#is it the same? is it two phrases for the same thing?? or are they somehow two distinct things that are similar???

[carriesthewind]

Right. So. The attachments to the motion for leave (the clownshoes' response to the judge's order to show cause).* I'm going to look at the declarations of the attorneys as our main text, and refer to the exhibits when they come up in the declarations.

(Also a bit of a correction: I said up-chain that the judge spent an hour and 45 minutes grilling Clownshoes at the last hearing, but it seems that it least part of that time was Plaintiff's counsel actually arguing about the substance of their original motion.)

This is getting long, so:

*And just to make sure we're all on the same page: an "order to show cause" is an order from the judge that says, "I think you may have done something I must or should sanction, this is your opportunity to either convince me you didn't do anything wrong and/or why you shouldn't be punished. Clownshoes responded to this order by filing a "motion for leave," which is an request to the judge to let you file something outside of the normal time to file it. In this case, they are asking the permission of the court to refile and substitute the "correct motion" for the "mistakenly filed draft."

And rather than look at these declarations sequentially, we are going to review them together, to see if we can smell the same bs the judge is smelling. We have two Declarations - one by Jennifer DeMaster, the attorney who actually filed the motion, and one by Christopher Kachouroff, lead counsel for the Defendants, aka Sir Clownshoes.

We're starting with Sir Clownshoes, of course. While DeMaster (wisely, imo) starts talking about the relevant facts in her first paragraph, Clownshoes spends the first two pages of an eight page declaration attempting to relitigate, again, his behavior at the last hearing.

'Against all odds and the interference of this Court, I heroically discovered a fact I could not have been aware of without extensive research: that this was all someone else's fault and I was a super good and careful writer and researcher!"

Put a pin in this.

Oh my god. I'm cringing into a pretzel. "It was unfair"?!?!

Don't say it was the court was acting unfairly in this context. Even if the court was being unfair, don't do it!

Even if you had told the court this was a mistakenly filed draft, it was perfectly fair the for judge to "rapidly examine [you] with detailed questions" about a filing YOUR NAME WAS ON.

But you admit you didn't even give the judge your "it was a draft" explanation at the hearing! Your argument is literally that the judge was too mean because she kept questioning you when you didn't have good answers and so it made you feel bad! :(

MY GOD MAN YOU'RE A TRIAL LAWYER. And your excuse is that you fold like tissue at the slightest bit of harsh questioning?!? Quit your job.

*deep breaths*

"AI" can't analyze "the logic of arguments."

"Some of these tools include Microsoft’s Co-Pilot, Westlaw, Google, X, and other platforms." Y'all. I can't with this one. I hope you understand why I just need to quote this sentence in full and then move on. Some statements we simply must acknowledge as existing in this same fragile universe as us, without attempting to understand them.

"I do not rely on AI to do legal research or find cases." They just magically appeared in our draft, your honor!

"During the hearing and in its order, the Court used the phrase 'generative artificial intelligence.' I have never heard of that phrase before and refer to artificial intelligence as simply 'AI'." Ah, a turn into the "I'm genuinely too stupid to sanction, your honor!" A classic move, but I think it's a little to late here.

...you upload cases and briefs into the bot in order to have it spit back out a "draft" for you?? Am I reading this correctly??

...is your brain really so slow and bad that you think that is better than just synthesizing the things yourself?

Sure, Jan.

A year?!? And. you still don't even know what it is called?!

And with that, we finally get to the actual relevant timeline for The Mysterious Case of the Mixed-Up Motions.

...but first I need to eat dinner.

Oh you idiots.

[schraubd]

Fine Art is Ridiculously Cheap/Expensive

Over the past year or so, I've developed a new passion and hobby in collecting art. I deeply resent this, since it flies in the face of one my cardinal life rules I've abided by for as long as I can remember: do not develop expensive tastes. And fine art is an expensive hobby. Or is it? Well, yes, in many ways. But in other ways, it's ludicrously cheap. Let me explain. First of all, I'm not talking about the headline-making auction prices of masterworks that involve more money than some countries' GDP. Robert Rauschenberg's "Buffalo II" silkscreen painting, for instance, auctioned for $88.1 million dollars in 2019. That is expensive under any definition. It's also functionally irrelevant to my life. Go down to the other end of the spectrum. If I want to buy a decent-sized painting from an "emerging" artist -- a term that generally encompasses artists who have gallery representation but are at an early career stage, aren't in any museums or public collections, and haven't otherwise made any major "mark" in the art world -- it generally will cost in the low four-figures. That is expensive. It is a price I have paid for things, but it immediately becomes one of if not the most expensive thing in my house that I can physically lift with my own hands. At that price, there's not a lot of room for dabbling or experimenting or dilettantism. If I buy it, it better be something that I want on my wall for at least a decade. And again, that's entry-level. What happens if you want to move up in the world? Well, here's where the "ludicrously cheap" comes into play. Because you can absolutely get a Robert Rauschenberg print -- not a reproduction, a genuine, vetted, real-deal limited editioned Rauschenberg -- in that same price range. Earlier this year, Christie's auctioned a numbered Rauschenberg lithograph (edition of 31) from 1969 titled "Gulf" for $2,142. That is not cheap. But that is a price a normal human could imagine paying for something. My wife and I are financially doing reasonably well, but we are by no means 1-percenters. We couldn't toss out two grand on a lark. But could we do it periodically, for something we really loved? Yes, absolutely. And Rauschenberg is an indisputable A-tier artist. What happens if you go the next step down? This is a woodcut by Werner Drewes, titled "Goddess of the Night": It was executed in 1961 as an edition of 10; one of those editions is in the Smithsonian's American Art Museum. Drewes himself is no small figure: he is credited with bringing the Bauhaus movement to America, and he coined the phrase "It Can't Happen Here" as the title of a 1934 portfolio of works critiquing the rise of fascist repression in his native Germany (Sinclair Lewis would use it a year later for the title of his famous book). "Goddess of the Night" recently auctioned for $924. Two other Drewes woodcuts sold together as a lot at that same auction for $826. There's just something about that particular price range that I can't wrap my head around. It is simultaneously so expensive, and so accessible. It's so expensive in the sense that it is a figure that I would need to think about, and I'm far more financially secure than the vast majority of Americans. It's so cheap in the sense that it's a figure I can feasibly pay, which feels absurd to me when we're talking about historically significant artists whose works are in major museums. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/uEe2hBC

[sarahroutldge]

country club jitters

a/n: my second rafe fic - just a fluffy blurb. might make a part 2 of the actual night, but I thought this worked on its own. lmk if you'd be interested in a part 2, and lmk your thoughts in general (I love feedback - any feedback)

summary: you try to calm down rafe's nerves before he has to address his dad and almost all of figure eight.

word count: 1.5k

warnings: fluff, minor angst (but it's just rafe's nerves), mention of drugs, again it's mostly just a fluff piece, not proofread (oops I got lazy)

“Rafe, if you’re not ready in twenty minutes, the car is leaving without you,” Rose calls from downstairs. You just roll your eyes at the warning from your boyfriend’s stepmother, as you put on your dress in Rafe’s closet. 

Trying to distract your already stressed boyfriend from the extra pressure Rose was putting on the situation, you call out to him. “Babe, could you get the zipper?”

Rafe nods from his en suite bathroom, even though you can’t see the movement. “In a second,” he shouts, hoping you won't hear the crack in his voice. 

Looking in the mirror above the sink, Rafe splashes cold water on his face, hoping to clear his head for the night ahead of him. The young Cameron heir has been dreading this night for weeks. Though he’d been preparing for a while now—and in truth, perhaps he’d been preparing for this moment his entire life—he just couldn’t shake the nerves. What would have been just an ordinary fundraiser was really a turning point in Rafe’s life, where he’d been tasked with giving the keynote speech about what exactly they were raising money for. Most years, Ward gave the speech with Rose right by his side, but this year Rafe knew his father was testing him. Though Ward phrased the opportunity as a question, Rafe knew saying no wasn’t a possibility. If he wanted to finally prove himself to his father and to the community, he’d have to start tonight. It didn’t matter that he’d been clean for a year, or that he’d been doing quite well at Cameron Development; the wealthiest families of Figure Eight still thought of him as the aimless, addicted Cameron heir who’d never live up to his father’s expectations.

His only saving grace of the night was knowing that you’d be there, standing by his side (although not literally, because Ward said that was unprofessional). As his girlfriend of nearly two years now and as childhood friends before that, you’d seen him crash and burn, and you were there to pick up the pieces. You’d seen him grow both personally and professionally, but you know that until he got through this speech, he would have a hard time thinking the same of himself.

When he doesn’t come out of the bathroom, you decide to just make your way over to him anyways. You exit Rafe’s closet and knock at his bathroom door, even though it’s slightly open.

“Uh, come in,” he says quickly, and you ignore the quiet shake in his voice.

Holding up the side of your dress, you look at the man you love leaning over the sink—face dripping with what you hope is water and not sweat—with his hands holding onto the edges, almost red from how hard he’s clenching. “Babe, can you get the zipper?” you repeat, hoping to draw him out of whatever’s going on in his mind.

Rafe shakes his head and turns to you, finally making eye contact with the woman he thinks—no, knows—he’s gonna marry one day. “Uh, you look…” he stutters, his words escaping him.

You give him a curious look in return, and when he registers your confused expression, he shakes his head again. “You look gorgeous, Y/N. But then again, you always do.”

And even though you’ve been hearing him say things like that for longer than a year at this point, you can’t help the giddiness on your face, the shyness that his words still manage to bring out in you. Walking over to him, you cradle his face with your hands, leaning up to press a light peck on his lips. “You look so handsome,” you whisper into his lips, and you can’t help but grin at the fact that you’ve finally managed to pull a bit of a smile from the stressed man before you. 

Rafe presses his hands against your waist, and you shiver from the coldness. “You are the only good thing about tonight,” Rafe states, and you frown.

“Don’t say that, babe. Kelce thinks he’ll finally get Topper’s mom to dance with him tonight, and I just know you want to see the look on Top’s face if that happens.”

Rafe chuckles, always pleased at the way you can dissipate his nerves so easily. They haven’t entirely gone away, of course, but your presence always makes them more manageable. Not quite knowing how to express his gratitude in words, he presses another kiss to your lips, this one more passionate than the one before it. But it’s not heated and there’s no tongue, because he knows that you’ll be pissed if he messes us the makeup you just spent forty-five minutes on perfecting (it would have been twenty minutes, but Sarah decided to barge in, claiming she needed your opinion on all eight of the dresses she was considering wearing tonight). His hand moves to the back of your dress, gently tugging the zipper up, just as his lips leave yours. Punctuating the action with one more peck, he slowly removes his hands, missing your warmth but knowing the both of you need to get a move on.

“Just let me put my shoes on, and we can head out,” you reply, and he nods, following you out of the bathroom. Sitting on the edge of Rafe’s bed, you pick up the heels from the floor, sliding them onto your feet and fastening the ankle straps. You stand up straight and turn around, expecting to see your boyfriend behind you, but he’s disappeared again. “Rafe?” you call out, confused (and maybe a little bit worried).

“I’m here,” he shouts from the closet, before exiting with his hands hidden behind his back. His hands come forward to present you with a black rectangular velvet case. “I got this for you a month ago, but with work and my dad I forgot to give it to you. Thought it might look nice with your dress, though.”

You look up at his eyes, wide and almost hesitant. “Rafe, you didn’t have to get me anything–”

“I know I didn’t, but I got the idea and I know you don’t love super flashy jewelry but I remembered that one necklace you love broke and I… I’m rambling here, yeah, just open it. If you don’t like it, then we can return it, or maybe swap it out for a different metal.” If the way his voice quiets wasn’t so adorable, you might make a quick joke about it, but instead, you figure that he’s gonna have to deal with enough teasing tonight, so you accept the present happily. Opening the box, your breath is taken away as you admire the simple gold chain, with a lowercase “r” pendant, small but proud.

“Oh, Rafe… it’s beautiful. It’s perfect…” 

“Really?” he asks, with that adorable hesitant voice only you ever get to hear.

“Yes, I love it. I love you. Would you…” you ask, gesturing to the clasp. He nods, and the two of you walk over towards his full-length mirror. He removes the necklace from the box, and you hold your freshly-done hair up above your neck. Not trying to get distracted, Rafe pretends not to notice the goosebumps he leaves as he lays the necklace on your skin, before closing the clasp. He lets his hands rest on your shoulders for a second, as the two of you stare into each other’s eyes through the mirror. His hands slowly move around your waist, and he pecks your cheek.

You giggle at the gesture, and Rafe kisses you once more. “As much as I’d love an extra ten minutes up here with you, I’m 99% certain that Rose will leave without us if we’re not downstairs in thirty seconds.”

You chuckle and he grabs your hands, the two of you making your way down the grand staircase of the Cameron residence. When Rafe sees no one in the foyer, he checks his watch, and sends you a smirk. “And it looks like we have a minute to spare,” he adds, before leaning in to kiss you. But before your lips can make contact, Rose barges into the foyer. 

“No time for that, we’ll be taking pictures for the family Christmas card at tonight’s event, and I can’t have you covered in glittery lip gloss when it’s time to pose.”

Rafe just rolls his eyes, tugging your hand after him. You chuckle at Rose’s words, standing next to him as Sarah and Wheezie make their way downstairs. You lean up to his ear and whisper, “for what it’s worth, I think my lip gloss looks great on you.”

But apparently you didn’t speak quietly enough because you hear a gagging noise coming from behind you. You turn around, facing the somewhat annoying but extremely sweet youngest Cameron sibling. “When you have a boyfriend one day, I promise you’ll understand.”

“Don’t give her any ideas,” Rafe says a bit too seriously, and that just makes you hold back a giggle.

Whispering to Wheezie, you say, “don’t worry, I didn’t tell him about Jake from Social Studies.”

“I heard that!”

again, I always appreciate feedback and I love getting requests, so please send them in <3

[hephslacker]

Ena: The details you might have missed in the Trailer

I'm unsure if anyone has pointed this things out before, so this is just a fun little post I made!

This is mostly me talking about some interesting details I have noticed in the trailer and my analysis of them.

> I'm pretty sure that at this point most have heard of the Hands Theory, as well as with the Theory that Meanie, between the two sides, is the more genuine one. That being one of the reasons as to why she usually uses her right side for interacting with things that are more of a personal interest to her.

Following that tho, have you noticed that in the trailer Ena's "Meanie" side is the one who's pulling the trigger?

And sure, it could be argued that her Red side doesn't really have any means of pressing the firing the gun, but it still seems interesting. That is not to mention that in ENA, be it the series or the game, nothing has really been the way it is "just because".

Notably, throughout the game Meanie is the one who's speaking when it comes to any military related stuff. She's the one who's reacting to the accusations (or even most personal things, she's the one to give a more "personal" and "honest" opinion). She's also the one who's speaking when Ena gets to the Bathroom, and most of the hatred to the things around her or her self-deprecation is also voiced by Meanie. Humanoid Ena also seems to posses more of right side colouring, and it might not be just due to that colour looking more "natural".

Salesman is also more likely to try and talk things through (negotiate), while Meanie is the one who's ready to get things done, even if it means getting physical.

> Another interesting detail is that in the trailer we can actually see the right side having an 'index finger'. I doubt it was a mistake on the animators' part.

> Everyone knows that the world of ENA possesses many references - or outright includes - technology, codes, programmes etc. Have you noticed the fact that this location, and the creature inhabiting it, consists out of the keyboard buttons/keyboards?

Another appearance of the technology can be seen here behind Ena, and it seems to strongly resemble some sort of a camera.

> And finally, I find it interesting that, right after we are shown Green Ena, we get this phrase:

"Let's put that dead meat in its place!"

Before the frame switches to Ena and the Unknown Entity, who points the gun on her.

So we are basically shown Ena in a dead-like-state, before someone (probably Froggy) says "put that DEAD meat [...]", and that scene also follows up by Ena being held at a gun point. So is Ena the "dead meat"?

And what's more, you know who was the only other character called that? The Boss

> Multiple people have already pointed it out, but the Unknown Entity looks a lot like Froggy.

If you look at this frame, you'd notice that that looks a lot like the position Ena herself has been in at the End of Chapter 1.

More about Froggy Theory you can read in this post by @simple228

> The Entity also seems to have the same “vines” or “branches” growing out of him as Ena did in the Purge Event

> I've noticed that in this scene Ena seems to have the same orange glow on her lips? I wonder if it's got anything to do with the constant references to hunger and eating in the world of DBBQ? Her eyes also seem to be a brighter purple, which could either simply be to make the picture more enthralling, or it could mean that she's under some kind of an influence.

Interestingly, throughout the game we have only 2 characters that I can remember that reference any kind of cutlery. That being Spatulady and this Unknown Entity (a parasite?).

These details paint an interesting picture when you combine them, no?

> Flowers symbolism!

I think I have covered everything I had to say about the trailer so far! What are your thoughts?

[princessofghosts-posts]

I'm going to put here half of one of the best scenes of HoO.

This is page 262 of HoH from XLVIII Percy's pov,basically a few seconds before Percy start to choke Akhlys to death because he couldn't take it anymore (we love him for that).

I'm not going to focus on the whole scene,because I already talked about that,but on a specific line:

He concentrated so hard that something inside of him cracked–as if a crystal ball had shattered in his stomach.

Now,on the surface it's just a phrase that make you understand how Percy is going against his limits to accomplish what he did next,straining himself in the maintime. And that's normal,after all he is going against a primordial,you can't win against someone older than the Earth itself if you don't put a great amount of efforts (even if realistically Akhlys would have their heads in not even a second).

But I think there is something more to it, especially in the "as if a crystal ball had shattered in his stomach" part. I think it's a symbolic way to make the readers understand that Percy is loosing it. The "crystal ball" in question is his moral code that got totally destroyed once they feel into Tartarus. So it rappresent,in a way,his sanity,and how he decided to ignore the logical part of himself and to go against those same morals he has,because he had enough. He was slowly going insane in this scene,and now that it got shattered? He is never going to recover from it,ever. Because Tartarus was too deep and left too much pain,he can't recover from it entirely but he has to learn to live and cope with it.

Another interpretation I also had about this,is the fact that the crystal ball could also rappresent his humanity. I already said that Percy is able to manipulate poison because there is still a bit of water in it,right? That's fine. But the Underworld's rivers? The jump he did from Nyx's maison that was too long to do even for a demigod? I think that is also a way to symbolize how Percy is slowly loosing the mortal part of himself,and is embracing more the godly side. And the boost of powers he has can be totally explained in this way in the narrative since he is slowly becoming more godly (we all know that Riordan favor him and make him do insane things but that's from a writing prospective,not from the plot).

Am I suggesting that with this he could probably ascend to godhood? Probably,but Percy refused that already. It's more of the fact that he is starting to disconnect more from the mortal world than before. Ever since HoO started he got totally cut off from his life,at least in PJO he had moments where he still went to school,stayed with his mom and Paul and actually lived his life like a normal teenager. In HoO we don't have those moments because they are fully immersed in the mythological part of their nature.

And only Percy had this type of reaction in Tartarus. Annabeth didn't felt something inside of her shattering,and I don't know for Nico (hopefully it happened to him too-) or even Will. It's only Percy that had this,and the chapter later we see him using his abilities (especially when they were going away from Nyx's territory) with a boost that wasn't never there before,since he was struggling at the start of HoH when they feel into the first river. I think it's connected to that. (Also,Nico had a boost of powers too,so,he probably had the same happening to him-).

You can totally say it's a narrative choice and I'm overanalyzing two lines that are there just to flavor the narrative more,but Riordan made sure to wrote that to make us understand how broken Percy was starting to be. Both power-wise and mentally. There is just something in that line that caught my attention and,to this days,is still one of my favorites too.

[jennelikejennay]

Doyleistic History of the Vulcan Language

I prefer to talk about the Vulcan language in-universe, to come up with history and possible reconstructions. But in my search for meanings and explanations, I keep smashing my face into the real-life history of all the kinds of Vulcan that have been invented. That especially becomes a problem when I try to apply what I know about Vulcan to the canonical uses of the language.

So, after my last post on Vulcan, I decided to take a minute to talk about where Vulcan comes from, and what it means when I say I study Vulcan.

The first words of any type of Vulcan were invented for TOS, mostly by Theodore Sturgeon for Amok Time. (Not all of them were used in the final episode.) This is where we get pon farr, plak tow, kalifee, and kroykah. I don't think any subsequent version of Vulcan has failed to include these key words.

By 1968 we had the first beginnings of a fanmade conlang, by Dorothy Jones Heydt, published in Spocknalia volume 3. This version has no relation to any subsequent versions I know of, but her word "ni var" (two form, two aspects of the same thing) ended up being canonized later.

None of this was used for Vulcan's next appearance, which was in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The scene at Gol was filmed in English, but after filming, it was decided that it didn't seem right and they wanted to dub it over in Vulcan. Thus the words invented for the scene were made to fit the mouth movements already on film. Jimmy Doohan allegedly did most of this. So the phrase thrahp, hif-bi tu throks, is specifically made to fit something like "Spock, give me your thoughts."

The next two movies use a Vulcan that was allegedly made by Marc Okrand, though I can't for the life of me find out how much Vulcan he made up to make these sentences or how he meant the grammar to work. This is where we get words like ish-veh, he/she/it, and dungi, will. But other words, such as ikh-banut or wakli, aren't parsed anywhere that I know of.

A few words were made up by novel writers. Diane Duane, for instance, invented the words cthia (reality-truth), T'Khasi (Vulcan) and T'Khut (Vulcan's sister planet).

The language most fans use, however, is from none of these sources. What is called "Vulcan," or more properly Vuhlkansu or Modern Golic Vulcan, is the creation of a fan named Mark Gardner, along with several other people. The work began in the 70s and continued till the early 2000s. There's a book and an archived website. The sources also go with the Vulcan Language Dictionary available online.

It has the advantage over all the other sources that it is actually made as a (mostly) complete and usable language. It's something of a hodgepodge, however. The base of the language was reverse-engineered from the small quantities of Vulcan used in the first three movies. The problem with this is obvious: the Vulcan used in the first three movies was not created as a consistent language. Choices had to be made. I should probably make another post about the choices I would have made, but suffice it to say, these sources are different enough from Golic Vulcan that analyzing them might well produce something entirely different. And yet one gets the impression that they are the same language because some of the words are the same. You think you might be able to understand them using the VLD--but for the most part, you can't.

Gardner's dictionary also includes words from beta canon and a few words from fanfic. The rest was invented one word at a time, based on rules the creators had set down about phonetics and root words.

So, after that, did subsequent Star Trek use any of what Gardner had created?

No. It did not. I wish it had, despite the flaws, because I always prefer understandable conlangs in shows and Paramount seems to have no intention of making their own. Conlangs can't be copyrighted; that's presumably why they felt okay picking up words like "ni var" from fans.

The Vulcan in Enterprise was allegedly also made by Marc Okrand. (Memory Alpha gives us a big fat Citation Needed for this. I can find no other source.) However, looking at the (scanty) text used in both, I don't really see any similarities. For instance, ish-veh for he/she/it does not appear, though one would think it should, and I can't pick out any grammatical structure at all. (You can try it yourself with the very small corpus at Memory Alpha. I plan to dive deeper into these texts in a future post.)

Did Marc Okrand make this? As a real linguist, if he did, I'd like to think he'd bother to make something other than simply noises, but without either more text or more translations, it's difficult to be sure. I can't tell that it isn't gibberish like TMP, in other words.

Discovery and Strange New Worlds also use "Vulcan" and I can't parse those either according to Gardner's Vulcan or according to what little exists in the corpus. This is, of course, devastating to me. What's the point of a conlang if you can study everything that exists and you still can't understand what they say on the show?

I would like to believe that STII, STIII, Enterprise, Discovery, and SNW are all using some lean but grammatically consistent conlang created by Marc Okrand, which, as more text is released, we may finally come to understand a little. However, I can find no evidence of this. There is no Vulcan language consultant credited on SNW or Discovery, although there is a Klingon consultant. Could they be altering Klingon to fit it in? Could the Klingon consultant be making up a quick Vulcan conlang on the fly? Could they have access to Okrand's secret Vulcan notebook? Hours of research have turned up nothing.

I talked to someone at a convention last year who said she had been at a talk given by Marc Okrand where someone asked about Vulcan. She said he only shook his head and said it was a mess.

SECONDED, DOCTOR OKRAND.

Anyway, that's why we're out here using the VLD, despite its obvious flaws. For better or worse, it's the only usable Vulcan there is. But the fact that it doesn't match the Vulcan from any canon but the first three movies, and that only because it was derived from them in reverse, is kinda depressing, I'll admit.

If you have any further information about the real-life history of Vulcan conlangs, please let me know!

[littlelilacegg]

Felassan: What His Death Does--or Doesn't--Change About Solas's Characterization

(also: Punitive vs. Restorative Justice, Doylist vs. Watsonian analysis, and what we've misinterpreted about that revenant in the Crossroads)

Spoilers for Inquisition & Veilguard. (Minor spoilers for The Masked Empire, but only if you haven't played Veilguard.)

First, real-life context: That last page of the Masked Empire, when we actually see Solas kill Felassan, was written well before Inquisition was finished. (The book released earlier than Inquisition did, and there's a long time between the initial writing of a book and its release.) Apparently at the time, they were working with an entirely different version of Solas as a character, even with an entirely different VA in mind. THAT version of Solas was more ruthless (and a bit more of a generic Bad Guy) than the Solas we get in Inquisition and Veilguard.

The first issue at hand is of punitive vs. restorative justice. Punitive justice is the philosophy of prioritizing punishing the party responsible for a problem, whereas restorative justice prioritizes fixing the problem itself; restoring whatever was lost, taken, etc. The conflict between these two philosophies is a massive part of who Solas is.

So, my first assertion: The Solas we're familiar with in Inquisition & Veilguard heavily favors restorative justice. It's his whole thing-- "I have to fix what is broken."

Don't get me wrong, he definitely wanted to punish the Evanuris for everything they did; just listen to him talk about how an eternity of torment is "the only fitting punishment" for killing Mythal. (Side note, do not get me started on Mythal.) But even so, he didn't prioritize making the Evanuris suffer over actually ending their reign of terror. In short: If he'd just wanted vengeance, he didn't have to spend so long systematically freeing the entirety of the elven people to do it.

That focus on restorative justice is what makes him such an interesting antagonist, rather than a generic Big Bad. He doesn't just do evil shit for the hell of it. Anything bad he does, he does for the same reasons WE do. Specifically, only if:

The bad thing is necessary; it fills a functional, logistical need.

The purpose it serves is either unavoidable (like self-defense), or to help people.

This is especially true for something as big as taking a life. In Inquisition, he even has a whole conversation about how he hates having to kill random bandits (that attacked him and the party first, mind you), because they're people-- people with lives, families, dreams. He says that a person should feel bad about having to kill them, even though it's in self-defense. (And yes, he's speaking honestly, here; he has no reason not to.)

But killing Felassan? That was punitive. It served no purpose. He didn't need to kill him to take the Eluvians, Felassan just wasn't going to help him do it. It was cold-blooded punishment, plain and simple.

Which leads to my second assertion: Killing Felassan completely skews Solas's established sense of morality. This makes it feel--to me, at least--wildly out of character.

Now, I do NOT throw that phrase around lightly. In fact, I'm only comfortable using it because of the context I started this post with: Solas was literally a different character at the time that it was written. But this event exists in the canon, now, so if we want to examine Solas, we do have to take it into account: The man who expressed so much remorse over killing bandits in self-defense... also killed his own best friend in cold blood.

This leaves us with a question: How much do we take it into account?

When you simplify it, obviously, there are two options:

Disregard it as being OOC, written for a different version of him entirely, and not indicative of the character they presented in Inquisition and Veilguard. (This is called Doylist analysis: analysis that takes into account the real world, and its impact on both the story and its author.)

Take it at face value: Canon is canon, after all, and what would disregarding it be if not editorializing? (Watsonian analysis: Completely in-universe reasoning.)

Personally, when faced with that choice, I look to the revenant The Betrayal of Felassan (nice potential double meaning there, as people have pointed out) in the Crossroads.

Something to note about that revenant, first, because I've seen a lot of people misinterpreting it: Its voice may be Felassan's, but it was not created by any remnant of Felassan. It's not the spirit/echo/embodiment/etc of Felassan's anger, for example. As the Caretaker tells us, it and the other revenants were manifested from more of Solas's regrets. (They're hostile because those manifestations were then harnessed and manipulated into being so by the Evanuris, in the hopes of slowing us down.)

This revenant says four phrases:

The first, "His back, turned," is a reference to Felassan's death in The Masked Empire. It's describing Felassan, who'd had his back to Solas in that scene-- and, very notably, never turned to face him. (If you want more proof that the revenant isn't an echo of Felassan himself, there you have it: he wouldn't exactly refer to himself in third person.)

The second phrase, we'll get to in a minute.

The last two, "For freedom" (third) and "For the wolf" (fourth), are both rallying cries that Felassan used in the flashbacks we saw. First, we have "For freedom"-- what the rebellion had always been for, what it was always supposed to be for. And then, we have "For the wolf"-- what it ended up turning into. (Or at least, what Solas's regret makes him fear it may have turned into.) This is when it's important to keep in mind that this is Solas's own regret, speaking to him in Felassan's voice; he's hearing his friend, whom he betrayed, both mockingly expressing support for him and at the same time, accusing him of becoming the very thing he feared. (Somebody get this elf in therapy.)

Back to the second phrase, because this is the one I think is the most applicable when it comes to how we look at the specific circumstances of Solas's murder of Felassan: "A story, unfinished."

Do I think that this is entirely literal, meant purely as the devs breaking the fourth wall to speak one-to-one with the players? No, of course not. But beyond the general association of death with "ending a story," there's really not much reason to include this line, or to word it in that specific way. So... while I do think it's meant to be behind the guise of that general association--Solas expressing regret for Felassan's life being cut short--I do also think it was meant as a nod to the players, too.

Honestly, a common theme with Felassan and his inclusion in the DA story as a whole is the interference of real-life logistics with storytelling: His death, as we've mentioned, was written as the now-ooc backstory of a then-incomplete character. Solas's regret over it wasn't a mural in the Lighthouse, not necessarily because it wasn't important enough to Solas to be one-- but because regardless of its importance, it didn't follow the storyline of him and Mythal, and would feel wildly out of place to the players if it was included.

Full-on personal opinion time: As you can probably tell, I tend to lean more towards Doylist analysis when it comes to Felassan-- real-life stuff just got in the way. It happens! Life impacts art! And in this case, it made him into the one thing (besides the Big Varric Twist, which would be its own damn post lol) that completely skews Solas's morals if you look at it too hard.

Now, if you care about fic, I'm gonna talk about the one I'm writing in a second, since it addresses some of these things. Otherwise... see you, I guess! I look forward to hearing people's thoughts!

P.S. If you want a great post about Mythal, I'd check out this one by @evanhereonearth :

------------------------

Fic stuff:

Okay. So, I'm writing a fix-it fic that covers the entirety of both Inquisition and Veilguard. It's, uh... looking like it's gonna be novel-length, from my current drafts. Don't get me wrong, it's not nearly enough to count as an actual novelization! (There's no damn way I'm writing that much combat, for one thing.) But it does hit all the major plot points of both games.

My goal for it wasn't really to "fix" the canon so much as just... supplement it, I guess? The reason this is relevant is that I came up with in-universe ways to recontextualize things like Felassan's death. Also, I found a logistical workaround for the ending of Veilguard to make it fit the theme of restorative justice more! (And if I can be proud of myself for a sec, it's not only straightforward and logistically viable, but still actually narratively satisfying.)

The Inquisition section has an intense, funny Inquisitor Lavellan-- the embodiment of the exhaust-every-dialogue-tree, read-every-book player, who also has a mystery to solve about her missing memories and a forgotten person she was supposed to find. And the Veilguard part has a Rook that's secretly a spirit of compassion, who got dropped into a de Riva's life by mistake-- and now has to replace the real one, who's dead. Also, the Inquisitor gets to stick around a bit in Veilguard (more or less like a companion).

It's not done yet, and since the manuscript habit is hard to break, I'm not gonna start posting it until all the drafts are actually done. But it's the ONLY thing I'm ever gonna post on my ao3, so if you wanna be updated when it goes up, here's the link to bookmark:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64917091

[alien-ally]

Now, idk how but here goes a few things that were dragged out of me, as i witness the split opinions on heesu in class 2. let me start out by saying: i'm a fan of the show :) and i know next to nothing about the manhwa. just so it's clear from the get go.

i haven't watched kdramas in a long while, so i suppose i'd been in the bl bubble exclusively for that entire time. i dont prefer kdramas, or uh straight romances very much personally. hence while watching the first couple eps of heesu, i had pretty much the same reaction. annoyance, disappointment, what more, my interest dropped steadily for a bit until i decided i would drop the show entirely if it dint focus more on the queer storyline, essentially our mc's plot more, in the following episodes. I got on tumblr like i usually do whenever i'm watching one of my bls, and boom, instantly more perspective unlocked. 'thematic foil' the phrase that stuck with me the most. a set of characters in a story getting focus and being followed along their journey apart from the mc, to serve as a foil that demonstrates what exactly the mc could be having, or how it usually goes for the majority of people, a majority our mc clearly isn't a part of. Several characters going about crushes in their own ways, what i enjoyed the most is how the show doesn't subtly pin any of them as 'right' or 'wrong', something i was worried they'd do. Heesu is always supportive of his sisters, no matter what errand he's in the middle of running, he always makes sure they're fine first before heading out. and most importantly, the best advice received by one of the sisters, was in fact not given by the mc but by another sister itself, heejeong to heejae. which i thought was really cool.

Admittedly, i wasn't a fan of the sisters in the beginning, but i guess that's just more on my own cynicism towards dating trends in general. as time passed though, they grew on me significantly. i mean, there's a charming sort of integrity to each sister's ways you can't ignore. another thing: the complaints about no kissing. i hardly ever find this argument to be nuanced, probably the most irritating reason people put out to dismiss an entire show as 'bad'. we see the formation of 2 straight high school couples, along with the boys, now had they been shown kissing or even toeing the lines of any other kind of physical intimacy other than holding hands or hugging, i would've extended that expectation to heesu and seungwon. but here, these kids just are not doing that yet. is that such a hard pill to swallow? bruh, it doesn't become straight washing cause the gay couple dint kiss or cause the straight couple got equal (note: equal) screen time. heesu is not a bl, sure. But it IS a queer kdrama. with a QUEER mc and his QUEER pining classmate (soon to be boyfriend) who has TWO moms. the third thing isn't focused on a lot but man i loved that scene in the last episode where seungwon's mom asks how much she should disclose at the meeting. and his reply, 'if you start lying, i'll have to continue it'.

Now. the last scene, which the non-fans seem to hate the most. but in fact the scene i loved the most. heesu looks back at chanyoung and jiyu walking close behind them, watches cy put his arm around jy with something like yearning flickering in his eye, he turns around, blinks it away and goes back to smiling. seungwon notices, puts his arm around heesu and when heesu kinda hesitates, asks him not to worry (about getting outed basically) cause people are just gonna assume they're close friends or some shit. like all throughout history, this has been used to erase queer people and their relationships. why not use it to your own advantage now? my favorite thing about his dailogue tho, is that it's meant to be reassuring. Seungwon is reassuring Heesu that he's proud about their relationship and wouldn't mind making it public. that he's fine with people finding out. how great is that to hear, when you've been shouldering all this turmoil alone for years, like how Heesu has been doing? Wonderful scene. episode 8,9 and 10 were my favorites and i would totally recommend this show to anyone looking for a wholesome little QUEER teen kdrama experience.

[lususnatura]

blamore tilted his head at harley as she poured him some of the drink the hospital staff had given him into a cup. was she feeling tired, maybe, and that's why she was quiet? or did he say something wrong...? the creature let out a soft 'merci' upon recieving the glass and drank half of it down, before harley spoke about her being glad they didn't find him impaled while naked. blamore just about would've spit out some of the drink in his mouth at that if he didn't convince himself to calm down (even though it was a funny albeit slightly crude thought).

❝ oh, jesus, yeah. that might have raised some suspicion among the staff here, wouldn't it? because there are a surprising amount of people who come into hospitals because something they did to, ahh, try to self-pleasure back-fired on them. i'm honored to know that you would be willing to try to defend my honor in that way though, ❞ its voice took on a playful tone as it talked to harley now, the way in which she adjusted its positioning making it feel a bit bashful. because if harley wasn't doting on blamore now then it certainly seemed she was now. he waved a hand a few times as a result, repeating the phrase 'i'm fine.'

blamore began to fiddle with his fingers before shaking his head. whatever might've been causing her to be more quiet all of a sudden, he didn't want to add onto her plate. and besides, it was just a botanist that he'd be talking to, so its not like this would be a big deal — right? ❝ no, no, i'll be okay. go ahead and take as much time as you need to to grab some lunch for yourself. you've been here since even before they got me into surgery, so you definitely deserve a break. there's also a steady bit of sunlight streaming through the window so the UV lamps... eh, i could probably do without them. ❞ blamore laid back on the pillow within his hospital bed as he tried to process everything that harley was saying, but began to feel sleepiness begin to try to overtake him once more.

❝ mm, its interesting that you should bring that up, because doctor kovac actually told me they had to cut into several of my plants to get to my lung tissue. but because plants can regrow even if you attach them to different parts of the stem with a rooting hormone, they basically... they basically said that they used a hormone called IBA to encourage two different parts of the same plant they cut into to create a union between them. and cinnamon extract is something that can be used to protect the graft between two plants, but isn't the same thing as a rooting hormone. ❞ blamore rubbed his eyes as the other asked him whether he drank cinnamon extract or applied it on bandages to help encourage regrowth between his plants.

❝ so i haven't used it before when grafting my own plants as it technically isn't mandatory to apply it to plants in any way while grafting them. but if i had to choose, i'd say i'd probably dip my bandages in it. ❞

" Something like that... Medical mystery and odditity over my own stupidity," she said with a chuckle. Deep down the event was fairly traumatic but a euphoric step of being close to someone, that she rather see gunned down. Taking a long inhale she looked up so she wouldn't become emotional.

Two hours in waiting seemed to go by fairly fast. After thanking the medical staff and taking an er of caution she entered the room giving Balmore's tail a soft nudge to make sure that the conditions of the medical slab weren't too chilly.

Taking her phone out Harley began to record gaining access to the images so Balmore could gloss over them later. He was overly charismatic and for someone who should have watched his breathing, he seemed talkative as ever.

"You want some more ta' drink? ," she asked only to hear a rambling of who she was to him.

"Well I am happy you know who everyone around you is. That didn't take long at all. "

[aroaceleovaldez]

mildly entertaining pjo fandom curse (mostly in that you can make games out of it):

everybody draws Piper showing skin. half the time Shel as well. literally almost EVERYBODY. go look at Piper fanart. is she wearing a crop top? i bet she is. or if she's wearing a dress hers is gonna be one of the most revealing. bonus points if they gave her a belly button piercing. and it's almost always only Piper and/or Shel. i thought we had a whole discussion about sexualizing young indigenous girls back in like 2021 but i guess nobody processed that part cause pjo fandom acts like if they dont have Piper show her stomach or have her shirt ride up they'll die.

the curse is that you will never unsee this. have fun with that.

[south-sea]

👗 SHADOW!!

she wears whatever the vibe for that day is and that's anywhere from early 2000s punk to generic sundress/sunhat combo

[y-eontan]

i told my coworker if she insists on using chat gpt she shouldnt ask me for help

[goldentigerfestival]

Another translation from the Radiant Mythology 3 Fan Bible! These are skits found within the game that were included textually like this in the Fan Bible.

(Scanner preferred to remain anonymous.)

Original JP + TL under the cut.

Skit Title:

Isn’t It A Bother?

Occurrence Condition: Enter the 1F hall with Arche in your party. Characters: Arche, Stahn, Veigue, Luke, Asch, Yuri.

Arche: So hey, I was just thinking, isn’t everyone’s hair too long? Doesn’t it get in the way?

Veigue: …Mine is tied so that it doesn’t get in the way.

Stahn: I’m keeping mine like it is ‘cause it’s useful for my work as a shepherd.

Luke: Sheep?

Stahn: Yeah. It’s handy having long hair ‘cause the sheep will mistake you for one of them.

Asch: Huh, so they’re similar to livestock… That’s quite interesting.

Luke: Speaking of… Arche, you have long hair too.

Arche: I’m a girl, so it’s okay!

Veigue: Does gender matter…?

Yuri: Well, it’s fine like this, isn’t it. Personal tastes and preferences aren’t something people around you should be criticizing.

Asch: It’s rare for us to have the same view on something.

Yuri: Well, thanks.

Luke: Geez. Don’t ask weird questions.

Arche: Ugh… It’s embarrassing now when you say it like that…

[cosmogyros]

I dislike it so much when a documentary has somebody speaking one language and then another language is overlaid on top of the same audio WITHOUT DELETING THE BACKGROUND AUDIO COMPLETELY ARGH

(edit: like this)

I'm watching this (very interesting) Arte documentary right now, and first there was a Dutch scientist speaking English, while a German narrator spoke the translation of his words into German in the foreground. Then a few minutes later there were a bunch of people speaking French in the European Parliament while it was, again, dubbed into German for the documentary.

But like... my ears are compelled to listen to both things at once! I can't help but listen to the interesting accent the Dutch guy has in English, or recognize words and phrases the people are saying in French, at the same time as I'm trying to focus on the German foreground dubbing.

It's so overwhelming, I hate it, and I so intensely wish documentaries would blank out the background audio completely when dubbing over it >:(((

[queer-omens-in-the-archives]

Have you noticed your style change over time?

Hi!! Thank you for the ask. <3

We haven't really noticed that, no -- we're aware our older fics don't read quite the same as our more recent ones, but we don't tend to notice the changes happening in real time and would struggle to pinpoint exactly what changed.

Part of that is plurality-related. We don't all write the same to begin with -- actually part of our editing process now, especially for longer projects, consists of getting as many of us rereading the text as possible (separately over a period of time and/or together at the same time), so we can smooth out differences where needed or (more rarely) exaggerate them when warranted (e.g. for added character flavour in subjective narration). In the past we didn't go through that Collaborative Smoothening step, and we did a lot less editing to begin with (we same-day wrote-and-published a lot), so many of our older works are more clearly One Guy's Writing. We can usually tell who based on the way they're written, but this isn't style evolution so much as like... us writing differently at baseline.

Part of that is that we have two types of approach to writing: either we write so rarely that too much time passes in-between for us to remember our previous writings clearly, or we write so often that any overall changes are too gradual for us to notice. Nowadays it's more the latter -- with the MelloNears, we've been writing/editing at least a few words every single day since November 1st, in mostly the same two AUs/series, so we're not really seeing the style evolution that is probably taking place because we're standing too close to see the big picture.

[fanfic/author ask game]

[crykea]

I don't rlly trust those ppl who wholeheartedly believe that cats r better than dogs or you can trust cat people more because "cats have boundaries and you know who will respect boundaries if they like cats" because that just proves to me you Don't respect dogs boundaries lol