#I'm objectively correct about this XD

[alifeasvivid]

Let me be very, very clear.

England and America's caregiver/ward-charge-""~son~"" relationship (as it kind of relates a lot to this post) is only interesting to me at all if they end up in a romantic/sexual relationship later and not because I think it's incest because it is not that (.that's not a thing in hetalia. even if it was, America is not "blood" related to England. England has actual brothers, we know what that looks like. the implications born out of England being his colonies' "father" give me the ick.)

It's interesting to me in the sense of America having "been in love" with England for his entire existence and England being basically the only one with that caregiver view of the relationship. America definitely wanted to be England's wife and/or husband from the time he was very wee smol and England laughed indulgently and said of course, of course and thought it was "cute" at the time, but America was dead fucking serious about it and never really stopped being so.

Even England thinking that he is/was a caregiver to America is a retcon in his own mind because he definitely was just the world's worst babysitter. He's painting a better picture of himself by claiming that he gave America the world on a string and nursing his own ego over America giving him the finger and demanding independence. He liked knowing America was out there, across the sea, loving him and always being happy to see him, but he was never there. Not even at the end (rainy battlefields be damned, he was way too busy with more pressing matters).

The fact that England is so much older than America but they end up at very similar ages in the modern day so that England is suddenly forced to see America as an adult and equal in a way that isn't the same old "older adult sees 18 year old as 'grown up' for the first time', is just... I dunno it's very unique to them as far as I've encountered and I can never properly articulate just exactly what I mean by this. It's a vibe. I've only ever gotten the full experience of it from a few artists/writers.

Let me be even more clear: in my mind, as far as Hetalia goes, America declared independence, yes for himself primarily, but also because England wouldn't see him as an adult and specifically because he wouldn't see him as a potential partner.

I understand where people find the idea of them having a father/son relationship sort of warm and sweet (esp face family) and/or sort of dark and twisted (they're too alike in all the wrong ways). I get it. And I go out of my way to respect people who don't ship them. If a post says "don't tag as ship" I don't tag it as ship... and if it's not tagged when it comes across my dash and it's not overtly shippy, I check OP's tags and honor that. So let's just be clear. If you interpret a post of mine as them having a familial relationship, keep your mitts off of it, capiche?

[worstloki]

I would just like to calmly point out that it may be recurring but it’s not much of a joke beyond the fact that before the series it was a plain falsehood to say he talked too much, that Norse Myth Loki is a vastly different character, that even if the muzzle was a reference that doesn't vindicate it, and that the silencing has been happening long before the series without being a joke.

Though I understand you are only stating possible links the moments reference, I've repeated @lucianalight's reply as I do not believe it matters if any of the listed moments are part of a recurring joke.

While in Thor 1, the moments when Loki is mocked and silenced are put there to convey that he is being mistreated and ignored and that’s part of the reason why he is justified to be hurt and angry about it, in the show Loki’s mistreatment and the way he is silenced are justified because of the framing that he is so full of himself and talks so much.

I'm also throwing a link to this relevant gifset @lokihiddleston made bc I like it XD

appropriate reaction

[uva124]

So yeah, I finished the drawing of Asha's redesign from Wish :D, maybe I'll make some changes in the future, but I'm happy to have finished it, it should be noted that I haven't seen the movie. , so I can't give my opinion on it yet, but I found it very interesting that their fandom is mainly made up of people who rewrote or made their own version of the movie, they are all very creative and it got me out of an artistic block. that I had a few months ago, but above all I found the rewriting of @annymation which is the one I have been most hooked on, so I wanted to do some redesigns of the characters coming out of its rewriting, that's why everything that has to do with the story of this version of Asha, as well as her personality and her world on which I base my drawing are the ideas and work of this account: @annymation

I'm just making a drawing of her character and how I would design her as well as sharing part of the process I had to do to draw her because, why not?

BOARD:

The first thing I had to do was put together a table full of references that reminded me of the character and things that I would like to add to her design, so I used milanote to do it:

-Looked for some Asha's concept art and save the ones I liked the most, and add the main colors that I used in the design. -I also created notes to write down the personality of the character and some of his data to have a better guide, I did a little research and found publications that talked a lot about Asha's discarded designs and how Disney workers had put that she had tribe ancestry Amazigh on his mother's side and since his father was from the Iberian Peninsula, that's why the next thing I wanted to do is research more about their culture. -I am not an expert on this topic, nor do I belong to the cultures from which Asha has ancestry, so you can comment on any correction regarding this topic, I wanted to implement details of this culture to her design and I would really like to give a correct representation :)

HAIRSTYLE

Continuing with the theme, I saw that the hairstyles in the Amazigh culture mostly had this type of colorful decorations on their braids and dreadlocks, that's why I also posted these reference photos for Asha's hairstyle.

-Finally I decided that Asha would not have all her hair full of braids or dreadlocks, but only a few accompanied by these decorations with a great variation of colors, although it was fun to sketch the many hairstyle options that I had in mind based on these concept art and other photos that I had saved

TATTOOS:

-Another detail that I liked was giving Asha some tattoos with designs from the Amazigh culture, because I saw that it was quite common for women to get them, the tattoo on her forehead is a symbol of protection against bad influences, that's why the The middle symbol is responsible for deflecting it in the 4 directions, I also added a similar one in Asha's right hand.

ASTROLOGY AND THE SPACE:

-An important part of Asha's rewrite is her knowledge of astronomy inherited from her father, especially with the stars for obvious reasons xd, so in addition to adding constellations to her dresses, research the meaning (or something like that) of the planets. Only 3 really reminded me of the character, which were: -Mars: Symbolization of the internal conquering function of moving forward, independent, self-determined, enduring failures with new energy, courage and energy to fight for your desires. -Saturn: Maturity, effort to solidly build realistic criteria, frustrations are transformed into objectives to continue growing, critical and realistic, far from getting frustrated when an objective does not work, you strive to move forward and obtain even more resistant and solid achievements, perseverance , and tenacity (I feel like yhis it the most similar to Asha :D) -Moon: protective role, feeling very vulnerable outside your known areas, feeling of security with your ties, importance of family ties. The one that reminded me the most of Asha was Saturn, that's why I drew those Saturn-shaped earrings :).

SUITS:

I looked for references and placed some on milanote, I noticed that the concept art was mainly divided into whether the dresses have lilac colors or warm colors, I decided to draw 2 models based on the discarded designs, although at first I thought of using only one color palette lilac and bluish, I realized that the reddish colors of her dress reminded me of Mars which has certain meanings that in my opinion coincide with Asha's personality. In the end I didn't decide what wardrobe she would primarily have 😅, but I like to think that in this version of Wish, Asha would have wardrobe and hairstyle changes like in some older Disney movies.

-These are some of the concepts that I mainly used for my version of the dresses

FINAL COMMENTS:

I am satisfied with the result, it was fun to make all this, although what I researched mostly seems little, it actually cost me several hours and I did it at night, so as a funny fact the next day I was explaining all this information to my mother and I felt like I looked like that:

(Make this drawing was so funny LMAO)

(Apologies if there are errors in my writing, English is not my first language and my writing is very basic)

[drawnfamiliarfaces]

As someone who has always loved siblings dynamics in fiction, I find it funny that almost every single member of the HoM team has siblings. Kim has two little brothers, Danny has an older sister, Jake has a little sister, Jenny has eight robot sisters, June has an older and a younger brother, Rex has an older brother, and Zak has three cryptid siblings. Ben and Randy are the only ones who are technically only children but Ben still at least has a cousin who he has a sibling dynamic with. I don't think Randy had anyone like that. (Although it's one of the few shows here that I didn't watch so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) Any way, now Only Child Cunningham is being treated like the little brother by all of these experienced siblings and has no clue what to do and I find that funny.

(P.s. sorry about the long comment. This thought wouldn't leave me alone so I thought i should share it)

(P.p.s I love your HoM au and your art. Thank you for sharing it!)

Please, don't be sorry, this is like, one of my favorite asks about HoMies I ever got! And also thank you for your kind words! <3<3<3

I also adore sibling dynamics in fiction! It's one of the main reasons I don't want to put much focus on ships in this AU, like I mentioned before, there would be like one canon couple with one of HoMies, but otherwise everyone are sort of floating in nebulous single area, so I could focus better on their complicated friendships with a dash of found family/siblings dynamics!

(And your ask reminded me of a fanart I did a long time ago about Randy being the only child in Secret Trio. xD same brain anon!)

Also one can argue that Howard, Randy's best friend, could be considered sort of like a brother to him (they became friends at a very young age), but I personally view them more as Bros. (does it make sense, lol?)

But even if we count Howard, their dynamic would be more equal in older-younger sibling scale, while Randy indeed would be mostly treated as a younger sibling amongst HoMies and it would probably drive him insane!

Being the youngest and newest in their friend circle, he is like a new baby brother or a co-worker/young kohai (ye, cringe wording but terminology vibe aint wrong! xD) that others are prepared to protect and help, impart their wisdom on, but also tease! (and perhaps learn something from him in return! )

But Randy Only Child Cunningham, as an already seasoned, if a bit overconfident, hero would hate (just a little bit) being considered as less experienced (even if he technically is) than others, no matter how much he absolutely adores being in presence of all those cool people! At times it would feel condescending, but in reality others just want to support him the more they learn about how he came to be the Ninja.

After all they know what it felt like being that young, having that responsibility trust upon your shoulders and going through so much. Especially considering that among them, Randy perhaps had the least stable support during his hero-ing career. Sure, all of them had to go through some things alone, but there were family and friends that were there to help when it came to it. And, no offense to Howard, who does sometimes manages to get through for Randy, he is not the best at being the type of support Randy needs at times. And, Ninjanomicon? While incredibly useful for teaching moral lessons and art of being Ninja - is not exactly the most er, physically able in supporting Randy at time of crisis, being an inanimate object and all that, lol.

So yes, Randy-Only Child-Lone Ninja Hero-Cunningham sometimes doesn't know what to do with all those people who appeared in his life and treat him like a little bro! But sometimes, he enjoys it. ;)

(a little bit of random rambling beneath, feel free to ignore! haha)

Also random, and its not very obvious at all, but there is slightest differences amongst HoMies on how they view/regard him and behave with/around him, depending on their own experiences:

Kim and Jake, as older siblings through and through, tend to see him as a younger bro, like their own siblings who can be a handful and overzealous little hellions at times.

Danny, Rex, Jenny and Zak are a bit complicated. They all have siblings that are older than them, but they are also kind of younger in some sense (or in Danny's case an adopted younger sibling).

Danny and Rex would tend to be overprotective a little bit, as people who didnt have a younger sibling before (I mean, Danny does but she is so independant! Danny doesnt get to exercise his overprotectiveness on Danielle xD) so its a bit new to them. But they are also kind of dicks, and thats just the younger siblings in them talking, lol.

Jenny and Zak on the other hand, both have siblings that are very confusing from the age bracket view.

All ofJenny's siblings are older than her BUT their prototype AI and bodies make them behave younger than her, so she tends to view them as younger siblings. There is a constant argument amongst them about who is older-younger, but its all in good fun! (She also sometimes misses being the only child. xD)

Zak's siblings are all cryptids, and two of them are older than him in age (Fisk and Zon are definitily full grown and possibly more long-lived than humans, I still have questions about Komodo, but he is probably older than Zak in age just by a little bit), but their behaviour, as.... well, i don't want to say animals, because they are not mindless animals, but let's just say - their disregard to human behaviours and norms, as cryptids, make them behave in a way that could be considered irresponsible, thus making Zak often behave like a responsible older sibling, despite being younger than them.

So, Jenny and Zak tend to be as snooty and in 'charge' as an older sibling would, but also be mischevous little shits that is younger (sorta only) child behaviour.

Ben and Jun are sort of like the previous four, but they tend to view Randy on a more equal footing rather than just vacilate between older-younger types of behaviour.

Ben, is a single child, but he grew up pretty close to Gwen, since they were born on the same day. Sort of growing up twins but not kinda situation. They also have an older cousin/brother Ken, and they both adore him, but it is obvious that primarly those two grew up together and are equally annoyed with that, lol.

Jun is a middle child. (I kind of dont want to say anything else, because i feel like it explains everything. xD but-) She is independant, and is equally exasparated with her snooty older brother and her hellion of a younger brother. So, really, she just tends to be the most normal towards Randy in the end???

so, ye, of course in the end they treat him as just a new friend, this was just more of me trying to look into inner mind of sibling dynamics in a weird way haha

sorry about it, but if you got this far, hope you had an entertaining read! ;D

[quitealotofsodapop]

Awh! Baby Yuebei loving dinos is everything to me!

Now I wanna see her family take her the dinosaur exhibit at a museum or science center or something. The science center near me has a whole exhibit for all things dinosaur related including fun interactive learning activities for little ones like fossil ecivission in rubber sand and life-size dinosaur animatronics in fake habitats we can walk through. I can't remember the rest rn, my favorite exhibit is the astronomy room! It's so dark in there, whole different vibe from all the others. But the whole building is like a science playground, the cubs(stoplight trio included, tho Redson is probably too much of a know-it-all to let himself enjoy it) would get a kick out of it. I can already imagine which exhibits some of them would enjoy.

-💜

yes! since Yuebei Xing as a character is tied to skulls and bones, I figured it would be cute that she'd have an interest in beings mostly know through their bones.

I know some larger museums have big sand pits to emulate excavations, like the one in New York. The zoo-aquarium in my granddads town has one of those walkable habitats too! The water/fake swamp was actually an aquarium for brackish water fish!

Now I'm loving the idea of Wukong letting the cubs go on a Museum Day to Megapolis, and ofc little kids love Natural History cus thats where the dinosaurs are! Tang pouts and wants to come along too - until Pigsy points out that he's a grown man that can pay his own ticket.

Wukong gets MK and Mei (and Redson since he's been pretty much adopted into the squad) to help bring the kids around to all the exhibits. When Wukong gets too tired to run around (especially cus of his condition), the Stoplight trio take over cub-wrangling duty while Wukong chills at the museum's cafe. Mei and MK treat it like a super-dangerous mission and try their best to engage in what's caught the cubs attentions. MK noticeably blanks in fear when he sees a model of Carboniferous bugs. Redson is a bit of smarty pants, but he's interested in the provided literature/the more obscure creatures on display. Tang is barely any help with babysitting since he gets as easily distracted as the cubs! XD

Yuebei is having the time of her life. Can't keep still for a moment - there's so many things to see and touch! And if there's an excavation pit - she's jumping straight in like a fox. No regards for her nice clothes, she's covered in sand and clay within seconds. Just absolutely feral over these bones.

Mei, pointing to a model: "Do you know what that is Yuebei?" Yuebei, holding a plush dino: "Ty-ranno-saur-us rex!" Mei: "Omg you're so good at this! What about that one?" Yuebei: "Pterro-dact-ill!" Mei: "Yup! Pterodactyl! It's a pretty cool dinosaur huh?" Yuebei, suddenly very serious: "Not dinosaur." Mei: "Huh?" Yuebei: "Not dinosaur." Red Son, reading a museum pamphlet: "She's correct. Pterosaurs are a different branch of archosaur separate from Dinosauria. It's like comparing snakes to lizards." Mei: "Omg! You're so smart, baby girl!" Yuebei: "Thank." (*smug "I know" face*)

If Macaque is around post S3, he helps out with wrangling the kids, but he'd quickly get over-stimulated by all the sights and sounds - so MK would take over for him so dear bama/baba can sit down with Wukong and de-stress. Wukong and Macaque might just wander off into the quiet art gallery if it's nearby (usually is in my experience) and poke fun at the historic art.

The Eclipse twins I feel are more into the astronomy side of the museum (hard not to since Space) and demand that they stay for a lecture on objects in the solar system. And if there's a planetarium - oh boy you know the cubs (and the grown-ups too) are gonna be entranced by the projections of all the stars and planets.

Wukong, pointing to a star: "Hey I know that guy! We fought one time!" Tang: "...what?" Wukong: (*pointing to Zeta Piscium*) "Wood Wolf of Legs; Revati." Tang, gasping: "The Yellow Robed Demon." Wukong: "Yeah!" Luzhen, in baby babble: "He's very far away." (*tries grabbing for the projection of the star*)

The gift shop is decimated. XD

[craftlands]

oop sorry! i did come across one of your mor pankh posts regarding the designs and such about the characters and i do have some points to lay out on their accuracies and inaccuracies, as an indian myself, though i cannot say my word for it will be wholly accurate since again, india as a subcontinent is VERY chaotic and the cultures within different states and a lot of times, certain villages and territories vary drastically. a lot of my points could be disagreed with by another indian and if some of my points ARE incorrect, i'm open to being corrected.

i know it's also pretty late, considering this was one of your older posts but i did give it some chew time. sorry if i'm bothering you.

1) first up is kaalaa baunaa. she IS wearing a saree but the draping and style is pretty reminiscent of modernized styles of saree draping. we do have the traditional drape but the generations right now have gotten to mixing and matching western clothing and experimenting with saree drapes. her outfit, while not culturally inaccurate ( because we HAVE the short/pant combo with the saree ) is grossly inaccurate to the time and setting.

there's also the fact that her outfit screams 'bollywood' in a sense. the blouse in particular is something you'd see on actresses during burner movie shoots ( and even those were a little less provocative...but again the blouse does hold a lot of callbacks to colonial oppression and wearing sleeveless blouses back then was considered 'rebellious' ). in my opinion, if i were to change up her design, i would just omit the saree and put her in a salwaar, since that is the usual go to in northern indian states ( unless in formal events ).

but for the stuff i loved about the design? is the design itself XD. it's just grossly inaccurate to the timeline, but in a modern context, it does have a very stylish flair to it. i just wish she reserved those for festivals rather than everyday living ( because from experience, sarees are HARD to walk in depending on how you drape it which is why my college uniform is a salwaar ). unless they were trying to hammer home how alien she is perceived to be, as an arcanist, which in this case? it works thematically. just tone down the sexualization.

her second outfit is a little more accurate though and i have a preference to that. mostly because of the jewellery she uses. mh. the bollywood style outfit? the embroided saree? the baithale bottu? MH. y e s.

tldr ; the design is pretty good but contextually, for the timeline and for her occupation? it's not the most accurate. but i wouldn't call it a travesty and completely inaccurate either. in a modern setting, her outfit would have passed well in a get together or a friend's party.

2) shamane. okay so the imagery and his outfit WAS something i needed to do my research on. but the 'connection to nature' thing is pretty common here too in tribal societies. my own community, while centuries far removed from it's initial tribal roots, still worships familial sprits and natural objects alonsgside the usual practice of hinduism. i kind of liked that aspect about him tbh because it did reflect of the few vestiges that were left over in my community XD. hell a good chunk of his design was very steeped in tribal influence, though differentiating it is a little difficult ( which again is my critique, but that could also be me not being as well versed in indian tribal culture. it's probably in part because of ignorance. ).

the closes i can get to the influence of his outfit would be naga tribes in nagaland with a mix in of a few others. i'll try to do more research and get back to you on that. i'm just wondering how he got all the way to nagaland???? that's like in the far east...though if were to narrow down the locations, it would be in the few locations where it snows...HMMMM. but yeah the feather motif? tribes here seem to tout it too, depending on what tribe it is.

he does wear your typical sherwani with a large coat on top, something that is, in fact accurate to men's fashion at the time. most middle class or well to do families ( the ones who were not a part of the 60% - 70% below the poverty line ) did hold that similar style of traditional wear with western influence, or straight up turn to western clothing as a whole. its a very small nod to the fact that he was from a well to do family at least. then the eye imagery on the prosthetic arm could be a reference to the nazar, though it's not blue.

tldr; his outfit holds heavy tribal influence but i really need to do my research on which ones in particular.

3) kanjira.

okay. i'm a little upset with her. the fortune teller aspect is rooted in how astrology played a huge part in indian culture. the coffee readings could have been an aspect carried over by cultural mixing through islamic trade and invasions as well. kanjira is another aspect that is a little more of unsure territory. there are parts of her outfit that i can recognize. but together it does feel a little disjointed. and confusing. her jewelry is recognizable. her kamarbandh for one and her skirt.

the blouse though? that confuses me. for one it's more in line with 1910s fashion. the blouse was initially not a part of a lot of traditional indian dresses and were introduced by the british due to extreme discomfort ( aka they didn't like that indian women didn't cover up their chest ). the earlier blouses strongly resembles victorian blouses, with puffed sleeves and ruffles. but then there is that older the shoulder thingie and i'm like ??? HOW DOES THAT WORK-

the snake motif could be a reference to the irula tribe from south india. even her name is a reference to an instrument in south india ( which resembles a tambourine ). i don't think her base outfit is based on accuracy due to the mismatched nature of it. it seems like she just took what clothes she could and made do with that, which given her economic status, makes sense. her alt outfit does glean into what influences she took after, perhaps the banjara tribe. i will need to look into it some more. but it is admittedly, facing a similar problem to kaalaa in how it's so heavy stylized. it's not accurate save for the motifs and yes, it could do with some better work in both versions.

now for the stereotype. i'm very on the fence in this sense with how i could understand that the 'thief' stereotype is referenced. but kanjira is however, a product of some very real stuff that happened ( and still goes on even now ). the unfortunate reality is that people who are considered beneath the lower caste and obc umbrella face their share of discrimination as hooligans and thieves amongst the indian majority as well, even today. it's harmful, but she's the reflection of the struggles of a lot of communities who lived in poverty post colonial india. the british left a lot of scars and the governments after did very little to help and kanjira, as a child with no parents did what a lot of kids back then turned to. it's circumstances deeply rooted in systemic oppression, casteism and so many other issues. i've had family members in similar situations ( my mother's side in particular ).

so i do wince at the fact that she's labelled as a 'stereotype' even though i do see WHY she's a stereotype when the context is removed. her spoken english is also another wince. i know you didn't mean to be offensive and i'm sure to a lot of indians you might not be but kanjira's english is the way it is simply because she was never formally educated in it. she does refer to asking for help to read english words and it's fairly obvious she picked up on the language by listening to others speak it. matilda however, did have to learn it from a pretty young age in the foundation. she was educated in it, whether she likes it or not ( a lot like my case ).

a bit of a breakdown here. english is mostly learned in india for the sake of convenience. it's used in our parliament because it's culturally neutral and doesn't show favor to certain state languages ( and native language in itself is a very culturally sensitive topic in india ). you learn it in case you need to study in foreign firms or if you travel abroad. it also means that if you and a good chunk of other indians speak in english, it allows some leeway to communicate in other states. because again, different languages and dialects are spoken in different parts of india. i myself have a better chance of communicating with a different people from different states in english, no matter how broken it is than having to learn a separate language every time.

i know a lot of people in my college who didn't start learning english till grade 11 and speak pretty similarly to kanjira. so alluding to her imperfect english as a 'not great thing' kind of rubs me the wrong way due to personal gripes of mine, mostly in part due to how eletist it tends to be at times. the mindset of janjira not being good at english being considered 'really not great' kind of fuels into a still ongoing problem of insecurity and a lot of other issues i'd rather not clog the post with.

she's fluent in hindi and it's obviously her preferred language and she can certainly write and read hindi as well. it's kind of similar to making fun of an american for not knowing fluent french they picked up from a few classes, while they're still in america. again, i doubt you meant any harm saying that but my gripe with how learning english is so desperately seeded in some families just to appease how the west views us ( that stereotype you mentioned? yeah ) and the constant perpetuation of the stereotype, has a lot of ramifications.

i don't know how to explain it but it's kind of like this : you call broken english a stereotype, we're afraid of being stereotyped, we try to avoid being stereotyped. but there are people here who can't. maybe their medium of education wasn't english for a good few years, even if their family is well off. that leads to further discrimination from us to them and from you to them.

yes english is a neutral language, but it's also horrifically overrated due to the imbued belief that it also alludes to being educated. i lost chunks of my own mother tongue trying to learn english, simply because it was given more priorities at my home and at my school because of us moving and the imbued fear of seeming uneducated.

i know you meant no harm to that.

but on a cooler note, punji literally means 'money'. kanjira named her snake 'money' and with the drip it has? it's strangely cute XD. it's like that one meme.

also kanjira's accent, kind of reminds me of a few annoying girls in my school ( it's a very common accent in north india and my hindi speakers tbh ). she's literally the valley girl's take in india. the drawl, the lilting tones every time i listen to her, i hear that one girl from fourthe grade and i'm like "n o." because it has that condescending edge to it. i love it XD.

tldr ; kanjira is both 'it kind of makes sense' and 'fuck it we ball'. she could do with reworking. i like the thought that her outdated blouse and her clothing was a mix and match, possibly picked up from charities as well but...yeah XD.

these are mostly my takes. overall, i thing r1999 actually has some of the better depictions of indian culture compared to a lot of other stuff out there ( and there is a LOT of bad stuff ). the fact that there was variation in their accents, the casual switch between english and hindi, the story of mor pankh itself and shamane's incessant need to feed us ( which is a thing in our families btw )...i'm pretty happy with it. and yes, even we fuck up aspects of our own culture. aka, adipurush exists and i will shit on that way more.

sorry for bothering you and thanks for reading through it all ( and i hope i didn't come across as rude in that segment about language )!

hiya! sorry for taking so long to get to this ask -- i was out of town for like a week and had absolutely Zero energy on coming back for like another week afterwards. i want to head this off by saying you're not bothering me in the slightest, i'm genuinely delighted to get to be able to talk about things like this in more depth and i really appreciate you taking the time to write this out! (peek behind the curtain: i have gotten up several times and paced around excitedly in the course of writing this. i REALLY love discussion and critique and Learning Context in general.)

i think time's been pretty kind to the Mor Pankh update, all things considered -- having several months to sit on it (and also no longer playing CROB -- good god Centipede and Black Pepper are an absolute mess of racist/Orientalist tropes, and that was pretty recent at the time of Mor Pankh), it's definitely better than i initially gave it credit for. a lot of things you've mentioned here -- especially a good deal of the further context on Kaalaa Baunaa and Shamane's clothing, as well as further context on Kanjira -- is something i truly don't have much to add to other than "i didn't know that, and this makes me a lot more favorable towards them than before".

definitely Kanjira is still someone i find myself heavily split on. i think a lot of what you mentioned about the way i treated her speaking broken English very callously is probably right on the money and thank you for the correction on that end -- given the context of the story that seems to be one of the more thoughtful aspects of her overall characterization and design. the thief/fortuneteller stereotype is something i'm a little more hesitant to dismiss at face value, though; while it may be a coincidence, there's definitely a history of stereotyping Rromani people in particular as like... scantily clad fortunetellers who steal from people, and it's something that feels really prevalent in Kanjira's design for me. from an in-story perspective i think rev19 does a great job of contextualizing and fleshing her out as a character, but from an overview of the character it rings eerily similar to Orientalist tropes about both Indian and Rromani people in a way that i will probably never be fully comfortable with.

i do think it's hilarious that her snake is named Money though. that's beautiful and i can't complain in the slightest.

Kaalaa Baunaa is a delight to read about in terms of where her outfit might be drawn from. i genuinely don't know a good 90% of the fashion/clothing context when it comes to basically anything in rev19, so for a lot of it i'm definitely deferring to you in terms of whether or not her outfit is accurate. i do definitely like her second outfit better as well (it also looks a lot more comfortable. we're under a heat advisory where i am right now and i WISH i had something like that to wear when i eventually have to go out and walk the dog). i don't really have much else to say here, though

finally for Shamane i will fully admit to being woefully out of my depth and being very attuned to looking for First Nations stereotypes owing to that be a particular trope i'm very used to seeing (gods the feather thing happens SO MUCH). that said, i am absolutely kicking myself for not researching things first, i think learning more about the context of his specific design and beliefs makes me come around a lot more positively to some of the aspects of his design -- especially what you mentioned about it being historically accurate, as that's something i did not consider initially and is really cool to hear about wrt what the design process may have been! (also i love his arm design, like, a lot. no idea if connecting it to nazar designs makes sense or not, it does appear that those are almost exclusively blue though maybe in the context of rev19's worldbuilding red eyes would have developed as the "evil eye" instead? idk, but i can probably count on one hand the amount of prosthetic users in gacha games whose missing limbs are actually given thought and treated as aspects of the story rather than just visual flavor.)

in conclusion: yeah, i think after learning more about the context behind these character designs i was definitely a bit harder on Mor Pankh than i needed to be -- relative to other games that take a swing at depicting SWANA and/or Indian cultures i think rev19 is doing way better in that category than most of them. i will say part of why i am so frequently critical of rev19 is that i also love the game a lot -- i don't put much time or effort into critiquing things that are just straight up bad, and if i'm hard on something that's usually because i really want to sink my teeth into it and talk about what works and doesn't work within its story and broader cultural contexts.

(and also -- thank you again for taking the time and thought to send me this! i can't express enough how much i appreciate being able to learn more about the context of a lot of these characters and the story and just, like, talk about it openly. it rocks! thank you!!)

[stellavesperis]

Do you play any instruments and/or sing? Or is your music writing (or possibly electronically composing? I know not enough about various programmes to achieve it etc to know the correct terms) and the related theory/experience listening to music your only/main form of interacting with making it in some way?

Yes, I play a few instruments! I play the cello, piano, guitar, clarinet, and I am currently learning how to play the harp! :D (Harp is so much fun, I'm adoring every part of it). I've played in several ensembles and orchestras with the cello. I've also taken a handful of music theory classes, but most of the time I compose at the piano by ear. My process mostly involves me making several recordings on my phone before trying to transfer it to a digital notation software. Music is part of my life every day-- I actually start to go a little insane when I travel and don't bring an instrument with me. As for singing-- well, I really enjoy singing, but I'm not particularly skilled with it. (My girlfriend would object to that, but she's biased, and anyway she's an actual singer in choirs and stuff, so I leave that stuff to her XD).

[fencer-x]

SasaMyaa FujiSai Event (afternoon) Report

So! Today I attended the afternoon part of the SasaMyaa "Fujisai" event, a kind of post-Graduation Movie event to look back on it and have fun with the cast, which included the VAs of Sasaki, Miyano, Hirano, Kagiura, and Tashiro and Kuresawa as well. For ease of readers' understanding, I'll use the character names for the VAs throughout this report.

The stage (Yamano Hall, in Yoyogo, Tokyo) was set up to look like an actual festival, with little booths for games around the stage. This will become relevant later XD The audience was overwhelmingly women, but there were a few guys there too (including a few clearly there on their own as fans and not as boyfriends/husbands to their fan-wives).

The event opened with a small video recap of the movie, and then Tashiro and Kuresawa came out to introduce everyone as the MCs for the event. There was a huge monitor over the stage, through which were streamed live feeds of the actors (ostensibly for closeups so that the people in the back could get a good look at the stage, but also probably for future DVD releases).

All the actors introduced themselves, but when it came to Hirano's VA's turn to introduce himself, he shouted "Hirano~!" as a prompt for the audience. Except the audience had no idea what we were supposed to respond with (Taiga???), so he was greeted with DEAD SILENCE. Poor guy XD But then after a brief discussion of why he bombed so hard, Kagi's VA decided to try it too, and "Kagiura~!" was greeted with "Akira~!" from the audience XDDD He then explained that he'd really wanted to do a call-response with a different phrase, so we all let him say, "Hirano-san is so…" and then we responded with, "…nice!" He did this several times throughout the event--Kagi's VA is very clearly the biggest KagiHira shipper out there XD

The next segment was spent discussin favorite scenes from the movies, decided in pairs (SasaMyaaand KagiHira, and then Tashiro and Kuresawa chose by themselves). This was made even better because, in MST3K style, the guys would riff on the scene while it was being played on the monitors lol. Sasaki's VA in particular loved lampooning his own performance. The favorite scenes were as follows:

1) SasaMyaa: the opening scene on the train platform 2) Kuresawa: Miyano and Satoko's conversation in the park 3) Tashiro: Sasaki summoning Miyano to the empty classroom after he got his acceptance letter 4) KagiHira: the very last scene with the smooch in the committee room, but SPECIFICALLY the crumbs of Kagi and Hirano you get in that scene

The next segment was UPCOMING NEWS!

Sanrio collab! I know zilch about these characters except that Hello Kitty is paired with Ogasawara, and that feels Correct. (Dec 18 to Jan 8)

Illustration Exhibition for SasaMyaa/KagiHira + Yurukyun BL from gene pixiv (Dec 23 to Jan 15)

The stage play is going to stream on U-next! It'll be a lot easier for people to see it now, and I'm hoping that means a DVD release is right around the corner. It deserves it!!

Then it was TIME FOR SOME GAMES. The object was for each of the four main cast members to play each of the three games for 30 seconds each, 90 seconds total, and whoever got the most points in each game in total would win. The games were:

1) Super Ball Scoop (scooping up as many little rubber bouncy balls from a bucket of water using a scoop made of tissue and ergo prone to breaking after just a few scoops) 2) Ring Toss (toss rings onto a stake) 3) Shooting (use a little cork gun to knock over targets) [one extra challenge here is that the targets were all color-coded in the characters' colors and you were only supposed to knock over your own character's targets--except Miyano's blue and Kagi's teal are VERY SIMILAR COLORS so the VAs were whining about not being able to tell them apart XDDD]

All in all, these were the final totals after everyone's attempts: Miyano: 33 points Kagiura: 65 points Sasaki: 83 points Hirano: 64 points

A clear win for Sasaki's VA XDDDD

The next corner was a weird goofy 'fortune telling' corner where Tashiro and Kuresawa's VAs pretended to be fortune tellers for the two couples, except the VAs weren't playing their characters, they were just randomly improving being some kind of couple, idk XD the KagiHira segment went totally off the rails and resulted in Kagi and Hirano's VAs rushing each other on stage into a passionate hug, which you can understand the audience was THRILLED by XD

And last but not least for the event was…an original short story live reading. This was brand new content, performed live in person. ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC.

The setting was one month post-graduation (so a bit before current canon, but not too much), and it opened with Miyano and Kuresawa waiting for Tashiro to meet up with them. After Tashiro arrives late from helping an old lady carry some heavy bags home, they recall the previous year's cultural festival (aka their second-year festival, Sasaki and Hirano's third-year festival).

Elsewhere, Sasaki and Hirano are hanging out, having run into each other. Hirano asks what Sasaki is up to, he says he's killing time to meet up with Miyano for a date later--what about Hirano? Hirano is, of course, cagey, but says "something along those lines." They too recall the previous year's cultural festival and how Tashiro had spilled juice on some cardboard boxes, sending Miyano running to them looking for spare cardboard boxes they could use.

Hirano had tried getting in contact with Hanzawa to find out where more boxes were, but he was out of reach, which really ticked Hirano off. Miyano "casually" mentioned reading in a BL manga recently that getting a hug from someone was a great stress-reliever, as it triggered a release of endorphins and made you feel much calmer. Hirano thinks this is bunk and goes off to look for Hanzawa himself.

Left alone, Sasaki brings up all the stuff he's been having to do to prep for this festival…and booooyyy has it really heaped a bunch of stress on him, and does Miyano think that a hug might help? It sure would be nice…

Just as he's about to laugh it off as a joke, like usual, Miyano grudgingly agrees, if Sasaki really is that stressed.

Back in the present, Miyano recalls this moment himself and squeaks.

Hirano gets a text (from presumably Kagi) and parts ways with Sasaki, telling him "Say hi to Miyano for me." When he meets up with Kagi, Kagi asks if he's been waiting long, and Hirano brushes him off, saying, "Nah, I was just talking to Sasa--er, an old classmate of mine." Good for you, Hirano; you've finally learned to avoid triggering Kagi's jealousy unnecessarily. Gold star!

Hirano mentions remembering that previous cultural festival, and Kagi recalls it too--especially the part where he'd heard that hugging someone could help reduce their stress and had taken his chance with Hirano then. When Hirano had been confused (but not pushing him away) about why Kagi was hugging him, Kagi had explained that it was part of their 10-second-touching time, doing the countdown and everything (bruh idk why but it did something to me finally hearing actual mention of that rule in the characters' voices! Felt like it's closer to being animated, even though it's definitely going to take some time…)

The main thing I took from this short story was: KAGI AND HIRANO STILL AREN'T DATING IN FUCKING OCTOBER??!?!?! FUCK ME.

Aaaand that was about it! I can't attend the evening show, but I'm excited to hear what happens there! Hope you enjoyed this little peek!

[omaano]

HELLO IT'S ME AGAIN and i think i overdid it with this one, so i'll probably split this into separate parts, there should be five! this one, boon givers, non-boon givers/npcs, weapons, and aspects :D in reference to who you've got as who from hades game--- so i'm going off the (hopefully accurate) assumption that those with boons are the 'gods' of this au, so-- barriss, kit, shaak, cobb, boba, ahsoka, quinlan (!!), leia, anakin/vader & maul. this leaves… literally EVERYONE else as NPCs, which i love and adore (the rancor [?], cody, satine, echo&fives, aphra, paz, bo-katan, sabine, omega, rex, wolffe, ezra, obi-wan, luke and the armorer!) okay this is just me trying to connect the dots (and from memory i think you've got a fair few more characters than the game does, so bear with me), but: (next ask)

Hello!

First of all, omg, you really put a lot of thought into this, damn! And you have so many insights and good ideas I could have never come up with (and a few assumptions I will have to correct as we go along, but that's mostly about things I haven't yet talked about, and thus cannot expect anyone to know) - especially about the weapons and aspects because... let's be honest I only got so far as "darksaber" and "spear" and the rest is not my problem lol XD

I will make a whole different post to reply to your asks about those (that one will be a LOT shorter, mostly because I will just be excitedly gushing over your ideas), but this one is getting so long I feel like I should offer something in compensation to anyone who'll read to the end ^^; (You'll see more art by mid-August when it will be time for the next monthly update, don't worry!) But I felt like that the FULL layout of all the characters would be better kept together in one post.

Waking up to all these messages had been so unspeakably good, thank you so much for taking the time not to just think these up but to type them out and send them to me as well, because omg your brain and enthusiasm!! I cannot say how much that means to me, I cannot say THANK YOU in big enough caps to encapsule that! ❤️❤️

I had so many things to reply to and talk about, please excuse me that I've taken this long to get to all of them ^^;

So, half of the replies and answers under the cut ->

BOON GIVERS

hades has ten, you've got ten! current associations-- you've said leia is a hermes adjacent character, which checks out. maul is chaos adjacent, as you've also said anakin is zeus, ahsoka is athena? ties into the parent-child/master-padawan relationship? barriss as artemis, kit as poseidon, shaak as demeter? quinlan as dionysus perhaps? cobb and boba are both boon-givers/deities and also romanceable--- boba as ares and cobb as aphrodite? vibes only man.

So the first assumption I need to correct here is that Anakin is most definitely not Zeus, but Demeter (I likely only hinted at that in the tags I think)! That was kind of the reason and realization that's wormed into my brain first and paved the road for my willingness to extend this AU with TCW characters as well. So this applies for later with your NPC adjacent ask too, because Luke is not in fact cast for Hades' but Persephone's role, as the one who needs to be found at the end of the whole mighty quest - and whom Din can also visit on the regular until he gets 75% custody of his kid back (that's a joke, but you know it checks out to a degree). So Anakin is suited for an overprotective parent figure (on a good day) who also doesn't know how to go about it without swinging in the other direction as well. (Plus in my humble opinion Demeter is stronger than Zeus anyway. This is not an objective statement, I just feel stronger with her boons with my game style XD)

I've also switched Fennec back from Barriss (I'm so sorry that I keep doing this, I hope noone's got their hopes up too high D:) because I'd taken a look at the lineup, considered my options for dialogue (since half the Mando cast has no clue about the other boon giver characters) and decided that I needed to bring back more Mando-adjacent characters. (A Boba-Fennec duo boon would be so good!) This way Fennec could technically still carry over to a potential Hades2 AU, and Barriss can appear there as a new character (I haven't watched Tales from the Empire, but I have the feeling that she would go very interestingly with Ventress).

So... they don't line up perfectly with their godly roles, but that leaves Fennec for Artemis (sharpshooter ayy!), and... Shaak Ti for Zeus, Ahsoka for Athena (your reasoning for master/padawan relationship thing kind of convinced me of this, even though Ahsoka has never been Shaak's padawan per se, but I like it when Shaak mentors her as another female togruta in the Order). You are pretty spot on with the rest, good job! :D (The guess at the Boba and Cobb vibes was great, I went with vibes too, but they check out pretty good imo :D)

NON BOON GIVERS

bo-katan is meg, and her night owls are tisiphone and alecto (given) aphra is charon (given) cody is achilles, obi-wan is patroclus (definitely heavily implied if not outright stated, i can't remember)

yes, absolutely spot on!

luke is hades (implied if not stated)

As stated above, Luke is not Hades but Persephone, except that he makes an appearance after the final boss fight to take Grogu off Din's hands (maybe even help out) as he does in the show. Hence why I'm planning to draw two versions of his character art: one for his stylish black Jedi Master getup with the lightsaber, and one dressed down to a "farm boy" and looser, happier and less serious (like how Persephone has her serious queenly look, and the one where she is just at home in her garden.

paz & axe are theseus & asterius? specifically paz as asterius i think (implied?)

Axe double times it for two boss roles (lol, although technically he exchanges one for the other to hang out with Paz later), and Paz also pulls double shift for ThAsterius (Asterius's size but Theseus' mouth and piss poor attitude XD) and Hypnos (I feel it very fitting that he would be the one to greet Din every time he crawls back to HQ, and be less kind and encouraging about it than Hypnos. It's their love language to be mean to the other, that's just how it is XD) All the same, a little bit subtly (at least while I don't have a drawing for Axe) but I'm pushing the Paxe agenda and you cannot to anything about it :P

Fun fact tangent: I think I've mentioned it in the tags for the helmeted Paz post that in order to have to two-character boss battle in the arena of Elysium before Axe can be bothered to drag his ass over there, it would be fun to have a father-son 2v2 fight like with Grogu v Ragnar and Din v Paz. Grogu can 3-shot Ragnar eventually, and then they would disappear from the field, done with their own little rivalry, but Din would have to avoid so much as brushing up against Ragnar, because if he does he's immediately lost dishonourably and would have to crawl his way back to beg for forgiveness.

din is zagreus (uh duh)

omega is melinoe (given)

Omega is Melinoe for a Hades2 AU*, but in this version that is mostly based on Hades (the first, and the only one that I'd actually played) she is leaning more towards Dusa - she's a friend, and is making friends while she stays in the halls, looking for the Bad Batch (and whatever time fuckery makes Rex look like that sometimes while Cody and Wolffe are eternally 20-somethings) and looking for ways and means to help her find them... as well as fleecing any- and everyone in cards. Gotta gather up the credits to hire a bountyhunter if necessary XD

*The next time I lose all my chill and black out for a weekend I'm planning to draw out just Omega, Ventress, and maybe someone else in the Hades2 style. I'll just have to pinpoint exactly where and how I should adjust things with the art style. I swear I never get overambitious, and know full well what's good for me (he said lyingly)

fennec is artemis but specifically in hades 2 (based on the fact that artemis plays a slightly different role in hades 2) rex is skelly (given)

As stated above Fennec has made her way back to being a boon-giver - but I didn't know that Artemis plays differently in Hades2 :o (I haven't played actually, I got overwhelmed by all the magic options when I watched my partner play OTL) Only that she's got a thing for the Moon??

the rancor (?) (i can't ID animals that well don't give me that look) is definitely cerberus

It's a mythosaur, actually. (or at least that's the intention behind it. I'm not entirely sure if there is a proper canon look to a Mythosaur, we mostly only see its skull after all, so I tried my best here with what references I could find on the internet.) He started out as Boba's rancor (so you're not entirely wrong there), but since it felt bad to separate it from Boba, I changed it to a more Mando specific creature. If I were ever to redraw the whole level that is the House of Hades (one can dream), there would be a little pool of water in the corner where Cerberus chills on his pillow, and the Mythosaur would rise from there on occasion.

the armorer i think fits the nyx role, as she's the mother figure of the main character, but she might also fit better as persephone? toss up between her and satine for that i think hang on now i am thinking, because the point of din's journey isn't to escape to find his mother, but to escape to help find someone to train his son, hence why luke is the final "boss". so, the persephone figure in this doesn't necessarily have to be his mother, but someone who can train grogu? in that case, i nominate sabine as persephone (MANDALORIAN JEDI, if you go by ahsoka canon) so: sabine as persephone- but wait. i just had a thought. sabine and ezra as platonic (?) orpheus and eurydice, i AM a genius. okay sabine works as orpheus and ezra as eurydice i think (based solely off the fact that sabine is the one actively looking for ezra, like orpheus is the one actively wanting to reconcile with eurydice [?]), so. i think the armorer works as nyx, because she's kind of a symbol of din's past.. not sure who to put as persephone yet. i mean… persephone symbolises a kind of peace in the underworld, so you could maybe slot satine in? satine as persephone, go

Okay, so first things first: that is such a fascinating theory, (and yes, yes you are a genius <3) I love it! It is all such good logic, and so much more galaxy brained than what I could have come up with, so I hope I won't disappoint with what i have in mind for these characters.

Sabine as a Mandalorian Jedi would be such a cool teacher for Grogu - but I don't think Sabine is up for the existential crisis of "ohmygod, I'm barely a jedi myself, and I'm definitely not old enough to be some 50+ year old baby's master!! D:" She would definitely have more than some insight to share with Luke though. Also just imagine Grogu looking at Sabine like she is the coolest aunt he could ever have (sorry, Fennec). Also also, as stated above and what you have also theorized, Sabine has been cast for the role and spot of Orpheus, looking for Ezra (through Din).

Okay, okay, hear me out: the Armorer as Hades. Her forge would work great as a center of gathering, same as Hades's throne/main desk, and it would be very natural that Din would go there first after arriving back to those halls. (I have so many thoughts about this and how I would want to redraw these halls... someday.) And while she is not the first final boss to beat once Din gets there (just before handing Grogu over to Luke), once Gideon (a temporary final boss) is defeated the Armorer can more than return to her Hades role for beating Din up as "training". Same as Hades and Zagreus do once they reconcile their differences.

And now, that I'm nearing the point why I want all these characters to be forced to gather/hang out in the same spot: Satine is Nyx. I know that she is dead, and we don't care for those tiny details, and I'm not planning to draw her as a shade/Force ghost like Fives, we're just going to ignore this little lore tidbit the same way how we accept that Rex can look both like his gloriously bearded Rebels self, and the fetching captain from the clone wars. We're just not talking about all this.

I deeply love the steel in her spine and her dedication in her ideals and beliefs, and I want to see her clash with the Armorer on what makes and Mandalorian with Sabine and Din (whose idea of what it makes a Mandalorian and to wear Mandalorian armor suffers a great blows through his meetings with Cobb and Boba, and Bo-Katan and her ilk) in the middle. I also feel like the clones would have their own opinion on the matter, even if it would be something like "you all have never cared for us, now leave us alone, we have our own culture".

I would need to do deeper research here for this (as much as I'd be willing to touch this ideological debate) because my knowledge of Mandalorian (or Star Wars, really) lore is all that I occasionally try to google and what I'd picked up from fics and the occasional meta post here on tumblr. But the same way that Nyx disagrees with Hades on some matters, she is still an (if not the most) important pillar of what holds up the underworld; and the same way Satine is just as important in what it makes to be a Mandalorian as the Armorer is to the Children of the Watch.

So I want them to clash (with the added drama when Bo-Katan starts hanging out there around her sister on occasion as well), and then come to a more inclusive understanding of what it makes to be Mandalorian, like what I believe Sabine and Din represent.

I know that Satine is super controversial in the fandom, but I'm willing to die on this hill, even if I'm not very good at articulating my opinions.

okay uh. we have more hades characters than star wars characters, but: echo & fives as sisyphus & bouldy, wolffe as thanatos?

Echo&Fives are to be understood as one character (there has been a thought to cast them for Orpheus and Eurydice, but then gave that storyline to Sabine and Ezra since it fits them so much better, especially after Ahsoka), and they are in Thanatos' spot (no other reason than that I wanted to include them, and they should be hanging out around Cody, Rex and Omega. I know that Thanatos doesn't make it through to Hades2(?) but you see, I don't want to line everyone up 100% with the already existing roles/characters).

With that mismatch it's actually Wolffe and Plo as Sisyphus and Bouldie. Wolffe needs quite a bit of extra work to be won over to become friendly, but once he gets to the world weary sigh of "you are okay, I guess, you can be allowed to meet my General" that's basically a shortcut to finding Grogu an alternate Jedi master, because Plo would just take him on, no problem with attachments and other concerns. There, game won, Din didn't even need to find Luke for that.

this leaves hypnos and dusa- i would like to nominate c3po as dusa, which leaves R2 as a slightly more chaotic hypnos. chopper, of course, is Tiny Vermin. (non-droid characters could be qui-gon as hypnos [idk man, something about the vibes], and… yeah, no, i think c3po fits dusa quite well) on an alternate note, i think padme and her [shade] handmaidens could fit the role of the queen/persephone quite well-- but maybe that's just me being a little padme-biased. anyway! not all of these characters quite fit, and i am in fact aware that you probably don't intend to match up all the characters exactly, but this was a fun little exercise for me!

I ADORE the idea of Chopper as Tiny Vermin XD

I wouldn't want to make Din face the horror that is regular interaction with C3PO (although I'm sure it would work in his favour if they could commiserate with Wolffe on the matter XD), he would never get over his anti-droid sentiments XD So no, sadly no appearance will be here for our favourite (?) gold plated protocol droid,but R2 would definitely be the one to wheel in and project Leia's hologram for Din to interact with, because she is a busy lady after all, he should feel lucky that she would take his calls in the first place when he needs help with getting out of trouble with the X-wing patrols.

And double sadly no Padme either, because I refuse to turn this AU into another Skywalker drama, sorry ^^;

TBC...

[vellaphoria]

14. Is there a character or ship you were so sure you would never write/draw but now you've changed your mind?

6. Show us a bit of a WIP!

👀👀

3. NoTP?

Thanks for the ask!!! <3 I'm gonna do this out of order so that the fic excerpt can go beneath the cut 14. Ironically, DickTim XD When I first started in this fandom I was strictly in the Dick & Tim tag. This was at a point where there just wasn't very much there though, so eventually I ran out of content and tripped face-first into DickTim. Then I ran out of content in that tag and decided that the only way to stay sane was to learn how to write more of what I wanted to read

3. That's a bit of a tough one for DC, since I tend to just be uninterested in most of the ships. Though I personally have a strong aversion towards Joker x Harley (or whatever the ship name is). It's just not my thing :P 6. An excerpt from the Recursion epilogue/followup that I'm gonna finish someday:

Most of the equipment isn’t salvageable. And what is salvageable isn’t exactly transportable.

All in all, he leaves the warehouse with a flash drive full of blueprints, his Red Robin gear, his bike, and the bag he’s been living out of for longer than he really wants to think about. 

Still, there’s an exhilaration to traveling light, taking barely anything with him as his motorcycle speeds down semi-empty streets. The neon drenched backdrop of Gotham flies past him in a blur. He takes each turn too fast. He feels alive. 

At the junction that would take him to the outskirts of the city and Wayne Manor, he nearly takes a wrong turn, forgetting for a moment that Dick hasn’t set up shop there for a long while now. Some backtracking later and he finds the correct turn-off, bringing his bike down into the tunnels that run beneath the city. 

When he finally pulls into what serves as the Bunker’s garage, Dick is already waiting for him. He lurks at the edge of the room, looking uncertain about trying to approach as Tim removes his helmet and shoulders his bag.

He’d stuck to civilian clothes on the way here; jeans, a long sleeve shirt, and a beat-up leather jacket to keep out the wind as he rode.

Dick seems to have had the same idea. The sweatpants and threadbare t-shirt suggest that he came straight down from the penthouse. 

It feels strange to see each other without layers of kevlar and nomex between them. At least when it's this them, here and now.

In the present, he hasn't seen Dick look so casual since before Batman's disappearance became well known and Gotham became a living hell. In those days, they were all but living in their suits, ready to go at a moment's notice. 

Tim is pretty sure that he's been going at nearly that pace ever since. And, from the dark circles beneath his eyes, he suspects that Dick has as well. Back on that rooftop, he hadn't had enough emotional distance from the situation to see how Dick looks just as exhausted as Tim feels.

He gets off the bike, stashing it in an open spot. It isn't until he removes his bag from the back of the bike that Dick approaches.

“It’s good to see you,” he says, quietly. When he smiles, it's faint, and a little sad.

“You too," Tim says.

He steps closer, not entirely sure what he's intending to do. 

Dick doesn't seem to know either. But he opens his arms, just a bit, and-

The hug is a careful, fragile thing. Threaded through with the knowledge that a single wrong move could shatter them. Still, when he tries to pull back, the arms around him tighten as Dick keeps him pressed against his chest. 

Tim lets him. It feels good to be close. To have Dicks’ hands on him, despite the context. 

There are some nights when he wants to rage at him, throwing objects and insults across the room to try and find some way to make everything make sense. But then there are the nights when all he wants is this: to be wrapped in Dick’s arms, feeling nothing but the strength of his muscles and warmth of his skin. 

Tim gives in, leaning into it, pressing his own hands into Dick’s back. 

There’s a kiss against his forehead, then his temple.

“I missed you,” Dick says, against his ear. 

“Missed you too,” Tim whispers back. 

When they finally pull apart, it almost feels like it's too soon. His body aches with the phantom feeling of being held.

The deceptively simple solution here would be to take Dick's hand and lead him upstairs. It would be so easy to say that he doesn't want to be alone tonight, to ask Dick for his company and for whatever else he'd be willing to give.

Dick can be very giving when he's trying to make something up to someone.

But… no.

Tim said they would talk about this, and he doesn't quite trust himself to let himself have this again without first untangling the mess in which they've caught themselves. 

So he stays content with the way that Dick’s hand cups his face, lingering a moment before he turns to lead Tim further into the Bunker. 

He saw the blueprints back when Bruce was first having the place built, but he never saw the finished product. It looks very efficient. While the Bat Cave was adapted to fit the space, The Bunker was clearly built from the ground up with a vigilante operation in mind. Everything fits together like clockwork, with some notable exceptions.

There are strategically placed empty spaces. They pass by two work benches full of half-finished projects and a third that’s entirely empty. A row of storage lockers is meticulously labeled, with the exception of the one to the right of the one labeled for Dick’s personal use. 

When he glances at Dick, it’s clear that he’s very purposely not looking at any of them. Trying to not call attention to it. 

The implication of it all makes something in Tim ache a little. For all that his reasons for leaving were justified…

They have a lot to talk about. (asks are from this post)

[diy-fire-water-pups]

//hello to the mod! just wanna give a heads up about your blog's colors since they can get pretty straining to the eyes, other than that it's really cool! marshall! im gonna quiz you a little if you dont mind heh, (holds up TEN strips of juicy bacon)

number 1! hypothetically, if a person gets cardiac arrest what are the courses of action you should take? What if you don't know how to do CPR? I'm pretty sure you're trained to do CPR, but in the hypothetical situation where you don't, do you just do nothing while waiting for help to arrive?

number 2! what are the principles of radiation exposure?

number 3! Blood and bodily fluids must always be treated as ____________.

number 4! you came upon a casualty who has hit his head badly in a strange position: his legs are rigid and extended, with pointed and turned-in toes. his arms are straight and tense; his wrists are flexed outward and his fingers are curled, making his hands look like "e"s. Where do you think is the brain injury located?

and finally: what are the components of a fire tetrahedron?

you get two pieces of bacon for each correct answer, good luck!

A quiz? Sounds like a surprise test. Scary... But okay, let's see.

1- Well, this first one is easy. If you don't know how to perform CPR- and no, "I saw it in a movie" doesn't count as knowing how to do that- what you gotta do is call your local emergency number, like, immediately. You can't move the body under any circumstances, except if it's to take it away from risky situations such as explosion, fire, drowning, and even then, the most you can do is to place them on a flat surface and pull their head back up to open their respiratory tract. Now seriously, if you're not trained to do CPR, just DON'T, because you'll probably just make things WORSE. For example, if you do it wrong and blow air into their esophagus instead of their larynx, you'll risk making them throw up right on your face! 😖 Yuck!

2- Principles of radiation exposure... Justification, if exposure is really necessary or if it will bring benefits; Dose Limitation per individual and Optimization of Protection, like using as little exposure as possible and being as quick as possible. Now if you're talking about reducing exposure, then it's Time, Distance and Shielding, I guess.

3- Uh... Infectious substance, or object? I keep forgetting this.

4- What...? Okay, hold on, this is VERY specific, let me think. I didn't go that far with my training, I just work with whatever superficial injuries, sprains and fractures or broken bones. I leave specific stuff like that for the leveled up professionals at the actual hospitals, most I do in these cases is first aid to lessen further damage or blood loss, immobilization and take the victim to the nearest hospital for proper care. That being said... Hmm... Is it somewhere in the frontal lobe area? I forgot what it's called, but as far as I remember, that's the area responsible for limbs movement, so an injury there could result in limbs paralysis...? I think I'm shooting in the dark here.

5- Ah, now that's basic firefighting knowledge! The components of a Fire Tetrahedron are fuel, heat, oxygen, and a chemical chain reaction. You take any of these out, the fire will stop!

So... How did I go?

(( As for the blog colors, just so other people know, we sorted things out with another ask already XD One way or another I already made a couple subtle changes in post background and text colors in this blog's theme, what I'm "unable" to change is the colors I'm using for each pup because these are the very Tumblr text editor colors, so I need to adapt everything else to make these readable enough. ))

[charmixpower]

Musa ia the only one (i think) who changed her hairstyle thoughout the show. What is your opinion about the other winx what hairstyle will suit them best.

Uhh?? Like which hairstyles look best and how I'd like to see their hair develop through the seasons? Sure

WOW making Bloom's hair wavy is objectively correct

That aside, high low styles and braids. That's what Bloom really vibes in. Something about Bloom and braids I cannot explain it but it looks beautiful and the high low styles just may h Bloom's vibes

Leaving Bloom's bangs letting them be weird is 20/20 Bloom. Yes Bloom cuts her own bangs, how could you tell. She loves her insane bangs

Bloom just rocks braids too. Small decorative braids that wrap around her head and the full on braids. Both look amazing on her

Messy buns are also perfect for Bloom. Matches her art kid vibes perfectly, real buns are great for when she's trying to be fancy. Fancy Bloom with a small bun is always super cute. Nothing can contain her weird girl energy

I wish WOW Bloom had her weird ass bangs, then we could have wavy hair classic Bloomy hair

Stellas classic bangs look like she has normal straight bangs with hella frayed edges in a vampire cut at best and I hate them. I refuse to believe that Stella has vampire cut bangs, I simply close my eyes when I see it

I am VERY biased to any hairstyle that gets rid of them, and also curtain bangs Stella supremacy

I also think Stella looks better without those two super long stands of hair hanging over her shoulders, I like the s5 ones a lot

Aside from that Stella's hair looks best when it's down, but because that's boring this is mostly a complication of bang styles I like on her with one example of Stella nomral hair

Also mixed kid Stella, her hair is naturally curly or has the ability to curl naturally. I am biased and I like to see her hair with some volume yess

The s4 Stella look is mostly there because it's just a beautiful way to put her hair up for like sleep and stuff where she'd want her hair out of the way and it's one the Stella hairstyles of all time

The beach look is here because it actually made me forget how much I hate her pointy bangs. Her hair is windswept 💕💕💕 beautiful, the bun is a cute touch as well

That's all. Stella loves her long hair and gets p fuckin upset whenever someone fucks with it and does like everything to maintain it. Stella literally would only cut her hair under threat of death, and she likes having it down. Her hair says down XD the only thing that would change is her bangs

When they get weird with Flora's bangs it's always a win. Like yes bitch let her bangs do as they please, mix them up yesssss. Also big yes to any hairstyle that draws attention to her bangs, like hair decorations, and while I'm not sold on that headband it does make her bangs stand out more so ig it can stay

Flora looks best when her hair is left to roam wild or tied up tight. It's either giving boho queen letting her hair be all flowy and gorgeous, or "I'm gardening and I'm not getting dirt in my hair" and both fit her amazingly

The Sirenix low ponytail is just so slay. It's so messy and flowy and free and it gives a casual nature lady energy. It's such a chill beautiful look that really should have been in a civilian form instead but like whatever

I'm usually against high ponytail Flora, but the flowers and pearls in her hair save that look and help it ascend. Gorgeous. We love it

The s4 and s6 buns are so cute. Gardening hair and date hair respectively

Flora's Believix hair is THEE Flora hair. I'm sorry but it is. Superior to Flora's Enchantix hair. The flowers fit her so much better than pearls and gems and I don't think Flora would get super fancy with her hair in the first place. This is just Flora

Flora also should have cut her hair in s4. It would be cute

Dyed hair, choppy bangs, messy hair, slicked back hair, weird HUGE bangs, keep it weird, keep it short, keep it Tecna baybeeee

Also hats. Hats also fuck but I can't see them being a every day thing for her

It would be really fun if she cut and shaved her hair in different styles as hair evolution but I'd accept her dying her hair differently every season

Musa looks best with her hair up. Especially with her long hair because it makes it look like her hair is shorter while also giving her hair more options. I especially like her s5 hair of the bun with the hair down and the sleep hair loopys. While I wouldn't make the sleep hair loopies her civilian look it is a natural evolution of her pigtails into a new long hair style while still keeping the original style (tho it needs to lose the side strands, the shorter strands work better when her hair is visibility long and this makes them look short so axe em)

Hats as well, Musa looks good in hats. Musa only got to wear one hat in the original series, and she wore it over her pigtails because she's very silly, but more hats and a hat in her civilian design would absolutely be a win to me

Okay now stuff that only applies to her long hair:

The long low pigtails are slightly more tomboish than the long high pigtails but if you have her an undercut that would fix that

The s4 long hair looks like shit, that isn't Musa, yada yada yada, if your going to do long hair down Musa do it like S7. Would Musa ever wear any of that, especially the earrings? God no. Does it at least look like something an older Musa might wear? Replace the head band with headphones, and yeah maybe

WOW Musa got the memo. Also that hairstyle is like her s5 one except the bun doesn't lead into a pointy tail, instead it's a half up half down style. It's cute, but it's mostly there to show how headphones can replace a headband

There are a lot of examples of how to make long hair Musa look less bad and that's because there are no images of short hair Musa in anything but her pigtails and I'm cranky about it

Messy bangs, high ponytails, and fashion only hats

S6 is a crime against humanity but look at her hair godblessss. The s5 and s3 hats are cute and yes Aisha only wears hats for fashion unlike Tecna who wears them for a purpose, and Musa who wears them for both

Messy bangs just work with Aisha. Her whole thing is that she was overly stifled and expected to act in a very particular way and as soon she got away she refused to control her flyaways and bangs. She will not, fuck y'all, she got shit to do that isn't worrying about her hair

High ponytails also work like hell. High ponytails are just yess. They have a very "I got shit to do, and I need to do it yesterday." Vibes that fit Aisha's dedication and drive perfectly

Mixing the two gives this very amazing vibe. They tried to accomplish this in s4, but did not but they did manage to get it in s6 which is hilarious. It gives the vibes that she needs to do something but not as urgent, shes still having fun

I also love how her Royal hairstyles are the high pointytail too, it shows how the main thing she got from all those classes is how to be goal oriented. I love that for her, she threw away all the sexist nonsense and kept the work ethic, she's so awesome. In reverse it also shows how dedicated she is to her people, how keeping them safe and happy is her goal, love thattt

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

What's this? Another Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow post?? But it's 2024! Surely, there's nothing new to uncover with regards to this seminal work of sequential storytelling...right?!?!?

Well...kinda. XD

BEHOLD! Another Tom King podcast interview, wherein he discusses Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, and mostly confirms stuff we already knew, but! BUT! He does drop some new bits of info!

Right then. LET'S GO!

My usual disclaimer applies, recommend listening to the interview firsthand to get a more objective perspective.

But if you're cool with my (INCREDIBLY BIASED! ALWAYS! ALWAYS BIASED WITH THIS BOOK!) summary, then ONWARDS WE GO.

(And when I say 'biased summary' what I mean is that I will be including the bits that make me want to run a victory lap because my readings were SPOT HECKIN' ON, ALL YE NAYSAYERS!*)

Ahem. Anyways.

So I'm going to start off with some new-ish info (at least, it's new-ish to me. XD) The interviewers had asked about the title, specifically in regards to Zor-El's dialogue in issue six (I believe it's the portion where Zor is explaining to Kara why he's going to save her, and says something like, "tomorrow will come soon enough...and you will be a woman looking back on the many decades of your life..." hence 'Woman of Tomorrow') and whether that was planned from the outset, or if that part came about organically as he was writing it.

King said he'd originally written a completely different script for issue six (which we did know) but FUN NEW FACTOID TIME: Zor-El/Kara's origin (initially) weren't included in issue six like, at all. It therefore would not have come up at any point within the mini-series, had they gone with that first script.

But editorial hated it (King agreed with their conclusion, and another fun fact, we'll get to see said script in the backmatter for the new deluxe edition, YAY) and when King asked if there was anything in it that they liked, they said the tiny flashback to Kara's time on Argo was good.

SO. King then decided to expand that/incorporate her origin, because that would be 'easy', and this was back during his crazy COVID writing schedule.

(Folks will perhaps recall that he wrote issue seven in like...a day. What we did not know was that he rewrote issue six in that same week.)

And then it ended up being everyone's favorite issue so yaaaaay for editors! Unsung heroes of comics!

They are also comics' greatest villains but that's a discussion for another day!

Evely's art was mentioned at this point and King was like, 'I had to go back and make the writing more beautiful/esoteric to match what she was putting out.'

Also we stan a comic writer who lets his artists take as long as they need on art. (Though as he's mentioned before, Evely was able to turn in the art quickly on this book, which is heckin' WILD to me, have you SEEN that woman's pencils and inkwork??!??!?!??!?!)

They touched on the True Grit comparisons, only relevant/new bits there are that King feels it's the perfect novel (agree) and that the John Wayne version is terrible (also correct) and the Cohen Brothers' version is great (right again.)

Another bit we already knew: It was an editor who was responsible for the suggestion that Kara should be Rooster, not Mattie. (I think in the past he credited this to Jamie Rich, but this time he said he couldn't remember if it was Rich or Brittany Holzherr, and said they could fight over the credit if they want. XD)

Either way, THANK YOU, WHOEVER YOU ARE, b/c the alternative pitch, with Kara as Mattie and Lobo as Rooster, sounded awful.

Instead King went with, 'Kara will learn from the young naïf, and teach the young naïf.'

(Much better.)

MORE NEW, FUN TRIVIA!!!!

King said they had the first issue completely drawn, colored, and lettered--basically ready to go, and DC said, 'we can't publish this because Supergirl doesn't drink.'

King called Jim Lee, trying to make his case, that she was twenty-one, it was legal, it was a totally normal/human thing to do, and Lee was like, 'but we can't.'

King: Could I do it with Superman? Lee: Yeah.

Essentially it was a lot of tiptoeing around stuff like, 'girls can't get drunk and whatnot' coupled with 'Supergirl can't do that because she's perfect and pure.'

But! Lee ultimately was like, 'okay, you can leave the scene in, but you can't say she's drunk.'

So if you go back and read the actual dialogue/narration, there's no explicit language confirming that kara is three sheets to the wind.

(Which is so, so ridiculous to me because the art makes it very, very clear that she is. XD LOOPHOLES!)

King and the interviewers pointed out that this real world editorial incident ironically tied into one of the metanarratives of the character, that being the pressure placed on Kara, which Clark doesn't have to deal with.

Art imitating life etc. etc. XD

Feel like I've heard this bit in other interviews but it's sweet so it bears repeating: the green sun planet's name is based on King's nickname for his daughter, and she was the one who came up with the idea of a 'green sun planet' during a discussion at dinner one night.

So shifting gears a bit, the rest of the podcast focused specifically on various plot points that the interviewers wanted to discuss/had questions about; it's basically King offering his insights as the writer. And I really, really appreciate this, for reasons I'll get to further down. Now then, more summarizing!

One of the interviewers brought up a sticking point he had with the book: the execution of the Brigand in issue four. Ruthye says to Supergirl that she thought she would save him. To which Supergirl replies: Did you?

King explained that Ruthye and Kara are on opposite journeys in this book. In issue one, Kara is on the side of 'I don't kill, heroes never kill' and Ruthye is on the opposite side, 'Krem killed my father, I have to kill him.' At the end of the book, they are once again on opposite sides, but they've switched.

(I love the way King described it, that Ruthye becomes Supergirl, and saves Supergirl. More on this later.)

But specifically that part in issue four, where Kara doesn't step in, King confirmed that she's on that journey, she's going through that transition, but she hasn't crossed the line of, 'I'll kill him myself.' Rather, she's allowing the system to do what it will.

King also mentioned that this theme isn't especially new and has been examined in comics time and time again, of superheroes asserting their morality over governments, and how that spirals into fascism. He cited Kingdom Come, etc.

Further comments from King on Kara's character: she's conflicted, unlike Clark. Clark's soul and ideals are aligned one to one; Kara wants that. She loves those ideals and wants to uphold them, but she's not fully aligned like that because of what she's been through (read: She's Seen Some Things)

Loved this bit from King: "Supergirl's a little more human than Clark, in spite of being more alien."

King said DC probably would've let him have Supergirl kill Krem in the end, BUT (and it's a good 'but' tying into that earlier bit about Ruthye becoming Supergirl) he said that the theme of this book was 'what makes Supergirl awesome' (he admits this is kind of a dumb theme, but hard disagree, sir) and he liked that Kara's lessons to Ruthye are ultimately what saves her. Kara saves herself.

(STICK A PIN IN THAT ONE, FOLKS)

King once again stated, for the record, that Krem does not die in the end!

The two interviewers had differing interpretations, hence King needing to confirm. XD He even pulled out his script for issue eight, and the description does indeed say that Krem is unconscious, not dead.

And, AND, Evely even made this clearer in the art; the script didn't have Krem moving after Ruthye hit him, but Evely added Krem placing his hand on his head.

Another point the interviewers wanted to discuss: Ruthye writing that Supergirl had killed Krem.

King confirmed that this was to prevent the Brigands from retaliating against Ruthye, and instead focus on going after Supergirl.

In King's mind, Kara feels immense guilt that her father saved her over literally anyone else, so she spends her life taking on other people's pain, to make up for what she sees as taking someone else's spot on that ship.

The scene in issue seven, where Kara's falling through the atmosphere and pushes through in order to preserve the memories that she carries with her was inspired by events from King's life; his mother died unexpectedly, and when going through her things, realized that he was one of the only people who carried certain memories of his mother and grandparents; he described it as a kind of burden.

Last question from the interviewers: Why make Ruthye and unreliable narrator? Do we believe anything in this book, now?

King started off his answer by noting that he fought against using captions in his books for his entire career; by the time he started writing comics, caption boxes had sort of lost their vitality and had become the equivalent of thought balloons, which had long since fallen out of style.

But when he returned to them with Supergirl, he said, (and I have the full quote below)

King: "What I love about [captions] is that you can write things that contrast what's in the pictures, so that the captions can tell you a little bit of a different story than what you're seeing, and thereby enhance it--it's that idea of Ruthye being, she's narrating the story but we're seeing pictures of what's actually happening, creates an excellent sort of tension I think." (Bold mine)

And so, some THOUGHTS!

As always, I love learning new things about this comic. I wish this comic had a commentary track, with King (and Evely, Lopes, and Cowles!) talking about the creation/processes behind the book.

Next best thing is podcasts, I guess! XD

But IN ADDITION to fun, new information, as I mentioned at the outset, King has basically confirmed a bunch of stuff I mentioned in my deep dive posts.

To quote one of the interviews: "I was validated by Tom King!"

XD

This also debunks like. Every bad-faith criticism lobbed at the book. It's almost like a checklist of the month-to-month stuff I was seeing from those aforementioned naysayers, complaining on twitter that King had ruined Kara beyond repair.

They'll likely never listen to this podcast, but I wish they would! I think it would make them feel better. XD Like, hearing the insights on Kara/Ruthye/etc has just reminded me once again how good this book is, and how emotionally moving.

Like, again, I love the way King sums up how Kara and Ruthye work together in this book to shine a spotlight on Supergirl; Kara teaches Ruthye lessons, Ruthye becomes Supergirl thanks to those lessons, Ruthye then saves Kara, thus Kara saves herself.

(Which hey, I touched on in my issue eight post, way back when.)

(I'm also beyond thrilled that my assumption that the art is the true account while the narration boxes are Ruthye's recounting was CORRECT.)

(Which isn't to suggest this is a terribly deep, difficult to decipher text. I mean. It's a monthly comic book intended for mass consumption, starring popular IP--the writing isn't inaccessible by any means. XD But I just remember seeing SO MANY PEOPLE deliberately misreading these specific points as a way to Stay Mad, so I'm relieved that my glass half full interpretations wasn't just the result of desperate Evely Stan goggles, you know? XD)

TL;DR: I cannot heckin' WAIT for that big, beautiful hardcover coming out in July (IDK if I've posted about it here yet but Lopes said he recolored some stuff so you BETTER BELIEVE I'll be back on my Woman of Tomorrow nonsense this summer) and I'm also thrilled that this entire creative team has returned with a new creator owned title (EXPECT A POST ON THAT...AT SOME POINT???)

[kaistrashbin]

Hi Kai, it's me again!

While I agree that Donna is No1 forever and always I'm also excited to see the others in the AU! Are they all professors or do they habe different roles?

- Valentines anon

Hello again Valentine! It's good to see you :D

Ah yes, our beloved Donnie <3 Always and forever our Queen

I'm honestly extremely excited to further develop this AU! Progress is slow-especially cause i'm mostly focusing on Donna rn and i've just started college-but I really wanna turn this into smth cool and make as much content as I can for it! I'd hope to some day make lil comics for it and at least have some sort of fic written for the AU. Though i'd be just as happy if I only ever get asks XD Anything that gets me to at least talk about it, doodle, and further develop ideas XDD The motivation and joy that come from knowing other people like the idea is great fuel (aside from my own enjoyment and obsession with it PFFT)

As for the others!!!- More info on them under the cut!!!(I wrote way more than intended LOL i'm figuring things out as i'm writing pfft-)

I see all of them as like board members for the school. Leading and managing it at the highest level right under Miranda who ofc is the headmistress(might come up with a different title, still in development). Let's get into a few quick details about the other Lords though! Do note that not much worldbuilding has gone on so types of magic and what is taught at the school is still in the works. Quite literally everything is still in VERY early development so expect changes

Alcina Dimitrescu

Definitely a professor! Of what..? Well uh....i'm still working on it! XD Perhaps of a music related magic? (Resident Lover shows Alcina as the art professor and while I think it's a great choice for her, I don't want to just hop onto the same idea.) I don't really see much about Alcina's relationship with music so perhaps I can do something for it through this AU :) Either that or a "dark arts" type thing? Necromancy and shadow related things? I'll be honest i'm slightly leaning towards darker arts...especially for plot reasons...

A vampire- ofc she is PFFT, the Dimi Daughters are also vampires(whether they're her biological children or were willingly converted is still in development)

She's every teacher that complains about other teacher's methods and classrooms

Karl Heisenberg

In charge of school security! He's technically supposed to be teaching students about combat and taking in certain students for a guard internships but he has an assistant who does the actual teaching for him LOL He's just there to occasionally be the face and the muscle of the program XD Though he does do some actual teaching for that program, he's more about demonstrating and correcting students he observes(he also just mostly is interested in the security interns)

Now because his assistant handles most things related to the combat courses/guard internships he actually teaches a second class with a different assistant. It's metal/machine based and as it's more a deep passion of his he actually takes it more seriously and prefers to do more of the teaching himself. All his assistants and deputies just make it more manageable for him to be taking care of multiple things like this. He actually spends the most time and effort on this class.

Is a Lycan! They can't turn into wolves or convert others though (a good portion of the school's security is actually lycans)

His magic is also a work in progress, though in this AU in general I want to have some who mostly just focus on mastering one form of magic and those who are experienced in multiple. Obviously the more types you focus on (that aren't considered more basic/general stuff ex. lighting a candle with a snap, animating an object to do a simple task, ect.) the less you master each. I would like him to possible specialize in more than one but we'll see how things go!

Salvatore Moreau

I actually imagine he'd be a professor of healing related magic or a beastmaster, and also supervising a program about experimental magic

Handsome fish man. You know classyfruit's gorgeous genderbent Moreau? Yeah, but handsome fish man. A triton but more fish-like

Wow this was short and he needs more love

Extra love for handsome fish boi Moreau

[merge-conflict]

5 (it's wonc isn't it 😞) 16, 20, 21, and 22

ty for the ask :3 questions are here

5. worst discord server and why

idk the modding one? because it has a billion channels and as soon as I joined I got overwhelmed, muted it and haven't opened it again. you say wonc like I'm not logging on every day and going into a brainrot thread to play ocs. sammy and I are deep in a brain cancer arc right now. xD

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

getting Johnny back his original body. I don't hate it, but it seems like such an easy fix given how the original relic trials went and that it's not just growing a new limb but a whole body including the brain. saburo doesn't even do that with all his money in the DE, which tells me it probably would take a while to grow a clone like that, if it's even possible (if it was, why would they have tested on random bodies and know that that process works best with relatives?). and it's not like johnny was ever a well-adjusted guy in his original body.

I know the answer is fix-it fic. But I'm surprised more people don't want to explore the inherent body issues/compromises in the genre. But! I do think it's interesting if people do or do not write Johnny getting a cybernetic arm again -> something that both fucked him up and defined him. what a choice between honoring what was and trying to get a truly clean slate. anyway it's something like the happy ending with children thing where I don't personally see the appeal, and that's okay. I was just honestly surprised it was so popular!

20. part of canon you found tedious or boring

I already complained about tech and the blackwall in a previous post. I guess on replays I really get bored playing Johnny's sequences or doing the BD stuff because once you know what happens it's just a slog to get through.

21. part of canon you think is overhyped

overhyped would mean that I hear about it a lot? and I so rarely hear meta discussions that I'm kinda starved for it. I guess I'm disappointed to hear the sequel in planning has a big AI component because I wasn't a fan of how the story seems to be going in the original game (i.e. I think they're going with a straight forward apocalypse monster angle which doesn't serve the underlying themes the way I personally want it to, which as we all know is what would be objectively correct).

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

this is a hard one because again I don't see a lot of discussion about it but again I see very little lore discussion so I could pick anything.

I think it's fascinating Johnny never once discusses where he gets the bomb (it's a Militech bomb) or the fact that bombing Arasaka tower is as good for Militech as it is for him. I thought maybe it'd come up in PL but nope! in game there's a shard that describes a Militech convoy being robbed by nomads, implied to be the one that was carrying nuclear armaments. was it a setup by Militech? or did they not want it stolen but get what they wanted anyway when they got Arasaka thrown out of NC? How did that contribute to the war later where NUSA tried to grab NC and failed and resulted in Dogtown's creation and Arasaka being let in? When Johnny signed up as a corpo soldier who was it that he joined? Was it Militech or some other corp that broke him by sending him into battle? Why can't you even discuss the fallout of Johnny's actions? Especially in that dream of his where he apologizes to the netrunner whose husband got killed in the blast? (does anyone else think it's spooky you can find that NPC selling vinyls on the street?)

Anyway besides Johnny's enormous hate-on for Arasaka I want to know what his opinions are on the other major corpo players beyond the simple fact he thinks they suck. But not even canon delivers on that sadly.

[retracexcviii]

I'm really confused about Lady archiviste because she looked pretty interesting about granatum tragedy, why? Giano looks more interesting because why is he with charlatan? Money isn't answer. Maybe revenge agaist yhe church?Despite what astolfo did this people, I think in fact he saved yo doctor moreu. I don't trust marco, I think he's hiding something very important about tragedy, for that he accept such abuse from Astolfo

Hi there, sorry for the late reply (my phone sometimes just doesn't work XD)

There is a lot to talk about here so I will go in order.

About Lady Archiviste I agree, she is really mysterious and her behaviour doesn't make sense yet. But I think her interest in this part of the human world (Paladins) can be justified in that they are important people that were able to face vampires during the war, so it's always correct to keep an eye in them.

Gano it's clearly centered in eradicate vampires, so working with Naenia (known for being able to kill in a cruel way vampires) is a good way to accomplish his objective. His reasons are a mystery yet tho, I like the theory that it's for revenge, but it can perfectly be only him being a bad person.

About Astolfo I understand you mean he saved those children from being used by Moreau(?) If it is so yeah, maybe. I understand why Astolfo went so far and was so reckless but tbh I don't think it is justified in anyway.

And finally, about Marco. We really don't know a thing about him or his past. Maybe he did sell/was tricked to tell some important information about Granatum family to those vampires, but I think most of the info came from Chasseurs and Astolfo.

I see Marco as other victim of survivor guilt. He literally told Astolfo this chapter that he survived because he fled, he literally abandoned his master, his wife and his two poor children to what he knew was a horrible death. And that's a very big stone to carry and to accept a beating from the one you were supposed to protect.

I think that's all. Again sorry for the late reply, dear Sifya. This chapter was full of new interesting info and I hope next arc can answer some mysteries about the story.