#lt2 is coming

[jessicashouse]

16. 7 months and 27 days since the release of harrys house.

i hope lt2 is released by now since this is scheduled on 22 may 2022 13:27 gmt+1

[cod-dump]

I’m never gonna write fics for this fandom so I’m gonna throw this SoapGhost thought at you.

BUT— the 141 has 4 people. Captain Price, First Lieutenant Riley, SGT Mactavish and SGT Garrick.

They’re rounding out the team, adding another person. Second Lieutenant whoever. Price knows him, Ghost knows him, but Gaz and Soap don’t. This guy shows up and immediately fits in with everyone— except Soap. This dude *does not* like him. But he doesn’t make it known in front of the others. But Soap can tell.

That’s fine, he’s had to work with plenty of people he doesn’t get along with, it’s just another day at work. But this guy’s contempt for Soap just gets worse and worse. It starts with subtle comments, little digs at Soap that seem like jokes to other people, but the Second Lieutenant just gets this look in his eyes— Soap knows they’re meant to be insults.

It’s worse the first time Soap has to go out on a mission with the Second Lieutenant. *Ghost* was his partner, why did he have to work with *this guy*? Soap tries to keep things professional— he doesn’t joke over comms, he hardly speaks at all actually, just does his job to the best of his ability. But when he comes back, Price calls Soap into his office— something about “insubordination.” But Soap didn’t *do anything.* He can’t argue back, it’s a lieutenant’s word against his.

But things get worse. This guy is the definition of a “hostile work environment.” But Soap can’t do anything about it. Can’t say anything. He just has to take it, because he knows that Ghost and Price respect the LT2, and anytime Soap acts anything like his normal self, the LT2 is up his ass about it— actively *trying* to get him in trouble.

Eventually he just tries to be as straight-laced as possible, so much so that Ghost notices the weird behavior. Soap is too quiet, too rigid— he’s damn near a shell of his former self. Soap doesn’t spend time with anyone on the team any more, just spends most of his free time alone in his room. He draws way more, trying to distract himself. He’s anxious all the time now, waiting to get in trouble *again*. Waiting for a shitty comment *again*. Waiting for that second Lieutenant to finally convince Price to get Soap kicked off their team.

It reaches a breaking point one day.

It’s Soap and both lieutenants on a mission. Soap gets injured. Badly. Ghost is the first to reach him. Soap’s bleeding out, apologizing for fucking up; and is begging Ghost to not leave him there, to not make him die alone, to not kick him off the team— anything that comes to his mind. Nothing but desperate pleas and apologies. He promises to be better, to work harder, promises that he’ll do anything if Ghost and the LT2 don’t ask Price to make him leave.

Ghost doesn’t understand at first. Why would Johnny ever think that Simon would do any of that? He gets them all back to safety. When they finally get back to base, and once he ensures that Soap is safely in medical, he starts looking. He reads through every report the LT2 wrote, looks into every physical documentation of interactions between Soap and the LT2, and— despite his apprehension, Ghost finds Soaps journal and looks through it. His heart breaks.

His drawings are full of pain. The notes in the margins are full of quotes from the second Lieutenant, all of the shitty things he’s been saying to Soap for months. Ghost sees it all. Soap’s fear, his anxiety, his isolation, his desperation. This guy was harassing and hazing Soap right in front of him and he did *nothing*. This guy convinced Soap that he couldn’t trust Ghost or Price, that he couldn’t confide in them all of the shit he’s been dealing with.

He shows it all to Price. Everything he’s found. Price, too, is taken aback by it all. How could could he have missed this? How could they both have missed it? They knew *something* was wrong with Soap, but couldn’t figure out what. The answer was right in front of them the entire time.

They know that the second lieutenant needs to go.

Soap wakes up in an uncomfortable medical bed to find his captain and first lieutenant staring him down. He prepares for the worst.

But it doesn’t come.

*incoherent screaming*

THE ANGST! THE SELF HATE! GOD IT’S SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL! AHHHHHHH!! GOD DAMN IT! I HAVE SO MANY FUCKING WIPS ALREADY! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!! YA’LL HAVE SUCH BEAUTIFUL MINDS AND IDEAS GOD! BEING SURROUNDED BY SUCH CREATIVE AND BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE!! AHHHHHH!! THE BEAUTY!! I CAN IMAGINE THE LT2 EVEN FLIRTING WITH GHOST TO PUSH SOAP AWAY! TRYING TO EVEN BEFRIEND GAZ AND COMPLETELY ISOLATE SOAP FROM EVERYONE! EVERYTHING SOAP DOES ISNT GOOD ENOUGH! SOAP BECOMING A LESS VIBRANT VERSION OF HIMSELF, THINKING THAT HE’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH! IT HURTS SO GOOD FUCKING HELL!!!

[inimitablereel]

What do people call Xie Yuchen?

books

Ultimate Note

Lost Tomb 2 (Explore with the Note)

Lost Tomb 2.2 (Heavenly Palace in the Clouds)

numbers under the cut

With all of these, I manually searched for nicknames containing "Xie" or "Hua", so it's possible I missed some that I didn't spot or are different than expected. Once I'd built that list of names, I've just been running a script to search for them. That means there could be some mistakes where the name comes up but it's about someone else (e.g. little Xie COULD be Wu Xie or Xie Lianhuan, not Xie Yuchen), though I did try to look for outliers. Also, everything is obviously based on someone's translation choices and how much subtitles are even including the nuances of naming - I'm getting the impression that they were fairly detailed so thanks to whoever subtitled these.

If there's some other nicknames you know are used, I can get rerun this script pretty easily (also didn't run other shows/the heihua movie because I don't have subs for it downloaded, but it'd be pretty fast to do if people are curious)

Books:

I pulled these from the Merebear epubs, so this is missing some sidestories etc that aren't in epubs yet. [ETA worth noting that even though this is a mtl, merebear doesn't always 1:1 translate names, so this like everything else is extremely dependent on tl choices]

Xiao Hua:1231 Xie Yuchen:591 Boss Xie:63 Master Hua:60 Pink Shirt: 36 (all in Volume 7 before Wu Xie learns his name lol) Xie Yuhua:18 (written once as jie yuhua) Big Hua:4 (written once as da hua) Xiao Xiejiu:2 little Xie Nine:1 (this might actually just be a footnote translation of Xiao Xiejiu) head of the Xie family:3 A Hua:3 (Pangzi, Xiao Hua doesn't like it) Xie Xiao Hua:1 (also Pangzi) little Xie:10 (didn't make it into my wordcloud oops - probably NOT Xie Lianhuan because I skipped the volumes that don't have Xiao Hua in them, but I didn't check) (no Xie just) Yuchen: 1 (Li Cu apparently)

Bonus: in stories from the rain village Wu Xie makes up a story about "three heroes" which has a character who's "Official Xie"

Ultimate Note:

Just the 36 main episodes, I don't have a separate subtitle file for the extra

Xiao Hua:103 head of the Xie family:1 Master Hua:12 Master Hua'er:86 (this is what Hei Xiazi calls him most of the time) Xie Yu Chen:6 (UN subtitles decided that was two words?)

Lost Tomb 2:

Xie Yuchen:11 Xie Yuhua:13 (split fairly evenly between Xie and Jie - this is all around the arc with his family) head of the Xie family:2 Master Hua:23 Xie Zi:12 (Huo Nainai calls him this) little Xie:7 (Pangzi but not to Xiao Hua's face - this is an overcount because at least 2 of them are actually Xie Lianhuan) Brother Hua:5 (Pretty sure this is Xiuxiu)

Lost Tomb 2.2: I was planning on combining this with lt2 but it is notably different

Xie Yuchen:20 head of the Xie family:1 Master Hua:45 Xie Zi:12

[zot3-flopped]

https://www.tumblr.com/zot3-flopped/751930511754215424/i-just-love-it-when-larries-tell-each-other-when

The only thing Larries excel at is goal post moving. They are masters at concocting nonsense about why their predictions didn’t come true. The idea that “Louis is waiting for the tour to end to expose BBG” has actually become a thing is hilarious given that “wait until LOT ends” was their last big marker for H/L to finally come out together. I do think that the end of LOT with literally nothing changing, Harry looking genuinely happy as could be, and then Taylor R tossed into the mix, pushed many of them out finally. Harry has zero reason to not be with Louis if he wants to and they know it. Louis rude ass denials helped too.

The BBG ending crew is really the last of the most die hard Larries. They almost care more about that than H/L being together at this point. They so desperately want to be proven right about at least one thing! The slow realization that years of their life has been wasted on this crap has to be worth something! 😂

They were also so sure that LTWT was Louis' 'last deliverable to Sony'. Sea even talked about LT2 'having gay themes'. Nearly all of them expected Louis to come out after that tour ended (end of 2022), with or without Harry, and a lot of them quietly left when he didn't. This is why the numbers for FitFWT are much less than he expected.

[lutiaslayton]

hello, is the site where you posted the London Holiday translation down? i can't get to it anymore

Oh no I'm so sorry for that 😭 The website isn't down but it is entirely my fault if your link no longer works.

Here, this is a link that will ALWAYS work. It is not a link to London Holiday directly, but it is a link to EVERY transcription/translation I have so far (which includes for now London Holiday, Chelmey's Casebook, the beginning of Mansion of the Deathly Mirror, and a WIP for the Japan-exclusive Shogakukan novelisation of Eternal Diva). It also gives links to the Google Doc fan-translations of the three novels that were made years ago, but as a heads up, I have started making my own because 1) the current versions do not provide the original Japanese text, and 2) the translation... sort of sucks at times. There are times when it says "the thief tried to steal the professor's shoes" instead of aiming for his bag, and there are times when it straight up made stuff up (like the time when Raymond says that they used to play near a specific forest from the West of the UK when Des was a child, while the Japanese version doesn't say anything about that at all).

---

Quick explanation as to why the link you had no longer works: hosting a website is a bit like sharing a folder from your computer, except unlike on places like Google Drive, visitors don't get to actually see the folders and how they are organised (not directly that is), they're only given the absolute location of each file (aka links). And the issue is that if I move/rename a file in order to be more organised, it creates a dead link.

I will likely change again the link for an individual media in the future, but the link to the index that holds them all is extremely unlikely to ever change, given how its link really can't get more straightforward than it already is. I mean, good luck finding a file location more sensical than "/layton/index.html" Chances of this name changing are really abysmal.

For the individual pages themselves though (one per "lost" media), I will likely rename them as more and more show up. In my local computer (not online yet), I have renamed London Holiday's file to "lt1-5_lh" instead of just "lh", for example. This is not just in case I come to work on something Layton-related which also happens to have "LH" as an acronym, but also so I can use the "lt1-5" part of the name as a way to find the file more easily, as "lt1-5" would put it between Curious Village (lt1 if you datamine it) and Diabolical Box (lt2 when datamining). Novels will have a "nv(#)" prefix, DoCoMo games a "dcm" prefix, etc.

TL;DR Just hold on to the index page and have faith that it has everything you need, and I'm sorry for being a mess qjgjzkdkv

[thelaithlyworm]

Daomu Biji in a Bottle

Since I’ve been posting a lot about the Daomu Biji|Lost Tomb seriesincessantly lately, to a bunch of mutuals I made friends with over such extremely related things as Star Trek and The Musketeers, I thought I’d… make a potted summary? Possibly I’m shilling for new viewers. Come. Join. The water isn’t deep at all…

Book Summary: Wu Xie, a respectable young man and trained architect, is also the descendant of a famous tomb-robber and wants an outing in the family trade. (Say good-bye to a quiet life, Wu Xie.) Adventure + Horror + Comedy + Epic Love Story + what looks like some pretty sincere zen philosophy. If you like epic platonic relationships, this series has your back. If you like epic, slow-burning romances, this series also has your back.  Books are up to around volume 16 I think? Which is a good thing because you’ve got lots to read, right? Right?

It also has a lot of adaptations…

(Note: Audience preferences can be very individual things. I’ve tried to give the vibe of each adaptation and what I think is good and what’s iffy, but honestly? Like what you like and watch what you want, more power to you.)

The Lost Tomb 1: The ‘A Little Clumsy But We’ve Got The Spirit’ adaptation. Wu Xie’s introductory tomb! Clearly on a budget but the scene composition is so nice and most of the characters so crackling I’m not going to sweat the flaccid snake tree or Xiaoge’s Emo Hair. The court drama flashback makes an interesting extension of the ‘unreliable narration’ theme the books love, and they throw in an Action Prologue and Epilogue.

Iffies: Wu Xie is a little mealy-mouthed in this version? The OCs High Jr. and Chastity Chen are frustratingly squeaky, even if they finish the story strong. The Action Epilogue got raided from a later book so it can be startling when you see it again.

The Lost Tomb 2: The ‘Do You Like Extra Content? We Like Extra Content’ adaptation. Covers the trip to the undersea tomb and the weird magic tree in the mountains, but also throws in a truckload of side stories, especially about characters who will become important later like Xie Yuchen, A-Ning, and Cox Hendry, and manages to sneak in some foreshadowing for the end of the main series. Scenery and action scenes are very nice. My favourite Young Wu Xie - so baby, so cute, so cheeky. (Weirdly good at continuity with Lost Tomb 1, down to Pangzi’s slightly grown out version of his LT1 hair.)

Iffies: If you prefer your leads on screen at all times, this is going to be a frustrating watch. The tomb scenes can be a little dark for some display-screens. Ends on a weird cliff-hanger.

The Lost Tomb 2.2 (Heavenly Palace): The ‘Hurt/Comfort’ adaptation. An extra-whumpy version of the first trip up Mt Changbai with, again, some side stories for Xie Yuchen & co. Weirdly out of continuity with Lost Tomb 2, considering it was made by the same production crew, but by this point I have embraced the weirdness. The sets are even more beautiful than for LT2 - lots of Shape and Chiaroscuro. An interesting if angsty relationship arc between Wu Xie and his bff Pangzi. Takes some liberties with the ending, which are rad in-and-of-themselves but mess with continuity for later seasons.

Iffies: Many long sequences of travelling quietly through wilderness spaces which isn’t everyone’s cuppa, I guess. Wu Xie has solid in-story reasons for being a nervy little bitch in this arc (recovering from a traumatic accident) but he’s still a nervy little bitch and not the plucky boy of earlier stories. He’s an acquired taste, is what I’m saying.

Ultimate Note: The ‘Genre Romance’ adaptation. The action scenes and Big Visuals were stripped down harshly, possibly for budget reasons. There are a couple of exceptions like Xinyue Restaurant, but mostly the action is bland connective tissue between shipping scenes and hurrying through the plot. It is definitely good at romance vibes: the leads have good chemistry, they get a lot of face time, the camera is good at picking up their interplay. It’s just weak at the Adventure/Thriller side of the story. If you like the leads on screen at all times, this is the one for you.

Iffies: Watching this after reading the books is a long litany of, ‘it was too much trouble to film this moody scene in the rain like canon so we did it on a sunny day, you don’t mind do you?’, ‘we couldn’t afford wildcats so you get spiders’, ‘that intense, fraught, and beautiful scene with the snake in the underground river was a bit tricky so we replaced it with a tank of shrimp’. Pop-music soundtrack. Nerfs the female characters. Chops out an important plot point - probably to appease the Airing Board tbf, but it doesn’t help story coherency any. 

[The Finale of the main book series is probably unfilmable; Tibetan Sea Flower hasn’t aired yet.]

Time Raiders: The ‘Steampunk AU’ adaptation. Ridiculous and beautiful. Tweaks Wu Xie to be even babier and his noodle-limbed love interest into a Big Buff Guy and I don’t care because they’re so much fun together. Kinda meta? (ie. If you take it as, ‘Series Wu Xie had this made just before Sand Sea’ it makes more sense.)

Iffies: Runs a little long for a movie. Has an ambitious ending which doesn’t quite land. It’s fun along the way, though.

Sand Sea: The ‘Book Plot But Glam’ adaptation, from that time where our plucky little hero Wu Xie has become a jaded and terrifying mob boss on a mission to destroy an ancient illuminati cult. Hooboy. It’s got the big action scenes and sweeping visuals; it’s got dust on the lens; it’s got tender emotional moments; it’s got utter goofballing. Amazing. Superb. Some good fucking food. Fills in gaps implied by the book plot (eg. what’s going on with the Jiumen) and buffs up a few story arcs (for example, the first trip to Gutongjing is considerably more fraught than its book version, and it’s strongly implied that Liang Wan gets laid. Good for her!)

Iffies: None. It’s perfect from start to finish. 

Reunion: The Sound of Providence: The ‘We Rewrote Almost All of the Book Plot’ adaptation. On the one hand, this is telling the story of the protagonist, now middle-aged and facing his mortality and it’s all poignant and touching and fraught and so on. On the other, the producers were trying not to lock out potential new viewers with all the previous continuity. So they did some rewrites - for example, Third Uncle’s time in the South Sea King Tomb now has a similar emotional weight as his time in novel-canon’s Shipwreck Tomb while being completely different in the details, and so forth - you get the vibe but not the continuity. I’d say that approach worked pretty well - this is the entrance point for a lot of fans. That said, it can be a touch confusing if you start here and then go to the earlier stories. Still, it’s a grand time - like Sand Sea it’s a lovely mix of action, angst, goofiness, and heartwarming. Cinematography is v. strong, though runs a little monochrome for my tastes. This is an adaptation that loves minor characters: along with the adventure shenanigans of the leads, key plots turn on the emotional lives and choices of a middle-aged hairdresser and two semi-random mooks. 

Iffies: Maybe two-thirds through Season 1, most of the lead characters disappear off-screen for the rest of the season and the lead gets to know A Whole New Bunch Of People (which can be a little startling). Season 2 blows right past the big climax of the book, then gives the characters a bit of a holiday, then throws them into another smallish adventure that technically ties up some loose ends while also being a bit, ‘Huh?’  (Being a bit ‘Huh?’ is a common feature of these stories.)

The Mystic Nine: The ‘When We Promised You Hijinks We Weren’t Lying But Please Also Ponder The Bittersweetness of Life and Love’ adaptation. This is a prequel centred on Fo-ye, a controversial figure by the standards of ‘the present’ of the series, but right now he’s a fairly uncomplicated hero. Fairly. When a good guy both works for the military while there’s a war on AND is firmly rooted in his city’s criminal underworld there’s a lot of chaos baked into his life. Action and scenery is a bit cartoony but well done cartoony, if that makes sense. There’s fairly tight plotting for about… 16 episodes? (once again, they rob the Xinyue Restaurant) and it’s great times with a train heist, and then the plot gets more discursive and jumpy and wandering. I liked it better the second time when I knew the shape of how things go? For all the tombs and jianghu feuding, a significant amount of time is spent on the Er-ye/Yatou and Fo-ye/Yin Xinyue relationships but I wouldn’t call them romances per se. They’re stories about love. ‘When you find the one who completes you and life is bliss for years but then they get sick and you go a little mad.’ ‘When you find the one who you might dare to open your heart to and it’s amazing! but also you’re a soldier and there’s a war on and they will spend so much time waiting for you…’ Bittersweet, is what I’m saying. 

Comes with four side movies about supporting characters and they are both interesting character studies and hilariously different in tone - Er-ye gets lofty opera vibes, Chen Pi is dirty and nasty and everyone’s horrible, Jiu-ye gets complicated, claustrophobic intrigue, and San-niang gets a deeply sad one about the horrors of the human heart when she’s only 15.

Iffies: As mentioned above, it can get v. discursive and the drama runs long. There are some neat female characters, but most of them don’t get much screen time.

Escape from the Monstrous Snake: the ‘Schlocky B-Movie’ adaptation. Features Hei Xiazi, the half-blind, corny, (very kind), immortal mercenary supporting character and a female OC who has absolutely zero useful skills, a tendency to scream, and relatable motivations. (I love her.) Mostly filmed on a sound-stage, and the version I watched on youtube has slightly dodgy sound. Good pace, good atmosphere, lovely character study of Hei Xiazi.

Iffies: It’s a schlocky B-movie: you get what you get. And Qi Ba and the other female merc didn’t die, no, they uh, they rescued themselves off-screen and then went home and got married…

Grave/Mystery of the Abyss: the ‘Schlocky B-Movie But We Have A Budget’ adaptation. Another reasonably simple monster movie with Hei Xiazi but this time with another recurring character, Xie Yuchen, as the co-lead. And those two go back a way. Whether you want to read that relationship as entirely platonic or ex-lovers, there is so much intimacy and care and regret in how the two characters move around each other it’s breathtaking. The action scenes are both fun in and of themselves and support the love story (how they move around each other taken up to 11).

Iffies: Well… the bugs and body horror can be unsettling? Otherwise, no iffies, it’s perfect of its kind.

Green Mountain Begonia: the ‘Homoerotic Subtext’ adaptation. Set in the Mystic Nine era but made by a different team so the cast and the continuity is a little different. This one covers Fo-ye first coming to Changsha and meeting Er-ye, a young opera-singer/action hero for the first time. It’s very, very pretty but I have trouble warming to it. Maybe its plot is a little fast to get to know the characters? Maybe I’m just too attached to the other M9.

Iffies: Paced a little quick. Well worth a look, though.

[There’s a donghua adaptation of the Qinling God Tree arc, and a manhua currently coming out, but I haven’t seen either. Likewise, the Time Raiders on-line game.]

Honestly, it's all good. Play around and have fun.

[ftmeme]

I am actually excited and can't wait to listen to LT3 for the first time. Cause last time around, i was late to the party and need some convincing from Louies on youtube to give Louis a chance and listen to FITF.

I am very confident that LT3 will top LT2 but he better come out with songs that he would never skip 😤 what is the purpose of having wonderful songs such as Lucky Again and Headline only to shelved 😭.

[alarrytale]

hi marte, first of all i love your blog. i agree with most of your takes on larry situations and even their alleged break up rumours. i think they have been working on their career for quite some time and keeping the larry signalling lowkey. i know they are busy and stuff so i get it why the rumours are as such. honestly, i joined the fandom in 2021 and even since then I have seen much of their signalling as they used to do before that. i think I only ever experienced walls tattoo stunt and their long term love songs and sometimes the coded clothes. i don't buy into the blue greening. it's a reach. but lately I have been a louie larry (because I have more empathy for him, because his stunts are brutal and his career has been thoroughly sabotaged and discouraged. i stepped about of harrie train during holivia shit show and ever since then i have a bit taste in my mouth. my thoughts on harry can bit a bit extreme but I promise you it's all because I am just hurt and not a rad or something. my opinion is that, even when his stunts are bad and his image of a womaniser is not true, he at least get attention and career boost out of most of his stunts, except for olivia because it did do some damage but I'm sure if they intended to follow the original blue print, he must have gotten out less harmed. my point being, his closeting altho harsh, gets him somewhere while louis' gets him nowhere). at this point my main concern is just babygate and some boost to louis' career because when i look at him i feel so faint and hurt because he's been chained like that for so many years now. bbg is so disgusting i cannot even bring myself to speak my opinions on it. it just shows me a world that's so cruel and hateful. i still cannot believe how someone could agree to fake being pregnant and labelling a child to be someone else's and if brett is his father, i have respect for him running in minus because well, how could someone agree to put their own child through a mess like that? i haven't been in this fandom for a very long time as opposed to all you veterans but I'm already so tired of this. i saw changes in their pattern that began in august 2021 and that gave me a bit of hope that maybe they are going somewhere with bbg. i saw many takes that they are building a narrative and it will take some time to establish his good father image and i agree with it. if they wanted to go that route, it would be easier for him to end it. but it's been almost 3 years since then as well. and it's not going anywhere? how much are they building up? i think radio silence of louis' on this matter from 2017-2021 was actually far better than this. now i know some ppl say bbg is the only way he looks straight rn and we don't have any stunt girlfriend but in all honesty I would trade bbg+louis' career boost for 3 more olivia wilde if i had to. what I'm trying to say that I'm so fed up with their situation. i hope better days are ahead but i am running low on energy. (1/2)

Anon, i'm putting this under the cut, because you wrote a whole book!

it hurts to be called deluded and be the scrap goat of this fandom. louis' number are falling down day by day, he's stagnant, i don't see hope. i had better expectations with lt2 but it didn't turn out like that. is nobody paying attention to his career??? is nobody investing in him?? he has potential and i know if they could invest even 40% of what they do for harry in louis, he could do so much better than the rest of the boys. i know how he's got THAT end of the deal??? i wish they could end babygate because i really want to be free from this misery. i know i can always distance myself but my conscience is too cluttered with this to the point that I don't even enjoy their arts. i just want them to be free so i don't have this information lingering in my mind all the damn time. i had successfully distanced myself twice from them but then elounor breakup happened and i came back wanting for more. now hs4 will come and the whole 'its for my ex girlfriend' shit will happen again. i am young and sensitive and it hurts me that the world could be so cruel and i as a fan have to endure this pain on their behalf too. i know you're optimistic but im losing hope. everyday. i don't see any progress and sometimes i do think they have given up as well. who knows what's happening behind the scene? at this point I don't care if they are together or not. i just want fairness in this situation. they BOTH are in this relationship so why did louis get the bad end of the agreement? why didn't his career take off? (okay i agree he may not have the same range but im sure as hell sure that he can do a lot better than both liam and niall and even zayn if given a chance to be authentic). it makes me bitter in general. being their fan has made me a hater of the world in general and it's principles and unfairness. i just hope even if it's 0.00001% in me right now, that one day it will end. i know they don't have much time now to spark (louis 32 years old now, he must get the experience the joy of doing genuine numbers once because god i know he deserves the charting even if he says he doesn't want). am i thinking too much? i probably am but I cannot help myself. do you have hopes that it will end anytime soon? in another year? or it will take another ten? i honestly I'm losing so much respect for everyone in this situation, for human kind, for their sisters, for all the ladies who agree to do this shit. they don't deserve this. (2/2)

Hi, anon!

I know times are hard, but i can't know when they'll end bg, if things will change for Louis ever or when the industry will change. The only thing we can do is hope for better times. H and L, and us in fandon have lived with this current situation for years now. Little has changed for the better. Every good thing we get always has a backside and if things seem too good to be true, it always is. Therefore it's important to enjoy the good times when they happen and ignore the shit or meme the hell out of it. That's how you survive here longterm.

I know it's all very frustrating. There is very little we as fans can do to change the situation. We can only support them and acknowledge that they are in a difficult situation, and not hate them too much for what they do, but not praise them for everything either. I think things can change very rapidly, but we don’t know when change will come. I don't expect anything to change in the next two years at least. I'd love to be proven wrong.

[caralara]

cara i have been a fan of louis since 2011 and i loveeeeed LT1 but i kinda really not like LT2 (i only love BTM, OOMS, WAOYF) and i hate myself for ittttt. And now LT3 is coming and I am just afraid I will not like that one either........😭😭😭😭 i just wanna cry because i love louis so much.

Hi anon!! Don’t cry love, it’s okay to not be obsessed with every song. Louis is changing genres, and if you’ve been a fan of his since 2011 it is very understandable that if you’re a fan of the music from back then the transition might be harder for you.

Theres a couple of songs I don’t particularly vibe with as in need to listen to everyday, like I appreciate them objectively, but it’s just not what I want to listen to everyday. And there’s a song I just genuinely don’t like lol.

You won’t know what LT3 sounds like until you’ve heard it, so be patient with yourself and just wait and see. If there’s still enough other things you like about Louis you can just choose to listen to his older stuff!!

[stormyhale]

Im currently going through posts from late 2020 where I was sure LT2 was coming "very very soon" ... 🤡

[cppsheffield]

Centre for Poetry and Poetics Presents: A Reading with Karl Riordan, Pete Green, Steve Ely and Rory Waterman

5TH OF NOVEMBER THE DIAMOND, LT2, 6PM-8PM

Karl Riordan is a working-class writer based in Sheffield after stints around the UK & Ireland and considering his next move. 'The Tattooist's Chair' is his first poetry collection from Smokestack Press and just published ‘Tinikling’ drawing upon his links with the Philippines. He has an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Sheffield. Daljit Nagra said, he writes of ‘[a]n ordinary world illuminated by a seeing-eye that persistently finds understated wonder.’ By day, he’s worked underage on building sites, was a barber, scrap-collector, teacher, Disability Support Worker, and a postal worker - and lasted a full week. He currently works as a Library Assistant for the Rotherham Library Service. He’s working on another collection of poems and a book of short stories.

***

Pete Green is a poet and musician who has lived in Sheffield for 20 years. They grew up in the port of Grimsby, lovingly parented by a fish filleter and a lollipop lady. Living first on the edge of the land itself, and more recently near the edge of a largely post-industrial city, Pete has become preoccupied with the way places fade into each other and shift over time – and perhaps most of all with how people influence places and places influence people. These concerns are the driving force behind Pete's first full-length collection The Meanwhile Sites, published in 2022 by Salt and described by Helen Mort as "feral, elegant and beautifully observed". Much of the book was informed by visits to coastal locations, from Orkney to Dungeness, though these are juxtaposed with observations of big cities, including the temporary London housing estate built from shipping containers which inspired the collection's title. Pete has been active as a musician for far longer than as a poet, though these days they prefer to concentrate on poetry because there's less heavy stuff to carry. Encouraged by discovering the output of Sheffield's Longbarrow Press, Pete started to write poetry again in 2014 after a gap of more than 20 years. Their pamphlet Sheffield Almanac and short book Hemisphere were published by Longbarrow in 2017 and 2021 respectively. Other work by Pete has been longlisted in the National Poetry Competition and shortlisted for the Brotherton Poetry Prize, whose chair of judges Simon Armitage praised Pete's "lyrical dexterity" and described them as "a poet alive to the challenges of the post-modernist era".

***

Steve Ely is a poet, novelist, biographer and teacher of creative writing. He has published thirteen books or pamphlets of poetry, most recently Eely (Longbarrow Press, 2024) and Orasaigh (Broken Sleep Books, August, 2024). He’s currently working on a critical work, Ted Hughes’s Expressionism, a novel entitled The Quoz and an infinitely expanding, limitless poetic sequence, Terra Incognito.

***

Rory Waterman's fourth and most recent collection is Come Here to This Gate, published by Carcanet in April this year. He lives in Nottingham.

https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/.../reading-karl-riordan-pete...

[robinfuckery-blog]

My New Car

So last month, after my Ford Probe (with the "Wild Orchid" package) was viciously and unironically rear-ended and subsequently totaled, I found myself in the market for a new automobile. After doing absolutely no research whatsoever, I headed down to the nearest Mitsubishi dealership in my Chrysler 200 rental (200 being the approximate number of times the 9-speed transmission chooses the wrong gear per quarter mile). I hadn't even dialed the Chrysler into "park" (there's a sentence I never thought I'd type) before a rather debonaire-looking salesman named Justin descended on me. He wasted no time launching into his potential customer getting-to-know-you/interrogation spiel. Within seconds, he knew where I lived, why I was at the dealership, my first pet's maiden name, how many days until my next birthday, and my approximate budget. I remember thinking to myself that if this dude ever did speed dating, he would absolutely clean up. All relevant information now in hand, Justin led me past rows of glittering Mirages and bulbous Landers over to a line of cars that seemed a bit out of place. In front of me stood what appeared to be dozens of luxury SUVS, many of which looked like they cost at minimum $80,000. This made me somewhat cross. I had told Justin my maximum budget up front, just like you're supposed to, yet here he was about to sell me on a Range Rover or Escalade or whatever it was.

It was at this point that Justin told me to take a closer look, taking special care to point out the various diamond emblems on the exterior as well as the yards of hard, Tonka-quality plastics which lined the interior. That's when it donged on me - this was no German luxury vehicle, but rather the all-new 2017 Mitsubishi Outlander! The next hour consisted of me and Justin walking around the collection of Outlanders, just trying to figure out which one would take up the most of my budget without going over by too much. Justin was trying to steer me towards a pearl-white LT2. I did like the color. Reminded me of the good times I had with my Malibu rental during my last business trip (to Iowa City), which not coincidentally was the last business trip where I didn't come home with chlamydia. I'm sure the Malibu played some part in that. I was nearly sold on the LT2 when Justin mentioned it had the more powerful 250hp 2.0 liter turbo instead of the entry-level 160hp 1.5. I told him that engine would simply not do. It was far too aggressive. Toeing into the throttle with that much horsepower on tap would likely get the blood rushing to my loins in such a way that I'd be coming home with chlamydia all the time. Not a good thing when you just ditched healthcare coverage so as to free up additional funds to spend on a new car. So I really needed something sedate and boring. I needed the Lifetime Movie Network of SUVS. After another hour of poring over window stickers, we settled on a light blue metallic model with the LT1 trim. Its only option was an advanced technology package, which added a wireless charger, auto-dimming rearview mirror (greatest invention since antibiotics if you ask me), and made the infotainment screen bigger by one inch. The car was powered of course by the dinky 1.5 liter engine.

Mere minutes into the test drive, I already had a feeling that this was the car for me. I mean, it was as dull as the gift my nephew Stewart made for me last Christmas (it was a mediocre attempt at a self portrait rendered in crayon and uncooked elbow pasta). The car's demeanor was so mundane, it actually made me drowsy to the point where I had to pull off to the side of the road to slap myself around a bit so I could remain alert. And since I was parked, I figured it would be as good a time as any to see how my body would respond to the Outlander's cabin. So I dropped my pants, felt around for my boxers, remembered I haven't worn underwear since 1998, turned the satellite radio to the Dolly Parton station, wrapped the seat belt around my neck, and got down to business. Ten minutes in, Dolly's swelling vocals on "Islands In The Stream" were filling the car and my soul, yet I remained as limp as my Nana's old, dusty, beat-up, flavorless carrot cake. That was all the convincing I needed. I tucked everthing back in place, then turned to Justin -- he had been pretending to play around on his phone while this was going on, which I found quite rude -- and told him I'd take the car. I tried to shake his hand to seal the deal, but for some reason, Justin didn't take my mine when I offered it. Again, rude. He did, however, agree to a hug. As we embraced, I giggled in his ear and asked him if he'd ever had chlamydia before, and if not, would he like to. One year and 9,000 miles later, I remain confident that I made the right decision. The car is smooth and comfortable. It reads your text messages to you, too. The engine can be best described as a four-and-a-half-inch penis; it might not seem like much but it's better than nothing and chances are it doesn't have chlamydia. It's also super quiet (the interior of the car, not the penis), which is great if you have a small children or have to babysit your nephew, Stewart. Just roll up the windows, lock the doors, then take in the summer blockbuster of your choice in peace and quiet, all while junior dozes away, no doubt dreaming of playing with kittens on the surface of the sun or in a preheated oven as he does.

One fun feature the 2017 Lexus... shit, I mean Outlander... has is a teen driver mode that helps you monitor your kid's driving habits (viewable as report card upon their return) to make sure he's not racing the Asian kids down the street for pink slips. Some people have voiced their concerns about this particular feature. They say it's no substitute for actual parenting and also that it fosters a lack of trust between child and adult. Personally, I don't mind it. The fact that my kid was putting a Mitsubishi Outlander up against some slammed-out rice rocket is something I would want to be made aware of, because then I would know that my kid is a fucking imbecile and shouldn't be trusted with a soft boiled egg, much less 3150 pounds of metal, glass, and Walmart-grade plastic. But I don't have a child (that I know of). What I do have is a grandmother who enjoys the sauce. I give her the "teen driver" key fob and let her run errands with the Outlander. To hold her accountable for driving my car in a reasonable fashion and not as if she's auditioning as a stunt driver for the next Mad Max film, I lock up all her booze until I get a chance to see her "report card" when she gets back. Only a good report card will allow her to get her load on. It's been fairly effective so far. One problem with teen driver mode is it doesn't monitor what goes on in the back seat. You see, my Nana is a social butterfly and has quite the talent for finding lonely widowers at the grocery store. Sometimes, if she hits it off with one, she will then utilize the Outlander's spacious backseat to "entertain" them, if you catch my meaning (I mean she has sex with them). I swear, you'll find more random dentures in my car than the lost and found at a Howard Johnsons. Also, the new car smell is almost completely gone. It's been replaced with the odor of mothballs and Ben-gay and actual balls. I just hope it doesn't affect the resale value. Anyway, yes, I recommend the Outlander. It's a great boring car, if you're into that kind of thing.

[cod-dump]

Just had a thought, adding onto Soap being temporarily placed elsewhere…When he comes back he’s been replaced but not as in like, fully replaced by like personality and stuff but like as a sergeant. Soap and this new sergeant who will be going back to his actual team, the one Soap was with, they hit it off. Like they become very close with each other, made friends with the team (well, this new sergeant didn’t, none of 141 would look at him less try to initiate a conversation)

Ghost glaring at them as he watches Soap and this new sergeant laugh together, bent at the knees as they joke around even more. Ghost had to walk away because it all came to a head when Johnny clapped his hand on this new sergeants shoulder just like he used to do with Simon and Ghost just feels his heart break. That was supposed to be him. Not this new sergeant.

Gaz gazing at them both with his arms crossed, he feels horrible as he watches them both spar. They are scoffing at each other and making remarks but still are grinning through it all, when particular hard punches or kicks land, they’re both so close to each other checking on the other. Just like how Gaz and Soap used too. And when Soap accidentally throws the new sergeant forcefully down on the ground, a pathetic wheeze knocked out of him, Gaz’s guilt tenfolds as he smiles at the unfortunate state of the new sergeant, he shouldn’t be feeling happy about that. Gaz’s heart stops and shatters when he sees Johnny bend down, faces almost touching as he hauls the new sergeant up and carries him oh so gently to the Medic. Gaz feels like he’s about to throw up.

And don’t get me started on Price..Sure he had to talk to the new sergeant but it was strictly professional. No joking about football, blowing up things and scolding him for tormenting ghost, none of that. (Well the sergeant never tormented ghost but oh well)

Price sighs, standing outside Soaps door and instead of knocking and checking in with him like he used to do, he just stands and listens as Soap and the new sergeant are talking deeply about things and conversing about their past, life in the military and so and so. Price feeling his heart sink as his place is taken, this new sergeant comforting Soap through his nightmares which Price used to do, would have Johnny come to his office and have a chat. Maybe some tea. But no, this new sergeant swept in and stole his place. Took one of his boys. Price feels unaccomplished, he failed at recognising the damage that LT2 did and now he’s paying for it. They all are.

I think this invisible thread of just observing the new sergeant and Soap breaks when Soap and the new sergeant are sparring and Gaz, Ghost, and Price are training together, sparing spiteful glances at the two on the sparring mat when they hear the new seargent call Soap, Johnny. And Soap doesn’t correct him, just grins

Gaz whips his head around so fast that his neck protests violently for the next few days. He ignores the pain, it’s a punishment. A punishment for not being able to acknowledge Johnny’s torment and ignoring his off standish behaviour throughout it. If Johnny replaced him, he deserved it. He thought, though it shattered him to realise.

Ghost stops mid workout to just stare hard at the ground, his back is bent which does a good job at hiding the solemn sadness in his eyes. His back aches for the rest of the day and he basks in this feeling. He tells himself that he’s ready to go through so much pain just to feel an ounce of loneliness that Johnny did with LT2, if it helped Johnny he’d do it.

Prices eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, he recovers first though his eyes are deep in thought for the rest of training. He has to erase and restart paperwork as he keeps getting distracted by the thought of being replaced, his eyes hurt from lack of sleep and he tries to finish all the paperwork, for Johnny, he repeats like a mantra.

Another thing is that Soap isn’t even avoiding any of those three, they are avoiding him and Soap guesses it’s probably out of guilt so instead of talking to them head to head he just writes letters, redoing them over and over to reassure them it’s not their fault and they couldn’t have done anything (well they could have but they didn’t know). Except the letter starts looking like a different type of letter..if you know what I mean..And when Johnny slips the letters under their doors and it just happens to be the night when he won’t be in his room as he gives his goodbyes to the new seargent outside. Ghost breaks down Soaps door and surveys the room before his heart leaps which was rapidly beating in his chest leaps up to his throat at the absence of Johnny. Gaz is rapidly sprinting up and down the corridors and out every exit and in every entrance, trying to figure out where Soap could be. Price is in his office, doesn’t know about any of this until Ghost and Gaz is wildly throwing open the door, panting and exhausted as they try to explain through teary eyes that Soap might have killed himself.

Price felt his heart fall down to his feet, nausea building up on him as his mouth started to salivate at the mere thought of one of his boys taking his own life because of something Price only realised too late, and even then it wasn’t Price, it was Ghost. Price is shaking although not like how Ghost was, he was twitching like crazy or how Gaz’s eyes were darting around the room, but somehow through it all Price asked them how they knew, what happened. And of course to see the letters.

Soap is giving a hug to the new sergeant, waving him off, patting his back and telling him to keep in touch as his new friend boards the helicopter to go back to his own task force. Soap watching the helicopter leave and then making his way back to the base, albeit at a slow pace as he enjoys the breeze of the wind on his face and he reminisces about his nice time with the new sergeant. Soap being oblivious to the mental breakdown going on at the base, so he just walks even slower. Back at base, once Gaz and Ghost actually manage to fucking speak a word, Price looks as white as paper though his mind races with possibilities before he looks down at the paper he was currently filling out and had to tell Gaz and Ghost that Soap was actually out sending farewells to the new sergeant who is leaving. Price has to reiterate it a few times for Gaz and Ghost and also for his own sake. Then Price observes Ghost and Gaz’s trembling forms, stinking of sweat and shaking and he states that this really isn’t healthy for them and they all need to talk. Once they find Soap of course, who just got back to base and is bombarded by Ghost and Gaz.

Also imagine the new sergeant being the same age LT2, maybe acting the same like being friendly, trustworthy (if LT2 managed to get Ghosts trust, he must’ve been trustable) except this new sergeant isn’t anything like LT2 in the negative way, and he helps Soap heal from all this stuff.

I just realised how much i’ve written i’m so so sorry - (Can I be 🫀⚡️ anon?) Also Idk why but this whole LT2 thing reminds me of Winter by Edwin Morgan. Especially the last stanza. about ice that sees nothing and nothing that sees.

AHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Oh the pain is just what the doctor ordered!!

[lamilanomagazine]

Latina. 8 Marzo, rinnovata la convenzione tra il Comune e il Centro Donna Lilith a supporto delle vittime di violenza

Latina. 8 Marzo, rinnovata la convenzione tra il Comune e il Centro Donna Lilith a supporto delle vittime di violenza. A sottoscrivere l'accordo sono state la prima cittadina Matilde Celentano e la presidente del centro antiviolenza Francesca Innocenti, sottolineando da parte di entrambe la scelta non casuale della data della firma coincidente con la Giornata internazionale della donna. "Abbiamo scelto l'8 marzo quale giorno simbolico per confermare l'impegno delle operatrici e dell'amministrazione nei progetti a tutela delle vittime di violenza", ha sottolineato il sindaco Celentano. La firma della convenzione ha avuto luogo nella sala Giunta del Comune di Latina, alla presenza dell'assessore Michele Nasso con delega al Welfare, della dirigente dei Servizi sociali Emanuela Pacifico, delle assistenti sociali del Comune, Isabella Barbon ed Elisabetta Maiorana, e di Valeria La Valle, responsabile della casa rifugio Emily, una delle strutture gestite dal Centro Donna Lilith. La finalità della convenzione è quella di formalizzare e definire la rete di collaborazione tra il Sistema di servizi e interventi sociali del distretto socio-sanitario Lt2 e il Centro Donna Lilith. L'associazione Centro Donna Lilith gestisce il centro antiviolenza di Latina, lo sportello antiviolenza di Sermoneta, due strutture a Latina Scalo per la semi-autonomia, di proprietà dell'Ater e concesse in locazione dal Comune di Latina, nonché la casa rifugio Emily, l'unica nella nostra provincia, con sette posti letto. Il Centro Donna Lilith è soggetto accreditato presso la Regione Lazio; è gestito da operatrici preparate all'accoglienza e all'ascolto di tutte le situazioni di violenza da quella psicologica, a quella economica e fisica, e hanno come destinatari degli interventi tutto il territorio distrettuale ma attraverso il numero verde 15 22 del Ministero delle Pari Opportunità, rientra anche nella mappatura regionale e nazionale. Nel 2018 la prima convenzione è stata sottoscritta con il Sovrambito territoriale che coinvolgeva anche i Distretti Latina 1 e Latina 3. Il Comitato dei Sindaci del distretto Lt2, che comprende le amministrazioni di Sabaudia, Pontinia, Norma e Sermoneta e di cui il Comune di Latina è capofila, ha deliberato il rinnovo della convenzione, sottoscritta oggi, per ulteriori 5 anni e potrà essere successivamente rinnovata su richiesta della parti. "Già nel mese di dicembre scorso – ha precisato l'assessore Nasso - sono state elaborate e condivise le procedure operative che coinvolgono il Servizio sociale professionale, il Servizio minori, il Centro di mediazione familiare e i servizi per le Emergenze sociali del distretto, con il centro antiviolenza e la casa rifugio Emily, proprio per dare concretezza alla presente convenzione. Da qui partirà un percorso di condivisione degli interventi con la rete interistituzionale che coinvolgerà le forze dell'ordine, il Tribunale, la Asl, le scuole, per la prevenzione e per favorire l'emersione della violenza di genere e/o domestica. I dati che provengono dagli operatori sul territorio sono rilevanti e solo con una condivisa sinergia tra tutti gli attori sul territorio è possibile affrontare le complessità di questa sfida. Sto già lavorando, insieme ai sindaci e assessori del distretto Lt2, per l'apertura di altri sportelli antiviolenza e case rifugio". "Essendo il primo sindaco donna della città di Latina - ha concluso la prima cittadina Celentano - tengo particolarmente a questa convenzione e auspico che nel più breve tempo possibile possano aumentare i posti letto sia nella casa rifugio che nelle strutture di accoglienza delle donne che intraprendono una rinascita psicologica ed economica. Il rinnovo della convenzione di oggi è un atto dovuto, anche per l'escalation che c'è stata in Italia e a livello locale di femminicidi. Mai come ora è necessario rinforzare e dare il giusto valore alle strutture di ascolto e prevenzione".... #notizie #news #breakingnews #cronaca #politica #eventi #sport #moda Read the full article

[zot3-flopped]

One of the reasons he had people for walls was because Larries believed that he had to complete that tour in order to come out 🙃 😂. No coming out happened so I imagine they’re discouraged and not as motivated. The other group that went to see him was dumb 1d diehards who believe they have a duty to “support all the boys equally”. I guess they’re not buying anymore either 😂

Very true - Larries and Rads insisted that the Walls tour was Louis' 'final obligation to Sony' and that after that he would 'end babygate' and come out. I remember Sea promising her followers that LT2 would have 'lgbt themes'. 🤣 Obviously none of this materialised.

[gracefullou]

Oh I can't believe it forgot about always you!!! Such a good song!!! I hope you get to see Louis on tour next time!!! I'm so excited for LT3, even though I know we'll probably have a bit of a wait! ❤️🖤❤️

Yes! Always you supremacy. I'm hoping i'll get to see him for LT3 ( it has to happen, his music means so much to me i need to hear every album live 🥺). I'm so excited for LT3 as well, i was honestly nervous for LT2 bc he kept talking about changing his sound and recommending music that i don't enjoy that much 🫣 so i didn't know what to expect but leave it to Louis to come up with the most perfect album ❤️. Fitf makes me sooo excited for LT3. I'm also very curious about the sound and most importantly the overall theme of the album bc i feel he's such in a good place right now, a totally different one than when he was writing walls or even fitf and i think the album especially the lyrics will reflect that. Can't wait to hear it! The feeling of hearing his albums for the first time is unmatchable. The first listen (and by that i mean the first 24hours) to walls and fitf was life changing. I mean that.