#load power

[xindunpower]

How To Choose Inverter Size?

The selection of a solar system has always been a concern for everyone. As the heart of the solar system, choosing the correct inverter size is very important.

When deciding on the inverter size, the following points are key:

1.Total Load Power: For inverters with resistive or capacitive loads, selecting the rated capacity is relatively simple. For example, if your total load power is 10 kw, we recommend an inverter with a power size of 11 to 12.5 kw (1.2 to 1.5 times the total load power).

2. Inductive Loads: If the main load is inductive, such as motors, refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, or high-power water pumps, the inverter size must be about 3 to 5 times the total power of the inductive load. Inductive loads have high surge power when they start, requiring larger current and starting power. For example, if your inductive load is a 15 kw three-phase water pump and the total power of other loads is 2.5 kw, we suggest choosing a three-phase inverter of 30 to 45 kw.

These are the key points to consider. If you're unsure about selecting the right inverter size, feel free to leave a message on our website or contact us by phone.

[puppetmaster13u]

Cryptid Batfam Prompt- But in Memes

[olessan]

The Rings of Power 2x08: Shadow and Flame

"My place is here. You know it is." "And where is mine? If not with you?"

[bet-on-me-13]

Bank Security Guard Danny AU

So, the People of Gotham are extremely desensitized to Rouge Attacks at this point. It got to the point that whenever a person gets a job at the Bank, they have a whole 1 Hour Training Video on how to deal with a Rouge Attack right.

So, when they hire a New Security Guard from a lesser known Security Company, they don't even bother showing him the Training Video. They assume that he'll either Die or Drop them within a Week.

Danny, for the record, did not know how bad the Rouge problem truly was. All he knew was that some random guy in a Ski Mask had just walked into the bank like he owned the place and started showing off a Gun telling everybody to get on the ground.

Danny did the sensible thing and Knocked him the Fuck Out.

Then, the same thing happened the very next day, but this time it was an entire group of people. Danny had them dealt with before the first person had gotten to the floor.

Then the same thing happened the Same Day!

By the end of the week he had become a Legend among the Citizens of Gotham. There was only a single Bank in all of Gotham that had avoided being robbed for a Whole Week, and it was all because of this one Security Guard who was freakishly good at his Job.

By the end of the Month, most criminals don't even bother trying that Bank anymore. It got worse when he got loaned out as Security for another Bank, and the same thing happened again.

Eventually, he ends up rotating shifts in Every Bank in Gotham, and it becomes a Game for the Criminals to see if the Bank they try to Rob is the one Danny is in that night. And they can't even reasonably predict his next location, since he always moves around at Random!

No matter what Bank he is in, he always manages to beat the Crooks trying to Rob the Bank.

Then it gets weird. Due to a scheduling Mix Up, Danny ends up being scheduled for 2 different Banks on the same day, each across the city from the other.

One Bank reports that Danny stopped a gang from Robbing them at 6:00 PM, which really confuses the other Bank because Danny did the same thing in their Bank at the same time. Security Footage proves it, Danny was somehow in 2 places at once.

They decide not to confront him about it, but they do test a theory. They intentionally hire him at multiple different Banks at the same time for a week. He shows up to work every time without fail.

By now they have basically confirmed that he must be a Meta, but they don't really care anyways. Now he can protect multiple Banks at once with his usual perfect Efficiency, and he'll be payed accordingly as well. The Banks get protected well, and he gets payed Extreme Overtime by the Banks, everybody wins!

Well...except for the Crime Bosses of Gotham.

Before this, it was a Game for them to try and beat Danny. They didn't really care since a single Uber Competent Security Guard was still perfectly fine for business, sure they would fail a Job once in a while if they ran into him, but he could only be in 1 place at a time. It wasn't a Huge Loss.

But now it was too much. They needed to take care of him.

Assassination Attempts didn't work. He was just as competent Off the job as he was On it, so they could never get to him.

They tried attacking his Bosses, but then they hired themselves to protect...themselves. It was hard to kill his Bosses when he was constantly Bodyguarding all of them at once.

Attempts to get to him through his Family were...let's not talk about that...

It continued on like this for a while.

...

Soooo...I don't know how to end this one.

Go ahead and put your own spin on this Prompt! The basic idea is that Danny is using his Duplication Power to get to every shift on Time, and he is really annoying the Local Crime Bosses.

What do you think?

[rotzaprachim]

I think a lot of people - both Jews and gentiles - need to reckon with the fact that not only are Zionism and antizionism terms that are pretty damn ambiguous in practice, they’re ALSO essentially, not only words, but collections of syllables that have been given the social power to destroy the entire public conception of a persons’ morality. Like people can just say words. They’ve been given so much social power that they can just be used to destroy a whole person, a whole Jewish person, no matter what that person actually thinks about the issue. You don’t like Joe with the ✡️ in his profile? Call him a Zionist. You hate (((Rachel))) Literally just say that, despite her avowed identification as an antizionist Jew, she’s actually a secret liberal Zionist. Jews may hold all sorts of complex opinions about the issue, but to an extent their own personal feelings and moral view on this issue don’t matter within the external Zionist/antizionist dichotomy because of the extent that society has tapped into the millennia long tradition of viewing all jews as sketchy liars to no longer allow us the grace to define ourselves and allow for more nuanced conversations. Like. There’s no irl moral purity exam or card for determining if a Jew is an antizionist or Zionist or not.

every “I hate Zionists not Jews” gentile on the internet, no matter their own ethic or religious background or their own feelings on the issue, NEEDS to account for the power they’ve given the word “zionist” to indicate a bad and untrustworthy, even murderable person, and the fact that literally any Jew can be Labelled one NO MATTER WHAT their actual opinions on the matter are and for basically any reason. What does it mean when the entire morality of a member of a group can be destroyed by a single word? and every Jew who has taken part in this needs to consider that they, too, can be ruined by a word

[partfae]

Sauron, Galadriel, & Tolkien's Theology of Repentance - Part One

Summary: Character meta analysis on Sauron (and Galadriel, through the lens of Sauron). Based on both Silmarillion & RoP canon. 3.5k words. Discussion of Catholic theology involved. Blanket TW for discussion of violence, manipulation, etc., because Sauron. Spoilers for S1 & S2 and the Silmarillion, of course. The tragedy of Sauron is that he gets offered so many legitimate chances at redemption and forgiveness, and he denies them every single time. But we know he wants absolution, because that’s what he sees Galadriel as: his chance to bind himself back to the light, to be Mairon again, to heal the pain that he caused and that was caused to him under Morgoth. But because he has such a warped view of himself and his actions, he dismisses genuine extensions of compassion, forgiveness, and care as simultaneously beneath him and too good for him. And yet, he still pursues redemption, but through none of the channels offered to him.

In The Rings of Power, he’s given the explicit instruction to change for the good in the village after he’s reborn. He’s given the chance leave his past behind and work meaningfully in Númenor. He’s given the chance to redeem himself by Galadriel's offer of friendship (or love, depending on your interpretation). In the Silmarillion, he's even given the chance by Eönwë himself, and comes close to leaving Morgoth behind completely!

Let's look at this passage from Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age (emphasis mine):

When Thangorodrim was broken and Morgoth overthrown, Sauron put on his fair hue again and did obeisance to Eönwë the herald of Manwë, and abjured all his evil deeds. And some hold that this was not at first falsely done, but that Sauron in truth repented, if only out of fear, being dismayed by the fall of Morgoth and the great wrath of the Lords of the West. But it was not in the power of Eönwë to pardon those of his own order, and he commanded Sauron to return to Aman and there receive the judgement of Manwë. Then Sauron was ashamed, and he was unwilling to return in humiliation to receive from the Valar a sentence, it might be, of long servitude in proof of his good faith; for under Morgoth his power had been great. Therefore when Eönwë departed he hid himself in Middle-earth; and he fell back into evil, for the bonds that Morgoth had laid upon him were very strong.

This passage is clear that Eönwë is willing to pardon Sauron--he simply did not posses the power to do so. But when Sauron was told he must appeal directly Manwë, he gave up entirely and skulked back to Middle-earth. There are a few ways to read this:

1. He was not wholly repentant

Sauron simply wanted the protection of a new master in the absence of Melkor. i.e., he was rather fickle and simply wanted to be on whatever the "winning" side was. This is supported by the text literally saying that at least some of his obeisance was completely false, and that he only made a point of feeling bad about anything once his master had been chucked into the Void and his armies and strongholds were being destroyed (Thangorodrim). In this reading, perhaps Eönwë saw Sauron's treachery and referred him to Manwë knowing that it would be a test of his true intent. However, while a valid interpretation, I believe this to be the less holistic of the two.

2. He was truly repentant

Sauron did truly feel badly and "abjured all his evil deeds," but he was unwilling/unable to humble himself after being so fundamentally broken by Melkor and developing an insatiable power lust (hey, he isn't defined in the narrative by lust and pride for nothing).

Earlier in this same chapter, Tolkien wrote that Sauron could "...deceive all but the most wary." This is in the specific context of his physical shapeshifting. But, I would argue that this can also be tied to his lies. Tolkien has a specific ethic of beauty, where physical perfection is equated with moral goodness. Sauron completely inverts what is otherwise a hard and fast rule within Tolkien's writings by being the character most frequently described as "fair"--seven times to Lúthien's six, and she was the most beautiful woman to have ever lived!

(Side note: I have another post on Tolkien & beauty in the works where I'll get more into this idea)

Why does this matter? Even though this interaction with Eönwë takes place in the First Age, Sauron could at this point be in the demonic form Mirdania describes in the forge. And, I am inclined to believe that Eönwë, as the head Maiar and herald of Manwë, would be a pretty wary guy, and thus able to sense any of Sauron's trickery. I read this to mean that Eönwë looked at Sauron and saw his potential to be Mairon again, either in absence of his evil form or in spite of it.

Because Sauron is incredibly beautiful. And even if it is a disguise of the true, depreciated form of his spiritual essence, he presented himself to Eönwë at his most beautiful. He wanted, even in his act of repentance, to make himself more favorable in Eönwë's eyes. To show up as Mairon (who was likely close friends with Eönwë before everything went down, since they are considered to be two of the most powerful Maia and would have worked closely together).

But I don't think this was all manipulation on Sauron's end. I agree with the scholars mentioned in the text who believed that Sauron was truly repentant--which is why Eönwë even bothered referring him to Manwë instead of kicking him into the Void with Melkor.

And this is the tragedy: Sauron is told exactly how to repent, and believes fundamentally that it is an impossible path for him. And yet, he still longs so intrinsically for it! He was, under Aulë, a Maia of precision, perfection, and order. Under Morgoth, he feels disordered, dis-regulated. He needs to correct the fundamental imbalance within him, so why does he flee Eönwë?

It comes back to Sauron's pride.

If he follows through with this path of reconciliation, there is no way he can hide or pretend his actions away. If he cannot trick his fellow Maiar, he certainly cannot trick the Valar. And he cannot stand the idea of submitting himself back under their rule, especially now that he has tasted power. This is a pride wound; it is why the idea of confessing to Manwë would be humiliating to him as opposed to just upsetting/uncomfortable.

Again, the pivotal moment: he is told how to make amends for crimes and determines that he cannot do it. So he returns to Middle-earth and stews in his own self-hated and self-pity for a few years. In that time, he consciously or subconsciously latches onto Eönwë's offer--forgiveness from penance. It is the way forward. And if he cannot earn penance at Manwë's hand, he will do it on his own.

The Prodigal Son

This is where we have to talk about the Catholic roots of Tolkien's work for a moment. The scene where Sauron approaches Eönwë mirrors the biblical parable of the prodigal son. In this story, a man abandons his family, spends all his money, and falls into ruin. But when he recognizes his failings and returns to his father to get help, he is welcomed back into the family without question--in other words, he is forgiven and restored to his former position.

17 But when he [the prodigal son] came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’” 20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. - Luke 15:11-32, NRSV CE (emphasis mine)

The parallel is clear; Mairon, the repentant Maia, returns home with hopes of reconciliation. He is prescribed the same task that the prodigal son offered to his father: he must be bound in servitude to his father/creator in order to pay off his debts. This is a deliberate allusion from Tolkien. The story of the prodigal son models the path of reconciliation that Eönwë describes. Tolkien seems to be drawing a line in the sand with this: Sauron is unwilling to do the work required by the Valar for repentance, so he is unable to receive the grace of a warm welcome back into the fold of the Ainur. Since he did not humble himself, he has to be told to do it. And he does not want to! He wants to be loved, but he also wants his power--evidence, in a way, of how his character was fundamentally altered in his time with Morgoth.

His pride--and his fear--cut him off from the potential of grace. He does not know for certain that Manwë would subject him to servitude (though I would argue that it's textually evident that it is a custom), but this assumption leads him to flee, which allows him to slip back into his old ways.

He wants to be Mairon (admirable) again, not Sauron (abhorrent). He wants to be accepted and loved, but not punished. He wants the benefits of reconciliation without the work he would have to do to earn it or the shame he would feel as he did. It's pride, but it's also deep shame--the flip side of his extreme ego is an implicit self-hatred, one that we can see in the subtext of how he speaks about himself and about his time with Morgoth.

Even the language Tolkien uses is heavily shame-coded, especially in a Catholic context; Mairon did not go willingly, he was "seduced." He admits to Celebrimbor that he was "tortured by a god". It becomes exceedingly clear through both text and on-screen canon that Sauron was routinely broken and abused for centuries. This has fundamentally damaged his self-perception, which is ultimately what leads him to "[fall] back into evil"--whether due to pride or shame, he hides, perhaps because he consciously or subconsciously does not believe that he deserves forgiveness, no matter how much he craves it.

Naked in the Garden

His flight back to Middle-earth after meeting Eönwë is reminiscent of another biblical scene, where Adam and Eve, after committing the first sin, hide from God in shame and fear (emphasis mine):

7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked...9 But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” -Genesis 7-10, NRSV CE

The image of nakedness is, here, one of vulnerability, and Tolkien establishes that Sauron fears that which he cannot control. He needs the Rings under his power. He needs his armies and his enemies under his watchful eye. He is petrified of letting his power slip away (possibly due to never wanting to feel powerless in the hands of a Vala, fallen or not, again).

The biblical allusion here hearkens back to the fear Tolkien describes Sauron as feeling regarding his return to the Ainur. In the religious system Tolkien has established, which is likely inspired by his own religious beliefs, Sauron has sinned, and must make penance. But he is afraid of God/Manwë, and does not want to "let go" of his sin. In other words, he is not truly repentant. This reflects the Catholic sacrament of confession, which requires self-reflection and resolve to never commit the sin again.

Instead of shame driving him to contrition, it drives him to isolation.

But he still wants forgiveness. So, in his years of hiding in Middle-earth, he decides to earn it himself. His own way.

Enter the Rings.

Sauron wants to perfect the wrong he wreaked so that he can both earn his way back into the Ainur and keep his power. But what he does not realize is that this does not work. Eönwë is clear that he must forsake his true temptation--absolute power--through penance by submission. Yet Sauron in his pride thinks he can have it all. Sauron is a very carefully controlled villain, and the only times he snaps or makes significant mistakes are when his inflated self-perception is challenged, revealing the self-loathing and/or self-pity underneath. The best example of this is when he kills Celebrimbor prematurely, and cries afterwards. Why? Because Celebrimbor was right about him, and he hates it. He hates knowing that he is nothing more than the Morgoth's shadow, because Morgoth was his master as much as he was his tormentor. As Sauron puts it, his relationship with Morgoth was often defined by pain as a test to see "whose will was the mightier":

This image carries more shame, both in its implicit sexual connotations and in the simple power dynamic of it. Sauron, even though misguided, is rallying against Morgoth. He wants to break what Morgoth has created and build something new, something better, something apart from his old master entirely. But Celebrimbor confronts him with reality: he has not created something new, and perfect, and special, as he so wanted to--he can only act in imitation, not in generation. And when he got close with the Rings, it cost him everything. It's almost like he wants the power of a Vala, and loathes that he cannot attain it.

And this is why he becomes so singularly obsessed with Galadriel.

She’s his foil. They both crave power and adoration, but in the end of things, she does not fold under his temptation. She turns down everything she has ever wanted for the greater good and for the sake of her own soul. Sauron looks at Galadriel and perceives that she would have succeeded at Eönwë's test because she is willing and able to humble herself. This maddens him to the point of both desiring her and desiring to break her.

She learns that she is easily tempted and becomes strong enough to handle it (through a lot of tough love from Elrond & co.). She has to learn how to do it, but she is able to.

She grows from someone who resisted and rejected authority to someone who is trusted as an authority because of her ability to wield it wisely (see: Gil-galad allowing her to answer for him in 2x08).

In other words, she earns the trust, love, and support of her community. Sauron has to force his to comply—it is an illusion of love.

His possessive obsession with her also stems from her fairness. She was the object of her uncle Fëanor's obsessive desire for creation as well. Her hair was the inspiration of the Silmarils (see: The History of Galadriel and Celeborn; The Shibboleth of Fëanor - source with page #s here), which Morgoth desired more than anything to possess.

Sauron, wanting to spite his master, wants one better--to own that which inspired the Silmarils, to own the image of fairness (and thus of moral good) completely. This is why he wants to bind himself to her. This is why he needs her. He sees Galadriel as his mechanism of repentance, and his last triumph over Morgoth. Winning her is his salvation as much as it is proving that his will is the mightier. It is his way of dominating Morgoth. This starts, I think, as a genuine effort at proving himself to the Valar, but quickly consumes him entirely. He is overcome with the desire for revenge, just as Galadriel was at the beginning of the First Age.

And he sees this in her. Sees their similarities. Sees that she, too, is angry and lonely and so afraid of losing her power. And he leverages that to befriend her. This is where it gets ambiguous and you can read RoP as either painting the image of Sauron being earnest but completely misguided in his proposal, or you can see it as him being entirely manipulative.

I think the truth of that scene probably falls somewhere in the middle; just like when he presents himself to Eönwë, he is sincere in his desire, but only knows how to present it in an inherently contriving way. He does want to bind her to him, so he tries to only reveal to her the good aspect of that desire (and also of his desire for power, which he allows her to see because he believes that it is good and also because she understands it), and not the ugly underside of his internal struggle against Morgoth, the Valar, and himself.

And I do think, in his own way, he cared about her. Galadriel consistently shows kindness and compassion to him. In S1, they grow to know each other's minds and souls, and she considers him a close friend. He finds comfort in this, that someone could see the blackness of his heart and care for him anyway. He thought, in his isolation, that he lost that chance when he fled back to Middle-earth. And here is the very picture of the light itself telling him that she supports him, that she sees the good in him, that she wants to help him set the world to rights! Of course he is infatuated by this. Of course he also wants to use it. He is Sauron.

But Galadriel succeeds where he fails, so he stops playing nice and tries to forcibly drag her down with him. First, by baiting her with the image of the man she cared deeply for:

Then, by reminding her of all she is losing by rejecting him:

And she is still strong enough to say no. And not just to say no, but to shut the door completely. To look in the face of everything she has desired for centuries and turn it down, understanding that it will ruin her. Yes, she hesitates. Yes, she still wants it (wants him). But she wins the day by holding fast to the light that Sauron wishes so badly to bind himself to.

Because she has lost everything--her brother, her husband, the station as commander, the trust of her high king and best friend--and earns it back only through her resistance of her greatest temptation. It is a struggle, it is painful, it nearly kills her--but she does it. She wins the test that Sauron could not even bear to face.

In their headlong, self-sacrificial tendencies, they are the same. Both view themselves as fundamentally stronger/better than their peers while also being deeply lonely due to their self-imposed isolation (Galadriel's laser-focused hunt for revenge, Sauron's exile in Middle-earth). But to Galadriel, the light is more important than her pride.

For Sauron, the light is his source of pride. He desires it more than anything, but condemns himself to never being able to touch it due to his rejection of Eönwë's offer. Paradoxically, he tries to grasp at it through Galadriel, the living silmaril, and succeeds only in darkening her. We learn from Gil-galad in 2x08 that his crown piercing her flesh in an act of brutal domination nearly strips her soul from her and pitches it into the unseen world. In this, Sauron is saying: If I cannot have you, I will force you to need me. I will break you into loving me.

He says this to Celebrimbor as well. He no longer knows how to love properly. He only knows how to inflict pain until this object of his obessive desire needs him--just like how his immortal spirit was broken into submission by Morgoth. And isn't this revealing of his own sense of self? He refuses to suffer the path of light, but willingly suffers the maddening path of darkness because it is a comfortable, familiar suffering. One, he tells Celebrimbor, he even grew to enjoy (2x08). As the path of the Rings drive him madder and madder, his desire for the light (Galadriel) and the return of his power (Celebrimbor) become further disordered and corrupted until they culminate in him destroying them--and his chance at earning/owning them--entirely.

And this is Sauron's ultimate point of no return (which we will hopefully see in S3 🤞). The razing of Eregion and slaying of Celebrimbor were acts of petty rage he committed when his pride was injured. This was the final nail in the coffin. Galadriel, in her rejection of him, ruins what he sees as his true chance for redemption.

Galadriel, now stepping into the role of Eönwë, re-opens the invitation: "Heal yourself!" (2x08). But in rage and shame and stubborn pride, he turns it down again. I believe this is where his desire to heal Middle-earth shifts fundamentally into desire to dominate Middle-earth. He always wanted to rule, but now he wants to own.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Peeped the horrors

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[theroundbartable]

The druid king Merlin This was supposed to look quite different but I dunno. I lost motivation halfway through

I would like to announce with this that you can from now on, maybe support me on Kofi if you like.

I've said this before, I'm not a professional artist and I earn basically nothing by doing what I do and I don't expect that to change. However, it would be really cool to one day go to the cinema and be like: You'll never guess who bought me this popcorn. I know it's a weird thing to think but that's how my brain works. And if one day, I'll run into someone who's wearing one of my shirts on redbubble, you would not believe the reaction I'd have. Like, BRAH. Anyway, I'll figure this new Kofi thing out as I go. If it works that is ^^

[see-arcane]

I am truly thankful that she is to be left out of our future work, and even of our deliberations. It is too great a strain for a woman to bear. I did not think so at first, but I know better now. [...] I daresay it will be difficult to begin to keep silence after such confidence as ours; but I must be resolute, and to-morrow I shall keep dark over to-night's doings, and shall refuse to speak of anything that has happened.

Jonathan, no, don't give into the guys' peer pressure noooo

It is strange to me to be kept in the dark as I am to-day; after Jonathan's full confidence for so many years, to see him manifestly avoid certain matters, and those the most vital of all. This morning I slept late after the fatigues of yesterday, and though Jonathan was late too, he was the earlier. He spoke to me before he went out, never more sweetly or tenderly, but he never mentioned a word of what had happened in the visit to the Count's house. And yet he must have known how terribly anxious I was. Poor dear fellow! I suppose it must have distressed him even more than it did me. They all agreed that it was best that I should not be drawn further into this awful work, and I acquiesced. But to think that he keeps anything from me! And now I am crying like a silly fool, when I know it comes from my husband's great love and from the good, good wishes of those other strong men.

[...] Well, some day Jonathan will tell me all; and lest it should ever be that he should think for a moment that I kept anything from him, I still keep my journal as usual. Then if he has feared of my trust I shall show it to him, with every thought of my heart put down for his dear eyes to read.

Mina, no, you have to communicate now, in the present, you're you, you can un-acquiesce, you can break the curse, just talk to Jonathan now, noooooo

GOD this is masterfully infuriating work, Bramward Stokerbroker. Here we have on paper just how much this new status quo--the 'proper' status quo--grates against both of them. You can almost hear them grinding their teeth with the effort to keep smiling and nodding through this unanimous* decision. They know it is For Mina's Sake that they are doing this. Sure, they both hate every second of it and it breaks a loving rhythm they've shared for years together, BUT THEY KNOW BETTER NOW :)))

(Lucy is screaming in the afterlife. Renfield has his head in his hands.)

But all that aside, a thing I'm hooked on this read-around is the fact that, hey. We are reading this. Spoiler, but the entirety of Dracula is actually compiled together by Mina after the story closes. These are all written documents we're reading that the entire group has laid eyes on already. With everyone (bar Art and Quincey for some reason, thanks Mr. 3 Lines Allowed and Mr. Laconic :/, Jack is just talking and waiting for Mina to transcribe now, augh) on duty in some way to record the progress of things so that they can be read later as reference...I have to wonder now.

How honest are these pages the Harkers are putting down now versus what they wrote before joining Van Helsing's Scooby gang? Neither one is writing in shorthand. It's all plain English.

I had a class once where one of the assignments was to keep a daily journal. One page filled out every single day, about anything. Anyone want to guess how many personal secrets or honest feelings I put in those pages for the guy grading my class to read? If you said anything higher than 0 you're wrong.

The Harkers have an audience to worry about right now. An audience of Prof. Et Cetera, Dr. Asylum Director (whose asylum they're currently living in! the kind of place where Jonathan could've ended up and innumerable women have been imprisoned for being women the Wrong Way! whee!), Incredibly Wealthy and Empowered Lord, and Mr. Likewise Rich 'We Should Do Guns About It' American. Who all seem to like them, fresh-from-the-lower class, industrious and Dracula-confronting sorts that they are. Fast friends, all of them.

(Jonathan is still only Harker to them. Simultaneously the Man Who Survived Castle Dracula and the gofer guy doing the footwork and the paperwork/property hunt while Van Helsing hits the library and the others...well, I'm sure they're doing something. Other than re-reading the first half of Dracula.)

(...Which was compiled and transcribed by Mina. Who faced down Dracula in her jammies. Unarmed. At night. For Lucy. But she can't handle your scary stories about the houses full of dirt boxes, let alone join you on the hunt she was explicitly prepared and eager to help with. Can't risk it, little lady, off to bed now.)

This is where they are now that they've ~joined forces~ with Van Helsing and the Suitor Squad. After all they've done, all they're still relied on to do, the Harkers are with allies who have had their acquaintance for less than three days. And now, to appease those allies and their opinions and to keep everything placid with these nice, outnumbering, socially and monetarily endowed parties, they do what they've always done when faced with the fact of their being perpetually on the low rung of the ladder.

The Harkers accommodate. Including in their own diaries, as these too are now deemed forfeit important to the Cause, should the gang need to comb back through it all for clues.

That's why the Harkers are the only ones writing it down--because they already were. They're the kids in the group project who can be trusted to do the work. So just let them keep doing it. Keep an accurate record now, kids! You do such a good job of it, we'd only be getting in the way, ha ha. Remember that we can and will read everything you put down in the future.

Hence: All of what we read today. And will read in the dates to come.

The Harkers are writing under a (friendly) gun right now. They can purge some feelings, but not all of them. And not completely. And not in any way that certain doctors and upper class people of power they barely know might misconstrue as ungrateful or mad in any sense. The Harkers are good people. The Harkers are helpful. The Harkers are team players even if that means no longer being a team themselves. They chafe a little at this, but it's all so new to them! It's alright. God's will and Van Helsing's be done. They know better now.

With all this in mind, it makes much more sense why Jonathan chooses to use shorthand for a Very Particular Entry we see coming up. An entry that Mina alone could read and decide to enter in the distant future, after the storm had passed.

And why, in light of all that happens, he cannot trust himself to put more than a vignette's worth of lines down as time goes on. Not if he wants to keep himself from laying out some actual honesty for everyone to read. Mina's entries will be weightier things, while she still has the capacity to write--carefully. Always carefully.

[post-it-notes7]

[fatedtime]

I know there’s a lot of people talking about the culture conflict between Toshiro and Laios, but I think it’s important to acknowledge the class conflict between them too. Mayor’s child or not, Laios is still from the boonies, while Toshiro is waited on hand and foot by a flock of women his family employs to serve his needs. This has 100% stifled Toshiro’s ability to communicate with others, to the point where acknowledging his retainers and thanking them for their efforts is shown as a huge point of growth.

Meanwhile, Laios’s bumbling nature towards Toshiro’s boundaries is very much informed by his lack of knowledge of other people and places. He knows how much it hurt him to see his sister rejected by people whose insular attitudes made her powers frightening to them, so he tries to express overtures of friendship towards Toshiro by being so interested in him that it comes off as frightening instead. While he means well, his lack of knowledge on how to interact with people who are different from him puts Toshiro in a weird spot, and this lack of knowledge isn’t just the autism — it’s where he was born and raised. And it’s something real kids from rural areas go through when they enter more urban spaces. The sorts of social manners that are appropriate there aren’t appropriate elsewhere, and they get seen as… well. Inelegant. Pushy.

If Laios had gotten Hien’s name wrong, she would have decked him. But because it was Toshiro, whose upbringing didn’t give him any conflict resolution skills (because he’s around people who have to bend to his needs*) he doesn’t know how to sort things out with Laios, and grows to resent him. It’s not just the culture, it’s the place he occupies class-wise.

That’s part of why I love Toshiro’s arc — if this was just a culture conflict where Laios commits microagressions against him, as I’ve mostly seen it put, him ultimately learning a lesson would be pretty weird. But it’s not. His upbringing as a noble lord’s son in a BONKERS family has given him certain issues… and Laios helps him confront that, so he can live without regrets.

(*please note, this is a massive oversimplification of what the hell is going on with Toshiro Nakamoto. i just didn't want to write a book.)

[shallowseeker]

What drew them to each other is that they were both willing to do reprehensible things.

Whether it's to save their own skins, to save their families, to carry out a plan... They're naturally fucked up in the same pragmatic way.

But they can BE their full, "flawed, petty evil creatures" in full light of the other.

///

///

DUNDUNDUN SAM WAS JUST WAITING FOR HER TO TURN AWAY WHAT A BASTARD

///

She should've gotten to KILL him at least once, I think. Just to further make their bond weirder.

///

"Don't struggle," she says.

///

ALSO.

I like to watch the unraveling futility of their ambitions. Rowena, Crowley, and Sam were all united by wanting status and ambition to help them escape "a rigged game."

"And it took everything from me, everyone I love-- my family."

///

///

BOOM. There it is.

See, Rowena sees the lengths Sam will go, and she actually RESPECTS it.

Their relationship is built on the comfort of understanding WHY they're willing to gut each other AND each other's loved ones. Strong feelings that they try to dissociate themselves from.

They use their smarts and ruthlessness to protect themselves and their loved ones at all costs.

And they both want to change.

"You were never gonna kill him. There was a time you would've. But not now."

///

There is such an--an OPENNESS about the bad things they've done, and Sam needs that in his life.

///

And in season 15, Rowena knows that Sam wouldn't have been able to kill her at the end there... not unless she guided his hand and helped him.

[colorfulnickellandgarden]

Lunar Pyramid, Moon

[undeadorion]

Hey. Hey Sister. Of these two, which one has stamina and sexual charisma?

You already had what you were saying you needed, you fool.

[captainlightner]

does anyonr here like ymo,,,,

[reallyhardydraws]

2023.

i hope any of you reading this will forgive the essay. i started posting to this art blog ten years ago in 2013 when i was just at the very end of high school, uploading short animations i'd made for one of my final projects, preparing myself for art school where i was gearing up to become an illustration/animation student.

i went into my art foundation course in 2014, still thinking i was going to be going into storybook illustration or with faint hopes of becoming like a concept artist for game/animation, although even then i'd started thinking about patterns...

and then in 2015 i did go into my BA, going in for that illustration with animation degree that... usually when i talk about it in real life, i say didn't really feel like the best place for me. if i think back, the best things i got out of it were two of my best friends, one of whom is now my partner. looking back on my BA era, there's some bits of sketchbook stuff...

and while i was at university my main fandoms were thunderbirds are go and x-men for a bit... these are from the end of 2015 into the beginning of 2016...

then for a little while i was doing this still sort of pastel-ish lineless situation:

and i alternated between that and this thin fineliner type work (pretty sure all of the linearted pieces were done on paper and scanned, and all the lineless were graphics-tablet-only) - it was in this style that i started to offer commissions for the first time too.

and i also had fineliner-lined work in sketchbooks that i coloured with marker and posca pens, the colours of which were generally a bit more intense just based on not being able to slide the hue/saturation around on paper:

also 2016 was when i discovered the spongebob musical just after it's trial run in chicago (which ended in july of 2016) and i started making fanart at that point... which would have the biggest effect on the way i drew (and i did end up handing in a piece of spongebob musical fanart as one of my art school homeworks lmao)

from summer 2016 until early 2017 things were still quite soft and pastelly in my digital art, colour-wise:

and then suddenly everything got whacked up to 100% on saturation. also i was using the binary tool to give everything really thin pixel lineart for some reason.

then i went on vacation in summer 2017 and didn't draw for maybe a month? just short of? and when i came back i decided to change everything up again... giving characters blobbier, more ugly-cute faces with large squinting eyes and big nostrils and i was worrying a lot less about making anything look smooth, lineart-wise. i turned off the pen stabiliser in SAI and let it wiggle.

then... the spongebob musical opened on broadway in late 2017, i went to see it live in person for the first time... and my whole brain was ENTIRELY consumed by my love of it. i was putting that david zinn inspired pattern explosion into everything, even if it wasn't sbm fanart.

as we go into 2018, i started colouring my lineart. my biggest interest was still broadway musicals (with spongebob at the top of the list)

i think summer 2017 - early 2018 is probably my favourite art era, i was at my most bright and colourful and exciting... although i know in my actual real life i was struggling a lot with my home situation and i had been for some time. art was definitely my escapism back then, and i think a lot of the time i drew really bright, joyful stuff to try and inject that feeling into myself.

as for my university work, i was putting my focus into 3D paper-mache puppets:

and i was also starting to do more repeat patterns, mostly inspired by things around me. i'd learned how to make patterns actually tile and repeat in 2017, so made a few during my time at uni just to accompany some of my projects, but never as the focus of them. one of my university tutors told me that maybe i should put more focus on doing surface pattern, and maybe applying it to textiles, but i said i wasn't interested.

i graduated from my BA in the summer of 2018, and immediately began volunteering at the whitworth art gallery doing anything i could - stewarding, helping with arts and crafts, dancing with families...

in 2019 i was still very colourful... i was trying out more chunky colouring on characters skintones that i think was def inspired by tumblr artist jadenvargen:

but the blobbyness and ugly-cute style of drawing faces was gone by here, and i think... the way i drew characters probably had better *anatomy*, proportions were maybe a bit more realistic...

in 2020 i started adding the black shading to under the chins and some other places on characters' bodies because i started watching the anime my hero academia with my brother, lmao (and i was starting to pastelise colours a bit again, these are the most pastel-ish examples) my lineart has really smoothed back out too, though i never turned my pen stabiliser back on in SAI. i think my hand just adjusted. probably seems a bit insane to miss that, but i do.

by the end of 2020, the almost-year of lockdown over cobid had... made me a bit insane, i think, and i moved out of my mother's house and into a flat with a friend from university.

in 2021 i think things were much the same... i think from this point on is where things have sort of settled. i don't want to say stagnated, but i do think things have been very... like this for a while.

2022 - got the most exciting examples out...

also i was very into these little frames in 2022.

and then on to 2023! in 2022, i did begin trying to shift gears a bit -- hoping to put more energy into sewing and making products (like my tutor has suggested back in uni, even though i'd really resisted the idea.) i sold at a few in-person markets during winter of 2022, but got disheartened by the amount of money i had to sink in up front to sign up for a spot...

which has made me VERY grateful for the people who have supported me via online sales. it has really helped me stay afloat in 2023 - AND it has felt more wonderful than i can describe that there have been people interested in my work... especially when a lot of it has been my original designs, rather than the fanart that i expect a lot of people initially followed me for.

i've also... in the past 2 years... branched out a bit more when it comes to 'being an artist' - and have had the opportunity to deliver arts & crafts workshops with local refugee & asylum seeker support charity, afrocats. it's taken me to their home base in a church to hotels across the city where asylum seekers were temporarily placed while waiting on their new homes, and of course to my beloved whitworth art gallery, where we welcomed visitors from all backgrounds: from the typical white middle class visitors the gallery usually expects, to all the refugee visitors coming into the space for the first time.

and through my volunteering at the whitworth, i showed up so often they decided they might as well pay me. so i've also become a facilitator of... creative play sessions, my favourites of which have been outdoors. monthly, year-round, we have 'outdoor art club', where i get to paint with mud and make potions from leaves with kids & families - here you can see me tell you a little bit about it in this video below with 'crempog' a puppet character that makes videos about activities for kids and families around manchester (my bit starts at 01:10 although i am in the intro and thumbnail haha)

and then of course the summer 'PLAYTIME' activities we've had the past two years: scrap studio in 2022, and play market in 2023. it's the best freelance gig ever -- just to hang out and encourage families to be creative and have fun.

in working more in these new avenues... outside of being - as i've called myself for a long time - "an internet artist"... i've found myself more interested in this sort of thing. in being a "real world artist" too. in doing surface pattern design, and being a workshop facilitator, i find myself wanting to put more energy into these sorts of projects.

in 2023 i've also dabbled a little bit more in youtube videos! i have had a channel for a while and have made videos in previous years, but 2023 has been the year i've done the most in. admittedly most of them haven't been about my art, and more just like... random things that interest me (the spongebob musical in particular) but i've really been enjoying video editing. that's kind of an art form too, so i'm including it here!

moving forward, want to keep putting even more of my energy into other things. my shop, with a bigger range of products to offer. workshops in real life, where i can make a difference.

as for my art blog... i feel like i've done the least drawing in many years in 2023, and... well, things have been weird and complicated for a bit in my real life. i hope to draw for fun a bit more again very soon, and to return to doing things in more of a wild and crazy way, to be more creative and exciting with the way i draw things. still, here's some of my favourites from 2023:

thank you so much to everyone who has borne witness to my art journey this past decade!!! i hope you will stick with me, who knows, maybe for another 10 years if tumblr holds out. especially a big thank you to everyone who has ever commissioned me, or bought anything from my store, you literally keep me able to make art at all and i cannot, cannot, cannot overstate how much it means to me.

i'm moving homes soon, possibly into very cramped temporary conditions for a little while before HOPEFULLY starting my real life with my partner. if i can take one more moment to plug my work, then [here is a link to my online shop] and [here is my ko-fi page too.]

cheers, cheers, cheers!

- LOREN 🌈🍍🎉