#But her last name isn't relevant here :3

[floydsteeth]

Ok!!! I did it!!! :D

Ciels insta :D✨️✨️ I dont use Instagram myself so I hope it looks right

@keithsandwich @bicayaya @lorei-writes @chevcore :3

[yuri-is-online]

Love and Deepspace Timeline: MC, Philos, and the Aether Core

Look I finished Xav's myths card. I don't regret waiting until I was done with it to post his timeline because the last two nodes have more to do with MC than him, but I am in a state so we are making this to cope.

This is all speculation and should not be taken as fact, I have done two other posts, one on Zayne and one on Xavier and I will not be doing one on Rafayel please see this reddit post by u/joonmin for relevant information about his myths card blah blah blah.

This post is less of a timeline and more here to answer questions you very likely have if you: A) decided to browse reddit and saw people saying Xavier feels like the "cannon ro" [this is a gacha game there isn't one] but have never read any of his memories, moments, or dates B) read chapter 8 and went "none of this makes sense I feel like I am missing something" or C) just generally are confused about L&D's world building and what's up with MC. I have answers for you. Wibbly wobbly soupy answers. This post also has a TL;DR in case you don't want to see me break out the string board and just want the relevant bits of information about MC you won't get from the msq.

SPOILERS FOR ALL IN GAME CONTENT UP TO CHAPTER 8, VARIOUS MOMENTS, AND ANECDOTES RELATED TO ALL 3 ROS, PROCEED WITH CARE.

Current Timeline MC (i.e. The one we are playing as)

The game starts with MC's graduation from the Academy and first day as a fully licensed hunter. We learn a few things in this first chapter, namely that MC is combat trained, has a rare heart condition known as Protocore Syndrome that has no known cure, and that her decision to become a hunter has something to do with what she experienced fourteen years ago during the Catastrophe when the Deepspace Tunnel opened and Wanderers started invading earth.

Specifically MC describes something burrowing itself into her heart. She feels helpless, like prey, and has a strong desire to never feel anything like this again. Which is unfortunate because I have a feeling a lot of someones are going to be on her trail sooner rather than later.

In Chapter 5 it is revealed that MC has an Aether core fused to her heart. This sort of human experimentation is highly illegal and it is unknown who did this to MC other than our beloved Grandmother was directly involved. Grandma appears to have taken MC away from wherever this happened after the tests started to threaten MC's life.

This is known to Dr. Zayne and Dr. Noah, though neither seem to know more than what Grandma told them. Neither of them seem to fully understand what an Aether core is or what it is doing to MC's heart. Zayne in particular seems to find this extremely concerning.

Uncovering the mystery of the Aether core seems to be what will be driving the first arc so we will not be discussing it at length here. I do want to note that Xavier absolutely knows what it is, while Zayne does not but does seem to know more of the technical aspects of how it is effecting MC, and Rafayel is at least aware of it being valuable and maybe why exactly the people in the N109 Zone want it.

At some point in the past MC met and made a promise to Rafayel. It is my personal theory that this likely took place on Hat Island during the field trip MC talks about due to some of the comments made in Chapter 7.

MC and Caleb were friends with Zayne in childhood. MC's exact age is a bit fuzzy, but the game does seem to suggest she is younger than Zayne. She does not know why Zayne disappeared from her life or what led him to become a doctor.

Comments in Chapter 4 suggests that Caleb encouraged MC to become a hunter. He seems to be very supportive of her, but Grandma seems more interested in trusting MC's protection to Zayne.

On the surface MC seems pretty normal. Her memories from before the Catastrophe seem to be gone, if she had a mother and father or other blood relatives, she doesn't remember them anymore.

Philos MC (i.e. What is Going on in the Myths)

It is revealed in Xavier's When Shooting Stars Fall anecdote that Philos is Earth in the distant future. This has confused numerous people in the notes of my Xav's timeline so I am going to be insufferable and attempt to assist with a graph:

The MC you play belongs to the game timeline, the MCs (plural each myths card features a different one) in the Myths cards come from the Philos timeline. I have tagged the Game timeline as a "potential tangent" as the events that take place in game are entirely reliant on the existence of the Deepspace Tunnel, which is created in the Philos timeline.

At some point in the Original/Philos Timeline, Earth's core ceases to function. Humanity replaces it with a new, artificial core that causes noticeable weather changes and fuses all of the tectonic plates together, and begins a new calendar counting forward from the years since Earth ceased to be and Philos was born. As a result, we don't know what exact year Earth's core giving out happened in the Original Timeline. The artificial core allows almost all humans to "live eternal." They seem to be like Tolkien's elves in the sense they can live for an eternity but they start to get tired after a while and give up on life. This is why there is a royal family that needs a line of succession. Xavier is the Crown Prince of Philos, he meets MC in school and learns she has a rare disease called Protocore Syndrome which will not allow her to live forever. He attempts to cure this by finding a specific protocore she mentions, but fails to reach her in time and is forced to watch her die. This all happens in the year 214.

At some point MC is reborn and assigned to the same teacher as Xavier. She is to train to become his knight and serve as the leader of the Lightseekers, an order tasked with killing Wanderers. At some point during or before Xavier's coming of age ceremony, he learns the truth about Philos: the planet is dying due to the artificial core never having been meant to sustain the planet this long. The Royal Family's solution for this is to occasionally feed humans to the heart of Philos in Starfall Forest. When they do this, it creates Wanderers. As if that wasn't bad enough, Xavier learns that his father and the royal family have found what they think could be a permanent solution: there is a girl who has achieved true immortality. She is the only person on Philos who can die and be reborn constantly, and while they don't seem to know why she does this, the royal family believes this girl is the life force of the planet itself.

This girl is MC and Xavier does not want this to happen. He has a plan that he does not explain to MC, but it involves traveling back in time. He says they have specific places in time picked out, but we know from Xavier's Passing By anecdote that something went wrong with his team's attempt at time travel and now there is no guarantee that the MC he left on Philos as its Queen is still there.

So now we have two timelines: Original/Philos Timeline and Game/Tangent Timeline. But all of that is just taking Xavier's anecdotes and Myths card into account... so what happens if we try to plug in the other two ROs?

Rafayel

In u/Joonmin's reddit post they mention two very important bits of information: 1) It has been 30,000 years since the sea dried up and 2) MC is a member of the royal family of Philos, not by birth but because "she has a heart that’s been blessed by the gods" and has "awoken from the depths." If all three myths cards take place in the same Philos timeline as the one Xavier leaves, we can reasonably place Raf's myths card after Xavier's backtrack mission.

So the Philos timeline would look like this. I have a note for Zayne's card there as well, but if I had to get picky with it I'm slightly tempted to place his Myths card between MC's first death and her being reborn to meet Xavier again. The other explanation would be that there are three separate Philos timelines created because the MC was successfully scarified to the Heart of Philos. In Xavier's Myths 6 MC briefly takes a dip in the space time anomaly at the center of Starfall Forest which could also explain MC scattering across different timelines, but the in game spacepedia makes a point to say that there is a chance that life still exists on Philos:

So it could simply be that MC over there has been stuck in the exact cycle of death and rebirth that Xavier was trying to prevent. It could also mean that when they add that mystery fourth love interest there is an explanation for a fourth possible myths card. Anyway all this information leaves us with a set of timelines that currently look like this:

This still leaves a lot of unanswered questions. For example, if the Philos timeline is where this all starts, what version of it is? What caused Earth's core to give out in that original timeline? Is Rafayel and Lumeria's existence the consequences of clashing timelines or are mermaids cannon to this universe? What effect on the space time continuum did Xavier's actions have? And how much of this is actually going to be answered in game?

TL;DR

Philos is Earth in the future with an artificial core that started running out of power, and never should have been made in the first place.

The royal family fed some of their long lived humans to the anomaly in Starfall forest to keep the planet running, but then they found out about a girl who could constantly be reborn each time she died and had an idea.

An idea Xavier wasn't very keen on but who cares. They thought that "when the time was right" they would sacrifice her to the rift and leave her there to die and be reborn forever. They also did not think to ask her.

Oh yeah when they fed people to the rift they turned into Wanderers. So wanderers = people as mentioned in Zayne's Still in the Dark anecdote.

Whatever makes MC reincarnate might have something to do with Lumeria, or at the very least the Lumerians in Rafayel's myths card seem to think it does.

In game MC, current timeline MC knows none of this, and has no memories from her lives, past or future. This is consistent across all her incarnations.

Final Thoughts

The only reason why I think this way about timelines is because I watched Donnie Darko in a college theater class. People like to argue about that movie and how it is supposed to be interpreted, but generally speaking they all seem to think that Tangent Timelines and the Tangent Universes they spawn get deleted very quickly, so maybe that's why the game starts by talking about "being able to leave this loop" and why Xavier seems to think something bad will be happening to Linkon City soon.

Chapter 8 ends with Xavier attempting to send a message back through the Deepspace Tunnel to make contact with someone. Interestingly enough he calls this "Traceback II." This sounded familiar to me and sure enough the game starts by mentioning that exact same thing, it is going past a black hole and is what says that line "we are stuck in this loop."

I thought in previous posts that the Aether Core is what could cure MC... but now I think the Aether Core is likely what Philos's artificial core is called... so who created it in the first place? ｢(ﾟﾍﾟ)

The Deepspace Tunnel is a spacetime anomaly likely caused by Philos's existence since it was "never meant to exist." So why was it created? And by who?

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

This morning, 15 minutes after the break in fighting was supposed to begin, Hamas fired two rocket barrages into southern Israel. This is what we mean when we say that Hamas has broken every ceasefire ever. The only reason why this didn't lead to the hostage deal falling apart, is because Israel chose to "contain" Hamas' violent rocket attack. But remember this when we explain why we can't accept Hamas' existence anymore.

Israel confirmed that the 13 hostages being released have arrived in Egypt, and there are already Israelis there, taking care of them. IDK when we'll get their names, and images of them safe back in Israel, but as you can imagine, everyone here is holding its breath for that. Still, their well being comes first, they're being taken to a hospital first, to see their families, and only then (and based on whatever they prefer) will there be anything more public. There will not be interviews, however, 'coz something they say might risk the other groups of hostages meant to be released in the upcoming days.

Hamas is also releasing some of the Thai nationals they've kidnapped (I heard 12 of the 23 taken hostage), which are being let go of unconditionally. Before anyone tries to make out this shows Hamas is humane, I'll just point out that Hamas terrorists murdered at least 33 Thais on Oct 7.

Some of my fave commentators recently on what's going on here since Hamas' massacre aren't Jewish, or even Israeli. Here's a few of their tweets:

Regarding the last one, I just wanna say that most Israelis will continue to trust most Arabs. That's just how we have always lived, despite the on going terror attacks. The day after Oct 7, I mentioned that I went to my hospital treatment. The guard there is an Arab guy. He carries a gun. I couldn't help but think about it. And then I did what I always do, I thanked him for his work (being a guard is difficult), and wished him a good day. He smiled big and wished me the same. He's lovely. What Hamas did on Oct 7 is not his fault. But the mistrust of survivors, and some of those who care about them, is also very human and understandable, as much as I'll continue to call on everyone not to generalize about Arabs, or any group.

Especially when some of Hamas' victims are themselves Arabs. Here's a young Israeli Muslim Bedouin woman, who has been speaking up on behalf of her friend, 17 years old Aisha al Ziadna, who was kidnapped by Hamas on Oct 7.

A Sky News reporter was particularly shameful the other day. She tried to use Israel's willingness to release 3 convicted terrorist per just 1 innocent civilian hostage to vilify Israel. Here's the reply she got:

Just a reminder, once again, that when you listen to western media, which is supposed to be objective, these are often their info sources on this conflict:

Speaking of lack of objectivity, an Israeli newspaper found out that the International Criminal Court has appointed a Danish lawyer to investigate the Israel-Hamas war, and it's a man (I'm not sure I'm transcribing his name from Hebrew correctly, but it should be something like Andreas Laursen) who has worked in the past for a Palestinian "human rights organization" which has been outlawed in 2021 for having ties to terrorist organizations, who was involved in 2018 in trying to make the case that Israel had committed war crimes, who has lived in the Palestinian city of Ramallah, and who is married to a Palestinian woman. This Israeli newspaper has contacted the ICC, asking why the person appointed to this investigation isn't someone who would at least appear to be unbiased. The answer was (I'm translating from the Hebrew article): "We maintain confidentiality about anything that pertains to specific subjects that are related to our employees. Every personal decision made by the head prosecutor fits the policy and relevant procedures that oversee the court's human resources matters."

Because there are still people denying the Hamas rapes:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by כאן חדשות (@kan_news)

I've spoken before about Liel, and how long it took to identify her body, but this tweet kind of broke me all over again.

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

[goodoldfashionedengineer]

I like analysing shit.

I like Red Hood: Lost Days

So I am going to analyse some of it.

To start with, lets look at the titles of the issues.

#1: The First Step

#2: Baptism

#3: School

#4: Higher Learning

#5: After School Activities

#6: Benediction and Commencement

What immediately strikes me is how all of these are relevant to the issue AND as a whole. They are describing a life fresh from birth to how that life progresses until graduation. Extremely important when considering that this is basically Jason's second life. He died and now he is "reborn" after being put into the Lazarus pit.

The First Step: The fact that the title name was on the page in which Jason was pushed into the Pit lets me believe that this IS the first step, as Red Hood: Lost Days explains the time between him being found by Talia to him becoming Red Hood. This is the first step in him becoming the Red Hood.

Baptism: Not exactly clear as to what "Baptism" is referring to here. I have multiple ideas. First, there is the possibility that it is a continuation of the last issue, as that issue ended with Jason being pushed into the pit and in religious baptisms, water is usually connected to it as the person being baptized is getting water poured onto their head. But it could also mean a non-religious baptism as in he is starting a new role. He finally gets to train with a clear mind and can properly start his journey.

Issue #3-#5 are relatively similar, all him explaining his training and stopping the evil schemes his teachers are involved with.

Benediction and Commencement: Commencement, he has completed his training or "graduated" if you take the school aspect into account from issue 3 to 5. Benediction, he gets his blessings from Talia to finally confront Bruce after stalling him so long. Commencement, "the beginning of something new". The issue ends with him picking up the Red Hood helmet, before that, he met up with Hush. The beginning of the Red Hood.

Next I want to focus a bit on religious imagery. I am not a big fan of it in general, but considering that words like "Baptism" and "Benediction" are in the titles, it is note-worthy. If it is something you're uncomfortable with, feel free to skip this section

I have seen people make the point that this cover:

Has similarities to pictures of Mary holding a dead Jesus.

And now that I think about it more, I can see why and they are pretty good stand-ins.

Jason came back from the dead, like Jesus.

Talia found Jason after he came back. She considers it a miracle. Like fate WANTS Jason to live. He wandered into her life. She isn't so much as interfering with fate, as stepping out of its way.

And then you have this page:

Jason as he has his arms spread wide, legs forming almost a straight line. Similar to Jesus on the cross.

The Lazarus pit isn't green. It's orange and yellow. It shines so bright. Ra's says it burns in his heart. He tells Talia it could turn Jason mad in a few months, years or decades. That she has unleashed a curse. A pestilence. Pestilence being one of the for Horsemen of the Apocalypse. And so, the Lazarus Pit becomes a symbol for Hell.

The fact that Jason and Talia are more distorted versions of the religious figures they could represent becomes more prominent as the story goes on. In the bible, Jesus goes back to Heaven to rejoin with his Father. In this story, Talia is told and knows that she should return Jason to Bruce. But she doesn't. Because Jason will see it as betrayal and he wouldn't forgive her for that.

My last and favourite point is how RH: LD is the perfect set up to Under the Red Hood.

Jason explains how it isn't about the Joker. Or Bruce. Or him. It's about the three of them.

Bruce was supposed to protect him.

Joker killed him.

Bruce didn't avenge him.

He tried to kill both of them only to NOT do it and walk away.

Jason died away from Gotham in Ethiopia, but not before being beaten with a crowbar, the building he was in having exploded and then asphyxiating due to the smoke.

Jason almost killed the Joker by setting him on fire. (Explosion)

He initially wanted to do it in another location. (Ethiopia)

He wanted to do it slowly. (Crowbar)

Jason says when the pain would hit the Joker, he would scream. Until it hit his throat. His lungs. (Asphyxiating)

He is reliving his own death. He wants his murderer to go through the agony he did. An eye for an eye one could say.

"Reliving his own death" is an objective statement here, as Jason sees the Joker swinging a crowbar that is dripping with his own blood while at the same time also standing right above the Joker, who is drenched in gasoline.

Now I want you to compare these two scenes. This is when he was about to kill the Joker:

The panels switch between Jason and the firelighter, present Joker and past Joker. The firelighter, the device that would end the Joker's life, comes more and more into the focus. Until he disengages it on the last panel.

Now to the second scene, when Jason planted a bomb under the Batmobile and was about to detonate it.

The panels switch between Batman and Jason. Jason is hovering over the detonater. Until he pulls away.

When Jason explained to Talia why he walked away from the Joker, he said that it wasn't enough. It was only ever about the three of them, not just Joker. His plan doesn't include murdering Batman anymore.

But the reason Jason gave Talia why he didn't kill Bruce? "I couldn't let him get off so easy. He'd never know what happened. He'd never know knwo why. He'd never know it was me." One could wonder if we are supposed to see this as a parallel as well. If we should apply this reasoning of why he didn't kill Bruce to why he didn't kill Joker.

The Joker would never know why Jason killed him. He doesn't even know that it IS Jason who is about to murder him.

And while is plan doesn't include killing Bruce anymore. Nobody said anything about the Joker.

As I said, perfect setup to Under the Red Hood.

[science-slapfight]

SCIENCE-SLAPFIGHT FINALS

24. Dr. Diana Diamond (She/Her) @numberposting

She's a science lady. She's trans. AND she's a lil stupid and lame!!! She's got it all!!! She lives in a universe where “mad scientist” is an Actual job you can get, she literally has a degree in Mad Science! She’s Very adamant that mad science is all about pushing the limits of science without being “constrained” by ethical standards set by society, which is to say that she has a moral compass made of swiss cheese. Hashtag girlboss <3

While some people can be a liiittle off-put by her basement-turned-lab containing fun death lasers, she’s honestly just a dweeb once you get to know her. When she’s not conducting weird experiments for mysterious benefactors (or just for personal enjoyment), she’s hanging out with her epic and cool wife Alice!!

Although Diana can be a lil withdrawn, Alice’s optimistic and excitable personality really brings out the best in her!! They do almost everything together: Baking, stargazing, long walks on the beach, vivisecting people…

Her wife is super normal btw don’t even worry about it <3

In short, you should vote for certified sillygirl Diana becuz:

1. She’s a funnie trans lesbian

2. She loves her wife SO much

3. She didn’t get a PhD in Mad Science for nothin’

4. She listens almost exclusively to They Might be Giants and Oingo Boingo

5. She could use the validation tbh

6. She lost the last poll she was in on round 1 isn't that so sad :(

7. I love her :D

Also she does enjoy cupcakes!! She prefers cookies tho <3 If given a cupcake she'd probs just give it to Alice cuz that's what love is all about!!

Relevant Links: She has a whole Neocities blog site thing!! It hasn't been updated in a long while cuz College Hard BUT it'll be updated again sometime in the future!! https://diamondexperiments.neocities.org/

28. Lady (She/Her) @forkdork

Lady is a cold-hearted scientist who would do anything in the name of science even if she has to commit horrible actions. After all, in the end, this is for the better of the world even if she has the break a few hundred eggs to get the results she wants. Who else would sacrifice the things she has to get to this point? Who would go to such extremes to the point of the only thing you have left is your work and your name? Well. Lady would even from a young age this was the case her whole life pretty much leading her to the point she is now. Her twin sister didn’t even get in the way of her goals. Being one of the first to figure out how to use science to manipulate magic due to this headset of hers

This pretty much led Lady to be ‘respected’ or feared more then anything in her workplace with the actions she has committed. Lady being responsible for hundreds of documents, subjects, and scientific discoveries to be made. While also being responsible for hundreds of families to be torn apart.. Lives to be lost… people being driven insane due to her experiments… Obviously, this has bitten Lady in the ass many MANY times. With subjects escaping and attacking her when they get the chance, but of course, they never go far and just end back in Lady’s grasp.

Relevant Links: here! it has uh alot of violence! and blood! i dont normally write alot but i do draw a bunch https://toyhou.se/12615920.lady-/gallery

(Image credits: @numberposting and @forkdork respectively)

[zeravmeta]

Super Sankta 2 Exu sounds like an excellent idea Zerav. For maximum meme, she's a John Wick style Guard- just uses guns to bash in people's skulls.

Super Sankta 2 Exu whose going John Wick style on people is funny but my concept for Exia Alter was always based on like, the concept that Skadi Alter first introduced that we all thought at the time was gonna be the standard fare for alters

My Ultimate Sankta vs Exia 3 concept was based around the idea of a "Bad End" Exia the way Skadi Alter is, where Exia would be further mechanized ala Executor and become an emotionless seraphim-type unit who would essentially be the ultimate Sankta weapon. This would happen as the result of Laterano having some kind of big event that would cause them to pull all remaining Sankta from all corners of Terra for their promised day of ascension where they would leave Terra and all its problems behind, with certain Sankta (Like Exia) essentially being the vanguards and protectors of these people (I essentially just took the idea of the Rapture and assigned it to the Sankta), with the event concept in question being Penguin Logistics invading this holy land to save their girl.

So like. you can imagine how hard ive been popping off with all the new lore reveals we've gotten over the past 2 years. That said, this concept is a little outdated, and just leaving it at that would be no fun

So here's my pitch for how Exia Alter 4: The Quest For Peace would go with modern foresight (added read more because reasons)

The Popes basement computer in Zwillingsturme just let out a directive that they need to gather their best Sankta to fight against the end of the world. This is in conjunction with the last few events squarely tying together Iberia's Seaborn plotline with both Laterano and Siracusa and their dividing faiths. Now, all of this is in conjunction with the hints we've been getting that Penguin Logistics is going to split up (Lappland and Mostima have already flown the coop, and currently the rest are in Siracusa helping Texas the Amogus, but that will likely not last especially bc Exia's own anniversary line all but majorly hints at this split happening because they all got different stuff going on)

If Penguin Logistics splits, Exia will well and truly be left without a support system.

Now, Exia has always been kind of off as far as Sankta go, because for all intents and purposes she shouldn't be out of place: We see just how Sankta tend to act in Guide Ahead, and Exia didn't really seem all that different. Yet, when we look at her history and actions (she was basically kicked out, she was super accident prone which made other Sankta hate her, as part of Penguin Logistics shes constantly drunk, Texas herself says that Exia being an optimist makes her different, etc), she's actually Really different.

Almost like she has an abnormality compared to other Sankta. Me and a few others (check out @annierosaart post here) have speculated on her being different, but we also don't really know WHY: Even if she was suddenly disconnected from the Sankta empathy powers, we don't see any indication of how, and unlike Ezell we don't have any sort of 'wake-up' moment for her.

But given the weirdness about her and her lines, I think I know what the exact nature of her abnormality may be (and heres my pitch) when looking at the most relevant characters who have abnormalities, namely Executor and Arturia, because I think she falls in line with them (shameless plug to my old exia/executor buddies post):

Executor's abnormality is that his emotions are incredibly muted compared to others. He isn't heartless or emotionless, but more that his heart and mind runs on rationale and logic first and foremost, which almost disqualified him from being canonized had he also not been Laternos single most competent man because saint fedex is entirely disconnected from caring about petty things like being racist.

Arturia's abnormality is that she is receptively empathetic to the point she has nothing within her. She can remove the inhibitions of people, and this is in service to understanding them, because she lacks an understanding of herself: She has a grand dream of an empathy for the world even beyond the Sankta Empathy power, and to accomplish this she draws out the emotions that people hide. As a result, she reflects the emotions of others within herself and thus is incredibly empathetic to the point she's also lacking in emotions and a self.

Exia? I think that her abnormality is that she's too emotional, that the emotions she feels are far more amplified compared to others.

I believe this for a couple of reasons: All the weirdness surrounding her aside, whats the one thing that's always defined Exia? Her Rapid Casting EX. It's always been memed about, but simply firing a single bullet from a gun is akin to casting an Arts attack, with guns serving as a type of wand in these cases. Exia is the only character within the series whose been noted to be so fast with her arts and casting.

This post here does a phenomenal job expanding on this point, but Arts are an expression of the soul, they're influenced by emotions and become stronger with them because they are ultimately expressions of the self, which all characters in and of themselves having a "unique" arts inherent to them. Hell, all of Leithaniens arts are based around using musical expression, while Sarkaz are noted for their arts based on souls and memory, with the literal main heroine of Arknights having an empathy based arts superpower.

Exia, having Super Emotion as her Sankta halo abnormality, could explain why shes so good at gun, even without Oripathy, because said emotions are boosting her casting ability. Remember, anyone can use originum arts, it's just that oripathy is needed for them to be able to do it without a casting device.

This heightened emotion could also possibly explain her crush on Mostima, and even why Mostima is so weird/cruel about her: Mostima was simply a childhood friend alongside her and her sister, and yet when she left for Lungmen, Exia was hot on her trails and then waited 4 YEARS to be beside her and meet her again. She joined Penguin Logistics specifically because of Mostima. It's incredibly likely that Exia might have just had a small crush on her that then spiraled heavily because of this, and Mostima (with her chronic backstory-itis letting her find out that the whole Sankta and halo thing is a scam from her op files and events) might even be aware of this aspect of Exia, and may have wanted her to get over it, always leaving to try and make Exia move on but also always coming back because she needs to look after Exia. After all, if Exia had heightened extreme emotions, what are the chances she could die of grief? She already gets drunks regularly, and despite being cheerful and optimistic, Exia is wearing a mask hiding an incredibly depressed individual.

It could also be possible that the reason why Exia never noticed this is because while it doesn't let other Sankta feel her emotions, she can still feel that of others. She's always confused as to why back in Laterano people always accused her of being disingenuous, because can't they feel her emotions? Well, if she has Super Emotions, it could potentially be overloading her halo, so while she can receive signals, they can't be felt by others. Moreover, this mechanical aspect blends in well with her E2 art, where she is the single operator in the game without an animal/living motiff

Even other Sankta have birds and/or human statues and robotic elements (funnily enough, Executor Sniper only has crosses but even then he is clearly being themed as specifically an angel), but Exia? She has her guns, becoming wings as a ring forms with them. She's literally ascending while her wings become darker.

So what does all this mean?

Well, the Pope's basement bonzi buddy just sent out a directive for the Pope to gather the best Sankta to fight against the end of the world, and who else to recruit but a vulnerable, lonely Sankta who was kicked out for being TOO destructive? Exia's profile does make mention that despite appearances, she is also incredibly pious just like other Sankta, and if the Pope himself came knocking, wanting to give Exia a place back in Laterano, and in a high ranking, respected position no less?

She would jump at the chance, not only to be beside her sister (and possibly Mostima), but also to be accepted back into Laterano society.

Executors own halo has a mechanized element to it, where he also gains more parts to it when he goes from normalest man to saint fedex, so he likely underwent some kind of modification to go along with his promotion, especially because he also now carries an Nier Automata companion cube with him straight from the machine

If Exia is to be canonized, she might be adjusted in a similar way by The Law.

She might even be fully altered into becoming Laterano's perfect weapon to fight against the end of the world. The Witch King himself describes this approaching threat as a void of infinite knowledge which seeks to eliminate them, an unshakeable truth of existence that drives people insane.

The Creator must perish.

What better weapon to fight against such a thing than one who feels her own emotions so strongly she cannot be swayed? Or better yet, an equally as unshakeable, emotionless machine?

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 18 Thoughts: Dead Letters

Another really great episode. Feels like the show has hit its stride now and it just keeps getting better and better IMO. I can't say I entirely get the episode's title though. This one feels fairly strained to me and I feel like it must be because I'm missing something obvious.

Spoilers for episode 18, and some lightly implied spoilers for TMA, below the cut.

Teddy and Alice being Teddy and Alice isn't something I have a huge amount to say. I'm never 100% sure how you're meant to read these two. Teddy having his own little story in the background is interesting though because the framing of this implies he's very important to the narrative. His leaving is the instigation for two of our main characters to be able to join the OIAR, his leaving party is the opening scene of the show, and every time he's been in it since something about him has progressed. It could just be a grounding element so that not every character is wrapped up in it but it seems fairly obvious that his story is going somewhere.

Fun Fact: I've mentioned it before but as it was name dropped, Robert Smirke was an architect for the Royal Mint.

Lena continuing to be very Lena about everything really does warm my heart. She could just be entirely disinterested, distancing herself from the employees for their safety, or other reasons beside. Either way "Oh, is that its name?" is wonderful and she should never change.

This statement was really great. Augustus being back is a massive highlight. Tim Fearon has killed both of his episodes and I want more of him than we're getting. A haunted house narrated by him is really a treat to listen to. The literal contents of the experience we hear narrated back to us isn't something I have too much to say on. It's got some strong Hilltop Road vibes but is at Church Street. Church Street itself doesn't have anything too important to mention about it. Milton Court, however, is interesting. Violet was seemingly the victim of the same thing that killed Drowning Victim a few episodes back, likely [Error]. But what's interesting about the Milton Court Open Space is that it's about 20 miles from where Drowning Victim was. These cases happened 3 days apart which is ample time to cover that distance but it's interesting because it's largely along the path you'd drive if you were coming from Manchester, where the Institute's ruins were, back to London and taking the M40. You'd drive passed Ickenham. I would not be surprised if we see a similar case from early further north along that route. Another thing of note here is the extreme malnutrition. I think a lot of people are going to link this back to Darrien from the last episode but I think it's more obviously a physical symptom of reliving said experience. Violet wandered though a house with no exit until she starved, like how Drowning Victim, well, drowned. No notes otherwise, great incident. Well, "Some figure reaching asking questions in an alley?" is curious phrasing but I won't get to into that.

Alice and Sam's chat directly addressing the contents of the case is something I love to see. Alice is trying her best to bury all that, bless her, but Sam is for sure never letting this drop. It's just great to see this stuff not washing over them now and it's all becoming more and more relevant. Although it does bring into question why Augustus read this one out. Chester seems to read things that nudge people to act a certain way but this one seemed almost cruel. Like Augustus was trying to get under Alice's skin. In any case its hard to find a thread between this and Taking Notes, at least as far as "motivation" goes.

Oh Gwen. Poor, poor Gwen. Finally opens up about her truly fucking awful experiences and Sam laughs in her face about it. To be fair to Sam leading with Mr. Bonzo is a perfect wind up and I would've laughed too. We all would've laughed if our co-worker said that. To be fair to Gwen, Mr. Bonzo has traumatised the shit out of her and who else is there to really lead with? And as always Anusia killed it here. What a glorious F-bomb too.

Backing up just a little bit, there is this quote during that interaction:

GWEN In the cases, you know how there are often things or places or people or whatever who… aren’t right? Who seem to be causing all the awful things to happen.

Which is fairly interesting if you've been reading theories. Specially about what CAT# means. The most common theory by far is "Person/Place/Object". Meaning that CAT1 indicates a supernatural person in the incident, CAT2 a place, etc. Now, I have written an essay all about this subject entitled "Putting the CAT# Back in the Bag: The Flaws With Person/Place/Object". So, y'know, I don't buy it. Gwen mentioning it now feels like a red herring too given how early it is. Obviously that feeling is rooted in my current belief about said theory. If I don't think it holds water I won't think this is a clue about that. But it's not just that. I think this is too early from a narrative stand point, CAT# standing for those things pointless from a narrative standpoint, and if Gwen has settled on those three things it's not much of a stretch to link it back the the case numbers and part of the point of them is they're inscrutable to everyone there.

Because all of the above isn't enough for this already stellar episode we meet two new characters. Georgie and Jack. Both at long last as they've both come up before. It's hard to talk about this without getting into TMA stuff. I'll try to be light on TMA spoilers but Celia and Georgie have history. Now, unlike with Celia, this very much seems like TMP's version of Georgie. She's a conspiracy theorist instead of a ghost hunt, she's paranoid instead of fearless, and she seems to know as little about Celia as you'd expect. The conspiracy angle is also really clever. TMA was very much just about supernatural encounters but TMP has the cast working for the government. So Georgie has stayed fairly consistent in this regard it's just the shows themes that changed. Celia finding Georgie makes a lot of sense to me though. Their history makes her a good touchstone here and as she's still podcasting about strange things it's a good cover as any. However whatever is happening with Celia is clearly getting worse and she's not lying about it well.

GEORGIE Celia, I’m saying you don’t need to lie to me. CELIA I’m not! [zzzzzt]

Sure you're not, Celia. Sure you're not.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 2374 not much to explain on this one I don't think. Spooky house that you can't escape from gets you spooky house you can't escape from numbers.

CAT# Theory: CAT1 is semi-interesting for the theory I think it definitely isn't (see here). Because for that theory to remain consistent corpses end up as objects. Which you'd think would put this in CAT3 if assessors were applying those themselves, and if they aren't all headers of this type being people seems very farfetched when we've seem objects that compel already.

R# Theory: C seems reasonably to me. Having a spooky memory and talking about it seems like the sort of thing no one would care about.

Header talk: Memory (Derelict) -/- Compulsion. Two interesting things here. Firstly, the section being Memory implies that this experience actually happened. Either to Violet or someone else. It could be a ham-fisted section choice if there isn't anything for hallucinatory experiences of this nature but I'd assume there must be. This system is so specific and as that would be a large oversight it seems unlikely that it isn't there. But it's hard to say how much any given assessor knows about what they're picking. Misfiles are always possible. The subsection is the other interesting thing. Derelict is such a specific subsection here that Memory must have 100s of them.

[beansidhebumbling]

We Stand Between Goliaths- Chapter 1

This was originally intended for Feylin week but in keeping with my reputation I am fashionably late. Thanks to @ae-neon, @kateprincessofbluewhales, and @feyres-divorce-lawyer. I can't write without encouragement and they were an endless well of it. Also I reckon this will be about 3 chapters in total if I stay motivated lol 😅

Some translations and notes at the bottom. I'll return later to add more. Please ask if there's something you don't know about and I'll make a note on it. If there is anything I missed or anything you have questions on please ask.

--

Old Moore's Almanack, a publication weighted by the faith of a nation, the bible of every town and village dotted liked barnacles on the rock of Ireland, failed them that summer. The worn pages of the copy, tied with string to the dresser by the back door, held no warning of the rare scorching heat that hit Mayo that August.

It held no warning of him either.

--

It crept in slowly first, the continental warmth a welcome novelty. Sure, on days like this, they said, when the cornflower blue skies kissed the rolling fields of Monet-painted green wasn't Ireland more beautiful than France and Spain?

'You're lucky to be away from Dublin for the Summer, young Archeron, aren't ya?'

Big Paddy McCaffrey commented, ringing up their purchases to add to the account, as Nesta ventured down the shop's only aisle for some flour. Feyre, focused on saving her 99, the milky ice-cream already saturating the thin wafer rim of the cone and dripping onto her sunscreen sticky hands, threw the man a tight smile.

'Suppose I am.'

She answered tersely.

'Strange all three of ye be home together, isn't it? First time since yer Ma passed, God rest her,'

He pressed, his hulking frame leaning over the old counter of the siopa, eyes searching for any shred of a story, or even better, a tear.

'Bout as strange as how you've aged ten years in the space of two, Paddy-boy.'

Her elder sister sniped as she emerged from the back corner of the shop, the bag of Odlum's safely in her grasp. The sharp lines of her trousers, some fine London make, cut through the dust motes, conjuring whirling ghosts as she marched towards the till.

Not leaving the huffing giant any room to retort, she grabbed Feyre's free hand, and they left the shaded confines of the shop to face the noon-day sun, a blistering presence high in the clear sky.

'Not looking like you're here to make friends, Nes.'

Feyre snorted, once out of earshot.

'Nosey fucker. They'll do his autopsy one day and find the Toormakeady Tribune instead of lungs inside him.'

The laugh that tickled its way from deep in her belly, had no breeze to dance on and so hung happily between them, another sign of the welcome if unfamiliar camaraderie birthed between them since their return to the home place in May.

Feyre did not know what her sister had found in London these last two years, but it looked an awful lot like peace.

'Speaking of gossip, did you see the new owner of Drimbawn House?'

'New new or new to us?'

Feyre asked. It was a relevant question. With Elain in Cork working in one of the big houses, Nesta abroad terrorising the lawyers at her new secretarial job, and Feyre in college, they had happily lost the rhythm of their birthplace.

'New to us. He bought it off Hollywood. Tamlin Stewart-Carmichael is his name. A fine block of a man by all accounts.'

Nesta paused to climb the gate behind the GAA pitch as they followed the path of their childhood, cutting through Ma Bryant's fields to get home.

'He's English. No surprise with a name like that. An excessive bunch in every way. Has only visited the place once after buying it but it's been kept in ship shape since last July, in case he wants to call on his summer residence.'

Feyre scoffed, running her hands through the grass that tickled their calves, rippling like the waves at her touch.

'What in Christ's name are they at? Houses for the seasons. Have you ever heard the like?'

'You wouldn't believe half of what I hear back in London with that posh lot. It's a different world Feyrín.'

Nesta grew quiet then, lost to a place across the sea, her mind's eye turned towards the unfamiliar horizon and, Feyre reckoned, to the secret letters that had been arriving with an English postmark since she'd landed on Irish soil.

Her heart full at the sound of a pet name she had not heard from Nesta in years, Feyre followed her sister home, as she had done all her life.

------

In a country where too much of a good thing was highly distasteful the unnatural heat soon extended beyond its welcome. After a week of no rain and blistering, bruising sun, the rumblings of concern began. The labourers started to seek shade to avoid the rage of noon and the farmers nearest the Lough Mask, let their cattle cool in gentle waters, for neither man nor beast in Toormakeady was built or bred for a Mediterranean climate.

Having been on nursing duty Monday night, Feyre greeted the dawn with a weary welcome. He was fading and she knew it. Her father, who had looked so frail when she'd come home that Summer, a husk of the hale man she'd known from childhood, felt like a figment now.

It hurt too much to sleep knowing by the minute more of him was lost to her, gone to a heaven Feyre had never truly believed in until death loomed. Because there was no way the story of John Archeron ended with a skeleton in the ground.

He was the ritual footing of turf. Lunch together on the bog, eating sandwiches Elain wrapped in tinfoil, the fresh bread slathered in Kerrygold with thick slabs of salty pork. A needed balm for the tired ache that radiated from neck to ankle. Sitting in the rusty Ford come sunset, drinking cold tea from a shared cupán before heading home, his wordless clap on her back the only praise she'd ever got or needed at the end of the day.

He was the man who'd never raised his voice in all of Feyre's life, bar the time she captained the U-15s to a camogie final, when his bellowing and cheering could be heard from Galway as she raised the corn above her head. She remembers him, cheeks full and face ruddy, the proudest he'd ever been Nesta said. For hadn't his Feyrín óg scored three goals and two points that day and led her team to victory.

He was her father, and, in that word, a million memories were stored.

Elain's bustling entry into the kitchen brought Feyre back to the present.

Her sister, already busying herself with making breakfast, whispered.

'How is he Feyrín?'

Stretching in the armchair by the stove, feeling the tension roll from her shoulders and down her arms, she shrugged.

'Not too bad, slept like a log for most of the night. He's still running a bit of a fever but that stuff the doctor gave him has eased the pain. Also don't worry about whispering, fairly certain Judgement Day couldn't rouse him right now.'

Meandering over to her sister she added.

'What's on the schedule today then?'

'Elain, expertly frying rashers and eggs, ran a critical eye over Feyre.

'Well, some food and the leaba for you I'd imagine anyways. Did you sleep at all?'

Feyre ignored the question.

'I'm not tired, El. Actually was going to head on over to the Kelly's place. They've been shocking good taking the herd when Da got sick, but I can manage them now. Reckon I'll sell half at Ballymote this month, bring the number down, you know?'

Elain's back stiffened, her sister in temperament and posture as flexible and fluid as the willow, became stone. Only the crackling and hissing of breakfast could be heard.

Words careful and softly spoken passed her lips.

'Have you spoken to Nes?'

'No. She's never been interested in the farm. Didn't think I needed to ask permission.'

The words, daggers of her making, pointed at Elain.

Her sister's soothing tone did nothing but rankle her further.

'It's not about permission, Fey. I just think we should make these decisions together.'

But though Elain dealt in serenity, she could wield knives too and often did with deceptive skill. Sticking one in Feyre's gut she said with feeling.

'It's what Da would want.'

Her doe-eyed sister who vomited sugar and ribbons could be a right bitch.

Too close to bleeding from her eyes, hurt and a desperate anguish crawling from her stomach and up her throat, Feyre turned towards the back door, grabbing some blackberries, juicy and shining, from the glass bowl by the Almanack.

'I'm going for a walk. I'll be back for dinner.'

The words spilled from her, gruff and broken, trails of hot saltwater carving famine roads along her high cheekbones.

With Elain who'd always read people like Nesta read books, burning holes into her back, Feyre pulled on her boots and grabbed her old hurley, that was tucked neatly in its shrine of a nook by the door.

It was time to visit the forest.

---

The camóg sat like a comfort in Feyre's hand, its weight familiar and grounding, the sleek ash stained with dirt at the boss. She imagined this was how warriors of old felt carrying their swords, this strange companionship, an extension of herself that knew her in a way no person could.  

As was the case when Feyre had a hurl in hand, time moved differently, the mixed woodland hurtled by a blur of brown and green, the ferns that crept onto the path crushed beneath her boots. Bouncing the sliotar off the ash, she focused only on that settling pulse, on finding the perfect balance to keep that round ball on the curved head of the stick, on the thumping of her feet against dusty ground.  

And gradually that burning sadness that ate at her heart, the searing anger at her sister's face, too soft to be so cruel, faded from stinging tears to a small hole at the pit of her stomach. Contained and controlled for now.  

After all, Setanta didn't cry. 

She ran and ran, taking joy in the burning muscle of her thighs, the stinging of her eyes, the heavy panting of her breath, until she reached the boundary line where Toormakeady Forest met the Hollywood Hills.  

Stopping at the rusted gate choked by bindweed, where lus na teanga grew between the tufts of grass as the path faded to an end, Feyre stared out across the rolling hills of the English fella's fields, just about able to spot the glittering waters of Lough Mask in the distance.  

When Richard had lived here, it was custom to walk through the hills. Hollywood, as he was known, a retired American actor had been genial if distant, happy for the village to take the short-cut through his land provided they never approached the house. 

Feyre reckoned he might have been more than a bit offended if he knew exactly how well that suited the villagers in kind.

But now this Tamlin Stewart-Carmichael had co-opted the land the rules had likely changed.

With a fecklessness more characteristic than she'd prefer to admit Feyre hopped the gate anyways. Ignorance was bliss and in weather like this no jumped-up staff of an absent gentleman were going to get between her and the shining waters.

---

Lough Mask lapped at her legs cool and tickling as she stood to her knees in the water, a medicine Feyre had not known she needed, easing the feverish redness that coloured her cheeks and gently tempering the fire that still roiled quietly in her gut. 

Looking out from the shore, Feyre faced the distant veridian mountains that sat the far side of the expanse of rippling greyness. There they stood, imposing Goliaths set in sharp contrast to the saturated summer sky. The bays and cries of livestock nearby seemed so muted, overwhelmed by the gentle rhythm of the calm opaque waters.  

Tranquillity found her briefly. 

And left rapidly when, out of nowhere but Hell surely, a naked man arose from the lake, splashing and gasping for air, a siren of old. 

'Sweet Jesus!' 

Feyre yelled, lifting her hurley above her head to take a crack at the blond menace before her.  

‘Don’t!’ 

He commanded, raising his tanned well-muscled arms in mercy. His voice was deep, with the distinct sharp bite of an English accent. 

She dropped her hurley before him in the water in panic before grabbling it and retreating to the land. Her wet feet smarting at the pinch of the pebbles as she made the rapid withdrawal, putting distance between them. Man, or siren, she was not interested in drowning either which way. 

‘Who the fuck are you?’ 

She pointed the hurl accusatorily at him.  

Sitting back into the water, his lower half became submerged once more. Not that Feyre would forget what she saw in a hurry. As it was, the well-hewn muscles on his abdomen, shining with water droplets and the crosshatch of curling golden hair on his chest, was distraction enough.  

Smirking slightly, green eyes dancing, he replied, 

‘I could ask you the same question...Miss.’ 

Apollo had stopped pulling the sun and landed his chariot in Toormakeady to laugh at her apparently.  

 ‘Anyone who is anyone in these parts knows my face, Sassenach. On voice alone, if you’d ever set foot in the village, I’d know ye.’ 

His dimples seemed to share an inside joke with the lines that creased his eyes as he stared at her. Definitely entertained and strangely delighted at this bizarre encounter it seemed.  

‘Touché, Miss.’ 

‘Odd name that,’ 

She stated drily. 

He laughed. A gentle thing, carried in huffs and breaths by the soft breeze off the lake. 

‘You wield your words as well as your weapon....’ 

He motioned lazily towards the hurley,  

‘...Feyre Archeron.’ 

Her eyes widened in shock, and, following the movement of his arm, were confronted with the thick Sharpie scrawl of her name along the handle.  

Well, shit. 

Her pulse began to settle all the same to a somewhat normal rhythm now she was out of arm’s reach of the dangerously alluring specimen. 

‘You must be connected to yer man moving into the big house then,’ 

She gestured vaguely towards Drimbawn. If she had the sense God gave a rat she’d walk away now, leg it back home. But Feyre would not be scared from the lake, let alone by some Englishman so she continued, 

‘Usually, the posh lot hire locally or at least Hollyw.. the last fella did. But then again, it’s been a few generations since we’ve had someone with the brass neck to keep such a beautiful place as a second home. Can’t say I’m terribly fond of your boss there, stranger.’  

Pink roses blossomed on his cheeks and a large, veined hand pulled at the wavy sun-bleached strands that tickled his shoulder. 

‘He has hired local men. Um... I’m here to just keep things running until he comes to visit. I’m Ta-Tanner.’ 

He went to stand up and shake her hand. Some remnants of well-intentioned civility she imagined, however when challenged by his pronounced obliques, the last of her good sense and innate Catholic shame made her turn rapidly on her heel to face the forest she’d come from.  

‘Easy there, squire. Might want to put some trousers on first.’ 

‘Of course.’ 

He answered, voice apologetic and brimming with a crushing embarrassment that made her want to cackle. 

He was like art. Like whomever Michaelangelo thought of when he had carved David. 

Her supplies had remained zipped away since coming home. It seemed wrong to take joy in the delicate scratch of lead on paper, to crave the feeling of dried acrylic on canvas and skin. Where she usually saw endless, boundless colour and life, there existed only delicate ash structures. It struck her, this sudden wish to paint Tanner, as the first time since she’d seen her father so frail in that flimsy, miserable bed off the kitchen, she wished to paint. Her first time seeing and tasting glorious colour again.  

A shadow fell against her own. 

‘You can turn around now.’ 

Tanner murmured quietly.  

Feyre came face to face with the most beautiful person she’d ever seen. His looks, that were barely palatable from a safe distance, threatened to overcome her as he stood within arm’s reach. The freckles that dotted his nose, slightly crooked from at least one break she imagined, and across his high cheekbones, seemed to map constellations of the night. But he, gilded like the horizon at sunset, was no child of the moon.  

His eyes, speckled with brown flecks like oak leaves smouldered as they met hers, the threatening spark to a flame. 

Casting her sight down, coward that she was, she focused instead on the cotton of his shirt, which though crinkled, was luxurious and well-crafted.  

‘The big man must pay well indeed,’ 

She scoffed.  

‘He’s not a bad guy, all things considered.’ 

He remarked, his hand glancing off her own, a touch just slight enough to claim as an accident.   

‘I’m sure he’s a charmer.’ 

Feyre muttered. 

The silence that settled between with a comfort that seemed unearned, a space of knowing and understanding. It was this, this strange contentment in her soul, that said stay, which prompted Feyre to run. 

‘You best be going, it’s nearly time to do the milking.’ 

She prompted.  

His eyes shuttered, disappointment flickering through them before he nodded reluctantly.  

‘Oh yes, of course. The milking...For the cows.’ 

His hand caught hers gently, encasing it within his, and Feyre who had never felt delicate in her life, felt like a doll in his giant grip.  

‘Do you come here often Feyre?’ 

A question that sounded more like a plea. 

Her heart, ever the loyal organ, beat to the rhythm of his.  

‘I’ll be here tomorrow,’ 

She replied breathily, unsure yet whether it was a lie or truth, before breaking his grasp and running back towards the forest.  

You’ll be back tomorrow,  

Her heart whispered.  

-- 

As she disappeared from view, the mountains and a liar watched on.  

---

Translations:

Feyrín- Little Feyre (Fey-reen). Common structure in Irish. Add -ín at the end and things become small. See names like Róisín (Little Rose) or bothrín (little road, i.e. a lane).

cupán- cup (cup-awn)

óg- young (oh-guh). Common to put after someone's name if they are young, sort of like Junior in English. Especially traditionally in families where there's a family name. E.g. there's a grandfather Connor and a grandson Connor in the one family, the grandfather could become Connor Sean (Old Connor) and the grandson, Connor Óg.

leaba- bed (lah-baa)

camóg- hurl (less common term used for a hurl when playing camógie. See the notes below for more context).

Further Notes for Context:

GAA- Gaelic Athletic Association consists of four indigenous Irish sports (hurling/camogie, Gaelic football, handball and rounders). Hurling and Gaelic football are by far the most popular. I didn't even realise rounders was on the list and I've been involved with the GAA since I was a kid.

[quinloki]

as somebody who is really interested in tarot but is SO BAD at memorizing the card meanings (i've decided to just make my own custom oracle deck at this point), i'm curious if you had any headcanons/thematic ties between the major arcana and one piece characters??

hope this isn't too far out of left field! <3

IT IS NOT - THIS IS FANTASTIC

Two of my favorite things - MY TWO FAVORITEST THINGS IF I HAD TO PICK \o/ THIS IS LIKE A FREE CHRISTMAS

Forgive me, this'll be a bit off the top of my head, so I may make adjustments at some later date, but I absolutely MUST do my best to answer this RIGHT NOW. (I'm vibrating I'm so delighted by this \lol/)

0 The Fool/Luffy - The Fool isn't an idiot, as some people assume based on the name of the card, he's on a journey - as a matter of fact, it's a journey he takes *through* the major arcana. He learns about the world, and himself - about injustices and his own morals and limits. The Fool is about the journey.

1 The Magician/Shanks - The Magician is effectively the Fool's first teacher. The Magician card is as above, so below. He's all the major suits, he's magic and power. Good or Evil isn't relevant (though generally it's always positive to see this card).

2 The High Priestess/Nami - The Priestess is strong girl power - well, strong "things we often associate with feminine energy". She doesn't back down, she knows her strengths, and her weaknesses. There's a bluntness here too, and a fierceness. It's very "That look Nami gave Sanji on Whole Cake Island."

3 The Empress/Nico Robin - The Empress is more a motherly vibe and less a Strong Boss Lady vibes. She's caring, nurturing, protective, but not restrictive. There's a caring vibe that resonates with this that isn't really found in the Priestess.

4 The Emperor/Jinbei - I'm just name some moments - Making Luffy remember his nakama, giving him his blood, not joining when he wanted too - joining when he could do it right. Supporting Luffy even from a distance. Stern, strong, wise, educated, Supportive. Big Good Masculine Vibes.

5 The Hierophant/Monkey D. Garp - The hierophant is a teacher of sorts, kind of a societal vibe vs what The Magician teaches. Here to show you the path you "should" travel. Not necessarily the path you're going to want to travel - just know the road's probably going to be bumpier if you don't listen to him, but contextually, it could be more rewarding.

6 The Lovers/Roronoa Zoro - The Lovers Does NOT MEAN JUST ROMANTIC LOVE or sexy love or whatever. The Lovers is a card about dedication, devotion - being there for someone completely, and that person being there for you completely. Partners. This is a good Kid x Killer vibe card too.

7 The Chariot/Thousand Sunny - The Chariot is about motion, but controlled motion. There's generally no reins being depicted for this card (sometimes there is), but the person is still in control. The crew didn't have much direction when the Merry Go was their ship, but comparatively, they did with Sunny.

8 Strength/Usopp - Strength isn't usually talking about physical strength. It's strength of will. Why Usopp? Facing off against Luffy was an immense show of strength, and his growth after that was even more so. It's very much inline with the card.

9 The Hermit/Sanji - The Hermit doesn't *want* to be alone, but the Hermit often needs it. Not the kind of alone that means shoving everyone away, the kind of alone that sits on the bow of the ship and contemplates their sense of self. Sanji has a lot of work to do in this, but I also think he's a character who has done a LOT of it long before he met Zeff.

10 Wheel of Fortune/The whole bloody series honestly - The Wheel Turns, and things change. This card means whatever is going on now, isn't going to be going on tomorrow. The good times will end, the bad times won't last forever. Everything changes. Appreciate the good while you can, and weather the hard times knowing they won't last.

11 Justice/ - Hrm.

12 The Hanged Man/Trafalgar Law - Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing at all. Sometimes you need to just Stop and Think about things. Maybe Law over thinks sometimes (he certainly has the whole "sacrifice oneself for the greater good" vibe going one, which can also be a thing for this card.)

13 Death/The Going Merry - Change is inevitable, and while the Wheel is about day to day changes, Death is about BIG changes. Changes that don't leave you the same as they found you. Changes that can break you if you don't roll with them - Changes you CANNOT outrun.

14 Temperance/Several Characters- Temperance is about balance, a lot like Justice, but with Temperance there is emotion that you don't find in Justice. My knee jerky reaction places several characters here - Robin's mom, Nami's mom, and Rosinante (my apologies for being bad with names and not wanting to break from this to look them up.) These people all had a strong connection to temperance - doing what needed done, not because of logic or justice, but because of love.

15 The Devil/Doflamingo - The Devil is about choice. Generally it's about negative choices and not positive ones, because it's about the chains that bind us to the things that pull us down. It's about crumbling and failing because we chose to do things the way we did. I liken Doffy to this, since we often don't see what it is we're doing wrong, and with the wrong people around us, well, we just keep going headlong into the wrong path. (Doffy isn't the devil in this card, Trebol could be, but Doffy is definitely the one in chains).

16 The Tower/Marine ford - I don't know that I really need to say anything else ^^;

17 The Star/Silvers Rayleigh - Thinking back to how this is story of journey for the Fool, Rayleigh is the perfect character to follow Marine Ford. He didn't heal Luffy like Law did, he didn't heal him like how Jinbei did. He just offered hope - a chance to recover from the rough and harsh lessons that came before him, and make sure Luffy could continue forward on his own.

18 The Moon/Momonosuke - Wary, anxious - the moon is about intuition, but not "oh I knew they were gonna kiss" kinds of intuition. It's about knowing something is wrong, something is looming, something is unavoidable and you don't know WHY you're nervous and afraid (or maybe you have an inkling) you just are. The moon is fear of the unknown, and it's not a card that has any answers most of the time - you just have to get through it.

19 The Sun/Sabo - It's his memories coming back, him meeting Luffy in the Coliseum, eating the fruit, holding that newspaper to his chest and smiling like a DOOF when he sees his little brother is doing well. It wasn't necessarily all rainbows, but there's clarity there - everything is illuminated, no shadows. Shit hurt for a while, but he can see the good in it all.

20 Judgement/Portgas D. Ace - This card isn't so much about wiping the slate clean, as it is realizing that all your flaws, scars, mistakes, etc. have helped make you who you are. It's about accepting your flaws and either incorporating them, or improving yourself to lessen them. Honestly the most heart breaking thing about Ace is how he was doing this, he just never got the chance to see it through.

21 The World/Joy Boy - I'll just leave this as this for now. ^_^

[notyouraryang0dd3ss]

Having a #1 Song doesn't mean SHIT anymore! It doesn't mean the song is a hit.

Let's be so serious rn. Nobody knows any of her damn fault track that keep charting. I asked my mom to name one song of hers and she could name "Shake it off."

Smooth Criminal went #7 in the US.

Remember the Time went #3 in the US.

Heal the World went #27 in the US.

They don't care about us #30 in the US. But it still went viral on tiktok. A song that is almost 30 years old!!

Thriller the song also never went to number one, but ask people to name one Halloween song they gonna name that song.

And what is more impressive, having 1M EAS the first day or still selling 1M EAS 15 years after your passed and more than 20 years after you dropped an album. Longevity is quality. 1M first day sales she's gonna sell that much for years. Hell, she be lucky if she even sold 50k in a year in 30 years.

5 music videos of his that are made in the 80's and 90's are about to have 1 billion views this year.

Billie Jean still gets 1M daily streams on Spotify.

I'm sorry if you aren't an Mjfan and I bring him up but he's the best example I can give you also because Swifties keep comparing her to him.

If people don't like the song they won't keep listening to it. And if Taylors song just stay in her fanbase and they just massstream her shit. Nobody is gonna know this song in 20 years.

Because what is the last hit Taylor Swift had that was known to the general public? Anti Hero maybe? Cruel Summer?

And something that is also funny is that, Remember when her drunk self got on stage and snatched the grammy from Celine Dion and didn't even look at her.

And people were pissed and her team was quick on working getting a picture with her to mend the damage.

Celine Dion has 5 Grammys and Taylor Swift has 14.

But they knew that Celine Dion got more respect from the GP then Taylor will ever have. And that is something you cannot buy. And they know if someone wins out of pure talent or just because of favourism. And let's be real. Most people know these award shows are rigged and they don't care about it.

Like when RollingStone came out with that fuck ass best singers list that put Taylor at #102 and excluded Celine Dion. People were mad that Celine was included but Taylor was.

Or just recently they also called her the better Adele. Nobody from the GP was like oh yeah that is true.

I mean they can try to name her the Queen of Pop in one of the award shows alà Michael Jackson style, but it's not gonna work with her. When he got that name people actually agreed and they still do. Outside Taylors cult nobody will agree with that.

Taylor's Team is aggressive with the Marketing and pushing these numbers onto us because they know outside of it she has nothing to offer. Her talent isn't marketable. Her singing and dancing isn't that impressive. The most marketable things about her career are her wealth and business success. Have they ever talked about her performance while she is on tour. What is so impressive what she does on stage? No they just keep talking about the money she makes.

No I completely get why MJ is a relevant comparison here. Swifties do keep comparing TS to him and for that alone they need to collectively get their asses beat. But you used good examples and I just want to applaud you for that

& you’re right, I can’t name a single vault track. Every time I’m exposed to her its against my will through my recommended (and its usually so out of place too because i watch really weird video essays).

Charts truly don’t reflect cultural impact because Drunk in Love by Beyoncé never went #1 and neither did Toxic by Britney Spears but both are super well known. Anti Hero is probably the last single to go #1 but I genuinely felt harassed by that song 😭 its sooooooooo bad

Yes! The vocal trinity—Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, and Whitney Houston—have done SO MUCH for music and all have less than half of Taylor Swift’s amount of Grammys. Celine and Mariah each have 5 and Whitney has 6.

I didn’t watch the Grammys this year (forgot to) but I heard about the Celine Dion incident I was SHOCKED because the audacity of this woman! Her entitlement shows in everything she does and she’s really starting to believe her commercial success makes her a better artist.

THE ROLLING STONE LIST WAS BULLSHIT. THEY DIDN’T INCLUDE JENNIFER HUDSON EITHER! Their definition of a “singer” was soooooooo bullshit too like that magazine’s merit has gone down so much in the past 20 years it should be regarded with way less status and credibility. And who tf called TS better than ADELE?

You’re right, her moniker will be chosen by the general public (probably from a viral tweet/tiktok/etc).

And she needs aggressive marketing because she really is a below average musician in all respects! She has her songwriting but she should’ve just been a hit songwriter (like Estelle Dean) not a singer. What makes her marketable is very “ordinary” image—which makes her relatable to “every girl, like me and you” 🙄 her soft voice really creates an intimate atmosphere especially with her vulnerable (but superficial) lyrics. She has to be friends with her fans for her success to work. Because there is no way you can justify her being regarded as a “god” the way people do with Beyoncé and MJ otherwise.

🎯 with the Eras Tour coverage. No one ever references or cites a particular jaw dropping vocal performance or dance number. It’s always the amount of wealth she’s generating.

[shinozaki-ayumi]

Ok I'm just going to post it lol.

I’ve had this theory about Dead Patient (but I guess now Darkness Distortion too) for ages, but I always felt it was too insane and I was just coping. BUT I finally saw someone on Twitter make a similar connection so I feel comfortable enough to put it out there now.

All my thoughts under the cut! Will contain some spoilers for Blood Drive and Dead Patient if you are new to the series and want to avoid those.

First, regarding Dead Patient:

So I've basically always had this theory that Ayame Itou might somehow actually be Ayumi inside her own Nirvana experiencing amnesia, and that her Nirvana took the shape of a hospital because… idk. I guess because she’s been effectively disabled since the end of Blood Drive and probably has to be in the hospital more often? If I’m remembering correctly, Yoshiki mentions in the Dead Patient drama CD that he has to bring Ayumi to the hospital, so maybe it’s the same one?

Either way it was a very incomplete “theory” and more something I thought up because it would be a fun fic idea lmao. DP isn't finished so there isn't really enough material to build a theory off of; I was mostly going off of their names sounding familiar, the amnesia thing, and the fact that the very first thing we see in DP is a catatonic Ayumi, implying that she is relevant to the story somehow. But I looked a bit more into it and there are a few things here and there that I’ve had some fun theorizing about, even if it's a stretch.

#1: This limited edition alternative costume for Ayame. They could’ve picked any character, but they picked Ayumi (this is a massive stretch, I just thought it was neat and could potentially carry some hints under the guise of a meaningless costume).

#2: The way Ayame’s name is written in hiragana, not kanji. This is pretty uncommon in Corpse Party characters. The vast majority of them use kanji -- except Sachiko (サチコ), Yoshikazu (ヨシカズ), and Yoshie (ヨシヱ), whose names are written in katakana; and Sayaka (さやか) and Ayumi (あゆみ), whose names are in hiragana. Again also a stretch, but an interesting correlation given how their names already sound similar.

And #3: This aspect of Ayame’s background, which is left pretty vague. Since this is a fan wiki I double-checked their source and it does say this in official material. The vagueness of it is obviously meant to correlate to Ayame’s amnesia, but it also leaves it open to the interpretation that maybe an amnesiac Ayumi has trauma-informed responses to these things due to her experiences in HH (even if she doesn’t remember it concretely).

Either way I didn’t really expect this idea to hold any ground and mostly put it away in the back of my mind as a silly thing to build my own post-Blood Drive headcanons with. Certain inconsistencies also existed that made me believe it wasn't possible and I was just looking into it too much (e.g., Ayame's last name is Itou, which both looks and sounds nothing like Shinozaki, so the name similarity point kind of falls off track).

Now, with Darkness Distortion:

We have another character named "Ayame." The ritual/curse in Darkness Distortion is called Ayame's Mercy. In general, people are under the impression that the girl in a wheelchair seen in promotional material is Ayame. I mean, this part of the trailer probably all but confirms that:

Ayumi is also in a wheelchair as of the end of Blood Drive/beginning of Dead Patient:

This time around, the name comparison also holds a bit more value, I think. Darkness Distortion's Ayame's full name is Ayame Kirishima. Someone I follow on Twitter pointed something out about how this new name sounds:

Translation: “I’m saying this very quietly, but, if ‘Ayame-san’ is ‘Ayumi,’ then wouldn’t her surname(?), ‘Kirishima,’ become ‘Kishinuma’?”

We know that Yoshiki is basically Ayumi's caretaker post-Blood Drive (or at least becomes her caretaker sometime between the end of Blood Drive and the start of Dead Patient) and she presumably lives with him. So I suppose it wouldn't be entirely unbelievable that an only semi-conscious or amnesia-riddled Ayumi would latch onto his name as a form of self-identification or just genuinely mistake it for her own?

The question obviously remains whether Ayame Ito and Ayame Kirishima are the same character. I don't really think it's just a coincidence they have the same first name and the setting is a hospital again. The Ayumi connection is questionable, but after getting more thoroughly reacquainted with Blood Drive (I hadn't played it since it came out 10 years ago. Oops) I feel like it's not entirely crazy to think Ayumi could have manifested her own Nirvana like Sachiko did. Maybe Ayame Ito and Ayame Kirishima function similarly to the White Sachiko and Red Sachiko in Blood Covered? (i.e., two separate manifestations of the same soul representing different emotions).

Idk. I don't expect any of this to be true lol. But it's fun to theorize while we wait for real answers.

[overlyimmersed]

🎁🎉🎂Happy Birthday Harlequin!🎂🎉🎁

Last year I designed an outfit for him, and I intend to do that this year as well, but since it took me till the 27th to finish Elaine's(her birthdays was the 15th) I'm not super confident that I'll have that finished on time. If I do, you're probably looking at that right now, but if not! Then at least this will be out on time.

Well that didn't work... My sleep schedual betrayed me and I didn't even get this posted on time... I meant to take a nap. I set 3 alarms. Did not work. Slept for 15 hours...

Anyway, this year, along side the outfit design, I'll also be doing an analysis that I've been wanting to do for quite a long while.

A name analysis!

Most of the characters in The Seven Deadly Sins -at least the important ones- have names relating to Arthurian myth, as the story is kind a based in it. But this, oddly enough, doesn't apply to almost any of the Fairies, even Harlequin -AKA "King"- despite him being one of the titular characters.

Meliodas and Ban are the fathers of two of Arthur's knight, Tristian and Lancelot respectively, Merlin is Merlin, iirc there are two different Escanors depending on the story, and Gowther is...apparently Merlin's half-brother according a glance at google... Diane's namesake is a little harder to track down, but she's not directly Arthurian either from what I can gather. As far as I know the only Fairy who does align with Arthurian myth is Elaine, but the Elaine that's Ban's wife is not the only Elaine you'll find in Arthurian stories, it was a common name.

Anyway

Most people know the word "harlequin". Simply put it's a french clown.

-Oh and apparently also a duck XD

BUT

Not everyone who knows that, knows where the word comes from, or what the king of the Fairies would have it for a name.

The origin of the word is actually a lot older than the french clown concept and isn't actually french all the way back. here's what Google has to say;

"late 16th century: from obsolete French, from earlier Herlequin (or Hellequin ), the name of the leader of a legendary troop of demon horsemen; perhaps ultimately related to Old English Herla cyning ‘King Herla’, a mythical figure sometimes identified with Woden."

I actually learned this from a youtube video some years back, by Overly Sarcastic Productions. It's a Halloween episode discussing the concept of the "Wild Hunt". I highly recommend the video and the channel as a whole, they're really great, very funny and you learn a lot. The video is a little under 17 minutes long, though, so if you're only interested in the part relevant this analysis jump to 11:05 in the video.

For anyone who doesn't want to watch that and would rather read me summerize it, in the video it's explained that the Scandinavian version of the Wild Hunt is called "Odin's Hunt" but in Old English it's called "Herlaþing" which means "Herla's Assembly". Herla being a King of the Britons who makes a deal with a dwarf where the two attend each other's weddings. The dwarf is a perfect guest at Herla's wedding and the following year Herla goes to the dwarf kingdom to return the favor. When he leaves the dwarf gives him a hunting dog and warns him not to get off his horse till the dog does. When they get back the dog doesn't get off the horse, Herla asks a random person they pass how his wife is doing only to find out that 3 days in dwarfland = 300 years in humanland. Some of his men are shocked and get off their horses, only to age to dust when they touch the ground, so Herla is stuck riding his horse for eternity.

The concept of an eternal wander was popular and in the 11th century a french monk/chronicler used the phrase "Familia Herlequin" to describe a host of demons pursuing a monk, lead by a masked giant. This masked hunt leader would evolve into the character we now know as a "harlequin", a trickster character is french passion plays.

God, king and trickster presented as a fool, that actually kinda tracks, doesn't it?

And that, is why the king of the Fairies is named Harlequin.

[girlsies-week-2023]

Information on some of my favorite Girlsies !!! For sillies !!!

(working title was me infodumping about girlsies under the excuse that it is relevent to the event)

I don't have the energy to go through & update this post at the moment, but @thegroundsofbrooklyn has a post here that has more info on the UK Brooklyn Girls !!!

Starting out with our number one, the original girlsie: Charlie (Hard Promises) !!!

Charlie was the original love interest for Jack in Hard Promises, and she was a newsie !! Her story was that she was living in a house of prostitution with her aunt (with her aunt trying to shield her from as much as possible to stop her from going into that life / being exposed to it) and she was planning to (and did!) go with Jack to Santa Fe at the end.

Next up: Smalls (Papermill - Broadway) (Manhattan / Possibly The Bronx) !!!:

I know that whether or not Smalls is a girl is up to interpretation but I am interpreting her as a girl & including her in this list (same with Sniper).

Smalls is a Bronx newsie (as implied by her yelling so's da Bronx during Brooklyn's Here), but she's still allowed in Manhattan (hence being there for KoNY in some versions), so she's probably allowed to wander around on her own.

According to Liana Hunt, she lives in a family with at least one parent and a ton of brothers who all work to support them, so she's sort've eager to be one of the boys in that sense — she's also super tough.

Talls !!! (Broadway) (Manhattan / Possibly The Bronx):

Talls was Caitlyn Caughell's newsie whenever she was on for that track. I have no information on her besides the fact that she was played by Caitlyn Caughell & is probably a play on her height of some kind — + also being a play on Smalls. Smalls & Talls <3

Sniper !!! (Tour) (Manhattan / Possibly The Bronx):

I'm going to be mixing in other backstories for this because as far as I'm aware Sniper's the only newsie on that list with a backstory that isn't from their actress ? + she has more involvement in the show when she isn't a girl so I'm going off that

But according to Alex Wong — Sniper's last name is Wah, and she's the daughter (son in this backstory but it's okay) of Sam Wah, who owns the laundromat above Jacobi's (the sign of which can be seen in the pre-uksies Jacobi scenes). She's named after her 'incredible aim' with a slingshot.

In certain versions, she's one of the scabs, the last one to throw down her papers, and the one to go 'Ah, what the hell? My father's gonna kill me anyway!' in the proshot. In the tour, she was also the one to yell so's da bronx.

Puddles !!! (Tour) (Manhattan / Possibly The Bronx):

Puddles is in the same group as Talls in the sense that there is like no canon lore about her & there isn't even any information besides her name and the fact that she was played by Melissa Steadman Hart during the tour. However she has the cutest nickname and deserved to be included in this list.

Marriott! Buttons !!! (Marriott) (Manhattan):

According to Adrienne Storrs, the actress for Buttons, she's been a newsie for three years. Her parents are poor Italian immigrants that don't speak English, so she works to support them. She was convinced to start selling Newspapers by JoJo after being caught pickpocketing on the street.

Buttons & JoJo are best gal pals, she sees Specs as a younger brother figure (she's always looking out for him), and Race and Albert are her favorite people to joke around with!

She has (had?) a rich boyfriend that went to jail for forgery a bit before the strike, so she's a little heartbroken during it, but she's 'continuing to live her life and she has the best newsie friends'.

She has a really positive mindset in general.

She also (along with JoJo) checked Katherine out when she walked into Jacobi's and later taught her how to Irish dance during KoNY with JoJo !!!

Marriott! JoJo !!! (Marriott) (Manhattan):

According, once again, to Adrienne Storrs, JoJo (who's real name is Josephine) is 'one tough cookie'. She was originally a pickpocket, but Jack found her and took her under her wing for ten percent of her earnings when she was almost twelve. She was one of the original newsies in the Manhattan group, and after three years she started seeking out other girl newsies (& that's when Buttons came along !!). She's been a newsie for about five years, 'not too far behind how long Jack had been selling'.

She has an Irish father and a Romanian mother and they were circus artists that came to America with P.T Barnum in the 1870s. She was born in 1882 (making her seventeen at the time of the strike) and she was raised around a circus.

Rafaela (Marriott) (Brooklyn):

Once again, according to Adrienne Storrs, Rafaela's parents moved from Spain to Puerto Rico in the 1880s and she was born there in 1885. They moved to New York City when she was five and she's very close with her brothers, who were six and eight at the time. All three children became newsies at the same time, being expected to work as much as their parents did.

She didn't go to school, she taught herself how to read and speak English, using her time as a newsie as a teaching device. She's super tough, and she had to grow up really fast. She 'has a strong sense of community with her family and fellow Brooklyn Newsies'.

Joey (Marriott) (Brooklyn):

You guessed it, information yet again from Adrienne Storrs!

Joey is Racetrack Higgins' cousin, and she's super positive. She's also secretly a really good fighter.

Hildy (Marriott) (Brooklyn):

You'll never guess where this info is from.

Hildy is German, and her parents own a sausage shop, and she likes to get into trouble.

Honorable mention to Nancy, Hazel, and Muriel from Newsies Jr.

I don't have the energy to read through all of newsies jr rn to find out which lines they have, however I can tell you off the top of my head that they are very supportive of Katherine and probably also on the younger side (because. Newsies Jr. Obviously).

If anyone who's played them would like to mention their backstory in the rbs or in this accs ask box, that would be lovely !!!

Spot Conlon (UK) (Brooklyn):

Using Lillie-Pearl's backstory for Spot here, because Clarice never got the opportunity to share hers if she had one :(

Lillie-Pearl's backstory for Spot is that her parents were Irish and African American immigrants living in Seneca Village.

Spot in Uksies is very close with Davey !!! According to Lillie-Pearl, she doesn't call him Davey, she calls him David, and in her cameo description she added 'making rhymes with Davey' into her list of things she enjoyed. She is also very close with her girls (obviously), specifically Lucky & Stray, who she did the handshake with depending on what point in the show it was. She also liked Race, depending on the day.

(She also probably isn't on awful terms with most of the Manhattan newsies, especially if they're girls.)

Lucky (Newsies UK) (Brooklyn):

Lucky doesn't have a lot of canon lore too her HOWEVER I can tell you that she used to do the handshake with Spot back when she existed, was called Tops for some performances, AND her real name is Eliza !!! She also interacted with Scope a lot during The Rally.

Mack (Newsies UK) (Brooklyn):

Mack's real name is Jeanie MacDonald, but she shortened it down to Mack because she didn't like her name.

She's a Scottish immigrant whose family moved to the U.S (just North of New York) to start a farm, but a plague of locusts destroyed the farm, so they had to move into the city for work.

She couldn't stand being stuck in their one bedroom cramped apartment, so her father suggested that she take up work as a Newsie.

Splint (Newsies UK) (Brooklyn):

Splint's arm is in a Splint !!! For some mystery reason that definitely isn't because Bobbie's hand was injured at the time of the first preview. Definitely not.

She doesn't appear after The Rally, which is because — according to Bobbie — she falled down & died :( (Bobbie needed 2 be there as Hannah)

Also her real name is Splinty McSplint.

(Bobbie also said that if she were to have a love interest it would be Buttons.)

Scope (Newsies UK) (Brooklyn):

I have no canon info about Scope besides the fact that she has the world's cutest pigtails and hung around Lucky at The Rally a lot :(

Ritz (Newsies UK) (Brooklyn):

Ritz' real name is Rita, and her nickname comes from ritz crackers and also Lucy's last characters name !! That's all the canon info we have on her as far as ik :(

Stray (Newsies UK) (Brooklyn):

Stray's nickname comes from her feeding all of the stray animals of New York !!!

She is related to Specs in some way (probably siblings, considering the fact that Sam & Immie are).

She becomes a Bowery Beauty when she's older, and her real name is from a newsgirl turned dancer but Immie doesn't remember who that is — the closest I got in my research is Lillian Russell, who wasn't a newsgirl but yk close enough.

(Her love interest would've been Mike !!)

Pips (Newsies UK) (Brooklyn):

Again, no canon information on Pips as far as I'm aware, besides the fact that she is literally adorable

[ryin-silverfish]

On Erlang's mom, Lotus Lantern, and a neat little discovery

"Erlang's mom is Yaoji, JE's sister."

You can see that statement in literally every JTTW + adjacent fandom, both Chinese and English. Personally, it isn't as annoying as the "Nvwa is JE's daughter" thing, but does get a little tiring when everyone and their mother takes it as actual mythos.

So, in this post, I'll do a bit of digging, and trace the evolutionary trajectory of that claim.

Reading my Lotus Lantern Summaries first will be quite helpful, but if you haven't, I'll be linking to these posts when they become relevant.

The Start of It All

-As far as I know, JTTW novel is the first textual source that said "Erlang is JE's nephew". Specifically, in SWK's pre-battle taunts, he commented that "Hey, I heard JE's sister got chummy with Yang the mortal and gave birth to a son, is that you?" (JTTW Chapter 6)

-The same chapter also mentions that Erlang cleaved open the Peach Mountain to save his mom, implying she was imprisoned as a punishment for her forbidden relationship.

-The other roughly contemporary source, the Precious Scroll of Erlang, expanded on that story: here, Erlang's mom is Lady Yunhua (云花, literally "Cloud-Flower"), part of a trio of three sisters born of "Father Cloud" and "Mother Rain", who embodied the "Three Flowers", a Daoist internal alchemy jargon.

-She is also mentioned to be an immortal maiden of the Dipper-Ox Palace, where Queen Mother of the West resided. Erlang's dad, Yang Tianyou, is the incarnate of a "Golden Boy" acolyte, and they pretty much got insta-married after Yunhua revealed her true identity.

-In the Precious Scroll, Erlang's mom was also put under a mountain by SWK, and he went to QMoW to ask for his mother's whereabouts, pulling off the "carrying the mountains & chasing the suns" stunt on his way to rescue her.

-Pretty different from what you know, right? Here, Erlang was an only child, his mother was never explicitly said to be imprisoned under a mountain by JE's orders, and his father wasn't a run-of-the-mill mortal either.

-So what changed?

Erlang in the Premodern Lotus Lantern stories

-Well, the Lotus Lantern story cycle happened, and Erlang's own mom-saving story got copied over to his nephew Chenxiang.

-However, in all except one iteration of the Lotus Lantern tales, Erlang's parentage was never stated: this iteration is what I called Lotus Lantern 2.0, in which Erlang's own mom-saving story was canon too.

-It did leave out the "SWK put his mom under a mountain" part, though, despite lifting the name Yang Tianyou (and Lady Yunhua too, though her name in this story was Yuntai, "Cloud-Terrace") from the Precious Scroll.

-Similarly, the Lady of Mt. Hua/San Shengmu in all but one iteration of these stories wasn't punished by the Celestial Host, and Erlang putting her under a mountain was entirely his personal decision.

-In the one story that did, it was because she had whipped up a storm and ruined the mortals' crops while she was going after Liu the scholar.

-In fact, in all these pre-modern Lotus Lantern stories, San Shengmu and Liu's relationship was greenlit + Divinely Ordained by the Celestial Host.

The One TV Series to Change it All

-Yep, it's my childhood memory, the 2000s Lotus Lantern + Prequel shows that started the "Erlang's mom was Yaoji" thing!

-Here, she fell in love with the mortal Yang Tianyou after he sacrificed his own heart to save her, Erlang had an older brother named Yang Jiao who was killed together with his father on JE's orders, who also killed Yaoji via exposure to the Ten Suns after her release.

-That last part was probably inspired by the story of Nv Chou in the Books of Mountains and Seas, who was...this random sorceress/witch that got scorched to death by the Ten Suns.

-For a long time, I thought this was it: Erlang's mom being Yaoji was something the show-writers just pulled out of thin air, and entirely their original invention.

-Then I came across this little tidbit in Vol. 3 of the Tang dynasty text, 墉城集仙录...

-Translation: "Lady Yunhua was the 23th daughter of QMoW and the sister of Lady Wang of Taizhen, and her name is Yaoji."

-The last character, 华, is different from the 花 of Yunhua in the Precious Scroll story, but these two characters could often be used interchangeably.

-It must also be noted that the similar name/title is just a coincidence, and mythos-wise, Yaoji's legends never converged with Erlang's mom-saving story at all.

-But yeah, the Lotus Lantern + Prequel show writers probably saw the two names, went "Won't it be neat if we merge them into a single character?", and thus the most influential "urban legend" of Chinese mythos/folklore was born.

(Honestly, with the way myths and folklore evolve, maybe this version of the story would become canonized too after a hundred years or so!)

Edit: Check out the comments——@fate-magical-girls has informed me that the "Erlang's mom being Yaoji" thing had an earlier origin in the 1987 Teochew opera 三姐下凡!

Seems like Lotus Lantern Prequel has taken a lot more inspirations from said opera, aside from that bit: Erlang's three-pronged, double-bladed spear being a three-headed flood dragon he subdued, for example.

[sobeksewerrat]

Why was phoenix Wright falsely accused of murder? What even was the evidence? Literally WHY did he eat it? What the fuck??

This has been rotting in my asks since March 21st. Time to answer it I think

Okay, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR PHOENIX WRIGHT; ACE ATTORNEY 3: TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS INCOMING!

This is gonna be long.

So, let us set the scene. There was this girl called Dahlia Hawthorne, she was the daughter of Morgan Fey of the Fey Clan and a jeweller iirc.

The Fey Clan is supperrrrrr important but the clan and Dahlia's backstory are too complicated to be easily summarised. But, basically, Dahlia doesn't possess a special ability the rest of her clan has, Spirit Channeling. Which made her an outcast and made her mother hate her. That's why her last name is Hawthorne, not Fey.

Anyways, basically, Mr.Hawthorne and her mom, Morgan Fey, suck balls. And she has an older stepsister called Valerie Hawthorne.

They got her a a private tutor for school when she was 14 called Terry Fawles. Terry's whole deal is complicated especially since he is clearly mentally undeveloped but he was a creep and "dated" Dahlia (he was in his 20s).

Dahlia grew tired of her parents' bullshit and decided to use her creepy pedo tutor as a way to escape.

She plotted with Valerie n Terry to stage a fake kidnapping where Terry holds her hostage on top of a place called Dusky Bridge and asked for a very expensive diamond from their dad as ransom. But the Hawthorne sisters planned to stab Terry in the back and get him arrested.

It didn't go well. iirc Dahlia got scared and jumped off the bridge into the river hundreds of feet below.

The police concluded that she died. But Valerie found her.

They lost the diamond in the high current of the river, but Dahlia got herself a new life as "Melissa Foster".

Now, here's where it gets interesting. Remember the Fey Clan? Well, she has this older cousin called Mia Fey and her aunt is called Misty Fey.

Misty Fey is the Head of the Kurain Channeling School and the master of the Fey Clan. That's why Morgan wanted Dahlia to have more powerful spiritual powers and shit, to strip her sister of that title.

Anyways, in December of 2001 a defense attorney I will refrain from naming because of a huge twist in Ace Attorney 1 was killed in a courthouse elevator. There were no leads on who could've done it, and the only two possible suspects where the attorney's 9 year old son and a court bailiff.

So the police secretly got Misty Fey to channel the spirit of the attorney to tell them who killed him. But here's the thing, the victim was passed out when he died. He didn't know who killed him.

Anyways, a buncha shit happens, Misty Fey's credibility is thrown out the window, the case remains unsolved and the Fey Clan is in shambles.

The incident was dubbed the "DL-6 Incident" and I am not even exaggerating when I tell you this is single-handedly the most important event in Ace Attorney lore because it causes a huge butterfly effect that starts the problems of literally every. Single. Character. In the original trilogy. I wish I was kidding.

After this whole fiasco, Misty Fey goes into hiding, leaving her eldest daughter Mia to carry the weight of having to be Kurain's master.

But Mia doesn't want that. Mia wanted to become a defense attorney for reasons I am forgetting atm but definitely because of DL-6 too.

So she leaves for law school where she befriends (fucks) the now ex-Chief Prosecutor Lana Skye but that ain't important. That forces her little sister Maya to become next in line for the role of the Master but that isn't too relevant to Phoenix eating evidence.

Now, years after DL-6 and the Dusky Bridge incident, something happens. I don't fully remember the details, but Terry Fawles was being carried somewhere from prison before he broke out and met up with Valerie (remember her?) because she left him a message.

After he meets up with her, Valerie is found dead. Like murdered.

This case involves too many details I am mostly forgetting, but one of the witnesses for the case was Melissa Foster- Dahlia Hawthorne. And, spoiler alert: she killed Valerie because Valerie wanted to come clean about the fake kidnapping.

And who was Terry's defense lawyer? Ha. Mia Fey, fresh out of college and on her first case. She is accompanied by her soon-to-be-probably-boyfriend (she's a bicon) Diego Armando as her co-counsel, trust me he is relevant.

Shit happens, Dahlia's disguise is revealed in the middle of court. Terry is shocked, betrayed and confused. How could his Dahlia stab him in the back? (SIDE NOTE: TERRY IS A FUCKING PEDO. WE SHOULD ACKNOWLEDGE THIS. HE SUCKS.I ALMOST THREW UP WRITING THAT LAST SENTENCE)

Anyways, Terry fucking dies by suicide. How? He drank poison in a glass vial in a necklace that Dahlia had given him, and told him to drink if he stopped trusting her. It makes sense in context, I just really need to replay this case.

So Terry fucking dies on stand and Dahlia gets away scot-free.

Mia breaks down, Diego says one of the most earth-shattering iconic lines in the series, breaks a coffee mug with his bare hands and everything sucks.

Except, we're still not at the end. Oh no, we're just getting started.

Diego, in all of his cocky stupidity, decides to talk to Dahlia in the courthouse library. Seriously how is he so fucking stupid like I love him but what the hell.

Now, I don't remember how but that idiot left her alone with his coffee. I didn't mention this, but, Dahlia has glass bottle necklace identical to Terry, also containing poison.

A poison that activates faster with coffee. A poison called atroquinine*.

*this is speculation iirc, as it was never mentioned in T&T I don't think, but it was an important, albeit fictional, poison in Apollo Justice; Ace Attorney.

You can see where this is going. So while Diego stupidly drinks his poisoned coffee, Dahlia makes a run for it and runs into none other than PHOENIX WRIGHT. You know, the title character? The whole reason we're here?

He was an art student at the time, studying law at the side and reading up court cases for, you probably didn't guess it, reasons he is unaware are related to the DL-6 Incident. I told you it was important.

Now, Dahlia is what you would call a femme fatale. And young Phoenix (or Feenie as fhe fandom calls him for distinction) is a fucking moron.

So when pretty-girl-and-now-serial-killer-probably Dahlia Hawthorne offers him a pretty glass necklace, HE FUCKING TAKES IT. HE FUCKING TAKES THE ONLY PIECE OF EVIDENCE THAT COULD INCRIMINATE DAHLIA. HE FUCKING DOES IT.

This causes a...bit of an obstacle in Dahlia's way, since he won't return the necklace no matter what. Moreover, Diego, as she would later find out, did not die. But he was in a coma, and if he were to awake- she'd be in deep shit.

This was the end for Dahlia Hawthorne...

Or was it?

I must make a confession here, there's something I have been consciously omitting from the beginning.

It's an easy twist to figure out once you play the game, but it's very important, so if you want to stop reading here I totally understand.

...

Okay, done? Here we go.

Dahlia has a twin sister called Iris. And they're fucking identical, except that Dahlia has red hair*.

*though some speculate it is hair dye as nobody else in her family have red hair. It could be from Mr. Hawthorne, but it is very unlikely as Valerie has black hair like Iris.

Dahlia wanted to kill Phoenix to get the necklace back, afterall, what's another name added to her list of victims anyway? Iris stops her.

You see, Iris was sent away alone to live in a place called Hazakura Temple when she was young with this nun called Sister Bikini. Therefore, she is very spiritual, despite not possessing the Fey Clan's abilities either, and is one of the two main nuns at the temple. And her title is literally Iris Hazakurain.

Iris didn't want her sister's soul to carry any more sins, and decided to get her hands a little bit dirty.

Her plan was simple; fake-date Phoenix for a few weeks as Dahlia, ask for the necklace back and then skedaddle. And him and Dahlia were in the same university so it was easy!

However, Iris didn't account for something, Phoenix is a guy with a lot of abandonment issues.

He doesn't want to give her the necklace unless she provides a valid reason, because he is scared she'll abandon him once she takes back that "symbol of their love"...look, he becomes smarter down the road, okay?!

Another thing she didn't account for was that she would end up actually falling in love with Phoenix. (Istg if NaruMitsu/WrightWorth didn't exist, Feenris would be my top ship). And what was meant to be a fake relationship that lasted at most a few weeks, ended up being a serious 8 month long relationship.

And Dahlia, starting to get impatient, decided to take matters into her own hands...

Here's where shit hits the fan, one of Dahlia's ex-boyfriends, Doug Swallow, asked to meet Phoenix.

You see, Doug dated Dahlia 8 months prior, when she poisoned Armando. He was a chemistry student (iirc), and needless to say he started to get suspicious when certain chemicals- most notably, atroquinine -were starting to go missing from the lab after they started dating.

He did some digging around, connected the dots and figured out that Dahlia had something to do with Valerie's murder, Terry's suicide and Diego's poisoning.

Despite having no solid proof, he wanted to warn Phoenix.

Phoenix didn't believe him. He truly was inlove- just with Iris, not Dahlia. He didn't know that at the time.

So when this guy he never talked to before walks up to him, says he's his girlfriend's ex and straight up accuses her of being a murderer, needless to say he was pissed off and pushed him at the ground.

I don't fully remember what happened next, but Dahlia, never passing on the opportunity to commit sweet, sweet homicide, steps in and fucking kills Doug. In front of Phoenix.

I don't remember what happened to Iris, but Dahlia had managed to get her out of the picture before this incident.

Dahlia, ever the manipulator, somehow convinces Phoenix to not testify against her AND she frames him for the murder, and uses her failed attempt at murdering him to her advantage.

"What failed murder attempt?" you may ask, well, the answer is: Dahlia fucking poisoned his cold medicine bottle. SHE FUCKING POISIONED HIS MEDICATION.

So, his medicine bottle was found on the crime scene- and laced with atroquinine. Girliepop really has a thing for poison- honestly slay, I'm a toxicology nerd, I get it.

Phoenix goes to the famous Grossberg Law Offices for help, where Mia Fey, who works there btw, fucking jumps in to help the moment she finds out Dahlia will be the main witness.

Mia has been depressed since the Terry Fawles' case, and on a quest for vengeance against Dahlia after Diego went comatose. And this was the chance for revenge presented to her on a silver platter.

She becomes Phoenix's defense attorney (and later mentor btw) with the help of her boss and mentor, Marvin Grossberg.

Marvin is um...he sucks. He's a silly goofy old man but he literally caused everything bad that ever happened in Mia's life because the defense attorney for the Bailiff from the DL-6 Incident (remember that?) was a guy who worked for him so he attended the channeling of the DL-6 victim and he's the one who revealed Misty's involvement in the whole case and BASICALLY ORPHANED MIA AND MAYA BECAUSE HE COULDN'T KEEP HIS GODDAMN MOUTH SHUT.

This will become relevant later in the timeline during the events of Ace Attorney 1 (this is all backstory revealed in AA3) where he becomes an even bigger asshat in Case 2-1; Turnabout Sisters.

All you need to know about the case is that when Mia corners Dahlia and asks Phoenix to hand over the glass vial necklace she gave him to be tested for traces of atroquinine, PHOENIX FUCKING EATS IT. HE FUCKING EATS THE ONLY PIECE OF EVIDENCE THAT COULDVE SAVED HIM FROM EXECUTION. HE FUCKING CHEWS IT, NOT EVEN SWALLOWS IT, CHEWS ALL OF IT WITH THE METAL PIECES.

AND HE FUCKING LIVES. PHOENIX "EATS NECKLACES" WRIGHT LIVED AFTER EATING POISIONED GLASS AND METAL. IN THE MIDDLE OF A TRIAL THAT COULD LEAD TO HIM GETTING THE DEATH SENTENCE.

AND SOMEHOW THEY STILL WIN THE CASE. BY A MIRACLE, THEY FUCKING WIN.

AND DAHLIA GETS THE DEATH SENTENCE SO HAPPY ENDING FOR EVERYONE, RIGHT? RIGHT?!

NO, NO, NO HAPPY ENDING. BECAUSE DAHLIA SOMEHOW MANAGES TO BECOME EVEN WORSE IN THE PRESENT TIMELINE.

After all of this, you would think that Dahlia is the main villain of the entire original trilogy. She is not. She is fucking not. The main villain is the guy who caused the DL-6 Incident, I am not fucking kidding, he is an actual character. It's always the DL-6 Incident, IT'S ALWAYS THE FUCKING DL-6 INCIDENT.

[puckgoss]

can you do a timeline of kelsey and Jamie pls😭😭 im new

Here it is y'all - the Jamie & Kelsey timeline 🤠

All of this info comes from IG, Kelsey & Brynn's podcast (out of line), Brynn's TikTok, Flyers beat reporters, Twitter, Tumblr, and the NHL website.

If I've missed anything or need to make any corrections lmk!

April 30, 2023

Trevor & Jamie attend Stagecoach music festival in CA and meet Kelsey & Brynn on Day 3 (April 30)

Trevor went up to Kelsey, he tapped her on the shoulder and asked her her name. They introduced themselves to each other. He asks "who's your friend" about Brynn and then introduces them to Jamie, introducing him as "his roommate".

In the podcast, Kelsey describes Jamie and Trevor as "absolutely hammered"

Trevor & Jamie tell them they're from California, that they were in college but dropped out to play hockey. They told them they're hockey players but at the time Kelsey & Brynn (who don't watch sports/hockey) didn't know that they meant professional hockey players for an NHL team.

They hang with them for a while (pics below) then as the girls are leaving T & J try to convince them to stay but they don't. At some point Brynn & Trevor exchange numbers - she has his number in her phone, presumably he texted himself from her phone in an effort to get the girls to meet up with them later on at SC. They don't end up meeting up again.

May-July 2023

A while later (after SC), Brynn is scrolling on TikTok and sees an edit of Trevor. She recognizes him.

She looks through her messages and pictures and finds them on IG and realizes that the two guys they met at SC are famous athletes.

They all follow each other on IG. Brynn, Kelsey, and Jamie are all still mutuals but Trevor unfollowed the girls pretty quickly.

Jamie likes Kelsey's IG post may 27, 2023

Jamie likes Kelsey's IG post july 2, 2023

August 2023

Brynn & Kelsey talk about JD & TZ on their podcast.

Kelsey says "we need to do anything and everything that we can to manifest seeing them again because the last time we saw them was like the worst way to end it"

Brynn says that Kelsey has been in contact with JD and that they're probably going on a date.

Kelsey says that she isn't sure and doesn't know "how much you can trust a guy like that"

Brynn insists she is going to make this date happen for Kelsey. Kelsey says she should probably focus on boys that live closer to her in AZ.

Also around this time, Brynn posts multiple TikToks referencing TZ and the fact that she fumbled the bag.

Jamie likes Kelsey's IG post august 19, 2023

September 2023

On the podcast, Kelsey talks about how she's been going on dates with boys (not JD) all summer but considers herself to be single.

Jamie likes Kelsey's IG post sept 15, 2023

October 2023

Kelsey posts a pic of her in Newport, CA on Oct. 14. She went on a trip there with friends.

Jamie likes Kelsey's IG post oct 14, 2023 (road trip to socal)

Ducks play in Vegas on Oct. 14 and were home prior to that. They then play a home game on the 15th (Jamie played in this game)

January 2024

Jan 7 - Jamie likes Kelsey's IG post jan 7, 2024

Jan 8 - Jamie is traded to the Flyers

Jan 29 - Jamie goes to Cancun w his new teammates including Tyson & his gf Katie, Noah & Carlie, Owen & Taylor, Cam Y, Joel F, Morgan F, Egor Z, and Ryan P

Jan 29- Jamie likes Kelsey's post on IG jan 29, 2024

Jan 30 - Katie follows Kelsey on IG

Throughout the Mexico trip, Kelsey is posting pics from her life/job as a dance instructor in AZ. She was not on the trip with them.

Jamie is going nuts on IG following lots of ig/raya baddies

February 5-6, 2024

Flyers play in Florida on the 6th

Jamie follows a new girl on IG, she goes to the University of Florida

Her and Jamie seem to have a few mutuals on IG (friends of his from home)

He likes her posts from january 15, 2024, january 21, 2024

He has since liked more of her posts but those are not relevant to this timeline (he likes multiple girls posts multiple times a day)

February 8, 2024

Brynn posts a vid dropping Kelsey off at the airport saying "get that dick bitch"

Kelsey posts a pic of herself & Katie at the Flyers game vs. Winnipeg. Katie reposts it on her story.

February 9, 2024

Flyers reporters report that Jamie told them his bed frame was coming in on Feb 9 (hopefully)

Prior to this he was staying with Cam Y. He got his own place and his parents helped him move his stuff over from Anaheim but he did not have a bedframe and was sleeping on his mattress on the floor.

February 10, 2024

Kelsey posts a pic of herself, Katie (Tyson), Carlie (Noah), Olivia (S. Ersson), and Taylor (Owen) at the Flyers game vs. Seattle to her story.

None of the other girls repost the story. Katie is still the only one who follows her.

February 11, 2024

Pictures of Jamie's active Raya profile are posted on Twitter

February 14, 2024

Valentine's Day - nothing relevant posted on IG

Jamie isn't at practice - "maintenance day"

Brynn is in NYC for some modelling/influencer "Fashion Week" thing

Unclear if Kelsey went to join Brynn, if she was still in Philly, or if she had already gone home.

Feb 11-14 are unaccounted for.

February 15, 2024

Kelsey posts a photo dump with the first pic being of her making a kissy face and the caption was something like ‘kisses’ or ‘kiss kiss’. She deleted/archived it a day or two later.

Jamie is active on Raya in Toronto. Flyers had a game vs. the Leafs that night (in Toronto).

February 16-17, 2024

Flyers are at MetLife stadium to practice for the Stadium Series game vs. NJ on the 17th.

Kelsey is not spotted or pictured at the practice, the family skate, or the game itself.

February 18, 2024 - Onwards

Kelsey allegedly likes this reel on IG shortly after arriving home from Philly. Not sure on which day exactly.

March 2, 2024

Katie likes Kelsey's post on IG march 2, 2024

March 3, 2024

Jamie's updated Raya profile is posted to hockeytea

The post has since been deleted (as the blog is deleted) but I have all pics of his profile at this link here

March 4, 2024 - Present

Jamie continues to follow lots of new girls on IG and like lots of posts, as he has done this entire time.

Nothing new has come up with Kelsey. He has not interacted with a single one of her posts or been linked to her in any way since February 10.