#so i was watching streams where they would translate the story as they go instead of the english version

[theunconcernedembalmer]

Was the recent drawing/ask reply you did in someway a reference to danganronpa v3 korekiyo? It looks like a very similar pose to his one sprite. If not cool regardless lol

Its exactly That Sprite. Finger guns

I was looking on the blog for a post for a bit because I know I drew this exact pose for sop years ago and I found another korekiyo shinguuji pose that I drew him in....... theres also going to be more stay tuned for that HAHAHAHA

I'm currently on mobile so I can't link the replies with the poses now. Did not tag those so they're lost in the cesspool of this blog

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

book 7 part 4 thoughts!!

***THIS POST CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR BOOK 7, PART 4 OF THE MAIN STORY!!***

Usually I would put this in bullet points, but I have so many thoughts that I have to format it as paragraphs. (If you’d like to watch a rough part-by-part summarized translation, please check out this archived stream!)

Please note: this is NOT meant to be a summary or a translation; these are only my initial thoughts on the events that unfold. There may be details overlooked or misunderstood in this post, so PLEASE do not use this as a translation.

LILIA'S SO DIFFERENT 🤡 His voice is deeper, and he speaks more gruffly. He definitely comes off as more combative and having disdain for humans. HE'S POPPING OFF ABOUT HOW BAD SILVER/SEBEK/GRIM ARE AT MAGIC??? Damn, what happened in the following years to make him change????

The contrast between current Lilia telling Silver "there's nothing left for me to teach you" and past Lilia being like, "there's nothing for me to teach you, are you trying to make fun of me?"

The human faction they're fighting at the moment are the Silver Owls!! There are also people who dress in iron (a metal which harms fae in irl mythology), I'm not sure if they are synonymous with the Silver Owls or not.

IHBFIOASBFIAADSI LORD, THE FAE SOLDIERS ARE ALL MIDDLE SCHOOL NEKO GIRLS HISSING AT US

AYO, SEBEK GRANDPA REVEAL????? ??? ? ? ????? BAL/BAAL/BAUL REAL, I CAN SEE WHERE SEBEK GETS HIS LOOKS AND HIS PERSONALITY FROM

Silver's asking to team up with Lilia and his group (Lilia was about to just leave them there because he's concerned with the Silver Owls setting up camp at the base of the mountain)? Bruh, book 1 we're calming down an angry classmate and book 7 is like, HEY KIDS LET'S TAKE A FIELD TRIP INTO AN ACTIVE WAR ZONE.

Silver's hoping to shock him awake via a fight, here comes a Sebek and Silver tag team battle!! RIP Lilia beats them up a little :v (Sebek. Don't fanboy over his strength, WE ARE FIGHTING FOR OUR LIVES HERE)

Oop, they disorient him with light and Lilia's mask off!! It's treated like a big reveal????? Sorry, but how does Yuu not notice this is Lilia automatically 😅

Lilia voice) you are not my son (and here you can hear Silver's heart breaking/j)

Oh boy, we get to be prisoners of war/j

NOT LILIA ASKING SILVER AND SEBEK HOW THEY KNOW HOW TO FIGHT SO WELL WHEN IT WAS LILIA WHO TRAINED THEM TO BEGIN WITH

"Fae don't go back on their word" AH SO THEY LIKE TO KEEP PROMISES EH

"May the night bless you" seems to be some kind of salute for nocturnal fae?

LOL Lilia's against being called a father OTL THE IRONY HERE IS SO STRONG

Not Sebek's grandpa telling them off for not showing Lilia respect and saying how great he is... Fanboy genes run in the family/j

DOES YUU STILL THINK THIS IS A PERIOD DRAMA OR SOMETHING

BAAL IS CALLING SEBEK A HUMAN KEK

BAL/BAAL/BAUL REAL DROPS THE CROC MASK???? ?? ?? ?? ? He's got SCALES instead of facial hair???? ???? ? ? Oh man, he reminds me so much of Seteth FE3H OTL The scales are a signature trait of the Zigvolt line! Sebek says his mom has the same scales.

NO NOT SEBEK HAVING TO CONFESS THAT HIS DAD BEING HUMAN, IS THIS THE START OF HIS CHARACTER ARC

LILIA TOLD BAAL TO BABYSIT US...

AW Sebek's so excited about seeing his grandpa in his prime... I'm happy seeing Sebek happy OTL

Lilia's dreaming about the past... I wonder if it's because he was thinking about his life and what he has achieved before leaving his loved ones with his legacy...

Lilia first got the invite to NRC 500 years ago??? So NRC has been around much longer than we expected.

Ahhhh, crap 🤡 The return of book 6 limited battles but now with a battle map. There is a new mechanic where HP carries over from each battle; if a card's HP gets knocked to 0, you cannot use them. (5 cards be restored at random if you get to a heart space on the battle map.)

SEBEK'S ACTING AS OUR OLD FAE SPEECH TRANSLATOR (He's throwing his own angry commentary in, which is hilarious)

The humans arrived on a boat ~100 years ago. Now they have a settlement in the east and are mining around Briar Valley + taking the fae's natural resources. (I think this is why Mystium, that shape-shifting magic green ore that Lilia's weapon is made of, is no longer as plentiful; it was likely mined into obscurity.)

Magical creatures are now coming down from the mountain and causing trouble in Briar villages; the fairies cannot handle all of this. Damn, this is just the plot to the first Shrek movie 😂 They're invading Shrek's swamp--

Oh, interesting! So there are different kinds of fae language (depending on the type of fae they are; think of the diurnal fae from Fairy Gala speaking in bell tinkles), but they infuse their voices with magic so they can understand one another. In modern Briar Valley, there is a common tongue. Omg, Sebek speaks it with his mom and grandma! BILINGUAL KING, HE'S SO PROUD OF HIMSELF... Silver tried to learn from Lilia, but he struggled with it; Sebek's dad had the same issue so the problem must be that human ears cannot pick up on the same range of sounds as fae ears can. This is true of real life as well; different creatures have different auditory thresholds and auditory detection ranges.

Bruh, not Lilia sending out literal children to fight for him on the battlefield...

Eh, new character named??? Some human soldiers are talking about Henrich?? Henrik??? Henric??? He's a commander of the Silver Owls who is conceited and dumps his work onto his subordinates. Errrr he apparently also has a little sister named Leia? Lea??? Leah???? Who is rumored to be in a relationship with someone called the Dawn Knight.

More interesting lore????? Kind of???? Some pixies (small fae) come and warn Lilia about something up ahead, then heal them too. This is notable since in Fairy Gala: What If, we learn that diurnal fae (which I believe pixies are) and nocturnal fae (which Lilia and Sebek appear to be) do not like each other. It seems they got along well enough in the past to confront a common enemy?

They reach a Silver Owl camp!! ... Aaand Lilia tells his soldiers to boot them out so they can take over the camp. I mean, it IS technically the fae's land to begin with, so. Uhhhh, yeah I think I'm with Lilia on this one 💦

I don't think iron affects fae negatively in Twisted Wonderland?? Lilia and co. are having no trouble fighting them even when the humans are clad in iron armor.

HMMMM they've named dropped a formidable person on the human side called the Dawn Knight (Lilia mentions them once, then the human soldiers do). The Dawn Knight is the captain of the Silver Owls and even Lilia considers them a strong opponent. Methinks they'll become a key player later...

OH NOOOO 😭 Sebek’s like, “let’s change this fate!!” but since it’s just a dream, reality won’t be altered at all… Then Sebek suggests just. Staying in the dream???? Which makes darkness spawn… The light from Silver’s ring thing (the trinket he got from Lilia as a sign that he is now a full fledged adult) protects them???

Silver fears the dream will tempt him to stay too 😭 He asks Yuu to snap him “awake” if it ever comes to that… Silver, sweet boy… OTL

NOT SILVER AND SEBEK JUMPING IN TO STOP LILIA FROM COOKING FOR THEM (Come to think of it, how have Lilia's soldiers survive this far with him cooking for them???? ?? ??? ?? ?? )

LILIA THINKING THEY'RE GOING TO POISON THEM, THAT'S SO JAMIL ENERGY

Omg... They're acknowledging their Master Chef training (this is the only time they've referenced events in the main story, if I recall correctly)... Silver even prepares a risotto for them all~ (His own favorite food is mushroom risotto, so I like to think of it as he's sharing a piece of himself with the fae.)

asldiuhaodasidba Lilia complaining about the tiny portions in fine dining...

SEBEK PREPARING A ROAST CHICKEN FOR THEM, they're going all out for this one meal??? ? ? ??? ? ?? Poor Sebek though 😭Baal refuses to eat anything Sebek made, he'd rather starve or eat rations than a human's cooking...

AW BAAL BOUGHT SEBEK BOOKS????? And encouraged his love for reading... 😭

Grim taking Baal's portion of food... (Of course... Did we really have any doubts about that?) Sebek really did get his attitude from Baal... Now Baal's going, "Gimme my food back!" after Grim started digging into it... And then Baal has three entire helpings of risotto... THEY HAVE THE SAME INTIMIDATING-YET-ALSO-PATHETIC VIBES

AYO SILHOUETTE FOR MALLEUS'S MOM????? Her name is (Princess) Mallenoa, the only daughter of Maleficia (Malleus's grandma). She lives at a separate palace and commands the military. Lilia also describes her as being extremely powerful, fickle, stubborn, selfish, and easy to anger. He's just tossing out allllllll the adjectives ahdbayodqdq

Ah, so it sounds like humans greatly outnumber the fae??? So they're at a disadvantage. Normally a royal would handle diplomatic stuff like this but for some reason Lilia is being sent? They're traveling on foot to deliver a message to the human encampment to the east; the last messenger (that travelled there via magic?) did not return. Ominous...

Fae nobility are repulsed by the smell of iron? I'm confused, are fae in TWST impacted by iron or not????

Aww, Silver... He's asking his dad to come to school not to learn, but to make special memories there 🥺 Back to "our Night Raven College"...

NOOO NOW THEY'RE FLASHING THROUGH ALL THE DORMS... while Silver and Sebek monologue about how everyone at NRC is very different, but despite how weird they all are, there is a lot that can be learned from their differences. Silver's spreading what he learned from his dad... and the fact that even Sebek pitched in... 😭

Lilia voice) let's make these high school students our pack mules and unpaid chefs and if they fuck up we leave them for dead in these woods where there are monsters lurking about

Man, he's so ruthless????? Lilia will use anyone he can to succeed in his mission... But then the next second he lays into his princess with a smile www

Lilia knew the princess since they were kids ~300 years ago, which puts the current conflict at ~400 years ago from modern day (since present Lilia is ~700 years old).

asdjbasbldbasdi Gotta love the lowkey jabs at classic fairy tales... Lilia says that human princesses may need protecting but not theirs???? (Yet Mallenoa still stays in her castle all day like she's waiting for a prince.)

THE PRINCESS HAS AN EGG... MALLEUS????? IS THAT YOU???? ???? ????? ? ?? ? ? (LOL at Sebek calling it Tamago-sama asghdyqovywqdwp9qbpacpasb) JAHAJAAH BAAL SUS OF THEM BEING INTERESTED IN THE EGG????

Oooh, so dragon eggs only hatch after receiving enough love and magic from the parents??? (Otherwise the egg will not mature and hatch.) The "power of love" is real, you guys 🥺

ANOTHER new character name drop?????? Levan/Revan??? It's a fae that went missing (probably the messenger from earlier??) I-Is that. Is that Malleus's dad???????? (Lilia says that both the princess and Levan/Revan have been pushing their tasks onto him; he has known them both for a long ass time.)

Baal voice) I still don't trust you

Fandom, back at Baal: Sorry (grand)daddy. Sorry. (Grand)daddy? Sorry. (Grand)daddy? Sorry.

Malleus is 178 years old in current day even though his egg existed 400 years ago, so it seems there was a few hundred years of delay before he actually hatched (normally the egg would hatch in 2-3 years). That means Lilia was ~522 when Malleus hatched and ~683 when he found Silver as a newborn (Malleus was ~161). Silver and Sebek think it’s weird that the timeline does not add up; it means Malleus was dormant for quite a while?? Or is the dream world wonky to accommodate for a “happy ending”? Or maybe the history they know is not correct (since earlier in book 7 Lilia mentions how true history can be distorted over time.)

Very sus, apparently there is not a lot known about Briar Valley's history??? Lilia never talked about the past around Silver, and Baal did the same with Sebek. None of the books Sebek read really goes into that history either. In current day, the palace where Malleus's mom resided isn't even there anymore, it's just land. It suddenly became a mystery...

MAN, I've been wondering this whole time why Lilia's happy ending is wartime but maybe. This is the period where Malleus's parents both died???? Maybe his happy ending is saving them??? Instead of them dying and him having to live with the guilt of not being there to protect his friends and his future prince's parents???? (I previously thought it was during war that Malleus hatched and/or Lilia found Silver, but I guess the timeline doesn't make sense there.)

According to Silver, they cannot stray too far from dreamers or else the darkness will return and try to drag them into a deeper sleep.

asdhbasdobasdbas Sebek is SUPER hype to see baby Tamago-sama Malleus...

Sebek points out that Silver is not nodding off (good catch, I actually did not notice this because I was too busy screaming about the lore); sooo when Silver is dream walking, he's consistently alert. It looks like Silver's narcolepsy is an important detail??? (Lilia took him to lots of doctors that didn't know how to help him, Silver does whatever he can to sleep well and to have a sleep schedule.)

OH MY GOD, I DIDN'T REALIZE THAT YUU AND GRIM STILL DIDN'T KNOW LILIA IS SILVER'S DAD. They thought it was a friendly nickname this entire time??? Kind of late to get to that, but alright 😅 We have acquired the Forbidden Knowledge... (SEBEK'S MOM IS WAY OLDER THAN HIS DAD BUT LOOKS WAY YOUNGER?? I mean, I kind of expected that but to have it confirmed just hits different.)

One of the soldiers tells the kids to stfu so they can sleep and so Sebek yells at everyone to stop disturbing them (you know, in his LOUD AS HECK voice).

Water in the Briar Country is cold because it is located up north (it snows a lot!). The lake water usually comes from melted snow. Checks out, I guess?

They're packing up to leave the camp... Reminds me of Mulan!

[Insert boring trek to the Silver Owls' base. Interesting tidbit: some soldiers we run into comment that Silver resembles the Dawn Knight/they didn't know the Dawn Knight had a lover?????? So... that's obviously gotta be an ancestor of Silver's, right??? Also??? The Dawn Knight apparently never removes their helmet, even around subordinates... VERY SUS, SIR

NAYUUURx NOT SeBEK CAViNG TO THE DATKNESS 😭 I feel like??? This is a really big character development moment for him?? He’s always been pretty blindly loyal to Malleus and hateful of humans, but this marks the first time he willingly does something against Malleus’s will and he calls Yuu and Grim by name… Sebek, sweetie… 😭 (Side note: Silver’s been so strong-willed through all of this, but I’m glad that TWST showed he isn’t perfect and infallible; he, too, was tempted to stay in the dream when Sebek started to consider it too.)

bchsheoxndle Something else I enjoy is Baul being so… tsun?? He complains about the kids but keeps an eye out for them anyway (and Sebek in particular)… The paternal vibes are too immaculate to completely squash 😎]

They made it!! Finally!!

UHHHHH THEY'RE FIGHTING A BIG MACHINE AND. LILIA INSTINCTIVELY BLOCKS SILVER?? (He’ll be fine, he’s in his prime 😌)

Oop, Heinrich and the Dawn Knight were supposed to be in the eastern base but they aren't??? Oh no, it looks like. It was a diversion?????? While Lilia and co. are busy at the base, Heinrich launched an attack on the palace where Malleus's mom is???????

AND OF CORUSE THAT'S WHERE WE CUT OFF?????????? BRUH.

OKAY, so this entire update was focused just on Lilia's dream. We have no clue what's happening in Idia's dream or the real world with Ortho??? Which I'm totally fine with; I feel like we learned SO much about Briar Valley's history and important figures in it. That's a very fair trade-off. I loved getting to learn about the conflict between humans and fae, fae culture, and about how Briar Valley (or Country) works. I'm surprised that the characters themselves know so little about the history, but that just makes me worried that that's because it's a dark part of history that was purposefully censored from the textbooks...

There were a lot of new characters introduced in this part, most of them just mentioned by name or silhouette. It really feels like we walked right into the most dire part of a history textbook... So much tragedy has been set up, so many key players put into place... But being that this is Lilia's promised happy ending, surely he must reverse fate and save the day in the end????? Right? Right??? ?????? ?? ??? ? ? ? ? ? ?????? I have my eyes glued to the Draconia family lore and history, I'm READY to absorb it!

Something else I found really fascinating was learning more about Sebek this update! He still has a very arrogant attitude about him (that much hasn't changed), but I loved seeing how he acts different around his grandfather and how excited he gets over little things like seeing Malleus's egg. I think this part also marks the start to his character arc; he is constantly put down time and time again by his grandpa, someone whom he really loves. Sebek is used to his grandpa accepting him for who he is, but now his grandpa is shouting hateful rhetoric and discriminating against him for being half human. It's the same ugly behavior that Sebek slings to other people, but now the shoe's on the other foot and HE'S the victim in these situations. It must no doubt be extremely uncomfortable for Sebek, but it's also forcing him into a situation where he has to look at his own bigotry head-on, and it gives him a chance to reevaluate himself. It's similar to how Vil had to challenge Epel's outdated gender views even when Epel kicked up a fuss every time Vil did. asdhbsaisdbabdil I'm just really invested in Sebek's character arc!!

I think there's a high probability we'll see all of the silhouetted figures in full in a future update, it's clear that we'll eventually be rushing back to check on Malleus's mom at some point. I'm super interested in seeing how Malleus's parents, the Dawn Knight, Lilia, Baal, and Henrik tie together. (And, of course, we NEED to check in with the Shrouds as well.)

I have heard people say that Henrik may be a reference to King Henry from the live action Maleficent? Then that means that the Dawn Knight may be TWST's equivalent to Stefan/Stephan (Aurora's dad) and Henrik/Henric's little sister is Leah/Leia (Aurora's mom)??? Then I've heard other theories that since Malleus's dad vanished, we have no corpse to confirm he is for real dead and maybe he's actually Crowley who went off to buy some milk and never came back???? (Because “Levan” sounds like “raven” and you know who else is a black bird? CROWLEY. Is he. Is he really going to be the Ultimate Absentee Dad by pulling off his mask in front of Malleus and go, “Luke, I am your father” at him????) And then there's those of us who are drooling over new character designs and screaming about how hot Sebek's grandpappy is. Point is, there are so many wild parallels, theories, ideas, and thirst posts flying around right now. I love how this wild update reinvigorated the whole fandom into a new period of theory crafting and other creative works. asdhabsdasdbasdi Every new book 7 update gets more and more hype... I just hope we get part 5 in July!!! Super intrigued by the history of the Briar Valley~

[project-sekai-facts]

hii !! very new to prkect sekai and i cant play the game ,, so information wise is there someplace specific i can start ?

hi! sorry for the late response but hopefully this can get you a start on prsk without the game

to get yourself quickly familiar with the characters, here's the JP webiste's character page (EN site doesn't have one so just use google translate). This page also allows you to switch between the old pre-3rd anniversary bios (aka the point EN is at currently) and the current bios.

in-addition, here's a link to fan translations of the original in-game character introductions. The official character intro translations can be found on the EN YouTube channel.

----

the best place to start story-wise would be the main stories! they give you an introduction to the characters and plot of each unit. they're pretty hefty (21 chapters and roughly 2 and a half hours long each), but it's knowledge you'll need for going further into the story. link to fan translations are below:

Leo/need

MORE MORE JUMP!

Vivid BAD SQUAD

WonderlandsxShowtime

25-ji, Nightcord de. / Nightcord at 25:00

but if you'd rather read the official translation and don't mind the typos and occasional dialogue changes, they can be found on the EN YT channel as well, or on the fandom wiki.

There are also animated shorts based on these stories, which you can watch instead, but I do suggest reading the full stories as well since the animations condense 2.5 hours of story into 5 minutes and miss out some key details. You can find the animations here (they have english subs).

There's also sekai.best, a fan-operated database that has the official translations (where applicable) and original JP text for every event and basically everything else in the game including virtual lives, area conversations, card stories, etc.

^ If you want to use it to view the official translations just go in the settings page and make sure the server region is set to English.

EN has also been uploading the official event translations to their YouTube channel, and is uploading 1 chapter per day. As of writing they're on the 14th event.

If you want fan translations, here's some playlists I compiled. For each unit I included their "key stories", any mixed event that is focused on a member from the specific unit, plus some other stories I think are important to or heavily feature certain characters in the unit regardless of if they're the focus character (e.g: I put Buddy Funny Spend Time in the MMJ folder as well as the VBS one because it prominently features Minori and Haruka and provides a lot of character development for the former, despite it being a Kohane event).

Leo/need

MORE MORE JUMP!

Vivid BAD SQUAD

WonderlandsxShowtime

25-ji, Nightcord de.

And because I genuinely put the effort into this, here's a playlist of fan TLs for literally every story in the game in release order.

(Note: as of posting these playlists are still a WIP but they currently have everything from 2020/21)

----

Stories aside, music is a big part of the experience! You can find all the units on streaming services like spotify and youtube music. Some songs also have MVs, which I'll link playlists below.

2DMVs

3DMVs

Producers' MVs for commissioned songs (aka Vocaloid version)

I hope this is helpful!! ^^

[winxwiki]

20/11/2023 Iginio Straffi interview translated

Original article

A while ago, you said about Winx, "I felt the lack of strong characters for little girls, there were so many superheroes for little boys but not for little girls." Can we say that you were the forerunner of this feminist movement that now dominates movies and TV series?

"Yes, I can't say that myself but I certainly always happen to be a little bit ahead on ideas. And then come the current situations where certainly there is an abuse of this feminine imagery that, in the end, is in danger of getting tiring as is happening with Marvel movies."

It was the early 2000s when, with Winx, you were talking about feminism, putting children of divorced parents at the center of the stories, and launching the theme of inclusiveness.

"It was difficult to impose my idea in those years. At the time there was this idea that little girls watched more sitcoms, shows like Hannah Montana or Lizzie McGuire, and that cartoons belonged only to boys. Then I was told that if I targeted female viewers it would be a flop in terms of ratings because males would change the channel. Instead, I strongly believed that it was important to have a cartoon that brought girls into power and in which males were almost "the damsels" that talked about women not getting married and going against the idea of their father. At that time my products caused a stir; today they are the norm. We talked about separated parents, we represented multi-ethnicity already more than 20 years ago."

Next year Winx will turn 20, will we see them again?

"We are working on a reboot series of the cartoon to be released in 2025, 7 years after the last season we released in 2018. I felt the need to go back to Bloom's story, how the fairies became friends, how they discovered powers, how the Winx Club was formed. It will be a cartoon made with a modern techniques and tone, and it was important for me to take the Winx story from the beginning because on streaming platforms today you can only find the last seasons of the cartoon and I wanted the little girls of today to be able to know the beginning of the story, I wanted the Winx to be able to emotionally engage them as well as those little girls of the 1990s who are now 25-30 years old and who grew up with the cartoon on TV. To be able to grab them the same way we need to tell them about the origins of the Winx and do it in their own language. Then, in addition to that, I'm going to do a big live-action movie dedicated to fairies that I'm already working on, so yes, we will still see the Winx."

[tinypinkmouse]

4, 16, and 18 for the behind the scenes fic asks if you'd like!!!

4. Do you outline before you start writing? If so, how far do you stray from that outline?

Usually I don't outline at all. I just start writing and see where things go. Sometimes if there's already a lot of story in my head and I'm worried I'll forget it before I can manage to write it all down I'll sort word vomit it all out in a some kind of stream of consciousness form. But that's more like... a very extremely rough first draft instead of an outline.

16. What is your most underrated fic?

All of the 34 of my fics with less than five kudos on ao3? But if I have to pick one I'll go with I Only Sink Deeper. It's a sci-fi au weilan derivative fic with Jiang Yang/Meng Shaohui. I mean sure it was a bit hastily written seeing as it was for whumptober and I write a lot of fic in a short amount of time for that. But I really like it and I think it deserves more than the one single kudo it's gotten.

18. What is a line/scene you’re really proud of? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene.

The very honest truth is I don't remember a single line of anything I've written. I might remember the general shape of a story, but anything more specific than that... I'll have to read it first. 😅 But, I remember I really liked the imagery of this one so let me see...

From Water Lillies

Shen Wei's arms are folded against the lakeshore, his chin resting on his arms. Zhao Yunlan glances over at him before turning a page of his novel. Then he tries to concentrate on the reading again, even with Shen Wei looking at him like that. He'd just appeared at some point and now he's been watching Zhao Yunlan quietly for a while.

For some reason, Zhao Yunlan hasn't quite dared say anything, feeling like Shen Wei might slip away again if he does. Finally, he closes the book, setting it down in his lap. He has no idea what he's been reading anyway.

"Isn't it boring just to watch me?" Zhao Yunlan asks, before finally looking back at Shen Wei.

Shen Wei's large black eyes blink once. Then he shakes his head a little.

The fic is an AU where Shen Wei is lake monster and Zhao Yunlan is a human who happens to be taking a vacation at a very isolated little lakeside cabin. It's a cabin in the woods, there also happens to be a lake in the woods. It's all trees growing right at the lakeside and soft damp moss and lillypads in clear water and... damn it I wish I was a lot better at describing how things look acrually. It's really pretty okay, just take my word for it.

There's a lot of Shen Wei watching Zhao Yunlan from the water. This is one of my favourites out of those because they're both just... doing their thing and existing quietly together while one of them happens to be a monster chilling in the lake. Okay so Zhao Yunlan might be having a bit difficulty doing his own thing when he really wants to be looking right back at Shen Wei.

The lake is plucked right out of my childhood memories. I do live in the land of a thousand lakes (a somewhat misleading translation, the original is more like thousands, which is more accurate) and there's a lot of lake scenery to take inspiration from. In this case the lake is pretty deep straight from the shore, so Shen Wei can easily hang out there and just fold his arms over the edge and watch Zhao Yunlan. The water is also very clear and cold and Shen Wei maybe wants to grab Zhao Yunlan by the ankles and drag him into the water but that would definitely not be good for Zhao Yunlan so he's not going to do that.

[blazehedgehog]

Thoughts on One Piece?

I've told this story, but since Tumblr search is so awful, I'll tell it again.

The short of it is: I really wanted to get into One Piece. When One Piece started, pirates weren't really a subject you saw a whole lot of in anime. I thought Oda's art style was fresh and cool, too.

I did not like dealing with fansubs. They were kind of difficult to acquire (relatively), and at the time, I had a router that would absolutely crap its pants if I left a torrent running (it would have a firmware crash and all internet traffic would die until you power cycled the device). So the Kaizoku stuff was right out for me from the start.

I forget which came first, the 4Kids dub or Viz launching American Shonen Jump with their version One Piece. I think the 4Kids dub was first, because I remember being angry at Viz for adopting "Zolo" instead of "Zoro." Either way, I was angry about the 4Kids dub, but I was lucky enough to pick up the entire first 12 months of Shonen Jump, and figured that's where I'd start with One Piece.

Didn't have the money to keep buying new Jumps past that first year, so I figured I'd have to slum it with scanlations at least. I believe I left off in the back half of Baratie, and the only scanlations I could find from that part of the manga were like, truly awful quality. I have described them as "third generation Yahoo Groups quality scans." They were dark, blurry, heavily compressed, and the dialog was barely a step above an automated machine translation. I almost wish I could find them again, because it was nasty.

Around this time I think Funimation announced they wrestled the rights to One Piece away from the decaying hands of 4Kids, so I was happy to wait for that. We subscribed to Netflix in those days, the original DVD-by-mail service, so I'd rent each new set as they came out. Got all the way up through Baratie, up through Arlong Park, up to where they visit and prepare to leave Loguetown.

I think by the time the DVDs hit the fifth set, I ran into a problem: physical rental locations like Blockbuster had hard rental deadlines. You had to bring the disc (or tape) back in a day or two. Netflix, famously, had no rental deadlines. Keep things as long as you like.

While I had no trouble getting 1-4, some clown got set 5 before I could, and sat on it. For over a year. I complained to Netflix, and Netflix just shrugged at me.

Within a year or two of that, Funimation officially launched a One Piece website, like my memory is saying it was onepiece.com or something (which it isn't, that's a clothing store), but the point was they were announcing they were going to simulcast subs of the anime, for free, on this site. They were also adding dub episodes to this site, again, to stream for free. Back then, this was pretty unprecedented. Hulu was only a few years old at this point.

I figured: wow! Now's my chance! Go to check the website and...

The free episodes ended at the exact same point I left off at with the Netflix DVDs. Episode 53. It went from Dub Episode 53 straight to Sub Episode 230, which is where the simulcast began. Looking at Funimation's current site, this is what they consider "Season 1."

So I earmarked it. "Maybe I can finish it some day."

Some day never came. One Piece is over 1000 chapters (100 volumes) and 1000 episodes. There is over 430 hours of One Piece available to watch. The manga is so big people have talked about it taking up an entire shelving unit. I even saw photos once of somebody who had their shelf break because their One Piece collection was so heavy.

It took me over a year to read 16 volumes of the original Dragon Ball. There are almost ten times as many volumes of One Piece.

I have given up. I will never read it. Never watch it. Never see it. It's great that it's this amazing thing, truly this long journey, but even at 500 chapters it would have been too much.

Even if I wanted to, it's grown to be such a thing that when something happens in the anime or the manga, there are instantly spoilers for it all over the entire internet. 107 volumes of that is pretty disheartening.

I know about One Pace. One Pace is still too long. Some of those videos are over 20 hours. For a single video. And One Pace still has gaps in their coverage anyway.

It's just not happening.

[gingersp1ce547]

Hi, i just joined the fandom 3 weeks ago. Ive got you.

So this is the official youtube channel for the server snd it has 4 summary videos currently out that are really good for getting the broad lore bits. However some of the emotional parts kinda end up falling on the wayside because of that so i would also recommend this channel’s vids as well to supplement that.

Unfortunately neither of these channels vids are up to date with the lore so once you watch both of those, things getting a little more murky.

What i ended up doing is watching this playlist of clips starting at the point where the second channels videos ended. The only downside is that the channel that posts those clips that are in that playlist isnt the best at giving context for shit and getting so of those more emotional details either so i would recommend switching to this clips playlist after max’s leg gets fucky (youll know what i mean when you get to that point

Keep in mind that both of these clips playlists do occasionally have vids that aren’t super lore important and are more funny moments so you’re free to skip those or watch them depending on if your interested in seeing that kinda thing.

I would also say don’t forget you can track down the vod for most pov’s on youtube if you see a clip and you want to see more of a scene. Most of these clips are posted day of the stream/around the day of the stream so along with checking the character’s /lore page on the qsmp wiki you can usually find the exact one without too too much effort.

Speaking of which. There are two different Wikipedia pages that have slightly different information on their timelines. This one and this one. The second is the one i just mentioned for having the character lore pages which are really good for when you want to learn more about a pov you havent seen much of, especially if that pov is in a language you dont understand.

On that topic, theres a couple of ways to understand streams/clips that are in a different language than the one(s) you know:

1. Check the qsmp in game translator. It should be a rectangle with a bunch of text in it. Most streamers have it the the corner or top of their screen somewhere.

Downsides of it are that if a bunch of people are in one area the translator can’t keep up and depending on the streamer they may not have it translating to english.

2. Youtube captions. Pretty self expiatory for how to use, that being said if you do have any questions, feel free to ask me.

Downside is that not all videos have captions and uf they do sometimes the video gets set to being automatically in english instead of translating to English. This happens alot on videos where a non English-speaking streamer is reacting to a video thats in english.

3. Tiktok. Idk if you use tiktok but if you do you can find some good clips on there sometimes even if i would definitely not recommend getting all your lore from there.

For getting captions on tiktok, go to your profile then to your settings and privacy by clicking on the three horizontal lines in the top right hand corner. In there find languages and then set your translated language to English and always show translations to on.

Once you do get caught up or if at any point your like fuck it i wanna see whats going on in the lore rn would recommend checking/following the offical qsmp updates twitter accounts for both global and all the langauges on the server (you can translate a tweet by clicking on it and then hitting translate at the bottom) as well as the fan run update accounts for your fav pov’s.

You can also always check the latest on qsmp tab on tumblr as well in order to see people liveblogging streams which can be helpful in the same way.

Ok that was a lot of information and lowkey is a lot of work to get some story . Keep in mind that everything i just mentioned is my advice based off of what i did/am currently doing and you may not want to put in as much time/effort into this silly block game rp server storyline as me which is completely fine.

That being said i hope this helps and please feel free to reach out if you have any questions

OK maybe I'll regret asking but. How do I start getting into QSMP.

[mediaevalmusereads]

Witches. By Brenda Lozano (translated by Heather Cleary). Catapult, 2022.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Genre: literary fiction, Latin American literature

Part of a Series? No

Summary: Paloma is dead. But before she was murdered, before she was even Paloma, she was a traditional healer named Gaspar. Before she was murdered, she taught her cousin Feliciana the secrets of the ceremonies known as veladas, and about the Language and the Book that unlock their secrets.

Sent to report on Paloma's murder, Zoe meets Feliciana in the mountain village of San Felipe. There, the two women's lives twist around each other in a danse macabre. Feliciana tells Zoe the story of her struggle to become an accepted healer in her community, and Zoe begins to understand the hidden history of her own experience as a woman, finding her way in a hostile environment shaped by and for men.

Weaving together two parallel narratives that mirror and refract one another, this extraordinary novel envisions the healer as storyteller and the writer as healer, and offers a generous and nuanced understanding of a world that can be at turns violent and exultant, cruel and full of hope.

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: sexual assault, underage marriage, domestic violence, blood, violence, queerphobia

Overview: I came across this book at my local library, and since the premise sounded interesting, I decided to give it a go on a whim. Overall, I was very impressed by this book; it clearly has a deliberate style and structure, and the depth of character was enthralling. While I do wish more had been done with Muxe culture and the ending had come together a bit more cleanly, this is a strong novel and I look forward to reading more by the author.

Writing: The events of this book are narrated by two distinct voices: that of Feliciana (the healer in San Felipe) and Zoe (the journalist). Lozano (and Cleary) do a very good job of making each perspective feel like a unique voice; Zoe’s perspective is neatly organized with a tight sentence structure, while Feliciana’s tends to be more stream-of-consciousness, with phrases repeated over and over again that make it feel more oral. As a result, it was fairly easy to tell the two apart and I was never confused as to who was narrating (though to be honest, there were times where I felt that Feliciana’s voice became a tad bit repetitive, and the long sentences with so many commas took some getting used to).

Lozano (and Cleary) also has a talent for describing the world around them in ways that feel immersive, and I liked the way each character revealed something about their inner lives through the struggles they faced. For example, Zoe talks at length about her band and about how her mother watched documentaries after the death of Zoe’s father, and I was engrossed by Zoe’s recounting of her sister’s rebellious attitude and obsession with art. Feliciana also provides lush descriptions, and I particularly liked the way she describes her healing powers as a “Language” that comes from a “Book."

Plot: The plot of this book mainly involves our two POV characters - Zoe and Feliciana - as they recount stories from their lives. The exchange is loosely centered on the death of Feliciana’s cousin, Paloma; Paloma has been murdered, and Zoe takes the opportunity to interview Feliciana, who has become a famous healer.

Despite opening with a murder, this book isn’t a mystery. There is no journalistic expose that helps track down the killer, no surprise revelation that all of Feliciana’s powers are real. Instead, this book is a series of vignettes in which the two women tell stories about their lives, and it becomes more and more clear as the book continues that they have been brought together for a reason.

What I liked about this book most was the deep dive into shamanistic practice (the book's term). Feliciana has profound healing abilities that would probably be considered supernatural, but because of the world Lozano builds up, the “magic” seems quite at home. I especially liked the way healing was the mechanism for Feliciana to explore topics such as family, gender, and community, and it was interesting to read about her connection with her cousin, Paloma.

On the flip side, however, I can see how this book might not be for everyone. It’s not so much a plot-driven story as it is character-driven, and it falls more squarely in the realm of literary fiction than any speculative genre. It also might not be satisfactory that Paloma doesn't really get any kind of justice, so if you dont want to read about the death of a queer person, I'd skip this read. Besides all that, whether or not you like this book will probably depend on how interested you are in its characters and their lives. I personally found them fascinating, so I was invested.

Characters: Feliciana, the healer, is a fascinating POV character because she embodies so many different facets of life in San Felipe. Not only do her tales weave together past and present, but she also unites Christianity and shamanism, male and female, and body and mind in ways I found captivating. Because she is illiterate and doesn’t speak the language of the “government,” her perspective reads like an indigenous one, containing traces of the effects of colonization while still struggling to keep her local culture and practices alive. I’m not qualified to comment on whether or not Lozano portrays such culture well, nor do I have the background to say many intelligent things about Latin American literature, but as a White reader, I found Feliciana compelling.

Zoe, the journalist, is a bit easier to connect to if you don’t have a background in indigenous or even Mexican culture. Raised in the city, Zoe serves as a kind of outsider’s perspective, but her stories are not so alien that it’s impossible to see how they fit in with Feliciana’s. Her dedication to hard work (both in school and in her job) is admirable, and her care for her sister mirrors Feliciana’s love for her own family. I also really enjoyed that her perspective contained traces of the magical realism that is so pervasive in Feliciana’s world; Zoe’s mother has an almost otherworldly intuition, and I liked that it fit so seamlessly into the urban world.

Paloma, Feliciana’s cousin, is not a POV character, but has a strong presence in the novel. As the healer who taught Feliciana all that she knows, I loved that Paloma was Muxe (what we might categorize as queer, third gender, or trans in the English-speaking world) and served as a nexus for all kinds of discussion about gender and identity. Occasionally, I did find myself wishing that we could have learned more about Paloma and Muxe culture, but as the book stands, I think having her as a prominent supporting character was a good choice.

Other characters were well-developed and fully-realized, and I found myself caring a lot about Zoe’s family, Feliciana’s sister, etc. There aren’t really characters I felt I disliked, though there are characters who do terrible things (such as Feliciana’s husband). All of them served their purpose and enriched the story more than they distracted from it.

TL;DR: Witches is a fascinating story about two women whose lives explore themes of gender, belief, family, and culture. More literary fiction than a mystery or thriller, this book is skillfully written and is, at its heart, optimistic about human connection.

[narvaldetierra]

The betrayal [1/5]

Summary: “I know who Dragonfly164 is,” Tasha suddenly said, without even knowing where she got the strength to do it, “Is Borden. He's alive”

“How could you possibly know that?” Patterson asked, a slight tremor in her voice. 

“Because Atlantic17 is me.”

Tags: Angst. Established relationship. Canon divergence. Words: 2288 A/N: Although this is seeing light just now, this was the first thing I ever write about Blindspot, and it is part of my series "rewriting our stars". This is going to be a short multichapter and I have already written the first three chapters, I just have to finish the translations. Disclaimer: This first chapter has some scenes and dialog from the show. The rest of the story will diverge more from canon but will have some context from the series. Read it too on Ao3

~ What I've done? ~

“You have no idea how hard it was for me to keep that from you.”

“How hard it was for you?!” she replied, facing her “I can still feel his hands on me when I try to fall asleep at night. Because before he beat me, shot me, and put a tracker device in me, he used to sleep in my bed.” She took a few steps closer to the brunette and mumbling so that only she would be able to hear, added, “You should know that more than anyone.”

“I was trying to protect you,” Zapata shortened the distance between them, “I thought it would be better if you never knew he was alive.”

“It tormented me that he died on his own terms! All I wanted was to put him in prison, to take back a fraction of the control he took away from me!” Both were doing their best to keep their composure, but their eyes were filled with tears. “Now not only I couldn't do it, but you've also taken away the little control I had left. You got a second chance, and you should have given to me that. But instead, you chose to work with him.”

“I had to. It is my job.”

Patterson watched Tasha in bewilderment, in complete disbelief “And I was your girlfriend” she said and her voice cracked. Those words stabbed into Tasha's chest like a sharp knife. Was. “You should have cared about me more.” 

Without anything else to say and knowing that she couldn't keep it together long enough, she walked away, leaving Tasha alone. She went straight to the nearest restroom, locked herself inside a cubicle, squatted, and then she released her feelings. Muffled sounds came from her as she sobbed, tears streaming down her cheeks. She tried to make as little noise as possible, while she allowed herself to feel the panic of knowing that Nigel was alive, that he could have paid her a visit at any time, catching her by surprise and off guard. Pain lodged firmly in her chest at the thought that Zapata knew all along and had decided to hide it.

After a few minutes, she forced herself to regain her composure, she stood up, held her breath, and left the cubicle. She went to the sink, wiped her face, and drank some water. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, seeking the concentration she would need, and stepped out, keeping a serious and stoic profile.

However, seeing Borden was something she wasn't ready for. Although she kept her distance and made sure to see him only through the cameras, she was tense the whole time. Knowing that he was just a few steps away made her feel a lump in her throat. Feeling Tasha's gaze on her back every time they were in the same room didn't help either. Work had always helped her to keep her mind busy when she didn't feel able to cope with something, however, this time it was the same job she loved that was stressing her and putting her in a situation she wasn't ready to face. She needed to leave, she needed to go back to her apartment, she needed to be anywhere but there. And yet, she wouldn't leave. She didn't want the team to think she was fragile or to see her differently, she couldn't stand that and she certainly wouldn't let Nigel take anything else away from her.

At the end of the day, despite their setbacks, they had once again succeeded in eliminating the threat to their city, avoiding a terrorist attack. Looking for the last time Nigel while Zapata inform him about his destination, Patterson stood still, feeling Jane's gaze over her, full of questions and worries. 

“Just say it,” she said barely glancing at her out of the corner of her eye. She only allow her, because she was her friend.

“Uhm, what?”

“I know you know about… me and Zapata. She told me a few days ago.” Her tone of voice was serious and subdued.

“I just wanted to know how are you,” Jane said being completely honest. “It was a really rough day.” She was surprised by the way Patterson had handled all, she knew that if she had been in her place, she wouldn't have acted so peacefully.

Patterson took a deep breath, She pursed her lips, thinking of the right words to say. “Not quite good, but I will be.”

“Listen, I know she was wrong but you know Tasha, she would never do anything to–”

“Jane, really, I appreciate the intention, but I can't and don't want to talk about it now.” Her gaze was still glued to the screens, watching very carefully the two people she had once loved and who had betrayed her. “I can't believe this is happening again,” she said in a barely audible whisper.

Jane in no way justified Tasha's decision. Most of Tasha's decisions during the past couple of years generated internal conflicts for her, starting with working not only for the CIA but especially for Keaton. However, she knew her intentions had never been to hurt Patterson, nor anyone on the team. She needed to believe that, and a part of her needed to talk about it with her friend, while her logical side knew she shouldn't interfere in their relationship.

Borden's screams inside the interrogation room caught the attention of the two women.

“Are you sure you have anything you want to say to him?” Jane asked.

“I thought I would,” Patterson was surprised when uttering those words, “In my head, he's become this great mythical monster. But now that he's in front of me, all I can see is a weak broken shell of a man.”

Paperwork kept them busy for the next hours, and before call it a day, Patterson went to Tasha's desk, with a copy of the dragonfly file. She has no idea where she got the strength to see and talk to her.

“Hey… Reade still has some extra cake samples in the fridge, if you wanted–” Tasha said hoping to continue their previous talk in a more private and relaxed space.

“No,” Patterson interrupted her, “this is the only relationship I can have with you right now.”

Those words broke Tasha's heart into so many pieces that she wouldn't even have believed it could keep pumping blood. Tears came to her eyes, and almost begging for a second chance she said “I made a mistake.”

“I don't think you did” She almost didn't recognize this Patterson, she was cold and distant. “I think you are just someone who can see things objectively, without emotions getting in the way. The CIA is lucky to have you” She turned and walked away down an empty hallway.

Tasha followed her, willing not to leave things that way. “Patterson, it's not like that. Yes, I'm constantly trying to keep my emotions or relationships out of my work, but it is different with you. I can't do that with you. What I feel for you is getting in the way all the time, in every decision I make. I truly wanted to protect you and I thought I was doing it. I thought if I could keep an eye on him, he couldn't hurt you.”

“But it wasn't like that. I don't feel cared for, or safe at all.” She turned instantly to face her, making a great effort to control the volume of her voice. “You knew how much it took me to feel safe again, how much it took for me to trust in someone else. You knew about my nightmares every night.” Her teary eyes were fixed on the brunette. “You were by my side in that hospital bed when I told you that, somehow, I felt he could be still alive. You looked me in the eye and you lied to me, you convinced me that it had only been a dream.”

“I wanted to tell you, but–”

“But what? You had countless opportunities to tell me since I returned to New York, and you didn't..”

“Patterson, I–”

“No! I don't know if I can trust you or anything you say. Not right now.” And without another word she walked away, leaving Tasha behind.

She went to her lab, thinking she was ready to continue working, but it was halfway down the stairs when she began to feel the weight of the argument with Tasha. She hoped she wouldn't have to go through that, she had wished to be at home when reality hit her like that. But she couldn't control it. A sharp sensation of being short of breath came over her, she needed to scream but she didn't think she was even capable of speaking. Holding on to the railing, she slid down until she was sitting on the floor. Her breathing was halfway between a sob and hyperventilation, feeling like she was suffocating. Her hands won't stop shaking, was unable to coordinate a thought, and felt as if it would never end.

“Patterson?” 

The voice felt far away. She turned looking over her shoulder and was able to see Rich, bewildered, three steps away. 

“Patterson, what's wrong?” Seeing her, he understood the situation and, determined, hurried down two steps and sat down next to her.

Because of his presence, Patterson wanted to force herself to pretend that everything was fine, failing miserably. 

“It's ok, breathe with me, ok?” Rich insisted, and then he took a deep breath, gesturing with his hand, guiding her in the process. “Is it okay if I put my hand on your back?” he asked and only, when Patterson nodded, he made physical contact, rubbing her in a circular movement. “Come on again, breathe in and out.”

Despite Patterson's image of the former cybercriminal, Rich stayed serious the entire time, until the unbearable anguish wore off. In fact, he even appeared to be experienced in the matter.

“That's it, you are ok now,” Rich said reassuringly, “do you feel better?”

“I'm fine…” her breathing became normal as she uttered those words, “I'm fine” insisted, “I'm fine.”

“Say it one more time and I'll believe you” Rich joked, “can you stand up?” Still with one hand on her back, he offered her the other to hold and help her to stand up. “Do you want some water? Coffee? Maybe a drink or an ear? I'm a good listener.”

“I'll just… go home. It's been a long day.”

“You need me to come with you? To drive you? I don't have a car but I could ask for the agents that drive me to the safe house, to take you home first.”

“It's ok Rich,” she went down a step, then she turned around to add "and, you don't have to worry about your job, we already took care of it."

“You did? Thanks." he asked in surprise and Patterson nodded, then he added, "you can text me if you need something, anything.”

“Okay. I would appreciate it if this…”

“I don't even know what happened.”

“Thanks.”

A couple of hours later, Zapata was in a bar, drinking her third glass of whisky, fulfilling the cliché of drowning her sorrows in alcohol. Reade had texted her earlier and she told him to not come to see her. she didn't have the strength to argue with him about why she hadn't said anything about it before. Nas warned her and she thought she was prepared for it, but it didn't make it hurt any less to have fought with Patterson and not be able to talk to her best friend about it. Great was her surprise to see him at the bar, next to her. It turned out that he was a good friend and beyond the issues at work, he was there to support her. 

“You were protecting Patterson the best way you knew how. Maybe one day she'll see that” Reade said trying to cheer her up, “and you know what? Even if she doesn't, it's fine, you still got me. Everything is gonna be okay.”

“No, it's not,” replied. She looked at him silently, hesitating, but she needed her best friend, so she finally said, “because I love her… and now she hates me.”

Reade stared at her in silence, stunned at her words. 

“We...” she sighed, “I told her what I felt for her about a year ago, and apparently she felt something for me too,” she said, feeling that she owed him that explanation, “we had… this kind of ‘long distance relationship’ this last months before we got kidnaped and Jane came back.” She played with the glass in her hands, alternating glances with her friend. “Since Borden she was… She has had a hard time trusting someone else or herself, and about her decisions outside of work. So we decided to take baby steps. we wouldn't be telling anyone until she feels confident and… and now this,” she did her best to not shed the tears in her eyes, “I don't think she can trust me ever again.”

It took a few seconds for Reade to process all, “How it is possible for me to not know–? Yeah, no, that's not the point here,” he cut himself off mid-sentence, realizing how out of line his comment had been. He pondered his words for a moment before speaking again. “Look, Patterson is hurt. Give her space, let her clear her mind. She's a woman of logic. Perhaps, when she can analyze it, she will see that you only wanted to protect her.”

Tasha didn't say anything, just nodded, without believing his words. Reade invited the next round.

---

Next chapter

[dmsden]

A D&D Round-Up

Hullo, Gentle Readers. Lots of fun and interesting stuff coming for D&D. I’m excited for a lot of the news, so I thought it would be fun to just do a round-up of new products, forthcoming news, and other tidbits.

Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep

As of my writing this, the latest D&D adventure came out just a few days ago. Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep is an adventure set in Exandria, the world of Critical Role. I haven’t had time to peruse it thoroughly yet, but there are two things that have really jumped out at me.

First, there is a group of rival adventurers in the game. I think this is a really interesting and unique situation; I know I’ve done it in my home campaigns, but I don’t recall if a published adventure for any edition of the game has created a specific set of rival adventurers for the PCs. I won’t spoil anything about them, other to say that they’re on the cover (seen above).

Second, as the left side of the cover suggests, a chunk of this adventure is set underwater. The Netherdeep is a dark oceanic abyss where bad things are happening, and your group of adventurers are getting involved with it. Again, I can’t think of an adventure off the top of my head that specifically contains an extended underwater portion. Definitely curious to read more about that.

The Legend of Vox Machina

Let’s keep the Exandria train going. I’m sure most folks involved with D&D are already aware of this, but, just in case...

A couple of years ago, the folks behind Critical Role did a Kickstarter to raise money for an animated special based on their first campaign. It was a runaway success, leading them to instead plan an entire 12-episode animated series. To make it more amazing, Amazon Prime picked it up, and a second season was ordered before the first season had even aired.

Well, it was a lot of waiting, but the entire first season is now streaming on Amazon Prime. In my personal opinion, it’s fantastic. Not only did they do a phenomenal job of translating the episodes to the screen, but it’s well-written, funny, and genuinely exciting. If you’re a Critical Role fan, you’re going to love seeing beloved NPCs and classic moments up on screen (I squealed at the triceratops rampage). If you’re a D&D fan, but you’ve never watched or listened to Critical Role, I suspect you’ll enjoy this. It was so much fun watching spells we’ve played in our game for years manifesting, or recognizing class features, and the like. If you don’t play D&D...I’m not sure why you’re reading my blog...but I think you’ll enjoy it anyway. It’s a funny, action-packed story with a lot of great characters. If you actively dislike Critical Role, I don’t know that this will change your mind, but maybe take a look and see.

Venture and Dungeon

This isn’t technically D&D news, but, if you’re like me, you love other games, too. This is actually two games in one book. Venture, by Riley Rethal, is a D&D type game of adventure, monsters, journeys, dungeons, and all the rest. You travel around, meet interesting characters, go on quests, and everything you would expect from a D&D adventure. Dungeon, by Jay Dragon, is a bit more meta. In it, you play both a group of adventurers and the high school kids playing those adventures. In the tabletop world, your characters have literal spells and abilities, and they fight monsters and so on. In the real world, your abilities are more metaphorical, and you deal with the challenges and problems that high school kids have to deal with.

Both of these games are made with the Belonging Outside Belonging/No Dice, No Masters systems. I discovered these for myself back in 2020 through Jay Dragon’s game Sleepaway, which I obsessed over, and then their game Wanderhome, which I’m still obsessing over. All of these games feature no dice and no GM. They are cooperative storytelling where everyone works together to create and play NPCs and settings. I enjoy cooperative storytelling a lot. Even back at the beginning of my current D&D game, 11 years ago, I would ask the players to describe things about their environment rather than filling in all the blanks myself. These games embrace that to the fullest possible extent, giving you lists and tables to spark your imagination, much like 5e does so well. I am excited to fully read through and perhaps play both!

The Dungeons & Dragons Tarot Deck

I’m actually sort of shocked this isn’t something that already exists, but it’s coming in May. All I really know about it is the official blurb for it. “ This officially licensed tarot deck pays homage to the lore of Dungeons & Dragons by pairing characters and encounters with the Major and Minor Arcana of tarot. The characters of the Major Arcana align to the Rider-Waite Tarot while the suits of the Minor Arcana are mapped to abilities within the game of D&D. Beautifully illustrated with exclusive art, the deck also includes a booklet that introduces players to tarot, explains the meanings of the cards, and includes prompts to add dynamic twists to your gameplay, making this the ultimate collectible for dungeon masters, players, and fans of RPGs.”

Hopefully I’ll know more later.

Chris Pine on the D&D Movie

We don’t know much about the D&D movie due to release in March of 2023. Mostly, we know that it’s set in the Forgotten Realms, and it has a pretty interesting cast, including Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Sophia Lillis, Justice Smith, and Hugh Grant.

Recently Chris Pine had an interview with Collider, and they asked a bit about the tone of the film. I’d heard it described before as “Guardians of the Galaxy set in the Forgotten Realms”, and Pine’s comments seem to bear that out.

“Oh man. Well, what I will say is we had a hell of a fun time making it...There was a lot of laughs. The way that I’ve been describing it, it’s like Game of Thrones mixed with a little Princess Bride, just a smidge of Holy Grail. It’s somewhere in that ballpark. It’s a lot of fun, it’s got a lot of thrills, it’s poppy, it’s eighties heartfelt, there’s a bit of Goonies in there. My character, he’s the ultimate party planner. I think it’s going to be really good. I mean, who f***ing knows, but I think we got a good shot and John and John are killer guys. They know comedy and they know heart and we had a great cast and we had a good time making it. And that’s all you can ask for.”

If the cast had a good time making it, that feels good to me. Sometimes people complain about what an awful time they had making a movie, and that sometimes translates to a slog on the screen. I have hopes and fears, as I’ve previously written about, but this description makes me chuckle. I guess we’ll find out next year!

Heroes of Krynn

WotC teased a possible Dragonlance return with an Unearthed Arcana article. This article, Heroes of Krynn, can be found at https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/heroes-krynn In it, you’ll find 5e rules for Kender, Lunar Sorcerers, Mages of High Sorcery, and Knights of Solamnia. While there hasn’t been any official announcement about a Dragonlance 5e book, WotC has historically used the Unearthed Arcana articles to playtest material for books that could be coming out very shortly. When they released their Heroes of the Feywild article, it was followed pretty closely with the announcement of The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, an adventure set in the Feywild, which included two of those races. This same article included the Owlfolk, which came shortly thereafter as part of the Strixhaven book (I don’t follow Magic the Gathering, or I might’ve predicted we’d see that book based on the Owlfolk) and Hobgoblins of the Feywild, which I am led to believe are in Monsters of the Multiverse.

And that’s it for now.

That’s a lot! I’ll try to do these round-ups when a lot of news hits at once. Until next time, keep your friends close, and your healing potions closer.

[uelden]

Vanity Fair interview translated

Just a side note before the actual translation; I don't know why, but instead of reporting the full questions and answers in full as she should, the journalist decided to report only summarized fragments of what Måneskin said and patch these fragments up into messy clusters. She also worded a couple phrases in a very confusing way (and yes, she's fully Italian). In short, she did quite a poor job, so the final shape of the interview is not that good. I didn't expect top-tier journalism from Vanity Fair but ffs. You'll see what I mean.

I translated it as it is, adding just a couple footnotes to give you insight on Italian pop culture references.

Translation under the cut

Måneskin: "Different from whom?"

by Lavinia Farnese, 09 June 2021

"True justice is being judged for what you do and not for what you are." The ones who are convinced of this are Damiano, Victoria, Ethan and Thomas who, by being the emblem of a generation that is finally free, refuse labels and conformism. In life, in love and on the stage. Where, maybe precisely because of this, they're winning everything

With the still unexpected (first place at Sanremo Festival) and the incredible (triumph at Eurovision) in their eyes, Måneskin are on the sofa of the house-studio they rented - to resume writing songs and rehearsing them - like you are after a won battle: lying in a calm and unreal silence, alert and a bit irreverent, happy.

In the garden there's the tennis table and the pool, the light of summer when it's starting and calming the country all around, and it filters inside from the large windows, and it goes onto the shining black of Ethan's hair, which blends with Thomas' eye shadow and the butterfly he has tattooed oh his naked forearm, which completes the picture of Victoria's golden crucifix hanging between neck and tank top and ends on the black nail polish of Damiano's stretched hands.

It's a human fresco, a Theatre of wrath [translator's note: "Teatro d'ira"] - to call it with the title of their latest album, a platinum record already - where their flaunted 20 years of age, their irregular femininity and virility are grown into proud and challenging custom, a pop glam rock generational manifesto of hard-earned liberties in a finally-unconditional expression of the self.

To watch them from any angle and from another age is to think that a great love will be born in those who'll understand: this new way of being in the world, the true and sovereign realm they hold where "diversity=exceptionality", the power of the artistic and cultural revolution of which they are healthy carriers in establishing in all lyrics and gestures the right to live according to one's own nature past the "people (who) talk, the people (who) unfortunately talk, and don't know what the fuck they're talking about." [tn: "Zitti e buoni" lyrics]

We go where we're afloat, where the air isn't gone. [tn: journalist's own variation on "Zitti e buoni" lyrics]

Miley Cyrus says hi – The numbers of a phenomenon

"The streams of Zitti e buoni are growing by the second, and they bring us above Muse, at the top of English charts, twelfth in the Spotify Global Chart. Followers almost tripled, in the post-Rotterdam period (from 1,4 to 3,3 millions, ed.) Contagious and universal folly: t-shirts and merchandising sold out in 10 minutes. Like the records, the tickets for a tour that keeps adding dates and expanding over geographic maps. They're contacting us even from some festivals were The Rolling Stones went." Thomas

"After the pretextual controversy over cocaine that France built against us, later disproven by my drug test, some graffiti popped up in Spain depicting me as a “No drugs” poster guy. Some tweets made us laugh: "Congratulations, Italy! I've never been more certain that four people have had sex with each other." Miley Cyrus started following us -You're great. -You guys are greater." Damiano

From the garage to the stars – Story of a flight

"It was only 2016, and we played in restaurants, in the streets, in via del Corso. Damiano without even a microphone, Thomas' guitar with wonky strings, Ethan was drumming on a cajón. During Rome highschools' sit-ins (Kennedy, Virgilio, Mamiani) we had our first confirmations and half-hours of celebrity, playing among those who criticized us and those who went "wow they're really cool." One of the rare times when they would have paid us – 50 euros each – we gave the money to the next band in the lineup so that they would make us play in their spot, later in the day, when there would have been more people. We had already realized how things worked. Visibility mattered more than money. And we still think that." Victoria

The intimacy of rock – Choice of a genre

"Music allows us the miracle of extending to others some very personal and private topics, sometimes even difficult and thorny ones. They are and they remain deeply your own, but at the same time they become a confession that reaches a wider audience, and in this passage that is alike a delivery, they find a place in you as well, a processing of them. You overcome them, you accept them. One second it's something aggressive, the next it's a ballad. Cathartic». Damiano

Against panic – The stage as therapy

"I've suffered a lot from anxiety and panic attacks, it's an issue I've worked on thanks to a psychotherapy course, my friends and my family. Playing helped me in not letting myself be paralyzed by my fears, not making myself limited in my private and professional life. I've learned to accept, to live with this side of myself. I don't hide it. I don't feel ashamed of it." Victoria

Analysis as necessity – Relying on someone saves you

"This belief that only madmen go to the psychologist is a widespread ignorance. No-one's born learned. [tn: common Italian saying] And it's often hard to understand the very reason why we're here, let alone the origin and direction of our desires. It's a long and legitimate journey towards lucidity, a kind of backing to become transparent." Damiano

Being out of our minds – But different from them [tn: "Zitti e buoni" lyrics]

"When you feel a strong passion towards something that is not a canonical job but an artistic language, that already puts you on a level of anomaly, which is not superior or inferior to other people, but it puts you in the position of the one who breaks the mold and also works at a loss, the one who sustains great risks while trying to do something that who knows if it will take you anywhere. "Why do it if it doesn't pay?". You want to give this dream of yours an aesthetic, but it becomes "You're dressing so weird! You must be gay!" - now that I'm 22 I laugh about it, but when I was 17 it had an effect on me, too." Damiano

The beauty of uniqueness – Of believing in it and defending it

"And I mean, at the end of the day if we're all different it's not because we want be alternative but because, really, no-one is the same. Justice is being judged on what you do and not what you are. Justice is equality, respect, beauty." Ethan

Fluid sexuality – Pride is freedom

"Heels for men that like themselves in them, kisses among ourselves, we have an open, extended mind, and we're proud of it. The horizons become vast, past the oppression of conservative families. With the information on the web knowledge becomes greater and with it the possibility that minorities will be less and less minorities, because the majority will be less of a majority. This way we'll make insults and bullying grow quieter. If social media get to a village of 50 souls and reveal to a girl who's afraid of the dark that someone has felt her same fear, then there's no reason to give a name to that fear, to mark it with labels which also limit and restrict. Definitions always had this effect on me. You shouldn't even consider the gender when judging someone, let alone their orientation." Victoria

Sexism – A culture to be dismantled

"Emma [tn: Emma Marrone, Italian singer] drops the bomb: “At Eurovision when I was there they massacred me for a pair of shorts, while they said nothing to Damiano – bare-chested and in heels.” The easy judgment against women is more fierce, constant, debasing (if I have a lot of sex I'm cool while Vic is a whore, where I show myself strong I'm a leader while Vic is despotic and a pain in the ass who reached success because she's hot.) As a male I'm privileged, the abuse I get is not comparable to those a woman has to live through, the comments over my aesthetic are centered only on my aesthetic and don't insinuate anything about my professionalism and my competence, while women are victims of this kind of thought in a systematic way. It happened though to find myself standing with a woman who while pulling me to herself to take a selfie, started licking my face out of the blue... I mean, what the hell do you want? Who asked you? Consent exists, and it's due." Damiano

Grow yourself – The only commandment

"To me conformism is the opposite of education [tn: could also mean "politeness"] and is the asphyxia of expression. I fortunately never endured heavy bullying, heavy enough for the the judgement of others to change me. But the mold of the small crumbs of bullying I got and of the kind of aggression that scars is the same. If I'm a kid who dances and likes dolls you have to let me do what I like. I was a kid who wanted to keep his hair long and played with Barbie. As a teen, my friends looked at my hair: " You have to find a girl with short hair to be at your side." My grandparents took away my dolls: "Stop it, they're not for you." Ethan

"When I was six I was already sick of them, the distinctions between masculine and feminine. I've always had strong ideas about how I wanted to be. I refused things that were typically defined as girly, and all around me they mocked me because I went skateboarding, I played soccer, I didn't wear skirts, I was giving myself the chance to be as I wished. I endured it a little, I suffered a little, but I had courage, and now thanks to that courage I know that I could have gotten even much more hurt, otherwise I would have left to others the most important choice: the one about myself." Victoria

Love in progress – Music, girlfriends

"I've been married to music for the last 20 years. I can't wait to celebrate our golden wedding anniversary." Ethan

"Everyone makes their own experiences, sometimes it goes well, sometimes it goes wrong, but it's always not anybody's business." Thomas

"When I first felt feelings and attraction towards a girl it was a bit disorienting because I had never had the courage of going beyond the limitations I had put for myself. For society being heterosexual is the norm and so you often define yourself in that way automatically, depriving yourself of the freedom to live many shades and faces of love. Once I overcame the initial insecurity of having to call into question my certainties I've lived my sexuality in a very natural and free way, as it should be for everyone." Victoria

"I had paparazzi at my door every day and night. So, after four years of relationship, I revealed her name. I still have paparazzi at my door every day and nigh, but at least I don't have to hide anything anymore." Damiano

The worth of the group – Phenomenology of protection

"The true engagement though, the true family is among ourselves, our band. We've believed in it since day zero, even before we called ourselves Måneskin (Moonlight in Danish), even before Ethan drew a giant moon on the flier for the first concert we ever did. We share everything, even the pain for the tragedy of Seid Visin, who committed suicide at 20 because of racism. [tn: I think the journalist asked them their opinion about Seid Visin's death, which was a current events topic in Italy, and then pasted it syntaxically in the middle of Thomas' answer, which was not a great move] A group is what we all should be: stay united and not back down an inch in the face of oppression that is generated by a distorted view of diversity." Thomas

I'm not of the right age – Like Gigliola [tn: Gigliola Cinquetti won Eurovision with her song "Non ho l'età", which means "I'm not of the right age"]

"Before you the only one who won both Sanremo and Eurovision on the same year was Cinquetti (1964). If there's anything I feel I'm not of the right age for? No, honestly no. Maybe having children. Regarding children I'll be honest: I'm not of the right age." Damiano

Having touched the sky – The fears that remain

"We're more than inside the dream, we're in the conquered dream. When you fly high there's the risk of plummeting and hurting yourself, but we'll work hard not to end up like Icarus, who burns his wings with the sun. Everything is in our hands. And this - a bit pretentiously - reassures us rather than scaring us." Damiano

[al-hekima-madara-blog]

The Madara's voices holy war

A bloody war started on Youtube and Tiktok comments when a significant group of people states imperiously that Madara english dub was superior to Madara japanese sub.😀🔪

But first I have to confess : I am a purist.

Raised by purists, baptised in purist water, having received purist sacrements. From childhood, I’ve always faithfully watch anime in japanese with subtitles. I come from the darkest age of internet where netflix in HD didn't exist. You have to find out the next season of Naruto in obscure russian streaming platform or download it on megaupload. The translation was benevolently made by fan but the standard of subtitle was quite excentric : sometimes four lignes of subtitles were covering half of the screen, and those subtitles were fluorescent pink or yellowish depending of the fansub's mood, the zealous fan translator takes the liberty to insert japanese cultural explanations, and othertime he just admits that he doesn't understand the sentence and you felt lost in translation with a blank in the middle of a conversation, hoping it was not essential for the plot. When you were really desperate you add yourself subtitles files from a different website to your video. If you know, you know...

Years after years this tortuous training made the best of us to awaking a very special aptitude : the Subigan. As soon as you come into contact with a standard and smooth official translation you are able to read and watch a movie in a very fluid and efficient manner. And it's not limited to japanese but all languages to your mothertongue. K-drama ? Hollywood ? Bollywood ? Nollywood ? All at your reach in original version. A powerful dojustu indeed, possessed only by a tiny elite among the purists. An other day I will talk to you about the Eternal Subigan who aloud you to read or listen directly in japanese with no translation, but story for an other time...

I never really question my skills into I came into contact with my nephews and nieces. Big dilemna. I wanted to convert them to Naruto but there was no way in Earth I can convince them to watch in original version because : they don't need to ! Netflix & co make it effortless to switch in dub version so why the hell would they go through a tiring eyes exercises for the sake of japanese intonation ? They will never enjoy the dattebayo signature...and they don't care ! With new technology, the purist chapel is in crisis.

***

Back to English Madara vs Japanese Madara. I took the time to listen to his most famous quotations in english ( my mothertongue is french and so far the french one was awful) and to my utter surprise... it was not bad at all ! It just gave him a different flavour than the japanese one. And I understand why people absolutly love the dub one. The english voice is similar to a classic american villain : deep, icy as steel and unmoved. It resonated with english-speaking culture on depicting badass villains and I find it perfectly fitting during the Great War when Madara appeared for the first time in Edo Tensei or as well when little Obito met him in the cave. He really embodied the cold hearted legendary ninja than everybody fears. It represents him as himself like to be seen by others : far distant, superior to all, almost unhuman.

Nevertheless the japanese version wins my heart by its complexity. Instead of a dark baritone, Madara here has a warm but powerful tenor voice, which offers us more nuances in conveying his emotion. Arrogant and playfully sarcastic during the Great War, cold and so bitter about life in the cave with Obito. Extremely passionate to the point of wildness when sparring with both Hashirama or Night Guy. And yes surprisingly so soft, so vulnerable when he talks with Hashirama above the cliff just after they made Konoha. I don't have yet the Eternal Subigan (and by this I mean I'm not fluent in japanese) but based on what I understood it looks as well like Madara comparing to other Founders seems to enjoy listening to himself talking in an elegant manner and the japanese version, in my opinion, show well his subtle snobbish tone.

To conclude I'm still a purist, but I don't refuse different interpretation because it participates in enriching the original masterpiece.

[claritywritestales]

vTuber Journal (Entry # 1)

____________________________________________________________

1-12-23

____________________________________________________________

(10:19 PM)

Currently, I’m watching Minase Rio from Uproar play Omori. It’s not a live broadcast, but I’m having a lot of fun regardless. And I’ve been catching what he’s saying here and there, which is exciting!

I’m going to keep practicing Japanese so that I can become fluent and help connect people together. Let’s see where I last left off in my notes…

____________________________________________________________

(10:26 PM)

Well I remember the words for my notes, for the most part. But I’ll definitely need to be brushing up on them again tomorrow morning. For now, I’ll just mark down some of the things I manage to roughly understand during the stream.

____________________________________________________________

Game: “Are you naming the boy Rio?”

Minase: “Yes. I’m Rio, so…”

Game: (Sonny appears)

Minase: “Isn’t this Omori-Kun?” *

Minase: Scary…

Minase: I was frightened/surprised *

Minase: Is it here?

Minase: Mama, where is the kitchen??

Minase: Sleep? Do I sleep?

Game: (Sonny wakes up)

Minase: I woke up *

Minase: I want to run away *

Minase: (in regards to Sonny) I don’t want to look outside (そとみたくない)

____________________________________________________________

* While writing the translation for this, I realized I didn’t fully understand [じゃ ね]

So I googled it, and after a couple moments or so of getting the wrong translation using romaji alone- I kept getting redirected to [じゃあね], I finally figured it out using a translator and a Japanese keyboard. Now I know the difference! :D

* The word he said, [びくりした] I’ve heard this used a lot before. Looking at the way it’s formed, it makes sense for this to be a past tense word. It was just used informally, so I didn’t recognize it right away! Interesting!

So like if you said [べんきょうしました] “I studied” informally- it would be  [べんきょうした] instead. So present tense for being surprised would be [びくるいする] “frighten”

I have to wonder if the translation would be more accurate to surprise or frighten though, since both seem to be used in what I’ve seen. Maybe “shocked” is what it could better be compared to?

* Here, he merely used the phrase [おきた] which, despite Google translate trying to trick me, I’m pretty sure acts as the informal past tense version of [おきる] -the base verb that means “wake/get up”

* I heard [にげたい] and figured on past experience that it translated to “want to run” from the base verb [にげる] but I didn’t understand the part at the end. The full phrase said was [にげたいなこれ] and translating it on Google didn’t help much since it just gave me the same translation I came up with in the first place. I don’t understand the particle [な] but I do know that [これ] pretty much translates to “this”

Perhaps what Rio actually had said was: “I want to run away from this”

___________________________________________________________

(11:23)

A lot of my time during this was actually spent figuring out and translating new things to help complete my knowledge of what I already knew. This is a really fun way of learning!

Okay, last note- I’m pretty sure Rio got confused when Sonny was able to use the microwave because he said “He ya no denki”- “He ya” being room, and “denki” meaning electricity. I figured as such even before googling it because of Kaminari Denki from BNHA. And I was CORRECT!

I think he was asking something like “This room has electricity??”- considering the fact that the power was supposed to be out in the story.

____________________________________________________________

[agentrouka-blog]

Tyrion and Tysha murder mystery hints - first mention in the text

This thing just keeps tugging at me, and this recent thread made me ambitious to examine it in more detail. So I’ll look at hints for an even darker edge to the story of Tyrion and Tysha in the parts of the text that actually mention her.

Since I have limited time, I’ll do several posts. This one is about how we learn about Tysha in A Game of Thrones.

We head into AGOT, Tyrion VI via a chapter transition from AGOT, Jon V, where Jon talks Maester Aemon into choosing Samwell as his assistant. In the presence of his current assistant Chett, who - it is revealed later in the ASOS Prologue - murdered a girl he liked for rejecting him.

Chett gave a nasty laugh. “I’ve seen what happens to soft lordlings when they’re put to work. Set them to churning butter and their hands blister and bleed. Give them an axe to split logs, and they cut off their own foot.”

“I know one thing Sam could do better than anyone.”

“Yes?” Maester Aemon prompted.

Jon glanced warily at Chett, standing beside the door, his boils red and angry. “He could help you,” he said quickly. “He can do sums, and he knows how to read and write. I know Chett can’t read, and Clydas has weak eyes. Sam read every book in his father’s library. He’d be good with the ravens too. Animals seem to like him. Ghost took to him straight off. There’s a lot he could do, besides fighting. The Night’s Watch needs every man. Why kill one, to no end? Make use of him instead.”

Maester Aemon closed his eyes, and for a brief moment Jon was afraid that he had gone to sleep. Finally he said, “Maester Luwin taught you well, Jon Snow. Your mind is as deft as your blade, it would seem.”

“Does that mean …?”

“It means I shall think on what you have said,” the maester told him firmly. “And now, I believe I am ready to sleep. Chett, show our young brother to the door.”

(AGOT, Jon V)

The chapter is followed by AGOT, Tyrion VI, where Tyrion and Bronn rest on the high road after being kicked out of the Gates of the Moon, after he won his trial by combat:

They had taken shelter beneath a copse of aspens just off the high road. Tyrion was gathering dead-wood while their horses took water from a mountain stream. He stooped to pick up a splintered branch and examined it critically. “Will this do? I am not practiced at starting fires. Morrec did that for me.” 

The entire conversation between Jon, Aemon and Chett sets up Tyrion. A lordling, bad with manual labor, but smart and a reader. Yet we know he is no Samwell Tarly in his sensibilities, and the last sentence is dedicated to Chett.

Chett...

The only women Chett had ever known were the whores he’d bought in Mole’s Town. When he’d been younger, the village girls took one look at his face, with its boils and its wen, and turned away sickened. The worst was that slattern Bessa. She’d spread her legs for every boy in Hag’s Mire so he’d figured why not him too? He even spent a morning picking wildflowers when he heard she liked them, but she’d just laughed in his face and told him she’d crawl in a bed with his father’s leeches before she’d crawl in one with him. She stopped laughing when he put his knife in her. That was sweet, the look on her face, so he pulled the knife out and put it in her again. When they caught him down near Sevenstreams, old Lord Walder Frey hadn’t even bothered to come himself to do the judging. He’d sent one of his bastards, that Walder Rivers, and the next thing Chett had known he was walking to the Wall with that foul-smelling black devil Yoren. To pay for his one sweet moment, they took his whole life.

But now he meant to take it back, and Craster’s women too. That twisted old wildling has the right of it. If you want a woman to wife you take her, and none of this giving her flowers so that maybe she don’t notice your bloody boils. Chett didn’t mean to make that mistake again.

Like Tyrion, Chett is rejected by others for his appearance, has a violent father and a lot of resentment that comes out in the shape of murdering “slatterns”. He also mixes it up with the idea of marriage. Like Tyrion, the cold night reminds Chett of the girl in his past.

He could see Bessa’s face floating before him. It wasn’t the knife I wanted to put in you, he wanted to tell her. I picked you flowers, wild roses and tansy and goldencups, it took me all morning. His heart was thumping like a drum, so loud he feared it might wake the camp. Ice caked his beard all around his mouth. Where did that come from, with Bessa? Whenever he’d thought of her before, it had only been to remember the way she’d looked, dying. What was wrong with him?

Chett killed her in a rage, but the truth is layered and haunts him.

But back to Tyrion.

Tyrion VI emphasizes Tyrion’s cleverness as he converses with Bronn, explaining his strategy in the Vale for how to steal Bronn from Cat’s service and make use of his practical talents, and his strategy for their travels in the Mountains of the Moon. Tyrion talks, Bronn listens and agrees to serve him.

The point is, Tyrion is very observant and smart. Reader, trust Tyrion’s judgent and words, is the message. Then we get more personal.

As they light a fire and eat a goat, Tyrion remembers his goaler Mord who treated him cruelly in the sky cells.

(Mord, btw, translates to murder in many a germanic/Scandinvian language.)

“And yet you gave the turnkey a purse of gold,” Bronn said.

“A Lannister always pays his debts.”

Even Mord had scarcely believed it when Tyrion tossed him the leather purse. The gaoler’s eyes had gone big as boiled eggs as he yanked open the drawstring and beheld the glint of gold. “I kept the silver,” Tyrion had told him with a crooked smile, “but you were promised the gold, and there it is.” It was more than a man like Mord could hope to earn in a lifetime of abusing prisoners. “And remember what I said, this is only a taste. If you ever grow tired of Lady Arryn’s service, present yourself at Casterly Rock, and I’ll pay you the rest of what I owe you.” With golden dragons spilling out of both hands, Mord had fallen to his knees and promised that he would do just that.

The image of coins spilling from hands is picked up later.

Tyrion was hoping to lure in the mountain clans, but they take their time showing up, so he tries to be even more conspicuous.

Tyrion chuckled. “Then we ought to sing and send them fleeing in terror.” He began to whistle a tune.

He chooses the “terrible” tune himself. It leads straight to his memory:

“Myrish. ‘The Seasons of My Love.’ Sweet and sad, if you understand the words. The first girl I ever bedded used to sing it, and I’ve never been able to put it out of my head.” Tyrion gazed up at the sky. It was a clear cold night and the stars shone down upon the mountains as bright and merciless as truth. “I met her on a night like this,” he heard himself saying. “Jaime and I were riding back from Lannisport when we heard a scream, and she came running out into the road with two men dogging her heels, shouting threats.

Myrish, as in the Myrish lens. The object Lysa sends Catelyn, which has a false bottom hiding the real message in a secret language, a message of murder and conspiracy. A secret language, a foreign language, like Mord.

"A lens is an instrument to help us see."     (AGOT, Catelyn II)

Bright and merciless as truth.

My brother unsheathed his sword and went after them, while I dismounted to protect the girl. She was scarcely a year older than I was, dark-haired, slender, with a face that would break your heart. It certainly broke mine. Lowborn, half-starved, unwashed … yet lovely. They’d torn the rags she was wearing half off her back, so I wrapped her in my cloak while Jaime chased the men into the woods. By the time he came trotting back, I’d gotten a name out of her, and a story. She was a crofter’s child, orphaned when her father died of fever, on her way to … well, nowhere, really.

Where Tysha went will become a theme. @une-nuit-pour-se-souvenir examines that beautifully here.

But even right here, the tone is ominous, and GRRM goes out of his way to emphasize it with the ellipses.

We get the story of Jaime chasing after the outlaws and Tyrion and Tysha falling into bed at an inn after drinking, eating and talking, and the story of their marriage, and its end.

Tyrion was surprised at how desolate it made him feel to say it, even after all these years. Perhaps he was just tired. “That was the end of my marriage.” He sat up and stared at the dying fire, blinking at the light.

“He sent the girl away?”

“He did better than that,” Tyrion said. “First he made my brother tell me the truth. The girl was a whore, you see. Jaime arranged the whole affair, the road, the outlaws, all of it. He thought it was time I had a woman. He paid double for a maiden, knowing it would be my first time.

NOTHING about this makes sense, which is ridiculous when you consider we were just hammered over the head with how smart Tyrion is supposed to be.

Since when is Jaime prone to setting up complex schemes? Why would feel the need to push Tyrion to have sex at thirteen, and why would be ever do it this way? Why would be hire him a virgin for his first time? We don’t question it because GRRM has told us not to question the smartiepants. But as we later learn, that was all. not. true. So maybe other things aren’t true, either.

“After Jaime had made his confession, to drive home the lesson, Lord Tywin brought my wife in and gave her to his guards. They paid her fair enough. A silver for each man, how many whores command that high a price? He sat me down in the corner of the barracks and bade me watch, and at the end she had so many silvers the coins were slipping through her fingers and rolling on the floor, she …” The smoke was stinging his eyes. Tyrion cleared his throat and turned away from the fire, to gaze out into darkness. “Lord Tywin had me go last,” he said in a quiet voice. “And he gave me a gold coin to pay her, because I was a Lannister, and worth more.”

The parallels to his memory of Mord are striking. Silver and gold, coins spilling from hands, a “price” beyond expectation... and a promise of something very sinister at the next meeting.

After a time he heard the noise again, the rasp of steel on stone as Bronn sharpened his sword. “Thirteen or thirty or three, I would have killed the man who did that to me.”

1) Nice how Bronn makes it about Tyrion’s pain. Tysha’s pain does not exist to them. And so the reader is also drawn away from it. Poor Tyrion.

2) Another reference to killing. It foreshadows Tyrion’s murder of Tywin over this very matter, of course, but at the same time...

Tyrion gestured impatiently with the bow. “Tysha. What did you do with her, after my little lesson?”

“I don’t recall.”

“Try harder. Did you have her killed?”

His father pursed his lips. “There was no reason for that, she’d learned her place … and had been well paid for her day’s work, I seem to recall. I suppose the steward sent her on her way. I never thought to inquire.”

“On her way where?”

“Wherever whores go.”

Tyrion’s finger clenched.  (ASOS, Tyrion XI)

I don’t think it can be emphasized enough that this happens right after he murders Shae. Shae the whore.

“Did you ever like it?” He cupped her cheek, remembering all the times he had done this before. All the times he’d slid his hands around her waist, squeezed her small firm breasts, stroked her short dark hair, touched her lips, her cheeks, her ears. All the times he had opened her with a finger to probe her secret sweetness and make her moan. “Did you ever like my touch?”

“More than anything,” she said, “my giant of Lannister.”

That was the worst thing you could have said, sweetling.

Tyrion slid a hand under his father’s chain, and twisted. The links tightened, digging into her neck. “For hands of gold are always cold, but a woman’s hands are warm,” he said. He gave cold hands another twist as the warm ones beat away his tears.

And just before he asks him about Tysha, Tywin assures him he was meant to be sent to the Wall. Whether or not that’s a lie, we’re looking at another Chett parallel. Murdering a “slattern”, facing life at the Wall.

We close Tyrion’s memory of Tysha:

Tyrion swung around to face him. “You may get that chance one day.  Remember what I told you. A Lannister always pays his debts.” He yawned. “I think I will try and sleep. Wake me if we’re about to die.”

He rolled himself up in the shadowskin and shut his eyes. The ground was stony and cold, but after a time Tyrion Lannister did sleep. He dreamt of the sky cell. This time he was the gaoler, not the prisoner, big, with a strap in his hand, and he was hitting his father, driving him back, toward the abyss …

Like Chett, his thoughts return to the girl. He turns into the goaler, Mord, his rage comes through, his capability of great violence. In ASOS, his lashing out at Tywin is preceeded by directing his violence toward the “whore” who allegedly betrayed him. Which is preceeded by a truth about Tysha.

“Thank you?” Tyrion’s voice was choked. “He gave her to his guards. A barracks full of guards. He made me … watch.” Aye, and more than watch. I took her too … my wife …

“I never knew he would do that. You must believe me.”

“Oh, must I?” Tyrion snarled. “Why should I believe you about anything, ever? She was my wife!”

“Tyrion—”

He hit him. It was a slap, backhanded, but he put all his strength into it, all his fear, all his rage, all his pain. Jaime was squatting, unbalanced. The blow sent him tumbling backward to the floor. “I … I suppose I earned that.”

“Oh, you’ve earned more than that, Jaime. You and my sweet sister and our loving father, yes, I can’t begin to tell you what you’ve earned. But you’ll have it, that I swear to you. A Lannister always pays his debts.” Tyrion waddled away, almost stumbling over the turnkey again in his haste. Before he had gone a dozen yards, he bumped up against an iron gate that closed the passage. Oh, gods. It was all he could do not to scream.

(ASOS, Tyrion XI)

The turnkey here is interesting. Once again, Tysha’s memory is associated with a cell and the presence of a turnkey. In his anguished memory, Tyrion almost stumbles over him. The last turnkey was Mord.

So, just looking at Tysha’s first mention, there are so many ominous connections. Murder murder murder.

The chapter ends with Tyrion meeting and “hiring” the mountain clans. How? To avenge himself on Lysa Arryn, he promises them the entire Vale. Really driving home that “a Lannister pays his debts” is all about disproportionate retribution.

A few chapter later, to create some distance to this dark tale, Tyrion meets Shae and sets up to re-create his entire Tysha trauma. The two are intertwined, so why should their ends not be?

That’s fodder for a different post, though.

[ginger-danica-snapps]

WIP Wednesday. A snip from my back in time, fix it Jonsa story and my Ned marries Cersei instead of Catelyn AU.

"Here,” the child said and while Sansa was kneeling another person slipped from between the trees. This time a woman in a long flowing, tan dress, but her hair looked like the bark of the weirwood. She held something in her hands.

Jon watched as Sansa realized what it was and began to stand and protest, but Jon placed a hand on her shoulder to keep her kneeling.

“þú eru dawninn bringer, protector ór fólk,inn móðir ór allr hverr eru eigi dauðr. Vargr dróttning fran Norðririnn,” the child intoned as the woman came to stand before and raised a crown of weirdwood branches somehow petrified into a glistening, smooth crown with wild branches reaching to the moonlight.

Old tongue again, Jon realized and began to work through the translation, suddenly more grateful to his time among the freefolk.

“You are the dawnbringer, Protector of the People, Mother of All who are not dead. Wolf Queen from the North,” he murmured quietly, but kept his hand on her shoulder when she immediately began to protest.

The crown was nestled onto her head and Jon was moving to the front, pulling Dark Sister from sheath again and laying her tip down onto the ground with his head bowed.

“I swear to be the sword that guards you till there is no breath left in my body. Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no other to wife, hold no lands that are not yours as well, and father no children that do not call you mother. You are the queen I choose. You are my queen, now and always.”

It was a cold morning when Cersei Lannister pulled her cloak around her shoulders and slipped out of her room. Melara and Jeyne already waited for her patiently and she slipped past them without a word of greeting. They followed silently as Cersei expertly navigated her way outside of Casterly Rock without running into nary a servant or soldier who would scamper off to tattle.

They reached the woods without speaking and Cersei turned with a sharp grin. She held her hands out to the two girls and they smiled back and reached out to clasp hands. Turning they ran into the forest, laughing, as Cersei led them to the small creek.

“Where did you say she was?” Cersei asked as they cautiously stepped onto slick rocks, never letting go of each other.

“A good walk down the creek and even longer into the dark of the woods. Cersei, are you sure we should do this?” Melara whispered.

“Of course,” Cersei answered automatically and turned to go deeper into the woods while tugging at their hands.

“Your father, Cersei, we would be in so much trouble,” Jeyne added as she slightly resisted.

Cersei sighed. What use was having companions if they weren’t willing to take chances? As always Cersei struggled with the idea that these were her childhood friends, but that they were first put in place by her Aunt Genna and likely reported much of her adventures. She was still pretty convinced that it was Jeyne who had reported Cersei and Jaime switching places every other day in his training.

She missed the physical exertion of swords play and the way she was able to hit the mark every time she released her bow string.

Still, it was her responsibility to soothe her companions when fearful.

“You will almost always be the highest ranking woman in the room, Cersei. One day, you will marry a Prince of Dorne if all goes as planned and only the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, her daughters, and the wife of the Prince will outrank you. You need to always be the calming presence for your ladies. They must never see your fear, because then they will remain calm and know all is well,” Joanna Lannister brushed Cersei’s hair back from her face in soft, strong strokes.

Her mother was always soft and strong. Cersei wanted to be just like her when she married and took over her own household.

“I heard father say he wished me to marry Prince Rhaegar, Mother,” Cersei answered quietly.

Her mother’s hands froze for a second, but then she began her strokes anew.

“Your father thinks he can sway Aerys, yes, but I fear, little light, that Aerys will only seek to enrage your father. Lions were not meant to marry Dragons, my daughter. Remember that, if you remember nothing else. We may work in service, even be close in friendship as I was once to Queen Rhaella, but we must never join with the dragon,” Joanna whispered, “I would not have my little light burned by a dragon’s fire.”

Cersei spun around again and squeezed her companion’s hands.

“You need not fear my father, Jeyne,” Cersei assured her, though she also felt her very heart tremble at the idea of being caught.

They continued into the forest, following the stream till it ended in a pretty little waterfall, before tipping deeper into the forest than Cersei had ever traveled. They found Maggy the Frog’s house tucked into a dark clearing, behind a small pond. Moss grew over the old stone and the roof was thatched.

Badly, Cersei noted to herself. There were holes and water gathering in a way that her father would never have allowed Lannisport to weather.

Her mother would have cared about the witch in the wood, but her father would likely burn her out if he realized she was here.

“I…,” Jeyne stuttered and Melara and Cersei turned.

Jeyne wrenched her hand from them and looked around with wide, frightened eyes.

Cersei nodded and gave a slight shoulder shrug, “Walk back to the water, Jeyne. Melara, go with her. I will speak to this Maggy the Frog and come meet you.”

Jeyne barely dipped a slight curtsy to her liege’s daughter, before lifting her skirts and running back the way they came. Melara gave Cersei a concerned look and Cersei thought she could see real concern. She motioned her away.

She waited till both girls were gone and turned back and set her shoulders with determination and marched up and knocked on the door. If her companion’s had stayed, Cersei would perhaps have marched in with no regard to the owner just to show her seniority on her father’s land.

“A humble lady will always garner more loyalty among her compatriots than a prideful one,” her mother’s voice whispered in her ear.

“The lion does not lay down and sleep with the sheep,” her father followed.

“Come in, little lion child,” a voice called out and Cersei opened the door and softly stepped in, her boots already ruined from the walk.

“Are you Maggy the Frog?” she asked, forcing strength into her tone.

The woman cocked her head and Cersei was at least glad to find the woman did not resemble anything like a scary monster. In fact, she was quite boring.

“We wanted to see the monster,” Oberyn Martell said and Cersei rolled her eyes.

Everyone wanted to see her little imp of a brother.

“He’s just a baby. An ugly baby, but a baby,” Elia added and Cersei resisted the urge to snap back with a cutting remark.

He might be the curse upon her life, but he was her little brother and no one else was allowed to speak ill of a Lannister.

No one understood that Tyrion was a monster because he killed her mother, not because he was a misshapen little thing.

“Often go into your thoughts, girlie? I’m the one you call Maggy the Frog and I assume you’ve come to hear your future?” the woman said.

Cersei’s eyes widened. That, however, was not boring.

“Yes. I have. My father and aunt say I am to marry Prince Rhaeger, but my mother wished me to marry Prince Oberyn, though my father refused the Princess of Dorne. I want to know if I am to marry the prince and one day be Queen? How many children will I have?” Cersei eagerly stepped forward.

She would love her children and they would love her. They would never fear to whisper their secrets, hopes, and fears.

Maggy the Frog tilted her head and stared at her before reaching down and pulling a small dagger from beside her. Cersei took a step back, fear dogging at her step, before forcing herself to stand tall again.

“This is my father’s land and if you harm a hair on my head then he will gouge your eyes out and you will not see any future again, certainly not your own,” Cersei said coldly and startled when Maggy tilted her head back and laughed uproariously.

“Oh, little lion girlie, you are quite the opposite of what I saw for today as it is. Let us see what else has changed. A little taste of your blood girl to be able to see what is going to happen. To see if gold crowns and cold shrouds no longer lay across the lion spawn,” the woman explained and held the knife hilt out.

Cersei took a deep breath and stepped forward to take it. She laid it down easily onto her thumb and gave a slight whimper when it cut into her skin and blood welled to the top. She went to hold the knife back out, but found herself being yanked forward and her finger in the witches mouth.

Cersei had barely had time to react before she was released and she cupped her hand to her chest.

“Three questions, girlie, but most do not like my answ…” the woman made a sudden sharp noise and gripped at her head, gasping for breath, and Cersei started to move forward to help her.

The woman suddenly sat up and completely still, eyes shut, and back ramrod straight.

“Maggy?” Cersei whispered, fear starting to creep into her.

Maggy’s eyes flew open and Cersei gasped at the milky white expanse that existed where muddy, dark brown eyes had.

“The song of fire and ice comes, and nothing will stop the stag from killing the dragon. The wolf brother of the stag will help without knowing, without seeing. The wolf’s sister will die so their son may live. The gods give another choice not given before, eyes were open, but could not see. Winter comes, winter comes, and the wolves must live. A Queen she shall not make, but a mother of a King she shall be. Remember, learn, live, and roar. The Lioness will triumph if the last dragon son thrives,” Maggy gasped and then she collapsed.

[dawn-of-tomorrow]

shoutout to @punishing-gray-raven-ocs for this ask game!! (didin't expect to be tagged with one so soon lolol but i'm overjoyed~~ ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´Д｀ﾟ)ﾟ｡❤️❤️)

1) What made you even think of trying Punishing Gray Raven? What made you stick with it?

Funny story actually-- I've long heard about PGR, way back when it was first released even, but I just didn't give it a chance back then mainly because it was in CN and I couldn't understand shit (rather ironic given how I am now lmao).

As for why I decided fairly recently, a couple of months give or take, to give PGR a shot? It's mainly due to the fact that I heard that the Global version would be out very soon, so I thought why not dive into what I've missed so far... not knowing that I'd become THIS obsessed with the game, aha~.

The most obvious thing that made me stick to this game are the interesting cast of characters, the "fun" story, the amazing yet simple game mechanics, and etc. etc.

2) What problems, if any, do you have with PGR?

Honestly speaking, the thing that most VEXES me at the moment about PGR, specifically PGR Global, is the wonky translations. It feels like a group of half-assed fan translators and one official translator who's not doing a good enough job with reigning everyone in instead of feeling like a group of professional translators who know what they're doing. Hell, I've seen better translations from some of my twitter mutuals!

3) Who is your favorite Construct, and why?

Lee. There's no question about it, Lee is my most favorite Construct at the moment (and forever perhaps ohoho~). As for why, god, hold that mic for a bit, I'm gonna go on a fucking rant. Ehem.

First of all, let's start with the most basic of things, like his appearances; As Palefire, he looks like this suave, very aloof, super serious, unapproachable, and "gets shit done efficiently" type of person, and while that description certainly isn't wrong, it's also hiding more layers of Lee's overall personality; as Entropy, he certainly looks and feels bit more casual than before, along with feeling somewhat more, even if a tiny bit, more honest with his feelings and easier to approach than before.

Despite being a serious, no-nonsense, grumpy guy, he's prone to occasionally quip and snark at anyone at their own expense especially if they get on his nerves (see his interactions with Kamui, not even the Commandant is spared from this!). He's also not as cold and distant as he may come across, given that, early on, he quite literally jumps in front of Liv to take a hit that was meant for her with absolutely no hesitation whatsoever, he's almost always the first person to make comments on the Commandant's state as well as express his undiluted feelings (though not without hiding it on occasion behind anger/annoyance, thus making it a case of "anger born from worry").

You can also easily tell if you pay close enough attention to his dialogue and actions that he's not good with expressing his true feelings even to the people he cares about (thankfully Murray, Skk, Lucia, Liv, Kamui, etc. can usually pick up on what he really wants to say), is the type to often be misunderstood due to him being the kind of person who believes in "actions speak louder than words", that he's used to taking care of others instead of prioritizing himself even to his own detriment; while making it clear that he prefers to think and act in a logical and practical manner, he's not exempt to having emotions/feelings, as such, he can be pretty empathetic towards other people even if he doesn't look like it (he's even the first one in the Gray Raven squad to point out WHY EXACTLY the people they come across in Echo Aria refuse to leave their homes even with high risk of the Red Tide washing everything away, and fully understanding as well as getting it).

Alrighty I'm gonna cut that segment short now before this becomes too long for anyone to read through, ehe~!

4) What made you think of designing PGR OCs, instead of making yourself into a self-insert?

.... Actually, truth be told, both of my Skks are, in some way, self-inserts~. It's just that they start out as one before eventually developing into their own characters with only hints/traces of their self-insert origin. Though my Construct OCs are definitely not self-inserts, that much I can certainly say so!

I made them mainly because I really enjoyed the official cast so much I wanted to make characters that would get to interact with them somehow, though I take great care in making sure they aren't TOO out of character with how they're canonically portrayed.

5) What's your thought process behind creating your OCs?

Honestly, it usually starts of something like this--

"lol wouldn't it be funny if I made this type of character? Oooh, what if they interacted with this character? Or this character? Or that character? Let's see, what's missing... Backstory and profile, check. Appearance, I'll sketch one in a bit. Hmmm... I know! *drowns the OC in mountains load of angst*"

6) What's your favorite chapter from the main story?

If I'm limited to talking only about the main chapters currently released on Global then it would have to be Fallen Star, mainly because it's Watanabe's time to shine~. (*´∀｀*)

However, if we were to look at the overall chapters, then, I would have to say Imprisoned Sight.

7) What do you think of the new Liv shown in the latest stream? Where do you think the story is going with her? What do you think happened to Gray Raven?

With Liv, I have a really bad and somber feeling about what Kuro Game has in store for her, given how she looks almost complete different than what she's looked so far, as well as the vibe her new look gives off.

Fuck, I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to thanos snap her memories away as well like they did with Lucia, or worse, infect her with the Punishing and turn her into an actual enemy (for a while before we get her back).

As for Gray Raven, considering what happened at the end of Evernight Beat, wherein the Skk is in a fucking coma with a chunk of the Mother Structure lodged in their abdomen, while Lee and Lucia are in repairs along with Liv, and, if I recall correctly, the Merciful One managed to reach Babylonia and is now onboard the space station as well-- I have a feeling that the despairing Liv will be approached by her and be given a new frame.

8) Have you seen the animated shorts? What do you think of them?

If you're talking about the Panini anime then yes, I've watched them already! Still ripping my insides open from laughter everytime I watch them lol. Favorite episode has got to be the toilet episode, next to that would be the episode where Chrome takes Kamui to Karenina and Liv for training.

9) So do Constructs eat or not? (I'm really confused, especially since I saw Karenina sipping a drink in one of the shorts)

Oh they most certainly can! Fuck, it's even explicitly stated that Camu likes to eat and sample foods whenever he can (revealed in his secrets, as well as his affection stories).

As Camu explains, while they don't get nutrients from human food, they most certainly can still enjoy them and use them as a type of fuel.

10) Do you think Kamui and/or Camu will be a really pivotal plot device at some point, considering how the information on Kamui is so top secret?

Hmmmm.... unless the story at that point is revolving around Kurono Ops and how shady they're being, then personally speaking, the chances are slim.

11) Do you think, at any point, any of the Gray Ravens will die off?

Naaaaaah. They won't do that. Sure, they TECHNICALLY killed off Lucia, but she's still "alive" in a sense, so it both counts and doesn't count.

Besides, sometimes death isn't the worse thing you can inflict on someone/a character~.

12) Who is your least favorite Construct, and why?

I don't really hate/dislike any of the Constructs if I'm being honest. Though I hate how shitty of a unit Sophia is, and that it's kinda pitiful that she's become even more useless now that the new S-Liv is here; but I am in no way saying you should stop using her, keep using Sophia if you really like her! It's your choice after all, and I'm not about to contest you on that part, after all, everyone's enjoyment is subjective.

13) What part of PGR's lore really holds your attention?

The part of the lore that really holds my attention are the characters, and seeing how they react and act to the situations happening to and around them, especially concerning the Punishing and forces out of their control~.