#sugarbeans

[rattyarts]

Wanted to practice using Toonsquid, so I made a Sugarbeans version of this video by @justanoval!

[yuni-live]

sugarbeans感謝祭 〜つぶあんこしあんトレビアン大集結！〜 より「ビッグバンドの夢」 撮影：二宮ユーキ

[dimity-lawn]

There was a polite cough. She recognized it as belonging to Nutt, who had the politest cough there could possibly be. “Yes, Mister Nutt?” “Mister Trev has sent me with this letter for Miss Juliet, Miss Glenda,” said Nutt, who had apparently been waiting by the steps. He held it out as if it were some double-edged sword. — Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

[pratchettquotes]

Glenda herself was reading one of her cheap novels wrapped in a page of the Times. She read the way a cat eats: furtively, daring anyone to notice.

Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

[flouryhedgehog]

Vetinari's confidence that Glenda would never try to poison him is so funny.

He's like. Listen. She could want me dead, I don't know, I'm not judging. But she would never disrespect food like that.

[evilcatv]

yeah dunno if he's straight or gay or ace but he sure is old

[cosmicrhetoric]

unseen academicals was my first practical introduction to crab theory/crab mentality ("if i can't have it neither can you") and it makes me so fucking crazy so crazy it's SO crazy to realize that you're the person who is limiting and hurting someone you truly love because you want to keep them safe and your status quo is the only safety you know. the fact that the book relates that back to model minority theory is also crazy. the other fact that the tip glenda uses to bake pickled onions into pies while keeping them fresh and crunchy actually works is also also crazy

[aeshnacyanea2000]

They were male. Glenda knew this simply because any female of any sapient species knows the look of a man who has nothing very much to do in an environment that, for this time, is clearly occupied by and totally under the control of females.

-- Terry Pratchett - Unseen Academicals

[jehanthepoet]

Lady Margolotta: I've given Nutt worth

Glenda: you've fucked up a perfectly good orc is what you've done. Look at him, he's got anxiety

[pencil-amateur]

the underestimated workers of unseen university

[deezmrnutt]

Mr. Nutt's Mic Drops, Part One: "Come on, if you think you're hard enough."

And this was a literal 'mic drop' too (though the mic was technically megaphone).

[rattyarts]

Wanted to practice drawing humans a lil more cartoony than I currently do, so I decided to use these nerds as my test subjects

Doc needs a vacation so bad.

[mywingsareonwheels]

The witches who don't know they're witches in Pratchett's Discworld and the Morseverse's Oxford

There may come a day when I will get over the glorious, very blatant, and wonderfully resonant influences of Terry Pratchett's writing (and especially the Discworld) on Russell Lewis's writing of Endeavour.

It is not this day.

(Spoilers for s9 of Endeavour; much milder spoiler for the first episode of Inspector Morse; mild-ish character spoilers for Witches Abroad, The Wee Free Men, the Watch books (but especially Thud), and Unseen Academicals.)

We know three things:-

every place on the Discworld, by and large, has its witch. Someone who takes responsibility for it, whose answer to the question "who is going to do something about X problem" is pretty much always "me", who tells the place what it is. Who is usually ferociously down to earth. Some places have more than one witch, though this can cause clashes.

not every witch knows that they are a witch (cf Granny Aching).

while custom and practice dictates that only women are witches, it's not at all a hard-and-fast rule.

And a fourth:-

I saw this explained far better in a post about Good Omens actually, but the risk with witches is that they go off the rails. This can look like desperately trying to control others (especially doing the thinking for others, which Pratchett always (rightly) regards as horrifying), and in extreme cases changing reality to suit that control. It can look like cruelty. It can look like violence. Above all, it's loss of self-control. And in all cases, it's called cackling. We see it most of all with Lilith Weatherwax; we see that Granny Weatherwax is terrified of it happening to her.

I'm anything but the first person to note that Sam Vimes is, unbeknown to himself or probably anyone else in-universe, the witch of Ankh-Morpork. He absolutely is. I'd also add that Glenda Sugarbean, similarly unbeknown to herself, is the witch both of Unseen University (which Vimes generally leaves well alone; and sure, UU has wizards everywhere, but it needs a witch), and of her particular street in Dolly Sisters.

If it weren't for her character development in Unseen Academicals I think Glenda could very well have ended up cackling in middle age or when older. She becomes awesome and has some excellent qualities from the beginning, but her tendency to take over what other people are doing rather than let them grow and learn and be themselves is troubling in itself and sometimes comes very close to doing the thinking for others. And she resents others' dependence on her while also actively fostering it which... yeah. In no reality does that lead to anywhere good. I love Glenda, but *ouch*. All power to her for getting herself away from that trajectory. By the end of the book she's a far more balanced witch and cackling is clearly not in her future. :-)

And Vimes, oh goodness. His monitoring of his own character and actions is clearly paralleled with that of Granny Weatherwax: both of them have to work not to keep darkness out, but to keep it in. His own internal Guarding Dark is what keeps him from becoming both a cackling witch and the kind of copper he desperately wants to avoid being (and honestly, in his case the two would be pretty much the same).

Now, as we know, a) Russell Lewis is a massive Pratchett fan, b) Vimes turns up as a mentioned cameo in Endeavour, as Fred Thursday's sergeant and mentor (both in policing, and in fighting against the other police in the Battle of Cable Street/generally being an antifascist) back in the 1930s and probably as the person Sam Thursday was named after. And I don't think it's any kind of stretch to see Fred as the witch firstly of Mile End, and then of Oxford when he's forced to leave. He talks about first his part of "the Smoke" and then Oxford much as Vimes talks about Ankh-Morpork or Tiffany talks about the Chalk.

He's a very frustrated witch, constantly having to grapple with corruption in the city, in the force, and even in himself, but always, always "there's a city to look to". There's something deeply mythic about Fred in the early seasons of Endeavour. He makes mistakes even back then, but my Gods does he care, and my Gods does he take responsibility. I honestly think that over the entire series, and certainly prior to his unravelling in s9, the only thing he does for purely selfish motives is buy those canaries. Ah, my heart.

He protects, he works his arse off. He loves Oxford, deeply and passionately. Protection is the beginning and the end of his work.

But he's very traumatised and not always very self-aware, and he always has that tendency to try to control the narrative. Morse is fine. His marriage is fine. The money is fine. Sam is fine. He is fine. He won't confide in Morse, lest he upset Morse; he won't confide in Win, ditto; he won't pressure Morse to confide in him, ditto. And he can be violent, sometimes understandably, sometimes much less so.

Instead of having an internal Guarding Dark, Thursday a) represses so he can leave everything at the hatstand, and then b) takes on Morse as an external Guarding Dark (with just a little touch of both Carrot and Angua), to help him stay in line - and then pushes back against it. And just with all of the intense expectations Morse places on Thursday, it's both heartbreakingly understandable, and really not fair at all.

Ultimately Morse can't keep Thursday's darkness in, and Thursday can't keep standing upright on that dizzying pedestal. Because of course they can't; no one could. And the trauma conga line that is series 9 for Thursday I think has him damn close to cackling, if not right over the edge, making some disastrously bad mistakes. He nearly loses Sam, and in saving him he loses Oxford, loses Joan, loses Morse.

Whatever Thursday still thought was possible at the beginning of That Conversation in the pub (moving his responsibility from Oxford to Carshall? really, Fred? after Raymond Kennitt, would that really work?!), he's had a massive change of heart and mind by the time he and Morse finally shake hands and part, and in that change I see his redemption.

Here are the last things he does for Morse:-

refuses an offered lift all the way to Carshall so that Morse can get to his rehearsal okay (underlining his repeated support of Morse as someone who needs music to keep him going; that one thing the darkness can't take from him)

validates Morse's strengths and his belief in him, and in a teasing compliment to himself, makes him just-about laugh

hands over his own service revolver, forgoing his own duty and responsibility as potentially violent protector (and also giving himself the opportunity to learn to be someone who doesn't need that role anymore, and omg this is giving me Granny-giving-Tiffany-her-hat vibes and all...)

calls Morse for the last time by his given first name (and nods in sad acceptance when corrected)

And in all that, I see him passing Oxford on to Morse, as a last act of love and respect (even if one that he's desperately aware is hardly the easiest of gifts to bear).

Morse is the witch of Oxford now. And look at him in the first episode of Inspector Morse! He's a mess in some ways, good grief is he. But he's far more centered and at ease, and he's also not only developed further that deep and abiding sense of responsibility (which, let's face it, the poor man wasn't lacking in before), and a certain trickster nature that honestly reminds me as much of a far (far, far...) less filthy-minded Nanny Ogg than of Sam Vimes. ;-) He's rather a good witch for Oxford. And so it goes on. <3

[dimity-lawn]

He [Ridcully] smiled at her expression. 'What is your job, young lady? Because you are wasted in it.' It was probably meant as a compliment, but Glenda, her head so bewilderingly full of the Archchancellor's words that they were trickling out of her ears, heard herself say, 'I'm certainly not wasted, sir! You've never eaten better pies than mine! I run the Night Kitchen!' The metaphysics of real politics were not a subject of interest to most of those present, but they knew where they were with pies. She was the centre of attention already, but now it blazed with interest. 'You do?' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'We thought it was the pretty girl.' 'Really?' said Glenda brightly. 'Well, I run it.' 'So who does that wonderful pie you send up here sometimes, with the cheese pastry and the hot pickle layer?' 'The Ploughman's Pie? Me, sir. My own recipe.' 'Really? How do you manage to get the pickled onions to stay so hard and crispy in the baking? It's just amazing!' 'My own recipe, sir,' said Glenda firmly. 'It wouldn't be mine if I told anyone else.' 'Well said,' said Ridcully gleefully. 'You can't go around asking craftsmen the secrets of their trade, old chap. It's a thing you just don't do. Now, I am concluding this meeting, although what it has in fact concluded I shall decide later.' —Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

[pratchettquotes]

Some scenes are only ever a memory rather than an experience, because they happen too fast for immediate comprehension, and Glenda watched the subsequent events on the internal screen of horrified recollection.

Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

[glagger-true]

Howdy dear reader! 👋 I'm your host Glagger, and today I'm here to bring you the first installment of a multi-part analysis on the friendship and romance between Dave Halloway and Roswell Sinclair from Password VN.

It shouldn't exactly come as a surprise that I'm quite fond of Roswell, and I will also admit Dave is without a doubt my favorite character in the vn by far. Naturally, that means I'm very invested in their bond and progression, and today I've decided to share my thoughts and observations on both.

Instead of focusing on their entire route content, I've decided to keep things simple by focusing on only the really important scenes, and I'll be discussing one per post. Today, we'll start with the day 8 argument between them, and use a few past and future scenes to back up the conclusions I've arrived to.

Please keep in mind that this post has spoilers for the novel. With this in mind, let's begin, shall we?

Roswell and Dave: how denial and naivety can generate dependency, neglect and accidental abuse. - Part one.

Scene breakdown:

At the beginning of the argument, Dave uses his intuition and knowledge of Roswell to identify there's an unknown reason for the boar's cruel and strange behavior towards Tyson. He approaches the situation cautiously, trying to bait Roswell subtly with the topic to try and figure out the root of the problem.

Roswell, however, immediately answers back in a brash, confrontational and dismissive way, having an explicitly negative emotional response to Dave showing disapproval of his actions.

As Dave presses the issue further, using logical arguments and explaining why the boar's actions are hurtful and unfair, Roswell becomes even more aggravated and aggressive, refusing to acknowledge Dave's arguments and claiming he's being manipulated by Tyson.

Roswell gets progressively more unreasonable, demanding that Dave provides private information as a reason for his strong defense in favor of the wolf. Dave becomes more objective, choosing to reveal some of the discoveries he made about the wolf and how their relationship grew from them to try and defend that Tyson deserves to be considered a friend and be treated fairly like the rest of the group.

The argument reaches a breaking point when Dave demands Roswell apologizes to Tyson, claiming that he expected better of the boar. Then, he is the one to press Roswell for a reason behind his actions.

Roswell finally confesses his reasons are purely selfish, and that he's afraid of dying without confronting Tyson and saying everything that's stuck in his chest.

In his route, he even goes as far as to admit that his interest in Dave is also influencing his thoughts and actions. He states that he always sees things logically, but when Dave is involved, it becomes difficult to know what's the correct thing to say and do.

Dave presses further, saying that Roswell has to forgive Tyson because he's family to the hyena. He concludes this argument by claiming that he won't pick sides between friends, but implies that if the boar forces him to choose, he'll choose the wolf because of Roswell's pressure. He also confirms that Roswell is important to him once the boar asks, but says that doesn't give him the right to force him to choose.

Roswell becomes so unreasonable hearing this he tries to use the fight he deliberately forced to happen with Tyson on day 3 as an argument, to which Dave responds he knows both of them enough to notice Roswell forced it to happen on purpose to cast blame on Tyson.

Roswell finally drops his facade of calmness and admits he's jealous of Tyson when Dave asks him directly, claiming he wishes he had known about Tyson beforehand so he could have stopped him from coming.

Dave also drops all pretense of impartiality, and straight up says that, from his perspective, Roswell is wrong and owes Tyson an apology.

Realizing Dave won't relent, Roswell finally returns to his rational behavior and agrees to apologize under the condition the wolf shows him proof of his improvement and apologizes to him as well.

Dave returns to his more common emotional tendencies, trying to appeal to Roswell by asking if he's not willing to just trust him on this matter.

Roswell rejects that, but is willing to accept not fighting is the logical action given the proximity, and then retreats back to his room to cool off, ignoring Dave's plea for him to stay.

Scene analysis:

There are two things here to point out. The first is how Dave and Roswell's behaviors reverse during this conversation.

In the third intermission of my medal analysis, I've brought to your attention that Dave and Roswell parallel the other by reflecting the other's nature and behavior. Dave is internally rational and practical, but very emotional and sentimental externally, while Roswell is internally emotional and sentimental, but behaves logically and rationally externally.

During the argument, however, their natures are brought to the surface, causing them to behave and think like the other. This is an intentional change on their part, because it's an attempt to speak in the language the other understands.

Dave calmly uses arguments and facts to convince Roswell because that's the way the boar behaves. Roswell, on the other hand, exibits his emotional distress and uses sentimental appeal to convince Dave because that's how the hyena communicates.

This strategic change is caused by their emotional investment in Tyson. Dave loves and sees him as family, so he becomes confident and serious when he tries to protect him. Roswell, however, despises Tyson and sees him as a bully, so he can't understand why Dave shows such appreciation for the wolf and lashes out as a result.

Secondly, it's interesting to note how Roswell didn't manage to win this argument even though he was supposed to. The reason he's the one who should be correct is because even though his behavior towards Tyson is unfair and hurtful, the true source of this conflict doesn't lie in the grudge he holds against Tyson. The true root of this issue is Dave's selfishness and naivety.

Dave is the one who invited Tyson to the manor without consulting the others. He does this intentionally because he knew they wouldn't accept the wolf's presence at the manor. Dave claims he did this because it was fair and correct, saying that Tyson is a friend too and deserves the same treatment as everyone else.

What he fails to understand, however, is that this isn't his vacation, this is Roswell's vacation, for their friends. Tyson is Dave's friend but not the group's friend and even less Roswell's friend. Tyson is, however, the bully and abuser of both Roswell and Orlando, as well as the guy Dean and Sal are disapproving against thanks to the wolf's own behavior.

Dave quite literally lied to a victim of bullying to force said victim to be in the presence of their bully in an isolated environment for a month. This is very serious, and Dave is completely oblivious to the severity of his mistake.

Roswell could have immediately won the argument by saying this directly to Dave's face. After all, Dave trampled on his and Orlando's emotions by making such an awful, abusive and selfish decision. But instead, Roswell completely ignores that and guns for Tyson instead, which works against him because Tyson is innocent in this situation.

The questions that come to mind then are: Why doesn't Roswell call Dave out? Why does he target Tyson who's innocent in this matter? Why does Roswell behave so irationally and allows Dave to trample on his feelings in such a manner when he always defends himself and confronts people when he feels that they are treating him unfairly?

The answer to that is simple, it is because he loves Dave, and the way roswell expresses his love is based on a single concept: Devotion.

When he loves someone, he always has that person on his mind. All of his actions, thoughts and decisions are affected by that person because he always has their best interest in mind. This also causes him to wish for that person to act the same, to think about him and what's best for him, for them to believe in him, value him, side with him and do everything for him, just like he does.

These things are stated in canon to be felt by Roswell towards Dave. He openly states in the argument that his love for Dave makes him think of the hyena first before any decision or action, and in his final letter to Dave on day 24, he writes that, even though he knew it was impossible for Dave to save him, the boar wished that Dave would do everything he could to keep him alive like he did for him.

Roswell doesn't want to acknowledge that Dave's behavior was insensitive or that he's responsible because that would mean admitting that Dave is the offender, and that he doesn't value Roswell in the same intensity as the boar does him.

Roswell denies Dave's guilt by gaslighting himself into believing the reason Dave is treating him with such coldness is because of Tyson. Dave being naive enough to be manipulated by Tyson into bringing him so he could take advantage of the hyena by pretending to be nice is an easier pill to swallow than the simple truth that Dave just didn't care about him or the others at all when making the decision.

Villainizing Tyson to victimize Dave is the goal here, which is why Roswell antagonizes Tyson on purpose. He wants to show Dave that Tyson is still bad by drawing it out of the wolf by force. That way, Dave will finally reject Tyson and see that Roswell is right. This is a direct result of the boar's devoted love, because it gives him the desire to prove his righteousness to Dave so that he acknowledges Roswell is correct and takes a stand for him.

But this isn't the truth. Dave willingly made the decision to bring the wolf, and Tyson has truly changed for the better and is innocent in the situation. This is made very clear by Dave himself in the argument, and we can see that the clearer this becomes to Roswell as they argue, the more desperate and sad he becomes.

Dave claims that Roswell is forcing him to pick a side, however, Dave himself has already picked a side in the matter from his perspective, and that side was Tyson's. From the moment he chose to bring the wolf, Dave was already valuing Tyson above Roswell, Orlando and the others.

Roswell tries multiple times during the argument to make Dave see that indirectly, such as saying directly that he values him enough to consider his feelings before acting and asking Dave if he's not important. It only makes Dave more inclined to side with Tyson rather than Roswell, however.

He loses the argument by attacking an innocent instead of the offender, giving said offender ammo against him and causing Dave to feel further justified in his actions even though they are selfish. Both of them behave selfishly and childishly, and both are abusive to the other as a result.

Dave is naive to his selfishness, neglecting Roswell and taking him for granted without meaning to. Roswell is in denial, enabling Dave to keep behaving in abusive ways towards him because he's emotionally dependent on the hyena thanks to his feelings and doesn't want to damage their bond. The abusive nature of their relationship generated by their disconnection from separation is exposed.

The scene shows the reader that Roswell needs to stop being so unfairly dependent on Dave to the point he stops behaving rationally, and that Dave has to stop being so naive to the emotions of others to the point he behaves selfishly and hurts everyone around him.

It sets their characters well, and makes it clear that in order for their fractured bond to be restored, both will have to acknowledge their flaws and mistakes to each other and apologize so they can be better towards the other.

To conclude, these flaws were actually already foreshadowed by the narrative before they were explicitly shown, which further supports these observations.

In day 1, after Roswell is picked as the dinner partner, Dave and Roswell reminisce about their past together. Mid conversation, Dave wonders why Roswell stopped coming over to his house, and the boar answers it's simply because Dave didn't invite him over anymore at all. This statement shocks Dave, as he realizes it's true.

This visibly shows that Dave has been neglecting and taking his relationship with Roswell for granted for a while, and that he has been completely ignorant to this until the boar directly told him so.

It also shows that Roswell's aware of Dave's neglect, but has been pretending everything is fine and doing nothing to fix the problem. His dependency and denial are creating a toxic situation, to which neither him or Dave have the tools to fix... yet.