#i will also edit this post later when details are announced

[banqanas]

D.U.N.K SHOWCASE DAY 1 & 2 WILL BE BROADCASTED ON HULU

Details to be announced later on 12/20

[felassan]

Cliff notes from the second-to-latest blogpost:

Pre-orders are now open

The release date is a worldwide simultaneous release

Exact timing of release to be announced at a later date

Rook leads a desperate high-stakes fight for Thedas' future

The story is a bold, heroic adventure

Experience expansive and dynamic stories that navigate love, loss, and complex choices that affect relationships and the fate of each member of the Veilguard

"In true Dragon Age fashion, these bonds of fellowship are the foundation upon which Rook’s journey is built, and it will be up to you to determine how their personal story unfolds"

John Epler quote:

"As someone who’s been working on Dragon Age for over 15 years, I know just how much our community has been looking forward to this day, and I’m equally excited to share and celebrate that the game will officially launch on October 31. We wanted to give you the choice to really express yourself, and do that in a world full of adventure and danger. So whether you’re a Warrior, Rogue or a Mage, we can’t wait for you to gear up, gather your party, and set out for another thrilling adventure through Thedas this Halloween."

On PC the game is available via Steam, EA App and Epic Games Store

EA Play Pro members on the EA App will have unlimited access to the EA Play Pro Edition from Oct 31st

The pre-order and Deluxe edition bonus gears are cosmetic only

New map

New set of cards + the associated art

It is a lyrium dagger

The BioWare Gear Store variant of the artbook (has a BGS edition alternate cover) was only available while supplies last. It was sold exclusively on the BGS website

Lots more to come in September and October

[source] <- more info on editions, bonuses, pre-orders, pricing, etc

Other notes:

Here's some info on where to get the Vyrantium pack, at least in some countries

When buying things like physical item bundles and deluxe edition artbooks etc, double-check what you're getting and make sure it's what you think, because they don't include the game on most listings (like the ones linked in the BioWare blog post, which they do clearly detail in the post), but some retailers are reportedly also selling things like e.g. Rook's Coffer bundled in a bundle with the game as well, for instance [here]

[slythindor100]

Hello friends! I, along with my co-mod, timothysboxers, are thrilled to announce that 25 Days of Draco and Harry will run again in 2024. We want to thank navi1088 for creating our banner art. His work can be found at AO3 and tumblr under the same name. For those who may not be familiar with this challenge, we have included the rules at the end of this post, and we strongly encourage you to read these. And for the loyal fans of 25 Days of Harry and Draco: In 2024, we will be doing both Early-bird and Traditional prompts as usual. Again, we're running on LJ, DW and tumblr – the rules will be the same as last year. Because it seemed to work out quite well last year, the Early-bird Prompts will once again be available in October, and we will be including the Image Descriptions along with the prompts. Early bird prompts will be available no later than 13 October 2024, allowing creators over 7 weeks and some change to work on their posts. The signup period will open on 6 October 2024. Also, we will have the Discord server specifically for 25 Days of Draco and Harry participants. Like last year, this will be a place where early bird participants can discuss (in a channel just for them) the prompts and how they might use them. Traditional participants may join the Server at any time, and will also have dedicated channels for their prompts and discussions. The 2024 rules at a glance— Common Guidelines and Notes If you are creating individual works, please select "This Work is Part of a Series" to gather your works together. This will make them much easier to find in future!

If you are creating a multi-chaptered work, please use the "This Work has Multiple Chapters" option to ensure your chapters stay together.

An AO3 collection is available, and you are encouraged to post your works to it. Search for "25 Days of Draco and Harry 2024".

If you're not posting to the AO3 collection (but we really hope you are!) be sure to tag @slythindor100 on tumblr so we do not miss your posts!

The Early Bird and Traditional Prompt sets are different. We aim to have five or less prompts that appear in both sets.

More detailed rules and guidelines are further down underneath the cut.

25 Days of Draco and Harry 2024 - Traditional No changes from prior years. An image prompt is posted starting at midnight US-EST on 1 December, and you create a work based on that prompt and post before the next day's prompt goes up. Each of your posts can be part of a larger work or they can stand alone. 25 Days of Draco and Harry 2024 - Early Bird You receive access to all 25 photo prompts at once when Early Bird access opens. This is a similar timeframe as previous years. The idea is to give participants time to prepare and create something before the insanity of December starts. You will post one work per day for each prompt. This can be a stand-alone story or each day can be a part of a bigger story.

We also encourage individuals or a group to create a podfic of a past 25 Days story, subject to the consent of the author(s). ♥ The advantages are this: 1. you can use the picture prompts in any order you chose 2. you can start creating early and have many of your posts ready to go before December 1st. 3. you get the prompts all at once so you can pre-plan your story and how you will use each prompt.

If you have any questions, please email the 25 days mod account at potionsgod@gmail.com or DM one of the mods if you're on the Drarry Discord server, or the 25 Days Challenge server.

@sassy-cissa and @timothysboxers

Detailed Rules The basic rules of 25 Days of Draco and Harry – Traditional Edition: The challenge is to write a drabble, ficlet, story, create an artwork, a comic, etc. for the image posted each day from 1 December to 25 December. Written works for each prompt should be a minimum of 100 words, but there is no maximum. They can be twenty-five one-shots or each one can be a part of a bigger story. Pictures will be posted at midnight EST and you have until the next midnight to complete your work. You may combine this with other communities or tumblr prompts. Your work does not have to be a story of the picture – you can use any part of the picture, or take inspiration from what that picture says to you. Traditional Prompts must be used in their posted order. If you fall behind, you can post more than once a day to get caught up. You're also welcome to post as life allows, meaning you don't have to worry about being on time. You can also combine a few days or prompts into one work, but the true challenge is to post every day for 25 days within the 24-hour time frame. You do not need to sign-up for the Traditional edition, the prompts will be made available beginning 1 December at midnight EST. Early-bird Edition: After signups close you will be given access to the 25 picture prompts no later than Sunday, 13 October.

You may use these prompts in any order you choose – but each prompt may only be used once.

The challenge remains to post a daily work from 1 to 25 December using one of the provided prompts. Each should be posted between 12 midnight (EST) and 11:59 PM (EST) the next night.

For written works, the minimum word count is 100 words per prompt.

[starboltz]

Since a new TADC teaser came out, I really wanted to do an analysis of this post by gooseworx.

To start off with, in the quick flash of new characters we see in the trailer, 3 of them are seen in the teaser image - those being the cowgirl ghost, the candy princess, and the bubble man. The only character we don't see is the frog-looking character.

While not obvious by the reflection, the round part of the ghosts head is likely a hat, as seen in the teaser on the cowgirl ghost. I am fairly sure that both of these ghosts are the same character based on the dress silhouette of the reflection, and the design of the upper body of the ghost in the teaser. (If I am wrong about the ghost's gender and/or pronouns, I will edit this post.) I find it incredibly interesting that this is the most humanistic character yet on TADC.

The next character, the candy princess, has a silhouette that is very easy to match to the reflection. The only major difference is that her gloves and upper part of her skirt are a darker pink, but that could be due to lighting. She is very likely the princess of Candy Canyon Kingdom. If not, she's definitely royalty of some sort because of her crown. I did see a few people think that she was going to be similar to a betty spaghetti toy, but now that we see her in her natural setting, it seems like her arms are more like cake pops. The rest of her body seems to be a neat amalgamation of cake and other candies.

I don't have much to say about the bubble man, other than he appears to be a customer at Spudsy's - where Jax is being forced to work for minimum wage. If you look closely, you can see Jax's reflection in the bubble man's face. His (or it's? again if I'm wrong I'll change it later) reflection counterpart is a much darker blue, which again could be lighting, but it could also mean that other customers at Spudsy's are bubble people. (Also I love how Spudsy's is a ripoff/homage of McDonald's, hopefully it'll make for some good satire of the fast food industry).

While we don't see the frog character from Gooseworx' teaser image, a lot of people theorized that it is some sort of gummy frog or reptile, which makes sense when it comes to one of the other characters announced in the teaser trailer.

The gummy gator appears to be in the Candy Canyon Kingdom, and looks to be some sort of cowboy or guide. He has a white belly similar to the frog, which is why I think they exist in the same storyline/location. Something hard to see in the trailer is that he starts fading to green from yellow around his shoulders. It's hard to tell what he's holding, but it's very possible it is reigns.

Another character from Candy Canyon Kingdom is the chocolate ooze monster, who looks similar in style to the gloink queen. I love the details of candy corn teeth and jawbreaker eyes. It's difficult to tell if this will be the big boss of Candy Canyon Kingdom, or just an obstacle for the TADC crew.

A fourth character from the Candy Canyon Kingdom is revealed in the teaser, and that is the periwinkle drawing mannequin. It seems to be the only character from the CCK that is not made of candy, which leads to some questions. In the teaser it is screaming its head off, so it's likely it is running from the chocolate ooze monster.

Going back to the cowgirl ghost, another cute little ghost appears. It doesn't really have any defining features other than its puppy-like face, but its a ghost, so it works. This is the only other character in the western ghost town story revealed in the teaser. Though the gummy gator looks like a cowboy, I think the ghosts appear in a different location from the Candy Canyon Kingdom.

The last character I haven't talked about is the tape recorder. It doesn't really look like an animate character, but if TADC has taught me anything, inanimate objects can always become animate characters. It's hard to tell what storyline it's from, but based on the lighting, it's from the western ghost town storyline. One of the most unnerving things about it is that it is one of the most realistic looking characters in the entire show.

Overall, 4 characters were revealed for the Candy Canyon Kingdom storyline, 3(ish) characters for the western ghost town storyline, and 1 character for the Spudsy's storyline. I personally don't think all of these storylines and characters will appear in the same episodes, unless the TADC crew is split up like in ep 1. The Candy Canyon Kingdom and the Spudsy's storylines definitely don't, because Jax can be seen in the wagon, along with (at least) Pomni, Gangle, and Kinger, in the large image shot of CCK in the teaser. (I have no clue what kind of gummy animal is pulling the wagon.)

I also wanted to briefly talk about the unfinished location that Caine showed in the teaser. My first thought was that it was a baseball stadium, but after further inspection the field seems a bit off to be a baseball field. Regardless it definitely is set up to be a performance space, whether it be a theatre or arena of sorts. From the design, I don't think it connects to the other locations revealed in the trailer.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading my theories on this teaser! If you have any thoughts, please comment or reblog to let me know!

[koreanbibliophilegirl]

CHARACTER BLURBS FOR MY DSMP SUPERPOWER AU

As promised to @aimlovesmusic :D 💗

Requested characters were Eternal Duo(Eret and Foolish), Quackity, and Ranboo!

Eret👑

Hero!

Hero Name: Monarch

Unofficial spokesperson for the Hero HQ, bc she's beloved by the masses and can stay calm & collected in the spotlight. In other words, he's the best cannon fodder for them 'cause she's got both high popularity ranking and PR skills.

Power is physical control(? idk what to call it), anyone who sees their glowing white eyes has to move in any way she commands. For example, he could tell someone to drop the gun, and that person would have to drop it. She can't control minds though, so everyone is fully conscious during the control & he can't tell people to think a certain way. + the control stops when Eret can't see you anymore/covers their eyes, with sunglasses, etc.

Hero HQ set his image up to be some sort of lethargic royal, never moving more than they need to- but Eret can run in heels & throw things with scary precision actually. She carries knives around just in case, and later they acquire mini grenades! :D

Likes maracons(INHALES them whenever they're stressed)

Foolish🦈

Also a hero!

Tentatively labeled the Golden Shark

He can call up storms and/or rain/thunder/lightning separately- indoors or outdoors, it doesn't matter.

Also, given enough material, he can build things in seconds! He essentially draws out a blueprint in his mind and moves his hands accordingly, and the materials just assemble themselves. This is usually v exhausting though, it's total knockdown for him if the build is big enough.

Adopted by former hero Puffy(Hero Name: Captain Puffy) as a teen

Is friends with fellow hero Tina Kitten(Hero Name: Carrot Cat... Probably. I'm still working on it)! Tina's powers(basically Cat™️) overlap with other, more popular heroes though, so Foolish got way more support from the Hero System than her. Foolish feels bad about this and tries to help her get more recognition, but there really isn't much he can do.

Hero System favors popular heroes and gives them waaaaaay too many patrols, so he's always exhausted now that he's in the top 10

Meat lover

Eternal Duo👑❤️🦈

Often paired on patrols together

Dating <3

One of the most popular RPF ships on in-universe ao3

They've got a Golden Deities brand, since Foolish's hero persona is Playful but Powerful God of Storms & Eret's the Languid, Relaxed Royalty, and both their costumes have golden bits on them.

Foolish gets shanked on patrol and Eret goes INSANE with their throwing knives

Poor villain Redrum didn't know what hit him lol

After the Golden Shark is announced to be in recovery, the videos of Monarch chasing down Redrum in heels becomes a sort of internet meme

Even more so bc Eret was the only hero who ever came close to actually catching Redrum

Eret expertly wielding knives in public leads to a rebranding, since the powerful-lazy-monarch persona was more or less shattered. Foolish wholeheartedly supports & enthusiastically endorses this change👍

Quackity🎰

Mafia kingpin

Code Name: Rey Club

There's an explanation about the Las Nevadas codename system in the "Lilly's dsmp superpower au" tag. ...Somewhere. I don't have the link rn. I'll add it later😅👍

[Edit: here! Also I realized I changed some minor details since I posted that. Las Nevadas is not a family business!]

Took over LN when he was younger. Vibes are <The Court Jester> by thquib. I love that song.

Paranoid about his position as a result

SKILLED bartender

Since he hides his face as Rey Club, he secretly works in the LN casino palace's bar as Quackity the bartender. He hears a lot of gossip that way, and it's sorta relaxing too.

Sometimes he orders hits on Karens

Fave cocktail is Clover Club, but he pretends to like Casinos better when he's Rey Club

Ranboo🖤💜🤍

Triple Powered, which is super rare

All of benchtrio has 2+ powers so they all pretend to be single-powered(choosing their weaker powers to show) so that their vigilante identities stay hidden

Ranboo can teleport, compress(Silk Touch?), and BITE. They can bite through near anything. Chomp chomp

Works at the local library under Technoblade

And therefore first of the Bench Trio vigilante team to discover wildly popular vigilante duo Emerald Duo's civilian identities

Likes figs- wait why do I keep talking about favorite foods. Eh whatever. He also likes cake & other sweet baked goods.

Vigilante name is Endgame apparently. I'm ngl I completely forgot what I named them & had to check my notes OTL

(Tubbo and Ranboo's vigilante names went through a lot of changes so I lost track of them skajskdaskjdka)

Doesn't talk as Endgame bc they're afraid they'll stutter and sound awkward + doesn't trust himself to not give away his speech mannerisms. Tommy and Tubbo don't care but Ranboo is Anxious™️

This impacts Endgame's popularity as a vigilante a bit

Aaaaaand that's all four!!!! 🥳💕

It's been a hot minute since I worked on DSMP Superpower AU, so it's really nice returning to it :3 Hopefully I can work on it more after my exams😊😅

[mysaldate]

Lilith should go back to what they had before

Crossposting from Reddit because I am tired of how the new AFK Arena writers keep trampling over incredible lore.

This is gonna be long so TLDR: Anything from ALucius onward has been one continuous middle finger to the lore community with insane retcons that ruined both characters and the world of Esperia and I just wish the game went back to what it had before.

Okay, now with the TLDR out of the way, let me preface this with brief history of my involvement with the game (just to avoid any comments accusing me of not knowing the game): I've been playing on and off pretty much since launch (missed about two or so weeks at launch) but got really into it before the Overlord collab. One thing that kept me invested for years to come was the lore. Lilith has done an incredible job crafting an interesting varied world full of all kinds of people and characters. I've been creating fanworks, crafting theories with my fellow lore nerds, bought the artbook as soon as it was announced, and also got invited to the official dev and players meeting in Germany last year. I adore old AFK lore because it is the most well-crafted world I've ever seen in a mobile game and it was definitely the main reason I've stayed for so long.

However, things shifted around the time ALucius released. His story completely retconned Lucius' original story which is what made him so lovable for me and a lot of my lore-interested friends. Lucius isn't someone who didn't join the army on a whim because he didn't want to. He was deeply traumatized as a child and even tried the military before realizing it just wasn't for him. No, instead now he's more like a petulant child who just didn't want to follow the family tradition. And let me tell you, it didn't get better from there on out. The biggest offender though, of course, are the Draconis.

The Draconis as a whole are a mess. Firstly, they completely retcon Dura's involvement in the Age of Arcana which completely breaks the world. To explain a long story very quickly, Dura gave humans magic which led to an arms race between the humans and the gods, making the gods send Annih to deal with it, leading to the creation of the Ya who would later split into Maulers and Wilders, which then led to the Cinder War where humans basically turned on each other, Quaedam was one of the powerful mages who died during this time, and finally, it made Annih the scapegoat for when the post-war mortals found out about what the gods (or rather, just Annih in their eyes) did, and of course, Annih then created the Hypogeans. If you take Dura out of the equation, there's no arms race because there is no need for it. If you remove her involvement, 4/6 factions in the game wouldn't even exist in the world. This seemingly insignificant detail (that was only edited to make Dura seem better anyway) completely breaks the world but oh boy, we're just starting.

During the Cinder Wars, dragons were nearly driven into extinction. According to the old lore, the last few remaining dragons hid underground and fell into a deep slumber to recover their strength. In their dreams, they created Tasi to guard them and ensure their safety. This was true up to when Gavus and Eugene were added into the game as they literally had a run-in with a dragon in its underground lair. These dragons also have a deep-rooted hatred for humanity to the point where even seeing two babies is enough to send them into a blind rage and try to kill them. They would've gone into hibernation before year 1 CE, meaning at least 35 years before the first Hypogean invasion even began. Instead, in the new lore, Dura took the dragons (but not the other enslaved and tortured races) and dropped them on a random island with the condition that they would "help when the need is worst" or something. And the dragons now also fought in the first Hypogean war which now supposedly happened before they were taken to the island? And nobody has any records of them fighting in it at all? And of course, they are totally fine helping out humans (let's also not forget that originally, it was Dura who gave humans the means to enslave dragons in the first place and we've seen from Gavus' story and the Chains of the Covenant comic that the dragons have little respect for the Celestials exactly because of that). There is also the idea that the dragons have always been noble and protectors of humanity but that is far from the truth too. During the Floating Isles Abyssal Expedition season, we got confirmation on what was already suggested earlier – the dragons of old were slavers themselves, kidnapping entire settlements to serve them and viewing every other race except the gods as beneath them. Given that some of the dragon characters we get in the game are supposed to have lived through that era, it certainly casts them in a very different light.

But let's not forget, the Draconis lore isn't even consistent within itself. For example, it claims that young draconis cannot control their transformation well, yet Gwyneth was supposedly able to turn fully human as a newborn baby and keep up her disguise for sixteen years (because yes, despite getting plastic surgery to get massive boobs and ass, she is supposed to be sixteen) and it only started showing because a wyvern (another retcon) suddenly got close to the capital… even though she already killed a wyvern before with no issues popping up. The Draconis lore also claims that many on the dragon isle were around during the Age of Arcana and yet, their enslavement is supposedly a secret so closely guarded that they would lock people up in isolation if they found out about it? Cassius supposedly found out through careful study and it was such a big deal he had to go on a hunger strike before Hildwin appointed him a scribe for the dragon council but in the Dwyneth webcomic, Cassius is already a scribe and Hildwin has to take him to a secret island off the dragon isle and tell him about all the history.

Let's also talk more with Dwyneth. Her story, once again, retcons what we've known about her and what made her so interesting. By making her a part of the king's hunting party who went to look for the wyvern, they got rid of her quick thinking and rather impulsive nature. And let's not forget that this wyvern was now supposedly a part of a whole group of wyverns terrorizing a nearby city? Wyverns and any draconids are supposed to be extremely rare in Esperia for reasons I'll get into later. The original story had the king's party be on a stroll and accidentally waking up the wyvern from its slumber because they didn't even know it was there. Gwyneth's quick thinking and strength gained her the respect of the king and she was subsequently allowed to join the Royal Garrison. That is not even mentioning that Gwyneth was heavily implied to be a child of the robbers Hendrik killed before he adopted her. Her strength was strange, sure, but it never needed an explanation in a world where squirrels can turn people into acorns and undead mermaids float in the sea. And then we get to her actual awakening story…

Listen, if you need to kill an NPC to make your new waifu seem cool, I will already think it's cringe. But if you kill the single most popular NPC your lore community has, one with insane history and all that, it just starts to look like you hate your own content and/or audience. Kane's death makes no sense. He is a battle-hardened warrior with elemental powers (heavily implied to once have been the elemental guardian – we'll talk about how the draconis mess those up later) with a dragon mount (demoted to a wyvern because we can't possibly have an evil dragon now) who has been around since long before the first Hypogean war. Not only is he killed by a sixteen-year-old girl, she also only just got her powers and has supposedly no idea how to use them. And she also bested him in close-quarters combat despite being an archer and Kane being a legendary swordsman. Sadly, this was not the last time a Draconis-related storyline decided to kill off an important NPC with no regard for their lore.

Next we get to Antandra. Once again, the story retcons her entire backstory, events, and personality. It actually makes her more in-line with Journey's Antandra than Arena's which is a whole another can of worms I will not get into right now. Instead of Antandra being the tribute to the temple, she now apparently chose to go and become a temple warrior. After she was banished from the temple, she apparently never saw Satrana again (retconning her union story with Satrana as well as multiple time-limited and permanent events). She is also apparently a mother figure to a lot of children living around where she is staying… which should be the Land of Exiles since she was, you know, exiled and banished. There shouldn't be any children there, it is by far the most dangerous part of the desert. The idea that there's a whole tribe of children who see Antandra as their mother figure just running around is kind of stupid to be honest. Let's also ignore that she is probably the one who gave Dwyneth her new chest because Antandra's went the opposite direction. Let's also compare how previous awakened characters got their powers vs how Antandra did: Thane and Baden went on a huge journey to learn about cooperation and self-sacrifice and took immense risks to protect their loved ones. Safiya nearly died in a game of 5D chess against one of the deadliest enemies in the desert and destroyed an entire clan's kingdom. Antandra? Well, she girlbossed extra hard and Hildwin gave her a gem for it.

Eironn's story is baffling to say the least. Not only is it copy-pasted from Journey's beta where that was pretty much the exact backstory for Bryon (before they decided they don't want a disabled character to be playable) but it doesn't fit Eironn's character. It presents Eironn as someone who chases after glory and thrill of the fight and doesn't care about the people around him. However, Eironn has never been this person. He'd been awkward and struggled to rely on others, yes, but he would never abandon his comrades to chase after a powerful enemy. And of course, he doesn't even get to be cool in his own awakening story, Dwyneth has to swoop in after deciding he was "worthy" and save him at the last minute. At least there aren't any giant retcons to his backstory I guess.

And then there is Thoran and oh boy… So remember when I said Kane wasn't the only NPC who got done super dirty and killed just because the writers could? Same thing happened with Quaedam. Forget the fact that Thoran and all the other graveborn who made a contract with Quaedam are supposed to be like a hivemind that Quaedam can tap into and read at any time. Forget that Quaedam doesn't have a body or anything material and is a spectral entity on a similar power level to the Celestials at this point. Forget also the fact that Quaedam has the Eldritch Council – a whole line-up of similarly powerful necromancers who have been working for him since the Cinder Wars. Forget the fact that Quaedam most likely had enslaved dragons and thus would absolutely be stronger than them. Forget the fact he doesn't have a material base due to his immaterial nature. No, instead, Thoran makes a deal with a dragon behind Quaedam's back, steers the Hypogeans into Quaedam's base, and then strikes him down with a single swing of the sword. Oh, and let's also not forget, the necrodragon isn't supposed to just be out and about. It was a minion of the god of the hunt, Adrax, kept in a pocket dimension of his private hunting grounds.

The other characters who have released since ALucius have been a huge hit or miss but I won't get into each of them individually because that would be way too long (I say like the post already isn't) but to quickly summarize: Raoul is mostly fine aside from the fact where he doesn't look anything like what a character from Esperia would look like. Villanelle retcons Quicksand Claws to make them more stereotypically perpetrators of all evils and sins when they should be a very directly focused mercenary group. Misha's story mentions some "Wilder goddess" who has never existed or, if they mean Dura, was everyone's goddess. Journey, however, does have some Wilder-specific gods (and they suck and break the world further). It also mentions some incursion "decades ago" which… makes no sense? There hasn't been any incursion mere decades ago. Timelines don't timeline with this one. Randle is mostly fine but retcons Niru and how the Whispering Doom (I refuse to call it Doom Spire, stop changing good names, Lilith) works. Aurelia is fine except for the part where her story makes Flora into a lazy bum who doesn't want to do her job. Knox is kinda okay except for the part where his story suggests all Hypogeans are an organized monolith. Most of the Draconis stories are already involved in what I talked about so I will just point out the biggest offender on the list is Lan and no, it is not because she has the vibes of a self-insert Mary Sue. It's because she makes the elemental guardians completely obsolete since dragons can control the elements and direct rain and wind and whatnot.

I've heard from an inside source that pretty much the entire writing department got sacked and the game was handed off to new writers, around the same time it happened with Journey as well, and I have to say, it certainly does feel that way. Between the retcons of huge world lore and warp of pre-existing playable and non-playable characters beyond recognition, it definitely feels like a spiteful rewrite where someone is trying to erase the original and do it "better" except they just end up ruining everything they touch. I'm just frustrated because I invested a lot of time and money into everything AFK-related, bought merch, commissioned art, wrote fanfiction (even won a contest by Lilith with one of my works), started running a DnD campaign set in Esperia, and more. Seeing it all go up in flames like this makes me sad and I just wish things could go back to what it was before. The War of Truth storyline was one of the peaks of AFK's storytelling ever so to follow it up with tis makes it even more jarring. The lore community right now is basically non-existant. Most of my friends left the fandom entirely or only pop in to make fun of how badly the new characters are written. Lilith killed their own lore nerds and it's a damn shame.

But anyway, that's just my rant. If you read everything, thank you a ton, I know this was long and I apologize. Please let me know what you think, if you noticed any more retcons and mistakes, etc. If you don't care about lore, this post is probably not for you so I apologize for wasting your time with it.

[heartnoose]

PRIMANIACS - Ao No Exorcist Edition - Mephisto Pheles (Review)

I haven’t seen any reviews on this, let alone on primaniacs in general. With the very little info available out there, I thought l'd post a review to help others see if they would be interested in it.

Heads up, the review is a lot more exhaustive than I intended lol. I do try to be detailed 💖

Description of His Fragrance via Google Translate

I'm misled by the dark sweetness.

Sweet and fruity notes.

Bananas and oranges that appear like magic tricks make a mischievous and cute scent like sweets.

However, the gorgeousness of the rose is fragrant as if to cover the innocent impression.

When the rich sweetness that oozes out before you know it spreads with a mysterious darkness, it announces the end of a pop and fun dream.

A dark but tempting fragrance that is trapped in a sweet shimmer.

So, to boil down the dynamic of the smells listed on the site: First you’re supposed to smell Banana, Orange, and Lemon. After 15-30 minutes, the smell should transition into Pink Grapefruit, Rose, and Jasmine. Two or so hours later, it should fade down to a mix of Musk, Apricot, Amber, and Raspberry. That last phase can last up to an hour or two before the perfume completely disappears.

Review of the Perfume

I was actually looking for a perfume that was described as this. A sweet flowery banana perfume with old school influences like jasmine, amber, and musk. I was like, “Maybe Meph would wear a fruity but old school perfume.” So when this was announced I was beyond excited, since I saw it as an answer from above basically.

The Smell: As described, it opens with very citrusy smells. I don't smell the banana. I can smell it somewhat on the nozzle but not when I spray it. The opening of the perfume is quite soapy, and I hate to say this but it strongly reminds me of dish soap.

After about 15-30 minutes, the opening has a very smooth transition into the next phase of smells. The grapefruit allows the citrus smell to stay afloat, but with a bit of rose now. I can't smell the jasmine at all. The soapy smell is still there, but not as strong. Oddly enough, I get hints of that creamy and ripe banana during the final moments of this middle phase.

About two hours after spraying, the perfume seamlessly transitioned again. Thanks to the creamy sweetness of the banana, it morphs perfectly into the pretty amber and raspberry smells before it disappears. The ending phase is quite gorgeous with the darker, fruity, and old school smells of the raspberry and apricot playing with the amber. I don't smell much musk, and it's still a little soapy. But, in my opinion, these ending smells are the most beautiful, varied, and dynamic part of the perfume. It lasts for about an hour and a half or so.

That’s the main review, though I wrote some small notes below :)

The Bottle: It's pretty. The art on the label and box captures Mephisto well, it's very whimsical and playful! The overall design is versatile. It looks pretty on its own, and it's aesthetically pleasing next to other perfumes. I could also see it fitting in nicely with a Mephisto or AoEx shrine. The only issue I have is with the nozzle. It doesn't distribute the spray evenly and spurts out. This affects the performance of the perfume since it won't dry on the skin as well as a finer mist would. So, I put some into a travel bottle that sprays a finer mist. This helped the scent and longevity a lot.

Longevity: I had trouble with this for a while. All of my perfumes are noticeable after 1 or 2 sprays. I had to spray 6 times to make this last better on my skin. Then I saw that it lasts about 3-4 hours, while most perfumes last at least 6-12 hours on me. So, the longevity of this perfume is weak.

Availability: Proxies like Buyee and FromJapan will not ship this due to restrictions for air mail. You will have to find a reseller in Japan who can ship it to you. This leads to a huge increase in price.

Price: The price will depend on where you live since customs and shipping play a hand in the final price. For reference, I paid $100 through a reseller on eBay. That’s the average price in USD there, so you can use that as a reference to convert into your local currency. At around $100 through a reseller, I don't think it would be worth it to most fans. If you're in Japan, then 30ml at the retail price of $45 / 6,600 yen is probably more justifiable to most people.

Overall Thoughts: I can see this perfume being reflective of Mephisto. A vibrant and playful opening smell that smoothly transitions into a sweeter scent, with a seamless, almost unnoticeable, fade into a tempting, fruity, but still old school type of darkness. I find it very characteristic of him. Do I like the fragrance itself? It is growing on me! It's soapy and citrusy at first, but I do love the ending it has. Plus, it does remind me of Mephisto, so I adore that. If you're a huge fan of Mephisto and/or Blue Exorcist, you might find it justifiable at eBay prices. I don't think it would be worth the $100 price tag to most, though.

[recurring-polynya]

Izakaya Kamenoya

I am re-watching the Captain Amagai arc, which I love because it has just a shit-ton of Seireitei slice-of-life worldbuilding. Early in the arc, Kira goes to the bar with Renji and Iba to sob about how his new Third Seat is better than him, and it made me wonder-- do the lieutenants always go to the same bar, or does the anime just make up a new one every time? Episode 172 had a nice shot of the exterior:

I immediately went to Episode 355 (the second New Year's episode), because I'm always thinking about Rukia shotgunning that beer while Renji gazes on lovingly, and it certainly *looks* like same place, but again, maybe that's just a very standard-looking izakaya.

I decided that trying to translate the kanji might help. They're more visible in the first image. The ones on the paper lantern, 酒処 were easy, because they just say izakaya (literally, "alcohol" and "place"). That just supported the idea that this was just some generic bar. For the kanji on the wooden lantern, which appeared to be the same as the ones on the sign above the door, I managed to puzzle out the bottommost one, 屋, which means "shop" or "restaurant." Hmm.

At this point, I was feeling a little stumped, so I went looking for other screen shots.

Other bar scenes I could remember took place in: Episode 179 (Ukitake and Kyouraku try to angle Amagai into a threesome). This had a clearer shot of the sign, and it's definitely the same as the lantern.

Ep 305 (Kira and Hisagi go for drinks after work and run into Unohana having "Ladies' Night" with Soi Fon, the Kotetsu sisters, and Yachiru ????)

And finally, Episode 265 (the end of the Sword Beasts arc, Ladies' Night again, I guess, this time with zanpakutou)

and bingo, they actually translated it for me, this time!!

In, the only one that didn't turn out to take place at Izakaya Kamenoya was from Ep. 303, the first New Year's episode. The SWA holds their holiday luncheon here (the sign says 茶屋, or "tea house") .

It is also not the place where Rukia and Renji announce their engagement in WDKALY, that place is called Safflower, and it's fancier and it's specifically mentioned that it's way classier than everyone's usual digs.

That's neither here nor there, let's get back to Izakaya Kamenoya!

Later on, like when I was 90% of the way through writing this post, I realized there was an earlier shot of the sign in episode 172 that was also translated (which I thought I remembered and then assumed I had hallucinated when I couldn't find it, but it was from a separate trip to bar with Kibune and Kira's shitty subordinates). Conveniently, it's also probably the most readable out of all of them. EDIT: I didn't notice when I pasted this in here, but they translate it as Kamegameya here, which seems like a mistake? B3 suggests they might have read the second character as a repetition (with the k turning into a g, which I don't know all the details of, but I assume it's that thing that happens in Japanese when a word is in the interior of another word and it gets a harder consonant, the same way the s in "sakura" in Senbonzakura becomes a z). Google also tells me that the name of Yugi's grandfather's game shop in Yu-Gi-Oh is called Kame Game, so I wonder if the subtitler here was just working on muscle memory 😂. I'm sticking with Kamenoya, although Turtle Turtle Bar has its own charm)

The three characters in the upper left are 居酒屋, which is just a different way to spell izakaya.

"Kame" was easy to translate, it's the leftmost large character on the sign, 亀. It means "turtle", but the second meaning is "heavy drinker," so I'm guessing this might be a bit of a pun. Unfortunately, googling didn't turn up any further detail on this.

I puzzled a little over the middle character, until I realized that it might be 之, which is an older version of の. Oh, says me, who only speaks the Japanese I picked up from anime, it's Kame no ya, the way all the inns in Kakuriyo end in "ya." It just means "House of the Turtle", or "Turtle's Pub."

Turtle's Pub. Can we just take a moment to reflect on the fact that the lieutenants (and sometimes captains) like to hang out at someplace called Turtle's? I am so charmed by this. I have not been so excited since the time I realized that Renji was wearing the koi hoodie in the Bount Arc OP.

It's possible that it was just named by a guy who has "kame" as part of his name or who likes turtles, or as I said, maybe it's a pun, but there are two other possibilities I thought of:

In line with this post on the naming scheme for the Seireitei Gates, perhaps it's in the north part of the city, and named after Genbu the Black Tortoise-Snake

When I am making up business names in my fanfic, I often like to associate them with the squads they are near-- dragons for stuff near Squad 10, fish for 13, firebirds for things that are more city-wide. It's partially trying to tap into squad solidarity, and partially so people have a clue where your place is located in this stupid maze city. I love the idea of some former captain with a turtle-themed zanpakutou, whose is fondly remembered because someone happened to name a good bar after them.

I looked up that extremely questionable Blood War era Seireitei map, wondering if maybe Squad 3 was near the north gate:

It turns out it is not (assuming the unlabeled squads just go in order), but you know what is? Squad 10. So if Kamenoya is named after the North Gate, I assume everyone drinks there because it's close to Matsumoto.

(thank you very much to @kaicko for checking my work)

[shojoqueendom]

"Shinjo Mayu: Exploitation of Mangakas by Publishers"

I didn't know what to start this blog with until yesterday, I woke up and read a tremendous article of manga artist Shinjo Mayu. I couldn't resist talking about this queen who has been shaking up the Japanese publishing world recently, and I would like to share her experience and thoughts.

First, let's get to know Shinjo Mayu and how she has reached this point.

Shinjo Mayu (新條 まゆ) is a Japanese manga artist who was born in Nagasaki Prefecture in 1973. She graduated from Yukokan High School and made her debut in Shogakukan's Sho-Comi magazine in the special edition released on February 14, 1994, with "あなたの色に染まりたい." Her success skyrocketed with "Kaikan Phrase" (1996-2000), published in the same magazine as her debut, which was also adapted into an anime between 1999-2000, totaling 44 episodes.

On May 23, 2007, Shinjo Mayu announced on her blog that she would be leaving the Shogakukan publishing company to become an independent artist. Without giving many details, she mentioned that she planned to experiment with different things.

Nearly a year later, she opened up and stated that she left because the demands from her editors were too stressful and degrading. She even disclosed being threatened by an editor that her previous works would cease to be printed if she left. Seeking legal advice, fortunately, her works continued to be printed. She has expressed that many writers feel dissatisfaction working at Shogakukan due to excessive pressure. Even her editor, when she began creating manga, told her that "she was a manga creator akin to a worm who would never become a serialized manga creator no matter how hard she tried." She revealed that as a mangaka at Shogakukan, she had drawn up to 120 pages a month with an average of 3 hours of sleep per day.

During this time, she has become a highly versatile manga artist, creating works spanning various genres such as shojo, shonen, seinen, and BL. Additionally, she oversees a comprehensive housing production called Maison de Cocon. In 2021, she started a new series titled "Nijiiro no Ryuu wa Megami wo Daku" which is available on various manga applications.

Many authors, including Shinjo Mayu, feel distressed by the sudden passing of mangaka Ashihara Hinako. Even today, her case is still being discussed in the news and on social media. I will make a separate post about this topic, but in summary, Ashihara Hinako posted on January 26th on her blog a critique of Nippon TV because the television adaptation of her manga "Sexy Tanaka-san" was not faithful to her original work. She emphasized that she had repeatedly told Shogakukan to urge them to take action, but without success. She later deleted the post and apologized. However, on January 29th, her lifeless body was found in Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture, under suspicion of suicide.

Since then, Shinjo Mayu has expressed that not a day goes by without her remembering Ashihara Hinako and what led to her tragic end. Through social media, she denounces the mistreatment that manga artists receive, specifically at Shogakukan. She mentioned that when she wrote the blog about her departure from Shogakukan, an editor told her that there was a meeting where they said they "should control the writers so they don't make such big statements." On the other hand, at Shueisha, they said: "Before something like this happens, let's find out if the writers are dissatisfied."

Clearly, there are very good relationships between editors, manga artists, and publishers. However, as we have seen, there are also times when relationships are not so good. But it was yesterday, February 14th, where she exposed the Japanese publishing world by publishing an article on note.com titled "The Era is Beginning Where Manga Artists are Being Exploited by Publishers."

She has firmly expressed that she doesn't care about the consequences her statements may have on opportunities with other publishers, although she feels it is necessary to do so. From their manga, manga artists only receive 10% of the profit. In the past, working with an editor made things easier for manga artists as they only had to worry about drawing the manga. Editors, on the other hand, took on many responsibilities such as promotion and distribution. This is how they consolidated their role in the publishing industry. Therefore, the remaining 90% of the profit was considered "necessary expenses." However, now, in the digital era of e-books, manga delivery is simplified as the manga artist only has to create the manuscripts and send them. The functions between the editorial department and the publisher have been divided. Publishers are now responsible for granting distribution licenses to platforms and transmitting data. Overall, publishers have less work than before, so what is the true involvement of publishers in e-books? The royalty rate for manga artists in e-books is between 15% and 20%, but few people receive 20%. Previously, negotiating to increase e-book rights put distributors in a very vulnerable position due to threats from Shogakukan, as Shinjo makes clear: "without manga provided by the publisher, there was nothing to distribute." But the situation has now reversed, and it is the publishers who ask for works to be converted into e-books. Over time, more authors realized that publishers were charging too much in terms of e-book royalty rates. In this way, the publisher becomes an exploiting intermediary. Distribution companies don't charge as much because they aren't the authors; but publishers, who own the related author rights, receive significant rates without doing as much work.

Shinjo Mayu denounces that publishers are paying very low salaries to their staff and encourages manga artists to seek fair and equitable compensation for their work. She also urges publishers to recognize and adequately support those who contribute to the creative process.

Currently, she works at the distribution company "ナンバーナイン," which has an editorial department. Therefore, the company itself is responsible for sending data to applications, conducting advertising, negotiating, and managing the data transfer and management process on behalf of the mangaka. However, their editorial department is responsible for providing feedback on manga, creating data reports, and offering advice and guidance. Shinjo Mayu considers these companies to be modern and flexible, so it's a good idea to try negotiating manga and distribution fees. In fact, she says that one can be a manga artist without needing to go through a traditional publisher.

I wonder if publishers could be in danger in the future for not offering their workers the respect and rights they deserve. I love magazines, but Shogakukan is getting a terrible reputation for not taking care of its artists (and for quite some time). Some are even encouraging a boycott of the publisher.

"Who can truly say they are supporting manga artists when those who work the hardest are the ones receiving the least money?" - Shinjo Mayu.

Sources:

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20240208/k10014352711000.html

https://www.sponichi.co.jp/entertainment/news/2024/02/07/kiji/20240207s00041000428000c.html

https://note.com/mayutan126/n/n54607a9ecd37?sub_rt=share_b

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-06-05/sensual-phrase's-mayu-shinjo-leaves-shogakukan

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-06-10/sensual-phrase-shinjo-explains-why-she-left-magazine

https://book.hikaritv.net/book/static/141015_magazine/data/index.html

https://twitter.com/shinjomayu/status/1755101152188969429

https://twitter.com/shinjomayu/status/1757622214437072975

[artastic-friend]

Rudy!! My Fnafsb OC!! + Info!!

Also!!! I realized that I never posted my beloved FNAF Security Breach OC here!!!!! Their name is Rudy and they are my beloved lil Deer animatronic! (I wanted to make them to be a reindeer originally but I also don't wanna change their nose so idk 💀💀)

Here is an older drawing of them too! They have rollerskates because I imagined that they would have a Roller rink attraction at the Pizza Plex called something cheesy like "Rudy's RollerRink Road" or something.

They would work at their attraction and sorta help people learn to Roller-skate, both for kids and for adults! They would encourage trying again and not giving up.

I remember that in-game, I thought of some mechanics they would have, like maybe they would be very fast while chasing Gregory (I imagine they also were effected by the virus like the other animatronics) since they are on roller skates, but their weakness would be when Gregory climbs stairs or escalators that Rudy can't follow him, or at least they are very slow while climbing them- this would be due to programming they have for saftey measures to be extra careful to avoid injuries of any guests (and for the company to avoid lawsuits 💀). So thus Rudy is programmed to avoid stairs, steps and sharp inclines like that to avoid injury or property damage.

I also like to imagine that Rudy's bell around their neck would give the player an indicator that they are near because I don't imagine them wanting to announce their presence like the other animatronics so that it's easier to catch Gregory, but obviously their bell doesn't really help with that too much.

I do imagine that their roller skates are removable, but they need assistance from an employee or machine to remove them. Their legs are also specially calibrated and have special hydrolics ingrained for better stability and balance while rollerblading making them the only animatronic to be able to without falling over- Thus if there were in the game, and had to have a part removed like the other animatronics I'd imagine maybe their legs? They would then find some replacement legs that they try to use but they would no longer have any balance and would walk slowly and clumsily around the Plex. If they went after Gregory and he gets out of the way soon enough, they would fall over as a mechanic and that could be utelized as ways to get out of a tricky situation for Gregory.

In their off-time I also imagine them hanging out with DJ Music Man a lot because they like to rave and just sorta hang out with him. They would be friends with all the glamrocks, in different ways, I think- but they would deem DJ as their best friend lol. As for Sun/Moon they probably don't get the chance to bond as much but I'm sure they would admire Sun/Moon's ability to work with tiny children so much. I don't think Rudy would like Vanessa too much, probably because they think she's kinda mean. Rudy would probably not talk to her unless it is 100% necessary.

But yeah!! Now you know about my silly Deer animatronic OC! If I remember any more details I forgot about I'll probably edit this blog later on or something haha!

Other posts including Rudy:

Rudy's first appearance

Rudy Loves you!!

Rudy And DJ vibing

More of a DJMM post but with Rudy Cameo

Artfight Attack I included Rudy in

[accio-victuuri]

There are some things you don’t think about till someone else points it out. This is an example of that. So we can predict now that when it comes to XZ and his team, the usual pattern is post photo sets and then a behind the scenes of that will be shared by the studio’s Douyin later on. I think it’s the same ( probably ) for other celebrities but you know what I mean — even yibo official are known for it. Now there are specific events when this did not happen. Those “events” also have something common. It’s times we CPN that Web is there. Either at the same event or close by ( meaning he is waiting for GG at the hotel where he is staying ).

Let me show you the details.

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

✅ - event follows the usual content release

❌ - no behind the scenes video

I will start with 2020, specifically after 227. Around that time we already speculate that there are times when they visit each other at work. For example, ZZ at SDC3 recordings.

❌ - 102520: GG performs in CCTV 3 Brightest star in the night sky. Tho this one is not exactly a live show, XZS still shared a photo set from the event. No behind the scenes. This was a pretty shut-in recording and no one said anything till it was aired. We CPN that WYB was there in some capacity because the TTXS bros mentioned this song. More about that here.

❌ - 120520: GG performs live on the show “Actors please..” & sings ‘Running To You With All I Have’. Photo set only. Again, this was a closed set. He was announced only hours before the guesting and very few fansites were able to get in. There was a Douyin video released days later + XZS shared a behind the scenes of how the DY was made. Another angle of it. They cannot release the actualy bts of the photoshoot because wherever that backstage was, WYB was allegedly there. You may see a pattern that Web tends to be present when it is a closed set.

XZS also released a video with him playing for a hotpot with the same clothes. This video shows more the potential that WYB is there.

❌ - 122020 : Tencent Starlight. Do I even need to explain this? Same stage. They were missing from the audience. They were allegedly hanging out together in one room backstage. No photoshoot BTS. Only a douyin post shared by GG. Which we think was shot by WYB.

✅ - 123120 NYE stage ; they were at different station celebrations.

✅ - 011521 IQIYI scream night

❌ - 011921 Douyin night. Another same event attended. XZS released a photoset only.

✅ - 020521 DC press con. A solo and work related event so XZS gave is everything. Obvs, WYB has no business being there.

✅ - 021221 BTV and Dragon TV Spring Festival. There is no photoshoot bts but both stations released behind the scenes content which makes up for it. They might have wanted it that way so the stations will have bonus content to share.

❌ - 022821 -Weibo Night. You guessed it. No photoshoot BTS because they were in the same place and event.

053121 BTV & JD 6/18 night. This is my outlier because there were no same city CPN. No BTS but there was a Douyin post. What stands out to me with this day is his hair that was dyed dark blue. He was also using the custom red mic.

✅ - 060721 Tencent Video 10th anniversary event

✅ - 091021 2022 Asian Games Hangzhou Countdown

✅ - 101621 Jackie Chan International Action Film Week

✅ - 020222 China Internet AudioVisual Annual Ceremony

✅ - 113022 Weibo TV & Internet Video Summit

I didn’t link everything because I truly just want to make a list. I won’t elaborate on the CPNs for those marked X as i’m thinking those who will read this will have an idea. Same thing as the DY/Photosets shared by XZS.

They have the footage, of course they do. We’ve seen how it works. Someone takes the photos and then one of his staff takes the video. It’s easy. Then someone else edits it — it’s all part of the job. There might be other reasons why the behind the scenes is missing in the events mentioned but it’s some kind of next level coincidence that what they have in common is yibo’s alleged presence. I’m thinking WYB is there, hanging out and they can’t have him show up in videos. Or when they are together, WYB will take douyin videos of him and that’s what XZ decided to share instead. 🤍

This is all speculation. Take it or leave it. ☺️

source: mentioned by this bxg, then i decided to go through all of gg’s events.

[apple-salad]

Mary Magdalene Faltetto (Farutetto) Dress Unboxing + Details

2023 edition, navy (sample) and mist (2017) colorways.

Please keep reading under the cut for more detail pictures, descriptions, waxing poetic etc.

Note: This dress is commonly translated as "Farutetto", but I will be calling it Faltetto from here on as Mary Magdalene has previously translated it as such.

Other note: If the video isn't loading on my blog, you can view it on my instagram, but the quality is a lot worse and it's split into parts.

Words cannot describe how elated I am to own these two pieces, which I have had quite the history with! And, I feel incredibly lucky to have obtained not one but two pieces from Mary Magdalene's sudden update.

The mist colourway especially had been an item that I had been pining over for a long time and had always regretted backing out of paying a SS to preorder it when advance reservations for this new colourway (which later became "exclusive reservations" when MM failed to open any general reserve to the public after, and to this day) opened to attendees of a Chinese event in Guangdong, in 2017.

And the navy...I had preordered it via a Chinese SS for the Le Panier event in Shanghai in 2018 (announced to be an exclusive colourway, along with a lilac), only for it to be cancelled a year later! So I am very happy to own this sample version which is likely the same one used for the Le Panier event.

I have written a long, rambly post that goes into more detail of the history of where the Faltetto samples might have come from, + Mary Magdalene's activities that I am aware of from around 2017, so please check it out if you like.

Actual worn/coord photos will be in a separate post (or a few separate posts), but following will be some detail photos with a little bit of overlap from the video.

The bedspread I used is super wrinkly in the video and my photos, so I apologize in advance for that.

This was my first time purchasing directly from Mary Magdalene! I'm super thankful to rabbitreverie, who let me know that MM had suddenly updated their website with a message that they were planning to upload a few items the next day (or that night? I can no longer remember), with only a vague time frame given (in the evening). We both stayed up all night refreshing, and everything MM uploaded sold out in about 5 minutes (a lot of the stock was sample pieces, so only one was available, I reckon).

So as it follows, this was my first time receiving a Mary Magdalene branded box. I had the package sent to a forwarding service and asked them to keep the shipping box for this reason!

Unfortunately, the box did get super banged up not only in shipping, but also when it was consolidated, and it's quite misshapen now. Plus, the warehouse clearly opened up the box so I don't get that "freshly cracked open" experience, oh well. At least the pieces inside seemed to be untouched.

Both dresses came in a plastic garment bag with a very ordinary, flimsy plastic hanger, which was then folded into a thin non-woven dust bag, and further packaged in a "Mary Magdalene" logo branded plastic bag (without handles).

Since I'm a terrible hoarder of branded items, it was nice to get some more Mary Magdalene bags. I have just a couple that came with some coats I bought many years ago. I believe there was a point where Mary Magdalene shipped branded wooden hangers with their pieces, but no longer (I am not sure if such a thing was a special novelty for larger items like coats, or if it was commonplace back then).

Here are the hangers--at the point of photographing I had removed the dresses, so just imagine the dresses in there like the video. For whatever reason, the hangers are different, but they are both cheap plastic so it's whatever.

Only the Mist colourway came with a fabric swatch--I assume this is because it was a non-sample and was considered to be the 2017 standard release (so, this is how the dress would have shipped in 2017). One interesting thing is that both tags have the pink tag design, even though I swear I saw a red tag design on the maroon faltetto dresses from last year.

It's somewhat impressive that Mary Magdalene printed a tag for the sample pieces at all, as they really didn't need to bother (I feel like most brands don't)!

On to the dresses! I didn't take any extra photos of the two pieces side by side, so you can reference the very first photo in this post for that.

The colours are just gorgeous. I had wanted the mist for a very long time, but I'd be hard pressed to choose only one out of the two if I needed to. The mist is a lovely blue-toned gray which seems to change depending on the lighting, but the mature dark tone of the navy is also lovely!

Mary Magdalene had noted two differences between the navy sample piece and regular releases of faltetto: first, the chemical lace at the bodice is different; and second, the buttons that secure the neck ties to the bodice are different (regular release have sort of matte textured buttons that match the dress in colour, the samples have plain clear buttons). Both are minor and the construction of the piece seems to be the same as a typical release of faltetto.

I have to personally wonder if the sample pieces are handsewn by the designer (Rieko Tanaka) herself, though!

A closeup of the skirt section. One difference I've noticed between newer faltetto dresses released in 2017 and after is that the rose lace on the tier here is gathered along with the skirt. I don't think I've seen it gathered on the older faltettos (or at least, not on the other ones I own, of which their release year is technically unknown).

Hopefully this photo portrays the difference in lining. Usually faltetto uses a kind of satin textured lining, but the navy lining is a very ordinary polyester lining with a slightly cheaper feeling. It doesn't change the dress very much, but I can see the choice of material adding to the "sample" factor of the dress.

This is the back of the bodice. Part of faltetto's design appeal is the partial shirring panel at the back, which makes its sizing a lot more forgiving than a lot of other Mary Magdalene.

The image might be a bit small, but perhaps you can also see the difference in neck tie buttons.

The bustle ties are tied in bows at the back of the navy! I wonder if tying them is something leftover from when it was worn for the Le Panier fashion show...?

A closer look at the bustle ties and the little loops that you thread the ties through to bustle it.

The fabric of both is a textured chiffon--I think it's sometimes called georgette or pearskin by brands? I was concerned that the fabric would be thin because the chiffon used on my 2017 maroon faltetto is quite thin, but the fabric on both mist and navy seem to match my other faltetto releases.

That was all the mist/navy faltetto photos I took, so while we are on the topic of 2017's maroon, here are more comparison photos between those two. I figured it might be interesting putting them side by side because allegedly both of these pieces were produced in 2017 for Chinese lolitas who had pre-reserved (I bought the maroon secondhand in 2018, so I can say relatively confidently that it is the 2017 release and not 2022).

As far as I could tell, aside from the main fabric used, the construction seems to be pretty identical. The lining on the maroon might be a bit wrinkly from storage, but it has that satin sheen like the mist.

Maybe not the best photos, but hopefully these close-ups express the difference in fabric texture and thickness between the two. The chiffon used for maroon definitely feels somewhat cheaper and common, somehow.

Lastly, here's the washing tag. They also seem identical, except unfortunately it looks like the previous owner of maroon cut the tag and removed the extra button for some reason (the other side of mist's tag has an extra necktie button attached). The navy has no washing tag at all, which I suppose makes sense with it being a sample (however, it does have a "Mary Magdalene" brand tag sewn into the inner facing of the bodice).

By the way, while I was loading petticoats under the mist JSK for photos, I discovered that it had a minor factory defect!

It seems that one of the threads tacking the main skirt fabric to the lining was sewn down to the wrong seam of the lining. There is both a side seam and a side back seam to the lining, with the side back being where the lining's snap is attached (for the bustle). With the skirt fabric attached like this, when you try to raise/bustle the lining with the snap, there is a puckering effect.

Thankfully, it's an easy fix (I undid the thread tack and re-knotted it to the right seam), but not what I expected from the mist colour technically being first-run quality!

Fixed, and now the skirt can be bustled nicely!

That's all for this post, I think! At this point I have all of 5 faltetto dresses, which is...ouch. I never thought I'd end up with so many. I may need to find some way to utilize all 5 at once...

[thundertide]

After chatting it out with @yoroiis and @waltzofphoenix, I've gone and done a little updating again! <3

I've moved the 'Divergences From Canon' section from my rules to a page of their own! It's split up by character and is a little easier to read, rather than trying to summarize 4 regions' worth of info into a single paragraph and still make it make sense. It should also be fully up to date with the end of the Fontaine quest!

Please note though that the Divergences page can and will be edited regularly as things change with the muses/between myself and my partners, and as the game's plot progresses and gives us new information. All changes will be announced/listed out in an update post like this when they happen - I don't like changing things like this on my blog without making it known to partners as I do them. <3

I'm in the progress of updating the abouts for Kyros, Rosalee, and Kagota now that the main Fontaine Archon Quest is done. Rosalee gains a vision by the en of it, Kyros is is tending to family matters, and Kagota has a bigger role in things as well as a new power under her belt, and will have a post detailing this role in a few minutes, which will also be linked to in the divergences page. These updates will be completed in the coming days, as there's still a few things I need to decide on!

Some rules have been rewritten. On skimming through my rules page, I realized there are some that seem overly harsh without explaining why, and I wanted to soften the wording on them and explain why they're in place. <3

There's a new sideblog to this blog in @crystalinetide! It's a singlemuse blog for Astra Fellheart, a Fontanian woman who come from a family heavily involved in Fontaine's mining industry, and while selective like this blog, is open for interaction!

I think that's all for this update - If I missed anything I'll make mention of them later. Hope y'all are having a good day! <3

~Pom

[estellamiraiauthor]

The Stars May Rise and Fall: The Annotated Re-read (Chapter 26)

Welcome back to chapter 26! This one was also pretty straightforward, but there are a couple of fun little things to comment on.

Spoilers, including spoilers for chapters beyond this one, under the cut!

Not a lot to comment on in the beginning. Teru goes back to his own apartment to get all his winter clothes so he can essentially keep living at Rei’s. I guess Rei is probably paying the rent on Teru’s apartment at this point, even though no one is using it, and… that’s an interesting choice. I think it’s partly just that Rei is still a little afraid of rejection, and that if he says “We’re living together anyway, why not make it official?”, there is a chance that Teru might say no. (He absolutely wouldn’t at this point, but Rei is super anxious about rejection so you know he’d worry about that.) But I think it’s also for Rei to give HIMSELF a way out…

Teru runs into Yasu in a music store where they’re both looking for bands who are looking for new members (nowadays this is probably done online, but people used to post fliers in places like this). They have an interesting conversation about the rest of the band, particularly when Yasu says he thinks Seika will be doing music forever, but he’ll be just as happy if he never makes it big. That’s a little bit of foreshadowing as well, since other than Teru, Seika is the slowest to say yes to the offer they’ll get later from a record label.

They leave the music store and walk over to Tokyu Hands, which was one of the few places you could easily get stage makeup. This section ended up being really nostalgic, because the area between Shinjuku Station and Takashimaya/Tokyu Hands has COMPLETELY changed since I wrote this.

They walk past a Starbucks (which at least WAS real; I’m not sure if it’s still there) where two girls are reading a manga together at the counter by the window. Teru internally comments that the girls probably aren’t a couple any more than the schoolgirl and the biker chick on the cover of the manga, but it would be nice if they were. This is pretty much a throwaway detail, but there are a couple of things happening here. First, the schoolgirl and the biker chick on the cover are Hiromi and Emika, the main characters from a second manuscript I had written, that I expected at the time to be my second book, so I added a little cameo in editing. It’s not a REAL cameo, because those characters were 18 in 2016, when their story was set, so they’d only be toddlers, but I put them in in manga form. (Teru and the band also had a cameo in THAT manuscript, where one of the girls says to the other, “You know the singer’s gay, right?”… Even if I never write a full sequel about what happens to Teru and company going forward, I was so excited to at least be able to make it canon that he’s still performing 16 years later, and is either publicly out or at least out in an “everyone knows even though it’s never been officially announced” sense.) The other thing going on here with this wistful “it would be nice if they were a couple” thought is probably that Teru IS wanting to be a little more like a normal couple with Rei… which leads into his next conversation with Yasu.

(That second manuscript is unfortunately never going to be published BTW… I hit a brick wall with editing and just generally have a lot of trauma over the whole process.)

The department store is decorated for Christmas in garish metallic colors that were kind of meant to highlight the difference between manufactured beauty and the inherent beauty of real, imperfect things just kind of as an ongoing theme. Yasu asks Teru if he and Rei have any plans for Christmas… Christmas in Japan is mostly a secular holiday. Only 1% of the population is Christian, so unless you’re a little kid or the parent of a little kid, it’s mostly a holiday for couples… so having some kind of romantic plan for Christmas would kind of be expected. Teru sort of confides in Yasu that they don’t go out much because people stare and Rei is self-conscious, and when Yasu suggests a love hotel, Teru admits that the one time they tried that, it didn’t go so well. Then we get what’s probably my very favorite moment from Yasu in the entire book, when he admits that he’s self-conscious sometimes too, about being “the fat kid who wanted to be a rock star”, and suggests that continuing NOT to have sex with Teru probably isn’t doing much to boost Rei’s body image. This gives Teru a lot to think about, and he lets Yasu load him up with a bunch of pamphlets from a travel agency.

Here, again, he tries to come up with a plan that Rei would enjoy, and I think he does better than he has in the past. Teru rightly thinks it wouldn’t be a lot of fun to take a plane. Even though this was pre-9/11 and security in Japan is more relaxed than in the US, Rei would still need to show his face and would probably set off all the metal detectors, so Teru finds a place they can get to by train, with hot springs (good for pain) that can be accessed via a private bath attached to the room… no need to be naked in front of strangers.

I think it’s very cute that Teru has to ask Seika if the hotel he finds is going to let two men check in together… of course when you think about it, it’s kind of a silly question. People go on vacation with family members or on business trips with colleagues or whatever all the time—no one would even have to know they were a couple. But it’s something I would probably have worried about at Teru’s age, and it feels very in character for him to have that fear!

And then we have the call from Minori, which is going to completely change the fate of the band in the next chapter.

[whileiamdying]

Rita Lee, Brazilian rocker with feminist message, dies at 75

Rita Lee, Brazil’s “queen of rock” who gained an international following with her colorful and candid style and songs that helped introduce Brazilian society to feminism, died May 8 at her home in São Paulo. She was 75.

The death was announced in a statement posted to her official Instagram account.

With a career spanning six decades, the singer left a lasting mark with her irreverence, creativity and hits such as “Mania de Você” (1979) and “Ovelha Negra” (1975). She also publicly addressed her struggles with drug abuse.

Although Ms. Lee regarded her voice as “weak and a little out of tune,” she enjoyed a long run of top-selling albums, including “Rita Lee” (1979) and “Rita Lee and Roberto de Carvalho” (1982). Dozens of her songs were featured in widely watched telenovelas in Latin America. The behemoth television network Globo used her rendition of the song “Poison Weed” in three of its programs.

“I was not born to get married and wash underwear. I wanted the same freedom as the boys who used to play in the street with their toy cars,” she told the Brazilian edition of Rolling Stone in 2008. “When I got into music, I realized that the ‘machos’ reigned absolute, even more in rock music. ‘Wow,’ I said, ‘this is where I’m going to let my fangs out and, literally, give them a hard time.’”

She was a singer and songwriter praised for her versatility, playing at least five instruments: drums, guitar, piano, harmonica and autoharp. She was also one of the first Brazilian musicians to use electric guitar.

Eventually her popularity extended beyond Brazil. She performed in Portugal, England, Spain, France and Germany. In 1988, the British newspaper Daily Mirror revealed that Prince Charles admired her 1981 song “Lança Perfume” (“Spray Perfume”) and considered her his favorite singer. She won a Latin Grammy in the Best Portuguese Language Album category in 2001 for her album “3001.”

Rita Lee Jones was born on Dec. 31, 1947, in São Paulo, the daughter of immigrants from Italy and the United States. Her father’s family, which relocated to Brazil soon after the Civil War, retained many American customs, including speaking English at home, according to a biographical sketch in Contemporary Musicians.

Ms. Lee rose to fame with the group Os Mutantes (The Mutants), starting in 1966. Colors and creativity, as well as irony and irreverence, were Ms. Lee’s trademarks from the start. By the mid-1970s, after selling 200,000 copies of the 1975 album “Forbidden Fruit,” Ms. Lee began to be called the “queen of rock” on the music scene.

The most popular and interesting stories of the day to keep you in the know. In your inbox, every day.

In an interview with the music website I Have More Records Than Friends! in 2017, Lulu Santos, judge of the Brazilian version of “The Voice,” recalled seeing Ms. Lee play autoharp at a concert.

“She brought that thing onstage, in those clothes … it was completely mythological,” the musician said. “There really is a lineage of ‘girls’ tied to rock in Brazil, of which she is a legitimate representative. But I see her as an element that distances herself from the cliches of rock. She, from her feminine point of view, sees the clumsiness of the worn-out cliche of the male rocker, the one who plays with his legs open. She saw right through him.”

She was one of the first public figures in Brazil to popularize feminist themes, such as infusing the lyrics of her 1979 song “Mania de Voce” (“Mania for You”) with female sexuality and pleasure. Similar songs followed, such as “Amor e Sexo” (“Love and Sex”), which contrasted the two in detail, and “Lança Perfume,” an ode to unbridled hedonism.

Later in life, she became a vegan and animal rights activist. For decades, she kept her hair bright red and often wore matching glasses, a popular look that she discarded in recent years as she allowed her gray to grow out. She resolved in 2015 to reinvent herself as a white butterfly.

In her autobiography, published the following year, she described the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of a man who had come to fix her mother’s sewing machine.

She also referred to herself as a “rebel” and “hippie communist,” and wrote of sneaking out the windows of her house as a teenager to play, being arrested during the dictatorship for possession of marijuana, and her multiple stints in rehab clinics for drugs and alcohol.

“I recognize that my best songs were written in an altered state, and my worst too. I only regret my delay in realizing that the ‘medicine’ had long since expired,” she wrote. “My generation suffered the claustrophobia of a brutal dictatorship, and using drugs was a way to breathe airs of freedom.”

In an interview with the television program “Fantastico” in 2020, she explained that physical frailty had prompted her to leave the stage eight years earlier.

“Getting old, for me, was a surprise, because I’ve never been old in my life,” she told the show. “I was left wanting to live my old age away from the stage, without sharing it with the public.”

Survivors include three children and her husband, musician Roberto do Carvalho, with whom she shared a 44-year musical partnership. In 2021, they released a new song, “Change,” and a remix of some of the singer’s biggest hits.

Years before, she imagined her death: “I will be in heaven,” she wrote, “with my soul present playing my autoharp and singing to God, ‘Thank you, Lord, finally sedated.’ Epitaph: She was never a good example, but she was good people.”

Washington Post staff contributed to this report.

[astrarchee]

updates [03/13/2023];

hello everyone!

apologies from the get go, for my silence. i know that this blog is pretty much run on a queue of various quotes / prompts / writing things / etc., and not even many people following... but to those that are here, following because you enjoy my work, i wanted to provide an update on what's going on with everything:

[to save on space, everything is below the cut. TL;DR also below the cut.]

chasing down the gods ⇨

the update is much, much later than i had previously promised. this is due to some things that happened offline, and threw my mind [and - generally - everything] into a bit of chaos. it's been hard to find inspiration, so i was giving myself some breathing space. my hope and goal is to get the chapter done this week, since the following one is already completed. i had considered posting that, but i don't want to time-skip quite yet. i don't think it's fair to all of you who have stuck with me for... 8 years, if my math is semi correct. in the interim, i actually made this fun page for it [link also in the sidebar/drop down titled "check the page"]! my hope is to make one for every work i've posted / am working on [aka, WIPs and completed]. feel free to check it out! i hope you all like it [it's dark mode, and should be mobile friendly-ish].

now, speaking of WIPs...

untitled gd fic ⇨

if you check this blog's homepage much [i will not blame you if you don't], you will have noticed a new work was put under the right sidebar [dropdown menu on mobile]. this was titled "untitled gd fic," and i am happy to announce that i am ready to reveal some first insights! as with cdtg, a WIP page has been made. as much as I would love to share it, due to a title being... not there, the url is a bit choppy. so, to make it up a bit, here's a photo so you all can have a sneak preview:

a couple notes:

this will be multichapter

this will be close to complete / mostly completed prior to uploading beginning

current ETA for uploads starting is may 2023 [forgoing more unforeseen life issues]

none of the bigger "archive warnings" for AO3 will apply [i.e. no non-con / major character death / etc.]* * only exception might be gore, but the plan is to not have extreme graphic details. think more criminal minds prior to it going to paramount+ and thus being able to show more.

when we are in april, my hope is to have the page itself available for everyone to check out. i am hoping to use these across the board

anything else ⇨

as said, these pages will be made for every fic. so, that includes mending bones and packed lunches and misplaced mistletoes. i will be putting links to these... somewhere. i have not gotten that far in my thought process. but, this allots a bit of time to actually work on things for this blog / towards my muse and writing inspiration, rather than just sitting and waiting.

one more thing [almost posted without mentioning this]: i will be linking to my main blog for a fic rec list. there, you'll find fics i've read and recommend for various fandoms. they were basically all wlw, but i don't know what else anyone would expect from me here. i will link both the mobile friendly edition, and the desktop version. i tend to prefer the desktop, but i know that tumblr mobile has become a lot more popular than when i first started here. i will note: i need to update it [has not been updated since... early february, i believe], but if you want something to read, check it out! my blog will also have a book rec page up eventually. that one takes a lot longer since that library is also expansive. if you want to go ahead and see recs now in the interim, here's the link to my blog's page with the direct links to said pages.

that's it though! i know i wrote a lot here, so:

TL;DR:

cdtg update will come as soon as life stops being messy + a fun WIP page

a new fic for a new fandom coming soon to a theater near you

pages for all previously completed works [aka all two of them] will be added to the blog very soon.

feel free to reach out, if you want to chat or anything. tumblr notifications are wonky as heck - but i will reply as swiftly as i can. hopefully i can do these kinds of updates biweekly / monthly. those of you here for the fic and the quotes, let me know if that sounds good to you.

much love - C