#MV needed more characters in my book

[choppedmint]

If I commit to talking about Morganville Vampires, I need to share a list of OCs before I start claiming someone exists when they don't. If you see any of the below names (baring certain Goldmans mentioned to be canonical) than they are fictious. I love them, but I made them the heck up. XD

Samuel Salinas: A really new vampire. Like really new. Worryingly new. Part of a plot new. And he's also 12. And also heck it, toss him at Myrnin, because having him deal with a child in mental distress was apparently a good idea to younger me and I'm loath to change my post canon plots nooooow. At any rate, I love him dearly, little sunshine boy. Uses he/him.

Pax Salinas: We repeat, worryingly new vampire. Sam's brother. Uses he/him.

Worrying large amount of Goldman vampires. Why? Because RPs. Do I remember which are my OCs anymore? Nooope. Theo and Patience and Patience Jr, and Jakob are the only four I know I didn't make up out of my head, but if the others are appear in the books, I'm assuming I just gave them names? If there are no mention of them (I think for example I gave Theo another kid in Marcel) than they're just made up.

Anyway. Marcel Goldman: Son of Theo Goldman. He's dead by the time my post-canon stories usually take place. Whoops. I ... really wish I'd fleshed him out more, but we're making up for lost time. We'll get there. he/him

Aaron Goldman: Grandson of Theo Goldman. He's an ass. I love him. Another of Bishop's little messed up 'let's change the children' ideas, along with his cousins Jakob and Patience Jr. So fun times there! He's less of an ass than Aurelia. Will protect his family with his life, thank you very much. he/him

Aurelia Goldman: Granddaughter of Theo Goldman. Also a really angry person. But we love her anyway. she/her

Julius Goldman: Human. Married Marcel and into the family. he/him

Penny Goldman: adopted by Julius and Marcel Goldman. she/her

Bella: She sucks. All you need to know. Sam and Pax's mom and a piece of work. she/her

Harquin Day: Not actually a member of Day family, but sort of adopted on somewhere down the line. Their Protector and occassionally will use their roof for star-gazing. General opinion of him is iffy in recent generations, just as a general reaction to all vampires, but he's slowly improving in their books. Not particularly scary on first look, tends to give off cool uncle vibes. But he can stand up for himself in a way that proves how he's managed to survive in this life. Rather impressive scowl. More 'distant' than anything and totally started using the 'Day' last name without permission, but no body remembers a time he didn't, so there's no one around to fight him on it anymore. He's a therapist, usually reserved for vampires, but has been known to take in the occassional other.

Uses they/he pronouns. Not old-old, but certainly has been around several centuries.

Janus: Officer in the police force. Vampire. Shane partners with her sometimes when he needs vampiric backup. I've only used her once, we'll see if I use her again. she/her Arthur Dee:

Historical figure, so technically exists, so heh? Anyway, was a brief fling of Myrnin's back in the early 16th century. I refuse to believe Myrnin is not queer shaped in some way, so I poked around for an old alchemist and found this man and now I've adopted him and writing a book about him. Please ask me about Arthur Dee, I can tell you how he accidently maybe on purpose murdered his in-law, it's great. ANYWAY he's not a vampire. 100% human and died in the mid 16th century. Myrnin does not like mentioning him. It ended very poorly. he/him John Smith:

Not that John Smith. I just lifted him from another story to briefly use as Amelie's bodyguard. I use him for the same purpose now and again. he/him

One would think I'd have more human characters, but noooo, not me. Though Julius is one of my favs, so like, maybe he makes up for it.

I have ART. These characters live on Art Fight, 'cause of course they do. I don't have anything for Harquin, Pax, Aaron, or Aurelia, despite having pages and pages of writing about all of them. Whoopsy. One would think the length of description equated to how much I liked them, but if anything it's the reverse. Don't get me wrong, love Harquin, but I've used them as a character (RP or stories) all of ... three times give or take. While the others are, like, practically main characters. But whatever.

[myobsessionsspace]

"My last point is that I don't really see JK being a club going person."

I was going to say this a well. I quite don’t get why some people portray him as a party boy when he has shared several times that he’s more of a homebody and feels more comfortable chilling with friends or relaxing at home - which, for an introvert, isn’t surprising at all. He seems like someone who has a small close circle of friends and doesn’t really socialize outside of it. Sure we don’t know him in private and it’s not like he never goes out obviously but I’ve always felt he was pretty transparent and sincere with us. So I really don’t get the need for some fans to portray him as a person he hasn’t shown to be. It’s weird, it’s like he’s not enough for them so they have to twist his personality to make it fit the way they would like him to be. That’s not exactly what I call love, but well..

~Ask Anon is referring to~

Hi lovely!

Right?! Talk your talk 💪

Like how many times has Jungkook shown and spoken about his MTBI?! He’s an introvert through and through. From what we’ve seen he has his select few that he’s himself with and has fun with but we’ve seen him when not working like a dog, at home or working out.

Introvert in the wild

He drinks at home, due to sasaengs he works out at home, he sings karaoke at home, he cooks at home.

Of course he must do things with people that we don’t see or know about but the pervasive notion that he’s some addict fuck boy boils down to ta few things, the main ones in my mind right now, small mindedness and baseless rumours.

Small mindedness because according to the teen book, movie, tv, fanfic stereotype the dark clothes, piercings, tattoo, bike riding, quiet type can and only ever will be a ‘fuck boy’. He has a group of 97z idol friends that one outing, that made headlines, determined his character from that point forward. What else has he done that warrants such judgements? Drink at home in front of his phone? Have boxing as a hobby? Own a motorcycle alongside owning cars too?

The Wattpad f*ck boy of their dreams 😑 I’ve literally SEEN countless Wattpad covers, some actually entitled ‘f*ck boy’ or with a fuckboyjungkook! tag, no joke!!!

Rumours because his blonde foreign, dancer, idol, older actress, tattoo artist girlfriends all can attest under oath to his ways, no wait it’s the random online account holders that can attest under oath due to their inside knowledge

No matter how often he shows himself to be a homebody. No matter how often over the years the members and Jungkook talk about how Jungkook likes to stay in. Jungkook saying he’d rather join in on other people’s plans as he’s not one to do much of left to his own devices. Namjoon saying Jungkook likes to stay at home and Hobi saying ‘he’ll go for Jimin’. Jungkook saying he stays in and when given Netflix suggestions says he’s watched them all, used to stay in and play video games, draw and create etc it’s not enough to shift certain people’s mindset because his outward appearance sets it in stone for them. Oh that and his FICTIONAL music videos where he holds a woman’s hand and starts at another woman’s forehead

When the camera is rolling for the MV character, the pop idol

When the camera isn’t rolling for the MV character but to capture the man Jeon Jungkook

There are so many side to this young man who has an aesthetic expression that people will not get over.

Curteous

Kind and respectful

Loving

Tender and caring

Cute. Sorry Jungkook you are a grown man, yes, but still so damn cute!

You’re right in my opinion anon but I will say one thing…

You said: ‘It’s like he’s not enough for them […]’

I say: He’s too much for them, so they have to simplify him to a caricature because him as a whole is someone they can never appreciate, how he deserves to be appreciated. Him as a whole can’t be the person they’ve deemed their fantasy or enemy.

Thank you for your ask😊! As you can tell I needed to get that out and you gave me the opportunity 🙈

💜

[wc-confessions]

re: WC misogyny

This is solely to get my thoughts out abt this bc I’m probably not gonna be able to articulate this to the best of my ability but I feel like it’s incredibly important to say that these books are pretty damn misogynistic and so was the fanbase for the longest time.

Not saying that to be "throwing the word around without knowing what the word means", because misogyny is defined as a dislike/contempt against women. This can also absolutely be an unconscious bias (which is primarily what I see anyway!) I've seen far more people dismiss these characters while holding up male ones that do similar/worse things (i.e. Thistleclaw primarily but a lot of the MV characters to an extent)

The reason why discussion about sexism usually ends up against cats like Mapleshade, Squirrelflight, Frecklewish, and Nightcloud is primarily due to how the universe of the books is written to chastise these characters while their male counterparts go thru barely half of the shit thrown onto the girls.

Mapleshade gets her kids and herself exiled for breaking the code while Appledusk literally gets a slap on the wrist for breaking the same code she did? The Riverclan leader just tells him "well, you'll not do it again so you don't need to be punished" while Mapleshade doesn't even get to bury her kits. Even if she's the Warrior Cats evil woman that's still really fucked up!? And this goes to Frecklewish as well, who does not watch them drown oh my god. The flood that kills Maple's kits is incredibly loud--saying Freckle would have been able to do anything else OTHER than watch dismisses the fact going to the flooded stones was an idea doomed to fail (of which Mapleshade has a lot of in MV specifically.)

Frecklewish absolutely ended up in the Dark Forest over Oakstar or Ravenwing (who both condemned the kittens to their fate instead of?? idk punishing Maple and not the kits who didn't even know they were half clan?) because of the way the fandom perceived her at the time. Freckle's a lot like Squirrelflight where fandom opinion only recently shifted to people defending those characters--she's pretty awful for calling the same kits she doted on half-clan creatures! But I don't think she deserved to go to cat hell forever when the cat who actually caused those kittens to end up dead (and every other cat in MV!) ends up in Starclan without even so much of a trial.

Speaking of trials--Squirrelflight and Leafpool literally end up almost being sent to CAT HELL for following Starclan's orders. Leafpool ends up having forbidden kits but Starclan goes "it's okay!" until it isn't. Brambleclaw almost being involved in Firestar's fox trap murder never gets mentioned or brought up while both of the girls are questioned about if they even belong in Starclan because they "broke the code and lied"?? There's a pretty damn big bias towards the toms for doing bad/worse actions but Bramble never went to Starclan and had his ticket for heaven almost revoked. Oakstar didn't get put in the Dark Forest because he exiled 3 innocent kits.

I think it's important to note the fandom has a lot of say over how characters like these get interpreted (which is why Nightcloud ended up being hated a lot despite the fact Crowfeather is just. actually abusive to Breezepelt.) That's why I brought up unconscious biases, because I think generally a lot of WC content creators tend to stick to presenting the stories in a more radical/black and white way.

I think the discussion really should be that the books and the stories ARE pretty misogynistic but unconsciously so? A lot of the story beats I mentioned weren't written by just one person, and the Erins have different opinions on these cats than the fans do. That's not me stating an opinion, that's just me saying recognizing that it's very male-oriented IS an issue these books have.

Anyways this got way too wordy, Ashfur is one of my favorite villains so I don't even know why I typed all of this up /j.

[starriri]

Similarities of Murder On Orient Express / Calais Coach to Danganronpa Despair Time

So like. Hi. I’m Starri. And uh. I’m not very much of a theorist but a few days ago i began to read Agatha Christie’s Murder on Orient Express, also known as Murder in the Calais Coach in America. I’d been searching for a copy for a while until i finally found one from my local library.

For the record, I’ve only been able to read half of the book so far (i have to put it on hold to finish another book which i need to return soon (i can’t renew it as someone wants it)), so I’ll most likely make an updated post that elaborates more on it.

Murder on Orient Express has been mentioned a few times in the DRDT franchise, most notably being in Min’s execution as the last question (Who wrote Murder in the Calais Coach?). A page of it also appears in the Literature Girl Insane (fun fact ive been calling it nonsense literature girl the whole time smh i’m a fake vocaloid fan i’m sorry) MV.

In fact, Agatha Christie herself has been mentioned multiple times in the story. For example, in chapter one, Teruko mentions her (although her name is considerably censored)

This also reveals that Teruko reads mystery novels (slay!!) which I think is pretty neat lol

For the record, Strychnine isn’t used in Murder on Orient Express, but it’s used on one Agatha Christie’s earlier mystery novels, that being The Mysterious Affair At Styles. I actually haven’t read that yet though since I can’t find a copy myself.

She is also, of course mentioned in the Literature Girl Insane credits. Although the original vocaloid MV has mentioned a ton of Authors (eg. Dazai Osamu, Kaiji Motohiro) that do appear in the DRDT ver, Agatha Christie does not appear in the original vocaloid MV whatsoever, meaning that she has been added deliberately, along with Lewis Carroll (i haven’t read alice in wonderland because i’m a little dipshit sorry i can’t do anything with him) and possibly a few others.

To be honest I do think Agatha Christie herself is somewhat related to the plot, along with other books of hers that aren’t Orient Express.

But I digress. My main topic here is how Murder on Orient Express has similarities to DRDT. Even if I’ve only read half, there’s a few similarities I can find:

1. There are 16 passengers aboard the train

In the novel, there are multiple compartments, however, in the main one, there are 16 people. You know what else has 16 people?? The danganronpa series, mainly, which includes DRDT.

2. The victim has somewhat ulterior motives/secrets

The man who died is revealed to be a murderer, who has changed his name to avoid being identified. At the beginning of the story he asks Poirot/The protagonist to protect him from someone who has been targeting him, which Poirot declines.

How is this similar to DRDT? Well, firstly, Xander, like the victim, died mainly because of their own actions. Xander died attempting to kill Teruko, while the victim died because he was a scumbag that killed. It’s quite far fetched but. Yeah.

3. ‘Charles Cuevas Motive’ and the Handkerchief

The handkerchief from the novel has been embroidered with the letter H. However, H in russian is N. Do you see where I’m going?

In the story, the handkerchief is revealed to belong to a russian woman by the name Natalia because of this.

In DRDT, ‘Charles Cuevas Motive’ or C CU MO is misread as 3MOC until Rose tells everyone to turn the disc.

Both stories have a sort of misreading of possible evidence that end up being clarified after a while.

4. People fainting after seeing blood

In both stories, someone faints from seeing blood: Charles after seeing Teruko on the ground, and Mrs Hubbard (a character) after finding a bloodied knife in her purse (?). Mrs Hubbard says that, just like Charles, it’s due to her fear of blood.

This one I’m almost sure is somewhat referencing the novel.

The end (because i’m stupid and haven’t read the whole book)

Ultimately there’s probably more similarities that I’ve overlooked (there’s most likely something to do with the ‘woman in the scarlet kimono’ ) so I promise to update this soon. But for now. uh. toodles

If anything, i think the references to Orient Express only go as far to the end up Chapter one. I think chapter 2 might be centric to another Agatha Christie book (i have a few theories on which one but like. i’ve only read 6.) so yay i guess

also if someone has already done a theory on this certain topic i’m sorry jd dkdbdjbdks

[jo-harrington]

The Gospel According to Mary Victoria (An As Above, So Below Story) - Book 1

Book 1 - Book 2 - Book 3

Word Count: 4.2k

Pairing: Steve Harrington/Fem!OC (Told in 1st Person POV)

Warnings/Themes: Van Helsing AU, Strangers to Lovers, Religious Themes, Criticism of Religion/Catholicism, Fate vs. Free Will, Supernatural Encounters, Angst, Biblical and Other Literary/Media References

Note: Hello and welcome to another offshoot of the AASB series. First off, thank you to @pastel-pillows @storiesbyrhi and @munson-blurbs for doing a little beta read and helping me get some confidence back. Second, this is sort of my gift to @big-ope-vibes as she is my partner in crime, my fandom ride or die, and asked for the sidekick character in AASB to get some D, so this will eventually be that.

Mary Victoria is the nun sidekick character that follows along on the adventure, similar to Carl the Friar from Van Helsing. Comic relief but ultimately someone who finds themselves and comes into their own during the course of the main storyline. She, much like the Knight, has an ambiguous background although it is touched on a little bit in the main story and will be elaborated more here. MV is the name she chose for herself when she became a nun, and she can truly be anyone reading. No physical descriptors will be mentioned.

This trilogy is, for all intents and purposes, her diary and more insight into her place in this universe.

This series will not be for the faint of heart, nor is it something that was written with a general audience in mind. Please check the above warnings and ask yourself if you are in the correct headspace to proceed. I am happy to answer any questions via PM or Ask.

You can find my masterlist here.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

"And it seems such a waste of time, but that's what it's all about. Mama if that's movin' up then I'm movin' out." - Movin' Out (Anthony's Song), Billy Joel (1977)

1987. The year my life changed.

Ew, I hate that.

It's cliche, isn't it? But all stories are.

And that's what we all are in the end, aren't we? Stories.

So this is mine.

Pieced together from dumb shit written on gas station napkins and this...shitty journal from Claire's that I found in a pile of rubble near the ruins of StarCourt Mall, and my spotty memory.

My story.

From a farm, to Hollywood, to a convent, to a cursed suburb in Indiana.

And his.

But he's just a guy, and sort of unremarkable as most just-a-guy's are, so we can talk about him later.

And hers.

Let's talk about her now.

The Knight.

She kind of sucked.

But she was my friend.

And in order to understand my place in her story, you have to understand her place in mine.

I'd met her before everything started.

Even during my days as a novice, I was never really...convinced. Belief and devotion are two different things; I was devout, sure, because I needed something to believe in and I wanted to believe in it so badly. But the act of belief was often a stretch; I convinced myself to do it because I needed some kind of divine reasoning for my life going the way that it was.

Turns out I didn't really need it.

I'd always been interested in the Holy Order though. Big mysterious organization, filled with severe looking...saints...is that what they were? Still, they were curious and mysterious and no one would tell me anything; obviously I had to know more. The Knight was no different.

From that first day I met her, I saw something inside of her that I always secretly hoped someone might see in me.

Defiance and fire and potential for more.

She had seen it in me.

She, however, had this...deep pit of sadness, this yearning for something she lost. It stuck with me for years until we met again.

And in hindsight, I truly believe that she'd seen those things in me as well. That's why she came back for me.

She'd never truly been happy in the time that I'd known her, though.

Where I could laugh and shake things off and hope everything would get better, she was stuck.

There was an old copy of Tuck Everlasting that I found in the things she'd left behind; the passage about the wheel of life and how the Tucks had fallen off it...it had been highlighted and underlined over and over. The Knight was stuck like that. Forced into some life that was removed from everyone else's. Cursed. Banished.

Something she never chose for herself.

But somehow she fought to choose everything else.

She chose me.

She saw all of those things in me, those things that she might not have realized she had herself in one way or another. Just like I didn't recognize I had until she helped me bring them to light.

And she chose me.

I thought fate had guided me to the church, despite my trouble with belief and devotion. Seems, though, fate had just led me to her.

A sheep with no shepherd and a shepherd with no flock; both of them interchangeable with the either of us at any given time.

I left the flock I had reluctantly joined and grown comfort in, and took my place by her side. Took the permission she gave me to be myself again, took my future back. Devotion to no one and nothing unless I chose to devote myself, not because I felt like I had to.

Not even devotion to her.

She only ever asked that I consider the devotion I owed to myself.

It took a while, but I got there.

Thus..

Huh...who says thus?

...I was no longer Mary Victoria, the novice. I was Mare, adventurer and slayer of evil in my own right. Apostle or disciple or asshole who liked to write things down because of my aforementioned shit memory. Following a path she brought me along until it was time to forge one for myself.

And I got everything I ever wanted.

But in order to gain it, I had to lose everything first. We all did.

Fate.

Faith.

They're both integral to this story.

And they're both bullshit.

"So who is she again?"

This asshole.

"And who are you?"

I looked up from my oatmeal with a dead stare.

The urge to punch him was almost unbearable, but I was hungry, so that was probably the reason.

Nothing like starting the morning off with a fight.

"Who are you?" I countered, shoveling a spoonful of breakfast into my mouth with an inquisitive lift of my brow.

"I'm Steve, remember? We met yesterday," he greeted in a seemingly genuine tone.

Alright, so I probably was just in a mood. But, something about him made me nervous.

For someone as nice as I was, I really hated seemingly nice guys.

Ok hate is a strong word. I was suspicious of nice guys. Especially cute nice guys.

The morning had already started off pretty tense, though, and the Knight left me alone to fend for myself and keep making friends while she got intel from that Dustin kid. Meanwhile I was left at the breakfast table as everyone else dispersed for the day.

Alone except for him.

Steve McQueen Harrington, our gracious host and one of the heads of the Hawkins Clean Up and Defense Brigade. Along with his trusty sidekick...the nail-covered baseball bat.

He had been kind to us, one of the only ones in Hawkins so far, which was why I was trying to ignore the alarm bells that rang in the back of my head. I knew I needed to try and not be my usual, effervescent self and alienate him.

But...gah...never trust a cute face, no matter how strong the urge to do so is.

Even if he was maybe flirting with me a little bit.

I was out of practice staving off the attention of men, and it'd been a while since I got to see anyone who could be considered attractive; abstinence and all in account, I was an easy target to woo and get information out of.

But two could play at that game.

I scooped another spoonful of oatmeal into my mouth and blinked at him. Silence always made untrustworthy people squirm.

"At the risk of sounding repetitive," he cleared his throat awkwardly, falling right into my trap. "Why...are you guys here? Why is she back?"

I'd heard all about the Knight's heroics a few years ago--the destruction in the tunnels beneath Hawkins--when we arrived.

"I think she feels like she owes it to the town," I shrugged. "Cuz of her boyfriend Eddie? He died. She couldn't save him."

Steve got tense and his eyes darted away from mine.

Bingo.

"Did you know him?"

"Yeah," he nodded stiffly, hand immediately rubbing at his side. "He was a...friend, I guess."

He got silent and pensive, his gaze became distant, and his fingers twitched.

That...was odd. Not exactly the bingo I was hoping for but I could use it to my advantage.

"Hmm..."

"What?"

"Sensing some sexual tension."

"Huh?"

"Yearning. Did you have a crush on Eddie or something?"

His cheeks got flush and he tripped over his words with a lot of no, but's... and I...he was... and he's Dustin's friend.

I only said what I said because it made the most sense. The Knight really didn't say much about Eddie because it was painful for her, brought up a lot of emotion. So it would stand to reason that Steve might feel and do the same if he had a crush on Eddie and then Eddie died.

"Unrequited love," I sighed. "It really sucks."

"It was not unrequited love," Steve insisted. "There's just...a lot you don't understand about what's been happening in Hawkins. And with Eddie...there's a lot there. It's a long story."

"Then tell me." I shrugged; what was there to lose. "We're here to help. I'm here to help. And how can I if you keep secrets?"

"It's not a secret."

"Ok, not keeping secrets, you just omit critical information."

He sighed and patted his hands against the table in contemplation.

And somehow I knew, thanks to some innate empathic sense that was coming to light with this new development in my life, or my uncanny ability to sense some shit, that what he was about to say would not give me any peace.

It would just make everything worse.

"You can help," he started. "But we just...need to move past it. It's better for everyone if things just...stay buried. Don't speak ill of the dead and all that."

See, the thing was that I was nosy.

I liked knowing everything and I especially didn't like it when secrets were kept from me.

And despite Steve's insistence that we need to move past it, I knew that this wasn't just privacy or moving on...

He was hiding something.

So I pried more.

It started out with little things, asking people simple questions while volunteering in the town square. Questions about Vecna, about the Upside Down, about their involvement. The loved ones they lost. Used empathy to lure them into some sense of trust and security with me.

And I got some good tidbits--and I mean good tidbits--that I started to string together like a puzzle. But nothing big; I couldn't see the big picture yet.

So I knew I needed to get down to business, and the best person to ask would be Steve.

"I have a question."

"Yeah?"

But I really stuck my foot in it.

"I want to know if you guys meant to get Barb killed and turned into a vampire or if you're just negligent."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Steve stopped his digging to look at me with wild, wide eyes.

And I might have pissed him off.

In my defense...who else could I ask? Nancy? Fat fucking chance.

"No because it just doesn't make sense," I tried to backtrack. "How do all of these people end up dead and then...turned into vampires. Did you have some kind of...lottery system of who ends up as bait for Kas or..."

But ok maybe I really fucked up a little. Learning curve, the Knight said. So interrogation tactics were a 200-level course.

"...it just seems a little convenient that so many people die and have been brought back. What did you say? Chrissy and Fred and Patrick...all of Vecna's victims? Who else got killed in the Upside Down?"

But I'd been trying to reconcile it all in my head, especially as it connected to Eddie.

Somehow he was connected to all of this, his name on the tips of everyone's tongues when I asked them. Murderer, leader of some satanic cult--even though I'd also heard through the grapevine that it was actually not a cult.

There was something about him that...didn't sit right with me.

And I certainly couldn't bring it up to her until I had a better idea about how this all connected to him.

The last thing the Knight needed was for her long lost love to appear, mindless and murderous, in a flurry of wings and fangs.

I know she wanted to keep me safe but I needed to keep her safe as well.

Who else would?

And I know I could have just asked her about him. In hindsight, I sort of wish I had. I just...didn't know that I could.

So I asked Steve, even if it was in some...roundabout way.

"Oh Jesus I'm not doing this right now." Steve ran a hand through his hair. "Didn't we just go over this? Are you seriously asking...I don't even know how to...Rob!"

"Yeah?"

Robin approached from a ways away and immediately she and Steve ducked their heads together to talk in hushed tones, his one hand gestured wildly towards me.

I liked Robin. She was nice to us when we arrived at the Harringtons last night, tried to make some jokes during the tense dinner. Whether that was because she was actually trying to be friendly or she was just awkward in awkward situations...which...that definitely had been the textbook example of one.

Despite Steve's obvious complaints about me, she was patient enough when they swapped tasks and she took up Steve's shovel beside me.

"There's kind of a Rite of Passage to these things Mary," she explained after a few minutes of tense digging. "You can't just come in demanding answers; you either fall into this whole...Upside Down nonsense by chance, or you need to prove yourself if you're entering the fray by choice. I did it, Steve did it. We all did."

That made it sound like there was some weird blood oath to join a monster hunting brotherhood. I was already trying to get my foot in the door with one, I didn't need to do that with another, more...ragtag one.

Especially not after what I had witnessed yesterday.

"I think we more than proved ourselves," I argued. "We're here to help. We want to fight these vampires and creatures and all of that. And we need to understand where they came from first."

"I think you don't understand; this isn't just a fight anymore."

She got tense and then closed her eyes and cursed under her breath.

"What do you mean?" I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. "Not a fight? I sincerely think this is still a fight if monsters are attacking the town. If Kas is attacking the town."

"Ok, monsters," she began in agreement. "Yeah we still need to fight the monsters if they're killing people."

"Why do I sense there's a 'but.'"

"But...the days they don't? We just leave them alone. And they leave us alone too."

"Well what happens in a month? In two months? What happens when you run out of food?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

"Meanwhile they have an endless supply of blood." I elaborated, voicing something that I had been thinking all night, one of the million invasive thoughts. "Blood. Meat. Yours. Fresh carcasses for their feast."

With each word I felt a fire build up inside of me, an impatience. Defiance. It was all so easy for everyone to give passive answers; think about it tomorrow. I already had to face my mortality once in the past 24 hours, I was sure I would again, and the people of Hawkins had to do it any number of times. Why was it so easy for them to put these things off?

I wanted a clear cut answer. And I wasn't getting it.

I wouldn't know until later that it wasn't as clear cut as I had hoped.

But with each word, my aggression grew and my shovel struck the rubble over...and over...until it split the ground below.

A crack formed in the dirt, a fissure; it got wider and deeper and swallowed the bits of rubble into it until it stopped and revealed a glowing membrane not unlike the nearby gates. Robin started rambling and shouting for others, she went on and on about the Upside Down.

"Is he getting stronger? Did he do this? What's going on? Oh shit, oh shit."

But I couldn't be bothered, because I knew that had nothing to do with Kas or the Upside Down.

It was me.

And how could I just...experience that and not immediately go into my own spiral.

Now, the thing was...I wasn't strong. Not stronger than the average person...or...actually, I was probably weaker, given my...mostly sedentary lifestyle as a nun. Couldn't unscrew a jar of pickles to save my life. In that moment, however, something within me was unleashed. A spark of power, an energy surge, from the moment the shovel penetrated the dirt and stone.

So excuse me if I didn't care about the commotion that these simple-minded, fearful townies were building. My questions turned from Hawkins and the Upside Down and Kas...to myself.

I was like Luke Skywalker in the Wampa cave.

And I desperately wished that my Obi-Wan was there to guide me.

Unfortunately, I had to keep it all to myself.

Not that I wanted to. I just had to.

It's weird when you're someone's sidekick and suddenly on your own journey of self-discovery.

I knew that the Knight said that she would train me. Guide me. I also knew the importance--both personal and otherwise--of her journey here, and, you know, it had been drilled in my head to be selfless for quite a few years now.

I just...ok it wasn't weird. It sucked.

I had questions.

How could I bring my sudden development of unexplained strength organically when my mentor was...oh I don't know...getting in trouble for breaking curfew and reading a kid's mind? Or how about rallying the troops to go hunt down monsters so she could kill Kas singlehandedly?

I certainly couldn't bring it up when she disappeared for several hours during said hunt, leaving me, Robin, Dustin, and Steve to wonder where the fuck she went?

And it was definitely out of the question when she suddenly reappeared, dragging the body of a man who had, apparently, been dead for several years and had clawed his way out of a grave.

And not just any grave.

Eddie Munson's grave.

It was getting really hard to ignore all the bright red blaring signals and not just grab her by the shoulders, shake her, and say "I need you to not freak out right now but Eddie is Kas, you idiot. Can you please do something about this? And also can you maybe help me because I split the earth in two the other day and sometimes when I touch things I'm able to see what they saw."

Yeah that was a new development. Hit me like a freight train when I went to use the bathroom and I was suddenly thrust into the past watching one Mrs. Harrington wax her...

Well...

No one wants or needs to hear about that.

But I had to keep it all buried inside of me. Push it down and down and down until I didn't risk it all bubbling to the surface subconsciously. Little did I know, it would all reach some kind of critical mass like Chernobyl at some point.

And that point was when we suddenly needed to keep this Billy guy's resurrection a secret.

It was easy, I lied to myself at first. I simply had to do what I had always done, for my entire life.

I used happiness, positivity, and humor to cope. To make sure everyone else coped.

And it seemed to help for a while.

We kept Billy in the garage, the Knight and I made sure he was fed three times a day, everyone went about their different volunteer schedules, and it all seemed to be alright. Everyone seemed to be in a better mood.

It was going to be alright.

Until it wasn't.

Remember what I said about bad memory? It all comes and goes in flashes sometimes. There's screaming and crying--I think I was the one crying--and there's blood and dirt and Claudia looking so...disappointed.

In all of us.

And taillights leaving me behind.

That's when I reached a breaking point.

As soon as the bumper of that old, busted Marquis turned the corner at the end of the Harrington's street, I broke.

The clouds churned, there was a strange gust of wind that rumbled along with the uneasiness in my stomach, and my hands shook.

"You see what you did," I muttered upwards into the stark, overcast sky. Upwards to Heaven, to God, if He was real...as though that asshole was going to do anything about it even if he heard me. "You better make sure she's alright."

"You good Mare?" There was a hand on my shoulder and I shrugged it away. "Come on, come inside."

"No, I have beef with God right now," I snapped.

"I think we all do," Steve sighed.

"No!" I rounded on him now.

In hindsight, as I slowly deteriorated under the weight of...fuck, you know...just...everything, I was a little unfair to him.

But it was hard to be left behind again, even if it was only for the night. Hard to try and protect someone, and they get hurt regardless. Hard to try to come to terms with things happening to you that are fully out of your control.

And it was hard to see past my own nose and recognize that I was not actually alone after all.

"I'm done with all of your secrets," my words thundered. "I want to know why you lied."

"Lied?"

"You never told us that Eddie Munson was Kas." He blanched. "Listen I know you think it's this big secret you've kept from us but it's not that hard to figure out, Jesus Christ."

"But--" He pointed out to the street.

"You don't know her," I shook my head. "Fuck, I don't even know her. But it's not hard to tell that she's grieving and in denial."

"That's, uh...that's what Dustin said," he sighed and scratched at his neck. "I'm...we wanted to say something from the beginning. Nancy--"

"Fuck Nancy," I spat.

Thunder rolled overhead.

"Ok I wanted to tell you guys from the beginning," he corrected himself. "How's that? I wanted to tell you both the truth. But Dustin's a good kid, he wants to protect everyone. As soon as your friend told him she used to date Eddie...he didn't want her to think of him like that. Like a monster."

"Well she's gonna find out one way or another, and then what'll happen? You're gonna get chewed out," I grumbled and stomped my feet in irritation. "God, no one in this town thinks of the future. And this is coming from me who, if you didn't know now you do, never plans ahead for the future and is generally a disaster. You're literally facing life and death out here and you can't look past the end of the day.

"I get it, you don't even know if you're gonna make it to the end of the day but news-fucking-flash asshole: a plan is gonna help you survive. It didn't take me long to learn that fucking lesson. And you've been doing this for how many years now?"

I suddenly felt some sad, suffocating realization overcome me. This...they've been doing this for years. The knight doing this for years. Facing creatures, evading dangers, barely surviving. People hadn't survived. People came back to life as monsters, as something else only to hunt and kill their loved ones.

How had they done it? How had they all coped? It was easier to think about in theory, how strong they'd all been. But I'd been doing it for a week and I felt overwhelmed.

I looked around again, at Steve, up at the rumbling sky, down at myself. At my body and at my hands.

I was there. I was in the thick of it. I was changing to be something that could withstand being in the thick of it. They might have all looked whole on the outside but how shattered were they all just under the surface.

How long would it come for me before I got to be that way too?

"Are you ok?" Steve asked as my breathing got heavier, as I closed my eyes and felt all of the changes happening within me, shifting within me to accommodate this new world I was in. "What's wrong?"

"I don't want this," I whispered, begged some greater power. "I'll stay, I'll help, but I don't want this."

There was a resounding boom of thunder close by and the sky opened up to rain down on us. Steve flinched as the droplets hit him and he motioned for me to follow inside but I stood my ground.

"Come on, you're gonna catch a cold or something!" Steve shouted over the din of the shower.

"Just let me do this," I bit out. "Are you, like, the least fucking romantic person, you see a girl with her face turned up towards the sky in the rain and you're like let's go inside you're gonna catch a cold."

"I'm not trying to be romantic, you're trying to be stupid."

"I'm not going in," I insisted.

A war sparked within me.

I thought...hoped that this was a cleansing rain. That all of this new power would be shed if I only stayed out here long enough. The Lord Giveth, and the Lord Taketh away and all that. I could even feel it, feel the power drain from me the longer I stood there. It made me shiver, made my hair stand on end.

On the other hand, there was fear.

Thinking of it now, after the fact, I should have listened to that second part. I should have been afraid. Should have shut up and gone inside with Steve and just accepted my fate.

I should have read the obvious signs.

But I was dumb.

And at the end of the day I was still a nun, after all. I had faith that He would save me from this path I had started down. And because of that, I stood there basking in my beliefs and the Glory of God.

But then the Lord took a look at me, as pathetic as I was, and said, "go fuck yourself Mary Victoria."

The next thing I knew, I got struck by lightning.

Cool. Praise be to God. The fucking asshole.

"With great power comes great responsibility." - Stan Lee, Spider-man/Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962)

[youridolsidol]

Ok, let's talk about Demian.

Buckle up because this is going to be a long one.

While I was watching Taemin's Guilty MV, I noticed these "in between" spaces. I kept thinking, "that's happening in his head" but I couldn't really put my finger on why I felt that way, except that these were surreal spaces. After the director of Guilty confirmed that the MV was inspired solely on Demian, I started digging.

A quick google search brings you to a really telling summary of the novel:

Emil Sinclair is a young boy raised in a middle class home, amidst what is described as a Scheinwelt, a play on words meaning "world of light" as well as "world of illusion," so his entire existence can be summarised as a struggle between two worlds: the show world of illusion (related to the Hindu concept of maya) and the real world, the world of spiritual truth (see Plato's cave and dualism). Accompanied and prompted by his mysterious classmate and friend 'Max Demian', he detaches from and revolts against the superficial ideals of the world of appearances and eventually awakens into a realization of self. 

If you gasped when you read, Plato's cave, don't worry I did too. Taemin's song Idea was inspired by Plato's allegory of the cave. Not surprisingly, we see Taemin diving into these themes even more.

What struck me was the concept of struggling "between worlds." That's exactly what Teamin's doing.

One of the main themes of Demian is the idea of embracing our inner world, or our will. Embracing this world means to discard what we consider to be "moral," uninhibited by that inner critic that was crafted by those around us. We see this in a quick quote said by Demian himself to the main character, Sinclair:

"You knew all along that your sanctioned world was only half the world and you tried to suppress the second half the way the priests and teachers do. You won't succeed. No one succeeds in this once he has begun to think."

We see Taemin struggle between these two worlds, as if he has no control over which one he ends up in. He clings to material, to the real world at the beginning. Grasping on to the clothes of those around him, their ideas of morality.

Later, we see him struggle in the inner world of doors, opening up to his inner desires.

These flashes into the inner world start to bleed even to the real world, the world of forms.

We see him struggle with other's pulling him around, as if they are imbuing their ideas of morality onto him. We know this is in his inner world, coming forth into the real world, because in the next shot, he's alone.

He desperately wants to embrace his inner world, the way Sinclair wants to do so because of Demian's mentorship.

"Suddenly, a new image had risen up before me, a lofty and cherished image. And no need, no urge was as deep or as fervent within me as the craving to worship and admire."

He wants to embrace his creativity, his inner world, his desires and will. he wants to reform himself. Much like how Taemin himself talks about being the best him that he can be, embracing the things he refused to in the past like his androgyny, being himself creatively without worrying over trends and what he felt he "should" be. That ideal 20 year old Teamin was an illusion, and his inner desire to be the Taemin that he is inside has became the real world to him. That is because he embraced those parts of him. Ideas of morality, good and evil, given to him by others was thrown to the wayside in favor of his own ideas of good and evil. (Reminds me of Advice, but I don't know how much that influenced this cb.)

Taemin looks back into the past quite a few times, examining these memories of the real world in almost detachment from them.

He's doing the work to look back at these moments of morality and decide to let them go in favor of his own ideas, his own will. And he finally embraces that. The narration of Demian is done by adult Sinclair after the events in the book. Taemin is an adult looking back as well. But it is interesting to note that the story is told by the unreliable narrator. Even in Taemin's look into the past, the images are still surreal, warped by dancers and fragmented moments.

And here we see him in his inner world, embracing those parts of himself:

This is the exact same room with the bunk beds disassembled in his own mind. He deconstructs what he believes to be the truth and instead embraces his truth.

Let's talk about freedom, embracing your inner self. In the book, the sparrow hawk represents a desire to break free, to be independent. It shows up over the doorways of both Demian's and Sinclair's homes. A symbol of his desire to be free. So, it is no wonder that when he finally feels he has broken free, he adorns the feathered headdress.

It is interesting that the people around him seem to worship him. Sinclair studies Abraxas, the god that combines good and evil. Here, it is almost like by embracing all facets of himself, Taemin becomes Abraxas.

By this point, he is free to be independent. What that means for Taemin is uncertain, but it's interesting to see how that ties into the themes in Demian.

I also have another interpretation, looking at the 3/4th time signature, that is a bit shorter and is based on Lord of the Flies.

That concludes my Ted Talk LOL I really need to get back to work. I love hearing other's interpretations of this MV. It feels so open to many. This is Taemin at his best and reminds me why he is my ultimate bias.

[amethystina]

Hellooo, I have a question! it's not related to TDJ, I was just curious if you are from any fandom (a singer/band/group fandom). You don't need to answer if you do not want!

I guess that depends on how you define "being from a fandom"? I'm a fan of a lot of singers/bands/groups, but I don't engage with the fandoms. Well, aside from the occasional reblogs from MVs and such, I guess? Nor do I take part in or consume the usual fandom content. I don't even watch interviews unless I have a really good reason to xD

So, based on that, I don't think I am from any fandoms?

Which I know sounds weird to some, but it's what works best for me. I prefer to just focus on the music itself because I have very little interest in getting to know the performers as people. Which some might argue limits my understanding of the music — since there might be deep, personal reasons for it — but it's just how I feel the most comfortable. I prefer to keep a certain distance between me and singers/idols/actors/authors etc. because I, personally, don't feel a need to know what goes on in the lives of these very real people. I just like the stuff they make :)

The only fandoms I'm in are those related to fictional media like movies, dramas, books etc., because that feels safer for me. I can obsess about a fictional character like it's my job, but I feel no such desire when it comes to real people. That's not to say I think it's wrong or weird for other people to do so — knock yourself out! I hope you have a lovely time! :D It's just not something I enjoy.

(Tbh, I'm often told that I'm the weird one? Like, a lot of people have questioned why I don't like to know more about the talented people whose content I consume because that seems to be the norm. But I guess I'm the exception that proves the rule ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

But, as mentioned, I'm a fan of a lot of things! Especially music! I've got a pretty hefty K-pop album collection at this point and have around 30 GB of music on my computer. But, even then, my focus is on the actual media itself and I rarely venture outside of that.

... well, this was a rather disappointing answer, wasn't it? Sorry about that x'D

[the-owl-tree]

Not to bring up the Mapleshade discourse again but your takes are so refreshing to see

I swear people are incapable of having nuanced takes about her/her book. It's either "Maple did nothing wrong" or "Everything is Maple's fault."

Like yes Mapleshade made bad decisions and wasn't justified in killing people, but the death of her kits was not solely her fault.

Thank you!! I get the Mapleshade defense posts got annoying and yes the whole "she would be the guardian angel of all children despite abusing a child for a whole book" was annoying but man. i am not interested in pretending like appledusk is interesting and that i wasn't excited for mapleshade to fucking Get Him.

I think the discourse surrounding itself around "who was in the right vs. who was wrong" kind of distracts around the broader writing issues that MV has (not to say i haven't fallen into that trend but come ON we do not need to pretend oakstar was reasonable to exile three children because mapleshade lied to protect her three VERY ILLEGAL CHILDREN). What is the message of this novella? Sure, it's a character piece meant to tell me more about her...but what does it actually say? What is the message I'm supposed to glean from this?

@/feathermedics is the one who pointed this out and his tags helped me reframe MV in my mind as less of a backstory/morally gray tale or whatever and more of a cautionary tale. The actions of the individuals, specifically those breaking the code, are the ones given the most scrutiny; the system that encouraged the exile of three innocent children is never to be criticized.

[cursed-iris]

I've seen your Jack and Miss Acacia fanart (the one inspired in a 1923 paint), and now I'm interested on the extended lore of the 2005 album.

Thanks in advance, and have a nice day.

so sorry it took me so long to answer, but thank you so much for this ask! :DD

so, i answered a similar question a while back that also incorporated some of the book lore to make it make more sense, so you can find that post here.

but otherwise, i'm going to talk more about the actual album because i don't think i did the best job explaining it before. cut because it's kind of a long explanation and it does contain some book spoilers from the original post.

so basically, dionysos released the album "monsters in love" in 2005 about 4 years before mathias malzieu (lead singer and writer for the band) published the book in 2009, and 8 years before the movie was released (cerca. 2013 but the release dates were different internationally). this technically makes everything that came after the album, the book and the movie, a prequel.

so that's important because that means the lore in the album (and even to some extent the book and movie) is drastically different from the rest of the source material. however, the book is much closer to tying the narrative of the album together. "monsters in love" is pretty much the first time the character of jack or miss acacia appears.

the album begins with a track called "giant jack,"

this is jack several years after the events of the book take place, and he's like massive.

i don't think we ever discover how exactly he became a giant (it's mentioned at the end of the book), but he's returned to edinburgh and is terrorizing the town. the song isn't sung from jack's perspective, which is interesting because jack is basically a mathias malzieu self insert. but anyway, it's sung from either mathias' perspective or the "broken bird's" (that's another track in the album) perspective because there is a mention of the speaker having wings.

it's hard to decipher some dionysos lyrics because they're super metaphorical and i don't think they're supposed to make that much sense. but from what i read of the lyrics, giant jack strikes a deal to protect the speaker.

in the animated mv for another monsters in love song, "tes lacets sont des fées," we see jack again along with miss acacia. he's wandering the streets of edinburgh at night and sees her (and the broken bird, who at this time, i believe was also a mathias malzieu self-insert character) performing in an orchestra hall. and then... some other... weird stuff... happens... that i'm not going to fully get into. but you can find the music video (cw nudity) here.

so how does any of this tie in with the rest of jack and the cuckoo clock heart? the answer is, it really doesn't for the movie. in the movie, jack dies. he is dead. full stop. but as we know, the movie is based on the book which is based of the album, so the book ending where he doesn't die and returns after a coma actually segues into the beginning of the "monsters in love" album.

this is a direct quote from the last chapter: "As for our 'hero,' he grew taller and taller. But he never got over the loss of Miss Acacia. he went out every night, only at night, to roam the outskirts of the Extraordinarium, in the shadow of its fairground attractions. But the half-ghost that he had become never crossed its threshold. Then he retraced his own boyish steps all the way back to Edinburgh. The city was exactly as he remembered it; time seemed to have stood still there."

Anyway, he returns to his childhood home in the last chapter, only to be told by arthur (and i think anna and luna), that he never even needed the cuckoo clock heart for that long in the first place. it was supposed to be temporary. madélèine could've removed it at any time, but specifically chose not to so he wouldn't go off and leave her, which is pretty messed up actually (wtf madélèine?). my theory, if the book really is a true precursor to the album, as in everything that happens in the album is canon to the jatcch storyline, is that jack starts terrorizing edinburgh after hearing that news. because the clock heart ruined his life and he didn't even need it.

i hope that answered your question. 😭 thank you for the ask!

[tigreblvnc]

RANDOM FACTS MATCHUP EXCHANGE — @thecurrator

Your match is...

— Meguru Bachira

✦ Yes, what is Bachira doing here?

✦ He's here for the sake of the Sunshine x Grumpy trope, of course.

✦ Happy bee and jaded black cat.

✦ He doesn’t get sarcasm. He always falls for it when you tell a joke, and you know you can go really far with white lies; every time you start again, he still believes you.

✦ People say you're pretty, but Bachira says he thinks you're cool.

✦ "It’s funny, you manage to seem confident even when you’re not! How do you do that?"

✦ Listens attentively to your stories, sitting cross-legged, even if he's unable to sit still.

✦ "Are you good at poker? How do you do it? You must be great at bluffing? Do you think like Isagi and come up with multiple scenarios at the same time?"

✦ "I sometimes stare out the window like I’m in a sad MV, but really I’m just looking at the scenery/sky." Bachira is a pro at bursting your emo bubble with some out-of-nowhere comment or a random question that has nothing to do with what you were just talking about.

✦ Purple and yellow :)

✦ "I’ve been to so many extreme parks that flying foxes are boring to me now." >>>> Classic duo with the one who screams their head off and the one who doesn’t say a word during all the loopings.

✦ And it's even more visible in the wild picture taken at the end of the ride.

✦ Bachira buys them all, even the bad ones.

✦ "I don’t like bugs."

✦ "Yes… But you like bees, don’t you?"

✦ "I can’t design things because I don’t know when to stop/where to place things to make them look pretty." I headcanon Bachira as a guy who's good at art, though not necessarily visual arts. He has a good eye, and honestly, he dresses well? With his cute overalls and sweaters knitted by his mom (still headcanon). Without outright helping you, he opens your eyes to artistic possibilities and pushes you out of your comfort zone, which you desperately need.

✦ His stories are way more intriguing than the books you read that don’t even surprise you anymore. At least with Bachira, you get the audio, too.

✦ I imagine he’s the kind of guy who buys accessories to pimp out his phone case and gives people little trinkets to hang on their bags, to slip into the photo slot in their wallet, etc.

✦ A pen with his face printed all over it.

✦ He knows you love writing, so…

✦ "Think of me when you write your stories!"

✦ He thinks your cooking is healthy and balanced and really tries to adopt a good diet like you, especially for sports. But after a while, he gives up on his cooking attempts and sticks to canned pineapples. It’s quicker and cheaper.

✦ "I admire activities that require specific movements like playing instruments and ballet that I can’t do because my spatial awareness/motor skills are trash." I headcanon this in another matchup, but to me, Bachira's football style could almost be compared to breakdancing/hip-hop on the field, especially after his affiliation with FC Barcha. So let’s just say he’s kind of your poster child when it comes to movement and being able to pull off cool tricks.

✦ My little moon, my big sun.

A word about your match: I really like this pairing. You know what I like most about this new matchup format? It's the fact that I can assign a totally unexpected character to someone.

© TIGREBLVNC 2024 | INTERESTED IN A MATCHUP EXCHANGE? CHECK THIS.

[mayimkjs]

FOOL's MATE Update Post #4

Master Post　　Last Update

School Date: Summer, Term 8, Week 9

Honestly, not much has happened this month. I've just been busy with PT. On the bright side, I might finally get tested for POTS.

But anyways, This next month is going to be another strange month. I have finals, I'm trying to work on a joke cover of Double for my MV class and I'm going to Florida for an early 21st birthday present. I mainly wanna go to Florida for SPACE. Sadly, I'm probably going to miss the launch at Kennedy.

About the Double cover, I might post some WIP or BTS of it here. The reason why it's a joke cover is because I'm mainly using Meika Mikoto for it. Hime's going to be in there somewhere too. I bought their V5 and talk just for this lamo.

Milanote & Research

I've finally started to finish some things in Milanote that have been unfinished for months. My research is also significantly slowing down which is a good thing. I means that I've looked at almost everything. There's still a few small things here and there that I have to do, but I'm saving most of that for my early birthday vacation so I'm not board out of my mind on the plane.

Also, I decided to look into playing cards in tarot because a diamond shows up in Double. And I might have found something.

Logo

I've made a prototype logo! I made a post about looking for input a bit ago but I also wanna mention the logo here too.

Input Form　Input Post

Here's an older version of the logo.

Prototype Intro

This was for my Motion Graphics 3 class. This is my most recent export and you can tell there's things missing. The string needs to be replaced, I need to add the glass, I have to find a font to replace the one I was going to use since it doesn't work in Illustrator and the entire title sequence is missing. I might mess with some effects like the noise. The glitches need to be fixed as well. Also, that rectangle isn't suppose to be there. I know what it's from though. So it'll be easy to fix that. There's also some issues with the lighting.

Props & The Script Books

I finally found out why the keyframe goods have been delayed. The shipping date changed to late August, then because of typhoon season, it was delayed some more. Also, since I wanna include some props that aren't exactly MILGRAM related but related to the people who work on it, I found out I actually have like, 3-5 mangas/books that, in the anime adaptation of them, Hanae Natsuki voices a main character lamo. And since I'm not strictly sticking to MILGRAM props, I'm using this as an excuse to buy the CD of Transform.

Technically, I bought the Script Books for a prop and research. I bought them to add to the section about Mikoto and John's speech habits.

Other Shit

Finished the FOOL's MATE page on my site.

I'm also starting to plan the first promo video.

I'm finally going to finish going through all of the voice dramas next Friday since I have a 3 1/2 hour flight.

Changes

Added

T2 Summary clarification from Yamanaka

Playing cards in tarot

CMYK/HLS meanings

Birthstones

Edited

DID Info

Expanded

Foils

Links

Research Doc (Comments on like always)

Milanote

Reddit Post

Feedback Form

Commission Form

Volunteer Form

[chongmiz]

initially posted to main blog but i wanted to expand so

i think a good rule of thumb is artists don't need to disclose their medical history to "prove" their credentials. i understand how the fortnight MV and suicidal lyrics throughout ttpd can read as careless; i had some initial hesitation because i haven't stopped thinking of britney spears' memoir since i read it, and the lineage of women in her family being institutionalized against their will by and pumped full of lithium. but just because one blond pop star publicizes this doesn't mean every other should follow.

however, strong reactions to fortnight, in particular, must come from the discomfort of taylor's proud ownership of her songs as "about her life" (miss americana doc), but this wasn't even true of her discography at that point in time, before folklore; they've been about friends' lives, the kennedys, characters from books and film and tv, like she says about "death by a thousand cuts" and much of her older songs at NPR tiny desk. but taylor hasn't framed her music as narrated by characters since folklore and evermore, and she's never not appeared in a self-directed music video; i think she's only been a supporting role twice, in the ATW "film" and "i can see you."

i wonder if some more obvious buffer between her and the material might help its reception infinitesimally, like having an actor in the fortnight MV. then again, i'm reminded of pj harvey:

'Some critics have taken my writing so literally to the point that they’ll listen to 'Down by the Water' and believe I have actually given birth to a child and drowned her,' scoffed Harvey to Spin in 2005. It’s a curious trend: unlike her old pal Nick Cave, a man always left free to slip into the skins of murderers, sleazebags or demonic preachers because he’s playing characters, Harvey has often been shackled by folk desperate to bolt autobiographical meaning to her every song. 'It can be very frustrating, particularly when it seems almost preposterous that it could be autobiographical,' she told me in an interview for the Quietus in 2011, just before the release of Let England Shake. 'People don’t allow the metaphor, the imagery, all the things that you work with as a writer … standing completely outside, as the narrator of a story.' (The Guardian, 2015)

i don't bring in pj harvey for no reason. her late career has included incidental music for ivo van hove's west end productions, including all about eve starring gillian anderson and lily james. a few years prior, gillian anderson played blanche dubois in a streetcar named desire at st. ann's warehouse dir. benedict andrews. the ending of "hits different" (feeding into beginning of "fortnight") made me think of a streetcar named desire on first listen, which ends with blanche involuntarily committed after her brother-in-law assults her, her sister helpless to intervene. you might recognize the line "i have always depended on the kindness of strangers" that lana quotes somewhere on born to die, said by blanche to the nurses taking her away. i suppose early lana's midcentury nostalgia successfully separated lana from lizzy, and pj harvey did not start her career claming her lyrics as autobiography. unfortunately, taylor swift may never be allowed such estrangement because she doesn't seem to want it ("i hate it here"), even if her next directorial outing is something vastly more "period" than fortnight, even if she doesn't appear onscreen.

as much as people fantasize about her writing a musical one day, 1) "beautiful ghosts" was redundant to an already nonsense libretto and really just the ingenue version of "memory," so you're back to a ybwm madonna/whore binary, groundbreaking and 2) based on her music video treatments, i question her interest in writing in someone else's voice, as in a flesh-and-blood character with material context, not loosely-defined devices like betty and james

[viktoria-policorn]

My first You tube video, yes!!!

Based on Warriors book series by Erin Hunter.

Recently I been rereading the Prophecies begin arc, what a nostalgia. Tigerstar's death is one of the most powerful moments in the whole arc: great plot twist, strong emotions, creepy as hell and intense. Tigerstar is also one of my favorite Warriors characters. Tigerstar music track by Deepaw is so good, definitely my favorite Warriors music, this banger needs more recognition in fandom. I saw only one MV with this song and decided to make AMV to this myself by editing animations. And never saw Tigerstar dying 9 times in animations, so depicted it too.

[davidearle]

On Writing With AI

This post was written without AI, beyond maybe Google autocorrect.

Doing this stream of consciousness. Need to answer the question: Why do people want to write with AI, is that evil, and is it ever justified?

Start with the "why". Go back to my own experiences. Experience one:

I'm a published author of multiple works under CURSED PEN NAMES REDACTED, but the one thing I take credit for is The Assassin's Dilemma, a Warhammer Fantasy short story in the Death & Dishonour collection. 

I do not plagiarize and I have never used AI, but if you happen to read that story and you're familiar with the old Warhammer fiction you might notice that I was heavily aping William King's style. Not ripping passages out or anything, just trying to channel the cowardly viciousness of the Skaven he wrote so well over multiple Gotrek & Felix books. This is something that's generally considered accepted practice while you're learning - Stephen King calls it out in On Writing, to name one example.

Does this somehow make it acceptable to train an AI on the books of an author you like and use it for your own work? To my mind, no. In a legal sense, probably "fuck, no". Mimicking an author's style as a starting author is about gaining insights, like "Terry Pratchett doesn't spend a lot of time on character description and averages one joke per sentence". Having an AI play word scramble might provide some insights, but it's more likely to create non-actionable data analysis fodder like "Nathaniel Hawthorne frequently uses the word 'is'" (I have no idea if this is true).

Okay, author self has ruled out AI. Moving to experience two. Brace for tangent:

I'm currently building a top-down role playing video game based on Hansel & Gretel. (Everyone starts somewhere.) I am currently using RPG Maker MV. RPG Maker is a game engine where most of the features you need to build an RPG are baked in, including tile maps, character sprites, items, switches, rooms, enemies, combat mechanics, etc.

I originally started the game in GameMaker Studio. GameMaker has a lot of pre-built features for games, but they are non-specific, which means you need to build a lot of them yourself (see: everything I listed that RPG Maker has above). I got to the point where I had a game where a character could move between rooms using grid-based movement and have a second character follow them around, which is *pretty good* but I had a long way to go.

Because this Hansel & Gretel game is me proving a point to myself and not my dream project, I elected to use RPG Maker instead and cut out a lot of the engine work I'd have to do to get things going with GameMaker. I am very conscious that when want to make a different style of game, I am going to have to abandon RPG Maker for something else, but it provides the tools I need for now.

Which brings me back to the topic: RPG Maker is a tool to make games that ships with a bunch of pre-built assets for you to use. And you can use these assets and the tool as-is. But but BUT, the truth is that a game made with stock RPG Maker assets is going to be dismissed by most people because all those included tools and assets are pretty bland. The RPG Maker games that succeed are the ones that take the engine, replace all the stock assets, and bend the hell out of the defaults to create something unique, some new gaming experience.

So one might argue: what if I prompt an AI to generate a book, based on my own ideas and characters, and then edit the hell out of it until it's something unique, a new reading experience?

Hm.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Well. First, this doesn't solve the problem of AI being trained on content that the authors didn't consent to offer up for that purpose. That's one of the sticking points of the whole practice. But let's argue that someone creates an AI that's trained on public domain content *only*.

The next problem is that writers are lazy stumblebums. (Or: I am a lazy stumblebum, and I am generalizing my inferiority complex to an entire profession.) If you're already using AI to write the first draft of your novel, what exactly is stopping you from leaving in great chunks of purely AI-generated content? I mean, it's not impossible that the AI came up with a really great sentence you wish you'd thought of. Who would know, right? (Probably everyone.)

And that hints at the last problem, which is: writing is a learned, practiced skill. Using an AI to generate great swathes of text you revise does not teach you how to structure a story. It does not teach you how to write believable, sympathetic, hateable, hilarious characters. It does not teach you how to make people laugh, cry, shout, or just put the book down for a second and stare into space.

An inexperienced writer using an AI to write their book is going to create garbage at worst (which to be fair is true with or without the AI), but at best it's going to be work that's like an RPG Maker game made with just the default assets. It will lack evidence of craft.

An experienced writer using an AI to write their book... may write a good book. A great one? I don't know. I doubt it. But to my mind, any AI available now will just be a distracting addition to the writer's existing process.

I'm going to call Joanna Penn out a bit now just because she's the first author who tried to sell me on using AI in my writing through her mailing list. (I unsubscribed.)

Her basic process for writing a short story as described on her website was: 1. write a basic story, 2. use a tool to expand on sensory descriptions and flesh out events, 3. incorporate the text into her story after heavy editing, 4. run the story through an online editor software, 5. run the story through a human editor, 6. use an AI to generate a book cover and 7. brainstorm a title.

In line with my thoughts: 1 and 5 are obviously fine. 7 I don't really mind, it's like using a random word generator or a jar of word magnets for inspiration. (Disclaimer: I may use anagram generators for vampire names in some yet-to-be-published works.) And 4 seems reasonable given that it's suggestions on how to modify existing text, rather than writing it in full.

But 2 and 3 run smack into the problems I see with trying to edit an AI's text - it's not yours, and the temptation is to leave more and more of it in, without learning what's good about it and what isn't. And 6, the book cover, is the poster child for content-stealing AI.

I do get the temptation to delegate descriptive text to an AI. I'm shit at it myself. But it's a compromise. You can argue it's the same compromise a one-man-band game developer makes when they buy an asset pack or a sound library. Maybe that's a fair argument. But until AI can clean up its ethics issues, I don't think it's one that will win me over.

[xxhappy-chickenxx]

Fandom lads to get to know better ✨

tysm for the tag, @wretchedamaranth!!

3 ships you like:

VegasPete (Kinnporsche The Series): In a surprise to no one, these two have my whole body and soul. Just when I think their hold on me has passed, I see some fic/post/tweet/picture and I'm right back where I started.

Chen Yi/Ai Di (Kiseki: Dear to Me): This is a more recent obsession because I finally got around to watching the series and THEY'RE JUST SO GOOD I NEED MORE!!! I've been doing research here and there abt how to write Chinese names in fic since I don't want to fuck it up and once I get that down it's canon divergence time!!

Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian (MDZS/The Untamed): This is my longest-held ship (also shamelessly plugging my sideblog) and not to be dramatic but I will never get over them!!! I think they don't occupy as much 'active blorbo' space in my brain bc they had a more resolved ending, but if I'm thinking or talking about god-tier ships as a whole, they're always on my list.

First ship ever: Ever ever is hard because I feel like I've been shipping characters together since the beginning of time but I will say the first time I thought about characters interacting with each other outside of any 'canon' was Batman and Catwoman when I was like 12 😅

Last song you heard: Magician by Lexie Liu!! (Car crash and flashing/strobe warning for the mv!!) I'm so late to this train bc the song was released like a year ago but IT'S SO GOOD!!! The sound and story is absolutely captivating!

Favorite childhood book: My memory is horrible and I'm sure child-me could give you such a detailed answer because I was a huge reader! One of my favorite series was the American Girl Doll books, and I think Kit was my favorite.

Currently reading: Nothing beyond what's required for my grad program 😭 I'll get back into it eventually, and for now, I have fic!

Lately I've been obsessed with Not Lost, But Found and Tune of Discord by puckbaes, won't be pretty, won't be sweet by blue__jay, and It Was an Honest Loss by YourKnightOfRage!!

Currently watching: The original Star Trek! I know people ship Kirk and Spock and listen... I get it 👀 Might have to do some digging on AO3 pretty soon, but for now I'm enjoying the silly alien costumes and taking a shot every time Kirk takes his shirt off.

Currently consuming: Beef with scallions from my favorite Chinese restaurant 😋

Currently craving: Nothing right now, but I was craving allergen-friendly donuts yesterday and got them delivered 🤌 An expensive but satisfying decision!!

Tagging @thisautistic and @thisnightsrevels if you would like!! But no pressure 💗

[marimayscarlett]

Hello 👉👈 so I might have found a clip that I'd love you to comment on.... https://youtu.be/2p5zm-9NCh4?feature=shared

1. It is giving off the vibes that it would suit Richard and Christoph perfectly (I headcanon him as Aragorn, im not sorry)

2. Lotr brainrot

3. Unironically I've started low key falling for Elrond because of my initial delusional idea 🤡🤡🤡 also his cloak reminds me of one of Rzks cryptic posts with similar hood on...

3. Long haired Christoph as Aragorn, with his kind eyes im 🥺🥺🥺 bear with me as I come up with even more delusional takes 😊 much love to you, elf anon (I solemnly swear to continue with this AU, as long as you'd want to read it 💌)

Hello elf anon 🧝🏼‍♀️ You're like my personal guidance to explore the depth of the Lord of the Rings brainrot, and I honestly start a new hyperfixation since watching the movies again 👀 (I ordered the books which arrived yesterday and I instantly started with the first one 📖)

Oh dear, I cried real tears during this scene when I rewatched the movie earlier this year. Elrond is so sincere, so calmly-devastated (if this makes sense) and yet is so urgent in his quest to make it clear to Aragorn how important it is to gather more men for the mission. Maybe Richard could have it in him to be just as sincere and earnest about things which affect him this much - and yet he might not be as calm as Elrond here I guess 👀 Aragorn reminded me a bit of Schneider in the Sonne MV, just utterly worried and yet determined:

I found a gif of Elrond which excudes Richard-energy to me, maybe the hand movement, his head movement, how he apparently explains something - don't ask me, I don't even know (and I think this robe would look good on Richard):

So we have Richard as Elrond and Schneider as Aragorn in our little silly LotR brainrot:

@swampgiggles once mentioned Till as Tom Bombadil - an important character in the books, eternally connected to nature and the woods and a person over which the ring has no power. Which is quite fitting I think! Now we need some character ideas for the rest (we already discussed Flake as a hobbit here, but not completely sure on this one...) 👀

Have a nice day and happy brainrotting! 🧝🏼‍♀️💍