#might have to go back and addendum it some later

[togglesbloggle]

What to Watch at the End

I've been happy to run in to a couple pieces of media back-to-back over the last week or so- plenty of down time, since I have that bug that's going around. They make pretty interesting companion pieces to one another, actually. With the end of the world so close now, we're starting to get a bit more genuinely thoughtful art about the subject, stuff you really can't say until you have this kind of vantage point.

They are The Power Fantasy (written by Kieron Gillen), an early-days ongoing comic of the 'deconstructing superheroes' type, and Pantheon (created by Craig Silverstein), one of those direct-to-streaming shows that get no marketing and inevitably fade away quickly; this one's an adult cartoon with two eight-episode seasons, adapted from some Ken Liu short stories, with a complete and satisfying ending. I'll put in a cut from here; targeted spoilers won't occur, but I'll be talking about theme and subject matter as well as a few specific plot beats, so you won't be entirely fresh if you read on.

Pantheon is a solid, if wobbly, stab at singularity fiction, with more of a focus on uploaded intelligence than purely synthetic (though both come in to play). It's about two-thirds YA to start, declining to about one-fifth by the end. The Power Fantasy, by contrast, is an examination of superpowers through a geopolitical lens that compares them to nuclear states; I'm not as good a judge of comics over all (particularly unfinished comics), but this one seems very high quality to me.

The intersection of the Venn Diagram of these two shows is the problem of power, and in particular the challenges of a human race handing off the baton to the entities that supersede it. They're both willing to radically change the world in response to the emergence of new forces; none of them even try to 'add up to normal' or preserve the global status quo. Both reckon with megadeath events.

I'm a... fairly specific mix of values and ethical stances, so I'm well used to seeing (and enjoying!) art and media that advance moral conclusions I don't agree with on a deep level. I used to joke that Big Hero Six was the only big-budget movie of its decade that actually captured some of my real values without compromise. (I don't think it's quite that bad, actually, I was being dramatic, but it's pretty close.)

Pantheon was a really interesting watch before I figured out what it was doing, because it felt like it was constantly dancing on the edge of either being one of those rare stories, or of utterly countermanding it with annoying pablum. It wasn't really until the second or third episode that I figured out why- it's a Socratic dialogue, a narrative producing a kind of dialectical Singularity.

The show maintains a complex array of philosophies and points of view, and makes sure that all of them get about as fair a shake as it can. This means, if you're me, then certain characters are going to confidently assert some really annoying pro-death claims and even conspire to kill uploaded loved ones for transparently bad reasons. If you're not me, you'll find someone just as annoying from another direction, I'm sure of it. Everybody has an ally in this show, and everybody has an enemy, and every point of view both causes and solves critical problems for the world.

For example, the thing simply does not decide whether an uploaded person is 'the same as' the original or a copy without the original essence; when one man is uploaded, his daughter continues thinking of him as her dad, and his wife declares herself widowed, and both choices are given gravitas and dignity. He, himself, isn't sure.

This isn't something you see in fiction hardly at all- the last time I can think of was Terra Ignota, though this show lacks that story's gem-cut perfection. It's that beautiful kind of art where almost nobody is evil, and almost everything is broken. And something a little bit magical happens when you do this, even imperfectly, because the resulting narrative doesn't live in any single one of their moral universes; it emerges from all of them, complexly and much weirder than a single simplistic point of view would have it. And they have to commit to the bit, because the importance of dialogue is the core, actual theme and moral center of this show.

The part of rationalism I've always been least comfortable with has been its monomania, the desire to sculpt one perfect system and then subject all of reality to it. This becomes doomerism very quickly; in short order, rationalists notice 'out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made', and then conclude that we're all very definitely going to die, once the singleton infinite-power system takes over, because it too will be flawed. (e.g. this joking-not-joking post by Big Yud.)

And don't get me wrong, I do take that concern seriously. I don't think I can conclusively, definitely convince myself that rationalism is wrong on this point, not to a degree of confidence that lets me ignore that risk. I don't at all begrudge the people devoting their entire professional lives to avoiding that outcome, even though I don't take it as given or even as particularly likely myself.

But it is precisely that monomania that is the central villain of this show, if it even has one. Breakdowns in dialogue, the assertion of unilateral control, conquering the world for its own good. The future, this show says, is multipolar, and we get there together or not at all.

That's a tremendously beautiful message, and a tremendously important one. I do wish it was more convincing.

The Power Fantasy works, quite hard, to build believably compassionate personalities into the fabric of its narrative. It doesn't take easy ways out, it doesn't give destroy-the-world levels of power to madmen or fools. Much like Pantheon, it gives voice to multiple, considered, and profoundly beautiful philosophies of life. Its protagonists have (sometimes quite serious) flaws, but only in the sense that some of the best among us have flaws; one of them is, more or less literally, an angel.

And that's why the slow, grinding story of slow, grinding doom is so effective and so powerful.

In a way that Pantheon does not, TPF reckons with the actual, specific analysis of escalation towards total destruction. Instead of elevating dialogue to the level of the sacred, it explores the actual limits and tendencies of that dialogue. It shows, again and again, how those good-faith negotiations are simply and tragically not quite good enough, with every new development dragging the world just an inch closer to the brink, making peace just a little bit more impossible. Those compassionate, wise superpowers are trapped in a nightmare that's slowly constricting around them, and they're compassionate and wise enough to know exactly what that means while remaining entirely unable to stop it.

It's most directly and obviously telling a story about the cold war, of course, not about artificial intelligence per se. The 'atomics' of TPF are just X-Men with the serial numbers filed off, and are therefore not constructed artifacts the way that uploaded and synthetic minds are; there's some nod to an 'superpowers arms race' in the AI sense of the term, but it's not a core theme. But these are still 'more than human' in important ways, with several of the characters qualifying directly as superintelligences in one way or another.

The story isn't complete (just getting started, really), so I don't want to speak too authoritatively about its theme or conclusions. But it's safe to say that the moral universe it lives in isn't a comfortable one. Echoing rationalists, the comic opens with an arresting line of dialogue: "The ethical thing to do, of course, would be to conquer the world."

In his excellent book Superintelligence, Nick Bostrom discusses multipolarity somewhat, and takes a rather dim view of it. He sees no hope for good outcomes that way, and argues that it will likely be extremely unstable. In other words, it has the ability to cloud the math, for a little while but it's ultimately just a transitional phase before we reach some kind of universal subordination to a single system.

The Power Fantasy describes such a situation, where six well-intentioned individuals are trying to share the world with one another, and shows beat-by-beat how they fail.

Pantheon cheats outrageously to make its optimism work- close relationships between just the right people, shackles on the superintelligences in just the right degree, lucky breaks at just the right time. It also has, I think, a rather more vague understanding of the principles at play (though it's delightfully faithful to the nerd culture in other ways; there's constant nods to Lain and Ghost in the Shell, including some genuinely funny sight gags, and I'm pretty sure one of the hacker characters is literally using the same brand of mouse as me).

TPF doesn't always show its work, lots of the story is told in fragments through flashbacks and nonlinear fragments. But what it shows, it shows precisely and without compromise or vagueness. It does what it can to stake you to the wall with iron spikes, no wiggle room, no flexibility.

But all the same, there's an odd problem, right? We survived the Cold War.

TPF would argue (I suspect) that we survived because the system collapsed to a singleton- the United States emerged as the sole superpower, with the Pax Americana reigning over the world undisputed for much of the last forty years. There were only two rivals, not six, and when one went, the game functionally ended.

In other words, to have a future, we need a Sovereign.

So let me go further back- the conspicuous tendency of biospheres to involve complex ecosystems with no 'dominant' organism. Sure, certain adaptations radiate quickly outward; sometimes killing and displacing much of what came before. But nature simply gives us no prior record of successful singletons emerging from competitive and dynamic environments, ever. Not even humans, not even if you count our collective species as one individual; we're making progress, but Malaria and other such diseases still prey on us, outside our control for now.

TPF would argue, I suspect, that there's a degree of power at which this stops being true- the power to annihilate the world outright, which has not yet been achieved but will be soon.

But that, I think, has not yet been shown to my satisfaction.

Obligate singleton outcomes are a far, far more novel claim than their proponents traditionally accept, and I think the burden of proof must be much higher than simply having a good argument for why it ought to be true. A model isn't enough; models are useful, not true. I'm hungry for evidence, and fictional evidence doesn't count.

It's an interesting problem, even with the consequences looming so profoundly across our collective horizon right now. TPF feels correct-as-in-precise, the way that economists and game theorists are precise. But economics and game theory are not inductive sciences; they are models, theories, arguments, deductions. They're not observations, and not to be trusted as empirical observations are trusted. Pantheon asserts again and again the power of dialogue and communication, trusts the multipolar world. And that's where my moral and analytical instincts lie too, at least to some degree. I concern myself with deep time, and deep time is endlessly, beautifully plural. But Pantheon doesn't have the rigor to back that up- this is hope, not deduction, and quite reckless in its way. Trying to implement dialectical approaches in anything like a formal system has led to colossal tragedy, again and again.

One narrative is ruthlessly rigorous and logically potent, but persistently unable to account for the real world as I've seen it. The other is vague, imprecise, overconfident, and utterly beautiful, and feels in a deep way like a continuation of the reality that I find all around me- but only feels. Both are challenging, in their way.

It's a bit scary, to be this uncertain about something this consequential. This is a question around which so much pivots- the answer to the Drake paradox, the nature of the world-to-come, the permanence of death. But I simply don't know.

[1moreff-creator]

Extra DRDT CH2 Episode 12 Thoughts

Heya! After making my last post where I just live-blogged my immediate reaction to the episode, I had a few more thoughts that I figured I should write down somewhere. They’re all too small for their own posts, but I still think they’re worth sharing.

Spoilers for CH2 EP12

CW: Murder, hanging, suicide.

The Water Thing

This episode brought up two interesting points which had rarely, if ever, been discussed within the fandom: Arei’s body swinging, and her body temperature and its connection to water. And while I’m relatively sure I saw one or two people mention the swinging at some point, the temperature issue is certainly a new one.

The swinging was explained in the trial: Arei’s body was hung shortly before it was found. But J says something interesting; the corpse should have been warm, unless it was drenched in water and dried. Paraphrasing a bit, but you get the point.

However, I actually don’t think this is a big deal, just adds a slight addendum to previous murder theories. We know the killer dumped the fish in the playground to confuse time of death, so I believe the killer likely splashed Arei with the water to cool her down. This is assuming they even thought about the body temperature, but I don’t think this is a large assumption to make.

I have seen people claim that Arei’s hair looks somewhat wet in the BDA, which… maybe? Anyways, this idea would explain that as well.

This might even give us Possible Explanation Number I Lost Count for the damn missing glove. Maybe it got particularly wet and the culprit worried it wouldn’t dry quickly enough? If people discovered a dripping wet bowling glove, the whole “using fish to confuse the time of death” thing would kinda go straight out the window. I have no idea if that makes any amount of sense, I don’t see why the glove would dry any slower than the rest of her clothes, but oh well.

Arturo’s Talent, and his Recap Foil: Levi

(Here’s the link to the original Recap Foil Theory post by gleamingtempest, in case you don’t know what I’m talking about).

Kinda forgot this was a thing when first watching the episode, but now looking back on it, there’s some neat foiling going on. Levi and Arturo’s backstory already were somewhat opposites in some aspects: Arturo got away from home himself while Levi was disowned, though Levi seems to hold a higher degree of respect for his family in comparison to Arturo. Levi is (now confirmed!) a murderer with no remorse, while Arturo accidentally caused Felicity’s death to some extent and clearly feels guilty about it. Etcetera.

Well, we can add a new detail to this foil! Arturo’s been training his talent since he was twelve, while Levi has admitted since introduction that he’s “a novice to fashion.” Neat detail, and certainly adds to this theory.

Terumin VS Xanvid

Thanks to Haru for pointing this out, but Teruko’s “I’ll fix my mistake” echoes Min’s “I’ll fix your mistake” from her Argument Armament. As I mentioned in the linked post, it’s cool that Teruko is taking a sort of Min-like attitude to her mistakes while calling Xander out, while David is taking Xander’s side in the same trial he calls Min pathetic. Foils and all that.

(Doomed Yuri V Doomed Yaoi, fight!)

This makes me hopeful that Min will still have some importance later. But I’m probably just coping.

What Was David Cooking?

I am kinda sick of talking about this man, frankly. I blame the almost three hour video I made on his MV. But oh well, he’ll stop being center focus soon enough. For now, His Deal is still one of the most central aspects of the episodes, so discuss him I will.

There are two big points of contention with what he said this trial. First, what does he remember about Xander? Second, what was he actually trying to do by pretending to be Arei’s murderer?

The first is pretty simple to assume, I think. David remembers whatever Xander did to become the Ultimate Rebel, and respects him as a result. Especially since Xander’s numeral I in LGI, the Footnote 14 code solved by y-prime, is “I have always looked up to you.”

I don’t think David has Hope’s Peak memories, despite his weird wording with “even if you all lost a year of memories.” He specifically says he and Xander had never met in his Prologue introduction, before they had any real reason to believe they’d lost memories. The LGI video also doesn’t add anything, because… well, it’s not a Milgram MV. It doesn’t come from his memories, it exists purely in meta. This is evident from the comments referencing Byakuya, Nagito and Kokichi, characters these people should have no knowledge of as Veronika claims not to remember anything like the DRDT killing game happening before; certain references to conversations and details David shouldn’t be aware of (mainly in numeral placement), etc.

(While I was writing that, the dev seemingly clarified that David does not have Hope’s Peak memories, then deleted the tweet, so. Just in case, there’s the full reasoning)

The second one is trickier. David is following Xander’s ideals, but that’s all we know. We don’t have a concrete idea of what Xander’s ideals really were, and it’s even harder to know what David thinks Xander’s ideals were.

David: I’m sure he had a good reason. I believe that he did. Xander is not the kind of person to do anything for frivolous purposes.

He believes Xander had a good reason for trying to kill Teruko, he says he’s sure of it, but he never implies to know exactly what the reason was. And if he doesn’t know the exact reason, he can’t for sure say what ideal Xander was upholding by doing what he did.

But, he knows what Xander was trying to do; kill everyone. Because if it was just Teruko, he wouldn’t have tried to mislead people with the CD thing. Although, Xander was following that one note that said to “kill Teruko Tawaki,” so it could potentially be targeted.

So, taking credit for Arei’s murder to try and kill everyone is because Xander tried to do something similar. But the deeper reason he gave, about the nature of the killing game, is it true?

(Apologies in advance for the particularly horrible collage. I am without a reliable computer atm)

David [Annoyed]: Ugh, fucking fine. You want an answer so badly? Any answer?

[Face covered] …

I…

[Sweating] Ah… We’re… in a television show, after all. That’s… what MonoTV said, right?

“Entertainment” is an ongoing show.

If Min successfully got away with the very first murder and escaped while we all died, isn’t that way less interesting for a TV show?

What’s the point of roping 14 other people into one murder, only to kill them all off immediately?

The killer is supposed to fail and get executed. We’re all supposed to catch the killer, again and again, and participate in trial after trail. You’re *supposed* to try to survive.

All of you, who are trying to slice these class trials to continue living on are playing straight into MonoTV’s hands.

[Confident] As if I’ll accept that.

I don’t care how low I’ll sink, or how despicable I’ll have to become. I’ll do anything to carry on Xander’s ideals by ending this killing game, even if it means that I have to dirty my hands.

Oh, this man is lying out his ass.

This is not an answer you hesitate over if it’s true. The words David is saying are neutral; the show is meant for entertainment, and it’s not entertaining if people die early. There’s no controversy there, no reason to be nervous. Especially since Eden’s already come to the same conclusion.

Veronika: You know, Eden once thought of an interesting plan to end the killing game. Based on everything we know, it could theoretically work.

[…]

To make a television show so boring they have no choice but to shut it down.

All we have to do is nothing.

You’re not supposed to be sweating when you’re effectively repeating something Eden said, even if under a different context.

First, David says he’ll give “any answer”, already making anything he says shady. Then, he seems to deliberate on what to say, which is already suspicious.

The most notable thing is that when he starts talking about the TV show, and what it means for it to be entertaining, he still hesitates. If his plan really was to make the TV show boring, once he decides to spill the beans, there’s nothing to hesitate about.

He only regains his confidence at the end, ironically when he’s saying the actually insane stuff. He finally finds the character he was trying to play and actually says something true; he wants to uphold Xander’s ideals and end the killing game. But I really don’t think it’s because he wants to make it boring.

In other words, he’s not lying about wanting to follow Xander and end the killing game, but his explanation about the entertainment has nothing to do with that. It’s way too simple of an explanation for the amount he hesitates. At least, that’s what I think, I may be wrong.

That brings us to the question; if he didn’t take the blame to make the game boring, why did he do it?

Well, currently and without too much confidence, I believe it has to do with Xander’s secondary goal; killing Teruko Tawaki.

One of the most well-accepted theories in the community is that David’s secret, “everything in your life is worth killing over [and] the killing game is all your fault,” isn’t Xander’s, but Teruko’s.

(In fact, side theory: I’m betting (on little evidence) that by the end of the trial, it will be David with his fanboy knowledge to point out that the “survivor’s guilt” secret that Min “received” was actually Xander’s, and reveal by process of elimination (since it’s likely going to be revealed in the trial that Hu has Veronika’s secret and Veronika has Hu’s, assuming those theories are true) that Min has the poison secret. It’s a bit of a wild prediction, but I think it’s a reasonable possibility to how the series would go about confirming the secrets of the dead)

That, combined with the fact that Xander followed a note that told him to kill Teruko, would certainly be enough for David to decide that Teruko’s gotta die. And killing everyone in the class trial is probably the best way to ensure that happens, since David probably doesn’t hunk attacking her directly is a good idea. If Xander, physically the strongest student in the cast, couldn’t get past Teruko’s luck, what the hell is David supposed to do? Especially now that she carries a knife, though I’m not sure David knows that.

It’s not even that out of nowhere; in the LGI video, Teruko’s numeral XIII appears next to a quote regarding the child of Omelas among other things. Very long story (skip to 1:22:22 in this video for the full explanation), but the child of Omelas is someone who must suffer so everyone else can live in a perfect world. It’s possible David thinks of Teruko, for one reason or another, as the Omelas child; she’s gotta die so everyone can be happy. She is someone “deeply unloved” after all.

Now, is this a stretch? Certainly. But I don’t think David’s telling the truth about his motivations, and I think this is one of the more likely options as to what exactly he was cooking here. I’m sure there’s better explanations out there, I just haven’t seen them :v

David VS Whit

I kinda skipped over the “Red Herring pun to David Freakout” line at first, but I think it’s pretty interesting that David gets so mad at Whit’s behavior. They are Recap Foils, so it makes sense they’d have strong emotions towards each other.

In particular, I’d like to point out how David gets mad at Whit for something similar to what he does as a motivational speaker.

I mentioned it in the previously mentioned section of my LGI analysis, but I believe part of the reason David hates Teruko is that he sees himself in her (pessimistic, thinks the world won’t change, etc), and this would be the other side of that. David constantly says things he doesn’t believe to make people happy, and he considers that to be pretty stupid, so it makes sense for him to get frustrated when seeing Whit doing something similar, trying to raise spirits by telling jokes. Looking at Whit is sorta like looking in a mirror, and David hates that. The mirror in LGI is labeled “reflection is due” for a reason.

I’m not fully sure this works 100%, but I think it’s at least worth considering.

Updates on Eden!Culprit Levi!Accomplice

In case you’re new here, here’s a link to my post detailing the Eden!Culprit Levi!Accomplice theory, which I came up with alongside some other theorists, and is what I currently believe the murder to be. My thoughts on possible character motivation and the such have shifted a bit since then, but the important part is the physical evidence. In particular, the combination of Lockdown Logic to determine Eden most likely took the tape from the gym and the Fish Timeline to determine someone else must have helped her get the fish, combined with the overly complicated murder method which I describe in detail, leads me to believe Eden is the blackened, and Levi helped her kill Arei.

I’m not going to talk about other theories, I’ll let the dedicated theorists perfect them with the new evidence in their own time. But, how does this theory change?

On the surface, uh, not much. We haven’t talked method much, after all.

(Side note, I know some people are bothered by how long that’s taking, and while I kinda get it, I’m not bothered by it. We’re in no rush; I prefer it if all the character conflict is addressed at some point, even if it delays talking about the actual method. Better than it going unaddressed, after all)

The only change is adding that they splashed Arei with water to hide her body temperature, but as discussed, that’s a minor change.

The big wrench thrown into this theory is the end, because… I’ll be honest, dear audience, I have no clue what Levi’s cooking here. Like, at all. Zero read on why he’s revealing his secret. I could try to speculate, but I can’t find any fully satisfactory answer even outside the Levi!Accomplice theory. Nothing makes sense to me, so I’ll just wait for the next episode before trying to read into it.

There is one unrelated thing I want to bring up, though, and it’s related to Levi’s possible motivation. I know this is one of the biggest sticking points in the theory (obviously), so I’d like to talk about it.

As a refresher: although alternate ideas have been offered, my current guess is that it has to do with his desire to be a good person, and the fact he considers Eden a good person. Cue the whole “A Good Person” hidden title behind “All That Glitters.”

Levi: Perhaps I messed up yesterday. But I want to move on. I want to keep trying to become ‘a good person,’ like you, Eden.

The idea goes like this. Levi thinks Eden is good, and so he wants to do good by her. Based on the secret quote in the code of his character page, we can tell he prefers to speak through actions. He’s a bold action man, and that can cause him to come off as heartless.

Levi: I always believed that a person is defined by their actions alone. But maybe that’s just a poor excuse for my heartlessness.

My personal theory (again, other Levi motives are possible) assumes that Levi believes someone will win the killing game eventually (and this is an assumption, I won’t deny it), and if only one persona can escape, he’d rather it be Eden than anyone else. Again, “good person.” Levi will die, sure, but unless he becomes a blackened himself, he’s going to die regardless whenever someone gets away with murder.

Now, this isn’t anything drastically different than what I said in the theory post, so why am I bringing it up?

Well, the thing is… Doing something horrible, throwing away your own life and those of most of your peers, all for the sake of the one you’ve deemed to be “a good person”…

Now where have I heard that before?

David: But doing “good” things requires sacrifice. Sometimes that sacrifice is being seen as a good person.

Even if doing something makes you hated, if that action is for a greater good, then it’s an action you have to take.

Xander is a good person. He’s the only good person I’ve ever known. I swear, I’ll follow in his footsteps and—

Huh. Funny how that works.

My point is that not only is “doing good by the only good person here” now a pre-established line of reasoning these characters can have, Levi doing such a thing for Eden would be a very interesting parallel to what David tried to do for Xander.

This isn’t evidence, to be clear. Just because one guy does it, doesn’t mean a completely unrelated dude is gonna do it too. But I’m calling it now as a potentially interesting parallel to explore, either in canon if I’m right or, like, an AU if I’m wrong :v

That said, I will point out that Hu’s capital G Girlboss Moment is directly after this, the one where she chews David out for deciding what’s best for all of them without consultation. And a little bit afterwards, Levi starts acting weird, apologizing for being useless, revealing his secret, etc. These two things could be connected, if Levi is, like, having second thoughts after that.

I could see a world where Levi’s trying to bring the conversation towards the right answer without fully committing to it, only for something or someone to somehow convince him back to accomplice-hood middway through it. I find that immensely unlikely, to be clear, but again, I genuinely have no idea what Levi’s trying to do right now, so.

All in all, a pretty neutral episode for this theory. Next one could completely break it, though, so I’m excited. I might have to come up with new theories! >:D

God I missed DRDT. And the only drawback of coming back is re-opening LGI trauma :D /silly

Anyways, thanks for reading! See you on the flipside!

[skyfallscotland]

Things I loved about Onyx Storm, in no particular order 🖤⚡️

This is an addendum to my overall review post—there’s also one about the things that I didn’t like here.

I do love ride or die riorgail, even if their characters didn't feel quite right to me (dare I say fanon-esque?). In any case, threatening people for the one they love? 10/10, would eat it up every time.

The dragons being every rider's first love? It won't be a surprise to you if you've read BRV but I adore this take so much.

She was the first to choose me, to elevate me above all others, the first to see every ugly side of me and accept it all, and every single person in this fucking canyon will die before they remove a single one of her scales.

Ok then!

And Violet?

“You see, that’s my little one.”

I'm crying!!

Tairn and Andarna? Like that's her father!!!

“Do not go any deeper than your claws!” Tairn lectures, his tail nearly taking out a tree when he pivots to watch her go. “I swear, if you get in over your head, I’ll let you drown.”

Their every interaction made me:

Except for this one, which had me tearing up!

Tairn cranes his neck forward and growls. “You will not raise your voice to her.” Andarna turns her head and narrows her eyes at Tairn. “Do not ruin this for me.” Hurt stabs through the bond and Tairn recoils, his head drawing back to cover Ridoc and me.

Then there's Sgaeyl—mother!!!

“You are an inconvenience for which there is no adequate measurement.”

She wasn't talking to Xaden all book (v upsetti spaghetti) but she still would defend him with her life because she's mum!!

“Tell her the truth. He loathes her,” Tairn suggests. “As does Sgaeyl. The life-giver is lucky she wasn’t scorched this morning, though I do believe Sgaeyl is still contemplating her options.”

Speaking of mothers, I both hated and loved the Hedotis chapters. I really enjoyed them, I thought they were fun, Violet channeled the twin she doesn't know she has (lol iykyk) which was in my opinion out of character for her (threatening someone's kids???) but despite the lack of character growth to get there, I still really enjoyed this sequence for all its emotional aspects.

“How does she”—he points to the door—“ deserve my ten minutes when she fed me chocolate cake on my tenth birthday and vanished later that night? I am the fulfillment of a contract for her. Nothing more. I don’t give a shit how she looks at me, or whatever bullshit she undoubtedly spewed at you. The only reason we’re in her house is because she’s married to one of the triumvirate, and I have no problem using that to get what we need.”

I don't know how chocolate cake is still his favourite food because that would ruin me. (It just did).

Violet's protectiveness in this sequence was everything though! 😭 Fuck you, Talia!

“What I need is for Xaden to be all right. If that means setting this house on fire and leaving without accomplishing anything else on this isle, then I’ll hand him a torch.”

Onto other characters, Ridoc is still hilarious and honestly his humour and one-liners saved my reading experience from being downright terrible, same with Cam—sorry CamLAEN! (lol)

Once again, I really thought she might kill Ridoc for a second there (this is very much a flipped Iron Flame re-write in some aspects lmao) but thankfully for everyone involved, she didn't.

"Violet was out of control. She kicked a queen’s ass and poisoned Xaden’s mom and all three Hedotic heads of state, but secured us an army.”

“Oh, and just so we’re clear, that strike up there wasn’t”—he gestures between us—“ you know. Us.” He flinches. “I mean, it was us because I pissed her off, but it wasn’t us… us, if you know what I’m saying.”

Confirmation everyone knows about the lightning storms.

The representation—as someone living through Australian summer, I really appreciated that POTS was represented more thoroughly in the hot climate of the Isles, though it was still never actually touched on (I think there could have been a line in there explaining why it was relevant/what was happening in her body and that she wasn't just tired) but still, happy to see it there and (don't take this the wrong way but) maybe to see Violet struggle more, just a little.

Then there's Dain.

Dain! My boy, my baby. He was 110% done with everyone and I'm so here for it. He was going through it!

“Was that a compliment? What the fuck is going on?” Dain asks, his gaze flying to mine. “Did you give him something?”

Dain puts both hands up, palms outward at his chest. “How in all that’s holy am I to blame for this?”

“Love wasting my time,” Dain mutters, then shoves the small booklet I recognize as the language compendium for Unnbriel into the chest pocket of his flight jacket.

Aaric sighs from beside Xaden, then proceeds to speak like he was freaking born here. Dain looks ready to murder him.

I also got my wish for him and Sloane, which was unexpected but appreciated! (I created tags for not one but TWO of the ships in this book and I am so stoked about it!). It also makes Rebecca's TS song choice of The Prophecy for him make a lot more sense.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Xaden calls up at Dain as he dismounts, but my focus firmly locks over Brennan’s shoulder. “Following her ass,” Dain replies.

“I don’t coddle first-years anymore, so train. Your. Signet.” “Asshole,” she whispers, and the flush in her cheeks deepens.

I love them, your honour. I would read whole books about them.

Speaking of—

“What the fuck are we going to do with that thing for the rest of the trip?” “Her name is Broccoli, not that,” he mutters.

These two (three?) are iconic and I want more of them. I want Mira recovering from her injuries and Drake coming to check on her and dumping a kitten on her chest, and Mira pretending she doesn't like Broccoli but secretly finding her comforting and letting her stay (and him, too, because it's love).

Professor Riorson. God this was ridiculous and I hated it, but it made me laugh.

The normally sweet drink tastes bitter in my throat.

Absolutely fan service but I'm positive it made us all groan aloud at the same time, which was amusing.

“Agreed,” Ridoc says. “And it’s always the same fight.” He lifts his hand to his chest. “I’ll trust you if you stop keeping secrets!” He drops the hand and scowls. “It’s my secretive nature that attracted you, and why can’t you just stay out of harm’s way for five fucking minutes?”

“You could hyphenate,” Garrick suggests. “Or combine? Riorgail? Sorrenson?”

Also, fan service, which, did I like it? No, but I laughed at (because otherwise I'd cry so).

And then there were lines like this, that made me absolutely tear up and hit me in the feels:

But something is broken between here”—he taps the side of his head—“ and here”—he repeats the motion above his heart. “And I can’t control it.

He cups the back of my neck and pulls me within inches of his face—close enough to kiss. “I could reach the rank of Maven, lead armies of dark wielders against everyone we care for, and watch every vein in my body turn red as I channel all the power in the Continent, and I would still love you. What I did doesn’t change that. I’m not sure anything can.”

So yeah, even if my overall experience was messy and chaotic, and perhaps not the best it could be, I did still love parts of it and find some of it enjoyable. I'm trying to change my mindset for a re-read, but I think it's best if I have some space before I try again.

In the meantime, what was your favourite thing? 🖤

[sunderingstars]

simulated universe addendum: ace trash digger

— i can’t believe i came across this occurrence literally the day after i posted my simulated universe analysis (talk about timing), so here’s me yapping about it!

— written during 2.6

— word count: short, list format

not only is this occurrence in every single simulated universe update (wow!) but it seems to be a more belobog-connected piece of potential sampo material!

— “he” pronouns. matches with sampo koski as we know him.

— he’s carrying a trashcan and the name of the occurence is “ace trash digger.” this is a pretty easy link to belobog since that’s the planet that has the most trashcan-related shenanigans. also, since he’s carrying it i can almost see the trashcan as symbolic of belobog itself — i.e. sampo and his little garbage planet he cares about and likes to carry around.

— “treasured trashcan.” once again, i can pretty easily see the trashcan as belobog, so the occurrence might actually be referencing sampo and his “treasured jarilo-vi.”

— he has a collection of “pitiful love poems.” this could connect to sampo’s theme of love, particularly broken hearts, as seen in things like his e4 and heart-bomb burst. these love poems may be written to aha as part of some lingering attachment, or may also be written towards belobog itself since he seems to care about the place so much.

— “put your waste in it, and the items will evolve into an advanced awareness, then come running out energetically on their own!” if the trashcan is symbolic of belobog and the person is supposed to be sampo, i would take a doll theory reading on this. with how much doll theory relies on the “betrayal” of a creator towards its creation, i almost see this as meta commentary on how aha may have betrayed or “discarded” sampo.

— it makes sense, after all, that aha would get bored with their creations quite easily (at least given the whole worm debacle), and what else to do than to discard it? it may be that sampo was not always like this, but evolved to become more “aware” after being abandoned on jarilo-vi, which aha may have seen as just some backwater junkyard snow planet.

— (honestly, the idea of jarilo-vi being seen as a cosmic junkyard is so funny to me. like, aha basically did the equivalent of driving their pickup truck to the scrap heap at the edge of town and tossing everything in. very mundane to them, totally traumatizing to sampo.)

— from there, i would interpret this occurrence as saying sampo slowly rejoined the wider universe — i.e. “running out energetically” on his own. this likely included becoming part of the masked fools or trying to re-contact aha. (alternatively, this could be what is going on currently in canon, with belobog and, by extension, sampo, becoming more present on the galactic stage.) this may have actually surprised the aeon themself (if they even cared anymore), as it would essentially be the equivalent of throwing out a stuffed animal halfway across town, only for it to get up, walk, and find its way back to your house weeks later talking like “why have you forsaken me, father?”. this may even be how sampo became an emanator — aha may have found the whole situation so hilarious they decided to promote sampo on the spot.

— overall, if the trashcan is meant to be belobog and sampo is meant to be the waste (like “hazardous waste” in the friendship is magic event), then this occurrence may be hinting at sampo’s backstory of being discarded by aha on jarilo-vi.

— hunt option (swarm disaster). mean, why are we being so mean?! i would never steal from sampo, i’m simply built different.

— remembrance option (swarm disaster). “you recall the past lives of these discarded objects” implies a sort of sentience and agency. even though the objects may not be at “advanced awareness” yet, they clearly still have past experiences and lives. comparatively, i would say this may mean that sampo, although only recently evolving into a unique kind of sentience, has always been “alive.” for me, i see this as gaining personhood, or perhaps new perspectives on life. he may have started as a toy with no real agency of his own, but he’s been able to find some sort of autonomy for himself on belobog, even being able to reach beyond the love and find the “hate” for a creator who treated him cruelly.

— erudition option (gold and gears). erudition once again! man, erudition and elation love going hand-in-hand. “even trash has its unique ‘value’” seems to send a deeper, general message. not only is it the erudition doing what the erudition tends to do when confronted with something new — find its value, either through experimentation or dismantling — but it communicates the idea that even though something may be seen as worthless or forgotten, it still holds purpose. even though sampo may be seen in the eyes of his creator as a “discarded doll,” he still has value. he’s still a person. he still has his own hopes, thoughts, and dreams. although the erudition likely means this phrase in a more troublesome “let’s take him apart to see what he’s made of” way, a nice message can still be gleaned.

— normal option. as with all other options, there’s a big theme of “transaction,” or exchanging items for more. i don’t have a lot to say about it, other than it fits right in with sampo’s con-man trade and propensity for bargaining.

— i found it a bit surprising at first that there was no elation option, given how that would’ve been a more solid link to sampo, but perhaps there isn’t supposed to be. perhaps, aha stuffed toy having an elation option is meant to be symbolic of a time aha cared enough to turn their gaze of sampo, but here the occurrence is dealing with the period of and after his abandonment. in this case, there may be no elation option because aha quite simply does not care enough for there to be one. he’s all alone. sad :((

overall, i can’t believe this one almost slipped under my nose while doing my simulated universe analysis! the irony is not lost on me that i almost passed over it in a similar way to others in-universe; i guess the “cosmic junkyard” planet really did its job !! i think this has some nice little tidbits for the potential timeline of doll theory, and gives some insight into what sampo’s “betrayal” might have been! (also, of course aha would do something like this. of course lol)

thanks for reading!

© analysis by sunderingstars. do not copy, repost, translate, modify, or claim my work as your own.

[syndrossi]

I always feel a weird kinship with Baelon, on account of having dealt with appendicitis myself a few years back, which hit right around the second "age bump" where it's common (when nearing one's thirties).

I remember being at work, and having a growing pain/discomfort in my stomach. I felt off enough that I opted to take the rest of the day off. I took the subway home, then laid down for a nap, hoping it would make me feel better.

It didn't. I woke up in worse pain, with a fever and chills. It was bad enough that I, a person who generally prefers suffering rather than drag myself to a doctor, called my roommate, who kindly took a lunch hour off work to join me back at the apartment. We found an urgent care that was nearby, made an appointment, and walked there, only to find that it didn't have a physical location (it was just a placeholder office), it was one of the virtual urgent cares where you have a video conference.

So we trekked back to the apartment. My roommate had to go back in to work, and I took the virtual call. The doctor thought it sounded like it could be appendicitis or an ovarian cyst, which present similar symptoms, or possibly just a bad stomach bug, but advised seeking a physical urgent care.

At this point, I was feeling absolutely wrecked. I remember lying down on the floor, dizzy and feverish, calling my parents, trying to decide what to do. The funny thing is, they're usually the first to urge caution, but they thought it might be worth waiting a few hours, offering to drive over (they lived 300 miles away) and help me.

But I just knew that something was really wrong. I couldn't walk to take the subway, I was too weak, and because I live in lolmerica, I was terrified of incurring ambulance costs, so I called an uber. I could barely make it down the long hall to the elevator and out to the curb. I kept having to hold onto the wall, so light-headed I was worried I'd pass out.

They drove me to the hospital I'd punched into the app, and I dragged myself to the desk, and from there things went about as you'd expect, aside from the incident where they put a fluid IV in wrong and my arm started slowly inflating with the fluid instead. 😱

They weren't able to get me into operation until later that evening, and apparently I had been hours away from it bursting, which makes recovery a lot harder.

I just remember thinking afterward that if I had lived in anywhere other than the modern era, I just...would have died. I would have been dead before thirty, and it would have been recorded as some fever, or the "burst belly" that Baelon's death was ruled as. It's such a strange feeling.

Anyway, that's my unasked-for story of why I have such a soft spot for Baelon and why I really wanted him to live in at least one of my AUs. Because I too would have died, had I been in his place.

Addendum: Even though I had quite good insurance, I still owed about $1,500 out of pocket for that life-saving operation.

Addendum 2: Laparoscopic surgery is amazing. I spoke at a conference a week after my surgery. Granted, I was sore and weak and paid for it, but I was able to do it!

Addendum 3: Since ovarian cysts and appendicitis present so similarly, they checked me for both, meaning I have two scars, not just one!

[positivelybeastly]

Goats Gremlin Gibber-Jabber part 2:

Oh we’re so back baby

Ahem ahem. First thing on the itinerary: Welcome back! Missed youuuu <3

Second thing:

HANK PUT EMMA BACK TOGETHER WHEN SHE WAS SHATTERED????

Hi in this session of my gibberish thoughts, my friend and I with our blogs made hank and Emma a thing, and there was something about them that made us so ill for them together. Granted my hank isn’t exclusive, but something with Emma clicked. And then. AND THEN

The fucking shattering of Emma, Hank discovering it after he had planned to try and cheer her up?

And then him DEDICATING himself to put her back together. And like like he got so far???

HE GOT CRAZY FAR BEFORE JEAN INTERVENED WITH THE PHEONIX.

I’ve been lost in the sauce from that moment on.

The fact that when someone said “Oh nobody liked her.” So everyone was a suspect, and he went “I liked her.” And then the fact he was convinced she couldn’t actually be dead, and then spent that time putting her back together even when the pieces were in the hundreds of THOUSANDS.

I’ve become ill from this (/pos) and I wanna hear your take on this section cause I just aaaagh.

Sincerely,

that weird fucking goat that keeps popping up and biting people.

Adding your addendum here so I can answer all in one go. :)

So, like . . . okay.

Hank and Emma's friendship is really special to me, and it all ties back to the way that Grant Morrison conceptualised Hank, when they came on to write New X-Men. It's worth noting that neither Hank, or Emma, were actually meant to be on the team when Morrison first pitched their story, they were originally going to be Colossus and Moira MacTaggert, but both had recently died. This is why Emma gets her diamond form secondary mutation - she's acting as the bruiser of the team in absence of Colossus.

So, how does Grant Morrison conceptualise Hank?

No dark secrets. Nothing to hide. The sweetest guy. The best heart.

These are the architects of modern X-Men, by the way. Morrison and Hickman. This is how they see Hank McCoy, and though they may have many flaws in their writing styles and their stories may fumble certain things, I think that they have an opinion worth noting. Their effect on modern X-Men is undeniable.

So, Emma and Hank meet, and they already have chemistry. They are both incredibly sharp, incredibly brilliant, incredibly witty, incredibly cultured individuals, and though they may (at this time) have very different moral compasses, it's very clear that there's a spark of friendship already, especially when you compare Hank's immediate sympathy to how Jean treats her literally a page later.

Something that's underrated about Morrison's Jean is that she's kind of not very nice a lot of the time, but you understand why. She's going through some shit in this series, and she has a very, very, very valid reason to hate Emma after Dark Phoenix, so her trying to reach out is what she thinks she should do, but calling her a bitch is what she wants to do, really - and Emma doesn't give a fuck. Or at the very least, she's very good at making it look like she doesn't give a fuck.

This is another aspect of why I think Hank and Emma have such good chemistry: they are both masters of control and appearance. They both spend so, so, so much time cultivating a specific image so that they can't be hurt - Hank obfuscates and hides behind big words, big concepts, big gestures, while Emma snarks and affects cool, sniping at anyone who might dare get close.

Like recognises like. I almost think it's a sort of game for them, to perform and poke at one another, knowing that they each know each other's secrets, but with an unspoken agreement that they won't go too far.

Emma jabs and pokes and prods, and Hank shuts her down in three sentences. If there were any malice or anger in this interaction, it wouldn't stop the way it does. There's no lingering animosity between them, there's no heat. It's two theatrical bitches in superhero clothes pretending that their personal lives aren't a mess by being extra bitchy at one another, and I think that they love that.

It's also worth noting that Hank, at this stage, is still an extremely moral presence, an unquestionable good guy (Threnody revisionism notwithstanding, don't at me, I've heard it before), and Emma is very much not. She's still the woman who was part of the Hellfire Club, who worked against the X-Men, who was part of Genosha, Magneto's regime - but Hank doesn't browbeat her with it. It only ever comes up when he's convinced that she's turned on them.

A moment of panic, but Emma doesn't take him to task for it - if anything, I like to think she might have actually been a bit grateful, because it made her plan seem all the more authentic, to have someone screaming that she can't do this. He then immediately apologises, and compliments her. It doesn't come up again. He judges her by her current actions, not by her past, and this is something that's very consistent with Hank, if you look at the wider tapestry of his life, because who else does he judge by his current actions and not his past?

Oh yeah. Hank forgives. Hank understands.

And I always find it interesting how he takes Scott and Emma's affair. He doesn't criticise Emma for it, but he does take Scott to task. Why? Well, it could be Morrison's take on who's responsible for the affair bleeding through, but I think it's more that Hank knows that Emma is still working on herself, still improving her behaviour, still in the process of becoming better, and he's willing to give her the space to do that, but Scott?

Scott, I think Hank believes has less of an excuse. But again, he doesn't make a thing of it until it comes to a boiling point. He warns Scott, and Scott doesn't listen. And when it's all said and done, Hank makes it clear that Scott and Emma's lives may be their own, but he has his own feelings on it, and he's capable of holding multiple emotional viewpoints at once.

Like, this is a lot of leeway and a lot of grace that Hank is affording Emma here, considering she was just as guilty of initiating the affair as Scott was, if not more so - but again. He expects better of Scott. He knows Scott knows right from wrong, and where his obligations lie, and he expects him to be faithful to his wife. Hank knows Emma is flirting, being very sexually open, but he knows that that is partly affectation, partly bait, partly exploration, and partly a fuck you aimed at Jean, who she just plain doesn't like. Harping on at her about it will not make her stop, and will only drive her not to trust Hank. And it becomes increasingly clear, as the series goes on, that Emma does trust and value Hank, quite a lot, actually.

Now, it's not like Emma needs an excuse to be cruel and to make a scene, but that's not really what this is, is it? Look at the order in which she addresses the journalist. She's offended - "I beg your pardon!" - but what at? "This man is a world-renowned scientist!"

She doesn't take offence to the idea that people hate mutants because trouble follows them where they go. She takes offence to her being insulting to Hank specifically. She elevates Hank, and degrades her opponent. This is not something Emma does often, she usually just skips to the degradation! Hank doesn't even expect it! Look at the little lines around his head in the panel with Emma blown up large in the psychic landscape! He was absolutely going to let that comment go by, and not make a thing of it, and Emma chose to make the moment about standing up for him, and he did not expect it.

But he values it, nonetheless. And he puts his paw on her, and thanks her.

Reminder, this is how she reacted to another man putting his hands on her just a few issues before.

Now, granted, we don't see where Logan's hand is, but the man's generally a gentleman, despite his reputation, so I think she just doesn't like to be touched . . . generally. But she doesn't mind it when Hank touches her, and thanks her for standing up for him. Something which she does not do for many people. Reminder, this is how she reacts to Jean having a straight up psychic fit in front of her.

Like, there's a degree to which this is bravado and humour, because Emma is tending to Jean here, but I guarantee you that this is not how she would have acted if Hank had been the one to fall in distress.

And going back to the panels where Logan is helping her up - I don't know if it's just me, but there's something very purposeful in the fact that Emma and Hank are both on the right hand side of the page, with Emma engaging her diamond form so that she doesn't have to feel, denying her own compassion, while Hank stands in shadow, looking mournful, defeated, quietly furious, unable to do anything but feel his compassion.

Perhaps that's something that Emma admires in Hank. The fact that he has no dark secrets, that he does, in at least some ways, wear his heart on his sleeve; that he has no choice but to feel. He is a good man. And it's easy to forget, in a world where cynical media and cynical people surround us, but there is something charismatic and likeable and warm about good people. Even if you might consider them foolish, people who fail to be good often envy those who try, even though they might face insurmountable odds.

Hank's refusal to accept that the world has to be a place of cruelty and disbelief and skepticism and fear has a way of rankling the cynics around him. It's one of my favourite things about him.

It has a way of paying off.

How often does Emma Frost listen to someone again . . ?

And then . . . yeah. We come to the assembly.

"Fuck you, I liked her."

She listened. She laughed. She spoke Byron back to him. Do you ever think about just how often Hank gets that? Fucking never, I bet!! It must just be so refreshing to quote, and for the other person to know.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Of course it's a romantic poet. Of course it's Byron.

And then, the assembly . . . ouuuuuuaghhh . . .

Like, people love for their characters to have feats, right? People love that Storm was the Regent of Arakko, and faced down the Horsemen. People love that Cyclops put the Void in a little box in his mind and told it no. People love that Jean chased down Enigma all the way through space and time and destroyed him. People love it when all the things that epitomise a character come together in a moment that speaks to the truth of them - their strength, their control, their refusal to give up. It's not just about power, it's about what that moment says about their personality, right?

What's Hank's?

It's putting together a 11,100,277 piece puzzle of a human body. Not with textbooks and screens around him, but by memory - and why? He says it's because he always loved jigsaw puzzles as a child, but that's not the real reason, is it? It's because it's important to him that she be complete, that she be afforded respect. It's important to him that someone showed that they cared.

It's because he thinks that there's a chance.

It's hope. It's sheer, bloody minded hope. 11 million pieces. It's insane. And yet. He did it, and it worked, and she was whole again.

Roses and wine and a good book and a baritone rendition of Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice . . . oh, Hank. He even calls himself la bete, the Beast - a codename we know he doesn't really care for all that much, especially in light of his recent mutation - just so that he can affect playfulness and brightness and infectious good mood.

He really cared for her. And she really cared for him.

I seriously miss this dynamic. It was really very beautiful.

And thank you for the welcome back! It's good to be back!

[educating-bimbos]

The Pinned Post 2

new pinned post because tumblr hid my old one from my view so I can't see, edit it, or reblog it to add an addendum. I only have a few things to add, so I am just going to copy and paste it.

Who is Educating Bimbos?

My name is Nicolette. I am a technical artist, musician, and an outdoorsy type of gal. I enjoy the finer things in life, and I fancy myself a traditional woman and a bimbo. I don't really enjoy mindlessly obsessing over labels, but if it helps people gauge where my brain is at, I am pro-patriarchy, in favor of traditional gender roles and dynamics, an ex-feminist, and before all else a believer in one's ability to exercise personal freedoms. My beliefs, mannerisms, and presentation attract the ire of feminists, born-again-religious types, and any number of anti-fun douchebags. At the end of the day, just remember that behind this silly blog is a silly person.

What is Educating Bimbos?

It is a blog and small community of bimbos looking to learn more about and express a traditional lifestyle. It is also about people who may not be familiar with or comfortable around things like BDSM get a nice and soft introduction to it without being exposed immediately to the idea of how people can enjoy things in a pseudo-sexual context. At the end of the day, it is a blog and community where I and other like-minded people can express silly ideas without the fear of being lambasted by people seeking to harm others.

Where is Educating Bimbos?

Educating Bimbos can be found in one of these two places.

Why is Educating Bimbos?

Well for a while I was annoyed by the lack of communities that focused on a kind of "hyper-feminine" aesthetic while also promoting more traditional ideas. There was also the issue of communities that have tried this before of devolving into bigoted and abusive communities that would do everything under the sun to create an insular and ToS breaking community. I spoke with a friend of mine who runs a similar community a while ago and she inspired me to give this a shot. Now - close to 3 years later - I have a steadily growing community that pulls from all corners of ideology, cultural, ethnic, and interest level and the discord has been almost completely drama-free in its whole existence.

When is Educating Bimbos?

I am alive and doing silly stuff all day, every day. Except when it is nap time in which case I will be in the realm of dreams.

What's an ex-lesbian and why do you call yourself that?

For a number of very personal reasons, I have decided to call myself an ex-lesbian. I did this of my own volition, and I was not pressured into doing so. For a long time, I had thought of myself as a lesbian, mostly because of socialization and how all the girls around me were so might as well follow suit. I experienced a number of harmful and traumatic events when I considered myself a lesbian and it effected how I view myself. After a while and talking to some friends who I trust dearly, I came to the realization that I am not a lesbian and that it really isn't a thing I identify with the same way others do. I am still trying to come to grips with that given I only relatively recently had that realization. I also feel that people use that term in bad faith to harm people and to push bad narratives and ideas so I thought "hey might as well try and take back what should be an innocuous phrase."

In short, I think an ex-lesbian is just a way of identifying one's sexuality similar to asexuality or demisexuality. It is not that I am one sexuality or another, it's that my sexuality is defined by my experience and coming of age.

I have had a number of people confront me about this, talk to me about it in sincere curiosity, and even attack me. I welcome anyone who is curious or has a genuine contention to come to me in DMs, I am not a mean person, and I will love to talk honestly and respectfully. I find that disagreement is not grounds to discredit or avoid befriending people, I hope you can do the same.

Further questions for Educating Bimbos?

If you find that these questions are unsatisfactory in any regard, or you wish to try your hand at doing what I do, follow these two links!

Ask me anything!

Ask me anything you want! I have some personal rules with regards to what I can and cannot upload, but this is generally the best way for me to answer any question you may have. I also have anonymous asks enabled just in case you are shy.

Submit a post!

If you think I should be made aware of something, post something, or if you just want to signal boost something try this. So far, I have no real rules or expectations so do whatever you want with this button.

[endless-bunny]

Pathfinder Iconics Update: Player Core 2

The Pathfinder 2nd edition remaster took the content from the 2019 Core Rulebook, and the 2020 Gamemastery Guide and Advanced Player's Guide, revised and redistributed their content across three new books: Player Core and GM Core (both 2023) and Player Core 2 (2024). While most of the content from the legacy books found its way into the remaster, a lot of the art in the Advanced Player's Guide was redone for Player Core 2, and some of that art is of Iconic characters.

I don't know if there was a licensing issue, or a contract expired or something, but a lot of this artwork came from the same artist: Victor Manuel Leza Moreno. Interestingly, this artist is still credited for some art in Player Core 2 so there must have been some issue with this art specifically.

Alahazra, Iconic Oracle

Alahazra was the iconic Oracle in PF1, replaced by the tengu Korakai in 2nd edition, but she's still here as a quick-build for Oracle, the Flame Augur. Described as "bride of the sun and prophet of the burning sands", Alahazra pretty cleanly represents one of the differences between Oracles in PF1 and 2. In PF2, the Oracle's Mystery and Curse are connected, so an oracle with the Flames mystery will always have the Curse of Engulfing Flames. In PF1, however, the two are separate. An oracle of the flames mystery could be blind, or she could be followed by fey who constantly play pranks on her. The curse is not linked in any way to the mystery, but it might give some plot hooks for the GM if the oracle wants to explore the source of her powers.

Notice how Alahazra's staff and headdress get more elaborate in Moreno's artwork before going back to a simpler design. I wonder if this is part of the reason some of Moreno's art was replaced, it was to do with characters being "off-model". Some of his other illustrations have details that are different from the PF1 designs, and which are then restored by later artists.

Alain, Iconic Cavalier

Alain and Donahan get a more dynamic pose, with the banner no longer being cut off by the edge of the page. The Moreno art looks kind of weird, with how Donahan has two front hooves up, but Alain looks kind of relaxed. I'm not sure what the line of action is supposed to be, if Donahan is about to rear or charge forward then Alain would be thrown backwards. The Remaster art looks a lot more... stable (no pun intended).

Donahan doesn't actually appear in any of the rulebooks in PF1, so PF2 already has two points in that regard. He does appear on some book covers, for Knights of Golarion and War of the Crown: The Twilight Child. Donahan's barding is more elaborate in the PF2 Advanced Player's Guide than it was in the few illustrations that exist of him from PF1, so like with Alahazra I wonder if that's why we got new Cavalier art for the remaster.

The Red Raven, Iconic Vigilante

My boy has been redeemed! No shade on Moreno but like

come on!

You have to admit that the Red Raven art they did was so bad.

The new Vigilante in Player Core 2 brings back the colour, the detail on the daggers, and the specific styling of the cape. Definite improvement. The one thing I think Moreno had was the sort of skulky pose, but even then the Red Raven (despite being trained in Stealth) was always a bit more flamboyant. I can't find any illustrations of Aric in PF2 books, but perhaps I'm just not looking hard enough. Like I mentioned here, the Vigilante is a wordy archetype, so even though it has a double-page spread, having two illustrations would be really pushing it.

One more little addendum regarding the Red Raven: here's his first appearance, as seen in Pathfinder Module W3: Flight of the Red Raven. That is a module from back when Pathfinder was not its own roleplaying game, but a product line for Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. A lot of the Iconics were presented as pregenerated characters for such modules, but the Red Raven is unique, in that he was first introduced as an NPC. Since the Vigilante class was an invention of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game that didn't appear until Ultimate Intrigue, the Red Raven is a rogue in his debut module, which seems like the most appropriate of 3.5's core classes.

Flight of the Red Raven came out in 2008, and Ultimate Intrigue in 2016, which marks the longest gap between a character being introduced and becoming an Iconic.

And the rest!

So here are illustrations from Player Core 2 that have been re-done, but aren't iconics. Not gonna have loads to say on these because there's lots of them and they're also not characters in the same way.

Chemist

The Chemist is one of three Quick Build alchemists in Core Rulebook (legacy) and Player Core 2 (remaster). I really wish we could split the difference here. There's lots of continuity between the two, but they're clearly not the same character. I prefer the detail on the outfit for the remaster Chemist, although the addition of bombs on her bandolier and at her waist makes her look more like a generalist than a specialist. The first one is just so much more colourful though.

Blessed One

Tough call here. It's not a competition and honestly I can't pick a favourite. I really love both of these. The pose and effect of the magic on the legacy art is amazing. The remaster art has a lot of motion and she's just so pretty.

Eldritch Archer

Lots of changes here. While the legacy eldritch archer (the design at least) was brought over from PF1, the remaster archer takes things in a bit of a different direction. I like the new outfit, and the addition of moth motifs.

Pirate

Another tough call. I will say, the artist who drew the legacy pirate (who might be Moreno, but I'm not sure) has a shading style that I really don't like. But I do like the design, a cocky tengu in a fabulous hat. The remaster pirate feels almost like a fusion of Lirianne and Jirelle, but with fewer accoutrements.

Snarecrafter

We've still got a kobold, although I like the addition of the central horn and triple tail tip to differentiate the remaster snarecrafter from other 'bolds. The lighting is really interesting on the remaster art actually, now that I look at it. It's like a low source, almost behind the subject. It's quite a striking effect.

I will say though, I dunno what snare you craft with a bucket of caltrops.

I feel like the pointèd sticks that the legacy crafter is working with would be more effective, plus I also think it shows off the sort of improvised nature of the snarecrafter's kit better than the shop-bought ingredients of the remaster bold.

Talisman Dabbler

Two more strong contenders. The patchwork style of the legacy dabbler is neat, I feel like they've got lots of improvised bits and pieces. Like with the snarecrafter, the remaster dabbler doesn't really sell the idea that these are items the dabbler made that morning. I also enjoy that the legacy dabbler is in the process of dabbling, whereas the remaster dabbler is just an iruxi with lots of adornments.

Tough call.

Viking

Fairly sure this one (legacy) is a Moreno. The wild hair and sense of motion are really good, but there's something about the face that is unsettling, and not in the way I think the artist intended. I think they're also obviously a viking berserker rather than a standard viking. The remaster viking has a shield, and a bearded axe (and a cool coat) which are more iconic symbols of vikingdom.

[Part 1: Classes with Different Iconics] [Part 2: Core Classes] [Part 3: The Remaining PF2 Classes] [Part 4: Classes Who Got Demoted] [Part 5: Prestige Classes] [Part 6: Who's left?] [Update: Rivani and Linxia] [Update: Lirianne]

Divider from Saradika-graphics

[moongothic]

You know, S-Crocodile has the potential to be an interesting addendum for Crocodad bc Crocodile just learned that his son is alive, and then two years after that, boom: clone Lunarian baby (who's also technically kinda sorta Luffy's half-brother?). The thing is, even if Crocodile bridges the gap between him and Luffy, Luffy's not the baby boy that Crocodile lost so long ago. He can take care of himself, has an entire crew to lead, and they may not see each other except for rare occasions. Crocodile didn't get to raise Luffy and will never get that time back. But S-Crocodile is a still a child who will likely have zero clue what to do without the programming and, since baby crocodiles are famous for loudly calling out for their mothers, may be desperate for a parental figure.

S-Crocodile is not a replacement for Luffy by any means, but more like a second kid had later in life who Crocodile was never expecting but who gives him the chance to parent in a way that he couldn't before.

See this is a much sweeter idea than me being like "what if Crocodile dies without getting to really experience being loved by his family/a community and have people care about him and so instead Luffy/other people end up projecting those feelings onto S-Croc and make sure he gets the love and community Crocodile never got to have"

Everytime I think about the lost time Crocodad implies I just die a little inside. Like Dragon might not have gotten to be with his son either, but at least he got to spy on Luffy on occassion, at least he got to check on him from afar and see him, know how he was doing, at least he knew Luffy's name. Crocodile didn't get any of that, and never will. Like you said, that time has been lost, and this hourglass can't be turned back and reset.

What is interesting though is that the Seraphim are supposed to have the personality traits of the OGs. Crocodile is quite independent, so I feel like S-Croc should be (or at least want to be, so he can appear strong etc) independent too, right? So S-Croc might want to be kind of a lone wolf, even if deep down he was sad due to his loneliness?

What's more though is that indeed, we don't know if S-Croc is pre-T or male (since he was made from post-T Croc DNA, and we don't know if Iva-chan's HRT affects DNA/those changes applied to the Seraphim). 'Cause if S-Croc is pre-T, Crocodile should know and understand how dysphoria is gonna hit S-Croc as he gets older (which is gonna be soon, since the Seraphim age faster). And like. I could see Crocodile just feeling bad for his Mini-Me because of that. I could imagine Crocodile just dragging S-Croc to Iva-chan (if there's an opportunity for it) and get that clone some T, spare him from going through the wrong puberty etc.

Point is, I feel like if Crocodile did somehow end up taking care of his Mini-Me, it might not be because S-Croc expressed a need for it. But it might be because Crocodile would be forced to reflect on his own feelings, knowing and understanding full-well how S-Croc would feel (be it about gender or loneliness), and just. Let the Dad Instincts take over, regardless of if the Seraphim likes it or not?

[queen-scribbles]

"You definitely needed the sleep." Would be the PERFECT Shenko prompt :3

You are correct! Have some Emily/Kaidan fluff. ^^ ---

Emily woke with a heartbeat in her ear.

She lay still, face down, warm and cozy, as she pieced together where she was and whose heartbeat she was hearing. On the couch, in the living room, to the first. Kaidan's, of course, to the second.

She was laying with her head on his chest, their legs tangled together and his arm loosely draped over the small of her back. One of her hands had dropped to brush against the rug, and she could feel the warmth of Mo nearby even if the dog wasn't touching her.

The vid. It hit like thunder and Emily muttered in annoyance at herself as she jerked fully awake.

Kaidan was watching her. "Hey, sleepyhead."

"Sorry," she mumbled, letting her head fall back against his sternum.

"Hey you don't need to apologize." He kissed the top of her head.

"We've been tryin' to watch this for weeks and I drift off the first real chance we get?" Emily tipped her head, resting her chin on his chest so she could meet his eye. "Seems like it might be warranted, Kay."

Kaidan chuckled. "Nah, if you were tired enough to go out that fast, you definitely needed the sleep." He rubbed her back. "Were the girls that much of a handful this morning?"

"Not in a bad way," she said with a sigh. "But they're always excited about going to stay with Meema and Papa-Tom. And no one who warned me about three year old energy levels included the addendum that it compounds rather'n just adding or multiplying when you have more than one who are equally excited."

"Infinity times infinity?" he asked with a sympathetic smile.

"Mm. I love 'em with all of my heart, but those two can be more exhausting that N7 training some days." She grinned. "Best of luck to your parents, along with my heartfelt gratitude."

"You know they love it, Em."

"Mm-hm. And I love the chance to relax." She smiled sheepishly. "Even if I relaxed too far and missed the vid."

"Seriously, don't worry about that, we can try again later if watching it means that much to you." Kaidan's eyes glinted mischievously. "Far as I'm concerned, there's much worse ways to spend a couple hours than watching my wife sleep."

Her face heated. "Hours?! Babe, why didn't you move? You know I sleep like the dead."

"First of all, who says this isn't right where I wanna be?" He arched a brow and shifted to settle even more into the couch cushions. "Second, you've done the same for me through more migraines than I can count. Third," he rolled on when she opened her mouth, "I did think about it, but I drifted off, too." His dimple showed when he smiled. "I guess we both needed the sleep."

Mollified by the fact he hadn't been awake and trapped the whole time, Emily stretched up to kiss him. "I think I could stay awake through the vid now, if you wanna try again?"

Kaidan laughed softly. "You sure, sweetheart?"

"Mm-hm." She nuzzled in against his chest. "Or we could just snuggle some more."

"Ooh, I like that plan."

I knew you were a smart man. "Good, me, too."

The vid would keep.

[snootlestheangel]

Here's Some Next Steps

Yeah I am officially struggling to write/make anything COD related.

I am stepping back to my good ole days of Overwatch brainrot. This blog itself will probably still have COD content that I reblog, and because of this, all of my Overwatch stuff will be on my blog: @snootlesow

I will be far more active with that blog so I encourage y'all to check it out if you want in on this chaos

Here's a few things I'm going to do with that:

1st: Ranking the Overwatch Animated Shorts

2nd: Discussing the World Of Overwatch

3rd: Overwatch's Cast of Characters

4th: Start Writing

The first is pretty self explanatory, I will be doing a series where I rate/talk about each Overwatch animated short (excluding character Origin Stories). I will provide a link to the individual video so y'all can view them without going on crazy manhunts for them

This step is a broad look at the world lore of Overwatch. This is basically a big history lesson that will establish the current standing of the Overwatch world. Many of the things discussed here will mention different characters, but many of the more intense details about them will be discussed in step three. This serves to introduce those unfamiliar with Overwatch to the game/its worldbuilding/lore. Will be cross-posted to ao3 for easier reading (I might also do a reading of it if I can figure out how to make nice visuals for y'all with the voiceover and that will probably be uploaded to YouTube cause I am very passionate about the lore of Overwatch but I would like y'all to be able to follow along with visuals but I can think about this later).

The third is a project designed to introduce the characters to those unfamiliar. Each part will provide visuals, personality traits, more detailed lore, and in-game audios. Lore between some characters does overlap, so it can get repetitive at times. I can also be convinced to provide my favorite skins as like a side series of this if there's any interest. Once again, if I can figure out how to make entire videos, I would absolutely do video forms of these as well.

And then finally, with all of this, I would like to write something. I have a current fic in mind, it would be titled "What It Could Be" and would basically be a continuation/addendum to the current canon (or depending on how you look at it with the state of the game/it's story it can be a fix-it fic and who doesn't love those?). But I might also write incorrect quotes, little snippets of things, and just a bunch of other stuff.

Anyways, I think this will help me creatively, to step away from COD and move back to Overwatch (mix things up, ya know?). I absolutely do still love COD but with how last year went and how that was my fixation I just need a change. I had a really good time with life in general during my Overwatch days, so I'm hoping I can bring some of that back.

That's just my little update for now, and thank you to everyone who has supported me over the months!

[regicidal-defenestration]

ROWAN I wanna start watching Old Who, where should I start

Doctors 1 thru 7 are on tubi but they don't seem to have 8 for some reason :( I could also dig up the TV movie or something, i remember watching at least 1 doctor who movie on vhs at my grandma's but I don't know which one it was

OKAY SO the first rule of watching Classic Who is having fun and being yourself

Further than that:

First Doctor - Start at the start!

Classic move! Put on An Unearthly Child and watch them all in the order that God, or at least the BBC*, intended

(*disregarding the ones, all from the First or Second Doctor's runs, that were purged from the archives as part of due process back then. Some have been reconstructed in a variety of ways, others remain entirely lost)

Pros of starting here: Easy! You get to watch the show develop into what it is today and you don't have to piece together context in ways you might have to to be willing to starting elsewhere

Cons of starting here: The show started very differently to what it is today. The pacing is sometimes slower, sometimes just by the nature of the story, sometimes because they had 2 episodes worth of plot they had to fit into 6 parts

Seventh Doctor - Start at the... end?

The Seventh Doctor, particularly when he's joined by Ace McShane at the end of s24, is arguably the most similar to modern DW. The first Classic Who episodes I ever watched were Dragonfire and The Happiness Patrol after I was given them on DVD as a gift

Pros of starting here: we've got drama we've got a Doctor who's a little bit fucked up with his schemes we've got a teenager willing (for better or for worse) to jump into the fight, it's often familiar to a modern DW watcher and as good a place as any to start. Also has a incredibly high proportion of banger serials, something I realised later down this post when trying to pick a few to recommend

Cons of starting here: plot threads that never develop into what they promise, due to the show getting cancelled in series 25. You may also be left with the reasonable question of "okay so I've watched the end bit of DW, now what?"

Eighth Doctor - Why is my tumblr mutual abnormal about this man

Never got a TV series :(. He has like three televised appearances: a minisode made for the show's 50th anniversary, a cameo in an episode made for the BBC's 100th anniversary, and the TV movie Doctor Who (1996), which was an attempt at bringing the show back after it got cancelled in 1989

Pros of starting here: doesn't directly follow on from any previous stories and since you already know who these guys (the Doctor and the Master) are, you know all the relevant backstories (other than a few new pieces of lore they throw in just for this film, to really piss off a certain kind of diehard DW fan)

Cons of starting here: as much as I love it dearly, and regard it as a masterpiece of cinema, I do acknowledge it would be massively improved by, for example, a coherent plot. There's a reason it took until 2005 for the show to come back properly and it wasn't because everybody at the time loved this film

Addendum - Watching orders are overrated

The order I've been watching Classic Who in has gone 7 -> 5 -> 3, excluding the odd single serials I've watched from 1, 4, and 6. The world can be your oyster if you're willing to sometimes skim some character's wiki page to find out who they're supposed to be. Some ones I recommend(*) and ones I haven't seen but have been reliably recommended by friends(+) are:

First Doctor

The Romans (+)

The Gunfighters (+)

-> DW's first musical serial!

Second Doctor

The Tomb of the Cybermen (+)

Fury from the Deep (+)

The War Games (+)

Third Doctor

Spearhead from Space (*)

Inferno (*)

The Curse of Peladon (*)

-> Really this is because I am just so delighted by Alpha Centauri whenever it appears

The Green Death (*)

Fourth Doctor

The Ark in Space (+)

Horror of Fang Rock (+)

City of Death (*)

-> Co-written by Douglas Adams this one, and is one of those stories that's pretty much as good as everyone says it is

Fifth Doctor

Castrovalva (*)

-> Does follow directly on from the previous serial Logopolis, featuring companions introduced throughout s18, but at the time of writing I still haven't watched Logopolis so you're probably fine? Good serial for fans of fucked up architecture and blonde men in distress

Earthshock (*)

The Caves of Androzani (*)

Sixth Doctor

Vengeance on Varos (+)

Revelation of the Daleks (+)

Seventh Doctor

Remembrance of the Daleks (*)

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (*)

-> Occupies an interesting place in DW history as it is in pretty much direct response to fans at the time, to the extent they kill off a parody of an obsessive DW fan who may or may not be Chris Chibnall. Mostly I'm recommending it because it has really really good clown costuming

The Curse of Fenric (*)

Survival (*)

-> Lesbian furry serial

[section-69]

Okay Destination Trek notes! First here's what I really liked:

- Everything was SAG compliant and there was so much important strike talk. Obvs this made some questions impossible to answer, and it was slightly hard to predict what would be wrong to say just since different actors had different comfort levels (big range from "I support my comrades but I'm not gonna pretend I'm not in Star Trek" from David Ajala to J G Hertzler encouraging us to threaten media executives with [COPYRIGHTED SPACE WEAPON] to Terry Farrell not wanting to mention working on TV or film at all), but honestly it just made the whole thing really friendly

- on that note, multiple guests said it was the best convention they'd been to in years. I don't have a lot of personal experience with them, but I was talking to a lot of older fans and many of them said this felt a lot like the early days of conventions which were also set in hotels

- being in a hotel made it a) more accessible (and there were So Many fellow disabled Trekkies to prove it!!), b) easier to hang out between activities, and c) just super personable. The guests could hang out in the bar with the fans, there were lots of comfy seats everywhere, and it was very easy to step away if something wasn't your speed.

- not being in London helps the vibes too

- not being Paramount affiliated made the tickets a bit cheaper (much appreciated)

- most of the activities were teamwork focussed. Initially I was a little freaked by that but actually it gave the whole thing a friendly social club vibe

- science talks! Community talks! Asking the actors questions about their lives and work outside of what they're most famous for! Stories we haven't all heard a thousand times!

- I'll make another post about the specifics of accessibility and why I liked this infinitely more than the official ones in London aircraft hangars, but I just really have to stress how important I found that here

- being fan organised and fan led, the focus was on us and how much we love this shit. I didn't find the old format Bad in this respect, but this really did hit different

- J G Hertzler is seriously the coolest person I've met. He stole my craft group's batleth and we couldn't be happier about it.

- So Many Cool Cosplays!!! Shout out especially to the drag queens, the older man cosplaying Admiral Janeway, the Voyage Home Spock and inflatable whale, the power chair decked out to look like a shuttle, all the babies in uniform, the tribble queen in her tribble pelt dress, all the Klingons who didn't artificially darken their skin, the furry doctor from lower decks, all of the Borg, the Klingon pug with a plush batleth, and so so many others I'm forgetting ❤️🖖❤️

Notes for Future Cons

- If you don't already have access to it because of an expensive ticket, I wouldn't bother paying for the opening ceremony. It's not actually at the start of the event and also it's literally just the actors coming on stage, saying hi, then rushing back to the autograph tables. Do go to the closing ceremony though! There's way more of a point to those

- If you're not a huge extrovert, already drunk, or completely happy in awkward situations, I wouldn't recommend being the first in the door at the parties. Give it an hour or so - they sounded very lively later on, but when I tried to go in earlier the primary school disco vibes were off the charts. Plus the music's too loud to actually talk to anyone, and no one's dancing yet. I did see one guy run past with a portable charger for his friend in a wheelchair that lost power on the dance floor though, so clearly they got cooler later on lol. Addendum here that I'm an autistic non drinker so that might colour things.

- to the white folks darkening their skin for generic Klingon cosplays, reconsider that one next year

- to the white guy wearing brown face paint to cosplay Worf specifically, what the fuck, man??

- to the person who boo'd the mention of Julian/Garak at the LGBTQ+ panel, fight me but also maybe skip whatever the equivalent is next year cause Andy Robinson's booked to come

- host mocked Scottish accents a couple times :(

- here's hoping the unions will have their demands met and we'll be able to talk about Star Trek publicly with actors who can access healthcare and pay their rent. But if not, at least we know the con will still be fun.

- maybe see you in Blackpool next July 💙

[timetravelerpyrite]

Uh, hi.

My name is Pyrite, I go by he/him mainly… don't mind she/her though. Newly found out I like Pup/Pupself pronouns too.

I'm 31. (B-day is November 16th, if that matters to anyone.)

//Current Arc: None rn!

//Finished Arcs: Fool's Faller, ABSOLute Panic!

Anyway, not too important, I just kinda found this site and realized 'Oh, there's some people like me here!' so here I am I guess?

Don't expect me to be friendly.

I don't bite! I'm trying to make more friends, but don't shove too much at me at once please.

I don't like staying in one place, it makes me anxious, no I won't tell you why. I was running a lot because of my Ex, she and my bio fam wants me to come back, but I won't, I'm actually tying to get use to staying in one place now.

Most important thing, I'm a Time Traveler and Dimension hopper, how the hell am I both?

I caught a Celebi (He/She/They) by COMPLETE ACCIDENT so now I'm kinda stuck with them, and I kinda got adopted by a Dimension hopping Iron called Iron Eclipse (It/Its)… no, I do not expect you to know what that is.

Call me a fake if you want, I don't care, just try not to hold me down in one spot, got it? Wow I don't like this part the most, why was I such a jerk in my intro??

Anyway, I might visit ya if I feel like, I have two adopted (not legally but who gives a shit) sisters @queen-of-the-phantoms and @pokedexcamp! I'm dating @silveredfeathers and living with him and his wife (and now my Girlfriend-??) @trainerlynda.

Adding an addendum: Sometimes we, his Irons, connect to his phone to be able to post. We are;

🐉: Iron Rage. (She/Her)

🕊️: Iron Serenity! (He/They/Fae)

🌋: Iron Eruption. (He/Him)

🌑🌈: Iron Eclipse.

⌛: And sometimes I steal the phone, I'm Chronos his Celebi.

🍞: Thanatos types sometimes too, she has rather broken English so it will likely be autocorrected to hell and back, please tell her if it gets a word wrong, from what I can tell she wants to understand (She/It)

//Open ask games!

Pelipper mail and malice.

Ask an invasive question.

//Magnifying glass ask game!

See his dreams and nightmares.

//A post for you to give me permission for him to hop to your character's dimension! (Either on purpose or by accident.)

//Ooc info under the cut!

//Ooc. This is a sideblog! Unreality. Mod is an adult and goes by she/her he/him pronouns All art I use is my own (Or made for me)! I follow from @theshadowqueenofthedistortion, more info about me on my main! This blog is not settled in one dimension at the moment, so expect conflicting area info. Here's some of my other accounts as well!

//Semi-Serious blog, I will participate in active silliness and also write serious stuff. Will sometimes touch on death, abuse and a few other things, I will tag the serious stuff with their appropriate tw/cw tags.

//I will not ship with anyone who isn't my BF (and myself, but that's a note for later), just for my comfort. This boi does n o t stay in one place, if he goes to visit someone he will get there himself/he fell into that universe by accident.

//Magic anons are allowed! But I am picky.

//I am very open to crossover stuff!

//This guy is very much centered around Future Paradox pokemon! He's not gonna know all the Pokemon's names and will call them 'Irons'. The Iron names are VERY much headcannons unless talking about a cannon Iron.

//When he's on the move things he says aloud will be under

[Voice to text active!] where as when he's actully writing it will be under [Pyrite is typing...]

//What the tags mean.

//Shadow Mod Speaks: Mod speaking.

//Mod Reference: Me and/or Zorana making references for this account

//Shadow Art: Art by me that isn't a ref/finished.

//Pyrite info: Self-Explanatory. For both IC and OOC.

Little Hops: His post/response tag.

Warping Reality: Closed and/or serious RP. I will also use this tag when responding seriously to something.

Where am I today?: When Pyrite is mainly talking to himself.

The Pokemon tags: They are for each respective Pokemon/Iron

Magic Anon Things.: Stuff with magic anons.

Triangle Terror: Pyrite dealing with the truth triangles. He can't turn them off, so hehehe.

[dracoqueen22]

A writing prompt for you:

FFVII, Reno & any number of other Turks, an escaped experiment that's supposed to spew poison but instead spews something else entirely. (Like sex pollen, for example.)

(As NSFW or not as you like!)

This is like... two years late, but at last! I have answered this flash fiction fest from the last one I hosted. Please enjoy! <3

There are many unspoken rules about being a Turk. Truths they’ve acknowledged over the years, that they pass on to new recruits but no one dares write down because the Turks are secretive by nature, and no one wants to admit that they are actually fallible.

Don’t go after an escaped experiment alone is not the number one unspoken rule, but it’s high on the list. Right next to it is: always wear a gas mask. And an addendum to that? Kill first, ask questions later. 

You never can be too careful with what escapes from Hojo’s many, many labs. And if sometimes, the experiment growling back at you has the face of someone you used to work beside, well, you just pretend you didn’t see it. 

Don’t ask Hojo what he’s doing. That’s a very important unspoken rule. Never ask Hojo what he’s doing behind closed doors. Else it might be your face your partner is seeing the next time something escapes, however accidentally. (Rumor has it that Hojo frequently lets things loose just to see how they fare against ShinRa’s elite, the bastard). 

Tseng remembers the rules. He always remembers the rules. So why is he staring at Reno with glazed eyes, no gas mask, and sweat beading on his brow? Why is he launching himself at Reno with attacks harder and faster than Reno can defend or evade? Reno’s never won in a hand to hand spar with Tseng. 

He’s under no illusions that he’s going to win now. Even if Tseng’s acting like a puppet without strings, some kind of powder puffing from his suit in lurid highlighter-yellow wisps. 

“Fuck,” Reno gasps into his gas mask. He doesn’t want to shoot Tseng. Tseng is not the escaped experiment. 

He’s the first responder who somehow didn’t bring his godsdamned gas mask and has now been dosed by whatever freak-of-nature poison Hojo’s newest pet sprayed on him. 

“Come on, boss. Snap out of it!” Reno shouts as he twists to avoid another grab and doesn’t make it. 

Tseng gets a handful of his suit jacket, so Reno wriggles out of it and cuts it down to a loss. He can get another jacket. He’s pretty sure he can’t get another arm. Unless he subjects himself to Hojo’s mercies, and since this whole situation is Hojo’s fault, no thank you. 

His comm crackles. "Reno, do you need assistance?" Elena asks, all new recruit eager and helpful, and ugh, any other time Reno would be happy to let her do the hard work.

"Not right now, rookie. Stay the fuck away and go find whatever caused this mess," Reno snarls as he ducks away from another swipe from Tseng and contemplates his options. Why hadn't he packed stun charges in his baton this time? Why had he gone for lethal only?

Because it's a Hojo experiment, that's why. Kill first, ask questions later. That's the rule. Along with "always wear a gas mask" which Tseng apparently forgot. Which means Reno’s going to have to somehow take Tseng down, and hope Tseng doesn’t decide punishment is in order later. 

Or hope that he chooses punishment, but it’s the kind Reno likes. Mmm. That would be nice. Bent over the knee, a little spanking, some fingers slicked up with lube and – 

Tseng slams into Reno, and he curses – caught by the horny haze, damn it – as they both go down and Tseng winds around him like a python. He’s all long limbs and strong hands and those legs circle around Reno’s waist like a vise. 

Fuck. 

Tseng’s hard. Like hard enough Reno can feel the heat of his dick through his slacks, grinding against Reno’s pelvis as Tseng squeezes and squeezes with those powerful thighs of his, spreading that yellow powder everywhere. 

“Come on, boss!” Reno yelps, twisting his head left and right, but it’s useless, because Tseng grabs hold of his mask, yanks, and tosses. 

Reno drags in a gulp of air without thinking, and something powdery lands on his tongue. It’s bitter and sour, chalky as it goes up his nose and into his mouth. He coughs, eyes watering, as Tseng’s legs tighten and he– uh, yup. That sure is Reno’s boss grinding against him like a harlot. 

“I’m never gonna let you live this down,” Reno wheezes. 

Tseng looks at him with hazy eyes, face flushed, hair wild around his face. Wait, no. He’s looking at Reno, yeah, but specifically, at Reno’s lips. Tseng licks his own and then his mouth crashes down on Reno’s, and wow. Tseng can kiss. His tongue’s an unrelenting force that pushes a moan out of Reno. He turns to liquid want, spine tingling and brain going mush. 

Reno gets a fistful of Tseng’s suit, grinding that yellow dust into his own skin, into the dark of Tseng’s suit. And he thinks he ought to push Tseng away. He ought to try and fight back, but his limbs are noodles, and Tseng’s burning up, and something’s boiling in his own gut, too. Lust pours through his veins, throbs through his dick, and Tseng rolls up against him, and Reno, he knows this dance. 

He rolls down, and they both groan. Tseng’s biting at his mouth and lips, leaving them bruised and hot, his skin glittering from the powder, with a throat that’s made for marking. Reno’s had more than a few choice fantasies of pinning his boss down and seeing if he can dissolve Tseng’s elegant poise. 

Well. 

Tseng’s got no poise now. He’s making hungry noises, his thighs wrapped around Reno like a vise, his hands restless as they pull and tug at clothes like he’s forgotten how buttons work. 

Reno has about five seconds to realize that this isn’t normal, and it’s probably all Hojo’s fucking fault, but then he’s drowning in sensation, and Tseng smells so fucking good. Every bit of restraint he has turns to shreds, and he kisses Tseng back. His comm crackles, but he flicks it off and lets himself enjoy this.

It isn’t how he imagined seducing his boss, but fuck, he’ll take it. Let Rude and Elena handle the escaping monster. 

Reno’s got Tseng well in hand. 

***

[stoopid-turtle]

BTS in Order Addendum 2

Second and final addendum for rn! This covers the translated bts clips for June that I found. Sadly, the playlist did not have July or Aug, so I can't go over those. If I ever do find July and Aug, I'll try to add it on.

As before, the timeline posts are already updated. I'm just highlighting some things here for those who don't want to hunt for the updates. Also, I tried to clean up some of the formatting but y'all, the formatting on Tumblr is just weird. I can't figure it out and I'm not gonna invest the time to do so, so I've done my best!

I can see where the WZC/GG pairing came from. GG and WZC seem quite close, often playful, and similarly physically affectionate to ggdd. Their dynamic is different, but I can def see how people could pull together a compilation of their bts clips for CPFs. (Not saying they were a real couple, like ggdd.)

Madam Jin did not seem to realize she was cast in a bl adaption.

There's much mentioned of dd's afterglow on 6.19 after the Dragon Boat Festival date, but I've never seen anyone mention that GG is also in a really great mood the next day. His first scene is in the forest with JC and JL, and he's all smiles and says, "I'm so happy this early morning. I really love my team."

JC says "Happy? What nonsense!" For some reason, this sets gg off on the giggles.

Needless to say, GG had his own afterglow.

Also on 6.19, there's this cute exchange between gg and the older lady producer (?), who is also from Chongqing:

Crewmember: So many beauties come from Chongqing. GG: I'm beautiful. Producer lady: More beautiful than me? GG: How can that be? Can't compare!

And then, a couple days later on 6.23, when dd is still gone, gg is in a hellishly rotten mood. He's visibly moody and unresponsive to xl and JC, both of whom try to cheer him up. At one point, he asks someone (his assistant?) if he has any crying scenes that day. And later he says, "Remember this feeling. After a month, when filming, definitely will..." I think he says something more to XL here, but I guess it was too quiet for the translator to hear. The implication to me is that he's gonna try to bring up the experience of his feelings in later scenes when WWX is having similar feelings.

Not everything with regards to the boys has to be about ggdd, so it's possible that gg's bad mood is bc of something else going on in his life. Family, friends, something with his company, politics, a stranger being a jerk, whatever. DD's one possibility among many. I did check out what dd was doing on 6.23 and 6.22, and he's on Produce 101, where he looks as DD (with a mullet) as ever. But there aren't any bts or unscripted clips of him where he might reveal a similar mood, so it's hard to say anything.

So basically, make of gg's bad mood what you will. It could be literally anything.

I need to talk about JC's fake butt

So the clip on 6.25, with JZX, Mianmian, dd, XL, and gg all chatting starts with them talking about JC wearing a "fake butt". I'm guessing butt padding? Some highlights:

DD is confused because he's "not even wearing jeans", to which gg asks if it makes sense to wear a fake butt in jeans.

The "reason" why JC wears this is apparently only known to XL and GG. XL refuses to explain.

GG says if she doesn't explain, dd will just walk up to JC and ask him, "JC, you wear a fake butt?"

Poor WZC did seem a bit put-upon on the set.

Also, unrelated, dd thinks sweat is sexy.

Also, the nasal spray that got passed around: looked sus, but not actually that sus. It's a Thai herbal nasal inhaler, which apparently looks a lot like people doing some uppers. (So much so that gg chastises the cameraman for filming it and XL turns her back to do it)

Also also, gg's rotten mood is gone. The clip on 6.23 of him being in a bad mood is only about 5 min long, and there's only a 45sec clip for 6.24. So basically, we have no idea what might have cheered him up and there are almost a full 2 days of stuff we know nothing about.