#may i also add more context? of how she also only found out about this lady’s death cause everyone at the hospital was down

[moonsiechild]

Something horrible or tragic happens that we hear come off from the news or from any person’s mouth

My mom: Oh, it’s so funny how much this mirrors my shortcomings and my suffering… 😞 You know… The suffering that you sometimes, my family sometimes, and a lot of the time the world inflicts on me? But oh, what if this sad story was actually about me? 🥺 What if something like this happens to me or worse? 🥺👉👈

[dogwittaablog]

NOLPATS BURNER ACCOUNT

SO HERE IS THE TEA AND BREAKDOWN ON NOLANS ALLEGED TWITTER BURNER (I also want to apologise for the initial hostile reply to the anon that sent it in I was just taken back cause there weren't upfront receipts).

If you’re wondering how this alleged account was figured out, an anon said someone tweeted about it and decided to look into it... and then now we are here...

SO HERE WE GO!

His FIRST account that went under @ gollpatter the account got suspended (He tweets about it on his second account, but you’re still able to see everything).

So now the account he is using the new one is @ shottergallas.

(So just remember there are two accounts. I know some can get confused lol).

WARNING: I know people are going to be running up the accounts anyways but will say just a heads up you will be finding shit that you don’t like mentioning SA and misogynistic comments, some of the comments are towards the incident of WJC 2018. (If I’m right it’s brought up on @ gollpatter)

Now we may all be here like okay… how do we know or assume it's actually him??? Here is my personal observation

If you look at the following on the first account @ GOLLPATTER. You can see that there are about 4+ people on there that he follows that are obviously his friends and has Steinbach Manitoba in the bio. Some of the content and influencers he follows or interacts with on there also align with his recent or past followings/likes/engagements on Instagram from celebs, influencers, sport hosts and even onlyfangirls (I’ll even get specific if I have to) . His interests are evidently displayed throughout his account... things like MMA, golf, hockey, Joe Rogan, Theo Von and other typical guy shit, but as I said if you followed up on him or paid attention to his Instagram activity it adds up. 

(Screenshot of his followings the only thing is they don't follow back)

An Anon that initially sent me the sub on why she thought or had her own conclusions to why she thought it was him which I’ll be copying and pasting the sub down below and adding the links to the info she provided! To make everyone’s lives easier.

here’s the account introducing himself as goll patt: (X)

here’s the account calling jets/ava pond hockey last night: (X)

here’s that account excited about nolan’s friends ‘coggie’ return to the ‘national’ 6 days ago: (X)

and the related headline where Dylan Coghlan, Nolan’s former teammate returned to the NHL from the AHL:  (X)

here’s that account being called pat by its friends in the reply of previous tweet: (X)

account being call pats/patty by friends:  (X)

same account agreeing with hate on the vegas golden knights as a franchise, praising nic hauge and his wife:  (X)

The hockey talk on the account that pop up usually I noticed has pertained to Vegas and the Flyers (some slight shady tweets mostly but nothing over the top) Maybe just some coincidence but I mean hey… we all know what teams he’s played for. Plus there are some Travis Konency mentions on there as well…

So “his” account interacts with the same 2-4 twitter accounts and these accounts tend to tag him in post about Nolpats which I found a bit ironic…

So the last to this which I thought was another eyebrow raiser, was another burner account that has some mutuals but isn't entirely active. Also tagged his account in a post regarding a Tik Tok. The context of the Tiktok was how most likely pro athletes do see the things you post online about them.

So would like to end this off with reminding you that this ALLEGED and there’s no real confirmation it’s him. You’re able to form your own opinion and perspective if you decide to look through and analyse the accounts yourself. I could go on more on some other details, but decided to just touch up on the things that stood out to me. I also was limited to adding content like photos and videos.

[demaparbat-hp]

Hello. I wanted to say that I really like your art style, especially how you do Katara's face. That's awesome.

But every time I read the description of your AUs, it gives me the creeps. You once said you try to stay true to Katara's character, but... your AUs are like "what if I take one of her major character traits and throw it in a trash bin?".

Halfblood AU: no connection to her culture that basically defies everything Katara thinks and feels about her waterbending.

Helping the Fire Nation AU: no hope for the avatar that Katara expressed in the intro of every episode of the original show.

And lowkey less kindness. She's cautious and bitter and wants to help only Zuko.

She seems like a completely different character. Not Katara at all.

Zuko too. I doubt he'll be in the White Lotus, it's not in his character at all. He may use the help of the members, but the original ("The Desert") tells us he will not be one of them, it's just not his style.

You make zutara look shallow, like you think that Zuko and Katara as they are in the show would never work together. As a person who sees appeal in this ship I feel very uneasy seeing your interpretations.

And my god, why do you hate Hakoda so much? Every time you add anything to halfbloodAU he looks more and more disgusting. I cannot believe mister "you and your brother are my entire world" would do what you are saying. And a married man with a child cannot be so naive to think that a woman won't become pregnant after having sex with him. Hakoda would've returned and checked and tried to help.

Sorry. I wish I could enjoy your art, but you're making it so hard.

Hello, and thank you for writing. I'm glad that you enjoy my art, at least to some extent, and I'm sorry if I ever made you uncomfortable with my AUs. However, I find myself in the need of defending them.

Creating AUs is something I take seriously, and one of the core traits of an AU is that it's, inherently, a different world. I can change virtually anything, and that's okay. Haven't we all read a fic and thought, this character wouldn't react like this in canon, but went along with it anyway? Because we know this isn't supposed to be canon. These characters are living in a different context, and react to things differently.

Canon exists for a reason. An AU does, too. They're different concepts and must be treated accordingly. It's a matter of context.

But we're talking about characters, aren't we?

You've pointed out that I've changed Zuko and Hakoda, too. And you're right. I've found that people online are more... defensive of Katara when compared to other characters. And while that may not be important to this specific discussion, I do find it rather curious. It's something to think about.

Anyways, I change characters. And I've gotta confess, I'm not ashamed of it.

My Katara is still Katara, and my Zuko is still Zuko. I'm just playing with how I believe they would react in different scenarios, and with different backgrounds (that's important, too).

You mentioned that my AUs are like "what if I take one of [Katara's] major character traits and throw it in a trash bin?". And I'm sorry that they give you the creeps, truly.

But maybe I want to explore how being a product of two different cultures affects not only Katara, but also Zuko as characters. Halfblood gives me the opportunity to address these sociocultural issues through their personal experiences, and I find that kind of narrative awfully compelling.

And maybe I wanted to change one core trait of Katara's personality and see how that affected both her journey and the general plot. Hunters is a writing experiment, and it has taught me a lot about human nature. Thanks to what you so kindly call "throwing a character trait in a trash bin", I've gained a lot more respect for who Katara is in canon. If anything, I consider Hunters!Katara as a foil for Canon!Katara.

And I don't hate Hakoda. I have a lot of respect for him as a leader and a father. I think he's a great character and role model for others within the ATLA universe. Bashing characters for fun isn't really my thing. The choices I made for Hakoda in the HalfBlood AU (and Aang in Hunters) are a matter of narrative and plot building, not my opinion on his character.

Just think about how different that AU would be if Hakoda made better choices, if he didn't have a wife and a son waiting for him at the South, or if Katara's father was a random Earth Kingdom villager. About 60% of the conflict in the story would disappear. And I could build that conflict with other stuff, I admit it. I could use different plot points or make the characters do other things or give Katara One Big Happy Family.

But it would change the core themes of the story I want to tell.

It's important to me that Katara is a product of two different cultures. It's important that she has no father figure in her life. It's important that Hakoda, who is a great leader and a great man and a great husband and a great father for Sokka, made a huge mistake in his youth that has been weighting on him ever since. It's important that Sokka is suddenly faced with the realization that his father, his idolized role model, is human and has also royally fucked up.

I want to talk about these things.

But I'm able to recognize that they're heavy subjects and, really, most of us are just here for the fluff anyway. So I'm sorry if I've made anyone uncomfortable. I won't hold it against you if you don't like what I do or just ignore whatever lore I set up for my AUs.

This is fiction, this is freedom, and this is the way I express myself. We all do it differently, and that's part of the beauty.

[curiousity-cell]

sometimes i feel that people don’t really even /try/ to understand elain. like they have all these think pieces for lucien & azriel & gwyn etc, but they just don’t try with elain. they don’t bother. and it frustrates me to no end because you know exactly why that is - because she has more ‘feminine’ interests & this makes her ‘boring’. her hobbies are quiet, she likes to keep to herself & people often overlook her BECAUSE she likes to keep to herself.

rn i’m thinking of her childhood and what their mother says about elain & the sisters

- nesta was groomed to be the matchmaker - to find herself a match, elain a march & feyre eventually the find a match. that was her main priority. find herself a marriage & then sort out her sisters.

- feyre was ignored by their mother, not even considered. because she was a “wild thing” since birth and the mother evidently didn’t know how to handle that

- elain though? she’s deemed useless. mama archeron may not say it but you know it’s implied.

elain is pinned as useless and only good for her beauty. only good for what potential matches she could make in the future. i think this is integral to her character and why she keeps to herself so often. this is the potential context of her character that keeps me sympathetic to her and why i adore her so much. because after so many people call you useless from your childhood, eventually you start to believe it. eventually it sticks. eventually you only know yourself as useless and nothing more.

add on then their poverty when their soil wasn’t good enough to make vegetables, imagine how useless you feel there. that gardening and baking is the hobby you’ve found you’re good at, but you can’t even do that because the environment around you limits your capabilities. also, a lack of education in planting & harvesting vegetables because you can’t afford books and tools to learn how to do so.

[i’ve been trying to find the quote for the soil part as support but i can’t fucking find it so this is all i have]

imagine how useless you feel then. i think her becoming fae (as traumatic as it was) is actually helping her. it’s healing her. cerridwen and nuala are helping her, her discovery of being a seer is actively helping her realise she is not useless. she has worth. she is finding her worth.

this story to me (which will be in her book in acotar 5) is so compelling to me. elain discovering her worth and realising that she doesn’t have to be “the pretty one”, “the boring one”, that she /can/ be soft & strong all at once. that her optimism and her kindness is a strength.

i cant wait. i’m so excited. i adore her already based on pure observation i can’t wait to get inside her head. and i will continue to try to do it now until her book comes out because her story will always be compelling to me because it’s a different story to warrior-training-sword-fighting-uber-magical-powerhouses (no shade to feyre & nesta - i’m just very excited to learn about your sister :))

(I ALSO FOUND A REALLY CUTE FEYRE & ELAIN SCENE FROM ACOTAR 1 WHICH PROVES FEYRE FORGIVES HER i will post it later - i’m very enthusiastic about my archeron sisters & their bonding.)

[trans-girl-nausicaa]

on western artistic chauvinism and islam.

As an American non-Muslim, i first learned about Islamic art and architecture in an academic context, when i was studying art history in college. one of the first things we studied was the complex geometric forms in islamic architecture. Some of the most striking, complex, and beautiful patterns in contemporary and historical islamic architecture are present in religious architecture.

Examples:

Dome of the Selimiye mosque, Turkey, completed 1574 CE.

Exterior of the Dome of the Rock, a shrine withing the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem, Palestine. Original construction was completed between 688 and 692 CE, and many alterations and repairs have been undertaken subsequently.

Dome of the Gazi Husri-beg Mosque, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, constructed 1531 CE. (Fun fact: In 1898 this mosque became the first known mosque in the world to have electrical lighting installed!)

The origins of these incredibly complex patterns partly stem from the avoidance of art depicting living beings according to religious principles, also known as aniconism, which is not universal throughout Islamic historical art, but gradually became nearly universal, especially in religious art an architecture. However, there are historical examples of secular figural art made by Muslims. (Link to an article on Islamic figural art by the Met Museum.) The Arab world in general maintained in-depth studies of mathematics and geometry throughout what we may call the "medieval" era in Europe. Arabic translations of Aristotle were studied. Al-Khwarizmi invented Algebra in 830 CE.

So, as any good artist knows, within a "limitation," artistic techniques can become more specialized and refined. Indeed, Muslim artists as far back as the Ummayad caliphate had extemely sophisticated application of geometry within their designs.

In art class I studied some of the fundamentals of how to construct similar geometrically repeating patters. I grasped the fundamentals quickly, and I found it enjoyable to work within these structures. However, as you increase the complexity, the degree to which you need to understand geometry to get your patterns to work out seemingly increases exponentially.

If you want a step-by step study of some of these geometric patterns, please check out the tutorials of the Lebanese artist Joumana Medlej. She also has tutorials on figure drawing and Arabic calligraphy.

(Speaking of calligraphy, I wanted to add more to this piece regarding calligraphy and architecture, but I feel I'm getting really long already.)

Years later, after I was finished with school, I got the opportunity to go to the Balkans. While I was in Bosnia & Herzegovina, I visited several historical mosques and got to see in person the type of art that I had previously only seen in photographs.

But what does it mean to acknowledge that this art exists?

Well, the mere acknowledgement and knowledge of the history of Islamic art, architecture, calligraphy, indeed, all the elements of distinct cultural heritage across the world, are controversial in the West.

One of the darkest examples of European violence against Muslim peoples was the Bosnian Genocide in the 1990s. This genocide did not start or end with the infamous massacre of ~8000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys by the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) at Srebrenica, but also included systematic relocation of civilians, smaller massacres, and destruction of cultural heritage throughout Bosnia by both VRS and the Croatian Defense Council (HVO). Over one thousand mosques were destroyed. The VRS and the HVO both deliberately attempted to create "ethnically pure" Muslim-free statelets, and destroyed all the mosques in the territory that they held. The VRS burned down Sarajevo's National Library. The HVO blew up the Old Bridge of Mostar, a beautiful stone bridge in the middle of the city that had stood since the 16th century. (After the war, the stones were recovered from the river below and the bridge was reconstructed, and is used by Mostar residents every day.)

Israel refuses to acknowledge the historical and contemporary fact of the existence of a Palestinian people. As of February 2024, Israel has destroyed over one thousand mosques in the course of its bombardment of Gaza.

Many state and non-state actors within the U.S. and its allies also harbor these dark ideas of "bombing Muslims into the Stone Age." The invasion of Iraq was referred to as a "crusade" by President George W. Bush, and this attitude was aped by the Christian right wing in the USA.

All "they" see is a mythical horde from the East that must be destroyed.

But there is no horde. The people you share this earth with are your neighbors, regardless of their religion.

We live in a global society, and art anywhere is part of global cultural heritage. The acknowledgement, preservation, and study of Islamic art and architecture does not only culturally enrich Muslims, it enriches the whole world. Conversely, when you destroy Islamic art and architecture to harm Muslims, you also harm the rest of the world.

[onceuponaneverafter]

Let’s Talk About Jacks’s Apples PART 2

And again, their COLORS! Because after reading A Curse For True Love, I HAVE MORE TO SAY SO LET’S GET RIGHT INTO IT.

First, though:

You can find PART 1 here! It’s a quite thorough analysis of every single apple Jacks is ever described holding from Legendary to TBONA.

This post contains MAJOR SPOILERS for ACFTL. I will also reference my earlier findings, so spoilers for every book!

The focus of this post is on what ACFTL adds to my earlier analysis. For a summary of my findings, go to the end of part 1 (where we left off) or to the end of this post (general conclusions of everything).

Every non-canon conclusion I make here is just theories, based on my interpretations and observations! They aren’t the only right interpretations and I do not wish to present them that way.

The page numbers are from my ACFTL UK hardcover so if you have a different edition of the book, they may be a bit off for you.

That being said, welcome! 🍎❤️

So, to put it shortly: Because Stephanie Garber didn’t provide us with any answers about the apple colors, I decided to take it upon myself and go back to my trusted spreadsheet <3

What we did get is two new apples and more context, so let's get into it!

Table Of Contents

Introduction / Updated Spreadsheet

Why Apples? w/ the answers that we DO get in ACFTL, and my favorite new discovery!

ACFTL Apples

The Apple Colors (feat. me losing my mind over the lack of actual answers BUT I HAVE THEORIES and more thoughts on most apples!)

Conclusions / TL;DR

Introduction

The Updated Spreadsheet

In ACFTL, we get two new apples: one black and one white. I will take a closer look into these shortly, but here's the updated spreadsheet:

The total apple count (including apples from Legendary and Finale, which are presented in part 1) now looks like this:

This makes the total apple count 22, and the apples seen during the OUABH series reach the satisfying count of 15.

I don't know if there is anything intentionally symbolic about the total apple count, but I found with a quick google search that the number 22 can represent at least balance and harmony – which our beloved characters certainly deserve after everything they've been through.

Half of the apples are still white, while the rest are other colors - with Black Apples being the second most common. Like in part one, I will later go over all of the apple colors individually.

Why Apples?

New Information

First of all, let's appreciate the one time Jacks addresses his apples at all during ACFTL, after Evangeline asked about them:

"It doesn't matter," he said softly. "I don't need them anymore." –ACFTL page 381

This practically confirms that Jacks indeed has the apples to control his urge to kiss people in order to try and find true love (see part 1 or other people's theories for a more detailed explanation). Now that he's found true love and can kiss Evangeline all he wants (yay <3), he doesn't need the apples anymore. He's fulfilled his goal, and honestly, it's no wonder he's had enough of apples now:

"Her Prince of Hearts was never far from her, except for when she went to pick apples. Jacks never so much as tossed an apple any more." "– –Jacks preferred to avoid the apple grove altogether." –ACFTL, Waterstones bonus epilogue

While this is not officially part of the book, it's more context regarding the apples. If you want to read the entire bonus epilogue, others have posted it here on tumblr – if it would be helpful, I can post it myself/link others' posts as well. The other two bonus epilogues are available somewhere here as well.

Physical Movement

Alright, there are some interesting things going on here so let's get into some of my favorite discoveries!

In part 1, I pointed out how Jacks avoids touching Evangeline at all costs while he's holding an apple, and the interesting contrast that he does touch Tella while he has an apple in his hand (at least twice). While his apples are more or less his interpretation of self-control, this didn't completely align with it.

Now, I think I have figured out what's going on here! And it has to do with the way he would do anything (including giving up his only chance to go back in time to save Evangeline, and giving up his heart if it means no one can harm her again) to keep Evangeline safe.

He only touches Evangeline while holding an apple with not his hands (OUABH silver apple in hand, touches dagger to Evangeline’s lips), only because he has to and it’s complicated (blue apple in TBONA, Evangeline tried to grab the luck stone from Chaos) or he’s not himself at all and doesn't care about hurting her like he normally would (in ACFTL after he gave up his heart).

With Tella, he's always been reckless – not the least because he didn't truly love her, and because she didn't die when he kissed her.

I’d also like to point out that he kept carrying apples around after he kissed Tella and she didn’t die. Only once he finally found true love with Evangeline (and she also didn’t die when she kissed him <3) did he not need them anymore.

Regarding what he does with the apples, there isn't much new information. I still think it has to do with his emotions (see part 1 for a list), and the ACFTL apples confirm the theories I presented there.

ACFTL Apples

Page 101, Black Apple

It makes a lot of sense to me that this is the scene in ACFTL where Jacks has an apple. He's watching as Evangeline sleeps, convinced that she's better off not knowing him and that their story can't end happily. Still, he can't stay away from her. He is trying very hard not to get too close, though, which is where the apple comes in.

The apple is only described once, so aside from more context on its color (that I will get into a little later), there isn't much to analyze. What is particularly interesting about it, though, is Jacks's thoughts earlier during the scene that are connected to it:

He'd never understood why someone would watch another person sleep... until her. Castor did it. He said it was how he helped manage his urges. It did the opposite for Jacks. – ACFTL page 98-99

Considering that apples are what do help Jacks, this just further proves that we've been right about why he has them.

Page 289, White Apple

First of all, I love how Jacks is written after he gave up his heart. Evangeline says that he reminds her of when she first met him, and it really highlights how much he's changed throughout the series. He's gradually grown softer and to genuinely care about Evangeline – the development feels natural, even if there is a lot of it especially throughout TBONA. The way he acts when that softness is taken away creates a sharp contrast that wouldn't be so noticeable otherwise.

I also really love how even the apple reflects that. I will get to the color next thing, but let's take a look at what exactly he does with the apples (see chart above in Physical Movement).

Like I mentioned above, he touches Evangeline while holding the apple, which already sets the scene apart from the others. He never does that, not really.

Then, he drops the apple on the ground (before he tries to kiss her). While that isn't exclusive to the first half of OUABH where I don't think he has really fallen for her yet, dropping apples on the ground/floor is a pattern there, whereas most apples in TBONA and the black ACFTL apple are last seen in his hand. It's just a small detail, but I think it really adds to the contrast even if it's subtle and may not be intentional.

The Apple Colors

White Apples

In part 1, I said that I thought white apples either were the default color or represented focusing on what's important.

Now, with the context of White ACFTL Apple in mind, I think it's the default color. Half of Jacks's apples are white, and the one time he isn't himself at all (one could say he's even "defaulting" when he doesn't have his heart), he has a white apple.

With the first apple we ever see him holding (during and before the first time he meets Tella) also being white, I'm inclined to say that white is the "default color" for his magical apples.

Black Apples

I still think that Black Apples definitely represent doing whatever it takes, but I also think that their meaning has a touch of desperation as well – desperation is what drives him to do whatever it takes, isn't it? This is the one thing in common with all of the Black Apples:

Black Apple #1: Finale, last apple. Jacks offers to help Tella and the others in exchange for getting to control Tella's emotions forever. He's very desperate at this point, thinking it's his only chance at finding love.

Black Apple #2: OUABH, Nocte Neverending. Jacks is controlling Apollo's emotions because to fulfill the key prophecy, he needs Apollo to marry Evangeline. Even if he doesn't care about opening the arch, he's working with Chaos and has probably promised him that the Valory Arch will be opened. Overall, he has his plan and is willing to do stupid things for it.

Black Apple #3: TBONA, Chaos' place. Jacks brought Evangeline there to be healed because she'd been shot. At this point, I believe he already personally cares about whether Evangeline is alive or not. And even if he didn't, he would still need her alive – not only for the reasons stated above, but also because as a key, she feels each stone's magic the strongest (TBONA page 123).

Black Apple #4: ACFTL, Evangeline's bedroom. Jacks believes that the price he had to pay for Evangeline being alive was her memories being lost, and now his primary goal is to keep her safe. During this scene, he plans on leaving her for good once he "got what he needed" – I believe this refers to the protective glass cuff thingy that will stop anyone from harming Evangeline. Considering the price he paid for it, and the way she died in his arms only days earlier, he's very desperate to keep her safe in this scene. So, this apple also supports my theory.

Blue Apples

As we have no new Blue Apples to analyze, I still think they represent happiness and success – though maybe success even more than genuine happiness, because he has got something he wanted every time he's holding a blue apple.

Also, at the times he's genuinely happy, he doesn't even need any apples (The Hollow, which the cursed forest shows as the best day of his life in ACFTL, and his happy ending with Evangeline, when he says he doesn't even need them anymore).

The Golden Apple

We also didn't get any more Golden Apples to analyze, which is a shame, because this one's a struggle. I'm not so sure the Golden Apple represents Tella anymore because he's quite obsessed with her for a good while and he only has the Golden Apple after all hope of ever finding love with her is gone.

A noteworthy detail is that Jacks's blood is described multiple times to have gold flecks in it, so this apple could be connected to that – maybe he's feeling wounded, or it's more symbolic to him and the Golden Apple simply represents failure, heartbreak, and/or overall feeling broken? Tella did literally stab him in Finale, and at this point he still believes Tella is his one chance at finding true love, which obviously didn't work out even though it was supposed to.

The Silver Apple

This one is also still a mystery to me, and I mostly stand by what I said in part 1 – the Silver Apple could represent success but something being incomplete, being a "milder" version of the Blue Apples. Something about both being related to Jacks's eye color – which is being described over and over – seems significant.

I'd like to think the metallic apples, Gold and Silver, would have some kind of a connection with each other. The only thing I can think of is that these apples appear right before the scenes where Jacks tells Evangeline to fulfill a part of their deal – the Golden Apple is before Evangeline kisses Apollo, and the Silver Apple is on their way to the Fortuna castle, where Evangeline kisses the Fortuna matriarch's cheek.

Something that doesn't add up, though, is the fact that when Jacks is holding the Golden Apple, he isn't expecting to see Evangeline – he tells her he thought she'd be happily married to Luc by now.

This could be a storytelling element, like I suspected in part 1 that the purple apple might be. However, their deal is never fully completed, so we're lacking crucial context for this theory. It would have been fun if we had got a scene with him holding a bronze apple, before asking Evangeline to finally fulfill the last part of their deal.

The Pink Apple

I still think that the Pink Apple represents Evangeline, and I've only grown more convinced about this as time has passed. Before this scene, Jacks is only intrigued about Evangeline – one useful piece of information that we get from his chapters in ACFTL is that he's been interested in her from the second he saw her, but at first he only connected this interest to her hair color and the fact that she was a key (or that's what he told himself) (ACFTL page 100).

However, between the Silver Apple and the Pink Apple, Jacks saves Evangeline's life and spends a night holding her. I think this is where he starts developing a more personal interest towards her, and the pink apple represents that.

The Purple Apple

This one is still a struggle to me, because it doesn't seem to be connected to anything. I stand by my theory that either the purple apple represents royalty, nobility, or power, or is a storytelling element representing mystery.

The last scene where we see Jacks before the scene where he has the Purple Apple is the dinner with Elantine, before which he's holding a White Apple. He's hoping to take the throne, which makes sense in relation to the meanings associated with purple color.

Conclusions

To summarize all of my findings and conclusions, both from part 1 and part 2,

There are 22 apples in total that Jacks is described holding throughout the Caraval series (7) and the OUABH series (15).

What Jacks does with his apples (tossing, biting, picking up, dropping) is connected to his emotions.

As Jacks is a Fate, he carries around the apples to help control his urge to kiss people, in search of true love. Only once he finds true love with Evangeline does he not need them anymore. Now he's happy and has had enough of the apples <3

The apples have different colors that I believe represent different things: white (11 of 22, default color), black (4 of 22, desperation/doing whatever it takes), blue (3 of 22, success), gold (1 of 22, possibly failure or feeling broken), silver (1 of 22, possibly partial success or intrigue), pink (1 of 22, Evangeline), and purple (1 of 22, royalty/power/nobility or mystery).

The origin of the apples is still unknown, as is how the apples take on different colors.

If you have read this far, again, THANK YOU SO MUCH! Today I offer you two apples as a reward: 🍎🍏

Almost all of my conclusions are just theories, but I'm so happy if I could provide something to think about – and some much needed "answers". I know I was losing my mind when I read ACFTL and got almost none of the apple-related answers I had been hoping for, but on the other hand, researching this has been a ton of fun!

In part 1, I said I'd be happy if just one person besides myself would enjoy looking at my findings and theories. As of writing this, that post has 103 notes. Guys. I'm blown away by all the likes and reblogs and nice things some of you have said to me and just,,, THANK YOU. All of you. I'm overjoyed that I could share my little theories and that so many of you have liked them, it means the world to me.

You all have made the hours upon hours I put into these posts and dedicating my heart to this little detail a thousand times worth it. Thank you so much for reading, truly!! 🍎❤️

[educating-bimbos]

The Pinned Post 2

new pinned post because tumblr hid my old one from my view so I can't see, edit it, or reblog it to add an addendum. I only have a few things to add, so I am just going to copy and paste it.

Who is Educating Bimbos?

My name is Nicolette. I am a technical artist, musician, and an outdoorsy type of gal. I enjoy the finer things in life, and I fancy myself a traditional woman and a bimbo. I don't really enjoy mindlessly obsessing over labels, but if it helps people gauge where my brain is at, I am pro-patriarchy, in favor of traditional gender roles and dynamics, an ex-feminist, and before all else a believer in one's ability to exercise personal freedoms. My beliefs, mannerisms, and presentation attract the ire of feminists, born-again-religious types, and any number of anti-fun douchebags. At the end of the day, just remember that behind this silly blog is a silly person.

What is Educating Bimbos?

It is a blog and small community of bimbos looking to learn more about and express a traditional lifestyle. It is also about people who may not be familiar with or comfortable around things like BDSM get a nice and soft introduction to it without being exposed immediately to the idea of how people can enjoy things in a pseudo-sexual context. At the end of the day, it is a blog and community where I and other like-minded people can express silly ideas without the fear of being lambasted by people seeking to harm others.

Where is Educating Bimbos?

Educating Bimbos can be found in one of these two places.

Why is Educating Bimbos?

Well for a while I was annoyed by the lack of communities that focused on a kind of "hyper-feminine" aesthetic while also promoting more traditional ideas. There was also the issue of communities that have tried this before of devolving into bigoted and abusive communities that would do everything under the sun to create an insular and ToS breaking community. I spoke with a friend of mine who runs a similar community a while ago and she inspired me to give this a shot. Now - close to 3 years later - I have a steadily growing community that pulls from all corners of ideology, cultural, ethnic, and interest level and the discord has been almost completely drama-free in its whole existence.

When is Educating Bimbos?

I am alive and doing silly stuff all day, every day. Except when it is nap time in which case I will be in the realm of dreams.

What's an ex-lesbian and why do you call yourself that?

For a number of very personal reasons, I have decided to call myself an ex-lesbian. I did this of my own volition, and I was not pressured into doing so. For a long time, I had thought of myself as a lesbian, mostly because of socialization and how all the girls around me were so might as well follow suit. I experienced a number of harmful and traumatic events when I considered myself a lesbian and it effected how I view myself. After a while and talking to some friends who I trust dearly, I came to the realization that I am not a lesbian and that it really isn't a thing I identify with the same way others do. I am still trying to come to grips with that given I only relatively recently had that realization. I also feel that people use that term in bad faith to harm people and to push bad narratives and ideas so I thought "hey might as well try and take back what should be an innocuous phrase."

In short, I think an ex-lesbian is just a way of identifying one's sexuality similar to asexuality or demisexuality. It is not that I am one sexuality or another, it's that my sexuality is defined by my experience and coming of age.

I have had a number of people confront me about this, talk to me about it in sincere curiosity, and even attack me. I welcome anyone who is curious or has a genuine contention to come to me in DMs, I am not a mean person, and I will love to talk honestly and respectfully. I find that disagreement is not grounds to discredit or avoid befriending people, I hope you can do the same.

Further questions for Educating Bimbos?

If you find that these questions are unsatisfactory in any regard, or you wish to try your hand at doing what I do, follow these two links!

Ask me anything!

Ask me anything you want! I have some personal rules with regards to what I can and cannot upload, but this is generally the best way for me to answer any question you may have. I also have anonymous asks enabled just in case you are shy.

Submit a post!

If you think I should be made aware of something, post something, or if you just want to signal boost something try this. So far, I have no real rules or expectations so do whatever you want with this button.

[maybeamiles]

Alright it's time for PART TWO OF MY ONE PIECE OPENING ANALYSIS. Turns out you can only add 30 images to a post lol.

Anyways you can find part one here, but if you've already seen it or just want to skip to the good shit, Hi. I'm anime only but have seen manga spoilers for Kid, Law, Kuma, and Bonney, so that will affect my analysis.

Anyways remember last time when I talked a bit about the line "When random contexts / Start to make sense on their own" and the deliberate parallels between the fights with Luffy/Lucci, Kid/(manga spoilers), Law/Blackbeard, Zoro/Seraphim Mihawk, and Garp/Kuzan? Well those continue here except it's Sabo and the Revolutionaries against the ENTIRE WORLD GOVERNMENT. These random contexts? They're all tied to the fight Sabo is in right now.

"When random contexts / Start to make sense on their own / The threads of time are spun back together"

This sequence of shots gives me chills every time. Every single time. The parallels between the Revolutionary Army's crows and the World Government's seagulls? The falling papers and books. Fucking Wapol??? The FUNERAL???? and the SWORDS??? God if those swords in front of the world government's throne DON'T end up being used to stab someone by the end of this story (either in the past or future or maybe both) I will eat my shirt this is CHECKOV'S SWORD THIS GOVERNMENT WAS FOUNDED ON VIOLENCE AND CONQUEST I SWEAR-

*ahem* Anyways. "The threads of time are spun back together." All of those "random contexts" we saw before? The fights that are paralleling each other and driving towards a single end point? To stick with the string metaphor, the world government has unraveled the thread of history. Everything happening now is going to spin it back together into a cohesive narrative. Time is running out. The end is in sight. Their string is going to be cut.

Again with the parallels. All of the men who Luffy impacted in the past, Sabo, Kid, Law, and Coby. They're all rising to take on this enemy. They have been beaten, but they will rise again, and they will charge forward into the future (at least, that's how I read the storytelling here). I think this theme of rising from major defeats is going to be a huge one in this arc, especially for these four. They are going to get stronger and be Luffy's competition. The Whitebeard and Garp to his Rodger, if you will.

Also, speaking of the men who Luffy impacted, HOLY SHIT IS THAT VIVI

Law, Coby, Kid, and Sabo may all be rising from defeat, but you know who's charging forward? VIVI. Vivi is going to be so fucking important this arc just you wait.

And listen- I saw a theory a few weeks ago that Vivi *might* eat a certain devil fruit that I will not name because (manga spoilers), but looking at this picture, with the way she's reaching out towards that specific shape? Yeah she's totally gonna eat that devil fruit. Wish I could link the theory but unfortunately it's deep in my youtube watch history by now and i didn't save it.

EDIT: As a couple people have pointed out, it might be Bonney in that scene and not Vivi, as indicated by the pink highlights on the hair. That honestly makes a lot more sense than Vivi eating a random(ish) devil fruit.

Finally, I want to talk about this last shot. The Theme of this opening. All of these separate, winding paths, leading towards one final destination: Laugh Tale. The truth of the world. Law, Kid, Luffy, Sabo, The Revolutionaries, the Marines, Coby, Garp, the World Government, everyone is on the path to Laugh Tale, we're in the endgame now, and everyone is going to be vital to whatever lies ahead. I imagine some of the poetry is lost in the english translation, but there's a reason that the music keeps repeating the words "all of us"

"All of us" are going to reach Laugh Tale.

[7rus7m3]

BIG 101 PENTAGON THEORY // SPOILERS FOR CANTO VI, DEMIAN (book), LITTLE PRINCE (book), LEVIATHAN, LIBRARY OF RUINA, a little bit of Divine Comedy too

RG - Red Gaze, PT - Purple Tear, LP - Little Prince, DC - Divine Comedy. Grammar mistakes can appear due to me not being very fluent in English.

So… After the new Demian scene appeared, I found it convenient to finally unleash my Dante=Sinclair pentagon theory, based on some assumptions I made from reading the source books of all of these characters. Before I start, I need to aknowledge some other things:

1. I don’t find this theory as something that actually will happen, since it may be based on my own biased opinions towards some of the characters included

2. Most of my assumptions are made through reading into intertext of the source books and how it would look more cool to potentially appear in a game. PM interpretation of books may be completely opposite from mine, so ig we will see how close I was later

3. I don’t use other sinners for my theory, since most of them are not marked, can’t use shin from what we know and/or mostly have finished self-centered story. The only one that probably will be added to pentagon is Faust, since her source is too important for Hesse as a writer and the motif of soul duality exists as an important topic in both Demian and Faust books. Also she knows too much about the Stars from what we can see in the prologue and later in her dialogues with us.

Part 1. Purple Tear

PT=Demian’s mother feels like canon already for me, but maybe just because I discussed it too much with my friends. So the main point of this theory is that Demian and PT appear to have the same main themes as characters and have similar powers, so him being Iori’s son will be natural. For example, the snake theme being introduced to us with Iori’s snake eyes in Leviathan manga or with the blue snake representing Demian on LCB Sinclair art. Multidimensional traveling powers, Shin being mostly PT’s disciples thing etc etc. Also Demian had purple eyes on his first promotional art and even though it was changed later, it is still an important thing that was planned by PM. For me it's an obvious moment for a lot of reasons, but in reality they just feel like relatives and the more you think about it the more it becomes obvious. 

As Demian’s mother, she becomes frau Eva naturally and potential Sinclair milfhunter’s interest. 

Also I believe in Iori as a higher-up person in Limbus Company assumption. As a person, who sees countless possibilities, her choices on sinners of LCB feels natural and the fact that Vergilius out of all people becomes our guide just approves it to me. 

So I added ‘Demian’ to her as a source just to start, but we can also add ‘Little Prince’ as I believe that she also represents the snake from the start of Prince’s adventure on Earth and his end on it. The Snake claims to have some sort of space-traveling power after all and while representing Birth and Death of Prince on Earth, she's a good pick for a mother figure representation.

Part 2. Red Gaze

Not too much to say here, but the obvious things we know. The Shin user triangle, even though Verg and Demian probably ain’t ever met each other once, still exists in the context of this theory. We can or can not draw a line between Demian and Vergilius, but I like to do it for the sake of making a point how they both are PT’s disciples. 

The christmas trauma line here is mostly for funsies, but it’s obviously not a coincidence on how the whole Sinclair’s family killing incident happened at the same time as Vegilius’ orphanage incident and how both suspicious shin users just watched them suffer to mentor them later. 

Dante and RG are connected through Divine Comedy, which is told directly from the game. 

Part 3. Demian

The most interesting and most intertextually written character in the game.

Sinclair being the rose became more believable to me than him being the fox after a new scene, but I still think both can be true. As we know from Demian book - Sinclair is final destination of Demian’s journey, from whom Max parted for unknown reasons (basically not answered his letters while doing his own fun stuff ig) and even tried to adapt to live in the world ignoring his marked nature (the “I am actually a lieutenant” scene in the 7th chapter). He is meeting Sinclair at first to part with him later just to end up becoming a metaphorical part of him at the end, probably dying physically. The same happens with Prince and Rose relationships in the LP. From them meeting suddenly to part later because of Prince’s complicated feelings to Prince finally coming back to her after learning how to love her and realizing her importance for his existence as a person in the metaphysical form, leaving his physical body behind. The story is too similar for Sinclair to not be Rose. The main counterargument here is the fact that we don’t know when Demian started his journey and Sinclair quoting dialogue of LP with fox. I still believe that Sinclair-Rose theory is more likely though, but Sinclair-Fox is still leading us to doomed yaoi in the end.

The Demian-Beatrice part comes from ‘Demian’ as a source too. Sinclair met Beatrice as his muse and basically Demian’s replacement as an image of his own ideals in life, she became a reason for him to stop his self-destruction path. Young love for Sinclair here is more of a reason to keep moving forward to become a better person than actual loving feeling. She is a mythological muse, but not a romantic interest fully. And in an attempt of engraving her image (haha engraving aspect), he accidentally draws Demian instead. We can put it as a direct equation of her to Demian and as a method of inserting an androgynous archetype into Demian’s character. I think of Demian-Beatrice as a cool way to introduce us to Paradiso later with him being our new guide instead of Vergilius. It will become a more logical guess later, in the context of the main part of this theory.

Part 4. Dante and Sinclair

So… Dante is a book version of Sinclair with part of Demian’s soul inside him theory… The main thing from where we should start to think about this is the whole number dilemma within Sinclair’s coat. He should’ve been the 10th Sinner before Dante appeared, but then got changed to 11th. Which is funny since 1.0 and 1.1 is a funny version number calambour. So, questions that theories answers:

1.Demian having sudden interest in Dante and giving him riddles that mostly answers the nature of more of a Demian himself as a person, than giving Dante actual usable information

2.Dante seem to have mark 

3.”What will become of me who have been robbed by me”

4.Sinclair is the only sinner we resonated with out of his Canto

5.Sinclair Canto only focusing on the first two chapters of the book, but not taking it as full. His Canto takes not even half of a book, but focuses on a really small part of it. Moby-Dick is a pre-story in Canto V, same basically for Canto I and Canto IV, we are close to the ending of CaP in Canto II and we have seen the true ending of WH in one of the Mirror Worlds with Cathy and Hareton.

6. Why they aren't changing numbers on Sinclair's coat for six Canto already

7. How Demian is able to understand us and how we are able to deeply understand Demian's feelings

8. Why we have any connections to Demian in the past and why we owe him a drawing of all things (Sinclair was a painter in the book)

9. Star is the main motivation of Dante

10. The whole engraving aspect thing. Again, Sinclair was a painter in the book and used drawing as a way to analyze his instinctive feelings

11. Dante having religious motifs and powers associated with either Tree of Life or Tree of Knowledge. Sinclair’s EGO “Branch of Knowledge” naming based on that

12. Dante’s White Night motifs. White Night is basically an Antichrist, but also a God, which connects it with the concept of both god and demon and connecting it with an Abraxas

Maybe some other questions are answered too if you think about it for a little. This is just a very solid assumption that will explain why Demian is so important for us and why Dante seems like a descendant of the Star in the prologue. As a character having another big source book I also believe in him having his own Canto and if he is a part of Dante's character then we should have the duo Canto for both Dante and Demian.

Main thing is how it happened. It's mainly fanfiction from now on. We know that there are Mirror Worlds where the whole book plot is already happened at some point (Cathy and Hareton scene in C6). So one of these basically is the one where Sinclair journey happened some other way. Maybe it was the one, where Demian helped him before the whole Kromer situation happened. After that moment in book Sinclair fastly falls back to his family and stops questioning their beliefs, so in my theory he could after all have a prosthetic operation that he was destined to before incident. That way we have his life going more calmly and as a son of prosthetic factory owner he could become a big and rich person. That would explain why Panther, Lion and Wolf were very excited over killing him. So, Sinclair of this universe goes over his way just like book Sinclair and participate in the whole June-985 thing. What else happened in June? World War 1 start. Sounds stupid, but WW1 is the main thing to change the world in Demian as a book. So the start of new world is destined to be in June-985 in the City setting, which represents WW1 starting in the Real World. The whole thing happens, and Demian either dies or merges with Sinclair to become some sort of part of him. To prevent the whole June-985 thing from happening, Sinclair travels back in time (which basically not the same, but another Mirror World) using Golden Bough and tries to engrave something that is a key to preventing the whole mass death thing. Limbus World Demian is pissy with Demian from future trying to stop the new World from happening, so he confronts us, but tries to do it in his own way. That way Dante is Sinclair from future from other mirror world and is partly a Demian himself.

In the LP, Pilot also is a child-like adult, really similar to Little Prince in some way. I personally like to read his journey with Prince as a metaphor for himself maturing and letting go his childish side, which Is again connects Dante to Demian.

So, Dante=other Sinclair=Pilot=partly Demian.

[touchreceptors]

opm 179/224(jp) TL commentary

so, about the Saitama vs Tatsumaki battle in the latest chapter.

Normally, I’m tired enough at the end of the work day that when the JP OPM chapter updates drop, I'm happy to just skim the chapter and wait for the usual fan TL team to do their good work and drop the English translation the next day. Usually, I find them very decent and competent.

This time around, however, Saitama’s lines on this particular page had me sitting up a little straighter.

I thought his word choice was oddly far too chummy given his usual personality and his attitude towards people like Tatsumaki, so I decided to check the original Japanese pages again and sure enough, found that I gleaned a very different idea from the JP lines. I would definitely have translated these differently.

Let’s take a look at the 2 phrases in question.

1. “She’s not in the mood to chat at all” (JP: 全然会話になんねえーな )

The plain form of this (i.e. after you distill it from Saitama’s typical style of speech) is 全然会話にならない which is far more often representative of the sentiment “It’s impossible trying to get through to you/this person”. It literally translates to “This is not becoming a 2-way conversation at all” or "you can't have a 2-way conversation with this person"; Google “会話にならない 英語” and you will see multiple suggestions along the lines of “It’s no use talking to you.”

This phrase is used to indicate that the other party is not willing to listen, usually to something important the speaker has to say. Saitama isn’t looking to have a friendly “chat”, he’s trying to make a point to Tatsumaki about not attacking other heroes and laying off his new home before that gets destroyed too. So, while the use of “chat” may help to preserve the lazy informality of his speaking style, it downplays the severity of the situation and his annoyance at her not getting his point. 

I personally would’ve used “Ugh, she’s not gonna listen at all, is she” or “Ugh, talking isn’t gonna work at all, is it” or a similar variation.

2. “Guess I’ll keep her company for now” (JP: 相手しとくか)

Context is everything. Just because “keep company” is the first option in a whole list of different definitions that pops up when you do a dictionary search doesn’t mean that it’s the right definition to use for a translation/localization. Nor does it mean it’s how the phrase is most commonly used in practice.

I'd wager you don’t even need to have much RL experience in Japan or with Japanese people to know which definition should've been picked. Watch enough shonen and sports anime with the original Japanese audio and you’ll soon learn that any time there is a pair activity, game and most importantly, a fight, 相手 i.e. “aite” refers to “opponent”. In a classroom setting, being asked to “相手して” doesn’t mean to keep a student “company”, it means to take up the opposite role in pair work. I’d add that in the close to 15 years I’ve spent studying and/or speaking Japanese, and the 3.5 years spent living and working in Japan, I’ve never heard this phrase being used to mean “keep somebody company” - but since experience can also be subjective, let’s just look at what we can be certain about: context, and our own knowledge of the target language and all its nuances.

a. Context - What’s happening, and who is saying it: Are they fighting? Yes. As opponents? Yes. Is Saitama referring to their fight and a strategy he's going to take (i.e. letting her tire herself out)? Most certainly, yes. Is this line being said by the same guy who thinks of Fubuki only as an acquaintance who's always dragging him into her business against his will, the same guy who in the last frame of this very chapter is thinking to himself "Man I reeeeeaallly wanna go home"? Yes. Should you have picked a definition more related to fighting and opponents from the dictionary's MANY different options like, idk, "take on a rival" to base your translation on? Yyeeess??? Why wouldn't you have?

b. Decision-making when localizing a text: What does “keep somebody company” imply in English? Is there a better way to phrase this and make the localized script more representative of the situation and the character's intent, and less loaded with English meaning that isn't present anywhere else in the text? I mean, Saitama certainly isn't suddenly thinking about loneliness and company when he mentions the lack of buildings and people - a safer distance away from civilization he deliberately went to the trouble of bringing Tatsumaki to.

I'd take some creative/artistic license here myself to make the language less stiff, but would definitely have gone for something less distorted, like "Guess I'll keep her occupied for now". If unsure, then even a more literal "Guess I'll take her on for now" would do a very decent job of conveying Saitama's intent, staying faithful to the original language without sounding too stiff when inserted into the sentence they came up with.

But well, who'm I to talk, eh? Translators are humans, there's no way to be completely objective in any interpretation, and they still do far more work than I am willing/able to do for this manga every update. I just wonder if they were letting certain biases guide their interpretations rather more than usual this time. Suffice to say, I'll be very curious to see how the guys at Viz choose to frame this bit for the official English TLs.

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

idk im glad they didn't give us any actual details about caleb and evelyn beyond belos's memories and like. fifty-sixth-hand information from masha's story so audience members not paying attention would at least know who they are.

whatever nitty gritty details the audience comes up with on their own for what happened to these two would be infinitely more satisfying to them than what the show would have been able to depict in a flashback. especially working within what's appropriate for children's television.

caleb the person isn't important to the story anymore. the MEMORY of caleb, which belos has never let himself get over in 400 years, is the important thing. and you don't need to know much about caleb for that to work. and while i loved the parallels between the wittebanes and hunter and luz, as well as the clawthornes being a descendent of evelyn, i'm glad they never confirmed it, and it remains situational irony purely for the audience.

hunter's only connection with caleb is his DNA, which also ties back to belos's feelings. him befriending luz is something they did of their own volition. it's not because hunter is fated to play out every beat of caleb's life by virtue of being his clone. similarly, while i love a good hunter clawthorne, dell taking hunter as an apprentice and eda showing care towards him in s2 are because eda is kind to children and hunter independently had passion for palisman carving. it's not because they found out they were related, because the whole show is about found family.

having flashbacks to the real caleb and evelyn wouldn't have contributed anything to the story aside from fanservice. what matters is how belos feels about them. belos's ego and the desperation to be acknowledged by his puritan community and God aside, the idea of caleb haunts his every action. not the actual ghost of caleb-i've already discussed here why the idea of caleb's ghost literally haunting belos would be a poor writing decision. belos knew the person his brother actually was, killed him, and imagined a perfect version of him that he chased after for the next 350 years.

the tragedy is that the perfect version of caleb is unattainable, and now belos can never get the real caleb back. he refuses to acknowledge that caleb may have been flawed before the influence of evelyn. to phillip, everything he thinks is wrong about caleb is because he was corrupted by the boiling isles, and that's part of the reason he starts on a quest to kill all the witches. it's also why he makes so many grimwalkers. he desperately misses that ideal version of caleb, so he makes copies of caleb and plays family with them.

and belos loathes the grimwalkers. he kills them because he hates the magic they were made with. because he hates being reminded of his brother and what happened to him. and of course, he hates the grimwalkers for not meeting his expectations of what his "ideal" caleb would have been like. it's a fluid expectation that belos, subconsciously or not, changes as he goes, all in order to take out his anger on innocent children. he seems to recognize his enjoyment of harming the grimwalkers, though it's unknown if he understands the reason-which is that the "perfect" caleb will never exist, and likely never did. phillip's brother is gone forever, and it's all his fault.

and idk maybe in the writers minds caleb was a perfect brother and baby phillip was just a possessive little shit. or maybe it's the opposite and caleb messed up a lot in communicating with phillip on his relationship with evelyn. maybe evelyn was a perfectly nice girl who was perfectly supportive of caleb and phillip's choices or maybe she hated phillip and the other humans and did convince caleb to leave it all behind. it's a fascinating piece of backstory and i love seeing fanworks that talk about it! but anything more about caleb and evelyn that the creators add in canon would give actual context to their situation that we don't need! their story has been over for 350 years and dont affect any of the other characters beyond how it affects phillip!

nothing more about these two can be said that will contribute more to belos's character that isn't already conveyed with the barebones material we got in the show. this story isn't about "forbidden love," this is about how phillip was confronted with the fact that his brother found happiness outside of him, and that someone he's been taught since childhood to hate may not be all bad. it's about how he plugged his fingers in his ears in response to this and went on a 350 year long killing spree to prove to himself that he can never be in the wrong.

basically, i wouldn't go so far as to call caleb and evelyn's backstory "purposefully unexplained," but i definitely think the story is a lot stronger as it is than it would be if they did explain it all. not every detail of a story needs to have a word of god answer as to how it all went down. sometimes adding in unnecessary detail for completionism's sake just distracts from the point you're actually trying to convey. while there are a lot of things that i wished the show could have explored in more detail had it not been shortened, caleb and evelyn's story is not one of them.

[mysteriouseggsbenedict]

The Terrible Tale of Frances' Crazy Roommate

Okay folks, I've landed upon the motivation to type this out. This is the terrible tale of my crazy roommate whom I lived with from September 2022 - May 2023

Further context of the living situation: this was a duplex rental unit that housed 4 people (so I had two other roommates in addition to the crazy one.) The way we ended up living together is as follows. I had lived in that same unit the previous year, but all 3 of my other roommates wanted to move out for various reasons. I did not want to have to move, so I found some new people to come and take their spots in the house. The two non-crazy roommates approached me first about living together and we were like “great, let’s do this,” and just needed to find one other person. The crazy roommate is that one other person— so she was kind of like a last minute add-on.

(Also, for ease, I’m going to refer to her as Jill.)

We had no issues living together until February 2023. This is one of the really surprising parts of the situation to me, because usually when you have a conflict with someone, it arises more immediately than that. But we had like five months of living in peace.

The problems started in February and they centered around the issue of our garage. The duplex came with a two-car garage and three of us had cars. That meant that one person had to be parked outside at all times. In order to distribute the garage resource, we created this chart where we each had rotating assigned days to park inside. We started the rotating chart in November because prior to that only Jill had been using the garage. It did not have an automatic door opener so we needed to get out and manually lift the door up— this was annoying and me and my other roommate didn’t feel the need to bother with it while the weather was nice. When winter arrived we started to want to park inside and hence the chart was created.

I knew Jill preferred to park inside every day, but I didn’t realize it would be something that would cause a huge interpersonal conflict until it actually happened. 

We had a cold snap in February and Jill texted our group chat asking if we can have a talk about revising the garage chart. She told us that her car has issues starting when the weather is very cold, and as a result, she needs to be parked inside all the time. When this happened, I was already mildly annoyed with her, because she had been acting differently. When we met her and first moved in, Jill was a very extroverted, bubbly, loud, friendly type of person. But as we got into February I noticed her just being kind of rude and snappy for no apparent reason. She’d respond to me in a grumpy tone if I tried to make conversation with her. It didn’t make me extremely concerned because I just brushed it off as her having a bad day.

However, because she had already been annoying me, I wasn’t feeling super generous when I got her text. It was a very demanding text where she essentially told us she’s entitled to the garage and we need to let her have it. My thought process was something like “well, we all split the rent equally, so who does she think she is to be telling us what to do and bossing us around like this?”

I did feel sympathetic about her car issues. I remember feeling really torn because I wanted to do the right thing and not be mean to her, but I also just really, really did not want to feel like a doormat who has to cave to whatever she demands of me. I texted my other roommate privately and asked how she felt about the issue. My other roommate told me she also did not feel good about letting Jill park inside at all times, and that kind of cemented in me the decision that I wasn’t going to let her have this without meeting about it more intentionally. We had not actually had the meeting that Jill initially asked for. So, I told her I’m happy to meet and talk about it some more so we can come to a compromise, but for tonight I’m going to stick to our current rotation agreement which had me inside and Jill outside.

I came home from work that night and parked in the garage. When I went upstairs to my room I could hear Jill kind of huffing and stomping and making aggressive noises in her bedroom (we shared a bedroom wall). This honestly really scared me because it was midnight, I was laying in bed trying to sleep, and I was hearing these banging noises from her room. It made me feel unsafe and scared. Eventually I fell asleep.

The next morning comes. I come downstairs and make my breakfast and sit in the living room to eat. Jill comes down and goes out to the garage to put something in the recycling, then comes back inside and starts to yell at me for parking my car too close to the recycling bin. So she stood there and berated me for a bit and then stomped off. My other roommate was also in the room and witnessed it, and after Jill left she was like “you didn’t really do anything wrong, she’s just in a bad mood.” 

I then went back to my room to finish getting ready for the day. But before I could get out the door to my morning class, I got a text to our group chat from Jill. She told us that her car wouldn’t start and she wanted help to jump it. Then before I could do anything else I heard more stomping and loud crying. Jill came back from outside and returned to her room and started yelling, screaming, sobbing, and just generally making lots of really loud and aggressive noise. 

I was hearing all of this going on and I was honestly scared out of my mind at that point because she was clearly having some kind of mental health event. I texted that I didn’t feel safe with the way she was acting in the house and so I didn’t feel like I could be around her to help with the car. I could hear when she received that text and it made the yelling and sobbing worse. She yelled some things that were directed at me like “fuck her” and “she’s so mean” and “I told her!!” I could gather that she had called someone on the phone and was trying to explain to them what was happening, so she was insulting me to whoever was on the phone.

I do not handle yelling well. I essentially shut down. So I was having a panic attack of my own at this point and I felt trapped in my room. I texted again that I was going to leave the house because I didn’t feel safe, and she screamed “THEN GET OUT!!” as I was leaving. My sweet other roommate was still just witnessing all of this so she tried to comfort me and told me I hadn’t done anything wrong, which I really appreciated. 

At this point I got in my car and drove to a nearby campus parking lot and just parked and called my mom so I could cry and explain what was happening because I was having a meltdown. I didn’t end up attending class because I knew I would just start crying. 

After all of the dust of this day settled I was thinking that probably Jill would cool off, get some time away to clear her head, and then we would be able to repair things productively. It was clearly a really explosive, intense breakdown type of thing, so I was hoping things would cool off and she’d apologize for how she acted.

This did not happen lmao. She doubled down when I told her I wasn’t going to talk to her until she could be respectful of me and the home environment. She said that I was not respecting her emotions by stating that it wasn’t okay for her to blow up in the way she did. It was like “I hope nobody ever makes you feel like you’re wrong for having emotions…it was really disrespectful of you to criticize me for how I felt…” Also she said that it was wrong of me to be upset about her yelling because “she did it in the privacy of her bedroom.” I do realize that she was in her room, but she was screaming at a volume that probably the entire neighborhood could hear, so the notion that she could have expected privacy is kind of ridiculous. 

The next day (roughly) Jill removed herself from our group chat and said that she wouldn’t be communicating with any of us for the time being because she needed to care for her mental health. So we just heard her stomping and yelling and acting aggressively inside the house, but didn’t actually talk with her. In the meantime I saw my therapist and explained everything that had happened so far.

After a few days she rejoined the group chat. Me and my other roommate proposed that we set up a meeting with a counselor on campus who could help facilitate a discussion. Jill said she would not agree to doing that but she would talk to us in our house. I didn’t feel comfortable with this because I felt like I needed a mediator, and I was suspicious of the way Jill wanted to talk to us with nobody else around but wasn’t okay with having a mediator. 

In the end, there was never any formal discussion of what had happened. After a bit we all just started moving on as if nothing had happened. 

After this event in February, there weren’t any more giant explosions of similar caliber, but things were never really good with Jill for the rest of the year. I felt really uncomfortable being in the same house as her. Being in her presence made my body so anxious I would shake and just feel really afraid. I started rearranging my schedule so that I was spending more time out of the house, and I learned her work schedule so I could plan to come home after she had already left, etc. It put a really big mental strain on me to be dealing with this fear and anxiety related to just existing in my own home. It was miserable and I would not wish it on anyone.

For the rest of the spring there were a few more times when Jill antagonized me. One time I heard her talking on the phone through the wall, and she was saying mean things about me to the person, essentially complaining that she has to live with me and saying I’m horrible and stuff. Another time she criticized me because one of my dishes had not gotten fully clean in the dishwasher and she was mad that I hadn’t cleaned it more before putting it into the dishwasher. 

I will also mention that Jill was an education major and now (presumably) teaches elementary school. She works with children. I am as horrified as you are about this fact. It also did impact how she spoke to me— I noticed she would be very condescending because she talked to me in a way that sounds like how one would speak to a child. She was probably trying to transfer things she’d say to an unruly child and apply them to me. It just kind of makes me think that she viewed herself as having power over me which makes me really uncomfortable. 

At the end of the year, after distributing her portion of the housing deposit to her, I immediately blocked her on every platform. I now have no idea how she’s doing in life. I hope she got fired from her first teaching job or something like that.

[bloopdydooooo]

i'm asking you abt your version of hamlet but you have to ask me about wtnv ghosts OR kris dreemurr, deal?

for this, i will ask you about both.

(it got too long i hid it under the read more)

ANYWAYS i had a breakthrough like. ten minutes ago cause i was thinking about how i'd put a spin on hamlet. cause i was talking w my director for romeo & juliet a while back and he said how important it is in shakespeare to have something that makes your production just a little special a little unique so people will keep coming to see it. if it's the same plays over and over presented w the same contexts and worlds and everything, no one will want to see it. (i mean i would but i'm. uh. abnormal). and i've been agonizing over what my spin on hamlet would be, were i to direct it (an idea which has taken control of my brain and will not let me go. this has become my dream in life and i'm literally an actor not a director). point is i found it.

i was thinking about Shitty College Kids hamlet and then i was suddenly struck w the passing thought of crime family. and then it kept coming back. and i think i might be a genius. hear me out:

hamlet's family, the royal family of denmark, is actually a crime family. gertrude may be the one who technically runs the show but really she's a mob wife she doesn't exactly make use of her power, instead letting her husband do it. her husband claudius, who has hamlet sr. killed and then marries his sister in law (the kind of wild bullshit i can imagine happening in a mafia movie, of which i have watched none (but will for research)) so he can take control of the family business. it adds a darker, grittier level to basically everything in the play; taking them from high society – royalty, even – to a shady crime family, and fits perfectly with my vision of the play: i crave violence in hamlet, and i think he deserves some blood and gore. its enrichment for him. with a modern take we can give him a gun to kill polonius with, shooting him through something more significant than a curtain (i wouldn't do a mirror obviously but hamlet (2009) i fucking love you for that) and the stakes are all heightened when bullets get involved. plus it really pushes the whole bit where hamlet is sent off to england (and would, i guess, be someone else's territory?), because in this everyone would know he was going to his death. there would be no naivety, no shock horror when he says he was sent to his doom, just people standing by and watching as this kid is sentenced to death. 5.2 is a knife fight, quick and dirty and scrappy – none of the class of a rapier duel – and it raises the stakes a lot. there are rules and regulations in swordfighting, not so much in a rage fueled knife fight. hamlet, in the end, stabs his uncle with either his or laertes' blade but im thinking his. there is no poison it is just a brutal, bloody slaughter. it gives me the darkness and violence i've been hungering for but were harder to push for in the context of a castle, of high society. they still have the power, the influence, but they're taken to a place where i can have all the grit my heart desires without it feeling out of place.

it also makes relationships between characters so much more interesting. hamlet, for example, is still a scholar, a highly emotional college kid who talks in flowery prose and has a passion for theater, but now he's supposed to be inheriting the Family Business and not a kingdom, where all his gayboy bullshit wouldn't be very out of place. it pushes him further as an outsider, as someone that people would turn against, would throw to the wolves. who does that make horatio? hamlet's friend from school, maybe tangentially related to the family but only really through hamlet? how about ophelia? daughter of the councilor to the 'king', is she actually someone that they would want hamlet to marry? and what to make of laertes, who seems to abandon denmark for france? he comes back and is almost instantly accepted back into the inner circle despite having requested leave and happily departed, is claudius gunning for him to take hamlet's place as next in line? rosencrantz and guildenstern? clearly hamlet's friends from within the business they're also at his university, did they follow him there or did they all happen to find themselves in the same place? we're there greased palms to get them in? what about hamlet? and gertrude! the family line ascends through her, it must or claudius wouldn't need to marry her to get the power, but she shows no real desire to exercise it, even when her son is in danger. what's her deal, what's her story? she must have one, she's a fascinating person.

tl;dr the version of hamlet i've been craving is apparently a mob boss au. and you know what? it's awesome.

also. consider the costuming opportunities. they are infinite, and they are fabulous.

i have so many more thoughts but sadly it is 3am and they will not all form properly so i will leave it at this

[the-fire-might-be-shooting-at-us]

I'm sorry you have to deal with the billy stans. I tried once, but they wouldn't listen to a word I say.

Like when I brought up that Max was verbally abused they twisted in a way that because she yelled at Billy and drugged him she was also an abuser who was on the same level as his dad because she used the words Neil used on Billy. However, they really close their eyes at how Billy also uses those words at Max (the Say It and Understand part). They also ignore the context. She had to watch Billy almost kill a guy. What should she have done? Talk him out of it. Drugging was her saving Steve and Billy because he would have murdered him.

Him threatening Max in the car earlier in the season was after Max expressed that she liked it here and it was Billy's fault for them to move, he then had to intimidate her by driving recklessly (putting her in danger for funsies) and wanting to run over a bunch of kids so he has control over Max again. If that isn't abused, idk what is. Or when he broke her skateboard after he found out Max hung out with Lucas at the arcade. It's implied he does this quite often, idk if this is normal sibling behavior, lol. Max even confides to Lucas that Billy takes out his anger on her, but his stans ignore it. She literally cried in front of him, which is big because Max is very closed off.

Also, the way they shit on Steve at the Byers house. Like Steve only lied because Max was terrified of getting hurt by her brother. I could even imagine Lucas begging Steve to do something because he knows about the situation, and he would have picked up on the racist undertones Billy gave him. To say Steve lied for no reason and was in the wrong idk, he didn't want Max to be hurt. Billy would have done something to her. He held in his anger the entire time waiting to explode, and Max already told us she would receive it. Billy didn't care about her he only cared to get her home so he could stay out of trouble. So Steve got Billys anger full unleashed and yeah me may have thrown the first punch (after Billy threatened Lucas and pushed him violenty in a cabinet), but after he was knocked out, Billy never stopped. Some even say Steve deserved it, which is like okay?? But then ship h*rringrove at the same time.

Also, Billy isn't even redeemed in my eyes he never made amends to Lucas and Steve. Maybe he treated Max better, but he still wasn't sorry about his behavior towards Lucas. Max had every right to have complicated feelings about his death. I think that was the thing s4 got right. Her not being able to open up to Lucas or Steve because Billy hurt them, so she retreated and pushed them away. She knew her friends hated her brother because he was awful to them. So she felt like she couldn't tell them she missed him or felt guilty for gis death. At the same time, she felt relief because he couldn't harm her anymore, which also made her feel guilty because that's still her brother.

I get why he acted the way he did, but that doesn't give him a free pass to do whatever. I have a friend who relates to Billy, like she also acted it they way he did, but she never makes excuses for him. She can recognize his faults. Billy needed help, which he sadly never got, that makes him tragic, but he also hurt people along the way, and they also have every right to critique his behavior. Same with people watching the show, they should be allowed to discuss it in a way without others coming for them and harass them (especially if you tag it accordingly).

I'm sorry this is kinda long, but you can't say this on here, or you will be hunted down and ridiculed. (Also, you can totally ignore this if you don't want to have this discourse anymore)

No bc you're so right I'm just so over Billy that I can't be bothered to add more.

Perfectly worded, I find Billy an interesting character for sure, because the abuse cycle, the patterns of trauma infliction, it gives a new perspective to how abuse affects people.

The Billy stans excusing his actions just ruins this take for me, and it also just feels like a further insult on Max and Lucas's characters.

Also the Hargrove stans are by far the most unnecessarily aggressive, toxic, and illogical, and I've seen the twitter Steve vs Jonathan discourse.

[progg]

Chapter 396 Breakdown

Here are my thoughts on Chapter 396 of Hunter x Hunter, “Founding: Part 2”.

Chapter 396 begins as Chrollo's dub of “Clean-up Rangers” is about to be premiered. The first thing I want to highlight is the quick characterization of Sarasa.

Sarasa is someone who solves problems with empathy rather than violence. She sees the good in everyone. This aspect of her personality will shine through later in this chapter.

We also learn that Phinks is a “softie”. This isn’t completely new information; we got a sense of it at the end of the Yorknew City arc. 

In my analysis of Chapter 395, I made similar conclusions about Nobunaga and Franklin, who seem to be the most “emotionally aware” members of the Troupe. This is not to say that they are empathetic characters, only that they have a thorough understanding of their own emotions (which sometimes translates to understanding the emotions of others). Phinks, on the other hand, buries his emotions and needs Sarasa to draw them out.

A perfect example of this distinction is in the previous chapter, 395, when Nobunaga and Phinks debate the Hei-Ly's plan. Nobunaga considers the emotions of the Hei-Ly while Phinks doesn’t.

The Phantom Troupe has no information regarding Contagion at this point. Nobunaga's conclusion is based largely on emotion.

Again, Phinks has a very cold, logical approach to the situation, while Nobunaga is more sentimental. There is value in both ways of thinking.

Returning to Chapter 396, the dub of “Clean-up Rangers” begins with the future Troupe members watching from the crowd. Chrollo is revealed to be a highly talented actor. This, combined with the scene involving Hisoka in the Black Whale cineplex, may support the theory that Chrollo is disguised as Hisoka (an idea I floated in my breakdown of Chapter 393).

Due to an equipment malfunction (run-of-the-mill for Meteor City), the audio from the dub cuts out. Chrollo, to the astonishment of many, steps up and begins a live voiceover. His talent for acting is further emphasized by how easily he slips into each character.

In general, theater is a major focus of this chapter. After seeing this flashback, it seems plausible that Chrollo could assume a different persona or that the Troupe could be “acting” as villains. (More on this later.)

We also get additional context on Chrollo and Pakunoda’s relationship. This flashback adds a lot of substance to Paku’s actions in the Yorknew City arc.

Pakunoda and Uvogin get a lot of screen time in this flashback, which is interesting considering, they’re... well... dead. Speaking of Uvo, Chrollo runs into him after the premiere.

In what is probably the climax of the chapter, Sarasa “dubs” Uvo, completely disarming him. She did the same thing with Phinks at the beginning of the chapter, only this time the stakes were much higher.

Turns out Uvo was impressed by Chrollo’s performance. He wants to “play the monster” next time. The rest of the crew jumps in, and soon enough, the Troupe has been formed.

There are a few things to point out in the section. The first is Machi’s reluctance to join (or at least, “play a role”).

Look at Franklin making sure everyone is included. Gentle giant behavior. 

Machi is somewhat of an oddball amongst the Troupe. She has a strange sixth sense and a unique relationship with Hisoka. I think she’s being intentionally set apart from her colleagues for a future plotline.

In the next chapter, I’ll draw similar conclusions about Nobunaga and Franklin. Certain characters seemed less interested in the acting component of the Troupe and more interested in the “sense of brotherhood”. From these differences, we can learn a lot about their loyalty to Chrollo and his plans. I’ll talk more about this in my breakdown of Chapter 397. 

The idea that the Troupe may be “acting” as villains is absolutely planted in this flashback, whether or not it is true. So far, the Troupe has shown little sign of the ruthless, bloodthirsty personalities they assumed in Yorknew City. While it’s clear something is going to happen in this flashback to send them on a downward spiral (and they may very well have become the monsters they were pretending to be) their portrayal is inconsistent with the Troupe we know. 

Consequently, when I first read this chapter, I began to consider the possibility that the Troupe was not responsible for the Kurta massacre. My thinking was really catalyzed by Uvo’s behavior: 

Uvo is extremely dedicated to the acting component of the Troupe. Not to mention, he expresses a strong desire to “play the villain.” It just so happens that Uvo is the only Troupe member who has attested to involvement in the Kurta massacre, and even then it was a vague, half-admission. Could it all have been an act? 

It’s a bit difficult to explain this idea without spoiling the next chapter, but I did write a long-form post about it here. 

In that post, I made the argument that Sheila is actually a good-aligned character, despite her portrayal in Kurapika’s Memories. However, I do want to point out some evidence to the contrary.

While talking about the next performance, Franklin reveals that Sheila’s character has a twin, evil counterpart. This seems to suggest Sheila is a “twist villain”. At the same time, it could mean the opposite: that Sheila’s almost-too-obvious deception in Kurapika’s backstory is a red-herring. What I do know is Togashi included this line from Franklin for a reason. We’ll learn more about Sheila in the next chapter.

Chapter 396 concludes with Sarasa leaving on her own to find more episodes of Clean-up Rangers. At the same time, the mafia members from 395 reappear. They’ve completed their quota, but they're not quite finished yet. Security is increasing, so they want to have fun with one last victim before they go. Things aren’t looking good for Sarasa...

[46ten]

List of errors in Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton

Here’s my review of Tilar Mazzeo’s work, problems with Flexner, crazy statements in AH biographies, and part 2, in case anyone thinks I’m only critical of Chernow’s AH biography.

Chernow isn’t ONLY wrong about the things I’m listing below - his narrative of AH’s childhood is, by recent historical scholarship, proven wrong; and the longstanding rivalry with Aaron Burr is junk. As is Chernow’s determination to build the tragic hero’s arc, which leaves him no space for critical evaluation/interpretation of AH’s (or Federalist) policies. And even though Gordon S. Wood has written volumes, Chernow still doesn’t grasp the Founders’ political philosophies. 

There has been a whole book published on Chernow’s (and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s) errors - Historians on Hamilton. I’m just compiling some of the easier tidbits to digest. 

Chernow is wrong, sticking to facts/word choice - I’ll add to this list as a remember more things or go look things up:

1. AH was not an abolitionist. He may have held pro-manumission sentiments. But he was certainly not the most fervent abolitionist or even manumissionist of the Founding Fathers. 

2. Elizabeth Hamilton was not so upset about the Reynolds Pamphlet (published August 25, 1797) that she left New York and gave birth to William S. Hamilton (born August 4, 1797) in Albany. Just the idea of a heavily pregnant woman taking the trip by boat (took anywhere from 24 to 30+ hours) should have made this conjecture seem unlikely. But it’s in the genealogical records that William S. was born in NYC. There’s also a letter from William Jackson to AH dated 5Aug 1797 in which he states: “Accept my congratulations on the birth of your Son,” noting he had received a letter from AH that morning, obviously announcing the birth of William S. I’m not even sure any prior narrative claimed EH gave birth to WSH in Albany.

3. He mis-dates the “Icarus” letter because he depended on only part of the copied text and never read the entire letter, that specifically has Angelica asking her sister if William (obviously already born) enjoyed the trip. There’s really no question for me that this letter was written 3Jun1798, which was a Sunday (the reference to going to church), and places it matching AH’s letter to EH of the same date. 

4. The garter/shoe bow story, which was a failure to find the original source.

5. He gets the baptisms of the 4 oldest Hamilton kids wrong. 

6. He gets Eliza Hamilton’s birthdate wrong. 

7. He gets the Talleyrand letter wrong because he never checked the original source. 

8. I have no idea where Philip as “sad rake” comes from, and obviously neither does Chernow. 

9. Factual errors and using letters out of context related to AH’s resignation from Washington’s cabinet. 

10. He gets the importance of the various aides-de-camp wrong, including lots of errors in who was where when. 

11. Speculation about Rachel Faucett presented as fact, like this. 

12. The orphan boy story. 

13. Washington as AH’s “immaculate Daddy,” when the actual source makes clear it’s Philip Schuyler. 

14. Identifying Phocion of 1796 as Hamilton, instead of William Loughton Smith.

Word choice that is very suspect: 

1. EH “abandoned” AH when she went to Albany to visit her parents, and AH was so tightly wound. As @runawayforthesummer tracked down, EH and AH had just gone on a vacation together, see here. 

2. That AH directed his wife to be charitable, ignoring that charity was probably first inspired by her mother, widely known for her charitable endeavors.  

3. He doesn’t know what a double-adulterer is.

4. This is how he handled Latrobe (and I still don’t know the source of the quote he used). 

5. Connected to (4), no sourcing for the claims, prior to the Reynolds Pamphlet, that AH had a reputation as an adulterer.