#because as a human being he’s 60% water

[gothic-mothic]

Have I ever posted my Water Narrator thoughts?

For a while, I’ve thought of the use of Water as symbolism for The Narrator, in and out of game context

I think these thoughts are most reasonable when looking at The Skip Button Ending and The Epilogue. In The Skip Button ending when The Narrator first sees a bad review they (Stanley and The Narrator) go outside to see that it’s starting to rain. This continues the duration they spend outside, The Narrator’s stirring mind evident by the distant thunder and as we get closer to the edge of the land we see a large ocean. And what rises out of it? The Narrator’s newest creation, The Skip Button. With this all happening it wouldn’t be outlandish to associate The Narrator and the water outside. Once Stanley’s inside the concrete room we are taken away from the water over time. It dries up along with The Narrator and at the end of those many years we’re left with a tundra; a desert that hasn’t seen water in years. And The Epilogue doesn’t dispute this, the only life we see being Stanley and TK

More into my personal thoughts, The Narrator is vast like the ocean we see. All encompassing; he surrounds his story (a comic I made that slightly echos these ideas).

It rains when he cries, it boils when he’s angry, the clouds fly as he breathes

I talk ab this a tiny bit more in the tags of this post (warning: he’s a bit naked) (ignore the last tag um)

[cursed-spirit-manipulation]

something about Satoru/Suguru and their approaches to inhumanity. Satoru feels disconnected from his own humanity, above and beyond it, but in the end what he needs to realize is that he is a part of humanity and simply one aspect of it- not an "ideal" or "peak" aspect either, just one that is different, no less or more valuable- just different, in the way that humans are diverse.

Suguru I think would benefit from no longer identifying with humanity- not in that Humanity is bad, or that he is subhuman, but rather just than "Humanity" is a concept applied to him that he may not necessarily connect to. He reads to me like going through the motions of being a good person, and I think considering and exploring his own relationship to humanity would assist in curbing his emotional reaction of trying to dehumanize others. I think he would benefit from detaching from the specific idea of "human" as being Worthy or Valuable, and instead understand that life holds whatever value one gives it, but also he exists as a person in the world and therefore will interact with others. Again, he is not any lesser, no one else is any lesser, he just needs to take the concept of "humanity" out of the equation and formulate a different, less stupid worldview

[psychokatrixxxy]

Okay, but why do I imagine:

The rest of the Bats are doing hard drugs.

Dick, snorts a pixie stick: Oh yeah, that's the stuff.

I completely believe that most if not all members of the Batfam have their preferred illicit substances and while the Superfam kids are used to it, since the first day Clark saw Bruce snort something off the hood of the Batmobile he's never gotten over it.

[thethief1996]

For the past 100 days, Israel has been waging a genocide campaign in Gaza without any sort of reprieve from western countries. Palestinians are suffering from a human-made famine, surpassing the scale and speed of any other famine enforced in the past 75 years. Healthcare professionals are being cornered into Rafah by constant airstrikes, sniper attacks and bombardments at hospitals, forced to leave patients and medical supplies behind. Unmaned quadcopters opened fire on the maternity and ICU unities of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital and killed 8 civilians. Yesterday, the hospital ran out of fuel and the babies in incubators might die anytime soon. Only 127 aid trucks are being allowed into Gaza of the 500 allowed before the war, under "normal" blockade conditions. The distribution of food and water is made basically impossible by the destruction of communications and the looming threat of executions against people gathered to receive it. Just today snipers killed 3 people in line to receive food in Gaza City and Israel officials have the gall to say the problem is that humanitarian organizations, whose volunteers are being executed at unprecedent rates, aren't putting in enough effort. The IDF drops leaflets telling desperate refugees to flee and then station tanks on the roads or bombs the safe zones.

Ever since I read South Africa's submission to the ICJ I can't stop thinking about how they label it as the demication of Gaza and its people. On every sphere of the government, there are statements calling for the anihilation of the people of Gaza (pages 59 to 67). The Prime Minister has directly adressed the army telling them to wipe off the amalekites (page 60), and South Africa showed tiktoks of the soldiers repeating his speech word for word before committing massacres. And yet they have the gall to come to the world and say they haven't targeted hospitals, they haven't withheld aid and that the statements are "random assertions." To prove that Netanyahu isn't a blood thirsty pig, they pasted a statement he made ONE DAY before the hearing started, which is frankly ridiculous we're supposed to believe isn't a PR stunt (page 34).

No western outlet streamed the highest stake court hearing in the 21st century, but you can rest assured they streamed Israel's pathetic defense. And Canada, Germany, the UK and the US, countries which have in no way reckoned with their own genocidal pasts, have come forward in defense of Israel like they have any moral high ground to patronize the world about genocide.

Take action, for their sake. Motaz has said "Don't call yourself a free person if you can't make changes. If you can't stop a genocide that is still ongoing". We need to fight in any way we can to stop their massacre.

Keep yourself updated and share Palestinian voices. Muna El-Kurd said every tweet is like a treasure to them, because their voices are repressed on social media and even on this very app. Make it your action item to share something about the Palestinian plight everyday. Here are some resources:

Al Jazeera, Anadolu Agency, Mondoweiss

Boycott Divest Sanction Movement

Palestinian Youth Movement is organizing protests and direct action against weapons factories across the US

Mohammed El-Kurd (twitter / instagram)

Muhammad Shehada (twitter)

Motaz Azaiza (instagram) - reporting directly from Gaza.

Hind Khudary - reporting directly from Gaza. Her husband and daughter moved South to run from the tanks but she stayed behind to record the genocide. The least we can do is not let her calls fall on deaf ears.

You can participate in boycotts wherever you are in the world, through BDS guidelines. Don't be overwhelmed by gigantic boycott lists. BDS explicitly targets only a few brands which have bigger impact. Right now, they are focusing on boycotting the following:

Carrefour, HP, Puma, Sabra, Sodastream, Ahava cosmetics, McDonalds, Disney and Israeli fruits and vegetables

Push for a cultural boycott - pressure your favorite artist to speak out on Palestine and cancel any upcoming performances on occupied territory (Lorde cancelled her gig in Israel because of this. It works.)

If you can, participate in direct action or donate.

Palestine Action works to shut down Israeli weapons factories in the UK and USA, and have successfully shut down one of their firms in London.Some of the activists are going on trial and are calling for mobilizing on court.

Palestinian Youth Movement is organizing direct actions to stop the shipping of wars to Israel. Follow them.

Educate yourself. Read into Palestinian history and the occupation. You can't common sense people out of decades of propaganda. If your arguments crumble when a zionist brings up the "disengagement of Gaza", you have to learn more.

Read Decolonize Palestine. They have 15 minute reads that concisely explain the occupation (and its colonial roots) and debunk popular myths, including pinkwashing.

Read on Palestine. Here's an amazing masterpost.

Verso Book Club is giving out free books on Palestine (I personally downloaded Ten Myths about Israel by Ilan Pappe. If you still believe in the two states solution, this book by an Israeli professor debunks it).

Call your representatives. The Labour Party in the UK had an emergency meeting after several councilors threatened to resign if they didn't condemn Israeli war crimes. Calling to show your complaints works, even more if you live in a country that funds genocide.

FOR PEOPLE IN THE USA: USCPR has developed this toolkit for calls, here's a document that autosends emails to your representatives and here's a toolkit by Ceasefire in Gaza NOW!

FOR PEOPLE IN EUROPE: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace targeting the European Parliament and one specific for almost all countries in Europe, including Germany, Ireland, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Greece, Norway, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Finland, Austria, Belgium Romania and Ukraine

FOR PEOPLE IN THE UK: Friends of Al-Aqsa UK and Palestine Solidarity UK have made toolkits for calls and emails

FOR PEOPLE IN AUSTRALIA: Here's a toolkit by Stand With Palestine

FOR PEOPLE IN CANADA: Here's a toolkit by Indepent Jewish Voices for Canada

Join a protest. Here's a constantly updating list of protests:

Global calendar

Another global calendar (go to the instragram of the organizers to confirm your protest)

USA calendar

Australia calendar

Feel free to add more.

[nyonismywife]

RANFREN HEADCANONS:

Luther:

Was researching humans when he first decided he wanted to be one. Found out they're 60% water. Is now hellbent on making sure everyone is hydrated

Only formed a family because he thought it was what humans are supposed to do

Only reason he got Randal a pet human is because he was tired of Randal terrorising his catmen and wanted to teach him some responsibility

Has been around for so long that he's had at least one cult formed around him. The cult has long since disbanded, however

Used to be ALOT more evil in his 'youth'. Even more so than Randal. A truly horrifying entity. That was a long time ago, though. He's a nice young human man now

Sometimes Randal REALLY pisses him off. Like A LOT. But Luther reminds himself that this is just 'Randal's Rebellious Phase'. (Even though Randal's been in the same age range for years)

Randal:

I don't really have any for Randal. Let me think of some

Is incredibly good at biology, sucks at the other sciences

Otaku

Can't keep friends but somehow keeps making them

These were pretty weak. Sorry bout that. Anyways..

Nyen:

Doesn't feel a shred of embarrassment or shame about existing as a cat for Luther despite being a grown man (feels no shame about being pet, purring, making biscuits etc and thinks anyone that thinks he should feel that way is a weirdo)

Knows Luther usually likes his catmen's faces smooth but sometimes neglects shaving because he likes when Luther does it for him (drawn from a canon image)

Doesn't like smoking weed and sometimes judges Nyon for it but has no problem drinking beer and smoking tobacco

Thinks he's all that

Bullies Nyon but Nyon is literally one of his only friend besides Luther

His backstory is like the most simple thing ever with no trauma or anything. He was just a regular guy that got into a car crash or something and Luther revived him

His opinions about Kurt Cobain have always been the same even before he became a catman

Harasses Nyon whenever Nyon tries to do pushups or pullups or anything resembling arm workouts because he wants to be the only pet with beefy arms (he likes when Luther compliments his muscles (drawn from canon))

Inherited parts of Luther's violence

Nyon:

Epitome of nonchalance

Seems to have been around with Luther for a WHILE as well. (Guessing because he likes reading Fyodor novels for "nostalgic reasons" and Fyodor was around in the 1800s)

His life was better after he joined Luther's presence

Probably fought in at least one war

Remembers EVERYTHING from his past life but just doesn't talk about it. If you ask, he'll give you silence and go back to whatever he was doing. The conditions for hearing his backstory are so rare. You'd need to find him at 4:23am while he's greening out in a loaf position on the ground and even then there's only a 15% chance of him telling you. If he ever did tell you how he came to be what he is, it'd be the most bizarre, otherworldly and brilliant damn story you ever heard. Then you'd wake up the next day and, strangely, you wouldn't remember any of it anymore..? Like it was a snippet of a dream

He likes Nyen's abuse if he's in the mood for it (this is actually a little canon)

Has so many connections to so many different weed dealers it's actually ridiculous.

Inherited parts of Luther's timidity (yes, Luther is indeed shown to be a bit timid at times)

..bottom.

[vivmaek]

POETRY FOR YOUR MOON SIGN

✰ my masterlist poems written by someone who has the same moon sign as you <3

☾PISCES☽

Edgar Allen Poe, A Dream Within a Dream

“Take this kiss upon the brow! / And, in parting from you now, / Thus much let me avow – / You are not wrong, who deem / That my days have been a dream; / Yet if hope has flown away / In a night, or in a day, / In a vision, or in none, / Is it therefore the less gone? / All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream.”

June Jordan, You Came with Shells

“You came with shells. And left them: / shells. / They lay beautiful on the table. / Now they lie on my desk / peculiar / extraordinary under 60 watts.”

Toni Morrison, It Comes Unadorned

“it comes / Unadorned / Like a phrase / Strong enough to cast a spell; / It comes / Unbidden, / Like the turn of sun through hills / Or stars in wheels of song. / The jeweled feet of women dance the earth. / Arousing it to spring. / Shoulders broad as a road bend to share the weight of years. / Profiles breach the distance and lean / Toward an ordinary kiss. / Bliss. / it comes naked into the world like a charm.”

☾AQUARIUS☽

W.B Yeats, A Coat

“I made my song a coat / Covered with embroideries / Out of old mythologies / From heel to throat; / But the fools caught it, / Wore it in the world’s eyes / As though they’d wrought it. / Song, let them take it / For there’s more enterprise / In walking naked.”

W.B Yeats, The Lover Tells of the Roses in His Heart

“All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old, / The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart, / The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould, / Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart. / The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told; I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart, / With the earth and the sky and the water, re-made, like a casket of gold / For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.”

Louisa May Alcott, The Lay of a Golden Goose

“Oh! Be not rash,” her father said, / A mild Socratic bird; / Her mother begged her not to stray / With many a warning word. / But little goosey was perverse / And eagerly did cry, / “I’ve got a lovely pair of wings, / Of course I Ought to fly.”

☾CAPRICORN☽

John Milton, Sonnet 19

“When I consider how my light is spent, / Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, / And that one talent which is death to hide / Lodged with me useless, through my soul more bent / To serve therewith my Maker,”

Jala al-Din Rumi, The Guest House

“This being human is a guest house. / Every morning a new arrival. / A joy, a depression, a meanness, / some momentary awareness comes / As an unexpected visitor. / Welcome and entertain them all! / Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, / who violently sweep your house / empty of its furniture, / still treat each guest honorably. / He may be clearing you out / for some new delight. / The dark thought, the shame, the malice, / meet them at the door laughing, / and invite them in. / Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent / as a guide from beyond.”

Gwendolyn Brooks, a song in the front yard

“I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life. / I want a peek at the back / Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed / grows. / A girl gets sick of a rose.”

☾SAGITTARIUS☽

Lewis Carroll, A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky

“In a Wonderland they lie, / Dreaming as the days go by, / Dreaming as the summers die: / Ever drifting down the stream – / Lingering in the golden gleam – / Life, what it is but a dream?”

Dante Alighieri, From “Inferno”

“It’s the pain / of the people down there that empties my / face. / It’s pity / that you’ve mistaken for fear. / And it’s the long way / that pushes us now. / Let’s go.”

Victor Hugo, Tomorrow, At Dawn

“Tomorrow, at dawn, at the hour when the countryside whitens, / I will set out. You see, I know that you wait for me. / I will go by the forest, I will go by the mountain. / I can no longer remain far from you. / I will walk with my eyes fixed on my thoughts, / Seeing nothing of outdoors, hearing no noise / Alone, unknown, my back curved, my hands crossed, / Sorrowed, and the day for me will be as night.”

☾SCORPIO☽

Sarojini Naid, Autumn Song

“Like a joy on the heart of a sorrow, / The sunset hangs on a cloud; / A golden storm of glittering sheaves, / Of fair and frail and fluttering leaves, / The wild wind blows in a cloud. / Hark to a voice that is calling / To my heart in the voice of the wind: / My heart is weary and sad and alone, / For its dreams like the fluttering leaves have gone, / And why should I stay behind?”

Shel Silverstein, Dreadful

“Someone ate the baby. / It’s absolutely clear / Someone ate the baby / ‘Cause the baby isn’t here. / We’ll give away her toys and clothes. / We’ll never have to wipe her nose. / Dad says, “That’s the way it goes.” / Someone ate the baby.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Aftermath

“When the summer fields are mown, / When the birds are fledged and flown, / And the dry leaves strew the path; / With the falling of the snow, / With the cawing of the crow, / Once again the fields we mow / And gather in the aftermath.”

☾LIBRA☽

Maya Angelou, Caged Bird

“A free bird leaps / on the back of the wind / and floats downstream / till the current ends / and dips his wing / in the orange sun rays / and dares to claim the sky.”

Emily Dickinson, Good Morning – Midnight

“Good Morning – Midnight – / I’m coming Home – / Day – got tired of Me – / How could I – of Him? / Sunshine was a sweet place – / I liked to stay – / But Morn – didn’t want me – now – / So – Goodnight – Day!”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, My Heart and I

“You see we’re tired, my heart and I. / We dealt with books, we trusted men, / And in our own blood drenched the pen, / As is such colours could not fly. / We walked too straight for fortune’s end, / We loved too true to keep a friend ; / At last we’re tired, my heart and I.”

☾VIRGO☽

Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays

“Sundays too my father got up early / and put his clothes on in the blueback cold, / then with cracked hands that ached / from labor in the weekday weather made / banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. / I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking / When the rooms were warm, he’d call, / and slowly I would rise and dress, / fearing the chronic angers of that house, / Speaking indifferently to him , / who had driven out the cold / and polished my good shoes well. / What did I know, what did I know / of love's austere and lonely offices?”

Jack Kerouac, How to Meditate

“Thinking’s just like not thinking- / So I don't have to think / any / more”

William Faulkner, Study

“Muted dreams for them / for me / Bitter science. Exams are near / And my thoughts uncontrollably / Wander, and I cannot hear / The voice telling me that work I must, / For everything will be the same when I’m dead / A thousand years. I wish I were a bust / All head.”

☾LEO☽

Walt Whitman, I sing the Body Electric

“I sing the body electric, / The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,”

Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol

“Yet each man kills the thing he loves, / By each let this be heard, / Some do it with a bitter look, / Some with a flattering word, / The coward does it with a kiss, / The brave men with a sword!”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friendship

“A ruddy drop of manly blood / The surging sea outweighs, / The world uncertain comes and goes; / The lover rooted stays. / I fancied he was fled, – / And, after many a year, / Glowed unexhausted kindliness, / Like daily sunrise there. / My careful heart was free again, / O friend, my bosom said, / Through thee alone the sky is arched, / Through thee the rose is red; / All things through thee take nobler form, / And look beyond the earth, / The mill-round of our fate appears / A sun-path in thy worth. / Me too thy nobleness had taught / To master my despair; / The fountains of my hidden life / Are through thy friendship fair.”

☾CANCER☽

Shakespear, Sonnet 147

“My love is as a fever, longing still / For that which longer nurseth the disease, / Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,”

Robert Frost, Acquainted with the Night

“I have been one acquainted with the night. / I have walked out in rain – and back in rain. / I have outwalked the furthest city light. / I have looked down the saddest city lane. / I have passed by the watchman on his beat / And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. / I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet / When far away an interrupted cry / Came over houses from another street, / But not to call me back or say good-bye; / And further still at an unearthly height, / One luminary clock against the sky / Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. / I have been one acquainted with the night.”

William Blake, Auguries of innocence

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And a Heaven in a wild flower / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand / And eternity in an hour”

☾GEMINI☽

Rudyard Kipling, Blue Roses

“Half the world I wandered through, / Seeking where such flowers grew. / Half the world unto my quest / Answered me with laugh and jest. / Home I came at wintertide, / But my silly love had died / Seeking with her latest breath / Roses from the arms of Death.”

John Keats, To Sleep

“Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords / Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole; / Turn the key deftly into the oiled wards, / And seal the hushed Casket of my soul.”

Lord Tennyson, The Eagle

“He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, / Ring’d with the azure world, he stands. / The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; / He watches from his mountain walls, / And like thunderbolt he falls.”

☾TAURUS☽

John Donne, Air and Angels

“Twice or thrice had I lov’d thee, / Before I knew thy face or name; / So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame / Angels affects us oft, and worshipp’d be;”

Audre Lorde, Recreation

“my body / writes into your flesh / the poem / you make of me. / Touching you I catch midnight / as moon fires set in my throat / I love you flesh into blossom / I made you / and take you made / into me.”

Margaret Walker, Lineage

“My grandmothers were strong. / They followed plows and bent to toil. / They moved through fields sowing seed. / They touched earth and grain grew. / They were full of sturdiness and singing. / My grandmothers were strong. / My grandmothers are full of memories / Smelling of soap and onions and wet clay / With veins rolling roughly over quick hands / They have many clean words to say. / My grandmothers were strong. / Why am I not as they?”

☾ARIES☽

E.E Cummings, Love is more thicker than forget

“love is more thicker than forget / more thinner than recall / more seldom than a wave is wet / more frequent than to fail”

Mark Twain, Genius

“But above all things, / to deftly throw the incoherent ravings of insanity into verse / and then rush off and get booming drunk, / is the surest of all the different signs / of genius.”

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Ships that Pass in the Night

“Out in the sky the great dark clouds are massing; / I look far out into the pregnant night, / Where I can hear a solemn booming gun / And I catch the gleaming of a random light, / That tells me that the ship I seek is passing, passing.”

[kiame-sama]

It just occurred to me how a bunch of things we know about the Human body are because of human's cruelty to each other

in HAE Humans are more focused on staying alive & appeasing the non-humans so like..

would the HAE! world even know about things like the Human body being majorly water? the actual duration of time that Humans can survive without food or water? etc?

Human, bored one day: yeah so apparently the Human body is like 60 something percent water.

hae guys: cool, but... how do you find that out..?

Papa Hades is the most concerned about this information. He knows what he does about Humans through gentle research and post mortem research, so to hear what has been done by Humans to other Humans deeply upsets him. The idea that Humans- a species he loves and adores deeply- tortured one another in the name of science makes him very uncomfortable. He will be curious enough to ask the Human what other things they know, but the information he gets does nothing to soothe him. He is suddenly thinking about- should he ever find a way to reach where The Human came from- checking each Human for these aggressive tendencies and only taking the more docile ones to bring back to Twisted Wonderland.

[wolveswithhats]

We've talked at length about Kaz Brekker: Hot or Not, now let's talk about how Dirtyhands Does Himself Dirty, aka Kaz is driving his absolute beater of a body into the ground because he has no sense of personal wellness.

Welcome! and thanks for sitting in on my powerpoint presentation, there's a bottle of water under your seat and this complimentary crap art of the creature himself to get us started.

Disclaimer that I have no experience with using a cane, or being a teenage boy, or being a teenage boy that uses a cane, so take this all with a grain of salt.

SO. Cane height:

too tall and you're over-elevating your arm and shoulder and not able to fully support your weight, which is kind of the point?

too short and you need to hunch forward, straining your back

either or has negative bearing on your balance, posture, and gait, and will lead to pain even outside of the original injury site

Important to note because Kaz is def not getting properly sized for a cane right??

that's way too much of an admission of vulnerability and weakness, absolutely unacceptable

it's 1880-whatever fantasy Netherlands and WebMD doesn't exist for him to research the nuances of proper cane use himself, when will the Grisha invent the internet

stealing textbooks from the university is the period-appropriate (and Kaz-endorsed) option, but he has to be mobile for that, and is unlikely to ask someone to do that for him (see above: vulnerability)

it's been three years and growth spurts are a thing but Kaz asking for help is not (see above: weakness), so it's probable he's too tall for it now at 17 anyway

While super cool and iconic, a crow's head handle is unlikely to be particularly ergonomic, potentially leading to issues in his hand/wrist:

nerve compression

tendinitis

carpal tunnel

(Something probably to be said about the negative effects of an extra heavy weighted cane as well since it's as much a weapon as it is a mobility aid, but I'm not going down yet another research hole, I've already spent way too much time on this. Just keep it as a consideration in this running tally of Kaz's myriad of cane-related issues)

Contrary to the reputation he's trying to build for himself, Kaz is a human with human needs. On the daily, as a growing lad he should be

sleeping 8-10 hours

eating 2000+ calories

getting 30-60 min of physical activity

In actuality, Kaz is

absolutely not doing that, he will sleep when he's dead

surviving almost entirely off of a diet of coffee and spite

further aggravating his leg by hobbling up and down three rickety flights of stairs several times a day

engaging in the major league sport of cracking skulls with his cane. (that's some form of exercise maybe I guess??)

really bad at being anything approaching a healthy teenage boy (they eat! so, so much. please, someone Feed Him)

Additionally, while poking around, I found some overlap between the symptoms of the Queen's Lady Plague and smallpox, notably that one of the early stages of smallpox are sores that start in the mouth and throat and become pustulous, ie: Kaz's raspy, damaged voice. I don't think it's smallpox proper (the pitted scarring is so disfiguring that it would be all over his face and body, and immediately identifiable if he had it), it's probably a less aggressive but still very fatal strain of something adjacent in the pox family. Regardless tho, I'm cribbing one of the potential smallpox complications to contribute to my "Kaz is the Saddest, Wettest Dog" thesis: 

arthritis 🙃

I did check as well to see if any of the poxes could permanently weaken the immune system, and it wouldn't seem so; if you live, you bounce back. But that's ok because Kaz is already doing the footwork of taking a wrecking ball to his immune system just fine on his own:

poor nutrition ✔

lack of sleep ✔

stress ✔

Mmm, you are just crushing it, brother.

So I'm not trying to pitch any of this as fact, or throw hands with Leigh Bardugo in the parking lot of a Denny's for having Inej ogle over his ghostly white abs. If you are writing about his broad shoulders and good, good arms, all the more power to you! Maybe he's lifting dumbbells in his office to work that upper bod, no one can tell you he's not. I'm just saying that if you are more for the idea that he is an absolute wet paperbag of a boy (scrawny! sickly! in constant pain! arthritic?? likely to burst into flames if put into direct sunlight!!), there is more than enough to run with to support that argument.

[baiwu-jinji]

TGCF author's notes translation

@/camilikha on twitter kindly provided links to TGCF author's notes and I translated the ones I find informative and interesting. See translations below:

chapter 58 notes: The second book is all about the overconfident Xie Lian with delusions of grandeur and the tender little flower (mxtx means kid Hua Cheng) and their diaries of the downfall of Xianle. Word count is undecided, I'm never accurate at estimating word counts anyway. It's just like the xianxia I write doesn't fit into your regular xianxia, the royalty I write doesn't fit into your regular fictional depictions of royalty - just the outlandish made-up worlds and social customs in the author's imagination...

chapter 60 notes: If we put Qi Rong in a modern context, we could say that he has bipolar disorder.

chapter 72 notes: about the chapter title "To Meet You in the Mortal Realm; to Find Flowers Beneath the Rain" - eventually I feel that "To Meet You" is more romantic than "To Meet Someone". Just think about it, "meeting you" is one of the most romantic things in the world.

chapte 80 notes: Of course (HC) won't give (XL) a handjob or help him [...], but Huahua's sexual awakening starts with this incident... (XL is seriously obssessed with martial arts combat!)

chapter 88 notes: Xie Lian never gets tanned, I envy him... I finally reached this place - in a dilapidated temple, a god about to be forgotten and a believer who's still young - this is the first mental image I have about this story, which drove me to wrote the story. I'm the kind of person who'd make up a whole book just to get to write a certain passage...

chapter 119 notes: Actually Huahua is just being naughty and wants to joke around playing dead, who'd have thought...

chapter 123 notes: So Black Water made his appearance long ago, he's been hanging around before your eyes all along. Wind Master never knew the real Mingyi, it's always been the same person before him - and before you readers. (Black Water) officially recognized as Best Actor of this story! I've been holding it a secret for so long and so has he, now I can finally let it out.

chapter 141 notes: If you heat up Huahua in the kiln, he'll grow bigger~

chapter 175 notes: "Hua Cheng! Your diary! We've read it all!!!"

chapter 229 notes: Huahua low-key sucking up to the elderly to make a good impression

chapter 242 notes: Why do you like to spook yourselves? - why on earth would there be such plots as (XL) waiting for another 800 years - too long, impossible! Happy ending is around the corner!

SVSSS is my first work so it has some exceptions that I won't discuss here, but MDZS and TGCF both only have one main couple. I said this repeatedly in the author's notes when MDZS was being serialized and in other places. As for Mo Xuanyu, he is a little gay dude but he died at the beginning of the story so he doesn't count as a serious character...It's fine to have headcanons you like as long as you don't seperate the main couple. But for me personally, my taste leans towards having only one gay couple in the story, and I have no plans to write about another secondary couple. I'm stating this to avoid some unnecessary disputes.

XL is good at making pickled vegetables. Because pickled vegetables are needed with steamed bun and rice porridge, so XL became quite experienced after practicing for hundreds of years. Also you can just leave the pickled vegetable by itself most of the time and let it undergo chemical reaction. XL mostly fail because he get inventive.

XL and Mu Qing chose the same path of cultivation and are both Daoists. But Feng Xin never studied under a master at the Holy Royal Pavillion so he's not a Daoist and simply a plebeian martial god, so he doesn't need to observe the celibacy rules like XL and Mu Qing.

My passion for inventing new dishes (or rather weapons) cooked by Xie Lian is only slightly less than my passion for making Huahua change into new clothes

Huahua often turn into human forms, in which he has two eyes, so you guys can stop counting the number of his eyes.

In the setting of this story, if you want to be a god,you need to be a human hero first, which means you need to be the best of the best among humans. Only heaven officials who ascended are real heaven officials and belong in the Upper Court. How do you ascend? Firstly it depends on your personal ability, you have to be outstanding in some aspect (such as martial arts or literary talents) to enter the path of ascension. Secondly it depends on luck, if you're extremely lucky and a favourite of fate, and just picked up some rare secret guides (to ascension) or immortal pills by the roadside, that works too. Officials in the Middle Court are appointed, which means someone in the Heavenly Realm could promote you to that position. But Middle Court officials have the opportunity to become a bona fide Upper Court official too if they're capable enough.

Black Water indeed owes Hua Cheng a huge sum of money and is a very impoverished Calamity, seriously lowering the income standard of the Calamities (although there're only three of them). But his debt isn't completely due to eating too much. As for the money Black Water owes, it's an ancient debt - 40% is the cost of buying gifts for heaven officials of Upper Court and planting agents there (bribery!), 30% is maintenance fee for his territory and expenses on pet food, the rest 30% is food (for himself).

Talismans are probably the equivalent of the business cards (of heaven officials)... "Hello this is my consecrated talisman" = "hello this is my business card"

You can't get rid of ghostly essence (which XL is tainted with because he spends too much time with HC) simply by brushing your teeth with plain water...you need to use consecrated spell water (which is super bitter and weird).

The weapon forged by a heaven official is called fabao (literally "dharma treasure"); if it's a weapon forged by mortal Daoists and monks, it's called faqi (literally "dharma tool") - only after their ascension can their weapons be called fabao.

In my imagination, Xianle ia the kind of small ancient kingdom that's overall culturally Han, but has peculiar customs...although I feel like what I wrote on Xianle is mostly just peculiar hahahaha [facepalm] [beat myself up]

Not only are the forms, customs, cultures, and politics of countries in this story made-up, the kind of arcane stuff like occult sciences and philosophical values are all made-up. Although I did research but the records I consulted are too difficult to understand, so I just made things up on my own. Please bear with me If you're knowledgable in this sort of thing hahaha.

Puqi refers to water chestnut.

Look up "Blood-Soaked Fire Social" (xue she huo) if you're interested, it exists in real life and is very thrilling. What I wrote is different from the traditional festival, there're some made-up elements to make it more exciting

[inkspottie]

going as anon today because i think half of your followers have already gotten to know me way too well from all of the drawings i keep sending, but even if it’s probably too much to ask, i would literally DIE for a small 50-60 word max snippet of what was going through Eve’s head when she saw into Gabriels memories while she was trying to make him and Anzu look at her and found memories of human Seb

like i’m literally flopping around on the floor like a fish out of water

spottie i will buy you a goddamm crown with your name engraved on it just pLEASEEEEEE IM DYING OVER HERE

Eve was a brilliant creature. A being yanked from the animal world and brought into a new consciousness. Ascending from her plane of existence, feeling, thinking. She had emotions, thoughts, worries.

With all that she had, she still couldn’t understand. Her mind was constantly changing, she couldn’t keep up with the things these humans continued to do to her.

Just a simple shark now having the ability to peer into one’s mind, being able to destroy you from the inside and out.

After the escape, she thought about leaving. Her instincts beckoned her to do so, but then again these new thoughts. These new ideas told her something else, that she had family. That she had a pup. Someone to take care of.

She could not be the way a human saw a mother, but she could be the support he needed. Sebastian. The creature who released her, helped her, and in turn she helped him.

“Keep them away from the crystal.” He had said, he needed time and she was happy to give it. These expendables were trying to get to it, and she would prevent them.

And she had a little friend to help. Painter. Yet another victim of this horrible facility. While he was organic, he was not. A machine. Who thought and felt just like she did.

He had access to doors, often shutting them so Eve could come in and kill whoever was trapped.

It was a fun little game they had. Never speaking but enjoying each others company.

This was supposed to be no different. Three victims, three new bodies. One was already peering into her eyes, but the other they were resisting. Eventually she would be able to get them.

She extends her powers, tendrils reaching and grasping through the folds of their mind. Finding family, mothers, sisters, brothers anything that would coax them to look. Whispering words of encouragement.

A mother, a sister…and then…someone. Someone familiar.

Gabe. The voice whispers. A familiar voice. One she recognizes.

This causes her to stutter, digging deeper into this stranger’s mind. Flashes of images hit her, seeing a face that is so familiar that it nearly sends her flying back into her own head.

Sebastian.

Human Sebastian, one she only seen when soothing the wounds of her pup, her child. Mere glimpses of what he was. This man knew him. This man called for him. Begging for mercy.

This was new to her, and for a moment she falters. Panicked and trembling she pulls away, darting off to find a spot where she could think.

Now this…this complicated things much more than she ever could imagine.

She must tell Sebastian.

[heavenpierceher]

just played portal 2 for the first time yes somehow ive never played it before. reposting my thoughts as i played here:

I fucking hate wheatley. Little white cuck ball

As i understand it wheatley turns out to be like Secretly Evil later or whatever but like he’s so blatantly passive aggressive and casually shitty to you that i don’t see how anyone didn’t go okay fuck this guy immediately. Like he’s clearly acting as a sort of arm of aperture itself which constantly bombards you with like jokingly ableist/eugenicist/classist/misogynistic shit

like the juxtaposition of him being a huge asshole because he thinks you have brain damage and the announcer being like ‘ok if you’re old or stupid go back to your Primitive Tribe so we can have Good Subjects for Progress’ is 110% deliberate

also him assuming the person who killed glados was male LMAO

I want glados so bad

Some arasaka tower shit is happening to me

My psionic warriors find me art of chell dribbling and dunking wheatley like a basketball

Glados wants me so bad

my coworker losing his mindddddd 😂 😂 😂

I’m finding these puzzles easier than portal 1 but like in a good way. more intuitive

Also this has almost certainly been said before at length but god valve is so so so good at environmental design

HL is really good too obviously but it really shines in portal where they get to play with contrasts

the really harsh visual contrast between all of portal and the escape stages and the fact that you can see hints of it before it happens. chefs kiss

Single biggest visual improvement: the scary fucked up water that kills you

Yeah I do wish id played this earlier LMAO

glados hums me beautiful songs

I’m imagining that literally none of this is landing for chell like she doesn’t care. and/or glados is just making shit up and so chell also doesn’t care

wheres the dev thing where they were like ‘chell doesn’t talk because she’s just fucking pissed’

She's literally obsessed with me

Genuinely why does anyone like wheatley I'm gonna crush this little shit like a soda can

Guy accuses a woman who has literally never spoken to him or responded to a thing hes said of being bossy

At least the ways in which cave johnson sucks are really funny

i was talking about how wheatley is kind of a stand-in for aperture as an entity and i think cj is a continuation of that. like the above screenshot lines up as being an evolution of cj’s distaste for the ‘lab boys’ and ‘bean counters’; a top-down disdain for the people actually making ‘progress’ possible and keeping things running

me when i have 60 dollars

Valve in particular has a way of making its social commentary so pointed and over the top that its funniness almost but not quite overshadows the point it’s making. In a good way let me be clear

Like it’s so ridiculous you almost forget it’s criticizing/interrogating real phenomena that it’s honestly not depicting that absurdly because everything is very very intentional

i like the idea of chell being like. essentially an ordinary uninvolved person as much as she can be just thematically. glados is petty in the way that humans are petty, she chooses insults that are like… low-hanging fruit because of the environment she was cultivated in, so i think it’s both funnier and more thematically resonant if chell is like. Not even a little bit emotionally affected by glados fucking with her she’s just like Get me out of hereeeeee

A lot of people’s theories about this game seem to rely on glados being truthful which is fucking hilarious

woman who is making shit up to fuck with you: I am making shit up to fuck with you gamers: goly FUCK theory #CONFIRMED?????????????

aw hell no not the aperture science ejaculation gel

Wheatley can you quit jacking off over mic. Genuinely discusses me I hope he explodes

I do not want him to experience pleasure in any form much less as a result of my actions

The fucked up turretcubes are very cute though. Like hermitcrabs

Oh hey it’s the part where he kills me

this is a really good visual gag

Genuinely how does anyone admit to wanting to fuck wheatley how is that not an incredibly embarrassing thing to admit to

how sexist the adventure sphere is was funny and again it is not common for me to say that. valve just knows what they're doing

She’s holding my hand…

Rent free in her fucking head

Rent. Free.

Literally obsessed with me.

I don’t think it’s supposed to do this but it’s on a black screen with no options and has been for like five minutes and i sat there for the entire five minutes like ‘wow this is so poignant…’

Anyway yeah that kicked ass

[gaykarstaagforever]

I just watched TOS "Mudd's Women".

This is Season 1 so there are some quirks, as compared to the later seasons. Like Uhura is wearing the gold uniform.

No Chekov yet. Just some guy who looks like a partially-deflated Conan O'Brien.

Spock keeps doing this little grin the whole time, like he is barely concealing his amusement at how goofy and horny everyone else is. I guess they eventually wear him down into Stoic Spock.

Mudd calls Spock a "half-Vulcanian." Which is more technically correct as the name for someone from Vulcan, like a Vulcan would be from the planet Vulk. But I guess writers kept misspelling it or something, so

I like Harry Mudd's accent. Like an Irish pirate cowboy, who is also obviously faking it. Fits the character.

The ship runs on "lithium crystals" instead of "dilithium," I guess because no one thought yet about lithium being a real thing that has real properties they'd need to take into account at some point. A shame. I like the idea that the Enterprise runs on banks of EV batteries. Explains all the explosions.

Kirk pushes the Enterprise too hard and we hear all the lithium crystals pop in sequence. They sound like someone breaking Kit Kats off screen. Scotty AND Sulu warn Kirk not to let that happen, and he absolutely does it anyway, then acts like it's everyone else's fault the ship is dead in the water and running out of air. Which, yeah, that's our Kirk.

Also when they go to get new crystals from a mining planet, Kirk beams the miners up to discuss payment. I guess they didn't have the whole "Communist space future" thing worked out yet.

Both Scotty and Kirk call Mudd a "jackass." I didn't know you could say ass on 60s TV. I suppose it was as part of a metaphor that used it to mean donkey. But they still said "ass." Twice.

This is only one of two times TOS shows them using the computer during a hearing as a lie detector. This would have been useful technology like...400 more times, over the next all of the shows and movies, forever. But "she" also points out, unprompted, how everyone is horny during the hearing. And I can't imagine Picard finding that as funny as Kirk does.

McCoy's horny face. (Also I think his patch is on crooked.)

...Has he always had a pinkie ring??

Round playing cards! Round playing cards, in SPACE!

Mudd is a wanted criminal with diagnosed mental problems who is flying a spaceship he probably murdered a guy for, so he can sell women he supplies drugs to to space miners. That's what this episode is about.

When they all go down to the lithium mining planet, Kirk teaches the incel miners that having *real* women as co-equal human companions is better than having twee anime babes who only like them because the women are drugged. This is unrealistic.

This might be the first time it is relevant to a Star Trek plot that Kirk can't fall in love because he wants to fuck the ship. The same ship that earlier proves it can tell when he's horny. ...This is why normal people bully us for watching this show.

[alientitty]

Persona 5 (Royal) Guys Punchability Rating

Should you, playing as Joker, take a swing at your confidants? Find out here!

I-The Magician: Morgana

Hey, he's just a little kitty cat! It might be annoying how he doesn't let you go out at night and keeps talking when you're trying to read or meditate, but when he's not around it's clear you can barely function without a feline handler. He does keep saying weird shit to Ann though. 3/10

IV-The Emperor: Yusuke Kitagawa

Is it even fair? The guy's a toothpick. He's gonna blow away with the next breeze. His stamina in the Metaverse comes entirely from sitting around thinking about the darkness of the human soul re:art all day. Isn't he a starving orphan? But he does keeping saying out-of-pocket shit and you don't care how gay he is, that's no excuse for being a misogynist. Violence isn't the answer, but he'll feel the passion behind your slap, even if he doesn't entirely approve of the method. 5/10

V-The Hierophant: Sojiro Sakura

Aww, isn't he such a lovable tough guy? Basically your new dad, generational enmity and all. Hey wait why is he checking out your teenage friends. Hitting on all these younger women. Isn't he like 50? 60? If he's in his 60s you worry his brittle bones will shatter on impact, but if it's 50s then he's fair game. Maybe he'll finally trust you after some male bonding through friendly roughhousing and all. Depending on how early it is in the game there's a chance you'll be out on the street, though. 6/10

VI-The Chariot: Ryuji Sakamoto

He's your homeboy, your bro, your best buddy! And sometimes friends deck friends when they get outta line. You do feel kinda bad since he's been trying to channel all those big water sign emotions into becoming a gym rat instead of getting goaded into fights and all, but you'll keep it clean. You love him, but he can be so embarrassing in front of your other friends! Maybe he'd stop chasing skirts like a doofus if he just got some friendly skin-on-skin contact with other guys now and then. Wait, what? Well, anyways, it's totally a fair fight. As you throw the first punch you remember, wait, isn't he a domestic violence survivor? Shit. 9/10

XI-Justice: Goro Akechi

You can't tell if he's actually cool or just pretentious, but you've been waiting for a chance to wipe that shit-eating grin off his pretty face. You bet he has a 15-step skincare routine to get that perfect glow when he delivers a backhanded compliment that subtly conveys how much he thinks he's better than you. Staring each other down across the billiard tables while you play a verbal game of cat-and-mouse isn't enough. This cold war's gotta heat up. And, spoiler alert, he will challenge you to a duel...and then some. This ends with one of you on his knees. 10/10

XII-The Hanged Man: Munehisa Iwai

What beef do you even have with this guy? He's the hot gun guy who gives you custom builds in exchange for glimpses into the life of a Goodfellas side character. Besides, with his history, you don't wanna risk it. He's way too experienced and strong and grizzled and smoldering and...ahem. Maybe you would learn something. 4/10

XVI-The Tower: Shinya Oda

That's a kid. You do wanna punch the people making this poor child's life so hard, though. 0/10

XVIII-The Moon: Yuuki Mishima

He looks up to you so much it just wouldn't be fair. You've seen him beat up so much already that, even if he asked you to fight him, it'd be like kicking a puppy. He can be annoying and a creep and maybe even a little scary sometimes, but a punch is not what he needs. 2/10

XIX-The Sun: Toranosuke Yoshida

Dad?! For real, though, he's just about the only adult in this game besides Lala-chan who seems actually cognizant of the fact that you're a teenager. If you tried to take a swing at him he'd be incredibly disappointed that his lessons didn't stick, and you'd never forgive yourself for letting him down. 1/10

(Igor isn't here because he's nothing. As in, literally immaterial. You can't punch your dreamscape spirit guide with your real life human hands. He's, just, not there.)

1-The Councillor: Takuto Maruki

The most punchable guy in the entire game. Everyone thinks that self-effacing, oblivious beta male act is so charming, but you're not buying it. He's only there for Shujin to cover its ass until it cycles out of the news and is either willingly complicit or too incompetent to notice. He thinks his disarming, approachable shtick is a therapeutic icebreaker, but it's more like a lack of boundaries bordering on malpractice. He's one of those self-described "empaths" who projects his own personal issues onto everybody else and plays the victim when you call him out on it. The last thing you or any other troubled teens need is this bumbling, paternalistic stooge messing around in your heads. Plus, every time he makes that stupid pouty face you wanna slap the license outta him. Hey, does he even have one? 11/10

Bonus: Protagonist/ Joker / Your Name Here

Well, you play as him, so he's kind of you? The dialog options let you be a little mean or creepy sometimes, so I guess it's up to the player to decide if he's a jerk or not. Or you can take all those options as reflective of his personality (add in the fake glasses and Uniqlo mannequin getups, and he's kind of an asshole). Just keep in mind that, for a guy who eats a single loaf of bread at lunch every day, he's surprisingly built and pretty strong. You'll be in for quite a fight you can't back out of if you take a swing at him. At yourself?

??/10

[thankssteveditko]

An overly-simplified introduction to the "Marvel Method"

As I begin to cover Amazing Spider-Man, it's probably worth explaining the basics of this up front for anyone who isn't aware. Over on Thanks Ken Penders, I talk about comics generally made the "traditional" way. A writer writes a detailed script, and then it's handed off to the art team to draw what the script says, with perhaps a bit of interpretive wiggle room. That's what you'd expect, right? But back in the '60s, Marvel developed their own creative method that came to be known as... well, the Marvel Method.

It varied from team to team, but the steps of the Marvel Method (or the "plot script" method) are basically this:

The "writer" comes up with a basic synopsis of the story - not a full script

The "penciller" takes that synopsis and draws up the full story, determining the specifics of what actually happens

Finally, the art is handed back to the writer, who comes up with the dialogue based on what the artist has decided to draw

The argument for this process is that a comic artist should be a strong storyteller as well, and that the artist may know how to break the action down panel-by-panel better than a writer would. In reality, the actual explanation is that Stan Lee was working on way too many comics at once in the '60s, and so he offloaded some of the burden of storytelling to artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko because... well, they were Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko.

It should probably not be surprising that the Marvel Method created a lot of problems.

For one, before long, Kirby and Ditko were basically just plotting whatever they wanted for Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, then letting Stan fill in the dialogue... but Stan was still getting full credit as writer, making it seem like the stories were all his doing. (He would eventually start giving them credit for plotting.) Even when Stan did give them plots like he was supposed to, sometimes they'd go do something wildly different anyway. Stan intended to make the Green Goblin an ancient Egyptian demon found in a sarcophagus by a film crew, but Steve basically went "I'm not fucking doing that" and made him a human villain instead. Can you imagine a comic artist going completely rogue like that in this day and age? It's nuts! (But also, Ditko made the right call there.)

Because Stan had the final say when it came to dialogue, this also meant he could directly contradict the intent of the artists. Hilariously, I've found anecdotes about Stan both watering down Ditko's later attempts at giving Peter increasingly Objectivist views and also removing references to the ideology from a Kirby story seemingly intended to make fun of Objectivism. But while these examples are funny when juxtaposed like that, on the whole it's easy to understand how frustrating it is to have Stan Lee swooping in at the last second and completely changing the meaning of your story, then taking the credit for writing it.

Is it any wonder that Kirby and Ditko both felt they weren't being given their proper due at Marvel and left for other companies? Is it any wonder that the Marvel Method isn't used much in the modern age? But, basically, this method and this history of improper crediting are why it's difficult to determine exactly who did what for a lot of these early Spider-Man comics.

[beanghostprincess]

Adding on to generalized chronic pain issues, specifically Devil fruit users-

The human body is about 60% water.

There's water in bone too, sorry Brook, no saving yourself there.

DF users have to keep up on hydration, but what if their inability to tolerate water includes ANY kind of water.

Luffy v Crocodile last fight in Alabasta, fighting with his blood - it affected him.

Tears? Big impacts.

Humidity? Rain? Storms? The affects are relatively minor but they are Still There. Most DF users, after an overexposure to water/rain/heavy humidity, will at best have a slight headache. At worst? Those old wives tales of staying out in the rain leading to sickness are REAL.

With my Buggy obsession, I am leaning heavily into impacts to him and those around him. So Buggy's immune system is WACKED out, both bc hus nervous system never quite got with the program of his powers and genetic predisposition. It's one of the reasons he got sick just before Laugh Tale. Fevers weren't uncommon for him AT ALL which is why none of the other Rogers were very concerned.

Shanks, though? He knew. He and Buggy had a whole ass SYSTEM for dealing with it. ((A system he drunkenly regaled Mihawk with often enough for the swordsman to have it committed to memory.))

Buggy studies medicine a bit, and so any Devil fruit users on Karai Bari have a specialty medicine made specifically with their abilities, biology, etc, in mind - including Crocodile. He doesn't let them suffer alone, bc he knows how it is and he refuses to let any of HIS be subjected to that.

Buggy just also doesn't reach out himself when he isn't doing well - enter Mihawk being like "Hello, I - stop screaming - I brought you your tea. Shanks waxed poetic about your teas for hours. Yes, I am aware of the time. No, I do not care that you are under dressed. Lay back down. I brought medicine for your headache."

Cue goth swordsman awkwardly going through the motions of caring for a sick, needy but very hesitant clown. And eventually he even finds the other... rather cute, all sleepy and smiling and soft spoken.

Gross.

Crocodile eventually catches on and swings by, intending to bully Buggy a bit, but then he ALSO get charmed and reminded of the balms for his scars, the specialty drinks Buggy had made for him, and he just... can't.

It becomes p normal when Karai Bari has a higher humidity level or rain incoming for even the regular, standard officers to remind the DF users among them to take it easy, not push it, and it's silly and over the top bc they can't he expected to do anything less.

((Bonus silly idea, Buggy is out helping with muscle work before a big storm hits, even the typical human mercs can feel the moisture in the air, and one dude just. Scoops Buggy up, all sunshine smiles like "let us handle this, Chairman Buggy! Someone as incredibly kind and courageous as yourself can rest easy with us here!"

Buggy is both flattered, offended and flustered in one go. Flattered bc "oh they DO care...", offended bc this guy did NOT just baby him did he???, and flustered bc aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaBeingHeldHELP?????

Croc would either choke on his cigar or just scoop buggy up from the other guy like "i got this, carry on"

Mihawk thought would probably shatter his wine glass, expressionless, and grab n go.

No they are NOT jealous, no they did NOT think the blush was cute on their clown- THE CLOWN, no, everyone shut up, the rain is getting to their heads, fuck off.))

This is awesome. The whole concept about DF users being affected by regular water too is great because it just adds more angst to the whole thing and it becomes more of a risk to eat the fruits. Gonna skip directly to the Cross Guild thing and say that I am SO soft and weak for Croc and Mihawk to end up smitten by Buggy somehow when they weren't planning on it. And they're so protective and take care of him and,,,, That's their boyfriend idc idc idc.

[canmom]

hi cuba i'm dad

I watched I Am Cuba, whose not-so-recent restoration was playing at the GFT. insanely well shot film, like the level of choreography to pull off those long takes and supercomplicated crane shots with no steadicams or anything is just mind bending. absolutely wild that the soviets didn't say "wow we have a banger on our hands here comrades" and play it everywhere - as a propaganda film, it did its job! definitely leaves you fired up to fight the Cuban revolution.

it is certainly a very didactic film, with the lesson of each vignette being pretty clear. but it is able to lend enough depth to the archetypal characters - the struggling sex worker from a slum who has to hide her relationship serving american visitors at a jazz club, the salt of the earth sugarcane farmer whose land is sold out from under him, the student revolutionary who hesitates to pull the trigger, the other farmer who only wants peace - to get you really engaged, though definitely the revolutionary characters (probably closest to the experience of the filmmakers) feel like they're the most fleshed out.

the third act, in which a revolutionary student plans to assassinate a regime cop (unnamed) but hestitates when he sees the man with his family, only to see that same cop murder first his friend and them himself, is maybe the most spectacular, with huge scenes of rioters getting blasted with water cannons, or the incredible funeral shot...

but it's not just these flashy huge shots; it's a gorgeously lit greyscale film (absolutely crazy detailed looking with the 4k scan, so cheers for that one Scorcese), ingeniously augmented by infrared photography in places to make it extra stark. more than that and so many shots have really elaborate blocking and camerawork, with the camera drifting from actor to actor, effortlessly sliding between closeup and longshot like it's in the hands of Ichirō Itano, which is wild for live action.

one relatively simple scene towards the end I noticed had a revolutionary arriving at a farmer's house and sitting down for the meal; the men argue, and the farmer goes to stand at the door, allowing the camera to perfectly frame the two of them and almost nothing else in the shot.

it is otherwise very happy to linger on a musical sequence, such as the intense club scenes at the beginning, in a way that feels way more modern than you'd think for the 60s.

the architecture of revolution-era Cuba is just as striking - some buildings, like the rooftop where Enrique tries to line up his shot, look like they could easily be modern buildings. compared to the romantic picture of something like Chico and Rita, of course, this is a film determined to remind you how bad things are, not just show you the touristy bits of Cuba. much of the film revolves around the question of violence - certainly from an agitprop angle, like act 3 is sorta should you hesitate (no), and act 4 is like will you be OK if you keep your head down (no); many of the revolutionary songs are in major part about how it's good and righteous die for the country.

when first shown, it was criticised in Havana for stereotypical depictions of Cubans - which doesn't entirely seem unfair, they are kind of stock characters for the most part, although portrayed with a lot of humanity. in the Soviet Union, meanwhile, it got criticised for not being propaganda-y enough, which is wild because to my mind it works better at getting its emotional message across than most oldschool propaganda films I've seen. that said, I definitely need to watch more critical Cuban films from the same period like Memories of Underdevelopment, or recent ones like Strawberry and Chocolate, for some contrast.

all in all cool film, big shoutout to @hamiltonianflow for suggesting we watch it together <3