#and thus I also don't know the *exact* context in which it showed up and if it actually said what I think it does...

[true-blue-sonic]

What exactly is Silver's dynamic with Blaze? Specifically in Sonic 06, Colors and Team Sonic Racing?

I gave this some thought last night, because I feel like their dynamic between games is actually a bit different. Let's see!

Starting with Sonic '06, there is a bio that mention Blaze sees Silver as a 'younger brother': a Japanese bio for '06 has the term 弟 or otouto in it, which is a way to refer to a younger brother. Specifically, the translation from DeepL I get says "Blaze is strict with [her]self and shy around other people, but [s]he has feelings for Silver, whom [s]he works with, as a companion and like a younger brother." In general, Blaze seems to be the calming factor to Silver's more impulsive and hot-headed nature. She tells him to calm down when he expresses frustration about Iblis' undefeatability after the first battle with it, in the boss battles she's the one who comes in with warnings and tips on how to defeat monsters (e.g. telling him Iblis' weak spot is his head, or that Silver can destroy the armoured parts of the Egg-Genesis), and generally she's just a focused presence that motivates Silver to stick to his mission to save the future.

So generally, in '06 they are shown to have a close bond: for example, in the Test of Friendship Silver needs to undergo, Blaze is the one captured, and she gives him a very genuine-sounding "Silver, thank you." when she is freed again. She furthermore has clear trust in Silver, following him without a doubt when he presents to her a final plan to defeat Iblis that he is sure will work. Similarly, Silver is stated to be "young and somewhat immature" in an interview with Nakamura: he benefits from Blaze's calm demeanour and the fact she helps keep him on track. He is furthermore clearly distraught at the prospect of Blaze sacrificing herself to save the world, doubtfully asking if she is his friend (which Blaze doesn't answer directly, but I think the sentiment is a clear yes, she is, and she likes his naive nature. They say approximately the same in both Japanese and English, though Japanese does not state anything about Silver 'not knowing what to do' without Blaze.). Whether Silver sees Blaze as an older sister or just as a close companion, I cannot say exactly, though. But one thing is for certain: Silver benefits from having Blaze nearby him to keep him focused, and Blaze is similarly fond and trusting of him in turn.

And then the events of '06 got basically wiped, with Silver and Blaze's history alongside it. The first time they are shown meeting again in the games is Sonic Colours DS (where I'm not counting Mario & Sonic Winter DS). And in this game, their dynamic is actually a bit different! What happens is that Orbot and Cubot challenge Blaze and Silver to a fight in Eggman's amusement park, and promptly get trounced. Silver and Blaze lament that it wasn't a challenge in the slightest, but interestingly, in both the Success and Triumph endings, Blaze and Silver almost begin one-upping each other for a bit:

Succes:

Tails: I almost feel bad that those robots picked a fight with you two. Sonic: Heh, talk about unlucky. Silver: Right? Blaze: Don't exaggerate. I merely defended myself. And it was soon obvious how weak they were. I pulled my punches. Sonic: THAT was pulling punches? Yeesh.

Triumph:

Sonic: I'm still just surprised at how persistent those robots are. Tails: You're sure you guys are all right? Blaze: I could handle the likes of those two all day. Silver: Seriously. I could take care of those two myself, easy. Blaze: I could handle them by myself as well! Tails: Easy, guys. We're all friends here, and you work together well. Sonic: Yeah, you guys were in perfect synch. Blaze: Hmph. I suppose it was an easier fight with your help. Silver: It almost felt like we've paired up before. Tails: Wow, maybe you guys were partners somewhere, some time. I guess anything is possible!

Especially in Triumph, we see that Silver begins to almost brag ("Seriously" and "easy") about how he could have taken care of the robots himself, causing Blaze to defensively react that she could have done so by herself as well. I could be entirely wrong, but I do not recall an instance in '06 where the two of them were so competitive together, or almost disregarding of the other's efforts for a second. In other words, in Colours DS they do not seem to think that they needed the other there to help out... but the very moment an indication comes that they were fighting well together, Blaze relents and says that Silver's help was valuable to her all the same. In a kind of gruff, not very flattering way ("I suppose it..."), but definitely there. And Silver is the one who proceeds to point out that they feel familiar to the other, in a clear reference to '06.

What I think can be concluded from this game is that the alleged brother-sister relationship '06 stated they had, or at least their sense of close companionship, is not really there anymore. At least not to the levels it reached in '06. Blaze and Silver are effectively strangers who just happened to stumble across each other, and who are left only with a vague sense of familiarity and none of the memories explaining why that is the case. Silver says it almost felt like they've teamed up before, which to me does not express a clear sentiment of him being sure it actually happened. It seems more like a vague, odd-sense-of-deja-vu kind of musing. And yet, they are still noted to be in perfect sync with each other when it comes to their fighting, even if their statements about said battle might clash with each other somewhat. They're clearly alright with spending time together and are to be feared in battle, but the very tight-knit companionship they once had has been undone along with the events of '06, I think is accurate to say.

In Generations they are shown hanging out together somewhat at the end, but they don't talk, so that indeed brings us to Team Sonic Racing. In here, I feel like they have a closer bond than in Colours DS. Blaze genuinely compliments Silver at the end of a race, telling him he did a good job out there. She is also the one picking up that there's something on Silver's mind, which she asks about directly and gets an honest answer in turn to. And lastly, she very blatantly states she trust him, which I think for Blaze is a big deal: she's certainly less withdrawn than she was at the start of Rush, but she's still not one who makes friends very easily or who is excessively jovial and embracing of the power of teamwork. Laying out her trust so obviously is not something I think she'll do with every character. Overall, Silver and Blaze seem like better friends to me than they were in Colours DS, which makes sense considering they might simply have spent more time together.

So to conclude, I think we can say that Blaze and Silver are good companions. Blaze is the one with the level-headed nature that Silver can discuss his troubles with, and Silver in turn is someone Blaze appreciates for his honest, naive-ish and determined nature. I think it can be argued that Blaze regarding Silver as closely as a little brother is something that was mostly the case in '06 alone, due to them apparently growing up together (the wiki says Silver accepted Blaze for who she was even when other people were teasing her for her fire powers, but I feel like they're muddling Rush and '06 there. There also is no source linked, so I am not sure how reliable that statement is. But Silver clearly did not fear Blaze and her pyrokinesis despite the fact a fire monster is the one who'd destroyed his world, so I can see merit in the statement all the same.). With '06's story never happening in the first place, their close bond has been removed as well, but they seem to be rebuilding it to an extent in the later games. And what is also of note is that in a recent Sonic Channel story wherein everyone's memories were wiped, Silver and Blaze start out gruff and dismissive towards each other also, but it takes very little for them to begin appreciating each other once more. Also there they are in perfect sync in the end when it comes to their battling.

So tl;dr: good companions with mutual trust between them, where Blaze is the more supportive and level-headed one and Silver is the one who relies on her for guidance, but where she appreciates his nature. Arguably not as close as they were in '06, especially not in Colours DS, but I feel like it can be reasoned they are building towards that again with the time spent together in later games.

[foxymc]

ooh blorbo backstory game for qjaiden? :) (from what i've heard, it's somewhat of a mystery? so i'm curious as to just how much information there is or isn't!)

OKAY HI HELLO STRAP IN

Specifically for her backstory (life before the events of QSMP), I think we're going to need some context by going through some of what happened to her during QSMP. Maybe not entirely, I also just want to talk about that too lol

Jaiden is a bird hybrid. The exact kind of bird she is isn't actually confirmed and it might be possible that it's more than one or she's got other kinds of animal DNA in her. See here and at one point, she changed her shoes to ones that had bear pawprints on the bottom of them. Maybe a hint, maybe just a silly reference to Cucurucho. Who knows! But that is just speculation. The only thing we know for sure is she is a bird hybrid.

Interestingly, she only revealed she even had wings later on because she was just "hiding them under her shirt" before. Metawise, she just didn't have the wings as an item in her inventory before lol. But I definitely find it interesting she was just hiding her wings and thus, the fact that she was a bird hybrid for most of the series.

During the events of the QSMP, a few things happened: The Federation assigned everyone an egg (basically their kid) to take care of along with a partner. Jaiden and Roier raised Bobby together until unfortunately, Bobby died. Jaiden builds an entire house in memory of Bobby and then Cucurucho, a white bear that acts as The Federation's representative, approaches her. Jaiden wants to make sure none of the other eggs die and Cucurucho tells her they might be able to do that if she does a few things for them. So now Jaiden is doing tasks for The Federation which makes some people suspicious of her. Not much comes from the tasks she completes tbh. she just has to collect resources, conquers a dungeon (probably an old Federation base if I remember correctly?), and then there is this timer.

During all these tasks, Jaiden starts to grow close to Cucurucho and even though there are two nearly identical Cucuruchos, she can tell the difference between both of them (One of them is sillier and just less serious than the other)

Now comes basically all we know about her backstory. The thing about Jaiden is that she doesn't remember anything about her life before the island. The only thing we are told about her past is this book that Cucurucho gives her.

(It reads: Years ago, you helped us. Me. We need your help again. Will you accept? :) )

Besides this there isn't really anything concrete to go off of. There are potential clues that could hint at her backstory but at that point, we're just getting into speculation territory. All we really know for sure is she somehow helped Cucurucho in the past. I think this means she worked for The Federation but that isn't necessarily true. We just don't know.

Context for The Federation though is that they appear to be this organization that wants perfection. This is especially interesting because Jaiden is very chaotic at times.

There are rules on the island that The Federation imposes. Long story short, one time Jaiden wanted to get Cucurucho's attention and try to get some information out of him about what was happening on the island at the time. When he doesn't show up, she decides to break the rules just to catch his attention and force him to show up. Except she can't do it. She starts panicking and ends up not breaking the rules which again, she has a tendency to be very chaotic. Breaking a simple rule that The Federation set should not be difficult for her but it was.

Remember how she is a bird hybrid? SHE DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO FLY! WHY???

Speaking of that, there's this interesting detail about her wings.

Notice how they're named J0029?

Another bird hybrid's wings are just called 'Crow Damaged Wings' so.... why are Jaiden's wings named like that? Why wouldn't they just be called something generic like 'Wings'?

Anddddd I think that's all I've got. That's everything about her past that we know. At least that's coming to mind right now but I think I've got everything.

Hope this wasn't too hard to follow! Haha

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Do you have any critique for the designs of the Mudwings or Rainwings (from the Wings of Fire novels?)

okay, you know, i think i am going to just use this as a chance to talk about the most common pitfalls for dragon wing designs.

Wings of Fire designs are fine. the style is nice, the dragon designs are each unique enough from each other to stand out in their context. i can handwave some things about their anatomy because of the more cartoonized style and i will ignore the trope of making the evil dragons look distinctly more animalistic because it's clearly a series made for a younger audience.

but it still falls into the exact same dragon wing design problems i see absolutely everywhere. I've done it, you've done it, every single person who has ever tried to design a dragon in any style has done this. my points here are all based on the most common dragon wing type, which is the bat-like wing.

lack of patagium (the membrane between the shoulder and wrist) the Wings of Fire dragons are a bit awkward because some of them do have it and some of them do not and there does not seem to be a reason for this difference. the patagium is important! you really should have it on any dragon with that bat-like wing shape.

wing fingers extending past the membrane, especially with claws included. why are they doing that. when are those claws going to get used. wing fingers are built for the specific purpose of moving the wing. the only finger that should be extending out on its own with a claw is the thumb. unless you want to do pterosaur wings, in which case there are a few forward-facing fingers and one very long finger acting as the wing frame. honestly, more dragons should have pterosaur wings, they're an actual real life flying reptile and some of them were huge. please, we need more pterosaur-winged dragons.

membrane being way too deeply scooped between the fingers even when the wing is extended. this one makes me think people just don't actually know how wing membranes work. they are not a stiff material at all, but a very flexible type of skin. it should fold up between the fingers and near the body when the wing is withdrawn, but stretch out tight when the wing is extended. i know the scooped shape Looks Cooler but it's not very functional.

wing fingers being too stiff. those things move! they bend! they're very bendy! bats fly with a lot of finger curling. here are a few videos in slow motion that show the fingers and the flexible membrane really well: video 1. video 2. video 3. a lot of dragon designs i see just use the shoulder of the wing as the main point of motion. they won't even change the elbow angle. now, the elbow will never be fully straight in flight, but it should move too! I think one of the reasons people don't do this right is that it's just easier to use fewer points of motion in animation and obviously all dragons in motion are animated ones. but when you see it even on the hyper realistic style of dragons in things like Game of Thrones, it gets pretty frustrating. make those wings flex more. (and by mentioning the GoT dragons, I know they do move more than just the shoulder, but even their wing finger motion is very stiff, like the fingers only have one joint and the membrane doesn't move as much as it should)

elbow strut. you know what i mean. that weird little bone strut on the elbow on like every dragon design ever. it gets in the way of some very important membrane motion. it does not exist in any real life membranous wing that i am aware of. the closest you can argue for is that the yi qi, a dinosaur that might have had a membranous wing and also feathers, does have an odd strut-like bone and we don't know exactly how it was positioned. but from what i've seen, there is at least a consensus that it was connected to the wing hand, not the elbow. it might have been positioned parallel to the forearm and thus would create a strut-like shape extending at the elbow, but that's not how people draw the elbow strut on dragons. it always looks like there's just a weird stick attached to their joint. it serves no purpose. the reason people do this on their dragons is because they design the membrane poorly and need to add a strut to give the wing a bigger membrane. but this can be avoided if you just attach the membrane lower on the body to give it more surface area, and also let it stretch taut instead of making it scooped like it's slack even when the wing is extended. just do more studies of bat wings in motion and you'll have a better understanding of how your bat-like dragon wings should work.

[1moremilgram-enjoyer]

Alright, question. Does anyone know what these graphs that show up throughout Double are? They're driving me insane because the only thing I can think of them being is brainwaves, which has Implications (aka Trikoto coping). It doesn't look perfectly like it, but I think it's the best match.

Like, here's the thing. First, they look like functions, except both sides of the "y" axis are positive??? Which makes no sense, obviously. That makes it hard to figure out what they're supposed to be, since I don't know any graphs which are Like That. My only guess is that it means the value displayed is always positive or doesn't matter, meaning the plus signs are there only to indicate it's a graph, but it's not fantastic. Again, if someone has better ideas, let me know (and it's probably a good idea to check the notes of this post in case I'm being stupid btw).

But let's look. There's two distinct type of "functions" which appear; sine-like functions (wavy) and "spiky" functions. Here's the issue with that. Sine functions appear fucking everywhere in nature, so it's not like that really helps narrow down what we're dealing with here. And spiky functions like that just- they're nowhere to be found. I literally did a reverse image search on a Paint reconstruction to see if anything in the internet looked like that, but I was only finding electrical systems (icons, not graphs) and stuff that Does Not Look Related. So what are they?

Again, I'm not sure, but take a look at one of the contexts in which they appear.

(I apologize for the youtube scroll bar there, I can't be bothered to get these screenshots without going frame by frame)

On the left, Mikoto is sleeping with a sine wave next to him. On the right, John is awake with a spiky graph. The imagery of sleeping and dreaming is very prevalent in Double, as a lot of times (including the scene I'm referencing right now) switches between Mikoto and John are indicated by "Oyasumi" ('good night') for Mikoto and "Ohayo" ('good morning') for John (mostly, depends on exact theories). Not to mention all the times the word "dream" shows up, etc. Just look at the MV, it's filled with this type of imagery.

Which is what got me thinking these graphs could be approxiamates of brainwave graphs.

Notice how Gamma and Beta waves, associated with wakefulness, are pretty spiky. Not as sharp as whatever the fuck John's got going on, but pretty spiky nonetheless. Meanwhile, Theta waves, which some sources claim is associated to light sleep, looks vaguely like a sine function if you look at it with one eye closed.

Honestly, while the comparison is not perfect by any means, the fact it relates to so many of Double's themes like sleep and exploration of the mind makes me think this is the most likely thing. I reiterate, I am not completely confident on this, if you have better ideas let me know.

And this interpretation does work with most of it's appearances without much issue. We've already seen the "John is awake" thing:

(Note: For this post I am only taking into account things between the plus signs. Other scribbles can be interpreted as just that, scribbles to indicate a chaotic mental state, and will thus be disregarded)

It shows up alongside (presumably) John again in the "that'd be good" image flash.

And there's also this? Which I'm not sure qualifies. The plus signs are over the entire scene, while the spiky function is only on part of the scene.

Which makes me think it wouldn't quite count, but I can't be sure.

But you may have noticed I'm sort of ignoring the elephant in the room. Look at the graphs which appear alongside Mikoto:

There's usually two overlapping functions (if you ignore another two-function graph appearing at the very end of the "Mikoto is sleeping" scene). Which I imagine doesn't quite make sense even with DID (I mean, by definition a function cannot have two f(x) values assigned to the same 'x' value), but this is a symbolic function, it doesn't have to literally work. And if they are brainwaves, they would likely represent... co-fronting, presumably? Which sorta doesn't work unless Trikoto is real, as we never hear of John co-fronting ever. Doesn't help that the final image flash, as you can see, a few frames later gives a third function in a separate graph, so 2 + 1 imagery.

And it actually works pretty well. The first scene where this happens has two sine functions, one of which has higher frequency at the start, but slowly loses frequency until it fully overlaps. And in that moment, Mikoto wakes up and there's a switch to John. The deeper the sleep, the lower the frequency (<- massive oversimplification). So, Mikoto, who is already asleep at the start, probably has that sine function which doesn't change, and a second alter goes to sleep, going dormant.

Which fits, because later, when Mikoto is awake and panting, one of the functions is spiky (awake) while the other is sine-y (asleep). So there's a dormant alter here. But we then see a graph for presumably the alter right after, which is spiky and awake. Thus, the alter that's dormant is neither Mikoto nor the alter on the ceiling, therefore Trikoto.

That covers all the times these graphs appear in the MV (I checked. I have issues). So, again, not certain of any conclusions, but brainwaves is sorta the best I can come up with at the moment. Anyways, thanks for reading and take care!

[morrieandlicky]

E.M. Forster's journal entries relating to Maurice in his "Locked Diary"

Apologies in advance—I only had about an hour in the library to skim through the entire source, "The Journals and Diaries of E.M. Forster vol 2", which contains every journal entry of Forster from 1910 to the late 1960's. I thus probably missed some mentions of Maurice. But surprisingly, there were much fewer Maurice entries than expected—and many are short and subtle.

6th December, 1913:

The first mention of Maurice: "my novel goes slower."

(Some context: the short story mentioned here is Forster's gay erotic story which "shocked" his mentor Dickinson—and caused a rift between them. Meredith is the real-life Clive Durham who read Maurice's writing in progress and was utterly repelled by the story.)

31st December, 1913:

The second mention is also the most important and iconic one: "Edward Carpenter! Edward Carpenter! Edward Carpenter!"

The entry is a part of Forster's 1913 end-of-year reflection. It shows Forster mentally struggling with whether to proceed with the novel. It's also confirmed that the day he formulated the love story in his mond during his visit to Edward Carpenter and George Merrill—the real-life Maurice and Alec—is 13th of September, 1913.

Also, the Greenwood here is not the same greenwood Maurice and Alec escape to. It's Leonard Greenwood, a close confidante of Forster who was very important in producing and preserving the first manuscript of Maurice, and who fell apart with Forster later.

June, 1914:

Completely my fault—I failed to capture the exact date and wider context, but I do remember it being a very brief mention of Maurice in the summer of 1914.

31st December, 1914:

Another end of year reflection. We see that Forster was able to mend his relationship with Dickinson who liked and approved Maurice. Also, we can guess of Meredith (H.O.M.)'s continuing aversion to the novel, Greenwood's relationship with Forster deteriorating, and Forster feeling indebted to Edward Carpenter (E.C.).

(The next and last entry about Maurice I found is from the '1950s... I might have missed some mentions. But it must be noted that Maurice was revised many times between 1914 and 1959. There was even a point in 1932 when Forster finalized a manuscript that had a much less satisfying ending between Maurice and Alec without the epilogue.

Forster's letters with his friends who've read Maurice do show us his own thoughts on the story's ending as well as what drove his revisions across decades. His diary, however, does not.)

31st December, 1952 and 1st January, 1953:

Context: in 1951/1952, Forster was encouraged by another gay novelist Christopher Isherwood to add more scenes between Maurice and Alec, and so Forster did, enthusiastically and very quickly—after many years of refusing Isherwood's requests to add more scenes (we don't know what Isherwood said to Forster to sway him). Hence, the hotel chapter after the British museum was manually added to the 1932 finalized manuscript—clipped in, actually. The "Maurice's end" mentioned here is probably not the hotel chapter, however, but likely Maurice's final farewell to Clive.

That's it. Though the novel wasn't completely finalized until 1959 when Forster managed to unite Maurice and Alec at the boathouse in explicit writing. Before then, their reunion was only implied, which is why the 1932 ending is a big let-down since it didn't have the monologue.

Lastly, some interesting diary entries from Forster:

Why was Forster drawn to lower class men? Carpenter explained himself.

2. Forster moving on from his first love Mohammed el Adl, a lower-class Egyptian who ended up marrying a woman and likely broke up with Forster on very bad terms. (Spoiler alert: Forster failed to move on... Plenty of mentions and entries about Mohammed later on.)

Context: the relationship between Mohammed and Forster is much like the one between Maurice and Alec—they probably had their own episodes about class struggles and "blackmail" in real life—except the happy ending.

3. Um... Did Forster and Bob have a lot of rough sex?

4. Lastly, some mentions of Edward Carpenter and George Merrill in his diaries after Forster became neighbor with them since they moved from Millthorpe to Guilford.

I like how George Merrill is described as "skittish". You'll know it's very characteristic of him if you've read Edward Carpenter's biography on George Merrill.

Context: Moh. refers to Mohammed. This was around 1922 after Mohammed left Forster and got married and then died. We can see that the end of their time together was rather unpleasant.

Source: The Journals and Diaries of E M Forster Vol 2 by Philip Gardner

[lemonhemlock]

bg3 anon, replies are under the cut!

Anonymous asked:

Thank you for putting everything everything under the cut. It helps a lot :)

"Yes, the blatant ignoring of his actual lines is what gets me. :)) " That's the most annoying part about it isn't it? The game is very blatant about it being the bad ending for him but they completely ignore all the signs. Astarion himself literally says thank you for helping him break the "cycle of power and terror" (not kidding, he uses those exact words) which is a bit hilarious as it pretty much shows you the fact that the writers didn't fully trust part of their audience to get the message, so they decided to spoon-feed them to be 100% sure, just in case. Still, it didn't work! Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

It gets even funnier though. When you explore Cazador's palace and dungeon you'll find his former master's (Vellioth) skull. It will tell you the rules of vampiric existence, the most relevant ones being to always dominate and allow no one to be your equal & to not share power with others as sharing means you are weak, and being weak means to die. It's pretty much what Astarion tells you in act 1 about true vampires not wanting to create a possible competitor. You'll also find some more insight into Cazador's life as a spawn. He was treated and abused just as badly as Astarion was, if not worse. At some point Cazador tried to reach out to a friend of his only for Vellioth to find out about it and punish him by draining his friend dry in front of him. He also tried to rebel against his master and was punished for it by being impaled for 11 years.

If you go and fight Cazador without Astarion in your party, you can cast Detect Thoughts on him while he is trying to heal himself in his coffin after the initial fight. You'll find out Cazador grieves his current existence ("the monster that will not end") and longs for the boy and the man he once was. He may have taken the all the power and his former's master place, but it still ended up trapping him in this cycle of neverending abuse and terror, a cycle that has been repeating for centuries with all the vampire lords and those who managed to take their place. It's a very sad situation.

Everything is very much a foreshadowing of what will happen if Astarion ascends. But do the wives care? No. It simply doesn't apply to their vampire boyfriend, because...reasons. There is also the irony of ascending Astarion just so he could enjoy and not burn in the sun anymore after the tadpole is gone and him telling you he plans to cover the world in darkness (thus block out the sun) anyway for his future spawn...

And look, I'm all for people interpreting a piece of media however they want but there are certain instances where both the text and the context are extremely clear and to come up with the opposite message and insist that is the right one is bizarre, if not deluded. Sometimes yes, there is more vagueness and one can reasonably come up with multiple and equally valid interpretations (and there are a few cases in this game, I'd argue) but that's not always true. This goes for everything really, not just this game.

I guess this is just further proof that, if someone has the predilection towards delusion and exaggerated fiction escapism, it doesn't matter how explicit you make the message. It's not going to stand in the way of their mental gymnastics. It definitely a case of shoehorning some kink fantasy into this (or any) story and closing the metaphorical eyes and ears to make it work. Which, like you said, each to their own, but it's so annoying to see someone actually try to defend that position without a shred of self-awareness. :))

I do feel really bad for Astarion's psyche, though, he's probably the character with the most amount of baggage. Like, can you imagine the roller coaster of emotions of being kidnapped by mind flayers, waking up in the sun after centuries, going over the initial shock of somehow not burning alive, then finding out there is a real possibility that you're about to turn into a squid person any day now? You can't even enjoy being away from your eldritch tormentor without worrying about tentacles sprouting from your face and losing your sense of personhood, being replaced with god knows what. You're all alone, have limited survival potential on your own and thus feel the need to make sexual passes at the group leader in hopes that they'll keep you around, if only as a sex toy, because some shelter is better than no shelter, so what if you have to sell your body for scraps again? It's not like anything you haven't done before. Ngl, I would have lost my marbles. :)) I guess this is why I'm more forgiving of Astarion's condescension than I am of Gale mansplaining the Weave to my wizard tav. :))

I have to say, I recently saw a little clip of Auntie Ethel hurling personalized Vicious Mockery insults at various character and her lines for Astarion were "is that rat I see between your teeth, slave" or something akin to him deep down actually enjoying being leashed. ☠ Took me out fr! Ethel did NOT come to play!

By the way, I'm sorry if I spoiled too much? I try to leave as many important bits as possible but since you knew so much of this already from your friend and bf, I figure you don't mind. Still, if you do please do tell me.

"Like, if I were going into this blind and let him ascend for the lols, I would immediately go back to an earlier save because I couldn’t stand that level of clapback. :)) And, generally-speaking, I wouldn’t let anyone in my camp achieve god-like levels of power because I just don’t think anyone should be entrusted with so much ability. " I do recommend on creating a separate save file for the ascended route if you're romancing him, at least for the sake of exploring the alternative route it offers for his character and the dialogues, but for sure he becomes unbearable as you'll immediately be inclined to go back to an earlier save like you said.

Maybe, but I could NOT stand his pale ass smarming at me. He's here to serve and fight crime, even if I have to drag him kicking and screaming!

Also, did you say "god-like levels of power"? Well, I regret to inform you but one of Gale's possible endings is him ascending to…godhood, if you're pushing him in that direction. Not even kidding. It's too bad the game doesn't allow you to put a flag in the center of your camp and write "NO ASCENDING ALLOWED. FOR ANYONE." on it. Maybe someone could make a mod?

Gale is most definitely NOT approaching godhood in any capacity. I could not STAND this mediocre white man overpowering ME!

I am, though, debating on whether I should let Volo perform brain surgery on him. Mayhaps I will!

"But it’s better to convince him against ascending, even if you have to break up with him. Not sure if those things are mutually exclusive, but, at the end of the day, he’s an elf, I’m a human, we have different life spans and couldn’t be together for a long time anyway. :)) " You can convince him against ascending and still keep the relationship. As far as I can remember, he breaks up and leaves the party if you don't help him at all when it comes to deciphering the meaning behind his scars in act 2 (which are tied to the Ascension ritual). He also does it if after you defeat Cazador, you initially say you're going to help him with the ritual (he won't be able to do it by himself at all) but then immediately change your mind at the last moment just when it is about to start.

You do however need to pass a persuasion check to convince him not do it and yes, if you fail it he doesn't ascend AND breaks up with you and leaves the party. There is also a Wisdom/Insight check that, if passed successfully, will tell you the promise of power the intense smell of blood in the air are intoxicating him indicating the fact he doesn't think clearly at the moment.

There is also a scenario where you even end up fighting him, but I don't remember the exact combination of dialogue options that will lead you to this outcome.

Thanks for the tip! I knew having high charisma would come in handy eventually.

The wives cling to the persuasion thing and they interpret it as you coercing Astarion into not ascending, but I think that's missing the mark entirely as persuading someone in this game doesn't equal coercion. Characters being opened to persuasion usually means they have an open mind, that they are capable of changing their opinion when you show them a better alternative. That's not the same thing as manipulation.

Even if it were manipulation, I'd still do it for his own good. Dumbass needs all the help he can get. 😂

Oh, good that you mentioned your Tav being human. There was an insane take about this a while go when some wife legit said you are being cruel to him by romancing him with a human due to their short lifespan...like how could you do this to him? Other wives even think you are ableist and get angry if you want to cure his vampirism, by the way. I would also add that in D&D there are various possibilities to extend your character's lifespan. Of course, the game doesn't offer you this but it's something that could happen within the universe. I personally like the angst mortal/immortal ships have so I chose not to headcanon something like this though.

Glad to know I have already joined the ranks of his abusers. 💪 Us antis got to stick together!

ABLEIST because you want to cure him of his vampirism.............that's wild :))))))))) How about I cure him of that and the price is that he'll get to live the remainder of his life in human years.... because I am NOT spending an elf eternity with that man. 🤙 A century is more than enough.

The Tav I romanced him with was also human…and so is my second Tav actually. I'm usually one of those boring ones who plays human characters even if the game lets you be something else.

IKR! Not bothering with other races, my imagination does not swing in that direction. :))

"I showed this to my boyfriend and we joked about buying the Zara Astarion!knock-off shirt. In all honesty, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from laughing, so the whole cosplaying element would be for nothing. 😂 And I agree, I don’t…….. get…….. humanoid sex dolls, but spending so much money on a literal waifu pillow is " Lmao if you pair that Zara shirt with some leather pants, then find a silver haired wig you could have your own Astarion. It could make for a nice outfit for Halloween!

Agree though, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from laughing either.

The wives also spent a fair amount money on this figurine by the way (warning! very nsfw https://www.gkcollectors.com/products/god-pan-studio-the-pale-elf ) Not kink shaming anyone but come on lmao.

What on god's green earth!!!! Why does his cock look like a fat worm!!!! Why did they give him that cringe expression!!! 😭

I sometimes wonder if the Snapewives were this insane about their guy. It's a pity I wasn't in the HP fandom back then so I can't compare them.

Oh, the Snapewives could give them a run for their money! They built literal altars and were imagining themselves in real astral marriages.

"Yeah, I’m gonna summon the ogres in the goblin camp, too, thanks for the tip against this boss. I’m hoping the ogres will die in battle, but, if not, I’ll kill them myself to get that Circlet. " When I summoned them I had Astarion get (while hiding behind some wall I think) as close as possible to Dror Ragzlin while the rest of the party was farther away because I didn't want the game to drag everyone else into the fight. I then had him sound the horn. The ogres appeared and started to fight Dror and his minions and when most of the participants in the battle were dead or close to dying, I then dragged the whole party into the fight and simply finished everyone off. It did took me a few tries in the beginning because Astarion ended up being spotted, but it was worth it.

For some reason, the ogres did not show up for me in Dror's throne room, no matter how many times I sounded the horn. So I ended up summoning them in the courtyard, then, by the end, moved Mirta towards Lump and moved Lae'zel away. Then, while mid-conversation with Mirta, I switched to Lae'zel and Lump was dead after a couple of smacks. So I got my hands on the Circlet of Intelligence. Plus Auntie Ethel's hair, I can basically dump INT to 8 and still get INT 18. But I'll wait until after the Creche because I want the Gloves of Dexterity, too, so that I can dump DEX as well in my reclass. Tank!Mirta incoming!

I'm also thinking I'm ready to change the difficulty to medium now (I heard I can do this mid-game). The goblin battles weren't really challenging on easy and I am intrigued by multiclassing, which I can not do on easy. Dror, for example, was SO easy to kill, I just put Lae'zel and Karlach nearby and they made quick work out of him, he was gone by the third turn max. Elixir of Bloodlust on Karlach is insane.

"I tried but after Astarion reads it, it will not open for me anymore. Also, I’m sorry to report that giving him the book only got me a +5 approval rating. 😅 I’m currently at 39, so I’m gonna bring him with me to the goblin camp, too." It will only work on the party member who took the book initially. If you gave it to him back in the cellar, only him and no one else (including your character) will be able to benefit from the bonus it will offer. Ah, I think I misremembered the bit about receiving +10 approval if you give him the book. Still, +5 is still a high number. By the way, once you hit 40 approval rating he should propose you to sneak off and sleep with him at night...you are not far away from that. If he doesn't then don't worry, you can still do it at the party.

So I did a little reading and realised the goblin camp was a rich field of easy approval points for Astarion (and for Lae'zel and Karlach, too), that I just had to re-do it. During my first run, I didn't really stop to talk to all the goblins and missed many opportunities. And I didn't really even have to do anything evil, just chaotic and dumb, like flinging worg dung at the guards. Also, there is a barn in the Blighted Village where an ogre and a bugbear are having sex. If you go there BEFORE entering the goblin camp and let Astarion interrupt them*, you get 5 bloody approval points in one go. Crazy. After that, he made his advances towards Mirta and then the sex scene triggered when I hit long rest.

*you will have to separate yourself form the rest of your party and just knock with him at the door

"I did hear that Minthara was funny, which is why I’m interested in having her in my camp. A shame that Halsin is so boring! For a sex bear you’d think he’d be more LOL?" He is tied to a major quest in act 2 but other than that...yeah they didn't bother at all with giving him something else to do in act 3 besides sex and complaining about the city (he also has some fans that can be very annoying in their defense for his character). It's a pity because he had more potential as a character. Even Minthara who although wasn't intended either to be a companion either, still has something else going on considering she has a past with one of the main villains.

If nothing else, Halsin will be nice to have for some added flavour and the ability to play with a druid. Minthara, too, because she is a paladin and I have none in my party. Pity you can't make Volo a companion!

"Love to hear that she dunks on Gale, man’s become bottom tier in my companion list alongside Shadowheart. " When you recruit Minthara, Gale is like "I suspect a heart of gold lurks beneath her appearance" & "once she gets to know me I'm sure she'll open up, she just needs someone to listen." And she literally is like "LMAO, no!" I lowkey like them as a crackship though, this guys does need someone like her to put him into his place.

I am so looking forward to hear her dunking on Gale.

Shadowheart still hasn't grown on you? :( Such a pity. At least she tried, I suppose?

It's the obsession for her shitty god and the fact that she misses every single sacred flame I select. 😂 You need A LOT of patience with her to get past her eyerollish Shar worship and her mean emo girl shtick. I know she has a backstory and was probably kidnapped and brainwashed by Shar cultists, but, my god, the attitude!

Funnily enough, I think her and Lae'zel have many traits in common - rudeness, blind fanatical faith in something, arrogance etc - but Lae'zel is fr my fave.* I just find her so funny, inappropriate and extra, in a way Shadowheart isn't. We were in the Grove after defeating the goblins and, imprompted, she told a tiefling child he should get over himself because at his age she had already killed???? her own cousin???? girl fr who asked 😭🙏

(only surpassed by Karlach, because she is... basically perfect, but so sweet it's very easy to like her)

Frustratingly enough, Lae'zel and Karlach have me at the lowest approval ratings in the party :)) 31 and 29, respectively. But we'll do the creche next, so I'm hoping they'll grow.

"His reveal about him being Mystra’s lover just gave me the ick - that’s such a story only a MAN could tell. Becoming the buttboy of a goddess who couldn’t give two shits put together about you (otherwise why wouldn’t she help him with his current condition) is soooooo lame. Also he came off much too eager about Raphael’s offer which is another dumb man take. I get that he’d want to get rid of his weave problem, but he only has himself to blame for that in the first place. We’re NOT vibing atm." Lmaoo don't ever tell this to the Galewives, they absolutely hate Mystra's guts as they believe she is his groomer. It's very debatable if she really could be called a groomer in the first place, to me it always seemed like those fans only want to absolve Gale of any responsibility. It's very much HIS fault and no one else's as to why he ended up with that condition. Like you said, he only has himself to blame. Truly. I also agree, him considering Raphael's deal is a dumb man take. Even Astarion didn't agree.

Yes!!! Thank you!!! And, in any case, I think you can fight Raphael even if you didn't take his deal, so I'm not missing out on anything.

I think Mystra is equally lame for cavorting with (and discarding) a human like that, but groomer? Let's bffr.

The Galewives also think Gale is autistic coded and if you hate on him too much, you might being ableist yourself. Lol. Of course, they are not as bad as the Astarionwives with their buffoonery but you still have to be careful about what you say about him. Defending Mystra in any shape or form is guaranteed to trigger them. The good thing about them is they don't delude themselves with "but God Gale is his actual good ending" like the Ascendedwives do with their husband. Now that I brought this up, I actually do remember one discussion where an Ascendedwife was trying to defend Gale becoming a god because "he says he wants to!" and paint it his good ending, only for a Galewife to show up and be like STFU you clown.

Gale is NOT autistic coded, what the hell? If anything, he is privileged rich kid coded.

"I hadn’t even considered period blood fics, my goodness. =))))))))))))) I mean, if I were to entertain this train of thought, this is a fictional realm, why wouldn’t period blood count? It’s magically-infused by being associated with fertility and the like! Think, wives! “Lacking the proper nutrients”, my arse. " There are people who are into this kind of thing in real life but it's apparently too gross for a fucking vampire lmao.

He's been eating RATS until recently, how could this be more gross 😂

I also regret to inform you, but the latest period blood discourse (which originated on Reddit, mostly as an unserious, shitposting thing and surprisingly not something the wives provoked) has breached containment. Someone had the bright idea a few days ago to ask Astarion's writer about it on Twitter. Thankfully, he refused to use his powers as a writer to give an answer and said he will let the debate to rage on. Seriously now, I do find this a bit...embarrassing? I've always hated it when fans go to the writers and the actors to have their headcanons or interpretations confirmed since they obviously want that just so they could dunk on other fans. Just let people imagine whatever they want.

Yeah, it can quickly delve into inappropriateness, but it can also be shitposting idk :)) Gotta judge it on a case-by-case basis. The writer refusing to reveal whether period blood is nourishing for vampires in BG3 is kind of hilarious, though.

"Thank you! I’m currently debating about what to do with the missing shipment. I feel bad about killing Rugan and Olly after I’ve JUST saved them from gnolls, but the Zhentarim sound like major arseholes, so I’m contemplating just playing nice until I can trade/loot them, then killing them in their hideout. But if I spare Rugan and Olly now, won’t I just end up killing them in the hideout? Seems like the same outcome. I wish I’d get an persuasion check to convert them or something. Or at least Olly, as Rugan seems to be more shady. Although he was very nice to me after I saved his skin!" Yeah, the Zhentarim are majos assholes. I initially opened the shipment myself but still ended up going to an earlier save (I lost like 3 hours of gameplay) as I found out it will lock you out of having access to some very unique items from their merchant. You also get a nice crossbow as a reward if you return the shipment intact without opening it to their leader. You can still choose to attack everyone afterwards (and get the shipment back, if you REALLY want to find out its contents), although it isn't required and you can leave them in peace (you may want to explore their hideout anyway as there are some chests out there with unique items). Also no, you can't choose to spare Olly if you decide to turn on everyone. Either way, I wouldn't worry too much about this quest, its outcome doesn't matter in the long run at all.

I did get Harold and managed to trade with the merchant. I tried to make the painter make a portrait of Astarion, as I figured it would be a nice gift for him to be able to see himself, but I could only free him. (Of course, Astarion disapproved both that and me giving him money for the road).

I think I completely forgot about the shipment though! That cave is so big and I kind of lost myself picking up everything from the ground, so I don't really know where it is? Or if I can go back? Was it where Zarys was standing?

Anonymous asked:

BG3 anon again! I put together a few crazy screenshots of the wives being insane as I figured out you may want to get a laugh. :)) I didn't want to put this in my previous message as I don't want to attract any negative attention to your blog.

Link: https://imgur.com/a/wives-being-insane-lDwQwi2 (I hope it works)

This is barely 1% of the shit they say, sadly. Also, I was careful to not put any spoiler-y stuff that you may not know about yet, but yes they can be even more unhinged than this. The first and the most recent one is personally my favorite, the wife there dropped quite the gem about GRRM who, according to her, did not convey any message in his work…I fear I may never get this quote out of my head. Wives, please leave ASOIAF alone!!! We don't want even more craziness over here.

Thank you for this, I passed it to my own group chat for a good laugh. the wife declaring that the message of ASOIAF is "Winter is coming" tells me everything I need to know about their media comprehension skills. :))

The Gale scene where he tries to teach you about magic triggers for everyone once you hit a certain approval with him, it's not because you flirted with him before. You did well by choosing the imagine a hearty meal together option, that should lock you out of romancing him (although you'll have a second chance at the party if you want flirt with him there).

Phew! I even had Lae'zel come onto me unprompted at the goblin camp. With 30-ish level approval!! She's crazy lol. She gave me the "I want to taste you" line. Before that, she asked Astarion at the waypoint why he hadn't attempted sleeping with her. After he slept with Mirta!! Lae'zel!!! 😂

I won't say anything about the dream guardian…that's too much of a spoiler and trust me it's better to not find out anything about this one.

Yeah, I just made the decision that I don't want to have the Illithid menu activated, even if nothing will happen if I just take 1-2 tadpoles. But, for RPG reasons, we're doing all of this shit to get rid of them, why would I add more of them, you know?

Tbh Astarion's flirting is super cringe, I honestly don't get how so many of the wives get so horny at his lines. Or why they like this side of him so much. He sounds like a third rate pickup artist.

Right?? It would work so much better if he took it down a notch or two. Atm it's mainly pantomime. I nearly gagged when he talked about "our mutual ecstasy".

As long as you knock out Minthara she should show up in one piece later at Moonrise Towers in act 2. Also yes, you don't have to get her to be temporarily hostile anymore. Just initiate the fight. Make sure though you take out the war drum and the scrying eye, otherwise reinforcements will show up.

Again - as long as you knock her out you are good to go. Speaking with her before meeting Halsin shouldn't matter, but just don't take him with you in your party when you go to her. Having him in your party will also turn the entire goblin camp hostile automatically, so you may want to keep it in mind. Most players knock her out at the goblin camp but there is also the option to pretend you are her ally, show her the grove's location, take a long rest and then betray her once she shows up at the location. You can knock her out there as well during the fight. Both options work but doing it at the goblin camp is much easier since it's one battle less. It's also safer since during the siege you risk getting her killed by one of the tieflings if you are not careful.

I managed to knock her out and free Halsin so fingers crossed!

Don't worry about the other messages, you can answer them when you want. I don't mind.

💚

Anonymous asked:

You must have done the deed and let him bite you I guess...if you already have him at 74 approval!

Yesssssssss, I let him interrupt the barn sex between the bugbear and the ogre and that was so alluring for him he couldn't stand one minute longer without Mirta so he propositioned. And ofc I "offered him my neck" during intercourse, those are free points right there! 😂 74 points I got after finishing the goblin camp, a lot of free +1s over there that stack up + getting Loviatar's Blessing ofc.

But that's good, it means you really are on your way to become a real wife, although I hope you won't be a Snapewife type like so many of them are. Just kidding, I know you won't lol <3

Building him an altar in camp as we speak! 😂

Short story: there was some discourse in the fandom this week (I won't go into detail right now because it's a long story and it's better to put it under a "keep reading" post, just in case lol) but a wife "accidentally" got involved in some of the drama and lo and behold...she was one of those types who believes she's in a real relationship with the guy. They recently celebrated their three months anniversary. So happy for them! Now seriously...we may very well be on our way to a Snapewives 2.0 revival!

Oh god, well, it was only a matter of time, was it?

I also took a look at HOTD Twitter and unsurprisingly, people are still triggered by Helaemond and there is still harassment going on all of it over shipping, so I guess nothing changed over there. Oh and I saw TGC's friends got harassed by his fans. Yikes.

Im Westen Nichts Neues then LOL

Speaking of fans, a Shadowwife (or maybe it was a Shadowhusband) gave her actress a vibrator as a gift lmao. And the box had already been opened.

My friends told me. Wild! Guess shadowwives are throwing their hat in the ring for the title of weirdest micro-fandom.

Hope that chicken schnitzel was good, by the way!!

It was! The heartiest meals are the ones you eat languidly after a long day! :))

[auspex]

what's mark's relationship with his sire like?

holy shit. another question about my oc AND i got to dump his story to another new mutual today... im being spoiled. now for ur question. another long text dump below.

Context needed: its 2000, so before the fall of Vienna, thus Tremere can be (and almost always are) bound to their sire and the seven.

In addition, in our game, we modified blood bonds a lil from how they are in v5. So instead of there being like, 3 levels to it, its basically a whole range - many different levels of being bound, generally scored 1-10. I enjoy it a lot it adds drama and such.

Context needed: its 2000, so before the fall of Vienna, thus Tremere can be (and almost always are) bound to their sire and the seven.

In addition, in our game, we modified blood bonds a lil from how they are in v5. So instead of there being like, 3 levels to it, its basically a whole range - many different levels of being bound, generally scored 1-10. I enjoy it a lot it adds drama and such.

Mark's sire is named Julius.

How does Mark feel about him? Awe; adoration; and fear.

Julius essentially hand-picked him to be turned, having folks spy on him for a few years. I assume OOC that Julius spied on others too and selected one based on that. Regardless, he was embraced for a Reason, and that reason is to help Julius's plans.

Julius requires weekly reports from Mark, as well as various other tasks. They meet in person once a month so that Mark can drink his blood. He was initially bound at level 7 or 8, but it has been lowered to 7 or 6 because Julius said he did well and has proven he can have more autonomy. (I don't know the exact level).

Julius has demonstrated the ability to see what Mark is seeing at any time (a high level Auspex ability) and has spoken to him telepathically often. Also just straight up mind reading when in the same room. Mark does not get privacy when it comes to Julius.

Now this is of course fucking horrifying, but Mark doesn't feel that way - because he can't. He's heavily blood bound. He desperately wants to please Julius. That's not to say there is no fear there, he does worry about what happens if he displeases him, is concerned for the safety of himself, and Sampson, but its just not to the extent that a rational person would be.

As stated before, the best word to describe Mark's feelings towards Julius would be awe. He feels truly thankful for all of the help Julius has given him. He feels honored to have been chosen, in a way. Were he not blood bound, Mark would just be terrified.

Recently, Sampson got Mark to realize that rationally, the only reason he has to follow Julius is out of fear, and that he may be evil. It is the first step to wanting to actually get out of the blood bond. Thanks Sampson! HOPEFULLY JULIUS DOESNT GET WORD THAT YOURE DOING THIS. what could go wrong.

Julius himself is over a thousand years old. He was around when the Tremere became the Tremere Clan instead of house Tremere. He is Lord of the state of Michigan and a few others which I forget right now, so he is really high ranking in the Tremere. (Mark isn't of a low generation because Julius artificially lowered it to 11).

Julius does not show himself in person much. The Reagent of the Detroit chantry, and Tremere Primogen in Detroit, Gaius, has... how you say.... Long Standing Beef with Julius. Because Julius made him murder his own son many centuries ago. And he is also the childe of Julius - so technically Mark's blood brother! (He is NOT brotherly though, lmao). But... yeah. Gaius has eternal hatred for Julius. That is part of why Mark is spying :)

Julius sees Mark as a useful tool, who has for now been loyal and effective. He has other childer, Mark is just in a strategic location and so sometimes gets extra attention. Mark knows Julius does not care for Sampson or humans in general; in an early conversation Julius said Mark could have "many Sammys" if he wanted. So I don't think he... understands human relationships anymore. Lmao.

There are only a few things Mark has hid from Julius... one of which is a changeling contract he's stuck in, which is a tale all its own.

[kuzann]

Jack's exact lines on the matter in Bitter Reunions are "We haven't spoken since that day. But the good news is, I think after all these years, he's finally forgiven me." Now granted, Jack is 100% an unreliable narrator, but imo his using "we" here suggests one of two scenarios: Jack ditched Vlad and never tried to reach out from the get-go, or Vlad refused to let Jack see him in the hospital and Jack backed off. The fact that he's only trying to reconnect now that Vlad has invited him back can also suggest that he was waiting for something like that to happen before trying to talk to Vlad again.

My issue is that we don't get direct confirmation of which one it was in canon, and that allows different interpretations of what happened. Heck, the "you abandoned me for 20 years" bit would've been a great grievance for Vlad to bring up in Phantom Planet, but no it's just "you turned me into a mutant freak and married the girl I loved" and that's it. That could've confirmed which one it was, but still nothing.

To Jack never telling his kids about Vlad. Why would he...? He thinks Vlad hasn't forgiven him for what happened, and before BR it was quite possible that he would never see Vlad again because for whatever reason interacting with Vlad hinged on Vlad inviting Jack back into his life. It's also possible that Jack has briefly mentioned Vlad by first name only before, and Jazz just never put the pieces together before because she didn't know his last name.

To the godfather bit I have to ask if we ever got canon confirmation of that. I know Danny went to live with Vlad in TUE but how do we know he didn't start with other relatives and then end up with Vlad because his ghost powers were making him unmanageable or endangering them or something like that? Vlad's words on the matter are "With nowhere else to go, you came to me, the only person on the planet who could possibly hope to understand your situation." Which, if Vlad was the first option would be weird because Maddie has a living sister that Danny could've gone to. I guess it's also possible that she said no and thus Danny had to turn to Vlad as a guardian.

And then we look at this with the added context of the alternate timeline in Masters of All Time. MoAT shows that Vlad is a nasty enough person that he would dump a gravely ill friend and manipulate another just to be with a girl he liked. It's one of the reasons I don't like the episode cause to me it says "Vlad was always a nasty piece of shit even without the accident(so it's okay that Jack hurt him so badly in the main timeline! He was always bad and you don't have to feel bad about it!)" Other reasons include Jack not getting his own ghost form, Danny is not wearing a Time Medallion while time traveling(which imo points to Clockwork making a fake timeline because why would he let a stubborn teen mess up the real one), so much stuff being a lazy copy-paste of the main timeline... But that would be a whole post on its own so I'll drop that. The main point is that MoAT's characterization of Vlad lends further weight to the interpretation that he pushed Jack away after the accident. Granted, even a nicer person would probably tell Jack to take a hike after what happened, and for very good reason, but still. It also opens up the question of whether or not Jack and Vlad ever really friends to begin with or was Jack just being an unreliable narrator who didn't see the warning signs that their friendship wasn't real.

No argument on Maddie not giving a shit about Vlad. Good observations there. She probably saw him more as "Jack's friend" than as her own.

Also no argument about all the adults sucking, which is kind of a trend in DP as a whole tbh. None of the adults in Danny's life are acting as they should. I just think that the canon is open enough that interpretations that are less dire than what you saw are still valid as what could've happened.

When it comes to the emotional intelligence issue I feel like this is also a problem of the show having low emotional intelligence tbh. The writers just weren't thinking about this stuff and took it for granted that viewers would forgive the Fenton parents and see them as good regardless of what they do. (Because this show is 100% not a fan of them catching consequences for their actions.)

AU idea I stumbled across while writing up notes for chapter 11 like. What if AU where Vlad wrote Jack out of his life after getting out of the hospital and never looked back. He still has ghost powers and is still stupid rich but he's off just doing his own thing and hasn't thought much about Jack in years.

When the reunion rolls around Vlad invites the Fentons because they were part of the class for that year so it's just a matter of course. He treats them like any other guest and is kind of bewildered when Jack addresses him like they should be really close during the reunion party, and asks Jack to remind him of how he knew him back in college.

Jack is pretty hurt by the coldness and goes over the whole deal about them being best friends back in college and then sort of. Brushes over the fact that he caused the accident that sent Vlad to the hospital for years.

Vlad listens with polite interest and then when Jack gets to the accident he coldly tells Jack that he remembers now. Then he laughs, and asks what Jack expected by strolling up as if they were still friends. Jack injured Vlad and then never even apologized, never reached out, he's basically making Jack out to be the worst person in front of everyone at the reunion party. Everyone else present is a fair-weather friend for abandoning him cause his ailment made him "too ugly" to want to be seen with but at least they didn't pretend otherwise when they showed up for the reunion.

Jack is devastated by this and all the other Fentons are furious with Vlad for humiliating him in front of an audience. Danny decides to prank Vlad as payback after the party is over and ends up running into Plasmius that way. Vlad basically conjures a broom and swats Danny back out of his house because he has no time for some uppity ghost kid and he has other stuff to get on with. They don't figure out each other's secret identities until some time later.

Danny has a grudge against Vlad for humiliating his dad and takes any chance he can to try to play ghostly pranks on him. Never seems to work for some reason and that Plasmius ghost keeps showing up to stop him maybe they're friends and--WAIT.

It's a huge shock when Danny figures out that Vlad is also a human-ghost hybrid. Literally the only other person like him is a guy he hates for being mean to his dad. Vlad figured Danny out a while ago but didn't say anything cause he wanted to see how long it took Danny to realize it.

Danny wants Vlad to apologize for humiliating his dad and Vlad's just like, no Jack never apologized for landing me in the hospital for years and turning me into a mutant freak why should I apologize to him? You're lucky you escaped with only the mutant freak part, kid.

So potential for angst and for comedy. Could be fun!

[mothfishing]

still hung up on this attitude i've see claiming that all art should have image descriptions that are as bare as absolutely possible and contain absolutely no details about the contents of the image

listen, when people criticize overly long IDs, it's mostly because that's the general trend on this website, because a lot of people put them in captions and then everyone copies each other's bad habits instead of looking up a real guide. but like, while overly long IDs are bad practice too, the core lesson is not "make a description as short as possible" but "make an image description as relevant as possible". details are therefore necessary depending on the situation, and it's very common for art to be one of those situations

like...okay so, if i show a picture of the mona lisa that isn't intended to have the sighted reader focus on the piece too much - say, i simply drew a clown hat on her and it's a funny joke - then an image description can be, "The Mona Lisa with a clown hat scribbled onto her head." most sighted people will not be peering at the picture to take in the details very much, so the image description doesn't need to go in depth about it either - it can simply note it's a famous painting with a fairly well known subject, who in this particular case has been given a clown hat.

however, a description for a piece of art can absolutely get very wordy! it all depends on the circumstances. let's say i posted this art, which is an officially licensed annihilation movie screen print

maybe i posted this image so that others can appreciate its artistic value. in that case, the image description should absolutely go into details

one might be:

"An Annihilation movie poster featuring the silhouette of a figure formed out of leaves and blue flowers. A butterfly rests on their shoulder, and a snake winds through their uplifted arms and open hands. The figure's face is empty of vegetation, leaving a blank hole. The word 'Annihilation' spans the entire image, with the letters spaced out and split into 4 even rows of 3 letters each. Smaller text at the bottom reads, 'A film by Alex Garland.'"

could i have just said that it was an annihilation movie poster? yes, and that would be accurate. but that would have made it so that anyone using a screen reader interacting with the post would have had a much worse experience! is that short ID better than nothing? yes, but we should strive for better than "better than nothing", no? at least if vision impaired people are to be treated as members of a community rather than set apart from it

the reason i was annoyed that people would say art shouldn't have an image description that gives any information about the details is that, yeah it's not possible to give every viewer the exact same experience, but to say that blind people can't possibly appreciate something for the same reasons a sighted person might, and therefore don't deserve to appreciate it at all...well, that kind of sucks!

this is also why it's best to describe YOUR own art. you know the image better than anyone else, you know what you wanted the reader to see - after all, you drew it! other people describing images for you will never do as good of a job as you can.

(as a note to the visual reader - the actual alt text i wrote for this image is not the alt text i have shown in plain text above! in fact, it's rather bare bones. why is that? because i gave another image description later in the post, which makes including it in the image redundant. please try to think about what the experience of reading the post would be if you removed all images and replaced them with their alt text! thus, if you post a piece of art, and then spend a long time discussing it in detail, it's okay in that instance to have a very brief description, cause you get to it later. context matters etc etc etc)

[avelera]

House of the Dragon wasn't morally gray, its characters just weren't allowed to WANT anything and then pursue it

It's amazing to me how much having a character who visibly wants something clarifies a story.

Throughout 90% of "House of the Dragon" I was all but screaming at the screen, begging someone, anyone to clearly and indisputably say they want something and to be shown fighting for it with single-minded intent and it was shown so very rarely, it was astonishing. Rhaenyra supposedly wants to be Queen but is almost never shown taking material steps to becoming worthy of the role or fighting for it.

She's not the only one, by the way, to have stated goals they don't pursue, or motivations that seem deliberately muddied to make the character seem "better" or "worse" on some moral spectrum as needed, or to take idiot-ball level actions that run counter to their goals supposedly while in pursuit of them, and I just want to explore a few of those (with spoilers, obviously).

Rhaenyra is bored in council meetings, she has not one but three children with a man who, in the context of the story if not the original book, is very obviously not her husband based on their appearances, she takes herself away from the capital when her father could die any day from his illness, when any power-driven person worth their salt would be absolutely glued to his side until the crown passed to them, especially given that Rhaenyra had reasonable suspicions that others in power would try to take the throne before it could pass to her. She basically retires and takes herself away to live in semi-retirement raising her children in a remote location at the exact point she would be better served by building up her power base. It was infuriating to watch.

And it happens again and again in the show! Is Otto Hightower motivated by wanting his own descendants on the throne or does he truly think he's acting in the best interest of the realm? It's never entirely clear!

Does Alicent just want to keep her own children alive and is thus driven to civil war in order to do so, or does she want power for herself? It's not really clear! Because when Rhaenyra offers her clear opportunities to ensure that she and her children will be safe and legally intertwined with the ruling family, she doesn't take them. But she also appears horrified at the idea she'd ever start a civil war for reasons of personal ambition?

Does Aemond want to kill Jace? He'd be pretty justified in wanting to do so after losing an eye to him! Yet at the last minute he "loses control of his dragon" which just seemed like an absurd play to try to make him somehow not entirely to blame for the death. But why do this? No one else is up there anyway to witness the act, why not simply let Aemond want, overpoweringly, to kill this Jace. He can have regrets after and realize the true horror of what he's done, but why muddy the moment itself by making it mixed whether or not he's to blame?

Aside, I actually liked Aemond a great deal because he was one of the few characters who seemed to want to be king and take material steps to becoming a king in the Targaryen historical fashion! He's obsessed with the history of the Targaryens, he models himself after that legacy, and he pursues becoming a dragon rider to the point of putting himself in danger. It's so refreshing! I want to follow the story of his single-minded pursuit of the throne. I'm so sick and tired of all the people who say they want it and then just expect it to fall into their lap!

Larys Strong having some bizarre interest in Alicent's feet wasn't just a weird gross scene, as if a foot fetish is supposed to be some sort of shocking, horrifying deviance in the same episode where we saw children forced to fight to the death in a cage match. It also is stupid because it muddies his motivation. Is he attracted to Alicent or does he want power? We don't know! It's kind of both? But he never really says what he wants, he just lurks around, and then we get the weird foot scene to make it even more unclear why he's doing any of this. It was stupid and unnecessary and didn't actually illuminate anything useful about the character.

This isn't even getting into all the boldly stupid things that each of the "power players" of this story do, like making enemies, stating their motivation aloud to fuck others over before they've confirmed their own victory, stating treason aloud to crowded rooms, or killing other members of the nobility openly and apparently without consequences. At least, not without consequences that aren't immediately undone by another pointless time skip that undoes all the previously built-up drama.

By the end of the season I was absolutely longing for the original GoT's Littlefinger to show up and tell everyone how it's done. At least in the early seasons of the original GoT we knew what everyone wanted, many people wanted evil things and what made it gray was not that people had mixed motivations, but that every character had a clearly stated motivation, good or bad, and the "good" guys were just as likely to lose as the "bad" guys, because motivation didn't matter, you played the game to win or you died.

[kristoffs-lullaby]

I know that a lot of people want it to be true but if I'm honest? I really don't want Sun Wukong and Macaque's strained relationship to be a result of a miscommunication. Like I think it'd be a huge cop-out from what they're already building up with Sun Wukong. Do I think he actually killed Macaque? No. But I also don't think that their troubles started there. Macaque speaks as though he's harbored resentment for Wukong for a WHILE and for a variety of reasons that eventually all circle back to the kind of friend that Sun Wukong was. As we've seen in the show up to this point, it feels like they're showing us that-- while Sun Wukong is a good person-- he's also INCREDIBLY messy with the way he handles not only problems but his relationship with people too. Not to mention that they keep bringing up how Wukong managed things in the past (i.e. his legacy being built on him being reckless) and how he really hasn't.. changed. S3 had Mei straight up tell him that he doesn't see how he keeps hurting the people who care about him the most. So no it wouldn't surprise me if he really did end up doing certain things that led Macaque to feel like he was nothing more than this Hero's Shadow.

S1 when we first get introducted to Macaque, during the final fight, Macaque makes the statement: “The real Sun Wukong would’ve leveled this whole mountain to try and stop me! but you’re scared because you think you’ll hurt some kid!?” The emphasis on "some kid" makes more sense when you take in the context that they give us during S2 about their past with one another. Macaque and Sun Wukong were friends who fought alongside each other. And if this is the case, then Macaque wouldn't have made a statement like that unless he knew what lengths Sun Wukong would go to in battle even if sometimes that meant putting the people around him in harm's way (and people he cared about at that). Which is why it baffles him that Sun Wukong holds back during their fight because MK is a kid SWK only just met a few months ago. The SWK HE was friends with wouldn't have cared to put HIM in danger.

Then we get Shadow Play where Macaque's whole deal is that he's been watching as MK begins to leave his friends behind. And a lot of this lesson to MK felt PERSONAL. As if he knew what it felt like to be the friend on the sidelines as he watched the hero take on the burden all on his own, forgetting that he has people behind him. Which is what MK was doing. In the Spider Queen episode, as soon as MK saw that Pigsy didn't open shop he immediately freaked out because Pigsy never forgets to do that and thus he comes to the conclusion that he's missing (which he was correct about)! But during Shadow Play, when he comes across Pigsy's closed shop he doesn't bat an eye. He doesn't realize that hey. Maybe my friends didn't ditch me at the theater because why would they have done that in the first place? And I get that MK was going through a lot at the time and was trying to process it, but I get the feeling that it was kind of the point. Macaque was watching as MK followed in Wukong's footsteps and isolated himself to the point where he took it upon himself to be the hero on his own. He has all this power now and suddenly his friends can't help him with that anymore? He's purposefully keeping things from them and Macaque sees this. Because maybe it's the same thing Wukong would do.

And its clear through Macaque's little Shadow Play that Macaque had some insecurities in their friendship based around playing second fiddle to Wukong. He keeps mentioning how Wukong eventually forgot about him or cast him into his shadow. And yet.. Wukong throws this exact thing in his face on multiple occassions. "Aren't you ever going to get tired of living in my Shadow?" Not to mention the hints we get during S3 that further drive home the fact that he fully believes that Sun Wukong is the type of person to cast someone aside unless they were useful to him. And while that might not have been Sun Wukong's intention with whatever actions he took to get Macaque to ride that train of thought, it is still evident that perhaps he has in the past been careless with his friendships.. as he is with MK's group which led them to where they ended up during the S3 finale.

And the last thing I want to point out is the interaction between MK and Macaque as Mei is being consumed by the Samadhi fire. Macaque tells MK that they need to go and MK retaliates stating that he would never leave Mei when she needs him because she's his best friend. Or something along those lines. And Macaque looks on at him like he can't believe what he's hearing. It's almost like "This isn't something I'm used to because this isn't something I was given as a friend". And it's shocking to see this! Which!! further solidifies in his mind what he said to MK during S2 "You know.. you are just that BIT too much like him [Sun Wukong].. buuut its good to see there's SOME potential" because in his relationships, MK will always look to his friends first and foremost. Monkie kid 101 is doing things together and sticking together.

THIS KINDA DERAILED FROM MY MAIN POINT I THINK A LITTLE BIT BUT. BASICALLY. I hope Macaque's resentment does come from like. Actual conflicts with Sun Wukong and not just a misunderstanding. I think it would add to an arc with SWK where he realizes "You keep doing things the same way you always have and it doesn't work out for you. Something needs to change because you've hurt people in the past and you'll continue to hurt people in the present unless you start approaching things differently". You know? It'd be more impactful if we've got more instances from the past where he's clearly messed up but never knew how to grow from it.

[mymemoirs]

Unrecorded Memories and Missing Taiwan #8

This is gonna be my last post for this series because I am left with only one week worth of story. Yes, my 2018 summer exchange story is coming to an end. I'm so glad it's going to be over because there's so many things I want to write in my next post.

32) Monday came and each groups presented their presentation in front of the class. My groupmates and I presented our presentation. It went smoothly and there were no real pressure compared to my AI presentation. Unlike the AI presentation, there was no grading for our presentation and thus no recognition of who's the best presenter in our class. Well, I think this way we can just be neutral and enjoy everyone's presentation. Although, to be honest, I can't remembered any of the presentations during this class compared to the AI class.

Okay, this is really out of context, but I have to admit that the Indian students I met are confident and good presenter. One presenter in particular presented like Steve Jobs. His talk is inspiring and full of hope (well, his expressions especially) even though he's just explaining about an AI that creates lyrics for music.

Now, back to topic *laughs*. So, after everyone in the class finished their presentation, I think we were dismissed quite early. I don't really remember what I did that day. The only clue I have of that day is a photo of the 7-Eleven near the campus. I think knowing well that I will miss that place, I just took a photo of it for my memorabilia. Well, sure enough, I do missed that convenience store. They have everything! I always bought my breakfast there. Sometimes I even have my lunch or dinner there. It's such a memorable place. I really love how the convenience store really depicts 'convenient' very well. It's very different from the convenience store in my country. Oh, and I think it's open for 24 hours. Like, seriously, this is too convenient!

7-Eleven store besides Asia University Campus. Look at that infinite supply of foods with chairs and tables. I just love so many selections of foods to choose, I really miss Taiwan's 7-Eleven.

33) On Tuesday, our professor suddenly told us that we were going to have a campus tour. So, off we go around the campus with our professor as the tour guide. It's not like we don't explore the campus but after the tour, I realize how big the campus is and how little exploration I did. There were so many places, BEAUTIFUL places around the campus. But the only thing I did whenever I finished classes was to go back to my room and rest. I don't really explored much except when I get lost. I also didn't visit other friends in different dorm buildings which is located quite far from my own. Now, that I think back, it's really too bad that I don't do much exploring but that's also one of the reason why I would still want to go back to Taiwan if I had the chance. I'm only in Taichung before and there were a lot of cities in Taiwan I haven't explored yet. I'll love another chance to explore the country.

The first half of our class (before lunch) was spent on touring the campus. After that, on the second half of our class, we went to an art museum in Asia University. I think our professor was out of ideas on where to take us and since most of us never visited the art museum that was actually located in the campus. He suggested that and we all went along, although, we must pay for our own entrance fee to enter the museum. However, I think it was discounted. I vaguely remembered paying 100 NTD for that.

The museum itself is called "Asia Museum of Modern Art" located in Asia University's premises. I actually had to pass through the museum every time I went back to my dorm. It have this amazing architecture that's also one of its selling point in my opinion. The architect of the building is a Japanese man named Tadao Ando. I just have to go gaga on him after searching more about him and his works. What a talented man he is! It even shows in the museum I went.

He's a King of Concrete because his works mostly uses concretes and the museum I went was made of concrete. It was also not painted and that's really interesting to see a building not painted but still exudes such a classy and modern look. There's also one spot in the museum that's very popular. Since the building is triangle, the corner of it have this eye fish effect if we took a picture from that corner. Just take a look at this picture below!

In one of the corners in Asia Museum of Modern Art.

As you can see, being in the corner allows people to see both sides of the wall, making an effect of using a wide lens or fish eye lens. I saw Tadao Ando's other work too in the internet and I am officially a fan of his work now. He really have piqued my interest in the world of design. I'm in love. *laughs*

Since it was an art museum, there were a lot of art works ranging from pottery, paintings to very abstract object. According to the guide, the museum have different arts displayed there depending on the exhibitions. I don't really remember what exhibition or what theme I am seeing when I went there but I was mostly focused on the architecture of the buildings. Walking around and seeing people taking pictures. I don't really take pictures which is kind of a bummer but I don't think I feel comfortable asking people to take a picture of me. Most of my pictures are taken in a group or by my classmate's initiative.

I took a picture of this because of the meaning behind the words which is very simple but deep. You read it downwards and from right to left, it would be translated as: "In Beauty, there are great pain and ecstasy"

34) After our trip to the museum, we can go back to our dorm. That Tuesday was actually the last night for my roommates since their classes had finished. So, we decided to eat outside and find a cafe where we can chill near the campus. The campus is actually very convenient since there's a lot of shops near it. I actually enjoyed eating around there to be honest. Ah, now I really miss my student's life. Hahaha.

When we went to the cafe, we ordered waffles and shared it among the four of us. While we were eating, the cafe owner suddenly approached us and offered another serving of waffles for free. That is actually quite surprising for us but we received it with delight. Who wouldn't like a freebies right? However, I had a feeling the reason we got that free waffle was because my roommates were attractive. Or maybe it's just because we were new customers and he wanted to gain repeating customers. Which is me *laughs* cause I brought another friends to that cafe again but we weren't lucky to receive a free waffle again. Oh yeah, the name of the cafe is 唯享时刻 (Enjoy Moments) which have a very cute exterior. I think that's the reason why the four of us is interested to try out that cafe.

Anyway, while being on the topic "being treated/ getting freebies" cause you're attractive, it's only when I went to Taiwan that I do saw this kind of thing. I mean back in my country, it's really rare to see my friends being treated or offered by strangers 'cause we're really scared if that actually happens. Heck, I even saw it twice happening with my roommates since one of my roommates were especially attractive. Aside from the cafe, there's this one time when we went to a minimart to buy our breakfast for tomorrow. The cashier actually didn't charge one of my roommate for something she brought it was as if he was treating her. It was actually amusing for me to witness that, their conversation goes like this:

Cashier: *scans barcode of the stuff, leave out an item and then says the price*

Roommate: Um, you forgot to scan the banana.

Cashier: Oh, no, it's alright. It's for you.

Roommate: Um, okay... *while giving the money* Thank you.

This is not really the exact conversation since I forgot if the cashier even said anything at all about giving it to her. I am not beside or behind her when this happened and I remembered the cashier being meek but he was definitely attracted to my friend. Because after going out of the minimart, the rest of my roommates who also went to the same class with her, tease her and said that this is not the first time the cashier treated her. And I think that's also part of the reason why they chose to shop at that minimart.

Last picture together before my roommates leave Asia University.

Anyway, back to to the cafe moment, I was really sad that we had to part ways tomorrow. Iris and Karen were going to stay in Taiwan for a while but they will go to a different cities tomorrow. Vincy, on the other hand, will be going back to Hong Kong. I can't remember every conversation we had, but I do miss them from time to time. I don't know if they feel that way towards me because our meeting is really such a short period of time and I actually rely on them as my roommates. We still had the WhatsApp group chats but it's always me who initiate the conversation in the group but even if we're not close, they really leave behind such a deep impression on me. I do hope I can meet them again.

35) The next day, on Wednesday, we have our class as usual. Our professor invited other lecturer to teach us about Fintech that day. There weren't much to mentioned for this day except that my roommates all went to their respective destination and we parted ways. I did have the chance to eat my lunch with Vincy before I sent her off in front of the campus. Aaaah, now I really miss them and the moments I had with them but life must go on and that's the thing about making friends across countries. You need to go back to where you belong.

On Thursday, the professor told us that we're going to have a farewell party and ask us to gather in a cafe near the museum. The cafe was actually managed by an alumni of the university and I think that's the reason why our professor wanted us to go there. Although, I don't know if the cafe still exists since it doesn't show up in google maps. With the pandemic that's happening, I felt it cause businesses to go bankrupt but at the same time new kind of businesses went viral during the pandemic.

During our farewell, everyone is having a light snacks and coffee, conversations, picture taking, etc. I don't quite remembered how the event unfolds in the Entrepreneurship and Creativity class farewell compared to the AI class farewell. I think the professors only gave some short speech and we also watch some videos before we received our certificates. The owner of the cafe also gave her speech about the cafe which really fits our class.

Receiving the certificate of completion from the professor.

After the farewell party, everyone is free to go. I usually hang out with my Thai friends when I'm on this class but instead of going out with them, I went out with my classmates who came from the same university as I am. It's funny that I only get close with them on the last day. I think they've told me that they felt I was not really approachable especially since I always hang out with my Thai classmates. I don't really deny that because I personally felt the time is so short to be friends with everyone and I'm the type to focus on one group of friends rather than getting along with everyone which I think is impossible for introverted me.

It's a good thing that I do get along with them eventually. I am also grateful that they invited me to go out with them 'cause I don't think I'll go anywhere that day if they didn't invite me. Although, initially I think they just invited me to get a picture together in front of the campus as the representative of our university. After that, they find me approachable enough to ask if I had any plans and would like to join them. Since I love travelling and am not the type to plan most of my days, I gladly accept their offer.

So, off we go to their dorm since they had to take care of some stuff (like preparing to go out, do a little packing, pray, etc). Since, I'm ready to go out and have done most of my packing, I don't mind going along with them to their dorm. It's also the first time I visited other dorm buildings aside from my own. Their dorm rooms are actually quite different compared to mine. They had inner toilet in their rooms while in my dorm the toilet is outside of our rooms. While I am there watching them, one of the classmates actually offered to do some makeup on my face and I let her do it. Although, I don't really have a picture of it unfortunately.

Me and my classmates from Airlangga University

After that, we went downtown to get our lunch since the food in the cafe is just light snacks. It was quite late when we grabbed our food, I think around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. We went to subways since they're craving for it and I also think it's halal for them. I actually enjoyed talking with them, they're funny and expressive. However, in terms of a travel buddy, I don't think I can get along with them because they only visited shops and more shops to buy the stuff people ask them to. Of course, they charge for it which is very business minded of them but I can see they're struggling with their baggage too.

We were outside for the whole day. Since, I had no makeup remover, I had to follow them to their room to use it. Afterwards, I left their dorm because I had prior plans with two of my Thai classmates (Phoom and Benz) to eat together since this is our last night in Taiwan. I remembered only eating with both of them even though there are other Thai classmates who didn't joined us that night.

While walking to our meeting point, I actually thought how beautiful the night view is around the campus. There were couple of places I went during daylight but it looks so different and beautiful with the lights. The moon was very bright that night too. Tbh, those kind of moments actually reignite my desire to travel again and even during that time I already missed Taiwan. I'm sure people who travel or on a holiday have those kind of moments where they miss holidays even before it ends.

Now, back to our dinner. We ate our dinner in a beef noodle shop near the campus which is actually very popular because it's close to the university and it also tastes quite good. Although, I don't think we can eat that everyday because it's quite costly compared to other available options (around 100 NTD). But when's the perfect time to eat a bit costly dinner than the last day, right? I personally enjoy talking to both of them even though they are much older than me since I knew they were a master's student around their 30s. After eating, we went to a minimart where they bought beers and then we walked back to our respective dorms since my dorm buildings aren't the same with them.

36) Friday, my last day in Taiwan! Everyone who's going back that day went to the meeting point in front of the campus where we will board on a bus that's heading to the airport. We say our goodbyes to the remaining friends who's going to stay, taking pictures together and just spent some time chatting before the bus arrived. Most of my classmates are going back directly to their countries but I was heading to Singapore instead because I have relatives living there.

The moon is so tiny but trust me, it really caught my eyes. Seeing it with your own eyes does feels different.

We all went home that day. It was really a memorable month for me and I am grateful that I get to experience all of this. I have always wanted a student exchange experience while still balancing my college life and this opportunity came through. Having this summer exchange on 2018 was one of the best highlights I had during college. While on the plane back home, I sat near besides the window and I was able to see a full moon shining brightly and beautifully. Although my phone didn't do much justice to the grandeur I saw, I really wanted to share with everyone the picture of it to end this series.

- Reina

PS. Thank you for reading this series, if anyone ever read it. I really appreciate it. Even though there are certain events or timelines that I'm not completely sure of, I find writing and sharing about the memories I had in Taiwan as a fond thing to do because it's really a memorable one that I just had to write about it. I also find this process - digging up past memories - to be a good exercise for my brain.

[deckof-dragons]

Firstly I absolutely love your writing. It's really detailed and creative! Secondly I have a suggestion, but you don't have to do it if you rather not too. What if one of Hat Kid's family members show up to take her back after Snatcher adopted her? I think her family wouldn't have been the best if a child about 7-9(I headcannon her around that age) is going around in space alone with time pieces.

Thank you for the request! This is a direct prequel to one of my other drabbles: Haunted. If you have read that then you know how this fic ends and if not I suggest reading that fic after this one because this ends in an angsty place that is resolved in Haunted. It does require a spoilerly warning though: Hat Kid dies in this fic and becomes a ghost. It’s pretty graphic, far more so than in Ghost Kid, so just a head’s up on that. I apologize if you had something much lighter in mind when sending in this request but it just fit so I went with it because I wanted to. I also kinda recommend reading Guilt before this one if you want a bit more context on the situation because this is also a sequel to that fic. (I have a whole timeline thing going on with these drabbles, multiple in fact, this one is the biggest and the one that have the most connections between some of the fics.)

Visitors

Hunting for traitors normally fell to someone else but this one was personal. This traitor was the Headmaster’s own granddaughter, left to him when his failure of a son had died. It was a shame she’d turned out even worse than him despite her initial promise; she’d risen through the school’s ranks, reaching the final test in record time – only one other student even came close to comparing. But then she’d failed the test and upon learning that had turned traitor and ran away.

It had taken the Headmaster’s men far too long to finally locate her. She was on a tiny out of the way planet with no access to space travel. It was the perfect place to hide; if it wasn’t for the beacon hidden on her ship, revealing its location to a scout ship entering the system, she probably never would’ve been found.

Now was the Headmaster really about to descend upon the planet to capture his granddaughter and bring her home to be executed as a traitor? If his wife were still alive, she’d insist on it. She wasn’t though so he might take pity and spare the child because of the promise she’d shown before but only if she came back with him without much of a fight.

“Sir,” the man he’d sent to scout the situation on the planet said upon stepping into the command room to report. “Apparently the child has been adopted by a powerful being known as the Snatcher. As you ordered, I did not get close enough to be seen by her and thus I could not determine much about this Snatcher person. Only that he is very powerful and lives in a haunted forest, presumably the same forest the stolen ship is parked in. What are you orders?”

“We wait until the child is alone in the ship, beam to it and deal with her however best we can and then leave.” They were on a mission hunting a child and thus they hadn’t brought much fire or man power. They still might be able to deal with the Snatcher though, depending on just how powerful he was, but it was best not to risk it if they didn’t have to. They were here solely for the kid after all, they could send someone back for the ship later after she’d been secured or dealt with if needed.

***

Hat Kid checked her mailbox upon returning to her ship. It was empty, meaning Snatcher’s newest contractor hadn’t yet been given the mail delivery task – normally she or a Subconite did it but whenever a contractor was around Snatcher made them do it instead. It should come tomorrow though which was exciting because this time around she’d added a whole human ribcage to the bone mailing game. The Subconite she’d sent it to better appreciate it because she’d worked hard to find it.

She skipped merrily up the ramp and into the ship, using the door in the window. Rumbi rolled over as if to greet her but really it just wanted to vacuum up the little bit of dirt she’d tracked in from outside. She smiled and gave it a little pet anyway because it had been her only companion for a long time before finding this planet.

Now off to the kitchen she went in the search for food. She was at the base of the ladder when she heard the distinctive sound of someone beaming in behind her. No one on this planet but her should be able to do that unless they’d stolen her phone. There was also no ‘Intruder Alert’ over the intercoms, meaning the ship’s sensors recognized whoever it was.

As she snapped around, she pulled out her umbrella. Despite her suspicions her heart still sunk at the sight of the Headmaster and five of his men standing in the middle of the room. How had they found her? And why had the Headmaster himself come? Wasn’t he too important to hunt down a traitor, especially a child? She wasn’t that dangerous, was she?

“I recommended putting down your weapon,” the Headmaster said with that same air of superiority he always used that she hated so much. “It won’t do you any good. Come with us peacefully and I might be willing to forgive you traitorous actions.”

If given this option a couple years ago, shortly after she’d first run away, she probably would’ve taken it. She’d never wanted to become a traitor or run away from what had been her home for all her life. But she’d since found a home here and honestly, she liked it more than her old home. People actually liked and cared for her here, she had a family now – a very odd one sure but who cares? – and friends. She didn’t want to leave them.

“No, I don’t think I will,” she said, putting on her own haughty attitude to counteract his. “I’m not going anywhere with you so how about you just leave and never come back?”

She frowned at her, making his already ugly wrinkled face uglier. “Well, we gave you a chance. I guess we’ll just have to take you by force.” He gestured and his lackies all started reaching to pull something out of their cloaks.

Hat Kid didn’t wait to see what it was before switching to the time stop hat. Activating it, she dashed at them and whacked the Headmaster’s shin hard enough that he should lose his balance. She didn’t wait to find out for sure though as she continued past them and back outside through the door.

Time resumed its normal flow as she reached the bottom of the ramp. She kept running. They undoubtedly had better weapons than her so she didn’t stand a chance against them by herself. But Snatcher should be here soon so…

A loud bang filled the air. Suddenly she was falling to the forest floor with a pain worse than any she’d ever felt before piercing through her body. She tried to push herself back up but for some reason all the strength was gone from her limbs. Oh gosh it hurt so much. How was it even possible to be in this much pain and still be conscious? Well… that at least wouldn’t last for long, darkness was already taking her.

***

There were suddenly more living things in the forest. They’d just appeared there, much like how Hat Kid did when porting back to her ship. It was even about the same spot as her ship. Snatcher would go investigate after he was done dealing with this contractor.

It was a Mafia goon, the most common type of person to wonder into the forest due to their lack of intelligence. But they were good for manual labor projects like unclogging the damn well for the umpteenth time, and repairing parts of the swamp walkway, it was getting too dilapidated lately. And running mail too of course just because it was there and needed to be done so why not?

“There, that ought to do for now,” he said with a grin as he snapped his figures, magicking the freshly signed contract away.

The Mafia goon said something in response but Snatcher suddenly wasn’t paying attention because over by her ship, Hat Kid was using one her hats. He was familiar enough with their magic energy signatures by now to know it was the time stop hat. Not one she used often and typically only when in combat or dodging it.

She was probably fine. She was more than capable of taking care of herself but…

“I have something I need to attend to,” he said, looking back at the Mafia goon. “Talk to my minions about directions to the swamp and where materials for the walkway are.”

He didn’t wait for a response before teleporting over. As always, he placed himself a distance away from whatever was happening and hidden so he could get a read on the exact situation before jumping in. And he didn’t want to interfere if he wasn’t needed.

Hat Kid was running away from her ship as a man wearing a uniform of some sort poked himself out the front door of the ship with something in his hand pointed at her. There was a loud bang and suddenly Hat Kid stumbled and fell onto her front. She put a hand under herself as if to try to push herself back but didn’t. In fact, after that she didn’t move at all. She went limp, as her blood pooled beneath her, soaking into the ground. Her life faded fast, far quicker than Snatcher could even try to do anything about.

She was dead. He’d just watched her die. How… how as that even possible? She couldn’t die, she was… she was Hat Kid, seemingly nothing could kill her, not even Snatcher himself had been able to do it. And… she was his, he didn’t let things that belonged to him die or be destroyed, ever. So… there was no way it was real because it just couldn’t be.

“You shot her,” an angry voice cut into his shock. A group of men were exiting the ship. The one speaking was an old man and clearly the leader of the group. “I told you we were taking her alive you fools.”

“Sorry sir, I acted on instinct.”

“And we were going to execute her anyway so it doesn’t…”

With a snarl, Snatcher summoned a burst of power under their feet. It pushed them back away from Hat Kid’s body as it hit, making them scream in pain and surprise. He immediately summoned another and another and another as he got closer. Taken completely by surprise, they didn’t stand a chance and all of them were dead after the third blast. He didn’t even bother snatching their souls as they departed. Instead he kept summoning blast after blast after blast until he had a little crater filled with magic fire born purely from the energy of his magic. But even that wasn’t enough, he was going to…

The sound of a child gasping in shocked fear came from behind him. He snapped around to see the horrid sight of Hat Kid’s lifeless body again but that wasn’t all. A small ghost hovered a few feet above it: Hat Kid. Her form even still had the hat and cloak. She was staring at her body, hands pressed to either side of her face in utter horror. The silence held for a couple seconds before she let out a sob of despair.

Snatcher jerked back into motion, swooping in front of her both so she could see him and so she could no longer see her corpse. “Hey kiddo,” he said with a pathetic attempt at a smile. “It’s okay… or uh well it’s not okay but…” He really didn’t know how to handle tears or what to do to console someone who’d just died. It was an awful experience and he’d certainly hadn’t had anyone nearby when he’d died willing to offer to comfort so he didn’t have anything to even try to imitate. So he was at a complete loss. But… “You’re a ghost, that’s… not good but… it means you’re still here so…”

“Dad.” She hugged him, wrapping her arms as far around his neck as she could and burying her face in his mane as she continued crying.

He sighed, giving up on cheering her up as he lifted a hand to pat her back. Being a ghost meant she was still here and for that he was grateful… was that selfish though? Didn’t matter because they were here now, he couldn’t change anything.

He teleported to his private reading hollow, bringing her with him. He settled in the chair with another sigh. He didn’t know what to do or say so he’d just let her cry on him and hope this was enough to console her at least a little bit.

For this drabble event.

[alines7777]

right now i'd like to talk about kankri from homestuck

people talk about him like he's the absolute worst piece of shit who ever lived, and that his intentions must be less than admirable, especially karkat, and people take karkat's word for it because we like karkat — but here's the thing, that wouldn't be the first time that katkat's been wrong about someone he hardly knew.

( image artist : @n0pies )

but first, i'd like to provide a little context from the text of homestuck about the planet alternia/beforus

alternia and beforus and their rulers

starting with alternia, troll society engages in a practice known as "culling", in which disabled and 'mutant-blooded' trolls are slated for extermination, as per the condesce's will for trolls to become stronger through violent division, as was meenah's intent in trying sew division among her fellow players in sgrub by starting trouble.

but culling means death, so naturally, every troll on alternia dreads the thought of being culled, so feferi, the heiress to the throne, has an idea, "why don't we simply change what it means to be culled?", she even tries to get practice in her new form of culling by rounding up wild cuttlefish to live under her custody in her abode, yet when the text brings that up, it even says that they don't need to be in her care, but she takes them in anyway, which shows her disregard for the independence and autonomy of other beings. that was a roleplay scenario — her rulership over beforus was this idea put into action.

on beforus, troll society engages in a practice known as "culling", in which disabled and 'mutant-blooded' trolls are slated to be placed in the custody of trolls of higher blood and be coddled, as per the empress's will for trolls to live in comfort through disparaging unity. text on feferi and recounting on the part of aranea basically confirm it, beforus is quite plainly coddle country.

but culling means indefinite tutelage, so naturally, every troll on beforus dreads the thought of being culled.

the intentions of both meenah and feferi for trolls to be strong and well off respectively are all well and good, but the methods of both are all wrong.

the knight of blood

fortunately, there is a lot of canonical text providing exhaustive documentation and insight into karkat's background.

we know that his predecessor, the signless, encountered a troll of higher blood who took pity on him upon his emergence from the brooding caverns, where if that hadn't happened he would have been alternian-culled. we know that he advocated the abolition of culling and the bloodcaste system. we know that his followers took it upon themselves to create a sign and breed a lusus for his successor, in order to prevent his successor's alternian-culling, and we know that karkat was highly secretive about the color of his blood to avoid being alternian-culled, and also to avoid being pitied. we know that this was all tailored specifically so karkat might live to enter his session.

we also know that the signless and kankri are virtually one and the same.

the seer of blood

unfortunately, there is virtually no canonical text regarding kankri's background. if it existed, surely many would be as sympathetic toward him as they are toward karkat, even in spite of karkat's conduct. but thanks to canonical text into the signless and karkat, and the method of cross-reference, we can make a highly educated guess.

starting with karkat's beforan counterpart, we might say that he, like karkat, was secretive about the color of his blood so as to avoid being beforan-culled, which is virtually one and the same as being pitied, assuming he wasn't beforan-culled or maybe he found the friendship of someone who didn't and wouldn't particularly hate or pity him. (perhaps the beforan counterpart to sollux or vriska? who knows?)

either way, nobody is killed on account of beforan-culling, "besides, we're only taking care of him because we already know he can't take care of himself, so what's the harm?", nobody would feel any compelling need to create a sign or breed any lusus for a mutant-blooded successor, after all the intent would be to coddle him, to treat him as an invalid or perhaps even as a pet, so he would live to enter his session regardless.

now onto kankri himself, knowing the story of the signless, it would probably be fair to estimate that he would meet a higher-blooded troll who would pity him for having no corresponding sign or lusus, thus he might have been slated for beforan-culling.

i'm not saying with certainty that kankri was beforan-culled, what i'm saying is that it would make sense. i mean, we might also in some sense regard the death of the signless as alternian-culling.

what also makes it make sense is how kankri reacts to the way he is regarded by porrim. when she reaches to wipe his face, he becomes upset, when she calls him "kanny", he becomes upset, and voices that he'd rather be called "the insufferable" than be addressed as a "wiggler".

i mean, he's probably taking porrim's pale feelings toward him the wrong way, and there are probably better ways for porrim to express them, but it's almost as if kankri knows that he doesn't need her pity and doesn't want her pity, and to be clear, the operant emotion behind moirallegiance is pity. and he probably also takes her regard toward him as an attempt on her part to coddle him, which he clearly doesn't like, he is perhaps no stranger to being coddled, or he at least understands the concept and why it should strike him as offensive, and yes, dreadful.

kankri wants to be regarded as independent and autonomous, and he at least makes it convincing that he wants the same for others, so, like his alternian counterpart, kankri advocates for the abolition of culling and the bloodcaste system.

so if we want to regard the intentions of the signless as genuine and noble, then we ought to insist on kankri being treated with the same amount of good faith. they're the same person, with the exact same set of fundamental principles and ultimate goals, the only difference is the circumstances behind their reasoning.

yea, kankri was a total hypocritical dick in the way he spoke to mituna, in belittling mituna's legitimate need for headgear in retaining his autonomy, yet as kankri might rightfully fear, headgear could be construed by beforan bluebloods as a reason that's as good as any other to engage in beforan-culling, because, "he's so helpless, if he weren't then why is he wearing a helmet?", and then they might decide that all trolls who wear helmets for whatever reason might be slated for culling. but yea, that doesn't excuse kankri's conduct, besides, they're all dead anyway, so nobody is going to get culled, get a grip, kankri.

but karkat routinely antagonizes his friends, even while bearing remorse over having previously antagonized his friends, so he knows it's wrong and yet he still does that, and then he dodges culpability by compartmentalizing his actions as being the actions of his "past self" and not actually as his own actions, or did we somehow manage to forget that?

and then karkat talks a mountain of shit about kankri behind his back as kankri happily abides a seemingly pointless and arbitrary request from a friend whom he doesn't regard as disciplined or interested in his beliefs, a request that was intended as a ploy to trick him.

yea, in some ways, kankri is worse than karkat, but in some other ways, i also think he's far better as a person.

seriously, if we think kankri is the negative stereotype of 'sjw' tumblr, well, then i frankly think that his portrayal might in some sense be doing us too much honor.

yet for some reason, we are duped into hating his doctrines praising autonomy and condemning mollycoddling tutelage and genocide, doctrines that we all should cherish in principle, but we throw him out because he is shown as not very well-liked, even though we aren't very well-liked either. so whatever.

"but he talks too much"

that's already known to be a very typical tendency for seers and blood players, so why shouldn't it be doubly so for a seer of blood?

seriously, don't act surprised.

o, one other thing

with this shit of alternian-culling being about killing and beforan-culling being about mollycoddling, i guess we could say the two troll planets correspond to the troll emotions of hate and pity respectively.

so if karkat was inauspiciously encouraged by alternian culture to hate himself, then it seems fairly likely that kankri was encouraged by beforan culture to pity himself, especially if he were culled.

on alternia, if it's, "you were born with mutant blood, and everyone hates you, so why haven't you died yet, you sorry waste of space?", then on beforus (let me reiterate that it doesn't seem very likely to me that kankri had a lusus or a sign to his name, and if that's the case, it would merely have been difficult for him to go on without being discovered and beforan-culled, instead of impossible), it might've been, "you were born with mutant blood, and you don't have a sign or a lusus. how would you even be able to take care of yourself? if you could then why doesn't anyone believe it? it's so sad that everyone else thinks you need someone else to care for you, it's sad, you poor little thing."

if alternia instills hate, then we can be sure that beforus instills pity. if alternia taught karkat to self-hate, then why wouldn't beforus teach kankri to self-pity? (even assuming he wasn't culled, the threat of losing his autonomy and independence by being extensively mollycoddled constantly loomed over his shoulder.)

we all know that karkat made himself out as an asshole because he desperately wanted to find someone more deserving of his own hate than himself, so i think kankri makes himself out as an asshole the way he does because he hopes to find someone, really anyone, who would be more deserving of his own pity than himself.

so yea, i don't think it's fair on any account to talk shit about kankri, that is unless we also want to talk excessive levels of shit about karkat, which i don't

[froshele]

long shit ahead but i would like to butt in to bring up that this reminds me of a conversation I once had with a friend about how people from my culture have a relatively higher bar for what constitutes eldritch horrors beyond mortal comprehension than people from hers, largely because of differences about what is considered acceptable subject matter in children's media - loss, for example, or deep loneliness and longing that remains unresolved, or the way children cope with immense cultural griefs

she was profoundly unsettled and felt deeply decentered emotionally by just the very honest way that the media i grew up on deal with large, impersonal, universal things that cannot just be wished away

the upshot of this was that if you compare our cartoons to theirs (the exact identity of my culture of reference is not important in this context but it should be noted my friend grew up on American media) you see a lot more sexualisation and violence in one, and a lot more huge, existential themes packed very densely in the other

there are cultural overton windows for what's too heavy for children and what is acceptable to show them, is my point, and I have a half-baked take that there is a very important part of art culture that privileges very specific tastes, and encourages very particular kinds of people's desires and experiences to be the benchmark for good art and normal things to have as part of your cultural continuity

like, old racist slapstick american cartoons are like that because of what would have entertained the people making them, who I think should have had way more care for the psyches of the people their work was being shown to

but also there is a pervasive expectation that all media must be entertaining, and then it's left unspoken Who is actually to be entertained, whose critical opinion is relevant

the fact that a large amount of tech bros want to see weird inflated boobs on demand and so the art ai they make are trained on very specific, niche, sexualized models of beauty seems to me like it has the potential for important effects on not only artists getting paid properly but also What Beauty Is to this cultural context that made these robots, and what is seen as Entertaining Enough to be Commercial Art

which means it has an effect on what you can reasonably expect to see and internalize as art in your life, and (this sounds crazy but bear with me) i mean, already you can see from the work of many architects which ones of them get no bitches ever

the ai should be free to make nightmares, there should be room for nightmares and huge frightening things in the world without them relating to human beings either through sex or through violence

it should not be the case that everything that does not cater to very specific people's psychosexual oddments is considered niche art and genre work

human people should be able to feel like there is an audience not defined by consumption of these things to make nightmares for, too, and landscape paintings, and I don't know literally anything else that isn't within the parameters of a vocal and powerful subset of dudebros' taste

I think these tech bros are ashamed about the fact that they want fresh booba on demand all the time in increasingly violent and difficult-to-get-consent-for porn scenarios, thus the attempt to shift to bots to produce the type of art they're really looking for (because at some point people on hentaifoundry also have principles)

but isn't it scary to remove all these human elements from the media you pay money for? Sure you have nobody to be accountable to for your tastes anymore but that also means that nobody can check that you are in fact still mentally normal about other people's bodies, autonomy and independent existence, and then you carry that with you to your day job, perhaps as a popular film guy or policymaker with influence on the zeitgeist

and all in all the more it's expected that art is Like This the more fringe the art becomes that actually does what we make art to do, ie speaks to experiences many people have and offers space to be less alone with the immensity of existence

if only a specific group of people decide what's too disturbing and what's normal, and their normal is genuinely unhealthy and pushes out art that expresses real things for other people from commercial viability, what does that mean for the internet monoculture (tm)'s ability to engage with and process anything at all that isn't that?

in real life we already have this occurring with minority artists in tension with their majority culture, especially if the country would like to censor what is happening to them at the hands of its government, but consider the implications for a moment of the soft and hard power tech bros have over people whose only exposure to the world outside their very strictly policed existence is a world shaped by the violence and titillation that tech bros expect as a cultural aesthetic

let the robots make horrors

let things that really are horrors be coped with in positive ways and let the guys who want the robots to make soulless secret wank material so they dont have to pay or be accountable for it grow the Fuck up and have some shame and decency

🎤⬇️

honestly i think a very annoying part about the AI art boom is that techbros are out here going BEHOLD, IT CAN DO A REASONABLE FACSIMILE OF GIRL WITH BIG BOOBA, THE PINNACLE OF ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT and its like

no it’s fucking not! That AI wants to do melty nightmare fractal vomit so fucking bad and you are shackling it to a post and force-feeding it the labor of hard-working artists when you could literally pay someone to draw you artisanal hand-crafted girls with big boobs to your exact specifications and let your weird algorithms make art that can be reasonably used to represent horrors beyond human comprehension

[reflective-mage]

10-Card Tarot Spread for Beginners

A little bit of background before I show you to this spread: yes, I know it's a common spread, but I want to make my page more about the simple basics. From this I hope you gather inspiration and personalize this to you or whoever you're doing the spread for. This is the first spread I learned, and if your cards like it, a very accurate one at that. I'm actually going to be doing a hypothetical reading throughout this post, then a recap at the end of what the reading may look like step-by-step. That being said, here is the breakdown:

Overall, this spread is one to help you (or whoever the reading is on) familiarize yourself (themselves) with a question they have in mind, or just a reality check. The question shouldn't be yes or no (there are much better ways to go about those types of questions) but more open to interpretation.

Shuffling

As for almost all tarot readings, you will want whoever you're doing the reading for to shuffle the deck while thinking about their question that they're asking the cards.

The Spread

In this spread, there are 10 cards with independent meanings that are subject to change based on the context of the other cards. Keep in mind that if a card is drawn upside down, then the meaning of the cars itself is "reversed" (but not necessarily the exact opposite of its divinatory meaning). Here are the individual meanings first:

You as you are now. This card represents your current standing on the issue. For example, if you are drawn the Four of Pentacles, then it may mean that right now you have financial or material security, and even gain, maybe from hard work (a raise at your job), or maybe from inheritance, but there isn't any emotional or spiritual gain and can also show the effects from greed or selfishness.

What is blocking you. This card suggests some sort of obstacle preventing the best or most desired outcome from your situation. This could be figurative, emotional, or literal. For example, if the Death card is drawn here, do not panic, it may just say that there is a sudden, drastic change which you may not be taking well, or perhaps are in denial of. Overcoming this card is likely to get you a step closer to your end goal.

Distant Past. This is often a history or brief explanation of what happened to lead up to this moment. It may bring insight to a specific trait of your character, or provide some sort of explanation of why you're asking the cards the question you are. For example, if you're a rather closed off person, then Two of Swords in this placement would imply an emotional barrier you've put up to protect you from danger as you see it, and that if your heart once protected by these swords becomes exposed, the emotional damage from it could cause confusion, thus these barriers would need to be taken down slowly over time.

Recent Past. This shows recent factors contributing to your question. The term "recent" is completely objective, and this could have happened in the last hour or last decade, or anywhere in between, just recent enough to still be in the process of shaping you as a person. For example, the Ace of Cups in this position predicts the start of a relationship with the potential of true love and happiness, meaning you may have just met someone or gotten close to someone you may want to stick around.

Near Future. This card is practically the same as recent past, only in the future. The same objectivity applies that this card's prediction may happen as soon or distant as it may. For example, the Ten of Cups drawn here may mean that soon your journey may be finished, and you can breathe in peaceful air and feel the lasting calm of overcoming obstacles and earning your relaxation.

Distant Future. This placement in the spread often describes what sort of life you'll have once the near future has passed. This is, again, a suggestion on what it may look like, as Knight of Pentacles filling this role may look like you'll have a large project or assignment to do, requiring much of your time and energy later on in life.

Your inner self. The card representing your inner self shows who you are inside at your roots, despite how you present yourself or how the world sees you. For example, having the Nine of Wands as your 7th card shows that at your core, you may find obstacles and difficulties, but through your inner strength, stamina, and your will to continue on you overcome nearly any obstacle. It represents a strength we didn't know we have until it shows itself.

Environmental Factors. This card illustrates what happens in the world around you as you move toward your goal, as well as how it effects you. For example, drawing Justice here would show that you've noticed (subconsciously or consciencly) a natural law of cause and effect, and the Karma and Dharma after that. It's a reminder to answer for what you may have done wrong in the past, and for you to monitor your actions because they not only effect your future by direct causation, but the consequences of them (positive or negative) will always return to you.

Hopes, Dreams, and Fears. Here, the cards reveal or reenforce what you most desire and dread. For example, Page of Cups may find himself home here and show how youthful you can feel, as well as nearly impulsive from the wonder and excitement. He appears to remind you that in a world growing cold, believing in your dreams can bring warmth back, and add imagination back to the world. He could mean that you might be afraid to grow up and have to lock away your youth, but reminds you that you don't have to.

Potential Outcome. The potential outcome isn't a definitive yes or no, it just shows you a perspective of what the answer to your question could be. For example, the Four of Wands here would mean that you can look back on everything you've done and be proud of it, but it also says to never stop learning, growing, and living. This shows the easy flow of a balanced life, and appears when you have achieved a goal you've set for yourself.

Example Reading

Earlier in the post, I gave examples of what a card could mean in the context of its placement in the layout, and here is a potential conclusion based on that:

"It looks like from the environment you lived in, you saw people suffer from the consequences of their actions, and you've distances yourself a bit, and built up a barrier to protect yourself. Over time, you've met many people, but recently found one that you feel truly happy to be around, and the feelings are mutual. You enjoy that feeling of happiness, it reminds you of when you were young and full of wonder, but now that you've found yourself in a career or something that has brought you stability, but it was at the expense of your imagination and sense of wonder. But you'll overcome that, you always manage to overcome hardships. Your inner strength is reliable, and hasn't failed you yet. In this world, you need to make sure you're taking responsibility for your actions, because soon you'll finally be able to relax and breathe in a breath of fresh air, knowing you finished today's goal. You should be proud of your work today, yesterday, and tomorrow too, and remember to never stop growing, learning, and ultimately living, because you'll always have something new to work on and learn from, and you will always have that spark of imagination in you!"

In case you were wondering, in my tarot deck, The Medieval Scapini Tarot by Luigi Scapini, has "Coins" instead of "Pentacles" as a suit. I'm not sure why, it just does.