#random detailed meta

[chaosintheavenue]

On the origin of Trin

The first tentative concept Picrew of the character that would become Trin was saved to my laptop on April 16th 2022, and I made a note to myself at the time that the vague concept of the character had been around for about a month at that point. So, we'll consider today, March 16th, to be Trin's first anniversary of existing!

To mark the occasion, I've decided on a total whim to lay out the timeline of Trin's development from the first idea I had, to the character she is today.

Beginnings

Fittingly, Trin technically started her 'life' as three people- triplets, to be exact. I decided that I wanted two of my VB peeps (a Cipher and a BoS guy) to have a child to continue the Ciphers arc into the post-NV era in my convoluted Fallout headcanon universe. I wanted to make a trigonometry reference, and so for the sake of that, the one child quickly became three. I'm not the most mathematically-minded or original, so of course these triplets were intended to be named Sine, Cosine and Tangent.

The triplets got very limited character development, especially since in the one (1) scene I ever pictured them in, they were about two years old. I didn't decide genders or much personality-wise, but I did set out that Sine and Cosine were identical 'twins', Tangent was not identical to them, and that reflected in their personality as they felt conflicted identity-wise and tried to strike out on their own. The main thing I did determine was some details of their physical appearances, with Tangent having short black hair and the other two having longer blonde hair.

Three Become One

At some point after creating the trigonometry triplets, I realised that adding three new interlinked main characters and trying to follow their arcs in the meticulous detail I always do would be simply too much to keep up with. I'd secretly started to favour Tangent and they'd already received a bit more development than the others, so I decided to focus on them and have Sine and Cosine occasionally crop up as background characters.

Soon after this, for reasons I don't entirely remember, I decided to do away with the triplet idea altogether, just have one BoS/Cipher character, and renamed the concept of what had been Tangent to Trinity (bonus fact: it's now canon in-universe that Trin was almost named Tangent as a baby). Still no gender or characterisation yet, and I still only pictured the character as a young child.

First Sightings

And so now we come to April 16th 2022. The first ever image of Trin:

(link to the Picrew)

This was also the very first time I envisioned Trin as an adult. I wasn't really getting any strong gender vibes, and had an inkling that the character would turn out to be some variation on the theme of nonbinary.

I continued adding small details and rotating Trin, as I now began to call them, in my brain for a while, and to my mild surprise she soon informed me that she's a cis woman (honestly, that still sometimes surprises me lol).

On May 29th came the first instance of Trinposting! I posted this mysterious drawing of a new character I'd been developing.

To Appalachia

I've always struggled to create new characters on demand for a particular purpose (which is why a lot of my player character OCs start out with a 'placeholder' version, and some unknown length of time later suddenly get more development). The creation of Trin happened to come at a convenient time for me, as I'd been contemplating attempting a new playthrough of Fallout 76 for several months. One day in June, the inspiration suddenly struck me hard to get this playthrough on the road now, and my mind happeend to be thoroughly immersed in Trin at the time, so naturally I decided to play as her. I originally considered just using an AU version of her due to 76 being set so early in the timeline, but I'm no stranger to altering canon for my own needs, and so in-universe, Trin arrived in West Virginia in 2295.

In-game, this was one of her first nights above ground. In-universe, I consider this the earliest canon screenshot of Trin, taken on her very first night in Appalachia (all the Vault stuff had to go considering her amended origin)

When I first started the playthrough, Trin was very much still primarily a blank slate of a character. She had an established backstory, but not a lot in the way of personality, talents, opinoins, and the likes. After I'd been playing for a week or so, had got to grips with the game mechanics and was no longer solely focused on survival, she really began to show herself through the in-game choices I was making.

On Sexuality

I don't remember at what point I decided/was 'told' by Trin that she was aroace, but I do know that I never much thought about her orientation prior to that and would never have considered anything else to fit her. Getting personal for a second: Looking back, it feels very coincidental that this took place not long before I myself finally figured out I'm aro as well as ace, and I feel like my exploration of aromantic-ness (aromanticism?) through the lens of Trin played a bigger role in my discovery of that than I've ever previously really acknowledged.

Becoming Crunchy

By August, she was much more developed and had become thoroughly enmeshed in the 76 world, and I, being the same plague-obsessed Chaos as always, decided it was high time to Scorch her.

From here, a lot happened plot-wise, but the basic characterisation of Trin has remained more or less constant. She left Appalachia for around a year in-universe to focus on trying to recover, eventually came back with a friend and some new scars across her face, built a mini settlement, entangled herself further in WV and its factions, made yet more friends and re-encountered some old ones, aaand most recently cut her hair.

Trin as she is now:

I'm still thoroughly obsessed with Trin, and don't foresee that changing in the near future! She's very quickly overtaken all of my other OCs to have the highest populated tag on my blog, and that will probably continue for Some Time lol. I just wish I could kick myself into gear to write up more of her story hgfdfgf.

[korpikorppi]

Guys, I just now noticed one more interesting little detail in the Untamed!

You know the names of the buildings in the Cloud Recesses: the lecture room/hall Lanshi (兰室, Lánshì, "Orchid Room"); Yashi (雅室, Yǎshì, "Elegant Room") – the reception room/hall; the spirit-summoning room/hall Mingshi (冥室, Míngshì, "Underworld Room" or "Room of Darkness"); Hanshi (���室, Hánshì, "Frost Room") - Lan Xichen's residence; and Lan Wangji's Jingshi (静室, Jìngshì, "Quiet Room"), right?

The character used to write the "shì", room, in the names is 室, here seen in the Lanshi and the Yashi (the names are read from right to left):

As a side note, the Lan seem to use the traditional rather than the simplified characters, so the "lán" in the Lanshi is written with 蘭 rather than 兰.

BUT. Not so in the Jingshi! Instead of the 室, a slightly different character is used for the "room":

My trusty dictionary did not know the character in question, so I started to look at what was different:

As such, the character 凶 (xiōng) means act of violence, murder, evil. An evildoer. A murderer. And as Lan Xichen told Wei Wuxian, we know who lived in the Jingshi before it became Lan Wangji's residence: "It is the place where our mother lived in the Cloud Recesses".

So, it seems that when the house became Madam Lan's prison, the character was changed to reflect her crime, denoting the place as the quiet room of a murderer. Accentuated by the reversed colours of the sign:

This has probably been quite self-evident to anyone who actually speaks and reads Chinese, but was quite an oooff! to me as I realised. One more killer detail in CQL 😟.

And while I was at it, I just had to check what it says above the gate (seen here when LWJ returns home with the Emperor's Smile):

As far as I can read it, the characters are 影竹堂 (yǐng zhú táng), which I freely translate as "Bamboo Shadow Court". An apt name for the place.

Hopefully it offered some solace to Madam Lan.

And oh, I just have to add! As Hanshi is the Sect Leader's residence, Lan Xichen is living in their father's house, while Lan Wangji is living in their mother's. And the two houses are more or less identical, down to the furnishings (just check the scene where Lan Xichen confronts Wen Chao and his muddy boots in ep8 vs. The Wangxian Scene in ep43). So did Qingheng-jun have the house built for his wife, identical to the house she was not allowed to live in? That is quite plausible, in universe. Out universe, they probably had only so many buildings to shoot in :).

[ineffably-human]

I don't think the Shadows writers forget about major-ass plot points like the Van Helsing thing or the entire season's worth of Baby Colin. (or the djinn, for that matter.) these things just come up when it's useful to the story for them to come up.

for instance: Baby Colin's been something they never even mentioned all season. episode 8, we need reasons every single character thinks that Laszlo might be upset that are actually about their own self-absorbed vibes (because that's how everyone in the house is). so Nadja thinks it's because of the hex that's consumed her life (while visibly doing nothing to her because it doesn't exist), Nandor thinks it's because of what a great place he's in emotionally (while constantly, obsessively thinking about Guillermo), Guillermo thinks it's about the failed experiments.

and because we don't have anything for Colin, who tries to stay out of everyone's craziness, he starts remembering the years he spent as a baby - and that's so we, as the audience, will wonder if that's why Laszlo is upset.

and in the end, Laszlo isn't upset about any of those things! he's just having a huge hyperfixation moment, because that's a much funnier joke. but now we've brought Baby Colin back up and maybe we can play with that for any future episodes, because now was the organic time to mention it again, without forcing Laszlo to be paralyzed with depression the whole season.

What We Do In The Shadows: Sometimes It Really Is That Deep

but also What We Do In The Shadows: Sometimes It's Just That Stupid

[itachanta]

OKAY. OKAY. / SCREAMING LIKE AN INSANE PERSON / I may be the last one to think about this, or an idiot, or just imagining things, but I was re-watching the first episode of Tristamp with my friend (yeah i convinced her hue hue) and I noticed something that seemed a little weird to me, specially knowing how Orange focuses so much on details. First, look at these gifs:

This freaking bird-thing was freaking tailing Meryl and Roberto?!?!?! And it flew straight to July after seeing them with Vash to warn Knives???

Then, I relaxed, thinking it didn't look like Zazie's wams and I was imagining things. However, doubt crept in, so I went to chapter 9 to search for this specific scene, and..........

/ SCREAMING / THEY ARE FREAKING WAMS, NOT BIRDS This makes me question...

Who sent Meryl and Roberto on the Vash investigation in their newspaper??? Was it also Knives/Conrad/Them? Were Meryl and Roberto involved in the plot from the beginning to find and hunt Vash?? Nothing was a coincidence?? Where is this agency they worked on?

Note: There was also a flock of them around Vash when he was hanging upside down in the desert, and we can see them fly to July separately in another scene after, so the bird-wam tailing Roberto & Meryl, and the ones that were on Vash are different ones(?). Which brings me more questions...

Who send which ones? If they were all from Knives, would Orange have shown them to us separately? We can see Zazie working with Knives, with Conrad, and with Legato.

Maybe I just smoked too much Vash these weeks and I'm crazy.

[darkmagicmirror]

I've been thinking about @spicyviren 's post about Claudia preventing the sun from rising (and they made a more in-depth post today as well, which is also very good!), so last night I got curious and Googled mythology and eclipses because what if the eclipse actually happens and it's not just Viren's dream? And we know TDP likes mythological references. So...

This is so fascinating because of the "I swallowed her" comment Aaravos makes in Janai's dream.

A demon (or dragon, or-- (etc)) is eating the sun?

(*Personally, I don't think Janai's dream is necessarily accurate for telling us what happened -- but Aditi getting "eaten" by someone especially a dragon wouldn't surprise me.)

And speaking of "swallowing"...

And some of the other mythological explanations mentioned in the article I linked are also really interesting:

(The highlighting was done by Google, so it's not necessarily more important.)

And canon material, especially the Ripples short specifically, reflects a few themes here:

Abandonment - the humans are essentially abandoned by the stars (and the sun is a star): "It cannot be, wept others. The stars would not betray us!" - after the "star" falls from the sky and changes the land.

Crisis/existential threat - "With its impact came a long and terrible night: The earth bled! The seas churned! The sun and moon hid for weeks behind the sky’s screaming storm!" (Also bolded for emphasis because the sun hiding? The fact the moon does too is interesting, but the sun specifically is called out later: "And when the long, dark night had finally passed—for the sun must always rise, mustn’t it?" VERY interesting considering the sunrise mentions in S5.)

Eclipse as an act of creation - though much of the story talks about the calamity, there's also how "[the stars] had rejoiced to look down upon their newborn sea."

The Sun and Moon coupling and creating more stars - this is more of a stretch, but the Sun and Moon did get hidden together, and the Sea (of the Castout) serving as a mirror of the stars... like they're duplicating the stars, though only in image.

Mischievous acts - I personally think Aaravos is mischievous, so hmm.

One side note on the second-to-last point: if Viren learns the Star arcanum, which is very rarely understood, could that, too, be analogous to creating another star?

Anyway this all implies that perhaps a similar eclipse occurred before, when Aaravos had fallen and the Sea of the Castout was created? And we know how the Rise Again short story, which is about her pseudo-resurrection of her pet cat, correlated to S4 opening with Claudia having brought her father back to life, sort of in a repeating history sense. Aaravos's Patience story foreshadowed the fact that all he could do in S4 is wait and bide his time. Ripples could foreshadow S5 being that first "touch" that sets off greater change... and, like with the resurrection, perhaps history repeating itself, in a sense, with a potential upcoming eclipse?

And another interesting line: "The sky opened its maw and spat from its black jaws a tiny star."

It's not exactly black, but I know some people say the ridges here look like teeth...

Also, even though Sol is referring to his blindness, these lines about the Sun "never [rising] again" and an "eternal night" fit into similar themes to the eclipse and the Ripples short.

Also, just going back to the abandonment theme of the eclipse really quick--

The Midnight Star poem also talks about the stars abandoning humanity. "Elarion, unworthy whelp, / Wept as the stars turned black the sky, / They donned their masks / They turned their backs / And left Elarion to die."

(I have more to break down about that entire stanza in another post; I just want to point out the bolded parts for now.)

Now, most of these are references to the past... so what about now?

If I were to guess on how the same themes I compared to the Ripples story might apply to "current" series events...

Abandonment - Claudia feeling abandoned by Aaravos (as mentioned in the Lost Child short)? Or, alternately, Aaravos feeling abandoned (by either Claudia, after she had to flee from the battle, and/or Viren, after his rejection)?

Crisis/existential threat - IMO the biggest threat is Karim potentially joining up with Sol Regem right now. Though some would say Aaravos being close to being freed could be the threat/crisis here. But I'm an Aaravos apologist, so I am not part of that group LOL

Eclipse as an act of creation - Claudia regenerates her missing leg, perhaps?

The Sun and Moon coupling and creating more stars - Viren Star arcanum?

Mischievous acts - Aaravos again.

All of this to say-- I don't think the eclipse is just for show/because it looks cool, but if we consider the mythological beliefs surrounding eclipses, it ties in significantly to the story.

Also I leave you with a few last bits from the article that just remind me of TDP things:

"In many cultures, the darkening of the sun meant the gods were very, very angry with humanity, and about to inflict some punishment. Often, that meant that in order to appease them, you had to kill someone."

That reminds me of the stars seeming to punish humanity for daring to use magic... which is also when Aaravos gets cast down?

"The Greeks thought an eclipse meant that the gods were about to rain punishment down on a king, so in the days before an eclipse, they would choose prisoners or peasants to stand in as the king in the hopes that they’d get the eclipse punishment and the real king would be saved. Once the eclipse was over, the substitute king was executed."

This is so far off, but it reminds me of Harrow anyway? Mostly with the soulfang serpent idea of switching Harrow with someone else. Interesting.

"For the Inuits, the sun and moon weren’t a married couple but brother and sister. At the beginning of the world they quarreled, and the sun goddess Malina walked away from her brother, the moon god Anningan. Anningan continued to chase after her, and whenever he caught up to her, there was an eclipse."

Which reminds me of the line in Strangers, the short from Soren's perspective, where "Claudia had appeared and he’d done it again, a little boy chasing after his sister..."

A lot of it is probably coincidence, but it's still really interesting!

[sskk-manifesto]

ಥ‿ಥ

[derpylittlenico]

absolutely effin nobody istg: ...

actual crickets: ...

the void of space & time who are legit noisy bitches: ...

mY ass:

sooooo

idk if it's just me, sitting here like...

FOR ALL W E KNOW, CLOUD COULD BE A LEGIT NAME IN NIBELHEIM. Like? It's a remote mountain village that's very alpine/baltic coded, so who's to say Common is even *commonly* spoken there.

Maybe they speak Nibel primarily, only bothering with Common bc the Shinra flunkies occasionally insist on showing up and being obnoxious industrial colonizers. I don't know.

So maybe "Cloud" is just how the people who've never heard a genuine Nibel accent interpreted that name, and he gdamn goes with it, bc he's just a poor kid from a small village. Who tf is gonna give a shit that they're butchering his name.

......bc, like? To me? It sounds like it could be an adaptation of his mother's name, Claudia.

bc think about how you say Klaud/Claude. And Klaud/Claude is a masc version of the name Klaudia/Claudia.

I'm just saying.

(not that anyone asked jfc brain)

[freedcmscall]

He was twelve. He was just a child. Just a child, he didn't know, he didn't mean to. Of course, when he looked back on it, thinking of himself as "just a child" seemed ridiculous. He was a late bloomer - his magic manifesting later than most. But still, twelve was still a child. He couldn't understand what was happening, and it wasn't his fault.

He was happy, he was such a happy, carefree child. The other children in the village adored him, he taught them words in Ander (some of which were most certainly curse words he had overheard his father use). But being well-loved and happy and carefree wasn't enough. Nothing was enough. Nothing was capable of counter-balancing what had happened. It shouldn't have been anything. He had been startled, by what he no longer could recall. Just another thing lost in the annals of his memories, locked away somewhere, or perhaps immolated by the passage of time itself. Burnt up, just like the barn had been. He didn't understand, he was just a child. It was fine, and then nothing was fine, and there was so much fire, and everyone knew, and there were screams. No one was hurt, he remembered that much. He was just a child, but he knew he wouldn't have been able to live with himself if he had hurt someone accidentally.

He was just a child and yet he still remembered, more vividly than most memories, the looks on his parents' faces. His mother - she looked so sad. Gutted. Heart-broken. Someone had been hurt, just not physically. He had broken his mother's heart by no choice or will of his own. His father was angry. He was their only child, and that life ended on that day. He was just a child, but the Templars still treated him like a danger.

He was just a child, but he was taken away from his home, from the home that frequently smelled of his mother's baking and in which every corner was safety and comfort, from the village children with whom he would never play again, from his neighbours and their farms and his happiness to always help out. He was just a child, and they treated him like a monster, like a criminal. He was just a child, and sometimes he felt that maybe he was a monster.

He was just a child, a child with many happy memories, but only one was seared into his mind as if the flames themselves had lashed up into his mind and burnt it there, festering and blistering and eventually scarring, a disfigurement he would never be able to forget.

[florisa6s]

A idea- mostly bats

I like the idea of different heros getting those good meds after a hard mission...

----

Tim: are you sure you have it handeled?

Wally on the phone: Of course i have it handled, no offense but I've been taking care of your brother for years now-

*Dick in the background wobbling out of the medbay making his escape*

Wally:-so I think I know exactly-

*Dick punching a random person as he fights security behind Wally*

Wally:- how to do it!

*Screams in the background*

-----

Tim: Dick I really don't think thats a good Idea right now....

Dick: what do you mean Damian is loving it! look how happy he is.

*Damian in a pool with a Nightwing floaty and arm floatys looking into the distance with wide eyes*

Tim: he looks like he's going through an existential crisis...or roleplaying a dead goldfish.

Dick: no, he's so happy! look at that face and tell me he's not overjoyed!

Jason: he is not overjoyed.

------

Tim: okay weird question- when superman is on pain meds what would someone do if *hypothetically* someone who looks like Superman is currently floating up into the sky towards the sun and you can't get him down because your busy saving your brother from flying away too-

*Damian holding a sleeping Jon on a leash about to fly away with Tim holding Damians legs.*

Tim: so what would someone do..... hypothetically.

*pulls out binoculars to look at a equally sleeping Kon floating past the clouds.*

------

Bruce: have- have I ever told you bout my wifey?

all:....

Oliver: no please do tell *pulls out recorder*

Hal: yeah don't skip any details *flips open a notepad clicking a pen*

Bruce: she is the most beautiful, strongest woman I ever married-

Clark and Diana: aww...

Bruce: she gave me the most beautiful angel son and I'm so proud-

Barry: wait son-

Bruce: but shes always too busy killing people to visit and my son looks exactly like her! he even gives me the same disgusted look when I drink out of the milk carton-

all:....

Hal: uh...kill? she kills people?

Bruce: yes I just said that pay attention Jordan. Now don't even get me started on my kids-

*long tangent about how much he loves his kids*

Bruce: -And thats why my little boys are the best, any questions

Clark: I thought you work alone-

Barry: -And that you hate metas!

-----

Dick: uhh what's going on here?

Tim: Jason is killing me *on a chair reading a book*

Dick: really?

Tim: yup

*Jason on the bed holding gun fingers towards Dick*

Jason: Pew, pew clack clack click

Dick: what did he just do?

Tim: he shot you, ran out of anmo, reloaded and-

Jason: pew!

Tim:-And he just killed you with a headshot.

[utilitycaster]

Whenever people are like "well LIAM'S characters never faced any backlash when HE played characters in the spotlight" and "no one will let WOMEN have negative qualities" when Caleb and Vax and Orym have received pretty constant hate for main character/sadboy/scene stealing and when meta writers outright stopped talking about Imogen because a particularly mindless set of hit dogs are still hollering about how she is so good and kind and how dare you call her selfish, it's really like...in the service of trying to make your failure of a point you've just said something that literally anyone with a memory lasting longer than the apocryphal goldfish length can immediately debunk, which in turn absolutely shreds your credibility going forward, if you had it.

More generally there's something very vile here, because on the surface this statement does look like an attempt, if one ignorant of pretty much any fandom conversation, to defend women. The thing is it's come from a place of defending Dorian and Ashton's plan - a man, and a nb person who would not identify as a woman - that requires a particularly great deal of sacrifice from the women of the party. So of course they just switch tactics. Instead of "how dare the fandom not think women are always best" it's "how dare the fandom disrespect a disabled nb person and a person played by an indigenous actor." And I'm sure they'll switch again. Because pretty much every character in this campaign is on some axis of oppression, and there's a few people in this fandom who, instead of considering these things as important details that inform these characters, seem to largely treat their minority statuses as ammunition. Feminism and antiracism and queer advocacy are all just part of a shell game to them - accuse everyone who disagrees with them of being a bigot, say that their opinions are inviolate because they match that of literally any character who isn't a cis het white man, of which Bells Hells has none. Unsurprisingly, it's that social media purity culture that's just the evangelical church with a gay hat: they are always the victim, and everyone who disagrees is the devil, and being a good person always happens to line up with what you already wanted.

There are several posts from the past day or so accusing people of liking Campaign 3 less than the two previous ones which refused to accept that this might be due to the hurry-up-and-receive-an-infodump pacing, the singular focus without much time spent on backstory, the gaps in party composition, and the fact that the plot manages to combine the weakest elements of each campaign - the fetch quest/NPC guidance heavy nature of C1, and the meandering/slow start of C2. No, it must be the awful, sinful fandom unable to handle the lack of a major M/M ship (false; Dorian and Orym aren't canon, but neither were Vax and Gilmore, and the latter was sunk far sooner) and the fact that a female character is at the center of the story (see above re: how hostile the same people making these accusations have been to anyone who actually wants to discuss Imogen in a way that doesn't fit their specifications). Just to repeat this: many fans have outlined a number of purely narrative and structural reasons why C3 isn't working for them. These people have assumed this is all a lie, because assuming otherwise that would require either addressing these critiques, which in turn would require admitting other people can have valid opinions that oppose their own without being horrible bigots - in favor of throwing out whatever random accusations they think might stick. It doesn't matter what's actually being said; they're not actually listening, and for all they might talk about fans of color they sure all seem to be white; for all they talk about misogyny and queerphobia they sure won't hesitate to immediately assume the worst of queer people and women who say things they don't like. And rarely do they address any of the actual ongoing bigotry that does exist in the fandom; it's all random accusations because you agreed with the white woman instead of the brown man or vice versa; or it's the constant dredging of years past discourse that, as the first paragraph indicates, they will then ignore whenever convenient.

These are all pretty transparent signs of a bad faith actor spreading misinformation. To be clear I don't think this is any kind of conspiracy or has any organization to it. I think it's a just handful of deeply self-absorbed people who either refuse or literally cannot comprehend that someone could disagree with them without being a bad person and who will gleefully cry wolf with these accusations of bigotry. But it's been going on for quite some time and it's been a problem this campaign in a way I at least do not recall it in past ones, and it's had an absolutely devastating effect on the fandom conversation. Ironically, by trying to boost Imogen and Campaign 3 by shutting down any criticism of them, they've shut down far more of the conversation, hopefully not irreversibly, and I think it's time to point that out.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

I'm reading Ghost in the Shell right now and Tom just mentioned the lengths the yeerks had to go to in order to keep morph-capable controllers in line during feedings. I know you went into this in more detail during the last fic in the series as well, but I wanted to ask: is there a canon reason the yeerks couldn't just have fewer hosts than yeerks, and stick a 'temp' yeerk in the host's brain while the usual one is feeding?

I can think of some plausible reasons (host's brain needs time off to recover, yeerks can't switch hosts very often without difficulty, cultural objections to sharing bodies with their fellow slugs) and also meta reasons (more angst potential, more interesting this way). But I'm curious what your take on this is. I can't remember if they ever addressed it in-series

Oooooohh. I like this idea, and I would love to see it explored. If Yeerk One inches sloooowly out of the left ear as Yeerk Two inches into the right, then you're right that there could be almost no lag time at all between yeerks. For the morpher hosts especially, that would be dead useful.

Doylist (out-of-universe) speaking, I think we don't see this in canon because we need to see the horror of what the yeerks are doing to their hosts. And if hosts have 0m0s of ability to express what's going on with them, then it runs the risk of seeming like no big deal. Or like there's no meaningful difference between the voluntary hosts and the involuntary ones.

Watsonian (in-universe) speaking, I assume it's not used because of issues of privacy and — let's be honest — corruption. If Eeek 1234 is inside Alloran for a few minutes every time Visser Three needs to feed, then suddenly some random yeerk knows every one of Visser Three's secrets that Alloran knows. Eva knowing about Edriss's human kids gives her tremendous power over Visser One, and Eva's knowledge of the Empire later proves instrumental in the Animorphs winning the war. If some other yeerk is inside of Eva, then that yeerk has that level of intel and power over Visser One too.

[mtkay13]

The one and only Qi Ye trio!

Details on the painting, meta and more below!

So this piece is actually a "remake" of a much older drawing that I made right after I had finished reading Qi Ye:

First, I want to elaborate on the drawing itself. I usually don't like to detail the symbolism and ideas that I put in my art, simply because I don't want to impose a reading and I'd rather everyone gets their own; but following some discussions I have decided to do so for this one.

The main theme of this illustration is glory, power, and the ascention towards it. The principal symbol of it is, of course, the stairs going up. I used light, directly, colours and positioning to signify each character's relationship to those themes.

Helian Yi is the one in the light, ascending upwards, in red clothing. Helian Yi's power, as future emperor, is in the light, visible, going towards the heavens as the son of heaven himself--to enact his heavenly duty. Part of his face is in the shadows, and his being casts a broad shadow behind him for, of course, a lot has to happen in the shadows for him to reach the throne. He's looking behind as his ascension comes with dread and paranoia, never being able to fully trust anyone.

Zhou Zishu is entirely in the shadows, doesn't exist in the light. He's standing tall on the stairs but not facing upwards because his own way towards power isn't following the traditional path of having one's name being remembered in historical records. He is at his most powerful concealed in the shadows and doesn't look directly, his gaze unreadable.

Jing Beiyuan is sitting on the stairs, uninterested with the climb towards power itself, uninterested in the glory. The thin line of light on his figure means that among Helian Yi's closest allies, he's the one using his title and influence; light grazes him even if he doesn't want it to. His presence in Helian Yi's shadow signifies how he, along with Zishu, is quite literally behind HLY's ascension. His gaze is knowingly directed towards the watcher.

The main reason I decided to repaint it was because I wanted it to match my current style and, more importantly, my current mental image/character design for them. Jing Qi barely changed since my idea of him was fairly clear from the start, but Helian Yi and Zishu went through much bigger changes.

For Helian Yi, it was mainly a question from taking him out of Jin Wang's robes to get him his own. I really like Jin Wang's wardrobe in SHL, which is why I initially wanted it for HLY, but nowadays it simply doesn't correspond to how I picture him anymore. My understanding and/or envisioning of Da Qing's fashion has changed a bit as well, so I wanted to reflect that. In the original, he more seemed like a kid in vaguely chique robes that were too big for him LOL. His face was afforded a bit of refinement as well, especially since my big Qi Ye spread.

Jing Qi's robes are just a tad less flashy somehow--which wasn't so much planned as just... another design I had in mind. I still really like the first version of the robes but, oh well. His face is a bit more defined now, and overall more details in the quality of his clothing and in his hair piece.

Zhou Zishu...... well, haha. His original design was quite unpolished--a vague mix of SHL!Zishu and some random hakama I barely worked on. He was also very slim and had big eyes, which I just don't see anymore. He's bigger now, by quite a bit, both in height and musculature, and I made him look just a bit older as well--simply because he is older than HLY and JBY by a few years. I much prefer his current expression which is a tad more vicious but also a bit harder to read (I think). His robes, hair shape are much better defined and thought-out, and I am happy with the subtle shading on his face.

That's it!! Thanks for readiinngggg as always!

[allpiesforourown]

As a shizun lover i trust your opinion i wanted to play the new infinity Nikki game with my sister is it good??? Does it have coop? She wanted to start it together but then we found out that it is a gacha so we were a bit put off by that.

Omg infinity nikki is a gacha but it's 1000000% not like most others. Most of the clothes are craftable, and there's literally 5 star dresses you can just buy in the game with regular gold. Ulike other games with wishing systems, you can select exactly what you want instead of getting something random

Also there's no need to actually pull. Yeah you can style competitively but there's no meta or anything

My fav thing about it though is that Nikki is completely customizable and she stays that way. No matter what clothes or skin colour you give her, the character model stays consistent during cutscenes. Idk about the co op aspect but the game is VERY free to play friendly

Also they were not kidding about the game being cozy.. cannot tell you how often I have to stop in my tracks to stare at some super small detail. Literally had to stop at this small table off to the side of the room and take a picture because the tea and baguettes made me drool

[zeherili-ankhein]

Ok guy I was feeling really bad that I didn't write out something to you guys in that moots giving chain so here's my separate moot appreciation post

Firstly

@foreignink yeah I don't know when you will come online again OR if you'll come online again but honestly speaking, you are one of my most beloved person both online and irl. You were the first one ever who listened to my endless ramblings and stupid stories I made up no matter how questionable or out of pocket they were. I loved sitting next to you and chatting away the entire break. I miss you I miss you since the day we last saw eachother after crying like idiots infront of the school. You will always be my baby mwah I love you <3 ✨💚🧡 everything orange always reminds me of you.

@randomx123 you are so cool :D You were one of the first even people I actually talked to on Tumblr and the one of the first ever Bangali too. I loved listening to your story that's really really a great story. You are like that one cousin dada I never had. I like all the random (pun included) conversations we have and basically everything else. You are one of the few people whom I send random (pun) asks with basically anything and everything. Then I loved your moodboards during Pujo and you swearing always makes me roll with laughter XD You are in my favourite person catagory

@krishna-priyatama you are literally my favourite person I met on Tumblr. Thank god to the day we started chatting, you are a literal blessing to my life if I'm being honest. The only person who ever understood my crazyness and the intensity of my love for Chhota Bheem and other cartoons and matched my weirdass freak. Chatting with you is the highlight of my day which no matter how bad the day goes it always brings a smile to my face. I have no proper words to say tbh just love ya tons tons 🫂💖

@igotadigbickandureadthatwrong yeah I remember finding your main blog on a random day in boshonto (yes pun) and that introduced me to the Vasant cult and every other funny mytho shits. We hadn't interacted at all before untill I dropped those Cult rituals into your ask box, and from then on I literally had a blast sending and receiving asks filled with theories headcanons memes metas and basically everything else. I still wait for when you'll drop your next crazy ask and it will make me take a round around my house. And then cursedblr made it more unhinged lmao :3 ✨💚 if I am being honest I wanna violently throw paint balls at you

@jeahreading NOW you, I remember our first fight over baked roshogolla and you being my roshogolla anon for some hours. I was so fun... One of the best things ever because I got to discuss sweets with someone online so frankly for the first time. You are one of my favourite person on Tumblr literally and maybe one of the very few whom I have given a nickname. I loved loved loved sharing and received pujo details with you and the love for food we share is so dear to me. I hope we can meet irl one day 🥲 I wanna squish you in a hug so bad you have no idea. We'd me unstoppable. Love you a tons 💚✨💖 the Batasha to my Chini <3

@mi-stress-of-chaos mummyyyyy I don't remember when we started interacting or when we became such crazy buddies but it was definitely related to the cursedblr which is a blessing curse in my life. Then you became chaos mummy one of my favourite internet parents. I loved every single of our cursed and normal interactions and all the other shits we did and your blog is one of the best blogs on Tumblr. You are too cool and chaotic to even be friends with a lame loner like me but I am thankful we are because you are lovely 💜💖✨

@shinchansbitch if I remember correctly ig our first interaction was when you rebligged one of my shinchan incorrect quotes... Honestly speaking I didn't knew what to say at firat and it took a lot of time for us to become proper interacting moots but I'm glad we did because you are one of the coolest moat amazing person I met here and ilysm for that. You are one of the best ever internet parent I ever had. Your shitposting is one of the best things ever, I love love love reblogging from you they are the best. 🩷💝✨

@tum-naam-sochlo-merese-ni-hora favourite person ever to overexaggerated and complicate things with. Best didi ever. The coolest person to ever walk on this planet, you are one of the funniest people on this entire universe. We also started interacting because of Vasant and it was the best thing ever. I love your art you are one of the best artist I ever know. You inspired me so much to make my own art and you were one of the first people who encouraged me to post my paper flowers. If I could I would make a tons of paper flowers, you are too good to me. Ilysm you are amazing. 💜💚💖✨

@schrodinger-ka-billa you are the best ever otter god ever and one of the best oersons with whom I interacted. And the only one whom I gave the tag of didi openly (but I'm your didi too lol) I love chatting with you here you the too funny and sweet. Even if our views on the marauders are somewhat different I love that I have found another marauders fan, that's one of the best thing ever in mankind's history. Also I loved hiw caring you are and your asks with buggies were one if the best things ever that happened to me. Ily a tins you are one of my favourite 💚🦦✨

@wulfricnavy we also started interacting during the daddymon thing I think, but anyways you are one of my favourites. I love your fanfic and I'm always waiting for when you will drop your next chapter (do it quick man). You are the best ever dadaji on the internet, a literal legend. I don't know what to say except I like the way you are interested in so many series and you are really really cool :D you are like a neighborhood bhaiya who got backpain ✨💚

@no-idea-where-i-am-lost you are a cutie :D the bestest thakuma everrrrr. Honestly I'm so glad Wulfric introduced you to us you are so sweet and one of the best people here. And one of the Bangalis with whom I enjoyed sharing Pujo moments. You should interact more it would be nice to talk and do more shenanigans together. Also cursedblr awaits you (even tho you've joined) and I really really really really like you so much you are a pookie person 🧡✨💖

@desigurlie you are so so so cool I can't even explain :D you're blog is one of my most favourite blogs, I love your metas and fic and moodboards and the way you do dhobi pachhad to shit anons and other people. You are one of the raddest most amazing didi person I even know. Our first interaction was also because of Vasant if I remember and then it was because of Mahabharat. You are one of my favourite persons online and if I could I'd give you a big fluffy hug and those paper tulips I made for you ilysm 🫂✨💖💚

@intellectual6666 cool cool person I love your fics and your vibe and in general you are kne of the coolest persons here. I don't remember how exactly we became moots and started interacting but your blog is one of the best things on this app and you yourself are one of the sweetest here. You are also like that parar bondhu jar sathe khub bhalo vibe kora jaye. I honestly want to share narkel er naru with you as we both sit quietly and enjoy the peace or gossip who knows. You are a big cutie and I would make you flower crowns if I knew you irl 💐✨💖

@hellincarnation FINALLY the bestest war criminal ever you are so cool and honestly one of the best fucking people I recently talked to. You don't even know how much your shenanigans makes me laugh or how much I enjoy talking to you. We should seriously take over the planet and then have a party. You match my crazy so much its iconic. We really are a duo for chaos. I would do cool and cringe poses with you in public if I knew you irl lol ✨💖🩵 and never hesitate to ask me any question related to thing you wanna know. And ofcourse you are one of the very few who got a nickname. Aro the car guy Satan.

@im-on-crack-send-help YOU ARE SUCH A CUTIE and you're so sweet and caring and nice and cute and basically everything nice and shiny reminds me of you. Ilysm you are one of my favourites and its sad we don't gwt to interact much we should do that honestly but anyways I'd make you all the flower bouquets with paper flowers If I can and I want to sit and eat cookies with you as we watch movies and cry ✨🧡♥️💖

@sumiyxx another cutie! You are one of the best people here and one of the pooliest too. Even if we interact less you are one of my favourite peoples here and I hope we can vibe more and do crazy. Lysm you silly darling you deserve the world and beyond and I'd give you as much as I can once I take over this planet ✨💖💚♥️

@lyrebirb you are one of my favourites easily. Your shitposting era was my favourite and you are so amazing and cool and awesome. You are my favourite birby (I say as a bird hater) and ilysm and I'm so hlad you are back. I loved the time we had a discourse over mermaid meat and eggs it was so funny and K enjoyed it so much you are so cool ✨💐💖🫂

@stxrrynxghts you are such a amazing person and I love love love taking to you :D your fics are amazing and I'm always looking forward to read them (but don't overwork yourself please) you are one of the few people with whom I shared soucha nd you are so amazing and cool and admiration amd everything all together I don't even deserve to be your friend. You are one of my favourite people here and talking to you is so great I love it 🫂💖💙

There are so many more people I'm forgetting to tag but I live y'all so much you precious pookies you all are like those fruits and nuts in my chocolate.

[physalian]

“Why doesn’t the villain just kill the heroes?”

Ah, plot armor. If you want to be a real go-getter and think up a more creative way for the heroes to always narrowly escape death out of sheer dumb luck, the villain being too slow on the draw, or the villain simply not thinking of it in the moment, you have to come up with a reason for why the villain doesn’t just kill the hero.

Four examples today.

1. Zhao & Aang

In “The Blue Spirit,” Aang is captured by Zhao, a man normally not above anything to further his agenda, including murder. The Avatar is the largest obstacle in his way, second to the Earth Kingdom, and all he has to do to take Aang off the gameboard is to kill a twelve-year-old. He’s got Aang in chains, not quite powerless but harmless enough, and could do it quickly.

So why doesn’t he? Per Zhao himself, if he kills Aang, the Avatar cycle will continue, born into some random water bender that may take them years to track down. Sure, they’ll be harmless for a few years and the Fire Nation might get lucky and find them easily, perhaps even sway the new one to their side, but what if the waterbending Avatar is born into the Foggy Swamp? Or they end up having to kill them, too, and then have to track down an earthbending Avtar across the entire Earth Kingdom? Does Zhao really want to take that chance when he can just keep Aang alive? Just barely?

Of course not.

Killing the hero in this case might stop the immediate threat, but it will just delay the inevitable, thus it’s in the villain’s best interest to exploit a loophole while likely committing war crimes in the process. He gets to secure a Fire Nation victory and make Aang suffer for the rest of his life.

Ozai doesn't kill Aang until the first chance he gets, which just so happens to be the series finale. And we all know why Aang has a no-kill policy.

2. Sam, Dean & The Angels and Demons

Hahaha it’s the show known for its refusal to kill its heroes. We’re gonna ignore everything past season 5. There’s obviously meta reasons—kill the main characters and you have zero supporting cast that could realistically take over the show.

But in season 4, despite multiple deaths already for both of them, so begins the “if you die we’ll just bring you back” threat, because they’re angels and angels can do that. Similar to Aang, Sam and Dean risk a fate far worse than death if they don’t cooperate with Zachariah’s plans. He happily gives them both a slew of diseases and illnesses to get his way whenever he gets the chance and reminds them both that if they just kill themselves to escape the Apocalypse, he’ll happily revive them. The Demons won't kill Sam and Dean because they're necessary to further their own plans by breaking certain seals on Lucifer's cage, though they're not above breaking bones and killing bystanders.

Fate worse than death is a popular threat, but usually the heroes offing themselves is still a viable, if deeply unpopular, option. Supernatural removes it entirely and for such a simple little detail, it does a lot to make their survivability believable.

3. Batman & Joker

Ahh the age old furious rant by people who don’t understand Batman: If Batman killed his villains they’d stop busting out of Arkham and murdering innocent civilians, Batman has so much blood on his hands—

Babe. Babe, he’s a comic book character. By his very nature, he can’t kill his villains otherwise he’d have no rogues gallery. Comic books are like a giant board of Monopoly, going around in circles and occasionally having a timeout in jail.

But the in universe reason there’s no killing has been essayed about extensively and so has why Joker doesn’t try harder to kill him, but I couldn’t not include these two. Batman does not kill because he is not judge, jury, and executioner of his villains, most of whom have mental health issues and while they certainly know better and their crimes aren’t justified, his villains need actual therapy and help and medication, not death. Even those who he might agree must be stopped and there’s no other way except murder, Batman himself will not be the one to pull the trigger. He must remain a hero, so that no matter who he comes across in the dark alleyways of Gotham, they know he’s not here to kill them, be it criminal or victim.

Joker doesn’t kill Batman for a much simpler reason, and Heath Ledger literally says it: “I won’t kill you because you’re too much fun.” He does not need a more convoluted reason, he enjoys the game, the chase, the tug of war (most versions of him, at least) and to kill Batman would be to end his greatest form of entertainment, and the only person probably in the whole world who is neither afraid of Joker nor dismissive of him as simply a freak.

4. Optimus and Megatron

Optimus Prime and Megatron are very similar to Batman and Joker but with literal eons of history between them. In most serialized Transformers media, as opposed to movies where the plot is more urgent, Megatron both wants to win Optimus over and just can't quite let himself finally win. Who is he without his rival, after all this time?

Optimus is in the same boat, refusing to kill him because he's still holding out hope for Megatron's redemption, that there's a peaceful way to end this war (no matter how much collateral both leaders end up causing). Shit gets real whenever Optimus breaks the unspoken rules of their no-kill rivalry and Megatron gets incredibly pissy about it because he's in love.

—

Suggestions to workshop this plot hole in your own narrative:

The hero staying alive is absolutely paramount to the villain’s plan (in which case, you have to have rock solid reasons for why they keep narrowly escaping capture)

The villain is so confident in their plan that they don’t even consider the hero a proper threat

The villain doesn't really have a bodycount, but if they kill the hero, suddenly all the other powers that be will take them seriously and they'll have a huge mess on their hands

The villain is so full of themselves or so in love with their rival that it’d break their heart to have to kill them just to win

The villain is simply not capable of murder either physically or morally (perhaps because the hero is a child)

Killing the hero would make them a martyr and the villain would end up with a far bigger mess on their hands when the lone hero is replaced with an avenging army

The villain is too proud to simply kill the hero and wants to win fairly in a proper fight on the battlefield and not take the cheap and easy shot

The villain does not have a phyiscal form or real presence in the plot, acting through their minions, and their minions are incompetent

It’s simply not fun if the hero dies/the hero is the only one who understands them and they’d lose far more than they’d gain by killing them

The villain still wants to try and win the hero over and is so dedicated to this path that they regularly sabotage their own plans desperate to change the hero’s mind

The villain firmly believes in a fate worse than death and while the hero’s survival isn’t crucial to the main plan, they want the hero to watch their own failure/become the villain’s minion/ prisoner/ partner by the end

There’s a million examples out there to pull from and I could keep listing them all night. So long as whatever it is doesn’t come out of nowhere or open a plot hole of “why didn’t they just do that earlier?” you can get quite creative.

One last example that’s a personal favorite of mine to implement: In Eternal Night of the Northern Sky there aren’t too many opportunities to ask this question, but when it does arise, Villain A has Hero B as a meat shield, and while Hero B’s love interest, Hero C, is more than happy to shoot through them to incapacitate Villain A, the person they take orders from isn’t so reckless, which later leads to Drama and Issues.

[lycheeloving]

I'm not a songfic person at all, but Vampire by Olivia Rodrigo is so Bruce Wayne coded... not everything fits ofc, but listening to it always makes me think of a lil scenario. i don't know how much it actually has to do with the song tbh

I imagine you're a meta, have some kind of power that Batman just can't figure out, but he needs to know exactly how your powers work and what your weaknesses are! To make a contingency plan for you, in case you turn evil at some point!

So he tries everything, sneakily taking your blood (either you don't let him get close enough or he can't pierce your skin due to your powers), watching you closely during missions, even subtly asking you about it, but nothing works, you don't let him know anything, he can't figure you out.

So he only has one option left. Getting closer to you, making you trust him. You're already suspicious of Batman, so he gets closer to you in his civilian identity, Bruce Wayne. He fabricates "random" (meticulously planned) encounters between you both for months, where he slowly endears himself to you, until you agree to date him. Then he knows exactly what to say to get you to care about him, to trust him.

Over the course of many months you get really close to him, come to love him. You reveal your identity to him (that he already knew, but he acts surprised), open up about your powers after he gently asks you to explain more to him, since he's "so confused, and didn't expect any of this, please help him understand?". You even mention one of your weaknesses to him, hoping that will make him less scared of you. He calms down after that, and you think your relationship is now stronger than ever.

Unbeknownst to you, after you fall asleep in his bed that night, he takes your blood and scans you in a way he's figured out won't wake you up. He has all the information he needs now.

After that, he ever so slowly starts distancing himself from you, intending to get you to stop caring about him as much, to break up with him. However, before that happens, you're able to connect the dots and figure out he's Batman. Either he says something as Batman that only Bruce should know or you stumble upon the batcave. Why didn't he reveal this to you when you told him about your powers? Didn't he trust you? ...Maybe he just wasn't ready yet? But why did he act so confused, Batman wouldn't be confused!

You then decide to look through his things, hoping not to find a file on you, hoping he truly cared about you and didn't just get close to you for more information, but you find a list of your weaknesses, and plans detailing how to take you down, if he ever has to. You also find the plans he had for this whole thing. Getting close to you and then just leaving you, as if whatever was between you never meant anything.

You destroy a lot of his stuff in anger before calming down enough to see past your anger and leave, intending to never come back. You stop working with Batman, maybe even with the entire Justice League, unable to trust him and anyone that works with him.

Did he ever really care about you? He might have started out not caring, but did he never start liking you at all?

And did breaking your heart create the monster he feared you could become? Or did he just make it so you'll never trust anyone again? Only time will tell...