#just in case his Script wasn't obvious

[divinekangaroo]

falling - pettiot - Peaky Blinders (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

PART ONE - DAY ONE

Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7 | Ch 8 | Ch 9

PART TWO - MONTH ONE (Or Maybe Month Two, Or Three)

Ch 10 | Ch 11 | Ch 12 | Ch 13 | Ch 14 | ?

A Modern AU take on Tommy's immediate return from military service, and the period between his demobilisation and the start of S1.

(Tags shall be progressively updated)

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Tommy Shelby/Lizzie Stark, Tommy Shelby/Freddie Thorne, Arthur Shelby, Polly Grey, Ada Shelby, John Shelby, Johnny Dogs, Various Lees, John Shelby's Children, Zhang, S1E1 Red Dust Girl | Alternative Universe, Modern AU (ish), No iPhones (yet), Awkwardness, Age Difference, Disassociation, Miscommunication, Banter, Fast Food Vendor of your Choice, Pre-Season, Past Trauma, Flirting, Have I Met You Before, Heckling, Cars, Drug Use, Past Childhood Trauma, Mrs Shelby Lives, Gender Role Dynamics, Small Neighbourhoods, Greta Jurossi Haunting the Narrative, Brotherly Dynamics, Sibling Dynamics, Class Issues, Attraction, Casual Sex, Car Sex, Military Transition Program, Wilful Medical Noncompliance, Melodrama, Illegal Bookmaking, 90s Fashion, 2000s Fashion, Slow Reveal, Slow Burn, Coming Home, Dysfunctional Family, Lasting Legacy of Catholicism, Bad SMS Etiquette, Gang Activity, Domesticity, Booty Call, Guilt, Shame, So Much Marijuana, Arms Dealing, Crimes & Criminals, Ill Informed Economic Theorising, Wanking, Ethnicity, Stereotyping

.

[mickstart]

"the 22 episodes per season times were WORSE working conditions for the crew and staff!!! You're entitled for wanting them back!!!" actually no because it guaranteed you work for a whole year rather than having to constantly look for the next eight episodes mini series to pay your bills for the next few months. Also they needed a healthy costume / location / set department because they were working at a pace that made CGI a luxury not a norm. Most shows shooting in California explicitly AVOIDED overworking their crew BC the overtime laws were so strict.

The writers were under less strain because they had fully fledged writers rooms and rotated through writers for smaller episodes (which made it easier for new writers to get credits and something for their portfolio) so it wasn't up to two people to write a whole plot in a few months. In some cases they even took fan submissions for scripts that launched careers (the writer largely credited with star trek tng's best episodes got his start through script submissions)

Was it a constant loop of work? Yes. And that came with obvious pitfalls but they are not worse than the flaws of the industry today. STOP pretending TV used to work everyone to death and the mini series epidemic is a humanitarian response to that. It's literally just because of the netflix binge / "a TV show is now a nine hour movie" model.

[yujeong]

oh. by tonkla’s "it'll get better" (tapping win’s cheek) what do u think he meant by it. is he completely out of korn’s life now? watchuguysthink?

Anon, I'm afraid Tonkla cannot get out of Korn's life without facing some serious consequences, the most severe one being.... becoming homeless.

(In case it wasn't obvious to some fans, Sammon confirmed that the house Tonkla is living in is Korn's, although I personally had figured it out on my own.)

But other than that, I don't think Tonkla wants to get out of Korn's life. He still loves him and wants his attention and affection. He just got justifiably upset by Korn's behavior and kicked him out.

Now, in my opinion, what he meant when he said "It'll get better" to Win was their own relationship - Tonkla and Win's. Meaning that Win will get used to Tonkla's situation and there won't be any problems in the future for them. Let's not forget that he said it as a response to Win's "What should I do now?":

"Should I leave? Should I stay?"

Tonkla essentially told him to not think too much about it. I don't trust Win to do that, though.

I love it so much when the dialogue is subtle and BOC has produced so many shows with scripts that contain a bunch of it. I couldn't be happier about that, to be honest.

[serialkilluh1996]

✮𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑✮

Android-König x Detective-Female-reader

Detroit Become Human x Call Of Duty

Themes: drabble, oneshot, kinda platonic, meet cute

Author's note at the end.

୨୧How you and König meet୨୧

☣Content warning☣

➛ Mentions of bombs, terrorists, hijacking, Kidnapping.

➛ König uses "die"(pronounced, dee) instead of "the".

➛ use of "☆☆☆" in place of reader's name.

contact me if I need to add more.

It wasn't easy being a detective in detroit with the whole "androids going crazy" bullshit running a muck in the local headlines. Stacks on stacks of painful paperwork revolving around someone's artificial housepet going haywire.

You could feel a migraine coming on just looking at the file in your hand. "Android terrorists, huh?" You shrug, scanning over the case. Who new robots were capable of making complex bombs?

Cyberlife, probably. It's one of the reasons they're trying so hard to keep this under wraps. They knew from the very jump how dangerous these things could be, knowing lives would be in danger the second an android was sold, but sells were booming, and morality doesn't interfere with money in this economy. The crime scene photos were awfully graphic. It made you sick to the stomach knowing that a robot did this. Then again, it is a machine made in human image, and humans certainly weren't the best people. Millenias of track records proved that.

"☆☆☆!" You wince as you hear the grouchy old voice of your least favorite lieutenant. Hank. Fucking. Anderson. That sleazy old bitch and his shaggy dog beard. You could smell the beer from across the room, too frustrated to even turn around and face him. You were NOT in the mood.

"Hey, Ms. ☆☆☆. It'd be real courteous of you to, I dunno, turn the fuck around when I'm talking to ya." Hank teases, clearly too nonchalant for your byllshit today. "Lieutenant, WHAT do you want–" you turn in your spinning office chair, going silent as you notice the massive monstrous man that he was leaned against. He was tall, nearly 7'0", all decked out in a military combat uniform, large gun held firmly in his left hand that you could only assume was locked and loaded.

He had on some sort of dark hood with red streaks around the eyes, his irises glowing a vicious shade of bold red that illuminated like lasers. "What the fuck..." your voice trailed off, a reluctant fear in your voice as you tried to stand your ground. This guy clearly wasn't hunan, but he wasn't your usual android either.

Androids were designed to look friendly and appealing to the eye. Not to strike fear into the heart of whoever dares to look. Cyberlife's usual color scheme was a gentle teal blue, one that seemed electric and hyper. He was red-themed, not as friendly nor appealing considering that the color red is confirmed to cause anxiety and unease if in large quantities, especially bright red.

And that gun. This fucker had a gun. Cyberlife had lost their damn minds. There's no way these people actually thought that they should give an android, recently discovered to have a high possibility of going rogue and causing fatal damage to the human race, a gun, especially a murder weapon like that. That gun didn't even look legal to own. And then there's Hank, without an inch of a fuck to give, leaning against him like it was nothing.

"Cyberlife wanted me to, eh, bring you this little gift." "Why are they giving it to me???" You fuss. "Well, I'm off duty, kid. The case is yours, so the fuckin' android is too." He stuffs his hands in his large coat pockets, turning to leave.

"Hank?" You call out, a subtle whine in your voice caused by the fear of being left alone with it. "Whatever questions you have, ask the big guy. Or, just...Google it like the old days." He chuckles, knowing he sounded like an ass. You grunt at his lack of concern, trying to suppress a whimper as the metal monster progressed toward you, clenching the gun tightly.

"Greetings. I'm König, Die android sent by Cyberlife." He speaks, the tone in his voice making it obvious his words were scripted. "...you don't look like a usual robot " you stagger out, remaining calm with an unbothered, cocky facade. "I'm a prototype sent from Germany. I'm die only one with my model." He responded, voice clearly created with the idea of a German accent in mind. "Why are you so..." "Big? Red? Scary? Different from die others? It's simple, really. I'm especially designed for missions involving heavy crimes such as Kidnapping, bombing, hijacking, and trafficking. Missions like yours." He raises his right hand, index finger pointed directly at your file. Twelve dead. Nine injured. A shopping center blown to bits at the hands of AI.

"My bright shades of red are meant to exert power, instill fear and imply threat. Like a big X when you do something incorrect in a game." He places his AR on the ground, letting the loud metal cling as it hit your desk. His eyes examine your face, scanning cautiously, he squints as his inner computers calculate your current anxiety.

"You are...confused. Scared. Do not fret, detective. I was sent to protect you. I will terminate any and all threats to this mission and your safety, even if that includes me." He puts a shockingly soft gloved hand to your cheek. He really was an advanced model.

They're programming them with charisma as well? What will they think of next? You roll your eyes. Pushing the hand away, you reach for your car keys, snatching the file up off the table.

"Where are you going, Detective?" "Home. I've got a case to work on." Before you know it, you feel a firm grip around your waist before your lifted in the air by König. "What are you doing?" You hit his back, wincing at how firm it was.

"Taking you home. You're car needs to stay here incase they're stalking you. They'll see it and assume you're still at die precinct." He responds, opening the door with a single hand before ducking to exit. "So, you're just- you're gonna carry me back? All the way?" "Yes, Detective."

"Don't you think that would bring more attention to me than just...driving?" And suddenly, he stops walking. You can literally hear the gears turning in his head. "So, I was lying." The admission shocks you. "What?! What the hell kinda lie is that?"

"I just wanted to carry you back. Perhaps, show off what I can do. But,...dont worry. I assure you, you'll make it home safely. Then I can show you what else i can do." König's tone is flat as he resumes his journey. Lying, charismatic robot. What. A. Day.

You can support me by liking, commenting, reblogging, and/or cashapping me @fundsbrownie. Donations are optional, but much appreciated. Have fun! And remember, take care of yourself.

Okay, so this was something that's been on my mind for a while and I'm thinking about doing more oneshots with this scenario because robot König is just MWAH🫶🏾😚😚😚 and I absolutely must have more of him.

And to everyone that has recently submitted requests, please read my pinned and rules before sending one, because a lot of these asks were.... heavily against my boundaries. Have a great day/night!

[lavenderchqn]

𝐶𝛨𝛢𝑃𝑇𝛦𝑅 𝟎𝟎𝟖 — SOLITAIRE (1K WORDS) 𝑅𝐸𝐷 𝐿𝐼𝑁𝐸𝑆 — lyney x f!reader smau

𝑆𝑌𝑁𝑂𝑃𝑆𝐼𝑆 —

Second year of university should've been everything you thought of it - more studying with human interaction sprinkled throught... What it definitely wasn't supposed to be was an investigation saga where one of your friends goes missing out of nowhere

𝑃𝑅𝐸𝑉𝐼𝑂𝑈𝑆 — 𝑀𝐴𝑆𝑇𝐸𝑅𝐿𝐼𝑆𝑇 — 𝑁𝐸𝑋𝑇 𝐸𝑃𝐼𝑆𝑂𝐷𝐸 content information: mentions of league of legends stuff

The atmosphere turns cold, all eyes now on Furina. She looks as if she’s just seen a ghost. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Lyney tries to get her out of her frozen state by touching her arm as delicately as possible. “What do you mean by that?” 

“T-They… all… worked at the Troupe.” She answers, uncertain in all of her words. 

Angelique used to write scripts back when she still acted for them… the barista would act as an extra… and the student from the business and economy department was their side accountant. All three girls now seemingly have a connection between them. 

“Furina, do you need a moment?” Navia looks at her, concern in her eyes. “Let's cover this up, not to stress you further.” 

[Y/N] seems to agree that a break is needed. She opens a window, getting desperately needed fresh air into the room.

“I-it’s alright, don't worry about me.” She tries to act all tough, yet nobody in the room seems to fall for her act. “It’s just… I need to think.” 

Lyney brings her to a more comfortable spot to have her sit, his mind lost in thought. It seems as if, he just solved something, albeit unsure about the current situation. A glass of water suddenly gets put in front of her, signalising that she should have a sip. 

“Oh my god… should I tell you…” Furina mutters to herself, lost in trying to figure out her emotions. “We don't know each other all that well, but if it matters.” 

“Is it about the thing?” Lyney inquires, soon getting a small nod of confirmation. “Well, it might be valuable to the investigation Charlotte is doing…” 

“Hey, no.” Charlotte buts herself into the conversation. “I don't wanna force anyone to talk about painful stuff for my gains.” 

“It’s okay… I’m pretty sure part of the theatre troupe knows it anyway. Besides, maybe it will be better for me mentally if more people know?” 

She starts recalling her story from back when she still acted alongside Fontinalia Group. 

“At some point, somebody began to stalk me… Think like letters and pictures of me outside the troupe being left in my bag, locker… I think we found razors in there one time?” 

“Holy shit, that sounds terrifying,” Charlotte says, her eyes wide with shock. In all honesty, her reaction mirrors all of the girls from the tabletop troupe club. 

“Did you report it to university authorities?”

“Oh yeah, we did,” Lyney answers. “Department authorities, the troupe management.” 

“In the end, they said they couldn’t do much about it. With no evidence, there was ‘no need’ to look into security footage.” 

“What about the police?” [Y/N] chimes in. “Personally, razors being left in my locker sounds like an obvious threat to my well-being.” 

“Unfortunately…” Clorinde begins to answer her. “Police are unlikely to start a case unless there are visible injuries on the victim. The same goes for a lack of protective/no-contact order.” 

“Yeah…” Furina agrees. “All in all, I decided to leave the troupe… which seemingly ended the stalking?” 

“My heart goes out to you, Furina.” Navia moves closer to the girl. “Nobody should have to fear for their safety—“ 

Suddenly, a phone lights up — a cute black cat inside of a magician’s cat on a wallpaper flashing everyone. 

“New notification from discord: Neuvillette is now streaming solitaire” A mechanical, text-to-speech says, sending everyone into laughter — Furina included. 

“WHY DO YOU HAVE TEXT TO SPEECH NOTIFICATIONS?!” Charlotte asks, laughing in between the words. 

Lyney can barely breathe, from how much he’s laughing at the situation happening. 

“Holy fuck, I didn’t even know I have that on!” 

By the time the board game night ends, it’s already after midnight. Clorinde has graciously offered Furina, Lyney and Lynette a ride home during a game of monopoly. It seems she’s about to act upon her promise now. 

“Thank you so much for coming!” [Y/N] says, giving a hug to all the girls. “Please let me know when you get home. It will ease my heart a lot.” 

“Will do, bye girls!” 

“Cya!” 

“I’m unsure what to do next... I can't see any other possibilities.” 

“I dunno if your eyesight is just getting worse, or it’s due to the time right now,” Wriothesley answers. “You can move the entire deck on your second batch that starts from red 8 to that black nine on the 5th batch”

“Oh, you’re right.”

The door to Furina and Neuvilette’s flat opens up, followed by the sound of closing the door. Well, there may also be a sound of stuff rolling around and a tiny curse. 

“Furina just got home. She tripped on something.”

“I HEARD THAT!” 

“Good to know she’s back. Only Lyney’s left.” 

Soon afterwards Furina joins the voice call, the last member of the beverage gang mere minutes behind her.

“What is up gamerssss— oh you’re still playing solitaire?” 

“I am.” 

“Good to know you also made it home — remember to tell [Y/N] we did,” Furina says, not even opening the stream. She still has some work to be done this late into the night. 

Lyney can be heard shouting said request to Lynette, who doesn’t even answer back. All he gets is a simple phone message saying she did so. 

“[Y/N] wishes us a good night!” 

“Please tell me, you didn’t get home on foot.” 

“Clorinde and Navia gave us a ride, don’t stress out, Dad.” Lyney chimes in, still thinking about what to play. “Should I try and rank in League tonight?” 

“Honestly, no. Your brain rots whenever you have to go against Yasuo.” 

“Not my fucking fault that bitch has wind wall… Whoever thought that skill was a good idea deserves to play Yuumi mid against him.” 

“I’m with Wrio on this one…” Furina sighs. “Also, speaking of Clorinde and Navia…” Furina starts recounting some of the information they have learned the past evening. She doesn’t have any malicious intent by doing that, just making sure her friends are aware of what’s been happening.

“So people are going missing… and they’re all connected to that wicked troupe of yours?” Neuvillette asks as if she didn’t just say they did.

“And one of the journalism majors is doing a full fucking investigation into that.” Lyney chimes in. 

“I know I should’ve punched that fucking bitch back when you were leaving, Furu.”

She only sighs in response.

𝑇𝐴𝐺𝐿𝐼𝑆𝑇 — OPEN

@state-of-grac3 @santaluna @meigalaxy @romyoia @meurtreofcrows @floweringanna @moonjellyfishie

for the people who's @ are in italics, it's because for some reason whenever I tag you it just doesn't show up whenever I save the chapter...

date of posting — august 10th 2024

[crownsandbishops]

Crowns and Bishops Behind the Scenes (part 1)

In today's extra long post, for the anniversary of Crowns and Bishops I will be giving you guys a peak behind the process of creating a comic for the Blog, in this case, Vine's Lore post! The Final one of the main set! For extra long asks like this I always start out by typing up a script, laying out exactly what I might want to say in response to the question at hand! Here's the full typed script for Vine's lore post [it ended up SUPER long, I think because I've had the most time to think about Vine's character and what I wanted for him haha!]

From there I start on the first panel, and as anyone who has seen my wips or just knows how I drew things, every Jir character starts their life as a circle!

I reuse some assets mostly for backgrounds to make the process go easier, such as these pillars and skulls in Narinder's realm!

Because mspaint doesnt have layers, different coloured outlines are used to create what is essentially different layers so that adjustment to one section doesn't affect another!

I kept this one mostly the same but adjusted the legs because it wasn't looking quite right!

for details like the shawl stripes I overlap the lines like this and then paste over it with the red being transparent, so only the details on the red remain!

When I'm happy with the main image I then add the text from the script!

It usually takes 4-5 iterations before I'm happy with placement, clarity and spacing! I also often have to account for the colours i use to make them the most readable against the background of each panel!

I look up reference images for this, like the standard way that a cloak like this one would be held together!

And since the Lands of the Old Faith is a closed-off continent in the preindustrial era any background will be confined to one of the five Bishop's lands! For this one I've chosen a forest like the one in this trailer for the game, but with an adjusted colour pallet!

I decided for the next panel, since Vine's mother's characterization was kind of a messed up allusion to the virgin Mary, that I should reference a biblical painting related to it and found this one

Though the cosmology and relations are different, the Seller was the obvious stand in for the Angel Gabriel in the picture!

Some panels start with the background, others with the character depending on what makes the most sense! Here I have a bit of both worked on but I'm focusing on drawing Vine!

For the ritual sacrifice Vine and his mother created a fake traitor's razor as the ceremonial dagger, and a clasp reminiscent of Gaap's, Narinder's most favoured vessel up to this point, as well as utilizing ceremonial paint and other decorations and representations related to Narinder!

When drawing imprisoned Narinder the hardest part tends to be fitting the veil properly above his opened third eye!

For the next panel, I show the intersection between the three vessels, as though Vine would've been born while Nelly was Narinder's vessel, Acedia does come before him in the order, so I had to square away how that would work!

When I initially decided on the order for Narinder's vessels I hadn't decided on the broad strokes of who they were and how they would've been chosen, so Acedia being before Vine but only for a single year between Nelly and Vine ends up quite silly!

If there's no real room like here, I'll sometimes extend the canvas to add black bars to add the text in.

I asked my chat for a follower form and was suggested Wolf, so the follower Vine is charming here was made a wolf!

I use this wall asset for the cult grounds in the background!

And I have various colour references for other things like Camellias and the outfits for non-cult affiliated denizens of the Lands!

( apparently, I can only have so many pictures so >:3 Part 2 awaits!)

[aihoshiino]

Oshi no Ko 150: Mistranslation or Miscommunication?

Something I was surprised to see in the aftermath of OnK 150 were accusations from the English fanbase that the chapter had been mistranslated or that the content of it had been misrepresented somehow. I fully admit that I was extremely skeptical of this assertion when I first saw it crop up given but MangaPlus's translations do have an unfortunate habit of flubbing minor details in places that do lead to pretty major cascading errors with the English script. It's possible it could have happened, especially in a chapter operating on dream logic as this one does, so I decided to take a look at the JP text myself and see if this was the case. And what I took away was… no, the English translation is more or less fine. A bit stiff but nothing has been lost or changed from the original text. But since there seems to be a lot of misinfo on this topic going around and I have nothing better to do on a Friday morning I guess, I thought I'd do my best to clear some of it up.

First of all: credentials, I guess? I'm the translator of 45510 and Viewpoint B and I was also part of the team working on Spica, The First Star where I contributed translation efforts as well. Basically I just want to assure folks that I'm not pulling this stuff out of my ass lol

Also apologies that some of these caps from the manga are fucking shmeared with Vaseline, tracking down the JP raws in decent quality was a fucking nightmare this time around for some reason. Anyway!

Black Eyes

The first major point of confusion seems to surround a line from Gorou at the start of page seven, while warning Aqua off from 'Sarina'.

「俺の目が黒い内はさりなちゃんに手ぇ出させねえ からな？」

In initial TLs, this line was translated literally and rendered as "You're not allowed to touch Sarina while your eyes are black!" which immediately caused a flurry of speculation among fans that this was a lore drop, meant to indicate that Aqua was 'not allowed' to be in a relationship with Ruby so long as he had his black hoshigans on - and thus, pursuing a relationship with her would restore them to white. When this line was rendered as "I won't let you make a move on Sarina-chan for as long as I live!" in the official TL, a lot of people assumed this was a mistake or an active omission on the part of MangaPlus. I regret to inform everyone that there was a mistranslation here… but uh, it wasn't MangaPlus!

First of all, Gorou is referring to his own eyes, not Aqua's - and furthermore, he's actually using a euphemistic idiom in the vein of 'over my dead body' or 'when hell freezes over'. There is a bit of missing subtext here in that Gorou is specifically expressing a sort of paternalistic expression and the obvious visual pun of Aqua's black hoshigans but MangaPlus's line gets at what Gorou is actually saying here. So no, unless Akasaka is playing a Ryukishi07 Umineko tier wordplay foreshadowing trick on us, I think we can take this at face value as just a brief gag.

'Good Enough'?

Another point of contention from this same page is a seemingly minor note of potential ambiguity with regards to Aqua's feelings for Ruby. When discussing their relationship at Gorou's prompting, Aqua states that Ruby is 'his precious little sister' with the following phrasing:

「世界でたった一人の大切な妹。それだけで良い。」

MangaPlus renders the 「それだけで良い。」 part of this line as "That's all that matters". Pretty much since the moment this chapter dropped, I've seen people insist that this is a mistranslation and that initial pre-official TLs of "That's good enough for me" are more accurate - that there is some sense of 'settling' or resignation on Aqua's part, that he does want to be with Ruby but he'll settle for being her brother and that the official TL erases this nuance.

My take on this is… eh. That's kind of a stretch.

Obviously, context is everything but if that sense of 'settling for good enough' is what Akasaka was wanting to convey, 「それだけで良い。」 feels off to me - I would say that 「それで十分だ。」 would be a much more natural choice of words and in fact, we already have at least once instance of this phrasing being used in OnK to express a similar sentiment and being rendered similarly in official TLs as "That by itself is enough."

When it comes to 「それだけで良い。」, "that's good enough" is a perfectly fine TL for it… but so is "that's all that matters", honestly! Depending on context, anything from "That's all there is to it", "That's plenty by itself", "That's all I want" or even "Just that is enough" are all perfectly fine ways to render this idea in English and I don't think the official TL is missing any nuance not suggested by the art. If I can be frank, this attachment to the 'good enough' phrasing in the English seems to come from this being the wording that was initially used by leakers and that it is just slightly more favorable to Ruby in terms of potential to be an endgame heroine.

The Japanese text is just as favorable or unfavorable to Ruby as the official TL is and any ambiguities in that regard exist in both versions of the text. Do with that as you will.

Tensing Up

This is moreso something I've see on Twitter as opposed to the sub but I thought it was worth addressing: when discussing Aqua's supposed feelings for Kana, Gorou phrases it as such:

「星野アクアとして、思春期らしい年相応の恋愛感情を抱えていた。」

MangaPlus translates this as "As Aqua Hoshino, you have romantic feelings that are appropriate to your age as an adolescent." This is pretty much exactly as he phrases things in Japanese (i.e, he specifically says 恋愛感情 renai kanjou, romantic feelings not just vaguely defined 'love'), but the point of contention sees to be whether this is still the case and that Gorou was specifically talking in the past tense about something that is no longer the case.

This is actually the opposite of what Gorou is saying here: in the part of the sentence that refers to Aqua having these feelings, Gorou uses the phrasing of 抱えていた, which indicates that this state or action is present tense and ongoing.

If I can speculate, this insistence on past tense phrasing seems to come from the fact that feeding Gorou's original line into MTLs such as Google Translate or DeepL returns this past tense phrasing… oops lol.

Bits and Bobs

Just some smaller bits of confusion I've seen floating around that didn't really warrant their own sections…

There seems to be this weird misinfo scrap going around that Aqua switches to referring to himself as 「僕」 (boku) as his first person pronoun after waking from his dream as opposed to 「俺」 (ore), which is what he'd been using in his dream and what Gorou had been using too - thus implying that 「僕」 (boku) is Aqua's 'true self' with no Gorou influence. This… uh, is flatly not the case! Putting aside that Aqua doesn't say anything at all after waking up, (I FUCKED UP, YES HE DOES SAY SOMETHING AND DOES SWITCH TO BOKU, I'M SORRYYYYYYYY) codeswitching between 'boku' and 'ore' as a first person pronoun is not super uncommon and is more to do with context and politeness than anything else - 'boku' is more polite and more appropriate for formal environments whereas 'ore' is always informal. You might switch back and forth between the two depending on who you're talking to - busting out an 'ore' at work would be like going "hey boss, ya boy just finished those financial reports, bitch" so…!

In addition, Aqua has used 'boku' before when distinguishing between "the reincarnator" and "the identity of Aqua Hoshino", so until we see the next chapter and get more Aqua dialogue, I don't know to what degree (if any!) it indicates about pronoun usage differentiating between Gorou and Aqua.

The other bit of discussion I've seen as pertains to the translation is whether Kana's line in the final page - translated by MangaPlus as 'I'm seriously in love' - was a reference to LoveNow's title or if she used the word 'gachikoi' there in Japanese as Ruby does in 143. The answer to both of those is a resounding 'nope'. Kana's line in that final page is 「私は本気の恋をしている。」, while LoveNow's Japanese title is 「今からガチ恋始めます」. Specifically, Kana describes her feelings as 本気の恋 (honki no koi), i.e, seriously, earnestly, truly in love, whereas both LoveNow and Ruby use the term ガチ恋 (gachikoi), a slang term referring to a fan who considers themselves to be legitimately in romantic love with a celebrity/idol/etc. Gachikoi is also how the first generation of B-Komachi are described in both Viewpoint B and 45510 in the original Japanese text.

Shakers of Salt

This is pretty much everything I saw floating around and I am not personally super interested in litigating every line of text in this chapter, BUT - if there's anything you feel was confusing about this chapter's TL in particular or anything that felt off or crunchy, I'd be happy to clarify stuff in the comments!

Ultimately my motivation here was to sooth the itch triggered by seeing my pet peeve pop up, which is people spreading misinfo about the original language text of a work lol. As I said up top, I was immediately skeptical once claims like this started popping up because "actually, this was mistranslated and the original Japanese text just so happens to word for word support my argument actually" is a song and dance I've done a whole lot of times before. I did my time in the Persona fandom, I'm not going back to this!!!

That being said: absolutely fact check me on this! If any of this smells stinky to you, get a second, third and fourth opinion from other parties, do your own research and come to your own conclusions. "People in fandoms will misrepresent the original language text of a work to support their agendas" is not something I am exempt from just because I have done my own translations and the last thing I want is to inadvertently perpetuate bullshit about a language or culture that is not mine. If you take anything from this, it's to do your own research and ultimately see where you come down on this sort of thing.

[inspector-montoya-fox]

You know sometimes i like using my tumblr as like a brain rot bank? Like a time capsule for thoughts and opinion that cater to no one but everyone is welcome to enjoy and partake. And today i'll be doing just that because i have finally finished The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. If you've been following me for a while you know that this is lowkey monumental because (a) it means that i have officially played all Ace Attorney games, and (b) i have been struggling to finish these two games since their bundled release three years ago. So, i just wanted to share some general thoughts, some tier lists, and feel free to let me know what you think if you read what i have to say!

Ok so, my main takeaway from playing the two games is that... Dr Courtney Sithe is a bad bitch deserving of the same praise as Franziska, Lana Skye, Justine Courtney, Dee Vasquez and Calisto Yew. I genuinely love her so much. Miss Buttplug Hair got her PhD in being a girlboss and i'm so upset she was only in one case. For such a cool character with an amazing design, she was criminally underdeveloped. Same goes for my other fav, Rei Membani. Soon as it was mentioned that Professor Mikotoba and Judge Jigoku were on their way to the UK, i was one hundred percent sure she'd accompany them, and i was ultimately disappointed. To have her right next to Susato on the game's cover art and give her such an amazing takedown of Raiten Menimemo... and then just not have her be anywhere else was such a shame. I need more Dr Sithe and Rei !

The rest of the games' characters were a bit of a mixed bag with some obvious (and some unexpected) stand-outs. Here's my tier list:

Notes:

The biggest surprise that came when i was making this is how high i placed Herlock. I started off hating him so much and then he just suddenly grew on me so quickly, i hadn't even noticed. One of my favourites for sure.

I think we can all collectively agree that we have, at some point in our lives, embodied Pop Windibank... poor guy...

I don't know what Kazuma's deal is. He starts off as Ryunosuke's Mia Fey before um... just becoming a jerk? Why does he have beef with his best friend who was literally mourning him for almost a year? Can't lie though, the bitch looks hot in his white uniform.

Some of the jurors made a bigger impression than actual characters/ witnesses, just by having cool designs. Mainly the green lady, who rightfully earned her spot in the third tier after i found out she's supposed to be a reincarnation of the teacher from PLvsPW !

Eggert Benedict or whatever the fuck that rich breakdancing asshole is called, cannot be a final villain i'm sorry. Seriously, what were they thinking?

The two redheads are such a shameless rip-off of the Skulkins. Two ruffians taking the witness stand for the game's climax AGAIN !? And during the credits, they pose in their prison cell with "Gossip" in the middle the exact same way Eggert and the Skulkins did in the credits of Adventures, like no thank you.

I love how my overall bottom 3 are an annoying str*ight couple and a child.

If Stronghart wasn't in the second (very coveted) tier, he'd be in the bottom of 'like !' because he was ok. It's blatantly obvious he's the big bad from the second he's introduced but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Also, i need him and Damon Gant to have a fat titty bounce-off.

Moving on to criticisms, i can't help but feel like the fact that Shu Takumi decided to split his original script into two games only served to hurt the entire project. Because, for starters, each game has a different feel and the two don't match. Adventures is reminiscent of PLvsPW, Takumi's whimsical and eccentric love letter to the UK that hinges heavily on exposition. Resolve, on the other hand, is a bit of a mix between its predecessor and traditional Ace Attorney, its cases focusing more on driving the narrative to its conclusion rather than experimenting on the classic formula (as with the first game). It also echoes aspects of the first Investigations, bringing in diplomatic immunity, international relations, "tracking down and going against the head of the evil organisation" (the Reaper storyline is very similar to the Yatagarasu one). Personally the two vibes don't mesh, even when Resolve tries to latch onto Adventures with Memoirs of the Clouded Kokoro, for example.

Then, the pacing in both games is all over the place. Adventures is just so unreasonably and unashamedly long-winded and slow, it's the reason it took me literally three years to get into it. The game repeats the same lines of dialogue again and again until they're made painfully clear, subsequently making the player (or at least me) feel like an idiot who needs to read the same thing 13 times in order to get it. This, coupled with the fact that actual gameplay was almost nowhere to be seen and that progression in the courtroom almost always relied on not pointing out inconsistencies but pressing the witnesses adjacent to the one testifying, made the game such a slog to get through. And once the game started to pick up, it was over before i even knew it and in a very unceremonious fashion no less. In comparison, Resolve is very streamlined, albeit a bit too fast-paced. With the exception of Memoirs, which felt like shameless filler, it's clear that they wanted to waste zero time and crammed so much stuff into the episodes, to the point where it became difficult to keep track of everything going on. Because, keep in mind, the second game was tasked with tying up all the loose threads from the first one.

This leads to my final criticism regarding the split: inconsistencies and unresolved mysteries. I think it reads as careless writing when questions keep sprouting everywhere and their answers are reserved for the final two episodes of the second game. Even Unspeakable, a final case, introduces mysteries tied to the overarching narrative just for them to be shelved until Twisted Karma, leaving the player with a sense of dissatisfaction when the game ends. Not only is it frustrating to keep track of all the unsolved mysteries, a chore which good writing would not expect from the player, but it also has you questioning whether or not some of them will get answered at all. Why was the selection of jurors obviously rigged? Why did Van Zieks stop appearing in court five years prior? Where did he lose his gun in Twisted Karma? Why didn't Stronghart assassinate Madame Tusspells as well? Why is Kazuma fully exonerated after admitting to his involvement in the assassin exchange? I grouped the unresolved mysteries with inconsistencies as one problem because the latter is a result of the former. The majority of mysteries spills over from the first game to the second, giving way to different phrasing, details getting glossed over and the plot's consequences getting ignored. There's a very apparent shift in Gregson's character, for example, going from uncooperative and rigid in Adventures to more forgiving and helpful in Resolve, all the while his misconduct from Unspeakable is seemingly forgotten and met with zero ramifications. There's also the government's secret message about the assassin exchange Herlock deciphered at the end of the first game, which sets up the second game nicely but then doesn't get mentioned until the very last day in court. Like, come on now. It feels like Resolve continues Adventures' story without wanting to acknowledge it because, in the grand scheme of things, McGilded and Eggert Benedict seem to not matter at all. And then there's Memoirs, which... Inconsistency City, honestly. This episode's lack of impact on the overall story allowed it to be literally anything else. It's such a bizarre choice to have it be something which only achieves in taking away from the first Clouded Kokoro case! Like ok, i can get behind it being a case no one wanted to talk about so it didn't make the first game. I can turn a blind eye to the inconsistent character development and timeline, whatever. But it absolutely drives me nuts that, for an Ace Attorney game where the murders are explained in full detail, they couldn't stay consistent with the direction Olive Green was walking in. Hate. Loathe. Get it away from me.

That pretty much covers it in terms of complaints, because otherwise i enjoyed my playthrough quite a bit actually. I know i've just spent like 3 mega-sized paragraphs complaining but the games have great elements as well. The Deduction dances are easily the best thing about the gameplay, especially when you didn't see them coming. They were so much fun to play, very animated and cartoony with amazing banter, and effortlessly accelerated the investigation segments. Equally, i loved Judicial Findings. Undoubtedly my favourite part of the courtroom sections and a welcome change of pace. I tended to stall a lot because the jury's music fucks so hard. While on the topic of what i liked, Ryunosuke and Susato's chemistry rivals what Phoenix and Maya have going on. Susato leaving at the end of Adventures was a genuinely effective point in the plot, even though i knew she'd be back.

Now, let's take a closer look at the episodes. Here's my overall tier list of all Ace Attorney cases, the Great Ace Attorney ones being highlighted in yellow:

Notes:

Blossoming Attorney gobbled the rest of the girls right up (a court-only episode, no less). They gave us Susato gameplay, what more can you ask for? An amazing case. Gay Women in STEM !!

Return kinda strikes a nice balance between the different feels of the two games i mentioned before. You've got exposition and world-building with the whole Great Exhibition, turn of the century mad science thing, but also classic Ace Attorney with tracking down Drebber (very Matt Engarde's apartment) and Madame Tusspells as just some witness (very Lisa Basil). A very fun case right before the clusterfuck of mysteries ensues. Also, Dr Courtney Sithe !!!!! Girl you're such a star and you don't even know it spit in my mouth

Was tempted to put Unspeakable in the second tier but i think it's earned its high placement on its own merit and not because of personal bias. It's a great case. Maybe not for a final one, but it's still great. It tries its hardest to tie up some loose ends before the game ends and that's worth something.

Resolve of Ryunosuke is objectively better than Twisted because i could not give less of a fuck about the purple guy's headache and Espella Cantabella selling firecrackers, but they're both very much one single package. Extra points to Resolve of Ryunosuke though for having its villain sit at the judge's seat. That was neat.

The two Clouded Kokoros are giving stinky Bri ish culture with the whole apartment building background, like Ribena, bad teeth, rusty Union Jack, horseshit breath at the pub, you awrite luv? Slander, i'm sorry.

Slightly unrelated but when i was making this tier list it became so obvious that Investigations 2 is the crown jewel of the franchise. Like it has two cases in the top 5, how can you even argue against that?

Arriving to a conclusion, i'd say both games belong on the same level as Apollo Justice: a blend of good and bad. My experience playing the Ace Attorney franchise has followed this trend of attaching each game to a pivotal moment in my life. I finished the first game while i was still a soldier, Justice for All during my first year at university, Dual Destinies during Covid lockdown, Investigations while helping my parents set up their shop one summer. So i know i'll look back at playing The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles right after handing my dissertation very fondly. In other words, despite not quite sticking the landing, it's left a very pleasant aftertaste. Thank you for reading!

[haggishlyhagging]

Were anti-porn feminists being hysterical? Censorious prudes? In the age of internet porn, DVDs and video cassettes, let alone centerfolds and seedy theaters, can be joked about as nostalgic throwbacks. It may seem to some, looking back, that feminist anti-porn campaigners must have been overtaken by anxiety about a mass culture that was becoming more open about sex, and that was quite capable of separating fantasy from fact. Feminists, anxious about sex under patriarchy found it easier, a group of pro-porn feminists wrote in 1983, “to attack the picture of what oppresses us than the mysterious, elusive . . . thing itself.” The implication is that anti-porn feminists were overestimating the power of porn: they had lost perspective. But what if the true significance of the perspective of anti-porn feminists lay not in what they were paying attention to, but when? What if they weren’t hysterical, but prescient?

It was my students who first led me to think about this question. Discussing the "porn question" is more or less mandatory in an introductory class on feminist theory. But my heart wasn't really in it. I imagined that the students would find the anti-porn position prudish and passé, just as I was trying hard to make them see the relevance of the history of feminism to the contemporary moment. I needn't have worried. They were riveted. Could it be that pornography doesn't merely depict the subordination of women, but actually makes it real, I asked? Yes, they said. Does porn silence women, making it harder for them to protest against unwanted sex, and harder for men to hear those protests? Yes, they said. Does porn bear responsibility for the objectification of women, for the marginalization of women, for sexual violence against women? Yes, they said, yes to all of it.

It wasn't just the women students talking; the men were saying yes as well, in some cases even more emphatically. One young woman pushed back, citing the example of feminist porn. "But we don't watch that," the men said. What they watched was the hardcore stuff, the aggressive stuff—what is now, on the internet, the free stuff. My male students complained about the routines they were expected to perform in sex; one of them asked whether it was too utopian to imagine sex that was loving and mutual and not about domination and submission. My women students talked about the neglect of women's pleasure in the pornographic script, and wondered whether it had something to do with the absence of pleasure in their own lives. "But if it weren't for pornography," one woman said, "how would we ever learn to have sex?"

Porn meant so much to my students; they cared so much about it. Like the anti-porn feminists of forty years ago, they had a heightened sense of porn's power, a strong conviction that porn did things in the world. Talking with my graduate teaching assistant after that seminar (she was a handful of years younger than me), I realized what should have been obvious from the start. My students belonged to the first generation truly to be raised on internet pornography. Almost every man in that class would have had his first sexual experience the moment he first wanted it, or didn't want it, in front of a screen. And almost every woman in the class would have had her first sexual experience, if not in front of a screen, then with a boy whose first sexual experience had been. In that sense, her experience too would have been mediated by a screen: by what the screen instructed him to do. While almost all of us today live in a world where porn is ubiquitous, my students, born in the final years of the last century, were the first to have come of age sexually in that world.

My students would not have stolen or passed around magazines or videos, or gathered glimpses here and there. For them sex was there, fully formed, fully interpreted, fully categorized—teen, gangbang, MILF, stepdaughter—waiting on the screen. By the time my students got around to sex IRL—later, it should be noted, than teenagers of previous generations—there was, at least for the straight boys and girls, a script in place that dictated not only the physical moves and gestures and sounds to make and demand, but also the appropriate affect, the appropriate desires, the appropriate distribution of power. The psyches of my students are products of pornography. In them, the warnings of the anti-porn feminists seem to have been belatedly realized: sex for my students is what porn says it is.

-Amia Srinivasan, The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century

[annabelle--cane]

okay. collection of disparate thoughts on the good hal/bad hal thing:

-> I get, mechanically, why they went for it as a creative decision. I can buy the hal we see in the cutler flashbacks and the hal we see in the present day as being the same person because they're separated by sixty years, people change with time, but clearly what they wanted was for hal to go full villain mode in the last episode, and simply making him have a breakdown and do a heel turn on his personality wouldn't make sense. and like, last episode evil!hal is really fun, he's a smug villain who does dance numbers and is blunt enough to deliver the show's thesis as parting wisdom, I see the reasoning.

-> but I'm not sure how much of that was planned from hal's introduction? he says things like "I've been so many people" and "you've got the wrong man, I'm not him anymore," but it always reads as more metaphorical until s5. hal always says "me" when referring to his Evil Self, up until the middle of s5 where he starts saying "him."

-> and because (in my opinion) this element was added for a mechanical function, it overwrites thematic ground we've already covered before. when george split his monstrosity off from himself and called the wolf "it," that was a problem he had to overcome; when mitchell tried to deny his own agency and say he wasn't in control when he hurt people, that was a flaw that got corrected. then in hal's case they flip the script and say it really isn't him who does the atrocities. they try to work around it a bit, having good!hal kill someone and feed in secret so he does have things he's responsible for that lead into the change, but it still feels weird.

-> I also get where this comes from, metaphorically. there is a trend in sci fi/fantasy of portraying addict characters with this sort of jekyll-and-hyde dualism, literalizing internal struggles and the way people change while under the influence of mood altering substances, you find shades of it as far back as medieval morality plays where an everyman's vices and virtues manifest into physical form to duke it out. I don't love it, but I see where the emotional core of it comes from, and I also think it works best when (like with jekyll and hyde) the story comes to the conclusion that the two aspects aren't ultimately different people, and that's not really what they do with hal. unless...

-> how different are good hal and bad hal, anyway? obviously their moral codes are different, but are they different people or two aspects of the same person? bad hal isn't a neat freak, but he shares good hal's passion for vintage showtunes and werewolves who visibly want to do him harm. he's genuinely distraught when lady catherine dies, he keeps up appearances with lady mary for 250 years, young leo gets right under his skin, and he was willing to let let tom and alex have a nice send off from him. and, as should probably go without saying, good hal can also be a bastard, too. he almost attacks people several times, he says awful things to tom, he recruits ian and hides it, he kills larry and hides it, he feeds and hides it even when directly asked, etc. if the show had had one more season, I think the obvious next step for this arc would be bad hal joining the gang and everyone realizing that he's still just hal. this isn't a stranger, their friend hasn't died, this is the same man they've been living with for months and he still thinks the lute is the coolest of all medieval stringed instruments. the only real difference is that now he's decided to stop trying, but he's perfectly capable of changing his mind back.

-> what actually is his deal? what, specifically, is the good hal/bad hal thing? other vampires don't do that, other old ones aren't like that, the closest another character comes is herrick's whole amnesia arc but that was because he came back from the dead. I've seen other people go through and track how hal does actually show a good number of symptoms of a dissociative disorder (traumatic early childhood, out-of-body experiences, some amount of amnesia, etc.), but given that he says he feels like "both" and "neither" of himself when the devil tricks them all into thinking they've been un-cursed, I think we're supposed to read it as something supernatural. the best headcanon I've got is it is a dissociative disorder but hal thinks it's supernatural so the devil took it away as part of the whole too-good-to-be-true thing, but I don't think that was the intention and the show leaves it super unclear, they just drop it in and expect us to roll with it.

[wheelercurse]

byler + subtext

(a rant by me)

I do think byler is still subtext, at least the part of Mike being queer too. But this story started with subtext, even with Will. So I want to share with you my personal experience of watching the show and coming to the conclusion that byler will be endgame.

note: subtext doesn't mean it's not intentional, it's written like that for a reason. I know it's hard to convince others because many people would like to have it spelt out. And of course, their bias will affect them. They wouldn't want to think the ship they like isn't ending up together.

When I finished watching S1, I was sure Will was gay. There were two biggest hints: the homophobic bullies, and his conversation with Jonathan.

You don't present a kid as different, and even his father was homophobic toward him for nothing. But Jonathan telling Will that "he shouldn't like things only because he's supposed it." was the confirmation. That was a queercoded conversation, yes, they were talking about baseball, but there was an underlying meaning to it, the subtext.

I know some part of the general audience considered that Will could be gay for these hints, but it wasn't confirmed.

In s2 he has another queercoded conversation with Jonathan, about how it's okay to be different. Again the conversation wasn't about Will's sexuality, it was about him feeling alienated and outcasted, especially because people called him zombie boy.

But the last scene was the one that reaffirmed that he was gay. The one when he danced with the girl and he looked so uncomfortable. To me, it was obvious he wasn't interested in girls like that. This was more about another rule show, don't tell.

In the original script, the scene was written a bit differently. Will wasn't interested in the girl because he was looking at Mike. That would have confirmed that he waa gay, but also that he liked Mike. And to be honest, I didn't consider that he liked Mike, but some Mike's actions made me think that he liked Will. But still, I thought it wasn't possible because the main couple was "mil*ven" It was another case of two besties having more chemistry than the straight couple.

Then it's season 3, where literally the rain fight confirmed that he was, in fact, gay, homosexual, gay. But now I also highly suspected that he liked Mike too.

The rain fight is my favorite byler scene (my mutuals know this). The reason, it's the perfect example of queer subtext. This season, his queercoded conversation wasn't with Jonathan, but with Mike. At first, I interpreted the line "it's not my fault you don't like girls" in a literal way. I thought that Mike knew that Will was gay, but the creators and actors were still denying that he was. It was still just subtext.

My friends (like some GA) insisted to me that Will wasn't gay and liked Mike, it was only that he didn't want to grow up. And they were half right because, of course, they were arguing about that. The line in context was about Mike complaining that Will wasn't interested in girls, and he just wanted to keep playing d&d (even though it had homophobic undertones).

So, yes, on the surface it was only about growing up, but what was written between the lines? Their inner conflicts about their sexualities and feelings for each other. But, tbh I still thought Mike wasn't gay. Even though, mlven annoyed me this season, and their last kiss felt forced and awkward. I truly believed it was bad acting and bad direction, but I changed my mind in season 4.

David Harbour spoiled in an interview that Will was very interested with someone else (Mike). So I thought maybe he would have a crush on him, and then get over it, but oh boy, he was deeply in love. And not only that, he was suffering for his unrequited love. And every milevn scene was about how much pain it caused to Will. Why would be the reason if he doesn't get what he wants in the end?

BUT, I don't think how they wrote Will's arc this season, it's the only reason why Mike has to be queer. Also, how they wrote Mike and his relationships with both Will and El. Especially because their main conflict was that he couldn't say I love you. The same conflict, that another Wheeler sibling had with her partner.

Anyway at the end of the season, he gave his monologue to El, and for like two days I thought it was truly over, until I realized that the truth about the painting had to come out and that would change everything.

I watched the show again in retrospect. And I noticed Mike's queercoding through the seasons.

His conversation with Karen in s1, is very similar to the one Will had with Jonathan. So, it was intentional that he treated Will differently in s2, and the gay vibes I felt were there. And in s3, the rain fight, he thought growing up meant having girlfriends, yeah, that's so heteronormative. I know what you're dealing with, Mike. And of course, the awkward kiss was intentional, the boy kissed her with wide eyes open perfectly framed next to a closet. That's subtext.

When I read some leaks, I still doubt. Especially, the ones which claim that mlevn is still together, because, to me, it doesn't make any sense for the way it was written. But, maybe they're wrong, or they're going to break up later in the season.

And I also doubt because they haven't leaked anything about byler being romantic. BUT, I remember they leaked that Jamie was playing Vecna and 001, but nothing about Will being in love with Mike, so it's okay. This is their top secret.

This was a rant, not an analysis of the queer subtext in the show, if you want, I could write it one of these days.

Thanks for reading.

[assumptionprime]

I hopped on the Experience Boost Binge Bandwagon and read the entire thing on my train home from MAGfest last night and I loved it! Apart from the obvious choice of Zhusen, my favorite character is probably Castor since I, too, enjoy spending too much time doing inane things to bother people (albeit in FFXIV and not WoW). You mentioned in an author's note that Castor's antics are based on your own experiences with Flowers of Happiness, and I was just curious what your all-time favorite player trolling story is, whether it's your own or one you've heard?

My personal favorite- I heard (although I wasn't there and thus don't know for sure) that one reason Spriggan was the last FFXIV server to finish the Ishgardian Restoration is that at one point the players in the firmament unionized and instituted mandatory productivity breaks and delivery quotas.

I hope the Spriggan story is true, that's incredible. Unions are important, and it's high time the craftspeople of Eorzea got Union Strong.

I mentioned this one on that author's note but our guild leader for the Flowers had probably the best one ever back in Everquest: Fansy the Famous Bard (beware, that site is truly ancient, and the chat logs contain multiple slurs being thrown at Fansy). A quick google turns up multiple articles written years later about Fansy and his crusade for the cause of the good guys.

It's from a time when there was more room in MMO mechanics to do truly wild shit. A lot of those edge cases and outlandishly exploitable mechanics have been sanded off of most MMOs over the years, and in some ways its good for the games.

But I will miss playing hide and seek with the flag in Warsong Gulch for three hours while posting "~~This is the Warsong that never ends! It just goes on and on my friends!~~" (They eventually added enemy flag carriers appearing on the map after a few minutes to prevent people like us doing exactly this.)

One that I don't think I mentioned in my old post or ever made it into the comic is when we pretended to be Helpful Bots back in vanilla WoW. Several of us at high/max level were going around the Barrens with a bunch of chat macros, helping lowbies kill mobs and then hitting our macros explaining that we were "Helpful bots sent by the Flowers of Happiness to assist with leveling" and this is "A free service, no need to thank us!" Eventually with our high level help, people would start pulling tons of mobs, at which point our "bot scripts" would malfunction and they would die to mass of enemies they had pulled. At which point we would again say that there was "no need to thank us."

[jacks347]

When you remember you actively use Tumblr now so you can cross-post all your Discord fics :o (Enjoy Hadestown Bastard Warrior)

"You're really going after him."

Faith nearly jumped out of her skin at the sudden voice, turning to see her only friend leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed and eyebrow raised. She just sighed, turning back to continue packing her suitcase. "He's the love of my life, Devlin. I won't give up on him that easily." "Sister, I know you're dedicated but he walked to the underworld willingly! He saw Hades and went with him!"

Faith snapped the lid of the case shut, spinning around to face Devlin with a fire in her eyes he'd only seen a few times before. "If going to Hades and demanding him back is what it takes then by God I'll do it!"

Devlin just stared at her for a minute, as if trying to read into her soul, see if she would squirm or break under his hard stare. She just stared back, rising to his challenge and daring him to question her. He closed his eyes, sighing heavily before digging into his pocket and pulling out a shimmering gold coin. He tossed it over to Faith who fumbled to catch it. It was ancient, the engravings in a long-forgotten script. The only thing she recognized was the embossed symbol on the back. It looked like a horseshoe but Faith knew better. Omega, the last letter of a lost language, the sign of Hades. She'd never seen anything like it, it was no currency from any country she recognized. What was it? Why did Devlin have it?

What did he know?

"If you're really sure about this, I can't stop you. But I can tell you how to get down there without getting yourself killed. Unlike Albus, you won't get the easy way down on the train. You'll have to walk the tracks. That is your ticket past the gates. I trust you'll treat it with care until you come back."

Faith clutched the coin tight, feeling the cold of the metal seep into her skin. "Tell me how to get him back."

~

The air was thick with smoke and suffering, a smell that burned her nose and threatened to choke the air out of her lungs. So this was Hadestown, land of the dead, domain of death itself. It wasn't quite the fire and brimstone she'd been taught as a little girl but it was close enough. It reminded Faith of the mines she'd visited while traveling on a charity mission. Faith sucked in a deep breath that stabbed her lungs, holding it in her chest as she pushed through the slow-moving crowd. She had to find him, she would find him, she would march up to Hades himself with her love in tow and demand he return with her if that's what was required of her. Gods have mercy on her, you couldn't blame her for trying.

She waded through the sluggish worker bees of the underworld, scanning every face for the one she desperately wanted to see. How long had she been searching for? Minutes? Hours? Days? It was impossible to tell. But gods be damned, she was standing by her word, she would not return until she found her warrior.

"You are a persistent one, you know that?" A voice from behind Faith chirped, making the priestess spin around. Who stood before her was someone...different. Faith couldn't exactly tell what they were but they certainly weren't one of the dead around them. It almost looked like they were made of...stone? Was that possible? The person tilted their head at Faith, their long purple hair falling over their shoulder. "You're looking for him, aren't you? The warrior that Dad brought down.” “Y…Yes, I am. Who are you? How do you know that?” The person laughed, straightening back up with a grin. “Call me Pandora. As for how I know, it’s kind of obvious. It’s one thing for one living person to be in the underworld but two? Consider it a likely guess.”

Faith took a second to compose herself before stepping towards Pandora, attempting to look intimidating. “Take me to him or I’ll-” Pandora held up her hands in surrender with an amused smile, cutting Faith’s threat short. “Take it easy, dear Sister. I was going to do that anyway. Follow me.”

~

“Dad! Dad! She came! I told you she would!” Pandora shouted as they kicked the door open to a massive throne room of sorts. Sitting in the giant throne was an equally giant man with the same carved stone design as Pandora, white hair, glowing eyes, and a kind smile. Faith knew who he was, she’d heard stories about him all her life. “Hades…” She whispered under her breath, making Pandora pause, turning to look at her. “Hades, Tyr, Jupiter, ancient giant, whatever name you wanna give him. I usually just call him Dad.” They turned back to the man, still beaming like a child bringing their parent a shiny rock.

Hades stared at Faith for a moment with a blank expression, making the priestess squirm before he smiled, standing from his throne and gently removing a black bundle from where it was nestled in his hair to place it on the ground in front of Faith. “Is this what you’re looking for?” His voice held a hint of laughter, revealing the bundle to in fact be Albus who had been peacefully sleeping on the lord of the underworld’s hair until he was moved and was now very much awake and not very happy about it. “What the hell? Why’d you wake me up, I was enjoying that-” “Albus!!”

The man in question barely had any time to react before Faith practically bowled him over as she threw herself into his arms. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed like he’d disappear if she let go, buried her face in his neck and cried. All the emotions she’d forced down since he left sprung to the surface, like a pressure release valve being pulled. “I thought I’d never see you again…I thought you left me…” She sobbed, her voice broken. Albus took a few seconds to recover before he very slowly and awkwardly hugged Faith back. “Faithful? I-I missed you but what are you doing down here? How are you down here?” “I could ask you the same question, you train-hopping jerk.” She sniffed, pulling her face out of his neck to look at him properly.

Hades cleared his throat softly, making Faith look up. His smile had turned sad and a little guilty. “Don’t be mad at him, little priestess. If you’re going to be mad at anyone, be mad at me. I’ve been watching Albus for a while now, he intrigued me. So when I saw the opportunity to give him a better life down here, I took it. I only realized after I heard your cries that taking him wouldn’t be as consequence free as I thought. I’m sorry I took him from you. Now I must ask, how did you get down here?”

She begrudgingly pulled away from Albus to properly face Hades. “I…was guided. In a sense. Someone told me how to get down here.” “Someone told you?” Pandora chimed in, looking very confused. “But the only person on the surface who know how to get down here without the train is…oh.” They took a second before bursting into giggles. “He really disguised himself again? Wonder how long it’s been. Did he give you the coin?” “Yes…he did.” Faith slowly pulled the golden coin out of her pocket, letting Pandora get a close look at it. Hades let out a soft chuckle of his own. “Seems Hermes has taken quite the liking to you if he was willing to help like that. Or does he still go by Devlin?” “Devlin is Hermes??” “Hermes, Mercury, maybe Odin if you squint at it, names are never consistent.” Pandora shrugged as they ticked off each of the names on their fingers.

Faith turned her attention back to Albus, her heart hurting at the thought of having to return without him, even if she knew he was safe. Would it be selfish to ask for him back knowing he was doing well here? She shook the thought away. No, she came down here on a mission, she was going to fulfill it. “Hades, my lord, I do thank you for your hospitality but I’m sure you know I don’t belong down here.” “Of course, you’re still living, you must return home.” “Then, I’ll go. But I’m taking Albus with me. If the living cannot remain in the underworld, he can’t either.” Hades frowned at that, his brow furrowing. “Dear Sister, he came down on the train. He gave up his life, he is no longer part of the overworld. The dead cannot return to the land of the living.”

Faith felt her heart stop. No, that was impossible. Sure, Albus went willingly but that didn’t mean he was dead, right? Then again, he did step onto the train. He took the dead way down. She felt sick. “No…no that’s not possible. I came all the way down here, I’m not leaving without him. I refuse! There has to be another way!” Hades thought for a moment, muttering quietly under his breath before sighing. “Fine. I’ll let you return with him.” Faith’s entire body relaxed in relief. 

“However.” 

He continued before she could start to thank him. “You must return the way you came, back up the railroad tracks. But you will not be side by side, hand in hand. If you wish to bring the dead back to life, you must lead him, standing one in front of the other. You must have faith in yourself and in him to remain behind you. If you turn back to check if he’s there at any point in your journey, he must return to the underworld and you will continue back home alone. It will not be easy, there will be those on your path that will try to make you doubt. Whether you choose to listen to them or not is up to you. That is my condition. Choose to take it and I’ll let you go. Choose not and you will return alone. Will you take this test of faith?”

Faith contemplated for a minute. A single file walk back home, simply having to trust that he would be there. Could she do it? Did she really have the mental strength to?

She had to. There was no other choice. She came all this way, she wasn’t going to leave without him.

Faith turned to Hades and nodded solemnly. “I’ll take the test. We’re going home.” Hades smiled, something encouraging but also worried. “Then let’s send you two on your way.”

~

"Think they'll make it?" Pandora looked up at Tyr curiously. His face was caught between tired and hopeful.

"I don't know." He frowned, the tired sadness in his eyes taking over as his shoulders sagged like a sudden weight had dropped upon them.

"Tyr, you let them go." Pandora looked back at the two with a worried expression, the retreating figures of the pair as they started on their journey inspiring both excitement and fear. Tyr's soft laugh had her staring up again in confusion.

"I let them try." The hope was back, a smile just barely tugging his lips up.

Maybe...just maybe...

~

Faith was terrified, she really had to admit. Her hands were squeezed together in front of her to keep them from shaking and the only sound was her heart hammering in her ears. She could do this. There was no reason she couldn't. But there was still something weighing on her, like a block of marble threatening to crush her heart if she let it hope too much.

“You really think you can do this? Bring someone back from the dead that easily?” The voice was new, lilting and dripping in honeyed sympathy. Right, this was the enemy of the return trip Hades had warned her about.

The Fates. Or Fate, she supposed in this case. He'd told her this one was called Kravatas. Believed to control the lifespans of everyone through golden strings. They didn’t much appreciate being challenged, so the path back to the surface would have them whispering in her ears the whole time, making her doubt herself in an attempt to make her break the deal and turn around. She just had to be stronger than them.

"Poor naive Sister Koria. Why do you think no one has succeeded in this before? What makes you think you're better than anyone who came before you to walk this road?" He hissed, his sweet tone doing nothing to hide the acrid venom in his words. She knew she shouldn't listen, that he was just trying to mess with her. But something in his words made her hesitate for just a second.

"Faith? Faithful, listen to me. Just keep going, you have to trust me. I'm right here, I'm still with you." Albus’s voice pierced through her thoughts, reminding her that she wasn't alone in this. She took a trembling breath, wishing desperately she could turn around and hold him or at least reach back to touch him. Some kind of physical sign that he was there. But she couldn’t. All she had was his voice and her own faith in him.

“But does he have faith in you?” The voice was back, she could practically feel his breath curling against the back of her neck. And as much as she didn’t want to think about it, his question hit her. Did Albus have faith in her? He was living the good life in the underworld, the only reason he was going back to the surface, a life he loudly expressed his hatred of, was because of her. He could turn back at any time and never say a word. She would be left all alone and not even know it until she got back.

No, I can’t think like that. He wouldn’t do that to me. Sure his life hasn’t been great thus far but he loves me. I know he loves me.

Right?

~

Faith had long since lost track of how it’d been since they started walking. The hissing doubts of the Fates becoming white noise that buzzed in the back of her head. Not like she needed them, her own doubts were far louder.

He’s still there, right? He hasn’t spoken in a while, I can’t tell. He wouldn’t have turned around without telling me, right? He wouldn’t just leave me, right?

Faith had bitten her nails down to nothing, her nailbeds aching. She couldn’t hear, she couldn’t think. She just needed a minute to process but she had to keep moving. There was nothing she could do. It was just her, the road ahead, and her own thoughts. And that was the scary part.

I just have to trust him. I know Albus. He might’ve gone down himself but he’s coming back now. And that’s all that really matters, doesn’t it?

“He already left you once. Who says he won’t do it again?”

She nearly stopped in her tracks. He was right. She hated to admit it but he was right. Faith already had to walk down into hell for him once, took him away from a life he deserved far more than what the world above was giving him. What was stopping him?

“Do it.”

I have to.

“It’s just a peek.”

Just to check.

“Prove his love to you.”

Prove that I’m not a fool.

"Turn around, Faith.”

And turn she did, looking right into the betrayed eyes of the man she doubted.

In the dead silence of their walk through purgatory, Faith could hear both of their hearts shatter.

She knew Albus didn’t cry. He just didn’t. But nothing could hide the shine in his eyes or the waver to his voice. “Missed me that much, did you Faithful?”

It was all over. She’d let the Fates get in her head. She got in her own way. “Albus…I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have doubted you-” “Don’t apologize, Faith. I’ll see you eventually, right? Don’t forget about me while you live your life up there, will you?” “I don’t think I ever could forget you, Albus York.” She laughed wetly, his face beginning to blur from the tears that welled up in her eyes.

“I love you, Faith.”

“I love you too, Albus. I’ll see you again.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

~

Devlin leaned back against the wall of the train station, flipping a familiar gold coin idly. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of Faith and Albus. Lovers torn apart by doubt and want.”

The gathered crowd burst into a mix of applause and sobs, as was the reaction every time he told this story. He didn’t blame them, it was a popular one.

His coin flipping was distracted by a small tug on his sleeve. It was a little girl, one who attended his stories quite often and he’d heard some of the Sisters call Kerano. “Mr. Devlin? Can you tell it again?” Devlin sighed, shaking his head with a smile. Kerano’s hopeful stare and bright smile were too cute to deny. “Alright, one more time. Just for you. Now, on the road to the underworld, there was a railroad line.”

[creature-wizard]

The Illuminati Formula Used To Create An Undetectable Total Mind Controlled Slave is reaching new heights in silly.

They're claiming that the Illuminati creates alters with Illuminati sensibilities in Good Christian Citizens, so that said alters can effectively serve as "super spies" to spy on the Christians and tell the Illuminati what the Christians are up to:

The proper training of a person for this role would be long and tedious, but once he was trained, you would have a super spy compared to which any creation in a mystery story is just plain weak. This is what the Illuminati have done. They create good Christian fronts, with Illuminati dark alters who can see what the Christians are doing.

Hmmm... a long and tedious process, you say? Hmm, imagine if there were easier ways to get this information... like reading Christian publications, listening to Christian radio, watching Christian television, visiting Christian websites, or just attending church services... it's not like these people just blast their agendas to anyone who'll listen 24/7 or anything...

The fact that there are people vain enough to think that there are secret conspiratorial cults going to all this work to do all of this unnecessary spying is kinda funny, IMO. Christofascists are some of the most self-absorbed fuckers on the planet.

Later, Cisco Wheeler cites the lyrics from "Music of the Night" from Phantom of the Opera as an example of a "hypnotic script." Yeah, it wasn't like, a song written for a character who was canonically supposed to be creepy or weird or anything.

Seriously though, this is a great example of how conspiracy theorists ruin art. Anything that's a little weird or uncomfortable to them must be some sort of evil programming. God forbid they have to understand things like context and artistic intent and shit like that.

Next is a list of things that supposedly keep a child's mind dissociative. One item on the list is spending fifteen minutes a day writing backwards, an obvious mutation of the old "witches recite the Lord's Prayer" canard. Because writing backwards doesn't cause dissociation. You just learn to write backwards.

And the rest is pretty typical torture stuff; many of which genuinely happen in actual child abuse cases, but in the context of the conspiracy theory are given special significance, because... shitty parents don't just abuse their kids for no reason, I guess.

And the book claims that Billy Graham was a Monarch handler. I really have no idea why conspiracists have singled him out among all the other celebrity preachers of the time, lemme go look at his Wikipedia page...

...Oh well he wasn't a total dick; he refused to glue himself to the Moral Majority or the GOP, pushed for military disarmament and AIDS support; yeah, that might have something to do with it.

Oh hey it's that Saturn worship thing (links to antisemitic conspiracy theories) with extra antisemitism by linking the Anti-Christ to Kabbalah:

The AntiChrist is also known as Black Saturn, and other names. Satan himself is known within a Monarch system often by the name Bilair, Bilar, or Bilid which are his cabalistic names.

Conflation of "the occult" with Wicca:

In the occult world, goddesses are triune: maiden, mother and crone. The one to the left of center is Midnight (the Mother figure), and the other is Morning Star (the maiden). Morning Star (Stella Matutina) may be a very young alter, rather than a teenager.

If you think this is bad, shit's about to get much, much worse.

So first of all, the book claims that The Wizard of Oz is an Illuminati thing, and has something to do with ancient Isis mystery religion:

One of the secrets of the Mystery Religions, especially the Egyptian Isis mystery religion was the ability to use drugs and torture to create multiple personalities. The word Oz is known to have been used by its author as an abbreviation for Osirus.

And then.

And then.

There's THIS fucking whopper:

The Grimm brothers, who were cabalistic jews, gathered the folk occult stories together. Their stories are full of spells, trances, and drugs. Sleeping Beauty is put to sleep, and the trigger to wake her is a kiss on the lips. These are serious hints that the occult world didn't stop programming people with dissociative states and triggers when the ancient Egyptian empires fell. Instead of using modern lingo such as "hypnotize", they would say "cast a spell."

The Grimm Brothers? Jews? Of ANY kind? Holy shit, you'll just pull anything out of your asses, won't you?

By the way, pinning the conspiratorial blame on Kabbalistic Jews specifically is how a lot of the conspiracy theories Nazi Germany believed in were made palatable for American gentiles post-WWII. Most Christians would agree that full-out mass slaughter was a little unfair. Many Christians could agree, though, that everyday Jews were perfectly fine people; they just needed to accept Jesus. And believing that it's just those Kabbalistic Jews who are the problem doesn't feel as hateful as all that Nazi shit. Must be totally different, right?

Nah.

Rehabbed conspiracy crap is still crap.

[horizon-verizon]

I stopped thinking about B&C = red wedding because it seems like a ...Misinterpretation? because I don't think that would have ever happened on the show. What made RW so terrible how was it?

Emotional component: Helaena's pain and desperation, the brutality of the election and that the children have to present that.That component is gained with a. Screen time and/or. b. memorable scenes

hotD has already mostly failed in that aspect unlike Robb and Cat who we knew for three seasons and followed their story that already had a good emotional baggage . It's also not the first time they've failed in that regard, despite having enough "character-establishing" scenes I personally didn't feel invested enough in Luke to care about Luke's death. Helaena's children had even less than that and it took away some of the trauma that happens around

-scenography: HotD has a SERIOUS pacing problem since the first season and even when I think the music choices are well made to build tension it gets lost because the rest of the scene is not up to scratch. They take things from point a to point b without time for it to build and have weight for the viewer and the characters.We don't get to "live" the feelings of the scene, it's flat.

All good, but those are problems due to the script and direction, does that mean that being better written would be what the fans wanted?

I don't think either

If you see TG's posts, the comparison comes from that moment of great horror and pain, they were preparing to recreate how horrible the death of an innocent person was, the beginning of the war and that they were attacked in an environment that is considered safe. That level of horror is surely comparable to TRW?!

except that... No

This horror that comes from the loss of customs and traditions that should have kept the characters safe and that leads to a massacre... It is the death of Lucerys. It is Lucerys who was protected by his role as envoy just as Robb and his men were protected by guest rights.

There is also a deletion of the aspects that canon!book attributed to the death of Luke/visenya to give them to the death of Jaehaerys :

The war begins with the death of Luke, not Jaehaerys, no matter what the new trailer/Aegon wants to try to say.The first child victim of the war was Lucerys/Visenya, not Jaehaerys (and it must have been more obvious because Elliott was actually old enough to look like a child).The first mother to feel the pain and loss is Rhaenyra, not Helaena and Alicent. Luke's death doesn't justify B&C, but Jaehaerys' death justifies Rhaenys' death (just as Maelor's death apparently justifies a massacre). Somehow they (TG) end up writing in a way that makes me just hear Book!Alicent saying that bastard blood doesn't matter, because instead of judging both events as the tragedies they were (because neither was good) they want the justification to be victims and have the moral ground to attack and massacre (the same way TRW's brutality justified the whole "the north remembers" plot or Lady Stoneheart/Arya's massacre).

Everything that turned TRW into the horror that it was, fails in HotD both because of the script and accumulated flaws and because of a misunderstanding of what made the scene so horrible.I'm not saying that B&C wasn't horrible, but in the case of the fan analysis I'm looking askance because, once again, I see an erasure of the pain and history of the black to give it to the greens.

This horror that comes from the loss of customs and traditions that should have kept the characters safe and that leads to a massacre... It is the death of Lucerys. It is Lucerys who was protected by his role as envoy just as Robb and his men were protected by guest rights.

You make a great catch. One small reminder: Jaehaerys' death is arguably kinslaying (another taboo act that is a break of customary protections), as he's Daemon's grand nephew, unless kin slaying is only about first cousins, child, parent, sibling, uncle, niece? IDK how far kinslaying in Westeros extends.

The first mother to feel the pain and loss is Rhaenyra, not Helaena and Alicent. Luke's death doesn't justify B&C, but Jaehaerys' death justifies Rhaenys' death (just as Maelor's death apparently justifies a massacre). Somehow they (TG) end up writing in a way that makes me just hear Book!Alicent saying that bastard blood doesn't matter, because instead of judging both events as the tragedies they were (because neither was good) they want the justification to be victims and have the moral ground to attack and massacre.

--AND--

I see an erasure of the pain and history of the black to give it to the greens.

EXACTLY! That is what it is and has been.

[laf-outloud]

https://www.tumblr.com/laf-outloud/719599290829389824

Jensen Ackles seems too forced when he does anger, too obvious when peeved, too heavy with sarcasm. What kind of acting is that? Maybe it is that it is acting. I don't get the sense that there is anything beneath the surface to explore. He plays a part, rather than becomes the character. I believe the acting Jensen does is considered over-acting without any consideration for the character... it does seem very one-note, at least from what I've seen since SPN. I know he can do better, as even his Dean from early seasons of SPN had a layer of nuance that can only happen by truly understanding the character and his motivations... Unfortunately, the long stretch of SPN either made him lazy or forgetful when it comes to crafting characters and stories.

He's very histrionic when he acts, and it started in the later half of spn. He played Dean so much more nuanced and layered in the early seasons, and more subtle - although Dean as a character was never really "subtle" and that's ok because that's who the character was and it worked for him. As the seasons went on he seemed to get too comfortable and then when the writing took a nosedive, instead of trying to work with the script and still make Dean recognizable as the character we knew, he just went with the script as is and overdid it.

He got comfortable and therefore complacent. He never worked on his craft because he knew he had reliable steady employment for the foreseeable future. Then when spn was coming to an end I think he thought the popularity he found as Dean was going to continue on and he was just going to get offered roles so again, he didn't put any work in (outside of the awful s15 audition reel he tried to work into the show). And now we see where that has gotten him. If he wasn't conventionally good looking and as charismatic as he is, I don't think he would be getting the jobs he's gotten since spn - and he even got all of those by working his connections, but those are going to dry up or move to other positions where they can't help him anymore sooner or later.

I say this all the time when I see his acting nowadays (I watch TB and saw clips from both BS and BG2 online) - when I watch Jensen act I feel like I am watching him think through what he is about to do the second before he does it. I don't see the character, I see Jensen acting (I feel like I am literally watching him do the job rather than play the part). And even then its all mostly just different versions of Dean (which is funny because he seems to have forgotten how to play Dean...).

You're not the first to mention all this, and I doubt the last. I completely agree about the lack of care he took with Dean in the latter seasons of SPN. I think the only times I saw him return to early-seasons Dean were when he was acting against Sam Smith and JDM (and occasionally Jared, though I think he let Jared do most of the heavy lifting when they had emotional scenes).With everyone else, it was just business as usual.

And since then? It's just as you said: "I feel like I am literally watching him do the job rather than play the part." I get the feeling that Jensen also sees these roles as jobs and not an art form, which is why the work he puts into them is so lackluster. The problem is, while putting in the minimum amount of work in other industries can be hidden from future employers, that's not the case with the entertainment industry, where everyone can see how much or how little you care about the "job."