#and tbh some variations DO still have the same moves

[northern-passage]

oho, air you say? perhaps being able to remove the air from peoples lungs? or air pressure manipulation? maybe air based projectiles that can pierce, or air blades that can slash? or more general use, being able to fling shit around with air! Mini tornadoes or blasts of air that can knock people/things back!

i've used all of these so far 🤧 except for air pressure! that's a good one, i didn't think of that :-)

i'm trying really hard to make each path different from the other, including within the specializations, i actually have an entire document specifically for writing down potential combat moves for each specialty so i will be adding air pressure to the list.

it's definitely been... challenging writing it this way. there's only so many ways you can do this or that. but i think i've managed to keep it interesting across all choices, so it's not necessarily a direct copy-pasting of the same moves over and over again. i'm definitely expecting feedback once the update is published regarding the combat, since that was something i got a lot of criticism/feedback on previously when i first published the demo. it's definitely different this time and i hope yall will like the "new" combat, i feel like i'm more comfortable with it and actually know what direction i want to take it in.

[umahumahumah]

How do you recreate the Hetalia artstyle so well

ok so.. .uhhhhhhhhhh honestly i dont even know how. which is why i am obviously qualified to make YOU, yes you, the person reading this, a tutorial

i psoted an incomplete tutorial on the hetalia art style some few months back and when i look back at it now, some things are just straight up wrong or need clarification (also its the same post where i accidentally sent multiple death threats to a random sex worker thinking they were just a porn bot oopsies) so if you guys still remember that, forget about it! all of it!!! this is a brand new, more accurate guide on how to draw himas style!

(quick warning though im just a weeb not a professional teacher by any means so dont take this as gospel and dont get mad if i got something wrong or something is confusing)

himastyle tutorial! (the better one) part 1

(link to part 2 here)

ok lets start off with the

HEADS

this is just the way i start drawing my heads personally. if i had to describe it, its basically a simplified stylized version of the loomis head method. proko has a good video on it! just give that a quick watch then take a look at my step by step guide

but besides this, there are some important things about the head that you should remember

the shape of the head is generally rectangular

compared to more typical ikemen styles, hetalia characters have a more rectangular head. HOWEVER their chins taper off to a very triangular shape. rarely do the chins flatten out like the guy on the left.

2. shorter face = younger/more feminine appearance

well... self explanatory. you can see in the diagram how changing the length of the face gives a character a more feminine/childish look.

if you feel that something looks kind of off, feel free to change it, but if it looks okay then lets move onto facial features!!!

NOSES:

ok so this might seem a little weird but i like drawing the nose first. its right in the middle of the face and is generally the easiest to get right. it also kind of acts as a divider between the eyes, especially useful when you're drawing in a 3/4 angle

which kind of look something like that i guess.....

or that if you want something less extreme

anyways while hetalia noses are kind of inconsistent they generally have the shape of these three lines. feminine/childlike characters have a smaller and subtler nose though

noses also never face fully straight ahead, so when drawing a front view, the nose slightly faces right or left (tbh himas characters rarely face the camera head on, so id refrain from drawing frontal views altogether but thats just me)

anyways lets move on to my second favorite part of the hetalia art style

EYES:

the eyes are the most important part of himas style. if all else fails, you can always recognize the style by the eyes. luckily for you, the eyes really arent complicated compared to other anime styles :D here is how i do it:

(feminine and childlike characters have bigger eyes)

you have probably noticed this but the pupils hima draws now has a more squiggly teary-eyed look compared to the pupils he drew then...

i subcounciously do a mixture of the two because i got used to drawing the old type, but if you wanna draw the new type of pupils just take note of their squigly shape and that they have one dominant highlight in the upper-middle area. uhhh.. or if youre like me just draw the old eyes as if you have parkinson's

anyways heres a step by step guide

and some fun eye variations!!! you can try using variants if youd like to give an oc a more unique look (you can also try making your own variants too but be careful of straying too far from the style)

so now about the eyebrow and the eyelid.... uhhh the eyelid doesnt really have a consistent length so just draw it however. feminine and childlike characters have thinner eyebrows but even then eyebrows should never be drawn as just a single line

we are close to finishing the face!!! now we can move onto

MOUTHS:

if you know how to draw a typical anime mouth, then hima mouths is easy peasy!

for closed mouths just draw a curved line with two dark blots for the corners of the mouth

i think that giving them a shaky look makes them look more expressive

open mouths are just random blobs, dont close off the bottom though, and theys till have those dark blots at the corner of the mouth

now then i'll move onto the

EARS + CHEEKS:

i decided to combine these two since these are probably the easiest parts of the face

hima's ears are pretty round and don't really vary in shape. inside the ears though....

it isnt very consistent, so don't think too hard about "getting them right". above are some ear variations i drew from one of the latest chapters of the manga

the cheeks are just a bunch of lines that can appear fully, or only on one cheek, or don't appear at all. i think it depends on level of detail, angle, or the character's emotion

these lines do not appear on rendered pieces

also if a character feels especially displeased they will gain heavy eyebags

so yay! we're pretty much done with the face!! look forward next time to where i cover hair, the body, and other stuff idk... i'll link the other parts to each other when i complete them

[lonepower]

ok you know what i need more bodysharing/brain roommates. malevolent got me feeling some kind of way and I need MORE. tvtropes has like 15 different categories that are all sort-of-but-not-really under the umbrella of what I'm looking for, and sorting through all of that is a little too unwieldy, so I'm turning to you guys. 

key factors of the specific flavor of "multiple consciousnesses stuck in the same meat suit" that I'm looking for are:

any variation of, a human (or this universe's equivalent [so like, an elf where elves are commonplace would count]) has another, nonhuman consciousness attached to them and only them in such a way that the two can communicate, and subsequently

they Banter Constantly

^that^ is probably the most important qualifier here tbh

second most important qualifier is that they are not separated at the end (this obv. doesn't apply if the thing is still ongoing). it's okay if the passenger gets a new body (cf. subnautica) or is freed from their binding (cf. baldur's gate), as long as the partnership isn't broken.

Related: they don't actually have to SHARE a body (so enchanted objects, an AI implant, a Mysterious Disembodied Voice, an imaginary friend, etc., also count). they just have to be tethered to each other such that the passenger cannot move around or function on their own without a host. (I think this is part of why it's hard to narrow down on tvtropes: it's more about the dynamic than about the specific mechanism of "possession".)

Third most important qualifier is that only the current host can hear/communicate with the passenger, even if other people around them are aware of the passenger's existence.

two humans stuck in the same body is okay as long as the other criteria are met, but I would prefer it if the host is human(/equivalent) and the passenger is not (or vice versa if the passenger/possessor is the one with control of the body, as with things like the yeerks, most demonic possession, etc).

it doesn't have to be romantic. they don't even have to like each other. conversely, it absolutely can be romantic too.

They DO have to be the POV character/s for a significant majority (like, at least 60-75%) of the work, because the internal back-and-forth is the entire point.

Bonus points if: they do actually share a body; they are either never physically separated either, or are rejoined at the end (voluntarily or otherwise); passenger has lots of setting-relevant knowledge/an alien or fantastical perspective, while host shows passenger what it's like to be Alive™; despite constantly butting heads, host and passenger work patently better as a team; super extra bonus points for all of the above 

My favorite examples of what I am looking for:

Malevolent podcast (super extra bonus points x10000000000000000)

Venom movies (this is probably the codifier for most people here tbh) (super extra bonus points)

Subnautica: Below Zero (AL-AN gets their own body but stays with Robin, and it hits all of the others)

Forspoken (super extra bonus points)

the "a bagel. two bagels." vine

(I know there's a couple others that I'm just blanking on. If I remember them, I'll add them.)

other things that have moments or flavors of this, but aren't focused on it/don't quite hit all of them:

the Bartimaeus trilogy had it at the end a little, but, well. it didn't last very long. (i STILL haven't recovered from that ending and i was, what? 15 or something? g o d)

the emperor in bg3 kiiiinda counts since they're magically bound to the player/party and can't exist outside their prison, but they do have their own body and are not nearly as chatty as I'm  looking for. also, while only the holders of the prism can hear them, All of the holders of the prism can hear them and I'd really prefer one-on-one.

I think Death Note would also count? I read it in like 6th grade and never finished it so my memory is patchy At Best, but since nobody else can interact with Ryuk, he's bound to whoever holds the notebook, and he's the supplier of the holder's powers, it's close enough that I would accept something similar.

Slay the Princess has the bickering in spades and fulfills the "do not separate" criterion depending on your ending, although the jury's out on whether the voices are Actually their own entities or just symptoms of you losing it. Also, nobody in it is human. The bickering is definitely good enough to make up for it though. (The fact that it's Jonny Sims clearly having a grand old time might have something to do with it...)

with the caveat that I have not watched any of it, i think jadzia (and?) dax from ds9 miiight count, but they're part of an ensemble cast and thus fail the "pov characters for a majority of the work" and "we get to hear their constant internal banter" criteria.

things I tried that fit at least some criteria, but didn't like for various reasons:

the good demon by jimmy cajoleas. promising concept, but 1) the protagonist smokes, which is an instant and unnegotiable dealbreaker (seriously, who makes their protagonist do that in The Year Of Our Lord Anything Later Than 1950?? and to a child? DEATH. ONE MILLION YEARS DUNGEON.), and 2) I looked it up and they separate at the end anyways, so there's even LESS of a point. 

the venom comics. honestly I just... really dislike superhero comics, there's always way too many of them to keep track of + I'm very shallow and they're usually unbearably ugly to me (and also having started with the movies I just found comics!eddie really unpleasant tbh) 

parasyte manga. perfect concept, great dynamic, but its particular brand of body horror was... not great for me and I had to put it down. (horror in and of itself isn't a dealbreaker, though, so if you've got something similar that doesn't involve lots of hands bent at nauseating angles, I'll gladly take it.)

Cyberpunk 77 has the two-humans flavor of this and hits almost all of the other criteria, but i viscerally hated literally everything about j*hnny s*lverhand with every fiber of my being and the rest of the game was so mediocre already that i just gave up

....I know it's a highly specific/potentially niche dynamic, but if anyone has any recs, PUHLEEASE hmu!!! I'm looking for original work rather than fanfiction, but apart from that, format doesn't matter at all (although if it's some like super difficult indie game or something, I probably won't get very far lol). the MAIN points are 1) bickering and 2) host-and-passenger, so if you have something that hits those but not the others, feel free to share it anyway!

[joltning]

@fishfingersalad it’s almost 2am but i can’t sleep and ts probably only going to be seen by like 5 people anyway so let it rip

this au started out as a self indulgent pocket sized au that I ignore as all my aus do…..then I couldn’t sleep and started imagining things im good at that. it started as an au I could do ship focus on and well I love lore I guess. despite all this the main story still focuses on my blorbos. maybe I will make a storyline for the main cast, if I can imagine things again

one day, all across (abridged) America (this is why I made that carolina/puerto rico/dc post btw), 50 children, each for 1 state, pop up at the same time, with varying ages, mostly tween years but with some variation up and down. while some are humanoid creatures, others are completely monstrous and lack sentience. however, they all share one common factor: a tag identifying what state they came from. The majority of the sentient ones assume this is their name, and that’s why they run with it.

conspiracy theorists and cryptid fans nationwide take notice of a bunch of shit happening overnight and develop “The 50” list. depending on if it’s commonly agreed upon what monster you are and if it’s commonly agreed upon what state you’re from, you’ll be ranked higher or lower on the list, with, of course, the highest ranking being the most sought after and hidden. Most of the higher tiered creatures are humanoid; it’s easier to blend in if you don’t look out of place

i forgot to mention Btw it’s like. myths and legends and shit too. i mentioned york being the pied Piper I also think the implication that the pied Piper is a monster is funny. also only one monster per person and

ofc my blorbos…….Everyone run now!!!! Ohio has just moved to a new city yay go girl But her coworkers are fucked up!!! There’s this bitch Sherry that she may or may not have a crush on and like her two little friends who absolutely know that. but Watch out there’s a freaky green man It’s Georgia her old friend Georgia. they were their first freelancer friends but geo Loves making deals for souls slash servitude slash their power slash take over the world slash he doesn’t know what souls are and neither do I. but they gotta be normal and not fight in the office.!!! And fight outside of a Walmart at 2 instead. he’s kinda bad at it though which is why only Ohio cares.

anywya Sherry keeps running into Ohio and Georgia fighting and you know Ohio’s kind of like. well if you see her when she’s not masking you’ll probably go insane huh. so Ohio has to keep wiping her memories and Sherry’s getting CRAZY deja vu.

this is so stressful Good thing Ohio’s got her trusty friends Iowa and Idaho!!! They’re causing chaos somewhere else but she’s always texting them and video chatting. hopefully they can meet up again soon!!

Utah is a paranormal investigator and currently georgia’s only the only person who’s currently made a deal with him. he’s made past deals but Ohio scared them off by ‘Do Not Be Afraid’ing them. it’s either that or they have to get killed lest the green fuck get too powerful and Ohio would rather not do that thanks. utah doesn’t even get anything in return he just wants to know wtf is going on tbh. Georgia stays at his apartment because he’s a squatter I guess

well That’s too bad I guess I can’t share any more because they’re just plotpoints. hey do you wanna know what the other freelancers are

Ohio: Angel (duh. So low because when she spawned she was literally in the middle of a bunch of people and blinded them with her corporeal form)

Georgia: Demon (the devil but literally this time. manages to be a little higher due to being able to teleport short distances. Stayed a little too close to home base, though.)

Iowa: Harpy (kept flying in the air like a dumbass everyone fucking saw him. denialists claim it to be a big bird. and they’re right.)

Idaho: Werewolf (he didn’t know until a full moon came out. oops.)

Carolina: Siren (keeps the bad singing voice.)

York: pied piper….

Wash: Shapeshifter

Florida: Alien (when he came on the fated day he rode in on a meteor instead of plopping in, breaking off the state from the rest of the US. its highly debated on whether or not the meteor itself was the creature.)

Maine: Bigfoot (but he shaves his whole body every day so he just looks like a big guy)

Connie: Kitsune

Wyoming: Fairy (despite being obvious, no one fuckinh lives in wyoming so he just flew far away immediately. fucks up the rankings of others by being spotted far away from his state.)

North: The Sandman (Both spawned across from eachother at the 2 state’s borders. They immediately declared eachother twins.)

South: Mare/Dream Eater (Their high ranking is very dependent on the confusion on which twin is which, since they work together to sleep and then feast.)

Tex: Ghost

you may see here I did not include Utah Did I forget No No No (kinda) I have an idea for what he is but i don’t intent to reveal it ever really. idk how id incorporate that. jsut know I searched really hard to find a creature that wasn’t a ghost that disrupted electromagnetic fields so that every time he went ghost hunting the machines would go off causing him to assert there was a ghost there. but no alas I did not find that

ok tahts it I think. for now. maybe. if you have any ideas for this background fucks wise or rnbs wise I would like them. for meThanks goodnight im gonna pass blout Out Out

[destinyc1020]

can we even put tom and timothee in the same category though, I feel like there very different and I feel timothee has now found the perfect balance which I feel tom really hasnt

Tom can bring people to theatres and insanely popular like r+j sold out within two hours and of course spiderman but outside of spiderman the quality of the projects are more miss than they are hit and really struggles with finding good scripts or working with directors. Timothee while a vastly different journey and its not until recently he found blockbuster success hes no doubt a draw while simulataneoulsy still working on quality projects and working with the best directors and also having found a ton of success in independent film world even something like bones and all while finacially poor I would say the genre is more to blame at least it was a good movie, with great performances and critically successful whereas cherry and chaos walking were bombs but horrendously awful films.

I feel timmy has found the perfect balance and knows how to pick roles that suit him whereas tom is financially successful but a little iffy if his name attracts the best directors or stars tbh.

Though I do think his move to theatre is great perfect for him especially a well known play like r+j and jamie llyod and a opportunity tp hone your craft.

Ohhhh....here we go yet again....

*Checks date on Calendar*

Yup.... Every 10 days, I swear....we get SOME variation of the usual "Worried about Tom's Career" ask.

🤦🏾‍♀️

Anon, I think you and other fans who constantly worry about Tom's career need to realize that actors all have different journeys in the industry. Every actor doesn't have to do EXACTLY what their acting peer is doing, nor do they have to have the same exact path?? 🥴

whereas cherry and chaos walking were bombs but horrendously awful films.

HOLD UP..... Now, I'll give you "Chaos Walking" (which...in Tom's defense, was supposed to be released YEARS before it actually came out, and he signed on to that project early in his career), BUT "Cherry"?? 🥴 I don't care what anyone says, "Cherry" was NOT an "horrendously awful" film. Was it maybe not your cup of tea? Okay... sure. Was the narration throughout the film unnecessary? Okay....yes. But let's get REAL here. Both Tom and Ciara acted their butts off in that film. I feel like Tom really transformed himself in that film, and played a drug addict extremely WELL. That was the first film where I was like: "Geez man...you're an AWESOME actor!" That car scene!?? Like, come on. That was peak acting right there.

I feel timmy has found the perfect balance and knows how to pick roles that suit him whereas tom is financially successful but a little iffy if his name attracts the best directors or stars tbh.

Tom has worked with awesome directors. He's about to work with Paul King on the FA biopic, JUST like Timmy worked with him on "Wonka". Tom has also worked with Akiva Goldsman on TCR who's also famously known for films such as "A Beautiful Mind", "The Da Vinci Code", "A Time to Kill".....all AWESOME films.

How come it is, when Timmy does something, it's amazing, but when Tom does the very same thing, it's: "Idk...kinda iffy!" 🤔

Some of you all are letting Film Twitter run your minds instead of thinking for yourselves.

Have I liked EVERY single project that Tom has chosen to do? No... Not necessarily.... But I would put Tom's diverse filmography over Timothee's at the current moment, because Tom has at least shown me that he can play a wide range of characters and roles. He's gone from Arvin in TDATT, to Ian Lightfoot in "Onward".

Timmy is a decent actor (don't get me wrong!), and he's done great work over the years... But Tom has done more DIVERSE work imo. Timmy is just now starting to branch out and do blockbusters, children's films, etc (things that Tom has already been doing for years).... Just saying! 🤷🏾‍♀️

Actors don't have to follow one set path. They can go in and out from whatever filming roles they wish. Tom doesn't have to follow the same path as Timmy or any other actor out here. Most actors just focus on their OWN work, and admire the work of others that they personally appreciate. But it's not some competition.

I definitely think Timmy getting nominated for an Oscar at such a young age definitely put his name on the map for a lot of directors and such. Just being nominated for massive awards helps a LOT. You don't even have to win.

One day, Tom will be accepting an award for "Best Actor", and he will have all of Film Twitter eating their words.

I personally can't wait for that day lol 😊

[pyxaperson]

I think out of all of the possible alternative universes that are being explored in Fionna and Cake, I am the most excited for the evil Marceline vampire world since I had always found Stakes and Marceline’s identity and history with vampires so interesting. Personally, I am pretty certain that the vampires from the stakes miniseries will be making a return in episode 7.

(reasoning under read more because i love writing ~1000 word theories about Fionna and Cake apparently)

My main reasoning behind this is the name of the episode itself: “The Star”. Besides the Vampire King (as well as regular Marceline), all the vampires are named after major arcana tarot cards. The upright meanings behind those specific cards also bleed into the character’s personalities.

The Fool - Represents free spirit and spontaneity showcased in his goofy behaviour.

The Empress - Represents abundance and beauty which is demonstrated through her elegance and her preference for unnecessary luxuries.

The Hierophant - Represents conformity and tradition reflected in his persistence for vampiric traditions.

The Moon - Represents fear and anxiety shown through her general creepiness.

In a similar way, their reverse meanings bleed into their defeats as well:

The Fool - Represents recklessness and risk-taking, referring to how he just played around with Marceline instead of doing anything that would protect himself. The fool can also represent the beginning which in this context can refer to him being the first of the vampires to be killed off.

The Empress - Represents a dependence on others which is showcased with Bonnie, Finn and Jake helping Marceline defeat her when she originally went to get her on her own.

The Hierophant - Represents personal beliefs and challenges the status quo with how his refusal to move on from drinking blood and vampiric traditions leads to his own death.

The Moon - Represents inner confusion and the release of fear which could be seen in Marcie overcoming her poison-induced dreams to suck Moon’s soul along with the others overcoming their paralysed-induced fear to take Moon out (tbh this was the hardest one to pin down so if anyone has a better interpretation let me know.)

“The Star” is also a major arcana card and considering that it appears that this Ooo variation is where Marceline is an evil vampire, I feel it would make sense that she would be a part of the Vampire King’s court with “The Star” being her title. It would make sense considering that the show is following the trend of naming its episodes after characters’ names and titles (like how the episode “The Winter King” is referring to a variation of Simon).

With that, we would need to consider what the card “The Star” represents. It’s upright meaning is hope, faith, purpose and renewal; while it’s reverse meaning is lack of faith, despair and disconnection. Following the trend of the other vampires, its upright meaning could possibly be seen in this Marceline’s position on the VK’s court while its reverse is seen in her downfall.

First focusing on her position, Marceline could represent hope for the vampire community. Compared to the rest of VK’s court, she would be a strong fighter and a great asset to help expand the group’s influence on this Ooo. In this variation, hurting down humans and expanding the vampire population would give her a purpose - considering if she were to ally with VK, her relationship with Simon would not have been the same as it was back in regular Ooo.

Back in our Ooo, Marceline states that the reason behind her hunting down and killing every vampire was so that she could protect Simon in some way after he left for her safety. After all -  even with him being under the power of the crown - Simon is still human and is just as vulnerable to the vampires as any other human at the time (since in his and the Empress’ brief history). Possibly joining VK’s court or even hurting humans goes against Marcie’s original mission.

For this reality to occur, that would mean one of two things:

Simon and Marceline never met. This could lead to the vampires finding her instead and taking her in as one of their own, turning her.

Simon and Marceline did meet, but something occurred in their time together that led Marceline to not take up her original mission.

Regardless of whichever interpretation it goes, they both possibly tie into Marceline’s downfall. With The Star’s reverse meaning a lack of faith and disconnection, through one means or another Marceline would feel jaded towards the rest of the vampires due to her kind-hearted nature. Given the circumstances, it would be likely that Simon would try to reason with her (even if they had a history or not). In a similar way to Bonnie’s situation in The Winter King; I doubt that Marceline will be willing to hurt people of her own volition. It would also be a good opportunity to explore Simon’s history with vampires as it’s been implied in AT that he had a few run-ins with them while looking her Marceline. Does he know any of the vampires in VK’s court outside of the Empress? Did vampires go after Simon and Marceline before Simon left? Does Simon have any opinions of them?

Also, I can’t find where I read this anywhere, but apparently The Star will also include scenes of Marshal Lee and Gary (I think?) going to a Gala. In a similar way that Gary’s bakery inverse tied in with Fionna and Cake killing the candy people, the setting of the Gala could be used to tie in Marshal/Marceline’s relationship with the vampire court (since if they were to appear in this episode, their normal/genderbent counterparts would be present at a place like a Gala).

That summary also says that Cake would be teaming up with vampire hunters which implies that Simon and Fionna are out of the picture here. Considering that the vampires have a preference for human blood, there is a high possibility that the episode will revolve around Fionna and Simon getting kidnapped by the vampires whilst Cake tries to save them.

Either way, I am pretty excited for episode 7 if you cannot tell lmao.

[loki-zen]

when and why'd everybody switch from corsets to bras? (I don't got tits so you might have to explain things from a fairly basic level.)

well okay so i’m not a garment historian but:

Relevant Background:

I’m not sure what kind of garment you think of a corset as? If you’re thinking of something very stiff and restrictive, then you’re thinking of something that was never everyday wear for working women (ie the majority of women) anyway, although towards the end of the corsetry era with the development of cheaper production methods and plastic boning a working class woman with a decent job might’ve owned one to wear on Sundays. Working women did wear supporting garments that were corsetlike in structure (sometimes called stays, although the terminology isn’t strictly differentiated) and these were quite practical to do physical tasks in so long as you had the knack of moving in them.*

Tightlacing (the use of corsets to achieve significant reduction in waist size over time) was always a fad restricted to a small number of trendy rich women and was condemned by medical and moral authorities at the time. Fashion corsets for richer women still might achieve a fair few inches waist reduction, but:

the primary purpose of foundation garments such as corsets was never waist/size reduction, it was about achieving whatever was the fashionable silhouette or shape (while keeping everything ‘supported’, including the breasts). Early off-the-rack clothing for women was developed in the corset/stays era, and the notion of taking a single shape and sizing it up and down makes way more sense when you imagine it in the context of the expectation that everyone is being foundation-garmented into the same vague shape!

average/ common-to-have breast sizes in European women (both absolute volume, and breast size relative to torso diameter (which is what bra ‘cup sizes’ measure) have increased significantly since the early 20th century.

So,

When?

Between the 1920s and 1960s.

This is the era when the bra first appears, initially just as an innovation in the design of foundation garments, which have always changed in form frequently anyway - with new developments in terms of available fabrics, shaping technology and closures, and of course for reasons of fashion (which are sometimes downstream of the above, new things often being popular with designers and trendsetters).

The new corset/stays is a two-piece made up of the new brassiere and a sort of underbust stays called a girdle, but traditional corsets remain in use for some purposes - they’re still popular in bridal wear for instance.

The brassiere in this era features various innovations in garment technology such as underwiring (a variation on metal corset boning that achieves slightly different things in terms of torso shape (and feel/weight distribution, but not in an ‘unambiguous improvement’ way)) and elasticated fabric (developed around the turn of the century, and a structural necessity for bralike objects).

Why?

well as usual in history, lots of reasons. A big factor was World War I, but not in the way people like to think.

There’s a sort of revisionist history about corsets. Many 20th century feminists (lacking in knowledge for a combination of culpable and non-culpable reasons, and doing that very common thing of taking rich women’s historical experiences as universal and primary source scaremongering as accurate reportage) liked to think of them as Tools Of Oppression. Pop culture - funded by advertisers who wanted to sell their newer clothing styles, and tbh ever-ready to imagine women as vain and useless and not having contributed anything to society until five minutes ago - was ready to back them up, and following this you get a lot of accounts that say the wearing of corsets was primarily ended by women’s liberation, which WW1 contributed to because it was the First Time Ever that women had jobs, which of course you can’t do in a corset. That’s an extraordinarily blinkered, middle/upper class view of who ‘women’ are! But upper/middle class women set the narrative, and their upper/middle class mothers and grandmothers wore very different and more restrictive garments than the majority of women, who have always been expected to work. However this narrative - and the fact that working did get middle/upper class trendsetters out of their restrictive garments (but not into the garments worn by working class women bc that Just Wouldn’t Do) - did contribute to the corset going away and not coming back.**

Moreover, WW1 helped kill the corset for 2 reasons:

during the war, the stuff to make corsets with was rationed/needed for other stuff to a greater extent than the stuff for bras, which use a lot less fabric.

after the war, which meant fabric shortages and rationing, a new look developed which allowed the rich (trendsetters) to demonstrate their wealth by being very loose and flowy. It lacked a defined silhouette that would have required traditional shapewear, so helped to cement the corset’s exit from the market. (This look was also highly feminine, and that was definitely a cultural factor in its popularity at this time.)

When people stopped wearing corsets, they stopped making comfortable corsets or innovating in practical ways in the design of corsets using modern fabrics and taking into account modern body shapes (as people have done with bras), so people are unlikely to find them more comfortable and be tempted to go back to them. We also stopped wearing so many layers of clothes all the time in general because of central heating, and (especially casual) clothing in the modern era has in general remained - for men and women - less fitted than it was in the past.

[capitaletele]

Both inexperience takes were so good and the way Johnny just casually goes "oh yeah ive mostly been with guys" and Cristal has to reconsider some things is interesting because it implies Cristal didn't really know a lot about queer people(i mean bi Cristal for the win but maybe she didnt know idk) and saw it as unusual while it's just perfectly normal for Johnny (i may be overanalysing i apologize). Also i cant quite put my finger on what gives off that impression but i feel like the way theyre acting shows they have different concepts of sex, like it's treated kind of like a taboo subject/something you shouldnt talk about among the people Cristal grew up around and with the Etoiles Noires its just normal and people wont get shamed for wanting to have sex (same thing for not wanting to and/or being repulsed by it)

Okay i think i overanalysed sorry for that essay i just really liked it

Heeeeee thank you! :D :D :D (I'm guessing you were the original prompter? If so I'm glad you enjoyed my takes!)

And neverrrrrr apologize for analysing, my god, I'm pretty sure anyone who writes fic would talk about all the possibilities of the universe 24/7 if they could!! This is what I *want* to be doing so you're doing me a favour here :p

I'm definitely torn about the queerness aspect tbh, because I love the idea that in Monopolis there is no issue with gender and sexuality doesn't matter (this is certainly emphasized I think by the 2022 mise-en-scene where you see male dancers in skirts during the Opening and Naziland for example.) So it follows that there should be no "whoaaa you're queer??" from Cristal (or anyone else.) And I also (obviously) adore the idea of queer!Cristal.

But I also *love* exploring different variations of the world and the characters; that's how you don't run out of ideas, you know? I don't really have one fixed headcanon, I like to think "Okay Cristal is [A]" and then "Okay this time Cristal is [B]" and seeing what happens if you move the cursor slightly one way or the other :D

ANYWAY this is not what you were talking about.

YES I love thinking about the way the Towers people and the Underground people might think about sex and gender in all their configurations. I left the ending deliberately pretty vague so it could be interpreted anyway you wanted :p

Like, perhaps the Towers are supposed to be a Puritan society where Marriage is Sacred and you must Preserve the Bloodlines or whatever, but people in the tunnels don't care and are fucking like bunnies out of wedlock and it's all very "savage" and "uncivilized" (and thrilling.)

Or, on the contrary, perhaps sex is normalized in the Towers because it's like the Roman orgies of the elite, very blasé and consequence-free, but it's more controlled for "regular people" because they have things to consider like how they're going to find the money to raise a kid if they get pregnant?? (And then we get into the whole question of like, how dystopian is Monopolis, really? Is there population control? Massmedia and I have talked about this *so much* haha.)

Or perhaps Cristal was simply taught that people in the tunnels are not "as advanced" or as "open-minded" as people from high society, and so she expects Johnny to be a sort of basic play-boy like she's seen in old movies, but it turns out that he's just as liberated as anyone from high society (and perhaps even more than her).

Or she's still struggling with the media image of him as a violent, uneducated, boorish criminal, and she thought he would also perhaps be a bit homophobic.

OR, her mind is boggling because Johnny just outed a bunch of people to her which shows that he's maybe a little dumb of heart 🤣

OR.... something else I haven't thought of yet, but perhaps you have, and which is just as valid!

[maizeversal]

Tbh I love Underverse!Ink, I think he's a lot of fun and seeing him get to play a non-heroic role for once is,,, chef's kiss. Fuck it up little man. Fuck everything up. Okay maybe not that much. Girl you are KILLING it. GIRL you can STOP NOW it is ALREADY DEAD

And, like... I totally get why some people dislike it, especially since in other cases, the Soullessness thing has been taken as a mental health metaphor. I think that's a valid take with a lot of potential and it's reasonable that people would be uncomfortable with this new angle.

But, at the same time, as somebody with its own cocktail of mental issues, a few of which are things that people tend to ascribe to Ink as aspects of the lighter, more flavor text versions of Soullessness, I honestly don't see it that way. So I don't have a problem with UV!Ink on that front. By no means is it a perfect series, nothing is, but that's not one of the things that's bugged me, y'know?

Personally I like the idea of Soullessness being something... Alien, for lack of a better word. Not "eldritch", either, but like... Okay. Let's try a comparison.

So, to a Human, a Soul is the source of magic, right? And it's definitely connected to emotions and identity and all of that, but it's main job as an organ is to contain and control the person's innate magic. It gets its color based on the Human's behavior, not the other way around, kind of like how flamingos turn pink because of the shrimp they eat.

A Monster Soul, however, is the ENTIRE ORGAN CAVITY. That's the brain. That's the heart, the lungs, the guts, all of it packed into a sort of nucleus (although that's not a perfect analogy, either, because an animal cell's nucleus only houses the genetic material, but... You know what I mean). The rest of the body is essentially a machine that allows the Soul to get around, feed itself, and fend off threats.

So imagine if you met someone, and they just... Didn't have organs. No brain, no heart, no lungs, no guts. There's a lot of variations that the human body can survive and even thrive with; we have ways to pump blood and oxygen through the body without a standard circulatory system, thanks to inventions like pacemakers and organ transplants. But you can't live without a brain. You just can't, like, fundamentally. Yet, this person talking to you has lifted up part of their skull and there is nothing there. They do the same thing with their ribs and there is no blood. They seem to be doing fine, no machinery or even surgical scars, but there is no way they should, scientifically, be a functioning organism.

That's what I've always thought of it as. Ink is not a Monster, nor is he Human; he is something else entirely. The best way I've been able to pin it down is that he is a spirit, or a pure manifestation of Creative magic. And quite frankly, yeah, a spirit would have a completely different way of interacting with the world around them. Our experiences, our motives, even our ability to bond with others, are uniquely human in the most animal, evolutionary sense; Monsters, too, would be influenced by the conditions in which they evolved.

But Ink? Did not evolve. He was Created. Though he learns and grows as a conscious being, as a mind, he will never physically grow; any changes over time are superficial results of his internal, personal growth.

And I love that. I LOVE how goddamn weird he is. I absolutely adore the conceptual tug-of-war between him wanting to be like the others and having to embrace that he just isn't in order to move forward - the idea that, yes, he is alien, he is "unknowable" but only if nobody tries, he is a different kind of creature and that is okay, he is still a person. He's done something horrible. But, like any person - Human, Monster, or otherwise - he is more than that one mistake. He has free will. That is his responsibility.

[sanstropfremir]

hi hellooo pleasure to be here again!! i have come to rant

so last night i went a bit through your blog because i vaguely remembered that at some point there was a conversation about "stage presence" and how only kpoppies give a shit about it. and i found some asks from last year about this youtuber who made like a whole classification on stage presence with all this masculine overt dominant whatever categories. and i was mindblown because just yesterday i got recommended one of their videos and i was watching that stuff like wtf. that took me back to my early kpop days (which is like 2018 lol) when i also discovered the term stage presence and i thought i did something. anyway

i actually came here to talk about shinee's recent comeback!! from the little i've seen, there's some beef among shawols regarding wether shinee is really "shinee" anymore and i've seen some people saying they've unstanned bc of hard. like you do you ig

i've been thinking that i genuinely like the song, but indeed it doesn't have that classic shinee vibe. (also satellite best bside???) to me it's just like taemin key onew and minho got together to sing a song, but it's not "shinee" per se. and that's okay.

regarding performances i only watched the studio choom dance version and tbh for the first time in my limited shinee eras knowledge i thought that minho takes the cake for this one. idk if it's the fact that he's more stereotipically masculine (or at least coming across that way) or what, but honestly his part in the second chorus is my favorite. key is second favorite and again his part in the last chorus suits him a lot imo especially with the different choreo for it. as for taemin i'm glad he's bringing his poppiest pops forward because i swear i feels like that man's bones are snapping inside his body but other than that honestly i don't think he's enjoying this era too much fdjdvscg

hi hello again!!!

alksdjflksdafj not that youtuber again....they're a fucking plague i need them to read a fucking book for the love of god. just so profoundly uninformed, its mind boggling.

i've seen variations of this take since before the song even came out and honestly? i don't agree. you can not like the song for any number of reasons but the fact of the matter is that it IS a shinee song. what makes a shinee song is that it's their voices. that's all that makes a shinee song. for a group that has an extended history of genre experimentation, for fans to get mad or say it's "not them" when they DO do something experimental is cowardly and embarrassing. just admit that you don't like the song and move on. there will be a time when EVERY artist you love makes something that you don't. that's fine and normal. don't hide behind incorrect assertions like "it's an nct reject" or that it doesn't sound like them. they're artists that still want to explore and grow and they have agency to do that. it's not a failing to admit that you don't like something that your faves made, and i also think it's rude and denies them identity and agency to say that 'it doesn't sound like them', especially with this particular group.

personally what i think people are subconsciously getting at when they say a song doesnt sound like shinee is that it sounds incomplete because it's missing a voice. the same discourse circled around with dcm came out and people are not acknowledging that shinee is never going to sound the same as they did pre 2017 (2018 technically bc jonghyun's voice is still on tsol). they just aren't. the chemical makeup of the melodies is going to be different forever and people need to acknowledge and accept that. the four of them are doing their best to fill in that hole and theyre doing a great job, but there is still a hole.

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Unraveling the PQ(1&2) Timelines

In the spirit of P5T and figuring out where it takes place....Let’s do PQ! Whether you’ve figured it out or just want a guide to reference back, here’s the post for you! So looking at the dates and what is told.....:

PQ1:

Side P3:  The date Liz is telling us the story is unclear, she states "On the night of a typhoon merely a few days ago" and then the game states September 20, 2009 (aka last day of typhoon). So Liz’s story/Shinji’s cooking should be not long after 09/20/09, possibly between 9/25-10/3.

Side P4: stated to be Sunday, Oct 30, 2011 (after the pageant has ended, begins with a premonition for PQ1 before it takes place). The ending seems to be a variation on the Tues 10/11 study group scene, and has to take place before 11/5.

PQ2:

P3: 9/10-10/3? 2009, 9/10 at the earliest since that is when Tziah Block first opens, and we see them there. 

P3P: Somewhere between  9/16-10/2 2009 (I believe they mention Shinji cooking for the team, which is an event in his actual SL, thus I calculated the dates that SL event could happen at the earliest vs the latest). (2/12/24 edit: see below for explanation, but the dates might be closer to 10/1-10/2 now)

P4: Aprox dates 10/30-11/4 or 11/5 2011 (beauty competition seems to have happened since Teddie is seen in his crossdressing outfit, but Nanako hasn't been kidnapped).

P5: Somewhere around 10/29-10/30ish? 2016, ending is sometime after that but before 11/18 (aka Sae’s calling card date), they mention the current dungeon is moving along nicely so there’s probs a lot of time before that. 

Hikari during PQ2:  is in high school. Year somewhere between 2014-2016 (P5 is 2016). Unsure if she is a 1st, 2nd or 3rd year. 2014 is when Mako would've been a 1st year.

Hikari in PQ2′s ending/epilogue: 2016, same time as P5 epilogue, stated to still be a high school student, unsure if she is a 1st, 2nd or 3rd year.

I’ll need to run through them again (these are notes from when I went through it the first time, but I def need a refresher), PQ1 for the most part is def locked in tbh (I mean they give us the dates at the beginning of said games, at least when the Q1 events took place). Edit: PQ1 side P3 ending could be between 9/21-10/3 (I have a feeling something is happening between 9/21-9/24 which is why I didn’t choose an earlier date but it could be one of those, again these are older notes from a few years ago so I need to go back and check)

The only ones up in the air are the endings. PQ2 is a bit more.......loosey goosey. I’m tempted to say P3/P/4 are around the same time as PQ1....either because there’s a timeline where PQ1 didn’t happen OR right after PQ1 their asses got yeeted into PQ2 soon after akfjlsjf

If you have any thoughts/suggestions to help narrow it down, I’d be up for it! 

I guess P3/5D is next. And to make a timeline after that. 

Feb 12th, 2024 Edit: It’s possible that, at least on the FeMC’s side (since she was asleep in her dorm room for the events of PQ2, and we dunno how much time passes for P3/4/5 since waking up) she’s shown her uniform. It’s the sees one which they wear regardless of weather iirc. But she was studying before falling asleep so she most likely wasn’t going to Tartarus (tho tbh every1 on both P3 sides are wearing armbands for some gd reason outside Tar so it’s possible that the devs forgot/were too lazy to remove them). 

BUT if they did remember the timeline and weren’t just lazy with the models, it’s possible that the possible timeframe for PQ2 (at least on FeMC’s side) is 10/1-10/2 (with Shinji’s SL in consideration)

[magentagalaxies]

4, 6, 11, 40

(jsyk you sent me these numbers for a completely different ask game that i forgot about but i'm using them for the ask game i just reblogged bc dammit i wanna talk about music lmao)

4. Is there a song you love but don't like its music video?

tbh i don't watch music videos a lot, so most songs i like either i don't know the music video, think the music video was "just okay", or actively like the music video. however if i could just platform my younger self for a minute, i remember back when i was super into melanie martinez in like 2015/2016 i came up with my own idea for the mrs potato head music video and i got so mad when the official music video came out that i fully stopped listening to her music for years lmao i still think my concept was better.

6. Who's an artist you really like but are embarrassed to admit it?

the first one that comes to mind is ajr. like tbh every single criticism people have of their music is 100% correct but also neotheater came out at the exact moment for me to be earnestly emotionally connected to it so i'm always gonna love it even if i roll my eyes at some of the songs. however tbh i don't listen to their other albums as much anymore

ok fuck it i feel the need to rant about ok orchestra bc i have a LOT of opinions. this is going to be such a tangent but when will i get this opportunity again? anyway

brief intermission as i rant about an album i haven't listened to in years

one thing i actually love that ajr does is how most of their albums start with an overture mashup of most of the album's main motifs, blending them together and sometimes doing a variation with different time signatures. the only thing i love more than this that they do is how big and grand their closing songs are. take the click: we get a full overture as the beginning, and the final song "come hang out" feels like a finale. the bridge switching to 3/4 in an otherwise 4/4 song??? the conflict of going after your passions while sacrificing your relationships despite the other person having different priorities embodied in the backup singers??? idc if ajr is cringy it's a well made song.

now, notably neotheater does not follow this formula. it starts straight in with "next up forever," but this is actually the best move since next up forever is a near perfect album opener. is it a near perfect song? oh god no. my 16-year-old self thought it was for sure, but relistening now there's a few lyrics where i'm like "jfc why are they like this." but for now lyricism doesn't matter bc no matter what you think about ajr's lyrics, their composition is what i'm focusing on and it's generally pretty good. next up forever contains choir vocals a la a vintage disney movie, a slow build before exploding into a drum beat channeling the anxiety and anticipation the song is focused on. a lot of the themes (both lyrical and musical) are present in all the other songs on this album, so despite not being an overture in the traditional sense it perfectly balances giving us a taste of what's to come while also standing on its own as a song you can listen to separate from the full album context. but most importantly, it coheres with the final song so fucking well. the last song on the album "finale (can't wait to see what you do next)" continues this exact same theme, with the most similar instrumentation to the album opener out of this set of song, while still distinctly standing on its own. it genuinely feels like this album was a full exploration of standing on the precipice of your career, and the singer reaches a moment of clarity on the last lines of the song. seriously, i'm embarrassed to admit i still get chills from "if it's my final album / and if i am forgotten / i hope i made you smile / that's all i ever wanted"

(ngl i honestly kind of wish this was ajr's final album bc what a note to go out on. also bc this was the last time i was in the exact space in my life where i could 100% unironically feel seen in an ajr album)

but then we have ok orchestra: the much anticipated follow-up to neotheater. we get the return of an overture, mixing together some of the biggest hits on the album (of course it helps that the chorus of "bang bang bang" and "way less sad" are basically the same). idk, maybe it's just because i grew out of my ajr phase by the time this was released and was still in denial about it, but something about this overture just doesn't hit. it doesn't feel as much like it exists for a reason as the click's overture. the click substantially modified these songs' tempo/time signature to fit together, and by starting with the simple metronome (the titular click) and the repeated calls of "come hang out, don't you leave us behind" it immediately gives us the thesis statement of the album, what it's all trying to say. ok orchestra just,,, doesn't do that??? it's like ok cool the songs fit together and i'm gonna hear longer versions soon. what about it.

but that doesn't say anything about the main reason i don't like this album: christmas in june. after 2 great album closers, a lot is resting on the final song of this album to put it all in perspective and make sure it coheres, and christmas in june just doesn't do that. there's no sense of finality, no deeper focus on the central theme of the album (which is????). and ok. christmas in june is a fine song, i get the message of it (trying to balance the pursuit of success in your art with your personal relationships) but WE'VE DONE THIS ALREADY. this is the whole point of come hang out, and it explored it with some great tension and interesting instrumentation!!! but compared to that song, christmas in june just feels very shallow. and the instrumentation definitely is the main reason for this. since i hadn't listened to the song in a while, i misremembered it as being acoustic bc it's so scaled back, but it's not acoustic. that would've at least been an artistic choice. it's just quiet. it does not feel like an album closer at all, it feels like a fine little variation in the middle tracks which might be referenced in the finale, which is coming any second now, right?

but tbh the lack of a satisfactory narrative conclusion and quieter production don't inherently make it a bad song. i mean, let's compare this to bleachers' most recent album closer "what do i do with all this faith?" while the previous two bleachers albums contained an interlude called "i'm ready to move on" which led us directly into their finales, this album isn't ready to move on. and sure, this is probably my least favorite bleachers album of the three (tho tbh it's hard for anything to top strange desire and gone now), i still appreciate this (actually acoustic) ending a lot for its recognition that sometimes you don't get an ending to your emotional arc. it still fits sonically with the rest of the album (which is also generally scaled-back and guitar focused), and it fits thematically with the rest of the lyrics

but the thing that makes me dislike christmas in june most is that it doesn't commit to the bit. see, each ajr album has kind of a "gimmick" that ties it together. these gimmicks aren't present on every song, but they're present on the beginning and ending and several moments in between. "the click" had the integration of string sections with electronic music, which doesn't always work but is an interesting choice. neotheater has the aforementioned choir, as well as this general old musical feeling (side note doesn't birthday party sample fucking eraserhead???). what does ok orchestra have? the closest thing i can identify is pitch-shifting vocals, most notably on "the trick". generally i do not like it when this gimmick is implemented, and it's very telling that my favorite song from ok orchestra (and the only one i listened to in the past year) is 3 o'clock things, which feels like a holdover from neotheater thanks to its choir returning. but as much as i was annoyed by the pitch shifting, if they'd just stuck the landing and used it in the final song, it would have at least felt whole. but they never used it again. i guess you can argue that christmas in june leaving me feeling empty inside was intentional bc the song itself is about this stressful feeling of being spread too thin, but i don't think this lack of resolution is what ajr was going for. i think they wanted that last line about a hypothetical kid to hit as hard as dear winter (which, yes, i'm embarrassed to admit, i still actually kind of love) but it doesn't.

idk, maybe i'm being too hard on ok orchestra, or maybe i'm not being hard enough on the earlier albums. or maybe this is mostly a case of sometimes the music you love in 10th grade isn't the same music you love in your third year at university, and it sucks to confront that. even if ajr releases another album soon that lives up to neotheater, idk if i'll even listen to it more than once since i've discovered new music since that also does all the things i used to love about ajr but much better. but idk. there's still a part of me that wishes ok orchestra was at least a bit more cohesive, especially when i hear so many people who both love and hate ajr saying it's the best thing they've ever written. justice for neotheater

[thetwobosses]

For the Boss ask meme: #1, #10, #18 for Boss/es of your choice! I'm one of your newer followers so I'm looking through your stuff about your Bosses now and I'm very intrigued 😊

Hello and thank you! :D I'll answer for Meryl, Colin and Eli since they are my main Bosses and the most developed.

1. Is your Boss's name a secret? Do some people know but not others? Do they use a pseudonym? A nickname?

Meryl's full name used to be Meryl Tammesalu, but once the gang stuff got serious in SR2, she legally dropped her surname to try to keep the rest of her family from being as publicly associated with her and thus safer (that and people kept mispronouncing it). The name is Estonian (it means 'oak grove'), as her grandparents were among the thousands of Estonian expats fleeing WW2 to North America.

Colin was born in London as Sean Healey, but moved to Stilwater in his late teens to escape his destitute life and start fresh, experience the "American Dream" and all that. In his mind, a new beginning demanded a new name, because he felt his was too "soft" and "uncool". He picked out 'Colin Alton' because he thought it sounded more sophisticated without being overly pretentious. As the Saints rose in fame, Colin would downplay his past, including his old name. While he didn't manage to scrub all evidence of it, it wasn't too well known either. When Colin ended up stranded in Meryl's universe after SR3, he initially didn't tell anyone he used to go by a different name, so Meryl's searches for a version of Colin native to her universe didn't bear fruit. Colin had figured that if he hadn't changed his name (and thus moved to the US), he probably would have remained languishing in London and he decided he would rather not find out whether that was the case. He ended up ultimately being proven correct, as he and Meryl were confronted by an incredulous and pissed off Sean Healey during a trip to London, but that's a whole story on its own.

Eli's last name is Chase (there should probably be a middle name as well but tbh I've never really wrapped my head around middle names being a thing in many countries so none of my characters have them xD). He's an enby and goes by all pronouns, though generally defaults to he/him, and kind of as a part of that also encourages variation in the pronunciation of his first name. It can be the usual 'ee-lye', but also rhyming with 'Ellie'. Pierce and Shaundi tend to go with the latter and even shorten it to 'El/Elle' as a nickname.

10. How has your Boss changed throughout the games/years?

Meryl has probably changed the least of the main three. She'd initially joined the Saints because it had seemed like a cool and interesting thing at the time (plus she was going through a rebellious phase), and while she did go through a darker, more brutal period after her coma as many Bosses would, her underlying personality remained fun-loving and excitable over her career in the Saints.

Colin would let his vengefulness and quick temper get the better of him at times, especially in Steelport when his knee-jerk reaction was to not let Killbane get away. The loss of Shaundi, and the discovery that while Meryl had led her Saints through almost the exact same situations, her Shaundi still lived, had Colin eventually choose to make a concerted effort to curb some of his worst impulses. It's not perfect, but these days he can usually swallow his pride and take a slight without blowing up over it (though he will grump about it later in private).

Eli has grown a lot in the Saints. He joined up only after Jack woke from her coma and begun reforming the gang, but started out as rather meek and anxious, and with very little combat experience. He stood out as a tactician and strategist though, and once Pierce took him under his wing, Eli really started coming into his own in the gang. Jack gambled and elevated him to lieutenant to replace Carlos despite Eli's similar lack of experience with leadership. After Jack got killed in a Masako ambush and the Saints were torn on how to respond, Eli ended up grabbing the reins much to everyone's surprise (including his own). As much as Eli wasn't a fond of Jack's ruthlessness and penchant for violence, and vowed to not end up following in her footsteps, the later war against the Syndicate forced him to make some uncomfortable compromises. Yet he would never go as far as she did, and would still try and look for non-violent solutions first.

18. Do they have a best/closest friend?

Meryl grew up close with her family, especially one of her brothers. In the Saints, though she was naturally close friends with Johnny, Shaundi and Pierce, she wouldn't find a true soulmate until the arrival of Colin. Despite their many differences in upbringing and personality, their shared traits and experiences in the Saints helped bring them together as friends and then lovers. She also eventually grew a real fondness for Sean Healey, after Colin brought him to live with them in the US.

In his old universe, Colin had been especially close with two people: Johnny Gat, and fellow Brit Colin Faulkner. Colin and Johnny fell in together early on in the Saints, though Colin never revealed to Gat his unrequited infatuation. Johnny's "death" hit Colin hard, but rather than properly process his grief, he buried it deep down and tried to ignore it. Colin Faulkner (a non-Boss AU version of @princessdemeter's Boss) was an (ex-)hooker in Stilwater whom my Colin ended up befriending after his coma. Faulkner soon became Colin's confidante and friend with benefits, in part because he never officially joined the Saints. Colin's hopeless feelings for Gat made him willfully blind to the fact that Faulkner had fallen for the Boss, or that his own affections for Faulkner might have been more than just platonic. Unfortunately the two of them would never have the chance to work things out except in AUs, as a few months after SR:TT, Colin would end up permanently whisked away to Meryl's universe by a wayward piece of Zin tech. There, after somewhat rocky beginnings, he and Meryl quickly grew close. Colin eventually also decided to make peace with his humble origins and reached out to Sean Healey despite their poor first impressions. They found enough common ground to become good friends over the years and Colin even brought Sean over to live with him and Meryl in Steelport.

Pierce became Eli's closest friend in the Saints almost from the get-go. The two of them had similar inclinations towards choosing strategy over brute force methods, making them natural allies in the gang between Jack and Gat's bloodlust and Shaundi taking credit for Pierce's ideas. They also share similar senses of humor and several geeky interests, leading them to enjoy each other's company even outside of "work". They started dating between SR2 and 3 and managed to remain together even thought the strain of the presidency and the Zin invasion. Eli wasn't actually as close with the other Saints lieutenants as most Bosses. While Johnny was alive, the two of them often found themselves diametrically opposed and respected each other more for their skills than character. Eli was initially annoyed with Shaundi's constant one-upping of Pierce as well as her penchant for drugs, but they found a better understanding with each other over time. Of the Steelport lieutenants, Eli and Oleg got along well, while he distrusted Kinzie, remained ambivalent and slightly wary toward Angel and Viola, and absolutely abhorred Zimos. Once in space, Eli and Matt ended up becoming friends, especially since there hadn't been too much bad blood between them back in Steelport, and Eli would often prefer having Matt hack the Simulation over Kinzie.

[skoati]

Hi! I saw your recent reblog, and since you're bored I thought I'd send some questions (´·ω·)ﾉ(._.`) ←us lol

When did you first get into hetalia? Whose your favorite hetalia character? And why? Do you have an otp or pretty equal on liking the ships you like? Do you have any ships you dislike?

Most importantly have you hydrated today? Have you eaten? Stretched or move around some? And today have you reminded yourself that you're cool because I'm pretty sure you are (I just have a Spidey sense about cool people what can I say) it won't let me make that whole sentence small,, fuck.

Anyway I hope you have a good day! Cheers! -🪽

I first (actively) got into Hetalia in early 2022 iirc. So I'm pretty new to the fandom but I can't believe it's already been 2 years!

My favorite Hetalia character fluctuates and it's so hard to decide tbh!! So it'd be easier for me to list my top favs instead: Nyo Russia & Russia, Nyo America, Canada, Germany & Nyo Germany, Nyo Belarus & Belarus, Romano, and Prussia. I like a lot of others too ofc... England, France & Nyo France, Nyo Italy, Spain & Nyo Spain...

If I were to pick a top top top fav it'd have to be Nyo Russia(if you couldn't tell by my pfp lol). I love her design and the personality I gave her in my head. I'm very picky about her characterization and tend to throw out many drafts attempting her. She is so complex... Although Nyo Germany, Nyo America, and more recently Canada are up there too. I love writing and reading them! I've also gotten a new appreciation for Arthur? I now get why he used to be a Tumblr sexyman lol. He's very versatile

My top otp must be Amecan I guess, though USUK was my first ship and it's still a top contender. I was obsessed with Gerpru for some time so it's also up there! I also like Rusger, especially the Nyo Russia x Germany combination which tends to be nonexistent in the western fandom. And Nyo Rusbela gives me brainworms that regular Rusbela doesn't for some reason

As for ships I dislike... I'm probably gonna have to go against the grain here and say Rusame. The art and fics of it are usually so beautiful but it's just really not to my tastes. I don't like it in any variation, though I'll still read it if it's well written. My friends are VERY into it so no shade to anyone who likes it lol. Other popular ships I'm also not into are Rusliet, Prucan, and Rochu.

And yeah I hydrate myself like a camel don't worry. Drinking tea nonstop is part of my culture. I hate coffee but my doctor says I need to consume more caffeine so I may have to force myself to start drinking it 😔😔

Anyways thank you so much for your ask!!!! Reminder to everyone that I don't bite and am open to any and all dms, I have made a lot of great friends in this fandom and am always happy to have more~ Warning though I am chatty!! My discord is the same username as here if anyone wants to friend me ^_^

[discyours]

And for no true Scotsman… that’s an interesting dynamic…. Because it’s like for any ideology or system of beliefs theoretically yeah… we could get to a point that 99-100% of people claiming to be X are actually probably not X. It’s possible. It’s just a fallacy if you are making the definition sooooo narrow on purpose to get out of a jam in an argument. The fallacious/cheating reasoning existing doesn’t mean we can’t make good faith and meaningful arguments that would mean the majority of self-described X not being X. Especially if we acknowledge things like, ok maybe there is a historical X and a modern X and the modern people clearly have MOVED what X means at this point. But it’s now fair to emphasize that they aren’t meaningfully meeting the previous/ historical definition of X. You see that a lot with political ideology words tbh. Like here’s a fun one — what’s a conservative? What’s a liberal? It’s contextual in time and place and even then you will get disagreeing factions and people who think each other don’t count and each have good arguments for it.

I do think it’s just really interesting to think about how words for beliefs, movements shared across groups of people both are meaningful and will never be all that stable. With a political movement there is always disagreement within as well as without and it’s like the line between variations within a species vs super closely related but separate species. Where is that line? How much disagreement = broken up into factions? How much disagreement before one or more of those factions “aren’t” the original term?

Also with all these political movement/faction terms.. so much depends on context. Once enough time has passed it can be the heir to the older idea, but it will never be the same and is probably different enough to start drawing lines and naming eras.

With radfem for example for better and worse, there is so little allegiance or even awareness to the ideology of the mid 20 c radfems that I am ready to describe that as a full split. An evolution with changes based on newer information available, experiences and reactions to events and other ideologies/factions rising, etc. Modern radfems are inspired-by but not the same as the earlier ones, with rare exceptions there are no second wavers who aren’t literally the women who were at their most active in that time period.

Again I think the evolution is a good thing — we do need to always be reevaluating, take in new information and new contexts — and a bad thing, when it’s out of ignorance of the past and not thoughtful sifting through it that’s leading to the change in what modern self-described radfem is vs the more stable definition

Overall I accept it’s changing and want to make the most of our chance to influence the shape of the new incarnation

Another thought is I call myself a feminist (no adjectives) even though i disagree in at least one way with 99% of self described feminists and strongly disagree with the majority faction on core points. I’m fighting for the space. I want my core concept of feminist to become THE core concept for the majority. And were unlikely to get what we don’t fight for. Still that’s such a delicate political question— when is it better for me to say I’m an ex feminist and define some new thing like, “women’s liberationist” and call myself that? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. There’s something to gain and lose either way. What matters I guess is which move most advances our organizing capacity.

I have nothing to add but I appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

[fannishcodex]

Tbh so far I’m inclined to think Darius has a lot of growing suspicions/fears about what happened to his mentor, but hasn’t been able to really confirm them.

And that for him, part of why he personally wanted to enter Belos’s mindscape was to get some damn answers and confirm his suspicions/fears.

I’m inclined to think his mentor, the last GG, was lost with a vague cover story provided by Belos/under largely mysterious circumstances that gave Darius no closure and eventually made him suspicious about what actually happened. I’m inclined to think Darius was aware that his mentor did not approve of a lot of what was happening on the Boiling Isles and was trying to change things and advocated for reform and was trying to reason with the Emperor, even argued with him--and that Darius started suspecting that the Emperor may’ve felt he would benefit from silencing him. Darius inwardly seethes and schemes and pretends and searches for proof but can’t find anything, but still he grows fairly certain the Emperor murdered his mentor and hates him for it, and so moves against him and is willing to do it in secret if that will give him more access and a better chance for revenge.

I’m inclined to think Darius gets some nauseating new questions and suspicions when he sees Hunter made the new GG. I’m inclined to think that initially Darius sort of does see a little resemblance then as a gut instinct, but he buries it in reasonable enough denial in the face of something this distressing and this much of a *mindscrew, but also really could rationalize it away because there are differences between previous GG and Hunter, and Darius also only sort of sees a similarity but not quite--because I’m inclined to think Darius was a teen when he met an adult GG, and I think there’d be differences between an adult GG and a teen GG, and I just don’t think anyone’s mind would immediately be fully on board with the idea of, “did i just see a teen clone of my dead mentor???” It’s not something I don’t think he’d fully wrap his mind around so quickly.

And pre-“Hollow Mind” I was also inclined to think and even just meta-play around with the concept of age and also extra scars messing up adult GG’s face would at first obscure his similarity with Hunter. And now post-“Hollow Mind” I’m inclined to think that along with the concept of “out of all the Grimwalkers, you look the most like him”--that there was some level of variation among the clones/Grimwalkers, probably slight ones, but enough to also further obscure the similarities between previous GG and Hunter for Darius and to keep him from immediately fully leaping to the idea of “clone” despite an uncomfortable flash of brief recognition that didn’t have staying power but ended up eventually taking root and growing into full suspicion later.

And like now I’m inclined to think GG’s hair color and eye color might have been a bit different from Hunter’s, maybe darker hair, maybe more pink or violet eyes than red. Maybe even artistic license with genetics and actually brown hair and blue eyes, assuming the GG’s genetic progenitor Wittebro could’ve had the genetic possibility for brown hair and blue eyes like his brother Philip.

So just, eventually after seeing Hunter made the new GG and stewing over his appearance for a while, Darius eventually can’t shake nagging suspicions and starts researching basically “copies of people/mimics of people,” and does eventually stumble upon the concept of Grimwalkers in his research/old texts. Probably not an actual copy/other edition of whatever Belos has, maybe a different source/record on the same topic, but it’s enough to give him a basic idea of what could be going on. So then Darius starts thinking Hunter is a Grimwalker/clone of his mentor.

And then Darius does start to wonder about the other Golden Guards that his mentor mentioned...if they were all...if they were all also Grimwalkers... But Darius has only known the two, he can only compare his mentor and Hunter. And even if they might indicate a pattern, Darius has nothing to confirm it at the moment, he’s only ever known two Golden Guards. And Darius tries looking into that too, but comes up empty. (And y’know, also like so horrible a concept that part of Darius may just not want to know, but he’s still searching for some confirmation and to learn more about the other GG predecessors.)

To sort of sum up: I’m just generally inclined to think that mindscrew stuff could’ve happened to make Darius really suspicious and he could be connecting the dots and approaching a horrible picture but he has no concrete proof. Like I think that’s a possibility, he could see mindscrew stuff going on and start getting suspicious and start connecting the dots and drawing his own conclusions, and he’s come close to what’s going on but lacks confirmation/the whole truth. (I don’t think even Hunter and Luz have the full truth yet.)

And come to think of it, I’m inclined to think that also can even affect how he’d approach Hunter pre-“Hollow Mind”--because how could Darius really share any of this with him without serious proof? “I strongly suspect the Emperor murdered your predecessor, and that you’re a clone of him that the Emperor created to replace him--do I have proof? I’m working on that, but I strongly suspect--”

Yeah, so I think Darius would believe that wouldn’t work for Hunter, that Hunter would just dismiss him, and so Darius felt he needed clear proof before he could even try telling Hunter something so intense. Now I’m thinking Darius might’ve been hoping to find something in Belos’s mindscape that he could’ve used to convince Hunter...and that it actually ended up in the result he wanted but in the most brutal way possible. (And hey, could be a parallel for Luz and Darius actually--both looking for something to prove that Belos is the enemy.)

But that’s also one possibility I’m leaning towards, and the one I’m pretty much/probably leaning the most towards at the moment. Still, for me there’s also the possibility that maybe the previous GG did have enough time to give Darius some warning about what’s going on (before the Emperor killed him), and maybe Darius wouldn’t have fully grasped everything because of the time crunch and ensuing trauma, but he would’ve started figuring it out... Though in my scenario where Darius is more piecing things together by himself based on the mindscrewery going on around him, I’m inclined to think that some final horrifying revelations ended up moving too fast for previous GG to warn Darius in time before Belos killed him.

*Mindscrewy: Darius’s mentor apparently killed by the Emperor he served + then his mentor is apparently cloned as a new teenage version that’s supposed to replace him + apparently his mentor and his new clone might’ve been two out of a long line of clones/all the other Golden Guards were apparently clones too--think that counts as a general mindscrew for Darius.

(I’m just growing interested in the idea of like Darius steadily grasping and crawling forward in secret vendetta and investigation over the years, a lot of research and trying to dig up info and old texts and old lore while laying low and trying to do what’s possible while keeping cover and not entirely sure of who can be trusted. A vendetta in the long-term and slow struggling but fueled by determination and grief and revenge and a desire to make something more aligned with what his mentor fought and believed in.)

And while I think Darius started becoming more concerned for Hunter’s safety as he started connecting more dots, I also think that Darius didn’t fully grasp the level of abuse Hunter already faced with the Emperor, though I think he’s about to and is going to kick himself for not seeing it sooner (tbh I don’t really hold that against Darius since I feel like he had a lot on his plate with secret rebellion and a lot of emotional turmoil messing with his judgment--“murdered mentor that’s apparently been cloned, etc.” feels like a lot to process and deal with to me--but I actually think he’d berate himself over that too; but ofc, the real person to blame is Belos). And it seems like an odd detail, but I kinda feel like it is a case of Darius playing catch-up with getting to know Hunter and his situation (after probably and understandably trying to keep his distance because of the emotional turmoil/traumatic mindscrew going on), and he gets closer to what feels like immediate threats first, like that of Belos killing the previous Golden Guard, he might kill the next one--but he doesn’t immediately get that Hunter wasn’t favored but that Belos has been cruelly mistreating and abusing him the whole time. Like Darius might’ve thought it was more like a lamb being fattened up for slaughter, and even that the form of indoctrination Belos was using for Hunter might be favoring/spoiling him so that he’ll believe everything Belos says--when actually the lamb was also just being mistreated the whole time and didn’t even get a reprieve on that, and the indoctrination is more overtly aggressive and strict and forcing Hunter to submit while also making him think this is normal because it’s all he’s known.

I also think--like I’ve seen some discussion on this, and I’m still inclined to think that in “ASIAS,” Darius wants Hunter to be more rebellious because it’s something his mentor instilled in him and he believes in it and wishes to see it passed down to Hunter too, and that it would ultimately be good for Hunter, like Darius doesn’t want Hunter to continue mindlessly and strictly obeying the Emperor; and I think Darius isn’t planning to risk Hunter by encouraging traits that could make him more of a target for the Emperor, I think he’s planning to somehow extract Hunter from the situation with the Emperor while also trying to instill values in him that he inherited from his mentor and believes are better and would be good for Hunter/while also trying to prevent Hunter from staying as the Emperor’s mindless servant (which would also make it easier to help him escape if he’s already willing to).

Like I don’t think Darius goes in encouraging Hunter to rebel while knowing it likely got his mentor killed without some sort of plan for a safety net/escape route. In fact I think Darius would go in planning to keep him safe especially after what happened to his mentor--he doesn’t want history to repeat itself with his mentor’s clone. Also, I kinda headcanon that Darius has not fully accepted the possibility that all the Golden Guards have been clones during the events of “ASIAS”--but after starting to get close to Hunter in that episode, he might’ve started thinking about it more and had another omfg moment over the whole ongoing crisis with his mentor and the fallout of his loss, which also might’ve accelerated his efforts to try to convince Hunter to leave and to get him out. And that does seem to circle back around to Darius might’ve partly tried going into Belos’s mindscape to find something that would strengthen Hunter’s rebellion/convince Hunter to willingly leave the Emperor. I’m inclined to think that Darius partly tried to enter Belos’s mindscape to finally find answers for himself and for Hunter.