#so i think i just need to be less involved

[melodysoars]

all good! for some context, I'm in law school and working with two national watchdog groups that monitor clean water & food safety; what I mean to say is that none of my professors, supervising attorneys, or peers are freaking out over this ruling.

To be an enviro activist news source is to be professionally outraged about everything all the time. The public-facing sides of groups like the Sierra Club and MPU are obviously going to publish short, catastrophic-sounding bulletins that make people panic/donate. That's why you couldn't find a substantive MPU article — it doesn't exist. A tweet about "Sewage In Your Drinking Water!" is going to get people talking; it's just not what this case is really about. I always recommend thinking super critically about enviro echo chambers.

Now I've got to apologize for being unclear: when I said "article" in those personal tags, I meant "opinion". I'm going to put the rest under the cut, but I wanna give a short run-through of what City and County of San Francisco v. EPA, 604 U.S. _ (2025) actually means for the CWA in case people are super worried.

TL;DR: SCOTUS now requires the EPA to tell companies exactly what to do to fix water quality. This means more work for the EPA, not less, and that CWA permits are going to take longer and spark more lawsuits. If the EPA keeps doing its job, water quality will stay the same.

Obligatory disclaimer: I'm a law student, not a certified attorney. Apply salt as needed.

First, while any opinion SCOTUS puts out is noteworthy, City and County of San Francisco v. EPA (which I will now refer to as Frisco) is not a unique or targeted attack. I think it's surprising to many people that a lot of environmental legal work actually involves suing the EPA (or USDA or FDA or Army Corps of Engineers...) for fucking up. On average, the EPA fields 150+ lawsuits a year, so the idea that they'd be called out on their permitting wasn't exactly a blindside.

Frisco centers around the definition of the word "limitations". The majority, led by Justice Alito, argues that a limitation has to be more specific than a vague end goal. The dissent, led by Justice Barret, argues that limitations include vague end goals. There are other issues in the opinon, but it basically boils down to whether or not the EPA can legally bind companies to vague promises to "not contribute to" or "not create" water quality violations.

Crash course in the Clean Water Act: before 1972, there was an older water protection law called the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (WPCA) that was widely regarded as a failure. In 1972, Congress created the CWA and changed how the law handled pollution. Instead of trying to retroactively assign blame for already-committed pollution, the CWA now tries to prevent it in the first place (or tie it to a specific polluter from the get-go) with permits and use the fine money for clean-up. This is widely regarded as a good idea. Now fast forward to 2019. Frisco began because the EPA tossed in two new regulations (the "not contribute" and "not create" ones from above) on a San Francisco permit that were more in line with the WPCA old law than the CWA we currently have. The city said "that's not the law," and now the Supreme Court has also said "that's not the law". Justice Alito is very careful to stress — Frisco actually upholds the Clean Water Act. It just limits the EPA from going beyond it.

Key points:

The EPA can still, as it always has, set quantitative and narrative requirements on its permits. Permittees still have to watch their toxics and sewage discharge and can still be fined and sued for not trying hard enough. That's not changing.

However, permit limitations now have to be assigned "from without"; i.e. the permittees can't make their own decisions about how to fix problems. This actually gives the EPA more control, but also a lot more work. The NPDES permit process is going to take longer now and there will be more lawsuits.

The reason why businesses are celebrating is that they are no longer responsible for the end result of their pollution control attempts. If the EPA tells Example Corp. that they have to do XYZ and then they actually do XYZ, then Example Corp. can't be fined —even if the water is still polluted & we're pretty sure it's due to them.

In the short term, this is going to create a kerfuffle. The EPA has to redo its permitting process. There's no clear consensus on what's going to happen to the hundreds of thousands of permits already out there. In the long term, if EPA can work out a standard and detailed permitting script, not much will change at all! If somehow the EPA gets a lot more funding, this could be an amazing tool for environmental protection (or at least, eco attrition warfare). The general consensus among lawyers seems to be that as long as the EPA is reasonably staffed and funded (ha), not much will change.

Overall, Frisco is a fairly standard SCOTUS-is-out-of-touch case. It's not evil. It's not doomsday. It's not great news, but it's certainly not the biggest recent threat to the CWA or EPA (goodbye Chevron my old friend; Sackett my beloathed). To learn more about Frisco, I recommend these articles and overviews by Bloomberg Law, JD Supra, Oyez, and Morgan Lewis. On a final note, the EPA is not the only agency involved in water monitoring! All but 3 states have their own DEQ water monitoring boards that work mostly but not entirely in concert with the federal agency. So even if the EPA does get dismantled, not all would be lost.

However, let's work to keep the EPA around as long as possible! Right now (3/13/25), there's an attempt to remove the National Environmental Policy Act from federal law. PLEASE go to federalregister.gov or click this link and submit a public comment stating how important NEPA is and how much you support it. Comments can be as short as a few sentences and each one matters (legally, the gov't has to read and consider them before passing a rule). So far there are nearly 17k of us voicing support and with two weeks left, I really think we can hit 20k!

[nightscythe]

legions reaction to their primarch wooing you?

but i would love love love to read the more taboo version of primarchs kinks :D

hope you have/had a wonderful day :p

thank you anon hope you have/had a wonderful day too!! i waited for a plumber all day. created this as I waited •⩊•

please forgive me for what this turned into. i have made it less serious that originally planned but it just happened i am so sorry. i live in a fantasy where 30k is sunshine and rainbows. hope you enjoy anyway!! taboo vers. of the kinks will be posted later this week.

this is all pre-heresy. little bit nsfw on one i think so 18+ please.

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lion: there was no evidence, until the very very end stage of his courting, that the lion even had the slightest feeling of love in his body. but when he didn’t react to you approaching him, when he spared a glance at you, answered questions as though he didn’t just see you as another person beneath him. oh. they knew. and no one even dare speak a word of it. no side glances, no reactions. they ignored everything that happened. it was luther who eventually started a conversation about it with some others that same evening, away from the prying ears of their primarch. he’s so fucked. literally. because there’s no way in hell that the lion was the one chasing you. whatever he had said, you’d reciprocated, and if luther knew one thing about the lion… it’s that he won’t let things go that he thinks belong to him. it’s the nightly gossip when they have nothing better to discuss, and the lion really thinks no one has even noticed. 

fulgrim: they were all enthralled by his tactics at first. such elegance, such style, fulgrim spared nothing in making you his absolute muse. but then fulgrim gets them all involved. they are delivering the pottery and jewellery to you by hand, ordered to protect you even (which they didn’t have the biggest issue with, you were nice) – fulgrim wanted to prove that even his finest warriors are on the table for you. and then it became all he talked about. and then, when you had finally been convinced of his love (because he told you his feelings father than gifted you a whole planet), fulgrim’s own ego was so entirely huge that he declared himself master of courtship. and now he’s got classes on how to make someone fall in love with you with guest speakers. eidolon is literally at the front seat, heart eyes, yes my perfect primarch please teach me your ways type thing. vespasian, on the other hand, is just wondering why he was even invited. 

perty: they didn’t dare question their primarch, but they weren’t stupid. the handcrafted tools that he would spends hours on just to give away. the armour customised to a much smaller body. the books he’s borrowedfrom magnus that he has no interest in. vhalen had noticed because he had stumbled on a book his primarch kept detailing interests of yours. connected the dots. didn’t say anything because it wasn’t his place. silently tried to help out by leaving flowers you liked or herbs you needed for perturabo to give to you. never wanted anything in return, but believed that maybe you’d be able to help ground him, truthfully. but forrix? no. this was weak. they were taught to never be weak and this was a weakness to its very core. out of their control, completely inefficient, a waste of time in his eyes. he would never understand why perturabo was doing, but at the very least he wouldn’t say a word – not the same could be said about everyone in the legion though. 

khan: at first it had started with the stashing of treasures he thought may be of interest to you. then, the invitation came. an esteemed guest would join for an adventure. and they were very amused. an esteemed guest? shiban might begin to joke, testing the khan’s reaction. and when his primarch looks up with the slightest smirk on his lips, there would be an immediate laugh. i think you may need to revisit that title my lord, perhaps something with… meaning. though many of the white scars would avoid asking questions, they enjoyed the details of it. it was a new adventure to them, and the khan was leading the way. but shiban would keep seeing this title, esteemed guest, and constantly change it to a new one. warhawk’s chosen was most common, because that’s what you were. and he’d probably be a banging wing man too, but the khan never needed it.  just asks every so often how things are going and reports back to the others.

leman: they’d critiqued you as they watched their primarch try to train you how to protect yourself. with a sword, with a gun, with whatever was around. your own fists even. and you may have been no match for leman, but they were still impressed in their own way. a collective nod between them as you flawlessly replicate something he showed you. it’s when leman has you pinned against the floor and it becomes extremely obvious that he got so carried away that his hard on is pressed against you and you most certainly have noticed. whatever happened next, they weren’t sure. leman’s courting may just have been giving you a taster of what might happen if you accepted his love. they’d all given you privacy to say the least. another collective nod between them, what a majestic man their primarch was. and if you were brave enough? join them for beer as well. 

dorn: it had been a normal day. life was just moving by calmly, not a thing or person out of place. dorn was discussing something about a building, the internal structure, yada yada. it was a really nice day to be an imperial fist. but then his hand reached for your shoulder, and the remnants of a smile fell on his lips as he lead you on to show you something else in the structure, something integral to building. and he wasn’t really wooing you in any sense of the word, but he was opening himself up in a way that only dorn could. he was… trying to impress you? no. archamus believes that there must be reason for this, his primarch is being tactical. you know something. sigismund believes the same. this is calculated and logical. explaining the internal structure must provide a benefit to the legion. perhaps you’re an expert of some kind. the pair don’t ever mention what they saw again, but they do consider what kind of expert you are later down the line when they’re standing outside their primarch’s doors waiting for the consultation to be over. whatever it was, you obviously felt very strongly. 

curze: jago sighs. he’d had to watch his stupid primarch stand outside your window for what seemed like weeks now, neglecting his duties, or anything other than you really, whilst never saying anything. curze didn’t know he was there, but jago was too curious to let it go. he thought you were just another victim, someone curze was taking his time with, but then he realised the whole situation. curze was just watching. staring. felt but never seen. stole an item of your clothing. jago didn’t want to find out what item, but deep down he knew. curze was spiralling, staring into the distance, eyes glued to you even when you looked uncomfortable, but never actually talking to you. so jago takes it into his own hands. sends you directly to curze, makes the primarch speak to you. really, curze is just haunting you, but that’s okay - jago will fill in the gaps, woo you with all his own tactics until you actually start to reciprocate whatever it is curze is feeling. and the rest of nightlords are confused more than anything. does standing in the shadows actually work? are humans that enthralled by primarchs? gendor tries it out for himself, wanting his own partner (or, human trophy). doesn’t work for him but claims it does.

sanguinius: what a pure demonstration of love this is. to see their angel, someone who would fight in battle for hours without breaking, stutter over some words in front of someone? to watch as he fought to keep a conversation going just to hear your voice? his sons are in awe. of you, because how pure must you be to have won the attention of their primarch? but also of him, because it was the most human he had ever felt. they saw his nervous looks, his shy appreciation of your perfection, and valued it deeply. and overtime you’d start receiving flowers from him, handpicked by his sons who saw it as a way to help steer their somehow clueless primarch in the right direction. azkaellon specifically had handed him roses for you, cut from the most perfect bush, claiming it was something romantic that you would appreciate. and you did. and sanguinius was extremely happy when you kissed his cheeks (and the silent celebratory crowd of blood angels watched on in joy). 

ferrus: you’re his personal project. he spent every hour of the day with you, it felt like. improving you, working on enchancements. making you perfect. but then something else started happening. it was no longer pride that kept him going. it was you. and they all noticed. at first he didn’t care for anything you said. now? he listens to every word. like you are another of his brothers, but it’s different, even than with fulgrim. he cares in a way they don’t understand. no one would ever say a thing – they’d all pass their silent judgement on how this went against everything he seemed to stand for. but maybe santor would ask about it just once. not for details, not for questioning. just to confirm. they are different, my lord? ferrus wouldn’t hesitate with his answer. they are everything. what does that even mean? it would never be mentioned again. by anyone. whilst some of them would question his decision internally, most would trust him – their primarch understood weakness, and if he didn’t see you as weak, neither would they.  

angron: does anyone even know what is going on with you? could it even be considered wooing? barely. angron would want to kill you some days, and want to fuck you other days. and somewhere in between he’d just want to be with you. it was within that where kharn saw a positive. he saw hope. angron was capable of something other than rage and somehow you could control it for more than a single sentence. and in that regard, kharn becomes your biggest supporter. he would do anything he could to not only protect you in moments of rage but to encourage you when angron needed it the most. he’d prepare for those small moments of clarity to see if you could help balance angron out. but the others? it was a fluke. you weren’t changing anything. angron would never be any different. but go off, try and kill them, that shows you love them right? 

rob: it only took one to notice. how a slight shift in his schedule put him back in the room with the same person he saw the week before, and the week before that. and he’s seeing them next week, and the week after. are they a diplomat? are they a specialised counsel of some kind? a small team of investigators forms, and no, you are none of those things. you are the object of lord guilliman’s attention. his carefully considered words. his offering of a basket of fruit you liked, supposedly something not liked by his offices. what a liar. they never receive baskets of fruit like that. it becomes a hot topic for gossip, and it isn’t until valentus asks if ‘this person’ he meets with so often may want something other than fruit baskets, and that he can ask for something to be custom made, that guilliman reconsiders his whole approach – and takes valentus up on that offer. speculations are common. whispers even more so. but they are all pleased for him in their own way. 

morty: well it wasn’t really courting. he gave you something, said that would care if you died, and then waited for you to respond. and when you finally said that, yeah… you would too? he nodded and took that as confirmation of, uh, something between you. so you’re confused, and so are his sons. you even catch eyes with one and shrug comically because what the fuck? the entire legion falls silent about the issue. no one says a word. but internally? what the fuck was about right. morty didn’t seem to care for anything, he barely even seemed like he cared for his legion some time, and now he doesn’t want you to die. huh. whatever. typhon would be the one to outwardly say something. my lord, is this not a shackle that binds you to humanity? and the primarch would dismiss the thought without doubt. not every attachment is a weakness. deathguard HATE this guy. 

magnus: ahriman should be ashamed of himself. he could be doing something important. he could be doing anything but this. but he’s silently observing his primarch, sat on the balcony of his private chambers, sharing a bottle of his finest wine with someone who has been here a few times now. sharing it with you. and he’s drabbling on about the universe and stars and how the universe began with his eyes all wide and bright, looking to see your response, needing to hear your voice and how you’re impressed by his understanding. ahriman isn’t spying. he’s protecting his primarch from the dangers at large. you could be dangerous. or, more realistically, ahriman wished to listen to magnus’ wisdom as well. but he can’t help but be genuinely impressed by how magnus handled himself, how he knew all the right things to say, how he was so genuinely charismatic with you. and equally, how he’d managed to hide this from the entirely population of tizca when he was right on the balcony. ahriman takes notes. he may need them in the future. 

horus: a couple of the mournival had watched him from the corridor. horus had basically made you putty in his hands, he knew when and where to touch you, how to exude the right amount of character and strength, mixed with emotions and feelings, at the exact moment it was needed. he’s a traditionalist, he knows how to make someone swoon. a compliment here. a smile there. it’s a masterclass. this must be where fulgrim learnt it from. and his sons are living for it. that is until tarik hums to himself knowingly. i know them from somewhere. and loken hesitates, because isn’t that the person abbadon kept talking about before. yes it was. horus was courting the one person who caught abbadon’s interest, clearly taking something from that conversation. the pair keep it to themselves for now. loken walks away wondering how horus managed to make the word sweetheart sound so different – and how long it would be before everyone knew about this, because it would be a good source of a amusement.

lorgar: erebus and kor phaeron rarely lorgar out of their sights, because it seemed their grand plan would fuck up each time he managed to escape. this time? it seems the primarch has gone and fallen in love. they’d watched as lorgar handed you a book. perfectly accompanied by sticky tabs, post it notes, underlined words and highlighted phrases that made him think of you. each page was absolutely covered. kor phaeron had been the first to laugh, seeing his pathetic attempt at worship only elicit an uncomfortable smile from you as you flicked through the pages and saw the depths that he was going into. erebus was quieter, but equally amused. so easy to manipulate, he’d comment, seeing the way the lorgar would quite literally fall to his knees and praise you, another weakness he falls so easily to.  but on the other side of things, argel tal is a few steps behind his primarch, peering around subtly in admiration of lorgar’s attempts. he sees it as sweet, actually, and rather than a weakness in his devotion to the emperor, saw it as an extension. some others may find it heretical, depending on where their loyalty stood. 

vulkan: he first crafted you a knife, such a beautifully build and shaped weapon that everyone could tell his entire soul went into it. but he could have done that for anyone. and then he crafted a necklace, forced from things he owned, and was not shy about handing it to you in front of everyone. he wanted every one of his sons to know his feelings, maybe without directly saying it, and begin to internalise what this all meant. which is exactly what they did. and it was like a tension lifted. every single one of them is rooting for him, for you, for whatever is going to come from it. and vulkan can’t be criticised in his ways either. numeon may even comment, offhandedly, that he would inspire generations to come with his actions. and xiaphas? would plan the wedding. the most normal legion on this list, it seems.  

corvus: he was silent about it, never revealing a thing to any other. his silent courting, his gestures that had no meaning until they did. it wasn’t until they’d see him protect you, maybe even just the flick of his wrist to prevent an action that he would never usually stop, that they all start thinking. wondering. could their primarch truly have feelings in this way? was there really one person who could capture all of their attention? it would come down to someone like sharrowkyn to say something. voice an opinion to his brothers and then to the primarch himself. with caution, of course. are they worth it, my lord? he wouldn’t hesitate. they are worth my entire being. and from then ravenguard watch in the shadows for you as well. they would accept it, they may not understand it, but they wouldn’t question it. he did not want to fail you. and if any of them did want to understand, he would explain it. 

alpharius: regardless of which one it is that’s wooing someone, they were all involved. because this is alpharius after all - he’s not just going to make someone fall in love with him because he’s really nice. or he couldn’t be bothered to try. so the whole legion is in on it. they are all courting you, working on this plan which they don’t really understand. they all think its part of something bigger. they all think you must be someone who is so important that all their attention has to be focused on you. but no, alpharius just has a crush. and it becomes obvious when pretty soon alpharius does not want to share with anyone. a few of them would be kind of pressed about it. didn’t want to be involved, didn’t want to carry it on. a couple accidentally catch feelings because they were forcing themselves to replicate what alpharius was doing and he’s a very touchy-feely man. or was it omegon? who knows. maybe it wasn’t even alpharius that started this all, he was just caught up in the cross fire. regardless, alpharius is smitten, and his legion is… not.

i am very sorry if any people/legions are mischaracterised at all!! i am more familiar with some legions which probably comes across in this, but please tell me if something wouldn't happen, so i know for next time ◡̈

[littlest-w01f]

Personal Tailor

Sylus x Reader

SYLUS MASTERLIST

LADS MASTERLIST

Summary: For a big event in the underground, you need to dress your best, make a statement. Sylus is more than happy to accompany you to find it.

Cw: Spicy but no actual smut

A/N: Plot idea from the lovely @crrybrry on the LaDs community with my spin to it

As you enter the boutique, the air is filled with the scent of luxury fabrics and the hum of satisfied customers. With Sylus' hand in yours, you made your way to the back of the store, not even bothering with the gowns on the store's front. It insulted Sylus' money. As he had said, when you put things worth less than 50,000 on his card.

As you reached the back of the store, a tall, elegant woman approached you. She has greying hair styled into a sophisticated bun and piercing blue eyes that hold a hint of curiosity as she took in your appearance, clad in a simple dress, but it was Sylus's coat over your shoulder, an act of possessiveness on your boyfriend's part, that took her attention, and you could hear the cash register in her eyes. "My dear, we have some exquisite designs in our vault just for you. Would you like to see them?" She says, her voice smooth and melodic, almost lulling.

Without waiting for your response, she leads you towards a large, polished wooden door at the end of the room. With a swift motion, she unlocked it and stepped aside, allowing you and Sylus to go inside first. "Here, we keep our most exclusive pieces. They're not for everyone... But I think they might suit your body perfectly. I don't think I've seen someone so fit to try these specific dresses."

You stopped yourself from rolling your eyes, she was clearly talking to Sylus' coat rather than you, you turned to him, eyebrow raised slightly, but he shrugged, used to people trying to butter him up. "Sure, sweetie, go on, do whatever you want. This gown is on me, remember."

The vault was a sight to behold. The walls were lined with various gowns, each more stunning than the last. There were dresses in every colour imaginable, some adorned with intricate embroidery while others boasted delicate lacework. Some had long trains, others were short and sexy, yet still elegant in their own way, there were strapless numbers, halter bodices, corsets, and everything in between.

You walk slowly, taking care not to miss anything, your fingers brushing against the soft, fabrics. You touch a satin dress, feeling its texture under your fingertips. You move onto a gown with intricate lacework, admiring the craftsmanship involved. Every detail seems to be perfect, down to the last thread.

Suddenly, you feel Sylus's hand on your waist, pulling you closer to him. He whispers in your ear, "Pick one, sweetheart." His words send shivers down your spine, and you feel your resolve wavering. "Which one do you choose?"

As you reach out to touch a blood-red gown, a wave of anticipation washes over you. Its colour reminds you of Sylus's eyes, captivating and alluring. The straps fall off the shoulders, the skirts were layered in black with the red, a long slit that would reach your thigh, roses on the corsetted bodice. You imagine yourself wearing this dress, your curves accentuated by its form-fitting bodice, the skirt flowing around your legs as you walk.

"You know," Sylus murmured, his breath warm against your ear. "That dress would look absolutely stunning on you." His hands rest on your hips, pulling you closer to him. "And it will make quite the impression."

His words echo in your ears, sending shivers down your spine. This dress felt right, it represents who you would be for the weekend, strong, confident, and unapologetic.

You grabbed the gown, slipped into the changing room. Sylus followed you inside without making a sound, and closed the door behind you. You yelp seeing Sylus inside with you, rolling your eyes at him.

"I'm sorry, kitten, did you expect privacy? That's cute." Sylus chuckled, stepping closer to you until he was mere inches away. His hand reached up to caress your cheek gently, his thumb tracing along your lower lip before pulling away. "I'm here to unzip you," He winked, reaching over to grab the zipper pull.

His hands were gentle yet firm as they traced up your spine, stopping just before they reached the nape of your neck. Your heart pounded in your chest, excitement coursing through your veins. Despite the heated touch of his hands, you felt oddly calm.

As he lowered the zipper, the sound echoing in the small room, you couldn't help but shiver. Not only because of the cool air hitting your exposed skin, but also due to the burning of Sylus's gaze, as if digging into your skin. It was as if he were undressing you with his eyes as much as his hands, stripping away every layer your being with your clothes until all that remained was raw desire.

"You're so beautiful," he whispered, leaning in closer until his lips were barely inches away from your hair. His eyes going over your simple cotton lingerie, "Cute."

You stood looking at the mirror at yourself and Sylus, "Great. Now help me put on the dress." You looked over your shoulder at him, smiling. "And no funny business."

Sylus laughed softly at your request, shaking his head. "No funny business, huh? I guess I'll have to find other ways to entertain myself then."

He helped you step into the dress, pulling it up and zipping it carefully before stepping back to admire you in it, the corset tightened.

"Hmm... It's a little big..." You pinched the dress over your hips, the length of the skirts were also longer than your legs, making a mess of fabric on the ground. "Nothing that can't be fixed."

"I can fix it," Sylus smirked, stepping close again. Before you knew what was happening, his arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you flush against him. His body heat enveloped you, and you could feel every hard line of his muscular frame pressing against yours.

His hands moved to the sides of your hips, holding the excess fabric in place. Then, with a swift tug, he pulled the material tighter against your body, effectively cinching the dress to fit your curves perfectly. The action caused a ripple effect across your skin, sending chills down your spine.

You glanced down at your reflection, gasping softly at how the dress now hugged every curve of your body, accentuating your figure. It was stunning. "Yeah, this is perfect. I want it."

"Then lets just get the adjustments done to your measurements and take this home." Sylus whispered, still holding the fabric to make the bodice fit better. "Come on, let's go."

In the quiet room of the tailor, you stood alone, having given your dress to the front desk, waiting for him to come and measure you. "Of course it's you," You teased, crossing your arms over your chest defensively when it was Sylus who walked in with a measuring tape. "You really won't let the professional do their job, huh?"

Sylus merely laughed at your concern, stepping closer until he was within arm's reach. His voice dropped considerably. "Why would I, sweetie? I'd have to kill my tailor if he touched you for too long."

"I thought you liked your tailor," You quipped, a playful smile tugging at your lips. "Or is it that you don't trust anyone else to handle me?"

"Trust is not the issue, kitten," He drawled, his voice dropping an octave lower. He circled you like a predator observing its prey, his eyes never leaving your form, standing in front of you. "It's about ensuring nothing but the best for my girl."

When he started to wrap the tape around your bust, you rolled your eyes, "And you're doing it wrong-" You gasped when he pulled at both the ends, making your breasts bounce up slightly, pressing together, a cocky glint in his eyes.

"Ahh, apologies, darling. Wasn't aware that this was a sensitive area," Sylus mused, his fingers brushed against your skin lightly, causing goosebumps to rise in their wake. His touch was teasingly gentle, as if he was testing the waters, gauging your reaction.

Despite the casual remark, there was a distinct change in his demeanor. His usually charming smirk softened into something more intense, predatory even. His eyes roamed over your form, drinking in every detail, the way your clothes clung to your curves, the slight blush on your cheeks, the quickened pace of your breath.

"Want to help me?" He asked, breath warm against your ear, "For someone with experience in everything, I've never measured a woman before. Never wanted to. You are all I need."

Your throat went dry at his words, "Ok... So you..." You exhaled as you looked deep into his eyes, breathless and lost for words. "First you measure the fullest part of the bust..."

"Right," Sylus murmured, his voice dropping to a low purr. He stepped closer, his hands coming up to cup your breasts, his thumbs brushing over your nipples. "Like this."

He squeezed gently, kneading the flesh in his palms as he held them firmly. A shudder ran through him as he felt the softness of your breasts beneath his hands, the warmth radiating from your body. His grip tightened slightly, just enough to produce a moan from you.

"Mmhmm..." You inhaled sharply as he replaced his hands with the measuring tape. Your body very aware of his every move.

"I think I got the hang of it," Sylus said, his voice a low murmur against your ear. He made sure to press the tape snugly against your skin, savoring the feeling of your curves beneath his fingertips.

The scent of your perfume filled his nostrils, driving him wild. His breathing became ragged, each exhale heavy with lust. His eyes trailed down your body, taking in every inch of you. He was painfully aware of the bulge growing in his pants, straining against the fabric.

"Sylus…" You groaned, biting your lip as you tried to focus on the task at hand. But it was becoming increasingly difficult with his hands firm against your breasts, he looked like he was in no hurry to move.

"Oh, kitten, you've said my name like that for so long. If we keep going at this rate, we might end up skipping this fitting all together." With a teasing grin, he leaned in closer, his lips ghosting against your earlobe. "And that wouldn't be such a bad thing, would it? Exchange this fitting for how well you fit around my-"

"Write it down and then we measure around the narrowest part of the waist," You cut him off, a blush burning on your cheeks, placing your hands on his, guiding them to your waist. "Here."

"Yes, yes, here," Sylus agreed, his voice dropping to a husky whisper. He let his hands linger on your waist, feeling the curve of your hips under his fingers. His heart pounded in his chest, the heat between you palpable.

As he slipped the tape around your slender middle, you felt up your soft stomach, pinching teasingly, full of unflexed hidden muscles. "You're so tiny compared to me," he murmured, tightening the tape just enough to measure. "But you fit against me perfectly."

"You seem to be enjoying yourself quite a lot," You commented, blushing deeply, avoiding eye contact. His hands felt so good on your body, too good.

Sylus chuckled, his hands slipping down to rest on your hips. "I always enjoy being close to you, sweetheart," he murmured, his voice a low rumble. "And right now, I'm particularly enjoying getting to know your body better." He said as he wrote down the waist measurement.

"You're blushing, love," Sylus noted, his gaze flickering over your face. His thumb traced the curve of your cheekbone, crimson eyes taking in ever inch of detail. "Is my touch too much for you?" His touch was feather-light, tender. There was a certain intimacy to it that came out only around you. "I can be gentler, if you prefer," he offered, his voice dropping to a whisper.

"Not at all," You replied, trying to calm your racing heart. "Just... Never been measured like this before."

"That's because you haven't met someone like me yet," Sylus responded smoothly, a smug grin playing on his lips. His hands drifted lower, tracing the swell of your hips, before dipping underneath to cup your ass. He gave it a gentle squeeze, marvelling at the roundness.

"There's two last measurement left," he informed you, his voice dropping to a seductive purr. "Are you ready for that too, sweetheart?"

You could feel your heart beating in your ears, blood rushing though, "Hips and... And then... The length..." You nodded.

"Good girl," Sylus purred, his hands still resting on your hips. He stepped back slightly, giving himself some space to properly measure your hips. He knelt on his right knee, face to face with your belly. His eyes never left your form, drinking in every movement, every twitch.

He wrapped the tape measure around the widest part of your hips, pulling it tight enough to get an accurate reading. As he did so, his fingers brushed against your skin, causing a shiver to run down your spine. "Beautiful," he murmured, taking note of the measurement, then he looked back up. "You, not what the number says."

Sylus grinned, rising back to his feet. His eyes roved hungrily over your form, lingering on your thighs and the tantalizing hint of your cleavage. He cleared his throat, snapping out of his reverie.

"It seems we're almost done here," he murmured, moving behind you. His hands rested on your shoulders, thumbs grazing along your collarbone. "Last one. Breathe out, sweetie."

With that, he dropped the tape measure around your ankles, pulling it snugly up your legs. As he reached your crotch, he paused momentarily, fingers hovering over the spot that was already throbbing with anticipation.

"Sylus…" You whispered as he pulled the measure up to your hips, where the skirt would start from, "Don't tease..."

"Hush, kitten," Sylus chided softly, his hands pausing at her hips. He let his fingers trace the hem of her skirt, his touch feather-light. "We're almost done here."

His hands slid down your sides, over the curve of your hips until they reached the edge of your skirt. He let his fingers dance along your thighs. His other hand snaked around your waist, pulling you flush against him. "So soft," he murmured, pressing a kiss to your neck. "Let's go back to the base now, alright?"

"Alright," you answered, closing your eyes as he kissed your neck. "Lets go home." You murmured, your voice barely above a whisper. Your body was pressed against his, the heat between you intense.

He let out a low growl, his hands tightening on your waist. "My pleasure, sweetie," he murmured, his voice a low purr. He led you out of the store, his arm possessively around your waist.

Once outside, he passed the helmet you'd claimed as yours by adding cat ears on it, getting on his motorcycle, helping you up, "Grab on. We can collect your dress later." He said, voice muffled by the visor, before his engine roared to life.

[moki-dokie]

Oh god yeah. I was on DA since the very first day they opened and still am, technically, there now but i left it as a place I actively used when they rolled eclipse out - the final nail in their coffin.

But it was wild watching how within like a couple of weeks the "market" as it were just absolutely fucking tanked. catastrophically. like a fucking meteor strike. and it bred a special type of guy that is now pervasive around the online art sphere. they're little better than the ai tech bro fanboys. they don't really see artists as living human people who have bills to pay. they expect timely, detailed, huge pieces for literal pennies. because that is exactly what they're used to paying in real world money when they pay in points.

but i think worse than that special kind of asshole guy is the way it fucks up young artists. like, back in our day, $20 for a commission would go pretty damn far, because the economy was pretty stable in the US at the time for one thing and for another most of us were teens who didn't have bills to pay yet. it was a really good amount to charge for everyone involved, and at the time it would've been *more* than minimum wage earnings for the average amount of time that was spent on a pretty standard $20 piece. the young artists of those days were valued. and they took that knowledge with them as they aged and moved up in the world. but $20 today does not have the buying power of 20-25 years ago. and yet it's very much a common thing to see young artists charging even less than that for art worth at least five times as much - because the fucking points system. and when THEY finally move off of DA, they stick with those dirt cheap prices, which leads to being taken advantage of and facing burnout way, way sooner than they should ever experience. it takes them so, so long to get out of that mindset and by the time they have, they've missed out on a hell of a lot of earnings, opportunities, growth, and so much more.

i think it should be our obligation to always encourage artists who are charging ridiculously low prices to raise them. maybe you run into the occasional hobby artist who doesn't need to charge more and they're fine with it, or someone from another country where that low price converts to a hefty amount, but most of the time they just don't know the value of their time, effort, and skill.

👀 i would be interested in hearing the deviantart points rant

Alrighty, the deviantART points rant. For context, I had a dA account from the time I was 12 and used it steadily until I was about 20. I was also a volunteer moderator with them for about a year, and they even offered me a job at one point. (But there was no way in heaven or hell they could've paid me enough to move to southern California, and god forbid they offer remote work.)

dA was one of the original social media behemoths. Never quite to the level of Twitter or Facebook, but if you were an artist you were on deviantART. It was a fantastic site back in its heyday. Artists got their start on there, recruiters were on there, art directors were on there, the community building features were fantastic. Yeah, it had its share of weird shit, but point me to a website that doesn't.

Multiple famous artists got their start on deviantART. Back then, it was a place you got real, legitimate work from. A place you could use to build a real, legitimate audience. The titans of early 2000s digital art that pretty much everyone knows (in the West, anyway), the ones who still have a massive effect on art styles today, basically all got their start on deviantART. It influenced the entire western culture of what art looks like on the internet, and that bled out into what art looks like everywhere else because these people made beloved shows and comics and movies and books and everything else.

But one of the best things about deviantART was that it was created at a time before everyone decided social media had to be slimmed down to its barest bones. It was a complex site, and there was a lot to it. That made it really easy for all levels of artists (and just plain art enjoyers) to use, and easy for them to make it function in a way that worked for them. This fostered a great environment where people of all skill levels could interact, share knowledge, and just absorb skills from one another.

Now, one area deviantART didn't initially cater to people was built-in payment options. They had a print shop you could upload your work to, but it was like Redbubble or Printful; merch selling, not custom work selling. So if artists wanted to offer commissions, they'd have to take payments elsewhere. (Usually Paypal.) Which was fine! That worked great!

But, well. Corporations gonna corporate. I forget the exact year, but one day they launched a new feature called Points. Points were a site specific currency, and they were one of the first (if not the first) to have such a thing. There were also some other things launched with it, including the ability to accept commissions with points as payment. You could also use points to buy site subscriptions, badges, stuff from the print shop, etc., or you could gift them to other people. You could also cash them out for real currency, for a fee (I wanna say the fee was 10%, and less if you were a subscribed user, but I can't remember exactly).

The conversion rate for Points was 1 Point=1US cent. Which seems fine on the surface! But the problem was psychological, because what they didn't do was actually make it look like that. Points instead looked like dollars, because there was no equivalent to actual CENTS in the Points ecosystem. So, for example, lets say you want to charge one dollar for something. That would look like this:

$1

P100.

Or ten dollars for something:

$10

P1000

Or a hundred dollars for something:

$100

P10000

See the problem? They're the same VALUE, but points just look massively bigger. This was especially a problem for people who didn't know what the conversion rate was because they just didn't know, or they were from other countries and REALLY didn't know because it wasn't related to their own currencies at all. (I think there was also a max amount of points you could charge for a commission, like a couple hundred dollars worth maybe? It was low when you converted it to real currency, if I'm remembering correctly.)

It devalued the art market like a knife to the gut. People were suddenly taking commissions for literal pennies just because the numbers LOOKED bigger. And because deviantART was such a hub for the art community, it bled out elsewhere. Prices started to dip other places too, because people who DID understand the conversion rate knew they could go on deviantART and get shit for super cheap from the people who didn't know or care. Which made other people lower their prices to compete, and it just resulted in a spiral to the bottom.

Would the art market have still tanked in the same way without the introduction of Points on dA? Maybe. But Points were the first domino to fall, and they were a massive one. The art market has never recovered even though deviantART has been 90% dead for going on a decade.

So yes. There's my internet history rant on Points and art values. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[markantonys]

3x02 - 3x03, let's go!!! (i didn't rewatch 3x01, too excited to move forward! also, i like to watch each episode only once as the season is airing, and then do a full rewatch a while after it's all out)

my mind is whirling with all the content, so there will probably be a lot i forget to comment on! i'm hopping all over the place out of order and also mentioning full book spoilers as i'm mixing in speculation with reactions.

first, of course: GAWYN!!!!!! he's here, and he's perfect!!!!! recalled as shouting thank god it is my boy!!!!! i can't believe he fucks djkfjgj was not expecting that, and galad fucks too! this is wild. i guess all the trakand sibs are horny as fuck in showverse, good for them.

i loved the family dynamics we got here! every single character constantly dunking on how annoying galad is was specifically designed to cater to me, thank you rafe. even a literal forsaken will take the time to dunk on galad! (mat finally bursting out "mate HAVE a day off" was the hardest i laughed in all these episodes, truly the most perfect expression of the way galad makes a person feel)

it is interesting to me that galad is established as the stronger personality with gawyn more of a sidekick, since i'd assumed it would be the opposite in s3 due to the coup storyline being more important for gawyn, whereas galad's whitecloak stuff might not come into play until s4. as of now, both brothers are only credited on imdb for eps 2&3, so either the imdb credits aren't fully accurate or this is all we see of them this season and they aren't involved in the coup. we do have ep8 filled out with 40-something castmembers now (initially only the first 7 eps had gotten updated), so i'm inclined to think imdb is now more or less accurate (bar potential surprise castings that are being held for spoilers like moggy was in s3 - more on that later) and we will not see the brothers again this season. pretty surprising given how important the coup is for book!gawyn, i'd thought it was a surefire opportunity to flesh out his character by showing more of his coup involvement than the books did rather than less, but we'll see how it goes! if we don't see either of them again this season, then that definitely lends weight to the criticisms of the show buckling under the number of characters it has and some of them not getting the attention they need this season; hopefully by the end of the season, we'll have gotten a fair amount of deaths to clear out the stage a bit (and the good news is we don't have a TON of super-important new characters left beyond everyone who's arriving in s3, mostly just tuon and the rest of the forsaken).

it's also possible that maybe ep8 will only show siuan being deposed in the hall and it ends on a cliffhanger, and then the actual coup and tower battle takes place in 4x01, although splitting it up like that would feel like an odd choice structurally so i don't think it's that likely (unless they just really could not fit a whole battle into ep8 and had to punt it off til 4x01).

re: the family tree, galad was introduced as "galad of house trakand" and he was a pretty young child (maybe even only a toddler?) calling morgase mom in the flashback, which made me think he might just be her bio son, BUT i see in the end credits he is named as "galad damodred". so maybe they've kept him as her stepson - i know he does call her mom in the books too, so it was more his age in the flashback that was noteworthy, since book!galad was.......i think somewhere in the 7-9 range at the time of taringail marrying morgase and gawyn & elayne being born, but maybe they've just condensed the timeline and said there was only a few years between tigraine disappearing and having rand (who is around gawyn's & elayne's age, so the gap between them and galad would indicate how long tigraine was in the waste, IF she is galad's bio mom in showverse). it's also possible the credits just goofed a little and gave him his book name even though he doesn't have it in the show, because there wasn't any indication in the actual episodes that galad is not morgase's bio son and E&G's full brother, and i'd think they would've made a passing mention of it if they wanted to set up the reveal that tigraine was his mom. hopefully, whatever rand learns about tigraine's story this season will make it definitive one way or the other as to whether she had another child before him!

back to the trakands! i was not expecting cutthroat morgase, but i dig it. it really emphasizes the instability and high stakes of a succession - the books allude to morgase's succession being very tumultuous, but this cold open makes that extremely clear, and will set us up to understand why elayne is in such a precarious position when she finds herself involved in a succession of her own (and i'm sure the book!succession arc haters would be glad if the show injects a bit more GOT-style backstabby violent politics into it lmao although, i wouldn't be surprised if morgase adopting that type of politics here will end up being a contrast to elayne doing her best to take the higher road when she rises to the throne, similar to how we need to see siuan making bad calls as amyrlin so that egwene will truly feel like a better amyrlin when she succeeds her).

i really loved the look we got at elayne's and morgase's relationship and at elayne as an individual character. we can feel the weight of expectations and duty upon her, but also see the genuine love between mother and daughter and how much elayne looks up to morgase. it's a great depiction of a mother-daughter queen-heir relationship, where we get to see both the familial and political sides of the dynamic. there's clear familial love there, but it's also not as straightforward as normal parent-child relationships are.

gaebril played me so well, i truly thought he was a longtime part of the family and rahvin had only recently assumed his identity, but no! he really did only show up a month ago but is using compulsion to make everyone remember him as a longtime part of the family! it took my breath away, it was so diabolical. the fact that the show took the time to give him and elayne a one-on-one scene makes me hopeful that elayne will get to be involved in defeating him and taking back caemlyn in showverse (s4 avimatrandlayne battle polycule taking caemlyn together PLEASE i need it for my health)

our forsaken meeting was so much fun! love Scottish Sammael and the dynamics between the three we see in this scene, plus evidence of all the inter-scheming when rahvin hints he's working with graendal and semirhage while scheming with lanfear and sammael and THEN talks to moggy afterwards.

on that note, putting on my clown shoes after my speculation last week that semirhage was cut! she's in! this means that demandred is out (SOB i love him), but i mean, we can't one HUNDRED percent rule out asmo either, yes that one statue looked like it had a guitar but maybe it's something else, or maybe covid rewrites ended up having long-term impacts such that their original forsaken plan as of 1x06 ended up changing. i will wear my clown makeup for as long as i can before accepting that we won't see taimandred! but if it is indeed asmo in the last slot, how will we see him? still as rand's one-on-one tutor, or will he be involved in the black tower storyline? as of now it's not clear how much saidin training rand actually needs at this point. will he be able to be self-taught and asmo/demandred would be solely reserved for the black tower rather than rand's personal tutor? if they use asmo but give him a black tower storyline instead of his own book story, it would be strange that they didn't just use demandred as taimandred. but who knows what might happen!

as of yesterday, ann ogbomo was one of the only leaked actors who isn't yet credited on imdb, so now that we have confirmation of semirhage, i think she's going to play semirhage in a 3x08 surprise stinger scene that they're keeping off imdb for now - maybe showing up to nab the male a'dam as a Surprise Tool For Later. if this is the case, then i might expect a seanchan storyline in s4 so that we can get a look at what semirhage is up to, similar to s2 introducing moggy in the stinger and then having her be a big presence in s3. we'll definitely have to wait to see how the tanchico storyline ends, but i'd have two predictions for a potential s4 seanchan & semirhage presence: 1) structure for fewer total seasons - tanchico falls to the seanchan and mat gets stuck there and meets tuon with the invasion, so basically skipping to WH for him (though he'd probably also form the band, but in tanchico and in the context of trying to fight against the seanchan invasion). 2) structure for more total seasons - mat rejoins rand in s4 for his dragon's general plotline and forming the band, and we possibly meet tuon at home in the seanchan court in a made-for-the-show plotline involving semirhage, and they launch the second invasion in s5, at which point mat leads the campaign against them on rand's behalf and meets tuon then. i think as long as we get minimum 6 seasons, structure #2 (which is much preferable to me, for cauthor reasons) would work just fine, so structure #1 would probably only be if they're told they will only get 5 seasons and need to really hop to getting the endgame set up.

on the subject of mat, i love him in these episodes <3 donal continues to deliver such a charming and endearing performance, while also getting at the vast emotional depths mat has below the shallow-seeming surface! in the books, mat ranks around #4 fave for me (elayne #1, rand #2, egwene #3), but whenever a new season of the show comes around, i often find myself enjoying and looking forward to his scenes the most of everyone because donal just brings so much vibrance and depth to the role (as did barney before him!). i loved his convo with siuan, her persuading him to hand over the horn by being like "i'm sure you're not an idiot, riiiiight?" was so funny, and then we get the word-for-word book convo about her comparing him to her uncle.

i already posted about it, but mat being surprised but game at what he thought was a suggestion of a bi orgy!!!! he is not beating the allegations!!!! also pretty sure he had a line like "your brothers know how good i am with a staff" to elayne at the end lmao and meanwhile, the Nobody Wants Mat Carnally saga continued in full force, i was howling. poor mat! he's like, the ONLY character who hasn't fucked yet djkfjghj rand come fuck your man, he's begging for it! new biggest question for s3: will mat ever get laid successfully?

mat blowing the horn 🤝 mat dueling the princes: scenes i didn't care that much about in the books but got emotional watching in the show. it's because the same arrangement of mat's theme from the horn scene was used again at the start of the duel! it always gets me!! i think it's the most beautiful and emotionally-affecting piece of the show's musical landscape so far.

the music in these episodes ROCKED oh i really really hope we'll get a second album of in-show music later on to add to the themes album that released today! i love the new rand theme, and i love how perrin's new theme includes familiar bits from the original s1 goldeneyes theme and expands on it. all the andor music in ep2 was absolutely incredible, a particular standout of the season's music so far.

back to mat, his relationship with min is quite fun and i like that they didn't just instantly make up after their big fight in s2, but i am starting to lean on the side of "okay, this relationship doesn't need to be THIS big of a focus" haha but now that they're headed for tanchico, i'm sure we'll get more of each of them interacting with nynaeve and elayne too and not just each other, and likewise of nynaeve and elayne getting to expand their social interactions from just each other. i look forward to some mingling! though we did get some great mat-nynaeve scenes already in the first 3 episodes.

the redstone doorway in the 13th depository was just an easter egg after all! so we're back down to just the one doorway visit by mat in tanchico, and we know he is 100% getting hanged, but who will rescue him? at this point i feel like it's going to be min, since they had her foresee it and they're building up her and mat's relationship...........ngl i would be soooooo mad if cauthor cpr went to min instead haha i'd rather nynaeve be the one to save him if it can't be rand! but we'll have to wait and see.

elaida is making inroads at the tower! and most importantly, i have finally unlocked a Favorite Minor Aes Sedai with tsutama. my girl!!! i'm guessing we won't see her again this season, and maybe not for the rest of the show, though i'd really love it if she does come back to the tower eventually in a future season to restore a reds-who-oppose-elaida presence, which could be handy depending on whether the show is going to include pevara and/or silviana.

over to perrin's plotline. i love faile!!! very excited to see more of her. "i've never seen someone try to give themselves up and fail" and in doing so perrin captivated her instantly, she's so loser-sexual haha they have a great vibe between them so far, just kind of a curiosity on both sides and some fun banter, with hints of a deeper connection to come but nothing too overtly flirty yet. i look forward to seeing how the show will manage to get them into a position of kissing by the end of the season - we'll probably get some good development in ep5 with the rescue sequence.

otherwise, not too much from me about the two rivers stuff. it will still be the plotline i'm least interested in like it was in the books, but this time i AM still interested in it rather than finding it boring like i did in the books! i agree with @butterflydm's thought in her review post that us seeing alanna keep a handle on herself after one warder's death makes me suspect maksim will also die later this season, and the double-loss will make her go over the edge and do The Thing in s4. i really loved her and perrin's conversation about grief, i choked up a little! and we get confirmation that perrin does have a family and they're alive haha but conveniently offscreen since there's no time to deal with them (same with tam and abell, i'm guessing that at least with tam they couldn't get the actor back this season because i'd imagine they would've wanted to include him if it had been logistically possible).

now on to the waste crew. not a ton going on for them in these episodes, which i expected, since ep4 will be huge for this storyline. no further avirand interactions, much to my sorrow!!! i really hope they get some good relationship development in the second half of the season (and maybe some interactions in ep4 if avi comes to rhuidean with moiraine and rand to do her own trial). the reveal that egwene's renna dreams aren't only PTSD, but also lanfear deliberately doing that to her constantly in TAR: diabolical and heartbreaking! lanfear's speech to rand about wanting to kill the dark one so she can be free of her oaths is so convincing that it's good we also have the scene of her tormenting egwene to make us remember that she loves being evil and maybe isn't being honest with rand here and/or has ulterior motives for wanting him to kill the dark one. but she puts on such a good performance that we can't help but be taken in!

i believe we got confirmation that there are no choedan kal in showverse, and the strongest male sa'angreal is callandor and the strongest female sa'angreal is the sarkonen (aka the orb moiraine will find in rhuidean). definitely a good move to cut down on the number of Super-Powerful Magic Toys that exist, i think.

randgwene continues to drag on, but it did give me the vision of rand cuddling and soothing someone after a nightmare, and that was very wholesome and made me happy haha i am curious how they'll frame the breakup because right now it feels like there's still a TON of love and long-term intentions there on both sides and feels more like we're watching a rough patch in a strong endgame relationship than the final days of an ill-fated relationship, but we shall see.

moiraine and lan both trying to wingman each other with melindhra was so funny djkfjg (also, if we don't get at least 1 rand sweat tent scene, i will hit the roof! i want that man objectified!) and we've set up an interesting look into lan's backstory and his feelings on malkier & kingship. not a storyline or character arc that ever interested me particularly, but happy for the lan enjoyers getting to see him fleshed out more this season!

okay, that's everything i can think of off the top of my head! loved the multi-episode drop to sink my teeth into the season, but very glad it's only one a week from here on out so i can absorb each individual episode more.

[cumplanecrash]

Shizun Babies update, but I also wanna try doing WIP Wednesday so you get a way earlier update. About another 500 words, the conclusion of the previous scene. Shen Yuan Fucks Up™

🔗 just the updates | memes and updates | first | prev ← did you miss it? I tried posting on Saturday this time.

"Right," Shen Jiu said slowly, hand under his chin as he thought. "I think Return to Childhood might be a qi deviation Huan Hua seniors get pretty often? I don't know much about it, to be honest, my sources on that aren't exactly cultivators themselves."

No, paranoia would drive Shen Yuan unnecessarily insane. So, presuming Shen Jiu was sharing everything he knew, Shen Yuan would do the same. Err, the relevant bits. "Proud Immortal Demon Way is told from an omniscient point of view, so as long as we don't mention anything that's forbidden, we don't necessarily need an audience, but it'd probably help to get the named characters involved -- Luo Binghe, Ning Yingying, Ming Fan, maybe get Liu Mingyan up here somehow?"

Shen Yuan turned his head down to face a blinking Shen Jiu. "So," Shen Jiu said slowly. "When the System calls Luo Binghe 'the Protagonist'..."

Ah. Fuck .

Shen Yuan nodded. "In the early arcs, he's the one that all the whump happens to, and then when it goes from Torture Porn to Revenge Porn to just Porn, he's the one inflicting poetic justice and marrying calamitous beauties by the hundreds."

Shen Jiu mouthed the words 'torture porn', horror on his face.

Look, okay? Sorry to everyone involved, but Shen Yuan had been trying to workshop how to nail down those bonus points, since he couldn't be sure how much time they'd have alone together. He'd kind of forgotten that Shen Jiu didn't have the same World Knowledge the System had, alright??

"So in this book," Shen Jiu said, rubbing his temples in the way of someone who already had a headache that was about to get worse. "Shen Qingqiu is...?"

No point in sugarcoating it. "The principal villain of the first arc."

"The torture porn arc," said Shen Jiu.

"The first of three torture porn arcs," said Shen Yuan, in all fairness. "And the Endless Abyss is by far the worst of them, Binghe would have died several times if it weren't for certain artifacts that this master would really rather have available later on!!"

"During the revenge porn arcs." Shen Jiu said before falling to his knees, clearly on the verge of huge toddler tears. "Plural, because one of them is just me, isn't it?"

That... isn't something Shen Yuan wants to think about with the emotional regulation of a toddler, much less describe to another, already distressed, toddler. "I... don't believe in spoilers?"

Shen Jiu looked at Shen Yuan.

Shen Yuan looked at Shen Jiu.

They both took off running at the same time, Shen Yuan screaming fearfully, Shen Jiu screaming angrily.

Their combined screams reached a peak above what the privacy wards were prepared to deal with, and both Shens Qingqiu yelped in surprise as the door burst open in that same instant.

"Xiao Jiu?!?" shouted the Sect Leader, drawing talismans from a pocket as he surveyed the scene.

Shen Jiu eeped again, and ducked behind Shen Yuan.

Next

[sapphiresaphics]

You don’t need to mention Zaun’s independence for me to know what you’re talking about. When people gripe about “the political issues being dropped” that’s usually what they’re talking about. And lo-and-behold thats EXACTLY what you think too.

And while you’re right about Vander and Silco’s motivations, you’re kinda missing the message here. If the way for Zaun to truly free itself and be independent is just to be MORE violent than Piltover, that’s sending a really fucked up message that it’s okay to be violent to get your way as long as you have a big enough stick.

“Respect the opposition how?” By seeing the opposition as HUMAN BEINGS. That’s literally the whole point of Warwick. Warwick is, by all accounts, a deadly personification of just raw violence. But because Vi and Jinx take the time to see Warwick has a human being, for a brief moment they are able to cut through the violence and achieve a semblance of peace and resolution.

It’s no coincidence that the scene where Vi and Jinx finally fight each other it’s crazy and raw and extremely violent with both of them using their powers as much as possible and the Arcane itself is going CRAZY glitching everything and making everyone angrier and less rational. It’s only when Isha steps in and Vi takes a moment to process what’s going on that she’s able to see the humanity in Jinx again and stop Caitlyn from killing her.

I also disagree about the learning empathy part. Caitlyn WAS on the path of using her position of power for GOOD and trying to right the wrongs of Piltover. However she was VIOLENTLY traumatized by Jinx. Kidnapped while naked and vulnerable, tied up and tortured, threatened with a gun to her head while bound and gagged, and then had to watch as a rocket slowly arcs across the sky to kill her mother. Cailtyn wouldn’t have gone down the dark path had such intense VIOLENCE not been enacted on her by Jinx.

Those questions about what Zaun would do AFTER achieving independence are compelling ideas. No question about that from me. BUT they aren’t for THIS story. Those could be storylines to focus on in future projects, but they aren’t really relevant HERE.

You are right that violence does play a part in achieving independence. And many of our civil rights were won because of violent acts standing up to the status quo. But you know what none of those stories involve? None of them involve successfully overthrowing the government and burning everything to the ground. Also none of them involve directly attacking peaceful memorials or blowing up state buildings. Most of the violent acts were acts of DEFIANCE against unfair and unjust laws. Or violent acts of protest and protecting the innocents who were being hurt. ANTIFA standing up to Nazis in Charlottesville is a perfect example. Rosa Parks refusing to leave the bus. The Stonewall riots. They were violent acts that drew attention to the problems so that LEGISLATION and LAWS could be created to HELP the disenfranchised.

Silco’s idea that he needs to start a war so violent that Piltover is SCARED of him is a foolish idea that will get a lot of people killed. Jinx blowing up the council only makes the oppression WORSE. In all of the times the two cities have come together it’s always because people realized the plight of the other and chose to TALK it out and set aside their pride to work together. Jayce and Silco. Both cities against Ambessa.

The happy AU exists for a reason. It’s showing what can happen when both sides put aside their grievances and work together. Remember, in that AU’s history the bridge attack still happened. The oppression of Zaun still happened. So how did they manage to come together? It wasn’t by fighting, that’s for sure. It wasn’t by violence. It was through communication and empathy towards one another.

The message certainly IS NOT “just be nice to your oppressors and the violence will stop.” If that’s your take away from everything I’ve said so far that’s a deliberately disingenuous interpretation. Violence will happen, but it’s only when we are able to look past the othering we do to the opposing side and find common ground to come together that we are able to break free of the cycle of violence. If we just use violence to beat the shit out of the other side all the time, the resentment and hate will never go away, it’s just adding more fuel to more and more violence down the road.

Again, I bring up Avatar the Last Airbender, which goes out of the way to show that the Fire Nation is not inherently evil despite the horrible atrocities, death, and oppression they are enacting on the world. If you can find empathy for The Fire Nation, you can find empathy for Piltover. And finding empathy for them DOES NOT mean you SHOULDN’T fight back to protect yourself.

"arcane was never a story about social classes." then maybe the first episode shouldn't have started with the fallout of a violent clash between enforcers and protesters, nor should the last one have ended with the councilors voting for zaun's independence - not out of goodwill - but out of fear of civil war.

class struggle isn't just some background detail in season 1, it's the thread that ties everything together. it shapes nearly every character, whether they embrace it, fight against it, or try to ignore it. it's there in vi and powder's tragic beginning, in viktor's uneasy rise, in silco's entire ideology, in caitlyn's slow realization of her privilege, in ekko's resistance. even those who think they're above it, like mel and the council, are ultimately forced to reckon with it.

you can't even tell an honest story about piltover and zaun without acknowledging the social conflict at their core, just like you can't set a story in demacia without addressing its oppression of mages, or a story in shurima without confronting its past as a fallen empire and the struggle between those who want to restore it and those who have moved on, etc ... each region of runeterra has a defining conflict at its core, something that shapes its people and its stories. piltover and zaun's is class struggle.

[falmerbrook]

The Falmer and Chaurus Thoughts/Headcanons

So we know the Falmer have some sort of relationship with Chaurus: much of their infrastructure and armor is made from Chaurus chitin, they have corrals that they keep Chaurus and their eggs in, and Chaurus are found pretty much exclusively among Falmer settlements and Falmer settled caves/ruins. I imagine it's also safe to say Chaurus are likely a food source for them. This relationship has been going on for at least a few millennia since we see Chaurus among the frozen Falmer that attacked the Chantry of Auri-El in Dawnguard.

Forgive my inclusion of the HUD in my screenshots lol

How did their relationship form?

I've always wondered what exactly the relationship is between the two. Is the relationship just mutualism where they both benefit from living among each other, full blown domestication of the Chaurus, or are the Chaurus wild animals the Falmer simply tame?

(for clarity's sake, taming is when an individual animal is tolerant of "human" presence while domestication is the evolutionary process where one species has evolved under the mutualistic control of another. Dogs and cattle are domesticated, foxes and deer aren't, even though they may also be kept as pets or get acclimated to human presence)

I lean towards a mutualistic relationship. While they may appear tamed or domesticated because we see the corrals that the Falmer keep them in, and we know the Falmer kill them to use their resources, the ubiquity of Falmer and Chaurus working together across most Falmer settlements we see makes me think it's unlikely to be a circumstance of taming, but the size and aggression of Chaurus makes me hesitant to assume they're domesticated. Typically domesticated species become less aggressive and smaller (with a few exceptions like horses) as they are domesticated over generations. It could be a minor touch of domestication though, since domestication involves mutualism anyway. The Falmer obviously benefit from this relationship for food, protection, materials, etc. and perhaps the Chaurus benefit from the husbandry of the Falmer protecting their young and providing them food. Perhaps the Falmer providing safety for their eggs and young has selected for Chaurus individuals that are less aggressive towards the Falmer over generations. Even if part of the reason the Falmer keep them is to kill them, it still proliferates Chaurus and increases their survivability to adulthood.

From what I can remember, we rarely if ever see Chaurus independent from Falmer settlements. Perhaps, after millennia of cooperation (although real world evolution takes way longer, I am ignoring that because it would make this whole post less fun), the Chaurus that had traits that allowed them to more easily live among the Falmer lived longer, had more offspring that lived longer, and over time the Chaurus as a species became dependent on the Falmer. Hell, with the Falmer being blind, perhaps the Falmer are somewhat dependent on Chaurus.

Falmer uses of Chaurus

Which leads my to my next set of thoughts, what other ways could the Falmer use or depend on Chaurus. In canon, we know they use their chitin shells for armor and building structures, but we also have concept art depicting them riding Chaurus as well.

Remember how I mentioned earlier that horses increased in size as they were domesticated. Maybe they same is true for Chaurus?

As I mentioned in a previous post, I think the idea of Chaurus as mounts could be interesting paired with the Falmer's lack of sight. If you need to move as a group, transport materials, or navigate complex cave systems, riding an animal that can traverse them more easily (both because they can see and because, as we see in ESO, they can climb walls easier) would make the Falmer as a group more mobile and organized over larger distances.

Other potential uses for Chaurus includes food, both the meat of the adults and the eggs. While they probably have a few other sources of meat underground from the stray mammal, Chaurus would be a much more reliable source of protein. Chaurus are probably also good at defense, both in being able to warn of potential threats and attack them. I imagine your average Falmer is more aware of the meaning of various Chaurus calls and vocalizations, which means the response of the Chaurus could help the Falmer figure out the nature of a potential threat.

Chaurus Hunters

The Chaurus we see among the Falmer in the games appear to actually be the larval stage of Chaurus. At the end of this life stage they form cocoons and eventually emerge as Chaurus Hunters, wasp-like flying bugs (tangent: I thought these were predators that hunted Chaurus for years lol). But what relationship do the Falmer have with this phase of the Chaurus' life cycle? Truthfully, we know very little about Chaurus Hunters. We do observe that their cocoons are found near falmer settlements, which makes sense since that's where Chaurus are present, and we know they are tougher enemies in-game than the other Chaurus variants. UESP also states, "While Chaurus and Chaurus Reapers are set to be "pets" of Falmer, Chaurus Hunters (of both varieties) are not, likely due to them having to "hatch" from a cocoon, first." I'll be honest, I'm not sure exactly what this means since I think it's talking from a gameplay mechanics perspective. This does mean, for our purposes at least, that we don't get an opportunity to see them present among Falmer.

So I have two ideas for what the relationship is between Falmer and Chaurus Hunters: 1) They basically maintain the same mutualistic relationship, and we just don't see it in practice because of gameplay limitations (they all start out in cocoons in Skyrim and aren't present at all in ESO). Perhaps, in this case, the Falmer are still an advantageous ally because they protect the cocoons. The Hunters could be beneficial to the Falmer as they can navigate more easily (although I'm not sure someone could ride one of them) and are more formidable foes. My other, less conventional idea is 2) the mutualistic relationship between the Falmer and Chaurus is over after the larval stage. After emerging from their cocoon, Chaurus Hunters are too aggressive or hard to corral for the Falmer, and they live on their own in the caves of Skyrim independent of the Falmer. This could explain why we see so little of them in the games. This theory makes way less sense (especially because it would mean the potential larval Chaurus stage is the one that lays the eggs), but I think it would be an interesting relationship to explore!

Dwemer, Falmer, and Chaurus

One last little idea I'd like to put forth (and, disclaimer, this is my most "making shit up" thought of this post) is what did the Dwemer think of the Chaurus, having lived underground with them before disappearing themselves? The Dwemer don't really give me the "getting along with nature and animals" vibes, so I'm going to go ahead and assume Chaurus were just really big pests. What if the Falmer used that to their advantage when they rebelled/went to war with/attacked(?) the Dwemer in the decades before their disappeance (context, if you aren't aware). Perhaps this is the origin of the mutualistic relationship between the two.

Art time

Finally, it's probably a job or task among Falmer to take care of the group's Chaurus. I imagine it's not the safest job given how big and aggressive Chaurus seem to get. Since I already did that post about Falmer attire, I thought I'd make another one based on that idea :)

[timbitshockey]

have you read llb’s hockey romance book?? do you have any thoughts 👀

i’ve seen a few screenshots! hockey romance isn’t a genre i particularly enjoy but i’d been kind of interested by the way she’d been angling her book as a more different and more real take on it — unfortunately the screenshots i’ve seen and the reviews i’ve read seem to suggest it’s really nothing different and fits perfectly smoothly into the genre, which i guess ymmv if that’s a good thing or not to you! very funny for her to name the main couple lucy and jaylen though. gotta hand it to her on that.

i actually have some wider & less focused thoughts on lexi, her place in fandom, and why the reaction to the book has been the way it is, but i’m gonna put those under a cut to save y’all the time

so to preface this i want to say i like lexi and i think she’s funny and i appreciate the insider access information she’s shared with the internet at large! okay!!! don’t come at me! i think she’s great!!!

the problem i have with her isn’t with HER, specifically, but with her type of fandom involvement, and why it seems to have backfired on her with this book. she has tried to do what many, many before her have also tried, which is to be what i have christened “the fandom girlie on the inside.” she’s one of us, she just happens to be more involved, has more access! think, like, brittany broski, or taylor swift’s tumblr, or when olivia rodrigo was a big swiftie. i think being the fandom girlie on the inside is really appealing to people, especially those already IN a fandom, because why should things change just because i got cast on a disney show or get sent to red carpets or whatever?

i think the problem is that the fandom girlie on the inside is always exciting at first and then quickly becomes, for lack of a better word, cringe, because fandom is unfortunately for fans and once you enter a higher eschelon than “fan” it’s basically impossible to maintain connection. when lexi made a post about the trade deadline being a time when fans are terrified for their emotional support fourth liners and don’t you dare take our princess away etc to me it didn’t feel like a genuine expression from just one of us stressing about the deadline, it felt like someone who saw one of “our” posts and turned it into a tiktok. there’s always a level of separation.

the fandom girlie on the inside can backfire in a few different ways depending on context — olivia rodrigo didn’t want to be known as “the swiftie who was also a singer”, taylor swift became so big that her tumblr couldn’t operate the way it had before where it was a more private avenue for expression, etc — but i think lexi seems to be on the same path brittany broski is, which is, like, the feeling of: you’re not one of us anymore!

if lexi made a tumblr i would block her immediately, and not because i don’t like her, but because i’m blogging for our little corner of hockey fandom and she’s not a member of it, no matter if she knows the right jokes or calls players babygirl or whatever else. fandoms, especially rpf-heavy ones, need that layer of separation between the fandom and the real life spaces to function properly. it’s why you see tons of posts about people not wanting their stuff shared on twitter — we don’t want this in a place the Real People might see it. we don’t want the Real People to engage with it. and lexi is, unfortunately, a Real Person. it’s the same uncomfortable feeling i was getting with the kraken’s booktok debacle a couple seasons ago, or whenever teams’ social media pages do a little wink-nudge at shipping or whatever. we’re doing this for us and you’re not us!

if tomorrow i woke up and, like, idk, po joseph had slid into my dms and declared unwavering love for me and we ran away to vegas and eloped, i would not continue to post here the way i do now, and if i did, it would be weird, and you all would not like it. you know? you’d be right to!

anyway all that to say is i think lexi’s book is fine but i think most of the negative reaction she’s getting is from people who expected her to write “like a fan” ie like fanfiction writers write, and she doesn’t. she writes like a hockey romance writer, which is the group she’s in. i’m not saying it’s better or worse, but it is DIFFERENT, and i think that difference is what is sort of pushing people into realizing that lexi is not our fandom girlie on the inside. i would not be surprised to see the fandom tide start turning against her over the next few months and see the general reaction to her fandom-esque posts go from delight to cringe, but who knows! i have been wrong before!

[demonslayerunhinged]

mAYBE ExPlain YouR hatrED OF gIyUuSHiNo BefORe HATing oN iT alR?

You really thought you ate with this response lmao 😂😂😂 like oooohhh look at you all opinionated, drops mic and all, so cute.

Okay so first my little misguided primate, you don't get to tell me what and what not to do on my own fucking blog.

If you don't like my posts, then mind your business and fuck off. I have no need for your stupid, useless and ultimately pointless suggestions. You can just leave them with the other turds floating around in the cesspool of the septic tank that is your head.

Second, are you on crack? Were you dropped on your head as a baby? You must've been because what part of this post reads as hatred? This user just expressed their justified annoyance at misinfo that's spread around by insufferable giyuushino shippers who think they can rewrite reality to justify the ship and my response was for the user to ignore them. So like, where did you get the hatred part? Out of your ass?

How about you spend less time leaving pointless, stupid, brain-dead comments on posts that don't involve you and more time developing some basic comprehension skills, you stupid twat.

Istg, some of y'all just wake up and decide to be stupid.

look at this shit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@kibutsujidemon bestieeee please ignore them 😂

[chalkrub]

mockley time it's mockley time will you have some mockleys of mine

[ace-and-the-rpg-horrors]

i was sort of wondering why exactly i've been sympathising with Eva so much, apart from, admittedly, bias- i did start considering that due to that, maybe i'd been internally exaggerating how Wolfgang & Co had been treating her. but i replayed some of Chapter 1, and honestly? now i'm of the opinion that Eva was justified to be afraid of Wolfgang, even if what she did in response was inexcusable.

because it wasn't just that Wolfgang told the others to be wary of Eva (and Damon) which caused them to feel othered. consciously or not, he literally attempted to control their movement on at least two occasions- when he attempted to stop them joining in on the exploration of the pharmacy, and then when he demanded to know where they were when they reached the dining hall last.

in his defence, i don't think Wolfgang was being malicious in doing so, i reckon he did genuinely believe he was protecting the others. but in doing so, for the two members of the group he disagreed with, he actively attempted to further restrict their freedom- in a situation where they're all already trapped!! i'm not surprised that Eva, with frustration, mentioned during the trial how much she'd been watched and suspected- multiple times, if i recall correctly. of course it got to her.

but that probably wasn't even the scariest part for her. it was probably just how easily Wolfgang had taken a leadership role within the group and how willing they were to listen to him without question. only Diana really spoke up against him on one occasion and got him to begrudgingly "allow" Eva and Damon to tag along. i mean, on that note, the fact that Wolfgang even casually commented that he wanted group decisions to be allowed by him, following the minor incident of Desmond taking initiative and checking the room locks, was extremely alarming!! like i mentioned, i don't want to villainise Wolfgang, but it does seem like he has the tendency to be rather controlling, whether or not he realises it. i would be willing to bet that the herd mentality implication was done completely on purpose, considering that Wolfgang's animal motif is a sheep and the writing team have done the symbolism in the game so well.

for all this, i can understand Eva's point of view. i know that, as Wenona had mentioned, there's a chance that Eva didn't actually feel threatened by Wolfgang, but i personally am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. because if she was honest about being on edge, that would be a rather reasonable emotional response, in my opinion.

what else are you to feel when you're at odds with an honoured individual who effortlessly holds the power to turn so many others against you too and potentially put your safety at risk, if not terror?

[dreamer1084]

I saw an analysis long time ago that children's "characteristic from the Crests" were not fully revealed from the beginning. Except for Takeru and Hikari, who are special case. The other characters had more or less gone astray from their "characteristics" and taken the opposite path from them. Although these characteristics were sleeping in their hearts, for some reason they had lost or forgotten these characteristics, and the story of DA was to allow them to relearn and face the characteristics they possessed. For example, Yamato, many people say that he's not worthy of the Friendship at all. However, from dealing with everything as much as possible alone, he then started to learn friendship and in the end he chose to believe in friendship, so he could truly activate the Crest ability. As for Sora, she had always cared about her mother's feelings for her, and this idea had always been stuck somewhere in her heart. Her Crest only shined after she understood her mother's love for her. Mimi... I think the animation team wanted to show the difference between willfulness and innocence. I don't know. Koshiro, because he was too calm and sometimes thought too much, maybe he just owed a chance? (I had a more in-depth analysis involving his family situation myself, but it's too complicated and I'm not good at expressing it in English and I actually forget most of them, so let's skip it). Joe...sorry I forget how he activated the Crest. If I remember right he activated it because he no longer lied to himself?

Anyway, the analysis I read a long time ago mentioned that the point of the Crests was not that the children still had them, but that they may have lost it and found it again as they grow up.

Well, having said all that, I actually feel that the existence of Crests also labels the characters to a certain extent. DA is okay, but by 02 I already felt it was a bit redundant (and I personally think Iori is more suitable for Love, and Miyako should be more suitable for Knowledge) Other series really don't need Crests, after all, labeling will limit character description. The one who handles Crests best in the series is actually DA 2020. It does not over-emphasize the role of Crests and the children have already recognized their own characteristics. (But it also lacks character development.)

The Digimon Fandom's Obsession with Crests

Let me vent a bit about one thing that kinda annoys me within the Digimon fandom. The obsession with crests. Digimon OCs - no matter whether they are for the Adventure-verse, any other canonical verse, or something original - will often come equipped with a crest. And even characters from any of the other seasons will often have fan-made crests for a variety of fanfics. Crests for Takato, Jianliang and Ruki. Crests for Takuya and Co.. Crests for all the Goggle Boys.

And I am honest: I kinda hate it.

Now, I make no secret out of the fact that I hate the crests both as a concept, as well as the way it was implemented in the show. A couple years back I had a talk with Nishizono about this (the head writer for Adventure) and he somewhat got my criticisms and spoke about how much of an issue it was to actually do this within the show.

I like the other concept they focused on in Adventure: Make the main characters children with "real world problems" (like divorce, adoption, problems communicating with parents and such). That was a nice concept for this. But the crests? Well, I do not think they work very well.

The issue with the concept

My issue with the concept is most easily explained with the same issue that a lot of folks pointed out about the House System in Harry Potter. (Look, I hate HP by now, but the issue is very well explained with this.) They put a kid into a house for 7 years based on who they are at age 11. Kids change. A kid who is "brave" and stubborn at age 11, can become studious later. Yeah, yeah, I know, Rowling does not do character development, but realistically it is like that.

Same goes for the crests.

See, the crest are supposed to be the strongest positive trait of the children. There is another problem with this in regards to implementation - but I will come to this in a moment. For now the issue is the concept itself.

The first issue to me is, that I find it very reductive to reduce someone's positive to one trait. I am sorry, but I do not like it to reduce complex characters into that one trait. And I also think that in some ways it has hindered the writing in Adventure a lot that they always had to focus the character arcs around this one thing, which definitely hindered them.

But then there is the other thing: The kids were chosen in 1995 during the Hikarigaoka incident. When they were between 3 and 8 years old. And kids develop super fast. A kid who is seven or right is very different from whom they were at ages three of four. A kid in fifth grade is also very different from a kid in first or second grade.

Now, the latter part is used as an actual point of conflict in the novels to some degree. ("Yeah, actually we struggle with the crests, because we are no longer the persons who we were four years ago.") But the show does not really work this out, and as such it just seems... so forced to push the kids into those traits.

The problem with the implementation

The other issue is the implementation. This starts with the fact, that a) not all the supposed "traits" are not really character traits, and b) that they struggle with cultural context.

Let me explain.

Courage or Bravery can be considered a character trait. Friendship and Love though? Those are emotions but not character traits. Knowledge is also not really a trait. This should actually be curiosity or something. After all it is always curiosity that triggers Koshiro's crest. Purity/Sincerity are a trait. But the main issue is that the way this is depicted is very much rooted in Buddhist mythology - which obviously just did not translate into international dubs. Reliability is a trait, that is fine. Hope is not quite one, though I guess "hopefulness" does count. And then there is... Light. Which is not a trait or even a character trait.

Now, Hikari having the crest of light is apparently rooted in Hikari being there being based on executive meddling. (Long story short: Originally there were just six planned characters, then Mimi was added to have another girl in the group, which ironically worked out well, because she accidentally got written really well. But then it was very last minute decided that Hikari would be the "sixth ranger" stereotype. And Nishizono at least did not want this, because the show to him was too crowded. He could not change it, but in protest he kinda did as little with her as a character as he could get away with. And thus her crest is just "hikari", her name.)

I personally do not like a lot of the stuff that Kakudou decided for Adventure/02 I might note - I will not go into the why here, but it is something I want to say. However, even though this was probably a result of hindsight, the novel he and Misaki wrote on Adventure definitely did improve the implementation of the crests through the aforementioned thing: Very clearly implying that the kids had trouble activating them due to not being who they were when they were younger.

The other part is, that at times I feel that really the crests and their traits stand in the way of good character arcs. I would argue, that at large the crests work well for Taichi, Joe, and Mimi. Now, I will be one more person who notes that it makes very little sense that Mimi needs for so long to activate her crests, because she is very sincere and pure in everything she does. In the novel she already gets the activation at the Gekomon castle - and yes, there I very much agree with the novels: This is what should have happened. While I love her crest activation episode in the show, I think for her it is too late.

Meanwhile Koshiro again has the issue that his trait is actually curiosity, not knowledge. And indeed, it is always his curiosity that activates the crest. But if we just say "yes it is curiosity", then why does it activate so late?

Yamato and Sora meanwhile have very little traits in Adventure that bind them to the idea of the crest. Yamato is the worst friend out of the Adventure-crew. I am sorry, but there it is. Now, if we had used that as a conflict of him hence struggling to regularly activate his crest, this would have been interesting. But... that is not what happens.

With Sora meanwhile Love is a very vague idea. Sure, it is about a platonic love like in family, but it is very vague and just is not worked with a whole lot. I honestly think of all character arcs in Adventure hers is the one that works least - mostly due to her conflict being set up so very late and then gets connected to the trait with the ironbar method.

Takeru is complicated. Because I think the main issue with him is that he is very young still - and as such for half the show gets reduced to the little brother role, due to which he has so little development of his own.

Well, and Hikari in Adventure very much is a non-character, who only gets to be a full-fledged character in 02.

Generally speaking, I do think that generally the concept of the crests did hinder the writing of Adventure in a lot of ways and made the character arcs a lot more complicated to write, than they wouldh have been before. Which is why I really hate to see that so many folks writing about Digimon in any way, try to force in some kind of Crest mechanic.

Sure, the crest designs are nice and something fun to work with, but... like, we can come up with better ideas, right?

I dunno. I am really annoyed with this. I am honest.

[fumifooms]

Helki compilation

Helki is a prisoner-turned-servant. He’s a criminal canary and was implicitly one of Milsiril’s charges, and now that she’s retired he’s become her servant.

He must have gotten into Milsiril’s good graces, wether through attachment or convenience, which is a feat considering Milsiril’s a socially anxious recluse. Interesting since it’s not like he seems like the agreeable type, shifty upbeat delinquent style… We really don’t know much about him, not even what crimes he did, so there’s a lot of space for speculation on all grounds.

Edit: Shanghai QnA with Kui gave us a new juicy morsel of info!

Interesting… The original question in chinese is: 米尔西里尔是怎么接纳海尔奇待在自己身边的？毕竟她讨厌精灵，还被金丝雀队友欺负。 and the answer in japanese is: 海尔奇过去出过一些事，遭到了其他伙伴的抛弃，米尔西里尔对这样的人没法不伸出援手。That it’s written in japanese seems to say that there isn’t the same double translation issue there was last QnA, so if someone wants to look at the original phrasing and word choices it can be done. Perhaps Helki-Milsiril has a more protégé dynamic undertone than previously thought… "For various reasons", meaning circumstances that made it so the squad had to choose between saving him and saving their own skin, or like, "man this guy’s personality sucks we don’t really like him"? Likely to be a mix of several things, since ‘for various reasons’ implies the situation was either complex or they had multiple reasonings. In either case, the phrasing is very much that Milsiril couldn’t abandon him herself, and so a relationship sprung out of that. Another instance of outcasts seeking out and sticking with other outcasts in Dungeon Meshi. This could mean that it’s a bit less out of personal attachment and more out of a sense of duty on Milsiril’s side as well though.

Still edit: So then maybe him staying with Rin in that comic isn’t that much because of work ethics or that he cares for kids (or maybe he does because he feels kinship to them, alone and mistreated), but because he didn’t want to join the other canaries in that room chatting and laughing… Maybe the isolation was exacerbated because he became Milsiril’s favorite, teacher’s pet style, but I’d also be careful about assuming the others disproportionately dislike him, it could be that they just don’t really care for him. Why? Could be because of his personality, because he’s seen as shifty or unreliable or annoying, if an event, who knows who knows, but I like to think because of the Rin comic that he generally just tends to be a loner, that he’s "weird" in a neurodivergent vibe, he doesn’t conform to proper social behavior which in elven society seems especially alienating. He’s the only one with Rin to think of her sake, not only worth observing/caring for but also asks her to eat, but he does this with an offputting stare, not really emoting, and then well, the infamous alone with her staring munching covered in blood panel. He stands out. I’m a fan of the theory that it was a "Helki? Not that I dislike the guy but I’m not risking my skin for him" situation… Ok end edit back to older observations.

He seemed to be acting out of his own initiative in the Rin comic, he doesn’t look thrilled to be there in many post-canary comics but he also seems content enough. He restrains Milsiril in the Mithrun cleaning comic which is interesting to think of for their relationship.

It’s fun to notice how he’s the only one that didn’t get bored of looking after Rin, and then reports back about her condition… I’d say he was getting used to taking care of kids which would come with the job of serving Milsiril, but then, not enough for him to clean the blood off himself hah. In this way it’s interesting to think about his relationship to the idea of parenthood, he’s probably the closest thing to a father figure/male role model Kabru had growing up, without mentioning the other kids. I feel like he’d consider himself an older brother, cousin or uncle figure sooo much sooner than a father, but even then I do think it’s just his job and he’s not really invested or forming real relationships with any of them much.

It’s curious to note that he’s dressed in canary uniform presumably after having been pardoned and living with Milsiril? Which you can tell by the armor bits (the yellow strips of spider silk). In the Kabru training montage and the Rin comic specifically. It seems very implausible for him to have still been a canary while being a retired Milsiril’s servant and being with her all the time, and the cleaning with Mithrun comic (where he’s not in uniform) happens after Utaya so it could happen after Kabru was taken in but around the time of the Rin comic. So why uniform? It could be one of the best outfits he has, so it’d make sense to wear it around especially if you’re sparring or getting… Blood on you? Could just be because that's how Milsiril wants him to dress. But yeah we don't know when exactly Helki becoming Milsiril’s servant happened. We do see Mithrun’s charge Cithis be tasked with taking care of him, so a charge being given a servant-caretaker role doesn’t seem all that out of the ordinary, sometimes even prior to retiring.

Imo, if he doesn't work for Milsiril he goes back to jail/the canaries/has to try and get a job instead of just tending to her, so Helki is staying with Milsiril because she's the best option for him. He’s her milsiril's personal servant and does mostly dull tasks involved in that. He’s not particularly suited to the role but they’ve gotten used to each other to him so she took him with her, and he does prefer it to canary work so it works out decent for him. I think he’s used to reading her and managing her moods and he’s one of the rare social connection she has.

Under spoiler is stage 2 interpretation stuff, bigger speculation, in a reblog I’ll make soon I’ll go over my thoughts for stage 3 interpretation lol. Helsiril I’m coming for you

Translation of the canary hierachy chart used is by Thatsmimi, here

[possamble]

What are your headcanons about Marcille's mom if you have any? It's interesting that what drew Donato to her was cause she lived the history he studied, or that was said somewhere at least. She must've had an interesting life.

so this was going to be just a normal answer but then I realized I have a Lot of Things To Say. so here goes, a compilation of what we know for a fact from the canon, what I've extrapolated from the visual cues and details, and my theories based on all of that.

Things we know for a fact about Marcille's mother because they were explicitly stated in the manga and supplemental materials:

She was a court mage for a Tall-man kingdom at the southern part of the Northern Continent

Donato, a court historian, fell in love with her because she had lived through the history he was studying, and he courted her for 17 years (age 15 to 32) before getting married

She was a cheerful person who rarely showed extreme emotion and took things as they came

She always cooked a huge meal for Marcille on her birthdays

She remarried a gnome after Donato's death and a short distance away from Marcille's childhood home

Pipi, Marcille's pet bird, was actually older than Marcille and originally belonged to her mother (bird died at 62)

She was extremely heartbroken when Donato died and ultimately ended up instilling a deep fear of mortality in Marcille with her words

the only time she showed extreme emotion in front of her family was when Donato could no longer eat his favourite dish near the end of his life.

She scolded Marcille for being cruel to ants (implying she can have a stern side when needed)

Things that are explicitly shown but mostly through visual cues

She has a very distinctive style of dress always involving a ribbon choker (mirroring Marcille's habit of always wearing a matching choker with any of her outfits that don't cover her neck)

She was almost stereotypically good at housekeeping and traditionally "wifely" things (very frequently depicted wearing an apron or doing some domestic chore when not at work, seems to have been an avid cook).

She knits? (also, note the affectionate smile as she's looking at Donato and Marcille reading a book together in the full panel)

She was as excited for Marcille's milestones as Donato was.

She didn't tell Marcille much about elven food

(there are a couple things that this panel in particular implies:

She lived a good deal of her life (if not being born and raised) in a mainly elven country in the West, implied by her knowing enough of an elven region's cuisine to prefer Tall-man food over it

seems to have a pretty carefree and casual demeanour overall, if this is how she replied to Marcille asking her about it (sounds like she never gave her culinary preferences that much thought to begin with)

slightly related to number 2, it seems like she and Marcille had a fairly casual parent-child dynamic (especially in comparison to the Toudens' memory of their father)

(local elf tastes Italian food once and never goes back))

However, she seems a lot more... serious in most of the other times we see her? Almost like the very stereotypical archetype of a graceful elf.

Subsequent conclusions about her personality:

Usually pretty carefree and cheerful at home, has been a loving and attentive parent throughout Marcille's childhood (while not being so doting that she didn't discipline Marcille).

Slightly more conjectural theories on her personality:

Had a much more graceful and professional personality at work, which would explain the more serious portraits we see of her.

Given that both she and Donato had positions at the royal court, it seems a little odd that she'd go out of her way to do all the housework herself, so maybe she just enjoyed doing it?

Now taping all the evidence together and toeing the line between analysis and fanfiction:

It's clear that she loved Donato very much and was utterly devastated by losing him. But there's one thing that really stuck out to me in what little we see of her:

Doesn't she seem... angry? The way she's gritting her teeth, clutching the tablecloth, and how this is the first and only time we see her eyes opened that wide. In the following panel, you see her being quiet and dejected after her initial outburst. She's still crying very intensely, but her brows are furrowed, and she's not really responding to Donato's affection in her body language.

We're not told the details of how she felt about losing Donato other than that it upset her. But this, to me, implies that she was angry and resented that he was aging, that the end of his life was approaching. An "it's not fair" type of preemptive grief. And if this was the first and last time she cried like this in front of her family, she was either very good at coping in private... or very bad at letting herself feel unpleasant emotions until they become unavoidable and end up overwhelming her.

It's not too remarkable a detail on the surface. It's even reminiscent of what the audience has seen of Marcille. But... when it comes to the big picture, you'd think an elf who voluntarily chose to marry a tall-man and have a half-elf child would have been better prepared for this.

It kind of recontextualizes her cheerfulness to me.

"I'm sure everything's gonna be okay!" (or some variation thereof, depending on what translation you have).

And this is stated to contrast her extreme grief when finally confronting Donato's failing body and eventual death. But I'm wondering if... maybe this optimism was why she was so upset. What if she went into all of it thinking "everything's gonna be okay"? What if she was a little young by elven standards, and just followed her heart thinking that her own resilience would get her through anything?

Of course, only to get completely overwhelmed when she actually loses Donato. She turns into a completely different person. And that's heartbreaking on its own-- but what the audience sees is the effect it had on Marcille. Can you imagine being her, watching your invincible and upbeat mother suddenly lose all the light in her eyes in one go?

I've already made a huge post about how I think Marcille models her "work persona" off her mother, but another thing that stuck with me as I was looking for more details in the manga was this:

copy pasting from the other post i made about it lmao it's like... the second she resigns herself to lifelong pain and terror, there's another portrait of her mother facing her like this. with their heads bowed, in mirrored body language of resignation and despair and sorrow. Except it's posed like Marcille is still looking at her mother but her mother is looking away.

It took me a second to realize, but I think that it's a visual metaphor for the fact that Marcille's mother was the only long-lived role model she had-- and she failed to model healthy grief for her daughter. I don't say this as an accusation or to disparage her as a character, but just as a matter of fact. In her, Marcille was seeing herself older and losing a short-lived spouse or loved one of her own, and all she saw was hopelessness.

But her mother didn't mean to instill hopelessness and terror in her. She wasn't really thinking of how it would truly affect Marcille at all (at least, that's how I'm interpreting her looking down and away from Marcille in the metaphor), she was just sad. And she, in her own way, was trying to protect her daughter and help her prepare for future losses.

What she meant was "loss is inevitable, and you have to learn how to be in pain but live on anyway." What Marcille heard was "loss is inevitable, and you will be scared and hurt for the rest of your life."

Again. Marcille's mother doesn't feature explicitly in the story the way her father does -- but in so many ways, her shadow, her silhouette, her reflection is always hanging over Marcille.

All that to say... headcanon-wise (everything from here on is 100% without evidence lmao), I'd like to think that she matured and realized that she failed Marcille. I imagine her being regretful about it, wanting a chance to fix it but never finding a way to insert herself back into Marcille's life when Marcille is so so so busy becoming the most accomplished mage possible. I imagine her being herself again, now, so many years after her loss and after remarrying -- but with her cheerfulness tempered with a lot more wisdom and the pain of having gone through loss like that. I think the second Marcille actually tells her what happened in the dungeon, she'd want to go running to her daughter again -- if Marcille tells her the full truth instead of just being embarrassed she let things get that far. (oh, the tragedy of her wanting to be more like her mother and an accomplished adult who doesn't need to be babied... being embarrassed to actually tell her mother how much she fucked up...)

There's also the tension of her having remarried -- I know that there's at least a little bit of resentment that Marcille harbours about that, because she's childish like that at heart even if she makes an effort not to externalize it. I think that her mother would be aware of that, potentially adding to her sense of guilt and apprehension at trying to reappear/intrude on Marcille's life. I honestly don't think Marcille has met her stepfather -- or even considers him a stepfather rather than "mama's new husband" and kind of a total stranger. I think she and her mother actively don't talk about it in their correspondence, like an elephant in the room.

but, ultimately, I think her mother is on her side no matter what. Ancient magic? Dark necromancy? Sure, she'll feel guilty and like she was partially responsible for setting Marcille down such a painful path, but she wouldn't care. that's her daughter!! she would've moved back west and been petitioning for her at the court, buying a house right next to the Canaries barracks and visiting her every day that she wasn't on a mission. And if her husband had opinions on Marcille becoming a "dark arts user," he either gets over it or it's divorce with him. Yes, she might have had her optimism completely humbled by losing Donato like that -- but she's still headstrong and self-assured and she doesn't care what people think of her. It's her way or the highway and she's always going to be in Marcille's corner.

(She also needs a name lol. I went with Juno, just to be cute about "Marcille"s closest real life equivalent being Marcella, which is the female version of Marcellus, which in turn is a diminutive of Marcus, which was derived from Mars. Absolutely in love with Marcille potentially being named after Ares/Mars the fucking god of war btw)

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

The trying to see if he can get Chen Zhongli back and the holding the body hostage thing feels like it comes a bit out of nowhere. If I remember correctly he even talked about how he doubts he survived because of the drowning death. Can you explain a bit of his thought process here? Cuz it feels a bit left field. I love the chapter and I will be going insane about it. But I’m still a bit confused where this thought came from. Zhongli in general here feels… very willing to die though. So I suppose it isn’t too surprising

i think the reason it feels out of left field for you might be because you're remembering that very scene you pointed out wrong

the 'doubts he survived bc of the drowning death' scene isn't like. about czl not surviving. that scene is about how zl is of the belief that czl can't be in his teyvat bc his body explodes upon death, n so there would be no body for czl to go to there specifically if it were a bodyswap scenario. the 'he would just die again bc i drowned' bit was him trying to tell the others how it wouldn't be possible without spilling the beans about there being no body to swap into. he's not lying about czl drowning again if he were to spawn in zl's body while it's at the bottom of the ocean, but the issue here is (and this is what he wanted to omit from the others): that there is no body. at least there isn't supposed to be one.

not to mention that scene was on the scenario were it is indeed a bodyswap situation, which zl is fairly convinced it isn't

genuinely i think i've been p thorough on keeping zl straight on the fact that he doesn't actually know wtf happened to czl (in the terms of like. where his soul is. obv he knows now what happened to him as in how he died lol). please the rest of you correct me if i'm wrong if i ever slipped up n gave that impression, but as far as the story has gotten rn, zl has no idea where czl is. he has no clue. the only things he does know about that issue is that 1) he's not in the body with him and 2) he's not in his body in his teyvat bc. again. no body

so uh yeah