#anyway this thing being so long is a perfect metaphor for me having so much things to say about the relationship between tom and vito

[thesmokinpossum]

The Godfather, Mario Puzo | An Hymn to Childhood, Li-Young Lee | Psalm 139: 14 | The Godfather, Mario Puzo | For your own Good, Leah Horlick | Erou, Maya Phillips | The Godfather, Mario Puzo | Ask Polly | The Hours, Michael Cunningham | FROM THE MAKERS OF "TWO-MOM ENERGY DRINK", IT'S "LET YOUR FATHER DIE" ENERGY DRINK

[longagoitwastuesday]

So so indebted to u for posting those lovely illustrations from Cyrano <333 & even more so for yr tags!! I'm completely in love w yr analysis, please feel free to ramble as long as u wish! Browsing through yr Cyrano de Bergerac tag has given me glimpses of so many adaptations & translations I'd never heard of before! I'll be watching the Solès version next, which I have only discovered today through u ^_^ As for translations, have u read many/all of them? I've only encountered the Renauld & Burgess translations in the wild, & I was curious to hear yr translation thoughts that they might guide my decision on which one I buy first (not necessarily Renauld or Burgess ofc). Have a splendid day & sorry for the likespam! 💙

Sorry for the delay. Don't mind the likespam, I'm glad you enjoyed my tags about Cyrano, and that they could contribute a bit to a further appreciation of the play. I loved it a lot, I got obsessed with it for months. It's always nice to know other people deeply love too that which is loved haha I hope you enjoy the Solès version, it may well be my favourite one!

About translations, I'm touched you're asking me, but I don't really know whether mine is the best opinion to ask. I have read... four or five English translations iirc, the ones I could find online, and I do (and especially did, back when I was reading them) have a lot of opinions about them. However, nor English nor French are my first languages (they are third and fourth respectively, so not even close). I just read and compare translations because that's one of my favourite things to do.

The fact is that no translation is perfect, of course. I barely remember Renauld's, but I think it was quite literal; that's good for understanding the basics of the text, concepts and characters, but form is subject, and there's always something that escapes too literal translations. Thomas and Guillemard's if I recall correctly is similar to Hooker's in cadence. It had some beautiful fragments, some I preferred over Hooker's, but overall I think to recall I liked Hooker's more. If memory serves, Hooker's was the most traditionally poetic and beautiful in my opinion. Burgess' is a whole different thing, with its perks and drawbacks.

Something noticeable in the other translations is that they are too... "epic". They do well the poetic, sorrowful, grief stricken, crushed by regrets aspects of Cyrano and the play in general, but they fall quite short in the funny and even pathetic aspects, and that too is key in Cyrano, both character and play. Given the characteristics of both languages, following the cadence of the French too literally, with those long verses, makes an English version sound far too solemn at times when the French text isn't. Thus Burgess changes the very cadence of the text, adapting it more to the English language. This translation is the one that best sets the different moods in the play, and as I said before form is subject, and that too is key: after all, the poetic aspect of Cyrano is as much true as his angry facet and his goofy one. If Cyrano isn't funny he isn't Cyrano, just as he wouldn't be Cyrano without his devotion to Roxane or his insecurities; Cyrano is who he is precisely because he has all these facets, because one side covers the other, because one trait is born from another, because one facet is used as weapon to protect the others, like a game of mirrors and smoke. We see them at different points through the play, often converging. Burgess' enhances that. He plays with the language itself in form and musicality, with words and absences, with truths masking other truths, with things stated but untold, much like Cyrano does. And the stage directions, poetic and with literary value in their own right in a way that reminded me of Valle Inclán and Oscar Wilde, interact with the text at times in an almost metatextual dimension that enhances that bond Cyrano has with words, giving them a sort of liminal air and strengthening that constant in the play: that words both conceal and unveil Cyrano, that in words he hides and words give him away.

But not all is good, at all. Unlike Hooker, Burgess reads to me as not entirely understanding every facet of the characters, and as if he didn't even like the play all that much, as if he had a bit of a disdainful attitude towards it, and found it too mushy. Which I can understand, but then why do you translate it? In my opinion the Burgess' translation does well bending English to transmit the different moods the French text does, and does pretty well understanding the more solemn, cool, funny, angry, poetic aspects of Cyrano, but less so his devotion, vulnerability, insecurities and his pathetism. It doesn't seem to get Roxane at all, how similar she is to Cyrano, nor why she has so many admirers. It does a very poor job at understanding Christian and his value, and writes him off as stupid imo. While I enjoyed the language aspect of the Burgess translation, I remember being quite angry at certain points reading it because of what it did to the characters and some changes he introduces. I think he did something very questionable with Le Bret and Castel-Jaloux, and I remember being incensed because of Roxane at times (for instance, she doesn't go to Arras in his version, which is a key scene to show just how much fire Roxane has, and that establishes several parallels with Cyrano, in attitude and words, but even in act since she does a bit what Cyrano later does with the nuns in the last act), and being very angry at several choices about Christian too. While not explicitly stated, I think the McAvoy production and the musical both follow this translation, because they too introduce these changes, and they make Christian as a character, and to an extent the entire play, not make sense.

For instance, once such change is that Christian is afraid that Roxane will be cultured (McAvoy's version has that infamous "shit"/"fuck" that I detest), when in the original French it's literally the opposite. He is not afraid she will be cultured, he is afraid she won't, because he does love and appreciate and admires those aspects of her, as he appreciates and admires them in Cyrano. That's key! Just as Cyrano longs to have what Christian has, Christian wants the same! That words escape him doesn't mean he doesn't understand or appreciate them. The dynamics make no sense without this aspect, and Burgess (and the productions that directly or indirectly follow him) constantly erases this core trait of Christian.

Another key moment of Christian Burgess butchers is the scene in Arras in which Christian discovers the truth. Burgess writes their discussion masterfully in form, it's both funny and poignant, but it falls short in concept: when Cyrano tells him the whole discussion about who does Roxane love and what will happen, what they'll do, is academic because they're both going to die, Christian states that dying is his role now. This destroys entirely the thing with Christian wanting Roxane to have the right to know, and the freedom to choose, or to refuse them both. As much as Cyrano proclaims his love for truth and not mincing words even in the face of authority, Cyrano is constantly drunk on lies and mirages, masks and metaphors. It's Christian who wants it all to end, the one who wants real things, the one who wants to risk his own happiness for the chance of his friend's, as well as for the woman he loves to stop living in a lie. That is a very interesting aspect of Christian, and another aspect in which he is written as both paralleling and contrasting Cyrano. It's interesting from a moral perspective and how that works with the characters, but it's also interesting from a conceptual point of view, both in text and metatextually: what they hold most dear, what they most want, what most fulfills them, what they most fear, their different approaches to life, but also metatextually another instance of that tears/blood motif and its ramifications constant through the whole text. Erasing that climatic decision and making him just simply suicidal erases those aspects of Christian and his place in the Christian/Cyrano/Roxane dynamic, all for plain superficial angst, that perhaps hits more in the moment, but holds less meaning.

Being more literal, and more solemn, Hooker's translation (or any of the others, but Hooker's seems to love the characters and understand them) doesn't make these conceptual mistakes. Now, would I not recommend reading Burgess' translation? I can't also say that. I had a lot of fun reading it, despite the occasional anger and indignation haha Would I recommend buying it? I recommend you give an eye to it first, if you're tempted and can initially only buy one.

You can read Burgess' translation entirely in archive.com. You can also find online the complete translations of Renauld, Hooker and Thomas and Guillemard. I also found a fifth one, iirc, but I can't recall it right now (I could give a look). You could read them before choosing, or read your favourite scenes and fragments in the different translations, and choose the one in which you like them better. That's often what I do.

Edit: I've checked to make sure and Roxane does appear in Arras in the translation. It's in the introduction in which it is stated that she doesn't appear in the production for which the translation was made. The conceptualisation of Roxane I criticise and that in my opinion is constant through the text does stay, though.

[saguette]

What do you think Johnny's art looked like before he was stripped of his powers? This is something that bugs me a lot, and I'm curious about what you think.

ok i needed to draw a few shitty pictures to demonstrate cuz i wanted to talk about more than just his previous art but his art journey in general IDC if there's some canon tweet that proves something i said wrong or out of timeline these are my headcanons and projections so you either like it or not.. anyways I think his style pre-pre-JTHM (lets say 15-18) depicted many things, He was good at realism and fluctuated just fine between stylized art and big hefty works with a lot of detail. His stylized works looking similar to Jhonens and the whole 2000's artstyle cuz its fitting.

Of course he's like, a late teenager around this time so its GOOD but not perfect. If you pulled up a few of his drawings from this time he would probably be embarrassed by all the disproportionate limbs and goth girls he sketched and thought were badass. He probably has old sketches of friends in his style regardless if they asked to be drawn or not since his art was something he was proud of and people around him made him feel proud of. His old art also feels like it'd have anime elements unintentionally to add to that amateur artist swag. Johnny doesn't like anime copies but stuff he rips inspo from was anime inspired so it rubbed off on his work too. Moving onto PRE-JTHM (18-20) Is when his art started to get more serious and complex. In his happy era he took to drawing lovecraftian horror sometimes but it was always the secondary focus of any drawing.

Moving out and growing up was around the time his mental state started to worsen and he started using art to cope with emotions rather than just use it for fun, drawing complex monsters was a subconscious way to depict underlying mental illness that's out of his hands. He cant depict what he doesn't know he has, he can only scribble things that feel someone close to him because there is no physical appearance to emotions. He never liked his art around this time because it always felt unfinished or wrong or like it just didn't interpret what he wanted right. Overtime his art lost coherent appearance, quality, and meaning which made it feel worthless. It wouldn't be all that bad but it reached a point not even he knew what it was trying to be and it was frustrating. How can your own art not make sense to you? Its weird to let your hands go and do their own and you not recognize what they're trying to say. Which leads to SHORTLY BEFORE JTHM-and later.. Johnnys NEW preferred method for art currently is a little abstract, it became two extremes of the same thing; nothing. his art lost alot of what it used to be so he says he cant draw anymore.

Johnnys lovecraftian horror art slowly engulfed itself over time and always becomes an abstract mess. Its purposely made to be incomprehensible by having too much, regardless if its creation is poetic, an outside view not being able to tell what it is or how much work went into it is on purpose. its metaphorical or whatever.. Johnnys fucked up or something.. Whereas Noodleboy i imagine was made by him drawing a stickfigure one day to see if he can still "draw" and overtime gave him his features like angry eyes and that big hair, creating his own sort of vent sona to replace the sketchy abstract art he used before. Noodleboys chaoticness is too sporadic to rip any meaning off of, he also purposely represents nothing. His existence uses up paper the same way, just without all the extra effort. SORRRYYYY long tangent thats probably super messy i just winged it. but i cant help myself ive thought about this for a while ik i didnt strictly answer the question but i had so much more to say

[sailing-through-hawkins]

not a specific prompt im just a whore for kas!eddie being utterly obsessed w Regular Guy steve harrington & i think it'd be funny if they tried to just have a normal hangout w the party & eddie absolutely cannot be normal & just like gargoyles around or something

sorry about the wait, writer's block hit me pretty hard again but i did it!!! i hope it's to your tastes and that you have a very happy birthday!!!

So here's the thing.

Eddie could have been a vegetarian.

It was a whole thing when he was like thirteen years old and had just watched a very, very terrible movie that involved a lot of gore and too many metaphors about chickens. It fucked him up so bad that he refused any of Wayne's meat-infested meals, from pies to hot dogs to fucking sandwiches.

He did end up caving after one too many weeks of hiding in his room when the smell of delicious, juicy steak (it wasn't really a steak but fuck if he knew the difference) wafted around the trailer. He cried the entire time while he ate but Wayne pat him on the head and said he was still proud of him for making it that far.

Anyway, the point is Eddie could have sworn to look at nothing but vegetables and grass his whole life.

He's never been so glad that he didn't.

Not when Steve, the absolute fucking dork that he is, is eating his burger in the messiest way possible just to prove to Robin that he could do worse.

 Eddie can't tear his eyes away.

The way the dark, twilight blue of that Henley somehow makes his skin look that much warmer, the way his smile is riddled with sauce and lettuce, the way his eyes squeeze shut when -

"You can't eat Steve."

Eddie blinks, and turns his head to find Dustin with his arms crossed, his face squished into a grim expression.

Eddie tilts his head.

"I'm serious, you promised you wouldn't eat anybody -"

"I don't want to eat Steve," Eddie rasps out, his tail flicking against the wall. It's cold, the surfaces of everything in this house is too cold. He's almost desperate enough to burrow his way into the couch, just so he can soak up the warmth of Steve and Robin, even if their eating habits are disgusting.

Dustin glances at Steve, who's already got a tissue and is jamming into Robin's cheek with a laugh, and frowns at Eddie. "You're sure? Because you've been staring at him like, all day."

Sighing, Eddie resettles himself on the island counter so he's sitting cross-legged and continues to watch Steve. "I know."

There's a pause.

"That's it?" Dustin says incredulously. "That's all you have to say?"

"Have you ever seen someone so intrinsically against everything you've ever believed in that's somehow also the exact poster child for what you should aim to achieve?"

He hears Dustin blink. "What -"

"He's just so -" Eddie flails a hand, his tail mirroring the motion. "Benign! And yet, he possess the strength, the fearlessness of a man on the battlefield -"

"Why are you using your DM voice -"

"And yet again, he will sit there, with a perfect swoop to his hair, an innocence to his eyes and a delicate sweetness to his tongue and he will ask that you believe him to be harmless."

Another pause.

"Okay, that was a little weird -"

"And you will!" Eddie leaps onto his feet, standing above Dustin with power raging through his veins as the head rush of a monologue captures him. "You will believe that fine, gracious man to be harmless! As long as you don't - look - back."

"Eddie, get down from the counter."

With a laugh, Eddie spins and his tail wiggles a hello to Steve, who looks up at him with his exasperated, innocent eyes. "My liege," Eddie says, hopping down only to slink into Steve's space and wrap his tail around his bicep. "How goes the competition?"

"Robin won -"

"As usual!" said-bird calls out from the living room.

"Yeah, as usual," Steve repeats with a lovingly snarky tone. Eddie's tail tightens. "What have I said about standing on tables, Eddie?"

"Oh but sire," Eddie murmurs as he circles Steve, ducking down just to pout up at him. Yeah, he knows the power of his big brown eyes, he knows how to use 'em. "I was simply delivering an informative, nay, crucial declaration of your -"

"Eddie."

He switches tactics. "I won't do it again?"

"You fucking better not," Steve mock-glares down at him and oh, that's a look to think about later. Hooking a finger under Eddie's tail, where it's curled around his skin, Steve gently pulls it off and walks to the sink, the warmth of his finger sending shivers down Eddie's neck.

There is a moment of silence.

"You can't fuck Steve either, by the way, it'd be like - weird. For a lot of reasons. Not because you're guys -"

"For fuck's sake, Henderson -"

[titaniumions]

i think it's probably somewhat clear that i see isolde and kakania as lesbians (seems to be a common hc anyway) but i think i want to explore how that'd fit into their respective characterizations, not necessarily only from a shipping standpoint. note that this does get into headcanon territory, still i try to keep it as in-character as i can

i think kakania would actually be pretty open about it. in the 1910s?? i mean sure, she's already a controversy as she is ... an arcanist, an uncertified psychiatrist with unconventional methods, an outspoken member of society who stirs up public opinion. might as well give herself one more reason to be a subject of controversy. those who are set on hating her probably have no intention of changing that, so hey, might as well authentically be herself in every possible way including this. among those who have a more positive opinion about her, i do think this would make her somewhat of an icon. she draws other members of the community toward her. she lets them know that she is there for them and will fight for them. that they can turn to her and she will not scrutinize them for it. she'd tell them, no, there is nothing wrong with being this way. it isn't something you need to be "cured" from

in line with this, i think it would make sense for the "circle" to be a queer safe space. in fact, i like to think theophil himself could've been bi and thus would've accepted his sister's sexuality. but due to her own inhibitions (which i will touch upon later) i don't think isolde would ever have told him.

meanwhile for isolde ... i think it's more complicated. having a sexuality outside of the norm would be a deviation from the socially acceptable definition of the "perfect noble" she tries to be. so even if she were to ever consider it, she would simply end up pushing those thoughts away. no, not a chance. this shouldn't bother her at all. she's supposed to be perfect, yet she already has enough problems in her life as a member of the dittarsdorf family. considering the possibility of herself being anything but straight would lead to more problems, wouldn't it? and that's the last thing she needs. nonetheless she's ... never been attracted to a man either. but she tries not to think too much of it. maybe she just needs to wait it out. or so she tells herself

now to piece it all together ... i do really like the idea of kakania being her ... awakening. in fact i think it would make a lot of sense for her story, what with kakania being the metaphorical key to the doors that have always surrounded and confined isolde ... so hear me out. when isolde started associating with her and the circle she realized that it felt far less suffocating than ... pretty much any other aspect of her life. it's like a breath of fresh air. kakania in particular would fascinate isolde, in a way that makes isolde question things about herself. perhaps she even comes close to having a realization. but again, isolde remembers who she needs to be, and stops herself short.

eventually though, she would learn what kind of person kakania is, and what she believes in and fights for. this only deepens isolde's admiration further and she finally comes to a point of acceptance about her feelings. alright. i can accept this realization now. she no longer pushes it to the back of her mind. there's still a bit of repression and shame left in there but meeting someone who has not only awakened her, but also wouldn't judge her for it, has changed something within her entirely. the feelings overflow and she can deny it no longer. but again, at the end of the day she still needs to be perfect and socially acceptable. she can't just ... exist as freely as kakania does. but it's alright, isolde has feigned compliance for so long regardless of however difficult it might be. putting up with expectations has been a regular part of her life. so there it is, something authentic about this actor that she can't show to anyone else because it doesn't fit the part that she's supposed to play. kakania is allowed to know though, of course she is. it can just be their little secret. and one way or another, she'll figure out how isolde feels toward her. surely kakania would be quite honored to be on the receiving end of the affection of such a wonderful lady. as long as this affection doesn't eventually turn into a catalyst for destruction, right ...

[jkrockin]

Wait what guy who hadn't read Atlas Shrugged?

I was pretty sure I'd told this story here, but a cursory search suggests that I have not. Okay let's gooooo

Many moons ago, I worked in an emergency services call centre. I worked nights- I could get regular shifts, it paid well, and I am a huge freak, just like everyone else who works nights in a call centre. It is a lifestyle that attracts freaks. Some of my coworkers weren't full-time creatures of the night, but students or whoever who picked up occasional nights for the extra money, and one of them was Libertarian Shithead, who we'll call LS for short.

LS was a twentysomething white dude who wore a lot of name brand surfwear and designer sunglasses. I assume his parents were rich. LS loved nothing better than recreational arguing. Unfortunately, he wasn't very good at it; he had some of the most dogshit opinions I've ever encountered in the wild, and was terrible at defending them. He'd say some crap about how Gattaca-type eugenics is Fine, Actually, because if you let people make designer babies, the ~*Free Market will decide what traits are desirable! Racism and colourism and ableism and sexism and intersexism won't affect those choices at all! And I'd get mad, because I have principles to speak of, and we'd get into it, and WITHOUT FAIL, we'd get maybe halfway into an actual discussion about whatever horseshit garbage he was on tonight, and the second he thought he was losing, he'd say "oh, well. I'm an ~*Objectivist, so you can't really understand my perspective unless you've read Ayn Rand." Then he'd sigh, and change the subject.

At the time I had not read any Ayn Rand. Being fundamentally powered by spite, I withstood maybe three weeks of this shit before I pirated an epub of Atlas Shrugged, put it on my e-reader, and proceeded to slam through it at supersonic speed so I could finally get to finish an argument with this terrible boy.

Anon, I fucking hated Atlas Shrugged. The book is bad. It's way too long, every single character is an unbelievable douche, the prose sucks. Ayn Rand wants to fuck a train so so so badly, but the prose is so turgid I couldn't even get invested in how much she wants to fuck a train. And the core of the matter, the politics I was there to understand, are, y'know. Objectivist. Eye-bleedingly selfish and capitalistic, expressed in amazingly childish and blinkered terms. Even the bits where it seems like the shithead capitalist dudes want to fuck each other are too mired in the scunge of Rand's terrible views to be enjoyable.

But I read the fucking thing! I powered through it with only quite minimal complaining! I finished the book on the train to work, and when I saw that LS was on that night, I plonked myself in a seat by him, and metaphorically cracked my knuckles, ready to fuckin' party. In a perfect world, I would have been cool enough to have waited for the perfect mid-argument moment to drop, but I didn't. I think I lasted exactly until we were both off a call at the same time, and then leaned in as close as the desk dividers would let me, and said "So I finished Atlas Shrugged. I have some thoughts."

I cannot overstate how quickly it became obvious that LS had not read the book. For a hot second I thought maybe it had just been a while and the fine details had escaped him, but no; he didn't know who half the characters were, or key points of the plot, or even know any of the stuff in the John Galt speech, i.e. the big juggernaut of Here's How Objectivism Works near the end of the book about Objectivism that this fucking guy hypothetically based his Objectivist views on. It took me maybe five minutes, in between calls, to realise this, and another five for him to admit he hadn't actually read any Ayn Rand. He'd read her Wikipedia page.

ANYWAY I didn't speak to him for like a month after that, and I don't think either of us lost out there!

[lifeofmysteries]

The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System Fic Recs - Bingqiu

Fic recs specifically for the ship Luo Binghe/Shen Yuan!Shen Qingqiu. Fell down a deep SVSSS hole for the past year and have read so many fics. SVSSS has so many amazing fic authors, I have never been so blessed with a fandom.

Fic recs under the read more

High Mountain, How I Long by Minimalistless (14k, complete)

Shen Qingqiu, after enduring his trial, is placed into Luo Binghe’s custody at Huan Hua Palace.

This is one of the most bookmarked fic in the SVSSS fandom so I don't technically need to rec it, but I will anyway because it's just that good. The angst is incredible. SQQ communicate properly challenge (he'll lose).

may-june relationship by kitschlet (1.2k, complete)

Luo Binghe rolls to his back, looking up at their bed’s canopy. “When you invited me to sit in your carriage... that was you?”

“Yes,” Shen Qingqiu says warily.

“I was fourteen,” Luo Binghe says. “But if Shen Qinqgiu’s body wasn’t your own, how old were you?”

Very funny and a quick read. Poor Binghe loses a kink.

wedding suprises: the bad, the worse, and the downright miserable by nyoomerr (17k, complete)

Fresh from the Abyss and having just gained a seat of power in the Demonic Empire, Luo Binghe arranges for a marriage between himself as the Heavenly Demon Lord and Shen Yuan as a representative of Cang Qiong. It will be perfect, and Shen Yuan will love him and the marriage just as much as Luo Binghe does, because there is no reason for Shen Yuan not to love Luo Binghe just as much as he had when Luo Binghe was just a human servant of Cang Qiong.

It will be so good, in fact, that Luo Binghe decides to make it a surprise - so Shen Yuan comes to the Demonic Empire having no clue that his fiance is Luo Binghe at all.

(Surprise! It doesn't go as smoothly as Luo Binghe had planned.)

Nyoomerr is one of my favourite authors in the SVSSS fandom for how they write the relationship between LBH and SQQ, they really capture that angsty miscommunication that hurts both of them without it feeling forced.

Keeping Secrets a.k.a HOT CULTIVATOR IMBIBES TRUTH POLLEN AND DIES (of mortification) (not clickbait) by cinnamonsnaps (3k, tagged as incomplete but reads as if complete IMO)

"I bet you would beg," Shen Qingqiu said with a snort, letting his eye slide shut. The following silence was somehow remarkably loud. He cracked his eye open again. Luo Binghe was staring at him, face flushed red, hands frozen on Shen Qingqiu's ankle. "... shizun?" 

-

Shen Qingqiu gets forced to tell the truth about a lot of things, unfortunately.

Very funny, always love truth serumed SQQ bc there are so many truths he doesn't acknowledge about himself that being truth serumed reveals. no hiding behind the metaphorical fan of his words anymore

speak your mind (not that much!) by nyoomerr (8.2k, complete)

Before the investigation in Jinlan City, Shen Qingqiu is hit by a curse that forces him to speak his mind. Unfortunately, this means that the first thing he does when he sees Luo Binghe for the first time in three years is to tell Luo Binghe that he's grown up to be really quite pretty.

Luo Binghe, not sure what's going on but absolutely enjoying the ride, abandons all his plans immediately. He has new priorities now, including but not limited to: 

- get his Shizun to call him 'pretty' again - steal his Shizun away from his (probably in existence) harem - ???

Nyoomerr u r the best <3. great miscommunication. lbh going through a rollercoaster of emotions

you are who you love by kitschlet (39k, complete)

Shen Qingqiu gets hit by an amnesia wife plot that selectively erases Luo Binghe from his memories. Luckily, the cure is simple: Luo Binghe just has to make him fall in love all over again.

Kitschlet another one of the SVSSS authors where you should read through every one of their works. Very funny seeing SQQ back in 'definitely straight' mode where everyone around him knows the opposite.

night of yearning by tagteamme (39k, complete)

Luo Binghe develops a gap in his memory, one that is shaped specifically like Shen Qingqiu.

“Binghe, speak to this master,” Shen Qingqiu says firmly, and Luo Binghe gives him a strange look. Shen Qingqiu can’t place it and he leans forward, intending to get closer to see better. But the hand around his wrist instantly tightens to the point where it hurts, and Shen Qingqiu lets out a squawk of pain. “Binghe—!” “Why do you keep calling me like that?” Luo Binghe returns, and Shen Qingqiu’s eyes widen at the way the words are devoid of any emotion. It is nothing though, compared to the force of what Luo Binghe says next. “Who are you?”

This is like the twin fic to go with Kitschlet's. Poor SQQ, not a fun situation for him. Tagteamme's fics are also rlly good, highly recommend going through their account

Plastromancy by x_los (16k, complete)

"One night, Luo Binghe notices something odd about the way his blood is pooling on the floor of the woodshed."

A twelve year old Luo Binghe meets his Other Shizun.

Forces you to confront the tragic realities of what transmigration means. Includes LBH being horrific. Love it

Futility in Practice by TGP (31k, complete)

When Luo Binghe is fourteen years old, his shizun suffers a terrible qi deviation and fever that completely changes who he is.

A time loop from the perspective of a the person outside of the loop. Some of the loops are very painful but the ending is so sweet.

prophets on hold by nex_et_nox (13k, complete)

Luo Binghe led the charge in the trial against Shen Qingqiu in < Proud Immortal Demon Way >. By all rights, the concept of a trial shouldn’t even be a glimmer in anyone’s eye until Shen Qingqiu’s blackened lotus has crawled his way out of the hell Shen Qingqiu tossed him in.

So why is Shen Qingqiu wrapped in immortal binding cables and locked away in the Huan Hua Water Prison?!

[or: Luo Binghe is precisely one (1) year late getting out of the Abyss. This does not put a halt on anyone else's plans.]

Damsel SQQ rights. LBH can't stay angry at such a pitiful figure

[theendorisit]

I want to talk about some fun stuff I have had knocking around my head regarding the Magnus archives 

Note: is it Canon? I don’t know and I don’t care. @jonnywaistcoat gave us a bunch of fun toys to play with. I wanna play with them. I am not gonna tell anyone if their opinions on Magnus are right or wrong because it doesn’t matter! it’s a story. It’s fiction. It doesn’t matter if you picture white Archivist, black Archivist, asian Archivist - that’s how we end up with fun stuff like mermaid Tim! Imagine everything, and anything - it doesn’t matter, and that’s the fun of it! Also, I am keenly aware I am (checks watch) 8 years late to this fandom and I may be spouting stuff long since discussed, so forgive me if I am getting excited discovering long trodden ground.

I digress. So. One of the many things I love about Magnus is the fun and very clear metaphors that are used to describe the entities/ fears and what’s going on in the story. One of my favourites is the colour wheel theory. During the show I would get confused between the different entities particularly the stranger and the spiral but if the entities are like colours then this makes perfect sense: they do bleed into each other. So I wanted to try and transcribe these entities onto colours not thinking so much about which particular colour I think they ought to be, but how they complement or clash with each other. Disclaimer, not an artist. At all. I don’t know if I’ll do a good job - but that’s not really what I wanna talk about. 

Death/Terminus/The End isn’t a colour. Death is black-and-white. And death isn’t like any of the others.

This is just to say, that the way I read it - death, as an entity, is treated differently.

Jonny himself said in calls and livestreams that death was actually his main fear, maybe still is? So that might lend itself to different considerations.

In TMA, death is described as the fear of death, dying and nonexistence and all of that cosmological shit that most of us feel. However, TMA stories of death also include the opposite fear which is the fear of not being able to die. This is equivalent to the Eye finding someone who is afraid of being watched and putting them in a box, where no one can ever see them again.  The fact that this person in the pyramid can’t die and wants to, the fact the reapers, in escaping death achieve basic immortality - and often are not so sure they like it - this would be a very weird way to create a fear of death, by creating an apparent desire for it! 

So I think within the universe, this fear is special because it encapsulates itself and its opposite - whereas the other fears have distinct opposites which are separate entities (buried and vast, eye and dark). Not only that, but as season 5 showed us, there are fears that can combine and match with each other, and there’s no fear that death DOESN’T complement!  Like yes, actual death will stop fear, but a healthy dose of the fear of dying will go with everything. So in the colour wheel theory, I say fear of death is black and creates shades with other colours, and fear of not-death is white and creates tints (I just really like this metaphor!).

I’d love to make anthropomorphic art of the entities as individuals, and groups of individuals, based on matching colours. Example - Death, The Buried, The Corruption all work together as a buried alive fear. Unfortunately my fine art skills are dismal, so I’ll let more talented people have a go if they like this idea. I get why I haven’t seen so much of this, as the avatars kind of do this anthropomorphism, but death itself as a concept has been characterised for thousands of years (I am a big fan of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s versions!), and we have 4 (+1?) horsemen of the apocalypse bringing war and pestilence into humanoid form so I reckon it could be pretty interesting how people envision the entities. Personally I imagine the vast like Junji Ito’s Spiral-faced girl (she’ll pull you in!).

Anyway, that’s my perspective on blending fears like colours, and why Death really isn’t like any of the others.

[eye-of-yelough]

anyway here’s the aeryn/gortash dynamic explanation.

nsfw shit under the cut. CW for. i mean so much. but specifically CNC

because it is all consensual, despite the atrocities. although it’s worth mentioning that that does not make it healthy and there’s definitely a lot of manipulation going on so like. is it. its dubious that’s for fucking sure.

So. their dynamic is really just me taking “psychosexual warfare” and seeing how far i can possibly take it. That’s it in a nutshell. also exploration of how a sexual “relationship” between a hypersexual (aeryn) and aroace (gortash. to me) would work.

Aeryn’s hypersexuality is a real point of interest to Gortash, and is his main angle when trying to pick apart his psyche, the way his behaviour changes depending on how long he’s gone without, how it seems intrinsically linked to his Urges, “whoever decided to call it bloodlust was a fucking genius” - Aeryn, probably.

That fascination really hits its pique when, somewhere a between 2 and 3 years into their unsteady partnership, gort wakes up in the middle of the night to aeryn just straight up jerkin it. staring at him. (wether he was already there because aeryn stayed over after them being awake for 50 hours plotting and doing medical malpractice or he just walked all the way there from the undercity to break in and wack it to gort’s sleeping body, i don’t know. but it’s important to me that you know that with aeryn, while the former is more likely, the latter is entirely plausible. he’s a creep.) obviously this brings up a lot of question in gortash’s head. “did he want to be caught?” (most definitely.) “has he done this before without me noticing?” (you can bet on it, mate.)

Sad thing is, I can’t for the life of me figure out what gort would actually do in the moment here, but it’s when he realises that if he wants to manipulate Bhaal’s favourite child, to claim, to conquer, he’s going to have to speak his language. so the next morning he very nonchalantly brings up the incident that Aeryn is eagerly pretending didn’t happen, and offers his help him with his little sex addiction. puts himself in this caring, almost therapeutic role. bullshit, of course. he has no intention of fixing just yet. only after he’s been broken can he be fixed, remade in his perfect image. and aeryn, to his credit, does know that it’s bullshit. he just underestimates the depth of it. See, he knows that Gortash wants to break him. he knows that gortash is a manipulative, domineering control freak. but he kind of just. thinks it’s a weird sex thing. his reaction to gort’s proposal is basically “you’re even weirder than i thought. okay fine. i’ll play your game. i’ll win in the end.”

That’s another key part of their dynamic: mutual misunderstanding. Aeryn thinks it’s a game, Gortash thinks it’s war. Gortash thinks he’s breaking Aeryn, but Aeryn’s loving it.

Gortash’s “therapy” is anything but, of course. Aeryn doesn’t become less of a sex pest, he just finds it increasingly difficult to enjoy himself with anyone but Gortash, who knows him, what he likes and doesn’t like, inside and out. (all part of the plan, the possessive cunt) which pisses Aeryn off to no end because the man Just Won’t Fuck Him in the way he wants. oh, they’re doing weird “stabbing as a metaphor for penetration”, sexually charged medical malpractice, voyeurism, full on bdsm shit all the time, but there’s very little… touching. Gortash just gets off way more on denying Aeryn what he wants while slowly driving him insane with desperation than he ever would if they just. had sex. This isn’t to say they never do, but we’re talking 10 years down the line here, and only under very specific conditions. (more on that in a bit.) If aeryn was right about one thing, it’s Gortash being a weird sexual control freak.

anyway here’s some things their warfare includes:

Gortash bringing some noble up to his chambers to seduce them, notices the window he left closed is open, a chair in the corner’s cushion being smushed down by an invisible weight, and thinking “ah, i’m performing for two tonight.”

one of Gortash’s main weird psychosexual fantasies about Aeryn being turning him into an Actual Doll and keeping him on his shelf for all eternity. he makes many different types of dolls after Aeryn’s likeness, including plushies that he holds at night for a few months before giving them to Aeryn just to savour the look of confusion and disgust on his face.

Gortash stealing some of Aeryn’s Bhaal-sculpted skin and turning it into gloves.

Aeryn waking up after Gortash spikes him in increasingly awkward positions over the years (this happens a lot. like, a lot.) the first time he wakes up bound, gagged and blindfolded in gort’s basement. “i just wanted to see how long it would take you unti you freed yourself. 2 minutes and 31 seconds if you were wondering. i’m impressed :)” eventually he gets used to that routine and he just ends up laying under gort’s desk for a few hours, listening to him work, Gortash occasionally talking to him like you do to a pet. this is probably the closest they get to domesticity. A few years down the line, Aeryn wakes up naked, covered in bruises and black handprints, aching between his thighs.

Knowing it finally happened, but having no memory? If I had to pinpoint the closest Gortash ever got to winning the war, it was there. something in his brain genuinely breaks that night.

Oh. And they only kiss once. Right before Aeryn’s lobotomy, as well, it’s a whole thing. I might make that into a separate post. or you can send an ask. that’d be nice :)

edit: here it is

[wazzappp]

First bit of graphic design I've done in a year and its a fake logo for a hyperspecific AU... don't know how I didn't see that coming honestly.

Ok lets talk about why I went with 'Ghost Fighters' outside of the obvious name pun.

The main enemies the boys face would be ghosts. They are composed entirely of the suffering of people who have passed. The few memories that they have are of their worst experiences, but for the most part they just kind of exist as memories of suffering. Generally these spirits move on after a day or two, but if there is a specific strong attachment to a place or person or trauma sometimes they stick around longer. Someone who was murdered would probably not stick around as long as someone who died of old age.

The general appearance is of an emaciated figure with very few features. They usually have 'ribbons' that extend out of the backs of their heads, the ends of these are sharp and used for fighting. The elongated arms and sharpened two fingered hands with a thumb are also used for slashing.

Ghosts seek out similar suffering in their area. They cant move more than 1/2 mile away from where they died, which gives them a bit of room to roam, but if you live in a place where theres a high concentration of murder they have a higher chance of running into each other.

If they DO. It gets BAD and it gets bad FAST. Ghosts can merge together and so your'e dealing with double the ribbons and double the claws. Their roaming spaces merge which mean that they can find more ghosts to merge with. There isn't really a limit on how many ghosts can merge together. When things like natural disasters happen, you can get large ghost conglomerates and FAST.

It is very rare but sometimes the ghosts will haunt people. People who stay in one space the majority of the time are stuck in the same haunting area as a ghost. All they have to do is temporary move away until either a Ghost Fighter destroys the ghost or it dissipates on its own. If they do end up being possessed you essentially have a ghost in free roam. There really isn't bringing someone back from that.

Generally people cant see ghosts. Ghost Fighters can, of course, but there are also very rare 'psychics' who can see ghosts. Most people cant see them until they start to conglomerate in numbers of 20 or 30. By then it is a VERY large ghost mass and needs to be dealt with. The effects of the ghost can be seen (claw marks in cement, dents where they've been thrown into walls) but generally they go un-noticed by the population.

ALRIGHT. RANDOM FUN DOODLES ASIDE lets talk Ghost Fighter physiology. (it is so so important to me that Roxanne has No Chill whatsoever. SO. IMPORTANT.)

All Ghost Fighters have 'nail polish' with their corresponding color. It used to help them identify each other, but after the rise of nail polish its uhhhhh. not very effective. It's really not nail polish though, thats just the color of the nail now :)

Connection Gems rest on the chest and are embedded into flesh. They allow a Familiar to channel magic through their person! Familiars are a lot like the 'paper flamethrower' metaphor. Lots of power, but unable to use it without destroying themselves. Ghost Fighters allow them a way to express their magic.

EYES. You already know what the fuck it is bro. I don't need to explain myself here yall know me by now but fuck it imma try and find a way to reason it out anyway. Humans aren't really built to contain so much magic, so it shows through in little ways, like shining out of their eyes just a lil bit.

Speaking of which, Ghost Fighters are a little uh. Weird. You know the whole thing with elves? Where they look almost too pretty and the longer you look the stranger it gets? They have that going on. Their hair is always settled just right, their skin is dewy and almost shiny, the light always hits their eyes JUST right. Even bedheads still manage to looks planned and perfect.

SO. When you get a guy like Robbie? Whose attractive to start with but scowls all the time? When he finally DOES smile? Holy Shit. Nobody is prepared for it. Nuclear levels of pretty. Almost hurts to look at. 100 Billion enraptured 30,000 gay / bi awakening.

More stuff about familiars (Eli in particular. Need to think harder about his specific weirdness), transformation sequences, ultimate attacks, and interpersonal relationships on the way. I just. NEEDED. To get what I have so far out there dude. Brain too full. Door stuck. DOOR STUC K.

[animangalover-writes]

So I had a dream about wincest(being obsessed with each other as always lol)

I was half asleep when I wrote this so bear with me

So I had this dream where some monster essentially got to sam and manipulated his world into his like ideal world. And his ideal world was him being a kid again with Dean taking care of him, just them in this little house. The same perfect day played over and over again, like a time loop. And somewhere outside this house is the real Dean, caught a time loop of his own, as he continously breaks into this little house to try to get to Sam and free him. But this monster always gets to him first and catches him off guard. It's like he doesn't remember the last time he was in the house, like it always feels like the first time setting foot in it, because the creature uses the same move over and over to kill him(but like, he doesn't really die, its more like this world is its own little pocket dimension and every time dean dies he wakes up outside of it again). And ever time, kid Sam hears something, but the monster/kid Dean tells him it's ok and they ignore it.

By the way, the monster in my dream is basically like this black-grey sentient goop(think Venom) that can morph itself into anyone it wants, and is hanging in weird strands all around the house that Sam doesn't notice. But dean does, and even though he tries to avoid stepping in it, it always catches his foot and essentially Webs his hands and gun in place, disarming him, then slams him against a glass mirror or a wall hard enough that it kills him.

Anyway, somewhere outside of this loop, Dean is vaguely aware that this monster always catches him with the same move, and the only reason he dies every time is because the surprise attack makes him too unsteady to shoot it, and catches him at a point where his footing is off, so he's easy to take down. But every time he enters the house again, he forgets what he learned, and it takes him down all over again. He admits to someone unseen that the reason it takes him down so easily/catches him off guard is because he's alone, aka Sam's not there to help him.

At some point, Sam starts becoming more aware that something is off, and that things are too perfect.

This is where the dream gets kind of fuzzy, but essentially Sam becomes aware enough and, still as a kid, sees adult dean walking through the house and calls out to him, confused. This time, Dean sees Sam and looks utterly relieved and says "Sammy..." like he's so happy to have found him. But this distraction causes the monster to catch him off guard again. It catches his foot and grabs his hands in its weird goo, but Sam is here now, and he sees this creature for the first time. So he yells out to Dean to move a certain way that gives him enough leverage to shoot the creature(this was mentioned as something dean always knew would help but always forgot when in the house).

Meanwhile, the monster actively tries to get into Sam's mind again and tell him, as young Dean, that everything will be ok so long as he let's him kill this intruder who's trying to hurt them. Finally it stops working on Sam and he becomes his real age again.

Some fight happens in between that I didn't really get to see, but the outcome was this: they managed to hurt the creature by working together, now that Dean wasn't alone, he doesn't die and actually gets some good shots in. At some point, Sam rushes the thing and the only reason it doesn't hurt him is because it grew some sort of attachment to him during the whole thing, and so he's the only one that it would let kill it(feels like a metaphor for Sam and Dean's real codependent obsessive relationship).

Anyway I don't remember much after this so that's basically all I have, so yeah.(also ignore any typos, I didn't edit this. I just woke up)

[artist-issues]

Have you seen Puss in Boots: the Last Wish? If so, what did you think of it? I feel you'd like it!

Yes!

I do love it!

Here’s my one beef.

I’m not a big fan of the…kitschiness that Dreamworks loves with some of their movies. In terms of character design, and writing. There’s something that goes on in the design department for characters in Shrek or in Megamind or even in Boss Baby that does not go on in The Croods or How to Train Your Dragon or Kung Fu Panda. Like, even the characters who are supposed to be “evil” or “stupid” are designed to be outright unappealing. And that’s not the necessarily a principle I think is great, even though it sounds like it makes sense on paper. You’ve got this:

Versus this:

I don’t know if I can accurately describe the difference. Let me try.

Titan looks like he’s got moisture on his upper lip. Jack Horner’s individual traits all maxed out to the extreme: hair, the teeth, the fat rolls—it’s all way too much. Same thing is going on with the sweatiness of the characters (even Link?) in Monsters vs. Aliens, the skin texture and individual eyebrow hairs on Farquaad, etc.

It’s too much. And it’s too much because someone in that studio thinks it’s funny to have ugly characters. And you know what, it is, but you can have “ugly” without evoking a “I don’t want to look at that” response in your audience. Drago Bludvist is ugly. He’s lopsided and scarred and looks like he got run over by a car. But you don’t look at him and feel like you’re looking at a middle school kid’s caricature with nose hairs drawn in, designed to make you hate it on sight.

You want your villains and your stupid characters to look villainous and stupid. But there’s only so much “middle school boy booger humor” you can put in character design before I start wanting to change the channel just because it’s not fun to look at anymore.

Didn’t mean to ramble about character design. My point was, Jack Horner kills the movie for me.

I get that they just wanted a plain-bad bad guy. Death is sick but he’s just doing his job. Puss is redeemed, Goldilocks is redeemed. They needed just a straight-up evil bad guy for the climax. But like…he’s gross. Not in a way that’s engaging or interesting to watch, or even fun to watch lose. He’s unappealing, he’s annoying, he’s over the top. You’re not excited to see him die because you don’t want to see him, doing anything, even if it’s dying.

And you know what…Perrito is the same way. They did not succeed with “cute-enough-to-be-ugly.” They did not succeed with “annoying enough to be funny because of how he interacts with the main characters.” He’s just ugly, and he’s just annoying. They needed him as a character. They needed a simpleminded-innocent-love-is-enough buddy for Puss to spend time with and learn from. But…gross. Disgusting bald dog with over-the-top “I’m just happy-go-lucky just beCAUSE! 😃” whiny voice did not have to be the choice.

Anyway.

I love that Puss starts out the movie with his sword and it’s a metaphor for how he has to be the Puss in Boots, the greatest of all time, the big hotshot, the fantastic hero. And then by the end he’s using that tiny blade. It’s just small. It’s borrowed. It’s not even his. That’s what he needed all along. To accept his one, small life, as long as it has love in it, instead of reaching for immortality and fame and being all-in-all to himself.

I love Death. Obviously. Very good character design, great acting, great scenes, perfect thing for Puss to be up against. They couldn’t have done better with him.

I don’t think Kitty Softpaws and Perrito needed to be in this movie. I think they really should’ve kicked Perrito out of the movie and shown that Kitty Softpaws was a former “Perrito type” character, maybe in her past and childhood, and the more they go on this journey to get the Wish together, the more she starts to soften back into that because she’s starting to go back to trusting Puss. Then he sees he’s having that affect on her, and likes it, and gets conflicted. More nuanced. Less annoying. More interesting. And that would make their little love story more endearing. He thinks they’re just playing each other as always, at first, but then realizes she’s actually trusting him, and he’s enjoying that, and the guilt mounts until she figures out he’s going to take the wish for himself—then they have their little confrontation where Death is after him and that’s why he wants it. My emotions would’ve been so much more invested. But because Kitty has to share screentime and a role in Puss’s character development with annoying bald dog, there’s not enough time for her to feel like a fully-fleshed-out-character.

I like Goldilocks and the three bears. They’re a great little side-plot. I think Goldy could’ve been given more time to develop into—again—a more nuanced character, but it worked anyway.

So in conclusion, I wish Dreamworks could work even harder and dig even deeper in some of their movies to make a more nuanced cast, for the sake of their stories. Spend less time on stupid jokes and meta-references and more on making their characters feel real. Puss in Boots was a good movie, it just doesn’t have that “it was beautiful and I’d watch it again” factor because of all the time-wasting and over-the-top character designs. I’d rather look up a few key scenes that were good, but rewatching it like I would Zootopia or How to Train Your Dragon? No.

[ggren-mainz]

Umineko - question arcs playthrough -> ep 2 - 1

last part - All parts and episodes - next part

Welcome back after an almost 2-week break, it's time for the next chapter ;P. Also i decided I'll introduce my gf and family to umineko via the stageplay, as i have heard that it's pretty good. Only up to ep 3 (soon 4) now, but anyways.

edit 2 days later as this sat in drafts : Watched it with my sis (my mom deemed it too tiring) and she loved it. Her favorite is George (both the character and the actor ;P), and she had some very interesting theories, one of them being that genji is kinzo's child, which damn. Age-wise i don't think it works but at least she's thinking. Also the outro was very confusing but i think it might've revealed some stuff. I'm not sure, but I'll keep it in mind. Anyways amazing watch.

She also did the tierlist and it's so funny

Anyways

I want to start this by saying that the culprit actually showed to me in a dream. That's right, i had a premonition. Basically the dream was me and some friends running in a destroyed world from Shannon with a gun. So what I'm getting to is that I now solved the mystery, and will now just laugh for the following 7 chapters. Ha ha ha.

(pls if shannon actually has any relation with the culprit/is the culprit, do not tell me or make any jokes/imply it. I am simply fooling around because of this quite funny dream i had)

rocking that victorian newspaper boy inspired fit.

and the hippie look. Perfect case of underdressed x overdressed. Also Tomitake Flash?????

this reads like some insane foreshadowing. Or at least it's definitely related to our little characters as well. You could say that they're like fish from the perspective of the witches. anyways, I'll put s mental pin to this line and perhaps rethink it later.

glad to see she's included in the credits now.

Anyways what's with this aquarium date?? When is it happening? Basically George and Shannon are on a date, and are just having fun, being very cute.

can't really figure out if this line should mean more or not. Cause like it's not that weird, but also it could turn into something more sinister later. I'll see.

And they say romance is dead.

Oh also another thing we (me and my sis) noticed yesterday while watching the play, but George is 23 and Shannon is 16.... raises one eyebrow. Ok george...ok...

....what magic? Hey shannon i think George will understand it very well why not explain it to us?

OOooohhh so this happens before the first game time wise. ok ok makes sense.

woah woah woah this is a bit of a change of atmosphere.

so from how much i'm getting this is Shannon talking about breaking free from her fate as 'furniture'. She is on the shrine's rock (the one that was destroyed at the beginning of ch 1) and wants to break some mirror that was offered as a sacrifice. I wonder, does that mean that because she broke this mirror, the shrine broke down and as such somehow started this entire tragedy?

is the key here metaphorical, or could it be referring to the key in the ephitath?

what promise? what wish? so many questions....question arc moment....

We then have a long scene of George and his family visiting the main house, and Shannon realising her crush on him, and some discussions between the George Jessica and her. These 2 are very cute, unfortunately it seems that Eva wants to marry George with someone who would benefit them financially/bussiness wise.

and as such it leads me to the question. Did she marry like this? Was her marriage with Hideyoshi like this oooorrr....

(before this she says that she loves her husband a lot), ah i see. I mean it's not like this doesn't happen nowadays too, except instead of getting married and then falling in love it's more like getting together and then falling in love. Which is fine, but idk if in this world this is ideal, as i doubt divorce is that accepted lol. And also ofc cause we know George loves Sayo.

anyways Eva continues talking and then takes George away and then tells the girls they'll also find men they love but then leans in and whispers something so vile and malicious in Shannon's ear, that my computer crashed and i had to restart the game lmao.

after a lot of ctrl-ing this is what she says. Bad but i think my computer overexaggerated.

So Shannon feels like shit and is caught with her head in the clouds by Natsuhi who punishes her to clean the entire reception.

mayhaps i shouldn't have wondered so far lmao. (for context i was curious if Lanon was an actual character or was just gonna remain a name and then i kept seeing yasu and here i am lol)

this is what detroit become human and what i also assume nier automata (idk i only played the prologue) wished they could be.

huuuuuh??? So again this brings me back to my question, does magic actually exist? i think so. But maybe Shannon is imagining this and all those flashy bunny rabbits I see online are Kinzo's personal strippers, idk.

Holly shit guys, look! it's the witch!!

Also is this story very related to love? I didn't expect that, interesting. Maybe it's just this chapter or a sub-genre but idk ill see. Also she already has the ring on.

hmm is it really that simple? You know how they say, don't make a deal with the devil, this is how this feels.

Huh i can't believe all my questions have been answered. So this is why she broke the mirror, this is the wish and also the promise and also the magic. Makes sense.

Also wait i just had a thought. Does Shannon break the mirror each loop, or did by any chance Kanon break it last time. Because you remember he said before he died that she should wait "another 100 years in hell for the next summoner" and assuming this summons the witch...

*shakes* who is it????

hmmm this sounds...suspiciously similar to Eva. Is she saying this because she wants to intimidate her and convince her to break the mirror or is Eva somehow behind this?

and this is just the exact quote. Why is she quoting her? Just to remind her? And if she doesn't just wanna remind her and she just thinks this then why call Kinzo Father? Is she related to him? Me and my sis have talked about the possibility of her being somehow related to Kinzo, like a daughter thingy. I'm not sure, and i definitely don't have enough clues to figure it out rn but anyways. Kinda hard to fake all of this tbh.

Immediatly after this line Kanon comes in to save Shannon, and after some more talking Beatrice gives both of them a butterfly shaped burn/bruise mark on their left palms. She does that by controlling their hands, which immediately remembered me of the ending scene in the stageplay, where Shannon and Kanon "shoot" each other with their hands in the shape of a pistol. who knows. I obviously dont.

these things are getting longer and longer...

next part

[danwhobrowses]

Well fellow Callowmoores, it's almost 2024 and that will potentially be the year we see endgame of Campaign 3 - given how we've returned to the Bloody Bridge and likely intend to throw down on Ruidus and fight Predathos (somehow). Nevertheless, we're about halfway through our three week wait for another episode and since we're on the verge of intense and emotionally-charged battles ahead there'll probably be little time for romantic activity - little does not mean none, mind you - during it. Last time we had a wait like this I did a post on some underrated Callowmoore moments from the Shard Incident episodes, but since others have already wonderfully dissected the recent Feywild episodes' romantic moments I'm afraid I don't have much else to add to that. I do, however, have a bunch of mental scenarios that didn't come to be, or have yet to come to be in different contexts to how I previously thought them up. So I thought; it's the new year, why not indulge the artists and fanfic writers who can do a better job than I can with it?

So if you like some of these things, treat it as a free prompt; draw, write, flourish however you see fit, and have a Happy New Year!

If you kept reading after that awesome, I was a little worried the main thing would be a tldr situation, and still could be I didn't expect the bullets to be as long...they were actually even longer at first so not sorry but also sorry? I guess. But anyway, we know what you're here for so let's go.

Note: The scenarios were devised to keep me from suffering crippling doubt and mental shutdown between episodes so mostly they'll be fluffy and comfort-oriented than angsty.

As mentioned before, Fearne pickpocketing the Ashton doll Laudna made to practice talking to Ashton, building up to it or luring Ashton over. Ashton's awareness of the pickpocketing can grow too or they could simply allow it from the get-go "I let her take whatever she wants."

Dancing, low-hanging fruit maybe but always good for chaos, awkwardness, wingman activity, and high energy, but I'm talking folk dancing like in Titanic not ballroom dancing, that's not their or the Feywild's style

"I'll be the judge of that." specifically for when Ashton feels they're unlovable or doesn't deserve to be loved. There's also "Then I guess I'm crazy." and "You've always deserved it."

Pickpocketing one another has been their game, but I can't deny that the thought of Ashton making something for Fearne was highly appealing too, I had them make a bracelet from melted down jewelry and gems they had on them (plus a compartment with an Oleander seed and some water from the Feywild in it), imperfectly made but sturdy and still pretty. Bonus for Ashton reverse pickpocketing it onto her.

"You've always been perfect to me" is another one I mentioned before, I usually have Ashton say it (and sometimes post-Fearne taking the shard reiterate that Fearne keeps becoming more perfect in their eyes) but it can go either way.

Sleeping beside each other's a common one. Not even sexually, often it's for comfort, soothing pain/nightmares or reassuring each other, and - if Fearne hasn't disappeared beforehand leaving Ashton waking up feeling a comforting presence missing - usually not wanting to get out of bed the following morning.

Similar to the above is short rests in close quarters, a specific one is Ashton using their primordial earth powers to pull up a discrete wall for the group to hide behind and rest a little, melding into the actual wall to offer a polymorphed Fearne (a small fire lizard usually, sticking on Orym and Ashton's heads) more space so she can rest too, albeit very snugly and pressed against them - easy opening for kisses under the jawline btw.

Metaphorical but Ashton's reassurance of "You could never hurt me" regarding Fearne's primordial fire was used a bit, plus it aligns with the recent "I'll take my fire damage now" when they hugged Fearne.

Fearne being open to Ashton about her fears of being the dark version of herself, bonus quote "I don't know that person, she's not you, never will be, you're better."

Fearne pulling the Uno Reverse "The shard hurt, but knowing you were there made it hurt much less." and/or "Thank you for saving me."

Also similar to the one above are conversations post-Fearne taking the shard exploring newfound empathy for each other's (albeit more extreme) positions at Whitestone; Fearne experiencing the intensity of the shard's fire, and Ashton experiencing the dread of seeing Fearne in pain from it and being afraid to lose her.

"Whatever happens, promise you'll come back to me" is a pertinent one for the current setting too.

What is that? 1, 2...12! One for each month, there's of course more, some are simple low-hanging fruit or more detailed (no seriously I trimmed a lot of these bullet points down in detail) but for the sake of length we'll stop here. Once again, Happy New Year my fellow Critters and Callowmoores!

[watchingyoufromthestars]

Okay, time for my mixed feelings on Scam Likely and how nobody can escape the repetitive cycle of being an imperfect father. I’ll try to be objective as I break down the scene in Goofs Realm, but I’m in my Scam hater era.

THIS IS LONG, SORRYYYYYY

No father will be perfect in fiction or reality, and it’s a running theme of the show. The mistakes of your past define the present and the families have been constantly doomed to repeat them, but in new, fresh, fucked up ways. There are varying levels of mistakes all of them have made in the story, especially compared to Willy, but he’s his own special case.

Scam’s sin is ignorance. To the world around him and individuals’ feelings. Consistently he is shown to not realize outside of his Goofs that they can heavily affect other people in ways they do not like. That actions have consequences. His entire relationship with Jodie was a joke to him, while Jodie was left without his romantic partner a second time and was scammed out of a son (and in more ways than one since Hermie was spawned as a teenager instead of a baby). It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt, and now that someone is his son and he’s dead.

“He tries to hide the fact that he is actually emotionally affect by this, but he only got a 6, so you can see that he is genuinely upset.”

In his own way, Hermie does matter to him. I think Scam is a very hard being to compare to the rest of the cast because of his Goofs realm nature. He has an entirely different set of morals and ground rules of existence. For christ sake you die forever into nothingness in Goofs Realm if you stop being funny. But now Scam is confronted with a harsh truth and he can’t deny an emotional mode outside of Silly and Laughter.

“I didn’t even think of him as something that could die. He was just a goof. Goofs never die. It’s like- all jokes are always funny forever.”

We truly see Scam’s mindset here. Be it as a Goofs native or just who he is individually, he only thinks of The Big Joke of it all. Hermie was not an individual with feelings to be loved and raised (not that he even raised him at all), Hermie was just a joke to him. And it wasn’t even in any personal way. Everything is a joke to him.

“Where is he? Is he in Hell? Is he in Heaven?”

“I don’t know! He doesn’t have a soul! He’s not like you or me. Well, not like you.

And here it’s cemented in just how irregular Hermie is. Neither him nor Scam have a soul. As much as we’ve visited dead characters on this podcast, there’s nowhere that Hermie can be reached. This incarnation of him is gone forever.

“Do you forgive me for whatever is about to happen? I’m truly going to try.”

Try as he might to make things right — in his own insane way of ‘farting and it’ll be so funny that he’ll come back’ — that’s not something that’s been allowed lately on this show. And what could he even do to make things right anyways? There’s no joke to be made when someone has passed, and no joke can bring them back.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t think it would happen like this. I didn’t think he would actually develop a personality; he was just supposed to be a Goof machine. Nobody was supposed to be sad if something happened to him.”

Again, Hermie’s existence was just a part of one big goof and scam for him. Meta and Story, Hermie is and was a joke. He was just supposed to be this silly little guy, but then as time marched on he developed into something of a person. Something a lot of us got attached to and something Normal held onto dearly. “Nobody was supposed to be sad if something happened to him”, but he became too much of a Person for that to stay true.

“I could make you another one.”

And then there’s this line. It kills me in a very specific way. Scam is just so disconnected from human nature that he doesn’t know fully realize the value an individual life holds. Yes, he could just make another Hermie, but that’s not the Hermie. To use the first metaphor that comes to mind, it’s like making a mastercopy. In a previous painting class, we studied a singular painting for one project and recreated it to the best of our abilities. As skilled as one can be in painting, you cannot truly recreate the original. There’s history imbued in the original, and it’s lived a lifetime before your own version was created. Even if you create a version indistinguishable from the original, it is still not the same.

All of this is to say that I cannot truly judge Scam, at least from a certain standpoint. I have very mixed feelings about him, but he’s a unique case of a character that’s very different than judging one of the human dads. Am I rambling here? Am I spouting nonsense? I don’t know, I’m still in distress over crying multiple times from this episode. I’m not proof reading this lol

[yappacadaver]

Most of my lore-related Zevlor headcanons are going into the *glances at draft* uh...stupidly long fic.

But I'm in the "Zevlor had deep camaraderie and all kinds of wild sex in the Hellriders, but not a lot of relationship experience" camp. Stuff happens after battle, or when drunk, or in the barracks, but once he climbed the ranks, he wasn't going to abuse his position or fraternize. There wasn't time for him to be a good life partner outside of his duties.

So he is an absolute sucker for all the cute romantic things he missed out on earlier in life. Public displays of affection, flowers, courting rituals, he thinks he's too old for those things and claims he doesn't need the trappings. But then he gets so flustered when his partner makes the effort.

I'm of so many different minds when it comes to Zevlor's prior experience idek if I'm gonna be able to get all this down

So I totally agree that sex definitely happened amongst the Hellriders. I mean damn it's a military branch. I'm sure individuals found ways to get dirty in the barracks, the showers, in the field, in the stables, using equipment you'd likely find in a stable, using magic, if you can think it it probably happened.

I'm not sure that it's something Zevlor (even as a younger man) would've pursued? maybe it found him anyways, who knows. But he strikes me as someone who was (WAS) an idealist, and a proud one. Maybe he was saving himself for the perfect courtship, maybe he was too devoted to his religious education and martial training, maybe he's always been the kind of man to hold himself back (like at the tiefling party).

Now this is not me saying I think Zevlor's a virgin, I honestly think he's had both romantic and sexual experience. But I'm trying to hold in my mind the image of a young devout tiefling who is so proud to serve his city and his god, who wears practically the most respected uniform in that city, and have to imagine he thought he had HUGE ass boots to fill and no time to dally.

So ig what I'm saying is my personal hc is yours in reverse xD I think Zevlor would feel much more at home in the formal, formulaic space of romantic courtship, and completely out of sorts when it comes to experiencing desire or being desired in turn. He's old, he's a victim of extreme prejudice, he's of a race whose physical traits are associated with everything he's learned through his faith to despise, I feel like this man would have a hard HARD time with physical intimacy. Taking the metaphorical armor off could feel like self-ruin to a man who was practically raised in it. An aegis is meant to be struck not caressed, etc etc.