#also regarding the toy story 3 example

[sonknuxadow]

Toy Story 3 was rated G and that almost has the toys dying in a landfill fire during the climax. I doubt Sonic Movie 3 will have much problem so long as any violence isn't over the top.

Also, wasn't the game Shadow the Hedgehog rated E10+?

if i remember correctly shadow the hedgehog was originally gonna be rated t, hence the swear words and heavy use of weapons and such, but the e10+ rating was created not long before the game came out so they decided to try to fit under that rating instead. cant find a whole lot of information on this but according to the sonic wiki changes included changing the black arms blood to green instead of red and removing overly violent scenes and excessive swearing. kind of wanna know what the game would have been like if it WAS rated t considering what we did end up getting is already more mature than other sonic games that are rated e10+ (a few examples off the top of my head being sonic unleashed, sonic frontiers, and later rereleases of sonic adventure 2)

[greatqueenanna]

Frozen 3 - What We Know So Far - 2023

(NOTE: Image above is not concept art for F3. It is from F2.)

I wanted to do an overview post of everything we've learned this year about F3. I want to keep track of all news related to this project so that we can avoid misunderstandings and fan theories overrunning the films' development, like with what happened with F1 and F2.

To note, from now on I'm pretty much combining F3 and F4 (or F3 part 2) as a single project until we learn more about them. They are pretty much confirmed to be the same story anyway, so it makes sense to just put them together. Thus, if you want to know about F4 on my blog, it will be under the #frozen 3 news tag that I feature on my page.

I want to give shout outs to @ericmicael, @frozen-snowflakesandsunflowers, @frozensnetwork, and @bigfrozenfan for actually being the ones to provide some the sources below. I don't want to take all the credit for finding this info.

If any more info drops in December, or I discover more news released in 2023 in general, I will update this post.

Overview of What We Know

The idea of Frozen 3 came from Marc Smith, the Story Director of Frozen 2, and the story is so large that it will be separated into two films. There is no official release date, or info regarding how the two films will be released.

Jennifer Lee is overseeing the project and keeping up with it, but is not writing or directing as of 2023. This may change later on, however as of now, Lee is not behind the creative process.

It is currently unknown if Chris Buck will return as director, and there is no news on who is directing or writing the films, other than Marc Smith coming up with the initial idea.

Idina Menzel and Josh Gad have officially announced their involvement. However, Kristen Bell and Jonathan Groff have not officially announced their returns. It is sort of obvious that they will return, especially with Bell saying that they are all ready to return, but just wanted to establish that they have not publicly stated this yet since the announcement. As for other cast members, no one has stated yet that they will return as of 2023.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Bobby Lopez are returning to write the songs, and have also confirmed that the story will be two films.

Jennifer Lee continued to push that no other entry other than the main films are canon to the newest project. Thus, the Frozen Podcast that was announced alongside F3 and misrepresented as a lead up to F3, is not considered canon.

There is very little known about the story, however, it may be about Elsa and Anna being very busy in their new roles. There is also some hints about Elsa's powers possibly growing.

More detailed news with sources below the read more.

---

As a quick shout out, in the year 2022, Kristen Bell had actually hinted at Frozen 3. At the time, this was considered a joke since Kristen Bell loves to push for more Frozen sequels (and honestly, it probably still is a very coincidental joke haha), however now that we know that F3 was possibly in development at this time, this may of been the first official hint at F3 that we ever received.

"I would like to officially announce, with zero authority, Frozen 3. I know Idina recently said she would do it. And I feel like if we're all in, what are we waiting for?" -- Kristen Bell, Voice of Anna

---

The first bit of information we received about F3 in 2023 was the announcement itself. In early February, Frozen 3 was announced to be in development along side Toy Story 5 and Zootopia 2.

“Today I’m so pleased to announce that we have sequels in the works from our animation studios to some of our most popular franchises, Toy Story, Frozen and Zootopia. We’ll have more to share about these productions soon, but this is a great example of how we’re leaning into our unrivaled brands and franchises.” -- Bob Iger, Disney CEO

---

At the same time, Kristen Anderson-Lopez further confirmed this, indirectly announcing that the Lopezes would return to write the songs for the new film.

---

On the same day, Josh Gad confirmed (inserting link in case video doesn't load) that he was ready to return to the film.

---

In June, we received new information about the film in regards to Jennifer Lee's involvement. As of 2023, Jennifer Lee is only overseeing the project, but not writing or directing it. In this announcement, (which is actually bit misleading since, as said, Jennifer Lee is still returning to the project, just not fully as writer/director) Lee hinted that someone else came up with the idea of Frozen 3, and it had become their project. This led to many fans assuming that this new person was the new director/writer.

“I can’t say where we are. All our stories are driven by the artists in the studio. Where we’re going with Frozen did not come from me, it came from an incredible person. That’s a new piece, I’ve told no one. And I’ve been blown away by it and I’m just having a blast with that team.” -- Jennifer Lee, Disney Animation Studios Chief Creative Officer

---

In the same month, Idina Menzel confirmed her return as Elsa. However, she stated that she didn't know too much about the project itself and said that they only teased her about it.

“I don’t know a lot. To be completely honest, they teased it to us, and I have no idea. They don’t show you a script. They don’t show you anything. All I know is, yeah we are gonna make one, and that’s it. So, I’m like, ‘Cool! I will be able to pay my bills." --Idina Menzel, Voice of Elsa

---

A Month later, Idina continued to drop small tidbits of what she knows (barely anything apparently haha) about F3 in another interview with This Morning.

"Yes...it's happening I was told, I mean you know nothing's been signed but I'm very excited if it is happening- I swear to you I'm not being elusive...I haven't seen a script." --Idina Menzel, Voice of Elsa

---

Later in October, we got more info about the film's creative team and how involved Jennifer Lee actually is on the project. Lee announced that the incredible person who came up with the idea of F3 was Marc Smith, Director of story for F2. She also stated that she was blown away by the progress on the project.

“Every morning last week they carved out space for me to work with the creative team on it, and I am blown away and I am so excited. I don’t know what I’m doing on it yet — I’m not doing nothing — except doing what I do now, which is we work on every project as as team and I’m in there with creative. But with ‘Frozen,’ just a little bit more. Our philosophy is this, and it won’t change: If there is more story to tell, the filmmakers have to drive it. And I’ll say with ‘Frozen,’ Marc Smith, who was our director of story on ‘Frozen 2,’ came with an incredible idea for more ‘Frozen,’ and it’s worth it." -- Jennifer Lee, Disney Animation Studios Chief Creative Officer

---

Jennifer Lee later confirmed this information again in another interview within the same month, and also pushed that the Frozen Podcast: Forces of Nature, is not canon the the newest project.

The idea for Frozen 3, she continues, came from Marc Smith, head of story on Frozen II. “Growing it out from there feels right because it’s coming with vision, it’s coming with purpose." Lee can't say much about what the sequel entails, but when asked if fans should be paying close attention to the current Frozen story being told on the Forces of Nature podcast series, she's hesitant to consider the audio offering canon. In my head, the films will always stay canon. Anything done outside of that, we give them permission to have their own identity. They may not be canon. I still encourage it because I think it’s fun to explore. But don’t hold us to anything except what we put in those features. That’s just me. I don’t want to disappoint anyone. But I also want to say I love that other artists get inspired, and I love the idea of the Frozen story.” -- Jennifer Lee, Disney Animation Studios Chief Creative Officer

---

The biggest shock that shook the entire fandom and internet culture, was when Bob Iger dropped the reveal that a Frozen 4 was also in the works at the studio in November.

‘Frozen 3’ is in the works, and there might be a ‘Frozen 4’ in the works too. But I don’t have much to say about those films right now. Jenn Lee, who created the original ‘Frozen’ and ‘Frozen 2,’ is hard at work with her team at Disney animation on not one but actually two stories.” -- Bob Iger, Disney CEO

---

Along side the above announcement, Kristen Anderson-Lopez also confirmed the fourth film.

---

Later on in the same month, Jennifer Lee gave more back ground on the idea of two films, and indirectly confirmed that the films would be one story told across two installments.

"We're really excited about where they're going, and we just have a lot of story to tell with that direction we're going in. So, I think, in my head, there may be enough for two in that story. But I'm really, really loving working with the team and where they're going." --Jennifer Lee, Disney Animation Studios Chief Creative Officer

---

In November as well, This tweet (linking here just in case the video below doesn't work) started to pick up steam and was posted by a verified account - however, it is still iffy on whether or not this info was for F3 or was just taken from an interview about F2 and repurposed to be about F3. If it is genuine, then Jennifer Lee hints here that the story will possibly involve Elsa's powers growing.

"I will tell you what I think philosophically, that isn't telling you what is in [Frozen 3]. I think Anna and Elsa's journey is only continuing. It was warned by the Trolls that that Elsa's powers would only grow. So, that's all I will say." --Jennifer Lee, Disney Animation Studios Chief Creative Officer

---

In December, Jennifer Lee did another interview with Heart where she actually revealed a tiny bit more about Frozen 3's story. She goes on to say that Elsa and Anna will be very busy in the next project.

“Well they are coming back. Big Iger himself leaked it, that we got so much story that we’re working on now, it looks like it’s gonna be two films. Cause it’s so big where they’re going next. And Elsa’s got a lot to do, so, and I can’t give anything away to say what’s gonna happen but Anna as well. And Anna’s you know, I feel very connected to her, the ordinary hero, I don’t have any magic. But I’m really excited. The amazing thing to me is always how these two sisters as we start looking at their journey, they keep surprising us and telling us, showing us what they’re capable of. So I’m definitely excited about where we’re going.” So does Elsa find love? “I can’t give anything away, I can’t tell you anything. All I want to say is that anyone who thinks they’ve heard anything they are not true, there’s no leak, nothing has left our vaulted story room and the only leak is what Bob Iger leaked himself.” --Jennifer Lee, Disney Animation Studios Chief Creative Officer

---

[intuitive-revelations]

One major implication I don't think that episode really took the time to settle on is the implication that the Toymaker has already massively messed up the universe?

Toymaker: I came to this universe with such delight. And I played them all, Doctor. I toyed with supernovas, turned galaxies into spin tops. I gambled with God and made him a jack-in-the-box. Toymaker: I made a jigsaw out of your history... did you like it? Toymaker: The Master was dying and begged for his life with one final game, and when he lost, I sealed him for all eternity within my gold tooth.

And later:

Toymaker: Do you think a grand total of two can cause me to shiver when I've played against the Guardians of Time and Space and shrank them into voodoo dolls?

So to summarise:

It's implied the universe is now even more destroyed by the Toymaker's reality warping. Granted we don't know what the scale of this is, unlike the Flux, but it's possibly proportionally quite big considering how little of the universe is left already? That being said, he could have done this in history before the Flux, since it was a linear event, in which case this is far less of an issue.

That being said, it's likely this was reversed by the Toymaker being banished - so we're probably not going to see galaxy-sized spin-tops in the future. How many people died, and if they come back however, is less clear.

The Master (presumably dying after POTD), and the Black and White Guardians (at least - possibly the other 3 guardians too, excluding the Toymaker - though they're the main ones, and it's "order and chaos" specifically which are mentioned in the episode) have all gamed with the Toymaker and lost. The tooth!Master is at least left in our universe, and may possibly be secure with UNIT. The fate of the Guardians is a bit less clear, as is the implications for the balance of the universe.

But perhaps the biggest thing, and the one the episode actually took the time to give us a confused 14 reaction shot to:

The Toymaker has a made a 'jigsaw' out of the Doctor's history (or maybe history in general, although he does say 'your').

So what does that mean?

The hint is that the Doctor has already experienced whatever it is... so what was it that he caused with his interference?

To me there's perhaps three possible options:

The Star Beast - this would be an oddly minor thing to refer to, but arguably makes the most sense in the 'arc' of the specials. Perhaps he's referring to the Doctor encountering Beep the Meep for the first time again? ie. taken one jigsaw piece and exchanged its position in his timeline. For now this might be my headcanon regarding it, but would be really odd to be the intention, especially since we're already disregarding most of the other appearances of the Toymaker in the EU? It's also of course not the first time we've had an adaptation of an EU story in the main show without referencing the original (the no. 1 example being Human Nature - there are others like The Lodger and Dalek, but they're different enough that they can co-exist in a continuity with their source material).

The Timeless Child / Fugitive Doctor - RTD has said he's not going retcon the arc, but this arguably makes the most sense as a 'puzzle' being made out of the Doctor's history? Especially with regards to the Fugitive Doctor anyway, given there's the additional complications of her a) being the "Doctor", b) having a Police Box TARDIS, yet c) seemingly being from around the time of the Anchoring of the Thread.

The Toymaker's being time-wimey, it hasn't happened yet / it's nothing in particular - While it would be a bit confusing to contradict the one detail we got in the episode, this is always a possibility too. After all, there was a lot of sequel hooking all across these specials, so it might be something RTD will come back to, especially if we are going to be seeing more of the past Doctors in future series? Hopefully not by the biregeneration theory he gave about them all being split retroactively, because that is literally insane and doesn't even make the little sense the 14-15 one does....wtf.

So overall, what do I think?

Well I think I can be somewhat forgiving with the damage to the rest of the universe, just because it's implied that it might be reset, and the scale/lethality was never established. Plus like I said, there is some justification to the proportional issue not being too bad when combined with the Flux.

The Black and White Guardians implication is... interesting. We are gradually building up more and more of those 'Great Old One' / pre-universe elements in (New)NewWho, so there's a good chance this could come back in the future. It probably won't have immediate effects on the universe, as the Guardians seemed to be more concerned with specific dangers like the Key to Time. It could perhaps lead to more Eternals popping up across the universe, given the Guardians were the only force they really answered to. RTD I think is also quite aware of some of the Eternal-type lore too, since he played around with it quite a bit in those Series 1 articles talking about the Time War.

The Master's obviously coming back and as silly as this was, it does at least justify him being alive after POTD. It actually opens up the possibility of seeing Dhawan himself again too, which would be great! The nail-polished hand picking it up felt like a bit of a trolling moment, after how underwelming all the theories of who did it were when the End of Time came along. Someone pointed out that Kate actually has the same nail-polish, which would be interesting. Perhaps when we next see the Master, they'll be in UNIT captivity, Delgado style?

Finally, the jigsaw line, which is possibly the most interesting. Originally I was going to lean towards this being nothing / a vague setup for future past-Doctor stuff, since that seems to be the default, but now that I've laid it out... I think this could be a setup for more Fugitive!Doctor appearances. It makes the most sense from a story perspective anyway, given what the Toymaker said and some of the questions surrounding her not being answered, whether or not it's the direction the franchise would actually want to go.

After all, as controversial as the Timeless Child lore was, as far as I'm aware Jo Martin was pretty well recieved, and I'm sure RTD would love to look for opportunities to do more with her somehow. Whether he'd want something so continuity dependent from a showrunning perspective, however, is a bit more questionable.

[chirpsythismorning]

Willel Twins Crumbs Because Why Not

Subtitles for the news report stop at this point for this scene, so I will provide them:

Can you remember your favorite stuffed toy from childhood?

And how heartbroken you were when it left your life?

Then you’ll relate to the story, of a girl named *unintelligible*

So right from the jump, directly after the opening credits, we are being bombarded with shots of keys and Hopper showing off his blue bracelet and his watch. We know the bracelet was actually a ponytail that belonged to his daughter Sarah, however I think the importance of this scene runs a lot deeper.

It might not seem important, but the dialogue in the background also connects to not only Sarah, but to Will and El too.

As we know, Sarah had a stuffed Tiger on her bedside at the hospital during treatment for her cancer (also featuring the blue ponytail on Hopper's wrist).

As it turns out, Will and El also had a stuffed toy that was referenced in this same season, though they both had stuffed lions, in contrast to Sarah's stuffed tiger.

While it is understood by the majority at this time that these parallels exist only to jog Hopper's memory of his own daughters death, to give some more depth and impact to these moments, it still doesn't answer the question as to why these 3 kids all have the same stuffed toy to begin with? And apparently enough importance for them to drop an easter egg in the first 10 minutes of the show?

In the context of El for example, she has the stuffed lion because it was essentially the only meaningful toy in her possession while in the lab. Sure, she played with toys in the rainbow room and colored with crayons, but those were all things they were tasked to do to test out and improve the kids' powers. The lion in contrast, was simply there to operate as something more personal, tied to her innocence and a life she could have had outside of the lab. And yet at the same time, this being the only thing El had in the lab, gives its importance a tie to the lab itself, which is why I am so wary about this whole thing.

In the context of Will on the other hand, we don't really know much other than that it was shown a lot more than El and Sarahs' combined.

Will's lion and the prominence of it in s1, more than anything else, is what makes me think the meaning behind these parallels is so much more than how we currently understand it. Because while we assume right now he has no ties to the lab, the fact that this stuffed toy has ties to the lab for El and Sarah, begs to question why there was a need to focus on it so much in Will's case, when he was never in the lab pre-s1 (or was he?)...

Which then brings us to Sarah, where you might think her case has no ties to the lab, but it does!

Sarah received treatment for her cancer at Hawkins Lab. This is something so many people either overlook and don't know about, or forget and just brush off as being insignificant, which I just cannot fathom.

It would be one thing if this was common knowledge in canon and actually spoken about, with Hopper talking about how it's not his first time here, and yet they don't make any effort to establish that. All we got is this stairwell shot of Hopper mourning Sarah's death, in the same stairwell at Hawkins Lab, which we see not only referenced in s1, but also s2 and s4.

Yeah... Owens knows exactly who that is. Let's not forget he's the one who, in another universe (Aliens) signed a document back in 79' that led the death of a lot of people...

So... what's the deal? Why has there been such an effort to put in easter eggs to allude to something unanswered related to Hopper's memories of Sarah, often triggered by instances regarding Will and El, who have almost identical stuffed animals to his daughter's, all tying them to the lab to some extent, and without that being touched on at all by the writers outside of the show?

Well, probably because there's still one season left and this plays a big part in the key to everything...

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

The forecast indicates an opening well over $100m for INSIDE OUT 2, which is really no surprise to me. Animated movies, even sequels to beloved favorites, tend to be underestimated before opening. They don't make huge bucks right out of the gate like frontloaded fan-driven things like MCU movies and the like. Their business is more in the walk-ups at the theaters, and make those big totals on Saturdays and Sundays. Hence why projections can be quite low. MARIO is a good example, some analysts had that at $70-90m for its opening.

That looks to be the case with INSIDE OUT 2, a sequel to a movie that made $90m on its opening weekend unadjusted... 9 years ago. Of course it was gonna stay flat at the very least, but some projections are suggesting it could cruise past $120m.

The all-timer opening weekends for animated movies:

$191m - THE LION KING (2019)

$182m - INCREDIBLES 2 (2018)

$146m - THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE (2023)

$135m - FINDING DORY (2016)

$130m - FROZEN II (2019)

$121m - SHREK THE THIRD (2007)

$120m - TOY STORY 4 (2019)

$120m - SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (2023)

$115m - MINIONS (2015)

$110m - TOY STORY 3 (2010)

$108m - SHREK 2 (2004)

$107m - MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU (2022)

$104m - THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS (2016)

$103m - THE JUNGLE BOOK (2016)

So, it'll be with the big leagues either way, but I'll be curious to see how high it goes.

Of course, some of the trades are seemingly celebrating this win for all the wrong reasons... And I'm sure Disney execs will use it as some sort of justification for something regarding their original movies. Don't be surprised if another sequel gets slotted before D23 this year, or some time thereafter. But the good news is, people get to keep their jobs once more.

I think $300-400m domestic is also pretty much a lock, could even challenge $1 billion worldwide. For Disney, this is their biggest animated release since FROZEN II, nearly five years ago. In terms of animated movies in general released after March 2020, this may share the top spots with Mario and the Minions.

On the one hand, I'm happy to see Disney finally get some BIG animation box office cake after years of movies either having to release elsewhere for the safety of audiences (SOUL, LUCA, TURNING RED) or outright flopping (LIGHTYEAR, STRANGE WORLD, WISH), and they're sure to get some more with MOANA 2, and possibly MUFASA at the end of the year... But, at the same time, there's all the corporate nonsense. I keep thinking, what are they going to say if ELIO and such perform more like ELEMENTAL?: "Uhhh, uhhh? I guess trying to do this 'general appeal' thing didn't work either??"

INSIDE OUT 2, coupled with MOANA 2, ZOOTOPIA 2, TOY STORY 5, FROZEN III & IV, etc. should make back what was "lost" on the other movies. I'm not against sequels funding the originals, that's the way it has been with many studios since the 2000s, I'm just more concerned about how Disney will go about the originals being made at both studios. If INSIDE OUT 2 holds on at the box office in the coming weeks, it'll just tell me that audiences liked the new story, and that there doesn't need to be any of this needless meddling of Pixar's filmmaking processes. INSIDE OUT 2 was approached the same way ELEMENTAL, TURNING RED, etc. were - so if it has great legs after an expectedly big opening, then that just proves my point. And vindicates those so-called audience-unfriendly movies.

But yeah, I expect a big sequel drop from Pixar by the end of the year. Something that'll come out probably 2-3 years after TOY STORY 5.

SUNDAY UPDATE: Estimates have it at $155m. Could go higher when tomorrow rolls around... Big doins'.

MONDAY UPDATE: $154m. Great CinemaScore grade. This thing's smashing $400m domestic, maybe even makes a play for $500m. $1 billion worldwide locked, too?

[sterlingarcher23]

Stranger Things and the quantum mechanics of time travel.

How El & Max travel through time.

I always pronounce the name in German that's why it didn't click. His name is Max - the Planck constant. With his work Max Planck layed the groundwork for modern day quantum physics/mechanics in science.

The Planck constant was a clue they gave us to point to quantum mechanics/physics and time travel. Quantum mechanics holds the scientific key to time travel and can even bypass the Grandfather paradox.

The one used in ST is from 2017,not the 80s which on face value looks like a mistake: 6.62607004

However if you split the number in half.

6+6+2+6 = 20

7+0+0+4 = 11

(That numbers, even dates put into an equation will turn to either 11 or 20 isn't unusual in Stranger Things: Mike tries to contact El 353 times, in the first DnD game Will needs a 13 but rolls a 7, Max's trailer number is 56 etc etc)

This split in half leads to another thought I had and others had but only in regards to Henry: that he was split. What if he wasn't the only one and there are two Elevens too, we just know them under a different name and face (I'll elaborate on that in another post)

Max was sent into another dimension & into the future.

Gates react depending on the emotions involved - fear and anger sent Henry into the Upside-down and love and compassion sent Max.. somewhere else. And it's just Max's mind. A gate was open. A mind gate. (We see the door of the Creel house is not in it's hinges when Max is there, meaning for her the door is open)

That's why they have parallels & mirrors. Literal mirrors as Max sees her counterpart, Henry, in the mirror, the left eye "blind" (there are other things they have in common like red & green clothing, a shot of Max in the gym vs Henry in the promo poster for that stage play thingy.)

We see the kaleidoscope before the teleportation - in El's "memory" before the zooming effect, the rainbow on Max's face & in the rainbow room. The most intriguing thing is that two kids use the rainbow as a bridge or road, playing with some toy cars on it.

And on the hand the colors we see from El's memory... It's a birth. Later associated with an electric shock when El is revived by Owens & Brenner.

"And there upon a rainbow is the answer to a neverending story. " - a rainbow bridge. A time vortex as it's called in Doctor Who. There also known as a Bifröst. Through a birth canal.

"Show no fear for she may fade away. In your hand the birth of a new day."

The association between this and "sent into another dimension" is obvious: El figuratively gave birth to or created something? Or at least helped. If not at least in a metaphorical way? . Most importantly Max's mind was send over this rainbow bridge (due to a fact that I noticed later/after this initial post - a zooming effect around El's head after the rainbow sequence) especially bc it appeared in the script during the revival, not before, a new dimension by teleportation of a being/mind. In connection to the electric shock/lighting bolt that can be seen in S1, framed by Blue and Yellow, and in the stained glass windows "eye" and in we have another association with the hints toward the 1.21 Gigawatts.

My Back to the future posts (a bit older and not 100% up to date & remember how BttF was literally in Season 3).

And the teleportation/transportation (as a metaphor) has been foreshadowed earlier when Max is in the hallway with the drawing of a rainbow starting with dots like it's disassembled into it's particles. (Comic book down below as an example of how you can do this in art)

According to an article (link down below) the physicist Timothy C Ralph ".... suggests using teleportation for time traveling, although in a different setting, namely, displacing the entangled resource in time." (This could be a coincidence but Tangled was pointed out as an inspo for S4. Tangled...entangled. The Creel house rose window that shows Blue and Yellow entangled. I don't know but it wouldn't surprise me if they tried to connect these things. So, this is definitely open for interpretation.)

Quantum mechanics, time travel/time displacement, wormholes (the DeLorean uses a wormhole btw and the time displacement is actually mentioned as a line).

They adapt these ideas (only on surface level), put in hints but basically, they told us what happened...it even makes it possible that Henry ended up in the past, defying the grandfather paradox.

We are talking about time travel via teleportation/transportation into another "dimension" .

Why else use these words in this manner in the script if not suggesting exactly that. (it could have been "when El remembered her birth/love of her mother yet this is not mentioned. Terry is probably just another proxy & Jane Ives just a...disguise). And mind lairs/inner worlds can be interpreted as exactly that: dimensions. I'm talking about Max's mind lair.

And then there was the hint towards "A wrinkle in time" and Mrs Whatsit. Madeleine L'Engle herself was fascinated by science like theoretical physics and like her the Duffers use these for ST.

In regards to quantum mechanics, you need to keep in mind a spin. "Deep inside all matter in the universe, electrons are buzzing around and behaving as if they are twirling around on their axes like spinning tops. These "spinning" electrons are fundamental to quantum physics and play a central role in our understanding of atoms and molecules."

ElMax itself has a visible spin. (credit to givehimthemedicine noticing this)

I give you the Flux Capacitor and it's spinning too.

Time travel however will work more like in "Days of Future Past" in which Logan's future mind was sent back in time into his younger self. Same body, different time. Like sleeping.

We saw for example quantum physics used as a means to travel through time and space in Endgame too. (I use these two examples only to showcase that others have done similar things too - it's not a direct inspo {necessarily} )

Except in Stranger Things and Max's case it's the future: an immediate time jump.

Brenner’s death shows a spin too and Henry is connected to things that spin like mills.

Why? Because that day in the lab, Henry/Edward was not only sent into another dimension but was also displaced in time. (Likely it were two Henry's from two timelines or he was split - the latter more likely. Others thought in this direction already. Same with El & Max?). Like Max was now sent into the future.

And be reunited with El during the jump:

For reference reasons.

The article by TC Ralph:

[steelthroat]

For the astrology thing if you fancy it (and as I'm not much into astrology apologies if I've missed some deep significance in the labelling...)

2H ⇢ do you have any object that you like a little too much? what is it and why? (or just one that you like a lot; I'm not really sure what "a little too much" would mean in this context...)

7H ⇢ what do you consider green flags in a relationship?

Hello there!

No, don't worry, I have no clue about anything regarding astrology... my friends have tried to explain charts and other stuff to me at least 3 times, and I still don't know what an ascendant is, so...

Onto the answerssss

2h- I get so attached to many random objects and for the silliest reasons... like idk it's just like "this objects is mine, there are thousands or millions of these in the world but THIS is mine and is special" for example:

My mum's paper knife. It has a heart-shaped handle and since I was 3 I've been obsessed by it. Like idk when I was little I would imagine I was some kind of magical warrior and that was my special weapon or something. Btw it's mine now, my mum can't have it back, that's my special magical weapon.

My red gel pen, beautiful red and it's very good and CHEAP. Idk why but it's my favorite. I already made a post about it here rambling about a teacher who took it and then I took it back lol

My two stuffed animals (a polar bear and a weird looking husky) since I was little I decided they were boyfriends and they were my favorite plushies. Still have them, still good and cuddly

A plastic horse named Alessia (I broke both of her ears) she was my favorite toy since I was 2 and the main reason I had a horse phase

My mechanical pencil. It IS special even my classmates agreed. Like idk perfect shape, grip, weight, just perfect all around. My dad gifted it to me after someone gave it to him, his words "you will need it more than me". I once lost it (I then discovered a classmate stole it so not really my fault here) and I found a picture of the pencil online and put it on the students' board and even offered to buy the breakfast to whoever would find it and give it back to me. I am deeply attached to that pencil I swear I felt so bad thinking I lost it (also because I looked at the prices online and I felt even worse). But then I found it again so yayyyyyy!

I feel very childish after this answer... onto the next one we go

7h- hm...

Hmmm relationship as in friendship I'd say when you can catch up after long periods of time after not being able to and still not feeling it. Like "omg when was the last time we talked???" "Uh... oh gee a month???" "Waaaaaah crazy! So by the way...." and then it's like you never stopped talking.

In a relationship as in a romantic sense, I'd say: When they don't force you to tell your secrets if you're not ready, but they let you know they're there for you whenever you are.

You can be stupid together

If you feel like you can communicate freely about anything without feeling judged or out of place. And when the other(s) in the relationship do the same. Like idk I've been in a relationship and a "situationship" and I'm still friends with those guys because we communicated for the entirety of those experiences. I would not get back with them, ever, but we parted on very good terms... so I guess it worked out even if in the end nothing came out of it. Moral of the story "STRAIGHTFORWARD AND HONEST COMMUNICATION IS THE KEY" (if not for a successful relationship, for a guilt and stress-free breakup) :D

[agent-darkfest]

So I haven’t posted something in a while, but I read this lovely story by @laurzzz and it just absolutely inspired me. Check out their page, it’s really awesome!

Anyways, without further ado, let’s do a quick intro to this character. His name is Ivan Kovski, he is 24 years old and he is partially blind (due to an accident). He grew up with his mother and 3 baby sisters in a small house after they had immigrated from their country.

Ivan had been juggling since he was 12 years old as a way to distract his baby sisters when his mom was out of the house working. He would also help with the cleaning, food prep, and overall maintenance of the house. But after seeing the toll work had on his mother, he went out to look for work himself to ease her burden. He found work in an Iron Factory, which allowed him to provide for his family for some time. Unfortunately, he had to move away to be closer to the factory, but he never stopped juggling, especially since he knew his sisters loved it. He would come visit them as much as he was able, bearing gifts and toys. But after an “accident” with a faulty boiler he was trying to fix, he lost his eye sight. The factory refused to take responsibility and blamed him for his carelessness. So, he got thrown out.

He tried looking for work elsewhere, but no respectable place wanted to hire a blind man with a half burnt face, especially an immigrant. Eventually, he made his way back to his hometown and he overheard some people talking about some fliers put up by a circus. A circus looking for “Unique Persons and Curiosities”. With nothing else to lose, he figured he’d give it a shot.

Fun Facts:

-Before he worked at the factory, he liked playing keep away with his sisters by grabbing what they had in their hands and juggling off with it. His sister often tried to catch him, but he kept out of their reach by climbing over furniture. One time he even managed to climb and balance on top of the clothes line while juggling… buuut… it snapped under his weight and he fell face first to the ground. He sisters couldn’t hold their laughter after they made sure he was ok.

-He likes to practice juggling things that people would consider too difficult or dangerous to juggle. A little hard-headed in that regard.

-Since he cannot see very well, he rather just have his eyes cover (whether by his hair, a blindfold, or a half-mask).

-He is very spatially aware and has excellent memory. When he first comes into a new space, he wanders around with a walking stick to get used to the space. But after a week, he already has the layout committed to memory. (He will trip over something new if he isn’t paying attention).

-His senses are very good. But he is still human, so he can hurt himself if he is not careful.

-After the accident, he developed a fear of heat near his face. For example, he can juggle things on fire, but if it gets too close to his face, he tends to freeze up. He is also self-conscious about the way he looks.

-He has a tendency to be a big brother to everyone without meaning to, especially if they exhibit mannerisms similar to his siblings. He is patient, kind, and understanding; if not a little mischievous sometimes.

-His family does not know about the accident. He has someone at the post write his letter for him every week, but he cannot bring himself to tell them what happened. They know he changed jobs, but they are not sure what he does. They very much wish to see him, but he tends to find an excuse to avoid to subject.

And that’s it! I had a lot of fun coming up with the character, but these are all preliminary ideas that can be changed. @laurzzz Thank you for such a fun prompt! Also, I had never watched The Greatest Showman until after reading your story. Now I just wanna read it again!

[quamoclie]

What made Uwe Joe so different

Again, Herr Uwe Kröger, definitely one of the brightest stars in German musical. He played in the ALW musical Sunset Boulevard as the leading role Joseph Gilies(1995-1997), it's also the first German version of this show.

And here are the reasons why audience (for example, me) love U Joe so much.

1). He's so blonde i can't move my eyes.

2). There's somehow a gay power in him which made Joe Gilies a charming bastard.

Commonly this guy falls in love with Norma and Betty at the same time, and he acts like a handsome but poor fool. Finally he dies. Es ist ein altes Thema :) one man vs. two women, he struggles to decide and is shot to death. A classic straight love story. BUT,when it comes to Uwe Kröger, everything is different. i mean he didn't seem to fall in love with women easily, instead with a lot more confidence, which is quite similar to what we called in Chinese 臭不要脸, and he is not regretted for becoming a rich old woman's boy toy, that's very unique i can say. He's just happy and proud of being rich and having his own swimming pool. (especially when he sings "if u lose here u will always be a loser "with a bright smile (idk if there're lyrics like that in English version, i just translated it from the German version :)

3). He cried when Betty left the house.

God damn that's cute, and i haven't found anyone else who had cried during this scene. It's not usual for us to see leading actors crying on the stage, however Uwe always got that crying job during his performance, who cares, we audience just love watching it hehehehehehehehe

4). He looks so German

'Cause he's blonde and has green-and-blue eyes …he wore a suit and his hairstyle was awesome. Anyway, he's gorgeous. Yep, a good-looking German actor. (wait what i am saying now idk... )

5). The performance he gave during 1995-1997 was the peak of his career.

He could still reach high notes while he had developed the skill of getting down to lower notes, amazing. Also, u can hear that he used some opera singing technique to help steady and strengthen his voice. Big differences compared to his earlier voice records and later ones after 1997:(

6). The original setting said that "Joe Gilies is a man in his early thirties", and when Uwe got this role he was only 31.

Perfect choice ALW ^^ Man in his thirties can play any role well, and i regard it as truth. Yep.

Thank u for reading this whole page, there should have been more repos about original German Sunset Boulevard and that's what i was doing (or probably i was just too bored at school)

[transfemininomenon]

"don't want them to get poisoned? don't grow plants that are known dangers to cats. don't want them to get strangled? don't leave out a bunch of plastic bags for them to toy with. don't want them to hunt birds, other mammals, etc? get them a collar with a bell. don't want them to go missing? don't immediately throw your cat outdoors the second you adopt, because surprise, they need to get used to the environment first."

1. you controlling every other bit of your environment in regard to poisoning? you have have neighbors growing gardens or with crawl spaces they can get into? you think your cat isn't wandering far beyond just Your Yard ? look up the average roaming range or an outdoor cat - i guarantee you you'll be shocked

2. see above with the trash. other people exist. other places exist. you can do everything "right" and still have them get exposed to something.

3. other animals exist that can and will bring them harm. i guarantee you Anywhere you have an outdoor cat will run into potentially dangerous other animals whether that be possums, raccoons, foxes, bats, birds of prey, etc etc as well as OTHER CATS/pets. your cat is not immune to FIV contracted by a run in with another cat.

4. bells will not fully stop a cat from hunting. it will reduce their success rate yes, but it will never stop it completely.

5. there are innumerable other things that can happen to a cat outside your control. cars, construction equipment, other people, sudden weather changes, becoming trapped somewhere, getting chased or scared by something, the list goes on.

6. the examples you listed of safe outdoor practices are true, and also clearly not what i mean by Outdoor Cat. those things you listed are what i suggest to people who DO defend outdoor cats - if your cats insists upon going out sometimes then yes you sure nurture that in Healthy Ways. a cat that goes on walks, has supervised time in a safe outdoor space, or has a catio to go out on is not an Outdoor Cat.

7. you're literally being the person op is about. your personal stories do not change the well documented & studied average experience of outdoor cats. literally nobody is saying that outdoor cats can't live long lives, but the fact of the matter is that on average they live far less than an indoor cat and that you are needlessly putting danger upon a cat by having it outdoors. you wouldn't do this for a dog, or a ferret, a pet bird, a hamster, or literally any other pet, why is cat the exception?

outdoor cat defenders really are simply some of the most Delusional people on the planet, like you can list fact after fact all with verified sources about how bad it is to let cats outside for both them & the environment around them and people will cover their ears and be like "umm not my frumpkins he knows not to play in traffic & he has magical resistance to coyotes and disease"

[doubleddenden]

Admittedly with this whole Armor Evolution I've decided to go into, I'm now faced with a dilemma

A. I've gone against the very thing I initially set out to do with my region originally- that is, a game without an overnight reliance on a gimmick to use as a crutch.

But being fair, if things go to plan, the armor evolutions will actually be pretty low in number compared to the amount of new fakemon and such you'd normally get. Last I did math, there's roughly 3 to 4 gens worth of new Pokemon to work with that won't require said gimmick, whereas armor evolutions so far only encompass about... 40 to 50? The region would be huge, it's an entire coast line, so it kinda has to have a lot to work with.

But also, in theory, the mechanic wouldn't really do much different in comparison to a cross Gen evolution or something. There's plenty of drawbacks to encourage you not to keep your pokemon in that form forever, and also with exception to a very select handful related to story plot, there's not really any numbers added to BST, just rearranged. Sure, it might seem a tad unfair to have access to a fully evolved starter's bst in the teens, but theoretically so would other trainer including gym leaders, rivals and such. It wouldn't be advantageous to keep it turned on constantly in that regard either, because then that makes catching pokemon harder. The beginning early 30s might seem like a cake walk, but eventually stats would start to even out and you'd have to actually use strategy again.

Plus, it's just... fun this way? I thought Dynamax was stupid because it just makes your pokemon bigger and it's just for a limited time, even with new forms. As much as I love Megas, I wish I could just keep them as is forever and treat them as new pokemon. Zmoves and Terra are cool, but not as fun as gaining a new form.

Armors in this regard would just give you more new Pokemon to enjoy semi permanently. A type change can open up your team to new members you wanted but couldn't have because of type overlap. In the event a starter evolution isn't to your liking, you can just swap to another form that is. This just opens up more doors to have fun.

But I'm still a hypocrite lol. At least it has potential to be fun.

B. It'll be a LOT like Digimon I guess. But... is that a bad thing? I like both.

As a kid, I used to pretend Flamedramon was a Pokemon anyway so I could play with it and my Pokemon toys. Likewise, I would give Pokemon additional evolutions just like Digimon- well before megas were even thought of- example being Metal Charizard or War Charizard, etc.

The region is meant to be a playground for me to mess with and explore all of my childhood fantasies about my favorite things in one place. In that regard, why shouldn't I indulge in that a bit if I can make it fair and balanced?

C. I'm now fighting the urge to make Flamedramon a Pokemon again for the first time since i was 7 lol. I think I might try it anyway, or at least indulge and try to incorporate what makes it such a cool design into a cool poke/fakemon.

I mean it'll probably never become a real playable fan game anyway, so it's just me playing with toys again except I'm making them in ms paint.

[tehuti88-art]

3/1/24: r/SketchDaily theme, "Free Draw Friday." This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is a twofer: Sgt. Thomas "Harrier" Harricks, and Flight Lt. Donovan Bradford, in a garrison cap and in a peaked cap. These are two poorly developed British characters from the previous reboot. Donovan (he prefers going by his first name) is a laid-back pilot but now stays on the ground, whereas Harrier is short tempered and unpleasant. There'll be more about them later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se.

Regarding their design, Harrier underwent a last-minute drastic design change based on my mistaken memory that HE had been the pilot; I suddenly decided to change him from a rat into a bat, making him only the second non-rat character in the rodent half of the story (Papillon is the other). He's passing as a rat, which is why the pointy tips of his ears are clipped off, plus he wears gloves and avoids shaking hands because of how bat hands are constructed. (This is something I only JUST realized about Papillon recently, his fingers are his wings! He effectively has no hands! I came up with the idea of him having prosthetic hands operated by his thumbs, and this led to more plot development. Harrier of course deals with a similar complication.) Also, I just noticed I really borked up the British garrison cap in my original design--it has earflaps buttoned in front like a German field cap--so my older Liam Morgan portrait will need to be tweaked.

TUMBLR EDIT: Harrier and Donovan both date to the first attempted reboot, and both severely lack character development (similar to characters like Evans and Beaudry); here to be thorough I'm looking to dust them off and flesh them out sometime. This section will be divided among the characters to avoid repetition.

Here is Sgt. Thomas "Harrier" Harricks's original description from the old character list (2002):

THOMAS "HARRIER" HARRICKS: Sgt., serving under Bradford. Excessively patriotic and dislikes both Americans and the Trench Rats, yet has to help them out due to his position. Very gruff and irritable, not easy to get along with; has a perpetual chip on his shoulder. Current storyline

One thing that needs correcting: Harrier can't serve under Donovan, as Donovan is RAF while Harrier is...whatever you call the British army. (See the different colors of their caps.) I've modified this so they're merely good friends, and Donovan likely pulled some strings to ensure Harrier's position in the military (more in a bit).

I decided to draw these two together due to their relationship and shared "forgotten character" status. I originally misremembered Harrier being the grounded pilot...likely due to his name. Harrier is a type of British jet (apparently invented after WWII, so not applicable here, plus I don't know aircraft so I doubt that's the source of his nickname), a type of dog (also unlikely), and a type of bird of prey. I assume I chose the name based on the last. So...why would I name him this, unless he flew...? Yet there's the character list, making no mention of him being a pilot, that's Donovan. 🤔 So I'm left without explanation, unless it was merely implied, in Harrier "serving under" Donovan...which no longer applies. So, there goes that.

I started toying with Harrier also being a pilot, though he's not RAF so this is unlikely. Maybe he once flew anyway...? Or...maybe he WANTS to fly, but can't...? Maybe...he can fly, but has to conceal this fact? Maybe...he's not a rat, but a bat? BOOM. Idea sparked. I promptly changed my idea for Harrier's character design and looked up British species of bats, before deciding to just go with an indeterminate bat species that doesn't really fit any of them. All I knew was he had to superficially resemble a rat, meaning reasonably-sized ears, and no funky weird nose. I struggled to give him a somewhat snubby nose without it being obvious like Papillon's (see HIS ENTRY for example), though it's iffy to me and may be modified in an update; similar with his ears, first they were merely larger (10%) and rounded like mouse ears, then I made them pointy, then not as pointy, then pointy, then decided on the concept of them being pointy BUT the tips were deliberately cropped to minimize the pointiness. This adds to the idea that Harrier is rather reluctantly passing as a rat.

The final design aspect that needs addressing is, of course, the wings. This is a recent character design development I faced for Papillon. And damn am I a moron for taking this long to realize! I even have this in Papillon's Toyhou.se profile, though I'll need to edit it now:

Papillon has very large upright ears which he often folds back/down when interacting with others; a snubby, upright nose; and visible fangs and claws. He dresses in a cobbled-together "uniform" of faded but clean clothes, with special slits in the sides to accommodate his wings (these aren't highly visible, and are often mistaken for part of his outfit, until/unless he extends them); he usually goes barefoot so he can pick things up while flying or hang from trees. He carries binoculars as his eyesight isn't very good in the daytime; he sees better in the dimness, but still makes soft clicking sounds to help find his way. Oddly, many of the people he comes in contact with have no idea he's a bat until he reveals his wings, hinting that rat/bat interactions are rare.

So Papillon has claws...on his fingers...which ARE HIS WINGS? Erp. I was pretty sure of this already, but Googled both actual images of bat wing construction, as well as depictions of how cartoon designers have dealt with the idea of bat hands, previously. (Bartok from Anastasia was the first I thought of, and yeegh they did a lousy job. (He's adorable as a bat, my memory of him helped inspire Papillon's design, but his wing design makes no sense, they actually look like loose sheets in some versions. Here you see he has hands, and no fingers in his wing membranes--illogical!) I didn't even think of the bat from FernGully. (Batty Koda...I just looked him up, and his wing design varies but looks to be rather accurate, he lacks hands but seems to have a visible thumb. Not all art of him shows this, maybe some is fan art?) Only after all this, I found Fidget from The Great Mouse Detective, which is a better design--it looks like they incorporate his wing membranes as fingers--though the designs are vague and they vary. Here my knowledge of animated bats runs dry.) (I have never seen any of these movies, BTW.) I briefly toyed with the idea of just saying, eh screw it, obviously I've already taken plenty of anatomical liberties with these guys, why not here too...? But it niggled at me far too much to take THAT much liberty...so, Papillon's hands had to go.

But Papillon semi-successfully passes as a (weird-looking) rat for a while...how? How can you do this, and be a partisan, without hands?? For Papillon conceals his wings most of the time, and those long unwieldy membranes wouldn't function well as fingers. I wondered about prosthetic technology, how well advanced it was in the Thirties, by which time Papillon would need a way to disguise the fact that HE HAS NO FREAKING HANDS. I know certain wonders were wrought by the many battlefield injuries of WWI. But just how sophisticated would prosthetic hands be? Would they be mainly aesthetic, or functional...?

I went Googling. Prosthetic hand technology, even way back then, turned out to be not QUITE as sophisticated as my story requires, yet better than I'd thought it would be. There are even accounts of functional prosthetic hands from the 1500s...in Germany! Check out this amazing dude!

Götz von Berlichingen

Dude was a 1500s KNIGHT with a freaking iron fighting hand! Granted, the fingers could only be adjusted using his other hand, so had to lock in place--he couldn't flex and extend them independently. And the arm had to be held in place with straps. Still, the level of technology involved here is just...mindblowing, to me. And opened up the possibility of Papillon utilizing something similar.

Now...given the physical constraints of being a bat, and his role as a partisan, Papillon needed: 1. movable fingers; 2. a way to attach the hands to his wings; and 3. a convincing enough appearance to at least superficially convince others he has hands. Here's how it went.

1. There are plenty of other mild technological liberties taken with this story, including Project Doomsday itself. For a near-fully functional prosthetic hand with moving fingers which can perform basic tasks to exist in this world is no stretch, and needs little explanation. The original designer of Papillon's hands (a so-far unnamed man who takes him in when he's younger and on his own) could have knowledge/experience from the Great War to create such advanced prosthetics, so, ready-made explanation!

2. How does Papillon affix said hands to his wings?--there are no readily attachable points for straps. This is a bit more complicated, but can be reasonably fudged. Papillon does have thumbs. Many early prosthetic hands depended on some body part/surface which could manipulate them, even if only the surviving edge of the hand. I figured a functional thumb can not only be the source that moves the fingers, but the "attachment point" that keeps the hands in place. Granted, this heavily depends on Papillon manually grasping the hands in place at all times. I imagine a sort of basic "harness" assisting in this by at least somewhat holding/stabilizing the hands in place around the thumbs, just some straps/buckles around the "wrist" area, cinched to the wing a bit, though limited in functionality due to so little surface to wrap around. (I considered small slits pierced in his wings to slip the straps through but that seems too painful/barbaric.) I just imagine Papillon has to practice to make keeping his hands on become second nature. When removing his hands, he releases his thumb and unbuckles these straps.

3. Papillon's prostheses are covered in a sort of glove which leaves only the fingertips exposed. The fingertips of the hands are designed to resemble real claws. The jointed knuckles and all remain hidden and he merely appears to be wearing fingerless gloves.

Papillon's identity as a bat isn't a secret--he utilizes his ability to fly to serve as a scout and gather intelligence for the partisans (he first discovers Trench Rat Headquarters), and outs himself to the Rats as a bat after he rescues Corporal Drake. He conceals his wings most of the time, however, likely due to some sort of unknown prejudice/taboo against bat/rat interactions--witness the Trench Rats' surprise upon realizing he's not one of them. I haven't fully explored this angle yet, though it's intriguing, given the themes of the story (lots of other persecuted groups in this storyline). In fact it rather goes along with Papillon's adjacent identity of being openly gay--most people know, he doesn't hide it and isn't ashamed, yet he realizes it puts a target on his back, so he doesn't flaunt it, either. Same with being a bat.

I already mentioned Papillon's main role is info gathering, and spying. He's not much of a fighter. This fits well with the fact that he doesn't have proper hands--they would make actions like accurately firing a gun more complicated. I imagine he CAN do this, if needed, he just wouldn't be very GOOD at it. So, that works out. His job doesn't involve much fighting.

And there's one more thing that works in Papillon's favor of lacking hands, as well as nicely tying in with the existing plot: Doomsday Rat. When he's first rescued from Nazi custody and returned to the Allies, he's already been subjected to experimentation, as well as brainwashed by Dr. Kammler. He's one of the Americans, but struggles at first to adjust, as well as to re-earn his comrades' trust. The Rats are reluctant to grant him too much leeway; how do they know he won't betray them? He doesn't even speak English anymore when he first returns. Papillon strikes upon an idea to test both his supposed increased intelligence, as well as his trustworthiness; he goes to D-Day, holds up a hand, then carefully unbuckles the straps and removes the whole thing. Naturally, everyone watching is stunned; D-Day blinks at the hand, then takes it and starts looking it over curiously. Burgundy Rat gestures, and Papillon removes his other hand and gives it to him. "Prosthetic hands," Burgundy muses, impressed by the advanced workmanship. Although the Rats know Papillon is a bat, they never even considered that he lacks hands like theirs; Papillon stretches out a wing to show them his actual fingers, and explains how he got the hands. Earlier in the story, he suffered a hand injury, which is now revealed to have been an injury to the prosthetic; he lets D-Day keep the broken hand, reasoning that he should be able to repair it. D-Day asks if he can dismantle the hand to reverse-engineer it, and Papillon consents. Later, privately, Drake asks to look at Papillon's thumbs; the two of them have since begun a relationship, and he's surprised to only just now learn this. Papillon admits finally to a bit of embarrassment: "I thought perhaps, if you knew, you would feel differently." Drake replies that this doesn't change a thing, except that he wants Papillon to feel comfortable around him, and that includes showing his real hands.

D-Day eventually comes forward with a brand-new set of hands for Papillon to try out. He didn't simply reverse-engineer the old set; he's improved their appearance and functionality. They're lighter, more resilient, less cumbersome, easier to hold on and manipulate with the thumb, and have a much more sophisticated range of motion. Papillon tries them on and starts marveling, smiling from ear to ear, tearfully laughing, exclaiming, "Incroyable! Un miracle!" He grabs D-Day with his new hands and exuberantly kisses him on both cheeks. As far as he's concerned, D-Day has admirably proven that he's mechanically skilled, and trustworthy. Shortly afterward, the Trench Rats make D-Day their probationary chief engineer.

...All of this recently developed background tangentially relates to Harrier in that, being a bat, he faces the same difficulties. Donovan is aware of his true identity, most others are not, so I assume Donovan pulled some strings to keep Harrier's secret. The two of them must be good friends. Unlike Papillon, Harrier is rather ashamed of what he is, thus his overly defensive, unpleasant personality. He's used to others looking down on him, so he thinks, why shouldn't he look down on others too. He's not exactly racist, but he frowns on anyone from another country/nation, which is most characters he comes in contact with. He has no real issue with LC Skye (English/Scottish) or Sgt. Liam Morgan (English/Welsh/Irish), is okay with LC Indigo Rat (Australian), but most of the others he treats with disdain. He's certain they'll all hate him if they find out what he really is, so he heads them off by being proactively hostile. He never shakes hands, in fact, often keeps his arms crossed in a closed-off posture.

Harrier isn't as fortunate as Papillon--he doesn't have a functional pair of prosthetics. He uses a pair of gloves, stuffed and affixed similarly to Papillon's--he can do the most basic things like pick things up, yet not much else. He can fire a pistol with his thumb, but it involves subterfuge, and so he's not too fit for combat. He longs to fly, yet can't (I toyed with him being crippled, but I don't think he is). So he latches on to Donovan, a skilled bomber pilot, and lives vicariously through him. Donovan eventually ends up downed, which hits Harrier harder than it does Donovan. Donovan, meanwhile, is likely the one who gave Harrier his nickname--others see it as ironic, but it's sincere, Donovan has seen Harrier fly before (ah...JUST now occurred to me, maybe Harrier helps save Donovan's life after he crashes?)--and he urges him to own up to his true identity, yet Harrier is too discouraged to do so. Most others he meets assume he's just a particularly ugly rat, which is dispiriting, but tolerable.

At some point, Harrier will have to have a run-in with Papillon. He's surprised, just as the Rats were, when he learns he's a bat, even though Papillon doesn't pass as well as he does (I mean...look at them freaking ears). After finding out about his hands, he reluctantly approaches Papillon to ask where he got them. Papillon is puzzled at first, but very quickly catches on; he says Doomsday is the creator, then adds, "I'm sure he could make you a set, should you ask." Harrier immediately bristles--what makes him think he needs any? In response Papillon nods at Harrier's folded arms: "I assume there's a reason you don't like to show them...you're like me, are you not?" To which Harrier bares his teeth (fangs--only bolstering Papillon's point) and snaps, "I ain't nothing like you, frog! So get that thought out of your skull and bugger off!" As he storms off, Papillon (as usual, not offended in the least) calls out, "He'll be discreet if you ask him, Sergent," which just makes Harrier grind his teeth harder.

He does follow Papillon's advice, however, even though it takes all the nerve he can muster. He hates the Americans even more than he hates the French, and D-Day, according to his mangled understanding of things, actually "went German" for a time so he's even worse (Harrier has surely insulted him prior to now), but he really longs for what everyone else has that he lacks. He fully expects the Trench Rat engineer to rebuff him for his earlier comments, yet when he hesitantly inquires about the prosthetic hands, and D-Day seems more perplexed than anything (like, why are you interested in Papillon's hands?), and Harrier sucks it up and gingerly removes one of his own makeshift prosthetics (grimacing in embarrassment as he does so), D-Day's ears prick forward and he says, "May I--?" Harrier nearly jerks his wing back when D-Day touches him but then holds still as he examines his thumb. He expects to be barraged with humiliating questions, yet all that D-Day asks is, "What size glove do you typically wear?" "Small," Harrier says, and "Aye," when the Trench Rat asks if they're comfortable enough. "I think I can remember the design," D-Day says, letting go of his thumb (Harrier slips the glove back on and meekly tucks his hands under his wings), "though it'll take me a bit to get the supplies and make them. Is a week acceptable?" Harrier blinks, and stammers, "Uh...aye, a week, sounds good," and D-Day tells him to return then and the hands should be ready, now please excuse him, he has to get back to work, and that's it. Harrier heads back to his base, rubbing his thumbs together self-consciously. He's mystified that the request went so smoothly...he can't understand why the American was so nice to him.

Harrier's with Donovan at the base when they receive a visitor a while later: D-Day arrives with a parcel. Harrier forgot the date, so D-Day's come looking for him. He hands Harrier the parcel, saying, "They should fit, though I can adjust them if need be." Donovan looks on curiously as Harrier opens the package and removes one of the hands; its color matches his thumbs. He fumbles a bit to put it on, then can't quite figure out how to operate it; "You use your thumb and wrist to operate everything," D-Day explains, gesturing with his own hand, "Just fit your thumb in the loop and secure it snugly around your wrist," so Harrier does so. He gasps when he flexes his thumb and all the fingers pull into a fist--they straighten out again when he extends his thumb. "It'll take some practice to get them moving right," D-Day advises, "so try not to get frustrated. You'll be relying on your vision rather than on feeling anything, same as with any prosthetic. Everyone's clumsy at first." He acknowledges Donovan, then departs. "Need any help...?" Donovan asks when Harrier pulls out the second prosthetic; Harrier shakes his head, he figures he should get used to affixing them to himself on his own, though he can't quite talk at the moment, as his throat is stuck and his eyes are watery. He awkwardly manages to secure the other prosthetic, flexes all his new fingers, then has to pause a moment to press them to his eyes, his breath hitching. Donovan hesitates only briefly before grasping his shoulder as Harrier snuffles a little.

Harrier still has a pissy attitude, he's just used to being that way, though on his and Donovan's following meetings to the Trench Rats, he really does try not to be quite as obnoxious, especially around D-Day. ("D-Day," D-Day corrects him when he calls him Doomsday; "There's a difference...?" Harrier asks, puzzled, to which D-Day replies that "Doomsday" is the name of the medical project he was forced into while a prisoner of war, and although he doesn't dwell on it when referred to by the same name, he prefers to distance himself a bit by using the other nickname. Harrier afterward refers to him by his preferred name.)

I haven't yet figured it all out but at some point, Harrier does finally out himself as a bat, in a similar fashion to Papillon, probably by flying in and rescuing someone or retrieving something they can't reach on foot. He's embarrassed by the stunned reaction he gets, yet also similar to Papillon, there's not much negative fallout as he'd expected, just curiosity more than anything. He does find himself called up by a superior officer, and responds, full of dread, yet what it is is a new job offer: He'd likely be far more useful with the troops than behind a desk--like Papillon, he can perform surveillance and gather intelligence on the enemy. Harrier finds himself stunned. He's wanted to fly for years, now here is the opportunity. He always assumed it'd be a combat role, but this makes much more sense. He's reluctant to take the job at first, assuming he's too rusty by now--and, frankly, just feeling unworthy--yet Donovan gives him the pep talk (tough love) he needs, insisting he'd be an idiot to turn it down, and he'd regret it forever. Harrier can sense the implication in Donovan's words, that he himself misses being able to fly, something Harrier's envied for ages. He accepts the new job, though there's definitely a learning curve involved, and as D-Day said, everyone's clumsy at first.

The rest of Harrier's details have yet to be worked out. See Donovan's entry for a bit more, though not much yet, on him.

[Thomas Harricks 2024 [‎Friday, ‎March ‎1, ‎2024, ‏‎12:00:05 AM]]

[wangliangying]

Blog Post 3 Session 3 - SOURCES - Intertextuality and Transmedia

8/10/2023

This time, we have learned about transmedia, which has both advantages and disadvantages.

Rich Narrative Experience: Transmedia storytelling can provide the audience with a more in-depth and multi-layered narrative experience, allowing them to explore more information about characters, plots, and the fictional world.

Diverse Audience Engagement: Different media platforms and content forms can attract various types of audiences, from movie and TV viewers to book enthusiasts, gamers, and comic fans.

Business Opportunities: Transmedia storytelling offers diverse business opportunities for creators and brands, including box office revenue, book sales, video games, toys, and licensed products, among others.

Creative Freedom: Transmedia storytelling allows creators to exercise their creativity across different media forms to showcase various aspects and elements of the story.

However, transmedia also has many drawbacks. For instance, it can be complex and challenging to coordinate. Meeting the resource requirements can be difficult, and audience engagement can vary. However, I believe the most significant drawback for the entire industry is when it comes to well-known intellectual properties (IPs) with massive and passionate fanbases. Creators may feel immense pressure from these fans, leading to a prioritization of fan expectations over independent creative direction. This can result in a decline in the quality of storytelling and creative exhaustion.

A controversial example is the final season of the television series "Game of Thrones." This series, based on George R.R. Martin's novels, had been highly acclaimed throughout its run. However, the last season garnered widespread negative feedback, especially regarding the plot development.

In the final season, some viewers and critics believed that the creators, in their efforts to conclude the series, might have sacrificed depth and complexity to meet audience expectations. This, in turn, led to rushed character developments and plot decisions that appeared inconsistent, resulting in a drop in quality compared to previous seasons. Some viewers were disappointed as they had hoped to see more intricate plotlines and character development rather than a simplified conclusion.

This example highlights the challenge in transmedia storytelling, where sacrificing plot and character development to meet fan expectations can lead to adverse effects. Creators and production companies need to carefully balance fan expectations and story quality to ensure that they do not compromise the complexity and creativity of the narrative. This exemplifies a significant challenge within transmedia storytelling — finding the equilibrium between satisfying audience expectations and maintaining story quality.

Reference

lrwin, W. and Jacoby, H.(2012) Game of Thrones and Philosophy: Logic Cuts DeeperThan Swords.1:1st; edn.Hoboken: Wiley.

[pluralsword]

we do ask that people bear in mind that xenogender and gender parallel stuff *is* from an analysis of material conditions, as is plurality. some people's nervous systems, like ours, are wired for parts we don't have that surgery can't currently give. in our system's case don't have the money for eva foam stuff so we settle for wearing corsets to give the sense of having a more firm solid frame than that of flesh. we also feel the strong desire for multiple bodies but also to continue to share the mental link of ourselves navigating life together we so deeply enjoy. we are dubious about limiting gender terms unless it can be proven that they are not being used in good faith and have a bioessentialist anti-trans motivation.

the closest we can get currently to having the back stacks or wings or turbine fins we crave (we'll explain that in a minute) is wearing a backpack or, more often, drawing on meditative skills which has become a reflexive thing. thanks to some trauma two years ago, we also use a massage selfie-stick sometimes (you know, the scythe shaped one with round stubby nodes) when there's pain from sensory problems.

If you're wondering what back stacks are the simplest text definition to give is that they are pylon-like structures that are usually metal organs of robots (see, e.g., the Mindflayer from Ultrakill) that can feature compartments and lights, and in the case of bots with more than one mode, can have wheels, thrusters, vents, fins, is usable as a gun, and so forth. In regards to sensory stuff they're like having an extra pair of thighs with pockets that maybe can also do other things and possibly emote. For those of you who are more visual learners, here are some examples from fiction and a photo we conveniently took a while back of some of the toys we had at the time that have these, coincidentally some of our examples here are either canonically transfemme (Mindflayers, Arcee) or may as well be (Nightbird, Sunstreaker, the former honorarily because of having a trans gal voice actor in the movie Rise of the Beasts, the latter due to multiverse timeline shenanigans via Ask Vector Prime and Transformers Animated's AllSpark Almanacs):

(heh. materialism. literally lucky enough to be able to hold the material form of what our body can't currently have due to a series of events regarding how a certain transforming robot franchise iterated to where it was in the 2010s onwards, and also us (re)learning some artistic skill to make the Arcee there in the middle)

the graceful rush we felt consistently for the first time of our lives in 2019 when we started HRT (estrogens in our case, started with spiro as a blocker too and finally off that and on bicalutimide instead) that helped to embolden a sense of intrepidness and daring collided with enamorment in 2020 with the literal alien robot gender assemblage depicted via trans transformer narratives in Transformers years prior and larger gender expansive and aesthetic agency themes and embracing multiple modes in that way (touched on intentionally or not) that both preceded and followed their introduction to the fiction, and from that with a lot of help we were able to generate an infinite compound noun language for alien robot aesthetic assemblage terminology that we have used for fanfiction and will use for original fiction (which has been delayed due to life but we found a workaround). given what we've said it may not surprise anyone to know that this transfemme system also knows ourselves as a trans zoomdare. we look forward to releasing original fiction eventually that will more widely communicate the kind of stories we want to share (and yes, in our original fiction a word that parallels trans is used but has other meanings also significant to the story) <3

If you're curious by what we mean about trans in transformers or are lost how robots would gender in a way that reflects material reality or simply are looking for a currently rare transfemme alien robot gem of science fiction to read about we do have an essay about IDW1 Arcee that we wrote on and off for a year that we would recommend, we have a writing blurb in this regard if that would help determine if you want to read it:

As we've slowly learned more and deeply immersed into IDW1 Arcee's writing over the years, finding much more than just kinship to her, we felt this urge to dig further, to understand, feeling threads that were there regarding trans history, but not having much knowledge regarding historical transmedicalism, so we dug. We dug because we wanted to show that Arcee's writing from 2012-2018 not only is a beautiful trans story unique in science fiction, but that her personality there and in part in her Spotlight (which absolutely did not intend trans stuff and walked into a minefield in that regard that inadvertently opened up the opportunity for the writing and consulting team in Phase 2 and Phase 3 to figure out beautiful character arcs for her) are direct successors of the original personality frameworks for G1 Arcees, and to show the impact and legacy of both Sunbow/Marvel and IDW Arcees along with more Arcees combined on many versions of her thereafter. Here's the introductory paragraph: In much of the last decade, a lot of people familiar with Transformers’ trans stories appreciate Arcee being trans and her arcs in that regard from 2012 onwards. But during those six years from 2012-2018 where her narratives that firmly navigated her agency as a trans gal were being established by a number of writers, with consulting help in 2015 for Ask Vector Prime and 2018 for IDW1, there was and remains uncertainty over how exactly that works for her, specifically for her comic iteration where her transness was first hinted and then plainly stated. The variety of understandings in this regard in part originates from her introduction to the IDW1 run, Spotlight Arcee, in 2008, which was received rather turbulently because of how it portrayed her gender and transformer gals at large. Writing years after would navigate resolving this rather beautifully as showing Arcee having struggled with transmedicalism, isolation, abandonment, loneliness, and alienation, the brutality of a violent (and androcentric) world, as many trans people across gender and parallel spectrums or lacks thereof have in real life. Her story is done in a wlw trans gal context in particular. She is shown getting closure on all this, finding her happiness by the end of that continuity that would along with her story at large as a sweet, ferocious, outspoken old warrior sage help set the tone for her portrayals afterwards. Much of this overlaps with how she was described in her The Transformers Universe bio all the way back in 1986. In these regards, we (the writer of this is plural, we'll have a note about that near the end) think it is pertinent to take another look at how her story played out, what was actually written and shown vs. what was intended, to navigate transmedicalist history that overlaps with her story, and to show that Arcee’s trans iterations are directly part of the legacy of G1 Arcee overall.

somewhat amusing to us that our largest nonfiction contribution to trans theory and most known released contribution is a literary analysis of the fiction that sits in that in-between space between academic and a blog article. sounds about right for a burnt out on formal academia grad dropout undergrad xeno polygender transfemme plural system who was exhausted at trying to elucidate xenogender stuff to discuss alien and alien robot stuff academically when there was very little to cite at the time that was comprehensive in that regard that was easy to find, and was scared out of her grad degree (we'll just say it historically has to do with a particular branch of the civil service but also is useful in NGOs *sigh*) due the lack of resources to know of any sort of guaranteed transfemme friendly field study and career therein (which xey would only learn about years afterwards) while dealing with spironolactone brain fog. Years later after dealing with a lot of structural and interpersonal transmisogyny xey is only a few years off from thirty years old (which for someone partially way off the binary and plural, and even just for trans women on average thanks to the imperial patriarchy is pretty old in the 21st century), with most of her efforts xey cares about after academia being informal community things. we are, even with what we've been through, very happy, because we know ourselves more than we ever expected to and continue to learn and reaffirm more as life goes on, and have had endearing friendships, love, and solidarity along the way. Because we know that love by metaethical definition loves all genders and beyond and all entities therein, that love has never forgotten those who have come and gone. That aesthetic assemblage iteration contextualized and expansiveness therein is part of the sapient condition, and thus can never be removed from life without ending sapient life itself, and even then the building blocks are there in other lifeforms if not actual comparable experiences. Because we know so much more about the history of gender than we did when we started clawing after it as a fearful, lonely, relentlessly curious and passionate kid more than twenty years ago, to know enough that so many more gender terms/experiences of individual and collective identity along gender equal expansive societies have been part of human-bodied history than we will ever know. How liberating it is to know that no one person, even if we had had no intergenerational severance of history from genocide and oppression, could ever claim to know all there is to know about gender, aesthetic assemblage, and transformation.

that we have had the honor of being able to share a homage to that and to xenogender stuff, plurality, women, transfemmes, and sapphism in particular through our fiction writing with dreams of a better world and the beauty of mechanoid sapience, and to show that there is no end to history.

what a beautiful cosmos it is, to know that this is just one of many vastly variations of lived, sapient, trans, and transfemme joy, that we travel from dust to dust on this blue green marble that is part of a truly astronomically massive dance billions of years old past the scale of galactic strands and as small as subatomic particles. That so many people come together across walks of life to oppose empires and hierarchies, to care autonomously, time after time.

Our aesthetic assemblage is our bedrock by which with wisdoms we've gathered in our life we plow onwards in life. That's just how we are. language is just vibes, yes. but those vibes have meaning. cognizance of history matters. for our original fiction, when we make new words, we are careful to make sure they aren't slurs or tripping over words in other languages. Not that we think that when our very trans original fiction releases there's much chance of words in it erasing anything if they did, but it's about the principle of the thing, of committing to a world larger than oneself, where all selves have inherent worth alive and therein there is a necessity to us being able to live autonomously with oppression, that there therefore is a need to oppose the reactionary, the bioessentialist, hierarchy itself.

if you need something closer to gender contexts humans tend to engage in please at least read the Trans Woman Manifesto of Whipping Girl by Julia Serano, and yeah we didn't address plurality much in this so if you are unfamiliar with that and multiplicity this is a good place to start.

oh and if you hadn't guessed it we're collectivist anarchists (and cosmopolitanist pluralist defensive pacifists as well)

At the transgender taxonomy store looking for some new terminology

Ask if it's for identity microlabelling or analysis of material conditions

They don't understand

Show diagram expanding on what is identity microlabelling and what is material analysis

"It's a valid taxonomy"

Check the taxonomy

It's used ambiguously

[ashcroft-writes]

Cad Bane and Book of Boba Fett Episode 7 (Finale)

So, Episode 7, huh? The results are in: Cad Bane fans have opinions! Let's talk about all... uhhh... that! Spoilers below the cut.

So did Bane's luck finally run out after his run as one of the greatest bounty hunter villains in Star Wars? Is he actually, for reals, finally dead in canon???

Well, I mean, first off, that's up to you. It's Star Wars! In fanon and fan theory, characters are only as gone as you want them to be. But in more concrete, real-world example terms:

1. The reaction I'm seeing online is honestly disappointment that Bane might be dead, or question marks to the tune of, "maybe... but...???" This isn't just in insular Bane fan circles; I'm seeing it everywhere in the mainstream commentary. Fact is, he's been one of the most anticipated characters to turn up in live action, and is widely enjoyed by the community. People don't seem quite ready to let him go. Given Star Wars' propensity to have FAR more clearly dead characters survive when they are fan favorites, I wouldn't underestimate how much that means. To back this up, here's an excerpt right out of freaking Variety (article by Adam B. Vary):

"Is Cad Bane alive?

I mean, of course he is, right? This isn’t that complicated. Cad Bane (voiced by Corey Burton and performed by Dorian Kingi) was, by many parsecs, the most compelling villain on “Boba Fett” this season. After years as a standout animated character on “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” it makes little sense to kill him off after so little screen time as a live-action character. If Boba Fett can climb out of a sarlacc pit, then Cad Bade [sic] can crawl inside a bacta tank and mend that wound. (As a side note: Why didn’t Fett just yank out one of Bane’s breathing tubes? They’re right there!)"

2. This is going to sound a little cynical, but I gotta say, Bane's toys (seem) to be selling quite well—and this was before he appeared in either this show or the Bad Batch. Back in January 2021, they released him as a Black Series figure, and it was sold out at every official US vendor within the first few hours or so of it going live. The only way I've seen to get one here since is the marked-up ones on eBay. There's also been a notably steady influx of Bane trading cards in the Topps digital Star Wars card app. This matters. Merch is why Boba Fett suddenly didn't die in the sarlacc pit and was spun off into the iconic character people know him as now. Now, with Fett occupying that space, I doubt the writers are about to do all THAT for Bane, but tossing one of the most popular hunters in the Star Wars character stable honestly doesn't serve any business narrative particularly well either.

3. Him being killed also isn't much of a grand fulfillment of anyone's plot arcs. There's references to the unused scripts (which many viewers don't even know about, mind you,) but no particularly satisfying way to definitively end him, even for benefiting Boba's arc, I believe. That's what I felt regarding all the hullabaloo about him possibly being dead from their showdown once before, and I feel the same now.

So, despite earning himself a stabbin', I do think there is a lot of space for him to turn up again. Cad Bane has survived an awful lot, and Star Wars characters in general have survived FAR more than all this. As long as there are stories to tell, it'll keep on.

Finally, most importantly, I tend to treat Star Wars as license to do whatever I want, lol. In my own writing universe... well, no spoilers, of course, but... ;)

[fallstreakfeathers]

[More] Obey Me Headcanons

[ I didn’t edit this at all, really, but I have around 30 headcanons so far that I’m using for my fic and would like several backups- so, I’m posting it here.) 

The ‘Devildom’ is a planet that is larger than ours. ‘Hell’ refers to a part of each territory the Avatar’s govern that is reserved for retaining and torturing human souls. These areas are actually quite small compared to the rest of the land. Each environment is unique, with its own native flora, fauna, land formations, climates, and dangers.

The Devildom resides on a tall, mountain-ringed plateau that towers over the lands around it. It is not the tallest point in the demon world.

Demons have elemental affinities that also define certain weaknesses. A demon that’s used to the heat and gasses of flowing magma would have difficulties in the colder parts of the world, or fighting against a demon or creature who uses a lot of freezing attacks.

There are many places in their realm that even Demons refrain from going, or simply cannot. One such area is a vast frozen land in the far northeast that drops to temperatures low enough that even demons that are developed for icy area’s cannot survive without magical assistance. However, this also makes the area a great place for criminals and the exiled to live should they be able to fight the cold. Demons and such that failed to pass the test of the cold are frequently found encased in the tall, pointed ice spires that jut from the ground- trapped in an unending preservation until the end of days.

There’s a massive crater in one part of the world, in the land Mammon governs, that’s referred to as the ‘Fear Pit’. It’s the aftermath of a massive battle between two demons, and the entire area is cursed with illusions that prey on your fears. It gets worse the closer you are to the bottom. Demons occasionally travel to test their own resolve, though few ever make it to the center- usually opting to turn back before their fear drives them mad.

Beelzebub dislikes thunder because it sounds similar to some sounds he heard in the war

Demon’s are immortal only in that time cannot destroy them, They can still die from wounds and even disease.

Not all demons can speak human languages. There’s plenty in the Devildom/Hell who’ve never set foot in the human realm and have never bothered to learn the realms languages.

On that note, there are more than a few specific demonic dialects spoken in the devildom. The Avatars and most high nobility are required to be fluent in the most common 3 demonic languages.

Demons who came to the Devildom by falling from the Celestial Realm are not considered ‘true demons’, and many have challenged the Avatars solely because of their origins

Demons may have pacts with multiple humans. If a demon who has more than one pact is ordered to do something by multiple pact holders, the demon will obey whoever has the strongest bond with them OR the orders will cancel each other out.

Many species found in the Devildom/Hell and the Celestial Realm are not exclusive to one or the other- dragons and unicorns are found in both, for example, but with different traits and personalities. Dragons in the Devildom are ugly things that spit an acidic venom, while those in the Celestial Realm are sleek and able to shoot blasts of fire from their throats. Some creatures remain the same in each realm, but are referred to by different names. Many mythic creatures from every human culture can be found in both the Devildom and Celestial realm

Though their human forms look rather perfect, everyone who fought in the Celestial War bears a great number of physical scars, some of which affect their human guise as well

Belphegor's right eye is completely blind in all his forms. He tends to hide it in his human appearance because it’s sometimes seen as a weakness by other demons who might try to challenge him. He has the most trouble with demon’s attempting to fight him because he’s often seen as the weakest Avatar due to his sleeping habits and general outward appearance. This is, of course, a massive mistake.

Belphegor frequently wraps his tail around himself (like a hug) for comfort- particularly when he’s alone

Belphegor’s horseshoe was broken during a fight with a demon who wanted to challenge his title/status.

Demons don't usually bury their dead because many simply disappear upon death. How they disappear depends on their primary sin (Wrath erupts in a blast of fire)

Leviathan changes the order of the smiley pins on his clothes depending on his mood (green for happy/content, yellow for neutral, red for angry/upset)

Satan dislikes chocolate

Demons are practically infertile. Children born naturally (human standard) are extremely rare. As such, all demon children are cherished and protected by modern demonic societies as a whole, and intending to harm one is punished harshly.

Lucifer may have birthed Satan from rage, but a demon can create another being from any emotion so long as it’s powerful enough (love, envy, etc). This is much more common than the physical way of creating children. The offspring will generally exhibit whatever emotion spawned them and will behave accordingly to whoever the emotion was directed at. After their birth, they grow very fast until they appear 10-15 years old, and their growth slows immensely.

A specific ritual is required for a demon( or angel) and human to crossbreed with each other, as they are completely different species. It would be like trying to cross a dog with a giraffe. These births are always extremely dangerous for the human mother. There are a few exceptions to this, such as Incubi/Succubi but successful crossbreeding is still extremely rare.

The older a demon is, the more horrific their true forms are. Anyone who has existed before the Celestial War is referred to as an ‘Ancient/Old World’ demon. Those born after and those who fell are considered ‘New Age/Modern’ demons. There are a handful of creatures referred to as ‘Primordials’. These beings are neither demons nor angels, but are immensely powerful and are very secretive. Not much is known about any of them, and they rarely show themselves. They also rarely partake in the social/political conflicts of the three realms. They did not have a presence in the Celestial War.

These titles have no bearing on how civilised someone may be.

There are technically four realms known. The Celestial, Devildom, and Human realms are commonly spoken about but the fourth realm is known as ‘Oblivion’ and isn’t so much a world as it is multitudes of platforms floating throughout a nebula. It’s useless overall but is used as a prison and punishment for the worst of demonkind. Few have ever made it out, but those that have come back a blubbering, maddened shell of who they were. Diavolo and Barbatos both are capable of opening a portal to it.

All demons/Fallen have the capability to return to a monstrous form, but Ancient demons have a particularly difficult time making themselves look human again (some Ancient’s are incapable of returning at all). New Age demons are able to transform much more freely, but if the transformation is brought on by strong negative emotion (rage, fear, or a physical reaction such as pain), it takes much longer to change back

The final stage of demonic courtship involves seeing each other's truest self. This display is a form of trust in the highest regard, the goal being total acceptance of each other. It should never be taken lightly. Not every couple goes through this, but those that do form a deeply personal and permanent bond.

A demon in full form is rare outside battle, though some choose to remain in their appearance as a way of showing off.

Some demons (nobility and such) have several forms outside of their human/humanoid guises

Demons are compelled to chew on things. There are several businesses specializing in ‘demon chew toys’. Gnawing on these can release both stress and anxiety and also helps maintain healthy teeth.

Demons shed their horns, scales, teeth and fur, and will often use these shed materials in their own clothing, jewelry, and other such items. Shedding season differs for every demon- it happens to some every half year, year, couple years, or even centuries. Being given an item made from a demon’s shed is considered a personal gift

Demons can tell the basic emotional state of any human they have a pact with. Whether they react to it or care is another story.

Despite the common opinion that the Devildom doesn’t have a sun, the sky brightens every 3 human world days thanks to the passing of a dwarf star. However, it would be a mistake to believe that the demon world is devoid of light without it! There are plenty of natural light sources that provide the lands with a way to see (for those without night vision), such as glowing crystals and mushrooms, magma, etc.

The Devildom’s planet’s core burns hotter than ours, which counteracts how cold it would be otherwise (though it’s still quite chilly in many parts of the planet)

When Diavolo ordered that no human be harmed in the Devildom again, he also banned all media portraying humans as prey. These books, videos, and movies are now sold on the black markets and hoarded by those who disagree with Diavolo