#hugo in particular is calling my name

[luvdalkxdlk]

Hugo is a big subtle Perry The Platypus meme. New Eridu just being Doofs T_T

1.6 and 1.7 spoilers. Using Hugo demo and some trust events, either taken from my own screenshots or other people's YouTube because one, I am not going to time spam everything to get all the trust events because I don't feel too insane today and there are some moments that only 1.6 and 1.7 cutscenes can't cover entirely. I am the Interknot brainrotter coming with you with startling news.

As the title said, if you have heard enough of the Perry The Platypus meme...

Tis the example. You get what I mean. Also, do you know who else wears a fedora...

The fedora is intentional damnit. Because I just realized. When we first meet him, as Hugo Vlad, an 'ordinary' collector...

He's not wearing the hat, people. He's not wearing the hat.

He's still not wearing the hat.

Even after coming out of his faked death...

Don't want people to immediately know that he's back from the dead, and like... people didn't recognize him???

Even after everything is over, people being pretty sure he's alive this time around. That Hugo Vlad is the only publicly known Mockingbird...

You come to us for trust events without the hat and that's enough for people not to recognize you????

THE MAGIC TRICK IS GOING WITHOUT THE HAT AND MASK???? ESPECIALLY THE HAT???? I'M BAMBOOZLED. UTTERLY BAMBOOZLED.

The only times he had worn the hat would be for work, phantom thief work.

Having a reunion with Lycaon as the Mockingbird phantom thief founder, who has every right to call him traitor for leaving Mockingbird...

He lost his hat along the way, but they all know he's Hugo Vlad so maybe that's why he can afford showing himself...

And then he puts it back on to fight Lycaon??? DOES THIS MEAN SOMETHING??? PURE BRAINROTTING PEOPLE. PURE BRAINROT.

Even for his escape.

For some reason even though for Mockingbird business, he comes without hat. Because its a public place and he doesn't want to be outed as a Mockingbird yet...?

Hugo Vlad the citizen revealing he is Mockingbird. Like, that was hard to figure out when it was the hat and mask that covered it up. Hugo had to say it himself??? The long blond hair and his heterochromic eyes aren't giving it away. This is just too Doof for me.

At first I was a little confused, because one moment he wears the hat and the next moment he doesn't. In this particular mission, does he work as Mockingbird or Hugo Vlad. Is it just that he wears the hat all this time and that the game model was too lazy to add it there for unknown reasons?

But then this scene happens, hatless when he talks to us Proxy, as Hugo Vlad himself and not as Mockingbird leader. So my guess would be that he wears the hat when he wants to show that he's doing things as a Mockingbird and without the hat is his true self?

When did you have time to put the hat my man? Is it to show the Mockingbird alleigance or something else? Something else, considering the dim lighting and maybe that the hat can shade his face to be unrecognizable. In a phantom thief's world with many enemies, and what Hugo knows, he had to make sure his work face is on...?

No hat Hugo being so real to Hartman, with the best full name identity ever. So maybe that's his edgy dramatic self, putting on the hat leffting that scarf sway, letting the dawn light illuminate him, like what. I'm just being objective coz is it just laziness to have a hat in game model. But personally I stand by my reasons about the differences in hat Hugo and no hat Hugo. It differentiates between Hugo the civilian and Hugo the Phantom thief. AND FOR SOME REASON THAT WORKS???

He had put the hat when he was hatless through, which is what will become the MockingbirdFalling.mp4, which is important to why the hat is needed and when it is not... explained somewhere further bellow.

HE INTRODUCES HIMSELF AS HUGO VLAD THE LEADER OF MOCKINGBIRD WITH THAT SUAVE HAT ON, AFTER THE FAKED DEATH WITH THE BEST COMEBACK SINCE PEOPLE KNOW AND HE OWNED IT. THOUGHT THE HUGO VLAD RAVENLOCK WON'T BE TOPPED BUT THIS PROVES WRONG. IT WAS WHEN THE WHOLE INTERKNOT WENT CRAZY KNOWING HIS IDENTITY, HAVING THAT MOCKINGBIRDFALLING.MP4.

And right after, he's back without the hat. Needing to make sure no one around after dramatic asf reveal can see the really alive Mockingbird and arrest him?

All this time in his reveal, in the death video, he had his hat on. So that people know it is Hugo Vlad the phantom thief. But has he ever, even once, shown himself without the hat when he declares himself the phantom thief? Has anyone ever seen Hugo Vlad so blatantly without the hat where he revealed who he truly is?

It's like this...

Are you telling me that the hat covers the face all that well? Was this planned by Hugo all along????

Why he has the hat on, when the video is taken, during this time of day with the hat on that you honestly cannot see the face well... It might be even difficult to discern who the people are, but its because of the hat that Hugo is famous for with those long blonde locks and maybe even those clothes, maybe, that somehow people immediately believed it was Mockingbird, that the video was all too real when the whole thing spread...

But truly, no one has seen his face yet... is the hat really that powerful, or is everyone in New Eridu really having this doof mindset???

SERIOUSLY

DO PEOPLE JUST NEED TO PUT HATS IN ORDER TO HIDE THEIR FACE??? Even PubSec's, ARCHON database has things about Vivian and Lycaon, the current and former partners and they still can't find Hugo Vlad, especially until he revealed himself???

Also, I'm suddenly realizing very few people and even characters wear hats and maybe hats are all too powerful for disguises. There's Lucy with her helmet, and other than that, no one else really wears a hat... but people can recognize Lucy with and without hat, because she introduces herself as such but maybe Hugo introducing himself as two different people with and without people has given placebo effect... Or maybe it specifically needs to be a fedora. A freaking cool fedora.

No wonder people haven't figured out his face yet. Never without his work outfit the hat even when chased around...

All the photos they have of him aren't without a hat... I...

Even when he's escaping indeed...

Here's the link bellow as sources to a thank you for making this insane posts.

Hugo trust event vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KwyP8DXbYY

Hugo 1.6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DMN1oRgNUw&t=12366s

Thank you for coming to my probably incoherent and conspring brainrot. The only people that aren't blind somehow are the people who know, who Hugo revealed himself and one Asaba Haramusa who figured it out all on his own. Someone call Jane and tell her how she can effectively disguise herself without much effort TT_TT

I would make the Hugo meme if I didn't have the photo limit but Hoyo... Hoyo... SERIOUSLY, THE PERRY THE PLATYPUS MEME??? IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE????

... Excuse me chat while I still go reel from this. Hope you feel as insane as me about this. There are a lot more things to be insane about Hugo Vlad, from his fanfiction and the male convention but the moral of this story is no matter how unique your long blonde hair and heterochromic eyes are, the hat hides all... TT_TT

[hhanxue]

"If you only knew what I have seen! Alas, what gloom is there beneath!"

Gwynplaine, sinner number 3. The source of inspiration is the "The Man Who Laughs" novel by Victor Hugo. *** "Transcending flesh, creating the abnormal." The first thing Gwynplaine remembered was pain. The second was the acrid smell of antiseptic.

He didn’t remember his real name. Didn’t remember the family that once clothed him in silk and called him son. All he knew was the blank room, the other children (some whimpering, some silent, some unnaturally bent), and Dea—the girl with bandaged eyes who still smiled when he held her hand.

The "medical check-ups" were worse. Hands pried at his splintered joints, measured the gaping ruin of his mouth. The Morphos Syndicate didn’t call him human. They called him "chrysalis"—a canvas to be remade.

(He wondered if butterflies felt this much pain.)

But then—chaos. Alarms. A chance. The reasons didn't matter.

He grabbed Dea’s hand. They ran. And ran. And ran.

The dark street was devoid of any color. Gwynplaine collapsed against a wall, his breath ragged, Dea’s fingers trembling in his—

"O, what disgrace! A pair of wretched Bloodbags dare plague the threshold of mine humble abode," an exhausted voice behind the door said. "Art thou so dull of wit to ignore the Sweepers' horde that cometh?"

"Who are Sweepers..?"

A deep, theatrical sigh. The door creaked open. *** Ursus, the Bloodfiend scholar, wasn't kind, but he was the closest thing to a father the City allowed. He couldn’t restore Dea’s sight, but for Gwynplaine he tried his best to fix The Morphos' "masterpiece". The staples bit deep, the scars remained, but the gaping maw became a smile—grotesque, but his.

For years, they were a Family. Gwynplaine learned to perform, turning his scars into comedy, his pain into pantomime. Dea clapped when he told stories. Ursus grumbled but never threw them out.

His Family was his world... Until the day that world ended.

Gwynplaine returned to their makeshift home to find Ursus bleeding out on the floor.

"Dea hath gone. Seek her not." The Bloodfiend’s voice was eerily calm for a man dying. "Abyssus abyssum invocat, my son."

Gwynplaine pressed shaking hands to the wound. "WHO DID THIS?!"

Ursus didn’t answer.

The knife was in his hand before he realized it—the cold steel pressed against his own throat. A short inhale.

"Not yet." *** A filthy alleyway. Gwynplaine wiped the blood from his blade with detached indifference, his gaze lingering on the informant’s corpse. Just as he’d suspected—all the threads had led him back to The Morphos.

Suddenly—applause. Slow, sarcastic.

"An entertaining performance. Surely you do realize you can’t take down an entire Syndicate alone?" said the man in the owl mask.

Gwynplaine spun sharply and raised his blade:

"Then I shall meet my end—in the trying."

"How artistic. But I have a far better alternative for you." *** Intro: "Gwynplaine, a humble mummer of the streets. Now—at thy service, O mine enigmatic patron." Particulars: Strong sense of justice, Theatrical manners [A hardworking and diligent sinner, generally compliant but prone to impulsive reactions when witnessing the suffering of others (a frequent sight in the City). In such moments, calm reasoning is the most effective approach. While he tolerates remarks about his appearance and past as a street performer, it is strongly advised not to provoke him excessively—his restraint has limits, and the consequences are not something you'd like to deal with.] E.G.O: Encore, Until the End ("May the abyss not close over the head of mine...") Sin Affinity: Wrath Facts: - Knows countless conjuring and card tricks. - Has great contortionist skills honed by years of practice and several surgical machinations. - Joints and scars ache in the cold. He never complains. - Has a phobia of doctors and anything medical-related. - His loathing towards the Wings runs deeper than he cares to admit.

*** And just a little funny thing lol Grenouille's never seen even the simplest tricks, so he's very impressed~

[akallabeth-joie]

Narrative Voice in LM 1.2.X

I think it's rather interesting how a bunch of Hugo's different approaches and techniques show up back-to-back in the early parts of book 2 here. In 1.2.1, for instance, he's keeping to a third-person-omniscient perspective: he's describing the speech and actions that any observer in the room would have seen, but also peppering in details as-of-yet unknown to the characters (such as that Myriel's great work on duty will never be completed).

We also see Hugo insert himself into the narration, suggesting particular documents or persons were sources of his information, as though Hugo was researching and reconstructing the story from primary sources and testimony: there's Mlle Baptistine's letters cited as the source of 1.2.4 (which also allows Hugo to use her perspective to narrate the dinner); the reference to the prison turnkey as witness of Valjean's chaining in 1.2.6 (to show the lasting emotional impact of the scene on a witnes); in the same chapter, the narrator references "my research" to allow a comparison between Valjean and Claude Gaux. I think this conceit of Hugo-as-historic-researcher reinforces the idea that it's a realistic novel: that the characters and plots are accurate representations of real people the idea that Les Mis is an everyman (/woman/child) story that could be about any unfortunate people and thus is about all of them. Furthering that idea, I find the citation of fake sources lends credence to certain details which Hugo includes in the narrative, which likewise could have been "reconstructed" from later sources, even if not named (the "small papers and large book" detail could have come from Hugo inspecting Myriel's notes and books in an archive, Valjean's escape attempts and subsequent punishments would have been documented somewhere in the prison records). Dropping unsourced 'facts' into the narrative ("four out of five crimes in London* are based on hunger"), also subtly reinforces the idea of the story as some sort of derived historic narrative.

However, we are in the realm of fiction, and Hugo-as-omniscient-narrator also freely includes tiny details of the exact scene itself as experienced by the characters in that moment, which would not be recoverable and are unlikely to be documented: the exact identity of the woman who pointed Valjean to the bishop's house, which was unknown to him and thus not reported to the "witness" for the scenes in the bishop's house; the depiction of Jeanne's young son sleeping on his basket or hugging the cat for warmth while waiting for school (an unlikely detail for Valjean to hear about in prison, which is ostensibly the context for the end of Jeanne's story); really the whole of Valjean's early history is full of these sorts of lost details (Marie-Claude giving the children milk and the girls spilling it in their haste to drink? Who would even have that information for Hugo-the-researcher to discover?)

And then we have 1.2.8: an extended metaphor of drowning as a representation for how poverty and incarceration cut Jean Valjean off from society. Hugo gets a certain amount of (affectionate) flack for interrupting the plot of Les Mis with digressions: seemingly unrelated essays and short interludes of real-person fiction. Hugo-the-author uses them to insert his social/political/historical opinions and develop his theses for the books, as well as setting scenes for later events in the plot, calling for political action by the audience, wrestling with his own past, and boring the censors.

*Also, referencing London make this message both more universal and (I imagine) less biting to contemporary French readers. Sure, other than this one sentence Hugo's only talking about French people and crimes committed in France, but dropping in this statistic about English crime supports his "desperation causes crime" message while also drawing off the criticism of French society/law a little. This tidbit is about those guys (who you-the-reader may be annoyed with re: the whole losing the Napoleonic wars thing) over there, not more woe at home! They do it, too! It's not just you and your society. Or something.

[hopefulstarfire]

Do yall wanna know my actual favorite butterfly effect?

Two people fucking on a mountain indirectly lead to my favorite comic of all time, Under the Red Hood.

Let me explain.

Joseph Hugo married a woman named Sophie Trébuchet in 1797. He was a general in Napoleon's army so they moved around quite a bit. In a letter he would later write to his son, he and his wife had been on a trip on June 24th 1801 to get from one post to the next and he believed this, on the highest peaks of the Vosges Mountains, is where he believed they conceived their son, who would later become the Ocean Man and famed author Victor Hugo.

(Fun fact: Jean Valjeans prisoner number, 24601, is absolutely in reference to his believed conception date)

Victor Hugo grows up and obviously is responsible for many works, such as Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and was never one to shy away from political commentary. Thus, he was exiled from France and sent to living on the Channel Islands. It was here that he wrote a novel titled The Man Who Laughs.

Like many of his works, this one does have different adaptations. One in particular came out in 1928 starring Conrad Veidt as the character Gwynplaine, or the Man Who Laughs.

Fast forward about a little over a decade later in 1940. A comic book writer comes into work to be greeted by two artists he worked with, one who did significantly less work than the others. These three men were Bill Finger, Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson.

Now the details of this meeting are...well, up in the air. Each man had their own account to it, and Bob Kane especially is the most unreliable given that he took credit for literally everything and we went over 70 years without Bill Finger getting any sort of credit to actually creating Batman. But what we do know is that there was a drawing of a playing card and a face for the joker card; and Bill Finger said, "Hey, that looks like Conrad Veidt in the Man Who Laughs."

They pushed further with that angle in making the character, a new villain for their hero; the obvious, Joker.

Some years later we get a little bit of an origin story in 1951, in the comic The Man Behind the Red Hood! (ALSO written by Bill Finger) Some college students are trying to solve this decades old case of a burglar in a red pill helmet that was called the Red Hood and trying to figure out who it was. Teaming up with Batman and Robin, they find out that the Red Hood was in fact Joker's old alias. He used to be a lab worker that was stealing from a playing card company with that alias. He was caught by Batman and threw himself into some chemical waste to escape, thus becoming the Joker.

This origin has stuck around in some form ever since. The moniker was unused for quite a long time after this, but would eventually find a new home in a different character.

See, in the 80s, Batman's second sidekick, Jason Todd, was killed off in a very brutal fashion after a fucking poll that people could call two different numbers to decide if they were going to save him or not. I will get into why I have so many frustrations with everything surrounding this story another day, but the important thing to know here is that the Joker killed Jason while Jason was trying to save his mother.

And for a good period of time there, Jason became a character that you did not bring back to life. Until they did.

A storyline running from 2005 to 2006 came into life, called Under the Hood. In it, Batman has to fight a new foe taking on the mantle of Red Hood, only to discover its Jason Todd, brought back to life from the Lazarus Pit, and taking on the mantle of the man that murdered him to go fucking murder the Joker and take control of crime in Gotham and do what he believes Bruce couldn't, all while dealing with trauma and feeling replaced.

So yeah. We wouldn't have my favorite character or story if it wasn't for Victor Hugo's parents fucking on a mountain and conceiving him there where "The elevated origin seems to have had effects on [Victor Hugo] so that [his] muse is continually sublime". That is a quote from that letter. Victor Hugo's mountain conception where he got a great muse is the reason for the Joker and Red Hood. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

[bunny-jpeg]

Oops sorry I just sent the CoD ask about you and cottontail’s faves and forgot the most important thing lmao…

Hang in there… long distance is so hard. Maybe you wanna invest in a body pillow. I saw some hot CoD ones, but tell me why they’re $50+…

Soon y’all will be together and live the cottagecore (or whatever aesthetic you love) of your dreams! ����

thank you lovely anon for the messages! both were well welcomed and i'll answer them both in the same post!

yeah, long distance can be a kick in the teeth. it's only going to be harder when he's even further away come june. so it's a lot of holding on. he said that if need support or resources for dealing with any emotional turmoil during the eight months overseas then he'll happily talk to whoever he needs to talk to so i can get that help - as he always tells me, i'm never alone in this. it mostly stings when he's busy on the field and all of my friends are out for the night so there isn't much to distract myself with. last time, i think i made kraft dinner and watched an avengers movie with my mom. i'm not resentful towards cottontail, it's not forever and he'll be home soon enough. i know that he's already thinking up of the perfect date to take me on when he comes home for a visit next month.

(more rambles under the cut)

the way i look at it, it's forcing me to really work on my writing and try to build a body of publishable works. i have a lot of free time, haha. i want him to come back and i've made greater strides towards being traditionally published and having a bit more money in my pocket so hopefully we can start really looking at the future together.

he's been suggesting that maybe in a couple of years we'll move outside of our province and settle down in army housing. i said as long as i have access to my medications (for my mental health and transition) then i'd happily go anywhere! but thankfully we're both not people to make decisions without really thinking it through! so, right now it's just get through deployment, i finish school and i start work on trying to get published. - after that we can discuss things like moving in and marriage. it's just laying down the seeds so we can water them later!!

funny enough, i do technically have a body pillow. i have one of those big ikea bears! before his departure, he took me to ikea and asked me to pick out 2-3 plushies that he'd buy for me. i got really flustered at the idea and i didn't want him to spend too much money on me. in the end i picked the bear and the alien. both are on my bed. and when i do miss cottontail, i put the hoodie he gave to me (i stole it) on the bear (named hugo) and snuggle it to death.

it's not the same, but it lessens the lonely feeling. last year it felt like in a blink of an eye it was july, now it feels like i'm slugging through the year since he left for training!!! hugo has been doing his service well - also been the protector of my nightmares while cottontail is unable to be there next to me.

Am I right to assume your fave CoD hunk is Ghost? Is cottontail into CoD too? And is his fave Ghost too?

i used to be really into soap, i actually have the captain/09 soap figure that i got for 5$ at a yard sale last summer. he still sits on my shelf quite proudly. i thought that ghost was like the default choice that everyone loved so i guess i wanted to be a silly, goofy guy and different. - and then cottontail just gave off a lot of ghost vibes. big guy, dry sarcasm, fairly monotone kind of voice - but not boring. big, bulky blond from the military who is cold to most, but is warm to one specific person (for cottontail i'm that person). i didn't hate ghost, but i've come back around, haha.

cottontail likes his war games - he likes putting them on and playing them on a low volume when he gets up earlier than me, which is often. i've never asked if he liked call of duty in particular, i do remember he likes halo. only because i told him how old i was when halo 4 came out, and he went "yeah i was nine." and i felt myself age rapidly. we've also played minecraft together and he has watched me play pokemon (which is my personal favourite series) and forced him to pick a favourite pokemon.

i'm certain that if he had a favourite member of 141, it might be captain price because of his leadership skills and the missions in game where you play as him would be more up his alley.

[aakipple]

Character ask once again!!!! Yay!!!!! Thank you, Aki!! Thank you!!

1. Ana and Paige

3. Hugo! I saw in your older post he was Hugh Hirai and Masa had the same last name. But later you changed it to Evans. Did you do it to make it less obvious that they are relatives?

9. Tania and Souichi. I think Souichi and few more of your ocs aren't part of Hugo-Ana universe. Or am I wrong?

I really want to ask 10th question...but..... I don't want to know the story in such straightforward way T^T so i'm skipping it......

13. !!!! a-all of them.. if it's possible. I mean! Only those who have voice claim before this ask! no need to search voice for new one!

17. Euclase and Ana

19. Euclase

20. !!!!!!!! maybe in this ask game you have a specific question you want to answer to! This is your chance!!! or just ramble about your oc... i love then you're rambling about you oc

oh my god>??? thank you for all these questions...... T_T im so glad u like my characters...

putting the answers under the cut!! this got SO long. sorry

What was the original thought that led to the creation of this character?

Ana - she was one of the first characters i made! i created her with takao. at the time, those 2 had a separate story from masa and kari, but eventually i merged them and the world grew so much bigger. both her + takao's and masa + kari's stories were simple "high school boy and girl who get into weird shenanigans with their friends" type things

Paige - i made her around the time adventure time was ending. i wanted a character who roamed an apocalyptic world/wasteland with a dog friend, but she eventually became someone completely different LOL... at first i considered that to still happen before euclase adopts her, but now i imagine her being adopted when he was much younger. the only things i kept from her original character were her name, her "kind but will kick you in the balls" personality, and her freckles

here's my first digital art of them help (2017 and 2019)

3. What was the first thing you decided on, the character's name, appearance, personality or their role in the story?

Hugo - his role! i knew from the beginning that he was going to be the main character's dead dad who haunted the narrative, but i got too attached so now he's one of the main protagonists. i guess he still Kind Of haunts the story, from euclase/hailey's and noriko's POV maybe

the reason is much dumber actually LOL. i didn't want him to have a japanese name. and for him and hailey in particular it didn't make any sense. masa inherited his mom's name because hugo does not legally exist in their world

also fun fact the name Evans was a suggestion from my friend! we were both fans of the anime inazuma eleven, and in the english dub, the main character of the first series is named "Mark Evans." my friend didn't mention that but i assume thats where she got it. i liked how "hugo evans" sounded so i went with it! not sure if i mentioned this anywhere, but hugo's actual surname isn't evans either LOL (evans was a name noriko gave him). this change is recent, but his and hailey's last name is "schaefer"

9. How big is their role in the story? Do they make a frequent appearance or are they a character with little "screentime" but big influence? Or are they just a favourite background guy?

Tania - if this was a show i imagine she wouldn't have much screentime in the main story .... there, she is the mother of a popstar being bothered by a stalker. tania calls in ana to investigate (hugo comes along too). i'm the type to make up stories so everyone gets the chance in the spotlight though. so there is a story where she is the mc somewhere! i'm currently thinking one about her and noriko.

Souichi - yes, you're right! he isn't in the hugo and ana universe. it's one of the smaller stories i made because i want to start fresh (the hugo ana-verse is very Big). he is a salaryman who quits his job after his city gets attacked by aliens (i guess.) and then he becomes the caretaker of 3 teenage superheroes. it's just a little silly

thank you for not asking number 10. because i don't think i can give a straight answer LMAO...

13. Do you have a voice claim for the character? What do you imagine the character sounds like?

!! oh you bet i have voice claims. i'm in the process of making a video to make it clearer, but for now i'll link some youtube clips

(they are all in japanese bc jp voice actors are who i'm most familiar with)

Ana - mamiko noto

Hugo - katsuyuki konishi (starting 3:10 especially)

Masa - nobunaga shimazaki (0:33~) (decided on this yeaaarss ago)

Takao - yuuto uemura

kari - terasaki yuka (4:15~)

euclase - toshiyuki morikawa (0:00 - 0:19 and 0:48 - 1:07)

oh i think that's all actually. i'm still having trouble deciding for the others... here's my singing voice claim for noriko though. her band is very much inspired by the bands in charlotte and angel beats (vocals by marina nakamura)

17. Are there any motifs or symbols associated with the character? How are they represented, in their design, personality or in some other way?

Euclase - i mainly associate him with blue gems and gold! those are the most obvious ones in his design. at some point i associated him with lucky charms as well but i'm not too sure about that right now. he likes giving gifts. i like to think he specifically chooses gifts believed to bring good luck

Ana - roses, thorns, short swords. i don't draw her with them much though whoops... she's graceful and caring and isn't afraid to hurt others to protect her loved ones

19. What is your general favourite thing about the character? What is your least favourite?

Euclase - overall i like where i'm going with his personality! i love characters who grow a bunch over the years (literally and figuratively), but are still the same softie underneath. at first he's in denial about still being in love with That Guy after all this time, but once he accepts it he acts like a big puppy. also he cries easily

as for my least favorite.... i hate that i can't do justice to his looks and fashion!! that's my fault though. even if you tell me i draw him well (thank you) i promise he looks 100x better in my mind.

bonus art i drew of him (ft. first meeting with hugo)

20. Bonus question: share any additional thoughts, art, favourite scenes, anything you've been waiting for a chance to ramble about

right so.... there's one major thing i've been leaving out of my explanations for a while and thats the presence of alternate realities (in addition to other worlds) and basically the Hugo Evans i draw is actually from a reality where masa was never born. hugo meets ana and masa in a reality where he died. this also plays a part in ana and takao not remembering masa despite meeting him before. so theres that.... 😭 don't worry about it

[magicmindless]

hello yes... i would like to order some headcanons... carlo flavour please :]

A HC List but it’s just Carlo Romano

Portallinis pretty boy

-Speaking of which, everyone Romano has a title to them they’re famously known for. As for Carlo, his title is “Portallinis sweetheart”

-Despite fame, Carlo is a very humble person. He lives up to his reputation of being the sweetheart of the quartet, though he has pretty low self-esteem

-He’s a pretty decent singer. His voice is very smooth and soft like a cinnamon bun, albeit a more limited range than Bruna. Because of this he prefers not to sing for the official quartet albums or singles despite how much fans beg him to

-However, he does plan on someday making a solo album in the future. He still wants to be part of the band, but it’d be neat for him to create music which he can truly call his own

-Though Gino is his cousin, he sees him like a big brother. Gino used to give him piggy-back rides as a kid and even taught him the basics of string instruments. He always credits Gino for his skills whenever he can

-He’s best friends with Deano (currently teehee) and has been friends with him since childhood. He even used to sneak away from band practices just to see him

-When his mom died, Deano attempted to write Carlo a poem trying to cheer him up. Deano insists the poem is kind of ass but Carlo still keeps it on a pinboard in his room to this day

-In return, when Deanos mentor, Maximo Del Mare passed away Carlo wrote a song for Deano to try and ease his grieving

-He can’t whistle. Not matter how much Deano has tried to teach him he can’t get the hang of whistling, which balances out the fact Deano can’t sing

-In my hc Koilee was the one who got the Scooperia first. Carlo got a job there as a delivery boy during his hiatus from the band because he was feeling uninspired and bored with being in the band

-He really isn’t picky with what music he likes. He can like just about anything

-Unsurprisingly, being famous has a lot of downsides, which he’s expressed on Hugo’s podcast where they both got to discuss their struggles within their music careers (not knowing if people wanna genuinely be friends or if they want clout, burnout, etc.)

-Deals with imposter syndrome. He got mortified when Hugo told him on his podcast that between the 2, even without the the rest of his family Carlo was much more famous than Hugo was, even joking that the views on his podcast would probably skyrocket just by having Carlo in it. It’s not that he was wrong, but it made Carlo wonder if he truly deserved his fame, because he could name more than a few music artists, including Hugo, who were much more talented than him and didn’t even have half of his fame (…wait that’s actually a good fanfic idea someone should write that *cough cough* @sosoribro you know what to do *COUGH COUGH*/nf)

-He identifies as biromatic asexual, and it makes him uncomfortable whenever people try to speculate what his sexuality could be (it’s not usually the fans, they’re pretty nice, but particular journalists who try and speculate via his interactions with other celebrities)

-Has only dated once in his life, and it was a girl back in high school. They didn’t end on good terms

-He always carries snacks with him in a backpack, and always likes sharing them whenever he can. He just thinks food tastes better shared with others

-Has pet rats and loves them all dearly, but is also ironically a cat magnet. One of his and Deano’s favorite things to do as kids was to pet the stray cats they ran into

-Incredibly stylish. He doesn’t buy designer clothes (most of his clothes come from thrift stores or local clothing stores I imagine), nor does he always dress up in whatever’s trending, but he does sometimes study how men dress in fashion magazines

-He was a bit hesitant towards Olga at first, seeing her as just his dad merely replacing their mom, but he grew to like her with time

-Learned how to knit from Olga, and the first thing he did was his new skill was make a scarf for Deano

[psalm22-6]

San Pedro News Pilot, 12 November 1925

The letter of M., the “Outcast,” who, after serving a term in a girl’s reform school, is finding it difficult to establish herself, has brought me many letters, chiefly from men, asking her address. Because of the rule of this column never to divulge names and addresses of correspondents, none of these requests were compiled with, but the letters were indicative of a wide interest in the young girl’s plight. Now comes a belated communication from one who can perhaps sympathize with her more sincerely than any of the rest of us. He says: Dear Mrs. Thompson: I read the letter from the outcast in your column. I also “graduated” from a reform school some years ago, and have had the same experience since I left the state’s boarding house. Since my release I’ve made good to society but paid the fiddler. I am a member of a well known family, having resided here for 12 years, except for two years in the war. I came here to start all over, but ill news will spread and my record is known, and reflects on me who paid for an offence I never committed. I have since been proven innocent. However, that doesn’t mean anything to people. They just remember that I was in the reform school. I am 26 years old, and went to France to fight for people who knew my record. You do not know the agony dealt out to us in the state’s hotel. Somehow, one sort of lost all faith in humanity. Memory of the past punishment forever wakens whenever one goes out at night without any particular business in mind. We have good reason to avoid the officers of the law. We must walk a chalk line forever or fall into the law’s hands and then the past means more grief. I have gone straight but the police know my record and I have to watch my step or live under a phony name, all because I refused to squeal on another. Though I paid the state’s price elsewhere, the local police somehow knew all about me when I came here. They have my fingerprints, birthscars, etc. Once a black sheep, always a black sheep. The worst of it is that my own family distrust me. Simply because of a boyhood prank of throwing a stone at a roundhouse window. I was caught, refused to tell, and called “a bad boy,” was given eighteen months in the reform school. My record there is first class. But my life is blighted forever. Out of 600 boys in the school, 321 were killed in France. Yet we were criminals then and are now. I know how “Outcast” feels for I myself am an outcast. Love has been denied me. There are some who will call this “bunk” but no one who has ever been in a reform school will say I am wrong. Tell the outcast she has my sympathy. I ask nothing of the world. --THE BLACK SHEEP. [Thompson] Your letter reminds me of that masterpiece, Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables.” Have you ever read it, “Black Sheep?” For one’s life to be blighted by so small a crime seems incredible in this enlightened age of ours. But I have no doubt there are many other cases like yours. Much depends on you and others similarly punished both in prison and out. Every time one of you does “fall from grace” it sets back the day when this evil will be remedied.

[miraruinada]

When Granja Recognized Iovan

"Subjectification is love. But why do we love someone like that? Let's leave the matter here. I gave it a formula. I was talking about self-relating negativity in terms which are full of traps. That's not unusual. Everything I say has traps. Why on earth would I say it was about something else when it's about the spirit? We know that language never gives, never allows us to formulate anything but things which have three, five, twenty-five meanings. The subject presumed to know."

Granja, as he spoke in this lecture, could not finish this specific line of thought. Iovan Herrera, before then simply a person who'd sneaked into those lectures, felt a desire to stand up, walk up to the podium, and wash her hands inside Granja's pitcher of water. Granja watched her without saying a word. Iovan continued without saying a word. They did not speak until at last other students stood up to try and drag her away.

"What's this? Are you going to rough me up? I was just expressing myself, like this gentlewoman, understand?"

"Yes, I understand."

"I'd just like to add I specifically chose this moment to intervene, and that the composite body which up to fifty years ago could be called culture, that is, people expressing in fragmented ways what they feel, is now a lie and can only called spectacle. The backdrop of which is tied to, and serves as, a link between all alienated individual activities.

"If all people here and now were to join together and, freely and authentically, wanted to communicate, it'd be on a different basis, with a different perspective. Of course, this can't be expected of students who by definition will one day become the managers of our system, with their justifications, and who are also the public whom, with a guilty conscience, will pick up the remains of the decaying spectacle.

"That's why I chose this precise moment to have some fun, to be like those guys who express themselves authentically. I didn't do it to annoy you, but I did choose this particular moment."

The lecture hall applauded. Granja asked Iovan to sit down beside him, and began to speak in response. A few students lingered next to Iovan. Some of them, Ignacio Otxo, Hugo Valdez, were among the first members of the Young Farmers.

"So, let's see what we can do. By expressing yourself in this way, in front of this audience which is more than ready to hear these revolutionary statements. What was it exactly that you wanted to do?"

"That's the question which parents, sages, ideologues, bureaucrats, and the polis always ask the growing number of people who act like me. My answer is, I want to do just one thing. Revolution. It's clear that, at the stage we've reached at this moment, one of our main targets will be exactly those moments when people like you are bringing to people like these justification for their miserable lives. That's what you do."

"Not at all."

After a few seconds of silence, Iovan splashed water on Granja and stormed off. Some of the students followed her. Ignacio stayed, Hugo followed Iovan. Granja was not angered at her actions, only annoyed that his cigarette was snuffed from the water. As he lit his cigarette and wiped his clothes with a napkin, he continued.

"Let's hope there'll be a new organization. It's not impossible, you know? It's not impossible that we see it born in the form of a rule which is called, which goes by the name of that supreme aspiration: that is the whole. As she was just saying, we should all be a part of it, we should close ranks together to achieve... Well, what exactly? What does organization mean if not a new order? A new order is the return to something which, if you remember the premise from which I started, is the order of the discourse of the master, simply that.

"It's the one word which hasn't been mentioned, but it's the very term which organization implies. It is quite conceivable that there be a lot of progress in this sense. If we can call that progress. I mean, what we discover from getting close to what is happening to a certain number of people, that is, that certain something invaluable, which she referred to as will just now, subjective will. This subjective will, if we look at in an absolutely permanent sense, can only manifest itself through its own division, since it is doubtless meant to suggest something to us. It's not, however, our image of the achievement of total harmony. You heard an appeal, one familiar to me. It was very touching, despite the fact that it led to a few problems with my tie.

"It's love! It's love telling you that if we were all like that, all together, loving each other, it would herald the dawn of a New Tenochtitlan. We've seen it various times in history, but never at just any old moment. It happens because something manifests itself which is not strictly within the order of discourse, because there has been a discourse which is proliferating and engendering innumerable little ones, which makes all of you terribly uncomfortable. There is a scientific discourse whose very presence threatens us with the idea that things will be resolved in terms of mechanics, ballistics, equilibria, currents, and the more we understand the better. We'll soon be like products, a certain type of individual who'll fit in with everyone and everything.

"But experience shows us that things aren't like that. What experience shows us is that it is one language, the one you've all grown up with, which you received from the world, from your family. It's something which couldn't have been transmitted to you without bringing with it a whole vibrant, confused reality which was formed by the desires of your parents. So an individual's upbringing is influenced by the parent, by the parental language, by that fundamental something. That is where love turns towards that kind of vibrant call, to that union with... What? With something which is obviously very alienating. What is really incredible is that she imagined that, by beating the sky with her fists, that this alienation which was exactly what she was telling you about is a sort of... An appeal for what? For more of what? For more truth?

"Her words were identical to the truth she believed at that moment, and she became the instrument, the messenger, the angel come to rescue you from your sleep, in the end!"

This incident was also the moment of birth of the Young Farmers.

[quackerzzz]

(Edit: updated the drawing because I didn't like how the previous one looked)

And now for the most controversial of the Rogues and one of my favorites (when he's not written as a pedo rapist), The Mad Hatter

Backstory under the cut (TW: Child death, psychological abuse, addiction metaphors)

Jervis Edwin Tetch was born to Temple and Lorina Tetch in Britain. When he was 6, his mother left his father for another man and they moved away to America. Later, his father married one Beverly Tockman and he got a half brother named William.

When he was older, he became an elementary school teacher who loved to teach children all about science. Particularly, he loved to teach about how the brain worked. He was fond of all his students and they were fond of him, in particular a young girl named Caroline Lewis. Jervis was almost like a father to her, and she admired him a lot. She'd always stay after class to learn more about his lessons.

Not everything good can last however. Jervis, always fascinated by the brain, would start looking into ways to control it. He worked day and night on tiny playing cards with chips, which would scramble a person's brain waves and allow them to be controlled by a special band worn by another. He mostly worked on this project from home, but decided one day to work on it while after class. Caroline, unaware of this, went to visit her favorite teacher like normal. However, her surprise visit startled Jervis and caused him to mess up the circuitry of the band, causing a small fire which soon grew. Jervis, panicked and not thinking of Caroline, dove out the window.

When he remembered this, it was already too late. The fire had already spread through the building quickly, so quickly that most of the teachers and students who were on lunch break did not notice until it was too late. Jervis was one of only 23 who survived the fire.

Although Jervis was never charged with anything due to the event being an accident, he would suffer horrid nightmares and symptoms of PTSD and survivor's guilt. He could not get over Caroline and so many other children's deaths, spending nights sleepless and days lying around the house. William, concerned for his brother, would decide to set him up with a highly recommended Arkham doctor by the name of Hugo Strange.

Unknown to William, Hugo would subject his patients to experimental technology of his own design, taking certain memories and erasing or altering them to his liking. At first, he only altered Jervis's memory so that he wouldn't remember that he left Caroline behind. It worked like a charm for a bit, but soon Jervis found himself coming back. More and more memories were erased and altered, even ones that had nothing to do with the fire. Soon, dates and his interests started being taken from him, his hair was starting to turn blonde, but he still starting going back for more. Bill protested against this, seeing how it started to negatively affect his brother, but Jervis simply dismissed him.

Soon there was nothing left of Tetch to take.

The Mad Hatter was missing his Alice. He didn't remember where she was, but he knew he did something that made her disappear. So using his magic hat, he began to search for his Alice. He found a girl like her, and used his magic hat to make her play with him forever. But then the Jabberwocky found him, and he was locked away in a big comfy white box.

It's okay though. He eventually broke out and did the whole thing again. And he met his other friends too, like the March Hare and Dormouse. Although, one of them, the White Rabbit, always calls him by the wrong name. He keeps telling him that he's remembering things wrong, but that's just silly. Silly White Rabbit!

[itz-bennaminute]

Hii! I'm new here! Still learning how this site works lol

I'm Italian! I also speak english and I'm currently learning french and spanish. (I also study latin but I don't think anybody here speaks it as their first language XD)

My name is benna/benny but you can call me however you want (even if it’s not close to my name), my pronouns are they/he/any (xeno and neopronouns are okay too).

I'm mostly gonna post my art and other fun things! Don't be scared to follow me, dm me, ask me a question or anything else, I don't bite :3 I might seem a bit annoying at first but I swear I’m actually pretty nice!

I'm also currently looking for moots so if you like any of the following things don't hesitate to follow me! I don't really have a DNI but I don't want any pedophiles, toxic, bigoted people or weirdos in general following me.

--_--_--_--_--_--<3

Here’s some stuff about me!:

I post a lot on Twitter (my username on there is N0t_b3ny), I have an artfight (Benny225225), A discord (Homeless3swife). I also have a cool strawpage for twitter you should definetely check! ( benny225.straw.page )

I like: the count of montecristo, gravity falls, drawing, playing the piano, video games, greek mythology, musicals, operas, markiplier lore (WKM, on a date with markiplier, on a heist with markiplier, Damien etc), learning about composers' lives, writing and a lot of other things!

My favourite video games are Dsaf and Dialtown (I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE these two), Fnaf, Ddlc, Yttd, All the studio investigrave ones, Danganronpa, Mouthwashing and Undertale.

I love musicals! Like Hamilton, Warriors (The concept album), The Phantom Of The Opera, Notre Dame De Paris (I like the Italian version way more then the French one though), Mozart l'opera rock, Cabaret, Penelope (Or How The Odyssey Was Really Written), Ride the Cyclone, 1776, Heathers, Epic (the concept album), In the Heights, 21 Chump Street, Chicago, Six (not a big fan though, but I have watched it so I’m putting it in the list), I Promessi Sposi (L’Opera Moderna),

I've watched a few operas! Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Cavalleria Rusticana, Carmen, La Cenerentola (Rossini). I’ve probably watched more but I can’t remember :,)

My favourite anime are BSD, MTP, VNC, WEP and Sk8 (I’ve watched A LOT more though). I’ve also read the bsd manga and some JUNJI ITO ones (Fragments of Horror, Shiver, and Gyo).

I love greek mythology! I've read The Iliad, The Odyssey, Argonautica by Apollonius Rodius, Helen and Medea by Euripides. I'll also read the Eneid soon (before you say anything, yes, I know that one's roman mythology).

Other books I've read: The first 3 PJO books (I’ll continue soon!), Notre Dame de Paris (Victor Hugo), If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (Italo Calvino), Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories and poems (LOVE those), The Song Of Achilles, De Brevitate Vitae (Seneca), Giovanni Verga’s short stories, Pollyanna, Anne Frank’s Diary, and others I don’t remember!!

I really like music! I mostly listen to Will Wood, That Handsome Devil, and a lot of Jazz (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, Chet Baker, Benny Goodman…). Sometimes classical music (Mostly Mozart and Chopin but others too), songs from musicals (a LOT of those) and Games OSTs (Mostly Dialtown and Dsaf’s ones, DDLC’s, Danganronpa’s [I’m not a really big fan of the game anymore for obvious reasons but the soundtrack is SO good], YTTD’s, etc).also FNAF songs omg i love those

I play the piano and you should definitely listen to Samba do Beethoven by Jean Kleab (Furio Elise slaps too) because it’s so good! I love learning about music history, especially composers’ lives, in particular I’m really passionate about Mozart, like, really like the guy, so if someday I randomly post some mozart things it’s normal, my PC didn’t get possessed by demons (YET). I’ve made tons of research about him but I’ve also watched some movies and other stuff; Amadeus (the 1984 one) (ofc it’s not even remotely historically accurate since it’s based on a rumor but it’s still a really good movie), Mozart l’Opera Rock (same thing with this one), Mozart's sister (the french one) (this one’s not accurate either but still kinda cool), the BBC 3 hour documentary, Mozart das Musical. I’ve also watched Beethoven’s BBC 3 hour documentary (you can find both and others on youtube) and more but I’m too lazy to write it

[mermaidsirennikita]

have you read notorious by minerva spencer?? it was the first book of hers i tried and the way she wrote the hero felt so off to me that i DNFed and haven't tried any of her other works. i've seen you rec other books by her though so i was thinking of giving her another try but idk where to start. would love to know what you recommend i should start with <3

Yeah, I have, and while I liked a lot about that book, I agree with you on the way the hero was written. Her first trilogy and that book in particular (and in some ways the followup book to Notorious) are just... not books I'd recommend. What I find weird is that THUS FAR I don't think I've encountered anything similar in her LaViolette (her pen name) books? But to be fair, there are a lot of those, and I haven't read all of them.

Sooo I would jump into a LaViolette book! Some of my favorites:

The Seducers Trilogy. This series is focused on a set of sex workers who all know and work or have worked with each other, finding love. It's got romance, it's got sex, it's got darkness and humor. I will say that, as you can imagine with the nature of the content, there's some harrowing stuff; these books don't linger on sexual abuse on the page, but they are often a part of the backstory/villainy. I've read all of 'em, and they break down into

Melissa and The Vicar—A jaded madam goes on vacation due to a stomach ulcer (she's stressed!) and meets a super sweet, VIRGINAL vicar... who has no idea who she is... and is finally having his fire LIT. The book where right after she introduces him to anal sex his immediate response is like "I want you to meet my parents", I am nOT KIDDING.

Joss and The Countess—A former sex worker (who was good at laying it DOWN) is now a footman for a frosty widowed countess. He's also her bodyguard for her sojourns into town, where she's trying to have good sex for the first time in her life. And... he quickly realizes that she may not know what she needs, but HE does. An extremely horny yet also extremely touching book (harrowing, though) with an older heroine and a younger hero, and some HOT sex scenes.

Hugo and The Maiden—A famous sex worker is transported after being framed for a crime he didn't commit. The ship wrecks and he washes ashore on a tiny island, where his arrogant, selfish ass gets stomped on (metaphorically) by a bossy vicar's daughter. I call this "Devil in Winter on steroids".

The Masqueraders Trilogy. About three people who, you guessed it, AREN'T WHO THEY SAY THEY ARE!!! Another "proceed knowing that these can get harrowing" series. All good, but I'd especially recommend

The Footman—A teenage footman is thrown in prison when his boss's spoiled daughter convinces him to kiss her and they're caught. He escapes and reinvents himself with a new identity in America, becoming wealthy and returning to England to ruin the girl, now a widow, for revenge. But as you can imagine.... he plays himself.

The Bastard—A scarred former bareknuckle boxer (whose backstory is INSANELY sad, omg) is out to take revenge on his father, who never claimed him. However... He's gobsmacked by the kind nature of his father's sister-in-law (not his aunt by blood... to be clear) specifically after she like, is nice to a dog in front of him. So, naturally, as someone who clearly over-identifies with the dog, he stalks her for a while and eventually ends up offering her a deal: he WON'T ruin his father's (and by extension her sister's) life... If she marries him.

The Bellamy Siblings is her ongoing series that's perhaps the least WACKY? Still wacky at points though. It's about a family that falls on hard financial times due to the father's gambling, which means it falls on the sisters in particular to find ways to make money (often through marriage). Again, all good. My favorites include

Hyacinth—One of my favorites of hers, the top spot is probably between this and Joss and The Countess, but a unique story about a neurodivergent card shark heroine who disguises herself as a man at night to get money for the family. (And also... because she has fun with it.) A scarred, notorious duke notices and befriends her, and eventually catches on to her gender, but not her identity as a lady. They stark a FWB situation, with neither one believing they'll fall in love... AND YET.... Super emotional but also funny, verrrrrry sexy, great ending.

Selina—Directly after the above book, the beautiful Bellamy sister Selina, always raised to save the family by marrying rich, has an identity crisis and runs off, taking a job as a housekeeper under a fake name. The catch, aside from her not having any job experience: the lord of the house is incredibly dickish and grumpy, as he's a rake who lost his sight the year before following a terrible carriage accident. This one is less big on the plot and more about the loooove stoooory. It's really sweet and one of her softer books.

The Academy of Love is an ongoing series that has little artistic themes for each book, which is lovely. I've only read the first one so far, but I loved it

The Music of Love—A mysterious widow arrives to teach an equally mysterious wealthy man music. However, they have a massive attraction to each other and quickly have impetuous sex, which leads to Consequences and a quickie marriage. So now they barely know each other, are into each other, and are dealing with a fresh marriage on top of their mutual secrets. Very gothic, very hot, and also omg my heart. The hero has albinism (which I haven't read in any other romance novel) and is ostracized by society. That's why she was borught in to teach him music. It's just a really good book.

Victoria Decadence is her historical erotic romance series, which is ongoing (I think—she recently added a new book). I've only read one so far, but I looooved it, another big favorite. It's

His Valet—A rich businessman's devoted valet is actually not a man (Jo was assigned female at birth and uses she/her pronouns for the most part, but is clearly meant to be read as nonbinary) and is also obsessed with him. Taking on the identity of a mysterious woman soon to be wed, Jo begins meeting her boss for kinky sex... and it's supposed to be anonymous and all about the boning.. but oh now now they're falling in loooove...

She also has another ongoing series, the Hale Saga, which I've yet to read. But I imagine it's probably good! It sounds Bellamy-adjacent.

I hope this helps!

[back-and-totheleft]

The Son Also Kneels

Oliver Stone was deplaning at LAX following a 16-hour trip from Indonesia when he turned on his phone and found it blowing up with texts from his office. Apparently the media—what he called the “paparazzi”—had been in touch. They wanted to ask him about his son, Sean.

In particular, they wanted to know what he thought of Sean’s decision to become a Muslim. Oliver instructed his office to decline comment.

“He never consulted me,” the elder Mr. Stone recalled in a phone call to The Observer from his production office in Los Angeles. “That is something you normally talk to your parents about.”

The director is a practicing Buddhist. “Obviously the Muslim religion believes in a singular god,” he added. “I don’t.”

Sean Stone, a 27-year-old filmmaker who was raised a Buddhist and spent his youth exploring his Christian and Jewish roots (not to mention any number of film sets), is like his old man, a determined—some would say obstinate—truth-seeker. He is also a man of firm opinions who is unafraid to express them in a highly public fashion.

But to peg him, as one Yahoo! News commenter did recently, as “another nut from a spoiled confused family,” is to miss the point entirely.

To hear him tell it, accepting Islam as his faith (and adopting a new Muslim middle name, Ali) is a demonstration that one man can embrace three Abrahamic religions as a gesture of peace.

“I don’t take a priest’s interpretation as sanctity,” he said. “I would not take an imam’s ruling on the Koran as being definitive. I would not take anyone’s word except my own interpretation of the books.”

Mr. Stone’s conversion was only part of his recent media coming-out party. In announcing his newfound faith, he eagerly stepped into perhaps the thorniest foreign policy question of the moment: whether Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons, and whether its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a total nutjob.

“My main thing is I don’t want to see a war, an imperialistic war, because I know what it could do to the region,” he said. Mr. Stone also defended Mr. Ahmadinejad—the man who infamously referred to the Holocaust as a “myth” and declared that Israel should be “wiped off a map”—as a “rational actor.”

“The media is so biased in trying to paint him as a madman, because if he is a madman, you can’t talk to him,” he explained to The Observer.

Mr. Stone first met with Mr. Ahmadinejad in February, when he was a featured guest at the “Hollywoodism and Cinema” conference in Tehran. The president gave him a copy of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat.

When asked what they talked about, Mr. Stone didn’t really remember. The meeting might have seemed an opportunity to do some diplomatic work for his father, who had been eager to follow up his documentary portraits of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez with one on Mr. Ahmadinejad, but had been rebuffed (many Iranians took issue with perceived historical inaccuracies in his Alexander the Great biopic). Still, the younger Stone didn’t push the issue.

It soon became clear that Mr. Stone’s views on Iran are not all that radical. For instance, shortly after he defended his opinions to network news blowhards Bill O’Reilly and Piers Morgan, Meir Dagan, the former head of the Mossad, appeared on 60 Minutes to declare that bombing Iran right now was “the stupidest idea [he] ever heard.”

Still, his comments were controversial, even within his own family. ��When you’re younger, you can make mistakes by saying what people don’t want to hear,” the elder Mr. Stone noted. “Sometimes he says stuff that I think is downright fucking stupid.”

The Observer met the Son of Oliver at a rear table at Think Coffee by Union Square one March morning.

Tall, strapping and square-jawed, Sean Christopher Ali Stone appeared more Winklevii than Wahabi. He did not have his father’s self-described “Mongol eyes” or the gap between his teeth.

What he did have, however, was the family curiosity, and that knack for taking controversial positions.

“I think it’s important to have that spirit of inquiry, that spirit of investigation,” Mr. Stone said as he periodically sipped from a cup of chai tea. “If you keep slandering people, calling them ‘conspiracy theorists,’ you’re killing the desire to investigate, the desire to actually know.”

Mr. Stone, who is single and divides his time between Los Angeles and New York’s Alphabet City, wanted to make it clear that his highly publicized spiritual transformation was not intended as a publicity gambit.

It all began on Valentine’s Day 2010, when he and his filmmaking partner, Alexander Wraith, were at Letchworth Village, an abandoned institution for the mentally and physically disabled in Rockland County. They were there to film Graystone, Mr. Stone’s feature debut, about two men (named Sean and Alexander) who visit supposedly haunted sites to explore their belief in the supernatural.

He and Mr. Wraith had brought along candles from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which they lit and placed on the ground as they prayed aloud. They heard screams and howls and a child’s laughter, which scared them both shitless.

“That’s why there’s an expression ‘There are no atheists in foxholes,’” he said. “Either you find your faith and you believe that there is a higher power guiding you and protecting you, or else you basically surrender it and say there is no God.”

Two years later to the day, Mr. Stone found himself in Isfahan, Iran, sitting inside a mosque across from a Shiite cleric, explaining his reasons for wanting to be a Muslim. He was accompanied by a man named Bahram Heidari, an Iranian living in Canada who was helping him develop a feature film about the Sufi poet Rumi (Mr. Stone is also prepping a documentary on djinn, or genies). With an Iranian TV news crew on hand to document the occasion, Mr. Stone said the shahada, the Muslim declaration of belief.

“I didn’t ‘convert,’” he pointed out, “because I don’t believe you can convert from the same God. It’s an acceptance of Islam as an extension of what I call the Judeo-Christian tradition going back to Abraham.”

He said he was surprised the event generated so much attention. “We had not arranged for any press,” he said. “We don’t know how they found out about it.”

But when everyone from CNN to Agence France-Presse jumped on the story, he went with it. He later defended Iran on cable news. “It seems that every time we sanction this country and turn the bolts tighter around it … it’s just going to make them potentially more radical and dangerous,” he said. “You can’t just bomb your way to an accord.” While defending Mr. Ahmadinejad, he also was emphatic that “there is no room for Holocaust denial.” (Not long ago, his father also was quoted minimizing the Holocaust.)

It’s not hard to understand how Mr. Stone developed a certain sympathy for men of strong convictions who are unafraid to offend.

“He says things that rile people, I’m not going to deny that,” Mr. Stone said of Mr. Ahmadinejad. He says the same about his dad. “I think he likes controversy,” Mr. Stone said. “I think as much as anything, he likes that people get riled.”

Sean Stone was born in Santa Monica in 1984, the eldest child of Oliver and Elizabeth Burkit Fox, a production assistant and Oliver’s second wife.

He made his screen debut at 6 months, with a cameo in Salvador. At age 2, he was playing Gordon Gekko’s kid, “a fat little capitalist son,” as he put it.

His earliest and clearest film memory was being on the set of Born on the Fourth of July, in which he was among a group of kids shooting at each other with fake guns in the woods.

“That’s pretty intense when you’re, like, 4,” he said.

Mr. Stone’s early film career was more a matter of convenience than raw talent. “He was available and I thought he was photogenic,” his dad admitted.

Sean’s parents separated in 1993 (“It was not an easy divorce,” Oliver said), and Sean and his brother Michael lived with Elizabeth. When he could, Oliver took Sean on weekend trips “where he could be outside the normal Los Angeles ‘shop, drive, and die’ routine,” said Oliver.

They also traveled the world, from East Africa to Tibet, where Oliver, an Episcopalian who had converted to Buddhism, introduced the then 9-year-old Sean to the Dalai Lama.

“It’s a different kind of Buddhism, it’s an atomistic form,” Oliver said. “It must have been amazing for him.” The experience was eye-opening, Sean said. It inspired him to take up the practice of meditation and fostered a curiosity about all forms of spirituality. It was also around that time that Sean began to discover his father’s films, each one violent and provocative and dubious about the powers that be.

Mr. Stone was 7 when his father released JFK, a film that brought a mix of reviews both approving and vitriolic. The knocks on his father bothered him at the time, and still do. “Of course it hurts,” he said. “To me it’s a disgrace that so many people get away with calling him a conspiracy theorist, when the truth is he’s always based his work on evidence. He does his homework.”

After graduating from Brentwood School, just around the same time the second Iraq war was getting underway, Mr. Stone considered joining the Army, “more out of a desire to have a life experience,” he said. (Oliver, who dropped out of Yale and eventually enlisted in the Army in 1967, earning a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam, recognized the impulse.) Rather than enlist, Mr. Stone wound up at Princeton, where he enrolled in the ROTC, bailing after a semester to focus on academics.

In 2009, after apprenticing with his father, Sean began to focus on his own filmmaking, starting with Graystone, which will be released on video-on-demand in the fall.

Mr. Stone’s long-term goal is to be a filmmaker, though his father is quick to tamp down expectations. “It’s very hard to assume the mantle, so to speak,” Oliver said. “It’s true about anybody in any profession, whether you’re the stockbroker’s son or a garbage man’s son.”

Mr. Stone agrees that it will be hard to step out from his father’s shadow and make a name for himself, though that new middle name of his is certainly a start.

Even so, his embrace of Islam goes only so far. For instance, Mr. Stone isn’t quite ready to forswear alcohol altogether.

“I know plenty of Christians and Jews who violate the Testaments all the time,” he pointed out. “It all depends on how you practice.”

-Daniel Edward Rosen, "The Son Also Kneels," The Observer, Mar 28 2012

[romanreadsbooks]

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid - Review

TL;DR

4.1 Stars

Pros: Characters (Especially Evelyn Hugo), LGBTQ+ representation

Cons: POV Character (Monique), lackluster twist and ending

Spoilers in review? No

Opinions going in/why I picked it up:

The main reason for picking this book up now was that it was February's bookclub pick, but it's also been on my TBR for ages.

I've read Carrie Soto is Back and Daisy Jones and The Six by Reid prior to reading this and they we rated 4 and 5 stars, respectively, so I had high hopes for this one. That said, I didn't actually start the book until the day before bookclub and thus binged the whole thing in one day.

I heard the audiobook for this book was good, so that's how I consumed most of the book, but I did tandem read with the physical copy for a few chunks here and there.

Likes:

Just the characters man (with one notable exception that I will get into in the dislikes section). It's not surprising given that this book was was written by TJR. I adore just about every character she's written -- they all feel complicated and real. Both sympathetic and absolute assholes at the same time.

As for our title character: Evelyn Hugo fits the above perfectly. She is not a "good" person and does not pretend to be, but there are still admirable qualities in her. The members of my bookclub were on the fence as to whether she was a likable character, but in my personal opinion, that kind of doesn't matter. While it can help my enjoyment, it doesn't really matter if I like a character as a person. The biggest thing for me is if a character is interesting and I think Evelyn Hugo, like Daisy Jones, is absolutely fascinating.

There are a few LGBTQ+ characters we meet along the way and I do like they're portrayal. Reid does not downplay how dangerous it was to be openly a part of that community and how even the rich and famous would not be immune to the consequences of being found out. I enjoyed the mix of characters who were more optimistic about society's reception/thoughts toward the LGBTQ+ community and those who were more realistic and guarded/protective.

I also appreciated that Reid portrayed some of the bigotry bisexual individuals, in particular, face from both cishet people but also from within the LGBTQ+ community. The way they are often deemed "actually just straight" or "gay and in denial" and thus rejected from both communities. It's a very real issue that bafflingly still exists, despite this book being set 4+ decades in the past.

Dislikes:

The POV character, the one interviewing Evelyn, is named Monique is unfortunately both unlikeable *and* uninteresting. Or rather, her actions and reactions just feel inconsistent and irrational. Not to mention, in the first few chapters she makes a comment that she's lost a noticable amount of weight as a result of depression around her separation from her husband. She then frames it as a good thing because 'at least shes skinny and hot now' (not a direct quote, paraphrasing). And this is during the modern day portion of the novel, not the 60s/70s/80s. Call me crazy, but I don't think losing a substantial amount of weight due to depression is not a good thing.

And I'm sorry the last like 10% of the book is just horribly uninteresting.

When your book has a larger than life character such as Evelyn Hugo (who the book is named after and takes up 90% of the plot), it feels weird to have the "twist" of the book be about Monique. And her subsequent reaction to the reveal of the twist feels very blown out of proportion. Like on a logical level, I totally get why she is upset, but to have such an intense reaction? It just feels weird.

Again, I think this is because Monique is very much not the focus of the book and thus we did not spend enough time with her to understand how big of a deal this was.

I've seen very mixed reviews for this book online and after reading that ending, I totally get why. I still really enjoyed my time with this book but I know it is common for a lackluster ending to ruin a book for some people.

Rating Breakdown

Characters: 9

Atmosphere: 8

Writing: 8

Plot: 8

Intrigue:9

Logic: 8

Enjoyment: 8

Dialogue:7

Total: 8.1/10 or 4.1 Stars

[dc789]

So I have this idea to combine and two different type of series that I have watch liked and enjoy



hazbin hotel and Wakfu

This idea randomly came to my head so I don’t know if I got all the details in, but I think I’m getting some details in

1. First of all Adam and Valentino, Vox, velvet will take the place of - nox 

Valentino: Alister and Vox will be considered a childhood friend turn into enemies while Adam he does not know them. He is filling his own plan of slaughter

Velvet will join Valentino inbox after other AL leave and pursue his own paths  

Vox: is doing this because of two reasons one you want to see his father again because his father was night swim and he said he died during Vox experiments he does not want to bring his mom back to life however she was considered mean to him two to gain power and to basically rule the world

Valentino: is doing this because he wants power respect to be the Lord of lust all over the world all over the world and to set up his own kingdom, which he will be the king of the world and maybe the universe but for now the world sounds good

Velvet: want to be the most famous person all over the universe everybody will whisper her name all over it

Alistair: craves power as well he want to escape his imprisonment and slavery to his master he will slowly start to care for his teammates and will consider it on fully joined. I’m completely in the near future so basically very little from his canon counterpart will change that’s with some detail here or there

Adam: will be part of a tribe known as, cilegna lehc

They are 6 leaders in this tribe:

The first two Adam and loot represents strength and willingness

The other two Emily and Sarah represent emotion and the minds

And finally able, and the mysterious one will represent determination and forgiveness

This try believe it is their holy trial to conquer improve and make the world of wonder come true they believe this to be their destiny, and they will happily destroy any increaser species or race that gets in their way a progress or if they see them as dangerous not all members of the tribe believe in this, however, and even one particular member make it vocal…

2. I can’t properly say this character‘s name since I’m kind of using a voice to text audio so I’m just gonna call this one from Wakfu The brown dark dragon when he was carrying him the little one was I also can’t say the name of properly this will be replaced to well. Lucifer carrying his daughter somewhere safe

Charlie would take the place of Hugo her two dragon like servants will also take the place of Hugo‘s brother Charlie eventually learned that the man that has been raising her wasn’t her actual dad she was slightly adopted Charlie work at a hotel café for a couple of years before finding out She have all the same ability as her canon counterpart, as well as Hugo abilities,

In this world, vaggy is a sort of princess you know that plant kingdom in the soul, but I can’t remember the name of and I’m talking about in Wakfu yeah that one and as well she’s also half cilegna lehc

Nifty was slightly have the same role as Dolly by the way, if you were wondering, yes in this AU nifty is bisexual there you go 

—- That will be all for now. I hope you liked the idea. 



[otnesse]

Yeah, no kidding. I had to suffer through that quite a few times on Tropedia, then All the Tropes, with a particular mod named DocColress being the absolute worst of them (even called me a radical right-winger when I while trying to tell him to add Maleficent to the Complete Monster list and also implied God if anything would have been more enraged with Hugo being in love with a male goat in THOND than with Frollo's actions right before banning me. Oh, and the first time he banned me he outright assaulted my talk page as well.). I think he's now known as TruthGuard.

Being a Christian in fandom spaces is just continuously rolling your eyes after seeing a community that has consistently hated on you being praised for how 'accepting and welcoming' they are.