#there are so many characters that this applies to

[distracteddaintydemon]

[ID 1: 3 images with the caption: We need this version of frozen!! in all caps. The first image is elsa from frozen with a straight bob cut, chain, sleeveless white top, and a denim jacket. The second image shows Anna with space buns with 2 strands of hair pulled out, a choker, and a spaghetti strap dark blue dress. The third image shows Kristoff with a short haircut, a trimmed beard and mustache, and a white tshirt.

ID 2: A reply by @socte-blue: how did they white wash white people

ID 3: A reply by @reblog-house: its just hit me why the phrase "how did they whitewash white people" works. It works because americanisation isnt noticed for what it is and it's instead just described as whitewashing. This is someone taking non-american white characters and making them fit the pinnacle of _american_ whiteness, stripping them of their culture just to fit american subcultures and fashions. It _feels_ like whitewashing because it rids them of their culture and heritage to fit american molds.

ID 4: Screenshot of tags reading: #^This #really it's fascinating and a bit unsettling how American assimilation means cultural erasure #so much distinctiveness gets lost #which i think is important to point out when talking about 'whiteness' #especially when certain people invoke 'white culture' or 'white history' #since there is literally no such thing #and they know it - it's why they try to be sound smarter and say things like 'western culture' #rather than what they really mean #which is a very certain type of white upper-middle class protestant #Whiteness is a political label that can arbitrarily be applied or revoked to a person or group of people #I can for sure tell you there is a nasty undercurrent of old-world racism that is still persistent even today in America #such as against citizens of Italian - Russian - Polish or Irish descent #all people who were traditionally poor peasant immigrants who practiced a type of Christianity that wasn't protestant #i.e. catholic and Orthodox #(denominations that are to this day considered in evangelical Christianity as "false" faiths - the "wrong" kind of christian) #we are really not that many steps removed from the ethnic and classist European racism of our grandparents #and ir world be so so easily for those in power to change the rules again - in order the shrink the circle of privilege #and its material benefits to fewer people #Race #Whiteness #Americanism #American Identity #Assimilation #Conformity #Cultural Erasure #Frozen

End ID]

My friend blocked me because I wouldn’t stop sending him this picture

[valeriehalla]

I have gotten a lot of messages saying that they really love the presentation of CURSE/KISS/CUTE. Often the commenter in question can’t say what exactly it is about the formatting that they appreciate, but that it just reads well and looks good. Well!!! Allow me to bare my wealth of secret knowledge for you once and for all:

I sorta just did some research into book typography...?

Here’s something you should know about web development, alright: typography on the web is really, really bad. The tools we have at our disposal—HTML and CSS—are incredibly powerful, but they are set up to fight you every step of the way towards Good Typography. When you know what you’re looking for, you can fix all the common issues quickly and easily. But it’s not easy to know what to look for, because

problematic typography is overwhelmingly the norm on the web, and

good typography is invisible.

Here’s a screenshot from CURSE/KISS/CUTE episode 0:

Now, I don’t want this post to come across as prescriptive. It is not my intention to tell you, “This is what good typography looks like, so follow my lead exactly.” I made a lot of choices with the typography of my web novel: many of those choices would not make sense in other contexts. What I want to convey to you is what those choices are, so that you will know they’re available to be made.

I mentioned that the web “fights you” when it comes to good typography. What do I mean by that? Well, check this out:

This is how that passage of text renders “by default.” In other words, this is how a web browser would render that text without any input from me about what styles to apply. It kind of sucks ass! But it also looks pretty familiar, right? This is not that far off from how a lot of websites—even websites full of prose (looking at you, AO3)—render text.

I think the most illustrative thing to do here would be to walk you through my thought process and show you, step by step, what decisions I made to turn this unstyled text into the styled version you see in the novel.

So, first things first:

1. We have got to shrink that text column.

Computer monitors... are wide. They are wider than they are tall. They are so wide, and they have so many pixels. This means you can fit a lot of characters on them. If you wanted, you could just have a wall of characters from the left side of the screen all the way to the right side. Talk about efficient!!

You should never, ever, ever do this.

This is one choice that I actually will make a prescriptive statement about, because it’s supported by quite a lot of research: fairly narrow text columns are more legible. Specifically, research seems to support the idea that a width in the range of 50 to 70 characters per line is the most comfortable for people to read*. Every font is different, so it takes a little doing to turn that “characters” figure into a pixel measurement; I went with 512 CSS pixels for the maximum width of my text column:

Isn’t that just so much nicer to read already?

*A commenter reminds me that I’d be remiss not to point out that the research on column width legibility isn’t completely conclusive. You do want to limit the width of your text columns, but going over the 70 character-per-line recommendation isn’t necessarily the end of the world, and you might have good reasons to do so. I did not: as mentioned, one of my goals was to mimic book-style typography, and books by nature have fairly restrained column widths, on account of they’re books.

2. Picking a font.

I’m not going to give you the blow-by-blow on how I decided what font to use. The short story is that I asked some designers, and one of the recommendations I got was the free font Crimson Pro, which I took a liking to immediately:

It’s just an all-around attractive serif font, but one thing I really like about it for use in a novel is its highly-visible quotation marks. They’re just kinda jumbo! They’re real big! Easy to see! In a novel, those things aren’t just ornamentation. It makes a great deal of practical sense for them to stand out just a bit. It also has a fairly large x-height, unlike a lot of the more traditional options, which is good for legibility on a computer screen.

3. Adjusting the line-height

Web browsers default to a line-height of about 1.2em, which, as you can probably tell, is quite cramped. If you go and Google “optimal line height for legibility”, you’ll get a number of results right off the bat suggesting 1.5em. Sounds good! Let’s do that:

Well... hmm. That’s definitely an improvement, but between you and me, it actually looks a bit too spacey to my eyes. I wonder why?

I’ll cut to the chase: the 1.5em recommendation makes some assumptions about the font you’re using. In Arial, the letter “A” is about 0.6em tall; in Crimson Pro, it’s about 0.5em. That means that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to spacing your lines, because different fonts have different amounts of empty space baked in. How annoying!

Let me tell you something about the kind of nerd I am. When I had this realization, I grabbed some books off my shelf and pulled out a literal micrometer. I started measuring the line-heights against various font features to see if there were any patterns I could spot in professional typesetting. Here’s what I found:

Almost every book on my shelf spaces lines such that the distance between one baseline and the next is about three times the x-height. How cool is that? I clapped my hands like a seal when I put this together.

Adjusting the line-height to match what I observed in the wild gives us this:

It’s a subtle difference, but to my eyes it feels just right. It’s almost like magic!

4. Paragraph spacing...

Let’s address the elephant in the room. Probably the most controversial choice I made with CURSE/KISS/CUTE’s typography was to opt for book-style paragraph indentation rather than web-style paragraph spacing—like so:

I did this for a few reasons:

It’s what I’m used to. I’ve read a lot of books, and this is just the way that books are formatted. I think for something aspiring to the title of “novel”, there’s value in making it look the way a reader probably expects a novel to look.

A novel has a lot of paragraph breaks in it. A paragraph in, say, an encyclopedia entry might go on for half a page or more; whereas it is unusual for a paragraph in a modern work of narrative prose to run for more than a handful of sentences, especially in any scene with dialogue. Because paragraph breaks are so common, spacing between paragraphs in a novel results in a lot of wasted space. Also, subjectively speaking, the additional space seems to me to lend an undue amount of weight to paragraph breaks. I’m just starting a new thought; there’s no need for a 21-gun salute, you know?

Having said that, here are some good reasons you might decide not to do paragraph indentation anyway:

Doing it right requires a bit of extra legwork. Notice how the very first paragraph in the image above has no indentation. That’s because it’s the start of a new section, and the first paragraph in a section traditionally goes unindented. This is an easy detail to miss, and it can be difficult to wrangle CSS into doing it for you automatically.

Web users don’t expect it. For the first decade of the web’s existence, there was no good way to do paragraph indentation; by the time CSS rolled around and made it easy, paragraph spacing had already become the norm. And while CURSE/KISS/CUTE may be a novel, it is also, specifically, a web novel!

But it’s my house and I get to make the rules, so I went with indentation. Incidentally, there seems to be a dire lack of research into the question of whether indentation or spacing is more legible for readers—but the data that does exist appears inconclusive at best. So, the choice really does come down to vibes.

5. The tragedy of justification.

You’ll note that one way in which I did not make my web novel look like a paper novel is the text alignment. It’s un-justified: the right margin is ripsaw-ragged.

This is because it is not possible to justify text on the web.

Oh, you can try. Look right here: there’s a CSS property for it and everything. Just turn on “text-align: justify” and...

Nightmare! The interword spacing on that first line is almost as wide as the indentation!

Reader, I’m afraid that your web browser is simply too dumb. That’s not the browser’s fault: robust algorithms for justifying text without creating these distractingly huge gaps between words have existed for many decades, and modern computers are powerful enough to run them in real time with little performance impact. It’s just, uh—nobody has ever bothered to implement them into web browsers. It is the damnedest thing.

I tried, I really did. You can mitigate this problem a bit if you enable automatic hyphenation, but browsers are unfortunately also kind of dumb at hyphenating. Firefox, for example, will refuse to hyphenate any word containing a capital letter, so any sentence with a lot of proper nouns in it is a lost cause. I tried manually inserting soft hyphens with a text preprocessor I wrote myself, but still these overjustified lines plagued me: when the text column narrows, for example on a phone, even hyphens can’t save you. The line-breaking algorithm is simply too naïve to optimize for well-justified text, and that’s not something you can fix as a web developer.

As a result, my heavy-hearted recommendation is to never use text justification. It’s just too distracting.

6. And then some extra stuff just for me

I added drop-caps because it looks neat and I made the ellipses spacier because I think it looks good when it, uh, when they are spacier. I think that looks pretty good that’s just my opinion though.

That’s all! Hope you learned something bye!!!

[verdantwyrm]

I'm going to repeat myself here, as usual, because it is a very important point to make.

Mouthwashing's message goes away if you make Curly out to be just as bad as Jimmy, or imply that he's worse somehow. It also has absolutely no message if you try to make Jimmy out to a faceless, cruel monster that's not human and was always cruel. It is boring, tacky and takes away why they're individual characters. If Wrong Organ didn't want them to be different in any way, they would've kept the POV the same, just like they originally intended.

The message, the game, everything in it is screaming the same sentiment. That our worst moments don't make us monsters, that it doesn't define us. So purposefully stripping Jimmy and Curly of that sentiment takes away from why it's even said in the first place.

Jimmy's behaviour, his spiraling and abuse is heartbreaking for many reasons, but it's exceptionally more devastating when you remember that he too is a person, someone Curly cared for and worked hard for. If he's just an always terrible abusive asshole forever and ever, it takes away why having loved ones become abusive hurts so badly, and why its so hard to pull away or recognise the signs.

Even Jimmy himself could be applicable to the message of the game, but its because he can't change for the better and lies deep within the comfort and safety that is of abusing the people around is what makes him a monster, but he is still human.

Saying that Curly is a "bad" person literally goes against the message of the game. He isn't a bad person because doing "bad" things does not automatically make you one. Literally our worst moments don't make us monsters, and this sentiment applies to Curly, even if you don't want it to.

[pacifistcowboy]

hi guys sorry i disappeared i had to go buy some cereal and got lost on my way back then tripped and fell onto the cereal box and crushed all the cereal inside and ended up eating cereal powder which caused me to have a coughing fit and in my encumbered state i wandered so far into the wilderness that i had to fight to survive for many cold nights… anyways i thought this meme was perfect to apply sonic characters to so i did that :D i also gave the characters more cartoony, shapey, animally designs which was very fun

here’s the original post by the way ⬇️

[justsumtransdude2000]

Because you asked so nicely;

When we talk about twinkification we first have to establish what 'twink' as a concept is, and while I don't like playing semantics I do think the way we define this word is extremely important, mostly because twink, in the modern era has become one of two things. On one hand, it has become a term to use about any feminine man, sometimes even regardless of sexuality or even gender presentation. On the other, it has become another way for straight white women to call gay men slurs without actually saying said slurs. I don't think I should have to explain to you why both of these definitions are incorrect, harmful, and water down the way we see twink. Twink, according to Wikipedia (and before I hear any bullshit about it being wiki, if you will oh so kindly look at the long source list, there are many credible and also queer sources for the article) refers to a skinny, often young, hairless gay man. This definition has evolved from its (highly debated) original one of either 'twank' (a gay, male prostitute who is also a bottom) or twinkie, as a reference to the food because twinkies (I shit you not this is what the article says) lack nutritional value, sweet to the taste and creme filled. Now, the article says that twink is merely a physical marker. I, as a gender non conforming trans man who considers himself othered from the community of gay men (for reasons of both transness and bisexuality), cannot speak on this, or how the word is currently used in gay culture. I can, however, as a chronically online piece of shit, speak on how the word has developed in fandom culture, and how the twinkification of a character is not just physical, but also a stripping of said characters main attributes. But, to summarize, the word twink refers to an effeminate gay man who is (traditionally) young and a bottom. He is skinny, tall and sassy. Twink, in the real world is used only as a physical marker, but in fandom space is almost completely different to its real world usage.

Now that the semantics are out of the way we can get to the meat and potatoes of this essay. Twinkification, as a process applied it fictional characters, is bad because it strips them of their core identity traits to make room for sass, their skinniness (which is turned into a personality trait, or, at the very least a main characteristic) and their bottomness (please see the previous set of parenthesis). As to be as precise as possible with how this can/does happen I will use characters from a fandom I am familiar with as an example; Regulus and Sirius Black, as characterized by the Marauders Fandom (which is, in fact leagues different from the Harry Potter Fandom). However, to be as precise as I personally want to be, I also have to explain the significance of both of their characters, and how them being changed fundamentally is not that out of place because of the fandom, so that I can (eventually) prove that the way they are often characterized not only does not resonate the sentiments of the fandom, but actively works against it.

Firstly, the Marauders Fandom does not abide by canon, unlike other fandoms that may work in a very dissimilar way. This fandom operates on the basis that, because the canon is written by a TERF who gets physically enraged when in proximity to a trans person, taking her original characters and making them as queer as possible actively works against her, and is therefore not only a way of protest, but also a way to enjoy some peoples favorite media, guilt free. (There are multiple different sides to this arguement, and while I have my opinions on what constitutes protest and how guilt free one can actually be while not actively doing something for the communities JKR often hurts, that is not what this essay is about). This is the viewpoint all the characters, and therefore my argument, hinges on. To truly understand the twinkification process we need to first examine how these characters are treated in canon versus in the fanon universe. Sirius, for example, is canonically very unefeminate. While he is sassy, often throwing quips and firing back at people when he has the chance, he is not sassy in the same way that twinks are. In fact, I would argue Remus is much more effeminate and twink adjacent, but I'll put a pin in that for now. Going back to Sirius, though, he is almost the antithesis of a twink when it comes to a real world perception of the concept. He has wild, long hair in his first appearance, and while he is also skinny that is because he is malnourished, not because it is his natural state. He also has thick facial hair that he keeps throughout his appearances in the movies and (if I'm not mistaken) the books. He is hairy, vulgar at times, sarcastic, and doesn't do anything I (personally) would deem as 'bottom behavior.' His fanon appearances are, however, quite different.

Throughout fanon Sirius is often depicted, physically, in the same way he is when he is severely malnourished and on the run from soul sucking demons, which is to say, the fanon is not based on him when he is at his best both mentally and physically. He is often written or drawn to have gaunt cheeks and skinny, bordering on malnourished, features. His hair is long, but kept very proper, his nails are trimmed short (sometimes) and often colored, he is very often depicted as a bottom in the very popular fanon ship between him and Remus Lupin, and dresses extremely differently depending on the depiction. It is here, however, I do have to admit I do not have a strong case for his twinkification, because of the fact that he is often written to be genderfluid or nonbinary, and its a very common headcanon to hold. That being said, he is still often robbed of his personality to be the traumatized, rich, twink who is alll the way down bad for one Remus Lupin. Even in his own fics he is often characterized as lazy, dumb, and only carrying the following personality traits; sarcastic, traumatized, skinny, and slutty waist (I am truly tired of hearing this phrase! I mean it! Stop sexualizing every part of a goddamn body you hornballs). This is all to say that; twinkification is not only about the body but also about the soul.

Moving on, however, to my much stronger evidence; Regulus Arcturus Black. Regulus has 0 canon appearances, on account of being dead, and has a few cameos of which only his memory is present. The only things we know are; he was a death eater because he was (as described by Sirius Black, his brother,) 'too soft' not to fall into the ideology his parents had picked out for him, he was a Slytherin, he was on the quidditch team and likely a seeker. There is a singular picture in the film adaptation that makes him appear, in my opinion, quite well built. However, when adapted into fandom many things are changed about him. He and his brother are implied to having been abused by their parents, causing Sirius to move out in the summer between 6th and 7th year (I could be wrong on this as the canon and fanon timelines have become muddled), something that canonically is often translated into physical abuse. Because of this Regulus is betrayed as the lesser willed sibling. While Sirius definetly has a fight response the the abuse in fanon, Regulus has a freeze or (more accurately) fawn reaction, which unfortunately leads people to portray him as weak (there is a lot to say about that and how this fandom in general views abuse victims, and as someone who is an abuse victim myself some of you guys really could benefit from, I dunno, logging off a while). He is often also portrayed as sarcastic, depressed and skinny which I must emphasize is more often than not a personality trait and not a descriptor. Because we don't know much about his canon personality there is no telling if this directly contradicts his canon self, but we do know that he was, for lack of better term, kinda evil. He was a death eater and only really stopped being one because Voldemort hurt his closest friend, a house elf named Kreature. Why do people do this though? The same reason people do anything in fandom - for the sake of a ship. A very popular fanon ship is Jegulus the ship between Regulus Black and James Potter. James in this instance is a jock, one of Sirius' friends and a (for lack of better term) Good Guy, TM. People like this dynamic because, you guessed it, poor gay sadboi gets rescued by Good Guy TM and the abusers die, or whatever, Regulus is stripped of his autonomy in his own choices because it's no fun if he actually chose anything because that would make him flawed and while fandom praises morally grey people they actually hate staring into the abyss and seeing anything relatively human staring back at them because then they are reminded that their black and white thinking will not help them brave the winter that is going outside and interacting with people. Moreover, Regulus is often stripped of an identity outside of Jegulus, his personhood being removed along with his autonomy so that he can be forever codependent on James, until death do them part. He is also often described as pretty in an almost feminine way, white, short and gay, with high cheekbones and gaunt cheeks and - fuck how many other ways can I say he's skinny? To get to my point, Regulus is twinkified by his autonomy and personhood being stripped away from him systemically to make room for fandom's favorite OTP. By taking away the bad things he's done, and then labeling him morally grey because he is mean but in a way that reminds people of their own high school bullies, we are stripping him of the things that make him him, and cutting him down to a borderline homophobic caricature of an 'evil twink.'

Finally, why do I think this happens? A lot of reasons. The shift in public perception from gay people being evil baby eating crossdressers to them being okay in most parts if America and Canada has also shifted how covertly homophobic people are allowed socially to talk about us. Because of this they have had to find sneakier ways to call us slurs, and have settled (or had settled, for a while) on twink. But, because straight people primarily control culture and therefore perception of us, the general reaction from gay and queer people was important. Hence the normalization of calling any gay man with a pulse a twink. But I think that has little to do with fandom and more to do with the general okay attitude towards it.

I also think it happens because of people's general want for that morally grey, but not in a too bad way, characters. They want that golden spot of getting someone who is mean and does kind of bad things like stealing and smoking cigarettes and calling them fags, but not someone whose actions they actually have to reckon with and actively try not to normalize. Basically it is really hard to defend racism, even if it's in a fictional setting.

Furthermore, I want to talk about peoples need for a sanitized type of queerness. A gay man who is feminine, but won't put on a dress because crossdressing is still generally weird and too gay right now and just not in. Someone who is sassy but not female because then it isn't gay. Someone who only breaks gender norms a little, because if they actually broke out of the box that is gender a lot of people would not be able to tuck themselves in at night knowing that characters in a fictionally setting are defying norms in a universe they are not a part of. Because, at the end of the day, it's cool to have 'deconstructed gender' until you have to confront how it has benefitted you, so to get around it? Strip characters that you want to be gay but not too gay into a caricature that you can see in any late 90's early aughts romcom/sitcom.

I am sorry that this took so long and also sorry for writing it. I am a yapper, and you asked, so really it's your fault (damn am I Regulus because the writer is stripping me from accountability with my own choices)

People who twinkify Regulus/Sirius and make James/Remus (respectively) big and strong haven't unpacked heteronormativity and still believe - maybe even subconsciously - that every relationship has a 'man' and a woman.' In this essay I will-

[fuck-you-upmusicbracket]

Sleep (My Chemical Romance)

A drink for the horror that I'm in/For the good guys and the bad guys/For the monsters that I've been/Three cheers for tyranny/Unapologetic apathy/'Cause there ain't no way that I'm coming back again

"OK THIS IS REALLY PERSONAL TO ME but I discovered this song during a Difficult Time Of My Life and I was dealing with suuuuuper bad insomnia. And I was having tons of nightmares when I DID sleep and was hallucinating almost constantly when I couldn't. So when I heard this song for the first time shit just clicked into place for me and it genuinely did help me sleep a bit better [and eventually I did get better & the hallucinations stopped!] but that intro, talking about night terrors, and the whole vibes through the song talking about The Horrors the character in the song is going through & just how hard shit is for them, like. Yeah relatable at the time HFHDJSDJ Also opening with pianos and then immediately going into guitars?? Amazing truly. 10/10. Not to mention the vocals it's all so mood"

Tongues and Teeth (The Crane Wives)

If you're fine with that you can be mine.... I WILL POISON ALL YOUR HAPPY THOUGHTS!/I WILL LOVE YOU LIKE THE ASHES IN MY CIGARETTE BOX!

I've grown a mouth so sharp and cruel/It's all that I can give to you, my dear/And when you come in quick to steal a kiss/My teeth will only cut your lips, my dear

And I know that you mean so well/But I am not a vessel for your good intent

"I quote the above passage."

"It sounds happy until you listen to the lyrics and then you're like. Oh"

"Can I submit The Crane Wives whole catalog? Just every song they've ever made? Tongues & Teeth is so good tho so I'll make it my flagship, its both so personal and so universal cause you can interpret it in so many ways to apply it to so many blorbos. I've applied it to 10 and it fits and hits different every time. Absolutely Iconic song."

Tongues and Teeth submitted by @they-thespian666 + others

[the-astronome]

Apparently unpopular opinion, but what I can judge from the screenshots we got today, the Capital is not just St. Petersburg, it’s more of a melange between St. Petersburg and Moscow. (Tbh, we got just one shot of the capital, so any opinion here is not really objective, but whatever)

Okay, so there is this:

My first thought was “wow is that inspired by Nevsky or by Tverskaya?”. (i. e. Nevsky Prospect in St. Petersburg and Tverskaya Street in Moscow). Consensus on Twitter is that this photo stinks of Nevsky vibes, however, I would like to point out several things, e. g. there are no sunny days in St Petersburg from architecture of the two Russian capitals to game design decisions made to create an atmosphere of a certain time period.

1) Architecture

I recall some people seeing the picture above and instantly suggesting Nevsky as an inspiration behind. I would like to point out, especially to the people who’d never been to either of the cities, that Moscow and St. Petersburg partly resemble each other (dear people of St. Petersburg - I know, sacrilegious of me to compare you with greedy Muscovites, no I’m not sorry).

Moscow is not only the Seven Sisters and modern skyscrapers. Petersburg is not only 200-300 y.o. buildings. Both cities underwent major changes during 19th and 20th centuries, both cities eventually adopted a somewhat similar style, a mix of late empire (1910s) and early soviet rule (1920s-1930s). Moreover, in many cases, these are even the same buildings, with a ground level from say 1913 and other floors from e.g. 1927. I’ll do you one better, if you compare historical districts of major cities of former Russian empire (e.g. Kyiv or Minsk), you’ll see the same thing. Yes, they’re not identical, but you can clearly see this specific architectural style of 1910-1920s.

Coming back to our screenshot above, I definitely can see Nevsky Prospect influence. However, when I saw those little decorative towers, they immediately reminded me of Tverskaya. I did some digging, and hey, there is actually something similar there:

Yes, not identical, but again, imo design of the Capital is done with goal to remind you of something you saw, not a copy, but close enough to understand the influence, to get the atmosphere of the city.

2) Historical aspect

Okay, from now on it’s my deluded gibberish, but hear me out. Considering the technologies presented in Pathologic (antibiotics, that massive ass artillery gun from P1 which honestly suspiciously looks like Schwerer Gustav), the game can be placed somewhere vaguely in 1920s-1930s. Taking into account what kind of language characters speak (for instance, Dankovsky speaks in a very specific manner, such Russian is more found in literature, than in actual spoken language. The same applies for most of the Utopians), lack of soviet-specific abbreviations and vocabulary, we can say that apparently October Revolution never happened. To be honest, Daniil wouldn’t survive the Revolution or early Soviet rule (read about repressions against intellectuals or the infamous Philosopher’s steamer)

You can argue: “but hey, isn’t Pathologic just a theatre play where such details don’t matter?”. Yes and no. Because it’s a theatre play, many otherwise important details are omitted. However, developers drop hints here and there, to set the tone and visually convey what kind of country and society they’re talking about. No offence to non-russian-speaking fans, but I’m still convinced that IPL still considers russian-speaking countries their primary audience. This leads to certain design choices, including architecture of the Capital.

In my opinion, IPL had to mix visuals of Moscow and St. Petersburg in order to convey a certain vibe. You see, since it’s somewhat suggested that revolution didn’t happen, developers have to utilise aesthetics of 1910s culture to show that we are talking about “Russia” from works of Gorky, Chekhov, and Bunin. At the same time, IPL have to add elements of early soviet culture, so the game world doesn’t look like weird 1910s with antibiotics and far too much advanced technologies.

How’s that connected to the Capital? Russian capital in late empire was St. Petersburg. In later years - Moscow. Moreover, if we are talking about Dankovsky as a character, his design (among other things) is heavily influenced by works of Bulgakov. But in Russian mindset Bulgakov is tightly associated with 1920s Moscow, you just can’t escape it. So, consequently, IPL decide not to sacrifice one for another, and just mix the two capitals, stylistically, in order to create the desired impression on the player.

We’ll see if all that is at least partially true from P3. Hopefully, even from the upcoming demo.

[robin-evry]

Hei can you write about firefly!yuu ..?

Sorry for being offline for so long, it's Christmas break and I'm enjoying my holiday so I'm very sorry for the long wait as well uploading slowly •́⁠ ⁠ ⁠‿⁠ ⁠,⁠•̀

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐅 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐅𝐋𝐘 𝐘𝐔𝐔 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐖𝐒𝐓

A member of the Stellaron Hunters, clad in a set of mechanized armor known as "SAM." Her character is marked by unwavering loyalty and steely resolve. Engineered as a weapon against the Swarm, she experiences accelerated growth, but a tragically shortened lifespan. She joined the Stellaron Hunters in a quest for a chance at "life," seeking to defy her fated demise.

Originally appeared as a normal student, no one originally knows about their true identity, they are rarely in their SAM armor since they find no reason to released it yet...

Enjoy their time in twst by eating sweets and the food in the school, the first years are impressed on how much firefly!Yuu can eat them, as well as their trey taste tester for new desserts.

Sometimes when no one is looking firefly!yuu would use their armor as a stove to cook their food in ramshackle.

During riddles overblot, a mysterious metal armor appears plunging it's way towards the middle ( firefly skill )of the battle and this after effect manages to disaggregate everything around the heartslabyul garden leaving everything on fire and nothing but ashes, they even manage to burn the overblot that was covering riddle and causing riddle to have a second degree burn.

Soon this metal armor person started to appear during overblot battles and ended it in seconds, many rumors about it becoming a popular topic for the school trying to figure out who's under the armor meanwhile sit in quite pretending nothing happened.

During the Octavinelle chapter firefly!yuu actually have some problems fighting since it is full of water but they manage to push thru not without their armor fully drenched in water and malfunctioning so they have to dry it for one week during which they are unable to use it.

Firefly!yuu would occasionally drop by the ignihyde dorm to steal some equipment so they can enhance and fix their armor, they befriend an ignihyde student so they have zero suspicion why they are there, most ignihyde student believe they are visiting the student or just chilling there and they are fine with it.

During their transformation they would usually fly super high to make sure no one sees them transform and then plunge down creating a crater and impact full fire applying fire damage towards the enemy.

No one has ever suspected firefly!yuu being the metal armor vigilante that only appears during over blot battles, many students have theories who ever were behind the metal armor teachers, students and many more.

The only one that knows is grim and he almost let out the secret multiple times due to many slip ups but many believe it was just him faking it or firefly!yuu appear before he could say anything.

During the battle in savanaclaw, when everyone was busy focusing on Leona firefly!yuu plunge them using their armor to fight, that plunge when landing manage to turn the sand around the area to liquid glass instantly due to how hot their armor was.

Outside the armor firefly!yuu is very experienced in combat, they were a trained soldier as well as having the skill in swordmanship, they manage to knock down multiple students in hand to hand combat without a sweat. This action manages to earn the respect of many students as well as followers if you say.

One time, when Lilia was delivering that Christmas card towards them, he invited them towards a sparring training in dismonia since he's very curious about their combat style.

No surprise firefly!yuu manage to knock down sebek and silver with ease, Lilia made a comment about them having experience in battle as if they were a soldier before and it manages to firefly!yuu to act nervous which caught Lilia's suspicion. Soon he started to have suspicion about firefly!yuu since the combat style of them and metal armor is similar.

Their identity hasn't been revealed until the ignihyde chapter, where the overblot groups were captured by STYX in captivity. Originally firefly!yuu denied to go to the island of woes but they were secretly tailing rook and epel behind them, they were flying much higher than them to the point for them unable to spot them.

They want to rescue grim that disappear mysteriously and they believe STYX has held him captive and when they arrive at the facility, All hell break lose

They attack the facility releasing intense heat in it, as well defeating many of the androids and security guards in it with ease. Scorching everything in its path they won't stop until they find their friend.

They reveal themselves after being confronted by the pomifiore group, the entire group was shocked and was unable to speak but there's no time since many overblots monsters have broken out and now are free.

Firefly!yuu has managed to destroy 3/4 of the monsters inside since there's no stopping them, they immediately split from the pomifiore group since they were still looking for grim.

After the chaos was over and idia overblot has been neutralized, and they soon return to NRC and firefly!yuu was taken immediately for questioning by the staff and dorm leaders.

They confess everything about them being the metal armor vigilante in the school, as well about their past being a soldier to defeat the swarm disaster in their universe as well about their illness Entropy Loss Syndrome about their will to live much longer.

Idia after the incident grow fear around them as well a little disdain towards them due to the amounts of damage they cause in the STYX Facility but decide to let it go for now and focus on the new task.

Which is to study their metal armor, for some reason the fire that the SAM armor produces has immense destruction power enough to burn anything on its path even overblot aren't enough to hold against the fire quickly disintegrated into ashes.

Even before their identity was revealed idia and the STYX organization have interest in studying SAM technology as well armor to improve their own androids.

After their secret comes out, many students see them as like a hero from the comics and manage to gain a fan club of many students wanting to meet the metal armor and now they approach firefly!yuu and gush how cool they were and asking for autographs even the first years are amaze by them.

Vil once asked firefly!yuu to do a favor for him, he wishes to make an action movie with the film making club as a small project and it becomes a big hit and soon many comics about firefly!yuu appear and many studios wish to recruit firefly!yuu to make a movie. By far firefly!yuu haven't made an answer.

Sometimes during spring breaks or any free time, firefly!yuu would travel into a cafe or bakery to try their desserts. They even manage to become a regular at treys family bakery.

[nochd]

The Left and Right and everyone else are doing the same thing they have always done: treating their enemies as enemies.

I was a bullied kid at school, because I was autistic and bisexual (the first of which I'd never heard of and the second I was in denial about), but also, very explicitly, because I was a convinced Evangelical Christian and I did what I had been taught was my Christian duty and tried in the best ways I knew to bring the Gospel to my friends and schoolmates so that if they were killed in a car crash and went to Hell it wouldn't be my fault for not saying anything.

(Most of the other Christian kids seemed to be able to compartmentalize away that side of our beliefs when they left Christian spaces; but, like I said, autistic.)

Back then I genuinely thought Christians were kinder and better people than anyone else; they were, after all, kinder and better to me. We were taught that "The World" hated us because they hated God, and I thought that was what I was seeing when they would mock my attempts to evangelize.

Then at age 20 or so I left Evangelical Christianity. And strange to say, instantly there were hostile Evangelicals everywhere. Members of my former church, people I'd known as friends, followed me down the street haranguing me about my salvation. Suddenly Christians were the horrible people and the non-religious were the nice ones.

I remember one year the president of our students' association joked about a new Pagan student club that "Personally I think they should all be burned at the stake," which obviously the Pagan students weren't happy about. Many times I heard people say "Imagine if someone said that about Christians -- there'd be an outcry!"

I remember this because it was an epiphany. I knew from long experience that what actually happens when people say things like that about Christians is that the Christians all sit around going "Imagine if someone said that about Muslims -- there'd be an outcry!" And I realized, as I never had before, that what mostly makes one piece of hostility or disrespect more or less tolerable than another is which end of it you're on.

Leftists gasp at "Your body, my choice", but laugh off "Eat the rich" as clearly not serious and only designed to grind the Right's gears and have a bit of a laugh. Rightists, vice versa.

I had another epiphany from an even more trivial source. Of all things, it was a Game of Thrones shipping war when I was on tumblr as "veryrarelystable" about six or seven years ago. Someone said, in full seriousness, "Jonsa shippers don't abuse and threaten others. Only Jonaerys shippers do that."

I was already so fed up with this shit clogging my dash that I imagined myself yelling in their ear (with a megaphone that I imagined having bought specifically for the purpose), "Your own side doesn't abuse or threaten you, but that's not because they don't abuse or threaten anyone, it's because you're on their side."

And I suddenly saw that this applied to every dispute, everywhere, over things vastly more serious than which fantasy TV character pairing was going to end up fucking.

Leftists are not more virtuous people than rightists any more than Evangelical Christians are more virtuous people than atheists. Leftists see kindness coming from the Left and violence from the Right because the Left are their friends and the Right their enemies. Rightists see kindness coming from the Right and violence from the Left because the Right are their friends and the Left their enemies.

There's also a lot of infighting and accusations of treason on both sides, but you get that when the moral stakes are high.

The Left are not "better than this" and never have been.

And knowing all this, I still vote Left and promote Left causes. That's because climate change is real and will destroy us all if it isn't stopped. It's because the after-effects of colonization and slavery are still hurting people. It's because the market can't be trusted to set fair wages. It's because corporate power makes everything worse if it's not put in check. It's because diversity in gender and sexuality does no harm, whereas treating it as a problem that needs fixing does massive harm.

It's because, on nearly all the big and urgent issues, the Left's position is closer to being factually correct; from which it follows that the Left's solutions are more likely to work and hence make life better for people.

That is what matters.

i feel like i’m going insane watching leftists have literally zero consistent morals

[1244950]

Superman x Transformers concept

Clark Kent, also known as the Man of Steel, is arguably considered one of the most important fictional characters in all superhero media. The Man of Steel has crossed over with many properties from He-Man to Marvel, all crafting intricate tales incorporating Superman, but Superman, as a character, can cross over so well with Transformers. If you had any other superhero, it wouldn't fit as well, and if you had multiple superheroes cross over, it would feel too bloated. But Superman could insert so well into a variety of Transformers stories and potentially be one of the best human characters in the franchise.

Clark Kent could, if not relate to all of the Autobots, spanning multiple continuities from the most obscure transformer to a prominent cast member. Superman can connect with and have chemistry with every bot. Optimus Prime, for one, is the go-to Autobot that Clark could connect the most with. Both share the ideals of being a symbol of hope for your kind and just leading in general. Prowl is an Autobot Clark would also connect with just because of Prowl's similarities to Batman. He would respect his actions but also try to reach out because, similar to Batman, Prowl tends to isolate, and the list can go on and on. Clark is someone who, at the end of the day, can inspire anyone to be the best possible versions of themselves, and it wouldn't be highly out of character if Clark was able to convert a few Decepticons back over to the Autobots depending on the continuity. It would be a walk in the park for Superman to convince characters such as IDW Thundercracker, TFP Knockout, and even IDW Megatron.

His power levels should be discussed since Superman is one of the most powerful superheroes ever. If you want to put Superman in this universe, a big argument is that he's just too powerful. However, putting a regular version of Superman in any Transformers world, there are various factors that could ensure Superman would be on the same level as a normal cybertronian. For example, blaster fire from a cybertronian could act like a kryptonite, actually making him take damage; different types of Energon could weaken Clark. Clark's morals would also prohibit him from doing any real damage to the Decepticons, and usually, many villains in DC take advantage of this. Big-hitting Decepticons are no pushover, especially Megatron himself. I don't see a regular version of Superman easily beating Megatron without backup or help, not to mention cybertronians can be very durable, so Clark wouldn't be able to punch through them.

Inserting Superman into the Transformers can go about differently and would be easier if he were the only superhero on Earth. If it were in TFP! Superman could have a position similar to Agent Fowler. However, Clark would be a neutral party working to establish relationships between Earth and Cybertronians. Being an alien but living amongst humans, Superman could act as an ambassador. The same could be applied to IDW. Superman would definitely have a problem with Optimus annexing Earth without Earth's consent but would still work with Optimus to establish a relationship. Bayverse would be the same, but a significant conflict could arise with Superman learning the humans have been secretly hunting the Cybertronians.

This could also breed a lot of conflict and hurt Superman's status as a hero and a citizen of Earth in general. For one, Superman choosing to side with these robots instead of them could hurt much of the human population. They have to be able to convince world leaders that the Autobots are good and different from the Decepticons.

Anyway, ramble over. I just had to yap.

[classygreydove]

Read a comment bashing lwj...

This is a very long rant about why I love lan wangji's character and why I think his behavior towards Wei Wuxian pre-sunshot campaign make sense. Some events I talk about might be out of order, because I'm rambling. Spoilers for scenes from Audio drama, cdrama, and the other mdzs canons.

So I accidentally read a comment bashing lwj and it made me so mad. Mostly because I found it incredibly inaccurate in interpreting his actions and his relationship with WWX. I can understand not liking LWJ just because his personality isn't one everyone would click with, but hating on him for inaccurate assessment of his character?! It feels like an injustice. So I'm going to share why his character is so fascinating to me, and why his actions make sense.

LWJ is one of my favorite characters for a reason, and there's a reason WWX likes this guy. Was LWJ's behavior as a teen towards wwx dumb? Yes. He was a teenager, lashing out because he had all these feelings and he was scared of being like his parents and scared of the idea that the things he'd been taught about the world was wrong, and he was angry because he couldn't control anything or make it align with that worldview, and he was so full of attraction and fascination and desire that frightened him, because the world and his clan had taught him it was wrong. And it was all happening because of this beautiful, bright boy, who wouldn't obey any of the rules LWJ had been taught made someone "good", but who was somehow so good anyway (which he learns from the Waterborne Abyss incident, when WWX rescues Su She). LWJ has been thrown into a hormonal, existential chaos.

He's never learned to communicate because he's never had a single friend in his life, and he hadn't had anyone to teach him all the ways love could be good, could be healthy, could be a blessing. Only that it was a sin, and that he was bad to have those feelings. He hadn't had anyone to teach him how to manage his emotions in a healthy way, or how to trust his own sense of right and wrong even over what others told him.

And here's this boy, who laughs at, disregards, disrespects LWJ's home and the wisdom he's been taught to look up to all his life. His clan's history and methods. And he's so beautiful, but it feels like this boy is laughing at him. And this boy is so charming, and every time he flirts or is friendly he must be making fun of LWJ because no one has ever teased him like this, or treated him in such a friendly way. Of course WWX doesn't actually want to be friends, or isn't really flirting. He has so many other friends, why would he want to be friends with LWJ? He just wants to get out of punishment, or be entertained. And he likes girls, so of course his flirting with LWJ is only to make fun.

And LWJ feels so vulnerable when WWX flirts, because he wants WWX to look at him and call him handsome, and maybe he's scared WWX sees that. So of course he's going to ignore him, avoid him. Of course he's going to respond with "Shameless!" and "Boring!" He thinks WWX is making fun of him. He thinks WWX is going to hurt him, if LWJ softens. And these emotions are so strong. What if they grow out of control, to the point his love becomes something that poisons, stifles, or hurts? That's a recipe for textbook anxious avoidant attachment style right there (I would know lol i am also this way).

And No wonder he reacted so strongly to the spring book prank. I think bro felt terrified/furious WWX had perceived, in some way, his own desires. And thought WWX was making fun of him. To me, this hits a lot more strongly in the cdrama, especially as the spring book cdrama!WWX used was of the cut-sleeve variety.

And when WWX knocks him over the wall, so sure LWJ will reveal that he's just like the rest of GusuLan, who just want to have rules to feel morally superior over others, enforcing them selectively but not applying them if it suits them (see: LQR) LWJ is determined to prove him wrong, and takes punishment along WWX for being outside the walls after curfew. And here's where WWX's (more negative) opinion of LWJ's character begins to change. He sees that LWJ is genuine in his desire to do good, to be morally righteous. And that makes LWJ stand out against so much of the rest of the cultivation world.

But LWJ still thinks WWX is teasing him maliciously, even when WWX announces that his opinion of LWJ has changed and he wants to be friends. LWJ is still heavily on guard, and again, WWX is approaching him when LWJ feels very vulnerable, given he's undressed in the cold spring, and WWX is also getting undressed in the cold spring. And then WWX says he'll introduce LWJ to girls. Again: he's vulnerable, feeling wrong, feeling made fun of, so he pulls away.

I don't think LWJ really starts to let down his guard until after WWX brings him the rabbits as a gift. Because WWX brought them, and even if he felt vulnerable and teased during that exchange, they were still a gift, proof that WWX had thought of him outside of just their exchanges during WWX's punishment. It is a much kinder feeling of being perceived than the spring book was.

And then WWX is kicked out of lectures, and LWJ doesn't see him again until indoctrination, but even though he was hoping-not-hoping with WWX gone the feelings would fade, instead he writes a love song because he can't get WWX out of his head. All his pulling away and guarding himself seems to be for naught. In the audio drama (the lotus seed pod extra) he even goes to a lotus pond to pick the seed pods with the stems attached because he missed WWX and was thinking about the things he'd shared about his home. He wanted to know about the things WWX liked, the things WWX experienced in his home, even if he wasn't brave enough to go to Lotus Pier directly. [EDIT: It was pointed out that this extra appeared first in the novel.]

And then there's the Discussion Conference, where WWX pulls off LWJ's forehead ribbon. I imagine this event caused LWJ to feel humiliated, ashamed, angry, (and even more horrifyingly to LWJ, pleased on some level that it was WWX) and exposed in front of the entire cultivation society. It might not "seem like a big deal" to a lot of fans because to us it's just a strip of fabric no matter how symbolic, but in this case it is very important that we imagine the gravity of this to understand where LWJ is coming from. For better understanding I would compare it to a lot of modern spiritual practices that use clothing in similar symbolic ways, and we would never want to disrespect someone by disrespecting that clothing, even if it is not a practice we personally follow. And WWX pulling the ribbon off in front of pretty much everyone (many of whom went to lectures at Cloud Recesses), including LWJ's own clan, who understand perfectly what it meant that WWX did that? Mortifying. And then his own clan reassures him that "it doesn't count" because WWX is a man, which must have been really invalidating to LWJ in its own way. So any progress on the friendship front/ideas of softening his guard on LWJ's part is gone. Toast.

And then his home has been burnt to the ground, his brother in hiding, and his leg broken. It's no surprise he's going to spurn WWX at indoctrination. He's grieving, stressed out more than he's ever been, in so much pain. LWJ probably feels really overwhelmed, overstimulated, and unsafe. He just cannot deal with All the Emotions About Wei Wuxian on top of that, and how would he even begin to tell WWX what had happened? He'd prefer to just avoid, avoid, avoid. (In the cdrama, I think he's also trying to distance himself so WWX won't draw the attention of WC.) And when WWX flirts with Mianmian, LWJ has had it up to here. He has no idea WWX is just trying to get medicine for him. And when WWX wants to carry him, the last thing LWJ probably wants is to be vulnerable with wwx in this very unsafe situation, where the Wens are constantly looking for weakness. So he brushes him off.

Then in the cave, LWJ is one of the first (along with JZX to resist the Wens and protect Mianmian. And then he stays behind with WWX and pushes him out of the way of the Xuanwu to get bitten instead. That speaks volumes about his character.

And then there's the whole debacle where LWJ is furious about the branding scar. I know he's of course jealous about the whole Mianmian thing, and WWX trying to lighten the mood/distract LWJ the way he distracts the Jiang siblings by going on about being a dashing hero protecting a maiden, but that just pisses LWJ off more, and I believe it's because LWJ is mad that WWX is treating the matter so lightly, because to him, love and devotion and self-sacrifically pushing people out of the way of danger is so powerful it feels like he's drowning, and WWX is over here like "haha she'll always remember me isn't that nice" and "it doesn't matter that i got hurt because it would have hurt her worse bc of beauty/reputation/the consequences of a woman losing her beauty" (which, kudos to WWX for understanding the ways women are affected by patriarchy, and beauty as a form of power/a tool for a future)

But LWJ is over here, viciously reminded he's not special and WWX would help and flirt with anyone and (seemingly) not think twice about it. Another thought process he could be having could be: but you got hurt. and that is unacceptable, and I hate that you're trying to say it like it is acceptable, bc it's like you don't care, and I care so much it feels like it could kill me. (I'm extrapolating a bit about this thought process here, but it seems plausible enough to me)

And then there's the whole thing where earlier WWX had made LWJ gay-panic hard enough to spit up blood, and then promptly reassured him he doesn't like guys. LWJ didn't need this on top of all the stress, and WWX just took off his headband to make a splint again, and so its presence isn't there to press him into restraint, and now the Mianmian thing, all the stress and adrenaline just come crashing down and bro just can't take it anymore and bites WWX bc maybe he he's mad that WWX has made the impact of a meteor strike in his life and it seems like WWX doesn't take more than a passing thought to those he impacts so deeply. So in all his deep and torrential emotions, bro is just like "I'll make you remember, even just a little bit, the way I remember you." I think in any other circumstance, LWJ wouldn't have lashed out in this way. It took so much for him to reach this point. Should he have bitten WWX? No. Do I understand why he did? Yeah.

And then LWJ tells WWX about Cloud Recesses and cries, for obvious reasons.

And so to call his behavior "abuse" towards WWX at any point in this timeline makes literally no sense at all (though unfortunately that was what the comment called it), and it tore me up to think about it. This is a very long post, and I have a lot to say about LWJ's actions during and post sunshot, but I'm tired so I'll just leave this here. Feel free to share your insights and what you love about LWJ's character. Also, if you have fic recs for favorite LWJ characterizations, please share! I'd love to read them.

TL;DR - Lwj's behavior and treatment of WWX pre-sunshot makes sense in context of his pov. He's flawed, but that's what makes him such a great character, and I love him for good reason.

[gtwscratch]

Ok so I got a few questions about your au, mainly:

Will there be shiny duo

Are any other groups going to be important? Like, teams from the life series?

If you were to put all the characters on a list of least trauma to most trauma, who would go where

Ooo I love questions!!

1.) Yes-ish. I haven’t thought too much on them, but Gem’s presence keeps Pearl calm during more intense testing.

2.) I wouldn’t say that certain groups are super important to the plot? Maybe one or two, but not all of them. I’m taking relationships and dynamics from different series and applying them to the AU bc there are just so many that I enjoy. For example, Lizzie’s closest to Joel, Jimmy, and Scar (Wild Life), but Jimmy and Tango will also find comfort in each other (Double Life).

3.) Man, I honestly have no idea. I haven’t gotten to really flesh out everyone’s trauma, but Joel will be up there I think. Possibly also Tango.

[grumpchump]

Adding the full yap because a few people asked for it !

(no fast pass spoilers, I'm not caught up yet anyway!)

I feel like this theme applies to almost every character in the main cast.

First of all, we all know that one of Chase's biggest aspirations is to be a famous singer, even though nobody in his life really thinks he can do it. He seems perfectly aware of this. He knows that everyone thinks his dream is impossible, and maybe part of him thinks the same thing, but he just doesn't care. He's still extremely determined to realize his goals despite what everyone thinks of him.

Buddy especially doesn't think very highly of him (at first!)- throughout a good portion of the season, he constantly assumes Chase is going to give up the stories as soon as they get hard. But as Chase says in Sick Day, it's not his style to give up. He is so much more than what a lot of people expect him to turn out to be and he's so cool and I love him so bad

This applies to Buddy pretty obviously too. He's meant to be a cold and ruthless villain, and he certainly does try to be that. He's tough and more than a little mean at times, but we can see pretty consistently that he isn't as heartless as he might want people (Chase) to think. Even from the beginning when he's determined to antagonize Chase and get his key, he drops hints and helps him to finish the stories.

I always thought the scene in the Cinderfella arc where he tells Chase that he can eat the storybook food was really interesting. Like, he has no incentive to do that. He has no reason not to sit by and watch Chase suffer wanting to eat the desserts. But instead he does this small act that is, whether intentionally or not, actually kinda nice of him. It's just another small moment that shows that the villain persona people expect of him isn't really all that he is.

(This is a smaller thing, but I think with his exterior and how he acts in the books, we kind of expect him to be cunning and hard-working. I believe Punko said in a Q&A that in his free time he's actually an extremely lazy person, contrary to how we usually see him. I'm just mentioning that because I think it's funny and I love him a lot.)

Deacon is an extremely complex character with so many layers that I honestly am still grappling with, this guy's really cool.

A lot of his struggles are with the expectations placed on him. We know his whole life and career have been planned out for him by his parents. There's constantly a lot of pressure on him to work hard at this path that has been chosen for him, but in reality, he doesn't want any of it. My man just wants to read his shitty fantasy novels and chill with horses, give him a break !!

He's also constantly trying to defy his role as the helper key (specifically in Sick Day and The Book of Deacon). I think it's really interesting how he struggles to accept his role. Chase and Buddy don't actively try not to be the hero and the villain, they just naturally are more morally grey with it. Deacon, on the other hand, is almost a little desperate to go beyond being a helper and fall into another alignment, acting carelessly and causing trouble because of it. And the thing is, it makes perfect sense why he'd do it.

Books are very much a source of escapism for him. Actually getting to LIVE OUT the books is extremely exciting. Inside the books, he has a chance to escape his parents' expectations- being the helper, though, he just feels like he has a new set of expectations placed on him. Once he actually gets to be the hero in The Book of Deacon, he learns that this role is just as tough- again, he's trading one set of expectations for another. There's really no winning for this man lol. but im getting a little off topic here.

What Deacon needs is to reject the expectations his parents have placed on him and do what will make him truly happy. We can see how Buddy and Chase sort of naturally deviate from their expectations just through being themselves, but Deacon is still struggling in this process. Deacon is struggling to be himself in the way Buddy and Chase do.

There is still that level of acceptance he needs to have for his current situation though, specially in his helper role. He's still struggling to grasp all that being a helper means and how it's still just as important a role to take on as the hero or villain. He needs to find a way to balance his responsibilities and his happiness.

In Prunella's case, it's a bit harder to say- as of Friends and Family, we haven't gotten to spend as much time with her as the boys, so we're still learning more about her. I think the irony of this little girl getting to play the role of the big strong hero is sort of a subversion of expectations in itself lol.

We've also seen her upbringing. We've seen her mom. We've seen her house. It's a big awesome fairytale mess, and she doesn't really fit into it at all- being more into wilderness survival, she's not really what most people would assume her to be when they see her home life. Nothing wrong with that of course, just worth mentioning. We also learn in Friends and Family that she's very advanced for her age- she's extremely smart and probably a lot more understanding and level-headed about all the key business than I think a lot of other kids would be. I'd say she deviates from what a lot of people would expect of a child her age.

I'd love to hear if anyone has any other thoughts about her character !! I like her a lot and I'm excited to get to know more of her in the story :)

I wanna touch on the Keys last, specifically Silver. This part will be more speculation, so take it with a grain of salt.

In line with the theory about Silver possibly betraying Chase, this theme would apply perfectly. The way we've gotten to know Silver, she's extremely sweet and caring. She acts very selflessly for her family and friends and is eager to lend Chase a helping hand in saving his mom.

What we need to remember is that her first priority is to take care of her family. Helping Chase with his thing is definitely a means to reunite everyone (since he'll need all 12 keys to make his wish anyway), but it may not feel like she's doing enough. Helping her family and taking care of the Keys is her ultimate goal. If she's the heroine of her story, it makes perfect sense that she would take whatever actions necessary to do this.

The problem is, Cinderella Boy follows CHASE as the protagonist. We're rooting for Chase to evade Ex Libris, collect the keys, and save his mom. From this perspective, Silver betraying Chase, going behind his back, etc. would technically be an antagonistic action.

Am I saying that makes her a villainess? No, I really don't think so. But we've come to know Silver as a kind, supporting force for Chase. All I'm saying is, if she really were going behind Chase's back in some way (referring specifically to the letter she writes to Violet at the end of Friends and Family), it would absolutely subvert ours and Chase's expectations of her. It would line up with the theme of defying these expectations.

This theme is another of the many reasons why the Beach Boys arc is so important.

Circling back to Chase and Buddy, the core relationship at the center of the story- up until this point, Chase and Buddy have not cooperated with each other. Just a few episodes ago was the Toffee Break arc, where Buddy was an absolute menace and Chase straight got him thrown off a boat, lol.

But then Chase sees Buddy struggling to light a fire, and he does something unexpected. Even though he and Buddy have spent pretty much every moment together as rivals, he offers Buddy a tip on how to start the fire. He completely subverts what we've come to expect of their relationship. And then Buddy does something even more unexpected by returning the gesture and sharing his fish.

They're meant to be the hero and the villain- complete antagonists to one another. But in this moment they both choose to defy their expected roles and share a small, nice moment.

Later, Chase offers to help Buddy get out of the dangerous situation he's living in, and Buddy assumes he's lying. He doesn't expect Chase to be genuine about it. But like he says in Beach Boys (VI), Chase gets mad at him for doing the same thing, and he realizes he's been wrong about Chase maybe the whole time. Chase is not at all like Buddy expected him to be.

I think the point Chase makes in this episode about their roles as the hero and the villain is extremely important to the story as a whole. Buddy is meant to be the villain, so he's supposed to be a horrible person. Chase is meant to be the hero, so he's supposed to be patient and forgiving. But Chase says it himself- he doesn't care about that. He isn't the perfect protagonist we might expect him to be. He's an extremely kind and good person, yes, but he also has no trouble standing his ground and acting the way HE wants to, despite what everyone thinks of him. And Buddy, while harsh and standoffish, has plenty of moments that showcase how he's actually quite a caring person when he starts to let down his guard around someone.

Hell, even the entire concept of Cinderella Boy as a whole is kind of a subversion of expectations in itself!!!! A boy finds a magical artifact that lets him enter and play out any story he uses it on, but, ironically, he always has to be the princess?? it's amazing i love it

Cinderella Boy shows us consistently that nobody is stuck playing the role everyone expects them to. Nobody is bound to the perceptions that other people have of them, and everyone is free to defy these expectations and be the person they want to be. Chase says it best in Beach Boys (IV): "Nobody should have to accept being the villain if they're trying their best not to be."

To rap up my yap session, Cinderella Boy is a narrative about defying expectations and other people's perceptions of you and being a person of your choosing and everyone should go reread it one billion more times !!!!!!

shout-out to Cinderella Boy and its ongoing theme of defying the expectations everyone has for you and being more than your roots and upbringing, gotta be one of my favorite genders fr

[trulycertain]

I did not expect to like Taash nearly as much as I did, though I'm aware "large and gruff" is my favourite character type. I really like the way that matter-of-factness applies to all the aspects of them: I loved them simply telling Bellara when she was down, "I want you to be happy", rather than couching it in platitudes. Also, I tend to have way more patience for prickliness in characters than a lot of fans I know, so my gauge is broken. They admit a lot of the closedoffness is awkwardness, fear and Qunari cultural norms. (Unlike in other series entries, Veilguard's characters mostly tell you their whole deal, which is refreshingly mature but means the whole cast are being disgustingly honest with each other. Taash is the nearest we get to the "Care about things, me, nooo" of Zev, Morrigan, Isabela, sometimes-Dorian or DAA Anders, but that's still less intentional obfuscation than not knowing them as well. Even so, I approve of the fact they're an onion and it takes a bit to peel them.)

Yes, they're abrasive when you first meet them. They've been shipped off to join the Veilguard against their will, they're most likely fresh from a debate with their overbearing, arguably emotionally abusive mother, and you come and interrupt them in the middle of a tricky mission while they try not to get you both killed.

They're shit to Emmrich at first, but they do work on it and try to find common ground with him, and admit their grumpiness came from fear. Also, he did keep asking about their mum with admiration - no wonder that was a sore spot. (An older scholar lecturing them, chastising them for their impulsivity and lack of respect for tradition... I adore Emmrich and think he's unequivocally the kindest guy in the cast, but after Taash's difficult experiences with their mother, it's no wonder they found that horribly familiar.) They get pissed-off with Neve because she's "better at" femininity, but they're ashamed, they admit why and take the olive branch she offers. They worry about getting Harding a good gift. They feed birds and worry about a stranded poet. They may ask about Crow myths, but they clearly respect and admire Lucanis' skills and tell him so. They make their mum dinner and try to level, to share, with her even though they're pissed-off and terrified.

Later in their dialogue, it becomes especially obvious that they're working really hard on being kind - they intend to be, they just misstep as they learn. Shathaan was... distant. The Lords looked after them but couched a lot of it in brusqueness, stabbing and humour. They have no idea what to do with kindness and being told they're just fine as they are (one of my favourite character tropes: see also Alistair, Sera, Isabela, Dorian). They think they're doomed to ruin everything they touch and while they loved the Lords, you get the sense they've never had this many close friends (other than maybe Isabela's mentorship and the poet they bonded with) and they're really glad of it. As said: I like that they love with as much bluntness.

Much like with Krem, I think some of the dialogue in Taash's story was clumsy, but other bits felt very true to friends I've had and my own relationship with femininity, and as said, I was surprised to realise I had grown very fond of them by halfway through. (Well-intentioned awkward social issue inclusion is nothing new for BioWare, and it's never just about terminology - people seem to write off Taash's whole personality without giving them a chance. I don't think they're any harder to like than Morrigan, Sera, Vivienne, Solas, or Davrin, all of whom have fans.) Their excitement about dragons and their awe about Crows are genuine and sweet. Also they make me cackle more than any other companion save maybe Lucanis. That'll buy you a lot of points with me.

[nestastits]

Bold of you to be anti Tamlin while loving someone like rhySAnd…

I never understood yall cause you’ll scream “rhys did just as many bad things as tamlin!” Then the moment someone agrees rhys and tamlin both did bad things it’s turned into a morally right contest and somehow tamlin (the one character in the book who sjm wrote as and acknowledges is a domestic abuser) is the better male for Feyre (his victim) and rhys (the one sjm- the author of these books- wrote to be Feyre’s savior and match in souls) is a manipulative valg prince who m0le$ted Feyre into being his puppet… I honestly don’t know where yall got that idea from lmao

It’s always the utm argument and yeah what rhys did was bad and people are allowed to be upset, but it’s written in the books how he apologized and hated himself for how he treated Feyre utm (even though his plan did help her) and Feyre herself forgave him and even admits to being attracted to him from the moment she first met him. But when Feyre says that, yall say it’s because rhys has fried her brain cells into evilness (legit have seen this commented on a post before) but again people in this fandom only have feminism for the characters they like or the characters that like their personal favs.

And from someone who was reading these books while they were still releasing (before acofas was even out) I’ll tell you utm was not considered sa then like it is now and it’s because of more and more people joining the fandom who scream they’re “woke” when in reality they just like their fav character and make everyone else an abuser to that fav and use woke terms to defend their (shitty) fav with their (shitty) takes. Idk but if you’re upset about something that has been written to obviously be a morally grey fantasy book plot- that should have NO MODERN DAY STANDARDS APPLIED to it- fantasy books aren’t for you. Return acotar back to the bookstore now pls.

1: rhys is a fictional character. tamlin is a fictional character. Like them or don’t like them that’s up to you but stop harassing others for having a different opinion.

2: if any of the anti side understood the way books are meant to be read/enjoyed we wouldn’t have this entire anti vs pro war going on right now because people would actually like the protagonists (Feyre/nesta/elain/rhys/rest of ic) and dislike the antagonists (Beron/hybern/amarantha/tamlin because yes he was written to be an antagonistic character from acomaf and onwards) like how they are supposed to when you read fantasy. But no unfortunately 95% of this fandom doesn’t read the books properly :((

3: this is entirely my opinion but Tamlin has the personality of a wet sock and his hair grease can be used as lube because of how much he has. I never liked him from the beginning so no rhys is not manipulating my feelings about this.

4: I’ll love Rhys however and how loudly I wanna love him

[the-100-days-of-junkan]

Day 82

Another one that I love!~ Gonna be a lot of those from here on if you couldn’t tell!

Junko’s the Ultimate Fashionista (in the english release at least but hey Ultimate Gyaru has to have a little crossover right??), so of course she handles Mikan’s wardrobe the moment she’s allowed to. So . . . Extremely cute scene of her having Mikan try out clothes to see what she does and doesn’t like. 

An opportunity for Junko to pamper Mikan, AND i get to draw Mikan in a sweater???? Heaven. Also like are we all in agreement that sweaters just look fuckin amazing on Mikan?? Like I admit, I think I just like drawing Sweaters on Mikan but they just make her look so much cuter because of how god damn cozy she looks in em. 

Unfortunately that’s all I have to talk about for that topic? I think? So instead let’s shift over to a recent development involving Junkan!

I’m in the midst of working on the Junkan Christmas Eve comic, which hopefully will be getting posted on time a few days after this, and during the process of making there’s been something new with my current abilities.

I have officially hit the point of proper freehanding on these two.

Y’see this probably won’t make too much sense but i’ll do my best to explain. 

So normally when it comes to sketches I’ve done things a bit less proper compared to more professional artists. I usually get a little start on the anatomy, and then just start sketching all the character details and moving out from there. It isn’t often that I do a full sketch for the basic anatomy of a character, I only do it when I really wanna not fuck up a pose. And as you also know up till now only one piece in this event was drawn normally. Everything else is a sketch that i cleaned up and colored, or just a sketch. 

This is because generally speaking I can’t do art using my normal pen tool without a sketch to work off of, it requires a lot more finesse to use the G-Pen both because of the larger shifts that can occur in line width, and the slightly looser feel it has compared to my Pencil Tool. 

That’s all to say that I have drawn Junko and Mikan so many fucking times that I can just, draw them without proper sketches now. I’m at a point where I just need to draw the head, torso, and legs for an anatomy sketch, and then with the G-Pen I can just, draw from there. That’s big for me personally, and also fucked up because god how even??? There hasn’t been a drop in quality either so far, i’m still able to refine the expressions and i haven’t fucked up with the arms too much yet, I’d even say it’s resulted in some of my favorite Junkos and Mikans period.

Now, the catch is that again, this is only Junko and Mikan. I could prooooobably get to this point with Mukuro eventually just because her design is much simpler compared to other DR Characters? I struggle with getting her colors right rather than linework, but that’s about it and still not really useful in my main line of work unless I memorize every character that’s ever existed, and it took like 150 fucking times for Junkan I can’t do that for an obscure RPG character that I might get commissioned once and then never again. 

It’s also not something that I think i’ll apply to my normal Junkan works, because I am a perfectionist to a fault when it comes to pieces I care about and I want to make sure every detail these is exact. I need to be meticulous for ship art like this, every detail is important. And I can maximize that with sketching.

This new skill is basically useful for one thing. Speed. 

I pride myself on my efficiency, even if I have waned over the years due to burnout and overwork, when I get into it I can fuckin move with my art. And so if I need to say, make a 28 page comic in under a month? Being able to mostly skip an entire phase of the art process is very, VERY useful, ESPECIALLY because it’s a comic. Something which generally takes more time than my normal art by nature of it’s format and what it involves. When making the Comic for Day 60 it was all sketches, which was equally fast but could leave small imperfections at the time that either went under my radar or I just let slide because i was trying to be efficient. 

This is basically perfect for having to speedrun a Junkan comic, it’s all the speed with the usual amount of visual quality.

So in short . . . I’m turning into a nightmarish hell machine but specifically for drawing Junkan. I am genuinely curious how much farther I can go up from here, like, what the hell else could I be capable of with this???? Am I just gonna learn how to fuckin beam the art onto the canvas with my brain???

Moral of the story is just get mind numbingly obsessed with a ship and I guess you’ll get better at stuff??? I have no idea, i’m still kind of processing the comedic value of what this year has been because I was desperate for these two to make out. 

As always, Reblogs, Comments, and Little Notes in the Tags are appreciated!~ They always make my day!~