#second one of these for which i have a reliable attribution

[easterneuropeancrafts]

Girl from Veľký Lom. Slovakia. Photography by Karel Plicka. 1928.

Image from the collection of Nevill Forbes. Pitt Rivers Museum.

[thosetrollkids]

MONSTOBER: DESIGNS

Part 1: Teen Cast!

HELLOOOOO everybody! Welcome to my project, Monstober! A series of several posts with large, in depth looks at different aspects of my AU, Monster Kids, that I wrote during October this year. Special thanks to @eurazba for listening to me ramble over all this and helping with the AU over the years <3

This post will be going over the general monster designs for notable teen characters, as well as some thoughts as to why I chose said designs :D

There will be a second post for the main adult cast, and once posted, you can find it linked here :)

Jim / Toby / Claire

Jim Lake Jr (Sphinx): It's him! The poster boy! Wahoo! Honestly, I don't have many notes for his design process, because his design has stayed relatively similar since the early drafts. His was the very first design, and other than being a typical lion/eagle sphinx for like. two drawings, and then a panther/blackbird for two more, once the snow leopard/blue jay combo was struck, he's only really changed in small ways. I chose a blue jay, because they're one of my favorite birds, they're blue, and I'd used them to be an accent to Jim in a previous drawing. Snow leopards are also my favorite big cat! So similar reasoning for that particular aspect. If I were to design him today, blank slate, I miiiight have changed his cat species, but I still am way too attached to the leopard/jay combo.

Toby Domzalski (Gargoyle): Toby's design also hasn't changed much! The main trio haven't, other than minor adjustments. He originally had yellow eyes, but they're back to standard green. He also used to have larger wings, and while I liked the idea of the main three being able to fly together, I decided to go with a different route as I leaned into his design looking more aquatic, and he instead has wing shaped back fins! They fold down and sit under his clothes, as he only really can use them while swimming.

Claire Nuñez (Harpy) Also another design I haven't changed since conception! Harpies were always something cool to me, and I was inspired by an illustration of harpies in a mythology book I had bought at the time. Her design was originally just 'bird' until I tired to find a more specific species that fit. I landed on barn owls, and coincidentally, they are also associated with brujeria/witchcraft in Mexico! Win-win. With her stronger connection to magic overall, she's also the only member of Team Trollhunter that can fly reliably; her magic feeds her energy enough to keep in the air (Jim's wings are too small for anything besides light gliding and cushioning falls).

Steve / Eli / Krel / Aja

Steve Palchuk (Faun): Steve's design was always pretty formed in my head. For the guy that tries so very hard to be an all-American boy, an icon of that is the whitetail deer buck, and it very quickly fell into place! His design is fairly simple, which is why it works so well for him, IMO. Fun fact, he has a set of scars on his cheek from the equivalent of the fight he had with Jim in S1. More to expand on in a later comic, >:3c

Eli Pepperjack (Bat Humanoid): Eli was actually also a sphinx originally, but I wanted Jim to stay fairly unique among the main teens, so my follow up design was something more batlike! I did do plenty of research for monster bats, or hybrid bat monsters, but what research I could do didn't produce much (then again, could always be wrong!), so I went with 'attributes'. He's based on a Little Brown Bat. He little >:) His wings are also not capable of flight, they're basically large hands, all the better to hunt down creepers with, my dear.

Krel & Aja Tarron (Amphibious humanoids): WAHOOOOO!!!! I'm very proud of these, because you have NO IDEA how many months I struggled to find a design I liked for them. They have been (checks notes) spidertaurs, a few other passes of various insectoid tries, I was going to attempt something more seal like, because I knew the main group's designs were already mammal-heavy, and something aquatic or insectoid was what I wanted to balance the group out. Then my beloved @eurazba, listening to me ramble one night, helped me come to the idea of their 'human' transductions looking closer to old monster movies! Creature from Black Lagoon was an easy pick, I did some research about CFBL and Shape of Water (thanks Del Toro), and bada bing, bada boom! My fishy twins! Also Krel is the only one wearing shoes. Just realized this...

Mary / Darci / Shannon

Mary Wang (Dryad): Mary has also gone through a lot of changes (turns out, I was very indecisive outside of the main trio, AJDJSBSJFHB). She was actually a -taur alongside Darci! Specifically a unitaur (saw a lot of alternate Monster Falls art of Mabel Pines as one, and I really liked the idea. The overall AU was inspired by the Gravity Falls AU, now you know!) She stayed that for a while, then also went through some bug-like redesigns, and then a couple months back, I decided on a dryad! Before that point, I was trying to stay strictly to animalistic monster designs, but it became a little too confining, so she exploded into my sketchbook and became real. Her tree is a california redbud, and her 'antlers' are like the branches of the tree, and leaves/flowers bloom in time with the season on them. The hooves were based on a Zelda design from an artist I liked a lot (truffe.art on IG!)

Darci Scott (Praying Mantis-taur): HERE COMES THE BUG PAYOFF. Some of you may remember my design for Darci hasn't changed for quite some time, and while I liked the look of the cervitaur (a centaur, but deer), it didn't feel... as unique as I wanted? And I was still missing my BUG. So, debating over this, I did a few passes of her mixed with a bee, spider, etc etc... and then once again, @eurazba was like "hey! praying mantis." and I fell in LOVE with the concept. (Very quickly sketched her up as I was doing these sheets, actually NDJSNJKJD)

Shannon Longhannon (Gorgon): Last design of the group, another that has hardly changed since conception. Nagas, gorgons, lamias- whatever they're called, I love the visual of a reptilian character slinking around gracefully, and she helped balance out all the mammalian designs as well. She was originally a typical green/yellow snake, but when I inevitably color her, I picture something more ruddy, reddish brown, to match her hair :) She indeed is able to turn someone to stone, but as she was not born a gorgon, this ability is dulled, and only lasts for a few hours, working only if she focuses completely on doing so to someone. She's taken to wearing shades more often to not scare people who don't know this.

[love-and-deepspace-wiki]

Surrounding Characters: Caleb

Age: Unknown

Birthday: Unknown

Occupation: Fighter pilot

Workplace: Deepspace Aviation Administration (DAA)

Family: Though not related by blood, he was also raised by Grandma Josephine and has a sibling relationship with the protagonist

Spoiler warning: If you have not finished Chapter 4 of the main story, this post contains major spoilers.

Details:

Caleb is the protagonist's childhood friend, a friend so integral to her life that she considers him family. Grandma Josephine also took him in when protaganist was 7 years old. The protaganist sees him as both reliable and trustworthy.

He attended Aerospace Academy in Skyhaven and now works as a fighter pilot for the Deepspace Aviation Administration (DAA). Once he started studies at the Aerospace Academy, he didn't see the protaganist much anymore. But he comes home to spend holidays with Grandma Josephine and protaganist.

Appearance:

He is always shown wearing a black hoodie underneath a DAA jacket, dark cargo pants with "DAA" on the left leg, and calf-high boots. He's even wearing this DAA outfit when leaving home for the Aerospace Academy. The jacket has "DAA" and "C6" embroidered on it, along with various symbols/logos. But I'm we've yet to learn what "C6" signifies.

On his left wrist, he wears a bracelet with one of the DAA symbols on it. And around his neck, he wears a necklace the protagonist gave him when he left for school.

Visiting Grandma Josephine:

When they both visit Grandma Josephine and have dinner, the TV news channel says there have been many recent explosions throughout Linkon City which the Hunter's Association has attributed to Wanderers.

"So far, 22 have been wounded with no casualties. We advise all citizens to be careful when outside...".

Caleb reacts by saying "Explosions, huh?" Before asking the protagonist if there have been many Wanderer activity recently.

During dinner, the protaganist gets an alert about Wanderers in the neighborhood. When she leaves to investigate, Caleb insists on going with her. She suspected he was trying to tag along with her, but he claimed he was just going the store to "buy some vinegar and whatnot".

After asking him to also get her some snacks and fruit and warning him not to follow her, Caleb finally enters the convenience store. But after the encounter with the mysterious man, Caleb returns notably empty handed. No vinegar, snacks, fruit, or any groceries in sight.

The protaganist keeps the encounter a secret so as not to worry Caleb and Grandma Josephine. When Caleb asks about it and she chalks it up to a false alarm, he's pretty offended that she wouldn't tell him what really happened.

"But why do you have to hide it from me? Don't you trust me now that we're all grown-up?"

"If not me, who else could you possibly turn to for..."

He stops mid-sentence with a small laugh. When asked about it, he says she wouldn't understand even if he told her and to forget it. He seems to let the situation go after this and tells her to hide the blood on her sleeve before coming in.

"Since you're a grown up now, I won't cover for you this time."

Seconds after he goes inside Grandma Josephine's house, the explosion occurs. His necklace somehow ends up outside the burning house next to where the protagonist landed.

Random Facts:

He calls the protaganist "pipsqueak" and Josephine "Gran"

He doesn't like cilantro

He can make braised chicken wings

He jokes(?) that he "talked her into becoming a hunter"

When the protaganist expresses concern for Grandma Josephine's health, Caleb announces that he applied for a long-term care ward for her (without consulting/informing either of them about it)

Zayne's family and the protaganist's family had been friends for years, occasionally getting together for meals. So, Caleb also knows Zayne, but he hasn't seen him in a long time

Written on his necklace are the words "When U come back". It was a parting gift the protaganist gave him before he left for the Aerospace Academy.

When Caleb calls her after her first day, he says things at his job have been peaceful and his current military flight operation had wrapped up nicely. But other than a few basic details, he says the information is top secret. The protaganist then says "everything is a secret with you people in the Deepspace Aviation Administration".

Speculation:

The Passing Car?

When Caleb is confronting the protaganist about lying to him, something kind of strange happens. Just as he's asking "If not me, who else could you possibly...", he trails off as we hear a car passing by. The light reflects off of his hair and face as it does. And it's after the car passes that he has that realization he says she wouldn't understand.

I only point this out because I've never seen that happen in scenes with other characters when they're near a street. Because of that, it felt like an intentional detail to potentially take note of?

The Explosion

I find it too eery of a coincidence that the topic of explosions comes up the same day there's an explosion at Grandma Josephine's house. And Caleb delaying her entry, going inside first, and the explosion happening seconds after he closes the door is kinda... kinda sus

Shadowed Man?

I won't rewrite it all here, but I posted this theory about Caleb and the shadowed man Rafayel meets at the Nest.

[lulu2992]

“My New Father”

It seems this note is often attributed to John Seed:

It could be because, on the Far Cry Wiki, the document is described as “John's feelings towards Joseph”. Sadly, as we know, the Wiki is far from reliable, and nothing proves the Baptist did write this.

In my opinion, he didn’t, and here’s why.

First, John signed all the other notes he wrote:

If he had written “My New Father”, I imagine he would have signed it too. And if he hadn’t, I believe that his name would still have been mentioned somewhere, for example in the title, like “Jacob’s Manifesto” (which isn’t signed), just to make it clear to players who the author of the note is. In “My New Father”, Joseph is also only referred to as a “Father” and never as a brother, which I think is strange.

Then, this is where the document can be found in John’s Gate:

This is Silo A, Floor -04, in the A3 dormitory (Level -4 on the map I made). This is apparently where “regular” cultists live, so it would make more sense to me if the note had been written and left there by one of them instead of John. There reportedly are areas of the bunker only he can access, so I imagine this is where “My New Father” would have been located if he had written it.

Finally, whoever wrote the note is very self-insightful, seems at peace, and feels loved… so quite the opposite of John. To me, the Baptist doesn’t seem to be as aware of who he is and how he functions (as much as he likes to think he is), and although he tries to be in control of any situation he’s in, he’s everything but calm. In the message he left at Seed Ranch, Joseph explains his little brother’s main problem, the reason he suffers and makes others suffer, is that he was unable to fully cast away his past and, unlike the person who wrote the note, doesn’t realize how much love there is around him.

I agree that parts of “My New Father” describe John well, and that may be why people believe he wrote it. He too feels he was given a second chance and was “born again” thanks to Joseph, isn’t used to the feeling of love, had a troubled and abusive childhood, and made sure he was “society’s very model of success” on the outside while, on the inside, he was “full of suppressed anger” (to quote The Book of Joseph). The problem is, John is still “a tormented boy, damaged and afraid”, and he’s certainly not driven by “acceptance and love” because the conclusions he drew from what happened to him when he was younger are wrong. He didn’t heal from his trauma, he rationalized and weaponized it. John tries to convince himself he’s right, but deep down, I think he knows something’s wrong, and he’s obviously still in pain. The cultist who wrote “My New Father” healed from his trauma and feels safe enough to open his heart, but the same can’t be said about John, unfortunately.

It would have been better for everyone if John had recovered from his awful youth, understood how harmful the lessons he was taught were, and realized that it was now safe for him to love and be loved, without fear, but we know that never happened. This, plus the fact his name doesn’t appear anywhere in “My New Father” and that we find it in the dormitory where other cultists live, is why I don’t think he’s the author of the note… as much as I wish he had been able to write something like this.

[one-awesome-beetle]

sherlock season one analysis ramble (feat. johnlock. a lot of johnlock.)

ok so i had a sleepover with my best friend and she may or may not have introduced me to bbc sherlock and i may or may not have gone on an hour-long tangent (after watching ONE EPISODE) about johnlock that i cannot FOR THE LIFE OF ME REMEMBER but im just gonna keep typing and see what bullshit i end up with. also i have only watched season one, and we are going to rewatch it before moving on to season two because!! I JUST WATCHED LIKE FIVE HOURS OF TWO MEN FLIRTING. THEY ARE SO IN LOVE ABHUDFGNZMRNCGAJBghnsccbHVHAUVHAAAAAAAAAAAUGHH

shit ok so, ahugsabhfbdn okokokokok so i'm going to yap in two sections (mainly, they will cross over and blur at one point and i will not apologise for that), one regarding mainly sherlock and one mainly regarding john, because both their characters are so incredibly complex and interesting (aaaaahhh)

firstly, sherlock

he is... so incredibly interesting. he investigates crime because it excites him, not because he's concerned for the wellbeing of others- no, he wants to get into the criminal's head, to understand. he states that he is married to his work, but what i see there isn't love; what kickstarted it was likely this need to know what was off about a case, like an itch he desperately needed to scratch, which then developed into a habit, a passion, and then a(n unhealthy) obsession - at least, that's how i see it. venturing into more johnlock territory, to me, john is definitely his first love. i see him with past relationships, but i think he would've had them because that is what is standard and expected, but it was never truly love, you know? this is why we get the flirting-but-not-flirting when he's talking to john, because he's used to flirting, he knows how to, he just has to get accustomed to the new feelings that now come with flirting. i also believe he's definitely not a virgin, he gives far too much power bottom energy (the way i see it, john def tops and sherlock is being a flirty brat until he actually gets flustered and gets hit with the "oh shoot, he's hot")

this kind of brings me to john, though i'll probably get back to sherlock when i actually remember what else i have to say

john was immediately my favourite character, he's... i lack the words to describe him properly in the moment but HES INCREDIBLE AND I LOVE HIM. having been a soldier and a doctor, he is more stoic and reserved than sherlock, definitely braver, while sherlock is just stupid but never has to face the consequences due to his brilliance; how my friend put it was "if he was an average person, he'd die first in a horror movie, but since he's sherlock holmes there's no way he wouldn't survive". this gives us a lovely contrast of character which is wonderful as it paves the way to so many corny ship dynamics and tropes that i will be taking advantage of. firstly, i want to draw attention to the fact that while john makes himself as small as possible, sherlock wants to occupy and cover as much room as he possibly can - this also leads to john being more sturdy and reliable while sherlock spreads himself just a little too thin.

i do think it's interesting that in hindsight, throughout this section i have mainly analysed john's character by comparing him to and showing the contrast between him and sherlock, which, ironically, also tells us a lot about him as an individual. he is always second to sherlock, to others, because without someone else to bring attention to him he'd be able to live practically unnoticed by anyone - this can be attributed to his trust issues and lack of people he can, or wants to, rely on. this is especially funny when you consider his hesitance to trust people in the context of sherlock. because while he may not trust him, completely, he's definitely already developed this form of unwavering loyalty. one of my favourite scenes where this is shown is in episode one (i think ?) where when sgt. donovan warns john about sherlock, he is so quick to doubt her, his "why?" is so fast and delivered with such intent and confidence it shook me, and left me with such a lasting impression it is still such a core line i associate with him.

next i want to touch on just how much gay (johnlock) subtext there actually is, especially in the first and third episodes, because trust me when i say there is a lot. i obviously won't be able to explain and analyse all of the gay scenes as there are far too many but i will try, and will spend the most time on my favourites. firstly, within 24 hours (i think) of meeting him, john watson has killed a man for sherlock. what the fuck.

[insert 15-ish minute break where i paced around the kitchen muttering to myself like a lunatic]

this man is, somehow, in a way that even he can't comprehend or understand, completely devoted to helping sherlock. "why??" you ask? because he is also a fucking madman. he isn't traumatised by, but rather misses the war, and to get back to that sense of adrenaline and excitement he is willing to go around with a (technically) unqualified, unemployed detective who is thrilled by serial murders and bombings. though he might look at sherlock differently, or even so much as get scared by his attitude towards his their line of work, he gets off on it as much as sherlock, and the only reason he hasn't left, like a normal, sensible individual who values their life would've is because he too indulges in the thrill of the chase, and is very content to be able to marvel at sherlock's skill and hang onto his every word*, though he refuses to admit this to himself, as he seems to value independence pretty highly. this is interesting in contrast to sherlock because while he too values independence, he seems to not mind relying on others - that is, until you consider his refusal to trust in or rely on the police, professional organisations, other detectives, etc. this is when you notice that the people he doesn't seem to mind relying on are himself, and john.

*again with the complete and utter devotion. also half of season one is just john listening to and being in awe of sherlock's rambling.

i just got very sidetracked, though i'm still technically on topic (and still typing) so i count that as a win. in episode one, when john and sherlock go to the restaurant (i vaguely remember it being for something relating to the case but that's besides the point), their conversation basically goes like this:

john: so... do you have a girlfriend?

sherlock: no, not really my area (im gay haha) (...but why is he asking me this? [gears turning]

wait.)

john: (oK, OK OK)... do you have a boyfriend? that's cool btw im uh... ally! woo (im gay. i'm GAY)

sherlock: (oh sHIT he's hitting on me) *fast* i know its cool (I KNOW YOU'RE GAY)

john: (ah, ok *resignation*) so you have a boyfriend-?

sherlock: *way too quickly* no

john: (OH, :0) so you're single - i'm single btw too (what the actual FUCK am i doingggg)

Then we have 1) sherlock just rocking up to john's date

and 2) THE MORIARTY POOL SCENE

i can't even EXPRESS how incredibly i was giggling and squealing and kicking my feet im sorry??? as soon as he thinks jim is gone and he can drop the calm and composed act he- i-

[thoughts then proceeded to refuse to let themselves be expressed in writing so here have a video clip]

moriarty: i am going to burn, the HEART, out of you

sherlock, completely apathetic/used to people telling him he's too heartless/cold/etc.: i have been reliably informed that i don't have one

moriarty, after seeing him completely flip out (internally) when he saw john in the bomb vest with a sniper pointed at him: but we both know that's not quite true

(^^ i don't know that quote just stuck out to me. a lot.)

another thing, that, now having rewatched i am able to string into coherent thought, is sherlock as soon as moriarty is gone is concerned with nothing other that is john okay? is he alright? will he be alright? he doesn't seem to be able to recognise that his life was on the line as well, because he doesn't think his own safety is nearly as important as john's. (godAMMIT THIS MAN)

alright, thank you for coming to my ted talk, i have more thoughts that didn't make it to this rant that i will likely post over the duration of the next few weeks, but that is the majority. thoughts? :)

BONUS FOR READING TO THE END

screenshots of texts i sent while writing this:

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hello. I’m an English reader of One Piece, and confidently know *nothing* about the Japanese language (atleast how to read it). I own all 4 box sets that are currently officially available in English. I was wondering, considering your expertise, is the VIZ translation good (in terms of how reliable it is in accuracy)? Does it convey what it needs to? If not, do you think any scans you’ve read are better compared to the official? Curious what you think as a translator. Thanks!

i think that these days the viz translation is basically fine. it conveys what it needs to. often there's little quibbles i have with it, like little differences in how i might personally have phrased things, but i certainly don't think i could do better at translating whole chapters of manga on a week-to-week basis.

my new chapter reading process now that i'm properly caught up again starts with reading the raws in japanese, and then i skim both the unofficial scans from tcb and the official release from viz when they each come out to see what choices they made. doing this, i do see more mistakes in the unofficial scans than in the official viz translation. and that makes sense! the people who do the official viz translation are professionals who are being paid for their work and they have more time to do it.

like, just for one low-stakes recent example i noticed, in chapter 1112, the unofficial scans (left) messed up this panel by attributing both of the lines on the left to vegapunk, when in fact the second one should be spoken by pythagoras (something made clear in japanese by his distinctively polite speech pattern), a mistake which was corrected in the official (right).

and i'm not saying this to insult the scanlators, by any means! it's something i've wanted to get into myself, and they provide a really cool and valuable service largely for free as volunteers. i love scanlators. but if you are wanting the most accurate experience of the current manga as an english-speaker, the official is probably still your best bet.

however, from what i've seen (bearing in mind that my actual experience with the official translation is pretty limited, i mostly only look at it when people ask me questions or i have a specific curiosity) i do think the official translation has a lot more problems in the older arcs, roughly from east blue through, like, skypiea?

i've seen or been asked about a pretty substantial number of mistranslated lines and questionable choices from that stretch of the manga. for just one example, there's this one from drum i posted about a couple months ago, where a line that's quite thematically important to the series as a whole got cut up because of the translation's former unwillingness to use the word 'god' (also very visible and annoying in skypiea).

the anime for those arcs does use, from what i've seen, a better translation than the official manga. however, i personally don't know of any better manga retranslations of the early arcs (it's something i've actually considered trying to attempt myself, if i ever have the time for a project of that scale). if any of you have any to recommend, please let me know!

[kobold-that-bites-people]

dunno if this will get to anyone that it's relevant to, but as a transfem that's had bottom surgery (a rather standard penile inversion vaginoplasty) and is mostly recovered at this point, i'd like to give a few notes on my experience. hopefully it reaches some people who are considering and would be helped by such anecdotes. anyway, in no particular order,

it's major surgery. recovery is gonna suck about the same as other major surgeries. that said, a lot of the discomfort is frontloaded. in my case, i experienced about 2/3 of the pain i could attribute to recovery over the last six months, in the first week. the sheer drop in pain once the catheter came out alone was night and day. the first week was miserable though, you *need* someone, ideally multiple someones, who can look after you through that stage. (if you are in the green lands of not america, or just are well funded, many hospitals will look after you for the first week or so, but as a broke american i was only in hospital for about a day and a half. maybe two days, memory is a little fuzzy from the opiates (which i stopped almost as soon as i got out of the hospital, the brain fog from opiates is real)

it's been said other places, but it is really likely you will experience a lot of emotions during recovery. this can take a lot of forms, but in my case i had to grapple with a lot of "doubts" about if it was even what i wanted, if it was worth it to me, if it even looked natural enough, and so on. part of that is just that it's a major change in your body image, so doubts are normal and expected. part of it is that after major physical trauma like surgery, your body will amplify a lot of emotions intensely. try not to listen to the dysphoria talking when things still need to heal. the difference between a week from the surgery and a couple months later is *massive*.

this might be obvious to a lot of people, but for people like me that have only ever been even slightly intimate with partners that have cocks, pussies come in a *lot* of shapes. the very limited range depicted in a lot of common art and porn and games and so on, is simply not a representative sample of all the shapes that a pussy can be. despite my anxieties over my own, every person that has seen it so far has either had explicit compliments, or at least backhanded ones about how "normal" it looks.

despite how cautious doctors will be about promising function, it is entirely possible you'll have every function you might expect from a natal vagina. i get a not insignificant amount of self lubrication, can feel everything better than i dared hope for, and despite having to completely relearn what motions work for it i can reliably reach orgasms just as well as i could pre-op. that said, i don't self lubricate quite as much as *some* cis women manage. it's usually enough for fingering myself, but if i wanted to use a toy, or be penetrated by a partner, it simply isn't reasonable to go without generous lube. mostly because while i have some self-lubrication, it isn't exactly produced *quickly*, and friction can quickly dry it up, especially outside my entrance.

dilation can be many things, but it's usually mostly just tedious. it hurt *some* at the start, but once the swelling went down it generally only hurt as i went up a size. nowadays i only feel a miniscule amount of pain with the stretch as i work my largest dilator in, and that fades within about 30 seconds. the better you are at getting it done reliably, the less it will hurt. missing a session, especially earlier in recovery, will be *felt* the next time you dilate.

if you are open about your having had bottom surgery, or end up hospitalized from complications thereof, (as i did, i'll spare the medical details) there are a lot of people that will try to justify wanting to see, for motives that i'll leave as an exercise to the reader to deduce. such people will include doctors, nurses, and plenty of people with more spurious motives. i've had more people barge in on me while i was dilating within the last months since i had bottom surgery, than ever barged in on me while i was masturbating in the earlier 26 years of my life. *please* be aware that part of being perceived as "more a woman" is that you will likely experience more such attentions, in the various forms that takes. sometimes positive it is true, but usually not.

[starshower1215]

[shower thoughts no.1] The Talk of Infinity: Levihan/Life Analysis

CW: adult conversations, experience based discussions, references to mathematics, attachment issues

As humans, it is an innate desire to be loved, so love is sought out from one another. But love is an art, and in any art, in order to be good, you need skill as well. Skill is developed. Therefore, love is not just love. It's also a skill which is sharpened over time. But to sharpen is to practice, and to practice is to run into people who are also practicing, and to do so can result in you both leaving each other with the wrong ideas of what love is, how to do it, and how dangerous it may be.

The most prominent two sides, at least those serving a purpose in this analysis, of the "spectrum" of the impact of a relationship might look like this:

Person A: I want love, and it's gone wrong before, but that's why I have to make sure it doesn't go wrong again.

Person B: I want love, but I'm afraid because it's gone wrong before, and I don't trust it anymore.

Some attributes of Person A might include clinginess, control issues, extreme optimism, maybe fear of abandonment. Some of Person B may be a sense of emotional distance, trust issues, isolation, pessimism, and possibly fear of abandonment. And you see this most in the contrasting view of promises:

Person A: I promise I won't leave you. I'll always love you.

Person B: I don't believe in forever. How can you promise such an impossible thing?

Now, both are not healthy views to be having. They're too black-and-white. But the mixture is perfect: 50% logic and 50% faith.

That's Levihan, isn't it?

It isn't one person is Person A, the other is Person B. No, both Levi and Hange, separately, encompass Person A and B, and they just happen to be together as two people doing that. Yet, they are not perfect themselves. Levi, for example, inevitably has been left with horrible abandonment issues due to his past with Kenny, and in retrospect, with every person in his life whom he has loved, ever. Hange's mental difficulties may not be as obvious, but if their behavior regarding their research and experiments is observed, they likely isolate themself a lot, and are not an entirely reliable person.

I made a statement of this to a friend once. There are two different types of eternities which I had identified, and to put it in terms of numbers, then one infinity is, literally, this infinity: ∞. An endless loop, or length of time. Simply infinity as it is. The other is the infinity between an interval. Take, for instance, [0,1]. From 0 to 1, there is an infinite possibility of numbers: 0, 0.1, 0.01, 0.001, 0.0001, and so on, all the way up to 1. Infinities between set beginning and end points. Defined infinities.

The latter is Levi and Hange. While the first one is over romanticized, and the other option ("I don't believe in forever at all") is simply a pessimistic view of life, to the point of harmfulness, an infinity between digits is a healthy compromise. The two of them (and ourselves, in the real world) live in an unpredictable universe that is constantly throwing obstacles in our way, often arbitrarily. On top of that fact, learning the art of loving is a skill, and really a lifelong pursuit. So we may never truly reach a stage where we are loving each other in a stable manner. It is necessary to simply learn the balance of loving others and yourself simultaneously, and to work past the fears you were taught by your past. That's how they live.

It is to say "Right in this instant, this tenth of a second, I love you. Now that it's past, and we are at another tenth of a second, I still find that I love you." Or to say, "I can't promise you forever, as we have no control of our future, but I can promise you now." And it works, because what can you gain or lose in that tiny instant, the itty bitty "now" that grants you a world of freedom? And really, as long as you can make that "now" last forever, that tenth of a second, then "now" is its own form of forever, but free of the fear of what came before, and what will come next.

Edit: I found a post.

[motionpicturedemise]

Zero's medal, New Mecca's origins, and near-fatal head trauma

Spoilers for all of Katana ZERO ahead. if you haven't played it already, do that now, I'm dead serious when I say it's one of the greatest games of all time.

When I first decided I'd post meta about this game, honestly, this isn't the one I expected to start with. Hey, sometimes inspiration hits, and...

I'm joking. That's a different rant entirely. (yoshiP voice) please look forward to it. I think the best place to start with this one is New Mecca itself, and what that name entails. It's no secret that KZ takes large inspiration from both Judaism and Islam, the latter of which is more relevant today.

The implications of a literal new Mecca are both fascinating and out of my wheelhouse. I encourage any Muslims, who certainly know more about it than me, to elaborate. As it stands, I'm going to leave it at these few screenshots.

The Psychiatrist:

Leon von Alvensleben:

And of course, Headhunter:

This really isn't the main point of this rant, but it's related enough that I feel justified in mentioning it. Now, let's see Zero's service medal.

Thanks to the nature of KZ as a pixel-art game, we don't have much to work with here. It's gold with a purple ribbon, that's the most we're gonna get.

During the scene at the bar, we have an NPC put a name to it, and this name is what kickstarted the entire post.

A Distinguished Service Crescent. This, to my knowledge, is not a real medal in any country. That makes sense, considering, to my knowledge... New Mecca isn't real. (If it was, we'd have bigger problems on our hands.) This name did remind me of the real-life medal known as the Distinguished Service Cross, which has three meanings and appearances between countries.

To the left, the USA's medal, which is the second highest military decoration just behind their Medal of Honor. The center, Australia's medal, the highest of their Distinguished Service awards. The right, the United Kingdom's medal, which is only awarded for service at sea.

But none of these look like Zero's medal, do they? Let's take a look at Distinguished Service Medals instead, same order as above.

No dice. At this point what I'm about to say is going to surprise absolutely nobody, but the only real-life lookalike I can think of is the USA's Purple Heart.

Now, this sounds absolutely nothing like the Distinguished Service Crescent the NPC mentions, but let's account for 1. artistic liberty, 2. multiple inspirations, and 3. the fact that he might've been wrong. (It's not as if KZ has the most reliable narrators in the first place.)

Part of the reason it might be named as such in game is to draw the direct comparison to our real world medals, named after the cross. Why has it been replaced with a crescent, though? Recall the name of New Mecca, and how the crescent has long been a symbol of of Islam.

Most Americans know what a Purple Heart is given for: being wounded or killed by an enemy combatant in the line of duty. Given that Zero is still alive to receive it, only the former is important. Things are starting to come together.

During the final scene with the Psychiatrist, he entirely ignores you if you ask if the medal is real. At first, I assumed this could be Zero coming to doubt everything he's been told, which is reasonable. Then, once I realized the medal is based off of a Purple Heart, I thought it was real after all.

Finally, I realized just how much the Psychiatrist had Zero's life under control. Zero knows what this medal means, what it implies, and the whole course of the game is discovering how much of what he believed to be innate is caused by his medicine.

Chronos, the drug that he's been forbidden from learning about at every turn, that he's been given non-answers about this whole time, that gives him the power of a god. It's not so unreasonable to assume the medal was used to attribute Zero's memory loss to a head injury, as opposed to the truth of it being yet another side effect.

It's worth noting which parts of the screenshots provided are rendered in purple, and the fact that NULL itself is written in the same color. More on the color usage of KZ later.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading the deranged ramblings of a madman. Lord knows I'm not done talking about this game.

Thanks to @chemicalbrew for encouraging my madness, Muffins (no tumblr) for cooking this up with me, @dynal for listening, and everyone in The Apartment, Nepenthe, and Paradox of Lucidity for cheering me on.

[morganeactually]

The pivotal role of Plauché's reference in understanding the lyrics of Ethel Cain's song 'Punish'

Hi everyone,

In this week's post, I'll explore Ethel Cain's video clip 'Punish' to illustrate the importance of understanding a given reference when analyzing a song.

TW: mention of pedophilia.

The video clip for 'Punish', the lead single from Ethel Cain's second studio album Perverts, was released on Halloween. Since its unveiling, fans have been questionning the significance of the lyrics and have arrived to different conclusions without suspecting Ethel Cain's true message behind the song. On her Tumblr account, when inquired to explain the line "He was a natural Plauché" and its meaning in 'Punish', she replied: "[...] 'Punish' is about a pedophile who was shot by the child's father and now lives in exile where he physically mains himself to simulate the bullet wound in order to punish himself. At least, that's what I had in mind [when] I wrote it. This song can be whatever you want it to be." Ethel Cain recognized the plurality of interpretations because the song can resonate differently which each listener. Hence, 'Punish' does not have a single fixed meaning : instead, it invites listeners to find their own personal connection and significance.

Without knowing Ethel Cain's intended message, I also tried to analyze the lyrics because since I listened to 'Punish', I could not get it out of my head. When I searched for secondary sources to find the meaning of the lyrics, the answers were about toxic 'love' and the victim's suffering which influenced my analysis.

My interpretation was the following : Toxic 'love' makes one feel an intense emotional burden, resembling an inescapable mental trap they fell into. The visual images "Nature chews on me / Little death like lead / Poisonous and heavy" describe one's powerful and uncontrollable attraction to someone they should not be attracted to, just like a natural force, despite the inevitable negative outcomes. This is likened to experiencing a symbolic death as it taints the body and the mind and oppresses the heart. The resignation sounds obvious in "In the morning I will mar myself again" where the narrator views self-harm as a way to externalize their unbearable guilt and shame, though it only perpetuates the vicious circle of self-destruction. Furthermore, the metaphor "Shame is sharp and my skin gives so easy" attributes to same the characteristic of a knife, reinforcing the narrator's vulnerability to both self-harm and self-loathing which lead them to believe that the pain is deserved. Thus, it represents the narrator's self-punishment for their toxic 'love'.

However Plauché's reference "He was a natural Plauché, saying, 'You won't forget this'" preceding "Shame is sharp, and my skin gives so easy" contradicts the idea of toxic 'love'. Gary Plauché was an American man known for a highly publicized act of vigilance justice. In 1984, he killed Jeffrey Doucet who had kidnapped and sexually assaulted his 11-year-old son Jody. Plauché was given a suspended sentence with probation and community service, but no prison time.

When I came to the conclusion of my analysis, I noticed a discrepancy between the interpretation and the title 'Punish' when we don't have the reference. The title suggests a focus on punishment but potentially leads to a misinterpretation of who is being punished. I thought that the song was from the victim's perspective and not the culprit's because that's what we would first imagine when a song is meant to denounce harmful actions and behavior. Believing it was discussing victim-blaming and victim denial as a double punishment for themselves, I took some lyrics literally. However, the song deals with how the pedophile's punishment will never be enough, it does not matter if they have already been punished and punished themselves in a way.

The fact that the song is from the culprit's perspective (Jeffrey Doucet) makes us doubt the reliability of their words. Coming from the culprit's mouth, they become harder to believe and are not always faithful to reality. On the one hand, the (unreliable) narrator feels "punished by love", but his 'heart' seems so distorted that what he feels is actually too perverted and abusive to be love. On the other hand, this hyperbolic part of the bridge “Only God knows, only God would believe / That I was an angel, but they made me leave” suggests that God is the only one who can recognize the narrator’s purity which has been altered by crime. Given His all-knowing nature, it is paradoxical to expect God to believe in his past innocence, while his metaphor of an angel is too exaggerated to be the truth. Indeed, the only innocent is the victim, not the culprit. In these lines it is as though the pedophile puts all the blame on the victims ("them" may refer to the victims or the crimes committed) or even pretends to be the real victim. (The latter impression gives another explanation of the listener’s confusion regarding the narrator’s identity.) Obviously, the culprit’s way of thinking is utterly wrong.

Taking a step aback I also realize that even though we use Internet to analyze the lyrics of a song, we cannot claim that these websites or ourselves hold the absolute truth because we are not in the artist's mind. Plus, non-academic secondary sources are not always reliable.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading this long post about such a sensitive topic.

[mikuni14]

Love is better the second time aroud - Ep 5

Miyata made this situation about himself and I hated it. What irritates me a lot about Miyata is that he creates an image of Iwanaga in his head alos that he doesn't listen to him. Miyata has created an image of Iwanaga and sees only things tha fit this image (including his own delusions and simple misunderstandings), and ignores what does not fit. I get it. Iwanaga's personality makes it very easy to attribute certain traits to him and accuse him of being uninvolved in his relationship, but Iwanaga also constantly gives signals that he cares, and most importantly, he TALKS about what he wants and what he feels.

All the scenes about Iwanaga's family issues were very telling, especially when he asks Miyata not to worry about them, when he calls him an outsider - because Miyata is an outsider after all and it's not an insult, it's a fact! And Miyata gets angry, taking it all personally, treating it as a rejection and an attack on himself. Likewise, his sense of guilt is telling: Iwanaga has NEVER acted as if he resented what happened in the past (which was a decions of BOTH OF THEM, and Miyata acts as if he himself brought all the misfortunes upon him), and now Iwanaga shows interest in him at every step, confesses his love, wants to be with him. However, Miyata CHOOSES Sugimoto's words to believe, not his boyfriend. Miyata CHOOSES his own story that he was the one who hurt Iwanaga, completely ignoring his feelings, words and choices. Miyata, as an adult, should know that he is not responsible for the behaviour of Iwanaga's mother, and that he is not responsible for what happened when they were both KIDS. Also he should know, that people don't want to talk about their painful past just like that, that they might need time, like seriously. Miyata made this whole situation about himself.

Which particularly irritates me, because Miyata has been a really nice character so far and for most of episode 5. I even liked him more than the charming Iwanaga 😎 Iwanaga seemed to me as a typical charming and seductive boy who, even if he has sincere feelings, is unable to convey them reliably, because his personality and behaviour make people doubt his determination, sincerity and commitment. But in episode 5, Iwanaga took some important, significant steps, such as declaring his love, proposing to live together, and there were several significant moments where Iwanaga was serious and vulnerable. Miyata was great for most of the episode: strong, not giving in to rumors and insinuations, supporting his beloved, standing on his side. But much of his behavior at the end seems strange, even cruel. I can't imagine the state of my heart if someone I love said nothing when asked by my sister if they loved me, right in front of me. Even if Miyata didn't want to answer, he could have just said it was a personal question or something. But he just went silent, it was terrible and humiliating. First this, and then "hey, let's break up, because you don't want to include me in your abusive family life story and I'm entitled to it". I'm not surprised at all that Iwanga didn't even try to fight for his relationship, hearing something like that and not hearing Miyata's verbal confirmation of his feelings.

The sight of Iwanaga waiting for Miyata's answer and not receiving it, and the fact that Iwanaga still saves him in this situation AND ALSO SAYS THAT IT'S OK BECAUSE HE LOVES HIM, AND MIYATA STILL BEING SILENT... 💀 And also how he feels self-pity, how he sits there so sad and Iwanaga COMFORTS him although he was hurt by Miyata just now, and also how he dramatically suggests breaking up and has the nerve to be surprised when Iwanaga agrees.. 💀 And the most annoying thing: a verbal declaration of love when no one hears it. You have no idea how much I wanted to smack Miyata at the end of this episode.

In general, the whole plot consists of people around Iwanaga who want something from him all the time and impose their will on him, play weird games and tricks around him, create his image in their heads and force him to fit into this image. Additionally, they claim that they know best what he wants and what he feels. I really felt like Miyata was forcing Iwanaga into things that he didn't feel comfortable with, and since Iwanaga isn't fierce (like Miyata), he can't show with his whole being that he's angry or feels bad, but he TALKS about it. Only Miyata DOESN'T LISTEN, he just creates scenarios and thinks about himself.

Also, this episode only highlighted the differences in communication between them, Iwanaga is always very nice, compliments Miyata, is polite, does not raise his voice. Miyata is rude and critical most of the time. It's ironic that Miyata doubts Iwanaga's feelings, because objectively it should be Iwanaga who doubts him seeing as how Miyata is constantly being mean to him and constantly fighting with him and questioning his words.

I liked this couple very much, but I must admit that this irritating lack of communication, making independent decisions in the relationship based on person's own ideas, and deciding to break up without discussing the problems really pissed me off. Breaking up for stupid, noble, whatever reasons, lack of communication, making decisions on your own, creating artificial scenarios about what is happening, attributing your own delusions to the other person, cruelty disguised as care and sacrifice, lack of awareness, that you might be hurting someone with your actions, words or silence - these are all things that ALWAYS ruin for me every couple, even the best.

I'm sorry for this rant 🥺 but somehow it irritated me so much lol Maybe it's because I really like this series and MLs and I'm disappointed because the characters so far have behaved logically - and what's important for me: like adults. That's why the end of the episode was like a grind in a story that had been well conducted so far. Unfortunately, their problems from their youth have been exactly copied now.

Miyata says that yes, Iwanaga claims to love him and wants to live with him, but IT IS NOT ENOUGH because he doesn't tell him about his family - a family that literally abandoned him. And because he calls Miyata like an outsider - except Iwanaga said that an outsider doesn't mean what Miyata thinks, but instead of listening to him, Miyata ignores his words. Iwanaga asks him not to deal with family issues for now, suggesting he will talk about it when he's ready. What is Miyata doing? Ignores the request. This makes me so angry.

Best moment: when Miyata is firmly on Iwanaga's side when he says he won't let ANYONE manipulate him. And Iwanaga's reaction 🥺:

Unfortunately, everything went wrong after that scene and Miyata seemed to forget how cool and protective he was like a minute ago...

[leareadsheresy]

Battle for the Abyss

This post contains spoilers for Battle for the Abyss, by Ben Counter, first published as a novel on (as nearly as I can tell) July 29th, 2008, although sources disagree -- some places I've found assert it was published on August 1st, 2008. Something I've found when trying to date specific works in this series, though, is that a lot of places will say "Published on [Month] 1st" when they actually mean "Published in [Month], we don't know which exact day," so as a general rule when I do this dating thing I assume any source that's specific about it being published on an exact date is accurate unless that date is given as the first of the month, in which case I assume that's filler information and only the month is reliable. I guess it makes sense for a book published two days before the end of the month would be attributed to the next month in some databases. Also I kind of don't care if I'm off by a couple of days about a publication date because I'm tumblr liveblogging a series of, at best, high-school-essay-quality book reports about a media tie-in novel series.

So this book is kind of infamous; I've seen it described as The Worst Horus Heresy novel with the possible exception of some of the Salamanders books that come later. Thing is, I don't hate it. To explain why, I will have to go into some of the events of the Horus Heresy that haven't been covered in these novels yet.

According to the pseudo-history of the Horus Heresy, following the Istvaan III Atrocity but before news of it had reached the larger galaxy, Horus issued orders to the Ultramarine Legion to muster at Calth, a planet in the Veridia System within the realm of Ultramar (the Ultramarines' empire-within-an-empire, conquered by their Primarch prior to his discovery by the Emperor of Mankind). An airless world with massive underground cities and an expansive orbital shipyard, Calth served as one of Ultramar's major military bases, and the order was for the Ultramarines to gather there with the Word Bearers Legion to prepare for a campaign against an ork force who were moving in the direction of Veridia. Unknown to the Ultramarines, the muster at Calth was a trap -- the Word Bearers, upon their arrival, immediately attacked the planet, using the slaughter of the gathered Ultramarines and Calth's human population to fuel a ritual that poisoned Veridia's sun, and ultimately this ritual fueled a massive warp-storm, the Ruinstorm, that both interrupted FTL travel between one half of the galaxy and the other and made it much easier for daemons to manifest in realspace in its vicinity, allowing the traitor forces to summon daemonic reinforcements to aid in their war against Imperial loyalists.

(If you've played Space Marine 2, this is what Chairon is talking about when he says he was born on Calth -- the game takes place ten thousand years after the Horus Heresy but many of the first generation of Primaris Space Marines, of which Chairon and Gadriel both are, were taken by Belisarius Cawl as children during the Heresy for experimentation and spent most of the intervening millennia being brought in and out of stasis as Cawl developed the Primaris aguments.)

Calth is important in the annals of the Heresy. Visions of Darkness, an art book (the second of four, compiling card art from the 2003 Horus Heresy collectible card game; the Visions series also served as the outline for the events of the Heresy as a whole), detailed the Word Bearer assault on Calth in 2005, a year before the publication of Horus Rising. (I would have covered the Visions series on this blog except I didn't realize three of the four were published before Horus Rising until after I'd done my entry on False Gods; the fourth was published between those two novels.) Calth is the subject of future novels and in 2015 got its own boxed game, Betrayal at Calth, which contained the first Horus Heresy plastic miniatures -- Mark IV armor, Cataphractii Terminators, two characters, and the first (truly awful; thank God we're rid of it) plastic Contemptor Dreadnought. Betrayal at Calth also had its own ruleset but hardly anybody ever played it; that boxed set was a way to justify pulling money for development of plastic Horus Heresy figures from the self-contained-boxed-games budget and everybody knows it.

What the pseudo-histories of the Horus Heresy don't say is that the attack on Calth was part of an intended two-pronged attack, meant to occur simultaneously with a sneak attack on Maccrage, the adopted homeworld of the Ultramarine Primarch Roboute Guilliman and the Ultramarines' primary recruiting world, while most of the Ultramarine forces were on Calth awaiting Word Bearer rendezvous. The other half of this attack would be carried out by a massive battleship of a new class, the Furious Abyss, commissioned by Kelbor-Hal, Fabricator-General of the Mechanicum of Mars (and secret Horus ally), with the intent to shatter Maccrage's second moon and then use the debris field to bypass Maccrage's orbital defenses to deliver a payload of life-eater virus to the planet directly in a repeat of the Istvaan III Atrocity. This attack, together with the betrayal at Calth, would have knocked the Ultramarines out of the war and prevented them from rallying and rebuilding later, and without the Ultramarines as a rebuilt force later in the war serving as a counter to the traitors, Horus would have been able to commit forces in greater numbers to the Garmon Sector, allowing him to land more forces on Terra much earlier. This likely would have won the traitors the war.

The reason why the pseud-histories of the Heresy doesn't say any of that is the attack by the Furious Abyss failed, because a small group of Astartes from the Ultramarines, Space Wolves, World Eaters, and Thousand Sons legions, none of whom even know that the Heresy was a thing yet, found evidence of the Furious Abyss's weapons test against an Ultramarines battleship and investigated, followed the Abyss's trail, and ultimately destroyed it before it could succeed in its attack on Maccrage, and this battle was so small -- the Furious Abyss itself versus a pursuit force of six much smaller ships -- that it was entirely swallowed up by the chaos of the Heresy's eruption and was ultimately forgotten by later historians.

The early Heresy is so replete with devastating loyalist losses that I kind of love the idea of an early loyalist win, entirely forgotten by later histories, made by a mixed group of members of legions who'd later be on both sides of the conflict, being one of the unknown lynchpins of Horus's ultimate defeat. The Horus Heresy game book series, the Black Books, do not to my knowledge even mention this battle, because their setting sections are written in-character by a post-Heresy historian, and the narrator would have had no way of knowing Calth was intended as part of a two-pronged attack. (Actually I'm not sure it's never mentioned; if I eventually get to the Black Books while doing this readthrough I'll keep an eye out for it.) I just... I love the idea of a small, forgotten event being so important. I think it's genuinely interesting, and this sort of attempt to expand the timeline with new events that make sense (of course the traitors would have had a plan to follow up their Calth attack with an attack on Maccrage to finish the Ultramarines off completely!) is exactly what these Horus Heresy novels ought to have been doing once it became apparent that they sold like gangbusters and were therefore going to be published for a very, very long time. This is, at least in theory, what I am here for. I'm sure not here for Primarch drama! I don't even like the Primarchs! (God, me reading this series is a mistake. Yeah, Lea, read a 64-book-series where you don't care about any of the ostensible main characters; that's a great use of your time.)

Unfortunately, Battle for the Abyss just isn't very good. Fortunately, at least some of the ways it's not very good are themselves of at least some interest.

So. Let's go with a summary.

We open with Kelbor-Hal, Fabricator General of Mars, watching as the Furious Abyss launches from Thule, which we're told has been a moon of Jupiter for six thousand years. Jupiter doesn't have a real moon called Thule but there is an asteroid called 279 Thule, so I think we're meant to assume that this is 279 Thule, having been dragged into orbit of Jupiter six thousand years previously. The ship is described as being impossibly big. Inside, a Word Bearer is giving a speech to a bunch of other Word Bearers about how religion is cool and it's their destiny to overthrow the emperor, and how they'll finally get their revenge on the Ultramarines. (Much like Calth, there is another important pre-established bit of Heresy lore where the Word Bearers insisted on worshipping the Emperor like a god even after he told them not to, because the Word Bearer Primarch, Lorgar, believes firmly that life is only worth living in service to a divine power. The Emperor then sent the Ultramarines to the Word Bearer homeworld to humble them by leveling their biggest temple-city, which Lorgar pretended worked but actually just drove him to hate the Emperor and seek out alternate gods to worship, which lead him to Chaos.) After the ship launches, Thule is rigged to explode so everyone who worked on the Furious Abyss dies, keeping the ship's design secret.

We then cut to some Ultramarines heading towards Vangelis Spaceport (I appreciate the name) on the Fist of Maccrage, but the Furious Abyss comes out of nowhere and attacks it as a weapons test. Judging his ship doomed, the captain of the Fist orders a distress signal sent before they all die.

Then we meet the protagonists. Some Ultramarines on Vangelis Station lead by Captain Cestus are waiting to be picked up by the Fist of Maccrage to be... stationed at Terra, I think? But it's late and they're worried. Cestus meets up with a Space Wolf named Brynngar, who leads a couple of packs of Blood Claws (that's a type of Space Wolf unit in 40k but, importantly, not in 30k; I'll get back to this at the end), in a bar, Brynngar is carousing and fighting and drinking special Space Wolf mead that can get even Space Marines drunk (another 40k thing). Cestus and Brynngar are old battle buddies who saved each others lives a couple of times. Suddenly alarms go off -- there's been an incoming astropathic message, and Cestus thinks it might be from their late ship, so he goes to check it, but it's a bunch of ominous nonsense that kills the astropaths who receive it and then feedback from the astropaths into the station's systems threatens to overload the reactor. Cestus and Brynngar rush off to the reactor room to do an emergency shutdown and in the core of the overloading reactor Cestus gets a psychic vision of Maccrage in flames.

There is some evidence the astropathic message of doom came from the Fist of Maccrage and Cestus decides to investigate, rallying all the other space marines on the station -- his own Ultramarines, the Space Wolves, some World Eaters lead by an captain named Skraal, and a single Thousand Son, Mhotep. They commandeer a warship called the Wrathful and its escorts, captained by the reasonably cool Admiral Kaminska, who's sort of pissed off she's been drafted into this potential fool's errand, and Mhotep brings along his personal ship as well. They encounter... you know, I don't remember, either they find a debris field or an energy signal or something, they find some evidence that the Fist of Maccrage has been destroyed and are able to follow an energy signature to the Furious Abyss, which they hail, it blows up one of their escorts when the escort gets too close and there's a space battle. Our protagonists kind of freak out when they realize that's a ship full of space marines that just attacked other space marines, which isn't supposed to happen, but mainly they're like "Oh, this is a fight? Cool, I know how fights work" and then they fight. One of the Wraithful's escorts is a fighter carrier but the Abyss use a psychic attack to drive all the fighter pilots insane when they get too close, Mhotep's ship gets blown up but he escapes in a "savior pod" (one of the things 30k/40k does is give slightly off-kilter names to SF staples, so escape pods are savior pods, the teleporter room is called the teleportarium, etc) and gets picked up by the Wrathful, etc. All but one of the escorts are destroyed (the survivor is the Fireblade), so the protagonist's fleet is down down from five ships to two, and Abyss escapes.

During the fight, they damage the Abyss so the protagonists know that if they just follow it, it'll have to get repairs somewhere, and they can attack it then. The Abyss heads towards a warp jump point which serves as a known entry point to a stable warp corridor (to my knowledge this is not how warp travel is described as working elsewhere in the setting; there are stable warp corridors, but there's nothing like Babylon 5 style jump points you have to use to enter them), and the protagonists follow but after entering the corridor the Word Bearers use a psychic bomb to collapse the corridor, so the Wrathful and the Fireblade enter the unstable warp. Both protagonist ships are attacked by daemons in the warp; the space marines aboard the Wrathful fight theirs off but the Fireblade takes significant damage, and the Wrathful moves to bring it into a repair bay, but surprise, the whole ship has been compromised by daemons who've fused the souls of the crew into the ship, and the Fireblade has become a sort of giant anglerfish monster thing that attacks the repair bay as it opens. Mhotep, the Thousand Son, senses that something is off and rushes to the repair bay where he uses warp sorcery to fight the Fireblade off, breaking the Edict of Nikea (when the Emperor declared that any Space Marines who were developing psychic powers had to immediately stop using and developing them, which the Thousand Sons are bitter about because they'd made their psychic talents their whole thing). Everyone else in the repair bay dies in this process and Mhotep lies about using a ruptured fuel line to fight off the Fireblade's incursion but Brynngar the Space Wolf doesn't believe him, because Space Wolves, being viking barbarians, hate witches. (Space Wolf rune priests are not witches, as any Space Wolf will tell you.)

The Wrathful continue following the Abyss until it leaves the warp and stops off at a repair station, and Cestus plans a three-pronged attack involving infiltrating groups of space marines to the station and sneaking into the Abyss to sabotage it. The three groups are Ultramarines lead by another named guy who convinces Cestus to stay behind and command the Wrathful, Skraal and his World Eaters, and Brynngar and his space wolves. The World Eaters ruin everything because unlike the other two groups, they can't resist killing innocent station workers along the way to infiltrating the ship ("A bit of killing will sharpen our senses"), and this results in an alarm going up. One touch I sort of like is that at no point later in the book do our protagonists realize this was what gave the attack away; at one point they speculate that the Word Bearers may have had daemons on the Wrathful passing info back to the Abyss and then it just doesn't come up again. The attack fails, most of the infiltrating Ultramarines are killed, the Space Wolves fall back, but the World Eaters and one Ultramarine get in... and are immediately killed because when like twenty space marines try to just rush into a ship filled with hundreds of space marines on high alert, things go badly. Only Skraal survives, fleeing into the depths of the Furious Abyss.

The Furious Abyss takes off, the Wrathful follows, back into the warp with both of them towards Maccrage. On the Furious Abyss, Skraal, sneaking around in air ducts and behind pillars and things, witnesses a ritual where the Word Bearers use the corpse of the dead Ultramarine lieutenant to appease a daemon named Wsoric, while on the Wrathful, Cestus and Brynngar try to get some info out of a captured Word Bearer that Brynngar and his 40k Blood Claws brought back from his failed assault. Asking nicely doesn't work, torture doesn't work, Cestus finally loops Mhotep in to do a psychic probe and Brynngar freaks out about it. They argue, Mhotep tells them to leave so he can do his interrogation without witnesses, demons attack the ship, Mhotep finishes his interrogation and then heads to the spot of the daemon incursion and uses more sorcery to defeat them, which saves a bunch of Ultramarines but drives Mhotep unconscious. Brynngar witnesses this and decides to kill the unconscious Mhotep for witchcraft before he can wake up and share what he got from the Word Bearer, Cestus refuses, they have an honor duel about it. Cestus barely wins and Brynngar abides by the terms of the duel but makes it clear their friendship is over. Mhotep wakes up and tells Cestus the plans for the attack on Maccrage that I went over many many paragraphs ago at the start of this blog post. Cestus confines Mhotep to an isolation cell because Brynngar made it clear the next time he sees Mhotep he'll kill him, honor duel or no. Also, Mhotep touches Cestus's head and gives him a vision of the future, and confesses that he'd foreseen farseen foreseen all of this years ago and knew his fate was to die on the Wrathful.

Both ships exit the warp at Maccrage and have another space fight. Secretly, Cestus made a plan with the human crew of the ship -- all the Space Marines would enter shuttles and when the Furious Abyss opens its torpedo tubes to fight, they'd launch the shuttles toward it and enter via the torpedo tubes while the Wrathful and the Furious Abyss slug it out. During that fight, the Wrathful's engines are wrecked and it begins plummeting towards Maccrage's moon. Most of the Space Marines make it into the ship. Their plan is to blow up the torpedos the Abyss was going to use to blow up Maccrage's moon, since they entered via torpedo tubes and are therefore right there on the torpedo deck, but the Word Bearers hit them with a psychic attack. All the Ultramarines but Cestus die and Brynngar goes crazy, hallucinates being a wolf and fighting a bunch of other wolves for pack dominance, and then wakes up realizing he's killed all the Space Wolves he arrived with. He flees into the depths of the ship, has another fight with a named Word Bearer he fought and nearly killed earlier (now half-interred in a dreadnought), but nearly loses and is saved by Skraal, who has spent the last several weeks sneaking around learning the interior of the ship. Cestus met up with Skraal off-camera while Brynngar was fighting the dreadnought and he shares his new plan: Attack the plasma reactor at the center of the ship and cause a cascading failure that will blow the whole thing up. Brynngar is like "How do you know the interior of the ship well enough to be confident that will work, Cestus? Is it Mhotep's witchery? I hate witches; I'll help you with your witch's plan, but after that you and I are quits" and Cestus is sad but agrees to those terms.

Back on the Wrathful, Admiral Kaminska does one of those scenes you get in space navy science fiction where she orders all the crew into the savior pods but her bridge crew all refuse to go, preferring to die with her, and she's mad about it but also appreciative... and then her second in command doubles over like she's being played by John Hurt in Alien, and the daemon Wsoric bursts out of her and then kills Kaminska and the rest of the bridge crew, also emanating a chill aura that kills everyone on the ship... except Mhotep, who leaves his cell and heads to the bridge. They fight, Wsoric taunts Mhotep about corrupting Brynngar and using his hatred of witchcraft to turn him against them, and tempts Mhotep with escape and hints at the Thousand Sons siding with Horus, Mhotep resists temptation and stuffs a grenade in Wsoric's chest during a moment of daemonic instability (daemons don't hold together well in realspace). Wsoric blows up and Mhotep lies down on the deck plating just in time for the Wrathful to impact the surface of Maccrage's moon and be destroyed. Mhotep dies triumphant.

Brynngar, Skraal, and Cestus get to the plasma reactor, pursued by Word Bearers, and once there, Skraal charges the Word Bearers to give Cestus and Brynngar some time. He makes it to the head Word Bearer guy and injures him before being killed. Cestus's plan is to sacrifice himself by jumping into the plasma reactor with a bunch of grenades but Brynngar says nope and does it instead, implicitly apologizing for being so hostile earlier. Brynngar jumps into the plasma reactor with a bomb strapped to his chest and dies triumphant. With the ship about to explode, the head Word Bearer runs off to escape, Cestus follows him, they have a duel, and Cestus is wounded but cuts off the Word Bearer's head. He then succumbs to wounds the Word Bearer inflicted on him during the duel and dies triumphant as the Furious Abyss explodes. The end.

It would be theoretically possible to write a good book based on the above outline. I don't think there is intrinsically anything wrong with the idea of a full-length, 416 page novel that is just one extended battle-chase-battle-chase-battle. Fury Road was great.

Battle for the Abyss doesn't manage it. The prose is workmanlike and the characterization is flat. Everyone is a stereotype and plot points keep relying on things working in noncanon ways, like the warp jump point thing. Not only is everyone a stereotype, everyone is a 40k stereotype, most notably the drunken Space Wolf. There is a whole subplot I didn't go into above where the narrative keeps cutting back to the Word Bearers as they speak exposition to each other and they're all plotting against each other for status, like a group of Decepticons comprised entirely of copies of Starscream. (And not the cool version of that from Transformers Animated.)

That said... I still think the characterization is better than in False Gods. Everyone is a flat stereotype but almost nobody is ever holding the idiot ball. (Exception: Whoever designed Vangelis Station so that bad astropathic feedback, something that people in 30k already consider extremely dangerous, can trivially jump to the power grid and overload the reactor. Like, come on, guys, the Emperor considers psychic stuff so dangerous he's busy forcefully reorganizing every human civilization in the galaxy to weaken it; don't plug it directly into the mains. More to the point, if your story outline requires a crisis where your space station is going to blow up so the heroes can save it, please have the crisis unfold in a way that doesn't leave me wondering why the space station was designed so as to be improbably, plot-conveniently vulnerable.) In False Gods everyone made infuriatingly stupid decisions and failed to see through laughably obvious manipulation constantly for the sake of clumsily driving the central tragedy through; here, people make reasonable decisions and are just sort of boring about it. There is a type of reader who considers the latter worse but I'm not him.

Furthermore... when this book was written, what 30k Space Wolves were like hadn't been established yet. Horus Rising has mention of Devastator Squads, which are a 40k generic space marine thing that aren't in 30k, so I can't be super mad about this book giving the Space Wolves a couple of Blood Claws squads, a 40k Space Wolf thing that aren't in 30k. Later writers would develop 30k setting elements in new directions, and I can criticize Ben Counter for failing to see he had an opportunity to do that here (maybe if he'd done something more interesting with Brynngar it'd have stuck and we'd have gotten an entirely different version of 30k Space Wolves than we did, because later writers might have followed his lead), but I can't criticize him for failing to guess what later writers would eventually do with them.

Ultimately it's bolter porn. It's just okay bolter porn; it's not even especially bad bolter porn, and it's about what is at least in theory an interesting forgotten early loyalist victory. Next to the violence False Gods did to the plot setup and characterization in Horus Rising, it looks okay.

I can't recommend reading it, though. There are better ways to spend your time.

[witheredoffherwitch]

i don't like where these leaks are heading...especially the part where daeron would be cut from the show. they're going to divide his book plot between aemond and helaena which will validate #those shippers. i will be honest that the show did give hints to a romance between them, but when the alys leaked audition was released i completely thought they scrapped that idea entirely. this is a HUGE change so if this happens, anything can happen. the characters and the plot will be wildly different...most specially aemond. to me it seems they're cutting him to give way for helaena. and sure i agree that it would be good for a mother to get her revenge but aemond would be divided between harrenhal and the reach. this leaves no room for alysmond to develop or happen. it only opens up room for helaena to be the one who has some connection with alys if alys has seer powers too and not aemond. i now fear that they're really making #that ship to happen because it would give aemond and helaena a good reason to commit war crimes and the revenge on daemon to make more sense. another concern is that they'll cut alys and aemond's son because this would mean he already has son who died and was relevant for the greens motivations. they'll just exciuse it because everything ends with aegon the younger's coronation.

i hate thinking about this at all but those writers would like drama like this. i just hope those leaks are dead wrong but these leakers have been reliable thus far

Hi nonnie,

I'm at odds with most of the opinions expressed here. This will be a lengthy post, so buckle up:

First, I don't think the show provided any significant hints about the Helaemond ship. People are citing two instances to back up this claim - the first one is of baby Aemond talking about fulfilling his duty, had his mother betrothed Helaena to him instead of Aegon. The second one is in episode 9 where the older Aemond busts out this incredible line of dialogue: "I am next in line for throne. Should they come looking for me, I intend to be found." Both of these scenes were set up to establish Aemond's primary characteristics which alligns with him being duty-bound all while having great ambitions for the throne. Now, why would Aemond assume that he was next in line for throne when Jaeherys exists? And to that I offer *in D&D's voice*: AeMonD kINd oF fOrGoT aBoUt HIs NepHeWS!

It's a writing discrepancy and you will find many such inconsistencies throughout the series. Right from Laenor's age in episode 1 to episode 5, Alicent warning Aegon in episode 6 and then acting shocked when Otto says the same thing in episode 9, Luke acting self-conscious about his 'bastard' status in episode 8 only to laugh in the face of someone he maimed shortly after; and many more. Most characters have some major inconsistencies that can be attributed to post production rewrites and editing.

It's possible I'm mistaken, but it looks like people generally scoff at this ship beyond Twitter and Tumblr. On Reddit, the majority of comments are cynical or dismissive towards this pairing. Even those who think it might actually be canon have voiced their disappointment with the theory. In response to you mentioning the changes being made in the show, I completely agree - they are not favorable to TG fans. It appears that the narrative is now being heavily biased towards Rhaenyra's side, with the introduction of Dyana and the potential omission of Daeron from the storyline. None of these developments are positive!

Now with Daeron's storyline, I am sure it will be divided between Aemond, Gwayne and Cole in the chance that he is absent from the show. But I am confused as to which arc do you think will be adopted by Helaena here. I don't think they will have her fighting actively besides her brothers in the show either. They may have changed Rhaenyra's character development in Season 1 to make us think that may happen, but I am not sure about Helaena. She's a dreamer: she might serve a larger purpose later when it comes to predicting the Dance or even the possible demise of House Targaryen as they've already introduced Aegon's dream in the show. Other than that, I don't think she'll take part in any battle strategy.

Now this is obviously my point of view but once again, I am open to discussion. If anyone has taken the time to read through this post and wants to share their opinion, please feel free to contribute.

That's all! 🤗

[sburbian-sage]

Grace of Rain again. Good to know I'm not directly responsible for this. The fact that the lack of a Cataclysm probably *was* the Cataclysm is hilarious. Doesn't make the Classpect situation in my current session any less weird tho. We've got a Bard of Keys, Mage of Blaze, Seer of Dreams, Lord of Clouds, Smith of Time, Sylph of Might, Maid of Law, Knight of Fate, Nymph of Forks, Page of Frost, Grace of Grace, Guide of Space, Witch of Snow (me), Dame of Tides, Muse of Stars, and Sage of Star.

Oh. I only saw the first half of this ask and just got done writing up an entire post under the assumption that the "overlap" was in fact a curious case of duplicate Titles and synonyms. Fuck me for not reading ahead.

My own personal skill issue aside, I'm put in a tough position here. You said you just got done with your previous session a week ago, yes? Is it possible that, for example, Blaze and Frost are in fact just Flow and Rhyme? If you're still early-game, your powers wouldn't have had much time to manifest, and while they might look different, it's still possible that they might just be weird, alternate instances of Flow and Rhyme? Then again, I've never heard of the color schemes themselves changing. I might just be cope-posting because I'm still bitter about the wasted write-up.

We might have to bite the bullet on this one. If these Classes and Aspects are truly not just duplicate instances of pre-existing Titles, then they're either entirely new Classes and Aspects, or are indistinguishable from the same. I struggle to imagine this is the case, because "Star" is just "Stars" but they dropped a letter, and anyone who's followed this blog for long enough knows about the Lord/Smith drama. But it's one or the other. If they're duplicates, my original write-up is applicable. If they're not duplicates, operate as though they were new, unknown Titles (which they might be). Search for "Rare Title" guides, use intuition and play cautiously to learn the unknown variables (like your first time playing SBURB, basically), and write down your notes for future research and guide-writing.

Regardless of which is true, with sixteen players on hand, your organizational skills are going to be put to the test. The presence of the Muse and Smith should be a boon, as the latter can reliably work by themselves and the former excels in situations like these. You also have a Grace with an outright bugged Title, though I believe she's likely a Grace of Mist, considering how packed and jumbled Title Attribution is. Have some confidence, keep a cool head, try not to let everyone get overwhelmed, be smart with Unbreakable Unions, and leverage that number advantage, and you should be able to turn this into a wash-out in your favor.

Also, here's the original write-up with my misunderstanding intact. For posterity's sake, and in case it's useful to anyone.

Oh, this one's simple. It's not uncommon for SBURB to apply an "incorrect" name to an Aspect. It's less like it's "wrong", it's more like a synonym and it throws people off. Most likely results?

Keys = Law

Blaze = Flow (Flow's element is fire)

Lord = Smith (THE CORRECT TITLE FOR THIS CLASS)

Clouds = Breath (associations with air and wind) or Mist (Mist is fog and those kind of look like clouds)

Nymph = Slyph (forest fairy creature, sounds the same, entirely possible this is some unknown class nobody's ever heard of and everyone's going to shit their pants)

Forks = Mind? (a fork in the road, a decision to be made? not confident with this one)

Frost = Rhyme (Rhyme's element is ice)

Snow = Rhyme (Rhyme's element is ice)

Tides = Might (Might's element is water)

Star = Stars (let's think for a second)

The odd one out is "Grace of Grace", where it seems a Class got assigned as an Aspect. But that one seems easy. It's Mist. Mist constantly copies and replicates data like this. And if you have a Grace of Mist in your midst, it's not impossible that the influence is already being felt. Not only in the sense that every Title got synonym'd, but in the sense that you have two Law, two Might, two Rhyme, two Stars, two Slyph, two Smith, and two Muse Players. That's seven instances of Duplicate Titles, god DAMN. And that bumps up to eight if Cloud = Mist.

The bright side of this is, you have a whopping 16 players, two of whom are Smiths and two of whom are Muses. If you can properly organize yourselves, you should be able to clean house. When it comes to forging Unbreakable Unions, the Smiths and Muses should obviously match up first, because they're like peanut butter and jelly, and the Flow Player should similarly get a turn with each Rhyme Player. Afterwards, you should get interesting results from pairing people with the same Classes or Aspects. They already "get" each other (same Whispers), and their ability to synchronize Fraymotifs should be near perfect.

Of course, it'll still suck because that's a lot of people to manage, and a Grace of Mist will cause more headaches with regards to duplication. But you just got done with a session with a Waste of Mist. Granted, it didn't go off per your report. But still, have some confidence. I cannot understate how powerful TWO SMITHS and TWO MUSES is.

[organchordsandlightning]

Speckled Band Part 3

"Can I be of assistance?" "Your presence might be invaluable." "Then I shall certainly come." "It is very kind of you."

extremely soft over this dialogue. watson is his partner, and holmes is still like ‘look, you can wait in the hotel if you want’

"Subtle enough and horrible enough. When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge. Palmer and Pritchard were among the heads of their profession.

as someone with a hobby knowledge of the history of toxicology, it really is fascinating to see this as written in 1892. at this point, we have an okay-ish knowledge of what household things are poisonous (at the very least, the UK at this time was much better about banning stuff like arsenic in candy than the US) but we’re still about ... like, thirty-forty years out from being able to reliably identify non-plant-based poisons (like arsenic, etc etc) in the human body after death. a lot of poisonings got away with it because, frankly, a lot of people were getting accidentally poisoned all the time anyway, and if you couldn’t identify arsenic or what-have-you in a corpse ... no case!

Holmes was for the moment as startled as I. His hand closed like a vise upon my wrist in his agitation. Then he broke into a low laugh and put his lips to my ear.

"It is a nice household," he murmured. "That is the baboon."

“It is a nice household” mixed with watson’s “MY GOD!? A CHILD!?” is so funny

I do love that Watson is writing these stories down for publication, but he’s freely admitting to burglary here

How long they seemed, those quarters! Twelve struck, and one and two and three, and still we sat waiting silently for whatever might befall.

god I’m remembering how well-done this scene is in Granada, and you can really feel the tension here

I could, however, see that his face was deadly pale and filled with horror and loathing.

oh holmes is SCARED scared “you won’t inject my body with an undetectable non-plant-based poison you son of a bitch”

"It is a swamp adder!" cried Holmes; "the deadliest snake in India. He has died within ten seconds of being bitten. Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.

such a good reveal

Some of the blows of my cane came home and roused its snakish temper, so that it flew upon the first person it saw. In this way I am no doubt indirectly responsible for Dr. Grimesby Roylott's death, and I cannot say that it is likely to weigh very heavily upon my conscience."

(a) snakish lmao (b) this brings up an interesting legal question of whether holmes is guilty of murder.  while I don’t think this falls under the legal definition of murder (no pre-intent) or manslaughter (frankly, it’s more self-defense than anything - you see a snake hissing at you, you gotta hit that bad boy with a cane, that it went back to its master and bit him is none of your business as far as you’re concerned) however, i did look up to see that the felony murder rule was still in place in the UK at that time (called constructive malice) -- essentially saying that the courts could attribute malice aforethought (’i’m gonna go kill that guy) to you if a death was caused during the commission of another felony (say .... burglary) EDITED WITH FURTHER LEGAL THOUGHTS -- HELEN INVITED THEM INSIDE THE HOUSE, I DON’T THINK IT COUNTS AS BURGLARY ANYMORE, SHERLOCK HOLMES IS MURDER-FREE

[dribs-and-drabbles]

Laws of Attraction ep 6

I'm late this week because I'm having trouble with iq, so I've had to wait for the subs on youtube...and the wait has been painful. But here we go!

Oh please, getting Tinn all jealous. Yes, Silvy, shut your woman up.

I loved the song going into the flashback. This is going to hurt, right?

IT'S SO GOOD TO SEE THEE SMILE! 😍 But they can't fully get away from Thatthep (all that blue). (You'll have to ignore the one31 logo, and the poorer quality screenshots). Thee, who offers Tanthai an escape for a while, but carries the burden of the truth about Tonkhao (the green bag), whilst Tanthai can't fully escape his father (the blue over his heart and head). But look at how balanced they are otherwise - black and white, ying and yang.

Okay, I think I've settled on a theory as to why Thatthep seems to be blue-coded -> on one hand he puts on a front of the positive attributes of the colour - loyal, stable, confident - being on the political stage, but on the other hand, in reality, he's the negative side of blue -> cold, self-righteous, unfriendly. We'll see if this stands by the end.

Oh we get to see Thee's backstory!.. And it's always because one showed kindness to another as kids that they fall in love 😂

They may have run away from the father and the issue of Tonkhao's death but the green light is still behind them.

I love how shameless Charn is on the moped.

Charn in white! I first noticed Charn in White in ep 4 when he admitted to his failings, and that he's evil, to Tinn and his grandmother. I noted that it could symbolise Charn starting to change for the good - like coming back to a blank slate before re-finding who he really is under the trauma. And it seems so fitting that Charn wears so. much. white this ep, in the place that his trauma started and where Tinn's able to reach through his hard exterior more than he has done thus far. It's also interesting that when Charn transitioned from nice-lawyer to evil-babygirl-lawyer he also wore white.

I need to take a moment to talk a bit more about the white but also about Tinn's blue...the blue that is for loyalty, stability, and calm...because blue and white are used together A LOT this ep: The moped and helmets, the clothes Ploy and her beautiful mother wear in the photo - which is held up by Charn in white and then Tinn in blue, the sign on the door, the singer, the audience when Tinn sings, Charn and Tinn's clothes on the second day, Ploy's top, Charn's pj's later, and others I might have missed. It's really hammering home that this ep is about them, together, with Tinn's reliable presence while Charn re-finds himself.

Omg the singing 🙈 but these two are freaking adorable! What a fucking confession. I have second hand embarrassment.

Thatthep is really having this conversation in a public hallway?! He is an idiot. (Also more blue with him and Wit).

Thee and Tanthai have gone to the country to escape but it means they're surrounded by green, even the green light behind them inside the hotel lobby is still there - in reality they cannot run away from the issue.

Tanthai really did say 'I only want one room/bed' 😂

Did the village chief sell the village out and cause Charn's mother to die?

Oh how I love the dramatic music 😂

I also want to mention/confirm that I think Charn's true colour is also blue...I mean, these speak for themselves.

Oh god, Tanthai and Thee are adorable together when they can be happy. Ok. I'm sold. Tanthai has converted me. I want both of these two to be happy now. (And is this indicative of who they are too? Maybe the green that follows them isn't connected to Tonkhao but is who Tanthai could be without his father? Or maybe because of his father - boredom, lack of life and stagnation. And Thee is an earthy brown - dependability, security, and safety...?)

*sips tea* Charn's backstory! The Drama! Yep the village head took the money and sold them out. Ok, wow, that's a villain origin story. The red blood of revenge. (Oooo I actually predicted this after ep 3).

I'm taking another moment out to talk about yellow now. Because Charn's mother - who up till now has mainly been seen in shades of pink - is wearing yellow when she is killed. Symbolic, maybe, of Charn's happiness dying with her.

Yellow, which could also symbolise the happiness that Charn once had when doing the Right Thing as a lawyer (his shirt, which may just be the light making it look yellow), the happiness that Tinn is becoming for Charn (the light block and the woman connecting/in between them) and the happiness Thee and Tanthai are finding with each other away from Bangkok (the bedsheets).

Whose arm is that and should we know?

Charn's go to is fire. Is he a pyromaniac?

Film and Jam are phenomenal in this scene but what is the sound design 🤦🏼‍♀️ And someone must have written a meta about this reflection... Ah yes, here. Thanks @respectthepetty!

THE HAND IN THE HAIR!? 😭

Oh the patpran parallels. Not just the 'rate me at sex' but also 'can we stay here? It's ok, I know we need to go back'.

Thee is the best.

Oh no, Charn, what are you doing?!

Oh I still ADORE this show with all my heart. I have been thinking non-stop about it since this ep aired on Sat and I'm so happy I've been able to finally watch it. I so so so want to be confident and say that the preview is a fakeout and making us think Charn is still going to go after Thatthep's power but I really really want to hope that he has changed...that Tinn helped him re-find his morals. But it is a bit unrealistic that he would be 'fixed' by one fuxk. 😂 But we'll see.

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