#and choose to be a system for funsies

[masculinity-is-open-source]

I don't personally like endos (that deliberately chose to be a system one day cause systems r cool!) but god this is disgusting. I just prefer to leave them and not interact with them most times, and I think that should be the standard. Don't fucking do this? don't build a community on hating other people whom you don't like. thats why the wizard was a bad guy in wicked??? hello? but still, it's just a horrible thing to do to anyone. the dislike of a group of people shouldn't be this strong. it shouldn't control your actions, your thoughts, to this degree at the very least. grow up.

if you ever wonder why I don't interact with the traumagenic community as a traumagenic system this is why

[flowersforthemachines]

Some facts about Neve (and Tevinter) gathered from the banters

I went through all companion banters on DanaDuchy's channel after playing the game to write down all facts about companions/the world that I haven't seen brought up anywhere in the game as a writing reference (and for funsies).

Note: This list may not be exhaustive. I might have missed some something or didn't write it down because I considered it common knowledge. If you have anything to add, please DM me or send an ask! (do specify what banter the information is coming from, though)

Note 2: Posts from this series (mostly) don't include information from banters specific to quests or between companions and faction members. I plan to do another playthrough to capture more of those and will add any relevant info to the character posts.

Other characters' posts: Bellara, Davrin, Harding, Lucanis, Emmrich, Taash. I'm also planning a post about just the Lighthouse some time later

About Neve:

General:

Neve isn’t rich, and her best coat is a gift from a grateful tailor after she saved his warehouse from an arsonist

Neve’s coat is woven with enchantments to resist fire and lighting 

Neve has never done blood magic. She is against it on principle and judges those who use it 

Neve doesn’t seem to like entertaining extreme hypotheticals since she reacts to Harding���s questions like “What would you take with you to a deserted island?” with asking why she would end up in such situations in the first place 

Neve wouldn’t want gems on her leg, because she thinks they would get stolen within a day of working in Minrathous, and she generally prefers to keep a low profile while on the job

However, she still considers saving up for a new, fancier leg to have more fashion choices. She likes Taash’s idea of getting a ruby inlay for it

Neve never visited Rivain before joining the Veilguard, though she now finds its beaches charming

Ever since she was a baby, Neve was stubborn and asked too many questions (and hated unanswered questions as well)

Neve likes Qunari food but thinks it’s very spicy

Neve likes seafood 

Neve doesn't drink tea

Neve isn’t really close with her family

Neve once tried to use a wisp-repelling artefact the Veil Jumpers found to get rid of the wisps in her room, but it only attracted wisps from the entire Lighthouse

Neve isn’t interested in exploring the mysteries of the Lighthouse because she has enough mysteries on this side of the Veil

(If Rook chooses to save Minrathous) Neve sends civil engineers to assist in Treviso 

On work: 

Neve didn’t want to be a detective when she was a child (not as if in she didn’t like the idea, she just didn’t consider it), though she didn’t have any dream career either 

Neve got into detective work by picking up odd jobs and building a reputation of being good at finding things. Eventually, she was hired to find someone’s brother, a case nobody else wanted to pick up, and her career took off 

Neve agrees that she is cynical and married to her job, but doesn’t consider herself ‘serious’  

Neve allegedly has a system for sorting her papers (Emmrich and Rana are sceptical about its existence) 

(If Neve becomes Dock Town's protector) Elek is implied to visit the Lighthouse again multiple times. Taash mentions seeing him poking around the library. Neve explained that he thought he could grab some fade-touched items to sell, and told him to run the plan by the Caretaker (one would think they did not approve)

On life in Minrathous: 

Neve was born and raised in Minrathous

Neve has never been inside the Archon’s Palace

(If Neve chooses to become Dock Town’s inspiration) Neve doesn’t regret letting Aelia live because she got information on Venatori out of her, and her death wouldn’t change the past

(If Neve chooses to become Dock Town’s inspiration) Neve gets to take a break for once in her life because Rana keeping an eye on the Dock Town actually helps

(If Neve chooses to become Dock Town’s inspiration) People gossip about Neve and Rana after they start their agency :)

Neve describes the rain of Minrathous as "cold fingers down your neck", but she misses it now that she's away from the city. The sound helps her fall asleep 

Neve’s entire apartment could fit inside villa Dellamorte’s dining room 

One of Tevinter papers referred to Neve as "Dock Town dirt-chaser," and to Emmrich as "sinister foreign necromancer”

A Tevinter paper called The Minrathous Herald once wrote that Neve should be exiled. The same paper called Shadow Dragons “traitors to the Empire” 

Neve never runs out of ink because she's on good terms with Minrathous ink sellers 

There is however one banter where she runs out of ink (I think it was with Davrin). Make of that what you will. 

On the Shadow Dragons: 

Neve didn't know Dorian personally until she joined the Shadow Dragons

Neve figured out the Viper's identity even before joining the Dragons. Her not revealing it to the public is one of the reasons he recruited her

Tarquin calls Neve a pain in the ass 

Relationships with companions: 

Neve calls Manfred ‘Fred’ (he seems to like that)

Manfred learns to say Neve's name (likely only happens if you revive him at the Necropolis, though I am not sure)

Neve introduces Lucanis to a spice shop in Dock Town

Harding describes Neve’s tastes in coffee as “made of gutter water filtered through an old sock”

Lucanis once showed Neve’s coffee to Viago. He found it “unsettling” 

Davrin thinks drinking Neve's coffee is worse than the Joining

Neve spoils Assan (but denies that accusation)

Neve is rather quick to consider questioning corpses with Emmrich’s help for her cases 

Neve is very apprehensive about lichdom and the perspective of Emmrich eventually turning evil (just like Emmrich isn't thrilled about her taking over the Threads for similar reasons)

Lucanis is concerned about Neve taking over the Threads. Mainly, about how much they are paying her

Neve has multiple banters with Taash discussing her relationship with Lucanis. Taash initially thinks of it as some sort of predator-prey dynamic, but Neve says she is not into that and explains that they are taking it slow and cautious. They both went through a lot of pain in their lines, which they tend not to show for different reasons

Neve's relationship with Lucanis is also more than she usually looks for with people

Neve takes Taash to Hal’s fish fry stand. Taash loved it :)

Taash offers Neve help on ladders in case she may need it/it gets stuck on steps due to being hook-shaped, mentioning they knew a Lord of Fortune who lost a hand and whose shoulders hurt while climbing because of it. Neve seems to appreciate the gesture, even though she can handle herself

Neve thinks Taash is nice to work with, offering help without being overbearing like some people are

Neve asks Taash to teach her Gold Thief (a Lord of Fortune dice game), so she can play it with the Shadow Dragons, and then subsequently gets beaten by the Viper

On Tevinter: 

Fashion is important in Tevinter because a good outfit lets people know you are under the protection of someone powerful

There aren’t many mages in Docktown, which is one of the reasons the government doesn’t care about it 

The big red cat near Halos’s stand is named Ferdinand

Stains on clothes can be cleaned with magic

You can get pineapples anywhere in Minrathous 

Neve calls the magic used for the lights in Minrathous a party trick, but Emmrich considers it a high-level enchantment because of its quality and duration

Tevinter doesn’t regulate the charms sold in the market (which is why there are a lot of scammers who sell fakes) 

[froggerland]

I made a pattern for the terror gloves!!

Please note I'm not a professional and this is just for funsies, sorry for my clunky english but knitting terminology is a whole other beast lmao

I hope you can make some sense of this

Full tutorial under the cut

Terror Gloves Tutorial

Disclaimer: I’m not a professional and I’ve never written a knitting pattern before, I just made this up as I went tbh, basing it on a german tutorial I used for regular fingerless gloves I had made a couple of times already, the fingers I made up on my own. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to make another pair to document the process for you as of right now, so you’ll have to work off of the pattern alone. Sorry for all the weird terminology, translating german knitting vocab to english fried my brain real good lads.

 I’d say this is a beginner to intermediate level project, you should know how to purl and knit and how to make left leaning and right leaning increases. For the latter one I’ve linked a tutorial on YouTube at the part where it comes up in the pattern.

All that being said: I hope you enjoy making these gloves! Feel free to @ me on tumblr if you’d like to show them off :D

What you need:

- Yarn that requires you to use size 4 needles (3,5mm in the german/european system, the UK doesn’t carry the equivalent of this size for some reason, so use a size 10 or 9 depending on how tight you’re knitting); the color is obviously up to you, I used a grey close to the one most of the boys are sporting. I also used a 100% wool yarn, but I know those can be pricy so feel to use whatever is available to you :) I used about 50g, maybe a little more for my pair

-> Please note that I didn’t make a test swatch since I’ve used the base pattern of these gloves before and know that this size of needle works for me. I’d say I my tension when knitting is normal – tight so if you knit more loosely maybe choose smaller needles

- Size 4 double pointed needles (3,5 german/european, 10/9 UK)

- Safety pins

- Darning needle to weave in the ends

- Scissors

Tutorial:

- Cast on 11 stitches on four of your five double pointed needles

-> If you have smaller hands you might need to start with 10 instead of 11 stiches on each needle

- Join in the round and start the pattern for the ribbing that will make the glove a little tighter around your wrist, which means purl 2, knit 2, until the end of the row

- Repeat the purl – knit pattern for 20 rows

- Knit 10 regular rounds

- Now for the thumb: Knit 1, pick up 1 new stitch (it doesn’t matter if it’s left or right leaning), knit 1, place a safety pins on the needle behind that stitch so you can keep track of your increase section (tutorial for increases)

- Knit the rest of the round normally, as well as the round that follows

- Knit 1, make 1 left leaning increase, knit 1, make 1 right leaning increase, knit 1, slide the safety pin over

- Knit the rest of the round normally, as well as the round that follows; from now on the pattern will be one row with increases, one row without increases

- So in the next round with increases you will knit 2, make 1 left leaning increase, knit 1, make 1 right leaning increase, knit 2, slide the safety pin over

- Continue with this for 14 rounds (7 with and 7 without increases) until you have 15 stitches in the section framed by the safety pin

-> If you have small hands you might need to stop before reaching 14 rounds, your work should just about cover the first bone (going upward from the base) in your thumb. Maybe stop at 10 or 12 rounds, make sure you end on one without any increases

- After your last “no increases” round, before you start with the next round put the 15 stitches for the thumb on hold by sliding 7 of the stitches onto one safety pin, the other 8 onto another; you will not continue to work with these stitches (for now)

- Continue like normal and start knitting the rest of the stitches on the needle, making sure to join tightly to avoid a gap and finish the round

- Knit 11 regular rounds or until you reach the base of your pinky finger; you should have 42 stitches on all of your four needles right now

- We will start by knitting the pinky finger: For this knit normal until you’re at the second needle and have 5 stitches left on it

- Put all but 10 stitches (the ones on the second needle and the first 5 on the third needle) on hold by placing them ideally on two big safety pins or several smaller ones

- Knit normally until you reach the end of the second needle; here you will take a third needle and pick up 2 more stitches, one from the side the second needle is on, one from the side the first needle is on, so ideally, you’re keeping the gap that’s going to form between the fingers as small as possible

-> If you have small hands, you might only have to pick up 1 stitch or none at all; if you find that that’s the case split the 10 stitches onto three needles so they’re easier to work with and continue as written down below

- This was the first round; knit 9 more or until your work almost reaches the second bone in your pinky finger or just until you decide that it’s enough (feel free to try the gloves on as you go!), cast off and cut the yarn

- For the ring finger, pick up 10 stitches from the ones you put on hold, once again two needles with 5 stitches

- Join the yarn in the same place you started with the pinky finger

- Knit the first needle, then pick up 2 stitches on a new needle as I described it for the pinky finger

- Knit the 5 stitches on the second needle, then use yet another needle to once again pick up 2 stitches. You now have 14 stitches on 4 needles

-> If you have small hands, you might only have to pick up 1 stitch per new needle or just one stitch on one new needle

- Knit 14 more rows like this or until your work almost reaches the second bone in your ring finger or once again until you decide that it’s enough, cast off and cut the yarn

- The middle finger works exactly the same: Pick up 10 stitches from the safety pins, pick up 4 new stitches on two new needles, knit 15 rounds or however many, cast off and cut the yarn

- For the pointer finger you should have 12 stitches left since we started off with 42 in total (30 already “used” leaves 12) which means we only need to pick up 2 new stitches on one new needle (whether you pick them up on the side facing the thumb or the one facing the other fingers is up to you; I picked the one facing the thumb but picking the other one will probably look better)

-> If you have small hands, you might only have to pick up 1 stitch or none at all

- Knit 14 rounds or however many, cast off and cut the yarn

- Now to finish off the thumb: Put the stitches back onto your needles, 7 on one needle, 8 on another; now taking up a third needle slide the last stitch on the second needle onto it, pick up 2 new stiches around the base to make sure there’s minimal gaping, then pick up the first stitch on the first needle. You should now have a total of 17 stitches, split on three needles (6, 7 and 4 stitches) forming a triangle

- For the first round, join the yarn into the first stitch on the first needle; knit normally until you reach the third needle: Here you knit the first 2 and the last 2 stitches together, leaving you with 2 stitches on that needle

- Repeat this for the next round and knit the remaining 2 stitches on the third needle together, leaving you with 1 stitch on that needle (it can be finicky handling this third needle but it makes working the rounds a lot easier)

- Knit 5 rounds or until your work reaches over the second bone in your thumb, cast off and cut the yarn

- Weave in the ends; you might have to go back in with extra yarn if the holes between the fingers are too big for your liking

Yay!!! You finished it, congrats!! :D

[xaeyrnofnbe]

animal xenofiction is so fun bc i can just play with my imaginary animal dolls and have a grand old time and i only have to include the real-world baggage that i actually WANT included. everything else can be ignored and disregarded it's awesome. dragons don't have to deal with the school system. wolves don't worry about multiple thousands of years worth of cultural development and intricacies in their society. cats don't have an economy. but i can make them transgender and choose whether or not i want that to have the same implications as it does irl or if it's just for funsies

[dootznbootz]

Literally just found out about you today and I'm already follow in you. As fellow tele-GONE-y hater, I absolutely stan with all the hate we have for that stupid fan fiction. Circe used to be one of my favorite books, I still think the writing is good. But when you look at the original source material? Yikes- I don't get why Miller chose CIRCE out of everyone. If she wanted to write a feministic story that's fine. But why chose a female character whom you have to make better and corrupt all the other characters in the source material so that Circe is more sympathetic? Why couldn't she write a TRUE feministic story about some other character?? I personally would've loved a story about Nausikaa. Which would make more sense considering she is a character who is often forgotten in most retellings of the Odyssey.

Circe isn't a sympathetic character, she was never supposed to be one. To make her sympathetic is to make everyone around her terrible. I'm so angry when people use this book for insight on Circe character because it is so different to actual Circe.

I'm also so very salty about what she did to my boy Hermes because what.

Thank you so much!!! Sorry this took a while to answer! Thankfully most folks are not a fan of the Tele-GONE-y either :'D it's mostly the "well, actually" folks who talk about it. >:(

"If she wanted to write a feministic story that's fine. But why choose a female character whom you have to make better and corrupt all the other characters in the source material so that Circe is more sympathetic?"

This right here, is exactly how I feel with so many of these "feminist retellings". Feminism is about lifting each other up. If you have to make everybody else "worse" to make your main character better, then...that's just not good storytelling.

This goes along with the whole "all men are bad no matter what" that happens all the time and I hate it so much. Even if the system may be sexist, that does not mean that every single male agrees with it.

You put everything into words well but I like to ramble so Ima say shit too but it's basically the same thing lol

With the whole "every horrible thing Circe has done is done fo a reason. she's defending herself, she was wronged, men are so evil uwu" is just fucking lazy and SUCKS. >:( LET WOMEN BE FLAWED, COWARDS!

I actually really love Odyssey Circe as a character. She's morally gray and does whatever she wants as a goddess. Yes, she terrifies Odysseus but she's COMPLEX. Why does she need a reason to turn men into pigs? Why can't she just do it "for funsies"?

I think it takes away from her as a goddess to always have a reason for her to do the things she does, you know? Immortals are fickle and don't have the same morals as mortals. I think Miller changed so much as "to have a morally gray protagonist?? No, that's wrong!" which BORING!!!!!!!

I fucking love Penelope. But I still have her a lil mean and even a bit snooty sometimes as her and Odysseus are like-minded. Hubris would be her downfall as well. She is petty and holds grudges like no other. because she's a PERSON. Not "bland empowerment in a can for everyone to consume". Ofc, she has her wonderful qualities like her intelligence, devotion, determination, and yes, she does have her kind moments (she goes 0 to 100% real quick. She takes the "Do no harm, Take no shit" phrase to the extremes. lol)

But honestly? I think there's a real problem in writing in many YA books and especially in fandom where people treat female characters as goddesses (which yes, understandable) but then they can't...make her human you know? Almost like they cannot see any of the woman's flaws or even WANT her to have flaws because "woman doing a bad thing that isn't done 'cutely' ("endearingly clumsy", "quirky chatterbox", etc. traits that are usually not the greatest are "cute" now simply because she's a woman. Maybe a love interest sees her that way but those traits would probably be considered annoying to many others.) regardless is antifeminist"

And even then, so many things that I want to write about are what many would consider feminist when...She's just existing. And I'm getting silly with it. Penelope is athletic and a naiad (75% but you know. with her parentage) but I don't write her that way TO make it feminist. I'm not doing it for that. I just like tiny but mighty wife ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't plan to write other women as "lesser" for not being athletic for example. Anticlea doesn't understand why Penelope likes doing that stuff but she's still supportive and they enjoy weaving together. I am NEVER putting down another female character for not being "girlboss" enough.

I really hate that this book has made people constantly bring up the Tele-GONE-y AND Shittalking all of them. I don't like looking at retellings and seeing "a new feminist take". Usually goes against the entire story to begin with. Often portraying good male characters in the original as "bad and horrible".

Also no hate to those that enjoy Circe the Book, but to me, it sounds like trauma porn. adding rapes that were never there, making the victim of the situation the PERPATRATOR because, clearly, a man cannot be a victim. I heard about her hating being a mom despite her literally having servants and she's a GODDESS in the Odyssey. She could literally have a nanny/nurse if she wanted.

Fun fact: I was watching a video essay about villainesses and how to write them well and as soon as it started to talk about historical villainesses and how Circe was a "femme fatale", I exited the video. She's an "antagonist", she lets them stay there but she's still...Not GOOD. To be a femme fatale means to usually seduce. She does not seduce Odysseus. He was literally commanded to by Hermes and her.

[hello-railou]

Love Is in the AI

(2457 words) by railou Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Dungeon Crawler Carl Series - Matt Dinniman Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Carl/System AI (Dungeon Crawler Carl), Carl & Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk

Characters: Carl (Dungeon Crawler Carl), Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk, Mordecai (Dungeon Crawler Carl), System AI (Dungeon Crawler Carl)

Additional Tags: this one is pretty silly, and a bit OOC, Canon Compliant, Kinda. this is just for funsies, One-Sided Relationship, Unhealthy Relationships, Princess Donut is a Romance Connoisseur, Don't Question Her, Spoilers up to book 4: The Gate of the Feral Gods

Series: Part 3 of DCC Oneshots

Summary:

When the love songs started on the fourth floor, I began to lose patience. Every last one of my goddamn alarm traps played a different popular, cheesy love song as the track. After blasting “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis Presley and “Kiss From a Rose” by Seal back-to-back, I was starting to think the trap modules didn’t choose just any random songs from the US Billboard hot 100, but that the songs were instead chosen by the AI just to mess with me. “Fucking hell”, I swore out loud when one of the traps I was certain I had chosen a different song for, started blasting “I Got You Babe” by Sonny & Cher. “There’s just no way.” “I like this song”, Donut commented. “Not as good as ‘Wonderwall’, though.”

The AI tries to court Carl. Carl, on the other hand, is not very impressed.

[lampiche]

Thoughts on the first episode of the Ave Mujica anime

Here I am, finally putting my Avemuji thoughts in a proper written post! I really needed to get this out of my system before I lost the energy to do so. Before watching the episode, I made a bingo to try and guess what things would happen, so I'll be centering my comments around it. I'll most likely do the same for the next episodes :D

For now I'm keeping everything under the cut just in case, and I'll do the same for the posts about the other episodes :)

So, here's the original bingo:

Here is the updated version of the bingo after watching the episode :]

Before starting, I just wanna say that anything I didn't get will be put on the bingo for episode 2, while all the thing that I got or that were proven wrong will be replaced. Also the green means that I got a case right and the orange means that I got part of it right.

Starting off with "Starts with the Crychic breakup scene from Sakiko's pov"

So. I put this because I expected the beginning of the Ave Mujica anime to mirror the beginning of the MyGo anime. Except it didn't. Instead the anime starts some time after Ave Mujica's debut, and I choose to believe that the irl Avemuji lives happened in the Bandori universe, setting us after Ave Mujica's fourth live show.

Other than that, I was surprised that Sakiko's backstory was completely explored in the first episode, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. It seems to align with her desire to "forget everything", even though it will probably come back to bite her in the ass. It seems that what matters is not really the circumstances of her past, but rather how they will affect her future. I do wanna say though, that I felt like the pacing of the episode was a little too quick. I get that they wanted to fit all of Sakiko's backstory in, but I think they should have done the episode a little longer, because Sakiko's backstory came pretty suddenly and it barely gave me any time to register it before moving on to something else.

I don't have much to say for the second one ("Flashback to explain Sakiko's sudden change") because it ties in with the first and it was pretty obvious. I'm excited to see what the backstories of the other girls are though.

Now onto the third point, "Sakiko's mother k/lled herself/cheated which broke her father and caused him to become an alcoholic and make the family go bankrupt"

I'm mostly including it because I guessed that Sakiko's mother d/ed. To be honest, this was a theory of mine ever since the end of the MyGo anime, but I actually got the timeline wrong. I thought that her mother dy/ng was what caused her to quit Crychic, but she actually created Crychic to deal with her grief and move on. Also her dad became an alcoholic after being bankrupt. There is still a faint possibility of su/cide because we don't know the causes of her mother's d/ath, but a background character says "She held on long enough..." about Sakiko's mother which makes me think that she could have been battling an illness instead.

And the situation between Sakiko and her dad is so heartbreaking... That moment when he tells her to leave hurt so much, because she sacrificed everything for him, she did everything to support them both and she always believed in him, but in the end it's that same resilience that made him resent her. It's sad that within all of his grief, Sakiko's father couldn't help but despise how Sakiko seemed to be "moving on", even though she did it all for them both.

Next, "Mutsumi says more than a word to anyone other than Sakiko"

I actually added this for funsies, but I'm glad that I got it so early in the episode! The sentence in question is "Thank you for your time.", said at 5:24 :)

"Uika x Sakiko dialogue/scenes"

"My dream of being with you forever came true." I love lesbians...

And finally, "Nyamu and Sakiko arguing :)"

This was another one that I expected to see, but by the end of the episode I was quite confused by Nyamu's animosity towards Sakiko.

I get that she doesn't want to be in Ave Mujica if it doesn't bring in clout for her, but she does her very best to push all of Sakiko's buttons. Even though Sakiko has an obvious desire for control and Nyamu wants to do things her own way, I feel like there's more meaning behind Nyamu's behaviour...

I wonder if she identifies with Sakiko to some degree (wanting to be in control of everything about her own life, wanting to give a perfect image of herself) and so loathes her? Or maybe, on the other end of the chart, Sakiko represents everything she despises (controlling, influential, "perfect" girl)? Anyway, I'm excited to learn more about Nyamu later on!

Thanks for reading all of this and see you next time! :D

[sephirthoughts]

K for the ship ask game, please: What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

Thank you for the ask, anon! 🖤

In any video game, Majima Goro, hands down. Best character development ever. I have ugly-cried many times over Yakuza Zero. I love Kiryu but his arc is nothing compared to Majima's. I'm a sucker for beaten dog turns into a big bad wolf tropes. He goes from eager kid, to beaten dog, to disillusioned young man, to the scariest motherfucker on the planet, all through personal pain and sacrifice. He seems to have lost his mind later, but it becomes apparent through what he does rather than what he says, that despite his acting like a violent psychopath for funsies (and because that's his carefully cultivated public image), he is very clear minded, always loyal, never fails his promises, and retains his strong sense of honor and integrity.

If we're talking about FF7 specifically, I really like Tseng's arc. From joining the Turks as this gung-ho teenager who wanted to save the soldiers instead of the Shinra weaponry, then slowly getting hardened and sharpened by the brutal reality of his world, and yet retaining his personal sense of integrity and loyalty (seeing a theme here?), and having a very clear cut moral bottom line.

Not saying it's a benevolent one, just that it's a clear one. He will absolutely drop the Sector 7 plate potentially killing thousands, but he won't drop it on Aerith. Later, when Reno and Rude are dealing with the guilt over their actions, he tries to console them by giving them ways to excuse themselves (even though they're not having any of it).

The most outstanding example of his personal integrity is when Zack asks him to take care of Aerith and insists Tseng is the only one he can trust. Tseng does that deeply ironic laugh, which thick-skulled Zack doesn't understand, but to the viewer, is very intelligible. He laughs because Zack is unknowingly asking him to not only give up the girl he loves to Zack, but also to keep protecting her for when Zack returns.

Please note that I do NOT personally ship them, but I don't care if it's never made explicit, I am not six years old and subtext is a valid means of canonical storytelling. Tseng is very clearly in love with Aerith too. Zack doesn't know that, and naively leaves the girl he loves in the care of a man who also loves her. EXCEPT! it's not naive because that man is Tseng. Zack is his friend. He promised he'd take care of her for Zack, and he does. His integrity is his bottom line.

And he doesn't half-ass it or try to slide into her DMs in the proverbial sense. He keeps every one of those letters and genuinely intends to give them to Zack. He tries earnestly to find and save him, knowing Aerith loves Zack and not him, because he is loyal to his friend. Also BECAUSE he loves Aerith and she loves Zack. He loves her MORE than he wants to be with her, and getting Zack home safely to her is what will make her happy, even if it means that happiness is with another man.

And, perhaps most tellingly, he keeps his feelings to himself and never ever makes them HER PROBLEM. He doesn't seem to think Aerith will ever care for him, or that it would ever be possible for them to be together even if she did, but he constantly makes decisions to benefit her anyway, within the scope his loyalty to the Turks and Rufus allows. He doesn't technically break the rules but he bends them to the very extreme in her favor. He supports her relationship with the man she loves, and doesn't ask her to choose, or even to consider him, even a little bit. Which is…hoo boy. Basically qualifies him for sainthood, despite the laissez faire attitude toward mass murder.

Before anyone argues about how he took her to Shinra and gave her to Hojo, yes he did. He does a lot of bad-guy things. He's not a good-guy. But he operates within the bad-guy system in a very morally sound way. He did NOT put Aerith into danger by taking her to Shinra. He knew they had to keep her safe and unharmed in order for their plans to work, so he was assured of her safety there for the time being. FAR FAR safer than she'd have been in literally any other part of Midgar during that chaos. Then he went and made SURE her friends with a history of anti-Shinra terrorism and winning unwinnable fights know EXACTLY where to find her. When they come to do just that, there are no Turks around trying to stop them. Wonder why...

Oh shit this got so long!!! 😅 I could go on about Tseng all day but I'll end it here for the sake of everyone's sanity. But I absolutely WILL talk about him any time anyone wants to inbox me about it!

[mikaikaika]

hi hey just saw your tubbo tommy divorce post and tbh i don’t go here anymore so i am so so out of touch w the irl lore for the two of them. they got married?? kinda heard about that but i like apparently so many others didn’t realise it was for realises. but my question: why would tubbo lose half his wealth?? someone else commented tommy is refusing to sign the divorce papers?? are they actually about to beef in court or is it just like.. chill and just a legal proceeding?? and most importantly, is tubbo going to be responding to chat while streaming their divorce bc quite frankly i think he should do what the chat polls in regards to what he says, bc i think it would be funnier and quite frankly it can’t possibly get worse than this.

Hey love !! This got a bit long but I tried to cover mostly everything. They originally got married for a vlog and everyone assumed it's a bit. However not just us, but even both of them did not realize it was for realsies. Tubbo only realized when he was joking with Philza about marrying Fitmc in Vegas for a vlog and he made an offhand comment about Tubbo already being married to which Tubbo was like "yeah we signed the papers but its not like official or anything" which led to a very concerned Phil going "WHATTT" and then a spiral of questions, explanations (since they had an ordained minister aka Scott smajor ordaining the wedding) to all the way to today where they are wanting divorce.

Tommy is really refusing to sign the papers and Tubbo wanted to file an interjection ( kinda like a countersue (?) not sure) and in reply Tom wrote a wattpad fanfic (link on his twitter) to "show" their love.

We are pretty certain Tubbo will win because he was technically tricked to get married and most of their friend group is on Tubbo's side for funsies. As for Tubbo losing his wealth, not major clue about the reason but on today's stream he just made that comment then moved onto talking about needing a license to stream so we don't have much elaboration on why and how that would come to be.

As for the option of Tubbo responding to chat and us choosing in polls as to what he should - it would actually be super freakin funny to do this but I am not sure the UK legal system would be too fond but oh well. We were all convinced it was all a bit but its becoming more and more real so not sure. In the end all I have to say is, they are truly called clingy duo for a reason.

[nebbbula2]

EDIT: I have now seen Top Gun after realizing who their voice actors are, and now I'm not so certain about this ship. Also, I DIDN'T EVEN DRAW THEIR HAIR IN REGS.

Shout out to the crazy Anon who dropped a very... thought provoking fic with these two in the archives. I hope you don't mind me stealing the first names you headcanoned them with. They fit too well. If it helps, I did come up with their last name. Btw, I know you present Bravo as a chocolate man, but I'm choosing to present mine as a girl scout cookie man because I think it would be funnier. Just sayin'.

(more headcanons under the cut)

As humans, I don't know if they'd be able to have the callsigns "Echo" and "Bravo" due to them being letters in the phonetic alphabet, which could potentially cause confusion on frequency. However, I'd still like to entertain this idea for funsies.

Since callsigns have to be assigned by one's squadron, usually as a form of good-natured teasing, I think theirs stemmed from the other pilots clocking their close bond. They collectively thought Lmao, it's funny how in sync Bryce and Ethan are. We're never gonna let 'em forget it, and from that point forward, took every opportunity to rib them for things like having "extra tax benefits" or "custody" over an aircraft.

Choosing two letters from the same communication system represented their easy teamwork. Not only did "Bravo" and "Echo" correspond to the letters in their first name's, but "Bravo" also represented Bryce's tendency to praise people, and "Echo" represented Ethan's tendency to "echo back" things that Bryce said.

When the DADT policy was finally lifted, the Jolly Wrenches learned that their teases weren't far off from the truth. With clearance given by an impressive record, Bravo and Echo continued to serve together under the Navy's spousal joint service program after they officially got married.

[wizardteampod]

It's time for another round of Squire, Page, Banish!

We just wrapped up our Bloodmarked season on our latest episode! You can hear our conversation on the podcast but we want to know your thoughts too! So it's time for...

⚔️ Squire, Page, Banish ⚔️

We’re gonna give you a group of 3 people and you’re gonna tell us who you’d have as your Squire (bonded to you forever), Page (you vouch for them), and Banish (they can go expeditiously).

THE RULES

Try to choose a person for each designation! The questions are hard on purpose 😈

This is based on the events of Legendborn & Bloodmarked

**We recognize some of these folks would never join the Order's system, this is just for funsies lol

Lieges - Jonas, Samira, Gil

Cambions - Valec, Sel, Lark

Homies - Alice, William, Nick

Rootcrafters - Mariah, Lucille, Hazel

Table - Lancelot, Merlin, Morgaine

Villains - Cestra, Erebus, Arthur

[forestcat000]

Shameless US season 3 episode 11

I've decided that I'm going to be just writing down my thoughts whenever I watch shameless.

Also if anyone knows how to give a post a 'readmore' thing please tell me. I googled it, I'm on my tablet typing this. The way Google said to do it isn't working

Immediate vibe I got from Jimmy's reaction to Fiona agreeing to move so he can go to medical school was 'oh shit, for real?'

So it's been at least a few days since the last episode since they mentioned that Ian's been refusing to leave bed for a while (poor Ian) and Mickeys wedding is happening in a few days

If I was Lip I'm not sure what I'd do. Do you calk the cops on Mandy? Just break up with her? Pretend everything's normal?

I'm glad Fiona has a job she seems to like though I doubt it'll last long. Her manager(?) Seems to be flirting with her so that probably won't end well. Also, yay camping. The Gallagher kids need a break.

Love Lip going to Kev for advice. Though I love Mandy, their relationship needs to end, like now. On top of the fact she tried to kill Karen their relationship just isn't healthy. Lip doesn't seem super into her and doesn't appreciate her. They both could probably use a break from dating.

Damn Franks childhood was....it was something.

Ian only leaving his bed so he can find out more about Mickeys wedding is just sad. Also how old is Mickey? Ian's sixteen, I doubt Mickey is that much older than him. Is Mickey seventeen, eighteen?

Mandy is complaining about her relationship loudly, Ian is 'discreetly' worrying about Svetlana. I will never stop being bewildered by the fact Mandy hasn't realized what's going on between Ian and Mickey. I would think she'd at least think that Ian has a one-sided crush on Mickey.

Mandy saying it's kinda sweet that's Terry's so excited is just...ugh, girl if you knew! Poor Mickey. I hope he gets out of this marriage somehow.

Jimmy you idiot! If you wanna keep up a lie don't leave your phone unattended.

JODY GET AWAY FROM THE TEENAGE GIRL

Oh poor Karen, she doesn't deserve this. Oh dear, please don't let Jody take her away from home.

Oh bullshit Jimmy Steve! 'How is this any different from when you decided to become legal guardian of those kids' their her little siblings who were taken by cps, she wanted to make sure they'd be safe, to minimize anything that could happen to them. All the Gallagher kids have been in and out of the system since they were born, and you're surprised she didn't ask for permission?!

Frank, be grateful any of your kids even showed sympathy and tried to help you.

Yikes number 2 on Franks childhood.

Yay, camping!

Poor Karen. JODY LEAVE!

Damn, Ian is in rough shape.

Oh Mandy, no, no! Mandy no! No means no! These two desperately need to part ways!

Mickey rocks a tux, he looks absolutely lovely.

I feel so bad for both Mickey and Ian. Ian desperately wants to be with Mickey and is begging Mickey to choose him but Mickey doesn't have a choice, if he bails on the wedding Terry might kill him. Both of them deserve safety and love.

Oh is Jimmy-Steve about to be wacked?

Yay Debbie's having fun!

Yup, workplace affair.

I know I keep saying it but poor Mickey, I hate Terry Milkovich, I agree with Ian, he is a 'psychotic prick'

The heist stuff with Frank and Carl is fun tho.

I kinda like the dude from Fionas work, he's fun.

Snickerdoodle cupcakes soun KARENS LEAVING WITH JODY?! NO NO NONONO! SHEILA NO, DONT LET HIM TAKE HER!

Poor Karen, Jesus, she doesn't deserve this, no one does.

Oh damn, Ian's drunk and blurting shit out. Good Lip, get ian and yourself out of there.

Is it bad I hope Jimmy-Steve is getting wacked? Just for funsies.

Shit, Carl's getting arrested at eleven. I love how defensive Lip is with his younger siblings.

Frank yes! Protect Carl!

Oh Fiona....

[wereh0gz]

I have a Sonic spinoff game idea

Ok so. It's a turn-based rpg inspired by dnd, bc I have an itch to play rpgs and also I'm still mad abt them not doing anything with the dnd stuff the official social media posted abt months ago

The story is essentially a battles and badniks (dnd in sonic's world) campaign run by Orbot. Sonic and co. hear abt it somehow (possibly through an invitation?) and decide to check it out thinking it might be one of Eggman's schemes, but nah. It's just a straight game Orbot is running for funsies. Not exactly sure what the story of the campaign would be, but I know it involves Sonic being a villain bc he deserves to let loose. Also Eggman and Sage would be minor antagonists, basically like rivals to the party that they meet and fight at certain points. The main party could consist of Amy, Tails, Knuckles, and Shadow, with Amy possibly being the de-facto main character and with more characters joining the party later on

The game is divided into two types of gameplay- in-game segments that look like your typical high fantasy rpg, which take up most of your playtime, and out-of-game segments in a similar style to a visual novel, which are a lot shorter

The rpg segments play like a mixture of your typical turn-based game and ttrpg. The party is on a quest of some sort, exploring the world of their game, meeting people, visiting various villages and doing small side-quests along the way. The party can encounter enemies in areas between villages, which they battle in a similar manner to most games of the genre, by selecting the actions each character takes. BUT they have to roll their dice to determine how well they perform the selected action, which is the main gimmick of the game. They can also perform checks to lessen the effects of certain actions taken against the characters in battle or to determine how well certain actions are performed out of battle, which in some cases could affect how the story progresses so each playthrough is kind of unique. There's also an exp system, in which exp is gained by defeating enemies and performing side-quests

The out-of-game segments serve to give a bit of extra exposition to the player (like setting up the actual campaign and showing why each character is playing the role they are playing in it, stuff like that). There would be some moments in the rpg segments where the campaing is interrupted by these segments, mostly used for gags at first until later into the game where some interpersonal drama happens

Both segments would have different art styles, too. The rpg segments would have a 2.5d pixelart style while the visual novel segments would have a style similar to tmosth. Since this is a hypothetical game, I'd throw in voice acting too, but if it were real I wouldn't expect there to be any

Each characters' class would be the same as seen in this post, and they'd have different names and slightly different appearances to the "real-world" characters playing them. Of course their outfits are different to fit the roles they are playing, but their actual physical appearance and age could be different too, all depending on how they were made by the characters playing them. Amy's character specifically would essentially just be Paladin Amy from Sonic Dash and Speed Battle. Not really sure abt the others tho

The endgame would be to redeem Sonic's character, who as I said earlier is the main villain, and also figure out why Sonic would choose to play the villain in the first place (spoiler alert: he's stressed as fuck and wants to not be seen as a hero for once). They also gotta stop Eggman and Sage from causing trouble. Fun hijinks, dnd-based jokes, (possibly) some high fantasy horror, and plenty of character drama ensues

[martyrbat]

3, 6, 7, 17!

3. Who's your third-favorite Robin? Tell us one thing you like or dislike about them.

ooh .... this depends entirely on the value system. third favorite as a robin or third favorite for characters who were, at some point or time, robin... also am i being meta with my hatred (because i am choosing the hater route always <3)

6. Favorite Green Lantern? Would/do they get along with your favorite Flash?

oooh... im not as familiar as id like to be with GL stuff but i think i liked alan and guy. i know it's a crime to not say hal or kyle or whatever but for me i think guy is so interesting and redheads with bad haircuts have to stick together so probably him! and i think the only flash i care for was garrick and sometimes barry. in general i find the flash fam to kinda just be [deletes insult <3] not my particular taste so i dont read a lot with them and wouldn't wish them upon a lantern in general... but i think alan and garrick are the best for the duo, go gay grampas go! and i think guy should be allow to bully barry just for funsies <3

7. One DC death you'd like to make permanent—or alternatively, one you'd erase so it never happened?

i already answered this one [here] so can i cheat and say scott snyder. i know hes not a character but if im allowed any dc death... if not then i think ill erase sue dibny's because i hate identity crisis with a passion for how they handled her character

17. Who is the best civilian love interest, and why?

lois lane because shes lois fucking lane <33

dc ask game <3

[abyssalpriest]

i really need to officially make it my Thing I Do For Fun to make leviathanism a thing, dont i. I was sitting here like "yeah ive been tempted for the last like 24 hours to make a list of associations for lev, corroborating all his cultural ties (without going into any culture specifically, and not going into things that are specific to only one tradition), but if I did it id need to go into depth on each symbol and how it relates to him, like oceans are multifaceted but theyre a symbol of his in that he sees them as a partner, whereas the sun is personal power, the water cycles are magnetised to the sun, etc. But I would have paragraphs on paragraphs to write about these things, I could fill like 16 pages of just symbolism probably"... to which lev brought up "isn't that what we're doing with our personal For Funsies religion for the two of us?"

and im like. i have so much to say about connecting with him in various forms, his un/sub/conscious mind/energy/bodies/etc, there's so many meditations and shit he's already going to be teaching me for personal use. and like. ive known for years before i even knew his face this life that my job is to connect people with him like

i have - and he has - so much to say on the nature of faith and religion as tools to be consciously used - as in theres so much to say about teaching people to become aware of using the subconscious, submissive mind in a dominant, conscious way, like purposely entering passive trances in dancing in order to actively bring in information, using religions consciously and choosing to interpret them how you need to interpret them because they're potent tools and vehicles

he has so much to teach about various states of consciousness and the self, i mean fuck man he as Shiva is bringing me towards nondualist shaivism, something based on the idea that we are all Shiva... What was he writing earlier?? Oh yeah. On creating chakras but extrapolate the meaning to this topic: "We are pure consciousness and we are all pervading, our boundaries are not defined by the outer edges of the manifested spacetime, we are the absolute and the absolute is everything and nothing, therefore... There is no need for faith, faith is an active mental process. What is needed more so is exploration and a willingness to squeeze out past what one consciously knows and understands. Being taught a system works for this; one, when taught, allows themselves to flow past their own knowledge and eyes and relax into a true reality that is outside them, it allows their energy and their self to be shaped, moulded, and made to flow into aspects and areas of reality that need an easing in constriction to get into, because the conscious mind constricts, and would constrict them to the point that they no longer fit in these channels. So teaching is one route, the other would be to allow reality to be like that teacher, to allow the self to flow...

(...) This requires in-person work, and showing you, pathing the way in your mind. Effectively the process of how you want to be taught this is allowing myself, as your teacher, to form channels of flowing water which erode the earth of your body and form between your energy channels and this unformed energy, making a bridge between manifested and unmanifested down specifically into the particular energy centres you need in your life."

effectively... its already been broached that he as a teacher acts as water to flow people into directions they want to go

anyway. the fuckin.... even the name Leviathan. Thats associated with many bodies acting as one, which reflects both his fuckin hugely multifaceted nature that he teaches people to copy - he has many literal (to us) bodies, but also understanding of and inhabiting of energy and causal and etc bodies, many states of consciousness, dreaming and waking bodies, etc - and also reflects his relationship with His People as... a bird flock and its force of cohesion as i say lmfao

......... have i not been wondering for ages why he insists on the name Leviathan as default with me

[xovvo]

English Wordsmithing Pt. 1: From PIE to Proto-Germanic

Ok, so intro post with the basics of PIE is done. Now we can actually get to making these words! Today, I'm feelin' like I want some good words for clergy/pagan priestly roles since pretty much all native English words for them have been Christianized.

There are a few PIE roots we could select (including *weh₂t-, which yielded Latin "vātēs" for an Oracle, prophetess, or seer, Odinn, and several words in English and other Germanic languages meaning "madness", "excitement", "singing", "rage", etc. It's a fun root, but not what I'm looking for right now. Maybe later.), but for this purpose, I want to explore *seh₂k-, which gave us Latin "sacer", "sanctus" and English "sacred" and English/French "saint". It has meanings of making or being holy, as well as making a pact---which is great! Perfect!

A note on Orthography: since my system can't render ḗ correctly, nor é̄, a long vowel bearing accent will be written as e̋.

Now we need to choose endings. I'm going to focus on endings that derive agent nouns from roots or verbs. The first that springs to mind is *-te̋r, which throws the stem into the ø grade. Because it derives nouns from adjectives, I could actually append this not just to the bare *seh₂k- root, but also the various infix-presents, and the factative and causative forms. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar enough yet with PIE word-formation, so I don't have a good idea of what happens when I need to adjust stress/ablaut on more than one syllable.

Wiktionary also claims that *-lós is also a suffix that derives agent nouns from roots/verbal nouns. Great, add it to the pile.

Lastly, I want to explore is actually three endings connected by ablaut. We have *-mén(s) > *-mën, *-mon(s) > *-mō, and *-mn̥. I'm tempted to think *-mn̥ is the original ending since *-mō is its collective/plural, and that was a common path for new words to get coined in PIE (and it's how we got the feminine gender in Post-Anatolian PIE!) and *-me̋n created in analogy, but I don't have data for that. It should be noted that *-mn̥ is neuter and both *-mō and *-me̋n are masculine. Also technically only *-me̋n and *-mō create agent nouns---but in Proto-Germanic two of the endings collapse together, and by the time we get to Old English, they're all the same ending.

as a bonus, I'm also including *seh₂klōys, which only has descendents in Anatolian languages and meant something like ‘custom, customary behavior, rule, law, requirement; rite, ceremony; privilege, right’, according to Dr. Kloekhorst, in his Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon which is great and I love it.

So, our candidate words are:

*sh₂kme̋n ~*séh₂kmō ~ *séh₂kmn̥

*sh₂klōs

*sh₂kte̋r

*seh₂klōys, for funsies

Now, the forms for the genitive and the plurals were distinct, so I'll be listing these words in tables with these four forms of the word (Nominative Singular, Nominative Plural, Genitive Singular, Genitive Plural). Because the oblique cases merge so fast (to the point where we go from PIE's fulll Nominative-Accusative-Genitive-Vocative-Ablative-Allative-Dative-Locative-Instrumental system to Old English's Nominative-Accusative-Genitive-Dative system that was already just a Nominative-Genitive system except for a few rare forms.) and I'm currently not looking to make new words out of oblique forms, we're good leaving them off.

So! our initial tables are:

Image captions coming once I figure out how to trick screanreaders into pronouncing IPA

So, for the purposes of this post, I'll be following a roughly chronological order for the sound changes, but if you're following along at home, the chronological summary of sound changes can be found on page 152 of A Linguistic History of English, Volume I: From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic by Don Ringe, but it's recommended that you definitely follow along by reading from section 3.2.1.

Now, Immediately, several sound changes are relevant to our words:

Syllabic resonants prepend an epenthic "u"

Word-final bimoric ("long") -ō lengthens to trimoric ("overlong") -ô

Word-initial laryngeals are dropped before consonants, laryngeals that precede a vowel color /e/ and /ē/ and are dropped, laryngeals that follow vowels lengthen them and color /e/ and /ē/ and are dropped, AND because neither Cogwill's nor Osthoff's law apply here, laryngeals between consonants are replaced by epenthic "ǝ"

Giving us:

Once again, this image uncaptioned until I can make a reader read it comprehensibly, I'm so sorry

At this point, the biggest changes we need to handle are Grimm's and Verner's Laws.

Grimm's Law shifts the "voiceless" series of consonants to voiceless fricatives ([ p, t, k ] > [ f, þ, x(orthographic "h") ]), "voiced" obstruents to voiceless obstruents ([ b, d, g ] > [ p, t, k ]), and "voiced-aspirated" obstruents to voiced obstruents (which also had voiced fricative allophones in many positions; [ bʰ, dʰ, gʰ ] > [ b, d, g ]). Now, clusters of obstruents block the shift such that only the first obstruent shifts. Which means for our purposed, only one consonant---the final "k" in the root is affected and nothing else.

Verner's Law and is more complicated. To quote Dr. Ringe in Section 3.2.4: """ After the PIE voiceless stops had become voiceless fricatives by Grimm’s Law, they became voiced by Verner’s Law if they were not word-initial and not adjacent to a voiceless sound and the last preceding syllable nucleus was unaccented; *s was also affected, and became voiced *z under the same conditions """

Also, really only affecting the genitive singular of *-ós: *-ósyo, is apocope, wwhich actually ends up chopped back to *-ós.

So now, at this crossroads we have:

At this point, stress moves to the initial syllable (so I will no longer be marking stress) which strengthens ǝ > a, and then two sequences of changes happen at the same time:

m > n at the end of words, then Vn > V̨ word-final /n/ is lost while nasalizing the preceeding vowel, and then ę̄ > ą̄

unstressed /e/ > /o/ before wC, unstressed /e/ > /i/ everywhere else

after this, the next two big changes happen before the Late contraction of vowels in hiatus wraps everything up:

ji > i, kicking off the general loss of j between vowels except the environments *ijV > *ijV and ǝjV > *jV

After stress moved to the initial syllable the low rounded back vowels unrounded: [ o, ō, ô ] > [ a, ā, â ], then after ę̄ > ą̄ and VjV > VV, the long low vowels re-rounded, regardless of nasalization: [ ā, â ] > [ ō, ô ]

The contraction of vowels in hiatus wraps everything up. For the most part, the contraction meant /o/ and /a/ got lengthened, capping at trimoric length.

So, our words are now in their Final Proto-Germanic state:

It's almost comprehensible to screen readers!

Right?

Well, not quite. Because we have to take into account he morphological changes that were made as native speakers remodeled declensions and shit to suit how they interpreted their language to work.

Here, it's just Nom. sing. "saglas" > "saglaz"

And also the leveling of sag- and merger of -mǫ̂ + -mō endings (with light remodelling.) Now we're ready to head into the next post where we cover the Intermediate stages between Proto-Germanic and Old English, with this set:

Soon, I promise