#I wanted them for plotting purposes

[akiwitch]

Might have cool news soon! Might not!

Going into the woods this weekend, gonna figure out Shadowcast while I’m amongst the trees.

On another note I got hiking boots because doing research for Strange Paths made me realize I miss hiking and I should go more.

Yes writing a horror novel about people hiking made me want to go hiking.

I’m normal!

[serenedash]

Nomura was insane for that statement he made. I know I should be focused on the foreteller part of it but I'm stuck on the inspiration for so much coming from the story of an American blues musician meeting with the devil to get guitar skills.

Like on one hand. Darkness/mom, mom/foretellers, marluxia/sora, mom/xehanort and xehanort/terra all being the devil and guitar player throughout the series imo. But also all I can think about is the devil went down to gerogia because that is so xehanort and sora to me in kh3 like is that literally not their vibe and it's also such a hysterical vision in my mind. I'm sorry like:

"Well, that ol' Devil bowed his head because he knew that he'd been beat

And he laid that golden fiddle down on the ground at Johnny's feet

Johnny said, "Devil, come on back if you ever wanna try again"

Also "this means demyx is mom" I will kms if that's the truth. I think its funnier if demyx also somehow "made a deal with the devil" but he's the only literal interpretation of this story in kh and that's why he has a sitar it would incredibly hilarious

[Edit] tumblr mobile is being a dick not letting me add a link here's what Nomura said irt BBS 15th anniversary on twt:

[turtleblogatlast]

Leo getting hit with a truth curse but instead of forcing him to admit to super sad or worrying things it’s things like “it was me who broke the remote” “I saw Mikey prank Donnie and helped hide it because it’s way funnier if he didn’t know who it was” “I rip my clothes to look more like Raph’s because he’s really cool” “my stripes aren’t even red they’re pink!”

[angy-grrr]

SJ's internal changes (I recall it was the editor in chief, someone really influential) happening JUST at the same time it was announced the epilogue would be 5 chapters (same week) + the ending not bringing up huge plot points (where the other villains are, why theres no actual Himiko corpse and instead we got Ochako's grief over that assumption, what happened to Dabi, what was the All Might vestige, why the bkdk handhold was off screen when its a big deal for them, who is Deku's dad, etc), letting them linger in the air while trying to make an okay ending + that strange two week break because of "schedule conflicts" + choosing to end BNHA under even more pressure even tho its one of the most important manga in SJ + Horikoshi talking about the ending days after the official release and bringing up how grateful he is for being able to work in SJ, as in past tense (like he is grateful he worked here, but isnt happening again; I say this bc I expected him to say something around the lines of "I hope im able to create something good here again soon!", considering we already know he has another manga project, if I remember correctly)

Thinking about it.

Thinking about how he could let it as it is, or try to pick it up and confirm the things that do matter to his story.

Btw, im not talking about the handhold as a shipper -it was genuinely important for them, as it symbolizes both their new mutual understanding and an acceptance as the new All Might duo thanks to their respective heroisms. It wouldn't be weird to add it in the epilogue, especially considering so many characters hold hands in non romanitc ways, so to choose not to when its arguably the most important one... Idk, it felt really weird as it was the only thing I was sure would get sooner or later.

[jackdaw-kraai]

“The Jedi were wrong—” “The Jedi were right—” “Darth Vader is a villain—” “Darth Vader is a victim—”

The Jedi and Darth Vader are whatever the hell I need them to be to make the story happen get the fuck on my level

[bunny-banana]

the thing about Conclave is that it only has banger ships all around

[inksandpensblog]

Still fascinated by how much hate Mitsi gets for the whole "dead fem-coded loved one backstory" thing and all the hangups surrounding that when Purple's mom is arguably a much more egregious instance of the thing everyone is upset about Mitsi for but she ultimately got a pass because...idk, she was The First?

[fromtheseventhhell]

I want to make a longer post about this someday but: I think Arya's TWOW arc is going to include her coming to terms with her identity as a Lady. This has been an ongoing conflict with her since her first chapter and I think her flowering in winds is going to mark a turning point. The theory of her having an apprenticeship with the courtesans holds a lot of weight and the idea of Arya going through puberty among a group of unconventional women she's fostered a positive relationship with is just too perfect. It would really have an impact on Arya reconciling her personal idea of what a Lady should be. There's also a lot that she could learn from them in terms of courtesies, communication, appearances, body-language, etc. that would elevate her current skill-set and ways her relationship with them could push the plot.

Not to mention she will undoubtedly reclaim her identity as Arya Stark, and her being a Lady is inseparable from that. Arya Stark is a Lady Stark and being a Lady is a social position, not a measure of how well someone preforms feminine tasks. She shouldn't have to relinquish her position because she doesn't fit patriarchal standards. That's not to say that she's ever going to be the perfect example of a traditional Lady but what I think will happen is that she becomes capable of playing the part. She plays several identities throughout the series but she's always been Arya underneath, so I think it's appropriate that she learns to adopt a "persona" that's part of her. Her remembering Ned putting on his "Lord's face" (+ the various examples of other characters being separate from their ruling persona) makes me think that Arya will be donning her "Lady's face" when she makes a return to Westeros.

[voluptuarian]

I love trying to do historical research, you want an answer to a simple question like "could Jews serve in the British army in the 1880s" and you get back

Jews in the American Revolution

Jews in the American Civil War

Jews in World War I

Jews who fought for Nazi Germany

Thanks, that absolutely covers the time period and country I specifically asked for, couldn't have done it without you

[itspileofgoodthings]

my seniors have been so quiet all year and it’s been fine cause we’ve had a lot of writing/research to do but I need them to talk to me now so i was hit by a bolt of inspiration two days ago and I made them all tell me their comfort level with sharing aloud, rating themselves on a scale of 1-10. I then averaged the class score and they’re a 4.5. I then told them yesterday we needed to raise the score the tiniest bit. And the 1’s and 2’s didn’t need to be 10’s just maybe 3’s and 4’s. And they tried! They talked more 😭

[phoenixtakaramono]

There are only two episodes left in The Boys S4, but having seen the leaks and with what we got, I have some opinions.

My conspiracy theory is that they got too many cooks in the kitchen (writers in the writer’s room)—plus the writer’s strike and pandemic happening during this time—and it’s starting to make sense how they dropped the ball with this season.

[snivel1]

I need to get these out of my system, so‼️‼️

Meet my ultra original Homestuck fankid!!

Dead-Eyed Cindy!

a.k.a. Cynthia Lenore!🗝️

A completely normal teenager, just like every other teen in Homestuck, trust!!🤚

More about her under the cut!!

(Note that this drawing was made when I just returned to HS and haven't yet seen some of the amazing variations of their designs here on Tumblr, so my design for Dave will probably be changed, idk)

She lived with her Big Sister, they were Strider's neighbors from a floor down

They lived in hard financial conditions, her Sister overworked herself to provide for them both and was almost never home to look after Cindy, which forced Cindy to fend for herself most of the time when she was little

She met Dave on the roof once, the meeting involved spying on his Bro and her Sister talking about some secret Older Sibling Stuff or something. It looked like her Sister was crying? Overall a pretty awkward first meeting

Cindy felt guilty often about their situation for some reason, so she helped with whatever she could in the house

But her relationship with her Sister was.. not ideal, it was very strained and painful for both of them, Cindy felt hurt from her Sister not being around much, even if she understood why that was

Even so, she still felt cared for and appreciated her Sister and her sacrifices

Cindy was bullied in school, I know, shocker, she was considered weird, dirty, ugly, scary, and was avoided most of the time. Some kids called her "Dead-Eyed Cindy", because of how her eyes resemble the ones of a dead fish, but she reclaimed that nickname for herself, because she thinks it makes her sound badass. She didn't know what friendship was supposed to be like, and convinced herself she was better off without anyone, but she desperately wanted to have real friends she could trust one day

She was very stiff emotionally when she first started chatting with Dave, but with time became more sincere and open thanks to also getting to know Rose, Jade, and John

She and Dave are both weird dead thing collectors, but Cindy prefers to collect animal bones and skulls. Their music preferences don't match like. In any form, but Cynthia greatly enjoys Dave's mixes and tunes, and always encouraged him to do more

She adores gothic rock, punk rock, heavy metal, screamo and any other "edgy" music genre you can think of

Of course she didn't have money to go to concerts and buy merch of her favorite bands, so all the posters in her room were home printed

She's all about that messy grungy look. Her hair? Intentually cut like that by herself. Smeared makeup? Her favorite style. Her clothes? Ripped and modified by herself. She wanted to ward off normies away from her this way, not caring about what other people think of her, and also just because she likes the style

She didn't like Rose's overly posh way of wording things at first(so pretentious), but they quickly clicked over shared interests in goth culture and the paranormal unknown, Cindy cares about her greatly and comforted her through the hardships Rose had to endure

Cindy didn't know what to think of Jade's strangeness and, quite frankly, didn't like her vibes at first, but warmed up to her greatly with time and really sympathized with her, Cindy really believes Jade deserves so much better, and is determined to let her know they care

John was very intimidated by Cindy at first, and Cindy assumed he just didn't like her, so she acted more coldly towards him, and it continued to be like that for a pretty awkwardly long time, but of course his dorkiness hooked her up quick, as it did his other friends, and they slowly but surely became very close; Cynthia became very protective of Egbert fast

Cindy always tries to put in work into her friendships, as she naturally doesn't want to be alone again, but also because she doesn't want her friends to feel left out or ignored, cause she knows what it's like

Which also seems like overcompensation, as she feels like she's not the best person to be around, so she tries to be helpful, even when she no longer has any mental resources for that

She had no clue about what kind of game Sburb even was, and she definitely didn't have time to ask when meteors suddenly started raining from the sky

No fucking way was she going to die if she could help it, so she fought for her and her friends' lives with all she had

How was she able to godtier and whatnot without entering the game? Beats me, you're asking as if I should know and write some good explanation for it and make it make sense🙄🙄💅 I just wanna play touoys, hope you understand💓

Cindy started questioning her identity along the way of their adventures on the meteor, and started using she/they/him pronouns

If I had to write about her relationships with all of the trolls we'd be here all day, so let me just point out the most relevant things here <3

Gamzee had a pitch crush on her, and they entertained the idea for a while, but she quickly recoiled from that when Gamzee, uh, started doing Stuff. She actively maintains friendships with Aradia, Kanaya, and Tavros, and is on good terms with Terezi, Sollux, and Nepeta. It's a bit more complicated with the others, though.. Their relationship with Karkat was very murky and tense at first, she wasn't having his bullshit, but he grew on them with time, when Cindy realized they both have similar goals and wants. She can't tolerate Eridan's bullshit and mostly avoids him, doesn't like Equius for his attitude and hates him for what he did to Aradia, Feferi.. well, they just can't find a common ground, especially because Feferi's royalty, and Cindy holds no respect for them. And Vriska.. he justifiably doesn't like her, at all, but is somewhat sympathetic of her issues.

She is a Page of Blood, and their journey of self-realization had to teach him that she can't win and please them all, that they can be their true self around her friends, and that he can also depend on others for help when she needs it

She learned to make chains from blood, his or otherwise, and use them in battle, and at their highest potential she can bind someone's body to another's and adjust what it means according to situation.

You're badly injured and there's no one else to help in sight? She can bind your body to hers and share their life essence with you, practically making it so you both share an internal system, and if she's healthy enough, then you'll be too in a second

He can drain someone's blood and give it to another if they need it, she can solidify blood inside someone's veins to make it hard to move

She can make a dying person's heart beat via a blood bind, but it's very draining for her and can be quite deadly if done hastily and improperly, and he can't do it when a body already went cold, at least they didn't learn how to, maybe with enough conviction and training she could one day🤔

Maybe with time she found even more uses and possibilities for her chains

She's a great motivator, especially if it's his friends that need morale, they always have their friends' backs

She's not a fan of being a leader, but can be if the situation calls for it

Overall, Cynthia is a person with an intimidating exterior, and warm and genuine interior!🥹

Here's the ref with both the casual fit and the godtier pajamas in full color👇

[firestorm09890]

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

(GBA CoM)

(Re:CoM)

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

(rest under cut because it's long)

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

Marluxia tells Vexen that his project is a failure

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[soaps-mohawk]

Hey! I love your story so so much and I always look forward to new chapters!

I do have a question though. Is the whole General Shepard cameras thing still is part of the story? I feel like the buildup was so good and then it just disappeared and became unimportant. Like if the guys never find out about it, it's whatever.

I dont mean this as an insult to your writing at all, but I'm just wondering if it's gonna come back at all since it's been so long since it's been thought about by the mc.

Again, I love your work

You'll have to wait and see

[kedreeva]

did u read the good omens book? if so, what are your thoughts on it compared to the tv series?

i followed u for the steddie posts but fell in love with ur meta too 💜

I did, but honestly they're separate entities unless I want to steal something specific for a fic. They're both good, for different reasons and in different ways. They are written by different men, literally and figuratively, about different subject matters, for different reasons. You can compare an apple to an apple blossom, but even though one became the other, and came from the same tree, doesn't mean they are the same thing anymore, nor does it mean one is better than the other.

That being said, I've only read the book once, and I've watched the show over a dozen times, most likely because I saw the show first and read the book second. I enjoyed the book, but I think it was probably a better read in its day, by people who were the target audience at the time, and who didn't just read about or know the context, but understood and lived it. I can't be that, I can't go back in time and read the book before the series, I can't go back and read it in a time where it would have meant what it was intended to mean to the world it was born into.

[energeticpoltergeist]

Part 1: Mad King's War

Prologue: Diverged History(pages 11-16)