#but it kinda like. has to happen organically because he literally has no resources

[loverboydotcom]

someones lover boy feels like im banging on a glass wall trying to tell beau he has autism and there are coping mechanisms that can help him but nooooo SOMEONE had to set this in the 80s so he has to figure it all out himself without ever actually knowing the Thing behind it all

[resizura]

you know i think it readily becomes apparent where the creators of re movies’ loyalties lie where you realize that really the only organization that our heroes work for that gets routinely criticized…is the human rights organization

like in degeneration, they pin the blame for the terrorist attack and lack of resources to put it out on terrasave acting on the knowledge they had at the time to try and stop big evil pharma, and although they end up being right, the blame falls entirely on claire/terrasave and claire spends a good amount of time believing it, even saying “it’s all our fault” and when leon comforts her, he says what she does is noble but the creators also have to slip in “well leon and chris, they’re fighters, they’re cool guys. but uh feel bad for claire i guess” then in infinite darkness we barely even see her doing terrasave work, just at the beginning, then she researches the mad dogs and finds the suicide, then she gets kidnapped, then the climax. like claire really has NO bearing on the actual PLOT going on except for exposition, meanwhile all the stuff we WANNA watch goes to cool government agent man. then in fucking death island, the one time i thought the movie was GOING to actually criticize the institutions these guys work for, who’s organization gets shit on the most by other characters and even called terrorists between the government, a private military, and a human rights ngo? go ahead. guess.

its actually kinda crazy you sent this because i was just thinking about it while i rewatched death island.

like, i literally was thinking about how messed up it is that an organization that works completely independently from a government, that gets its funding through things like donations, grants, and membership dues, that has to meet legal requirements to get registers to administer aid, that has hundreds, maybe even thousands of employees across the globe, is so heavily criticized in a series where the government literally nuked a city and covered it up to save a huge corporation's ass

and like idk, how realistic is it for terrasave to even get away with all this stuff? i'm not saying it can't happen, but so far terrasave has been called out for so much, like starting outbreaks, members secretly working with terrorist orgs, and other vague bad stuff the series won't go into detail on. i feel like if an anti-terrorist ngo was always in trouble for doing terrorism, they wouldn't be able to work. especially since governments will sometimes try to limit their power and diminish the aid they can give out.

and consider this: the BSAA works with the united nations. you know who else works with the united nations? ngos. granted, they're different since terrasave is a humanitarian group and the bsaa is a paramilitary agency, but considering the point is to combat bioterrorism, the difference between how they're treated in the games is ridiculous. i know now the bsaa is corrupt as of re village (i think), terrasave has been called corrupt since the moment it was shown.

i feel like if they wanted to go through with the "corrupt ngo" route they could do something more along the lines of terrasave destabilizing the communities it works in or maybe the people within it take bribes or don't use the money for its intended purpose. but yeah the way capcom goes "look at how UNRELIABLE these humanitarian groups are! the only ones who can save them are the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and SOLDIERS and COOL PEOPLE" like gtfo

[clandestinesnee]

inhales and exhales at a rapid rate

okayokayokay. finally I must compile the thoughts that have ravaged my BRAIN for the past month

This is gonna be most of my thoughts on the Twilight Realm / Prison Dimension, trying not to make it hellishly long

Okay, first off, the Twilight Realm where the Shredder is kept is the same dimension as where the Krang were.

NGL it’s kinda scary that Baron Draxum can just open up a portal to the prison dimension. Draxum should totally teach Mikey how to open portals without being self-destructive.

AHEM anyway

Going back to when the Krang were shut away, feudal Japan, by four warriors with the turtles’ colors (who were somehow able to open a portal). I’m reluctant to theorize how long the Krang were in there, because I believe time doesn’t function at the same rate ours does in the prison dimension. I can elaborate on that in a different post ig.

Regardless, in the movie 3 Krang emerged from the portal. LITERALLY what happened to the entire army ??????? Where did they go I believe that they were prey, essentially. Whether it be by their own people (for which @endless-exhaustion​ has made great points) or by another unknown entity lurking in the Twilight Realm, something wiped out their entire race.

And now we get down to the bulk of it.

Okay, so. I will be referencing these guys:

These little fellas are from before they were shut away. With that in mind:

WHO ARE THESE CREACHURES. YOU’D THINK THAT THEY’RE JUST MECH SUITS FROM THE PREVIOUS PICTURE BUT LOOK AT HOW HUGE THEY ARE, LITERALLY Krang 1 is a speck among them. FML

Lowkey so perplexed over this rn /lh WHAT are these things. These giant beings are just in the background, and they look exactly like the mech suits but BIGGER on such an exaggerated scale that it shouldn’t be physically possible for them to be inhabitable. What is a Krang to do, stretch out like a membrane hoping to cover the stomach cavity? Actually, wait, don’t think about that.. ewwwwwww-

Same thing with the creatures in the foreground, except they’re implied to be smaller than the other ones. Look at how they’re poised for attack -- were they frozen mid-battle? Are these husks of shells from centuries ago? Or are they bodies that never got to decompose (since it’s never established the temperature / presence of bacteria within the Twilight Realm)?

I can’t even tell if these smaller ones are mech suits or not. I mean, if so, under what circumstances is a Krang removed from the mech but the suit itself remains intact? Did the Krang just leave the suit mid-attack? They could’ve been ripped out but wouldn’t the mechs appear to have damage around the midsection then?

From the previous two images, I believe that these are long-dead creatures, and that the Krang already know what the Twilight Realm is. They already know of the things that reside inside and make their mech suits in their honor, or maybe as mocking as they show what the imprisoned creatures could have been, had they been stronger. Aaaand then the Krang got a taste of their own medicine, I guess.

By the way, I want to talk about the Technodrome.

It’s a living, breathing spaceship. I’d like to point out that since it is respirating, it needs food to maintain itself. Calories for energy. It is such a giant organism that it must require ungodly amounts of resources. It’s literally such a hassle, and for what?

It could be sentient (which is actually disturbing to think about..) and that’s how it operates its eyes, each appendage, the brain, etc. But at the same time Krang 3 is able to control it.

I was thinking it could be a partnership between two different species -- like hippos and birds -- but it accepts Donnie just the same, even though he’s literally guiding it to its death as it’s sliced in half by the closing portal. The Krang could have implanted some sort of parasite or something.

I mean, you can’t really just.. make structures like that without literally being mother nature. You can’t somehow create nervous systems from scratch, god where would they get the flesh to be able to make such a huge structure, and as far as I know, you can’t make a full-ass operating system out of fuckin squiggles.

I only got this shot of an abandoned Technodrome before Krang 1 blew it up, smh. No respect. Regardless, I believe that the “Technodrome” is an entity that just Vibes in the prison dimension and that the Krang add technological structures to it (see the teal-green light in the image above). So there are failed attempts, whether a result of forgotten colonies or dangers we don’t know of yet.

Unless the Krang had Technodromes before the invasion of Earth. I honestly don’t know.

But what is the point? What is the point of having a giant battleship that, sure, has enough power to wipe out the entire human race, but costs more than it’s worth?

I’m already really anxious making it this long so I’ll stop here and do another part. But I hope yall enjoyed some of my takes on the Twilight Realm :3

[koreanbibliophilegirl]

Alright so!!

I thought this would get 20 votes at most, honestly did not expect 70+ votes haha. Thank you to everyone who voted!

The votes were pretty evenly divided, to my surprise. I was expecting Tommy or Techno to sweep, which, as much as I love them, would've been no fun. So I'm very glad the votes turned out the way they did!

The winner is Quackity!🥳

[Pretend there's concept art here]

Full name: Quackity H. Q. (Nobody knows what the H. Q. stands for.* Nobody wants to ask either.)

(* : Nobody except Charlie of course, because Charlie is basically omniscient and the GOAT.)

Occupation: Officially the owner of a popular casino, secretly the head of the Las Nevadas mafia gang!

(The casino is a family business. It's always been inherited alongside the mafia organization.) He does actually do casino work! He just has shady side deals happening in the private rooms is all.

Power: Ability to float & manipulate cards(he prefers playing cards, but anything vaguely card-shaped will do!). He can trap people, pin people to walls, and basically control them like, according to my notes, "a hecking anime character wielding Chakra".

(...I'd been on my way home from school, okay? School does weird things to people's minds.)

He can also control the odds of any situation in his favor, but only if he is aware of all the variables. So basically the power only knows as much as Quackity knows.

Triple powers are rare*, but Quackity is one of those rarities. He can summon golden duck wings from his back! However, they're kinda small, so flying is difficult, though not impossible.

(* : FYI, additional powers are almost always small things. For instance, Ponk in this universe has healing powers, with the additional power of pulling out lemons from literally anywhere. Purpled is bulletproof, fireproof, basically indestructible physically, with perfect aim as a bonus. Extremely handy in his line of work, but still small.)

Additional Info: The Las Nevadas mafia members have specific suffixes in their code names according to their position. The patrons are the people who aren't actually mafia, but strikes deals with LN/provide resources/etc. Their code names have the suffix Heart. The assassins(or anybody who does the dirty work) have Spade. The dealers, the ones who help keep up their cover at the casino and/or make negotiations on behalf of Las Nevadas, are Diamonds. The head of the Mafia, a.k.a. Quackity, uses Club.*

(* : examples of code names are Tyrian Spade(Purpled), Bitterbriar Diamond(Hannah), Adamant Heart(Skeppy), Dresden Diamond(Charlie) and Rey Club(Quackity himself).)

This is actually the result of some research! Apparently, the pips(symbols) on trump cards are based on the four classes of people. Hearts(♥️) are the priests/clergy, so I gave it to the patrons/business partners to symbolize how they're treated. Held high, like the religious leaders of medieval times were- unless they get too greedy, that is. Spades(♠️) are nobility or military. I chose the latter meaning, obviously. Diamonds(♦️) are merchants, thus the dealers. Clubs(♣️) symbolize peasants, which may seem odd for the mafia kingpin to use. It means the mafia boss will serve his subordinates to the best of his abilities, a reminder for the mafia head to stay humble.

Also I asked my friend which pip I should use for Q and she chose the club

Relationships with Other Characters: Purpled, Punz, and Charlie work directly under Quackity! Charlie is his bodyguard/secretary/right hand man. Mercenary duo are, of course, assassins. They're also siblings bc I like the trope. Hehe

Hannah doesn't work at the casino, and instead owns a flower shop. But she strikes deals/goes scouting for LN, thus the Diamond status.

Skeppy is. Just a guy. That somehow makes a regular appearance in Las Nevadas business. He doesn't snitch or sabotage anything, and his power of summoning diamonds makes for a valuable source of money. Skeppy doesn't mind sharing them either, so it's (mostly) a win-win. As long as you can withstand his (extremely) chaotic personality and the occasional harmless prank, he's a great guy to have around. Quackity's fine with humoring him for a bit, though he WILL pawn Skeppy off on the first person he meets.

Also, I have no idea if I'll be able to pull it off, but I think Karlnapity might?? Be a thing later on??? Karlnap are both heroes & already dating, and I'm planning a Las Nevadas annual masquerade ball to be a plot point(major or minor, haven't decided yet). I was thinking Karlnap could sneak in for info, except it wouldn't work bc the patrons' masks were all made by LN and they have a recognition system. Quackity lets them in though, bc he wants the heroes to see there's no incriminating evidence they can gather here. Taunting them with innocence that everyone knows is false, you could say. Anyway yeah. I thought I could maybe start from there? Idk.

Anyway, that's all I have for now!

If ppl like this, then I might do a second part with Techno(second place in the vote). So leave a like or smth if you like this! :D

[moonyasnow]

Moony's TWST Vampire AU

Part 2: Savannaclaw

Heartslabyul Savannaclaw (you are here) Octavinelle Scarabia Pomefiore Ignihyde Diasomnia Extras

(listen I know what a massive contrast this is— it's just the only official art which shows the entire Dorm together)

This is NOT ORGANIZED lmao

Literally just unfiltered thoughts and ideas, with some short writing snippets only sneaking in by accident. Literal brainrot stuff

Also some thoughts will absolutely be longer than others I wrote most of this in like 5 hours in one sitting

It will be in 8 parts. First the dorms, and then a final one for my thoughts on some side-characters' places in this AU

Basic rules of the Vampire AU:

A vampire is unkillable until they turn someone. As such, vampires are rare, and usually created on accident.

Vampires can't die of starvation. They can sure try, and by god will it hurt, but it can't kill them.

Vampires can drink liquids that aren't blood, though they get no nutrients from it, but they cannot ingest food. If they try to eat normal food, they just throw it up, their bodies rejecting it entirely.

They can drink any blood that is not from another vampire.

leona

Leona has long ago chosen to suppress the knowledge of where, how, and by whom he was turned. It wasn't pleasant, is all he remembers, and that's good enough of a sign for him to not go rooting around his head for the facts of what actually happened.

He faintly recalls his life before, though. But that one wasn't much better. Just filled with bitterness, loneliness and a hopeless feeling of always being overlooked. But it's not like it mattered anymore. He was dead. As was his family.

Now he was no longer 'Second Prince Leona Kingscholar'— just 'Leona'. Or 'King of Beasts' to his enemies. A multiple-hundred-something(he stopped counting after 103) year old Vampire Clan Leader. Or as most called him:

'Boss.'

He turned Ruggie, somewhat because he hoped the hyena might be able to kill him. Or at least find him someone who could.

The then-mortal had called that 'kinda pathetic, not that I'm one to judge'. It probably should've irked him. But he couldn't seem to care one way or the other, just saying:

"If you're not gonna do it, scram." And rolled over to go back to 'sleep'— as close to it as vampires could get, at least.

When Jack asked him why he didn't want to continue his un-life anymore all he said was: "Can't get any decent sleep as a vampire."

"Whu— THAT'S your reason?!"

"Yup. Now let me take my nap in peace."

Ruggie later said to Jack:

"Leona is older than both of us; who knows, maybe the whole 'immortality' gig gets boring after a while."

Ruggie

Ruggie was turned by Leona in a deal. He just wanted resources: something Leona had in excess, in the form of a by then almost 80-year-old bank account that had remained untouched for about 40.

It was Ruggie who actually helped kick off Leona's rise to power.

He's the one who has to run most of the day-to-day operations because Leona is too depressed and unbothered to do much besides the big stuff— and always demanding to get some of any blood-bags they manage to steal.

Though he wishes the pampered snob leader-man would actually come with on a hunt sometime. It's really not as easy luring mortals far enough away from prying eyes and ears to be able to drain them as he seems to think it is. And stealing blood bags is FAR from a reliable source of food! You really gotta have someone on the inside who can smuggle one or two out now and then. Actually conducting any kind of organized thefts attest WAY too much attention! They can only really hit up one hospital once every few years, then they gotta wait for the media attention to die down and people to forget.

Jack

Jack doesn't remember much before being turned— he doesn't remember who turned him, either.

He was taken in by Leona's clan because he seemed like good muscle, and was pretty loyal to Ruggie after he helped him figure out some good hunting spots, and then by extension loyal to Leona for being a rank above Ruggie.

He knows, somewhat distantly, that he had a family before being turned, and hobbies— which he carried over into undead life— and friends…but that's all he knows. The empty outlines of what once used to be.

But it's very obvious he's quite a young vampire, possibly only having been turned just a couple months ago. He still has priorities like going to college to get an education. Which, while neither Leona nor Ruggie are gonna stop him from doing, it doesn't seem to have sunk in for him yet that it isn't something an immortal vampire SHOULD really have as a priority.

When he was still pretty new to the clan, he turned Epel— his college roommate— at his request. He was not expecting to be scolded for it.

Jack agreed to turn Epel because he respected Epel's desire to be able to fight Vil on even grounds.

Leona had to actually contact Vil, and the two scolded both Epel and Jack— like parents whose kids had done something stupid togehter. Though Vil's 'what were you thinking?!' was a lot different than Leona's 'he's right, it was stupid. Not that I really care; do whatever you want.' which ended up with Vil scolding ALL THREE of them.

[bookwyrminspiration]

i've been noticing that throughout the later series we've been given more and more reasons to believe the neverseen are currently dealing with infighting, something that (in unlocked) sophie says might work to the black swan's advantage, irrc- so, any thoughts on that?

because on one hand i do like to think of the neverseen as a cohesive unit- i think the fandom really likes the idea of them being a found family that are all fun and games, and that's totally cool! and i love that! but when i reread the books, i do get the sense that there isnt any care or love between the neverseen members- they're just working towards their own personal goals.

and, like we saw with glimmer (and are getting hints of with vespera) it does seem like the neverseen is growing....less fond of gisela. so i wonder how that will play out? especially since so far, it seems like gisela isnt that interested in the original plans of the neverseen, more focused on keefe and his legacy than the humans (although that might change in future books)

but yeah, i just think it's rather interesting and wanted to hear your thoughts if you had any.

- pyro

yes! exactly! that's kinda what i tried to touch on in that earlier neverseen post. also: "your thoughts if you had any." pyro do you realize who you're talking to? /j. of course i have thoughts.

for me the conflict between Gisela and Fintan stands out the most, as she straight up said he was fucking up her plans and adapting it to what he wanted, which subsequently was ruining what she wanted.

all the members have joined the neverseen for different reasons, so it makes sense they're not fully cohesive. Fintan wants pyrokinetics back in society, Gisela wants to do something weird with keefe and maybe advance the species or something (currently unclear), Brant wanted to train in his ability and burn the old system to the ground and take over, umber wanted to use shadowflux more freely (iirc), etc etc. the thing they have in common is not fitting in with the larger society, not a common goal or desire. it's like they're the people who got grouped together because no one else wanted them, not because they go well together.

i do think the idea of them being a found family is appealing because they're the outcasts, they're the people who didn't fit in, which a lot of could/still can relate to. And we want to find a group of people like us who will understand us, so we project that onto those chances in literature whether or not it fits. and that's fine! i get a laugh out of some of the headcanons people write about their interactions, the ways they act like a family and care for each other.

they're just really don't give a shit about each other in canon from what we've seen. fintan was kinda like an authority figure over the others, doling out tasks and punishments as he saw fit depending on how well they served him. the "rewards" were just getting to do more important tasks, not any real closeness to him, though it could've felt like faux approval and closeness. I think that's what Ruy was experiencing at least

and you're right! they're all working towards personal goals and it's just more convenient to be part of a group rn--I think i talked about that a little in an analysis i did on glimmer. For fintan--he literally has this whole organization he's using to complete tasks. Gisela was using their resources and ability to go behind other's backs. But, she's starting going so out on her own that she's fucking everyone else's things up. she's messed with Fintan, Vespera, and Glimmer off the top of my head, but there may be more. at least two of those people are powerful within the organization, so i could totally see her getting cut off. She's wronged so many people, she may be the most wanted person in the Lost Cities. Wanted by the council, the black swan, sophie + crew, and the Neverseen. and none of those in a good way. she talked about having these original plans that fintan messed up, so clearly they're not on the same page. but since Fintan is kind of a little bit in prison right now, who knows what will happen to her. it's like she's on borrowed time

i've gotten distracted but my point was: I love seeing the found family ideas that people associate with the Neverseen!! that's just not reflected in canon, in my opinion. and I think that dysfunction and scrambling might be the only thing keeping them from winning right now. the black swan and council are...not great or productive. but if the neverseen figure out how to work together the elven world is totally fucked right now

[lokiondisneyplus]

Loki is the latest Marvel Studios TV series in the long-running franchise and it’s currently ongoing with five episodes so far available to stream on Disney+ Hotstar Malaysia. For previous breakdowns of Loki episodes, check out Episode 1 here, Episode 2 here, Episode 3 here, Episode 4 here and Episode 5 here.

If you want a non-spoiler guide to Loki, you can head on over here.

Courtesy of Disney+ Hotstar Malaysia, we were lucky enough to be the only Malaysian media to participate in a roundtable interview with Loki Costume Designer Christine Wada and Loki Production Designer Kasra Farahani.

This interview with Loki Production Designer Kasra Farahani has been edited for clarity.

Keep in mind that we’ll be discussing some elements from all five episodes of Loki so far, so there will be spoilers below:

Q: You’ve previously worked on Black Panther and other MCU movies. How different was the experience of working on a TV set instead of a movie’s? Were there limitations?

Yes, I’ve worked on several Marvel projects. For me, this is the most fun one, maybe because I’m in a different position than I was on the other ones. But also, just because this project is unique in a couple of ways.

Number one; it’s literally in its own timeline from the rest of the MCU. It’s separate from the stories we’ve all enjoyed and seen in the MCU so far. The other thing that this one has that’s really great is the amount of visual and narrative variety. We have this kind of base in the TVA that we spend a lot of time in but also we have all these exciting different places in the world that the story takes us to. These were great worlds to design and to imagine.

In our case, there was no difference. The thing about the Marvel series is that it’s pretty much like Marvel movies; in terms of their creative ambition, in terms of the way they’re scheduled, the fact that we have one director.

There was not much about it (Loki) that resembled an episodic project, except for the fact that it was six hours of content that we were trying to make, so it’s a very long project.

In terms of resources, I didn’t ever feel that we were unduly stretched. Always, when you get a creative brief like this, there’s always a period at the beginning of every project where you’re reconciling the creative brief and the resources that you have. That has been the case for every project that I’ve ever worked on regardless of the size. There’s this beginning phase where that’s the case and oftentimes, it’s in that process where you come up with some very great creative solutions that are a direct result of some of the limitations, actually.

Yeah, I wouldn’t say that we had some extraordinary limitations in this case (for Loki), but that’s generally true for all projects, in my experience.

Q: What were you inspired by when making designing the sets of the TVA with its retro-futuristic and anachronistic aesthetics?

In the source material, the TVA had a lot of different things going on, but one of the strong themes also was this armada of desks, which is kind of typical of a post-war era bureaucracy look. There was a grain of that in the source material but a lot of it also came from the show’s creator and writer, Michael Waldron, who described in the original document I read before interviewing for this job.

He described the TVA as a kind of mix of Mad Men meets Blade Runner. Part of these two strong visual references for us. On top of that, me and director Kate Herron, even before we met and spoken to each other, were inspired by Terry Gilliam’s Brazil also as a strong influence because of the anachronisms that that story had and also because of the clear presence of this strong monolithic bureaucracy, which is something that we have in the TVA also.

For the TVA, we were looking a lot at wanting to create a world that had a paradoxical feeling, being an imposing monolithic architectural space that has brutalist elements in them and had almost Soviet modernist elements to them. The colour palette and the materials and the whimsical patterning were much more like American style modernism.

The result was hopefully when you’re in an environment like this, you don’t know whether to feel terrified or invited. Hopefully, it creates that feeling in both the characters and the audience; this kind of cognitive dissonance in not knowing whether they can trust the TVA or not. That’s the narrative objective.

The writers came up with these ideas and the idea with that was to kind of create the bubble gum wrapper in the Renaissance era (Loki Episode 2) and the futuristic shovel in the early 20th-century farm field (Loki Episode 1). These ideas were placed there to create a trail of clues for the TVA to follow before they have clarity on Sylvie’s identity. But for the anachronisms generally, that was something we tried to do throughout the TVA to have all kinds of strange things from different timelines and different worlds popping up in terms of props, like the Infinity Stones in the mail cart and stuff like that.

Q: What was it like working with Tom Hiddleston, who is a producer on Loki?

It was very exciting to have this opportunity to take the character and his storyline in a different direction. It became all the more exciting when I read the scripts and I saw the type of journey they were going to take the character on.

Tom is a professor of Loki, basically. After all, ten years or so of playing the character; he knows it better than anybody and he has an in-depth understanding of the character and his backstory; the character’s family relationships and he was really helpful in giving a little talk to all the department heads about the background of his character, which was very informative.

Q: Recently, Loki series director Kate Herron said that 90 percent of production sets were physical. Does this include the world of The Void, and can you tell us more about how you brought it to life?

That’s true. That was what was unique about this show, because of my own design approach, and my goal in creating this large monolithic brutalist environment, I felt strongly that the sets needed to be built kinda wholly and that they needed to have the ceilings in-tact. This was also supported by Loki cinematographer Autumn, in that the way of her own style of photography is very wide and low-angled photography, which is why for both of our creative goals, it made a lot of sense to build these sets like completed and 360-degree environments.

For the TVA, that was almost always the case, with the exception of when you saw outside a window. With the Void (in Loki Episode 5), a lot of that was built practically as well. What I can tell you is that we build a large piece of this landscape on a soundstage, which was about 150 feet by 200 feet of undulating wilderness terrain. In that, we would bring in these different scenery elements on different days to make it feel like different places within the Void.

For example, one day there was the bus stop terrain where we meet Loki. One day it was the giant head. One day it was the drive-in movie theatre where we find Sylvie. All of these things were brought in and we shot there over the course of seven days. The terrain was designed in such a way that depending on what angle you shot, it felt like a very different place. Backgrounds were put in during post-production in visual effects. The Loki palace, where the Loki variants kind of hang out, the bowling alley, all of that was also a 360-degree built set as well.

Q: What was the most challenging set of the entire Loki series that you had to work on?

We had a lot of very ambitious sets but I think the city of Sharoo at the end of Loki Episode 3: Lamentis was a very technical set. The goal was to create this virtual one-in, that appears as a single shot. This was a very involved and elaborate process of choreography, basically.

All the different departments were involved to make this happen because as we watch the sequence, we see tons of actors running around, there are explosions happening, the camera’s panning up to see the planet above crumbling and asteroids pelting the surface.

There was a lot of planning that went through at the very beginning. We brought the paper models of this to Autumn, our cinematographer and creative director, to use to plan some of their shots. One day, we had some more information that fed back to the art department where we developed more involved and elaborate drawings and models which again, fed back to them. In this way, we had kind of an iterative conversation to arrive at what the design was.

So, as we start to build the set, many of the department heads came to visit and check the progress. We rehearsed what the shot was going to be, so we could exactly fine-tune the set to meet the needs of this shot and see where the edits needed to be. In order to do this, we needed to adjust the exact width of the roads or move a piece of scenery here and then figure out exactly, okay, there’s going to be an explosion coming out of the ground here and another explosion coming out of the building here and this is when the camera looks up to the sky and sees the planet explode. This is where the window breaks and this is where the guy jumps out and grabs him and there’s a fight.

There are many, many people involved; Monique Garderton, our stunt coordinator, Kate Herron, the director, and also the special effects team, and of course, visual effects, deeply involved, and Richard Graves, who is kind of our AD (Assistant Director), the circus leader of all of it, organizing everybody to kind of work on this thing altogether. It’s the sort of thing that involves so many different departments that it can only really be discovered when working in a big group together.

I would say that was maybe the most challenging technically because there were so many logistical parameters and so many moving parts.

Q: What are your thoughts on diversity in the production of the creative industry?

I think that it is critically important. As somebody who is myself an immigrant, I was born in Iran and my family moved here when I was quite young. I’m super happy to see the direction that the industry is going in. I think Marvel has been particularly excellent in providing leadership in this way and I honestly have to give a lot of credit to Kate Herron, our director.

Almost more than any other project I’ve been on, she prioritised inclusivity and diversity. I mean, lots of people, don’t get me wrong, it’s on every project and on everyone’s mind, but I think Kate went above and beyond because it’s so fundamental to her worldview and she’s such a sensitive soul in this way. One of the many ways in that it was such a joy to work with Kate and I’m very proud of the many different ethnicities we’re representing, and how many women we’ve had. In our art department, we had close to fifty men and women.

It’s important and leads to better creative results that are more fully realized and more representative of what the fans really want.

[maxwell-grant]

The Shadow lived in the 1930s, when crime, represented by the srteet gangs, was seen as The Evil. If the Shadow lived in the 2020s, either in the USA or in Brazil (fellow brazilian here), do you think he would target corrupt and authoritarian police officers, even more than the gangs themselves?

It's not at all a matter of whether or not he lived in the 2020s, because I've demonstrated many times now that it fundamentally doesn't matter to The Shadow whether or not the evil he's up against is being backed by the forces of law and order.

Here's a dirty little secret about The Shadow: Gangsters were the initial enemy he was intended to fight against, yes, because while nowadays we think of 1930s mafiosos as funny cartoon stereotypes, it was obviously not so funny back then when they held a considerable sway not just on power, but on public opinion as well. Times had become so turbulent in 1930s America that institutions could not be trusted and criminality had arisen to replace them, and so The Big Bad Wolf had to be on the side of the angels for a change, that's kinda how the story goes.

But the truth is, gangsters weren’t quite as big of a deal in The Shadow Magazine as one might assume. Part of the reason why is because, overtime, as The Shadow's capabilities and resources grew, mobsters stopped presenting as much of a challenge and gradually were replaced, or became cannon fodder, for the spy rings and masterminds and supervillains that became more commonplace, you see this happen with every franchise hero that runs on long enough. Gangsters stop being the main threat and gradually become the guys the hero eats for breakfest on the way to a bigger job.

Another part of it is because, after the release of Gangdom's Doom, a story that is pretty much The Shadow vs Capone, word is that Street & Smith's offices received death threats and demanded Gibson to tone it down, which is why the very next story is about a mad scientist and the villains became more colorful in the following years, and following stories featuring gangsters never quite got as extensive or raw as Gangdom's Doom (frankly to their betterment, because Gibson's gangster stories can be a hoot).

And right upfront I'm gonna say that, yes, there absolutely is a precedent for a "The Shadow vs The Bastards" story (to borrow a term from Al Ewing's El Sombra, because I swear I'm talking only about "bad cops" here, not the whole system of course, lo soy siempre amigo del cartel policia). But, read the story I just told above. We all know WHY truly extensive and in-depth "fictional hero vs law enforcement" stories don't get told, at least not popularly and without the usage of analogues, or half-baked measures and resolutions. We know what bastards can and will do, and what they've always done.

Not much has changed from the 1930s, in some aspects.

But putting that aside, it's not at all a question of whether The Shadow would go up against corrupt authorities, regardless of what guise they used to hurt others. On one hand, he understands the importance of structure and organization and systems, he weighs variables all the time in everything he does. And on the other hand, in true supervillain fashion, he himself recognizes no authority, but his own.

Let me speak a bit on The Shadow's relationship with law enforcement: Police in the Shadow novels, in general, putting aside specific characters like Joe or Weston, largely tend to figure as "the guys who can't solve the problem The Shadow can". A lot of times they largely seem to figure in on clean-up duty (which adds a rather unintentional irony to the fact that The Shadow interacts with the police largely as a semi-literate janitor).

The Shadow's relationship with the police usually depends on the book, sometimes it's a positive one and he works separately but still with them, sometimes they treat him as a criminal and try to shoot him, and most of the time, The Shadow always has to avoid them, as urban vigilantes usually do. In general, when police do pop up as villains, the stories handle it the way every other hero fiction does, by usually having the hero deal with just corrupt cops rather than the bigger problems, and being otherwise either silently approved or tolerated by the police. He's willing to work with authorities on matters of security, he has allies among cops and senators and generals, sometimes he relies on the timely intervention of police squads for the finale, and often he plans for the police to take the credit for what he does, as he usually has to cover his every trail.

The Shadow's number one priority is the safety of the innocent, and that of his agents. For all the talk there is of The Shadow as some rogue maniac who takes the law into his own hands, he actually spends a lot of time juggling variables and weighing his actions to minimize fallout to innocent people. His strategies for fighting crime largely revolve around careful planning, minimal loss of innocent life, and keeping crime at bay to prevent power vacuums and the like, and to do that, he has to do a lot of work to both mislead the police as well as make sure that they are involved somehow, because they sit on the other extreme of a scale he must weigh at every turn. The Shadow isn't stupid enough to think that he can act the way he does without repercussions for others beyond his ability to protect, and that crime can be fought by throwing corpses at it, and that a boogeyman in the dark, no matter how well-intentioned and capable, is a healthy replacement for functional systems and agents of good.

People tend to assume that The Shadow, like so many other "dark vigilantes" following his footsteps, operated mainly by prowling the streets and stopping random acts of crime with extreme violence, which is plainly not true, at least not in the pulps, where his encounters with muggers and common thugs were almost always the result of him infiltrating the hide-outs of their leaders, or them attacking his agents or him first.

More often than not, The Shadow spends the majority of any given story gathering information, whether personally or through his agents, putting together plans on and off screen, and then taking action as his dark-garbed self. He wasn't out there waiting for crime to happen in alleys, he was infiltrating and dismantling crime rings, leaving them to the police to pick up usually. Common thugs and gangsters were not his target, in fact, he often employed them, there are entire Shadow stories dedicated to the rehabilition of criminals. I've mentioned before that he only meets deadly force against murderers or worse, and is willing to go to extreme measures to give criminals a chance to redeem themselves.

And on the other hand: He's killed mayors, sheriffs and judges. He's helped topple dictators and aided citizens of foreign nations free themselves from dictatorships (and working with the local resistance to assist their efforts and not for the sake of American agencies, he’s not with the US government to begin with), he employs criminals and offers them a chance at a new life free from past record, and he routinely breaks the law with...everything he does, basically. He had allies in Japan in the middle of WW2 and he's funded an alternative to the prison system helmed by a friend earnestly trying to replace it for the betterment of society. Remember, he has people among “all walks of life” in his network, even people in contradictory positions (see: Roy Tam and Yat Soon, who both have different ideas of what’s best for Chinatown’s communities).

His network consists of a lot of people who fall between the cracks and are routinely crushed underheel at the hands of police and the systems they serve, and it is beyond question that The Shadow's loyalty lies with those under his protection, and not The Bastards. That he, and others like him, exist at all is abject further proof of the utter failure of The Bastards in protecting those they were supposed to.

He is not "loyal" to the police, or government, agents of those institutions that choose to work with him must be loyal to him or stay out of his way. The Shadow, like most fictional heroes, has a tenuous but ultimately functional relationship with the police, in stories that don’t go into the deeper problems of the police systems. But that doesn't mean the character himself isn't well aware of the many ways said systems can and will hurt people, and that he hasn't taken steps to fight that, and that he wouldn’t shoot a bastard in the face for trying to kill or hurt an innocent person, no matter how well protected he thinks he is.

In truth, the majority of The Shadow's villains are not gangsters, or spies. In any given Shadow novel, you can easily expect the main villain to be the most "respectable" figure of the story, which is usually a middle-aged or elderly businessman who turns into a paper tiger when his dealings are exposed.

Even in the very first story, the cover sets you up to think the villain is a leering racist caricature called "Wang Foo", before it's revealed that Wang Foo is just a disguise for a white diamond burglar named Diamond Bert who puts on yellowface to throw off suspicion. The three main words you could use to describe pretty much ALL of The Shadow's villains, regardless of how they look or who they are, would be "corrupt", "murderous" and "fraudulent". And because this is a Shadow story and not real life, they all get what's coming for them.

The typical main villain of a Shadow story is someone who's managed to use a position of power or respectability or privilege over others, to either grind them underheel or deceive them as part of a scheme, and it falls to The Shadow to pull the mask off and met out justice, and punish when no one else can. I'm sure you can find an interesting parallel, or several, that could be brought up in a modern Shadow story.

[cornflowershade]

So I was thinking about Sam and Dean’s character trajectories and what each of them had expressed wanting in life. Thusly, let me present my Ideal Ending for the two of them (because I got some new ideas.)

Right off, let’s just be clear: hunting became Sam’s life. He’s attached to it. He likes organizing people, helping out, making a difference. He’s stubborn. He’s not one to grow old and give it up, and he certainly never wanted to “settle down” in a traditional sense. (He said this multiple times as the show progressed.) When Sam eventually presented the idea of “settling down” he specifically said with a hunter or someone who understands the life (aka Eileen. He didn’t want a romantic ending, he wanted a romantic ending with Eileen. And he wanted to keep hunting because that’s what he DOES and what gives him a purpose.) Sam is also a learner. In the f*nale, he doesn’t appear to have any particular passion or job or literally anything, despite always enjoying the act of learning and especially of becoming accomplished. At first this meant become a lawyer. By the end of the show, I believe the answer is become a powerful badass witch. His association with witches has existed through the whole show, from Ruby to Rowena, and the great thing about his relationship with Rowena is that it showed him reclaiming something related to negative aspects of his past and making it positive. Plus, he’s good magic and seems to enjoy learning spells in order to help with the hunting endeavors. So, Sam should have of course ended up with Eileen, becoming an epic hunter/hunter-witch duo. When Sam gets older and decides to take a step back, he still wouldn’t abandon the job completely. He would be a Bobby. The guy people call for help. The guy who does background research for younger hunters like Clarie when they don’t know what they’re dealing with. The guy who answers the phone and pretends to be your FBI supervisor because nope nah those totally weren’t fake badges *wink wink*. SAM DESERVED TO BE A HAPPY WITCH!BOBBY LIVING WITH EILEEN AND BEING THE GO-TO RESOURCE/MORAL-SUPPORT-UNCLE FOR A NEW GENERATION OF RECKLESS HUNTERS.

Now, what about Dean? It occurred to me that my perfect ending for Sam & Dean mirror the positions of older hunters/parental figures we’ve seen on the show. While Sam should’ve been a Bobby, Dean should have been an Ellen. What do we know about what Dean wants? A home. A family. An honest to goodness apple pie life, but one that’s still interesting and Cool. Oh and of course we all know that he wants a bar. HE DREAMS OF OWNING A FREAKING BAR. And of course, he would have wanted Cas. Even if Dean left hunting (which I think he would do, at least most of the time. Maybe he’d do a stray hunt here and there, but on the whole he’d settle down) he wouldn’t wanna cut ties with the whole community. So he would start a new Bar/Roadhouse of his OWN. That hunters would frequent. Heck, sometimes Sam & Eileen drop in for beers on their way home from a hunt. Dean and Cas are together, and they adopt/take in a kid. Cas has literally said he rediscovered who he is because of his children. Dean has mentioned wanting kids, multiple times. (Yeah, okay, it didn’t work out with Jack but that’s because there were a bunch of other Bigger Issues there. But Ben?? Dean ADORED Ben. So yes he and Cas get a kid.) 

Sam can still easily die peacefully of old age. Like, that’s fine with me, provided that he’s living a life that he would actually ENJOY, with the person he LOVES, doing the job he’s PASSIONATE ABOUT, while keeping in touch with his BROTHER and his brother’s ANGEL HUSBAND.

Now, as for Dean’s eventual death... Okay not to make us lose Dean again but this would be the coolest way to mash up his new happy ending with his old going-out-swinging dream. Kinda tragic, but also kind of the perfect emotional moment?? Dean & Cas’s kid decides that they want to be a hunter, much like Jo did. Dean (who is honestly such an Ellen-type parent okay) doesn’t want to see that happen because he loves his child so damn much and is like nO. Meanwhile Cas is like *ahem* “D e a r.” “WhAT?” “You and I both know from our own experiences that yelling ‘no’ doesn’t make someone listen. In the end they’ll make their own choice. Do I want them hunting? Probably not, but let’s either talk this out peacefully until they decide against it, or lovingly support their decision to do what they want.” So their child, who BY THE WAY Dean probably named Charlie because Charlie was definitely his best friend okay and she deserves to have a tribute like this ahhh so sweet. But yeah back to the point, their daughter Charlie starts hunting, and when Dean goes out, it’s after getting called in as backup for a dangerous and important hunt that Charlie is on. When he goes out, it’s with the love and tragedy and weight that Ellen’s death had. (Because to this DAY, I don’t think any death scene surpassed the emotional impact of Ellen and Jo’s and I will die on this hill.) So yes, Dean dies protecting HIS CHILD. Because that’s what he deserved. A good long life and a family that he loves, and the ability for his death to be a final sacrifice that is more meaningful to him than words can say because it was to protect his KID, the kid he was lucky enough to raise with Castiel, the angel he loves, in their family Roadhouse after finally being granted free will.

THIS, MY FRIENDS

IS HOW I THINK SUPERNATURAL SHOULD HAVE ENDED.

[foryouthegays]

Forming a secret organization [Dream SMP] liveblog and summary!

Good laugh times: 7:40, 1:18:15, 1:19:25

Protect mr philza minecraft from baby zombies (he really went all out on that bit today): 20:35, 32:40 34:45, 1:16:35

Sellout pog: 30:45, 1:00:50, 1:30:55, 2:01:15

Summary:

Techno started the stream in the Nether. He quickly went back to the overworld and to his house, where he meets up with Phil and Ranboo. He mentions that the house smells like gunpowder, and Phil quickly ushers them outside and they continue their conversation.

Techno nudges Ranboo away from the conversation, and he leaves the call. Phil and Techno watch as Ranboo leaves the house, and then Techno tells Phil his news. He talks about how taking down L’Manburg wasn’t the greatest plan, especially as he’s only one person. He wants to bring other people to their anarchist ways.

Phil agrees to form a secret organization for anarchists, because they can’t fight ten to one.

Techno and Phil go to Ranboos house, asking for a feather, and Ranboo asks if he’s getting kicked out. They say no, and then Ranboo says that he has something that might get him kicked out.

He talks about how he sometimes doesn’t remember what he does, and that he was the person who blew up the community house.

Techno asks why, and Ranboo says he doesn’t know.

Phil and Techno agree that they don’t really care about the community house, and Ranboo continues, saying that he has one of the discs. Phil and Techno agree again that they don’t care about the discs at all.

Techno and Phil leave.

Techno leads Phil to a stronghold, which he calls a ‘structure,’ and they cover it with gravel to hide it. They enter the structure, and they find a library, some useless doors, and keep exploring, finding nothing. Techno is confused, thinking that there had to have been a reason for the stronghold's existence.

While looking at a connected Abandoned Mineshaft, Techno finds an enchanted golden apple.

They go into the lower parts of the stronghold, and they find a prison. Techno mentions that the bread he found earlier tasted around 2,000 years old, which gives us a rough (and joking) estimate of when the stronghold was made.

Phil finds a strange portal, and they talk about how advanced the previous civilization must had been, to be able to make unbreakable blocks. They hear a villager writing, and dig up to a strange room.

It ends up being the igluu where Orphans parents lived, and they start laughing, but then, DreamXD logs in. He breaks the portal, and then leaves. Techno begs dream to put the portal back, because it would’ve added to the lore, and that their characters didn’t know what it was, and were going to use it as a table.

Dream logs in again, and puts one (1) portal frame block down, and then leaves again. Phil tells Dream how to place the blocks incorrectly so they wouldn’t form a portal, and he logs in to place them back.

DreamXD hears Techno joking about going to the end, logs in, and then logs out when Techno says he’s joking. Then, Techno explains the difference between DreamXD and Dream, saying that DreamXD has canonical access to creative mode, and is like God, but Dream is just some homeless teletubby. DreamXD logs in, says ‘they actually are I am the protector,” and logs out.

In chat, Techno asks ‘who was that dram fanboy, how did he get whitelisted,’ and DreamXD logs in again, hits Techno with a sword a few times, and logs out.

Techno and Phil decorate the meeting room a bit, and they start talking about what the association should be called. Techno says that he wants it to be the ‘[blank] Syndicate,’ and before they can agree on anything, Ranboos nametag is spotted, and they agree to kill him if he comes into the meeting room.

Techno puts down a sign with the organization's motto, which is ‘Sic semper tyrannis,’ which means ‘thus always to tyrants.’

He starts writing in the manifesto.

“This syndicate is formed to promote anarchy and fight tyranny in all its forms.

“We shall have no Leader; no member shall be compelled to act if they do not choose to.

“No member shall reveal information about the Syndicate to outsiders.

“Technoblade shall serve as the Recruiter to induce new members into the Syndicate with Approval from a Majority of members.”

Phil and Techno leave the Stronghold, and realize that the Igluu wasn’t actually Orphans parents, but instead a different Igluu that Ranboo had been using for Cartographers. They go back to the house, planning to meet with Ranboo, but on the way, they find a strange tower made of stone. Its hollow, but theres no chests or anything inside. They continue and meet with Ranboo, who has gifts for them. Techno gets a Netherite shovel with Efficiency V, Mending, Silk Touch, and Unbreaking III.

He brings them under his house, and we find he has a ‘comfort room,’ made of netherrack, that has several mob heads on the walls, an extra set of armor, and pets sitting next to the ladder. They talk about the map on the wall, and Techno seems concerned, or a bit scared.

Techno and Phil leave the call, and talk about how extremely strange the room, and Ranboo, was. They recount their adventure, and move the villagers into a more efficient layout. Ranboo joins them after a few minutes, at 1:38:00, and they work on curing the zombie villagers and giving them jobs

Liveblog:

I love when technos computer says he isnt streaming so he just rambles about that before it says he does and then he does the starting the streammm thing. Also if u havent heard the starting the streammmm thing u r missing out it is amazin

Techno pls get a new laptop im gonna cry

HE SAID THREE HE SAID THREE if u dont know, techno says three v nicely

“I havent even shown you the secrets, how would you guys be able to snitch??” SIR????

Oh my god is he using his phone to read chat,,,,,i hate him i hate him so much u haVE 5 MIL SUBS AND CANT EVEN GET A SECOND MONITOR WHYY

Ranboo!!! Philza minecraft!!!!! Hi!!!

5:40 ‘why does it smell like gunpowder?’ Techno there is no smell in minecraft. Lore pog?

6:45 AKDFJGLSA RANBOOS FUNDY IMPRESSION IM

8:45 ‘any second now its gonna be 11 percent updated, and thats like halfway done, if you think about it’ adhd autism solidarity right there lmao

I dont think techno can physically pay attention to lore for more than a minute at a time. He just like, sees a dog and zooms in on it while someones talking and its such a mood. All techno know is get distracted, kill orphans, protect philza minecraft, and anarchy. Love him

10:45 he just got COMPLETELY distracted w his laptop im actually crying form laughter

So uh. 17 mins in. Techno (without saying anything). Kills a zombie that was trying to kill ranboo. Thats. Thats a thing he only does for people he trusts. Uhhh

Technos voice at 21:30,,,,,,hhghn why is he like this why is he randomally doing weird voices

26:35 ‘hacker voice: were in’ HGKDFJSL

Ok but techno making fun of doors is so funny tho. Also he rlly did go all out on the baby zombie bit tdoay im actually crying

Techno when phils being chased by two creepers, a few zombies, and skeletons: i do not see it

Techno when phils being chased by one (1) baby zombie: loOK OUT PHILZA MINECRAFT

42:00 god apple poggggg

45:50 techno sir why do u know what 2,000 year old bread tastes like

Dsmp techno :handshake: minecraft story mode techno

Hating doors

Dsmp techno :handshake: smp earth techno

Living right above a stronghold

48:35 ‘dude, they had all this super advanced technology because they didnt waste time trying to figure out how to make doors’ FSKHGJDAL

50:25 UH?? WHAT IS THAT LMAO

OH ITS ORPHANS PARENTS LMAOOOO

GDFJKHSL DREAM HI

51 MINS IN HGJSKDFJASL DREAM PUT IT BACK IT WAS A GOOD TABLE DREAM

56:25 ‘listen, I’ve read a lot of mythology Phil, and nothing bad has ever happened from angering the gods.’ You SURE about that?

I will actually never get over techno making fun of dream its so funny to me 1:01:10

I am so, so extremely queer for technos planning/schemeing voice like when its kinda quieter and deeper n slower? Hhgnn

Also is latin canon in this universe? Pog

Asmr Technoblade makes a cult :)

Ok ok ok ok SO i know that techno wants to make all the members equal (and i do think that hell try his best to make that possible) but bc hes just,,,so FREAKING powerful both in terms of pvp and resources, i feel like his opinion IS gonna matter more, but also im p sure hes the writer of the arc so like. He has more important opinions anyway so unless he is v obviously controlling the other members of the group, i think this could be a fun collab thing. And i am SO excited to see all yalls analysis for what other people think of him ahhHHH i love analysis.

1:17:10 “whose idea was it to make baby zombies stronger? Why are the babies stronger?? Have you ever fought a baby in real life? I have, and it was trivially easy to defeat, Phil.” TECHNO????

Also i can NOT believe that someone thinks techno doesnt use dark humor,,,,have u WATCHED his videos?????

1:25:05 Like literally RIGHT after he makes a joke abt how ranboos shovel’ll be good for digging graves for his enemies, which was taking soooo long before

Ah yes, technoblade, the 21 yr old child 1:28:40

[kadomoni]

I always thought I might be bad, now I’m sure that it’s true…

I really can’t tell you what to think of Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz. I can’t. It’s something you have to decide for yourself, but I’m going to explain why she’s one of my favorite characters of the show, but I also think she is the villain.

Now, I know what Pink Stans are saying, “She’s not the villain! She’s morally grey and trying to change!” And, to that I say, yes clearly. She’s an incredibly well-written, nuanced, and complex character. But, as much as she has done good, she has also done very, very bad. And, I’m here to explain why I think Pink is not evil—she’s just bad (and she knows it).

There is no doubt about it that Pink was raised in an abusive family. White is a pretty typical narcissistic parent (over-reliance on perfectionism, wanting people to please her and be like her but no one ever living up to her expectations, trouble with empathy, ect.). Yellow and Blue love Pink but have no idea how to raise her. That’s pretty typical of dysfunctional family dynamics. None of them had a good role model, so they can only replicate a bad role model.

I understand this dynamic. I had a “mother figure” who was very emotionally (and sometimes physically) abusive. My parents were nice and good parents but they had anger issues. I went from being petulant to shutting down, but I think I fit more into a Pearl archetype because instead of acting out my pain, I kept it inside and felt like it was me that was wrong. Pink does this, but not before causing a lot of issues, and often exploding outwards.

((Major Steven Universe/Future Spoilers under the cut))

We’ll start with what we know about Pink, which is very limited.

The first “memory” we have from her is the astral projection dream Stevonnie had where she threw a tantrum about wanting a colony. It was childish, yes, but Yellow response was no better considering she just yelled at her. They both threw tantrums, and no doubt, she was going to get locked up in her tower after. Pink got angry, she punched a mirror (hopefully, she’d only punched mirrors, please, Rebecca, don’t hurt me like this).

Secondly, we have the dream Steven had about Blue, who begged Pink to stop being combative and letting her “organics” loose, but ultimately just ended up admonishing her further. It’s also implied that she had her stay in the tower room.

Also, that tower is even more fucked up than just isolation. @singlepalerose​ explains this in her meta that Gems need light to live, not food. Rebecca says in an interview when asked that she “can’t say” what would happen if put in a place with no light. But, @singlepalerose​ comes to the conclusion that this might be literally akin to starvation, which is torture. There’s a good chance that Pink was literally tortured by her care-givers.

And, poor Pink Pearl. I don’t know what happened, but whether it was a scream or some physical altercation, it was frightening enough that she broke her pearl so badly, it couldn’t be repaired, which as seen in RS’s concept drawings, Pink is really fucked up by this. She becomes more introverted with her feelings because of this.

                                                          Don’t Break This One.

I’m not going to comment on whether these actions make her “bad” or “abusive.” She was clearly a child in an emotionally maladaptive environment, and she did decide to change and to keep her anger and frustration internalized at the risk of harming the people around her.

But, unfortunately, the information after this is where I begin to feel disturbed by Pink’s actions.

She got a colony. At first, she liked it, but clearly, she either grew bored or disenchanted with managing it. I feel as though she was expecting some sort of freedom, when really, the extra responsibilities probably just weighed her down even more.

The events of ‘A Single Pale Rose’ come into play now. Pearl suggested they go down to Earth, and Pink felt her first taste of unrestrained freedom. She liked interacting with other gems, liked interacting with humans, and finally decided that she didn’t want to destroy the Earth. And, she did beg all the Diamonds to let her give up the colony, but not only had Pink kinda shot herself in the foot with this one because she begged so hard for a colony and made so many big scenes about it, White and Yellow are incredibly steadfast in tradition and rules, and this wasn’t going to fly.

So, she decided to take drastic action.

I personally think that the idea to fake her own death was…weird. And, pretty extreme. I understand her reasoning, but this was the first time where she made a decision that benefited her far more than it did others (and I’m not talking about the planet right now because that’s a whole separate thing). This action traumatized Pearl to the point where she doesn’t eat, won’t shapeshift, and can’t talk about it. Yes, I know she commanded Pearl not to talk about it, but this caused significant emotional distress for her later on in the series.

This also traumatized the whole gem race, specifically the Diamonds, because she’d framed it as a terror attack. It would be way different if she stood up to White herself publicly, but there was so much deception going on that it fundamentally changed the course of Gem Culture and the fate of the Earth. Mostly what bothers me here is how manipulative this action was and how unnecessarily complex it was. Pink did everything she could to wipe her slate clean, be seen as a martyr of Gemkind, and also live freely on Earth.

It was a very good way to get her freedom, but it was also extremely harmful to all parties involved.

The War only escalated at this point. They had to fight Homeworld as a full-on army, and countless of gems were shattered.

Now, yes, of course, these actions saved the Earth, which is good in our perspective because we live on Earth. Earth is essential to us because it is our only frame of reference. But, something that continually complexed the Homeworld gems was why someone would fight for one measly planet at the cost of so much. It makes sense to us because we would sacrifice a whole heck of a lot to keep our planet from being invaded by space aliens, but the gems were colonizing tons of planets and destroying them for energy. It was obviously horrible as colonizers are horrible, but it’s sort of like how different armies will invade other countries, but because we’re being told that it’s for good, most people don’t really care.

From the gem’s perspective, this was all a horrible disaster—a loss of countless life, resources, and pride.

And, for The Crystal Gems, the “loss” of the war meant that all of their friends were corrupted, except Rose’s closest friends (which I’m personally unsure if this is completely truthful. I would hope it would be, but it’s also very suspicious because letting only the people that trust her the most survive would make it easier to control her own story).

Speaking of which, wtf is up with her bubbling Bismuth? It just feels like it would be easier to hide her away instead of trying to explain why she doesn’t want to shatter the Diamonds. But, Rose shattered Pink, anyway? I personally believe Bismuth was too close to figuring out her story, and she didn’t know what to do. I can’t think of any other explanation that would explain her actions and make sense with telling the Crystal Gems she’d been shattered. It feels very manipulative and selfish.

All of this obviously traumatized Pearl (we see it in her Pearl within a Pearl within a Pearl), and it had to have traumatized Garnet considering her reactions to mentions of the war and the “fusion” experiments. It was especially bad on Garnet’s end because she thought the war was actually what Rose said it was, which is why she freaked out when it wasn’t.

She kept secrets from everyone, even Her Pearl. But, Pearl didn’t know that she didn’t know everything. You could call Pearl delusional, but I think this is more proof that Rose never did something in front of her that made her feel like she was being untruthful.

And, I said y’all don’t want to get me started on Rose’s treatment of Pearl because I go feral when I get worked up about it. I would like to personally thank @theroguefeminist​ for their meta on Rose/Pearl and Fandom Ableism. It’s super good, and it was the meta that made me finally sit down and watch all of SU way back in the day. But, it illustrates the point that fandoms tend to look down on characters that act “bitter,” “weak,” “jealous,” “depressed,” or “neurotic.” It’s even more sinister because the reason why Pearl acts the way she does in the first two seasons is because she’d been manipulated by Rose.

She was Pink’s Pearl, her partner in crime, her renegade. They were the Heroes of The Rebellion. Pearl admitted she had feelings for her, and Rose’s response was enthusiastic (“Don’t ever stop!”). From what we’ve seen, the disregard of her feelings only began when she started dating Greg, considering Pearl didn’t see “the men who came into her life now and again” as threats because they “didn’t really matter until [him].” But, the treatment that we see of Pearl in “Story for Steven” and “We Need to Talk” is dismissive at best and cruel and uncaring at the worst.

After Greg was trying to flirt with Rose, Pearl said defensively, “I can sing!” and they laughed at her. Even Rose beamed. They were basically making fun of her when Pearl was only reacting that way because she loved Rose and felt threatened by Greg, even at this point.

I do want to add that I think Rose was trying to be a good person by telling Greg to go away. She made a good point that he shouldn’t give up on his dreams to be with her (especially considering that she knew that nothing would become of him in a place like Beach City). But, she was wooed by him. She laughed and gave into her instincts to surround herself with people who look up to her (even Vidalia said something about how Greg worships her).

But, I find Rose’s treatment of her in “We Need to Talk” to be unnecessarily flippant. Obviously, Pearl was very upset during the whole “What Can I Do For You?” song, and her last ditch effort was to show off Rainbow Quartz and try to belittle his efforts, but Greg was rightly defensive. This doesn’t mean Pearl was being “salty” or “abusive” or “bitchy.” She was reacting negatively towards the emotional neglect that Rose was showing her. Of course, we don’t know every interaction that Pearl and Rose had, but it’s very heavily implied that Rose never communicated with Pearl how their relationship was developing.

I do not, I repeat—I DO NOT—think that Pearl was owed Rose’s love. What I think is neglectful about this situation is that Rose didn’t either apologize or properly explain the nature of their relationship. It’s implied that Rose made her believe they were an item and then proceeded to sleep around and eventually find an alternative partner. No one is owed affection with someone who doesn’t want to be romantically involved, but to lead someone on for thousands of years is horrible, and the idea makes me nauseous, especially since the fandom is more likely to blame Pearl even though Pearl was literally her glorified slave and only able to break out of that thought process years after Steven was born.

Pearl was so emotionally fucked up by Rose’s possible emotional neglect that she had several traumatic episodes starting from “Indirect Kiss” and culminating in her “Cry for Help.” She literally believed she was powerless and felt so weak that she thought the only way to feel agency was to manipulate and extort affection from Garnet. I’m also not defending Pearl for doing this, but it’s clear that she did this because she was mentally ill and not because she was knowingly or maliciously disregarding Garnet’s feelings to fulfill her own needs. Trauma episodes often cause you to act in destructive ways towards yourself and others, but it’s also very different from how Rose did disregard the feelings of others to get her way, or have fun, or “play” with people.

It also reminds me of her treatment of Spinel. Pink was having fun with Spinel until they decided to give her a colony, and then, instead of bringing Spinel with her or sending her back to the Diamonds, she told her to stay there, and she abandoned her for 6,000 years with no plans of returning for her. To be fair, it would really mess up the Crystal Gem dynamic if she suddenly returned with a Spinel who was gifted to Pink Diamond. So, in Rose’s perspective, I get it, but as myself, I don’t think it’s right.

Greg, even, I think was taken advantage of. He’s so sweet and trusting and good that she would easily have been able to get him to do anything. I’m not going to go too much into this because there’s not too much evidence besides her behavior towards him in “Greg the Babysitter” and how she laughed at him in “We Need to Talk.” I just have the feeling that Greg knows something that no one else does and that his perma-sunburn might have something to do with Rose and/or Steven’s conception. Don’t take my word for it since this is just a theory, but I do think there’s something we don’t know yet.

Alright, now that most of the character stuff is out of the way, let’s talk Rose symbolism. In almost every episode, there’s a shot of Rose’s portrait with her eyes covered or something obscuring them. This is classic anime imagery of a suspect character, and it’s foreshadowing of her suspect actions. All of her organic experiments eventually go rouge without constant maintenance from Rose (see: the moss in “Lars and the Cool Kids,” the thorns in “Indirect Kiss”). We don’t know why this happens, but it points to the idea that there’s something malignant lurking underneath Rose’s creations.

Rose’s Room also has disturbing implications. The fact that it gives Steven whatever he wants, but more often than not, it turns into psychological horror is telling. It may be that Steven just doesn’t know how to use the room, but also, the Gems didn’t want him to go in there. (“It doesn’t know how to handle a task like that!” What do you know, Pearl????) The creepiest one, in my opinion, was how the Fake Connie he made in “Open Book” eventually turned on him, attacked him, and basically physically forced him to admit feelings he wanted to keep hidden. I’m not saying this is the intended purpose of the room, but I find it troubling that it can be used in this way and defaults to it when there isn’t anything stopping it. It could also be that when the illusion the room makes is broken that it reverts to an angry (and dare I say Pink Diamond-esque) temperament.

My final point is how her decision to have Steven, even though eventually for good, hurt many people, Steven included. To make the decision to die and have a kid was confusing to everyone, but more so, the gems. They don’t understand human reproduction outside of a biological level, and the fact that gems normally can’t sexually reproduce makes the concept even more foreign. It seems like she explained that she was doing it and would die but didn’t fully prepare the gems about what that would entail. I think this is most clearly seen in “Three Gems and a Baby” because the Crystal Gem’s behavior towards baby Steven reflected Pearl’s response to emotional neglect, such as acting impulsively and dangerously just for not understanding the complexities of the situation.

Their whole dynamic was screwed up, and they all felt deeply hurt by Rose’s death. If you compare how they act at the beginning of the series to the end, they were basically all at each other’s throats because they couldn’t communicate properly due to all the undealt with baggage that had been left behind. It ended up becoming Steven’s job to emotionally support the gems when he should have been the one being emotionally supported. This imbalance of “the parents being the child” and “the child being the parents” is a huge reason why we see Steven in such emotional distress during Future. He’s internalized the idea that he should be the leader, the supporter, the helper, and he hasn’t properly been able to find his own identity because Rose looms over all of them (see: “Rose Buds”).

It’s hard to say whether Rose intentionally left Steven to clean up her mistakes or if she just felt like he could fix it all when she couldn’t, but there is no denying that Rose’s actions have seriously messed up our boy. This is the clearest theme presented in the show, so I’m not going to go super hard on this topic because basically the whole show is Steven angsting over his mom.

So, the point of all of this is that, yes, Pink was abused. There is no doubting that she was very badly abused and developed her personality and coping mechanisms due to this trauma. However, Rose has hurt her friends, family, and gemkind due to her actions. A lot of abusers have been abused. I know my abuser was abused in the same way I was, but that doesn’t give her an excuse to enact that abuse on me. It’s the same as Rose. Her bad upbringing gives context about why she turned out the way she did, but it’s incredibly short-sighted to say that Rose acted in mostly good ways towards others.

And, she knows she’s bad. Whether or not Rebecca will outright admit what the song is about, we have enough context to know that “Love Like You” is Rose talking to Greg (if not the other gems as well).

“I always thought I might be bad Now I’m sure that it’s true ‘cause I think you’re so good And, I’m nothing like you

Look at you go I just adore you I wish that I knew What makes you think I’m so special”

Rose is admitting that she thinks she’s bad and isn’t special and doesn’t understand what Greg sees in her. She knows she’s done bad things, but in my opinion, she didn’t do enough to fix her problems. She made Steven instead. It was her final act of avoidance. Maybe she gave up on herself. Maybe she knew she couldn’t “Love Like You.” I don’t know the answer to that. I just know that Rose’s actions were abusive. She’s not good. She’s morally gray. She did good things, but she did many bad things as well. She’s not evil, but she is the series’ antagonist. She has good things about her, but she has many bad things as well. People can be two things. But, saying she’s not an abuser is making excuses for her behavior.

Here are my answers to a few common complaints on my shitpost meme.

Q: Rose didn’t want to cause war! She just wanted to free the planet/have freedom/save the gems, ect. A: If she didn’t want to cause war, she very well could have…not started the war? There are much less destructive options than pretending to be a rebel when she really was a Diamond. The double life thing is so ridiculous, no one in the show could even guess it. Q: Don’t discredit her Rebellion! A: I just think she cared more about herself than she actually did the Earth. The Rebellion did save the Earth, but not without crazy death and destruction. Q: Pink was good compared to Japser, the Diamonds, Lapis, ect. A: All of you saying that those other characters are bad while Rose is good totally misses the point. All those characters did abusive things. So did Rose/Pink. Pink is good and bad. It’s really showing your ass that you hate x, y, z but will cape for Pink even though she’s probably caused the most harm of the entire series. Whatever happened to all those morally grey arguments?

Q: This take is bad! A: soz bruh cry harder Q: This is black and white thinking. A: I shouldn’t have to explain every aspect of a character in a shitpost. This meta is my full explanation, so here’s my morally grey meme uwu

Q: Blue, Yellow, and White are colonizers and also really abusive. A: Yes. It doesn’t negate Pink’s actions, though.

Q: Pink Pearl was an accident! She changed after!!! That’s not abuse!!!!!!! A: Abuse isn’t always intentional, and we don’t canonically know it was an accident. Pink Pearl said that it was, but she admitted she was making excuses for her. But, accident or not, hurting someone deeply can be abuse if it’s not dealt with. Pink Pearl was not dealt with. She was brainwashed for 8,000 years, instead. Pearl-Pearl helped her deal with it. The continual explosive anger from Pink was abusive, hands down.

Q: She’s not a villain! A: She certainly is framed as Steven’s villain. Regardless of what you personally think of Pink, Steven is deeply disturbed and harmed by Rose’s actions. It’s literally the whole plot of the show! If Pink is eventually redeemed, I won’t mind, but she’s irredeemable in my eyes.

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

OMG the headcanon ask, I want to ask all of them but lest see... 3, 17 and 20? Bonus question 24: Do you have any headcanons about Laranthir of the Wild's name? What does 'of the Wild' mean? Is it a title? Why does he get called that?

Thank you for asking!! Sorry for responding so late, I've been busy and these questions are tough. I have literally never thought of the answers to these, but I'll do my best to come up with something!

3: How big is the Pact in respect to other military forces? Who supports them monetarily (they've had enough resources to build Fort Trinity long before it was certain they could even take Zhaitan).

Well I actually have encountered this question before, and my answer has always been: it doesn't matter, it's a fantasy world and I'll just ignore this logistic question. But I'm actually thinking maybe the concept of fighting the dragons is a tad more widespread than we're lead to believe, or at least - we're given the impression that if you're anti-dragon, you're in the Pact, but I don't think so.

In the American Civil War, if I remember correctly, three percent of the population was fighting, ten more percent was supporting in other ways, twenty more percent generally agreed with the war and provided things like encouragement, I guess. My numbers could be off or which war it was could be off, but I imagine something like that is vaguely true for all wars - some fight, more support, and even more agree. But I imagine the Vigil and some of the Order of Whispers was the three percent, and the Priory and some of the Whispers were the ten percent, plus a bunch of civilians who decided their contribution would be monetary support. Of course these demographics would shift as the wars went on, and especially after the World Summit, in Elona, and of course there was all sorts of mass confusion during HoT and IBS.

I imagine most of the Pact's monetary support comes from individual donors and not, like, companies, and it's a military organization so it wouldn't fall under the domain of a charity organization. I think there is actually a dialogue in the Vigil Keep about preparing for like a fundraiser or something.

As to how the Pact compares to other military forces - on the one hand, I would be inclined to say it is small because I get the general impression that being a fighter of dragons is sort of a niche occupation, and if you are a member of the Pact that's like something really strange and if you're in like a town or something and say you're a member, people will flock to you in curiosity or else think you're a weirdo - at least during the PS. (There was far more worldbuilding in the PS than in anything after just because of the number of zones and ambient dialogue and all the questlines, so I tend to headcanon everything into PS first before sprouting up into present-day.) But at the same time I'm thinking - the Pact's success can't stem just from being a union of the Orders and being ridiculously passionate about their thing. They've got to have some significant numbers.

They're multi-national and multi-Order, so you'd think this is a big sprawling group of people with representatives in every town, and in one sense that fits as well, and is probably more lore-accurate, but my gut kinda says they're still small. Maybe they're just small in comparison with the Elder Dragons, and that's where I get that feeling. Honestly, I have no idea, but either they're huge or they're tiny, and I have no idea which. I mean, if you're a member of X race and you want to fight, you can either join your race's military/self-defense system (Seraph, Wardens, Wolfborn, Peacemakers, Lionguard, and of course the charr have military that military this all over the place) OR you can join the Pact, and that depends on what you want to fight or whether you feel strongly about the dragons. Like, you can't be drafted into the Pact, whereas I imagine the Seraph might.

So - no clue! But there's some thoughts to keep you company XD.

17: With both rifles and bows existing next to each other, what technology do rifles use? Flintlocks? Do they have magazines? Breach- or frontloaders?

I'll be honest, I have no idea what flintlocks and breachloaders are, and I have a suspicion about frontloaders. But I get the idea!

I saw one response to this question that explained different races/cultures have different styles and different technologies based on their priorities, and I think I agree with this, but also: a bow isn't just a projectile-firing weapon that is outclassed by a gun. Guns are noisy, for one thing, and it's generally inadvisable to use one unless you have training with it. Bows are both simpler to learn and understand, easier to maintain, etc.

But one consideration is this: magic. Perhaps guns and bows interact with magic differently (wood/string vs metal), and so based on your priorities, you'll use one over the other and they can both hold their own in their different contexts.

I don't know the first thing about rifles, as I mentioned above, but I'd generally assume they're built like our Earth rifles - not modern gunnery, I mean I don't see machine guns (although we've seen golems spray projectiles everywhere, so that might count) in Tyria, so maybe an older version of what we have.

One important distinction to make is that, while on Earth we've moved to entirely ranged, bullet-firing monstrosities, as far as I know, Tyria hasn't. Guns are just another type of weapon, and if you prefer a sword, go for it! Maybe guns are still awkward and unwieldy, but my opinion is that bullet wounds are simply laughable.

We're in Tyria here. We have healing magic around every corner. A bullet wound might kill a person or take him down temporarily, but then he's up again. Arrow wounds are more difficult to heal and you're more likely to bleed out or something. I think this is the real reason behind such weapon disparity in Tyria - it's that unless you get a lethal blow that kills quickly, they're gonna get healed, so if you're good with one weapon and good at killing quickly, it doesn't really matter so long as you stay alive and they don't. (And this is also why Risen are so horrific in canon - they don't die when they should. Stab through the heart? You're trained to aim for the quick kill, but quick kill assumes they're not already dead. You have to hack at extremities to neutralize a Risen opponent and it's just - shiver.)

20: How much has Orr been restored at this point?

It's cleansed of corruption but lacks natural nutrients in the soil for things to grow! (I answered this in a similar fashion to above here.)

24 (Wild Card): Do you have any headcanons about Laranthir of the Wild's name? What does 'of the Wild' mean? Is it a title? Why does he get called that?

I have not thought about this, but off the top of my head: maybe he was the first sylvari to befriend a charr? He's a Secondborn, so that's feasible. Or maybe he gained that title from the wanderings he did that led to him meeting Almorra.

But also, the most defining element of his character is that he's always sought love. So maybe he calls himself 'of the Wild' to indicate he's sort - out on his own, in this wilderness that is Tyria, without a companion to lean on. So he's got this sort of wild, hollow, aloneness vibe, like a traveler looking for something that he can never find. (Ouch that's giving me goosebumps already.) Now think about IBS and Darkrime Delves.

----

I am aware these replies (esp the first two!) are very rambly and only pick up coherence at the end, but I think through talking. I looked through this to try and take out unnecessary stuff but... it was all relevant... XDD (this happens when trying to tl;dr my own notes to myself as well haha) Again, thanks for asking!! I like coming up with these XDD.

[the-sheep]

ID GO ABSOLUTELY BONKERS IF U TYPED OUT HIS ENTIRE HISTORY FBFBFBFB i would like 2 see it..........

alright right right

This ended up being A HUGE POST so all info is under the cut.

Unless you’re on mobile, in which case, enjoy scrolling.

It all starts on flight rising. Well, Heart starts on FR. It REALLY starts with my webcomic/animated series.

It wasn’t well drawn or animated at first, but it steadily got better. One of the plot holes, back in 8th grade, was “who created priscilla and Jake?”

It was mostly summed up to “Penny made all the bots its all simple” but i was a middle schooler and i needed a complicated (and edgy) story. 

Thing is I had already made Fandragons of a good chunk of my ocs on flight rising.

I bred two dragons to get my main characters, so why not just use them?

Christy Suggested the name Cavet, and I liked it.

Yeah this is my first digital image of him as a human and he DOES NOT LOOK RIGHT

no necklace, no beard, orange eyes…

horrific.

So I made human designs for them both, but Chrysanthemum remains forgotten, not even canon to Mechanical Fury anymore.

Here’s old art of her and Cavet back before she got wiped out from existence.

the art is bad btu the Heart gimmick is there

Here’s him in his second image ever. The one that pretty much defined his design.He also quickly gained a husband

Anyway he quickly morphed into a villain several time more dangerous than the main villain

He’s responsible for the deaths of not ONE, not TWO, but THREE children.

Two his kids, one the younger sister of a character that one of the dead kids liked.

One of his dead kids got his own story, the other was literally a main character.

Chloride, (Charlie) in all his glory, lucky enough to get resurrected as an android but after finding out he’s not who he thinks he is, has to attempt to live a normal Human life… when his two best friends are paranormal investigators, his love interest having lost their arm and their only remaining sister to the main villain.

He originally found out he was an android by finding his own blueprints, hearing his Mom cry about it, and then cutting open his face (for his signature scar) and running off. 

Running into Cavet’s husband, Nathair Liu. He stitches him up, know all about robotic n all that but he is.

also a secondary villain….

I hate the art in this video but its not my worst.

(Video was Vendy’s debut, too. tho Vendy was more Nate(logan/mind/princi/whatever)’s kid than Cavet’s)

Okay i’ve gotten off track.

Yeah at this point I was really loving Cavet, on FR, and wrote an entire long story between him and Skittles based on the events of Mechanical Fury.

This was where I got the idea for reincarnation.

I needed an explanation for why the same character was in two different universes, and it was perfect. In fact, it lead to an amazing way to end it. 

But what is in control of all this? What does he see in the in between?

Well, Death was packaged with two other red herrings to keep people from thinking she was more important than them from the start, when in fact, she was. One of the plot points is that Cavet dies. He continues causing havoc, but nobody can figure out why or how. he doesn’t have a body.

Except he does. Death.

She was scary, but that was just her, she was a literal robot grim reaper. Nobody suspected she was spreading a virus to make robots susceptible to Augap’s control everywhere she went. Not even her. Cav liked hanging out in the AI scape, AKA the robot afterlife or virtual heaven.

What a fun way to make a real grim reaper.

I never really kept track of the transition from “cute robot char” to “cute real god char”

and i guess it never happened. Heart still thinks of her as she was, as cute little Litty. Except when she’s not. He gave form to the literal concept of DEATH. And became her friend. She still calls him Papa, sometimes.

In any case, Cavet’s doodles started being more and more revolving around his angst with the reincarnation.

in fact, i had a few character in the same boat as him, as I had made a couple dragons into MF characters as well.

I called them The Artifacts. It didn’t seem rounded out with only four, so I added a 5th. To give me more leeway in case I make a character i like enough to bring with them.

and turns out. I did.

I was sad enough about Cavet losing the love of his life, betraying him, creating a rift between them with his descent into obsession.

So he came with them.

They’re inseparable.

after a few lives of getting revenge on him for killing his sons and some adult humans and a BUNCH of robots, (not even counting his crimes in the vampire life he committed because he thought he lost Liu forever) Soul revealed to him something about Heart’s 6th life, which Mind doesn’t remember.

But he was there.

Long story short, he was Captain Shuggazoom. Yeah 10 lives of stuff he forgot before he started remembering his past lives. Messed Heart up.

ANYWAY BACK TO DEVELOPMENT!

I went around, making original characters to fill in Heart’s lives. I put him in a LOT of stories, but a notable one is My Old Ask Blog, @ask-musical-monsters

In which Heart is our lovable Tweedle, Bean.

He’s the bird. (this is also the blog where Willow was made!) (also a character i referenced when putting antauri on the baldi blog)

I still hadn’t abandoned MF so Bean has a lot of influence from Cavet. 

I REALLY liked bean. It occured to me here-ish that Heart isn’t constrained by being my oc. He can be whoever he wants and nobody will care. 

So of course I immediately declare him purple guy. No drawings of him, but I know I said he was purple guy at some point. Also at this point in time I started organizing the lives by number order, and making a simple arc for Heart and the others to follow.

1000 lives. 

I made a brief description of heart’s 1st life, but made it purposefully very superfluous so i can change it whenever i want. All i know is he had albinism, and a desire to live forever.

That summer I got an amazing idea. I would take advantage of the Baldi’s basics trend with a ASK BLOG.

It was a mathematically calculated success. I did as many things as possible to generate more audience. MAIN thing being posting as often as possible, and being REALLY funny. 

But knew I wasn’t going to like adding to the ask blog if i didn’t like the main character

I already knew he was going to be Baldi, but I wasn’t sure exactly how to characterize him either. 

Turns out making him heart solved both of those problems. He’s always been Heart.

And Princi has ALWAYS been mind.

Even if they don’t always show their artifacts, they always were the same people as all these other things ive made. They have a DEEP connection to both each other and me.

At some point, I re-re-discovered SRMTHFG. The first few seconds I saw SK I knew he was Heart. It was so perfect it scared me.

HE EVEN DOES THE POSE!!!!! RED EYES!!!! AAAH!!!

I got an idea for a storyline based on formless and regret and monkeys… so.. uh

Anyway that kinda brings us to today, where the events of the blog have happened based on Heart things, and i can play around with Heart as much as I want.

And Willie’s next life? Well, 23 is my favorite number. It’ll be cool, but I’m not sure how. All I know is 23 wears a striped shirt, and is a vamp again.

In summary, Heart is the most important character I’ve ever made, and I will never come close to anybody as wonderful and as complicated as him. He’s the greatest formless, the best villains, the heroes, and one character i want to hold out for finding irl.

 I love them even in scribbles i find on bus seats, in fanart of him, love her in songs i hear, in flowers i see in the wild.

Whoever they end up being, it’s safe to say I’ve fallen in love with Heart. 

If you want me to describe his in universe story, I’ll need a seperate post.

Other Heart Resources:

The Spreadsheet

The Playlist

[softlytheeveningcomes]

The Call of The Morrigan

   SO, my Fiance comes to me the other day because he feels like maybe he is being called to a deity since he disconnected with the Christian church. He has always been Christo-pagan, with Norse in the mix. We start discussing what he feels, sees, and has been experiencing. We are looking at Norse deities as that is where he has always felt a pull, he states that he also feels something for the Celtic deities as we are both Irish/Gaelic/Scottish, and so we start looking at the Celtic deities. He just jokingly (kind of) mentions The Morrigan (because we both know how.... severe... she can be) and I tell him that I kinda thought she was calling to me.

   I start telling him about how I've been seeing ravens and crows, which made me consider Odin, but he didn't really fit. How I've been seeing more Celtic content in my life, how I saw a Falcon on a road sign,  and we just start looking into her. I then spent the rest of the night drawing ridiculous amounts of connections from her associations and things in my life. I have an Ogham tattoo and there are some resources that state she was a part of inventing that. My engagement ring is garnet and it is the triple moon ... (maybe that is stretching but it feels right) just things started to click into place. I literally started crying because so much was making sense.

Then I got into a thing about The Morrigan is a Fair Folk, which I do not believe. In response to the claim, I just start reading article after article, ordering books about her, etc. Because I have found no factual evidence that she is a Fae, except the evidence that the Christian church turned her into a Fae to make people stop following her. I went to bed then after a few hours of research and had dreams about her all night. Today it's like any downtime I have I just want to learn about her. I read a whole Ph.D. dissertation about her, countless articles and webpages (I tried to make sure they all had credible bibliographies attached to them). I feel like my head might explode with the knowledge that I gathered. But on one webpage, a personal blog, the author stated that information about the Morrigan is very highly sought after and therefore we should share our experiences. Which is what I have decided to do here.

So Just a Little About Me:   

I am Eliza, currently, I am working on a witch name but nothing feels right so I am going to wait and ask my deities and wait for the right name.

 I have been Pagan for 6-7-8 years officially but way more before I knew what was happening. I was raised Christian and suffered a rather large break from the church. So if you are a Christo-pagan I might say things that you won't like, please understand that my faith lies somewhere else, I respect your right to believe what you want and I hope you return the courtesy. 

If you would like to comment about my writing I ask that you please have CREDIBLE resources when you do. I am hermetic so I do believe that all religion has a shred of truth, however, I have trouble with modern organized religion as the texts and such have been altered dramatically to fit the narrative of people in power.

In my personal life, I am Pan, Polyam, Engaged, BLM, Liberal. If you don't like any of these things then you won't like this blog :)

   I originally worked with Artemis, she was my Maiden goddess. We do not work together any longer as I work with Aphrodite now. For me it has always been Aphrodite, I have always felt a strong connection to her and always knew that I would end up with her, I consider her my mother deity. I have so much love for her as she has always been exactly what I needed and I will most likely post about her here as well. I slightly work with Apollo, he watches over my nephew <3. As you can tell I have always been in the Greek Pantheon, so receiving signs from The Morrigan is a touch terrifying. I won't lie I am a bit scared to work with her, but I am not one for ignoring a call unless it is from t Demons as they are not areas that I am comfortable with. 

I don't have the same experiences with deities that you might have, or that other people have, which is something that I love about Paganism. There is no right way to do it. So just bear with me on this journey and let's see what we learn!

My interests and talents lie in:

Astrology

Tarot/Divination

I am an Empath

Mythology especially the Classics

Grey/Kitchen/Celestial/Divine/Green Witchery

Crystals

Satanism (I am just learning, not worshipping) Technically all religions, as a hermetic.

   Eliza 

[sootonthecarpet]

What faction do you usually pick in Fallout 4? It kind of sounds like you have beef with the Minutemen but the Brotherhood are bigoted trash, the Institute are bigoted trash who can't even accomplish anything productive, and the Railroad are super fixated on their ethically dubious synth liberation quest and do pretty much jack all for everyone else, so I'm curious as to which one you went along with in the end.

i havent played it thru to the end yet full disclosure kkfdksgf the main questline has been underwhelming so far, so i’ve been dragging my feet even tho i have like multiple playthroughs going. but i’m siding w the railroad because while there r heavy criticisms to b levied w/r/t their methodology, it still feels good to do literally anything to impact any of the game’s like, stilted in-universe bigotry subplots to even a small extent hahajfdsgf. plus i like most of the individual npcs, i end up more annoyed at my own lack of flexible dialogue options than i do at the characters themselves. (it’d be chill if the game had more RPG elements and i could like, influence the politics and idk ‘destiny’ of the group more overtly instead of just being Assigned Grunt.) some of their sidequests are actually pretty fun, or at least are no more bothersome than unguided exploration would be and give me a bit of character development to tide me over.

i guess i do kinda have beef with the minutemen but for the most part that’s my beef with the actual writers showing thru bc of how the game’s like. colonialist fantasy gameplay loop and its unironic fetish for revolutionary war imagery intersect hEAVily when it comes to the minutemen (obvs). in all honesty i’ve never wanted to dip too far into that questline or even take preston along much even tho he seems chill and i like him so far, bc i know the writing (or, best case scenario, the way the gameplay will inevitably actively subvert any good writing that sneaks in there) is just gonna end up seriously pissing me off.

there’s no like, group in fallout four that suits my political views bc even the vaguest whiff of real-world radical politics were very carefully kept out of the vaguely liberation-aligned groups in the game. like, goodneighbor is kind of implied to be SOME kind of socialist outpost right? shared resources, anyone is welcome etc. but wait! it’s a new reno esque hedonistic crimefest where you can get anything for the right price and the only language they speak are bullets! but wait! they have a mayor who they love and respect very much. or is he a de facto monarch? or is he just a mayor? (actually, he’s my lover.)  i don’t think it’s like, especially new or inventive of me to say this, but any theme that made it into the game was thoroughly stripped of meaning and made broadly palatable to like. the right-center, reactionary white gamer demographic. like, uhhhh, this was def a high budget game for a post-gamergate market. so honestly i take what i can get with the railroad. any moment im not cringing is a moment of good gameplay. (usually those moments are like, jumping into a lake in far harbor to get a better look at the non-interactible fish models for ecosystem lore, but again, i take what i can get.)

would have really liked a plot where the pre-game massacre of most of the railroad’s outposts allows the PC to like, optionally restructure it into an organization that’s actually involved with the ppl it’s set up to help (and nix the policy on mindwipes as a shortcut around trauma recovery/safeguarding of the vulnerable, and the--HOLy SHIT--disgusting attitude towards bodily autonomy in general, both of which seem to be there more for player convenience than for a well thought out story purpose), or even like. to see just a LiTTLe followup on some of the shit deacon says abt philosophical infighting early on out back of the slocums joe? but it doesn’t seem like we r going there and like, eh. i can keep my head down and grind out a few boring quests if it means avoiding the risk of total disillusionment with preston garvey and not having to listen to brotherhood anti-ghoulfucking PSAs or whatever godforsaken shit happens when i finally close out the act and let the institute beam me up ahaha.

oh yeah also like every guy who works for the railroad is weird-hot in one way or another (and also they sell me armored, combat-ready versions of casual clothing items so i can look great and feel safe, & make sure anyone whose inventory i can access has some armor on em without heavily impacting their look) and ultimately im shallow enough to let that tip the scales. plus its so nice to come back to the cave at like four AM after a long string of sidequests n see these totally random npcs who dont even like each other, all spooned up on all them mattresses. at the end of the day they deal w each other bc it’s cold and nasty. that’s a way more compelling vibe than i get from any of the actual faction related cutscenes in the game.

then i ruin it immediately by waking up tinker tom to buy more bulletproof dresses.

[looongcat]

Ozmafia Thoughts

I posted a whole thing on my main but now that I’m using this blog for all things otome, I figured I would try to organize my thoughts because i have so many thoughts.

This is not spoiler free! But I try to label some of the major spoilers.

Caramia

Caramia is the don of the oz family, and it’s his duty to protect his territory, the people who live in his territory, and to sign papers for stuff? Man’s is always signing papers for mafia reasons :) I knew from the start that he would be my favourite. I just love a guy who’s nice. Call me basic, but I just love a man who wants me to be happy and takes cares of me? I love feeling like someone cares about me! He’s also a great cook, and who doesn’t love delicious food? Idk how to explain how I feel about caramia, I liked his personality but I didn’t love his story? I really felt like there was some distance between Caramia and Fuka, like he was in a whole nother world from her. Which you do get to chose whether she’s happy he’s in charge or like she feels lonely. I did however really liked his transfer routes. I did the axel to caramia transfer first, and I felt like it wasnt clear that they slept together, but after I did caramia to axel and I got hit with that axel CG! Anyways, I liked the transfer routes.

Kyrie

I knew I would hate this guy so much. I’m just not interested in a guy who’s a fucking tease. Like he openly admits that he likes it when you’re upset. Like I do not want that TYVM. I found him kinda tolerable in his transfer routes however, probably because he does have to try and make Fuka happy in order to get Fuka to break up with her boyfriend. He really said break up with your bf i’m bored! Also I felt it was kinda weird that he was paying for Fuka’s br*th*l visits. I think its kinda weird that he introduced her to it, and was like encouraging it. ESPECIALLY*** (major super duper spoiler here what will be censored lol) if he thought she was *****

I saw some people argue that he might not actually love fuka, but I think that one transfer route ending, kinda shows that he really does love her IYKYK. but i’m so sus about that ending where he becomes a dumbass, i really think this bitch is faking it! I do not believe him for a second!

Axel

I quite like Axel. I personally don’t mind when a guy is at this level of over protectiveness. Plus as I have mentioned, i just love it when a cold guy is soft for you. I absolutely adore that shit (like when he ask Fuka to treat him as an equal and drop the honorifics? that shit gets me T_T)  He also gets extremely jealous very easily, which becomes an area of conflict for him and Fuka and it is up to you whether you wanna forgive him or move onto another guy. Personally, I would forgive him. I would talk to him about it! But I could understand being in your first relationship and not being able to handle your emotions. I think Axel is quite sweet, and he just wants the best for fuka, which is cute.

Scarlet 

IDK how I feel about Scarlet, specifically the part where he straight up states he’s a minor! Like what’s up with that? Why couldn’t he be older? However, I did really enjoy his route. It’s super cute and slow burn-y and nothing romantic actually happens probably because he is a minor. Scarlet is kind, resourceful, caring lol. We always love a guy who’s trying his best to keep the peace among everyone, while still providing for his family.

His route also has a bit of plot. It shows what hamelin was like prior to a specific event that you learn about in robin hood. I dont have a specific order that I think this game should be played but it might be interesting to maybe play scarlet’s route after robin hood.

Caesar

As I’ve said before, I don’t mind a man who’s trynna kill me. Idk what’s up with that LOL. Well maybe I like how you can see them change from wanting to kill you to not...wanting to kill you. One thing I remember liking about Caesar was that he usually called you a woman, as opposed to a girl. Which made me feel a lot better, will elaborate more on that later. I think even though he stayed harsh to her the whole time, I liked how you could see he was slowly falling/becoming whipped for fuka. Like the comedy of him wearing that dumb cloak so y’all could watch the stars together. Or like him working at Soh’s restaurant because he had to earn the money, and not just take Soh’s money. Like I loved that! Plus the ending where he isn’t accepted but he keeps pulling dumb stunts just to see you is v cute lol.

Soh

Idk how to talk about Soh without major spoilers. Soh is so sweet. I like how he’s always striking up conversations with Fuka in all the routes, which is probably good for her, considering almost everyone else is pretty wary of her existence. I honestly liked his route and I guess that's all I can say.

*big spoilers* I know most people don’t like Soh, cause he’s the reason for all things bad LOL. Yes he’s using/deceiving Fuka the whole time, but its not like he drugged Fuka or kept Fuka captive lol. Like most of the time he’s trying to keep her safe, and trynna make her happy, even if its probably so he could gain her trust or something. I also feel like his route was kinda him giving up his grand plan, and wanting to run away and be happy with Fuka, which obviously doesnt happen. Idk i liked that he ultimately treated her right.

Pashet

What’s up with otome games giving you a girl option but not the option to actually romance the girl? Her route was fine, and the friendship that builds between Fuka and her is fine. Sorry that’s a little salty lol. I actually thought this route was really cute. I have my reservations about Fuka being in romantic relationships, so it actually was kinda nice to see her make an actual friend without catching feels. Female friendships are absolutely underrated and I’m glad Fuka was actually able to make a friend who is looking out for her best interest.

Hamelin

I usually try not to use kiss cgs but this is the only couple cg and I like using couple cgs. So sorry if this is spoiler-y to you. But how do I feel about Hamelin... you know what I very much liked him. His route is so short and it’s kinda a secret ending. In that sense his route is a little unsatisfying. It’s kinda unclear how Fuka could love him in that short amount of time... but she does. Hamelin is hard to describe because he’s so different in all the other routes. He’s kinda the main villain in most of the routes, aside from his own. You get to see a little bit more of his personality in Scarlet’s route. I genuinely think he is a good guy, and was trying his best! That’s all you can really ask of anyone right?

*slight spoiler* I’m so sad he didn’t get a redemption? You find out why he did the things that he did, and he just... doesn’t get anything? He like doesn't even appear? Just gone into the abyss. I wish Fuka and him could have gotten a happier ending, since their ending isn’t really... happy

Dr Crow

I do not like Robin Hood. Isn’t Robin Hood about stealing from the rich? Like... why is this man treating everyone the same? Why is this man even apart of the upper class? Okay to keep this brief and spoiler free lol. Dr. Crow here is the town’s doctor. He treats everyone the same regardless of what family they are from. In his eyes you are his patient and his goal is to heal you. He’s quite elegant and seems really dependable and then he hits you with some REDACTED

*spoiler & TW for drugging* Fuck this guy. I think what’s worse is that he did not have to drug fuka, she would have gone along with whatever he wanted probably. I’m guessing he did it so she would be in deep sleep. But still, ew gross. How you gonna love your wife and do that. This man is out for revenge and I dont like it.

Manboy/Dorian/Alfani

I barely like Manboy. Honestly I never heard of Dorian Gray before playing this so I was v confused (and if you heard of it then you probably will be more prepared than I was). I actually played this route really early on because i thought it might be funny. It is in fact not at all funny and I was not okay after finishing it. I am a little glad I got it out of the way though, if I left this for like last I would have been v upset and it probably would have ruined the game for me lol. I do kinda wanna replay the route now that I know about Dorian but idk.. i still hate this route so idk if I really will.

If you don’t know anything like me, this is the br*thel route. Manboy works there more as like a receptionist? Dorian Gray is the ringleader, and there’s Alfani who’s the male escort. Feel free to wikipedia Dorian Gray before trying this route. Not to spoil the story but TW you also get drugged in this route too.

Overall Thoughts

I feel lukewarm about ozmafia. In one aspect I like how each route was different and how the different endings actually like split off. I also enjoyed how there wasn’t necessarily a good ending and a bad ending, they were just different endings. Obviously in some routes, one ending is better than the other, and also in others neither endings are great lol. I also quite enjoyed the transfer routes, it felt different, innovative, like ozmafia really tried something there! And the replay ability, the game adds extra scenes that provide more insight towards what the love interest is thinking, which makes replaying to get the other endings very enjoyable. There also an extra scene before each ending, so you could also replay the same ending too. I really went into ozmafia with like zero expectations, and i was both surprised and underwhelmed? I dont think thats the right word.

*MAJOR SPOILERS* There’s this really great video essay called born sexy yesterday, that really explains why I felt slightly uneasy about the whole story. If you think about it Fuka has amnesia, she’s mentally a child but here she in engaging in adult activities with grown ass men ._. and I know I said I liked the transfer routes, but that was before I found out that Fuka is literally a 10 year old in an “adult” body. LIKE WHEN I SAW DOROTHY I WAS LIKE WHO TF LET THIS INFANT READ DORIAN GRAY? Anyways the fact that dorothy is literally like 10 years old, did not sit well with me. Yknow this story is about wizard of oz, so I did have a feeling Fuka was dorthy, BUT WHEN ISAW HER SPRITE, girl i had to look up dorthy’s age and apparently shes somewhere between 8 and 12. So, throughout the game it was a bit uncomfortable because I did feel like Fuka was mentally a child but I kinda justified it as well she lost her memories, so she’s a blank slate like a child, maybe she’ll mature up with memories but uhhh, that’s just not going to happen.

So there are my thoughts. I thought Ozmafia was really different from other otome games because of how each character got their own story, and the transfer routes felt so innovative, as well as adding the extra scenes in the second playthrough! But there’s some bad born sexy yesterday vibes that make me not okay with it. I would recommend the game though. There’s so much content, it took me like a week to finish it all. Plus the art is quite nice.