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trashcanwithsprinkles · 11 days

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hii i recently started reading your work, cyanide narwhal, and am honestly really hooked! i love your characterization so much and find the story you built around the lore really, really interesting!

i’m not deeply familiar with the intricacies of the lore in genshin impact, but i’ve been fascinated by it for a while—and reading your story made me realize how much depth i was missing out on…is there any sources or ways you can reccomend as a primer/introductory to genshin lore? i really want to learn more and understand the theories better! thank youuu

aaa thank you! and this is actually a really interesting question

obviously my first thought was just play the world quests and pay attention, but not only is the info in the world quests sometimes incomplete, but i understand perfectly that some people just skimmed the dialogue at best and now cannot replay them but the fact of the matter is that the best way to get into some parts of the lore is via the world quests

still, there's plenty of people on youtube who do timeline and lore recaps without theories - as in, just telling you the lore that one can learn from the quests in a more streamlined manner. they're always a great choice!

there's also the artifact and material lore, which does usually contain a lot of info, but is usually kinda cryptic. the good thing about those is that you're not locked out of reading them, so as long as you have the necesary pieces, you can just go into the in-game archives and read up there. as with the world quests, though, there's also plenty of people on youtube doing full analyses on the lore of those

i think once you have a rough idea of some of the relevant names and lorebits, that while daunting at first, the wiki's timeline page is rather helpful when it comes to trying to get the bigger picture of when exactly everything happened in relation to other things. reading the little annotations and notes they put on where they got their info and when they've had to make extra calculations for some things' placements also goes a long way.

once you've started to understand more of the out-of-the-way lore, going to theorists is also a great way to catch the more interesting ways this game is built. as in- real-world references and inspirations.

because telling you 'oh you can find it on youtube' still sort of leaves you having to figure out how to even look for it, here's a little list of the youtubers whose videos i've watched at least once for these things. not a comprehensive list of course, but from there some of them shout each other out and you can navigate the recommended section for more videos, so!

as with all things lore-related in this game, keep in mind when the videos were made in relation to the game's patch version. the ones that are more just strict lore read-throughs are less vulnerable to later patches sort of- changing some of the context? (looking at you remuria) but still. and obviously theory videos are even more dependant on that. so:

for lore analysis (most of these are strictly just the lore with little speculation, but there's probably some extrapolation here anyway): - Ashikai has a great beginner's guide series on region lore, but it only covers up to sumeru so far. still, might be a great place to start! there's also some quest recaps and lore details here and here - Francis Lee Arthur has a great series of very concise videos of world quest recaps, though they sadly don't have mondstadt and liyue quests, and only a handful of inazuma quests. still, they're great videos, and there's a ton of sumeru and fontaine quests (and one chenyu vale quest i think) - SiliconOneFour has a bunch of videos on artifact and weapon lore, and some recent ones on stuff like the remuria timeline, mondstadt's aristocracy, the history of the temple of silence, etc - KlemenTime has a bunch of videos on pieces of lore that aren't really laid out explicitly on world quests, but that you sort of learn through exploration? idk how to describe it. they also have artifact lore, and while not in the playlist, if you go to their profile they also have some more borad sumeru and natlan timeline videos - Minsleif has archon quest and world quest recaps, along with other lorebits. there's also their massive 1-min reel lorebit video collection on much shorter things

for theories (some of these have a mix of lore+theory videos so i'm putting them here bc i wanted ot keep the 'just the facts' videos to the section above): - Ashikai is my favorite theory nerd in the community so forgive the bias, but there's the incredible project:teyvat series and the world structure series, which are two massive theories about the way teyvat as a world functions. i think you might want to save these ones for after you've familiarized yourself with the lore. other than that, there's plenty of other theories to sift through (though bear in mind these are ALL the theories, so there's project:teyvat and world structure stuff here? but the titles will help you know which they are if you want to save them for later) - The Laughing Man has a ton of videos on lore and theory/speculation on like- a ton of stuff, along with character analyses - roozevelt has a bunch of videos on lore and theories, mostly revolving around the traveler and khaenri'ah, but there's plenty of other stuff there also - My Name For Now has a very interesting massive khaenri'ah theory, theories on the descenders, on the elemental system, and a bunch of other lore theory videos - Minsleif does have theories also (but i personally can't remeber if i've ever watched one. still, they're there if you want to check them out!) - Wei has theory videos that look like shitposts and sometimes feel like shitposts, but god, there's some interesting stuff there. i wouldn't know how to even describe it though, most of it is traveler related but still (also this is a general theories playlist, but like all their theories are from genshin with the exception of one jjk theory so like- i mean yeah, just letting you know why that's there lmao)

And here's the wiki's timeline page

so uhhhh yeah! hope you have fun if you decide to watch any of the videos from anyone there. of course there's probably a lot of other theorists and recap channels, but these are the ones i've watched at least once, so, pick and choose which ones you like best. have fun!

TL;DR: you can still access a bunch of lore in-game via the artifacts, weapons, and weapon materials, and any world quests you might not have played yet. but since i recognize that's a daunting task and the info is scattered and incomplete and confusing, watching video recaps might be the way to go. Ashikai's beginners guides are great introductions and refreshers, and there's plenty of videos to catch up on world quests or to have someone explain artifact and weapon lore to you

#thank you <3 <3

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nilboxes · 6 months

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Vivamus, Moriendum Est (At the Altar of Abandon)

Part 5 of Nemo Saltat Sobrius, Nisi Forte Insanit, an Aventurine x Dr Ratio / Aventio series

Read at AO3

Ratings, warnings, tags and extensive notes ⬇

I changed the title... so many times because other works were having the same title... hopefully the subtitle is there to differentiate. Sorry there's only so many Latin quotes 😌

I just really wanted to write something that sends both of them to Dream's Edge. I got so inspired when I first reached the area. It's such a dreamy and romantic place for somewhere that's only half-built and I really wanted them to have a date of sorts in there, and came up with all sorts of scenarios until I just fell on the easiest—Aven getting some manner of quarter life crisis upon digesting that he might not win this bet of his and wanting one last grand ride with Ratio.

Cue thinking about fast cars, street racing and that scene in 2 Fast with the stare and drive, which I thought was like pure audacity that really fit Aventurine lol and I went, you know it's a dream, why not make them romantically sky dive? Of course poor Veritas probably didn't enjoy the prolonged sensation of falling, but I like to think he's a champ and enjoyed it more than he hated it.

This work was really about trust and how they tend to communicate by talking outloud about one thing and meaning another. A lot of it is because they know they could be watched at any moment in Penacony, but also I like to think they are both just reticent to really just outlining what they feel and what they want to say and instead bury it under other things. They really aren't a sordid love confession couple (I think what happened in Nitimur was as far as they were going to go) but instead of it being a negative I like to think they trust each other's intentions and have come to know each other enough ("I trust in your nature") that they can extrapolate each other's thoughts and motivations and know what the other is going to do.

Of course, words+actions is the ultimate solidifier of someone's convictions/intentions and Aventurine sometimes gets so in his head, gets too buried underneath thoughts that he fluctuates and has doubts, but ultimately I think their trust and affection for each other win in the end (and the game shows this!)

I wanted to write more conversations between them, like each of them sharing something positive about their childhood, but the fic was getting really wrong so I had to choose what would be the one thing they talk about and I chose Aventurine thinking about an immediate future he might not have a honeymoon little vacation with Veritas and then I thought where might they go?

Immediately I thought of what the opposite of where he grew up in would be, and I imagine Veritas' homeworld would be very Mediterranean inspired, lots of coastlines and stuff and just thought it fitting that Aventurine would dearly like to see where Veritas grew up.

Anyway next in line I might be taking a break from them, though I have Veritas processing the final events of 2.1 in mind, and hopefully try for something dreamy feeling idk.

#voidmancer writes #hsr #aventio #aventurine x dr ratio #honkai star rail

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alcalexandria · 2 years

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Cuts, Reshoots and Changes made to Terminator: Dark Fate.

As part of another giant essay I’m working on about the possibility of Dani & Grace being an intentional romance at some point (Edit - that has since been posted, and you can now find it here), I wanted to gather up a reasonably detailed list of Dani/ Grace scenes that we know were changed at some point during production of Dark Fate.

This is mostly a reference for that post rather than something standalone, but you might find it of interest all the same. I won’t spend *too* much time on my extrapolations here, but you’ll probably get the gist of what I’m thinking.

You’re more than welcome to offer your own angle though, similar or different, and like I say I’ll have more on that front soon. Let me know if you can think of any relevant omissions or errors.

So what was changed? Why? How do we know?

There’s quite a bit to this, so I’m going to try to detail it in the order it appears/would have appeared in the movie, and try to explain both how we know it was cut/swapped, and what we know about why.

Again though, note that this isn’t necessarily a complete list of every cut or change we know about – just ones relevant to Dani & Grace, and how else they might or might have been interpreted if things were different. And a lot of these may be minor in isolation, but I include them for the sake of a bigger picture.

First, let’s talk about the Director’s Commentary (available in my country only with the iTunes release.)

The commentary involves Director Tim Miller and Editor Julian Clarke discussing the movie’s production and is well worth a listen – Miller has an obvious passion for the Terminator franchise and its lore, and his theories and ideas are engaging to hear. Clarke explains his thought processes logically, and for the most part, I couldn’t fault him.

… But.

In the commentary, the guys explain they did an entire editing pass to remove moments where Grace and Dani were overtly – in their words - “tactile”.

We don’t know the full extent of this, but the fact they call it an entire editing pass it quite a big deal – an editing pass means running through the whole movie as it’s assembled so far, to reselect cuts and alternate takes, from the many hours of dailies available, while ensuring the flow and continuity is still right.

It’s a significant undertaking and it’s not done lightly at the late stage we're talking here. It represents a lot of work hours by the Editor and Director (and in this case, almost certainly, the Producer)

The reason they give for this is that they didn’t want the audience to know that Grace and Dani have any kind of established relationship in the future – they want it to be a surprise that Grace already knows Dani in her own time.

To me that makes no sense, and I’ll detail why elsewhere - but it is the official reason they give, so I want to start with that preface.

It’s also worth saying, in the spirit of fairness, that they mention doing some (much less intensive) cuts and swaps with Dani and Diego, because the Editor was afraid that what’s normal for Latin actors would be too confusingly tactile for Cool Ranch flavored audiences, who may read it as a little weird and incestuous.

I think that’s silly, but I include it just to give additional context on the Editor’s perspective.

Now, on to the changes.

1. Pharmacy.

Originally the pharmacy staffmember who helps Dani pull Grace onto the street -

- then immediately asked Dani out, which she declines in no uncertain terms.

2. Motel.

The scene with Dani and Sarah has been tweaked considerably from the original. Initially, Dani had been seen crying more over Diego and her dad, this was almost all cut down and streamlined - the reason for the changes given being that test audiences were finding her a bit of a bummer.

But that isn't the only change, and the other isn't so cut and dry.

Source: Booasaur

This image is used to represent the FIRST AID KIT card in the weirdly excellent Dark Fate tie in card game.

Notably - images used in the card game are all promotional images that would have been approved for release by the studio, and the card company would have needed to have them as early as possible so they could design and produce their material.

Promotional images like this are not simply movie stills – they are actual photographs, taken by a purpose-hired photographer, which is why they never exactly align with a shot from the movie. However, because they are taken during the shooting of the movie, they’re clues to cuts we wouldn’t otherwise know of.

Dani never gets this close to Grace in the motel room while she’s unconscious in the final cut, and there’s no ice on her body in this shot, so it presumably sat before Sarah either ice’d or dosed her.

Presumably, also, this fell afoul of the "no touchy" edit pass. But there is no counterpart to this shot in the movie at all, and it's the only one of the card images where this is the case. The image itself hasn't been used in any later publicity releases either, as far as I can tell. The card game is the only trace of it out there.

So it seems like not only was the scene cut, the still itself was "de-approved" at some point later in production.

Additionally – though this is speculation, I’m not the only one making it - from the way scene is edited, it sure feels a lot like the first thing Dani does when she’s let back into the room by Grace after being sent for chips is immediately hug her, and the scene has been chopped around a bit to hide it.

Take a look for yourself, and see where this impression comes from – even though Dani and Grace have dialogue and are the active players in the moment, the camera lingers on Sarah, doing and saying nothing, for a weirdly long time, and for no clear reason.

It feels very much like a cutaway an editor might improvise so as not to show something else, and there are plenty more instances of this later we’ll come back to.

This trick, where we see generic reaction footage of somebody while rewritten/rerecorded dialogue is delivered from offscreen, is usually a last resort, a way to overhaul a storyline or conversation very late in the process.

It is used way more than I’d consider normal throughout DF – often during really major plot points, where you ideally want to make the best of everyone’s on-set performances and dynamism. It will come up a lot more.

We also know the road trip stuff with the three women was cut way down, in this case because a lot of it involved Sarah and Grace being snippier than they really need to be.

*PS – The motel room is pretty much an exact clone of the one Kyle and Sarah hid out in during T1. Keep that in your back pocket for later.

3. South Tunnel Future War Flashback.

We know from Tim Miller that the Future War battle was cut short. The original longer version showed us Hadrell/Quinn having a glorious last stand against the Rev-7s until they killed him, which presumably influences Grace’s decision to be Augmented.

According to Reddit users who were confirmed to have seen the test screenings, this longer version was actually in the cut they saw, albeit with incomplete SFX, so it was still intact even at that relatively late stage.

Remember from above - it’s supposed to be a surprise Grace knows Dani at all. That’s what Tim and Julian have told us, and it’s so important that it was worth time and money to cut scenes that had already cost too much time and money to film.

Here in the flashback we see in the final cut though, we are straight up shown Dani on the rescue stretcher.

And we are very pointedly shown Grace alone attending to her during the flight. Which casts doubt on that.

But the alternate/deleted version of this scene would have gone further, we would also have been shown “The Commander” in the alternate version of the volunteering scene –

While that alternate scene isn’t as well executed as the one they went with, in my opinion, it’s notable in that it has Grace volunteering much more deliberately. She insists on it, outside the immediate aftermath of battle, and her reasons seem far more personal than her immediate duty to the Commander as a leader – she demands to be Augmented in direct response to seeing the seriously injured Dani in that neighboring infirmary bed, rather than for the sake of an abstract and offscreen Commander.

Now these Future War scenes all need a ton of VFX, and bespoke sets, props and wardrobe that can’t be bought off the rack or recycled anywhere else in the movie’s main present-day storyline, so they’re very expensive. Whatever else you might shoot as a just-in-case, you would not shoot more of this than you had to.

Given she’s bundled up on a stretcher, it would have been trivial to conceal the identity of the injured VIP completely – simply by not shooting her clearly, or covering her head. Natalia Reyes wouldn’t even need to be on set.

But she was - they went to the lengths of having her, having her face visible, putting her in injury makeup, and showing us Grace is uniquely, personally affected by her condition.

Which is... odd, right? A little contradictory?

4. The Train.

Quite a lot seems to be cut from this scene – we know of at least one line from the trailers, (“We win by keeping you alive”) that’s been cut, and one line Miller mentions in the commentary (Grace’s original retort to Sarah was “The only thing you and Mother Mary have in common is a dead son”), but it’s also been changed considerably since the Audition script that circulated early on.

I want to be really clear what we’re talking about here first though.

An Audition script, a “side”, is a very rough placeholder script that is used to test chemistry and emotion. The dialogue in a side will vary from rough to terrible, and sometimes the scene is deliberately misleading, as sides very often leak via the folks who don’t get the part – and indeed that’s presumably why we have this one.

But the general mood of the scene is the important thing. It is usually in the ballpark because that’s what you’re trying to be sure your actor can bring. The side is usually chosen because the particular emotional peak of this particular moment is the Director’s priority – so a side, however clumsy or misleading the dialogue is, represents something that matters so much for this character they’ll cast solely on the basis of it.

This side, which can be Google'd up pretty easily, was used to audition actresses for Dani. It sketches out a Grace who does not know, or claims not to know, Dani or what’s so important about her, and this scene is clearly a tentative bonding moment between them. Sarah doesn't even seem to be present.

In it, we see Dani show concern for Grace’s shoulder wound, before comparing it to a severe shoulder scar of her own that she shows Grace, from a bus crash in Puebla when she was fourteen, and here's an extract -

She touches [her own] scar, gently with her fingers.

DANI (CONT'D)

I'll never eat obleas again.

(Grace studies Dani as she traces the line of the scar with her finger.)

GRACE

You wanted to understand where I come from? You already do.

(Dani's eyes meet Grace's for a moment.)

DANI

My mother told me scars make the skin stronger.

Dani covers her scar with her shirt, then looks out again as the train slows, approaching Nogales.

I mean... if a movie showed you a heterosexual pair of characters doing this…?

But, we'll get to that in a subsequent post.

5. The Truck.

Here's the version of this we saw in the early trailers -

Source: Booasaur

Vs the version in the movie -

This scene, like the motel room, is an homage to a scene with Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor in T1. There are a lot of those.

6. The Crossing & The CBP Detention Centre.

There are a number of major cuts made to the sequence where the group cross the Mexico-US border, but chunks of the original version are visible in the trailers, and the deleted scene is provided in the home release.

Originally, for starters, the Rev 9 managed to track Dani to her uncle’s house, killing everyone there.

He goes on to manipulate the Mexican Federales into actively herding Dani & Co towards the CBP trap he’s set for them. Grace then spots the drone and realizes he’s tracking them, has them ditch their bags and tells them to run for it. She exchanges fire with the Federales in a running battle, and Dani’s uncle is killed.

You can see this full scene here. And actually now that I rewatch it, I'm struck by how effectively sinister Rev 9 is in the first bit, and what a shame that was to lose:

youtube

Miller says the scene was cut down in part because whacking Dani’s relatives threatened to get a little repetitive, and he has a point (her cousin later also dies in the CBP centre), but there are some really valuable character moments in here too.

Before Grace starts shooting, Dani strictly warns Grace not to kill anybody. Which is a T2 callback, of course, but it’s also establishing Dani as taking the initiative, and it makes it apparent that Grace is already treating whatever she asks for as an order.

The gunfight itself isn’t great, frankly, but I do think the movie feels this cut. It cues up the scenes coming after it in a way that just leaves them kinda awkward without. The reason Grace is so fired up and ready to throw down with the CBP when they're caught in the spotlight is because, as far as she's concerned, she’s *already* in the middle of a gunfight; Dani’s “I’m not watching you die” to her is meant to directly address the fact she’s still feeling her uncle’s death, and can’t bear to see Grace get shot now too, rather than just something she blurts out randomly. She’s already seen somebody she cares about die, and she won’t risk it again.

But Dani’s grief at the death of her uncle would also have played into the next bit, too, something which is still in the movie - when Rev-9 drops the drone on them. Dani sees Grace easily break out of her restraints to save her from it, only to be KO’d by the blast.

In other words - having just surrendered to save Grace’s life, Dani has to see her being killed after all, and we see her looking at her lifeless body with a moment of despair. And after binding Grace with a No Kill order so that nobody else will die over her, she now sees that Grace has apparently sacrificed herself to save her.

This pays off – or would have paid off – in a deleted moment later, too. A shot seen in the trailers from when Grace finds Dani in the cages shows us Dani’s clear relief at seeing Grace is alive.

A subsequent cut shot has Grace and Dani fleeing the Rev-9, hand in hand, in slow motion.

Compare this to the much messier, more rushed sequence we see in the movie -

The Federales shootout sequence on its own is a little redundant, sure, but without this bit, the drone stuff is just... kind of orphaned, and pointless. It's a very dramatic splash of fireworks with little consequence. The shot of Dani looking at Grace's body after the blast has no purpose, and the attack has no real effect, so it might as well not have happened.

More than that, this set of cuts make for really messy continuity. There's a big mismatch between them hauling a bunch of presumably very useful gear through the desert one moment, and then abruptly having none a few shots later; and it feels silly to see everyone set out armed to the teeth with guns they never even try to use.

The way Dani’s uncle just dips out to let the cousin lead them the rest of the way in the theatrical cut feels bizarre, and the escape from the CBP centre feels tangibly choppy and not nearly as clearly composed without the moments seen in the trailer, like missing frames of animation.

7. The Plane Chase.

This whole sequence has been totally overhauled, and maybe several times.

The plane battle was originally longer (which I don’t think it really needed to be) but one notable feature is that Major Dean and the EMP grenades all appear to be later additions.

Many people had guessed this anyway - he comes out of nowhere, provides the grenades, and bows out again, without much explanation or grounding outside the few minutes he appears. And the (oddly cheap) looking grenades themselves are destroyed before ever affecting the plot. So it has all the hallmarks of a reshoot that was plugged into an existing sequence.

The original version of the sequence though, seen in the “pre vis” computer storyboard included on the home media releases, had the gang actually seize the plane by force, and physically subdue two crewmembers. The two end up tied up in the hold after one of them hits Arnie with a wrench (he still sports the injuries from this in the film)

When Rev 9 attacks, one of the crewmen is killed by cargo debris; Dani frantically tries to save the other, but he’s sucked out of the breach in the fuselage before she can.

That original version involving the kidnapped crew appears to have actually gotten as far as being filmed – two “injured” Air Force actors who seem to fit the bill are visible in some of the “Making Of” featurettes.

The prop auction blurbs – some notes from it here – seem to suggest Carl used chain brackets as weapons in the fight, which I don’t believe he does in the battle as seen.

Now why does this matter?

Well, because if there were no EMP grenades, then the conversation in the cockpit must have been completely different, since Carl and Sarah don’t have to interrupt Dani and Grace’s conversation to alert them to the damage.

The cockpit scene is a continuity mess start to finish anyway though, which is another a tell-tale sign of reshoots and re-edits - just for fun, for instance, watch out for Grace’s disappearing drink.

It’s worth watching it start to finish too just to see how much dialogue is delivered from a character who is speaking from offscreen, suggesting these lines were written and then recorded in a Sound Booth after the scenes were shot.

There’s a lot of that in this movie, which I’ve mentioned previously, but this scene in particular is rife with it; almost all its key dialogue is delivered from offscreen while we’re watching what amounts to stock footage of Sarah or Carl.

That much ADR/ overdubbing from off camera is a dead give away that a scene has been almost totally reworked.

And why? Why did it need to be arranged so much?

Well, that brings us to what I think is the biggest change of the movie.

8. "You Saved Me" / "You Raised Me"

The suggestion Dani found and raised Grace from childhood is entirely a post-test screening addition. It was not in the original version of the movie, at all, and this has been confirmed by the Reddit test screening participants. The whole implication comes from a single line and scene which was added after the testing, and at the cost of all that continuity mentioned above.

The scene we see of Dani rescuing Kid-Grace is a reshoot which was inserted in place of another deleted scene, set during the Future War, wherein an adult Grace begs an adult Dani to let her go back and save her. That’s why the Kid-Grace scene has a different look and feel to everything else in the movie, Present Day and Future War, because it was shot way after everything else.

Before I go on, please take a moment to see the scene they cut, and imagine it back in place –

youtube

I mean... dang, right?

Unlike Major Dean or the grenades, this scene is not some neatly isolated little island, and unlike the one replacing it, it's aesthetically in tune with the South Tunnel battle. It depicts a post-Augmentation Grace, wearing “Augment” style sleeveless gear, and it’s the source of at least one promotional shot.

It also explains the circumstances Grace came back, lets Dani off the hook for sending her back to her doom, and even ties directly into a significant exchange of dialogue later on; Commander Dani is shown shedding a tear here when Grace asks to be allowed to save her, presumably because she remembers they will be some of Grace’s last words later, too.

The Theatrical Cut also still has the moment later when Grace quotes this scene to Dani’s younger self before she dies, so this scene is actually the foundation for a later one.

So it’s important, is what I'm saying, it’s laying down all the emotional groundwork for Grace’s death and the tragic implications of the movie’s Bootstrap Loop.

It makes the Commander far more sympathetic, gives Grace a ton more agency, and there are lines still in the movie which call back to it.

Without it, we even lose the visual parallel of Grace on her knees to Dani in the present day just as she is in her memory from the future, in the TDE facility.

For now then, let’s just say that I think you would need an excellent reason to pay more money to replace that original scene, especially with a scene that both looks cheaper, plays worse, and lacks the same connective tissue to anything else. And that this reason would have to be something unrelated to the needs of basic storytelling mechanics, or the Director’s preferences.

9. Underwater Battle.

Grace originally fought the Rev-9 underwater briefly, after the plane crash. That’s why she’s so exhausted when she resurfaces and they have to try to climb up the dam, and it’s why she couldn’t come to help the two others when they were trapped in the flooding Humvee.

10. Turbine Room.

Dani originally finished the battle with the Rev-9 pretty much on her own. This was reworked, apparently, to give Arnie “more of a moment”.

You can see images from the original version here.

Which I do believe - but the original flow would have meant Dani screaming at this thing that it’s taken everything she had, before going apeshit and killing it, in direct response to Grace’s death, which is pretty intense.

(Incidentally, I’m not convinced the subtitles are quite capturing her literal meaning in Spanish either, can somebody help me out?

Edit - BeneathTheThunders has confirmed this in the comments, Dani actually says "Killed everything I loved")

11. Final Scene

The playground scene with Grace as a kid is another post Test Screening addition. Originally the movie ended with a rolling road, just like T2, and a voiceover from Sarah.

Along with the added scavenger attack scene, that means it’s probable we never saw Grace as a child in the original version. At all.

Which would make for a quite different narrative bent, especially if the original Future Dani/Grace seen had still been in place.

In Summary.

Let’s consider how different that alternate narrative was.

Remember that Grace rarely, if ever, discusses Dani’s survival in terms of saving the world or winning the war, apart from her freakout in the chopper – her devotion is to Dani, personally, somebody we only ever see or hear of Grace knowing as one adult woman to another. Somebody she knows, somebody she sat vigil over in the Dragonfly and inspired her to become augmented.

Somebody, we hear only from an experienced, Augmented Grace who has saved her, with her exact meaning left to our imagination – when and how or how poetically she might mean that, we aren’t shown.

Remember that somebody, we see then, is a hardened uniformed military Supreme Commander, who nonetheless cries at the prospect of having to send Grace away to danger, something she’s tried “everything in her power” to avoid.

Remember that, back present day, that person’s first instinct when left alone with her unconscious body (after resting her head in her lap in the jeep for some reason?) is to care for her so tenderly it produced the mysteriously memory-holed First Aid Kit image. When reunited with her after being briefly parted, it’s apparently to embrace her.

While being pursued, it’s to designate her terms of engagement, and then surrender to protect her.

And notably, it is also Grace, not Commander Dani, who outlines what’s going to be done about the TDE in the flashback/forward to 2042.

So they don’t behave like either Mother/Daughter or Officer/Soldier. But they are something. And throughout the movie these two were, apparently, so physically close it was worth spending money and losing shot-to-shot continuity and clarity to put distance between them.

And in the end, when Grace does die, literally giving Dani her life with which to fight her attacker (“I’m sorry Grace!”), Dani tenderly touches her face before destroying her enemy, for taking everything she had from her - for "killing everything she loved".

I’m sure you can infer what I’m getting at there... but we’ll come back to that in a future post.

For now, here's what I'd love to know - the original cut apparently ended a little after the dam battle, with a Sarah voiceover on the rolling road.

I wonder what she said?

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tomwambsmilk · 1 year

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Re: your post about drawing explicit lines to real life events and people on Succession, it has been driving me crazy, especially everyone saying 4.08 was "just 2016". It was harrowing, yes, but there were elements of past elections mixed together, and the WI thing reminded me of 2000...idk why people want things to be so cut and dry, 1 for 1 comparisons, that would be lazy writing!!!!! Like...appreciate the good writing.

I 100% agree - the 2000 election is one of the ones that's been explicitly referenced by writers and consultants for 4.08, even more so than 2016 or 2020. If I had to separate out what may have influenced what, I'd say the situation around WI and ATN calling early is much more reminiscent of the hanging chad situation in Florida in 2000, where some news outlets wrongly called the election for Al Gore rather than Bush. The aftermath, however, feels much more reminiscent of the civil unrest which followed the 2020 election. But even then, none of it is exactly the same, because the succverse is its own world!! It really truly would be incredibly lazy to just thoughtlessly recreate the 2016/2020 elections but with succession characters and orgs, and Succession has almost always been better than that.

And tbh, ambiguity around news network calls is not exclusive to 2000, and civil unrest is not exclusive to 2020. I see a lot of connection between the temptation to read succ like this, and the tendency people had when Veep was airing to say it "predicted the future". It didn't really. What actually happened is that the writers of Veep had an awareness of the political landscape and history of the US, and the stories which 'came true' were usually based on or extrapolated from things that had already happened. Anyone who was paying attention could have 'predicted' that. (Veep usually exaggerated, because it was a satire, but it was a satire rooted in a lot of truth). But most people's political awareness seems to be limited to the last 10-20 years, and recency bias leads people to fixate on what's happened in the last couple of election cycles; hence the fixation on 4.08 as being representative of 2020.

(I saw one critic call the choice to have Mencken win under dubious circumstances and have democrats protesting a "subversion" of what happened in 2020 - because he's a republican, not a democrat - and it struck me as so incredibly stupid, not least of all because it shows how mired in modern partisan party politics many American viewers are, to such an extent that they aren't able to acknowledge the greater systemic critiques shows like Veep and Succession are trying to make. Political showmanship and the media-politician relationship and electoral fraud and political violence are not things the Republican party invented in 2016. They've been around forever, and while one party may have more of a history of these things than the other, to a certain extent they do transcend party lines.)

In terms of the family dynamics, it's similarly frustrating to see people go Roys = Murdochs, PGN = NYT, Mencken = Trump etc. because as soon as you shoehorn the characters into that framework you lose a lot of critique. Mencken is far more of an ideologue than Trump ever was, because the critique being put forward with Mencken is not about Trump the person (which would be shallow and topical and hopefully outdated relatively soon) but about fascism the ideology. The family dynamics of PGN emulate the family dynamics of the NYT trust in order to critique 'old money' news and how it operates - but operationally, aspects of PGN function more like a major outlet such as MSNBC, which allows the show to also critique the broader left-leaning media landscape. Even looking just at Logan Roy - Jesse has cited as influences not just Rupert Murdoch, but Conrad Black, Tiny Rowland, Lord Rothermere, William Randolph Hearst, Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Sumner Redstone. (In one direct quote from the book It's Not TV: "It's just fun to be completely freed from any sense of responsibility to portray real people realistically.") To read Logan only through the lens of Rupert Murdoch misses a lot of what the show is trying to say about the nature of wealth, particularly extreme wealth, in a capitalist system, and the role that the media plays in that system (and how that role has evolved over time).

And again, it's frustrating because I think it's indicative of this idea that the corruption and exploitation of the media landscape is a modern phenomenon and not something that's been present and developing since its inception, and I also think it's indicative of the belief that this sort of corruption and exploitation only occurs on the political right, when in actual fact it's something that wealthy and powerful people of all (professed) political stripes have engaged in.

#asks #anon

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reyesstrand · 11 months

Text

weekend wip game

thanks for the tag @welcometololaland (and thanks for thinking up this game lola!) @alrightbuckaroo @strandnreyes @theghostofashton <333

rules: list your wips below (if you only write one fic at a time, feel free to include future wips/ideas!) then answer the following questions. then, tag as many people as you have wips (or more).

1. wip list:

active wips: food fic

future wips: pottery au; aftermath of the solving of gabriel’s murder

2. which of your wips is currently the longest?

food fic, mainly because it’s all i’m working on ajdnskdn

3. which wip do you expect will end up the longest?

food fic will span from 1x05 to tarlos’ honeymoon, so likely this one

4. which wip is your favourite/the most enjoyable to write? why?

when it isn’t giving me a headache, definitely food fic. i love getting to look back at canon and extrapolate on moments we’ve seen (and include scenes we didn’t) focused on the idea of food as a love language. however the pottery au probably has the most little random snippets i’ve deposited into my notes app that bring some serious joy

5. which wip do you find the most intimidating to write? why?

pottery au, simply because full-on alternate universe fics are kind of out of my wheelhouse, even though i love reading them

6. which wip do you experience the most self-doubt about? why?

probably the gabriel murder aftermath fic, because i have a very clear idea of the sort of tone i want to develop through the story and worry about perfecting it

7. which of your wips will you seek out a beta/sensitivity reader for? why?

food fic will have a beta (if they still want to even though they offered truly six months ago 😭😭😭😭😭😭) and i’m grateful because this i’m pretty sure the fic will be 20k+ and having a pair of skilled eyes look it over will be so helpful.

8. have any of your wips been struck by the curse of writer’s block?

…….have i mentioned i started food fic six months ago 🧍‍♂️

9. which wip has your favourite oc? tell us about them?

i’m very boring and unfortunately don’t have any at the moment!! hopefully some will come to fruition with pottery au once i actually try tackling it

10. which wip is the sexiest?

food fic, because cooking is sexy and tk and carlos agree and also because it has the only real “explicit” sex i’ve written. HOWEVER….i would be amiss not to mention pottery au, where the moodboard centred around this photo:

11. which wip is the angstiest?

probably will be the gabriel murder aftermath fic….shes gonna be moody!!! but also food fic has a lot of the boys and their unhealthy coping mechanisms. so both?

12. which wip has the best characterization (in your humble opinion)?

i’m going to say food fic only because i’m writing from a place of knowing the entirety of canon so far, and can use that to go back and write them as their baby season one selves. also, since it’s fairly introspective for both of them, i think this is my clear answer

13. which wip has the best scene setting (in your humble opinion)?

i’m….going to say all three, in their varying states of completion. it’s something i feel most comfortable with as a writer and i think it’s something i tap into easily, and i think each has examples of this

14. which wip have you worked the hardest on?

food fic. it’s kind of become my baby

15. which wip do you have the highest expectations for? why?

….food fic, only because i’ve been working on it for so long and it’ll be the first thing i post since may. so. i feel a lot of pressure to make it “right”

16. do you dream about any of your wips?

only if i’ve been writing/plotting right before bed

17. do any of your wips have particular complexities that your other fics don’t?

hm….i guess food fic only since it’s truly following the whole development of a relationship, and trying to capture where they’d be emotionally at a certain moment in the grand scheme of things is complex. pottery au also fits here, though, since i know it’ll need some planning that i don’t always think about, since i tend to write canon compliant as opposed to au fics

18. which wip is the funniest or has the most humour?

i don’t think i’m very good at humour 😭😭😭 but i think most light-hearted, maybe, would be pottery au? food fic has some bright spots too, though

19. do any of your wips contain outside povs or a deep dive on a character other than the main ship? how are you finding that process?

ooh okay, so there’s at least one instance of this in food fic where we see owen observing the boys, and it’s something i love tapping into because thinking about owen with his boys always makes me 🥺🥺🥺 like he’s just so happy for them and sees their love for what it is and i enjoy whenever i can explore that, even if only for a few paragraphs. i think gabriel aftermath will explore more of gabriel/his relationship with carlos in SOME capacity, though i truly haven’t even explored it yet. it makes me excited though!! introspection is my favourite <3

20. tell us one thing we don’t know about one or more of your wips.

hmmmmmm i’d say that food fic was originally a 5+1, then a 7+1, but i couldn’t figure out what the “+1” would be/how i would phrase it, and i decided i liked connected vignettes following the trajectory of their relationship better. also that seeing a singular photo of ceramics on pinterest inspired the pottery au….tarlos brainrot will always take over at the most random times!

((sorry for not following the rules here)) i’m no pressure tagging @carlos-in-glasses @birdclowns @cold-blooded-jelly-doughnut @paperstorm @heartstringsduet @rmd-writes @louis-ii-reyes-strand @carlos-tk @redshirt2 @tailoredshirt @beautifulhigh and open tagging whoever would like to play <333

#tag games #my fic

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thatbrokenpromise · 8 months

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OKAY HI! I have a question for all the That Broken Promise Chaaras you feel like gaving answer: HAVE THEY EVER SEEN A POSSUM (north american one not the aussie one) AND WHAT DO?

(prompted by, seeing your au more often and staring to read it and also hearing my housemates freak out seeing a possum for the first time)

Thank you for the question! Yeah, I'm trying to engage with people more even if its taking a while to get some of my recent WIPs to a finished state.

I'm honestly not sure if I think Hyrule has possums, but in the general sense of "Reacting to strange new animals" (because goodness knows that's gonna come up for everyone at some point), a general list:

SKYLOFT: Absolutely will get himself bit being curious and happy to meet something new. In his case, this will include horses, although hopefully someone will save him before he loses any fingers.

MINISH: Curious but wary, and in addition many small creatures will react to him like they do a predator and be scared. I do not envy the group when they find this out, because, once again, this will include horses. The poor, poor stable owner. Ironically, Minish also tends to react to small predators this way despite the fact they're definitely not still 4 inches tall (eg. prey-sized) most of the time...

KOKIRI: After Termina, he's pretty blase about most new creatures and animals. Even blupees are probably going to get, at most, mild curiosity. He's not easily scared and has good enough reflexes something like a possum would get chucked into the bushes before it could bleed him.

OUTSET: A second "WILL get his ass bit." type. ALSO including horses, which he's never met! This is something I honestly think is a pretty typical Link trait but as above the details vary and just as many have more sense than required to fill a teacup as have less. Outset has less. Much less.

CHIEF: Loves small animals. Will NOT like horses. Also doesn't think much of cattle or pigs, especially given his usually associations with them are 'train hazards' which probably has not had pretty results on occasion. He'd definitely extrapolate and love cats and small dogs, but his discomfort increases with size.

ORDON: Loves everything. Everything loves him. He would probably be able to pick up a possum and love on it and the thing would be so confused by his confidence and aura as to just submit to being snuggled. This probably even extends to lizards. Ilia has never had a problem with mice in her life because they have a dozen cats. That kinda guy.

FOUR: Pretty indifferent to animals. He's confident with them, and will pet or cuddle a cat or dog or horse if it comes up to him, but he's not going to seek them out. He tends to be pretty distracted worrying about himself, so a new critter will mostly be assessed for 'does it want pets or not? No? Then who cares.'

PRINCE: Also in the 'does it want my attention or to be left alone' category of assessment. The only exception for adoring and doting on animals is his horses, and he's not interested in adding new things. A possum would be left well enough alone.

RABBIT: "Would get his ass bit" This man has ridden a winged bear, a dinosaur, and a kangaroo that is absolutely spoiling for a fight. A possum WILL get forehead kisses and it WILL like it. Thank all the Gods they cannot carry rabies. (Actual fact! Their body temperature is too low.)

SMITH: Not quite an animal person, although animals love her. She's a bit bewildered by the way other people react to horses and cats and things, because she's primarily been in love with her work but honestly she won't have an ounce of trouble despite never having been on a horse in her life Well. She won't get thrown or bit; she probably won't get where she's GOING but that's a different problem.

FAR: Very wary of new things because he's used to assessing danger or not. I imagine something like a possum would get pretty decent space, although honestly with his lifestyle the odds he's adopted one as a pet in the past is non-zero. New creatures will take him a little bit to adjust to, but if something offers him no threat he won't care much. Ordon and Rabbit are going to have some work getting him to adjust to horses.

HATENO: Loves Everything. Everything loves him. It might try to bite him, but he both will not care and will likely manage to avoid it. Pretty much equal with Ordon in terms of success with anything and everything he has to deal with. Will have his work cut out for him convincing Chief a horse doesn't mean any harm, but he's game to try.

Thanks again for the ask! God this reminds me of my first time seeing a ground hog and the "Dear GOD they're HOW BIG!?"

New creatures are the best, every time.

#Ask games #of sorts #animals #Link's Meet AU #That Broken Promise #The Boys

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adamsvanrhijn · 5 months

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do you have any advice for writing period dialogue? i always think your fics sound so much like the characters and idk how to do it. i'm fine with the prose part, but as soon as a character opens their mouth i feel like they sound like they've got a smart phone and a twitter account.

well thank you first of all!! i'm not sure how helpful i can be but i will say what works for me :'-)

i would say i think the thing to focus on first is not if you're creating dialogue that is true to the period, but that is true to the character

that is more important to me than linguistic historical accuracy, which is generally not actually attainable but can be fun to try for, and it is the starting point for diving into "hey how did they use this word or phrase or sentence structure in the 1920s (or whenever)" - does it sound like that guy? if yes, but you're not sure it sounds right to That Guy's era, proceed to etymology online or whatever and fuck around until you get something you like

getting acquainted with your character's voice comes from reading/watching and rereading/rewatching your source material. I also have spreadsheets for my shows with all of the dialogue so that i can easily go find something and double check if something feels right or doesn't feel right which is maybe autism behavior

but while the source material imo should always be Home, it can only get you so far - when you aim to replicate how a character speaks, it is helpful to understand how they Don't speak, which you get from exposure to other writing and developing an understanding of the language in question if not language in general

my linguistics background is helpful because i have a mental framework for parts and structure of language, so i can recognize things in a character's speech patterns, which makes me more aware of them, and i know What i am trying to replicate and the linguistic environment i expect it to be in, rather than just trying to get at it without actually knowing what it is. this also then helps me extrapolate to things the character never said but that i want them to say in my fanfiction.

example. there are like three minimum variants of english in play in any given episode of downton abbey. but there is no downton abbey character who exhibits every single feature associated with, say, northern [england] english, because that is a very broad group of language variants, and it is conspicuous to me when i see fanfic where a character is using language that is typical of northern english but Not of the character. so having that understanding of the building blocks of language helps me avoid, like, what i see as almost a shortcut of trying to get character voice correct but that can actually put you further from where you want to be

that said. obviously not everyone can get a linguistics degree lol so i don't think that's helpful. though i would encourage anyone who wants to find new ways to match up today language with past language to do a little bit of looking into functional grammar. but i think the general advice is to pay attention to how your characters talk and think about how/when they say what they do and where that might change in canon.

and of course, this is a really methodical approach because i am a very methodical writer, and it is an approach i have developed over many years of writing, and not everyone jives with that and the best method for you might be different - but i do think this is how i think about it !!

oh i also spend a LOT of time with a thesaurus... i try to make sure i'm considering words i don't tend to use because they might be more true to the character than the one my mind goes to for the meaning

and to add on to that, sometimes characters use words that mean things to mean something a word generally does not mean, or more commonly will use a variant of a common phrase that is not my preference and so i try to accept this with an open heart and not change it to what my brain wants it to be. see thomas "could care less" barrow. i usually instinctively write it the other way and then have to go back and change it!!

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blood-starved-beast · 11 months

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I'm having trouble following Acxa's love life, so first she had an unrequited romance with Zethrid and now she's with Keith?

Okay let me be literal here - Acxa in show has no love life. Or at least, we have no explicit confirmation of a love life. All of these are headcanons based on what we know of the characters and what we can glean from the story told. And then extrapolating from there.

The idea behind zethacxa comes from certain interactions in the Grudge, specifically where Acxa tries to convince Zethrid to stop the hostage exchange with Keith. There, she promises that Zethrid could can and should change and if she does she can be "with me[Acxa], and Ezor."* In of itself Acxa says she cares for Zethrid, and Ezor too. But the interesting thing is that Acxa puts herself first. Before Ezor, who you know, is Zethrid's wife.** On one hand, this is meaningless, on the other hand, Acxa is letting out a Freudian slip - implicating that she is (or more accurately should) be a higher priority for Zethrid to change over her own wife.

It could also be cause Ezor left Zethrid on bad terms, and thus Zethrid and Ezor aren't talking (I mean, Zethrid is taking it out on Keith + Acxa instead of trying to talk to Ezor) so maybe Acxa operates on that logic. But if that is so, this means that somehow Acxa, who is responsible for blowing up half of Zethrid's face, is somehow in a better position to connect with her emotionally says a lot about everyone involved.They are so close you all. Either way, Acxa is measuring herself in an equal if not higher level than Ezor in importance for Zethrid, which imho, speaks volumes. And Zethrid also tells Acxa she's "too far gone" which is meaningless really, but it's the type of thing you'd tell someone whom you care for, if at least at one point.

Recall also that Ezor was supposed to have died as well, as one writer on the show admitted pre-s8 that Ezor was dead, but in response to backlash the undid Ezor's death. So in original canon, Zethrid was going to run away with Acxa, and lo and behold, at the end of the episode we have this:

Acxa has and will not give Zethrid any peace cause she cares enough for Zethrid to be with her until she gets better. Your ship could never.

But what does that have to do with past Zethacxa? For that, we look to past canon. Acxa and Zethrid always had a contentious relationship throughout the show. Both are quick fuses, but triggered by different things. Zethrid sought violent thrills, Acxa wants to stick to the plan. Acxa is pissy over incorrect information, Zethrid does not care. Zethrid plans for long-term self-sustainability, Acxa will stick to their current course in hopes of achieving political change. Anything Zethrid does sets Acxa off.

Conflict is a part of their dynamic and since s3 it's been foreshadowed that their arcs will go to a head this way. Now with that one line from the Grudge in mind, reading this animosity shifts slightly. It would be fun, if sometime before the events of the show, if they dated, broke off cause they were to quote Acxa "so full of hate and rage" and cannot carry a normal relationship (I mean, look how zethzor turn out by the Grudge, and Zethrid is older then), and then cause life hates them, they both get recruited by Lotor. Ironic. Their squabbling becomes exes drama. Zethrid is unphased by the shit Acxa pulls in s7 for ex, whereas Ezor took Acxa's leave as personal insult. If Zethrid is used to Acxa being Like That, it would make sense.

Alternatively, Acxa is very emotionally repressed, which given her whole thing with Keith, is a completely sound read of her.

So yeah that's the tea on Zethacxa.

With Keith, I don't really have to explain. Acxa hyper-fixated on him cause he saved her life (She was "born and bred in war" and every person was for themself, so Keith taking his time knowing she's the enemy to save her touched her personally.) and cause he has a freedom to achieve his plans/ideals in way Acxa could never imagine herself doing at that point of time (act 2). She hated him. She cannot let him die. From this, a more mature and self-actualized Acxa could develop an interest in him in act 3 and/or after. It doesn't have to be, nor did the writers want it by the time act 3 rolled around, but there's food there.

In other words - Zethacxa, break up, then kacxa. Or zethzoracxa polycule + Keith fourth wheel. Or very homoerotic intense Zethacxa friendship then kacxa. Or consider - Zethezoracxa but Acxa also has a thing with keith on the side. idk take your pick

*bear with me in that I don't have quick access to s7-8 cause it was never released in hard copy and I do not have Netflix. So a paraphrase from memory

** Yes they're married. To quote Avatar Korra - "You gotta deal with it!"

#d asks #Anonymous #Acxa #Zethrid #vld keith #zethacxa #kacxa #zethzor #vld #my headcanons #my meta #everything about the generals is insane and also has me on a chokehold

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shardreach · 2 years

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So Hades II got announced, I have some thinking to do.

Here’s the thing, I like thinking about media I’m engaged in and try to figure out what works, what doesn’t, why, where it’s going, where it could go instead, all of that jazz. Spitballing an idea for a sequel to Hades before yesterday would have been five minutes of fun and had infinite potential, but now that Hades II got announced, the possibility space has shrunk enough that I just can’t stop thinking about what could possibly be in store based off of the information that Supergiant has given us with the the announcement.

I’m putting a keep-reading break here for a reason, I’ll probably be typing a lot. And there will be spoilers for the original Hades all over the place as I reference it alongside with the details I can glean off of the announcement. And should I happen to land on at least some approximately correct predictions, it might impair other people’s enjoyment of Hades II if they’re not like me and don’t particularly enjoy the exercise of trying to piece things together instead of just riding along. This is the only warning.

So, we know Hades II is a thing. We know it is a direct sequel. The protagonist is Melinoe (I’ll not be adding the ë for ease of typing, but I’m aware it is how they have chosen to write it). Hecate is present in a role analogous to a mesh of Hades’ and Achilles’ from the first game as home base and mentor. Chronos is the flagship villain and has Hades hostage. Gameplay is similar, artstyle is delectable as per Supergiant usual. Daren Korb is still a member of the team, so the sound front will be utter delight no matter what. This is where I’m flailing, screaming, and just want them to take all the time they need to make it the best they can but also give me the game right now.

But then I start thinking, there are a number of interesting concerns, plot points, structural issues and whatnot that I feel need to be addressed in the story and structure somehow, at some point, and I think it’s possible to extrapolate at where they’re headed, in general, from what we already know with the first game, their general design principles, and the constraints already set in place by the announcement.

Whenceforth cometh Melione? Easiest part to theorize on, I feel. The game is a direct sequel, any 30 to 50 years is a blink on the timescale of gods. She would be Zagreus’ younger sister, born after the events of the first game. There are no hints are her existence in the first game because she did not exist. But the hymn thingy says she’s Zeus’ daughter! You scream from the depths of pedantry dungeon. Well, no. Zagreus was also associated to be an earlier form of Dionysus, as well as a son of Zeus. Supergiant addressed both of those points fantastically in the first game, with Zeus offering to claim Zagreus as his own because it’d be so much cooler than have stinky Hades as your dad, and the Dionysus lore is reframed as a prank on poor Orpheus that gets out of hand. The trailer refers to the underworld gods as her family, and she refers to Hades as father. Supergiant is saying this iteration of Melione is Hades’ and there’s zero reason to doubt them. Zeus will still probably offer or attempt to adopt her anyway because that’d just be a thing he’d do for the brag points.

When Melione, then? I don’t think they will give us a numerical fixed timeline, but anything between a few decades to a century or so would be enough for a new child to be born, grow up, but still be young and untested with lots of growth potential to serve as a protagonist that has to get stronger still.

Why not keep Zagreus, then? A young god would make more sense in the gameplay department than trying to contrive a justification for why Zagreus would be struggling to get through anything other than the latest of challenges. I also feel like Zagreus would be far better used as a part of the support cast in this case. I’ll offer a sketch of a timeline later.

It’s implied we’re going down, but Zagreus couldn’t exist on the surface, and Melinoe seems to be up there. What gives? Not all gods are created equal, in fact, they’re all very different. Thanatos could exist on the surface just fine. Nemesis is referenced in the first game as being busy on the surface specifically, hence her absence. It could just be that Melinoe just doesn’t share in that particular weakness, or, and what I find most interesting as a possibility, is in her design. Her left arm is permanently spectral, with a very clear armband serving as a boundary. Given her affinity for magic, and her involvement with Hecate, it’s possible that this is a sacrifice or spell of sorts, keeping part of her permanently dead so she’s always in touch (heh) with the underworld, and is thus not spontaneously dying.

So, if you’ll indulge me, let me sketch a hypothetical timeline of sorts.

Hades I ends, the Olympians reunite with the Chthonic gods. I refuse to believe Supergiant is going to rehash the dysfunctional family setup (as the main course) again, so things go well in the underworld for several years. Demeter’s thawing spurs a change in Olympus also, which leads to reconciliations on that front. Somewhere in there Melinoe is born, grows up, and is found to have an affinity to magic.

Much like Achilles was hired to train Zagreus, the family proceeds to look for a good tutor for Melinoe. Circe and Medea are considered, but Hecate takes an interest in the girl. If the literal goddess of the relevant field is available and willing, you’d be a fool to pick second best. But it requires going to the surface, so they come up with the ghost arm trick. Kind of boarding school.

Sometime during her training, Chronos breaks free and attacks the House of Hades. Now, this is where the interesting questions lie, and where I think Zagreus is best utilized. First, the entire house falls into disarray, and Hades is out of commission. Zagreus’ expertise and experience lets him show how much he’s grown by being able to cut off or reinforce all escape routes, and extra points if he even gets to fight the big guy himself - only to fail on account of time shenanigans. No, Hades’ resigned “time cannot be stopped” line is, unfortunately, true. Power alone can’t stop Chronos, we’ll need magic, so little sister is the one is best suited for the job. Hence why we play as Melinoe. Supergiant likes their tight narratives, and the fact that the protagonist is who they are because it couldn’t be anyone else would be very tight indeed. Hecate herself is likely the one actually working the necessary spells, but we need someone with a blood claim over the underworld to channel it and make it stick, so Hecate alone wouldn’t cut it.

Then gameplay happens, and this is where I think some clever framing could work wonders for the whole “you can repeat this forever” gameplay that would be seriously weird in a strongly narrative focused game with a definite conclusion. I would spitball this:

We try to make our way through to the depths of the titan prison, where we confront Chronos, setting up an anchor for Hecate’s spell, and when we win, he goes “no you didn’t” and rewinds time, which triggers the trap and creates a time loop, sealing him inside his escape attempt. Now, the outside world is partially safe, but missing some pieces and kind of unstable, so we need to then go into the time-looped bubble to, yes, confront Chronos, but also rescue any and all of our other allies who got caught in the trap (and Hades) and pluck them out of the loop. This would be the clear number 10, credits roll. Epilogue progress then looks a little bit reversed, with us taking the influence of the various allies we have into the time loop in order to reinforce it until it gets to a point where it is stable enough to be considered at least as reliable as the old prison (that one worked for thousands of years, after all), but hopefully better. And then the endgame grind can be framed as Melinoe taking on the role of time warden, running the loop prison to make sure it’s still holding, and repairing any cracks that appear as Chronos continues to try to escape.

While I know Supergiant is not afraid of tearjerkers, I don’t see them as being willing to go for an unabashedly depressing ending. So no Melinoe heroic sacrifice or oops accidentally locked in a time loop as the final endpoint. Which is why I think creating a loop and then rescuing people selectively is my favored hypothesis. Plus, it also respects the power level of a bloody titan. Just straight up killing him dead would be underselling Chronos’ magnitude. It’ll also be interesting to see what twists they’ll put on the pact of punishment, or if we’ll still be using Titan Blood to upgrade our weapons (maybe that’s what started the chain reaction that led to Chronos’ escape, after all), and all sorts of other minor things.

Am I right at all? Nah, probably not. But once the game is actually out, it’ll be interesting to come back and see if I got anything at least in the neighborhood of what we actually got. For me, at least, I don’t know about any of you.

#hades #hades 2 #supergiant

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the-alan-price-combo · 2 years

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Before I get into the (Affectionate) Stuff:

A handful of “disclaimers” about this analysis, so you know what to expect.

All Sections | Next Section

There will be citations for all of the general information I will be sharing, alongside some scans and images where I see them fit. While a handful of this information has been collected from biographies about the Animals and more recent interviews, most of the most affectionate content will be pulled from snippets of old music magazines. Funnily enough, most of those old articles are way less biased than the information circling around now.

While the cited-stuff will be pretty obvious, I’ll also be adding a lot of my personal thoughts to each “fun fact”. …Yes, quite a bit of this is going to be extrapolation, but anything additional I have to add will not extend beyond whatever is presented and the context preceding/following it. Relative to other homoerotic-songwriting-duos of this era of music, these two haven’t been nearly as well-documented… which is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a shame there isn’t more out there and what information we do have doesn’t have much detail, but that just leaves room for speculation during any gaps in time.

I will do my very best to not let anything skew beyond the parameters of pure friendship. I… have my thoughts on the more intimate aspects of their relationship, and, if I’m being honest, a good amount of Alan’s behavior would make a lot of sense if he had some form of deep feelings for Eric - whatever that entails. A queer analysis of Alan’s behavior and especially his music might be something I do in the future... However, those theories are very speculatory and I won’t go into them here. I want to give a very objective, relatively platonic view of their relationship, though there will be some unavoidable hints of homoeroticism. Hashtag Not My Fault. 😔

If you know me at all, then you know that I have a massive amount of sympathy towards Alan. Yes, I think his alleged taking-of-the-royalties-without-sharing-a-cent is a bad look, and the way he left in May of ‘65 was very unceremonious - both of these decisions deserve all of the criticism they get. However, with just a bit of digging and careful listening to his more autobiographical songs, you’ll find out that Alan had and still has many issues. Many, many undiagnosed issues, revolving around depression and anxiety, in particular. Again, some of this is just speculation… but this is a guy who literally describes his mental state as “many times I feel like running through a brick wall. But it’s few and far between now, ‘cause I ain’t got the strength anymore.” So… yeah. I don’t see Alan as some sort of malicious aggressor who was constantly pushing Eric’s buttons on purpose. I see him as a very depressed and manipulated individual who never got to properly work through his issues and made some mistakes because of them.

I won’t be making any direct comparisons between this pair and any other homoerotic-songwriting-duos if I can help it, since these two can really stand on their own. Back when I was first researching them in September of 2020, even I fell into the trap of thinking “Oh, so they’re just a failed Lennon/McCartney or Jagger/Richards, and there was a lot of tension because they couldn’t be them? Hmm...” Honestly, the songwriting portion of their relationship is relatively miniscule to the musical partnership they shared - Alan’s keys combined with Eric’s voice - as well as their general friendship. The songwriting was very artificial, all things considered; rushed and coaxed out of them by an anxious record producer and manager. I’ll go more into detail about their songwriting later, but I just wanted to make it clear that I’m not trying to pit any duos against each other, in terms of how effective they were or how healthy their relationship was, or whatever. Alan and Eric’s relationship wasn’t perfect and I love them for that.

Please take breaks while you read this; drink a beverage of some sort, eat a cookie, fold some laundry, then come back to this. I don’t mean to be trite, I’m just being very honest. All of this information has been gathered over almost two years, and believe me, having gaps in time to process everything was appreciated. Or, who knows, maybe I was just overwhelmed by all of the (affection). In any case, prepare yourself for a long, homoerotic read ahead!

Also, additions will be made to this if I find new, relevant information about their relationship! I’ll be sure to add dates of when I found this information so it’s clear as to what was originally written here and what was a later discovery.

Asks are always welcome, if you’d like clarification, have any questions, or to see an article in print/any footage! I have basically all of the receipts for the quoted stuff, there’s just a handful of dates I need to iron out.

Lastly, I want to give a huge shout-out to my buddy @tealightwhimsy. Legit, about half of what you are about to read was found thanks to her own digging. I’ve only been able to afford so many issues of imported, obscure UK music magazines, so her finding of some of these magazine scans and interviews was a lifesaver. THANK YOU FOR ALL OF THE HELP AND LETTING ME TALK YOU EAR OFF ABOUT THEM TO YOU!!

Alright, Burdon/Price time.

The Animal Squad (names that will come up a lot):

Eric Burdon - lead vocalist of the Animals, through all of its iterations that I’ll be mentioning here

Alan Price - keyboardist of the Animals until May of ‘65, as well as for their ‘77 reunion album and ‘83 reunion tour

Hilton Valentine - lead guitarist of the Animals until September of ‘66, as well as for their ‘77 reunion album and ‘83 reunion tour

Bryan “Chas” Chandler - bass guitarist of the Animals until September of ‘66, as well as for their ‘77 reunion album and ‘83 reunion tour

John Steel - drummer of the Animals until February of ‘66, as well as for their ‘77 reunion album and ‘83 reunion tour

Mickey Gallagher - replaced Alan Price on keyboard initially following his departure in early May of ‘65, for the Animals’ tour in Sweden

Dave Rowberry - replaced Alan Price on keyboard in late May of ‘65, stayed with the Animals until their break-up in September of ‘66

Barry Jenkins - replaced John Steel on drums in February of ‘66, stayed with the Animals through their September ‘66 break-up and reformation into Eric Burdon and Animals, until their break-up in December of ‘68

Mickie Most - the Animals’ record producer until late-‘65

Michael Jefferies - the Animals’ manager until their break-up in September of ‘66, and later the manager of Eric Burdon and the Animals until mid-‘68

“The Bob Squad” - what I affectionately call Bob Dylan and his entourage when they visited England in May of 1965

…It’s mostly going to be these five, though. Especially the first two. Also, same, John.

All Sections | Next Section

#animusings #the alan and eric essay

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headcanonsandmore · 1 year

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9, 19, 29 and 39 for the asks. Thanks pal! 😊

9. Do you believe in ghosts? This isn’t about writing I just wanna know

It's not so much that I believe in ghosts, it's more the fact that I grew up in Cornwall and had to work in retail. One of the shops I worked in was part of a building at least 700 years old (there was a sight of pilgrimage in the back wall, I am not kidding) and the upper floor was always wet, cold and creepy (so much so that we never used the official break room because of how creepy the entire floor was). Another of my jobs was in the old courthouse above prisoner cells from the 18th century; it was my job to turn off all the lights before locking up every evening. It was very creepy.

My home town is at least one thousand years old, and there are neolithic ruins nearby which are far older. So... yeah, can you believe I ended up as a historian? 😂🤣

19. Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?

Okay, so this is a little embarrassing. I started writing in the late 2000s. It was a self-insert fanfic based on That One Book Series About The Little Wizard Boy. Mercifully, I wasn't aware of fanfiction sites at the time, so I am the only person who has read it. It was bad, really bad. But it was something that I made, plotted and wrote, so it was my start nonetheless. I didn't really write for a long time after that due to school committments until...

In 2017, I joined Tumblr for that same fandom, and started writing short drabbles about a year later. Within a couple of years, I was progressing to writing multi-chapter fics and -if I do say so myself- had actually gotten pretty good at writing. This was also around the time that I started reading for pleasure again because I'd finished my Masters Degree and had more free time.

Then, 2020 happened; I slowly lost interest in writing fanfic about That One Series because of the author, I began to read Discworld and get into the Cosmere and Doctor Who, and started experimenting with different genres (before that, it had predominantly been romance fics with not much other genres playing a part). Over the next eighteen months, I gradually finished all my WIPs for the Old Fandom and moved into predominantly Doctor Who and Discworld fics.

Now, (as you know) I mainly write Tegan/Nyssa fics but also character studies about other Doctor Who characters and the occasional Yaz/Thirteen fic as well. I like to think that my writing is a lot more nuanced that it used to be, and I'm finding the potentially limitless story ideas of Doctor Who very exciting.

For the time being, I'm just enjoying writing and not thinking too much about what may happen in future.

29. Where do you draw your inspiration? What do you do when the inspiration well runs dry?

Normally, my inspiration will come in random flashes. My brain will just get an idea and say "hey maybe there's a story here?". I don't really plan on it; normally, it happens when I'm doing other stuff and is often me thinking "ooooh I'd love to read this scene" (that's how my university!AU for Tegan/Nyssa came about). Basically, most of my fics are made up of things I would like to read about, and so I like to write them to find out what happens.

Generally, I try to not worry about it. I usually enough ideas in my fics-to-write list that it isn't really an issue. But, if all else fails, I do back to that "well, what would I want to read about?" thought process and extrapolate from there. I find throwing tropes together often helps as well (bed-sharing, there was only one bed, room-mates, mutual pining, etc.)

39. What keeps you writing when you feel like giving up?

That's really only happened once, and that was when the author of That One Series was making it hard to me to get excited about writing fics about that series. I started getting into other fandoms, and that's when Doctor Who and Discworld really started appealing to me.

Also, I know that people like my writing and would like me to continue creating, and -as every positive comment helps me keep going- I find my excitement about writing comes from there a lot.

Thanks for the asks, mate!

#serenbex #writing #ask

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makeste · 4 years

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some follow-up thoughts on BnHA 306

mostly Deku angst, but also a little Baku angst (and some TodoBaku angst) mixed in for good measure. because there’s plenty of angst to go around.

1. “if I’d only been stronger...”

I’ll talk more about Deku later in this post as well, because there’s definitely plenty to talk about; this is the most character development he’s gotten in almost 200 chapters. but for starters, I want to discuss the possible parallels between Deku’s current character arc, and what is arguably the most iconic moment of angst/character development in the series.

remember how this kid, who up until this point had rarely seemed to give two fucks about the world around him, suddenly revealed that he blamed himself for being the downfall of All Might? remember how it came almost out of nowhere? how he’d been hiding it, and trying to suppress it? “but even if I try to forget... sometimes it all just comes rushing back.”

yeah. so anyway, I got to thinking -- if being the cause of one hero’s downfall could affect someone this badly, what about being responsible for the downfall of all heroes?

what if a boy who wanted nothing more than to keep people safe suddenly found himself at the epicenter of a disaster that killed hundreds, possibly even thousands of people?

now obviously, this is not the sole thing that’s troubling Deku right now; this kid has a whole array of traumas as of the War arc. like, you know it’s bad when Society As We Know It Coming To An End Partially Because Of You is the least of your problems. but still, I think this is worth bringing up, because the hero kids blaming themselves for things that aren’t their fault is hardly anything new. and yet, what with everything else that’s been going on -- all of the Todoroki drama, and Vestige revelations, and hospital antics, and political strife -- I feel like it’s easy to forget or overlook this little detail.

the fact is that AFO put this entire plan into motion solely in the hopes of finally obtaining OFA. every single thing that happened at Jakku -- Tomura powering up; Machia waking up and going on his rampage (after being ordered to do so by Tomura); and even Dabi/Touya choosing this moment to finally strike (because he knew this was when the reveal would do the maximum damage -- when people’s faith in heroes was already wavering) -- every last bit of it can ultimately be traced back to AFO’s desire to steal OFA. which, obviously, makes it AFO’s fault, not Deku’s. but then, Kamino wasn’t actually Katsuki’s fault either. it wasn’t his fault the villains went after him (but he blamed himself anyway), and it wasn’t his fault that people got hurt in the ensuing battle to save him (but he blamed himself anyway).

just. I think we’re underestimating just how strong of an impact all of this likely had on Deku. we haven’t really had the chance to see him process it yet. he’s been too busy, and there have been too many other things going on. but I’m telling you guys, that empty look in his eyes in the final page of the chapter? I can all but guarantee you that at least some of that emotional weight is coming from this.

sure would be nice if he had a friend who knew exactly what that was like, and could help him process the guilt and all of the other associated emotions, just like Deku once helped him. unfortunately I’m not so sure things will be that easy this time around. anyways though let’s move on to a couple of other thoughts and speculations.

2. “...and I bullied him.”

one of my least-favorite BnHA fanfic tropes is the one where the rest of class 1-A somehow finds out about Katsuki and Deku’s history -- i.e. that Katsuki bullied Deku throughout most of their childhood. mind you, it’s not the concept itself that I dislike; it’s mostly how it’s used. a lot of times it’s just an excuse to have all of the other kids turn on Katsuki and ostracize him; either because the author thinks that’s what he deserves, or else so that Deku can eventually come to his rescue and defend him and shame the rest of the class for not seeing how much he’s changed. either way, it’s usually pretty awkward to read, and more often than not the characters are pretty OOC (especially Ochako and Todoroki).

however! there’s a big difference between fanfic and canon, and just because I’m not a fan of this trope in the former doesn’t mean it couldn’t be executed well in the latter. and lately I’ve been thinking about this a lot. mainly for three reasons:

the recent (can we still call it recent?? well whatever) scene where Katsuki confessed to All Might that he used to bully Deku is now one of my favorite scenes in the entire series, and proof that this can be executed well.

both Todoroki and Deku have finally had their respective big secrets revealed to the rest of the class. so like, idk. feels like it just might be secret-revealing season now, you know?

and lastly, as a result of Deku’s secret about OFA finally being revealed, the rest of 1-A now either knows, or can extrapolate, that he used to be quirkless.

and from there, I feel like it’s not all that hard to put two and two together with how terrible Kacchan and Deku’s relationship was when they first started at UA. that’s not a terribly difficult puzzle to solve. so I feel like it might come out anyway, and if so, I’d prefer Bakugou telling them himself, and taking responsibility as part of his atonement process. because we know that he regrets it. we know their relationship has changed. we know that he has changed. and so I think I might like to see this.

alternately, if confessing to the entire class is too much, at the very least I could see him confessing to Shouto, because I’ve always felt like this was one of the big things that made Katsuki so resistant to letting Todoroki call him a friend. because I feel like there’s a part of Katsuki that saw the parallels between Endeavor’s abuse of Shouto and his own bullying of Deku, and thought, he wouldn’t be so quick to call me his friend if he actually knew the truth. and so there’s actually been this roadblock wedged between them this whole time that Shouto doesn’t even know about. because Shouto hates Endeavor. and so it’s not such a leap to assume he’d hate Katsuki too if he knew just how terrible he’d been to Deku when they were younger.

not that I think he actually would! actually I don’t think either of those things is actually true (because Shouto clearly doesn’t hate his father either, in spite of everything that’s happened). but the point isn’t what I think -- the point is what Katsuki thinks. and I really do think there’s a good chance he’s worried about Shouto hating him, and it’s one of the things that’s made him so reluctant to accept his friendship. anyway, so I’m really just rambling now, but you get my point. I don’t know if this is actually going to happen, but it’s a scene I would like to see if Horikoshi decides to indulge me.

3. “...so when you wake up, please give him my best.”

and now, as promised, back to Deku.

ngl guys, when I first saw this image, my immediate thought was that Gran must have died. because I mean, hello, leaving U.A.?? donning himself in his teacher’s old cape?? empty, exhausted look in his eyes?? what else were we supposed to think lol.

but maybe that was an overreaction. because when I think about it more, Gran’s death isn’t strictly necessary in order to push Deku over the edge. first of all, there’s already the whole “hero society is in ruins now because of you” thing I mentioned earlier. but also, there are just so many other things. like, let’s just list them here because omg. what a rough couple of days this kid had.

he was forced to battle TomurAFO and was terribly injured in the process (most of which was his own fault, but he wouldn’t have gone that far with OFA unless he felt like he had no choice)

and it wasn’t just him that was injured, either. in fact, even though he tried to act as bait to keep everyone else safe, he wasn’t able to stop three of the people closest to him from nearly being killed right before his eyes

and of course that last one was especially traumatic, because it was Kacchan, and because he had to watch Kacchan nearly die just to protect him. out of all the things that Deku witnessed in this arc, this might be the one that had the biggest impact on him

he was also basically helpless to do anything to protect Shouto and Endeavor when Dabi showed up. so again, we have this running theme of people he cares about being hurt and him not being able to save them

and he also got sucked into the OFA Interstellar Dream Vortex for a brief spell during the battle, during which he learned that AFO had possessed Tomura. more importantly, he learned that Tomura was Nana’s grandson, a fact which was only briefly touched on during that scene, but which I think wound up being the trigger to the whole avalanche that ended with Deku leaving UA. but more on that in a moment

anyway so just to wrap this all up, the battle eventually ended, Tomura got away despite all of their efforts, and then Deku wound up comatose in the hospital for two days. which brings us to the most recent chapters, during which

Deku learns that he will be the last wielder of OFA, whether he likes or not

Deku learns the identity of the last two mystery OFA users

and then at some point, he wakes up and presumably talks to Gran, and winds up with his cape

something happened during these last two scenes which helped to push Deku over the edge. I won’t delve into the matter of the Second or Third users for now, although most of you already know my suspicions regarding that, and I do think that would fit into the general pattern here (that is, the pattern of Deku feeling more and more strongly that he is putting the people around him in danger, and his fear of losing them becoming so overwhelming that it eventually pushes him to leave).

but that’s not what I want to talk about for now. what I want to talk about is Gran. specifically, what it is that Deku discussed with Gran. and this is where we come back to that reveal I mentioned earlier -- that Tomura is Nana’s grandchild.

basically, what I think happened is that Deku mentioned seeing Nana in the OFA Zany Psychedelic Spirit Void, which led to the topic of Tomura, and the fun fact Deku recently learned about him being related to Nana. this, in turn leads to Gran divulging his various regrets about everything that happened with him and Nana and Kotarou. his intent is to apologize to Deku for placing the burden of their failures on him. unfortunately, the part that Deku actually gets fixated on instead is this:

All for One hunted down and killed Nana’s son (and probably her husband as well), and stole her grandchild and psychologically tortured him into becoming a mass murderer, for no other reason than that Nana had once held OFA

in other words, AFO can and will hurt and kill anyone Deku is close to, anyone who has any kind of connection to him at all, without mercy, and regardless of whether it actually gives him any kind of tactical advantage or not. he’ll do it simply to hurt him. no other reason necessary.

I don’t know about you, but for me that would be a terrifying realization. and for Deku, I think it just might have been the tipping point.

so, let’s recap.

Deku learns that AFO is after him

AFO/Tomura very nearly kills several of Deku’s most important people, including Kacchan

and then he learns that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and realizes that all of their lives are still in danger and will continue to be as long as Deku is AFO’s target

and then add to all of this the misplaced guilt about society already being shambles, and the heroes already having more than enough to worry about. they’re barely holding things together as it is. and we already know how Deku feels about being a burden to them:

and so instead, he leaves. of course he does. in hindsight, I think this was inevitable.

the question is, did anyone else also put the pieces together in time to realize what Deku was planning before he actually left? specifically, did Katsuki, who understands Deku’s self-sacrificial nature better than anyone else, see the signs and put two and two together? like he did back at Jakku?

and if he did, would Deku have been willing to accept his help again?

somehow, I can’t help but think it might not be that easy this time.

anyway, so that was a lot of rambling, lol. sorry about that. I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS about all of this angsty shit. tired nomad Deku needs hugs and comfort and someone to reassure him that he doesn’t have to face this alone, and that everything is going to be all right. HE IS JUST A LITTLE BOY. this is too much, and I cannot handle any of these feels, and oh my god, somebody please help him.

#bnha 306 #midoriya izuku #bakugou katsuki #todoroki shouto #gran torino #bnha meta #deku meta #bakugou meta #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #long post #bakudeku #todobaku

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gothicprep · 2 years

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i saw some pretty ghastly shit on my dash last night, and i have nothing better to do than to weigh in. but instead of naming names, i'm going to try to toe the line and redact some specifics & paraphrase while trying to represent this as fairly as possible. take my word for it when i say i got my hands dirty enough to get the full picture on this.

person a makes a post that says something to the effect of "it's wrong to e-stalk someone with the express purpose of sexually shaming them for a callout post. if someone is circulating a post that's saying 'this person is into omegaverse? it's that disgusting?', in my opinion, OP is significantly less safe to be around than the subject of the post. most of the time this happens, it's targeting a trans woman, and this is good enough reason to be more critical about this practice"

before i move on here, it's important to point out that this sort of thing happens so often online that it's impossible to look like a statement like that and definitively say it's referencing something specific. i think the most egregious example of this i can think of relating to a callout here is five years back where a nontrivial amount of the post was. like. screenshots of sexually explicit conversations between 14-15 year old users. and that's just tumblr. not even getting into the far slimier versions of this on kiwifarms, 4chan, or if you really want to turn back the clock, encyclopedia dramatica or something awful.

the post makes the rounds and is intercepted by person b, who does some mental calculus and deduces that it was made in reference to a large callout post that was going around. unfortunately i have not been able to dig the post up for the life of me because everyone who's been talking about this situation has been vague about this, but the gist is that it had several people on it an the broader theme was extreme sexual creepiness – race play, noncon, pedophilia, and bestiality included in the mix. person b expresses surprise that person a apparently sided with racists, and people who sexually assault children or animals, but concludes that person a is a cis white woman and "they're usually all three".

person a gets angry about this for reasons that i think don't need to be elaborated on. "this statement could be applied to this call out, therefore it definitely is, and person a is defending these people specifically and she's doing it because she's like them". both are doubling down. person b is also saying that person a was the mod on an anti social justice blog in '14. there is no evidence for this, other than the blog having a mod from the same country as her, with the same nickname, which is very, very flimsy grounds.

so, what exactly happened here? A doesn't mention any of that stuff in the post. omegaverse, maybe you could make some kind of case for if you're reading the post as "defending omegaverse" rather than "condemning sexual harassment". but i don't think racism and sexual abuse apologia is an entirely fair thing to extrapolate, even if omegaverse is the given example and it's a dubious trope. especially because the big call out wasn't about the omegaverse, right?

the short answer is i'm not sure what B was doing here, but i feel like her response being to try and dig up dirt on A's online past, and deferring to something speculative and unsubstantiated when she can't readily do that is a massive call for concern.

but all that out of the way, i want to talk a little bit about how situations like these are good examples of how frivolously extremely serious allegations can be thrown around.

for one, making a joke about "well most of the people in this demographic group fuck children and pets anyway" doesn't really seem like the kind of shit you say if you take abuse seriously by any real measure. but it gets worse.

do you guys want to know why conservatives are really fond of casting gay & trans people as pedophiles and child groomers? it's because it's very, very common for people to be okay with violence against people who sexually abuse children, and feel urgently enough about this that they're willing to turn a bit of a blind eye to forgoing due process in support of that, due to the weight of it. their goal is to tap into that same justified anger and visceral disgust and weaponize it against a group they dislike. so seeing B react to A's post highlighting that this sort of cyberstalking tends to hurt trans women the most with "well white women tend to be pedophiles, amongst other things" strikes me as very, very reckless advocacy. and that's me being a lot more generous than they deserve.

also:

you could apply this vague post to a callout –> she's probably a creep in the same way they are –> *additional accusation based on extremely circumstantial events*

you can follow how this has a way of calling into suspect the original allegations in the callout, right? if this vague statement about a common instance online can be used to suggest that someone is a pedophile, how exactly was that determined for the other people involved in this? did someone come forward and say "this older user put me in some very uncomfortable sexual situations" or was it a similar situation of "i read their post in the worst possible light"? we understand that it's extremely dangerous to create a boy who cried wolf situation with stuff like this, right?

there have been plenty of bunk callouts on here. some cases like the lesbian makeup application photo, which was just complete shit. or the mitski sex trafficking debacle, that was the unfortunate result of a user having a psychosis episode – even though they later told people over and over again that they had written it while hallucinating and it still kept circulating. surely we need to have some kind of vetting process? but many situations of abuse are not going to have a paper trail, which complicates things.

what to do, then? i guess something like this, it's worth your time to dive into posts that have more of a gossipy "they said a bad thing" tone and figure out why it something is being said/if it's a fair interpretation of events. as for things where this isn't an option, i truly don't have any ideas.

either way, the kind of internet conduct where you just assume the worst possible faith at all time isn't keeping anyone safer.

#long post #like. very very long post

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