#i mean technically there is an underlying theme

[faderiftss]

OG one is from july 2023… did pretty ok based on that one trailer. I'm surprised that it didn't have as much of blue team/meta focus as I was expecting tho lol

my quick preliminary rvb19 bingo.... we got a mix of predictions and hopes

[huginsmemory]

TBOB and Fiddleford's Queerness

Fiddleford, I think without a doubt, TBOB enshrines as a character that's bisexual/pan or gay. Below, I'll get into his queerness by looking at a pivotal part of his character; his fear, and his choice to remain in Gravity Falls. (This was originally gonna be a part of my WIP aroace monsterfucker Ford analysis... that didn't fit.)

Do note I discuss some heavy themes, and it is not a particularly fluffy look at Fiddleford.

Previous to TBOB, the subtext reads pretty queer as well, as in the show and J3 Fiddleford leaves his wife and son to work with Ford, and notably, chooses to continue to work with Ford over what is likely about a six month period. This is notable because Fiddleford clearly has an immense amount of fear around gravity falls and the creatures that inhabit gravity falls; this culminates to the point he makes the memory gun so he can even live within Gravity Falls after the gremloblin experience, which is likely within the first month or two of staying. (Okay so technically, there's conflicting stories canonically about the memory gun; one softly implied in the show and in the commentaries, that after he goes through the portal he makes and begins using the memory gun, and in J3 which explicitly says he makes it after being scared by the gremloblin, so was using it while working with Ford, which is what is most written about canonically in J3 and TBOB. We are going with the latter). Now, fhis isn't a run of the mill anxiety, this is a deep fear that normally people would be like, fuck no, and leave. It's a fear that's so great Fiddleford feels he needs to literally erase it from his memory. And yeah part of it is that the gremloblin makes you see your greatest fear... but Fiddleford before this is already afraid, he was afraid of the gremloblin before he even looked into it's eyes, he doesn’t trust the shapeshifter (for good reason), he pulls out his hair when Ford tells him about the alien ship (excitement or nerves or a bit of both?), and he’s shown to be much more aware of the dangers of what's out there and what can go wrong then Ford can, as displayed with the portal. Overall Fiddleford seems to be a bit of an anxious individual, which makes sense as functions as a character that is a juxtaposition to Ford to be able to ground the danger of what some of Ford is up to. So part of Fiddleford is this strong–and very strong as evidence by him making the memory gun–fear of gravity falls; and as a result, very reasonably, he could have told Ford no, I'm not staying, packed his bags and left to return to his family… but he doesn't do that. This means that there's an emotional lynchpin that is so valuable and means so much to Fiddleford within Gravity Falls that he chooses to stay, against his fear (ultimately via the use of the memory gun). 

So what is F’s emotional lynchpin to stay in Gravity falls? It's certainly not scientific renown the same way it is for Ford, as Fiddleford isn't even considered a partner by Ford, but an assistant ("I'd just be happy to hold your nobel prize, that's all I need"); he’s not promised the same amount of scientific renown that Ford expects. One could suggest that he’s still there because he promised (we didn't see a promise on-screen) that he’d help Ford and feels bad if he left without finishing helping Ford… which Fiddleford would, but then why would someone who is that afraid, stay because of obligation? Also, obligation is a result of underlying emotions, usually either feelings of owing a person something, or deep care for that person. Fiddleford does have a gratefulness to Ford for their college days, but I wouldn’t say he feels that he owes Ford, or that he feels intensely obligated to Ford. I would argue feelings of ‘obligation’ alone is not a strong enough emotion to keep Fiddleford to stay in gravity falls… not to mention, he even has a very good reason to leave as he has his family. Fiddleford's staying in Gravity Falls is very much not for scientific renown, or even a loose sense of obligation; it's something else, and that thing without a doubt is specifically his relationship with Ford.

Fiddleford's strong desire to remain in Gravity Falls so he can continue to be in contact with Ford can be very easily understood through the lense of sexual and romantic attraction; that's not to say it's only construed as that, but the subtext overwhelmingly suggests that it is. After all, it's implied in Fiddleford staying with Ford, that he prioritizes Ford over his family, over his wife and his kid. Which is a prioritization he shouldn't have! He’s married, made an promise to his wife, and he has a kid, who depends on him. When push comes to shove, he should choose them, not choose to stay with a college buddy of his in Gravity Falls, a town he’s deeply afraid about to the point he make a memory gun to erase these memories! But he doesn’t. We also know in J3 and the show that by the time Dipper and Mabel are in GF, Fiddlefords relationship with his family is strained (to put it lightly); he’s divorced from his wife who we never see, and is estranged emotionally from his son. This is presumably because of the memory gun and Fiddleford losing his sanity after he goes to gravity falls, but we are never really given a timeline or exact reason why his estrangement happens… Now, why this has sexual undertones is Fiddleford's implied prioritization of Ford (a man) over his wife–someone he's supposed to be sexually attracted too–and his kid–who he is supposed to support–who he both neglects, is a dynamic that is strongly reminiscent of men who have an affair with someone they find sexually attractive, and then neglect their families to remain with and prioritize the person they were having an affair with. This is especially reminiscent here of gay men who've married and had children out of comphet, who ultimately leave their family/wife in pursuit of people they truly are attracted to; something especially seen in people from strongly (American) Christian families due to homophobia being rampant within Christianity. Something that Fiddleford, being from a poor farm in Tennessee and suggested to have married early in his twenties and already has a kid (not a baby) around his 30’s (if he's the same age as Ford) is coded to be. This provides strong subtext around Fiddlefords choices that make sense within a sexual attraction context! 

Fiddleford's framed photo of Emma-may and Tate on his desk at the shack from J3

As well, there are more negative aspects of Fiddleford’s choice to remain that can also be perceived from an sexual attraction point of view (note: this isn’t me arguing that aspects of fiddauthor are toxic so you shouldn’t like it, this is just me reiterating canonical points and subtext, which others have also delved into). As F's arc surrounding the memory gun is reminiscent of struggles with addiction and substance abuse, the memory guns' repeated unconsented use on Ford to erase his memories, especially those of Ford disagreeing with F, is reminiscent of unconsented drug use. Generally, unconsented memory-altering drug use is used for sexual abuse, in which the abuser is sexually interested in the victim who doesn't consent. Although there is strong subtext for F’s sexual attraction to Ford, I do want to say SA is not something that's ever implied (I mean, we really don't get a lot of information and context around all of it). Yet, unconsented drug use and the memory gun do have similar overarching mechanisms which is interesting to get into, as it emphasizes the abusers emotions towards the others. This can be seen as the abuser disregards the victim’s boundaries for something the abuser wants, but without repercussion by erasing the memory; thus, the conflict and loss of trust that arises from the victims' boundaries being violated is ‘avoided’. The abuser does this because they strongly desire this outcome, and excuse their action through dehumanization of the other, believe their desires are more important than others autonomy/is a ‘need’, or even believe they know better than the other.

And this is seen in the case with Fiddleford, who chooses to erase Ford’s memory of them fighting over the gun after Ford asks him to destroy it. This circumvents their conflict over the gun which allows F to stay in GF with Ford, by having access to the gun whenever he feels he needs to, and because Fiddleford doesn't lose Ford's trust like he would if he was aware of the gun being used on him. This especially so as both things that would result in Fiddleford being unable/unlikely to be able to stay with/continue his relationship (in whatever form it is) with Ford as previously. This F presumably excuses the use of the gun because he ‘knows better’ than Ford as ‘it’s actually a tool that helps’ (such as he does with the townsfolk in the cult), and that he ‘needs’ the machine to stay in Gravity falls, to remain by Ford. The gun is also then repeatedly used during their disagreements, such as Fiddleford hiring outside workers to work on the portal and bunker against Ford’s wishes. This repeated use of the gun is used again to remain in close relationship to Ford, by erasing those conflicts while Fiddleford also getting what he desires/thinks best. This also displays that Fiddleford doesn't just prioritize Ford over his family, but he also in choosing to stay he continues to choose to harm Ford each time he erases Ford’s memory, against Ford's explicit wishes. To hurt another person (who you consider a person and respect) and deliberately ignore their own desires and boundaries in favour for your own desire, is not something that is usually made lightly, especially from a character who is shown to generally be kind (such as Fiddleford’s original desire to return to Palo Alto and make machines that help people). It's a choice that for Fiddleford came out of a deep fear but what must also be an equally deep desire to remain close to Ford. Afterall, he could just have used it once in Ford, and then left to return home with the gun, but he doesn't. With these similarities of the memory gun use to the use of non-consensual memory altering drugs, even if SA is not implied, provides a sexual/romantic attraction subtext to Fiddlefords feelings towards Ford, and also continues to display the strength of Fiddlefords desire to remain with Ford.

As well, in the J3 blacklight version, Ford also remembers that he's also seen Fiddleford before after their schism, hiding behind objects and following him in a red robe; ie, stalking him. Stalking is often another negative behavior that is connected to someone who is unhealthily obsessed with someone often due to sexual attraction; and usually someone who isn't interested in them, or is no longer interested in their previous relationship. Certainly part of this is because of the danger of the portal which is why he follows Ford, but that doesn't negate this underlying subtext of stalking. Overall, although these are abusive and unhealthy dynamics, this provides further subtext that Fiddleford likely experiences sexual/romantic attraction to Ford. 

Blacklight journal pages on the memory gun; Ford realizing Fiddleford used the gun on him and didn't destroy it, has been since using it, and has been stalking him.

Now, although there's already lots of queer subtext just from F’s interactions with Ford, a particularly damning fact comes out about F’s priorities in TBOB. Previously, it was implied just by Fiddleford remaining that he prioritizes Ford over his family, but in TBOB it's explicitly displayed that he does prioritize Ford over his family, and specifically, his wife and not just by remaining. This can be seen in the Christmas incident, in which Fiddleford forgets to get gifts for Emma-may; in comparison, he not just buys, but handmakes Ford two gifts (not to mention the way he gets Ford already previously an axolotl). This we learn about because F returns early from visiting his family, after having such a bad argument with Emma-may that F leaves. Through this we also get to know that Fiddleford’s already struggling with his wife at the least by Christmas; about six months after he came to gravity falls and about four months into using the memory gun. This is contrary to what might be construed as Fiddleford having marital issues because of specifically the memory gun and Fiddleford mental deterioration; I would say it would play a role, but not a big one in this instance. This is because Fiddleford at this point as we know from Ford's journal seems pretty lucid; he sits him down and proposes the alternate publication of Ford work, he's still working with Ford on the portal, and he saves Ford from being eaten from Krampus. His mental state has not deteriorated to the point that it is in the beginning of the show, or even halfway there to it by this point, nor would you usually kick out your partner if you saw them in that sort of state. (Technically if we go by the video, around 74 days F does look more distressed, but thats part of the soft implied Fiddleford using it after the portal, not during his work with Ford). Overall, this suggests it's not the memory guns destabilization of Fiddleford’s mental state that causes the rift with his wife/family. Certainly, remembering gifts is, well, directly connected to memory issues, but F got Ford gifts. It’s also canon that he keeps a photo of his family on his desk… so how much can you claim it is forgetfulness, not Fiddleford prioritizing Ford? And F having made these gifts, spent time and effort on them, possibly even at his desk. And a big part of F being kicked out means that it’s also clear to Emma-may that F’s priority is not her, it's not them together as a family. This is a tension that would certainly come up if someone is away working so long, and is compounded by F forgetting gifts or other things F may have forgotten. Afterall F feeling like he can’t remain/him being kicked out isn’t a light thing; it suggests this tension has been cumulating for a while, and likely F not bringing a gift was the last straw that proved that F wasn’t prioritizing his family to Emma-may, and she had enough. Whether she just thinks it's his work that keeps him away, or if she thinks he’s having an affair with Ford, we don't know. We don’t know if Emma-may knew about F’s presents for Ford, which is damning in his prioritization. But what we do know and can take out of this is that Fiddleford failure of being a family man is then also directly a result of his prioritization of his relationship with Ford. Something that previously was ambiguous, and suggested to be more related to his deteriorated mental state… and very clearly then matches the narrative of an ‘affair’, with Ford standing in as the other women. This especially so as it's specifically that he forgot a gift for Emma-may-not his son, or both of them. Instead it's just his wife, who he supposedly is in love with, and he is sexually and romantically attracted too. But he doesn't get her a gift at all. Instead Ford does, and even gets two gifts... directly comparing Ford to Emma-may. This direct comparison of their importance to Fiddleford, is evidence that instead Ford is the one he is in love with and is sexually and romantically attracted too.

TBOB pages on Fiddlefords gifts to Ford at Christmas and Fiddleford returning early after getting into an argument with Emma-may after forgetting to get her a gift.

It's just like…over and over again the context reiterates that Fiddleford remaining in GF doesn't make sense unless it hinges on him having very strong emotions for and a desire to remain with Ford, that it usurps his deep fear AND his family--especially his wife's--existence. Regarding his family, it’s clear Fiddleford’s prioritization of Ford causes a rift in his relationship with his family, and specifically his wife, which screams an affair, even if that word is never said (do I think an actual affair was happening? Short answer: no, looking at Ford’s priorities). And Fiddleford's continual choices around his fear, of making the memory gun, staying in gravity falls, choosing to ignore Ford’s explicit wish to destroy the gun and using it on him, as well as stalking Ford, all culminates into a strong subtext of sexual attraction. And the thing is, Alex Hirsch is aware of and knows that Fiddauthor is a ship; he’s said he can understand how people ship it, even if he did say he didn’t create them that way (hanahyperfixates mentions it in their queer video in gravity falls, not gonna dig it out rn). Considering that it's been ten years or so since the show started and queer rights have been greatly increased over the years, and all the Billford stuff that came out in TBOB, I really wouldn’t be surprised if he wrote this part with this understanding of Fiddleford being attracted to Ford in mind. Originally he didn’t write Sheriff Blubs and Durland that way either, but changed it when he saw it fit the story... Much like it does here. Afterall, it’s really the best explanation that easily fulfills the requirements for why Fiddleford would remain within Gravity Falls.

[anthurak]

So I watched the new Death Battle earlier today, and speaking as someone only BARELY familiar with/interested/invested in either Sonic OR Mario, I actually found myself vibing more with Team Eggman over Team Bowser and was even rooting more for them by the end for some reasons I find rather interesting.

Mostly because I feel like Team Eggman had a more interesting and varied team composition and dynamic throughout the fight. Namely in that they get more shared and balanced focus and attention.

You see, for basically the entire fight, Bowser is very much the center of attention for his team. He’s the lynchpin, the keystone. He’s both the leader AND by far the heaviest hitter of his team, with everyone else mostly just working to support him. And because of that he gets most of the cool moments of his side.

Meanwhile, Team Eggman is nowhere near as focused on one guy. Eggman is the leader, yet Metal Sonic is the heaviest hitter, and even he isn’t so much so compared to Sage, Nemesis and Eggman himself. And because of that, I feel like they all get a broader spread of attention and cool moments in the fight.

Like some might say that Bowser always fighting front and center of his army might make him the ‘better’ or ‘more-noble’ leader/dad compared to Eggman spending more of the fighting hanging back and having his decoys, minions and kids do much of the heavy lifting, but personally I feel like that makes Team Eggman more interesting?

Like I think it’s pretty interesting that while Eggman is the leader, he isn’t the heaviest hitter of his team. He may not even be the real keystone of his team (more on that later…). And again, this leads to broader spread of attention and cool moments. Like how the fight starts with Eggman fighting Bowser through a decoy, and through the rest of the fight, Bowser is having to fight Infinite, Metal Sonic and even Sage just as much if not moreso than Eggman directly.

It feels like Team Bowser very much a case of ‘the Main Character does everything’, while Team Eggman is very much a subversion of that trope. Some might say Eggman is making his kids do most of the work, well I say he’s giving them time to shine. Like how the climax of the fight very much feels more like a 3v1 battle of Eggman, Metal Sonic and Shade versus Bowser, rather than a 1v1 or 3v3.

Again, I feel like that gives Team Eggman the more interesting dynamic throughout the fight. I mean remember what I said about Eggman not necessarily being the real keystone of his team? Well I imagine (coming from someone with admittedly not much familiarity with the source material) that Team Eggman COULD very much continue the fight without him if necessary, whereas the same very much could NOT be said for Team Bowser.

Like imagine an alternate narrative of the fight where Bowser Jr gets killed in the crossfire, which sends Bowser flying into the expected rage and killing Eggman to avenge his son…

…only for Sage, Metal and Infinite to take down Bowser to avenge their father. Which technically would still be a posthumous win for Eggman.

Obviously I’m not saying that’s how the fight should have gone, I’m not nearly that petty/headcanon fixated. I just think it’s a fun idea to imagine.

Particularly as I feel like ‘cooperative revenge’ is a quite underused trope XD

Also, given the episodes underlying theme of parents and children, I think there is something interesting to be said of how Bowser's kids are very much stuck within the shadow of their father, while Eggman's children can, and in some respects arguably have, surpassed their father.

[baphometsss]

I can't say that this is a Dragon Age specific rant because it's something that bothers me about writing in North American media in general, but Dragon Age is guilty of it as well, especially the Veilguard. Before I get into this though, I want to be clear that this isn't anything to do with the game being ~woke~ or whatever, it's more about the underlying issues of the writing in general

It really grates on me when these characters constantly drill home this idea of "we're a ~team~" or "this is a ~family~" etc. For one thing, it's unbearably corny. I get that having value systems for your characters is important but there's something about these buzzwords that irritates the hell out of me. It's very Disney. Atp I'm used to letting it go over my head because it is quite literally everywhere in North American writing, to the point that you just have to let it go at a certain point if you're going to engage in English language media.

It feels so... contrived? I mean it's fiction so technically it's all contrived, but it just goes overboard so much with the virtue signalling that it feels like it breaks the fourth wall. It's unnatural. Nobody really says that stuff in normal conversation unless they're trying to sound like a motivational speaker. (I mean, maybe they do in North America ig, but they don't here.) I felt like I was playing corporate buzzword bingo with the dialogue half the time

This goes hand in hand with the overuse of therapy speak in media. I write a webcomic and a few years ago I got very into reading other webcomics/indie comics, one of which was Heartstopper because everyone was raving about that one post-Covid. To be fair, it is meant for teenagers so I am obviously not the target audience, but that comic and the Netflix show seriously have some of the clumsiest dialogue I've ever seen. It's full of shit teenagers just wouldn't say. Idk if I would say it's all therapy speak as such but it is still incredibly awkward and twee. It's very obvious that it's an adult writing what she thinks a teenager would say as opposed to what they would actually say.

Very few webcomics are even read by more than a handful of people, and a lot of them are just shounen-inspired slop pumped out by studios to make a quick buck through advertising. Getting one published by a mainstream house is rare, and having one adapted for screen is unheard of. A lot of the success of Heartstopper was built on the fact that Oseman was already a well-established YA author--she got her first novel published when she was 17. Yet the quality of Heartstopper pales in comparison to some of the other indie comics I've read over the years.

To be totally fair, I haven't read anything else in the Osemanverse bc it's not my thing, so it might just be this one title that's like this. But I remember thinking at the time that it's a good example of not having a strong enough voice for your characters, and a writer who is so afraid of being wrong that they write something which feels inorganic and clumsy. In my own writing, I try to basically live in my characters' heads and embrace all their flaws--this is much easier to do with original characters, which is why I think original content is important to pursue. It gives you free reign to decide what is 'in character' instead of worrying about a fandom's subjective interpretation of an established one. There's also a lot to be said about the influence of genre and audience; my comic is very adult and deals with themes of abuse, incest, murder, drug use, cults, etc. My characters are hardly going to sit in a circle and discuss their feelings, but I digress.

Much of this problem could be remedied by not prioritising virtue signalling over framing, and daring to ask questions of your reader while resisting the temptation to give them the answer right away. I use a lot of technical terminology and so on when I'm writing meta, but that's because it's meta, not prose; I'm coming at it from an analytical point of view. For prose, I try to avoid that; I want to write characters that feel organic and complex, and that means you have to be bold enough to pointedly avoid virtue signalling at the risk of making it feel contrived. Otherwise you fall into this absolutist dichotomy of good/evil and the conflicts become more oversimplified. This isn't good when weaving together various story threads because it means there are less places for those connections to be formed. It's also problematic because it can become inaccessible to anyone other than those who are already in your corner, already having the same conversations. And if you're writing with some kind of moral message you want to get across, the most important people you want to engage with are the ones who are not already on board with your message, with people who disagree with you or who are unsure of their position. Unfortunately, many writers don't want to compromise, are too comfortable in their echo chambers and/or don't want to reflect on their own shortcomings and biases, so they sacrifice doing the one thing that might actually get the message across to the right people.

Veilguard is definitely guilty of all of this and I don't doubt for a minute that it's because this is the same dev team who couldn't or wouldn't take any criticism when they were called out for racism on Twitter. Gaider has also said some shitty things and I don't agree with all he says, but I have to concede that he is a damn good writer. He's one of the few video game writers out there with the artistry needed to weave themes through the narrative with the finesse it requires, a finesse that is sorely lacking in Veilguard. It feels very first draft-y, as others have said--which is unforgivable when you consider how long this game was in development for. DA2 was also very first-draft-y, but that game was made in like 15 months and it still has better writing.

Dragon Age is a story where there is a lot of found family tropeyness present in all the games, but I don't think any of them pushed it as crudely as this game did. If anything, the previous games push back on this trope by exploring how shittily people from such wildly different backgrounds would actually behave towards each other in their situations. Despite growing to trust each other over time, things are not all resolved neatly and tied up with a little bow like Davrin and Lucanis's brief squabble was. By Veilguard, some of the former companions still hate each other. In DAO and DA2 you can outright kill companions. Sera even demands that they kill Solas for what he did to Varric if she's romanced, which is not something I think they'd be brave enough to do with the Veilguard companions--aside from letting them die for narrative reasons or by the player not collecting enough coins or whatever. DAI also poses some big questions about the forced conformity that characterises organised religion. Yet because Veilguard is used as a vehicle for this Disney MCU-ified virtue signalling, all that complexity is lost and we get hit over the head with tropes like a blunt object instead.

It's immersion breaking, which for an RPG, might as well be a death sentence.

The worst part is that I see it in fanworks more and more too these days. I have noticed in various fandoms that people don't really write for themselves as much as they should. It feels performative, like they're not really writing because they feel passionate about the story, but because they get into these little cliques and want to get kudos and comments more than they want to create something that's honestly from the heart. There's also an increasing amount of AI slop out there too, for which there's no process at all. It's a dopamine addiction thing. I've always loved the process more than the outcome. I feel bereft when I'm finished with something and can't wait to get my teeth into something new. What is lost with AI is also lost when you don't write authentically, bc it's not coming from your creative core, it's coming from your need for validation

A lot of fan creators unfortunately fall into the trap that corporations force video game studios into. It's sad because no fan creator is beholden to this aggressive marketing strategy, and yet they commit themselves to it anyway: make something that sells big whatever the cost, even if that cost is the heart of what made you love making it, or what made people fall in love with the franchise in the first place.

[commsroom]

What is it you love so much about Eiffel? Asking as a fellow Eiffel Lover, I'm just interested in your response!

i've been holding onto this one for a while, in part because i know there's no complete answer to this and i could probably just talk forever, but it's almost his birthday, so... in the spirit of dougmas:

what i love about eiffel as a character is that he feels like a real person. he's full of these very human contradictions: he's a coward, he can be exceptionally brave, he's considerate and thoughtful, he's got his head up his ass, he's a mediator by nature, he's frustratingly stubborn and will dig his heels in about the pettiest things, he's very technically capable, he's a master of weaponized incompetence. he's stupid in ways only a very smart person can be, and has a certain kind of self-hating self-centeredness. he has very firmly held morals and wants to do right by people, and he struggles to reconcile those beliefs with the unforgivable things he's nonetheless done; he has very real and serious flaws that the narrative doesn't flinch away from, but neither exonerates nor condemns him for. he's so entangled with the heart of the show, its themes and relationships, that you couldn't have wolf 359 without doug eiffel, and - as a friend of mine once said - if you put eiffel in any other show, he'd turn it into something resembling wolf 359 as well. and as gabriel urbina said about pan-pan: "he's the communications officer; without him, they stop communicating." he's a compassionate portrayal of an addict, and a very real and nuanced example of a kind-hearted man who's still used to thinking of himself as the "default" kind of person, and is still learning how to deconstruct the biases that come with that.

what i love about eiffel as a person is that he's someone i'd want in my life. he's a very sincere and emotionally honest person; he doesn't have hidden agendas, and you know exactly where you stand with him. he hates authority, he hates work, and he won't suck up or pretend otherwise - in fact, he'll create more work for himself if it means he can avoid doing his job, on principle. if he has a grievance about something, oh, you'll know. at the same time, he has this infectious enthusiasm about the things he loves, and the things that excite him, and he's a geeky guy into primarily 80s/90s nostalgic media who doesn't feel the need to gatekeep. i love his voice, i love how expressive he is, i love how you can hear the same mannerisms you can see in the live show just in the very open-body-language way he emotes. he has a very distinct former class clown type of energy, and i think that goes hand in hand with an underlying loneliness. he can be pretty clueless, he speaks before he thinks and has chronic foot-in-mouth disease, but… doug eiffel is the kind of person who would notice if someone was standing alone in the corner at a party, and would go out of his way to make them feel included. he's good at getting people to open up, even if it's in spite of themselves, even if it's while they're rolling their eyes at him. he's a staunch pacifist who - even when things piss him off - doesn't react to conflict with violence or threats of violence, and he can't stand to have things stay bottled up: if there's one thing eiffel wants everyone to do, it's talk about it. whatever it is. he has a good balance of traits that make him feel genuine and warm without coming across preachy or suspiciously softened; he's also very much still a gross dirtbag with a lot of annoying flaws typical of some average guy, and that's a huge part of his appeal to me. he's good with his hands. he likes building stuff and taking things apart. he's rough around the edges in ways that reflect his life experience, and he's just… a guy who has lived a life, who has a lot of life experience, but hasn't made a lot of true friends in the process. he's gotten used to being lonely, and gotten used to telling himself he's fine with it, and something in me really aches for that.

his birthday is a good - and timely - example: he's a man in his 30s still holding onto childhood hurt, having his birthday forgotten and overshadowed by christmas. i'm also a christmas hater, so it's nice to have something else to celebrate and prioritize, and i like imagining his disgust at all of the unavoidable holiday trappings; it makes me feel less alone. i wouldn't say i relate to eiffel, more that i feel we have compatible issues, and it's not a secret that he's the type of guy i find attractive. he feels like a real person that i already know and love, and at the same time he's representative of the kind of person i'd like to know, like his life would fit comfortably into mine.

[lippmannssplatteredblood]

Was it ever confirmed Lippmann was based on Walter Lippmann?

No.

But wait, there's enough evidence! (Ty anon im using this ask as an excuse to ramble and getting these off my chest)

As we all already know, most of the characters in BSD, especially ability users, are based on real life authors. Stormbringer explicitly stated that bsd!Lippmann was "an extremely powerful skill user" so he must be based on someone. And guess what? There happens to be a writer with the exact name as his.

Walter Lippmann was an American journalist, politician, and writer. He was deemed as "the most gifted and influential American political journalist of the twentieth century". His works mostly took the theme of public relations and stuff. Sounds familiar?

I'd like to add this part from the etymology section of his(bsd) wiki btw, just in case you didn't know.

Does it end there? No, not quite.

Let's take a look at his most popular work; Public Opinion.

"...The pictures inside the heads of these human beings, the pictures of themselves, of others, of their needs, purposes, and relationship, are their public opinions. Those pictures which are acted upon by groups of people, or by individuals acting in the name of groups, are Public Opinion with capital letters."

"The pictures in our heads", page 29

People, generally, have some sort of "persona" of themselves that they would try to plant on other people's minds. Kinda like the Japanese "three faces" proverb, you may say. And how do they achieve it? By only presenting that persona; by masking; by acting.

"Royal personages are, of course, constructed personalities. Whether they themselves believe in their public character, or whether they merely permit the chamberlain to stage-manage it, there are at least two distinct selves, the public and regal self, the private and human."

"The pictures in our heads", page 7

Simply said, him being an actor might be a reference to (or a representation of) that human nature which P.O. talks of. An actor acts—they dive into the role of another character that's not them. (Which, when you think about it, is just what us humans do on a daily basis, except they do it professionally and for a living, which when you think about it again—)

Mr. Lippmann also published books titled "A Preface to Politics" and "A Preface to Morals" which is....interesting.

Okay, "preface" and "face" technically are different. Though they still share somewhat a similar meaning.

But hear me out. Let's go back to the persona thing. Generally, what people would want to be perceived as is as the perfect, ideal versions of themselves. To make that happen, they would have to put on a good first impression. And what's usually the first thing that people notice about a person? Correct—their appearance; their face.

Lippmann(bsd) was multiple times described as "perfect" (like okay asagiri, he's pretty, we get it), especially regarding his looks (and capabilities). See what I'm saying?

Lippmann was the stage face, the public image of the Port Mafia. He was the preface to the Port Mafia. He created the pictures in people's head of the Port Mafia.

As a verb, however, "face" has another meaning:

He negotiated with front companies, met and talked with political figures, and even dealt with the press if push came to shove.

I feel like this might be merely a coincidence or a pun, though. But the fact that his field of work in the Port Mafia was specifically negotiating with the "real world" is definitely not something Asagiri just pulled out of thin air—or so I believe to be the case, at least, having read this paragraph.

"This is the underlying reason for the existence of the press agent. The enormous discretion as to what facts and what impressions shall be reported is steadily convincing every organized group of people that whether it wishes to secure publicity or to avoid it, the exercise of discretion cannot be left to the reporter. It is safe to hire a press agent who stands between the group and the newspapers. Having hired him, the temptation to exploit his strategic position is very great."

"The nature of news", page 344

Oh, by the way, remember this scene?

It's just a silly, filler interaction that seemed not to reference anything, but just you wait.

"Men cannot long act in a way that they know is a contradiction of the environment as they conceive it. If they are bent on acting in a certain way they have to reconceive the environment, they have to censor out, to rationalize. But if in their presence, there is an insistent fact which is so obstrusive that they cannot explain it away, one of three courses is open. They can perversely ignore it, though they would cripple themselves in the process, will overact their part and come to grief. They can take it into account but refuse to act. They pay in internal discomfort and frustration. Or, and I believe this is to be the most frequent case, they adjust their whole behavior to the large environment."

"Intelligence work", page 383

Then again, these are but my interpretations and/or speculations which I'd like you to take with a grain of salt, as I could very well still be wrong (because Asagiri loves to trick us, apparently).

I could go on and on and on and on and on but I'm afraid I'd just be blabbering nonsense at some point. Thank you for reading my (hopefully coherent) ramblings.

[fountainpenguin]

Riddle watches New Wish - Post #14

Lost and Founder's Day

I do really like how the theme song flows, especially at the end where Cosmo and Wanda jump from their human disguises into fairy form.

Ooh, Founder's Day came back from "A New Dev-elopment." Continuity! I like how the title card shows us the hat that Dev and Hazel saw during their treasure hunt.

I'm gonna throw my money down on the Dimmadomes founding Dimmadelphia (or an ancestor).

skdfj, Hazel's so cute when she steals her teacher's hat.

-> Yes, it was the Dimmadomes.

I like how Dev's shades are still gone, but he's still got that smug tone of voice. But today, he has a good reason to be a bit smug for a festival his family is hosting (that his dad had to work over the weekend to pull together). This is gonna be interesting.

I don't trust any of this tech to be good (in the moral sense). Dale literally tried to promote pollution a few episodes ago.

LKSDJFSD, Dev giving out watches that do a bunch of cool technical things and this is the face he makes when he's asked if the watches tell time:

(They do not).

This is the first time Hazel's shown interest in anything related to Dimmadomes' tech (She has a phone case covering any logo and didn't know how to do the dance they apparently made) and now she's gushing over the gift Dev gave her so I'm... hm. Where ya going with this, Hazel?

Okay, so... what the HECK is going on with Dimmadelphia? I'm sure we'll get to learn the real founder soon, but all I can assume right now is that it was Doug himself, hence the hat logo. If that's true, he was BUSY during the 50 years of frozen time.

-> That WOULD justify my Buxaplenty overlap seeing as the train lines would've been crucial for this.

It's gotta be a different ancestor. There's no way Doug would be in Dimmsdale if he'd founded another city. This city's huge. I'll be watching for any indications of "established X year."

Aww, Hazel adores Dev now and is blatantly gushing over him. That's really cute. Local #1 Dev fan:

[cnt'd under the cut - #long post]

I can't believe we didn't get a "Hazel has a bone in her hair" gag when she got shocked by the tech.

omfg, Dev is so desperate to interact with his dad that he's begging to "organize merchandise by tossing boxes back and forth to each other." He's smart. Goober.

Diagnosed child who would play Catch with active TNT minecarts in Limited Life SMP. He would just do it...

Dale, you shouldn't tell your son to "Eat a lizard." That's mean.

Oh noooo, are we about to get "My dreams were crushed many years ago... How old are you?" version 2.0?

-> Note to self, Dev's birthday is 9 years, 7 months, and 14 days before Founder's Day (give or take since he says "pretty much exactly my birthday to the day, which I think implies he's doing math and decides it's the day).

Dev is 9? Lol. Didn't we already have end of the year tests in like, Episode 2? And our implied end of school year dance? Baby.

-> I double-checked and Sadie Hawkins is in November. There were Sneezy Hawkins Dance posters in Episode 1 when Hazel walked in. Those posters hung in school for multiple episodes (I'll keep my eyes out for them in future episodes), which would imply she started school in September or October (Probably not August since she was specially introduced to the class as a new student).

-> If we keep seeing the posters throughout the whole year, I'm willing to wave them off, but while planning the timeline, it's worth noting they exist, we know we're post-2019, but probably not too many years later since that was the most recent date on the gym's championship banner for a school that clearly wins sports games often ("Fearless"), and we've seen multiple waning crescent moons.

-> No snow, but not unreasonable since Dimmsdale was in California.

... I gotta say, I'm really enjoying these recent episodes, but D: Where was this early in the series when I was confused in Post #10 as to where all the underlying trauma vibes were?

We've absolutely shifted vibes from where we were when I wrote that post. Which is fantastic, but I'm surprised we didn't get this earlier. THIS is FOP vibes. THIS is what I wanted and why I was super confused by this show's tone earlier. Yeah, of course I like Dev now... He's shifting the tone back to the OG show's vibes.

I'm wary, but I've approached to eat out of the hand.

Oh no, we scene shifted before Dale could reveal the statue under the cloth. Either he's broken and we're going to see the aftereffects (following Hazel's POV where she's confused as to why he's gone off the rails and turned snappy) or he's gonna find out during the event and he'll break down in front of the crowd. Uh-oh...

...... Okay, now they're just taunting me with the moon. It can't always be a waning crescent!!

The stage looks like Doug Dimmadome.

Please tell me Dale didn't forget to add Dev's info to the ID-scanning robot.

Every time Angela is onscreen she has a new therapy book and I support her.

Wanda: Parenting never gets easier.

-> Please tell me Hazel's parents are about to ask about that and they're going to have to either backpedal or they're going to imply they've raised like 100 kids.

sdlkfj, they only cite Poof. BRUTAL.

-> Cosmo one again giving me "First fairy baby born in 1000 years." Yeah yeah, Westley Periwinkle held the title first, we all know him (/fanfic joke).

Seriously though, it's very funny to me that Poof is never, ever referred to as "first baby born after Cosmo" or "first baby born in tens of thousands of years, or hundreds of thousands." Only first in hundreds OR first in thousands. I can't believe that DANG KID is still haunting me in the new show.

-> Cosmo still confirmed to have been the pregnant parent. I'm glad that wasn't retconned (despite Cosmo's best efforts to scramble and cover up what he said by claiming Wanda was the pregnant one).

Cracking up. Cosmo, I think the neighbors think you're trans but not out about it.

Angela: Where's your son now? :) Wanda: Eh, we don't know. I mean, we forget because we were on vacation for 10k years.

Wanda, WHAT did I say in Post 11 about how you cannot leave that clingy child alone immediately after tearing him away from Timmy?? If Poof shows up and he has abandonment issues and/or clingy vibes, I'm gonna shake you both so hard.

-> Why is Marcus not calling them out for being paranormal creatures? ... That's kind of funny since Crocker would've lost his mind.

I like how Cosmo and Wanda turned their wands into lollipops for the carnival. That's cute.

Uh-oh, the statue's not been revealed yet. I hope Dev isn't onstage when this happens. (I want him to be onstage and suffer).

-> I should note that "Stanky Danky" and "Lost and Founder" are the episodes Dale lists the companies he's in charge of, and I'm pretty sure they're different. I want to make a coherent list throughout the series.

Marcus is reading his wife's book at the party, aww. They're so cute.

OH MY GOSH, their ancestor IS surnamed Dimm! I am once again thinking this implies Dale Dimm from "Which Witch Is Which?" - who founded Dimmsdale - is probably also in this family tree.

Wanda's glowing wand is adorable. They're both cute.

So, Hazel has been here long enough she agrees she hasn't "just" moved here anymore, so I'll allow the waning crescents.

Doug Dimmadome struck gold in 1953? I'll be making a note of that. I know that's after both Dimmsdale and Dimmsdale Flats were founded. This doesn't do much for me right now, but it's good to note.

-> This implies he was a teen or adult in 1953, so he's definitely not close to the age of Timmy's parents, who were 10 in the '70s. This checks out; he's got the white hair.

-> Let's say this is 2020 for the purpose of "We know we're after 2019." (2020 - 1953) is 67, and the youngest I'd be okay letting him strike gold is 10, since 10-year-olds do a lot in this show. So, he's at minimum 77 years old during this show, and could very easily be 87 or more years older (87 if he struck gold at 20), if I'm doing my math right.

And again, that's off the assumption it's 2020, which is a little earlier than I'd been brainstorming. I'm okay with this since he had white hair in the OG series, but I'm gonna have to plot out a timeline for Dale's age at some point.

Dale: /evil monologues about his plan to monitor kids' heartrates to figure out exactly what a child want. Me: Dale, have you tried... talking to a kid? Maybe YOUR kid? Standing behind you? Dev, clearly uneasy: Dad, that's so great! You get to help kids right away!! Dale: ... Help kids?

^ Me

Wait, so the drones can waste products and not get yelled at? Dale, maybe you should focus your attention in that area of your business- I think you're losing product.

Why do the drones sound so sad? They're talking like all their friends just ditched them. They're so cute.

I love how he's still wearing the big boots:

Oh no, Dev's on stage and Dale's talking about how the statue "isn't just him" under the tarp and "he can remember when this bundle of joy arrived." Yeah, Dev's about to shatter.

Okay, Wanda's clearly startled that the statue doesn't depict Dev and even Cosmo's starting to sense that something's going on in that family. You two are going to report this, right?

Aww, Cosmo misses his son.

The contrast of Dev crashing and burning while Hazel is enjoying her new hat is very funny to me. Like, we get this sequence of how happy she is and you just know Dev's having the worst day.

Dev: It's Hazel! Of course... Her well-known love of hats! /said not long after Wanda was like "Hazel, I've literally never seen you wear a hat before yesterday, what do you mean you like hats?

That's actually very funny. And cute? When did Hazel and Dev talk about liking hats? Logically, that must've been while they were montaging on the treasure hunt and posing next to those hat-shaped objects for photos.

With Dev talking about the Dimmadomes running a family business, I'd really like to see what Dev's relationship with his grandfather is. Doug was also careless about destroying childhood memories and I don't trust him to be a good dad either, but I'm curious.

-> I actually have no proof Doug Dimmadome is still alive. I wonder if he's out of the picture and if that had a negative effect on Dale, which may be why he's throwing everything into the business right now, and why he loves his boots.

-> I should check if those boots are similar to his dad's. Like, what if he saw his dad die on the day Dev was born and the boots were left to him, so that's why the boots are so important to him that he dedicated a statue to them?

POV, the dad who (presumably) pampered you for life after you'd spent 7 years of torment underground - and you don't seem to have a mother in your life so this is your only parent and only known connection to a world that isn't full of suffering - is dying on the same day your wife is in labor. What do you do?

Aww, Hazel knows Dev well enough to sense that something's up and ask if he's okay, implying they seem to have grown closer from "A New Dev-elopment" when she saw his father scoff at him and opted to change the subject instead of asking about his feelings. They seem to be doing well as friends and I like that.

-> All these crescent moons make me wonder how long it's been since that episode, though since Dale was working on the Founder's Day event on the weekend, I assume we're still in that range of time.

Dev, holding his arm when Hazel asks if he's okay: I... don't have time to get into it.

They're so cute. I love them.

-> I love the focus on Dev right now, but I hope we don't go full steam ahead into Hazel's friendship with him and she sidelines Jasmine and Winn for her new buddy and/or potential crush.

She hasn't seen her friends this whole carnival, which surprises me. Don't do it, Hazel.

What, where did Dev get those shades. He didn't have those .4 seconds ago.

Dev's going to complete his task and give Hazel's hat back to his dad and still get rejected.

OH NO, Dev is trying to lure the scanner drones away from Hazel, but he didn't tell her that so she thinks he just called her a name, mugged her, and ran off. That's hilarious. #You tried.

Dev, you have to talk to people. You can't just assume she knows what's going on. Fool.

I like how Dale also has special eyewear (VR glasses).

I like how Cosmo inexplicably thinks all the Dimmadomes have "Pickle" as a middle name. I think he said that to Dev in an earlier episode, right?

I like how Hazel saved the day by "doing what Cosmo would do" and pressing all the buttons randomly. That's hilarious.

Barry the dinosaur was at the carnival... That's great.

HAZEL'S MAD!!

As she deserves to be- that's the second time Dev regressed to calling her names. She thought they went through this, but now she's like "He's not changing and also I literally just caught his dad in an evil plot of shocking children's brains with electricity. And Dev seems to have been helping."

Yeah... This is gonna go great. Also, his cute little poses:

Oh thank goodness... We are SO BACK, baby! The fluffy episodes were fine, but NOW we're gettin' somewhere!! Time to break some hearts.

"I would hug you, but I do not have human arms or warmth." I love them.

Aww, he likes her so much. Best buddies...

I didn't know this was his phone, I thought it was a retro video game console.

Oh, it's an iPad parallel. It's got a stand and that's why it's big.

I like how my extremely specific "Ed Leadly as Dev's other grandpa" situation just keeps getting worse the more I think about it.

Little Dev: Grandpa Leadly, I learned to write my name! :) Leadly sitting among his pencils as Dev hands him a tablet he typed on instead of pencil and paper: Buddy, rising star, apple of my eye, my little angel... I will pay you 17 million dollars to never do this in front of me again.

Dad who likes flashy and long-lasting things to remind himself how far he's come vs. grandpa who's willing to massively overpay for anything he took interest in for 5 seconds; what arguments will they endure?

OHHH BOY, it's fairy assignment time! LET'S FREAKIN' GO!

It's Poof!! That is not the voice I expected out of him, but maybe I should've because he did love deep voices back in "Certifiable Super Sitter." I accept it.

Aw, he's so ready to play! This makes me so happy... That's exactly what a fairy godparent is here for- Finding miserable kids and turning that around so they get happier memories of their childhoods. That's exciting!

-> Oh, NOW I see why you guys were all messaging me about my "Poof adores his hero Westley Periwinkle and likes naming things after him" lore, sdkjfl. Ahahaha... I'm in danger.

-> "Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Pixies" Poof-Westley interactions looming on the horizon

Interesting choice to change his name? I wonder if that was done for stylistic reasons like the script. I seem to remember the OG show's scripts would say POOF in them for special effects, and I can see how that would be confusing.

Is... is this because he's trying to lie low so he can dodge the attention he was always getting as a celebrity kid? That feels right, seeing as if it was a true deadname to him, he probably wouldn't have introduced himself as Poof before saying "I changed it to Peri, like Periwinkle."

Either that or he's unclear if Dev's heard anything about him from Cosmo, Wanda, or Hazel and he wanted to clarify who he is, though that doesn't seem likely.

Huh. I'm kinda surprised Poof showed up. I know in the past, he was a controversial addition to the show and I half-expected him to be swept under the rug, though I did wonder about it when Cosmo and Wanda were talking about him earlier.

I've always loved him though and I'm excited to have him back. Return of my other OTHER son.

I'm really excited to hear him talk since his talking was limited to "School of Crock" (only at the end), "Fairly Odd Fairy Tales" (which he mostly slept through), and "Certifiable Super Sitter" (which is... unique). I've had to make up his entire personality for 'fics based on what limited understanding we had of his interests. I look forward to learning more about this version of him!

My established version of him in 'fics will take priority over new information. I'm currently still on the line of "Do I want to ignore New Wish in my canon or try to incorporate what I can?"

That said, I'm leaning a little towards incorporating, since I think I can work with most of it so far, especially if we're throwing in "Fairywinkle-Cosma family aren't strangers to time travel right now."

-> I'm not committing by any means, so don't hold me to that, and even if I do, it'll be cherry-picky.

-> One of my canons for Cloudlands AU Poof is that he's a fanfic writer, mainly for a series called Ninja Cowboy (which he chronically leaves unfinished, to Foop's distress since as Poof's opposite, he's addicted to finding out their endings). He also writes Anti-Cosmo x H.P. fanfics because it's the only thing that makes them back off when they show up to bother him.

Point being, I hope he gets to engage in Prime Meridian with Dev. I feel like they'd enjoy writing 'fics together and it would be funny to me :)

-> I'm wheezing on the floor. Poof's early concept name was Dusty. Even though the writers wouldn't have reason to know that was his concept name, it's funny to me that his name was changed to something that's also not that. The man of as many names as voices he can mimic...

That works really well for me since I named his younger brother Dusty, so that would've caused me problems.

I also gave Poof a mullet / ponytail in my teen design, so that makes me laugh. Lemme see if I have his ref sheet...

I do! Plus a bunch more from my files:

Looks like I gave him a tuft kinda close to his extra hair strand! That's fun. I wonder if New Wish Poof also likes sports. Hmm...

I'm gonna have to look up what era suspenders were popular. I specifically designed my teen/adult Poof with a late 60s / early 70s vibe since Cosmo was said to have been designed for the 50s, which is the time period parallel I was treating Fairy World in during that era too (hence Poof's blog tag being #purple hippie dragonfly, which I'm not planning to change because it's for me).

Exciting! I like Poof's staff. I've seen people do adulthood designs for Foop with a staff, but Poof's a new one. That's fun.

Alas, no freckles... but that's not gonna change in his Cloudlands AU design. We are "biological queen bee" all the way here.

Hmm. Foop has freckles, but... we'll see if he ever shows up in this series. I do not expect the artists to remember his freckles since they only showed up when he puffed his cheeks or flushed, but... if Foop shows up without his mustache and goatee, I'mma have questions.

Actually, this is perfectly fine because I always draw gyne fairies with pale freckles unless they're at their peak, and I already set Finley up as more dominant than Poof at school (with Finley suppressing his pheromones so Poof's "locked down" anyway). It looks like they're pretty faint in his ref sheet too. I'm satisfied with this.

No promises I'll work the Peri arc into my canon. I think I have room for it to exist and I don't think I've seen anything in New Wish that directly conflicts with Cloudlands AU in a way I can't work around, but I'm not likely to write 'fics for New Wish right now.

-> I'm not opposed to incorporating New Wish prompts into the 130 Prompts series IF I find any old drafts I end up not liking, but I did a deep clean in early 2023 and got rid of ones I didn't like, so I'm not sure.

I did sketch Hazel for a potential arc cover though, so I can use that if I have reason to.

So far, as long as I can find a satisfying way for Poof to age, I think I can swing New Wish around to fit with Cloudlands AU... unless we get something super specific like Poof-Peri already graduating high school or Cosmo and Wanda confirming they won't have godkids after Hazel, in which case I'll have to ignore that.

I can even work things around if Peri's not with Goldie, because their whole thing in Cloudlands AU is celebrity drama and dating life struggles anyway (iirc, Foop even told readers that Poof and Goldie keep splitting up and getting back together).

-> I've always suspected Poof would get special advance godkid permissions seeing as, y'know... Jorgen literally made him trial test Crocker's Mom as his "godperson assignment" in "Fairly Old Parent," plus Poof was getting on-the-job training his whole life. It's neat to see him!

I hope Poof's better at not burning himself out now. He looks like he's doing okay. He's grown out of his shell!

-> According to my timeline, Erg was Cosmo and Wanda's trial kid while they were still in high school, so it would totally work for me if Dev is Poof's high school assignment.

I'm not expecting that to be stated, but I can work with it.

Thanks for joining me in this liveblog! Looking forward to more episodes :)

[marimayscarlett]

Hallo!

I don’t know, if you’ve had this question already many times before, so feel free to ignore this.

I admire your way of answering asks every time so thoroughly, it’s a delight to read. 😊 I thought I’d ask something myself, too.

I was wondering, what is your favourite song from each Rammstein album and why? Also what is your favourite remix and why?

I hope you have a nice week! 🌸

Hi 👋🏻

That's a really lovely ask, thank you so much! I'm glad you find joy in my answers, I try to put at least some sense into my ramblings 🙂‍↕️

And thanks a lot for these questions, you're always very welcome to ask things! Had to take some time to ponder about my decisions, but here we go:

1. Herzeleid

Here, my decision was made very quick. 'Du riechst so gut' has a very significant meaning for me, being my first proper Rammstein song 20 years ago. The lyrics have a wonderful gloomy 19th century poetry aesthetic to it, very haunting and yet so beautifully worded - the line 'Der Wahnsinn ist nur eine schmale Brücke, die Ufer sind Vernunft und Trieb' is still one of my favourite lyrics Till has ever written. Very close second place would be 'Heirate mich' 🤍

2. Sehnsucht

'Eifersucht'. All the way. My all-time favourite song by Rammstein, great, somehow very taunting (like the "come get me if you have the guts, destroy me if you can"-vibe) lyrics, incredibly powerful sound, and the bass. I feel it in my chest when I listen this song loud enough, which is exactly how I love to experience music.

3. Mutter

This took a while to choose. Mutter is not one of my favourite albums even though it holds some very classic Rammstein songs, but I just don't really feel this album. I'd say 'Adios', since the song has such a great drive to it and I enjoy the guitar solo immensely.

4. Reise Reise

If you'd ask me for my favourite a few months ago, I would have very much voted for 'Mein Teil'. Yet I have to admit that my attention shifted towards 'Stein um Stein'. It's a very dark and haunting song, and the inherent menace and sadness of the song moves me deeply. Richard once described it as a very tragic song about a man who knows no other way to keep the love of his life but to lock her up so she stays with him, and I think about that a lot.

5. Rosenrot

Oh, this album, I love it more and more each day. While I enjoy 'Benzin' and 'Zerstören' immensely, I gravitate definitely towards 'Ein Lied' when it comes to favourites. It's like a tender love song to the fans, a reassurance that the band is there for us when things aren't going well, and honestly: in my personal case, that's true. Rammstein gives me so much strength and comfort. 🤍

6. Liebe ist für alle da

Admittedly my least favourite album, I just can't get into it - there are only 2-3 songs that I find appealing at most. A significant exception, however, is 'Haifisch.' I especially love the lyrics about solidarity even in difficult times, and the song held great meaning for me last year, as I'm sure it did for others in the fandom. It's a song for perseverance and unity 🤲🏻

7. Untitled

This one was very difficult for me to decide! 'Deutschland' is incredibly important and lyric-wise as well as musically genius, 'Radio' is perfect for dancing and holds a significant meaning for me when it comes to the lyrics, but in the end, I choose 'Weit weg'. The synthesizer has a truly hypnotic sound, and the underlying sadness combined with the stalking theme gives the song a very captivating aura.

8. Zeit

Here, I truly can't decide, so for once, I'll list two songs: 'Schwarz' is a song I love a lot, such a melancholic and yet theatrical feel to it, as well as 'Armee der Tristen'. This is a song I feel in my heart, plain and simple.

9. Raritäten

Technically, that's also an album 😌 I'm bringing this up to mention my incredibly beloved 'Wilder Wein'. This song feels like a blend of a dark fairytale world, with elements from the Nibelungenlied and 'The Mists of Avalon' - I'm probably exaggerating here, but as a fantasy/history enthusiast, the song feels as if Till wrote it personally for me :')

10. Remixes

I have to admit, I don’t listen much with the remixes, as most of them don’t really appeal to me. However, I do like the 'Haifisch' remix by Olsen Involtini that served as a sort of closer at concerts, so I have warm post-concert feelings when I listen to it, as well as the Twocolors remix of 'Angst.' This remix leans a bit into the direction of dark/acid techno, which I very much enjoy.

Thank you again for your ask, this was fun! 🤍

Tagging my lovely @wizzardclown and @m---e---l to also share their favourites, since they had to endure my rambling about it this weekend 🙂‍↕️

[amaryllis-sagitta]

DATV Solas spoilers [trudging through late Act 1]

Sooooo I've unlocked 5 regret murals.

As someone who dwelled elbow deep in fan theories for quite a few years and tried my own speculation here and there, I'm not that surprised by the components that were already hinted throughout DAI and Trespasser. It's the way they're tied together and their overall flavor that really ties the picture together for me.

And the picture so far explains Solas's obstinate fixation on restoring the one right, seemingly objective version of the world. Ever since he has joined existence, he has contributed to some form of fundamental wrongness in the world. This "right" world state that he yearns for is the one where Solas has never crossed the threshold in the first place. He isn't just guilty of what he's done as an elf anymore. He's now shown as fundamentally ashamed of becoming.

In this context, Solas is starting to feel like some manifestation of the Freudian Thanatos, a craving to undo existence, to "correct" the tension and the burdens of joining it. If anyone in the writing room consciously thought of this twist as a part of the underlying theme of the Void as the representation of all forms of aberration imaginable, that would be kinda brilliant (though it's probably me reading esoteric meanings into stuff as always lol). Because when considered as ridden with regret about Being/ Becoming, Solas is a Forgotten One, an entity of the Void.

I admit I'm not yet sure how to digest the progressing anthropomorphization of Fade spirits in the DA lore. I still have 1 mural left to discover so I'm probably missing something, but doesn't this reveal halfway hint that spirit!Solas made a choice, however manipulated it was? Didn't he have to be willing to some degree? Didn't Mythal need to bring him over... fairly intact, not just brutally coerced to manifest - which would likely result in him instantly flipping? Otherwise, why would she use persuasion? To show a facade of respect?

If so, how was choice even possible among these supposedly reactive, reflective, singularly focused beings? Does DATV address that at all, or is Cole still our best case study on how a conceptually singular spirit can become a complex, conflicted personality? Is Imshael The Choice "Spirit" testament to the moment Fade spirits were "infected" with the burden of choice, and spiraled into becoming a cornerstone of all evil in Thedas?

Another hard punch from that reveal for me is that, while some parts of the Chant are disproven (the Golden City isn't the Maker's work), other parts of the Canticle of Threnodies are proven technically correct in their judgment. Spirits were guilty of the "original sin" of sundering the world's balance. They did follow a desire to join something that is judged as not theirs to join. The twist in here is that the main contender for the Maker's placeholder now becomes the Earth itself with its Titans, the entirety of Thedosian material life itself.

[evidence-based-activism]

Hello! idk if you will respond to this since you said you wont answer any 'personal information' but perhaps you could since this wont give away too much? i was wondering how you are able to gather so much data from literally everywhere! you seem to also create your own stats if im remembering correctly? is this like your profession or just a hobby to answer feminist questions? how do even stay organized by responding to so many asks in such great length and detail, like do you just have books you remember to quote from or a google drive? honestly you just amaze me! I would genuinely like some tips on how to do what you do! Ik you answered a similar ask here: https://www.tumblr.com/evidence-based-activism/750825646530445312/how-do-you-accurately-research-and-study-sources?source=share but can you do a sort of breakdown on the way you answer your asks? regardless thank you so much for the work you do, i love reading the posts you make! (p.s sorry for bombarding you even more than you probably used to)

Some of this will be vague, but I hope it answers your questions! (And thank you!! This ask was very sweet!!)

I was exposed to some of the research process through my education/work, and self-taught many other portions.

This blog is a hobby! (It feels a bit strange to call it that, since it's not really for relaxation, but I guess it still technically fits the description.)

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "create your own stats", but I made some rough estimates for figures based on statistics I've gathered from other sources. (This was part of what I self-taught.) I rarely have access to the underlying data however, as much of it is considered confidential and under restricted access.

I have some saved sources, but they are all primarily about male violence statistics and the sex industry (which were the two main topics I was interested in when I started this blog).

---

Getting information about new topics/questions depends a lot of the specifics, but I have some themes.

First, I have some sources I've looked into and believe are generally reputable.

The CDC, FBI, and BJS all help with crime/victimization/legal statistics, and there's sometimes an equivalent government source for other countries. The CDC is also often a good starting point for women's health information. (We'll see if this remains true going forward!)

Pew Research Center has a lot of information on public opinion. They also sometimes write articles on other datasets, so they've introduced me to some other good data sources as well.

Depending on the topic, media sources can also be helpful. Every media source has bias and can be misleading on some topics, and that includes the "mediabiasfactcheck.com" website, but it's still usually a good starting point for evaluating unknown sources. (There's also a list of sources that are generally reputable such as The Economist, Reuters, Time Magazine, BBC, etc. Please note that I am not saying these are unbiased. They simply have a record of minimizing bias and reporting verifiably factual information.)

If I don't have a specific starting point in mind, I will go to “scholar.google.com," type in a related query (obviously depends on the question), and then select the "review articles" option. A lot of the time, any reviews/meta-analyses/books I find give me a good idea of where and how to look for further sources. Other times, I'll have to switch back to including all articles, usually when the research on the topic is fairly new.

If there's a lot of work, I'll also often restrict the time range, working backwards from the last year, to last five years, last ten, and so on. If I find an article that is particularly relevant, I'll then use the "cited by" and "related articles" options on Google Scholar, which will usually show me more related sources.

On occasion, usually when there is very limited research on the topic and/or I don't know the best keywords to use, I won't find any relevant information on Google Scholar. When that happens, I switch back to using Google to see if I can find anything with that method. Sometimes I'll immediately find research articles I missed on Google Scholar this way. (I think there's some sort of difference in their indexing system.) Other times, I'll find reputable articles or organizations devoted to the topic which either provide me with the sources I need as a starting point or give me a better idea of how to word my searches.

Of course, if I don't know the source/organization I will first try and establish its reputation (i.e., look for any evaluations, controversies, etc.), but unless they are reporting on their own data/research I am also able to verify any sources they provide. (The post you linked contains a lot of my information on verifying credibility!)

On very rare occasions, I can't find any sources specific to that topic. When that happens, I try to identify tangentially related topics and then repeat the process to find sources for them.

I hope this answers your question!!

[watermelinoe]

don't say that i want to read your isekai opinions

i feel like i am being buttered up here but i will allow it bc i do love talking abt isekai hehe ( •̀ ω •́ )✧

so for context what made me think more abt isekai as a genre was finishing the main story chapters of saving my sweetheart, which i think is really strong for the first two thirds and then loses it in the last third for reasons i will explain shortly

and i've had this issue w other isekai/regression manhwa (i pr much lump these together under the isekai umbrella even though it is not technically the same thing) where things are just too easy, one that comes to mind off the top of my head is i shall master this family, which has great art and i like that it's less focused on romance but i ended up getting bored bc the protagonist just. never loses. she can always use her past life experience to perfectly predict what will happen and completely curbstomp whoever her opponent is.

"but isn't that the appeal of an isekai??" you may ask and you would be INCORRECT, yes the wish fulfillment element of isekai is about getting a do-over, but more than that my favorite thing abt the genre is how it plays with expectations and the idea of fate/any kind of higher power that decides how things are "supposed" to be. and oftentimes this force is an active character and antagonist. i've seen several manhwa now where the characters essentially have to beat "god" in order to get their happy ending. there are no predestined endings and true love is the love you make with the person you choose, not someone who is chosen for you. soulmates are made, not created. these are all themes that are extremely important to me and why i think isekai as a genre works so well. i'm someone who LOVES tropes - as tv tropes always says, Tropes Aren't Bad. isekai plays with tropes like i used to play with my dinosaur toys. it's supposed to be self-aware, it's supposed to subvert expectations, it's supposed to be fun and genre savvy and meta. it's really a treat for people who care a lot about the mechanics of storytelling.

the working isekai formula relies on establishing the wish being fulfilled - why is this person being reincarnated? and the answer to that question generally determines how the story first plays out, which is typically one of two ways, where the female lead either has to claw her way up through obstacle after obstacle, or the female lead is immediately welcomed and loved in her new life (but often there is still some underlying conflict that keeps her from being at ease and embracing Happily Ever After, such as her knowledge of what's "destined" to happen in the future). the latter is more of a hurt/comfort trope usually following a depressing first life. in either case, at the beginning the female lead can rely on her insider knowledge to score some wins early on, but the essential key is that there comes a point where her past knowledge means nothing anymore because the story has changed too much. and usually there will be an additional twist as well. this is to keep things from being too easy for the female lead, because even in a revenge story, it's not actually satisfying to watch someone win over and over with no meaningful conflicts. the archvillain's daughter-in-law also has a female lead who seemingly never misses, but the difference is that she thinks her father-in-law is planning to kill her so his son can remarry the royal princess (divorce is illegal), and honestly at this point in the story without spoiling anything that still seems like a reasonable fear. so the story isn't boring because you have this conflict of interests, she's attached to her new family but also knows she needs to be dead for her father-in-law to accomplish his overall goal. i shall master this family doesn't seem to have that extra layer, everything just goes her way.

saving my sweetheart does a great job with challenging the female lead for the first ~90 or so chapters and then in the last third, i swear literally every single obstacle is squashed before you can even start to worry about it. including the main looming death flag introduced at the very beginning of the story. it just no longer matters at a certain point. and obviously as readers we know that these types of stories will work out in the end, but for some reason this story decided that the characters should know that, too. in the third act. they literally solve things by showing multiple characters the future. sorry but if the main characters already know it's going to be okay... why am i here exactly lol it was like the story said yeah yeah you know what it's gonna be like huh??? what a baffling choice

and it's dangerously easy for stories that use gods as major players to eliminate any real challenge for the main characters because they literally have the power of god and anime on their side. there has to be some excuse why whatever divine power can't just stomp the bad guys with a giant foot monty python style. it's also just.... less satisfying for a story to have the Ultimate Objective Good on the side of the main characters. Good is often Boring. i liked how flirting with the villain's dad portrayed its god as more human and flawed, like a greek god.

what really left a bad taste in my mouth by the end of saving my sweetheart was that fate was never against them in the first place, it was the villain who upset the balance, and the two Good gods just give the main characters the answers because fuck it, you all know how it's gonna turn out anyway, who are we kidding. there's an especially laughable moment at the end and this will be a spoiler, but when a major character has to go to the land of the dead at the end to persuade another character to come back to life, this character worries bc in the happy future he originally saw, he wasn't in it. and for a split second you think there's going to be a nice message because the major character says smth like "i can't guarantee the future but i know we would be less happy without you in it" BUT THEN the goddess literally just fucking SHOWS the dead guy the future with him in it to prove it will all be fine and i am still not over it because WHAT WAS THE POINT THEN, what was the point of any of it, no one had to be uncertain for a single fuckin second because yknow power of god and anime

and i feel like an insane person bc everyone else was just like "this felt kinda rushed" but i had this whole rant built up inside me lmao i am aware i'm too into this genre but i think there's interesting parallels you can make here to like, christian media and why it's boring...

[anextravagantliar]

We all know that I love a good foil. I don’t need to break down what a foil is overall, but foils do have categories, and some of these foils overlap thematically, interlinking the story further together. They can be in grammar or in tone; they can be reflective or in multitude. Foils are themes that continue to rise and fall within a story, and we all know that themes are ideas that artists continue to return to, time and time again. This is part one of two pieces regarding Varric Tethras and Solas, sourcing details from DAI but not DATV spoiler-free on a technical foul.

Introductory & Narrative Foils --

To start at the end seems wrong; let us start in the middle of the story, upon a hill as most things start. We do not know how Solas and Varric met; however, we do know they were both in the same place at nearly the same time. One was implored to be there by want, and the other was implored by the need of others, via an arrest. Neither of these are self-serving or selfless as they are inaction in a greater action at play by the underlying narrative within DAI, which is presented as our narrative villain, even if the villain is still unseen and is painted as a hidden threat oncoming. 

“I am a prisoner, just like you - Varric Tethras, storyteller, rouge, and unwelcome tagalong.”

“My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions.” 

Our introductions seem simple but can be broken down and become more complex with tone and movement. Varric is fanfare and flourishes over his name, quickly moving away from who he is and what he wants people to see him as. It leads to a sense of arrogance and almost pride around those words. Varric’s introduction is also longer, punctuated with a full stop that he will not be allowed in the valley, whereas Cassandra had no qualms with Solas, at least outwardly. 

Solas makes his opening in the middle of a squabble—seemingly humble. However, while Varric waited for an opening with his words, Solas seeks an opening, a glimmer of one and takes it, introducing himself with less flourish and fanfare, which at least thematically makes him seem more trustworthy. No additional names are given and no status, but it is the first time that a nickname appears—Varric states that he is Chuckles, a new name. 

“I am pleased to see that you still live.” 

“What he means is - ‘I kept that mark from killing you while you slept.’”

I also find this dialogue interesting, as Solas is more than keen to let others leave things as he states them; however, Varric is not content with those words. He allows the whole picture to be seen, rather than obfuscating a half-truth led by the other, as Solas leads the dialogue even when Cassandra and Varric bicker. The words are also a foil on their own; one is sincere, and the other is not - one is a joke, and the other is a truth. 

Which is which all depends on how one hears those words and the headspace one is in. Both are friendly and outgoing; only one comes off as prideful. This does not mean words are prideful, nor are words demure or as they seem. Instead, it is, in fact, two men obscuring their true paths intentionally and unintentionally. 

This continues through banter within the game - a test and trial of wit between the pair. It is a long game that becomes a test of mettle and glib almost. They are intellectual matches and physically - yet that will shift with time and space to come, deepening a breech in narrative much like Varric’s in his years away from his own family. 

Artistic Foils --

Art is a craft in many forms.

Buon Frescos (true fresh) - Wet lime plaster, limited timeframe to lay colour and place the art. Frescos in English have come to mean any painting plastered to a wall, regardless of the style or mineral used. While we will never know the style or pigments that Solas uses, it is easy to imply that this is his favoured medium (not fresco-secco - or dry frescos) as the pigments that dry in the rotunda are bright and throughout the game, you see many frescos that have withheld the test of time. Fresco-Secco is something that flakes and does not take to the stone and tends to fade in time. Many known Buon Frescos still survive today, while those of the Secco style are beginning to fall to the test of time.

Buon Frescos are also a race against time. They are wet plaster; you have one chance to place the colour and limited hours to ensure it is correct. There is little margin for error, and any misstep can be detrimental to the lime or the workstone itself. Most Buon Frescos are finished within a day, if not hours, and large images are done in sections so the artist can control the drying time. These frescos are customarily used to tell and hold religious information or cultural context rather than any lettering, as writing does not hold up in the lime. Yet, names are rarely lost to time for those who create large frescos due to the amount of work and money they require. 

Novels - Words on parchment and circulated wildly on paper or wrapped in leather. Historically, literature was much more anonymous, as typically, stories written and published were retellings of religious stories or publications of travels. Secular novels were not the norm, but they did exist and did not have the same support of religious arts. Bards and Scops would generally tell the stories far and wide, rather than an author making a living off those works.

Novels and books overall would take days or weeks to edit, and copies would either be crudely copied or printed off a smaller press, leaving them open to errors or changes depending on the printer. Printers would also print regardless of who asked, with no regard to medium - instead, wanting to be paid for the work. Hand copying would be tiresome and expensive. 

Frescos take hours to dry; words take hours to edit - Solas has seven completed new frescos and one incomplete by the end of DAI - Varric has seven completed books and one incomplete by the end of DAI. 

Opposing art forms do not make a foil; however, the duality of how these forms work must not be overlooked. Both are considered fast art forms; one must be completed quickly, while the other can be completed quickly, which is not always true. One is a man out of time, lost to the art form he is reviving, and the other is a wash in time and written word, as if they, too, will not be lost in the river of time.

Foils and Names --

Solas - from Old Irish for Light. Canonically - Pride

Varric - from Old German, wandering power or leader who defends  Canonically - not given

I love linguistics. This doesn’t need an explanation. 

They both carry a multitude of titles, and I am not going to unpack DATV’s wrench in it. However, the titles they carry can be considered of an astral one for one and an earthly variance for the other. However, considering their paradox at the end of it all - that too can be flipped if one frames it just so. 

Foils and Finality --

This was written before DATV, and I’m not changing a word:

Fates and Finality are always hard, but the long march towards the ending of a story that one man cannot put down as the other tries to repair the wrongs of a past, and they can be swapped. Grief is a funny five-lettered word that makes the most settled and structured person reach in desperation. 

Pain is a shared medium between the pair; loss is something that they have known and cradled in a deep-cutting way; however, one who wallows isn’t living; it is the one who is walking who is. 

[blackvahana]

Notes on current research into lottery spells

Ive been spending the past, we'll say, 36 hours or so in the Astral on and off researching lottery spells, specifically mostly past attempts to win lotteries and other fate-based things, and working out lines of... whatever. Im not here to give all my details, but I felt like rambling a while to equalise bodies a little on my thought processes.

Thoughts from research:

There's a variety of accounts and so on here about everything from raffles to people being picked to fill certain roles, to other “luck” manipulation, it's not technically all "lottery" "spell" records im browsing.

With that said, treating it all for a moment like it's the same thing, there's different accounts on what seems to be the underlying methodology, which is good for several reasons: First, it means there's fluidity here and flexibility so mistakes don't automatically snap the working, second, it can be tailored to one's specific ideas of workings and personal paradigms and skills/affinities, and third, the actual working has an immense amount of wriggle room in general so one doesn't have to focus on intense replication of ideas.

The underlying theme is flexibility, really, or at least one of the themes is flexibility. The working can be many things, but it also needs to be vague enough to handle the fluctuation of fate itself. That's to say that if you're working with the unsettled, your working needs to be, to a relatively high degree, unsettled.

There are ways to do it with certainty a la, say, buying a ticket and anchoring exact numbers to exact things and forcing open a gateway, but that comes with downsides. First, the nature of the element being manipulated ("fate" for lack of a better more exact term) will attempt to contradict you, fate is water and stability is rock, rock's stability and foundations only last until water penetrates far enough in. Second, an immense hard push in the soft fate will absolutely bring the eyes of every being and god that keeps their eyes on/is fate. This is not what the average person would want, eyes on a push for power especially when you're pushing for power by using an opposing elemental force (in this case stability) on a specific part of nature is going to be more detrimental than useful.

In the cases I've now studied, another theme is "fire", or what translates to the symbol of fire. There's specific elements of feeding something in order to fuel fluidity, where you give what you can handle like giving slack or threading twine into a loom, and work with the machine to arrange a result. That… is admittedly not as efficient as I would like it to be.

My approach to try this out is going to work off, theoretically, I may change it, passive and active control as I usually go for. However… This art is asking me for a third type of thing I rarely use. Generally my approach is control the input and control the mechanism, which is to say with this fire metaphor I would feed the fire and also programme the fire. This seems to require the aforementioned third thing, which is that which is out of control. Controlling through not controlling, and through not controlling the uncontrollable. It's a trancestate-related art, but even trancestates are not quite the same as they are uncontrolling the controlled, I need to, or likely will aim to, uncontrol the uncontrolled.

This is another specific thing I need to study, except I don't. To be clear, study in this case is about gathering thoughts and acting as a sort of set of pillars upon which to lean a house of my own custom built methodology… Research in this manner is being treated as semi-divination, but that's a topic for somewhere else.

The research reveals patterns, two types of interest. Patterns of things such as behaviours, thoughts, including the strange draw most seem to have to doing this (fate-play goes both ways, one plays with fate plays with one), etc, and patterns of non-things. There's entire gaps where this element of uncontrolled uncontrol is very plain and visibl…y invisible. Like the orgasm, there's a moment of loss of control where control is partly or completely taken. There have been a few records where control seems to have been held, where people have, say, declared it so, done the spell, and dragged outcome to pair magnetically with exact will. But even that displays the invisible: the invisible is the gap between the magnets in the first place. A glass with no drink in it is empty until you realise it's actually full of air, you may be "filling" it with water but you have not filled it.

The invisible unnamed thing here is an element that cannot be controlled or programmed, it's a gap in such, but it can have a gateway implanted into it. It is Voidic by nature, and the Crossroads are the Void.

This leads me on to the theorised first draft of a spell working.

Elements of the spell:

Element one is certainty, whatever you do has to be done with some element of “I am, I speak, therefore you are, you speak”.

Element two is substance, the elements and energies to be fed and programmed and such. The Somethings.

Element three is the matrix, the support frames, the connections, etc. This only supports up until the Nothing, the uncontrollable uncontrolled but from now I'll shorten it to the Nothing, and so must be worked with carefully.

Element four is the gateway, the thing implanted into the Nothing.

Compounds of the spell:

The time web:

This is the lines of justification to guide the Nothing. Past events are strung to future events, the Records are altered and rearranged to support a new reality. Its use can be explained thusly: A spell can be made to simply align numbers to be spat out, but there are so many variables working against that. A time web establishes an extensive amount of variables - and makes them all support each other as a web - enforcing and reinforcing the spell working. If one reprogrammed the “past”(referential to the moment of the lottery being won) to support the win with something that translates to “the spellcaster felt an overwhelming draw to these numbers, they formed a matrix in themselves of strange code that could unlock something greater”… well. the coding of the is a better example (though it generally must be supported by the past), for example one can programme the future like “and xyz person gained enough to change their life because the spellcaster won the lottery a few months prior, xyz going on to create charity work that influenced the lives of many others”, and so on.

Tying the microfates of many to macrofates of a few, this spreads the pressure of intense reworkings of fate into littler and littler sections so that the push to change things that do not want to be pushed becomes so spread out and naturalised that theyre less likely to disrupt balance. Take it like, instead of releasing a new species into a foreign ecosystem, you also release their predators and their prey and predators for the predators and prey for the prey, thus you still get the same end result - you get your wanted species in this area - without the same detrimental invasive effect - your introduced species is less responsible for negatively affecting what already was there.

Time webs influence the Records in a way that the influenced/rewritten Records all reinforce and support each other, making the rest of the Records move more willingly to correct their own “mistakes”. Like one person may not convince a judge he was really present, but a hundred witnesses saying he was likely will change the judge's mind even against contradicting facts. The Records are the informational side to the pairing of information-fate, both sides magnetically moving each other; fate will be more willing to move to change what exactly is most likely going to happen to what you want to happen the more the information side supports it, and it moving will influence its partner of fate to move too. If you can justify your win and write into the Records how much relies on it, you can anchor it as more and more ”likely” - if not necessary - to happen.

The general coding:

When the time web is established albeit not necessarily actually in place, as in one has established what they want to reprogramme as enforcing one's will but hasn't necessarily begun altering the Records proper, the pins anchoring specific events can be considered. These would be the actual elements a spell will cover, such as exact numbers being what's called out, or money coming through the day of, or… Whatever.

The programming should be to some extent stern and exact, but not too much that it pushes a stable force too far into the unstable Nothing, causing issues. Or, if one does want to… I guess it's a “rules are made to be broken” thing, but it seems it's best to push needles not pillars in. Exact numbers rolling out of a machine can be done covertly where enforcing an explicit win of millions can't really, and not doing this covertly can cause immense return of conflict as any push for great power will. However, programming exact numbers to come out is a series of extremely precise outcomes that are hard to produce in fate workings which is, again, more fluid than exact, and enforcing a win in general is easier with fate because its asking something way less precise of the naturally imprecise - but that still doesnt counteract the fact that forcing a win is dangerous.

Therefore, with that said and addressed... Programming small pins that anchor the time web seems to be the best angle, and a fine balance should be struck between pressure and force. Instead of attempting to programme a string of exact luck-based outcomes through fate, the spellworking equivalent of trying to ask a fish to handwrite a letter, and instead of trying to force a win, the equivalent of walking into a palace and demanding the monarch off his throne and everyone to bow to you... a series of small and gently/considerately fate-friendly "wins" such as, taking the previous time web examples, weaving spellwork to give you these magical numbers while also leaving them magic - something about them draws fate to them - and to solidify the relations in the future where someone, given money by your future rich self, is now pulled to do what they will do with the money... these workings balance the heavy weight of want across many pressure points, loosening the pressure felt by fate's soft body, and also give fate room to bring what you want in her own way with her own touch.

The gateway:

A gateway in this context is a moment where the impossible can happen in the silent absence of the Nothing. A complete illogical change in fate and the Records, something that comes from nothing and that will not just be automatically forgiven by the Records but… bend them and their logic to create new logic that is referenced. When something came from nothing, logic was birthed to enforce it, logic was birthed when things were birthed. This is partly the birth of a new thing, something that was not in relation to what already was.

The gateway forms several things. First, a pact with Consciousness, second, a programming of the unprogrammable, and third, a meeting with the nothingness of pre-creation and a true compromise where both sides get exactly and all they want by getting absolutely nothing.

---

Each of these compound elements are obviously going to be made up of their own subsections. In order to make a time web one needs what they intend to do, which needs probably pen and paper, and a means to alter the Records, and so on and so forth. That's the third step I'll be embarking on tomorrow, this is staying vague

A key observation is that this is both incredibly easy and incredibly difficult. The key really is that it's incredibly easy if fate is already supporting you, and it's incredibly difficult to get fate on your side. I've been having visions since before I was born of this life of mine and its power, hence why I am looking into this as a curiosity and exploration of fate-bending - hence why I am meandering on a journey through the idea of programming monumental moments where something comes from nothing and power changes hand… in accordance with fate. That's part of why I was drawn to the records and books I've been reading over, there's a continuous singing of the Nothing I can hear through all of them. All of them approached this in different ways, some declared they were worthy and so what came to them was what they were going to get anyway, some crawled on hands and knees to try and save themselves and reality bent to them with tears, but all of them… were marked either loudly or silently by fate and were drawn to their future. It was both because of their actions and outside their control it happened, even in the case of those who thought and still think it was purely by their own will alone they made it.

This is the nature of the Nothing. This is the Inevitable. There is a moment-space in existence where free will/self-determination meets absolute predetermined existence, well, that moment-space exists everywhere in reality, but there's a place where compromise happens in a specific way that transcends… doesn't matter what it transcends, actually. It interests me

[maruyaaya]

just read your wild life finale fic and i'm in the middle of the lim life bad boys fic and oh my GOD dude. i'm not a gribeans (groel???) shipper but i love reading and giving all dif ships a try and oh my godddd the way you write is incredible. the way you describe the sick and twisted way they love is so visceral and gut-wrenching and it has changed my brain chemistry for real for real. i love the characterization of joel that you've gone for he's so full of contradictions (it's amazing when authors/creators don't shy away from those contradictions and let a character be complex). also the difference with joel and grian's povs/thoughts in mitakesgf's fic hurts it makes me Unwell. jimmy's outside pov and the bad boys dynamics but with his underlying feeling of not fitting in with them urgggh. i love this so much it hurts thank you!!!

FAHSFKDJA THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! oh my god i saw this ask and had to stare at the wall for a little bit bc What The Fuck LFJSFKSFA THIS MEANS SM TO ME!! i am very Not Normal about gribeans (technically, yes, they are called gribeans i think that calling them groel is just a me and lisa mitakesgf thing but i just prefer the shipname groel LOL) AND IM VERY GLAD YOU GAVE THEM A CHANCE HAHA

i love writing them as toxic and unhealthy bc that's just what they are to me!! for grian and joel, love is the same thing as hunger is. they can show the worst parts of themselves to each other and know that they'll be accepted in a way that they'll never have with anybody else. they can be selfish and cruel with each other and it's okay because it will always be reciprocated IDK I JUST REALLY LOVE EXPLORING THEM AS A CODEPENDENT RELATIONSHIP i love them so much

I REALLY APPRECIATE YOU LIKING MY JOEL CHARACTERIZATION he is so fun to write for me because i don't really intend for him to be a good person when i'm writing him (though that's subjective for sure) he's selfish and contradictory AND THATS WHATS FUN ABOUT HIM TO ME joel is always an unreliable narrator when i write him. i love complex characters i love when characters are flawed i could honestly talk about the way i characterize joel for so so long i love him i love writing unreliable narrators <3

mitakesgf and i are such a duo she is the grian to my joel whenever one of us writes a fic, we add the other to the google doc we are interconnected and she appreciated this ask as well LOL

AND JIMMY!! he is my shayla he's my guy i love it when he's suffering HAHA i just think it's such a running theme throughout limlife that joel and grian would be off doing stuff together while jimmy was left by himself and i just had to write smth about it bc he feels like such an outsider and he knows that he doesn't fit in but he wants to. he wants to be a trio, not a duo and yet nothing ever changes for him bc he's so tragic to me

THANK YOU AGAIN OHHH MY GOSH i appreciate this so much thank you <3

[youknowwhoiamperiod]

hello sweet ariel,

do you have any playlists for your self ships? if you do, are there any artists you keep coming back to for each of them? what are your top three songs for mermaidghost and jariel?

xoxo sunnie (@fic-over-cannon)

hiiii sunnie angel!!! i'm so sorry it took me so long to answer this uni has been after my ass :(( hope you've been doing okay <333

yessss i do have playlists for my self ships!!! the jariel one is much much much more prominent than my other ones and i've only recently made my mermaidghost one but!!! they're literally everything to me!!!

there are some artists that are basically tone setters for the ships. for jariel it's taylor swift (act shocked everyone), technically her music is so versatile and explores so many themes that it's is in literally all my playlists but. i dedicate almost all her songs (especially the reputation and lover album) to jason. i think just outside of selfshipping i relate to a lot of her lyrics and i find that a lot of them could apply to jason too. likeeeee listen to the evermore album and tell me you don't think of him. literally. also she's just my favourite artist and white woman of all time, jason is my favourite fic character and white man of all time, the correlation is obvious. another artist i think makes peak jariel songs is sabrina carpenter. idk something about them blue eyed blondies and their love songs just tick all the jariel criteria.

i'm gonna cheat a little bit and give you my top 3 taylor jariel songs, then some random songs.

for taylor:

this is not just my favourite taylor song but also just my favourite song ever ever ever ever. i could go on and on about how important to me and artistically perfect it is but to to keep it short it literally embodies the very essence of jariel. it just paints a sweet and beautiful picture of love all while still being self aware of your character and how secure you feel in this relationship that you don't care what anyone has to say about it. the way the melody just blends so well with the lyrics and makes the meaning stand out even more. it's just such a comfort song that i dedicate to jason because he's my everything <3

this song is pretty self explanatory. like. idk you can just listen to it and figure out why it's so jariel. we just started it off with pissing each other so much but in reality we were just fighting the underlying feelings we had for each other. and it's infuriating. the bridge was literally inspired by us i know it taylor told me.

this song takes a deeper dive on the struggles we both went through before finally making it out and realizing that maybe we should give this a chance lol (we were meant to be together). this song is literally gorjus and it kind of describes our headspace and entourage instead of just focusing on our little selves.

for others i'd pick:

• feels like by gracie abrams

• bed chem by sabrina carpenter

• like lovers do by hey violet

• nonsense by sabrina carpenter

• margaret by lana del rey

• safe and sound tv by taylor swift

• the louvre by lorde

• thoroughfare by ethel cain

now for mermaidghost, i've only recently got into my simon brainrot but i've slowly started fleshing it out and!!! thanks to aurore i figured out that the artist who describes us the best is lana del rey. like i mean she's queen of singing about older men and their controversially young girlfriend so. everytime i think of simon while listening to her music i get so 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 another artist i think embodies us so so well is gracie abrams. another case of sad girl music because him and i are tragic in that way </3

so for lana we have:

it's always her unreleased songs.... self explanatory. like sorry but going around all grumpy and broody isn't gonna get me off your back love <333 if being aggressive is his go to attitude then let's do it baby You're Just Turning Me On.

this was suggested by aurore as part of our stripper au but even outside of that it's just so.... us... like i'm literally his midnight answer. he goes wandering around all day but the moment it gets dark everyone knows where he'll be (in my bed). also i just think he'd always have to sit through my dancing sessions so.

i giggled a little bit when i thought of this because he's a british army man so naturally overboard patriotic but. baby that's not gonna work with me <333 i'm your home country now pledge allegiance to me.

and for others i'd pick:

• i know it won't work/full machine/us. all by gracie abrams

• dial drunk by noah kahan

• how did it end? by taylor swift

• don't tell me i'm pretty by faouzia

• loml by taylor swift

• get him back! by olivia rodrigo (great contrast to the jariel one lol)

• miss me too by griff

• casual by chappell roan

funny little thing but there’s this unreleased gracie abrams song called tuesday/denial which is soooo mermaidghost but she changed the lyrics then released the official one titled let it happen and it’s very jariel coded… i just thought it was super funny lol

this was so long and i went so overboard with it i'm so sorry omfg 😭😭😭 this was such a good question and it combined two of my favourite things in the whole world couldn't just settle for 3 songs each... anyway as always sunnie you're amazing i'm sending you loads of kisses mwaaaah

[hinotorihime]

so after i shot my mouth off (again) about astrology being a form of divination and not fucking myers-briggs, my friend asked me, "if it's a divinatory system how is it supposed to be used?" and i think it's worth posting my explanation here!

in brief, there are three main forms of astrology. in rough order starting from what i would consider easiest and/or most foundational they are: 1. electional astrology 2. horary astrology 3. natal astrology*.

*technically there are more, but judicial/mundane astrology uses pretty much the same techniques as natal, and most astrological magic is really just a very specialized kind of electional.

all of these types of astrology work under the basic underlying assumption that there are certain forces* that govern the cosmos, and that the regular cyclical motion of the physical planets reflects or corresponds to the ebb and flow of the influence of these non-physical celestial forces on the world. there are certain times when a planet's influence is stronger and certain times when that planet's influence is weaker.

*i use an animistic model for this, where the planetary governors are sentient spirits, but a lot of people use a more energy-focused model. either one can work!

electional astrology is the art/science/practice of using the position of the planets and their relationships with each other to determine when an auspicious time to do something is. it is typically better to do something that falls under the rulership of a particular planet during a time when that planet is well-positioned, because that means that the planet's influence on the action will be both strong and kindly-inclined. conversely, doing something at a time when the ruling planet is weakened (the technical term is "afflicted") often introduces extra difficulty.

as an example: mercury rules communication and knowledge, while the sun grants charisma and charm and makes people pay attention to you. so, i deliberately scheduled my thesis defense for a day when both mercury and the sun were well-placed and strong, so that i could take advantage of their help in conveying my research eloquently and sensibly to the committee.

horary astrology is the closest to what most of you probably think of as divination: it's the practice of asking specific questions, casting an astrological chart for the moment the question was asked, and then interpreting the chart as an answer to the question.

as an example, i recently lost a favorite earring. i might cast an horary chart for the question, "where is my earring?" there's a particular section of an astrological chart, the fifth house, that governs the concept of "jewelry". so i would look at what planets fell within or had particular geometric relationships to the fifth house, and interpret the meanings of those planets in their respective positions in the context of "where is my earring and am i ever going to get it back?"

finally, natal astrology is the astrology you think of when you think of astrology. you cast an astrological chart of the moment that a person was born (or that a business was founded, or that an event began...) and evaluate/interpret the planetary positions and relationships in order to understand which planets will have the most influence over that person's life, and in what ways those planets have promised to help or hinder them.

as an example, take a person with a very prominently-placed venus in their chart, but an afflicted mars. throughout their life, the things that venus rules (ease, pleasure, luxury; creation, procreation, and recreation) will a) show up again and again as themes in their life b) tend to be easier for them to deal with. venus likes this person, and she tries to smooth the way for them, in the ways that venus works best. mars, on the other hand, isn't going out of his way to make things easier for this person; so martial stuff (conflict and strife, aggression and drive and get-shit-done) is going to be, on average, harder for them, or show up in their life in ways that kinda suck.

fundamentally, astrology is a way of figuring out what's coming, so you can prepare for it—to better take advantage of the good, and weather the bad. it relies on the assumption that there's a pattern to the cosmos, and that by mapping out the stars in their courses we can know what that pattern is, and that by knowing what that pattern is we can better adjust our actions to achieve our aims. that's what makes it a divinatory system.