#Regional Connectivity Scheme

[townpostin]

Jharkhand's Air Passenger Traffic Soars: 10.64% Surge in Domestic Travel

Regional Connectivity Scheme Fuels Growth with New Routes on the Horizon Jharkhand witnesses a remarkable increase in domestic air travel, with passenger numbers climbing from 24.79 lakh to 27.43 lakh in the past year, signaling robust growth in the state’s aviation sector. RANCHI – The Ministry of Civil Aviation has disclosed a significant uptick in Jharkhand’s air connectivity, revealing a…

[theplotmage]

Fantasy Royal Hierarchy & Government Explained for Dummies

👑 The Royal Hierarchy:

High King/High Queen: The ultimate ruler of all the lands. Addressed as “Your Majesty.” They oversee multiple kingdoms and have the final say in all matters.

King/Queen: The rulers of individual kingdoms. Addressed as “Your Majesty.” They manage their own territories, make laws, and lead their armies into epic battles.

Prince/Princess: The children of the king and queen. Addressed as “Your Highness.” They’re next in line for the throne and often have their own mini-kingdoms to practice ruling.

Duke/Duchess: High-ranking nobles who control large regions within the kingdom. Addressed as “Your Grace.” They’re like the regional managers, handling local governance and military affairs.

Marquess/Marchioness: Nobles who oversee border territories. Addressed as “Lord” or “Lady.” They’re responsible for defending the kingdom’s edges and often have a mix of military and administrative duties.

Earl/Countess: Nobles who manage smaller regions within the kingdom. Addressed as “Lord” or “Lady.” They’re like the middle managers, ensuring everything runs smoothly in their areas.

Viscount/Viscountess: Nobles who assist earls and countesses. Addressed as “Lord” or “Lady.” They’re like the assistant managers, helping with local governance and administration.

Baron/Baroness: The lowest rank of nobility. Addressed as “Lord” or “Lady.” They control small areas of land and are responsible for local justice and order.

Lord/Lady: A general title for nobility. Addressed as “Lord” or “Lady.” Lords and ladies can hold various ranks and responsibilities within the kingdom.

Government Structure:

🏛️ The Council: A group of high-ranking nobles and advisors who help the king or queen make important decisions. Think of them as the board of directors.

🧙 The Wizard: The royal advisor with magical powers. They provide wisdom, cast spells, and sometimes meddle in politics.

⚔️ The Knight Commander: The head of the royal army. They lead the knights and soldiers into battle and ensure the kingdom’s defense.

📜 The Chancellor: The head of the kingdom’s finances and administration. They manage the treasury, collect taxes, and oversee the kingdom’s bureaucracy.

🎭 The Bard: The kingdom’s storyteller and historian. They spread news, sing songs of heroism, and keep the royal family’s image sparkling.

Other Classes:

🌳 Elves: Graceful and wise, elves often serve as advisors, scholars, or elite warriors. They have a deep connection to nature and magic, making them invaluable in both court and battlefield.

🌾 Peasants: The backbone of the kingdom. They work the land, pay taxes, and sometimes get caught up in the schemes of the nobility. Despite their humble status, they can be heroes in their own right.

💀 Necromancers: Masters of death magic. They can raise the dead, drain life energy, and command undead minions. Often feared and misunderstood, they can be powerful allies or dangerous enemies.

📚 Scholars: Also known as sages, librarians, or loremasters. Scholars are the kingdom’s intellectuals, possessing encyclopedic knowledge. They study ancient texts, advise on matters of history and magic, and often uncover secrets that can turn the tide of events.

⚔️ Heroes: Brave individuals who embark on epic quests. They can come from any class—knights, peasants, elves, or even necromancers. Heroes are defined by their courage, skill, and willingness to face danger for the greater good.

🙏 Priests/Priestesses: Spiritual leaders who serve the gods and goddesses of the realm. They perform rituals, offer guidance, and sometimes wield divine magic. Addressed as “Father,” “Mother,” or “Your Holiness”.

🐉 Dragons: Sometimes pets, sometimes pests. Always epic. They can be guardians of treasure, wise advisors, or terrifying foes.

Servants and Other Castle Inhabitants:

Steward: Manages the household and estate. Addressed as “Master Steward.”

Chamberlain: Oversees the private chambers and personal needs of the lord or lady. Addressed as “Master Chamberlain.”

Marshal: In charge of the stables and the training of knights. Addressed as “Master Marshal.”

Cook: Prepares meals for the household. Addressed as “Master/Mistress Cook.”

Maid: Responsible for cleaning and maintaining the castle. Addressed as “Mistress Maid.”

Squire: A young noble training to become a knight. Addressed as “Squire.”

Falconer: Takes care of the hunting birds. Addressed as “Master Falconer.”

Gardener: Maintains the castle gardens. Addressed as “Master/Mistress Gardener.”

Where They Dwell:

🏰 Castle: A fortified structure built for defense and residence. It includes towers, walls, a keep, and often a moat. The castle is the main residence of the king or queen and their court.

🏛️ Court: The royal household and the place where the king or queen holds court. It includes the throne room, great hall, and various chambers for the nobles and advisors.

�� Manor: The residence of a noble, usually a lord or lady. It’s less fortified than a castle and focuses more on comfort and domestic life.

Pro Tips:

Royal Drama: Expect lots of intrigue, secret plots, and power struggles. It’s like a medieval reality show.

Magic: Always a wildcard. It can solve problems or create new ones.

Quests: Royals love sending heroes on epic quests. It’s their way of handling problems without getting their hands dirty.

---

[irisbleufic]

REVIEW

Gatsby: An American Myth (Welch, Chavkin, Bartlett, Majok, & Tayeh; American Repertory Theater)

Something that most adaptations of Gatsby get wrong, whether film or stage, is the treatment of characters as archetypes rather than individuals. Symbolism drowns out most genuine attempts at capturing emotional connections and conflicts of personality. They forget that this story is not only a failure of the so-called American Dream; first and foremost, it’s a tragedy of failed roles and relationships. Almost every one of the players is attempting to be someone they are not, and even as they reach for what they believe they should want, they reveal with increasing fervor what they actually want. This is the heart of what makes Welch’s new adaptation so devastatingly, disarmingly unique, so true to its source.

The set design is literal wreckage. Crushed and warped automobile chassis scaffold the moving staircases, and concealed trap doors. The backdrop shows no clear incorporation of the infamous Eckleburg billboard; rather, it is made up of a dotted grid resembling headlights. These play out effects ranging from a downpour to camera flashes to, briefly and only once, a pair of eyes that make no effort to hide behind the owlish frames of glasses. The only thing infusing this jagged framework with meaning is the people who move through it.

The lighting design works with the set’s incongruences, deepening or excavating shadows as needed. The brightness, when it flares, is blinding. Jewel tones either enhance or diminish a costuming scheme that is composed of either very pale or very dark shades, no in between. And whether it’s the post-apocalyptic black and gray cabaret garb of the ensemble or the wealthy protagonists’ pale suits or the gunmetal and gray denizens of the wasteland, everyone’s trouser and skirt hems are conspicuously rimed with reddish dust. The visual effects are nearly impossible to describe without sounding like I had some kind of desperate fever dream.

So far, I realize that these descriptions of the set and lighting design sound like this production is about to fall into the trap of overplaying symbolism, but please bear with me. With all of that established, I can focus on what’s truly extraordinary here, what’s meant to and does shine unhindered. The acting, musicianship and vocals are all so precise that it was hard for me to believe this show is still in previews. It feels Broadway ready, West End ready, major international tours ready. If I was the production crew, I’d turn this loose on a massive scale from the get-go without a second thought.

Much like with Hadestown, the musicians are not down in an orchestra pit. They’re characters in their own right, present on the stage from start to finish on tiered risers that run up from the center on each side from one of the catwalks. I’m sure Chavkin’s involvement as director has everything to do with why this show feels so much like, moves so much like Hadestown. The company is on an equally small scale, about 23 - 25 people including the principals.

Costuming among the ensemble is delightfully gender agnostic. I mention a cabaret aesthetic earlier in this review, and I’m not kidding. If you had shown me the ensemble costume designs without showing me the principals’ designs, I would have assumed I was looking at a Cabaret revival. They’re the most talented dancers I’ve seen occupy one stage in more than a decade. The choreography relies on movements in eerie unison for a significant portion of the show, but not without allowance for individual flair within those constraints. The guy sitting next to me, when I spoke to him at the intermission, said he works as a choreographer in regional theater, and he’d never seen anything like this. I couldn’t agree more; the dancing is singular, and as impressive as the musicianship is, the dancing and unusual body movement are maybe the greatest achievements of this show on the living, breathing end of things. I could have watched the dancers for those three hours without any dialogue or vocal intervention and still understood the story. That takes so much fucking doing.

As for the principal cast, they’re constantly among the ensemble; when I say these are all triple threats in the purest sense of that terminology, I really mean it. You always expect a few of the principals to be less dance and movement focused, more polished on the acting and singing side, but this show gives you terrifying proficiency from every angle. Even the guy playing Meyer Wolfsheim is at the center of what I think is the most memorable dance number in the piece. I’ve just never seen such versatile principals all in one production. What’s even more extraordinary is that I had never heard of or previously seen any of them, and that takes some doing given how much live theater I’ve consumed in several decades of life.

Ironically, the musical composition is the one aspect of this production on which I’ll be spending the least time. I need not tell you why Welch and Bartlett were perfect for this job. They understood the assignment, and then some. There’s not a single weak number among the track listings, and I desperately hope they release a recording soon. The standout numbers all have something in common: they showcase Soleia Pfeiffer as Myrtle Wilson. You can tell that’s the role where Welch sank most of the sound that’s considered her signature style. I don’t even need to describe it; you already know what I’m talking about. What’s impressive otherwise is the restraint, the lack of over-reliance on that signature style.

The principals are fucking perfect. I’ve kept this review tautly professional without meaning to thus far, but from here on out is where I start bleeding feels all over the post. If you don’t already know who my blorbos are due to my writing history with a Gatsby-related novel (The Pursued and the Pursuing, 2021), you’re going to know by the time you’re done reading this. You’re going to know exactly who I love and why, who I hate and why, who I ship and why. But you’ll also know that I approach all three of those elements from a place of enjoying every moment of those characters, even the ones I hate. Nobody’s performance put me off or struck the wrong tone when taken in context of the novel and how the tragedy of how their relationships play out.

For a long time, I’ve been saying that there are certain support roles, certain sidekicks, that make or break the higher-profile person to whose side they’re stuck, ride or die, until the bitter end. Horatio is a great example that I’ve ranted about before; if your Hamlet production has a lackluster Horatio, then it doesn’t matter how good the Hamlet is. You have nothing if you don’t have the binary star system at the heart of that harrowing universe. I’ve seen other adaptations of Gatsby consistently fall apart because Nick Carraway is treated like the kind of voyeur who doesn’t matter, the kind of voyeur who serves as the audience’s eyes and ears, and nothing else. Anyway, this is all to say: Ben Levi Ross as Nick might be the most compelling argument I can make for the fact that the creative team behind this show understood the assignment. He’s awkward, warm, sincere, and reactive in all of the ways you need Nick to be. He’s not a passive observer; he’s in the middle of everything, and he knows it. There’s a self-deprecating response he makes when one character, Jordan if I’m not mistaken, quips that maybe he’s the reason for Gatsby’s parties for all he knows. “Maybe I am,” he says, and the tongue-in-cheekness belies a gutting meta-sincerity. We believe Daisy is the point, Gatsby believes Daisy is the point, but what’s borne out every breathtaking moment of this production is that Nick is the point. He always was. He’s also given his due as a gay man in context of the story for the first time ever. I might make some folks mad when I say Nick has always been gay; I’m going to point you to Myrtle’s apartment party and the hookup with Mr. McKee as textual evidence in the novel. The kiss with McKee, the hookup with McKee, is unapologetically here. His lack of belonging everywhere else he’s ever been, because he is gay, is unapologetically here. One of the most memorable numbers in the show hinges on the hope feels at being able to be himself in New York. Queer fans of Gatsby have been waiting a long time for this. Anyone who’s read the text closely and understood him has been waiting a long time for this. I’ve been waiting several decades as a reader, and I would’ve waited forever to have Nick so fully, lovingly realized.

One of the other things that Gatsby adaptations have persistently gotten wrong is the titular character himself. The invention of Jay Gatsby hides the underlying James Gatz, makes it feel as if that old self is truly subsumed, as if it never mattered. But Isaac Powell gives us a Jay who’s exactly as he should be, who can’t hide beneath his own attempt at artifice and reinvention worth a goddamn. He’s young (as young as Nick; they’re 32 and 30 respectively both in the novel and here), painfully earnest, and just barely keeping a handle on the criminal shit he’s had to do in order to get where he is. When he says old sport to Nick, it’s not an affectation; when he says it to Tom, it becomes a biting insult. This is a Jay who knows where and why he’s vulnerable; he latches onto Nick like a not because he sees a man close to Daisy that he can exploit, but because he sees another young man who’s equally vulnerable, equally an outsider, equally haunted by the things they had to do in the war. From the moment they meet, they are almost always touching—a hand on the shoulder, on the back, getting in social harm’s way for each other, eyes seeking each other without cease in the most crowded of settings. When Jay takes Nick to lunch to meet Wolfsheim (who has in this production taken on the function of Dan Cody as well), it’s not to have somebody else vouch for the artifice of who Jay Gatsby is. It’s taking Nick to meet his fucking father-figure, and all of the messy, sincere “if you hurt my boy, I’ll kill you” sentiment that Wolfsheim aims at Nick was the moment I knew just how much the Nick’s loss by the end was going to hurt. Jay’s love for Daisy is a ghost of itself, even if as painfully earnest as everything else about him. Meanwhile, his attachment to Nick is so disarmingly genuine from the start that you understand the true tragedy you’re about to watch untold: these men who need each other, maybe even were made for each other, each prove unable to step outside their parallel distractions from what they truly are to each other. Jay’s interactions with Daisy and Nick’s interactions with several male and/or gender ambiguous members of the ensemble have something in common, which is a shocking level of physicality. This show had an intimacy coordinator; that’s the level of no holds barred we’re talking about. When you look at Tom and Myrtle, you can see why that was merited, too.

Speaking of Tom (Cory Jeacoma), the treatment of him here is every bit as scary as it should be. There’s no attempt to make him palatable, unlike what I’ve seen done with him in other adaptations. He towers over everyone else in the cast, I mean everyone, to a physical degree that’s uncomfortable. The way his wife, lover, and friends all flinch when he gets too close to them speaks volumes to the fact that he’s an abuser in every sense of the term. Even Nick, the prodigal college friend from Yale, is on eggshells around him (which, by the hotel blowup at the end of the show, becomes a sneering, reckless contempt, one of the driving forces that drives Nick to put himself between Jay and Tom whenever real harm is on the table). At the same time, this is a Tom who sincerely loves his wife and was only ever using Myrtle as a fling. You can tell he never meant any of the promises he made Myrtle. When Daisy tells him she didn’t stop the car on purpose, it’s as if his wife’s unapologetic act of manslaughter (“It was her or me!”) is the thing that wins him back. They aren’t careless people; they are people who consciously choose, day in and day out, to use others until they’re bored or done with them. The ruthlessness of Tom and Daisy as a couple is impressive, played up to a level that I feel more adaptations should do without fear of exaggerating the text.

As mentioned above, Daisy (Charlotte MacInnes) is no delicate, nervous creature who can’t help her actions under duress. She knows what she’s doing every bit as much as Tom knows what he’s doing. They use people, hurt people because they get bored and restless and enjoy it. I respect a Daisy who’s in control of her actions every step of the way even if I don’t like her; it’s better than trying to depict her as weak and at the mercy of the men around her. She’s a pragmatist and a survivor. So many of her songs are about choices and being conscious of those choices. She is a person you should fear every bit as much as you fear her husband, and even Jordan knows she’s not safe in Daisy’s orbit.

As Jordan, Eleri Ward is one of the neatest personalities on stage. Like Tom, she’s noticeably taller than most, which gives her a commanding physical presence. She has no romantic interest in anyone; I fucking love that this production show her and Nick bonding on the basis of being queer and tired of everyone else’s shit. This is a more likable, relatable Jordan than I’ve seen in the past. This is a Jordan whose relationship to Gatsby is much more familiar and warm, much more akin to the friendship she forms with Nick. In fact, the queer-and-tired vibes that roll off several of the principals in this production are palpable.

Myrtle and Wilson (Matthew Amira) aren’t always played as effective foils for Daisy and Tom, but here? They unquestionably are. They do actually love each other in spite of the things they’ve done to hurt each other, and it’s a constant dance of daring each other, challenging each other. The most memorable duet in the entire show is between them, during Act II. The confrontation is positively electric. These are two people with deep, complicated history. Of all the couples in the show, they feel the most real, the most alive. It makes the loss of Myrtle so much more wrenching; she’s not just a plot device emblematic of the bad choices they’ve all been making. She’s not shallow or frivolous or anything like that. She’s a shrewd woman with complex motivations, and for the first time ever I find myself loving her and caring what happens to her. She’s thrust even further into the action in that one of her part time gigs is working as a maid at Gatsby’s parties, a conceit that works shockingly well and hastens the devastating consequences of her affair with Tom.

I’ve made mention of Meyer Wolfsheim’s (Adam Grupper) uniquely enhanced role previously, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t comment on him again. This is a man who does, in fact, seem to give a shit about Jay above and beyond using him as a tool in his criminal empire. It’s not necessarily a healthy father-son dynamic, but Wolfsheim is usually played as ruthless, opportunistic, inhumanly calculating. Here, he’s a charming, but unquestionably dangerous man moved by a young soldier’s plight. He seems conflicted between his love for Jay and his need to have Jay continue to hold the party line within their business relationship. Wolfsheim is deeply conflicted about Jay in a way that I haven’t seen any Wolfsheim be played previously. And, as I mentioned earlier, the actor has a showstopper of a song and dance number. That may be the #1 “I wasn’t expecting that, but I’ll take it!” moment for me in this show. And I say “may be” only because the moment that truly stopped my heart, will stay with me until everything else fades from memory, is perhaps only understandable in the context of my engagement with the text of Gatsby as a writer of transformative works.

Daisy’s and Tom’s daughter, Pam Buchanan doesn’t always appear in adaptations because she’s a toddler. Even in the novel, she a throwaway mention plus a single scene near the end where the nanny brings her out to meet Jay and Nick. She’s most often left as a throwaway mention without even grave of the scene where she appears. The scene in the novel, however brief, is memorable—and has been captured in all its fragile beauty for the first time in this adaptation. Jay and Nick both pay bewildered, wondering attention to this kid when she’s brought out. Jay drops to his knees and takes her hand when she greets him while Nick looks on in a moment of singular focus on both of them. The child who plays Pam here has a spark, an expressiveness that made me choke up even though she’s only on stage for a few minutes, if that. The tableau is one in which you can feel the shock of reality, however brief, touch on these men—Daisy’s and Tom’s reckless actions may yet do harm to someone who’s barely even begun to live her life, but who is just conscious enough to be a participant in it. They recognize that they, like this child, are probably in for a word of ruin—and that they have let it go on for so long that there’s now nothing they can do about it. For me, the deepest tragedy was watching Nick and Jay throw off that moment of heartbroken, horrified recognition prompted by Pam and return to the parts they’d decided to play out until the moment one of their hearts stopped.

Speaking of grief, of Nick’s grief since he’s the one who loses so much: there is only one person who loses more, and that’s Mr. Gatz, Jay’s father. They preserve his arrival at the house when Nick is the only person who stays around to carry out Jay’s funeral and burial. And when he arrives, the visceral shock of seeing his dark skin, braids, and beaded elements of Native regalia in juxtaposition with his otherwise period-typical Western garb underscore the tragedy of what young Jay was running away from, of what he never quite succeeded in erasing from himself. The burial scene shows Nick reverently bringing several of Jay’s folded shirts from the house and handing them down into the grave to Mr. Gatz, who places them reverently as possessions to accompany his son into thereafter. The cultural ramifications are all at once understated and devastating. Nick has moments with each of Jay’s father figures that are among the most complex and moving in the show. The program does not make clear the name of the ensemble member who takes on this most memorable of all Mr. Gatz appearances, and this erasure in and of itself is both unfortunate and telling. This is a world that never belonged to the majority of those who inhabit it, and Nick realizes it with heartbroken clarity after having this final interaction. Even though he’s an outsider, he’s part of a world that has erased and betrayed the man he loved so much at every turn.

The closing number, “We Beat On,” felt like it needed something more, but it utilized the final line of the novel to a deeply moving effect. The lights go down suddenly as the last word is sung; it feels like the song is half finished. When the lights came up, Nick and Jay were center stage in each other’s embrace, just withdrawing from each other as the entire company transitioned into final bows. That’s how I’ll remember them, always: touching even when they’ve already lost each other, borne ceaselessly back into each other’s arms. If Nick is Orpheus, then I have no doubt that he, too, will tell this story again and again until someday, somewhere, something gives.

[lovelyyandereaddictionpoint]

could you do a yandere demon mitsuri or shinobu with a demon slayer darling

Demon Slayer Reader in Reverse AU | Yandere KNY

In this alternate universe the hashira are the equivalents of the Upper Moons. Unbelievably strong, incredibly devious, and just as responsible for innumerable deaths as their creator. You on the other hand are like Tanjiro Kamado, a demon slayer dutifully following the orders of Muzan as he’s determined to finally stop the rampant killing that those demons do. But there’s something special about you. Something that the demons just can’t deny. That has them persistently chasing you their greater their connection to their beloved creator. Maybe it’s the blood of their kin, or your kissable lips, or the curses you mutter as your sword doesn’t slice through their necks. Either way they are down-bad:

Mitsuri Kanroji

Turned after being rejected for her strength and differences

Now she uses them to eat scores of humans particularly the most bland people she can find

Can you believe just how few people she actually loves?

Too few people are special because of their differences or physical traits

Which means she’s happily devour all those who don’t which is a lot

She of course claims it’s love at first sight when she sees you

It really can be something as simple as a colorful hanafuda or being deaf

Anything unique to you makes her weak in her knees

“You’re making me so happy just to have met you! I love you!”

So busy fawning over you, she barely misses your swing

Stronger than others she only falls for you deeper

In her twisted mind the blood of Ubuyashiki makes beautiful people of his divine choice even more beautiful 

Thus her mission when fighting you is to turn you

So she can have your beauty be eternal

“Don’t avoid me for long my Love! I’m going to make you perfect soon!’

The biggest challenge other than her flexibility, the cherry blossom flooded air, and her insane physical strength is her beau

Rarely does the Demon Moon of Love leave without the Demon Moon of Snakes in tow

And while for your first meetings he definitely is not trying to keep you alive for the change

After he get’s to know you and a nice talk that involves lot’s of dying lower rank demon slayers they’ll both be on the same page

Which will spell absolute doom for you as the conniving duo is not going to bother being upfront 

They’ll scheme

They’ll plot 

Hold your tsugoko or friends from up high as they take advantage of your heightened emotions

“I want to love you forever and ever and ever. And no one is going to stop me! Not even you”

Shinobu Kocho

She was turned along with her sister who Ubuyashiki saved after she fell ill

For years prior she had devoted herself to science, to medicine only for it to fail her at every turn 

Only when she incorporated the great Ubuyashiki’s blood into her creations does she find proper results good results

And she is praised with having so many willing addicted meals and servants to offer as she produces her remedies for masses

Interacting with prey so often gives her a better way to hide and know about the demon slayer’s actions

And amateur slayers that come into her shop swords drawn are usually bullied by the surrounding towns folk

All to be beaten up and kicked out of the town becoming easy pickings at that point

She thought she’d do the same to you

By the way you walked she could sense your power and her mortal end coming closer

But you didn’t attack

Surrounded by many of her loyal customers you ask that she try the contents of a vial to tell what it is

Since it’s suspicious to the people you offer to drink it, another villager drinks it

“You’re the greatest medic in this region. Won’t you tell me what it is and where to find it?”

It’s Wisteria

Potent and poisonous wisteria 

Here shinobu is faced with a choice

Attack you ruin her reputation and have to deal with a mob

Or…

drink it and writhe revealing her demon form to be attacked by the mob

“You think you’re a cunning little butterfly don’t you. Flashing your poisonous colors at me. You aren’t aware of the hunger you’ve aroused in me!”

She wasn’t happy as a human with the limits she had

So she doesn’t choose any of those options opting to kill everyone 

You block the attack finding out it’s a feint for her to run away 

Run away with a snarl that she hasn’t shown for hundreds of years

How dare you!? 

Ruining her perfect system 

When she reports to the Ubuyashiki compound by night she’s got her head down low while reporting 

As expected she was chewed out not only by The Ubuyashiki but the Upper Moons as well 

And there is one person she blames above all for her shame

“That despicable little demon slayer!! I’m going to make them pay!”

Her hatred for you becomes a widely welcomed truth among the other demons

Hanging your whereabouts above her head 

As she snaps at them like a snarling dog

But her hatred is not simply that

She wants to own you 

To hold your face as she successfully demonstrates her mass attack absorbing all within the vicinity 

To clip your pretty little wings and delight in your forbidden flavor for as long as possible

When one of her colleagues theonesheclaimsshehatesthemost pressures her she’s rambling to him about how she’d never want to actually kill you nor turn you completely into a demon like she

“They’re not good enough for Master…but it’d be a shame for such a beautiful butterfly to die so quickly.”

So she’ll turn to science

Once again using her expertise to craft some serum that she plans to keep you attached to for the rest of your not-so mortal life

She’ll use her own blood measuring and testing how little is needed to give you the best parts of being a demon

She knows the clock is ticking as your life goes on

So she’ll be excited to track you down, learning as much as she can about you

Almost as much fun as she’ll enjoy making simple humans that remind her of you as test subjects

She’d even be willing to get help from one of the Upper Moons with her hunt for you

“I hope your ready for a change, butterfly! There’s nothing I can’t do without his blood.”

[pavo-dence]

i got bored and decided to make pokemon teams for them, i'll explain my reasoning under the cut since it's gonna get lengthy lmao

i did this either off of vibes, motifs, story arcs or whatever i thought would suit them well if anyone has any other ideas about them i'd love to read them in the replies or tags!

RYUNOSUKE NARUHODO

Galarian Darumaka - His daruma is one of the few possessions of his that isn't inherited from Kazuma, and I like the Galarian form symbolising his entry to the UK

Shinx - The most Chuunosuke Pokemon ever, it's literally blue and has the flower pattern on its ears

Kingdra - A dragon like in his name, I also liked the idea of 221B family each having a Pokemon that represented an animal in the UK coat of arms, the counterpart to this would be the Welsh dragon, it's also blue which is his colour and matches his aquarium hobby

Clawitzer - His shrimp-keeping hobby is an endearing detail about him so I think he would get a Clauncher and just take care of it really well

Hisuian Decidueye - I liked the Japanese characters having distinctly Hisuian Pokemon, and his archery hobby suits Decidueye

Donphan - This is one of the few I kind of picked based on typing, I liked the idea of him having a Phanpy and it evolving when he steels his resolve, gaining armour when it becomes a Donphan, it's also Ground-type which is strong against Sneasler which I consider Kazuma's signature Pokemon

SUSATO MIKOTOBA

Cherrim - Matches the Mikotoba family crest, I like to think this was Yujin's Cherrim and he gave it to her upon his return from Britain

Lopunny - Matches Usato, this would initially be a Buneary and evolve when she returns to the UK to show her growth after having gone through a trial as a lawyer herself, it's also got fighting spirit like her

Gardevoir - A graceful Pokemon, I thought it suited the yamato nadeshiko archetype her character is based off, parallels Kazuma's Gallade showing their familial connection

Sinistcha - I like the idea of regional variants allowing her and Iris to bond quickly, she also mentions preparing Japanese tea when her and Ryunosuke start feeling a bit homesick if I remember correctly

Sawsbuck - It's spring and summer forms suit her well (cherry blossoms and tea leaves), it's counterpart in the coat of arms would be the Irish elk

Throh - Shows her prowess for Judo

Honorable mention: Froslass (same reason as Gardevoir)

KAZUMA ASOGI

Galarian Yamask - Represents his vengeful spirit, the face it carries thought to be it's previous life kind of suits Kazuma's story of resurrection and matches his time as the masked disciple quite well

Aegislash - Sword

Talonflame - Fiery passion, suits his colour scheme and kind of embodies his hachimaki flying behind him lmao

Gallade - Parallels Susato's Gardevoir, showing their familial bond, a warrior Pokemon

Sneasler - Type weakness to Ryunosuke's Donphan which embodies his resolve triumphing over Kazuma's need for vengeance/justice, a Hisuian Pokemon showing his roots (reflected in his leitmotif) and it's a cat like Nyasogi

Serperior - The Asogi crest and it's more Asian design compared to other snake Pokemon suits him well I think

Honorable mention: Seviper (matches his colour scheme, snake motif), Shedinja (resurrection)

HERLOCK SHOLMES

Klinklang - Represents his cog imagery, shows his passion for invention and machinery

Lucario - Boxing background, it's ability to sense auras make it quite the handy partner when conducting investigations

Rotom - Represents his modernity, it's also cheeky and mischievous which suits him

Litleo - Counterpart to the English lion in the coat of arms, it's not Pyroar because I think Pyroar is kinda ugly, but also a baby Pokemon makes him appear more father-like, it's also emblematic of his allegiance to the Queen

Sudowoodo - Bonsly received as a trade with Yujin, symbolises their cultural exchange and his penchant for disguises

Azumarill - Deceptively silly, kind of OP, representative of Hareley (a blue bunny hehe)

IRIS WILSON

Galarian Rapidash - Counterpart to the Scottish Unicorn, it also suits her colours

Polteageist - Showcases her love of tea and a regional variant that allows her to bond with Susato quickly

Sylveon - I wanted a Wagahai proxy but none of the cat Pokemon really suited her so I thought an Eevee that evolved to Sylveon would be the next best thing, it also suits her colour scheme

Stufful - Bearis representation, a Bewear would suit her older self quite well I think, it's cute but deadly like her inventions

Roselia - Her love for gardening, it's not Roserade because she's still young, also represents her flower motif courtesy of her name

Chansey - A healer Pokemon, represents her medical background due to idolising her "father"

BAROK VAN ZIEKS

Dusknoir - Said to guide spirits, matches the moniker of the Reaper, it also just suits his scary image

Noivern - Shows his love for bats and the vampire motifs incorporated into his design, I thought this suited him best because it's the most imposing of all the bat Pokemon imo

Escavalier - I like to think him and Klint traded Karrablast and Shelmet, the resulting Escavalier kind of symbolises the legacy he inherits after Klint's passing, a reminder of his duty from his brother and shows his allegiance to the Queen with the knight elements

Chandelure - Gothic, and suits his aristocratic background

Sirfetch'd - A swordsman/knight figure, shows his loyalty to his country

Umbreon - Hints at his familial connection to Iris, matches her Sylveon, Nyanzieks representative since none of the cat Pokemon seemed to suit him either to me

Honorable mentions: Gliscor and Crobat

YUJIN MIKOTOBA

Mr. Rime - A tap-dancing Pokemon, it also looks like him, matches his colour scheme and represents his journey to Britain, it's quite perfect for him lmao

Eldegoss - A flower Pokemon to mirror Susato/their family crest, it has healing properties which match his medical background

Stoutland - Received as a Lillipup from a trade with Sholmes, it has elements of a Yorkshire and Scottish Terrier which kind of represents the cultural exchange, it's also said to be a trustworthy partner and a rescuing Pokemon which suits him well, "My good man, you resemble each other so closely now! HA HA HA!"

Audino - A healer Pokemon, it has good hearing which is extra useful whether in his investigative work or as a doctor

Hisuian Samurott - suits his colour scheme, showcases his Japanese roots, moustache

Chimecho - A musical Pokemon, distinctly Japanese in origin, resembles a "miko" (shrine maiden) which is phonetically similar to his last name haha

I know this looks like I just gave him every Pokemon with a moustache but aside from Stoutland this was not intentional lmao, it just happened

GINA LESTRADE

Whimsicott - A prankster Pokemon that likes mischief, it suits her colour scheme really well lmao

Thievul - Quite obvious, matches her penchant for pickpocketing

Pancham - A scrappy Pokemon, I think her and the Pancham would do the same haughty pose and it also represents her rough upbringing

Obstagoon - Another scrappy Pokemon, I like to think she sends it out to stall when she's getting chased for pickpocketing, and later when she joins Scotland Yard she uses it for stopping criminals

Togedemaru - Representative of Hedgina, it's quite cute and kind of shows her innocence despite her prickly first impression

Maschiff - A stand-in for Toby, I can see it jumping Ryunosuke and scaring him like in the story, and I like to think Gregson is fond of it in the same way a dad who was against a pet starts being endeared towards it lmao

[riding-with-the-wild-hunt]

"From the northern slopes of Dorthonion Angrod and Aegnor, sons of Finarfin, looked out over the fields of Ard-galen, and were the vassals of their brother Finrod, lord of Nargothrond; their people were few, for the land was barren, and the great highlands behind were deemed to be a bulwark that Morgoth would not lightly seek to cross." - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, "Of Beleriand and its Realms"

@arafinwean-week day 3 ⇢ ANGROD & AEGNOR; ALLIES

[ID: a series of three graphics, each of which is divided into two horizontal sections with a white border surrounding both. The color scheme is mainly desaturated greens, browns, and greys.

1: The upper image shows slopes forested with pine trees beneath a misty sky. Large white text reads "Dorthonion," with the first letter much larger than the others. Small sans serif text beneath reads "the land of pine trees." The lower image shows watchtowers connected by a wall, looking out over snowy, thinly forested mountains / 2: White text on a brown and green gradient background reads "Allies to the King." A line separates the title from the lower text, which is in sans serif and reads "But because the land was fair and their kingdoms wide, most of the Noldor were content with things as they were, trusting them to last, and slow to begin an assault in which many must surely perish were it in victory or in defeat. Therefore they were little disposed to hearken to Fingolfin, and the sons of Fëanor at that time least of all. Among the chieftains of the Noldor Angrod and Aegnor alone were of like mind with the King; for they dwelt in regions whence Thangorodrim could be descried, and the threat of Morgoth was present to their thought." The lower image shows a castle or fortress on a green hill, with higher mountains visible beyond / 3: Same format as Image 1, but the text reads "Guardians" and "watchers at the fence." The images show stony green mountainsides and a pine forest in the mist //End ID]

[pnfc]

here is some train-of-thought writing that came out today while i was thinking about labels/identity for d&p, sexuality and gender.

EDIT on ao3 here.

18+ for (brief) sex scenes, you’ve been warned, door is over there etc

When Perry laid out the realities of his private life to the Flynn-Fletcher family it was not, in his preplanning mind, a gay coming-out. That was like the 9th or 10th layer of the curtain he was pulling away in the grand reveal, a flimsy one attendant in its connection to Heinz Doofenshmirtz and all the messiness he embodied, mortal threats on Perry and tristate domination schemes and more than one cringeworthy viral video.

So it’s sweet and befuddling to Perry when Phineas and Ferb gift him a handknitted rainbow pride scarf for his birthday that year, maybe the last people he’d expect to take that particular tack.

“Phineas is really taking to Home Ec,” Ferb tells Perry as they refill at the coffee table. “I don’t mean to devalue our shared gift in your eyes, but he made that in just half a period, it was his first project. And I think,” Ferb continues in his low voice, as he retrieves the creamer for Perry. “He might be just a little excited to have a gay family member.”

That’s what Perry is, now that he and his connection with Heinz are out for the world to see. He’d never thought of it in those terms before, nor had Heinz used the word to describe their still-new romantic partnership. Perry’s gay and his former nemesis turned agent-partner is now his boyfriend, is the buzz at the office.

Perry thought it might have a welcome insulating effect, word spreading that Agent P isn’t into women, on an official basis this time. But it didn’t stop Agent Lyla from flirting at him, in fact seemed to goad her on, like Perry’s stony indifference to her was funny, fun to poke at. And it didn’t stop women from cooing over him in public, even with the enamel flag pin from Stacy pinned to his hat band -- again, that may have only exacerbated the situation.

But it did spare him from at least one Monogram holiday present, a profoundly haunting OWCA calendar starring female models in states of Christmassy undress, posed with plush animals. He’d yanked it back out of Perry’s hands, with what might have been bashfulness, and muttered “Gotta get a male model calendar for next year, too, so HR doesnt get on my keister. Carl! You’re in charge of the gay one.”

Perry accepted the designation of gay man, even if he didn’t feel it in his bones. It fit on him like a well tailored suit, the rainbow aesthetic was appealing, queer human history was deeply compelling and Stacy et al were so excited to share in his education on the subject, to share a place with him behind the marching banner. It affirmed Perry’s lifelong indifference to the human and non-human women he was assumed to feel attraction for. But it all felt a bit specious, since Perry harbored attraction for one person only. He couldn’t in a century feel for anyone else the way he does Heinz.

Still here he is, a man with a boyfriend, and if the fact that he’s a platypus threatens that definition, that opinion is not possessed by the people in his life who matter. So he’s gay.

Heinz shares Perry’s ambivalence around labeling, but out of a long legacy of experience that Perry lacks, so he’s a refuge in this. “Bisexual, yeah, that was the rage back in college,” he waxes nostalgic to Perry, during their nighttime couch convos. “The only way to be, unless you were a college republican finance major. But there’s pansexual now too, right? And so many flags -- Vanessa’s friends were over here trying to explain it to me. That girl Laci had so many flags on her bag, it was like the Olympics back there. Or like the last 50 years of Drusselstein regional flags from the warring states -- except like, in more colors than just grey and brown. Drusselstein had a serious dye shortage. They finally cut a deal with the Ukraine in 2006 for green, it was a real gamechanger, but it only complicated the flag design wars.”

“…Anyway it was fun to be bi, in the 80s,” Heinz says. He’s sprawled along the couch, Perry sitting against his bare bent leg, idly rubbing a paw around his knee. “Guys really put themselves together back then, they were electric. And if you slapped on enough liner and eyeshadow to partly obscure your weird shaped face maybe one of them would give you his number, if he had enough cocktails. And sometimes that number would even be legit.”

Pausing, Heinz looking up at the lofty ceiling, his head on the armrest. “I don’t know if I am bi anymore, Perry the Platypus,” he says with a note of regret. “Everyone’s just so sad now, so Linkedin and Panera Bread, even the evil scientists of the day are so sexless -- I dunno, maybe I’ve aged out of the crowd. Once I hit 30 it just seemed easier sticking with women. They can be a lot kinder, in my experience. Or at least more liable to pity a guy like me. Plus they’re, y’know, really hot -- trust me on that one, Perry the Platypus. So I dunno if I’ve got the right to be all ‘loud and proud’ just because I knew how to party in my 20s. …At least, I didn’t have the right for a good decade there.” Perry’s smirking across at him, elbow propped on the bend of Heinz’s knee. “You don’t need to give me that look,” Heinz scolds. “I know what you are to me. You don’t need to rub it in. “But, you know what I mean: you outgrow the bi phase, you get married, you work with a lot of cute dancers, accept an arduous future of heterosexual post-divorce dating efforts -- and then you, ah -- meet a very attractive platypus,” he says, struggling because Perry is pressing his hands into Heinz’s thigh, trailing a leisurely path upwards. “And it, uh. Gets confusing. …Oh my god, Perry.” His splayed leg shakes and he props it up on the back of the couch as Perry focuses on worsening the situation in his cotton workout shorts. He told Perry not to rub it in -- that’s always annoying, being told what not to do, what not to rub.

Despite all of Heinz’s wordy equivocating he is loud about Perry’s role in his life, the first to introduce Perry as his boyfriend or himself as Perry’s, though he tends to prefer the word partner, maybe for its alliterative quality. “Yes, Perry the Platypus is my partner,” is the line trod out to whichever party guest, since more often than not Perry is the one who needs no introduction. “And I mean romantic partner, just to be clear, so there’s no confusion. Because we used to be work partners too, and we still are. But we’re an item.” And if Heinz deems the partygoer in question to be sufficiently magnetic and therefore threatening he will follow this up with the even more unnecessary “So don’t even think about it.” Perry should find this more mortifying than he does, probably, except that it’s cut short conversations with a lot of people who turned out not to be worth Perry’s time. Quite efficient, letting your boyfriend trim the homophobic tallow off your social sphere with his blunt-sheared social crudity. More than one social blowout has turned into a furious makeout session back behind the venue, Perry dragging Heinz’s back down a brick wall so he can suck his tongue, so Heinz’s pleas of “Perry we’re parked right over there” muffle into whimpers under a canopy of evening cicada call.

Perry came up in OWCA right when they were transforming their internal messaging, making it superficially friendlier. Some changes were Carl’s well-meaning suggestions that became enshrined. “The agents shouldn’t be shamed out of exploring their natural desires,” was the gist of his plea to Monogram -- Perry retains a fuzzy memory of the scene, he couldn’t have been older than 3 then, was delivering a hot beverage to Monogram’s office as part of his daily duties. “Even the ones who aren’t, um… intact, they still feel things.”

“So we tell them not to. Anything less is insanity. It’s sick, Carl.” He took the heavy coffee from Perry’s hands. Perry’s palms were wet and burning. “The animals need to focus on one thing, and that’s the mission. Lord knows I don’t need to hear about whatever nasty business they get up to back at the zoo, in their off-hours. But we’re dealing with dumb, wild animals, Carl. We need to stamp out all that mating distraction with a vengeance. This is a war, Carl, against evil itself, and they’re humanity's front line.”

But Carl must’ve gotten something through, because the recruits younger than Perry endured less scare mongering around sex, fewer militaristic tirades from Monogram about the primacy of the fight and the evils of carnal temptation. Mono’s coffee mug featured a hula dancer whose bikini vanished at high temperatures -- it had always been difficult to take him seriously.

And one day they’d all been gifted a Carl-designed asexual pride tee, the OWCA logo in purple and grey, and a “Be who you are!” platitude written in Carl’s loopy cursive. This messaging was muddled to say the least. This was a human designation, asexuality, of which Perry had only partial comprehension -- and Carl seemed to be prescribing it to the agents even as his words encouraged free identity. But the design was nice, Carl had a flair for that -- the flag colors were classy and austere, not quite to Perry’s taste where t-shirts were concerned, but definitely suited to Heinz. Except Perry knew even back then that if any human pride flag fit Heinz, this was not it.

He still has that shirt bunched in the bottom of a drawer with the other old employee tees, including one with Carl’s face and chocolate stains on it. Maybe that human designation does fit Perry, in a certain technical sense. In the fall and winter. Seasons when he sits with Heinz watching trashy old 70s flicks that burgeon and bulge with more nudity than the plot demands. “You see how they filmed skin back then, Perry the Platypus?” Heinz will lament. “It’s crazy, her legs are like glowing -- people don’t look like this anymore.” He works himself up trying to explain the magic effect to Perry, while Perry just leans into his side and gazes up at him. Human attraction is cute, defanged like this, watching Heinz helpless in the thrall of some chainsmoking director’s bad movie about a city cop taking down apocalyptic gangs. And just to be mean Perry won’t touch Heinz’s hard-on -- but he’ll touch everywhere else, as the movie plays, nose his bill up the side of his shirt and kiss his hot skin, and he’ll watch Heinz shudder his way to breaking point, whereat he digs himself out of his pants and pulls himself off in a few fast strokes. Perry doesn’t need to get off to enjoy this. It satisfies just like the old thwartings. Perry’s just hitting other self-destruct buttons, on Heinz’s body -- he’s really one big button, if Perry’s honest, and Perry savors pushing it again, and again, and again.

So he could take or leave the labels. He likes that he and Heinz cut a different shape, one that doesn’t slot neatly into a human-made hole. But they mean a lot to the kids, Perry observes, as they grow into high schools and colleges, as they get passionate and motivated, as Vanessa breaks up with Monty and doesn’t look back. And Perry, Perry’s not even a person to so many of the humans he encounters, much less one with an orientation worth caring about. So it’s nice. He carries the cheery rainbow umbrella with the London skyline that Lawrence brought back from across the pond. He wears Ferb and Phineas’s snazzy rainbow scarf, Stacy’s hat pin. It’s not borne deep in Perry’s bones, this identity, but it’s a lovely accent, fortified by the people he loves. No depth required.

Which is why it does not seem too jarring, many years in the future, a decade onward, when his partnership with Heinz looks different. After they’ve danced through years of late night karaoke, hitting up gay bars and the vanishingly rare sapient-animal-friendly club, both of them growing loose and happy in their linkage to each other, holding each other’s hands and feeling the clink-clink of their rings. It was just more playtime for both of them, Heinz bustling around Perry to deck him out in 70s throwback fits with the big cheesewedge collars and migraine stripes, Perry standing tiptoe to zip up Heinz’s dress as he sits craned forward on the floor, holding frizzy wig ringlets out of the way, before Perry smooths his hands out across Heinz’s shoulders and he lets the hair bounce back down.

It’s still play, maybe, until the year that Heinz’s mousy hair is long and shoulder-brushing. Perry lounges in the balcony hammock with one hand trailing on the ground, as he watches Heinz pull it up into a ponytail before tearing into a vintage radio repair, an ongoing collaboration with Lawrence. And something that wasn’t serious now is, because even now, dressed down in oil-stained sweats and a holey tee, with wispy silver hair and no 80s eyeshadow on to obscure her charming face, Perry sees that she’s beautiful.

Perry wants to tell her this, when they’re getting in from an anniversary dinner out. He has the words in his hands, he’s already told her several times, because she needed to hear it those first few staggering attempts to hit the daytime streets in skirts, that she looked right in them, looked cute. Perry says it differently now, as he presses her down into the pillow with a hand, leaning across her skinny torso. Heinz’s natural hair fans the pillow, heat-curled and sprayed for the special night. Perry presses his soft bill to her forehead, trails down to her rouged cheek, further down to her lips, where her plum purple lipstick looks black in the dark. Perry says it with hands down her face, trailing into her soft hair and gripping it tight as she touches him. He says it with clawmarks trailing up her thighs and snapping the net of her tights as he swallows her down, the ritualistic tearing of Heinz’s fabric newly modified into a synthetic cherry pop, and if in the dark beads of blood flower up under his claws Perry licks them too, with love and apology, with a want to get more of Heinz into him. And he says it one more time when she’s asleep and curled around him like the crescent moon, and he reaches in to unhook her earrings, puts them on the nightstand.

Is Perry gay now, when the shape of him and Heinz seems so the same, despite her changes? Well, it’s not the most pressing question. It’s hard enough contemplating how Perry will introduce his girlfriend to his family, when he used to swear up and down the day would never come. But not girlfriend, wife, and not wife, partner -- so he’s circumvented it rather ingeniously, actually, a fact he hopes Phineas and Ferb appreciate. They decide to do it that week, packing the fixed-up radio and a few fresh loaves of zucchini bread, decoratively ribboned, into the truck. Perry helps smooth Heinz’s hair in the driver’s seat, and Heinz smooths her floral skirt down before taking off the brakes. Perry adjusts his hat in the mirror, and judges the scarf around his neck. It still looks cute on him, now flaming more vibrant in hue against the greying fur of his chest. It’s still his boys, hugging around him, all the unrestrained cheesy love they felt for Perry as kids preserved in rainbow yarn. So he wears it, as he and Heinz drive ahead together through the rest of it.

[neomel]

Alrighty fellow insane sonic fans i have something very cool for you today: a WORLDBUILDING theory!! this is something that's been kicking around in my head for so long that i forget it isn't something I've shared with many others yet lol

[ This post primarily covers stuff from Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Advance, and ignores Sonic Chronicles and Sonic Pocket Adventure as they have been struck from canon (see: Encyclo-speed-ia) ]

[ It should also be noted that this theory is built on the idea that "the world" as depicted in Sonic Forces is not accurately depicting the entire globe, but rather depicting Eggman's takeover of just the island archipelago where the animal cast lives (South Island, West Side Island, Mirage Island, Northstar Islands, Angel Island) as to explain its geography and lack of human characters ]

Right! So, a big theme in the environmental design of the original Sonic Adventure was having the Sonic cast sort of "cross over" into the human world more - the wording on this was initially nebulous, but with updated translations and clearer official word recently, we now know that it means that the "human world" is moreso like a mainland populated by humans that exists separately from the animal-inhabited island archipelago of Sonic 1, 2, CD, 3&K and Superstars (see: Sonic Origins). My immediate first point of comparison - of all things - is something like the first Madagascar movie, where the lemurs are able to be a fully functioning society in a region completely isolated from humans.

Except it's not quite like that movie, is it? We see in Sonic Adventure (and further in Unleashed, 06) that animal characters like Sonic and c.o are able to exist just fine within the human world, to where Amy has flat-out moved into Station Square. Big and Tails, too, have settled down by the Mystic Ruins close to where Angel Island (sometimes) crashes down by, Rouge owns a club in Sonic Battle - you get the gist. Animal characters, the majority population of the islands as we see in Forces and the IDW series, are able to migrate into the "mainland" human societies, but it appears to still be a rarity, likely not even something everyone has the opportunity to do (Big might've been born on Angel Island, Tails and/or Sonic can fly any of Sonic's friends to wherever they want to go, etc.). The most contact humans have with the animal world is through the Mystic Ruins site, or Eggman using his excessive wealth to fly in and try and effectively colonize the islands as we see in Sonic 1, 2, Superstars, CD, 4.1 and 4.2 (for note: CD, 4.1 and 4.2 take place on the same island of Mirage Island)

Sonic Adventure 2's level select is obviously to be taken with a grain of salt as a stylized take on a world map, but it seems to infer the same thing that Origins' main menu and Angel Island's close proximity to the Mystic Ruins both corroborate - the island archipelago inhabited by the animal characters seems to be quite close to the mainland "United Nations" landmass, most evidently close to Rouge's Route 280 level. And given how often Eggman lays his sights on the islands as a primary target for his schemes (Heroes may well also be taking place on the islands, as Seaside Hill is confirmed to be near/on South Island), it would make sense from the United Nations' POV to try and make access to the islands more accessible. For example, to enable easier import and export of goods, help citizens evacuate from possible disaster (eg. how the Metal Virus in IDW described how it was impossible to evacuate to anywhere else but Angel Island), and so on - a way to connect the two societies more smoothly only makes sense.

With ALL that context and preamble out of the way, this is my theory, and where Sonic Advance finally comes into the picture:

Radical Highway in Sonic Adventure 2, and later Neo Green Hill Zone from Sonic Advance, were together depicting a brief attempt to connect South Island to the United Nations mainland.

You may think this is a bit of a nutty conclusion to draw given how little of a story Sonic Advance actually has, but I think there's a lot we can glean from just the environmental design of Neo Green Hill Zone alone. Compared to the original Green Hill Zone, and most of the levels in the Classic Sonic games that aren't just flat-out urban cities/facilities seemingly built under Eggman's control (Star Light, Spring Yard, Chemical Plant), Neo Green Hill Zone's touches of human infrastructure are far more...friendly, for a lack of a better word. There's parasols and wooden scaffolding, a grind rail or two along paved sidewalks, yet the natural beauty of the area is left entirely in tact. Nothing about it appears like Eggman's work, yet it is quite evidently structured for human interests, for tourism and walking/biking rather than all the funky ways in which Sonic's animal cast are comfortable moving around. Then there's of course the name: NEO Green Hill Zone, as if it's reinvigorating the idea for a fresh new facelift, re-marketing it!

But how does all that connect to Radical Highway?

Radical Highway (and Mission Street by extension) have a quirk unique to them when compared to almost all other urban city levels in the series - as you can see in the image above, they're themed around still being under construction. Compared to a level like Lethal Highway from Shadow the Hedgehog (or the aforementioned Route 280 from SA2) the holes and gaps in Radical Highway are presented as being specifically because the winding roads are still under construction. You can see this on the level map above too - Route 280 and Route 101 appear to be part of a long, linear, already-finished stretch of road, wheras the area of Radical Highway and Mission Street is filled with gaps, inlets and breaks in the road. Route 101/Route 280 already appear to fill the function of letting people cross between the two city areas depicted on Adventure 2's world map...so then, what exactly is the construction and general wobblyness of Radical Highway for?

Well, let's look at Sonic Advance again: Specifically, the end of the Neo Green Hill Zone stage, and the way the game progresses immediately thereafter:

The natural beach environment of Neo Green Hill Zone Act 2 suddenly bows out before the Eggman boss fight to give way to something quite interesting: A red bridge extending out from the island's coast. The bridge's architecture doesn't quite match that of Radical Highway, most notably using tall suspension wires hooked up to some off-screen upper portion of the construction, but I think the idea alone is fascinating enough: This is drastically more modern architecture compared to the rickety wooden bridges otherwise seen in Green Hill Zone. We're still a bit unsure of if Advance 1 takes place before or after Sonic Adventure 2, but if it's before - it may also be possible that the work on this bridge began on the South Island end of things *before* the mainland Radical Highway-end were finished with their work, with the idea of joining the two bridges somewhere in the middle.

Let's again also consider where this bridge takes our characters in Advance - to Secret Base Zone, a shockingly urban facility which we still don't really know the location of. Sonic and c.o need to zip-line into its entrance, with a background that only features light and buildings far off into the distance - is it possible that the Secret Base exists sort of like an oil rig in the middle of the ocean, inbetween South Island and the mainland, as some sort of production facility for the UN? Regardless, it serves as a pit-stop in the Advance campaign - after it, we can pretty cleanly chart a roadmap for where the cast travels. Casino Paradise's ocean background seemingly depicts it as being part of the coastline (bottom left of the SA2 map), Ice Mountain is pretty clearly meant to be another area of Ice Cap Zone given how it leads to the Angel Island Zone - which is, in reality, a dilapidated Sky Sanctuary. Effectively, the campaign seems to go from South Island, to the bridge connecting South Island to the mainland, to a coastside Vegas-like casino wonderland built by Eggman, which is near the Mystic Ruins and thus near Angel Island by extension (it may be connected to Night Carnival from Sonic Rush?). And all of it connected thanks to the works of a bridge, seemingly set up in Adventure 2 with Radical Highway being under construction, possibly with the goals to connect the two core parts of Sonic's world.

Whew! That's pretty much all the words I have, and I've now reached the max cap of images per posts. I truly don't know how many Sonic fans care about these granular details and concepts about the environment of Sonics world in games from 20+ years ago, but I hope it got some gears turning - and if there is some merit to this, it may further get you wondering as to why the path connecting the two was seemingly cut off in the end? Given the cityscapes we see in Forces and IDW, it's possible that this mutual relation between the two worlds lasted for a fair while - what could've possibly led to that bond being broken? Maybe Unleashed breaking the world apart had something to do with it...

Thanks for reading this far if you did - and feel free to add your own ideas or things I might've missed in all of this!

[fatehbaz]

Hmm. Alarming trend in mass incarceration in Central America.

Also: Very disingenuous wordplay here.

Where do we begin?

-- Very disingenuous for multiple outlets to run with "the West”. Though this initial AP article does specify that this refers to the Western Hemisphere, the choice to run headlines with “West” kinda implies that there are no other island prisons in “The West” (as in the European Union, the United States, Australia, etc.).

-- One of the most infamous incarceration schemes on the planet is Australia’s “Pacific Solution,” a “solution” to refugee migration centered on the imprisonment of asylum seekers on island prisons, including the infamous prisons at Nauru and Manus, both opened initially in 2001, and re-fortified after 2012. (Nauru is extremely isolated, in the South Pacific, 3000 kilometers away from the Australian coast; the Manus detention centre is far away off the northeast coast of Papua.) Since 2012, over 3,125 people have been sent to Nauru while over 4,180 people have been sent to Manus. (The “last refugee held on the Pacific island of Nauru under Australia’s offshore detention policy” was “evacuated” to mainland Australia only on 24 June 2023, not even a month prior to this headline.)

-- Obviously the EU incarcerates refugees on Mediterranean islands, notoriously at Moria on Lesbos, whose international reputation as the home of Sappho has been supplanted by its reputation as a de facto prison for asylum seekers. In October 2015, over 10,000 people landed on Lesbos in just one day. In 2017, the island averaged 2,500 arrivals per month. By 2019, humanitarian investigations showed that over 10,000 people were being held in a facility with a maximum capacity of 3,000. In 2020, fires left over 12,000 refugees on the island without shelter. By December 2021, Doctors Without Borders raised alarm that over 2,200 refugees were living in “dire” conditions on the island. As of early 2023, Lesbos (along with Kos, Leros, Chios, and Samos) is hosting over 4,500 people who are stuck in “reception and identification centers.”

-- And in the Western Hemisphere? The US prison at Guantanomo, also on the coast of an island in this same sea.

-- One of the most notorious island prisons was the early twentieth century French penal colony on the periphery of the Caribbean region at Guiana (run by a France, a “Western” power, in the Western Hemisphere), known internationally as “Devil’s Island.”

-- The federal government says the prison will be built “in harmony with nature.”

-- A prison ... in harmony with nature.

-- An island prison in the Caribbean, a region fundamentally and intimately connected to centuries of imprisonment, plantations, Indigenous genocide, antiBlackness, racial castes, and chattel slavery, all achieved and enforced through the bounded, isolated geographic containment structure allowed by islands.

-- And this is extra-worrying, because it seems it’s a regional trend, evidently for Honduras, El Salvador, and Colombia.

-- Merely a few days before this headline about Honduras, international outlets were profiling Honduras’s direct neighbor, El Salvador, with headlines like “Inside El Salvador’s new ‘mega prison’” (Al Jazeera) and, within the past couple months, headlines like “Prisoners are being tortured to death in El Salvador’s prisons” (VICE News).

-- From less than a week before this AP headline, we have BBC: “El Salvador’s secretive mega-jail.”

-- Don’t forget nearby Tapachula’s detention of asylum seekers.

Still discussing implementation of literal island prisons despite our collective familiarity with carceral archipelagoes.

[floaromaxtowns]

StS x Pokemon AU brainstorming stuff

Now I'll have to publicly share some flow of thoughts rambles, I've been accumulating for an year now.

Bless @ectogusher for listening to my rambles, and @doodlingwren for busting my door open to finally share what I got.

Excuse me as I talk in my notes as if these things were like a guide/romhack shit

All under read more bc it gets long c:

Here's the main skeleton of this whole deal-

Sanctuary = Its own region. No new fakemons, but it's a sizeable piece of land that has gathered up a wide variety of various species found across the globe. This worldwide thing also influences the type of trainers and people from all over the world going there. If we were to touch on the subject of game mechanics: There would be most of them (Mega evolutions, terastalise, Dynamax even Paradox pokemon forms) further showing how mysterious and mythical this region is.

PC - Seiya / Shoko Rivals - Seiya -> The other bronze boys / Shoko ->The other saintias

With Ikki being the Silver-esque type of rival, meanwhile Shiryu/Hyoga/Shun all follow the same line of friendly rival archetype. I still haven't thought that far on the Shoko route.

Other prominent NPCs:

Professor Shion: Former gym leader, he was once offered the champion title but refused it. Claiming that his passion was in research and studies, rather than the battlefield. Due to stepping down from battles, his friendship/relationship with Dohko has strained over time. Shion is the one who brought Mu to Sanctuary down the line.

Schoolkid Kiki: Catching Tutorial NPC. He can be usually found at the Pokemon School in Mu's city. He will inherit Mu's mantle down the line. The pokemon he uses in the tutorial is a Noibat;

League Chairwoman Saori Kido - With Julien Solo and Hades coming in as other seemingly "investors" on the project

Gym leaders: Most of these guys' aces aren't fully evolved, bc they chose to keep them like that. Yadda yadda friendship boosting their favorites.

Mu: Sinnoh - Dragon - Dragonair

Aldebaran: Hoenn - Ground - Rhydon

Saga/Kanon: Alola - Water - Gyarados (Saga)/Kingdra (Kanon)

Deathmask: Kalos - Dark - Murkrow

Aiolia: Sanctuary (native) - Electric - Electabuzz

Shaka: Kanto - Psychic - Alakazam

Dohko: Johto - Fighting - Mienshao

Milo: Unova - Bug - Volcarona

Elite fours:

Aiolos: Sanctuary - Fire - Charizard

Shura: Galar - Steel - Metagross

Camus: Sinnoh - Ice - ? (Either Froslass or Glaceon)

Aphrodite: Paldea - Poison - Roserade

Champion - ??? (the plot twist is that: the PC wouldn't fight the 3rd gym leader, bc Saga was pretending to be the champion. When he really wasn't chosen or appointed to that position)

Evil organisations: They definetely do exist, and they are obviously tied to the aforementioned Julien and Hades figures. But I still haven't thought that far.

Worldbuilding notes:

Muvians are similar to draconids (introduced in ORAS), a small tribe that originates from Sinnoh and has some deep connections and bonds to dragon types. Which means, any muvian = dragon type specialist or in the very least owns one. Muvians are also meant to have a foot in aura sensitivity (see characters like Lucario, Riley, etc.);

Sanctuary's League has a rampant corruption problem, as seen by what I mentioned about Saga. The two evil organisations are basically being pitched against one another, as smokescreen for the real problem. Their current champ is this sort of "elusive" figure. There hasn't been a proper champion in a long time. And yet, according to paperwork and the system, it states that the role is currently filled by someone. Anyone that isn't tied to Saga's schemes is left in the shadows, even those that allegedly should be the closest to him (Aiolos for SURE has no clue of what's going on. He's probably hiding or declared missing in action during the events, and only shows up when the time comes to challenge the E4).

There's a small timeline:

ND folks (a good few years into the past) -> Classic folks -> Omega folks (+20 years into the future)

In ND's setting we see how odd and hapharzadly the League was instated in the region. Which sets up the perfect grounds for Saga to exploit down the line;

Shion and Dohko are recently turned gym leader here. Mu comes onto the picture a good few years after ND's events; In a way, since Tenma would be the PC here and Alone his rival. It could be the Red vs Blue type of ordeal.

In Omega we'd see how the League is trying to remedy its reputation & amend for Saga's schemes, with an entirely new set of gym leaders and League members. + Former league members can still be found and fought in the post game, Silver/Gold style.

Individual notes:

Mu - Obligatory pokemon Aldemu food

Mu used to own a Gible and Alde once owned a Trapinch, at some point they traded pokemon. So now, Alde has a Garchomp in his personal team and Mu has a Flygon;

Mu's battle team against young trainers has a Swablu, which is used as a messenger to carry mail exchanges between him and Alde;

Mu LOVES pokemon dolls and has a huge collection of it. In the post-game: PC can find Mu and Alde on a date at the region's big mall, with them looking at a shop's display window. Mu gets mad at PC for ruining his date, but would give out his pokegear number;

Aldebaran -

Aldebaran gym's city is also where the pokemon day-care can be found. He may not run it, but he often helps out the elderly couple currently in charge of it;

In the post-game: After adding Mu's re-match call number. Alde can ba found on the route between his and Mu's towns, he was on his way to take a meal for him, and he also shares with PC that they bought the doll in the end

Saga/Kanon -

PC doesn't really get to fight for the 3rd gym badge. Rather, it's simply handed out by Kanon, who approaches them to talk about how the leader hasn't been seen in so long;

Saga's "fall from grace" comes from a humiliating match against Aiolos, originally fighting for the E4 member promotion which he lost. Despite the clear type advantage;

It's left implied that these two were meant to be gym leaders, the matches would have been double battles.

Deathmask -

DM gym's city houses a Game corner (Casino) and a contest hall. First sighting of an E4 member is Aphrodite, who introduces PC to them;

DM is a sore loser AND has no qualms with cheating against his challengers, if it means he gets to maintain his "streak". In the battle against PC he would use an overleveled Crawdaunt;

In the post-game: PC will get a hint from Shaka's radio talkshow mentioning DM's whereabouts, in the city's underground game corner;

DM's strength is everything philosophy = DM's entire personal team consists of very strong dark types with some form of 4x weakness;

DM is well in kahoots with Saga's schemes;

Aiolia - TBA I haven't thought anything for him c':

Shaka -

Shaka gym's city is meant to be the largest and the most advanced one (Saffron and Goldenrod cities style), it has the region's largest shop for expensive and important items. It also has a radio tower, which broadcasts various programs (professor talk, loterry ticket, poke flute, etc), Shaka hosts a talk show where he commentates on PC's progress, all while actively putting down/poking fun at his defeated colleagues. Under specific time slots, he will have a guest join him, which will be an exchange between the various league's members. But the most important one is where he will be joined by the region's "champion";

Shaka is a fan-favorite across several trainers in the region, with many NPCs commentating how much they love tuning in to hear him talk & so on;

Shaka is also well known for his psychci prowess (Sabrina style);

Shaka is also deeply involved in Saga's schemes;

Dohko -

Dohko gym's city also houses the pokéathlon. With Dohko going undefeated in all the challenges, until PC comes along;

Post-game: to get Dohko's number for rematches. PC has to visit Shion after obtaining a certain number of species then, take a mail key item to Dohko. And THEN they get Dohko's number. it's a love letter, an invitation for some tea at noon

Milo - TBA I haven't thought anything for him c':

And "unfortunately", that's all I got x)

I suppose this is a lot better than trying to find all my notes scattered around all over the place. Hope it makes sense or that in the very least, it's fun to read through.

RN I focused on the classic folks bc it's the one I've been working and thinking of for the longest time.

[serpentface]

Yeah epic poetry is a major convention and is what other traditions of poetry here evolved From.

They originated as forms of recording and passing on history and legends in pre-literate Wardi societies (and still are mostly performed and transmitted orally, though most of the old epics have been recorded in writing and are now strictly 'canonized', and most performers memorize from these 'canon' texts). Each story would be divided into roughly equal 'chapters' which could be individually memorized. They are traditionally designed to be sung, and follow strict poetic meter but typically do not have a rhyming scheme (though often show favor for alliterative rhythm).

Most of the genre is comprised of old, established epics, but the practice of recording history this way has been retained in the commission of epic poetry-form documentation of major current events (these are never as popular).

The main traits of the genre are:

Taking place over broad spans of time and locations

Focus is mostly upon esteemed individuals and heroic exploits.

Narrative rhythm is established through repetition of key words and phrases, as well as scenes that thematically echo each other

Heavy use of epithets

Very flowery text that lavishes in visual description of people, animals, buildings, weapons, clothing, and landscapes.

Extensive family trees are provided for most major characters.

Descriptions often rely heavily upon extended similes and figurative language

Characters speak with highly formal language and perform lengthy monologues

Heavy focus on normative male homosociality

Heroic figures embody societal values, though are often shown as imperfect and having to fight baser aspects of their nature (thus making them perhaps The Best embodiments, showing their self-control and discipline)

Heroic figures are 'allowed' to have major flaws, but these flaws are typically connected to a perceived virtue (ie a highly accomplished warrior is foolishly arrogant about it, a hero's fidelity to his family makes him gullible to a malicious relative, etc)

Heavy focus on kinship, family, and honor (and typically exploring multiple dimensions of these values, including negative ones)

Typically having elements of tragedy, which is often interconnected with the aforementioned values- the tragedy occurs because the heroes do the right things in spite of inevitable consequences.

The most culturally significant epic poem is a mythologized recounting of the life of Erub, a (semi)historical king and founder hero. The only thing historically definite about his life is that a prince named Something Like Erub (more likely Urub, Urbin, or Uru) from the Ephenni tribe was involved in a series of campaigns that lead to about 2/5ths of the region being conquered and formed into a kingdom (most of the present day provinces of Ephennos, Wardin, and Erubinnos), which experienced a period of relative peace and stability for about a century before the First wave of Imperial Burri occupation occurred.

The overall plot points:

-Erub's birth and adolescence, in which he is guided to become a great warrior and skilled leader by a deity who is only described in epithets, mostly war and khait-related ('The thrower of spears' 'with the khaitsmane shield', 'whose horns are iron', 'the wild bull(khait)', 'peerless mounted archer'). This is usually interpreted as the Face Inyamache (and Does very likely represent an early incarnation of this deity, possibly a contributor to Odomache as well).

-Erub's ascension to the Ephenni throne via the sacrificial bullfight rite, in which the bull is a magical animal and son of his tutelary deity.

-Erub courting Hippemides, a princess of North Ephennos (who is described as descending from the chief Burri solar deity Inanariya via his son, minor solar deity Nibeña).

-Erub's marriage to Hippemides as a chief wife, and two 'prince concubines' (they aren't assigned definite sex characteristics but are usually understood as akoshos in the contemporary, almost definitely would not have been men)

-Efforts for diplomacy between the Ephenni and Wardinae tribes, historical enemies.

-Erub's king-sister Inyari is insulted by the Wardinae king Janes assuming her to be Erub's wife (a lesser role). In retribution, she commands their younger brother Nedelas to trespass on the king's lands and steal his cattle (described as 'lunar cattle' and implied to be some kind of demigod animal). Janes demands that Erub hand over his brother or face war. Erub has a long monologue examining the complexity of the situation (as his siblings were clearly in the wrong), but loyalty to his family overcomes. War is declared.

-War between the Ephenni and Wardinae tribes.

-Erub and Janes agree to settle the war in single combat. Both are evenly matched and unable to defeat one another. They are both such great and honorable warriors and develop so much respect for one another that they ally instead, and swear brotherhood in front of their collective peoples.

-Erub and Janes pal around for a few years and undertake various heroic tasks and defeat minor enemies of each of their tribes.

-Erub marries one of Janes' cousins as a second wife.

-Janes (ignoring several warning omens) slays a mighty albino buffalo on a hunt, which turns out to have been a powerful animal spirit who curses him in its dying breaths, stating that his death will 'emerge from' his own hunting dogs (the word for 'emerge' is more ambiguous in the source language, and can literally mean 'will physically come out of' or just figuratively mean 'come from'). Janes kills all his hunting dogs and declares himself invulnerable.

-Janes' wife, the queen Mitlewari, is captured by Achetil, the king of the powerful Morinnae tribe (probably a Wogan group). Janes declares war, and Erub follows suit out of loyalty to his sworn brother.

-The fighting between the Ephenni/Wardinae and Morinnae turns into a year of bloody warfare, with many great warriors dying.

-The tide of battle turns to the Ephenni/Wardinae side, and Achetil flees with the remainder of his forces within the city walls. The city of Morinnos is sieged, and Achetil's wives and daughters throw themselves from the fort wall to avoid capture. Mitlewari has been raped in captivity and is pregnant, and, freeing herself in the chaos, she throws herself from the wall as well to preserve herself and her husband's honor.

-The city is sacked. Achetil and his sons are captured and offered as human sacrifices to the proto-Inyamache deity. Erub declares Ephenni, Wardinae, and former Morinae lands to be a new kingdom.

-Erub and Janes, at the behest of their people, are forced to fight once again to determine who should be king. The fight rages on for days without a victor as they are too evenly matched. Janes feels deference to his elder sworn brother and believes Erub should be king, but is unwilling to admit defeat to preserve his and his people's honor. A goddess in the form of an albatross (whose identity is ambiguous in the text and is usually interpreted as Pelannaumache) sends a wind to trip him just enough to slow his parry, and Erub stabs him through the heart. Janes briefly dies but returns to life, as his invulnerability is apparently real. His defeat was unambiguous, however, and Erub is crowned king, retaining Janes as his general and chiefmost advisor.

-The new kingdom is named Erubinnos, and a new palace is raised. A thousand cattle are sacrificed to consecrate the kingdom and eaten at a feast.

-Janes revisits the pyre mound on which his hunting dogs were burned, to mock the curse and revel in his confirmed invulnerability. A viper crawls out from the dog ashes and bites him in the thigh, killing him.

-The funeral for Janes, in which a hundred Morinae prisoners, a hundred khait, and a hundred hounds are killed to serve him in the afterlife. Erub's grief is so tremendous that he shaves his head and beard.

-Erub rules the great kingdom Erubinnos for fifty years until great old age. His eldest nephew Nedachemi (sometimes mistranslated as a son to fit modern Wardi kingship) undergoes the sacrificial bullfight and inherits the throne. Erub dies shortly after.

-The funeral for Erub, in which the same prisoners-khait-hound spread is killed in his honor. Hippemides throws herself onto the funeral pyre in grief.

-Nedachemi marries one of Janes' daughters, and his king-sister marries one of Janes' sons. The wedding consummation of each is described in a fair amount of detail, which has at least Some narrative function as a show of unification between the Ephenni and Wardinae and hope for a prosperous future.

-Ends very abruptly after the sex scenes, with a declaration that the great Erubinnos will one day be whole again (in reference to the state of Imperial Burri occupation that the tale was first developed under, and the fact that the Original Erubinnos was never reformed by the later date of the poem's written recording).

---

The oral tradition the epic descends from probably began about ~750 years BP under the rule of the 1st Burri Empire, and the 'canonized' version of the text was likely recorded about 500 years BP during an independent but heavily tumultuous period of warring Wardi states.

It's notable as a snapshot of the earliest forms of the Faith of the Seven Faced God. The Faith had not crystallized into anything resembling its modern variant during the period of purely oral transmission, and it shows significantly in the text. Entities recognizable as basal forms of some of the seven Faces appear in the text, but they are described as individual deities, are heavily personified and interactive, and some appear to have demigod children (none of these concepts are present in contemporary doctrine). Additionally, gods from the Burri pantheon that had been adopted during this period (and either abandoned or fully syncretized into the Faith in the period since) make distinct appearances. It also contains notable animistic qualities to its worldview, its world is populated by animal and other nature spirits and actions are frequently described as 'witnessed' and reacted to by inanimate and/or non-animal objects/features (sometimes specifically referred to with the antiquated word koya for a essential nature spirit (ie 'the very koya of the grass wept at this bloodshed upon her back'))

This is largely reflective of the proto-Wardi religious practices during the time of the story's development- most regionally native religions had an animistic outlook on the world and centered heavily on animal worship, the proto-Wardi tribes were under foreign occupation with Burri gods introduced as a part of state religion (prioritizing orthopraxy, adoption of rites was forced but there was little to no Active attempts to eliminate native belief systems). These native animal worship ft. general animism practices would continue among much of the population with Burri polytheism added on top, and syncretism between these elements in tandem with cultural upheaval led to the beginning of a new religion (which began to come to fruition after the 1st Burri empire's collapse, and would be a practice in full swing during the 2nd period of occupation).

It also records some obsolete practices with great detail and accuracy, such as the matrilineal kinship systems of the Ephenni where sovereignty passed from the king to his nephew via his sister (and correctly recording that the Wardinae did not have this practice), and the capture of high status war prisoners Very Specifically And Explicitly as sacrificial offerings to deities.

Much of its general themes and priority on honor, kinship, and the family are familiar to contemporary listeners, but a lot of its worldview, practices, and value systems are distinctly dated or entirely confusing. Erub is described as wearing tattoos and having multiple wives (two practices now seen as barbaric), the notion of kings fighting in single combat is seen as Cool But Absurd, and much of its religious worldview is alien to the modern listener. There are some attempts to reinterpret the source text to fit with contemporary outlooks and religious worldview, but it is broadly understood as a snapshot of the 'heathen Wardi' the Wardi peoples descend from and not something to be 'fixed'. Instead, focus is more on finding legitimatizing evidence of modern day religious beliefs in the text (identifying older deities as Faces of God that were simply misinterpreted by the heathen Wardi), and Most of the focus is on framing Erub as a collective father to their people and a great heathen king, whose exploits paved the way to their modern identity.

The declaration at the end that "Erubinnos will be whole again" is heavily reinterpreted to be a sort of prophetic description of Imperial Wardin's emergence as a kingdom for the collective Wardi people (when in context it Absolutely just referred to the specific kingdom comprising most of the present day provinces of Ephennos, Wardin, and Erubinnos, and specifically for the (rather briefly, in the long run) unified Ephenni and Wardinae people (not other proto-Wardi tribes)).

[biggestxsimps]

Deception & Intriuge

A/N: This was requested over on our wattpad, another request will be out soon for YanSim! I’m just focusing on school at the moment since the workloads increased. I hope you enjoy!

I COMPLETELY FORGOT TO ADD THAT Y/N IS KIRA!!

____________________________________

KIRA…

TRANSLATION; KILLER

The night air was thick with tension as Y/N strolled through the dimly lit streets, shrouded in mystery. Another encounter awaited him at the Japanese task force building, where L resided. As he approached the building, a sense of both curiosity and agitation washed over him.

L was starting to suspect him which was getting on his nerves. But also. This was perfect. Y/n saw an opportunity in L’s unexpected liking towards him, realising the potential to turn the tide of the investigation to his advantage. With a calculated approach, these last few months he had been under L’s surveillance, he had strategically begun to build a stronger connection with him, gaining his trust through subtle cooperation and active involvement through the case. Y/n elected some sort of empathy from L, clouding his judgement and creating a shield around himself.

Inside, a labyrinth of monitors and scattered notes filled the room. L, a figure cloaked in the shadows, turned his piercing gaze towards you. “I have been observing you.” he said, voice laced with suspicion. “There are certain inconsistencies in your actions that raise my suspicions.” His intellect was unmatched, Y/N couldn’t help but be captivated by his presence.

But Y/N was not without his secrets. Throughout school, he was classified as a genius right through to his adulthood. He is highly perceptive, and manipulative. He wouldn’t be foolish enough to slip out a single word that would hint that he was Kira.

“May I ask, what certain inconsistencies are you speaking of?” He paused, thinking for a moment. “Ryuzaki?”

“Kira is located in the Kanto region of Japan, he is believed to be a college student based on the timings of the killings. It’s obvious also that he has access to the police database, shown through the timing adjustments and a behavioural analysis we conducted whilst you were under camera surveillance at home.”

Y/N’s chest tightened, keeping the innocent facade present as his hands rested in his pockets. “Interesting deductions, L. The investigation certainly seems thorough. But I must say, attributing all these traits to one person seems like a stretch. Let's not overlook the possibility of a more elaborate scheme at play here, shall we?”

L found himself back in a loophole, so utterly confused, yet he knew Y/N was Kira. What was stopping him from detaining him? He disregarded his feelings for him, the slight attraction that grew for Y/N each day was starting to get to him.

The dance of words and gestures became a delicate balance between exposing his true intentions and maintaining his innocence.

“Funny how Kira seems to have a knack for timing, isn’t it? Almost as if they have insider information..” Y/N spoke casually

As L’s piercing gaze lingered on Y/N, a playful smirk tugged at the corner of his lips, hidden behind his facade of innocence. He knew damn well that he had L’s attention, and he relished in the thrill of the game they played, each step drawing them together.

“Well Ryuzaki?” Y/N began, his tone teasing. “I must admit, once again your suspicions are certainly flattering. You tend to love a good mystery, especially when it's directly in front of you.”

L’s expression remained stoic, but a hint of amusement flickered in his eyes. “Flattery will get you nowhere, Y/N.” He retorted. “But I must admit, you do have a certain charm to you..”

Y/N couldn’t help but chuckle softly, arms crossed over his chest. “I’m well aware of my charms.” He replied. “But it seems you’re the one caught in my web of intrigue. Tell me, detective, are you enjoying the chase as much as I am?”

L’s lips quivered into a half-smile, a rare display of amusement. “You’re certainly full of surprises, Y/N.” He admitted.

Masterlist

-Written by owner 2

[cripplecharacters]

Hi!

I have a question about a deaf character in my fantasy story (set in a fantasy world with modern technology).

My story centers around twins- one (Luna) has a “siren” voice that can hypnotize people and her sibling (Fen) is deaf and therefore immune to her powers. The two work as a sort of dynamic criminal duo, using the sign language from their home region to communicate as they con people all over the fantasy world.

However, this means that the biggest threats to their plans would be other d/Deaf people who would be immune to Luna’s voice as well. Because of this and the travel Fen never becomes part of the Deaf community (a community I assume would exist similarly in the fantasy world as it does in this one). It works with the plot to have Fen begin to connect with the Deaf community during the story.

My only concern is that, by making up a sign language, fantasy history for the fantasy Deaf community, social dynamics for said community, and diving deep into a main character’s complex emotions about joining the community, am I stepping out of my lane as a hearing person? I’m not close with any d/Deaf people- when does it become not my story to tell?

Thank you so much for your time, this blog is wonderful and has been so incredibly helpful for writing my characters. I hope you have a great day!

Hi!

Just a quick forewarning: if you've read some of my previous answers about deaf immunity to voice related powers, you might know it's not my favorite trope. I think it can be done respectfully, if it's done carefully--it might just be a Deaf Gain in your world, but I'd like that line of thought explored more fully.

Why isn't Fen affected? Does the power work by hearing the sound or through some physical properties of the waves (deaf people can often feel vibrations of sounds they can't hear especially louder ones)? Does Fen wear hearing aids or CI and would they be affected then? Are other deaf/hoh folks guaranteed to be exempt from being affected? Why?

Depending on which route you choose for how the powers work, who else might not be affected by them? How do they avoid those people?

To move onto your plot: I'm fine with constant travel being a reason Fen hasn't yet found a place in a Deaf community, but (back to my dislike of the immunity trope) I don't like them not having met any Deaf people just because Luna's powers don't work on them.

I'd also like you to consider how they've managed to avoid any other deaf/hoh people so far, or what they do when run into someone. Can they rely on other strategies to con d/Deaf people? Is the plotting part of some larger takeover scheme? If so, how would they deal with d/Deaf/hoh people then?

Does Fen want to join a Deaf community, and are they disappointed about not having met other d/Deaf people? What drives them to start looking for a community?

I agree, these dynamics would be difficult for a hearing author to replicate. I'd say if the only plot of your story is Fen looking for their place, that is a Deaf person's story to tell. A story of discovering or reconnecting to Deaf identity is best left to someone in the community.

As a subplot, definitely still get (multiple!) Deaf beta readers, but it's okay to write a disabled character finding support and community. Just be careful this doesn't cross the line into a Deaf identity centered story as a non-Deaf author. If you're attached to this plot, see if you can find a Deaf co-author!

Mod Rock (with some help from mod Sasza!)

[mintaikk]

You know what? I'm bored, so here's a list of my favorite ship names

I bully ship names, but I like a lot of them because some of them sound really pretty and are genuinely creative, and some are just funny, and I like the way they sound. Imma try to be multi fandom here, but my hyperfixations will show, since ill obviously know the ships in my own fandoms better. I'll also be explaining them here. There's also no order here, it's by the order I remeber it by.

Honeymoon (Beelzebub x Loona, Helluva Boss)

This shape name is super cute and super pretty, and I love it, and it also makes sense. Bee is a honeybee, and Loona is designed to look like the moon.

Dragonfruit (Mei x Red Son, Lego Monkie Kid)

I didn't get it at first because the fruit at the end didn't make sense, but apparently it takes the first characters in their Mandarin names which can be combined with other characters to make it translates to dragin fruit, and their color schemes also resemble one, which I think is pretty neat. Also, draginfruitsblook pretty

-Stolitz (Stolas x Blitzø, Helluva Boss)

A combination of their names that sounds like 'stole it', which is what Blitzø did with the grimoire. I love it

-Bluetooth (Caine x Moon, The Amazing Digital Circus)

The ship was named by @dovewingkinnie and has been growing in popularity, and I love it that I got to see a ship name being born. They're named Bluetooth because Moon is blue, the blue moon cycle, Caine is dentures, and Bluetooth is a way to connect wifi, which makes sense in a digital world.

-Amourshipping (Ash x Serena, Pokemon XY anime)

It's simple, but I like it. It's called Amourshipping because Amour means love in French, and Kalos (the region the series takes place in) is based on France

-Lumity (Luz x Amity, The Owl House)

It's another combination of names, but it sounds super pretty! To me, it sounds like illuminate, which fits because Luz's name means light and Luz literally showed Amity a light glyph when they were first becoming friends.

Goldengarden (Hunter x Willow, The Owl House)

It sounds so pretty omg

BurningLeafshipping (Red x Leaf, Pokemon [adventures manga])

The name sounds so pretty actually I love this name sm

Royallectureshipping (Cheren x Lear, Pokemon Masters)

Because Lear is a royal and Cheren constantly lectures him. It's litteraly perfect

Verbie (Barbie Wire x Verosika Mayday, Helluva Boss)

It's a combination of names. It sounds like furby. I will be bullying this name later.

Trainwreckshipping (Emmet x Volo, Pokemon)

This is such a perfect name for them. A lot of the fanon interactions stem from Emmet finding Volo to try and get revenge or force him to help him find Ingo, and then they have a whole enemies to lovers thing. It's called trainwreck shipping because ITD BE A GODDAMN TRAINWRECK. And Emmet's a subway boss, and Volo wanted to destroy the world

MedievalStoryShipping

(Gardevoir x Gallade, Pokemon): I didn't even know this ship had a name until I found a blog dedicated to it a couple of months ago. They were names MedievalStoryShippimg because Gardevoir was based off a princess and a knight and gallade was based on a prince and a knight. Also, not to put my own opinions, but I have such a sentimental attachment to this ship because I shipped it so hard in 5th grade and made so much (very bad) fanart of it

-Goldenheart (Ballister Boldheart/Blackheart x Ambrosious Goldenloin, Nimona)

It's another combination of names, but it sounds super cute and very angelic.

-Vorbee (Vortex x Beelzebub, Helluva Boss)

It's a combination Bee and Vortex's name, but it sounds like Vore, and considering Bee's whole thing with eating to excess, I can see that

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jeff Singer at The Downballot:

Former President Jimmy Carter died on Sunday at the age of 100, and in keeping with our focus at The Downballot, in the piece that follows, we take stock of his early electoral career in Georgia that set the stage for his dark-horse White House bid in 1976. Carter was elected twice to the state Senate in the 1960s before winning the governorship on his second try in 1970, a victory that came after he employed tactics to appeal to supporters of segregationist politicians. But the new governor would shock the political world just months later with an inaugural address declaring, "The time for racial discrimination is over."

The Politics of the South

Carter grew up at a time when southwestern Georgia, like most of the South, was a one-party region run by pro-segregation Democrats. A central pillar in upholding white dominance was a rigged voting method called the "county unit" system, an Electoral College-esque scheme that gave small and predominantly white rural counties like Carter's native Sumter County massively disproportionate influence in the all-important Democratic primary. The politics of the South suffused Carter's own upbringing, too: The future president's father and namesake, James Carter Sr., was an ardent supporter of Gov. Eugene Talmadge—who stood out even at the time for his virulent racism—and of Eugene's son and successor, Herman Talmadge.

Jimmy Carter had left Georgia in 1943 to enroll in the U.S. Naval Academy but resettled in his hometown of Plains after his father died in 1953, just a few months after the elder Carter had been elected to the state House as a Talmadge ally. The younger Carter took over not just the family's struggling farming business, but as Jonathan Alter details in his Carter biography, "His Very Best"—which was an indispensable source for this obituary—Carter exceeded even his father's prodigious habit of joining local organizations, connections that would prove fruitful as he began his political rise.

One of these groups was the Sumter County Board of Education, an appointed body his father had served on. Carter was already known locally for personally opposing segregation, but Alter writes that when it came to actual policy, he'd never have been allowed on the board if "he had been considered unreliable on school desegregation." And while Carter made enemies for being the only prominent white man in Plains to refuse to join the White Citizens Council, he remained quiet about the injustices inflicted on Black residents by local officials like Sheriff Fred Chappell, whom Martin Luther King Jr. would call "the meanest man in the world."

[...]

1966: A Surprise Bid for Governor

That House duel, though, never took place. Callaway announced in May 1966 that he would run for governor, and despite the many hours Carter had spent planning out his congressional bid, he quickly followed Callaway into that contest. Alter suggests that Carter would have easily won the 3rd District had he stayed the course (Democrat Jack Brinkley decisively won the general election after a close primary and never faced any serious opposition during his 16-year career), but his change of heart proved to be an important decision. As one ally in the legislature later put it, "You'd never have heard of Jimmy Carter outside of Georgia if Bo hadn't switched." But for months, it appeared that few people inside Georgia would ever hear of Carter, much less vote for him. The unquestioned front-runner in the September Democratic primary to succeed Gov. Carl Sanders, who was barred by state law from running for a second consecutive term, initially was the popular former Gov. Ernest Vandiver, but he dropped out following a heart attack. The new favorite was former Gov. Ellis Arnall, an anti-Talmadge politician elected in 1942 who had infuriated segregationists by refusing to fight court rulings to desegregate primaries.

[...]

After thinking it over, Rabhan made Carter initial a pledge, written on a flight map, to say in his inaugural address, "The time for racial discrimination is over." Carter was reluctant to make that kind of declaration while on the same platform as Maddox, who was about to be elected to the powerful post of lieutenant governor, but he assented. Carter did indeed utter those fateful words in January of 1971, a move that shocked the Georgia political world. Alter summed up the reactions of Carter's friends and foes alike by citing the response of one civil rights activist: "He said whaaat?" A dozen conservative Carter allies in the state Senate protested by walking out. The governor, though, backed up his declaration with deeds, and he soon graced the cover of Time Magazine with the caption, "Dixie whistles a different tune." That was some of the first national exposure Carter, who just four years earlier had been an afterthought in campaign coverage, would receive before beginning another improbable ascent—one that would take him to the White House.

The Downballot’s Jeff Singer gives a detail of the late Jimmy Carter’s pre-Presidency career.

[trainsinanime]

LIMAX

I’m tired, I’m bored, let’s talk about the RE18, also sometimes known as LiMAX or Drielandentrein (three countries train).

Euregio

This international regional train connects the region known as Euregio Maas-Rhine, the area around the point where Netherlands, Belgium and Germany meet. The region has a long shared and sometimes weird history. The main cities are Aachen (Germany, about 260,000 inhabitants), Liège (Belgium, about 200,000 people) and Maastricht (Netherlands, about 120,000 folks). A cluster of smaller towns around Heerlen (Netherlands, 86,000 citizens) forms a fourth major pole. Each of the regions gets roughly around half a million inhabitants each, but with a lot of green space in between. Here's a very crude map:

Blue are borders, black are relevant passenger rail lines, red is the one high speed line I'll talk about later.

This region is either right in the centre of Europe, or at the periphery of each of its respective countries, depending on what aspect you look at. Centre of Europe is undeniably better, but it requires international cooperation to work out. For me, living in Aachen, it’s great. My nearest Ikea is in the Netherlands, and I can watch French movies in cinemas in Liège.

But a lot of things aren't perfect, and the regional rail connections are a good example. Differing ticketing systems mean that it's not only expensive to cross the border, it's often very difficult to figure out what it costs at all. In a lot of places, trains only did short hops over the border, and then you had to change to a different train to get anywhere interesting. Some lines weren't even electrified yet. But in 2018, that was all about to change.

LIMAX

The Liège-Maastricht-Aachen express, in short LIMAX, was meant to change all that. The train is officially known as RE 18, which comes from the numbering scheme in the German state of Northrhine-Westphalia but is used for the entire route. It was supposed to run from Liège via Maastricht and Heerlen to Aachen, connecting all the major cities of the Euregio.

This particular train is a dutch project, and connecting Aachen with Liège only happens incidentally. There is a direct Aachen-Liège railway line, actually the oldest international line that’s still in use, including the oldest surviving German railway tunnel, and there is even a high-speed line that bypasses around 90% of the historic line. You can get from Aachen to Liège in less than half an hour on high speed trains (though regional trains are weird and impractical at the moment). This train line is really more about getting people in Heerlen a direct link to Liège, and people in Maastricht a direct link to Aachen.

The train

The train is operated by Arriva Netherlands Limburg, an independent subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, who also operate all other rail and bus lines in the southern half of the dutch province of Limburg. They were actually placed second in the tender for this, but got promoted after it turned out that the actual winner Abellio (a daughter of the dutch state railroads NS) had illegal access to internal documents of previous operator and third-place scorer Veolia from France. To their credit, this came out because Abellio management learned of it and made it public, but rules are rules, so they still got disqualified. This is barely in the top three most interesting stories with Abellio, but we don’t have time for that here.

The service uses Stadler FLIRT 3 electric multiple units. FLIRT is an abbreviation, but nobody bothers remembering what it stands for. The manufacturer also offers or used to offer the TANGO (streetcar), the WINK (smaller version of the FLIRT), KISS (double-decker) and their newest high-speed train, the… SMILE. Cowards.

The FLIRTs for this service are specially equipped for the line, supporting all the different voltages in the overhead lines and all the other necessary support systems… almost. That’s going to become important later.

(Arriva Nederland Limburgs also has other trains, including other FLIRTs, that are only equipped for the Netherlands. I'll ignore them here.)

Services started in December 2018, theoretically. In practice the German leg of the service didn’t work yet. The problem was that the line from Heerlen to Herzogenrath (and then further to Aachen) used to be one of the few non-electrified lines in the region. It was electrified specifically for the RE18, and the work wasn’t quite finished yet. That got resolved, though, and the train is now working mostly well between Germany and the Netherlands. There are still some issues, like how it consistently announces that the doors will open on the left when they will open on the right and vice versa, but those are minor issues. The main problem for me is that it bypasses the Ikea station instead of stopping there.

The much bigger problem was the Belgian line, from (south of) Maastricht to Liège. The Belgian railway authorities were never that enthusiastic about the project to begin with, seeing how it was a private dutch company (though owned by the German government), and the platforms in the intermediate station of Visé were too low for step-free access and needed to be rebuilt. But the real main issue lay elsewhere: The new trains did not have ETCS.

Train control systems

We need a detour here about train control systems. Trains are controlled by signals. If a train passes a red signal, an accident usually follows, so over time every country developed different systems to make sure that doesn’t happen. The specific features of these vary widely. Some just warn the engineer that a red signal is ahead, and stop the train if the engineer doesn’t react. Some activate the emergency brake when the engineer passes a red signal, or when they don’t brake enough. More advanced ones for high speed lines tell the engineer the current allowed speed, upcoming speed changes and how far away they are, like a mini-GPS system, and constantly check that the engineer is driving within these limits. Many systems do a combination of different things.

Almost every country has its own of these systems, generally known by a cryptic abbrevation, and many countries have several. For example, Germany has PZB for all lines and additionally LZB for high-speed lines. The Netherlands have different versions of ATB, Belgium has TBL1+ and so on. The differences between them aren’t relevant for this post, but they’re all very different in what they do and how they do it. The RE 18 trains support all of them, except LZB because they’re not used on lines that make it necessary.

That’s expensive and annoying, so the European Union and European rail industries have developed a new system to replace all of them, the European Train Control System or ETCS. You will also hear the term ERTMS (European rail traffic management system), which includes ETCS and some other things, but in common parlance it usually means the same thing. Despite the name, it is also heavily used outside of Europe, e.g. on China’s high speed rail network.

And yes, that is very much a situation like the classic XKCD comic:

Source: XKCD 927, CC-BY-NC 2.5

(For americans reading this and wondering about PTC: That is a whole mess and almost everyone, including Wikipedia, explains it wrong, but for the purposes of this post we can just say that these systems and in particular ETCS are all something „like“ PTC.)

ETCS will only make sense once all European mainlines are equipped with it, which is still several decades away. But some countries are working harder than others to implement it. In particular, Belgium demands that all new trains since about 2015 have ETCS. Including the Stadler FLIRT for the RE 18.

In this case

The operator protested, because that requirement apparently came in while the trains were in production, and the line in question didn’t even have ETCS at the time (according to the latest Belgian maps it does now). To this day, the trains actually running there, as a Liège-Maastricht shuttle, do not have ETCS. So clearly it's not that essential… yet. Still, Belgian authorities refused to budge, so the trains had to be sent back to the manufacturer to get ETCS installed.

(Aside: ETCS is an open standard, and you can get ETCS equipment both for the tracks and for the trains from many different companies. Stadler, the manufacturer of these trains, only recently got into making ETCS equipment. Before that they had to buy it from competing train makers. These trains are among the first equipped with Stadler’s ETCS solution.)

The first train got it installed, returned to the line, and started tests. It worked well in the Netherlands, it worked well in Germany, it ran into Aachen station and worked well there, it ran back out of Aachen station and it stopped. Full emergency stop. After some testing it was determined that it always does an emergency stop when running out of Aachen station. And nobody is really sure why.

The low-down

We can make some vague guesses, though, because Aachen main station does have some ETCS equipment.

ETCS works partially with radio, but also with what are functionally giant RFID tags, the same basic concept like what you’ll find on a wireless credit card. They’re working at different frequencies and they’re designed for reliable reading at 450 km/h, but the basic idea is pretty much the same. These tags, known as „Balise“ (French for beacon) or Eurobalise, are mounted in the middle of the track, and are often yellow, at least when new. They can either send the same data every time, or be controlled with a cable from a computer.

Not everybody loves ETCS, but everybody seems to like the Eurobalise. It’s simple technology that can transmit a lot of information, and so there are a number of non-ETCS uses for it.

One such use case is transmitting the information of an older train control system. That is what the Belgians do with their TBL1+ system. It’s the same system as TBL1 (there is also a TBL2, but that was a bad idea and is gone now), but it transmits its information with Eurobalises. The idea is that you update these balises later to also transmit ETCS signals. Older trains can just get a balise reader, newer trains can just get ETCS, and you have only a single type of thing in the track instead of two. Switzerland is the first country that is fully ETCS equipped thanks to such a strategy, and Belgium is following suit.

The other use case is the "ETCS-based class B transition". Sounds tough but really isn’t: ETCS has a mechanism to tell the train, "hey, ETCS is ending, switch to ATB/PZB/TBL/…". In this context "Class B" means any system that isn’t ETCS (and that is on the list of things that ETCS knows about, for this purpose). The system ensures that the train really does switch to the other system, and that it stops if the switch doesn’t work. That is very useful and so most border crossings at least in Germany use it these days, even if no other part of ETCS is seen anywhere.

Both of these use cases are well established and ETCS specifically allows for them. Aachen central station is particularly fun because here you will find both of them combined. It is the border station for (passenger) trains to Belgium, so several tracks can be switched to Belgium mode, with Belgian electricity, and with Belgian TBL1+ train control system. The Eurobalises in these tracks pull double duty: They tell trains whether to switch to Belgian or German train control systems, depending on where the route is set, and if the Belgian system is to be used, they also transmit the information from that.

This isn’t new, and has worked well for years. The only other two types of passenger trains approved for the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany (and in one case also France), the Thalys PBKA and the ICE 3M high speed trains, also run through this station and they also have ETCS equipment and it all works.

But something about the combination together with the ETCS equipment in the new trains just doesn’t mesh well. It’s possible that there’s a bug in the software of the train. It’s possible that there’s a bug in the coding of the balises. Maybe it's something else; ETCS is a complex standard with a lot of updates, and the equipment in Aachen hasn't been touched in a while.

A theory I read on a dutch forum said that these balises tell the train to switch to combined PZB+LZB mode, but the train only has PZB mode and gets confused. I don’t know enough about ETCS to know whether this is plausible (and I know way too much about this stupid system already). All we really know for sure is that there are people working on this, and they're not telling us any of the details.

But after a few days where the train just didn’t run to Aachen at all, they found a solution. You know how I said that some tracks can be switched to Belgium mode? The others can’t, so why not just run the train into those?

That was actually easier said than done. Aachen has a lot of tracks, but most of them are used for parking trains. Most German regional trains to Aachen end in Aachen, and then wait here for half an hour or so until they return to where they came from. This isn’t required by the track layout or anything, it’s just convenient because that way, delays don’t build up quite as much. And the best location for that pause is, of course, right at the edge of the country. Centre of Europe? Yeah, sure, whatever…

So the solution is now that the RE18 runs into track 3 and stops in the middle of the platform, where it unloads all passengers. Then it drives forward to the end of the platform, and stays there. Another train, the RB33, pulls in behind it (there’s a red signal between them, don’t worry), and waits for its time to depart. Eventually it does, and shortly thereafter, the RE18 runs back to the middle of the platform, and then a few minutes later, back out again. It’s a silly little dance, but so far nobody has found a better solution.

(Before you start, the end of platform 3 is very narrow and at a non-accessible height, so the train can't just load and unload there.)

As for the Belgian side of things, through-services to Liège will start this December! Woohoo! It seems this thing is finally working.

The Future

The long-term hope is to turn this from an hourly to a half-hourly service. It already is for most of its length, but right now the trains stop in Herzogenrath, just after the German border, because there is no space in the schedule to run them to Aachen yet.

Another hope is to create a completely new service from Aachen to Eindhoven, also using the same trains. Eindhoven wants to be connected to the German ICE network, Aachen wants to be connected to the dutch train network, so this sounds all great. Personally, I have doubt that these trains have enough capacity, but they are currently the only ones that would work. An issue with that is the actual line over the border. This used to be double-tracked, then got single-tracked. Now they want to double-track it again, but when it was electrified, they put the power poles right where the second track used to be. Not sure what they were thinking there.

All of these projects will take years, if not decades, and have in fact already taken years or decades. I’ve been in Aachen since 2007, and things like electrifying the line over the german-dutch border or creating a direct train from Aachen to the center of the Netherlands (or at least Eindhoven) have been in discussion for at least since then. On the one hand, it’s frustrating how slowly all these things are going. On the other, they are happening at all, and looking back ten years or so, it’s quite nice to see what has been accomplished.

I guess my one wish is that they’d finally let the train stop in Heerlen Woonboulevard, I’m tired of changing trains to get to Ikea.