#anyway i feel like i have to make this clear Every time someone is like wow you should be a detective

[to-be-a-dreamer]

Okay so I'm from the Newsies fandom which means I know how to make character backstories out of literally nothing and I'm done with my "This makes no sense what were the writers thinking?" stage of grief after the BuckTommy breakup and it's time to go to work and start asking "What could have happened to make this make sense?".

Because regardless of what you think about Tommy, it's very clear that the writers have characterized him (in the current stage of his life) as someone who has put in a lot of work to become a better person, is a very steady figure, and feels very confident in himself and his identity. We've also been told and shown that he and Buck care for each other a lot and neither of them wanted this relationship to end. So the question is, what happened in Tommy's past that could have caused this very confident, mature person to realize he's falling in love with his partner and then choose to leave?

"I'm your first, not your last."

How many times has Tommy been someone's first? How many times has he shown another man this new side of himself, taught them what it means to be queer and how to love yourself for it, and been left behind once they figured themselves out? How many times has he been someone's first and had a whirlwind romance, only to be left brokenhearted because his partners had a whole new world opened up to them only to realize they didn't want Tommy to be a part of that world?

Does Tommy think of himself as the guy people have fun with, not the guy they want to marry? Does Tommy think there's something wrong with him, that there's a reason no one ever sees a future with him? Do you think he's always told himself that he would keep trying, that it's worth the potential heartbreak to find out if this next guy might be the one who stays?

Did the way Buck was talking about their relationship being transformative for him just sound too familiar? Did he think Buck liked him because he was showing him something new, not because he could ever actually love someone like Tommy? Do you think he could never imagine Buck liking him anywhere near as much as Tommy liked him?

Do you think he realized he was falling in love with Buck, and the idea of losing him like all the others was just too much? Do you think he knew the potential heartbreak of someone as incredible as Buck deciding he didn't want Tommy in his future wasn't worth it this time? Do you think he was afraid of falling in love with Buck, of falling so deeply in love that he wouldn't be able to recover when Buck left him like all the others? Do you think he decided it was better to break things off with Buck before he could finish falling in love with him?

Do you think they could come back from this? That maybe, just maybe, if Tommy told Buck about all of his fears that he could convince Tommy that it is worth it to find out if they could make it?

"I'm not the guy people decide to spend their life with. They- you'll finish figuring yourself out and realize you don't want a future with me. And that's okay, I just... I don't want to let myself finish falling in love with you first because I won't survive losing you after that."

"Do you think that little of me? That I'm just using you for my own personal gain and that I'll leave you in the dust as soon as I get what I want?"

"I... No. No, I don't think you would do that."

"Then give us a chance. Let me show you that this is more than just an awakening for me. Let me prove that I want to finish falling in love with you too."

Because I think that's what Tommy's afraid of. He's a person who's spent a lot of time self-reflecting and he knows himself so well, especially his faults. I think he’s afraid of Buck seeing all of those faults and realizing he doesn’t love Tommy as much as he thought he did. Loving someone means you see every part of them and want to be with them anyways.

I think Tommy is terrified of falling in love with someone because he can't imagine anyone loving him back.

[ganondoodle]

can someone explain better than i can why a somewhat consistent canon matters? to me "fuck canon we do what we want" has its limits, to an extent its freeing and you can do alot with it ... but if theres no groundwork to build on? what does it matter? when canon doesnt matter why does anything? why spent time thinking about it?

this was about arcane at first but it also applies to totk, when the canon can just be erased and replaced, changed with no consistency or rules i cant invest time thinking about anything bc .... it can all be changed anyway, without any rules in fiction it all stops being interesting to me

having rules, or groundwork to work with and around is fun and interesting, but when its made clear that nothign of that actually matters? its boring and i feel cheated, just like how i felt so cheated by totk, it makign clear that everything botw established never actually mattered, it being downright erased ... that is why my love for zelda has faltered into indifference, the only thing making me hold on to it being the projects i have already invested so much time into ..

if you read a book and important details change or go missing after you read it, or with every time you read through it with no rule or system to it at all? its tiring and annoying, why care when they dont, how can i care about a character if i know they will just go and completely change who they are while acting like that was always how it was, idk, im bad at putting my feelings into thoughts :I

[oceaneyesinla]

This idea appeared in my brain in the shower and I think it's ADORABLE. Shoto just brings out the cuteness aggression in me

Shoto x gn!Reader

A knock at your dorm room door distracts you from your book, but when you open it, you're met with beige walls and blue carpet, neither of which are known for their ability to knock on wood. This has happened a fair few times in the last month , and that knowledge prompts you to look down.

You can't help your pleased little smile when your hunch is proven correct. Sitting neatly in the doorway is a bunch of pretty flowers wrapped up in blue plastic. They're your favourite, just like always, and they've arrived just in time - like clockwork, just as the old ones are beginning to wilt, a new bouquet appears. There's differences every time, but whatever extras have been added, your favourite flower is always there.

There's a distinctive amateur feel to the way the bouquet is wrapped up, and it endears you to your secret gifter even more. It's clear how much time and effort is going into this gesture, in more ways than one. Someone listened to you, when you rambled about the flower patch in your childhood garden, the one you tended alone while your brother trained with your parents to become a hero. Someone remembered you fondly reminisce about pretty leaves and bright petals, and decided to make you smile.

You crouch down to pick up the flowers, and there's a note tucked amongst the blooms, just like every other time. It's never signed, and it's always so blunt and honest that it circles right back round to being charming. Whether it's complementing your sunshine smile or praising you for your latest training success, it never fails to make your cheeks heat up. You keep them all, tucked away in the drawer underneath where you display your flowers.

Your admirer is making a valiant effort to keep their identity hidden, and you find it adorable - mostly because you figured it out as soon as you saw that first note. He forgot that you know him as well as he knows you. The way he writes his characters is ever so slightly clumsy; he spent a lot of time teaching himself to write - Endeavour more interested in teaching him to fight than to live - and there's a couple of little details that make his handwriting distinctive. Plus, you're shared a class with him for three years; you've seen his writing more times than you can count.

There's a flash of red out of the corner of your eye, and you press your lips together to hold back a giggle. He may be a nearly graduated Hero course student, but he's not very sneaky. He doesn't usually stick around to see your reaction to his creation, instead listening intently from his desk as you gush about them to Momo.

Your eyes widen as your eyes scan over familiar script, and now you know why he's loitering - Todoroki Shoto is asking you on a date. You read the words three times, and pinch yourself for good measure. Part of you is surprised - he knows all your darkest moments and he's choosing you anyway? - but a bigger part of you knows this was inevitable. You've been gravitating towards each other since first year, and honestly, you've been driving your classmates mad.

An almost painful grin stretches across your face as you straighten up, "Sho? Come here."

He obeys almost immediately, emerging from around the corner to stand in front of you. The cautious hope glittering in his eyes makes you want to squish his cheeks and boop his nose and you feel giddy when you remember that yes, you'll be able to do just that. No more hiding the urge to hold his hand or kiss his cheek when he remembers your favourite snack or brings an extra hoodie to movie night just in case you get cold.

Maybe you're getting ahead of yourself. You still haven't actually given him an answer, and he's starting to worry, his bottom lip pushing out into a little pout. You can't take his sad face any longer - you reach out and grab his hand, infinitely entertained by the immediate red flush that spreads across his cheeks.

"Of course I'll go on a date with you. How about this weekend?"

"Okay." His smile is reflecting yours like the moon reflects the sun, and oh, he might be the prettiest person you've ever met.

He lifts your hand and shyly drops a kiss to your knuckles, looking up at you through unfairly long lashes. Now you're blushing as well, heat pooling in your cheeks as he lets your hands fall back between you. Neither of you let go, and you make an impulsive decision - after all, Shoto was brave enough to take the first step; the least you can do is meet him where he is.

"Actually, I'm free right now. We could go and get dinner?"

Your bravery is instantly rewarded with another devastatingly beautiful smile, "Yeah, I'd like that."

[talenlee]

4e: I Like the Ardent

One of the elements of Dungeons and Dragons as a game system that I hold fast to as one of its greatest strengths is the nature of the class-species based system where a player is immediately invited to create a character the second they hear about the basics of the system. To this end, there is a design space in D&D where the classes in that class system regard the potential power carried in a name that meaningfully explicates what they do. Class systems, broadly, recognise the value of names for what a class is, because that conveys tone for what a class does. A Barbarian and a Fighter aren’t meaningfully useful classes but when positioned as game systems, one of them is immediately more technical than the other.

Even if, yes, I’m sure, Berserker is the more proper term.

Anyway, to this end, a D&D character class cares about what I think of as ‘name space’ – the kinds of things you can name classes in order to make those classes compelling, interesting and memorable, the handles that players can get a grip on. This means that some titles, like Wizard, Bard, Rogue, Sorcerer, the 90s idiot’s allure of The Ninja, have value and weight to them and you can almost always directly tie the quality of a class to the name it gets, as that’s a sign that someone had a real clear idea and wanted to do something. If the weird is generic (the Seeker) or completely obscure (the Factotum), then you were odds on dealing with something that was not designed with a strong class fantasy and were about to be in for A Bad Time that was maybe interestingly broken.

And then there’s the Ardent.

Ardents are a type of support character, a Leader in the context of D&D 4th edition. While by no means their first appearance in the game, 4th is the place where they got good. 3rd edition Ardents worked in a way that I will generously call weird, and were positioned as a psionic healer and therefore in direct competition with the Cleric, one of the best classes in the game that could always manage healing as an afterthought. Not a good look there at the best of times, especially with the strongest virtue of the psionic system of 3.5 being ‘guess what rules oversight I get to dance in.’

The simplest description for the Ardent is that they’re a melee psionic supporter that leads by example and expresses emotions hard. It’s a bit of a hard class fantasy to put into a single word, right? You’re a feeler. Wait no that’s bad. You’re an emotive? Nope, that won’t do it, either. You can tell Ardent is a rough word to use since it shows up in the flavour text of dozens of other things and the Paladin even gets a starting power called Ardent Vow.

Thing is once this idea is set aside, the actual mechanical package of the Ardent absolutely rules. For a start, it’s a melee weapon based Leader whose primary attacking stat is Charisma, and whose skills back that Charisma up. You can play a skulking streetwise Ardent or a sincere politician Ardent or even just a walking threat Ardent, they all have the compatibilities. They also rely on a big weapon, meaning you get some of that anime hero vibes of a character with a huge weapon leaping into combat to have a big impact.

Because their primary focus was how things feel they could put a lot of different emotional impacts on the kinds of moves they had. That could be something like leading your friends in a direct charge against an enemy or sometimes it could be about psychically dragging your enemy towards you so every friend you have gets to make an attack on them along the way like it’s an Assist Strikers spice reel from the attract mode on an arcade.

Ardents had a special ability that fired off when they got bloodied, which was rarely worth worrying about. They had another ability that change how you related to opportunity attacks, too – either you were better defended against them (prompting you to be more reckless about how you moved), you were better at dealing damage with them (and therefore became more mindful about forcing opponents into positions to deal with them) or you got to deal more damage when you got hit by them (in which case you were suddenly an immense idiot trying to get whacked on the snout all the time in combat just so you could retaliate with nova spikes).

They also grew well. See, they were a psionic class, which meant early on you picked some at-will powers and then instead of getting encounter attacks, you swapped those at-wills for other at-wills and got instead power points to choose how to fine-tune your powers for points in combat. This could lead to things like a slow burning opening turn setting up a late-combat nova, or vice versa, or maybe you’d find you had one power you loved to use all the time and focused on using it, with your other powers as niche, sometimes fooders. As an example, Demoralising Strike is a power you start with and, using no power points, just gives enemies a -2 to defenses when you hit with it. If you augmented it though, it would impose a penalty of -X, where X is 1+ your con mod, so in some cases, -5, or -6. This is a big swing and makes things very easy to hit and paints a very broad target.

On the note of painting a target, they also get the power Forward Thinking Cut, one of my favourite 4th edition powers ever. Used just on its own it’s a solid melee attack that gives everyone adjacent to you +1 to hit. That’s a perfectly reasonable power on its own. It can be augmented once to allow a higgledy-piggle side-step charge, but then it can be augmented a second time to instead allow two other characters to come with you on the charge. This kind of flexibility delights me, where it goes from a serviceable every-time power and then upgrades into a power for transporting people into the fray at the very start of combat.

It’s such a cool class about creating cool feeling moments.

Shame about the name.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[gem-de-lune]

Flash Reading: SM's Statement on Seunghan

No intro lesgo aorry if there is any typos this was a very emotion heavy read and all the members are freaking tf out.

How does Riize feel/what are they doing?

Do you recognize this Page of Cups? Yes. This was literally just in my Full Moon Reading regarding how this Moon was affecting Riize or rather their ultimate interaction with SM. They are going to make their emotions and intentions on this matter very very clear probably unexpectedly on SM's side. The 7 of Swords indicates they were blindsided, and the 10 of swords in this deck indicate they are overwhelmed with this feeling of being "put down". Idk how to describe this perfectly but it's like when you are so full of absolute outrage all you can do is stomp over to the person and literally seethe as you feel like you are being ignored.

How does Seunghan feel?

The Moon + Strength + The Hermit

Does he want this?

The Devil

Bro wants to hide away completely. He isnt sure what to feel. He was not blinsided here and he knew. But in classic Libra fashion he has been told what his options are and wanted to see if he could try. He is regretting it already knowing what he will have to do all alone by himself. He does not want to be a soloist. He is scared. He is barely managing to keep himself subdued. As I read this i am almost tearing up. He tried lying multiple times during the reading and If you read the way I do for individuals you know what I mean because you end up feeling what they are feeling physically and the cards don't make sense.

Anyways, he is so so so low in confidence rn. He at a point felt like it was kind of SM to even offer a solo debut, but now he knows its really a death sentence and strategy they are using to save Riize. He wants to help Riize, but he also did not want this outcome. I am so so sick to my stomach reading this bc he is so so sad and so so riddled with anxiety and fear of not knowing what will happen.

What will SM do in Response?

Knight of Swords

Extra pulls that flew out when asking for clarification and if their statement would be retracted

The Magician (flew) + King of Cups (fell out and didnt notice until i move my hand)

Recognize this Knight again? Yes this is the card pulled in Vibe Check for the full moon saying swift action will be taken. With the Magician and King of Cups we are seeing someone with the power and tools to do so taking action on the matter. With the King of cups we are actually seeing an ounce of empathy and understanding on a fundamental level (shocking).

But the fact that the Page of Cups for Riize and the Knight of Swords for SM literally showed up here is NOT a coincidence. It means this is all a part of the plan to turn things around unexpectedly.

Bottom of the deck:

The High Priestess

YALL IDK HOW CLEARER I CAN BE

She is saying to trust your intuition and follow that path with every ounce of your being. My intuition is telling me this isn't the end and the truth, and what is right will prevail. There is absolutely no better indication of that than the Priestess. If you have any ounce of intuition you KNOW what is happening right now and you KNOW what is right. Follow that feeling.

This is not the end. SM is trying to console people because they SEE the numbers, and they don't like it. This is the sale pity party prize they gave Lucas. I, for one, have had enough of thiet antics. This is where it stops. Do. Not. Fall. For. This.

[haru-dipthong]

Ep 12 of my Utena fansub is out!

私たちも今までいろいろやってきた、疲れたわね

We've been so busy the last few episodes. I'm pooped.

A juicy little indulgence on my part here - the fourth wall break here by the shadow girls does not actually exist in the Japanese (explicitly). I’ll explain why I added it.

Here’s a very literal translation of the individual words above with no thought given to context or adjusting for grammar.

We (also) | until now | various different things | have done up to this point

I believe いろいろやってきた (lit. we’ve done various different things up to this point) is referring to their various performances in a sort of meta way. If we take each appearance of the shadow girls as a semi-in-universe mini stage play, this line is referencing the presence of previous plays within the current play. They’ve played pirates, plate spinners, cowboys, an educational program, and more! Acknowledging these things is tantamount to a performer acknowledging the fact that they’re an actor rather than a character while on stage, so the fourth wall break felt appropriate.

Anya was also happy with the fourth wall break and added that it emphasises the episode as a turning point and helps close out the arc, which I really agree with!

-----

また黙秘するわけね。今のウテナってかっこ悪いよ。何か取られた腑抜けみたい。なんだかわからないけど、取られたら取り返しなさいよ！

Are you clamming up again? You look pathetic right now. Like you let someone steal from you! I don’t know what it was, but if someone took something from you, take it back!

Couple of little things to discuss about this line:

かっこ悪い is often translated as “uncool” or “lame”. This can sometimes be accurate, since it’s the opposite of かっこいい (lit. cool), but in this circumstance those words don’t hit hard enough. This かっこ悪い is more barbed than usual, so I kept the barbs by choosing a different word: pathetic.

“Clamming up” was an off the cuff choice because I felt I’d used “be quiet”, “not talk”, etc too many times in the previous scene to reuse them here. I think it fits with Wakaba’s personality and the current situation pretty well! 黙秘 is defined by jisho.org as “remaining silent; keeping secret”.

腑抜け means “coward” or something similar. I tried phrasing this line a few times to get that word in somehow, but in the end the whole rant just read so much better without forcing it in. Also cps (characters per second) was a concern here.

-----

元気な友達がいるね。

Your friend has quite the personality.

元気 (genki). What a word! Often translated as “energetic”. So often in fact, that even before I checked, I knew that the ohtori.nu translation would have used it, and sure enough!

Your friend is very energetic. (from ohtori.nu)

Along with “eyesore” and “confession (of love)”, this might take the bronze medal for common Japanese words that consistently get translated into very uncommon English words.

Of course, 元気 can literally mean “having a lot of energy”, or simply “well” (as in the opposite of “unwell”). But “energetic” is just such a bad translation for it 90% of the time. I wish I could convey why in words, but in most contexts, the word 元気 and the word “energetic” just feel so different.

Anyway, 元気 has quite a positive nuance, which emphasises the passive aggressiveness of Touga’s comment. The intent with this line is that he’s giving a vague compliment to Wakaba, indirectly (talking about her as if she’s not there), and making it clear that he wishes she wasn’t around. Everything else about the line should be secondary, including the specific meanings of each word.

I think this is emblematic of my general approach to translation — to identify the author’s original intent of a line/scene/work and then write it in a different language with the same intent in mind. Every line, every scene, is trying to do something — I believe it’s the translator’s job to identify what each line and scene is supposed to be doing and preserve that, so media literacy is very important. Sometimes that line is doing exposition, in which case a literal translation of each word is often ideal. Sometimes that line is trying to evoke a feeling, establish a character, or make the audience remember similar experiences, in which case the individual words used matter much less. In this case, the line is attempting to invoke memories of similar experiences of passive aggressive, dismissive comments. And frankly, “Your friend is very energetic” does not do that, so I consider it a poor translation.

-----

Thanks as always to my ride or die @dontbe-lasanya for their awesome editing this episode (and every episode!)

Make sure to follow the blog for episodes as they're released. Go here for all previous episodes:

[north-wilkesboro-moonshine-cave]

congratulations to Mme. Pascale Leclerc, who has surely just experienced both the funniest and most unhinged weekend a mother could ever have. Dear fucking christ, I hope your middlest son brought you a bottle of champagne for yourself, ma'am.

[icewindandboringhorror]

I occasionally wish to reach out to old friends/acquaintances I haven't spoken to since high school/some other even earlier time in my life, but I have SOOO little social energy even for required tasks (like making dr phone calls or etc), I never have any leftover for extra ones, and it would be very odd to message someone I haven't spoken to in like 5 years out of the blue but then take 4 entire months to respond back lol.. My natural curiosity with nostalgia/collecting details of the past/etc. (literally if I were born a little earlier I would definitely do scrapbooking or something lol) is very strong, but, alas, not strong enough to beat out the Social Issues Demons apparently

[hollowflight-propaganda]

I think it's time I change my bio to say it's been 11 years since I started to watch Ninjago.....

Gosh. Where's my senior discount on the lego sets, huh?

[skrunksthatwunk]

why the fuck did i write about birds this fucking sucks. i just found out birds only sleep for a few minutes at a time, hundreds of times a day. do you know what this is going to do to my structure? the logistics of their road trip? this is already like three days late and i've been fighting for my life to get A Plot Like Any Plot That Makes Sense out and now the birds fucking sleep for 5 minutes at a time.

[incorrectquotesideas-deactivated]

Person A: Do you want a beer? I’m paying.

Person B, going through the restaurant’s menu: No. Ugh, where’s the good stuff?

Person A, half jokingly: I thought you were an alcoholic.

Person B: Exactly. I’d need at least, like, four beers — without food — to get slightly buzzed, and my stomach can’t fit over 2 beers in it. I’m small. I’ll have a rum, neat.

[hella1975]

i have such a reputation that four separate people incorporated pringles into my birthday gifts. be that girl

[lesbianbishounen]

there are some pieces of media that i love a lot for a variety of reasons but most of the content on social media about it is ship related. and a lot of the time i like said ships as well but theyre not the reason something impacted me at all i want other kinds of content. but if i have to read a single analysis post from an online stranger that i disagree with i might start blowing people up with my mind

[autistic-shaiapouf]

Wondering if I feel weird about jobs bc I have almost exclusively worked high stress high turnover jobs

[dan-crimes]

Nuh uh uh *shakes my little finger* you will not get me Sonic franchise you will NOT get me invested into all this my dear buddy pal I've always enjoyed seeing you around but I will simply continue being a bystander just watching as it all goes by bcuz I know how it'll go if I actually get into all this

But also if I get bored I might get into it anyways it's mostly just a silly rule I put for myself cuz I know it would be a lot of work to catch up and I would prolly end up wanting to play some of the games if I got into the franchise but I'm not a gamer @ all so