#and this is a lot of speculation

[codenamesazanka]

for the longest time i just assumed that Spinner did not care/was dismissive about Shigaraki until after the 'destroy everything' speech; and vice versa. We had no reason to think otherwise: Spinner disregarded Shigaraki's kill list; he was skeptical of the Overhaul highway ambush in Chapter 160; and everyone was waiting for a clash because Spinner wouldn't shut up about Stain while Shigaraki held a kid hostage just so he had someone to complain to about how he hated Stain. There was no indication of anything beyond probable mutual annoyance between them. the most likely prediction was not without reason: 'wonder when Shigaraki will dust Spinner'.

chapter 220 was the start of the turning point, and 222 being it. And even 220 start off with Spinner straight up grabbing Shigaraki by the collar and yelling at him for basically not being a good leader. only after that, after the speech, did it seemed like Spinner pay attention. after that, Spinner revised his consideration. He came to empathize with Shigaraki. Shigaraki was proving himself, and Spinner was watching. Shigaraki was called an angry loser and Spinner felt for him. Only then, I thought, did Spinner lower his walls to discuss games. Only then, did they bonded.

And all this was nearly solely on Spinner's side. What did Shigaraki think? No idea. the same regard he held for all other team members. Perhaps mild obligation to respond to Spinner's loyalty, perhaps not.

But Chapter 371 gave us League of Legends, and Chapter 373 gave us the flashback of them chatting, and Chapter 393 showed us Spinner peeking over Shigaraki's shoulder as he played a game, and these were all clearly situated in a time before the events of 220-222. They were already getting along okay. "We bonded over games and stuff" was already happening.

It reframed things: the CRC slaughter, perhaps having affected Spinner more than he let on in the narration. Before, he was fine chilling with Shigaraki, joining the League in conversations about Villain names, being part of the relaxed atmosphere. Morning after CRC, he's withdrawn into himself - arms crossed, staring Shigaraki down, watching the relaxed atmosphere with displeasure, frustration obvious.

Spinner was triggered. He was reminded of why he sought out the League in the first place. And him yelling at Shigaraki can be seen as less dismissal and challenge of an unworthy boss, and more disappointment and hurt of a friend.

If they were already friends - or getting there - by then, then Shigaraki's speech takes on slightly new framing as well. It's not just a boss proving himself; it's a friend trying to repair a strain. It's not him trying to convince a skeptical follower to continue following him, it's him having listened to what Spinner was saying and taking time to reflect on it, address it. It's Shigaraki sharing his own pain, right after Spinner shared his.

It wasn't just, I have no sense of self and I need a leader to follow and Here's a purpose, then, if you want it.

It was: The world emptied me out. It suffocated me. We killed the worst offenders of my suffering but it's not enough. I've been hurt by more than that. I remember now, just how bad it was. i've been hurt my whole life.

And Shigaraki decided, Then let's destroy everything, and that is his kindness, twisted as it is, it is absolutely genuine.

for all that Spinner was enthralled by Shigaraki promise of destruction, captivated by the horizon, it's Shigaraki who brought it up first. Spinner wanted the world to change; so Shigaraki offered destruction. Shigaraki dreamed up the beautiful horizon; and Spinner decided he would shoulder that burden. Shigaraki's dream became Spinner's dream, becoming Shigaraki's promise of their dream.

[clumsypuppy]

wait for me

[egophiliac]

Do you have any final theories/desires for Book 7 Part 12?

(slamming fists on table) I DEMAND MORE CHE'NYA

[secretsoftheuniverse1987]

I do think Lara is Sophie's "real" (birth) name, not because Gina confirmed it via Twitter, but because it seems clear to me that she writes Lara on the napkin she gives Nate for Christmas at the end of The Ho Ho Ho Job, after he gives her the "your name here" pendant. Her Christmas present to him is her "real" name. Still, when he uses it in his proposal, she tells him it's not her real name, because it's not anymore. Because Sophie is Sophie's actual real name. That's the name she uses with the team, her family, it's the name she marries Nate under, and it's the person she chooses, every day, to be. Whoever she was in the past, however many aliases she went by and characters she built, all the lives she lived, she is Sophie now.

[cyandocs]

17th Century Gaydar

With @canisalbus's characters Vasco and his QPR wife Ludovica. Consider this a Headcanon but I imagined they were likely set up as like, teens- maybe not fully arranged marriage, but marriage was heavily implied with their courtship. So here I imagine them as like 15/16 which is why they're kind of smaller and scruffier, as well as having their outfit colors a little lightened. Also Ludovica in cute ear bows moment. I THINK this is my first more or less official online artist fan art??? I hope I did them justice.

*edit forgot to color in Vascos hands consistently my bad **EDIT I CANNOT BE TRUSTED TO POST ART WITHOUT FORGETTING SOMETHING

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

On the edge of tears listening to 1984 by George Orwell (this is my first time reading it) and hearing the words “By 2050, earlier, probably, all real knowledge of oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron. They’ll exist only in newspeak versions; not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be” whilst living in a world where people are using AI to summarise books into paragraphs to read them.

[charcoaldustonmyfingers]

Leo skeletal anatomy! Click for better quality :)

The way most turtles actually fit into their shells is because their arms and legs are shaped to fit into the loose skin around the openings for their limbs, but on account of their human proportions, I just suspend my disbelief as to how mutant turtles could fit in their shells without the odd configuration to their organs that real turtles have. Real turtles have flat lungs that sit widely along their carapace, which is weird but cool. Turtles shed their scutes (the large flat scales on their shells and plastron) about once a year or if the scutes are damaged. The scutes have barely any skin between them and the bone, which is why turtle skeletons usually have the scutes on still, though they can pop off. The rest of the skin sheds regularly though, instead of in large patches.

For the brothers’, their respiration is much more human than turtle. Therefore, their lungs need to expand and contract with their diaphragm rather than just with their movement, so therefore they must have some flexibility to their chest. Some turtles, like box turtles, already have hinged plastrons, and softshell shells are mostly cartilage, so it’s not too far off to assume that there’s a bit of cartilage just to the upper plastral bones of the hard shelled brothers to give their humanoid lungs room to breathe.

Poor Leo. After the movie, one could assume he’s got a couple broken bones. It kind of made me morbidly curious as to how to describe injuries on a character whose skeletal structure is quite different from a human’s for my own writing!

Feel free to use as reference or disregard, these are just my own little speculations :)

[General][Raph][Donnie][Mikey][Splinter]

[sunderwight]

It's actually kind of hilarious to contemplate the prospect that the genre shift in SV means that Luo Binghe's harem go the queer route as well and start largely pairing off into lesbian ships with one another.

Mostly because of the sheer scale of Bingge's harem, and the fact that a lot of it was comprised of the members of politically influential families.

Can you imagine the freak-outs that various lords and kings are probably having over the fact that their daughters keep eloping with one another? The practical ones are probably going to be like, well, a political alliance is an alliance, welcome to the family Random Demon Princess! But a lot of them are probably going to be pissed that their bloodline's liable to die out, and that the perfectly suitable match (read: asshole cannon fodder Bingge did away with in PIDW) they arranged for their daughter got interrupted by some lady cultivator kidnapping her from her wedding instead. Imagining several prominent nobles in various realms furrowing their brows together and just being like, is it something in the water? Did some plant do this? Is it like it a cultural ripple effect, the Demon King is gay so now all the youngsters are too?

[filurig]

goat costume for one of the haeggir holidays which occurs during winter solstice - "farallvir", which ends up being adopted by humans into their own christmas tradition!

[centaurianthropology]

What LeeBeeBee does for the Story of ‘Murderbot’

So we’ve finally met Blonde Lady in the series (her name is LeeBeeBee), and I think she’s filling a really interesting and important role plot-wise and worldbuilding-wise, and doing so in unexpected ways that are surprising even book-readers.  She’s wholly original to the show, so no one knows what precisely the writers have planned for her.

But I certainly have thoughts and predictions. 

I figured I’d break my thoughts on her up into two sections.  The first section is for all the folks who are show-only, and I’ll only be examining her role in S1E5, without any additional speculation pulling from book knowledge and what I think the writers are doing with her in the longer term.  The second part will speculate on the upcoming episode, and how I think it could play out.  No idea if I’m right about everything (or anything!), but it’s always fun to speculate!

FUNCTION IN S1E5 (SPOILERS FOR E1-5)

Let’s kick it off by talking about LeeBeeBee in isolation in this episode, what her function in this particular episode was, what she does for the plot, the larger world, and what she does for the storytelling format. 

Let’s start with her plot function, the most obvious part of her role in this episode.  She appears at the beginning as the sole survivor of DeltFall, makeup smeared and uniform dirty.  This immediately sets her apart from the PresAux gang.  She’s apparently the indentured cleaner that DeltFall rented for the hab along with the SecUnits, and this cleaner is wearing makeup despite having a physically laborious job in a field unit on a mostly-uninhabited planet. 

This small bit of visual storytelling sets DeltFall up as a very different society to PresAux.  PresAux deliberately only took one (cheap) SecUnit, which is understandable given their objections to using constructs as slave labor.  None of them wear makeup in the field, and they certainly don’t have a cleaner.

But DeltFall not only had multiple constructs, but also an indentured servant to do housekeeping, and there is either an expectation or a cultural norm that she be made up while she do her indentured job.  They feel, from this introduction, very Corporation Rim. 

LeeBeeBee herself acts as a personification of the Corporation Rim on a level we haven’t been able to dig into with the limited screentime of the Company Tech Bro sales reps.  From her first scene on the hopper, she feels like she’s from a completely different world to the empathetic and sweet Preservationers.  She almost immediately objectifies SecUnit in a way that is openly offputting to both the audience and clearly to the Preservation crew, who likely don’t say anything both out of shock and out of some belief that this woman has to have some sort of brain damage to say something like that.

But this level of objectification, I think, lies at the heart of the Corporation Rim.  It’s not that constructs are objects, but their workers are valued.  LeeBeeBee is an indentured servant.  She has no more free will than SecUnit.  She objectifies it because she sees herself as a step above a construct, and in the CR hierarchy, you’re likely encouraged to objectify anyone beneath you.  And that comes around to something equally uncomfortable when she finds out it’s got a hacked governor module and is a rogue.  She views it as a person now, but what does that mean? 

She objectifies herself for it. 

And doesn’t that make the worst sort of sense on a survival level for a person in her position?  She’s fully adapted to doing what she has to do to survive.  She views sex in an incredibly transactional and exploitative way.  When she thinks SecUnit is an object, she has the power and she immediately speculates about using it as a sex toy.  When she shifts into thinking of it as a person, she also knows how dangerous it is, and reverses their power dynamic, offering sex as a transactional way to protect herself. 

It’s awful, deliberately so.  But I think it’s a great and visceral way to get into the Corporation Rim mindset: constructs aren’t special; everyone who isn’t wealthy or powerful is an object.  You don’t get to be a person with fully autonomous choices until you’re one of the elite.  Until then, sex is just another way of trying to get a slight advantage in an endless rat race.

Having LeeBeeBee represent this deeply uncomfortable aspect of an end-stage capitalist hellscape like the CR also does something on a storytelling level.  This addition of an outsider character fully shifts the POV in the show.  Up until her introduction, the PresAux crew felt like the strange outsiders that MB was judging, but by introducing the worst possible representation of the CR, our alignment completely shifts.  We are not only on Preservation’s side, but we are insiders with them.  They now feel normal and lived in, and she feels like the outsider.  And this reflects the shift going on in Murderbot.  Even before it’s willing to acknowledge it, through the framing of LeeBeeBee we subconsciously know it has realigned itself with the PresAux crew. 

So that’s why I think she was an effective addition in this episode.  If you’re interested in some book spoilers and speculation for the next episode, jump below the cut.

FUNCTION IN S1E6 AND BEYOND (SPECULATION, SPOILERS FOR ‘ALL SYSTEMS RED’)

Are they gone?

Groovy.  Let’s get under the hood and talk about all the ways she’s working on multiple levels, not just embodying all the worst parts of the CR as I previously mentioned, but playing it up as a means of camoflage.  Because LeeBeeBee is almost certainly a GrayCris plant, precisely what SecUnit and Mensah were worried about, and the crew absolutely did take her in despite the danger because they are good people.  And they would do the right thing, even if Murderbot objected.

It’s so nice to get to see exactly how DeltFall might have been infiltrated, which we didn’t get to see in the book.  And so many of her lines read differently when you think of her as a plant.  Did DeltFall call PresAux ‘the Amateurs,’ or was that GrayCris?  Did DeltFall actually have an indentured servant, or is that GrayCris?

I think that a lot of what she’s saying is truthful, or is just a slight twist on the truth.  I do think she’s likely indentured.  I do think she views others and herself as objects to be used and exploited and discarded.  She’s suffering under one of the cruelest practices in the Corporation Rim, but she’s still fully bought into the CR propaganda and mindset.  Rather than defecting and embracing freedom the way Gurathin likely did, she’s almost certainly looking at getting years shaved off her indenture by acting as an infiltrator and assassin

That’s so perfectly horrid.  She would rather still be indentured but get in better with her bosses than accept real freedom.  It’s a cowardice I think we can all see in our world, that she would take the safe misery and be willing to hurt others to do it, rather than take a major risk and step outside the system.

She’s also dialing up her inherent objectification of others to a level that makes her deliberately off-putting, so the PresAux crew want to look away from her rather than examining her too closely.  If they just want to sort of ignore her, then they’re not going to dig too far into her actions.  If she runs off to communicate back to GrayCris regarding a rogue SecUnit they’re not going to follow her, and are going to be glad to get a break from her.

Her distraction tactics work particularly well against Murderbot, who she makes wildly uncomfortable to the point it’s very glad to get away from her, and is likely deliberately trying not to think of her.  If you watch who she’s targeting with this barrage of unpleasantness, she does it first as a blanket with the crew to gauge reaction, then targets it at SecUnit once she realizes that it’s not being controlled by the combat override, and that it’s fully rogue.  There’s no easy way for her to control it (as I suspect she was controlling the DeltFall SecUnits), so she had to improvise, because as far as she’s concerned, this independent SecUnit is the #1 threat to her plan to kill the PresAux crew.  She must have been so relieved when it went with Mensah to trigger the beacon, because she knew the beacon was rigged to explode, and she had a good chance of getting rid of both the biggest threat and the team leader, and she didn’t even have to do anything!

Which, to her mind, only leaves the rest of the PresAux team to deal with.  After SecUnit, she almost certainly considers Gurathin the next biggest threat, because she would certainly underestimate the Preservationers, but he’s ex-corporate, so she would respect the threat he posed.  So after Mensah and SecUnit are gone, she zeroes in on Gurathin.

I think she almost certainly has a dossier or some other large amount of personal and professional information about him from his days in the CR.  What did she do when she first talked to him after Mensah and Murderbot were gone?  She offered him a stimulant.  I’m now convinced that his therapy modules were—in addition to being for generalized trauma (why did you learn to be quiet, Gurathin??)—meant to treat a stimulant addiction he struggled with after using them to work whatever insane hours he was required to work when he was in the CR. 

I think this next episode is going to be Gurathin-heavy.  The writers are setting up deliberate contrasts between the die-hard-to-a-horrific-level Corpo LeeBeeBee and Defector-with-Trauma ex-Corpo Gurathin.  I wonder if he won’t try to sort of reach out to her in the next episode (was he indentured too?), convince her to defect too, only to have her turn it all around on him and use his backstory against him.  If he was indentured, did he break contract to run to Preservation?  Is there a bounty on him?  Is there a bounty on his AUGMENTS, body not needed in return?

I sort of have an image of the next episode playing out like a horror film, where we realize that LeeBeeBee is the exact infiltrator that took out DeltFall, that GrayCris SecUnits are incoming, MB and Mensah may already be dead, and the person who was responsible for the DeltFall massacre is inside the hab right now.

Especially if we don’t know what happened to MB and Mensah for the majority of the episode, instead focusing on the rest of the group.  Without the snarky voiceover, the terror of the situation could really get hammered home.  Again, this is fully speculation of how it might play out next episode, but my guess is that the big cliffhanger next episode is going to be LeeBeeBee attacking Gurathin.  Previews have shown him with a bandage on his leg, and holding a cane, which some people have pointed out looks like a blind walking cane.  That makes me wonder if she manages to not only disable him with a shot to the leg, but damage visual augments he might have, rendering him partially blind.

I think we’ve also been getting a lot of background work with Gurathin being terrified of rejection and abandonment throughout this season.  He and MB parallel one another in not wanting to share Mensah, because they both are afraid the other will manage to take her from them (completely ignoring that Mensah has two fucking hands, and more than enough love in her to love her family, and both of these idiots too).  If LeeBeeBee really wants to twist the knife in him, she’s going to tell him that if the others are going to survive, they have to abandon him.

And Pin-Lee, Arada, Bharadwaj, and Ratthi are almost certainly going to refuse.  Much like Mensah refused to abandon MB when it was damaged, they’re going to refuse to leave their friend behind.  Because they can disagree with him, they can think he’s wrong about SecUnit, but they still love him and won’t leave him.

This sets up E7 to be the big turning point between the nadir of act 2 (MB and Mensah may be dead, Gurathin is injured, and the others are in direct danger because they won’t leave him behind), and the start of act 3 (MB and Mensah return and save everyone!  They can all come together, defeat GrayCris and escape alive!). 

And all of this gets facilitated because of the introduction of LeeBeeBee, who acts as a face for GrayCris (and likely a way to give us information about them) and for the whole vicious corporate people-as-objects theme that consumes the Corporation Rim.  It’s so much easier to loath GrayCris when we can see the sorts of people it creates, and she is such a great example of that.

[polite--cat]

oscar on the fast and the curious making a joke of "i don't get paid enough for this!" and then immediately correcting himself and saying "actually i get paid way too much". never change.

[batneko]

whatever the fuck is wrong with Demetrius is so interesting to me

he just sits there and eats

very clearly the only one not visibly freaked out by being at the same table with Donovan each other

and then when he's done, the way he sits up straight and just waits. like an automaton, like a machine awaiting orders.

what did his father do to him? how do you fuck up a twelve-year-old this much?

I think it's worth noting, too, that he's not actually ever mean to his brother. He seems aloof but he's not a bully or anything. In his (non-voice) debut chapter he

congratulates Damian on his grades without being prompted, and

acknowledges Damian's friends even though he clearly doesn't get why they're talking to him.

anyway he's my favorite side character and I can't wait to learn more about him!!!

[egophiliac]

Hi it's just to let you know that the official romanization of Revaan's name is Raverne ! Also they have romanized Baul's name to Baur !

Twst coming back at us again with the least expected romanization! thank you everybody (oh god my inbox) (no it's great, I literally asked for this and the reactions have been INCREDIBLE, thank you all!)

I do like Raverne though, I think it's got a nice fancy sound to it! (I had kinda suspected it was going to be an R instead of an L, so the fact that it's SO close to Laverne except for that is hilarious to me personally.) and Dragoneye Duke is honestly probably the best translation for his title, I wasn't envying the localizers that one. :') Baur instead of Baul I was NOT expecting, but in retrospect I think his name's supposed to be a reference to the Bauru crocodile, so that actually makes way more sense!

someone else also said Meleanor has become Maleanor, which is the REALLY weird one to me, because I was so surprised it was written as Mel instead of Mal in the first place?! oh god no I can't decide which one I like better. 😭 (I wonder if they might change it to Mal...they have made romanization changes before) (like I remember House of Distraction being corrected to House of Destruction in Playful Land) (I did check and she's still Mel for now, but I dunno, they might Mal her up and some point and save me from having to make a decision about which one to use) (HECK I CAN'T DECIDE)

uhhhh thank you for letting me ramble about anime names, let's just say MONOGRAMMED SWEATERS FOR EVERYONE

[llutik]

inspired by the last dany chapter in a dance with dragons

the empress card for twitter user toadpeee tarot deck. Big thanks to her for her patience with me

[actual-haise]

I love how the dragon in Dungeon Meshi doesn't have the usual lizard-y limb anatomy but something more along the lines of a large land mammal or even a sauropod +500 points from me (also the way the fire breathing is explained is in line with a lot of spec evo stuff, cool)

[evilherehotel]

ok admittedly they are startign to grow on me