#but man. we do indeed have an in-game model

[thormanick]

*inhuman screech* WE HAVE AN IN-GAME MODEL >:] !!!!!!!!!!!

[afterglowsainz]

ordinary things | richard rios

pairing: richard rios x bsf!reader

summary: you’ve always had a minor (huge) crush on your best friend, but he seems oblivious

fc: various girls from pinterest

a/n: this one is for me and the other five richard rios girlies in tumblr just bc colombia won and i’m in a happy mood forever

—

liked by yourusername, endrick and others

richardrios.m from today ⚽️💚

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username thank god for men

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username muito nivel 🔥 (too much level)

username richard rios is the man i deserve

username lindinhooo 😍 (pretty)

liked by richardrios.m, bffusername and others

yourusername some greeeen love 💚

tagged richardrios.m and lazaro_vinicius10

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username love to see y/n at the games😽

username i wanna be y/n when i grow up

username my favorite wag🤍 (not a wag but still)

username no but is only a matter of time (i’m being delusional)

bffusername the prettiestttt💘

yourusername 🥰

username richard if you don’t wife her up i will

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yourusername 🫶🏽

username obsessed with her

liked by murilopaim, luisdiaz19_ and others

richardrios.m 🍻🌊🌴

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username que homem 😍 (what a man)

username speechless rn

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username RIGHT idk why they’re not together 😩

yourusername 🤍 (liked by richardrios.m)

username get together already omg

username y/n and richard are so cute 🥰

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yourusername fun times with fun company🍸

tagged bffusername and richardrios.m

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username the true it girl

username y/n i pray to you

bffusername blondes do have more fun👯‍♀️

yourusername confirm

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username when they get together we act surprised

richardrios.m 😽

yourusername 💚

username she’s so iconic i love her

username sooo serena van der woodsen coded

liked by kimkardashian, judebellingham and others

yourusername have you tried skims already … 💗

tagged skims

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username IN HER MODEL ERA

username i am no better than a man i’m afraid

username someone check on my man richard

bffusername the hottest ever 🥵 (liked by yourusername)

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username just feel to my knees 😩

username no i’m panicking

richardrios.m 🥰 (liked by yourusername)

yourusername my guy do you know you have 30 minutes ???

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richardrios.m unposted from these last few games🥷⚽️

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username meu deus 🥵 (my god)

username unforgettable indeed

username my man (and y/n’s)

username the hands, the neck tattoos, the little star on his cheek …. speechless

username thinking that y/n probably gave him the star 😩😩😩

username bro casually posting a thirst trap out of nowhere 😭

username damn.

username he knows he’s fine 😔

liked by yourusername, raphaelveigaa and others

richardrios.m 🎊🍾

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username pls why is he so cute

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username soooo adorable

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username 💍?

username lindo demais 😩 (too handsome)

username richard just one chanceee

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yourusername life lately🧚🏼‍♀️🥷

tagged bffusername and richardrios.m

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username OMG ???

username the way i always knew this was gonna happen and i was still not prepared for a hard launch

username FINALLY!!! my man richard got the girl

username y/n using the ninja emoji in the caption🥺

username they’re too cute 🥰

username finally we can call her a wag while being an actual wag

username all the y/nrichard nation girlies cheered

username the boyfriend material we’re gonna get it’s gonna be insane😩

richardrios.m the most beautiful!❤️

yourusername 💗💗💗

[mosswiind]

RANKING THE VEILGUARD COMPANIONS AS SPICY PARTNERS

This is definitively correct and I will not be accepting feedback.

In seventh and last place, we have our sweet boy Lucanis.

He's so into you. Spite is at least the same amount of into you. Lucanis though, is wildly inexperienced. Dude blacked out seeing Rook of any gender without a top on. A single titty would put this man in the hospital.

As a person who has slept with a lot of people, enthusiasm does not always compensate for skill. Lucanis would be very sweet, and apologizing because this has literally never happened to him before.

In sixth, we have Bellara.

Bellara is wonderful! But, similar to Lucanis, she's pretty inexperienced, and not in a position to acquire more experience without Rook’s involvement. She did date Irelin, but Irelin also doesn't give "exciting spicy partner" vibes. I feel like she would be enthusiastic about figuring out what you both like! It would just take some time to get there. She would also be very open to using magical aids. Electrical magic? Hell yeah.

She's also absolutely a bottom and if that's a consideration for you, she would be very good at it.

In fifth, we have Harding.

Harding is one long conversation away from being down for some Actual Freak Shit. She's already down, she just doesn't know what to ask for.

HOWEVER. Harding has precisely zero game, so it may feel a little silly while y'all figure your stuff out.

It will be good, it will also be clumsy and sweet.

In fourth, Taash.

Taash is similar to Harding, but has more sexual experience. They are also a confirmed top. Those are rare! They are coded to feel like they're in their early twenties, and extremely athletic, so stamina would not at any point be an issue. I've seen some comments that their bluntness would be bad for dirty talk/having game - those people didn't have to take a minute to do some deep breathing after the Taamlok scene, and also do not have taste. Taash will break you in half in a good way. Taash is a capital T Top and honestly, I respect it.

In third, Davrin.

Davrin, in a different group, would be the top pick. He's cocky, confident, has game for days. He's not a snack, he's a meal, and he is very aware of that. In my experience, banging Extremely Hot Dudes can go one of two ways; it's either sex you will wake up thinking about ten years later, or it will be like, extremely mid. I have faith in his ability. He is also a top, but I feel like he would also be into another top so there's a Fight (America's Next Top Model theme plays).

Thrill of the chase, indeed.

In second, Emmrich.

I know Emmrich is a canonical sex god. I know a bunch of y'all are extremely horny for Dr. Hose Goat. He caught me on the back foot a couple of times.

I also understand that this is a community that is very into Hot Authority Figures Who Remind You To Drink Water. There's a top shortage. I know what you people are like. I get it.

In first, it's the internet's wife, Neve Gallus.

Neve reads people for a living. She's also hot, emotionally unavailable, and would rather make out than acknowledge she has Actual Human Feelings. She's so locked into everything going on around her that she knows what you want before you do.

She's also creative at problem solving - no good surface? No problem. Just...not her desk, probably. There's a lot of notes to get displaced, and she has a hard enough time with the wisps. She will not allow your dumb ass to be too horny for organization.

Also - frost magic for you sensory seekers, and the ability to slow down time. I feel like we're all on the same page about the possibilities.

Your brain will melt out of your ears. You will not be able to stand. For days, potentially.

She's also a switch, depending on the vibes presented.

Emotionally unavailable romantics will ruin your life.

[hell-of-blazing-fires]

I'm too tired and bad at words to do a super deep dive. But I highly recommend reading that thread as Richard is good at words.

But I have to get this off my chest, so to make my opinion a long story short:

I'm not happy

I don't think any sort of genAI belongs in media regardless of how "clean" or minor it is.

I don't think ZUN is evil or beyond redemption or whatever considering his use doesn't replace any artists, it ultimately is a very minor element of the game where there was never much thought put into and he seemingly used an "ethical" model (which I still think is some bullshit but it would show he does has some consciousness about the use of AI.)

I do think he is pretty fucking stupid for making all this rah rah in 19 about AI and then using it the very next game.

I probably won't buy or play touhou 20 myself unless it's removed, genAI stuff geniunely makes my skin crawl. But I'm not going scorched earth and abandoning the series and I, a rando you don't know, would suggest you don't either.

Because I still love the artistry of the fans and the silly girls, I still love the story and worldbuilding (although I can't say i'm looking to dig into the themes of 20 considering my earlier point about 19.) And I still want to support all the artists who love this series too. So I will continue as I normally do, reblogging art and occasionally making dumb posts, this includes the characters from 20 and beyond.

I keep wondering if I'm overreacting or not. But ultimately I'm just really disappointed. Not because I expect a 50-something year old Japanese man to uphold my morals and worldview, but because I see Touhou as a whole to be a bastion of creativity and artistic freedom. So to see this from the creator, even if it's small and done as ethically as possible, stings me to be honest.

This is something I thought before this ordeal, but feel much stronger about now. For the love of fucking god ZUN, hire some help for these games. Shit, at least get Beatmario or Ki-san to find some non-AI stock images lol.

Oh no i wrote many words when i said i wouldn't waaaaaaahhh

(P.S. If you feel the same way then absolutely voice your displeasure via steam reviews, tweets, etc. But don't be an asshole or ultra aggressive and angry towards ZUN or those who play or make content of 20. That will probably change no minds. Save that energy for the tech companies and the governments that allow them to push genAI unregulated. ZUN at least shows some care and concern with it's use, they don't.)

[slaaverin]

https://www.tumblr.com/slaaverin/778257953757282304/maybe-its-because-jungkook-downplays-his?source=share

Anon is not wrong to say that jungkook downplays their bond many times and isn't as clear about it as jimin is be it through his actions or his words.

When they asked about GCF, i don't mind jk saying jm wasn't main model but what he further said wasn't really needed like he said he filmed jimin because there wasn't much around to film like who says that? Is that HOW u expect ppl to see the love (not talking about romantic but just general love between friends)?? Then as anon mentioned when jm said jk used to go to his room for 3 times a day jk said it was because jm's room was closest like come on I'm sure other members weren't living on another floor that he can't walk few more steps and be in their room if he actually wants to?? So again is that HOW u expect one to show the love?? Is that the right wording to show u love this person? Same about the Military he said he also wanted to do special force and while jimin has mentioned multiple times that he's glad jk was with him, jk never once outright said it to anyone despite him writing letters like tell me is that HOW u show gratitude towards someone in front of public? Yes they don't need to do things for public but given they're celebraties and do a lot of things infront of public what's about showing gratitude so hard?

Jkkrs keep saying that jungkook is an introvert and don't know how to talk like that but ask him about namjooon and you'll hear him talk all big, in fact the most big praises jk has ever given are for namjooon. He talks very highly of namjooon in front of everyone so what's so difficult to do that about someone who's been there for u more than anyone else? No Jungkook is not someone who doesn't know how to talk like that, he is someone who choses when and for whom he wanna talk all those things about. Once armys in music show told joon how handsome he is and jk literally said that now armys will understand why joon was jk's crush and mind u this happened during their last CB so a 2 yrs ago. He talks very highly of hobi's dance and thinks hobi is the best dancer of BTS and don't say he says it because the grp has decided on it because i have very good example to give how he actually belives it that's why he says it. Jk has said taehyung is the most handsome man he's ever seen in his life now i ask YOU slaverin tell me the BIGGEST compliment jk has ever given to jm or has put jm above everyone else in something.

These are just few examples but most of the times when asked jk about anything regarding jm he acts like he's doing it for the sake of it heck he himself went ahead and said that jimin and him wouldn't even meet if it wasn't for the show now u tell me slaverin how does this wording will make a non-fan feel about their bond? U think they'll thin how much attached at the hips they are when jk is out there saying he wouldn't even meet if not for the show? His intentions were whatever but this doesn't come off as "attached at the hips" to ppl that are not jkkrs or armys who knows jikook.

The reason why jk's love is questioned like that and not jm's is because jimin is wayyy ahead in expressing his love for jk be it verbal or thr actions. Jkkrs keep saying jk's Actions are louder than words when u have jimin who's words and actions are Louder than jk's can ever be.

I'm already very pissed off tonight so sorry if this comes out a little harsh.

Don't you get it????

Why do you think JK attenuates the things he says versus his actions?

Why does he do all these things with JM, showing that HE OBVIOUSLY CARES, because otherwise why would he do those things? Why would he go into his room? Why would he enlist? Why would Jimin indeed be his GCF main model? Why would he choose him over and over again? Why AYS? Why would he lose on purpose at games with him when we know he loves to win? Why would he hype him up so much everytime he can?

Jesus you're taking such little details and making a full picture out of it that's crazy.

But indeed anon why would he do all of those things if he didn't care, he didn't love him? He simply wouldn't do them at all!

And yes your question, why is he not vocal in his words with him and I'll use you guys vocabulary "downplays" his words and his actions and repercussions?

Why is that so I wonder?

Why does he say openly he loves whatever member, but closes off when it comes to Jimin?

That's not because he is an introvert. No.

That's certainly not because he doesn't like him. Remember: all of his actions show that he does.

But why doesn't he say it outright? Why does he have no trouble saying he has a huge crush on Namjoon, but not Jimin?

I swear to you you need to use your brain.

BECAUSE WITH THE OTHER MEMBERS THERE ARE NO STAKES. IT MEANS NOTHING TO HIM.

He can say whatever he wants about any of them and it holds NO EMOTIONAL WEIGHT except playful friendship.

Are you still wondering why he doesn't spell it out with Jimin? Jesus I feel like I'm doing psychology 101. I have a headache.

Why does Jimin fluster him? Why does he play it cool "No big deal" "No really I was just there".

Why did they never define their relationship?

Because, differently of the relationship with the other members, what Jimin and Jungkook have is more.

Don't you get it???

The VERY FACT JK downplays it, creating a decorrelation between his words and his VERY LOUD ACTION,

It is precisely WHAT IS THE HUGE GIVEAWAY.

Because if he says he loves Jimin it's not the same than with other members.

It's not playful. It's not casual. It's not innocent. It's not meaningless.

It holds a weight bigger and very fucking much more dangerous for JK.

Because JK loves him, he does, but in another way than the other members.

You want me to spell it out? It's romantic. There you have it. JK has very big, profound romantic feelings for JM.

It's time people open their eyes for fuck's sake.

And everytime JK talks about him or of their bond, he gets self-aware, because it holds weight, it has more meaning than saying I love you to Namjoon.

So he's trying to protect himself and them from prying eyes because obviously he doesn't actually want people to pick up on that. But he thinks that if he is actually vocal people will see it.

(I mean he doesn't have to say it and we already see it but whatever can reassure him I guess)

JK was the only member to dedicate lives for Jimin. JK has pointed at his heart then at Jimin several times. JK has put him first in looks. JK had said he would date him. JK said he was the member he feels the most connected to. JK has BEGGED HIM to come on live with him. JK thinks Jimin is prettier than clouds and calls him pretty constantly.

JK said they wouldn't meet if it wasn't for the show because JK was in a middle of a busy schedule. OBVIOUSLY THEY MET. This was only a particular time with a particular context of them both being very busy in a row. And then JK said "You're here, finally" expressing his sense of relief that he could see Jimin because he obviously missed him.

I swear to all the gods people are seeing only what they want to see.

During memories, aren't they always attached at the hips? In the background, doing whatever the fuck these two do? Like doing insane flirting and basically couple stuff?

Did you watch content these last few years?

Oh but I forgot how people come to conclusions but always fail to notice jikook doing the most wild things because they don't even pay attention.

So yes, JK isn't always VOCAL (to me he has been more than enough but you do you) he doesn't spell it out with words how much he loves Jimin but what do you expect someone like him, deeply in love, would do?

This guy can turn into a flustered mess by the mere presence of Jimin so do you expect him to say he loves him, and be normal about it???? Don't you think we wouldn't immediately know??

It's precisely because his feelings aren't normal or friendly or casual that he doesn't say it. He can't. He won't.

Because it's private and not for everyone. Because they show already SO MUCH that telling us his true feelings for Jimin would reveal such a big part of his heart that he feels vulnerable, so he closes himself off.

Can you actually blame him?

I'm seriously doubting the ability of people who want things spelled out for them to read people. Do you know how the heart works? Do you know love? I'm really questioning because the fact I had to explain all of this to you is mind-boggling to me.

JK is in love with Jimin, has been for years. And the poor guy is only trying to keep the last remnant of privacy he has.

Instead of questioning him and his love question yourself why you don't see an expression of love right when it's front of you.

Because after a while this blindless feels purposeful to me. Or maybe these people are very young, idk.

Oh, and the biggest compliment JK has given JM is that he is his fan, and that JM will always be number 1 for him. But I would put "prettier than clouds" up there because this was quite romantic indeed. Oh and the whole speech about JM having a nice personality, having beautiful eyes and you know, actually dating him is pretty high on the list.

Finishing up with this

Is he in love? Yes. Ok moving on.

Has he done 38373738 actions that proves it? Yes.

Does he have to tell us he has deep romantic feelings for JM? NO. It is self-evident for fuck's sake.

Is he allowed to be shy and protective of his own feelings and his view on his own relationship with him? Absolutely yes because he owes us nothing.

Because that's his and theirs and not for anyone else.

Does it mean he loves Jimin less? No, quite the contrary. He's head over heels for him. That's why he will not say it like a schoolgirl with a crush. "No I'm so cool it's nothing I certainly have not been in love with him for 10 years I have an alibi your honor I spent 4 hours in his room because he was just there you understand that wasn't even me in fact I don't exist leave me alone"

Is this more clear anon?

I swear to god I'm tired of the BS today

[atreyucannamos]

XIV: Pyroclastic Flow, Part 1

Soundtrack:

LEAF: Praya, I need your help. I'm not asking you to do my fighting for me, but I'm going up against something big and I would REALLY appreciate having you at my back. TITAN: I'm going to need a little bit more information than that. LEAF: You know Kohlrabba, Delamar's NHP manservant? TITAN: Through reputation. LEAF: He's been kidnapped, and we need to rescue him. This most likely won't be a peaceful operation. TITAN: Number of hostiles? LEAF: Unknown, but there's at least one Parautilitarian. TITAN: Interesting. Does the name Abendroth have any relation to this? LEAF: Delamar says yes... and also wants to know how you know that name. TITAN: Never mind that. I'm in, on one condition: I'm going to take from Abendroth something that nobody else can take, and when I do, you're not going to ask any questions. LEAF: ... Delamar says okay, but he wants to know if Abendroth needs to be alive for you to take this thing. Because he's going to kill him. TITAN: No. Dead is preferable, in fact. LEAF: Okay. Okay. Terrifying. Okay. Sending coordinates for a rendezvous.

Soundtrack: Deus Ex Mankind Divided OST - Prekazka District

The moment the airship had touched down, the Lunar Falcons made their excuses and were first off. Delamar had called a helipod five minutes before they landed, and it was scarcely an hour later that they were halfway across the city, outside an industrial unit on the margins of the spaceport district.

They'd argued on the way - Atreyu's decision to call in Praya had gone down like a lead balloon with everyone except Delamar, who was clearly too distraught over Kohlrabba's capture to consider the implications. Tuera and Caelan had said, in no uncertain terms, that they thought it was a horrible idea and that Atreyu should've consulted the rest of the team first - even timid Persephone had expressed a little concern. Atreyu had retorted that they needed all hands on deck, and Praya was one of the few people who hadn't been at the party, and thus wouldn't be drunk, high or committed to several hours of board games with the Marquess. In any case, what was done was done, Atreyu declared, and they'd just have to adapt.

Whatever people's thoughts on the subject, Praya was indeed waiting for them outside the warehouse, wearing precisely the same facial markings as Atreyu - a sight that made their heart swell. Delamar quickly ushered them inside, through a long series of corridors that made several blind 90-degree turns, eventually arriving at what could only be described as a private armory.

It felt like someone had crammed half a BUC storehouse into a room. Every conceivable model of man-portable weapon seemed to be here, from holdout pistols to recoilless anti-tank rifles, along with attachments, tactical webbing, medical equipment, explosives, an array of both intravenous and ingestible poisons and a ludicrous array of close-combat weaponry.

Praya took a look around with narrowed eyes, taking a sharp breath in through her teeth. "Huh. Impressive. Argo's wasn't this large."

She made a beeline for the assault rifles, and found herself almost colliding with Atreyu - they'd both gone straight for the Khayradin Armories MC-7R4 "Jagadis," the model they'd been trained on as children.

She raised her eyebrows, letting Atreyu take the first gun off the rack, before grabbing the second herself. "I thought you were more a revolver person these days, rabbit."

"Oh, six shots is plenty for a duel," Atreyu replied, as they checked their rifle's action. "But we're not duelling."

"Glad to see your childlike whimsy doesn't completely override your tactical sensibilities," Caelan sniped, inspecting the shotgun he'd just picked up.

Atreyu ignored him, busying themself finding some box magazines and a case of 6mm cartridges to load them. Across the room, Delamar was busy fiddling with an ornate long rifle.

"Do not let him touch you," he muttered, loud enough for the room to here. "Better that you die than let him touch you. If he touches you, nothing else will matter to you beyond his approval. You will murder your loved ones without a second thought if he tells you."

"Can it be cured?" Tuera enquired, halfway through squeezing herself into a suit of heavy assault armour.

Delamar loaded a cartridge of what looked like iridescent needles into the rifle. "I've no idea," he growled, "perhaps if Kellen is dead. Perhaps we'll find out."

Having loaded six magazines, Atreyu fumbled about looking for slugs for their revolver. "Delamar, where are the 11-millimeter cartridges?"

The Sandman looked up for just a second. "Pistol cartridge shelf, fourth column, third row."

"Still using the Grand Absolver, rabbit?" Praya sounded surprised. "That's a surprise."

"Why," Atreyu grunted, slotting one of the ridiculous cartridges into a speedloader. "Because I got it from him?"

"I just didn't imagine you would hold on to anything that father gave you," Praya commented, before adding "except the grudges."

Atreyu exhaled sharply. "It was a birthday gift, from before he started treating me like catshit. It's got my name engraved on it. Its grip was moulded to my hand. It's mine, not his."

Praya didn't reply - she just nodded approvingly.

There was a clatter as Persephone dropped a magazine she was trying to load into her pistol. She bent down to pick it up and try again, but after a second or two of fumbling, she dropped it again.

Caelan narrowed his eyes. "Persephone, now that I think about it, how many times have you fought in combat outside of a mech?"

"Uh," Persephone murmured, eyes flicking this way and that.

"Persephone," Caelan growled.

"Well... including duel practice-"

"Fun as it was to watch you take Argo to pieces," Praya cut in, "that doesn't count."

Persephone cleared her throat awkwardly. "Well, then... ah... none."

Delamar sighed heavily. "That's going to be a problem. Alright, Persephone, stay behind Tuera. Let us handle the fighting. Keep yourself out of danger."

Persephone's ears folded back. "Should I at least take the pistol?"

"Yes," Delamar said, setting his rifle aside for a moment, walking over and loading the magazine for her, "but it's probably best if you don't shoot it."

Within another ten minutes, they'd cast aside any clothing with identifying markings. To Atreyu's delight, Praya had coordinated her outfit with theirs, and in their humble opinion, the two of them looked quite sharp together.

Delamar had a van ready to go outside.

Caelan narrowed their eyes. "Throne Plumbing?"

"Do you have any idea," Delamar asked, "just how many Throne Plumbing vans there are in this city at this very moment?"

Caelan's shoulders slumped a bit. "I'm going to imagine it's a lot."

Delamar nodded. "Precisely. Nobody will bat an eye. Now get in."

It took wrangling to fit all of them in the back of the van, especially Tuera, with her power armour and heavy machine gun. Praya and Atreyu ended up standing crammed together at the very back of the cargo compartment.

As the van got underway, Atreyu took a quick glance around, then looked meaningfully at Praya. With a couple of mental commands, they instructed their dataplating to open up a subvocal conversation with her, safe from eavesdropping by any of the van's other inhabitants.

LEAF: It was a surprise to see you wearing the Warmark. TITAN: Oh yes? LEAF: Don't get me wrong. A nice one.

Praya smiled. Atreyu had almost forgotten how nice she looked when she smiled.

TITAN: Been too long since I've had a decent excuse to wear it. Fighting alongside family is what it's for.

Atreyu couldn't help but smile back.

LEAF: Glad I could provide an excuse, then.

They paused for a moment.

LEAF: Were you wearing it on the day of the duel?

Praya shook her head.

TITAN: No. LEAF: I know what he did.

Praya's eyes narrowed immediately, but she said nothing.

LEAF: It took a while for me to put it together, and it needed some help from an outside source. But I know Argo put your name on the duel without your consent. TITAN: That wretched little fucking man. That pathetic little rodent. What finally made it all click for you? LEAF: Well, you kept hammering on people who can't fight their own battle. It's easy to tell when things are personal for you, but for a while I thought it was about me. TITAN: That doesn't answer my question. LEAF: Promise you won't get mad? TITAN: I never make such a promise, and you know it. But I'll try my best. For you. LEAF: Lord Aloysius. TITAN: Of course. Never can keep his mouth shut, that man. LEAF: He put himself at considerable risk by telling me the truth, and he did it out of respect for me. Promise me you'll leave him alone. TITAN: Well, I suppose he did me a favour in a way. I didn't want have to tell you myself. Cowardly of me, perhaps. But... LEAF: He roped you into the duel, then fucked it up by trying to flex on Persephone. So then you had to apologise for a fight you never asked for. TITAN: That's about the long and the short of it. LEAF: So that day at sword practice... TITAN: Had to do it for myself. Had to fight you on my own terms, of my own volition. Had to reclaim that for him. LEAF: Could you not have fought him?

Praya grinned smugly.

TITAN: No. I wanted to fight YOU. I wanted to see if you'd learnt anything since we parted ways, or if you were using these new friends of yours as a crutch.

Atreyu frowned, although it was hard to look intimidating when staring up at Praya.

LEAF: I hope I lived up to your fucking expectations, then. TITAN: You beat me, didn't you? LEAF: What if I hadn't? TITAN: Then that would've been a very good learning experience. LEAF: And was I a "learning experience" for you? TITAN: Oh, absolutely! I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Though I'm sorry to say, the thrill of matching swords with you couldn't quite compare to the delight of watching that ignoble egghead of yours whip the shit out of Argo.

Atreyu snorted, but the noise was lost in the rattle of the van's suspension.

LEAF: Passions, how do you tolerate him? TITAN: Sometimes I wonder if it might be worth spending the rest of my life in Coldhearth just to choke the life out of him. LEAF: Do you want to be free of the betrothal?

Praya's glare could cut steel.

TITAN: More than fucking anything. But the demands of the House- LEAF: Fuck the demands of the House. What do YOU want?

Praya's lip curled, and there was something bitter and cold in her eyes - contempt? No, not contempt... jealousy?

TITAN: I'm not like you, Atreyu. I can't just spit in father's face. I actually have responsibilities. LEAF: Responsibility is inheriting the Granite Throne. It's not spending your life leashed to a conniving, cowardly little piece of shit who makes your decisions for you. TITAN: I can't just break the betrothal. Father would- LEAF: Sure. YOU can't break the betrothal.

Atreyu paused for effect, smirking confidently.

LEAF: But what if I could?

They left another pause.

LEAF: Big, noble, responsible Praya, you can't break the betrothal. But who am I? Clumsy, stupid, irreverent Atreyu. Measly, wormy, wretched little Atreyu, the layabout, the knave, the ne'er-do-well, the ruiner. I'm just always fucking things up. Me and my stupid mouth, always bringing disrepute or misery upon the family. Ruin an arranged marriage? Praya, I was basically born for this. TITAN: This isn't some banquet where you can just spill wine on his best cloak. This is a massive political alliance you'd be sabotaging. He. Will. Be. FURIOUS. LEAF: I've survived his fury for a decade. That's his problem - he's doesn't understand proportionality. Maybe what he did to me wasn't the worst he could possibly do, but he started off pretty close.

Atreyu locked eyes with their cousin.

LEAF: Look, do you want me to do this?

Praya looked away, sighing.

TITAN: Yes. LEAF: Then it's settled. I'll do it. TITAN: Thank you. LEAF: No problem. After all, what are cousins for?

They rode in silence for a while.

LEAF: Hey, I know I'm not supposed to ask questions, but... TITAN: Oh, here we go. LEAF: How do you know about this Abendroth guy? TITAN: Ever since you showed up, I've been feeling a little... lost. So during the long weekend, I took an express back home to get some advice. LEAF: From uncle? TITAN: Oh, no. From a higher power than him. LEAF: Prayer? Never found the Passions to be particularly open to giving advice. TITAN: There are other powers on Khayradin you can pray to, Atreyu. Assuming you bring a drink.

Suddenly, a few things started to click - that fancy wine glass Praya had bought. That could only mean...

LEAF: You went to the Hall of Ancestors?! TITAN: Perhaps I did. LEAF: I... only uncle's permitted to enter! TITAN: Oh, so NOW you care about father's rules?

She smiled to herself, looking off to the side.

TITAN: They are the Stonelords of the past. Father is the Stonelord of now. I am the Graven Heir, Stonelord of the future. I had every right to enter that chamber, and so I did. LEAF: What was inside? TITAN: That's for a Stonelord alone to know. LEAF: You smug asshole. Well, did you at least find some of the answers you wanted?

Praya nodded.

TITAN: I did. I'm starting to understand now, Atreyu. TITAN: All you need is what you want.

She smiled. For some reason, it was the most terrifying thing Atreyu had ever seen.

[tangibletechnomancy]

The (Personal) Is (Political)

~7 hours, Dall-E 3 via Bing Image Creator, generated under the Code of Ethics of Are We Art Yet?

Or, Dear Microsoft and OpenAI: Your Filters Can't Stop Me From Saying Things: An interactive exercise in why all art is political and game of Spot The Symbols

A rare piece I consider Fully Finished simply as a jpeg, though I may do something physical with it regardless. "Director commentary" below, but I strongly encourage you to go over this and analyze it yourself before clicking through, then see how much your reading aligns with my intent.

Elements I told the model to add and a brief (...or at least inexhaustive) overview of why:

Anime style and character figures - Frequently associated with commercial "low" art and consumer culture, in East Asia and the English-speaking world alike, albeit in different ways - justly or otherwise. There is frequently an element of racism to the denigration of anime styles in the west; nearly any American artist who has taken formal illustration classes can tell you a story of being told that anime style will only hinder them, that no one will hire them if they see anime, or even being graded more harshly and scrutinized for potential anime-esque elements if they like anime or imply that they may like anime - including just by being Asian and young. On the other hand, it is true that there is a commercial strategy of "slap an anime girl on it and it will sell". The passion fans feel for these characters is genuine - and it is very, very exploitable. In fact, this commercialization puts anime styles in particular in a very contentious position when it comes to AI discussions!

Dark-skinned boy with platinum and pink [and blue] hair - Racism and colorism! They're a thing, no matter how much the worst people in the world want you to think they're long over and "critical race theory" is the work of evil anti-American terrorists! I chose his appearance because I knew that unless I was incredibly lucky, I would have to fight with this model for multiple hours to get satisfactory results on this point in particular - and indeed I did. It was an interesting experience - what didn't surprise me was how much work it took me to get a skin color darker than medium-dark tan; what did surprise me was that the hair color was very difficult to get right. In anime art, for dark skin to be matched with light hair and eyes is common enough to be...pretty problematic. Bing Image Creator/Dall-E, on the other hand, swings completely in the opposite direction and struggles with the concept of giving dark-skinned characters any hair color OTHER than black, demanding pretty specific phrasing to get it right even 70% of the time. (I might cynically call this yet another illustration against the pervasive copy-paste myth...) There is also much to say about the hair texture and facial features - while I was pleased to see that more results than I expected gave me textured hair and/or box braids without me asking for it, those were still very much in the minority, and I never saw any deviation from the typical anime facial structures meant to illustrate Asian and white characters. Not even once!

Pink and blue color palette - Our subject is transgender. Bias self-check time: did you make that association as quickly as you would with a light-skinned character, or even Sylveon?

Long hair, cute clothes, lots of accessories - Styling while transmasc is a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation, doubly so if you're not white. In many locations, the medical establishment and mainstream attitude demands total conformity to the dominant culture's standard conventional masculinity, or else "revoking your man card" isn't just a joke meant to uphold the idea that men are "better" than women, but a very real threat. In many queer communities, especially online, transmascs are expected to always be cute femboys who love pink (while transfems are frequently degraded and seen as threats for being butch), and being Just Some Guy is viewed as inherently a sign of assimilationism at best and abusiveness at worst. It is an eternal tug-of-war where "cuteness" and ornamentation are both demanded and banned at the same time. Black and brown people are often hypermasculinized and denied the opportunity to even be "cute" in the first place, regardless of gender. Long hair and how gender is read into it is extremely culture-dependent; no matter what it means to you, if anything, the dominant culture wherever you are will read it as it likes.

Trophies and medals - For one, the trans sports Disk Horse has set feminism back by nearly 50 years; I'm barely a Real History-Remembering Adult and yet I clearly remember a time when the feminist claim about gender in sports was predominantly "hey, it's pretty fucked up that sports are segregated by sex rather than weight class or similar measures, especially when women's sports are usually paid much less and given weirdly oversexualized uniforms," but then a few loud living embodiments of turds in the punch bowl realized that might mean treating trans people fairly and now it's super common for self-proclaimed feminists - mostly white ones - to claim that the strongest woman will still never measure up to the weakest man and this is totally a feminist statement because they totally want to PROTECT women (with invasive medical screenings on girls as young as 12 to prove they're Really Women if they perform too well, of course). For two, Black and brown people are stereotyped as being innately more sporty, physically strong, and, again, Masculine(TM) than others, which frequently intersects with item 1...and if you think it only affects trans women, I am sorry my friend but it is so much worse and more extensive than you think.

Hearts - They mean many things. Love. Happiness. Cuteness. Social media engagement?

TikTok - A platform widely known and hated around these parts for its arcane and deeply regressive algorithm; I felt it deserved to be name/layout/logodropped for reasons that, if they're not clear already, should become so in the final paragraph.

Computers, cameras and cell phones - My initial specification was that one of the phones should be on Instagram and another on TikTok, which the model instead chose to interpret as putting a TikTok sticker on the laptop, but sure, okay. They're ubiquitous in the modern day, for better and for worse. For all the debate over whether phones and social media are Good For Us or Bad For Us, the fact of the matter is, they seem to be a net positive-to-neutral, whose impacts depend on the person - but they do still have major drawbacks. The internet is a platform for conspiracy theories and pseudoscience and dangerous hoaxes to spread farther than ever before. Social media culture leaves many people feeling like we're always being watched and every waking moment of our lives must be Perfect - and in some senses, we are always being watched these days. Digital privacy is eroding by the day, already being used to enforce all the most unjust laws on the books, which leads to-

Pigs - I wrote the prompt with the intention that it would just be a sticker on the laptop, but instead it chose to put them everywhere, and given that I wanted to make a somewhat stealthy statement about surveillance, especially of the marginalized...thanks for that, Dall-E! ;)

Alligators - A counter to the pigs; a short-lived antifascist symbol after...this.

Details I did not intend but love anyway:

The blue in the hair - I only prompted for platinum and pink in the hair, but the overall color palette description "bled" over here anyway, completing the trans flag, making it even more blatant, and thus even more effective as a bias self-check.

The Macbook - I only specified a laptop. Hilariously ironic, to me, that a service provided through Bing interpreted "laptop" as "Macbook" nearly every time. In my recent history, 22 out of 24 attempts show, specifically, a Macbook. Microsoft v. OpenAI divorce arc when? ;) But also, let us not forget Apple's role in the ever-worsening sanitization of the internet. A Macbook with a TikTok sticker (or, well, a Tiikok sticker - recognizable enough) - I can think of little more emblematic of one of the main things I was complaining about, and it was a happy accident. Or perhaps an unhappy one, considering what it may imply about Apple's grip on culture and communications.

Which brings me to my process:

Generated over ~7 hours with Dall-E 3 through Bing Image Creator - The most powerful free tool out there for txt2img these days, as well as a nightmare of filters and what may be the most disgustingly, cloyingly impersonal toxic positivity I've ever witnessed from a tool. It wants to be Art(TM), yet it wants to ban Politics(TM); two things which are very much incompatible - and so, I wanted to make A Controversial Statement using only the most unflaggable, innocuous elements imaginable, no matter how long it took.

All art is political. All life is political. All our "defaults" are cultural, and therefore political. Anything whatsoever can be a symbol.

If you want all art to be a substance-free "look at the pretty picture :)" - it doesn't matter how much you filter, buddy, you've got a big storm coming.

[monkeycharles]

I think there should bé a fic where anyone from the grid would be third wheeling Landoscar, like, have you seen how these two interact.

So, I lack the ability and the time of f1writingbyme and LestappenForever to make this idea into a proper work like they did for "How (Not) To Third Wheel Lestappen" (check it out on Ao3 if you haven't already, definitely worth it) BUT BUT BUT, I can tell you how I think most of the grid would react in third wheeling Landoscar!

1) I feel like we should spare Checo, cause honestly this man has had enough as third wheel of Maxiel and Lestappen, I don't wanna give him extra traumas, SO –

2) Logan Sargeant: this one I really feel guilty about. Cause I like the narrative of him and Oscah being besties and still I cry over the sad edits of Logan just left behind. I think Landoscar with Logan has the most space for improvement?? I forgive Oscar even tho he definitely ghosted the poor Logan for the whole honeymoon phase with Lando (it's been almost two years, Osc, get a grip). I have a feeling Logan will speak up at some point and this would shake Oscar a little, so maybe he would be the more aware and more involved third wheel, possibly? They'll end up doing triple video-games championships with Lando and Logan mocking Oscar's gaming skills, mark my words.

3) Carlos Sainz: my man how does it feel to know you've wasted your chance (multiple chances, lets be real) for good? I have mixed ideas about this one, cause I think it would probably being more like Lando struggling to keep them both as close as possible resulting in Oscar being rightfully jealous 👀👀 so the third wheeling situation would be like Lando trying to involve a very annoyed and confused Carlos in their things (safe for work, ofc). I don't really see a way out of it.

4) Daniel Ricciardo: I mention him but I can't really explain cause honestly my idea of Daniel third-wheeling Landoscar is either him babysit them around Australia and bonding with Oscar over weird aussie habits OR OR OR something very NOT SAFE WORK so ( ... )

5) Max Verstappen: I love to think he'll remain an unbothered king, you know? Like he's well aware and a bit upset that his crepes companion invited someone else (beside from Daniel) to their dessert dates and that the two of them acts like lovebirds even without an actual physical contact. He'll probably send SOS texts to Charles and Daniel until a topic of (his) interest comes out and honestly at that point the power of maxplaining will win over pretty much everything and everyone. At the end of the day Landoscar turn out to be the real victims.

6) George Russell: poor thing was originally invited for a golf morning from Carlos (Landoscar were already supposed to attend), but Chili called off last minute so Georgie ended up with just the others two. LET ME TELL YOU he jumped off the golf cart cause he saw Lando placing a hand on Oscar's thigh and feared for his life. It took several minutes for them to notice he was aggressively walking behind. He was also hit by a golf ball because Oscar distracted Lando for a second too long, I guess you can figure out the rest.

7) Special mention to the PR and the McLaren team in general who's main job rn is having them to SIMPLY F O C U S outside the pit for like interviews and debriefings. I can picture Lando losing it after hearing a single compliment like "SO YOU THINK I'M PRETTY", cause ✨babygirl✨ energy hitting here and there, even tho he has tried to be somehow a model for Oscar, at least for what concerns work. Indeed I pity trainers and strategists bc ofc Oscar listens at them, but image them trying to explain a concept to him just for Lando to get there and rephrase it in the dumbest way possible and Oscar going like OHHHHH NOW I GOT IT, COULDN'T YOU EXPLAIN IT THAT WAY?

8) This is mostly a guilty pleasure but do we all agree they torture the entire f1 group chat with their subtle flirting?

IDK if this was what you had in mind but I really REALLY had fun writing it.

So let me know what you think in the comments down below, if you agree or if you want me to make it longer and/or more detailed or just to focus on a specific one in particular?

Again, my dms and box section are open to discussions, requests and any sort of (respectful) thing!

PEACE OUT 🤌🏻❤️

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Okay here I am again because the Grima brainrot is particularly intense rn and I just saw a post talking about.

Grima but as a woman. Like genderbend. Nothing changes, same looks, same personality, same behaviour, same ambiguous feelings for Eowyn. (I’d smash.)

I think it’s actually interesting considering that Grima’s flaws in the movies/books are hinted also to be rooted from his “unmanliness” (as Tolkien presents a lot of characters with honour and values considered “male”.)

But I think that even if he were to be a woman, there is a great deal of traits Grima wouldn’t possess to be considered conventionally “feminine” by Tolkien’s and many’s standards. (Such as beauty for example).

So yeah, it just occurred to me and now I’ve been thinking about this since 3am. This is the reason why I’m pansexual. We don’t care about gender. We care about silly evil pookies okay.

As always have a great day/night ! ^^

Yesssss!

Grima & Gender is a super interesting thing that I think about all the time. I love thinking about him and manliness, femininity, secret third and fourth options etc.

I know I reblogged the ask/reply that I had about Grima on Gender and Magic, so you have the gist of most of my thoughts as it relates to Grima performing gender (or not, as the case may be) within the context of masculinity.

But Grima straight up as a woman would be very interesting. Particularly because Rohan is quite gendered when it comes to the wielding of power - and quite binary in who wields what power.

(E.g., when Theoden departs Edoras to fight Saruman, he despairs over leaving the city leaderless because Eomer won't stay behind. It doesn't occur to him that Eowyn is even an option until Hama suggests it.)

Therefore, Grima being in a position of power that is traditionally masculine would be very interesting. Indeed, her entire performance of gender would likely be impacted by the uniqueness of her position. Queens, historically, were more passive in Rohan than in other countries so it's not like she would have someone to model herself on. Nor would there be a model for other people on how to receive and perceive Grima.

(Morwen, maaaaaybe, but honestly her epithet of Steelsheen is more about her appearance than anything else. Though perhaps her personality could be inferred from it... But truly, we only know her in the context of being wife and mother.)

Given the absence of models, would Grima into the more masculine aspects of how people would be reading her? Would she do the whole performance of "I may have the body of a woman but I've the head and heart of a man"? Or would she hyper-perform the femininity song and dance as a way to balance it out/make her more palatable to some?

Aside from the occupying a masculine position of power within the context of Rohan's society, Grima's other personality and physical traits would absolutely count against her being seen as appropriately feminine.

Good qualities for a Rohirrim woman to have is height, slenderness, fairness of face, and youthfulness. Grima's tall...and that's all she's got going for her.

Grima is also neither high-hearted nor noble in bearing let alone in birth (because nobility of birth is very important to one's perceived Goodness and Worth in Tolkien's world).

Grima is a sneak, a liar, a thief, and power hungry. Grima would be, fundamentally, a Woman Who Wants Something. And what she wants are things women shouldn't want.

Wanting Things in general, for both men and women, is a dangerous game to play in Middle Earth and the texts punish many of the people who do any major "unacceptable" desiring (or creating) of things outside their purview.

Grima's obvious foil, Eowyn, is a prime example. Eowyn wants to be a warrior, she wants to be queen, she wants to be part of the Gondor noble family (and assume the power and privilege that comes with that), she wants to be seen and heard and to have an impact on the fate of the world.

Some of her wanting was out of a selfless desire to save her home and her people, but a lot was also just her having dreams and desires.

Eowyn may have been named as Shieldmaiden of Rohan but it is evident that this was meant as an honorific that wasn't meant to be actually acted upon. Save, of course, in the gravest/most dire circumstances when all is lost and only women remain to defend the land because the men are dead. This is, indeed, the gist of the conversation she has with Aragorn and you can see her resentment and anger about what her expected role is to be compared to that of her brother and the other men in her life.

I think the fact that Eowyn reflects, in many ways, the ideal of womanhood is what saves her from being punished too hard. Eowyn is tall, fair, slender, young, high-hearted, daughter of kings, and has selfless and noble motives (alongside the more human ones).

She is allowed her transgression. She gets her great moment of battle against the witch-king. She gets to make her mark, to save people, to change history.

But, she also receives a bit of a personality transplant as a result of it. She gets to be a wife - but not a queen. She gets to be a mother who heals people. She gets to be a Proper Noble Woman and live, once again, in a gilded cage. The very thing she was so furious about initially.

I know there is the idea that she is healed and she has overcome her anger and has changed - but it still feels like the text punished her and robbed her. Of course, a huge part of the problem is that Eowyn is the only women we spend any real time with - if we had more women with diverse journeys and endings, it would be different.

It's subconscious to a certain degree, I think, also heavily informed by Tolkien's Catholicism alongside the culture of the time. The importance of the Marian archetype of womanhood etc. And we know Tolkien loved Eowyn's character and thought about her a lot, wanted to write a good story for her, but some of that stuff sneaks in regardless.

But all of this to say - if that is Eowyn's ending...what would happen to Grima? One who would be committing greater transgressions against gender performance let alone the whole Light Soupçon of Treason.

Because aside from wanting material wealth and power, we know that Grima potentially desires Eowyn. In the movie it's explicit but the books are more ambiguous. We are told, via Gandalf, that Eomer was concerned about Grima ogling his sister and threatened to kill him over it. Crucially, we never hear from Grima about this specific item and we certainly never hear from Eowyn.

Indeed, Gandalf's line to Eomer about how his sister is "safe now" says far more about Eomer's fears and concerns than it does about the reality of the situation. We know in ROTK that Eomer didn't know his sister's heart or mind - he didn't know she was unhappy with her position in the household and broader society, he didn't know she wa so angry and resentful, he didn't know she was in emotional pain, he didn't know what she wanted, he didn't know jack. Therefore can we think him reliable when it comes to being a fountain of knowledge about his sister's desires?

I mean...considering no one was paying much attention to her, and when they did they were reading their own things onto her (coughEomercough), perhaps Eowyn liked having Grima pay attention to her? Like, who knows. Someone who may have seen her and may have known what her fears and desires were might have been novel/nice (before she realized he's selling everyone out for a corn chip). Heck, Gandalf implies that Grima had a pretty good handle on Eowyn's innermost dreams and wishes, so take that as you will.

(I now have this image in my head of Eowyn and Grima getting wine drunk out back of Meduseld and bitching about people.)

All pure idle speculation for the sake of pot-stirring. Anyway, I keep getting distracted.

Grima as a woman feeling lust, though - that would be another strike against her. Honourable love and the implied desire that might exist because of it is fine. But in the text overt desire of a clearly sexual nature is presented in a mostly negative light. Let alone, in this speculation, Grima is lusting after another woman! That's even more unnatural and contrary! What a freak /sarcasm.

Then there's the cowardice - which is shown as a negative no matter who is displaying it. Though, I think of all the aspects of Grima, this is the one that would get more of a pass as a woman than as a man.

So yeah - given that Grima's entire personality is one that is contrary to what is modeled as Good Femininity it would be very interesting to see how it played out over the course of the text.

Everything from the banishment, which was predicated on Grima being expected to do battle alongside Theoden in order to prove that he is still loyal - what test of loyalty would Grima as a woman be expected to perform and then fail because she's too chickenshit?

The relationship with Saruman would be construed in a different way, also the hold Grima had over Theoden - that would take on different implications. And those implications would also change how Theoden is perceived, too, which is interesting.

That Theoden is leaning on a woman for support in ruling would make him seem even weaker and more foolish. It would be so interesting to see it unfold!

Then there's the rivalry with Gandalf - the positioning of them as two sides of the Odinnic coin.

Also the being tortured and tormented by Saruman after Helm's Deep. Not to mention the Scouring of the Shire and Grima's ultimate end. If Grima is a woman, in this, I think Tolkien would have had her ending be different.

----

Alright, I've banged on for way, way too long about this and went no where in particular, and all has been said before in different ways so I'm not landing on anything new or insightful.

Just wittering...I love wittering about Grima so thank you for giving me the opportunity to lol

<3 <3

[yakool-foolio]

If the Professor's waxwork model has been returned, hopefully we'll be able to see what it looks like! If the model was always going to be returned even without the ransom, then what was the true purpose of it being stolen, I wonder? My best guess is that it served as a distraction... WAIT GAME THEORY: WAS ASMAN THE PROFESSOR? The killer could've used the model as a nonliving body double for Asman and nobody would be able to tell the difference if they couldn't find the model.

Well, he may be headless, but he's no horseman. Damn Enoch, the stress must've really gotten to ya for your hair to turn all white. SHOLMES FEED YOUR KID JEEZ LOUISE! A thick shard of glass, hm? Like it came from, I dunno, THE CRYSTAL TOWER? My theory very well may be correct, huzzah!

Hooooly shit that's a Hellhound if I've ever heard of one. Sounds incredibly brutal, me likey the grim implications (Blank Week enthusiasts where ya at?). 'The Great Departed Soul' has a double meaning; the 'resurrection' of both Kazuma and The Professor. OH so it was the stress, forgive me Enoch for my joke I was actually /srs.

Unfortunately my friend group had to stop early for tonight cause of technical difficulties, but we're gonna try to catch up to speed tomorrow night. As compensation, have some extra miscellaneous TGAA thoughts of mine (mostly music related cause I can't help myself).

So if Klint's spirit is The Reaper, then there could be some unchecked wrath not just directed at his killer, but perhaps defendants as a whole? Thinking with ghost logic here, ghosts tend to remain on the mortal plane whenever they have unfinished business, such as when their death is unjust and their killer is still walking around a free man. So if The Professor is indeed still alive, then that would be a good reason as to why Klint's spirit seems to follow his younger brother around. The motive Klint's spirit could have in causing the deaths of the defendants prosecuted by Barok might be due to unkempt rage of his own killer still being at large, unbeknownst to most of London. He's not taking any chances at letting other potential killers go free, so he effectively curses them with a curt death so they won't harm anyone else. Klint might also not know what his killer, The Professor, looked like, so he's basically doing the ghost equivalent of firing randomly into a crowd of suspicious-looking individuals. This is all just taking the idea of a ghost causing all these deaths literally so uhhh a thick layering of salt is needed to properly ingest this take. I apologize for your high blood pressure after this.

In my escapades of assigning lawyers n prosecutors Monster Hunter themes, I've made an exception and want to give Sholmes Ruby Basarios' theme. It one of the very few consistently happy-go-lucky sounding monster themes in the whole series, which fits him being the comedic relief while also having a few off-kilter bits much like Sholmes' actual theme to showcase his roundabout way of deducting. It also features some tap dancing-esque percussion, which I love associating with the dance of deduction.

I absolutely love how Adjudication (how the track's named on Spotify is what I go off of) sounds almost like a waltz. It really evokes the feeling of the dance of death--Danse Macabre--between the lawyer and the prosecutor. It's a delicate balance of life and death any way ya look at it. One misstep could lead to your dance partner cracking their head against the floor. And we don't want anyone else to end up with a serious case of amnesia here, right?

Whisper On The Breeze by TWRP is such an Asoryu song it makes me melt. The Great Departure is all the more bittersweet to me because of it. Like hoo man these lyrics:

(To Whom It May Concern - @raymondshields)

[atths--twice]

Passing the Time

While waiting for labs at the hospital, Scully helps Mulder pass the time.

Fictober day 6. Prompt: That's All? Easy.

For my dear friend Ingrid. 💓

February 7, 2018 George Washington Memorial Hospital 

“How much longer did they say?” Mulder asked Scully as she closed the door and rejoined him in the hospital’s waiting area. 

“Twenty minutes at least,” she replied and he sighed heavily.

“We’ve already been waiting for two hours.” 

“Lab work takes time. You know that.” 

“I do,” he said with a nod. “I also know that we’ve been out of the game for a while. Maybe there were advancements while we were away.” 

“Excuse me?” she asked, picking up a random magazine as she sat down. “We haven’t been away from anything. You have. I worked in a hospital until very recently, remember? I am aware how long labs can take.” 

“You know what I meant,” he said, rolling his eyes and she hummed. Glancing at the pages before her, but not finding much interest in them. “I guess I just forgot about the waiting part.” 

“No, you’ve never been good at waiting,” she said, turning the pages with a sigh. 

“In regard to some things,” he said and she turned her head to look at him. He shrugged and gave her a small smile. 

“Hmm,” she hummed again, her attention back on the magazine. His leg bumped hers as he began to bounce it and she pressed into him, silently telling him to stop. “Don’t you have something you can do on your phone? A game to play or something you can read?” 

“Not really.” 

“You had that one game you were playing. Just do that and the time will go by faster,” she said, feeling as though she was speaking to a large child. 

“But it’s boringgggg,” he said, dragging the word out dramatically while he bumped his leg into hers. 

“Mulder,” she said, huffing out a laugh. “Twenty minutes is hardly any time at all. You’ll be fine.” 

“At least twenty minutes. That’s what you said they said, right? So it could be more.” 

“You wanna find a supply closet and make out?” she asked, turning her head and looking at him as he immediately stilled. 

“You… you’re… seriously?” 

“Of course not,” she said, looking back at the magazine and shaking her head. “We’re working.” 

“If that’s the only hold up, I’ll take a rain check.” 

“Sure,” she said, turning another page and not giving it much thought. 

“I’m gonna hold you to it,” he said, his voice lower and she fought back a smile, enjoying teasing him. 

“With or without clothing?” she asked, her voice also low. 

“Definitely without,” he answered quickly and this time she was unable to hold back her smile. “Or whatever you prefer.” 

She turned her head and held his eyes, seeing the desire within them. Leaning closer, she grazed his cheek with her own as she brought her lips close to his ear. 

“I prefer without as well,” she whispered, brushing a kiss to his cheek as she pulled away. 

He groaned softly and she smiled as her attention turned back to the magazine. 

“Christ, Scully,” he breathed, putting his arm along the back of her chair and looking around the room. 

“You gonna make it?” she teased and he laughed as he shifted in his seat. 

“Honestly? Sometimes I don’t know, Scully.” 

“I do enjoy keeping you on your toes. Or your back.” 

“Fuck,” he breathed, shaking his head. She bit her lip to keep from laughing. 

“Can I offer any help to alleviate any discomfort you’re presently experiencing?”

“Yeah, you can stop talking,” he nearly growled. 

“Or I could offer a distraction.” 

“No, that’s how we ended up here.” 

“A different kind of distraction,” she said with a laugh. 

“I’ll be the judge. Let me hear  it.” 

“You consider yourself an intelligent man,” she stated, looking at the magazine. Pausing on a page, she considered the pair of pants the model was wearing.

“I do indeed, but I’m not sure I’m liking where this is heading.” 

“You have an incredible memory. Some might say it's too incredible.” 

“It’s definitely served me well,” he said, stretching out his legs and crossing the left foot over the right. “In more ways than one.” 

“Hmm,” she said, trying not to let her mind wander too far, knowing how well his memory had served in their sex life. Even from the very beginning, it was as though he had memorized every spot that made her cry out and beg him for more.  

“So what did you have in mind?” he asked and she shook her head, pushing away those thoughts. 

Later, she told herself. Definitely later. 

“Make a list of all fifty states,” she said and he looked at her. 

“A list of all the states? That’s your grand plan to help me pass the time?” he asked, moving his arm and sitting up, his brow furrowed even as he smiled. “List the states? That’s all? Easy.” 

“And the capitals,” she said as he stood up, patting his suit jacket, most likely looking for a pen. 

“What?” he asked, stopping and staring at her. “The capitals too?” 

“You said listing the states was easy. We’ve got time to kill so… capitals too,” she said, turning a page and raising an eyebrow at him. 

“Oh… you’re going to regret this. I’ll be done way before the labs are.” 

“So you say,” she said, looking at the magazine. “Yet there you stand, writing nothing down.” 

“Oh, you… you…” He shook his head, waving his finger at her. “I’m gonna find some paper and then… be prepared to be amazed.” 

“I’m all a tingle,” she said with an exaggerated shiver. 

“You… ha ha ha,” he said, walking out of the room to hunt down some paper. 

She smiled as she put the magazine down and reached for another. 

He was back quickly, heading to the small table in the corner of the waiting area, when she stood up and stopped him. 

“Give me your phone.” 

“You don’t trust me?” 

“No,” she laughed. “Not for things like this. Gimme it.” 

“I can’t believe you don’t trust me,” he said, taking his phone from his pocket and handing it to her. “I would never-”

“Dyspareunia,” she said, putting his phone in her pocket. “Thought of that word on your own to build off of your previous word spare?” She raised her eyebrows and he shrugged with his palms up, a guilty smile on his face. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’ll be holding onto your phone. Go on.” 

“Bossy,” he said, as he continued past her. 

“You love it,” she stated and he nodded, grinning at her. 

“I absolutely do. Especially when-”

“Nope,” she said, pointing at the paper. “Get to writing.” He saluted as he sat down as she shook her head as she also sat down. 

Quiet fell over the room and she was surprised when she realized ten minutes had passed without any interruptions. Looking over at him, she smiled as she saw how focused he was as he wrote. Suddenly feeling sleepy, she set the magazine beside her, crossed her arms, and closed her eyes. 

“Hey,” Mulder said softly and she opened her eyes. “It always amazes me how you can fall asleep anywhere.” 

“Are you done?” she asked, sitting up and looking at the paper in his hand. 

“Why yes, Miss Scully. I got all my homework done,” he said in a southern drawl, handing the paper to her. She took it with a smile, her eyes running over his words. 

“You know,” he said as he sat down. “That was actually harder than I thought it would be.” 

“Hmm,” she hummed. “That’s not surprising.” 

“What are you trying to say?” he asked and she laughed quietly.

“Nothing about you in particular. It’s just not something we think about in our normal day to day life, so it’s not surprising that it proved to be somewhat difficult.” 

“As long as it wasn’t a dig at my intelligence,” he said, sticking out his lower lip. 

“I would never. Did I not call you an intelligent man earlier?” 

“No. You stated that I considered myself an intelligent man.” 

“Did I?” she asked, tapping her finger against the paper as she read. 

Juneau, Alaska. Austin, Texas. Olympia, Washington.    “You did. Find any mistakes?” 

“Not yet,” she said, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. 

“You won’t. Because, I have a fantastic memory, as I believe you said.” 

“Ohhh. You were so close,” she said, closing her eyes briefly and shaking her head. “I said you had an incredible memory, but it looks like I was wrong.” 

“Fantastic… incredible. One would say they’re interchangeable,” he said, moving his hands as though weighing the words on a scale. 

“Hmm,” she hummed, nodding in agreement. 

Columbus, Ohio. Montpelier, Vermont. Bismarck, North Dakota. 

“So what’s the word, Teach?” he asked as she folded the paper in half. 

“All correct. One hundred percent,” she said, smiling as she turned her head to look at him. 

“A hundred percent. That should get a gold star,” he stated and she sighed. 

“Unfortunately, I’m all out of gold stars at the moment.” 

“Huh…” he said, rubbing his fingers across his chin. “No gold stars? You got anything else of value? I mean… a perfect paper achieved by my incredibly fantastic memory… it deserves something.” 

Smiling again as she leaned closer to him, she placed a hand on his cheek and kissed him softly. Then again. Then once more, her lips lingering on his. 

“Better than a gold star?” she whispered and he hummed as he kissed her before pulling back slightly. 

“Much better,” he whispered back, bumping his nose gently against hers. 

She pulled back further, smiling at him, her fingers scratching lightly at the stubble upon his cheek. He smiled and she dropped her hand with a sigh just as the door to the waiting area opened and the lab technician stepped inside. 

“Agents, I have the results you’ve been waiting for,” he said and they both stood to their feet and followed the technician down the hall. 

Though her focus was on the case and the new evidence they now had, her mind kept drifting to the softness of Mulder’s lips and how she wanted to feel them on hers again. 

Without clothing this time, she thought. Most assuredly without clothing. 

[justforbooks]

Matthew Perry was a Friend to all, known the world over as Chandler Bing, always seconds away from a great wisecrack and a show-stopping grin. But he was also an addict. That was the “big, terrible thing” Perry referenced in the title of his memoir last year, giving it equal weighting with the TV series that made him an indelible celebrity, long after he had largely retreated from screens.

I read Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing last year and found it a jarring, often uncomfortable experience. It was one part juicy celebrity memoir, enlivened by the flashes of humour and winning self-deprecation that Perry (by his own admission) shared with his defining character; and one part harrowing account of a man intent on his own destruction.

Perry characterised himself as a ready-made, just-add-water addict: an alcoholic with his first drink at the age of 14, and hooked on painkillers with his first pill, prescribed after a jetski accident. High, he drove a red Mustang convertible across the desert, feeling “complete and utter euphoria”: “I remember thinking, ‘If this doesn’t kill me, I’m doing this again.’” It didn’t then.

Nearly a year to the day after Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing was published, Perry was found dead at his Los Angeles home in an apparent drowning. He was 54. Tributes from his friends and fans have rightly focused on Perry’s character and talent, with actors Morgan Fairchild (who played Perry’s on-screen mother) mourning “the loss of such a brilliant young actor” and Mira Sorvino of his “singular wit”. Even the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, (who knew Perry as a boy, and whom Perry claimed in his memoir to have beaten up) paid tribute to the “schoolyard games we used to play … Thanks for all the laughs, Matthew”.

Indeed, though Perry’s career never took off beyond Friends, he was arguably the standout performer in a talented cast of six. Any good-looking guy can be the smart-aleck, cracking jokes in the corner, but Perry imbued Chandler with energy and emotional depth.

Though defined by his deadpan delivery – Perry is right, when he wrote “that Chandler Bing transformed the way that America spoke” – he also had exceptional comic timing, and was a great physical performer. No one else has so effectively communicated combined dating anxiety and needing to pee. The fact that Perry managed to more or less keep it together over 10 seasons and 236 episodes, often while juggling ferocious substance abuse, is only further testament to his talent.

The success of Friends – not to mention the support from his castmates, his real-life friends – was what helped him to survive, Perry wrote. “There was no way I could have been a journeyman actor. I wouldn’t have stayed sober for that; it was not worth not doing heroin for that … When you’re earning $1m a week, you can’t afford to have the 17th drink.”

Perry also had a tricky part to play within the ensemble, in taking a platonic friendship between two cynics into a heartfelt romance. Chandler and Monica was Friend’s central love story, with none of the cushioning contrivances and strategic “breaks” of the series’ other pairings. In TV, as well as life, it’s harder to make yourself vulnerable and offer love steadily than it is to give in to doubt and run hot-and-cool: Perry showed that the smart guy, even the mean guy, could also be the nice guy you’d do well to marry.

In a series that has otherwise aged fairly poorly, Chandler and Monica are still an aspirational model for an equal partnership. As a teenager, I found it sweet when Chandler told Monica: “They can say that you’re high maintenance, but it’s OK, because I like … maintaining you.” As a far-from-easygoing, thirtysomething single woman, it is perhaps the most desirable declaration of love I’ve ever seen.

It is no wonder Perry was so beloved for his character. “For the longest time,” he wrote, he experienced it as a burden, though he had lately reached some kind of peace with Friends as his legacy. “If you’re going to be typecast, that’s the way to do it.” But at the widespread shock at his death, as the world woke up to the news on Sunday morning, you can picture Perry raising one quizzical eyebrow. As he wrote himself: “I didn’t stand a fucking chance.”

Perry might not have risked 17 drinks on set – but he would certainly try for 16. Especially during the later seasons of Friends, he was routinely drunk, high or hungover on set, prompting concern from Jennifer Aniston. (“‘We can smell it,’ she said, in a kind of weird but loving way.”) Even a “sober companion” to shadow him at work proved insufficient safeguard: when a read-through was cut short by Perry’s incoherence, the entire cast staged an intervention. When The One With Monica and Chandler’s Wedding aired, in May 2001, Perry was living in rehab.

For all Perry’s amusing celebrity anecdotes and determined good cheer, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing reads primarily as an addiction memoir without an ending. Indeed, it read as though it had almost been written in real time: Perry’s colon had exploded in July 2019, only three years before its publication, and in January 2022 he underwent his 14th surgery relating to his drug addiction. “I finally have rock-hard abs, but they aren’t from sit-ups,” he wrote, perkily.

Perry described, often, the reward he drew from supporting other addicts: “The best thing about me, bar none, is that … I can help a desperate man get sober.” Nonetheless, I was struck while reading it that the more recent timeline of Perry’s using and abusing was somewhat opaque. It felt somewhat strategic: an attempt to obscure his current reality and lend heft to the suggestion that the worst of his troubles were behind him. But even Perry himself – no doubt encouraged to come to a positive conclusion – could not find a more upbeat note with which to end on than the fact that he was alive at all.

For all its gestures to sobriety, “looking forward” and moving into the future, the final chapter reads like Perry speaking from beyond the grave, reflecting on the faces of his loved ones as if he has already passed on.

The world might be shocked at his untimely death, but Perry knew that his addiction was going to kill him; he told us in print a year ago, in a book that reached six figures in sales. Indeed, he wrote, his most surprising takeaway was that it hadn’t already.

“There are two kinds of drug addicts,” Perry wrote of his preference for opiates over cocaine. “The ones who want to go up, and the ones who want to go down … I wanted to melt into my couch and feel wonderful.” You can only hope that, now, he is as close to happiness as he felt that morning in the red Mustang.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[objuct]

F2U Maxis-Mix Autumn Texture Atlas

Hey all! Thought this would be interesting to show and talk about.

So my harvest decor set will largely compose of various decorative items adorned with natural elements, as is common with harvest themed decorations.

In 3dCG, the problem that comes with doing items with high amounts of small detailed objects like sticks, flowers, leaves, and berries, is that if you were to model the shape and detail of every single stick, leaf, and flower, you would very quickly start to skyrocket your polycount, which can quickly add up if your item has a lot of these details repeated.

So the primary method that we see used for this in mesh where optimization is important, such as video games, you'll commonly see what is called a "texture atlas" being used. This is basically a grid consisting of various little details all on one texture map, to save both on vram (texture memory) AND polycount. That's what I've done above, by arranging all the little details, it functions as a palette to use while I actually make the items, and I can quickly pull from this grid and apply it to the mesh, and have all the details be only one texture map.

The actual textures I am using for this are modified images generated with the media synthesis model Dall-e 3, aka "AI" -- when you start to work in 3d, you come to quickly learn if you do not use stock images or other stock resources for the assistance in creating assets, you will drive yourself nuts painting every last leaf and detail. There's a very different attitude to the use of pre fabricated assets in 3d than there is in 2d, since 3d is largely viewed as a means to an end for a goal (in this case, custom content for a video game).

As for the actual use of media synthesis, and it's very understandably hotly debated status, I'm in the camp where I think it's indeed a man-made horror with terrifying implications for the public trust of media, but we unfortunately can't undo it existing much like a pandora's box, so might as well derive some human enjoyment out of it.

After making this atlas for this set, I've put some thought into making it as well as more texture atlases open source for community use based off different plants, flowers, etc, to help streamline the production of maxis-match plants and other decor for cc makers.

I've included the download of the above atlas below, lemme know what you use it for :)

As these were made with Dall-e 3, these cannot be used commercially. JSYK.

Download - SFS (.png and .dds)

[acideathr]

‧₊˚♪𝄞࿐₊˚⊹ 𝖙𝖜𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖉 𝖜𝖔𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝄞₊ ⊹ 𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖑𝖔𝖌𝖚𝖊 ● 𝖜𝖊𝖑𝖈𝖔𝖒𝖊 𝖙𝖔 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖛𝖎𝖑𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖓𝖘' 𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖑𝖉 ⤿ 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗿 ● 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴

♫ .. “ ... 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 ... “ ★ . •° . －𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘳 ．．• ♡︎

˖ ݁♬⋆.˚𝄞. LIBRARY

crowley: just as i’d suspected. nothing. 

crowley: not only is you homeland not listed on any map from any point in history. 

crowley: now, are you QUITE sure that you come from such a place? that wasn’t some sort of lie, or jape?

crowley: because if so, the only explanation is that you’ve come from another planet.

crowley: or perhaps you were summoned here from another dimension?

yuu: another dimension?!

crowley: show me everything that you brought here with you.

crowley: do you have some sort of identification, a driver’s license perhaps? or even a… shoe? you do seem a tad bit… empty—handed.

yuu: come to think of it, where’s my wallet and phone?!

crowley: well, this is quite the predicament.

crowley: i cannot have someone with no aptitude for magic bumbling about my magic academy.

crowley: and yet, as an educator, i am loath to expel a young person without a cent to their name, or any ability to contact their guardian…

crowley: truly, my grace is boundless.

crowley: hmmmmm… ah!

crowley: there is a vacant building on this campus.

crowley: it was, in fact, used as a dorm a long time ago. with a proper cleaning, it should be habitable enough.

crowley: out of the profound kindness of my heart, i will allow you to livethere for the time being.

crowley: in the meantime, we will investigate other ways to send you home.

crowley: dear me, but i am a gracious man indeed! a model educator, one might say.

crowley: well then, i shall take you to your dorm straight away. it is an older building, but it has plenty of… character, one might say.

⭑♪⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝗺𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 ⭑♪⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁

©𝗖𝗢𝗣𝗬𝗥𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 ● @acideathr 2025 ⤿ my work is not yours to take; posting chapters requires significant time and effort. all credit is due to aniplex and yana toboso; show your support by downloading the twisted wonderland. this blog particularly caters to players who cannot access the en game because of their region or those who aren't willing to download the game

[theconsciouscrow]

A Rant Consideration about Mr. Scratch and his origins (Alan Wake 2 spoilers):

I've been seeing a lot of posts on various social media about who/what Mr. Scratch is. Before AW2 i've visited the youtube channel "Gaming University", which i think it's the most complete source of information about all things Remedy related (i'll put the url to his channel in the comments), and it's been eye opening.

SO first things first, let's make something clear: Alan Wake is about psychology. Ok? Ok.

Remedy uses psychology themes through all the remedyverse. Collective Unconscious? Psychology. Archetypes? Psychology. The Hiss? Polaris? Well, not exactly psychology, but it comes from it.

Sam Lake has been using tropes and themes inspired from a especific psychoanalyst named Carl Jung (the man below). The Jungian philosophy perceives the human mind as the modeler of the world, and not just it's spectator. To Jung, inside the mind we all have a set of actors, who regulate our behavior and at the same time makes us remember (on a conscious or unconscious state) of who we really are.

One of these actors is called the "Shadow". The shadow represents our repressed desires, the corruption, the will to violence, etc. The shadow is a key factor to the process of self knowledge: the ascension in the spiral (weee) of consciousness, and is natural to all humans.

When Alan comes back to talk to Agent Estevez after the Scratch boss fight, she asks "Isn't the shadow possessing you anymore?".

The FBC files mentions the shadow multiple times. Ilmo Koskela states through the game that everyone who leaves the Dark Place "gets out unwell". The Dark Place is a place of creation indeed, but its also a realm of the mind: it feed of memories, messes with emotions, causes despersonalization, psychosis, etc.

Reuniting all that information, we can safely assume that:

Mr. Scratch is the Shadow of Alan Wake given boost and agency by the Dark Place: they ARE NOT separate entities.

It is Alan, his corrupted desire to be the best writer, to feel wanted and loved, through all means necessary. Scratch is not exactly obsessed WITH Alan, he's obsessed in giving Alan what he wants in the most fucked up part of his mind.

And let's be honest: having an eldritch variant of you throwing at your face what you really are - beyond all morality and social rules - through its actions is pretty disturbing, traumatizing even. It's natural that Alan understands Scratch as his worst enemy, he still doesn't recognizes it as a part of himself.

Saga has her shadow messed up as well, when she gets to the DP, which was also boosted by the darkness. Her shadow humiliates her as a mother, Casey's partner, and a detective, representing her worst fears. "Seems like i'm my own worst enemy.", she states.

The shadow traps her inside her mind place, since the process of giving conscious to a unconscious part of your mind is so unnatural, that they both cannot be separated. A human mind cannot survive without it's shadow.

Also, the way she'd dealt with her situation is really admiring - Saga proved to be a much more self-conscious and stable person than Alan, who stayed 13 years suffering by the hands of Scratch.

Want more proof that Scratch is a shadow? Look at his photo alongside Saga's shadow in the "Profiling" desk:

Everyone deals with their shadow on their own way

When Casey get's "possessed by Scratch", i don't think that's exactly what's happening: the Dark Presence enters Casey's mind, messing up with his Shadow, boosting his most agressive and corrupt parts of it, and since everyone is in Scratch's Story, Casey's Shadow will do what the Story mandates (world domination).

So TL;DR, Mr Scratch and Alan are the same person. The DP boosts Mr Scratch to a point where he/it becomes another personality, who takes hold of Alan's body to do it's biding. Same thing happens to everyone who gets "touched" by the darkness. Alan kinda understands this at the end of the game, when he shouts "Come on MF, COME HOME!!"

Now, like Jung said, the Shadow has the objective of reminding us who we really are deep down, and as much traumatizing that can be, is by embracing our flaws and accepting our Jungian Shadow, that we reach a state of mind the psychoanalyst calls the "Self": a perfect state of auto consciousness and knowledge, the top of the mountain in the ascension of the spiral.

Let's just hope that Alan is getting close to it.

[scorched-cipher]

Okay, so I got a problem. That Mouthwash: Space Tragedy game I have been shitposting about on and off has taken residence in my mind and now I keep adding story elements onto it. This could have been really cool if the people who made the mobile game took their time to craft a good story. I’ll put a cut here since this is getting a bit long. Prepare yourself

Directly after I made the Shinsuke shitpost, I recognized that the Shinsuke clones were probably borne out of the process of mitosis seeing as they are all identical, which would be quite horrifying to see within a grown human being. (Ignore the fact that the developer probably made this choice because they didn’t want to animate all those characters as zombies lol) However, though the story of the initial game chalks this all up to the mouthwash making him go mad, it doesn’t explain the specifics as to why there are more than one zombie or why the mouthwash is so bad. I have decided that the zombie problem, which is indeed cause by something within the mouthwash Shinsuke consumed, needed to have a good enough catalyst for a human to undergo mitosis since it is a highly unnatural thing to do for a near full grown human man.

To which I say:

This gives us an actual reason as to why Captain crashed the ship. Perhaps he knew that the mouthwash (most likely intentionally, as Nurse mentioned that the ‘other chemicals’ listed on the mouthwash ingredients list were dangerous) was infected with microscopic ‘aliens’ that can infect a host and foster the ability for mitosis, similar to that of a parasite. This may also explain why Shinsuke’s face is so weird and changes. His skin is stretching as his organs replicate and prepare to split off like a worse version of an amoeba.

See exhibits A and B below, a snapshot of before and after the parasites infected him:

(Do forgive me for the quality of the pictures; these are some of the only ones I got on my first playthrough and now there’s an ad bar at the top whenever I play a new game, so these are the best I’m gonna get)

These seem to be two separate models, if I’m seeing it correctly. The second guy looks… wrong. Saying that he’s the same Shinsuke as before would be a stretch. The face models are completely different, and the jacket in exhibit B has actual rendered folds that extend messily from his torso. He looks disheveled. Immediately, despite the low polygons, we should recognize that something might be wrong.

Note how oddly his neck looks in exhibit B. (Could be the shitty model and I’m reaching, but I’m having fun so. lol) It seems to be thicker towards the top, moving towards his brain. Perhaps his head is swelling a bit from the aliens/parasites. Also, note how his original features are somehow smoothed out and drawn closer in exhibit B compared to that of A. It’s like his head had grown bigger and relocated a lot of his features towards the middle of his face. He even looks a bit paler, unless that is my flashlight and the general lighting of the scene talking.

here’s another angle. It could definitely just be the lighting making me think he looks sickly. But he definitely looks bloated like an amoeba ready to split in half. Could argue that his skin is starting to pull away as well.

That guy was sick even before the mouthwash was opened. Maybe he was already in contact with it beforehand like Captain. Who knows? The pacing in the game is kind of shite, so maybe this was unintentional.

Anyways, that’s my take on Mouthwash: Space Tragedy as a story. I don’t think this really fixes it much, but it’s fun for me to think about Shinsuke and Captain maybe finding out that there are aliens in their cargo together and forming a pact to keep everyone from getting back to earth and infecting everyone with it. Captain obviously doesn’t crash the ship well enough and Shinsuke doesn’t end up killing Jim-Copilot, who brings Captain to the escape pod, sending the equivalent of an alien plague back to earth. Fun times!