#kinda relates to my post about the title for the one I'm working on now too

[tenfoldtranslation]

I need to go to sleep, but the Delicious in Dungeon/Dungeon Meshi discussion is reminding me of Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin. When the title sounds weird in English, and the Japanese isn't too hard to grasp, I can see why people prefer the Japanese. For Dungeon Meshi I feel like it makes even more sense because Dungeon is borrowed so directly from English, so "Dungeon Meshi" is not hard to say. It's shorter, even. I get why it needed an English title, because meshi isn't a commonly known word, but I bet it'll become a lot more well known now.

I feel like this might be an ongoing list of how titles get treated, as I think of them.

All English (=fully translated)

Captain Corinth

Assassination Classroom (Ansatsu Kyoshitsu)

Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi)

Beyond the Boundary (Kyoukai no Kanata)

The Summer Hikaru Died (Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu)

Classroom of the Elite (??)

the Grimoire one...wait, Grimgar

Your Lie in April (shigatsu wa kimi no uso)

Attack on Titan (shingeki no kyojin)

Blood Blockade Battlefront (?) (Kekkai Sensen)

The Executioner and her Way of Life (and good thing they did, too... something something virgin road)

Erased (Boku dake ga inai machi)

The Saga of Tanya the Evil...?

The Night is Long, Walk On Girl (I definitely have that wrong)

Black Butler (but I call it Kuroshitsuji so often I almost forgot about the English name)

Run on Your New Legs (?)

Laughing Under the Clouds (donten ni warau)

All Japanese (includes Japanese words that aren't proper nouns)

Akane-banashi

Oshi no Ko

Gintama

Yugioh

Haikyuu!!

Hikaru no Go

Asobi Asobase

Kagurabachi

Tegami-bachi (I think)

(Tengan Toppa) Gurren Lagann

Yamishibai

Jujutsu Kaisen

Toradora

To-rabu (?)

Uma-musume (?) ('Horse girl' just doesn't sound right >>)

Doraemon (this sound probably go in the "both anyway" category

Sazae-san?

Nanbaka

Dorohedoro

[It's probably examining which ones I put in this category versus which ones I put in 'It's Both Anyway' that's interesting]

Some Japanese, some English (/some proper noun):

Bungo Stray Dogs

My/Boku no Hero Academia

Fugou Keiji Balance Unlimited (?) (I called it the Daisuke anime, anyway)

Blue Exorcist

Katekyo Hitman Reborn

Kaiju No.8 (I'm counting Kaiju as the English word)

Ranma 1/2

Kado: The Right Answer (Sekaisuru Kado) (these categories are starting to blur)

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (Jojo no Kimyou na Bouken)

Arslan... (Arslan Senki)

March Comes in Like a Lion (sangatsu no lion) (??)

Yona of the Dawn (Akatsuki no Yona) (I often just call it Yona)

Gargantia on the Verduous Planet (Suisei no Gargantia)

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid (... meidoragon?)

Ya Boy Kongming (Paripi Koumei) well, I guess technically that's fully translated...

Ouran High School Host Club (Ouran koukou host-bu)

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles (does it have more Japanese...?)

Wandance!

Crayon Shin-chan (I think the -chan keeps it out of the 'but both' category)

Seraph of the End (owari no seraph)

Vampire Knight (it was Vampire Kishi, right??)

Keep it but add on:

Ajin: Demi-Human

Magi (??)

Ano Hana ? (this actually seems like a good fit for this category)

Bofuri?

It's both anyway: (or it's a name/proper noun)

Bleach

Naruto

Undead Unluck

MamaYuYu

Free!

Noragami

Code Geass

Fruits Basket (had to keep the s on Fruits I guess)

SkipBeat

Hunter x Hunter

Yuri on Ice

Ruroni Kenshin

Inuyasha

Given

Yuyu Hakusho

Karneval

Boys Run the Riot

Re:Zero (??)

Black Clover

i tell c

FLCL (sorta?)

Evangelion

Cowboy Bebop

One Piece

Death Note

Sword Art Online

Chobits

Macross

Sailor Moon (I guess really bishoujo senshi sailor moon)

Claymore

Kill la Kill (sorta?)

Date-A-Live

D.Gray-man

No.6

Chainsaw Man

Mob Psycho 100

Angel Beats

Brand New Animal

Made in Abyss (??)

Deadman Wonderland

Zombieland Saga (is that right? Also Saga is doing so much there)

Cantarella

Wind Breaker (?)

Cardcaptor Sakura (??)

I'm thinking it may mostly have to do with whether they were already out when I heard about them, or they gained traction before official release (...of the anime...?)

[ecogirl2759]

So, I decided to take a few photos of the Danganronpa 4コマ KINGS series and compile a few of the findings I thought were funny.

I don't have everything fully translated yet, so there may be a few issues with my findings. If you find any mistakes or have anything to add, please lmk :) I'll also update this if I find things later.

---IMPORTANT NOTE---

All of these drawings are NOT mine. Everything comes from the 4コマ KINGS series published by Spike Chunsoft. I'm simply photographing them and sharing them with others who may not have seen them before (since the series is out of circulation). If there is any issue with my post, please inform me so that I can take appropriate action.

All photos are below the break here :) (Warning, it's long lol) ((And there are a few minor spoilers))

(EDIT: As a side note, I've posted more pictures in an update. Idrk how this site works, so I'm letting people know here so you can find it if you want.)

Fun things that you can learn from the Danganronpa 4コマ KINGS comics:

Hifumi has written, drawn, or thought of making content relating to Sayaka x Kiyoko, Aoi x Sakura (on two occasions), and Makoto x Byakuya

Toko thinks that… something… happened between Mondo and Kiyotaka in the sauna, wink wink.

Toko wrote some sort of fanfiction in relation to Byakuya, Chihiro and Mondo. Idk what it is, but the title is along the lines of "The Byakuya Family Household Sweep Away a Beautiful Girl". (Pretty sure it's a Mondo x Chihiro fic, but I could be wrong.)

^ pretty sure Syo is a heavy BL fan lol

Aoi's b00bs are so squishy, she can use them to launch herself off things.

Everyone really likes drawing pretty boy Byakuya. Like, he looks fabulous in some of these panels. Here is one of those pictures:

........Okay, fine, this is the right one:

Hifumi has drawn gender swaps of a few of the boys, being Makoto, Byakuya, Leon, Yasuhiro, Kiyotaka, and Mondo.

Leon really wants a harem lol

Kiyoko's secret picture (from the last trial in-game) was of Class 78 hosting a cat maid cafe

Yasuhiro's secret (the motive in Chapter 2) is that he's an idiot.

Mondo, Kiyotaka and Sayaka all get along really well! So do Mondo, Kiyotaka and Chihiro :)

Mondo knows how to sew!

Mondo doesn't wear eyeliner, he just has really long eye lashes.

Mondo's hair is fluffy and bouncy :)

Makoto thinks Mondo's hair looks like a corn chip. Aoi thinks it looks like a chocolate croissant :)

Chihiro once gave Mondo a game about dogs. He loved it lol

Chihiro and Mondo have actually trained together.

^ they actually make a great team :)

(I'm pretty sure that) Kiyotaka was found guilty in a trial relating to black underwear. Unclear if he was executed or not. (This point is subject to change once I fully translate the comic.)

Kiyotaka was brainwashed by the Mono-Rangers (parody on Power Rangers) in a different comic. He became Commander Ishimaru and enforced rules and dress code in a dictator-like fashion. (Full translation is still in the works.) This is what his outfit looked like:

Daiya dies in 4K

Komaru's here :D

Mukuro shows up a lot as herself! She's so cute lol

Kiyoko's kinda socially awkward lol, it's really cute.

Makoto has wanted to see up Kiyoko's skirt on multiple occasions.

Makoto has tried a couple of times to cheer Kiyotaka up. It does not work.

And now, here are some funny out-of-context panels to cap off this post! These were too hilarious not to include, I just couldn't make a bullet point out of them lol.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk :)

[c0smiccom3t]

AND NOW.... FOR A SPECIAL 3RD ANNIVERSARY UPDATE. (6/1/2024)

Hello friends, hello mutuals, hello dimension dyfenders fans and hello people who like indie cartoon/comic stuff in general! Comet here. Once Again. and this time i've got something ig this year. This was supposed to release on May 29th, but due to Ren not coming back for a long time because they needed to prioritize irl stuff, of course, we had to delay it.

But, but, BUT! thankfully I had a few things ready after all, however as for some other things else, we'll get to it much later, when the moment calls. Now, let's get off with the first one.

(warning, in case this update gets too long, i'll make a part two where i'll be able to link it through here.)

You Kinda... Look Different.

You may have noticed that Dislexo looks a bit different than usual (darker skin, a bit of shorter hair, etc.), in case you're wondering why... Yeah, you're about to find out.

So, while I was thinking and drawing up some D.D related stuff, I was brainstorming a little by my lonesome. All of the sudden, as I was making a new render for a character, I was like... "Wait a minute... What if I give Dislexo a new look which is a mix between a secretary and a butler but keep it's elements from what made their design unique?" and So, the new and improved Dislexo was born!

Honestly i'm proud of what they look like now. I just hope i won't (or will) get to redesign ALL of the cast again so suddenly lol! Anyways, thats just a small change I made, nothing too big. Now, let's get on something else... which is...

Pocket Adventures' current status + how's minisode 1 coming along

You might be asking inside your minds, "i wonder when more of minisode 1 will drop", "where are the new parts?"- Well, i got the answer. It'll only come only when im completely finished. However i havent been working much on it aside from making a few pages a few months ago, but hopefully this summer i may get back to it and finish it all up if i can. The final script is 73% percent complete, as for the comic itself, let's just say its 58%. I promise you i'm taking my time with delivering everything i can for this minisode. However i might republish the minisode with the series' current artstyle if it ever comes out physically (or either when I'll have the time or energy to do it.) So, now, you may be wondering: "But Comet, what do we do while we wait." Well you're not gonna believe this.

No, it's not an extremely late april fools post! We got new stuff coming soon, recently i've been brainstorming some ideas for brand new content, and you know what? It came to me, HERE'S WHAT'S COMING!

MORE TOONIES COMING YOUR WAY!

THAT'S RIGHT, after months of hiatus, Toonies is coming back with more strips! This time, since summer's coming around, i'll try to post and make more of them and even schedule the finished ones! We got even more covers for it coming, but for now, here's one of them!

More comics are not only gonna explore more of the Dyfenders' and the Dajo Crew's everyday lives in-and-out of their superhero/Villain occupations, we are also going to focus on much more on other characters (at least some of them), and some will last for a few more pages longer! No arcs though, sorry. But hey, you're getting more wackiness as a treat! Now, i know i said this year is not gonna be big like the other two years we had, but...

NEW SPECIAL CURRENTLY IN DEVELOPMENT!

THAT'S RIGHT! We're working on a new special to commemorate our three years! Thought it'd be a nice adiction to this year, we may not reveal the logo and it's title yet, but we can tell you what the sypnosis is about!

You're all invited to the biggest night in the Omniverse, right across it's stars, cosmos, galaxies and portals! Both the Dimension Dyfenders and the Dajo-Crew are crossing the red (or should we say, blue) carpet in this brand new 3-part special! Prince Dajo-Voo has a new plan on how to take over the gala, all while he tries to self-control himself from doing the same explosive incident he did back then. The Dyfenders may be having a great time at the gala, but rest assured, they'll be sure to keep a close eye on him. Here's to a Rift-errific and (hopefully) trouble-free gala!

As a bonus, when the production on all three parts are done, we'll be posting Toonies comics related to the special, which may feature a new character who will debut later on in Pocket Adventures! We don't know when it'll exactly be out, my guesses would be either summer, september or next May 2025. But rest assured, we'll be working on it, but we won't rush it out.

So... What's next?

Honestly, i can't really tell. But I can assure you i still have so may plans for this series, plans that will be put in action in the far-off future. What i really hope to do is to make animated shorts as well, not just Toonies strips, pocket adventures minisodes and comic dubs of it. Maybe if we'll ever make a backerkit or a kickstarter for it and get a budget, it might happen (along with more VAs joining in.) Speaking of VAs, in case you're a VA and you haven't auditioned yet, anytime is the right time! (this is still a test leap, but if it succeeds it may go further.)

but for now, we're sticking to comics, and then, if possible we'll get to comic dubs and so on.

That's all for now! I hope you're all looking forward to what's coming for this series. I'm sorry that it wasnt as big as the last years, but we promise that things will arrive when they can.

Happy (LATE) third anniversary, everybody!! Thanks for reading!

By the way, HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!

[silverwhittlingknife]

hi anon <333 okay so uhhhh listen when i got this ask which i think was... a month ago? a couple months ago? i did not have a dick & tim reading guide

BUT i read this ask and i thought WOW WHAT A GOOD IDEA, a dick & tim reading guide, i wish i'd had one of those when i started reading!! and also i had a lot of work that i didn't want to do so i needed a project to procrastinate on dsfdsfs

so i have been working on a reading guide spreadsheet and it is ALMOST DONE so i will post it soon-ish. <3 if anyone wants to check out the unfinished version and tell me if it's readable dm me <3

also below i have rambled a lot about the makings of the spreadsheet if you also like spreadsheets a lot

this is only sort of tangentially related to the reading guide but it is the SECRET ORIGIN of the reading guide. i think many comic fans eventually end up with a spreadsheet story because comics are bonkers and difficult to keep track of, so either you sensibly engage with your hobby in a reasonable fashion or you slowly go bonkers yourself and end up with a spreadsheet story. this one is mine.

so a year or two ago, when i got first got deeply deeply obsessed with dick & tim, i was desperate for content and i wasn't able to find much on tumblr

so out of a combination of deep affection for the boys and also an extremely strong desire to procrastinate the things i was supposed to be doing, i went through dc.fandom's list of dick's appearances and of tim's appearances.

and i cross-referenced them all to find the comics they both appeared in, and then i started kinda randomly reading through those comics looking for good art/panels that they both appeared in and taking notes on whether they appeared in the same panel or not:

and then as i became even more obsessive i started adding in a bunch of their solo appearances so i'd know the context of their team-ups, and i started color-coding blue-for-nightwing, red-for-robin, purple-for-both-of-them:

and then i started trying to make lists of Significant Events so that i'd know e.g. when characters died or got married or broke up:

and then i got tired of having to search for dc.fandom pages every time i wanted to check something in a comic, so i started adding links to dc.fandom and to dc universe:

and then i thought, you know, it'd be nice to have comic titles and to know if it's part of an ongoing story:

and sometimes when i was reading, i started taking notes on quotes or whatever was going on:

and that's about when i got this ask, and i thought, you know, i really should make a reading guide.

and i started thinking, okay, is there any way to take my spreadsheet and make it slightly less convoluted and a bit more like a reading guide?

and the answer was, probably not!!! but that did not stop me from trying sdfdsfds

so right now i have a spreadsheet called "Dick & Tim Reading List" and it's got a section that looks like this which has about 200 recommended-read comics:

but ALSO there's a tab that's really really long that has all of dick's solo comics and also all of tim's solo comics (from 1987-2011, not of all time, but still):

and also you can just get a list of all (post-crisis) comics dick&tim have appeared in together:

and also as i was working on this i discovered FILTER VIEWS and simultaneously got curious about all the quotes in grayson 12, which taunted me with the possibility of getting post-crisis continuity back before not giving it to me >:(((((( but anyway they're still good quotes so i made a list of all of them

anyway then i looked at all of that and thought ehhhhh okay but that's very complicated!! maybe i need some shorter reading recommendations. so then i started making a list of those:

basically you should picture the spreadsheet journey like this puppy:

anyway i'm still kinda distracted but i do intend to clean it up a bit more and then post a link, so that will happen soon-ish hopefully <3

[fayrinferno]

The (printed) collection

From time to time I get a question like, "do you have this or that book?" So, a few weeks back, I finally took them all out of their hiding place and grabbed some photos. Wish I had used my camera instead of phone, I had to stand on a chair to get it all and yeah, the picture is not the sharpest.

Anyway, I have some other stuff, figures and such, although I admittedly DO focus more on books as an artist/writer/translator. These books are the ones I translate from so I wasn't going for mint conditions, although a few of them are. You can see some of them still packed in the store bags. I included the CDs cause... well, they were next to the books and they do have some printed material as well.

The Shiren Suiki book gets a separate photo cause after taking the photos at home I realized I had left it at work when I scanned it... practically crying as I did cause it was barely opened when I bought it and it's a beautiful book. My Anvils are also very fragile.

I may do a complete list one day but for now, here are the quick descriptions.

ARTBOOKS & FANBOOKS I have pretty much all of the major official books I think, missing maybe 1-2 pieces. The one that may look less familiar is Hiroshi Osaka's personal artbook. I also have four of the relevant Nobuteru Yuuki artbooks. The bottom right one with the orange title is the issue of Newtype Magazine with a feature about Esca.

SMALLER BOOKS (let's pretend that's a category) Here I got all the novels (they are out of their sleeves cause I was working on them), all the filmbooks, Secrets of Escaflowne, Escaflowne Bible, and the Energist Memories manga/doujin collection.

DOUJINSHI I was mostly going for stuff I haven't seen online so I only got a handful. Besides the Shiren Suiki book, there are three Minato Tajima doujins (one of them is racy heh but I'm not hiding that I have it). One of the other doujins may look unfamiliar; it's a compilation book that includes other series (the character on the cover is from DN Angel). People who talk to me on Discord probably recognize the Nanoka doujinshi cover.

CDs AND THE LIKE I don't have all the soundtracks for some reason, probably cause I thought the missing ones wouldn't be hard to get. The PSX game is the special edition with the tarot cards. The LDs that I literally bought just for the covers and inlays. I also have all the audio dramas, some CDs with extras... and a phone card that was for some reason packed in a CD case lol (kidding, it's precious that they would give it that kind of protection). Oh, and there are two movie posters which I guess don't fall under either category.

I have some other stuff that is kinda related to Esca "by association" such as by artist or things that "looked similar" but I didn't include them. Also the figures. I may update this post with those but this is the brunt of it. I will be posting some goodies from these soon!

Same goes for the ongoing translations that I've been doing updates on in this post. Life is too short to delay them for months and years because of perfectionism, or rather, being self conscious about one's imperfect language skills. I am thankful to everyone who has helped me so far, proofreading my translations (coverteyes, pikafwance, sevenstars, and radical-rad1986)... I'm not tagging you guys but know that I'm VERY grateful, also to the other people who are helping me with other projects). I always had fun working together with you but it's no longer sustainable and I likely bit off more than I can chew. So I will get myself out of the way. There are two books that are almost complete as of today so I will just probably go chapter by chapter. I hope to be done with this asap but also December is a busy month for me so I'm not sure how smoothly it will go. Let's hope it does.

[ruthlesslistener]

Cant find my own damn post on bug midwifing again but damnit its late and now I can't sleep because I'm thinking about it again so I'm going to make it everyone else's problem. The fact that there is a Midwife (at least in Deepnest) who is important enough to have a title-name as given to all important bugs drives me insane bc it implies that birthing complications are common enough in sapient bugs for this to be a problem. Is it bc of clutch size, or egg size?? Do the sapient insects follow the human trend of having big babies with big heads for big brains that = big head, and thus smaller clutches, or do they simply have large, insect-like broods that they cull later on, where the possibility of exhaustion or being eggbound is the danger??

If its because of egg size then it means that my previous musings on clutches constantly being culled down and fed to livestock to make bigger, juicier meals in the future not work, which kinda sucks bc I thought it tied in well to the whole theme of child sacrifice to fit greater machenations that fit super well into Hollow Knight's generally buggy nature + Hallownest's themes in general, but that also raises interesting implications for the state of population growth mechanics in addition to cost of childcare. How often do bugs go into heat? How many eggs can they have per clutch, and how frequently do they clutch? What is the metabolic cost per egg, and how does that correlate to the effort of parenting the offspring? How fast would Hallownest repopulate after the old civilization has been wiped and the remaining survivors can start to recover? Is the small clutch limit why Herrah was so worried about an heir, and why Hornet only has one sibling from that pairing? How does the Pale King and White Lady's actions stack up compared to human society? Is it them experimenting on their own children that they considered the true crime, or damning them to no chances of survival? We know they felt guilt, regret, and pain at what they did, so clearly there is a social taboo related to infanticide that even the most alien of gods adhere to, but is it the same social taboo as the ones their mortal followers follow, or personal? Etc etc. Humans are unnaturally baby-oriented compared to the rest of the animal kingdom bc our offspring are so energetically costly to produce, slow-growing, and delicate to maintain (biological reasons -> set behavioral response), so musing about how a society might develop if that wasn't the case has a lot of interesting implications about how their morals or behavior might develop based on their biological limits and instincts

(For anyone who might be horrified, I was originally going into ethology before pursuing evolutionary genetics, so yes I have a reason to muse about common cultural infanticide. Infanticide is extremely common in the animal kingdom- as well as cannibalism, which we do see is taboo in at least the beetle tribe- so I have a reason to be asking these questions, believe me)

[hooked-on-elvis]

AND THEN, ELVIS MAGIC STRIKES ME... AGAIN ✨

... ON MY BIRTHDAY! 🎂

Okay, so... Sometimes special things cross our ways unexpectedly. I feel we gotta keep ourselves sensitive enough so we can catch the drift or special things can go unnoticed.

I'm gonna share something that just happened to me, so it has nothing biographical about Elvis here -- but in a way it has everything to do with him and his magic pouring onto his fans when we less expect it. ✨

It all started with:

I have a huge Jensen Ackles crush aside from my Elvis Presley burning passion. A few minutes ago I was peeping Jensen's Instagram profile and his last post was one congratulating his wife, Danneel Ackles for her birthday, which is one day previous to mine (March 18) ♥ -- Yes, today, March 19, is my birthday. Okay, very cute but so what?

Then I went to Danneel's Instagram , just because I was already there. Scrolling through her feed, I crossed a funny video of Danneel and Jensen reproducing the video clip of "You Can Call Me Al" by Paul Simon. It was a celebration for their 10th wedding anniversary. 🥹

Danneel and Jensen Ackles video, shared on her Instagram account:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ᴅᴀɴɴᴇᴇʟ ᴀᴄᴋʟᴇs (@danneelackles512)

Official music video:

Cute, isn't it? I love those the Ackles, oh god. They are such a match! 🥹🩷

Okay, since I've never heard the song before, and I loved it very much, I decided adding it to my Spotify's playlists (yes, to some of them, not just one... it's a real good track this one!). But... talk about how surprised I was when I learned the title of the album that song was released in is "GRACELAND".

Isn't this odd? I know, some people just don't believe in nothing like magic... to some folks everything is just coincidence but I can't help but think this... this album getting to me today, and the way it happened, was kinda a gift from EP to me, on my birthday. 🥹

It's nothing related to his own work or anything but I'm a huge music lover, huge, and I love discovering new songs, specially if they are from the past. I think somehow, someway, this was kinda a gift to me. "Oh, just because the title of the album?" -- Sure but also the way that album crossed my way so randomly like that.

I gotta say I haven't checked on Jensen Ackles' instagram profile in a long while -- no kidding -- let alone his wife's IG! I'm actually not checking anything on Instagram for some months now. So why today? Why clicking on THIS specific video on Danneel's IG? Why visiting her IG, by the way?

You can say all you want as think as you'd like... call me silly, it's fine... but I'll take it as a special gift from Elvis to me. Songs I didn't know before, an entire new album for me to appreciate on my birthday and forever on. ♥

One can spend its life thinking such thing as magic is BS, that it doesn't exist. One can chose to spend its live life in such uninspired, cold, lame way, sure, but... appreciating the little things and believing every little thing is a miracle and a gift to make me smile a little more it's the way I chose to spend MY life -- I feel it's not even a choice, actually. It's just who I am.

Anyway... I know it's a silly, small little thing but this was so random it surprised me greatly.

The song "Graceland" doesn't directly mentions Elvis by name, but ya' know... Elvis and Graceland are a single thing. Anyway... I just felt like sharing this here because:

1. It really impressed me how randomly this thing happened.

2. The album is amazing, so I recommend you to listen to it.

Listen "Graceland" (1986) by Paul Simon on Spotify:

I have felt Elvis Magic in some occasions before, but today it was so special. I feel he's just being a friend and giving me a record for me to enjoy my day. Awwww. I'll never forget this. 🩷✨🎂🥹

[analyzing-people-like-hell]

saw your recent post in the sanders sides tag - here goes:

Some of these are more fun-to-watch than relates-to-me, but I figure listing ‘em all will give you more to work with.

Listed in alphabetical order, except as needed to group sources together.

Alastor, Hazbin Hotel (show)

- He’s charming, confident, very good in his chosen field, and also happens to be AroAce. He appreciates jokes, but can also be intimidating.

Cayde-6, Destiny (game)

- Quick wit, quick shot. Always fun to hear his dialogue during missions and strikes. The kinda guy you’d go to for a good story (or if you’re lookin’ for extra paperwork to do).

Crow, Destiny (game)

- Good guy, interesting situation (read: tragic backstory). Not exactly doomed-by-the-narrative, but…

The Doctor (10th), Doctor Who (show)

- Honestly, not sure why. He’s just fun to watch. (Also, he has a very distinct/memorable way of phrasing things)

Data, Star Trek: The Next Generation (show)

- Yes, I’m Autistic; How’d you guess? (/j) Honestly though, having a discussion with him about humanity/social behaviors/other things would be SO interesting!

Odo, Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (show)

- If Odo and I were in the same room, I don’t think there’d be much talking. But, in a two-introverts-who-got-dragged-to-the-same-party-and-are-avoiding-the-humans-together kind of way. Companionable silence.

Spock, Star Trek: The Original Series (show)

- He’s just cool. (also a HUGE childhood influence towards logical thinking)

Malcolm Reynolds, Firefly (show)

- Protective of his crew, “Has a conscience, and hates it,” no-nonsense, practical thinker, quick wit, stubborn.

Simon Tam, Firefly (show)

- Very good at what he does (doctor), smart, stands by what he believes in (“when you’re on my table, you’re safe”), and who he cares about (his sister).

River Tam, Firefly (show)

- …River is a mood. Specifically, a “leave me alone, I can’t talk now, my brain is full of bees” mood.

Seth, Lost Terminal (podcast)

- He’s an AI who used to live in a satellite, and made his way down to a post-collapse Earth so he could talk to people. He often mentions the intricacies and confusing nuances of human communication, his distrust of plants and salt, and the fact that humans are quite fond of bread and beer.

Susan Ivanova, Babylon 5 (show)

- “No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There’s always a boom tomorrow.”

Michael Garibaldi, Babylon 5 (show)

- If any of the main cast could’ve broken the fourth wall, it would have been him. I don’t know what that says about his character, but it feels right.

Virgil Sanders, Sanders Sides (YouTube series)

- He’s the personification of (Thomas’) Anxiety, but he can be quite brave when he needs to be. When he’s under pressure/more anxious/needs to be listened to, he’ll act more abrasive, but he has a softer side (heh side) he shows when safe. He’s also the secondary brain cell holder of the main cast.

Logan Sanders, Sanders Sides (YouTube series)

- The brain cell (/pos). Also seems to be going through… gifted-kid-burnout-angst-stuff, for lack of a better term. Also nicknamed the Mom of the group, though someone pointed out that he didn’t choose that title for himself, which I thought was interesting.

Janus Sanders, Sanders Sides (YouTube series)

- I think you already saw him in another ask, so I’ll be brief: “You’re not stuck with an ‘evil snake boy.’ *pose* You’re just stuck with a snake boy.”

…After typing this all out, I’ve noticed that most of these fall into one of three categories:

~Autism~ TM (/pos)

Competent, might be an asshole

Protecc/Attacc

I don’t know what that means, but it’s kinda funny.

Have fun!

ANALYSIS #4: 06/11/24

It's about time I start getting around to all these new test subjects. I apologize for the wait, but I'm more than ready to see what you have in store for me here, #4.

I'm not familiar with the majority of these characters, so this could very much be a hit or miss analysis.... Your descriptions definitely aided me a lot, so thank you for that. I guess we'll just have to wait and see if this ends up being accurate at all...

Why don't we see if I got your backstory right first? It's where everything originates, after all.

"LORE":

You seem to be an observer in this game of life. I feel like you've spent a large part of your existence on the outskirts of everything, and the times you have joined the outside world were never completely of your own volition.... You don't feel like you particularly fit in as a "human", yet at the same time everything you feel is all too human. I can imagine it gets pretty overwhelming, and you've probably gotten a lot of heat for it in your younger years. Maybe you didn't have many friends growing up, and the ones you did have probably didn't live up to your expectations of what "friendship" was supposed to be. Maybe you've had friends that took advantage of you and it didn't even click until the damage was already done, or you stuck it out because.. that's what friendship's supposed to be about, right? Maybe you were just left out in general, always the second option unless they needed something out of you. Who knows. There could be a lot variations of what happened in your childhood regarding relationships, but I'm guessing they didn't always make much sense to you. It's probably why you stay on the outskirts so much. If the world won't let you experience humanity for yourself, you can at least watch humanity from afar.

I have a feeling your home life wasn't all that great? It wasn't particularly terrible-- you're grateful for what you were given-- but you wish there were things that were done differently. I think this also plays into the whole "disconnect from people" bit. Maybe they cared for you, but it was clear they didn't understand you, and it can be a little hard to be grateful when somebody's care is always... a little off? If that's the case, I bet it probably feels worse knowing that you can't really blame them for not understanding. Things are probably better now as you've grown, but there are things that still sting just a bit. Also for some reason I think you were homeschooled.... No reason why, it just came to mind, and I've learned trusting my gut makes my analyses more accurate. I'd like to see if that ends up being true.

Another thing that my gut keeps telling me is that the tism is strong in this one. You've already confirmed that, but I specifically feel like (i'm assuming you're diagnosed based on how you phrased "yes, i'm autistic") you were either diagnosed at a pretty early age or you were late diagnosed (probably because of icky-ew gendered stereotypes in medical fields) and it explained a whole hell of a lot of your childhood, to the point where you're surprised you weren't diagnosed way earlier in life. Heavily leaning to the latter, by the way, but the first still has a 5 to 15% chance of standing. Either way, it depicts why you'd feel such a heavy disconnect from the people around you. It's as if everyone was given a script to life, meanwhile you're forced to improv it the whole way through. Do you see life as a game? How much time have you dedicated to perfecting your skills, believing that perfecting them would be the key to winning these petty social games? Are you sure you're not still lost? Just some food for thought.

Anyways, with that all in mind, let's see what really goes on inside that head of yours...

THE TRUTH:

You still resent the world in a way, don't you? I can't shake the thought that there's still a resentment buried inside you that's been bubbling for a while. Maybe it's lessened a bit, but you can still feel it resurface every now and then. It's as if sometimes a reminder will come your way and it's another crack added to that bottle you've been storing all your emotions in. Like another poke at the confines will unleash everything you've been working on trying to maintain. I don't think it's spilled over yet, but I think we both know it's certainly not far from tipping over. You surprise even yourself with how much you've managed so far.

Part of you has lost your vulnerability. I'm not sure when or how, but I think it goes back to that disconnect from people. I don't think you've met anybody who's completely understood you yet, which has probably led to constant misunderstanding from everyone else. That kind of persistent detachment is bound to make anyone lose parts of themselves. If that's what happened, I'm sorry they took that part away from you. You deserved to be yourself without being shot down over and over, you still deserve that. It really is a shame that the world is too blind to see the beautiful depth in your soul. Complexity is never a flaw. Complexity is rarely even "complex". The world just needs to learn how to appreciate you at your core, and I truly hope they're able to see that in you soon. 

In fact, why don't I detail some of the complex beauty that I can pinpoint? If the world can't see it, then it only makes sense if I spell it out for them.

YOUR BEST TRAITS:

You're very attentive. You also seem to have some pretty good wit. That not only makes you a really great analyst, but I think it'd make you a pretty great comforter too. You're able to analyze and recognize patterns in people, and you seem to still hold a great appreciation for people despite how isolated people have made you feel. Despite always feeling like an outcast, there's still a part of you that cares. Those are qualities that truly great comforters have. However, with how confusing relationships with other people can be sometimes, I can also see why that would hinder your ability for it and turn you away. Nevertheless, the foundation is still strong. You're still strong. Use that to your advantage. Take back the life that you deserved. Show them that you are not the painting they've made of you.

I just feel like you're really funny for some reason, and probably pretty chill while still being able to stand your own ground and opinions. That's a highly respectable mix of traits to have, at least in my eyes. You also for some reason remind me of that main guy from Magnus Archives. I've never listened to Magnus Archives though. All of the information I know about that podcast has come from random clips I've stumbled upon and rants from my friends who are into it. But from the information I have on him, I view him as a weird little autistic guy who's always a little tired, a little witty, maybe a little too obsessed with analyzing sometimes, also probably on the aroace spectrum. However, he's also a hard worker who-- when he cares about people-- he really cares about them, and if he likes you then you could probably drag him just about anywhere (even if he grumbles the whole way through). Now I have zero clue if any of that is true to his character, but I feel like it could maybe fit yours, and I at least think people like that are a pretty special find. 

Also, you're just a wee little guy. A little snake boi even.

And with that, I think I'll leave my thoughts here and take my bow.

With utmost gratitude (and hopefully utmost accuracy),

Dr. WZ

[cr-pisacs-evil-brother]

Bachelor ARG Post 4

I think sometime in the next few month, I'm gonna make another huge post with the full breadth of my investigations from August to now (which, to be fair is not all that much compared to the original megathread because I had to take a long hiatus), but for today I wanted to post just a couple findings from my investigations into the ARG, to hopefully re-ignite some more interest and make this whole investigation thing easier for me. This post isn't supposed to be comprehensive, so if you aren't already familiar with some of the basics of this ARG you'll probably be a bit confused.

Here's a link to a Google Doc outlining a lot of stuff relating to the dates of Fyodor Vitin posts, including a section with clues that come from dividing the dates. To those unfamiliar, it's a method I used a few months back, but I forget how exactly I figured it out. Basically, it draws on the fact that a slash (/) is used when writing dates, and the slash is also the symbol of mathematical division. It sounds kinda ridiculous but I'd urge you to look at the document to see some interesting stuff.

Picture. This was kinda unnecessary, but basically, I took the lantern model from in-game, reduced it to two colors to match what it would look like in a newspaper, and proved that the newspaper lantern is the exact same one that we see in Pathologic 2.

In the first Vitin post, "The Beginning", Dankovsky leaves Vitin with a letter. In that letter, Dankovsky says:

"If what is said is at least half true, then this long-liver will become the missing proof. We will finally wipe the nose of the damned Telman, and when this bastard is silent - we will be able to convince the Powers That Be to spare the Thanatica."

In Pathologic 1, Dankovsky gets a letter from "Professor Telman" on day 1 titled "The Letter from the Powers That Be." You can read the letter here.

On the same day in P1, you get another letter titled "A Letter From a Colleague in Thanatica", where this colleague signs off "Yours, A." In this letter, "A" warns Dankovsky that Telman wants him dead.

Now from this, I think it's fair to say two things:

"A" is Fyodor Alexandrovitch Vitin. Now that we know Fyodor's full name, we can also confirm (if anyone doubted it) that he is the "F.A." from the newspaper.

Professor Telman definitely had something to do with the fire that burned down everything Vitin owned, including all of the Bachelor's work.

In the original ARG mega-thread, I said that I believed Hamlet was brought up in The Marble Nest, but couldn't remember where or when. I was almost right. Macbeth is brought up by the Bachelor in a conversation with Oriole, where Daniil is attempting to make a point about the pitfalls of fortune-telling.

Please feel free to DM me, or comment on this post, with any ideas, questions, corrections, or inquiries of any sort.

Special thanks to @pseudoquiddity for helping with the Fyodor Vitin dates and times.

[clemswinecorner]

Nuggets and shakes [Zak O'Sullivan]

Summary: During the F3 break something is up with Zak, so Y/N finds out and comforts him.

Started from the prompt "You’re avoiding the subject and you know it. What are you hiding from me?"

Wordcount: 1.7k

Warnings: it's kinda sad and like a liiiiitle angsty bc Zak is sad bc Williams did a shitty thing. Other than that its like cute or smt its a lovely relationship (with a little bit suggestive at the end but y/n stops it to play games lol)

Guess who lives! And it's my biiiirthdaaaay so here's a gift for you xx This got me out of my writer's block and I wrote this in a day (but! i am on @clemswinecorner-socials more often because those can get some creativity out of me even when I have a writer's block, I've got a new post ready for you there as well mwuah x) and also I graduated in the mean time so go me, and now I have time to get back to writing and the inspiration so thank you Zak! Enjoy Zak girlies :)

Ps. don't think about the title too much because I struggled making up one (suggestions are welcome)

Main Masterlist

It wasn't unusual for Zak to keep to himself like now, especially when he'd been busy and his social battery was low. Zak was a very laid back person, so people were used to him not bringing attention to himself in general, but he was usually up for a chat and often cracking jokes. He had spent a lot of time with friends and family, so you understood him seemingly wanting some time to himself, sure. What was unusual, however, was how he was distant even to you. The last race before the long break wasn't a good weekend for the British driver, his feature race ending early due to damage from the opening lap after struggling to make it into the top 10 on Friday. He'd been frustrated and quiet on the way home to England, but when you went to Spain, where you'd spend the first couple of weeks of the break, the championship went somewhat forgotten.

It was now only 3 weeks until the final race of the season came around, and you were seated next to Zak in his parents' garden as his dad and uncle were busy with the barbecue. He absentmindedly scrolled on his phone, occasionally responding to some texts with his other hand on your thigh. He wasn't physically distant, he'd never been, but there was something different between going on. Something hanging in the air, which was weird- you’ve always been very open and communicative to each other. "Zak, can you come help for a second?" You look over as his dad calls him, but Zak doesn’t seem to notice. You nudge him, "your dad needs help." Zak nods and puts his phone in his pocket standing up, his hand leaving your thigh. You watch as he talks with his family, a small smile on his face, though you could see it wasn't fully there. He was still chatting and joking around, you assumed from the way his dad was laughing, but his own smile seemed a little more forced- but maybe that was just you. 

"So, how's my favourite in-law? The job going well?" You smile at Zak's cousin, who was around the same age as you, sitting down next to you. "I'm good, I'm alright. I've been having fun during this time off, but also can't wait to get back to the track with the team and Zak. And you, how's the boyfriend?" You chat for a while, until you get interrupted by your boyfriend appearing next to you with a hand on your shoulder, handing you a plate with some salad and a little bit of everything from the barbecue. "Thanks babe, looks good," you smile and you give him a quick peck. "Always for my girl," you blush and his cousin looks at the two of you fondly as Zak makes his way back. "So, everything going great between you two I assume?" You look at Zak with a sigh before looking back at her. "Yeah, we're good, I think. He's been a little off, or something, but I think it's work related. I've been wanting to talk about it but you know how things are in the motorsports world, you can't always say," His cousin looks over with a sympathetic smile. "Oh, well, you know how he is. If he's ready and wants to tell you, he will. And you can always ask," you nod as you look at his 3 year old niece, who has just come in, running up to him. "Uncle Zaaaaak!" Zak turns around and looks down with a smile. "Hey there princess!" He says and you hear an adorable squeal as he lifts her in the air. "He'd be a good dad," His cousin raises his eyebrows at you and you shake your head. "Nope, way too early, we are not having that conversation."

"Are we going too?" You softly ask Zak after you've said goodbye to his niece and her parents. "Yeah, sure, whatever you want," you grab the keys from his back pocket and rub his arm. "Alright, I'll drive. Let's say goodbye to your parents and go," You walk back to the garden, where you hug both his parents before quickly waving to his siblings. "I'll see you guys next week, right? Alright, bye!" You automatically grab Zak's hand as you walk back to his car, him going more quiet liked you'd seen at home the past couple of days. You hand him your phone with Spotify, not entirely sure what type of music he'd prefer, and drive home. "Do you want a milkshake? I could also get nuggets to share or a McFlurry. I won't tell any of the trainers," You mention when you see the exti that leads to the McDonald’s. You glance over at Zak who gives you a tight but genuine smile. "Nuggets and shake, please," you smile as you pull into the McDrive, ordering your usual favourites. "Thank you," he quietly says when you're back on your way. "Ofcourse," You smiled. 

You settle around the kitchen island in Zak's apartment, with him sitting and you still standing halfway across from him. "So, how are you feeling?" Zak frowns at your question as he dips his nugget in the sauce. "About what?" You shrug, "In general," and Zak simply shrugs back. "Just normal," He just says, and you look at him once more. "Zak, is... Really, are you okay?" He looks up at you now, seeing how serious you are. "Yeah, i'm fine. Just... There’s nothing, i just need to get back into the flow, and stuff. With Williams and everything I've just... You know how it is, different people and stuff, but I can't really say," It's only when he mentions the team that you realise how much he hadn't talked about them during the past few weeks, whereas he had mentioned his F3 team. He'd been over at the factory a few times, but not nearly as much as during the winter. "Zak, is everything going okay at the teams, and during training? We've not really spoken about that stuff for a while," he quickly shakes his head- too quick. "Yeah, did you hear Williams is finally allowed to break the cost cap for the new stuff? And Prema's been doing well, did you talk to Angelina about the new LAP's? I noticed they took over some of your filming habits," He talked quickly, not allowing you to interrupt. "I did, yeah, but you’re avoiding the subject and you know it. Zak, I know this is a secretive world, or supposed to be at least, but i'm your girlfriend. If you go through something I go through it with you. What are you hiding?" Zak looks at you and you see a change in his demeanour. "I, eh, I don't... I don't think I can really..." You walk over to him, the distress clear in his voice. "Listen, I'm here, okay. I won't tell people, I just care for you. Good or bad, i'll stay," you grab chin and make him look up at you as you tell him that, and he nods. "I know. Thank you," You smile as you hug him from behind the chair. "I love you, always." He nods in response as he leans into you, rubbing your arm. "I got sacked by Williams."

You freeze at those words. "Zak..." You say as you stand by his side. "That's what you've been keeping to yourself?" You ask, already knowing the answer. He looks at you with watery eyes and nods. "My god, Zak, I'm sorry," You pull him to stand up and embrace him, feeling him relaxing immediately at your touch. You stay for a long while as the words slowly sink in. Zak is still grabbing you tightly and from the way he's hugging you you can tell how much he needed this. He softly cries on your shoulder as you hold him, with here and there sobs that absolutely break your heart. 

"You don't deserve this. That's... It's a dumb decision, really, why would they do that to such a good driver?" Zak has slowly pulled back, now leaning against your chest as you hold him. "They had to choose. With the Merc juniors and Logan already there they had to make a decision and they saw more in Franco. I really don't know what next, Y/N. I don't even know if I'll make it to F2," You sigh as you hold him close. "You will. And honestly, you're gonna make it to F1 anyways, might as well make it a team that isn't the worst on the grid," Zak gives you a eye roll and a smile in response. "Okay, okay, I'm still with the team until after Abu Dhabi. But maybe, yes," he admits and you chuckle. "Alright, now that we've got that out of the way, we should do something fun, because you need that. Put on your pyjama pants and I'll grab us a game, alright? Alright, I'm changing first, you finish the nuggies!" He chuckles as you walk away to the bedroom. 

"I'm coming in," You say as you open the door, a bottle of rosé and two glasses in hand, placing them beside your bed. Zak walks out of the bathroom wearing just his underwear, and you look him over. "Put on some pants," you tease and he smirks. "I know you'd rather have me keep them off," You roll your eyes as you leave the room again, grabbing the games you figured you could play. "You don't need a shirt, it's fine like that," Zak looks at you from the edge of the bed and stands up as you put the games on the bed. "Thought you'd say that," he says as he pulls you close to him by your wrist, pulling you in for a kiss. As his hands slip lower to the shorts you're wearing you pull back. "We were going to play some games, weren't we?" Zak nods as you move yourself from his grip making your way over to the bed. "Uno and monopoly, really? You know that stuff has ended relationships, right?"

Taglist:

@alexk2002 / @thesatansgirl-blog / @haasterplan / @fortunatelylovingsweets / @charles-and-chelsea / @greedayag / @idkiwantchocolatee / @emmabluesky / @breals02 / @sikeyeehaw / @mariiaamr / @caratczenniemy / @idontwantablogthanks / @agirlwithmidnightthoughts / @zira4444 / @adore-u-ls / @starcandy-y / aestcc / @riffiandenadora / @langdonsluxiouslocks / @leclercswhore / @clearavenuementality / @wilmasvensson / @vxlesunflower / @valexformula1 / @shewatchesf1 / @ashf1 / @minl0u / @libbyxoxo / @jamieeboulos / @isxpisx

like or comment under this post to be added to my taglist!

[aritsukemo]

My mutuals and my top favorite works from them ( because I'm a fangirl ) 😊

Last Updated: Jul. 7, 2024

This is pretty much a post of just me showing off my moots because I love them! :)

⇸ @alzirr0

A really cool person who shares the love of this game called Arcana Twilight with me!! My favorite work from them is “Would you still love me if I were a worm?” Pt. 2!! Pollux's part made me giggle 🤭

⇸ @miyoshitokito

Not a writer, but one of my favorite followers on this platform! Met them on Wattpad and she's been endlessly supportive of me and my works for so long that I had to add her on here! <3

⇸ @nursedflowers ( also known as many other things like @overluvsick and @gam3ov3r )

A multi-talented, multi-fandom writer who was nice enough to become my mutual! I love talking to her and her fics really make my day. Simply seeing one of her blog names pop up on my home page, in my inbox, in my activity, etc makes me grin ear to ear! I like many of her fics, but as of right now, ( I have to say that because every time she posts something and I read it, I fall in love ) I would say my two favorite fics are on her demon slayer side blog ( @overluvsick ) and they're called 𝐋𝐄𝐓 𝐌𝐄 𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔 and 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐘 (𝐍𝐎 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊)!! Reading her stuff and interacting with her is always a delight and I think it'd be real nice if you were to check out some of her works and give her main blog ( and her side blogs ) some attention! 💜💙

⇸ @nyoomiin

When I tell you I squealed when she agreed to be mutual BAHAHA-

A very kind and patient individual who writes for both genshin and hsr! My favorite fic of hers was an scaramouche x reader multi-part fic called roommates, but it's no longer available from what I can tell.. ( Still hit her page up, she's really sweet! ) 💚

⇸ @ourolite ( formerly @ourolite2 )

One of my very first moots! Both Neso and Leman are total sweethearts who make oc-related content! Each oc of theirs is interesting and unique and I'm always blown away by how much detail and work they put into every single one of them! Hands down, my favorite oc or theirs is 𝒳īn'yuè 𝒜n zhōng! I loved reading about him and his little girls and I think everyone should check him out as well as their other amazing ocs!! 🤩

⇸ @velvetvelocity

Former Wattpad writing buddy now Tumblr mutual! Everyone meet this oh so sweet individual who I call velvet! I fell in love with their works on Wattpad so it's inevitable for me to fall head over heels for their writing over here! My favorite work from them is kinda easy this time around since they only have a drabble posted at the moment and it's titled fontaine girls receiving flowers from their s.o.! Check it out! It's short and sweet, but still had me kicking my feet and twirling my hair 🥰 ( Hey, that almost rhymed- Smack )

Dividers were made by me, pictures used are from Pinterest, post formatting is inspired by @xxsabitoxx

[seasidewanderers]

intro post time!

times someone at work called us by another name that's neither our chosen name, nor our anagraphical name today [21/08/2024] : back to 1 😔

we've had this blog for... around 3 years now I believe, and never made an intro post, so here it is!

we're the Seaside Wanderers, a plural system. please call us alters or headmates! we go by Aaron, Ae/Ea, or Martin (pick a name, get one free!)

infamous Maternity Blackwood asker

we work in electric power&gas trading! ask us about it! weird ass job that your grandma won't believe it's a real actual job people do

(alter intros are under the cut along with other personal information)

no DNI, feel free to interact. if you'd have to break yours to interact with us, however, isn't the DNI kinda pointless anyway?

the meaning of our system name is nothing special; we all love playing LOTRO (the Lord Of The Rings Online, a MMORPG based on LOTR. highly recommended!) and one of the titles you can get for your character is "Seaside Wanderer". it stuck with us as we love the sea, love walking on the beach, and love how it sounds.

our alter tags are as follow for now, we'll update if someone else wants to participate in this blog:

#of rage and black tidings

#and no other choices

#tinker's curse

#vulpine era

#waterfront

we believe in endogenic plurality. we acknowledge it's a different thing from DID though, and also endogenic DID is NOT the same as endogenic plurality with DID.

CDDs [Complex Dissociative Disorders, a term that encapsulate all traumagenic and dissociative disorders such as DID, OSDD-1, P-DID, and those cases of UDD that cause systemhood] are trauma-based

we believe you can be plural without trauma, and you can be plural without a CDD, and that plurality isn't in itself a symptom of any mental disorder

we support informed and researched self-diagnosis

we support ALL plurals and ALL headmates! traumagenic, endogenic, mixed, median, empty systems, disordered, non-disordered, created, spontaneous, adaptive... I can't list all but I love and support YOU 🫵🏻 and I hope you're safe and having a good day, week, month, year and always! YOU deserve to feel good! yes, you! yes, you, person who might not agree with me, and who I might not agree with

personal, non-syscourse info here:

warning: flashing lights for a blinkie under the cut!

adult (turned 24!)

we work full time. we have a job in electric power&gas trading. we may talk shit about stock prices now and then

we're collectively gendervoid, trans/non binary neumasc-leaning, use they/them, it/its, and ae/aer pronouns, and are omni gay and queer

we are also physically disabled and neurodivergent. we have chronic pain and chronic migraines, schizotypal personality disorder, and psychotic depression, so you might see us posting about it now and then

individual introductions for us alters (divided by layer)

this won't be all of us, just those more likely to participate in this blog. due to our system's nature as polyfragmented we wouldn't know all alters, either. updating this a few at a time so we don't get overwhelmed

Jackdaws

James, 18ish, he/him; fictive. annoys Edward for a living. very opinionated. caretaker 🤎

Edward, 23+, he/him; fictive. likes blabbering about his source and sing. pirate enjoyer, annoyed with the fact we don't own a sword yet. role anarchist/does whatever he feels like 🩶

Waterfront

Oscar, 300+, he/they + ae/aer; OCtive (homebrew Pathfinder 1e campaign), half-elf, sylph alchemist, vivisectionist/wasteland blighter archetype. I may talk about it sometimes and I like answering questions about it. I like my source a lot. married to Celain. trauma-related role, protector/persecutor 🩵

Celain (pronounced as Colin), immortal, he/they; OCtive (homebrew Pathfinder 1e campaign, same as Oscar), elf angel (planetar agathion to be specific), cleric angelfire apostle archetype. I follow Pathfinder's fictional pantheon, but I'm making it work with our religions and spiritualities. married to Oscar. trauma-related role, protector/caretaker 🧡

Finnegan/Tristan, 19, he/they/it; OCtive (homebrew Pathfinder 1e campaign teehee), kitsune, bard fey prankster archetype. I love talking about Pathfinder please ask me about Pathfinder like right now thank youuu. token extrovert. my role is to stay silly in these trying times 💖

[sleeplesslark]

Thanks for the tag, @mugsdontlie

Writing procrastination game!!!

1. What's the name of one of your Wips?

Loyalty's Price; Eternity, I have half a mind to name my next one something Fear and Hunger related.

2. Describe a Wip in the format of __+__=__

Uhhhh, I'll do a non-LP one since LP; Eternity is 1 chapter from being over. Modern AU+Genjutsu = a generally bad day.

3. What tags/warnings will one of your Wips need if you share it?

Usually violence and character death though I don't think any of them have been sad deaths so far.

As for tags.....Loyalty's Price; Reunion will have Urushi, so him?

4. Alternative title to a Wip?

God I wish. Loyalty's Price feels very generic. Uhhh, maybe "No Place Else you'd rather be" a line from Fences by Paramore. It has an irony I kind of like. Doesn't work well for subtitles though.

5. Which Wip are you most likely to update/finish next?

Loyalty's Price; Eternity. Editing the final chapter though it'll most likely be split in half.

6. What is one of your Wip's document title, not its name but what you have it saved as?

LP 3; CH 11; Try 2; D2 (I rewrote much of it)

7. Post any sentence from your Wip?

"He hoped someone else had to suffocate on this putrid victory."

8. A scrapped idea from your wip?

There's two whole scrapped scenes, one is of Kabuto having a nightmare that involves Nonou that's half a flashback if you wanna read it that way, and one is him and Sakura talking about death generally but about Sasori and Yoroi a bit.

9. What's a story you'd love to write but have yet to start?

I'd kinda like to do a "what if Naruto was on Team Kabuto" but I'm still not entirely sure how to tackle it.

Same with a "what if Nonou adopted Naruto and he and Kabuto were straight up brothers". I have ideas for it but they're pretty disconnected and more vibes than a plot. I don't write kids well.

Both are hard in part because idk how much canon divergence I'm comfortable with yet.

10. How many Wips are you actively working on?

1, probably will start something else when LP; Eternity is done

11. Is there a scene you're struggling to write right now?

Struggling to edit in general. The fic has caused a bit of a panic episode that I'm in treatment for. I don't want my mental health to take away something I was really enjoying though.

12. Not a question but a second kudos!

Tagging: @aceonice , @allalrightagain , @ao3dorian-gay , @myulalie , Uhhh @girl-with-goats if any of you want to.

[canmom]

The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere 049-064 (pt. 1)

Previously: 000-012, spinoff post about entropy, 013-032, 033-048 [all Flower posts]

Hoo boy this is a bunch of chapters. It's time for more Flower.

All together now: no, not that flower.

...yeah, I'm having to reach for flower-related videos to keep up this running gag at this point. But hey, look, hear me out here: Kanae Nozawa is really fucking good at playing the erhu. And it's called 'Flower Dance'. I think that's flowery enough.

...yeah, I will take suggestions for the next one. Send me your favourite flower-related videos. Especially if they're anime and kinda dark.

Anyway, welcome back to my liveblog of The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, an ongoing serial web novel by @lurinatftbn. Our arc titles today are The Die Falls and Cut-Out Face.

And this time around, Umineko intensifies. I won't say too much more than that above the fold this time, because we're starting to get some mysteries answered (opening more mysteries, naturally). But if you don't mind spoilers, the space elevator awaits.

So where we left off last time, Su had discovered the body of (probably) Neferuaten. It's time to get into that part of Umineko where people are dropping like flies and everyone is desperately trying to figure out who's doing it before it's their turn. However, in this case, everyone involved is a wizard, so this makes things a little more complicated.

There was one important mystery missing from my list of mysteries, incidentally - the pantry with the signs of aging and the tally marks.

Someone on the Flower discord helpfully pointed out that I'd misremembered the rule on red text. I edited the previous post, but just in case: the rule is that if you get a description of a body in red, it's definitely a dead human (and that person is definitely really dead, it's not a spare body or anything). But which dead person? There's no rule that Su correctly identifies the deceased. So while Su definitely found a body, there's no guarantee that it's Neferuaten's body. It's not even guaranteed to be a member of the known cast, since we don't know how many people were already on the island.

Indeed, in this pair of arcs, we start to see characters question the identity of a corpse. So it's definitely intended that you keep that kind of question in mind whenever Su finds a body.

To broadly outline the events in this arc (as much to keep it straight in my head as anything):

Su finds Neferatuen's body and reports it to Linos and Lilith.

They link up with the rest of Su's class and break the news. Everyone freaks out a bit.

A broadcast is made to every computer on the island in which we get an Umineko-style challenge, declaring that everyone on the island will soon be killed by 'heavenly beasts', but it is - sportingly - possible to escape the security system and get off the island. Everyone freaks out a lot.

Fang, who apparently put all of their points into 'chill', takes charge of the situation. Linos explains how the lockdown works.

Linos sends Su and a few others up to get a map. While they're up there, Su bungles her way into confessing the body that she and Kamrusepa discovered earlier. The characters start to compare notes.

Moving as a group, they all set out to shut down the lockdown at the admin centre, covered by various types of magic shield. They blunder into a trap which involved Linos's gun being rigged to fire to cause a distraction, and then Bardiya is murdered while the party is split. According to Theo, the only witness, he was attacked by something which dragged him into the window.

The party share various recriminations and perform some diagnostic magic. Theo and Linos are declared Intensely Sussy, but Fang points out a narrow possibility that an external culprit could have dunnit while Linos's shield had briefly been disabled.

Mehit flips out and grabs Linos's gun. She takes Lilith away from the group of arcanists, intending to wait out the crisis in one of the areas where the Power is suppressed.

The gang moves out. Ran challenges Linos on some of his claims about the nature of the lockdown. It turns out he's been telling some fibs.

They travel through a tunnel that runs from the womens' entrance hall into the research dome. There, they discover a big bloody hole in the ground, and also Anna and Zeno are there.

Zeno's back in girlmode and is trying to transport a bunch of boxes. It turns out their actual 'main body' is a kind of a Made in Abyss 'cartridge' situation - surgically minimised, in this case to slow down aging as much as possible, and hidden. All their bodies are (according to them!) puppet bodies. I'm behind 7 proxy bodies or whatever.

Anna, it turns out, has age regwessied! We get a flashback narrated by Ran (notably not marked reliable) in which we find out what happened during Su's amnesiac episode - more on that later, but the upshot is that Fang brought a spike of true iron that they finished on behalf of Su's grandfather, which allows the Order to operate a giant machine built by Su's grandfather to interact with entropy. The Great Work is successful, and Anna was age regwiessed down to a young adult again.

Su has started to suspect Balthazar knows something time loop shaped. She and Ran and Linos go to confront him. Bal pretty much says yes: we are in fact in a time loop, we've already had thousands of iterations, and I get to remember it, and you should remember it too Su. Every single time, everyone dies and someone makes a tally mark in the pantry, which is for some reason not getting reset. Bal intends to wait out the timeloop where he is with a magazine and won't budge. He also says this is supposed to be the last loop. Ran and Su are dismissive. We the readers know better. Although somehow I suspect this isn't the last loop.

Anna hands out tracking bands.

A flashback sequence shows what happened when Ran found out about Su's situation. More on that later.

The gang go downstairs to find the admin console. On the way down, they discover a bloody magic circle with Durvasa's name written in it.

The three present Order members (Linos, Zeno, and Anna) are able to log into the admin console. They discover that it's not a standard lockdown, but a secret time-triggered protocol installed 20 years ago, around when Su's grandfather was fiddling with the computers. This means it can't easily be reset. Also, in a couple hours the security golems will turn on. Wuh oh.

They hatch a plan B. Everyone goes upstairs to 1. get masks from the mask room to bypass the golems (idk if I mentioned the mask room, there's a mask room) and 2. hopefully rewire re-rune the inputs to the security centre to spoof its inputs and activate the exit.

In the mask room, they discover Durvasa has probably been murdered, but the corpse is too severely mutilated to permit positive identification.

All the students are given masks in order to pass as members of the order. Su anticipates that these masks are going to create a situation where it's harder to identify who's who.

I think that's all the main points. Lots of moving around.

Having done what I promised not to do and write a plot summary, let's get on to the actual substance...

Mystery solution unlocked (somewhat): who is Su?

I feel like I should have been able to predict this one, in retrospect.

In logical terms, maybe not deduce it. But with this reveal, the narrative purpose of a lot of earlier scenes falls into place.

So, Su's unnamed childhood friend - the nerdy academic one who she met on the beach and encouraged her. Well, that friend is in fact Utsushikome of Fusai, or Shiko to her friends!

Wuh? Isn't that our dear protagonist? No - the character we're calling 'Su' is the mind of the other girl, our POV in that flashback. Or maybe it's the other way round, I'm a still little unclear on which POV was which in those flashbacks. I'm fairly sure though that POV girl is Su, and the other girl is Shiko. It's confusing because multiple flashbacks are narrated in the first person - the memories of the beach probably belong to Su, while the memories of the doctor's office where she learned about ascension probably belong to Shiko.

Anyway, we're told in chapter 55 a bit more about the mechanics of how arcanists work. Basically, the Tower of Asphodel, in addition to a few hundred thousand human bodies, also has billions of backup minds in the form of 'pneuma', a semi-biological element that interacts with the higher planes and basically amounts to a soul. The pneuma encodes memories (redundantly it seems), as well as preferences and habits - it's something akin to what Seth Dickinson calls the 'inner law'. In modern times, egomancy - the kind of magic that fucks with pneuma - is highly forbidden.

When humans are born in this world (perhaps more accurately 'instantiated'), stage 1 is to block the pneuma in the clone and permit a new one to form. Unfortunately this breaks the Power.

It was found that the new generation, the children born from this process, had no capacity to use the Power. Even though it had no visible effect on consciousness or intellect, this alteration to the nature of their pneumas damaged the ability of their minds to take on an Index, meaning that using the Power was impossible. There were cases where this didn't happen - where the 'trauma' healed just so - but they were one in a million. So rare as to be useless.

So, to set someone up as an arcanist, you download one of these backed up pneumas from the Tower, and install it over the existing pneuma. But the downloaded pneuma is deliberately weakened so that usually the downloaded personality dissolves quickly and reverts back to the identity of the person who became an arcanist. This process is apparently destructive to the backed up pneuma in the Tower.

So when Lilith said that all arcanists are murderers, what she means is that in a 'proper' initiation, you devour the soul of someone from a dead universe in order to steal their admin password.

In Shiko's case, something different happened. Instead of downloading the soul of someone from a dead universe, she's got the soul of a regular living girl from her own universe.

Here's how Su recalls the situation:

"One day, I got a letter. It offered me a whole bunch of stuff... My own house, shares in a bunch of local businesses that'd get me a stream of luxury credit.. If I agreed to go along with something for a couple weeks. That was what it said-- A couple of weeks." Under the table, I was having trouble keeping my legs still. "I thought it was some strange prank at first, but when we met, they seemed really serious. They said it would be best if it was someone who knew her." "Knew who?" "Oh..." I shifted reluctantly in my seat, my voice getting even quieter. "U-Utsushikome, I mean. I'd known her when we were kids... But we hadn't spoken in years." I cleared my throat. I felt so anxious about what was happening that I was shivering. "Anyway. They told me that her grandfather was dying, and there was something he'd been trying to do for years and years, but it was too late for it t-to work out. But they wanted to-- I dunno, do the next best thing, give him some peace--"

So, agents of Shiko's grandfather - who was evidently up to his fucking follicles in conspiracies - approached the girl we're now calling Su (her original name is not given, for reasons we'll see), operating under false pretenses. It's not clear how much they told her, just that it would involve Shiko. She agreed. They extracted the soul from her body and implanted it in Shiko at Shiko's induction. It seems likely that Shiko's grandfather intended to do this with his own soul, but could not for some reason? Why they did this with some random girl remains unknown. It's also not clear why Su of all people should have chmod +x for the Power.

Su was presumably supposed to dissolve back into Shiko's identity, but probably because the induction was far from normal, she retained her previous identity and Shiko was the one suppressed. Su did her best to try and figure out how to pretend to be Shiko, but Ran - not yet an arcanist herself - noticed her sudden personality change and confronted her. Su came clean, and Ran was all 'kill yourself, bitch' over it.

Seriously she does not let up. Here's some quotes:

This time, she did glance at me, a scowl forming on her face. "Don't try to act compassionate, you perverted fucking body-snatcher. You're not my friend." (...) She grunted. "Just be late next time. I don't want you messing with how she looks on your own impulse." (...) It was strange, us investigating it together like this. Even though I went along with it, acted repentantly, and had explained to her that the way things were weren't exactly my fault - that I'd been deceived at the premise of what I'd agreed to do - she wasn't willing to afford me much charity, but in a way, that was comforting. She was like a beacon of sharp reality in the dreamlike, dissociated existence I was now living.

And so on. Even when Su reveals that her original body is now months dead, and there is no body to go back to, Ran will not cut her a break:

"...this isn't you getting cold feet about trying to save her, is it?" she asked, suddenly suspicious. "Because you can't--" (...) Ran must have realized the absurdity of the statement, because a few moments later she spoke up again-- Disgust having crept back into her tone, even if that hint of conflict still remained. "Don't act sorry for yourself," she said. "It's your own fault for going along with something so perverse for your own gain. Blame her grandfather for being such a fucking lunatic, if you want, but don't act like a victim. No one gives a shit about you."

People in the comments start pulling out the word 'abuser' over this kind of thing and yeah, *sucks in air through teeth* they're not wrong. No wonder Su has such a complex nowadays.

It's notable how much Su's fantastical scenario here has in common with the experience of plurality/DID. Certain friends who are plural talk about how they may be able to recall alters' memories, but with difficulty, and it feels like they belong to someone else. And of course there's the process of forming new alters. Manifesting suddenly in a body full of memories of another person seems like a pretty distressing experience all told, but it's also something that the other people you're sharing with can make easier.

I talked a bit more about this in the Baru article on brains, so I won't reprise it all here. Broadly speaking, if someone is plural, their mind supports different 'alters', which are states of being which typically express distinct senses of identity, access to memory, preferences, stream of consciousness etc. Whether you think of them as distinct 'people' or distinct states of 'one person' seems like a matter of philosophical speculation, but 'co-consciousness' of alters is not an unusual thing, and sometimes I've witnessed externalised disagreements between alters. Since we don't have any ability to prove the existence of other minds in general, the only surefire way to know what it's like to be plural is to be plural already. Unfortunately the main way to inculcate plurality seems to be 'go through severe child abuse', so it's not easy to find out. But maybe tulpamancy is real?

Su's situation is not so different from the recent recurring 'lesbians and imperialism' subgenre device of having someone's mind inserted into a protagonist's body through some kind of scifi means. In modern 'plural system' terms, the word used is 'introject': in brief, an alter derived from another person, who often (but not always) understands themselves to be that person even in another body.

The big difference for Su of course is that the other alter she'd hypothetically be sharing this body with has just disappeared. Su can't talk to Shiko, Shiko's gone. It's not actually uncommon for alters to disappear like that, I've known people who very rapidly generate and discard identities in an intense traumatic situation, but the timeline doesn't really fit that here, and it's pretty much nonexistent I think for all alters but one to disappear and leave someone a singleton again.

I admit I'm not familiar with all the modern taxonomy of what psychiatry terms 'dissociative disorders', so perhaps there are other related categories, that are closer to Su's situation. Of course, even ignoring all the flaws and limitations of the DSM approach, this is a sci-fantasy world in which souls are real and manifest in a specific organ (ironic given how I declared they definitely aren't real and 'the body is all that is' in the first post on this book), so different rules apply!

What's not clear to me at this point is whether Samium the egomancer is going to be capable of restoring Shiko's soul in any meaningful way. It seems like when you shove two pneumas into a body, only one survives.

Anyway, as for Ran, she's clearly backed off on the 'perverted fucking body-snatcher' talk, having spent many years building up a friendship with Su and losing sight of her original zeal to save Shiko. Despite this, she really hasn't owned up to the fact that she's a big part of the reason Su is so determined to do a special magic suicide.

We could only suppose that if Shiko was brought back at this point, she would be in the exact same situation Su was - suddenly inhabiting a body filled with memories that are not her own, surrounded by people she does not know, and forced to carry on pretending to be the previous occupant. None of Su's present classmates know Shiko. Shiko's context was the school, and that is now in the distant past.

Su, however, is carrying The Mega Traumas and has spent however many years defining her life's purpose as dying to bring back Shiko. She has fully internalised the idea that she's a monster and doesn't deserve to live, that it's somehow her moral responsibility for the twisted experiment that Su's grandfather performed on these two girls.

At this point, the 'healthiest' outcomes are one of two things. Maybe Samium the egomancer could reactivate Shiko's identity, but without destroying Su, and Su/Shiko can share the body. Being plural doesn't seem to be so bad. (I admit I don't know what it's like, but if there's anything I've observed from knowing people who are plural, it's that once that cat's out of the bag and you recognise that you're plural, you can't really just try and suppress it. Trying to just will yourself into not switching is going to fuck you up much worse than coming to terms with it and developing ways to interact comfortably and share embodiment with your new headmate. Apparently 'integration' or fusion of alters is possible, and was traditionally pursued by therapists, but if it's rushed it just breaks down. And that would be disagreed with by the modern plural identity movement.)

On the other hand, it seems fairly plausible that it won't be possible to bring back Shiko. In this case, both Su and Ran need to finally grieve their friend who was effectively murdered at a young age by Su's grandfather, and move on. Easier said than done, of course. And they're definitely not going to get there if they can't have a very honest discussion about it. Which doesn't seem very likely with all these distracting murders.

Anyway, that resolves a few of my list of mysteries...

what skulduggery happened with Su’s ascension that made it go so badly wrong?: Shiki had the soul of her childhood friend, now known as 'Su', instead of some rando from the Tower of Asphodel. why did Ran react so badly to knowing that Su can’t assimilate?: she was not yet an arcanist and did not know about what initiation entails. she sees Su as culpable, even though Su was deceived. Su is a stranger and she will happily let a stranger die to save Shiki, and rationalises this. what did Su’s grandfather have to do with it?: agents claiming to work on behalf of Shiki's grandfather deceived Su. it seems it was too late to do it with his own mind.

it also opens some brand new mysteries.

why did Shiki's grandfather carry out this sadistic experiment? how is this the 'next-best thing'? is it just to prove the body-hopping technology works?

did Shiki's grandfather and co. anticipate that Shiki's mind would be overwritten by Su, or did they expect Su to be killed, the same as minds from Asphodel?

who are the agents who carried out this weird plot? do they have any relation to the current murder spree?

can the mind of Shiki really be retrieved?

Now I've gone through all the ins and outs of it - this plot is really cool and spicy. So much drama to be had. Now I understand the point of those flashback scenes to Su's childhood, and it fits so neatly that I wonder how I couldn't see it before. Not enough imagination! But if this is the wavelength the story is operating on, I should try and imagine similar payoffs for the other mysteries...

Anyway, now that we've established that body transfers are possible, we might wonder if anyone else had one done.

Let me wrap up this section by saying... body-snatcher is a very specific term! It tickles me to think that Ran might have seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).

The time loop

This was described at the outset as a 'control' scenario, but we have several apparent divergences. And supposedly thousands of iterations of this experiment have already run with slightly different outcomes.

Su's memory is slightly leaking info from the other loops, but for the most part she remains immersed in the scenario. Balthazar, meanwhile, obviously has history with Su from previous runs. This explains Su's inexplicable feelings of animosity towards him, his knowledge of the name 'Shiki', and many of his remarks.

As mentioned up above, the pantry is somehow not getting rolled back after each loop. This explains why it's so old. I had previously been assuming it was some kind of 'hyperbolic time chamber' type scenario, and the tally marks were the time that someone was stuck in the pantry, but this is way more interesting and cool.

We have our equivalent of On the ninth twilight, the witch revives, and none shall be left alive. from Balthazar:

"When I said this is a closed circle, I meant it in every sense," he explained. "In absolutely every instance, for every marking made on that wall... By the time this is over, there isn't a single person here left alive."

Presumably either Balthazar or Su is the mark-maker, and they always end up dead after making this mark. I assume they usually mark the wall fairly early in the loop in order to make sure they don't die too soon before making it!

This actually means I think we have a fairly good suspect for the "who knocked out Yantho" case. If Balthazar came here to mark the wall (although why bother, if it's the final run), and Yantho was about to see him, maybe he'd have panicked and knocked Yantho out? I don't think that would extend as far as killing the cook and faking her suicide though!

Anyway, Balthazar claims this is the final run. One commenter had a little hissy fit about this not fitting the standard time loop story mold, but I'm more inclined to wait and see. Admittedly, I have the unfair knowledge, compared to when this chapter came out, that the story is hundreds of chapters long and still going strong, and given the murders are now going at a rapid pace, I feel like we'll surely see at least one more loop. Hard to say though. Just because it's inspired by Umineko doesn't mean it's got the same structure.

Anyway, let's revisit the very first chapter given what we now know...

They were also a woman, though you wouldn't have been able to tell. Everything beneath the head-area was buried under black fabric, without so much as an inch of flesh visible, and their face was covered with a expressionless, androgynous porcelain mask. Otherwise, the outfit evoked something like a funeral gown, with only subtle frills around the cuffs and hem of the skirt.

We can now recognise this is probably the outfit of a member of the Order, back when they hid their identities. The mask sounds similar to how Neferuaten's mask is described in chapter 31:

It took me a moment to realize which mask she was pointing out, since it was so unremarkable. It was little more than an oval of silver, with holes cut for the two eyes and mouth, and a little dent to accommodate the nose.

Though Nef's mask is described as silver, not porcelain.

We can also get to hear Su's victory condition.

"Understand this: Your role in the scenario has been elevated from that of bystander to that of the heroine, and your victory condition is thus," she continued. "You must ascertain the identity of your opponent, the cause of the bloodshed to follow, and prevent it before it comes to pass. In order to accomplish this goal, you must pay close heed to all which transpires, and use deduction, alongside your skills and past experience of the events to follow. Do you understand your role?" (...) "Should you deviate from your role, the scenario will be compromised, and a grave outcome is forewritten. But should you succeed, then you shall open the path to a brighter future." She paused for a moment. "That is all. Should we begin?"

It's not at all clear why this should be the final loop, given that Su seems nowhere near close to 'winning' at this point. It's hard to know whether 'the scenario will be compromised' applies beyond a single loop though.

Two more mysteries to put on the list: who is Su's interlocutor here? And what was Su's request?

One thing I noticed, incidentally, is that chapter 000 was written some time after chapter 1, released 27 July 2020 - the timestamp places it in between chapters 020 (24 July) and 021 (6 August). I don't think this means anything - the intended version of the story is clearly now the one with the prologue attached - but it's an interesting example of how a serial novel can evolve with time.

Anyway, if the time loop is a challenge for Su to solve, it raises the obvious question of why Balthazar gets to remember the loop. (There's also incidentally a thing where most of the students' clocks are mysteriously stopped, with the exception of Ophelia's and Ran's.)

Anyway, Su (like us) has to solve whodunnit and whydunnit. Though howdunnit is probably also relevant.

I'm going to wildly speculate that Su's identity stuff is somehow connected to the timeloop scenario, just because narrative efficiency. Here are some possibilities to consider:

the woman in the mask is Shiko

the woman in the mask is Su. the POV of the first chapter is that of Shiko, and her request is that a scenario could be created where Su has to take on the scenario.

the culprit of all the murders and shit is Shiko. she was not overwritten, but evicted into a different body again.

the culprit of all the murders and shit is Shiki, from Tsukihime.

Ran's chapters and the Great Work

Ran recounts some of the stuff that happened while Su was out of it. This is later shown to be a diegetic conversation.

These chapters are super cool and intriguing. That said, while it starts out fairly believable - Ran's summaries with her voice - there is something a bit weird about how Ran can quote long conversations verbatim. Admittedly, if Su is telling the story, she is also able to remember everything in incredible detail. But Su has been established to have something like an eidetic memory, at least as far as figures are concerned, so I can sorta handwave that part.

Though that said, it's just a minor stylistic quibble. Putting it in Ran's mouth is an interesting device. Ran's inner voice is quite sarcastic, way more so than Su, who is honestly painfully sincere?

More importantly, these chapters are not marked with a first purple letter to confirm they are reliable. This is a narrative that Ran is telling Su. We can probably assume the broad details are accurate-ish, but it's entirely possible that Ran is lying or omitting things according to the rules of the game.

Anyway, the students are all taken down to a huge chamber underneath the Everblossom that's full of fractal cables and complicated magic runes that use a city's worth of eris to interface with the Ironworker entropy machine. So far it lets them essentially perfectly recover information from the past, allowing them to do stuff like de-age Anna.

It's a little bit handwavey how it all works. Anna's memories appear to be intact, so her entire body can't have been rolled back. We could raise all sorts of questions about motion and the interface between brain and body but it's a nitpicking.

What we know is that after Fang brings out a piece of iron and it's integrated into the machine... Anna goes offscreen with the other members of the Order, and then comes back appearing much younger, and they claim the machine worked as intended. Not much time to celebrate though because shortly after, the murders start.

There remains the possibility that the younger individual we're being told is Anna is... not Anna, but someone else acting as her (perhaps even Neferatuen). Though why the Order would deceive the students in such a way I couldn't guess, so it's a pretty dubious theory.

The murders

The murder of Bardiya is fairly extensively discussed by the characters. The two scenarios raised are: Theo attacked Bardiya, then lied about it, or, an unknown party ducked in while the shield was lowered very briefly, then attacked Bardiya through the window.

Given the specifity of the window stuff, I'm inclined to believe the second story. Theo definitely has something going on with him (he's been super cagey about some personal business), but he doesn't have a murderer vibe, unless he's an improbably good actor. The capabilities of the adversary remain unclear.

It's also possible that the death somehow involved an adverse interaction with Linos's shield. This possibility was raised by a commentator.

...actually, fine, let me go into Linos's shield.

Linos's shield (or the inevitable nitpicking)

The main group of characters rely on Linos's high level casting of a shielding spell called energy-nullifying-projecting. This takes incoming energy and redirects it back out. We get more details later:

"The base component terminates all motion in anything that comes into contact with it and essentially acts as a brick wall on top of blocking incoming incantations, while the additional one conjures an electromagnetic repelling force, physically damaging any matter that tries to pass through it."

"Wait, uh, I'm kind of confused," Ptolema said, scratching her head. "If it works like that, wouldn't just moving it around damage stuff? Like, when you expanded it to cover the kitchen, shouldn't it have smashed the wall to bits?" "Mm, well, the energy nullification doesn't actually apply when I move the barrier, so as long as everything I'm expanding it through is motionless already, then it'll just pass through harmlessly. I do have to disable the repulsive component for those times, though--- There's an element of the incantation to give me dynamic control over it."

My nitpicks are two: firstly, Ran mentioned special relativity applies to this universe in an earlier chapter. 'Motionless' is relative, and in Newtonian physics and relativity, you don't have a 'preferred' reference frame in which things can be 'absolutely' at rest. So I wonder how the spell is able to distinguish between 'thing moving towards Linos' (block) vs 'Linos moving towards thing' (don't block).

My second nitpick is thermal motion. Even a solid object is constantly full of random lattice vibrations corresponding to temperature. Negating all motion that touches the barrier would amount to flash-freezing anything that comes into contact. Though perhaps you can 'code' it to identify macro-scale objects in motion and block them.

Neither of these are like important.

Anyway here's how Bardiya's death is described by Theo...

"I... Bardiya was right up near the window at the far side of the room, when I turned. I only saw him clearly for a moment before the lamp fell over... But the window was open, and he was staring out of-- No, rather, it almost looked like he was being pulled by something. One of his arms reached out to try and grab hold of something, but there was nothing." He shook his head. "When the light was gone, I tried to call out, but I couldn't hear a sound from my own mouth... Or from anywhere at all. And then, I... I..." He ran his hands urgently through his hair, as if trying to wipe something off them, and gasped urgently. Mehit, who was sitting next to him, stared wide-eyed. "I couldn't see well, but it looked like something was... Was feeding on him," he went on. "He kept being pulled out through the window over and over again, and every time, there was more and more blood when he pulled back. I could even feel some of it splatter on my face, see the light reflecting off the puddle... And more than anything, I could smell it. It was like a butcher's shop, but sickly sweet." He shuddered. "E-Eventually, whatever it was let him go, and he slumped down. I'd been too shocked to move up until that point, but realized I needed to help him, so... I tried to step forward. I still couldn't hear my own voice, so I tried to turn his body around. That's when I... That close, I could see..."

Getting pulled out of the window by an unseen force and torn to bits definitely sounds kinda like getting caught in a repulsive barrier, right? Then again, there's no reason Bard would stick his hand out the window unless forced.

It's a shame, I liked Bardiya. Had a good head on his shoulders. But hey, I guess that's the point! You always kill the fan appeal character first for maximum tragedy points. (By the same token, I expect Ezekiel will last a long time.)

Durvasa we have less information to go on, since the corpse was arranged decoratively post killing. As we've observed, it might not even be Durvasa.

I'm too tired now to try to solve this one, but I might do a followup, to comment on any other stuff that stands out, later.

Great story, anyway. I'm so intrigued by all that's going on. I accidentally posted this instead of sending it to drafts, so I'm gonna unprivate it now, see you next time for more on these chapters or maybe just advancing straight to the next batch!

Thanks for reading my liveblog! And if you read this Lurina, great work, this book kicks ass, so many intriguing ideas and moving parts, I have no idea how you keep track of it all lol.

Umineko liveblog to pick up after sleep hopefully. We'll see though.

[thought-42]

It gets harder every year

Star Wars, 2050 words, Luke Skywalker, Ezra Bridger Luke has acquired a Mandalorian and is maybe panicking a little. It's fine. He nows a guy. Set in a universe where Ezra wound up in the Chiss Ascendancy post-Rebels and eventually he and Luke became like. Space internet friends. Don't worry about it. *

Luke Skywalker, pinnacle of Jedi calm and patience, only does four laps around the school while he waits for his comm signal to work its way through seven layers of encryption and a long string of relay nodes stretching across lightyears, vast and unknowable, between his current location and his target.

“No,” Laezra says as soon as he picks up. His little hologram is blurry and half a second out of sync with the audio, but Luke can still see the way his hair is flattened on one side and standing straight up on the other, and he's holding the comm in such a way that his (probably bare) chest is out of frame. There is, perhaps, a timezone issue Luke should have taken into account.

“You're so rude,” Luke says. “This could be an emergency.”

“Is it?”

“The point is that it could be. And you, my only peer, my only fellow Force user, you who stand in brotherhood with me against a harsh and uncaring universe–”

“Your sister exists and is literally a princess”

“What value does the royal title hold within the forced diaspora, really? Also the last time I asked if she wanted to meditate she threatened to tell someone I don't pay taxes.”

“That's an actual criminal crime, for the record. What kind of example are you setting for your students?”

“I have two students,” Luke says. “One of whom I'm related to. Besides, didn't you meet your master in the middle of a criminal crime?”

“It's not a crime if it pisses off the Empire,” Laezra says automatically, then, “Luke, please. I am so tired. There was a whole... thing. I haven't slept in my own bed for three weeks. My student had to use her lightsaber in actual combat for the first time. I had to side with my commanding officer against my mentor, even though the asshole was absolutely in the right, and I'm feeling some kinda way about it. Sometimes preemptive action is good, actually, but don’t tell anybody I said that.”

“Sorry,” says Luke. “Is she ok? Your student, I mean.” Laezra still refuses to tell Luke the name of his or his fellow Navigator Jedi's student, and wierd trust issues aside, it makes conversation grammatically difficult sometimes.

“Yeah. We're ok. We were both doing twelve hour shifts on the way home, though, because I guess ‘we aren’t Sky Walkers’ doesn’t mean ‘we aren’t Sky Walkers’ when the ship’s actual Sky Walker is made of germs and fever and barf. Then it becomes ‘jump-by-jump is so inefficient, this information is so critical, everybody’s so tired. Have you ever had the experience of getting nosebleed blood crusted in your beard? BecauseI don’t recommend it.”

Between Leia and Laezra, Luke knows enough classified information to sink two major governments. Or at least inconvenience them a lot. 

"Ok, ok, ok," Luke decides he's going to sit down on the grass,and only realises it’s still wet from the afternoon rainstorm once his pants are already soaked. “So. Listen. You know things.”

“Wild,” Laezra says flatly. “Is this how you write report cards at your school?”

Luke glares down at the little hologram. “You know things about Mandalorians,” he clarifies. He decides he's gonna stand back up, and while he's at it he may as well do a few more laps.

“I-- Luke. Luke you can't tell me I'm the only person you know who knows a Mandalorian. Who I am, just so we're super clear, still on pretty shaky footing with, given my whole... everything.”

Luke waves this off. He is very over Laezra having fucked off on actual Purrgils, never to return, less than a year before Luke discovered he was a space wizard and could have really desperately used some support in that from someone who wasn't a hundred years old and a friend of his father's. It's so fine. He definitely doesn't lie awake imagining being one half of a pair of Jedi, back when the Rebellion had felt huge and overwhelming and kind of terrifying. Some people blow up a massive space station/doomsday weapon full of living beings (twice) and hold their evil dad in their arms while he dies. Some people ride away in a burst of martyrdom on their bffs the legendary space whales. Some people live alone but for two little kids in the ruins of a temple that they call a school, desperately trying to rebuild an entire religious and cultural institution from barely legible texts and ghosts. Some people live in another galaxy and embark on exciting new projects for an alien government where they get to research brand new Force techniques and go on adventures and live in an apartment where they can just walk across the street and buy fresh pastries whenever they want to.

Jedi do not feel envy. Jedi do not feel resentment. Jedi are always well aware that the grass is perpetually greener.

“I have a Mandalorian now,” Luke says, instead of any of this.

“Like, you... have obtained one? Are you feeding them? They need so much exercise, I cannot emphasise this enough.”

Luke puts his comm on the ground so he can drop his face into his hands. “He gave me? His kid? But also I think he's the king of the Mandalorians, and he keeps stopping by for visits, and I don't want to mess up.”

“This is so much,” Laezra says. “This is so much. Luke Skywalker, are you crushing on the Mand’alor?”

“Calling you was a mistake,” Luke says.

“Calling me was the opposite of a mistake, oh my God. What House? What Clan? I ask like the answer will mean anything to me, but like..... it might.”

“His name's Din,” Luke says. “I don't know if I'm supposed to tell people that.”

“And have you and Din..... you know?”

“He doesn't take his helmet off,” Luke says, helplessly. “Except once, and I think that was... not ideal. For him.”

“But was it ideal for you– sorry, sorry. Ok. Was he an Academy kid?”

“I don't think so,” Luke says. “He barely knew anything about the war. He didn't know who I was. He has a lightsaber that he really doesn't want to have, though.”

“Wait. Wait. So he's like.... the real deal. You're having sexy parent/teacher interviews with the legit Mand’alor.”

“I'm not having sexy anything with anybody,” Luke says.

“That's so sad, my guy. But hey, keep on trucking. I bet you can seduce him with your farmboy charms.”

“His son eats frogs,” says Luke. “I caught him a whole bucket full to take with him last time Din came to take him on a trip.”

“You just. ...handed the Mand’alor a bucket of frogs and his kid? ‘Have a good time, gang!’ You’re my very favourite little guy, Luke.”

“I think most of them escaped inside his ship,” Luke admits. “Which, actually, let me tell you about his kriffing ship–”

“Why am I perpetually surrounded by pilots? Luke, look at me. Look me in the eye. I don't care about his ship. Tell me about his cute kid or his dick or the actual ass Darksaber. Do not tell me about his ship.”

“It's very bad, though. It’s a bad ship and he should feel bad about it, he lets his child ride around in it, and I know for a fact his fuel injectors were recalled–”

“So were you hoping I'd... know the Mando dating cheat codes, or something?” Laezra says loudly.

Luke frowns. “I want to get to know him as a person. I'm his son's teacher. It'd be inappropriate for me to ... do anything. I'm just hoping I can maybe be a bit more culturally sensitive.”

Luke's only ever seen one propper, full-colour picture of Laezra that isn't a blue light holocall; there’s a holo on General Syndulla’s desk of a grinning teenager, limbs gawky and eyes that reminded Luke of the feral tookas he was never allowed to take home during trips into town as a kid. Even so, it's easy for Luke to picture the other man sitting in the dark of his bedroom, shoving his hands back through his hair as he groans. Luke wonders if he's the kind of person who needs to have everything unpacked and in its place when he comes home from a mission, or if he's more the 'dump bag and clothes on floor, fall face first onto nearest flat surface' type. It's probably a weird thing to wonder, but it's the sort of thing Luke knows about all his other friends.

“Ok. Luke.” He drops his hands from his hair and leans in close to his comm, so the top half of his face is all Luke sees, weird and disproportionate as the camera tries to compensate. “I bet you've probably been reading a bunch of old Jedi books or scrolls or cave paintings about the danger of attachment. Maybe your ghosts have lectured you. But that's what they are. Ghosts and old writings. You're starting something new. And-- Kanan. My Master. He loved somebody very much, and she loved him back. And he was the best Jedi I can imagine.”

“You can just say it was General Syndulla,” says Luke, who has only ever seen one mention of attachments in the documents he’s recovered, but doesn’t want to devalue what Laezra is trying to tell him.

“Ok, yeah. They loved each other so much, and I never once saw it interfere with Kanan’s dedication to helping others. To making the galaxy a safer, kinder place. If anything I think she made him better. And vice-versa.”

“I just meant,” Luke says carefully, “that I wouldn't want to risk things not working out and Din not wanting to leave his son here anymore. There's nobody else who will train him. But I’ll keep the other stuff in mind.”

“I have so many things I definitely  don't actually want to say to Ahsoka,” Laezra mutters. “But oh boy am I thinking them.”

Luke presses his lips together. He doesn't know if Laezra knows who Vader was when he was a Jedi. Doesn't know if it'd mean anything to him even if he did know. “She's got some pretty compelling reasons for the choices she makes, he says. "I don’t agree with her, but… I mean. Anybody can become dangerous if attachment gets possessive, but you've gotta admit Force users are especially risky.”

“People just keep making bigger guns,” Laezra points out. “How are they any less dangerous?”

“A gun can't get inside your head and change how you feel. It can't make you do things you wouldn't normally do.”

“Ahahaha,” says Laezra, and his hands go back over his face as he leans away from the camera. “You don't need The Force for that one, either.”

Luke winces. “Anyway,” he says, because he knows most people don't actually want to talk about their feelings, even if that seems super counter-intuitive. Whatever. “How do I become friends with the Mand'alor?”

“You keep saying it and it doesn't get any less unhinged. I don't know. You're already taking care of his kid, and you value family. You're highly skilled in combat. There's really no secret trick to it, just... be a person.”

“I've tried that,” Luke says. “I'm so bad at being a person around him though.”

“Does he like art?” Laezra asks, with a sudden burst of gleeful intensity. “Luke does he like art, this is important. I can tell you so much about art. Do you want to know which chemical combinations are the best for neon colours and also timed explosions? Do you want to know about historical graffiti culture throughout the Outer Rim? Do you want to know how to use the remaining art from the various Mandalorian factions to construct a sociopolitical thesis on their people with a focus on military tactics?”

“You know what," says Luke, "I think I hear the kids calling me.”

“Coward,” Laezra says immediately

“Go back to bed; say hi to your student for me; may The Force be with you bye.”

Laezra is still swearing at him, laughing,when Luke clicks the channel closed.

Luke, with all the dignity befitting the last Jedi Master, opens his notebook and writes 'Ask if he likes art.'

[aprillikesthings]

oh god oh god

HEY GUESS WHAT I'm down to the last two episodes of She-Ra in my rewatch

On a related note, should you desire to read them all starting from s1ep1 for some godforsaken reason, here's the link. Please be amused at my claims that I would not do this for every episode and my repeated attempts to cut back on how much I copy/paste dialogue and/or explain the entire plot instead of just making jokes and commentary

If, somehow, you are New Here, I've been rewatching all of the 2018 She-Ra, ostensibly for fic-writing reasons as I had forgotten huge quantities of the plot. I have since become deeply obsessed, as one does.

I make a lot of adult jokes, random asides, references to other things, commentary, and a lot of cursing and crying. I love Catradora and I love Catra especially and have a tendency to add a screenshot every time they so much as look at each other. It seems silly to warn for spoilers at this point, but yeah, this is a RE-watch. It's just that I forgot a lot of it because I watched it the first time as it was coming out (pun intended). The shit I did remember is so fucking random tho lol

The last time I tried to do a two-parter in one post the number of times I had to reblog it because tumblr only allows 30 images per post got real stupid, so while I do still assume I will have to reblog multiple times per episode, I'm doing each episode separately.

HERE WE GOOOOO

s5 ep12 Heart (pt 1)

jfc i'm full of adrenaline lol

Also I have a beer, it's a citrus IPA because I live in Portland and it's required by law

(not really I just genuinely like them. that and IPA's that taste like gnawing on a douglas fir. also fruit sours.)

LOL I was so anxious I looked away from this post and consumed most of my beer this is gonna be hilarious

ALSO my goal is to finish these two episodes before the Easter Vigil service tomorrow night at 8pm

Theoretically I should be able to watch two episodes of TV in a day and a half, right? AHAHA

Bow should play Wonderwall

she always looks so soft with her hair down

but also having that thing just floating in front of your chest like that has gotta feel weird

ON A RELATED NOTE I know I made the joke in the last episode about how many people have the failsafe as a tattoo but the PROBLEM is that now I literally LIVE with a tattoo artist whose work I like--I already have two tattoos they've done, here and here, and the temptation is extremely high?? but I don't have any other obvious fandom-related tattoos (unless you count the title of a Björk song) so it feels weird to start with this one???? Like I don't have any LoTR or BBC Sherlock or SU or K/DA tattoos (to list off a bunch of fandoms I was devastatingly obsessed with at the time) so getting one for THIS fandom feels kinda weird. But like, also, if I got it kinda small on one wrist it would look kinda cool and be a nice loud DID U KNOW I'M GAY kinda thing. Gyahhh.

She's struggling to do She-Ra, and I'm sitting here YELLING because IT'S BECAUSE CATRA LEFT and UGH I want to murder Shadow Weaver

(eyyyy I won't have to, ha ha oh god)

Oh she manages to transform anyway. Without making any noise or glowing lights, just pop, She-Ra

awwww but also lol

related aside but like, every culture that figured out bows and arrows invented at least one kind of string instrument. Literally archers just fidgeting with their bows and going "oh this makes a nice sound, what if I put more strings on this thing." So many different places and cultures invented things like a guitar or like a harp or like a violin. But also I want to know who the FUCK figured out the hurdy-gurdy??? oh my god I just looked up the hurdy-gurdy and I'm cracking up because one of the earliest depictions of it is from the 1100's, in the Santiago de Compostela cathedral. A place I have been. Because I did the Camino last year.

oh right plot

I would like to take a moment and be grateful for the people who put together the transcripts on the fandom wiki for saving me typing up long bits of lore-heavy dialogue

She-Ra: "Prime is getting closer every day to figuring out how to access the Heart of Etheria. If he succeeds, he can use it to destroy worlds, galaxies, maybe even the entire universe. The Failsafe is our only chance at stopping him."

"His hold over them grows stronger every day they're chipped. If we don't free them now, we might lose them forever. Prime holds every advantage in this fight. He'll be ready for us. But we have a plan. Entrapta?" Entrapta: "I finally succeeded in cracking Prime's signal pattern. If I get access to his Spire network, I can use it to broadcast a jamming frequency that will disable all of the chips on Etheria, freeing everyone at once!" She-Ra: I need you all to get Entrapta to the Spire and keep Prime's forces distracted while she jams the signal."

"We're going to make sure that Prime can never hurt anyone ever again. We're ending this today. For good."

oh lord so Shadow Weaver is still there, sulking and looking away, and she looks over at her and starts almost losing She-Ra and being Adora again

have I mentioned how much I hate Shadow Weaver >:(

Adora goes outside...and looks around. I know who she's looking for. *sobs into a pillow*

NO. she's LOOKING for her GIRLFRIEND

I made that joke and then Glimmer literally says "Any sign of Catra?" I have to remember that at this point in the story literally everyone knows how in love they both are. Except them. Of course.

Adora: "She's not coming back." ;_;

Adora: I mean you don't have to come with me this could be dangerous Bow: the fuck are you talking about of course we're going

And she turns into She-Ra again, roll intro

Okay so they go to the Crystal Castle thing where Light Hope was

it doesn't look so good

but also that's creepy

anyway they tell the hologram (not Light Hope, the other one) that they're looking for the Heart of Etheria and that they're Friends of Mara. She-Ra gets scanned and then a door opens into a passageway. Bow and Glimmer take her hands and they walk into the hall but:

she's still looking for someone

I have to deal with another episode and change of her looking for Catra ghghggh this hurts meeeee

OH SO OF COURSE they literally switch to showing us Catra

bahaha okay so she sits up and looks behind her kind of sadly, and Melog just skids to a stop so hard they throw Catra off

And Melog looks at Catra like she's fucking nuts. Catra's like, wtf is wrong with you??? and Melog looks back like BITCH WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??? Catra what did you think was going to happen when you got a therapy animal that can literally read your moods. Melog knows you're being a dumbass and has NO reason to pretend to believe your surface "I don't give a shit" act!!

Melog does airplane ears at that. And then just pounces Catra.

Time for pressure! Just like a real therapy animal. Big weighted blanket!

oh shit I forgot about this bit

Catra just immediately starts crying.

Catra: "You saw what happened! Adora chose Shadow Weaver, okay? Not me!"

*sobs into hands* you useless fucking dumbass that is your abysmally low self-esteem talking literally every living semi-sentient thing in the galaxy knows Adora's in love with you EXCEPT YOU

I can get frustrated with AU fics where these two both pull this "but what if she doesn't like me back" thing for ages while everyone around them is face-palming in frustration, but like. You have to admit. It's accurate to canon.

(It's also accurate to lesbians in general, lbh. Either fucking on the first date or doing the "but what if she's not into me" thing for months-to-years. Sometimes both, including in some of the fics I've written, heyooooo.)

Melog purrs and licks her face. A clone approaches and they both go invisible and then follow it.

MEANWHILE

the rest of the rebellion is attacking Horde Prime's ship thing

Wrong Hordak helps Entrapta get into the spire. The whole point of this fight (which I didn't bother screenshotting lol) is to give Entrapta time to disconnect everyone's chips from Horde Prime.

Lol once inside Entrapta does another one of those "holy shit this stuff looks so cool...OMG FOCUS" things

Back at the Crystal Castle Glimmers like "omg are you scared" and She-Ra says "No, I just hope this works." Liar.

Bow: "It'll be okay. And when we get back, it'll be a whole new world."

this poor girl. she's so heartbroken.

(meanwhile the plot of my fic-in-progress is literally them breaking up. (not forever.) but it's hilarious of me to get SO UPSET over this scene when I'm going to force them to repeat it. like it's a mutual decision in my fic but it doesn't make it hurt any less.)

PFFT I unpaused it, and IMMEDIATELY:

I just said OH SHIT out loud lol

oh god I saw someone talking about this in a youtube video right around when I started my rewatch

It's a hologram, she's not actually there. And Catra goes through multiple other ages, including her kid self, being chipped on Horde Prime's ship, when they were Horde cadets, etc; before going back to looking like she does now.

Adora's sharp little gasp of shock here

Adora goes to touch Catra's hand and the hologram disappears

(good lord she's beautiful here)

And I think I agree with the youtube video: Adora knew she was upset about Catra running off, but this is the moment she specifically realizes she's in love, and it breaks her heart into tiny pieces.

(Hah, I actually say a very similar thing in part of my fic that they mention in the video--that previous to this, she refused to let herself want this or even think about it. "I didn't even realize this was something I could want.")

BUT ALSO so like is this a remnant of Light Hope's programming that tortured them with childhood flashbacks in season one (in order to drive them apart) or what

LOL NO

I know I made this joke before but I'm suing Nate for emotional damages

She-Ra: "We need to be careful. It looks like this place can still project memories."

oof

A still-invisible Catra follows the clone to where Horde Prime's ship is and is visibly terrified and shaking. A clone who might be Hordak turns around with that white in his eyes that means Prime is using him to see, and Catra just tries to be quiet and not move but she's obviously triggered, and I mean that in the literal PTSD sense.

Horde Prime (via Hordak?): "My brothers. The time has come at last. No longer shall She-Ra stand in my way."

oh okay so Horde Prime's actual ship is still in space (just orbiting Etheria I assume) and the planet-side thing is him speaking through one of the clones via the hive mind.

"Begin the acquisition process!"

are they just gonna straight-up drill into it?

apparently yes

the whole area lights up with that sickening green light, including all the lines that characters kept noticing on the ground that looked like some combo of circuit boards and First Ones' writing.

meanwhile, Adora keeps slipping out of being She-Ra for split seconds and is clearly stressing The Fuck Out and possibly walking in the wrong direction in her distress, only to walk into another memory/hologram.

And I've predictably hit the image limit, but 13:30 to go which is better than last night pfft okay gonna reblog