#Tacit Sign Studio

[hotstreak2k3]

The concept arts for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is absolutely incredible! They are published by Tacit Sign Studio.

Some include scenes that were significantly altered or has been completely removed.

[gebo4482]

Secret Level - Warhammer 40K by Tacit Sign Studio

[artstationable]

Tacit Sign Studio

天何言工作室／Tacit Sign Studio Beijing

artstation

More from «Artstation» here

[teamcloverleaf]

Emperor Stone in the style of the Sonic 3 concept art.

Stobotnik deserves to rule the world together with their robot son!! I also loved replicating the style and painting Stone in hanfu.

Original concept art from Tacit Sign Studio

[mangacomicphoenixblog]

The second batch of concept art for the film's third installment from Tacit Sign Studio.

I'd like to see the Worker rule the Earth with Metal Sonic.

[dailycharacteroption]

Firework Technician (Pathfinder 2nd Edition Archetype)

(art by Tacit Sign Studio on Artstation)

 BOOM! BAZZA BOOM!

When it comes to applied chemistry, is there any spectacle more wondrous than a fireworks display? Ever since humanity invented gunpowder, they’ve been mixing things into it to change the color, how it burns, and so on, and even arranging the paper tubes and materials so that they explode in certain, dazzling ways.

It would only make sense that this would carry over into fantasy gaming. Hell, I even did a fireworks-themed archetype for First Edition alchemist over on my Patreon!

Second Edition finally gave us an official pyrotechnic specialist though, in the form of today’s subject, the Firework Technician!

Hailing from Tian Xia or Vudra, where gunpowder has been used in fireworks for hundreds of years, these specialists might be wandering salesmen looking to sell their fiery wonders to those in need of a special celebration, particularly nobles needing custom displays, or common folk desiring dazzling trinkets… or they might be part of long lineages of pyrotechnists who have been perfecting the art for generations for their rulers or even just their home town and the festivals and celebrations they may be famous for.

Many are alchemists drawing upon that discipline to develop impressive wonders using nothing but chemistry, but others may be mages that add the power of magic for even more wild and amazing displays. Others may have developed their pyrotechnic skills on the side, either as a side job, to enhance their own work with fiery displays (such as fuse-timed distractions for a rogue, or long-distance signals for guards, scouts, and sentries, and the like), or simply to give them an extra tool in their arsenal.

 To start with, these pyrotechnists have a supply of reagents they mix each day, which they can use to make either basic fireworks or the special ones associated with this line of work. If they are also an alchemist, they will use whichever source offers the greater number of reagents, rather than both. At this most basic level, they can launch simple comets to create illumination, create dazzling flowers of fire in the air, or loud bangs that can snap others out of their reverie.

With a bit more training and work they can create a coughing dragon display, which either emits loud booms or streams of colored streaks, (or both if they add a bit more to the mix) which can drown out audio or visual effects respectively, effectively ending them as they simply cannot compare.

While a firework technician starts with only minimal supplies and mastery, a bit more training lets them moderately keep up with their training in other areas.

Consisting of multi-stage rockets and explosions of confetti, jumping jennies were originally meant for children, but they also prove quite useful against flying foes, potentially knocking them out of the air.

With a name like “Goblin Jubilee”, such a display must be fiery, deafeningly loud, and chaotic, and indeed they are. No matter the form they take, these displays go off in a large explosion that burns and shakes foes to their core, to say nothing of the potential blinding and deafening effects.

Named for their high-pitched shriek, a banshee’s cry is a firework that is guaranteed to draw attention, and more importantly, drown out the words of anyone trying to speak, making it the perfect tool for inhibiting or outright preventing spellcasting and the use of command words.

A fairly simple archetype that can add flavor to an alchemist or any other character, there is one problem weighing this archetype down: There are hardly any actual fireworks in Second Edition!! Yes, the archetype grants you an arsenal of abilities that don’t require any specific item, but it also gives you alchemical reagents and the ability to create daily fireworks with them similar to an alchemist, but there are barely any, heavily limiting what this archetype can do. Hopefully this will change when a Tian Xia or Vudra lorebook comes out, but until then, you’re stuck with sparklers, dwarven daisies, and certain snare items. That might turn you off of this archetype, but it still does have plenty to offer if you’re interested in abilities to disrupt and debilitate foes with light and sound.

 I know I say it a lot, but an archetype like this is a perfect example of why getting to describe your abilities is so important. Fireworks are all about the razzle-dazzle, the wonder and surprise that they invoke, and I know the Paizo staff agrees with me here because they put in an entire sidebar in this archetype talking about describing your displays. If you take this archetype, please take a moment to do your research on firework terminology so that you can better describe the wonders you unleash. And if you happen to also be a spellcasting character, think about how you might use magic to improve those displays, or even incorporate firework motifs into your fire, light, and sonic spells!

  Always the curious sort, Ipa was smitten with the pyrotechnics she saw while visiting the city of Bosha during the summer festival. So she immediately sought out the master crafter behind them, hounding him with so many questions that the old man told the young catfolk to either leave him alone or get busy carrying crates. And that is how she gained her apprenticeship as a pyrotechnic technician.

 It is said that fireworks gained popularity in Kazgaard after a foreign visitor turned his selection of pyrotechnics against an invading army of trolls. Now, there are many performers and warriors that stand by the devices as a way to strike fear into normally fearless foes. However, not even they can dissuade a mighty jotund troll when it is on the hunt.

 The centennial celebration of their home nation is next year, and the king commissions the party to travel across the sea and secure the service of a fireworks master from across the sea. However, upon arriving at their destination, they discover that the secrets of gunpowder are tightly guarded, and securing a willing pyrotechnist will be much harder than it seems.

[msvorderofoperations]

I also love how Steven Universe Future reckoned with everything that Steven has been subjected to. And not even just the physical trauma, nor the psychological scarring. Being raised by people whose experience is fundamentally outside the human experience has also given him a hugely skewed view of what is appropriate in interfacing with society. He saw that the marriage of Ruby and Sapphire was the ultimate expression of their love, and thought that love he felt should function in the same way. He did not account for the fact that they had been together (literally, for most of it) for thousands of years. When he then proposes to Connie, it fully unmoors both him and her. Connie because she sees it as a tacit denial of her agency and sign of disrespect. And Steven realizes that everything he thinks about romantic love might be wrong, and he might be inadvertently be repeating some of the same shit his mom did. And given that so much of what the first show was about fixing her fuckups, it completely triggers his PTSD. The idea that he has destroyed one of the few relationships he has outside of the Gems is a terrifying thought, both to him and to us as a viewer.

I fucking love this series and it makes me sad to see that so many people wrote it off, including the studio it was made for (seriously, Rebecca Sugar got shit on so hard by Cartoon Network). It's absolutely worth your time and has such incredible depth without disappearing up it's own ass.

sometimes i worry that *i'm* wrong and SU is bad/rushed/blah blah. then i remember whites fragile need to be perfect and ego defense of thinking she's fixing things. i remember how its perfectly mirrored by stevens need to fix others. how its both beautifully symbolic in CYM an made more explicit and heart-rending in future.

yeah that shit rules. white being reformed is great. its the ultimate rebuttal to the ideology that only good/useful/perfect people deserve to live- which is exactly the standard white held herself and everyone else to. it mirrors stevens arc of selfless heroism. it mirrors the toxic, insecure selflessness thats plagued everyone from pearl to jasper to rose about what it means to "deserve" to live it ties into "love like you" of how learning self-love is intertwined with loving others. it ties into how steven can't let go of his hero role until he's confronted by *literally* having his own mind in white's body, hating the idea of being like her yet ironically reacting exactly how she would - "this is someone bad for society, they should be shattered, this is what's best for everyone." trying to hurt her only hurting him. trying to help her helping all of gemkind - from the corrupted gems to dismantling a system that was held up by those exact ideals.

yeah no SU is fantastic. i'm so sad that its reputation is "oh well it wasn't that good, but it had some lgbt+ rep :)" which is just about the most condescending crap ever. i would gladly flip it. i think most cartoons that have come after SU haven't been that interesting, they've just been mostly generic stories with some lgbt+ rep.

[a170e-infobox]

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 movie concept arts thread.

Sonic Movie 3 的電影概念藝術畫, 由 Tacit Sign Studio 出版. 有些被大幅改動、或者完全刪除的場景 ──

[thecollectibles]

Monkey King 2 & 3 concept art by Tacit Sign Studio

[theinkscript]

ACT I: Something Forgotten, Something Remembered

[Dialogue between man and girl] 

“Sometimes, it feels like I’ve lived so long; like I’ve lived forever, you know? And forever…? Well that’s too long for anyone.”

His words carried the weight of 100 years.

She paused. Then, tentatively “…Why?”

"It’s not the kind of riddle you want to solve.” His voice sailed across the night sky, lost and adrift.

“But” she said “You can’t look away forever. You have to take a stance. A time comes when silence is betrayal.”

He shook his head.

“I’ve betrayed too many to dare dream of redemption. Anyhow, the dead cannot forgive.”

She waited for him to meet her gaze. Her face was sombre, but her eyes carried the conviction of youth, of one who had not lost herself and cannot imagine ever letting go of something so precious.

Her confidence startled him. Suddenly, a feeling fluttered deep within him. It reminded him of something... or someone... or some place... from a long time gone. With an eagerness that has visited him less and less with each passing year, he tried to catch the feeling. But it danced just out of reach; and as quick as it came, it left.

Hardness replaced the haunted look in his eyes as he stared at the girl fully for the first time.

Unperturbed, she continued: “I wasn't talking about the dead. In your silence, the one you truly betrayed, is yourself”. She said this plainly with neither compassion nor blame.

He flinched as if she had driven a white-hot blade into his heart. He tore his eyes away from her face as fear rippled through his body and turned his feet to stone. His veins filled with lead. “Ahhh” he gasped. 

His soft howl echoed plaintively, mournfully, and so alone over the gently rolling shores. 

* * *

“100 years of knowing of empires falling, 100 years of witnessing vengeance as bottomless as the deepest seas, 100 years of hearing the cries of those banished to the ends of the earth” he thought.

“But also, 100 years of song, 100 years of the quiet bravery of ordinary people, 100 years of this elaborate dance with the universe” she responded.

He roused at the sound of her voice. He hadn’t realized he had spoken aloud, or that she was still there. Habits are hard to break; and silence and solitude were the hardest of all.

“Let me show you” the girl offered him her hand.

The man smiled. His cheeks trembled and his muscles strained against his skin from the strangeness of the gesture.

“Thank you” he said “but this is a journey I must make on my own”. He stood up and walked into the heart of the forest.

She watched him recede into the dense jungle foliage until his hunched back vanished beneath a large palm frond. “I wonder” she whispered “had he forgotten to remember or remembered to forget?”

[END]

[gebo4482]

Love, Death + Robots - Bad Travelling by Tacit Sign Studio #1

[rheashann-blog]

Tacit Sign Studio

[ohblackdiamond]

“you win again” fic tidbit (ace/paul, 1988) (pg-13)

I mentioned that this story was in the works awhile back. It’s about 40 percent there, I’d say. I stuck it under a cut because it’s a bit long. There’s a very obvious gap between the second and third parts that needs cleaning up, but the gist is there.

teaser: The truth is, his own distaste for the era makes it obvious he’s not a part of it. Paul can’t keep up with what’s in now, and that’s the surest sign he’s out. Thirty-six is too close to forty. Too old to play the game. He’s square. He’s fucking square.

“you win again”

by Ruriruri

No one knows the man he may become when he loses his self-respect. —Camille

There’s nothing to recommend the Cat Club. The big names don’t come here, just the has-beens. The security’s perfunctory. The parties laughable. But Paul comes anyway. Frequently. All the Cat Club asks out of him is a shave and a bit of halfassed charm, and all he gets in return is a drink and maybe a lay and the vaguest passing memory of the way things used to be.

Studio 54, the Ice Palace, all the old haunts are carcasses. Paul’s heard that the Limelight’s in now, their club owner some one-eyed, painfully straight Canadian, which is a sure sign the scene’s got to be dead in the water. Kids ten, fifteen years younger than him run the promotions. The shit that he remembers, aquariums underfoot at the discotheques, coke handed out at the door, orgies downstairs, all that’s gone. The big clubs get their pull from day-glo bright mascot characters and raunchy freakshows, pure excess that makes for a lousy bedfellow with AIDS and designer drugs. He doesn’t understand the appeal. He gets cynicism; he gets hedonism. But the nihilism he finds utterly repulsive.

The truth is, his own distaste for the era makes it obvious he’s not a part of it. Paul can’t keep up with what’s in now, and that’s the surest sign he’s out. Thirty-six is too close to forty. Too old to play the game. He’s square. He’s fucking square.

The lines on his face aren’t too bad. His cheekbones are maybe more prominent than they need to be. Paul’s watched Gene’s weight fluctuate over the years and hated the way it scared the hell out of him. They’d sworn to each other way back that they’d diet off at least twenty pounds apiece before they’d dare get a real band together. Paul’d kept that weight off, and more, but to Gene, it’s just become another mostly tossed aside tenet. The way he looks doesn’t matter to him. Maybe it shouldn’t anymore. He’s had Cher and Diana Ross and he has Shannon Tweed now. Great girls, all of them, better than the vapidly beautiful women Paul’s tried to make a go of it with. If Gene can attract all of them without giving a shit about his weight or his looks, maybe Paul ought not to care so much.

Except, as always, Gene’s looks just aren’t the appeal. Gene’s being in a band isn’t even exactly the appeal, no; Gene would probably still be stacking away entire albums of Polaroids if he were a senator or a school superintendent. Gene’s appeal is Gene. The total package. Confidence glimmering like grease on a burger.

Paul’s no total package of anything. Some assembly required. Batteries not included. His looks get him into beds, sometimes, and his personality gets him right back out of them before too long. Twenty-one years with Hilsen and there’s still nothing he can do about the latter, but he can at least try to preserve the former.

But what really bothers him about his mirror’s reflection isn’t the age imprinting itself on his face, or the three or four grays he plucks every month, or even the way his hair’s gradually gotten thinner, the curls more like frayed wires, brittle from years of dye and bleach and teasing. It’s the look in his eyes. Sometimes he catches a glimpse of something wholly desperate in them. And it’s not just in scattered, low moments on tour or in the privacy of his own bathroom. He’s caught that look playing back tapes of himself guest-VJing and interviewing on MTV. It’s the look of somebody—somebody scraping for relevance.

He’s ashamed of that. Ashamed because that look got in his eyes so fast, ashamed because he wasn’t able to savor those scant moments of being on top. He remembers thinking ten years ago, so cocky and self-assured, that the Stones were getting sloppy and long in the tooth, that maybe they needed to bow out before they got to be a bigger embarrassment onstage. They’d come out with Some Girls later that year, so what the hell did he know. What the hell did he know about anything.

There’s legends, real legends. Real greatness. There’s rockstars and then there’s rock gods. Chuck Berry. Muddy Waters. The Beatles, the Stones, fuck, even the Beach Boys with their obnoxious California sound created something eternal. KISS hasn’t. KISS won’t. KISS peaked at lunchboxes and pinball machines, and KISS descended—well, KISS is still descending. It’s just a matter of time before Gene lets the whole enterprise fold like a lawn chair.

Too close to forty, Paul takes a seat at an empty table and orders a Pepsi, and he tries to look for a girl the way a security guard might look for a shoplifter. His vantage point isn’t great. The crowd isn’t great. But maybe there’s someone he could waste his time with, someone that would humor him for an evening.

He hasn’t had that in longer than he wants to admit.

Oh, he’s with people. He’s with Samantha, but the age gap depresses the hell out of him. There’s always that tacit understanding between entertainers, anyhow, the knowledge that they’re both going to fool around on each other that goes almost unmentioned. Sometimes he wants to make a clean break of it, start something sincere, whether with her or some other girl, stripped away from the publicity rags, but then his own lonesomeness gets the better of him. Like right now. It’s just not enough to be wanted by one girl when he used to be wanted by thousands. It’s not enough to fill two-thirds of an auditorium when he’d once played Madison Square Garden.

It’s just empty.

He sees a tall, pretty blonde before too long, by herself and practically poured into a sparkling silver dress, hair wildly permed. He’s about to make a move towards her when he hears a sound that stops him dead in his tracks. It’s not so much a laugh as a cackle. He hasn’t heard it in two years at least, but he’d recognize it on his deathbed.

It’s Ace Frehley. Ace Frehley, here at the Cat Club.

--

Paul’s never known Ace to go anywhere unaccompanied. Now’s no exception. Standing with him is some long-haired guy that Paul doesn’t recognize from the rock scene. Not that that means much, these days. Ace’s arm is looped behind the guy’s shoulders, though the guy doesn’t seem too comfortable with it. Paul purses his lips, trying to gauge their relationship from fifteen feet away, but it doesn’t end up mattering. Ace spots him after not even five seconds, and stumbles to him, with the guy in tow.

“Paul! How are you, man?”

“Ace,” he says, standing up on automatic, reaching for Ace’s free hand. Ace’s palm is damp in his.

“Oh, oh, lemme introduce you, Paulie, this is--” and Ace untangles his other arm from the guy, “this is Gordon. Gordon, y’know who this is.”

“Paul Stanley,” Paul says anyway, offering his hand again. Gordon takes it with all the cursory indifference of being introduced to a fourth cousin at a funeral.

“Gordon plays keyboard,” Ace says. “He’s real good.”

“Cool.” Paul can feel his mouth twist a bit. It’s petty to already be bristling a bit, only a few sentences in, but he can’t seem to stop himself. He’s so used to faking being cordial that the words still come out warmly enough to his own ear. “C’mon, have a seat. Plenty of room.”

--

“He’s using you.”

“I know.”

“Don’t you care?”

Ace shrugs.

“I’m running low on friends, Paul.” A quick quirk to his mouth. “Maybe you are, too.”

“I only ever had the one.”

“Bullshit. You still got at least three, if you want them.”

--

“I’ve got a place in California. This is just a rental,” Paul lies. He owns this shitty apartment outright. “My parents are getting older, y’know, it’s good to have somewhere close by. And Ericka--”

“She’s gotta be in high school now.”

“She’s graduating in May.”

“Shit, man.” Ace shakes his head. “Monique’s gonna be eight this year.”

“I’ll send her something.”

Ace waves his hand absently.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“C’mon, let me--”

“You ain’t sent her anything in six years. Don’t start now.” Ace pauses, glancing at Paul in a flickering, fleeting way, and then he shakes his head. “Sorry, man, I didn’t mean it bad.”

Paul doesn’t say anything else for awhile, just crosses over to the kitchenette and opens the refrigerator. He takes out two Diet Cokes, handing one over to Ace, who looks at it before handing it back.

“’S fine. I’m not thirsty.”

“I don’t have any alcohol, Ace.”

“I don’t really want it.”

“You don’t?”

Ace shakes his head.

“What do you want?”

“Dinner and a movie, Paulie.” Ace’s mouth quirks up. “Dinner, we’ll have some of your fucking Lucky Charms; movie, we’ll put on an porno.”

“Ace--”

“What’ve you got, anyway?” And he’s scurrying to the T.V. set. Beneath it is his tape player and a few stacks of movies still in their packaging. His workout tapes. And there--

[clairebeauchampfan]

What if Jane Austen was writing Outlander Fanfic today?

I wonder what Jane Austen would have made of the Outlander shenanigans this last year. Here is an excerpt from Pride and Prejudice, the 2018 RPF version, in which Caitriona Bennet, star of Outlander   is apparently engaged  to Tony Bingley rather everyone’s favourite TV star, Sam Darcy, as shippers, indeed the whole of Meryton,  had expected.  

One morning, about a month after Caitriona's engagement with Tony had been formed, as he and the females of the Outlander cast were sitting together over coffee in the craft-service canteen, congratulating him on his good fortune in winning the hand of Caitiona, their attention was suddenly drawn to the window, by the sound of a motor-vehicle; and they perceived a car driving up the road leading to the Meryton studios. It was the wrong morning for visitors from Sony, and besides, the equipage did not answer to that of any of their bosses. It was too early for the postman and neither the car, nor the livery of the chauffeur who drove it, were familiar to them. As it was certain, however, that somebody was coming, Caitriona  instantly prevailed on Laura to help her fiance  avoid perhaps meeting a member of the public, so putting on his dark-glasses, Tony walked away with her into the back lot. They both set off, and the conjectures of the remaining three continued, though with little satisfaction, till the door was thrown open and their visitor entered. It was Lady Catherine de Burgh, Queen of the Extreme Shippers.

They were of course all intending to be surprised; but their astonishment was beyond their expectation; and on the part of Mrs Maril Bennet and Miss Sophie Bennet, though she was perfectly unknown to them, even inferior to what Caitriona felt.

Lady Catherine entered the room with an air more than usually ungracious, made no other reply to Caitriona's salutation than a slight inclination of the head, and sat down without saying a word. Caitriona had mentioned her name to her producer on her ladyship's entrance, though no request of introduction had been made.

Mrs Bennet, all amazement, though flattered by having a guest of such high importance in the Outlander fandom, received her with the utmost politeness. After sitting for a moment in silence, Lady Catherine said very stiffly to Caitriona,

“I hope you are well, Miss Bennet. That lady, I suppose, is your producer.”

Caitriona replied very concisely that she was.

“And that I suppose is one of your co-stars.”

“Yes, madam,” said Mrs Bennet, delighted to speak to Lady Catherine. “She is Miss Sophie Bennet, my youngest star but one. My biggest star, Caitriona Bennet, is lately engaged, and my other leading lady Miss Laura Bennet is somewhere about the grounds, walking with a young man who, I believe, will soon become a part of the Bennet family.”

“You have a very small studio here,” returned Lady Catherine after a short silence.

“It is nothing in comparison of Hollywood, my lady, I dare say; but I assure you it is much larger than Pinewood”

“This must be a most inconvenient canteen for the evening, in summer; the windows are full west.”

Mrs. Bennet assured her that they never sat there after dinner, and then added:

“May I take the liberty of asking your ladyship whether you enjoyed the last season of Outlander?”

“No, not at all. I binge watched it  again on my i-player the night before last. You ruined the photograph scene. The wigs were terrible, and we all hated the character of Geneva.And Frank. I could have done it much better, myself.  Had I ever learned to direct. I would have been a true proficient. ”

Caitriona now expected that Lady Catherine would produce a photograph of her and Sam together,   for her to sign, as it seemed the only probable motive for her calling. But no incriminating photos, or even an album of receipts appeared, and she was completely puzzled.

Mrs Bennet, with great civility, begged her ladyship to take some refreshment; but Lady Catherine very resolutely, and not very politely, declined eating anything; and then, rising up, said to Caitriona,

“Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of the studios. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you will favour me with your company.”

“Go, my dear,” cried her producer, “and show her ladyship about the different walks. I think she will be pleased with the sets for Season 4.”

Caitriona obeyed, and running into dressing- room for her clutch-bag, attended her noble guest downstairs. As they passed through the hall, Lady Catherine opened the doors into the kitchen of Fraser’s Ridge and the drawing-room of Lallybroch, and pronouncing them, after a short survey, to be decent looking sets, walked on.

Her car remained at the door, and Caitriona saw that two other well known  Shippers were waiting in it. They proceeded in silence along the gravel walk that led to the copse; Caitriona was determined to make no effort for conversation with a woman who was now more than usually insolent and disagreeable.

“How could I ever think she once fanned me?” said she, as she looked in her face.

As soon as they entered the copse, Lady Catherine began in the following manner:—

“You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand the reason of my journey hither. Your own heart, your own conscience, must tell you why I come.”

Caitriona looked with unaffected astonishment.

“Indeed, you are mistaken, Madam. I have not been at all able to account for the honour of seeing you here.”

“Miss Bennet,” replied her ladyship, in an angry tone, “you ought to know, that I am not to be trifled with. But however insincere you may choose to be, you shall not find me so. My character has ever been celebrated for its sincerity and frankness, and in a cause of such moment as this, I shall certainly not depart from it. A report of a most alarming nature reached me two days ago. I was told that not only was that troll, Miss Mackenzie, on the point of being most advantageously married to some British TV star, but that you,   Miss Caitriona Bennet, would, in all likelihood, be soon afterwards united to Mr Anthony Bingley. Though I know it must be a scandalous falsehood, though I would not injure Sam so much as to suppose the truth of it possible, I instantly resolved on setting off for this place, that I might make my sentiments known to you.”

“If you believed it impossible to be true,” said Caitriona, colouring with astonishment and disdain, “I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far. What could your ladyship propose by it?”

“At once to insist upon having such a report universally contradicted.”

“Your coming to Meryton Studios, to see me and my co-stars and producer,” said Caitriona coolly, “will be rather a confirmation of it; if, indeed, such a report is in existence.”

“If! Do you then pretend to be ignorant of it? Has it not been industriously circulated by yourselves on the internet? Do you not know that such a report is spread abroad by that Australian journalist?”

“I never intended that it was.”

“And can you likewise declare, that there is no foundation for it?”

“I do not pretend to possess equal frankness with your ladyship. You may ask questions which I shall not choose to answer.”

“This is not to be borne. Miss Bennet, I insist on being satisfied. Has he, has Tony Bingley, made you an offer of marriage?”

“Your ladyship has declared it to be impossible.”

“It ought to be so; it must be so, while you retain the use of your reason. But his arts and allurements may, in a moment of infatuation, have made you forget what you owe to yourself, to me and to all the Extreme Shippers. He may have drawn you in.”

“If he has, I shall be the last person to confess it.”

“Miss Bennet, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such language as this. I am almost Sam’s greatest fan in the world, and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns.”

“But you are not entitled to know mine; nor will such behaviour as this, ever induce me to be explicit.”

“Let me be rightly understood. This match, to which you have the presumption to aspire, can never take place. No, never. I know Mr. Darcy is so married already  to you. Now what have you to say?”

“Only this; that if that is so, you can have no reason to suppose Tony will have made an offer to me.”

Lady Catherine hesitated for a moment, and then replied:

“The ‘marriage’ between you is of a peculiar kind. From your screen test, you have been intended for each other. It was the favourite wish of mine, as well as of all my fellow Shippers. Whilst you were still shooting Season 1, we planned the union: and now, at the moment when the wishes of all of us would be accomplished in your marriage, to be prevented by a young man of inferior finances, of no importance in the world, and wholly un-allied to Outlander! Do you pay no regard to the wishes of Sam’s fans, to his tacit engagement with you, Miss Bennet? Are you lost to every feeling of propriety and delicacy? Have you not heard me say that almost from the first day, from the moment of your first audition, you were destined for Sam?”

“Yes, and I had heard it before. But what is that to me? If there is no other objection to my marrying Tony, I shall certainly not be kept from it by knowing that you and all the Extreme Shippers wished Sam to marry me. You all did as much as you could in planning the marriage. Its completion depended on others. If Mr. Darcy is neither by honour nor inclination confined to me, why is not he to make another choice? And if I am not that choice, why may not I reject him?”

“Because honour, decorum, prudence, nay, interest, forbid it. Yes, Miss Bennet, interest; for do not expect to be noticed by his fans, if you wilfully act against the inclinations of all. You will be censured, slighted, and despised, by everyone connected with the Outlander fandom. Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never even be mentioned by any of us.”

“These are heavy misfortunes,” replied Caitriona. “But the wife of Mr. Bingley must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily attached to her situation, that she could, upon the whole, have no cause to repine.”

“Obstinate, headstrong girl! I am ashamed of you! Is this your gratitude for our attentions to you these last four years? Is nothing due to us on that score? Let us sit down. You are to understand, Miss Bennet, that I came here with the determined resolution of carrying my purpose; nor will I be dissuaded from it. I have not been used to submit to any person's whims. I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment.”

“That will make your ladyship's situation at present more pitiable; but it will have no effect on me.”

“I will not be interrupted. Hear me in silence. You and Sam Darcy are formed for each other. He is very good looking, physically fit, has very large feet, and is the heart throb of hundreds of thousands of adoring women. You are a handsome woman.  Your fortune on both sides is now splendid. You are destined for each other by the voice of every member of your respective fandoms; and what is to divide you? The upstart pretensions of a young man without family, connections, or fortune. Is this to be endured! But it must not, shall not be. If you were sensible of your own good, you would not wish to quit the sphere in which you now find yourself.”

“In marrying Tony Bingley, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a wealthy musical impresario and business man of independent means; I am a TV star; so far we are equal.”

“True. You are a TV star. But who is Tony Bingley? What does he actually do for a living? Do not imagine me ignorant of his condition. I have looked up hios company accounts.”

“Whatever his career prospects may be,” said Caitriona, “if I do not object to them, they can be nothing to you.”

“Tell me once for all, are you engaged to him?”

Though Caitriona would not, for the mere purpose of obliging Lady Catherine, have answered this question, she could not but say, after a moment's deliberation:

“I will neither confirm nor deny the story that appeared on twitter and in People Magazine’s exclusive.”

Lady Catherine seemed happy that Miss Bennet could not bring herself to mention Tony’s name.

And will you promise me, never to enter into such an engagement?”

“I will make no promise of the kind.”

“Miss Bennet I am shocked and astonished. I expected to find a more reasonable young woman. But do not deceive yourself into a belief that I will ever recede. I shall not go away till you have given me the assurance I require.”

“And I certainly never shall give it. I am not to be intimidated into anything so wholly unreasonable. Your ladyship wants me to marry Sam Darcy; but would my giving you the wished-for promise make our marriage at all more probable? Supposing him to be attached to me, would my refusing to accept his hand make him wish to bestow it, for example, on Miss Mackenzie? Allow me to say, Lady Catherine, that the arguments with which you have supported this extraordinary application have been as frivolous as the application was ill-judged. You have widely mistaken my character, if you think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these. How far Mr Darcy  might approve of your interference in his affairs, I cannot tell; but you have certainly no right to concern yourself in mine. I must beg, therefore, to be importuned no farther on the subject.”

“Not so hasty, if you please. I have by no means done. To all the objections I have already urged, I have still another to add. I am no stranger to the particulars of your engagement announcement. I know it all; that the young man's proposal was a patched-up business, at the expense of your global fandom. And is such a man to be married to you? Is such a man to be your husband? Heaven and earth!—of what are you thinking? Are the shades of Lallybroch to be thus polluted?”

“You can now have nothing further to say,” Caitriona resentfully answered. “You have insulted me in every possible method. I must beg to return to the studios.”

And she rose as she spoke. Lady Catherine rose also, and they turned back. Her ladyship was highly incensed.

“You have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of Sam Darcy! Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that Tony’s connection with you must disgrace Sam in the eyes of everybody?”

“Lady Catherine, I have nothing further to say. You know my sentiments.”

“You are then resolved to have him?”

“I have said no such thing. I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.”

“It is well. You refuse, then, to oblige me. You refuse to obey the claims of duty, honour, and gratitude. You are determined to lower Sam in the opinion of all his fans, and make him the contempt of the world.”

“Neither duty, nor honour, nor gratitude,” replied Caitriona, “have any possible claim on me, in the present instance. No principle of either would be violated by my marriage with Mr. Tony Bingley. And with regard to the resentment of the Extreme Shippers, or the indignation of the world, if the former were excited by his marrying me, it would not give me one moment's concern—and the world in general would have too much sense to join in the scorn.”

“And this is your real opinion! This is your final resolve! Very well. I shall now know how to act. Do not imagine, Miss Bennet, that your ambition will ever be gratified. I came to try you. I hoped to find you reasonable; but, depend upon it, I will carry my point.”

In this manner Lady Catherine talked on, till they were at the door of her car, when, turning hastily round, she added, “I take no leave of you, Miss Bennet. I send no compliments to your Producer. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased.”

Caitriona  made no answer; and without attempting to persuade her ladyship to return into the house, walked quietly into it herself. She heard the carriage drive away as she proceeded up stairs. Maril impatiently met her at the door of her dressing-room, to ask why Lady Catherine would not come in again and rest herself.

“She did not choose it,” said her leading lady, “she would go.”

“She is a very fine-looking woman! and her calling here was prodigiously civil! for she only came, I suppose, to tell us how much she loves Outlander and fans all the cast. She is on her road somewhere, I dare say, and so, passing through Meryton, thought she might as well call on you. I suppose she had nothing particular to say to you, Caitriona?”

Caitriona  was forced to give into a little falsehood here; for to acknowledge the substance of their conversation was impossible.

#JaneAusten Outlander Pride and Prejudice RPF

[exeggcute]

I'm gonna be honest, if you're referencing the same incident I'm thinking of then that was 100% an example of the kind of behavior I was referencing in this post. my understanding was that some marketing/content writer on tumblr staff (not even a support agent! marketers don't do anything remotely close to moderation!) was a harry potter fan, which people immediately took to mean that the staffer was a violent transphobe and they started harrassing them accordingly.

which, like, I won't equivocate here. jk rowling is possibly the most famous transphobe of our time and harry potter really needs to die because of it. I think the world would be noticeably better if the biggest TERF on earth suddenly stopped getting money and attention and melted into a screaming hapless puddle of bioessentialist goo. this is an undeniable fact.

unfortunately, harry potter is still one of the biggest media franchises on earth and even though the terf-in-chief is pretty oustspoken about both her shitty beliefs it genuinely does not seem like your average normie harry potter fan even knows about her rampant transphobia, and other people probably know but just don't care (and don't get me wrong, that's still pretty bad, but there's a sizeable gap between "spineless cis person who's willing to look the other way" and "trans-exclusive radical feminist"), and still other people are convinced that they can both condemn her transphobia and also continue to enjoy her work (which I think is a morally inconsistent position to take but these people are probably not defending janice raymond in their spare time). I was literally at home depot yesterday and they were selling harry potter-themed halloween decorations.

harry potter has, for better or worse, become a mainstay of american pop culture, which has some pretty dismal implications as far as our collective willingness to let bigots off the hook but also means that you can't confidently single out any random tourist at universal studios and be like "you're only here because you hate trans people." so I guess I technically can't prove that that staffer isn't a terf… but with literally no evidence to suggest as much (other than like, some fanart of ron weasley?) that is kind of an insanely serious accusation to levy at someone, even if it's followed up with "but don't harass them about it or whatever."

at a minimum I do think it was in reasonably bad taste to have an outspoken harry potter fan doing marketing-y outreach on tumblr's behalf (and even then, my guess is that this probably just did not occur to anyone on their staff. cishet corporate people who aren't on twitter almost universally love harry potter just like they love the office and low-res full house reaction gifs), but what we saw with that whole nightmare was people immediately accusing that staffer of being a violent transphobe, and then started harassing them about it, and then when tumblr staff had to step in and take action against people (because you cannot just harass a member of a website's staff without consequences!) people took this as some kind of tacit sign that the accusations were correct and that Tumblr As An Entity was somehow enabling terfism and not as a sign that their own behavior was completely out of line.

in general I would not hesitate to describe tumblr as a website that both attracts and cultivates an extremely emotionally immature userbase (it is absolutely not better than twitter in this regard lol) but people's attitude about the site itself and feature requests/updates, specifically this unchecked tendency to take out their frustration on random employees, is like off-the-wall entitled nutso shit. it really should not surprise me at this point but every time I see it I'm like legit shocked that people feel emboldened to behave like that just because there's a level of digital abstraction between them and the employee they're blowing up on.

this website is not a public commons, this website is not some natural property of the universe, this website is a privately-held company. it's run like a company. it's a company that offers a service that most people use without paying a cent (especially if you're using an ad blocker, which means you're not even generating ad revenue). like most social media sites, tumblr does primarily exist to turn a profit—and understanding that profit motive genuinely goes a long way towards understanding why certain things shake out the way they do in the land of web development—but I feel like tumblr is unique among social media platforms in that it's not actively hostile to its users and isn't headed by a billionaire manchild egomaniac.

the internet in general is not an ethereal magic box where your complaints go in and cool new features come out. I feel compelled to once again return to my rant about how the internet is built on nearly-invisible labor (much of that being unpaid or underpaid labor), and while tumblr falls into the category of paid labor, it still relies on real human people who have to physically make and maintain and deliver the product you use every day.

there is no coherent way to, to use a common example of something tumblr users do understand about digital labor, push back against crunch in the game dev industry and advocate for better working conditions for the workers whose games you're buying and then turn around and verbally harass random IC-level employees at a social media site that you use every day for free. this is totally fucking deranged behavior. you should know better than to yell at a call center rep about your insurance premium going up and you should know better than to yell at a random employee because you don't like a policy that their boss's boss's boss implemented. please demonstrate a shred of understanding for your fellow man and act like an adult.

and yeah, there's always room for improvement. I think tumblr's capacity for genuine improvement, especially in recent years, is another thing that makes it unique. the pitfalls that tumblr does suffer from are more or less universal pitfalls suffered by every other social media site (e.g., content moderation is an endless, labor-intensive game of whack-a-mole played by underfunded and overworked support agents).

personally I'm just grateful to have been using a website like this for so long without ever being compelled to subscribe to a paid service, and with a core experience that's remained unchanged for over a decade. this is one of the last remaining places online where you aren't bombarded by shitty reels and trending topics and mandatory "best posts first" timelines.

[quarkmaster]

The Graver Robbers' Chronicles Pt 1

Concept art for The Graver Robbers' Chronicles. Part 1.

Art director: Bing Xu,Tianhua Xu Artist:Chuanjiang Liao,Huadong Lan

Tacit Sign Studio