#I'll probably do illustrations of those moments at some point

[vindicated-truth]

(This was originally written as a response to this incredible post, which I also highly recommend reading as well as it sets up everything I'll further expound on below)

I concur with everything said above, and to further illustrate the point: it isn’t only with how Dongsik and Joowon are with other people, but how they implement their actions as well that resembles how starkly different they are—in a way that’s also remarkably complementary.

Dongsik’s actions in the entire story are mostly reactive. There’s a point in the story where he was about to storm out to save Jaeyi unthinkingly, and Joowon grabs him, even handcuffs Dongsik to him, fiercely telling him, “Stop storming out without thinking things through!” And Dongsik’s reaction was to punch him.

This scene illustrates more than anything the perfect example of their differences: everything Dongsik does is always in the heat of the moment, an emotional reaction to what is happening.

Everything he did with Kang Minjeong’s fingers is a primary example. The horrifying discovery that the person he treated as his pseudo-brother all these years is in fact the real serial killer, while reeling at the fresh, gut-wrenching memory of how he failed to save his partner, the turmoil of emotions led him to do everything that followed after the discovery of Minjeong’s fingers and the very likely probability that her own father had killed her.

Contrast that to everything Joowon did: regardless of the morality of it (because the truth is none of what Joowon or even Dongsik did was completely moral), Joowon meticulously planned everything. From Lee Geumhwa’s sting operation, to planting the evidence in Nam Sangbae’s vault and then later on planting a GPS tracker on him, to investigating Cho Gilgu, to the revelation of Jung Cheolmun’s bribes and Joowon’s own subsequent arrest at the Commisioner General hearing, to the car chases involving Lee Changjin and Han Kihwan and how Joowon had already anticipated their meeting by planting a recording device on his own father’s car, to saving Jeongje from the mental institution, to making sure they have enough evidence gathered from Lee Changjin’s and Do Haewon’s testimonies before he released the recording to the public, ensuring that all of them will be indicted—

All of these were logically, meticulously, well thought-out.

This is Joowon’s strength in their partnership: he’s the planner, as well as the calm executioner of those plans.

And where does Dongsik’s strength lie?

His strength lies in how incredibly, strongly emotional he is. Where he lacks the calm rationality Joowon possesses, he more than makes up for it with his emotional intelligence, because it’s precisely because his empath levels are through the roof that he knows exactly how people would also react—

Which meant he also knew exactly which buttons to push to finally get them to do what he wants.

Between the two of them, it’s actually Dongsik who’s more frightening. Because Dongsik’s strength had always been how he treats people—his almost instinctive understanding of human nature. He knows exactly how to care for them.

And he knows exactly how to break them.

This was demonstrated so eerily, so frighteningly, with how he knew exactly how to break Jeongje, and later on Do Haewon herself, with how he cruelly revealed that Jeongje had vowed to slit his own throat if his own mother wouldn’t own up to her own sins and reveal the truth. Even early on, with Kang Jinmook, Dongsik knew exactly how to push his buttons by bringing up Yoon Mihye.

(At some point, he had also tried his very best to break Nam Sangbae too, when he showed up to his interrogation right after Dongsik found Yuyeon's body. This, more than anything, might have also what pushed Sangbae to do everything he did afterward that led to his eventual death.)

And finally: he knew exactly how to break Lee Changjin, by following through with his earlier threat of (very nearly) killing him.

Where Han Joowon lacked in his understanding of people and relationships and the maelstrom of emotions that come with it, Dongsik knew exactly how to make use of all of it. To love people, to save people—and when the situation warranted it—to break them.

In this partnership, Joowon is the mind: he knows exactly how to outsmart you.

And Dongsik is the heart: he knows exactly how to save you—or break you.

[chiscribbs]

Asking some writers/artists I follow:

Is there anything in your fic/comic that you as the author know about, but won't end up in the actual story?

Hmmmm... I have a lot of little moments from the Grown Apart cast's individual upbringings that are kinda floating around in my head, but I have no idea yet if they'll make it into the comics. So, I'm not sure if those count. There are a few little canon details that I haven't figured out how to include in the comics just yet, though. Such as:

Donnie speaking in a posh English accent...but only some of the time - mostly when he's not with his family or if he's trying to impress someone. Reason being: Donnie doesn't naturally talk like Big Mama (though he may have adopted a tinge of her inflection with certain words or vowels), it's mostly something he puts on intentionally to sound more...closely related to her? It's become a habit, and he doesn't always realize when he's doing it anymore, unless the others point it out. But it disappears the moment he gets too worked-up/excited about something.

Because Mikey spent so much time looking for ways to occupy himself while Leo was off causing mischief with his friends, he has a wide range of obscure talents & skills, many of which I'll probably never end up showing in canon because they're not particularly relevant to the plot. For example: - Guitar playing - Card stacking - Cup stacking - Solving a rubix cube in under 3 minutes - Painting/writing with his toes - Ballet (beginner level, but he's working on it) - Making music with water glasses - Yo-yo tricks - Acrobatics - Silk flying - The ancient art of the Japanese tea ceremony - Crochet - Playing Chopsticks on his shell (with chopsticks)

That's all I've got off the top of my head right now. Unless you're referring to things like "ideas that were originally going to be part of the canon, but got scrapped somewhere along the way." There's a LOT of those, lol. Some of which I might still end up sharing at some point, because I illustrated a few of them early on when I was doing story beats, and I like the illustrations despite them not being accurate anymore.

Others, I don't necessarily want to expose just yet, because they might still end up getting used somewhere? Maybe in this story or maybe in a different one entirely, who knows. I like to keep "scrapped" ideas in my back pocket just in case I decide to come back to them later down the line.

[once-in-a-blood-moon]

Jo Explains with Tarot : Solomon's Unforgettable Past

Incoming long winded explanation/analyzation about the Festival of Flowers from Solomon's "Unforgettable Past" Devilgram, but doing it with tarot cards. So, spoilers ahead and lots of nonsense beyond this point if this isn't your thing :) I broke this into sections so it'd be easier to read...hopefully.

Please note: these are my interpretations of the cards. Your interpretations may be different, and that's okay! That's great even. That just means there's more to learn from the cards than just one perspective. So neither of us are wrong, we just see things in different ways. Don't be afraid to expand with your own thoughts if you want!

So, I realized something recently. One of the days on the Obey Me calendar was the Devildom Flower Festival, held annually on June 20th. And I think it's safe to say it's the same festival you visit with Solomon in his card "Unforgettable Past."

In that, he explains the war the Devildom commemorates every year and the legend behind it. The timespan of the war was 7 days. So...from June 20th (not counting it) we'd see that the war started on June 13th.

Why does any of this matter? Well, it probably doesn't to anyone but me, but here I'm going to explain the significance of those dates with...tarot cards!

How this works is how you would calculate your personal birth cards. It's really simple. Just add up all the numbers in the date, but not before making each digit a single digit, to get your results. Usually you get two cards, though there are special instances where some might get three, but's not as common. (I'll use a random date as an example: 8/10/1983 - 8+1+0+1+9+8+3 = 30. There's only 21 major arcana cards that are applicable, so you'd break the 30 down as well to get 3 - the Empress. To get the second card from 3, you use what adds to make 3 which would be 1+2, put those together and you get 12 - the Hanged Man. It's kind of like the reversal of what we did to get the first card. I hope I explained that well enough.

---

June 13th

With that out of the way, let's start with June 13, 6/13. This would give us 10. The tenth card in the major arcana is the Wheel of Fortune. Break down 10, and we get 1. The first card of the major arcana (ignoring the Fool since it's the zeroth card) is, ironically, the Magician.

The Magician card focuses on what you already have and expanding on those skills. Pictured in the card, there is one of each suit from the minor arcana laying on a table (one wand, cup, sword, and pentacle). Those represent the ace cards of those suits, which usually indicate beginnings or starting points. Essentially, the Magician already has novice level skills to help him navigate through his journeys, and as he experiences more his knowledge will grow and he'll "collect" more of each suit. He's an innovator, a go-getter, and as long as he keeps his head on his shoulders and doesn't get ahead of himself, he'll progress just fine. Also pictured is the Magician holding a candle in the air while pointing downwards with his free hand. To me, this could represent a guiding light, a symbol of the fifth element: spirit (as above, so below), a eureka! moment (the lightbulb over someone's head), or that he's declaring his own start - like charging into something with vigor. He's also got an infinity sign above his head, but that'll come in later...

The Wheel of Fortune focuses on chance and opportunity. Sometimes it's an indication of reigning in a new future or era, whether it's within our personal lives or seeing it unfold through society. A few things to note in the illustration is the little red guy??, the sphinx, and the snake surrounding the wheel. To me, I see the red guy kind of fox-like, or even devilish. Regardless, he's sneaky, cunning, willing to take risks to see himself come out at the top in the end. The sphinx is holding a sword, reminding me of the Justice card, or the suit of swords. The sphinx is logical, wielding rationale as a weapon should taking the risk turn to be less than ideal or difficult. A sharp intellect, if you will. And the snake, to me, represents the temptation of wanting to go along with something for the sake of knowledge or curiosity. There's also the three animals and one angel in the corners of the card, but I won't go into detail on them for the sake of brevity. But to me, they represent higher wisdom, or that the fate of the wheel is divinely guided.

-

According to his Devilgram story, he'd spoken to a demon in the human realm, which sparked the brazen idea that he could convince the Demon King and his citizens to work under him. It was an opportunity, a risk he was willing to take if it meant a more favorable fate/outcome for the human realm. Obviously, Solomon thought that he had what it took to get the king to see reason, whether it be through charm and wit alone, or through more brutal means. By that point, he was already able to subjugate demons to his will, so why not go father when the opportunity presents itself? Perhaps even doing so to test his own strength and power.

So, he had the skill, he had the charisma, but he also had the arrogance of the Magician in reverse. All he had to do was take matters into his own hands for the sake of "furthering human kind's development," find an opening, show just how powerful humans could be, and strike. And he struck hard. Solomon took his risk and fought with everything he had in him. Alone. That day, he held the destiny of the human realm in his hands.

---

June 20th

Onto the eighth day, June 20, 6/20. Adding this gives us 8, which is the eighth card - Strength. And then 1+7 = 8, so put those together to get the number 17 - the Star.

The Strength card is just about that: strength. Strength doesn't have to be physical. More often than not, our inner courage defines our true strength. In this card, we see a woman who looks to be petting a lion. Whether she's attempting to befriend him or trying to soothe him, she's showing great bravery by approaching the situation with calmness and gentility. In the face of what could be a problematic situation, if not dealt with swiftly/correctly, this card reminds us that we have the option to fight with fearlessness, approach with a silent confidence, or we can choose to walk away altogether. Then that leads us to either being the bigger person or being cowardly, depending on the issue at hand. So, remember I mentioned the infinity symbol above the Magician's head? The lady in this card has one above her head as well. This, to me, is a call back that we have the skills to handle any problem that arises. We are equipped with strength and courage and any learned tricks we may have up our sleeve to give us the upper hand.

The Star is one of the more positive cards in the tarot deck (aside from the Sun of course). Maybe uplifting is a better way to describe it. This card holds hope for a brighter future, a better tomorrow. The Star reminds us that it's okay to heal, breathe, and wish upon hope that things can get better. The sky is the limit. In this illustration, there's a woman pouring water back into what looks to be a river with her foot hovering over it. It's almost like she'd lost hope to the cruelty of life, but she's ready try again and slowly dip her toes back in. She's allowing herself time to do so, reflecting on why she wants to and why she's ready, like affirmations. The ripples in the water remind me of both the ripple effect and of manifestations. By taking the initiative, good things may come her way or she may make change within the world around her. Also, in her other hand she's got another pitcher that's pouring out water onto the ground. We can take this either that she's unknowingly nurturing something in the midst of her finding herself, or that by enveloping herself in this new hope, she's actively pouring out the old.

-

On the eighth day, Solomon vanishes, ultimately putting a stop to the fighting. What led up to this decision, we don't know. Although, you can ask Solomon if "the sorcerer" just threw in the towel, to which he stills for a moment, almost as if he were offended or caught of guard by our question. He doesn't elaborate on that further, only responding with- "maybe. We'll never know for sure." It's telling that to him it obviously wasn't a matter of giving up. There was more at stake than just his pride or lust for power. And he made the decision to walk away when he probably could've went on for much longer.

And why would he leave a field of flowers as a "parting gift" if it meant nothing? He's a pretty cryptic guy, after all. But again, we don't know why exactly he did so. It could've been a promise that humanity would further on its own and they'd one day see he was right. Maybe it was the hope that the realms could coincide someday and that he recognized the Devildom's power. Or simply, it was his version of a "white flag." No matter what he originally meant by them, the flowers would go on to be the focus of the festival to commemorate the Devildom's victory. In Solomon's words, "it's a day to hope for peace and prosperity throughout the land."

[iocainesmoothie]

Been playing ffxiv, paid to skip HW but really enjoyed stormblood, saw emet-selch for the first time.

I'm very impressed that his first introduction to the player was to be shot and rag dolled down the stairs, it immediately differentiates him from the other ascians who just say ominous and vague nonsense that never amounts to anything. It was almost more sinister, because it really illustrates the point that the ascians are noncorporeal horrors piloting a meat puppet.

Also very minor detail but I noticed even back in stormblood, instead of writing a boring talk quest as "go talk to so-and-so", instead they say "go meet SOMEONE at such-and-such place". Like it's so very minor, but instead of straight up telling me who you're going to meet they just sorta hint and say how excited that person is to see you again.

Mechanically it's the exact same boring quest format, and maybe I don't otherwise even care about that character, but even that tiny bit of speculating who it is and the implication that they have any kind of emotional response AT ALL is already elevating the writing.

I get the majority of quest text boils down to telling the player to go to X or talk to Y or collect Z and there's only so many ways to do that, and clarity of communication is always top priority, but in something long format like an mmo where the player has likely plugged in a hundred hours already you can kinda assume they've been trained to expect a certain order of events and can play with the format a bit.

Also the last duty of sb was one of those "everyone shows up at the big battle as npcs and cheers at you to go on to the big boss while they hold back reinforcements" fights and it's very anime but honestly it always works on me.

Been leveling up dark knight, but I bought the level 80 warrior boost because I hate playing with other people and I wanted to solo a bunch of the main scenario raids instead of queueing. Also I'm playing dark knight because aesthetics, and tanking for a group is too much responsibility for me.

Honestly dk kinda sucks compared to paladin and warrior, way less mitigation and self healing, and though it feels like I'm doing more damage it's still not as much as a pure dps.

Also bought a bunch of clothes on the shop in a moment of weakness, but now my outfit is so cool I don't want to change into anything else! And I kinda miss wearing vanilla gear and seeing your outfit change as you pick up upgrades. Oh well atleast I'm cute and it avoids those awkward moments when a piece from a new set doesn't fit with your current fit.

Ffxiv clothing designs are so gorgeous, even the shitty low-level vanilla garbage is kinda cute. Ppl who buy store stuff obviously look good but I have way more respect for the glamours I see where people just got really creative with in-game items. The graphics are like 10 years out of date but the hair and clothes and faces are still miles better than some of biowares stuff (guys I love you I'm on your side let's figure this out you can't just make everyone bald)

Also I've noticed the cuts scene cameras do a trick anime does a lot to cut down animation costs, the framing and panning and angles do a LOT of the work when they otherwise can't get these limited models to emote that much. Or else they just fully cut away and let a sound effect imply an action took place and your brain just fills in the difference.

Anyway I'm addicted and am probably wasting a lot of time on things I should be doing instead but it's nice to have something to hyper fixate on for a while, and I haven't even started SB or EW and I've heard they're both life changing so maybe I'll just glut myself until I've wrung all the dopamine I can out of it.

Also I've realized there is such a jump in writing quality in SB that I'm only really emotionally attached to lyse and hien and the general, the rest of the scions are all kind of... idk unlikable?? They're all the same kind of snarky but not really funny, and speak intelligently but not really with any character or having much to say. Allisae being maybe the exception but I feel like she doesn't get much screen time compared to her brother.

It was very touching that she's the tough prickly one, but very honestly tells you she feels alone and sadly asks you not to leave her in a moment of vulnerability before the fight where she reaches for your hand desperately before her soul is teleported away. Like damn yeah this is manipulative but you got me! I'm invested now!

Also that little crystal cat boy was in arr and I never finished/paid attention to his quest line so idk how he ended up i SB, guess I'll find out.

[funarisjournal]

"I want you to be selfish in front of me."

This illustration I did last month sure is regaining some traction recently. It made me start thinking of how such a moment even happened and how it would go down

Be advised, this talk MAY get spicy but not much. So I'll put it under a cut.

Word of God states Nomoto is demisexual while Kasuga is demiromantic. They definitely have a strong bond formed, but how they react in intimate situations probably vary between the two!

I feel a kinship to Nomoto as a fellow demisexual (though I am also homoromantic. She's probably aro based on what we know of her but at that point I'm headcanoning lol). She bonded with Kasuga pretty quick. She had someone to share meals with! And then the thought of having a friend after not having any for so long...that felt wonderful, didn't it, Nomoto?

As she continued to hang out with Kasuga, she found her cuter...sweeter...beautiful. Like you can see this evolution happen as you read. And it evolves rather quickly! Sparkly Kasuga and even flowery Kasuga start taking over as her personal 1st person pov filter. Eventually, the idea of actual skinship gets to her. Hard. I've seen Ch 40 in raw format. Even just the idea of a hand hold and a hug really escalate things for her. This is hot for her! And I'm sure she wants to go further but only if Kasuga is okay with it.

And that brings us to Kasuga. It's definitely a lot more subtle with her. She isn't going to hold back from eating if Nomoto is inviting her. She is surprised by the thought that someone wants to hang out with her beyond their agreed, formal conditions. She starts opening up more and really viewing the world in a whole new light as she starts thinking about what Nomoto would think about X or if Nomoto would create something amazing out of Y...She cares for her and worries about her and she would want nothing more to just be by her side.

Kasuga does have a habit of keeping things to herself unless asked/poked about it. This is definitely a flaw, and one that the drama addressed in its unique episodes.

Kasuga cares more about the happiness for her loved one. She can manage and shift things if need be. This stems from her childhood. She had to be flexible because her needs were not as important.

So, I can definitely see Kasuga continuing to do whatever Nomoto feels like doing. And she would genuinely like it! A hug here? Sure! A kiss there? Of course! And yes. This would stretch into when they do get even more intimate. Kasuga, may be shy at first, but she would participate with her consent. Whatever Nomoto needs her to do, she'll do it. Undress her, undress herself, whisper sweet nothings into her ear...just say the word and she'll follow Nomoto's lead.

But there's definitely a lack of speaking up for her own wants and needs that Nomoto will pick up on. This is where the fanart comes in. Nomoto is probably feeling a little frisky and they start doing stuff their usual way, but Nomoto will just kinda...stop.

Kasuga is confused. Did she do something wrong? No, not really, but, while it's fun being able to go this far now, it's all just been focused on Nomoto's side.

What does Kasuga want to do? She does enjoy the hugs, right? Of course. The kisses? They definitely bring the butterflies fluttering for her, yes. And... anything else?

Nomoto would remind her of that line she told her back after the vegetable picking date. "I want you to be selfish in front of me." Something about that new emphasis would make Kasuga stop and think. What does she want？

She wants Nomoto, of course. She wants to be with her, always by her side. If she could hold her forever, she would (but then she can't make meals oh no~). She now has gained the knowledge of what makes Nomoto react positively, so she'd lunge in and start doing those things. In the end, she still wants Nomoto to be happy, and she's going to give her that happiness herself this time, and this time she'll have some personal feedback that feels pretty warm and caring~

And Nomoto wouldn't have to really direct her or suggest much unless, well, she's "ready." Nomoto would be in for QUITE the ride~

[swamp-gremlin]

My Old Nick hc's, interpretation, analysis, and other odd bits PT.1

Part 2

This is long overdue but I feel I oughta get something out of the way. I've had a incredibly aggressive special interest in him for like 3-5ish years and at some point in writing hc's I just started making shit up(I mean isn't that just hc's are?) because I really just took a guy with a whopping 14 lines of dialogue and just started sprinting.

I'm choosing to actually leave a few things out as I wish to explore those ideas more in This isn't over Jack, Ill probably swing back around to this after I wrap that up. In the mean time if you wanna swap ideas I'm down(please please please pleaseplea)

Turns out I hit text limit with this oh my lord, ill post pt2 tomorrow, i'm sorry

Can't think of anything particularly triggering in this but i'll warn it gets just kinda bleak

Human turned Fae- I will not elaborate, this will be explained later...

would actually break your legs if you called him a fairy

I've never actually pinned down any specific powers for him for some reason? like i just cant think of like any that i could write/ illustrate that wouldn't feel too gauche... So I just kinda nebulously imaged so weird fae-fuckery type of magic- though I think the most compelling interpretation of his powers was in Scouts Australian Christmas (pls go read it, its a really good fic)

Gay, but I cant imagine he's like particularly out about it; like its a iykyk sorta think because I definitely feel there probably some shame or internalized homophobia there (smth smth homophobic senator caught in a gay bar joke)

Autistic, but most definitely not diagnosed- he would become absolute incensed if you suggested it, like "There is nothing wrong with me, I am normal" but you can tell that he knows there's something "wrong with him" but he has no idea what and is incredibly afraid of even attempting to confront that

Can't imagine there's a moment where he's not masking, he doesn't understand his own limits and will keep doing things until he quite literally can't anymore

Probably has some ~effeminate~ interest he's deeply embarrassed by, but like in all reality its very normal and even if it was thats not a bad thing, he just makes it a big deal for no reason

STRADDLING the line between infodumping and mansplaining

Could be genuinely into a topic but he's just so condescending about it

High functioning alcoholic, kinda in that 50s/ rich way but it's very obvious he has a problem but everyone always brushes it off as "thats just how he is/ things are"

Nick could honestly just be summed up in his impact as a *a systematic bad thing happens again and again* "thats just how things are, get over it" sorta thing or a "Heart warming: student raises funds to prevent orphans from being sent to orphan grinder" and then no-one questions why the orphan grinder exists in the first place

He has been meticulously constructing his public image/ brand as "Old Nick"/ "The Spirit of Australian Christmas"

He is a liar, but he's a very good liar

His accent is fake, his laugh is fake, his public lore is fake and he's not even Australian he's British! (Which is arguably worst thing he has done)

He's basically been voice training to keep up a modern australian accent for years now, but his real accent is more of that 1700s british (which actually sounds different from modern a modern britsh accent) but sometimes he's has moments and his accent slips (mostly when he's yelling)

Has practiced his evil villain laugh so hard, like its a good villain laugh but if you listen hard you can tell its not real

Genuinely so fucking embarrassed by his actual laugh which i can only describe as if a goose that has been smoking a pack a day was being strangled to death

I kinda go back an forth on Nicks upbringing sometimes, because I kinda feel I went the kinda overplayed sorta tragic backstory; but also growing up in 1700s England was probably not fun if you weren't rich and also have you ever met a miserable boomer who does the whole "kids these days are too damn soft back when I was a kid *recounts an incredibly traumatizing event*!" Thing? Yeah he probably does that a lot and it makes everyone kinda uncomfortable

Maybe orphaned? Probably had brothers because he has strong younger brother "your oppressing me by giving me a task" energy (btw this relates to a super stupid hc that im not gonna share because its incredibly dumb)

Expressed a lot of attention seeking behavior from a young age, would purposefully get into trouble so someone would notice him

This behavior followed him into adult life and it would just keep getting worst and worst, like getting into bar fights that he would definitely lose and petty crime

Eventually he just kept ramping up the severity of his crimes till he actually had a warrant/ bounty placed for his arrest

To avoid getting arrested he became a sailor in his late 20s and jumped between ships and trades up until his 50s/60s

Eventually he was arrested and then get shipped off to Australia

After a few months he stuck there he was like "actually, fuck this" and started plotting an escape

He stole a boat and with his previous knowledge from being a sailor he was so full of himself he thought he did single-handedly sail and navigate back Britain or a British sympathetic colony and then lay low for the rest of his life

Of course he didn't happen and due to the fact he is stupid he got stranded in antarctic and the rest is history

If you wanna know how we got from "random crusty criminal" to "Spirit of Australian Christmas" you have to stick around for my shit ass comic and videos fucker

anyway where was i, Nick proceeded to twists that into "Yeah i totally meant to do discover antarctic, even though i was a 1780s peasant who would have not have even known that antarctic was even thing" he kinda sorta dropped the rest of it and made up more shit Homelander style

I don't believe that Nick was like well off in anyway when he was still mortal, and despite being just bludgeoned over the head with the effects of classism and a nightmare capitalist hell society he developed this horrible idolization of the rich and developed this almost "by your bootstraps" mentality but with like the brutality rich bushiness owners would treat there workers, where he though if he became horrible and ruthless he could trample and climb on the backs of his fellow men till he made it to that oh so coveted high society life.

probably doesn't help he would do absolutely anything for money either

and the thing is he made it, he's just unfathomably rich(that is till all those gambling debts catch up to him...) he got what he wanted, he got he's gotten all the money and attention he could have wanted... and yet he's miserable, nothing will ever be enough for him.

Throw back motif that's still my favorite- "decaying luxury". Nick is like obviously rich as fuck and yet just refuses to fix anything, like his sweater has so many little holes in it he just stopped bothering to fix, he's patched his pants so many times, stairs worn down to the point the rug is thread bear and the wood is dented, intricate arsenic and lead laced wallpaper that's now water damaged and peeling, his favorite chair's seams are ripped, and the stuffing and springs are just compressed and flat to the point its not even comfortable to sit in anymore. Like he can fix it, he has the money, and yet he just won't for some reason.

Oh speaking of arsenic and lead- mans is just absolutely FULL of lead, arsenic, asbestos, any other harmful thing the Victorians where just absolutely HUFFING

tangent on a tangent, i really associate him with the Victorian era despite him being born in the 1700s, maybe its the child labor, maybe its the stupid chops, he just looks like he should be in super tall neck-line and doing coke for a headache

Nick is just both incredibly self absorbed but also so fucking insecure, like very big insecure man makes his problems everyone else's problem and take his out on other people to feel better about himself energy

He's just so vain too, like i image he's just obsessed with himself and his image, probably doesn't help he's quite literately has been decomposing for like the last two centuries (IT WILL BE EXPLAINED WHY LATER I PROMMY) so he just has this like incredibly extensive Patrick Bateman ass self-care routine so he doesn't get moldy

[dearmahiru-archive]

for ask game: 1, 2, 4, 11 for Mahiru and 3, 5, 6, 11 for Kotoko 💕

oh my hello hello!! for mahiru, i've answered 1 + 2 + 11 here and 4 here

3. favorite non-mv official illustration?

i know i call kotoko handsome and cool and my husband every sentence but also. she's handsome and cool and my husband. gorgeous gorgeous woman!!

5. favorite voice drama line/moment?

OH I WISH WE HAD YONAH because i know there's going to be some amazing relevations there but if i must be constrained to task....

Kotoko: "Yes. I hate evil. Hurting innocent people with violence, taking away from others, killing people… I hate all this evil behaviour! The law being unable to judge some sins, there's too many of these cases in this world. Having clearly bullied and torturing the weak, but exploiting loopholes in laws, there's so many sinners who still live in such a carefree manner! Even though I want to change this world, I alone only have this much power."

i'm a huge massive sucker for characters who embody justice (hence why i immediately latched onto fuuta) so this little monologue always has me kicking my feet. she's our guard dog, she's our fangs, she'll protect those she deem weak whether they like it or not. i can see the red flags but it's so easy to get swept up in her line of thinking, and i think all of her flaws are just so beautiful.

6. favorite relationships with another character in the prison?

this is a hilarious question for kotoko because all of her relationships suck. she beat up half of the prisoners, will absolutely throw down with shidou and kazui (pun intended), and is disconnected from mu and haruka.

but to answer your question, i am forever a huge fan of the kotokoto combo 💥💥💥

they're so insanely funny to me. you'd think the social, pretty-boy with an easy going personality and the handsome goth ice queen would naturally clash but not genuinely vying for eachother's deaths.

kotoko's like "hm, sure i'll wish you happy birthday" and then a month later is perfectly happy to execute an elbow drop on him. i mourn the a universe where they actually developed a friendship but for now i'm just delighted by them. the sillies (gone wrong) (gone violent) (the police were called)

11. what are your favorite points about their story and the narrative surrounding them?

ohhh there's so much stuff but kotoko's the most elusive character right now without her second mv. but if i had to praise her storytelling then the reach kotoko's influence has never failed to astound me.

the reason fuuta claims we're the same is because, through a group effort, people were seriously and almost died. if kotoko never attacked anyone, would he say this or would he have an easier time accepting his verdict?

a huge factor for shidou's innocence was so he could save the guilty prisoners. i wonder how seriously warped his music video would've been without this purpose spurring him on. like yuno and kotoko, i don't think he would've accepted his verdict and his self-loathing would only grow.

and a big factor contributing to the friendly atmosphere of the prisoner was the social prisoners chipping in their effort. it's already confirmed that mahiru would have made friends with amane if either weren't unwell, and she would probably have tried to keep things cheerful once more.

even if we do place a metaphorically place a muzzle on kotoko in trial three, i can't help but wonder what kind of domino effect it'll have!

[quilleth]

WIP Wednesday Progress

Yes, i know it's Thursday. I wasn't feeling great yesterday though XD

Here's what I managed to get done from the results of last week's poll!

Here's what the results were: -write 1 sentence for Elisabeth and Jasper -Work on my recipe card(s) for at least 5 minutes -work on the drawing for Vanora and Faolan for at least 5 minutes -spend at least 5 minutes working on Vanora’s winter weather outfit -and play Our Life again

and the results below the cut!

Elisabeth and Jasper floriography prompt: larkspur, first time making someone laugh

"..Besides, I did try to point that out myself, but alas, he would not be moved."

MXTX food zine sketching

My phone will not focus on it at all, but the bit i worked on may have involved a decorative little paper airplane ;)

Vanora's winter outfit

My fashion illustration class was a long time ago and not a great experience either, so i don't really remember how you're supposed to draw chonky knit wear, but this is working well enough for me. Also, decided to make her belt more of a woven material (tried sketching it as rope/ cord but that looked bad) instead of something like leather to have ALL the textures! and a seashell shaped buckle. because i can. Is this what someone from the tropics would think of to wear in colder weather as opposed to my native to colder weather thinking what would be good? i'm not sure xD Once i get the base of this outfit done, though, she'll have two different coat options; a ruana that she probably would've picked up at some point, possibly before acquiring said chonky sweater, and an actual wool coat the bard in our party, Peach (played by @december-snow) picked out for her a few sessions ago when we learned we'd be travelling into some mountains and it's just about winter in game :3 I'll draw those as separate things, sort of like a paper doll situation.

Play Our Life again

I finished step one with my redo of Sylvie's file, since I got a new computer and started step 2! I'm trying to remember how i did things on my old computer, but I guess we'll see how it goes xD Saving the Runaway moment for last always feels appropriate for step one though...

I didn't manage to do more for the drawing for Vanora and Faolan this week, unfortunately. I looked at some reference things on pinterest, but didn't specifically work on the drawing, and they were some i already had saved. I have a few days of working from home, and a long weekend next weekend, so I hope to make some more progress on it then!

Since i've been a little under the weather lately, I'm skipping a poll this week, but will probably be back with a new one next week, to take advantage of my longer weekend next weekend ;)

[dinoburger]

Pin for various projects and misc. ideas

this is so it's all in one place for anyone interested and so I can keep organised and not clog things up with lots of posts.

Projects

Manns, Hales and Conaghers

Various works focused on the lore of TF2, including multi-page comics

Untitled Object Show Game [WIP]

This is just something I'm playing around with to test out how well I can implement different mechanics in GDevelop

Okami no Yume [game jam ver.]

A Yume Nikki fangame submitted for DDJ6

Status: update in progress, not currently working on it

Into the Blue [game jam ver.]

Original platformer for the GDevelop jam

Status: on the backburner for now, I wanted to polish it into a proper demo at some point but taking a step back just to reassess things

Animato [dev/concept tag]

Object show inspired RPG which follows a contest structure

Status: mostly conceptual, development is on-and-off because I have no hard deadlines, ideally will have some kind of demo at some stage

LISA: the Oblivious [ver.1.5b]

Fangame based on LISA: the Painful

Status: for all intents and purposes, finished. There is potential for minor updates, as things were cut from development to hit personal deadlines, but this isn't something to be anticipated.

Marx and Magolor project [demonstration video]

Kirby fangame revolving around the two antagonists

Status: it's been shelved for now due to issues with my execution, Kirby is however a special interest I come back to, so maybe at some point in the future I will pull it apart and rework it

Misc.

I recently started a general OC tag, as of now there's probably older posts that could go in that tag

neither of the following have any big specific write-ups on them but if I ever do that I will link those here also

Sherry

Magic and monarchs universe about a woman who is trying to escape being quietly assassinated by the king. There's a couple of comics and drawings of the characters from this universe, but it's mostly a flight of fancy. I'll come clean that these characters were initially designed for an RPG but I have no drive to undertake anything huge with them at the moment.

Autonomy

Adaptation of an old AoStH fic, robots and mad scientists kind of deal. I never settled on a medium for the story so it never got very far - initially I thought I'd just write it with some illustrations, considered a mixed-media comic, considered a VN. Ultimately it's all conceptual right now and not something I'm really pressed to try to churn out.

[mariyekos]

Estinien in Endwalker and Problems with Characterization

Otherwise summarized as: the Estinien we saw in Endwalker did not feel like the Estinien we had in Heavensward (and the DRG quests, and ShB, though StB he was barely in), and I'm breaking down why this is and why I personally did not enjoy it.

Someday I'll make a better post about this but whenever I see people comment on the problem with Estinien's character in EW I feel so validated... So I'll preface this all by saying this is fueled by my personal opinion. You're free to disagree. I'm sure there are things I prefer that many people do not, and I want to emphasize that I don't think Estinien in Endwalker was a wreck by any means (he had some fantastic moments that I absolutely adored when they got it right, and he very much served the story). I do however feel like his character in EW was not a good progression of his charcacter arc beforehand, even if his progression wasn't completely nonsensical/out of the blue and I get the logic behind it.

The tl;dr version is: his EW character was good for/worked well for the story of EW, but I don't think it was good for Estinien himself (as in his character consistency/arc, but we'll get into that below).

Overview of Estinien's Character Traits in HW and EW

What's the problem? Estinien is still Estinien, just...different.

I think the first time I really tried to express this was while talking with some of my friends while running HoH, so our minds were busy with other things and I couldn't fully expand upon my thoughts, but they didn't quite get what I was saying when I said Estinien felt "different" in EW (I was also trying not to seem like I was completely fangirling, because I like many characters, Estinien just happens to be my favorite. And the one I've studied the most. I have parts of his character I prefer, and parts I may write about more than others, but I feel like I generally have a good idea of his general character/emotions/vibes.). Their thing was that his EW portrayal was not out of the blue- he's shown most of those characteristics before. And I agree. However, EW toned MANY of them up to 10. For better or worse. EW, while an enjoyable expansion, got very tropey at times for better or worse. I enjoy cheesy things, I enjoy tropes, and some of what EW did was amazing. I laughed and cried and overall it was a wondeful experience! However when it came to Estinien, with a few exceptions, his trope-exaggeration felt...well...too exaggerated. He was different, and not in a way that felt good.

Estinien, especially in HW (plus the ARR DRG quests and some of his ShB appearances, though those aren't *that* long even if I really enjoyed them), was multidimensional. He was smart, he was witty, he was troubled, he was angry, he was combative, he was sincere, he was kind, he was thoughtful, he had moments of self reflection, etc. I can think of specific moments to illustrate all of those, which I may or may not elaborate on below, but for now it can all be summarized as: Estinien had several layers, and many of these required a lot of thought. Estinien was clever.

Estinien in Endwalker had several of these layers stripped away for the most part. Please note the "for the most part." Some moments shone through and made me remember the Estinien I'd been so entertained by and had grown to love. Others not so much.

He cracked jokes, but many of them were simplified, and many of the jokes he was involved in were not things you'd laugh at the subject of, but things you'd laugh at Estinien for. He mentioned his faults and that he was once troubled, but they often felt less like someone stewing over a problem and more like someone trying to give a motivational speech (putting a pin in this: he had some motivational speeches that I LOVED. He made good points, and as I will mention several times they served the story very well. However he suffered a bit from what I'd call Hope in late game FFXIII syndrome. If you've played it, you probably know what I mean. Excess of motivational speeches done to help other characters to the detriment of themselves as they're sort of placed into a box that they may have touched before, but used to be so much more than. By this Estinien worked almost as a prop, and while he was a good prop, that did not make him a good character).

His anger I actually thought was done well; he moved past this part of his life for the most part, but acknowledges it was once there, and on occasion it still slips through (I have very mixed feelings on the Garlemald scene with Y'shtola). He...honestly felt less combative? But in EW it was more like being defensive of himself because he was being made the butt of a joke (i.e. he was receiving personal attacks, indicating he has faults as a person at his core or purely of his own making) and less the HW case of being defensive because the way he'd been shaped was put into question (so, not exactly Estinien at his core, but who he'd been molded to be, and how much he let his core be impacted). He lost his combative side in anything other than self defense for joke moments, which when you solely focus on him being less combative makes sense because he's matured and calmed down, but when you focus on him being defensive just isn't flattering. He did calm down from his ARR and early HW self which I think was good. It just sometimes felt off.

How/Why EW Estinein Felt Like a Step Back, or the Regression of Estinien's Character

He still was sincere in moments, they're just proportionally fewer and often shoved into those Fifth-Motivational-Speech-of-the-Day (from a mix of characters, not solely him) moments, which lessens their impact by overload. He was still kind, and they did this well. Him being thoughtful was very Nidhogg-centric as I'll get to later, but in summary while it isn't *absent* he is no longer sigmificantly characterized as a thoughtful person and it is a much smaller part of his character (which is a regression from where he went from 2.X->early3.0->late 3.0->3.3). The self-reflection and thoughtfulness are merged together yet again, thus lessening them because he doesn't seem very capable of looking beyond himself oftentimes (the 6.1 scene was a good one, but again it's played as a joke).

And the first thing I said, about him being smart... I would not say EW Estinien is depicted as "smart." As in, that's not his defining characteristic. He could be smart from time to time, and he did have moments where he said or did something really intelligent and helpful, but that was not a *defining* characteristic. He wasn't a smart guy who sometimes lost his temper and did dumb things- it was more like he was a neutral or even kind of dumb guy who could pull himself together to do something smart. Thus is mostly because the number of times he said or did something clever did not majorly outweighs the times he did something decidedly unthoughtful. It's about proportion! And that is my biggest issue with him. It's like he regressed, throwing all that character development out the window. Maybe it's just because the Himbo became popular right before/during Endwalker, but man did I see way more people calling Estinien a Himbo than before and honestly I see why they might do that given his EW self, even if I don't think he quite fits the bill.

I want to reiterate that these things are mostly fine in moderation. A character who is never questioned and never opposed and always held up as the perfect paragon of virtue is not very interesting. I don't want Estinien to be that man- him getting questioned in HW and him eventually questioning himself in HW is part of what made me love him so much. However EW did it too much. I mentioned it above and I'll mention it again- HW was about the fault of the system, which Estinien was manipulated by but also submitted to. You can't say he wasn't complicit, as we saw him both participate unquestioning early on and then cling to the system even after the truth began to emerge, but I also wouldn't say he was entirely at fault. He didn't know. His family was killed. He had a reason to act as he did, even if it was forged on falsehoods. EW's treatment of Estinien was about the faults with Estinien alone. Over and over and over again. And while self-reflection is good in theory, it felt kind of poirly done (it happened so many times, and usually during a group "I messed up :(" event). Now I will say Estinien was one of the strongest, if not the strongest agent used to convey HW's message, while Estinien was not so much an active agent of the message as a supporter in EW. HW's story cannot be told without Estinien. Estinien's story cannot be told without HW. EW could remove Estinien for nearly every scene and be about the same save some of the Vrtra ones where you'd basically need an Estinien copy to achieve the same result. However, this does not excuse EW's treatment of Estinien as a constant joke. As a walking ball of faults. It just explains why it happened- he was often used as a prop more than a character.

Estinien in Endwalker honestly felt like an idiot at times. Not always. He shone in some moments. He shone really well in some momemts and they were great. However...most of my favorite moments with Estinein were actually the ones that were really about Nidhogg. His initial interaction with Vrtra is one of the shining moments of this. I really love exploring the misty boundary between Estinien and Nidhogg post 3.3, and I love the way they bleed into each other. I find it fascinating. I mentioned tropes earlier, and the "slowly overwritten by an older/stronger/divine being" trope is one of them. I want to explore this side of him more, but disproportionately to the attention it's actually given.

Still- my mind in these scenes was drawn to Nidhogg and the tragedy that was Nidhogg moreso the tragedy that is Estinien and his issues. There are parts where you cannot separate the two. They have common experiences. Estinien himself admits this in the infirmary scene at the end of 3.3. But Estinien is not 50% Estinien and 50% Nidhogg- so why did so many of his smarter/more thoughtful scenes get relegated to obviously-Nidhogg scenes? To me, it felt like the game was trying to make a distinction between Estinien-as-he-originally-was and Estinien-as-he-now-is-with-Nidhogg's-influence, and that distinction requires OG/pure Estinien to have been kind of dumb and only gained the thoughtfulness either from Nidhogg, or at the very least post-Nidhogg.

Do I think he got more thoughtful after the possession? Yes. Did he charge in and ask questions later in HW? So-so. Ysayle had to hold him back a few times. He wanted to. But he still had the restraint not to go kill crazy (grumbles about Garlemald scene again). He had those moments in the Churning Mists where he reflected upon his surroundings and thought as he compared what he saw to what he'd been taught and the implications of it all. He thought as he weighed what Hraesvelgr told him of the origins of the Dragonsong War against what he'd always believed, weighing what Nidhogg had done and why he'd done it and ultimately concluding that yes, Nidhogg had a good reason, but that didn't excuse what he'd done, and though it was the spilling of dragon blood that had begun the war, only dragon blood could end it. Only Nidhogg's blood. And, importantly, not the blood of every dragon. Just enough to earn peace. He would stop the cycle of vengeance. So to summarize all that rambling: Estinien pre-Nidhogg was not some thoughtless idiot. He wasn't a genius either. But he thought. Yet in EW it's often presented as an exception, or again solely for Nidhogg. In those moments I felt like Nidhogg was poking through, and while I loved it, I wish Estinien had been allowed to do that in other situations too.

Estinien in EW serves the story very well. The game needed someone who didn't get what was going on so that the game could have an excuse to explain things. The WoL served that purpose on occasion, but the WoL doesn't have much dialogue. So I feel like when the writers realized they wanted exposition, instead of having the equally-clueless WoL express how clueless they were, they relegated it all to Estinien. And yes, many times he shouldn't have known what was going on so I get it. But it's about proportion. The proportion or percentage of times he was clueless was so off that it just made him seem dumb or unobserved or uneducated and it frustrated me. In HW that was balanced between Estinien and Alphinaud for the big road trip, and even Ysayle got her time to shine occasionally. And with more scenes for each of them, it didn't feel overwhelmingly. It felt reasonable. Estinien didn't feel like a dumb or clueless guy- he felt like a normal guy who doesn't know every last thing in the world because who does? No one! Yet in EW he was among scholars. The only non scholars were him and the WoL. And with WoL being mostly silent...It was just too much. It served the story. It did not serve Estinien. That is my main conclusion of his EW characterization, though I'll elaborate more.

Examples of "Poor" Characterization in EW

I played Endwalker over the course of 3 days during Early Release. I took over 1000 screenshots, I've re-read a lot of the dialogue and watched cutscenes, and I read every bit of dialogue as it happened, but I went through it fast. My memory thus isn't perfect, and I'm sure if I went back through my screenshots I would fine more gripes. But three big ones come to mind: the hair tie, Y'shtola in Garlemald, and that one line about stabbing paperwork.

First, the hair tie. I came up with this kind of dumb explanation for it in a fic once, and it's not out of the blue based on that side story when he and Orn Khai went broke in Kugane. However, it still felt way too exaggerated. Why? Take the Orn Khai story- there Estinien is traveling with, essentially, a child, and it's basically his first time away from Ishgard. They run out of money and have to work. But there it seemed to me like poor planning on a trip that went way longer than expected because they went on a wild goose chase, and like something Orn Khai probably had a hand in. Of course it's entirely possible they went broke right away and that it was all Estinien's fault...but he's an adult. He's not an idiot. He probably should've figured out "oh, I'm getting swindled" or at least learned his lesson and been more careful in the future.

Which is the important point- Estinien's character arc in both the DRG quests and HW is about learning his lesson (and more complex things, but it's there in both). So...shouldn't he have learned his lesson in Kugane? Why did it take WoL running up to him after already buying the tie for him to realize it was overpriced and that he'd been swindled? The short answer here is that EW was very much into WoL pandering and so to score both on the WoL pandering and the funny-haha-Estinien-dumb comic relief, he had to mess up. Because of the side story, this is not out of the blue. But that doesn't mean I think it's good for Estinien. It serves the story, it sets Thavnair up as a foreign location where the WoL and friends don't have the renown they normally do, and it makes the people there more human.

But is it good for Estinien? No. 1) he should've learned his lesson. 2) in what world is Estinien so out of touch as to think a hair tie would cost that much? It just doesn't make sense. Sure he has no hobbies according to his Encyclopedia Eorzea entry so maybe he has a lot of savings from never spending his military salary, but come on. He has to know how much food costs. He has to know that a hair tie should not be that much more. That scene just made Estinien seem like 1) he hadn't learned his lesson, and 2) he's completely out of touch with society. I personally interpret him as not being a huge people person and yes he lived on his own for a while but again it's just exaggerated way too much. It's progression of his character in a way you could argue makes sense, but does not serve it.

Second, there's that scene with Y'shtola and killing the guys in Garlemald. I'm not at my computer at the moment and don't have my screenshots in front of me, but I think Y'shtola's line is something along the lines of "You're supposed to subdue them, not enthusiastically murder" to which Estinien kind of shrugs it off. Now I have mixed feelings on this scene as I said before. There are multiple ways to interpret the scene, and the interpretation of his "why" majorly impacts its read on his character.

The first time through I was really irritated because I felt like Estinien, having been in the military so long, should've been capable of listening to and following orders, and should have not only known how to subdue people without killing them, but also if he did do that, should've responded with more respect. He has restraint. I go back to the interaction with Vidofnir when Estinien threatens her but does nothing because of Ysayle- we've seen him in a situation where he has way more reason and drive to enthusiastically murder things and does not. So why here?

That gets to a later interpretation I had of the scene- what if Estinien was very enthusiastically murdering people and Y'shtola wasn't just exaggerating to make a point that he should be more careful? What if it wasn't because he was being careless/disregarding orders, but because he was having fun? This is a side that I like if you interpet the scene as a bit of Nidhogg showing through. We know via Estinien's zoomed in crazed smile in the Nidhogg kill scene that he can have a whole lot of fun killing something. Nidhogg obviously caused a whole lot of deaths and a whole lot of suffering. So if you consider that perhaps that bit of lust-for-violence resonated with or was amplified by Nidhogg, and then imagine that Estinien momentarily lost himself in it and started just going ham because he was having a great time and forgot that he wasn't supposed to be found that in the haze...well that's fascinating food for thought. I think that would be super interesting.

Except...Estinien's reaction to Y'shtola would then be...mixed feelings. Him shrugging it off could be him sort of giving in and accepting the feeling. He seems to have accepted Nidhogg being a part of him as of 5.5 (if anyone has read my essay on that lol), so I could get this. But I feel like even if he does have a lot of fun...he's never been a maniacle horny-for-murder guy. He should've been more respectful I guess. Or shocked by it. I don't know. As I said, I'm unsure on this scene. I get where it's coming from - Estinien loves to fight and we know he had happily killed things before - but him dropping back into that and being so nonchalant about it feels at odds with some of his other character progression.

So on the one hand I hated it at first. On the second, if I interpret it differently I think it's fascinating territory, but I don't feel like that interpretation is what the writers were going for. I think they were trying to show he was careless and irresponsibly violent. I can interpret it otherwise, but I don't feel like that was the intention.

Then there's that line about stabbing any paperwork that gets put in front of him. Or something like that. I think this made me the most angry of all. I know he doesn't seem to enjoy picking up papers when searching for the heretics and finding their hideout. But Aymeric mentions Estinien gave a detailed report to him in HW, and while it IS entirely possible it was a purely oral report, I had always interpreted that as a written report. By context, it seemed to me like a written report. Estinien was Azure Dragoon, and a soldier for many years before that. There is absolutely no way he got through all that without writing a single report. As he got higher up he probably got some more leeway, but he had to have written on his way up, and I doubt he didn't write anything as Azure Dragoon.

So there's that first gripe with it seeming like an exaggeration. But my problem here isn't (solely) that many of Estinien's more negative character traits have been exaggerated. It's what they do. Estinien saying he wants to stab paperwork? Sure Estinien cracks jokes. I really enjoy it when he does, and he has some clever ones. But thay specific line just makes him sound dumb. The sort of "write papers take much brain power me no have, head hurt to write, oh no, me stab instead, yes, grrrr." Estinien seems much more the macho man. The brawn to supplement all the brains between the rest of the Scions. Why can't he have both? To say that makes him seem like he's insulting the idea of writing and doing paperwork when he should really know the importance and just...

...

Final/Overall Thoughts.

I don't know. It all boils down to feeling like EW Estinien is much too often characterized as dumb, or thoughtless, or careless, or clueless, all for the sake of cracking a joke at his expense.

Jokes were made at his expense in HW. I loved how he went from "Oh these Moogle things are interesting, I wonder what's up with these" to "I want to strangle each and every last stupid flying rodents because I think they're making fun of me and they're definitely making me do menial tasks" was hilarious. It was a joke at his expense- it starts with misunderstanding and ends with being taken advantage of. But that comes from inexperience and never having dealt with the Moogles, not a lack of capabilities or thought. He's not dumb, just a little bit gullible (which he LEARNS FROM).

Endwalker is probably my 3rd favorite expansion, behind Heavensward and Shadowbringers. Its highs were really high, but its lows were very low. It had a lot of WoL pandering (Ex. Much of G'raha's character, which while present a bit in CT and definitely important to G'raha's character, felt so overboard I missed the Exarch) which could be fun, but sometimes came at the expense of other characters. It had some harsh, really well done scenes, but it tried to compensate by matching the hardness of that with super high silliness of something else to even out to a neutral, which while sometimes nice, other times felt like too much. That's Endwalker. Too much.

I said before that Estinien had a lot of scenes that I DID like in Endwalker. Him with the kids. The Mothercrystal everything (my eyes...). A few of his motivational speeches. Many of his Vrtra interactions. It goes on. Well. Not that much. But I just want to emphasize I don't think Endwalker was trash (I'd still probably give it an 8/10? Maybe 8.5) and I don't think Estinien's character was trash.

I do think that it was done a disservice. I think they quickly wrote down his character traits, compared them to the rest of the cast, and decided to focus on only a handful of them, particularly the more joke-worthy ones. By putting so much of the focus on only a handful of traits, it thus made him seem like an almost different character personality wise, and it wasn't very flattering. It was still Estinien at his core, but what I really loved Estinien for- and where his character seemed to be going by the end of HW and in 5.5- was mostly put on the back burner.

Games don't have to pander to me. They don't have to. Many of the things I love writing about for Estinien are things I don't necessarily want to see in the game, and certainly wouldn't want emphasized proportionate to how often I choose to write on them. But when the game not only goes away from what I like, but ALSO seems to go away from where it had been leading him pre-EW? That's where it feels like something went wrong.

So all in all...Estinien in EW was a character who served the overall story, not a character who served himself or the character arc that had been made for him. Estinien at his core, but wrong. Someone who had some especially great moments I'll think about and love for a long time, but had way too many bad ones to make up for and overtake that. I hope in the later patches he's allowed to distance himself from comic relief, because that's not the character he was made to be. It's something he can do, but not who he is. And EW really dropped the ball on that.

[metaphorical-goblin]

Ask game! (For AA bc I’m not familiar with DnDads):

🎁💕✨📚

Ahh hi! First off thank you so much for asking! Hopefully we'll get some good stuff ehehe

🎁Have a piece of a WIP you want to share?

I feel like I'm nothing but WIPs lately so let's see what we've got! This is from a little snippet of Miles traveling to Germany and getting himself a little companion.

Then, he stumbled his way to an animal shelter.

This was stupid. Utterly stupid.

The volunteer showed him around the facility–surprisingly clean, considering the nature of the business–and pointed out their residents while he fought the urge to cover his ears. Loud, yapping things and big, drooly mixes and old, trembling beasts that were standing on shaking legs. His heart twisted at the sight of those; he wasn’t sure that he could handle something like that at the moment.

Then, her. A collie mixed with something else (they weren’t quite sure), tapping back and forth on her feet, great pink tongue lolling out of her mouth as she kept jumping down into a bow in front of him. Her card said that she was about two years old (they weren’t quite sure) and that she was brought in because her previous owners could not handle her high energy. 

This was a horrible, terrible idea.

“I think… I think I’m interested in this one.”

💕What is your favorite fic that you've written?

I hate to repeat myself about this one all the time, but I just adore The Essential Guide to Avian Development. Seeing all of my research and work and everything just come together in such a beautiful and cohesive way is something I'm really proud of! Plus, seeing how others interpreted Avian characteristics and the characters' development was just so euphoric to see! It was such a blast to plan and write, and I really want to write another long fic soon!

If I had to pick another, it would probably be The Things We Agree to Believe Are True, which is kind of my self-indulgent sappy marriage fic, or Change of Heart (which, honestly, I wish I could go back and make longer lol).

✨Out of the comments you've received on your fics, what are two or three of your favorites?

I'm going to be honest, I love ALL the comments I get! It makes me feel so nice when someone takes the time to write something out and share it with me; it's sort of like reading the story with someone!

Having said that... there have been a few that have made me feel extra-special, ehehe. One of the more recent ones was from Living_Death on "Double Date:"

I have come to the point at which I have noted your username at the top of really great reading experiences enough to where when I see it attached to a new fic, I get to feel excitement, and I am relieved to know that it's a fic from an author I trust. And that's honestly such a gift. I love your work, this included.

There are a few more that are a bit too long to post, but seeing ArthurtheGatekeeper basically live-react to reading "And I Will Stay With You Through Spring" was such a boost of confidence, and bat15's consistent and kind comments on every chapter of Avian Dev. when I was first posting was such a sweet feeling! It really helped me to continue writing.

📚Is there a fanfic or fanfic writer you recommend?

Ohhhh boy. That's a long answer. I won't rec any mature/NSFW fics at the moment since I'm not sure if you're comfortable with that, but I do have a few favorites I'd love to share (though, to be honest, you've probably heard of them already).

As far as authors go, you are in good hands with anything by Ophelia_Writes, kbots, whackamacka, JustNerdyThings, ArthurtheGatekeeper... I could go on, but we'd be here all day lol.

For fics, I'll try to keep it brief (and maybe not exclusively the authors I recommended).

I do have to point out "A Brief for the Defense" by Ophelia_Writes, specifically, though, because it is just such a beautiful illustration of grief and loss, character depth and development, flaws (Ophelia is incredible with character flaws that are realistic and functional). This is honestly one of the best overviews of Ace Attorney and I kind of consider it canon lol. The representation of Maya and spirit channeling, specifically, alongside the VK sibs complicated feelings about Manfred, are what really drew me in.

Another great read (particularly if you're interested in some fun Mia & Bratworth bonding) would be "No Winners" by MostWeakHamlets. It's still ongoing, but so far it has been really intriguing, especially regarding how Miles reacts to his losses and how Mia almost "coaches" him, in this parallel of treating him like a little brother, that is really beautiful.

A great fantasy fic would be "Phoenix Wright and the Myth of the Amethyst Prince" by EdwirdoNomen and prince_pqul. (Yes, I KNOW it says "Major Character Death," but just ignore it, I promise everything is happy in the end.) It's honestly this really whimsical, mythical quest to rescue the "captured prince," so to speak, with the whole cast of characters well-suited for the fantasy environment. The lore of the dragons is incredibly well-thought-out, and the world itself just oozes whimsy. It's a fantastic story, and it's complete!

Aaaaand, just so I'm not here all evening, my last recommendation is "The Wedding Planner" by famousinthatanonymousway. It's long, fluffy, and complete, so it's really the perfect little read to curl up with. I'm a sucker for AUs, and a WEDDING PLANNER AU?? WITH A BAKER??? oh that really takes the cake (pun so graciously intended). Plus, Pess is there! And who wouldn't want more Pess?

Wooo, sorry for the long-winded answer! I've never done an ask before so I think I just got excited. I hope you enjoy the recommendations, and thanks for reaching out!

[ifmywishescametrue]

if you're okay with it I think I'll send a few more asks, I love so many of your fics and it's fun to hear you talk about them :D 4 and/or 5 for a perfect match, and that's how it works, to the moon and to saturn, and dream of you all summer long? And 18 for One Bad Night? Thank you 💜

i'm more than okay with it! thanks for sending these and brace yourself for some rambling haha

I'll put 18 first, and then the rest below the cut!

18) If you wrote a sequel to [insert fic], what would it involve?

This is going to sound very self-critical or possibly like I'm fishing for compliments or something (i'm not!), but One Bad Night is probably the fic of mine that I like the least. I like the beginning and the middle, but it sort of falls apart for me at the end. I knew I didn't want to follow the exact Grey's Anatomy storyline from the end of season one, but while avoiding that I think it wound up ending sort of abruptly. The drama moment comes in the same chapter that it's resolved, which isn't great for pacing or plot, but I also standby the fact that I didn't want to extend it and have it be the same thing it was in the show. Those chapters wouldn't have read great, either, especially considering that there wouldn't be major side storylines and other characters' points of view to fill the rest of the time like the show can do.

Because I don't like it much, I can't really see myself writing a sequel, but ironically I do think a sequel would be the one thing that could redeem the pitfalls of the original.

Realistically, there would be ramifications after Tony reveals that he was technically married the whole time and only just got divorced. Even if Tony did tell him on his own accord, rather than the Grey's Anatomy version of his husband just showing up. Even if Steve decides quickly that he doesn't want to end things over it and turns back around after he leaves. There's still broken trust there. There's still this major issue to overcome that wasn't addressed.

If there was a sequel, it would explore all of that. Possibly introduce a Mark Sloan-like character to shake things up and add to the plot. Someone for Steve to get close to for a while, introduce some doubt in his decision to stay with Tony, produce some jealousy from Tony's side of things. It would take place before the epilogue and show how they got back to the good and overcame the rough patches, rather than make it seem like it happened immediately without any real consequences from Tony keeping that secret.

4) What detail in [insert fic] are you really proud of / 5) What do you wish someone would ask you about [insert fic]? Answer it now!

a perfect match

this is going to sound like such an odd detail but I love this section:

and that's how it works

I like it when a couple of sentences can sort of establish a dynamic or illustrate what a relationship is like, especially in one shots. It's my favorite way to give backstory without actually giving it, so the story is still very 'in the moment' or future looking, while also showing the depth of everything that would have come before it. They text all the time, and they study together, and Tony is a sleepy little angel, and Steve can't resist touching him whenever he has the chance.

I also just love the idea of steve and tony always having a very close and casually physically affectionate relationship even as friends. It's cute for them, fun to write, and gives just the smallest touch of angst with the underlying longing behind it.

also! since I talked about colors yesterday, this fic is purple. a deep purple with streaks of lavender.

this one came from the prompt "you can't say that and then not kiss me," and honestly I struggled so hard trying to think of an idea for it. It's a great prompt with a lot of potential, but there's so many different contexts it could happen in. If I remember correctly, I actually started writing a more canon-based fic for it - a very classic 2012 avengers tower scene with mutual pining - but I hated it lol. I deleted it, set the prompt aside for a while, and then this idea eventually came to me.

fun fact! tony is watching the movie He's Just Not That Into You at the start of this. I hate that movie. Genuinely cannot stand it. But, it worked for the moment, and I think tony would actually like it. Most of the characters are messy and make bad choices and I think in his most melancholy moments he'd feel a connection with that.

I have so many favorite details on this one, and I can't narrow it down, so here's three!

The symphony. I love the way the way it sounds, both when tony first says it and at the end. it's one of my favorite closing lines of any fic I've ever written.

All the different ways steve knows tony. his favorite foods and what to do when he's sad and how to make him laugh. love is stored in intrinsically knowing someone. the mundane and the important.

The m&m colors. this one is so very random, but thought really did go into sorting out who took what colors when steve was dividing them. tony is bright and vibrant red, orange, and yellow. iron man colors, yes, but also he's vivid and bold. steve is cooler tones with green, blue, and brown. calmer, more controlled and understated. a needed counterpoint to tony's fire, but still containing so much depth of his own.

and now for an overall fic color - yellow. warm, golden, sunflower yellow.

to the moon and to saturn

I love this fic, but it almost never existed. not online, at least.

It came from this prompt - "AU where Tony is Bucky’s younger brother and Steve grows up with them, with Steve and Tony also being close friends and they end up falling for each other after college when they become roommates."

It's one that I knew required a lot of backstory, but I also knew that I didn't want to start in the present and build the backstory into that like I usually do. It would have been too much and wouldn't have felt right, so I wanted to start from the real beginning, or close to it. I decided to play around with the writing style and techniques that I tend to like when I'm reading, like repeated significant lines and intricate, but minimalistic worldbuilding. Minimalistic in the sense that you don't know details like where they grew up or the time frame for it or the names of side characters, but intricate with the other moments you get. them playing in the woods as kids and riding bikes, phone calls while they're apart and stars stuck to their ceilings.

I wrote about 70% of it, but the problem with playing with the writing style is that sometimes self-doubt kicks in. It's not quite what I usually write, which people like, and maybe where I think the certain lines are poignant, other people won't. I almost deleted it entirely with the idea that I'd never finish or post it anyway, but I couldn't bear to do it. I created a new doc on my computer and just threw it in there, forgot about it, then found it again a couple weeks later. turns out with some distance and time from it, I ended up really loving it and finished it pretty quickly. now it's easily one of my all time favorite fics of mine, and I'm so very grateful for the little voice in my head that told me not to delete it when I almost did.

I'm proud of all the details, honestly, but my favorite section is:

I love the idea of eleven year old steve going around to all of these different dictionaries, hoping one of them will have a different definition because this version of infatuation just can't be right. Even if he doesn't understand his feelings much himself at the age, he just knows it's not that. It's wrong to say it's short-lived or foolish or unreasoned, because it could never be any of those things when it comes to tony.

this fic as a whole is a deep, forest green.

dreamt of you all summer long

There are a few details in the beginning of this one that are pulled from some of my favorite songs, in varying degrees of subtly.

"I knew I'd curse you for the longest time / Chasin' shadows in the grocery line" from Cardigan by Taylor Swift becomes:

"A flash of brown hair ducking around the corner of a grocery store aisle makes his heart stop for just a moment, before he realizes that it's not quite the same shade."

"Maple syrup, coffee / Pancakes for two / Hash brown, egg yolk / I will always love you" from Keep Driving by Harry Styles becomes:

"He learns to live with the memories that infiltrate his mind, until the space between them grows enough that it's been weeks since he thought about the taste of syrup on Tony's lips after Sunday morning pancakes."

"I know I'm a piece of work / But I wanna make it work with you / Do the dishes with Nebraska in the background / Are you listenin'? Are you sat down?" from The Party by Maisie Peters becomes:

"He turns up the radio as he does the dishes, washing each one by hand and hardly remembering that someone else used to sing along to every song while drying them."

I don't often pull in songs like that (unless a song directly inspired the fic), but I liked it in this one, especially for the last two. Cardigan is already a song about being haunted by a relationship that ended, but the other two are love songs. Both show these small, everyday moments where love sort of permeates every aspect. Breakfast and doing the dishes are something more when it's an act with someone you love, but those moments also linger when it ends. They hold a different sort of sadness.

Despite that, lilac and baby blue are the colors for this. Soft and hopeful.

[secretmellowblog]

Me: at the rate I’m drawing the Hobbit comic, I will be out of the shire in like 20 years

Also me: *keeps obsessively thinking about how I’d handle certain moments in Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains and Laketown and Erebor*

[thepenultimateword]

Could you please continue civilian mentor and fiamora villain? It’s really good and I need to know what happens next!

Part One

Civilian's cheek squished against the desktop, one arm stretched in front of them, the other serving to prop open the newest gorgeous, leather-bound tome they'd convinced the school to purchase as "important research material." The fully illustrated edition at that. Technically it was true. Civilian would benefit wildly from this book when it came to plotting against Villain, and if any of those illiterate brats--er, precious children--deigned to come in, they might write a magnificent paper on fiamora behavior.

What was wrong with them these days? Everything made them irritable or sad, their brain raced endlessly but got nowhere, and they caught themself staring off into space way too often. It was really becoming tiresome. Even books couldn't stabilize them. At this very moment, with this big, beautiful, page-turner in front of them, nothing was sinking in. They read the same paragraph over and over but it never registered. Most brain power seemed dedicated to intermittently blowing their pen to the top of their desk between sentences.

Screeech!

Civilian didn't need to look up to recognize the casual lope of Hero's steps.

"What's up?" the teenager said, slinging off their backpack and rolling a few feet past the desk as they threw themself in the extra wheely chair.

"Just reading. New book came in. Thought it might help for planning."

"No, I mean what's up with the face? Did Villain dump you?"

Civilian didn't lift their head, but they carefully slid their book to the side and gave the lip of the desk a tight squeeze. Their next vicious exhale sent the pen just nigh of toppling over the edge. For some reason, that comment had sparked a more aggressive reaction than was typical for them. It shouldn't have, so they tried to keep their voice level as they responded.

"You know very well that there's nothing between us."

Hero rolled in closer. "Ooooh, so that's the problem."

"Noo," the pen hit their lips and they spluttered on it.

"Want me to bring it up in our next fight?"

Civilian sat up sharply.

"No!"

"I won't say you're the one asking," Hero said, rolling their eyes like Civilian was an amateur to this game. "I'll just bring you up casually and feel out the situation."

"And how are you going to bring up your mentor in the middle of battle? They'll know it's a setup-- Wait, no, that's not the point. I don't want you doing anything because I don't care about Villain. Understand?"

Hero raised their eyebrows at them with an expression that read something along the lines of, "Are you stupid or do you think I am?" That kid was getting way too sassy. But that probably was Civilian's own doing.

Maybe they were an amateur. Not enough to be condescended to by a teenager, but enough to be very, very confused. When was the last time they dated? When was the last time they'd even had feelings that superseded their affection for books? Not in a long, long time. But that couldn't be what this was. What they felt a month ago had been akin to terror, maybe not so much toward the end, but still. It was a red flag, and it was wrong, and they were done thinking about it.

"I don't care about Villain," they repeated more firmly.

Hero cocked an eyebrow. "Hmmm, so what you want is a rebound crush. Want me to set you up with my neighbor? They collect a lot of weird garden statues, but other than that they're nice."

Civilian dug their palms into their eyes with a loud groan. "Let's focus on the upcoming plan, alright? Remember what I told you about fiamora instincts..."

***

Civilian's breath blew out in a large cloud as they stepped out into the icy, slushy school parking lot. Most of the students' cars had dissipated, leaving Civilian's little, dirt-stained civic alone at the corner of the tennis courts.

They watched their feet as they picked their way across the slick lot. It was hard telling wet road from ice, so each step was slow and ginger. Meanwhile, they fished around in their coat pockets for their keys, mittens slipping off the ring twice before they finally found purchase on their compass keychain.

They looked up from their shoes and came face to face with a pair of intense bottle-green eyes and a long saber-tooth fang.

"Hiya, cutie," Villain said.

The keys clanked sharply on the asphalt.

"The kid around?"

Civlian blinked at them dumbly. "They went home twenty minutes ago."

"Good. Then where were we?" Villain's hands slammed on the car door to either side of Civilian's arms.

Civilian fell back, glasses slipping askew on the bridge of their nose and body reflexively flattening against the window. A chilly, eastern breeze mussed Villain's wild hair and carried the scent of sweat and river stones to their nose. A splitting grin showed off the start of a new fang point poking out their gums, and glinting eyes progressively took up more and more of their vision. Oh, they were getting closer.

They were a tidal wave coming crashing down, ready to drag them under, to sweep them away into a deep, black current, maybe even to drown them.

Civilian grabbed Villain's wrist, twisting it to the side to duck under their arm. They retreated several steps around the nose of the car. Their dress shoes weren't built for snow, and wet seeped through the eyelets, but they had a better chance running on this than ice.

"Hero was right before," they said sharply. They weren't sure where they got the courage when their heart was beating so fast, but the need for sense pressed them onward. "What is this? What are you doing?"

"Courting you. Was that not clear?"

It hit Civilian like electricity, more intimate an answer than they had been expecting. Several questions and arguments rushed their brain at the same time, but they settled on the most important one. "You're a villain!"

"And?"

"I-I'm a good guy." It sounded infantile. They desperately searched for better words. "I'm a mentor for Hero. I'm here for Hero. Furthermore, I don't agree with the things you do, and I never consented to, to...to being snuck up on and backed into corners!"

"You said you liked fiamora."

"Yes, I like to study them. Read about them. Write papers on them. That wasn't an invitation to put the moves on me."

The phrasing of that last sentence tasted awkward in their own mouth. It was more something Hero would say. But it was too late to take it back, so they stood tall and let it rest.

Villain's tail curled up and thrashed out like a whip. Amongst their wild hair, the tips of their ears twitched restlessly. "So last month...there really wasn't anything..."

"I don't know," Civilian snapped, turning to the side. "I was in distress."

"Ah." The tuft of Villain's tail splashed in the slush. For a split second their mouth pulled into a straight line, but then suddenly they were smiling again, even wider than before. "What a misunderstanding, I must have scared you out of your wits out here. I'll give you a nice interview sometime to make up for it."

With one last swish of their tail, they turned around and started away.

Civilian's body lurched after them before they knew what they were doing.

"Y-you're leaving?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Villain said over their shoulder. "That's what you want."

That was what Civilian wanted. Right? All good sense told them it was the better decision. But the sick feeling that curdled their stomach when Villain turned away prevented them from confirming it.

"You're giving up pretty easily; aren't you even going to argue?"

"Should I?"

"Well, I said my piece, usually now you'd say yours." Civilian wrung their fingers and toed at the snow, unable to look Villain in the eyes. "And if you have good points then maybe...I might be convinced. You never know..."

They were being so confusing. They knew that. Villain must be so annoyed with their mixed signals. But either direction felt wrong, and they just didn't know--

The point of Villain's claw hooked beneath Civilian's chin and gently raised their face toward them. Civilian wasn't sure when they'd crossed the space between them, but thank goodness there was gentleness in their eyes instead of contempt. They hadn't even known Villain could make that face.

"Why don't I buy you dinner? We can just talk."

“Won’t people recognize you?” Civilian asked quietly.

"I'll wear a hat."

They nearly laughed at the unhelpful solution, but instead they smiled and nodded. “Ok, let’s do that.”

Part Three

[samueldays]

People Just Say Things, part 1: fake data

(source, via onefiftyfivemm: "Donald Rumsfeld would blanche at what they had to do to the statistics to yield this kind of finding")

People just say things. Nonsensical things. Hey, whoever is running the @everytown account, do you ever reflect on the fact that you're running a propaganda outlet and feel a gram of shame about that?

Because this image that your brain-eaten zombie-foundation posted is a great illustration of how you're not even wrong. As the saying goes, liars know where they hid the truth, but bullshitters don't know what truth is.

There's many layers of wrongness here that I'll dig into.

First, let's start with these goons saying "The result is clear". The result is not clear. Their own image indicates a very unclear result. A small MSPaint edit to highlight:

Ninth-from-bottom has about one-ninth the gun law strength and the same "gun violence rate" as the top one. The rate difference between some adjacent states in this ordering is larger than the entire rate of some states. There is a weak correlation, but it is less clear than, for example, the classic graph of Global Warming relative to Number of Pirates.

Second, even if we suppose there were a clear ordering, that doesn't show causality.

Third, even if we suppose there's a causality from gun law strength (however that's calculated) to gun violence rate (however that's calculated, we'll get to these further down), that doesn't show "save lives". For that you'd have to be graphing deaths or homicides instead of "violence", and you'd have to be graphing total deaths not gun deaths.

Fourth, it's customary to put a source for the data on the graphic so that it can be inspected. Everytown put "everytownresearch.org" which is more an advertisement for their broader organization's homepage.

(Lol misinformation.) Searching for 'gun law strength' on that homepage does not turn up a chart matching the one in the image.

After poking around, I found where some of their data is at present: https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/ . I say "some" because it only goes into detail about the gun law strength, not the gun violence data, which I'll get to in a moment. Here we can learn that ninth-from-bottom is New Hampshire, which for the veteran student of Americana should bring to mind a better explanation for low violence rates than anything gun-related: it's race. NH is the fourth most white state and the fifth least black state. US state-by-state comparisons that don't account for race are almost as worthless as those which don't calculate per capita.

Fifth, let's get back to the "however that's calculated" and the gun law strength.

Law strength is a highly subjective measure, so it's hard to say that any specific calculation is correct - but I found it surprisingly easy to see that Everytown is doing theirs wrong from reading what they say about their gun law strength.

The top 50 laws we focus on represent a wide range of interventions. Some block gun access by people who pose a threat with a firearm while others focus on limiting gun violence in public. Some seek to increase police accountability and protect civil rights, while another set targets bad actors in the gun industry.

"people who pose a threat with a firearm" - much of the God-damned point of a firearm is to pose a threat, at best this needs a better editor, at worst it implies a complete ban.

"protect civil rights" - this phrase is drivel. If any right is to be protected here, it is the right to bear arms.

(My readers can probably find more things wrong with that paragraph.)

At one point I might have said: the sheer gall of these people to talk about 'protect civil rights'.

But now I've grown old and cynical enough to say instead: 'civil rights' in the mouth of commies has nothing to do with rights in the classic sense, like the 2A right to bear arms or the 1A right to free speech. It's closer to the behavior of Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel: set up an idol and demand people bow to it or suffer, but now with a living idol so that you can blame its sufferings on the unbelievers. Insist that the idol has a 'right' to be bowed to. Not bowing is a hate crime against the idolated people.

Go to Hell, idolaters.

Yeah we're still in the gun law strength section, and it's still absurd box-ticking of shit that can be circumvented by bringing a reload. Or a second gun. Although I suppose it might be effective if you assume that mass shooters are too stupid to do that, and will go shooting with only one magazine, whatever the size is.

The MeTHodOLOgiCAlLy RiGoRouS reSEaRcH [spongemock.jpg] behind this is a bunch of claims like this lurid box:

Everytown can't stop editorializing in the "fact" section for one fucking second, while not providing numbers, citations, or baselines, and their editing is bad too.

Or take this anecdote, which is sourced:

Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are frequently used in mass shootings, resulting in more deaths and injuries. Over the past decade, the five deadliest mass shooting incidents in America all involved the use of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines (Las Vegas, NV; Orlando, FL; Newtown, CT; Sutherland Springs, TX; Parkland, FL).4 The 2009 Fort Hood, TX, shooter – who shot and killed 13 people and injured 32 more – specifically sought out high-capacity magazines in preparation for his attack. A witness to the shooter’s purchase at a Killeen, TX, gun dealer reported, “He gave me two specifications. He said he wanted the most technologically advanced weapon on the market and the one with the highest magazine capacity.”5

This one-note propaganda outlet is torturing statistics and massaging definitions to make their case and still manages to shoot itself in the foot with its own examples. If he thought to specify that, that indicates he's smart enough to specify that he wants reloads in case of a high capacity magazine ban. What then - you going to demand unreloadable guns?

Sixth and finally for now, how "gun violence" is calculated: It includes suicides.

An outsized portion of the gun violence in New Hampshire is suicide, which makes up 89% of gun deaths in the state (compared with 59% nationally). New Hampshire should pass Extreme Risk laws to limit gun access for people at high risk of suicide. Legislators did recently pass a background checks law, but the governor vetoed it. However, the state also repealed a key protection in 2017, removing its concealed carry permitting law.

You will search in vain for counseling, pastoral care, or therapy in the calculations of Everytown's "gun law strength" score. But you'll see lots of micromanagement of carry restrictions!

The festering puke-piles at Everytown are screeching about a stat which, by their own admission, is majority suicides, but they're showing fuck-all worth of care for the suicidal. Instead it's restrict this, regulate that, make it easier to deprive people of rights, and lots of rhetoric about mass shooters and dangerous criminals and blood in the streets and other things which imply it's homicide they're concerned about.

Go to Hell, Everytown.

[bloodraven55]

I saw a post recently where someone else analysed how Luz's love language is acts of service and Amity's is physical affection, and it got me thinking so in light of today's incredible episode I want to do some serious digging into Luz's feelings for Amity. This is probably gonna get pretty long but hey, these two are more than worth it.

I'm going to go through three key episodes for Luz and Amity's relationship so that I can properly illustrate my points, starting with Lost in Language.

First, I want to talk about how, despite the fact that Amity had been nothing but objectionable to her so far, literally all it takes for Luz to decide she wants to befriend her anyway is reading about Azura befriending Hecate in her book and seeing Amity reading to kids at the library. This clearly establishes that Luz is intrigued by Amity and willing to go out of her way to connect with her, even when Amity hasn't yet given her any particular reason to do so.

Next, let's talk about the manner in which Luz tries to save Amity from Otabin later in the same episode. This is one of the first times we see Luz attempt to be Amity's hero, as she chooses to make an unnecessarily dramatic entrance dressed as her own version of Azura, playing the role of the dashing knight come to rescue the fair maiden albeit not quite as gracefully as is usual in these stories lol. She even takes the time to doodle Amity being impressed by her performance too, introducing the idea that Amity's perception of her means a lot to Luz.

Finally for this episode, we get another example of both these things: Luz putting in a substantial effort to bond with Amity, and Luz wanting to impress Amity or get specific reactions from her. After impulsive plan to get them away from Otabin works, Luz finds the time to be a good even when they're running for their lives and actually manages to make Amity laugh which was an impressive feat at that point tbh, looking extremely pleased when her comment is received positively.

These next two moments provide a neat link to the next episode I want to discuss, Adventures in the Elements, so I'll cover them in one go. We see Luz's first Act of Service for Amity when she offers her the Azura book she's missing to show that she wants to be friends, and then when she meets Amity to get it back we see how important the gesture was for Luz. She's very eager to hear Amity's thoughts, loves it when she finds the fanart Amity drew, and in general it's just obvious that this was another attempt to impress Amity on Luz's part.

This only continues as Luz proudly proclaims that she's going to join Amity's class at Hexside, even winking at her in the process, and solidifies the significance of her giving Amity the book even more by suggesting they start a club to talk about it further. Like, seriously, this entire episode is pretty much just Luz being adorably excited to share classes with Amity and flat out learning a whole new spell just to make sure it happens.

The interesting thing here, though, is that Luz gets really nervous as soon as the twins suggest they all train together, enough to lie to them in a moment of panic, and then gets super embarrassed when she sees that Amity is also practicing at the Knee. This doesn't seem to make much sense since Amity is being pretty nice by this point and not at all mocking or condescending, and Luz has given up on trying to look cool to the twins by now too. But it actually makes a lot of sense when you consider that this is another instance of Luz wanting to impress Amity and worrying about looking inept in front of her.

There's also the way that Luz is just... so clumsy and awkward around Amity in these episodes. The girl knocks a book to the floor and falls off a rock just trying to say hello, for crying out loud, complete with stammering over her words. Yeah, it's safe to say Luz is lowkey crushing on Amity here.

Don't worry, because I saved the best for last. Enchanting Grom Fright is basically the culmination of everything those two previous episodes set up. Not only do we get two Acts of Service from Luz, with her offering to face her own worst fear for Amity with zero hesitation and then happily offering to go to Grom with her so that Amity wouldn't end up alone, but she also brings out some dramatic flair when she declares herself Amity's “fearless champion,” like a knight in shining armour vowing to protect her princess although she still hasn't got the graceful part down lmao.

Plus, there's the fact that in both of their Lingering Eye Contact in Close Proximity with Romantic Tension™ moments in the episode, Luz's expression is the exact same as Amity's, wide-eyed and curious like she's not quite sure what to make of what she's feeling. And that's even before she just full on starts flirting with Amity later on. I'm sorry, but those smirks and fancy show-off moves while dancing are not remotely heterosexual, Luz.

All of this brings us to their current situation: Amity is aware of her crush on Luz but thinks that Luz only sees her as a friend, and Luz is subconsciously flirting with Amity as well as trying to show off for her and be her hero but remains fairly unaware of her crush on her and thinks that Amity likes someone else. So in conclusion, teenagers are useless, but we been knew. Rather, the point I want to end on is that there's a reason why Luz and Amity were so in sync with such amazing chemistry during their dance when they weren't talking, and it's because they both have different ways of communicating their emotions but when they let their actions speak for them they were finally on the same page albeit briefly.

tl;dr - Luz and Amity are both crushing hard on each other, they just need to realise that the other has a different way of expressing their feelings and find the courage to be honest with each other. Amity's crush is more glaringly blatant, what with all the blushing and gay panicking and wanting to ask Luz to the school dance, but Luz's crush on Amity is also pretty evident in the way she tries so hard to impress her and often steps in to help her out with grand gestures, which she never does to anywhere near the same extent with any of her other friends.