#im all wikipedia no plot points

[banavalope]

after drawing this, i took long enough trying to draw the second half of it i ended up just taking an entire three steps back to consider a lot of larger details. I now have more details than I know what to do with, so I’m just going to call it Starlore and say its a worldbuilding project at this point.

Worldbuilding is more enjoyable for me than writing a plot with some good legs, and I’m embracing that.

Text in image under the following cut for those who would prefer that.

Starlore: a worldbuilding exercise on the existential horros of creativity by me, Banavalope :) Amadeus, Betty, Ace, and Luz are a species of cosmic star beings best described as anthropomorphic personifications. Their home is called Astropa, which is not so much a planet as it is a cumulative of their nearly-endless realm, the Upside.

Despite the name, there is no way to quantify where in non-euclidean space Upside sits relative to Otherside and the Blanket*. Stars - known for having an exaggerated sense of self-importance - feel confident they’ve got it right.

Inherently, stars have an infinite amount of potential, but some facts can be held as true of the whole species: 1.) They are all sexless.** 2.) All stars have wings.*** 3.) “Unexplainable encounters” could be explained if stars admitted to making mistakes. * Three parts to a complete universe completely unrelated to our own - with the exception of a few copied answers, as to be expected. ** Unless they really want to make the effort, of which many do for any reason at all. *** Having wings is the leading cause of common misconceptions for any species. Often assumed to be an indication of the ability to fly, when they are just as easily an identification of the tendency to fall.

Astropa - the birthplace of ideas Anyone native to the Blanket would find the culture of stars incredibly stressful and incomprehensibly complex, were they to learn about it. This would be a correct observation, as stars seem to think they work well under pressure and go about scheduling it into their day.

An eternity spent in this kind of environment have made stars the only species known to effectively harness the most renewable source of energy across the universe: Validation.

In the ancient times of the Starmakers, validation was manufactured by fulfilling miracles blanketside. This was soon found by Timekeepers to be toxic on the environment, necessitating the regulation of wish granting* through the glory duty system**.

Modern day stars now mass produce validation locally and by natural means to meet high demand.

* Giving stars a whole lot less to feel superior over their peers about, ** and at the expense of longer lines at the Department of Miraculous Verisimilitude.

Elemental Anomalies Lucy’s hair reflects their current state of emotion. It maintains a sunny baseline, but has the widest range of expression compared to their siblings.

Ace breathes fire, losing control over it only when he’s incredibly frustrated. Holding it in makes him smoke.

Betty effects the air around her in a reliably straightforward way, under usual circumstances. In circumstances subjectively unusual, any adjective of air is possible.

Amadeus changes color to reflect the intense moods of others, rather than himself. Unfortunately, as everyone has unique colors they feel in, its not particularly helpful.

A variety of advanced technology can be found on Astropa. Holo’s are a versatile piece, commonly used to translate language when stars are blanketside.

Side Facts Some stars find them useful to have on all the time; Amadeus will use his to display closed captions for anyone not versed in sign language if his hearing aid* is out.

It isn’t necessary for stars to eat - or sleep, for that matter - but they do out of enjoyment.

* Which is not often.

Timekeepers A separate classification of anthropomorphic personification to stars are Timekeepers. They reside on a plane outside of spacetime, unimpressively called Timekeeping Affairs HQ.

The main office is reachable by taking the Timeline out of Astropa; there’s only one, and you can’t miss it.

[hotvintagepoll]

Peter Lorre (The Maltese Falcon, Arsenic and Old Lace, Casablanca)—to me he DEFINES scrungle hes the first person i think of every time the term comes up! i want to fold him up like a paper accordion and put him in my pocket. guy that spawned a million voice artists and impersonators. they made a ghost version of him for halloween cereal staple boo berry. bewitched by his nervous mania and tooth gap <3 (for the purposes of propaganda im linking a photo from his extremely short appearance in muscle beach party bc ive been obsessed w it for years and i couldnt find any video for it :/ anyway imagine youre frankie avalon spending the whole movie battling a bodybuilder faction thats taking over your beach and your girl and then you find out this fucking guy is their mastermind mystery leader and hes stronger than all the bodybuilders combined. like Huh. What.)

Tony Randall (Lover Come Back, Pillow Talk)—he's SO TIRED he's three-wheeling ALL THE TIME on rock and doris's shenanigans and he is always SMALL. PATHETIC. INHERENTLY FILLED WITH ENNUI. i feel like all these 60s comedies are very Straight Laced and Heterosexual and yet somehow tony randall is always there having the worst day ever.

This is round 1 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you're confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Peter Lorre

he's pretty much the archetype of the scrungly little guy. the blueprint. the example by which all other scrungly little guys are judged

The perfect sniveling character actor, “scrungly” is the first word that comes to mind when I think of him.

The entire point of his iconic role in Casablanca (apart from introducing the central plot mcguffin) was to be LITTLE and SCRUNGLY to make Bogie look even cooler. And Maggot in Corpse Bride - the littlest scrungliest guy in that film - was a parody of him.

I think Arsenic and Old Lace is his quintessential "scrungly" performance. He's so put-upon and tired...all he wants is sleep and some schnapps! I love the way his shoulders fall slowly when he thinks he's caught (he looks like a sad puppy!), only to gleefully sprint out the door when he realizes how dumb those police officers are.

Between his big eyes, wheezy laugh, short stature, and expressive faces, Peter Lorre achieved icon status as the scrungliest, littlest guy in Hollywood. His scrungly little guy energy was often contrasted with the more typical masculinity of the leading man, but whether this contrast was meant to make him seem especially sinister, comedic, or pathetic, it always left an unforgettable impression!

I'm sure somebody else has already submitted him (if not then ???) but he's a cute kind of scrungly little guy. He's got a distinctive nasal voice with an accent that is instantly recognizable and often imitated. His later horror movies are so much fun, especially when he's playing off of Vincent Price. He's so good at being unhinged, creepy, or manic, but also pathetic and sympathetic.

Classic scrungly hollywood golden age little guy who was friends with Humphrey Bogart and still played some of the wettest most sniveling characters ever committed to celluloid (complimentary) there is a deep despair and darkness in many of his characters that enhances his scrungly

To be clear, I am one of those people who will argue that Lorre is one of the most underrated film actors, but the POINT is that he's also just a scrungly delight. A delightfully pocket-sized man. Somehow endearing even when he is being actively amoral (see esp. Casablanca. "I found myself much more reasonable!") The faces he makes while doing the Russian cossack dance with a butter knife between his teeth in Silk Stockings make me laugh just thinking about them.

Wikipedia described his typical characters as "timidly devious", lots of weird little villains and evil sidekicks that are pretty horrifying but still manage to be sort of pathetic and the very definition of "poor little meow meow". His look and voice and mannerisms are so iconic they're still imitated

Cartoons for the next century have and will continue to include Peter Lorre-esque characters when needed to up the scrunge factor (see Bugs Bunny and so many more).

[editor's note on below link: I'm not actually sure how many of these characters are directly influenced by Peter Lorre, so take with a grain of salt. tw for suicide.]

The poster boy for Scrungly. Everyone who wants to draw a scrungly guy draws Peter Lorre. Gomez Addams of The Addams Family was based on him

Tony Randall

"you had everything going for you! poverty!! squalor!!!!" "girls again!!! what's this obSESSion you have with giRLS???"

[wr1t3w1tm3]

More unsolicited thoughts on The Outsiders a New Musical.

Tw: mention of suicide in some of the last paragraphs. If you've read the book/watched the movie, ya know.

Contains spoilers for all forms of The Outsiders (book, movie, and musical). All spoilers are below the cut.

I figured out why some of the songs in the new Outsiders musical didn't make as much sense.

They changed several plot points!!!

Most aren't egregious and I'm cool with them, but there are a couple they got me some kinda way.

(This is based if the plot synopsis on Wikipedia. It could be wrong but it's all I've got cause im a broke pleb).

In Chronological Order:

Obviously there is no Steve. Personally don't care either way. Like him and Soda's platonic relationship, particilarly what we see in the movie, but otherwise I understand why it was easier to cut his role.

Johnny only got jumped a week before the musical (but then Justice for Tulsa sounds weird because Cherry suggests Johhny killed because of how Bob treated him and she implies that he was hurt a while ago...? IDK man. Not to big a gripe but it's just weird).

Grease got a Hold is essentially a ritual initiation because Ponyboy survived getting jumped (they skip his getting saved by the gang by having Pony get knocked out) so him surviving makes him a Greaser? I don't understand and frankly I would've preferred slightly less deviation from the source material here but again, I don't mind this change, it's all down to preference.

I almost don't like how much of a main character Darry has become? Like I like him in the adaptation, but I feel like his upgrade came at the cost of the downgrade of Soda and Two-Bit. I love both those characters and from what I've read/heard they both had there roles reduced, Soda it seems almost severely. But typical middle child shit I guess. Again, he could have a lot of speaking bits because I'm going off a couple synonpses and the cast album, but man I miss him. And Two Bit. I hope that they at least had him and Pony together going to visit Johnny. That's one of my favorite parts of the book and movie.

They add a scene between Johnny and Dally where Dally sees Johnny outside his house. I'm out of order here bit it's the night before the Drive In. Johnny says he's afraid to leave because his dad could kill his mom? Interesting take on that relationship but okay. I do love this scene personally.

I don't know if we get the Two Bit and Marcia fling. It didn't get mentioned in the plot synopsis so I won't comment further.

The addition of Ponyboy going unconcscious during the first fight means I get a two nickles meme about Ponyboy blacking out during fights in this musical.

There's no Randy?!?!? @annacatbeth13 said he got cut for the Broadway run and I'm sorry. He is a hella good character and even though his movie role is reduced, he's so good. I kinda feel like the musical suffers by having only Cherry as the oposition to Soc POV when you've got minimum of Pony and Johnny verbally against the Greaser POV and Darry is very much contrary in action during the book/movie and verbally here.

B/c there's no Randy a lot of Bob and Randy scenes are just Bob and Soc scenes.

I'm sorry, the fact that the guy who plays Bob plays the cop that investigates Bob's murder is sending me. MF rolls up like "yeah, I didn't just die here. This is fine" and everyone rolls with it. It's show business, I understand, but I feel like if I saw this show in person I'd notice and I'd lose it.

Also, I'm gonna note here that Brent Comer played Paul in La Jolla and now plays Darry. Ironic. Speaking of Paul and Darry as much as I don't like them removing Randy using Paul to fill his role as Bob's friend works quiet well. However, isn't Paul 20? And wasn't Bob like 17 or 18? I have questions that I'm not sure I can answer so I'm just gonna assume they were friends in high school and Paul stayed local for college.

I also don't know if they end up going to the Dairy Queen? Like the synopsis says that Dally comes up to see them and that it's Pony's discarded cigarette that starts the fire... but then the kids show up out of nowhere so where the hell did they come from? This entire incident is assumedly spoken so all I've got's the synopsis.

I was told again by @annacatbeth13 that Randy sang Hopeless War with Cherry and Pony and dammit, they took out that entire thing and that is such a catalyst for Ponyboy seeing the world in shades of gray like Cherry mentions in Hopeless War and I'm... I'm sorry. It just feels kinda wrong. I understand why they had to cut him but dammit it doesn't mean I'm not sad.

Everything in the hospital feels rushed. It does seem like they cut the Two-Bit taking Pony to the hospital bit (which makes sense, still sort of makes me mad). It also sounds like they upped Johnny's charge to first degree murder!! Like that doesn't make sense to me. He didn't premeditate shit. I honestly don't even think you could get second degree murder to stick. They then just mention and drop the charges in like the same song? Or in pretty rapid succession because it seems like the cut the juvenile court and Darry having to be checked on by the state storylines. Again, I understand having to strip a musical down to be a bit more barebones because of time contsraints but, like, if Fiddler can have four different plot lines within the same family, you can have the main issue, the sibling fight, and the Pony/Cherry/Randy bit. It's only three plotlines. I don't know why this makes me so mad but it does and IDK why?

I love Trouble. I love Darry in that song. And Dally. But also... Pony in the book and movie has been in multiple rumbles. It is mentioned in greater detail in the book and I don't know how I feel about them making Ponyboy so innocent. Like. He was never innocent, in the book and the movie. Everyone just thought he was? Again, simplifying for time constraints but I do miss it.

I like what they did with Paul. He's always felt very flat, more of a mirror to reflect Darry against same as Steve reflected Soda and Cherry/Randy/Johnny reflected Pony. But I do like the sort of righteous indignation they gave this version of Paul. It gives him that little bit of motivation to convince me that he should be at the rumble, despite being 20. Because in the book we get told that Darry is there specifically as the leader of Pony's "gang" but we don't get told why Paul is there so it feels odd. The musical does rectify that, which I kind of like.

However, I have to say I love Dally and Johnny's relationship in this musical. Just based on what I've seen they made it the most clear and concise interpretation of all versions of this story. Both songs where Dally talks to Johnny he refers to him as little brother, which cements that relationship and helps us understand why he eventually snaps. Which I will be talking about but I cannot give enough praise for their relationship.

I also cannot give enough praise for Cherry. I don't know exactly what they did, and they really ramped up Cherry's invovlement because she had to take some of Randy's place but they did such a good job with her. I like how they put her in the middle of all the conflicts (mostly with the Justice for Tulsa number) and I think seeing how she reacts really cemented this version as my favorite. I think they manage to get across that she actually does care about Johnny and Pony as people. All the other versions she comes off as pitying them which I don't like because it feels fake. And I understand why Pony doesn't like her. I kind of like that her relationship with him extends to her giving him Johnny's clothes because she starts volunteering at the hospital. I think that also helps humanize her too.

Alright, this is the most egrious change, in my humble opinion. They change how Dally dies. I think that him commiting suicide is necessary to the story, but in the musical he JUMPS IN FRONT OF A TRAIN!! You could argue that this is because a train killed the Curtis Parents (as seen in the complete novel edition of the movie) and you could argue that it's a symbol of death or of constancy for the Curtis' as they lose people to trains (technically Pony and Johnny are taken away to Windrixville via train). However... I think it still would've made more sense to stick to Dally dying via suicide by cop. It seems like they cut the Dairy Queen scene and if they did they probably cut Dally carrying a heater, which then makes the suicide by cop not work so they have him jump in front of a train... but that still feels out of character to me. I could be wrong, but when Pony talks about how Dally would go, he says Dally would die young and violent and angry. Him jumping in front of a train doesn't tell me he was angry. It tells me he was depressed. While you still get desperation, it's sad desperation. Not the angry desperation that you get with him doing the suicide by cop.

It would not surprise me in the slightest if they choose not to use Dally's original death because of the police discourse in the media. I want to say now that I have several cops/ex-cops in my family and from what they have told me, if someone pulled a stunt like what Dally did in the movie/book, they would be forced to shoot. It becomes a kill or be killed situation because they don't know if the gun is loaded. Now, the offending officer would be tried later on for manslaughter or related crimes but probably acquitted because they couldn't have known (in the movie it's debatable because the gang yells that the gun isn't loaded, but the police still probably wouldn't have listened). I think that the writers probably wanted to avoid having that controversy drum up. I can't blame them, still pisses me off.

All that being said, I do like this adaptation. But of the three versions of this piece of media, it's my least favorite. Love all the songs, love what characters we do have, and this is by far my favorite Cherry and my favorite portrayal of Johnny and Dally's relationship, but I don't like what they did to Dally in the end. No hard feelings against anyone who likes this or the creatives behind it, but it's just not my favorite and I don't know how faithful I would consider this adaptation.

[yinyuedijun]

i dont know if this is an unusual thing to ask (or if it has been asked before), but i’ve always immensely admired the effort you put in your fics with how well-researched they all are, especially when it comes to cultural details of the story/concept (it’s very immersive because it feels like i’m learning as i read further, not only about the character/s but about the culture the story is set in as well)

and so im curious, how do you start or how do you go about the research when starting a fic?

aw thank you anon!!! I'm so glad you find the fics interesting from a learning perspective, I'm always so happy to hear when people appreciate the research I've done for my fics 🥹

I don't really have a set method for research, but here are some basic tips:

for topics that I don't know a lot about, I usually start by skimming the wikipedia article on the topic, picking out key points of interest that are relevant to the story, and then googling to find academic pages or books on that topic. then I usually try to stick to those sources for my writing, both because they go into more depth and because I know they'll be more reliable than other sources on the web

ALSO when I was writing the yakuza au, which is a topic I knew close to nothing about - for the first time, I tried to begin my research by watching documentaries and video essays on youtube, and it also worked CRAZY well. super digestible and way less labour intensive than googling and trying to find academic sources.

if you're trying to get a sense of everyday life for something, or how a regular person might view/act on the subject rather than an academic or journalist perspective, I find video blogs and reddit threads to be a really informative source. for instance, I've never been to any hostess bars in japan so I tried to look for AMAs from hostesses and was quite successful in that regard (especially for things like terminology/slang that people use)

this final tip is not really a research method per se, but helps with it. in my real life I'm always on the lookout for subjects that I find extremely interesting, and I try to retain as much info about it as I can in case the opportunity ever comes up to write about it. so for example, in my feudal japan au, I came up with those inari shrine plot points because I visited fushimi inari shrine once and got super obsessed with all the fox statues LOL. naturally when I was writing about a fox spirit character, that came back to mind, and I already had a reference point for my research, which helped.

I hope this helps!

[scifirice]

The game Doomed in danny phantom has insane implications.

Before you go typing stuff, I am aware it's the result of needing a video game to have stakes and the writers needing a plot. I understand watsonian and doylist reasoning, im a writer myself. this is purely for the in-universe implications which I believe are crazy.

In episode 12: Teacher of the Year, danny and his friends are playing some kind of online game where the grand prize for beating it is full access to the World Wide Web. I re watched this episode prior to writing this, though it has been a hot minute since ive seen the other episodes, so i don't know exactly if they've actually used the internet prior to that episode. But i do remember technus escaping because Danny deleted his old save of Doomed so i guess that does imply he beat it at some point after episode 12.

The mere fact they can even play an online game in the first place would imply they have some access but not as much as they could. Kind of like how when you have a learners permit you can only drive in the daytime with an adult in the passenger seat. Can you imagine getting online and only being able to access wikipedia and facebook? Thats what I'm seeing from this.

So as far as we know, anyone who wants to get full access to the internet has to play and beat this game. We see danny and tucker make it to the final level multiple times, it takes them all night but that assumes even an average player can make it far if they keep at it. So the game itself couldn't be too difficult.

But what bewilders me the most is what Sam's doing. Why does this game have PVP? Sam hasn't beat the game either, she was likely doing it just to fuck with danny and tucker but she also blasts some random dude at the beginning. The trio seemed to all be able to win the game together at the very end, meaning there isn't any actual reason for pvp since there's no need to claim the prize solely for yourself.

Then there's Lancer. He's already beating the goddamn game! Yet he comes back just to beat it again and fight people! Is he gaining anything from this? Probably not. But why would this be an option for returning players? It's like someone who gets a doctorate degree and then goes around a middle school with a baseball bat bashing any student they see trying to learn and the school staff do nothing about it.

Why is the world set up like this? Did the government decide full internet access is something someone should have to take a test for? Did everyone have to take the test or were they grandfathered into keeping full access? I dunno how old Lancer is but unless we assume he was only playing the game for fun, he had to have beat Doomed when he was younger. so that implies his generation and the one after were all subject to this rule.

Is Doomed the only game like this? are there other games for other kinds of people since not everyone is good at FPS games? Could there be other things like make a character on the sims live for a whole year on max difficulty and then you win? Beat halo on legendary with all skulls on? speedrun mario 64 below the allowed time limit? Whose idea was this!? Not everyone is going to want full access when they're teens like danny, but what about when you get a job? Do you need to put "I beat Doomed" on your resume? this whole this is just fucking bizzare,

It's a minor detail never really brought up again, but the wider implications of it are immense. Anyway, im using this episode as inspiration to write a story because I cannot let this idea just get swept under the ecto-rug.

[harrypotterfuryroad]

never heard of HPMOR before but I tried to read the first chapter (gave up one paragraph in) and then I read the wikipedia page and I'm floored. what the fuck is this. the killer for me is he changed SPEW to something about witches and misogyny?? which is so lame because making Hermione dedicated to protecting house-elves is noble and selfless but Hermione going "uh I'm not respected enough >:( organization to fight misogyny idk" is not selfless or honestly all that Hermione like at all. I cannot see her being that obsessed with her own problems. Also why did he invent misogyny in the wizarding world like in HP there was never an issue of witches being condescended to or anything, besides Hermione a muggleborn going "I have to do the cooking because im a GIRL I suppose" and wizard-raised Ron going "no bc you're supposed to be the best at magic". and then blood purists who behead their slaves not allowing women to inherit wealth. also why the fuck is Draco Harrys best friend. I'm losing my mind

he completely missed that SPEW was *already* an allegory about misogyny but he's far from the only person to miss the reference

every divergence point is him going "i'm so smart for thinking of this when she obviously left this clear plot hole in the original series" and it's something that's discussed at length in the books

[spu10d]

“Night on the Galactic Railroad” ichihona

i read the novel and watched the movie recently so random thoughts below

(spoilers for NotGR too!)

OK SO uhm the way i initially delved into this was because i suddenly remembered someone online mention (VERY OFFHANDEDLY). that leo/needs trained set from ‘Live with Memories’ was based off of ‘Night on the Galactic Railroad’.

(^ so this set)

merged with this movie poster (for the film adaption where theyre all cats).

Ramblings…

of course this leads me to read the plot in its wikipedia page and. immediately find ways to apply it to my blorbos. (at this point i wasnt even sure if i remembered the book right/if this was even the right book… and im still unsure but whatever…) (im also bad at Media Literacy).

so i settled on ichihona to be giovanni and campanella. around middle school aged.

but at first, i had it in my mind that ichika -> campanella, and honami -> giovanni.

mostly because campanella drowned rushing in to save zaneli after he fell in the river, something i just felt was very Young Ichika… the impulsiveness, no hesitance to help another…

and that Young Ichika is someone honami wanted to be like. so giovanni being like Scorpio, wishing for a chance to spread happiness for the sake of others (like ichika)…

but i think ‘ichika being campanella and honami being giovanni’ didnt fit as well because giovanni was the one seen to be alone, while campanella was surrounded by friends and did nothing when they teased giovanni.

so once i swapped them around (ichika being giovanni, honami being campanella), i started having more ideas and… interpretations??

ok first off. campanella is likened to scorpio, wanting to (and unlike scorpio, somewhat achieving) ‘save others’ and ‘spreading happiness’. which i think tied nicely to what honami does in middle school, trying to be there for everyone, be an ear to talk/vent to and generally trying to help others.

ALSO GUESS WHOS A SCORPIO (honami)

meanwhile while giovanni and campanella are friends, campanella doesnt really do anything while hes teased by his classmates, just looking back with sympathy. something about how honami sort of… ‘chose’ (ok, was sort of ‘bullied/threatened’ into choosing) her classmates over ichika.

also i like the scene at the very end of the book, where giovanni stands on the riverbank after hearing the news of campanella’s disappearance/death. he looks to the distance while everyone wonders where campanella went, thinking “i know where he went. he went to the edge of the universe. i know, because we went there together.”

im just thinking that while (giovanni/ichika) thinks that, the galaxy can be seen, yes, but also the moon (its like… ~7pm? around the end of summer so its plausible the moon could be low enough to just be seen over the river), with like, honami (in that sorta transparent where theyre not actually there thing), back turned. yknow, since ‘mochizuki’ has the character for moon.

ALSO THE HORRIBLE SAD IRONY OF CAMPANELLA DROWNING, AND HONAMI’S SPECIALTY BEING SWIMMING…

the whole ‘praying like scorpio to serve others in the next life’ thing is. uoorhg. i feel like something can be said about how honami was always helping others, but no one really knew how it was… like? to be like honami, with her selfishness and fear of being bullied, cast out, left behind… etc…

the wikipedia pointed out that a sort of ‘focus’ in the story was about “giving your life in service for others” and uoroogh. are you getting me… (it can work both ways i think, honami and ichika).

also campanella mentioned liking apples once (1 time) and of course like the loser i am i locked in like HONAMI! hes also knowledgable about flowers which is also partially why i initially saw him as ichika

also with giovanni, how hes left alone in the end.

(which while it fits ichika, now im thinking of a scenario where its saki as giovanni… i dont think itll work out as well as ichika though)

i might add more to these ramblings… these are just my initial word dumps.

[age-of-moonknight]

Helloo

If im not bothering you too much, may I ask what you know about the cia?

I know it may not be a question related to moon knight, or maybe it could be, but im kinda interested to know the basics at least and you seem to know a lot about it

Btw, i absolutely adore your blog

Hello!!! :D I'm so glad that you enjoy this blog and thanks for stopping by! Although, well,,,,hm,,,maybe it's just my rabid paranoia sinking its claws even deeper into me, but this is one of the more interesting asks I've gotten for this blog, that's for sure. 😅 For perhaps some context, I think anon might be referencing this post I made, gosh, close to two years ago now, where I got....maybe a little too excited talking about the history of the CIA and what Marc's time with The Company could mean for his character hahaha Accordingly, a full rundown on the agency's history, not to mention its many, many facets, is probably a bit outside the purview of this blog, but this is then a good time to state that if anyone ever wants to talk about anything and everything besides Moon Knight, my dms are always open and I'm happy to chat! However,,,I also have an affliction where I am an incorrigible pedant who jumps at the chance to write essays on things that interest me (and intelligence interests me very, very much, unfortunately). As such, while all my instincts are telling me this is absolutely glowing bait on a hook, if anyone wants to read a rambling wall of text about that agency Marc spent some time with, that will be waiting for you under the cut. Again, disclaimer, I'm just some person on the internet and thus can't really be considered a credible source on much of anything (except maybe how many times Moon Knight has teamed up with the Punisher hahaha). All the following info could easily be gathered from OSINT sources (and we're talking, like, Wikipedia, although this gave me the chance to pull out one of my favorite textbooks, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy by Mark Lowenthal (vol. 7). If you're the textbook reading-type and interested in the topic, I'd suggest giving it a shot, particularly chapters 2 and 3 for the CIA and the U.S.' broader intelligence community). I tried to keep this incredibly surface level, as these are all topics that you could write monographs on, so if you want more sources/context, just hit me up! This also got,,,,unreasonably long (I didn't even know tumblr HAD a point where it would stop autosaving, but apparently trying to list all of the CIA's crimes against humanity will get you there), so I ended up having to split this across multiple posts.

Conception I discussed it in my previous post, but I'll give a brief rundown on how the Central Intelligence Agency came to be. So, the United States had intelligence organs pre-World War II, but they would typically only be spun up for however long a conflict lasted and then all of their assets would be reintegrated back into the military, da? But then with the end of WWII ushering in the atomic age and nuclear deterrence pushing out conventional conflict in favor of an espionage-fueled Cold War, the U.S. government deemed it prudent to have a permanent intelligence gathering service. There was just one hiccup, the question of what to do with the U.S.' WWII-era intelligence service, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Under the leadership of the very descriptively nicknamed Brigadier/Major General William "Wild Bill" Donovan, OSS officers had been running around conducting sabotage and espionage operations throughout Europe and Asia, doing wild things like working with an underground intelligence network of European Catholic priests and coordinating with the 20 July plot/Operation Valkyrie assassination attempt on Hitler. They were the very definition of irregular, British officials accused them of "playing cowboys," and the U.S.' massive post-war military organization was loathe to have to find some way to force OSS officers into the military's necessary uniformity, so in 1947, after a couple years of bureaucratic shuffling, the OSS apparatus got pasted onto this new intelligence agency that was so far,,,rather bookish and the CIA as we know it was born. This divide, between the incredibly Ivy League analysts and the more martial remnants of the OSS that got folded in was a contributor to the two major branches of the CIA (and their infamous intra-agency rivalry), so this perhaps a good segue into the CIA's different internal departments, its "directorates."

There are the two ogs, the Directorate of Operations and the Directorate of Analysis, and then the newer Directorates of Digital Innovation, Support, plus Science & Technology. (Note: this is as the agency stands now; there have been some fluctuations in structure and naming conventions over the years).

The Directorate of Operations (DO) needs little introduction, as it's the legacy of the OSS and what most people think of when they hear the word "espionage," the kind of work one individual once described to me as "fast cars, nice suits, and unlimited spending" (hope he's still out there and doing well). They're your politically deniable boots on the ground collecting HUMINT (human intelligence such as handling contacts and the like) and executing covert actions. It contains the ultimate sharp point of the spear, the Special Activity Center (SAC) with its Political Action Group (PAG), which spreads black propaganda, influences elections, and conducts other psychological operations, and the Covert Action Group (CAG), which draws operators from the military's special forces programs to form their own direct action, counter-intel/counter-terror, unconventional warfare, paramilitary group (they have a very diverse set of martial skills). Naturally, most recipients of the U.S. intelligence community's highest honors, the Intelligence Star and Distinguished Intelligence Cross are from the SAC. Most of the stars on the CIA HQ's Wall of Honor, which memorializes officers who died in service of the CIA, represent SAC officers too, however.

The Directorate of Analysis (DA), in contrast, doesn't get enough love, despite making up nearly half of the CIA for decades. Whereas the DO mainly collects the intelligence through various means, the DA has the people who take the raw intel and try to turn it into something digestible for policy makers (whether that means just translating the intel into basic English or proposing whole, wide-sweeping policy strategies has varied across the agency's history depending on its professionalism and the degree of government oversight at the time). They get so overshadowed despite being a key part of the intelligence cycle, it's almost not funny hahaha (I kid you not, the official CIA website not only has a "kids" section with an online coloring book that depicts the various directorates as heroes, but it even went so far as to depict the DO with a rather dashing hat and cape,,,,while they gave the representation of the DA glasses and a briefcase, I weep hahaha). However, if you've ever heard a stereotype of the CIA actually being made up of a bunch of incredibly Ivy League, smart but cliquey, uncomfortably cold (both in manner and strategy) eggheads, that would be because of the DA. That's a very disparaging stereotype,,,,but it got its start from somewhere. It's still the CIA after all, and there have been times in the institution's history where the only thing to distract the DA from its intra-agency pissing contest with the more domineering DO was to shield the CIA from any sort of external government or other agency encroachment on the CIA's "purview."

Probably the next most established division would be the Directorate of Science & Technology (DST). Whereas the DO is predominantly HUMINT and the DA works closest with policy makers, the DST is the one expanding the CIA's technological capacity to deal with CBRN threats (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear), and collect SIGINT (signals intelligence over radio waves and the like), IMINT (image intelligence as from satellites), and GEOINT (geological intelligence monitoring seismographs to, for example, detect if a nation is doing underground nuclear tests). Intel collection is only as good as the tools used and naturally intelligence agencies all around the world are constantly trying to leapfrog each other in capabilities, circumvention, and denial (preventing adversarial interest's collection efforts, that is).

Similarly, the most recent division is the Directorate of Digital Innovation (DDI), which is similar to the DST, but the DDI is focused almost entirely on cyberwarfare/espionage. They also seem to be doing a lot with OSINT ("open-source" intelligence, AKA any information you can access without a security clearance). OSINT used to be a bit of a joke in the intelligence community ("so, it's just what you read in the paper this morning??? That puts it one step above LAVINT: intelligence collected by overhearing conversations in the lavatory"), but with the explosion of information made available by the modern internet landscape and social media, you can go far with OSINT. (If you too salivate over the potential OSINT, maybe checkout Bellingcat if you haven't already)

Lastly but not least, there's the Directorate of Support, who are all the people who keep The Company running smoothly, managing logistics, comms, security at CIA sites, and overseeing officer training.

So yeah, I've alluded to the DA's and DO's rivalry, so maybe I should talk about inter- and intra-agency competition and the hot water those things have got the CIA in over the years. Maintaining an effective intelligence community is a tricky thing, particularly in a nation trying its best to be democratic and at least nominally respect human rights. You want officers to be able to collect intelligence, but you can't let them have so much free rein they rough up the nation's own citizens with impunity (as that's a bad look and can lead to civilian push back that could not only hurt the regime but handicap intelligence gathering in the future) and you definitely don't want an intelligence agency getting so much power it feels like it can start dictating a nation's policy instead of just advising on it. (Plus, the absolute nightmare scenario of an agency that's gone completely off the rails and no longer bothers much with consulting on politics at all, but just operates completely independently). Thus, to prevent the intelligence community from getting too big for its own good, a little competition, a little checks-and-balances from within the intelligence community can be beneficial. The drive by one intel group to outperform another (and consequently get more recognition/funding/etc.) can lead to a mutual improvement of the products that end up on a policy maker's desk. Having said that, I hope I explained it in such a way where you might see the issue with the CIA being the U.S.' singular, domineering force in the federal intelligence community for decades. The DA and DO had their marked cultural divide, but the CIA had very little competition from other agencies and, for example, had their ultimate weapon: the President's Daily (intel) Brief. The CIA, due to its vast capabilities, for years had the privilege of providing the president with (what the CIA deemed to be) the most important intel topics of the day. Accordingly, particularly during the Cold War before government oversight of the CIA really kicked up, this allowed the CIA to sway the government towards some at best politically questionable and more critically ethically deplorable policy choices.

Yeah, having gotten this far, I don't think I've made it clear that, for as much as I am fascinated by and spent,,,,a lot of resources studying subjects such as intelligence and terrorism, I am fully cognizant and never quite cease to be outraged by the injustice that permeates those fields. The CIA for sure, with its vast resources and the outsized role the United States played in meddling in international affairs during the Cold War and on, is a chief and, now, well-documented offender. I'm sure CIA intelligence collection and guidance has prevented many attacks we'll never know about, but you can't talk about the CIA without discussing the actions that directly resulted in thousands dead. Let's go over some of their greatest hits, shall we? (And that takes me so long I have to put it in a whole other post).

[latentspaceofficial]

research tangent! scp x wh13

so this is something a little bit different than what i normally talk about. i'm putting on a different cap today. ok little nerd moment thats been living rent free in my head for days. ive got an antistatic bag on my desk thats been sitting here for a while and i noticed something familiar

that sure as hell looks like the scp foundation logo

which got me really thinking. so its very obvious to me that the scp logo takes inspiration from this iso or ansi symbol. but whats even more odd was looking at the timeline of the scp wikis birth. im a zillenial (god i hate that word) so my childhood was watching markiplier play scp:cb, scrolling the old wiki, fucking with cleverbot. fun stuff like that. i was still a drooling idiot. when sci-fi renamed to syfy. but i remember the switchover and not being allowed to watch eureka because there were some "goddamns" in there. but i was allowed to watch warehouse 13, in spite of steve's existence. i was way too into the steampunk and lore of warehouse 13 when it was relevant. so much so i had a fucking farnsworth ringtone on my lg shit phone and i thought it was the coolest thing. i'm also still gay as hell for h.g. wells and her fit.

but anyway anyway. the premise of warehouse 13 was finding dangerous "artifacts" that imbued special status affects on people and to neutralize them with "neutralizer grid polyethylene static bags" as they say. their motto being "snag it. bag it. and tag it." or something to that effect.

what im getting at is that warehouse 13 has a similar premise to the scp foundation, but more mainstream comedy and less psychological horror. there's a tangential link between wh13 with scp via anti static bags and the symbol. so i looked into this a bit. through cursory searches, i didn't find anyone really talking about this other than a similar premise. so i looked at timelines. in july 2008 the scp foundation wiki (idk which one) was started, while wh13 piloted on july 2009. with a year delta, it seems clear "who stole from who". but wait. writing, pitching, and filming takes quite a while. is a year really enough time? i can't find any trademarks registered by universal nor any evidence of a canadian filming license. so this is where i stopped typing on my phone and started researching. the waters are a bit muddy, so bear with me. wh13 was co-written by a handful of people and rewritten as well. but the original plot was announced by sci-fi here in october of 2007

according to wikipedia (the free encyclopedia), inspirations for warehouse 13 include the x-files, raiders of the lost ark, something called moonlighting, and this show from the late 80s and early 90s called "friday the 13th: the series". i'd never heard of it, but it shares the vaguest premise with both wh13 and scp to keep bad artifacts away from harming people.

well what about the scp wiki? when did it form? well it's complicated. (i'm sorry for my poor cropping, it will happen again)

the scp wiki itself states that the original scp came from 4chan and that a lot of original organization happened on 4chan. indeed 4chan is the source of famous scps such as 173

posted on june 2007 is the original lore post about 173 and can be seen as the beginning of scps. which pre-dates the announcement of wh13. i don't know about you, but how fast you could go from trolling 4chan to a pilot script? at this point "some government authority retrieving dangerous magic embued items" was not a previously done idea and was indeed original. the x-files kinda did this before with balancing larger plot arcs with mini plot supernatural occurrences, not all aliens. but nothing about being an authoritative group that comes in and cleans up super natural mishaps. nah, mulder and skully just stayed in the basement or took an occasional road trip to see a whistleblower. i honestly love scp far more than wh13, but i'm going to be the devil's advocate and not give the new era spin on an old idea to the scp wiki just yet. 173 is an scp, but the idea of scps is not fully laid out yet. the thread was also deleted days later and thus only lived in the minds of active forum users of the time as fan derivatives were made. so there was a period of time where the fandom had started to form, but no official wiki existed. the semi official scp wiki formed in january 2008. later than the announcement of wh13 but before the pilot of the show ever aired in july 2009. so it's always possible the writers were 4channers and yoinked the idea. again, it's so fascinating how close in time and narrative the scp wiki and wh13 are. i personally doubt the writers were on 4chan at the time, but neither the wiki nor the show writers exist in a vacuum. i think it all warrants scrutiny and there's no smoking gun saying who inspired who, or if it's absolute coincidence. that is unless some ogs from the scp wiki or the writers of wh13 are able to speak on it. i'm curious what other people think.

[emreveria]

Fanart of Ana Huang's 'Twisted Love' (the parasite in me urged me to make this)

very messy review of that book below !<3

First of all: I was not a fan of the Book nor the twisted series (i read them all except the last one, im still at like 75% because there are simply too many books id rather waste my time reading)-

the reason i even read as much as i did is because a friend of mine decided to read the first one & convinced me that they were so bad we would have a great time making fun of them/ hating on them: keep your friends close& enemies closer type beat

im definitely not the best (or a good) writer or critic but i am an avid fanfiction reader/ cartoon enjoyer so trust me when i say the 'twisted love' plot is like a badly written scooby doo episode: all characters feel soulless & ive watched bts oneshots on youtube that had more interesting/ suprising plottwists.

The Playlist at the beginning of the book is incredibly dated and to this day i dont understand why it is even there because it adds nothing (this trend continues in the other books of the series btw). example: Burn by Ellie Goulding, also: direct mention of Hot N Cold by Katy Perry (its in the second book but i had to include that)

While the MC, Ava Chen, is an obvious self insert (& constantly ovulating by the number if times shes thristy beyond help), she often gets weirdly sexualized AND infantilized (yep) in the book. Her whole Personality is Suneshine (the trope), Baking & photography.

the story has the weirdest timeskips, hypersexualizes everyone and everything to the point that its sometimes comedic & dual pov so you can get behind the thought process of the most obnoxious male lead there is: Alex Volkov (iq over 140, build& moves like a panther, VERY DANGEROUS!!!)

Everytime Alex opens his mouth theres a 50/50 chance hes saying something so incredibly edgy in the sense that hes definitely kinning sasuke and or shadow the hedgehog. And if hes not saying it, hes thinking it: "i wasnt a protector, i was a destroyer" like who even is he...

They behave like that one PDA-heavy middleschool couple everyone thought was cringe (Ava:1 Alex:0)

overall i give it 2/5 stars because it did make me laugh a few times, but also gag (a lot)

i have nothing against fans of the series [another rant incoming] but every book in the series follows the same pattern & PLEASE there are soooo many better books to read with an actual plot and interesting characters/ character dynamics/ relationships. Twisted is just badly written Literary Porn thats it.

i reccomend just taking a peek at what ao3's het/ explicit/ between 10-20k words section has to offer if you just want pwp!

- just found out through the spanish(?) wikipedia that ana huang started as a wattpad writer and that makes so so so much sense to me

[grahamcarmen]

Asking possibly a stupid question, but i don't really understand the opera symbolism of swan lake I understand carmen as foreshadowing for her and grays relationship and the flying dutchman as foreshadowing for grey's role in the finale but I don't understand swan lake.

Also why is your ask box named snapcracklepop.

I dont think its stupid. Lol I was asking the same thing (while mildly acknowledging maybe its just cause like carmen the opera is an easy peasy pun, swan lake is a recognizable ballet even if youre not into ballet) because idk its fun and even if its not meant to be 1 to 1 im trying to give the writers some credit since the thieving magpie and flying dutchman are absolutely not recognizable ones but while not 1 to 1 have a few beats that can be compared

:3

Here's the Wikipedia explanation of whats happening technically

I'm looking at this ending and it looks more like a bow to me ... but point being its something hard that needs all the players to look and dance in unison since they're literally all linked

+ the context of what is happening in the ballet

Siegfried is promising his love to Odette to break her spell so that she and her friends can be free (and cause he's smitten with her aww)

So its their pas de deux and then the little swans [in the version i watched anyway] + some swan company dancing before returning to seigfried and odette

end act

Start next act and storybeatwise the following happens

Rothbart will present odile to him and seigfried promises his love to someone who only looks like odette.

Which technically speaking carmen recruits gray for a mission where her movements for the electric gates/panels...what are they called again...anyway- will have to be synchronized...like a dancer she says ^^ along with player and gray doing their roles perfectly which they manage to do good enough once

However somethings wrong with the feed causing gray to leave his spot

So at the very least its technically a " the working in unison has been broken"

Context wise that I can overthink because I can??...uuuuuuh

Carmen really does not want VILE to have him but is also having a hard time separating graham from gray huh.... and in the mission "keep gray away from anything that could transform him back" plays a part because carmens all set on the idea that these conditions (an extremely dumb plan) keep gray safe from VILE influence, promising to put his safety first but ultimately protecting a VILE constructed persona [WHICH I DO PERSONALLY TAKE ISSUE WITH I DONT THINK GRAHAMS ACTIONS THAT DAY IS SO ENTIRELY WITHOUT GRAYS OWN TRAITS >:0...but yeah lol he usually does not care at all about what the right thing is overall] with a lot of romantic insinuating outside of that dance of little swans

Points i guess for carmens underlying suspicions that she puts to rest for the moment but graham just absolutely gone for her by the end

Little swans squished in the middle of gray very blatantly wanting to be with her and carmen 🤭hoho he likes me😊

Here's a fun one I found via google

...hmmm...idk those people tho so take that with a grain if you instead want to watch and judge the ballet and its themes for yourself.... there's actually a lot of free ones on youtube :D

+ a section in the version I watched where the company talks about how pledging love to odile is odettes doom and the love isn't as pure as they're pretending it is...Carmen! 😑 gray! 😑...but isn't wholly unsalvagable because of the forgiveness and actual true love they do end up showing each other.

With the swan lake ballet having that dichotomy between true self, curses, and a flat out fake who only looks like the beloved

it is a plot point that this happens and almost dooms them ...I mean they die but its like in a ballet dang I guess their souls live then cause they manage to stick it to rothbart

In the end their true selves DO end up together.

+ bonus round

Gray being part of the little swans until he decides instead to be the one who found the red swan (haha...neatcodename) at the heart of a VILE facility and its his constant assurances that he's on her side that help carmen think she can beat VILE and keep him around/ are kinda a point . See him having and then throwing away the crackle rod when she looks all :( to help her instead (seigfried in the forest with a crossbow)

Anything for the kiddos huh...but also lending his expertise outside of the dance of the little swans to help her and her mission

Having a little rendezvous with her beforehand and then after the dance of swans mission only for her to disappear into elusive carmen (sorry watching odette be turned back into a swan)

He actually does fall a bit in love and keeps his interest in this strange girl

+dark! Carmen being chosen for a hot minute before gray sacrifices his own ambitions and loving Carmen for who she truly is is what gives them both a chance at breaking the curse- i mean VILE influence and brainwashing

TLDR: supposed to be working together only for the dance to be interrupted

And looking at beats from the whole ballet is fun to compare actually. Lottsa pledging love but also who is the true self 🧐?

My askbox is like this because

SNAP.CRACKLE POP RICE CRISPIES!...and crackle the dude...

[demoniccak-e]

OKAY OKAY HEAR MR OUT WITH THE JOB MINISODE.

no i don't know anything about bibical era stuff but i decided to shoot my best shot with my good old friends wikipedia, google and the depths of tumblr

soso, basically what if it's like the time with the antichrist where they're supposed to work together against each other (might make no sense but it does to me bare w/ me please) but it's literally with like the archangels involved and the cause i know damn well in that new aziraphale poster that in NOT THE PRE-FALL CROWLEY that is GABIREL because LOOK AT AZIRAPHALES CLOTHES. (js a lil nudge to the people who keep sayin that theres prefall crowley with pretty aziraphale we will get that it's just not that part)

so, like i know (i think i know) that job is being tested by heaven and hell about his like goodness or something because hell made a deal with god saying that "oh mayb it's becaus his life is grate so likw what if we just make it even WORSE to test his uh loyalti to god!11!" then heaven was like "Absolutely." AND THEN AZIRAPHALE AND CROWLEY ARE ASSIGN D TO BE THERE AND DO STUFF

ok but theres more bc after some very close speculation by not me™ the photo where they're sitting together by the edge of the ocean in the background theres a rainbow and im literally using aziraphales magnifying glass to see that but ITS THERW so like ik (i can only say i think ik so many times to just assume at this point) that it's after noahs arc. what i ALSO KNOW is that some of jobs children were going to die/did die (man idk at this point the bible has too many plot points to follow :(( (also never read the bible in my entire existenc)) what i ALSOALSO know is that crowley is not very keen on killing kids.

so my guess is that theres going to be like a little thing where like idk aziraphale heard something and was like "oh dear, that's what crowley's doing?" and then goes to him and is like "PLEASE I KNOW WHO YOU ARE YOU WOULDN'T DO THIS" and then crowley's gotta keep up with his swag idc style so he doesn't really imply what he plans on doing but like he saves the children or something I DONT KNOW

but what could also happen is that crowley asks for help from aziraphale but also knowing crowley AT THAT TIME (literally based on like 5 minutes of seeing him at those times) would not ask aziraphale to help (at least not directly?)

anyways

skipping over back to that rock scene is likw i think that scene is what happens but based on what i looked up, all of jobs kids are dead but also knowing neil gaiman he might switch that up or somehting cause like cmon it's neil gaiman

that rock scene it literally could be like a chaotic scene but like ITS THAT RAINBOW MAN THEIR SITTING ON A ROCK. THEY'RE SITTING AND THEY'RE STARING AT THE OCEAN AND LIKE WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING ONE OF THEM COULD BE CRYING LAUGHING SMILING AT THE SEA OR THEY COULD BE SITTING IN SILENCE OR IT COULD BE A HEARTFELT MOMENT BETWEEN THE TWO IDK BUT I JUST KNOW THAT THAT PART IS EITHER GOING TO WRENCH MY HEART OUT OF MY CHEST AND HURT OR IT'S GOING TO START TO REACH FOR MY HEART BUT THEN INSTEAD JUST GIVE A HUG AND MAKE ME START SOBBING. EITHER WAY ly neil u silly lil goof

[liverobinreaction]

🖊️, 🌈 (banshee in a well), 💻 ?

IM SORRY I KNOW THIS IS OVER A MONTH LATE, i lost the original ask post and it took me ages to find it BUT I FOUND IT so boom! late but here

ask game here

🌈 What inspired you to write banshee in a well?

basically, i had just been thrown head first into the batman fandom and was scouring through ao3 for things to read, before i kind of. ran out. this was during the weeks i was meant to be studying and writing an essay, and i was doing literally anything except that, so i had a lot of time on my hands. now, ive always been a sucker for fake character death and angst, so i decided hey, why not shove my newest blorbo tim into something like that! initially, it was going to be a one shot where tim was trapped in a collapsing building and was crushed to death, only to crawl his way out eventually while the bats were looking for his body. i wrote the beginning, and then when i looked back up i had 10k words and a completely different plot. and so banshee in a well was born.

💻 Do you do research for your fics? What’s the deepest dive you’ve done?

yes and no! i try to actively avoid writing stuff that requires a lot of technical knowledge because im a) lazy, and b) easily distractible. the moment i start researching when i want to write means i tend to fall down a wikipedia rabbit hole and end up with knowledge about 9th century chinese concubines. do not ask. BUT that doesnt mean i never do it, especially if im writing about a specific culture or religion. for example, i did some research into jewish funeral practices for banshee in a well, and read some articles by rabbis about whether you need to sit shiva for neglectful parents.

ive also been doing a bit of research into stomach cancer atm for 'and you know this will be gone in the morning'. i also absolutely got on a watch list while looking up other things for banshee, such as: how long does it take for blood to be deoxygenated, how do you get down from a noose, can you survive a ruptured lung.

🖊 Post a snippet from a current WIP.

here's a bit from my generational depression fic 'To Find Forgiveness In The Weeds' (cw: depression and suicidal thoughts). thanks for the ask!!!

There isn’t really any sort of final straw. Maybe it would be better if there was some kind of definitive moment that he could point to and say ‘there, that’s where it all started, that’s what made me this way’. He almost wishes there was a catalyst like that, because then it would be a lot easier to explain away most of it. But Tim’s life has never been straightforward, so instead, it goes like this:

At 8am in the morning on a Tuesday, as he’s getting ready for work, Tim looks into the mirror while adjusting his tie, and realises that he doesn’t want to be alive anymore.

A mental breakdown would be easier. This sort of quiet realisation doesn’t really give much way to screaming and crying, nor is there anything he can even do with it. Granted, he’s always thought of dying in some sort of manner, but he’s never bluntly admitted to himself that he’d prefer to be dead. Most of the time, it shows up in an abstract, distant way. The temptation of a high rooftop, the ease of a subway track, the simplicity of a rope. Sometimes he’ll see death traps and feel a pull towards it. Not an active wish, so much as a temptation. A soft, gentle thought of ‘I’m tired. Wouldn’t it be nice to be dead?’

But it’s always been chased away, the logistics of actually dying and their impact keeping him away from ledges and chairs. The clean-up would be such a hassle, his brain would point out, and he’d agree. Someone would have to scrape him off the floor or tracks if he was selfish enough to do it in public, and that’s not even mentioning the traumatised passer-by’s. Ultimately, killing himself would cause more trouble than it’s worth, and that’s always been enough for him to ignore those thoughts and chalk them up to a flight of fancy or a call to the void rather than genuine suicidal ideation.

There’s none of that when he looks in the mirror and consciously acknowledges that maybe, just maybe, Tim doesn’t really want to live anymore. That, if given the chance, he can’t confidently say he wouldn’t take such an opportunity.

It’s a strange thought to have, and he finally lets his hands drop away from his tie as he observes himself. He’s seen suicidal people before, of course, both as Tim Drake and Robin and Red Robin. He watched as Bruce threw himself into deadlier and deadlier fights, uncaring of the consequences. He’s gently talked to people shivering on the edge of a skyscraper, eyes screaming for help despite their hollowness.

He doesn’t really fit that image, though logically, he knows that depression takes different forms. And that’s another thought that stops him and makes him furrow his brow. Is he depressed? Depression tends to cause suicidal ideation, so it would make sense, but once again, he’s never needed a therapist or broken down in tears from sadness.

He takes a few steps back to perch on his unmade bed. Messiness is a sign of depression, he remembers, but he’s always been messy. His father was the same way.

Except...

He glances around his room, frowning at the overflowing waste basket, the crumpled up cans and balled up protein wrappers. Clothes are haphazardly dumped into a corner, because he rarely has the energy to put them away. There’s dust everywhere except his bed, bathroom and desk, and kitchen roll still sticks to a spot on the carpet where he spilled some soda and forgot to clean it up.

It isn’t exactly the expected luxury penthouse of a CEO.

His room in Wayne Manor had been untidy, but it was the general clutter of a distracted teenager. He would still throw trash away, would dust and mop up spills when needed, because Alfred had enough on his plate already and tidying their rooms had always been their own responsibility.

His apartment, however, is messy in a way that indicates he’s stopped caring.

The thought is quiet in his mind, but it’s enough to stop everything else.

Has he?

Has he stopped caring?

[apollorobin]

hello friend :)) how about kaede for the ask game if you’d like to do her!!!

hello!! :))) kaede my beloved, of course i would love to talk about her!!! lots of things to say lots of things to say! i think she might be my favourite v3 girl

least favourite thing about them: literally such a dumb thing but: her bangs. idk why but i ALWAYS draw them the wrong way around, then have to correct my sketch by checking reference pictures lol?? which is so weird bc i love kaede but it just won't stay in my brain. kaede please swap your hair direction for me and me only, thank you

favourite thing about them: i love how positive and encouraging she is! i love how she took up the leader position and tried to keep everyone positive and find a way out in ch1 :) and in terms of gameplay, i just absolutely love ch1's angle with the protagonist being the killer (i know she isn't really, but that's how the chapter functions lol) it was such a unique twist. if i didn't spoil the game for myself (on purpose, like, i just straight up went and read the entire plot on wikipedia right after character interactions and stuff for every game😭😭) i definitely wouldn't have seen it coming. but then going back through it and seeing all the small hints aa i love it

favourite line: i can't remember the exact words but doesn't she say at some point that she wants everyone to be friends when they escape? :) not a voiced line i don't think but she's such a sweetheart

brotp: i am such a sucker for kaito and kaede being friends, my silly lil guys, so silly such bffs. i just love them both and they are both so encouraging and sweet and lovely!! they would high five each other lots

otp: my two favourites are gonna have to beeee tenkaede and kaemaki :) tenkaede for obvious reasons, my silly little lesbians i ADORE them, so perfectly matched for each other!! i love how she calls tenko cute multiple times lol :) it sucks that they're somewhat a rarepair, i wish there was more art and fics of them out there :( i will have to just make them myself lol. then for kaemaki, i knowww it's so silly because saimatsu and kaimaki are so common and im literally just flipping them but....idk, i just much prefer it this way around! :) i like imagining that kaede is the only one who can break maki's shell and get to the vulnerable side of her. and i love their interactions in utdp especially the one including chihiro

notp: as with the kaito ask thing, it isn't a ship i hate at all, just one i dislike more than the average danganronpa fan i think, so no hate if you like it whatsoever!!... saimatsu :') i headcanon kaede as a lesbian so not a massive fan of shipping her with boys anyway personally (okay I've just realised other than rantaro, in literally every character ask post I've answered i headcanon them as gay lol😭 i swear it isn't everyone! justttt quite a lot) and specifically about saimatsu, it's sweet but it just feels so forced, like they didn't wanna give anyone a chance to ship either of them before she died yknow? i love them as friends though :)) <3

random headcanon: she has a little heart shaped pillow on her bed that she cuddles while she sleeps

unpopular opinion: i'm not sure if i really have any for her, hmmm sorry!

a song i associate with them: it has to be clair de lune, right?! :)

favourite picture of them: she is such a sweetheart! comfortin silly little shu!! i love pretty much any picture of her though

thank you for asking about kaede!!!! :D this was lots of fun!! and for anyone else still curious im happy to answer about more characters :)

[fogwitchoftheevermore]

yeah fandom as a website is so bad. ive been slowly chipping away at a neocities for a persona 5 royal guide and its been a fuckton of work from scratch, but with multiple people it might be easier to move the empires wiki to a place like that where there's a lot of artistic freedom. other than that im so tired so so tired of the empires wiki as it stands

yeah fandom is SUCH a nightmare. i could figure out how to make a mirahaze one probably in the next couple days because from what i understand it’s made for making fan wikis that look like wikipedia (so it’s WAY easier to navigate). once i figure out how to set it up i can post it here for folks to edit as well as fan discords i’m in and all that so we can collect people who know like every character’s lore really well.

just thinking of general categories/pages we should have for everything-

the creators themselves (including guest creators like martyn, owen, and the guy who voiced uncorrupted xornoth who’s name i’m blanking on). should this include hermits from the crossover though?

the season 1 characters, including npcs like the general and gandalf

the season 2 characters, including npcs like hermes and tortoise, and guest characters like llama owen and the old sheriff

s1 empires/locations and a map

s2 empires/locations and a map

transcriptions of texts that appear on the servers, like the book of prophecies from season 1 and lizzie’s many many library books from season 2. we might want to limit this to books that describe plot points or are important to the plot only though, because there is so much random stuff around empires.

should we include pages for all the afterlife characters or limit it to just sausage and maybe oli? i think probably limit it but i welcome input on this one

should we have a map of hermitcraft s9, or at least of the empires village?

[overdecorated-furniture]

Research for Historical Fiction

Researching for historical fiction can seem like a daunting prospect. It’s hard to know where to begin when you want to write in detail about a specific event. Here’s how I do my research, im case anyone else finds it useful.

Initial Steps

My first port of call is usually Wikipedia, despite the fact it can be rather inaccurate at times. It’s very useful for getting an over-arching idea of what you are researching, as well as any places where you want to know more. For example, I was recently researching the Siege of Toulon in 1794, and the Wikipedia article highlighted the fact I needed to know more about where the French forts were positioned, and get a better idea of the tactics.

Next I head over to YouTube and this lovely hellsite. YouTube often has useful explanatory videos, and I find having visual maps explained to me much more useful that reading text on the same subject. As for here, there are many lovely people specialising in historical eras, and it’s not hard to find them and ask questions.

Digging Deeper

Once I have a rough idea of the thing in researching, I spend some time looking for specific details I want to incorporate.

I Always love using books, and I’m lucky enough to have several on most of the subjects I’m interested in. For the Toulon research, I looked through my biographies of Napoleon, to see what they had to offer on N’s reactions to the incompetency of the generals, positioning of forts etc. This also gave me the names of some of the more useful forts, and notes about Larrey, who I wanted to add into the story as a long term character.

Then, I started scouring the internet, using both the English and the French versions (although I’m awful at reading French), as I wanted to find out how many cannon were stationed at each fort, and where on earth French headquarters were. This took ages, and was very frustrating, but I did eventually find the things I was looking for.

Remembering all the Facts

Doing research is of little use if you forget what you’ve learnt, so I find taking notes as I go along is invaluable. I prefer to use pen and paper, but digital notes, or voice messages, work just as well, so long as you have the facts stored somewhere useful.

Remember! Not all your research needs to go into your story. I always leave facts out, because they just don’t fit into the arc of a chapter, or it doesn’t seem necessary to the plot. The point of research is to build up a believable world for the characters to live in, not to repeat history word for word.

I hope this helps, and happy writing!