#and it'd have the same basic setup

[vegalocity]

I just thought of something. So you know how most of the villains fail at making doing serious damage with oblivion? Well what about the other heroes? Because we already know that Xiaotian and Wukong can do serious evil with it so what about the others?

I think the thing we have to keep in mind is that NOBODY is ever able to Handle Oblivion well.

the Villains don't know what the fuck they're doing with it and don't really get to DO MUCH with it except for LBD and Macaque but since LBD's is just an instant win it's not super interesting and Macaque is so hyperfocused on getting what he wants it's more of a setup than a plot device

Which is why the two people whom have caused the most damage are heroes on corruption arc paths lmao, but the long and short of it is it's just too much power to give people. it's like the Death Note or the One Ring in that way, anyone that tries to use it will end up using it for evil even if it's only with the best of intentions because no one person should be allowed that sort of power at all.

(maybe long ago when it was first made and could only be carried by several heavily baritoned singers with the explicit instruction from the goddess that gave it to them that it's for taming monsters and getting them to leave peacefully, and was to be returned to her at the end of the life of the person whom she gave it to, it was less power corrupting since it required cooperation with at least a few people all agreeing to use it at once, but not anymore)

But all the same let's make a quick run through the heroes and see how many of them can still be called 'heroes' at the end of it

-

So Sandy i'd say would probably have the least 'corruption arc'y time of it, how he got it idk, but since Sandy himself is a demon it's unlikely that he'd find out p. easily that it's a mind control record, he just remembers playing it and his whole brain switching off and flooding him with endorphins.

Sandy wouldn't cause much harm to anyone bc by nature of not being particularly concious himself while figuring this thing out he kind of can't figure out just WHAT oblivion does, and that man would very clearly rather swallow his whole houseboat whole before he ever asked anyone in his life for help and in that regard it'd be much more of a 'drug use' metaphor i think

the problem there would probably be when he asks Huntsman if he wants to give it a try and accidentally drags someone else into an addiction that's literally so insidious that neither of them are aware it's addictive at all despite being actively going through withdrawls and needing a hit. it's fine, the desire to go brainless is just slowly consuming Sandy's life and he's dragging Huntsman down with him. It's fine it's all fine the second he hits play that worry will aaalll go away.

(this is another AU where I think Syntax would be a major player primarily due to his immunity since there wouldn't be anyone better to spearhead an intervention than someone the drug in question straight up wouldn't work on)

-

So right off the bat i'm gonna say Tang and Pigsy's would be kind of a combined one since Pigsy himself would have no interest in a wierd record he found in the marketplace with creepy unintelligeable writing on it other than 'Tang enrichment' and the whole thing would be more of a subtle creepy than overt horror.

Even if we assume Pigsy had no part in it and Tang found it like, buried deep in archives he'd be VERY confused as to what a record was doing there, brought it home to Pigsy like 'i found this??? in the archives??? it's covered in Cuneiform??? we still got that old record player?' and he doesn't see why a very clearly old synth record was sitting in the archives and turns to shout across the room for pigsy and hears a clatter of something hitting the ground. they both freak out for a time, a solid 'WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT??' 'I DON'T KNOW??'

after a lot of screaming and trying to figure out what the fuck that thing was (and why after the shock passed Pigsy realized he didn't hate the sensation) there's a question of 'well What IS this thing then?'

So Pigsy (maybe not as reluctantly as he should have been) agrees to be his guinea pig (puns nonwithstanding) for a bit as they figure out just WHAT this thing is and why it is. And for awhile it's just Tang's notes about altering perception and placing the person in question (perhaps specifically demons) in a state of easy suggestion, and Tang does want to crack the code on this thing, but it IS starting to kind of make him more uncomfortable as he did so. Though Pigsy keeps assuring him its fine, the fact that he seems more excited to keep experimenting with this thing than Tang is is starting to grow worrying...

easy solution then, he just needs another test subject because he REALLY didn't want to reach the conclusion the evidence was pointing toward with PIGSY as the person it's happening to.

maybe a whole bunch of test subjects if he can't get one person to go for it and keep coming back. a proper data pool.

the fact that people keep coming back just means that they want to find the answers too. and the fact that Pigsy's just kind of touchy in the 'casual embraces' department because he's not being the test subject anymore and Tang kind of needed to have his hands all over him guiding him about when he was under and he misses that contact isn't... anything to worry about.

because he definitely didn't use a mind control device on someone he's been pining for for years and accidentally got him addicted to it. no siree.

he just needs... to figure out how this thing works and just how far he can go with it and he'll fix it

You know how sometimes the quest for answers is far worse than choosing to remain ignorant?....yeah...

-

i have NO idea how Xiaojiao would handle it ngl i think She might be the only one that finds out what it does and is just like 'nerp' and either stuff it in her family's hall of relics or get into comical schenanigans trying to destroy it

and much like a looney tunes character the record keeps just BARELY being missed by whatever she's doing to try and destroy it

[starlightwritcr]

android gojo headcanons

ok wow this was longer than i thought. i hope you guys enjoy

android sukuna version

You were a beta tester for Jujutsu Technology. Your job description was quite straightforward. You just acted like a customer who bought the product you were testing and gave feedback based on what you experienced.

This time, your employers wanted you to test out the newest of the Gojo line, the S4T0RU model. He was an android for a myriad of purposes. The engineers must've been quite proud of themselves for coming up with him.

He was the strongest and most durable out of all the androids they've come up with, possibly even surpassing the SUKUN4 model. Not only that, but he came with Jujutsu Technology's best intelligence chip, their most advanced one to date. He could learn at speeds no human could match.

He could protect his owner from any and all harm, he assists with all your chores with peak efficiency, he can tutor your children, help out with homework, he could provide companionship... and other more "adult" things.

In short, he's the jack of all trades for androids. There was a reason he cost the highest out of all of them.

For this simulation, you were meant to act as a single mother who recently lost her husband and needs assistance with her two children. The two children were androids created for testing, since it was too risky to use actual children in the process.

It started with unboxing him, the same way any buyer would. So far, you encountered no issues. Setup just required you to log into the app and configure the mode you need him for. Options included: Fighter mode, Caretaker mode, and... Pleasure mode. You clicked on "Caretaker mode".

When he woke up from his slumber, he greeted you and your children. Megumi didn't take too well to him, but Tsumiki quite liked him. You noted that his voice module was fully operational, no glitching or echoing. This version of him was still a prototype so his personality was a bit blank for the time being. It'd likely only start developing after spending time with you and the kids.

Your theory was proven right when you put the S4T0RU android to the test, asking him to do basic chores like vacuuming the floor and cleaning up the kids' toys. Tsumiki showered him in praises, which he basked in, wearing a smug smirk as he showed off his prowess.

You couldn't help the amused smile as you watched him pick up the sofa with one hand to vacuum, even though he could've just moved it to the side to achieve the same results. An android that was a showoff. How interesting.

Next task was to test his skill in teaching, asking him to help homeschool Megumi. It would prove to be a little more difficult than the basic house chores. This was especially the case with Megumi's model, who was designed to simulate a more... difficult and moody child. Androids who couldn't handle him usually didn't make the cut and got scrapped.

Despite Satoru's initial rocky start with him, he eventually got the hang of it and figured out how to get the child android to listen.

The more you spent time with him, the more attached you felt to the android. Out of all the androids, he seemed the most... lovable.

You weren't part of the Pleasure Department so you didn't have the most experience regarding the more... sensual androids.

But you couldn't quite recall whether the previous androids you tested were as... touchy as Satoru was. You never seemed to go a day where he hasn't had his large arms wrapped around your waist or shoulder.

While assisting you with chores, he made conversation, asking you about your interests and hobbies. He listened intently, hanging onto every word of your responses.

Whenever you got back home from "work", you'd find him playing with the kids, either having tea parties with Tsumiki or watching animal documentaries with Megumi. Upon noticing your arrival, his eyes light up with excitement. He rushes to your side, eager to help you relax after a long day.

He'd make you a cup of your favorite drink, making you sigh with relief. Every task you've made him do was a success. He should be good to go now. All you had to do was give him clearance to be mass produced and sold to the public.

As you rested your head on his shoulder, hearing the gentle hum of his system, you felt a twinge of pain, knowing that the life you've grown so attached to will eventually come to an end - that this fabricated life you've built with him would be gone in just a few days.

"Do you have to let me go?" Satoru's question made your heart stop. There was not a single android who has gained awareness of the simulation. But somehow, he acted like this was a fact he understood since long ago.

You let out a shaky breath. "I... have no choice. This is what they pay me for. You'll be taken from me regardless."

He gave you a chesire smile. "Their first mistake was giving me the tools to bust us out of here."

Satoru disconnected his system from the Jujutsu Network and grabbed the two kids, doing the same to them. Alarms started blaring, alerting all the workers that an android had gone rogue.

He picked the three of you up, breaking out of the compound.

You weren't quite sure what the future had in store for you. But you were sure that you'd be fine as long as you had Satoru and your newfound family by your side.

[spiderh0rse]

Thinkin about Khonsu time bubble civilization stuff again,,,, it'd have to be a very precise setup. Little to no waste, ever. Specific types of capes. A shaker with weather control or someone who can force the growth of plants. Very few that break conservation of mass, to help with space conservation. Maybe some regenerating Brutes or Changers. No matter what, unless a cape is functionally or literally immortal, (or fringe cases where they are or can become inorganic) they aren't coming out the other end of that bubble.

It's sped up time within a very small space. To have a population of humans reproduce with enough genetic variance to not result in severe inbreeding, you need at least thirty. Which the bubbles can probably collect! It's just a matter of a few people thinking ahead and some very good luck.

Even then the people inside would probably have to end up very comfortable with corpses, or dispose of them in some other way. Not enough space or resources to justify just burying them, imo. And whatever the time of day it was when that bubble forms, it'll be the same time of day the entire time they're in there. So sunburn or a vitamin d deficiency are going to be issues the entire time people are in there.

Also, given how shards bud, basically all offspring in there is going to get a power. And second gen triggers happen much faster. Same is theorized for third gen, and I'd imagine onward. So towards the end of the bubble's existence (assuming it holds for long enough), a kid could get a horrible for the first time. Exaggerating a bit but I hope you catch my drift

[irradiatedsnakes]

When you do furries of animals with weird fucked up hands (ie birds, bats, hooves) how do u make it look like the animal but also… be a hand

that depends! for all of the winged vertebrates (birds, bats, and pterosaurs) i have a variety of ways i do wings and hands, and i choose which to do on an individual basis. here, i made a little chart a while back!

when i do back wings or no wings, i just make the hands based on the feet of the animal, like for mob, shou, and serizawa.

for birdy/almost-bird dinosaury hand-wings like reigen or my fursona, i do a regular, 5-fingered hand, from which the feathers emerge. in winged dinosaurs, the primary feathers emerge from the middle digit (digit II on their 3-fingered hands) of the hand. in avian dinosaurs, 2 of the 3 digits are fully fused, but it's otherwise basically the same setup. so i have the primaries emerge from the humanoid hand's middle finger, and the secondaries emerge from the forearm (they're anchored in the ulna).

here's a diagram of a bird's wing showing the anchor points of the primary and secondary feathers, to help illustrate what i mean. image via manual of ornithology by proctor & lynch.

for bats- since bat wings are made of fingers rather than feathers, if i was to make wing hands it'd be like kijibayashi (the pheasant) in the first image, a fullsized, big wing with only the thumb free. this is the state of actual bat wings, but i'd give the anthro bat's thumb a similar range of movement to ours.

and for pterosaurs, i really like doing full-sized hand wings, because they have some unique anatomy that's super fun to play with.

image by scott hartman, labels added by me. as you can see here, the metacarpal bones- in you, these make up the palm, if you squish your hand a bit you'll feel them, they're long and connect to each finger- are INCREDIBLY elongated, basically making another 'forearm', at which the hand is at the very end.

pterosaurs have four fingers (with a couple exceptions- nyctosaurus have only the wing finger), three small ones making up a little 'hand', and the fourth finger is MASSIVE and supports the whole wing. contrast this with bats, in which the wing involves 4/5 digits.

when i make anthro pterosaurs with hand wings, basically all i do is add one extra finger, make the first digit an opposable thumb, and make the hand a bit more hand-like. this means that these guys appear to have only four fingers, since the fifth supports the wing. observe, minegishi:

minegishi is a kunpengopterus so their metacarpals are shorter than that pteranodon above, but you still get the idea.

(also, with regards to wing membranes on pterosaur and bat furries with hand wings.. real bat and pterosaur membranes attach around the ankle. i fudge that on furries, and have the membrane attach usually around the hip, maybe lower depending on the character. i generally don't bother to figure out how clothes would work with this, personally.)

i forgot that this ask also asked about hooves. for hooves, i generally go a pretty standard furry route and do humanoid hands with hoof-like endings, like a keratin covering on the last joint of each finger. sometimes, if i'm feeling spicy, i'll make artiodactyl (even-toed ungulates like deer, pigs, and sheep) hands symmetrical with two thumbs and two non-thumb fingers, to look like their symmetrical feet, but generally just regular hands with hoof ends.

hope that helps! this is just how i like to do em.

[turtledotjpeg]

(chapter 400 spoilers)

i have been fed and i must make stupid internet doodles about it

my wife is so successful and popular (said with distress) and she is doing her best and she just wanted to do healing and said 'noooo' to murders and she cried about kacho and hates being called old and kurapika is the only one she can rely on and i'm gonna cry

more thoughts (not interesting) under the cut because this is an art blog but I am compelled to yell into the void about this chapter

man I was ready to be happy just to see Melody for one panel, but there was So Much in this chapter 🥺 feels like we're getting to see some new facets of her personality (see: Old Maid Melody lmaoo) and it's so fun

it was nice to see her and Kacho getting to interact a bit more openly - for some reason I was expecting nen-Kacho to be more of a separate entity, rather than the "brought back to life" kind of deal where she basically feels and acts like she's the same person? I like it though, I want to see her messing with Melody some more lol

I was wondering if Kurapika's goal might come up re: the fourth prince's invitation, but it seems like the immediate concern with Fugetsu takes priority, which makes sense Zhang Lei also wanting a private audience is interesting, I wonder if that could give her and Kurapika an opportunity to meet up and plan things out before she visits terrorsandwich? Before all that, though, they'd have to deal with Benjamin (assuming it's a first-rank-first-served kind of deal), no idea how that's gonna work out unless they actually pull off the Just Murder Everyone plan

also lmaooo the love confession 😂 one the one hand I feel like all her initial suspicion and mistrust towards glasses guy has to be a setup for him to actually be more honest than she expects, but I still can't help being a bit skeptical of him... both because there has to be something going on with the heartbeat thing, right?

and also, even if it is probably what's most practical for the situation, I'm not toootally sure if I love this "stop being sad and go use your powers to help us do murders" thing lol (granted kacho was very on board with both of those, too, but. idk man, maybe at least try to comfort her a little or something? xD)

that said, he is kind of risking his neck to help them, and i Am extremely in favor of anyone and everyone being in love with melody, so i appreciate him for that haha

okay, totally baseless "theory" #1: he's melody's dead sonata friend possessing the body (& therefore lying about the not believing in ghosts thing) - probably unlikely given Fugetsu is also said to be "possessed" and that looks very different, plus it sounds like that's something Melody should be able to notice? but it'd give him a genuine motive to help her out while lying through his teeth about all the details

or totally baseless theory #2: he's literally just a normal guy with a medical condition

melody: but I just don't get it, HOW can your heartbeat be so calm and steady all the time?!? kaiser: oh, cause of the pacemaker you mean? melody:

(**based on about 2 minutes of research I don't think that's quite how pacemakers work, but it's hxh universe, there could be Something)

(on an unrelated note, I also really liked Tyson in this chapter…sounds like she was basically pressured into a death battle she assumes she won't win, but she's still just out here baking birthday cakes and trying to have a good time :( rootin for her)

...and finally can I just say, even if there was a good reason for it, I think it's hilarious that Melody's reaction to someone liking her is just "hmm... 🤔 kinda sus" alternative responses to "i love you": "with a heart rhythm as precise as an atomic clock?! yeah right!"

[tweedlestrove]

For all the people excited about weaving via my earlier post

tbh you can make a loom out of just about anything. you just need something to hold the warp and something to separate the sheds, a shuttle, and something to beat the weft with (like a really long shuttle or a separate stick) Below is a picture of my great grandmother weaving a chinchorro (hammock). Wayuu weaving is a little different than what you're probably used to, but the basic thing to understand is the same. There's a bar at the top and a bar at the bottom, she's using her hands and small balls of yarn to wind the weft through, and tie warps together to make patterned gaps. No shuttle is involved. But if you wanted to you could easily add pickup bars (basically a long stick and shuttles to this type of setup and weave that way. It'd basically be a tapestry loom setup, but tbh you can weave just about anything, you just have to get creative with how you manage the sheds. I'd look up backstrap looms and translate the way the different bars are set in place for this kind of a setup. All you'd need is dowels or sticks of some sort for it. You could figure out a mini one on a box or a picture frame. Abuela had a floor to ceiling setup on one of the walls that was just basically a frame.

I wish I had photos of some of the chinchorros she made, they were beautiful. My uncle has a video somewhere of her weaving one with a horse on it and the artistry to it was absolutely gorgeous. I wish I'd gotten the chance to learn from her tbh, she was a brilliant artist from the work I've been able to see. I think it was cos of her that I inherited my love of weaving and textiles so much.

[dj-of-the-coven]

Hit me with your favorite defunct website

You will regret this.

Have you ever felt isolated by the modern internet, or nostalgic for the way that you can vaguely--but not entirely--remember experiencing as a child? Well I can't speak for everyone, but the past few years certainly have left me feeling that way. Certain nostalgia posts made circa 2021 got my brain churning in that direction, dredging up ancient memories of reading personal blogs and spending hours on flash game websites that were more or less entirely nuked from the internet by my adulthood. The more I remembered, the more distressed I felt by their absence, even though it'd been years since I even remembered most of that stuff existed...

Aside from Animal Jam, I wasn't sure if anything I knew from my mid 2000s-early 2010s childhood experience was out there on the web somewhere--so, I did as any normal teenager would and I started doing copious amounts of research into a subject that basically didn't exist. I discovered the internet archive entirely on accident; spent days examining the layout of early youtube and any other sites I could remember, navigating by year and trying to figure out when everything took a turn for the worst. I started browsing through webcore tags on tumblr just to get close to what I wanted, because "old internet" yielded few results at the time, and google's input was less than useless. Only a few blogs on tumblr had the kind of content I was looking for, but eventually I struck gold when one of them pointed me in a brand new direction of hope.

This is when I discovered neocities.

Of course, I was already familiar with the webhosting platform of geocities from the old days. Geocities was one of the primary hosting platforms that I remembered without the help of research, but you may already have guessed by the lack of a link that it's dead--and you'd be right. It actually shut down back in 2009, which I learned through the same post that advertised its independent successor. For some reason, I'd always associated the memory with the time I was in kindergarten, but the date of shutdown actually confirmed that I must've known about it earlier, making the platform one of my first memories! It's been gone for a while, but not the impression of it that I had as a core pillar in my early web experience. And then there was neocities. What was that? I immediately went to investigate.

Of course, I was mostly doing this in between two late-night bussing jobs to afford my shitty apartment, aside from being in my final year of high school, so progress was slow. At the starbucks next to my school, I was always holed up in the corner during my short window of off-time with a coffee and my computer setup. It took some time, but I began browsing through the top pages one-by-one, following links and cataloguing where they led to. I took stock of which sites linked to one another. Eventually, I noticed a pattern: a lot of them linked back to a website called sadgrl.online, a purple and black neon haven of internet culture run by a webmaster known as Sadness. Everyone say hello to our defunct website of the hour!

At the time, the thing was absolutely bustling. Almost all of the most popular sites on neocities were linked to Sadness' site somehow, usually through her button collection. My own personal site, which I started building around that time, also contained one of her web buttons. She has several, but her most popular one looks like this. (I apologize if you're on mobile. It will NOT look good.)

I was intrigued! In a community so removed from the usual mainstays of the internet, there existed a blog that hundreds of neocities users were visiting every day, and I very quickly became one of them once I finished looking through her thought-provoking essays on programming and web culture. Her site went through a number of layout changes while I was a regular visitor--the vast majority of them are catalogued on the site itself if not also on the internet archive. It was a blog dedicated to the exact thing that I was interested in; what I had been searching for since the modern web started rubbing me the wrong way in my burgeoning adulthood. Her page prominently featured an essay on the faults of centralized internet and her journey to foster a space more accepting of individuality, information, and creativity without thought of profit. I was totally enamored, especially with the appealing gothic graphics that surrounded the lengthy text!

(here's a capture from August 2022)

Aside from Sadness, several other active community members had formed an alliance of websites dedicated to the preservation of old internet culture and the cultivation of unique online spaces. These people called themselves the Yesterweb. The yesterweb was run mainly by webmasters known as Auzzie Jay, Madness, Tsvety, Grafo, Cinni, Vincent, Iris, and Sadness herself, but webmaster Melon (of MelonLand fame) also ran a forum that was parallel to the movement. The yesterweb was a massive project that included an online newspaper, a web radio station, several introductory programming manuals, a forum, web-themed essays from neocities users, button makers, layout creators, and terms and definitions for people new to the decentralized experience. It was easy to get lost in it all... for a time, the rabbit hole felt endless and exciting.

Every day, I returned to check updates on Sadness' various projects while I began work on my own website. She had totally convinced me of my own convictions--I bought the dream hook, line, and sinker. My only goal for a while was for my site to eventually be included in the yesterweb webring alongside all these amazing programmers. I wanted to contribute to the world of creativity that I could only dream of when HTML was still just meaningless jargon to me! But I was too slow learning the languages necessary, and the yesterweb was just growing too fast to be contained. I dipped for a few months to focus on my move to a new city, and by the time I returned, the whole yesterweb had disappeared scorched-earth style.

Okay, so what the fuck happened?

Currently, on the front page of what used to be a hopeful and inspiring collection of internet resources, there's a long essay made by the webmasters who founded the project, detailing burnout and massive stress due to the community growing faster than they could moderate it. It is certainly not poorly-intentioned. However, the discovery was absolutely devastating to me. My dream had gone up in smoke before I could even try to reach it, and I was apparently a part of the problem by caring so much about it. The radio station is gone. The webring was deleted. The forums shut down. My favorite webmasters' sites were no longer being updated. I felt awful for the people who had been affected by all this stress and pressure, but after so long of working to join the movement, I felt betrayed by their abandonment. The yesterweb disappeared in almost exactly the same way the old web did the first time--ripped from my fingers before I was able and ready to participate. And I can only wonder... what happened to the goal of turning the internet back into a place for us? How did it get to the point of ruining these people's lives within the span of maybe two years? I'm really not sure. There's a lot about this story I still don't know, and there's not really a way to access the drama that happened in a discord server that I never joined. The information published on the yesterweb's page is the only reliable source I'm currently aware of.

Still, in spite of it all, Sadness' website has remained one of my major inspirations in programming and web philosophy. I may be in mourning about a dream that died before it could truly live, but whenever I think about the months that I spent eagerly browsing her site for updates, I remember that spark that initially inspired me to begin researching the net in the first place. She was a major player in the game--not the only one. The website that she created was my favorite while it was active, and now it is my favorite website that is currently defunct.

Thank you for coming to my tedtalk.

[kuromi-hoemie]

microsoft posts the urls used for ads/tracking etc

exactly what I'd want, ublock origin has an assets.json file with all their sources (:

sometimes i wanna finish setting up my dns server to block ads but I'm too lazy to find a good blocklist source to feed it.. but as it typically goes, now that i am talking abt it out loud and dragging myself for not doing it, i will look for a source

[horizon-verizon]

I'm confused about something so I thought maybe you or even someone else could clear it up for me.

Maybe it's because I didn't like any of the characterization, themes, and lore that were handled in the first season of hotd - so I gave up on it completely and basically view it as a bad fanfic adaptation - but I genuinely cannot understand how everyone suddenly pull out the pitchforks over that clips with daemyra and the most likely DV scene that will follow.

Daemon was never a "great" guy in the show. He abandoned rhaenyra in the brothels, dragged her reputation to his brother, choked her after her miscarriage because his ego got bruised, wasn't honest with mysaria, dismissed Laena when she expressed being unhappy, was a deadbeat father to his daughters etc

The only "good" scenes he had with Rhaenyra were in the driftmark trial episode because that was the closest to seeing him and rhaenyra acting as a united front, so I can't understand the sudden outrage when from s1 his character was already setup to being a scumbag.

And don't get me wrong, I know he isn't like this in the book. I know the show suffers from a horrendous writing. My surprise is people needing a new 2 seconds clip to have the epiphany

The only "good" scenes he had with Rhaenyra were in the driftmark trial episode because that was the closest to seeing him and rhaenyra acting as a united front, so I can't understand the sudden outrage when from s1 his character was already setup to being a scumbag.

I have been speaking about how I prefer bk!Daemyra over show!Daemyra for months (bc both are written in so much bad faith to diminish female agency and ambition) and I was shocked at the video not bc I don't expect the abuse from episode 10 to get worse or continue but because all of a sudden I was publicly proven right when I have been screaming for months!

But you asked about why some people were totally taken aback. That's because there was still a lot who bought into the whole "the two sides are evil, it doesn't matter why the war began" shit. Truly and duly. Some assume that the writers of the show were always acting in good faith while writing their version of the story just because they said they were trying to not be like GoT and make a feminist retelling. Because they don't understand the principle of benevolent sexism or try to. They didn't take Condal that seriously that first time, connect it to how it was only possible bc Rhaenyra or subscribed to it and never thought he'd write Daemyra "that far", esp with how many more tender and violence-less/stress scenes the two had together on screen.

Like if you count how many scenes Rhaenyra has with Daemon that are purely tender or self affirming, it'd be a little more than with either Viserys and Alicent while making sense (bc Alicent with Rhaenrya at the Sept didn't make any sense to be called "positive"). Or consistently leaning positive before epi 10. Some already knew and acknowledged that Daemon was not a "great guy, but" sat in their comfort zones, seeing that these two seemed to be each other's "haven" of sorts, not paying attention to much else and misunderstood these two. It's like when people ship show!Louis and Lestat so hard they forget that these two made a vampire child to fix their relationship or sense of selves and are angry, surprised and shocked when that vampire child begins to act out, go on a rebellious killing spree, resents them for it, and tries to kill one of them. And I ship bk!Dameyra, btw...just not at the expense of Rhaenyra or even Daemon, bc she was def in the wrong for trying to kill Nettles & misjudged Daemon. And if Daemon had doen anything to Rhaenyra, the greens, septons, maesters all would have broadcasted that shit...yet we get silence...

They understood the "twin flame"-y, they-understand-each-other-and-are-the-same aspect of the orig story and those scenes...so after epi 10, they also hoped the choking scene was a fluke of sorts. Bc reasons below.

Others don't want to think much about these characters and either use this as an excuse not to, they they just want to consume the story thorough the show, or have read the books and just wanted to maintain their joy levels with how much they loved the show.

Some wanted to really give the show the benefit of the doubt so they can continue watching it, some don't want to know/brianwashed out of knowing what DV looks like, or undermines it anyway.

Some argue that because Daemon has an ego issue and so he's always going to blow up on people. true to an extent--no canon proof of it affecting Rhaenyra or his girls, though...so...HotD did cross a boundary.

Some refused to think about why people hated episode 10, some have even said it was just part of Daemyra's semi-erotic back-and-forth dynamic (even thought Rhaenrya was clearly not ready or expecting Daemon's choking her out and tried to get herself out of it). Same people might also say that Rhaenyra "giving it back to him" with rubbing it in his face how he didn't know abt the prophecy was "enough" to invalidate the domestic abuse of the scene.

Some were really caught up in Daemon's idgaf attitude. Don't get me wrong, i love a character like this...but if they have the stuff to back it up and have a line.

Some "pulled out the pitchforks" to say, "I told you so" about how the show is writing against Daemon [✋🏿guilty] and Rhaenyra sexistly, but that comes with no real surprise on their part. Others to say they always knew Daemon was the devil and how tb or Rhaenyra defenders are stupid idiots for saying the greens had no right to the throne, how Rhaenrya was "weak", etc.

I'm sure there's more, but i forget.

[jess-the-vampire]

So... My AU, which is basically just, this would be cool, and, The Owl House is cool. Meaning a lot of stuff does not make sense, and will probably be changed, also, I don't actually.. have much. But I do have the basic setup!

Belos finds King at some point, but not The Collector. With access to Titan's Blood Belos, at some point during being the emperor ends up creating a rift, this rift ends up bring Luz through, who is at this point much younger, and has lost her dad fairly recently, but does have the Azura book, and has enjoyed it. Belos uses this to get her to his side, being both a "Good Witch" and a parental male figure. He makes Luz believe she and him are better than everybody else, still not revealing he's human just incase, but making sure to emotionally separate her from others. He already had a Grimwalker at this point, young, but no longer needed with another human here. And it may be detrimental to have the two together, he decides to exterminate this Grimwalker for now. After failing to find the Grimwalker, makes a point to have lookouts for it so it can be brought to him. He claims it is a rogue witch gone mad with Wild Magic, the same that killed his family. Of course, he keeps it from the public, only telling this sob story to his most loyal, incase the Grimwalker makes claims that could sway some.

At some point, Eda while trying to find a safe place to stay, finds The Collector, a kid with fuzzy memories, that claims not to be a living shadow despite definitely being a living shadow. She accepts it, and takes the Glass they're attached to with her, at the request of The Collector.

During the time the rift was open, Hunter ended up going through it. After a while of straight up just starving, is found by Camilla Noceda, who has basically just lost her entire family. She found him while searching for Luz. And gets him to come to her house with her to call about, where is this kid from. With maroon eyes, long ears, and looking like he came right out of a fantasy book, she has a lot of questions, barely any of them get answered. She ends up taking in Hunter for until his actual family is found, which is apparently made up of just his uncle. She assumes a lot of it is just a child's loose understanding of big scary concepts, since apparently his entire family other than his uncle, is dead. Of course, she never finds her daughter, or Hunter's Uncle.

Hunter Noceda ends up being bullied, because yeah he looks different, maroon eyes and long ears don't make you popular. He ends up being a bit of a loner and kinda edgy. These traits are kinda because he was bullied, but end up making him even more a target of bullying... Not great. He ends up being sent to a summer camp to hopefully make some actual friends. Not Reality Check of course. But a Summer Camp. He ends up throwing away the pamphlet, but feels bad and goes back to grab it.. Until he sees that an OWL is carrying their trash away. And he is PRETTY sure Owl's cannot hold that much weight! Things happen, plot stuff I haven't written, plans I have for cool stuff. Yeah. Another change that was purely because I thought it'd be cool, Glyphs! I changed the Glyphs, purely because it'd be cool, nothing to explain why just because it's an AU, maybe it's why certain things happened different butterfly effect and all. Electricity, Crystal, Air, Liquid. Electricity creating sparks of lightning, a big flash of light and shower of sparks, as well as being able to charge things. Crystal, basically Ice, but not as cold, and will probably be used as a shank or direct weapon more, and can creep up things, encase stuff, yeah. Air, usually just a really strong gust of wind, but can turn liquids to steam or vapor... Which will probably be the first clue to try Glyph combos! Liquid, the second component to that, can create a splash of boiling sea by default, I'm thinking soaked in specific liquids can recreate them. But boiling.

As I said earlier at the top, this was made because I thought it'd be cool, and then did it, and because I think The Owl House is cool.

that sounds super fascinating, i like the idea of having belos find king for once, and i like your take on the glyphs too.

you put a lot of thoughts into this, you gonna make some fanart, or even a fic for it?

[bookdragonideas]

Idea.

Two TV shows that are crossovers with each other, despite being entirely different stories.

One is a cheesy romcom summer camp girl romance story. Main girl keeps trying to get together with cute and sweet boy, but has to deal with love triangles and teen girl drama and the fact that the guy love interest is super shy and keeps running off to do something whenever she's about to confess her love. And the clock is ticking cause there's only two months left of camp!

The other is an action packed superhero story. Main boy is struggling to keep his identity a secret and keep the supervillains and monsters from hurting his friends. This is complicated by the fact that he's at the worst summer camp ever and he keeps getting in trouble for ditching camp activities to fight crime. But hey, at least that super cute girl keeps talking to him. Even if he can't focus on love while fighting his villians.

It'd be pretty easy to do actually. Since you would use the same props and settings and actors for both shows. Sometimes even use the same cuts of scenes or slightly different ones. You'd basically be making two shows for the price of one.

Best part would be if they never told anyone the two shows are really just the same. Some people would figure it out. But if no one says anything officially everyone would assume it's just a theory or funny joke.

Until the series finales. Which would be the same finale. Which would be a full length movie. And then everyone would realize and it'd be this huge cultural phenomenon.

Shows wouldn't even have to be over the top good. As long as they're decent and easy enough to watch. The idea of two shows that are actually one and have the same finale will attract so many people its basically guaranteed to be a financial success.

And it gives the opportunity to do so many cool story ideas. Or the occasional joke where the setup is in one show and the punchline is in the other and only the attentive watcher will realize. The memes would be hilarious.

In the romcom, boy love interest rushes off and later while main girl is crying we see a TV in the background with a shot from the other show where his alter ego is fighting some random monster.

In the superhero, main boy rushes up to help cute girl and doesn't notice that he just resolved a love triangle and insulted the cruel rival lover.

It'd be hilarious and if no one beats me too it, I'll try it someday.

[hopeymchope]

I've been struggling with what to say about "Process of Elimination" since I completed it last week.

It's a hard one to tackle because it's enjoyable, it's good... but it's still got issues, too. Most things do, I guess. But I can overlook them more easily if you can get me really invested/excited about what's happening or the characters it's happening to. This story, on the other hand, never made me drop it completely but also never got me all that excited. There's enough to love to make it worthwhile without it ever being great. In game review parlance, this is probably a low 7/10. (For anyone who isn't aware: For SOME goddamn reason, game reviews typically dub anything from 6/10 and lower as all being various degrees of "bad." Kind of like the U.S. school grading system, I guess?)

Both the Switch and PS4 physical releases are all "Deluxe Editions," as far as I know. So all copies currently include a digital soundtrack and a mini-art book that you'd better avoid opening until you complete the game.

Did I enjoy the game/visual novel and its story? Overall, yes. But I mean... it's very much targeted at my personal interest area. It's got a fun gameplay setup for investigating mysteries, and it's a very Dangan-like mystery full of odd/entertaining characters at its core. If you like things like Danganronpa and/or the Ace Attorney series, then of course this is going to be up your alley. It's in that kind of wheelhouse: Loads of dialogue peppered with occasional gameplay periods, etc. I can naturally recommend it to those people, even if it isn't going to hit the same heights that they do.

Did I like the characters' personalities/talents and their unique writing? Eh... well enough I guess. I certainly have some faves; a couple of them even survived the story, although one fave was ruined by a reveal that erased their previous likability. I suppose that always happens in these kinds of titles.

Would I play a sequel? Again: Definitely yes, for much the same reasons as I cited two paragraphs up. It's just right in my target area of interest. (And the game definitely ends with a big, wide opening left for a follow-up.)

Did I get invested enough that I was thinking about the game when I wasn't playing, anxiously waiting to hear the next bit of dialogue or witness the next reveal? No. It never gets that "can't wait to see what's next" feeling that the Danganronpa, Zero Escape, or A.I.: The Somnium Files series — and even the recent Yurukill: The Calumniation Games — all instilled in me. THOSE games/Visual Novels are what voracious readers would dub "page-turners." Process of Elimination is, by comparison, not much of a page-turner for most of its duration; I wasn't terribly excited/driven to see what was coming next for most of the runtime. I only reached that level of interest in seeing what was ahead during the final chapter. The plot never gets as exciting as those games, nor do the characters ever get as endearing and engaging to follow as a Danganronpa game (which I consider my current gold standard for character writing in these things).

You'll do this in every chapter — sometimes even more than once. But you'll never do it for very long.

Now, I've already talked about the basics of how the gameplay segments work in an earlier post. And in that post, I "guesstimated" that it'd be close to DR in terms of gameplay/dialogue balance. However, now that I've completed it, I confess I was wrong. The balance wasn't like Danganronpa or Ace Attorney. This one leans even MORE heavily into the "Visual Novel" side than any of those do. Gameplay segments are relatively brief by comparison, taking up slightly less than 10% of your game time overall. But hey — the game as a whole is also shorter than any of those games are, too, so that helps make things even out a little bit.

Warnings for any new/potential players

1) If you buy this game, absolutely do not open the Mini Art Book it comes with until after you finish the game. But also: Absolutely DO open it after you finish it, because some of the character art and information therein is REALLY worth seeing. There's some great reveals and details in there that just aren't shared in the actual text of the story. First off, I just want to say that although I enjoyed this game and its story.

2) Another warning: After you finish the game, you'll likely notice that there are still "events" in the Residual Thought gallery that you haven't unlocked. You need to go back through the investigations (don't worry; you can just select the chapter from the chapter list, and then choose to jump RIGHT to the investigations) and complete them again, using Discount Shuichi Incompetent Detective to grab any new Residual Thoughts that appear on the map along the way. Getting them all not only reveals some key new backstory, it also eventually unlocks a new epilogue scene that I feel is worth the effort.

Faves and Anti-Faves

For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I'll just say that a few of my faves remained that way all the way up to the end. And a couple of said faves even survived, which was nice to see. But of course, I did lose at least one fave as well — someone I found wholly lovable turned out to have a dark reveal that effectively erased their previous warmth. And much like most of the Danganronpa games, I even had an "anti-fave"; a character who acts like an overt asshole the entire time despite the life-or-death stakes. That'd be Renegade Detective. He sucks from the moment he's introduced in the very first chapter, so it's not like I'm spoiling anything to say that he's flashing the biggest "DO NOT TRUST" warning of the cast from the jump.

"I am here to cause problems on purpose."

As for our Shuichi-lookin' protagonist?

Did he escape out from under his "Discount Shuichi" label eventually? YES, I felt he earned a decent enough level of distinction.

Did I like the way he got there? NO, honestly. There was basically a quick-and-easy shift from one extreme to another that I can't adequately explain herein...

Did I like him by the end of the game? KIND OF. Well enough that I wouldn't mind following him again if I had to, at any rate.

Gripes/Complaints

1) Okay, so I'm not going to spoil anything if I can help it, but I want to speak very vaguely about the mastermind/villain reveal. I'm someone who finds it impossible to NOT try to predict how twists/reveals will eventually go down in mysteries. I've watched SO MANY mystery TV shows and movies and played so many mystery-centric games over the years, and it's always fun for me to try and guess the culprit when you can. I'm infinitely delighted if a mystery can surprise me or take turns I never saw coming. But in the case of PoE, if you're looking at all for the mastermind and you've got adequate experience in mystery stories or "twist ending" stories... IMO, it's not hard to figure out the culprit. It follows a very specific trope that I've seen plenty of times, so I saw it coming pretty early on. By the end of Chapter 2, I already had my eye on them. And by the time you get to the final chapter, you're almost definitely going to realize who it is WELL before the reveal drops, because they start waving a gigantic flag pointing at themselves that nobody else in the group seems to notice.

My "predictive" habit also means that I managed to imagine something that I thought would be extremely unlikely, wild as fuck, and incredibly impactful to our characters on a personal/emotional level. I can't help wishing that I'd been close to the truth with my imagined mastermind. (Even though it would've ruined one of my fave characters in here, lol.)

2) I wish the second investigation wasn't the hardest in the game. If you wanna collect everything (and let's be real: YES YOU DO), it's the toughest to manage in the time allotted. There's a mini-investigation in Chapter 4 that presents some challenge due to the wandering enemies, but once you figure out where they tend to land, that's about it. I never struggled anywhere else. I think the difficulty balance is a bit off, is what I'm saying. Like, maybe Chapter 5 or Chapter 6 should've contained mild difficulty in the investigation segments? Considering they're the last two? But Chapter 5 is roughly the easiest one outside of Chapter 1, which is... interesting.

3) I can't spell this out either, but: There's a key component of two important characters' backstory that is eventually revealed late in the game that... really requires more explanation than it's given. Like. HOW could that be possible? Given how much the game teases this eventual reveal right from the start, I sorta thought they'd eventually fully explain those past events but... nah they didn't bother. I guess it's being held back for a sequel, if they get to make one?

I'll get more specific in just a moment.

Okay, let's go into a couple of FULL SPOILERS under the cut.

(Please don't click unless/until you've played the thing to the very end.)

So here's the backstory issue: If Incompetent was actually Ideal and was gored by one of the robots as a kid, someone please explain to me how he was saved but MORE IMPORTANTLY, how his innate talents and knowledge and abilities were just transferred to another kid who volunteered to take them. That's not a thing that people can do? In fact, that kinda sounds like fucking magic. I assume that if they pursue a sequel, they'll eventually have to lay out some wild explanation involving experimental technology or something.

Furthermore, there's an ending issue: Despite Doleful's constant claims that there's no evidence that they're the Duke and that these people were all suicidal anyway and shit, THEIR OWN WORDS pretty much betray them. You can't SERIOUSLY expect me to believe that you arrested them solely for indirectly causing ONE death, because their words and actions during the climax provide MORE than enough evidence to nail them to the wall. Even if Techie DIDN'T record Doleful's rant (which seems unlikely), then multiple respected, high-ranking detectives heard him outline details that only the Duke could possibly know, including the claim that these people were all part of "mutual murder/suicides." And the Duke's involvement in setting up the circumstances for those things is also blatantly criminal in damn near every country on Earth, so uh... yeah. He's fucked. But I'm confident that they were trying to set it up so that he could easily get off the hook (somehow) for a sequel rampage? Which is really... pretty dumb.

One last thing is that a fundamental part of the game's story is how our hero believes he must never, ever take a life in his work as a detective/cop, no matter what situation he's in... which strikes me as just incredibly naïve. But the writing celebrates this perspective — despite the fact that he ends up causing additional deaths due to this attitude! No one ever calls him on that. He never feels guilty about it. He just is like "Nope. It doesn't matter whose life is at stake. It doesn't matter if they have a gun on a hostage. It doesn't matter if they'll clearly escape to kill again in mere moments if I don't stop them forcibly right here, right now. I'll never, ever risk taking a life." And while that's noble and respectable in theory (especially in light of our modern reality where we see so many trigger-happy cops).... it's mega-cringe in practice here, in this particular story. But that's an "individual mileage may vary" bit, I suppose.

[fuckyeahvanhalen86-95]

Wolfgang Van Halen has revealed he'd like to collaborate with rock royalty Dave Grohl and Myles Kennedy.

In an interview with Help Musician's I Never Thought It Would Happen podcast, Van Halen talked about how, despite being a multi-instrumentalist, he still has a bucket list of collaborators.

“I would really love to collaborate with my really good friend – he sings for Alter Bridge and for Slash – Myles Kennedy,” he revealed. “I think he is a wonderful human being, and an incredibly talented singer and guitar player. So I would I would jump at an opportunity to collaborate with him for sure.”

“It'd also be fun to collaborate with one of my biggest inspirations, Dave Grohl. I'm basically ripping him off with Mammoth and the way that he started with Foo Fighters recording everything himself. I've kind of modeled the way Mammoth exists because of him. So if he didn't exist, I wouldn't.”

In the same interview, Van Halen also talked about the beauty of recording all instruments on the Mammoth WVH albums and the artist-producer trust that’s required, especially when recording to tape.

“My producer Michael Baskette and our engineer, Jef Moll, they're practically the other half of the band. I play all the instruments and write everything for Mammoth.”

“There's obvious frustration some days [when] you're not feeling it. But I think that's the wonderful thing about doing it yourself is that's like, if this isn't working, let's just do another thing and come back to it.”

He continued, “And so while I can fully focus on that, [they can focus on] the production aspect and the recording, the complications. We record to tape for drums and guitar because I use my father's studio 5150.”

“All the tape machines are there and ready to go. So it's like why don't we use it? But yeah, because of their high skill and my trust in them, there's really nothing to doubt or worry about when it comes to the production of Mammoth.”

Despite Van Halen very much steering the Mammoth WVH ship, the project's collaborative spirit extends to the live setup. “The fun duality of Mammoth is that I have a live band of really great friends and musicians to perform and reinterpret the music live, but also having my fun artistic expression in the studio.”

Mammoth WVH are touring extensively this year. The band recently supported Slash feat Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators in the UK and Europe. They kick off their US headline tour on May 4 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and are also touring with Metallica and Foo Fighters this summer.

[sparrowsong-7]

Howdy! New to ff14, and was curious about gpose, bc it sounds like it'd be right up my alley if i could learn how to use it 😶

(also ive been lurking in the ff14 tag and you've got some really nice scenes and poses! :D)

First off, welcome to FFXIV and I hope you’re having a great time with it!

Now, Gpose is wonderful, and just using the tool provided in the game is a great way to start taking screenshots. It allows a lot more flexibility than you would first expect from an in-game photo mode, and I do really recommend pushing that to its limits when first starting out. But, if you really wanna get into more dynamic shots, you're gonna have to do some crimes...

Simply put, if you wanna get the most bang for your buck making and posing scenes, you're gonna have to download and install a few add-ons (This is technically against the terms of service, but as long as you’re not announcing it in game, you should be fine).

The basic tools I use for my scenes are as follows:

-FFXIV Quick Launcher: This not only gets you in game quicker, it also lets you install add-ons, which is necessary for Brio and Kitsis

-Anamnesis: My primary posing tool. It’s a third party application that runs in the background and is what actually lets you take control of the rigging on actors and pose them how you see fit, instead of relying on in-game animations. In addition it lets you take further control over the camera and even the time of day and weather! The only issue is that since it runs outside the game it can take up a lot of space on single monitor setups (I have a dual monitor set up so it doesn't bother me).

-Brio: An absolute godsend if you're posing multiple characters. It lets you spawn and customize temporary entities while in Gpose, so you never have to futz with finding enough actors in the world.

-Kitsis: A posing tool that runs in game. Great for single monitor setups, can do a lot of the same things that Anamnesis does, and can even run side by side with it.

There are plenty of guides out there for learning the in and outs of each tool, but I do recommend the tried and true method of just messing with sliders to see what they do. There are also plenty of premade poses out there on the web that you can use (just make sure to give credit where it's due). Sorry if this turned out pretty long, just wanna make sure I’m covering all my bases!

Make sure to have fun with it and if you have any specific questions don't be afraid to DM me!

[gurugirl]

I’m so happy seeing all of these asks about it! Priestrry has me in a chokehold at all times !!!! And to that anon deff read it fully through! There’s so much detail on Harry and basically how he got to being the dom he is and don’t get me started on the trip to Italy and the jewelry store🥹🥹like yeah he’s a priest doing naughty things but it’s a romanceeeeeeee it gets me hot and bothered but sweet and soft at the same timeeeeeeee I can’t tell you how many times I’ve re-read it

Give it a chanceeeeeee😩

Also I 100% agree with you I totally think the exbfd is more taboo? (Which I still foam at the mouth for regardless)

Is that crazy? Am I crazy? It’s okay we can be crazy together I guess LMAO

🩷🩷

ME too! I'm so glad I'm getting asks about it :) That's my ultimate setup (tho I'm not religious so it'd be more like roleplay hahah)! And yes, I write smut but it's more in the category of romance if we get very technical about most of what I write. Like for example if I were to publish priestrry (or any of my series) I'd have to categorize it as romance because people who read smut/erotica are looking for something other than the story - they just want to get off. Like there are guidelines for these categories and I fall into the romance or love story (depending on the fic) category just about every time.

BUT anyway we can totally be crazy together and say that this is like one of the lesser of the taboo stories I have posted 😂 I know some would not agree but it's just that I've seen some really deeply taboo things and priestrry is just kind of tame in comparison really. It's actually a sweet love story 🤭

Thank you so much hon!!! xoxo

[doomalade]

Yknow, I still struggle to understand what is it qrwby & ornj were afraid of happening that they were all unanimously fine with lying to Ironwood about info, conealing which could change their whole purpose of staying in Atlas. And at what point exactly, just what big bad/good reveal were they waiting for to pop out that would make them fully trust/distrust him?

Like I get that they wanted to play it safe after Lionheart and Ozpin fuss but ffs James has been an ally since v2 and has repeatedly risked his life for the same cause as you. Maybe yall should tell him that whatever his plan to "destroy" Salem is, it's set to fail, and all of you know why. Why act in accordance to Ironwood's orders, why deplete Mantle of the resources it desperately needs, which you explicitly express condemnation for, why build Amity Tower, why tell the world about this immortal, potent, malignant being striving to destroy the world, if you all know it'll all be in vain? The longer you guys keep this hidden, the less time you'll have to come up with a real working ass plan to save people, Salem's not gonna wait forever ffs. In their place, I would have told him when he promoted them to pro huntsmen. But no, even then there was this uncertain something that kept all of them from telling him.

Yknow if they really wanted to go for this "trust issues" subplot, I think it wouldve been cool if the mcs split in their opinions about their course of actions to the point when while Yang & Blake + Nora play among us and divulge info to Robyn, Ren in turn has decided to tell Ironwood what they'd been hiding because the former has self awareness and had his own turmoil he had been toiling in and doesn't want to make another mistake that he knows could cost them thousands of lives. He had a promising setup for this that got thrown out of the window in v8. That'd be the real drama, instead of "good vs bad", it'd be "us vs us oh shit i think im starting to get why ozpin was so distrustful of his own allies". That or Qrow not acting like he and James are total strangers and trying to talk his way into understanding James' reasoning to not trust the council, which might've convinced him to work together toward a better solution.

Yeah once more I think it speaks on the philosophy of “don’t do it or go full in”. Basically Go Big or Go Home lol

Either have RWBY and Co. be fully honest with Ironwood and go from there or yeah show the divide in the group and put great emphasis on that.

Yang, Blake, and Nora trusting Robyn more and focusing on the struggles of Mantle while Ren and maybe Weiss focus on helping Atlas and trusting Ironwood while Ruby and Jaune struggle with being team leaders and Oscar with becoming Oz.