#also because I don't have a specific story planned out for this the ships are up in the air

[ace-s-fav-dp-posts]

Currently cooking up an AU heavily inspired by the magical girl concept.

And I am going ahead and making Danny a girl in this AU.

Her name is Danae, pronounced exactly the same as Danny.

Yes it's because I think Vlad hearing "Danny" and being convinced it's short for Danielle, is funny.

Mostly because I've also loved the AU that Maddie isn't short for Madeline but some other name, like Madison, since I was 14 myself.

I've just always thought it suited Vlad's character, and his more or less parasocial (remember they haven't seen each other since the Vlad's accident before the 20 year reunion happens, this is 100% parasocial) obsession with Maddie that her real name doesn't actually matter to him.

He loves her as an object, a prize to be one and then flaunted/hoarded as the mood strikes him.

We know this from the episode where Danny goes back in time to mess with Vlad's accident, and Vlad ends up married to Maddie.

Because unlike Maddie and Jack who're ecstatically happy and ridiculously in love with each other even after 20 years.

Maddie Masters is unhappy in her marriage and constantly lies to her husband, and Vlad is completely dismissive of Maddie's continued interest in ecto-science and pressured her into giving it up.

Personally I love it when the nickname actually comes from her middle name, and her first name is something completely different like Amelia.

But she's gone by Maddie for most of her life because Amalia and Alicia (her older sister) sound pretty similar, and both start with the same letter, and end with the same two letters. And she was sick of getting called Alicia by teachers who'd previously had Alicia as a student.

[Can you tell me and my older sister have very similar sounding names, that start with the same letter, and end with the same two letters. And I spent most of elementary school getting called her name by teachers.]

But enough about Vlad's misogyny and inability to view women as anything more than objects. Back to the AU I was originally talking about.

Magical girl Danae.

Who I can't decide if I want her magical girl alter ego to be Phantom. Considering in canon how Phantom operates is 100% based on superheroes, and not magical girls.

With all of Phantom's abilities being treated as superpowers and not magic, and the use of scientific gadgets to supplement where said superpowers don't suffice.

I'm honestly leaning towards Phantom being like part of all the names of those in the magical girl group.

Like with Sailor Moon all their magical girl names have Sailor in them, or with the Star Guardians they're all Star Guardian Blahblahblah.

So Danae's magical girl name is Phantom Infinity, but most people only know her as Phantom, until other magical girls going by Phantom start showing up.

[Phantom Infinity is in reference to both Danae's love of Space, and her status as a being of protection of both the Infinite Realms and her home dimension.]

Danae however is still 100% a halfa, and remains the only 'turned' halfa other than Vlad himself. The others who join the Phantoms, aren't half ghosts.

They're magical girls by way of more stereotypical magical girl methods. IE being given power by an exterior force in order to fight to protect peace.

Anyways, yes, Danae does eventually gain the ability to turn people into magical girls. If, they're ecto contaminated to a certain level, and the person's personal ecto doesn't conflict with what Danny does to turn them into a magical girl.

Said magical girl gains magical girl powers an a transformation, but they don't get ghost abilities. At least not most of them.

Like Sam becomes Phantom Arcadia (she successfully fought off Undergrowth's claim on her, but adding Danae's own claim to her keeps him from ever being able to try it again as long as Danae's claim remains in place), Valerie is Phantom Athene (she joins the Phantoms after she learns the truth about Cujo, and Axiom Labs, and ghosts in general, which allows for Danae to transform her into a magical girl. Which also keeps Valerie from being at the mercy of Technus again), Paulina is Phantom Wondrous, and Star is Phantom Songstress.

As Aracdia Sam obviously has powers over plants, but also has a soothing aura towards animals in general. She doesn't command them into battle, because she's not comfortable enough to even try something like that, but she does influence them into wanting to leave the area of the battle.

Her powers are best described as influence (possibly even outright control) over the natural world. Her colors are purple with green and black accents.

Athene (Valerie) still has access to all of the ghost hunting gear like blasters that the suit Technus infused with her body. It's infused with her body after all. However it's not as anti-hero tech-y as it used to be, instead reformed and reshaped by her new magical girl magic.

Her powers is best explained as weapon manifestation. Her colors are now shades of Orange with no red (Red was chosen by Vlad, not Valerie), with black and yellow accents.

Valerie is one of the team who can fly, due to her having a bio-suit before becoming a magical girl.

Wondrous (Paulina) had no real influence from a specific ecto-being before her transformation, so her powers are based entirely on her own personality.

This being attention manipulation, the ability to move and shift an opponents attention how she wants. Most easily being able to pull it towards herself, but can also push someone's attention away from her, even to the point she more or less disappears from their perception. Her colors are primarily pink with blue accents.

Songstress (Star) is much like Paulina in that her powers are rooted in no one else but her own personality. Her powers are (obviously) based around music.

When first starting out they thought the extent of it was being able to influence the emotions of her opponents (which is pretty powerful when fighting ghosts), but the more they experimented the more they found she can do. She can sing songs that have different effects based on intention. Songs that heal, songs that make people sleep. It's eventually discovered that singing a song with someone else in a duet or as a group will boost the other person's own powers.

Her colors are blue with pink and orange accents.

Infinity's (Danae) ghostly powers are mostly the same to canon Danny's powers with a few exceptions/tweaks.

Primarily being that instead of sending blasts of energy out of various body parts (hands, fingers, eyes) Infinity manifests a magical girl wand and uses that as a conduit by default.

Which essentially placebo's her brain into thinking she can't use her powers without her wand summoned, which does prevent most of the embarrassing accidents and power mishaps Danny has in canon. But also fully locks her out of using her powers without her wand before meeting Vlad and learning he's also a halfa.

The other being a power (obviously) unique to her in this AU, this being Appointer of Champion(s). The power to give someone else a portion of her own power/energy, with certain rules and restrictions applied to it.

Which actually within this AU calls her to gain the same power classification as Desiree, who's a Wish Granter. This being the Bargainer classification, ecto beings who use deals of varying types to gain power by way of spending power.

Anyways Tucker can't be made a magical boy because he's a reincarnate soul who's thousands of years old.

And Duul Aman isn't going to give up he's accumulated power he'll be able to access once he's back in the afterlife, all so his current mortal lifetime can coast on some infant's power.

Boy has to man up and learn sorcery the old fashion way he did the first time around. (So Says Duul Aman. Who'd love to angrily shake his scepter and tell all these upstart brats to get off his lawn.)

Jazz can't be made a magical girl because she's extremely liminal, and has been so longer than Danae's been alive. She has a personal ecto signature that's too potent and too established for Danae to turn her without possibly wrecking her health in the process. So she remains a sci-fi action girl who uses the Peeler.

Anyways if you couldn't tell this is also based around those AUs were Danny, and Tucker were friends with Paulina, Dash, and Star back in elementary school.

But they have a falling out, or rather Dash and Tucker have a falling out, and the girls are made to pick sides. Over an accident, which boils down to Tucker tripping during lunch and spilling his food on Dash. Making him have to go to the office to change his clothes, resulting in multiple people asking if he'd had an accident (peed his pants).

Originally Danae tried to do her best to play mediator, while Star just wanted everything to blow over because it's not a big deal, but Paulina sided with Dash.

And someone openly siding with him just made him get louder and more insistent that he's right in the situation (even though it was a dumb argument over an accident). Escalating into him intentionally dumping his tray on Tucker the following day, in order to "make things even".

Which Tucker didn't appreciate at all, and went as far as to declare him and Dash not friends any more. Because Dash did this on purpose, while Tucker did it on accident.

Danae, having known Tucker her whole life and being fiercely loyal, instantly sided with him.

Paulina was of the opinion that Dash dumping the food on Tucker made things fair because both boys ended up humiliated and having to go change. So she thinks Tucker ending their friendship over it is a complete over reaction.

While Star was of the opinion that Dash intentionally dumping his food on Tucker was going over the line, and he should have just let it go. But also that Tucker immediately ending his friendship with Dash over getting food dumped on him was too far.

Considering Tucker was telling Dash that people would forget about him having to change his clothes in a few days and how it didn't matter. But it did matter. It mattered to Dash. Who Tucker inadvertently humiliated and didn't really sincerely apologies to.

Star eventually ends up remaining friends with Dash and Paulina. Because Tucker tells Danae that because Star didn't side with them, she sided with Dash, and if Danae keeps being friends with Star he doesn't want to be friends with her anymore either.

[The kids are like 6-7 year olds when this happen, and it happens over the course of a single school week.

By the end of the school year, Tucker's completely forgotten he'd ever said anything like that to Danae. Mostly because he never would have actually followed through with it, he was just angry.

Danae is basically his sister, he's known her his whole life. He'd never be able to just end his friendship with her the way he could with Dash, Paulina, and Star, who he'd only started hanging out with that school year. Danae isn't blood, but she's as good as, as far as the Foley family is concerned.

Heck Tucker barely even remembers the three-ish months where he was friends with Paulina, Dash and Star. Most of what he remembers is the blow out fight that ended it, and in his mind, the three of them ending up as A-lister bullies in high school only makes sense to him.

If you can't tell being the reincarnation of an ancient pharaoh who was worshiped as a living god by his subjects, along with being a doted upon single child as his current reincarnation, has resulted in Tucker being a bit self-centered in general. He's not evil though, just deeply flawed.]

A situation that results in Dash, Paulina, and Star hating Tucker for a pretty long while. Star mostly lets it go, but remains bitter over it. While Paulina and Dash are never really able to let go of their anger. It's a massive part of why Dash bullies Tucker specifically so much, and why Tucker, and Danae by association, end up as social outcasts.

So Paulina and Star get brought in after her and Danae start repairing their friendship. Dash gets kind of locked out of the dynamic for a pretty long while, under the guise of it all being "girl stuff".

Star befriended Valerie back in Middle School, while Dash befriended Kwan, which is how Valerie and Kwan end up as part of the A listers. With Star and Valerie ending up best friends, and Dash and Kwan ending up as best friends.

Tucker never really rebuilds any kind of friendship with Paulina, Star, or Dash. They can eventually work together without constantly insulting each other, but it takes a while.

Tucker doesn't even remember being friends with them in the first place. Only clearly remembering how said relationship ended, and just assumes they were probably crappy friends considering how they act now. So he's completely disinterested in trying to build a friendship with them beyond the potential for popularity.

Dash finds Tucker the most irritating guy in the world. Considering that for the few months they were friends, he considered Tucker his best friend. When they originally had their blow out fight, Dash spent basically the rest of that school year convinced he and Tucker would patch things up and be friends again by the following school year.

That's half the reason why Dash held the grudge for so long. The other half being that he heard from Star that Tucker basically forced Danae to stop being their friend.

Anyways this post got way too out of hand, and I have to stop it now or I'll never be done with it.

[acorviart]

Europe VAT laws not changing any time soon, recent. If understand FAQ well, mean shipping to Europe impossible for several years minimum?

That's correct, I won't be shipping to the EU for the foreseeable future due to some import packaging regulations that either have already been implemented or are planning to be implemented in the future.

Note that this is for EU countries only—I can ship to all other non-EU countries like Switzerland, except for the UK due to the UK's own convoluted VAT system.

The only workaround I can offer for EU folks is that you can have a friend or family that lives in a non-EU country place an order to deliver to their address, and then they are able to ship that order to you marked as a gift. Not an option for everyone, I know.

Longer explanation under the readmore for those curious:

As it stands now, each EU country has its own system and fees that I can't keep up with (for example, France would cost me 80 euros per year), I'd need to individually register and report to each country, some require reporting and tracking of what sources of packaging I use, I believe? It's all very complicated, and it makes my head spin just trying to figure out what the requirements actually are, so that's why I stopped shipping to the EU entirely out of an abundance of caution. I also just don't get enough sales to the EU to justify the headache, I'd probably actually lose money paying all the fees. Actually, while I was looking up details while writing this post, apparently there's a new PPWR that's going to replace the old EU Packaging Directive? This is why I can't handle this (ಥ﹏ಥ)

As for why this doesn't seem to be affecting all companies—corporations can obviously afford their own professionals whose entire job is to handle this stuff, and the requirements are also different for large vs small volumes. Meanwhile, a lot of other small or 1-person businesses straight up don't know about these requirements, because it's not like there's a memo passed around about updates to international shipping law. It's also even more confusing because some packages are slipping by without any issue, probably in part due to how the regulations are still new and still being implemented, so I assume it's kind of a mess.

I know of a few people who are willingly taking the risk and shipping to the EU anyway and have had no consequences (for now at least), but I'm not risking the fines ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now for the UK, their VAT system doesn't have anything to do with packaging, but what it does require is similar registration with the government, and I'm required to collect and pay the VAT myself. No thanks!

TLDR; laws hard. laws also expensive. too stupid to figure out and too fearful of fines. no ship to countries

fun story: someone also once emailed me this long diatribe about how they think I'm shit at research and that I'm just making all this up (specifically just to screw with europeans or something, I guess?), so I sent them a few links to the literal official government websites where I got my info (like that UK one), and they never responded. lol

[cjlouwho]

Well, I was waiting for the more recent ep of 911 to come out to see how it was handled, but I've finally submitted my criticsm to abc. I think I covered all the bases:

I have been a fan of 911 since the show first aired and I was happy when the abc picked up the show after it looked like the show might be cancelled after season 6. However I must say, I have been steadily getting more and more disappointed with the show in that time. While the big disasters are certainly fun and flashy, the personal stories for the all main characters seem to be recycled from previous seasons and their characters don't seem to be experiencing any growth. The only story line I have been interested in since the start of season 7 is that of Buck. His bisexuality arc, while it did at first come as a surprise to me, soon made me realise that this had been telegraphed as part of his character for a while, and I was excited to see where this might lead for him. His relationship with Tommy as well, had me excited as to Buck's growth, as it looked like he was finally maturing as a character and I was looking forward to finally witnessing a new relationship within the show as well as a new character, both of which had the potential of finally bringing some fresh stories to the table.

While I was highly disappointed in the dissolving of the relationship because I was a fan of the pairing, and the waste of the potential stories the show could have brought us, it was the handling of the breakup that was most upsetting.

For starters, it really highlighted the lack of story cohesion. It showed either the writers couldn't be bothered or just didn't care to research their characters or the show's timelines to make sure the story make sense. Episode 8x06 was just a mess of storytelling, and the characters we saw didn't even match the ones we saw in just the episode prior. It felt very much like it was written for shock value with very little thought put into it other than they just wanted Buck single again.

I also understand that there are many people in the queer community who have been very disappointed in the handling of this story line, and while I am not queer, I understand where they are coming from because I feel it too. The show's inability to outright declare that Buck is bisexual, and even after the most recent episode, the constant insinuation that someone who is bisexual needs to "explore" in order to know themselves is a stereotype that is quite frankly, disgusting and outdated. (I was personally insulted at the mindset that someone's "first can't be their last" as I felt it was a slap in the face to the many couples, both straight and queer, who's first *is* their last.)

But what has been even more disappointing is the care - or lack of - that the show seems to have towards their actors - specifically the guest actors who play Buck and Eddie's love interests. There are a small group of fans who believe that Buck and Eddie will end up together, and for years they have been harassing 911 fans who don't agree with them, the show's writers and any actor who plays a love interest they feel "gets in the way of their ship". Lou Ferrigno Jr especially appears to have copped far worse than any so far, even having death threats sent to both him and his family from these people, yet there has never been a single mention from any of the showrunners asking these "fans" to stop. Despite the writers implying in interviews that Buck and Eddie ("buddie") will never happen (and Ryan Guzman (Eddie) saying that his character is straight), I feel the writers need to directly state they have no plans to take the characters in this direction, or at the very least, call out these people and state that in no uncertain terms that this behaviour is unacceptable in order to try and put a stop to the harassment that, in particular, these actors are recieving for simply doing their job. However the fact that neither of these things have happened gives me reason to believe that the showrunners are perfectly happy stringing along these fans because keeping these few viewers to maintain ratings is more important than protecting their supporting cast. And as I am someone who takes mental health seriously, especially within the workplace, I feel I can no longer in good conscience support the show. Which is a shame, as like I have said I have been watching from the very beginning, but as long as the show refuses to let the characters evolve, keeps reinforcing harmful stereotypes and won't do anything to protect their staff from bullying (because as history has shown, if they try to bring in someone else as a new love interest for either Buck or Eddie, those poor actors will receive the same vile harassment from the "fans" that Lou received) I am not inspired to watch.

Please do better.

So glad you wrote in!! Thank you 💕💕💕

[directdogman]

Hello Hound!! Since it's Dialtown's 2nd anniversary, I've been planning up a few "general" related questions about your series that I've been meaning to ask, but I decided to save them up for the big day because why not? Anyways, here's what I've got, these were meant to be fun to answer so don't sweat it :]

1: How do you feel about Dialtown's success? Are you proud of how far you've come? 

2: Which character was the MOST fun for you to write, and which was the most PAINFUL?

3: What is something you wish more people would talk about or just know about related to Dialtown in general?

4: If you had the opportunity to write a FULL complete, detailed life story of any of your characters, who would that be?

5: What's a character you wish you could have given more screen-time or just in general content? (Considering iirc you were trying to make sure Dialtown wasn't TOO long, so I was wondering if this ever came to mind)

6: From what I know, you've been doing the job of cosplaying several characters in the game and acting out their sprites, which one was the most fun to act out?

7: Speaking of sprites, do you have a sprite you could consider your favorite, out of ALL your characters?

8: Do you have a specific line of dialogue you could consider your favorite throughout the entire game?

9: Could you ever see Dialtown expanding into perhaps sequels or maybe even prequels? More DLCs mayhaps? Heck, maybe even a Dialtown 2 or a Chapter 4??

10: If you could make any fan-made interpretation (such as headcanons, designs, or ships) canon if given the opportunity, what do you think would be your pick?

11: What was the MOST fun part about developing Dialtown? Coming up with new characters? Writing them? Adding all the bizarre dialogue options?

12: And last but not least — on a scale of 1-10, how fun was developing Dialtown just in general?

That's all I have for now, and I'm really excited to see your answers!!

I normally don't answer this many questions, but... alright, sure, tis the season!

1: How do you feel about Dialtown's success? Are you proud of how far you've come? 

Yeah, of course! I'm a lil proud, admittedly, but I'm aware of how comically little I really have to do with it all, even if I did make the game. Luck does play a LOT into it, of course. Granted, I made my share of predictions that wound up being useful, but it always comes down to lady luck at the end of the day. I've seen good projects fail and bad ones go viral. It's really all just a hodgepodge of probability and whimsy. That being said, I am very pleased with DT's success, and the community that's formed around the game! It caught me by surprise!

2: Which character was the MOST fun for you to write, and which was the most PAINFUL?

Gingi's always fun to write. And Mingus. Most painful is tough to say. Maybe Crown. I got a little weird when I wrote his full backstory, kinda caught up in the emotion Norm talks about. Never been a fan of stories getting cut short. You gotta wonder what would've happened if he'd made different choices, y'know?

3: What is something you wish more people would talk about or just know about related to Dialtown in general?

Honestly? Karen, probably. She's super underrated for sure. The fandom still loves her, but she doesn't get the same kind of attention as Oliver, Gingi, Randy, Norm. She's worth it.

4: If you had the opportunity to write a FULL complete, detailed life story of any of your characters, who would that be?

Oh, I already have. I have this monstruous 30-40 page document detailing Crown's life and entire career. It's quite a read. and quite a mind-fuck if you don't know Dialtown's universe too well.

5: What's a character you wish you could have given more screen-time or just in general content? (Considering iirc you were trying to make sure Dialtown wasn't TOO long, so I was wondering if this ever came to mind)

Oh yeah, a few characters had scenes that were cut. Stabby, Shooty, Mingus, Bunny, even Bigfoot! There's also the game's cut 6th datable, who was an interesting character with ties to other characters in the cast who I wanted to do more with. Ah, maybe one day.

6: From what I know, you've been doing the job of cosplaying several characters in the game and acting out their sprites, which one was the most fun to act out?

Bigfoot. I made the ape noises in the suit. Had to. It felt right.

7: Speaking of sprites, do you have a sprite you could consider your favorite, out of ALL your characters?

I quite like Norm's set, Mingus' too. Karen's poses too are quite good.

8: Do you have a specific line of dialogue you could consider your favorite throughout the entire game?

That answer probably changes every day. I like pretty much any scene where Mingus loses her temper.

9: Could you ever see Dialtown expanding into perhaps sequels or maybe even prequels? More DLCs mayhaps? Heck, maybe even a Dialtown 2 or a Chapter 4??

I'd love to make sequels one day! I've got a lot of ideas for where the characters/story would end up. By the time DT1 wrapped up, I'd conceptualized way too much stuff to put in one game (without it taking another few years to finish), so if I ever wanted to make sequels, I'd 100% know where to start! But, that's a later down the road conversation.

For now, I'm gonna keep working on the Roger DLC and if there's demand for more, I can go from there :)

10: If you could make any fan-made interpretation (such as headcanons, designs, or ships) canon if given the opportunity, what do you think would be your pick?

I guess I COULD do that with, like, anything. Nothing immediately springs to mind, since, y'know, I'm in control of the canon anyway. I will say, I've seen headcanons and theories that ARE scarily accurate to canon, to the point where I've feared people would just think I'm lifting stuff from the fanbase! It's a good thing I talk about these things with collaborators, huh? I've got a PAPER-TRAIL!!!

11: What was the MOST fun part about developing Dialtown? Coming up with new characters? Writing them? Adding all the bizarre dialogue options?

Finishing a new scene and realizing how stupidly long it was (without me realizing it) was always a treat. But yeah, writing the characters had to be it. Specifically any scene where a character the audience knows meets someone the audience doesn't know well (or at all), with the dynamic changing. Those are fun to write.

12: And last but not least — on a scale of 1-10, how fun was developing Dialtown just in general?

Hard question to answer. I do really wanna give a high number, but truthfully, a lot of game dev actually isn't super 'fun'. Some tasks are, granted, but many parts are a slog. Sitting and formatting dialogue, and then adding text pauses and pose changes isn't exactly a super thrilling activity. The engine itself also has some issues which I have to work around that adds to the workplace. Play-testing a scene for the 4th time isn't super fun either, or trying to figure out why the game crashes on some PCs and ONLY very rarely... Those tasks are Sisyphean to some degree.

...But, while most of those parts aren't fun, it's all still rewarding. There's a sense of accomplishment when you finish a scene. You get to look back at your hard work, remember the hours you spent typing dialogue into a text box and formatting mass amounts of pngs, painstakingly + manually getting the game's awful pre-loader to deal with the sprites right, etc... and suddenly, at the end, you've got this lil experience that people can play and enjoy. Somehow, the sum of all of those not so fun activities has created something that's going to make people laugh, feel happy. That's special. and even if some parts of development weren't super fun on their own, that's always what I remember. That in the end, all of those not so fun days mattered.

The route I agonized the most over was Oliver's. I went through a few weeks of writer's block, and now, it's one of the most popular routes in the game! Crazy how that happens. I was SURE for about a week that people would rank the route at the bottom! That's what I mean, all of the stress I went through trying to figure it out amounted to something people connected with! To think I almost CUT the route entirely!!!

And y'know, God knows Dialtown gave me something to throw myself at during a time where I REALLY needed the outlet. I'm very grateful to the project for that. So, I'll give DT an honorary 8 out of 10, even if it wasn't a consistently 8/10 experience making it heh heh! Sure glad I did, though and I'm very glad if any of you reading this had a really good time playing it! :)

Thanks for the questions!

[bixbythemartian]

This is About Oceangate

...kind of. Like, heads up for people who are sick of hearing about it or are too disturbed by this, just scoot on by, that's fine.

Like everybody else my age who had a middle school special interest in the Titanic that was further fueled by the James Cameron movie (and that sounds very specific, but I absolutely know I'm not alone), I've been following this story fuckin voraciously.

I think everybody I know IRL and online is fucking sick of me talking about it. I have been actively trying not to blog much about it here because I'm so obsessed with it that I'm annoyed with myself. I would like to not be this interested in it.

But a lot of the stuff I can think of to say has been said by a lot of people already, I don't want to add to an already noisy environment if I've got nothing new to say.

So, instead, I want to talk about what I haven't seen very many people talking about- something that's stood out to me about the way the media has been handling this story from the get-go. So, finally, I'm inflicting my days long media binge on you.

The media's handling of this was bad. Like, comprehensively fucked.

For the uninformed, a primer on the situation- feel free to skip down if you know all this, there's a bulleted list right after I get done with this part, look for that. But some of this is important to the terms I use, so I wanted to lay it out. (Also I just want to get a lot of this out of my system, please just let me have this.)

The Titan is a 'cyclops-class' submersible. As far as I can tell, 'cyclops-class' is unique to the people who made this submersible, it's not a widely recognized thing.

The Titan can carry up to five passengers. It was supposed to be rated to reach depths of up to 4000 meters below sea level.

The Titan is/was owned and operated by a company known as Oceangate. There's a lot of questions regarding the safety of the submersible, where the math came from on their depth rating, and- basically everything about the Titan is in question, at this point. There's a lot of questions, but that's not what I want to talk about.

Right now. Maybe later.

A submersible is distinct from a submarine in that it requires a surface support ship for many things- the Titan moved too slow to leave port under its own power and go to the site, it didn't have enough life support to do that kind of thing, etc. A submarine is self-supporting and can operate independently. Kind of pedantic, I know, but the Titan is a submersible, not a submarine.

The Titan had a planned expedition to the wreck of the Titanic on June 18, 2023- this past Sunday, at the time of writing. The expedition was supposed to last around 10 hours. It chartered a ship- the Polar Prince- to act as mother ship, the on the surface support that the Titan requires. (The Polar Prince is owned and operated by a different company than the Titan.)

1 hour and 45 minutes into the expedition, as the Titan was still making its way to the sea floor, the Polar Prince lost all contact with the submersible.

The Titanic wreck is at just under 4000 meters deep, right around 2.5 miles.

Now, my understanding is that the Titan was not fully at the ocean floor at the point contact was lost, but it's not clear how deep the Titan was at that time. We may not ever know this for certain.

When the Titan was reported as missing to the coast guard is kind of unclear, to me- I heard 6 hours after they lost contact, I heard 12 hours after they lost contact, I saw something that indicated they reported it missing immediately- I don't know for sure. When the coast guard report comes out, I'm hoping we'll get a more accurate timeline.

However, as soon as it was reported missing, a massive search and rescue operationg was started. Complicating the search efforts were the fact that the submersible seemed to have no type of emergency distress locator beacon (I'm not sure what the precise nautical terminology would be for this).

The search included visual searching of the surface, dropping buoys with microphones, and ROVs (unmanned remote operated vehicles, deep sea robots operated by crew on ships at the surface) searching the floor, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. Deep sea radar etc etc, every tool they had access to.

The search and rescue concluded on Thursday (June 22, 2023) around midday, when they definitively found pieces of the destroyed submersible's pressure vessel (the part of the submersible that held pressure and kept the people safe and alive) in a debris field, approximately 1600 feet away from the Titanic.

The destroyed pressure vessel and reports from the Navy on hearing sounds consistent with implosion at the time the Titan lost contact indicates that the submersible underwent what is being called a 'catastrophic implosion'.

It is now an investigation and recovery operation, while they try to figure out what exactly went wrong.

The five men in the sub are dead. In all likelihood, they died so quickly that their nervous system didn't have time to process what happened. What happened to their bodies during this was probably gory and kind of horrifying, but it's unlikely they experienced any awareness of this.

There were five extremely wealthy men on the submersible- they were not all billionaires, but those that weren't were worth hundreds of millions of dollars. If you want a rough sketch of their biographies, there's a link here. Other than them being pretty wealthy, who they are doesn't play that much into what I want to talk about, so I don't feel the need to go into it right now. (Again, as more information comes out, I may come back for another swing.)

So, my complaint. The number of times I saw a news interview with an expert that went like this is not small:

news host interviews deep ocean expert of some variety (who is not involved in rescue)

host asks expert what chances are that the dudes are alive and will be recovered alive

expert, being honest, says something like 'slim to none'

host responds with some amount of sincere-seeming disappointment, then after interview, pivots to the ongoing search for the definitely still alive people

There were news programs with clocks counting down how much theoretical oxygen was left. There were frequent updates to news stories with nothingburgers of additions, just to pad it out. It was, if they were alive at that moment, fucking ghoulish. That they were dead makes it even more horrible.

And I cannot emphasize enough how many experts said, to generalize and paraphrase here: "Unless they are found bobbing on the surface in the next n hours, they are dead. Even if they are alive right this minute, on the bottom of the ocean, there is no hope to rescue them in time."

This is not a failure of any of the rescue entities involved, by the way. The environment they were presumed to be in- 4000 meters under sea level- is so extreme that there are very few vehicles in the world with the capability of even getting to that depth. Like, 10 or less. As far as I know, none of them are designed to do any kind of deep sea rescue- which would have involved carefully scooping up or netting the Titan and hauling it up very slowly. There's no way to transfer personnel between ships at this depth, and the Titan had the largest passenger allowance at this depth, afaik. Like, the odds were incredibly, vanishingly small that these men would live.

The media, at large, never ever really allowed that to change the way they talked about this story or treated the participants in the story. At around 11 am or noon (central daylight time) on Thursday I saw them talking about how 'oxygen is critical'.

Oxygen was critical 24 hours prior. Even by the most generous of expectations, they were out of breathable air. Given how, to put it mildly, janky the submersible seemed to have been, there was absolutely no guarantee that they had even the 96 hours that Oceangate claimed.

Their likelihood of being rescued alive from the ocean floor was minimal on Monday. By Thursday, they were dead- again, unless they were found on the surface somewhere and had managed to carefully preserve their air somehow, they were already dead.

The media didn't really allow for the reality of the situation to be clear until Oceangate and the USCG came out and said 'yeah, they're dead'.

"Well, what's the problem with that?" you might ask. "The United States Coast Guard was the one who was saying it was a rescue up until that point."

Sure. That's their job. Their job is to treat it like an urgent rescue until it is certain that it is not. A significant amount of what they do is to rescue people from doing damnfool things in the water, and keeping hope alive until they find bodies, or evidence thereof. They were doing exactly what they should be doing.

(Whether they do this to this extent for everybody lost at sea is another conversation that's absolutely worth having, as well as their role in border patrol, but I have no bone to pick with the USCG in this particular instance. They did their all until they could do no more, that's the whole point of them, this is how they're supposed to operate.)

The media was not doing what they should be doing. There's an old quote somewhere that I think is just a journalism truism (everyone I've heard talk about it says their journalism professor said it)- if someone tells you it's raining, and someone else tells you it's not, your job isn't to report that, your job is to go outside and see if it's wet.

James Cameron- director of the aforementioned Titanic movie, as well as being a Titanic and deep sea submersible expert, knew they were dead on Monday.

He reached out to some people, he found out that the mother ship lost contact with the crew as well as their location at the same instant, and that the Navy heard a sound consistent with an implosion at around that time.

The information that the Navy heard the implosion was not classified information- they heard it via a listening system that was declassified in the 90s, I believe. Like, I knew about the system just kind of casually because I know random Navy stuff. (My dad was in the Navy, it's mostly osmosis.)

The people on the scene were informed as soon as the Navy knew. (When that was, I'm not sure, except it was before Monday. Probably they had someone go back and listen to it and weren't actively monitoring it, but it's hard to say.)

The deep ocean submersible community knew, well enough that James Cameron could call a buddy and find out. He was telling people on Monday to raise a glass to them.

The media could have had this information, if they did not have it. Either they didn't want to know, or did know, and didn't say it. And I can't say for certain they were suppressing information, but I do know that they frequently downplayed any evidence that these people were dead.

I know on CNN they ran a story about FADOSS- the FlyAway Deep Ocean Salvage System- that was shipped out to Newfoundland. It arrived Wednesday afternoon. Description in the alt text, link here.

At the time this story was published, the people in the sub would have theoretically had less than 24 hours of breathable air. They hadn't even chartered a ship for the FADOSS, at this point. And the port in Newfoundland is hundreds of miles from the site. I'm not sure how many hours away but, like, hours away. I think I heard it's a 6 hour trip, but I'm not certain on that.

This system was referenced in the news as if it was going to be part of the rescue process. Very clearly, this was never going to happen. The quote, 'a process which can take a full day' is a mild understatement, here.

It could, theoretically, be done in 24 hours, but was much more likely to take longer, unless they had enough crew in Newfoundland to do round-the-clock welding.

The response to the question about recovering someone alive is a polite way of saying 'that's not what we do'. They were not part of the rescue operation and were never intended to be, as far as I can tell.

(If you're wondering what part the FADOSS is going to take in the recovery and investigation process, it's not. It's used to lift heavy objects off the floor, and the Titan broke into small enough pieces that the ROVs are believed capable of handling it. FADOSS is on its way back to wherever it is kept. I suspect it was brought out in the edge case that the submersible was found intact with dead crew, to retrieve the vessel whole, so that the families would have bodies to bury.)

Setting aside the 'oh they definitely blew up' news that seems to have been available the whole time, every single piece of evidence and expertise pointed to these people being dead, and yet the news persisted in sort of breathlessly (sorry) talking about the rescue efforts and how much time was left. They persisted in talking about how definitely still alive these people were until they could not do that anymore.

Other examples of this issue are the knocking thing. There were reports of some of the buoys picking up something that could be described as 'knocking'. Some said it was 'every thirty minutes' but we don't know how precise a measurement that was. As soon as they started talking about the knocking, I looked into it.

As it turns out, this is just a thing that happens. The sea is very noisy, and it's hard to determine the source of a sound. Some geological things sound manmade, vice versa. They had a lot of ships cooperating together to work the search area, it's possible that they were hearing noise from those, or something from an oil platform a jillion miles away, because noise travels far and is hard to pinpoint. They had this issue while searching for the sunken USS Thresher and it was one of the ships doing the searching. Given how many different moving parts there were in this search operation, it's hard to say what the knocking was. This is just a thing in the ocean, there's a lot of fuckin noise and experts can't always pinpoint it down in location or even what it might be.

This is why, even though they heard sounds that were consistent with implosion, at the time that the Titan lost total contact with the mother ship, it was still treated as if there was a live rescue operation. Because they couldn't be certain.

But the odds were extremely poor that these men were alive, and almost everybody involved knew that fairly early on. Again, the rescue operation had to go forward like they were looking for someone alive because that's how that works. The media, on the other hand, handled this in a very irresponsible way.

And, like, I know, news media is bad at being news is not some like hot new thing, I've just been building up frustration for days and so it had to come out somehow.

I'm not sure how much of this was just because they're very wealthy men- only one of whom I've ever heard of before- and how much of it was because it was a very bizarre and unique ongoing situation, how much of it was the intersection of that.

But pretty much everybody with enough knowledge to be worth talking to about this knew, like, Monday that even if they weren't dead right then, they were very unlikely to make it out alive, and watching the news wind a bunch of people up over the hopeful outcome was revolting.

Okay. We'll see if I can go 24 hours without talking about this. If you made it to the end of this absolute fucking novel, congratulations and/or I'm sorry.

[jbk405]

I think I've found one of the key reasons why I prefer the old Expanded Universe to the current Star Wars content: Unique types of villains.

More specifically, people who weren't just Evil Force Users With Long Robes And Red Lightsabers. While there were always a few Darth Vader-clones that popped up to fill up space, so many of the Arc Villains were distinct not just in personality, but also how they were dangerous.

Grand Admiral Thrawn was a military tactician, which wasn't the point of any of the main villains in the Original Trilogy. Grand Moff Tarkin was a "Build a bigger superweapon and bludgeon the galaxy into submission" kind of villain, and Vader and the Emperor were mystical dark wizards. This isn't a complaint or criticism, but just pointing out that military tactics were never on display in the films since that wasn't the type of story they were telling. But Thrawn didn't have prophetic powers or Destiny, he had to analyze and plan around what he could learn about his adversaries. It's a different type of fight than Literal Magic. In the original Thrawn Trilogy, Captain Pellaeon frequently internally narrates how different Thrawn's style of leadership was to either Vader or the Emperor (Even if his art-analysis did verge on magic by itself).

Ysanne Isard was a political and/or espionage manipulator, which was even less a point of the Original Trilogy than military tactics were. She took advantage of the realities of actually needing to build a nation out of an underground military movement. With all of the dirty gutter politics, self-serving agendas, and logistics that doom so many revolutionary movements. I'm not as big a fan of her arc as I was when I was younger (I re-read the Rogue Squadron novels a few years ago and the writing quality is not as good as I remember, and Isard's plans frankly don't hold a lot of water), but the concept is still fantastic.

Warlord Zsinj on the surface seems like a merger of Thrawn and Isard -- he's a military commander who specializes in espionage -- but he also has a big focus that neither of them demonstrated: Business. While he still blows stuff up with his giant space ships and is sowing dissent through brainwashing and spycraft, he's simultaneously establishing a galaxy-wide network of completely-legitimate commercial businesses that he owns through untraceable pseudonyms. They fund his campaigns, give him influence on planets outside of his direct control, and allow him to control resources without any of his adversaries even being aware of it.

Even one-shot enemies like the Ssi-ruuk were so unique: They're invading the galaxy because their technology is powered by living souls and they want to harvest all life in the galaxy. That's messed up, and so distinct from the general "Take over the world" motivation of the Empire.

But as time went on, more and more of the enemies were just "Darth Vader Again". Another Jedi who fell to the Dark Side, or another long-lost schism of the Sith who rediscovered mainstream galactic society, or some other thing that is eventually resolved by a one-on-one lightsaber duel and a personal grudge against the Skywalker or Solo families. It definitely felt like they were out of ideas and kept running through the same villains over and over again.

This kicked into high gear after the Prequels came out, and continued in the new continuity after the EU was rebranded as "Legends".

I wish we could go back to the idea that there could be an enemy who wasn't super powerful in the force and consumed by Hatred Of The Jedi. With their own skills, their own methods, and something that makes them more than just another wannabe-Sauron. Pirates who are just pirates, marauding ex-Imperial Warlords who are just marauding ex-Imperial Warlords, and corrupt politicians who are just corrupt politicians, instead of revealing that Palpatine returned (somehow) all over again.

[oxymorayuri]

❞𝐍𝐨 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬❝

Part seven

If you haven't read the first part yet, you can find it here or the storys masterlist. ♡♡♡

✦ Pairing: Portgas D. Ace x Reader ✦ Warnings: none ✦ Spoiler: A lot about Dressrosa, which is no surprise because we're in Dressrosa. lol. So from here on you can expect a lot of spoilers about the Dressrosa arc.

wordcount: 4653

tagging: @lazyninjatheorist - @sassyyassi - @cottoncandyloverrrr - @littleleelee

! ᴍᴀᴛᴜʀᴇ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ !

ᴍɪɴᴏʀꜱ ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴀᴄᴛ

𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐒𝐓: aokamei

Getting the one earphone back was easier than expected. Ace had lured a cleaning girl out of the staff room and wrapped her around his finger.

She was completely carried away while Ace leaned over to her. With one hand on his hip and the other arm leaning against the wall, he asked her about her. The girl was blushing to the tips of her ears and giggling like a schoolgirl… How cute you thought to yourself as you rolled your eyes, but you have to admit Ace is doing a pretty good job though… it reminds you of yourself.

With your sneaky fingers, you snatched the key from her, to their staff room, to get another key card for all the passenger rooms. With this key card you could then enter the gangster's room, while they were in the restaurant for breakfast.

The woman was supposed to hide the earbud between the mattresses and, to your delight, everything went as planned...

After you stepped off the ship, you took a stroll through the bustling city.

Dressrosa is truly a charming place. It is so clean and beautiful, almost too clean… as if licked to perfection. The people seem happy, reeaally happy… as if problems do not exist. Your critical eyes look with suspicion over the people. The whole picture is just too good to be true…

"Doflamingo goes to great lengths to keep the dirty corners hidden…" Your eyes wander over the faces of the people and the strange toys that seem to live with them. They seem unconcerned and so happy that it's fake again.

"A bit strange but also kind of interesting, don't you think?" Your eyes move to the side, for a moment you look at Ace but your gaze passes him by. Strange is the perfect word. You wonder what secrets you'll uncover.

Even though you walked around the city a bit, you in particular didn't notice anything special. Except that everything seems so artificial... No dubious pubs, just fancy bars. No casinos, just the one at your hotel. A lot of cute cafés or luxurious restaurants. As if there wasn't a single place for any shady figures, but you're sure Doflamingo is just doing a pretty good job of hiding that part.

Once you arrive in your hotel room, you step out onto the large balcony, which offers a wonderful view of the city, the Coloseum and the Royal Palace.

Ace, who threw the suitcases on the kingsize bed, joined you and walked past you to the railing. He sighed a little pleased as if you had finally arrived on vacation.

"Pretty nice here, isn't it?" He remarks as he rests both hands on the balustrade. You watch him in silence. It's a bit windy up here and his loose shirt is fluttering, so his skin is showing. Luckily, he doesn't see you pining for his exposed skin, as he has his back to you.

You stepped to his side and look over the city and how the people from up here look like ants. Your room is on the top floor and not just because of the beautiful view, no, there are specific reasons for this.

"What are we going to do first?" - "Nothing special is planned until tonight…" You look up at him with a small grin on your lips.

"I thought maybe we'd go out for a nice meal first? After all, we didn't have breakfast…" - "Oh my God thank you, I thought I was going to starve."

You enter the room and open your suitcase, rummaging through your clothes. Again and again you deny the piece of clothing in your hands and throw it on the bed. As the mountain on the bed gets bigger and bigger, a little mumble keeps coming out of your mouth; too sexy, too tight, too short, too long… You can't find a suitable dress for dinner.

Ace looks at you with a stunned face as he tries to understand how the whole pile managed to fit into your suitcase. It can't fit. You pull the clothes out of the suitcase like a magician pulling cloths from his sleeve.

“Ah! That's it!” you say, beaming with joy as you hold a strapless dress in your hands.

As you walk past Ace to disappear into the bathroom to change, you tell Ace to get ready.

"Ready for what? I'm already ready." Should he change too? He looks down at himself. He has two more shirts, but that's it. With the door half closed, you look him up and down.

"Oh, well, then you'll just have to wait, I guess."

You feel a little excited inside as you put your earrings on, standing in front of the mirror. On the ferry you read a guidebook about Dressrosa and it praised a small restaurant that offered a few local delicacies. You wonder how Ace will like it?

It's not a fancy restaurant, you're sure he wouldn't like that. It's said to be a lovely family business with a casual atmosphere. You sure won't feel out of place there.

You pause for a second in front of the mirror and stare into your own eyes. You should stop worrying so much about what Ace likes and doesn't like. You shouldn't even remember what he likes and doesn't like. You should stay professional.

You hold on to the sink and clench your hands into fists.

This is going to be more difficult than you thought. These thoughts come all by themselves…

Just before you go into the room, you take a deep breath to maintain your act. It's a little tiring, but it's for your own good...

"Mhhmhh, ohhh my god, that tastes so good!"

With his mouth already full, Ace stuffs more and more into himself. You, on the other hand don't even have the chance to open your mouth because it's so full and with a satisfied grumble you nod in agreement.

In a small corner of the restaurant, you can peacefully live out your lack of manners, after all, you are pirates and you're not even sure if Ace has ever heard of table manners.

You've ordered what looks like the entire menu and both your hands are busy reaching across the dishes.

Your stomach is already fighting back and doesn't want to let anything else in, you're stuffed up to your throat and you feel like you're going to burst, but it just tastes too good to stop. It's pure agony. The agony of deliciousness.

"Hah… okay, I can't take any more." Satisfied, you lean back and exhale exhausted. One more crumb and Ace can wheel you out of the restaurant!

"Don't worry, I can handle it." You can't help but laugh at Ace's greedy grasp for the remaining dishes.

"Enjoy yourself."

Ace looks over the various plates with a thoughtful look. Empty plates are already piled up, but you can barely see anything of the table.

"Let me pay for it, after all, I've eaten most of it." - "Don't worry, Father gave me a nice sum for this mission. We don't need to worry about money."

He pauses abruptly and looks up at you with his black eyes. Did he just hear you right?

"Pops gives you money for the missions????!" Utterly flabbergasted, he speaks with his mouth full, dropping some food that he stuffs back into his mouth with a slightly red face.

You lean on the table and rest your chin in your hand. You watch him with amusement as food hangs all over his face.

"Well, of course." Ace is still a little surprised. He wipes his mouth with the tablecloth and finishes his drink in one go.

"I've never been given money before, not even for food!" - "I'm sorry Ace, I think I'm the only one in the gang who gets 'pocket money' so don't take it to heart…" Your voice is surprisingly gentle.

Whitebeard of course makes sure that everyone in the crew gets the resources they need for a mission or fight, but no one gets money directly. Since your missions tend to develop spontaneously over time and last a long time, you get money.

"Hahhh, how does it feel to be the favorite?" he teases you, there's no trace of his sulking look now.

"Oh come on!" You moan with a little pout.

"I may be the favorite, but there are other reasons why you're not getting any money." - "Ah yes? And those would be?"

Your gaze wanders through the restaurant, watching passively people eating their food and have a nice chat.

"When you go on your missions, you all have the chance to say what you need and in the end, father equips you for your battles. Take a look at our mission… We don't even know what we're preparing for, so I just get money so that I can prepare myself on site with the necessary supplies" - "You have a good point there… I hadn't thought of that." Ace admits with a thoughtful face.

"But no, you still use the money for food! How much money do you get?" He looks you up and down with narrowed eyes. You avoid his gaze a little nervously.

"And that brings us back to be the favorite… I always get a lot of money… But I usually give money back." - "I'm honestly still confused… I can understand why you get money but it seems suspicious that you don't say how much…" He leans forward and examines your face. You are a little surprised at the sudden closeness and lean back slightly.

You've already told Whitebeard your own thoughts on the matter, that it's not necessary to give you so much money. If Ace heard the amount, his jaw would probably drop…

Most of the time you only spend a fraction of the money and give the rest back, but Whitebeard always gives you a considerable sum 'just in case' as he always says.

Ace swallows the last bite of his meal and thinks hard.

“Wait a minute, didn't Pops also gave you those cool spy buds? I mean, he also takes care of your equipment…” Thoughtfully, he holds his hand to his chin and then points his finger at you as if he's on to something.

You look at him, looking taken by surprise. Slowly you run out of arguments, but you quickly gather yourself. What is this supposed to be? An interrogation? You also don't know why Whitebeard is treating you so special. A little bored, you rest your chin in your hand and look at him with a steady gaze.

Just steer the conversation in a different direction, y/n.

Your eyes lock with his. “Ace, could it be.. that you want to know how to be father's favorite?” Your voice a little teasing and sweet.

With a single laugh, Ace shakes his head. His eyes rest on you for a moment as he considers his next words. His irises turned into a sort of dangerous shade as he looks deeply into your eyes, yet the effect on you is rather hypnotizing.

Excitement builds inside you, his mischievous laugh sounds promising and you're eager to hear what's about to come from his lips…

“If it were about that, I'd rather ask everyone what it takes to become your favorite.” A playful smile appears on his lips as he runs his tongue over his lower lip… Your silence is his victory and proudly he leans back with his arms folded behind his head.

Even if your face still looks calm, while looking up at him, you can't control your own body temperature and a blush forms on your cheeks.

Before you could answer, a waitress came by to check if everything was okay and if you needed anything else. Your face suddenly returns to a normal color and you put on a friendly smile.

“Everything is great, but we'd like to pay.”

Maybe it's a good thing that your conversation was interrupted. Who knows how far it would escalate between you. But Ace can't take off his cheeky smile, he's left you speechless and that feels really good.

Being curious, Ace looks over your shoulder as you unpack your equipment from your other suitcase. you pull out a black full body suit and hold it in front of Ace.

“Yep this should fit!” you turn again and rummage around to find your own suit and two pairs of binoculars.

Ace looks a little skeptically at the onesie you pressed into his chest as you passed him and disappeared into the bathroom with your own suit. You slip into the jumpsuit, pull up the zipper at the front and put your hair up in a bun in front of the mirror, which you then hide under a black cap.

When you return to the room, you see Ace, who is also dressed completely in black. The suit seems to fit him well, it looks a bit tight at the top but for your taste that's pretty perfect.

His muscles are clearly visible through the fine fabric and the whole picture looks quite athletic. The lower part is rather casually fitted, not like your suit for women.

Every curve of your body is highlighted in this tight piece and you check each other out for a while until you cough into your hand to get his attention.

A little dazed, he shakes his head and his eyes travel up and down your body one last time.

“Here, take this cap and the mask, when we go up, nobody should be able to catch even one small detail from us.” He looks at you, a little confused, but grabs the things you're holding out to him.

“Going up? Where to?” You point over to the balcony door while you take a climbing kit out of your suitcase.

Before you open the balcony door, you put a mask over your mouth. You swing the rope a few times and throw it upwards, making the hook at the other end get stuck on something. With one or two strong pulls, you check whether the hook is really secure.

You give him the thumbs up, while pulling your mask down so he can see your silly grin.

“Age before beauty.” you say, gesturing for him to go first and climb up the wall.

Ace looks down at you sideways and loosens his shoulders before reaching for the rope.

“Wish me luck.” he speaks from over his shoulder and winks at you.

Once you have safely reached the top... well, halfway safe, because when you tried to climb up the edge, your foot slipped and you lost your grip. Ace grabbed your arm at the perfect moment, just before you were about to fall backwards.

Even through his mask you could see his typical smirk and he pulled you up to him. You murmur your thanks and clear your throat, turning away from him. Ace looks after you and your fine figure. Damn, this suit flatters her ass…

At the top, you look around to get an overall image of the city.

Through your binoculars you look down on all the alleyways, paying extra attention to any dubious groups strolling through the night or the side streets you didn't see during the day.

Dressrosa is surprisingly lively, even in the early hours of the night. Bars and restaurants are still open in public squares and people are out dancing in the streets to exciting music. The scenery is quite inviting and the sight of it makes you want to mingle with the crowd down there.

You don't even notice how Ace moves next to you and looks down through his glasses at the same sight.

“Looks like fun down there.”

His whisper startles you, your heart jumps into your pants and you take your binoculars from your eyes to look over at him with a serious expression. Damn you Ace!

Ace looks over at you WITH his binoculars and just to make it clear, he's standing right next to you…

“Damn you're pretty.” You roll your eyes and push against the binoculars so they press into his eyes. Ace startles a little and whines theatrically as he rubs his eyes but you can tell by the wrinkles around his eyes that he's laughing.

You give him a stern look before looking through your binoculars again.

“The streets are pretty busy even at night, which gives us the opportunity to move around without being suspicious…” You ignore his compliment and concentrate on your work. Luckily, in the darkness and thanks to your mask, Ace doesn't recognize your red cheeks.

Your gaze lingers a little longer on the cheerful crowd and you realize why Whitebeard didn't want you to go alone. People are quite direct with each other here.

In a few corners you have already seen one or two lovely ladies being put in a tight spot. It was no different in Alabasta, just a bit more stylish and in the VIP rooms of the casinos, but Whitebeard doesn't need to know that.

Your gaze goes over to Ace, who is looking at the castle from on the other side of the roof. Still, you don't need a 'guard', you think to yourself.

“Psst hey, y/n!” He calls over to you in a quieter voice. “I think something's going on in the castle, though it's hard to say exactly what.” You jog slightly over to him and glance hurriedly through your glasses.

From your position, you can see that there are a few people bustling around on the King's Plateau, but nothing more. You're just too far away for you to see anything clearer.

“Well done Ace.” You put down your binoculars and keep your eyes on the castle.

You somehow have the feeling that Doflamingo has his villainous activities very close to him. This plateau also looks very suspicious…

You wanted to take a closer look at the plateau, but the binoculars didn't give you a proper picture, so you went back to your hotel room, stowed away the climbing gear and got changed.

Once again, you search in your suitcase and take out another case that is a little narrower. There are two different combination locks on each buckle and before you dial the right numbers, you look over at Ace, who flinches a little at your sudden movement.

You raise your eyebrows and Ace quickly turns his head and taps his knee innocently.

The click of the buckles makes Ace look over at you again and he peers over your shoulder as he sits on the bed while you sit on the floor.

You carefully remove the cloth covering the contents of the case, revealing a fancy and polished sniper rifle.

“Hohohoho, hello sweetie… Long time no see.” you mumble excitedly as you take the rifle out of the foam case and look through the aiming eye.

Yep, that should work.

You prepare a sniper rack on the balcony and position yourself with your chair and sniper in a way that the castle is in your field of vision.

You zoom in on the Kings Plateau and observe the people on the ground. They seem to be preparing something in the palace and on the plateau, but unfortunately you can't see into the containers they are carrying.

Ace joins you, places two beers on the table and sits down on the other chair.

“What the hell are they transporting in the middle of the night?” you wonder. Ace's gaze is on you, he can't tell or see what's going on in the castle anyway, so he prefers to focus his attention on what's in front of him. You.

Does the sight of you sitting in front of him with a super cool sniper rifle turn him on? Definitely. Would he like to have this sight as a poster for his cabin? Without a doubt.

You turn your eyes away from the aiming eye and furrow your brows thoughtfully.

“Ace, this plateau seems kind of suspicious…” His gaze goes to that strange hill.

“It's kind of unnecessarily big, isn't it?” - “Yeah, exactly.” You're glad he somehow always knows what you're getting at straight away. As you smile at him, you see the beer on the table and reach for it. You lean back on the chair and let your thoughts run free while you let the beer moisten your throat.

You know that something is rattling around in the back of your brain and an idea is on the tip of your tongue or as if a light bulb is about to come on. You're just missing a little spark to see the images in your head clearly.

You decide to go into the room to get your notebook while Ace's eyes follow you.

You turn to a particular page as you drop back into the chair and your eyes wander along the lines. As you read the words, you don't say a word. One might think you've forgotten that Ace is sitting in front of you, but Ace likes the fact that he can watch your pretty little head working.

He likes the way your eyebrows are drawn together as you look at your book or the way you run a finger over your lower lip, deeply in thought.

It's the little quirks about you that make him want to tell you that he wants to get to know your every little oddity.

But he holds back and waits for the right time. He doesn't know when it will be, but he will find out.

You gesture with your finger as if you're on the right track and collect your guesses.

“You know, that Pica in Doflamingo's crew had some pretty interesting skills. That's definitely stuck in my mind…” - “Uh huh… Like what?” You turn the page with his info to him and point to the line where you made notes about his devil fruit power.

“He can manipulate any kind of solid stone…” Ace reads and looks at your smiling face.

“Interesting, isn't it? Especially since the castle and the king's plateau is a lot of stone, no?” Your grin widens, but somehow Ace doesn't seem to get it this time.

You sigh a little at his puzzled look and cross one leg over the other.

“I think we should get into the castle somehow. If Pica can manipulate any stone, I'd like to take a closer look at everything there… don't you think?” - “Yes, I think so… but don't you think that's a bit too difficult? How are we supposed to get into the castle?”

You're a little offended that Ace doubts your abilities and cross your arms, but he has a good point. Doflamingo's crew is strong and you're not here to fight. You have to wait and see. You take a more relaxed stance again.

“Yes, you're right. We'll probably have to dig around a bit more and see what comes up, but my gut feeling is never wrong.”

Ace's gaze sweeps over the sight below you as he drinks his beer. He exhales deeply and looks over at you. You tilt your head a little questioningly, he looks as if he wants to say something.

With a light laugh, you ask him what's wrong and finish off the last drop of your beer.

“You know, I think I know what they're up to in the palace…” His pause is a little dramatic, his eyes look like he's trying to stop himself, but you ignore his uncertainty and urge him to speak up.

He sighs again. Now that he has spoken, he has to finish explaining himself. Otherwise you'll force the words out of him, he's sure of it.

“When I went to the toilet in the restaurant, I heard the staff talking about how they got an order from the palace. They are supposed to be arranging some specialties for a party at the palace…” You raise your eyebrows in disbelief. Why is he keeping this from you?

“Ace, you idiot! Why are you hiding something like that? This could be our golden ticket!” You're a bit shocked but not exactly angry with him. After all, he didn't exactly keep the information to himself for very long.

“I don't know, maybe because pops told us to stay away from Doflamingo???” He raises his arms defensively but you wave him off.

“Oh nonsense!” You get up and go to the minibar to get yourself and Ace another beer. You toss him his and he catches it with ease and thanks you.

You open your beer on the edge of the table and Ace seems to be impressed by that stunt, you cheekily wink at him and take a big sip. With a slight grin, he also opens his beer and takes a sip without taking his eyes off you.

“Dad doesn't need to know about this and he never will. Trust me, I know how to handle this.” Ace is visibly charmed by your confidence and leans back as he rests his foot on his knee.

The night is a little chilly, but there's something warm about it, especially with Ace in front of you. It's pretty quiet up here, but you can still hear the occasional sounds of the nightlife from the streets. As the clouds continue to cover the moon, you and Ace talk about various things. In fact, you are beginning to find it really pleasant to have a partner. If you were alone, you might have just gone to bed.

“Marco told me that you've more or less taken my place?” He looks at you a little nervously. Is that a reference to the fact that he's been given the position of second division commander?

You can literally hear his thoughts and put your hand over your mouth, laughing.

“By that I meant you're playing tricks on the others too, hehe, calm down Ace…” But the panic in his eyes is too sweet to keep your mouth shut. Ace pouts a little, but how can he be angry with you even if you laugh at him?

“So you played the pranks before?” He leans a little towards you and you can't help but notice how his lips glisten in the moonlight from the beer. Damn, why do his lips have to look so inviting under the moonlight!

Time flew by as you talked about your favorite pranks and you even had a prank in common. When Ace told you how he always hid Marco's reading glasses, you spluttered out the beer in your mouth and said with a little squeak that you did that constantly too. You start laughing together and while you both reminisce for a moment, your thoughts drift off.

“A party at the royal palace? Now we just need to know how to get in there…” - “And when the party begins.” Ace adds.

Good point. A somewhat mischievous smile forms on your lips, causing Ace to shake his head with a wide grin... you're just too cute.

You love it when the plan slowly comes together.

Masterlist

I hope you enjoyed it my sweeties ♡

➽ Next chapter

[epickiya722]

Do you think the reason people misunderstand Midoriya, Bakugou, Uraraka, etc. is because they misunderstand Horikoshi himself?

Like, people say chapter 431 doesn't contribute to the story, but I think that's wrong to an extent, since it does give closure to Ochako's character arc, which is her dealing about her feelings for Izuku (Hori probably got bored of the money to her parents motivation, since it's never brought up again). I think Izuku/Ochako was always Horikoshi's intention since he does mention that he planned her and Izuku to have several scenes, but like many shonen authors, he simply sucks at writing a proper romance or developing a female lead beyond pining for the hero, leading to Ochako becoming less prominent as he couldn't find a better role for her outside of being the token heroine that deals with the token female villain.

(His treatment of other female characters in this manga is also not the best it could be, but that's a talk for another day)

Meanwhile, he became more invested in writing Bakugou, likely due to popularity reasons (Horikoshi is famously scared of cancellation due to prior traumas with Oumagadoki Zoo and Barrage. It's why we had annual popularity polls). As a consequence, the relationship between Izuku and Katsuki became a lot more focused, which contributed to the popularity of the ship. However, I don't think this was ever intentional from Horikoshi's part, since again, he doesn't know how to write a proper romance, let alone a queer one. It's his own take of a Naruto/Sasuke-esque rivalry with lots of emotional tension, which he DOES know how to write due to growing up with Naruto, and it's arguably better written because he actually tries to explore the psyches of everyone involved. But at no point I think he even considered making an actual gay couple, especially since his exploration of rather sensitive topics like LGBT rights and racism are not particularly well-thought, even if well-meaning. Magne and Toga end up evil and dead simply for trying to find liberty in an oppressive society, and Shoji's discrimination plotline is squished in the story at the last minute despite its inherent potential. This all tells me that he's not really this overly progressive, status quo-shattering mangaka that some people believe him to be, he's just a guy writing a superhero story that sometimes deals with social issues, akin to the X-Men.

In the end, I think Horikoshi just decided to end things the way he planned from the start, while not giving much thought to the middle. He did make Ochako's feelings a plot point, so he had to give some closure to that, but alas, he didn't give it the development it deserved beforehand. It was always in the back of his mind as he always sprinkled those "Ochako is crushing again" moments here and there, but never had it as a priority in the story due to the popularity of the main duo + Shouto and his dad, thus chapter 431.

That said, Horikoshi is still an amazing mangaka, but like many others, he is still learning, especially now that he is no longer some obscure creator and has to deal with the usual trappings of fame. He probably never expected MHA to be as huge as it is and it genuinely caught him offguard.

Could be that people do misunderstood Horikoshi's writing. There's many writing styles out there. And really depending on the individual who cross a specific writing style they can either understand it or don't.

I, myself, don't think I'm an expert on any writing style except for my own.

I do think Horikoshi didn't expect MHA to become as popular as it did, especially when his previous works didn't even run that long. (I did enjoy OZ though, that was fun.)

During the years, with that rising popularity it could be that he had to keep building up the plot and I felt like had he had more prepared and probably had more time some of the plot lines could have been handled better.

He just had to experiment along the way while also going by the words of his editors and assistants. (There was also Horikoshi's health issues which hindered some creative development. How relatable.) So there some things he could and couldn't do. I mean part of the ending we got wasn't even the original ending we had in mind, not completely. One element of that OG ending (Movie: Heroes Rising) he did keep that I can think of is Midoriya losing OFA. Which was something that definitely coming.

Also, another factor of that misunderstanding of Horikoshi's writing are cultural and experience differences.

Now with Ochako and her crush, I'll be honest, even though it was "obvious" she's the supposed "love interest", I still don't think Horikoshi intended for her to only be known as that, let alone probably not really one at all.

Horikoshi has written female leads before and they're not written to be a love interest. (Shoutout to Hana Aoi, I adore her. Always doing her best.) Ochako didn't begin the story liking Izuku like that and that crush came later in the story. Heck, going back, a lot of their earlier moments I wouldn't consider "romantic". Just more like "look at these silly kids".

You mentioned Horikoshi stated he wanted to add more scenes for Izuku and Ochako, but what kind of scenes?

I get it as in more scenes in general. When thinking about it because as the story gets to the ending, Izuku doesn't have a lot of scenes with Shoto or Tenya who like Ochako he did become good friends with in the earlier parts of the story.

You know what, to me it seems like the first half of MHA was Izuku building up those bonds with the people in his class and the latter half became him kind of coming to grips on his responsibility as the last/ninth OFA user. First half of those building bonds kind of works because come later those friends do come in clutch for him in the second half.

But anyways!

With the romance, Horikoshi may not actually want to write it, no matter the gender. But probably went to add it in much later because it what draws some parts of the fandom in.

Who really knows, but Horikoshi?

I don't know, he never seem like the kind of mangaka who has cares to throw in a love plot (at least for the leads) in his stories.

I'm not an expert on his writing, I'm still trying to understand it myself. However, I do think his style is misunderstood.

Whose isn't?

[thefandomenchantress]

I was going to do a post about my overall thoughts on Mouthwashing after I watched a playthrough, but I got a little carried away talking about one specific point, so I figured I'll ramble here and do that later.

(WARNINGS: Mentions of SA, overdosing, guns and death) (And Jimmy in general)

Jimmy is a terrible person (sorry I know it's tradition not to say his name but I'm too lazy to think up something silly to call him every time I refer to him haha). I loved how they used the unreliable narrator trope with him, and how the deaths sorta reflect his (negative) growth in the story and overall themes and stuff.

First, Anya dies. Her death is one Jimmy can easily pretend isn't his fault, even though he's most of, if not the reason she died. He SA'd her and got her pregnant, crashed the ship and forced her to be stuck with him longer, was often rude or hostile towards her, and overall was the main contributor to her deteriorating mental state and her death. But Jimmy can't acknowledge that, so it was her own fault she died. It's not his fault she broke down over every little thing and decided to overdose. And Pony Express was also to blame, right? They laid her off. And Curly's the one who told her that before he was supposed to. So it wasn't completely his fault or even his fault at all, (to Jimmy, I don't believe all this obviously).

Then Daisuke dies. Jimmy has a harder time justifying that it wasn't his fault this time. Jimmy hadn't told Anya to lock herself in Medical and overdose, but it was Jimmy's direct orders that led to Daisuke getting majorly injured. Jimmy, the older, more higher-ranking crew member told him he needed to go along with his plan. Not only that, but Jimmy also manipulated Daisuke by saying that everyone was counting on him and that Swansea would be proud if he pulled this off. For the first time, he acts like he believes Daisuke is capable of doing something right, because now it benefits him. But Jimmy didn't force him to go in the vent, so it wasn't his fault. And how was he supposed to remember Anya said the mouthwash didn't work as disinfectant? Swansea should've waited longer before putting Daisuke out of his misery, he could've fixed it. In fact, Swansea was the reason he was forced to use the disinfectant earlier, so this was Swansea's fault, not his.

Finally, Swansea dies. And this time, Jimmy is undeniably 100% at fault, because he's the one who shot Swansea directly in the face. Swansea was tied up to the chair. Jimmy didn't do it out of self-defense, like what happened in the graveyard minigame. Jimmy stood in front of tied-up, defenseless man who could no longer hurt him, and shot him in the face without hesitation.

Curly's almost the worst of all. Jimmy forced him to suffer as a barely living corpse for months and then made him do things I...Don't particularly want to put in writing. And at the end of it all he assures himself that he's the hero, he did the right thing, because he saved Curly from dying for another twenty years, even though he's the reason the whole crew is in this mess in the first place. All his other heinous actions don't matter anymore, because he finally took responsibility, right?

And I think it's cool that the game slowly makes Jimmy realize that everything is his fault, the crew wouldn't have been stuck here in the first place if it weren't for him. The deaths both show the player Jimmy's true colors over time while forcing Jimmy to finally realize that he is not the victim. He is not better than everyone else. Everything is his fault. And now that he can finally see that...

He needs to take responsibility.

It's just...The sheer AUDACITY of this man. He's so caught up in his own ego it's atrocious. And that makes me love this game so much more, because even if I hate Jimmy with every fiber of my being, this game wouldn't work without him. It wouldn't even be the same game, really. So I guess what I'm saying is that while I hate Jimmy, I loved Mouthwashing.

[vitaeplaysda]

Finally a complete set with all my planned Rooks! It's just a first take, depending on the CC and the game and how I will feel in the next months they will change for sure. Also the clothing is all random. Purple because... it's Rook. Time to go back to Elgar'dad, commissions and other artworks. I will talk about them under the cut!

◆ Nadir "Lil'Rook" Lavellan

Elf ◆ Transmasc nonbinary ◆ he/they Antivan Crows ◆ Orb/Knife Mage (Spellblade)

My little baby, my firstborn, the first Rook I designed. Used to work as a lil kid in Skyhold's kitchen, until he met the demon Enfenim in that abandoned library hidden there, befriending him (it's another OCs of mines, check my pinned!)

Long story short he gets adopted by my Lavellan after his magic manifested, in the kitchens. Near boiling oil. The left side of his face and shoulder is covered in burn scars. Still he grows up to be a great but VERY unlucky mage, to the point he considers himself bad news and slowly starts to embrace this side of him in a selfdeprecating way. After yet another incident, he leaves her mother and their community, deciding he wants to make just one single good thing for her: finding Solas. Hiding his identity he ends up joining the crows, finding out he's quite good as an assassin. Relationship wise I brutally ship him with Elgar'nan, but more specifically he's in a weird... double triangle romboid (?) relationship with also Sulenan and Bellara??? (aka Sulenan also has a relationship with all of them but Bellara and Elgar'nan don't deal with each other.... unless the game will state otherwise >:D) He's hella young, in his early twenties, but usually fakes his age and tries to pass as someone older. He's also the shortest elf you'll ever meet.

◆ Saara(?) "Rook"

Qunari ◆ female ◆ she/her Veil Jumpers ◆ Bow Rogue (Arcane Archer)

She's meant to be the real Rook, you know, the one who Varric recruits. Qunari who was taken in by a (very open minded) Dalish clan. I'm still unsure if she was born in the Qun or not, in any case she embraced the elven culture as her own. She can be considered diplomatic and understanding, a good bean. The idea behind her is linked to the Qunari having metallic like skin... I wanted to make a golden one since they're usually grey in games. I'm not sure about the name Saara just because I remembered now Sera has a very similar sound. We shall see if I'm going to change it.

◆ Sulenan

Elf ◆ Male ◆ he/him Shadow dragons ◆ Two handed Warrior (Slayer)

I idealized him as a... mortal form Elgar'nan would use to mingle and learn the hell has happened while he was gone but he became a whole unique character. A Liberati of dalish origin, he's one of the angriest characters I have, hating humans for what they've done to his people and their rotten society, hating the chantry for its comforting lies, hating the elvhen gods because... well apparently they're evil now. In the end he's just very lost and heartbroken, desiring only for things to get better. Alas he's also practical and knows you gotta make your hands dirty if you wanna achieve anything. Headcanon wants Elgar'nan can control him through Vallaslin, I also fantasized about Sulenan sharing the same blood of his god. He feels comforted by Bellara's presence tho, his "Official" relationship it's going to be with her. For the headcanon chaotic one check LilRook above 👀

◆ Anarca

Qunari ◆ Agender nonbinary ◆ they/them in game but any pronoun works Mourn Watch ◆ Staff Mage (Deathcaller)

It's just... chaotic. Take the Dnd core rules and turn them into a person. They're unpredictable, at times taking a kind choice, while another time they will act in scary ways. It isn't like they don't like rules and push against them, for Anarca rules simply aren't part of their world. Beside their peculiar behavior, Anarca loves to experiment but mostly they want to have *fun*. You want to see the skeletons dance? You'll have that. Look wise people are always scared as they're extremely tall, most of their face half covered by hair with just their horns poking out.

◆ Veronica

Elf-blooded Human ◆ Female ◆ she/her Grey Wardens ◆ Shield Warrior (Champion)

Melancholic gal whom had to join the wardens in order to survive not so different from the Hero of Ferelden and also the token human (?) of this group. While she has a rooted sense of duty which made her a good warden, she still misses and fantasizes about the kind of life she would have gone through if she stayed among nobles, instead she had and still has to fight monsters and to come into terms with her Calling being closer than not. The idea was to have her romance Emmrich, letting her coming to term with the concept of death through him.

◆ Raibeart

Dwarf ◆ Male ◆ he/they Lords of Fortune ◆ Daggers Rogue (Sabouter)

The cheerful and funny guy of the group but also the most clueless one. Honestly he doesn't know why he joined the Veilguard... he probably doesn't even know he's part of the Veilguard. Still, he isn't one to ask complex questions to himself or others, somehow he's able to work with whatever is at hand, navigating through every situation, hopefully bringing a smile on people's face in the meanwhile. He's goofy but still charismatic and enthusiastic, a disney princess in the body of a burly pirate drawf.

[demigodsanswer]

14

A kiss to the stomach [send me a kiss] also feel free to specify a ship and any other specifics

Time for some percababies I think!

Annabeth had finally "popped." For the first fourteen weeks, their baby didn't seem keen on making an appearance. It showed itself only in Annabeth's near-constant nausea and as a sonogram blob. But they were fifteen weeks to the day since conception, and Annabeth's pants officially didn't fit. She no longer looked like she'd just eaten a big meal. She looked pregnant.

Annabeth gave up trying to wiggle her jeans on and just flopped back onto the bed pants-less. She thanked the gods it was a Saturday; she'd be able to wear workout clothes to go finally pick up some stretchier work options, instead of stuffing her body into a too-tight pant suit for work.

Percy was on her in a moment kissing her face, and then her belly. He lingered on it extra long now that it really looked like a real baby bump.

They'd waited as long as was reasonable, and as long as they could hold off for to start trying. They'd been dreaming about being parents since they were teens, so they thought they'd demonstrated a remarkable amount of self-control by beating teen pregancy. They were engaged out of college, and then married a year later.

"So we'll be married for a year before we start trying?"

"That sounds right. But ... sometimes it takes a while, so maybe we start trying after six months?"

"Good plan, Wise Girl. So three months after the wedding?"

"Maybe just one?"

They'd pulled the goalie a week before they left for their honeymoon. But it had taken a little bit of time. After just about six months, they had their good news.

Percy had started talking to the baby right away.

"I don't think it has ears yet," Annabeth said, consulting the baby book. "It's the size of a raisin."

"You never know," Percy said. "I don't want it to get lonely in there."

Percy was telling it myths now. He seemed to be saving their own heroic adventures for another time, because he stuck mostly to the ancient stuff. Today, though, he kept pausing the story of his name sake and Medusa to press kisses into her belly.

"We might need to tell everyone now," Annabeth said, resting a hand over her own belly, opposite to where Percy was planting kisses.

Only their parents knew so far. And Grover figured it out. Apparently, Annabeth smelled different, not her usual demigod scent. The gods had probably gotten word. Annabeth had been making the relevant sacrifices to Artemis. But their friends still didn't. It had been nice to have a little secret thing with Percy. But it was May. Annabeth couldn't get away with hiding behind sweatshirts and sweaters. It was sundress season.

In the end, Piper's reaction had been Annabeth's favorite: "What kind of doctor's appointment are we making?" Followed by, "Can I be godmother?" When Annabeth let her know it was very much on purpose.

"You'll have to share the job with Percy's sister," Annabeth told her.

"She's six!"

"And has first dibs, sorry."

[skyeventide]

honestly, Luthien and her descendants don't own the Silmaril because she fought for it or because of weregild or whatever. the weregild situation in the Luthien drama is the weapons of Curufin that Beren takes from him; that's the payment, the weregild, the gold you pay for a wrongdoing. it's Angrist and Curufin's other weapons. not the Silmaril. you need to understand that Tolkien says super explicitly that the Silmaril ownership system is morality (and therefore religiously) based. he declares super clearly, black on white, that the sons of Feanor had right to the Silmarils before that right is forfeited because of their deeds, that presumably meaning Alqualonde's theft of ships and ensuing fight already. that right is forfeited, not as payment, but inherently, metaphysically, which Tolkien also reinforces by having the Valar, authority of Eru in the embodied world, bless them so that only clean hands can touch them. but mind you, what clean and moral hands means is completely arbitrary. the dwarves don't burn for killing Thingol, Beren doesn't burn for killing the dwarves. am I meant to read, say, the dwarves' overreaction to an insult as justified killing, then? as moral? it's okay if they kill someone because he's not giving them what is theirs? it's not possible to construe this narrative unless we understand that its fate is simply not a force of balanced moral judgement, but a force with a specific aim, and it's not possible to make of the story an even field because of it. fate is such that Beren can cross through the girdle; Melian cannot keep him out. in short, the Silmaril's ownership is not a consistent external logic, it's an internal morality that hinges on religious exceptionalism and fatal, near-authorial say-so. remember that Glorfindel is reembodied early explicitly because he aided the divine plan in saving little Earendil: religious favoritism and authorial say-so are a thing (they're the same thing. this is a story, nothing exists that the author doesn't decide. that the in-story divine plan corresponds with the story the author wants to tell and therefore pushes forward with the deus ex machina, that makes it ultimately nothing but Tolkien's say-so). remember also, however, that the final fate Tolkien envisions for the Silmarils is the liberation of their light to remake the world. the imbuing of their beauty for everyone to share. and whatever my opinions on that, it's miles better and a much more apt fate than whatever hoax a rigged religion-based sort of moral ownership represents.

[crepes-suzette-373]

In chapter 1066, Shaka explained this story about the Void Century. It was a big dramatic reveal scene, and most of the chapter was about Ohara and their research efforts on the Void Century. In the cover, sensei chose to depict a zoomed out view of the Germa castle, with all its "66" banners.

Is this a coincidence or a hint?

Based on the fragmentary snippets that we've heard of Germa's history, it sounded almost like... Germa's destruction is a "smaller scale" version of what happened to the ancient kingdom. They were able to continue to exist somehow, but their history was so obscured that barely anyone know the truth about them.

Even someone like Brook was only able to vaguely know that "they conquered North Blue".

Previously I assumed that World Government destroyed the empire, but I now consider the possibility that the other North Blue kingdoms just allied together to defeat it. A mirror of the Void century history, but localised in the North Blue instead of the whole world.

Judge had said he wanted revenge against the North Blue kings. It would stand to reason that he might have wanted to do that because the other kings banded together to take down Germa 300 years ago.

Germa might have been allowed to continue to exist as a smaller kingdom because WG is not involved in the destruction. They just turned a blind eye towards its destruction.

That being said, though, I have been suspecting for a while that Germa is hiding knowledge related to the old Void Century kingdom.

Germa has been a kingdom of science for generations, but lineage factor and cloning was Vegapunk's discovery. So what was Germa doing before?

Very likely, it's something more similar to what we would call "engineering" in our world. Back in MADS, Judge was seen building that spear that would eventually become his main weapon.

Not to mention that even in the drafts, sensei had planned for Judge to be titled "Earl of Mechanisms". Both of those, plus the snail ships and the raid suits, they all seem to suggest that Germa's main scientific endeavours before were machinery and gadgets.

So, when did Germa develop the snail ships and why? If these were newer, then I would be wondering "What did the Germa kingdom look like before they made the snails? Just normal ships?".

However, if these ships have been around since their land's destruction 300 years ago, then was the Germa empire's eventual goal to conquer the entire world? Why else would they need the snail ships that can climb the Red Line otherwise? Did maybe the old empire had wanted to make All Blue? Perhaps due to their knowledge of the Void Century?

This assuming that All Blue here is not a specific location, but just "the open sea" in general, not blocked by the Red Line.

Something about all this is just so weird.

I had the vague idea that Sanji is going to ironically be the one to "fulfil the goals of the old Germa empire", which was originally not evil whatsoever. I just don't know what the hell that "goal" is. But if their goal was in fact "All Blue", then it's an even more insane irony. It also fits the samurai conspiracy I had (TL;DR, basically "unification").

Another thing related to the machinery.

Is it possible that Germa had been the one to send the ancient robot up to the Red Line? Nobody knew who sent this robot, and it just died midway because it ran out of power.

It's possible that it was done by some other unknown entity. For example, from the same island as Professor Tsukimi who built the small automatons, since that shows that there's someone knowledgeable in robotics. Or maybe the robot just woke up on its own and started moving around. Especially with the revelation in chapter 1111 where it woke up apologising to Joy Boy.

But if Germa is a nation with very advanced ability in mechanics, it could be that they found the ancient robot and reactivated it. They just might not have known how to refuel/charge it up, so it collapsed midway.

It's rather unlikely, but it's not impossible.

This is also somewhat related to how the snail ships were able to climb the Red Line. If the old Germa's ambition was something to do with the Red Line (like, perhaps destroying it), then it's not unreasonable to think that they would try to send this powerful looking robot to do the job.

[tyrantisterror]

At Sea Without a Map pt. 25

For a very brief moment, you consider how out of all the crazy bullshit that's been thrown at you, this - a fucking pirate tiger - is the thing that's breaking your brain. Sea monsters and living nightmares are one thing, but how do you even begin to comprehend something this goddamn silly being real?

Well, apparently you just roll with it, because that's what you end up doing. "Alright, Calibani, translate for me please," you say, "I've got some questions for..." You stop and squint at the tiger pirate, and it regards you back with the terrifying stare of an apex predator. "For Captain Peter."

The tiger sits at attention, waiting for your queries. With a nod from Calibani, you begin to interrogate the big cat. "Alright, so..." You try to think of which questions would be most important to ask, but one keeps superseding them in your mind. "I'm sorry, but why are you a tiger? Like, were you transformed into a tiger or something?"

Calibani poses the question for you in a mix of growls and roars, and Captain Peter simply shakes his shaggy head in response. "He says he's always been a tiger."

"Then how did he get here?" you ask. "Tigers aren't exactly aquatic wildlife!"

After a translation by Calibani, Captain Peter begins growling and roaring back a very long answer, which takes your fishy companion a while to parse. "I think I have the jist..." Calibani says.

"Captain Peter was put in a cage by a nasty man. The nasty man took him on a big boat across the ocean, and Captain Peter was very sad and scared. A great storm came and shook the ship, breaking the cage and letting Peter free! He chased the nasty man off the big boat and onto a small boat, then ate the nasty man and was very happy! But he had nowhere to go, and was stuck on the boat for a long time. Eventually he saw a huge fish, and it tried to eat him, but he ate it instead. Eating the fish made him and his boat stronger, so he kept doing that, and now he and his boat are very strong!"

As the story is relayed to you, you place your palm upon your face and slowly draw it down as you process what you're hearing. "Alright, alright, fine, that makes enough sense," you tell yourself. "But where'd he get the coat, and the hat, and the eyepatch, and the goddamn hand-hook on his tail?"

After relaying the question, Calibani translates the tiger's brief answer, "From adventure." Frowning, she growls a followup question to the tiger, and gets another brief response. "I'm sorry, he's not giving me more detail than that."

Sighing, you ask, "Is he the only crew of this ship? I mean, it's huge, don't ships like this need a big crew?" You look at the tiger again and add, "Also, like, human hands to manipulate it?"

After some back and forth roaring, Calibani translates, "He is the only crew of this boat. It listens to him well, and has grown big and strong."

"What the fuck does that mean?" you ask. "Boats don't grow!"

"They don't?" Calibani asks. "I thought all living things do that."

"Boats aren't alive!" you say, only to remember some odd quirks of your own vehicle. "At least they're not supposed to be..."

"Huh. You learn something new everyday, I suppose," Calibani says.

A thought occurs to you. "Ask him how long he's been here."

Calibani relays the question then gives you the response. "Many days and many nights. He says that he has lived longer than any tiger has lived before out here, and plans to live longer still. As long as he draws breath, he will claw and bite and thrive out here on the sea."

It's not a specific answer, which should be expected from a creature that was not taught how to record and measure time (and hell, it's not like you've been doing a good job of it yourself), but it tells you what you need to know. If you are stuck here, that doesn't mean you're doomed. After all, a tiger's got some significant disadvantages you don't have to deal with, and if he made it this long, maybe you can too.

Still, that doesn't mean you want to stay here. "Ask Captain Peter what he knows about Dr. Neptune, whoever that is. If those notes are to be trusted, that guy might be my ticket home."

A good deal of roaring fills the air as you wait for an answer. "He says Dr. Neptune is... um... a bucket? With meat in it? A meat bucket?" Calibani shrugs. "I'm not quite sure what he's describing, but apparently this Neptune fella is pretty smart, but also strange? He lives in a... what?" She growls and roars back and forth with the tiger again. "He lives in a mountain shaped like a wrinkly butt."

"...a wrinkly butt," you say flatly.

"Yeah, like a monkey's butt, but covered in wrinkles," Calibani says. "Peter says Dr. Neptune does not like it when he calls it a butt, but that's what it looks like, and Dr. Neptune can complain all he wants but he chose to live in a butt mountain so what does he know."

"Does he know how to send me home?" you ask insistently. "I don't care if he lives in an actual asshole, I just want to go home!"

The tiger thinks for a while when this question is translated for him, before finally growling out a reply for Calibani to relay. "If anyone Peter's met would know, it'd be Dr. Neptune." More growling, more translation. "But Peter asks why you want to go back? There are nasty men at home. The sea doesn't put you in a cage."

That question stuns you so bad you feel dizzy, because you're not sure what the answer to it is. As you try to think of it, you feel your compass grow heavy in your pocket, and instinctively reach down, grab it, and reposition it so it weighs a bit less on you. "Tell me where I can find Dr. Neptune," you say, putting the tiger's question out of mind for now.

Captain Peter turns around and looks to the horizon, gesturing at it with his tail-mounted hook. "He says we should travel that way. It should be no more than a day's journey till we find Dr. Neptune's island. If we hit the island with jagged spines, we've gone too far."

"Spines?"

"He doesn't have the largest vocabulary," Calibani says. "I think he means rocks, or maybe mountains? He describes most things in animal terms."

"Alright," you sigh. "Those are directions are easy enough to follow, anyway." You think about any other questions you might have. "Does he have any weapons he can spare - a cannon, maybe? I just lost my harpoon, after all."

Calibani relays the message, and the tiger's eye lights up. He gives a growl before stalking up the plank back to his ship, then returns shortly afterward with a bundle of harpoons held in his jaws. "Oh, that's kind of him," Calibani says. "We have five to spare now!"

You think about how you would have preferred a cannon, but decide not to verbalize it. "Thank him for me," you ask Calibani, and she nods and growls to the tiger.

Captain Peter nods and releases several roars in quick succession. "He says to think nothing of it, and to remember the kindness of Captain Peter. He adds that he wishes us well on our journey, and that we kill and eat many a monster, so we too may grow strong." She gives the tiger a nod as he trots back to his ship. "Pretty pleasant fellow, huh?"

"...yeah," you say quietly as you watch the tiger climb up onto his pirate ship and sail away. Once more you're safe, and while you have more of an idea what to do now, you're still left with a lot of burning questions. Confused as to what you should focus on, you consult your compass.

[smokeys-house]

Normally I wouldn't address something this trivial but it's a take I keep seeing pop up in the moomin fandom by non moomin fans and it's annoying me. I don't even ship snufmin but periodic reminder that

1. Snufkin and moomin are around the same age. This confusion pops up a lot since the English VA for the 90s series is John Chancer and moomintroll's VA sounds like a child, but no explicit ages are ever given to any of the characters for the intention of whimsy and easy of story telling. This is intentional. The gap between their ages has always been that the children are younger than the "adult" characters, and old enough for whatever adventure is planned for them, and that Moomintroll and snufkin are close enough in age to share a room. Any idea that one is older than the other at all would be speculative at best and fanon at worst.

2. Snufkin is not a human, and a relationship between two fantasy species does not at all mirror the very real crime of animal abuse (I can't believe I have to say that, did you people have a problem with beauty and the beast, too? Lmao)

3. Snufkin was made to resemble or mirror Tove's at the time partner Atos Wirtanen, and Moomintroll represented herself at the time as well. She's said as much in interviews. While this doesn't mean "O: snufmin canon!" It also means you cannot discredit the fact that their dynamic was predicated on an existing romantic relationship.

4. Whether you ship it or not or even find the ship annoying, you can't discredit facts. You're allowed to just not like something. But I'd also remind you that nobody wants to hear about how much you hate what they like. Live and let live, there is 0 harm occurring in either circumstance regarding this situation. It is simply not that serious

5. This is specifically addressed to the person who annoyed me who I blocked but the English translations really do not lose or gain much compared to the original versions. The stories don't change just because it's in another language. I'm sorry you hate that a beloved series of stories was adapted to animation and translated so that the world could love these stories, too, but part of cherishing something is not squeezing it so tight that you crush it. You simply must face that people are going to enjoy things differently to you. It is not blasphemy. The moomins are not some sacred holy text, you can literally buy chewing gum with moomins face on it lmao

Like I said I don't really ship it. I don't see it. But it's not something I'm going to bother others about and dwell on. It's not out of character. There's no real reason for you to bash so hard on it outside of just generally disliking it. There's not a moral high ground to take with it, unless you just hate gay people I guess lol I get that the infatuation with snufmin and the way some folks strip them down to barebones just to have an mlm ship can suck, but that's literally all fan content. Any fandom has this. Relaaaaxxxxx

[broken-everlark]

Man Netflix is going to fumble so so hard with s2 I can feel it. My anxiety and worry just mix together and man. I'm not as excited for s2 as I should be..

They are going to mess up Tyler. They have such a good story with him (his story yes is intertwined with Wednesdays) they could make a deep story about him, his mother, Donovan and the Hyde species as a whole. But I guarantee they will mess it up and fumble so hard with it..

Probably make him a full villain, but then they'll kill him off. Probably sell out to the wenclairs and make it happen because they want money/views. Probably make Ajax a dickhead and randomly change his character so that it can happen... why can't we just have two friends that are girls? Are girls not allowed to be just platonic friends with either gender now?

Yes, I'm saying sell out specifically because I guarantee that's not what they were planning on. They queerbaited with the novel and are going to sell out. I love jenna, but she's also a huge hypocrite saying she wants NO romance, then turns around & says she likes wenclair like, really? Then why bother saying no romance? What's with everyone's clear hatred of a guy character? Women can be strong with love, and women can be strong without bringing men down. You realize that, right? Idgaf if they add in lgbt related characters, but Wednesday is a classic character who has more often had a boyfriend, so why change her? Why mess with classics?

Yes, wenclairs probably outnumber normal viewers. Which sucks because apparently girls can't be friends with other girls or with men. Apparently, women can't have any platonic friends. I don't mind wenclairs, but it's the bashing on Tyler. I absolutely loathe. Like, I get it. You all don't like a hetero ship like wyler, but there is no need to go after Tyler the way wenclairs does. I don't know... they have amazing enemies to lovers, or without romance, then amazing redemption arc for Tyler and a backstory for the entire galpin family. But they'll most likely mess it up. I'm still clinging onto the Our house stuff. But I don't even know anymore. I'm clinging to the fact that hopefully, the writers will keep making Enid and Wednesday a sister like relationship. But I doubt it...