#and subtitling what the dialogue means of course

[hypostatic-oath]

The Gods' Limits

Posting this one as an unfinished snippet to get myself motivated and back into writing for this fandom (and writing at all) - because that teaser SURE WAS SOMETHING HUH

________________

"All we can do is extend the invitation." Istaroth's voice echoed, soft and familiar. You have the distinct feeling you've heard it before. It sounds almost like Venti - which, given everything suspicious that bard is up to, sounds about right. "It is up to 'them' whether or not to accept it. 'They' need to reach out of their own volition."

Perhaps it is only the enjoyment of immersion that leads you to reach your hand towards the screen. Nothing could come of it, obviously, but the Shades' hands outstretched make you feel like perhaps something should take them. The trailer has reached its end - this appears to be a strange post-credits scene, the video's little bar is not even progressing anymore - and it's clear that whoever 'they' are, Hoyo doesn't plan on revealing 'them' any time soon. An amused smile flickers on your lips, and your fingertip brushes over the Shade of Time's outstretched hand.

That smile is gone as quickly as it came the moment you see the Shades' eyes move.

They lock on you faster than a predator onto prey, and the shock is so great you do not even realise you've spoken aloud.

"The fuck?"

Your voice sounds distorted. The Shades themselves look, at least, as freaked out as you are - and the most damning evidence that something is afoot is the fact that you see your own 'The fuck?' subtitled on the youtube video. It's censored, of course. More like a 'The □□□□?', really.

"Holy shit." You whisper. It's the player. 'Them' is the player.

"□□□□□□□□?" Istaroth calls out. She's composed herself, and so have the others, it seems, which is more than you can say for yourself, a shiver running down your spine at being addressed directly. Her voice is distorted - something blocked what she said, a heavy static you're accustomed to hearing whenever a quest in-game needs to censor dialogue - but you know, you can tell. Whatever that block of text means, is referring to you.

"You are not talking to me." You state. According to all rules of folklore, if you saw something, no you didn't. This is how people die in horror movies, and you sure as hell don't like how Ronova is staring you down, with those countless, biblically-accurate-angel-worthy eyes. Talk about unsettling. Actually, scratch that. It's downright creepy. "You are not. And I am not talking to you, either."

"Then who are we each talking to?" Naberius - no, this is Rhinedottir, and the golden halo behind her (their?) head is enough to prove it - asks, with a lilt that sounds far too entertained for your comfort. Of course she of all people would find this situation funny. A disregard for the imposed limits of the world has always been her thing.

"I am speaking to myself." You respond, taking a deep breath. Your eyes glance towards the exit button on the screen. Enough man-made horrors beyond your comprehension for today. There is no way this is a feature, otherwise you'd have seen lore streamers going insane over it. You'll close the tab, reboot your computer, and then take a deep breath and file it all as Hoyoverse testing the fanbase's reception to AI, or some grand shift to VR. Yes, that must be it. Obviously, nothing wrong is going on here... but you'll wait for a streamer to react to it, just to err on the side of caution. At least they'd get content out of it.

"Wait!" Istaroth's calm whispers switch to something sharper, filled with urgency. She can feel your presence fading - and though the other two might not be bothered, the Shade of Time knows how crucial you are. How interlinked she is with you, how much of her power is yours and vice-versa, ever since you'd logged in to the world for the first time. Time in Teyvat might be her weaving, but it moves at your pace. If you leave... "Wait, wait, wait. We won't address you directly anymore. We've overstepped. Let us forget this incident and-"

"Speak for yourself." Rhinedottir's mutter could not go unnoticed, not with the subtitles on screen serving as a glaring indication she'd spoken. It earns her a stern clearing of the throat from Naberius's spirit within, that the Khaenri'ahn promptly chooses to ignore. "Come on." She almost seems to be taunting you. Scratch that, you don't even need to look at her smug expression to know she is taunting you. "You're at least a little curious."

Before you can respond - not that you would, because who in their right mind would talk to characters on a screen, on one hand because they're not real, on the other because on the off-chance that they are real you do not want to invite whatever that is into your life - Ronova moves to stand in between you and Rhinedottir, wings stretched out to effectively block the two of you from one another's eyesight. Somehow, the thousands of glowing red eyes scattered like stars across the darkness of Death's wings feel less piercing than Life's dual-colored gaze.

"Istaroth is right. Addressing 'them' is forbidden." She does not speak to you, but the fact that now you know they are aware of you is just as unsettling. "Enough rules have been broken today, and this will not bring us any closer to finding her."

The screen goes still - and the sight of that little replay icon across the frozen frame makes your racing heartbeat slow just a little, a breath of relief leaving your lips. Okay. Just a trailer. Just a weird trailer. Maybe this was one of those times where you just happened to say thw right thing at the exact right time. It wouldn't be a first. Freaky, but nothing more than harmless fun. Yes. You'll check the comments for other like-minded souls who also got the daylights scared out of them by that section, laugh about how life-like the Shades seemed, and then come across those bass-boosted edits meant to show just how intimidating the new characters are.

Perhaps that was just it - the fourth-wall breaking was meant only to showcase the level of power going on with these three (four? five, if one were to count both the missing Asmoday and Naberius as their own person?), the trailer deliberately scripted to spook a few more gullible players.

The fact that people were in fact mentioning it in the comments put you significantly more at ease. Ah, lore. To think there was once a time where Genshin was just a game about a lost space twin helping a silly little bard reunite with his dragon friend while looking for their own lost sibling. And then you were promptly thrust into eldritch horror territory with perhaps the cutest graphics ever. Terrifying, ten out of ten.

Even after seeing that other players had experienced more or less the same - perhaps it varied according to the language they'd watched the teaser in? - it was too much. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to give the game some time, so your head could stop reeling from the experience before being plunged back into Teyvat. It would be a while before you could go back to mindlessly bullying weekly bosses without a care in the world, feeling like those things were watching your poor Traveler.

[noxiatoxia]

i love komaeda tidbits!!! his valley girl dialect adds so much ahhh... do you recall any particularly funny/notable instances of him speaking like that, or times where other characters comment on it?

I wouldn't go as far as to say it is a valley girl-type accent. 1, because that is just the closest approximate to English (obviously the exact same thing doesn't exist in Japanese) and 2, Komaeda does not use sa and ne nearly enough for it to be those levels...well, in my opinion. I'm sure other people could weigh in on what they think.

Either way he's still stumbling over his words a lot, and I do think that's very charming.

I guess you could make the argument that he does have a valley girl accent by proxy of the fact most other characters don't over-use filler particles as much...like I said in the post, people do it all the time in real life, but in media, characters rarely ever stutter or use filler words (unless it's, like, a super tense situation). So the casual usage, even if it is small, stands out. I guess in that way, you can argue Komaeda has a "noticeable" accent in that regard...but that's very much a topic up for debate.

I'm getting side-tricked, lol.

Anyways, while not related to ne or sa, there is another thing I love that's overlooked, and that's how he uses ってば (tte ba)!

Again, this is a very cute detail. It does not happen often, but I can recall 2 instances where he uses it.

Firstly, let me explain. tte ba in the case I'm talking about is a sentence ender used to express frustration, annoyance, urgency, etc. It can kind of sound like whining, but it's the verbal equivalent of stomping your foot.

What's fun is that this word is predominantly used by women. Men use it too of course, but overwhelmingly it just seems to be a word that girls use.

But Komaeda uses it too!

First instance is in the prologue, where he says it to Hanamura.

ちょっと！花村クンってば！

The English translation is perfectly fine. But to go more in depth, as you recall, earlier in the prologue Komaeda told Hanamura to stop pestering Sonia with sexual advances. Here, Hanamura does it again. So, naturally, Komaeda responds...

Come on, Hanamura-kun! I told you to quit it already!

The tte ba added at the end makes Komaeda sound like he's scolding Hanamura and is very exasperated.

Also, while the sentence literally is just "Hey, Hanamura-kun!" with an irritated edge, using prior context and knowing what tte ba means (kind of serving to be like "I already told you this!" sort of thing) we can make the sentence sound better in English.

Next is in chapter 2.

おーい、日向クンってばー！

This one is extra funny, because おーい (usually just おい, oi) is neutral-leaning-male, while as we've said, tte ba is neutral-leaning-female. That's what I love about Komaeda's dialogue: he mixes together "traditionally" male speech patterns and female speech patterns. While, again, not uncommon in real life, anime is so much different. Scripts and word choice are used to tell you about a character's personality. As such, you usually get characters who speak hyper-masculine or hyper-feminine or deliberately ambiguous. I'd say a character who speaks a clean mix of feminine and masculine is very rare. Although, to be more precise, Komaeda speaks masculine and neutral-leaning-feminine...if that makes sense (I will explain later).

Anyways, again, the English translation is good. Komaeda does sound pretty whiny in this scene.

Heeeey! C'mon, Hinata-kuuun!

Now, for the opposite. Something that gets overlooked is an interesting scene in 2.5.

The subtitles has Komaeda as saying "I've heard enough!" but I disagree with this. Komaeda says 黙れよ！in the dub. This is a very masculine turn of phrase because of the imperative nature of it - something Komaeda, to my knowledge, never uses. Very masculine characters do use it often - like Hinata or Oowada or Kuzuryuu - but not Komaeda.

2.5 is complex enough, but this adds a whole new layer to it...Komaeda has never spoke so roughly before. I think it shows just how emotional he truly was in this scene.

I'd translate this line as:

Just shut the fuck up!

And finally...while not canon per se, it is voiced by Megumi Ogata and is very in-character for Komaeda, so I count it. This cute little voice line she recorded for the Danganronpa x Crash Fever on Halloween. It let's me segue into something.

トリック・オア・トリート！お菓子をくれなきゃイタズラしちゃうぞ...なんてね。

Earlier I said Komaeda speaks masculine + neutral-leaning-feminine, and this probably sounds like gibberish to a lot of people because...what does that even mean?

(Keep in mind I'm speaking for the perspective of anime, where these grammar rules carry exaggerated connotations compared to real life! I am also speaking from the perspective of Tokyo dialect aka standard Japanese.)

Komaeda typically uses these particles: sa, ne, yo.

All of these particles are gender-neutral, but ne can be more feminine depending on the context. For example, Saonji uses ne constantly, and so does Mioda. But characters like Hinata and Souda still use ne because again it's context dependent.

There are feminine particles, such as wa, which Komaeda does not use. It is used by characters like Sonia and Celestia and even Kirigiri, which is surprising considering her stoic image (it's very cute).

Then, there's masculine particles, like zo, ze and na. Characters who use zo are Kuzuryuu, Souda, Hinata, and Owari to name a few. Despite Owari being female, she talks very masculine, which adds to her rough image. Ze is also used by all of those characters, as is na.

Komaeda's choice of pronoun is also mild-mannered. Boku is a polite masculine pronoun. It makes sense for him to use it when speaking casually which he is always seen doing. If he used Watashi - also gender neutral (to a point) - while speaking casually, it would make him seem feminine or like a girl.

However, the vast majority of male characters when speaking casually will use Ore, which is a hyper-masculine pronoun. I have lost count of the amount of characters who use this. Only characters I can remember who use Boku (besides Komaeda and Naegi) are Yamada, Hanamura, and Ishimaru.

And for those three, I think it makes sense - they all have this level of acting polite/wanting to be polite or seen as proper.

Which is why the fact Komaeda/Naegi uses it stands out a little bit with the rest of the cast. Makes them appear more mild. opting to use gender-neutral particles only and a mild-mannered male pronoun for your male character tells you a lot about them, especially when almost every other guy in the same series is talking super masculine.

Okay, back to that video. What's cute about it is how Komaeda switches from talking masculine to feminine on purpose.

Trick or Treat! If you don't gimmie some candy...I'mma pull a trick on ya! ...Joking!

I'm unsure how to word this in a way that sounds "masculine" or "feminine" as that doesn't really exist in English I don't think...but the first half of his sentence, Komaeda uses zo at the end to sound threatening/rough, then the last part, nante-ne, sounds feminine when pitched up at the end there. It definitely makes him sound playful.

I also want to point out...though I use masculine/feminine (as what I've talked about are usually employed by men, hence masculine, or women, hence feminine) it is not a matter of being absolute...for example, dresses are seen as being feminine, but that does not mean a man can't wear a dress and still be a man.

Wow, this post got long...I sure do talk. I hope this answers something at least haha. Thank you for the ask!

[tincanaudio]

Vertical Editing - A Tiny Essay Zine!

Behold! My first entry into the 2024 Fiction Podcast Zine Festival organised by @boombox-fuckboy. It's a tiny essay about the way I edit audio and why I think it leads to more immersive stories.

This was scribbled together really quickly just to see if I could do it.

Page scans with subtitles under the cut

[VERTICAL AUDIO EDITING - a tiny essay by AMBER DEVEREUX]

[Hi! My name is Amber...and I can't draw. BUT! What I can do is EDIT AUDIO. I often get asked how to make IMMERSIVE SOUND DESIGN in audio drama. Where dialogue and sound design blend together. THE ZESTY SECRET IS VERTICAL EDITING]

[See, the typical editing pipeline for audio is usually horizontal, like this: (a sketch of an audio project file with 3 tracks: 'Vocals' 'SFX' and 'Music' next to each track name is a long rectangle with a label for which kind of edit is which 'Dialogue Edit' for Vocals, 'Sound Edit' for SFX, 'Music Edit' for Music)

Each part is edited separately then put together at the end. Which means all the elements sit on top of each other. It's clean, yes, but is it IMMMERRRSIIVE? BEHOLD! VERTICAL EDITING!

(the same sketch of an audio project, except the rectangles have been chopped up into smaller pieces, some bits of the Vocals overlap with the SFX, some bits of the music overlap both Vocals and SFX. There are also vertical lines through the middle and end of the picture, denoting scenes)

Dialogue, SFX (and sometimes music) are all editing together at the same time. So all the elements interact with each other from the start: The dialogue becomes sound design!

The sound design becomes dialogue!]

[Of course, this approach isn't perfect:

if you're working in a big team, it's not always possible

edits take longer, with more notes per edit

it's also just a lot more work and creative responsibility (which, sometimes, is the last thing you want)

BUT it also allows you THE MOST HUMBLE AUDIO EDITOR To have more of a voice in the sound design, and it allows you most of all, to be AN ARTIST]

[THANKS FOR READING! This zine was made for the 2024 Fiction Podcast Zine Festival.

(A drawing of the Tin Can Audio logo. A square with 3 lines on the inside. On each line there is a rectangle styled to look like a fader on an audio mixing desk. In each rectangle there is a letter, spelling TCA)

TINCANAUDIO.CO.UK]

I had a lot of fun putting this together! I've definitely caught the bug and hopefully I'll make a couple more before the month is out.

[entamesubs]

Yu-Gi-Oh! Go Rush!! Episodes 140-145 Sub Release

Torrent

Support us on ko-fi

Please make sure to read the FAQ if you have any questions.

There are translation notes below for 142+, so spoilers ahead.

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臼と黒 / usu to kuro Usu and Dark

When Yuuhi accidentally reads it as "White and Black" during the preview, it's because 臼 (usu) and 白 (shiro, which means white) look very similar in terms of kanji, so Yuamu is chastising him for reading it wrong as they're two different characters.

翁丁臼 Otei Usu

Here's a funny one. Otes' "old-timey" name can be read as "old guy with mortar". Do with that information what you will.

お殿様 / otonousama + 武将 / bushou "Honored Lord" + "Military Commander"

There's some liberty taken with the titles the characters use in this arc as there's really no good English translation of them.

First, "Honored Lord" can mean a high minister or a lord (or both, it's not exactly exclusive). One of the synonyms given was "daimyo", but that is very much something completely different (and also, if they really wanted to call him a daimyo, they'd have just said it).

Second, Yuudias refers to himself as a 武将 (bushou), though as I researched it, 武将 (bushou) is normally translated to "warlord" which was fitting for that time. However... Yuudias is not a warlord. He neither has his own soldiers nor his own land. Given that he's basically trying to introduce himself the old-fashioned way to "fit in", and as a nod to his own military accomplishments, he probably just thought it was the right word to describe himself.

Though, it also felt strange to try and translate that as "military commander" considering that "Commander" is a real position in real life, and in the context of the show, was also something that Zwijo used to be titled with ("Supreme Commander"). We know that Yuudias' official military designation within the Velgearian army was "Captain" (from episode 20 & later 49).

Anyway, I went back and forth on this in my head. It was genuinely a little hard trying to think of appropriate titles that didn't make me feel as though I was mislabeling them. This strict adherence to the correct military title is the reason why Zwijo is usually referred to as "Lord Zwijo" in the subtitles when Dinois and Myuda address him as Zwijo-sama. They're still showing him the due respect he deserves as their Supreme Commander, I cannot call him "Commander Zwijo" since he is no longer part of the army.

It goes against what I personally would like, but given that I have no other ideas, "military commander" had to do for Yuudias.

This is basically a lot of words to say that the original idea was the best one, LOL. I guess Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu were also known as "military commanders" back then, so it's not that bad... I just have a little bit of a complex about correct titling.

Speaking of Ieyasu...

Ah, how pleasant! Two awakenings and one sleep. This dream of a fleeing world! The roseate hues of early dawn!

Otes' summon chant for Outerverse Oblivion is a nod/reference to Tokugawa Ieyasu's death poem. It was customary back in the day to compose a poem on the verge of death by learned men (noblemen and monks, mainly).

This translation was taken from Phillip Johnston. While translating SEVENS/Go Rush is my forte, I defer to the professionals for poetry-related matters. It is so much more complicated translating poetry than it is some dialogue from a card game anime.

"The Yuudias Incident"

I cannot give a crash course on Sengoku era Japan in the span of a single translation note, but basically the era was very hectic due to the different lords fighting over land and to rule Japan. These lords also betrayed each other constantly, backstabbing and overthrowing the masters they served like changing clothes.

When Otes said that Yuudias rebelling is "fitting" for the time, he's referencing that same backstabbing endemic to the era.

The title of the episode is also a reference to one of these betrayals, known as "The Honnouji Incident". It was when Oda Nobunaga was betrayed by one of his vassals and forced to commit seppuku (kill himself).

from the hour of the rooster until the crow’s evening cries

The "hour of the rooster" is mainly known as around 5-7pm. I'm not quite sure when "the crow's evening cry" is supposed to be, but I assume around 9-10pm. Zwijo makes his proclamation as a way to say "children have to work until this time, then they can play" (as was the case back then).

Episode 145

Not really a TL note, but just wanted to point out something really cool about this episode.

The episode is a reference to "Blink" from S29E10 of Doctor Who (the season where David Tennant was the Doctor and the main female lead was Martha Jones).

Yuamu font changes

Baloo 2 -> Sephora Sans Serif Medium

This is the same font that all the Darkmen (+ Dark Meister) use, but now with Yuamu's old colors. I felt like it was a cute change to recognize who she was before and how she's changed since then while still retaining her old flair.

-------------------------------

Well, if the dub is to be believed, we have anywhere from 6 to 7 episodes of Go Rush left. It feels kinda strange being so close to the end and yet not quite seeing where the end could be, but I suppose the same thing happened with SEVENS.

Regardless, have fun and keep enjoying Go Rush!

"Are you back on normal weekly releases?" 🤷‍♀️しらん

[bonbon-bonny]

I don't usually write a whole lot but I wanted to talk about this for a moment

Ahem. *flips through notes*

So I loooove Sailor Moon. Specifically the 90s version. It was my favorite show growing up. My home life was difficult and to see someone like Usagi with a perfect family, a perfect boyfriend etc. getting to live her best life despite the fact she herself wasn't perfect was too easy to become a bit obsessive over ^_^;

well, let's just say I wanted to be Usagi just a bit too much because my world, my family (Side note: I looove my family! They did the best they could to take care of me growing up, but we had to deal with an unusual circumstance that made it hard for all of us), heck just even being myself didn't feel good enough and frankly it left me having to confront a lot of issues just to be okay with who I am now.

And of course ,naturally, I looooved Tuxedo Kamen XD. On the outside to me, he seemed perfect; a knight in shining armor.

But I always kept running into a particular conversation which is "why do you like him so much tho? He seems like a jerk. He seems so different from her. He never shows her affection. She'd be better off with someone like Seiya who's more on her level. He's useless. He's bad for trying to help her because she's a girl boss and doesn't need to be rescued." Like, seriously the amount of criticism I've heard towards this character is wild and he literally gets attacked no matter what he does.

And you know I get it. If you just look at it from a surface level it's easy to maybe get that impression of him but after one particular conversation I was having with a friend of mine about it I stopped and asked myself why. Why does she like him? why does he like her? how can two people who outwardly look so different from each other ever be in a healthy relationship? what could the two of them possibly have in common?

So I did what I do best and I watched the show I grew up with carefully. I observed him. I watched the things he said and did. And in the end I reached several conclusions.

Mamoru isn't perfect, at least in the beginning, but he's always trying to do his best to be. With almost anyone else in the show he's usually calm, collected and somewhat reserved. The only person besides Motoki he seems to act out a bit with if you can call it that IS Usagi and half of the time it's not even that he's actually being mean.

[IF you watch the Japanese version with subtitles, because in the English dub? Ooph! they changed so much of his dialogue and gave him such a smirky voice it's hard to listen to him without wanting to punch him in the face imo.]

It's that the way she perceives him is off. Also, sometimes it's not even HIM that starts the arguments.

Sometimes SHE'S the one who starts their spats and he snaps back at her. Sometimes she hits him with shoes and papers and doesn't seem to care.

One episode that comes to mind is the Dreamland episode where the toy train stops and she rams into him. All he did was look at her and say hi and immediately she got defensive and started making fun of him.

Making fun of an orphan sitting on a toy train who most likely was just trying to do something fun that he never got to because he didn't HAVE a family to take him as a kid.

Seriously. If you were to be in his place, going through this world, it's rather scary, stressful, terrifying, and uncertain.

He didn't get a magical talking cat to walk him through his powers. Instead he got seizures and psychic visions, and a past life version of himself that took over his body without consent until he finally got the rainbow crystal and understood what was happening around him.

He gets amnesia not once but twice, kidnapped several times, and gets trapped in his own mind twice ala brainwashing by beryl and Nehelenia and by stars I wouldn't be surprised if half of the reason he went to study abroad instead of staying with Usagi is because he was afraid if he did he'd only continue to be a burden for her, because the man hardly has any dialogue and seems almost catatonic.

Also let's be real here. As amazing as it was for him to meet and talk with his future self it probably scared him. The responsibility of literally being King of the world, of making decisions that could impact the lives of everyone in tremendous ways. Of being the kind of partner and provider he thinks Usagi deserves or being a good father for Chibi-Usa when he didn't get to have parents to show him what those things looked like.

He didn't get a loving family to support him or tell him that they loved him, he was an orphan who probably hoped someone would eventually rescue him but no one ever did.

He probably feels in his heart that he doesn't deserve to be loved by anyone, and even if someone were to pursue him romantically he probably couldn't reciprocate in any meaningful way because he's most likely too closed off emotionally to be in a healthy relationship with anyone.

Heck the guy only for the most part has only two best friends. Motoki and Saori and frankly I'd hardly even call Saori a best friend since she literally just shows up in an episode in Super S as "Romantic competition" for Usagi and then just ups and vanishes and is never mentioned ever ever again.

So how does someone like him see Usagi and wind up constantly sacrificing his life over and over again for her?

Three words:

She. Sees. Him.

Once she starts to look at him a bit differently instead of seeing him as some tall guy running around with his stupid green jacket with his prickly personality, once she realizes that it was him trying to rescue her when she was so close to the brink of death on occasions and getting injured in the process, once he opens up to her about his struggles she sees him. Not just because he's a hero, but because even if it's hard for him he still tries to help her. A lot of times he even gives her really sound advice that she winds up listening to even if at the time he tells her she doesn't seem to understand him and takes it the wrong way.

He probably also deep down worries that he truly doesn't deserve someone like her.

Even if we don't always see it from the outside he adores Usagi because she sees him for who he is and doesn't ask him to be more outgoing or different.

Usagi adores him because he doesn't ask her to be anything other than who she really is.

Both of them accept the other as they truly are inside. THAT is true love.

You don't really get the chance to see what their relationship looks like from the outside. But he smiles a lot when he's with her which is certainly not something he really ever did with Rei or anyone else from what I could tell. And I bet when he does take her out on dates he's embarrassed and flustered and stumbles but he also probably takes off his mask and tries to make her happy and have a good time.

Also I'd like to add some notes on King Endymion and the violet. Why so much violet? Like....an overwhelming amount of violet XD I never understood why when I was younger but as I've grown up I've spent some time delving into subjects such as Psychology, Spirituality, and Philosophy.

Ladies and gentlemen, Violet is the color of the crown chakra.

https://www.chakras.info/crown-chakra/

Crown chakras deal with the mental and the spiritual. They are a gateway to enlightenment and in my opinion perhaps one could even say that the journey of mental health and enlightenment are two sides of the same coin.

So I'd like to think that for as much as Mamoru might struggle with his mental health, he also walked the path towards true enlightenment. Such a man truly should be King of the World and is more than deserving of being Usagi's partner.

And I'd die for a relationship with a man who is brave enough to confront the things which makes him suffer because I'd know that he'd have the clarity of mind to be a good partner, to treat me with kindness and compassion and show me the kind of love I've always dreamed of having, and that's something only someone who has love for themselves and others could ever possibly be able to give. He doesn't need to be perfect, because perfection is unattainable. He just needs to be brave enough to try even if it makes him deeply uncomfortable at times.

So,

To the men who truly and deeply identify with Mamoru, know I'd marry you in a heartbeat if you asked. That if you showered me in chocolate and flowers I'd do the exact same thing for you because you deserve it. Anyone who is brave enough to do the work necessary to heal and grow, to have kindness and compassion for others, to show me that even if I'm not perfect that it's still okay to be myself around you deserves every happiness in the world.

Not everyone is brave enough to do such a thing and I've come to a point in my life where I'm not interested in what someone can give me externally as much as I am in the kind of person they choose to be and what their values are.

Maybe some people might look at someone like Mamoru and judge him, but Usagi most certainly never would once she got to know him; and considering I've always wanted to be her I'll die on this hill defending him. Out of everyone, Usagi WOULD defend him from the judgement, from the criticism, of the need to be perfect and wear masks, or be something other than what he truly is on the inside.

Mamoru is more than just a knight in shining armor,

He's beautiful imperfection; and I'd choose that over anything else any day.

@heavyheartedprinceofearth

[eularin]

I was watching some scenes from Naruto, and then I saw the one where Obito summons the Kyuubi in the cemetery, apparently next to Rin's grave and I was like "WTF you crazy? Right there next to your crush's grave? What the hell man" and then I remembered that Obito always does things with some justification (every villain does), but it is Canon that Obito likes to prove his PoV to others, and also to himself. So I asked myself: why the hell did Obito summon the Kyuubi near Rin's grave? What could he be thinking? And I came to the following conclusion:

He wanted to prove to Rin, and to all those other dead ninjas who probably sacrificed themselves for Konoha that their sacrifice was in vain. Obito's story, and especially Team Minato's story, is about sacrifice, promises, and tragedy.

Obito sacrificed himself for Kakashi (and the Team) bc he thought it was the right thing to do and the most important thing. He was more loyal to the team (his friends) than he was to Konoha (am I the only one who noticed that by going to save Rin, Obito basically abandoned the Kannabi Bridge mission?)

On that mission, Obkk made his promise, Kakashi gained his Sharingan, Obito "died" believing that by joining his power with Kakashi's, it would make them stronger and in a way invincible to protect Rin (his precious people) so of course the cruel world and cruel destiny proved to the two that the sacrifice and their promise were worthless.

When Obito finally realized that his shared power with Kakashi was not enough, and that Rin's loyalty to Konoha far outweighed her loyalty to the Team, Obito had a meltdown (another meltdown). I can reflect on Rin's character later. Let's focus on Obito.

When Obito chose the graveyard to summon the Kyuubi, he was making a strong statement. He literally wanted to tell Rin (and the other ninjas who sacrificed themselves for the good of Konoha) this: "hey Rin, look! You killed yourself to stop a Bijuu from destroying Konoha, but your sacrifice can't stop this Bijuu now. See? No sacrifice is worth it. You only delayed the inevitable. You died for nothing and without meaning" - Obito must have been very angry with Rin and Minato. At least I think he was.

During the 4th war he was literally mocking Minato and his acclaimed speed. Basically he was saying "there's no point in being the fastest man in the world if you don't arrive at the moment that matters most", and I don't think he was referring to the Kannabi Bridge mission. So there's that weird conversation where Obito tells Kakashi that Rin is an impostor?!? I don't remember that dialogue anymore (I watched it with subtitles, so I really don't remember what I read years ago)

the only thing I understood was "Rin killed herself, so she's not the real Rin, she's just an impostor that this world created!" – Obito is so... crazy? logical? delirious that I couldn't keep up (I always rewatch the 4th war arc)

also, i'm thinking about it 🤔 i think obito might have been bitter towards Minato bc out of all team 7, Minato was the only one who got along in the end. get my drift: obito "died"; kakashi and rin were devastated and minato probably suffered too, but the anime only shows kakashi for most of the whole story, suffering much more. (unfortunately, the anime shows almost nothing of Rin and her personality. she's portrayed as... idk, easily disposable background character. we don't see anything about her dreams, her struggle to be a great ninja, we don't see her other friends or family... she's almost an empty character, even though she's important to the story of two big prominent characters.)

So back to the main focus: Obito "died"; Rin and Kakashi suffered, then Rin died and Kakashi was left to wallow in his guilt and pain, then Minato went and put a traumatized child in the ANBU. And we know that Obito was already spying on all of them. He certainly didn't like seeing Minato being a beloved hero, enjoying his laurel leaves after the war, so he fulfills his dream of being Hokage, marries his wonderful Kushina, plays house and has a child. In other words: Minato moves on while Obito doesn't (and Kakashi doesn't either). I bet that made Obito pretty angry. I can imagine his anger at Minato's good life. So he went there and ruined it all. 💁🏻‍♀️💀

Well, that's it. That's my theory (?) about why Obito summoned the Kyuubi at the graveyard that night.

So, what's your take on this?

[benkyoutobentou]

How to study languages without studying

Whether you're just starting out and have had bad experiences with textbook learning in the past or are getting burnt out from prepping for the next proficiency test, it's never a bad idea to put the textbooks away for a time and just enjoy your target language. If you're new to the world of immersion, here are a few ways to get you started.

Follow along with the lyrics of a song. Spotify's not-so-new-anymore lyrics feature is great for this, especially since it has timed lyrics, but it doesn't have every song.

Expert mode: Write out the lyrics and underline/highlight/make note of all the words and grammar structures you don't know. Learn these unknowns until you can understand the whole song!

Extra challenge: Translate a song from your target language. I usually tend to stay away from translations in my study, but for those of you who aspire to be translators (or already are!), the poetic nature of song lyrics can be a fun challenge.

Watch a show or movie. Netflix has now introduced a feature where you can sort by language! If there's nothing made in your language that you're interested in, it also gives the option to sort by shows and movies that have the audio or subtitles available. Internet Archive also tends to have lots of foreign films that I'm looking for.

Easy mode: Watch with English or your native language subtitles. When doing this, try to still listen to what's being said and pick up on words and phrases that you know, or match new words with their translation in the subtitles. Note: reading one language and listening to another is a skill in and of itself! Don't be discouraged if you can't do both at the same time yet, you're brain is still making the connections in intonation and cadence of the language.

Hard mode: Watch with captions in your target language. This helps you connect listening and reading, especially in languages where the spelling isn't exactly phonetic, or it uses a different alphabet than what you're used to.

Expert mode: No captions or subtitles! But who knows, maybe you're better at listening comprehension than I am. Make sure you're getting comprehensible input here; some shows and movies are much harder than others. But above all else, watch what keeps your interest. A movie where you can catch half the dialogue but is super engaging is better for you than an "easy" movie that you're going to spend your time ignoring.

Polyglot mode?: Watch something in your target language with subtitles in a different target language. This adds just one too many layers of obfuscation for me, but if you're into the challenge, more power to you.

Watch YouTube. You can change your language preference on YouTube, and with that, the Explore section will give you recommendations in your target language. Going into the trending tab with your target language can give you a good idea about what people are interested in in the countries where your target language is spoken.

Read something. It can be a book, it can be a comic. There are plenty of webcomics out there in a number of languages! There's also probably an English language listicle with recommendations of easier to understand webcomics for learners, too.

If you're just getting started in immersion, you can choose whether you focus on intensive reading or extensive reading (this actually goes for all kinds of immersion, but is easiest to control with reading since it happens at your own pace). Intensive reading is reading with the goal of understanding everything 100%. If you don't understand a word, or a grammar point, or the reading of a character, look it up. Extensive reading is reading just to get the gist of things. Look up words and grammar points only if they stop you from understanding the general meaning of the sentence or section. And of course, the more you immerse, the less you'll have to look things up, but remember that difficulty varies between materials, even within books of the same age range, genre, and medium.

A small digression: If you decide that you never want to open a textbook on your language learning journey, more power to you! It can be done and I know people who have gotten to proficient levels of their target language without textbooks. If you want this to be you, extensive immersion is your best friend. You also might want to get comfortable with the flashcard program anki, because, if this is your goal, all those unknown grammar points and words will probably end up there. But at the end of the day, language learning is an intensely personal journey, and what works for others won't necessarily work for you. Finding what works for you is just part of learning a language.

Play a game. Lots of games are region locked (hint: Pokemon Sun/Moon isn't! If you start a new game, you can choose which language you want to play it in), but there are plenty of free online games still lurking in the corners of the internet. With a bit of googling, you can probably find something in your target language. Just the other day, I went out to find one of those hidden item games in Japanese and ended up finding an entire site dedicated to user made browser games.

If you're learning Japanese or Korean, picrew might be fun to look through as well. I noticed that plenty of picrews have basic anatomy vocabulary. I'm not super familiar with picrew myself, but the ones I've seen tend to be in Korean and Japanese

And lastly, don't fully give up on textbooks before trying them out. Don't be discouraged if textbooks truly aren't your thing, but studying a language on your own time can feel much different than studying for school. Don't put too much pressure on yourself and just have fun with your language. Additionally, if you'd rather learn in a video format, many languages have full courses uploaded to YouTube for you to try. Finding these can be difficult for some languages though, so don't hesitate to reach out to other learners and see what they recommend!

Got your materials ready? Great! Now go forth and immerse!

[contentloadingandstuff]

Quick 28 Years Later Review

Watched it just today and I have many mixed feelings. Read if you're interested.

First of all, I doubt anything I say could be considered a spoiler since the plot is predictable as hell, but I'll avoid it anyway. Spoilers will be marked with numbers that are referenced below the cut.

Initial note: Boyle, the director of the 28 franchise, wants to make 28 years a trilogy, the second movie allegedly having the subtitle "Temple of Bones" and coming in January of 2026. As such, some criticism of plot and world building here might be remedied by the sequels, which I hope happens.

Visuals: Great. It's not the same as the destroyed London from the previous installments, but setting the movie in the wilderness of Scotland makes for a lot of nice scenery. The desaturation from the previous installments is gone, letting us see the Highlands in their full glory. In terms of blood there's not that much, but what is very common is nudity. No, the infected running around naked was not just a trailer thing. Prepare to see infected schlongs, breasts and pubes on multiple occasions. Overall, the set pieces are great and the visuals are nice. 8/10

*Gore: This is something of this move's weak spot. Previous entries were not the Terrifier by any means, but were still filled with infected projectile vomiting blood, choppers turning them into fine red mist and rabid violence. This time we don't see much in terms of blood and dismemberment. We do see very many bones, however. On top of these we have two very disgusting scenes, one of which is very needless. Check below the cut for details (1).

Soundtrack: Music in the previous titles was not very noticeable, being completely gone or totally inoffensive through most of the prequels - aside, of course, from our beloved "In The House - In a Heartbeat" by John Murphy. It's absent in this movie, to which I'll get on in a moment. Aside from that we have more music tracks including... (2). The ending has a rock version of this song. A rating of 6/10 does it justice I think.

Writing: It's good, nothing to note here. The dialogues are natural and flow smoothly with no exposition dumps, but not much in terms of memorable phrases. Scottish accents in this movie are great, and the Swedish accent is nice too. Some dialogues are interesting too - (3). Overall, 9/10.

Characters: Our cast is neither very large nor very memorable. The protagonist is Spike, a 12 year old boy born sixteen years after initial infection in a small settlement on an island, connected to the mainland by a land bridge traversable only during low tide. We spend the initial hour or so with his dad, and the rest of the movie with his sick mother. Aside from them we have two episodic characters. They generally aren't annoying, immensely stupid (beyond what is expected of a 12 year old) or insufferable. One of the episodic characters is an asshole though. However, there is a noticeable lack of characterisation for any of them. For that, the rating of 5/10 is sufficient - none of them will stick like Jim or, more likely, Don.

Plot: The plot is very basic. Young lad has an ill mother, learns there is a way to help her and goes to obtain it. Let's not kid ourselves, plots in the previous installments were simply excuses for zombie action and not much else. This one sets out to do more but fails to make us identify with the character enough to give the desired effect - briefly, it falls flat. The only interesting characters are chained by what the movie sets out to achieve. I feel it skips lastthe most important and interesting scenes (4). Overall, 6/10 - most are boring or simply non-entities, but the protagonist being a young boy makes it more interesting - all of us would like to see how a post-zombie generation lives, too bad the movie dismisses it into the background.

Horror: The scaring methods are the same - jumpscares, but with the tension of ever present infected gone and with the ease they are dispatched, it degrades noticeably. In comparison to the previous movies, there are so much less of them overall. I don't recall there being more than ten zombies at the same time on the screen. Were statists this expensive? Or were this many people unwilling to run around naked and muddy on the screen? Perhaps it's to be dismissed with it being 28 years later and there not being many left, but honestly, with how easy they are killed with a bow, they all should be biting the dust long ago. In terms of terrifying slaughter scenes this franchise is known for (scenes involving infections of many people), there is only one that is indeed quite misleading in terms of this movie's tone - (5). Overall, 7/10. We lost a good atmosphere, but it still can be scary.

Zombies: This is what everybody came here for, right? The rage infected, throwing up blood everywhere they go, speedy like demons and violently mauling their victims. Not so much, sadly. The infected in the intro sequences are our old same old, but later infected are more like Darkseekers from "I Am Legend" with Will Smith. They have rudimentary pack dynamics and a leader, but open spaces make them much less threatening. They don't really vomit blood anymore. Why? Can't tell. It makes them much less infectious. We see two variants of them - big Alpha and fatty crawlers. We know the former is made up because "the virus works on some of them like steroids", but we are not told why the crawlers are fat. And why are any of these zombies still alive, for that matter. A big part of the previous movies was how the mortality of rage infected was made clear. Between those movies, as we are told, they starved to death (which is why the second movie happens in the first place). But here, a total of 27 years after the virus release, we have them running around - totally naked. In short, here is why they would die: profuse bleeding, physical exhaustion, nerve damage from constant rage, lack of water, parasites, hypothermia, illnesses from cross contamination, malnourishment, desentery. It sucks that the zombies lost their unique nick of realism that brought attention to the franchise, alongside them being fast. There's also an appalling moment of - (6). And a (7). Also, they seem slower now - they are unable to chase down a 12 year old boy and his sickness ridden mother. Heavy disappointment on my part. I'm a big fan of zombie media and rage zombies were amongst my favourites, shame to see them being mishandled. 4/10.

Total score, my opinion of course:

8/10 for casual audiences. If you're looking for something to take your other half to for a spooky watch, go ahead. You won't be bothered by anything safe for flat characters and a bit of a boring plot, which is covered up by the great setting of this movie.

6.5/10 for a casual zombie fan. This movie nerfs the terror of rage zombies and focuses more on one character's family drama than pure survival or reconstruction. The zombies are a threat still, but they do not appear (directly or indirectly) as often as before.

5/10 for a more particular zombie enjoyer. It's not the same movie, the dark, gritty atmosphere is nowhere to be found. The zombies went from the driving force behind the plot to background players at best. I feel a comparison to The Last of Us zombie treatment is precise - they are rare, but threatening. Which is not how rage zombies were before.

Spoilers below.

1. An infected crawler eating an earthworm and an infected woman giving birth in a train car.

2. The Tellytubies song.

3. The most interesting interaction between Spike and Erik (a Swedish soldier stranded in Britain) is when the latter tells him why he became a soldier and Spike does not understand most of his references to things like smartphones, the internet, deliveries and the like.

4. There is no more than brief exploration of post-virus society. Neither the world nor the island community is explored. We only know Great Britain was indefinitely quarantined, but... Like, why? If anything, it's the safest infected place in the world as most zombies would already have died out. By the way, Europe was allegedly cleansed of the infected. Sure... If that is true, then Erik should be a proficient and well trained exterminator.

5. In the intro sequence, a room full of children is massacred by the infected, leaving only one survivor.

6. In the childbirth scene, the mother reaches out her hands to the infected woman and they put their palms against each other, with her grabbing the mother's hand for support as she gives birth. What in the absolute girls-power women's-bond shit is this, Danny?

7. An uninfected baby from an infected woman. It should be the key to a cure for the rage virus as it likely inherited a suppressed version of the virus or contains antibodies for the rage virus.

8. Bonus: There are some stylistic references to the previous movies. First, the nudity might be somewhat inspired by the nudity of Jim in the initial 28 Days Later, same for red lens camera in the initial scary stuff compilation, which also contains shots from 28 Weeks Later.

[minis-gaming]

Lucas Grey: All Dialogues; Part 1

I guess this is one of the biggest projects I have ever done 😁 I wasn't in a good mood recently because my mental health is kinda low at the moment due to some difficulties in my private life. So I needed a distraction and I thought it might be fun to find every dialogue in all Hitman WOA games done by Grey or about Grey- no matter if directly or indirectly.

So I collected everything I could find for the first game, which was not that hard, since in Sapienza, Marrakesh and Bangkok no one talks about Grey (at least I couldn't find any dialogue referring to him). Colorado was more, of course, since the mercenaries talk a lot about him.

It was a lot of fun collecting all these dialogues 🥹 Some of them I have actually never heard before and they give a nice insight of his personality (and how he behaves as a leader).

If you have any more dialogues in mind, feel free to DM me! I already collected some for part 2 and 3, but I am open for help finding more!

And now, have fun with part 1 🫶

Please note: I wrote down the dialogues from the scenes myself using the subtitles, but it was often hard to follow, so please excuse any mistakes.

Prologue

Cutscene: Call me 47

Grey: You were always the best. Nobody ever came close. You defined the art, and it defines you. Your actions have changed the world. Powerful men have fallen by your hand but by the same token, others have risen. Do you realise what kind of world you've been shaping? Does the ICA? Does your handler? I live in that world. I have seen the consequences. I have felt the cost. That's what defines me.

Paris

Novikov to Philip von Zell

Von Zell: Well it’s confirmed, Sir. The FSB charges against you have all been dropped. No one is mentioning Kamarov’s unfortunate death or his alleged ties to the CIA of course.

Novikov: Good, good. That’s the end of that then. I knew our nameless friend would come through. Very good.

Bodyguard: No, I still don’t like it. This… this worries me. I mean, who is this guy? What kind of man enters a heavily guarded government building, kills an FSB section chief and sets him up as a US spy without even breaking a sweat? Where’d you find this guy anyway?

Novikov: See that’s the thing. He found me. He knew the FSB were investigating my past and he knew about IAGO using models as trojan horses. Everything. Guy like that. Let’s just say you let him do most of the talking.

Von Zell: Still… the whole dossier? Some price for a day’s work.

Novikov: Well I’ll be damned Philip. You and Dalia actually agree on something.

Novikov to his bodyguard

Novikov: I’m going to ask you something, Kurt. Then I want you to answer me honestly, completely honestly.

Kurt: Uh, yes Sir, of course.

Novikov: Do you believe Dalia plans to double cross me? She’s furious that I gave the assassin access to our secrets.

(…)

Novikov to Dalia Margolis

Dalia: Well, this is cozy.

Novikov: Save it, Dalia. It’s simple procedure. We’ll be out of here as soon as the threat is neutralized.

Dalia: Well, let’s just cross our fingers that the half dozen power players, billionaires and borderline supervillains upstairs are still in a spending mood by then.

Novikov:  Can we do this at home?

Dalia: Fine. So, what’s this about anyway?

Novikov: You guess is as good as mine.

Dalia: It wouldn’t have anything to do with the dead-eyed mercenary you hired to murder an FSB section chief now would it?

Novikov: Are you going to bring this up in every fight from now on?

Dalia: Until you do something dumber.

(…)

Novikov to Decker

Novikov: Mr. Decker. How are things at the office?

Decker: That’s ´91 all over again. Kamarov is found dead, gun in hand, office locked from the inside. In his safe, evidence that he was leaking state secrets to Langley. An FSB section chief, Kremlin’s golden boy, a CIA spy. Like I don’t know who you hired to pull this off, but I want his number.

Novikov: Trust me. You don’t.

(…)

Dalia to Sophus Fatalé

Fatalé: So, uh, are you going to tell me about what Viktor did?

Dahlia: Viktor… had a lot of skeletons in his mahagony walk-in closet and sometimes the lock won’t hold. A young ambitious FSB section chief was mounting a case against Viktor for past crimes. He got close. Too close. So Viktor, failing for once to bribe or threaten his way out of trouble made a deal with an assassin. Someone with impossible skills. The price? A copy of the IAGO dossier. Everything we have ever collected. No questions asked. And did Viktor bother to tell me about it? No. He did not.

Fatalé: The clients are in there. Are you saying they’re bidding on used goods?

Dahlia: Viktor is certain this mystery man was looking for something very specific. He won’t be bribing people left and right. Still, it’s the principle.

(…)

Cutscene: The secrets of the global elite

Novikov: How was Moskow?

Grey: Kamarov is gone. I set him up as a Langley spy. It's quite the scandal at the FSB. His death will not be investigated. Your turn.

Novikov: Very well. The secrets of the global elite. Five years of work. Everything we've collected. This thing makes WikiLeaks look like a gossip rag. The pen beats the sword, huh?

Grey: I have found that whoever wields the swords decides who holds the pen. Types: File secure. No loose ends. Leak the names. Smile Viktor. Your reputation is safe. Now, run along. I'm sure you have pretty dresses to attend to. Viktor? Good luck with the show. I have a feeling, it's going the one you'll be remembered for.

Cutscene: The key

Hajun: Ether security is in the dark about the incident, and a few at the company knew about the virus, not even the board. Must have been someone at the lab. I understand. I'll get to the bottom of this.

Grey: Bosses unhappy? I followed you from italy. I guess when you're invisible, you stop looking over your shoulder.

Hajun: You did this?

Grey: IAGO exposed you, ICA did the heavy lifting. I just pulled some strings.

Hajun: You out of your mind? How do you expect...

Grey: I play dirty. That's how you defeat a stronger opponent. You strike from behind. Now give me the key.

Hajun: You have a family? Trust me. If there's a weakness, Providence will find it.

Grey: I'll take my chances. The key.

Hajun: Fine. Won't do you much good.

Grey: It's funny. Cobb said the same thing. Thank you, messenger.

Hajun: Don't. I just killed you.

Grey: Then we're even.

Cutscene: Providence is under attack

Fanin: Compromised? But... I don't understand. There is no sign of forced entry. No alarm. Nothing.

Edwards: One of my people has gone missing in Johannesburg. A key-bearer.

Fanin: I wish I had been informed. Still, the system demands two keys. And the rest are all accounted for.

Edwards: Except for your late predecessor's.

Fanin: Cobb? But... his plane went down over the Pacific. It was an accident.

Edwards: Such was the conclusion at the time, yes. People die, Mr. Fanin. It happens all the time, even to us. If it seems like a conspiracy, it probably isn't. And yet. The failed coup in Morocco. The Ether virus. Someone knows about us. There was a pattern and I failed to see it. Providence is under attack.

Fanin: How much was there?

Edwards: Money? Not money, Mr. Fanin. Information. On all of our assets and operatives. Like you. Dig a trench, director. And make it a deep one. Because none of you are safe anymore.

Colorado

Guards talking

Guard 1: I was providing Berg. He didn’t have a clue either. So who the hell is this guy?

Guard 2: Concerned citizen with a chip on his shoulder?

Guard 1: With skills like that? Come on man.

Guard 2: The boss keeps his past close to his chest. Apart from Olivia Hall, the head of the cyber unit, I don’t think anyone knows who he was before. Including Sean Rose.

Guard 1: Suppose we’re all thinking the same thing. He was one of them, right? How else could he know so much about the enemy?

Guard 2: Only thing that makes sense.

Guard 1: Wonder what they did to him. I mean, we’ve all felt the rage one time or another. The boss didn’t start this out of charity, the hate runs deep.

Guard 2: We all have our reasons mate. Don’t need to know his.

Guard 1: Yeah, what’s your reason?

Guard 2: I do what I’m paid to. Made my peace for that a long time ago. Sill. Pick the right side whenever I can afford to. Righteous money just wrestles out in your pocket.

Guard 1: I hear ya.

Guard 1: So, the boss hires this former Interpol agent to do strategic analysis for us? That’s pretty smooth. If she can be trusted of course.

Guard 2: Bit of a strange one. Not strange like Rose mind you but kind of uh… aloof. I heard from the technicians that she’s a Cambridge graduate, top of her class, thing like that you know. Joining interpol a few years after.

Guard 1: Did you know that her main focus was tracking Rose? I mean how poetic is that?

Guard 2: I don’t know about poetry but it sure is a twisted move by the boss.

Guard 1: Then again, she was supposed to be the best and the boss only hires the best. I guess we’ll see if she can handle things on this side of the fence.

Guard 2: If not, I’m sure Rose has some elaborate retirement plan ready for her.

Guard 1: So, you got your ex-military, your mercenaries, I saw a couple of CICADA guys arrived earlier. Then, there’s freedom fighters, intelligence specialists, cyber criminals, you name it. Half of these people probably fought each other at some point.

Guard 2: Oh man, that’s not even counting the really freaky ones. Left-wing terrorists like Sean Rose, corporate whatevers like Crest. It’s like the united nations of assholes.

Guard 1: And what the hell is an anarcho-primitivist?

Guard 2: You got me and I don’t want to know.

Guard 1: This is a powder keg. How does the boss even hope to unite these freaks?

Guard 2: By the way he always does. Take them all, point them on a common foe.  

Guard 1: That simple huh?

Guard 2: I mean armies are easy enough to deal with when the bullets are flying. It’s all the shit that comes after that you gotta worry about. Peace time when soldier get bored, start getting ideas. That’s when shit get’s dangerous.

Guard 1: Okay, Sun Tzu. Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it.

Guard 1: Rose put you on the Mexico team?

Guard 2: Reykjavik. Security for Olivia Hall on the Hampson Oil operation.

Guard 1: She’s the boss´s protégé, right?

Guard 2: She leads the cyber division. She’s only 24, but apparently some kind of prodigy. She used to operate under the hacker name Delriego. Took down some major corporations while she was in college.

Guard 1: Where’s she from anyway?

Guard 2: Sierra Leone. She met the boss during the war. That’s about all anyone knows about his past. That he was in Sierra Leone around 2002.

Guard 1: Better than nothing.

Guard 2: Save it. Already tried. There’s no record of him anywhere.

Guard 1: I bet she knows. Someone should get her drunk. Maybe she gets chatty.

Guard 2: Bad idea mate. Hall could enter your bank accounts from her smartphone. Those millennials have scary powers. 

Guard 1: The boss? Nah, he fades in and out of here. Never spends long in one place.

Guard 2: Yeah I think I saw him earlier, heading into the tornado shelter. Wonder what goes on in that place.

Guard 1: It’s where the inner circle does their planning. The boss, Sean Rose, Olivia Hall and that accountant. Probably where they keep the files from the New York vault.

Guard 2: No one else been down there?

Guard 1: There’s a biometric lock. Facial recognition thingamajig. Only the boss, Hall and Rose have access.

Guard 2: Getting pretty hierarchical however the fuck you say that for a brotherhood.

Guard 1: A standard precaution. If anyone in the field gets caught, the less they know the better. Don’t get entitled. We all have a part to play.

Guard 2: I know, I just have a thing with closed doors. 

Guard 1: Sean Rose, in charge of operations. I don’t get it. Why’d the boss pick him? Why not Reynard?

Guard 2: The way I see it, Reynard’s a lone wolf. Berg’s too specialized; I mean he’s no strategist. Parvati is, well, Parvati’s Parvati. I think Rose wants to lead, fiercely dedicated, completely ruthless. Did you ever hear his plan to take out Simon Deveraux? The CEO of Biosphere.

Guard 1: I know he’s building a bomb.

Guard 2: Right, right. So Deveraux is, he’s like exactly like Thomas Cross. Totally impossible to get near. But, also a tech geek, and he just ordered this new Link 4 smartwatch. So Rose, crazy bastard, gets the idea to turn the battery unit for a Link 4 into, get this, a bomb, and then swap the watches in delivery. One push of the button. Bye-bye, Deveraux.

Guard 2: That’s pretty extreme. Enemy operative I know, but it just seems so unsportsmanlike.

Guard 1: Yes, and there you have it. Right on the nose. And again, that’s why Rose is the head of operations. To him, the end justifies the means. And I mean there is nothing that dead-eyed psychopath would not do.

Guard 1: Rose? Nasty little prick, if you ask me. Sure, it’s not his fault that he grew up in that crazy collective farm out in the outback. What were they called? Sons of Solidarity? No, they are a bunch of left-wing cultists. But still, some of that stuff he’s done makes my skin crawl. The oil rig I get, but that government office in Auckland? Man, kids died.

Guard 2: Boss seems to trust him.

Guard 1: Yeah of course he does. Rose is the perfect acolyte. He’s smart, he’s ruthless, but like all fanatics, he’s impressionable.

Guard 2: Yeah, he’s an idealist, that’s for sure.

Guard 1: Nah, nah. I’ve met his kind before. Rose yearns for a cause, sure. But any cause will do. Because deep down, the only thing he’s really looking for is justification to blow people up.

Guard 2: Yeah well, guess this time he found one.

Guard 1: Don’t get me wrong. Sean Rose was born for this. The enemy doesn’t expect him. Their cruelty, it’s too, uh… it’s too remote. You know, you sign a document; thousands of people die half a world away. It’s unreal, like drone operators. But Rose and the boss? The enemy doesn’t know how to react. The savagery. That’s how we will win.

Guard 2: Bring a gun to a knife fight, huh?

Guard 1: More like bring an axe to a chess game.  

Sean Rose to Penelope Graves, first conversation

Rose: Ah, Penelope Graves. My very own nemesis. Welcome to HQ.

Graves: Sean Rose. You’re a tough man to find.

Rose: Please. You are Interpol’s best counter-terrorist analyst. You should have tracked me down months ago. No. You didn’t want to catch me. But what happened, Graves? Sympathy for the devil?

Graves: Something like that. Is that why the boss chose me, I wonder? Because of our conflicting past.

Rose: You’re the analyst. But this whole enemy’s united thing? I think he finds poetic. He’s funny like that. Great man though. Not what the world wants, perhaps. But sure as hell what it needs. Anyway. Get yourself up to speed.

(…)

Sean Rose to Penelope Graves, second conversation

Rose: I see you’re studying the boss’s accomplishments.

Graves: Impressive to say the least. Kamarovs suicide was like a work of art.

Rose: Funny to hear you talk like that. You, a straight shooter. A woman of the law. Tell me, Gaves, when did you decide to switch sides?

Graves: I used to think you were a monster. That building in Auckland. And then I met the boss and he… well, you know his ways. He lets you peek behind the curtain and once you know the truth, it changes your perception.

(…)

Sean Rose to Penelope Graves, third conversation

Rose: I know that look. Somethings rubbing you the wrong way.

Graves: Doesn’t add up. So the boss raids the archive in New York. He now has a list of all the enemies operatives. He goes after Thomas Cross first. He needs funding for all of this and Cross is filthy rich. It all makes perfect sense.

Rose: Except?

Graves: Except, he must have known the ICA would figure out the truth once Thomas Cross was grabbed at his sons funeral. It’s almost as if…

Rose: As if the boss wanted them to. Yeah, I know.

Graves: Maybe he made a mistake.

Rose: You really believe that?

Graves: If I did, I wouldn’t be here.

Rose: The boss doesn’t make mistakes, Graves. I have to believe that. This is the most important thing you and I will ever do. The enemy had no mandate, they have no claim. They have no vision. Their only agenda is to maintain the status quo. Our only agenda is to destroy it. So quit worrying and get up to speed on the upcoming operations. Mexico, London, Shanghai.

(…)

Sean Rose on the phone with Grey, first conversation

Rose: Boss. You’re still at the shelter I presume? Quick update. There was a minor setback at the barn. Burgess was hit by the simulated ram. No worries. If he’s not up to par, I’ll find a replacement. This is my operation, my strike team and they will be ready. You can count on that. I won’t let you down. Okay. Means a lot, boss.

Sean Rose on the phone with Grey, second conversation

Rose: Boss. Yeah, so Berg’s at work on our friend. Some kind of interrogation drug. Sodium Pentathol, I think. He won’t. Berg knows his trade. Even if the heralds don’t know jack about upper levels, this one is secretary Torres’ liaison and he might know about the motorcade route. I figured it’d be worth a shot. Sure. As soon as.

Penelope Graves

Graves: It’s actually quite brilliant in all it’s improvised glory. Cobb, the bank director whose plane crashed. The boss killed him for the vault key. How did he knew Cobb was even an enemy operative? Question for later. So, the spy ring. Infamous IAGO. The boss somehow gets access to their dossier of secrets and this is how he learns about the enemies projects in Italy and Morocco. But why kill the IAGO leaders? Novikov and Margolis were unaffiliated. The Russian must have seen the boss´s face. And the enemy has to have known about IAGO.  I probably even used their services from time to time. It was a precaution. Nothing more.

Penelope Graves, Part 2

Graves: Eugene Cobbs plane crash. Spectacular. Flawless in its execution. Clearly the boss is more than capable. But it makes me wonder why involve the ICA at all? Think Graves. This is the age of global surveillance. Anonymity is key, you know this. Why stick your neck out when you can get assassins to do your dirty work? And even have some rich asshole pick up the tab. So the boss orders the hits in Sapienza and Marrakesh. The enemy loses two operatives and he never lifts a finger. But wait, that’s not even the main objective. So what is? Of course, the enemies messengers. The ones we call heralds. The boss knows they will show up at the crime scenes, now all he’s got to do is watch and wait for the second vault key to fall into his lap.  

Penelope Graves, Part 3

Graves: Hm, possible weakness there. Rose won’t listen. I need to take this straight to the boss.

Penelope Graves talks to Ezra Berg

Berg: Penelope it’s Berg.

Graves: Dr. Berg. I didn’t recognise you in your... work clothes.

Berg: No that’s the idea. So, I take it you finally met Rose. Way I hear it you were on the Interpols task force to hunt him down. So what’s the verdict?

Graves: Sean is dedicated, creative, driven.

Berg: You don’t have to sugarcoat it. The man’s an extremist. You’ve seen the Shanghai plan. Kidnapping children, forcing an innocent man to commit murder. It’s distasteful. Rose has no honour, no sense of fair play. The boss asked me here because he wanted to avoid unnecessary cruelty. So why does he tolerate Sean Rose?

Graves: Because the boss is not a monster and right now, well, he needs one.

(...)

Cutscene: The hidden hand

Diana: The plot thickens.

47: Someone left in a hurry.

Diana: Sean Rose was not the Shadow Client. That much is clear. Whoever commands the milita, they got out just in time. Look around 47. We're getting closer.

(...)

47: Someone's done their homework.

Diana: Look how far it dates back. Hayamoto. Beldingford. D'Alvade. The shadow client has been tracking you for decades.

47: Now how is that possible?

Diana: It isn't. Every one of those missions were branded as unsolved or accidents. He must have been looking for a pattern. A certain MO. Which would mean...

47: He knows me.

Diana: Well. At least this shortens the list.

(...)

Cutscene: Old friends

Grey: Rose is gone.

Olivia: It was me, wasn't it? They tracked me. I don't believe it. I took every precaution.

Grey: Rose knew the risks. They all do. You did well Olivia, I am proud of you. Now listen. The ICA knows about you. They kept you alive because they needed you and now they don't. We won't talk again. Not until the storm is over.

Olivia: I don't like it. This man, you know what he's capable of. You need to end this now!

Grey: I ran away as a boy. My friend and I. Away from that... place. We came upon a small farming community, the people were dirtpoor but this woman, she took us in. We were awakened the next morning by the shots. A dozen people lay face down in the snow. Our warden... didn't like to leave witnesses. They shot the woman and her family last and made sure that we watched the whole thing. "This is your gift" the warden told us. "Your gift and your curse. Touching lives only by ending them".

Olivia: You know him

Grey: Better than anyone.

Hokkaido

Yuki Yamazaki to the Director

Director: Miss Yamazaki. I trust your people are satisfied?

Yamazaki: Our people, Director. Don’t forget who put you here.

Director: Of course.

Yamazaki: We appreciate you clearing your operating schedule. It is paramount to our interest that Soders survives. Still, this cannot have been easy.

(…)

Director: If you don’t mind me asking. Who is Eric Soders? His resume says retired big game hunter.

Yamazaki: Amusing. In a way I suppose he was in his day. Mr Soders belonged to an organization involved in the recent attacks against us and we needed a man on the inside.

Director: So it’s true. Someone is targeting Providence.

Yamazaki: Not for much longer.

(…)

Yamazaki on the phone with the constant

Yamazaki: Sir. No, the patient remained stable. I only wanted to… yes, the investigation. Nothing? How can there be nothing? Hajun was killed in a public parking garage in the middle of the afternoon. You are saying there are no witnesses, nothing on the CCTV cameras? What was he even doing in Johannesburg? And don’t tell me I don’t need to know sir, because I… I really need to know. Hajun was… important to me. I feared as much. It has to be the same person. Whoever hoodwinked ICA, whoever abducted Thomas Cross and fried Schaeffer-Moore’s servers- they killed Hajun. As a matter of fact, sir, I do feel better. I thank you for your trust.

Yamazaki on the phone with Mikhail

Yamazaki: Mikhail. Yes, I need another favour. The footage from the carpark in Johannesburg. Yes, the constant already told me they found no trace of Hajuns killer but I need to see for myself. No he doesn’t. I’m too involved to lead the investigation. And he is absolutely right from a purely strategic perspective, as always. Which is why I am talking to you. No you will do this for me, Mikhail. Because… you know what it’s like  to be in love.

Cutscene: Partners, then?

Edwards: Miss Burnwood.

Diana: That's not what my ticket says.

Edwards: We received your message. Loud and clear, I might add. Honestly, you could have just sacked the poor guy.

Diana: I didn't catch your name.

Edwards: No. You didn't. There'll be no retaliations. Not for Soders, nor any other recent fiascos. Someone's been meddling in our affairs, killing our operatives and making the ICA look like fools. I think you got close to that someone. Closer than we've ever been. That's why we're hiring you to take him down.

Diana: I don't think so.

Edwards: Don't rattle our cages Miss Burnwood. You really have no idea.

Diana: You spy on us. Bribe our people. And you have the gall to demand our help? No. You can't be trusted.

Edwards: Even so. We've been around for a long, long time. I think we could help each other. Some twenty years ago, your agency took in a young man with no past and... extraordinary skills. In his own special way he cares about you and vice versa. And ever since that time, you've never stopped wondering where he came from. And who made him what he is.

Diana: There was a doctor. Some depraved experiment. But he's gone now.

Edwards: Well if you believe the questions died with him, we have nothing further to discuss. If not? As I said, I think we could help each other. Partners, then? Cheer up, Miss Burnwood. We... we are the lesser evil. This terrorist? He wants nothing but chaos.

Diana: He is only a terrorist if you win.

Edwards: Miss Burnwood. We won a long time ago. This? This is maintenance.

[thepratandtheidiot]

🍿 movie knights week five ⚔️

conclave (2024)

my entirely arbitrary rating based on nothing:

4.8 out of 5 ⭐️

ooooh girl… spoilers below

real talk, i have not been so instantly engaged by a film in a long time—before we even got the title screen, the sharp instrumentals and gorgeous, closeup angles had me LOCKED IN.

DISCLAIMER: this reviewer was raised extremely roman catholic. like “daily mass + weekly confession + was an altar server + went to summer camp run by nuns (which is its own post entirely) + L + ratio” roman catholic. i have not however attended mass in several years (to the deep regret of my mother), so my papal lore was a lil rusty going in. i WILL say though that hearing the mass in latin activated some kind of sleeper agent in my head that made me crave the smell of incense ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

1) literally every value of production here was off the chain: production design, cinematography, acting, score, costume, direction… the oscars mean nothing to me however. i hope they fuckin SWEEP

2) when lawrence told adeyemi that due to the scandal he would never be pope, theo yelled “POPE NOPE” & that was basically the resounding theme every time a prospective pope got noped

3) our ~legally acquired stream~ purported to have subtitles, but for the life of me i could not get them to work, and missed most of the italian and spanish dialogue. the acting was excellent and the tone clear enough that i was able to grasp the gist of it, but i plan on rewatching ASAP with correct subtitles! in the meantime, here’s the screenplay if anyone else had the same issue 🫶

4) i have seen a few posts about it, but want to reiterate the choice to focus on the work done by the sisters to keep the entire vatican running smoothly (both during the conclave, and outside of it). i won’t get into the giant can of worms that is gender roles & women in the modern catholic church (not enough fuckin hours for that), BUT i deeply appreciated the constant presence of nuns doing all the manual labour in the background. and isabella rossellini as sister agnes killed it!! the moment with the photocopier visually drove home the fact that even lawrence—the dean of the entire vatican!—was not savvy to the daily minutiae of running a household or office, and required the sisters’ assistance to literally make paper copies

5) some IRL catholics are BIG mad about the portrayal of the vatican conclave as a pack of double-crossing, tea-spilling, messy fuckass bitches—which of course confirms to me that the depiction is fairly accurate!!! looking forward to reading the book as well, since i’ve heard that certain aspects are even better fleshed out

6) fun little nod for all my polar exploration fans: conclave director edward berger also directed episodes 1, 2, and 4 of the terror, and hoo boy did his distinctive style absolutely VIBE here. apologies to theo & our housemate, because i kept hooting and hollering my way through shots like this one:

juxtaposed with this shot from episode 2 of the terror (“gore”):

7) has anyone made an edit set to sophie hunter’s CVNT and if so, can you please link me posthaste 🙏 i simply cannot get back into video editing right now but i desperately need it to exist. all these petty old men thinking they ate…

8) “intersex pope” would be a great band name

9) i am desperate to know what the retired irish priest from my hometown church would think—he once paused in the middle of a homily to state that women should be able to become priests, and the church needed to change or stagnate. father kelly if you’re still out there, i think you’d fucking love this film 🫶

⚔️ theo says: “it was well done, competent, beautifully shot, good performances. Just seemed a bit pointless to me lol, like why is this story being told”

🍿 big thanks to @cannibalspicnic who said “the vibe made me think of you” 🫶 and @copperphysics106 who also recommended!! ✨ next week, we’re doing a ralph fiennes double feature and watching the grand budapest hotel

[solo-by-choice]

@startrekwintergiftexchange

For @73chn1c0l0rr3vel, a silly fic where Una struggles to find a movie for her date with M'Benga.

“Listen. Listen!” Una cried as she hurried down the Enterprise corridor after Joseph M'Benga. “You don’t have to sing along, I promise.”

The CMO laughed but did not slow down. “Nothing doing, boss, I may like spending time with you, but Messrs Gilbert and Sullivan cannot be invited.”

“Oh, alright. I’ll let them know.”

Finally he let her catch up. They stook next to each other waiting for the lift to arrive. Even though it was allowed by Starfleet for two senior officers to date, Una still felt uncomfortable with other people knowing, so she didn’t link arms with him, even though she wanted to.

Una didn’t consider their relationship to be very serious, at least not yet, but she was having fun. Even taking into account his regrettable lack of appreciation for her beloved operettas. It did make planning a movie night more difficult, but she would persevere!

“I can bring the movie again,” he suggested.

“No, no, I can find something! It’s my turn.”

He smiled his beautiful smile at her. “If you insist.”

Una did insist. But that didn’t mean it would be easy.

Of course, Una enjoyed other genres of movie or program, but the ones she kept in her quarters on the Enterprise were all either things Joseph didn’t want to watch or things the two had already watched together. So she needed help.

/

“No.” Laan turned back to her station.

Una pouted at her friend’s severe braid. “Why not?”

“You know why not. I lent you my copy of Tchaikovskii’s On a Sunbeam, my favorite movie, and you lost it.”

Una sighed. “I know, and I’m sorry, and I bought you a replacement.”

“Yes, yes, but remember what else you said?”

“What did I say?”

“You said it was boring! You said you fell asleep halfway through.”

Oh right, she had said that. “It was a beautiful movie. I just think maybe it could have had more… dialogue?”

Laan laughed. “I’m not lending you another movie you won’t even like, Una. Find someone else.”

/

“… and finally, a copy of the 150th anniversary performance of Wicked on Broadway.”

“Wow,” said Una. She stared at Uhura’s beautifully organized box of film cards. Nyota watched her with excited anticipation, obviously proud of her collection: several dozen movies, almost all in a variety of languages Una didn’t understand.

“I’m just not sure I want something with subtitles,” Una confessed.

“Oh, most of them don’t have subtitles,” said Uhura brightly.

“That might be a problem… Is Wicked really the only English-language film you have?”

/

“How goes the quest?” Joseph asked over lunch in the mess room.

“It goes badly,” Una sighed. “But I will prevail!”

But after lunch Una found that Eria only had a handful of film cards, all about zombies for some reason. Christine was off the ship right now. And she wasn’t even going to approach Pelia.

There was only one person left to ask…

“Wait,” said Chris, turning off the water and drying his hands. “I’m not sure I heard you. What did you say?”

“Oh you absolutely heard me.”

He laughed. “Yes, but I want to hear you say it again.”

Una rolled her eyes. “Please, Chris, I need your help.”

“Music to my ears.”

“I need to borrow a movie for a date.”

“And you came to me… do you know how many years I’ve waited for this?”

“Chris, I swear…”

“Okay, okay,” Chris paused in cutting up a zucchini to point out where he kept his film cards. “Have a look through those.”

/

Finally it was time for their date. Joseph had brought dinner from the mess hall and was setting it out as Una arrived at his quarters.

“Successful?”

“Mmm, mess hall lasagna!” Una handed him the film card she had chosen.

Joseph squinted at the label. “2001: A Space Odyssey. Ah, a classic. I haven’t seen this one.”

“Oh, good. Neither have I. I’m hoping there aren’t any cowboys in it because Chris has… a shocking number of cowboy movies.”

In the end the lasagna was merely okay, but the movie was good. There were no cowboys, no singing, and more men in monkey suits than Una had been expecting.

“So, he’s a baby now?”

“I guess? I don’t know.”

“Huh.”

They stayed cuddled on the couch as the credits played. “I thought it was good,” said Una, “but you know what else I think?”

“What?”

“I think you’d better bring the movie next time. This was far too much work!”

[shadowykittengladiator]

Gregory is not a bad character but people act like he was in the wrong and hate him for no reason.

Spoilers for the Security Breach Ruin dlc here. Also pardon my English. I'm learning.

So I have been seeing a lot of hate toward Gregory after the ending of Security Breach Ruin dlc. Specifically by Roxy simps. And in general, I've seen two arguments as to why he is a bad character.

1: Gregory killed Cassie at the end of the game

Look, we don't even know if it was Gregory at the end that dropped the elevator. ıt might as well be mimic, seeing as there were two subtitles before the elevator dropped and you can hear white noise from the speaker just before Gregory says 'we can't risk being followed, I'm sorry.' I will hold my opinion on this topic until we get proof that it was Gregory that killed Cassie. But to me it looks like it was mimic.

2: Gregory destroyed the animatronics, stole their parts and were overall unsympathetic towards them

People who use this as an argument; have you even played the game? You do realize these animatronics tried to kill Gregory, right? Like out of nowhere and without any provocation from Gregory. That Roxy that you think is all innocent and cool hunted him down like an animal. And Gregory is supposed to feel sorry for them?

Gregory was right to destroy them and take their parts. Because destroying them means they wouldn't be able to hunt him anymore, or they would be weaker. And their parts mean a higher chance of survival for him. You know, a higher chance od survival from dying from the animatronics that everybody act like are all innocent and completely safe. Like they haven't hunted down a child for hours.

Even if they were hacked or under the control of a virus, it doesn't change anything. Because they are in fact animatronics. They can be repaired. These parts can be replaced. Gregory on the other hand can't be just put in a new body and given a new arm or something.

At least this is my opinion. You are welcome to argue about it or not like it of course.

I also read some fanfics of ruin dlc and decided to write some dialogue of my own. The characters are completely out of character because I wrote it in like three minutes lol. But I think it gets my point across. This is how I imagined a confrontation between Roxy and Gregory would go.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

R: Don’t come any closer to Cassie, not after what you did.

G: After what I did? So we are acting like there is no way for me to just drop an elevator and there is literally a robot that wants to murder everyone, can mimic people’s voice so perfectly that my friend didn’t recognize it was me and could also cut the cable of the elevator from his position. But of course it is my fault that Cassie almost died.

R: You stole my–

G:Stole your eyes? Cry me a river Roxy. Is that what she told you Cassie? That big bad psychopath Gregory that dropped you down an elevator shaft also cruelly stole her eyes and left her in darkness.

Cassie standing to the side, looking uncertain.

R: Gregor-

G:Did she also explain how she and her ‘friends’ hunted me down like feral animals and tried to kill me.  Without any provoking from my side. 

C:What?

R: And that makes it okay for you to steal my eyes and completely destroy us?

G: Yes it does. Because fuck you Roxy. Don’t act like you are innocent in all this. You are not. For you, eyes mean a part that can be replaced. Getting a bit hurt means always a chance for repairs. For me? Your eyes upgraded into Freddy means seeing you and your ‘friends’ from behind the walls and evading you. So you know, I wouldn’t die by your hands.

[litsnobconfessions]

A Year of Animation Day 105-106: Bluey S3E27-40

Date: April 15-16, 2025

Day: 105-106

Content Watched: Bluey, Season 3, Episodes 27-40

Year: 2018-present

Rating: TV-Y

Run Time: 91 minutes

So, it's happened again. I had another animation dream. Yup, this time it was a Bluey dream. Only, I've also been reading the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy, so it was about the Chimeara-Seraphim war, but animated in the style of Bluey. Yeah, it was weird.

Like with "Rain," I knew "Puppets" was coming, and while I wasn't a huge fan of the episode overall, I really like what they did with the ending, and I would hope that showing this episode to someone would help them realize that just because animation is done on the computer doesn't mean it's not a lot of work. I wish we had a clock or something in the corner to show how long it took to do all of this, especially after hearing that a day of work added up to 4 seconds of time in My Life as a Zucchini. But I also really enjoyed the black hole animation in "Space" and the fact that the yes/no button has made yet another appearance stuffed into the couch in "Cubby."

I also knew "Stories" was coming because I saw something online a while back about how the fake credits in stories have really fun names, most of which are dog breeds. But it had something else I didn't expect: in one scene, the subtitles read "Winton doots his pecks," which admitedly made me feel a little weird, but there is no subtitle more Bluey.

But that's what I love about Buey. Another thing I love about Bluey? The discussion she and Lucky's brother have about teams in "The Decider." Specificially, I love the bit where Bluey says, "my mum and dad are both purple, so I'm purple, even though I'm blue. It's confusing." The dialogue is just so real (as, apparently, are the subtitles.)

I also knew "Turtleboy" was coming and was very excited to see a deaf character, and one who centers in the episode. I would love to see this character come back and become a regular playmate. Bluey handles signing the same way as The Dragon Prince--that is, the deaf character signs, another character responds aloud, giving the non-signing audience enough information about what the deaf character is saying to be able to follow along. I know I threw up a bit of a fuss with Callum not signing in "Bloodthirsty," but I'm not going to do that here. For one thing, Bluey's target audience is even less likely to be able to read subtitles than The Dragon Prince's. For another, our deaf character is, so far, only in one episode. If this character gets a larger role in season 4 (please!) then I may spend more time examining how they can best walk the line with providing English translation and creating a belivable in-world story. But we need more of them first.

My favorite Game is Rulebook from "Musical Statues." I count this as a game because it looks like something they've established and done more than once/could continue doing. But it's a nice way to show how we can create house rules for games and like we learned in "Obstacle Course," that not everything needs to be a competition.

My favorite takeaway is from "Dirt," and I don't know if it's a takeaway, exactly, but I love that Wendy cuts her hair to encourage Judo to play. So far, she's been the straight-man to the Heelers' nonsense, but she's obviously not just a stick in the mud. And I just love this outpouring of love she has for her daughter--she's not only willing to change her mind on her "don't get dirty" rule, but she's willing to cut the hair she's so proud of to emphasize her point. Love for Wendy.

Finally, I really like that Chili basically uses the phrase "duck cake" as an expletive in "Relax." I feel like I need to whip this one out suring the podcast.

[roxtron]

Soo after getting back into fnaf I finally got to play SB and Ruin for myself, and honestly I’m a bit shocked by the debate about who cut the elevator, I thought most people would be in agreement it’s more likely to be the mimic than Gregory but it looks like some of the fandom is pretty conflicted. So for fun I wanted to go through most of the evidence I’ve seen to try and argue why I think it can’t be Gregory.

Of course I could be wrong, anyone could, that’s the nature of this series. I think it’ll be interesting to see where the story goes from here, regardless of which path they take. But here’s my take on it.

I wanna try to keep this more structured than pure rambling so first I wanna go through evidence that suggests it was the mimic. Obviously the first note is the most obvious piece of evidence everyone points out, the subtitles. 

While some people think it’s an error or a glitch that the subtitles overlap, or argue that the files state this is the real Gregory, I don’t think that’s enough to disprove it. Why would they want to spoil if it was Gregory or not if that’s meant to be questioned? If it was supposed to be clear-cut that Gregory did cut the elevator, I feel like they’d make it more obvious. The static cut matching with the subtitle ‘glitch’ is way too convenient. And spoiling a plot twist would just defeat the whole purpose.

If it was a glitch, it would’ve been patched. I’ve seen some people argue they experienced this glitch in their playthroughs during SB, but the only times I’ve seen that is when two characters’ dialogue overlaps. I’ve only seen it with separate characters, and the only time I can remember it happening with the same character is if it was intended to be two different scenes, like if I were to get a dialogue trigger for an area while the cutscene dialogue was still playing. (By that I mean the dialogue for the last trigger was still playing by the time I activated another dialogue trigger, the player was likely meant to let the original dialogue finish before starting a new one.) I know it can also happen when you mute the game and it lets all the dialogue overlap, but that’s because they’re separate lines being played at the same time because they’re not playing at all, if that makes sense. Maybe this is because I played SB post-Ruin, but I feel like the argument that it’s a common glitch doesn’t really hold up, especially because this is an ending cutscene, you’d think there’d be more priority on making sure it works as intended. And if it were a glitch, why did everyone get it? Don’t most glitches only happen to some people and not others, and that’s why they don’t usually get caught in development? I know I went off on a long tangent with the subtitle glitch here, but I dunno. I just don’t think it’s a good enough excuse considering other evidence. 

Anyway, moving on to stronger pieces of evidence, something plenty of people have pointed out from searching out-of-bounds with youtubers like RyeToast, the battery pack. 

The mimic was left right outside the elevator, and the battery powering it right there. Obviously I’m not an elevator mechanic, I wouldn’t know the exact logic behind it, but I’d assume all he would need to do is cut the cords to let the elevator fall.

Some people have argued that’s not how elevators work, since it wouldn’t fall, it would just come to a stop, but I think some people are forgetting about location here. This isn’t a commonly used elevator like the ones that lead to the atrium or attractions, it’s an old elevator in a mostly abandoned building underground. When you use the main elevator to get down there in the base game, Freddy even mentions the elevator doesn’t seem safe, and likely won’t survive more than one trip.

(Though that line still confuses me, considering in that ending they go back up the elevator to get back to the surface. So does he mean one trip there and back?? If that was what he meant then how was the elevator still running by the time of ruin?

Regardless of which ending is canon, they would’ve used the elevator once there and back to trap the mimic in the first place, and then cassie would’ve used it again to get down there.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding Freddy, maybe it was just a gameplay mechanic so you couldn’t go back since it’s endgame stuff, I dunno. Just found that worth mentioning.

Either way, the point is the elevator probably doesn’t have those safety protocols that would make it come to a safe stop.) 

That aside, how would Gregory do it? Sure he can hack into communication devices to try to contact Cassie, but that’s all he’s done. It’s not like there’d be a system he can hack into where all he has to do is type a command to cut the elevator. Sure he’s been hacking into all kinds of shit, but there’s nothing he’s hacked into that’s directly resulted in any action similar to this one. Sure he could hack a bot and make a bot do it, but do you really think there would be any bot nearby for him to even attempt that? It just doesn’t make any sense.

I feel like if there’s anything Steel Wool has been consistent with it’s environmental storytelling, we didn’t exactly guess how the mimic got trapped based on dialogue or text. It’s because of the way the vent collapsed, the way the backpack was placed, the fact the walkie talkie had to have been left in a rush, no way they would’ve purposefully given the mimic a communication device to try and manipulate someone with.

So if they took the time to show the battery being right outside the door, right next to the mimic, but never showed us any kind of examples for how someone could remotely cut an elevator like that, it kinda points in one direction a lot more than the other.

Anyway, this section might be a bit all over the place, but I wanna look at some people’s arguments for why it wasn’t the mimic, and attempt to debunk them where I can, which will inevitably lead into further evidence I didn’t include in the first section.

One of the strongest pieces of evidence for why it isn’t the mimic is the voice, some people theorized the mimic may be running some sort of program to splice the audio together, and that’s why he’s only copying specific lines/clipping together sentences towards the end of the game. While that could be true I honestly don't think it is. 

While there’s subtle hints throughout the game that it isn’t actually Gregory talking to us, I’d argue that’s what a lot of them are, subtle. Some people point to the camera system using Cassie’s voice as a lure as evidence it can mimic people’s voices. But it wasn’t copying the voice, it was just playing a recording. Every time Cassie's voice played it was that one line from the beginning, “Gregory, are you there?” But it was never a unique line of dialogue she’s never spoken.

I honestly think it’s just a developer choice for that moment to really hit. If you’ve spent the whole game believing this is really Gregory, then by the time you get to Roxy Raceway and he asks you to kill Roxy to save him, all the glitching in that audio lets the realization hit. And I imagine it gives Cassie doubt too, but if you think about it, she’s already hit the point of no return. It’s too late to turn back now, she’s deactivated almost all the nodes, spent an entire night in this place (since it was still daylight when the game starts, but nighttime when we get to the wrecking ball area.) And considering how empathetic she’s shown to be, would she really just walk out because she thinks it isn’t him? Don’t you think there’d be at least some part of her that says “what if it is him, and I’ve just left him here to die?” 

Meanwhile when Gregory’s voice was used on the camera systems.. It’s honestly hilarious, I’m surprised nobody talks about it. Maybe it’s because I spent longer in Roxy Raceway than most players did, but his lines definitely fit with his personality. They’re all so taunting, and considering they’re used only against Roxy, I believe they were actually recorded by him, not the system mimicking his voice. The mocking “I’m so scared and alone!” “I’m here, you just can’t see me.” And FUCKING “Marco.. Polo!” (That one’s so evil it always makes me laugh.) You gotta admit that’s definitely something Gregory would do. 

Sure the mimic can copy his voice, but it can’t really copy his personality all that well if you read between the lines. The majority of the mimic’s lines for Gregory kinda fall into a few categories. Whiny, demanding, and monotone. With it being more whiny and scared than usual to try and get Cassie to believe it’s really in danger. It being more demanding to get Cassie to push forward. (Strong example being the Monty Golf catwalks, for some reason I struggled to find the Nodes there and he was constantly giving lines like “You really need to get back to redirecting the gondolas” or something along those lines. Trying to get you back on task.) And finally monotone, a lot of his lines can come across as more objective statements than anything, very little emotion involved.

Gregory’s never that whiny or afraid from what we see in the games, sure he has his moments, but in Security Breach his overall attitude isn’t being afraid, just done with this shit. It’s a bit more complicated than that but playing this game in retrospect with that knowledge makes it really interesting. Trying not to spoil the twist for other people led me to looking into all the voice lines, thinking “is that really something Gregory would say?” And the majority of the time, no, not really. I was practically scrambling at points to try and explain some voice lines to my friends trying not to spoil them. It’s not as much of a consistent personality as it is a split, he acts differently when the situation calls for it. Which, duh, that’s how human behavior works, but I hope you get what I mean when I say that.

I got a bit sidetracked but back to the idea the mimic is splicing audio together. While it’s an interesting point that would explain some cut-together dialogue.. 

Plus, it’s horror, sometimes characters have to be oblivious for the show to go on, y’know? I think this moment was intended to hit that way. The final confirmation something is definitely off, but as the player, you still don’t know what exactly it is. Because that’s not the reveal, you never find out what’s really been talking to you until you see the mimic in person. It’s another way to draw you in, keep your curiosity. If it did seem like it fully was Gregory players may start to question it in a way that wants them to turn back, but if it’s made clear this probably isn’t Gregory it leaves you to wonder, what the fuck is it?

Point is, I think it was just a developer choice, not something we’re supposed to take as evidence. And my main reason for that is, it’s kind of immediately contradicted. 

If you go back and watch the ending over again, he does mainly use pre-recorded lines, but if you look at what he says when Cassie frees him, it’s not pre-recorded. It goes from the pre-recorded, more upbeat and thankful “You saved me!” to monotone, stating it as fact. “You saved me.” If he were splicing together sentences, then where the fuck did that line come from? Maybe I’m just not as observant as I thought, but as far as I’m aware the only pre-recorded “You saved me!” is the one he uses first. The second one is nowhere to be found in SB. It kinda disproves the idea he’s splicing sentences if he immediately after gives us a new line that isn’t spliced. It’s an interesting theory for sure, but I don’t think it adds up. 

I was going to go more in depth on the tech stuff happening here but I realized I’ve made this section long enough already so I’ll put it into this section, I don’t think it’s something his character would do.

Now initially I was gonna cut straight to characterization and whatnot, and I will get to that later, but I’m gonna start by going through the tech stuff.

Every time Gregory tries to contact Cassie in-game, it’s usually through a separate piece of tech. I’ve only heard the lines separate from the game, and I’m definitely not data-mining myself, so I can’t prove that this line is the real Gregory, but..

I think one of the first times he contacts her is when you first see Roxy crying in her salon. For one, the timeline would match up. When he talks during the end of the game he says he’s been trying to contact us all night. But Cassie walked into the pizzaplex when it was still bright out, likely in the middle of the day since it doesn’t seem to be sunset, although that could just be my interpretation. If Gregory had been trying to contact her “all night” then it seems like he didn’t realize what was going on until much later in the game. If I’m remembering correctly you don’t see the wrecking ball through the ceiling revealing it’s nighttime until at least halfway through the game. 

(Although side note, I’m not sure how the mimic first contacted Cassie to lead her to the pizzaplex in the first place. The game makes it seem like the walkie talkie is the first time they talked but she wouldn’t be here in the first place if she wasn’t told to come here beforehand. Personally I think she was sent a message with the dialogue in the trailer, though I think we’re all collectively confused what device she would’ve received that message from.)

Anyways, if that point is one of the first times he’s contacted her, it would make a lot of sense. If it was the mimic calling to Cassie again, why would it not be from the walkie talkie when it’s still right there in her hand? If it was from the walkie talkie, why would it sound like it was coming from a distance, and why would Roxy run in the opposite direction? Whatever he was attempting to contact her from, it clearly wasn’t the walkie talkie.

Then there’s the rare voice line with the staff bot. 

Once again, he’s trying to contact her through a robot, not the walkie talkie. There’s a possibility he may be able to access the walkie talkie’s signal, but he can’t speak through it. I initially thought he might need cameras for this, and that point kinda stands for the mimic chase, but for this? All he has to do is listen in on the walkie talkie conversation to know which area of the pizzaplex is in. And if he had no way to access the walkie talkie’s signal, how would he even find out about this whole situation? If he found out sometime that night it seems likely to me that he somehow came across the signal and realized what was going on. And if he had 0 access to the walkie talkie.. Wouldn’t it be pretty inconvenient if he’d hacked a staff bot in Roxy Raceway to talk to her while she’s running around Bonnie Bowl?

I’ll talk about that voice line again later but for now I wanna move on to the other lines of dialogue, the last time he’s able to contact Cassie, finally through the walkie talkie.. Is the moment the mimic is busy fighting Roxy and chasing Cassie. I’ve seen some people try to argue even that wasn’t Gregory but that wouldn’t make any sense. If he was still talking on the walkie talkie during the chase wouldn’t she recognize the sound is coming from behind her.. And not the walkie talkie.. Plus, again, the files argument, with other lines being referred to as Grimic and these lines being labelled Gregory. 

And this might get a bit too theoretical but here’s my idea, the mimic used a signal jammer to prevent Gregory from communicating with her. That’s why he kept hacking separate signals like the staff bot. Considering he supposedly gives Helpi a signal jammer to prevent M.X.E.S (though to be fair that doesn’t last, it’s still established he can do this.) I don’t think it’s a stretch to say the walkie talkie’s signal was jammed so he couldn’t talk through it, the only times he does talk through it is while the mimic is busy. Even after Cassie gets in the elevator Gregory still might not fully trust the walkie talkie won’t cut him off now that the mimic isn’t busy anymore, that might explain why he hacks into the speaker system when, again, the walkie talkie is still there, isn’t it? Unfortunately for him I think that plan doesn’t work out, the mimic takes over and speaks for him. I think one of the biggest pieces of evidence is cut voice lines. 

Getting sidetracked for a bit.. 

If you look at some of the voice lines labelled to be Gregory, there’s an alternate line for the elevator scene. While the final game says “But we can’t risk being followed.” the cut line instead tells her “But make sure it doesn’t follow you.” This feels a lot more in character, a warning to her instead of a goodbye. I think this may not be a cut alternate ending, but it may be how the conversation would’ve gone if it was Gregory talking. What Gregory meant to say vs. what the mimic told Cassie. While this isn’t solid proof I think this interpretation makes a lot of sense, especially considering all the other evidence. 

Another detail about her being tricked, considering the missing posters in Roxy’s salon, this might be the first time she’s talked to Gregory in a long time. He might’ve just left after SB and just stopped talking to her because of how complicated everything’s gotten, thinking it’s better for her not to be involved in all this. Would anyone really want to have the conversation of explaining all that? Telling her the truth about him getting trapped in the pizzaplex, almost murdered by Vanny and the animatronics on multiple occasions? 

And another side note, if Gregory had told her what happened to Freddy, wouldn’t she also be questioning that whole situation? She doesn’t seem to have any reaction to the prototype on his foot, just hoping he’s functional. The only endings where Freddy doesn’t escape the pizzaplex are the endings where his whole body is destroyed. (Except the escape ending where Gregory just leaves and gets killed by Vanny after, but that’s not canon for obvious reasons.) 

As much as it sucks to be kept in the dark she clearly has been, she has no idea about Vanny or the animatronics being destroyed from what Gregory did to them.

Her only note about seeing Vanny on the cameras being “hey, she’s wearing my mask!” as if it wasn’t worn by her first. And her “What happened to you?” when she sees Chica. 

If he were to get the fire escape ending, Freddy dies after pushing himself and Vanny off the roof. While that already feels not-canon because of Vanessa most likely being freed and with Gregory during Ruin, even if you’re one of the people that assumes that ending means Vanny isn’t Vanessa, regardless of argument on that theory Freddy would be broken, and outside the pizzaplex, not in fazerblast. 

If he gets the bad Vanny ending, Freddy is fully dismantled with his head still attached and left behind. So why would he have no head in Ruin if that were the ending, especially when the work tables suggest there were technicians trying to repair the animatronics in between SB and Ruin. You’d think putting his head back on would be the first repair they’d make if the head was still there, and this was our Freddy.

TLDR here, point is if Gregory had told Cassie what happened to Freddy, through whatever canon ending that would be, Cassie would’ve known that wasn’t the real Freddy. Personally I think the prototype foot suggests a lot more that this is a red herring, not the Freddy we know, rather than just a retcon. 

Sorry for the long tangent, I know it was a bit sidetracked from the main topic here.

Even her Dad’s kept her in the dark regarding secrets like this considering the whole “My Dad wouldn’t tell me what happened to Bonnie.” Whether he knew what happened or not is a different story, but clearly she’s already been kept in the dark about stuff like this. After all it’s a heavy topic to get into, and with Gregory, considering some people still hate him for dismantling the animatronics I don’t think it’s a stretch to say he might worry Cassie would be mad at him for it. Whatever you feel about his character, in his mind it was self-defense. Extreme self-defense, but still. In his mind, the animatronics have spent all night trying to kill him, so if he harms them, it’s really just an eye for an eye, isn’t it? Those upgrades would help Freddy and whether this was his main motivation or just a part of it, upgrading the only animatronic helping him would definitely increase his chances of survival. 

But finally I wanna move onto more emotional arguments. It doesn’t seem to fit his character with what we’ve seen so far. Some people will say “wtf are you talking about? If he’s willing to kill the other animatronics he’d be willing to kill Cassie.” But I disagree. I think it’s missing an important part of his character. Yes, he’s been shown hurting other people. The other animatronics, Vanny, but I don’t think he would ever hurt someone he cares about. That’s the difference. The other animatronics were trying to kill him, so was Vanny. It’s not like he antagonized them first or did all this unprompted. He had a reason, and he had no emotional connection.

But have we ever seen him hurt anyone he cares about before this? He never has and I don’t think ever would hurt Freddy. In all the endings something bad happens to him, he cries, in some endings he’s able to do something to fix it, but in others, he’s clearly upset by the loss. Even in cut voice lines, apparently he originally would’ve been crying when Freddy got kidnapped by Moon. He clearly cares about Freddy, and does his best to make sure they can both escape. That’s the balance here. If he really was just a terrible character that doesn’t care about anyone, why would he be so distressed when something happens to Freddy? Why would he bond with him in the first place? Theoretically he could’ve just viewed Freddy as a tool, he is a robot after all, but he didn’t. He bonded with him and cared about him as he would for another person. 

Why give her directions for how to escape, why take the time to explain things to her? If he knew how it was going to end, why do any of this at all? I think if you were forced to kill your best friend, you’d probably sound more stressed than that. And it’s not like that’s any sort of voice acting issue, there’s clearly good direction given for there to be a clear difference between the mimic and Gregory during most scenes. He’s had stressed voice lines before, including the lines he has in Ruin, it just doesn’t make sense for him to seem like he doesn’t care at all when he’s been desperately trying to contact her. 

If he really was the one to drop the elevator, if he purposefully killed her, why does he seem so cold? If he had to kill Freddy for whatever reason I’m sure he’d be crying about it. Even in the escape ending where he leaves without Freddy he’s crying, and that’s not even an ending where Freddy gets hurt as far as we’re aware. So if Cassie was his best friend, someone he cared about enough to go through all this trouble to help her in the first place, to spend all night trying to contact her, guide her to the elevator.. If he really didn’t care about her, why do all this? Why wouldn’t he just assume she's dead and move on.

You could argue it’s because he was trying to prevent her from freeing the mimic before it was too late, but if that’s the case why would he give her directions when the mimic’s already been set free? Even in the elevator he directly tells her “You shut off the security, and now it’s free.” So if he knew/believed the mimic had already escaped, why kill Cassie ‘so it can’t escape.’ Even if that were also true, that’s not the only escape route. The mimic could still use the elevator Cassie used to get down here in the first place. He’d only be cutting off 1 of 2 exits. 

It’s so contradictory, if it were true I sure hope it has a good explanation in the next game. And again, the voice lines.. He sounds so panicked during them, through the mimic chase he’s yelling the directions, repeating himself, he’s clearly not calm during all this shit. He clearly cares about her. And for me, especially the rare voice line shows it. If you go back and listen to it again, the initial “Cassie is that you?” sounds a bit more panicked than the typical mimic calling out to Cassie, but at the end? After the voice glitches, that final “Cassie. Is that you?” It just sounds so full of despair to me. It’s a level of emotion the mimic never really displays for Cassie, it only sounds worried for its own safety, never concerned for hers.

Maybe I’m too invested, after all I get far more attached to characters than the lore itself, but from what we’ve seen of these characters I just feel like it would be really out of character if this was all meant to be taken at face value. If it was Gregory that cut the elevator, if he somehow managed to do it, and barely seemed to regret that choice. 

I think even if he did there’s still an argument to be made in his defense, after all we don’t know what the mimic has done to him in the games, we don’t know what it’s capable of, what he’s so afraid of. While sure we know about the mimic from the books, considering the questionable canonicity from books to games being the same timeline, and considering (as far as I’m aware) Gregory isn’t directly shown to have a connection to the mimic in those books.. Whatever he’s done in the games we haven’t seen yet, whatever happened that led Gregory to seal the mimic down there in the first place, it had to be pretty bad to cause all this. For such extreme security to be put around it, for him to leave things in a hurry, desperate to get out of there. Whatever happened clearly left some scars, whether those are physical, emotional, or both.

But that’s all I’ve got. I still find the other theories interesting, and I’m not denying they could be true. Look at the series we’re talking about here. But, with the evidence we’ve got, personally this is my take on it. I can only hope it’s true, but if I’m wrong, oh well I guess lol. I think Gregory’s definitely going to come back one way or another, whether he’s just down there to try to trap the mimic again, or if he’s going back to save Cassie, or both! I hope however he does come back it can clear up a few things. If you read all the way through, thanks, I know I ramble a lot, and I appreciate you taking the time to go through this, whether you agree with me or not. 

[halliescomut]

My Personal Weatherman Ep 7- No Subs watch

Again a reminder, this is me reacting to the new episode of MPW that I get from an internet friend-y, but unfortunately (for me) they speak Japanese, but I do not, and the link they send has no subtitles, so I have no idea what anyone is saying. In fairness...I have been watching Japanese series for about 2 decades, so I can pick up on a couple words/phrases, but mostly my goal is to observe body language to kind of guess what the story is. It's a fun, silly little game. There may be moderate spoilers about sequences, though I try to keep things vague, and of course no dialogue spoilers. Let's go!

-Oooh! An on location segment for the weather. How exciting! (ALso I swear it looks like the location is just outside of Man-san's apartment building, and that's why they had the camera framed so close in.) And Yoh still watching Mizuki so closely.

-Oh, we have ARCs...is this actually a few weeks later, or is the BL manga publishing industry able to do a two day turn around?

-Man-san sounds very encouraging, at least.

-That is a clearly depressed and defeated Segasaki. Poor guy. Has still no one explained that Man-san's husband isn't after Yoh?? Really?

-Why is Yoh always so goddamn suspicious??? My god dude.

-I will say also, I don't love Mizuki's tone here, but I think that's me relating a bit too much to Yoh (since we're both on the same side of a D/s dynamic). I know I would be really upset to hear that distance in in Mizuki's voice if I were Yoh.

-Now we're getting the flashbacks from Mizuki's POV....interesting. I can't wait to know what he was thinking when he saw Yoh. His face is so precious.

-^^Literally all I could hear in my head at this scene: "Hands touch, eyes meet/Sudden silence, sudden heat/Hearts leap in a giddy whirl"

-Segasaki's college friends feel very much like friends of convenience. Like when you become best friends with a kid when you're 7, but it's mostly because you live in the same neighborhood.

-Aww, now we have Yoh in a cozy sweater.

-It is so sub of Yoh to just hand over his sketchbook without question, completely forgetting all of the portraits of Segasaki in there...and I REALLY wanna translate what Segasaki's response was, but I will wait.

-IDK what Segasaki is saying exactly, but I'd bet real folding money that's something pretty close to 'no matter what I couldn't stop thinking about him"

-The way Yoh came and grabbed him...what's going on??

-Aww, sick baby Mizuki. So cute. And the costuming makes them a matching set with their beige and blue. That's so cute.

-I just spent the last scene going like this, so....

-But now we have THE CURRY!!! The curry that made Segasaki finish falling in love with Yoh. I don't feel like curry is supposed to be that crunchy...but I could be wrong.

-His face, I'm dying.. And the little bonk on the head. Oh, if I wasn't already head over heels for these two dinguses, this would have been the last straw for me as well.

-Mizuki's love for petting Yoh is so fucking CUTE!!!!

-Yoh's smile as he draws Segasaki- so PRECIOUS!!!! (Sorry I keep yellling.)

-Poor Mizuki's face. 🥺🥺🥺 He really thought for a minute that Yoh left again.

-Dripping wet rain kiss!! We love it!!!

-Ooh...ooh....OOH!!!! God I really wanna translate Mizuki's little speech here, but I'm pretty sure the gist was 'you're mine, and I'm not letting you get away again". 🥵☺️😁🥰

This was an excellent episode. I mean the whole series has been, but this just....so good. I can't wait to understand more than 27% of it.

Finale next week (Booo!!!😠) but I will be happy to be able to watch the complete story over and over into forever. That'll be nice. Honestly this is the first BL I've every considered getting a physical copy of it's so good.

[hogans-heroes]

https://www.tumblr.com/hogans-heroes/744517790110826496/httpswwwtumblrcomhogans-heroes74451655142580

no because if u do rewatch i need to know how u perceived some of the scenes and dialogue, mainly when bucky asks buck what he thinks of them and buck says he doesn’t think anything of them and i’m like what on earth does that mean😅 or when they first came in the room and everyone got weird and quiet and i even got weird vibes from buck and bucky and i’m like ok is this just racism

Thanks for making me stop my chores and look at the episode again with subtitles so I could get the rest of the dialouge lol.

When the guys first walked in and introduced themselves, Buck nodded and said "Gentlemen, welcome to paradise." (On second look the bunks they took were the empty ones, Hambone was just sitting on one).

Then in the library Alex says to Buck, "Back on that first day, all the guys looked to you. You got the final say. So why didn't you gripe about us bunking in 8? [their barrack number]"

Buck: "Well let's just say I knew you weren't spies."

As far as Bucky asking Buck what he thought of them, Buck's response that he hadn't been thinking of anything came across as having not given them a second look, they were just three more guys to him, though I suspect Bucky was asking because he knew they were up to something. I'm sure there's a certain "itchy" look about guys who are contemplating escape, which Bucky would be very familiar with.

This is kind of where we get into the realm of needing to have an entire lifetime of background in that era to really understand, but we can try. Alex and Macon were definitely getting a variety of Looks when they walked into the barracks, which could be for any number of reasons. It's safe to say there were at least several guys there that weren't happy about it and had that deep-runnign predjudice, and we also need to remember that even when someone wasn't racist, having your whole world perspective turned around is gonna take you a few seconds to come to grips with (meaning you never knew there were Black pilots and if you were from certain areas of the country were living with segration as normal whether you liked it or not, which explains a few "deer in the headlights" looks). From Alex and Macon's perspective however, it would suck to be on the receiving end of those looks no matter what was behind them, and they certainly would have a right to be worried about bunking with people they felt they couldn't trust. Alex seems to be more quick to trust than Macon, which of course could be for any number of reasons.