#and it has like a lot of plotholes

[umblrspectrum]

ive been struggling big time coming up with anything funny to draw that hasnt been done yet so have my rw au art dump

[thelegolashairappreciationclub]

My two favourite FAVOURITE Gil Galad theories are Gil Galad son of No-one Really and Gil Galad son of Everyone Kind Of?

Like I adore the idea that someone who by blood is no-one, parents were random noldo or sinda soldiers, doesn't even know who his parents are, that this strange elf becomes one of the best Kings of the Noldor and the only one to rule mostly in peace since finwe. That this person who was not Finwe's heir is the one to inherit his mantle in its truest form.

But also... what if he's everyone's son?

I have seen this done both as weird magic stuff and also as the worlds most complicated polycule and the kid that resulted. But i prefer the Hot Potato Origin: That in his life Gil Galad has been passed through so many of the Noldorin and Sindarin Lords and been adopted so many times that no one is sure at this point who actually contributed genetically.

Post rebirth there's a tally system of whose traits he shows the most of out of the finweans (concerningly, Argon is currently in the lead) and no one wants to ask him directly because if They are one of the parents it would be horrendously embarrassing to not Know That. This also means that most of them have adopted a sort of parental attitude towards him even if they're fairly certain that they aren't related.

Some of them have become full conspiracy theorists about it (Fingon: what if I DID have a wife and i just FORGOT because of head trauma?? Galadriel: subtly interrogating all her siblings to build a full timeline of their entire lives in Beleriand) others are throwing fuel on the fire for their own amusement (Nerdanel: actually he's our Secret 8th Son, we sent him on later, that's why he has freckles. Elrond: he's actually Elros, we were lying for fun, ignore that we dont look at all alike.) Some of them have just kind of shrugged and acknowledged that they are a possible candidate and moved on (Caranthir: if Haleth had a child she Absolutely would not have told me and she's clever enough to have organised this, the timeline works out. Aredhel: unfortunately large chunks of my time in nan elmoth are fuzzy and i would not put it past Eol to rid himself of any "unsuitable" children.) Finrod and Maedhros have remained So silent on the issue that others are Sure they Know something (the pestering results in Both of them suddenly claiming to be his parents: Finrod is his father, Maedhros his mother Actually. The charade of being star crossed lovers is convincing enough that people start doubting their real marriages.)

Gil Galad is honestly completely uninvested in this and is just glad that they're bickering between themselves instead of questioning him constantly. Besides he has lunch with his birth parents every Wednesday; if they wanted to stop the rumours they would.

[oxygenbefore1775]

cw: torture

Aight, incoherent musings incoming

but first - some historical info-dumping for context

The first thing to know about the Inquisition in Venice is that it wasn't strictly for religious persecution. It was first founded after Venice suffered an embarrassing defeat against the Ottoman Empire due to some intel leaks and was meant to prevent further leaks from occurring. This meant total surveillance and terrorizing the nation, of course. At the head of the Inquisition there were three inquisitors - the red inquisitor who was the top among them, and two black inquisitor. These three inquisitors are the most powerful people in the Republic apart from the Doge and their identities are hidden from the public. To gather intel and persecute sus people, they had a large network of spies across the Europe planted in each economical class to relay all the information to them. Now, the Inquisition dealt with a variety of cases starting from breach of sanitary rules (yes, they had those) to loan-sharking. For all those cases, there had to be at least two verified delations for the accusation to proceed forward. But there was one offence that didn't require an extensive process of verification - and it was treason. Once you get suspected of treason, you're pretty much done. They take you away in the night to the cells where one of the Inquisitors interrogates you alone ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°). You can't have an advocate nor defend yourself so most of the time your conviction is pretty much guaranteed. Their preferred method of execution was drowning in the Orfano channel btw.

aight, now to the babblings

in this, Reiner is the black inquisitor (aka neri) and Jean is one of the agents (aka spirri or ghost). Considering that the Republic was spending 200k ducats on the Inquisition in a year (1 ducat is worth about 100-200 dollars if counted in golds weight), Jean is in it for money and doesn't really care about the political propaganda behind it. And Reiner - he is on his usual being-hero delulu behaviour that's why he's doing it. Reiner and Jean are in the same social circle of nobility but because the inquisitor's identity are kept secret Jean doesn't know who Reiner is but Reiner does. (and also they're gay for each other) (like maybe Reiner has thrown some perfume-filled eggshells at Jean during the Carnival - this sort of gay)

Now, in the 16th century Venice was in a political and economical crisis considering all of the famines followed by plague outbreaks so most of the population was quite unhappy with the Republic. This, paired with the fact that Spain was on the rise due to export from the colonies and that Venice's only advantage over this was its glass production, the Inquisition was quite tense around the safe-keeping of the government secrets. Thus, the number of persecutions, especially on the charge of crimes against the Republic, sky-rocketed.

Due to this, Jean is more and more often tasked with surveilling less and less suspicious-looking people. Then something akin to Marco-gate happens where Jean witnesses (or mayhaps even helps in) an execution of an innocent person and realizes that the system is quite cruel. Previously indifferent towards his position apart form the monetary benefits, Jean has started to understand his role in the Inquisition and maybe lament it in his social circles.

That's when Reiner catches the wind of this. Now, talks such as this would certainly land Jean in the trouble in the current crisis situation so he does. On Reiner's orders Reiner gets arrested. I'd like to make the reason for this decision ambiguous - either Reiner is completely delulu and arrests Jean cuz he now sees him as a potential traitor holding sensitive intel or that he arrests him first so that the two other inquisitors wouldn't be handling his case (and chances are that they wouldn't be merciful since Jean worked for the Inquisition).

An ex-spy is a dead spy so Jean's fate is pretty much sealed - he is going to die. But the inquisitors, as powerful as they are, can't sentence one to death - they can either imprison or banish someone (the former thing Reiner has already done) - only the Council of Ten (don't ask me about the administration stuff but it's yet another part of the Inquisition) can do that but it will take a couple of days for them to review the case. In those couple of days that Jean is left to live, the only thing left is to pull out the names of the other people that he may have relayed sensitive intel to - so he has to be tortured for this.

Now, the thing with the torture in the Inquisition. Technically, it's not allowed. All the statements given under torture are not valid and cannot be accepted as evidence. So what the inquisitors would do is to torture the accused first and take the statements on the next day. During the torture, usually only the inquisitor and the accused are present in the cell.

Thus, Reiner and Jean are to spend all of their day alone. I don't think Reiner has it in him to actually torture Jean so I suppose we all know what the major part of torture would entail ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Oh and all the while they discuss freedom vs security dilemma where Jean manages to kind of shift Reiner's mindset of being ok with butchering ambigiously guilty people for the arguable sake of keeping the government intact

Mayhaps, in the end Jean is still sentenced to death but his execution is not public since it would be a bad look for the Republic so it is decided to descretely kill him by drowning him in the channel. The execution is quickly cut short when the executioner turns out to be Reiner who decides to desert his position as an inquisitor and flee the Republich. They sail into the sunset on a gondola or something.

That's all - that's all my noggin has to offer

having severe reijean against the backdrop of 16th century venetian inquisition thoughts

[longroadstonowhere]

ah, so in honor of odaiba day, exciting digimon news from otakon: discotek has gotten the rights to the original three movies that were mushed together to make digimon the movie, and they’ve redubbed the original three with the original voice actors!

i got to see all three dubs on saturday and it was really fantastic, like they stayed mostly true to the japanese script but kept in a couple references to the digimon movie dub for the nostalgia factor, and the voices all sound pretty spot on, they did a really incredible job

blu ray isn’t due out until like november, but i’m really looking forward to finally having a proper dub of all three that i can show people (and also that release will include digimon the movie so i can inflict the digimon rap on people as well, hahaha)

[sunderwight]

thinking more about a scenario where Bingge's world is just, fundamentally unstable.

because the System mostly created him for the punishment protocol. before that he actually only did exist as a book character, and the "real" PIDW world was the SVSSS world. but then after manifesting Bingge the System created a reality where he did exist, except it doesn't have the same degree of substance or cohesiveness as the SV world. plus, it has all the narrative asspulls Airplane was increasingly worse about as his writing devolved, and all of the contrivances and plotholes that never made it into the SV world and subsequently never threw anything out of alignment either. the SV world was built from Airplane's most stable creative phase, and went on and diverged from there. but Bingge's world was created from the final PIDW canon, which is a mess.

so it's just like... not at all stable. it's not just that Bingge himself is also a wildly unstable guy, his entire world reflects this in that it is a mess of interwoven contradictions that is constantly folding in on itself and collapsing in places. stuff like, in some chapters Airplane messed up and got certain wives confused, but he confused them consistently for big portions of the story. thereby completely muddying the waters of which wife actually had which backstory or personality. so there's this segment of Bingge's harem comprised of these eldritch abomination interchangeable women-shaped entities that have no true sense of individual self, instead constantly melting and merging into one another.

combining the realms would be the watsonian explanation for why Bingge's dimension is so fucked up, of course. but even if that hadn't been part of PIDW canon it would still be an intensely weird situation.

Bingmei lying awake at night, deeply disquieted because all he told his husband about his trip to the other world was that he woke up in a strange place with a lot of women, and unless he's got a good reason that's what he's gonna leave it at because that place was freakier than the Abyss and Shizun already gets upset just contemplating Binghe trapped there. also he isn't sure how to explain the concept of six overlapping skies and the labyrinthine palace that was many places in one and the spots where it seemed like reality just ended and opened in a great, yawning void that none of the other people around him even seemed to notice.

his very own cosmic horror misadventure that he's pretty sure is what would have become of the world if he hadn't met his husband. lol. he's just like, sure on an emotional level it would make sense that reality would lose all cohesion in that case, but he's also pretty sure it's not literally supposed to do that?

Bingmei trying really hard to figure out the potential impact of comphet on physics.

[wisteria-lodge]

I really do not want to discredit JKR, she created a fantastic world, with great ideas etc and I hate to be like "oh her success was just an accident!" especially to a woman. But that's what I feel about her getting praise for Snape. People say that the fact that there's so much debate about him now is a testament of JKR's writing skills, but on the contrary I think there is much debate about him now because she executed his character badly...or at least not in the level of genius I see her get praised for. I have always felt this way even before her views but I hate saying it now bc it'll come off as "revisionist" or something 😭 imo the fans have interpreted, analyzed, and broken down his character better.

JKR's success was absolutely not an accident. She dusted off and revitalized the dead School Story genre, she clicked things together in proportions that made a lot of sense, she's VERY good at marketing both herself and her work, she understands (and polices) brand identity and always has, she understands franchise potential, she made the *very* smart decision to age her series up along with her core fan base... but. This did create a few issues with the actual text.

There is a LOT of ambiguity in the Harry Potter series. Lines, scenes, entire characters (Snape is the poster boy, but not even close to the only one) that can legitimately be read in vastly different ways. And not Game of Thrones "oh this is a morally grey character in a complex situation." It's more like "you can interpret what is literally happening in this scene in about three different ways."

I see this ambiguity coming from two main sources, which are honestly kind of unique to the Harry Potter series.

The "Three Year Summer" Shift.

Books 1-3 are kids books, written like kids books, and Books 5-7 are young adult books, written like young adult books. It's not a new take that there are a lot of worldbuilding details and characterization choices that make perfect sense in a kid's book, but not if you're going for the added complexity and grounded tone of an adult book. Filtch is fine as a one-line joke comic villain, but if you're treating him as a fully realized person who actually exists in a more grounded sort of world - he becomes terrifying, tragic, and actually starts creating plotholes. It's like how Willy Wonka is whimsical in his own universe... but if you were to move him to one that's less stylized, now he's Julian Slowik from The Menu.

This leads to a backwards-compatibility situation where you're taking the "adult book" versions of the characters and trying to make them fit over the "children's book" character's actions. Often, the fit isn't super clean. So, you interpret these children's book scenes to make it fit - and you CAN, because children's book scenes are short, use simple vocab, and don't generally give you a *ton* of extra information. Why not interpret them with adult subtext? It's not contradicting anything. But it is essentially a version of that "open scene" acting class game where you get a scene that's like:

- What’s that? - My latest project. - It looks very interesting. - Well, I think so.

and then two actors run it though first straightforward, then sarcastic, then angry, then longing, etc.

2. Harry Potter is a mystery novel serial.

This is where a ton of the structure of the Harry Potter series comes from. Who opened the Chamber of Secrets? (we have suspects and clues) What is the monster? Who put Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire? (we have suspects and clues) How is Sirius Black getting into the castle? Who is the Halfblood Prince? Who is Snape loyal to? Like there are TONS of these questions (especially in the better books...)

And they make the books fun! They made speculating between the books a TON of fun. Buut.... suspects in a mystery story HAVE to be written ambiguously, or they're not very good suspects. The point is to have a scene that seems super suspicious on a first read but is actually completely innocent, and vice versa. So the scenes themselves fundamentally have to be written to support multiple meanings, in order to make the magic trick work. But the problem IS that in order to do that... you have to sacrifice cleanly articulated character development. There's a reason, in serial detective novels, that the detective goes to a new place and meets a new group of people every book. Ex-suspects have trouble going on to serve new functions in the plot, because who are they exactly? The point is that we don't know.

Lots of Harry Potter characters get hit by "suspect effect." In Book 3, Sirius Black is written to be a dangerous red herring (like why DID he slash the Fat Lady's portrait, in retrospect?) and in Book 4 he's this positive (but ultimately misguided) mentor whose function is to shift suspicion off of Moody and Barty Junior. So when we meet him in Book 5... and he no longer has a structural narrative role... who is he exactly? In a lot of ways, it's up to you the reader, and how you interpreted books 3 and 4.

Or Remus and Tonks. Their relationship is treated as a "mystery" in Book 5. So we get the reveal, but we don't get to see it develop. Because every time the relationship comes up, it needs to be discussed in a way that Harry can misunderstand. As a result, we don't get a good sense of what the dynamics of their relationship actually are.

And Snape... he's the red herring in Book 1, he's "up to something" in Book 3, a red herring again in Book 4, AGAIN in book 5 and 6. Which means. That is there is at least one alternate way to interpret pretty much every single thing that man says by design. So of course there are going to be multiple ways to interpret his motives. Snape the literary equivalent of the face/vase optical illusion... only you have Word of God saying "it's for sure a vase."

[asneakyfox]

so let's talk about david jenkins saying the idea was that the crew would dump ed overboard in the mutiny before the writers changed their minds and had him kept in the hold.

he says they changed this for pacing reasons, so that the reunion could happen in 2x03 instead of being delayed longer, and i cannot argue with that, waiting any longer sounds excruciating. so i'm not complaining about this as, like, villainous interference from the WBD suits or anything, although it might be a decision forced by cutting the number of episodes. probably still the right call under the circumstances. BUT i'm interested in it because this explains a couple things that are weird about the plot structure of the whole season as it stands.

so first of all the crew throwing the body overboard just immediately makes a lot more sense because it doesn't actually require them to have failed to notice he wasn't dead. it would be pretty tough to carry the body into the hold and lay him out and cover his face with a lil washcloth and everything and not notice at any point during this that he's still breathing or that he has a pulse. and if they did notice you'd think they'd either finish the job quickly or try to treat him if they'd had a change of heart, not leave him to die slow. however the idea that they would beat him till he stopped moving then immediately chuck the body overboard, that totally makes sense, you wouldn't stop to check if he was already dead or not because one way or another he will be pretty shortly after you dump him in the ocean.

second the line from stede to izzy about "you were the one who kept his body onboard" always bugged me because it feels like it's meant to establish something about izzy but it's really unclear WHAT it tells us about him, in a way that doesn't seem like intentional ambiguity: i've seen people interpret it as a sign of his devotion and i've seen others assume it was a practical decision that the crew should keep ed's body around to claim the bounty on blackbeard. (and i've seen both interpretations from people both in and out of the canyon, so it's not even a normal izcourse divide.) i actually wondered at one point if the purpose was to foreshadow where izzy's arc is going to end by establishing that he thinks it's more respectful to bury a pirate on land than at sea, although if that was the idea it sure didn't work on the people who'd care most.

however this new info from djenks explains it pretty neatly, which is that the reason for the line isn't to establish character stuff about izzy at all it's just there to awkwardly patch a plothole. it's that someone in the writers' room was like "but it doesn't make any sense, why WOULDN'T they dump his body overboard once they'd killed him" and somebody else was like "idk uh maybe we can put in a line about how izzy stopped them or something."

now more interestingly! this also would change something bigger about 2x04. because i'm guessing the idea here would be that ed would have actually for real washed up on an island that looks just like the one in the gravy basket and just never actually gotten up off the beach, and stede would find him there, mermaid scene, and ed would wake up mad and storm off into the woods with where he meets mary read with stede already trying to follow him and the rest of the episode proceeds as normal from there. (and probably buttons would be just, like, hanging around following stede, or maybe he was already acting as a psychopomp and led stede to ed's body, idk, lots of possible ways to play that.)

this means you completely lose the beat of the crew voting ed off the ship. you wouldn't lose the idea of the crew being pissed at him; you could still have the kitty collar onesie probation stuff after he got back. but this is a BIG change.

first of all it solves a big obvious problem LOTS of people pointed out immediately when the episode aired which is that it makes no sense that stede would just stay on the ship after letting ed be exiled. reuniting with ed has been his driving goal for months and it's not even like ed has definitively told him to fuck off, he's just stomping off angry and incoherent and not even clearly in his right mind. but they couldn't let stede actually follow ed on his own initiative immediately, because it would undermine the later fisherman breakup if stede has already established that he's willing to leave his pirate career behind if that's what it takes to be with ed. so you end up with this awkward beat where he's just kind of passively standing there until buttons tells him what to do.

i think there's something even more important it does though! one criticism a LOT of people had about s2 was feeling like the crew all hated ed now and there was no clear sign they'd forgiven him by the end, and also some people had the impression that stede had just overriden the crew's decision (even though he does say he's going to ask their permission; it DOES feel weird we don't see that). now i've said before that i think there was probably going to be a reconciliation between ed & lucius, and by extension the crew as a whole, in the lupete wedding verision of 2x06, and i still think that. but regardless of whether i'm right or wrong about that. even without a reconciliation, this would seem like WAY less of a problem if the crew hadn't voted ed of the ship.

as it is, we have THREE scenes devoted to the idea that the crew as a whole (not just lucius & izzy, who both have more complicated individual relationships with ed) are uncomfortable with ed's presence on the ship - there's the initial one where stede's holding the meat on his face where they're all yelling at him, and then there's the actual walk of shame where they've just voted him off, and THEN there's the youtube apology scene where they're heckling him and stuff. and having three separate scenes like that makes it feel like the narrative is really hammering in this idea of a big dramatic rupture in the whole crew's relationship with ed. but only the last of those scenes was originally supposed to be there! the first two were just thrown into the plot to justify why ed ends up wandering around an island to run into anne & mary! if you only had the youtube apology scene, it would be much more clear that most of the crew weren't really all that mad - as it is, roach and jim explicitly saying they aren't mad feels like it's overshadowed by the weight of the earlier scenes.

(also a minor issue, but i've mentioned before that surprisingly often people think the vote was unanimous. this doesn't actually make sense in terms of the episode, because we know it was deadlocked and izzy cast the tiebreaker. but it is sort of weird, if the idea is that the crew is split on this, that we never get any sign of who voted which way; there's nobody but stede who is clearly presented as specifically not wanting ed to be exiled. which DOES end up making it feel like it's the crew as a unanimous block that wants him off the ship. but that makes sense if the whole concept of the crew wanting him exiled was sort of hastily written to patch a plot hole instead of being a fully developed idea.)

anyway. like i said i can't really complain about this as a pacing decision. but it is really interesting to me how many knock-on problems with the whole arc of the season were created by the change, and how much cleaner the original idea sounds like it would have been.

[maryymaruu]

I'm happy to be able to finally, officially, introduce my first Iterator oc, Three Signals! :"D

As one may tell, I can't help myself but to write novels on top and around my ocs, so apologies for the large amount of text.

Their lore is almost completed and I'd advise to referr to posts from here onward, if anyone is interested :0c

The story is grounded on a lot of my personal lore interpretation and headcanons, but those I will establish in a separate post some time! For now, it's still not 100% figured out, so there will be plotholes and uncertainty ^^);;

Three Signals belongs to a group far away from the in-game location. Specifically, a group pretty close to, if not outright including, Sliver Of Straw. That group is not particularly well integrated, and most members prefer to keep it to themselves.

After first generation was built, an issue arose; due to a large distance in the South between them and another group, the communications were weak, the signals were getting lost over particularly tall mountains. To fix that, Three Signals was strategically placed to bridge the distance, equipped with advanced for the time satellite plate, additional cell towers etc, essentially becoming a cell tower of the group.

A very vocal Iterator who quickly proved their creativity and love for their people and arts, became a perfect breeding ground for artists to find shelter from a rather conservative group climate. Their citizens were eager to involve TS into everything they did, only further strengthening their bond. They enjoyed their cyclical life together so much so, that the idea of Ascension slowly grew to be something undesirable. That raised controversy and distaint in the group against TS and their city of "heretics".

At some point, the tension grew enough to cause action to be taken. Other cities demanded arrest of TS's leaders and most prominent figures. TS and their city resisted, resulting in overly drastic measures; the city was pressured into compliance by force. Cutting off delivery of supplies and eventually attacking TS themselves with a malware attack, to shake the people out of the perceived heresy. A traumatic event for everyone involved. TS struggled to freely speak ever since.

Time passed, and the day of Mass Ascension came. Many of TS's citizens were not thrilled, many were fearful, many reluctant, many cried and reached out to their beloved Iterator for comfort. TS did their very best to comfort them, using what their city loved most; song. They sang, they sang all together, the city slowly rumbling with thousand voices into a solemn roar, then grew quieter and quieter again, until the very last voice left to be heard was Three Signals alone. And then silence ever since.

More time passed. Sliver Of Straw sends out the Triple Affirmative broadcast-

But TS, being equipped specifically to pick up weak signals, has heard something else coming from her; distressed cries of pain, and then the Triple Affirmative. Essentially convincing TS that it was nothing but an erroneous cry of a dying Iterator.

Horrified by what they witnessed, TS was moved to do whatever they can to try and comfort their fellow Iterators, to try and avoid something like that happening again. And what other way could TS do it, other than broadcast comforting tunes? A sign that they're not alone, and something to hopefully offer an alternative to spiraling into madness.

Their broadcast is wide ranged, but not enforced, and they're not even sure if anyone is listening or not- if its even effective or not. But at the very least, they can say they tried something.

(More to come)

[violetscanfly]

long post alert

Marleyan Hange au

I've wanted to try my hand at a Marley au for ages and well I have been doing it for ages too because this got way out of hand lmao, like this is part one out of at least three (that's how far I've drawn), probably more if I follow my plan to go over the whole canon in little vignettes like these.

| next part | animatic

There's a bit (a lot) of yapping about the au itself under the cut if you want some context:

First of all disclaimer this isn't like super thought out in the logic sense and when you spot plot holes just uh ignore them ig xD this whole thing started from me just wanting to draw a few specific scenes

So basically Hange is born and raised in Marley, trained into a warrior and sent to scout out Paradis a few years before the Marley kids in canon do. In the pic there's a little bit of their childhood, they and Zeke are friends and I gave them a little sister for reasons:)

Hange's parents are fanatically loyal to Marley and so were they before they actually were sent out to war as a warrior candidate and saw how Marley uses eldians as disposable weapons, which caused them to question how things were and become kind of disillusioned. They kept their true feelings to themself and continued going along with it, feeling that gaining honorary status for their family is the best thing they could do for them and it would give their sister Essie a peaceful life.

After they come back from the war they and Zeke are promoted to warriors, Zeke gets the beast titan and Hanged gets... Also the beast titan?? Or maybe jaw I really don't know XD (here's kinda the biggest plothole so if you're super attached to the canon lore and rules I'm sorry idgaf I'm just here to draw freaky titan and put blorbo in situations so there's an extra titan now) anyway it's based on a hyena, I also thought about a kangaroo but that felt too powerful, imagine that thing jumping super high and slamming down to cause an earthquake or something.

Anyway Hange is sent to Paradis to look for the coordinate. They immediately fall in love with odm-gear the minute they see it since they're still their ever curious scientist self. This leads them to join the military, though they justify it to themself by researching what the enemy can do. They find that they actually really like life on Paradis, not the least because they can be their true self and most people accept them as they are, whereas in Marley they had to assimilate to stricter gender roles.

Eventually a certain Levi is scouted into joining the survey corps and Hange's immediately interested in him (totally for research purposes, yeah) and it takes a while but suddenly they realise Levi is their closest friend and maybe not just a friend anymore, which seems mutual but they dance around the subject until Levi's had enough and just straight up kisses them. They get together and on the other hand Hange is the happiest they've ever been but on the other they're panicking inside cause they know this can't last and the guilt is eating them up

Canon happens pretty much as it does, Reiner & co are sent to Paradis cause Hange has taken too long without presenting results. Once the kids are in the military Hange makes sure they don't blow Hange's cover even when the kids are revealed to be titans. The Marley kids are shocked when they realise Hange is in a relationship with Levi and have differing opinions on it, but Hange can be scary when they want to to shut their questions down

Shit has been going down, it's the night before they'll leave for Shiganshina and Hange knows this is the last peaceful time they're going to spend with Levi, because tomorrow they're going to have to go back to their old life and fulfill their mission.

[the-way-astray]

kotlc has all three. but it does nobody any good to mix them all up. certainly your credibility isn't going to be helped

people in the kotlc fandom please learn the difference between an unfinished plotline, a plot convenience, and a plothole please because they are not the same

[amutamika]

For some reason, in every of my hc‘s of Moshang, Mobei Jun is the less emotionally and mentally stable. And I know that most fics and headcanons are the other way around. And that is okay. I also love those. Shang Qinghua is also an emotional nervous wreck, always kind of on the run.

It makes sense. He suddenly is in his novel and all his plotholes are coming for him, but also the stuff that should be set in stone is changing ALL THE TIME. He is in a canon fodder body and just like Shen Qingqiu he just wants to survive. At the same time, the system is way less talkative to him, giving him almost no help (not that SQQ got that much more), and also coming way later into his transmigration (the reason being that it is getting its power from LBH’s presence). He cannot relax around Mobei Jun because he doesn‘t know if the ice prince isn‘t killing him one day.

But I also think that changes after the main plot (or at least after the extra chapters) gradually. He no longer fears death by Mobei Jun, he much more sees him as his protector against whatever looms in the unknown future. So he gradually loses his anxiety of dying every other moment. He settles beside Mobei Jun and becomes much more stable over time. The urge to flee at any giving moment subsides.

At the same time, Mobei Jun, who always suppressed his emotions, has the space to let those out. His caring and love for Shang Qinghua is the first emotion, but it snowballs into this whole mass of other emotions, he is unfamiliar dealing with. Now, he is the one, who is afraid of SQH leaving and he is terrified by the thought that something could happen to his husband. Suddenly he is the one with the anxious attachment style, because SQH has left many times, who knows if there isn‘t a next time and if that one might be the last he ever sees Shang Qinghua. And why wouldn‘t he leave? Mobei Jun was horrible towards him for years.

He starts questioning if SQH even loves him or if it isn‘t some weird Stockholm Syndrom thingy. And it troubles him a lot. He wants SQH to be close at all times, but he also doesn‘t want him to be sick of him. And on top of all that he has all those other emotions to somehow handle.

And that is when Shang Qinghua steps in as the emotional support hamster for his husband. He helps Mobei Jun to regulate his emotions, reassures him and yes, he stays by his side at his own volition. He doesn‘t see it a a weakness, but he recognises that his husband needs help.

And who better is there when it comes to emotions. Shang Qinghua has never used his tears sparingly. He is there when Mobei Jun cries for the first time, even though he himself doesn‘t know why he is crying. All the while SQH is holding this man who is way bigger than himself and whispering into his ears that everything is alright and that he can let it all out. And I just know that Shang Qinghua has tears in his eyes, too. It wretches his heart to see the man he loves coming so undone. But he is also happy that he feels safe enough in his arms, to show him this side.

And as time goes on, they slowly manage to lean onto each other. Mobei Jun gets better with managing and understanding his emotions. His anxiety resides, but he will always hold Shang Qinghua in his arms as if it could be the last time, because he just wants him to feel how deeply in love he is. And Shang Qinghua finally opens up to Mobei Jun about his transmigration. He even tells him, how he sculpted Mobei Jun to be his dream man, although his face is in a deep red shade while talking about that part.

And they live happily ever after!

[jubileesstuff]

Ok, imagine Jason wanders in his catatonic state around, and he meets Nico di Angelo. Or more like Nico wanders around, and he finds Jason. Nico immediately knows that something is wrong with Japson. He can sense the death. Nico decides to take the wandering (kind of) zombie with him. I mean, he can't just let this catatonic guy wander around after he escaped the underworld.

Hades or Thanatos never contacts him about a lost soul, so this guy stays with him. He even brings him to camp. When Chiron and Mr. D ask about him, Nico is like, 'Yes, this is my elder brother; he is like a zombie; I found him on the streets.' And that's it. No one questions it. There have been weirder things in Camp Half-Blood. Mr. D doesn't give a fuck; Chiron just accepts it, and the campers are like, 'Ok, cool.'

Slowly Jason regains his consciousness. It starts slow with some talking; he tells Nico his name. Jason recognizes Nico as a little brother, someone he needs to protect, someone who is family, someone who protects him. When they're not at camp, they travel all over the country. Nico and some ghosts train his new brother in sword fighting; Jason learns it fast. In camp, he also learns to fight with a lot of different weapons. Nico has the ongoing theory that before Jason died, he already knew how to fight; he was probably a child soldier or something similar. He was definitely not in the Army, because Jason is too young for that. Soon he becomes one of the best fighters in camp. The Ares kids come up with the theory that Jason was a child of Ares that died and came back to life. The Athena Cabin says the same, since Jason seems to like literature too, so he is smart and he knows how to fight; that means he has to be one of them.

No one can actually prove that. No godly parent claims him; Nico thinks it's because he died and came back

At some point, Nico figures out what happened to him and how he got back. He doesn't want to confront him, but he also knows that Jason has an actual family, and they would probably be thrilled to have him back. But then again, how does someone explain why and how their dead son came back to life? Even if the parent is Batman. (Yes, Nico knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman; ghosts are everywhere, and they love to talk to Nico).

When Jason's mind is completely clear again, Nico talks to him about his family. Jason says he doesn't really want to go back to them because he also sees Nico as his family, and when he can't come along, he doesn't want to go back to his old family. Also, Bruce didn't kill the Joker.

One day Nico and Jason wander around and go to Blüdhaven; some things go south, and they meet Nightwing. Nightwing is like, 'Wait, I know this dude.'. And then he begins to sob. Jason and Nico stand there like, 'This is awkward.'. Now that Nightwing knows, everybody knows. Not too long after they meet Dick (and talk with him), Bruce comes to visit them in New York. Jason and Bruce talk, like actually talk, and not just fight. They come to the agreement that Nico and Jason should move to Gotham with them. Nico is like, 'Didn't Batman have a 'no powers' rule for Gotham?'? Bruce is like, 'Eh, you are my kid now; who cares?'.

This is how Jason and Nico became brothers and chaos gremlins. They love to prank and spy on other people with Nicos powers.

The most unrealistic thing here is probably that Jason and Bruce talk, but Jason learned non-violent coping methods from Will, Sally, and Mr. D. It's a Head canon, this is ment to have plotholes.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hi, I'm really fond of your blog, and I've been desperately trying to find more information about Sage's Island. I know the major landmarks (the schools and the village in the middle) but do we know any specific details about it? Like looking at the map, I can't understand whether any student/staff member would actually walk/use a vehicle down the twisted path connected NRC to the village, or would they use the school mirrors to get down there? Do they use brooms to get around the island (Your post on transportation was quite eye-opening).

I started asking all these questions because I'm trying to write a Jade fanfic, and looking at the map of Sage Island led to several questions. Mainly, I thought that if he were to be exploring mountains and nature in general, would he have to go to lower elevation to be able to hike?

I know I'm focusing a lot on what could be considered plotholes, but I'd love to have your insight on how geography and transport would be on Sage's Island. Thank you!

[ Modes of transportation in Twst resource / How mirror travel works (speculation/theory) ]

In terms of Sage's Island's geography... It is shaped like a chicken drumstick-- It is considered part of the Land of Dawning.

There is NRC to the north, RSA to the south, and Foothill Town in the middle.

There's also a beach on the outskirts of RSA; Epel and Deuce pay a visit to this beach in book 5:

On the southwest side is a port town called Craneport. The east side of Sage's Island also has a port, but this eastern port is primarily for passenger ships. Craneport is all about cargo and shipping goods. The event Port Fest is all about revitalizing Craneport and bringing business back into the area.

The NRC students get to Foothill Town by bus, which picks them up in front of the school gates. This is shown in numerous vignettes and events, such as Leona's Liongarb, Port Fest, and Azul's Bloom Broom. (However, they must first get permission from a staff member in order to leave campus.)

Deuce borrows a magiwheel/blastcycle from Ignihyde so he and Epel can speed to the beach. It's quite a distance away from NRC, even further away than Foothill Town, so I guess he wanted to quickly cover ground.

To reach the mines, mountains, or forest, we see Adeuce, Yuu, and Grim, as well as Vargas, use the Mirror of Darkness to instantly teleport them there. This is most likely because their destinations are quite far (probably off Sage's Island) and they need to get there quickly (Adeuce are on a 1 day deadline and Vargas is planning a 3-day long training camp).

Jade doesn't seem to really specify where he hikes or which mountains he explores, so... I'm not sure what the distance he travels is? There's woods behind campus, so maybe Jade has been there before. I assume if he goes off-campus, his club already has permission to do so.

Students don't typically use brooms for travel. (Malleus and Lilia can levitate or fly though.) There’s an instance in Playful Land: “Poor Jamil... He said he was worried about Kalim and took off toward school on a broom the moment the basketball game ended.” (Can we count Wish Lantern since students use the brooms to get altitude but technically don’t travel anywhere?) We mainly see brooms in Flight class.

My guess is that it's just not magically economical to fly on a broom whenever you want to go somewhere, especially for long distances or for inexperienced mages. You would build up a needless amount of blot (when I'm assuming you need that energy to actually carry out errands or to do your magical homework or whatever). I’m not sure if the students keep their own individual brooms for travel; the brooms seem to be either school equipment or regular ass brooms they grab and enchant during Flight class.

I don't recall instances of how the staff get to and from campus, but Crewel does mention (in his Rich Fur Coat vignettes) having an apartment in Foothill Town as well as a place of residence back home in the Queendom of Roses. Crewel's special interest is vintage cars and he also says he would love to be able to drive along the ocean with his dogs, but he does not actually say that he drives to and from work.

All I can say is, it definitely would NOT be feasible to walk all the way to Foothill Town or the beach. No one's about to waste X hours trudging down that perilous path to eat at the local burger joint 😭

[evertidings]

— JUNE 2024.

accomplishments.

hi!! how's everyone been lately? june was a really good month for me in terms of writing and i'm really really happy about it. turns out, forcing yourself to write actually does something. who would've thought?

for the longest time, i had no motivation to work on this chapter because it wasn't going anywhere. i had the issue with the plothole and it honestly killed so much of my joy. since reworking the chapter, however, i've gotten back some of my spark. i basically told myself that 'hey, you still really like what you've created so far, right? so suck it up and push past your mental block.' and here we are.

i'm still getting back into the groove of things, but i've done a lot more writing for this than i have for a while. that said, i apologize for the long wait. i feel immensely guilty about the lack of update but i swear to you, it will come. my plan is some time in the summer. if not, then early fall (though this is obviously not preferred).

to speak on the chapter itself, chapter eleven has three major branches in total, and, as i said in last month's update, each of them feature different ros. i'm currently wrapping up branch #2 and plan on working on #3 later this week. technically, branch #1 isn't done yet, but it was also the branch that gave me immense writer's block so forgive me if i ignore it a little longer. branch #1 and #2 are also a lot heavier compared to #3, so having written those for months on end, i'm feeling a little weighed down. by switching over to #3, the goal is to have enough energy to get back to #1. once that's done, all i gotta do is edit and publish it!

so yeah, maybe we're not at the end yet, but we're getting there. this is the best i've felt about this chapter for a very long time now and i'm really hoping this energy continues. thank you for your continued patience. i will try my hardest to make this worth it for you.

take care of yourselves! <3

stats.

chapter total: ~21,170 words

game total: ~493,170 words

[daisy-does-art-and-stuff]

I GATHERED ALLLLL MY EVIDENCE TOWARDS THERE BEING AN ACT THREE

ITS UNDER READ MORE BC THERES A LOT MORE SPOILERS THAN MY LAST COUPLE POSTS

every finale for every season had a panning shot of the sky with "the end" showing up in black text. we didnt get that in this episode (https://x.com/goblonglo/status/1845168766839046382)

all the plotholes?? the things left unfilled?? there is no way theyd leave it off so open-ended. even hfjones ending had more closure

most movies have 3 acts. the 2nd act is known for being the part where everything seems hopeless and theres no saving them. we're still in the "all is lost" portion yall!!

there was a member that said something along the lines of "keep an eye out for what mores to come" in a tweet that was deleted not long after it was made. this implies They werent meant to spoil that there was more coming (https://x.com/meepletism/status/1845164453970706672, https://x.com/eyewellduh/status/1845156100779180075)

no one has ever had a solid answer whether or not there was only act 1 and act 2. not anyone has said a word about it yet. sure, theres no confirmation, but theres also no denying

the entire "how bow got her tail" thing. every time they made her start talking about it, it cuts away. we dont now whats up with that yet, which implies that it spoils what its gonna be used for in the future

THEY JUST HIRED NEW ANIMATORS!!! like LITERALLY just hired a big batch of new animators. there is no way that they did it just for one last part of the series just to end it so soon.

in the post where they promoted the release of ii17 on twitter, it states the series CONTINUES, not CONCLUDES. if you look back on old posts, like the one from the iii finale, it states in big bold letters THIS IS THE END IT ENDS HERE but it doesnt do that (https://x.com/AnimationEpic/status/1845134881098961164, https://x.com/AnimationEpic/status/1764314840410021903)

kinda hand in hand with above but the description of this video compared to other finale episodes looks like just a normal episode. theres no "thanks for watching the series" or anything. the ii team wouldnt just Leave it off like that i dont think

adams account being deactivated over on twitter due to his whole "running away from mephoneX" thing has to be relevant right. they have to reactivate it at some important point. like when act 3 comes out? right??

i cant think of anything more if anyone else has something to add please do so. also if theres anything here that doesnt make sense i apologize my brain is in such a whirlwind

editting this for a few new reasons

11. every season so far has had 18 episodes (if you dont count the iii finale being broken into two separate episodes). we're currently at 17

12. brian asked to contact someone in regards to credit sequences which is Probably in relation to the ii finale. we havent seen that yet so either it wasnt for ii or theres Another Episode for us to See It In. proof in posts comments

13. in the last meetups, a suitcase plush was hinted at. theyve also talked about the plush on stream. we havent been advertised this plush yet so theyre likely saving it for the last episode

[sunderwight]

Demon Shen Jiu is such a fun idea though.

Especially if he himself doesn't know. Like imagine, Yue Qi finds this abandoned baby and the baby is REALLY OBVIOUSLY not human. But this also enables Shen Jiu to survive being abandoned at such a young age -- a human baby would die without adequate nutrition or care, but demons are a little more resilient. Baby Demon SJ has a way more forgiving digestive system and can move under his own power from a much earlier age. By the time he's a year old he's hunting his own rodents and small birds, and has to be stopped from biting and mauling anyone he doesn't like. Which is most people. Qi-ge develops amazing reflexes.

Why do the slavers tolerate a demon baby hanging around? Maybe it's really not all that uncommon. Demons come across the borderlands from time to time, and are as liable to abandon their kids or die or etc as anyone else. It's maybe an open secret among slavers that demon-blooded kids are a better investment, even, because they can survive for longer on less. The only downside is if they don't ever look human enough to pass as human, because that limits potential buyers, but that's only relevant when the slavers are trying to sell them. For the purposes of having a network of street kids stealing and grifting and spying and etc, it's fine. A lot of the slavers themselves started out as demon-blooded street kids with no other options.

But in SJ's case, he pretty quickly starts passing as human. Mostly because he's quite strong, and he's convinced that he's the same as his Qi-ge, so he makes himself the same. Makes his hands look the same and his teeth look the same and etc. It's largely subconscious, and once he starts doing it, it becomes automatic. SJ forgets that he's a demon in the way that most people don't retain their earliest childhood memories -- although he remembers that some of the slavers were demons.

Then of course there's the question of why didn't the Cang Qiong cultivators notice?

A few options. One is that whatever kind of demon SJ is, it's really good at mimicking humans. Another is that he's only part demon, and like Luo Binghe, fully capable of handling both kinds of cultivation. So once he starts learning spiritual cultivation, even from a heretic like Wu Yanzi, he doesn't seem different from any other recruit with a patchy education on the subject. Anything else odd about him could be easily attributed to his exposure to Wu Yanzi and his wicked practices.

Although full demon SJ is a fascinating idea. (Also, it could contribute to all those qi deviations -- he's trying to cultivate AND "fake" human cultivation at the same time, I doubt Qing Jing's techniques are totally compatible with everything going on there even without the psychological turmoil.) Like I'd imagine Airplane wrote that SJ was abandoned on the streets as a baby, and the system was like "hmm he probably wouldn't survive that?" and then in some nine billionth wife arc, Airplane also creates a variety of demon that can fully pass as human (for some identity conflict with a prospective wife), even to the point of fooling human cultivators and demon-detecting tools. So the system just ties these two disparate pieces of world-building together in order to patch a critical plothole (Airplane doesn't know anything about babies). Which has the side effect that Shang Qinghua doesn't even know that SJ became a demon!

And SJ himself doesn't know. The only person who knows is Yue Qi.

Obviously this wouldn't come up much in PIDW, but it could be pretty funny in the SVSSS timeline. YQY just sitting there through the whole Luo Binghe being a half-demon reveal, wondering if he should say something. Subsequently being the most absolutely chill about the whole demon reveal thing anyway. Like he's definitely not upset that Luo Binghe is a demon, or part demon, and the multiple people who try to make a point about it just run afoul of his impenetrable smile and get nowhere.

Then eventually Yue Qingyuan decides that he should probably tell Bingqiu that Shen Qingqiu is a demon. For like, safety purposes if nothing else. He's kept the secret so long also for safety purposes (even if someone put Shen Qingqiu under a truth compulsion he wouldn't be able to admit to being a demon, because he himself doesn't know!), and he's done tons of stuff to prevent anyone ever finding out (although Xiao Jiu is so talented that he didn't have to do much), but Luo Binghe is the demon emperor. That changes things. If Shen Qingqiu is going to be visiting the demon kingdoms regularly then there's a chance something could reveal the truth unexpectedly, and that would probably be worse.

So Yue Qingyuan sits down and has a very serious discussion with Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe about how Shen Qingqiu is actually a demon, was just the cutest little demon baby in fact, here he drew a picture from memory of what Xiao Jiu used to look like before he learned to look more human, and also how a lot of slave kids and slavers and people who fall through the cracks in society have demon ancestry, some more recent than others, and Shen Qingqiu always retained a certain discomfort around his own kind because of the adult slavers who sold him off, and etc etc.