#they didn't release pictures but they did release a video which is more than they usually do tbh so enjoy

[themakeupbrush]

Miss Universe Korea 2022 National Costume: Sunset of Korea

Portraying the beautiful sunset of Korea, magnificent colors are expressed through 27 different layers of the skirt. As hanbok is called the clothes of the wind, each layer moves along with the movement to create the most unique and gorgeous mixture of colors. The true beauty of hanbok is portrayed with the elegant lines that are created throughout the garment. And the different lines created with the movement is the art of traditional hanbok.

[barcaatthemoon]

fine line || bruna vilamala x reader ||

you transfer to your rival's team.

playing at barcelona was a dream come true for you. it was where you had always wanted to play as a child. you grew up in a poor family, one who couldn't afford all the expenses for the youth teams and whatnot. still, you found yourself practicing everywhere that you could, and once you got older, you started making videos.

it was through those videos that you were contracted to a small semi-pro team in mallorca. there, the conditions had been less than ideal, but your social media account continued to grow. eventually, you got to the point where the spanish federation was calling you for youth camps.

that was where you first met bruna. you knew that you didn't come from the same place as the rest of the girls. most of them were players on bigger teams than yours, but you didn't let that stop you. your parents had been adamant to always be nice, but never be a doormat. you were friendly with the other girls, but when they formed a pack mentality against you, you pushed back twice as hard.

throughout several camps, you managed to prove yourself as a force to be reckoned with. you were the first of your group to get called up to the senior team. almost immediately, they started talking about you. rumors that you remembered from your first few youth camps popped up at the senior one, and you were prepared to once again become an outcast. lucky for you, that wasn't exactly the case, and through some of your teammates, you found yourself signing for barcelona when you were finished in mallorca.

"hola nena!" patri greeted you happily. you had become like her child, despite only being a few years younger than her. she had immediately taken you in, and accepted you into her friend group, which had meant the world to you. "are you excited?"

"very, but i'm a little nervous," you answered her. patri put her arm around your shoulders and led you to the practice area. you had come in earlier that morning and taken all of your pictures for the press release. you were coming in with a pretty notable group, players from other countries that you absolutely loved watching.

"it will be fine. cata and claudia have insisted that you join them for the scrimmage, so you'll need to go over there. i have to talk to alexia about something, then i'll be right over," patri told you. you nodded and walked over to the girls you recognized. almost immediately, most of the girls over there perked up at the sight of you. the only ones who didn't were jana and bruna. jana didn't personally have anything against you, but as bruna's best friend, she disliked you on principle.

you did your best to ignore them, and for the most part, you did. however, it was like every single time that you turned around, they were glaring at you. pina was good about distracting you, having caught onto the weird energy early on. she even went as far as picking you for her partner in drills so that you didn't have to search around for someone.

a lot of the barca b girls had been on your youth teams, so you knew that even attempting friendships with them was going to be nearly impossible. it was hard, but you accepted over the first few weeks at barcelona that you wouldn't be able to have many, if any, friendships with the players that you were your age. not until you and bruna managed to work through whatever it was that made the two of you hate each other.

…

"i love you so much, my little goal scorer!" cata screamed as she lifted you into the air. you flailed around a little, just until cata returned to a position that was a bit closer to the ground. she didn't completely let you go, still holding onto you as the two of you made your way back to the locker rooms. "how does it feel to win with the blaugrana?"

"good, i like it," you answered honestly. more players joined the two of you, and soon, you were sort of pushed around a circle of people there to support you. you had heard rumors of bigger teams not having as much of a family vibe, but you were glad this wasn't true for your new team. each of them congratulated you on your first goal, even jana and bruna had quiclky said something to you on the way to the bus.

claudia and cata talked you into going out when the bus got back to barcelona. you had been in the city for nearly two months and had yet to go out clubbing. the nightlife was legendary, but you had always been a bit more reserved. you had never taken a holiday with your family, always choosing to spend your time off from school practicing whatever you felt like you were lacking in that moment. this was the first time that you really felt like you had made it far enough to take some time to yourself.

you realized your mistake before you left your house. cata continuously told you that "less was more" when it came to your outfit, and you felt the house in less clothing than you had ever worn in public before. you felt almost uncomfortably bare in your shorts and extremely cropped shirt, despite everybody's insistence that you looked amazing.

"come on, let's dance. you haven't danced yet," claudia said as she dragged you onto the dance floor. you should have been safe with all of the other players surrounding you. mapi's eyes were on you like a hawk, but you still managed to slip away to get a drink without anybody noticing. at least, you thought nobody noticed. you didn't see bruna eyeing you from her table across from the bar.

"a deliciously pretty little thing like you almost looks too young to be in here." it easily could have just been paranoia, but you got a bad feeling about the man who had approached you. he slid in way too close, smelled like cheap colonge, and absolutely oozed sleaze. his comment didn't go over your head either, but you doubted that he cared about checking your id to make sure that you could be there.

"then i'd think that makes you too old to be talking to her." bruna's voice surprised you. you were at a loss for words as she whisked you away over to her table. "what the hell were you doing over there by yourself?"

"i wanted a drink, don't make it out to be my fault," you snapped. bruna's face flashed several emotions before she just let go of you and sighed. "i've never been here before. i've never even really been out before!"

"well, i'm not babysitting you, so maybe you should just go home!" bruna shouted back at you. the tensions ran high between the two of you, and you were so upset in the moment that you did just walk out of the bar. bruna watched you storm away from her, noting the way that you swayed back and forth with each step. "shit! (y/n), come back!"

"no, i just wanted to have a good time. i should have known you'd ruin my night," you said without even looking back at her. bruna paused, but just for a moment, determined not to let you walk home drunk by yourself. the city could be very dangerous, and she'd never forgive herself if something really happened to you.

"(y/n), i'm sorry for yelling at you. i didn't mean it, please come back. the girls are probably freaking out right now," bruna pleaded with you. you stopped and turned around to study her for a moment.

"you don't care about me, you're worried about saving your own skin." you spoke with a sober clarity that scared bruna a little bit. she couldn't argue with you, mainly because she knew that you wouldn't believe her. you hated her, and she hadn't exactly been the nicest person on the team to you. "if you cared about me at all, you would have stood up for me at least once in the five fucking years that we've known each other. you saw how they cast me out every single day and you did absolutely nothing. i wish that i hated you. i should have gone to talk with misa, it would have hurt less."

…

the next few weeks of practice were interesting to say the least in your books. everybody could tell that something had happened between you and bruna. jana and vicky seemed to tease her relentlessly about something, but they always stopped as soon as you came around. you were no stranger to people talking about you, but you did wonder how long they could keep it up before someone else noticed and called them out.

you got your answer much quicker than you expected, and it didn't come from anybody who you expected. things were quiet in the locker room as you walked back in from the showers. vicky and jana were making kissing noises, and once bruna caught your eye from where she was sitting in front of her locker, she pushed both of them away from her.

"damn, okay, okay. we'll stop, relax," jana said. "god, when did you become so sensitive?"

"nothing happened outside of the club, okay? nothing is going to happen because i fucked up!" bruna shouted as she stormed off. everybody else seemed to know where to look except for you. all of their eyes were on you until you slowly stood up. you didn't understand why you had to go calm bruna down, but you were glad to have found her easily. "vicky, don't. i'm not in the mood to hear it."

"it's a good thing i'm not vicky then," you said. bruna froze and turned towards you, completely red faced. "what the hell was that about? what have they been saying to you about me?"

"look, they're not talking about you, not really. jana and vicky think us butting heads is a cover up. they think, ahem, they think i like you or something." any other time, you would have thought bruna was fucking with you, but you could see the signs now. she was nervous, and if there wasn't any truth to their words, she would have just been annoyed.

"and it bothers you because you like me," you reasoned. bruna gave a small nod in confirmation as she sat back against the wall. "why didn't you say anything to me about this before?"

"because the last time i tried to talk to you, you told me that you hate me and you wished that you didn't come to barcelona. i treated you so badly that you wished you hadn't chased after your dream, how the hell could i have told you that i thought you were cute?" bruna asked. you tilted your head as you tried to think of something. bruna had a point, you wouldn't have said shit about your feelings if you were in her position.

"well, maybe you can try being nice to me and we can see how things unfold," you suggested. bruna nodded and hummed as she thought it over. you walked over and helped her up, smiling when she stumbled into you. "come on, let's go. the longer we're in here, the more shit they're gonna talk to you later."

"we could give them a reason to talk. they'll assume we were making out anyway, i'd hate to make my friends liars," bruna tried. you rolled your eyes at her as you pressed a quick kiss to her cheek. bruna seemed surprised and was blushing all the way back to the locker room, which only got worse when they saw your lip gloss on her cheek.

[raelle-writing]

Was it even Jin's video that got posted???

I've been staring and trying to make sense of the angles in Keng's office for the past hour so I decided to do a write up and see if I can make sense of it... something is WEIRD.

WARNING: this post contains screenshots of SA, all those will be below the cut:

So when we as the audience are shown the shots of Keng and Non, we're shown two different angles. The first one, when Jin first opens the door, is of Keng and Non's legs. The second is of their heads/faces.

In earlier episodes we're shown a bit more of the layout of Keng's office, shown here:

But the angles just... don't make sense? When you analyze them. Like for example, here's what we see in episode 6 when Non comes to see Keng. The angle shown is of Non leaning decently far into the room, and then still only being able to see Keng above the barrier

When the video is uploaded to social media, we see this as the thumbnail, which appears to be shot at a low angle BETWEEN the two barriers. But that angle doesn't make sense when shot from the door.

You can see it in this shot of Jin recording, it looks like the extruding corner is in the way of whatever he's shooting.

Not to mention, in the shot of Non showing up to that office, the book shelf is pretty obtrusive of the view of what's happening. It seems like, in order for the shot of their heads to be what's shown in the thumbnail, the person would've had to be further into the room

Add on to that, the couch itself is way too small for someone to be able to see around the barrier one way AND the other way. So basically it was impossible for someone at Jin's angle to see BOTH the legs around one end of the barrier AND the heads around the other.

With the corners, the bookshelf, and the angle in mind, it seems to me that the only angle it makes sense for Jin to have seen and recorded without going further into the room is that of the legs, not their faces...

Especially since he records low, but the thumbnail picture is basically the same height as the couch... which to me, looks lower than where Jin is holding the camera

Conclusion: ????

Honestly I'm not sure. Maybe this was just BOC getting clever with their angles and shooting and they didn't think people would dissect the layout of the room this hard. I AM sure that Jin could only reasonably see the legs or the faces and not both.

And as I said above, the angle of the door and bookshelf and barriers lead me to believe that Jin could've only really seen their legs But then that brings up the question of how did Jin even know it was Non? He's angry enough that it seems like he did... unless he's angry in a completely different direction and is mad that a teacher is taking advantage of a student, but that doesn't seem to fit either, since the anger on his face seems personal...

Plus I want to bring this back. Top saw Keng and Non together and texted Tee that he knew where Non got the money. They could've guessed or spied on them to guess what Keng asked for in exchange. And who has the money to set up a hidden camera JUST to screw over Non? Por. I'm not saying that's definitely what happened, but Por HATES Non and wanted to get rid of him. I don't doubt Por/Top/Tee would hesitate to release that tape of Non if they got the opportunity...

I'm definitely grasping at straws, but something about this whole situation doesn't feel right. Jin isn't shown to post the video himself, in fast there's discrepancies from what's shown on his computer screen vs what's shown of the person uploading the video.

Changing a computer from light mode to dark mode is incredibly easy so I don't know why they would've left a mistake like that instead of fixing it in post-production. Plus it looks to me like Jin is looking at the already-posted video and crying over it, not that he's posting it himself (first screenshot is from the BTS for this episode btw).

I've been on the "Jin didn't post the video" train the entire time for a couple of reasons:

Jin isn't shown to click the button, only sit at his laptop, cry, and then eventually spill alcohol on it and short it out. If the writers wanted us to hate Jin then they would've just shown him posting it so that we could deal with the fact that he's a shit person. They didn't do that, so I don't think that Jin posted the video.

Because in episode 4, Flukes yells at Tee that he knows what they did, and he names both the broken camera AND the released video... but Jin wasn't present in this scene. Why yell it at Tee if Jin is the one who both took the video and posted it?

But with the question of all the angles shown and the doorway and bookshelf it makes me wonder... was the video even Jin's?

[lets-try-some-writing]

What do you think about how the bots would think about seeing pictures or videos of when the kids were smaller. Like a video of Jack in middle school with a lisp from his retainer or pictures of Miko having an awful haircut her parents got for her to make her look more “presentable” as well as her fighting tooth and nail for them not to watch an old video of her piano recitals. Raph’s glasses being a little too big at first because he had insisted on getting glasses from the adult section like his dad and grandpa and they weren’t the right size for his head yet and the multiple little tools he made growing up to try and hold them up until his head grew.

Little things that as they got older they found embarrassing but just are general parts of growing up.

Pfft. This idea is rather humorous. I added my own little twist to it too.

Embarrassing Pictures

The whole situation began when June brought a camera into base to take pictures of the children. It was nothing new, Miko took pictures all the time, so the team didn't question it. However after June started making a fuss over the pictures, trying to convince the children to smile and whatnot, the team became vaguely interested. Once asked, June revealed that she intended to add the photos to her photo album, electing a groan from Jack. And when asked to explain what that was, she told the team all about how she liked to take photos to save and look at again in the future.

Suddenly very interested in seeing photos of the children, the team gathered around June and asked to see her photo albums. June was perfectly happy to oblige and returned to base a day or so later with not only her photo albums, but also ones she had managed to haggle off Rafael's parents and Miko's host family (Why they had the albums was a mystery, but some liked to theorize it was because Miko didn't want her parents to have them to show off). The children were mortified as June put the albums under a magnifier and projected the pictures onto big screen for the bots to see.

Jack's baby pictures came up first. And in the beginning they were pretty tame. It was a few photos of when Jack was an infant and aside from the odd bath photo and a picture of him dressed up as his favorite superhero, everything seemed fine. It was mostly just images of him being a cute kid, which the team found to be both fascinating and adorable. They hadn't realized humans could get any smaller, so seeing a tiny version of Jack doing adorable things not too dissimilar from what sparklings did on Cybertron brought smiles to their faces. Of course then Jack's middle school photos came out and suddenly the teenager couldn't look anyone in the eyes or optics as pictures of him with his braces and then retainer were shown to the team.

Ratchet: *pointing at the picture of Jack with his retainer* Is that some form of human torture?

Arcee: *suddenly very worried* Jack, are you already at home?

Jack: NO! WAIT! I mean-! Look, I had to wear a retainer for a while to fix my teeth, that's it.

Miko: *laughing* You really do look like you are being tortured in that pic!

Jack: Shut up!

Bumblebee: You had to have a cover over your teeth to fix them? Why not just remove them and put them back in the right way?

Rafael: *softly* Bee... no. Humans don't work like that.

Thankfully for Jack, he wasn't the only one who got a taste of humiliation since soon after Miko's own photos came on screen. Just like with Jack, it was mostly cute baby photos (which the team collectively cooed at and more than one may or may not have saved a mental screenshot for later). However by the time her photos from between the ages of eight and twelve were brought up, she started wishing for the sweet release of death.

The worst haircut she had ever gotten was the beginning of the torture. In the photo she was frowning and trying to fight back as she was held in front of the camera, a shoulder length bob cut and bangs taking the place of her usual wild hairstyle. This earned her a bit of mockery from Jack who was still feeling rather bitter about her prodding at his pictures earlier. However it didn't end there, her parents had also recorded several of her recitals which began playing as June hooked them up to the projector. She tried to stop it, but could only watch in horror as the team witnessed her horrendous singing combined with her rather remarkable skill with the piano. The team weren't all that concerned, finding it mostly cute, but Miko wanted to die right then and there.

Bulkhead: You play that instrument well Miko. Why haven't you played that one around base?

Miko: BECAUSE ITS EMBARRASSING!

Optimus: Is it? I find you talent with that instrument rather pleasing.

Ratchet: *under his breath* She screams like a Turbo-fox.

Optimus: *kicking Ratchet lightly* Your voice is lovely too.

Safe to say Miko didn't walk away from her photos being shown around mentally sound. But with Rafael's own photos up next, she opted to try and draw attention away from herself by mocking her younger friend as his baby pictures were displayed.

Rafael honestly didn't have all that many embarrassing photos up until an image of him duct taping his grandfather's glasses onto his face came on screen. Young Rafael was waling as he tried to rip the tape off in the photo, causing the team to chuckle in amusement much to Rafael's horror. After that more and more photos of him trying and failing to wear adult glasses came on screen, each more dooming than the last as Jack and Miko laughed. One image showed him with glasses almost three times the size of his face tied to his head with string as he tried to walk around looking normal only to run into a wall.

Jack: *laughing* You ran into a wall?

Rafael: I was eight!

Miko: You look like a bobblehead!

Rafael: ...

Bumblebee: Why did you not just get normal sized glasses?

Rafael: I wanted to be like the grown ups...

Optimus: That is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, I believe I have some pictures of Bumblebee doing something similar...

Bumblebee: Optimus no! Please no!

It was too late. Before anyone could do anything about it, Optimus helped June put her albums away and highjacked the projector and uploaded images directly from his personal databanks. Bumblebee died a little inside as Optimus unapologetically showed pictures of him being a feral monstrosity and tearing up furniture and consoles around high command. He could only heat up in embarrassment as Optimus then proceeded to show pictures of him doing numerous other things ranging from eating rations like an animal, shooting Prowl with a blaster by accident, to picking out his first earth alt mode and the subsequent car wash that came with it.

Rafael: Why a Volkswagon Beetle? That's such an old model.

Bumblebee: I liked it alright!

Arcee: He thought it was cute.

Bumblebee: NO! I DID NOT!

Ratchet: He did. And he even thought it was the height of motor transportation on your backwater world for nearly a month.

Bumblebee: RATCHET!

As if contented, Optimus finally stopped sharing his pictures after Bumblebee started steaming from the stress of having his past exposed. But Ratchet being the slightly malicious medic that he is took the chance to throw Optimus under the bus in turn. He hooked up to the projector next and began sharing pictures of Optimus back when he was Orion Pax, much to the Prime's silent humiliation. Pictures of him eating wild animals innocently, him screaming at a stray cyber-cat on all fours, him getting drunk as pit the one time he allowed Ratchet to take him to a bar, and all sorts of photos of him gnawing on things came up one after another. It was a different time, but Optimus should have known better than to assume Ratchet wouldn't have collected such incriminating photos of him.

Bulkhead: Prime... are you eating a datapad in that picture?

Optimus: ...

Arcee: Why were you crouched on top of the bookcase with a electro-dove in your mouth in that one?

Optimus: ...

Bumblebee: *squinting at a photo* W-Where you trying to size up a statue?

Optimus: I wasn't always a Prime.

Ratchet: Who could have guessed.

Optimus: You weren't always and honorable medic either Ratchet.

Once again taking his place by the projector, Optimus plugged back in and began airing out all of Ratchet's past escapades for all to see, the children practically forgotten in the midst of the silent battle going on. The Prime quickly began cycling through dozens of photos of Ratchet high as a kite doing stupid scrap like pole dancing, screaming at mecha, and throwing things. And before the medic could process that, Optimus pulled out even more of him competing in street races, competing in drinking contests, and even a video of him swearing up a storm at everyone and everything while drunk. Ratchet could do nothing but silently offline internally as he watched his dark history get replayed.

Bulkhead: So... a party ambulance?

Ratchet: Shut up.

Arcee: I should be asking you what's humming doc.

Ratchet: I was young and dumb. Weren't we all at one point?

Bumblebee: Young and dumb usually points toward breaking someone's window or accidentally trespassing, not getting stoned, drunk, and then doing incriminating things.

Ratchet: ...

It only got worse from there as Ratchet pulled up the pictures he had acquired from Bulkhead and Arcee's files on their own little misadventures as younglings. The children were completely forgotten as the team became focused on airing each other's dirty laundry for all to see. And the children had no problem with that as they watched the dark past's of their favorite Autobots gets shown around like contraband reading material.

[matan4il]

One correction: It's not GAP (what can you do with automatic translation), it's PIJ, which stands for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist organization in Gaza, much smaller than Hamas, but also considered much more extremist.

Three points to take into account:

Even if you believe there's no humane sentiment among Israelis, Israel striking a hospital would be such a PR nightmare, that it really doesn't have any interest to do it.

The number of people killed being reported is unlike anything you've heard from any Israeli airstrike, and there's a reason for it. Hamas knows that hospitals are "protected," that Israel wouldn't strike there, so where do you think Hamas hides its headquarters and its ammunition storage? So once a PIJ rocket launched at Israel, ended up accidentally falling inside the Gaza strip, there's a good chance it hit the munition stored by Hamas in the hospital, causing a much bigger explosion than a few rockets can create on their own, and accounting for the number of dead.

In the past, when Israel did make a mistake and accidentally hit a large number of civilians, it did take responsibility for it. It took Israel quite a while (two hours) to respond to the claims that it was an Israeli strike precisely because IT TAKES TIME to make sure that there hadn't been any accidental strikes at the hospital. It doesn't take time to lie and throw the blame at someone else.

I prefer focusing on what is happening inside Israel, because those are voices that are barely shared online, but I know that Hamas didn't wait to actually find out what happened before blaming Israel, and that hatred for Israel is already being spread on and offline, so... I'm putting this out there.

Update: Here's a vid from Al Jazeera, they were filming Gaza, so they inadvertently filmed the PIJ rocket launched from Gaza, failing mid air, and then falling back down in Gaza, causing the explosion.

Update 2: Thanks to a reblog, I can add a link to even more images showing it was a failed launching within Gaza, with several different sources coming to the same conclusion.

Also, to the nonnie who asked me for a third, neutral party as a source... Al Jazeera is not neutral, it's firmly anti-Israel. They have a live stream of Gaza with clear timestamps. This is even better than a neutral source, because this is a channel with motivation to lie and vilify Israel, yet their footage ended up showing the opposite.

Update 3: There is now a picture from where the hospital took a hit. It seems that it was the parking lot.

If you click on the pic, it will take you to the Twitter thread, where people are doubting that this was the scene of 500 people dying. I don't know if it was or wasn't, but all casualty numbers coming out of Gaza? They're released by their Health Ministry, which is a part of Gaza's government. And that government is, all of it, Hamas. The same organization that massacred over 1,400 civilians in Israel.

The source is a Hamas-affiliated "news" account on Twitter.

There's now a video from inside the hospital's chapel, showing it mostly intact (other than the glass windows).

There's also a recording of two Hamas terrorists talking about the strike, where they themselves confirm that it was a rocket misfired by the PIJ. I can't embed another vid in this post, but I linked to the recording with English subtitles.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[spade-riddles]

I think she’d go that far for repTV because that album to me is more performance metaphor than performance art. It challenged people to work to define the concept/purpose of it and it’s her greatest example of plausible deniability.

It’s also why reputation is a great album, but was snubbed at the Grammys—because the people who vote on the Grammys (for example) weren't given the answers to their questions about it beforehand. They didn't get it.

Look at this scenario:

The world’s biggest pop star announces she’s taking a break, but is instead bullied into hiding for a year. She comes back with a new album built around a theme of secrecy and says “there will be no explanation, just reputation.”

People didn't know how to take the album because it wasn’t a typical Taylor Swift album. She didn't really do any interviews about it, but she did tell people that any preconceived notions they had would be wrong (aka, the slideshows of men).

The theme of a “secret relationship” and how it made people question things:

Who was she in this secret relationship with?

Who is Joe Alwyn?

Where had she been for the past year?

Why wasn’t Karlie Kloss on the t-shirt?

What happened between she and Karlie Kloss? Are they still friends? Why did they fall out?

The way she portrayed a falling out with Karlie was the basis of the “secret relationship”. Because all she did was leave Karlie’s name off of a t-shirt and neither of them have spoken much about their relationship since. Karlie denied there was a rift. She showed up at the rep tour (where she posed for pictures backstage WITH Taylor) and the eras tour (where we all saw how Taylor was reacting and that she could spot her from the stage)

Taylor took one person’s negative perception which had been adopted by millions and embraced it as a rebirth. Because when snakes shed their skin, it’s a fresh start. When she fully shed her skin, we got lover, then folklore, evermore, midnights, TTPD. Albums with lyrics that are more open and vulnerable than her previous ones (for example, chase two girls, lose the 1).

The gradual leaning into being somewhat more comfortable in her new skin:

Rep: the rainbow dress in “end game”, using the caption “out now” when rep was released.

Lover: that whole aesthetic. The “Me!” video. False God.

Folklore: The 1, Betty, Seven(being used on the show Heartstopper after the creative team sent letters to Taylor and her team telling them how important it was for the scene and them being “very receptive” 😏).

Evermore: Ivy and letting it be used on Dickinson during a love scene between two lead female characters

Midnights: Maroon

Which all goes back to the performance metaphor of repTV, because her newly-assigned reputation is why she disappeared, but its also why she so wondrously and brutally by design or some violent, exquisite happenstance arrived here.

So given all that's going on as of late, maybe since she has embraced being a snake since 2016/2017, she's once again trying to shed her skin for another fresh start, but not in the environment she's currently placed herself in.

Excellent post, anon.

[pancake-breakfast]

Ok! Notes from the first Orange panel at AX 2024! They were discouraging photography and video so this will just be text (mobile Tumblr hates my photos, anyway). But first, a bit of a TL;DR.

TL:DR: While they talked about Trigun: Stampede, Beastars, and their new upcoming title Leviathan, they mostly focused on Leviathan since Stampede has its own panel later. (I'm not sure about Beastars since I haven't been following the show as closely.)

Ok, on with the notes!

(Edited to add links.)

Studio Orange Presents: Beastars, Trigun, and...

The panel guests were Kiyotaka Waki (producer at Orange) and Yoshihiro Watanabe (producer at Orange and also played translator for Waki), as well as Justin Leach (producer for Eden and Star Wars: Visions).

They started off the panel by noting that exactly zero of the people on the panel (including the mod) slept the previous night.

Then they showed a sizzle reel in honor of Orange's 20th anniversary, highlighting all the stuff they've done in that time. There were a lot of cheers for Trigun, Beastars, and Land of the Lustrous in particular.

After the reel, they talked briefly about the history of Orange, how they'd gone from animating mecha for other people's shows (like they did for Evangelion and Code: Geass) to doing entire properties themselves. They're particularly proud of how their studio has grown from 4 people to... I forgot how many. Much more than 4. And they can now work on multiple titles simultaneously.

On to Trigun! They didn't get into it much since it's getting its own panel at the con, but they did show some pages from the Trigun Bible on Plants, and Watanabe noted he'd post them up on the bird app later today. (Edit: You can find them here.) Watanabe also said they can't release the whole Bible yet, which may just have me thinking hopefully, but hey, there's a chance! He seems to genuinely love sharing pages from it, at least.

On to Beastars! They read a thank you letter from the director to the fans, and also showed a subtitled video that I'd guess was also a thank you from someone else, but I was too far back to read the subtitles. (An ongoing problem with watching anything subbed at this con is the subs being entirely blocked by other people's heads unless you're in like the first few rows... but I digress.) They also showed a new key visual (which I'm sure is gonna be floating around social media somewhere at this point) and noted the third and final season of the show will air on Netflix in December. Waki noted he started reading the manga in 2017, and he's thrilled to get to work on a full adaptation of the story since it's rare to get to do that.

On to Leviathan! I'm gonna break this one up a bit because it's long. This is Studio Orange's new upcoming title in collaboration with Netflix and Qubic Pictures (the studio that did Eden, which was a great story overall and I definitely recommend it). They also worked extensively with the author of the original work, Scott Westerfield, who helped keep them consistent with the characters and themes.

The story is a dieselpunk alternate world WWI story about a runaway Austrian Prince named Alec who meets this Scottish girl, Sharp, on a bioengineered airship, and the relationships these people from disparate backgrounds have with others and each other.

The German/Austrian side of the conflict is a faction known as the "Clankers," who focus on mechs and technology to conquer the world via machines, while the faction Sharp belongs to is called the "Darwinists," who focus on DNA modification of creatures as a way to connect with nature.

They showed a preview of it that honestly looked really cool, but again, no recording. It had flying whale ships. Like... whales they strapped a box to and fly around on.

Orange is excited to get to "go back to their roots" with this and work on a Mecha title again, especially since this title will be theirs this time.

They acquired/absorbed (I'm not sure on the details) a team that specializes in background art for this project, and yeah, the backgrounds are detailed and amazing.

They noted a lot of animators reflect their own lives in their work, and they feel Leviathan is no exception. The international collaboration (they also have people from Europe working on this) lends itself well to a story about people from disparate cultures coming together and realizing they have more in common and more similar passions and desires than they have differences.

They'll be talking more about Leviathan at Otakon in August.

That's all for now! I'll try to update on the other Orange/Trigun panels if I get into them!

[folkwhore1998]

All I do is try try try

I will literally never forget the first time I listened to folklore. I went for a walk around the pond outside in my neighborhood and it was cold as hell. It was such a vibe you guys. I would do anything to be able to listen to this album again. Take me to the ponds where all the poets went to die.

It is so different than anything else Taylor Swift has ever done honestly. I feel it is the lyricism of Last Kiss and All Too Well but they were introduced to depression and anxiety. Am I wrong? It is hard for me to say it is an album that divided our fandom because it brought in so many fans, but i also feel there are a lot of fans who prefer other albums over folklore.

I can totally see why and how folklore brought in so many new fans. #1 It is a completely new sound from Taylor (which is how I can maybe see why some people were divided) #2 We were all depressed during COVID and this album was a really good friend to so many people during this time. #3 It took people by surprise because there was no promo for the album. She just said "Here!" I think that there was a lot of curiosity that came with the release which brought in new listeners.

There are two songs on this album I will ride at dawn for: hoax and peace

YOU KNEW THE PASSWORD SO I LET YOU IN THE DOOR. YOU KNEW YOU WON SO WHATS THE POINT OF KEEPING SCORE? I'll admit, I was not always a hoax truther. It just didn't click. But one day I had the album on shuffle and there was a switch that was flipped in my brain and wow it is just so good. Like hello? DID YOU HEAR WHAT SHE SAID?

Peace is such a vulnerable song and we don't talk about that enough. It is like asking am I going to be good enough? but so much more than that. Taylor is a well loved celebrity and it isn't something she cannot change about herself. It is a major part who she is. "Will you accept the intrusive parts of myself and my life that I will never ever be able to change? I would literally die for you and I love your family as my own and I would do anything for you, but is my love enough? I'd also like to talk about epiphany. I personally don't relate to it a lot and I don't listen to it a lot, but I recently saw a video of someone saying "it's the worst song she's ever written" which absolutely infuriated me. Did I rank it last? Yes. I rank everything on how I personally connect with the song, not in terms of "I think this is a bad song." Just because I don't connect, does not mean it is a bad song. It is actually an incredibly deep song that I think resonates with a lot of medical professionals as well as people who lost loved ones during COVID. It talks about a loss so unfathomable or event so traumatic that you literally can't speak about it. And for someone to say it's the worst song she's ever written is honestly senseless and offensive and infuriating. (Respectfully)

☆ Fun fact: Whenever I am showing folklore to someone for the first time, I always play the LPSS version. The vocals are so raw and I feel like you can really feel the lyrics differently, and you can really hear what she just- which I find to be extremely important with this album.

Here are my rankings of

folklore:

illicit affairs

the 1

my tears ricochet

this is me trying

august

peace

betty

hoax

cardigan

mirrorball

the lakes

mad woman

seven

exile (the live version is a different story...one of her best performances)

invisible string

the last great american dynasty

epiphany

Folklore era favs:

lol

MAGICAL

actually sobbing. everything about this. they're all so appreciative and proud. sidenote: one of her best looks ever. dare I say it's my favorite?

no notes.

if you know, you know.

Yes.. I know we need to get through Fall, but it's never too soon to start planning. Taylor said so!

☆ Here is the direct link to the folklore cardigan Christmas ornaments pictured above:

☆ Here is the direct link to the folklore stocking pictured above:

@taylornation @taylorswift

[zombielesbean]

Long post incoming! Since my minecraft creative world has been getting a lot of attention lately, I thought I'd do a post about the history of it!

previously I had thought it started in 2018, but looking into it it turns out I started it in 2017, which is the first year I played minecraft before that point, my sibling was really into it, but I'd never really been into it that much. the switch came out in 2017 and we got one pretty close to launch, and, not long after that, minecraft released for the system, and we got it so my sibling could finally play, and I gave it a try myself, too

I ended up getting very into it, my first base was this big building built into the side of a mountain :) after that, I got very into the building aspect of minecraft, much more than I liked survival, so I ended up trying out building in creative mode, and built this big house

it had a pool in the basement and lots of simulated furniture like a sink and refrigerator in the kitchen hehe

after this experience, I realized that building in minecraft creative mode is essentially having an infinite supply of legos, and I'd been really into videos about people's giant lego cities or terrain builds or big model train dioramas, and I realized this was the perfect way for me to get to build my own landscapes and such

and so, I generated a flat world

in minecraft for nintendo switch, you could generate a flat world with structures, plus some trees and water features, so that's what this was

the first thing I did was just, plant a huge forest, with little terraforming, and then I built a giant castle

and then I built a mountain

and then I started building an ocean

and here's just some other things I built around that time:

after that, I didn't play for awhile, until 2018, when they ported bedrock to the switch, and I picked up the game again because the performance improvements were really good, and also, it just spurred me on to play again in general ehe

here's a look at basically the entire world at that point:

not terribly long after that I met @da-mous and we started playing minecraft together and building stuff in this world together :)

After that there was another pretty long hiatus, I didn't really work on it more until 2020

before that it'd basically just been me and my sibling working on the world together, me doing all the terrain and that kind of stuff, and they were adding lil buildings to the village, but after meeting cass I started playing with more friends, such as @bisthefairy, who added trains to the world :)

at this point my plan was to build a big cliffside around the entire area and make it into a big valley, and then build more stuff (like an "evil" village and castle to oppose the "good" one I'd already built), and I'd started work on the cliff on the side of the world where I wanted that castle to be

but shortly after that, the first real breakthrough occurred: cass gave me new tools, using command blocks

she gave me tools that could do things like build a massive pillar of dirt below me every tick down to the world limit, build a massive square sheet of dirt below me, fill in a space with water, or paint blocks in front of me into whatever type of block I wanted

this absolutely changed everything, and the cliff project and the ocean project turned from things that would have taken me weeks or even months to complete working by hand, down to only days

and, my landscape structures no longer had to be simply hollow facades, but they were now solid all the way through and I could more easily make things like caves, too!

things started going so fast after that point, the entirety of the world I had built went from this area:

...to this (above pictured area is circled, and not everything pictured here was already built back then)

everything I had done in the last three years was suddenly dwarfed in only a few months

I finished the cliffs, I finished the ocean, I built a custom desert (based on the high desert in Oregon), I built volcanoes, I built mountain ranges, I built the evil castle, I built villages across the ocean, I built huge sloping plains, I built a huge underground cavern with a fairy village in it and fake stars on the ceiling... my projects had gotten so much bigger and more numerous

some time after this, I had to move to the PC version finally, because of an incident involving 14,000 end crystals being spawned into the world, which ruined my save file by creating an inescapable black hole of frame rate loss, and we needed to fix that lol

but anyway, that opened up a lot to me, I had much greater performance and draw distance, and I could play with using structure blocks to steal things from normally generated minecraft worlds, like buildings and just pieces of already generated landscapes, and the plop them into the world and then smoothly integrate them into my already built world, which was really fun

structures can only be of a certain size at a time too, so I had entire notebook pages dedicated to mapping out the pieces I was taking so I could copy paste them all back together seamlessly, ehe

also now that I was on PC, I started dabbling a little bit in external tools, mostly so that I could change the biomes; as a flat world, the entire world was the plains biome, and that really bugged me

I found one that was, honestly, pretty clunky, but did what I wanted with biomes, and that was pretty cool! there weren't a lot of tools for bedrock back in those days, so I did what I could haha

but, now my desert was actually a desert! it would actually snow on top of my mountains! huzzah! and I also took the opportunity to just copy paste ocean all around my world, so that it would become a continent surrounded by water, and I built a jungle island far away

after that, I played a little bit here and there, but wasn't really focused on it too much, I didn't really play at all in 2022 or 2023, I was just doing gamedev nonstop pretty much all year last year

that is, until Grey Area finally released, and @chemkitt had showed me a really cool mod for java edition called 'axiom' that's made specifically for terrain building, like a supercharged version of cass's command block tools, and the fire to work on my minecraft world was lit anew

it was just like the renaissance that occurred when cassie made those tools, suddenly things that had previously taken weeks now took mere days, I was able to completely finish the continent and surrounding lands in mere hours, built a giant archipelago in only a day, and could now change biomes and copy paste millions of blocks in an instant

finally satisfied with the size of the world, I also figured out how to go into the files and complete another long held dream I'd had for the world, to change it back to a normal minecraft world, and let the outer edges generate like normal, essentially kind of sealing in my world, and making it so that the outer edges are no longer endless nothing, which I felt was kind of creepy ehehe

and that's where we are today! my little flat world has grown so much :) my current project is building a new entire (even bigger!) giant continent to the east of the original, and another, smaller, southern continent as well!

and most recently, I've been building a big flower garden type of place full of lots of trees and foliage over on the original continent :)

it's been so so nice seeing so many people enjoy the work I've done here! I'm hoping to do a whole video tour of the place sometime soon, there's so much more to see and talk about than I even did here, ehe!

and there's lots and lots of space to decorate and build things and plant forests and all that, so I hope to invite more people over to add to it in the near future, too!

thanks for reading :3

[flanaganfilm]

Hey Mike! Can you talk about your experience going from Absentia to Oculus? That process after Absentia went on its festival run to pitching Oculus? Would love to learn about that time in your life & career!

I moved to Los Angeles in 2003, right after I graduated college. I went to Towson University in Maryland, was an EMF major (Electronic Media & Film) and had wanted nothing more than to make movies my whole life. We were a comfortable middle class military family (my dad was in the Coast Guard) and for most of my life, making movies for a living felt like an impossible dream.

When I moved to LA I took whatever work I could find. I shot and edited those local car commercials you see on TV at 2am, I was a logger and an AE for reality TV shows, and I eventually worked my way to editing.

I said I'd give myself 5 years to make it in Hollwood. By the time we shot Absentia, I'd been here for 7 years, and in that time I hadn't gotten any closer to my dream.

I've already written at length about how Absentia came along and what it was like to make that little movie, and I've recently blogged about how the Oculus premiere changed my life and birthed my career, so I won't rehash those - but I don't often talk about what went on in between.

I finished editing Absentia just before my oldest son was born in 2010, and went back to working full-time as a reality TV editor. In fact, in the months leading up to his birth, I was working double-time - I spent my days at a company called Film Garden working on a series for DIY Network, and my nights editing packages at Nash Entertainment for those true crime clip shows. Whatever it took to keep the lights on and provide as much support as I could for my son.

While this was happening, I'd submitted Absentia to a pile of film festivals. We didn't get into any of the majors - Sundance, SXSW, and Toronto all passed on the film. Our world premiere was at the Fargo Film Festival, where Tom Brandau, one of my former professors from Towson - and one of my mentors - was teaching.

(Our original festival poster, WAY better than the weird clip art that would come later)

The movie got into a fair amount of film festivals, and we traveled with it as much as we could. I have fond memories of the Phoenix Film Festival, San Luis Obispo (where I met Greg Kinnear at a party and very awkwardly asked for a picture - you can see how thrilled he is about it) and my personal favorite: the Fantastia Film Festival in Montreal.

(At one of the screenings, I believe the San Luis Obispo Film Festival)

While this was happening, the film was picked up for a tiny VOD and DVD release through Phase 4 Films.

They were a Canadian distribution company whose claim to fame was putting out Kevin Smith's Red State under a very unusual distribution model. They acquired the movie, which led to a company holiday part in Hollywood.

There, I briefly met Kevin Smith for the first time. We've met again since, and I've now had a chance to thank him for the kindness he showed me back then - I was just some starstruck kid at a party, but he was gracious and available and inspiring. I really admire the way Kevin deals with his fans, and I've tried to emulate it over the years.

So that was kind of it for Absentia. We went to a few festivals, went to a few parties, and posed for a few pictures with some people we admired. Phase 4 designed some truly godawful cover art, dropped the movie into video stores, and that was that.

($2.99 is a pretty good deal)

So Absentia had pretty much run its course. It had a passionate following of fans, but between the crappy art design and glut of low budget horror films on the market, its moment had already come and gone. I was back at work, editing a series for DIY Network called Extra Yardage, and yearning for another chance to make a movie.

Absentia might not have broken open the industry doors like I'd wanted it to, but one thing it did yield was a meeting with an entertainment attorney named Joel VanderKloot.

I had been represented a few times over the years by various managers (to be honest, they were actually Jeff Howard's managers, and they took me on because we had a co-written project together.) But those relationships hadn't gone anywhere, I'd never sold a script or booked a job, and when I suggested making Absentia they were not supportive ("You've already tried the indie thing, haven't you?") so by the time Absentia was made, I was completely unrepped.

Joel was a family friend of Jason Poh, who was one of our Absentia Kickstarter backers. He was a guy who'd just found the project online and donated a thousand bucks. He kept up with us, and loved the final movie. He told me he knew an entertainment lawyer and offered to arrange a lunch.

I left my editing job at Film Garden for a long lunch and met Joel in Santa Monica (this was a day-killing drive for me). Joel had seen the movie and really liked it. We had a good lunch, but wasn't immediately sure about taking me on - it's a lot of work to take on a new client, and there wasn't much heat on my movie. But there was something there that he liked, and he called later that day to say he would take me on as a client.

I was elated. I felt like I'd made my movie to the best of my ability, and that it had flashed in the pan and then died... no one had noticed outside of a few festival audiences and critics. But here was someone who worked in the industry and he saw something in the film that he believed in.

Joel started looking for managers while I clung to my day job. He passed the movie around and we had a few nibbles, which led to the first manager in my career who wanted to simply represent ME: Nicholas Bogner.

Bogner went about setting general meetings at production companies who specialized in horror films. There weren't a lot of takers, and not everyone was willing to watch an entire feature film in consideration of a general meeting. So it was hit or miss - I was a nobody, after all, and they get these kinds of incoming inquiries all the time.

But there were a few takers. And the very first meeting I had was with Anil Kurian at Intrepid Pictures.

Again, I took an extended lunch from my editing job and drove across town to Intrepid's offices in Santa Monica. I was beyond nervous when I sat in the waiting room. The young man working the front desk signed me in and offered me a water. And then, just before the meeting started, he leaned over and he said "I loved Absentia, by the way."

Anil was a really cool executive and we had a good general meeting. At the end of it, he introduced me to the heads of Intrepid: Marc Evans, and Trevor Macy.

We all ended up in the conference room, where posters for Intrepid's other movies - at that time, The Strangers and The Raven - were hanging. I vividly remember staring at them while I pitched all five of the ideas I had for movies.

One of them was a story about a little boy whose dreams manifested in real life, and another was a take on Stephen King's novel Gerald's Game. But at the time, none of these ideas worked. The meeting was over, and everyone was politely going about their day.

I felt a panic in me. It was my first real meeting, the door had been cracked open just an inch by Absentia, and I was about to walk away with nothing. Would my new manager want to keep me? Would my new lawyer think he was wasting his time?

I stopped in the doorway and turned back. "I've got one other thing," I said. "I made a short years ago about a haunted mirror, and I have a take for a feature."

They kind of laughed at the idea of a haunted mirror. "How do you make that scary?" Trevor asked. I said "Think of it like a portable Overlook Hotel," and the room got a little quieter.

"I'd like to see that short," Trevor said. I agreed to send it immediately.

I ran back to work, stayed a few hours late to make up the time I'd burned on my lunch hour, and went home to find a DVD copy of Oculus: The Man with the Plan.

I'd made that short in 2005. It was 20 mins long, and a lot of fun. Over the years whenever I'd get into meetings (all courtesy of Jeff Howard, who had sold scripts long before we started writing together), people would see it and ask about a feature. Every time, though, the conversation stalled because they wanted the film to be a found footage movie, or they'd balk at the idea of me directing a feature.

I sent the DVD to Intrepid and waited. About a week later, they called and asked me to come back in.

I took another long lunch (this would become quite a habit as the project advanced) and drove back down. We met again in the conference room, but this time the mood was a little different.

Trevor said "We're interested in this. How would you expand it? I know there are cameras in the room with the man and the mirror, which begs the question of found footage..."

My heart sank.

"... but we're thinking that's a mistake. It looks like all the fun is in playing with reality, and you can't do that with found footage. So how would you do it?"

And we were off.

I won't rehash the long journey between this meeting and the Oculus premiere at Toronto (scroll down to find another blog about that), but that was really the moment when things changed.

I drove back to work a little giddy. Intrepid optioned the short film, I called Jeff Howard to see if he'd still want to work on a feature with me, and we were commissioned to write the script.

It was my first Hollywood job. I was paid the bare minimum, but I was also able to join the WGA because of the deal. I still didn't quit my day job (and wouldn't for a long time, not until the movie was really shooting in Alabama the following year) but I was off to the races.

Once the script was done, Oculus would lead to my first agents (at APA, and they treated me very well) and my first "real" movie.

What's particularly neat about this time, looking back, is that I owe it all to Absentia. We'd made this tiny little movie to try to kick open the door of Hollywood and start a career. And despite the enormous pride I had in the finished film, it felt for a long time like it hadn't quite succeeded in that.

But quietly, subtly, the movie did exactly what I hoped it would. The festival screenings built up a small but confident word of mouth. The movie led directly to my attorney Joel (who still represents me to this day), which led directly to my first real representation, which led directly to Intrepid Pictures.

Trevor Macy is now my business partner and has produced every single thing I've ever made since. We run Intrepid Pictures together, and I see that same eagerness in the faces of young filmmakers who find their way to us for general meetings. I try to be as supportive and accessible to them as I possibly can, because I remember very well what it feels like to stand in their shoes.

And Trevor even ended up making those other pitches he'd rejected all those years ago - Before I Wake and Gerald's Game followed soon after Oculus was done.

Absentia did everything I could have wanted it to do, and much more. I'll always remember that period of time with great affection... but man, it was stressful. The uncertainty of those years still exists in me, I don't think it'll ever leave.

Someone told me, along the way, that there wouldn't be a moment when I realized I "made it." It would happen while I wasn't looking. That ended up being absolutely true.

[gemini-sensei]

Monstercock!Demetri x Chubby!Reader Onlyfans Headcanons

CW: mentions of breeding kink, bondage, aftercare, multiple orgasms, oral; I probably missed something.

Feel free to ask for more of these or anything like it. More onlyfans!Demetri? Some other character? Whatever your heart desires 😈

Their onlyfans contains a lot of different things, from whole videos to close up pictures. Oral, pussyjobs, mutual masturbation. You name it, they post it. Demetri films everything himself with a wides-hot camera as a backup and one in his hand for up close and personal shots. It's all very up close and personal.

Under one video of Reader riding his monster cock, someone asked how she's able to do that. In response, they made a full length, uncut video of how Demetri preps Reader to be able to take his cock. It was a lot of oral, fingering, and squirting. At one point she held him by his hair and rode his face, which seemed to be a lot of people's favorite part of the video. Then, after a good hour of all that, they show how his cock sinks into her and he bottoms out in her puffy cunt.

Pictures include close ups of her pussy lips stretched out on his cock, seated and taking him fully. Cum dripping down his balls and her clit all swollen. They also post pics of her fat tits and belly covered in his cum; of his hard cock laid out on top of her pudgy soft belly to show everyone how deep he reaches; of her used, leaking, and cum covered cunt.

Even some pictures of her slightly bloated belly after he's pumped her full of so much cum. She sits on the bed so pretty, holding her belly after getting fucked so well. People comment about how she looks pregnant and Dem has to fight hard not to reveal his breeding kink to their audience. Somethings are left better kept to themselves. Plus, it's way more fun, even though some people seem interested in watching him try to do this and then proceed to fuck her with a pretty, round belly.

Short videos of Demetri just utterly showering Reader with his cum. Showing off how much he cums and how it just gets everywhere and makes a big mess. Watching as it drips off of her face and down her tits, catching on her hard nipples.

Solo videos of Reader playing with a vibe or dildo while Demetri filming her and saying dirty shit from behind the camera. He teases her and sometimes even has control of the vibe and will put it on the highest setting when he asks her questions, that way she won't be able to answer him properly.

"Is it better than my cock?" "No, of course not."

Teasing shots of her soaked panties and the ruined sheets. Showcasing big wet patches from where she's released hot liquid all over the bed from squirting hard. Cum covered underwear and bras that Demetri has utterly destroyed.

Videos of Reader riding the fuck out of Demetri while he was handcuffed to the bed, but it's just a shot from behind so all anyone can see is her ass going down on his cock. When he comes, they watch his balls draw up and know he's pumping her full of hot creamy cum, then watching as it starts to leak out and slide down his balls.

With the taking monster cock tutorial, Demetri insisted on making an aftercare video too. They thought it would under perform, but actually did really, really well. Aftercare videos didn't magically become a staple for their account, though. They are far and few between, some might even say rare, but Reader kind of wants to make one where they're in the bath together because sometimes he'll fuck her in there too.

[skidblast]

Transformers Earthspark is doing something new when it comes to starting off a story.

I've been seeing some complaints that the Earthspark series, while sticking to established lore and characterisation, they are not showing anything. The biggest complaint is about Starscream's ark in episode 21, where Starscream's fear of Megatron is simply alluded to, once in a short exchange between Optimus Prime and Megatron, and when Hashtag confronts Starscream about it.

The thing is, Earthspark doesn't need to say anything. It's already there. The only thing that's in the way is that it is not in the Earthspark series.

Back in 2005-2006, where the news of a new Transformers movie in the works was about to happen, but now it was life action! Despite my ignorance of the franchise, I could name most of the characters. I knew that the blue blocky guy was Soundwave, I recognized Optimus Prime, Megatron and Starscream by sight, I knew that Starscream was a treacherous idiot.

I have no idea where that knowledge came from. I never consumed any other Transformers media, my brother had a total of four transformers, tiny microchangers none of which are any common guys, and we didn't know the names of, it was just a car that if standing up and pushing the hood over, it was a guy now. I have to reiterate, I have no idea how I came by that knowledge. Was it somehow absorbed through the various websites and media I saw online? I still remember having to download actual .avi files in order to watch videos from the internet, and with a limited connection anything I did online had to be measured carefully, so I had to tread on known grounds since it was highly risky seeing anything unknown because it took time and bandwidth away from the internet.

But still I knew it. And then Transformers Animated was released, where the opening scene even referenced the cartoon that came out before I was born, and then zoomed out to show that this new cartoon would be far different than its predecessor, even introducing a new main character while heavily rewamping an old one. That's where I started really consuming Transformers media, but still with the knowledge from unknown sources that it was drawing from a history older than I was.

And that is what Earthspark is relying on. It is using the fact that Transformers has become a very recognized brand where the knowledge of it passes easily. You don't need to watch any Transformers media to somehow know, that Starscream is a bumbling fool that tries to take over the Decepticons. And even if there is some unknown, the series makes it very clear that you can learn more about the Transformers, just read the comics! Or watch the old cartoon! I as a european can watch The G1 cartoon, Beast Wars and TFP for free on the official transformers channel on youtube even.

And that's how they rope you in. Earthspark is doing something new in how to reach audience, alluding to the bigger picture that's already there, waiting to be bought and consumed, while the older generation can enjoy a new storyline and little easter eggs without having to go through all the slog of reintroducing every single character that they already know.

[ilovescaredysquirrel2]

Inside Out 2 was decent (possible spoilers)

Okay so I don't really get hyped for Inside Out 2 as much as everyone else does, but I'm not denying that it was a cute movie, it had it's pros and cons. It's nothing special, though. I enjoyed the fist one and I love the new characters in the sequel. I'll start with the pros because there's more cons.

Okay, so I mostly love how they didn't push any romance tropes, other than Disgust hitting on that video game guy (that i noticed Anger and Fear kind of checking him out as well) and personally I think giving Disgust a love interest was out of character for her, but it worked. I mean, she's usually disgusted at everything but seeing a hot purple hair anime warrior calms her down. I actually LOVE how they had Riley crush on a video game character an not a boy at her school, I was so happy about that. Those of you who wanted Riley to be lesbian, I'm so sorry! I'm okay with that personally, even though I support LGBT, because I think it's more relatable for me the majority of girls watching that they didn't make her a lesbian. Maybe Disney will make a lesbian protagonist someday? And if not, maybe a better movie company will! Also, there's no romance between any of Riley's emotions, yay! It doesn't make sense if there was! Also, I like how they referenced to Dora the explorer in a funny, lighthearted way, instead of making fun of it in an offensive way. I hate when people make fun of innocent kids shows to be offensive, I really think they referenced to Dora just for laughs. Also, Anxiety's a decent character. I like her, personally. I like the idea of Disney not having real villains anymore, because not everything is just pure bad or good. Anxiety was just an antagonist and it's okay, she also got redemption too.

Now for the cons... and this is gonna be long. Okay, I DO NOT SUPPORT DISNEY! I mean, I don't think this movie should be the thing that brings Disney/Pixar back from their dark ages, but I'm not hating on the Inside Out 2. I do think it's overrated. My biggest complaint was the fact that THEY STOLE CHARACTER DESIGN FROM ANOTHER MOVIE and here's the pictures to prove it

Yeah, that dark secrets character looks almost exactly like Dark from Orion and the Dark, a movie that came out BEFORE Inside Out 2! and those of you saying "but they were working on both movies at the same time" WRONG! The movies were released at least 4 months apart and Disney does often rush their recent projects like they rushed the making of Wish! Another thing, the human animations in Inside Out 2 looked a little less rendered, while the emotion animations and facial expressions were PERFECT! Also, is it just me or does Riley sound younger in this sequel than she did in the first one? Which it doesn't make sense since she went through puberty, right?

In conclusion, the story is pretty decent but I don't think it's worth spending money to see in theaters. If you really desperately want to see it in theaters, fine! I prefer watching it online and don't forget that the free websites exist. The illegal copy of the movie (you know, the hidden camera recorded version with the slot machines) is on the free websites like Actvid and Kisscartoon. Go ahead and watch it on there if you're like me and you're just watching it because of extra free time, and you don't really want to give your money to the Big D.

Anyway, I'm basically neutral on this movie, feel free to state your opinion. Again, I'm not a Disney fan and yet I'm not denying that this was an okay-ish movie. I just don't think it's worth seeing in theaters when you can watch it online for free and Disney won't be robbing you.

[artemisdesari-blog]

When ao3 was created in 2008 I was already in my 20s. I'd already lost stories to purges on livejournal and FFN. But I had been exploring fandom spaces on the Internet for around ten years at that point. And I found all the adult spaces that I wasn't supposed to be, the ones that were locked down with basic date of birth verification questions which were very easy to get around. And everyone I was at school with did it. We all went into spaces online designed for people who were over 18 when we were too young for them. We saw and read a lot of things we were too young to see, but that was not the fault of the people who posted the things we were reading, or pictures we were viewing (and the pictures took a long time to load). That was our fault for going into those clearly marked places at all. I remember being 14 and certain NSFW Simpsons drawings had been printed out and passed around because of the shock factor. I remember being 13 at a sleepover and a friend brought one of her brother's very explicit videos with her for us all to watch because she thought it would be funny. We didn't and the screams of disgust summoned the parents of the girl we were staying with. But in all of this it was not the adults who inflicted this stuff on us. In fact when they discovered it the adults were the ones who put a stop to it (and in the process exposed a few things that were going on with the friend who brought the video to show a group of 13 year olds). We were not being invited into these adult spaces by adults. We were invading them as teens because we thought the restrictions were stupid, because we thought we were mature enough to go into them.

In my case, and those of my friends, our parents stepped in, the school stepped in, and we all found it a lot harder to access explicit material even though there wasn't as much available in the way of parental controls in the early days. We were watched, browser histories were checked. As the parent of a child who is just starting to enter that phase of their life it is my responsibility to set parental controls on their devices. It is down to me to make sure that they do not wander into adult spaces online and see things they shouldn't see. And if I miss something, it is my job as a parent to make sure that they feel safe enough to come to me and talk about it and how to avoid it until they're ready for it. It is not the responsibility of the person who drew or wrote whatever upset them, in the same way it is not the responsibility of film/TV studios to do anything more than write their scripts, shoot their media and get it rated before releasing it. If you wouldn't give your kid unfettered access to movies rated for well over their age, why are you giving them unfettered access to the Internet? The responsibility for sensible, appropriate, media consumption is not on the creators, it is on the parents and on the individual accessing it. If the creator has tagged it 'mature', 'explicit', 'minors DNI' or whatever, they know it will probably be ignored. But they did their part. It is not their fault if they're ignored.

So instead of clutching pearls and screeching 'think of the children', parents go out and do your damn job as a parent. As for the teens; if a place is marked not for you and you go there anyway, don't go blaming the creators if you see something that upsets you. It's like seeing a sign that says 'if you touch this button it will burn you' then complaining about being burned because you touched the button. You got what you were given. And in today's culture of tagging pretty much everything, that's a lot easier to do than it was when I was a tween and teen.

[glindaupland]

The Phantom of the Opera | Seoul, South Korea | October 8-14th, 2023 [REVIEWS]

Wow it's about time I posted these reviews that I kept lying about (this week! tomorrow! in 10 years!) Better late than never?

In this post I'll drop a few general things about the production, but the performances are analyzed in my reviews linked here. I recommend reading those all in order since I revisit points about actors I've made previously along the way to avoid repeating myself. Also leaving a disclaimer that these performances are from October so there are some changes in what the actors are doing now (with the exception of Jeon Dong-seok since he left in November) Apologies in advance for my wordiness, but this is more of a "release my feelings for my sake and if anyone else likes it that's cool too" kind of thing? Listen - I wrote a lot of notes on my performances there. So just go in knowing this is the more coherent version of my insane looking notes app!

Before I start I want to thank a few lovely friends who helped me out with this trip because it wouldn't have gone as well as it did without them!

Thank you to @lucygold95 for helping me so much with planning over the past months and for giving me the best time in Busan. Thank you @capitanogiorgio for all the shenanigans we went through and the most special time going to the 1500th and meeting Yoon Young-seok. Thank you to @fadinglandtragedy for the fun talks and the good advice before my trip! The best part of things like this is making friends of course! : )

PERFORMANCE REVIEWS:

| October 8, 2023 | October 11, 2023 | October 12, 2023 | | October 13, 2023 (M) | October 13, 2023 (E) | October 14, 2023 |

STAGE & THEATER

This was as close to the original staging as possible. So I was able to take it in one more (or I guess 6 more?) times post-Broadway closing. The Charlotte Theater is a lot smaller than the Majestic so every view was pretty solid in my opinion, even the second to last row. I took a video of my view from 4th row under the chandelier during the exit music on October 11th so you can see! The angel and chandelier are shown halfway through. I'd say 5th row was almost the cut off for the chandelier drop (that was my spot next day) Broadway seats in this area were always too expensive for me so I'm glad I was able to grab these spots for this production

There were photo zones you can take pics at which you've probably seen. One was a large rose wall, the other was the cute statue of their mascot 오유령. People also take forever lining up for the cast boards for photos and yes I was one of those people. Here's a comparison of the cast boards from the second season (pictures I found when reading old reviews on Naver) and the cast boards now (I forgot to take a photo of one on the top floor though)

I found this review where someone took more detailed clean photos than I did if you're curious about the layout and decorations!

MERCH AND GIFTS

The tickets had these designs! If you booked on Yes24, you received a special envelope and a ticket holder with the face of the Phantom performing for that show

I only didn't receive a second Ju-taek because that was booked on another site - Interpark (bottom middle ticket). I also received paper masks with printed autographs every day I went to commemorate the 200th performance of the run/100th for Seoul and the 1500th overall Korean performance. We used them for the curtain call photos on those two dates (with Jeon Dong-seok then Kim Ju-taek). There are multiple versions of the program book and at the time of writing this I have all except the Daegu one. The first Busan program book was pretty bare and only had the teaser pictures - the same was the case for my Les Mis program book in Busan. -There are different photos in each one, so to me it was worth grabbing them all. My third version signed by Kim Ju-taek is currently on display as you can see below! (The writing says "내 노래를 날게 해 주오 - Make my song take flight") Once again thank you to Lucy for this! 🥹❤️

Here's some of my POTO merch (including a spare cupsleeve from the coffee shop next door, I also had a keyring, but I forgot to show it) RIP to the second program book I sacrificed for scans I still have the pages stored/displayed though! I'm not wasteful! I'll have more to post soon after sharing these reviews

TRANSLATION

Let me emphasize this: my Korean abilities are limited, so don't look to me as the expert on this at all. But I'll still share my notes and perspective as an outsider who's studying The lyrics have changed quite a bit since 2001-2. There are still lines kept or songs that are mostly similar. MOTN had a lot of similarity to 2009-11 even with its changes, STYDI was identical to 2009-11, but Angel of Music was pretty different from even the last season, etc etc. The Phantoms all have unique lines sprinkled here and there, mainly in MOTN (this happens sometimes in Korean musicals). You get some things like random single line changes in some parts depending on the actor or different order/wording of the same lines as well. Just tiny diversions from the script. This is the case for the Christines and Raoul to a lesser extent. Additionally, actors are often permitted to do some occasional improvisation/ad libs. Some unique lines are pretty normal parts of their interpretations now, some appear depending on the feeling of the performance, some are one time only events. I'll mention some of the actor-specific ones and such in their actual reviews, but I have been trying to mark down all of the differences like these for example

Of course, some things obviously have to be adjusted to make sense because of cultural / linguistic reasons. So one example would be the "Wrote...written" line in Notes I. Firmin speaks rudely and informally, but quickly tries adding a more respectful ending particle 요 after Raoul and André give him a shocked 'what did you just say?' kind of look. So "대체 뭘 썼다고 하는 건데...요!" is pretty much like "What the hell are you saying I wrote?" André would look so embarrassed by this each time 🫣

퇴근길 / STAGE DOOR

Stage door doesn't really work the same as it does in places like New York, London, etc. Most of the time if an actor comes out it's more like a quick greeting or chat with the fans. Some actors (not in this case) might sign or take photos in designated spots, but it really depends and it's not so common. It's gotten more restricted ever since COVID as well. 퇴근길 -> "way home from work" is literally what this is called. Dong-seok did wave at us a few times happily after the 200th performance, Gun-ha briefly came out to thank fans after the 1500th while Ceci and I waited to meet Young-seok who had agreed to meet us. I did not have the time (or strength) for the Seung-woo mob, but he usually greets fans after shows.

I literally asked Yoon Young-seok directly on Instagram if Ceci and I could meet him and give him gifts because I figured it didn't hurt to try! When he agreed, my anxiety was not necessarily about meeting an actor, but more about my ability to express my thoughts in another language. But he was truly the sweetest guy and incredibly patient. I think he got that I understood everything he said, but that replying was a whole other challenge. I'm glad I was making enough sense that he was able to get my points and helped me finish sentences if I looked stressed about it 😂 I basically told him I had been planning this trip since the cast announcement because it was too perfect to miss and that I came for 6 shows. I really like to listen to his Phantom on the cast recordings and I thought he made the shows I had seen so far so much fun.

We both said where we were from (the US and France) and he was amazed. He was also shocked when I pulled out my original Korean cast recording (I still laugh thinking about the way he said "와, 세상에!" like "Wow, oh my god!" and enthusiastically took it agreeing to sign when I was mid-way asking him haha) I also thought it was funny when he asked Ceci if she saw his Phantom last season. We wish! But she mentioned she had gone to Busan a few times and he looked very touched and appreciative that we went to multiple performances 🥹 This poor man was tired he signed our things with November (11.13) though and he also spelled Ceci's name wrong first time, but it was the 1500th show though okay. And if he says it's November...who are we to question him? Ceci should also legally change names so he isn't wrong. Anyway, ramble over you can find the art we made for him in this post

OTHER

Here's just bonus fun I had that I will manage to connect to POTO despite it not being POTO because I love doing that. I mean I went because I like these musicals as well (otherwise I would've been foolish enough to go see Ben-Hur but I have, uh, standards for my plots sorry to Park Eun-tae 😭), but it's fun to point out these things. I'm happy to share my show experiences in a different post if anyone's interested in my thoughts on those

Rebecca

I went to see Rebecca, mainly focused on seeing a scheduled date for 이지혜 Lee Ji-hye (Ich) and 장은아 Jang Eun-ah (Mrs Danvers). The whole cast was fantastic. Some Korean musicals have special encore bits they do where the leads sing a part of a song from the show during bows so that was really fun. Unfortunately, we don't get to have fun at POTO like that haha

Lee Ji-hye was in Y&K Phantom as Christine in the same cast as Jeon Dong-seok (Erik), Yoon Young-seok (Gérard Carrière), and Lee Sang-jun (Cholet). Two other cast members in Rebecca were in Y&K as well - 에녹 Enoch (Maxim) who was Philippe and 신영숙 Shin Young-sook (Mrs Danvers) who was Carlotta. Sadly, they had such few shows this season due to a busy schedule, so I couldn't see them (when will trot give Enoch back to musicals). Original Korean ALW Raoul and Y&K Erik 류정한 Ryu Jeong-han was also on rotation as Maxim, but I picked another day for my show so I didn't see him either

Les Misérables

I went to opening night of Les Mis in Busan! It was the Dream Theater, same place POTO played at before. As many of you already know, Choi Jae-rim is playing Jean Valjean at the same time as the Phantom.

I could recognize him easily as the Phantom, but honestly when he appeared at the very start of Les Mis it took me a minute to process that it was him! While I did enjoy his Phantom a lot, I think I enjoyed his Valjean performance a little more. It was only opening night, so curious to see how things develop!

The actor who played Javert that night, 카이 Kai (stage name), was a former Y&K Erik for two seasons too. So many Phantoms!

Frankenstein

On the last day I got to see Dong-seok and Ji-hye once more in a concert for the musical Frankenstein which they have been in together. So have some pics I took without a mask blocking his face!

Ending Note

Thinking back to December 2022 when I said: "Maybe I'll go to Seoul and see Dong-seok once or twice and that's it, I can have my first international POTO" That was funny. That was really very very funny and silly of me to say. 9 performances and 6 of those were POTO! But I'm so grateful and I have zero regrets about it. This is one of the best experiences I've had even if it might look ridiculous to some people to do something like this...I don't care! I hope my crazy essays can help paint a good picture for you!

[moltz23]

Did a Potential Overhaul in the Post-Timeskip Cutscenes mess up with 3H's Development? - Development Mystery/Theory

Back in 2021, Nintendo released a video called Fire Emblem : Vol 1 to celebrate the franchise's 30th anniversary. And around 30:35, the video shows the 3H Movie "Rematch", used for Chapter 17 of the Azure Moon and Verdant Wind routes.

With a catch.

It's not the same one that ended up on the final game:

A glimpse into an alternate reality?

People went wild back when they noticed Edelgard and Claude in this version are using the outfits of their Emperor & Barbsrossa classes rather than the Armored Lord and Wyvern Master ones seen in the game we got, leading to much speculation surrounding what this meant for Three Houses. And it goes without saying that, while unseen, fans suspect that Dimitri uses his Great Lord outfit rather than the High Lord's in this version. So... The heck is up with this movie???

Well, as uncovered by VincentASM from sereneforest.net, it's highly likely this take of the movie shown in the promotional Nintendo/FE video is from an early build of the game. A build so early, that Edelgard skin and eyes were more saturated, and characters still didn't use unique palettes when using generic classes (which was incidentally used in February's JP Nintendo Direct of 2019).

Your call as for which version looks better.

It doesn't just end there though; if Three Houses' datamine is anything to go by - namely, the internal order the classes have in the code - we can find evidence that can answer why the endgame lord classes were used in this variation rather than the "middle ones" early on: simply put, Armored Lord, High Lord, and Wyvern Master did not exist during most of 3H' development. In turn, this explains why the Flame Emperor Class - Edelgard's enemy-only class for Part 1 - is internally, a model swap of her Emperor class rather than Armored Lord's: the latter didn't exist during development of Part 1, so Emperor was used as a base instead.

With this evidence uncovered and the answer giving resolution to the promotional footage shown, hopes waned down for the future of 3H, and everyone moved on.

This raises two questions I haven’t seen anyone point out before, though.

How much (if any) did this change mess up the post-timeskip movies? Is it the reason why the Silver Snow Theorem happened?

To explain these inquiries further, I'll go into greater detail about each one:

1. Two Types of Animated Movies.

Corporate needs you to find the differences between these two pictures.

Three Houses uses 2 types of animated movies for important scenes. The first one (see the one on the left), was done in-house by KT through pre-rendering shenanigans with the 3H engine. Meanwhile, the second one (on the right) was outsourced to SANZIGEN.

The distinction between both is relevant because the movie showcased in the FE Castle Conversations video - as well its final version - belong to the former category. Meaning that, should the character designs get tweaked during development, in the best case scenario, as far IS & KT were concerned, swapping models should be enough to keep things up to date, which might as well be what happened with the "Rematch" movie once the House Leader's main post-timeskip designs were swapped.

But what about tweaking the other type of movies, though? The ones commissioned to the animation studio? I can't imagine the whole process being cheap in their case, more so given that 8 out of the 11 movies commissioned to SANZIGEN feature the 3H lords post-timeskip:

What's important here is that ☆ = Doesn't feature any 3H lord in any capacity.

Granted, the smartest course of action in this instance would've been to simply commission the post-timeskip movies near the end of development to avoid consistency/revision issues, for which there is a plausible chance that’s the case. After all, in the E3 2018 trailer for the game - which was the first instance we ever saw footage of it - the only animated movie outsourced seen was the one from the intro.

But... What if that’s not the case?

Call me paranoid if you want, but I raise this worry for a reason-

2. "The Theorem of What?????"

Love this banner so much.

A few months ago I did a breakdown on how 3H distributes it's movies across routes, and if there's anything that stood up a ton besides the predictable stuff, is that the game followed a clear pattern which determined which routes would get the most movies, versus which ones would get screwed instead. In my breakdown, I coined this pattern "The Silver Snow Theorem" which proposes the following:

"The amount of movies and fullscreen CGs present in a route’s main story by Part 2, is directly and inversely proportional respectively, to how much the narrative follows Silver Snow’s story beats."

And as a refresher, Silver Snow matters to the development of Three Houses because: A. That's the first route the developers worked on; and B. was used as the basis for the other 3:

Which route specifically did you create in the beginning to establish the world-building? Kusakihara: It was one of the two paths in the Empire route—the one fans refer to as the “church route”: “Silver Snow” [...] afterwards, we had Koei Tecmo’s scripting team start work on the nitty-gritty of the other house leaders and the story of their respective routes.

While Silver Snow having this much influence over the Part 2 movies is noticeable in hindsight, truth be told, I did initially brush it off as just a side effect of being used as a template for development. Looking back now though, a part of me now wonders if the Part 2 movies were first commissioned once Silver Snow was late into development and AM and VW had been already decided to borrow a ton from the route’s first half. Because if that’s the case, then there might have been cutscenes outsourced to SANZIGEN that did feature Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude with their second post-timeskip lord classes rather than one ones fans are most familiar with.

But then, it was decided during development that the house leaders would rather use different outfits instead. And this might have caused problems with budget since changing those outsourced cutscenes ain’t an easy task compared to the ones KT made in-house.

Like, seriously.

Goes without saying that all this is merely conjecture. But I feel it’s worth making the question because, to reiterate, the Silver Snow Theorem highlights that the more a route follows Silver Snow’s story beats to a tee, the more animated cutscenes (and less CGs) it gets. And given evidence points out the lord’s main post-timeskip classes fans are familiar with were a late addition… I guess y’all know where I’m going by now.

I usually don’t make threads focusing on fan theories and stuff, but this has been in my mind for a long while so I wanted to see what you guys think about it. Do you think more movies with the lord’s 2nd classes got made before the outfit swap was made? Or perhaps the issue the devs ran with that caused the Silver Snow Threorem might be due to something else entirely…? Also, what's y'all's opinion on SANZIGEN's movies compared to the ones done by KT?