#no people or animals were targeted in the making of this post

[smalltownduck]

tw discussions of su1cide and death ideation

Sometimes I think about this post and others that shed light on Vecna's (albeit twisted) compassion for struggling living beings, particularly the four victims of '86. Obviously he had something to gain from those murders (compared to the 79 massacre, on top!), but 1) it has never been explained why and how exactly those killings created so much energy to open gates and 2) in a not too similar parallel to those animals caught in traps and eventually killed around the Creel house (put a pin on whether you think Henry, One and Vecna -hell, or even show Henry and TFS Henry- are one and the same or if you subscribe to the Edward/Henry theory), perhaps the whole 'prey on the weak' wasn't necessarily 100% malicious, but rather (in Vecna's mind) a merciful act.

Aligning to the "vecna's curse was a sui allegory", he might have thought that each of the '86 victims were hopeless in regards to their living situations AND their inner strength/coping mechanisms to deal with them and their own futures. In fact, that might have probably been the only reason why he could create a psyonic connection with them in the first place. For example, even if Chrissy's or Patrick's parents, "the ones" (obvs not the only) that were causing them pain, were removed from the equation, their impact and presence would still remain in everyday life and haunt their children forever. They didn't really have anybody (seems like therapy wasn't working either, or they might not have commited to that process by openning up) to rely on, and they weren't in a place to willingly look for companionship at all.

The sad reality is that sometimes, even in a supernatural universe, it's impossible to make trauma and triggers dissapear for good and begin anew with a clean slate. For instance, it wouldn't be enough to undo Billy's death for Max to heal, but also undo his previous abuse of her, her mother not protecting her, her dad emotionally abandonning her, and so on, or stopping Fred from running off after the accident, the accident in the first place, him having done anything prior to prevent him losing control of the vehicle in the first place, etc. It's a cycle that would go on with them lacking a support system and/or not having developed have the skills to cope and seek for community and love on their own terms. I guess that, for Vecna, that was just the system (everybody around you) being rigged as usual -those four were not only dealt a bad hand, but they didn't (and would never have) have what it takes to play and come out on top.

Turns out a very powerful supernatural being is as capable of rewriting the past (or at least he can't yet), along with all its individual strings and webs, as us normal humans are irl. It's natural to wish that getting rid of those things, those people who seem like the biggest obstacles between someone and a fullfilling life would fix everything, but there are too many variables at play; it takes changing too many minds for real and for good. Perhaps Vecna, underestimating/ignoring the power of a support system and willpower (hence why only Max escaped the first time and continues to cling to life -because, unlike the others, she had a chance and the support to realize that she did want to live and that there was a way out of the darkness), thought that the four couldn't make it on their own into the future anyway. They were weak, isolated by their own doing, too broken, and in so much pain to go on -it was pointless and more cruel for them to continue to exist. Like the trapped and wounded animals in the Creel house, he "facilitated" the ending of their suffering in earnest-ish.

or maybe he thinks that far too many people are lazy cowards for not putting time and care into committing to make systemic changes nor break the cycle of abuse so he doesn't have any faith in anybody and they were easy targets idk

sorry this derailed so far away from will's vanishing. all i can say is that i, too, don't believe in that the "main villian" of ST is 100% evil. that'd reductive and scapegoat-ish to the ideas that began it all: forced comformity, perpetuating cycles of abuse and systems that fail everybody.

Deducing what may have actually happened to Will Byers on Nov 6, 1983 using evidence from the show.

Trigger warning: M*rder, s*icide.

part 2. part 3.

Before I begin, I just want to remind everyone that this show has many layers to it. What I mean is, if you watch carefully, a piece of dialogue can actually mean two (or more) things. The dialogue can be meaningful for the specific scene (surface level) and it can be a sneaky way to foreshadow something else entirely (subtext).

From this specific moment, we can assume that moving forward: any and all mentions of JFK’s assassination will actually be about Will’s disappearance (subtext).

So when the writers gifted us with these mentions, they are actually referring to the conspiracy surrounding Will’s disappearance. So let’s investigate, shall we?

Here’s the briefest overview of the JFK assassination: Oswald was convicted of assassinating JFK. Oswald denied his involvement stating that he was “a patsy”. Many conspiracy theories believe that Johnson was actually the one responsible.

Both Mrs. Driscoll and Dustin do not believe that Oswald assassinated JFK. Mrs. Driscoll is an outcast; she’s an older woman with schizophrenia. The guys who work at the newspaper are quick to dismiss her for these reasons. Now remember, this is Stranger Things, the show about outcasts being right and those fitting the norm being wrong. Then there’s our beloved Dustin, who states that “Oswald was a patsy”. Thus we can conclude: Johnson assassinated JFK, and Oswald was a patsy.

So… who if Will is JFK in this equation, who are our “Johnson” and “Oswald” counterparts?

Well right now, I assume most people believe Vecna is responsible for Will’s disappearance. He is our “bad guy”. So my guess is that he is our “Oswald”.

Who is our “Johnson”? Now remember, Johnson was someone close to JFK, he was the vice-president. He had something to gain in this. I believe Lonnie fits the bill the most for our Johnson.

So many clues surround Lonnie that tell us he was actually responsible. Plus, remember, he has something to gain from Will’s death: life insurance.

Though to be far, I am definitely not ruling out Brenner and Hawkins lab being involved in this too.

So… what happened exactly then? I’m not certain but this is my theory:

Lonnie was prepared to kill Will that night, but his plans were thwarted by our “Oswald”. Vecna swooped in and saved Will from his fate. His “come with me if you want to live” moment.

Moving further into the theory territory… here is a prediction:

- Our characters believe that the only way to defeat Vecna is to travel back in time and “stop him”.

- They travel back, stop him, then return finding out that the alternate present is much worse. By this I mean: Will was murdered, Mike ended his life by suicide, Joyce got admitted to Pennhurst Asylum, Jonathan was struggling with addiction, Lonnie got his payout, etc.

- Thus realizing that “killing” Vecna is and never was the solution here.

Now you may be thinking: but Vecna is 100% evil, why are you trying to redeem him? Well, the thing is, he’s not. Vecna is a villain but he’s not 100% evil. The show isn’t that simple friends. Plus, remember, nothing is exactly as it seems in this show.

[esoteric-brustle]

I HATE (but don't direct it at anyone, or anything tangible) when there's a fish video on tumblr or the like, and there's the little speaker icon you can click for the sound. Of course no fish sounds play, I know fish sounds are elusive and most people on the platform don't have the equipment to record any of them. Sadly all you get, but to no fault of any one person or fish in the situation, you only hear chatter, words of endearment, the pump going BBBBMMMMMUMMMMMMM, or the bubbler going gurglegurgleblipgurgleblipblipblip. I KNOW WITH MY FULL CONSCIOUS that these are pretty much the onlly "fish sounds" the video will contain, but I'm still left wanting something more that nobody failed to provide, besides my mind which expects it somehow.

[mint-mumbles]

Gonna use this image any time someone says something low key sexist about Sable (ie "she's showing too much skin" regarding a fucking bathing suit 😭🤦)

I don't hear you complaining about Spirit 😭

[twisting-roads]

DEBUNKING COMMON RAIN WORLD MISINTERPRETATIONS

The target audience for this was for people who don't know too much about the game as well, so I'm going to explain things that a normal player might already know.

Rain World is known for how it simply throws you into the world with almost no tutorial, and is often praised for it.

But this lack of explanation if you do not go out of your way to find it has also lead to a lot of misinterpretations from those who did not read all the game’s available information, or misunderstood what they were being told. I used to watch some RW lore videos that would explain and summarize these things, and in the past I believed them.

I’ve since stopped doing that after having some time to actually process what I’ve been reading, and I’m here to say...

YOU ARE ALL WRONG ABOUT RAIN WORLD.

Ok, hyperbole. Not everyone believes these, and art can always be interpreted in different ways by different people, and I won’t stop you from having these beliefs. But also, there’s plenty of ingame content which completely disproves most of these unsubstantiated points from those who do not fully research the game before making videos about it.

Looking at you Tale Foundry…

The purpose of this is to pick apart some of the sadly far too common points I’ve heard many times before from Youtube videos, to Tumblr posts, to people I’ve spoken to on Discord.

Starting with my least favorite…

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“The 5 karma were seen as sinful”

Obvious westernization of a game based off fucking Buddhism aside, there’s no ingame text directly supporting this claim. There isn’t any that says otherwise, but we have good reason to believe this isn’t the case.

The 5 natural urges, as they’re sometimes called, were NATURAL. They were what bound you to the cycle. They never worsened your life or made you a terrible person should you keep following them, but an aspect of life on the same level as suffering or ecstasy.

Hey, I’ll break down the 5 karma and their meanings to show you that they're not just "sins"

I believe the natural urges have 2 different meanings: an animalistic one, and a more “human” one.

KARMA 1 This obviously represents violence, as you see one guy stabbing the other. I believe it also represents competition and intense emotions, For example: Artificer experiencing intense grief and lashing out in violence as a result. It was not the violence that started it, but her emotions. (Yes, its Downpour. But it’s a good point.)

KARMA 2

They’re having sex. They’re fucking. They’re- ok you get it. Karma 2 represents reproduction. But, I also believe it’s desire. Joyful bodily experiences, and such. The 2 figures seen here are in a much more playful pose than if they were simply doing this only to reproduce. No, they’re having fun.

KAMRA 3 Connection. Bonding with others. Yet also trade and personal belongings. Attachment to things that are not yourself.

KARMA 4 It’s mentioned ingame that this represents gluttony It’s overindulgence, you know. Similarly to karma 2, it can also be searching for fulfillment. I'm not particularly good at telling what the meaning of this could be.

KARMA 5 Self preservation. Self preservation can come in many forms, from an animal running away from a predator or somebody getting defensive after being accused of something or being threatened, this one is rather vague about its meaning.

I do this to show that the 5 urges have very NEUTRAL meanings. It being positive or negative is entire dependant on context. They’re not sinful, get out of here with that Catholic shit!

The 5 karmas have both positive, negative, and neutral contexts which they can fit into.

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“The ancients hated being alive”

The ancients simply hated the cycle itself and its unknowable properties, as well as being much more aware of things like karma and the urges. Rather, they valued being effortless to disconnect themselves from this cycle.

“This was an eternal dilemma to them - they were burdened by great ambition, yet deeply convinced that striving in itself was an unforgivable vice. They tried very hard to be effortless.” – Bright Green Pearl (DS)

Some practices did of course include things like starving yourself, but as mentioned by Moon, these methods proved to be mostly obsolete. Void Fluid fundamentally changed their culture from what we see. Rather, we do see the ancients enjoying life and valuing it in their own way, which is INCREDIBLY important to some of the games themes, but I’ll get into that later.

"[...]'In this vessel is the living memories of Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel, of the House of Braids[…] Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel nobly decided to ascend in the beginning of 1514.008, after graciously donating all (ALL!) earthly possessions to the local Iterator project (Unparalleled Innocence), and left these memories to be cherished by the carnal plane.The assorted memories and qualia include:Watching dust suspended in a ray of sun (Old age). Eating a very tasty meal (Young child). Defeating an opponent in a debate contest, and being applauded by fellow team members (Late childhood/Early adulthood).’...and the list goes on. I'm sorry, little creature, I won't read all of this - the list is six hundred and twenty items long.” – Deep Magenta (SH)

There’s quite a lot to pick apart here, I had to cut down some parts short, but even the cut parts have important details. Just not important enough for me to bring up here.

The Memory Crypts we see ingame are… well where memories are kept. The qualia (personalized experiences) is stored within these mutated fleshy neural organisms referred to as “cabinet beasts”. These of course, contain the “living memories” or qualia of those who have ascended. There are people smarter than me who have already covered these ideas of course, so I won't go TOO indepth.

The ancients greatly valued titles and achievements just as us. They still lived normal lives. As well as this, they valued personal experiences and memories of the carnal realm so much they built an entire citadel to store memories.

As we can see as well, Seventeen Axes has quite a lot of enjoyable memories from throughout their life. Eating nice food and winning a debate contest and getting validation from their peers? That sounds rather… complacent with the 3rd and 4th natural urges, doesn’t it?

I do not believe this screams “I hate being alive!” as much as people have made it out to be, and is honestly ruins part of the game’s messages of compassion and personalized experiences, especially in the game’s ending where Survivor dreams of home.

“You have no name. I once had! I was embalmed, adorned, readied for the journey. So proud. There was jubilation! My name was sung, loud and clear. Did they know? That I didn't quite leave, didn't quite stay? Should I be ashamed? That I linger here, where my memories are kept? Should I be ashamed that I now envy your flesh prison?” - Four Needles under Plentiful Leaves

This is leaning into personal theory territory, but...

I personally believe that the ancients were somewhat terrified of the unpredictability of the cycle and the fact that life would always have more suffering in it.

RW’s religion is heavily based off Buddhism. This is well known of course. The Cycle is a variation of Samsara. Now, I’m not Buddhist, and I’ve tried to do my research about some of these topics. Feel free to correct me, I’m simply going off what I know. (Also I'd love to hear what you have to say regarding your thoughts on the game!)

In Buddhism, each new life you could be taken into the body of an animal, or even end up being tortured in hell for a very, very, VERY long time if you made the wrong decisions, which made escaping it as soon as you could seem like a rather reasonable thing to do.

The ancients never fully grasped the scope of the cycle, and the prospects of having your soul wake up in the body of some miserable worm with no memory of your past or any ideas of your future might’ve seemed bleak.

Suffering is inevitable. But that doesn’t mean they hated being alive, like I said before.

------

“Rain World is post-apocalyptic.”

It really isn’t. There was never any apocalypse. The ancients simply left on their own accord, leaving behind their mark on the world that will slowly be buried once again in the ever so present cycle.

“The bones of forgotten civilizations, heaped like so many sticks.” - Two Sprouts, Twelve Brackets

The world is thriving, even. The purposed organisms left behind have evolved and taken over and become it’s own ecosystem.

The iterators are dying though. Dying very slowly, but soon they’ll all decay and everything will move on.

It’s all just another manifestation of the cycle.

------

“The creatures in Rain World cannot die”

This is definitely something I hear from people who haven’t played much of the game and only hear about it from outside sources and watch the gameplay.

Yes, it is easy to believe this. As slugcat, when you die, you wake back up again. This is entirely a gameplay thing and not actually related to the lore. Saying this might seem like I'm avoiding the question at hand here, but the rules that apply to you do not seem to apply to other creatures.

Every creature in the game has a 4 integer ID (it can go higher, but not in a standard playthrough).

This makes every creature you see an individual of sorts with its own randomized values or appearance.

As well as this, creatures spawn from specific marked dens. When you kill a creature that spawns from a certain den, the next cycle, that creature’s ID will never appear again. Instead, the den spawn is replaced by a creature of the same species with a different ID, or a new species entirely.

Through gameplay, you see that the respawn rules that apply to you do not apply to other creatures. I’ve heard many points about how these dead creatures are transported to another alternate universe where they are alive, but I really do not want to delve into that theory. You do that yourself.

Excuse my unprofessional language, but this is kind of stupid. Billions and billions of little timeline splits accounting for every single insect and microbe that dies seems far too complex of a solution. Occam's Razor and all that.

With this gameplay element you see, I also want to give LORE explanations as to why this is incredibly stupid.

1) If death had no impact, the 5 natural urges would not matter

If no creatures died, there would be no point in eating (karma 4), competing with other species (karma 1), or any form of self preservation (karma 5). Reproduction (karma 2) has no role and there would be absolutely no reason to do anything any longer. All natural processes would be useless.

2) Light Blue Pearl

The information received from the cycle is most likely from the Light Blue Pearl, found in Outskirts.

“[...]The repeating mantra is important because it symbolizes the cyclical nature of life and death, and the termination verse is a symbol for ascension above and beyond it. I don't know how familiar you are with the nature of life and death, but I imagine like all living creatures you have some intuitive knowledge? Then you know that death isn't the end - birth and death are connected to each other like a ring, or some say a spiral. Some say a spiral that in turn forms a ring. Some ramble in agonizing longevity. But the basis is agreed upon: like sleep like death, you wake up again - whether you want to or not. This is true for all living things, but some actually break the cycle. That doesn't apply to you or me though, you are too entangled in your animal struggles, and for me not breaking that cycle is an integral part of the design. Our mantras keep repeating.”

“Then you know that death isn't the end - birth and death are connected to each other like a ring, or some say a spiral. Some say a spiral that in turn forms a ring.“

This line is very misunderstood. Moon specifically mentions birth and death. She mentions death. She never brings up the notion that nothing truly dies either.

As well as this, Moon says that “some say”, implying that even the ancients weren’t sure what the cycle was either. This is more important to my point regarding how the unfathomable nature of the cycle was why the Ancients were so averse to it from above, though.

------

“Sliver of Straw found the solution.”/"There is/isn't solution"

No she didn’t.

.

.

Ok fine I’ll explain.

If you’ve played Rain World you know that the purpose of the iterators is to find the solution to the “Great Problem”, the problem of how to ascend ALL living creatures.

You’ll also know Sliver sent out the Triple Affirmative…

“[...]affirmative that a solution has been found, affirmative that the solution is portable, and affirmative that a technical implementation is possible and generally applicable. She's also one of few that has ever been confirmed as exhaustively incapacitated, or dead. We do not die easily.[…]” - Pale Yellow (SL)

After sending out this affirmative, the iterators became conflicted. They never could figure out if she really ascended and had found the solution, or if it was some sort of catastrophic error.

The answer to the Great Problem is clearly intended to be as obscured as possible. There cannot be an answer one way or the other. The themes of it and the endless tolling of the iterators would not be as impactful if we knew there was or wasn’t a solution.

“[...]Either way, after that these different factions developed, as well as a huge forensic effort to recreate and simulate Sliver of Straw's last moments. Some of the simulations were wrapped in a simulation wrapped in a simulation, in case something dangerous might happen. Nothing much has come from it.[…]“ - Pale Yellow (SL)

Here’s my favorite way of explaining what I mean…

Imagine Schrodinger's Cat, the famous thought experiment. There’s a 50/50 chance that when you open the box, you either find the Solution, or find out there is No Solution.

Except you cannot open the box. And the box is entirely theoretical and nobody’s seen it. It seems impossible, but maybe one day you’ll find that box. That’s what the Great Problem is.

Sliver apparently having found the solution would have completely broken everything. Five Pebbles wouldn’t have ended up hurting himself and Moon had Sliver finding the solution been known with certainty. He was taking a shot in the dark.

------

“Ascension is akin to suicide.”

I strongly believe this point harms the role that ascension and the void sea play in Rain World’s narrative. Ascension is meant to be a final destination, a goal you build up to and prepare for when you’ve lived every bit of life you possible could, and can now move on.

Bringing up the Memory Crypt pearl from earlier, Seventeen Axes lived an incredibly fulfilling life from what we see, and ascended happily.

As well as this, Buddhism strongly encourages those who wish to liberate themselves to discover their own path, which is also subtly shown through the gameplay, as there are many many routes you can take to Five Pebbles, Looks To The Moon, and The Depths.

I do also think this is why Five Pebbles failed. He tried to brute force his way to ascension.

Suicide implies that ascension is only meant to be a fruitless escape and that it’s wrong to ascend. I… do not want to go into why suicide is bad. It’s a strong topic and I’m just here to talk about video games. But ascension is a neutral thing that you can choose to do or not do and to wait until you’re ready.

------

Conclusion...

I really only have the time to cover these 6 misconceptions, and I believe it should be enough. There have been many others I’ve seen, such as the ancients being malicious or that there weren’t any civilizations before them, but there’s not as much to say about them, and they aren’t as common.

Rain World is a very confusing game. I’m not upset at people who think these things to be true, and I do not believe they’re stupid or don’t have any media literacy. I just wish that the people who did actually cover this game did some more looking into it, and actually discussing it with Rain World fans.

Also I should say, that during this entire discussion I have avoided talking about Downpour- RW’s DLC- as it’s more of a official fanmade project. And so much of what it says may not be entirely in line with Vanilla. Because my life isn’t easy and of course there has to be an incredibly divisive and confusing thing like this that I need to avoid bringing up so that way the conversation isn’t muddled.

Thanks if you managed to make it through all this by the way

[jakei95]

Regarding some false accusations and targeted harassment by HopelessPeaches TW: Harassment, mentions of gr**ming, d**th threats, s*icide idealization

For the past months, HopelessPeaches (also known as ThatRebelRosie on twitter) have kept harassing me and my husband Nyx with fake and exaggerated arguments. Every day she makes a post spreading rumors about how we are p*dophiles or that I hide groomers on my discord server/community which are completely false.

Even since I cutoff contact with the people from the GTC and their skype group, I tried to focus on growing up as a person and thanks to that we were able to keep our Discord server and community a safe space for people of all ages, claiming otherwise is just invalidating all the hard work people like Crystal or Pingu have done to keep our community safe.

We always tried to help our mod team and offered our support, we never forced them or exposed them to situations they didn't want to handle.  None of us were prepared for the sick people we have had to confront over the years, but together we were able to take actions against them.

HopelessPeaches is obsessed with us, claiming that every action we take is to hide something or that we are trying to silence her abuse (When it's the other way around, she completely ignores the abuse I had to endure). She has gone to the extent of saying I announced Underverse 0.7 Part 2 to hide something, when I had planned to announce the animation on my birthday months ago.

She has constantly made fun of my abuse and mental health, and has stayed completely silent about all the hate messages (Including death threats) that she and her community has sent my way over her false accusations.

As I already cleared with the people on my server, I am not ignoring what I might have done in the past, and I will always live with the remorse of not being a better person from the start, I will always live with that, but I have spent years trying to become a better person and fix my mistakes to never repeat them again, both with my close circles and my followers, but having someone that I don't know, exposing my mental health problems, making fun them, accuse me of suicide baiting (Everyone that knows me knows I have struggled with this since I was a teenager), and also accusing me of a crime that I have never committed, is affecting me physically and mentally.

She is doing the same thing to me that she suffered from years ago. This has to stop. I am not asking for the world to not hate me, I am asking for people to stop harassing us for things that we have already acknowledged and owned fully in the past. People can change for the better, we are not criminals.

We have no intentions to send hate to these people, but this has gone so public and we have gotten so many threats that I had to address it personally. HopelessPeaches , I don't know what exactly you want from me, or what do you expect is going to happen, but this is the last time I will ask you to stop harassing us. I don't care if you hate me or Nyx, if you want the Undertale community dies or whatever that's going on through your head. I am just asking you to leave us alone.

[bones4thecats]

Aaaa yay requests are open again! (⁠ ⁠╹⁠▽⁠╹⁠ ⁠)

Hmmm... Could I request Valentino, Vox, and Velvette in a platonic/familial relationship with a young demon reader?

Also, could the reader have the ability to 'charm' people - but not in a way that makes others fall in love with them. Instead it causes the target to perceive them as objectively cute (like a baby otter, or a puppy) - although it doesn't prevent cuteness aggression. (Essentially - they can make people perceive them as adorable. Or more adorable than they may already be lol) (⁠ ⁠ꈍ⁠ᴗ⁠ꈍ⁠)

I hope you have a great day! Remember to hydrate! (⁠ﾉ⁠◕⁠ヮ⁠◕⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠*⁠.⁠✧

- 🧑‍🧑‍🧒 anon \⁠(⁠･⁠◡⁠･⁠)⁠/

The Vees With An Adorable-Child! Reader

Characters: Vox, Valentino, and Velvette Requester: 👪Anon A/N: This was fun to write, and like my last two posts, this is shorter than normal. But hey, I've released multiple posts in one day! Haven't done that in quite a while!! ⚠️ Spoilers/Trigger Warnings for: Mentions of SA and abuse (not directed at the Reader) ⚠️

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗

╚═════ Vox ═════════════════════════════════╝

📺 When Vox first saw you with Velvette, he was alarmed. Why did she keep saying you would be useful for any future plans? You were a damn child!

"Velvette, do explain. How in the name of Hell is that- that BABY, supposed to be of use to us?"

"You'll see someday, Voxy!"

📺 Rolling his eyes as you giggled and kept messing around with some stuffed animals that Velvette and Valentino had bought you a couple days prior, Vox had to admit, there was something off about you being around

📺 And that feeling became completely cleared when you finally revealed you abilities to him

📺 As an up-and-coming star in Hell's media, you were hunted down by many individuals, so the Vees ended up traveling with you everywhere. Either that or they'd have some bodyguards surrounding you

📺 One day, Vox had decided to take a walk around Hell with you out of sheer boredom. And while he looked away for a couple minutes to tell a waiter that he just needed the food straightly to-go, he noticed a sound of giggles and awes in your direction

📺 Looking towards you, he saw a group of sinners applauding you as sparkles and other cutesy-things surrounded your form. It was like your adorable charm was ramped up to another level in their eyes

📺 You then giggled which then made them adore you so much to the point they all became aggressive with one another, tackling and attacking one another harshly in front of the other demons around

📺 Vox smirked as the waiter handed him a couple bags of the food for the Vees and you to eat at home. Maybe you could be of use with getting others to convert from Alastor's old-timey radio to Vox's new-timey technology

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗

╚═════ Valentino ══════════════════════════════╝

❣️ When Valentino first saw you, he had to admit you were quite the cute child!

❣️ He went from physically beating another sinner under contract with him to kneeling in front of you and giving you a small hat identical to his own, including the antenna!

❣️ Val is by-far the one who spoils you the most. He gives you all kinds of stuff ranging from children's toys (he knows not to give you adult ones) and outfits that look close to his

❣️ One time, he gave you small sunglasses like his, but they had tiny teddy bears on the rims , and seeing you wear a tinier version of his entire outfit made him swoon and almost cry tears of joy at your cuteness

❣️ He is also one of the first demons to ever see your abilities. One day, one of his producers for an upcoming movie had begun to yell at another actress, one that you had become quite close to

❣️ You became angry and used your Overlord magic against him, charming him into becoming aggressive with himself. Resulting in him tearing his own fur out and for the other crew members to call an ambulance to go to a nearby Hospital

❣️ Valentino walked up to you and patted your head and nuzzled your forehead before giving you a sugar-filled comment

"Your abilities are definitely ones to not mess with, niña/niño. You should be proud of yourself for having such magnificent power in the palm of your tiny hands."

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗

╚═════ Velvette ═══════════════════════════════╝

📳 She was the first demon to come across you

📳 Velvette had been taking random photos to test out a new filter she was making when she came across you. You were such an adorable child! Just standing there with a fancy outfit and big-cutesy eyes!

📳 She asked if you wanted a photo and when you said yes, she smiled and took a selfie with you. And when she looked back, she noticed you looked somehow cuter with some demons ogling you from the back

📳 Obviously this was sadly normal in Hell, but she noticed how they ended up pouncing on one another and begin trying to tear one another's limbs off/out

📳 You just smiled and giggled at their actions, and Velvette gained an idea. What if you came by V-Tower with her and became a main piece in her new child-outfit line? You seem like the perfect model for some outfits, after all!

📳 She was initially met with backlash from both of her partners, but after Valentino saw you, he had to love you like an uncle would a child immediately. And when Vox spent time with you, he began to care for you in the same way

📳 Every time you use your abilities on others, Velvette smirks and laughs manically at the wild actions of the other demons around you two

[eurothug4000]

PIGLET'S BIG GAME - INTERVIEW WITH PASCAL CAMMISOTTO

Earlier this week I interviewed Pascal (game designer on Piglet's Big Game 2003) about the making of the title that has received a whirlwind of attention online recently. You can find more information in my video that's going up today on my channel: https://www.youtube.com/@eurothug4000/videos

How did the project come into existence?

At that time, Doki Denki studio was already working with Disney. 

We had released three PlayStation 1 games with them. Disney was working on the film Piglet's Big Movie and was looking for a studio to develop the video game alongside it. 

I don’t want to say anything inaccurate, but I believe it was, officially, our first PlayStation 2 game released on the market.

If the information I found online is correct, Piglet's Big Movie was released after Piglet's Big Game came out! Were you given any direction by Disney on what the game should be like and if it should be similar to the movie in any way? Or did you have complete freedom in designing the game (story, gameplay etc.) as you wish?

I’m not too sure anymore how everything came together, but I believe Disney didn’t give us access to the film's content. 

They were very secretive (and I think that was quite common at the time). They just wanted a ‘product’ to accompany the movie release. 

All we knew was that it revolved around Piglet. So the game’s story was developed by us (the game design team), as narrative designers didn’t exist back then. 

We had a lot of freedom, both in writing and game design, and I think that was partly thanks to Disney's producer, Risa Cohen. She really supported our decisions in the interest of quality.

What do you specifically remember working on for the game? (Certain levels, overall gameplay loop etc.?)

I remember several things: the horror gameplay, which was completely new for this target audience; the hour of real-time cinematics that I directed with the animation team; the cameras in each room that I placed as best as I could to follow the action; and finally, the overly difficult combat (which I wanted to tone down, but wasn’t allowed to. ^^). 

The atmosphere in the studio was fantastic, and I genuinely recall a sense of pride in what we were doing. 

Yes, it was a kids’ game, and yes, sometimes it was cheesy, but we still had so much fun making it, as if we were making it for ourselves. It was truly a great project.

Do you remember what the reception was to the game at the time of its release?

Yes, the game was very well received. It was considered by reviewers to be a very good children’s game. At that time, many licensed games (especially those for kids) were rushed and uninspired. 

That wasn’t our philosophy at the studio. We wanted to make a good game, even if the target audience was very young. 

I think that’s why the game surprised people with its strong approach and quality.

Have you seen some of the posts about Piglet's Big Game recently? What was your reaction to seeing them if so?

Absolutely not. I just found out, and of course, I’m thrilled that it’s being talked about again!

People online are talking about the "horror" aspects of the game, were these intentional? Was the aim to have a game that had elements of the horror genre?

When Disney spoke with the studio about this game, Marc Albinet (the head of game design, my boss) immediately wanted to make ‘a Resident Evil for kids.’ 

I believe he even went to Disney to pitch the idea, and he must have been convincing because they said yes. 

Since we didn’t have access to the movie’s script, we created a story centered around Piglet. It focused on his lack of self-confidence and the courage he would need to help his friends, who were asleep and trapped in a nightmare. 

The horror element was tied to these nightmares that the player would need to resolve.

Are there any links or anything that you'd like me to mention so people can find you online, or any projects you're working on?

You can find me on X (@KaMiZoTo), but I rarely tweet. Since my time at Doki Denki, I've gained quite a bit of experience, and now I have my own studio: 

http://drawmeapixel.com

We released in 2020 "There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension", which I recommend everyone try without watching any let’s plays to avoid spoilers! (The experience relies on surprise.)

We’re also working on a new secret project with the same meta spirit!

A big thank you to Pascal for taking the time to talk about the game!

[guidaozongshi]

Sasuke and Japanese Masculinity

There are some Naruto/Sasuke blogs that I generally like and I am in agreement with many of their analysis but one of the ideas perpetuated by them is the idea that Sasuke is the feminine counterpart to Naruto' s masculine one or that he has characteristics typical of a heroine, which I can not agree with.

Let's start with one of the most befuddling claims that I have come across -

You can only come to the above conclusion if your only consumption of Japanese media include post 1980 Shounen or Toukatsu TV.

Theatre/Kabuki were enactment of the existing literature and I can assure you that their protagonists were FAR from the modern Shounen protagonists( I discuss this in detail below ).Almost every character in Kabuki has exaggerated make up and wore bright colour, it's not reserved for the protagonist either.

"The Ideal Japanese Hero"

This is a very broad term in itself that doesn't take into account the time period nor genre.

The character traits typical of a Shounen protagonists that presumably OP is talking about such as being short tempered/rebellious/punkish appears very late in the history of manga. These protagonists exhibited such qualities to be relatable to adolescent boys but they are not the ideal conception of masculinity in Japan and they are often criticised for being immature.

These characteristics are often not found in Seinen/Gekiga works, or any literature that is not targeted at kids.It consists of a very diverse variety of protagonists but they are much closer to the Japanese equivalent of a Byronic hero than a loud troublemaker. Take Blade of the Immortal , Vagabond , Berserk , Vinland Saga etc.

Back to Sasuke : Revenge and Restoring Honour

These are the topics that are so embedded in classical Japanese literature that there is an entire Genre dedicated to it : Jitsuroku

The one that started it all i.e Forty-Seven Ronin tells the story of revenge against a political opponent who caused the death of a Samurai lord by wrongfully framing him. This story and it's themes are embedded deep in Japanese heritage and remains one of the most influential works that would inspire similar stories.

The story of being wronged due to politics, resulting in dishonour and ultimately death and then being avenged by the protagonist who sets out to fulfill his duty of revenge and restoring their honor owing to filial piety or loyalty becomes a staple genre. One of the examples being Tales of Jiraiya, one of the many inspirations for Naruto

And Sasuke is a textbook example of such a character from this genre.

He is the typical classical Japanese male protagonist

Despite being a deuteraginist he challenged Naruto's role as a protagonist both in the text and outside of it . During the run of Naruto on Weekly Shounen Jump , Sasuke would occupy the #2 position for the vast majority of times and even beat Naruto at least once to take the #1 spot. His character and story arc was incredibly popular in Japan because it exhibited characteristics of a classical Japanese hero.

He might get mixed reactions in the West but he is beloved in Japan. So much so that some people wanted him to be the protagonist instead of Naruto.

Naruto while a beloved protagonist is considered too naive,and almost childish in his beliefs . While Sasuke is his mature counterpart who is capable of ideological introspection.

Blogs that are in favour of putting the 'heroine' role on Sasuke often use a comment made jokingly by one of the anime directors as Sasuke being the true heroine because he is to be chased and rescued by the protagonist or claim that some Japanese people discuss him as such and I am ????? Are you serious? This is such a superficial way of looking at their relationship and Sasuke's character arc or even what actually transpired between them that I am not even bothering countering it.

If you could browse 2channel back in the day , you would see hundreds of messages in various threads that Sasuke is apparently the true hero of the story or how they want Sasuke to be the protagonist. There would also be comments about how emasculating Naruto's relationship with Sasuke is but that is another can of worms.

It is a common sentiment in Japan that if Naruto was a Seinen manga, Sasuke would undoubtedly be the protagonist.

Instead of being the 'heroine' or 'feminine counterpart', Sasuke exhibits the reserved, graceful and mature masculinity typical of a classical Japanese hero in counter to the open,exuberant and juvenile masculinity of Naruto.

There are people who claim Sasuke being a bishounen and graceful is him being the feminine counterpart because he is the Yin to Naruto' Yang. I highly disagree, Yin-Yang analogy is used throughout the manga to describe contrasting forces especially darkness/hatred and light/love , it is not used to portray outward characteristics. Using Yin-Yang to explain their appearances or behaviour is just extrapolating using the philosophical concept outside of its use of the manga.

While femininity is associated with Yin, I would like people to introspect what 'feminine traits' in the Japanese context constitute. Because the 'feminine traits' that Sasuke apparently exhibits aren't feminine at all.

Sasuke-Naruto are not the only two duos with such outward contrasts anyways , it's predecessor duo and one of the most recognisable rivals (at least in Japan) like Rukawa-Sakuragi from Slam Dunk, which Kishimoto likely took inspiration from has Rukawa who is aloof and desirable vs Sakuragi who is more of a delinquent in both appearance and behaviour . Such contrasting outwardly attributes are present in a lot of Shonen rivalries, you don't need Yin-Yang concepts to explain these.

On this tangent I would actually recommend everyone to read Slam Dunk not only because it is good but to also actually understand how a normal Shonen rivalry between likely straight males works and how much of a deviation Sasuke and Naruto' relationship is. I mentioned before that Kishimoto likely took inspiration from this and I say this because in addition to Rukawa-Sakuragi's rivalry in the sport, there is a love triangle aspect to it. Sakuragi loves Akagi who has a crush on Rukawa, who doesn't care. Here's where the similarity in the dynamics ends. Sakuragi actually really likes the girl ,he only starts playing basketball to impress her and then develops a rivalry with Rukawa. I can go on about their similarities and Kishimoto's subversion but it's a topic for another post.

Getting back on topic.

Sasuke's Desirability and Beauty

One of the most common arguments that is used in favour for Sasuke as a heroine is that he is desired by multiple people in the story and how his beauty is commented and highlighted on, and that these are the features apparently typically given to the female love interest.

This is one of the most ignorant claims I have ever come accross. Japanese literature has a long-standing tradition of exalting the beauty of males and their desirability, often to denote how perfect and/or otherworldly the person is.

One of the seminal works in Japanese literature Tales of Genji had to say this about its protagonist Hikaru Genji : "His appearance tempted men and women alike, as he had smooth white skin, excellent fashion sense, which increased his fame and popularity". His beauty is commented throughout the novel and he is desired by many, this doesn't negate his very masculine character.

It brings me to the next topic:

Bishounen

This is a term with so much history and what tropes it is associated with changes according to what genre it is used in that I am not surprised that some people just use it as a synonym for feminine/homosexual men. But in the contemporary lexicon and usage it just means a pretty boy of any sexuality.

Bishounen serve as love interests in Shoujo, the entire cast in a BL, Antagonist/Rival and sometimes even the protagonist in Shounen and Seinen. It just means a man who looks handsome/beautiful in a androgynous way but at the same time not be mistaken for a girl.

I came across this post and this is what put me over the edge to actually create a proper post because the claims here are completely eregrious

" saying Sasuke is meant to be a typical Japanese ideal of masculinity....... wearing lipstick crazy"

I don't think that the author drawing Sasuke with stage makeup on a cover featuring him as an actor negates the fact that Sasuke is meant to be a typical Japanese ideal of masculinity, I have already discussed it in detail above the reasons he is considered such.

"call Sasuke the Japanese ideal of masculinity... funny... meant to be bishounen"

OP themselves doesn't have any Idea on the Japanese conceptualisation of masculinity nor the term Bishounen, which is fine if they weren't scoffing at an objectively correct reading of a character due to their own ignorance.

Being beautiful, youthful and desirable is well within the form of Japanese masculinity. Being bishounen doesn't negate masculinity, on the contrary validates it.

The sublime masculine Samurai were obsessed with keeping youthful appearances. And there is a reason almost all Japanese male idols/actors/singers strive to look androgynous.

I don't think Sasuke/Sakura shippers refuse to accept that he is Bishounen, that's quite literally one of his appeals,it's a general term not exclusively used to describe homosexual men. The origins of the term definitely contains homoeroticism but as I have said before that in contemporary usage it just means a pretty man and can be found in almost all type of Japanese media.

However if anybody uses the 'Japanese Ideal of masculinity' as an argument against him being attracted to a man, they would be displaying ignorance as these are concepts which can be found in a complementary fashion throughout Japanese literature.

Bishounen also has different tropes associated with it depending on the genre:

Comics for younger boys tend to use arrogant bishōnen in the role of the recurring minor rivals readers love to hate, though their effeminate good looks there, they will often appear older... stronger, and thus in fact more masculine than the commonly shorter and less mature protagonists.

- Manga: The Complete Guide, Del Rey

I think many people cannot let go of their Western sensibilities when analysing the text, especially in relationship to concepts like masculinity which is very dynamic even in Japan. They see two contrasting masculine characters: one being more open and brash and the other being reserved and graceful , and come to the conclusion that the latter is the feminine counterpart , which cannot be further from the truth.

Either that or some people are affected by their bias towards a certain pairing dynamic.

TL;DR Sasuke is the embodiment of classic Japanese masculinity

[chronicsyd]

Caitlyn and Ambessa's Game of Cat and Mouse pt 1- "Appointing A General".

So people keep saying Vi saying "cupcake" woke Caitlyn up like a sleeper agent magic word and that's NOT the case at all, Caitlyn KNEW that Ambessa had ulterior motives and so I went back and watched her scenes from eps 3-6 to prove it. Caitlyn's Already realized Ambessa's play here, or at very least that she's up to something. That means that "evil overlord Caitlyn" was NEVER going to happen to Begin with, everything that Caitlyn's doing is playing a game of con with Ambessa (granted, the actions Caitlyn takes to do this aren't Good, and I'm not justifying them, but it's more of a... necessity for her is the best way to put it. and playing a game of cat and mouse isn't unrealistic for her because she's a politicians daughter). And I'm gonna split this up into a few parts to explain eps 3-6 and explain how this plays into the argument she has with Vi in Act 3. so let's begin:

like I mentioned before in the other post breaking this down, the first emotion to appear is shock, Caitlyn wasn't expecting her name to be called Whatsoever, probably thought that it was going to be Salo or something. But what her eyes pick up on are the families of high houses in the room that start nodding their head in approval.

This causes Caitlyn to start to think, "Why me? Why bring my name up at all?" before thinking back at the families nodding their heads in approval, it's her Status that would get Them to agree. The gears start turning.

She then takes notice of Maddie pounding her chest, which is what leads the other enforcers to start pounding their chests as well, they're her Fellow Enforcers and like the fact that she's called as well. She's connecting the dots.

THIS is a look of realization, it only lasts a split second, but it's THERE, she's connected the dots. She's from a powerful house and is commander of the Enforcers, of Course Ambessa was going to call on Her name and have Her be the face of Piltover. and it's at this point where she has to make a choice: turn Ambessa down and seem "weak" in front of everyone? or accept Ambessa and see what's really going on?

This face had confused me for the past week because it didn't seem like it had to do with her anger towards Jinx or the attackers of the memorial. But now, this is a face directed AT Ambessa, she has not trusted her from the Start, but in order to confirm her suspicions, she has to accept this role being offered to her. It's unclear if Ambessa recognizes that Caitlyn hasn't trusted her from the start either, or if Ambessa takes notice of it as the two start to spend more time with each other (because when she says "you don't trust me" in ep 4, several months have passed at that point)? When Ambessa says "Come, child", Caitlyn realizes the choice she Has to make here, and it's a BAD one.

This is a face that Screams "I don't Trust you" and she holds eye contact with Ambessa as she passes by, probably trying to decern something, Anything from the look in her eyes but she can't linger too long to make Her seem suspicious to Ambessa before their game has even begun.

you can tell that Caitlyn feels Genuinely terrible for the negative consequences for the choice that she just made. because there are people in Zaun who are now going to be worse off Because of this. Because deep down she KNOWS there are innocents in Zaun, not monsters like Jinx or those who attacked the memorial, because that's really who the "animals" comment was targeted at, people who were behaving violently.

BUT she needs to keep up appearances, so she keeps a firm face when she turns around and pulls her fist to her chest, seeming Completely loyal to Ambessa at this point and time.

Like I said, I'm gonna break this up into parts covering events of Act 2 and how they both try and manipulate the other. so check back in soon, i guess...

[bigwishes]

Class Selection

Levi was a young software engineer freshly graduated from university and set up in a nice job at one of the best tech companies in Sydney. Whilst Levi loved his job his real passion was in gaming and he'd been waiting 6 months for a new MMO to drop. He'd heard it allowed him to link his character from his PC to the real world and engage in community events from his phone whilst he was out.

Levi sat down at his PC watching the linking app install on his phone, he got a quick notifications about Beta functions but he just brushed it off ignoring the message entirely knowing most games like this release in a public beta version for at least a few months.

He was too excited to start playing ShiftOnline. Levi opened up the launcher on his PC and linked it to his phone. He saw a blank character sheet on his phone along with empty social and quest functions. It looked interesting but he had to make a character before he could explore how the real life raid functions worked.

Levi clicked on create character and was prompted with a handful of selections and character presets.

MAGE: a hot toned black man teleported onto the screen in a flash of lightning. Seemed interesting for maybe his second playthrough but Levi found DPS classes a bit boring.

GUARDIAN: A slim man wielding yellow magic stepped onto the screen but Levi clicked off before the character could even finish his intro animation, healers were boring as fuck, he loved being front and centre in games and skipped past the rest of the options to the tank classes.

Scrolling through the tank classes they all seemed fairly generic and boring. Levi was almost ready to go back to the mage character when he clicked on the final class to take a look.

COLOSSUS: A giant black man leaped down from the top of the screen slamming into the ground giving the illusion of the entire monitor shaking from the impact. The character than stood up expanding his shoulders back, roaring slamming his fists together.

Levi smiled with excitement, this was exactly what he was looking for, not just a tank to take hits during a raid but a Juggernaut who could deal just as much damage as he could take, a real Colossus.

He clicked on the character and went through to customisation. He spent an hour designing his character to be exactly how he wanted, he looked at the first few stages of the levelling plan for the class before pressing create.

LEVEL 1 COMMANDING AURA: release a potent aura and gaining the attention of everything in a radius

LEVEL 2 COLOSSAL DEFENSES: when under threat increase size and strength by almost double LEVEL 3 METEOR SLAM: whilst moving above walking speed gain increasing momentum up to 500%, slamming into a target or object will release the energy in a burst of damage

LEVEL 4 HOME ADVANTAGE: your commanding aura will shift the environment it touches leaving it to effect living things as if you were there.

Levi liked what he was seeing from the first few levels and didn't feel like he had to keep reading all the way to level 50 so he clicked create and began linking his character to his phone. Soon the large man he had just spent an hour creating appeared on the app on his phone.

Is this the character you'd like to engage in real world events? YES/NO

Levi pressed yes and suddenly felt a small zap of electricity from his phone. He reactively dropped his phone and rubbed his hand from where he had just been shocked. Looking at the small mark he watched his hand suddenly double in size. His toned body started expanding. He felt his tight tank top struggling to cope as his body started expanding, he quickly took it off and started recording what was happening to himself in the mirror.

His toned body and muscled started to inflate with size as he slowly transitioned from ripped to jacked. Notifications swamped the top of his screen as people on the Social function of the gaming app posted videos of themselves transforming, for most it were minor physical changes but for those who picked tank classes they were turning into giant beasts.

It was almost like a trend for people to post their before and after transformations on the app, but when Levi checked other social media apps there were no videos infact it there were no posts about the game at all, it was almost like the game got cancelled.

Levi gritted his teeth as his body continued to expand. He stood up investigating his new thick frame.

"god damn what the fuck happened"

Levi checked the app and saw a progress bar labelled "Real World Transfer" was only half way complete. He looked at the size of the character on his phone compared to how he looked now, if he was really going to become that big he had no idea how the hell he was going to fit in clothes anymore, or his car for that matter.

Guess the character starting gear just large baggy pants and no other kind of armour.

He looked to see on the app if anyone else had chosen the same class and if their transformation was complete. He was on the tank player social page and not many people had chosen a tank class and he couldn't see anyone who had picked the Colossus.

A notification appeared at the top of his screen.

LEVEL 1 ABILITIES AVALIBLE - Passive: Commanding Aura

Sweat started to appear across his body and he could smell a potent stench radiating off his body. Levi scratched his armpit and quickly found his hand slick with sweat.

Once again he felt his body expanding and he flexed in the mirror looking as his body slowly transformed to be like his colossal character.

Levi looked and admired the new giant bodybuilder form standing in front of himself. He flexed his huge arms and uploaded his transformation video to the social part of the app. He tried to upload it to his other social media app however the video wouldn't attach and looking closer at his social media apps all the photos of him had been changed to his new massive form.

Soon the novelty wore off as he caught a whiff of the stench radiating off his body, this commanding aura was definitely something he was going to have to figure out before going into work tomorrow but for now he was going to enjoy the activity offered in game, and maybe he'd enjoy himself a little bit later too.

Levi sat down in his gaming chair hearing it strain under his new weight. His expanded lats rubbed against the arm rests barely squeezing through and soon Levi felt his underwear coated in sweat and stick to his huge muscled ass.

-------

Levi squeezed himself out of his small car, feeling the dress shirt he ordered online cling to his huge muscled frame. He didn't know how everyone was going to react to how he had magically changed over the weekend but he still had to make money to pay for his gaming habit.

Levi walked through the lobby and stepped into an elevator. A slight ding range as he pressed to his floor number and the doors reopened to the lobby. A small middle aged man in a business suit stepped in front of the elevator.

"I dont know why they hell you're in the elevator Levi, you know you surpass the weight limit"

Levi rubbed the back of his head, so people recognised him but didn't notice the changes. Like he had always been like this. Levi stepped out embarrassed.

"Guess I'll take the stairs"

"maybe lay off the roids kid" The older man said, shaming Levi for his size.

Levi opened the door to the emergency stair well and began his 30 floor hike. He hasn't even started walking and could already feel the sweat start to stain under his armpits. The 3 cans of deodorant he had coated himself in this morning was already starting to be worthless and Levi hadn't even made it up 3 steps yet.

At floor 5 Levi stopped taking a break to catch his breath. He had read some guide last night about the Colossus class having terrible stamina to balance out Meteor Slam but he didn't think it would impact him much in the real world but he continued his hike.

Arriving at floor 30 he stood in front of the door to his office floor gasping for air. The terrible stamina combined with how much effort it took to move his body was making him start to doubt his class choice. Levi raised one arm to lean on the door way but lifting it an inch too high he hear a ripping noise. Looking down he saw the stitching over his armpit was torn and what looked like steam flowed from his shirt. Levi pushed open the door hoping no one would notice his wardrobe malfunction but as he opened the door he noticed how bad his stench must be. As the door swung open a cloud of steam flowed out into the office and a wet sweaty handprint was left behind from where he pushed it open.

Walking across the office everyone was staring at him, complaining about the stench radiating from his body. Levi sat down in his office chair accidentally breaking one of the arm rests as he did and started to get to work. He heard his phone ping and saw a notification from the game app.

LEVEL 2 ABILITIES AVALIBLE: -passive: Colossal Defences.

It wasn't long before his boss was at his desk.

"Levi this is the 3rd time I'm talking to you about your...work place hygiene"

This was the first Levi had ever heard about it

"eeerrr, sorry sir. I ummm"

"save it Levi, I'm going to have to ask you to go home, you'll have to do remote work from now on, nobody in the office can stand your, hmmm how do I put this delicately, your aura but I need to warn you, if your work output drops we'll have to let you go"

Levi grew nervous, he loved his job and really didn't want to lose it. His heart started beating in his chest. He heard the office chair groan under him. Looking down at his thighs he saw his pants grow tighter and the stitching on his inner thigh started to let go.

"everything okay Levi?"

"eerrrr yep, all good, Ill just head home email me my work bye"

Levi quickly stood up, grabbed his bag and began waddling quickly walking to the door. Hearing his pants and shirt start to tear more with each step. Right as he closed the door to the stair well he felt the back of his shirt completely tear apart. His pants split to shreds as he suddenly doubled in size.

He checked the app to see what was happening and saw his ability Colossal Defence had become active. He tried to take some deep breaths to calm down but realised anyone could walk in at any moment and they might not notice how he changed over the weekend but this was temporary and it'd be difficult to explain how he doubled in size in two seconds. He began his decent down the stairs, slowly waddling as he couldn't see his feet past his huge pecs. Luckily by the time he got to his car he had shrank back down to "normal size" sitting in her car he got a notification from the game app again.

MILESTONE COMPLETE: DUNGEON CRAWLER - Explore real world dungeons

LEVEL 3 - Ability: Meteor Slam

-------

Levi finally arrived him, he didn't bother taking his clothes off normally, he just tore off what wet shreds remained clinging to him and chucked them to the floor hearing a loud wet slop as drenched fabric landed on the ground. He sniffed his pits turning away grossed out at the stench and headed to his bathroom for a shower. Right before opening the door he tripped over his own massive foot. As he fell forward he felt his body accelerate and he suddenly found his massive body crashing straight through his bathroom door. As his huge form collided with the door it was obliterated and smashed into pieces.

"aw fuck...welp guess that's meteor slam...." Levi put his hands on the back of his head and let out a deep sigh. He was done, it was the Colossus class was fun in the game but the real lift effects were too much he was going to change his class. He tried to do it through the app but there was no option, he went to his PC putting off his shower a bit longer to get himself back to some kind of normal. Opening the game he was met with a message.

PC GAME OPTIONS DOWN FOR MAITENCE AND PATCHING PLEASE CHEC BACK IN A FEW HOURS.

Levi rolled his eyes, it was the first thing he'd do tomorrow when the game was back online. For now he was going to bed, today was a bust he'd try for a better day tomorrow.

------

Levi woke up feeling his bed completely drenched in sweat, the smell of body odour lingering in the air. He picked up his massive frame and went straight to his PC to change his character. Openeing the game is was met with a notification.

PATCH NOTES: Dear players we are glad you are all enjoying the adventures of ShiftOnline we have been collecting player data and made some adjustments to class stats and abilities for better balance.

Levi skimmed through the other class changes to his

Colossus Changes: Colossus is the least popular class in the game with under 100 players however that doesn't mean the class isn't strong so we are making some changes to rebalance the skills and redirect some power, this changes will be reflective [to see definition of reflective please see our website]

NERFS Colossus players have gained major increased strength and we want to keep that, so to better keep their balance we are nerfing their intelligence stats by -80

BUFFS Commanding Aura is great and grabbing attention both in and out of the game world but its a bit on the weaker side of other tanks agro abilities so we are doubling its range

Colossal Defences is a good abilities but players dislike its randomness, it will now auto trigger when a player is threated like before but players can also toggle the ability on when they aren't threatened

Levi started to feel strange, like popping candy was going off in his head. He felt a bit dizzy. He clicked the link to the definition of reflective changes.

"reflective changes mean they will happen in game and IRL"

Levi remembered the intelligence nerf and quickly when back to the game to make a new character. He picked a basic mage character and sped through the customisation feeling the sensation in his head get worse. Right as he went to press accept he stopped and sat back in his chair. He lifted on arm flexing looking at his huge bicep.

"huhuhuh, so big, me stay biig forEVER"

Levi clicked deny on the character change settings

He stood up moving his hulking frame to the bathroom to admire his huge form in the mirror. As he stood in front of the mirror he flexed feeling a strange sensation, as he activated his Colossal Defences ability without realising. He watched his body slowly grow and double in size.

"huhuhuh"

Levi laughed with drool falling down the side of his lip and onto his chest. He felt himself get hard and waddled to his bedroom to have some fun with himself but he found his shoulders colliding with the door frame. Levi stopped and frowned. He knew had fit through the door but couldn't work out how. He continued to walk back and fourth his shoulders colliding with the doorframe over and over. Too stupid to realise he'd have to shrink back down to normal size to fit through the door again.

About an hour later Levi realised he could turn sideways and fit through the door. His phone pinged again but he didn't bother to check.

LEVEL 4: -Passive: Home Advantage

As Levi waddled through his house his thick stench wafted along with him clinging to his wall and furniture. He carpets became strained with sweaty footprints. His wall paper started to peel and crumble from the about of sweat in the air. His house slowly shifted around him from the clean kept house of a software engineer to an unkept mess that looked like it was home to a caveman.

Levi sat down on his and reached down to his dick to relieve himself but he couldn't reach. The sound of his muscles and skin groaning and rubbing against each other filled the room as the giant man desperately tried to grab hold of his own manhood. Again not able to figure how he'd have to go back to his 'normal' size so he could reach.

The giant colossus spent hours trying to figure out why he couldn't reach his own dick even though he desperately wanted to. Eventually he simply fell asleep on his sweaty stained, stinking mattress. His loud snooze rumbling through his house.

Levi probably thought picking Colossus as his starting class was a bad idea.

Luckily he couldn't think anymore.

[demonslayerunhinged]

Unhinged rant >:(

Demon Slayer fandom discourse

I want to start this by saying, I know that Demon Slayer isn't an explicitly queer manga/anime because Shōnen Jump, but I believe that Demon Slayer is for the queers and has lots of themes that we can identify with like love, acceptance, loss, guilt and strength.

Despite what these stupid, smelly, ignorant, power-scaling, non-ass-washing, Cheetos-dust-snorting, once-a-month-showering, dude-bros would have you believe, Demon Slayer isn't just another battle Shōnen anime/manga, it's a love story and about the perseverance of the human spirit and if that doesn't speak to the queer experience then I don't know what does.

Plus, I don't know how Gotogue-sensei is as a person, but I think the fact that she managed to make one of the kindest mcs in shōnen speaks volumes about her disposition. I don't think she would be one to reject queer fans identifying with her story so well.

In these recent times, it seems like everything is going to shit, the world is slowly regressing into the dark ages destroying decades of progress and trying to distract ourselves from all this by engaging with the fandoms we love is hard because everything seems to cater to cis, straight, white men.

To be honest, I created this blog mostly out of spite, but I also wanted to carve out a tiny space for myself where I can talk out of my ass and not have some decrepit reddit dude bro go all 'well, ackshually ☝🤓' on me, and I'm happy to have met so many like-minded people.

So, I've compiled a list of answers to the common types of nonsense drivel these fuckers post in response to shipping and queer discussions and theories about Demon Slayer. You can copy and paste whenever and wherever you encounter these black holes of ignorance and stupidity if you want.

In the Taisho era, there were no gay/queer people: This is one of the dumbest statements I've ever heard, and the fact that it's a really common response really shows how we've failed as a society. Queer people have existed for ages all over the world, Japan has an extensive queer history. Demon Slayer is based on samurai culture and samurai culture was really, really, really, really, really, really, really gay. Sure, it had rigid roles, but that doesn't make it any less queer. A quick Google search would go a long way to nourish that dried-out, shrivelled husk you call a brain. Go read a book you walking condom ad, your parents and education system have obviously failed you.

It's forcing sexuality into the story: We literally had a whole season dedicated to the mcs going to the 'entertainment district', we have a sexy man with three wives who talks about 'loving' them all equally, we have the abundant male fanservice, one of the mcs talks about women on the daily, we have a boy who eats demons and is horny shy around girls all the time, we have his brother who exposes his tits because he's proud of them, we have a demon who was essentially a sexual predator that targeted 16-year-old girls and ate them, the main villain shape-shifts into a woman to 'get' information as a Geisha, we have a girl who literally lusts after almost everyone she meets but yea no lets not force sexuality into it 🙄.

I don't care: Okay cool, but I value your opinion as much as I value the shit I took this morning.

It's who they are as a character that matters: Sexuality is a part of a person's character. Your sexuality defines your experiences, decisions, options and outlook on life. That's why you as a straight man can be so ignorant.

It's forced*(I really hate this one): Honestly, fuck you. Why is it that you only think something is forced when it doesn't revolve around you and your experiences? You guys are fine with tons of anime/manga that sexualize women and girls to an insane degree even when it doesn't make sense, but that doesn't stop you from consuming and glazing the hell out of the authors, but when we talk about including queer characters suddenly it's forced? Your existence is forced, and you can just eat shit.

I don't like it: Who the fuck do you think you are dictating how other people consume and interpret the media they consume? How about you go hump your smelly, cum-encrusted anime body pillow.

Men can be touchy/emotional with each other without it being gay, it's just our western standards: No it isn't the majority of shipping activities and works come from Japan, which wouldn't happen if it was just part of their culture. We're not stupid, we know men and boys can be friends without it being sexual, and we know when a friendship is just that, and then we know when two guys are straight up pining for one another.

It's not canon/the mangaka didn't explicitly state it: They can't because of Shōnen Jump, so a lot of them pass off information about a character through subtext, metaphors and allegories. They also don't have to, things don't have to outright stated or 'canon' for them to make sense and if you need them to be so for you to understand or enjoy the story then a moment of silence for your head since it's without a brain.

It's not common: Despite Shōnen Jump, there are lots of mainstream anime/manga that have queer characters: One Punch Man, Hunter x Hunter, Dr. Stone, Windbreaker, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Naruto, Gintama, Dragon Ball Z, My Hero Academia, Fairy Tail, One Piece, Attack on Titan, Tokyo Ghoul, Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, Blue Period and that's not to talk of the ones with queer subtext like I dunno ALL Sports anime/manga to ever exist!

Why do you look for LGBTQ in everything?: It might be hard for straights to understand but growing up queer and looking for a connection causes us to develop what we call a gaydar that helps us identify characteristics, mannerisms, features and vibes from a person that screams 'ONE OF US! ONE OF US!'. It's only natural, and our gaydar doesn't suddenly turn off when we're consuming media, especially when it's media that we love and hold dear to our hearts. It doesn't matter if the mangaka inserted these characteristics intentionally or not, that doesn't stop us from picking up on them, and why should it?

Shipping is stupid: So is power-scaling, but that doesn't stop you assholes from making thousands of posts, creating YouTube channels and sharing content about it and cramming it down our throats. It's even worse because it's from grown-ass men.

The characters have no chemistry/they hate each other: A lot of queer ships have more chemistry, history, interactions, personality and development than a lot of 'canon' straight couples. It's literally a trope in media that all a man and a woman need to be in a relationship is to be in close proximity to each other, then their relationship goes on to be drier than salted crackers in silicone packets scattered in the Sahara desert. Well, I guess you can't blame the creators, you write what you know after all.

I know this is a lot and I know how angry I sound right now, but I'm so sick and so tired of all these guys who are as useful to the human race as pieces of freshly shat out dog turds that have been thrown in the grass by the sidewalk in a hot summer afternoon, who can't see past their lice-infested neck beards trying to make something as colorful, interesting, joyful and queer as anime and the fandoms fit their own boring, stupid and misogynistic worldview.

In Conclusion, Demon Slayer is amazing, horny* and unbelievably queer.

*I'm talking about the male fanservice btw :)

[demonic0angel]

Can you explain Jazz's pet shadow monster? I missed the lore post on that one.

Sure! Here are the basics:

+ Shadow is an Ancient, and one of the oldest ghosts to ever exist, since it appeared when the light first formed.

+ Shadow is extremely weak against ghosts (it cannot do anything but become a shield), but very effective against living beings (since all living beings have a shadow, unlike ghosts, which means that Shadow can use and control them.)

+ Shadow has mainly defensive/distraction/reconnaissance abilities with shadow traveling/teleportation, spying, shape-shifting, mimicry, storage space (inside of itself), and containment/control.

+ One of its most powerful abilities is their ability to shapeshift and imitate others. It uses its observations on other people and animals in order to become them. It can also use this ability to imitate their voices, like a recorder. However, since this ability is based on observation and memory (and bc they have not-so-perfect vision), their imitation is almost never perfect. They also cannot make the shapeshifted form do anything that they haven't seen their target do, or turn into non-living things.

+ However, they also have weaknesses. They cannot control or attack ghosts, they are pretty much unable to harm the living unless in drastic situations (can hold them down tho), have the regular weaknesses of ghosts (GIW weapons, Fenton weapons, blood blossoms, etc), are weakened by darkness, and needs blood in order to do more effective actions (like controlling or containing someone or making more doppelgängers. Otherwise, it can do basic stuff.)

+ Jazz saved them while they were captured by the GIW, so it’s very grateful to her. However, the help it gives is voluntary and they consider Jazz to be its friend rather than master or boss.

You can find out more here and here.

[corviiids]

ooh idk if you've talked about this one before, but what about goro akechi for the kira game?

HI RAPS

verdict: im prepared for this to be controversial, but consider this: ive never been wrong in my whole life. i think goro akechi could beat kira, but i don't know if he'd be happy with the outcome.

could goro akechi identify light yagami

im answering this one first because i want to make a point about this. listen. i feel like due to akechi's whole Plot where he Fakes Solving Cases For Clout, people forget that he actually is a really smart person and a good detective. like, he's not the super prodigy genius he pretends to be, but he's not a fake detective. he faked solving those shutdown cases for extremely specific reasons:

he was the fucking perpetrator so it served him to take control of the public understanding of the investigation into them and control the narrative; and

those cases were particularly high profile and would have been impossible to solve by anyone else, so 'solving' them would catapult him into notoriety faster than anything else - it was a clout speedrun, which is what he and shido needed.

but there are numerous other cases and puzzles in various bits of p5 media that he solves without faking them, plus we see plenty of occasions where he demonstrates his high intellect. the casino is a great example because i feel like the game takes that palace as an opportunity and relishes in letting you know what akechi can really do. the anime and the mementos mission manga both have subplots where akechi solves / helps to solve legitimate mysteries. and of course the famed unused mementos request in p5r which i think about all the time. it's kind of a shame that akechi's fake cases end up overshadowing all his real ones when he's a legitimately competent detective, even if he's not the impossible prodigy he projects as and even if he's nowhere near the level L is.

of course there's also the obvious one! while we are all aware that the phantom thieves are the least subtle people on the planet, and all ren's confidants eventually work it out just because he's so deeply unsubtle about it, it is still the case akechi identified them as persons of interest very early on, before pretty much anyone else (partly by intellect, partly by his metaverse advantage, i'll get to that). that's relevant because i think the phantom thieves are reasonably analogous to kira in the sense that they're utilising supernatural methods to target individuals which are untraceable via ordinary means.

now i dont think akechi could identify kira nearly as quickly or cleanly as L could, but i do think that if you placed him in charge of the investigation with all the investigative resources of the prosecutor's office / police department, he would be able to identify light as at least a person of interest in a reasonable amount of time, for two main reasons

light is more sneaky than the phantom thieves, but also makes the same kinds of identifiable mistakes that the PT do (eg targeting people in a set area, operating in such a way that it's possible to identify him as a student, being easily provoked, etc); and

unlike L, akechi has supernatural powers.

which brings me to:

could goro akechi intuit the mechanics of the death note

no, i don't think so, not on his own. but he wouldn't need to, because he has access to the metaverse.

we're back at the universe question. i think to fairly answer 'could they beat kira' questions we have to give our detective character all the advantages they have access to in their home universe, which means that akechi not only has his intellect but also has the metaverse, his persona, and his experience traversing the collective unconscious. (by the way, here's my post about what if light yagami had a palace.)

which means that once goro akechi has identified light as a person of interest, not even needing to ID him as a particular suspect, he can check whether the metanav gives him a hit. then he could infiltrate light's palace / find him in mementos (let's be real it's gonna be a palace) and find out the rest of what he needs to know from there. the metaverse isn't only useful for changing hearts and causing shutdowns. shadows are very forthcoming about their evil plans. all akechi would need to do is find light's shadow, and he'd find out everything he needs to know about the death note and kira's new world.

(follow-up question for fun: if akechi didn't have the metaverse, would he be able to intuit the mechanics of the death note? i think that akechi would ultimately get to the same point as L, namely, that kira needs a name and a face, but the specifics of 'magic murder notebook' would escape him. so no.)

could goro akechi survive

i think this would really depend on the context in which this investigation is taking place, but broadly i think it's likely? not certain, but it's likely. it depends on how reactive light is and depends on how well akechi reads the kira situation early on.

akechi is pretty shrewd, with the exception of major blindspots where someone he has a grudge against is concerned (hence why he's vulnerable to shido and to ren's plots). but i think kira is dangerous enough that akechi would be on pretty high alert from the start. in canon he's cunning enough to make false statements to the media to trick the thieves into thinking he's at least partially on their side / not an unambiguous enemy (that's the same strategy used in romance ha ha ha) so i think once akechi identified a person of interest he wouldn't be stupid enough to publicise that he's closing in on them and would probably start leaking false theories to make light think he's completely off the trail - after all, unlike L, akechi's name and face are completely public, so it would be way too risky to make light feel cornered. it would be smartest to play up the shallow celebrity angle to make think light he's just a dumbass idiot talking a big game.

i think akechi would bank on kira's MO of only killing criminals. after all, light didn't try to kill L until L deliberately goaded him into it - it's unlikely that akechi would have a reason to think that light would try to kill him just for investigating. up until that point kira has been masquerading as an icon of justice, so it would (and canonically did) take a lot to make kira veer from that ideology into killing investigators just because they threatened him. however, it's not impossible given nobody really knows anything about kira at that stage, so while akechi might make it public information that he's investigating kira, he wouldn't let on that he thought light was a threat.

then he could either:

initiate a surprise raid on light to get the death note based on information gained from light's shadow - risky because if it goes wrong light will kill him, but this will net him the most glory

(pre-phantom thieves) kill light - stops the murders but means akechi doesn't get clout for solving the kira murders single-handedly, not preferable

(post-phantom thieves) change light's heart - akechi also doesn't get credit and would be reluctant besides

so it depends how we're defining success i guess. could akechi beat light by killing light? likely yes, by simply causing a shutdown before putting light on notice that akechi was on his trail at all. could akechi beat light by apprehending light? maybe, it depends, it's risky. could akechi beat light by changing his heart? only if the thieves are involved.

so i guess the answer is yes i think akechi has the capacity to beat kira but probably not in a way that akechi himself is satisfied with and it wouldn't be a sure thing. it could go either way.

[simplyanjuta]

Making dynamic poses/animations that adjust to a sims body with Animation Tools by thepancake1

Made this short guide after talking to thepancake1. I haven't seen many people use this feature yet and felt like it might be worth sharing? There are some limitations to be aware of, but I think it's a useful option (for poses as well as animations) 😊

Many thanks to thepancake1 for the tools and for the helpful explanations he provided for this guide.

1.       Background and in-game mechanics

The way TS4 handles different body shapes and clothes in animations (for example, in order to avoid clipping) is basically by putting markers (“slots”) on the surface of a sims body that can be then used as (IK) targets with the in-game IK system.

As you probably know, IK (Inverse Kinematics) – as opposed to the default FK (Forward Kinematics) – is a set-up where bones in a chain are influenced backwards. So, for example, when you move a hand, the arm will follow.

In a similar way, what in-game IK does, is assigning a bone or slot to animate relative to. For example, if your sim is posed with hands on the hips, you can assign the hands to the hips slot and the game will then process the pose/animation and perform IK in real time to change the position of the arms and hands relative to the hips.

Note that there are limitations to this system, though, as only hands, feet and the root bind can procedurally target other bones/slots.

Hereby, feet targets and root target are mainly used in interactions with objects, in particular in sitting animations (where, for example, the root is targeting a chair slot).

Hand targets are mainly used for adjusting a pose/animation to a sims body shape and clothes.

The in-game IK always influences the complete arm/leg (chain: foot-calf-thigh/hand-forearm-upperarm).

You can find an article that provides some background information here: https://simsvip.com/2014/08/20/community-blog-the-sims-4-animations/

2.       Using the feature in custom poses/animations

Per default, when you make custom poses/animations with Blender and S4S, the relevant information that the game requires to apply in-game IK is not included. And so, you will notice that while a pose might look good with the base rig in Blender, it might not fit other sims with a different shape in game, in particular causing clipping.

You can use TS4 SimRipper to fine-tune a pose for a certain sim, but this might not be the solution you’re looking for, if you share your poses and/or want them to be compatible with different kinds of sims.

The animation tools now include a feature that makes it possible to use in-game IK with custom poses/animation as described in part 1.

Disclaimer:

The animation tools are in development and subject to change.

Currently TS4 SimRipper sims are not properly supported. (Although, imo for the purpose of the task, it doesn't make much sense to use them as models.)

As you can see in the comparison below, there might be some accuracy loss for the flexibility gained. (The position of the arms in the version without IK targets matches exactly the pose I made in Blender but doesn't work at all for the heavier sim causing extreme clipping. At the same time, the version with IK targets deviates a bit from the pose I made, but works for any sim.)

Below a short guide on how to set it up with the example pose I made.

1)      You can download the tools HERE. Make sure to check the installation guide and tutorials in the wiki tab for the basics. (Note: The tools were originally made for Blender 3.0 but also support newer versions, in particular Blender 3.3.)

Some additional tips for poses in another post of mine HERE.

After you set up the tools in Blender and have made your pose:

2)      Go to the S4AnimTools panel. Fill out rig name, clip splits and clip name as described in the tutorials linked above (also make sure to select “Allow Jaw Animation”).

3)      Find & click “Create World IK channels”. 

This will create 5 IK channels for the afore mentioned hands, feet and b_ROOT_bind bone. You can also add channels either by cloning the existing ones or clicking “Create World IK channels” again. To get rid of unwanted channels click “Delete”.

4)      Set up the targeted bones/slots based on the type of pose you made.

In my example, I created a pose where a sim has the left hand on the hip, and the right hand close to the thigh. Therefore, I added IK channels targeting the “b__L_frontBellyTarget_slot” and “b__R_ThighFrontTarget_slot”.

The slots are marked blue in the picture below. Some notes:

The slots are hidden by default, I made them visible for the picture. You can unhide all bones/slots available by pressing Alt+H. But I recommend doing this on a separate rig/in another blend file or undo it directly afterwards if you don't want all the (unneccessary) bones/slots blocking your view.

The selected slots worked well enough for my example, but you should figure out what is suitable for you. (Fo example, the HandDangle slots seem to be commonly used when the arms are hanging near the body.)

As orientation you can also look up clip files for EA poses/animations via the S4S Game File Cruiser and see what bones/slots are used as targets ("Warehouse" tab -> "SlotAssignments"; IKChainIndex: 0 - left hand / 1 - right hand / 2 - left foot / 3 - right foot /4 - root). On that note: The Clip Pack export loses/resets the slot data, but you can use it to find an animation and check its Instance ID to then search for in the Game File Cruiser. (If you know the name of an animation you can also determine its Instance ID by converting the name with the S4S Hash Generator.)

5)      To ensure an animation works properly and, in particular, blends with other animations in game, each IK channel should (also) target b_ROOT of the rig.

The bones are marked green in the picture below. This set up was recommened to me by pancake. Another experienced creator mentioned though that it's only necessary to target b_ROOT at the start and end of an animation, in his experience.

Also note that this seems to be a restriction for animations that are made as in-game interactions and might not be necessary for poses or animations used with Andrews Pose player.

6)      The start and end frame is set according to the length of the pose/animation (I want to use the pose as a CAS trait pose and set the duration to 150 frames = 5 seconds), except for the b_ROOT target for hands where the end frame is set to 0 in my example, since they are also targeting the slots “b__L_frontBellyTarget_slot” and “b__R_ThighFrontTarget_slot” during the animation.

Note: My example is a static pose. In animations, however, you can also target different slots at different times by setting up multiple IK channels and specifying the start frame and end frame respectively.

7)      Bake the animation by pressing “Bake IK”.

8)      Export the clip and create a package with your pose/animation as described in the linked tutorials above.

@ts4-poses​ @thefoxburyinstitute

[fairuzfan]

I don’t ask this expecting you have THE answer or that there is one, but I follow a non Palestinian white man on insta (in addition to many Palestinian folks in diaspora and in Palestine) who mostly shares things from Palestinian ppl/sources.

He has several times criticized / shared criticism of charity dinners, music festivals etc raising funds for Gaza with the perspective of, it’s not appropriate to have a dance party or dinner while people are undergoing genocide, but also that in this moment, art isn’t resistance because there needs to be physical resistance, blockades of weapons, etc.

I’ve seen this echoed from some others especially critiquing white folks trying to claim “joy is resistance” right now, which makes sense to me, but i also wonder if it’s reductive to say art or music is not resistance because I feel like it can have a lot of power especially alongside social movements… was wondering if you had thoughts on this or perhaps knew where I could look to learn more.

Please ignore if this is too much, and thank you

I think things like writing and illustration and music feeds into the spirit of revolution and is necessary in that way. You have to energize the masses somehow, and to ensure that your message spreads as far as possible. A good way is to make art, or to sing a song, or write a story.

That's why Wisam Rafeedi wrote his book and different resistance factions make posters and videos — to spread their ideas and garner support among the masses.

It's not as important as putting yourself in immediate physical danger to incapacitate the colonial entity — but I think for Palestinians and other colonized peoples, they do need to make art to really process their thoughts. Of course there's a difference when a Palestinian in Palestine, a Palestinian in the diaspora, a nonPalestinian ally of color, and a NonPalestinian white ally do this. I won't deny that there's a nuance when it comes to this.

But writers who write about Palestinian Liberation historically have been assassinated because of how they participate in liberation actions and also spread ideas of liberation themselves. I don't know which white guy you're talking about but I feel like this is mostly a conversation that should be led by Palestinians if we're talking about Palestine because they understand the nuance of saying statements like "the only resistance is physical." I understand what he's saying to an extent but that does erase a lot of Palestinian resistance the past few decades by making sweeping statements like "art is not resistance" and kind of simplifies the issue at hand.

Charity dinners and galas and that stuff... I don't know what I think about them, I think that people are going to do it either way so my opinion doesn't really matter. Hey, if you're going to raise thousands of dollars for Palestine, I'm not going to stop you at all. I personally think you should try to avoid posting pictures and stuff like that from the gala itself if you're going to host one just out of courtesy.

I guess overall what I'm trying to say, art resistance becomes physical a lot of the time. I think its really reductive to say "art isn't resistance" and also personally insulting considering I have family members and friends who were journalists, creative writers, and artists and killed/targeted for their work.

Here's this article by Fargo Tbahkhi about the role of writing during a genocide that might be a good read. They also mention how Israeli propaganda (calling Palestinians "human animals"/"Amalek" as an example) is specifically a use of culture and writing to energize people to commit genocide. An especially poignant part that I completely agree with, and am trying to get at:

Palestine requires that we abandon this catharsis. Nobody should get out of our work feeling purged, clean. Nobody should live happily during the war. Our readers can feel that way when liberation is the precondition for our work, and not the dream. When it is the place we stand, and not the place we shake ourselves towards. In this way, what the long middle of revolution requires, what Palestine requires, is an approach to writing whose primary purpose is to gather others up with us, to generate within them an energy which their bodies cannot translate into anything but revolutionary movement. This is what Boal modeled for us in his theatrical experiments, which were dedicated to empowering audiences to act, to participate in a creative struggle to envision and embody alternatives. For Boal, theater was not revolution, but it was a rehearsal for the revolution, meant to gather communities together in that rehearsal. Creative work readies us for material work, by offering a space to try out strategies, think through contradictions, remind us of our own agency.  

[thepixelelf]

Band of Silver, Remember my Vow [Teaser]

Based on and inspired by the Sanskrit play, Sakuntala; or The Ring of Recollection, by Kālidāsa, which dramatizes the story of Sakuntala as told in the epic, the Mahābhārata

genres: romance, angst, past civilization au (set in a made up land inspired by joseon and influenced by other asian (and hints of european :/) cultures), subtle magic, not e2l just people who annoy each other at the start to people hopelessly in love w each other pairing: healer reader x lord scoups. platonic reader & soldier dino teaser word count: 2.2k estimated fic word count: ~15k teaser warnings: injury by weapon to an animal (hunting). animal attack. estimated fic warnings: descriptions of blood, injury, and illness. (possibly) sex but not smut. animal gore. notes: this was meant to be for caratlibrary's fall collaboration, but I flubbed it on the deadline (no surprise there!). I'm still not done, but I wanted to post this to see if people are as interested in the story as I am! I will not be making a requestable taglist, however I will be tagging people who comment/show interest in the tags of reblogs

In the story of Sakuntala, the king Dusyanta ends a hunting trip before he comes across the beautiful Sakuntala in a nearby hermitage. He is immediately captivated by her, courts her, and marries her soon after. However, he must return to his royal duties in the capital. He leaves his signet ring with her, promising to return. While distracted with her love for Dusyanta, Sakuntala forgets to greet a visiting and easily irritated sage. Angered by her disrespect, he curses her by making Dusyanta forget her existence. He is later convinced to lighten her punishment, and revises the curse so that the king will remember everything upon seeing the ring he left behind.

teaser under the cut!

The bowstring pulls taut as Seungcheol draws his arm back. His aim is unwavering— it better be, with all the years of training his breath to even at will, all those days spent shooting arrows at dyed targets and skittering rabbits. He kneels in the grass, still as a corpse, and waits for the stag to lift its head from where it’s dipped at the base of a tree.

Wait. Patience. That’s what he was taught.

Patience. Wait. Wait. Breathe.

But — air huffs through Seungcheol’s nose — why isn’t it lifting its damn head? The entire forest surrounding him is quiet. Nothing is here to disturb this perfect moment. This almost perfect moment.

Seungcheol fills his chest with air again, even and silent.

Wait. Patience. Breathe. Lift your damn—

“What are you doing?”

Startling at the sudden whisper in his ear, Seungcheol swerves to the side, his fingers slipping and releasing his arrow into the air. It slams into a tree, right where the stag’s neck would have been had it lifted its head. The sound echoes through the forest, and it spooks the stag. It dashes off out of sight, and Seungcheol curses under his breath.

“Why would you—” He whips his head around and finds you crouching next to him, a woven basket resting on your hip, held there by one hand. For only a moment, he is distracted by your face, and the way the sunlight, broken through the leaves of the forest, dances on your cheeks. He clears his throat. “Do you know what you’ve just done?”

You blink and tilt your head. “What have I done?”

Abruptly, Seungcheol stands, gesturing his bow towards where the stag disappeared. “My— you…” He huffs, then looks away, returning the bow to its spot on his back and tearing off his gloves in muted frustration.

He came here for a distraction, but you are closer to an annoyance, albeit a not unattractive one. He prefers to lose himself in the concentration of the hunt.

As he moves to follow the deer, your voice stops him.

“Where are you from?”

When he turns, you’ve already stood up, and you regard him with slightly furrowed brows.

“You must be from rather far,” you say without giving him much chance to respond. “Were you planning on shooting him?”

“Him?” Seungcheol echoes. “You’re referring to that animal?”

You hum, nodding to yourself. “Rather far indeed. He may very well have been the patron spirit of these woods.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s a terrible dishonour to harm an antlered one in this forest. A dishonour to what this place provides, and the vast life within it,” you explain, though the words mean nothing to Seungcheol. You step closer to him, tilting your body to peer at the quiver of arrows on his back. “You’d be a fool to attempt to kill one, and invite grand misfortune by doing so.”

His jaw clenches, and air comes out of his nose hot. “Who are you to call me a fool? Do you know who I am?”

You straighten. “Am I supposed to? You’re quite far from home.”

“I am Lord Choi Seungcheol,” he announces with pride, though it tastes of the arrogance his mother always tutted at on his tongue. “General of the Four Peak Soldiers, and— and future ruler of the Eastern District.”

You make a face, and it only makes the anger in Seungcheol burn hotter.

“A lord, huh?” you taunt. “Or a general. Which one is it? Or does it not matter?” Leaning back slightly, you study his face. “Certainly, it doesn’t matter to me. I am neither a Four Peak soldier, nor a citizen of the Eastern District, so I will say as I please. A fool is a fool.”

Seungcheol raises his hand, and you flinch, but only slightly. Your eyes remain firm on his.

He lowers his hand, tired of your presence and of having to listen. If he and you were in his district, you’d have serious punishment awaiting your next sunrise. However, he was out on his own, alone on a rogue, spontaneous hunting trip far away from home because he wanted some space to get his thoughts together. It’s something he’s done before, two or three or nine times. His mother shows contempt for this habit of his, but she does not try to stop him. All she asks is that he not bring home trouble.

You seem like trouble.

How was he supposed to know that the woods he ventured into had such trivial myths to abide by?

He is Choi Seungcheol, damn it. Your silly fairy tales won’t deter him.

Deciding to spare you this time, Seungcheol breathes out and turns away, walking now in the direction of where he tied his horse. Perhaps this trip was a failure. To expect to clear his head the same way he has done before was foolish — though he would never admit that. What is on his mind now is much heavier, much more inevitable than the other things he would run away from in his youth.

A marriage to the country’s princess.

His marriage to her.

Seungcheol’s hands twitch, and he yearns to draw his bow again.

“Lord General,” you call out, the tone of your voice itself a warning. “Don’t be a fool.”

He ignores you.

=

Ricecake seems to have had a much better experience in this forest than Seungcheol. He finds her munching on the lush, untrodden grass, and he almost feels bad for interrupting her meal. However, that feeling lessens when he remembers that if he were successful in his hunt, she'd have to carry the spoils all the way home. At least she has that.

Seungcheol rides for not half an hour, following the river, before another stag dashes alongside his path. He spends no time thinking. Pulling his bow from his shoulder, he notches an arrow and lets it fly. A second arrow leaves his fingers before he blinks.

The stag rears on its hind legs, one arrow in its thick neck and one pierced directly through its eye. It shrieks, haunted and low.

But it does not fall.

Seungcheol dismounts from his horse and draws another arrow, aiming again for its neck so it cannot escape far before it dies. He expects it to run in the opposite direction.

Its hooves dig into the dirt beneath it, and the stag charges towards Seungcheol.

He has no time to react, his arms moving instinctually to protect his head, before pain blooms fiery red from his torso. An icy cold engulfs him, and everything goes dark.

=

Pain is what wakes him up, dull and aching, but when he attempts to right himself, Seungcheol winces. A fierce pang rings in his body from his stomach to his right ear, which sparks a jolt of pain throughout his head. He falls back again, though his head doesn’t hit the hard earth. Instead, a steady hand catches his head, and another gently touches the front of his shoulder, as if to calm him.

“Easy there, Lord General.”

Your voice, and the way you patronise his titles again, make Seungcheol frown. It hurts to breathe, but he can’t help the annoyance that refills within him. What the hell are you doing here? Did you follow him? Why are your hands so gentle?

Though his headache may worsen with sunlight, Seungcheol pries his eyes open. His eyelids are heavy, and for a moment, he thinks he must not have opened them fully. He can barely see you, even though it was midday when he’d been knocked unconscious. It then registers that he is no longer outside, in the woods, but in a room, lowly lit with sparsely strewn candles.

The realisation makes him want to jump up again, but the pain in his torso forces a groan from him, and he falls back onto the support of your hand. He strains his head to assess his surroundings. “Where am I?” he grits out. It hurts to speak.

“Be careful,” you say, concern sewn into your brows. “You may have broken your ribs.”

He demands, though perhaps sounding weaker than he likes, “Answer the question.”

Your lips settle into a straight line, and you breathe out through your nose. “You’re in my home.”

“Why?”

“I found you nearby,” you begin to explain, pulling your hand out from under him to cross your arms. He feels a thin layer of folded cloth under his head. “You were washed up on the riverbank, unconscious. Bloody…bruised…” You tilt your head. “Perhaps even more bruised now, since I practically had to drag you here, though the balm should help with the scrapes.”

“Balm?” Seungcheol echoes. Now that he thinks about it, there is a strange warmth seeping through the skin on his face. “You’re a healer,” he concludes.

You nod, and for the first time, Seungcheol sees a smile on your lips. In the candlelight, it only adds to the warmth.

“You’re lucky it was me who found you. Who knows how long you were lying in the cold water.” You sit back, eyes thoughtfully gazing over Seungcheol’s blanket-covered body. They pause around where Seungcheol’s left hand is. “I was able to save almost all your fingers.”

Seungcheol’s eyes widen, and he jerks his hands out from under the blanket to hold above his face. The pain this causes is in the background compared to his panic, but that fades soon after he sees all ten fingers, wiggles them, then glares at you.

You’re smiling wider now. “That was a joke, Lord General.” At his glare sharpening, you let out a small laugh. “Your fingers are fine. They might be stiff for a few days, though.” Your expression shifts to a more serious one. “Your ribs, on the other hand… You’re severely bruised. I suspect they may be fractured.

Breathing in again, Seungcheol watches the way you eye his chest as it rises and falls. It hurts like a bonfire has sparked in his lungs.

“What happened?” you ask, no residual hint of playfulness in the simple question.

“I…” In the back of his mind, Seungcheol sees the stag again, sees the blood rivering from its eye and neck, sees its antlers as they bouldered into him. He sees you, and how you spoke to him in the forest. An enchantingly bright bad omen.

Don’t be a fool.

Yet here he is, under your care in your home, for doing the very thing you warned him not to.

"...I fell," he says after a moment of quiet. It’s only a half-lie. He did fall, even if that wasn’t how he sustained the injuries to his ribs.

One of your eyebrows rises up your forehead. “You fell.”

“...Yes.”

You hum, doubtful. “Off your horse, I assume. I’ve seen similar bruising and fractures when people are kicked. It happens to someone around here at least once a year; there’s no shame in getting unsaddled.”

He’s never fallen off Ricecake — she’s the perfect companion, but Seungcheol grits his teeth and says, “I suppose there’s not.”

A triumphant grin appears on your face, and you turn slightly to reach for a small notebook. “Well, Lord General—”

“That is not my title,” he interrupts on principle, though he instantly regrets it with the waking pain in his chest. Still, he cannot stop himself from correcting you. “You will address me as Lord Choi, or ‘my Lord’.”

Your eyes don’t leave your notes. “Alright Lord General, it—”

“You can’t—”

“—is my professional opinion that you should be on bed rest for three days, though your full recovery could take two to three moons. I’ll need to monitor your breathing until it regulates.” You speak as if Seungcheol is just anyone, not someone with power or higher standing. To you, he is just a patient.

Why does that thought not continue to anger him?

“I need to find my horse,” he tells you. “There are healers in the Four Peak fortress that can oversee my recovery.”

You shake your head. “Riding is out of the question. It will only worsen your condition.”

“I can’t stay here. I am needed as their leader.” And his mother is going to kill him for being gone more than a few days without a word.

“Do you have a palanquin?”

Seungcheol frowns. “Do I look like I have a palanquin with me?”

“Could you send for one?” you rephrase.

He ponders on that. It is rare for him to ride a palanquin, even back home. The cart is used more decoratively these days, reserved for events like longevity parades through the city, and no longer for extended trips over uneven ground like the forests he travelled through to find himself on your land. 

Still, he can’t stay here. Certainly not for three moons. “I’ll write a missive.”

“Alright,” you say with a nod. “There’s a merchant group that travels every two weeks between here and a city in the Eastern District. You can send it with one of them.”

“When are they travelling next?”

“You’re lucky, Lord General. They leave for the east in five days.”

Not as soon as he’d like, but at least the merchants hadn’t just left. Then he would have to stay here for one full moon before he’d even be able to send for help.

“For now,” you continue, “you should rest. It’s late, and your body needs time to recover.”

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