird favorite of mine!)

Rachel Summers and Nicholas Damiano: Died too soon

Emma and Cyclops: People’s opinions shift so much on this relationship that I will put it here; I just liked Scott’s character growth with Emma and vice versa

Empath and Magma: It’s completely and utterly toxic but also a really interesting dynamic storyline wise and no one does anything with Amara anymore/knows how to write her…

Sunfire and Jean: I don’t even know why I just like the way they would look together lol

Longshot and Spiral: People forget she used to be a stunt actress Ricochet Rita and they had a thing… Rita WAS adorable 🥺

Longshot and Rogue: Her crush was ADORABLE and I loved Blaire’s jealousy

Warpath and Firestar: Mostly because both hated Emma and being on the Hellions

Thunderbird and Blink: technically a the Gifted show ship that’s been forgotten…but whatevs 😂🤣

Armor and Mercury: they’re dynamic was fun in “Pixie Strikes Back”

Pixie and Velciodad: That love triangle with Hope was the ONLY interesting thing in that book lol

Match and Spectre: idk why, just like them even if there’s little to no development

Sage and Rogue: liked their dynamic in X-Treme X-Men

Captain Britain and Meggan: I know their relationship is chaotic but I do still enjoy them together

Nightcrawler and Meggan: Kurt objectively treats her better and their relationship is so sweet

Peter Wisdom and Kitty: I KNOW people are going to hate me for this… I do like Peter even if he IS a John Constantine ripoff….

Quill and Surge: I just like Quill visually and thought his crush was cute

X-23 and Prodigy: Could TOTALLY see an AU of this

Hrimhari and Wolfsbane: Only interesting ship Rahne has, in my opinion

Rachel Summers and Franklin Richards: I don’t know why I love this old DoFP relationship but I do…

Wolverine and Heather Hudson: If Logan is going to screw up a marriage/homewreck…this is definitely the one to ruin lol (and I just liked how Heather took care of him)

[savagewildnerness]

Lestat at the start of The Tale of the Body Thief:

Hi! I’m The Vampire Lestat! I’m 6ft tall & VERY attractive! Miami’s pretty great! Apart from all vampires can’t stand each other so we’re all solitary now! I love that though! (Even though I am in love with all vampires. I wonder where my beautiful mother, who is also my child is?)

I love killing the evildoer!!!… Can I be good if I save just one human who would have been murdered from death….? I don’t think so (but I’d appreciate it if you thought so!)

Wait… this murderer I’ve been following is utterly insane & unaware he’s even a murderer… I won’t even get to drink all his delicious murdery thoughts… how very disappointing… AND he’s not even beautiful! He’s ugly & dirty & mad…. but that old lady he was going to kill… she is so wonderful: her incredible life & self & the skeleton leaf of her younger self that she remains as now. Why, we even have the same taste in novels! I guess I’ll kill the murderer. SIGH. That was unsatisfying….

…Whoops I killed the lady too. In a very sexy way though! I’m so awful! (It was so Romantic!) I’m hungry for MORE!

Why is this weird person who’s followed me round the world giving me a story? Probably just some mad mortal & it means nothing.

Oh look, there’s David Talbot! I think I might have ruined his life, but I’ll just follow him everywhere anyway. I do worry about him.

I’d write a book about Rembrandt & The Devil if I was mortal. Here’s my plot summary… maybe that writer - Anne Rice could write it for me….? Obviously, since I’m a vampire, *I* can only write about MYSELF!!!

Gosh! I wish Claudia would stop haunting me. I can’t talk about it really, but I wish Akasha hadn’t turned me into a cipher to the terror of masculinity & made me a massacring evil Angel from which I can never absolve myself. And worse… I enjoyed it. It was sexy too. Why did I (sexily) kill that old lady? I THINK IT IS TIME TO SHUFFLE OFF THIS (IM)MORTAL COIL!!!

Well, I know I said I’d ruined David’s life, but I think I’ll just nip in for a visit & tell him he’s got less than a year to live & that I’m suicidal & am off to kill myself immediately…. But I’ll check a few hundred times if he’d like to be a vampire too! Just to torture him some more. David’s so funny! Why on Earth is he reading Faust & the bible!!!?! Bonkers!! Mmmmm… David is so beautiful & sexy too. But yes. I am ready to DIE.

I don’t know if I can kill myself, but I AM THE VAMPIRE LESTAT, so OF COURSE I’ll make like Icarus himself & fly directly into the sun! I’ll eat the sun if I can! I MUST MAKE SURE I AM TOTALLY NAKED BEFORE I FLY TO MY DEATH! Did you hear me? I’m taking my clothes OFF!!! I’m flying to the sun NAKED! I’ve done it! I have no clothes on at all! Are you sure you’re not thinking about how sad it is that I want to die & you’re definitely thinking about how naked I am instead?

I’m not in any way thinking about how I might only get a sun tan from this & I don’t want it to be uneven. I am SUICIDAL! I’m suicidal AND naked! I do sometimes lie to myself. But I wouldn’t lie to you. So let’s just say it’s one & the same to me - if I am blotted from existence or if I just get a marvellous tan. OK THEN! You’re absolutely certain you’re thinking about how naked I am?! Let’s go!

Oh no! I’m not dead, but this hurts a lot. I wish I was dead… I don’t think the sun can kill me…. But let’s give it one more go….

Omg… I gave it two whole days & this hurts a lot & it might take a year to kill me. I think I’ll just stay alive after all. I’ll just go lie naked on David’s tiger rug for 3 days as I contemplate my existence some more (he killed that tiger, you know!) I’m sure this won’t traumatise him any further & that it has zero psychological implications.

3 days later! I *suppose* I’d better put some clothes on now.

Woohoo! I’m glad I’m not dead actually. OMG I have such a FABULOUS sun tan! I have never looked more exquisitely beautiful! Thank GOODNESS I had the prescience to attempt suicide NAKED in order that I’ve made total use of this effect! Look at my iridescent eyes! Yippee! I’m so excited I could do a tap dance! I can’t believe I wanted to die so very deeply & now I’m filled with delight about how pretty I am! I think I’ll try to kill myself more often! Next time I’ll make sure that as I feel the sun like the fire of Hell upon my skin, I do a little twirl, just to make sure the tan is that much more even!

…

[nalesnik-z-morela]

@purrlockholmesbooks and i as Aziraphale and Crowley!!

Where Aziraphale-Amanda is actually a books enjoyer and Crowley is just David Tennant with my hair.

Also a little Bill Cipher, i think he deserves attention:

It's literally written "little fart" in polish, if you wanna know i call my cat by this name.

[hashed-potatoes-with-salt]

An Overview of The Nihilist Cipher

Hello! If you're someone interested in ciphers, read ahead to learn a little about one of my long time favorite ciphers, the Nihilist Cipher.

The Nihilist cipher is a polyalphabetic substitution cipher, which basically means it relies on multiple shift ciphers applied to different letters in the text being encoded. If you're familiar with the Vigenère Cipher, Nihilist is pretty similar in a lot of ways.

I'll go through some history of the cipher, how to encode/decode using it, and how to conduct a known plaintext attack on it. I'll also go over how you might approach attacking it without a known plaintext (mainly because I think it's cool), but it won't be the main focus.

History

The Nihilist Cipher was first used by Russian nihilists against Russia's tsarist regime in the late 19th century. It's since been used as a basis for several ciphers with improved security used in WWII, notably the VIC cipher which is essentially an extremely complex hand-encoded cipher that's part of the Nihilist family.

"If [the VIC] cipher were to be given a technical name, it would be known as a 'straddling bipartite monoalphabetic substitution superenciphered by modified double transposition.'" David Kahn, Number One From Moscow

Usage

Encoding a message requires two things: A key and a Polybius square, known by you and the person you're communicating with. A Polybius square is one of these guys:

To use the cipher, you must first convert the plaintext into a numeric representation by mapping each letter to a number using the square. The mapping follows a (row, column) scheme, so the letter 'T' in the above square would become '45'. You'll notice that the square is 5x5, meaning there is 1 less square than there are letters in the English alphabet! This is typically solved by either choosing a square to represent 2 letters, differentiated using context by the receiver, or by simply leaving off an unused/infrequently used letter (often Q). It's also common to place a word at the start of the Polybius square, in this case "EXAMPLE" to offset the alphabet and avoid the mappings becoming trivial and obvious to attackers.

After we convert the plaintext to it's numeric representation, that's when the key becomes important. We first encode the key we picked using the Polybius square (i.e. the key MATH would become 14 13 45 32). Then, we repeat the key along the plaintext, and add each plaintext value to the key value to get the ciphertext!

To decode, the receiver must simply repeat the encryption process in reverse: repeating the key across the ciphertext, subtracting the key values, and translating the numeric plaintext back into English text. Because the encryption and decryption processes use the same key, the Nihilist Cipher is considered symmetric.

Known Plaintext Attack

Now we get into the fun part: How can we decode Nihilist encoded text without knowing the key? We will assume we know some ciphertext and the plaintext associated with it. Therefore, our goal is to use what we know to reveal the key, and use the key to decrypt the rest of the cipher. For example, assume we know that the first line of the Bee Movie script, "According to all known laws of aviation", results in the ciphertext "37 66 67 64 35 68 48 53 75 66 57 66 56 84 84 32 57 95 25 84 66 73 36 86 45 65 94 55 37 88 48 85 54".

Since the ciphertext is simply the result of adding the key to the plaintext, to find the key we only need to do the reverse and subtract the plaintext from the ciphertext!

Even with only this short segment, we can see the repeating key is "14 42 43 21 14 43". Now we can repeat this key across the whole message and decrypt the Bee Movie script into numeric encoded plaintext.

At this point, you might be realizing where the next challenge lies. Unless you happen to be in a situation where you don't know the key yet somehow do know the Polybius square, this alone doesn't tell us very much! Since we've essentially converted our original problem into a simple substitution cipher, this is where we employ frequency analysis to figure out which number maps to which letter in the Polybius square. If you're up for a challenge you can do this manually, or use an online tool to analyze the frequency of each number and compare it to how often each letter of the English alphabet appears in typical text. Eventually, you'll be able to decode the Polybius square as the square below.

Ironically, the first snippet of The Bee Movie which we knew the plaintext of includes no 'E's, which are the most frequent letter in the English language, but letter frequencies of the full text would end up being much closer to the expected letter proportions.

Congratulations! You've now completed a plaintext attack on the Nihilist cipher and can sit down with a cup of tea for a bit of light reading .

Ciphertext-Only Attack

Now maybe that was too easy for you. Maybe you're a pro cipher-cracker, and you want to decode the Nihilist cipher without some "plaintext crutch". Here's how you can try to approach it! This method will need a large amount of ciphertext available, and relies on statistical analysis, plus some exploitation of the cipher's design to crack it.

The majority of this attack follows the same approach as a statistical attack on the Vigenère cipher. First you determine the key length by testing various key lengths, splitting the text up into groups that would be encoded with the same key, and computing the index of coincidence, which will be high (close to 0.068, the index of coincidence of English text) when the guessed key length is correct.

At this point, if this were the Vigenère cipher, we would have to go on to analyze the mutual index of coincidence between groups of ciphertext characters with the same key shifted by various amounts, but flaws in the Nihilist encoding system mean there's a good chance we can identify the key without this step!

Because of the way the Polybius square is set up, and the lack of modular arithmetic in the encoding method, every key letter value has exactly 25 possible ciphertext numbers that can result from that key. By comparing the ciphertext values encoded with the same shift, we can quickly identify or at least significantly narrow down the shift used to obtain those values! There are even a few cipher text values that immediately reveal what key was used to generate that cipher text (For example, a cipher text value of 30 can only be obtained using key=15). For a full list of possible ciphertext values generated by each key, check out this document I put together.

And that's it!

You are now a certified expert in all things Nihilist cipher. Go forth and use your new skill responsibly, leaving behind cryptic messages everywhere you go.

Happy decoding!

Sources:

https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/Number-One-From-Moscow.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIC_cipher

https://cyberw1ng.medium.com/nihilist-cipher-an-in-depth-look-at-the-cryptographic-technique-2023-b05b83551957

https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse163/20wi/files/lectures/L04/bee-movie.txt

[chillingcinemachronicles]

Get ready for a cinematic rollercoaster! 🕵️‍♂️🍿 Uncover the top 5 murder mystery movies that promise suspense, twists, and an unforgettable thrill.

5. Gone Baby Gone

Director: Ben Affleck Year: 2007 Runtime: 114 minutes Rating: R

People already knew Ben Affleck as an actor and writer, but with “Gone Baby Gone,” he proved himself to be a masterful director as well. In his feature-length debut, Affleck tells a story set in his native Boston, where P.I. Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) is hired to find a missing girl. Everyone thinks he’s wasting his time, as the girl’s already been missing for 76 hours. But Kenzie knows the city’s streets better than most — a fact he might come to regret.

4. Zodiac

Director: David Fincher Year: 2007 Runtime: 157 minutes Rating: R

Fictional mysteries are scary enough, but “Zodiac” ups the ante by exploring a real-world case. The Zodiac Killer terrified the Bay Area for years, sending letters, ciphers, and bloody clothing to local newspapers as he murdered innocents. It remains one of the most infamous unsolved crimes in American history. With the help of an all-star cast, this powerful movie focuses on the officers and reporters who sacrificed so much in their efforts to bring this maniac to justice.

3. Chinatown

Director: Roman Polanski Year: 1974 Runtime: 131 minutes Rating: R

This neo-noir classic follows Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson), a private eye who’s hired by a woman to investigate her husband’s misdeeds. It seems like a routine case … until he realizes the woman who hired him isn’t actually the man’s wife. Things only grow more complex from there as Jake delves into a world of corruption and dark family secrets. This twisty masterpiece is widely regarded as one of the best mystery films of all time, and it’s easy to see why. Despite the movie’s most famous line, you won’t soon forget “Chinatown.”

2. Vertigo

Director: Alfred Hitchcock Year: 1958 Runtime: 128 minutes Rating: PG

“Vertigo” is widely considered to be one of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest films, and indeed, one of the greatest film ever made (via BBC). It tells the story of Scottie Ferguson, a retired detective who left the force due to his intense acrophobia and vertigo. These fears come to the fore when an old acquaintance hires Scottie to follow his wife, who’s been acting strangely. Nothing is as it seems, however, as Scottie and the audience unforgettably discover.

1. The Maltese Falcon

Director: John Huston Year: 1941 Runtime: 101 minutes Rating: Not Rated

“The Maltese Falcon” is the film noir. Many genre tropes were first codified by this film: Smoke permeates the air, the shadows are dark and deep, and the hard-boiled P.I. doesn’t mind bending the rules to find the truth. Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) and Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) take on a case offered by a beautiful woman. However, when Miles goes searching for clues, he winds up dead. Not only does this film paint a fantastic portrait of a classic detective, it also has one of the best MacGuffins ever utilized in film.

[phesh-n-cheps]

: ̗̀➛ what’s ur fav color

emerald green (also purple)

: ̗̀➛ how long have u been on tumblr for

over a year

: ̗̀➛ wheres a place u always wanted to travel to

norway !!

: ̗̀➛ what’s ur fav clothing brand(s)

don't have one, i just shop in op shops

: ̗̀➛ what’s ur fav singer/band(s)

david bowie

: ̗̀➛ what’s ur current phone lockscreen

the morse code alphabet and a vigenere cipher

: ̗̀➛ most recent/current hyperfixation

designing characters !!!

: ̗̀➛ what’s ur relationship status

dating :]

: ̗̀➛ what’s ur dream job

author

: ̗̀➛ outside of tumblr, fav social app

gmail/google docs lol

: ̗̀➛ do u have pets

no 😔

: ̗̀➛ if u do have pets, what kind/how many

😭.

: ̗̀➛ do u prefer tea or coffee

I lOVE BOTH I CANT CHOOSE

: ̗̀➛ whats ur fav ice cream flavor

either dark chocolate or pistachio

not: @marsmarauders @equippedtolove @cheekyboybeth @thunderst0rmy @klausthementlegen + open :)

random questions<3

ೃ⁀➷ hiii hi here’s just a random question form ˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

: ̗̀➛ what’s ur fav color

: ̗̀➛ how long have u been on tumblr for

: ̗̀➛ wheres a place u always wanted to travel to

: ̗̀➛ what’s ur fav clothing brand(s)

: ̗̀➛ what’s ur fav singer/band(s)

: ̗̀➛ what’s ur current phone lockscreen

: ̗̀➛ most recent/current hyperfixation

: ̗̀➛ what’s ur relationship status

: ̗̀➛ what’s ur dream job

: ̗̀➛ outside of tumblr, fav social app

: ̗̀➛ do u have pets

: ̗̀➛ if u do have pets, what kind/how many

: ̗̀➛ do u prefer tea or coffee

: ̗̀➛ whats ur fav ice cream flavor

: ̗̀➛ tag at least three other tumblr accounts

my tags: @nyoclosmom @stuckysimp @cherikdogfood @xxqueenofdragonsxx @carpentrz

anyone else ofc feel free to fill out :) ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

[bowenandjohnson]

having now finished druck s8, I’m incredibly saddened at how this season has gone, considering it’s the end of the second generation, and it’s unlikely that we will see any of these characters again. after 10 weeks, mailin is still a cipher—she had no internal struggles; her flaws were left unaddressed from previous seasons. there was no growth. overall, this season felt incredibly pointed towards silencing BIPOC members of this cast—particularly ish, which isn’t surprising given her comments. every episode, repeatedly, had ava and fatou either comforting or praising mailin for her “feminism,” her “girlbossing,” when it’s clear in seasons produced by q3/jünglinge that ava, in particular, would not say these things. for a season where finn was the LI, we learned nothing more about him or his family, besides that they run a furniture business impacted by the pandemic. yara was given a romance plotline with zoe, but that was entirely offscreen until the last two episodes. kieu my was only allowed to criticize the action mailin and zoe engaged with once, and it was apparently because nhungi and the others intervened on set. season 8 was also a season pointed towards conservatism—nora upheld purity culture in her final clip before departing for three weeks, and essentially shamed mailin, one of her best friends, for taking pictures of herself. in one of their fights, finn also did the same to mailin. zoe and mailin’s activist action with the destroying of books was essentially a parody of Teenage Activism™️, while in earlier seasons, activism was treated as something worthwhile, something important to engage with and discuss.

but the thing is, it just wasn’t season 8 of druck. season 7 had much of the same issues. the instas and sascha were static. the season, while hinting at the ideas of toxic friendship, did not touch on that internal struggle within isi from season 6, choosing to instead show the topic of gender dysphoria. while this topic is incredibly important, the new writers and SM team did not remember how isi was the one who introduced kieu my to the LGBTQ+ community, queer terms and language, and how she already was following drag queens and non-binary people on IG, and would have had some inkling into what was happening with themselves. the writers chose an easy route instead of building on the nuances already in the character. lou’s actions from s7 with the tampons could also be seen as a parody of true activism, and she also may have been a character created to fight back against the “isi is fatphobic!” allegations—but he was. that four minute clip in which he apologizes to ava for the bullying, and then it is never addressed again confirms it. the LGBTQ+ youth group & david could have been incredibly important for isi, but they were only shown in two clips; same with the turkish community, where they made a nameless neighbor into a bigot and homophobic and transphobic, rather than addressing the issues where consti essentially assaulted isi and made terrible comments towards her head-on. sascha, much like finn, didn’t have a personality beyond plant boy and LI either, and isi treated him like shit in his shoe until a bogus apology in ep 9. screentime was taken from BIPOC members of the cast and given largely to two white newcomers. eren had to fight for the pronoun scene, but also mentioned the efforts of the team/castmates to help them in that fight.

it’s sad to see the parallels between s5/s6 and how s7/s8 turned out. this last clip really showed me how much this cast had to fight tooth and nail to try and protect these characters who they loved. the cashqueens memory scenes consisted of s5/s6 references; as did the montage in between the cast speaking, again primarily about the early generation 2 seasons. overall, i wish the cast the best, i wish jünglinge & q3 the best. their talent is stunning, and i can’t wait to see what they do next. thank you, mina, sira, eren, frida, ish, zethphan, nhungi, madeleine, elena, anh, casper, paul, and paula. thank you for these characters. they will always have a place in my heart, even if the writing doesn’t. rant over!!

[daisiesonafield-blog]

Summary: B-

My Policeman is a movie set in both 1957 and the late 1990s, based on a novel first published ten years ago. But when one of your featured actors is the biggest pop star in the world in 2022, strange things happen to the reality-distortion field around a film. Policeman, which had its North American premiere last night in Toronto, is in almost every way the most classic kind of high-toned British period piece: a tea-kettle swoon steeped in stolen gazes, flocked wallpaper, and long, meaningful walks along windswept coastlines. But it is also the story of a love that, back then at least, dared not speak its name between a closeted young officer (Harry Styles), his naive bride-to-be (The Crown's Emma Corrin), and the man he actually has endless gymnastic sex with (David Dawson). 

The result, adapted by lauded London theater director Michael Grandage, is fevered, lovely to look at, and at times deeply silly, a plush romantic drama that somehow manages to be both explicit and decorous, like horny Merchant Ivory. Its title could have been Everybody Loves Harry: He's the film's ever-elusive object of desire, a dimpled dreamboat named Tom who first comes to Corrin's Marion, a schoolteacher-in-training, on a Brighton beach, the elder brother of her childhood friend and a long-simmering crush who finally deigns to turn his attention her way. [...]

[...] What the characters will do with this very British cycle of repression, release, and almost heroic self-denial is rendered in the script, by Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia, The Painted Veil), in sometimes delicate but more often jarringly unsubtle ways. That's a hazard, maybe, of trying to adapt the internalized world of a novel for the screen: Subtext becomes bolded and underlined as characters rush to spell out their intentions or long-held secrets in ways that may serve the plot — or at least make for gorgeous, tragic metaphors — but rarely resemble real life.

While the casting of Everett and Roache seems as if it should have been swapped to more physically resemble their younger counterparts, and Corrin feels sidelined both as a character and an actress by design, the actors do a lot to bring nuance where it doesn't always exist. Dawson (All the Old Knives) is quietly affecting as a man so used to subterfuge and fear that he's become defiant in the face of it; he knows the rules of survival as a gay man in a midcentury England where his "lifestyle" is still a felony crime, and how to still find pleasure in the cracks in between.

Styles' style is more remote: His Tom often feels like a cipher, thoughtful and charming one moment and heedlessly cruel and manipulative the next. That also makes sense in a way; Tom is, after all, a stranger to himself. And Styles doesn't hold back in the sex scenes, which seem destined to live a long life outside the film on the internet and amongst his considerable fanbase. Otherwise Policeman, as emotionally earnest and elegantly made as it is, mostly just feels like a movie we've seen many times before: a pleasantly escapist two hours with pretty people in pretty clothes, madly sublimating their feelings until the final, luminous frame. Grade: B–

Entertainment Weekly review by Leah Greenblatt, not full review, read here.

[snt315]

My imagination about Eli and Mamtis after MGSV

———————

About Eli

After completing several tests after birth, only Eli of the twins was brought to England. This was because Eli had inherited more of the soldier gene (still in the hypothetical stage), but also to separate the twins so that they would not fight in the future. Eli was placed under Zero's supervision in England, while David was left in the United States. (At this point, David was only being kept alive as a comparison for Eli and was not considered as the heir to Big Boss.)

Eli was raised without a family register in a children's hospital under Zero's supervision, with various tests and gifted education. At the age of four, Zero was put into a coma by Skullface's treachery. The Les Enfants Terribles project lost control, and a dispute arose among the collaborators over the right to conduct the experiment. One of the collaborators (Paramedic) feared that Eli would be killed as well, since Zero and Big Boss had been attacked. She instructed a man to kidnap Eli and hide somewhere until things cooled down. He approached Eli's charge nurse, tricked her with an appeal to her emotions, and took Eli away with her to Africa. As the fugitive life continued, trouble broke out between the nurse and the man. She realized that the man had explained to her that he was kidnapping Eli to save him from inhumane experiments, when in fact he was not, and tried to escape with him. As a result, the nurse was killed by the man, and Eli, who was 7 years old at the time, witnessed her body. Eli realized that the man had killed her and became very vengeful. The man realized this and, in turn, tried to use his feelings to create a warrior who would surpass Big Boss. The man gave Eli all kinds of training, from basic physical training, to survival techniques, to close combat techniques. (He was also the one who told Eli that he was a clone of Big Boss to incite his vengeance.) At age 12, Eli was tested to see if he could actually kill enemies. After passing the test, he finally killed the man, convinced that he could now beat adults. He then wandered around, stealing and surviving, until he arrived in a village where children orphaned in the Angolan civil war lived. They were hungry, and some of the children were too sick or injured to move. Eli hunted a pig and shared its meat with them. They came to recognize Eli as their boss and followed him.

In MGSV, Eli stole the results of the genetic test and learned that Venom was not his real father, so he escaped from Mother Base and caused a ruckus in Kingdom of the Flies. He believed that Big Boss was already dead, and his primary goal was to destroy Cipher and anyone associated with it.

After MGSV, while wandering around Africa in search of a place to stay, he learned that countries were intervening in the war in the Middle East and ended up in Afghanistan. He thought that if he continued to put himself in the field of battle, he would one day reach the people he needed to avenge. He joined a small foreign mercenary unit under false pretenses of age (he was 13 at the time, but lied and said he was 16), employing a local company. The mercenary unit was short on personnel and hired Eli even though he knew his age was not true. The mercenary unit was full of crazy people, and Eli was influenced in no small way. Eli's abilities were outstanding compared to those of the adults, and he achieved well in the mercenary unit and was transferred to a private military company in England. At the age of 17, he was given British citizenship in recognition of his service and transferred to the British military's newly established, secretive Special Operations Unit. Ocelot was partially involved in this matter behind the scenes. He was convinced that Eli and Mantis were alive because their bodies were not found after MGSV, and he continued to search for them in secret.

Eli tried to accommodate Mantis so that he too could become a British citizen, but was not accepted, and Mantis also refused the proposal. Mantis was frustrated by the fact that his psychic abilities had diminished since his childhood, and he had developed mixed feelings toward Eli that were not favorable. From this point on, they went their separate ways until the day they met again at FOXHOUND. Eli served in the Special Operations Forces and fought in the Gulf War, and after the war ended, he worked as an operative for SIS and went missing in Iraq.

————————————

About Mantis

After MGSV, Mantis realized that Eli's desire for revenge had not yet disappeared and Mantis decided to follow him. Eli, who was quite exhausted from the battle in Kingdom of the Flies, was unable to move due to unexplained high fever and nausea, and Mantis took care of Eli by procuring medicine, food, water, and other supplies. After Eli recovered, he was able to move his slowed body and contemplate what to do next. Their entertainment was a radio they had stolen and listened to various news and music. Later, when Eli decided to go to Afghanistan, Mantis followed him, helping him do so. They snuck onto trains and trucks to reach Tanzania, where there was a port town. On the way, the cargo train they were riding in had an accident in which it derailed, and Mantis used psychokinesis to lift part of the body of that train and fix the derailment. Mantis's nose bled at the time, but he thought it was due to the heat and paid no further attention to it.

They found an international transport ship bound for the Middle East in the port of Dar es Salaam, where they snuck aboard and stowed away; during the 10-day voyage, a sailor saw Mantis stealing things from the pantry, and a rumor circulated that a "red-headed ghost" had appeared. Eli seemed to like the story a lot. Mantis also found it amusing to scare the sailors by deliberately appearing to them.

Afghanistan was in the midst of a Soviet invasion, and with refugee camps everywhere, they had no trouble finding a place to shelter from the wind and rain. The standard lie was that they were children who had been kidnapped and sold to the Middle East and had escaped in the wake of the war.

When a group of foreign mercenaries visited the camp one day and Eli volunteered to join them, Mantis felt how weird and out of the ordinary he is as if he had been confronted once again; On the battlefield, no soldier would risk his life for something as unreliable as psychic powers. Eli had no problem passing the enlistment test and was hired. Mantis observed the members of the mercenary unit from afar, surreptitiously peeking into their memories to get a full picture of what kind of backgrounds and personalities they had.

On one occasion, while following Eli and his men from a distance as they left their base for a mission, tanks appeared and a battle ensued. With no countermeasures such as stingers, the troops had no choice but to retreat between the shelling. Mantis used his own abilities to twist the tank's main gun, setting fire to the entire area and hurling the tanks at the soldiers who emerged from inside the tanks.

Mantis was quite drained from this one, and although he managed to return to his base, he was unable to move due to headaches and nausea, and was unable to do even the simple ability of picking up objects on the ground with his psychokinesis well. Under the gas mask, his nose was bleeding, just as it had been when he fixed the wheel of train. Mantis was terrified that he had become a normal human being. After a few days, those ailments had disappeared, but it was clear that his psychic abilities had diminished compared to his MGSV days. From that day on, Mantis often acted alone. Apart from going out to secluded places to test his psychokinesis, he passed the time by peeking into the memories of the refugees.

At one point, Eli brought one of his captives to him and asked him to interrogate him to find out the route where the mines were buried. Mantis extracted all the information in less than an hour, and since the POW was unharmed, there was talk that Eli had a very skilled interrogator. Mantis began taking on occasional interrogation assignments.

Months passed, and Mantis was now 16 years old. And he did not know when, but he began to enjoy mentally abusing the prisoners brought to him by showing them trauma and other hallucinations, or brainwashing them into submission. Mantis did not know why he did what he did. Some who learned of his behavior called him a "psycho" because he creeped them out.

Eli had made his mark as a mercenary and was leaving Afghanistan for a while to join the British Special Operations Forces. Eli invited Mantis to come with him, but Mantis refused. Before they knew it, they had changed, and their relationship had changed as well. Eli's long service with the mercenaries helped him to understand the meaning of working as a team, and he came to respect his colleagues. Mantis, on the other hand, was stuck in a time of invincibility, when he and Eli were trying to retaliate against the world, and was not interested in the sense of reform and long-term goals that Eli had come to have.

After Eli left, Mantis remained in Afghanistan for a while, but when Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan at the age of 17, Mantis also returned to the Soviet Union. At the time of the Cold War, those entering the Soviet Union were monitored by the KGB, and Mantis was captured by the KGB and identified as the missing psychic boy. Mantis continued to live in KGB custody, but when the Soviet Union collapsed, he escaped and defected to the United States.

[tangent101]

Unfortunately, Before the Storm seriously screwed with the personification of Rachel. They made Rachel's life "too perfect" with a loving step-mom she thought was her real mom, a "loving" dad who ultimately was overprotective, and so forth.

Because we never have a reason as to why Rachel wants to leave Arcadia Bay. And there is a simple reason that would work but BtS refused to go with in their quest to turn everyone but Damon Merrick, Eliot Fuckface, and Max Caulfield into bland colorless ciphers who are without fault (and also literally does an assassination of Max that went so far as to draw her hanging from a tree, dead).

Wait, what's this? Yes, there is a logical and reasonable reason as to why Rachel might want to leave Arcadia Bay. All you need to do is turn Rachel's parents into homophobes. And as I've said before, there are hints at this in the first game, in that Rachel's parents do not bother looking for her in the prime timeline where she had dated Chloe but were actively looking for her in a timeline where Chloe and Rachel never met.

If Rachel's home life was not a good one (even if Rachel kept it quiet) then we have the reason why Rachel wants to leave. Further, we even have a reason why Rachel might want to destroy Arcadia Bay, as she hates a town that let homophobes abuse her. And it even explains why she tried to find any way out of town. She was abused and needed to get out. And given the abuse Chloe was going through, Rachel never told Chloe much like Max never admitted to Chloe that she didn't talk to Chloe after she left because she was grieving William's death and was that torn up by his death.

Hell. you have a way that Max and Rachel are linked now - both are girls who cared a lot for Chloe and could not open up to her over a source of grief. In Rachel's case, it was being abused by her parents (but never as bad as what David and Joyce did to Chloe). In Max's case it was grieving William's death to such an intent she was likely medicated but she can't admit that because William was Chloe's dad, not hers.

Meh. Sorry for running my mouth off. :/

What's your take on Rachel? Do you think she was using Chloe or had genuine feelings for her?

Yes.

I do think Rachel used Chloe to a certain extent. Their conversation under the street light heavily implies that Rachel saw Chloe as someone convenient. She had a little cash, was working on getting a car running, and had no reason to stay in Arcadia Bay. That makes her the perfect accomplice to escape with. It's also implied in Life Is Strange that Mark and Frank were also used as a way to leave. So I think to an extent Rachel was viewing most people through the lens of "How can they get me out of this shithole town?"

However, I think she had feelings that were real. You don't come back as a ghost deer to lead your love interests childhood best friend to safety if you don't care. Plus the letter you find in the junkyard shows that Rachel was scared of hurting Chloe because of her relationship with Mark.

There's also small details like the postcard you find in Chloe's room from a past Amber vacation and friendship bracelets you find in the junkyard hideout.

Also, I don't think Rachel was maliciously using Chloe. I think Rachel got lost in the excitement of leaving town and the idea of going to LA, and I genuinely think she wanted to leave with Chloe because she enjoyed her company. I think she would never get to LA and ditch Chloe.

So I think both ideas hold truth. Rachel saw Chloe as a convenient way to go on this big adventure, but she also really cared about her and wanted to leave town by her side.