#and how and where they will pivot to substitute that

[knightofleo]

👁 👁‍👁👁‍👁‍👁‍ 👁‍ 👁👁‍ 👁👁‍ 👁‍👁‍ 👁‍👁‍ 👁‍👁‍ 👁‍ 👁‍

[moondirti]

featuring: ghoap x nanny! f!reader. parenthood. adoption processes. fluff. slice of life. reader is given an age range

hear me out: simon and johnny transferring to reserve duty – i.e., serving the military on a part-time basis rather than being on active call – once they make the decision to become dads. it comes after a long period of deliberation (and healing on simon's part), but after they're absolutely sure that they want to start this next phase of life together, they call price to get it sorted.

who is thrilled for them, naturally, but warns that they still have a specialised commitment to the task force. if he needs them, then they best make sure they're there. the world isn't a better place yet, and no one can do what the pair does.

fine by them.

so it begins. instead of the complex and ethical choices that come with surrogacy, they opt for adoption and work with an attorney to facilitate the logistics. months of searching come up with a young mother, whose unwanted pregnancy has interfered with her life thus far, and is unwilling to make the further sacrifice that comes with keeping the baby. they must be more understanding, or otherwise less overbearing, than the other candidates – because two months later, they're in a hospital waiting room, anxiously lingering to meet the new addition to their family.

isla riley-mactavish. named after the river where johnny realised he'd be much happier with his lieutenant by his side.

the first few months are bliss. exhausting bliss, but a type of contentment that neither man has known since they first confessed to one another. isla's fussy through nights but they take turns settling her down, and if they have military duties to attend to then it's usually never at the same time. she's spoiled rotten – not just by them, but by the captain and gaz as well, who visit more often than not with bags full of toys they have nowhere to put. a little princess in the eyes of everyone who knows her.

by month five, she's teething and can hold her head up unsupported. simon reads somewhere that it's one of the most pivotal points in her development.

of course the call has to come then.

in the middle of the night, no less, and loud enough to wake her up from her crib. johnny scrambles to calm the bairn down as simon answers, price's grave voice crackling in from the other end. expected to be a long haul. a month at least. state security's at serious risk here, simon. i wouldn't ask you to come out otherwise.

and they made a promise. no matter how much it aches them to leave their darling girl behind.

rdv on base in a week.

he knows that one week is a matter of grace. he can feel the captain itching to hatch the operation as soon as possible, but has staved off to give the boys time to order their affairs. that doesn't mean simon's happy with the timeline, though. seven days is not nearly enough to find a sitter they can trust, especially given their own hindrances.

regardless, they send a job posting for a live-in, 24/7 nanny to close friends – no way in hell are they advertising it to the open internet – and hours later, johnny's sister lets them know of a girl who substitutes at the same primary school she works at. a real darling, apparently. honest 'n' stowed oot of energy, th' weans love her, and she haes experience with bairns too!

promising, but word of mouth isn't enough. they get a name and ask laswell to run a thorough background check. to their relief, it comes out squeaky clean. no arrests, no dui's, no shady travel history. modest socials with only a handful of followers. it's in line with what they know so far, solid enough to encourage them to reach out. so they do: just a brief email, asking what time and place would be best for a face-to-face interview.

they bring isla with them to the agreed meeting spot. a cozy cafe nestled in one of the safest parts of town. it's an early saturday morning and they're scheduled to leave in three days. so far, they've put all their eggs in this basket. johnny has to hold onto simon's hand when he notices the nerves dancing behind his partners usually void eyes. but if he were being honest with himself, he's just as scared.

they notice you as soon as they walk in.

sitting at a table for four, mug of coffee steaming as you bend over a well-loved book. despite your preoccupation, you're observant – they inch in your periphery and your head snaps up, a brilliant smile parting your lips as you spring up onto your feet. simon tallies a point on the ledger in his head. good. alert is good.

as is true for them, it's abundantly clear that you're who they're supposed to meet. johnny can't imagine anyone but a children's educator dressing like that: a gingham babydoll dress over a pair of blue tights, which carries over to the bow in your hair and is juxtaposed by the white oxford lace-ups on your feet. he startles when you extend your hand to shake his and he finds a painted fruit on each of your short nails. positively adorable. and so unlike anything they know.

simon shuffles next to him. isla reaches out from her bugaboo stroller, the colours having caught her eye.

"well hello there! aren't you just the cutest angel i've ever seen? do you like my dress?"

that's another point for immediately engaging with the object of your soon-to-be care. simon watches as you pull out a rattle from your purse, handing it over to the cooing baby. warmth blossoms in his chest, and his apprehension fizzles out in the heat. they hadn't told you they'd be bringing isla – opting to catch you off guard and seeing how you'd deal – so he assumes you carry the toy around for emergency purposes, like anyone else of their ilk would carry a gun.

something about that quirk just screams safe.

"it is a nice dress." johnny pursues, voice smooth in that way it gets when he's flirting but doesn't want it made clear. it took weeks for ghost to attune himself to it – he always just thought the scot spoke like that – but now that he's able to hear it for what it is, he shoots him a cautionary look. not so much mad as he is cautious. wouldn't want to scare her off.

"oh! thank you very much. it's my grandmother's design." you straighten up once isla gains a proper grip on the rattle, patting the skirt like you're basking in the praise. "shall we sit? i assume you have a lot to discuss, and i promise you'll want to try the maple scones they make here."

"please. after you." simon nods.

an hour later, you're giggling into your palm as johnny deviates into a story of the time they took isla to the hospital because they didn't know the soft spot on her head could pulse. simon is quiet in contrast, though not displeased. rather, he's focused on keeping the tally of all the green flags you've exhibited thus far. he doesn't mind that the conversation hasn't followed a typical interview format. in fact, people are more likely to show their true nature when in relaxed settings such as this, which is perhaps why johnny hasn't stuck to the script of questions they'd prepared beforehand. the man is better at social manoeuvring than simon is, anyway. he trusts him to direct this where it needs to go.

"it can be freaky! especially if you've never been around a child that young. i had a similar reaction the first time i babysat my neighbour's infant at sixteen. did you know that they can break out like teenagers? i noticed the poor thing's skin erupt in acne at just a month old and called his parent's crying." you wheeze, wiping the tears along your lashline.

"have ye worked wi' many bairns?"

"oh, yeah. it's been my primary source of income since secondary, all the way through uni. i just finished a master's degree in early childhood education, actually! and i wrote a list of referrals you can call if you need to double check on any of that." you rummage through your purse and pull out an apple-shaped sticky note. "do you mind if i ask what you do? people don't usually look for a full-time nanny unless they're really busy. not that i'm judging! i would ne–"

"military." simon interrupts, ensuring his tone is gentle enough to reassure.

"that makes sense! i mean, for an indefinite amount of time, the pay you're offering is more than perfect. above industry standard, really." you pause, brows furrowing like you're doubting whether you should have said that. "ah– whatever. anyway. isla is wonderful, just the sweetest. and the provided accommodation is an added plus. if you guys have no other qualms, then i'd love to accept the position."

"does i' bother you that there are cameras on the property? porch, kitchen, and living room. jus' for security's sake." simon tests, though he knows he doesn't need to, for extra measure. to someone with bad intentions, CCTV is a massive dealbreaker.

you don't hesitate before answering. "makes total sense! you guys are well within your right to check in at any time."

and they don't have to consult each other to know. johnny is practically buzzing in his seat, muscles flexed with enthusiasm as his gaze flits all over you. lingering on your chest in particular, before he looks over to simon and smiles in an offensively handsome way. simon can't help but smile back, crinkling his eyes more than necessary so the both of you can tell what's going on behind his mask.

it feels a little too good to be true, hopeful in a way that sets off the alarm bells in his head. he's stable enough to recognise that it isn't your fault, though. stable enough not to pin his distrust on you. this is likely the best shot they've got at ensuring their daughter's safety while they're away, and it's come in the form of a vivid, bright little blessing.

(with great tits.)

he'd be a fool to sabotage it.

johnny beats him to the cause. "ye'r hired."

[ next ]

[marie-m-art]

Good Animated Omens - Behind the Scenes

Here's a behind-the-scenes look at the walk cycles I animated of Aziraphale and Crowley (original post here).

I'll reiterate that the character designs are @lookitsstevie's creation! I made builds in Toonboom Harmony based on their designs, and then animated the builds.

Long post under the cut, organized into four parts. Feel free to jump around or just click through the images and gifs to get an idea of the gist. (At least take a look at Part IV, where you'll see a version of Aziraphale without his jacket and a closeup of Crowley's torso!)

Hopefully this is interesting even if you don't know the first thing about animation. It's not a step-by-step-from-scratch tutorial, but it might give animators some ideas to think about when trying this software!

I'm happy to answer questions about what I cover here - comments, DM's, or ask-box questions are all fine by me. If you like any of the new gifs and want to reblog it on its own, I can make new posts for those upon request! (I'd prefer you don't reupload them, but if you do please at least credit me with a tag to my account - thank you!!)

Part I: The interface and some basics

Above is a screencap of the software interface.

In the centre is the Camera window, where all the drawing and animating is done. 

To the left, the Node View. It's a representation of how the pieces and layers that make the characters are grouped and connected to each other, which is what makes a character "build". Every piece in this window is called a node, and there are different types. Light blue "drawing nodes" contain the drawings themselves. Each drawing node usually has a green "peg" attached; the peg is used to move and rotate the drawing piece; you set a pivot point on each peg. Light grey nodes are groups that have more nodes within, and dark blue nodes are added effects (eg masks, the blur for the halo, etc).

Below, the Timeline - it's where keyframes are set and tweened. The red square dots indicate there is a new keyframe on a particular frame; the white dots indicate keyframes are on layers nested somewhere under the topmost visible layer. All the pieces of the characters can be found in the timeline and correspond to the pieces that exist in the Node View (and Camera). Typically you work with a collapsed view of the build layers in the timeline, which allows you to set keyframes on multiple layers at once.

To the right, a few tabs in this window - Tool Properties, Colour Palettes, and, shown on top here, the Library. The library is where you store your builds, so that you can bring in a fresh copy when animating a new scene. This library tab also has the Drawing Substitution window, which shows thumbnails of every drawing contained in a drawing node when that node is selected.

A second of animation is 24 frames long. Finished animation will often have keyframes on every second frame with the tweens removed, to help simulate the look and feel of traditional animation - this is known as animating "on twos", and saved time, money and paper in the old days. If you leave the tweens on, and/or have keyframes on every frame, the animation is "on ones".

My walks are on twos - it's the look I prefer.

When I say "tween" I'm specifically referring to the software feature that will automatically calculate and interpolate the path between two different poses/keys of a peg. An inbetween could be the result of using a tween, a new drawing, or both. On twos, an inbetween will look the same as any other keyframe on the timeline when you're finished - its relevance as a concept is during the process, not the end result.

Quality animation is achieved via a combination of moving/tweening pre-existing drawings using their pegs, and adding new drawings as hand-drawn inbetweens when needed. Toonboom Harmony also has nodes called "deformers": they offer a way to tween the shape of a drawing without needing to redraw inside the drawing node. (Part IV has the explanation for which pieces I used them for, and why.)

Part II: Navigating the builds

This is what their default poses with no animation look like.

Animation using builds is sometimes colloquially referred to as "puppet-style animation" because the way you can connect body parts to each other feels like making and handling a 2D digital puppet: you can connect a hand to a forearm so that they can move as a unit, and you can connect that unit to an upper arm to move the whole arm as a unit, and that arm gets connected to the torso, and so on.

When you want to connect two pieces, like a hand to a forearm, then you create another peg in the Node View and attach the two body parts together under that new peg. The screencaps below show the nodes that make up Aziraphale's and Crowley's entire builds inside their respective groups:

Things got a bit sloppy ... It looks extremely complicated, but once it's set up, you don't have to think about it too much when you're animating!

And I've zoomed in on the nodes that make their arms so you can see how there are pegs on top of pegs (all the green nodes), with wires connecting everything:

As I explained in Part I, new drawings are added and contained within a body part's drawing node (the light blue ones under the green ones), and the Drawing Substitution window is where you can see all the drawings that exist in a particular node. In the timeline, you set keyframes for moving the pegs, and you also choose which frame the new drawings will appear when applicable. You might have a lot of drawings stored in the nodes, but only what you set to appear in the timeline will be visible in the final animation.

You can select a body part in the camera view, and then find the corresponding layer in the Timeline or the Node View by pressing the "o" keyboard shortcut. If you select a body part by clicking on it, and then press the "b" keyboard shortcut, you will jump up to the next peg it's connected to. You can hide and unhide pieces using "d" and "a" respectively.

In the first capture above, I'm showing that the arm pieces can be moved separately or together, and you can see how the pegs in the Node View light up when I select them in the Camera window (hiding them turns them red). In the second capture, I pop down to the timeline to step back and forth between the poses - the light grey row (it appears between the rows of red dots) represents the hand's drawing node in the timeline.

Part III: Summary of animation process

In my head I imagined how their walks would differ from each other - Aziraphale bouncier but with very straight posture and limited arm movement, vs Crowley slinking and swaggering all over.

I also knew that I wanted the animation to look good for both a walking-on-the-spot version, and as a version walking across the screen (both versions are at the top of the post!).

Then I started doing some rough animation.

I set aside my finished builds for the roughs. For each character, I made a few drawing nodes and two pegs; a peg for the up-and-down upper body motion, which I tweened, and a peg for moving them across the screen. The legs and arms are drawing substitutions.

With these extremely rudimentary rough "builds", I worked out - how many frames long the walks would be, - how far the characters would move across the screen each step, - how much the upper bodies would move up and down, and - the key drawings of the legs and feet.

I didn't worry about animating clothing, hair, or Azi's arms in the rough stage. For those elements, the drawings would be spaced really close together and would be easier to figure out with tweens. (Note: this rudimentary setup would be sufficient if you want to clean up and inbetween characters by hand frame-by-frame instead of making full builds; my preference is build animation because the process is more fun for me)

Then I started working with the finished builds, using the roughs as a guide, and established the broadest motions first: the up-and-down motion in the upper bodies (I set a keyframe at the lowest point, a keyframe at the highest point, then tweened between them) and how far they'd travel across the screen. Then the feet were done.

I went back and forth between viewing them walking on the spot and walking across the screen to make sure that both versions worked. I also made sure they crossed the same amount of ground relative to each other.

After those crucial parts, I moved on to animating their arms, hair, torsos, clothing details, and finishing the legs, not necessarily in that order. I simulated twisting/rotating their torsos in 3d space by moving their waistcoats and lapels.

The first gif switches back and forth between versions (imagine a background scrolling by when they walk on the spot). The second gif is an example of bad "footslip" - they're moving at different speeds, and if you pay attention to their feet, Aziraphale appears to slip on ice while Crowley appears to slide forward on skates.

"You go too fast for me, Crowley!"

Part IV: Extras and details

Here is a version of Aziraphale's walk without his jacket, and a closeup of Crowley so you can see his swaying hips better:

One of the cool things about animating with builds is they lend themselves well to small modifications; the jacketless version took all of five minutes to make.

I'd be remiss not to include a close-up of Aziraphale's hair, the real star of the animation :) (Crowley's hair is also animated but I purposefully kept it understated since it's a much different texture.) And a closeup image of Crowley's snake tattoo:

The biggest unit for both of them are their upper bodies, which includes their pelvises. The up-and-down motion is only on one peg instead of on every single piece, which is handy because it means I can hide just that part of the animation when I want to work on the clothing details:

During the process of animation, I am often hiding then unhiding pieces like this so I can see what I'm doing.

Their clothing ended up being a lot of separate pieces, which I kept adding during animation rather than before, as it was hard to predict everything I needed. Their clothing also incorporates cutters (aka masks), and deformers (see explanation in Part I). In the next set of gifs the deformers show up as green outlines with handles and get turned on and off.

Aziraphale's torso functions as a mask for his clothing. The shape of his torso subtly changes via deformer. His lapels and waistcoat have V shapes that are masks/cutters (they cut a V shape out of those pieces); the same pieces that make the cutters also are used for the black lines of those V shapes via a special layering setup. The main shapes of his lapels are animated with deformers, and you can see how far beyond his torso shape they extend when I turn on the deformers in the second gif.

Deformers work best for shapes that change a little bit, and/or slowly. The minor shape changes in his and Crowley's clothes ended up being a great use case for deformers, because they pretty much tweened perfectly.

The reason I didn't use them on Aziraphale's legs was because those shapes change significantly between keys; I predicted I'd have to re-adjust every frame of a tweened deformer, so I drew the inbetweens by hand (halfway through, I realized I probably should have used them after all, but I was in too deep by then; hand drawing was fun though!). Deformers worked well on his bottom jacket:

Crowley's pelvis is layered above and below his thigh pieces and has a deformer. Also take a look at all the drawing substitutions for his hands:

And lastly the deformers on the hair:

Epilogue

I'm hoping the gifs all play at the same speed for everyone as they play for me. Hopefully the demo gifs are at least watchable, if not super clear... (I'll listen to feedback on the presentation of the information, for if I do similar posts in future!) Don't hesitate to ask questions about anything I covered, or about any details you noticed that I didn't elaborate on!

ko-fi.com/marieanimate

I'm shy about mentioning it, but I set up a Ko-fi account in case this post compels anyone to leave a small "tip" (but reblogging and sharing is just as good)!

Thanks for reading, and have a nice day!

[navy-leader]

Latest episode enabled me so heres my cooking/eating habits headcanons for the sticks:

[Color Gang]

- Blue cooks the most (obvi) for the gang, the best cook all around

- Green does it the second most, hes the substitute when Blue is too busy

- Green's the type of cook to get really pissed at other people being in the kitchen when hes cooking

- Blue on the other hand doesnt mind company and help but he cant be responsible for what happens to them if they come uninvited

- Yellow is officially banned from cooking in the kitchen without supervision

- Yellow is often too distracted with working on things to the point where they forget to eat, the others often have to remind them

- Red likes baking more than cooking

- Second doesnt do it very often bc theres usually someone else doing it but hes pretty good at it

- Purple is a pretty good cook as well, though when he's low on energy he tends to whip up the weirdest fucking combinations of simple processed foods ever, though they somehow taste? Good?

- Overall the ones who eat the most are Red and Green, being gym rats they tend to burn a lot of energy pretty quickly

- Green drinks protein shakes 👍

- Red is a sweet tooth

[Hollowheads]

- Chosen and Dark when they lived together had a very "fulfilling what the other lacks" dynamic when they cooked

- Chosen has awful motor skills so hes pretty shit at cutting stuff up meanwhile Dark excelled on that

- Dark has no sense of temperature, having only fire powers so he tends to run hot and has a natural resistance to heat. So things are never hot enough for her and ends up burning their food more times than they can count

- Chosen on the other hand had more of a balance with his ice powers so he's better on that end

- They tried utilizing Chosen's laser eyes as a microwave at some point. Didnt work out.

- More than once did Chosen try using his fire breath to cook but swiftly gets reprimanded by Dark for "breathing on the food"

- Chosen's really lazy and would only eat simple foods unless someone drags him to cook something (that person being Dark)

- Those two only know simple recipes but its enough for them

- Victim has GOD AWFUL eating habits, similar to Chosen he'd just not eat anything but simple processed foods and often forgets to eat altogether. He really only eats if someone buys food for it/cooks for it

- Victim has never set foot in a kitchen ever and god knows what'd happen if it did

[AvM]

- Orchid had awful eating habits and made the weirdest food combinations and called it a meal. After getting with Cobalt she basically forced Orchid to learn how to cook properly so shes better now but every once in a while,,, old habits die hard

- Cobalt cooked for the household the most

- King was a decent cook, enough for him and Gold

- That is until Gold died, King didnt really took care of himself and ate very much, let alone cook. Probably takeout if he remembers

- Post-avm 30 hes getting better and tries cooking again every once in a while but yakno,,,depression

- Purple cooks for them when hes like that

[Mercenaries]

- None of them cook very often because theyre usually on the job so they tend to get takeout most the time

- When they get a chance to, Paleo and Warn are usually the ones to do it

- Pivot and Ballista are coffee drinkers

- They all drink protein shakes

[whetstonefires]

“The Justice League and the Avengers are very different teams”

In what respect? Like, how would you say both teams differ in terms of overall function, how they respond to threats, how they’re viewed by their respective publics, etc?

😂 who even are you?

anyway, these two teams have been reformed and rebooted so many times and are the flagships of the two juggernauts of their industry, so their natures have evolved and influenced one another heavily over the decades as you see armies tend to do in prolonged warfare, so there is probably not one single statement you could make about either one that's always true.

it would be crazy to try to explain the difference in diegetic terms, because those aren't goalposts they're hockey pucks. the difference in kind exists at a publishing level.

fundamentally, the Avengers was designed to rest, in narrative terms, on everyone's personal relationships and neuroses, and develop soap opera subplots and office drama around how these intersected with each other and various villains. because in the 60s Marvel was launching the Big New Thing which was heightened naturalism and relatability in comics.

(spiderman and the whole genre of underdog superhero who can't catch a break rather than slyly winking at the audience as the world looks down on his secret identity, not knowing how impressive he really is, dates to this pivot of Marvel's. both Superman and Captain America did the latter in their early days, which is highly dissonant from Cap and Bucky looking at them today, but Cap was retired from print for like 20 years and got heavily rebooted for the new age.)

they had an actual mansion they could all live in, and many of them did, for a solid chunk of time early on. there's a reason people swung so hard for the 'everyone lives in stark tower' scenario foreshadowed at the end of Avengers (2012)--that's how the Avengers are! you bang the action figures together and give them angst and bonding about it!

they fractured repeatedly under the weight of all that drama (because psychology and because stories that don't end are unable to make any narrative sense, and breaking up a team is honestly a half-decent substitute in the Eternal Now of big comics) and at this point the current avengers is much more impersonal and even pays salaries, like basically the commune-underwritten-by-rich-buddy has reincorporated as an NGO.

but it still runs on the same types of narrative tensions mostly--huge epic stuff will be happening, but the Avengers tension comes down to whether everyone really hates T'Challa this month for that thing he did. and what this is doing to group cohesion.

the Justice League on the other hand was not built for character-driven story.

they've done plenty of them, after it became the done thing, and even imitated the Avengers and did the diegetic collapsing and reforming arcs and so on. but it's not fundamental to how a Justice League runs; you could do a super long run where the interpersonal tensions never rose above B-plot status and it wouldn't be tonally dissonant.

it would be weird for many of the Justice League to live together--when a character is shown living in Justice League facilities it is usually to signify that they are isolated and don't have a life and this is Bad. the Martian Manhunter and Maxwell Lord dominated era was deliberately aping the Avengers imo and came out weird as a result, and Lord turning out to be a mind-controlling supervillain was not unrelated to how weird most people felt it was.

the Justice League is like. joining a club rather than a frat. like being on the board of an NGO, rather than taking a full-time job there.

you know? the type of commitment is different. the level of intimacy is different.

cap and iron man's relationship has generally played out primarily in the context of their positions within the Avengers, even though it spills into their own titles, while superman and batman have had entire joint books just for them, and their friendship has not usually been allowed to take up much page time in Justice League issues. because that would be indecorous.

commercially speaking, Justice League is first and foremost an easy-buy showcase for high-profile hero characters and anyone you want to burnish up by displaying adjacent to them.

They've totally gotten messy with it over the years but like. I think the seminal Justice League internal dramas were 1) that time Barry Allen killed the guy who'd killed his first wife and was about to kill his second one and they put him on trial 2) that time Wonder Woman killed a dude who told her under truth compulsion that the only way to stop him from mind-controlling Superman to murder people was to kill him and they put her on trial 3) blah blah Batman paranoia exploited by eeeeevil (barely counts imo) and 4) that extremely oogy time it turned out the Justice League had been using magic to forcible reform criminals and erased Batman's memories of this being a thing when he found out and objected because ethics wtf.

That last one was sufficiently story-breaking they started pretending it hadn't happened as quickly as possible. Which was amazingly quickly considering Identity Crisis was the basis for things like killing off the presiding Robin's remaining parent. They actually soft-reset the whole world fairly soon after by timeskipping over most of a year and being like ahem anyway the past is in the past. And then the universe just kept serially ending for over a decade, so it's been weird.

Justice League has reliably gotten a shiny coat of polish with every reboot tho lol.

(Still not over the way they were like, okay we're wiping Green Lantern back to Hal but now we don't have the token black guy everyone who saw the cartoon expects, let's promote Cyborg people know him because of that other cartoon, ah shit he doesn't work without a partner to do bits with. well we can't put garfield logan in the justice league it's too prestigious, he's from the doom patrol for a reason, yeah i know we've had folks like plastic man shut up this is a Cool Sexy new reboot where Superman and Wonder Woman are fucking, we're not using friggin beast boy. how about Captain Marvel? yeah ok shazam is An Silly Joker now and besties with this 20 year old who may or may not know about his elaborate cognitive situation. i don't actually think they put even this much effort into it but otoh maybe they debated really hard and this was the compromise.

........actually vic could probably work up a decent oppositional patter with eel o'brien ik they were never gonna use plastic man but i don't hate it.)

Right. There was a point.

Obviously I'm probably missing a few big dramas here, but the point is DC was trying to keep up with the fantastic dysfunction of the Avengers because if it bleeds it leads, but even in the Dark Age they could not dive in groin first without tarnishing valued brands. The Justice League is simply not built to tell the same types of stories that the Avengers are.

In Justice League stories the narrative will typically be split in focus to a varying degree between the problems created by the villain and the personal emotional situations--the problems--of the heroes. Usually the villain leads and provides the emotional stakes. Only occasionally, overall, do problems between the heroes rise to the same level. Even when they're having them canonically in some other book Justice League tends to be ruled not the right place for that.

Secret identities are traditionally kept to a minimum in the League and League stories, though what this means in practice has gone through some shifts.

This is not just the difference between DC and Marvel house styles, though of course that's part of it, nor is it the League being older, because it isn't by any significant amount. It replaced the Justice Society of America in 1960. Other teams, even the Titans to an extent which was just the junior wing of the League at first, were allowed to get more into the grit sooner, and have the experimental story of Speedy's career-ending heroin problem happen and intra-team dating drama take the foreground, and all that. Doom Patrol was all about the dysfunction, god.

But the Justice League is simply not designed to be that kind of a team book, and when it's occasionally written that way the seams usually creak.

[anixknowsnothin]

Tell us about the show! 🩷

I WROTE A FULL REVIEW OMG

Mean Girls the Musical

The entire production of "Mean Girls the Musical" was absolutely amazing. The sets, the actors, the production, lighting, and sound were all outstanding. I was completely captivated and didn't blink once. The musical was incredibly funny, and both my parents enjoyed it, although some choreography in "Where Do You Belong" and "Meet the Plastics" felt a bit inappropriate to watch with them. Thankfully, it wasn't as intense as "Heathers."

I wore all pink because, as the famous line goes, "On Wednesdays, we wear pink."

Detailed Comments

The Beginning: The show opened with Janis and Damien at a Mandatory NSHS Friendship session, which was hilarious. I adore Janis—I'm practically in love with her—and Damien was iconic, especially with his recurring George Michael poster joke.

A Cautionary Tale: This song is a favorite of mine. Janis and Damien's voices blend beautifully, and I couldn't stop smiling while mouthing the lyrics.

It Roars: This song had significant lyric changes and was shortened. Cady only had a mom in this version. Despite the sets feeling a bit empty, Cady’s talent shone through. The play also emphasized Cady's outsider feelings through her awkward first interaction with Aaron, which was a good substitute for the original animal-human comparison.

Where Do You Belong: Damien stole the show here, especially in the girl's washroom scene. The supporting cast quickly changed costumes to represent different high school groups, which got my respect . Although some lyrics were altered, the essence remained, and Damien's desire to join the dance team was a cute touch.

Meet The Plastics: The Plastics were iconic. Initially, I wasn't fond of Regina due to my bias toward Taylor Louderman, but as the musical progressed, I fell in love with Regina's embodiment of the mean girl spirit through her voice, expressions, and actions.

Stupid with Love: This song was shortened, likely for time, and possibly merged with its reprise (still having brain fog). It remained one of my favorites.

Apex Predator: This performance was powerful and my favorite of the night. The combination of Janis and Cady's voices and the choreography illustrating the animal-human parallel was just, WOW.

What's Wrong with Me?: Gretchen's performance was emotional and relatable. The actress vividly portrayed her insecurity and self-doubt, and Cady's awkwardness was quite uh evident.

Stupid with Love (Reprise): Adorable song, though I don't have many additional comments.

Sexy: This song was incredibly catchy. Karen's comedic timing was spot-on, and the costumes were fantastic. I couldn't stop singing it after the show.

Someone Gets Hurt: This song showcased Regina's gaslighting and was one of my favorites. The performance illustrated Aaron's shifting emotions and Regina's vocal experimentation was impressive.

Revenge Party: A super fun and energetic song. Janis's desperation to ruin Regina's life was palpable, and the supporting cast excelled. It highlighted the fakeness in people.

Intermission

Fearless: Gretchen started to stand up for herself, and Cady's transformation into a mean girl had begun. Karen was purely there for vibes.

Stop: This song wasn't there I think, atleast not memorable to me, but it was replaced with Cady planning a party. (Again, brain fog.)

What's Wrong with Me (Reprise): The parallel between Mrs. George and Gretchen was clear and shows how Regina is surrounded by people who are willing to do anything.

Whose House Is This?: A wild and fun number that marked Cady's final transformation into a Plastic. Karen's cluelessness about whose house it was added humor.

More Is Better: Cady's fakeness was evident, and Aaron's attempt to connect with her highlighted her flaws. The line "You are like a clone of Regina" was pivotal.

Someone Gets Hurt (Reprise): This song showcased the breakdown of Janis's and Cady’s flawed relationship. While Janis used Cady for revenge, Cady also went too far. Damien's humor provided a lot of relief too.

World Burn: Regina's best performance imo. Her acting, the fire effects, sets, and vocals were all powerful and compelling.

I'd Rather Be Me: This song boosted my self-esteem and conveyed a positive message. It marked a huge turning point in the play. I also believe Janis used this song as an opportunity to flip us off.

Final Few Scenes: Cady visiting Regina, and only she and Janis showing up to see Regina, spoke volumes about their characters. The drug case and Cady's suspension led to her realization that it was time to change.

Do This Thing: Cady's speech about not pitting women against each other while her opponent focused on solving the puzzle was quite entertaining. Plus the topic of “Limits” being the final question was symbolic, it had me asking “what is the limit of meanness”

I See Stars: A cute and happy ending to an amazing show. I was bopping my head along.

Overall Impression: "Mean Girls the Musical" was an incredible experience, and I loved every moment of it. I officially died dead.

[bullet-prooflove]

Show Me: Nestor Oceteva x Reader - Mini Drabble

Tagging: @annetje @danzer8705 @drabbles-mc @alwaysachorusgirl @witches-unruly-heart @mysoulisasunflower @im-just-a-mississippi-girl @est1887 @the-wandering-lunatic @vannabanana1995 @camelia35 @multifandomloversworld @lilvampirina @creativitybeware @genius2050 @buddinglinguist @mortal--soul @gracerosaleigh

The prompt for this was 'Weird but fucking beautiful' - literally the summary of their relationship. I love writing these two because they do weird shit like this.

It’s past midnight when you finally catch up with Nestor. He’s standing at the gateway to the desert, leaning against the black SUV, the headlights on focusing on the spot where the two of you buried a body over a year ago.

“You got a body in the trunk or are you just happy to see me?” You say as you appear from the darkness. He smiles, it’s a shit joke but accurate. After all this is how the two of you started, singing a song together as you dug a hole for a convicted paedophile.

It’s not a normal first date story, but it’s yours. Being back here, at this pivotal moment of time in your history feels oddly romantic.

“Happy to see you.” he responds, his hand coming to rest on your hip as he leans in close capturing your lips with his.

It’s a slow kiss, the simple brush of his lips over yours. You raise up on tiptoes, hands gripping the fabric of his shirt as you press closer. His tongue dips into your mouth, savouring your taste as his thumb chases along the line of your jaw. You moan at the sensation, feeling that familiar rush of heat course through your body. You’ve missed him over the past few weeks, you’ve been on a job in Portland and although you’ve kept in contact there’s no substitute for the real thing.

He’s magnetic, this man of yours. There’s a rawness in his eyes when he looks at you, it’s both tender and powerful at the same time, you can’t help but be drawn to it.

“Fuck, I’ve missed you.” He mumbles against your lips. “Missed kissing you, missed loving you, missed every little thing about you, mi corazón.”

“Show me.” You ask him, your fingers tracing along the buttons of his shirt until they come to linger on the buckle of his belt. “Show me just how much you’ve missed me.”

Love Nestor? Get added to his tag list!

Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[blackjackkent]

All right, time to return to Oliver's little corner of the shadowlands. Rakha isn't deeply excited about this - their last encounter with Oliver made her fairly uncomfortable, given how saturated he is by the cursed magic of the area, and he didn't seem to be much of a fan of her either after she beat him at hide-and-seek.

But she's hopeful, based on what Halsin said, that it's a step towards healing the land and its magic for real. This would be basically the only positive thing that has happened to her since they entered the Shadow Cursed Lands, besides getting together with Wyll.

She's expecting him, looking for him, but it still makes her jump when Oliver surges out of a dark corner of the abandoned building where they last saw him. "Not back to gloat, are you?" he cries. "Nobody likes a bad winner!"

Narrator: Though shrouded in shadows, the child's resemblance to Thaniel is unmistakable. This must be his dark half - warped by the curse.

Yes - she can see the similarities. This must be the right track. Perhaps they really will be able to heal this place, and she can live again without the pain of that tainted magic on her skin.

Oliver shifts uneasily under the intensity of her gaze. "I still think you might have tricked me," he mumbles petulantly. "If you did, I'll figure it out!"

No point, she supposes, in being anything but direct - not that she's usually anything else anyway. "I know who you really are and where you really belong," she says. "You need to reunite with Thaniel."

"Spoilsport." The boy scowls. "I'm not going back. I like it here. I've made a family for myself. I get to play all the time."

Rakha lets out a heavy breath. She would be just as stubborn, in the boy's place, if someone came to tear her away from the battered little unit that she and her companions have become. But Oliver's companions are not people; they are shadows, and corrupted ones at that. "Like it or not," she says quietly, "you don't belong here."

As she could have expected, the boy flares at once with defensive anger. "Yes, I do!" he snaps. "You can't make me do anything!" He pivots, flares with broken magic; a portal opens behind him and he dashes through it into further darkness and disappears.

Lae'zel grunts irritably. "Back to the shadows," she mutters. "After him, t'rac'shka.(*) We need to see this through."

Rakha squints at the portal warily. For a moment she thinks it is like the one Halsin opened - that it leads to the Shadowfell. She's relieved to see, though, that the area on the other side is familiar - although only a little relieved because it is the square of Reithwin Village. She can almost smell the village's bloodsoaked air across the portal's surface.

But Lae'zel is right. It will all have been for nothing, and the curse will never be broken, if they can't catch the boy.

She strides through the portal without a backward glance, and the others follow behind her.

-----

(*) In-game, the word used here is ra'stil - "ally." Substituted in a word I made up some time ago as Lae'zel's nickname for Rakha specifically. XD

[gigglystudent]

Mastering Microeconomics Homework: Unraveling Complex Queries

In the realm of economics, mastering intricate concepts is pivotal for academic success. Often, students grapple with multifaceted questions, pondering, Can I pay someone to do my microeconomics homework? Let's delve into a master level question and its expert answer to shed light on this subject.

Question: How does elasticity of demand influence pricing strategies in a competitive market?

Answer: Understanding the interplay between elasticity of demand and pricing strategies elucidates market dynamics. In a competitive market, where numerous substitutes exist, elastic demand signifies that consumers are highly responsive to price changes. Consequently, firms must adopt strategic pricing policies to maintain market share and profitability. For instance, when facing elastic demand, firms often resort to price discrimination tactics, such as offering discounts or bundling products, to capture different segments of consumers. Conversely, inelastic demand empowers firms to implement price hikes without significant loss in sales volume, thus bolstering revenue. By comprehending elasticity's impact, firms can calibrate pricing strategies to maximize revenue and maintain competitiveness in the dynamic market landscape.

In navigating microeconomics assignments, grasping nuanced concepts like elasticity of demand is paramount. Seeking assistance or guidance from educators and peers can foster a deeper understanding, paving the path to academic excellence.

[thekatebridgerton]

Here me out. I think s4 could be philoise. Sophie is not introduced yet & even if the ball happened in s3 dont forget there I'd suppose to be a gap between their 1 meeting to when the story takes off. Plus 1 of the reason we're polin now is because they don't want to aggravate the fan, well the same applies for philoise. Add the actress playing Marina is sick she might not be up to return to a project so close to what she's going through her story could be wrapped in 1 scene or with her not even present in s3, paving the way for s4 philoise.

Okay so before I answer this I'd first like to encourage all of you to support Ruby Barker, who plays Marina. Like I always do. She's an amazing actress who has been trough a lot and deserves all the love.

Now for those of you who don't know the context, Ruby Barker was quite open about her hospitalization in May 2022 due to mental health problems. She has subsequently been posting pictures of what we assume is a happy and healthy path to recovery. BUT we haven't heard anything about her taking on new projects. Which likely means she's not ready to go back to work yet. (And honestly, acting, is a job, glamourous as it is, if any of us had a job that caused us to have mental health struggles, the least recommended thing would be to go back to that job, until healing was well and truly accomplished)

Because of the situation with Marina's actress I do think s4 is going to be Benophie. I love Phillip as much as any other Philoise fan, but 1) Benophie fans were left pretty high and dry after they polin season was announced 2) Eloise has a lot of growing up to do, before she's ready to start her journey towards true love. At least with Benedict, we know he is open to finding love.

I disagree with what you said about not wanting to aggravate Philoise fans. Because, and I say this with all the kindness in the word, Philoise fans are less rabid than Polin fans. They're even less rabid than Benophie fans. (by a landslide but they are). You will find that when push comes to shove, Philoise fans will be happier to wait for s5 than Benophie fans ever would (and I say this with all the love in the word, Benophie fans, you are as scary as the Polins)

In fact, with the recent recasting of Francesca, there is a possibility that s4 will mash up An Offer From A Gentleman and about half of what happens in When He was Wicked.

I'd also like to add something very very obvious about TSPWL. that for Philoise to happen benophie NEEDS TO EXIST FIRST. at least one quarter of TSPWL involves Eloise and Phillip going in and out of My Cottage. The philoise proposal happens in Sophie's study and the scene where Phillip saves Benophie's son from a fever is pretty pivotal for Phillip and Eloise character development. Netflix can't just cut that part out and I will seriously riot if they decide to substitute those scenes of Philoise bonding with Benophie, with Kanthony or Polin.

the point of showing in s1 and s2 how much closer Eloise is with Benedict than she is with the rest of her siblings. Is to draw a parallel of how they both fall inlove with people who love them and accept them for who they are. Both in Sophie, who has always seen Benedict as his own person, and never confuses him with Bridgerton #1 or Bridgerton #3. And with Phillip who sees everything that people consider flaws in Eloise and celebrates her for it.

isn't it also interesting that Eloise and Benedict have the only 2 Bridgerton spouses who have suffered childhood physical abuse as well. Because here are two people who need to be loved so desperately it hurts because they have received so little love in their pasts, and that just tugs at that weak spot inside of Benedict and Eloise. Because they can give all the love and they just want to feel needed but still maintain their independence and holding on to their right to do what they want in life. Sophie and Phillip not only need them, but also support their individuality and encourage their self expression to the extreme.

So when the Philoise season does come Benophie kinda needs to have already happened.

and that's the tea

[ikram1909]

the thing about xavi’s subs is they could’ve worked if the tactics were different. when romeu came on we had been losing the midfield battle (fermin and gundo were very obviously tiring and weren’t doing the defensive duties they should) so the sub makes sense. but he keeps making romeu the pivot and taking gavi up high to press and do runs.

against a counter attacking and midfield heavy team like rm you can’t leave a player as slow as romeu there with only gundo as his main support no matter how good your “high press” might be. especially because the defenders don’t tend to mark second line players like valverde and bellingham (and sometimes kroos).

it doesn’t help that your high press only works if it is super in synch and here it is lewy, lamine, gavi and raphina. half of which just came back from injury and are inherently not at the same wavelength as the others.

anyways, i would’ve switched gavi and gundo, keeping gavi deep and a more press resistant passing option while also marking second linemen extremely well. gundo works well in tight spaces and has a better sense of space than gavi (not an indictment of the latter, just something that comes with experience and style) so he would’ve supported lewy better so that he stayed high as a 9 keeping that rm back line up and forcing the midfield to either also move closer to their defenders or leave an exploitable gap between the two. as it was… romeu lost balls gundo/the cbs couldn’t help him recover, lewy lost balls too close to midfield because there was no one to truly support him in tight spaces (lamine and raphina not good at that either) and gavi ended up super isolated and barely able to touch the ball.

You're right. The substitutions make sense in theory and it would've worked out if Romeu was better at certain aspects or if Gavi stayed deep. I don't know why Xavi is obsessed with sticking him up front where he gets none of the ball when most of his best performances came while he was playing deeper. It's like shooting yourself in the foot Gavi literally has better defensive statistics than our only DM and you push him all the way upfront for what exactly? Even he said he prefers playing in the double pivot and we all know Gundogan is very clinical and offense oriented so the decision shouldn't be that hard to make no? Guess not.

Another thing I didn't understand is why was it Lamine who had to be sacrificed to the left wing? He could've easily kept Felix on and subbed one of Lamine and Rapha instead.

It's so frustrating how such small details cost us the game and that's not to say Xavi is the only one to blame because he isn't. So many people should've done better but we have to move on. It's one game and if it can open Xavi's eyes about certain things then I'll take the loss.

[omgkalyppso]

🍄Decriscribe your wip/one of your wips in the format of “___ + ___ =___”  

🖍Post Any sentence from your wip

♻️A scrapped idea for your current WIP

I'm always interested in the ideas that just don't work out for whatever reason, probably because I end up scrapping about 60-80% of my ideas lol

asdhfkjlas That's so relatable.... Thank you for the ask!

🍄 Wordy but:

two ties to Menzoberranzan + a duke and two guilds on your side = a civilized, if fucked up, society of vampires

🖍 I can never limit myself to a sentence, let's be real.

b/g3 spoilers and pre-established relationship (Étoile and Wyll) conflict implied below the cut

Here's some dialogue from a vampire spawn oc, Anastasia. Turned by Leon less than a week before Cazador's defeat, with a son in Baldur's Gate. She doesn't want to go into the Underdark. She argues she isn't blood starved like so many of the rest. She is pivotal in how their little vampiric society forms:

"...Property disputes go to your member of the council. Worship of Shar or any devil, and signs of Shar or any devil should be reported to the Council. Two vampires of the House must always be in the Underdark. The council meets every new moon. Missing Council members forgo their votes, and vampire spawn are immediately up for replacement, while vampires and Étoile must have their deaths confirmed to be relieved of their positions on the Council. No vampire may substitute their vote on the council. Some votes will be open to all members of House Ienith. Punishments for law breaking will range from pain, to fines, to labour, to exile, to execution by beheading or exposure to the sun. "But we are not a stupid people. We want to eat and laugh and love again. We will flourish together. We will uplift one another. We will be free."

♻️ There are two moments of conflict with Wyll that I'm scrapping. I don't want to make him in conflict with Étoile just to honor canon that could've been more considerate to begin with. He's capable of social understanding wrt "monsters" if he can canonically romance Astarion, of being self-aware wrt the "devilish" appearances of tieflings, and of being happy helping people as Duke — really there'd be no shortage of combat, how familiar are you with the forgotten realms? dfjshgbskdjh

But that does mean that I'm losing a planned moment where Étoile leaves the duke's estate to spend a night at The Favored Knight, a classy inn in Hightown I made up and Astarion comes to comfort them. I'll share some blocked dialogue:

It's like 2 AM.

Étoile: A room is 14 gold? Innkeep: Yes, sir. Étoile: Here's twenty-five for a room, a bath and a bottle of wine, and two more if you can find me a messenger to go to the lower city? Innkeep: Certainly. Do you have a letter prepared? Étoile: No, I'll need a minute to write it. Innkeep: Of course. Right this way. I'll send three up with the bathwater, and either I or another will come for the letter. Étoile: Please. Innkeep: My pleasure, Mla'ghir. [i headcanon this name to find purchase in their vampire community and slowly fall into public knowledge; this is just a statement that they're recognized, and there's an implication of discretion as a reflection of authority]

[the letter]

Astarion. I am at the Favored Knight in Hightown. I wanted a bath and to be away from our old friend. Things did not go well. You are welcome to stay at home, but if you came to me … I would appreciate the company. All my love, Étoile

[some time later]

Astarion: Do you want to talk about what happened? Étoile: Say you love me. Astarion: Oh, Endanya, more than anything. I love you. Étoile: I love you too. Wyll, he— [REDACTED] Astarion: He's had a long time to [REDACTED] Étoile: [REDACTED] Then he wouldn't allow me time to dress before he stormed out. It felt … very undignified. Astarion: Fuck him then. Étoile: Astarion. Astarion: No, I— I don't want you treated that way. Étoile: He said we could talk about it tomorrow, and he did apologize. I want to hear what he has to say. Astarion: [indignant] He's going to hurt you again. Étoile: [resigned] Probably. Astarion: [REDACTED] Étoile: [REDACTED]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And I still want Wyll as part of their relationships, so I worried about how conflict would be to my audience. It'll be lighter. Different. Better.

I hope. LOL.

But yeah, I'm not going to share Wyll's (just) anger blocked dialogue. I'll figure it out.

[bronzefuryfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/bronzefuryfic/731560785775558657/just-realized-a-multitude-of-rhae-parallels-to?source=share

👀👀👀

(so curious to hear!)

OH you have no idea how badly I was hoping someone would ask me to elaborate on this. Succession spoilers beneath the cut!

Okay so I think narratively Greg and Rhae share parallels in how they serve as an audience’s point of entrance into the upper echelon of their respective world’s ruling class. There’s obviously some large departures because the settings are so different but hear me out.

They are both the offspring of a king’s (Logans obvs a CEO but.. y’know what i mean) estranged brother, which gives them a way into their most inner circle. The Kings (Viserys and Logan) are less interested in their niece/nephew (Rhae and Greg) than they are in a proxy to their estranged brother (Daemon/Ewan). Rhae and Greg are both pushed to pursue that connection by other family members after a humiliating ordeal that signifies rock bottom (Greg puking in his costume vs Rhae’s failure to claim her dragon). They do not have quite enough power/ connection to pivot their way into the top spot, but they are still at the heart of a succession crisis and have the chance to influence the outcome. In doing so, they both risk corrupting themselves from the weaker, albeit kinder, versions of themselves at the start of the story.

Some looser parallels:

Rhae and Greg are brought into the fold and become closer with their cousins- the King’s three children by his second wife. (Although Viserys favors his child by his first wife, while Logan rejects Connor constantly, so the dynamic itself in that way is flipped.)

Rhae and Greg both get taken in by a fellow outsider to the family’s most inner circle in an attempt to bolster their strength, seeing value in their protege where others may have missed it(this one is really loose, but bare with me, because it might become more apparent later):

I think Alicent is kind of like Rhae’s Tom. Alicent singles Rhae out and is manipulating her under the guise of kindness (though, I don’t think Rhae quite realizes and I still do think Alicent cares in her way). Furthermore… I think Rhae reminds Alicent quite painfully of a certain distant lover who she is on difficult, if not outright hostile, terms with. And I think Rhae (like Greg) might be a type of outlet, an easier-to-control substitute for Alicent(/Tom) to indirectly express their true feelings toward. But. The depths of that are not quite revealed yet and will be a lot difference. But the parallel is there. Trust!

(((Here’s a hint, for those interested or not quite sure what I mean- it’s not a spoiler for anything major plot wise, but it is a currently hidden character motivation that has been influencing things and may enhance your reading- If you don’t want to know, stop reading now!!)))

Rhae reminds Alicent of a younger Rhaenyra, there’s a version of Death of the Dreamers where Alicent admits it/ more heavily alludes to it during their dinner

[evillittlebirdie]

The First Dance (Tav/Wyll)

There was nothing like a well-fought battle to keep the adrenaline up. 

After checking over his companions, Wyll could finally tend to his wounds. He had a long but superficial cut on his right forearm. It was his fault. He had gotten too eager and left his right side open. Wyll did not have bandages left in his pack, but he knew where to find a substitution.

Petra, their resourceful leader, would steal a bed from an abandoned house if she could convince Karlach to carry it. She could pick a room clean of silverware, books, jewelry, knick-knacks, candles, and weapons better than any vulture. Petra would sell almost ninety percent of her haul to a trader. Indeed, she would trade something in her pack for Wyll's. 

Petra was a tiefling warlock. One of the Archfey granted the powers she used in battle. Petra spoke of her patron with fondness and adoration. She remarked how he saved her from an undesirable fate. She shared no further elaboration with the group. "My powers speak for themselves, as does my freedom," Petra would tell others. Whatever fate her patron 'saved' her from must have included scarcity. Wyll could see how Petra was desperate to shove another book in her bag. 

"A moment?" Wyll prompted as he walked up to the tiefling. Petra quickly turned her head to look at him. Her black sclera surrounded a periwinkle iris. Often, her expression was mischievous. This time, she looked at him inquisitively. 

"Do you have anything in your pack you would be willing to trade so I can take care of this cut?" Wyll questioned. He pivoted to show her the cut on his arm. 

"Nothing to trade," Petra commented, returning to her pack.

"Ah," Wyll responded, disappointed. But then Petra suddenly pulled a pristine towel out of her pack. 

"But I have this to give," Petra told him with a playful smile, giggling at her words. 

Wyll chuckled, "To give? Well, I cannot decline a gift." He went to take the towel, but Petra pulled it back. 

"You can't possibly hope to wrap this around your arm yourself. Here, let me help," Petra offered with a beaming smile. 

Wyll could feel his cheeks flush at her beautiful grin. "I could not possibly deny help either. But it's truly unnecessary," He asserted, "I've bandaged worse wounds with the full use of one hand before." 

"Why? When you can use my two hands?" Petra insisted, "Now, please straighten your arm."

Wyll wasn't uncomfortable accepting help, but he extended his arm. Petra hummed in approval before she began to wrap the towel around his arm. As she did so, she told him, "You don't need to offer to trade for anything in my bag. If you want something, take it. It's as much yours as mine or anyone else in the group." Once the towel wrapped around his arm twice, Petra gave it a final tight pull before tying it closed. 

Wyll held back a groan. As great as Petra was at charming her way in places she didn't belong and smiting her enemies, she failed at medical arts. She tied the towel too tightly around his arm. He could feel the muscle begin to throb and numb. They needed to get to camp quickly before he lost all circulation in the limb. "Thank you, Petra. It's much appreciated." 

Pleased with herself, the tiefling returned to rummage through her pack. Now that Petra was distracted, Wyll backed away to inspect the makeshift bandage. The towel was wrapped so snugly around his arm that he couldn't even force his fingers under it. Petra didn't seem to understand the difference between a bandage and a tourniquet. He would have to call for her aid if he was bleeding out.

Wyll was trying to loosen the knot when he realized Petra was walking towards him. She had spied on his meddling. "Oh! I..." 

"You could have told me if I did it too tight," Petra scolded him lightly before she went to undo the knot. 

"I didn't want you to think I was ungrateful," Wyll responded, looking down sheepishly. He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. 

"There's a difference between being unthankful and corrective criticism. I'm not the best nursemaid," She cautioned. Once the knot was loosened, she tied it properly. 

"Still, you offered to help. You didn't have to do that," Wyll approved. He flexed his arm. The makeshift bandage was secure but not too compressed. 

"You can ask for aid. And you can say when that aid isn't too beneficial," Petra assured him. She patted the towel, "I hope it feels better. I know it will once Shadowheart gets her hands on it. But...for luck," She leaned in to brush her lips against Wyll's cheek. She then giggled before spinning around and returning to her pack. As she skipped away, her tail swished back and forth in rhythm. 

Wyll could feel the ghost of Petra's lips on his cheek. He reached up to touch his skin. Maybe he should ask for help more often. 

[unitedbydevils]

Match Review: Manchester United 2-1 Brentford

Football, bloody hell.

Since we're quoting Fergie, I'd like to pay my respects to the Ferguson family and give my condolences on the passing of Lady Cathy Ferguson. She was a remarkable woman and gave crucial love and support to a man who provided so much joy to Manchester United football club and its fans. May she rest in peace.

How apt though that it was one of Ferguson's academy kids Scott 'McSauce' McTominay who came off the bench and rescued United from despair with not only the equalising goal but also the winner.

Not just that, but the winning goal was assisted by Harry Maguire; an almost loathed figure amongst the fan base at present but one of our best players today. He had a very resolute game in defence and quietly got on with his job. Perhaps he was aided by the veterancy of Jonny Evans and that calm support and guidance. Perhaps he simply cannot play with Victor Lindelöf.

We should roll back to the earlier parts of the game though, and what for 90 minutes was simply dire football. United seem to constantly suffer lapses in concentration, which meant we conceded a silly goal to Jensen in the 26th minute after Casemiro lost the ball and Lindelöf failed to clear properly. Onana could perhaps have done more to save it, but he is looking behind a crowded box of United and Brentford players, and should he not expect one of his seasoned defenders to be able to successfully get rid of a ball?

Both Casemiro and Lindelöf appear to be devoid of form, and Onana's not far behind. After the international break it will be interesting to see if other players force them out of the side. Starlet Kobbie Mainoo is close to a return, Hannibal Mejbri has impressed, and if a left back can return to fitness then Amrabat can stay in midfield as the anchor or pivot.

United's play seemed to lack not only intelligence, but also energy. Are we unfit? Are we tired? What is going on? Because at this rate I'm more inclined to put our poor performances down to a lack of willing or desire, and simply put that isn't on at Manchester United. You fight for the badge or you sling your hook.

Confidence is blatantly lacking though, and that's definitely impacting United's composure to retain possession and perform habitual passing patterns, whether triangle moves, give and go, one-touch retention... it's sloppy and uncoordinated and very frustrating as a fan.

For all United failed the eye test, the statistics show we were the better team which (Thomas) Frankly is embarrassing for Brentford. 64% possession to Manchester United, 21 shots, 8 on target, 7 corners... the intent was there but it's about the execution, and that comes from confidence and synergy.

Højlund looked poor today, for example, but he's still young and new and bedding in. This is why he was talked of as a second-fiddle for a star signing like a Harry Kane - he will take time.

Erik Ten Hag is as culpable as the players for poor results, and many fans will say we got away with it today and decry the lack of standards from other fans for enjoying a 2-1 win. That was, after all, the first time United had trailed in the 90th minute of a Premier League game and then won it.

To the bitter fans I say go boil your head, because if you can't enjoy United winning then what's the point of you. We're not owed success. We're owed a desire for success - from players and coaches. We're owed a determination to do well. That's where we should rightly be criticising people. McTominay's heroics at the end of the game bagged us two goals in under 5 minutes. Now imagine if we play with that urgency earlier in the match. We could have snotted this lot and given them the sort of rodding that would boost any ego and make Gary Neville or Jamie Carragher think he had a chance at pulling Beyonce.

I also believe that Erik is as deserving of praise when things go right as he is of criticism when it goes wrong. His choices to substitute Casemiro for Eriksen, Rashford for Garnacho, and Amrabat for McTominay proved to be excellent decisions. We know he has tactical intelligence, we saw it at Ajax. He's been on camera and broken his style down in interviews. The issue is players, man management, and in-game decision making. We don't know the whole picture, but fuck it, at least today he got the decisions right.

The man is under huge pressure at a club owned by people who only care for money. He will get some things wrong. He also has to let players try and prove their worth, which might cost him and United. How many fans would have been happy at McTominay coming on as a sub to try and win the game? Honestly? The answer is not many. Yet he bangs in two in Fergie Time, the Old Trafford crowd roars, and McSauce pulls off yet another textbook knee slide. Fuck yes.

United are in a bad way. The players are playing like shit, and the manager has made some dumb mistakes, but we have to be fair and give them time to fix up. That doesn't mean they are exempt of criticism, but there's a balance to be had that isn't just TEN HAG OUT, SELL RASHFORD, TAKE AWAY BRUNO'S CAPTAINCY, BENCH ONANA. Honestly, go and watch United in the early days of Fergie, or even before that in the void after Sir Matt Busby. Understand that there will be bad times - yes, even more than a decade - and that it's on us as fans to be loyal and support the club.

What next though... I already jumped the gun and said that the Burnley win might be the turning point, and the Palace cup match seemed to prove that, but we're still faltering. We need a good international break now and to regroup with fresh ideas and renewed confidence ready to go on a run to Christmas. We have the talent, but do we have the mental fortitude and that drive to bounce back? Now's the time to show up.

[josiah-theory]

How the hell do changes work?

Sorry, I don't have much of an answer. Only guesses.

There seem to be multiple different ways of getting around

1

Holy shit it made the number big. Anyways, uh, cadences. You know, like a G chord going into a C chord, or an F chord going into a C chord, to establish that feeling of "we are in C major."

Cadences seem like the most obvious scheme to work from, when trying to establish tonality. V -> I, IV -> I, ii -> V -> I, IV -> V -> I, V -> vi... these are the blueprints which can be injected with detours and be stringed together to form more sophisticated progressions.

The motivation behind their use seems to be "let's make it sound like we're in this key."

2

Pivot chords. Say we're in our previous example: C major. We've gone between the I and V a lil bit, and then we've reached our IV chord, F. Then we play Dm - still in C major, because Dm is the ii chord. But, wait - then comes a Bb chord. Huh? Then another C - are we still in C major? - but then we go back to our F chord - and it sounds resolved! In F major, not C major! We've used Dm as a pivot chord to modulate keys - from C to F.

This works because the chord D minor is present in the keys of C major and F major. In C major, it's the ii chord. In F major, it's the vi chord. the ii became a vi, and facilitated a smooth shift from one tonality to another. The pivot chord was our entry into the tonality of F major, and then the IV -> V -> I cadence, Bb -> C -> F, sealed the deal, communicating "yes, we are in F now."

3

Modal interchange. This is when you take a chord in a progression and temporarily borrow tones from another key to momentarily change the chord's "flavor". Let's assume you're playing F -> G -> C. Now, the chord Fm uses a tone that's outside of C major - the tone A flat. But hey, it sounds cool. So maybe we decide we want to make the F a minor chord at some point. We are free to choose this - I promise you won't go to jail.

Whenever we substitute a chord in a progression for a chord sharing the same root but different tones, that's basically what modal interchange is.

Now, you can combine modal interchange with pivot chords and cadences, and things can get really interesting! Now that' IV chord in C major can become basically whatever chord in whatever other tonality you want. Fm? FM7 augmented? F9? Fm7b5? [Insert corresponding keys these chords fit into here]? Have at it.

4

Hey, where'd my huge numbers go? I guess you only get three.

Anyways, the next one I wanted to mention was voice leading. This is another way of deciding which chord comes next - you can shift around the notes in the chord you're currently playing.

This technique has a lot of overlap with modal interchange - after all, when you substitute a minor chord for a major chord, you're just shifting the third (and seventh) tones down a semitone. But where modal interchange works with respect to the root note and its position in the key, manipulations of voice leading aren't really focused on key/tonality so much as they are focused on how the voices in a chord move around.

There's a kind of music theory called Neo-Riemannian theory which covers these kinds of manipulations. There are fancy names given to these different manipulations - they're called "transforms" in this theory - but I'm not going to go over them, because I can't be bothered to google it right now.

But basically, you can do things like shift from minor to major, or major to minor - C to Cm, or Cm to C - or perhaps shift the C note down to yield B E G, the notes of Em - or perhaps shift the G up to G# to yield C E G#, the notes of C augmented - or a personal favorite, shifting the first and fifth up a semitone to yield C# E G#, the notes of C#m - there are many possibilities.

With manipulations of voice leading, you're not focusing so much on tonality as you are the way the chromatic movements feel in their own right. But just like modal interchange, this can be combined with the other techniques to establish a feeling of tonality.

5

Oh cool, my big number privileges have been restored!

There is actually no 5th thing I wanted to say, that's really all that's on my mind right now.

All of these concepts (and more than what was listed here) may be used to get around harmonically. I like thinking of harmony in terms of a big complicated city, or maybe like constellations in the night sky. You learn to get around, you learn the routes. Tonality concerns orbiting around a certain star, but wouldn't it be boring to orbit the same ball of gas forever?

I'll stop before my metaphors become even more tedious.