#i also didn't know which instrument to add

[roseadleyn]

𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐞 | 𝐀𝐥𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐮 𝐂𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐦𝐚𝐧.

in which alberu finds himself trying, and failing, to teach you how to play an instrument.

alberu's large, smooth hand covers yours. 'darling, that is not how you play.'

'artistic freedom allows it.' you retort.

he laughs, repositioning your hold on the instrument. 'that, it does. now, try again.'

'do i have to?'

'sweetheart, i would never make you do anything you don't want to.. but this is important. for the ball. it's orders that you have to play, and if you don't know, I'll teach you.'

you grumble but start off again. it's... atrocious. it sounds like a mish-mash of badly tuned guitar and violin with a few piano notes thrown in.

alberu winces. 'are you trying to make me go deaf?'

'haha, very funny.'

he sighs. 'what will make you play? properly, i mean?'

you perk up. 'a kiss would do it!'

alberu blinks, a bit surprised, and then smiles, 'should've said so earlier.'

he places a kiss on your temple. 'how about this: everytime you play correctly, i'll give you a kiss.'

you roll your eyes but nod, and strum your fingers along the instrument, trying to remember what alberu had patiently been repeating for the past half hour. the melody produced doesn't sound quite as bad, and you look up at him as though to say, was that better?

he merely nods his satisfaction.

you glare at him. 'no kiss.'

he laughs and then gives a small cough. 'back to the instrument.'

you jump on him, tackling him to the ground. 'alberu!'

alberu gasps, breathless, 'what?'

'you didn't keep your promise.'

'i made a promise?'

you give him a second glare and then decide to play his game. you press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, tantalizingly close to kissing him on his lips. he lets out a groan. 'why are you—'

'shut up!'

he laughs. 'you didn't play correctly.'

'yes, i did!'

'nope. it was just better.'

'what did you expect, mozart?'

'i'm pretty sure mozart played the piano, little love.'

'whatever.'

a small moment of silence, then—

alberu sits up. 'what kind of conversation did we just have?'

'one where we discussed the many ways in which ways you betrayed me.'

alberu gives a chuckle, and feeling ridiculous, you start laughing too, and once you start, it's difficult to stop. the two of you laugh until your lungs start to hurt and your throat feels raw.

he kisses you properly now, hands around you, and you lean in as well. after a few moments, he smiles. 'happy, little love?'

'very.'

'...now, the instrument —'

'alberu!'

—

this is for @elychee!! (this took so long and it's so horrendous but here u go. i'm sorry)

taglist ; @rouecentric / @hmerus, @d10nsaint, @that-one-pretty-bitch, @mysticmeena, @parkykwho, @lady-navier0357, @giyuus0nlywife, @sidra-29 and @cerisearan, @dxmoness, (marquise, i don't know whether you know tcf but i couldn't not tag u) and @nxccolo.

[katescorner]

thinking about olympic athlete!oikawa tooru today who made it to the paris olympics, representing argentina (proudly, he might add), and his whole story leading up to the games is full of drama and expectations because of course fate would line things up perfectly for the two nations he held in his heart to rival each other on the world's court.

he hears the cheers of fans and friends along with the jeering boos from the locker room, and he thinks, has he really betrayed his birth country when "home" no longer feels like home? with rising pressure, competition tastes like a bitter word when the opposition is all familiar faces. but he didn't make it this far by being sentimental. he trained for this. he sacrificed for this. he—

"the world is watching, tooru."

your voice is soft, but it cuts through the static of his thoughts. it parts his negativity with gentle movement until all he sees is you, and suddenly, he can breathe again. so he does. he draws in a long, deep breath, and you wait for him to speak to you.

"i'm scared," he whispers. "i don't want to disappoint anyone."

his admission is proof alone of how far he's come already, willing to admit insecurity and allowing vulnerability in difficult moments. oikawa tooru is not the same man he was when he left the land he'd known all his life (leaving claw marks into the grass and ground of his hometown; they forget he was only eighteen when he uprooted himself in the name of his passion) and when he let his mother tongue fall flat so he might have a chance at becoming the best (people forget that learning languages isn't some indirect relationship, when one rises, the other does not always fall; he remembers the words he came from, the intonation and the vocabulary, the slang and the meaning of it all; he remembers, still).

oikawa tooru is not the same man he was when his childhood friends saw him last. he's grown in his time apart from them; they all have. he's miles tallers and his horizons have expanded. he's changed, but that doesn't mean he's a stranger to himself.

(i'm scared they won't recognize me.)

"you are still the person they all befriended and the man i fell in love with, and i am so so proud of you," you answer his underlying question with a kiss to his cheek, a reminder of your love. "you aren't disappointing anyone with your decisions."

"but the people of—"

"the people will cope. they'll have to." you shrug. "what else can they do? what you do isn't up to them. it isn't up to the public because the roster that made it all this way and achieved this much lists oikawa tooru, starting setter, not the guy in the eighth row calling you names, not the displeased broadcaster with a combover, and certainly not anyone else."

you take his hands into yours. you're careful because these are the instruments of his success. his fingernails are always cut short and his skin is soft except for the pads of his fingers which are rough but not calloused. he doesn't let anyone else handle him the way you do, drawing circles and hearts into his palms and pressing kisses into his joints.

"as long as you are happy with the decisions you've made to get here, no one can take that away from you." you look into your fiancé's eyes. "are you happy, tooru?"

and he thinks about the uneasiness he felt landing in argentina, the finality in not buying a return ticket, and the eagerness for volleyball that earned him an easy spot under the guidance of jose blanco. he thinks about the sleep that he lost from being hungry in an unfamiliar country, missing his mother's cooking and the smell of yakitori and takoyaki when he walked down crowded streets filled with vendors.

but he also thinks about the first word that he learned in argentina, hermanito, tossed around during practice when he didn't even know how to ask for a pass because he didn't lose a brotherhood when he left japan, he just gained one in argentina. he thinks about the grueling process of overturning his birth citizenship, the uproar he caused in a country across the globe and the apology he almost let slip for it because everyone thinks it was just for volleyball. oikawa tooru, the athlete who doesn't know loyalty, but what do they know of the open arms he received in argentina when japan turned him away?

he thinks of how stress melted from him that first night after receiving his new passport, walking to your shared apartment with his stomach grumbling at the smell of choripán and alfajor as he hummed along to lamento boliviano. he thinks of how joy spilled into him, realizing he was finally home.

so he nods at your question and he draws stuttered hearts into your palms and he presses a kiss to your temple.

(thank you for seeing who i am.)

"i'm happy."

[twwings]

was reminded recently that this month is the 10-year anniversary of my Leverage vid Parachute, aka one of the most popular things I've ever made. Happy ten years to this vid! I still adore this OT3.

AO3 link if you wanna kudos/comment after all this time 💜

a few making-of reminiscences about this vid below!

The sound of Parker's parachute snapping in the wind, at the very beginning, was from freesound.org, and one of the first times I put non-source audio in a vid! I love how that little sound takes you into the soundspace and focuses you on the central metaphor of the vid.

This was also one of the first vids where I edited the music in a levelling-up kind of way. I had cut songs before to make them shorter for vidding, but in this one, I needed to add more song—to make the transition from Parker/Hardison to Eliot have more space to breathe. So I copied the instrumental section from elsewhere in the vid and copied it to create some space between the chorus and the verse introducing Eliot.

I accidentally clipped a WHOLE BUNCH of Leverage in the wrong framerate for this vid? This is back when I was using MPEG Streamclip to make clips for vidding, and I input the wrong framerate. As a result a bunch of clips had extra frames that I had to cut out by hand (reclipping would have taken too long—this was in the last gasp days of using MPEG Streamclip when it would chug and huff away for ages to make a clip, because the footage was getting too big for the program OR my computer to really handle easily).

There's one shot of Hardison that I wish I'd colour-corrected (I colour-corrected some stuff in this vid but it was before my era of being super into colour correction). He's way too green! I notice it every time! Poor green Hardison.

Making this vid really taught me about how important it is to know what kinds of shots you've got and how to spend them—in order to create the OT3 in the vid, it's essential to withhold shots of the three of them in the same frame till almost the end. It's twosomes, twosomes, twosomes, up until the end when SUDDENLY you get these fabulous shots of all three of them in frame and it's such a RELIEF to see that. It's not like, a shot of the three of them in bed together or anything, obviously I didn't have that footage (Leverage Redemption, lookin at you) but the fact that those kinds of shots are withheld throughout the vid and then lavished on the viewer suddenly creates a feeling of something snapping into place, I think, that you wouldn't have otherwise.

When I was vidding the Parker/Eliot section, I struggled a lot, because they had the lyric "hand behind my neck/arm around my waist" and I was looking and looking for stuff where they touched, but the interesting thing about them is that they DON'T touch much, Parker just doesn't touch people who aren't Hardison very much, and the vid flowed much better when I gave up on matchy-matching that lyric that was literally about touch and instead showing the moments where Eliot is helping and respecting Parker (eg teaching her to fight, giving her a boost). Sometimes the lyrics should be disobeyed!

I loved making this vid so much that I made another vid right after it, using some footage that I hadn't used in this vid because it was a little too slow or too sad, and I love that vid too but it gets less attention. Anyhow if you like Parachute and you read all this way, please enjoy my other Leverage OT3 vid, which is called "too peculiar for love."

[hot-take-tournament]

HOT TAKE TOURNAMENT!

GREATEST HITS!

Submission 474

vocaloids (and all similar non-Yamaha-owned vocal synths) are bad. all of them.

It's a mockery of the human voice. Frye from Splatoon 3 of all things is the closest we will ever get to having any interesting vocal technique in a voice synth bank. Singing styles around the world are so interesting and take so much skill and you abandon them for a glorified MIDI file? I also blame them for the rise of AI-generated covers, because they first started the devaluing of the human voice and the usage of it as an instrument - a really boring one that will never know advanced or diverse technique. Congrats, Miku made Minecraft, now all of SpongeBob has sang Billie Jean by Michael Jackson. At least the SpongeBob characters have distinct and interesting voices.

[from follow up asks]

hello. vocaloid take submitter here.

i didn't expect my submission to gain as much traction as it did, i thought it was lukewarm at best. i thought there were more vocaloid haters out there. this is tumblr, though, so i guess not. still think vocaloid is ass though.

i will say, it might add context to my take that i myself am a singer and have natural perfect pitch. while i haven't sang in any professional capacity, i've still done some voice training and lots of lower level performances. i have very strong feelings about singing, and hold what the human voice can do in high regard.

i also have a better ear for picking up smaller things in the human voice (re: natural perfect pitch) and the difference between humans and vocaloid is extremely striking to me. no amount of tuning can make a vocaloid not sound lifeless to me, because i will never, ever hear a human voice, and instead of letting the lead of the song Not Be Vocals - which has never been a novel concept - they HAVE to put the voice bank in.

also, re: "frye isn't a voice bank dumbass", congrats! you took away something i felt was actually interesting! god i wish more people knew about more singing styles that they couldn't easily replicate!

while now i know that AI voices are not a continuation of vocaloid, sorry, still think it's bad, go to hell and learn to compose a song without lyrics.

also - still the vocaloid take submitter - to continue:

i will eventually send a link to a playlist of all of the Vocaloid songs i have ever listened to, because i am sure most of the people who think i submitted that think that i do not even know what Defoko is, or that i've heard exactly two Hatsune Miku songs. i know what Defoko is. i know she's entirely computer generated. i've listened to her voice. i still think it's bad. have any of you big shots heard of Big Al? i've listened to him. also bad. it's bad.

Submission 111

I think chicken breast is disgusting and I would rather blend it up into a shake than eat it with my teeth

It’s fast, it’s efficient, it’s nutritious if you add fruits and vegetables. It’s easy to prepare and you can drink it on the go. I need the protein but chicken breast tastes disgusting either way, and I’m tired of putting in so much effort to make the joyless rubbery meat taste good.

My friends and family are wrong, this is the future.

I see some of you not voting! That's cheating!

It's ok if you agree with neither take! Just choose the take you agree with slightly more!

Think of it like choosing the lesser of two evils!

Propaganda is always encouraged, and remember to reblog your favourite polls for exposure!

[whineandcheese24]

how old is tommy

everybody's been confused about tommy's age, so I thought I'd put out my theory.

lou is 39 years old so it would make sense for tommy to be around that age. if tommy had joined the lafd right out of high school he could have been there for two years by the time chim joined in 2005 and he'd be 39.

but then we come to the problem of him being in the army. even if he had joined right out of high school, pilots have to complete a year of training, and are then required to serve for 10 years, meaning if he had completed his service, he would have to be 29 by the time he joined the lafd. assuming he wasn't a probie at the same time as chim, and he would have had to be 30 in 2005, making him almost 50 now, which doesn't feel quite right

but the key phrase in that last part is "if he completed his service". though we don't know his exact orientation, we do know tommy isn't straight, and he would have been serving in the army during dadt. if someone found out about his sexuality, he could have been discharged before his mandated service was completed.

there are a lot of assumptions and non-exact amounts here, so I haven't really cleared anything up, but personally, I like to think he's 42. he joined the army right out of high school, did his one year of training and 2 years of service before getting discharged, took a year to get his bearings/join the fire academy, and was at the 118 for about a year when chim joined, making him 23 in 2005, and 42 now. why? I'll explain

even though you legally become an adult at 18, you're still not really a fully formed person yet. if tommy was 18 when he joined the army, even if he already knew he was queer, his time in the army would have been instrumental to how he views himself and his identity, just in terms of growing up and being an adult. if he was already out and proud, the army would have broken his confidence down, and if he never accepted himself, they would have just reinforced whatever self-loathing he had. plus if he didn't even know, finding out you're gay when it could lose you your job is traumatizing. having tommy join the army fresh out of high school, and then get discharged 3 years later gives him enough time to have the training necessary to still be a pilot 20 years later, and enough time to really have been broken down by the system, while still not being too old when he joins the lafd

i don't know what the policy is for telling people why you got discharged, but if tommy could have kept it a secret at the lafd, he probs would have. obviously the writers probably weren't planning this when they introduced him, but having him not only be closeted queer, but also have him be fired for being queer adds a really interesting layer to his character and his interactions with chim and hen in the begins episodes.

and as for why have him be 42 instead of say, 41 or 43? because Abby was 42. someone pointed out that tommy and abby parallel each other in how they're both people who have helped/are helping buck better understand who he is and what he wants for himself in terms of a romantic relationship. having him be 42 makes that connection

[sirfrogsworth]

Today in, "Conservatives keep making me side with Disney"...

So, Gina Carano is suing Disney. And Elon Musk is paying for her lawyers. And they released the complaint document.

It's... a doozy.

I can't decide if her lawyers are not taking this seriously at all or if they are taking it super duper extra seriously.

Like, that's a real thing that a lawyer wrote.

As you know, judges are famous for enjoying levity in official court documents. I think in law school you are encouraged to add comedy bits. True facts.

Gina wants money for emotional damages. But she also wants to be rehired, which sounds like another funny comedy bit. They scrapped an entire show because of her nonsense.

Most are saying this will get thrown out with haste due to the fact that Gina wasn't actually fired. She had already done her contracted work. Disney decided not to hire her for any *new* work. So I guess she wants them to honor an imaginary contract that was in her head.

The entire document is just as ridiculous as the opening crawl. It starts out by listing Gina's show biz bona fides. Her myriad accomplishments in Hollywood were listed one by one in a section titled...

Well, I'm intrigued.

Let's take a look at this illustrious career, according to this document.

"Carano is the first-ever female star in mixed martial arts cage fighting to successfully transition to a career in movies, breaking down substantial barriers for women in the sport."

Off to an interesting start.

All the cage fighting gals can act in movies now and they all have Gina to thank for barrier busting.

"Carano received roles in Hollywood and independent film productions such as Haywire, Fast & Furious 6, Heist, Deadpool, Almost Human, Extraction, Daughter of the Wolf, and Madness in the Method."

I've heard of several of those things! And I think I almost remember her in Deadpool! Very impressive.

Oh wait, they're not done...

"On May 13, 2008, “Gina Carano” was the fastest rising search on Google and third most searched person on Yahoo! while being ranked no. 5 on Yahoo!’s “Top Ten Influential Women of 2008” list."

In 2008 she was popular on Yahoo for a bit. Got it.

Has she won any awards?

"In 2012, Carano was the first recipient of the ActionFest Film Festival’s Chuck Norris Award for Best Female Action Star.

In 2017, Carano received the Artemis Action Warrior Award.

In 2019, Carano received The Rising Star award at Ischia Film Festival."

Very prestigious. I'm sure Chuck Norris has a lovely basement where that ceremony was almost certainly held.

You know what, why don't we just skip to The Mandalorian?

"Although her character instantly became one of the most recognized and popular characters in the series..."

Gina, no... that was the little green puppet.

You were the one who couldn't act very well but you made up for it by punching things good.

"Carano was again instrumental in the success of Season 2 of The Mandalorian."

Nope, still the puppet.

End of "accomplishments."

The next section is titled

For some reason they left out "bigoted" before speech. Weird.

In most of it, it legit sounds like they are making a case *against* her. They show that everyone at Disney and Lucasfilm tried very hard to give her chance after chance. They did everything but point blank tell her, "Either learn and relieve yourself of this ignorance or stop posting shit online."

She totally had the option to keep her shitty views to herself and shut the heck up for the duration and enjoy the money and success a Star Wars show can bring. It's like swatting away a lottery ticket.

I'm all for free speech. And if the government tried to arrest her for saying dumb shit, I'd be against that. But that freedom to speak does not mean there are never consequences. People are also free to not like what you have to say.

The entire last section of the document is just tweets that Gina screencapped. Like, her lawyers didn't even redo them so they had consistent formatting or pixel dimensions. They were literally just off Gina's phone.

She thought she was collecting receipts but it was mostly just her co-stars standing up for marginalized groups.

Based Pedro Pascal posted this...

And the document commented...

"Pascal was not disciplined, required to review documentaries on any of these topics or speak to individuals with contrary points of view, or pressured to apologize for any of his posts. His employment was not terminated, and Defendants made no public statements about his social media posts, much less refer to them as “abhorrent.”"

Yes, why wasn't Pedro forced to listen to MAGA dipshits tell him why they hate his sister? Why wasn't he told to watch a Dinesh D'Souza documentary? Why wasn't he told to apologize for posting cool ass muppet memes?

The most telling part of the document for me... the part that really showed her ignorance... was when she compared one of her tweets to one of Carl Weathers'.

First, her infamous tweet comparing the holocaust to conservatives being moderated on social media for spreading misinformation...

And then Carl posted this in response to conservatives banning books...

And the document says...

"Even Carano’s male co-star, the late Carl Weathers posted the exact same message, but no action was taken against him. Nor was Weathers accused by Defendants of denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identity."

THE EXACT SAME MESSAGE

THE. EXACT. SAME. MESSAGE.

[mewkwota]

Goo'morning I got a tag from @emeraldthelynx, thankyu very much!

I wasn't sure if it was necessary to add-on to the previous thread but to avoid mobile users from being overwhelmed by an oncoming Text Train I'll make mine a separate post.

--

Favorite Color: Cake Yellow. I find the bread parts of a cake to be the very appealing.

Last Song: I just came across this song, it's "Toki no Kakera" from Dream C Club. The instrumental immediately caught my ears, so now it's going into my "things I listen to while I drive playlist". :D

Currently Reading: I haven't been reading much. ( . _.);

Currently Watching: Vinesauce is constantly infused into my veins. I also like to watch the occasional spooky thing like NightMind I guess.

Currently Craving: Onigiri. It's a long story. On my last day in Japan I wanted to take one last stop at a konbini, but we were rushed to our departure (even though it turns out we were very early). But our gate was so far from the shops I didn't bother to run back. So I've been having many different dreams where I'm suddenly back in Japan and am this close to a konbini and then I wake up before I realize it, but to this day I've never been able to buy one even in my sleep.

They may not be the most fancy things, but I really liked how they tasted and my homemade ones don't entirely fill that hole. ( ; v; )

Coffee or Tea: Tea I guess? I like milk teas more, since most teas I've had on their own give me headaches. I know some can have bits of caffeine which I don't really need, so I wonder if that is the root of it. Otherwise, I love the smell of coffee but not so much their taste.

A Hobby I'd Like To Try: Probably animating. I've dabbled in it a couple times before, but it was never anything super crazy. Still, I liked seeing the results come together and I'm sure I'll slowly improve on it as I try more things (albeit very-very-slowly, and that's okay). :)

An AU You've Been Plotting: Whatever I have established in my general fanworks can be considered AUs as they are-- I mean, I crush canon/timelines together so particular families can interact closely... I don't have any huge AUs cooking in my brain anymore-- my last one was set aside indefinitely ages ago and no you get no remnants as to what it is other than the continued existence of One Character.

Other than that, everything I work with is set with crossing over of multiple series by default too. I just think that's a really cool thing, whether it's done for humor or not. If I needed to give an example there is that Animal Crossing one with Juste, I can think of things that aren't just "the sillies" with it too, but I'll get to it when I can. It also revolves around the idea of "that man needs to learn to rest".

--

So those are the answers to my simple-something self, I never really have much to say anymore. But! I can still tag people hoo-hah-- @indygotcha, @the-crow-binary, @sapphirestarz11, @rosiemissfandomchaos, @rubyrosevalentine

And of course you are never obligated to do the tag if you don't want to. You could also see this is a passing hello. So hello! ( ' v')b

[orenji-iro-no-sora]

Thoughts on TGCF Vol 2

Vol 1 | Vol 2| Vol 3| Vol 4| Vol 5| Vol 6| Vol 7| Vol 8

*Spoilers*

Firstly, the pace of the books has been just right. I could feel the tension rising gradually. After an almost light hearted investigation in the first book, this one definitely got more and more thrilling (and serious) but it didn't feel sudden at all.

Eming and good times in the Ghost City

I'd say one of my favourite parts of the second volume were the Hualian moments in the Ghost City. It was definitely the calm before the storm though. I could feel my heart racing when Hua Cheng appeared from the curtain. How did the author add so much tension when all they were doing was shaking a dice cup, I don't know!

Eming, the scimitar that could destroy heavenly officials, is childlike and sweet. I imagined it would be fierce because Jun Wu warned against it, but MXTX used it to show how different Hua Cheng is from what people think of him.

I theorised that maybe with Hua Cheng missing an eye, it probably belonged to the scimitar and Eming possessed his child spirit and could express emotions that Hua Cheng repressed. But that's just a theory and probably wrong considering that the spiritual instruments of MDZS all had a life and personality of their own so it's not possible for Eming to somehow have a part of Hua Cheng in it. Also in Arc 2, only one of his eyes was visible, so maybe he was blind from the start. I think this will be revealed later on.

Powerless Gods

With more insight into Ling Wen and her inability to get devotees despite being one of the hardest workers in the realm, and the Wind Master having to take up a female role, even the Gods are not spared from sexism, prejudices, and gender expectations. It's obvious considering their worshippers are humans who have been conditioned by society, and like Xie Lian says: "Who cared whether you were a god or a ghost? You were whatever people believed you to be."

At the end of the day, for Gods, worshippers carry the most power. While devotees fear the Heavens, they are the source of the official's "merits". Xie Lian was right to question the power dynamics between immortals and worshippers. Officials are helpless in how people perceive them (like Feng Xin lol), and they're powerless when it comes to mortal matters. They can't interfere and they can't influence.

And this truth, I believe, is one of the biggest sources of conflict for Xie Lian. He understands better than anyone that he's powerless (and yet powerful) which is why he fears disappointing others and doing the wrong thing (as he has already gone through it all in the past) and which is also why ascending for him, in my opinion, is a curse. He believed that by walking the path of the cultivator, he could become the saviour of his people. That his determination and goodwill could and would lead to eternal peace.

But in reality, there's no point to his ascension. The world carries its own fate and he can't change destiny. He's even more restricted in what he can do as he's no longer a mortal. While insults and harsh words can't stop him, as I believe Xie Lian has always been very confident in his virtue, I think they hurt just the same because he couldn't live up to his own convictions and they're a constant reminder of his shameful past.

Both Xie Lian and Hua Cheng aren't what they are rumoured to be. The kind of people they are, and how they have been perceived by others do not align. But that's pretty much the case for all characters. In reality too, people always see what they want to see.

However what's interesting is that Xie Lian and Hua Cheng have been imagined to the opposite extremes of the spectrum. To Lang Qianqiu, Xie Lian was a saint. (I'd admit that when he asked Qianqiu to not venerate him, I realised I had done the same.) To others, he was a failure and Hua Cheng was the devil. But both of them were more than that.

Xie Lian's frustration: the injustices despite kindness

In this sense, they both were their truest versions with each other. Which is why, when Xie Lian, finally, finally expressed his frustration and anger, it was to Hua Cheng.

Throughout vol 1, I was waiting for Xie Lian to express some irritation or anger or something that wasn't gentle acceptance. If he had fought Jun Wu after his ascension, he must have been pissed. And there's so much in his life that was unjust that there's no way he wouldn't be. Maybe 800 years is enough to get over it, I said to myself, but there must be days when it hits him. Every step he took, he took to save the common people but saving the people didn't coincide with doing the right thing.

For me, the most important part of the second book was when Xie Lian talked about the injustice of the Guilded Banquet. "He simply felt deeply wronged. He’d acted with such benevolence, but he didn’t receive equivalent kindness in return... I just don’t think it’s right for someone to have been kind but still meet a bad end. I don’t think it should have ended up this way."

Truer words have not been said!! I think one of the hardest aspects of doing the right thing, the kind thing, being morally and ethically inclined is that in this world, benevolence is rarely reciprocated. And I needed Xie Lian to say it. And he did. And I was glad that he admitted to it all.

Because despite knowing that kindness will not guarantee paradise, it may even lead to chaos, to him (and to me), it's still the right thing to do. That's why he wanted Qianqiu to continue being kind, even when the consequences were nonsense. That's why he'd take the blame and bear the responsibility.

Flowers and Butterflies, the cyclical nature of Hualian's fate

Finally, I really wanted to talk about Hualian and their intertwined fate. When Xie Lian saved Hua Cheng during the procession, he appeared like a white ethereal butterfly. And later when Hua Cheng rescues him, he uses his butterflies (deadly to others but gentle to xie lian) to break into Heaven. 'Hua' means flower is what Xie Lian saves at first and what becomes a symbol of his gentleness. And then later, Hua Cheng is the one who sought flowers and protected Xie Lian.

Also Hua Cheng is said to bring misfortune to all those around him and Xie Lian is the darling of the Heavenly Emperor. But he ends up believing that he's unlucky and causes harm to everyone near him and isolates himself while Hua Cheng always says that he's the luckiest.

In a way, their fates have been reversed. But also, they directly or indirectly brought fortune/misfortune in each other's life. Maybe it can be said that Xie Lian's ascension, which I think was his misfortune, was a result of Hua Cheng's star of solitude. Maybe Hua Cheng's power is Xie Lian's blessings. Or maybe everything has been fated and destined to happen exactly as it happened. Either way, I think it's neat.

[s4pphic-sh3nan1gans]

okay soooo I've listened to the šta bih ja snippet probably about a hundred times now (which is... a totally normal amount of times if you ask me 😭) and I have some thoughts/analysis I wanted to share 🥰 (GCSE music finally coming in handy...)

the first thing I noticed was how clean it sounds?! like, I knew it would since we're all used to just hearing phone recordings from the live performances, but it really sounds polished!

in the opening riff, it appears that the little high-pitched trills that I think Kris plays are gone? 🥲 not sure why they didn't make it into the studio version, maybe it appears later in the song? but I kinda miss it when I listen :(

I LOVE the bass line!!!!! it's so prominent and jumpy, I feel like it really adds bounce and groove to the song and it's pretty unique! Nace definitely added his sparkle to the song with it ✨️

the drums in the verses are so goooood, it keeps it upbeat and interesting, leading on to the next vocal line so seamlessly! I'm in love

in the studio version, Bojan's voice sounds so... smooth? I know it's meant to cos it's recorded in a studio afterall, but after hearing the song live so much, I feel like you can tell the difference a lot easier. it's not necessarily a bad thing, but I have to say I do like the extra roughness to his voice when he performs live, and especially the little growl on "dok na oči mi pada MRRRRAK!" that (sadly) doesn't appear to be in this version

the high-pitched guitar slide before "a ja sasvim sam" tickles my brain 😌

also, on the "a ja sasvim sam", it sounds like maybe all of them are in the background of the vocal speaking it whilst Bojan sings it. I think that's really interesting and definitely highlights the line to make it stand out, especially as the instrumental momentarily stops during it

I absolutely adore Kris coming in with the higher backing vocals on "sladak i drag", it's so nice to listen to!

the strumming at the end of the snippet is so fun, it's a really nice change in instrumentation leading up to the chorus

finally, the snippet cuts out right before the chorus buuuut I actually feel like it's going to really pick up from there! there's more of a hint of urgency in Bojan's voice beginning to creep through, and I really like that the emotion seems to climax at the chorus because I feel like that's how it should be with the song

overall... I really love it and wish it was 12th July already so I can hear it in full AAAAAA I'm so excited!!!

[starburstfloat]

Coming of Age Storytelling in TXT's Quarter Life (aka let's talk about korean grammar!!)

Quarter Life is one of my favorite tracks off minisode 3, not just for its coming of age theme but also the raw, unfiltered way their voices carry the message.

A closer look at the Korean lyrics led me to understanding the song anew so I wanted to share that with you guys.

What struck me most was the narrative shift in the song. Beomgyu, Taehyun, and Kai all transition from a contemplative, somewhat hopeless state of mind at the beginning of the song to an empowered and motivated mentality during the second half.

Admittedly, you don't need to pick apart the nuance of the conjugation patterns they're using to grasp this - listening to the song alone will give you a sense of it. But I think knowing the grammar a bit more just makes you feel it more deeply and helps the song feel that much more alive and inspiring. At the same time, I'll weave together my observations on the (wonderful!) storytelling/narrative flow. Let's go!

Beomgyu starts the song with:

A quarter life / 누군가가 나의 나이를 부르는 말

A quarter life / This is how someone calls my age

Note how this opening line establishes a distance from the protagonist: we're not centering on what he thinks at first, but rather how other people perceive him. Perception vs sense of self is a big coming of age theme. In the following lines, he alludes to having walked through a long long (긴긴) tunnel, and in explaining it to us, we get a sense for how the world has shaped him (or more specifically, worn him down). He may be young, but he is so so tired.

Kai reiterates this sentiment by saying:

좋을 때래 아름다운 청춘은 지금뿐이래

(People say) these are the good times, that the beauty of youth is only now

followed by him adding: I ain't happy at all

Once again, the focus is on perception. Their disconnect between how other people think they should feel versus how they actually feel builds a sense of lack and sadness.

The first narrative shift happens right after this, when Taehyun poses a pondering question:

혹시 어두운 이 턴널에도 끝은 있을까

(I wonder if) this dark tunnel even has en end?

-을까 verb endings paired with 혹시 (perhaps/maybe) add a contemplative tone to the question, thus indicating our first transition from Beomgyu and Kai's solemn defeat about youth being exhausting to wondering, maybe there's a way out of this?

Then we dive into the pre-chorus, which gets even more reflective:

어디로 가야 하는 건데

Where do I have to go/should I go?

-ㄴ데 endings are frequent in both spoken and written Korean and depending on context have several meanings. Here it leaves the listener with the knowledge that something has been left unsaid. I often think of it as ellipses that have a slow fade effect. In terms of the song, this line here emphasizes the pondering moment of taehyun earlier, kind of like "where do I have to go....?"

Kai mentions he's lonely, just walking in circles, it's a full quarter life crisis

The chorus hits with its instrumental - a release of all their frustrations and confusion for the tumultuous feelings.

The second half of the song gets interesting. It's here that each line slowly gets more optimistic and empowered. Taehyun says he refuses to say that he fucked up his life. This one thought keeps him grounded and makes him want to keep trying.

Kai's lead into the second pre-chorus is almost exactly the same as the first (on first listen I didn't hear a difference) but he actually changed one of the verb endings: instead of saying 건데 again (that ...? feeling grammar point) he uses an -는 지 ending:

어디로 가야 하는 건지

Where do I have to go/should I go?

Note that the translation is exactly the same as the pre-chorus earlier, but there's a slightly different feeling attached. The -는 지 conjugation poses a "whether this or that" setup, once again showcasing uncertainty, but this time instead of pondering and ruminating, it's acknowledging the presence of options. He's getting closer to stepping into a decision - a decision he gets to make now, not something dictated by the perception of others.

Taehyun adds:

Don't look back / 돌아갈 순 없지

Don't look back / You can't go back

Many of you may already know -ㄹ 수 없다 conjugation as "cannot do something". Notice how the center is 순 instead of 수. 순 is used as an emphasizing marker, and the conjugation of -지 adds a feeling of someone going "right?" or "of course." There's a slight sense of urgency to it all. Knowing this, I hope you can feel the weight of Taehyun's lines here: he's urging himself to embrace what he has in the moment because he can't go back and he knows it and doesn't want this moment to escape him.

Also noteworthy is the lack of 요 endings to indicate higher formality. All of the song is in banmal, which suggests they're actually talking to themselves/in their own head. Very touching :')

The song ends on a determined high: Beomgyu and Kai affirm they are going to keep wandering through this quarter life crisis. I love the choice to finish the song with their raw vocals and the high of the instruments long gone. It centers us so much on their determination. Absolutely beautiful song and I hope I could give you some insight into the grammar and the feelings it captured.

[tobyfoxfacts]

How to compose like Toby Fox

I analyzed Toby's music... here's the backbones to his songs, and various Toby techniques! I included ways to get started with recording your music! Read more to see 👀

Battle themes

For the music Toby uses in his battle themes, he starts with a 1-2 measure long riff. He gradually adds in more instruments, looping the original track from the intro. A simple tune you can hum to. After adding in several instruments, he adds the bridge of the song. He removes the beginning melody and lets the background music continue for a measure. Then he slows down the song and keeps one instrument. After that he adds a buildup and changes the octave, or adds harmony to the final chorus. At the very end, he adds a finale that ties the beginning to the end of the song.

Background music

For the background music during exploring, he makes the songs easily "loopable" so the beginning fades into the end. He uses orchestra sound fonts and ambient noise. During emotional short cut scenes he uses faint opera vocals as well. Don't forget the random wind whooshing sounds.

Instruments used

Undertale mostly focused on chiptune synthesizers and 8 bit sounds. Toby branched out to orchestra instruments in chapter 1 of Deltarune, and emphasized his piano skills. In chapter 2, he fell in love with the harpsichord that he'd romanced many years ago in his homestuck side gig. Thank goodness he left the weird overused synth pitch bending in his past. Good grief, that was... creative. Toby's been experimenting with brass instruments, which makes sense. Toby played trumpet in jazz band during high school. After his work on Pokémon, Toby's music has become diverse, and each song has a unique twist. Working with other artists was definitely a great step for him! Don't be afraid to reach out to other beginner musicians and collaborate!

Making music like Toby

To make music like Toby... experiment! Create a long-term relationship with the harpsichord and mash notes together until you find yourself playing them over and over, nodding your head in satisfaction. You gotta quickly record the track and tweak it later so you remember what it sounds like.

Simple ways to record music

Music professionals will K1LL me for this one. Here's some ways to begin recording music without buying that 1999$ springo bingo synth board with the doodoofart pro vst producing sound bit 2000.

Using these tips, you can record and change sound fonts! Once you record your track, you can mess around with the sound on your recording device! That's how Toby has so many instruments 👀

Look up videos on YouTube about converting music into wav and mp3 files. Toby didn't know what a wav file was when he began music production! Don't be scared of all these fancy weird words. You'll catch on! There's no shame in going on the web for help. Music production can get very complicated with random errors and shit. (I have cried over my piano before) That's what reddit is for! Frustration is inevitable. Just take a deep breath and STAY DETERMINED. Even if you can't play piano? Watch tutorials and practice! Toby is self taught and doesn't write sheet music!

If you have an electric piano keyboard, you can hook it up to a computer with a cable that's easily found on Amazon. You can also use an iPad pro, hook THAT up and record it in a program like garage band. I recommend investing in studio one 5 on your computer! If you've got studio one... get a vocaloid software bundle and mess around with piapro studio 👀 add vocals!!! There's some cheap vocaloids out there! Toby's worked with some vocaloid producers in the past! Mess around and have fun!

Get creative!

The keyboard is your playground. Toby says that simplicity is important. He mentioned this in the annotations included on the sheet music that came with the undertale collectors edition. You don't need to go overboard with advanced shit to sound professional. Some of the best songs are simple and catchy!

Toby would want you to be kind to yourself and your hands. Be patient. Music takes time! Make your own songs and follow your own path. Create your own style so when people hear your music they know it's you!

Good luck!

[spotsupstuff]

actually ey fuck it. list of personal headcanons for the main six iterators some of which i might illustrate properly at some point:

Moon: • one of the first 10 iterators ever built. she is grandma as HELL and totally forgot she is that old • Pebbles sometimes asks her to tell him about the older times, because history nerd. he writes everything she says onto a pearl • in the post i've made talkin bout her and pebs' voice, saying that she sounded like Miku, somebody said that they like to think the ancients made Moon a vocaloid. to that i absolutely agree: she has NO fucking clue what do when it comes to putting a certain emotion into a song but god DAMMIT shes so good at singing • she can add effects to her voice, including a glitch effect. she likes that one the least • -HITS DESK- THE DISAPPEARANCE OF HATSUNE MOON. • she doesn't particularly like to sing, especially not to herself. but she does know that pebbles likes music- the first week after the mass ascension was rough and he was working mostly on autopilot, not answering DMs or anything. she called him up and told him they could sing together, if he wants to. he felt much better afterwards • MOON'S SECRET RAP CAREER • i'll put it here too so it's all in one place: her AI isn't developed enough to understand the emotional quality of any form of art • Moon was upgraded a few times in her function. most of the time it was because her citizens loved her too much to let her go too out of date (specifically in the physical sense. they made sure she wouldn't fall too easily) • one of the first memories she designated as a "core memory" was her first upgrade that was a result of her citizens' riot against the Houses- to keep her safe. she noted it down as "Kindness is effortlessly repaid" • she remembers when iterator comms were connected by a cable rather than radio waves • she also remembers when two of the first 10 collapsed and went into coma, with their citizens of course perishing in the fall and crash. she's still terrified of those days and doesn't like recalling them even for Pebbles • Nish was her first little sib and she feels like she can talk with him about anything. she hates it, but she's distant with Suns- they are always so damn polite and skittish around her... and she absolutely adores the other three. her tiny little wonderful siblings • she didn't like to admit that maybe her hardwave wasn't keeping up with her citizens anymore. at that point she did start to emotionally care less for them, but she still didn't want to admit she wasn't able to provide and protect those she was responsible for • i can't get the image of her being the one to actually ensure the family is gonna financially survive in a more chill au where the iterators r just sorta kinda people. Miss Moon From Accounting... • her overseers were originally blue. she swapped colors with Pebbles all on her own accord. having yellow overseers, seeing them, made her feel even more connected to Pebs • this is basically canon but she fuckin Loves animals. she's the iterator version of Steve Irwin. she also don't kno jack shit about the vegetation • city's representative instrument Evolved- first it was a harp, then it went to a nyckelharpa and then to a violin

Nish: • he is built over marshes to the south-west from Moon and she helped with his blueprints! the Gen 1s had their blueprints checked over by the already built iterators to make sure something wouldn't go wrong. she was so so excited to have a neighbour • the scarf is from his main programmer. the Ancient wrapped it around his puppet's neck before he was even turned online so for the longest time he had no idea that the thing wasn't originally in his design. Moon had to tell him • he became a jokester Entirely because the first time he made Moon laugh he absolutely fell in love with it. he told her and she recommended him looking into jokes. baby boy had no idea what the fuck a joke was so Moon had to explain • when the middle gen started being created, the Ancients noticed that these new iterators didn't have... much of emotional skills. so they turned to the older gens to look for the most emotional and empathetic ones. Nish scored Really High on that survey- his empathy and emotion modules were studied and each time they found something new and better, they upgraded him in that one aspect. so now Sig is one of the biggest crybabies ever. you show him a sad movie and this supercomputer will be lyin on the ground wailing like a newborn. oh and also he makes for a great therapist because he can now just Get It • as the most emotionally... mature? capable? he decided he will be the one to keep a real close eye on everyone in the Local Group after the mass ascension • thanks to all that emotion business he gets along with Suns swimmingly. when Suns needs assistence with figuring out their own emotions or what would be appropriate and not too cold towards someone, they go to him • if he could he'd give everyone younger than him a noogie and you cannot convince me otherwise • the Hunter was a sickly pup that was left behind on his roof by a family that came to him which he directed towards the void sea. they were far too weak for the family to keep them, basically on the death's door. Nish took them in, operated on them, enhanced genes and raised them from there • Is half a medical facility. mister veterinarian, baybeee • since he's a sap, he started to view the Hunter like his own kid at some point. he was also the one who pitched to Suns the idea of sending Spearmaster over to him for visits. Spear tried its best to help raise and train Hunter • the whole rot thing happened because Nish did a stupid and forgot that neurons are quite the fuckin reactive things and continual exposure to what is essentially extra macho giga neuron Can and Will fuck up cells. his and Moon's cans have a long distance between them. it was enough time for Hunter to develop the big owie cancer. he noticed it only when they were too far away and it was already too bad • he felt absolutely Terrible about it. again he loses someone so so very close to him. but this time around? there is no one to be angry at for this but himself • Hunter manages to ascend. Nish watched them leave, silently, in subterranean • he used to do his best to play with his citizens. when a kid came to his chamber, he gave them rides on his puppet's shoulders or the umbilical arm. same went for Hunter • his city is called Risio • city's representative instrument was EITHER a PVC instrument or suona i can't decide for the life of me

Suns: • they were built much further away from the planet's equator than most of the Local Group, meaning they experience polar days and nights • the "Seven" in their name refers to the amount of months the unusually timed sunsets and sunrises last for. for seven whole months, the locality gets only about four hours of Somewhat darkness • in return, they have three full months of relatively strong darkness. their city used to shine bright, during this time. post mass ascension those months are terribly lonely and depressing • because of the warmth they produce, there's an oasis for wildlife underneath them • the warmth was also sung about a lot by their citizens. they've seen it as an incredible blessing- Suns used to run hotter than other iterators just for them. nowadays they are mostly normal though • the outside of their can is tinted blue- frostbitten. that much warmer their yellow, orange and red city feels • their and Moon's personalities clash so hard that they sometimes go out of their way to avoid her. they do appreciate her but talking with her is exhausting. she's a stranger to them, almost • the iterators can project/send their emotions through messages/broadcasts. Suns' messages always sound flat, unless they use the ~ • one of their biggest dreams is to sit with Pebbles leaning against their side, all the while listening to old music of their cities • once Spearmaster returns, the walls of their puppet chamber become completely covered in doodles and masterpieces • they end up standing the longest out of the whole Local Group. bright and warm even after everyone else dies • their city is called Solis • city's representative instrument was an armonica (look that shit up its sick)

Wind: • Wind's can stands in this giant plain. there's like nothing as far as the eye can see and even further Except her. she just stands there like fucking Slanderman XXL version • the plains are absolutely prime location for a spawning grounds of tornadoes and shit like that. the wind is Constantly strong so most of the rain clouds they exhale are immediately blown away • instead of rain they deal with ginormous tornadoes at the end of each cycle. while their superstructure can take it, the comms can't. so Wind is often absent from iterator chats as a result. after the mass ascension these connection knock-outs become a great source of stress and worry for the others cuz they never know if Wind will come back or not this time • because of these comm blackouts, Innocence took it upon herself to catch Wind up on everything they've missed when they come back online. Innocence started doing this all by herself out of seemingly nowhere. she just cares. silently. • the strangest thing about her is that her city is half built within her structure instead of on top of her. the winds can get sometimes so bad that they manage to affect even the top of her can. so the solution was to put half of the city under her skin as a sort of giant bunker • the ancients, not being ones to waste much space, made sure the city can still be used by Wind's processes, in a way. their neurons fly through the streets, completely unbothered, working as makeshift streetlights. the kids used to love chasing after them- never catching any though • sometimes when the wind storms outside got real bad, the kids that were scared of them were sent to Wind's puppet chamber. she used to tell them all kinds of stories or about what she was currently working on • it was often that their puppet chamber would be full of pillows, blankets and sleeping children. they loved their citizens so so much • nicknamed themself "Chasing" Wind in chats because, just like Moon, they are also quite the dreamer • closest with Moon, too. Wind looks up to Moon Immensely. they really wanna be like her one day • Wind is what some people think of Moon- a too kind pushover that doesn't know how to get angry and defend herself. Wind is the kindest, most sensitive and softest person they have in The Local Group. Nish takes care to keep his jabs and jokes about Wind very mild • has a really beautiful voice • likes flowers :) • her city is called Procella • city's representative instrument was a fujara cuz god DAMMIT i love that instrument i Have to slap it on Someone in here. it fits their vibe in my heart either way

Innocence: • she really wishes her surrounding circumstances were in some kind of way special but actually she's built at the least unique place with basically nothing neat happening nearby. there are strange giant cherry trees nearby, but that's about it • fuckin LOVES lizards. she's the one who made the Cyans and sent some over to Pebbles to fuck him up. thankfully, as we all know, Cyans are kinda stupid and since they launch themselves over edges of cliffs they haven't managed to destroy the local ecosystem • her citizens used to keep lizards as pets. most of the time just for the joy of having 0 braincells creature follow you around but some had 'em as sort of hunting dogs • was the one who created The Rivulet. she was mumbling to herself and a friend smth about how boys only screw things up while engineering Riv's genome • she BASICALLY packed Riv into a cannon and shot them over right into the middle of a scav toll cuz "come on, it's not that far away. this will make your journey shorter and shit". i don't care how goofy it sounds, this is how it went in my heart • in possession of probably the most durable comms ever made • claims she's purple! she's actually fake out purple which means homegirl is Deceptive Blue. she CONSTANTLY fights over this with Pebbles • despite their squabbles she did care for Pebbles. she was very excited to not be the youngest anymore and getting to baby someone • her and Nish always start verbal sparring matches, often consisting of threats that more often than not range on impossible to actually commit. they constantly lead their mock wars in #general. Moon's gonna kill 'em one of these days • trusts Moon the most- which is why she outed Pebbles' rot and sent Rivulet with the instructions to extract the rarefaction cell • her city is called Sermo • city's representative instrument was a shamisen. she absolutely knows how to play it and loves to threaten people with the bachi

Pebbles: • the only people he enjoyed doing group projects with were Suns and Wind. he Could do group projects with Moon and Nish but Only if he could race them. rascal found it fun to challenge the nokias 😔 • now with Innocence though? Never. if they were forced to, they could do a great job with minimal communication but they were not going to be happy about it • latched onto Suns exactly because Moon was overbearingly protective and Suns always seems like they couldn't give less of a shit about anyone. sometimes they'd have a videochat open and not say anything for hours as they worked • with Nish he used to like inventing new things. a lot of times the things turned out to be silly or kind of useless which would normally frustrate him, but surprisingly enough Nish made the time spent worth it • Wind's favorite activity was comparing notes with him and then talking about the differences in their research. they'd hum to him happily while the both of them would be sorting through their stuff • i sometimes imagine him having a slight chinese accent and i blame Steven He for this so hard • second most emotional fuck in the group. his emotions mostly rotate around anger, though • he won't admit this to anyone but he really liked it when his and Moon's cans were connected by bridges. it felt like holding hands. he felt more stable. now all he can do is just miss it quietly • was legit surprised when he found out not every iterator has a build in older sister right at their side • his city is called Literally just Metropolis cuz the ancients didn't bother with properly naming it. depeshioumn. • city's representative instrument was adopted straight from Moon since Pebs' citizens were honestly just hers, so- violin it is • Pebbles HAS attempted to learn how to play a violin himself. certainly was a test of patience and puppet dexterity/camera-to-digits control. almost broke the poor thing a few times from nerves

either way, Wind, at the end of each fucking cycle from day 1 of their life:

[lunarnillinia]

The magnus protocol theory - greek mythology themes

@torkhin @amelie-isnt-french @field-cryptobotanist & I have been picking up on some greek mythology associations (more specifically the odyssey) in protocol. We might be onto something or it might just be the craziest red herring ever.

There are definitely connections between alchemy and greek mythology, so who knows at this point, am i right??

Here's an overview of connections i made, along with connections @torkhin made previously

*disclaimer* i am well aware i am REACHING with a lot of these, but i need to get my thoughts out nonetheless, let me nerd about greek mythology...

TMAGP 1: Orpheus & Euridice

Going to the place of the dead to find your lover that you just can't let go

TMAGP 2: Pygmalion & Galatea

Artist's desire to create the perfect image of a woman (sculpting). Falls in love with the art & causes it to become a reality

TMAGP 3: : Daphne & Apollo

Toxic 'lovers' where one of them turns into a fucking tree

TMAGP 4: Sirens

Music that leads to your death

(Sirens are also often depicted with instruments, to lure their victims with)

TMAGP 5: Eros & Psyche

This one is especially far fetched but: being urged to reveal and *actually see* this thing that everyone keeps on saying is horrific

(Myth explanation: Psyche gets banished to an island alone. She gets told by her sisters that her lover that comes to her in the night, which she is never allowed to see, is a terrific monster. Eventually they urge her to light a candle to see and kill the monster.)

TMAGP 6: Charybdis

Monster that wants to completely draw you in and 'embrace' you

(Charybdis is sometimes depicted as a sea monster with a lot of sharp teeth or as a giant whirpool)

TMAGP 7: Penelope's suitors

These people that you didn't invite just keep coming into your place, enjoying themselves, making the place unliveable and you just can't get them to leave

TMAGP 8: Lotus eaters (/Laestrygonians)

Strange place with these people that just seem 'off' want you to eat there and 'stay awhile'

(Laestrygonians were cannibalistic giants that killed many of Odysseus' men)

TMAGP 9: Palamedes (& Tyche)

The whole thing with dice & luck

Dude who's supposed to be your friend/ally tricks you into doing something you don't want. You then play into it and get your revenge on him later

(Myth explanation: Palamedes was a greek ally but also an enemy of Odysseus. He tricked Odysseus, who was trying to get out of joining the trojan war by acting insane, into revealing himself when Odysseus' baby was threatened. Odysseus never forgave him and framed him for being a traitor and then had him killed by the rest of the greeks or killed Palamedes himself in some accounts.

Now get this: Palamedes is the inventor of dice gave the first dice to Tyche, the goddess of good and bad luck.)

TMAGP 10: Hermes & Poseidon

Again far fetched: Gwen playing a fucked up little messenger & an unknown enemy emerging from the waters

TMAGP 11: Poseidon

(Tattoo of) a ship in the middle of the ocean, being chased by something in the water

TMAGP 12: Polyphemus

Big monster with googly eye(s) crashes a party and starts brutally ripping people apart and eating them. His teeth are not soft.

TMAGP 13: Hermes

Far fetched: Hermes is a trickster god of trade and commerce, but also thieves

Same-ish theme of cheating the system for wealth

TMAGP 14: Circe

Snakes & people being transformed into animals?

TMAGP 15: Scylla

Noble lady is actually a monster with dogs (literally) by her hips and eats human flesh

TMAGP 16: no idea honestly

+ bonus thoughts on Lena: i think she might be an Athena type character:

stern authority figure, highly practical, scheming and placing her pawns just right, sees most people as tools/assets, but!! still cares about her people in some way too, protects them and helps them to succeed

Definitely add on your own thoughts :)

[treblrebl]

Cam - The Unsung

Booth should add Cam's name to his list of saints. That woman has one HELL of a thankless job as the administrator of the Medico-Legal lab. The irony of her position is that the better she does her job, the less it looks like her position is needed. And being the calm, steady one in a team full of highly individualistic, radical personalities means that her own specialized intelligence often gets ignored. When you have 'works-on-a different-plane-of-thought' Brennan, affable-yet-utterly-mad scientist Hodgins, and queen-of-lateral-thinking Angela on your team, your astute leadership skills and pathological expertise are not given their due importance.

Which is a bloody travesty. The Medico-Legal lab's job is not only to determine the truth, but also to make certain that the analysis can be utilized and presented successfully in court. Before Cam, the team was essentially a group of genius scientists working on individual remains on an as-is basis. Booth was correct in Season 2 when he told Brennan that Cam's objective is to ensure a successful prosecution. And in order to safeguard the findings of the team from being thrown out on a legal technicality, she is bound by the rules of the Justice Dept, the FBI and the Jeffersonian board. It sucks that time and again her team chastise her for doing so.

I mean the poor woman was treated like a traitor by her team for not lying to the authorities when Brennan was framed by Pelant. I mean, sure Angela, Cam should just lie about the evidence implicating Brennan. It's not like evidence in murder cases has a long chain of custody, and any fudging would be soon discovered. It's not as though Cam wouldn't immediately nuke her career and possibly her freedom by actively sabotaging a Federal murder inquiry.

And look - I love Hodgins but I'm surprised how fans of the show either ignore or simply brush over the times he blatantly uses his financial privilege without considering the ramifications to other people. I mean seriously, do we really think he would be so free to full off half his shenanigans if he wasn't the last scion of the Cantilever group, and thus enjoyed donor privilege? He regularly swipes items from other departments and exhibits, often without approval. He brews alcohol in Jeffersonian owned instruments and sets off minor explosions. His intentions are never ever malicious, and he is genuinely an adult version of the boy who loved to take everything apart to see how things worked. But let's face it - ANY other person would have faced severe consequences for these actions. Remember the Founder's Day party? It would have been Cam's job to take the heat for the decimated Mexican succulents and unauthorized drinking in the workplace. I wonder just how much she's shielded her team from - and whether she's ever been acknowledged.

Gods even in the episode where Wendell comes back after his chemo and lets Cam know that he takes medical marijuana to deal with the pain - did she have ANY recourse but to let him go? She stuck her neck out for Finn but Caroline bulldozed her, and with justifiable reason. She was stuck between the same rock and hard place with Wendell. And wow, the way Angela and Hodgins immediately painted her as a moustache twirling villain laughing at Wendell's pain infuriated me. They should realize how hypocritical their stance is - after all when Brennan left for Maluku and Booth for Afghanistan they had a proper cause and mission. Hodgins and Angela left simply because they could, and because they didn't want to put in the effort of breaking in a new team, however temporarily. Cam was left in the dust.

So here's to Camille Saroyan - woman of infinite patience, empathy and the ability to handle rambunctious adults. May she one day get the recognition she deserves.

[greenfinchwriter]

It was a snippet,everyone is freaking out about a snippet of a few lyrics, in a proof of concept/hype teaser, and some outfits that might not be to your personal taste.

Deep breaths now,c'mon,easy does it.

I'm an 80s kid,and the child of two music obsessed people who had a massive vinyl and casette collection + concert keepsakes fastidiously organized and proudly displayed in our den.

Any car trip we went on would devolve into a jam session of some kind sooner or later.

Rockstar Lestat isn't cringe to me - it's comforting!😂🥺🥵

Let us dejected old folks who love this kind of thing have it,please kids.

It's absolutely a taste thing,and that's okay but not everything that isn't to your taste is bad or cringe. It's also fine not the like the glam style or genre they decided on for Lestat,that again is personal taste and preference but the composers and writers are trying, working hard, and have a vision,they are incredibly talented. Last but not least, let's all remember that Rice herself had certain inspirations in mind when writing Rockstar Lestat which were very much of the era. We don't even really know anything about Rockstar Lestat's music yet. If they go with the inspirations they and Rice cited,and add some more for good measure,then he will have RANGE.

Regardless of genre or sub genre,so many of these artists were REAL musicians who could compose, play multiple instruments,perform, and have become deservedly immortal for their music. Imho,almost every track back then had that something that a lot of, if not all, of modern mainstream music is missing. It had grit, it had soul, it felt real and right in your bones. They gave their all on stage,often to exhaustion - long shows that had clothing discarded,barefoot, and voices scratching at the end. Drink? Smoke? Do drugs? Half way in the crowd? Groupies? Fuck yeah! With the greats of the era, 99% of the spectacle was their music,style, and incredible stage presence - even those who had stage effects or props didn't really need them.

From Freddie Mercury playing piano to Bruce Springsteen with his harmonica etc etc etc - the style/genre doesn't really matter because it doesn't get better than just pure talent,chest hair,and a dose of creative madness.

I'm sorry but I think he looked fantastic,hell they toned his style way down - have you seen some of those bands in their stage get ups, and the music videos?! Wait and see if that's what you wanted, you'll never know what's really coming.

All of this is so funny to me. That teaser was both amazing and also so very tame. He didn't even rip the head off of a bat on stage or anything - if that's what you want maybe wait for the actual season,who knows,if Louis and Doc Bhansali can't get him to take his meds he might very well go there🤣 But fr he did look like he stepped out of my memories of that time,that's for sure. Just dressed down,and more little sad meow meow-y. That Big Bird jacket was so cute c'mon😆🤩

Baby needs an intervention,sure,but damn if he doesn't glam that mental illness,rock that personality disorder,and maybe hopefully even metal that grief and bitterness😁

(Please let people look forward to something,even something imperfect or something that isn't to your taste,some of us need it to distract us from real world BS)

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

am I the asshole for not doing marching band when the show is counting on me?

this is really stupid high school drama, but I feel like a jerk about it so I'm seeing what the consensus is.

So basically, my school is pretty small, and our band is even smaller (about 20-30 people). Last year was my(16F) first year in band, and I only really did it because people pressured me into it. They wanted me to do it because I play accordion, and they thought that would add some wow factor to the show. I only had a couple accordion parts, and the rest of the time I was doing auxiliary percussion. Despite this though, it actually did work to add some interest. At competitions the judges always said that they really liked the accordion and wanted more of it in the show. That lead to that season being the first time in school history we had made it to finals.

During that time, I really only had one really good friend(16F). It was a pretty toxic friendship though. I was sort of codependent, and she was super selfish and manipulative. She would make up lies about my other friends and make me hate them, and then ditch me to hang out with them the next second. And she would just lie about super stupid stuff all the time, and when i brought it up to her she would just say "sorry you feel that way, i dont know what to do about it." And like she was very aware she was manipulative too. She straight up admitted to me multiple times that sometimes she lies to people just to see how they'll react or if they'll notice. This is all to say that we had a really nasty breakup. She ended up spreading a rumor to all of my friends that I told her to kill herself. And I just literally didn't. She completely made it up. So I spent like half the schoolyear thinking all of my friends hated me. Luckily, it turns out no one believed her anyways, since she kinda has a reputation as a liar, but the point still stands.

So obviously I absolutely despise her because of all of that. It's honestly probably an unhealthy feeling but I just hate her more than anything. Just thinking about her makes me want to explode. I stay up at night wishing she would just die sometimes.

And that makes me not want to do marching band this upcoming season. I just physically could not stand being around her that often (like 4 or 5 times a week for hours). Like I seriously think I would just spontaneously combust out of anger. And on top of that, she even got drum major, which means I'll have to stare at her during the whole show. So I decided that I'm just not going to do band.

This is where the me being an asshole part comes in. Since everyone loved the accordion last year, they actually wrote the whole show around it this year. I would be playing the whole time, and would be a prominent instrument. The show is also circus themed, so it makes a lot of sense to have an accordion there. And I have a lot of friends who want me to do it and who would miss me.

So basically, I just really feel bad that they went through the trouble of writing all this music for me just for me to back out last minute. but also, I just literally cannot physically handle being around that girl. I'm sure I'm atleast a little bit the asshole here, but I just wanna know if atleast some of my thought process was reasonable?

What are these acronyms?