#ancient analogues

[xroguerosexxx]

Ancient Analogues.

[weifeili95]

nine circles of hell - matera, italy

[pamietniko]

train to Pompeii

Naples, Italy

[impoliticwestie]

In An Ancient City of Analogue Ghosts.

[sulphurousvisions]

Cleopatra's Needle London

[jeannereames]

You said before that your DwtL Hephaistion in the modern world would be a vet or work with animals if he got to follow his heart, really (career-wise). What do you think your fictional Alexandros’s career would be in the modern world? And on the flip side what professions do you think the actual historical Alexander and Hephaistion would have if they were transported to the 21st century?

Crafting Believable Modern Analogs for Historical Figures

How fun to re-imagine who Alexander the Great might be in the modern world. It’s tempting to take the obvious, and too-easy route: assuming he’d be a tech or media mogul, or a celebrity child, or even a scion of some old-money family like Anderson Cooper is of the Vanderbilts. But those miss some important aspects.

Let’s try to find modern parallels for things going on in Pella when Alexander was growing up, to get a better handle on who a “modern” Alexander might be.

That requires the all-important FRAMING of his social setting and situation.

Philip II, his father, came to an unstable throne in 359 BCE. Within one year, he’d turned the tables on Macedon’s erstwhile conqueror, Bardylis of Illyria, and proved very successful at consolidating rule and making allies, or forcing them. Even so, when Alexander was born in the summer/fall of 356, Philip still hadn’t made his mark outside the region, and didn’t truly begin to pour money into Pella until about ten years later. His involvement in the Third Sacred War (356-46) got him attention in the south, but it was long, complicated, and expensive, and we know he was flat broke at several points, unable to pay his own soldiers. That’s part of why he embarked on northern campaigns. The Thracians had gold. The Phokians didn’t, but defeating them bought him a seat on the Delphi Amphyctiony worth prestige. Subsequent reduction of big cities such as Olynthos and Potidaia helped on the funds front. So, by the time Alexander reached preteen/teenage years, Philip could afford to buy him a horse worth 3 (or 13) talents of silver.

Near the end of Rise, at almost 20, Alexandros still thinks of himself against Philip’s achievements: His life might come to nothing, no great deeds to inscribe after his name. Always he’d walked in his father’s shadow:“There goes Philippos of Makedon. Oh, and that is his son, Alexandros.” He was beginning to think he’d be an afterthought forever.

A visual record of ol' Phil's conquests:

To me, that’s a key aspect underscoring Alexander’s (or my Alexandros’s) ambitions. Philip may have suffered similar, but in reverse. He was the youngest son, come accidentally to power after military disaster and exile, his brothers arguably failures, his father a king of mixed reputation. Amyntas III was among the few Argeads to die in bed of old age, not be assassinated or killed in battle. But OTOH…he was among the few Argeads to die in bed of old age because all he did was hold onto his throne, and that barely.

I’m not sure that inheritance was any easier.

I see parallels between what Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pulled off in Ukraine, and what Philip of Macedon did, in his first few years on the throne. Both men grasp symbolism and the Mask of Command, and use it to craft a resistance that held off an opponent others assumed would wipe up the floor with them (Bardylis, for Philip)—but whose army proved to be over-confident and under-trained. Yet an elected official is quite different from a king, and one shouldn’t push that parallel too far.

For Alexander, I can see some parallels to JFK, Jr., in the mythos of the Kennedy name (e.g., Heraklid blood), and heavy political expectations…yet JFK died when John Jr. was quite young, and John Jr. didn’t step into his father’s shoes despite popular hopes (or fears) that he’d try. Instead, he seemed interested in doing his own thing. That’s not Alexander, who, when he appeared before the Corinthian League to accept the role as hegemon leading the invasion of Persia, told them only the name of the king had changed. John Jr. didn’t want to go into politics because he was a Kennedy. Alexander absolutely invaded Persia because he was a Temenid/Argead.

Nonetheless, that provides a way to think about a modern Alexander analog.

Some key elements would be coming from an important local family, but one sniffed at in NYC or London or Paris or Rome. They’d be nouveau riche…or perceived to be. Savvy, smart, but a bit gauche, Alexander the first generation at boarding school (and not let to forget it). Or they were once a wealthy family who fell on hard times in the Depression and have only recently clawed their way back to prominence. (The Macedonian royal clan was pretty damn wealthy in the Archaic Era, if we can use the gold in burials at Vergina, Arkontiko, etc., as a guide.) Even Archelaos’s new capital of Pella was, size-wise, not comparable to foundations in south Greece or Asia Minor: up-and-coming, not established.

Pella reminds me a bit of Orlando, Florida, which is now one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the US. But when my parents moved our family to its neighbor, Lakeland, in 1968, Lakeland was not so very much smaller. Orlando had orange groves, but Lakeland had the once-super-important rail system. The big city in the area was Tampa, 4xs Orlando’s size at the time. (Image below, Lake Ivanhoe, downtown Orlando, 1968)

Times change. Railroads stopped being so critical. And not long after we arrived in Lakeland, Orlando got Mouse Ears (Disney), then exploded and never stopped. Now Lakeland is a little-known-outside-Central-Florida bedroom community for Greater Tampa Bay and the behemoth that is Orlando/Kissimmee. Tampa is still bigger, but it’s been a big city since the first decades of the 1900s. Orlando, only since the 1970s. I watched it happen.

It’s not a bad parallel for Pella. Pella pre-existed Archelaos. He just dredged the harbor and moved the palace there. He started the process—(Orlando in the 1950s)—but died too soon and was succeeded by roiling chaos until Philip came to the throne. Philip was Pella’s Mouse Ears. Yet the Pella Alexander grew up in was still nascent: “we’re going to BE something but it’s not quite here yet.” Similarly, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, Orlando grew, but wasn’t yet monstrous. Huge tracks of undeveloped land and orange groves still covered countryside that is now wall-to-wall hotels, stores, retirement communities, and high-end vacation-home rentals in a vast urban sprawl. Alexander’s Pella was Orlando in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, not the mega-metropolis you’ll see if you visit the archaeological site today, which shows the expansion not only of the crazy-rich Antigonid Hellenistic city (post ATG), but also Roman Pella. (Reconstruction of Hellenistic Pella)

Alexander’s Pella also reminds me a bit of modern Omaha, a city that feels on the brink of something bigger. (For an interesting take on Omaha’s expansion, here’s a 2020 article in the LA Times, so it’s not local propaganda.)

Let’s play that comparison out further.

The article points to the impact of Warren Buffett (and his family) on the city, their investments and promotion of growth-industries such as financials, tech, education, and medical research…all contrasted with the Koch investments in oil and big manufacturing in Wichita that have mostly left or gone belly-up. Philip did similar, following the model of Archelaos before him, and Alexander I before that: investing and modernizing. People moved to Pella because it was exciting. Instead of a brain drain to Athens, or Thebes, or the cities of Asia Minor, Philip hired engineers and builders to come there. He encouraged trade, using the big rivers to transport timber and metals from the interior down to the coast to sell, enriching both the royal pocketbook and the families of merchants who settled in Pella (or Amphipolis, etc.) to oversee those lucrative royal contracts.

So if you want to “find” Alexander in the modern world, ditch the king part, and the war-mongering part; those are artifacts of his world that don’t transfer easily. Instead, look at his social milieu. No, he wouldn’t be the scion of old money like the Rothschilds in London, or a Carnegie or Rockefeller or Vanderbilt in NYC, or a Forbes in Boston, Getty in LA, or McCormick in Chicago. He wouldn’t even be a Kennedy, or a Bush.

I’d make him a Buffett (or similar). The family’s insanely rich although they give a lot of it away, politically active and genuinely philanthropic, but not politicians. Greater Omaha is not a major metropolis, but is a big city (just under a one million) with cosmopolitan shine and a few things worth boasting about. Yet he’d still constantly have to apologize for his hometown at any ivy-league college. As a grandson or great-nephew, he’d have been hearing business talk from a young age, and probably sat in on more than a few boardrooms. He’d have his own legacy portfolio. He'd have grown up seeing the family name on dozens of local buildings, jetted around the world, rubbed elbows with the rich and famous, and had to sit through his share of benefit events and appear at high-profile galas. He’d have grown up in the shadow of the Oracle of Omaha (Grandpa Warren) who still lives in the house he bought in 1958 (5 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms), and suffer being looked down on by Old Money from Old Settlements (like a Demosthenes in Athens). (Below: Buffett house in Omaha)

Keeping with the theme, maybe he’d decide to take over Berkshire Hathaway and grow it even bigger. Forget the Koch family in Wichita or the Waltons (Wal-Mart) in the Ozarks of Arkansas. He’d challenge the likes of Zuckerberg and Musk and Bezos (the modern Athens or Thebes or Sparta), but do it Buffett style from the Democratic angle. Being young, maybe he’d decide to champion environmental causes. Instead of seeing it as his divine destiny to conquer the world, perhaps he’d believe it his duty (noblesse oblige) to save it.

That’s a long, discursive exploration, but I think Alexander was just SO wedded to his position by birth that, unlike Hephaistion, he never had a chance to be or even think of himself as a private individual with ambitions apart from those of his family. You could play the same game and make him one of the aforementioned Waltons or Kochs, if you wanted a completely different political angle. But he shouldn’t come from a big, cosmopolitan city or Old Money family.

Edit to add: Realized I got so excited about Analog ATG, I neglected Hephaistion. Don’t know enough about the historical man to play that out. But for my fictional Hephaistion, aside from pursuing something to do with animals/hoses, maybe a large animal vet, I would make him from Old Money, somebody Alexandros met at boarding school. Maybe the son of a family who breeds race horses, but he wants to doctor them instead. How scandalous. 'Son, we hire people to do that. You're not the help.'

Btw, for those who enjoy this sort of reimagined fictional analog for famous people—and you’ve not already read it (or heard about it)—let me recommend Kate Elliott’s Unconquerable Sun. It’s a gender-flipped space opera with the Republic of Chaionia as Macedon in the Stars, newly triumphant over the Yele League (Athens) under Queen-Marshal Eirene (Philip), now gearing up for war against the mighty Phene Empire (Persia). Princess Sun is a reimagined Alexander, Hetty is Hephaistion, Persephone is Ptolemy, etc. The second book, Furious Heaven, is done, I’ve read it, it’s great, but is currently in awaiting-edits purgatory. The whole supply chain problem affects some really weird things…including book publishing.

There's an even lesser known Alexander analog in a set of three novels published by Alison Spedding in the latter 1980s that starts with The Road and the Hills.

[bersun]

[lesbiandatekaname]

Some flavors of neo-pagan witches rly need to hear that even if they worship like. Greek gods or whatever they do it in a REALLY Christian way.

[katakaluptastrophy]

John Gaius' commitment to a certain aesthetic for his space empire is...certainly something...

They are using fountain pens on spaceships. Fountain pens. To the extent that every vaguely intellectual character (other than Abigail Pent, who is repeatedly described as "neat" and "immaculate") is constantly described as having ink stains on their hands and even faces, and the smell of ink is referenced repeatedly.

And when they're not writing with fountain pens, they're using necromantically stabilised blood (this isn't just a Harrow quirk - the Sixth have special spikes on their clipboards for signing documents...).

Amongst the Lyctoral traces Abigail finds in the library at Cannan House are "a warped automatic pen with a thin inner cylinder of ink and a plex casing, rather more antiquated than one with an ink cartridge."

It also seems reasonable to assume that the "clockworks" they wear are analogue watches, as Nona scolds Cam for referring to her beeping digital watch as a "clockwork" on New Rho.

And besides the fountain pens, regency navy uniforms, swords, and general 20th century pulp literature culture, a few more things that characters specifically describe as antique or ancient include:

Sunglasses

Metal industrial shelving

Paper books with glossy pages

Black tie formal wear

Automatic doors

LED lights

Chrome kitchen fittings

Guns (to the extent that Abigail specifically says to the Sleeper "you come bearing ancient weapons")

And fine, these are all within the realms of things people are reasonably allowed to have a personal preference against...

But you know what else the Nine Houses don't have?

VACCINES.

What was the thought process by which Dr Science and Humanitarian Empathy decided to bring back routine childhood illnesses from the 1950s?

Speaking of the 1950s, why - in a society that appears to find permanently magically manipulating the bodies of living people trivial - does the standard of eyecare seem to also be from the early 20th century?

As a glasses wearer, I totally appreciate that there may simply be a social preference for glasses despite the existence of flesh magic. But Abigail Pent swapping between two pairs of glasses would seem to suggest that varifocals went the way of the mumps vaccine...

And our perspective on this is entirely from some of the most privileged people in the Dominicus system.

[ao3cassandraic]

Angels, demons, language, and culture part 4: Literalism and metaphor

Part 1 (angels are never children, and that matters), Part 2 (written language is mostly coded human rather than ethereal/occult in Good Omens), Part 3 (human writings contain useful social rules, which is partly why Aziraphale values them)

It may be time to restate @thundercrackfic's original questions?

How good is Aziraphale’s reading comprehension? How much does he understand subtext and metaphor? Because his behavior this season struck me with the impression that he didn’t really understand the books he collects. He’s clever at puzzle solving, and contains vast knowledge; but he always seems to take things at face value (when he’s not willfully misunderstanding), and refuses to give up black-and-white thinking, which would make it very difficult to analyze texts.

I think there are definite reasons to believe that reading comprehension of human literature (as defined in the question) is difficult for Aziraphale. One of them, as stated in part 1, is that Aziraphale doesn't get the tremendous advantage of childhood and its brain plasticity, which (among other things) is known to help with learning language. I'm not surprised his French is pretty bad. Learning another language from the ground up as an adult can be a cast-iron PITA (yes, experience speaking).

Another is simply that Aziraphale is not human. He's an outsider to humanity. He's fairly empathetic, and he does learn (unlike almost all his fellow angels!), but that leaves him without much of a yardstick to gauge when human literature is being literal and when it's not. There also seems to be a general angelic tendency to believe what they're told? Muriel definitely has it, Michael seems to as well, and even s1!Gabriel can only (and barely) muster skepticism on one occasion that I recall (the photo incident). I can see this making Aziraphale's reading, especially early in his existence on Earth, a good bit harder for him than reading is for, say, me. I'm used to unreliable narrators and figurative language and other sorts of clever fun productive lying. Aziraphale's acquaintance with lying is -- well -- his lies don't usually involve much metaphor? I suppose one could argue that "big sharp cutty thing" is a kenning, but not really in the human way of kennings because he only uses it the once.

Moreover, it appears (based on the s1e3 cold open, mostly) that he bops around the world quite a bit until finally settling in London (with the occasional jaunt elsewhere when he gets peckish). Nothing at his creation other than the auto-polyglottism She bestows on Her angels seems to give him any tools for navigating the bewildering variety of human cultures and customs... and literary metaphor (along with lots of other literary things) is commonly culturally-bound, culturally-specific.

I mean, if you read something (maybe in high school (or analogue) or college) that was written A Long Time Ago and/or Very Far Away, didn't it probably have a ton of what lit-critters call "apparatus" in it? Explanatory introductions, bibliography, and above all footnotes/endnotes/margin notes, many of which explain figures of speech that otherwise wouldn't make sense? Not to mention stuff like (just as an example) which local then-current political morass Dante threw this particular historical person in this particular circle of Hell for. Stuff that if you're not there, not embedded in the culture and the time, you're just plain gonna whiff. Hell, even Shakespeare editions have a ton of apparatus, and Shakespeare's in Early Modern English for pity's sake!

(Which is not to say that something has to be ancient or not-from-here to benefit from some apparatus. What is The Annotated Pratchett File if not apparatus for Discworld?)

So our peripatetic angel reading literature of whatever time he's actually in (which mostly won't have apparatus he can rely on for help) will often find himself not clued-in enough to a given human culture to completely understand its literary figures, metaphors included. And sure, that's going to lead to some misreadings and misunderstandings and overliteral takes! I can't read Dante's Inferno and understand everything in it! It takes Italianists years, if not decades, to do that!

And to make the problem even more difficult, literature feeds on itself, and on other arts as well. (Hi hi hello, comparative literature major, I totally studied various flows of literary and artistic influence in college and wouldn't trade that major for anything ever, it was the best major.) Think about all the time and effort GO meta-ists have spent of late teasing out callbacks and allusions and references in GO s2. That kind of work is also part of what Aziraphale has to do to understand fully what he reads... and it's a lot of work, even for a reader as voracious and possibly sleepless as our angel.

So yeah, in sum, I don't think Aziraphale has a perfect -- or even good -- track record on understanding what he reads. I adore him because he reads anyway! He never gives up on trying to understand! That's absolutely praiseworthy! (Crowley has something of an analogue to this in his love for human inventions. He doesn't understand how anything actually works, for the most part, but he loves it all the same.)

I think there's also an outstanding question about what Aziraphale gains from reading, a sense of social rules (Part 3) aside? Well, it's known that reading (especially fiction, especially fiction about characters who are Not Like The Reader) increases empathy. I don't know if Aziraphale reads specifically for that reason, but I'm absolutely willing to believe that fiction works on him that way, just as it does on us, even if he doesn't fully understand everything he reads. Did you fully understand everything you read as a child? Or even as an adult? I would never claim that of myself. Yet I certainly will claim that I picked up a lot of what I suppose I will call my character -- it runs deeper than personality -- and my general understanding of life (insofar as I have one) from reading.

If I had to answer why Aziraphale reads, though? I'd think back to my own childhood, as a bullied child with somewhat neglectful parents who held outsized expectations of me. Reading for me was peace, was escape, was enjoyment, was something to think about that wasn't my own unhappiness, was -- now and then, honestly not often enough -- seeing myself reflected in a book and feeling less alone. I hope and believe that human literature and music served similar purposes for our poor angel.

[determunition]

the third of my scrybeswap pieces! i’d say last, but i’m aiming for the canon scrybes to finish this series off hoohoo

these four are probably the most friendly out of all the batches! in this universe magnificus is a lush, ethereal fae spirit rendering the woods in chalk pastel, while leshy stays isolated in the southwestern sounds of the archipelago in a hut on avian legs, capturing all that’s Magickal within the scope of his legendary view-master

p03 is a twisted mix of natural remains and analogue technology but enjoys socializing in his own way, sharing many offbeat silent conversations with leshy in his dead mall temple; and grimora, cordial as always, tinkers with all manner of machines in her distant lab, though behind closed doors the others may call her a bit overly meddlesome, especially where coveted ancient software is concerned…

[gallifreyanhotfive]

Random Doctor Who Facts You Might Not Know, Part 20: Academy Era Edition

Please note that some Academy Era info is dispersed throughout the other parts as well; I just wanted to make one dedicated to these nerds. I am not repeating stuff from other parts (purposefully, there may be some accidents, but I'm trying not to repeat things like Koschei teaching Theta hypnosis or like the hyperball team) or including some basic info I think are decently well known (like Torvic or the Gallifrey Academy Hot Five). ;)

The Master's real name is 32 letters long.

As students, Theta and Koschei enjoyed building time flow analogues to mess with each others experiments.

Koschei once gave Susan a toy which was actually a communication node that he could use to find the Doctor and Susan if they ever left Gallifrey.

Theta and Koschei also used to sneak out of the Academy to drink with Shobogans. On one such occasion, Koschei picked a fight with six drunk Shobogans.

Theta's name day and Otherstide are on the same day.

Koschei often hypnotized people as a joke. He was never punished for it.

Drax had a home-made skimmer that he would often use to go to his House rather than stay in the Academy dormitories. He'd also give Jelpax rides home because they lived close by.

Koschei was in charge of organizing the end-of-term parties, but the Eighth Doctor remembers that they weren't very good.

While at the Academy, Theta and Koschei traveled to Gallifrey's past in search of Valdemar, an ancient entity and Old One, but they found nothing of Old Ones. Theta was horrified by Valdemar's power while Koschei was fascinated.

When Vansell broke his leg while climbing Mount Cadon, Theta created a localized time bubble with a sonic wrench and two lengths of twine. This accelerated the healing process, and it was healed in two minutes.

Koschei and Theta also once traveled to Machasma and used sonic agitation to get out of a tight spot.

Theta Sigma came fourth place in the Time Lord Academy Sprint Championship.

Millennia had a natural gift for temporal engineering, and Theta believed she would one day make great intellectual achievements.

Tebediatroculozan attended the Academy at the same time as the Deca. He was incredibly clever but also envious of the Doctor for the adventures he had. The Eighth Doctor helped him move past this jealousy.

When Koschei stared into the Untempered Schism, he noted with much contempt that the Time Lords who had taken him there all refused to look at it themselves.

Mortimus is likely about 50 years younger than Theta Sigma.

The Second Doctor recalled that Koschei enjoyed being scared of the dark too much.

The Toymaker had Theta play Capture the Flag and thought that Theta had cheated.

When the Toymaker was using Rallon's body, Rallon had enough influence over his personality that the Toymaker had a sense of "good and evil." When the Toymaker went against the Fourteenth Doctor, he was no longer using Rallon's body, so this was not the case.

Theta was Borusa's teacher's pet, and Borusa favored him over other students. Later on, the Doctor would believe this was why the Master was bitter towards him.

In fact, an unproduced story's original script originally had the Doctor’s grandfather be named Borusa, but it was later changed to Pandak.

While at the Academy, Koschei befriended Salyavin and manipulated him to gain access to the restricted libraries. He wanted to steal The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey but could not find it, and Salyavin took the blame for his wrongdoing.

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28

[nateofgreat]

C.S Lewis: Now for Calormene, I think I’ll draw inspiration from a few different sources from Middle Eastern history. But mainly from ancient cultures that practiced things like slavery. The religion I’ll base off old pagan beliefs from the time of the Bible, wherein bestial gods were worshiped and human sacrifice was still practiced. After all Tash will be my analogue for the Dev-

Woke fans: Oh my gosh! ISLAMOPHOBIA!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!? This violent cult reminds me of Islam! Which means Lewis hated Muslims!!!!

C.S Lewis: Did you miss the part where I gave Tash a bird head?

[pamietniko]

safe space

Szczecin, Poland

[psychopasss4]

PPP Novel is out❣️

...just in time for the Lunar New Year Eve, Feb. 9th. 🎉

Noitamina Shop will hold Arata Shindo-kun's bday campaign and at the same time promotes the PPP novel sale 🥂🥳.

Have you already prepared dried persimmons? 🤗 You know, in ancient times people used to wind-hang outside Hoshigaki, thus the Japanese lantern shape we know about today were taken from. 📸 Google Images.

Quick Review:

During the premier of PPP movie before the Global launch, fans kept asking Dir. Shiotani about

The meaning of empty liquor bottle in Kogami's desk.

Why Kogami removed his jacket during his balcony scene

And his answer were simple. Kogami didn't know the difference of wearing it inside or outside. At first, I thought it was some kind of a funny little joke, or I didn't understand the words full well (I'm not a full-bred Japanese though I studied Nihonggo way back in grade school).

But if you read the PPP novel, you will realize Kogami isn't fully adjusted from his traumatic experiences as a mercenary overseas 🤧. So he doesn't feel how to act just as he used to when he's back.

And ofcourse, we all know he and Saiga only emptied the liquor after long hours of chatting and Tonami profiling.

2. It's interesting that the writing team have taken the pulse of the fans during the Q&A session, thus some points in PPP novel is what we might've expect after all 🤭.

3. Some may say it's nothing new. As it seems the writing team pretty much remain loyal to the movie summary. But if you read between the lines, you realize how it is a bit forgiving & fan-serving, compare to the movie itself 👍🏻.

4. The locations...last minute alterations... 😆😂.

5. And ofcourse the last time Akane spent with Saiga on his detention cell 😭. She literally blame herself for asking him to come to them on Dejima in MoFA's HQ to retrieve the Stronskaya Papers a day after. Which we all know ended tragically.

6. She pulls the trigger. She question the justice. Which quotes the same kind of line from PP3 novel when she's writing her thoughts down in an analogue typewriter. From that scene she thought of Kogami's action and how Sybil judged him for that.

But in PPP novel, no doubt she puts into consideration the life of Atsushi Shindo and how he was used as a pawn, only to be a master pawn who puppets the life of another pawn like what happened to Akira Ignatov.

Aswell as Akira Ignatov's sacrifice. He volunteered to be a puppet for the sake of the future generation. For the sake of his brother in particular 😢😓😓😢.

7. Frede-chan's holding back and being indecisive to keep the truth about the mission to Kogami. Is like keeping her phone number to her crush 😹🤭. Sure, she's just conscious how would Kou-chan would react since she knows Saiga and him are pretty close 😮‍💨.

8. The writing team did a pretty good job by staying true to their plot work. They know what they're doing. As if taken up some piece of advice from Gege Akutami 😅😂.

9. The last scene is pretty much heart-aching but well executed 😘🤌🏻❤️

10. The General was a medical AI but I wonder if the creator of Sybil also created that?... how about BiFrost? Oh hello, Season 4! We're waving at you ☺️😀!

11. Many hate Akane for trying to control Kogami, again?! Let me get this straight, SHE ISN'T CONTROLLING ANYONE!

There's a MASSIVE difference when he a.) first pulled the trigger against Makishima (out of revenge) and when he b.) pulls that against Tonami.

Akane knows it best.

a) She doesn't want him to be a person swallowed by revenge like Sasuke (Naruto).

b) She hopes Kogami is back for the better but instead he acted again with his animal instinct which indicates he can still be easily outplayed by emotions instead of not letting it get the human out of him.

Akane still looks up to Kogami. She knows he was labeled as a latent criminal by Sybil. But the way Kou acted is like proving to Sybil that their labeling of him as latent criminal was right. And if there's one thing Akane isn't fond of, that is proving Sybil right.

So it's not about Kogami. It's about her campaign against Sybil's false and unfair judgement! So don't mock her! 😖

Lastly, PPP novel is enjoyable because a lot of fans are exerting efforts to translate it to English for fans abroad. Kudos to you all❣️

Not everyone have the time, capacity and dedication you've spent. Including me, I'm not good in translation. So thank you. You are the heart of PSYCHO-PASS franchise global expansion ❤️🥰.

End of Review.

Okay, so that wasn't a quick one 😋 sorry about that. I just hope you guys have a wonderful day. Have fun and enjoy everything that you do!

🥰🤗

Meanwhile, the original crew of PP1 are in their podcast discussing how the series have been progressing so far 😋😂

Nah! It's just a trace sketch of CD Discussion Vol. 1

🤣🤣🤣

[misseviehyde]

RUNED

When Molly arrived at the tattoo parlour - the first thing the tattoo artist had said was, "Are you sure about this? You don't look like our normal kind of customer."

He wasn't wrong. Molly had never had a tattoo before. She was short, plump and timid. Dressed in her baggy clothing and with her thick black glasses she didn't look like the kind of girl who would sport a tattoo. Getting one was completely out of character.

Not that she cared about the pain or anything. What was a little physical pain when your bullies had teased and tormented you all your life? She could take a little pain.

The buzzing stabbing pain of the needle was in fact quite soothing. She felt the artist carefully following the curves and whorls of the design she had given him. She felt the thrill as she realised there was no turning back now.

The intricate three circles being traced onto her lower back were of an unusual design. Ancient runes - she had spent hours translating ancient texts to find them. Her bullies had laughed and tormented her further as she looked over the books in the library.

There was no exact analogue for what they meant. They were evil magic runes used by the most corrupt of witches - but translated as closely as possible into the modern vernacular they had a simple - yet complex meaning.

If you were to translate the three runes her tattoo now had, they would say:

Mean, spoiled, popular.

There was more to it of course. The way the runes linked and locked together added more nuances and meanings than simple language could ever convey. It had taken her hours to carefully sketch the finished design. One mistake and everything could go wrong.

She gripped the table with tears in her eyes. The pain was exquisite now and it already felt like the tattoo was bleeding into her soul. It was pure evil and forbidden magic - but she couldn't stop now.

Mean, spoiled, popular.

If it worked - Molly would become like her bullies. The tattoo would corrupt and change her to be like them. It's wicked power would alter her body and warp her life. The runes would change her to match her darkest desires.

She knew her friends would hate what she was doing. They loved and accepted who she was. For years Molly had tried to be a good girl and accept the body and life she had. But even as her bullies had picked on her - she had found herself agreeing with them and worse - admiring and coveting what they had.

She wanted to be thin, pretty, rich and bitchy. She wanted to have the confidence to wear slutty acrylic nails and dress in tight revealing designer clothing. She wanted to bully and belittle her former friends and lord it over everyone.

She would lie in bed fingering her pussy and wishing she was the worst kind of mean girl imaginable. There was just something so hot about the thought of being bad. She hungered for it.

And now if this worked - she would have everything.

It took a few trips to the parlour to finish the tattoo and once it was complete a few days for the swelling and irritation to go down. All that time Molly was desperate to avoid anyone seeing her tattoo and she felt a range of emotions, including panic and regret.

But finally she was ready and there was only one part of the ritual left to complete.

Molly had timed her tattoo to coincide with a full moon. Tonight she would bathe her tattoo in the moonlight and it would activate. Tonight she would be reborn.

********

Molly was nervous as she lay naked on her bed with the skylight open. The tattoo on her back looked strange and out of place. Her heart beat as the moon began to wax and a soft light began to fill the room.

There was no cloud tonight, and soon the moonlight was streaming into the bedroom. The runes on her back began to glow.

Mean, spoiled, popular.

Molly gasped as her back itched and the evil runes absorbed power from the full moon. "Yesssss, make me into a fucking bitch," she gasped in pleasure as she felt the power flowing into her weak little body.

She felt the darkness oozing into her soul - she felt the tattoo's power begin to change her.

She wiggled and groaned in pleasure, her pussy wet as her bones popped and cracked. Weight sloughed away as her flat chest became more rounded and full.

"Ohhhhh fuck," groaned Molly as her legs cracked and lengthened. She grew taller and slimmer - curves developing as her dumpy nerdy body became strikingly feminine and athletic.

"Mmmmmmhhhh oh yessss!" hissed Molly as her ass swelled up to be firm and rounded, the tattoo on her tanned muscled back now looking like it belonged there.

Her lank hair grew longer and became blonde and bitchy, even as claw like nails sprang from her fingers and a mean, entitled face curved into a wicked smile - long lashes fluttering in pleasure as Molly became the embodiment of the girls she longed to emulate.

"You dumb fucking nerd," she giggled as she tossed back her hair. "You're a bullying bitch now and it feels so good!"

The mental changes were indeed intoxicating. Physically Molly now looked angelic and perfect - but inside she was completely evil. The tattoos were burning away all emotions except greed, cruelty and hunger for power.

The new Molly was mean and spoiled, just like she had wanted. She purred with pleasure at the thought of all the girls she would bully - all the boys she would seduce.

Nothing felt better than being a hot rich privileged slut. The parts of her that still felt reluctant about this transformation were overwhelmed and burned away as the tattoo took complete control.

"It's too late loser," groaned the new bitch as she played with her pussy and grabbed her now large firm tits. "You're me now and you fucking love it. I'm an Alpha girl at last and I LOVE IT."

Standing up in the moonlight - her tattoo turning back to normal now it's work was done - the new spoiled Princess laughed as she saw the room around her had also changed.

"Mmmmh this is more like it, a boudoir for a Goddess."

It was now the bedroom of a spoiled brat and swaying over to her wardrobe Molly grinned as she saw she now had a vast private collection of lingerie clothes and makeup.

"Haha - who needs a soul when you have all this?"

The evil tattoo had turned her into a mean, spoiled, popular bitch just as she had wanted.

Slipping on an expensive satin night gown Molly admired her new toned, perfect body in the moonlight and then stretched her arms over her head. She enjoyed the push and pull of her new muscles and the knowledge that now sat in her head of how to perform cheerleading moves or fuck a boy.

The runes had done everything she had wanted and more and the evil tattoo would always be a part of her.

Molly was a bitch now.

Mean, spoiled, popular.