#kevin day header

[glazedcecilia]

do you think kandrew fucked pre canon or andrew was too afraid he might fall in love if he did that

omg god i wish they did

IN MY HEAD pre-canon kandrew is a bunch of failed starts and stops y’know they have the tension they have the weird staring and the gravitating towards one another beyond the deal and they say things like “you’re worth it” (kevin to andrew) and “what do you have to worry about, i’m here” (andrew to kevin) and it’s a Thing but also not.

i think they’ve gotten close, maybe kissed, but kevin’s fresh out the nest learning to be a person away from riko and learning that he Can choose and he Is more than just a commodity and andrew’s still on his meds swinging between the highs and lows of being on/off them that they really just can’t risk it

plus kevin’s new to the whole getting what you want thing he didn’t even get to himself on the raven’s exy court because he had to please riko and when he didn’t please riko he had his hand smashed and exy almost taken away from him entirely

andrew values his control and he values consent he wants a yes from kevin that isn’t a remnant of the second son of exy and i don’t think he’d be confident in kevin’s decision making skills to go all the way with him i think they’d kiss at eden’s but stop and andrew would be the one stopping them.

BASICALLY LONGWINDED WAY TO SAY THEY YEAAAAARN BUT THEY DON’T DO MUCH ABOUT IT it’s something they Know is in the air but they’re not at the place where they can explore it healthily and safely with one another

and then neil happens and THAT’S a whole can of worms

THANK YOU FOR ASKING I LOVE PRE CANON KANDREW THEY’RE SOOOOOOO i like canon kandrew too and post canon and whatever they have going on in the golden raven like Wow. Kandrew.

[devilsukuna]

all for the game; headers.

like or reblog!

[zourrysecrets]

my boys 🦊🥍

[literalgrill]

Do NOT Support Hard Drive On Patreon

You might see friends today suggesting you support Hard Drive on Patreon today. You know, the funny video games version of The Onion? As a journalist, I will firmly tell you DO NOT GIVE THEM A DIME.

The CEO has pushed out all former staff that have built the site up to its current greatness and has been pushing the use of AI. The staff begged to have a Patreon before basically all being pushed out, but the idea was refused until now, when it will only line the pockets of a single person instead of hard working writers.

I know they might have provided laughs before, but Hard Drive is a shell of what it was once. Let it die and support the people who actually made those moments of joy possible. Don't believe me? Check out what former employees are saying below:

Kevin Podas: Okay you know what, I would feel bad saying nothing about this, so here goes:🚨SAVE YOUR MONEY🚨

We passionately advocated for a Patreon at Hard Drive & were aggressively shot down. The talent & people who built the site were pushed out. To see this now is beyond upsetting. For the past few years or so I put a lot of myself into this website. I pitched a ton of jokes, got over 120 articles published, & met a lot of great people. I'm sure if you've been following me for some time you could easily see this.

However, there is a lot of misinformation. I was eventually promoted to Managing Editor of the site & was ecstatic. Grateful for the opportunity. Felt like all of my hard work in the comedy mines was finally paying off. But things took a turn for the worst, & each day there were new surprises that affected our livelihoods. These were all very avoidable surprises, mind you.

A patreon was going to be our hail mary, but alas, for some reason, the power that be did not want it. Causing us to leave a dream job behind. "At least we did all we could," we consoled ourselves afterwards. I put a lot of myself into this project. I pitched all sorts of ideas that could have helped-- we all did. Merch collaborations, Patreon-integrated YouTube content, so much more. And most of them were shot down out of sheer stubbornness and nothing more. To see lie after lie spread, and multiple big publications and YouTubers that I am a fan of promote this Patreon under these pretenses is incredibly upsetting. There are so many receipts.

Please share this and consider pulling out if you've already put money into this. On Hard Drive using AI, also from Kevin Podas: I can't personally confirm that part aside from some of the recent header images for articles on both Hard Drive and Hard Times are being made with AI. As far as writing, it's been mentioned in the past, but I personally do not know. Maybe others do, maybe not. MORE From Kevin Podas suggesting the owner denying a Patreon being set up earlier cost an artist a job that was replaced by AI: We had a social media person who was awesome! He made the images until this AI implementation. He had to leave because ad revenue was low and a Patreon was aggressively refused.

Luca Fisher: at the risk of burning some bridges, i have to back up kevin here. i've only been part-time, in-and-out of hard drive since i got in last year, but i can corroborate that management doubled and tripled down about not hosting a patreon/crowdfunding and that many other suggestions and ideas, including mine (and ones much smarter than mine!), were shot down in really long, apocalyptic threads of everyone left on deck desperately trying to come up with ways to keep the lights on. managerially it has been messy and sad

i've written for multiple publications that have long since died, ones that were in the process of dying, and ones that, in this case, are soon to be put in the ground. it is sad and sucks every time. i don't know what could have been done differently, but i do know that a lot of great writers and content creators were left shorthanded and unhappy by the way things have gone. and it is sort of puzzling to see the sudden championing of patreon after we were all told plenty of times that it couldn't work and we should move on also, just to add my own personal two cents here, i was really disappointed by the shuttering of many different article sections on the site over the past 6-8 months. i understand cutting corners in a deficit, and i know it had to be done. that said…

all in all, i'm really sad to see this all happen. i don't fault anyone, if only because i don't really know enough about how this all can happen to make sense of it. games journalism is in a sad, sorry state, and will likely no longer be a thing in the next decade

VideoSealMan: I'm gonna say this because I think I deserve to. For months, MONTHS on end I was bugging Hard Drive management about a Patreon. Often I got ignored for a week+, but when I actually got a response I was encouraged to - of all things, write up a Google Doc pitching the concept I did it regardless. I wasn't the only one trying to sway management on a Patreon, but so fiercely was I fighting for it that last night, I was accused of making this comment directly by the CEO! With no evidence whatsoever! After I'd been gone for over a month.

I vouched so hard for Patreon because I wanted all the writers and creatives working with Hard Drive including myself to get paid better. When I actually got a response, the idea was often shut down. Eventually due to the state of my company, my pay was cut for a second time I confronted management alongside a couple other important figureheads at the org and told them that if we couldn't do a Patreon - I could no longer financially justify staying there. The answer was still no, so I left. Baffled at the decision, but whatever.

It is unendingly frustrating to know that myself and many other people who put their soul into Hard Drive LEFT because of management's absolute refusal to compromise on a Patreon, to then see them launch one anyway a month later and get over 1000 people pledging money. I'm seeing a lot of things float around about greed and people being fired. No one was fired. Everyone who left, left because they were sick of management's decision-making. And honestly, management is a lot of things but I would not call them greedy. (From my experience.) They did genuinely make an effort to pay people as much as possible. I found the pay very fair for a while. I am not disputing that I was paid what I was owed - yet management frequently feels the need to remind critics of that. Lmao, yes. I was paid what I was owed. No one is disputing payment. You did the bare minimum a business owner should do and paid everyone their due, very well done. I make no allegations of greed, cheating or foul play. I make allegations of poor management and incompetence that has fucked over other people.

Basically the only people left at Hard Drive have been there for about 2 months. They will reap the rewards of this successful Patreon I and so many others passionately fought for for so long. We will not see a dime.

I do not know the new people at Hard Drive, But I feel bad for them. They were haphazardly thrust into Hard Drive's workplace with little to no explanation on how anything works, or given any context on the state of the place. Even now managements feeds them half-truths and misinformation about other people's grievances. I am broke and have been for a while. I had to move out of my flat in Reading and back with my family because of how little money I was making. This has basically doomed my flatmate to moving back in with abusive parents, which is something I feel guilty about every day. If we had gone with the Patreon I worked myself hoarse over back then, this could have been avoided. Some of my other good pals could also not have been fucked over.

It was a bad judgment call, but it's not a crime. It's just management getting it wrong.

So should you give to the Hard Drive Patreon? I don't know! I don't think any of the new people working there to patch up the holes left by the recent mass exodus have any bad intentions. Maybe they deserve it! But it is not the same site you knew a year ago, or even a month ago. Myself and many people who were there far longer than me and did far more for it than I did are all gone now because we could not deal with management's terrible decision-making and dogass communication any longer. That's what you should know, imo

I had an agreement in place with management that I would receive the next 8 months of revenue from the Hard Drive YT channel from my leaving in November. This was a deal I appreciated, and thought was very fair on management's behalf. So far, the deal has been honoured for 2 months. However as of last night I was removed from the Hard Drive Slack without warning, and as an editor for the YouTube channel. This means I no longer have any way of verifying how much I am owed, I just have to take their word for it. I'm sure management will make their own statements full of half-truths and weird language on the many cases being brought against them - I'd take everything they say with a pinch of salt if some of the screenshots I've seen of them talking about me are any indication lol

To management; I do not want to talk to you. I want you to DM me a screenshot of how much I'm owed every month and then send me the money per our agreement until June, then we can go our separate ways. Do that and admit to your mistakes, and maybe you can recover your reputation! That's it from me, lol. If they pull out of the deal and fuck me over I'll have more to say, but most of what I know is other people's stories of incompetence and poor decision-making, lol. I genuinely get no pleasure out of doing this; I do not think management is evil - I just think they're really bad at what they do and it's cost other, more talented people, lol. You should believe the writers imo

One last thing I wanna say btw, management did often stress that no one should try to make Hard Drive a full time thing. They were transparent about that, and that is fair. I was working on it because at a few points, I was lead to believe we actually were doing a Patreon. Many other ppl have similar stories of being strung along by management changing their minds and stop-starting shit every 2 weeks. We all made the fatal mistake of overestimating our manager - who would tell you one thing one day and something totally opposite the next week lol

Hunter R. Thompson:

I'm not your dad, but speaking as a Hard Drive writer, I don't know that funding Hard Drive on Patreon is worth it

The driving talent on the back end—behind the kickass site I joined in 2019—have peaced out over the years as the site's been (in our view) increasingly mismanaged. Mismanagement like, not setting up crowdfunding before the ship sank and all its best crew failed; or publishing a screenshot of Andy Ngo pedojacketing a trans writer, complete with her deadname; or a disgruntled ex-writer getting falsely accused of shit-talk, by actual staff. I'm grateful for the writing I've gotten to produce for HD (and will forever be kicking myself for not writing even more, in the four years I've had to do it!! i'm a dumbass!!!) but it is very much no longer the site I signed up for.

I don't want to resign as a contributor altogether, because I'm open to the idea of the site recovering and bad practices being retired as finances level out-- it would just be dishonest for potential backers to not be Aware Of The Circumstances, I think.

Jeremy Kaplowitz: i truly don't want to start shit, but feel compelled to say: i want to see Hard Drive succeed w/o resorting to throwing former writers & editors, myself included, under the bus. surely there's a way to save the site without building it over the corpses of those who left. my $0.02 i don't blame anyone who wants to sign up for the HD patreon and i support the website, but that includes those who worked on it for years, have complaints, and don't deserve to be treated like bitter assholes like this kind of stuff is just objectively true, meanwhile there's these new writers who joined the site after i left (meaning, in the last ~3 months) claiming people are liars. decide for yourself if you care, but this is what happened! [Quotes this Tweet]

Seth Finkelstein: Writing for Hard Drive has been a privilege the past few years, and it makes me so angry to see people I looked up to get jerked around behind the scenes. The amount of grenades the editors jumped on our behalf is immense, and I don't think the way they're being treated is right.

Other Bits On AI: We do know for sure however that AI art has been used by the site. Its fucking owner confirms it here:https://twitter.com/MattSaincome/status/1743040541603123622. Seems the owner pushed AI written articles as well! TayFabe: My vaguetweet is making the rounds & these made me apoplectic. - owner regularly lobbied using ai. Once he tested it & said ai was writing better satire than 25% of the HT/HD writers. - ai images were used on the site & socials w/o consulting the team or disclosing it publicly I found the ai bit relevant to include bc 1) it illuminates a stark change in HD's current direction & leadership, 2) ai images have previously been used on the site and (since deleted) ig posts, 3) ai content fucking sucks, and repeatedly pushing to use it is a telling quality The "handful of writers who chose to leave" includes 2 editors-in-chief (both cofounders who wrote a combined total of >1,000 articles & defined the voice of HD), & at least 3 other editors. These guys put in WORK since 2017, so cool to be corrected by ppl who joined in Nov 2023 [Link to mentioned vague tweet from post.] More from TayFabe: owner continuously lobbied for using ai in every possible way. No one else wanted to do it, but he kept on, saying ai was writing better satire than 25% of the HT/HD writers. Also, ai images were used on the site & socials without public disclosure or consulting the team.

The owner has responded now multiple times in a private discord... Thank you for people sharing screenshots! First Screenshot:

Kevin's Response: He banned me from the server for speaking out, so no, I didn't see it. And he gave no indication of a timeline, it was just "we'll do one when *I* say so" and gave every inclination he was totally against it. It bred an environment that pushed our hands to have to leave. Screenshot Round Two:

Kevin's Response: "Starting one in 3 months" is an absolute lie. He denied it, I have screenshots and others who can confirm. No timeline was given. Just "this is what it is now" and like, I couldn't live off of that. I wanted to do more but he was allergic to good ideas from others around him.

Matt, owner of Hard Drive, responds publicly on Twitter.

Matt: Kevin, the patreon launch was delayed because I didn't think it would work. Everyone is happy that it did work. Everyone who left the site because we didn't have money to pay for creative content which didn't revenue is welcome to return home. But unclear why the hostility.

Hard Drive paid out literally every dollar it had, then a bunch more, to creative people who worked on the site. When we ran out of money, we couldn't pay anymore. We did our best.

Kevin: Right, and my point of this thread was that it was completely and totally avoidable. This is reasonable to be upset about. How could I have been any more clear?

Matt: If we knew with 100% certainly that the community would have supported us via patreon, we would have done that. We didn't know. We had tried 4 years ago and got no support. We were wrong this time. We did our best to figure it out. We paid all the money we could.

Kevin: So you knew with 100% certainty this time? Or you took a leap of faith?

Matt: It was a last gasp panic effort after ad rates got cut in half on january 1st due to seasonal spending changes. We didn't know it would work. We were embarrassed to ask for support. We wanted to figure it out.

Kevin: Every site has a Patreon. Every YouTuber, comedy group, etc. But you insisted that nobody cared about Hard Drive. Which is wildly untrue. I know you see that now, but again, I think you can see why I and many others are pretty upset. A last ditch panic effort was long overdue. A couple more things from Matt:

It was about the size of the hole we needed plugged budget wise, the time I had left of personal resources, and the past data I had about us trying a patreon (which turned out to be a bad indicator). I didn't think the Patreon would help us fast enough. I made a bad estimation

aka "if we make $1000 more dollars a month via patreon, which would be 10x what we got last time, we will not solve any of our problems. If instead we try to plow down path B, we might make it out in time." That was the thinking. I chose the wrong path, but didn't mean to Kevin also retweeted this comment from the user Matt was responding to: So you're saying that you're bad at running the business, didn't listen to any of your employees until after they were forced to leave their jobs, and now you're going to get more of the money from the Patreon that was their idea in the first place? Matt's Response: Respectfully, I made a mistake delaying the patreon decision. But keeping a comedy site alive for 9 years is not easy, there are lots of potential ideas, and think overall we've done a good and honorable job. Will leave this thread in peace now to allow people their space.

Sorry for linking to Elon's hellsite (derogatory), but sources need links so...

[mariacallous]

Sede vacante. The Holy See is vacant.

Pope Francis, the first Latin American pontiff in history, died at age 88 on Monday at his residence in Vatican City. Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina, he led the Catholic Church for 12 years.

Francis was hospitalized for 38 days in February for double pneumonia. His doctors later revealed that he had had two close brushes with death. Francis was discharged from the hospital a month ago and had made several public appearances since. Most notably, he attended the Vatican’s celebrations on Easter Sunday. “Dear brothers and sisters, Happy Easter,” Francis told the crowds, before being driven across St. Peter’s Square on the popemobile, waving at the faithful. In hindsight, it was a fitting send-off for a pontiff who had become the people’s pope.

At times like these, the ways of the Vatican can appear mysterious. What happens after a pope dies? Who governs the Holy See? And how is a pope elected? Most non-Catholics are probably trying to remember the plot of the 2024 movie Conclave right now.

All eyes are now on the camerlengo, or chamberlain, Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell. He will run the Holy See until a new Holy Father is elected. No time is wasted after the pope dies. His body is quickly embalmed and then put on display for three days in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.

Next comes the funeral, which also takes place in St. Peter’s Basilica or, if the weather permits, just outside, on St. Peter’s Square. The dean of the College of Cardinals always presides over the ceremony. Giovanni Battista Re, the current dean, has served in the Curia since the 1960s. If anyone knows how to compose a homily, it’s a man who has seen the deaths of multiple popes.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, popes have been buried in the ornate grottoes beneath St. Peter’s Basilica. But, in 2023, Francis decided to break with protocol. He will be interred in St. Mary Major, a basilica in the center of Rome, because of his “great devotion” to the Virgin Mary.

Although the official mourning period for the pope lasts nine days, the process for selecting a successor starts as soon as he has drawn his last breath. As the Italian proverb goes, morto un papa, se ne fa un altro. When a pope dies, another is made. In other words, not even the vicar of Christ is irreplaceable.

The new pope is chosen by conclave, the papal election dramatized in the hit film. It occurs roughly two weeks after the pope’s funeral. Only cardinals under the age of 80 can take part in it. This means that, out of a current total of 252 cardinals, 138 will pick the next leader of the Catholic Church—a global institution with more than 400,000 clergy members and 1.3 billion lay Catholics.

The conclave occurs in the Sistine Chapel, beneath a ceiling painted by Michelangelo. The doors are locked, and the cardinal electors can have no contact with the outside world. During this time, they are supposed to let the Holy Spirit guide their decision. Concretely speaking, it works like this: Cardinals are given a piece of paper with a header in Latin that reads simply, “I elect as supreme pontiff,” and they write down the name of their chosen candidate below.

To win, a candidate must secure a two-thirds majority. Until that happens, voting continues. Only one round is held on the first day of the conclave, but after that, up to four rounds can take place each day.

While the conclave is à huis clos, the outside world watches closely. The cardinals have only one way to communicate their progress: a chimney on St. Peter’s Square, connected to the Sistine Chapel. When a vote is inconclusive, the cardinals burn the ballots. In a separate furnace, they add chemicals to produce black smoke. When a pope has been elected, they burn the ballots one last time; this time, the smoke turns white. Habemus papam.

Conclaves vary in length. In 2013, Francis was elected after only 24 hours. By comparison, it took cardinals five days and 14 rounds to choose Pius XI in 1922.

Though the conclave is the final act in “making” a pope, what happens before matters, too. In the days leading up to it, the dean of the College of Cardinals convenes general congregations. All the cardinals, regardless of their age, take part. General congregations provide an opportunity to discuss the direction of the church and the qualities that the next pope should have.

The whole process is akin to politics, just swap the dark suits for bright red soutanes. “If history teaches us anything about papal conclaves, it is that the Holy Spirit is far from the only influence at play,” said Jessica Wärnberg, a historian who has conducted extensive research in Vatican archives and written a book on Rome and the popes, titled City of Echoes. She added that it has always been political. “Historically, major political powers, such as France and Spain, worked hard to sway voting. Today, factions are shaped along more ideological lines.”

But campaigning for the papacy is nothing like campaigning in a liberal democracy. For one, it’s very hush-hush. There are no leaflets or campaign ads. For another, cardinals eyeing the papacy are never open about their ambitions. Instead, they rely on allies to quietly drum up support. Subtlety is the mot d’ordre.

That’s not to say Vatican politicking isn’t ruthless. Think Game of Thrones but without the bloodshed. Various factions in the church push their champion. But if he isn’t able to garner enough support, a champion is ditched without mercy, no matter how preeminent he might be.

And, just as in Game of Thrones, it isn’t immediately clear who will win in the end. This is especially true of the upcoming conclave. “All bets are off when it comes to predicting who will succeed Francis,” said Philip Shenon, a former investigative reporter at the New York Times and the author of Jesus Wept, a new book on the modern church. “There’s no obvious front-runner.”

One reason why is that Francis completely overhauled the College of Cardinals. He appointed 110 out of the 138 cardinals who will vote in the conclave. That’s nearly 80 percent. The catch: Many of them come from far-flung corners of the world. They have spent little time together and therefore barely know one another.

Who wins is thus anyone’s guess. “It might be somebody very exotic, since many cardinals are from the other side of the world,” said Frédéric Martel, the author of In the Closet of the Vatican, an investigation into homosexuality in the church that draws on 1,500 interviews, including with prelates. “In fact, it might be a big surprise,” Martel added, “since nobody will have known of the sociology of the new conclave!”

This hasn’t stopped all of Rome from buzzing about the papabili, or the “pope-able.” For Martin Palmer, the CEO of FaithInvest, an NGO that works closely with the church, and a member of the Vatican COVID-19 Commission, the next pontiff will come from one of two factions within the church: He will belong either to “the right wing” in the United States and Africa or to the more liberal “Francis appointments” in Asia and Africa.

On the right, Palmer identifies Robert Sarah, a 79-year-old cardinal from Guinea, as a papabile. Sarah has long been in the mix to succeed Francis. A former prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the Vatican department overseeing the Latin Church’s liturgy, he is the anti-Francis candidate.

A traditionalist heavyweight who doesn’t pull his punches, Sarah has echoed the white-nationalist Great Replacement conspiracy theory. Europe, he said in 2019, is at risk of being “invaded by foreigners, just as Rome has been invaded by barbarians.” As he sees it, the continent is locked in an existential battle with the Islamic faith. “If Europe disappears, and with it the priceless value of the Old Continent, Islam will invade the world, and we will completely change culture, anthropology, and moral vision.”

Without surprise, Sarah takes a hard line on homosexuality. He has slammed Francis’s decision to allow same-sex couples to receive sacraments. And he has likened “homosexual and abortion ideologies” to “Nazi-Fascism and communism.”

Another conservative contender, Palmer said, is Raymond Burke, a 76-year-old cardinal from the United States. Best known for his love of the cappa magna, Burke is as outspoken in his statements as in his fashion choices. He has repeatedly criticized Francis—so much so that the pope took away his subsidized Vatican apartment. The American papabile has close ties to the Make America Great Again movement. For many years, he was an ally of Steve Bannon until the two fell out. Still, Burke remains a power player in U.S. conservative Catholic circles.

In the age of Trump, however, that may be a liability. Palmer, who was recently at the Vatican, said that “the negative impact of Trump around the world has significantly cast a cloud over right-wing American rhetoric. Burke and by implication Sarah are seen as tainted by their association with Trump-style politics.”

As a consequence, a staunch conservative like Sarah or Burke may not have the numbers to win. “Sarah and Burke have zero chance—or as many chances as Trump to win the Eurovision,” Martel quipped. “They are ultra-right-wing and ultra-marginal figures. It’s a joke!”

Shenon put it more diplomatically. “Well, conservatives could try, and they probably will,” he said. “But when the doors to the Sistine Chapel are bolted shut, there just aren’t that many of them in the College of Cardinals—at least not enough of the rock-ribbed archconservatives who would vote for a candidate who would reverse Francis’s legacy.”

The next pontiff, Shenon predicts, will at least maintain some degree of continuity with Francis. “Whatever happens, it’s fair to assume that the next pope will not have a dramatically different vision of the church’s future,” Shenon said. He believes that the cardinal electors appointed by Francis “doubtless feel great loyalty to Francis’s progressive legacy.”

Among them, Shenon identifies Cardinal Pietro Parolin—the Holy See’s secretary of state since 2013—as an “obvious candidate.” The 70-year-old Italian prelate would respect the late pope’s agenda. He has said Francis’s reforms were “the action of the Spirit, [so] there can be no U-turn.” If the cardinal electors are looking for a safe pair of hands, someone who knows the Curia and can safeguard Francis’s achievements, then Parolin is their man.

In a similar vein, Martel points to Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the 69-year-old archbishop of Bologna. Zuppi has Francis’s trust. Crucially, as the head of the Italian Episcopal Conference, he’s also popular with many prelates.

But if they want a bolder choice, then cardinal electors could go for the Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson. The 76-year-old is the chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Social Sciences. He has long been ranked as a papabile, even though his star has dimmed after he fell out with Francis. But don’t count him out, said Palmer, who has worked with Turkson and thinks that ���he really speaks for the engaged African Church.”

Palmer also thinks that Cardinal Luis Tagle, the former archbishop of Manila, has a serious chance. Hailed as the “Asian Francis,” Tagle is a progressive. He backed Francis in his drive to protect the environment and his plans for a more inclusive church. “My vision for a synodal church is a church that rediscovers this wonderful gift of the Spirit given to the whole church in Vatican II,” Tagle said in 2023, referring to the Second Vatican Council, which modernized the church in the 1960s and has been attacked by conservatives ever since.

The Filipino prelate has also taken a more compassionate approach to doctrinal matters, deploring the “harsh words that were used in the past to refer to gays and divorced and separated people, the unwed mothers, etc.”

At 67, Tagle is young by papal standards. Francis was elected at 76, Benedict XVI at 78. If he does become pope, then he would have the time to enact sweeping reforms. “In recent years, Francis has seemed pretty convinced his agenda—and the spirit of Vatican II—will survive his papacy,” Shenon said, “which is why he keeps insisting with a smile that his successor will call himself John XXIV.” John XXIII was the pope who initiated Vatican II. Tagle could well be the kind of successor Francis envisioned—perhaps even taking the name John XXIV.

If neither conservative nor liberal factions manage to win enough support among the cardinal electors, then a compromise candidate may emerge. “Historically speaking, divided conclaves have often favored ostensibly neutral candidates,” Wärnberg said. “A papabile with a lower public profile, such as the careful and erudite Cardinal Peter Erdo of Hungary or the reserved and pragmatic Cardinal Anders Arborelius of Sweden, could, therefore, emerge.”

In recent months, another ostensibly neutral prelate has shot up to the top of the papabili list: Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem. He’s Italian but has spent most of his career in Israel. This means that he isn’t associated with the Curia and remains something of a blank slate.

On many key issues, Pizzaballa has kept his cards close to his chest. And when he hasn’t, he has sent signals to both liberals and conservatives. With liberals, for instance, he backed Laudato Si, Francis’s 2015 encyclical on environmental justice. But Pizzaballa is also open to the Latin Mass, prized by conservatives. “The cardinal is very meticulous in liturgical celebration and has no problem with the traditional Mass,” David Neuhaus, a former patriarchal vicar for Hebrew-speaking Catholics in the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, told National Catholic Register.

Despite being only 59, Pizzaballa has plenty of political experience. In 2014, he orchestrated the “peace prayer” in the Vatican Gardens, a landmark summit between Francis, then-Israeli President Shimon Peres, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Similarly, Pizzaballa has tried to strike a measured tone over the Gaza war, talking both about the horrors of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacres and the suffering of the Palestinian people.

Another compromise candidate could be the Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny. “If the conclave is looking for a safe caretaker pope to ease the transition from the dynamism of Francis, Cardinal Czerny, the cardinal at the head of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, is also a possibility. Quiet, efficient, and running the Laudato Si Dicastery, it is his dicastery that will guide that most radical of encyclicals,” Palmer said. “But don’t expect the church to be quite so on message about climate or the environment post-Francis.”

Conclaves aren’t an exact science. With a few exceptions, they are notoriously difficult to predict. The papabili seldom get to sit on the throne of St. Peter. The Italians have a proverb to that effect. Chi entra papa in conclave, ne esce cardinale. He who enters the conclave as pope leaves it as cardinal.

[turbulentscrawl]

Could I get an Aesop, Norton and Kevin with a S/O who gets turned into a hunter because they learned too much? Like. Their Significant other was always very enthusiastic about discovering secrets and stuff, and they started acting off because they discovered something BAD. And within a month or so. They moved officially to the hunter manor? 🙏

If that's too much, feel free to ignore or decline!

I put my own spin on this, i hope you don't mind! This is SFW but going under the cut because it plays into the horror aspect of the game. Also, I don't have the time to whip up a kevin header currently and don't have the patience to wait on posting this....so I'll get his made and added later!

Warnings: body horror, angst

The worst part of it all is that you can’t even remember the reason for it all.

You were a seeker, a searcher, always nosing into places and subjects you didn��t belong. You craved to know the world’s secrets and that included the manor’s. You spent long hours, days, weeks, investigating the manor’s records, the histories of its inhabitants, obtaining the aid of…some horrific woman. A veritable snake. She told you something. Something bad…. Something that ruined you from the inside out, necrosing its way through every cell.

The changes come slowly at first, and painfully. Your muscles and joints would ache. Your head would throb. Your bones would move on their own, shifting and stretching inside your tearing meat. You drowned in darkness, and suffocated in blinding lights. The worst moments of your life came to you again! Again! Again! Again! Again! Again! Again! Again! Again!

And when all the pain finally melted away, you were different. The friendly faces around you were once your enemies. Your own face was that of a lion, and the original of it staring back was the clueless lamb.

Aesop

-He showed little interest in your “search for answers.” He wants to understand everything better too, true, but even the detective sorts among you had found few answers. Orpheus, Alice, Naib…. No offense to you, of course, I’m just saying he wasn’t be holding his breath….

-But far be it from this recluse to stop you. He of all people understands what it means to hyperfocus on your work. Work is familiarity, truth, and on some level he can imagine how a tangled mystery might be as comfortable to you as a corpse is to him. They both reveal truths in indirect ways.

-Because of your busybody separation from one another during this time, he likely doesn’t notice the changes right away. He probably finds out from someone else about the aches and pains you’ve been having, the sweats, fever, and all without a match in the records to explain them away. People didn’t get sick in the manor, yet somehow you inexplicably were.

-Then you sleep. For days. You’re still enough that Aesop almost feels like he’s watching over one of his 'normal' patients, like he should be doing your makeup. He’s calm, but checks for your pulse and breathing a lot. That’s when he notices you crying in your sleep.

-And things only go downhill from there. Aesop is generally level-headed, but there’s something about your aura that begins to disturb him. He refuses to leave, to abandon you when something is obviously wrong, but you go more and more still under his watchful eyes. You stop breathing, your skin goes pallid, but blood is still hot in your veins—he gives your thumb a pinprick to be sure of it. Your pillow is always wet because you won’t stop silently crying.

-On a whim one day, he decides to check your eyes. He collapses to the ground when he realizes the sockets are empty and raw. He runs from your room then, and when Emily returns to investigate your body is gone.

-The next day, you return in perfect condition. Healthy, though confused, and with no memory of that last several weeks of pain. You both had a match the next day, and Aesop decided he would focus on protecting you above anything else.

-But the Hunter was new. Eerie, unspeaking, blind…and cried ceaselessly. Aesop was frozen in genuine fear when the other you lumbered by him, choking on pained sobs, perhaps in search of your old peace.

Norton

-He told you from the beginning that it was a bad idea. Norton was not an educated man but he had sense—and experience—enough to know when paranormal shit was not to be trifled with. He still had nightmares about that eye….

-But you went on ahead with your business anyway. He let you, albeit while watching his back a whole lot more. Isolating. Swallowing his dread. You remind him of his mistakes before you even make them.

-He doesn’t think much of your first symptoms. Norton gets sore sometimes, and feels ill. The Black Lung never did leave him, and some days he handles it worse than others. You have nothing like that, though, and after several days of persisting discomfort he remembers that fact and sends you to Emily. She’s as perplexed as him though, and that makes him feel even more nervous.

-He also doesn’t notice for a while that you’ve stopped talking about your search entirely. He asks you about it once, when he catches you staring at the wall in a daze, and feels like a knife pierces his lung when you say you don’t have the faintest clue what he’s talking about.

-He keeps catching you like that. Paralyzed in a particular spot. Watching things, unblinking. When you come to, you don’t remember what you were doing. Your memory starts go slip away like Luca’s does, but somehow it’s more severe. You remember who you are, who he is, but everything else is gone. Some evenings he practically has to spoon feed you dinner because the concept of silverware and food have escaped you.

-Paranoid of what it all means, Norton starts to stay with you at night. But he gets no sleep during those times because all night you moan in pain. When Norton wraps his arms around you for comfort, he wears he feels your muscles twisting and undulating under your skin.

-Norton does not remember the last time he’s screamed, but he did the day after you finally seemed better. After he finally started to relax again. He was decoding in the top floor of the hospital when he heard that familiar moaning coming from below. He freezes at the sound, and when he looks over his shoulder he sees a twisted, stretched figure crawling up through the gaping hole in the floor. He knows the hair, the voice, but nothing else is you.

-And he screams, backed up against the cipher like a cornered animal. Never in his life has he not tried to run for his life, but when this Hunter of you locks eyes with him he can’t. He can’t run from what he didn’t fight harder against. Even when facing Fool’s Gold—himself—he’s never felt so much like a failure.

Kevin

-He’s always known he lacks your foresight. Kevin can’t begin to suspect the truth of things like this place. The sprawling vastness of it, he doesn’t trust himself to comprehend the complexity, the darkness. But you? Well, even if this it all a bit eerie, he’s got faith in your intelligence.

-He plays closer attention to you than the other two. The second you start to look off, he tasks notice. He sees the obsession in your face, the dark bags under your eyes, the way your nose digs deeper into things than before. You become…pushier with people.

-Kevin suggests you take a break, but you wave him off. You’re onto something, you say, and just need a little more understanding before everything unravels. He doesn’t like that word. “Unravel.”

-Which is perhaps a premonition, because it’s a great word to describe what happens to you. When you’re awake—and you are awake for irrationally long hours—you seem positively mad. You whisper to yourself in words that don’t sound human. He catches “Hastur” among them a few times, and “Witch” but once again his own comprehension fails.

-And when you sleep, you scream. The fist few nights it happened, he and a few others came running from down the hall and roused you. You didn’t remember the terrors. Night after night it happened, the response dwindling until it was just Kevin abandoning his own sleep to help you from whatever was terrifying you in your sleep.

-Then, you stopped waking up. He tried everything! Water, those smelling salts Emily had. Nothing would wake you and you just kept screaming, screaming, screaming like you were being dissected in your bed. After three days of not sleeping himself, Kevin carried your thrashing form to the infirmary. He was horrified when Emily suggested restraining and gagging you, but he had no other ideas himself. He slept in the chair nearby for what felt like weeks.

-And one day it all stopped. Kevin woke up, cracked his stiff neck, and noticed you were gone from your restraints. Emily was as confused as he was, but before the panic could build you emerged from your own bedroom, right as rain.

-He pulled you aside and cried in your arms until he passed out himself.

-The next match, though, started his own series of nightmares. Only a few minutes in he heard that scream. That blood-curdling wail that had been seared into his memory. It paralyzed him, and everyone else, on the spot. And then the vestige of your suffering appeared. Dark, shivering, voice raw and pained. The new Hunter that rounded the corner was undeniably you, and Kevin was sure he’d never know another peaceful day again.

[kevinsdsy]

just stopped and realized that the blorbo I’m currently being insane about is named Kevin 😐

He’s a Man named Kevin 😐😐😐

Kevin ??????

what kind of white boy ass name 😭😭😭 (I love hcing mixed Kevin )

Anyway thinking about him <3

LMAOOO CRYING YOU’RE SO REAL FOR THIS IT REMINDS ME OF THE TWITTER HEADER I HAD FOR THE LONGEST TIME

LIKEE at the end of the day that’s a white man named kevin plsss 😭 ((MIXED KEVIN TRUTHER I SEE YOUR VISION))

[stabbyfoxandrew]

💞 WIP Wednesday (2/5) 💞

Hewwo. :3 The hearts in the header are not for Valentine's Day. They are for Kevin Day. Because his birthday is this month. :) Do something nice for yourself today or else! 🗡️

1. Vampire Andrew AU 2. Guardian Angel Neil AU 3. Mafia Front Restaurant AU 4. Arsonist Neil / Firefighter Andrew AU 5. Mer Roadtrip AU 6. Demon Neil AU

*click the links for masterposts for each au!

Here’s Mafia Front (Part 272):

NEIL

Neil waits for everyone to clear out. Once all the cars disappear, he finally allows himself a breath. When he opens the fridge again, Andrew is there, with Neil's jacket draped over his arms. He silently raises a brow and Neil nods. "It's safe now, they're gone."

"Who was the guy?" Andrew asks as he exits the fridge.

"The one who shot Jean. Stuart put him down for it. Needed me to ID him first," Neil says with a shrug. Andrew's expression doesn't change. "I just told you we killed a man out there and you look bored, like I told you it was raining."

[ok555ficideas]

I thought I would make a pinned post, because why not.

my pfp is by elidanus on twitter

my header is by @yourleftpinkytoe-blog

I'm 22, my pronouns are she/they. I'm queer and ace.

On this blog I post my fics and ideas for new ones. Wordvomit555 is my side blog where I just rumble about whatever Fandoms: All for the game, 9-1-1 on ABC my ao3

Fics for All for the game:

finished: - Help me remember -> Andriel, amnesia, 50k - Saving the Day -> Kevaaron, fake dating, 50k - If the world was ending -> Jerejean, Kevjean, one shot - Girl crush -> unrequited Kevaaron, one shot - Hate u, love u -> unrequited Kandrew, one shot - Always and forever -> Andriel getting married, one shot - Five more minutes -> character study on Seth, one shot - One moment at a time -> character study on Nicky, one shot - Survive -> character study on Neil, one shot - Every step of the way -> Andriel, one shot - Show me -> Andriel, friends to lovers, 4k - This is it, isn't it? -> Andriel, break up, one shot (with an alternative happy ending in second chapter) - Useful -> Andrew character study, one shot - I asked you that once, too -> Andriel cuddling, one shot - I dial dunk, I'd die a drunk, I'd die for you -> possibly unrequited Kevjean, one shot - "Hold me" -> Kandriel cuddling, ft. Kevin and Wymack father-son relationship, one shot

ongoing: - In every fucking universe -> Andriel, time travel, multiple alternative universes - Soldier, Poet, King -> Katekevaaron - Broken promises -> Kandriel

Fics for 9-1-1:

finished: - "We made these memories for ourselves" -> amnesia, slow burn, 129k - Don't call him -> rewrite of the aftermath of the coming out scene, 4k - Stay -> airport love confession, 4,6k - Coming home -> Chris comes home, accidental kissing, not friendly to the Diaz parents, 4,5k - What if it's you? -> getting together full of misunderstandings, 9k - All my love -> too late love confession , 2k - We should have known -> Talk about what idiots they were after getting together , 2,4k - Wait for me -> not actually unrequited love, 1k - Mi amor -> pet names, 350 - Take me or leave me -> Henren, 1,6k - For science -> fake/pretend relationship, 10k - Lost and found -> temporary amnesia, marriage proposal, 4,8k - Desperate times -> smut, 7,5k - Carve your name into my bedpost -> smut, 8,5k - In my head, I'm yours -> amnesia, smut, 4,5k - Fidget toy -> smut, 8k - Touching me… touching you? —> smut, 6k - Eyes wide open —> soft smut, 5k

[tediousmalcontentt]

absolutely no one asked but I’m posting my header and icon

my header is my handwritten transcription of the ai summary when I searched “all for the game”

my icon is my own Kevin Day fan art

Hope that helps

[lestappenforever]

Miami, you were something, I can’t deny it. The race was not the best in terms of racing, but it brought a lot.

Firstly Logan and Williams. Logan was en route to a good race, and he’s been having a pretty decent weekend, with making up 9 places in the sprint, from p19 to p10, and I have a feeling he was en route to something similar during the race. But Kevin just had to go and ruin the most home race of his home races. He is getting comfortable (sort of after Australia). However, that Williams just is not it. They are not doing well, currently bottom of the pack, Alex not even being remotely close to points, actually Logan was closer. But they need to get their shit together, or they’re fucked.

VCARB are a force to be reckoned with in the midfield. Almost constant point finishes, and solid performances with massive overtakes that are just (chef’s kiss). Yuki is extracting everything and more from that car, and Daniel is trying.

ALPINE POINT, I REPEAT ALPINE POINTS. As I said in the previous weeks, its a slow but sure improvement in pace, and Esteban is doing WONDERS in that tractor. He’s outperforming and extracting the most if the car, more than Pierre is doing, and that will help him in the 2025 seat hunt. Also notting, Pierre was better in AT, actually wayy better in a supposedly worse car.

Haas didn’t have the answer yesterday. Nico was close, but not enough, and Kevin just causing terror and the not the type like the sprint. He has to take care as he’s 2 penalties away from a race ban.

Ferrari were STRONG (I’m of course talking about Charles). He extracted everything out of that car, and did the best he could in yesterday’s second fastest car. Carlos is going crazy about the seat, and it’s showing, with the way he raced, and the eay he ruined Oscar’s race. He needs to get his head in the game, focus and not get cocky, because what he’s doing will cost him a seat.

Mercedes and Aston are just away from the top 3, they’re getting better, sure, but still not there. And that is a problem, because there could be climbers and surprises.

Red Bull did not have the answer, and that’s okay. Max was saying that he wasn’t a million percent confident in the car since Friday afternoon, and it showed in his comments post quali. Definitely the team will work so much on that, and Max won’t allow anything to happen in the next double header. He won’t accept ir allow anything other than first. Also that floor damage with the cone removal he decided on and the safety car timing, yeah it was kind if an off weekend. As for Checo, he did the best he could, but God that launch into turn one that could have taken him, Max and Charles out, he needs to stop being irrational in that sense, simply because a Mexico 2023 crash could be detrimental in his position for a seat in 2025. But nonetheless, Red Bull not finishing below 5th this season is impressive and they’ll work tripple as hard for next week.

Finally, the team if the hour who had it right on the day it mattered the most. The upgrades should worry the competition because the car is FAST. Lando extracted everything and fir the first time ever, luck was on his side fir that top step. And I can’t tell you how proud I am of him. Also Oscar was en route to a good race, of course Carlos ruined it.

But yeah, Miami was good, not the best in terms of racing, but rather emotions. Everyone going to congratulate Lando, especially since everyone kn that grid knows its been a long time coming, Max saying that if he had to be beat, he’s glas it was Lando who beat him, that podium with Max first then Charles focusing on Lando. All top teams congratulated him, with Red Bull posting the iconic baby Max and Lando pic. You could tell that he is loved in that paddock and that he has been so hard on himself that when the time came, no one could be upset, even us Max fans, because he deserves it.

Now time to regroup and start the European Leg. (also that black on black outfit Max had with black backwards cap while partying with Lando is just 😮‍💨)

Just going to leave this here in all its glory.

[l-norris]

The last race of the triple header has blessed us, and now thou shall receive another recap, this time with a new(-ish) design!

(... It's literally only the header that's new but whatever)

DISCLAIMER: Remember that this is just for shits and giggles, I'm not trying to actually hate on any of the drivers cuz all (most) of them are very dear to me!

As always - numbers in brackets = lap numbers

- Pre-race anxiety is through the roof

- Checo starts from pitlane

- Logan starts from 12th!! Go funky American man!

- Lando and Max are starting next to each other

- God help me

- Rain hovering in the distance

- Ferraris are fucked

- Formation lap starts

- George speedy formation lap

- He wants to get this OVER with

- Pierre has issues with the car after 50-grid-place penalty rip

- He retires before the race even starts

- It's lights out and away go!

- Lewis instantly swoops over to protect George

- Lando bottles start again :(

- Lando struggles with tires

- DRS enabled

- What happened with Pierre? We don't know.

- Mans didn't even make it through the formation lap

- Alex loses pieces of his car (3)

- Logan reports it like he's scared they'll make him switch cars with Alex midrace

- I wouldn't put it past Williams tbh

- Talks of rain already (4)

- "Double stacking won't be a problem for Red Bull" SHOTS FIRED

- Alex and Fernando contact at the start of the race btw

- ... So that's why Alex' car is falling apart

- PSA: Checo is not last anymore! (7)

- "Hülkenberg, who was the fastest Ferrari powered car in Qualifying yesterday." CROFTY PLS😭

- Esteban classical dive-bomb

- Pierre had a gearbox issue btw

- Glad we got that outta the way

- So much for switching all the components in the car

- Alpine please get a grip (they won't ever)

- "Lando we'll keep it simple" what does that mean William

- William I don't like how this sounds

- "Rain in so-and-so many minutes" SHUT UP!! I'M SO FUCKING SCARED RIGHT NOW YOU SHUT UP!

- Guanyu pits (13)

- Charles overtakes Lance (14)

- Lando closes up to Max (14)

- I've seen this movie before and I didn't like the ending

- Lando overtakes Max! (15)

- Oscar now also closing in on Max (17)

- He overtakes him easily! (18)

- Holy hell the Red Bull is a tractor

- Lewis overtakes George! (18)

- And Lando swoops past too! (19)

- Switched to ORF bc F1 TV is behind by like half a lap

- People switched to inters and damn bro y'all were STUPID for that

- And before you ask

- Yes, there was a Ferrari involved.

- Yes, that Ferrari was Charles Marc Hervé Perceval Leclerc.

- Terrible day for Tifosi 4.0

- Red Bull sacrificed Checo

- "It's too dry for inters" We know Checo (unlike some teams)

- DRS enabled (24)

- The people on inters crying rn

- I'm crying too dw

- horrendous laptimes from the drivers on inters (we're talking 1:50 territory here)

- Max in 5th

- 30 minute rain cell incoming

- Checo lapped (25)

- Charles lapped (25)

- That's three in a row now Ferrari

- What the fuck are you doing Ferrari

- Sigh...

- Lando and Oscar fight (26)

- help me

- everyone pits except for the Top 4 (27)

- Lando pits (28)

- Mercedes double stack (28)

- They fucking forgot Oscar again😭

- McLaren when I catch you McLaren

- Charles pits AGAIN (28)

- This is worse than Spielberg

- I can't do this anymore

- Red Bull fumble Checos pitstop (29)

- Max can't keep up

- He's 1.3 seconds slower than Lando

- "It's not raining anymore mate" Okay Lewis

- George retires (34)

- Horrible day for GR63 fans (me)

- Kevin almost bins it in classical Kmag style (35)

- Lando wobbles a little and gives me a heart attack in the process (36)

- Max is suddenly somehow faster than the others (38)

- What a fucking surprise /j

- Slicks time (38)

- Lando stays out one lap longer

- Lando pits (39)

- Lewis leads (40)

- MCLAREN. WHEN WILL YOU LEARN THAT YOUR ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES?!

- That's like the fourth win y'all just fucking gave away

- Mr. Stella I'd like a (not-so-friendly) word or two

- Kimi Antonelli sighted! (45)

- Max is gaining on Lando🫣 (46)

- anxiety

- I'm sweating real hard

- Max swoops past Lando (48)

- man

- Lewis is still in the lead

- if it is one person who deserves the win it's Lewis

- At least they're keeping it exciting until the end

- This is fine

- last lap starts!

- Oscar fastest lap (51)

- Rooting for Lewis rn don't talk to me

- HE WINS IT!

- Carlos steals fastest lap btw

- BUT!!!

- GET IN THERE LEWIS IS BACK

- HE'S CRYING😭

- HE'S CRYING I'M CRYING EVERYONE IS CRYING

- LEWIS😭

- I wanna give him a hug so bad rn

- He deserved that win

- Also he's DotD!

- "Why didn't you go onto Mediums instead?" LEWIS PLEASE LEAVE THE CHILD (Lando) ALONE!!

- The cooldown room scenes are a blessing and a curse lmao

- ... Feel free to add on!

... Phew! What a race man. There were some classics (like Ferrari and McLaren screwing their drivers once again), but Lewis deserved this win so so much, I'm literally in tears. Sad that George had to retire, but at least we got two Brits on the podium🥹

[mostlyvoid-partiallyflowers]

You can call me Ember and my pronouns are he/they. I’m white, trans masc nonbinary and queer. I’m a writer, screenprinter, costume technician, and lover of books. My ask box is open, feel free to ask me anything and I'd love to make more fandom friends, so feel free to dm me too.

Header is art by Tillie Walden. PFP is by @/emry-stars-art!

This blog is firmly and forever for a Free Palestine. Zionists will be blocked and reported. Same goes for TERFs.

Current Wips:

Kevin Day Angst (masterlist)

KevAaron College Theater au (masterlist)

Andreil Cowboy/Rodeo au

KevAaron When Harry Met Sally au

Fanfic List:

Andreil Competency Kink 5+1: Never Felt So Good

smoke you to the filter just to savor the taste

touching his, make blessèd my bloody hands

take all the time you need

love is like a rattlesnake

Tag list under the cut:

personal - #day in the life of ember

writing - #ember writes

wip wednesday - #wip wednesday

Neil Josten - #i love him your honor

Andrew Minyard - #i’d take a knife for him

Kevin Day - #queen of my heart

Aaron Minyard - #the man that you are

Renee Walker - #the woman that you are

Jeremy Knox - #light of my life

Jean Moreau - #my darling desolate creature

[taldesol]

Hello!! <3

My user name "taldesol" means tal from sun and it's a nick name of one persona that I create (on final fantasy): Talis Day.

I choose Talis (Tal) for no special reason I just like how it sonds (now I can make the joke that I'm Tal but I'm not tall kjkjk sorry, it wasn't funny).

Day for otherwise is because is in the day that the sun (sol) apears with all it shinne and the world looks colorfull. Now remember me of Kevin Day too, so it turns even more importante to me. I'm Talis Day, an artist from portugal 🇵🇹, thank to all of you for your kindness here, means a lot to me.

Social Media: • Instagram: bytaldesol • BlueSky: taldesol • Tiktok: talisday_ For commissions: VGEN ☀︎⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ and Carrd

I want to talk more about the credits too:

Icon/header is okay to use I don't mind at all;

For edits is okay too, actually I like seeing edits so I will be pround, so be free (give credits pls)

BUT if you want to respost it you NEED to give credits, it's fair, isn't it?

I like AFTG, One Piece, Avatar, Magi: The labyrinth of magic, Jack Frost, Alien Stage, Peach Riot, .W.I.T.C.H., Big Hero 6, and more. (updating)

[veerim]

Superman: The Last Days of Lex Luthor

Words by Mark Waid

Pencils by Byran Hitch

Inks by Kevin Nowlan

Colors by David Baron:

Almost two entire years passed between Last Days number one and the second and third installments. I was fortunate enough to have not been aware of this series until a few months before the second came out. This book is clearly trying to position itself alongside All-Star Superman, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, and to a lesser extent Waid's own Kingdom Come as an epilogue to Superman's story. Those are all some of the finest stories ever told, supehero or not. Let's get into it:

UNTAGGED SPOILERS FOLLOW THIS HEADER

The central conflict of the story is a classic one: Clark is put in a position to question his desire to preserve life. He's put in a position where it would be not just convenient, not just popular, but easy to trade lives. Just let Lex die off from whatever ailment he has and be done with it. Everyone wants him to do it, and it takes no effort. Superman, of course, doesn't want to do this, he wouldn't be Superman otherwise. This is also where the first of my few criticisms of this book come in - I think Waid doesn't handle Lois very well.

There are, by my count, two pages in the entire series where Lois gets to say anything, and no lines are exchanged between Lois and Clark at all. This is entirely indefensible. Granted, Clark is listening in, and Lois probably knows he's listening in, but it still just feels wrong. There's space in this book for such an interaction, and I think it would probably serve the narrative better than the diversion in Themiscyra. Lois is the touchpoint between Clark and Humanity, between his ideals and the hard, practical decisions he has to make. Even if Lois can't make him question his "vow" (as he puts it), I think it's important that he has this discussion with her. This is essentially the same talk Clark and Diana have when they visit Themiscyra, so it doesn't even mess with the pacing that much. It's just a more efficient use of characters in my opinion.

The Braniac stuff in the third issue is fine, I guess. Not exceptional, but not terribly problematic. I will admit I particularly liked the idea that Branica gave Luthor this disease so Superman would spend time by him and thus have his powers drained. Braniac justifying it as a "professional courtesy" to let Luthor be the one to destroy Superman in a roundabout way was just a very good line I think.

Additionally, I think the third issue really ties together a lot of characterization of Clark and Lex. I think this is most clearly shown by having Clark reverse Luthor's transference device, giving up his own powers to not only save Lex, but give Luthor his Kryptonian powers to defeat Braniac. It shows not only Clark's humility, but also his undying optimism that people can be better. That just leaves the question of why Lex sacrificed himself to save Superman. I'm gonna be honest: I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps the line "It's not enough to force me to watch people to worship you? Now you made me into you?" is revelatory, but I can't make any confident statement about it.

Bryan Hitch's lines are gorgeous, it's an iconic Superman look, but one that is distinctly deified, especially in the first issue. We can see Lex withering and dying as time passes, we can see the pain and regret on his face. The color choices by David Baron are also really interesting, the sickly green of Lex's lab in issue 3 really sticks out to me. Everything is tinted to evoke illness and wrongness. Except Superman, who remains in his iconic blues and reds save a small tint of the light creeping in from the edge. Perhaps this is unintentional, but that green light ceases to color the Man of Tomorrow when he finally decides to give up his powers, though the audience (and Lex) aren't privy to that yet.

Good story, all told. Beautifully drawn at that. I compared it to various, now iconic, endings to Superman earlier, I don't think it quite lives up to any of them, but that's not a failing, it's just a really hard thing to do. I'm glad this book got finished, now here's to hoping Mark Waid keeps up this momentum as he starts writing Superman consistently in Action Comics!

[monriatitans]

The image was made in Canva; check it out at the [referral] link here!

"Ta-Da!" List: Sunday, December 22nd

I share my "Ta-Da!" Lists so everyone gets updates and I have reminders of what I've accomplished.

To learn more about "Ta-Da!" Lists, and other ADHD life hacks, check out Jesse J. Anderson's book Extra Focus: The Quick Start Guide to Adult ADHD. 

Abbreviations

- O&T: Opinions & Truth Blog - WGS: The Weekend Game Show - ASO: Artist Shout-Out - LPS$: Let's Play Some $#!7! - Annc.: Announcement - TMA: TitansMonriArt - IG: Instagram - RP: Rendezvous Point Bookshop - BMAC: Buy Me a Coffee - TDL: "Ta-Da!" List

"Ta-Da!" List

✧ throughout the day: 1. Business: a. WGS: gave a human artist, Kevin Diep, a shout-out on O&T and several other platforms; did an LPS$ - Split Attention stream, exported it from Twitch to YouTube, then uploaded it to Steam, Rumble, and Odysee while updating O&T's YouTube widgets and sharing it on O&T, Medium, Pillowfort, and other platforms; a Video Annc. was automatically shared to The Titans' Discord, then it was manually shared to IG, Hive, Reddit, and Pinterest; prepared the ASO for tomorrow, Dec. 23rd, and it can be viewed today on Discord, Ko-fi, the WGS Carrd, and several other platforms b. Designs: in Canva, created an "LPS$" Post Square and Header/Thumbnail image for Maid Café on Electric Street c. O&T/WGS/TMA: shared today's TDL to Pillowfort, and other platforms 2. Personal-ish: a. YouTube: watched/listened to shorts/videos by Jim Sterling b. Chores & Miscellaneous: washed the towels and rags; checked the mail; swept the kitchen; did the dishes

c. Games & Gaming: played Little Goody Two Shoes, then Maid Café on Electric Street

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And that’s it for today! Thank you for reading!

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May every decision you make be in the spirit of fairness and may the rest of your day NOT go to $#!7!

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My videos are available on Twitch, YouTube, The Titans’ Discord, Steam, Rumble, and Odysee! For more about me, click here! This post contains affiliate links.

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To provide educational material for game designers and artists, and some fun reads, I created a bookshop, powered by Bookshop.org, the Rendezvous Point (RP)! Check it out here!

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Originally published to https://opinionsandtruth.wordpress.com on December 22, 2024.