#and this goes for a bunch of other people

[lyricwritesprose]

The way my world religions professor explained it (as I recall, this was a long time ago) was this. A lot of religions define themselves very roughly as "a group of people who do X, Y, and Z." However, Christianity tends to define itself as "a group of people who believe X, Y, and Z."

Which means that when a Jewish person looks around and tries to define the other religions that exist in this world, they look at practice. "He puts up a tree every December, goes to midnight mass on Christmas Eve, and generally celebrates Christmas. That's surely enough Christian practices to be a Christian, case closed." Or, "she goes to shrines regularly and does the correct observances there, she's pretty much got to be Shinto, right?"

But Christians—and culturally speaking I think we're the screwy ones compared to most of the world—want to define a religion, any religion, as "beliefs X, Y, and Z."

The first obvious effect of this is that Christians cannot fucking agree on what the Christian X, Y, and Z should in fact be, and thus keep fracturing into increasingly weird and contentious groups based on, "We believe in X and Y but not Z," or "We believe in X and Y and just a little bit of Z," or, "We believe in X, Y, Z, Q, R, and S, and y'all are heathens if you don't," and even, "Who the fuck knows, just generally be nice to each other, I guess?" (We refer to the last bunch as Unitarians. (As a Unitarian I get to make this joke.))

The other thing, which is more of a problem when it comes to defining almost any religion other than the ever-expanding plethora of Christian subgroups, is that Christians (believers and cultural Christians) have a tendency to look at another religion and try to tally up what they believe in order to figure out what that religion Means. Judaism means believing in one deity, the Torah, and the Tanakh. Islam means believing in one deity and the Quran. Hinduism means believing in a buttload of deities and, um, the Vedas . . . (Incidentally if you really want to bother a Christian, present to them a religion where people can't agree on what bits of writing constitute a Holy Book, and furthermore may not even consider this the most important argument about How To Religion. I swear it makes us squirm. It bugs us.)

But defining a religion in terms of practice and tradition by and large hasn't occurred to us, because that's not how we do it.

Which of course means that when people try to define something like Judaism in terms of "do you believe X, Y, and Z," they are in fact being extremely culturally Christian, because they may not believe in a God anymore, and they may not go to church, but they are still working off of a Christian definition of What Religion Even Is.

I think maybe the reason the term “culturally Christian” is jarring for some people is that as Jews we come at this from the understanding that there are Jews who are straight up atheist and still do a lot of Jewish culture things, and a lot of the time we don’t use belief as a measuring stick for how Jewish you are because all of us are part of the nation no matter what. Meanwhile, the amount of Christian you are seems to be a function of how much you believe. So to us, describing something as “culturally Christian” doesn’t imply belief. But to them, since Christian culture is the default, the primary way to be Christian is to believe, so if we are calling them in any way Christian, we must be thinking that they believe.

[coffeegnomee]

There's something about how Mapicc will go full out on the attack over an assumption or something that fits with your reputation.

But then when confronted that that is not the truth, he will back off and say, maybe i was wrong.

But then he keeps you on the watch list and his trust is forever wavered.

There's two instances and both came up in the past month, though one was season 6 and the other season 4.

When Zam confronted Mapicc about Mawn on the first day, Mapicc confronted him back saying he only ever calls on him to fight and nothing else: tldr Zam uses him.

Zam of course is shocked and horrified that Mapicc would think that, and after going back and forth and a lot of insisting from Zam, Mapicc goes,

MAPICC: "I don't think you did. I don't think you were intending to like, use me for personal gain, but i think lowkey even if you don't agree you did- i think you did”

And then after more confrontations he goes,

MAPICC: “[pause] i think.. That maybe just a lot of people subconsciously do that and now I see it in people when it’s not happening. It's possible”

(12/15/24 "RECOLLECT" zam, conversation starts at 2:45:00)

And that interaction bothered me a lot. When it happened I thought it was a sign that Mapicc actually did start changing his mind about mawn, but by the time I wrote the post there were more mawn streams and Mapicc had clearly not been changed by that convo. So what was going on?

The rest of mawn continued, Mapicc kept denying it was all about Zam while making it all about Zam.

And on the last day, Mapicc brings back up the feeling used by Zam.

MAPICC: “i don't feel abandoned. I feel used. [..] i'm perfectly fine bro. I- I can make it back to 20 hearts, i can live on my own. Like [..] like i do some crazy ass action out of nowhere and like i die in the middle of it and the first thing you message me it to come bail you out of a bunch of wardens pit?"

Mapicc does an entire takeover of spawn and Zam doesn't enter into the play. He doesn't reciprocate. He doesn't embrace mapicc's idea. He doesn't care about him and what he cares about.

Zam just wants Mapicc when he needs help.

Stab the knife and twist it.

And all this after Mapicc put aside his "oath" (killing people whenever he thinks they deserve it) for Zam and Zam's plot. Mapicc changed himself to do stuff with Zam, but Zam wouldn't change himself to do stuff with Mapicc.

They go back and forth debating on whether or now mawn was good. Mapicc is less and less confident, while zam says he thinks it did do good but he couldn't be involved.

MAPICC: ‘what is it you would like from me” ZAM: “i don't know. Thats what im trying to figure out. Cause like, i don't even know” [..] MAPICC: “i think im in the wrong.” ZAM: "really?” MAPICC: "im sorry”  [..] Zam asks if he wants to join his team with derap and poafa. Mapicc just looks at zam. Zam says he can think about it MAPICC: "i just don't want to team with derap and poafa” ZAM: “fair enough” MAPICC: ”lets just- why can’t you just be in two teams? [..] why can't we be in the mapicc-zam team and then you have your teammates” ZAM: “[jumping on it so fast] im okay with that as well”

(12/23/24 "to ashes and blood" zam. convo starts 2:49:00)

All of mawn has been about getting Zam back to spawn, Mapicc shouting once, "just- COME OUT OF EXILE! Just come back to spawn” (1:31:40 zam "dynasties and dystopia")

There's this war within Mapicc over knowing he will continue to feel used by Zam, but still just wanting to be by Zam. All of it centers back to wanting to be teammates - doing plots together.

Bc "teammate" means something for Mapicc. It's a "do everything together" type relationship. "Support each other in all things" type relationship. Look at how he was in dualities. (before the finale. which is actually really interesting to think about)

Which brings me to the second moment Mapicc reacted aggressively only to take it back and say it was all based on assumptions: the Dupe War.

Spoke dropping the unreleased footage within the same month as the above really created a parallel within the Mapicc characterization.

57:00 MAPICC: "honestly no, honestly, here's the thing, i think, i really do, okay? I really do think it might've just been the reputation [..] you were saying some ominous things. and me and zam thought about it [..] and you kept saying things that were making your case worse and worse."

After feeling like Spoke was playing them, Mapicc went and killed Spoke. Spoke, enraged and upset, confronted Mapicc and eventually Mapicc said he acted out of turn, it might've just been the reputation.

It's so similar to the s6 belief, now I see it in people when it's not happening.

And so similar to s4, he'll admit defeat in the battle, give the benefit of the doubt. But the nagging suspicion continues and he's never quite able to shake it.

MAPICC: "I wish this guy wasn't such a snake, i would like 5 minutes hanging out with Spoke" ZAM: "[finishing sentence] without thinking he has some kind of ulterior motive"

("Night of the End", zam vod 1:54:40)

Mapicc's mind runs at a million miles an hour, making connections, providing assumptions, giving gut checks.

And he's right a lot of the time.

But he doubts himself all of the time. Going back on his observation when someone presses him in the opposite direction. Caving and placating so as to not loose a friendship.

but that self-doubt seems to be louder in the conversation that it really is within his own mind. And once he notes something it's very hard for his mind to be changed.

And it's interesting how his assumptions that Zam would oppose mawn and would be responsible for these things that kept happening, were wrong. He said during the final mawn convo that he felt like zam kept 180-ing after every convo, though he admits he was wrong about who did the suspicious things.

But the assumption that started this whole thing was that Mapicc felt used, not that Zam would oppose him.

And that assumption has still not been proven incorrect.

Though Mapicc will go along with it for now, being more cautious than before. Just like he was with Spoke after that dupe war confrontation.

It's a haunting ending, and it's not helped at all by how Mapicc ended his video. My general belief is that Mapicc went 180 on what actually happened bc the video is public and all the lifestealers will watch it, and he did say he would keep mawn going and just let it exist in people's minds. You can't do that if you end your video saying it's all over.

And yet.

MAPICC: "Me and Zam had made up, but it didn't mean we could team. If i could go back in time i would have never done mawn, but now that i have full control over spawn, i can't just stop"

it is a complete 180 from what was decided in the conversation.

and that was mapicc speaking days later, after reflection. What went on in his head, alone while editing?? Where will this go? why did he have to go skiing??

[mellosdrawings]

Hey~ Welcome to "Mello thinks too much about Jamil at 5am coz they can't sleep!"

Today's subject: Pride!

I've just been obsessing over it for a while and had a random enlightening last night.

So NRC is a school full of prideful students who know they're hot stuff, right? Aside from maybe Trey and Cater who are more mild mannered and don't boast much like others, and maybe Rook who is more interested in others than himself, Pride is the one sin that is common amongst all the characters.

Jamil's case is pretty singular though, especially amongst the overblotted gang. Because while others' pride usually comes from knowing they're hot shit, Jamil's is a defense mechanism against the fact that he's nothing.

Yes I'll be especially harsh against Jamil, but that's kind of the truth.

Riddle is one of the greatest mages of his generation because of all the work he's done since he was basically born, he knows he's hot stuff.

Leona is just... OP. Canonically the cleverest in all NRC, OP powers, the one guy even Idia doesn't understand why he overblotted in the first place, he's even royalty. Like, if it weren't for his bro he'd have everything. Leona might be self depreciating a bunch, he still knows he's hot stuff and his pride comes from that.

Vil is both powerful and one of the biggest stars worldwide. He's the same as Leona, while he has his moments of self hatred his pride does stem from just being that bitch.

Will it surprise you if I also call Idia prideful? Sure, he's meek and introverted and has too much anxiety for his own good, but he did get his Housewarden position because he thought he was better at the job than others. He knows he's a technomancy genius and one hell of a gamer. What little pride he shows comes from those talents.

And Malleus, well, he's just the devs darling so he's even more OP than Leona.

I purposefully skipped Azul because I think his case is more similar to Jamil's than to the others.

Azul and Jamil's pride are artificial. It's here as a defense mechanism, either to be perceived as better than he thinks he is (for Azul), or to convince himself than he is more than what he actually is (for Jamil).

Sure, Jamil is clever and pretty strong and has lots of qualities. But 1. He's far from the genius he thinks he is. And 2. As soon as people point out he's a fake he immediately goes into depression mode.

Book 6 was a very insightful moment for both Jamil and Azul. They both get paired with people who (not so) accidentally chip away at their pride until they have to face the fact that they are just not as great as they think.

And that's where Azul and Jamil differ.

Because Azul knows he's "not that great". Or at least, he thinks he's inferior to others. That's why people he considers above him punching down on him hurts so much (plus the obvious bullying trauma he's got).

Jamil genuinely thought he was better than everybody else until Book 6, where Leona knocked him down a peg. He convinced himself through inflated and artifical pride that he was more competent than his peers. And the second he realized that wasn't the case, he started flipping back and forth between self depreciating and trying to inflate his own pride again. As a defense mechanism.

Because for someone who's always been pushed down to take the least amount of space possible, for someone who's always known he had the possibility to be/do better but was never given the occasion to shine, admitting that he's mid hurts.

He needs to make himself useful and show off to Leona, not just because it's a reflex ingrained in him since forever or because of the repercussions that could befall him should he let royalty get hurt under his watch, but also because he needs to reassure himself that he is something.

Because he's been nothing his whole life.

And that hurts.

That's why it was so hard for Leona to get through to him, while Riddle and Azul managed to work together midway through their descent into Tartarus. Because for Jamil to accept criticism and help, he'd first need to drop his pride. And he just can't do that.

Even by the end of their descent, Jamil still found a way to twist Leona's preaching in his favor. Even then he still managed to put his pride up to reassure himself. He has more potential to grow than others, sure. That's a first step in accepting his mediocrity, but that's also very validating for his pride. He might not be the best now, but just you wait-

And that's why Jamil was all talk and no show before that point. Because unlike the others, his pride is artificial. He has nothing to back it up.

I'm sorry if I repeated myself a lot or didn't make much sense. I'm afraid me trying to explain my thought process tends to be stunted by the fact I don't have enough vocabulary to back it up :'D (And the fact that I'm writing all that while sleep deprived doesn't really help lol)

I usually tend to obsess over the 'sin' of Envy for Leona, Vil, and Jamil, coz it's one hell of a sin, the only that brings no pleasure whatsoever. And I just love watching characters make their own lives miserable over the pettiest things.

But damn is the subject of Pride interesting. I see most people, myself included, tend to tone down the Pride aspect of NRC when writing fanfics or drawing fanarts, even though it's one of the core points of the story.

And as said earlier, it's hard to make a character change and develop when Pride is in the way, so I totally understand why people downplay it for the sake of narrative.

Coz otherwise we'd only get tragedies.

And I love tragedies~

[wonderjanga]

Hiiii, how are you?

I'm nervous here, it's the first time I've made an Ask here on Tumblr-

Aaaanyway, I wanted to give you an idea, I couldn't find it, but I've seen a post where Billy goes deaf after being struck by lightning

The post doesn't show it, and I can't think and come up with ideas to write it myself, but I would love to see what his interactions and relationships with the civilians and heroes would be like as a deaf person.

So, if you see this and want to write a post based on it, please tag me chum, xoxo.

— justv0id, at your pleasure :D

I’m good! I haven’t been posting as much recently because I’ve suddenly grown a little busy but other than that, I’m a-okay! I just need to work out a few kinks in my personal life and I should be back to the two posts a day schedule. ALSO, anyone is free to ask questions there’s no need to be nervous!

Anyways…

Marvel: *minding his business*

Tourist: “Captain Marvel? Could you take a photo with me?”

Marvel: *obviously doesn’t hear him because he’s deaf*

Tourist: “Captain?”

Marvel: *still doesn’t hear him*

Tourist: “If you don’t want to take a photo with me, you can just say so.” *starting to sound a little mad*

Marvel: *again, doesn’t hear him*

Tourist: “Dude, stop ignoring me-”

Random Fawcitizen: *runs up and socks the stuffing out of them*

All Fawcitizens are a little a lot protective of Cap. Some people unfortunately have to experience this first have.

or

Martian Manhunter(MM), Miss Martian, and Marvel: *all standing in the circle, staring at each other intensely*

Random Civilian: What are they doing…?

Meanwhile… In the Telepathy Link…

Marvel: “That’s what I was saying! That show is garbage!”

Miss Martian: “It is not! It’s literally amazing!”

MM: “M’gann… Please do not lie. At least not to the both of our faces.”

or

Reporters: *hounding him and asking a bunch of questions*

Marvel: *just smiles, gives a little head nod before flying off*

Ladies: “He’s so dreamy and mysterious!”

Marvel: *actually left because he knew that if he were to say a single word to answer any of their questions, he’d probably shatter all their eardrums because he has little to no volume control*

or

Batman: *signing to him*

Marvel: *nodding along*

Batman: *pleased that he found a way to communicate with Marvel*

Marvel: *has no idea what he’s saying and just think he’s throwing up gang signs* (“You know what? You go, man.” Billy thinks to himself for the 50 millionth time)

I’d also like to think this vid would perfectly encapsulate a not deaf Junior and a deaf Marvel.

[novelmonger]

I am now (finally) embarking on the last of the LotR audio commentaries I never listened to before: the Production/Post-Production one, with Barrie Osborne (producer), Mark Ordesky (executive producer), Andrew Lesnie (director of photography), John Gilbert (editor), Rick Porras (co-producer), Howard Shore (composer), and Jim Rygiel (visual effects supervisor). A lot more Americans in this group than the previous ones have been. I feel much more out of my depth with this one in terms of figuring out who's talking, but let's see what new stuff they have to say for FotR!

The sound from when Sauron explodes comes from a bunch of sounds they recorded both inside and outside ships in the harbor, as well as the sounds of WWII airplane propellers.

The scenes with Gollum in the prologue were actually some of the last shots they filmed for FotR.

The farmers around the area where they filmed Hobbiton would warn them when people would turn up who weren't supposed to be there, with cameras and whatnot, as well as warning them when planes or choppers would be overhead, so they could prevent (as much as possible) from footage leaking before the movie was released. That warms my heart :)

They used the analogy of a "shell game" when talking about all the different techniques they used to keep the proportions of characters correct with their different sizes. Because they would switch up the techniques between shots, it helped sell the overall effect, because you're not just always looking at a scale double or a bluescreen or what-have-you.

In the scene with Bilbo and Gandalf in the kitchen, they used forced perspective, with the table cut in half so that everything is small for Gandalf and the right size for Bilbo. When Bilbo pours the tea into the teapot, Gandalf handles a small lid on his side, putting it on a little rod that holds it in the right position so it looks like it's sitting on the teapot. Meanwhile, the actual teapot is on Bilbo's side so he can pour the water into it. Also, when Gandalf is first sitting down at the table and turning to get his legs underneath it, if you look closely you can see that when he bumps up against it, the half of the table closer to the camera jiggles a little, but the other half doesn't because it was actually some 5-10 feet away.

In the shot at the party that pans down from the fireworks and the tree, the actual party with all the dancing and everything was shot in a set, so they had to go back to the Hobbiton location (which had already been cleared of the set at that point, I think) and match up that shot to get the tree, and then they composited it together.

The direction for that shot of Minas Tirith when Gandalf goes to research the Ring was to make it look like "Constantinople in the morning." This may be my favorite part of this commentary :)

They needed to scan actors' faces so they could have their digital doubles to work with for certain shots. When they brought in Ian McKellen to scan his face, they said, "We just need to scan your face in a neutral position." He said, "Neutral for me or neutral for Gandalf?" And he demonstrated his own neutral expression, and when he switched to neutral Gandalf, he looked completely different, pursing his lips and furrowing his eyebrows and sucking his cheeks in more. Truly the sign of a gifted actor who knows how to ply his craft.

In the scene where Frodo and Sam are trying to sleep on the road for the first time, originally they were going to end with some sort of animal sniffing around them. First it was a deer, and they also tried a rabbit and maybe some other animals (possible fox appearance???). But that part didn't even make it into the Extended Edition.

Something I never thought about that they had to pay attention to was, because Orthanc is made of shiny material, they had to consider the color and quality of the light reflecting off it. So when they filmed the real location, they would take the camera and pan around the location, then print out stills and put them up around the miniature when they filmed that part of the shot, so they could get the right colors to match each shot they would composite over it, so it would look like both were in the same place. Now that's what I call attention to detail!

On the night they shot the little chase sequence with the Nazgul in the forest, it was actually raining off and on, even though you can't really see it in the movie. That made the ground very muddy, so the Hobbits actually had to be carried back to their first position for each new take so they wouldn't get too much mud on their feet and clothes.

To get the sounds of the trees' "voices" when the orcs in Isengard tear them down, they actually used several animal sounds like whales, moreso than sounds recorded from actual trees.

Bob Anderson, the swordmaster for the films, said they needed to have five copies of every sword for every actor every day they were going to be fighting with them, because that's how likely it is for them to be broken (since the swords actors use for hitting each other are lighter and not made like a real sword). But Richard Taylor wanted to find a way to make the swords more durable, because there are a lot of swords in these movies. So Weta developed a technique to help the stunt swords redistribute the shock from hitting them against each other. They took polyurethane, which Mark Ordesky notes is the same material as skateboard wheels, and they made a sort of sheath of that under the surface of the hilt. None of the swords they made like that ever broke.

The tree that gets thrown down into the chasm in Isengard had to be a miniature so they could get it high enough to drop it as far as they wanted to (and so they wouldn't have to cut down a huge tree). But they had to add little springs and things to make the branches bounce and jiggle properly, rather than just break off, as they would if you just made a little model tree. Little details like that really sell the scale.

In the Nazgul horseback chase scene, they cleared a path for the horses to safely run through the forest. But then they would also get branches and put them on the car or whatever vehicle had the camera, so it would look like they were pushing through more dense foliage, while still keeping the actors and horses safe.

The Council of Elrond was the final piece of the sound mix they had to finish for FotR, and it was down to a matter of hours. One of the things they mentioned having difficulty figuring out what to do with was the moment when Frodo sets the Ring down on the plinth. Originally, there was going to be a murmur of the crowd watching, but it didn't seem to have the gravitas and stunned awe necessary for that moment, so they had to play around with a lot of things before Peter Jackson was satisfied with it.

When Gimli smashes the Ring with his axe, John Rhys-Davies was actually only holding an empty handle, and the axe head was added digitally later so it could shatter.

Barrie Osborne (I think?) commented on something at least Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan, especially Dom, started to do in order to make it more believable that the primary actors and the scale doubles are the same people. He noticed that their scale doubles tended to move and walk in a certain way (I assume partly because most of them were Little People, so their physique and proportions are a bit different), and so instead of leaving it up to them to mimic his movements, he started changing the way he moved to match them. That's just really cool.

Originally, they were going to do a bit of a flashback when Boromir asks Aragorn, "Have you ever seen the white tower..." etc. It would have been shot in the same place as the scene where Aragorn is visiting his mother's grave, and would feature Elrond talking to Aragorn about how he's the only one who can wield Anduril and how he needs to take his place as the king of Gondor.

For some of the close-up shots of Gimli in the scene where they first head into Moria, they actually had to use a double - not a scale double! an actual guy who was the same size as John Rhys-Davies! - because John had such a bad reaction to the facial prosthetics that he had to go a few days in between each time he put it on. But he'd had the prosthetics on the day before, and they didn't have time to wait until he could put them on again. So they had to find a double, put on the prosthetics and costume, and then John stood out of frame and spoke the lines, and the double mouthed the words along with him. I would never have guessed!

THANK YOU TO WHOEVER WAS TALKING AND I'M SORRY I COULDN'T RECOGNIZE YOUR VOICE FOR SURE, but someone was talking about "cinematic dark." In other words, how to light a scene so you can see everything that's happening even though you're in a place with hardly any light sources, like in Moria where the only light comes from the torch and Gandalf's staff most of the time. Instead of making it all really dark (*pointed stare at too many movies these days*), they shot it as if there is a source of light, but always very far away, like it's filtering through miles of rocky caverns or something. What that meant practically was that they would only light the characters in silhouette or from the side, never the front. So it would still give the impression that they're in darkness, but you don't have to strain at all to make out what's happening. They also desaturated the colors so everything looked muted, similar to how your vision kind of goes black-and-white in the dark.

One of the fundamental elements for the Moria goblin screeches was an opossum screech. There was some kind of opossum research facility in Wellington that they went to to record what became the foundation of the goblin sounds. Then they took them and re-recorded them in some WWII tunnels to get the right echoey reverb effect. And then for the sounds of them moving, they took sounds from insects like grasshoppers, as well as rattling seashells from the beach against the walls of the tunnels to get a scuttling sort of sound for when they come pouring out of holes in the ceiling.

You know that one shot where Legolas fires an arrow at a goblin archer and the camera follows the arrow all the way into his forehead? I always assumed that whole thing was all CG, but no! Even that had a practical element to it! They set up a camera on a sort of zip line with a bungee cord and sent it down as fast as it could go towards an actual stunt guy in costume! Now that's what I call above and beyond.

They shot a scene that didn't make it into even the Extended Edition of the Fellowship arguing about what they should do next after they leave Moria, with some members having misgivings about going to Lothlorien. I wish we could see that, even though I understand why they needed to keep things moving. They didn't mention if they actually shot this or if it was scrapped by the time they got that far, but there was also a mention of the entry to Lothlorien being much more frantic, as they're chased by orcs and then rescued by a sudden volley of Elven arrows.

There was also once a longer scene between Boromir and Frodo as they're waiting to see if Haldir will let them into Lothlorien. He tells Frodo a story of him getting over the death of one of his comrades. Um...I wanna see these extra scenes!!!

They wanted Lothlorien to feel ethereal and maybe almost slightly in a different universe, because of the Elves and especially Galadriel, who can see into hearts and minds. One of the ways they did that was by diffusing the light on the set so everything seems kind of dreamy. Another way they tweaked things was by bringing out the blues and edging them towards lavender. Yes, yes, Lothlorien is supposed to be golden, but after hearing the explanation about how lavender is actually one of the hardest colors to get to look right on film (the word used was "fragile") and to look good against skin tones, and therefore you don't see it very much in the movies, I can appreciate the subtle ways they tried to make Lothlorien feel distinct.

Originally, they were going to have a scene where the Fellowship goes through some rapids on the Anduin and get ambushed by orc archers. Ultimately, they decided they didn't need that as a story beat at that point, and it would have been very difficult to shoot anyway. Makes me wonder if that influenced the infamous barrel scene from the Hobbit movies, like they dug up some old plans for that....

Except for one wide shot where they used a scale double for Frodo, the entire confrontation between Boromir and Frodo was shot just with Sean Bean and Elijah Wood, no special effects, just strategic blocking and using the slope and different angles to their advantage to always make it look like Frodo is smaller than Boromir.

If I understood Howard Shore correctly, he was inspired to use a boy's choir for Boromir's death when he saw Boromir, after falling to his knees from the first arrow or two, looking up at Merry and Pippin. Boys singing at his death gives a sense of lost innocence, which is appropriate both to Boromir trying to take the Ring as well as to the lost innocence of losing the Hobbits. So it's not just a lament for Boromir, it's also his lament for (as he thinks in the moment, because he knows he's dying) failing the Hobbits.

The original mix for Boromir's death had all the sound effects at full volume, which made the moment even more brutal. Mark Ordesky was saying that he (and probably some others) was thinking it might be better if they pulled back on some of the sound and let the music be louder. Peter Jackson said, "Well, let's try it," and as soon as they turned down the volume, the entire room basically agreed immediately that's how they needed to do it. It's meant to sound and feel almost like you're sinking underwater as Boromir is dying, because that's how it would sound and feel for him.

Oh my goodness, further proof that studio execs shouldn't have a say in the story of a movie. New Line wanted the movie to end with Frodo and Sam paddling across the river, and then an Uruk bursts up from underwater and grabs Frodo, pulling him out of the boat. The Ring somehow comes off the chain, and the Uruk is so enamored with it that he ends up drowning while trying to grab it. Then Sam somehow gets Frodo (and the Ring) back into the boat. Thank goodness they came up with the much better ending we all know and love. Because the people actually involved with writing the movie and telling its story knew that the ending of FotR needs to be about the breaking of the Fellowship, about love and loyalty in the face of great evil. So that's why they went with the ending they did: Sam falls into the water and almost drowns, Frodo saves him, and that paves the way for the incredible emotional high of Frodo leaving the Fellowship, but Sam going with him. And just like Frodo is thinking about how Gandalf talked about how he was meant to find the Ring, Sam is thinking about how Gandalf told him not to leave Frodo. It all ties together so much better.

The last shot for the film was Boromir going over the waterfall. It was in the final cut of the movie just as a previs shot, and Barrie Osborne said he assumed it was going to be a CG effect or something. But finally, while Peter Jackson was in London working on scoring the film - so pretty late in the production - Barrie called him and asked when they were going to shoot that scene. Peter Jackson had forgotten about it! So Barrie had to shoot it, and since they didn't have the actors in New Zealand at that point, they had to get Weta to make a silicon dummy to shoot instead.

[associativeglassdesert]

hi im prev. my diff top course was taught like simultaneously like a high-level course (where the prof assumed students basically knew everything about multivar analysis, defn of differential, inverse function theorem, basic category theory, ring theory, tensors, etc. - trying to treat grad students with respect as fellow mathematicians or whatever) and a low-level course in the sense that we didn't get very far at all (straight up didn't cover like 1/3 of the material on qualifying exam). we got to present on topics of our choice at the end, kind of like the problems you suggested (but quite frankly that's time that would be better spent teaching the material for the damn quals). the biggest tragedies came from the fact that the prof was an algebraic geometer and the students are a bunch of aspiring low-dimensional topologists. imagine some professor repeatedly saying "sheaf" and "functor" to a bunch of knot enjoyers and that was the class... It was truly tragic. I tried to learn some basic algebraic geometry a few times and kept on getting filtered by the motivating example for a sheaf being the sheaf of differentiable functions on a manifold because it just sent me back to this terrible class. It took me a few months to get over this ridiculous diff top phobia lol.

conversely I think my alg top class was taught at a pretty low-level and we did do every detail of every proof. we'd walk into class and spend an hour diagram chasing. I enjoyed it due to my pathetic mathematical maturity at the time. And I am still mathematically immature so I'm sure i'd enjoy it if I took it again. I'm really unsure of why some people seem to think differential topology is easier to teach at a low level than algebraic topology. A tangent bundle is something that takes a lot of hard work to construct/define, and it's like, a fundamental object you work with. Compare that to "homotopy classes of based loops" for the fundamental group. It's really intuitive. I'm also very biased in that when I took diff top, I hadn't done any analysis in a hot second and was tetanus-inducingly rusty on that front.

Anyway, I'm genuinely glad to see a good thoughtful response to my silly hatepost. I'm not that good at math so it's hard for me to say stuff that's really insightful, other than just complaining. It's like, I've never seen a low-dimensional topologist really use the definition of tangent space / bundle despite always working in the smooth category... i'm planning on auditing the same differential topology course this year but actually taught by a topologist so hopefully that goes better for me :)

Math enthusiasts of tumblr. What math subjects have you studied and which ones were your favorite? Which ones were your least favorite? Which ones were the hardest?

[daisy-01-blog]

A private lesson (Nanami Kento x fem! Reader) 

A/N: Smut, lecturer Nanami and student reader. Minors DNI

College was not fun; you feel betrayed seeing how all those movies portray how fun college is. You have friends here and there, but you can’t exactly party every single night. You need to study, and to go out with friends often you need to be rich-and honestly, you’re broke. 

Majoring in social study, you're always lazy on doing your assignment because you were aiming for Chemistry. It doesn't matter if one of the lecturer is a very hot certain someone.

Nanami Kento taught political economic and society, you can see him always anywhere bringing his big chunks of book. People adore him, men or women-he is very gentle and soft-spoken. Never getting angry on his students. Not to mention he’s very hot too. 

You’re one of his admirer, but that doesn’t mean you’re not failing his class. You didn’t care-couldn’t care less about politics (why did you take this major in the first place, you’ll never know) 

Everywhere he goes, he has some students following him around-mostly girls. And he lets them (although you think he should do something about it. Getting followed by a bunch of girls younger than him doesn’t look good for him) 

You’re desperate, you can’t fail his class. You hate your major but you aspire to have A on your classes so you study hard-but this course is very hard. You have to do something about it. 

Oh, you will do anything. 

You’re not an expert on boys, but you know that him letting girls flock around him doesn’t actually mean he’s kind to let them stay around him. He likes the attention, you get the gist of who he really is deep down. 

So you decide to play a game, you wore your shortest skirt-and a fitted shirt. You’ll see what he thinks. 

At first he pretends like he doesn’t notice. It’s inappropriate to ogle at his students after all. 

But on the second meeting, he stares at you-and his stare is predatory. You wonder if this is a good idea after all, you feel your thighs rubbing against each other’s. You’re aroused. 

But you wouldn’t stop, you’re desperate after all. 

Of course Nanami Kento knows you, he knows and recognize all his students-even though sometimes his course reached 140+ students-he could always recognize each one of them. 

Nanami is passionate about his course, and it’s unfortunate that you’re failing his class. He is thinking of asking you to have a one on one lesson on him-but it will be awkward to just have each other’s presences after all. So he brush the thought off his mind. 

Well, that is until today. 

He calls his students’ name one by one for daily absence. His stares paused at you when he calls out your name. 

Nanami recognizes his students, but he never put any special attention on one of them. 

Today you’re wearing a short skirt that reveals your thighs, and he can sees your cleavage as well. 

He pretends not to notice. He calls the other students coolly.

You wore the same thing on the second meeting on his class, and he lets himself stare at you this time. 

You’re biting your pen, and it looks almost sensual-he can feel his pants tighten. 

He reminds himself this is inappropriate, but you crossed your legs and he can sees your thighs. He sighs. 

On the fourth meeting, you bring a lollipop. He usually lets his students eat on his class, but he shudders every time the lollipop kisses your mouth. 

He can’t help but imagine it’s his cock you’re taking in your mouth, he feels dizzy. 

At home, he can’t help but jerk off to the thought of you-he groans as he pumps his slick veiny cock “fuck…” he shudders as he rubs faster. He pants as he spew jets of cum. 

He has to do something about this. 

Nothing happened, you thought. You sighed as you’re getting ready to go home as all the students packed their things. 

“(Y/N), stay after class” Nanami said. 

The others chuckle, thinking you’re in trouble. They know you struggle on this class after all. 

You swallowed back a smirk, you think you really are in trouble. 

As all the students left, Nanami wastes no time sucking your breasts through your clothes. You moan as you let him. 

“A shame you can’t lactate” he mutters, he can’t think straight-and so do you. 

You pant as he unbuttons your clothes as he unclasp your bra in a hurry, he suckles your breasts “mmmh..” you moan as he didn’t stop. 

The squelching noises fill the room as he kisses your nipples, you moan as they harden. 

“You think it’s a good idea to tease me, huh?” he pants as he suckles your nipples “fuck…I can’t stop thinking about your pussy” you moan in pleasure. 

He kisses your neck as you moan, letting him. You always have a crush on him, and he’s hot. 

You moan as he fingers you roughly, your pussy weeps juices as he grunts. 

“Fuck, your pussy is crying” he whispers on your ear “does it feel good baby?” 

You moan “mmmnh yess” you squeal, shaking your hips as he fingers you. 

“Slut” he whispers on your ear “your pussy is leaking anywhere, naughty” 

You moan as he fingers you faster, you feel close. 

You whine as he stops right when you’re almost cumming. 

He smirks “I’ll give you a private lesson if you want one so badly” 

"C'mon, you can do it" he coos as he plows his cock inside your tight cunt as you moan-trying to solve the question. 

He is feeling sadistic, so he asks you to answer some questions about political state. 

He knows it's inappropriate, but you're starting this. Asking him for help in your tight mini skirt. 

His cock kisses your soaking pussy as he grunts in pleasure, you can't concentrate in answering the questions as you moan. 

“Mmmhhh…” you drool, you can’t concentrate at all. 

He stops with a sadistic smirk “if you can’t answer, I won’t fuck you” he whispers on your ear. 

You shudder as you shakily write the answer, he plows you as you do so-the lewd noises fill the room as you tried to concentrate. 

“You can do it” he whispers sadistically, plowing your pussy as it floods juices. 

You moan, feeling too good as his cock make out with your pussy. 

After you force yourself to answer the questions, he smirks “they’re all wrong” he whispers as he fucks your pussy roughly. The lewd slapping noises fill the room as you moan, your eyes rolled back. 

You moan as you feel close, he grunts as he cums inside you. 

He goes for another round. 

You both pant as you fixed your clothes, he cuddles you as you let him. It’s kind of nice for him to give you aftercare, he strokes your hair. 

“Do you regret it?” he asks you softly. 

“No” you lean onto him “I like you, everyone do” 

He chuckles “let’s go on a date next time then” he mutters. 

“Are you asking me out?” you ask him. 

He strokes your hair “I do, yeah” he said softly. 

“Only if you gave me good grades on this class” 

He chuckles “deal” 

[afreakingdork]

Weak Spot Donnie Ref Sheet

Y'all genuinely have no idea how happy I am right now. With many, many years of work, the Weak Spot Donatello ref sheet is finally done and @garbagemilkshake is truly one of the greatest people to ever grace this planet. I say with full honesty that WS would not have near the same visual impact without their art. Now that this treasure is finally a reality, I'm holding nothing back. Below I breakdown all kinds of detail about what you see above and all I can say before that is thank you to each and every one of you who've been kind enough to read my work! This one goes out to you!

Villain's Mark Reference Sheets:

S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. - Donatello - Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael

PREFACE TIME!

Now it may seem like way overdue from the outsider perspective, but let me tell you, I have been trying near non-stop to get this damn thing done. Interest in getting WS Donnie's ref sheet made dates all the way back to around Chapter 9ish of Weak Spot, but very technically to April of 2023. An artist was commissioned to make it and all I will say on that matter is that they decided they could not continue. Thus began my new search. There was a ton of criteria: Someone willing to make a ref sheet of this size, someone willing to associate with NSFW content, and someone willing to do mechanical props.

Unfortunately, I would fruitlessly search until eventually I had Garbage on as a chapter artist. I eventually asked if Garbage was up to it (they totally were) and we decided to test out the other turtle's ref sheets first. It may not seem like it, but a ref sheet of this size is an ENORMOUS undertaking. I seriously cannot praise Garbage enough. As you all know, the other turts ref sheets were stunning. We planned out what was needed for Donnie's and starting May 2024, work began. Garbage would routinely take time off of doing chapter art or what need be (I'm too discombobulated to remember when their vacation was). Their happiness and life takes top priority in my book and after all the time I'd spent searching for someone just to do the ref sheet, I did not mind it getting sidelined in the slightest. Garbage was doing me a huge favor after all, commission or not!

BUT WHO CARES!! WE'RE HERE AND IT'S DONE!!! 🎉🎉🎉

Let's get into it with the turnaround!

The turnaround! Finally we have the definitive collection of Donnie's scars! it was tricky and we ended up needing to label him like some anatomical model to get all the mentions in. Some scars will look a little familiar to you and other's might not, but dang, I sure did a TON of scar research. From hypertrophic (raised scars) to atrophic (scar that don't have enough scar tissue to heal and are sunken in comparison) to how sharp blades versus dull ones cut skin raise what kind of scars. I have a bunch of gorey references for all that, but I doubt anyone wants to see that. Instead let's go into inspirations and the like:

First off, in spot 4, Donnie's electrical scars!

You probably think I ripped them off from Replica or Unknown and that wouldn't be totally wrong, but it wouldn't be right. Obviously I'm a huge fan of both artists (go support their patreons), but my thoughts were always more in the camp of getting Villain Donnie from A to B. I was planning alongside a canon timeline and my thoughts were he would have definitely created himself a pair of show goggles, but there was no way, with what he went through, that those would make it to adulthood. When I considered where he was mostly likely to lose them and that I wanted him to give himself laser eye surgery (again, show accurate, he had glasses once!) that I could knock both out if he were to have damaged the goggles, rendering him deaf and needing cochlear implants.

Now spot 2, the body augmentation, reaches outside the fandom and to Megalo Box of all things!

I only watched an episode or so, but the way Joe scrapped together gear was something that stuck with me. When I was conceptualizing WS Donnie and came to the conclusion he didn't have ninpo, I thought a lot about what he would do when the others got there. The logical conclusion was turning towards his tech and Megalo Box was right there with the idea.

Donnie's body augmentation gear has not been depicted as of yet, but it absolutely looks like something out of Megalo Box. I additionally did research into other wearable tech and came across the ExoArm.

Studying their information on what nerve points and muscles needed to be hit was what helped me ultimately decide where the extraction points on Donnie's arm would be. The starbursts on Donnie's arm are where the pins for the device were forceably torn out when they 'failed' him. The lines between them are where the wires that connected pin points were similarly torn out. They created finer scars.

I want to highlight the barely seen spot 7, Neural Implant, with an extreme close up:

It may seem like just the curvature of his noggin, but it's actually Donnie's one clean scar. It was his only surgery he was truly careful with as it chanced his brain stem and spine if he messed up. Without his ninpo, he implanted a chip to coordinate with his tech more seamlessly. It's inspired by the fic Switch by unorthodoxx, which shout-out! Again, if someone comes up with a neat concept, that stuff sticks with me!

Spot 6, Mystic Chains aka where Donnie got his foot ripped off and it might not be for the reason you think. I wanted to make mention here, that you might remember the chapter art from chapter 43 of Weak Spot and that Donnie did not have a port sticking out back then. That's growth kids because it took me until after to realize that he would need something inserted to connect to a working prosthetic.

Finally, it was tough to figure out how best to depict all of Donnie's shell damage. It's reveal is such a huge moment in Weak Spot and I knew he would have what was basically insurmountable damage to have made it a specific weak spot to him (if you know what I'm saying 😏) The number 8, spike holes are just that, Donnie hit some spikes. Think of him having been shut in like an iron maiden or maybe trapped by a spike wall that was reminiscent of the ones in the Maze of Death in the Minotaur Maze episode of canon.

As for spot 10, Shredder, we see this Donnie suffered for not having a bulkier battle shell. When he was attacked by shredder in this moment:

His shell took that damage directly.

The last spot I want to touch on is 9, the Odachi marks, the larger blob one is when Leo attempted to, but held back from severing Donnie's spine and the other is from Leo trimming Donnie's spines (aka from being a Spiny Softshell). I made this extremely helpful infographic to explain to Garbage at one point exactly what was trimmed off in the latter:

Moving on to outfit variants and expressions!

I hope this section is pretty self explanatory, but I did want to make a note: Donnie wears his wraps as seen in Lounge Looks around his arms and neck under all his clothing and at most hours due to his constant pain. Also, the examples of Donnie's emotions are something that only came around during Weak Spot. He hardly emoted before he met reader.

Last, But Not Least we got prop close-ups!

The prosthetic shown here is specifically Donnie's comfiest, aka the one he uses at home. I didn't bother adding any other prosthetics because his others are either shoe prosthetic (aka the shoe is fit so it directly attaches to is port) or a prosthetic that is made to perfectly replicate what his foot looks like (which visually looks like he just has his real foot). His prosthetic is actually a straight rip off of a real one!

When researching prosthetics, I found this one and it struck me as so similar to the turtle's actual feet (with the 'two toes' and heel) that I thought this had to be Donnie's prosthetic.

We get a good look at Donnie's glasses. As a reminder, the arms (temples) of Donnie's glasses attach to his head via magnets. He's got a little metal in his head from the electrical burns and cochlear implant so he made use of it when he made a facsimile of his goggles. The whole point of his glasses is they mimic the vision specs/knowledge he needs to access without them being a danger to his person. They are meant to be easily removable and they do not have lenses. The color projected in them is just that (a projection) and it only works if it's close enough to Donnie's neural implant and he wills them to be turned on.

Our final order of business is WS Donnie's battle shell! This is the first time it's ever been depicted! I always knew he was going to have a different sort of battle shell when I was created this version of Donnie. His show shell is just too bulky for what this Donnie could afford. Since he dabbled a lot of easily concealable tech, I took a lot of inspiration from Iron Man. The battle shell, as we know from Weak Spot, can grow and resize to its user. I specifically had this gif in mind whenever I thought about how the battle shell grows on one's back:

I did a ton of research into body armor itself, since that is what Donnie would specifically need it for and found this specific piece that I thought fell perfectly in line with both the Iron Man idea and utility of a realistic battle shell for this Donnie.

and that's just about everything! Again, thank you to anyone who made it this far. Thank you for reading my works! Thank you for literally everything! Round up thanks to my betas, to Garbage, to everyone dangit!

[zahri-melitor]

Okay, question for the audience as I simply don’t get it:

I understand why some people don’t like how Zdarsky characterises Damian (in that he’s petulant, violent, has needed to be rescued, and has fully committed to steadfastly believing the ‘wrong’ thing several times in the run…because he’s desperately trying to support Bruce).

I understand why some people don’t like how Zdarsky characterises Jason (in that Zdarsky is actually fully carrying through on ‘You Were A Villain, Jason, During Late Post-Crisis’ in terms of both Jason’s beliefs and tendency to kill).

Yeah. He’s cynical about the ethically dubious pair who are working in different ways for redemption, rather than coddling.

What I do NOT get is how or why anyone would cite Dick or Babs as OOC in Zdarsky’s run.

Babs is pretty standard with how she’s currently characterised, has exclusively appeared as Oracle, coordinates things and acts as conversation mediator (just like how Dick and Tim used to bring her their problems), is getting characterised as somewhat more ruthless in terms of violence and crime than Dick and Tim (and Bruce), which is good old fashioned Babs, and just seems like she’s back in the role of classic Oracle, as she appeared in plenty of titles she wasn’t featuring in.

Dick’s flippy, quippy, taking the lead with the rest of the fam against Bruce, knows a bunch of exclusive stuff to try and sort out Bruce clearly being off his rocker, is mad at Bruce but trying to avoid getting into a stand up fight too often…like, that’s Dick?

Sure, neither of them are featured in the book like Tim is, but you don’t actually need to use every character, and Zdarsky’s picking people for the roles he needs?

His Steph is in the ‘tending towards agreeing with Jason’ in the family sliding scale, which is what’s been happening in a number of titles recently, and is more interesting than bubbly Steph. (Plus Rosenberg was simultaneously using her as Jason’s One Ally in the family in The Joker: TMWST)

Cass and Duke barely appear, which look I understand the structural complaints about how this happens, but also, aside from the standard complaint every single time Cass goes down in a fight, they feel reasonably like themselves. Cass has been getting solid appearances in Tec and Spirit World and now picked up her own title again.

And if I’m hard hearted about it, Duke is 100% the first character I’d drop for overcrowding reasons in storylines heavily focused on Bruce’s mental health, because every single other character has better insight and longer baselines into Bruce being Bruceish than Duke has. (Also for the same reason I’d drop Steph)

People keep reciting to each other that ‘everyone in the Batfam but Tim is out of character’ and I don’t see it, other than Zdarsky using versions of Jason and Damian that their fans don’t enjoy?

[greencheekconure27]

I mean, clearly not everyone was frozen, only the people at the royal castle and maybe the adjacent town at most. Bavmorda kept getting pregnant women from somewhere, remember? There's also a tavern in the movie, so there are clearly unfrozen people around. Sure that could be Nockmaar, but assuming Nockmaar and Tir Asleen are even separate kingdoms as opposed to Nockmazr being just a castle IN Tir Asleen,where did all these people go after Bavmorda was defeated? Either they fled to the neighbouring countries like Galladoorn and Tir Asleen or the territories that aren't tainted with the dark magic yet have been simply annexed. So yes from the perspective of the Tir Asleen population it's not "magic =>one bad magic thing=> oblivion=> no more magic" it's that magic was present and likely mundane (if somewhat uncommon) and then one day the queen who was really into this magic stuff went crazy, cursed the entire royal court and the capital, and then proceeded to terrorise everyone left with said dark magic. And at the very least also invaded Galladoorn, massacred their army, and attacked the Nelwyn. That's bound to leave behind a whole bunch of angry traumatized people. The quest party is largely made up from young sheltered people + Boorman (eccentric, likes to joke around, and not exactly reliable as a narrator), + Kase (appropriately worried & dies early on) + Silas (Willow's best friend), so their attitude might not be exactly representative of the general population.

As to banning magic: again, this might've been the fantasy equivalent of giving up your nuclear weapons in return for safety guarantees (and thanks to Russia we all know how That goes irl now. But this is fantasy) It's something Sorsha did to placate her neighbours and allies as well as her subjects. In that context whether trained sorcerers are mostly gone or not doesn't matter. If the surrounding countries think there's any potential future threat, then Sorsha providing them with a formal guarantee that Tir Asleen won't use magic against them again makes sense.

So yes within Tir Asleen -Nockmaar area sorcery is banned for political reasons on top of being virtually extinct as a craft/ knowledge because the people who could pass that knowledge on are gone. So no sorcerers for Sorsha.

But.

On a wider world building scale, we have two major factors:

a) Elora Danan, the most powerful mage possible in this setting

b) The Wyrm, who feeds on the magic

So. What if, on top of Bavmorda massacring other magic users resulting in a general lack of experts + Sorsha's (and possibly her allies) magic ban, there's a finite amount of magic to go around? Bloodstream of the universe and all-blood can be gradually replenished but an organism only can have so much of it. If this universe is an organism and Elora Danan is it's defence mechanism/immune system, could it be that the universe is draining resources away from its other parts to make sure Elora Danan has as much magic as possible available to her so she can fight off the parasite that is the Wyrm? (And then once that's done the magic will drain away from Elora and return to the world and the cycle will restart)

So other sources of magic are drying up in preparation for the great battle, and less and less sorcerers can access it. Remember how Willow is hoarding his magic early on? What if it's because he knows he only has a finite amount of it left and doesn't know if he'll be able to recharge soon if at all?

They really don’t make very much about how magic is outlawed do they

[domrom]

Really tired of not having all of my Ike art on here so I'm uploading a bunch of it today and tomorrow.

I started to write Carnageman: Ike during quarantine. We were in the midst of the first trump administration and the Jan 6th Capitol attack.

At the time, if I were given a magic lamp, I probably would've wished for a bunch of the republican elites to disappear. So I created a character that was totally invulnerable, one that didn't care about the hierarchy of the world, and would just act as a wrecking ball. My Ike. In an apocalyptic wasteland, where America's specific brand of corporate fascism has come to an end... still the weak are preyed on by those in power.

Born in a lab, Ike roams around the wastes, and in episodic fashion, goes from billionaire murder to billionaire murder. He was my genie wish.

Now what's funny is that- over time; My desire for barbaric corporate punishment started to wane. I got deeper into cooking, I traveled all over the country, and experienced a lot of love. So even though Ike is a catharsis machine, I wanted to make a character that cared. Ike want's to upend the world because he thinks it's putrid.

So I made The Struggler. Someone who want's to save the world because she loves it.

Whereas Ike is impervious, the Struggler's power is she cannot die.

Thematically this makes a huge difference. She isn't invincible, her wounds still hurt, they get repaired- but it demands amazing willpower and grit. She can still pass out from shock. She has to be physically unfeeling in order for her succeed. But Ike has to be unfeeling emotionally.

I wanted her efforts and pains to mirror people persevering in humanitarian work.

She's a huge fan of Ike, even though personally she could not be as unfeeling about murder the way he is. They end up journeying together, and learning from each other and changing.

Check my pinned post so you can see my Carnageman: Ike works. I always tell people it's basically my Metal Gear.

[coffeegnomee]

I feel like Ls!pangi doesn’t get talked about a lot like tr!pangi and I see analysis of other Lifestealers(mostly zam) and pangi just feels like a side piece for character development and want to see some love to ls!pangi

So Pangi on lifesteal doesn't get involved in the lore for like 90% of the time he is online. He used to a hell of a lot more back in s4, but around s5 he really started to hit his stride with his silly, more laid back video style. And in s6 he well full-out on making silly videos because he wanted to publish a video every single week from the start of the season to the end of the year. And in order to make people feel comfortable coming to his recordings, he became a pacifist and did not enter into the lore unless he found it absolutely necessary.

So that's the backstory on why people don't really write about ls!pangi. There just isn't that much to write about. And he isn't active, spending a lot of time on the realm (which is great).

He joked to Flame on the last session (saturday) that on lifesteal he is the weakest player, but on the realm he is the strongest. And that makes him approach the realm so completely differently.

That being said, his pacifism has strangely endeared himself to Flame, who generally hates pacifists but also loves Pangi's silly videos and wants to make sure Pangi can record. He went out of his way to help with the warden situation when mapicc dropped a bunch of wardens on Pangi's Christmas set, he helped stop the fire on the Christmas tree when Mane burnt it down and reprimanded Mane for being too much of a menace, and he is borrowing Pangi hearts (from his own secret backup in-case-i-get-banned-off-the-server-and-need-hearts stash) so all the chunguses involved in his Hunger Games will have 10 hearts.

Charmander duo is amazing and pangi's origin story with the lore is one of my favorite times of ls!pangi

In the early days of the season Flame decided to blow up spawn and Pangi decided to take it upon himself to talk to Flame, give him pseudo-therapy which turned into a really good mutual-understanding session that genuinely transformed Flame's mindset towards blowing up spawn more. He had Flame build a house and was incredibly supportive as Flame reluctantly approached building, and gently encouraged him to think about how much care people put into builds and how much pride you can have in your own accomplishments in building.

Flame was dead set in not playing along. Dead set in not getting any attachments to this house. Determined to say none of it mattered.

Pangi says he will blow up the house, to see what Flame really thinks. Flame gets really sad and asks him not to, and eventually Pangi relents giving the obvious analogy that clearly Flame care about this house and would rather not see it blown up, just as they would rather not see spawn be blown up.

The next day Flame threatens and does blow up spawn because nobody shows up for the fight, but when zam goes to investigate the damages, it is no where near as bad as the first time.

A couple days later, Pangi has been trying to coordinate the server into doing the 10v1 that Flame wants, but when he logs on, Mane starts being a menace to him. Mane stops being a menace to have a convo with Flame and Pangi about the fight, and everything is set. Pangi gets Flame to promise to make sure spawn doesn't get blown up again before the fight.

Pangi leaves but soon enough wemmbu shows up as well and starts threatening to blow up mapicc's castle. Pangi tries to get Flame to see that this is his responsibility, as a teammate of wemmbu, to prevent the destruction as per their agreement. Flame is lackluster and basically taking absolutely zero responsibility for wemmbu and mane, only saying he will not blow up spawn. Wemmbu is his ally, not teammate, he insists. This isn't good enough for Pangi, but Pangi leaves saying anything more and the deal is off.

Five minutes later Flame calls him back to his house, the one they built together. Wemmbu has blown it up. He mocked Flame for having a house then destroyed it in front of him despite Flame's pleas to stop. Flame is absolutely despondent about not being able to stop wemmbu in the slightest and doesn't know what to do. Pangi can see this is a huge struggle for Flame, but still insists Flame is the only one who can do anything; he can't and the server can't. They part for the evening.

Well, low and behold, mapicc was not happy in the slightest that wemmbu blew up his castle (for the second or third time at this point) and he tnt minecarted the circle of fighters that Pangi got together: 6 kills in one cart. It was legendary. Best cart in lifesteal history.

With the failure of this fight, Pangi gave up trying to be involved in the lore. He did what he could. Flame also more or less let go of the spawn battle, waiting a few weeks for a session and arriving with 1000 dogs and just killing whoever was around.

This was an Amazing series of Pangi lore, honestly one of my favorite couple of streams of the season. Watching Pangi genuinely approach the lore without great seriousness, actually using all of his brain to come up with ways to convince Flame and Mane and Wemmbu to stop, dealing with being helpless but pushing though despite it all because he believed Flame had a good heart. It was amazing pangi lore.

It was also in August. (8/25 to 8/29)

So.

Not too recent.

[malestroham]

RonToto Old Money AU (part 2)

Part 1

When Ron comes to Toto with a direct request to help him, Toto is offered to bet on provocations. Ron is young, so why shouldn't he get support from other young people? And what sells well among young people? That's right, outrageousness.

They take a bunch of photos, but the very first one goes on the cover, in which Ron still doesn't understand how he should behave, while Toto is desperately trying to hold his face in place and finally put on lipstick.

Needless to say, this lipstick soon ended up on Toto's face too?

As a result, the issue with Ron sells incredibly well, which brings Toto's publishing house a lot of profit.

The quote from Ron's interview, placed on the cover, does not go unnoticed by those to whom it was addressed

Well, if you asked Toto what lipstick tasted like, he would say cherry :)

Literally them

[bluebimbo120]

Okay, so. Yes, Jeff made this wrong choice and I'm not trying to argue it's right, but out of all the characters to harp on for the morally wrong/stupid choice, I find him an odd pick. If we take into account the time period on which he was raised, and his stay at home wife who has a bunch of trauma, he feels like he can't ask for help. I have known multiple people who were raised in that time period who are men, and have cited the way men's emotions (sadness, depression, sensitivity) were treated, as the cause of feeling unable to ask for help. + Having no other source of income, meaning that if the business goes down, he can no longer give his family the domestic suburban life that he's expected to provide. Again, not right, but there is an explanation as to why he did it. He felt he had no other choice, whether or not that was true.

Yes, they are in a marriage where they're sexually frustrated and struggling with communicating. That's a plot point. I know I didn't make it clear in my post about this, but I think there's a difference between struggling in a relationship and not accepting the other person in the relationship. She admits to murdering the person she cheated on him for months with, and yeah, he freaks out. He's scared, like he has the right to be, knowing what she's capable of. But instead of saying "Fuck it, you did this to yourself Shauna.", like he should have, he says "I'm not going to let you go down for this, I'll confess to the murder." So, okay, he says the weird lube comment. But he literally offered to turn himself in her place for her and their daughter despite having literally no expectation or requirement to do so. He even has reasons to let her lay in the bed she made.

He didn't have to stay married, or have a kid with her. Jeff could have divorced her as soon as he learned what went on. But he stayed because he did love Shauna, because he wanted to love her. Yeah they had sexual problems, but what relationship doesn't? Jeff shared his sexual fantasies, she laughed, it was weird. They tried and it was nice. Did Shauna ever explicitly tell him what she wanted? Did she put herself out there farther than the lube comment? I don't recall her doing so. ...I fear he's not a black and white character and can be as complex as everybody else in the main cast. To harp on a side character for not being sexually open enough/not being the greatest guy/being a distant husband, in a show where there's cannibalism, cults, curses, family crime, active murder, blackmail and dog decapitation, plus so much more, is insane to me.

TDLR: He's not an awesome person, not even good really...but he tries to be honorable and loyal to those he loves, even if it doesn't work or he doesn't succeed. That's something in a show like this. Jeff also has a current kill count that is lower than a majority of the main cast (cough his wife Shauna cough). So my main point still stands.

I'm sorry? But why do people hate Jeff? What? My man knows everything that went down in the wilderness, more than we currently even know. He accepts Shauna for who she is, or was and what she did out there. He loves his daughter. He defends Shauna against Jackie's parents. He tries to help and be enough for his family even if it's not a morally correct choice. But are any of the others morally correct? What, he's horrible because he's a man? Or because he got in the way of jackieshauna? Sighing bc give me a valid reason for why you hate him or get out.

[curiosity-killed]

curio's chaotic guide to corralling brain squirrels ✨for Capitalism✨

obligatory disclaimer: my only qualifications are having lived with Cocaine Squirrels In My Brain for my entire life and getting the fun experience of people regularly telling me "you can't have adhd, you're too organized/successful/put together" meanwhile i am regularly held captive by my brain zooming through deep dives on cicada facts at 1 AM on a work night

first off, the general overarching bits:

Come in at 70%. I tell this to literally everyone and am stealing it from my sister, but basically—don't come into your job at 100%. That 100% will be taken for granted by you and your coworkers and become the expectation, meaning when you have a day where the brain is holding you hostage or you're tired or hungover or for whatever other reason can only give 50%, it will be a crisis. Come in at 70%, so 50% isn't a huge deal and you can whip out the 100% for some special sparkle times.

Embrace the good bits. look, lbr. cocaine squirrels are not a great time, generally speaking, in a corporate 9-to-5 space. BUT sometimes there are perks. for instance, I am the person you want in a (corporate) emergency because the right pressure (and coffee and high BPM music) makes the squirrels band together and pull some damn good shit off in crunch time. whatever quirk you feel you can leverage, do it.

okay now more squirrel-corralling thoughts (am I doing this instead of my actual job? obviously.)

build a system of systems

okay i know if I say anything about a planner or to-do list, I will be shot on sight but. well. this is about planners and to do lists

I am a chronically aspirational planner user. I love the concept of planners. love to have such a tidy and organized way of going about life. And I can use planners—for about 1-3 months at a time, max.

what I've found works best for me is to have kind of a rotation of task tracking systems: sometimes my planner*, sometimes sticky notes plastered across my desk/wall, sometimes color-coded to do lists in an actual notebook, sometimes color-coded to do lists in my dry erase notebook, sometimes notes on my computer.

I don't think it super matters what you use so much as it matters to have things in place that you can swap to when your brain stops liking the one you're using

*this isn't an ad but I rlly like the Rocketbook planner specifically because it doesn't have a timeframe, so you don't have to worry about "wasting" it during the months you're not using it. just wipe it down and start fresh whenever it's back to being useful

agree to slightly more than you should (but watch out!)

if i have a normal workload, the effort it takes to make myself Do The Thing goes up by about 50% with a negative relationship to the quantity of work. ergo I am best off if I am just slightly overutilized—if I have about 9 hours of work to do rather than 8. That doesn't mean I always work a 9 hour day (because the squirrels and I fucking hate that) but it means there's just a little additional pressure to help make it easier for my brain to, y'know, execute.

THAT SAID, it is really easy to fuck this up. don't be like me and wind up basically doing an entire contract solo (that was supposed to be a 9-person team)!!! it's bad!

mostly i think this is trial and error, so figuring out the right balance for yourself will take getting it wrong some of the time.

the squirrels crave that novelty

this is also related to the first point, but I've found I get more done if I let myself bounce between projects/tasks more than probably makes sense to people who aren't possessed by manic rodents in their brain.

I try to break down tasks in a way that lets me cross something off (dopamine! or. something??) and lets me skip over to something different/novel as a break (e.g., today I need to copy edit a bunch, draft some appendices for a different project, and create an autopopulating tab for an internal project—so I copy edited one whole section, skipped over to the appendices to get a first pass down, hopped back to the next section of copy editing, and then switched to the internal project).

too much of this can feel like playing pinball with your brain, but giving myself the option to switch out into something different helps keep me from getting into the Dreaded Tedium Stage of things

flexibility and structure

this is going to depend some on your work structure, but use what flexibility you can. My work offers a flex schedule, meaning I can take a four hour break in the day as long as I make those hours up somewhere else. I don't. necessarily recommend?? taking a 4 hour break BUT sometimes the squirrels unionize and demand I vacuum the living room, and trying to ignore it and work will be infinitely slower and more exhausting than if I just get up and vacuum and then get back to work. other times, the squirrels stage a sit-in protest and i am stuck scrolling tumblr aimlessly or re-reading fanfic for no reason and then at 8 PM they decide they actually are willing to do The One Goddamn Task i absolutely must do.

it sucks and I genuinely really hate this part of ADHD, but the best option I've found is to sometimes let them win in the moment and come back to the challenge/ask at a better time (for instance, my energy/focus tends to be worst in the afternoon and much better in the evening, so it's easier for me to get something done in the evening than fighting squirrels all afternoon).

...and on the flipside, where you can impose some self-made structure, it can also help get the squirrels in line. calendar holds (i.e., putting an event on your calendar that's just for a task/project and turning on do not disturb for notifications) can help with this if you're able to stick with them (ime this is a skill that has to be built and practiced), organizing things by 'must do' vs 'quick wins' can help, etc. as with everything, it's a process, but finding a balance between where you can flex and where you can lean on structure to help you along has been beneficial to me

anyway idk if any of this is new or helpful but my personal squirrels have been sated and i do. unfortunately. actually need to work now kbye

[pacing-er]

Krakoa Era Reading List Cherik Version (part 7)

Disclaimer! There are a lot of titles I'm skipping in this period, simply because they focus on characters and plotlines that I don't care about. This story is complicated enough without side plots.

22. Hellfire Gala: Fall of X

I really liked this one! Any comic that shows off Charles powers is a 10/10 for me and this one is no exception. Added bonus is that he is wearing this super cute angel-inspired costume:

Also he looks so freaking pretty here omfg.

As is standard for all Hellfire Galas something goes horribly wrong, but this time it is much harder to come back from. Moira and Orchis show up with a bunch of Nimrods and reveal that they had interfered with the Mutant's medicines for mankind and installed a kill-switch which they use to take humankind hostage. Threatening Charles with mass human death, they force him to mind control all of the mutants on Earth to send them into the portals and off of Earth. Little did he know that they also hacked the portals, effectively turning them into meat-grinders which he just forced all of his people into (as far as he knows at least). Orchis then activates the kill-switch and many humans die anyways, but Charles in an act of desperation extends his powers to make it so they feel no pain and die peacefully. Idk I just thought that was a nice detail. The comic ends with a majority of mutant kind presumed dead, Emma leading the few survivors and an emotionally broken Charles sending Rogue off to "Avenge Krakoa". Very bleak stuff. It's all downhill from here folks!

23. Immortal X-Men (Issues #14-18)

Very cool, very convoluted. Basically covers two storylines: Xavier uncovering vital truths with the help of the Sinister that had been implanted inside of him, Hope and Exodus leading the mutants in the Noplace they'd been sent to after Hellfire Gala. A whole lot of twists and turns and it ends with a big reveal that I thought was super cool so I won't spoil it. Mother Righteous continues to ruin things for the mutants, and it's revealed that she was the one who hacked the portals to send them all to the White Hot Room (the mutant afterlife) in order to use Jean's power to become a Dominion. I liked Charles part in this comic a lot despite him spending a lot of it sitting around depressed in the ruins of Krakoa. At first we are led to believe that he is using his telepathy and newfound telekinesis to massacre the Orchis agents that Shaw brought there, but it is revealed to be the remnants of Sinister inside of him doing the killing. I like that it allows us to see how efficient and deadly he could be without conflicting his morals. He also has a beard in this comic which is... Something. I don't hate it.

Charles dynamic with the Sinister inside of him was very enjoyable imo. Hope and the other mutants were also very interesting, and I dig the Jewish parallels with them all stuck wandering in the desert "diaspora" in search for the Promised Land. They actually use those exact words.

That's the end of the Immortal X-Men run! This title in particular had some of my favorite moments so I'm definitely gonna pick up a physical copy for it

24. Jean Grey

Technically a prelude to the previous entry, in which we see Jean explore several different potential outcomes for mutantkind as she waits to be resurrected. It explains her appearance in the White Hot Room. Charles and Erik are in the first issue of this title, with special emphasis put on their relationship. We see Jean put Magneto into a catatonic state, believing that it would be better for mutants if he was out of the picture. Charles of course freaks out and immediately kicks the X-Men out of the mansion, and when they later return they find that Charles has restored Erik's mind and the two of them are living together. Due to the lingering effects of Jeans powers Erik is now wheelchair bound, so they're matching! The rest of this title covers Jean's various relationships and sort of serves as a character analysis.

25. The Resurrection of Magneto

I think that enough is explained at this point to read this story. Arakko was not affected by Charles command to walk into the portals, but they were busy dealing with a civil war so they are late to the game. Ororo goes into the mutant afterlife to retrieve Magneto's soul, since after the events of the Hellfire Gala Charles is no longer stable enough to lead the mutants. Some really epic symbolism and references to various moments in Magnetos history are shown, including the iconic scene from the original Trial of Magneto comic. Overall a great analysis of Magneto as a character, but the cherry on top was the focus put on Charles and Erik's relationship. Man is obsessed with Charles and it shows. Definitely a must-read for Cherik fans. I'd include some screen caps but I'd basically be sharing the full comic so I recommend you just read it.

I'm taking another break to read some older X-Men comics I got for the holidays so I'm cutting this one shorter than anticipated. Next are Fall of the House of X, Rise of the Powers of X, and X-Men: Forever! Then I need to go through Duggan's X-Men comics and see what I missed since the reading order lists I'm using and the titles on the free comic site don't match up and it's a whole thing. But I'm almost to the end! The next Krakoa era reading list should be my last 🎉🎉🎉