#who doesn't love a bit of plot?

[emisloves]

definitely overdid myself with my upcoming fic... because wdym it's already 6.8k words in and the smut is just starting?

[notbecauseofvictories]

very strongly feel that moist/adora is the only actual romantic relationship terry pratchett ever wrote.

[theevilcactus]

Would any Fear Street (1994) characters survive Dracula?

Inspired by @canyourfavesurvivecastledracula, but not wanting to overload their ask box any more than it already is (especially with characters they probably don’t know), I decided to analyze some of the Fear Street characters’ chances myself.

Deena:

Deena would say something rude and snarky to Dracula on the first night, and she’d be dead within two days. She wouldn’t accept the crucifix in the beginning either, but it wouldn’t matter, because she wouldn’t even make it to the point where she would need it. If, somehow, she manages to avoid pissing him off to the extent that he immediately kills her, she still dies because (when she eventually figures out how much danger she’s in) she tries to confront him directly instead of making a secret escape attempt. She’s got guts, but not a lot of patience, so she wouldn’t be willing to play the politeness game with Dracula, and it would cost her.

Josh:

Josh would be the first to figure out that Dracula is a vampire. He would accept the crucifix (although probably not wear it) out of politeness, and it would come in handy later when he puts the pieces together about vampirism and has a handy crucifix in his bag to help him out. If it was just Josh v Dracula, he could probably make it. He would explore when told not to, of course, because his curiosity about supernatural happenings is insatiable. However, he would be successfully lured and eaten by the girlies, and even if he somehow managed to get past that part, I just don’t think he has the physicality needed for the eventual escape.

Sam:

Out of everybody from 1994, I think Sam has the best chance of making it. She’s relatively friendly and polite (unlike a lot of other characters in that movie, who are just dicks) so she wouldn’t anger Dracula to the point of murder. As seen in the movie, she’s perfectly capable of playing nice with people she doesn’t actually like that much (see: her comp-het relationship with asshole Peter) so I think she could successfully be polite enough to Dracula that he keeps her around for a while before he’s ready to kill her, like Jonathan in Dracula canon.

She’d have been polite enough to accept the crucifix, and probably to actually wear it, so she’s good on that front. She’s smart enough to figure out what’s going on, or at least the bare bones of it, even if she doesn’t know all the details. She might be tempted by the brides, but I think that scene would go similarly to canon, where Dracula swoops in to save her and then she avoids the girlies from that point forward.

In fact, I think most of her time in Dracula’s castle goes the same as Jonathan’s. Maybe not the specific details, but the broad strokes would be the same. The only question is, would she have the physicality to scale the walls in that final escape? She’s a cheerleader, so we know she’s reasonably fit, but we’ve never seen her trying to climb. I think it could go either way. I’d give Sam a 40% chance of surviving, which is still far better than anyone else from that movie.

Kate and/or Simon: Kate refuses the crucifix, Simon accepts it but loses it somewhere along the way. Neither is polite or deferential enough for Dracula to decide to play the long game. He goes for a little nibble sometime, discovers the wonders of hard drugs from their bloodstream, and has himself a feast.

[goldentigerfestival]

Since I'd been talking a lot about JP Vesperia (primarily Yuri and Flynn and the heavy changes that surround them, and because I'm highly passionate about them in their original context), I wanted to compile some more jarring if not outright glaring mistakes in the localization (or what were likely intentional changes, because I can't look at some of these and just call them "mistakes"). I'm not going to mention every little change throughout the game, so smaller things I'll mostly be leaving out (namely things that don't really affect characters or context). I primarily just wanted to give some insight on some of the bigger parts.

Some of the changes seem to have been mistakes in translation itself (not just localization, but misunderstanding what was being said in general; such as, there's an instance I mention of that between Patty and Don), so I've got some mentions hanging around for clarity purposes as some scenes didn't make much sense, likely because of this.

Vocal tone with Yuri was the most prominent issue that got me making this, and the context that was changed being right after if not equally next to that (most often also with Yuri but also Flynn).

This is something that has been bothering me for a while and I've been wanting to share this stuff with people interested in seeing the game with its original context. Generally speaking, the plot and story themselves are on point. The majority of the differences surround Yuri and Flynn respectively, so there's going to be a lot of mention of them throughout.

I've also posted video clips of my favorite scenes and the heavy changes, so consider those a supplement to this and vice versa.

Part 2.

Part 3.

Part 4.

(Other) GTF Favorites.

I'd like to preface this by mentioning the chief director and producer of the game itself has also spoken about localization inaccuracy issues, so that's something to keep in mind (it's in Japanese, but you should be able to use the offered post translator).

I'd also like to preface this by mentioning that in the original, Yuri is more playful and relaxed/casual (generally but including with Flynn, which the dub pretty much entirely changed until arc 3), but also gentler and softer. He has a very large variety of tonal behaviors/tonal "moods" that were pretty much nuked from the dub.

Basically, to get the full experience for Yuri, I can only really recommend playing the game in JP audio. Obviously you won't get the actual context because all you'll have is the dub context, but that's also partly why I'm making these posts - to cover the contextual changes while the video clips cover some of the tonal changes (because lbh I don't expect anyone to actually go watch the entire game in JP with subtitles unless you're as insanely dedicated as I am, and I'm largely doing it out of my love for the original Yuri and Flynn and my disdain for how the localization treated them).

As a heads up, there won't be many skits in here because I'm going through a specific YT playthrough for these screenshots. Specific skits won't always come up in the playthrough in question, and I can't find a whole list of skits in JP anywhere online. I don't have all skits unlocked in my own save either yet (you can unlock all skits with Grade which I have yet to do in the DE), so I can't use that to compare all skits right now.

There are plenty of small changes here and there that I won't be including in these posts because there are some sentence changes that aren't impactful but do exist. I just don't want to be here for a year covering the random changes that don't matter much. I'm also not going to include details of a lot of honorifics because I'd be here all day, but there is one one major instance that I mention later on.

For reference if anything wants to actually watch the game in JP with the subs (it goes until just after Hypionia), most of the references come from here. Since in some cases the subber just reused localized text even when the context wasn't the same, I did bring some of those up in these posts too. These were subbed before the DE version came out. I used screenshots with subs where possible to make it easier to follow along.

I have a lot of passion for JP Yuri and I hope I can pass on some of that passion to others. 🙏

Apologies in advance if some of these sound cranky. If I sound cranky about some specific changes, it's probably because I am.

---

Since I talked about the whole, Raven being shady and Yuri therefore not being grateful to him incident that the localization for some reason butchered and made Yuri sound like a generally ungrateful or just outright dumb person who doesn't understand gratitude, I'll summarize that one again here:

Yuri has a skit with Estelle originally talking about how he can't find himself being grateful to someone like Raven for showing him how to sneak out of the castle. Basically, Raven is shady and he's not sure he should be grateful to someone like that, and is confused as to why Estelle would be so grateful when she doesn't even know him (because in his mind, he isn't sure he wants to trust a guy with those vibes). The dub just kinda... makes him sound like an ungrateful jerk and not so much because he's not sure he wants to trust Raven. It doesn't really sound like it's an issue of his with Raven specifically but more that he just generally doesn't feel grateful for the aid (and that in general one shouldn't feel grateful for aid like this), which gives off a really wrong impression of him that doesn't hold up throughout the game. Yuri wasn't wholly ungrateful for the gesture itself, but because of who it came from (and I imagine a weird peppy guy in jail is good cause to be skeptical).

We start off we a classic "Yuri, you idiot!" that was changed to "come on already!".

Yuri's response to Estelle mentioning he'd been in the knights doesn't actually give a time frame for how long he'd been there (the dub made up three months, but there was never originally even a time frame given).

Here when Yuri asks Estelle why she can't just leave, her response indicates she actually does know why. The dub made it more ambiguous, which could be easily misinterpreted as she really doesn't know, so I'm dropping this one here.

For some reason the localization seemed to have Estelle responding to Karol directly about the ace always performing their attack last ("I don't think so"). What she was referring to was the tiny monster that walked by, asking for confirmation that that monster was not the eggbear they were looking for (I wasn't gonna fight with the video to get a better screenshot without the annoying YT red bar in the way so the monster is in the corner mid-movement lol). Not sure if that was a genuine mistake, but it was an odd one.

(Also, side note and not putting an image here because it's more general, but Yuri refers to Karol as "Karol-sensei" which was translated in the localization to "Captain Karol". Basically, Yuri calls him "sensei" because that's a teacher/professor, and he's making a play on Karol's knowledge and being their "teacher" about monsters/maps/etc.)

I'd say this is more along the lines of overexaggerating and not overreacting, but this line was literally changed to "haha" in the dub. The whole point wasn't that Yuri just brushed her comment off or found it funny. At this point he still literally thinks she's exaggerating about her lack of knowledge out in the world, her excitement, etc.

Not the only instance you'll find of the dub just changing entire sentences to something meaningless as if they ??? didn't know what it meant (they actually changed Patty saying an entire sentence to "aye"). In some cases they added entire sentences that weren't even there...

Even though I can kind of see where they went with the dub here, the point was supposed to be that Flynn actively thought he would be happy for Yuri to go outside the barrier and see the world.

The dub changed this to Flynn saying that he, in the now, is happy that Yuri is outside the barrier, but then says he got a little less happy when he saw the wanted poster, indicating he was previously happy but got less happy, yet says in that moment that he is happy.

It's a weird case of (past/present) tense usage for the most part, but they also removed the fact that Flynn is literally saying "I thought I would be happy" (thus expressing he'd been wanting Yuri to see the world outside the barrier and would've been happy to find out he did). The reason he's not finding himself happy is because of the wanted poster and the crimes listed on it, following up that his honest happiness for Yuri (ultimately because of the poster) was a lie.

This also means they removed Flynn expressing the honesty of his happiness for a positive concept for Yuri, which, given all the changes toward Flynn in the dub, already now takes away from the fact that he'd been actively hoping for good things for someone and we're left with this more sarcastic take on him being "happy".

Obviously his happiness wasn't really a lie because most of the crimes were falsified (primarily the ones that would make him actually mad, because Flynn has had to have been aware this whole time that Yuri has committed small time crimes for the past few years now), but at the time, the focus on this conversation is that Flynn thought he'd be happy at a time that Yuri left the barrier; meaning he'd been hoping for it prior to it happening.

I'm also mentioning it because it's the very first in a whole line of changes the dub made to their relationship (and it's their first in game interaction ffs) and to Flynn himself as he's perceived as a character. The original is much more expressive of how important they are to each other in a lot of various ways.

Inserting the JP audio version of the following scene with Flynn here.

And... the following one from there.

This was changed to "damn, we if lose our balance...". I know they did it because Yuri had just fallen over, but I'm including this one because the context isn't... really the same thing?

This dub change is a bit odd to me. They had him saying something along the lines of "she is a princess after all" in the dub, regarding the council backing her.

The original context is more like, the council is backing her and he's hearing it directly from Ioder and he probably doubts Ioder would lie like that or about that, cementing that yes, she truly is, like he suspected, a princess, but it's almost still a bit odd to know. It's sort of like, he knew/had suspicions but hearing it directly from Ioder just confirms it for certain.

The dub just made it sound like well yeah, it's obvious they'd want to back her, she's a princess... but Ioder is a prince, so that doesn't explain why they're not backing him. She is a princess after all, so of course they'd back her... but what's stopping them from backing the prince?

Another weird one for me. In the dub Yuri says that "even the Commandant was a little in over his head", when he actually... really wasn't? All he did was step in. Things got bad enough that he had to, but he wasn't in over his head. Not sure how or why the dub ended up with that.

An example of the dub having a habit of just adding in random lines that didn't actually exist (and in this case the one added didn't even contextually make sense. This was no thank you from him, this was literally him making Yuri do something for him because he was going to ask Flynn for a favor and ended up with Yuri in the cell instead).

Another super weird one in the dub. They had Yuri saying Flynn was "too" late, implying he hadn't made it in time, but he did. He made it just before the battle started, but the original context only says he's late, not too late (which makes sense given that they were ready to fight but hadn't started yet).

This was changed to Yuri just mentioning there was one way they could get out of there without actually saying what it was, and Judith saying if he thinks it might work what's the harm in trying it out. Not sure why they changed Yuri literally telling her his plan, so... again, a super weird change that I don't get why they didn't just keep the context the way it was.

Third image was changed to "someone get me away from this psycho", which... I also don't get why they put that there unless they just wanted so much flavor text that they wanted to change the whole "they're in a fight and he's telling her not to come over here because he's pissed at her because they're fighting" part of the fake fight they had going on.

Not one I have a huge problem with, but definitely good examples of them going out of their way to change just... perfectly normal stuff that literally has no reason to be changed? Some of it is flavor text and some of it feels over the top for me. Stuff that makes me like... why would you change that when there was no reason to? Could be more of a personal pet peeve of mine, but I just don't like unnecessary changes when there was nothing wrong or odd about the original text and doesn't at all come off odd in English. Unfortunately Vesperia got littered with those.

I didn't feel like getting a whole video for this, but basically Judith gives a little laugh instead of just the more upset/distressed(?) sound she made in the dub. Feels more fitting imo to keep up the "lie" Yuri started for her. The dub makes it seem more like she feels guilty, versus here she's giving a little forced giggle to go along with it. Again, a change I'm not sure why they put in.

Ngl I get completely different vibes from these. The JP comes across more as concern, rather than... treating them like they're some mob on the loose...?

Once again, this gives off negative vibes toward Flynn as a character imo.

Here Judith gives more of a reason for coming with them, which they changed in the dub to "with the circumstances being what they are, this is just how things turned out". Reasonably, she didn't have to stick around after they ran from Dahngrest, but here she gives a quick "reason".

The dub changed this to "I'll bet he is". They were just told he's the current magistrate in Heliord, and all Yuri says here expresses he's letting it sink in and realizing exactly why all this is happening here. It's not a huge story beat or anything that gets changed, but it's an example of changing things that don't need to be changed as if trying to play things up in a way that... doesn't feel necessary to me? In this case the situation is kind of dawning on Yuri as he realizes how bad this situation could be/why it's like it is, but in the dub it comes across as more just unimpressed and "of course he'd do that".

An unfortunate, classic moment of them changing how much Yuri believes in and trusts Flynn. They changed this to "gotta run, Flynn!" and he just... leaves. I'm sorry but in what universe does "leave the rest to you" equal "gotta run"???

This one is one of those cases where the localization text was super awkward and wonky, and worse, they actually voiced it that way (like "we have guild's job to deal with". Yes, they actually voiced it that way too on top of everything else grammatically wonky with the entire conversation that they didn't bother fixing when the DE came out).

Also here, they changed what Yuri says about Cumore and Flynn. "I don't know how I could explain this to Flynn" doesn't, at least to me, carry the same weight as Yuri actually feeling ashamed (in the dub he says "what a shame", but does not express shame, versus him saying "how pathetic" and expressing shame in feeling pathetic) and saying he can't even face Flynn because Cumore got away. The thing is, Yuri does tend to posture, so when he fails at something, it hits him pretty hard.

And let's be honest, this just hits way harder than "he will get what he deserves".

Interestingly, Yuri could also fall into the category of viewing himself as sinful later on, which I talk about in my favorites post and the usage of "crime" and "sin" within the JP context.

Not particularly important, but just another (more mild) case and example of how the dub just randomly changed tone/mood/wording for no reason.

Another case of Yuri being more aggressive in the dub than he actually was. Here, all he says is just a plain statement. In the dub, he has an attitude about it and says it in a tone that's more insulting that Ioder didn't know about Heracles.

This isn't the only case of dub Yuri acting aggressively toward Ioder when he wasn't supposed to be and we'll get to that, but Ioder is another similar case of the dub making Yuri unnecessarily vocally rude (despite that Ioder is very polite toward Yuri).

(I left out the subtitles because all they did was copy the dub's localization, which kinda defeats the point of this post LOL. This will be the case going forward for any same circumstances.)

This one's a more interesting tidbit to me and less of a harmful change (i.e. I find that a lot of if not most changes relative to Flynn do more harm than good when compared with the original context). Basically it's saying "sweet mask and sharp eyes", implying Flynn's sweet face is a mask and saying it contrasts with his sharp eyes. I could get into a whole rant about why I love that in relation to some side material, but even in the game itself, there's the knight Flynn with his sweet, polite side and his real side that only shows when he's around Yuri (basically, who Flynn has to be for his job and who he actually is as a person, which he only gets to be around someone who knows the real him).

I'd guess this got changed in the dub because they weren't sure how to word it, though there's no mention of "heartthrob" here at all and instead actually says "sweet mask" as if, again, to say his sweetness is just a mask. It's actually a very interestingly accurate representation of his character - how he tends to not be himself when he's being "knight Flynn", and how that sweet face is contrasted by the look in his eyes (which they say, you know, eyes are the windows to the soul, so this would imply the sweet face is the mask and the eyes are the real Flynn. And of course, this Flynn is implied to show himself in his sparring with Yuri in Aurnion, where sword fighting is the best way to express himself. This isn't to say Flynn being a nice person in and of itself is a lie, but that his overly polite, respectful, kind knight side is a sweet mask contrasted to the man who loves to fight and has a sharp look in his eyes)

For now, we'll be back at Mantaic in the next post (due to image per post limit).

[bmpmp3]

the villainess flips the script is a really fun manhwa with gorgeous art and my wonderful son luca who is a little bitch who i love so much BUT i will say. the family tree situation as the story has gone on makes my head hurt

[bumblingbabooshka]

Voyager Episode where Chakotay and Tuvok are making a fish tank together as a B Plot. It appears in the mess hall after this episode.

[langernameohnebedeutung]

Tanner 💔

[eorzeashan]

Sort of turning over thoughts in my head (and you've all seen enough of me yelling about swords lately) but even without the Inquisitor story, Eight and Talos already go way back -- before Talos ever meets the Inquisitor, Eight was often pirated from Intelligence to be Talos' bodyguard whenever he stumbled across dangerous knowledge or artifacts that would put a target on a humble archaeologist like him. they're good partners and good friends, and at first, Eight was not happy about being pulled into nonsense work for other branches, but as Talos tends to get wrapped up in situationsTM while gleefully chasing that spark of knowledge, things got rather...exciting and he found himself conscripted more and more on his expeditions (which he himself ended up liking and fostering his own fascination with the world which Talos studied). It's but one of the reasons why he expresses less derision towards Force-users compared to his other agent siblings.

This dynamic doesn't stop even when Eight is assigned to spy on Lord Zash (as my way of justifying him in the Inquisitor story) and even further beyond, where reuniting in the Alliance if the PC recruits both of them at the same time triggers a little cutscene where they happily point each other out, sort of like SCORPIO and Kaliyo.

I've also decided that whether in his own timeline of KOTFE/ET or a different Commander's, Eight's sword is one that he and Talos discovered on yet another scouting expedition to ancient ruins looking for Jedi remnants. They were too late to save the Jedi who sent the distress call from a remote planet of Je'daii ruins, and so unexpectedly ran into a trap of Zakuul Knights everywhere who had also intercepted the signal and lay in wait to try and capture the Outlander, but as Eight does, he protected both of them well enough-- but the situation was dicey enough that they had to hide in the Je'daii village.

Further discovery and Talos' nosey self revealed the site of many a Je'daii forge and one lone sword hidden under centuries of ash and dust, but Eight would note that it appeared to be unfinished, left on a whetstone all by itself. No sword guard, a misshapen piece strung together by wire above where the collar is supposed to be...it appeared the Jedi they'd come to rescue had spent all their lonely months trying to restore it. By this time, all the heavy fighting has long since snapped Eight's own vibroblade in two, so he takes it with him. It turns out to be the key to making it off-planet, as the original smith of the Je'daii sword made it as a lament to his people's descent into war and their own inability to find another way, and so left it as a gift to the future in the hopes that one day it would be used by someone unfettered by their mistakes, who walked the in-betweens and retained the strength that the smith lacked in their life. Eight's heart resonates with the force imbued into the blade, unbeknownst to him as this is, as he simply marvels at the craftsmanship and remarks that whoever made it put love and care into forging it, and decides that he'll be its custodian out of respect for the life that this one Je'daii lived. Talos urges him on to keep it and recreate the way it was used (mostly for his own anthropological studies), but also as a secret gift to his long-standing bodyguard of an agent who still walks with the soul of a warrior.

There's a lot of ruminating on the Force and the past during this little arc, and Eight is a bit starry-eyed by the thought that the Sith and the Jedi used to be one, like a confirmation to his dream of living side-by-side to both these respective cultures. He and Talos emerge from the gauntlet with a newfound appreciation for being tourists in this strange history, as well as the knowledge that someone from thousands of years prior could feel the same way you do now.

Anyways, long ramble aside, I really liked the idea that Eight's sword is still a Je'daii sword which opens his eyes to a bit of their storied past since he has little to no experience with Jedi but needs to understand them in his own way as well in order to truly live as part of their secret world. Like the red sageo cord on his belt dyed in the blood of Sith, I thought it'd be nice if he carried another's object of grief and unfulfilled wishes on his back like that.

There's something about ancient history and touching it as someone who has no relation to it that really speaks to me, and the idea of non-force users taking up their legacy is sweet, imo. Like we'll take care of you even when you're long gone. It's the kind of love that you don't really see between the Force-sensitive and Force-blind in-game.

And a sword must be used. It has no use without a wielder, even if its very existence is a question that cannot be answered on whether the world is better off without a weapon that can only be used for violence, good intentions aside. That sword was created to answer that very question, of which its blacksmith could not answer themselves and hoped for another to take up the blade in their place.

In that blade, Eight sees himself.

[dbphantom]

I had the funniest dream last night that there was a new episode specifically for s2 of H2O. It was just a revamp of season 1 episode 10 the camera never lies but Rikki and Zane teamed up to film something underwater at Mako Island. Rikki was the camerawoman and Zane was the actor (as you do when mermaids are involved).

Filming went well, there were no sharks, and Zane had the money to buy a bunch of cool stuff for filming underwater including breathing tubes and air pumps to explain how the camerawoman could stay underwater for so long (the show just used their actual versions of them because I mean. They had them. At the very least they had them for the scene where Zane sinks in the Lorelei. I don't see why they wouldn't still use them for some s2 shots).

But when they finally got back and were watching the footage they were like oh shit. They can't show this because Cleo Emma and Lewis are going to realize what they did, and they're going to realize they're dating and that Zane knows about Rikki.

So it ended up becoming a hot potato game of passing the footage between each other until Nate got his hands on it and entered it into the competition for himself. So that gave Zane and Rikki a bit of an out because Zane could just say Nate was filming him, but Rikki is upset because she put a lot of work into the film and now she's not getting credit for it. Especially since last year essentially the same thing happened where she made a film and couldn't use or get credit for her work.

Zane ended up forfeiting the submission because of it and shrugs it off when Rikki is like why would you do that, you totally would have won again, it was leagues better than everyone else's. And Zane was like. Yeah. Exactly. You wouldn't have gotten the credit for it, and I don't want to win if it isn't with you.

So, totally unrelated note, I think I just came up with a new filler episode for my H2O fic.

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread    

The Battle Drum

sequel to The Final Strife, a queer Ghanian/Arabian high fantasy world where people are divided by blood colour

the nightly hurricanes are getting more deadly, and Sylah travels to unknown lands to discover the truth and find help

meanwhile Anoor is trying to manage her new political position while framed for a murder she didn’t commit

[glittergradient]

i love books that don’t coddle their readers, i love authors who assume their readers are smart and make them work for IT*

*understanding anything

[tarraxahum]

started rewatching kill la kill purely for nostalgia and yet as I'm approaching the final stretch of episodes I am finding that apparently it still makes me go fucking feral

for some reason rewatching it with an adult-ier brain makes me appreciate Satsuki in a way I feel like I never did back in my high school years (which is a travesty)

[tennisthemedhatesex]

(Death Note specific) intelligence is being able to see Why things happened the way they did and that the "plot hole" an annoying fan pointed out was not a plot hole, also what they suggested instead would have consequences that [usually Light, sometimes L] probably thought about and actively avoided.

(Death Note specific) wisdom is knowing that the authors probably didn't think of that, and the annoying fan is correct from that perspective. Authors forgot to consider [x] haha

Self awareness is knowing you will be annoyed regardless.

[hedgehog-moss]

Last spring my neighbour asked if I could let Pirlouit mow the grass around his barn from time to time, which Pirou was happy to do at first but if I left him there several days in a row he got pretty sad about being alone (lots of wistful, melancholy braying). So this year when my donkey was hired for this job again, I went for a different formula: for the past few weeks I've been bringing all the animals to the neighbour's barn for an hour of landscaping services now and then at apéritif time.

The fence is extremely not Pampe-proof so I have to have my apéritif while sitting on the road in a strategic position from which I can toss a stick in her direction if she tries to escape, but other than that I've been really enjoying this peaceful evening ritual, just sitting there reading and watching the animals while feeling like I'm doing my neighbour a favour. Pirlouit doesn't get all the grass to himself anymore but I've learnt that he prefers to be rich in friends than in food.

You'll notice that Merricat is present in every photo, looking alert. She too has been hired, but for the thankless job of Thought Police. She may look like she's just napping on the warm asphalt with not a care in the world...

... but she is working! Keeping an eye on the llamas, always.

I've discovered that in a specific context my three cats can act as precogs and warn me of Pampe's future crimes. My theory is that they developed this skill because of Poldine, who loves cats. Any cat who enters the pasture will soon be noticed and (lovingly) chased by Poldine, who wants kisses. Cats not only do not want llama kisses, they don't differentiate between individual llamas. They are all potential kissers. So even if it looks like she's all relaxed, Merricat is constantly monitoring where the llamas are and what they seem to be planning. If we are on the other side of a fence and Pampe approaches it a bit too slyly, Merricat will jump to her feet, ready to flee (and I will toss one of my anti-Pampe sticks, and say NON.)

Merricat and I are a very good team! We've foiled several of Pampe's plots, but we need to be on the road for Merricat to remain wary (if we were in the pen Pampe's escape attempts would involve getting away from us and the cat wouldn't care.) Cars are rare so it's okay (plus it's so quiet you can always hear them coming), and on the few occasions when someone showed up and asked why I was having apéritif on the road, I pointed at Pampe and they were like, "Ah! Didn't see her here. Good luck!"

"Hedgehog-moss, you're exaggerating. Pampe can't be that—"

She is! She is. And she always seems to notice when Merricat is on a bathroom break and I'm absorbed in a book.

There was one evening though, when she got distracted by a fascinating new idea. I don't claim to know what's going on in this llama's head (except when she's looking at a fence, then it's easy) but as you can see, once I brought the animals to the barn Poldine started eating flowers, Pirlouit started eating grass, and Pampe started eating the wall.

After a moment she slowly circled the barn, then stopped and lay down right next to it, settling down in a comfortable position but with focused ears and her head still turned towards the wall. It was suspicious behaviour, but on the other hand she now looked so uninterested in the road that I decided to take a risk and run home to bring back some dinner—and she didn't move while I was away! I even brought Pandolf, who is usually banned from these soirées because he would disturb my Merricat alarm system. He was happy to be finally included.

It's unclear if Pampe was eating the wall, talking to the wall, or carefully examining various parts of the wall as Step 1 of 27 of a complex plan only she understands, but she stuck close to the barn all evening instead of lying in wait by the fence so I was able to have a picnic in the grass rather than on the road, which felt more bucolic. I know that "Pampérigouste has a new, mysterious project" is a worrying sentence but at this early stage (feasibility study) it felt to me and Merricat like a little holiday!

[t4tdanvis]

In my wc au, I combined elements mystreet and mcd since warrior cats doesn’t totally fit either setting.

So for example, Zane’s still outright evil and antagonistic towards Garroth like he is in MCD, whereas Gene is a good brother to Dante and generally alright cat, minus not really caring about the warrior code all that much.

I usually hc Gene as a good brother (or he at least tries to be), partially because I think it fits him and partially because we need at least one set of siblings who don't absolutely despise each other

[soulsxng]

Archetypes quiz | Tarinx edition!

41% Rebel: The Rebel is comfortable throwing caution to the wind—and bucking the system—if that means getting their point across.

25% Athlete: The Athlete's focus and drive are unparalleled. Staying healthy and being fit are paramount to them (as for winning, that doesn't hurt, either).

24% Explorer: The Explorer is drawn to the unknown, whether that’s a Himalayan peak or the road not taken, and have a thirst for adventure. They take journeys, not vacations.