#it is several steps removed from the original material

[welcometomybraincomics]

Mother

Context! Context! Context!

I cannot state enough how much I love Mother. This one is actually a departure from Robits, what I call the Mother AU.

Setting: Vole and Streaker (named Lo-fi and Streaker at the time of writing) are not Cybertronians or created by them, but rather AI weapons made by the species invading Mother (the planet). At some point during their activation, they became sentient. They are deployed to help destroy Mother's guardians (her ambulatory plant children who imitate various creatures) and they are defeated. Sensing their sentience, Mother decides to turn the twins to her side. She enveloped them within her and breathed more life into them, granting them some semblance of free will (considering everything on Mother is sort of part of a hivemind, true free will is... not natural), imbuing them with loyalty and purpose (she revived them, they have now been charged with protecting her and her children), and blessing them with her mark (the mark of Mother is the evidence of plant life woven into the flesh/faux flesh).

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He stared into the lifeless eyes of the creature squatting in the mist. It looked like nothing he had ever seen before: long skinny forelimbs swept the ground, leaving ripples in the shallow waters of the dark swamp as equally skinny hind legs held its frail body erect. A mop of wilting leaves brushed over its face and head, hanging low over the rest of its stark white form reminding Lo-Fi of a weeping willow. 

Its bone-white body stood out against the dark swamp, even surrounded by mist. It sat crouched behind the shriveled root of some long-dead tree that sank sadly into the black water beneath it.

It gave him an odd feeling, one he couldn't quite describe. It felt foreign, but not in the same way invaders did. Those felt like vermin scuttling across Mother's skin, sending chills up his spine and filling him with hot and ugly anger. This? It felt almost dangerous. Everything about it filled him with a deep sense of wrong like it did not belong on Mother. That couldn't be right though, Mother's mark hung from its head, the branches leaving just enough space for the eyes to peek through. It looked of Mother, but it felt indescribably wrong. It made him want to do nothing but run deep into the forest and hide under the safe roots of the Great Elders. He couldn't though. Its gaze held him in place, as though if he looked away, even for an instant, it would be upon him, crushing him with its menacing air. 

—-

For a little more context look at Robits, The Epic Train Wreck Dumpsterfire of a Transformers sidestory AU

So, he didn't run. He held its gaze, staring at it for what felt like hours. It tilted its head to the side, almost quizzically, its willow branches dragging through the water and causing a ripple that sounded impossibly loud in the silence of the misty bog. The creature lifted a forearm and began moving forward on its knuckles.

Its movement sent his systems into panic, trying to pull up his weapons and a monstrous sense of dread rose in his chest and pressed his back, crushing him from both sides. His servos clicked frantically, trying to transform into any sort of weaponry, but nothing happened. He felt his head heating up as his ventilation systems failed to activate. He frantically opened his vents hoping for cool air to naturally circulate through him, relieving his overheating circuits, but all that came in was an unmistakable feeling of death and decay.  

The creature brought its other arm forward, taking another step closer to the helplessly panicking mech when a twig snapped somewhere behind it and the whole world spun into darkness. Suddenly, Lo-Fi found himself sitting up, weapons drawn and ventilating hard. His head swung around manically, his eyes taking in the view of a bright clearing filled with sunlight and surrounded by tall, healthy trees filled with green leaves and beautiful flowers. He began to calm down, recognizing his surroundings. He was home. Deep in the heart of the forest, surrounded by life and sound which warmed his mechanical heart. He sucked in a deep breath and listened to the sounds of bird song, insect chirps, and the rustle of leaves that indicated someone was on the hunt. He exhaled and disengaged his weapons. 

He looked beside him to the sleeping form of his brother whose red plating reflected the sun in brilliant white beams. His arms were wrapped around the leafy pelt of Nex, whose feline eyes boreholes of concern through the blue mech as his brother snored peacefully.

"You alright?" She asked, one ear twitching in concern.

"Yeah, I think so." Lo-Fi answered, breathing shakily. His friend continued to stare at him in concern. "It was just a bad dream." He smiled trying to reassure her.

She slipped out of  Streaker's hold and stalked towards Lo-Fi. The red mech grumbled something at her leaving but rolled over to take the warm spot she had left in the grass and settled back into sleep, his wings twitching lightly in what was likely a dream of flying. "Must have been some dream for you to freak out like that." Nex mused, brushing herself comfortingly against Lo-Fi's blue metal before settling against his back and wrapping her tail around him. "Wanna talk about it?"

Lo-Fi could still feel the eyes of that thing staring into him with its dead, hollow eyes. He shivered all over, his plates clinging together as they each moved independently to try and shake the ugly feeling of those eyes. No way in hell he was going to relive that all again when he had just escaped it. He shook his head. “No, not right now. Anything but that now. I need something to distract me. How’s your training to become the Mammalian Elder going?” He asked, trying to change the subject.

Nex gave him a concerned look before answering.

~~~

By the time Streaker had woken up, his brother and Nex were neck-deep in a conversation about politics. Uhg, boring. He didn’t bother interrupting, knowing they would be too engrossed to even notice him, transformed and went to go find his charges. Surely, the insectoids would have something more interesting than politics to talk about. He scoffed at the thought as he dove through the clouds. Who would willingly talk about that? It was so boring and confusing, all it ever did was give everyone a headache. He sighed heavily as he flew over the forest and allowed the view to rip everything else from his mind. 

His charges were exactly where he thought he would find them. Right by the entrance to their cave already eating their breakfast. They had always been early risers. Said it had something to do with “getting the best grub,” what that had to do with getting up when the sun rises he had no idea. 

“Hey, sprouts,” He said, transforming from a plane back into his bipedal form and landing a few feet away from the two insectoids. “What are the plans for today?”

Shesq shrugged nibbling on an aphid. “Nothing much, just entering the last few lines of code for the suits and repairing the damage from the last attack.”

Skela nodded, shoving the last bites of whatever bug she had managed to capture into her mandibles. Streaker couldn’t be sure of what it was today, she never really stuck to a strict diet, but from what he saw from the air, it looked like she had nabbed a big one today. Somehow, between him spotting the sisters' camp and landing, she had managed to devour the entire thing. It was kind of scary how fast she ate. “We were hoping you and Elder Blue could help us with some of it. A lot of the code got corrupted by the foreigners and we can’t quite remember all of it.”

The mechanoid leaned against a tree and nodded. He had first-hand experience with the code corrupting virus their planet’s attackers had created to try and decommission the tech which protected Mother’s surface. Originally, that had only been he and his brother, but they had spent the last few decades constructing mechanical weapons and suits for the other defenders to use so the virus’s use had spread. Thankfully, they had taught most of the pilots and gunners the ins and outs of their weapon’s programming and mechanics so they didn’t have to travel halfway across the planet every time something broke. The sisters, however, were only sprouts, practically fresh out of the ground, their marks hadn’t even fully come in yet, so it was only logical that they would still need some help. “Yeah, of course. Lo-Fi’s doing something right now, but I can help.” He walked into the cave where two mech suits lay dormant, waiting for their next use. “I’ve got a firewall that we’ve been working on to repel the viruses too.” He climbed up on one of the mechs, straddling its neck so he would have a good hold, opened up an access panel on the back of its head, and typed in a few passwords, opening up the coding. “What are you guys stuck on?”

The gorls, for reference

[perseruna]

Endiness made a beautiful long post with all his quotes on that topic that I think is very informative and worth looking at, so here’s a link to that. And with that already discussed, I thought I’d make a thread of all his changes that we are aware of, because when you look into them, you find that none of his “book accurate” changes are actually book accurate. 

His decision to make Geralt grunt and cut his lines.

HC: "All the grunts, I either added or I didn't say anything and just grunted instead. It was often up to the other actors to go, 'I think he's not gonna say anything now.'"

JB: "Henry likes to cut his lines, 'cause he's lazy. No, he literally just likes to cut them. He likes to do more up here [frames his face with his hands] and just with face and hmms and grunts. There's a lot of hmms, and so I often have to take a lot of his lines and turn it into a lot of my stuff so that the plot happens."

So, as everyone who has read the books knows that Geralt is and always has been a yapper. Gerakt often talks or thinks in monologues, and definitely not in short grunts.

Of course when the audience started making fun of Geralt for not being able to speak in full sentences Henry promptly went back on admitting the blame and instead said that the big bad writers were the ones who didn't give him lines, and now it was his life’s mission to fight for a book accurate Geralt who speaks. 

Roach’s death scene

After S2 came out, Lauren received a lot of backlash for Roach’s death scene, with multiple sources citing that she wanted the moment to be more “comedic” before the brave Henry Cavill stepped in and refused to participate in such horrible anti source material activities.

LH: "Henry was so unhappy with the line. Finally I said, 'You know what, you come up with something. I trust you, you know this material so well, you know the book so well, you don't even have to pitch it to me.' And he came back the next day with a beautiful speech that's at the end of 'Sword of Destiny' when Geralt is facing death.”

This is the line he ended up using:

“Enjoy your last walk across the meadow and through the mist. Be not afraid of her for she is your friend."

This was Lauren’s response AND the original line.

LH: “Here's what was scripted, in homage of the fact that a previous Roach had existed, and another one will exist soon. It's hardly a joke. Henry wanted a longer, more emotional moment, which I was more than happy to give him. Don't create drama where none exists.”

So in S2 Geralt ends up quoting a part of his monologue from ‘Sword of Destiny’ when he’s at his lowest after thinking that Yennefer had died at the battle of Sodden Hill, and he has nothing left to live for. Which to me doesn't work that well with Roach at all. That line was a response to Geralt thinking he's lost the love of his life, not his horse. In my opinion, the original line Lauren penned out is more heartfelt and actually more emotional and more book accurate as well.

The absolute removal of any Triss and Geralt “romance”

This one we don’t have that much information on in comparison to others. But there were multiple reports that at the beginning of S2 Triss and Geralt were supposed to have some kind of a romantic scene with each other which then was cut during production, and it was largely speculated that it was due to Henry Cavill. 

“Several months ago we reported on a sex scene happening between Geralt and Triss, sometime in the first half of Season 2. That didn’t happen, as we all saw, but here’s what we know about the original plan for that: Geralt and Triss are in a room together, they seem friendly at first. They are playing some kind of weird game. Whoever wins a round, gets to ask a question. We’re not privy to the exact flow of the conversation, but it eventually leads to both of them ending up in bed. We can only guess why this was cut, but perhaps it was thanks to Henry Cavill.”

Now, irrelevantly on your feelings on book Triss and Geralt you have to admit that that short-lived “romance” is indeed a part of the books and therefor book accurate. So the removal of it would go against Mr I’m fighting to make this show as much book accurate as possible. 

The removal of the Yen and Geralt sex scene in S2

"We just wanted to be very careful that it was true and real, and it didn't turn into something that we, as actors, didn't believe it should be," Cavill stated. When Yennefer and Geralt unite, they embrace, but it doesn't go further than that. He continued: "We wanted it to be emotional rather than sexual. It was really, really important, and we had to lean away from what was originally on the page." Initially, Geralt and Yennefer were written to have a more passionate night. Henry Cavill and Anya Chalotra went to "The Witcher" producers and explained why they thought a steamy evening was not the way to go. "These are people who believe one thing about the fate of another and then find out something else is true," Cavill said about Geralt believing Yennefer was dead. "That's not how they behave," the actor added. "How they behave is they just want to be with the person and emotionally recognize their existence again in that shared space.”

This one is a bit tricky because I am willing to get behind an actor who doesn't want to do a sex scene out of comfort reasons or whatnot, but Henry saying that "That's not how [Yennefer and Geralt] behave”, is quite absurd in my opinion. Because that is very much how Geralt and Yennefer behave, especially in the short stories and ToC. They are inherently a very sexual couple who come crashing in and out of each other’s lives while having very passionate sex. But I can understand wanting this scene to be more “emotional” (as if sex isn't emotional), so this one I am willing to give him a bit more leeway on. (But then again looking at the blinds saying that he refused any sex scenes because oh his “ideals” and was allegedly really nasty to Anya about it, well..)

Geralt being the perfect father figure to Ciri with no flaws and no struggles (which inevitably snowballed into the Yen Betrayal Arc)

This one I don’t see talked that much at all, and to me this one is his most detrimental one. 

@LHissrich: “In interviews, Henry explains how he felt strongly that Geralt NOT be bumbling, nor a struggling father figure. In fact, a lot of S2 is about how Geralt does come from a loving (albeit unconventional) family. Henry was passionate about this shift, and we discussed it a lot, and ultimately thought it was wonderful for his character development. But it also had the domino effect of changing what Ciri needed from Yen when she entered the picture. Thus, introducing the idea of balance.”

So I don’t know about you, but I love when characters have flaws and naturally progress be it for good or bad, some would say that that's what story telling is about, well that someone wouldn't be Henry Cavil. Geralt being a struggling father figure at first, someone who makes mistakes and learns from them and tries is very much a prominent theme in Blood of Elves and is actually very real, people make mistakes! Especially in huge shifts such as “becoming a father overnight’ but we didn't get that because Henry refused to play it that way. What we got is Geralt who already basically knows exactly how to parent, he always knows what to say, what pep talk to give and also doesn't hold any resentment and any negative feelings towards Vesemir at all. It's all one dimensional happy family here! Which goes against not only the books but what he preached about fighting tooth and nail to make the “forgotten” male characters three-dimensional as well because the horrible feminist Lauren only thinks about female characters. 

Lauren then goes on saying that “it also had the domino effect of changing what Ciri needed from Yen when she entered the picture. Thus, introducing the idea of balance” So, it is fair to speculate that Henry’s refusal to showcase Geralt having any flaws at all and act book accurate snowballed into The Controversial Yennefer Betrayal Arc. 

These are the ones that I can remember off the top off my head, so there might be more, there’s probably more that we aren’t even aware of. I think putting them all together showcase a very interesting picture. One of Henry Cavill never actually understanding who Geralt fundamentally is as a character, and of him not being a team player at all. I just hope that more and more people are aware of the insane PR his team did for him when it came to this show, and that more people are able to see through it. 

[teejaystumbles]

Happy Halloween! It's the last day of October and the last bingo square for the Monsterfucktober Bingo finished - "science gone wrong"!! 👻🧟🥰

I couldn't help writing a little story for this - find it under the cut! Thanks to @valiantstarlights for the idea of Hob reacting to Dream's voice!

Morpheus looked at his new creation and frowned at the mismatched skin tones of the shoulder and leg. He had tried to keep most of the man’s body parts but the left knee had been so badly crushed that he had rather used a whole different limb than try and repair or exchange the joint. It would make for much smoother maintenance than having to deal with an inserted knee joint that was much more prone to infection or damage. The upper left arm had also been badly damaged in the accident that led to the man’s death - well, near-death. His brain waves had been declared too shallow to warrant any actual activity. The man had had no family, and no friends had come forward or visited. The man had carried a donor card, though, and so, with no one to protest, he had been quietly shuffled into Morpheus’ lab with little fanfare. Morpheus knew that what his employers did to obtain his materials wasn’t strictly legal but he tried not to think too much about it. He was being paid very handsomely to do his research, and not just in theory.

He was very satisfied with this new try. It was only his second finished work, having been commissioned after the Corinthian was a sounding success - well, mostly. He huffed and set about disinfecting the needle he had used to close up the throat of the man. His employers had had only one complaint about the Corinthian-

He talks too much, and he talks back. No need to include capacity for speech in the next one, Doctor.

Morpheus looked at the young man’s handsome face and sighed. “I would have liked to hear your voice. I’m sorry.”

He turned around and switched on the life support to see if everything ran smoothly. While he cleaned up the lab there was only the quiet whooshing sound of the respirator. He knew it took time for the subject to come back to life. He would probably have to use the defibrillator to really get it going-

A sudden loud beep from the heart monitor made him jump and turn around.

The man was sitting up and staring at him. He’d removed the respirator mask and slowly pulled off the ECG monitoring electrodes. His eyes were wide and milky, not yet able to see. It was a condition the Corinthian had never recovered from - in the end Morpheus had given him bionic eyes. With this new subject he had hope that the original eyes of the man whose body he had used would recover once a steady circulation had been achieved. (They had been the most gorgeous brown eyes Morpheus had ever seen after Calliope left him and he hadn’t been able to switch them for bionic ones straight from the start.)

“That was fast. Good- Good morning,” he said, stunned at the man’s fast return to waking. Morpheus grabbed his recorder and switched it on. “Subject 002, Working title “Hope”, Day 62 - subject has awoken after life support was activated. No respirator necessary, it seems. Subject is alert and- hey, hey, what are you doing? Take it easy!”

He dropped the recorder as the man suddenly stood up from the metal table and stepped towards him, only stumbling once on the unfamiliar leg. Before Morpheus could stop him the man had boxed him in against his lab desk. Morpheus felt several papers shuffled and bottles getting pushed over by his elbows as he tried to keep his distance but the man nearly crushed him against the edge of the table. He smiled down at Morpheus, unseeing eyes still focused on him, and hummed. Morpheus gasped, shocked at this unusual display of coordination and force so soon after waking up. He needed to keep up the subject’s emotional balance, he needed to give positive feedback to not induce a backlash or violent reaction to an unfamiliar situation. The Corinthian had taught him that.

“You’re, you’re doing really well. This- this is great. Very good,” he praised, heart hammering, trying his best to keep his voice low and soothing.

Subject 002, “Hope”, grinned happily.

[muzanswaifu]

It’s Time for a Change

Original Pinned Post

Protesting the ban on NSFW content!

It’s time to make a change guys, a change that will benefit you, me, and the rest of us tumblr users that engage with the nsfw content we so love - the nsfw content that tumblr is censoring, removing, and banning users over. The slow trickle of censorship has caused many tumblr users to take their leave over the years, but the most recent was just the tip of the iceberg - community labels. So many smut blogs, including myself, have been getting censored over our writings, severely limiting our audience and affecting our blog growth. Nowadays, its nearly impossible to get started as a smut blog as tumblr will slap a censor over all of your posts before even a single person can read your beautiful work, preventing those who wish to make their own material for others to enjoy.

Smut is one of the most popular purposes for tumblr, the main reason that so many have even joined tumblr! Yet its getting censored nonetheless, the reason being to “protect the community” and the eyes of young ones, but if you take a gander over to the app store, tumblr has set its age rating to 17+! Adults! So why is it catering to an audience that isn’t even supposed to be on this app in the first place???

Please, please, please, sign this petition so tumblr can see that its audience is unhappy and needs change. I can see everyone suffering everyday from this censorship, writers and readers alike, and this is the first step toward improvement.

Thank you all who participate and give support, you are so loved.

If anyone has their own piece to add onto this post about their own experiences with this censorship, please message me and i will add it to this post with either your name or as an anonymous person (dm me as my anon is turned off in asks)

[see-arcane]

You'd say the new piorot movie is good? Because while I liked murder in the orient express for the most part, death in the Nile was horrible and it's kinda been skeeving me off from wanting to watch the new movie.

I'd give it a solid B+, speaking as someone who only read The Hallowe'en Party as pre-movie homework. I haven't dabbled deep in Agatha Christie's stuff, but I enjoyed the concept of the film enough to be curious and I got a fairly comfy-spooky mystery.

The only thing that tripped me up early on--what with me being Saturated in Gristle and Gothic Gruesomeness 24/7 for my usual media--was how everyone's dialogue felt so TV Classics dramatique (!), as if the vibe was going for a slightly hammed up stage play. But then, that's not too far removed from the book's own dialogue. I settled into the groove of the delivery pretty soon and it grew on me.

tl; dr: I think it was good! It took several long steps away from the bare bones of the original story, but it did that rare thing that adaptations and retellings are supposed to do: Add good material without sacrificing the payoff of the piece being adapted.

(And, minor spoilers, I think the climax is far richer for its eerie turn than Christie's milder version. Proper ghost story antics abound.)

[ihaventcomeupwthanameforaheroyet]

OK. I promised a head modification tutorial to @rijinks, but maybe other people can benefit from this lifehack, too. Please excuse my English – it's not my first language, and I struggled a lot while writing this. Also, it's my first doll-related tutorial ever, so please forgive me if it's lame.

First things first. If you ever decide to do this modification, please keep in mind that things may go wrong and you may destroy the head. I ruined a few heads while trying to make it work. I explained how to avoid this the best I can, however, it's better to have some spare heads for learning, just in case. Also, things can go wrong in a way I can't predict. If in doubt, please don't do it.

If you still feel like proceeding, you need a curved modeling stack with a ball-shaped tip (as on the photo below) and a pot of boiling water. You might need reuseable tea bags – I don't know if this is strictly necessary, but they help to avoid direct contact between the pot and the head (and I have a feeling this should be avoided), also this way you can retrieve the head from the pot without trouble. You might also need something to protect your hands while dealing with a head recently taken out from boiling water. On the photos I am doing everything with my bare hands, but different people have different resistance to high temperatures. I recently learned some people's hands have less resistance to heat than mine.

For demonstration, I am using a head which was already modified previously. This mold is called Sean, that's the mold I used for my Lestat doll, and I have a few spare heads left. So, I'll start with returning the head to its original shape (yes, this is possible), and then I'll remodify it again.

Step 1. The head should go into the boiling water and be there for a while. I can't define the time period, it differs from head to head. Maybe 5 minutes would be fine? It's not sufficient to put the head inside and remove it at once. The head should remain in the boiling water for awhile, it should warm up sufficiently to become less rigid and more flexible. Once you make it with a few heads, you'll learn to recognise this state. If in doubt, keep the head there for a longer period – in my experience, keeping the head in boiling water for a longer time didn't do any damage.

Also, if you put an already modified head into boiling water, it will regain the original shape. This way you can undo your modification if you don't like the results. You can even do it after a few months, as I just did – it will work anyway. Once again, the head should be in the boiling water for some time to regain the original shape. If you use boiling water to style a doll's head after rerooting (as I sometimes do), a modified head is likely to maintain its shape through a very short exposion to high temperature which is sufficient to fix the hairstyle. (But still, anytime I do it I am ready to lose the result of modification altogether. Maybe I am just lucky it never happened.)

So, we can see the head regained its original shape.

Step 2. Now, it's time to put the round tip of the stack into the head and press at the nose from the inside. You can apply pressure to any part of the nose, I chose the middle, but it's possible to apply pressure to the bridge of the nose and try to give your doll one of these beautiful Greek profiles. (I tried it several times, sometimes it doesn't work with a specific mold because the head material has limited flexibility, but sometimes it does.) This is THE DANGEROUS PART where things may go wrong. To achieve a noticeable result, you need to apply a lot of pressure, like, to make the face super deformed. (It won't remain this way, the actual level of deformation will be, like, a half or a third part of it.) But to ensure the modification persists, you should apply significant pressure for some time. That's the part where you may ruin a head altogether.

My advice on this:

1. Keep your eyes on the spot where you put the pressure. (I got distracted once, this was a mistake.) If you see that the layer of vinyl in the part of the head where you press is becoming too thin or is changing colour (in my case, it changed colour to white), STOP IMMEDIATELY, because you may tear the head. If the head wasn't torn but there's a spot that is badly deformed or changed colour – put the head back into boiling water, let it boil for a while, this may fix the damage.

2. Please try this method on a spare head before applying it to any doll head which is precious to you. I spoiled a few doll heads until I realized what amount of pressure is relatively safe. It also differs from head to head, even if they are from the same manufacturer. Be careful anytime you do it, I'm serious. And once again – do it at your own risk or don't, if in doubt.

Step 3. At this point, you just need some patience. As you continue to apply the pressure, the head cools down, and that's where the magic begins. I can't say how long it will take because it differs, my strategy is to remove the stack from time to time and see if the nose maintains its new shape. If it changes back to the original shape, the temperature of the head isn't low enough, and I proceed.

So, that's the result:

I more or less went back to where I was with this head (which was my intention all along).

Now let's put the photos together and take a closer look. We can see that the change affected more than just the nose. The shape of the whole head is different now: the face became longer, the eyes' shape also changed (in my experience, original makeup survives this transformation, but sometimes it really looks wrong with the new head shape), and the eyes are not as deep-set as they used to be. So, I am not sure if this face changed for the better or otherwise, but it's certainly different now. (Hopefully, one day I'll find the time to reroot this head and give him a body.)

Finishing notes. I can say the modification is more or less stable under room temperature – I started this in the beginning of 2023, so, my first modified heads maintained their new shape for almost a year. In my experience, everything can be undone if you put the head into boiling water even after a few months (I can't say “years” because I don't know it yet). I don't know whether it affects the head's longevity – it's too early to say anything. I can say that modified heads can be rerooted and repainted like any other heads, there's no need to handle these with extra care or something, and the hair can be styled with boiling water if it's brief. I don't advise to use the same pots for cooking and boiling doll heads, but I don't know if it's really dangerous. It's just... I'd rather not.

There's one more thing I can't say. As far as now, I only practiced this modification with the heads which can be disassembled from the body and placed back without any temperature impact, and it worked well. However, neck anchors of some dolls won't allow to remove the head or put it back if you don't warm the head up this way or other. If that's the case for your doll, I can't say whether the head will maintain its modified shape through the process. Again, if in doubt, don't do it.

Good luck and I hope it helps.

[eclecticopposition]

tagged in six sunday by @grand-magnificent! we are tragically unable to post any Phrygian things today, as all of our Phrygian things are going In The Fic and we have no ideas. except for chapter six, and a little phrygian/corrasion bonus action thing on the side. but those have to wait.

instead you get to read one of our backdated snapshots of Kalrin Pyrhis, the fifth(??) worst motherfucker in clown school. Welcome to Havenfree!

(tagging if you want to join in: @aurochsent, @andromedasea, @circuitousmoths)

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You take two and a half weeks to execute your revenge.

Royvin likes to stand in the same spot. She claims her place in every class, her massive bulk and leering face just daring someone to try and take it. No one ever does. 

It would be easy to trap her desk. Glue on the seat, bees under the table, acid on the pencil case, spikes on the roof. People do it to people who aren’t Royvin all the time. 

But that would be pedestrian, forgettable. No style at all. This requires artistry.

You are looking for a class that both of you go to, where everyone stands, and where Royvin has carved out a spot with all the subtlety of a jackhammer. Of those there are six. Gym class, theater, art and sculpture, food preservation, the debate side of debate and history, and sometimes (but not always) home economics. Also sometimes band, but you’re not doing this in band class. Out of the question.

Out of all of them, food preservation is the only one where the floor is made of the right material, and she happens to be standing exactly on the end of two long, wooden boards.

If this were a game of clue, then this murder is taking place in the wine cellar. The culprit: yours truly. Now you just need a weapon.

You creep out during the day to make your preparations. First, you examine the boards themselves. They are wide and thick, but they are also old; they won’t hold up to what you need them for. Improvements are needed.

You pay a little weirdo to get you a piece of metal that is exactly two boards long and two boards wide. 

Then you consider the matter of mass. Royvin is heavier than you; it will not do to balance this straight down the middle. The hinge will need to be much closer to her than to you. There is a space under the floor (this whole building is raised slightly off the ground, much to the pleasure of all the clowns who like to scurry beneath it) and the old floor rests on a perpendicular set of support beams. When you check, you find that the beams in question rest unfortunately right down the middle. 

You also pay the little weirdo to make a metal hinge attached to the piece of metal, about three quarters of the way to the top. You have them drill some holes in the corners while you're at it. Sawing through the support beam will have to come as a later step.

After some frank discussion about what exactly you want this thing to do (and no small amount of exasperation at your lack of understanding of basic mechanics), the weirdo gives you a hinge with two parts. The first is the part that is already affixed to the plate. A long, flat metal bar is now extending out to either side, with instructions to attach this to several planks that you don’t want moving – that will keep the whole thing braced with the floor. At the heart of it, there is the familiar shape of something like a door hinge. 

The second part is a metal rod. The weirdo shows you how to fit it into the hinge, so that relative to the metal bar, the original piece of metal turns. You ask if they can make it so it only moves if you step on it from one of the two sides. They give you a look like you are the biggest moron on Alternix, tell you that you should have asked for that in the first place, and say it will cost you extra.

You agree. They say they’ll have it by tonight.

You can barely wait.

It is with incredible, quiet care that you remove the boards and punch holes in the wood. You fit them with screws and affix the metal plate to the bottom of them, and then put them back.

This is the key to a good prank: doing all the steps that can be hidden first. The floorboards do not move at all; they sit there like nothing happened. Royvin stands right on top of them, none the wiser.

You are nearly caught, once, by Hanque and Ishaza. For a panicked moment you think that they are using the cellar as a place to conspire, but then you hear giggling, and – after another moment of confusion, you realize they snuck out together because they are looking for a place to make out, and cannot seem to keep their hands to themselves. This is a stupid and incomprehensible reason to sneak out, but whatever.

You scare them off by making a little noise before they can do anything gross. 

Your preparations continue. You make a little hole in the wall of the adjacent closet, carefully placed to give you a view of the scene of the crime. You enlist an accomplice (one of the students in the age group below you; for subjects like this, you often share a class.) on the promise that you’ll protect them, both generally and from consequences. You put a box of salt and pickling supplies (a wide one, one that can rest four boards across) on the other side of your contraption-to-be, one week before its fruition is due. This is to ensure that people are well-accustomed to not stepping there long before there is any risk of wobbling. It works; nobody moves them. They part around your plan like a river around a boulder. The food preservation room is always full of bullshit, and everyone just picks their way around it.

And then, with trepidation, you sneak in and finally put in the hinge. 

You are not the handiest of trolls, but it is a simple enough job that you manage. The hinge itself only goes one way, and was made by someone far more clever than you. You carefully push down on your side of the boards, making sure that it goes down while the other side rises. It works like a charm. 

You drag a bag of funky flour over to Royvin’s side of it. You leave it on where you like to imagine a big red X. 

You mostly manage to catch the bag out of the air before it breaks and gets bright orange flour everywhere. It wouldn’t arouse too much suspicion – this is a clown church, weird shit happens sometimes – but Royvin might get pissy if there is a cheeto crime scene directly on top of her spot. 

Great news: it works.

The only thing left is to wait. And oh, you wait with such delicious anticipation. You have some very stupid wheels that will be turning for a decade; this will happen so soon that you can hardly sit still. It takes all of your willpower not to burst out laughing in every class you have, thinking of exactly how funny this is going to be. Curse your incredible gift for visualization! 

You are ready three days before you do it. You wait in the empty closet and watch her like a hawk. The first day, she isn’t standing right; the second day, someone else is in the way. But the third day is perfect. 

You give a tiny nod to your accomplice – Candio, you think. He nods back, and once everyone else has filed in, quietly drags the box out of the way.

The teacher calls attendance. You wait. 

“Ishaza Ailmar,” says the teacher. Pretty girls always get their full names read, you think; pretty girls and teacher’s pets. That, or having the first name on the list. Or maybe this teacher is just weird. Being a pickler might do it to you.

“Present,” she says, sweetly. You roll your eyes.

“Jaipes.”

“Here.”

(Ohnyxx isn’t in this class, unfortunately; the list skips over the letter B entirely. Neither is Valope. You know Ohnyxx would fucking love to make terrible pickles in a cellar, but no dice. You hear it conflicts on the schedule with some sort of advanced math.)

“Garlad.”

A grunt.

“Gar-lad,” enunciates the teacher, icily.

“Here,” Garlad mocks back. He’s in the age group below you, too. You like this kid.

The teacher clicks their tongue and then clicks their pen, but moves on. “Jrapes,” they say.

“Present,” says Jaipes, or someone who sounds exactly like them.

The listing continues. You quietly open the closet door and slip out into the hallway. Slowly you creep up to the doorway, letting yourself feel the excitement pounding through you as you wait for the alphabet to tick down. So close to showtime. You know the order these names will go in. It won’t be long now.

“Hanque.” Ah, right on cue.

“Here,” drawls the jock.

“Candio.”

“Here,” says your accomplice. He sounds nervous.

“Olives.”

“Present,” whispers a girl you don’t know.

“Royvin.”

“Here,” Royvin says, sounding bored. She often sounds bored. 

Boy, that sure won’t last long.

“Rajole.” 

“Here,” he mumbles. It’s a funny coincidence, that you are right next to each other, you think, not for the first time. The alphabet itself contrives to keep you together.

Ugh. He’s rubbing off on you.

“Kalrin,” says the teacher. Curtain call.

You wait.

A silence.

“Kal-rin Pyr-his,” enunciates the teacher, clicking their pen. The disapproval is audible. Skipping class is even worse than grunting during attendance. 

You wait.

“Hm,” says the teacher, and makes a mark.

You sprint into the room at full speed. Everyone startles. A few people scuttle out of your way; Rajole is one of them, looking like a deer in headlights, and then looking like a deer looking at another deer in headlights once he realizes it’s you. Royvin’s head snaps around and her fists come out of her pockets, but she does not move.

“FORSOOTH!” you holler at the top of your lungs as you leap, and you stomp with both feet on the other end of the boards, launching Royvin into the fucking roof. You hear her shout.

She punches clean through the shitty wooden ceiling, hornsfirst, and gets stuck in the rafters.

You laugh so hard that you fall on your ass. Everyone loses their minds. Even the teacher.

Prying your legs out from the hole beneath the floor, you catch a glimpse of Rajole giving you a pained look. You are not fooled for a second; you can also see him trying to hide his mouth twitching. 

“I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU!” Royvin roars. Her horns are stuck, you realize – even with her whole weight dragging down on them, they’re too huge to come back down through the holes. That has to hurt. You see her flailing her legs, trying to knock herself loose to beat you to hell. Her fists pound on the wood until it cracks.

You lose your shit laughing again. 

She falls back down as the old wood gives way and breaks the floor with a massive crunch. She is covered in splinters and dust and seething, embarrassed rage. Everyone has cleared well away from the impact. You leap to your feet, still wheezing, and nearly slip again in another fit of cackles as you start to run.

Royvin snarls, punches the ground, and gets up with the violent, unstoppably building momentum of a steam train that hates you. Her eyes have already gone from yellow to wrathful orange-red. 

You get the fuck out of there, trying not to let your cackling slow you down. She chases you down with another roar.

It takes half an hour to lose her, when Regius finally stops her in the hall. You can hear her voice, strained from cursing you out non-stop, protesting as you make your getaway.

You love it here.

-:-

Royvin is merciless in picking on you for the next two months. You break five teeth and three thumbs in the first two gym classes. You could not care less. Victory is irrevocably yours.

The story is still being repeated and laughed about. Royvin punches anyone she catches telling it. Everyone has started yelling FORSOOTH! before throwing things. It caught on like wildfire. Your fingerprints are on their souls.

You have never been so satisfied. This is your legacy, you think. You never assumed you’d have a long life; this is why you’ll never die.

[marciabrady]

I'm seeing so much disdain for the OG Snow White (film but mostly heroine) in discussions about the remake. I'm floored, almost every popular Disney film has issues, even the beloved 90s era, and they continue to go without much criticism but people are acting like SW is Gone With the Wind level problematic. Even saying Snow White doesn't have fans??

I'm just convinced these are zoomers who have a tendency to think bc something isn't popular with them it's not popular with anyone else. Snow has been beloved for 70+ years, people who got to meet Adriana were excited, Snow has merch and little girls like her toys. This people must live in a bubble.

https://twitter.com/clairelizzie/status/1691275648252141568?t=w3O-dsZPmwxBWHMMhdO_NA&s=19

https://twitter.com/agronification/status/1691653020860207134?t=5SZ5k43I-POhugW7tex5uQ&s=19

And unsurprisingly a lot are men who think any woman who does housekeeping and likes romance is a useless drip.

Sorry Marcia but I had to vent 😭 nobody I know fights for Snow like you. Even Cinderella gets more respect than Snow and I'm happy she gets some but Snow White went through literal murder and being on the run. Could any of the badass princesses handle that?

First off, thank you so much for calling out that "nobody I know fights for Snow like" me because I've literally considered it my life's work and it's frustrating that so many creators have stolen my intellectual content and made a huge audience off of it, while only stealing some of my points and not understanding the heart of what I'm saying and what I've been saying for my entire life (which is well documented on this blog; contrary to what certain people are saying about Snow White defenders, no, I didn't just selectively start to care to cosign on outrage on Rachel; I literally had a reaction to her horrible takes when they came out last year and made several posts about it).

People are defending Rachel in a way that, I feel, is infantilizing her and removing autonomy from a literal millionaire adult in her 20s. A grown woman made harmful comments and was disrespectful about a film whose historical impact is extremely profound (again, feel free to IM me about this because I have so many thoughts and don't love when they're stolen, so I'm being more guarded about what I'm saying now). And instead, people are turning around and excusing her hateful comments- which have even gotten the son of the original director of Snow White to speak out, at 91, saying his father and Walt Disney would be "rolling in their graves"- and they're saying things like "Rachel's just a 22 year old kid, guys, who's parroting what Disney is telling her! Don't blame her for what she's saying, she doesn't even know what she's saying!" and "she's right! Snow White IS old and outdated and awful and no one cares about Snow White!" Which is...

Most of the people speaking out on this and defending Rachel don't like Snow White, so why should their opinion matter? They're displaying that they have no insight or understanding of the source material and then they want to step on the people that actually do like the character by saying we aren't valid. First off, it's no secret I don't like Belle- did you see me running my mouth about how she was misinterpreted by Emma Watson? No, because she isn't my Princess and I'm not a fan of hers. I wasn't telling everyone "who cares, Belle is obviously the worst princess and CLEARLY has no fans" because that's not right and it's not my place. Us Snow White fans have literally always had to deal with people hating on her and misunderstanding her. She's perpetually maligned and the butt of the joke and I think that's why it's all the more imperative that we got someone who understood the character and was her protector, her defender, and brought her value and respect upon her legacy to a whole new generation of people who had been hating on her for years. And instead...we get Rachel who wants to change everyone about the character, admittedly didn't like her growing up, is misinterpreting the source material to an alarming degree (saying the Prince was a stalker is soooo wrong and even her implications that women aren't valid if they are romantic is sickening and misunderstands the movie; it's not called Snow White and the PRINCE it's called Snow White and the Seven DWARFS), and inspiring people to claim the only reason critiques are happening about the horrible comments she made is because the world, in 2023, can't handle a successful woman...like cut me a break

Let me start off by saying this. To all the people who think Rachel's comments are funny and never liked Snow White in the first place, and are calling her just a dumb cartoon character, she is the product of a legacy Adriana Caselotti upkept her entire life. She is the product of blood, sweat, and tears- the basis for which this entire company was built upon. It's one of the most culturally impactful films of all time- without Snow White, there are no Disney Princesses, there is no Disney Parks, there are no Disney Live Action Remakes- there's no Disney. And guess what? She has more value than just being an "outdated classic." In her original movie, she does display leadership qualities, survives years of abuse and forced labor, homelessness, misogyny, multiple murder attempts, and she endures. Both her character and her legacy. No one can deny her, the first female animated character to have a star on the Hollywood walk of fame, her impact on the film industry, on the Disney company, and on multiple generations of fans- from bonafide Hollywod A-Listers like Clark Gable and Carole Lombard who literally CRIED at a "stupid cartoon character"'s death and countless youngsters trying to get by during the depression, to adults who see themselves in Snow White to this day and a whole new crop of youngsters who find joy in Snow White's song. She isn't just a thing of history and of inks and paints- she is a product of so many people's talented labor and love and input, and if she wasn't, she- like any other material property- would've faded away with the passage of time, long ago.

Again, as much as I'd love to continue going into this, my creative content has gotten stolen so many times. But I do have more to say and I'm planning on doing it in a special project, on a much larger platform. I'll update you all on it when it's ready to be shared, but I'm doing something that will hopefully resurrect love and reverence for Snow White to the mainstream and will make all of the hard work and research and studying I've accomplished, over my entire life, come to fruition in a way I'm so excited about 💗

[cursed-iris]

I've seen your Jack and Miss Acacia fanart (the one inspired in a 1923 paint), and now I'm interested on the extended lore of the 2005 album.

Thanks in advance, and have a nice day.

so sorry it took me so long to answer, but thank you so much for this ask! :DD

so, i answered a similar question a while back that also incorporated some of the book lore to make it make more sense, so you can find that post here.

but otherwise, i'm going to talk more about the actual album because i don't think i did the best job explaining it before. cut because it's kind of a long explanation and it does contain some book spoilers from the original post.

so basically, dionysos released the album "monsters in love" in 2005 about 4 years before mathias malzieu (lead singer and writer for the band) published the book in 2009, and 8 years before the movie was released (cerca. 2013 but the release dates were different internationally). this technically makes everything that came after the album, the book and the movie, a prequel.

so that's important because that means the lore in the album (and even to some extent the book and movie) is drastically different from the rest of the source material. however, the book is much closer to tying the narrative of the album together. "monsters in love" is pretty much the first time the character of jack or miss acacia appears.

the album begins with a track called "giant jack,"

this is jack several years after the events of the book take place, and he's like massive.

i don't think we ever discover how exactly he became a giant (it's mentioned at the end of the book), but he's returned to edinburgh and is terrorizing the town. the song isn't sung from jack's perspective, which is interesting because jack is basically a mathias malzieu self insert. but anyway, it's sung from either mathias' perspective or the "broken bird's" (that's another track in the album) perspective because there is a mention of the speaker having wings.

it's hard to decipher some dionysos lyrics because they're super metaphorical and i don't think they're supposed to make that much sense. but from what i read of the lyrics, giant jack strikes a deal to protect the speaker.

in the animated mv for another monsters in love song, "tes lacets sont des fées," we see jack again along with miss acacia. he's wandering the streets of edinburgh at night and sees her (and the broken bird, who at this time, i believe was also a mathias malzieu self-insert character) performing in an orchestra hall. and then... some other... weird stuff... happens... that i'm not going to fully get into. but you can find the music video (cw nudity) here.

so how does any of this tie in with the rest of jack and the cuckoo clock heart? the answer is, it really doesn't for the movie. in the movie, jack dies. he is dead. full stop. but as we know, the movie is based on the book which is based of the album, so the book ending where he doesn't die and returns after a coma actually segues into the beginning of the "monsters in love" album.

this is a direct quote from the last chapter: "As for our 'hero,' he grew taller and taller. But he never got over the loss of Miss Acacia. he went out every night, only at night, to roam the outskirts of the Extraordinarium, in the shadow of its fairground attractions. But the half-ghost that he had become never crossed its threshold. Then he retraced his own boyish steps all the way back to Edinburgh. The city was exactly as he remembered it; time seemed to have stood still there."

Anyway, he returns to his childhood home in the last chapter, only to be told by arthur (and i think anna and luna), that he never even needed the cuckoo clock heart for that long in the first place. it was supposed to be temporary. madélèine could've removed it at any time, but specifically chose not to so he wouldn't go off and leave her, which is pretty messed up actually (wtf madélèine?). my theory, if the book really is a true precursor to the album, as in everything that happens in the album is canon to the jatcch storyline, is that jack starts terrorizing edinburgh after hearing that news. because the clock heart ruined his life and he didn't even need it.

i hope that answered your question. 😭 thank you for the ask!

[bellygunnr]

Unwarranted Practicality

A Transformers: Animated piece about Ratchet, the Wars, and his group of younglings stranded in Detroit. Set nebulously in S1.

Shattered glass and torn metal means his patient is already in pain by the time Ratchet lowers him onto the operating table. He is quick to step in close and place a hand on the junction between helm-plate and neck, blunt fingers instinctually putting pressure on clusters of circuits. His patient growls and tenses, discomfited, but doesn't protest.

"Turn your pain receptors down at the locations my fingers are at. Can you do that, Prime?"

His patient shudders. Ratchet watches him flatly, feeling and listening for the first signs of compliance or protest. Prime works hard to cycle air, no doubt hindered by the majority of his intakes being pressed against the table. His shoulders shake, trembling violently in a crescendo that abruptly ceases with a rattle of metal. Ratchet nods at the look of reproach.

"That paralyzed me," Prime huffs. "You could have warned me…"

"You could power down, too. Most 'bots don't like being awake for their back surgery."

Only four million years of experience lets Ratchet make sense of the snarled mass of broken plating and congealed energon. He cuts out what he can, grimacing once more at how thin the Prime's armor is, how the components underneath are unprotected. It means that dents pinch wires and tubes, means that punctures are fatal rather than inconveniences, means that--

It's just odd. Still, after all this time, it's strange to be a medic for 'bots without combat-ready bodies. He has to be gentler, more delicate, and remind himself that what he can brush off, the Prime can't. And isn't that a thought?

"It's not so bad," Ratchet mutters. "Still, you were one bad fall away from severing major conduits in your spinal struts. Really, you stayed online with all this?"

Optimus hums noncommittally.

Ratchet hums back, occupied instead with removing the last of the damaged structure. Heat makes the kinks pliable, makes the flesh-alloy complacent to being cut, all the better with the nerves deadened. Each piece he removes reveals another mile of fouled tubing and warped chassis.

He appraises his patient's condition thoughtfully. The Prime was astoundingly young and supplementary materials were-- somehow-- plentiful. Already, he detects the thrum of self-repair working to right the wrongs of combat. He'd just need to replace the armor and let his patient handle the rest.

"Prime," Ratchet says.

"Ratchet," Optimus returns.

Optimus reaches out with both his voice and his EM field, a curious, cautious greeting. Ratchet sighs and relaxes the tight grip on his own, bridging the gap in the eye contact they couldn't make due to their positions. Reassurance as a balm to apprehension.

"Well, doc-bot? Am I going to make it?" Optimus prompts teasingly.

"Don't press your luck. Look, I'm going to be replacing a lot of your back-plating. Everything waist-up is unsalvageable. Now, I can fabricate it to original spec-- or…"

Ratchet trails off, splaying his fingers across the operating table. He pulls his field tight to his chassis when he detects Optimus' searching.

He clears his throat.

"Or I had the thought of modifying it slightly. Thicker plates, tougher material. Better protection, you know."

It's not like him to hedge. But the part of him that wants to see the War over, that refuses to acknowledge the renewed Decepticon presence, is in stout objection to his constant pragmatism. It's been hard enough not to treat the Earth city like a warzone already. Conceding defeat here, if his patient agrees, well.

But his patient gets his arms under him and pushes up. Ratchet swears before he can stop himself, meeting Optimus' measured look with a glare.

"I wouldn't be opposed to such a change, Ratchet. Hardiness evidently is a-- virtue we lack. But you don't seem convinced of it yourself. You're upset."

"I don't get upset," Ratchet says sharply. "I'm a professional and a doctor and we need to be proactive. There's nothing I can do about the Decepticon laser weaponry, but I can at least-- this is the least I can do."

"And I'm sure relying less on The Key would soothe your nerves as well," Optimus says.

Ratchet bristles, baring his dentae-- long since ground flat and dull-- defensively. He hadn't been thinking of The Key, but Optimus took delight in seeing through him, and he was right.

"It'd help," he says, dropping his shoulders. "But I'm serious, Prime. Some slight changes and you can shrug off those concrete collapses in a nanosec. So could the rest of the team."

He pulls in a long rush of humid air. A part of him aches for the formality of a war camp, just so Optimus would not look at him so critically, so unabashedly concerned.

Slag him. Even on the repair ship, he'd been like this. It's not any wonder why the Elite Guard felt the need to oust him.

This time, when Optimus extends his field, Ratchet does not flinch. He's surprised to feel his apprehension echoed back at him, as if his patient shares his misgivings, and maybe that's gratifying. But beneath it is a determination-- a grim acceptance.

"Will you be proposing the idea to the others?" Optimus asks, grimacing.

Ratchet gestures for Optimus to lay back down.

"Whenever they get damaged, sure. You were just the first. Now, hurry up and power down so I can get you out of here."

Optimus complies readily. Ratchet waits for him to drop into lifelessness before hunkering down in the far corner of his medibay, already tapping at the fabricator.

[fatliberation]

what are your thoughts on the taylor swift "fatphobic" controversy???

Taylor's use of the word "fat" was unnecessary. It clearly implies that being fat is a bad thing. Fat people don't need it reiterated again that it's everyone's worst nightmare to look like them. She could have just stepped on the scale. There are plenty of other ways to depict struggles with body image.

The following is a thread by fat activist Dr. Caleb Luna @dr_chairbreaker:

Insisting that fat is a feeling that everyone has access to regardless of body size or lived experience is a rly good way to erase the severe, life-threatening material consequences of fatphobia, particularly for the most marginalized (BIPOC, poor, disabled, queer/trans etc.)

The fatphobia that has been unleashed this last week has been physically awful. I honestly didn't care too much abt that scene until the blowback revealed just how invested her fans are in fatphobia as a cover for their own EDs, proving fatfabfeminists original point.

Sending a lot of love to the fat folks whose own EDs have been activated by this week-long avalanche of non-fat folks revealing the lengths to which they will destroy their own bodies to not look like us. esp fat queer & trans poc w/out the resources millionaires have access to.

There is no world where a white millionaire is the victim here.

Even when Taylor has heard critique & changed the video she is unable to be seen as anything other than a bullied victim. The disparate way her misstep is being handled is so egregious when folks were so eager, ready & willing to crucify Lizzo.

It occurs to me that people are upset about the removal because they identify less so with her experiences of eating disorders and more with her ideological position of fatphobia.

As a reminder, Tove Lo released the video for "Grapefruit," about her experiences w eating disorders, two weeks ago. She managed to explore the issue without invoking fatphobia. A failure of artistic imagination is not fat activists' fault.

Florence + The Machine's song + video for "Hunger" examines the issue while exploring how beauty standards harm people across race, gender, and age. This is from 2018. No one is asking for anything that hasn't already been done.

[decomposited]

PANACEA

This post exists mainly as a discussion/headcanon for what might be in those vials the Doctor always seems to have. Admittedly, the specifics pertain more closely to the segments themselves, but you know how it is. Kind of a package deal. As usual, some of the information therein evolved out of discussion with Syd about Scaramouche’s involvement. Typical Dottore-adjacent content beneath the cut (body horror, experimentation, needles, usage of dubious substances), but written about in a largely objective fashion.

One of the most interesting discoveries in the litany of experiments performed upon Scaramouche was the odd substance that circulated through their artificial body. Not blood, exactly, but something of a similar purpose, absolutely brimming with elemental energy. Upon extraction, it was found to have additional properties that made it a fine contender for a particular project Dottore had in mind.

Scaramouche was originally kept in the dark as to what the actual purpose of taking additional samples from them was. It was explained as simply a way to record any changes in their system—this was partly true. A library of samples does exist, each carefully labeled and dated. However, every single vial taken from the puppet was not placed in that same collection. 

In the end, Scaramouche’s “blood” (as it will be referred to here) became one of the base ingredients for a similar compound that is present in all of the Doctor’s segments. It can also be seen on most of their persons in the form of a glowing blue liquid suspended in earrings or other accessory items. Such an important material needed to be christened with a name, of course, one suitable for its rarity and power: panacea. 

(This name is also quite ironic, for reasons that will become obvious shortly.)

A significant problem with the segments during development was creating a sustainable method to power the mechanical portions of their bodies. While they do have organic components, those essentially run on a separate system, which is integrated with artificial components like their hearts and some other devices that require electrical power. The blood collected from Scaramouche turned out to have so much energy and be so efficient that it provided a solution for this. 

Much like ordinary blood, the matter extracted from Scaramouche can be separated, to a degree, into disparate components. This is the first step in creating the panacea, the beginning of a long process that takes a whole room's worth of machinery. During this journey, the elemental bias is removed from the blood, rendering it neutral and unlikely to overload delicate mechanisms. Even without electro, it remains an incredibly potent method of storing and circulating energy. The next steps are a well-kept secret, but involve several other solutions being added to the mixture that create the additional uses it gains its name from. 

Due to its strength, segments typically only need to be dosed with panacea once or twice a month, depending on estimated power expenditure in essential joints and organs. It can be either injected or taken by mouth, depending on the preference of the user. Naturally, there are also guides in place to make sure it ends up where it’s supposed to be, depending on which reservoir areas are empty.

The other use of panacea, and the true reason most segments keep extra on their person, is its function as a “cure-all”. More specifically, it can act as a healing agent to restore and regrow damaged organic components in the body. It should be noted that panacea is for segment usage only, and is not safe for human consumption. 

Upon use, panacea can vastly increase the replication rate of cells, replacing injured tissue or even entire limbs in a relatively short time period (length of recovery time depends on both extent of damage and amount of panacea used). One syringe-worth of panacea is a “normal” dose, and will kick-start this process. Additional doses in rapid succession will accelerate this process, further sending the cells of the body into overdrive and creating increasingly dramatic results that spread to even originally unharmed parts of the segment. This unrestrained division will eventually lead to immense changes throughout the entire segment, transforming them into a different creature entirely. The segments have genetic modifications that prevent these changes from descending into unrestrained carcinogenesis, which would ultimately be debilitating or fatal for any other being that happened to try to utilize this “medication” for themselves. 

Most segments appear to find these changes exciting, or even pleasurable, likely due to both the stimulant properties of the panacea and positive psychological associations with the healing process and the mutations that take place. As alluded to previously, high doses will turn them temporarily into something that can only be described as a monster. While end states vary from segment to segment, they will always be incredibly strong, dangerous, and have an explosively fast healing factor. Despite the pain involved and the potential for mental degradation, typical cognition is maintained, leaving them in full control of their capabilities. The span of time they remain in this form is also regulated by the size of the dosage. Transformation lengths from as low as 15 minutes to as long as ██ days have been recorded.

This form is intended as a last resort, to be used in the most dire of circumstances. While affected segments will eventually return to their normal state as the biological effects of the panacea wear off, the changes inflicted upon the body are often so extreme that they will need to be repaired shortly thereafter, due to their mechanical components being damaged, degraded, or rejected from the body. If they are no longer able to conduct maintenance themselves, their only option is to seek help or make peace with their situation. Fortunately, no segments thus far have been irrevocably dismantled, and so the process is considered reasonably “safe” by their standards. 

One might wonder, after all these years, why does crafting this substance still even rely on Scaramouche’s blood donations? The simplest answer: complacency. While the technology to craft an equivalent material exists, Dottore and the segments have hesitated in adjusting their existing pipeline. The furthest any potential changes have extended is blueprints. With Scaramouche still present and working with the Fatui, why should they waste their time in building additional systems? It could also be possible to ascribe a more nefarious, possessive logic to the adherence to the original protocol. 

If Scaramouche became aware of what was going on behind their back with all those samples, but were under the impression they were essential for something so crucial, it could serve as a deterrent to them turning against Dottore or leaving the Fatui. A particularly critical mind might realize this all depends on the Doctor’s impression that Scaramouche has any regard for him (or the segments) whatsoever. Surely this will not have any future consequences.

[a-bucket-full-of-feels]

Thoughts after watching BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!! as a former Bandori fan

I used to be a rather active Bandori fan back in the day, actively playing Girls' Band Party (Garupa), listening to their original music and covers, and I even watched all 3 seasons of the anime. However, I eventually stopped playing the game, because I no longer felt compelled to keep up with the events, and following that I eventually lost interest in the music they've put out, both old and new. That was shortly after Morfonica was added to the game, so when MyGO!!!! was announced, I was already quite far removed from the fandom, though I did see promotional materials and briefly thought it was an interesting band concept at first. The reason I decided to give the MyGO anime a shot was because I had seen discussions mostly on Reddit on how good the anime was, and also how MyGO interestingly became extremely popular in China, which is fascinating because usually newer bands or members would never reach the same level of popularity as the OGs (take the Love Live franchise and AKB group for example). And after watching the anime, I could totally understand why it's so highly raved about.

Having read several band and event stories in Garupa (I played on the JP server so the only way to understand the stories was to rely on dedicated fan translations), I have seen how the Bandori writing team is able to craft great character development arcs and drama through the in-game stories, and these band and event stories are integral parts to each character's development, since a 13-episode anime can't possibly do justice to their massive cast. In contrast, the anime plots I have always found to be mediocre at best, mostly focusing on light drama and finding ways to showcase performances (though I remember the season with RAS as one of the main bands did flesh out the drama in RAS' backstory pretty well). In a sense, the anime was more of a companion piece to the game stories. So when I watched the MyGO anime, I was surprised at how well written the anime was, sufficient to be a standalone piece, and how gritty and realistic the drama was.

The first 2 episodes kind of started off slow at first, setting up the premise for the formation of the band - the breakup of a previous band which wasn't a completely original idea, given that Saaya also had a similar backstory in the Popipa anime. But what made this plot point shine in MyGO is how tangible it made the trauma of CRYCHIC's breakup feel through the lens of different characters. Episode 3 was an excellent demonstration of this storytelling through the lens of Tomori, from how she used to be an awkward kid who was detached from her emotions, till Sakiko brought the band together which gave her something to love, and then abruptly taking it away from her by disbanding CRYCHIC. Likewise, we're given equal opportunities to step into the emotional turmoil of the different characters, like how Taki struggles with her inferiority complex when she faces the task of composing music for the band (which Sakiko used to handle); or how Anon struggles with running away from challenges that are too daunting for her; or how Raana has been drifting around, unable to find a band or place she wants to stay put in; and then there's Soyo.

Holy shit, I know I'm not the first person to recognise it but Soyo's arc really was something else and I really loved how they executed it. She seemed to be a nice, friendly girl at first (as compared to Taki's brash attitude to the "outsider" Anon, owing to her over-protectiveness towards Tomori), but here and there little hints are dropped, like how she repeatedly approaches Mutsumi about joining the new band and contacting Sakiko, to the scenes where she constantly looks at her old CRYCHIC photos. And then she snaps at the end of episode 7 and we find out her true intentions - she wants to re-form CRYCHIC all over again and is willing to abandon the "new" members Anon and Raana so that the original members will be together again. Beneath that well-mannered mask of hers is a possessive, manipulative girl, and also a desperate and lonely girl who cannot let go of her memories of CRYCHIC - that scene when she literally goes onto her knees to beg Sakiko felt so raw, I was impressed that Bandori was willing to write such a morally complex character for their series, I literally thought she was just the rich girl version of Imai Lisa at first. And what's interesting is at the end, Soyo doesn't completely "get over" this - she still holds on to the trauma and memories from CRYCHIC'S breakup, but still moves on with her activities in MyGO.

And speaking of morally questionable girls, I also want to talk about arguably the antagonist of the series, the one who caused all the trauma, Sakiko. In the final episode, we're given a plausible explanation to why Sakiko abruptly quit the band and joined Haneoka High instead of staying in rich girl's Tsukinomori - due to her family's sudden financial downturn and her father turning to alocholism to cope (that would explain the latter, but it may not be the only reason for the former). And similar to Soyo's arc, there were also little hints dropped like how in the present day she is always seen outside her former home rather than indoors, and how she only plays Haneoka's music room piano instead of her own, and Nyamu's comment about coming to an expensive place which could be beyond her budget. Though, it seems like the full development of Sakiko's story would occur in the Ave Mujica anime, but nonetheless, I really appreciated this touch of realism in Sakiko's character - because in "idol" series and Bandori included, most of the time the character drama is developed around less heavy topics, like maybe their lack of confidence or failing at something once and not wanting to try it again for fear of failure. It seems like the Ave Mujica anime will be even grittier so I'm quite interested in how it will play out.

In terms of things I think could have been improved, definitely one thing is that they could have developed Raana's story a bit more. Given that she's the granddaughter of the old lady who ran SPACE in S1 before it closed, it would've been interesting to learn about her relationship with her grandmother and why she clings on so dearly to her old guitar, and why she spent all this time wandering around by herself without forming a band despite her technical prowess. Though she does serve her purpose to lighten the mood in an otherwise heavy show, so perhaps her character will shine more in the Garupa stories.

Overall, I really enjoyed It's MyGO!!!! and can see why it fared excellently as a standalone anime, while also working as a piece part of the larger Bandori universe (especially with all the cameos and references). Will I play Garupa again just for them? No, it's too much time commitment to restart Garupa at this point. But will I listen to their music? Hell yeah I will - I really like their style of music, which to me is reminiscent of artists/bands like Atarayo and Minami, so I'll definitely follow the music they release. (IMO, they're the aesthetic I was hoping Afterglow was supposed to have but somehow I never really got into their original songs that much...)

[hollowedkingdoms]

Attention Everyone

We have decided, after much thought, to speak on the issue of the leaked OGL 1.1. For those unfamiliar, briefly and simply, it is a crack down on the Open Game License that allows 3rd party material, such as us, to freely operate within the DnD 5E system. The new agreement brings forward several issues that many find objectionable, but for our purposes, it is the clause demanding registration of all material, the removal or seizure of 3rd party material without consent, the ability to publish said material without crediting the original author and the bad faith arguments pertaining to it's "necessity", all in the face of just how much DnD, WotC and Hasbro have benefitted from material not originally its own, which it has used to build it's entire foundation. As content creators,  we are terrified. We've put our hearts, souls and years of our life to this project we love. This love and care is shared by hundreds of thousands of creators the world over for their own projects. While we want to keep our project alive and well, and understand speaking up risks that, we cannot remain silent, for the sake of content creators and fans the world over. This change is motivated by greed from executives in a C-suite, and is an affront to the spirit of the game. It's original version was, quite literally, a few nerds in a basement trying to put something fun together for the enjoyment of others - a sentiment we identify with. WotC and Hasbro are taking these deliberate and hostile actions in the face of that spirit, and are alienating a massive portion of players in the process, for the sake of their bottom line. We believe, strongly, that DnD is an iconic institution, originally made by players, for players. With that in mind, here is our response:

We stand with content creators the world over, in solidarity against the active hostility we feel is being directed at us all by a corporation only seeking profit.

We object to the notion that WotC has the exclusive rights to 3rd party creation, an argument we feel is made in bad faith. Much of the WotC material was not made by them, and is the backbone of the very material they claim.

We have no intention of changing our material to the new version of 6e (referred to as One DnD) and commit to remaining within the original confines of the OGL 1.0a.

We call on WotC to reverse their course and cancel the OGL 1.1, in it's stead returning to and reinforcing the OGL 1.0a, abiding by it's intention and spirit, and to remember it's the enjoyment of the very fans they are alienating that fuel their success in the first place

We wish to reiterate our commitment to bring enjoyment, free of charge, to those who wish to use our material. This is a passion project, fueled by love for DnD and Hollow Knight. We would also like to repeat that we have no affiliation with Team Cherry, and that these opinions are in no way, shape or form connected to Team Cherry or it's employees. We also wish to thank them for creating games and worlds that inspire us so incredibly and deeply, and if you haven't yet, please support them however you are able

For our community specifically: we understand not everyone here shares this opinion. We believe in free speech and invite all voices to be heard as they see fit, where they see fit. We only ask in our particular server/forum, respect and courtesy be used in the discussion. We do not advocate or support hate speech, threats (to any party), false or misleading statements, or any other form of antagonism spoken without care and/or in bad faith

Finally, please understand we will take every step we can to protect and maintain Hollowed Kingdoms as it currently exists; however, we are small and do not have the ability to fight policies we disagree with. Should things end poorly for us, please know we have always operated only with love for 2 iconic games and to bring enjoyment to those who share that love. Our community is endlessly precious to us, and we want to thank each and every one of you for your continued support. We hope this can one day be a resolved issue we barely look back at. Until then, we feel the need to stand up for what we believe in, and encourage anyone who feels the same to do so too. Thank you all.

~Hollow Kingdoms Team Again, thank you to everyone who has supported and will continue to support us. We appreciate you all, and wish you all the best. We intend to continue the project as best we can, and will continue to do our best to bring the world of Hollow Knight to the table top.

[sprucebark]

Tell me about Your mined craft ocs :]

OOOUH!! RIGHT BACK AT ME . OK OK. THIS GOT LONG SO IM PUTTING IT UNDER A CUT

Bark was my first proper MC oc, not An OC roleplayed in minecraft. They're from the village of Neirlight, a village that leans heavily into the 'flight' side of fight or flight. They're cowardly; they'll run at the slightest hint of danger. They're a medicinal village as well, teaching children as young as 4 the basics of how to make and craft potions. Neirlight citizens don't tend to venture or move far from home because of this - the world is dangerous, after all.

Bark was given a job at the age of 12 to visit a nearby witch's house, delivering a basket of potion making materials to her. They were betrayed and experimented on, resulting in the witch turning them into a zombie and moving them far from any civilization. During their experimentation process, Bark's left eye was removed and their vocal cords were severely damaged resulting in them now being mute.

The first night on their own was traumatic - Bark had no combat skills to their name, amongst everything else that had happened to them, and they had no way to find their way home. Because of their first night being full of monsters in the dark, they're now deathly afraid of the darkness, and tend to keep a light source on them at all times. This ranges from torches attached to their goggles, to a lantern on their belt, to - later on - end rod pieces decorating their clothing.

Bark's aesthetic leans more toward Nature, putting the land and the Nature Goddess above all other aesthetics.

The Keeper originates from the city of Polperro. His parents were part of the city council, and had immense power as part of it. Polperro had an ever-growing conflict with Nimbus, a nearby sky city, over resources, and Nimbus had formed a plan. As Aenhri was going to be of age to join the Council soon, scouts from Nimbus kidnapped him and locked him in the Nether - with the promise of ransoms and later riches from their king.

Aenhri, lost and alone, set up home, hoping to return home soon.

It remembers being pushed. It didn't come into the Nether willingly. They don't remember who, or why, or when. The sound of the portal breaking behind them fills their ears with a silent desperation, a cry for help.

It tried-- They tried living in the Warped Forest for awhile. It had seemed the safest; less creatures to agitate... The implications were that it was safer than any other location.

It was. That is, until the Forest started fighting back. The Forest didn't want It-- Them, there, that was clear.

Things started changing. It started finding itself becoming ill more often, weaker. At the same time, the longer they stayed, the less amount of time it seemed they could be away. The Forest always pulled them back; it was messing with their mind, infecting them; much like a parasite. Rotting piglins wouldn't step anywhere near the Forest if given a choice, let alone hoglins or living piglins. It seemed the only friends they could have were endermen, and even those were far and few between.

The more its memories faded, the more inhuman it became; the more it began to resonate with a piglin tribe in the nearby crimson valley. It learned their languages, understood what it could of their culture.

Though it didn't seem to age, it spent years like this. On its own with the Forest, focused purely on survival and keeping the Forest safe. And so the rumors and tales spread through the Piglin tribe - and so "the strange man on the hill" became The Keeper of the Forest.

The Keeper was later discovered and rescued from the Nether by an unknown figure, newly being cared for and rehabilitated in a village. In the Overworld, centuries had passed. Even if the Keeper could find Polperro - if it still existed at all - it likely would have been ravaged by Nimbus, or worn down by the passage of time.

The Keeper doesn't have a specific aesthetic style, as he's still heavily in the mindset of survival first. Nevertheless, I tend to associate him with a vaguely Futuristic Fantasy vibe after he had his warped arm amputated and replaced with a magic powered prosthetic.

Meri'r is from the planet Truazuno, with the primary job of making the Overworld into a habitable location for their species. Meri'r cannot breathe the air of the Overworld, nor let it touch their skin, so they must wear a specialized suit at all times. They are not one for aesthetics; they are one for efficiency and the militarized aspects of community.

Meri'r's aesthetic falls into the categories of Brutalistic, Scifi, Dystopian, and vaguely Cyberpunk.

(AI generated image, but I don't have person drawn art of Meri'r just yet, and picrews didn't work right for their required suit!)

I also have an OC named Bumble, who is a hummingbird-human hybrid, but I've never done anything with her so I can't tell you much there.

[quotesfrommyreading]

On October 28, 2017, the anonymous user now widely referred to as “Q” appeared for the first time on 4chan, a so-called image board that is known for its grotesque memes, sickening photographs, and brutal teardown culture. Q predicted the imminent arrest of Hillary Clinton and a violent uprising nationwide, posting this:

HRC extradition already in motion effective yesterday with several countries in case of cross border run. Passport approved to be flagged effective 10/30 @ 12:01am. Expect massive riots organized in defiance and others fleeing the US to occur. US M’s will conduct the operation while NG activated. Proof check: Locate a NG member and ask if activated for duty 10/30 across most major cities.

And then this:

Mockingbird HRC detained, not arrested (yet). Where is Huma? Follow Huma. This has nothing to do w/ Russia (yet). Why does Potus surround himself w/ generals? What is military intelligence? Why go around the 3 letter agencies? What Supreme Court case allows for the use of MI v Congressional assembled and approved agencies? Who has ultimate authority over our branches of military w/o approval conditions unless 90+ in wartime conditions? What is the military code? Where is AW being held? Why? POTUS will not go on tv to address nation. POTUS must isolate himself to prevent negative optics. POTUS knew removing criminal rogue elements as a first step was essential to free and pass legislation. Who has access to everything classified? Do you believe HRC, Soros, Obama etc have more power than Trump? Fantasy. Whoever controls the office of the Presidency controls this great land. They never believed for a moment they (Democrats and Republicans) would lose control. This is not a R v D battle. Why did Soros donate all his money recently? Why would he place all his funds in a RC? Mockingbird 10.30.17 God bless fellow Patriots.

Clinton was not arrested on October 30, but that didn’t deter Q, who continued posting ominous predictions and cryptic riddles—with prompts like “Find the reflection inside the castle”—often written in the form of tantalizing fragments and rhetorical questions. Q made it clear that he wanted people to believe he was an intelligence officer or military official with Q clearance, a level of access to classified information that includes nuclear-weapons design and other highly sensitive material. (I’m using he because many Q followers do, though Q remains anonymous—hence “QAnon.”) Q’s tone is conspiratorial to the point of cliché: “I’ve said too much,” and “Follow the money,” and “Some things must remain classified to the very end.”

What might have languished as a lonely screed on a single image board instead incited fervor. Its profile was enhanced, according to Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins of NBC News, by several conspiracy theorists whose promotion of Q in turn helped build up their own online profiles. By now, nearly three years since Q’s original messages appeared, there have been thousands of what his followers call “Q drops”—messages posted to image boards by Q. He uses a password-protected “tripcode,” a series of letters and numbers visible to other image-board users to signal the continuity of his identity over time. (Q’s tripcode has changed on occasion, prompting flurries of speculation.) As Q has moved from one image board to the next—from 4chan to 8chan to 8kun, seeking a safe harbor—QAnon adherents have only become more devoted. If the internet is one big rabbit hole containing infinitely recursive rabbit holes, QAnon has somehow found its way down all of them, gulping up lesser conspiracy theories as it goes.

  —  The Propecies of Q