#he is excellence incarnate after all

[lavandulacosmos]

ATEEZ as Greek Goddesses: Choi Jongho as Nike [Νίκη]

Jongho - as Nike - is the deity of victory and the messenger of success. He is blessed by eternal favour and judges excellence in all undertakings, be it art, music, war or athletics. Mortals and gods seek his favour, wishing to be accompanied by him because those he embraces with his beautiful wings can be the sure bearers of the laurel wreath of victory.

Happiest birthday my boss baby! Happy Jongho day! 💕

[thewertsearch]

pipefan413: The girl that day swore she would bring down the baroness and her evil empire. She would use the many secrets she'd learned over the years against her, and began carefully plotting her downfall.

Tell us more, Nanna! I need to know what you had planned!

The prank of the century, perhaps? Something that could rob Crocker of her money, power and reputation, all at once?

pipefan413: Years went by. The girl was nearly ready to put her plan into action. But then, just like that, the baroness disappeared. She was never seen or heard from again.

God damn it, we were robbed of a final sinister 'hoo hoo hoo'!

Perhaps Grandpa had pulled off his own plot, in the meantime. He knew Crocker was a piece of shit too, after all, and might have been just as vengeful as Nanna.

pipefan413: The girl was finally free, by a strange turn of events. But not without a final jab from the witch. It turned out that in her will she had left the entire company to the boy!

Well, that really does make it sound like Grandpa orchestrated this.

If he was running a parallel scheme to Nanna’s, then they missed an excellent opportunity here to reconnect, and team up against the Batterwitch. If they’d only communicated, Crocker could have been taken down that much sooner.

pipefan413: The boy, now a grown man, was already very wealthy in his own right. He had no particular need for the baking empire, but assumed control nonetheless, and integrated the company into his extensive collection of enterprises.

We can assume, of course, that this was all in service to Skaianet. Somehow, Grandpa became aware of his origins – the how is still a mystery, unless Crocker told him in private – and he was making his own moves in the background, making sure that Sburb arrived on schedule.

...actually, I do have one new theory about how he knew so much about Sburb. If my memory-bleed theory is true, then he could have learned about the game from his other incarnation, the rebooted version of Grandpa. That guy could know anything.

Anyway, Grandpa’s moves would have been a lot more effective if he'd had any contact whatsoever with Nanna. I know this was long before group chats, but damn. Get a mailing list, or something. Communicate!

pipefan413: She considered a reunion with her estranged brother, and once destined husband to be. But the days of longing for a future with him seemed to be from another lifetime. The chance had come and gone. She was content to let him live his increasingly elaborate life, while she sought a simpler one. pipefan413: Besides, now was not the time to revisit a destiny with an old star-crossed lover. She had recently become betrothed to a fine, upstanding gentleman. Soon, she would start a family. No, not one meant for heroism as foretold, but one that would make her happy nonetheless.

You have to wonder if Dad’s father is a character we already know, or maybe another celebrity cameo. I don’t really have any theories here, but given that Betty Crocker is now critical to the plot, Dad's father could be anyone.

[howlingday]

Whitley's ARC Problem

Whitley: No, no, architect Faunus! It's all wrong!

Whitley: The muscles on the Jaune statue biceps need to be at least three times as big! Really capture his superiority!

Worker: Sir, my name is Ted, and I honestly can't make these muscles any bigger without compromising the infrastructure of New Mantle.

Whitley: Yes, yes, Moseby, I understand that, but if it's a choice between the children having a roof over their heads or my best friend in the entire world's statue being 100% accurate, well then sacrifices must be made!

Worker: Cool. Awesome. I guess my little girl is sleeping in the cold, then.

Whitley: Excellent!

Ruby: Whitley, um, honey? Can we talk?

Whitley: Ah! Ruby! My beautiful wife and the love of my life! What can I do for you, my beloved?

Ruby: Whitley... You know how you saying stuff like that makes me feel...

Ruby: But, actually, I need to talk to you about something. Is that okay?

Whitley: Of course it is! Communication is the cornerstone to any good and healthy relationship, regardless of it being professional or romantic! No relationship can survive without a healthy amount of communication!

Whitley: Isn't that right, Rikki?

Worker: Fuck you, sir!

Whitley: Yeah, he loves me... So, what is it you wanted to talk about?

Ruby: Well, it's... It's about Jaune.

Whitley: OH! You had me at Jaune, Ruby~! Of course we can talk about him! After all, he is the brave and incredible hero that I am proud to call my best friend~! Atop his heroic deeds and selfless personality, he also has those stunning looks that make men and women swoon~! Furhtermore-

Ruby: Yeah, that. That's what I wanted to talk about. The way you talk about Jaune is really... specific.

Whitley: Specific in what regard? You mean specifically the truth because he's so handsome and amazing~?

Ruby: No, like you're specifically talking about him to people like you're... Well.... Kinda gay for him?

Whitley: Of course I'm gay for him~!

Ruby: WHAT?!

Whitley: YES~! I'm always happy when he's around, and thinking about him simply makes me want to cheer up just so I can see him smile!

Ruby: I... I didn't think you would just- Oh! No, no, no! Whitley, I don't mean the dictionary definition of gay.

Whitley: I beg your pardon? What else could you mean then?

Ruby: I mean you act really... homosexual around him.

Whitley: WHAT?! Whatever would give you THAT impression?!

Ruby: Well, there's the way you talk about his body...

Whitley: You mean his perfect and god-like body you'd be a fool not to fall in love with and want to sleep next to? I fail to see how that makes me gay!

Ruby: Okay, then what about how you talk about his personality?

Whitley: Absolutely ridiculous! How does me truthfully stating that Jaune is masculine perfection incarnate from his strength to stand against threats to his positive and uplifting charisma to be kind to everyone to his adorable fascination with and love of cinema to even his sexy confidence in whatever he does come across as GAY?!

Ruby: Whitley... You're literally building a statue of Jaune, SHIRTLESS WITH YOU HUGGING HIM, in the middle of the front yard driveway! Heck, you moved your grandpa's statue away from there just to put it there!

Whitley: Well, yes, but it absolutely belongs up there! It's a commemoration of the time Jaune, removed of his armor, allowed me to embrace and take shelter within him in front of everyone!

Ruby: Stop.

Whitley: And let me tell you, we both were quite sweaty as I took hold of him, and there was so much fluids everywhere that it was almost unbearable!

Ruby: Please, STOP.

Whitley: And even though that massive one-eyed snake was a tough and sturdy beast, Jaune and I, together, pushed through its fluids and whacked away that snake into a crater! It was a long and hard thing to whack, but finally, our endless whacking offed the one-eyed snake, stopping it from squirting any further fluids all over the people of New Atlas!

Ruby: I'm convince you're doing this on purpose...

Whitley: Doing what?! I'm just describing how Jaune and I shared a good whacking together!

Ruby: Whitley! Please!

Whitley: Look, Ruby, I understand you have concerns, and maybe the way I talk about Jaune is a bit much, but it's purely out of admiration and respect for the man who married my sister, and who saved all of New Atlas from that one-eyed snake's squirting!

Ruby: Whitley...

Whitley: (Holds her hands) But trust me when I say that is all there is to it! You are the love of my life, Ruby~. You're a kind and gentle soul who cares for everyone and only wants them to be happy, and I'm honored to have you as my wife~.

Ruby: Babe... That's... That's so sweet~! Thank you for saying that! (Hugs) I'll admit, maybe I was just jealous of your bond with Jaune and, even though what you were saying before didn't help, I see it's nothing like I thought it was. And even though you have this weird habit to say innuendos, you really love me the way I love you~.

Whitley: Indeed! You have nothing to worry about, my love~!

Ruby: (Giggles) Yeah... I know better now, honey...

Whitley: Besides, we only had sex, like, 19 times!

Ruby: ...

Ruby: W H A T ?

Whitley: YES! And those are only since you and I have been married~! Oh, but don't worry; we were both wearing socks the entire time, so it wasn't gay!

Ruby: THAT'S... YOU... I...

Whitley: Because as "NotGayDongLover6969" posted, "You can have sex with the homies as much as you want and as long as you wear socks it's not gay!" Truly, a voice for the modern age to live by~!

Ruby: I want a divorce.

Whitley: WHAT?! WHY?!

[ninadove]

Hey there! I was just wondering, do you have any headcanons for Kagami?

DO I EVER. Thank you for asking! ❤️🐉

I stole this one from @paracosmicat, but her favourite candy would be peach rings. They mentioned it in one of our fics an eternity ago and it stuck! This girl deserves all the treats… Give her all the treats…

Her perfume smells of orange blossom. This is mainly based on the fact that orange is her André-assigned ice cream flavour.

In addition to Toulouse-Lautrec (mentioned in Lies I believe), she would like Monet’s work: same period, adjacent genres, and he drew a lot of inspiration from Japanese prints which she would be familiar with. There is a certain rebellion at the core of impressionism she would love, without fully understanding why initially.

Felix has a complicated relationship with horses, but she loves them. They’re so big and powerful and a little bit scary and she looks at them with a thousand stars in her eyes.

She paints Felix! All the time! He will pose for her of course, but sometimes she will just sketch him while he’s still asleep next to her… Generally speaking, they were both taught to rise very early and would need to unlearn that. Many of their mornings would be spent actively making an effort to stay in bed and chatting about life.

On that note — she is the incarnation of the “I’m going to get a good grade in therapy” meme. Went to Marinette after S5 and specifically asked her to teach her sewing and arts and crafts and whatever so she could unlearn perfectionism… except she somehow managed to be a perfectionist about that (“Look at this plushie I made, Marinette. Its proportions are truly mediocre. This is great. I am excellent at accepting mediocrity.”).

Freckles!!! Freckles everywhere!!! It’s one of my favourite features about her and I want them to also decorate her arms and shoulders and back.

Her favourite flowers are actually tulips! It’s something she gets to figure out once she’s freed from the very strict conception of feminity her mother forced on her.

She calls Felix “Duvet” 🥹💜🦚

She’s little Louis Dupain-Cheng’s favourite aunt!

Not really a headcanon per say, but apart from the Dragon Miraculous, I would love to see her with the Peacock, the Butterfly and especially the Cat. The overpowering nature of her emotions is such a huge part of her character — it would make for great storylines!

Speaking of her Miraculous — I’d love to see Ryuko lean even more into the asymmetrical design she’s got going on. Maybe get a huge jacket that would disrupt her very sleek silhouette and signify how much she’s grown into her own person.

And probably more I’m not thinking about right now! A lot of them arise during the writing process, so the list is bound to grow!

[howtofightwrite]

Speaking of martial competence, do you have any examples of characters that are actually written with this in mind?

Loads. Some actually even make good on that.

So, there's different kinds of martial competence. There are characters who are proficient in combat directly, there are well written strategists, there are characters who excel at military leadership, and when they're written well, you can actuallylearn some things from them.

I'm going to give some examples, and at least one cautionary example.

For, just, raw combat prowess, I still go back to Robert E. Howard's Conan short stories. It's easy to meme on the character, especially 90 years after the fact, with the cultural persona that's grown around him, but Howard's original writing is excellent. The character would not have survived Howard's early (and, frankly, tragic) death if it was just the one note gag you might expect, if your only exposure to the character was through cultural osmosis and the films.

Howard's fight scenes were shockingly well written. To the point that it is still absolutely worth reading if you want to write a fantasy fighter.

For strategists, three characters come to mind, but only two are literary, and all are Science Fiction.

Grand Admiral Thrawn is probably one of the best villains Star Wars has ever produced, it's part of why he's one of the few characters that's migrated from the original EU to the Disney era. My personal take is, as a character, he's lost a lot over the years, but the original incarnation from the early 90s novels is a very solid model for a strategist. Particularly in how he takes time to understand his opponents while looking for potential weak points to exploit.

His practice of studying a culture's art to understand their psychology might sound a bit goofy, but the concept does have a real basis. (At least, until it metastasized into a superpower, in later adaptations of the character.) Being able to psychologically assess your foe is an incredibly valuable element of strategy, and one that you probably want to consider when you're writing a character who is supposed to be a “strategic genius.”

When writing fiction, you want to consider all of your characters as if they were people, rather than as hollow, plastic toys. And, yes, the obnoxious villain who knows exactly what your heroes will do because of authorial fiat is going to be a more compelling character than the ambulatory goldfish villain who exists as a prelude for your heroes showing off how badass you think they are.

Granted, even in Heir to the EmpireThrawn was already drawing strategic insights that strained credibility, but understanding your foe is an element of strategic thinking that is often forgotten in literature. So, even as a villain in a tie-in novel (we're not done with tie-in fiction yet), he is worth looking at. At least when written by Timothy Zhan, Thrawn was a well written character, and even if he bordered on a Mary Sue at times, he escaped a lot of that stigma by justifying his competence.

It's also probably worth mentioning in passing that he's one of the few Imperial leaders in Star Wars who isn't also criminally incompetent.

The non-literary example of a strategist would be John Sheridan from Babylon 5. Unlike Thrawn, Sheridan's main strategic focus is on situational exploitation. A little of that comes from his knowledge of enemy procedures and psychology, but at lot of it comes from a rather ruthless approach to technical limitations. An alien race is using technology that blocks human targeting systems? Set up a nuclear mine and then send out a fake distress single to lure them in. Need to deal with a significantly larger, more dangerous ship? Lure them into a gas giant and and let the planet's gravity well drag them past crush depth. Bruce Boxleitner's performance helped sell the character, but Sheridan is a really solid science fiction strategist, who really exemplifies how technical limitations can have enormous strategic considerations.

I'm not citing Sheridan as an excellent example of a leader per se,it's certainly there, but it is harder to unpack from Boxleitner's performance. It does have some good payoffs much later in the series when he starts making some orders that cause his subordinates to sit up and stop what they're doing. And that is a consistent theme even back to his introduction, but, it's a tangible consequence to an intangible cause.

The last example is a negative example, both for strategy and leadership. And, as much as it pains me to say this, at least Orson Scott Card understood that Ender was a bad leader. At least in the original novel. To be blunt, Ender is a mediocre strategist at best. His highlights in the book involve, “inventing armor,” and creative movement in micrograv. That's setting the bar exceptionally low, and while it is reasonably within the range of what you could expect from a pre-teen, that's not much of a justification.

Again, I'm not a fan of Card, and I'm reallynot recommending Ender's Gameto anyone. However, if I didn't mention it, you know there'd be a reblog going for twelve hundred words about how Andrew Wiggin is the best strategist in literature, which, yeah, no.

Do you want a goofy, tie-in fiction, literary suggestion for the best leader in sci-fi? Too bad, because I'm pretty sure Ciaphas Cain is not that person. The Ciaphas Cain novels by Sandy Mitchell are unusual as leadership recommendations, because of how much Cain internally processes the social manipulation involved in military leadership. He's not a great leader, but he is exceptionallygood at explaining to the reader how he's creating that illusion to motivate the soldiers around him. In fairness, some of that is an intrinsic character flaw, he is incredibly insecure, and desperately trying to hide that fact. And the difference between being a great leader, and effectively creating a comprehensive illusion of a great leader is: There is no difference. As a serious complement, it is one of the few times I've seen an author treat leadership as an actual skill, and not simply an extension of a character's charisma. Which is why I'm singling this one out. It might sound like a joke inclusion initially, and the books are quite funny in a Warhammer 40k kind of way, but there is quite a bit of  value to be had.

-Starke

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[rabidrabbit10]

A shit ton of Fnaf Movie headcanons for no reason at all

Abby excels at anything that requires creativity, not just drawing.

Vanessa absolutely despises Easter for some reason. She doesn't know why, but she always gets a sense of impending doom whenever Easter comes.

William hates summer because he's very sensitive to heat. He always has been. He almost passed out once because he took a shower and the water was too hot.

William used to be friends with one of or both of Mike's parents. William ended the friendship abruptly and never explained why.

Mike had Scarlet Fever when he was six and his parents had to take him to the hospital.

Mike is almost always cold. On especially cold days, he likes to cocoon himself in at least ten blankets to escape the cold.

At some point after the fnaf movie, Vanessa adopts a rabbit and names him Vinnie. Vinnie is evil incarnate and is likely planning world domination, but Vanessa is seemingly unaware of this and thinks he can do no wrong. Vinnie hates everyone... except Mike for some reason. Mike does not like Vinnie and is terrified of him.

Vanessa once asked Mike to pet-sit Vinnie. Mike initally said no... until Vanessa told him that she'd pay him. Mike spent most of that day hiding from a red eyed rabbit.

Speaking of pets, Mike dog-sat Bonsey for Maxine a few times. He felt bad for not being able to pay her for babysitting Abby so he offered to watch Bonsey when Maxine went out of town. He didn't mind, he actually got along well with Bonsey.

After Bonsey escapes the car, he was lost for a while before he eventually finds his way back to Maxine's house. He waits there for a while, but Maxine never came home. After another few days, Bonsey eventually finds Mike's neighborhood. Bonsey must've remembered how to get there from all the times Maxine would drive him over to Mike's house so he could watch him. Mike found him trotting down the sidewalk when he was walking to his usual spot by the culvert. He didn't immediately recognize the dog as Bonsey, but Bonsey recognized Mike. He followed Mike to the culvert and sat with him. Mike eventually spotted Bonsey's collar and put two and two together. Mike takes care of Bonsey now. It's an extra mouth to feed, but Bonsey was skin and bones when he found him and he would've felt bad letting him continue to starve.

Like Abby and Mike, Garret never liked his Aunt Jane. He always got the feeling that she thought he was annoying. She did, but she never directly told him that's what she thought of him.

[hirayaea]

what is your opinion about queen mc?

hello anonie ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

ohhh thank you for such a nice question! I am sure that I have mentioned several times that I love the Astria Knyght era, and it goes without saying that queen mc’s story is definitely one of the most interesting plot lines for me as a seiya main

all seiya-mc-incarnations are products of their time— their personalities, mannerisms and the way they make decisions shift a bit based on their circumstance + which era they were born in. they’re also all heavily influenced by how xavier treats them

let me expound by comparing shooting stars mc and queen mc:

1) shooting stars mc was born in a recently-made-post-earth Philos. she mentions her teachers still lived on earth and the way they do school is still quite similar to how education was done in earth. immortality is known to the human race but not everyone is blessed with it—there are still illnesses modern medicine cannot cure, and she has been told that she will not live as long as everyone else. at the point that we meet her, she’s already accepted her fate; this makes her very headstrong—a go-getter so to speak—choosing to live out her dreams the way she wants because she knows she’s on borrowed time. when she develops a crush on xavier, she doesn’t hesitate—she confidently takes a leap of faith and asks him out, barging into his life like a whirlwind, literally taking his hand and whisking him away. she’s smitten and she knows it! her happiness is her hands and she doesn’t want any regrets in her short life. she’s young and free and unashamed, and this works on her xavier because he’s the exact opposite—caged and restrained, bound by duty and family he didn’t even choose. she’s a breath of fresh air for him, and you can see he looks to her with awe and adoration, which only makes her braver. until the end, she wasn’t afraid to show xavier her feelings, and even after they were separated, all she wanted was to tell him that she wanted to be with him again, because despite their time together only being fleeting, he made her happy.

2) queen mc, on the other hand, was taken in as a child* by her swordsmaster and mentor, and was told from a young age that she would train to become xavier’s grandis knight. i’m assuming they met in this circumstance—with their roles already being known to each other—xavier as future king and mc as his protector. duty was always a prominent factor in their relationship. it explains why queen mc takes her role so seriously; she wants to perform well in school, be good at swordsmanship, and she scolds xavier for abandoning his duties when he avoids his family and plays hooky. yet she still covers for him when push comes to shove. it is quite obvious she is in love with him; they are childhood friends, sparring partners, and are probably are always together—likely it’s a love that grew over time, something that bloomed without her even realizing it. but the thing is, this love of hers conflicts with her duty, and since she grew up wanting to excel at her role, it makes her confused and insecure. not to mention, xavier is never direct enough with her when it comes to his own feelings. she senses he is in love with someone but she doesn’t know who, and it adds to her doubts—in the end the two of them never have a straight conversation about how they feel. queen mc always feels like xavier is talking about someone else because her insecurities don’t lead her to believe he could mean her, while xavier is too focused on the bigger picture + saving her life (without her knowing) to elaborate. because xavier also knows how focused she is on achieving her goals, he’s chosen to take a more supportive role with regards to romance—he gives her hints that he wants to whisk her away, but only if she wants to run. in the end the choice is up to her, but because she’s also uncertain of xavier’s feelings, she doesn’t quite grasp the depth of what he means and instead chooses to respond with what she knows—that she’s focused on being a grandis knight. xavier takes this in stride and continues to wait for her while trying to achieve his own agenda. in the end, though, they both choose to fulfill their duties; xavier ends up choosing to do operation backtrack to save philos (and her), while mc chooses to become queen of philos to protect the kingdom she swore to serve.

what is interesting for me regarding the decisions they made is that it is xavier that initiates it; sometime in the 200 year gap they were separated, he figures out that there is no way to save mc in the current timeline and he must go back to the beginning to save her life. he actually tells mc this but mc assumes he’s talking about a different girl, and you can see that she tries to give up on him right then and there. her insecurities eat her up and her defense mechanism is to put up a wall and tell him “okay, you do your duty and i’ll do mine”. essentially instead of confessing her love (which she has awkwardly tried to convey) she assumes xavier doesn’t choose her, so she also doesn’t choose him, and they both choose the greater powers they serve. at the end of the anecdote we know she is extremely heartbroken about this, as she makes that extremely sad monologue about her star leaving her.

i point this out because given that mc felt like xavier had a different beloved, i wonder how things might have been if xavier was more direct with her? honestly he was giving enough hints but our girl was so deep in her belief that he loved someone else that she just kept on falling down that rabbit hole and never got out of it. but i still blame xavier because i strongly sense he knew he wasn’t being clear enough and the vagueness was intentional for his own goals (to protect her and philos from the truth)

the lightseeker era could honestly have its own drama show and I’d be there for it 100%

sorry I rambled a lot, feel free ask more questions for clarification :)

thank you ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

[vixstarria]

I’m enjoying your snippets. I guess I have a prompt, or more like a scene that made me giggle.

Imagine Tav is a paladin who took the oath of vengeance. Except she’s very new and bubbly. So after finding out Astarion is a vampire spawn and he was tortured by his master, she excitedly vows to personally make Cazador suffer in excruciating detail. Astarion’s like, “Uh…thanks?”

I can’t stop laughing at the thought of Astarion being protected by a small, bubbly paladin that’s vibrating with excitement to avenge Astarion. Like a bloodthirsty squirrel.

Ha! I love the idea. Thought I'd bring out the whole gang for this one though.

I'll stick this one under a cut for uhh... some lighthearted gore.

The tiny paladin stalked around the campfire, having worked herself up into a righteous fury. Short of 5 feet, she made up for her stature with sheer vigor.

"We'll tear out his tongue. Then we'll tie him up. Throw him somewhere with just his feet out in the sun, and wait for it to slowly burn and consume him, from the bottom up, inch by inch," she ranted.

Wyll grimaced and lowered his spoon back down into his bowl, before it reached his mouth, just as Astarion let out a delighted laugh.

"Simply wonderful, my dear! Are there any other miseries you'd like to bestow on him, before his eventual demise?"

"Hmm," Tav paused, briefly. "Lae'zel, are there any good githyanki torture methods you would suggest?"

"I am not aware of anything specific to vampires," Lae'zel mulled over Tav's question. "But the regular routines should work on an incapacitated vampire just as well. His natural regeneration will only aid in making it last longer."

"Would that really work?" Shadowheart asked Gale in between sips of her wine. "Leaving a partial shield over a vampire and spot-burning him?"

"That is an excellent question," said Gale. "In theory, it depends on whether it is the literal energy of and exposure to the sun that causes the damage, or the more ambivalent idea of what the sun represents - goodness, righteousness, divinity - which may only need to touch a small part of an evil entity such as a vampire, to set the entire creature ablaze. I don't know the answer, but I could write to some of my colleagues, who have 'shed light' onto vampires, so to speak. Come to think of it-"

"Are you going to eat that?" Karlach pointed at Wyll's untouched stew.

"You're welcome to it if you like, I've lost my appetite," he said, handing her the bowl.

"Once his legs are gone, we'll burn his arms off in the sun, one by one," Tav continued her laps around the fire.

"You are vengeance incarnate, darling," Astarion spurred her on.

"We could chop off the limbs once they got too burnt and crusty and lost feeling," Karlach offered, talking with her mouth full. "He can regenerate but not regrow, right?"

"A good technique when combined with flaying extremities, as well," Lae'zel nodded approvingly.

"Yes!" Tav exclaimed, shaking a small but mighty fist at the sky. "We'll carve him up! Like a turkey."

"Now, call me an old fashioned romantic," Wyll interrupted. "But can't we just kill him in a civilized manner and then piss on his grave like normal people..?"

"All in due course, my friend," said Tav, before turning to Astarion. "Do you think Cazador would find this experience more horrifying with or without his eyes?"

A warm, fuzzy feeling was threatening to overtake Astarion.

So this is what friendship is, he thought.

[a-random-whovian7]

Personal headcanon: If they ever met, 10 would almost certainly be hostile to 9, partially because 9 is responsible for an element of 10's tragic life. Let me explain why.

Before meeting Rose, 9 was very much in a depressive state after the Time War. He had nothing left to live for, and constantly rushed headfirst into dangerous situations as if he wanted it to be his last adventure. That all changed when Rose began travelling with him and gave him something to live for. Without her, 9 would have probably chosen not to regenerate. But due to Rose, 9 chose to regenerate, and in doing so, created the perfect Doctor for her, building this new body around what he felt for her.

That's where it all went wrong. 10 is basically a representation of the dangers of making the Doctor too human. Since 9 basically guaranteed that this regeneration would only be truly fulfilled via a close attachment, 10 lost all of his purpose after the events of Doomsday. He's still the Doctor, and helps people out, but we begin to see this lack of purpose and grief manifest in him becoming reckless, bitter and selfish. Combine that with the trauma from the Time War, and you basically have a Doctor ready to self-destruct. This is briefly halted by Martha forcing him to realise that he mistreated her as a direct consequence of his recklessness, and his time with Donna gives him a fulfilling, platonic attachment, helping fulfil the purpose that 9 created him for.

However, the moment 10 loses Donna and no longer has any meaningful attachment to a human, all of his worst aspects come out and no-one is around to stop them. In The Next Doctor, he arrogantly laps up the applause and heroism after defeating the Cyber King. In Planet of the Dead, he actively rejects a potential companion out of fear of losing her again. And then in Waters of Mars, all that selfishness, arrogance, egotism and grief, coupled with the knowledge that he only has one life left, result in his downfall, resulting in the broken and bitter man we see in the End of Time.

All of this would have been avoided if 9 hadn't chosen to build his next incarnation around a single person. He practically guaranteed that if anything was to happen to Rose, the next incarnation would be left incomplete, giving all of the worst aspects of the Doctor a way to show themselves. As a result, I believe a later 10th Doctor would almost certainly be hostile towards 9, as through his connection to Rose, 9 unwillingly chose to create an incarnation who would be hurt by all of the misfortunes he suffered. It's one of the reasons why I consider the RTD era to be so good, as it actively shows the consequences of regeneration across incarnations and acts as an excellent deconstruction of the Doctor.

TL;DR: 9 basically guaranteed 10 would become too attached, and as a result of the events that resulted in this weakness being exploited, 10 would almost certainly place some responsibility for his pain on 9 as a result of this.

[running-with-the-feels]

Kung Lao Headcanons

thanks to @charlotte-family-apologist for helping to inspire these

uses his teleportation to play pranks on people and has gotten Liu Kang to scream as a result of startling him. Tried to scare Kitana with it once and got stabbed before she realized it was him.

Made his had himself after getting the idea from a dream. Everyone in the Wu Shi thought he was insane for it and kept trying to stop him but he wouldn't listen. They even piled on extra training so that he wouldn't have enough free time but he just stopped sleeping so he could get it done. Liu Kang was the only person who supported him in doing this.

As a result, Kung Lao is actually a very skilled blacksmith and weapon maker, and made Liu Kang his nunchucks as a birthday gift.

Despite having a large extended family, Kung Lao was raised in the monastery with little contact with the outside world, knowing few of his relatives and seeing them only a few times in his life

This is because Raiden believed that he had been given a sign by the elder gods when Kung Lao was born that the young boy would be a skilled warrior and instrumental in winning the next tournament so he asked his parents to turn him over to the Wu Shi shortly after he stopped nursing.

His mother and father were very reluctant to agree, but had faith in Raiden's judgement so they let him go. They were not allowed to visit often for fear that it would distract the boy but every time they did they would spoil him and make sure he knew how much he was loved and how proud of him they were.

They later died in the Netherrealm war, and Kung Jin is one of Lao's few living relatives left.

Kung Lao threw himself into his training, despite other characters viewing him as lazy or a slacker, he put everything he had into it. Whenever he would skip lessons it was bc they were things he had already taught himself on his own time and sitting through the lecture was exceedingly boring, so he'd sneak away to practice his own techniques in private, usually the ones the monks refused to teach him.

Sometimes he would also sneak off to practice his blacksmithing, a talent none of the other monks wanted to encourage as they believed it to be a distraction. Often Liu Kang would join him, using his pyromancer to help light the forge (it also became their go to make out spot as no one bothered them there)

Despite this, nothing he did ever satisfied Raiden as the god held him to the standard of the great Kung Lao, expecting him to be better. Due to the stakes of the next tournament being the last one, Raiden had Kung Lao trained more harshly than anyone else and held him to higher standards, fixating on the smallest mistakes in an effort to make Kung Lao the perfect warrior.

As a result, no matter how rapidly Kung Lao excelled, nothing he did was ever good enough for Raiden

by contrast, Raiden was always impressed by Liu Kang as the boy overcame all the odds against him to become Kung Lao's equal in skill, so Raiden switched his attention to the pyromancer before long, leaving Kung Lao behind.

Kung Lao can't bring himself to resent Liu Kang for it, as he too thinks that Liu Kang is perfection incarnate, but it does still sting.

Raiden's indifference and clear preference for Liu Kang led to Kung Lao thinking he had shamed his family legacy, the thing he had been raised to uphold and sacrificed his childhood for, which is why he sneaks into the tournament anyways bc he's desperate to make the shame go away.

That's all I've got rn, but lemme know if anyone would be interested in more

[fleetways]

OKAY! It’s time for the Chimera Baby Lore Post!!

🌼 How did you come up with the OC's name?

In both a meta and non-meta sense, Chimera Baby’s name is probably the most notable part about them. The name Chimera Baby is a reference to m-flo and LiSA’s Tripod Baby, ft in the game Shadow the Hedgehog. For over 6 months that was her official non-official name, as I couldn’t decide on a name for her. I received over 15 name suggestions, but in July I ran a poll at which point she was dubbed Mira!

As it turns out, Mira happens to be the name of a binary star system. Two stars in a dance doomed to end in supernova—rather fitting for a chimera character, wouldn’t you say? I like to imagine Shadow was the one to name Mira something meaningful and space-themed like that, meanwhile Sonic named the other child something totally arbitrary (“His name is Mochi because he's white lol”)

On that note, I’ve also decided Sonic calls Mira “Chili” exclusively, because its silly and he would. So Mira, Chimera Baby, CB, and Chili are all names she goes by!

🌸 How old are they? (Or approximate age range)

I like to depict them anywhere from baby to teenager, but in their most recent incarnation I’d say they’re somewhere between 15-17

💖 Do they have any love interest(s)?

At the moment no. She’s generally too aloof and off putting for anyone to approach her with romantic intent, but maybe in the future….

🍓What is their favorite food?

Strawberries and Triangle Chao Fruit

⭐️ What do they do for a living?

💥 Do they have any hobbies?

Besides combat training, CB enjoys the occasional outdoor activity. Sometimes her friends goad her into a game of soccer (which she is an absolute beast at), but she generally prefers solo sports such as archery, rock climbing, or hiking. Sometimes her brother convinces her to fish with him, but she finds it pretty boring (but would never turn him down)

💃 What do they do best?

Mira excels at hand-to-hand combat. As the reigning champion of Chao Karate, Mira takes their martial arts training very seriously. They also possess exemplary control over chaos energy, and incorporates this into their technique. While they may not be as fast as their fathers, they make up for it with not just raw power, but an extremely disciplined technique.

Her skills also happen to make her an amazing breakdancer, but she’ll break your face if you ask her to demonstrate.

☀️ What is one of your OC's best memories?

A tie between making her baby brother laugh for the first time and the time she drew first blood for the first time in a fight with Shadow

🌧️ What is one of your OC's worst memories?

The aftermath of almost drowning as a child after she saved a chao friend.

✍️ Is their current design the first one?

For the most part—I did redesign their shoes because originally they were rocking some McDonalds drip.

💡What originally inspired the OC?

This post i made ^^

Basically its a mix of me poking fun at the phenomena of Sonadow fan-children all looking kinda similar, and this plush reminding me of actual chimerism in animals and wanting to create a character with that characteristic! Over the months my ironic love for her has grown into genuine fondness—so while she remains primarily as a parody, she’s also a character I’m having fun exploring concepts with <3 Much like both Shadow and Sonic the Hedgehog, you can take her as seriously or not seriously as you wish!

👾 What genre do they belong in?

PS1-era graphics Jet Set Radio game

🏳️‍🌈 What is your OC's gender identity and sexuality?

Non-binary and trans (you decide what direction). And she’s bisexual bc i love bisexuals <3

🍃How many sibling does your OC have?

One little brother Mochi—he is a perfect angel who is also her closest friend. She adores him, but you wouldn’t know from seeing them interact.

⚠️ What is the OC's relationship w/their parents like?

So I mentioned that Mira was reared in a chao garden, where her dads basically only visited once every couple days if not longer (Sonic and Shadow are not very attentive parents, go figure). However, this was honestly a perfectly fine arrangement as I headcanon mobian children don’t need the same level of parental contact as human children (Hell, Cream is kind of an outlier FOR having a present parental figure in her life).

That being said, I imagine Shadow spent more time with her when she was really young before stepping away, which made her really latch onto Shadow more than Sonic during that time. Especially seeing as Sonic is the most laissez-faire parent ever but simultaneously was the type to abandon her on a floating platform in midair with a trail of badniks so she can learn how to homing attack.

Much like her father before her, her latent Black Arms genes have caused her to develop a burning desire to destroy Shadow—a fact that Shadow seems strangely indifferent about. While this fact has pretty much wrecked their previous relationship, there are circumstances where Mira will put aside her goal and work with Shadow against a common enemy or towards a common objective (of course, this doesn’t stop her from trying to stab him in the back during these operations).

Her relationship with Sonic has remained mostly the same, with Sonic treating her much more like a friend or little sister than a daughter. They have lunch together at least once a month, and usually she’ll go to him for advice on any social interaction matter—conversations that have become much more frequent now that she’s begun to make friends.

💗 What do you like most about the OC?

I think I popped off with her design—chimerism is such an interesting concept and I loved balancing her two sets of genes without making it seem too busy. I also love her dynamic of trying to kill Shadow and how you would think her growing up in chao garden basically alone would have contributed to that, but that's not the case at all she’s just like that <3

‼️ Who is your OC's arch-nemesis or rival?

Shadow the Hedgehog is her self-proclaimed nemesis, but she makes a fair share of enemies and rivals wherever she goes due to her punch-first-ask-questions-later attitude. One notable rival is another OC of mine named Sauvik the Badger—another cold and brooding anti-hero much like her. Sauvik and Mochi are something of a team, but being a protective big sister she wants him to stay away from her brother. This generally leads to a fight that Mochi is inevitably forced to break up.

⏰ How long have you had the OC?

She was created in January of 2023!

—

That’s all! Feel free to ask any other questions and remember to vote for her here!

@sonic-oc-showdown

[asoulwithadream]

The Dancing Men (2) - Sherlock & Co [[SPOILERS AHEAD—PROCEED WITH CAUTION]]

I want to mention is that I really enjoy the tone they're following with this episode—it's a blend of serious discussions and acknowledgement of heavy subjects whilst having lighthearted humour thrown around at all the right points. As mentioned last week, the Dancing Men is one of my favourite adventures and so far I am completely in favour of this adaptation.

The more and more they release episodes, the more and more I begin to see Sherlock and John as human, and it really goes to show the excellent quality of this pod. However, their venture back into mental disorders after A Case of Identity is a bit surprising, yet from my perspective they aren't really making any morally harmful depictions.

So far, so good! I feel that something big is going to happen in the next episode, and can't wait for that excitement!

Silly commentary:

Was it just me that found it interesting that John wasn't all that worried when Sherlock jumped? It was more like a "oh no, not again!" tone in his voice—like he knew that Sherlock would be fine. Imagine how it'll be like in the Final Problem.

I think it's confirmed. Sherlock is a cat.

The Westbourne mentioned AGAIN. I still think it's a clue—Chekhov's Gun style.

"Slightly concerning for national security, but yes, otherwise, cool." (Also- John getting kicked out of the group-chat was hilarious. He is awkwardness incarnate.)

John's little talk with Stammo makes him seem so human, makes all of them (Sherlock included) feel so more human.

4TH OF DECEMBER IS MY BIRTHDAY. OK MAYBE IT'S THE DATE OF AN ASSAULT BY AN EROTOMANIC BUT THAT'S KIND OF LIKE AN INDIRECT SHOUTOUT LEAVE ME ALONE-

"CAN YOU DEDUCE THAT YER OUT OF TUNE??" I didn't expect prodigal violinist Sherlock Holmes to be off-pitch I don't know why- 😭

[giggly-moon]

(Elpenor Anon)

Mentor and the Mentee

Elpenor is many things: an excellent swordsman, an agile runner, a gifted climber, short, traumatized, etc. But one aspect of him, is most aware of when he walks into a room; he, Elpenor of Nowhere (an affectionate title given by the crew), is chaos incarnated and in the simplest, most eloquent of terms, a little shit.

His antics of being the little shit of the crew involves pranks and taunts, and he doesn’t discriminate. No matter who you are or what your title is, Elpenor is willing to prank you for a few giggles and snickers. Not even Odysseus, the Captain and the King of Ithaca, is safe from his light-hearted taunts and pranks, which usually involves calling him short or height related pranks (despite Odysseus being a good 4 inches taller than Elpenor himself). All he wants is to see people loosing up and lighten up the ship. That’s why he’s doing his latest and most daring prank, which will backfire in the most spectacular way for Elpenor.

But first, some context of what his latest prank is. When the crew was docked at an island, Elpenor found batches of colorful flowers growing in an hidden spot. Making sure it’s safe to touch, (and praying it’s not a god’s secret garden) he plucked up a good amount of the flowers, and went back to the crew. With the help of Lycaon, he discovered that these flowers, when crushed up and mixed with water, has the magical property to be used as dyes that would temporarily change the color of anything it touches, and revert back to the original color in a few hours. This knowledge gave Elpenor a wicked idea, which is the main goal for his latest prank. So biding his time and being patient, he managed to crush up all the flowers into a fine paste, put it in a bucket, and added water, leading him to have a bucket of temporary dye to dump on an unfortunate crewmember.

But he’s going higher, higher than the other crew mates. He’s going after Eurylochus, the second-in-command and his somewhat mentor. But he’s not going to just dump it and run; no, no, no! He’s going to put it above Eurylochus’ door before he even wakes up, run and hide, and let the chaos happen. The stern man has to lighten anyways. So the mischievous weasel put his plan in motion. He woke up early, got a ladder, and started to put the bucket on top of Eurylochus. Here is where it went wrong. You see, Elpenor forgot one significant detail: he forgot that Eurylochus wakes up extra early to run around and wake himself up, so he wasn’t in the room, and was, in fact, walking towards his room to freshen up.

However, Elpenor was unaware of this and was too busy trying to balance the bucket on top of the door to notice the man approaching. But he noticed soon enough.

“What are you doing?” came Eurylochus’ stern and questioning voice, wanting an explanation from his mentee. 

Startled, Elpenor flinched harshly, forgetting he was on a ladder, and lost his balance. He fell to the floor with a thud, and in just a couple of seconds later, the bucket landed on top of Elpenor’s head, pouring the contents all over him. A moment of silence went by before the younger meekly lifted the bucket up, showing a nervous eye and a sheepish smile.

“H-Hi Eurylochus, sir” was all Elpenor got out, as he quietly lifted the bucket off his head, allowing to see the full force of the older’s unamused stare. “What were you doing?” was the response he received, as Eurylochus scanned over the younger’s sheepish body language, scrutinizing every single detail to make sure he understood what was happening.

Elpenor tried to say something, to squeak something coherent out to possibly try and get out of what will inevitably happen. But all he could was stammer incoherently, as his eyes nervously dashed all around. And in a single, impulsive thought, Elpenor scrambled up to his feet and ran.

Well, he tried to, but two strong arms grabbed him and trapped him to a chest. “oh no you don’t” Eurylochus said as his hand squeezed rapidly at the younger’s hip, causing Elpenor to cackle and giggle uncontrollably, as he was unable to get away as one of his worst spot were targeted. He could kick and squirm all he wanted, but he knows he could never escape Eurylochus’ grasp unless he wants him to.

Slowly, Eurylochus lowered his victim to the floor, making sure to keep him trapped in a cycle of giggles. The moment Elpenor’s knees hit the wood floor, the hand that was tormenting hip switched to scratch one side of Elpenor’s ribs, causing to the victim to cackle even more.

“what. were. you. doing?” 

“NOTHIHEING!”

“You’re a liar.”

well he was, but he didn’t have to point it out. Eurylochus started to tickle the grooves in his ribs, causing Elpenor let out a series of giggly snorts. “Those cute noises, can you make some more?” Eurylochus teased, turning Elpenor’s face red. 

“SHUHUHT UPP!” was all he got through his laughter, trying his best to get away. All that did was make the hand travel from his ribs to the backs of it, making Elpenor collapse in shrieky laughter.

“Don’t tell me to shut up, young man.” the man scolds lightly, acting like he’s not turning Elpenor into a blushing and laughing puddle. “Especially when you were about to prank me, you should be grateful this is all you’re getting.”

“IM-IMHEM SOHOHRRY!” Elpenor got out, as his face flushed.

“I’m glad you are, but you have to reap the reward of your efforts, even though it didn’t work.”

This tickly torment continued until Elpenor’s laughter started to be interrupted with a bout of hiccups, indicating that it’s a good time to wrap it up. Eurylochus stopped, but not before blowing a couple of raspberries onto Elpenor’s neck, making him let out some shrieks.

Elpenor let out some more hiccupy giggles, as he softly placed onto the floor. He felt a hand ruffle his wet hair (he forgot that he got a bucket poured on his head)

“did I kill you?” Eurylochus asked amusedly, as he waits for him to calm down.

“someday you will.” was all Elpenor could say.

Eurylochus patted him on the head and pull him up, before pushing towards his room.

“Come up, go to your room and change, your clothes are soaking wet.” Elpenor pouted and allowed his mentor to push him to his room. The pair got there and Elpenor opened his door, but before he could enter his room, he heard Eurylochus’ amused voice say one last thing before leaving.

“By the way, pink is a good color on you.” 

Elpenor allowed those words to sink in for a moment, as he remembered what was in the contents of the bucket. he dashed to a mirror to see what actually happened, and lo and behold, his hair was entirely pink, temporarily dyed by the flowers.

“…….Shit.” was all he could let out as he mentally prepares to never live this down again.

WHAT THE FUCK HOW DID YOU WRITE THAT SO FAST???? IM IMPRESSED GOD DAMN

but anyway THIS IS SO FUCKING CUTE I LOVE IT!!!!! you captured the exasperated fondness so well and the dynamic between elpenor and eurylochus is so adorable <333 also the mental image of elpenor with pink hair? absolutely wonderful

[canmom]

Animation Night 193 - Harpier cries: 'tis time! 'tis time!

PREVIOUSLY, in the dark halls of ANIMATION NIGHT, you have born witness to such horrors as these...

Animation Night 25: HORROR, featuring Kakurenbo, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, Birdboy: The Forgotten Children, and many episodes of Yamishibai

Animation Night 77: Once More, Halloween, featuring Blood: The Last Vampire, Seoul Station, The Wolf House, and Shoujo Tsubaki - and more Yamishibai...

Animation Night 129: Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed..., featuring Hellsing Ultimate, The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb, Mad God, Ujicha's Violence Voyager, and guess what? Yamishibai...

Animation Night 176: The Hedge-Pigge Whin'd, a rather scuffed production which, contra the writeup, ended up just showing the Darkstalkers OVA from 1997. And some Yamishibai of course.

And now, my friends, and now... the witching hour is soon to be upon us once more, and it is time we revelled in the darkness and terror, for tonight is hallow'een, easily the best festival in the western calendar.

Many thanks go to @glitch-critter and @muzothecat, who provided me some excellent suggestions for animated horror that I have yet to see. Not that reruns would be the end of the world, there's some excellent shit on the list above I would be immensely glad to see again.

To begin with, we have the recently-released The Birth of Kitarō: The Mystery of GeGeGe (幾多郎誕生：ゲゲゲの謎). Which provides an excellent excuse to get into the subject of Kitarou. So let's begin our dark and sordid tale... well, it's actually a pretty positive tale, but that's not really in the spirit of things.

GeGeGe no Kitarō is a truly classic manga series dating back to the 60s, created by Shigeru Mizuki. But it's actually older still: the earliest incarnation of Kitarō is in a kamishibai performance written/illus. by Masami Itō and Keiyō Tatsumi back in 1933, called Hakaba Kitarō (Kitarō of the Graveyard). It tells the story of a ghost boy called Kitarō who lives in a graveyard; like many kamishibai it was aiming at straight up horror. Here's a board from the original (photo by translator Zack Davisson, thanks wikipedia):

So, you know yōkai? You're reading this blog, so probably, but just in case, they are the various freaky spirits of Japanese folklore, from kappa and tengu to nekomata and chōchin-oiwa. And the reason why they are such a popular feature of modern popular culture (you all know what a kappa is, right?) is in large part due to this manga.

Shigeru Mizuki, born 1922, had a pretty wild life. He was drafted into the army in 1943 at age 21, and lost his left arm in a bombing the next year; during his recovery he made friends among the Tolai people of New Guinea. He came home after the war, and found work renting out an apartment building and drawing kamishibai on the side; gradually the kamishibai work took over. In 1953, his brother Sōhei moved in after being tried for war crimes (the timeline does not mention the outcome of the trial); in 1957 at age 35 he moved to drawing manga, debuting in rental manga with Rocketman.

Starting in 1960 at the behest of Mizuki's publisher, the Hakaba Kitarō manga adapted the story of the yamishibai, introducing a wider audience to ghost boy Kitarō with his floofy hair and little third eye on a stalk. It proved explosively popular (despite being at first deemed too scary for children), telling the stories of Kitarō's encounters with all kinds of yōkai. The state of English translations is a bit scattershot; some of it is available on mangadex.

In 1964, at age 42, Mizuki debuted in serialised manga in Garo magazine - a name you might find familiar, the avant-garde magazine which also published authors like Suehiro Maruo (ero-guro mangaka, the author of Shoujo Tsubaki) and Hiroshi Masamura (the guy who made the cat manga we looked into on AN188). There, he rebooted the Kitarō manga, starting once again with the story of the birth of Kitarō. Before long he jumped over to the much larger Monthly Shonen Magazine, and retooled Kitarō to be more kid-oriented. From then on it's Kitarō city - and the immense success of the manga gave him the chance to regularly return to the newly combined state of Papua New Guinea.

In 1968, Kitarō arrived in animation land, one of Toei's early projects. It quickly became one of those classic famous Toei anime, you know the type, the kind of thing that every Japanese person of a certain age would have seen on TV. Mizuki himself composed the OP, and it continued to get sequels throughout the ensuing fifty years, with the most recent being in 2018. This is an old and widely beloved anime so there is a lot of it: the 1968 series accumulated 65 episodes, the third series in 1985-88 is the longest at 115, but the others are no slouch either; even the 2018 series pulled out a mighty 97.

As such, it's... perhaps a little daunting! But...

The Birth of Kitarō is a prequel to the 2018 series... and rather than being a spooky-fun kids anime, it's intended as a genuine horror story aimed at adults, presumably adults who grew up watching Kitarō, returning to the earliest Garo-era tone of the manga. Set in the 50s, the story sees salaryman Mizuki arrive in a village in pursuit of a mysterious medicine, where he finds the village ruled by an old superstitious family. Naturally, before long, murders start happening. And a mysterious white-haired man is somehow involved...

Seems like the perfect way to get into Kitarō. I missed the chance to see this film at Annecy this year, but it's already out on nyaa, so let's jump on it.

So that's our first act. What of our second?

Junk Head is a stop-motion scifi film pretty much enitrely solo animated by Takehide Hori who, at age 40, heard about Makoto Shinkai's solo-animated film Voices of a Distant Star (AN44), and was inspired to spend the next seven years working on a stop-motion scifi epic of his own. It tells of a cyborg from a future where humans have lost the ability to reproduce, venturing into a strange underground realm full of freaky creatures that, I'm told, invite comparisons to the art of Giger, Bosch, Escher and Gorey, and the films of Švankmajer (whose Alice we watched on AN50), Gilliam, and the Quay Brothers. del Toro lauded it as a 'work of deranged brilliance'.

Which is to say this is exactly the kind of thing we like to show here on Animation Night. I can't believe I didn't hear of this film before. Sources are not exactly abundant, but I was able to find a hardsubbed 720p version with a few seeds on it, so that's what we'll be watching tonight.

Speaking of the Brothers Quay, who enjoy a remarkably in-depth and thorough wiki page, they have yet to appear on Animation Night, and it's about time we remedied that! A pair of identical twins from the Pennsylvania who moved to the UK in 1969 to study at the RCA, they got their start in illustration before making a turn to stop motion film using bits of dolls and various other materials in the vein of Švankmajer.

They are incredibly prolific as a pair, making shorts in nearly every year from 1979 to 2021 (bar a couple of hiatuses). Most of their films are without dialogue, set instead to the music of Leszek Jankowski and a great many other other composers. They are huge book nerds too, adapting authors from Lem and Kafka to Emma Hauck; honestly there's a ton to dive into here and I will for sure be returning to these guys on a future Animation Night. Tonight, however, our pick will be Street of Crocodiles (2021), a musical piece in which a puppet walks through a desolate realm of "mechanical realities and manufactured pleasures", widely celebrated as one of their best films.

Stop motion seems to be a theme tonight, huh? Somehow, stop motion is just spookier than traditional animation. That theme continues with The House, an anthology piece for Netflix depicting three different stories taking place in the same house. Animated in London, each piece brings in a different director, respectively Emme de Swaef and Marc James Roels co-directing the first, Swedish director Niki Lindroth von Bahr the second and Mexican-British actress turned director Paloma Baeza for the third.

The stories span a few hundred years, from the 1800s to a flooded post climate change future. In each case, the house is the stage for tales of obsession and misguided ambition leading to disaster, whether it should befall anthro rats, humans or anthro cats. Widely praised for its animation and general weirdness, I'm quite excited to see what this mix has in store.

And returning of course will be Yamishibai, the wonderful long-running series of ridiculous cutout-animated creepypasta horror in the vein of old-school kamishibai boards. You know we gotta. And hey, if we're feeling in a really good mood at the end of the evening, I might bring Shoujo Tsubaki out of the vaults too. We shall see.

Animation Night 193 shall begin, with its gruesome course of animated horrors, at seventh hour.... which is to say 7pm UK time, just over four hours from the writing of this post. Be there, or be forever haunted by the ghosts of frames unseen (unless you gotta go trick or treat or something, we understand). The place? Upon the heath... of twitch.tv/canmom!

Hoooohhooohohoohooohooohohoooooooooo!

[fullscoreshenanigans]

I wonder how much Sisters are in the HQ. Because even if the selection is hard, a lot much sucess.

Isabella's orphenage ship 6 children by year, so 6 new kids must be given to her.

There are 5/6 orphenages for Grace Field. So 30/36 children shipped by year and 30/36 new given to the orphenage. EVERY YEAR. So even if it's sure that the Sisters gave birth of more than one child (only the Mother can have only on).

Because if 30/36 children must be given by year to orphenages, 30/36 must waiting their turn in the nursery and as much sister must be pregnant. I think that every sister has the right to take a break after a pregnacy.

For Exemple if Sienna is the mother of both Emma and Carol, seen there are more or less 10 years between them, it probably mean that there had at least one kid between them. Maybe more.

So i think that, even if the selection is rude, a lot of girls survives. Because if they need 30/36 new babies by years...

And it's just Grace Field. It must be worse at Great Vallley (especially that Barton must have took a lot of children for his huting ground)

[Response to this ask]

I'm not sure where you're getting all moms having only one child being common from?

From your previous ask:

Isabella is an anomaly when it comes to moms in that she's the youngest one to ever be selected in the history of at least the current incarnation of Grace Field that's been around for roughly 400 years.

(Mystic Code Book Chapter 1 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 181.2 | Chapter 181.3) Her excellent test scores at the farm and later at headquarters combined with favoritism from Sarah led to her placement being expedited. With there being an extremely limited number of mom positions, most sisters (because they're all sisters first, Isabella being the exception and not the rule) are left waiting for years, and this is what results in them having multiple children if they don't retrain for another path, not that moms are limited to having a single child. If anything, you'd think they'd want more children bred from those who reach that position, so the time spent waiting for spots to open up would be beneficial for the demons. Sarah had enough sway to persuade those in charge to get a recent graduate of the sister training in there, though, so Isabella was able to skip to the front of the wait list.

And it's confirmed there's five plants plus headquarters for Grace Field.

(Chapter 29 | Chapter 100 | S1 Episode 4)

So assuming there are no oddities, they're averaging 30 kids per year between the five, and if each plant maintains the same number of children plant no.3 normally does, there's around 190 kids at a given time outside of Grace Field headquarters prior to Isabella taking over as grandma when she reduces the number of shipments beginning in mid-January 2046, which is kind of wild given how low it is already.

(Chapter 181.3)

So I think that, even if the selection is rude, a lot of girls survives. Because if they need 30/36 new babies by years...

The second light novel does say this, yes.

Even if it's hard to calculate exactly how that math works out with how gleeful Sarah seems about eliminating Cecile and Krone's entire class, along with not having any information about how often the moms are recommending girls for sister candidacy.

(Chapter 181.2)

Chapter 166's bonus sketch gives us headquarters' layout, but no listing of how many people it accommodates, though it does look massive between this and the amount of running around the kids do in the Return to Grace Field arc.

It must be worse at Grand Valley (especially that Bayon must have took a lot of children for his hunting ground)

To be fair, those children were going to be eaten regardless, so Bayon Sr. taking some for his hunting grounds isn't altering the general death count, just where it's being distributed.

(Chapter 84 | Mystic Code Book Chapter 7 Series Timeline)

Sometime between 1801–1900, Bayon is looking so miserable some of the staff of the farms he's in charge of start shipping children to him alive.

I'm defaulting to this being at Yverk's or Leuvis' behest—Yverk as a means of keeping Bayon comfortable in order to maintain the status quo of Legravalima's regime, Leuvis as a means of satisfying the hunger he knows still resides in his friend—but maybe they just decided to do it on their own because of how bad he looked, who can say.

Regardless, he's approached by another party to begin his hunts, and it isn't until he's given this push that he gives into his impulses again when he told Leuvis centuries ago he was committed to upholding the promise, in a similar manner to how we see Bayon Jr. adhere to upholding decorum and duty during the gathering for Tifari in 2047.

Bayon Sr. starts off with one human every three months, but after that it's hard to gauge exactly how the numbers ramped up. Over two hundred years, it was in the hundreds to potentially thousands.

I'm assuming it maxed out between five and ten at a time, though. Enough of a significant gap where Bayon accepts Peter's offer to use Goldy Pond, originally meant to be a village of refuge for escaped cattle children in James' plan, as his new hunting ground starting in late 2031 with more humans and supplies being available to him.

(Chapter 98)

63 - 17 (15 Grace Field escapees and 2 adults not counted among the Goldy Pond population by Bayon) = 46 children who escaped from Goldy Pond on January 29, 2046 after a hunt had taken place the previous day. We don't know how many children are killed during regular hunts, but I'm guessing they would keep the population between 50 and 60 at any given time. Enough of a thrill to entice Bayon to take Peter's offer, not enough between the 18 farms he supervised or was in charge of to give unaware staff pause to want to stick their noses into noble business because the yield between them was vast enough to make it negligible.

(Mystic Code Book Chapter 3)

Grand Valley, Glory Bell, and Goodwill Ranch are large enough that the demons don't invest in implanting trackers in the children like at Grace Field because it's too costly, though once the mass production farms begin during Peter's tenure as the 36th head of the Ratri Clan, the minuscule dent Bayon's hunts put on Grand Valley's output is even less conspicuous.

[scalproie]

Literally watched all of S2 last night and I dont feel like doing individual reactions sooo

All of S1:E26 was me pointing at gay people on my screen and going "hey thats from the little dark age amv"

The orion pax arc is still literally so funny. Later episodes show that there was NO REASON to keep optimus/orion alive bc soundwave and THE FUCKING SHIP can also decode the locations of the mcguffins, megatron literally couldve won the war here and there what the hell. it took meg all of 0.5 seconds after he heard his former boytoy utter his name to try and find excuses to keep him around. Also making him call you "my lord"? I Know What You Are.

And apparently optimus/orion stayed on the nemesis for two months which is crazy to me bc megatron cannot improvise to save his fucking life what do you MEAN warlord ratchet??? YOU HAVE ULTRA MAGNUS IN YOUR FILES

It was funny tho bc meg heard ratchet say "I am your doctor of doom" and thought Hey thats pretty good and then make a callback to that when telling optimus/orion ratchet is evil incarnate

Extra hilarious to me that it partially ended bc starscream went to the nemesis to raid the fridge. [Megatron voice] this plane does nothing but ruin my life

The episodes where they send arcee and jin kazama to cybertron was pretty cool i did like the vibe it really felt alien ruins-like

You can tell the experience fucked optimus a little bc first episode after the season opening and peepaw is ready to consider warcrimes

Next was the "bumblebee gets his kidney stolen" arc and I have nothing to say other than it was funny when of course it ends in starscream getting his kidney stolen

Ok I do have some stuff to say actually, we trash on the cons a lot bc theyre disloyal assholes, but when a bot is told to stay at the base for valid reasons, they bitch and moan and end up disobeying anyway and never get punished severely by peepaw optimus bc them not following orders ALWAYS works in their favor

Megatron goes "Nu-uh-uh!" in S2:E5

Im always just so happy when meg is on screen ngl he is such a massive asshole bastard🩶

Dreadwing's cool I like how he just has a fucking flip phone to dramatically blow shit up

Everytime I see wheeljack im like oh god if the show has been made just a few years later he wouldve been drift

I FORGOT HOW QUICKLY BREAKDOWN DIED fanon will really build a castle out of 4 twigs huh. and the castle sucks ass anyway

Airachnid slayed and she was gone too soon

They lowballed megatron so hard in the episode where he was struggling against one (1) insecticon BUT. he was sexy in this ep. To me. Not to optimus anymore😔

Nemesis prime was well-introduced in the show but this is hysterical to me that THIS is the show that has the "evil double of optimus" concept

Every episode with starscream after he loses his cog is excellent and you have no idea how much it pains me to admit that

S2:E10-E11 is just megatron and the gang having the weirdest fucking day and it might be my fav eps. I think I just love watching the cons do shit. Megatron killed starscream four times, fought an army of bugs and then gave drugs to his ship

Knockout and megatron's banter is surprisingly always very entertaining. I think meg just like bouncing off of a little jester

The four relics episode are kinda whatever BUT they did gave us the one (1) soundwave focused episode and whaddayaknow he was extremely sexy and competent and it was funny to see him being treated like megatron's special boy&bird

Also bulkhead continue to have plot armor thicker than the apex armor like come on in every single one of his episodes he comes just this close to death

SHOOOOOOOOOCKWAAAAAAAAAVE

I was waiting to see smokescreen's episodes before judging but now that I did I can safely say *drops to my knees sobbing* IT SHOULD BEEN HOT RODDDDDDDDD

At least his friendship with jin kazama was cute, like that "green for go" was cute

Silas ditching his highly competent human crew to sucker up to megatron really felt like they had no idea what to do with his character anymore bc what??? Like okay you remove a third faction to focus more on the main ones but still

I fucking love S2:E20 bc 1) just throw some more mystical stuff at optimus like go full arthurian stories now, 2) lots of megatron action and 3) "drop the mountain on him"

I know its likely an animation lighting thing and optimus simply could not be based like that in the first place but conceptually it is absolutely hysterical to me that after slicing effortlessly a mountain in half, making megatron look like THIS

Optimus then look straight up at the camera and fucking winks at him

And then immediately after that, megatron going "decepticons, we are so fucked."

And THEN next episode is literally "MEGATRON YOU CRAZY BITCH" like come dreadwing lets desecrate a demigod's tomb

He fucking sucks at naming stuff tho bc dark star saber??? Come on man

The rest of the omega keys episodes are also whatever but fucking hell if the whole Peter Cullen speaking in slow motion and Steve Blum mimicking that didnt get to me hard

The last starscream episode tho? Screamer cringe compilation while hes having the worst job interview of his life, of course i loved it

MEGATRON NOOO YOU KILLED THE WRONG PLANE

But again, hilarious that for the season finale megatron went "alright guys no more fucking around" and they basically won. That one moment where meg, screamer, KO all laughing maniacally together with soundwave just shaking in silent laughter with them was really funny. Only shocky is missing for the decepticon high command reunion

I really liked the moment where raf, miko and jin kazama were like "the autobots are ready to sacrifice their life for our planet, im ready to do the same for theirs" idk thats really brave and it struck me

Optimus chopping megatron's arm was really fucking cold

SILVER ERADICONSSSSSS

They blew up the autobot base like the white house in shadow the hedgehog

Overall, a lot of my favorite episodes are in this season so👍 #megatronsweep