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menhera-info-archieve · 1 year

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in case you haven't seen it yet, here's the menhera 101 article by HoshiCandy from Kei Club Issue 3. not sure if i'll post the other menhera related articles from this issue or not, so consider checking the link in source if you're interested.

i'm also leaving a text transcription under the cut for anyone that may benefit from that

Menhera 101

Menhera fashion has quickly been gaining popularity worldwide! This fast growth has come with its fair share of misunderstandings about the community and style. Menhera artist and designer HoshiCandy is here with a lesson on menhera’s origins, history, and basics. Find more of her work on the pages before and after this article!

What is Menhera?

“Menhera” can be thought of as “a person who seeks mental wellbeing”.

The word “Menhera” was born in Japan in 2001, on the “Mental Health” board of anonymous forum 2ch, where users discussed their wellbeing. The users of this board were named “Mental Healthers” which was shortened to “Menhera”.

The Menhera community covers anything that might cause one mental suffering, such as: physical illness or disability, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, bullying, hyper-sexuality, sexism, homophobia, etc. Importantly, there is no need for a formal diagnosis, as the focus is on how you feel, and that you want to feel better.

It is difficult to talk about these topics in Japanese society without being heavily stigmatized. Menhera is a community to speak safely without that stigma. Of course, this stigma and need for community when it comes to one’s mental wellbeing is not limited to Japan, and that is why menhera has grown in the west as well.

Since the creation of the word in 2001, there have been several manga published with “Menhera” in the title, many Visual Kei songs about it, Menhera idol groups, and several menhera fashion brands.

However, an unfortunate addition to all this has been the discovery of the word in mainstream media...

Just as the topic of illness is heavily stigmatized in Japanese society, the word “Menhera” itself became quickly stigmatized and stereotyped as “an attention seeking, troublesome person” or “an overly attached girlfriend” (aka “yandere”). If you were to speak to a Japanese person about “Menhera”, this would most likely be what they would think you meant. This stereotype tends to be referred to as “Menhera Kei” in Japanese which is why we avoid the use of “kei” for Menhera in particular.

Despite all this, the true menhera community has continued to grow.

Menhera Motifs

Artists in the Menhera community created many works of “Vent Art” art that expresses their feelings and suffering. When this art was printed onto clothing, Menhera fashion was born.

These are some themes you will commonly see in Menhera:

Medication

Suicide

Self-harm

Hospitals

Sex and BDSM

Social Media Addiction

Heartbreak

Wearing Menhera art printed on clothing serves as a way of literally wearing one’s feelings on one’s sleeves. It turns invisible suffering visible, and fights against the stigma driven silence. This means that Menhera fashion is highly confrontational, with graphic depictions of illness symptoms. Although the onlooker may feel discomfort, the Menhera style says “this is my true reality, don’t pretend it doesn’t exist!”

Depending on the feelings of the wearer, Menhera fashion also says “although I am sick, I can still be ‘kawaii’” or “although I appear ‘kawaii’, on the inside I am suffering”.

Turning the invisible visible, forcing the silence to be broken, and challenging kawaii culture, these are the goals of Menhera fashion.

The Menhera Silhouette

Carefully avoiding a highly theatrical or OTT (over-the-top) look is important for maintaining the integrity of the goals of menhera. Menhera is a very casual style, with few accessories and light makeup. The key is for a coord to centre on Menhera imagery, whether vent art or text-focused designs, printed onto clothing.

Be careful not to dress up as the characters depicted in vent art, who are often costumey, gory, and OTT.

Menhera Coord checklist:

Printed Menhera art

Byojaku/Minimal makeup

Not OTT/Few accessories

Flat Shoes

[optional] Oversized top

[optional] Hime bangs

[optional] twintails

Colors can vary: a pastel yume look, or a gothic yami look, both are fine!

The makeup style is called “Byojaku” meaning “sickly/weak”. Reddish colors are applied to areas around the eyes to give the impression of crying or illness. The rest of the face is kept plain without much color.

A Note of Caution

The Menhera community is about healing, and seeking recovery and wellbeing. It advocates getting help, medication, therapy, and receiving support through your recovery journey.

True Menhera never encourages or enables harmful behaviors, and never glorifies them. Menhera fashion is an alternative way of expressing your suffering without self-harm. Menhera fashion empowers the individual through their recovery, but does not empower harmful behaviors.

There are some, sometimes labeled by the community as “Wannabe Menhera”, who mistook the meaning of “menhera” after seeing its rise in popularity, as it being trendy to fake mental illness. They engage in behaviors such as posting self-harm photos (real or faked) to social media with the tag #menhera, and other attention-seeking behaviors.

While this is the opposite of what the Menhera community stands for, is harmful to the unfortunate viewers of these photos, and creates further stigma against the community...it cannot be ignored that these “Wannabe Menhera”, too, need help and healing.

The Menhera fashion movement is to help you feel comfortable, unashamed, and kawaii in your skin, scars and all. It is NOT for encouraging people to create new scars “for the aesthetic”.

If you are struggling with mental or physical suffering, thoughts, or behaviors that cause harm to yourself or others, please seek help. If you do not believe you deserve help, you do, please seek help. If you believe you are faking it, you likely are not, your feelings are valid, please seek help.

Don’t have access to therapy?

We found a comprehensive list of suicide prevention hotlines at https://ibpf.org/resource/list-international-suicide-hotlines [link no longer working]

There are also free and affordable counseling services online like Better Help and Pride Counseling! Look online to find what option could work for you!

Alternatives to Menhera

After reading all this you may be thinking “the Menhera community sounds good but all the fashion is too restrictive for me” and if so, you’re not alone! But the good news is that you don’t have to wear Menhera fashion to be in the Menhera community.

Look up any of these alternative styles online for examples and more information:

Yamikawaii (“Sickly-cute”) is essentially the aesthetic of Menhera without the activism, a corrupted dark kawaii. Unfortunately the word was trademarked and now suffers from copyright takedowns.

Yumekawaii (“Dreamy-cute”) an aesthetic evolved from Fairy kei to describe everything pastel and kawaii, but with a slight edge, described as “fairytales with poison”.

Marekawaii (“Nightmare-cute”) created as an alternative to Yamikawaii to avoid the copyright issues, and as a counterpart to Yumekawaii. Marekawaii is specifically defined as being open to your own interpretation and style.

Medikawaii (“Medical-cute”) a pastel kawaii aesthetic focusing only on medical motifs, such as medicine and hospitals.

Gurokawaii (“Grotesque-cute”) mixes frightening and disturbing imagery with kawaii. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu helped popularize it.

Iryouu Kei (“Medical Kei”) a Visual Kei substyle with lots of gore and hospital theming, very OTT and theatrical, such as dressing like a nightmare nurse.

Living Doll artists see themselves and their bodies as a canvas to create art and express themselves, often with intricate makeup and body painting. This is a good one to look at if you’re into heavy artistic makeup.

#menhera #info #op #menhera.txt #menhera 101

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throwaway-yandere · 11 months

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And The Sun Is Silent (Yandere!Wriothesley/Reader)

Unreliable Synopsis: You, a former writer, received a fan letter. Truly a curious thing, for the contents appear more personal than what it should be.

A/n: I am not back. I posted this cuz first off, I adore Joe Zieja and all his works and I was so hyped when I saw he voiced Wriothesley and second, mfer gave me C4 qiqi. i love my daughter but cmon wrio, I literally got the same haircut as you do now-

CW: nothing really. Just a lil mind frick ig

“When I saw his hands wrapped around his dearest new spouse, cutting that vile wedding cake together, I wanted nothing more than to take that knife and slit his throat.”

(Y/n) was a serialized author in Fontaine whose works were primarily geared towards detective novels. However, their words were less laced with objectivity and “irrefutable facts” as the heavy pockets do when spinning their tales. Unfortunately, they weren’t meant to fill their coffers with hit-release masterpieces. (Y/n)– pen name “Maestro Justiniano” – was more engrossed in the perpetrators' psychology like the barkeeps and magicians do. They were the main characters– the sung hero of the tale. The glorified violence thrived in each passing page for the only mystery to be solved was “who will they target next?”

If young fans of other authors were seen as aspiring detectives or law enforcers, those who were known as fans of the Maestro were unjustifiably labeled as “future degenerates.” For (Y/n), it was funny. Overhearing grandparents waste their already fleeting energy to scold their grandchild’s love for their sinful work was their source of joy.

But (Y/n) (L/n) was not Maestro Justiano in public.

They were Duke Wriothesley’s spouse. Maestro Justiano is but a shade and (Y/n) is a human. The maestro does not feed on earth nor mora, but (Y/n) is obliged to. He bought his title, and he bought his spouse.

Gone was their free fourth finger. With a golden shackle, they sealed their fate to a wealthy man for table scraps. Perhaps it is fortunate that he is generous with his pockets, but to (Y/n), they would rather starve themselves writing than sit through another seminar about the nation’s ever-changing laws.

The Maestro’s life used to be so full of thrill; the “pelf” they received for each writing commission was a life worth their breaths.

The Maestro’s life used to be coated in moonlight; sneaking out and running gigs was their bread and butter.

But now the sun is silent, and (Y/n) stands with a tail behind their legs.

“(Y/n), do you need anything?”

Wriothesley asked even when he could guess the answer. Lazily, (Y/n) shifted from the covers, peering over with half-closed eyes.

“Nothing, Your Grace.” (Y/n) yawned. “Close the door.”

The Duke nods, understanding their fatigue. He silently shuts the door, and nothing of interest is to be noted afterward.

This has been their canned script every Wednesday to Friday without fail for the past 3 years.

In (Y/n)’s eyes, Wriothesley is a mere animal with whom they mate for survival. Barely any true emotional trysts occurred in their first two years of marriage. They’re a “friend” of fortune. With him always away from home, (Y/n) is left with nothing but their thoughts.

The nights were warm, but the mornings were cold.

And the sun is silent.

Their husband has never been quite the same after an incident during their 2nd year of marriage.

On the night they were attacked in the comfort of their shared home, a gear in his head was stolen.

Wriothesley held them, audibly more alarmed and broken than (Y/n)– the victim– was. He shook, afraid of what you must’ve gone through in his absence. Robbery, that’s what the records say. An armed man entered their home with the intent to steal. Black were his gloves and hair. The perpetrator thought they had been away on a business trip and pulled the trigger by surprise when they emerged from the kitchen.

That thief had failed to steal material possessions, but their husband had lost his good of intellect. He cannot stand the notion of leaving them alone. What is a collector’s item if it’s not in great condition? Wriothesley has locked the gates and kept (Y/n) in, and he’ll continue to do so to preserve their value.

“I want to meet you somewhere someday, in a place where the sun is no longer silent. I want to crawl and bury myself under your skin where I can read through your mind. The house is too quiet. I want to trace your collarbones. I want to bite into your flesh, and I need you to look into my eyes as I tear myself apart. I am in love with you, (Y/n). It’s unbelievable, but it’s true. I live within these walls. I am what keeps you grounded with a golden ring. But why does the sun hide from me?”

Despite how much closer the couple are now, (Y/n) feels more distant than before. Not that they had the right to say "The duke was not the man I married" when they rarely talked— but it surely felt that way.

And in one Sunday night, the forcibly retired author used their words not to immerse readers, but to intimidate guards to grant entry to their "beloved" husband's office.

"You fucking bitch…"

"Lovely to see you too, honey."

"You made me lose my job!!!"

"Here I thought you refer to it as a side-line."

"Are you fucking for real right now?!" They screamed and slammed a fist down on the table. The pain hasn't hit them yet as their unbridled shock and rage hit overdrive. "Since when did you have the right to just take my–"

"Your hobbies away?" Wriothesley placed down his chamomile tea and shrugged. "Honey, I'm not doing anything like that. No, I'm only protecting you."

"Oh, great!" They waved a hand around dramatically before slapping it back to their thigh, rolling their eyes. "Let me guess, there's a biiiig explanation that fits into one giant puzzle."

"You know me too well for someone who never initiates conversation." He smiled mockingly.

"You're right. Court Dense Publishing House is being investigated for numerous allegations. Toxic working environment, which included stalking and superiors leveraging pay for sexual favors might I add, and tax fraud. The details of the latter will bore you." Wriothesley continued.

He sighed. "Can't you tell? I'm just being a decent husband. What if you were being harassed and you were afraid to tell me?"

"Like hell, I was–" They took a sharp deep breath in. "Listen. Let me get back to my work and we won't have any problems, Your Grace."

"No can do. You're an ex-Maestro now."

“And you're an ex-con.” They quickly retorted.

…

“... You're calling me an ex-con?" Wriothesley laughed dryly. The lone sound made them inch their heels slightly backward.

His eyelids lowered as his dull gray eyes peeked behind underneath his tilted glare.

They had never seen him this serious.

"Who do you think turned me into one?”

…

They blinked.

His words– though not making sense without context– carried a heavy weight they had unfortunately missed.

His gaze and words were accusingly pointed.

At them.

…

Wriothesley laughed.

"I'm kidding, of course. Don't be so tense."

(Y/n) didn't laugh.

He smiled. They can't tell if it was fake or not. He's been too good at pretending to be nice that they never knew when he genuinely dropped the act.

Like Maestro Justiniano, that argument is history now.

And maybe that's why (Y/n) first thought it would be a comforting experience to read a story written by an avid fan.

It was a long manuscript. Sigewinne claimed it came from a fellow Melusine who wanted her favorite author's thoughts on how to write a criminal male lead. When asked for the writer's name, she refused to say it. (Y/n) respected it since they too posted anonymously…

But this reading sounds less like a professional job and more like a stalker's confession…

“When I first finished a book of yours in two sittings, I had formed a vague fantasy on how you looked like. You were a tall man, thin, long-necked, sharp-nosed, with a body slightly bent forward. Needless to say, I was stoked to find that description failed to perfectly describe who you were in person. I hope that with my new appearance, my description perfectly describes how your husband used to look as well. These black gloves just don’t fit me right.”

These black gloves…?

"Honey, I'm home!!! Oh, and Sigewinne's here too."

As soon as they heard the door open, (Y/n) shoved the fan's manuscript inside their drawer. Wriothesley hates seeing any semblance of creative writing inside the house.

"Can you brew two cups of tea for us?" Wriothesley asked as he removed his jacket, placing it recklessly on the sofa. "We're exhausted."

(Y/n) nodded. They never tell him how they make his tea. For a bottle weighing 8 fl oz, they'd take a rounded scoop of sunsettia powder to the pitcher and pour steamed 2% milk to whatever was the appropriate line. Once aerated for 3 seconds, they fill it with their macha mix with ¼’’ foam and ¾’’ more below the rim for the aesthetic.

The process is not as difficult as it sounds, but they like withholding information. Why else won't friends and family know that they're a prolific writer, right?

"Sure. I'll be right back."

They left.

Their “husband” picked up the letter they hastily hid, a faint smile playing on his face.

Were you frightened after reading it?

How did his favorite author react?

He wished he knew. But he’s no detective– he’s a present “degenerate”. He won’t find clues just by looking at the parchment. "Wriothesley" placed it back to where it was earlier and adjusted his black gloves to fit just right.

“Wriothesley” glanced at Sigewinne with a giddy smile.

“So, do you think they liked my writing?”

"(P.S: I finally figured out how you make your coffee. It's 3 pumps of Fonta, 1 shot of espresso roast, chilled milk, and stirred with ice. This unique combination would've perplexed me if I didn't find out you made it out of spite.

But it does taste good. I promise. After all, in the cold solitude of your sunless prison, I'll be the one brewing you coffee. May each sip be a reminder of my affection. The sun may be silent too in the Fortress, but maybe in there, you'll finally appreciate my warmth.")

#ansy-writes #tw: yandere #yandere genshin #yandere genshin x reader #yandere genshin impact #yandere #yandere x reader #yandere fanfiction #yandere male #yandere wriothesley #yandere wriothesley x reader #wriothesley x reader #wriothesley #genshin #yandere wriothesley x you #wriothesley x you #sigewinnie

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insanityclause · 4 months

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Over the past 13 years, Tom Hiddleston has died more times than he can recall. “Let me think about this,” the actor tells us, pausing to count in his head. “I think, officially, there were two big ones.”

He’s referring to his many exits from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the blockbuster franchise in which he’s played shape-shifting Norse god Loki Laufeyson since Kenneth Branagh’s 2011 film “Thor”—the son of Asgardians Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and Frigga (Rene Russo), and the half-sibling of Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the god of thunder.

The character has since bounced between villain and reluctant antihero across five films, a handful of post-credits scenes, and Michael Waldron’s Disney+ spinoff series “Loki,” which Hiddleston also executive produces. The show wrapped its second—and supposedly final—season last November. The finale presents an end for the character, but not one of the aforementioned “big ones.”

Hiddleston’s first “official” farewell came in Alan Taylor’s 2013 sequel “Thor: The Dark World,” which saw the god of mischief take a sword to the chest to save his beefy brother. “As written in the first script, it was a true sacrifice,” Hiddleston says. Unfortunately for Marvel’s long-term plans, the actor had done too good a job playing the trickster.

“When Marvel [executives] were testing the movie, they’d given [viewers] questionnaires that said, ‘Is there anything you didn’t understand?’ ” he remembers. “Literally every single audience member said, ‘Well, obviously, Loki’s not really dead.’ ”

In classic comic-book fashion, the character did return, gallivanting alongside his brother in Taika Waititi’s 2017 follow-up “Thor: Ragnarok.” He died again one year later (“big one” number two) in the Russo brothers’ “Avengers: Infinity War.” There were no smokescreens or questionnaires this time; audiences watched as Loki’s neck was crushed by the purple fist of intergalactic warlord Thanos (Josh Brolin).

Hiddleston remembers arriving in Atlanta to shoot his final scene and immediately bumping into Brolin. “He came up to me, gave me this huge hug, and said, ‘I’m so sorry, man.’ ”

He meant it, too; everyone meant it. The sun, it seemed, had actually set on Hiddleston’s MCU journey. “At the end of that scene, I got a big round of applause, and everybody was so sweet and kind and gracious,” he says. “I got notes and emails saying, ‘Tom, you’ve done so much for us—what a journey. Come and see us anytime.’ I really thought that was the end.”

And it was, for real, right up until it wasn’t—when the time-traveling shenanigans of 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame” blasted a younger version of Loki out of the established canon and into his own series. Over two seasons, the multiversal storyline envisions the title character as a figure who exists outside time and space. Across all there is, was, and may come to pass, there will always be a Loki, in some form, wreaking havoc.

Hiddleston has long since accepted what this means for him as an actor. Maybe “Loki” Season 2 really was his last time in the role; or maybe he’ll play him until the sun burns out. “I’ve realized that, in human consciousness, that’s who Loki is,” he says. “Loki is this ancient, mythic character, who, in our collective mythology, represents the trickster, the transgressor, the boundary-crosser, the shape-shifter—somebody who’s mercurial and spontaneous and unpredictable who will always confound your expectations and wriggle out from underneath your certainties and convictions. Someone who we need and [who] is necessary.”

Hiddleston pauses, getting emotional. “Maybe Loki escaping death a couple of times is sort of an emblem of who he is in our culture,” he says, grinning at his own gusto. The actor has a habit of being self-deprecating about the depth of the character’s lore. “I spend a lot of time thinking about Loki. You can probably tell.”

You can tell, and it’s incredibly endearing. Talking to Hiddleston about Loki feels like discussing Shakespeare’s Richard III with Laurence Olivier or Tennessee Williams’ Blanche DuBois with Jessica Lange. They were actors who put their definitive stamps on those roles by returning to the well and constantly digging deeper.

In conversation, Hiddleston is equally as likely to reference comic-book arcs as he is the ancient, anonymous Old Norse scribes of the “Poetic Edda” or Richard Wagner’s epic four-cycle opera “Der Ring des Nibelungen.” He speaks reverently of actors who embodied the trickster god before him, like Jim Carrey in Chuck Russell’s 1994 comedy “The Mask” and Alan Cumming in Lawrence Guterman’s 2005 sequel, “Son of the Mask.” He also heaps praise on those who played the part after him, such as his “Loki” costars Sophia Di Martino, Richard E. Grant, Deobia Oparei, and—in one very surreal Season 1 moment—“some alligator they found somewhere.” He cites legendary Marvel creators Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Walter Simonson alongside the likes of English essayist Walter Pater and Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, who once wrote of life as a “splendid torch” to keep burning for those who follow.

“Loki is ‘a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment,’ ” Hiddleston quotes, “and I want to make it burn as brightly as I can before passing it on to future generations.”

This level of study started before he even landed the role. He recalls the 24 hours leading up to his “Thor” audition, when he was 28 years old. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 2005, he quickly earned small-screen and stage acclaim—but he hadn’t yet achieved a major breakthrough. When he received the script for “Thor,” it felt familiar. “I remember thinking, This is almost Shakespearean, this language,” Hiddleston says. “What’s the best example I can [look to] of an actor who managed to humanize and make real this elevated world of myth?”

He found the answer in Christopher Reeve, who played the title role in Richard Donner’s 1978 blockbuster “Superman.” “He’s masterful in that film,” Hiddleston says. “In a way, it’s a similar premise: He’s a god or he’s a being from a different realm, and it’s not naturalistic in the way that we might expect. He does it so truthfully, and it’s so clear and clean and open and honest. I thought, If I can even approximate or get close to the kind of clarity that Christopher Reeve had in those films, I’ll be lucky.”

And then, the morning of his “Thor” audition, Hiddleston went for a run, “which is my habit before doing anything unusual,” he explains.

Running has remained a constant throughout the actor’s MCU tenure. At any given moment over the last decade, the god of mischief was likely doing laps around Marvel’s go-to shooting location, Pinewood Studios (now Trilith Studios) in Atlanta. “Life is movement; I really believe that,” Hiddleston says.

“I find when I’m running or walking, the repetitive nature of it relaxes the mind and allows ideas and inspiration to come from a deeper place. I see my work as an actor—especially in preparation for a project or a scene—as almost preparing myself to be open and ready to receive ideas, to receive energy from other actors, to receive energy from my imagination.”

Hiddleston found the technique particularly helpful when he was filming a scene for the “Loki” series premiere that he calls “one of the most thrilling challenges I’ve ever had as an actor.” In it, Loki has been poached from the flow of time itself by the temporality-policing Time Variance Authority and forced to watch what is, essentially, a highlight reel of his entire MCU arc. It’s one of the most deeply existential moments you’ll ever find streaming alongside the likes of “Bluey” and the “Cars” movies. Here is a man watching the sum total of his life—his hopes, his dreams, his failures, his own death—play out in a 30-second clip that ends with the cold, clinical words: “End of file.”

“I just kept imagining: If you were afforded the opportunity or forced to watch your own death as a bystander, it would bring about an existential shock and crisis unlike any other,” Hiddleston explains. “It was a scene where I thought, I don’t have a reference for how to play this. I just have to allow shock, disgust, disgrace, shame, disbelief, acceptance, incredulity, and sorrow to exist in the center of me.”

As an executive producer on the series, Hiddleston had a say as to which of Loki’s many misdeeds would play in the sequence. He chose clips like Frigga’s death in “Thor: The Dark World” and his father’s final words in “Thor: Ragnarok”—moments Hiddleston knew would most fill the character with regret. As production was preparing to shoot the scene, he asked first assistant director Richard Graves for a 20-minute warning.

“I decided to jog around the stage and internalize as many of those memories of those people, those characters, those actors [as possible]—to try and find the center of my own vulnerability,” Hiddleston says. “Part of the joy of it was just going back to basics, trying to simplify this very complex thing…. Go for a jog, get into your body, allow yourself to be open, and just be there; just feel it.”

One “Loki”-like time jump later, Hiddleston found himself in a similar situation as he was preparing to shoot his final moment of Season 2—a scene that effectively caps Loki’s 13-year arc. Across 12 episodes, the show guided its title character toward a truly heroic end: With all of existence on the verge of collapse, he steps out of time to tie the strands of every reality together. As the credits roll, Loki sits at the center of time, holding in place all that is—alone.

It’s a lot for any actor to internalize, especially one who’s performing solo in front of a blue screen. With 45 minutes to cameras rolling, episode co-director Aaron Moorhead made a suggestion. “He said to me, ‘Why don’t you go back, if you can bear it, and watch some of your work [over] the last 15 years?’ ” Hiddleston remembers. “ ‘Take it in, see what it means to you, and then carry it when you step out onto the stage.’ ”

The actor took Moorhead’s advice to heart. And suddenly, without meaning to, he was mirroring the moment that started the series: absorbing the sum total of Loki’s MCU run. But this time, his regret had been replaced with gratitude. Hiddleston watched clips from “Thor,” remembering a time when he and Hemsworth had yet to ascend to the A-list. He recalled working with powerhouses like Hopkins and Russo, and the bonds he forged with the “original six Avengers” in 2011. He thought about how fun it was to film “Thor: Ragnarok” with Tessa Thompson and Jeff Goldblum, and of the more recent friendships he found with his “Loki” castmates Di Martino and Owen Wilson.

“I thought, What Loki is doing, he is doing for his friends. And so, Tom, why don’t you do it for your friends?” Hiddleston says. “That’s where the two of us met in that moment. And then I was so grateful I had this most amazing crew, and we did it together.”

The actor is, of course, noncommittal as to whether this is actually the end of his MCU run. The franchise is scheduled out until at least 2027, and Hemsworth has mentioned his desire to make another “Thor” film. And if Loki’s past has proven anything, even the most official endings can be undone.

Either way, it seems to Hiddleston that something significant has ended, even if it’s just Loki’s full-circle arc. “I hope it feels redemptive because his broken soul is partially healed; and you see that this character, who is capable of love, has made a decision from and for love,” he says. The actor cites the “beautiful prologue” of the first “Thor” film, in which Hopkins’ Odin tells his two sons: “Only one of you can ascend to the throne, but both of you were born to be kings.”

“At the end of Season 2, Loki is sitting on a kind of throne; but it’s not arrived in the shape he expected, and there’s no glory in it,” Hiddleston explains. “There’s a kind of burden, and he’s alone. He’s doing it for his friends, but he has to stay there without them. There’s a poetic melancholy there which I found very moving.”

For now, Hiddleston “can’t even conceive” of his life without Loki. He only hopes that he’s lived up to his guiding ethos as an actor, which he sums up with a plea from E.M. Forster’s 1910 novel “Howards End”: “Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height.”

“The feedback loop for actors is that we get to inhabit a fiction,” Hiddleston says. “But hopefully, that fiction bears the shape of a truth that we recognize about life—that what we do reflects the ups and downs, the peaks and troughs, and the breadth and profundity of all of our lives.”

Hiddleston exists in that space between fiction and reality, the work and the resulting art, the prose and the passion. Long after we’ve moved on from our interview and started casually discussing the cherry blossoms blooming in New York, his eyes light up. He’s made another connection, remembered one more thing—just one last thing he’d like to impart about Loki.

He spends a lot of time thinking about Loki. You can probably tell.

“I’m so aware that the reason I’ve been able to play him for so long is because of the audience’s curiosity and passion,” Hiddleston says. “I’ve been delighted to find that for a character of such stature, he’s remarkably human. Many of the characteristics that people connect to in Loki are deeply human feelings. That’s been the pleasure, is infusing this elevated character with humanity.”

Even then, honestly, it feels as if Hiddleston, like Loki, could go on forever. Unfortunately, outside of the MCU, time moves in only one direction. Once again, he has to run.

This story originally appeared in the June 6 issue of Backstage Magazine. Subscribe to In the Envelope: The Actor's Podcast to hear our full conversation with Hiddleston (out 6/6).

#tom hiddleston #interview #backstage magazine #loki s2 #emmy fyc

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fataldrum · 2 years

Text

Who's Afraid of Bad Attempts at Journalism?

Some of you may have seen a callout post on Medium about Rusty Quill. The author claims to have spoken with a number of people who worked with RQ. The allegations are worth considering, but they should be taken with a heavy grain of salt.

I have trouble taking the callout post seriously for a number of reasons.

The author is head of marketing for Fable & Folly. They initially failed to mention this, but later added this incredibly defensive note: "Editor’s Note: [name] is currently the Marketing Director for Fable & Folly Network, but has worked as an independent creator and journalist for longer." That's a huge conflict of interest.

2. I'm not seeing any evidence that this person is a "journalist." They don't list it on the resume on their website. If they are a journalist, they're not doing it on Medium with (as of this writing) 47 followers.

3. The article title is pure clickbait. It suggests Alex J. Newall is someone to be afraid of and makes vague allegations of RQ showing "aggression," but he's barely mentioned in the article at all. It's an unnecessarily inflammatory title, but that's what they seem to want: to stir drama.

4. The article uses TMA character names as pseudonyms. This was extremely distracting and gave the whole post a weird, cartoonish vibe. As was the decision to use the phrase, "Make your statement, face your fear" to link the post.

5. The article depends entirely on anonymous sources. While anonymous sources are necessary sometimes, the problem is that no one can independently verify what they said. They claim the sources asked to be anonymous because they were afraid RQ would retaliate and ruin their careers, or the fandom would attack them. That may be true. Or it may be because they signed NDAs, which would make it illegal to publicly discuss what happened. An NDA would be a good reason not to come forward, but unfortunately, we can't ask them about it, because they're anonymous.

6. They claim RQ has threatened to sue multiple people--okay, what were the circumstances? It literally never comes back up. Were these NDA violations? Breach of contract? No clue, they don't bother to elaborate.

7. They talk about salaries in different currencies without converting, in the same paragraph. Then they bring up the rates for freelance audio engineers, as if freelancers don't generally get higher rates than in-house staff.

8. The author is finding posts on Twitter and blocking anyone who disagrees with them. I've never interacted with the author, but they found my post and blocked me and others on the thread for daring to criticize the article. That alone speaks volumes about their professionalism. (And also explains why I didn't find any critical comments when I first looked: they're probably all banned).

There are doubtlessly far more issues with the post, but those are just the ones that were immediately apparent.

None of this is to say I think RQ is a well-run company. The dismissive treatment of their server mods alone tells me they have serious problems. But we should all think carefully when we read the allegations in the post, and consider the credibility and motivations of the author.

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gothicwidowsworld · 2 years

Text

Domestic L.H

instagram edit - Domestic dad!lewis x wife!reader

its been a while since i’ve done an ig post but i had an idea for a while but not enough inspo for a full imagine unfortunately

Liked by y/nHamilton, nicolashamilton, and 513,581 others

Lewishamilton Racing has always been a part of me, from my first remote control car, my dad tinkering in the shed putting together second hand parts just so I could race to fighting for my eighth World Title. Formula One has given me a platform to share my voice, bring awareness to the injustices & be a part of something worthy of the history books.But nothing will ever beat the feeling of walking my little girl home from ballet class, having tea parties, mornings where the only sound that fills our home is love and laughter. But most importantly allowing me to being the Father & Husband I’ve always dreamed of being.

view all 492,628 comments

georgerussell63 I swear she’s grown each time I see her

y/nhamilton Don’t let Lew hear you say that George… Apparently he’s not ready for her to grow up

| lewishamilton and you are? 👀

sebastianvettel Our children are our future, we should cherish all the moments we have with them no matter how irrelevant they seem

emotionalf1damage not seb being deep af in the comments

Hamiltonhugs221 Sylvie is so adorable i actually love her

Liked by nicolashamilton, mercedesamgf1 and 286,715 others

y/nhamilton lets play a game of spot the difference

view all 147,533 others

Mercedesamgf1 Only a Hamilton could look so 🔥

| y/nhamilton She learnt from the best

hamiltonisgoat how does a literal child look better than me

User3083 Sylvie is serving straight looks sorry not sorry

Liked by lewishamilton, georgerussell63 and 63,466 others

y/nhamilton I ask Lewis to fix a lightbulb a week ago and it’s all “Yeah Baby I gotch you, it’s on my list.” Baby Hamilton pouts for 0.5 seconds and it’s automatically “Daddy will fix it right now!”

view 37,953 comments

Cullen_angela The Hamilton pout will get you

| y/nhamilton tell me about it Angie 🙄

georgerussell63 want me to fix your lightbulb y/n/n?

mercedesmad3234 George Russells the kind of guy to offer to do his teammates diy

russellgeorge2018 ik that trend is like so dead but he literally is… george russells the kind of guy to say “just call me a professional’ after accomplishing the most simple task

nicolashamilton it’s ok y/n that superpower skipped me so you’re not the only one

| y/nhamilton You little liar Nicky that's so not true at all

hamilton44ever y can i for real see that happening 😂

#gothicwidow #instagram imagine #f1 imagines #formula one imagine #f1 x Reader #formula one x reader #lewis hamilton imagine #Lewis Hamilton instagram au #dad!lewis Hamilton x wife!reader #formula one imagines #Lewis Hamilton x reader #f1 instagram au

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thewertsearch · 1 year

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[ there was more to this ask, but some was spoilers 😆 - C ]

Ooh, that is a fun challenge! I might make this a bigger Title post, actually, because it's been a good while since we've had one of those.

...alright, I just finished, and this one kind of got away from me. I hope it's ok that I sort of hijacked your post to talk about Aspects as a whole - but rest assured, I did answer the original question. Let's get into it!

Unfortunately, it might be kind of difficult to make Class guesses. My theory is that they're Sburb's take on RPG party roles - and for obvious reasons, we haven't seen how any of the non-Player characters would fit into a Sburb party. A full analysis of the hypothetical Midnight Crew, Exile and Guardian sessions would be fun, but it's a little out of scope for this question.

Personality certainly seems to be a factor. I don't think it's a coincidence, for example, that the Seers are the most inquisitive members of their respective parties. Dave and Karkat both hide their true emotions behind a persona - but then again, so do Feferi and Jade, two happy-go-lucky Witches with incredibly dark backstories. Dave may be the worst offender, but half the cast is hiding behind some sort of facade.

John, for his part, doesn't seem to have anything in common with Equius - at least, nothing I can see. I might dig a little deeper for human/troll Class parallels once we've seen more of Equius and Feferi, but our sample sizes are so small that it's going to be hard to tell which shared traits are intentional.

Anyway, none of the other classes feature a pair of Players that I could toss into a Venn diagram, so we're at a bit of a dead end.

I suppose I could approach this from another angle, and try to extrapolate a Class from each character's life circumstances - for example, by speculating that Grandpa's inheritance of the Betty Crocker brand makes him a potential Heir - but that's clearly not an accurate method, given that literal heiress Feferi is a Witch.

See, Classes are a tough nut to crack! The main issue here is that the comic has given us very little to work with - it's been tight-lipped on Titles in general, and there's been almost no exposition on Classes specifically.

It might be easier just to try and assign Aspects to each of the non-Players - so that's what I'm going to do. I'll also take the opportunity to put forward my best guess for what each Aspect means.

Without further ado:

Time means time.

This one seems extremely straightforward. Not all the Aspects are quite so literal - Breath, for example, seems more closely related to wind than the body function it's named after - but Time is about engaging directly with its namesake. It may have other meanings as well, but we haven't seen any yet.

If you wield Time, then you're the session's designated time traveler - which is a lot less cool than it sounds, because it means you're on Doomed Timeline cleanup duty. Enjoy the corpse disposal!

Both of the comic's Time Players have fashioned their own personal time machines out of musical instruments. Music seems to have some connection to Time - which makes sense, since it's an art form of pitch, rhythm and beat. Music is time.

We can also talk for a second about Dave's Quest. As we'll see, each Land Quest seems to directly concern the Player's Aspect. Dave's Quest is to...

...um.

Well, one of these is Dave's Quest. The LOHACse is the only one of the two which is directly related to Time, but I've speculated that Dave's sword-in-the-stone quest will involve him rewinding Caledfwlch to an earlier point in its timeline. Plus, the Caledfwlch quest also speaks to Dave's Class as a Knight, so I think it's the real one.

For the sake of completeness, let's also talk about the Time Lands. Each Land always seems to feature one trait which either directly or obliquely references its Player's Aspect. LOHAC is self-explanatory, but Aradia's Land of Quartz and Melody is an interesting case, as its 'Aspect trait' could be either of its two descriptors. Quartz could reference the quartz in a modern clock, and Melody could reference the musical connection I mentioned above.

I can't think of any non-Players with particularly strong ties to Time - aside from the Felt and Lord English, who we know very little about. Let's say they're all Time Players, and English rules over them as a Prince of Time. As a mob boss and destroyer of worlds, he undoubtedly shares some of Eridan's megalomania.

Space... well, we actually don't have much for Space. We haven't seen Jade or Kanaya do anything with their Aspect, nor do we know anything about their Quests.

We do know that both Space Lands contain the Forge, so maybe there's something to that. Presumably it's going to forge something, and I think it's probably where you're supposed to create the universe. If your task is literally to create Space, it makes sense that a Space Player would take point - but that begs the question of what would happen in a session without a Space Player.

Maybe the game prefers a Space Forge, but it can spawn on another Land in lieu of one - or maybe Space is the 'default' Aspect, and it's actually mandatory in every session.

As far as Space's symbolism is concerned, my assumption is that it's as straightforward as Time, but we'll need to see more.

While I'm here, I guess I should dip my toe into this hot mess.

Yes, LOFAF's Space Word does appear to be Frogs. Yes, that does imply that Kanaya's was also Frogs, or something equally mysterious. No, I do not know what this could possibly mean.

These frogs are apparently heralds for their god, Bilious Slick, whose shadow has been looming over the comic for months now. I guess their appearance on the Space Lands implies that Slick is Space themed, which is at least consistent with my theory that he's the final obstacle between the Players and their universe.

Moving on, because I give up.

(Oh, and if anyone's a Space Player, it's Bec. You could also make an argument for Mom Lalonde, since her home was fitted with an observatory, but that's very tenuous. We don't know much about Space, so I don't know how else to tie a character to the Aspect.)

There's a lot going on with Light.

All Quests so far have had ties to the Player's Aspect, so whatever Jaspers thinks he's talking about here should have something to do with Light.

Jaspers... seems to be talking about different ways to represent information, and instructing Rose to find a particular DNA sequence. (I have to assume this isn't the MEOW sequence, because I don't think Sburb wants Rose to fill LOLAR's oceans with First Guardians.) So, it sort of looks like Light is information, doesn't it?

Well... maybe. See, things are are complicated by the fact that Dave's Quest above was also Knight-themed, so this spiel from Jaspers could be partially Seer-themed. How can we tell which is the Seer stuff, and which is the Light?

Recently, Rose said this, seemingly confirming that her Title is about information ('knowing shit'), and also implying that the 'knowing' is a Seer thing.

This allow us to compare her to Terezi, the other Seer. As we'll see below, she specializes in discerning people's personalities and motivations - literally, seeing into their minds - so it sounds like being a Seer is about perceiving or 'seeing' things that relate to your Aspect.

Rose, the Seer of Light, should therefore have an advanced perception of Light - but just what is Light? What can Rose see?

Well, she says she can see 'the big picture'.

I think Rose's powers allow her to zoom out, understand the broad strokes of a situation, and see how it all ties together - and I think that is the essence of Light.

Dave wonders how he's going to navigate the Furthest Ring's twisted-up space, so she scans the overall situation with her Light powers, and vaguely understands that it won't be a problem. Dave will be able to play his part.

However, if he asked why, exactly, it won't be a problem, or how he's going to do it, she'd be stumped. That's not her department.

I think I sort of understand what Light means now, but I can't think of a succinct way to describe it. The zooming-out Aspect, maybe? The everything-is-connected Aspect? The don't-sweat-the-details Aspect?

Guys, I think I'm starting to understand Homestuck!

Ah, shit.

Yeah, I don't know how Vriska or her powers slot into this interpretation. As the Thief of Light, I guess she'd be stealing... the bigger picture... from other people? And that lets her take their luck, somehow?

I guess when you give yourself 'good luck', you are sort of improving your situation in the general sense, rather than the specific. You don't know the details of how your luck will manifest, but you don't really need to - all you need to know is that it'll be good for you.

I don't know. This is getting messy, and more than a little abstract. I'm sure Vriska will be doing a lot of luck-stealing, so we'll hopefully learn more as we go.

At least the Land of Maps and Treasure fits Light-as-the-big-picture. A map is, literally, a big picture.

A flurry of disquieting happenstance is related to the ADORED SOVEREIGN. With no other options, her counsel is all that is left to be sought. Abdication is never ideal. But in the face of inevitable conquest, conceding ground can supply the only remaining advantage.

WQ, then, seems like a good fit for a Light Player. After listening to PM's full report, she seems to understand how the pieces fit together.

The Queen knows that Jack wants her dead, and clearly understands how dangerous a Player item can be, in the wrong hands. She doesn't know what's in the package, or what Jack will do with it - but she doesn't need to. She can see the writing on the wall, so she retreats.

I did a bit of Breath research for this post, and landed on the above quote. I think Breath is about direction and destination.

TT: John? TT: Are you there? -- tentacleTherapist [TT] is now an idle chum! -- EB: hey, yeah i'm here! EB: and not dead i think. TT: I know. TT: I've been watching you scramble through the house like a lunatic. TT: You should have answered me sooner.

John's a meandering kind of guy. He's wandered haphazardly around the session for three thousand pages, but he always seems to reach his goal. Despite not knowing where to go, he always seems to be where he needs to be.

John's Quest as the Heir of Breath has been explained in detail. He needs to unclog the pipes of LOWAS and defeat Typheus, freeing his Land's fireflies from their cloudy prison. In essence, John's Quest is to give these bugs a new direction, allowing them their full axis of movement once again.

There might also be some Heir stuff in this Quest, but its ultimate goal seems to align pretty well with that Breeze quote above, so I'm willing to accept it as Breath evidence.

AG: Have you ever tried to fly? I 8et you haven't! AG: How a8out we take to the skies, Pupa! AG: Hahahaha, oh you like that idea, Pupa? Yes, you do. I can feel it in your simple, mallea8le 8rain. AG: You want to fly so 8ad!

Breath might also have something to do with agency - or at least, the ability to choose your own actions. John's freedom-themed Quest isn't the only example of this - Tavros's entire arc is about how Vriska keeps denying him agency, while pretending she's doing the opposite.

(I'm going to avoid comparing Homestuck to other works, because this post is long enough as it is, so you're just going to have to imagine the twelve paragraphs of Deltarune meta that would otherwise be placed here.)

AT: bECAUSE THE ONLY TIME i EVER HAD FUN PLAYING THIS GAME WAS WHEN i WAS ASLEEP,

Tavros just wanted to do his own thing. He wanted to ignore the game and float around Prospit, away from everyone's expectations - but he was denied this opportunity, again and again. It's no wonder that he's on a bit of a high right now, after being granted the freedom of his new robo-legs.

As for potential Breath Players - well, CD reminds me of John a little, but he seems a lot more likely to stay on task. I don't know what Aspect he'd be assigned.

Now - we're onto the Aspects we've only seen in trolls. We don't have as much for most of these, since we haven't seen any troll Quests, nor any Aspect powers sans Vriska and Terezi.

Terezi, the Seer of Mind, deals in personality - or maybe, more generally, vibes.

CG: WE'RE NOT EXILING JACK, HE'S COOL. [...] GC: [...] 1 DO NOT G3T 4 GOOD F33L1NG FROM H1M! GC: H3 K1ND OF CG: STINKS? [...] GC: W3LL GC: SORT OF GC: H3 DO3SNT SM3LL B4D 4CTU4LLY GC: H3 SM3LLS R34LLY CL34N 4ND SH1NY 4ND D4RK D4RK D444RK L1K3 4N O1L SL1CK 4ND TH3R3 1S 4 T1NY H1NT OF L1COR1C3 TH3R3 TOO GC: 1TS MOR3 L1K3 GC: TH3 W4Y H3 MOV3S GC: 1 SM3LL H1S SMOOTH MOT1ONS 4ND TH3 W4Y H3 SQU1NTS H1S 3Y3S 4ND 1T G1V3S M3 TH1S R34LLY N3RVOUS F33L1NG

When she smells someone, her Mind-enhanced perception doesn't just tell her what they look like - it also seems to communicate that person's essence. Terezi can see the idea of Jack Noir, here. She's smelling what it feels like to be inside his head.

GC: TH3 D4Y 1T H4PP3N3D W4S TH3 F1RST T1M3 1 3V3R H34RD FROM MY LUSUS GC: SH3 WOK3 M3 UP, 4ND 3V3R S1NC3 H4S B33N T34CH1NG M3 4 D1FF3R3NT W4Y TO S33 GC: 4 D1FF3R3NT W4Y TO P3RC31V3 3V3RYTH1NG 1 GU3SS, NOT JUST 1N 4 S3NSORY W4Y

Terezi is also a naturally perceptive person, so it's sometimes unclear whether her reads are due to Seer clairvoyance or her own deductive abilities. As a general rule, I'll only treat her insight as a Mind power if she explicitly refers to her sense of smell as its source, since that's the avenue for her supernatural perception.

GC: T3LL M3 YOUR R34L N4M3!!! >:[ TG: ok lets say its TG: dave why not GC: D4V3! GC: TH4T SM3LLS L1K3 TRUTH GC: 1 W1LL D3C1D3 TO B3L13V3 1T >:] TG: fuck

Therefore, I'm pretty sure her powers do, in fact, allow her to detect lies. Mind, then, might be related to the concept of truth - as in, your Mind is the truth of who you are, stripped of all illusions.

I was initially going to place Droog here, since he seems to be the only Crew member with his head screwed on, but I no longer think Mind is about being rational or analytical.

Blood is the first Aspect I don't really have a guess for. Maybe it's got something to do with genetics - Karkat is a carcinoGeneticist, after all, and a mutant to boot.

Spades Slick is blood brothers with a Knight of Blood, and he's got a lot in common with Karkat, commanding his party with a moderately annoying leadership style. I'll put him here on the strength of those parallels, and I can revisit it when Blood is explained.

We don't know much about Nepeta, so we don't know much about Heart. Shipping is all about drawing them, though, so maybe Heart is about romance - or, more broadly, relationships and connections.

Nepeta's Land of Little Cubes and Tea is a lolcat joke, so it might not conform to the Aspect Word pattern. I guess, since the cubes are sugar cubes, it might be a pun on 'sweetheart'? Who knows.

I'll put Hearts Boxcars here, and not just because of his name. He's the only member of the Midnight Crew with any interest in shipping.

Feferi revived Sollux with a kiss, so Life is probably healing, as it is in many other element systems.

How her Land of Dew and Glass relates to Life is a mystery. While dew can refer to condensation on any surface, it's often used to describe the water droplets which accrete on grass and other flora. That's kind of a connection to a living thing, but feels like a stretch and a half.

Let's also put Nanna here, since she's the only true healer in the cast. I don't know why the other sprites don't use the healing beam.

Our Void Player is in a Land of Caves and Silence - a hole in the earth, and an absence of sound. Void seems to represent negation, or a lack of something.

Also - this might be a reach, but Scratch describes the gaps in his clairvoyance as 'pockets of void', so perhaps Void also has something to do with uncertainty - aka, a lack of information.

Most of the Guardians could go here, really. Bro seems the best fit, since he's constantly hiding from Dave, and completely vanishes for most of the session.

When a timeline is marked for destruction, we say that it's doomed.

Doom seems to represent death, obliteration and entropy. Sollux Entered into the Land of Brains and Fire, and I think it's pretty clear that Fire is the trait which is tapping his Aspect.

Doom may also be the Aspect of prophecy. After all, Sollux is a prophet of Doom - so maybe he's a prophet because of Doom. It could also be related to his nature as a Mage, but Mages haven't been explained, so I can't speculate.

I originally thought that Sollux might be a Seer - but the Seer Class seems to be about gathering information related to a particular Aspect, rather than directly divining the future. Maybe a Seer of Time could see future events, but it's certainly not a default ability of the class.

Grandpa seems to have some ties to Doom. He prophesized Jade's death to her when he told her about her dead Dream Self - plus, he's a hunter, with a house full of corpses. Also, his entire presence in the session is overshadowed by the spectre of his future death. This is probably the Aspect guess I'm most confident in.

I guess there's also Hope, a brand-new Aspect with no lore. Eridan's 'hope' would seem to be expressed in the fact that he constantly hits on people, hoping in vain for a yes. Thankfully, we're not aware of any non-Players like that....

The mail is the one final hope for resurrecting a dead planet from its ashes, and the letter carriers are the brave soldiers of God in this righteous crusade. They are the defenders of the light of knowledge, free communication, and the exchange of ideas. They are the bold toters of all those little papery conduits of freedom, the white postmarked angels that whisper a message on their deliverance, a promise to the yearning: "There is hope yet."

...but PM is pretty much screaming about hope in her mail monologue, so we'll put her here.

ORDER IN THE COURT. YOU WILL HAVE ORDER IN THIS COURTROOM. IF EVERYONE DOES NOT SETTLE DOWN YOU WILL CLEAR OUT THIS COURTROOM, YOU SWEAR TO GOD.

It's hard to classify the Aimless Renegade. He's all about crime and punishment - which is certainly a Terezi trait, but I don't think it's a Mind trait.

As for Dad, he has a well-established gentlemanly personality, but I don't know what Aspect is the most 'gentlemanly'.

I could try and classify more obscure characters like FedoraFreak, the Pen-pal, Jaspersprite or the Hussie self-insert, but I'll tell you right now I don't have any guesses. Still, that was fun, and it was a good opportunity for me to update my thoughts surrounding the Aspects!

#homestuck liveblog #full liveblog #act 5.2 #theories #asks #deep dives #classpect

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dailydemonspotlight · 3 months

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Kinmamon - Day 65

Race: Enigma

Alignment: Light-Neutral

July 5th, 2024

Among the scores of demons in the SMT series, the Enigma race is one of the most curious. Made up entirely of demons whose origins are wholly unknown, or otherwise hard to track, the race as a whole is incredibly difficult to even parse, and unfortunately, today's Demon of the Day is one of those that belong to this accursed collection. Welcome Kinmamon, an incredibly strange god of Okinawa with a notable lack of sources. Yep, we have another one of these.

Kinmamom is a purported Okinawan deity originating from Ryukyuan religion, but almost everything surrounding it is vague and murky before its eventual co-opting into the Ijun religion of Ryukyu. While basically everything regarding it seems to paint it as a recent development, a god created for Ijun to be the cosmic deity above all others, there are many other sources that contest this.

Ijun, a Shinto offshoot religion native to Okinawa, is a modern religion created in 1972 to worship Kinmamom, yet there are many other things relating to this deity that make it difficult to parse- for one, a 19th century play called "Strange Tales of the Bow Moon" purportedly references Kinmamom, as this tumblr post by @yamayuandadu goes over, referenced in the Japanese wikipedia page about Kinmamom. However, of course, Wikipedia is far from a reliable source, but something else which almost ensures that this god didn't originate from Ijun is a vintage article in German that references the god by name, despite originating from over 100 years ago.

Past that, though, a good source comes from... hey, they reblogged my Backbeard post! Holy shit! Wow, I didn't expect things to come full circle like this. Anyway, one of the few sources I can work off of for this outside of several deep insights into Ijun itself is this post by @eirikrjs which talks about his role as a god of the sea who brought 'life' to the Okinawan islands. To quote,

Also known as “the God from Beyond the Sea, Marebito”, Kinmamon is an enigmatic and mysterious deity of Ryukyu Shinto, a branch of Shinto obviously practiced in the Ryukyu islands. His/her connections with sea travel and the implication that he/she brought “life” to the Ryukyu islands are thought to imply it was an introduced figure and was quite possibly Amaterasu who was introduced and then changed through lack of continual contact at the time. The kanji used for Kinmamon’s name, “ 君真物 ” literally meaning “the true one”, are also thought to have been used as an honorific title for miko (shrine maidens); consequently, there is also a belief that perhaps Kinmamon is simply the evolution of the deification of miko. In addition, the kanji “ 君” is often used to write “ 神女”, megami or “goddess”, in the local Ryukyu dialect which causes even further gender confusion!Bibliography: 『琉球神道記』袋中著宜野座嗣剛訳東洋図書出版 “Records of Ryukyu Shinto” by Hiroshi Azuma. Orient Books Publications/Shorin Ronshu, 2001. ISBN-10: 4947667737

But, well, you know the lack of sources is bad when almost everything out there has to be choppily translated. In Ijun, Kinmamon is an all-powerful deity who visited the founder of the religion, Takayasu Rokuro, and instructed him to seek out an ancient book called the Ryukyu Shinto-ki, as gone over in this paper by Christopher A. Reichl. As the paper goes into, Takayasu speaks of Kinmamon as a deity who was once worshipped in the very early ages, though was forgotten about after Satsuma rose to power, phasing out the religion in 1609. Of course, I cannot find any source for this, but it could possibly explain why Kinmamon is so obscure, yet still referenced in ages-old articles predating Ijun itself. A lot of the things relating to this deity are obscure, and it's very fitting for its race being, well, that of an Enigma.

Hilariously, almost all of the sources I could find for this were also confused SMT fans trying to figure out the source for this demon. We really are just an ouroboros of hyperfixated nerds, huh. I haven't played Strange Journey, so I can't give much of a take on Kinmamon's portrayal in the series, but I do find the design very cool and unique- I especially love the symbols on its head and arms, though I'm not sure what they could ultimately mean? Overall, though, I'd recommend digging deep yourselves into this demon's backstory. Maybe you all could uncover something I couldn't!

#shin megami tensei #smt #megaten #persona #daily #kinmamon

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ogradyfilm · 3 months

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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - Hope Takes Root

[The following essay contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

I. Living Off the Corpse of the Old World

Come on, Max. Tell me your story. What burned you out? Kill one man too many? See too many people die? Lose some family? Oh, so that's it. You lost your family. That makes you something special, does it?

This monologue, originally uttered in 1981’s The Road Warrior, is still thematically relevant to the increasingly sprawling Mad Max Saga, resonating three films and more than four decades later. Every installment in the franchise—from its scrappy, low-budget debut to its most recent spinoff—revolves around loss. The desolate Wasteland takes, and takes, and takes again, consuming friends, family, resources, sanity. Those that linger are little more than disillusioned scavengers—“maggots living off the corpse of the old world.”

That description certainly applies to Dementus, the central antagonist of Furiosa. A charismatic, flamboyant warlord commanding veritable legions of bloodthirsty marauders, the self-proclaimed “King of the Bikers” (one of several grandiose titles that he flaunts like undeserved trophies) quickly establishes himself as a cunning tactician, utilizing an audacious Trojan Horse strategy to effortlessly overwhelm a formidable stronghold with minimal casualties to his own troops.

Despite his short-term victories on the battlefield, however, Dementus consistently proves himself to be an utterly incompetent leader in times of peace, with his conquests almost immediately descending into chaos and disarray. He’s essentially a post-apocalyptic Ozymandias in the making: “Round the decay of that colossal wreck,” you can easily imagine the History Man saying of his ruined domain, “the lone and level sands stretch far away.”

II. A Fuel-Injected Suicide Machine

Of course, it is implied that Dementus’ numerous “failures” are actually intentional. Although he claims to seek a “land of abundance,” finding it isn't his true goal; rather, what he desires is the pursuit of paradise—the thrill of a chase without end, futile and fruitless. To paraphrase Michael Mann’s Heat: “For [him], the action is the juice.”

[FINAL WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW!]

Beneath his boasts, bluster, and pretensions of ambition, Dementus is a devout nihilist, so irreparably shattered by the tragic deaths of his children (symbolized by the stuffed toy that he constantly carries on his person) that even physical sensation—pain, pleasure, exhilaration—now eludes him. As he explains to Furiosa during their climactic confrontation, the gaping wound in his heart can only be healed (albeit temporarily) by violence—the fleeting adrenaline rush of seizing territory and crushing his enemies underfoot.

Perhaps this is what motivates him to “mentor” our young heroine: he wants to remold something untainted by rust and radiation in his own savage image—not merely as an heir or a replacement for his biological offspring, but as the ultimate validation of his pessimistic philosophy. To this end, he forces the poor girl to watch as he brutally murders her mother, burning every excruciating second of agony and torment into her memory. To add insult to injury, he literally tastes the tears that she weeps, reveling in her grief and misery.

III. Feels Like Hope

Nevertheless, Love somehow manages to endure amidst the despair—like a lush and verdant Green Place thriving in the middle of a barren desert. If Dementus is a dark reflection of Max Rockatansky’s worst qualities—selfishness, cynicism, indiscriminate rage—then Praetorian Jack anticipates his eventual altruism. Like Max, Jack’s parents were once “warriors searching for a righteous cause.” Unfortunately, nobility and morality are as illusory and insubstantial as a mirage among the merciless dunes; following their senseless deaths, their orphaned son resigned himself to an empty existence of defending an egomaniacal tyrant’s supply caravans from roving bandits and rival gangs.

In Furiosa, though, Jack recognizes a kindred spirit. While circumstances have reduced them to their basest survival instincts, they both dream of something greater: she of returning to the home from which she was snatched, and he of discovering a purpose beyond the “fire and blood” of the Road War. Together, they forge a relationship that transcends romance, nourishing the seed of Hope in one another. He wouldn’t hesitate to lay down his life in exchange for hers; and she, in turn, would gladly sacrifice a chance at freedom in order to protect him.

Even Jack’s unceremonious demise can’t totally extinguish the faint ember of optimism that he sparked in Furiosa’s subconscious. Though she briefly succumbs to wrath and exacts cruel vengeance on Dementus, she refuses to fulfill her adversary’s grim prophecy that she will become his successor—the personification of his bleak worldview. Instead, she follows Jack’s example; inspired by his inherent goodness, she conspires to liberate Immortan Joe’s abused and exploited “wives” (glorified sex slaves, valued solely as breeding stock), leading them to salvation beyond his seemingly infinite reach.

IV. Some Kind of Redemption

“Who killed the world?” is a recurring question throughout Mad Max: Fury Road; the complementary characters in its belated prequel provide something resembling an answer. Dementus, haunted by his traumatic Past, destroys everything that he touches; by the conclusion of his journey, his band of loyal disciples has dwindled to a meager handful, and he finally marches towards his doom alone. Joe, meanwhile, rules the Present with an iron fist, but his single-minded obsession with producing a “pure” genetic legacy sabotages his dynastic aspirations; without any “perfect” progeny to inherit his cult of personality, his empire is too fragile to outlast him. Furiosa, on the other hand, realizes that the Future lies not in oppression and subjugation, but in cooperation, collaboration, and compassion.

Greed, authoritarianism, and Hate killed the world; it is therefore only logical that Love should resurrect it.

It’s a message as elegantly simple and universal as the archetypes that populate George Miller’s modern mythology. Furiosa is a worthy addition to the legendary series, expanding upon and recontextualizing its predecessors while simultaneously excelling on its own merits. It is magnificent, spectacular, and appropriately epic.

#Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga #Furiosa #Mad Max #Mad Max: Fury Road #The Road Warrior #Road Warrior #George Miller #Anya Taylor-Joy #Chris Hemsworth #Tom Burke #Lachy Hulme #Dementus #Praetorian Jack #Immortan Joe #film #writing #movie review

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mseirtaku · 5 months

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Me watching travesty that was Kung Fu Panda 4.

Under 'read more', I have my full (unsolicited) thoughts on the fourth film - warning, I don't have much good to say about it 〔´∇｀〕;;

SPOILERS! + LONG ASS POST!

So... I'll start with the positives, because honestly, I do love aspects of this movie.

Any scenes featuring Li and Mr. Ping are the absolute highlights of this film. Love them, ship them, hilarious chemistry between them. I'd watch a whole film dedicated to just them.

Though not as funny as the previous films, it’s genuinely funny, like, some jokes are deadass hilarious. (See above for example lol)

Genuinely, the main villainess, the chameleon, has such a cool design and Viola Davis provides such a good voice for her. The animation whenever she transforms is so cool.

Jack Black as Po is just so charming, you can't help but find Po so likeable.

For what little we saw of Tai Lung, he was a treat to see.

Great animation, lovely scenery, love the little animation flairs during the action scenes

Alright, now time for the negatives... Which unfortunately there is a lot of. I’ll go step by step and build up to the bigger picture I’m trying to visualise here.

The Kung Fu Panda

Po’s character arc was pretty much complete at the end of KFP3, when he has his epiphany and finds that his true self lies in not restricting himself to one label, but by embracing everything that makes him Po. His identity by this point is very well realised. Unfortunately in KFP4, the tacked on conflict of him needing to retire the Dragon Warrior title and choose a successor just… Doesn’t make sense for his character at this point. Not to mention, the movie repeats a joke ad nauseam where no one knows who Po is, or of his adventures, jokingly chalking it down to a ‘regional’ tale. You’d think the literal saviour of China would be well known. The world-building feels so much smaller for it. Unfortunately, this movie is very determined to undermine the impact of the last three movies, all to prop up the wisecracking and super cool shitass Awkafina character. Sorry, not sorry, but Zhen is a terrible character just for that reason alone. If Kung Fu Panda wanted to pass the torch down, Tigress or even Tai Lung would have been a much more compelling option, seeing as both were telegraphed to be potential Dragon Warriors in the past. Speaking of…

Tai Lung

Man… The trailers got my hopes up that KFP4 would feature a long awaited redemption arc for the OG villain of the KFP films. Instead, he’s delegated to a cage for half his scenes, and received the barest minimum of character arcs in the finale. Granted, he was still entertaining to watch, but he was totally under-utilised.

To continue the topic of identity, the film missed the chance to ask this: “Who is Tai Lung without his kung fu?” All his life he’d been raised with huge aspirations to become the best kung fu master, and to eventually gain the dragon scroll (which he was denied.) In KFP4, the chameleon summons him from the spirit realm, and drains him of all his kung fu skill. Therein lies the missed opportunity for a compelling character arc, now that he’s been cast out as a supposedly useless body into the real world. And who better to help him figure out his identity other than Po himself?

I could go on forever about the various fanficy rewrites and plot ideas, but I don’t want to let this get any longer. So I’ll talk about one more topic.

The Chameleon

I love her design, I love her voice acting, but compared to Tai Lung, Lord Shen and even General Kai… She’s simply a weak villain. (Too small to learn kung fu… Really?? With characters like Mantis and Viper who deadass exist in the same franchise???)

‘I’m the Chameleon! I do nothing but change!’ holds such potential for a far more interesting backstory. Instead of being rejected for her size, suppose that it was seen by many king fu masters that she simply didn’t possess a true spirit of a kung fu warrior. As explained in this film, their abilities are harnessed in the spirit/soul, not just the physical body. Perhaps she didn’t want to work for those abilities properly. She wanted the easy way forwards. She didn’t want to put in the proper time and effort to become a master of the craft. Spurred on by what she sees as rejection, she learns sorcery to take on any number of identities of kung fu masters. So many identities she could use to fool herself into believing she was someone talented and gifted in the art of kung fu. But it’s only a lie she tells herself. And so, she takes the drastic action, and decides to start summoning these masters from the spirit realm. But even as she slowly grows in power through the course of this film, maybe a strong sense of imposter syndrome starts to set in. These powers aren’t truly hers - what value does a carbon copy of something original have? Nothing. She never properly worked for them and made them her own.

Anyways. I’m almost done writing.

Quick fire round of criticism;

Akwafina’s shitass character

Furious five just tossed aside except for a non speaking cameo. Tigress got done so dirty - if there are gonna be like three more films, they should have been about her

WHAT DID THEY DO TO LORD SHEN’S CHARACTER MODEL

The goofy-ass way he was attacked and then thrown into the cage, the disrespect lol

Li (the victim) and Lord Shen (the genocidal maniac who destroyed his village and killed his wife) somehow existed in the same space and did not get into a conflict.

Why does Kai still exist in the spirit realm? I thought he was literally skadooshed to be extra double dead lol. Like spirit literally eradicated

Akwafina’s shitass character

The villains bowing to Po feels super unearned given how under-utilised they were. I can see it working, just not in the plot we got in the end

Po’s character feels weirdly dumbed down, it’s hard to put my finger on it

Fart joke :(

The innocent and cute but secretly psycho baby bunnies are the definition of anti humour. They’re so fucking obnoxious and cringey

For some reason, the character designs of new characters feels super incongruous and out of place.

The Dragon Warrior isn’t an inherited title, it was given during a time where China needed a hero. Why does it need to be passed down?

Ȁ̸̺͚̮̘̔̌̇̋͛̀́́̒̉̅̐ķ̶̲͍̘̖͈̭̮̝̩͐̃̎̕w̴̙̖̫̿̿͜a̸̧̠͎̰̲̠̮͇̰̼̱͂̋̃̇̑̍̊̂̎̾̓͝f̶̛̼͓̱͖̖̭͓͍͚͋͛̍ḯ̶͕̈́͛̀̎̆͛n̶͖͓̻̉̆̎́͆̌͌͂̾̉̚a̷̡̻̟̟͍̳̙̰͔̬̜̐̏̾̍̊̎́͂͊͝’̷̢̢̭̬̹̪̟̰̣́̈́̌̈̑̄̔͗̓̃̄̐s̶̡̹̙̖̲̝͎̳͔̍͑́ ̷̢̤̈͊͛̚s̸͓̪̠̼̪̤͈̜̎ȟ̵͇̥͈̟͖͈̣̞͚̘̩͍̓̅̀͐͗͛̏̉̀̒͘͜i̸̛̦͕̖̙̲͔̗̙̘̥̣̰̖͖̭̓̄͂̋́̍̓̃͘t̴̯̯̔̑̈̽̇̋̈́͌͛á̴̡͍͓͎͍͈̖͖͎̼̀́̅̿͌̂̌̆͠s̷̢̳̙̦̯̥̮͕͍̃̃͑̂̎̑̍̀͒̊͘̚͝͠͠s̴̪͖̼͈͂̏̚ͅ ̶͕̺̟̙̲͓̘̟̠͇̩̖̠̦̫̄̅̋̓̈́̓̆͋͝͝c̴͕̤̮̎̿̎͐̀̐̊̆̓̍̾̈́͠h̵̛̝̑̋̎̃̈́̆͋͒̅͊́͑͠͝a̷̡̹͍̳̘̪̰̰̤̼̎̄̈́̚ͅŗ̷̝̲͚̻͚̮͕̳̙̭̻̄͆̇̐̄̐͂͘a̴̡̢̯̩͓͓͂̄͑͗́́͂͠͠c̸̨̺̖̪̙͖̯̟̠͙͐́͊̾̅̎̏͠͝t̸̛̗̣̳̠̯͎̫͔̣̱̞̂̅͑̀̈̄͋̈́̆͘͝e̸̢͎͙̻̩̦̹̜̩̦̖̫͍͂́̌ͅr̵̨̄̅͐̍̏̅̀̃́̇̇̅̕͝

That’s all I have really. Sorry for straying so much into fanfiction territory, but it’s an integral part of my criticisms. I could honestly write forever, but I mainly wanted to share this silly redraw of the Tai Lung meme using Lobster and I’s silly Kung Fu Panda Hetalia gijinka crossover AU nonsense lol

If you read this all the way to the end, congrats! And sorry - I never do long text posts like this lol

#hetalia #hws thailand #crossover au #kung fu panda #kfp 4 #kfp 4 spoilers

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blueskittlesart · 2 years

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POST MORE SWORD OF FATE PLS IM BEGGING

i have very little in terms of actual art LMAO but i CAN explain the sword thing because i checked and i did in fact never make this plot point public. i struggled for a while with creating a villain for this story until i realized that. i put "sword" in the title of the game. of course it has to be about the fucking sword. DUH.

so i want SOF to deal very heavily with religion, specifically the way in which hyrule's religion forms post-sksw but pre-reincarnation. i've placed it on the timeline directly after sksw, making it the first actual reincarnation in hyrule. what this means is that there's no actual proof yet that the reincarnation thing is real and not just an insane bluff on demise's part, and so several key characters including link and zelda barely believe in hylia or demise at all when the story starts. my thought with this setting's version of ganon is that he's the polar opposite of the nonbelievers. The gerudo don't really exist as of now, but he DOES come from the desert region of hyrule--specifically, he was raised in a cultlike offshoot of the sheikah religion which interpreted the hylia/demise myth completely literally and believes that a doomsday is coming, heralded by the foretold return of demise. Because of this, he knows more about the cycle and how to set it in motion than basically any other character. Crucially, he and his people are some of the only ones at this point aware of the existence of the master sword.

ganon finds. a sword. a sword which he THINKS is the master sword. and this theory is only reinforced when the sword begins to speak to him about his destiny and the salvation of hyrule. unfortunately it is not the master sword and he ends up basically a pawn in the greater plans of what's left of demise & ghirahim within that sword, manipulated into attempting to revive demise and destroy the reincarnated hero and princess. he remains in denial until basically the very end of the final battle, completely convinced that he is the true savior of hyrule and LINK is the one being misled. ghirahim is a very good manipulator lol

#i know that the sword like dies with demise in sksw or whatever but this is my game and i can do whatever i want so ive decided it survives #because i need a plot device. ok. work with me here #asks #loz: sword of fate #anyway the religion thing is something that i really wanted to explore bc it fascinates me. bc obv in later cycles everyone believes #because they KNOW its true and have like. historical evidence of it. but what about the first few times it happened? post-sksw they had no #way of knowing if demise would make good on his promise or not. i can see belief vs nonbelief being a very strong dividing factor among #early hylians. its fascinating to me. lol #anyways zelda specifically fully believes that the hylia shit was made up by her great great grandparents or whatever as a power grab lmao #link is kinda like whatever. sure the goddess exists i guess ill pray to her sometimes but like did she actually found hyrule? probably not #and ganon and his people are HARDCORE believers. like to-the-letter. because of this they have one of the most historically accurate #accounts of hyrule's founding (which no one BELIEVES is accurate at this point. but it is) and have managed to hold onto records of both #the master sword and demise when society at large has basically either forgotten or decided to ignore them #wow. i forgot how fun sof is to write about. holy shit

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linnaealyn · 1 year

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Been working on again off again on a Xenogears portrait mod for two years now, started in Sept 2021 right before I actually finished the game for the first time. Some time ago I started adding upscaled (hand painted) versions of UI elements, so I guess its now a general texture pack I'm working on.

Its done through RetroArch's Beetle PSX HW core real-time texture replacer.

My goal with this is to make a texture pack that stays very true to the original look of the game. I don't want to redesign elements, impose too much of my own influence into it, and make the game look like it had an identity crisis. I still want it to look like Xenogears in the end, just upscaled, and where the portraits are concerned I want it to look as close to the original artwork as possible, with no scanning artifacts and low res quality- as if we actually had digital versions of Tanaka's original artwork.

Also, this isn't intended to be super high res 4k or anything, idc about that.

Figured I'd make a full post here going over everything I've done so far. I'm on the home stretch! Just a few more left.

⬆ Starting with UI. I replaced the red selection arrow, the red/grey spheres, save block icon, save/load text/bar, Walk/Gear icons (more about that one later), compass cardinal points (was unable to get a proper dump of the circular compass texture), and the dialogue diamond and selection diamond within menus.

I totally get it if someone wouldn't want to use something like the dialogue diamond, as you see it all the time right beside the pixelated text and it seems to stand out more in dialogue vs the one in menuing bc your attention is typically focused elsewhere while menuing. In the end, all changes are optional and to remove something all you have to do is move/delete the equivalent img file from the texture replacement folder. Within said folder I have a sub-folder titled "alternate portraits" where I keep alts and things I want to "disable" without outright deleting.

⬆ In combat UI I've replaced the HP/dmg numbers, the Time/AP/numbers, battle palette text (used for other text as well), the circle and tags of the battle palette, Time/AP/fuel bars, green Gear text and numbers, Gear attack level/♾ indicator, black Gear UI backgrounds, and combo icons. The red arrows have been replaced, but unfortunately the black arrows around the red cannot be replaced based on how the game does it; it is not a texture you can change, it is a triangular shaped box that the game fills with the black texture from behind Gear UI.

⬆ Menu/gameplay buttons. Also numbers/"points/fuel/cancel end" Someone mentioned playing with a switch pro controller or joy-cons so I threw an ABXY version together as an alternate button display option. Used the same typeface as the combo icons to keep some consistency with a typeface already in-use as well as for overall clarity.

⬆ Also, DB icons, EP/Fuel/Miss text, and "total damage". Unfortunately, the other DB icons (showing the △🞪☐ highlighted) cannot be replaced as far as I can tell. The battle UI textures (the 17 or so textures of the same thing in varying hues) shows them on it, but changing them in each one of these textures does not change the icons. It does not pull from these specific texture dumps, in other words; its just one of those that doesn't dump, like the circular compass texture.

⬆ In working on the Walk/Gear icons I wasn't sure exactly how I'd go about doing it because the original is literally just that tiny. So I had the idea of putting a little Fei & Weltall in it, outlined by the same grey. Thought it might be weird in the other party members' menus, idk, and I don't like changing things too much from the original, so I decided to just use Fei/Weltall as the grey silhouettes instead. Ill keep the Fei/Weltall one as an alt option if anyone wants to use it.

⬆ And the minimap. Kept B&W so that the colored dots (indicators of where all you can enter an area) aren't difficult to see. I do have a colored version as an alt, though. Credit to Adelinold for having ripped the 3D maps and made a bird's eye view "minimap" esque screenshot of the world map some years back because it is absolutely perfect for use here.

~~~~~

Now onto portraits, the main bulk of the work. This includes dialogue portraits, menu portraits, and gameplay portraits. I go through each one individually, find the highest quality version of the art, and clean it up manually, painting over it to get rid of any jpg rot, scanning artifacts, or print dots from scans while keeping it as close to the artwork as possible. In order to keep colors consistent across the board (because scans of the artwork can vary) I'm picking from the sprites. One portrait typically takes 2.5+ hours, not including testing them in-game. Each one needs to be tested in-game and edited to make sure semi-transparent pixels around the portraits don't result in black or white pixels in the area that should be transparent.

⬆ Direct comparison to the sprites. I'm not too strict about how I match how much of the art is shown, but in instances like this I like to show more of the character than the pixelated portraits allowed for. However, this wouldn't work for everyone as Fei's default portrait is also used when Kim is naked from the hips up.

For the Captain I specifically wanted to get his pipe within frame. Typically the portraits end just behind their ear, have the eyes at 1/2 to 2/3 height, and end just above the clavicle.

⬆ Some portraits like Kim and Elly have no artwork equivalent, but were pretty basic to make with the artwork of Fei & Elly that we do have.

⬆ Other characters have no artwork equivalent whatsoever, like Stein and Wel-Gear Hammer. For Stein I had to take the collar from Stone's artwork and paint something from scratch using Stein's sprite as reference. This one was more fun to do than I expected because its a special case, entirely different from all of the other portraits. For example, usually the artwork has 4 colors for skin- base color, shadow color, deep shadow color (usually seen directly under the chin, used sparingly), and a highlight color for on the nose or lip. But with Stein his skin had many different colors you could pick from the sprite and no equivalent artwork to limit yourself in how many there actually are. So in trying to get it looking just right it took something like 7 different shades of varying pink, red, and orange. It clearly has more dynamic shading compared to all of the other portraits.

For Wel-Gear Hammer... I did my best given what all I could see was even happening in the sprite.

⬆ I made a close eyed Elly portrait as there is no artwork of it and a bomb collar Fei and Hammer portrait using the bomb collar in Rico's art. Its fun playing around with them when there is no equivalent artwork.

⬆ Made an unsmiling Citan to mirror his unsmiling dialogue sprite vs his smiling menu sprites as well as alt Krelians to better match the expression of his mouth that the sprite has vs the artwork. (sprites are always a bit stretched compared to the artwork, btw. even when you rip them from the disc)

⬆ I'm also working on alternate versions, like a two-eyed Bart I did for fun.

~~~~~

It is finished! 1.0 anyway. Right in time for the North American 25th Anniversary! I just gotta get it uploaded somewhere.

I'll continue to work on the ones that I think still need more work, but for now even the ones that are in rougher shape are passable.

Ill have two versions of the mod- one with stretched and cropped portraits that work in 4:3 (much like the sprite portrait bmps in the base-game that end up looking fine in true 4:3. they kind of end up blurrier due to stretching the artwork) (with Crop Overscan set to None) and another version which isn't stretched or cropped so its as crisp as I could get them, but in order to get them to display the image exactly as they are in-game without squishing you need Crop Overscan set to Static (removes horizontal padding) which makes it just slightly off 4:3. Honestly, to the untrained eye its hard to tell it isn't 4:3. 🤷‍♀️ The only thing you might notice it really affecting would be the animated cutscenes.

I'll make a master post for the mod itself, separate from this. This'll end up being a bit of a time capsule for me.

#Xenogears #xenogears spoilers #Xenogears texture mod #texture pack #modding #Playstation 1 #PS1 classic #long post #oh cool this was my 100th post huh lol #updated 10/14/23

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flower-of-knighthood · 11 months

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Problem of the Master Sword

The Master Sword is one of the most recognizable logos in video games, with it being introduced in A Link to the Past in 1991, and quickly became one of the series most iconic items. However recent titles of Breath of the Wild and especially Tears of the Kingdom have left me disappointed with how those titles have treated the Blade of Evil's Bane.

To begin with, Breath of the Wild had the Master Sword receive significant damage in Link's last stand in the final memory. It was later revealed in Creating A Champion that the stains on the damaged sword was not rust as previously thought but Malice. It gets worse in that when you finally retrieve it, it is not exempt from the weapon durability mechanic, having to recharge after a few hits. It is true that you can power it up through the Master Trials DLC, but that is through a DLC and it is still abides by weapon durability. Annoying but fine for the most part.

The real issue is with how Tears of the Kingdom handles the Master Sword. The Prologue has the Master Sword shattered like glass by a newly resurgent Ganondorf, who doesn't reach his full power until the end of the game, and even goes as far as to mock the sword for failing against him. It gets worse in that Link's arm gets mangled because Fi didn't do her job and dispel the Malice on Ganondorf's first attack. We are directly told by the Great Deku Tree in a memory that the Master Sword has been fully restored and the

The state of the Master Sword was revealed in the delay video, and we wondered for months what could have happened to break the Master Sword with several possibilities such as a Triforce wish or a consequence of Zelda's century long battle with Calamity Ganon. Unfortunately what happened up happening was that the Master Sword just happened to break at the hands of a single Secret Stone, which came out of literal nowhere. I find it incredibly hard to believe that a random power amplifier which is what a Secret Stone is, is more powerful then even a single piece of the Triforce, which holds the world together.

Another aspect of disappointment with the treatment of Fi comes with how it is repaired. Before release, I was hoping for a Wind Waker esque restoration of the Master Sword with having to gather sages to power it up. Unfortunately what ended up happening was that Zelda sacrifices herself to repair it, which I will admit that the scene of her sacrifice was decently done, the problem is that it kinda falls apart when you consider that Zelda's sacrifice is retreading her story arc in Breath of the Wild, which is a bigger issue I had with Tears of the Kingdom, which will be covered in it's own post.

The ironically funny part is that despite Zelda sacrificing herself to repair and power up the Master Sword, The Master Sword still abides by the durability system, and it deals less damage then it does in Breath of the Wild, which kinda undermines the whole thing.

#totk critical #master sword #totk spoilers

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natequarter · 1 year

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a more detailed version of my era shift au:

the captain is a roman soldier. he's the oldest ghost around, and the rest of the ghosts know fuck all about him, including how he got the name captain, or why he's not wearing roman armour, or, you know, how he died...

pat is an anglo-saxon bard who went to the trouble of writing his own poems - but his wife's lover stole it from him, and he's spent the last thousand or so years angry at that rather than fact that he was murdered after getting caught up in a tavern brawl. priorities, man

fanny (originally stephanie, centuries later dubbed fanny by kitty) is a medieval noblewoman married off to (insert title here) george. her cause of death is a mystery lost to history - was it an accident? was it murder? was it a suicide? if they'd just look in a mirror, they would quite literally see the answer staring back at them and yelling at them to wear their hair up properly, disgraceful whores!

thomas thorne is a young nobleman of the 1490s, determined to prove his worth to the lady isabelle in a jousting tournament. too bad that francis clanged him over the head with some heavy metal object. he fell face-forwards and died. convinced that if he just practices enough, he might someday become good at jousting (this is not true)

julian is also a nobleman - a stuart under charles ii this time. it's a bit too early for the time period, but picture the earl of croydon in bill, and you've more or less got the vibe. not actually the owner of button house: he was caught sleeping with the real owner's wife, and beheaded in a fit of rage

mary is a servant from the 1850s. the east wing of button house burnt down after some idiot left a candle burning during the night by accident; nobody else died, because the rest of the household awoke in time to put the fire out, but mary choked on the smoke, and has been very bitter that no one managed to save her ever since

kitty is a stylish young woman of the 1930s. she was invited to a dinner party in the style of an agatha christie murder mystery... unfortunately, this took a far too literal turn when her sister actually did poison her. kitty is half annoyed at being murdered and half kind of vibing with the whole real life murder mystery vibe she has going on, and has been enthusiastically following the attempts to solve the kitty case (as she likes to put it)

humphrey is an ex-soldier and painter who died in the mid-1950s. he was unwillingly drafted into ww2, but managed to survive, go back home, and eventually escape to the countryside and rent out heather button's gatehouse, a welcome break from a post-war world which for a post-war mind was incredibly stressful. he painted and sold landscapes for several years. things were finally looking up! oh, and then he died of carbon monoxide poisoning. absolutely shit way to go after living through two world wars

and finally there's robin, an early 2000s conspiracy theorist who thought gravity wasn't real, tested his hypothesis by jumping out a window, and was very, fatally wrong. his nokia brick is still going strong though

#bbc ghosts

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soul-controller · 1 year

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Patreon Update (May ‘23)

Hello there everyone, hope everyone is doing well and are having a good summer so far. Here’s a quick little summary of the stuff I’ve released over on my Patreon over the past month. If any of the following stories intrigue you, please feel free to click on the title so you can sign up for the appropriate tier to read it! I’d love to have you join my Patreon and my Discord community, where you can view exclusive photo captions.

Method Acting: The Obese Loner (Part I)

This vault story was originally released in February 2022 for the Clarke tier. After a year of exclusivity, it's now become a $5 story. I hope you enjoy this little blast from the past!

After helping an elderly woman, Chris is gifted with the ability to steal the physiques of anyone he gets intimate with. With this ability, he's able to create a career as a hunky model. But as Chris decides to leave modeling and move into acting, he decides to search for the perfect swap target to help him nail an audition for a film in search of the world's best method actor.

While this would mean sacrificing his model physique to become the overweight loser perfect for the role, he's willing to do anything to get as rich and famous as possible!

Tags: Muscle Theft, Weight Gain, Physique Swap

Revenge of the Nerd (Part III)

Upon finding herself transformed into a muscular jock, Britney Farmer though the worst of her troubles was over. Unfortunately for her, Mitchell's plan for revenge involves a special surprise that will make her physique even more bulky...

Then after a few weeks since the transformation occurred, Mitchell finds himself delighted to realize the brand new relationship that is forming between himself and his former tormentor.

Tags: Female to Male, Gender Swap, Weight Gain, Punishment, Revenge

Sauna Swap (Part III)

One week after exchanging bodies, both Alek and Paul are having very different feelings over what has occurred to them. This is especially true for Alek as the hunky personal trainer finds himself with a middle-aged obese body. Unfortunately for him, the fun isn’t completely over as both men soon discover that more than simply their bodies have been changed...

Tags: Age Progression, Physique Swap, Weight Gain, Muscle Theft, Mental Changes, Reality Shift

The Leader of Talokan (Part II)

Upon being blessed with a gift that gives him the hunky body of a superhero, Henry opts to follow the Talokanil back to their home as they offer him a potion that will allow him to be the best possible leader of the aquatic empire. Upon drinking the potion though, Henry's personality and memories are altered to turn him into the perfect warrior and king Namor. Once this is complete, the literal god heads out to address his subjects and share his plans for the kingdom...

Tags: Racial Change, Superhero, Mental Changes, Marvel, Fan Fiction

S-C Escapes: Austria (Part II)

After taking a dip in a hidden Austrian lake and finding himself turned into a 50-year-old hunk, Luke flees the serene area in hopes of finding safety in numbers. To his surprise, he quickly finds more than that as a poolside hunk likes what he sees and convinces Luke to join him in the pool.

Although Luke was quite excited about the prospect of this burgeoning relationship, he soon finds himself distracted by the realization that more changes are happening to help the brand new DILF accept his new identity...

Tags: Age Progression, Reality Shift, Mental Changes, Post-Transformation

#male transformation #age progression #gender swap #weight gain #muscle theft #Patreon Update

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secreterces5 · 8 months

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🦋 Hi, I'm Charlie! This is my art blog! I also have a main (secreterces-charlie), a turtle blog (teenagemutantninjatrauma) and a somewhat DST oriented blog that is more like a second main (charlie-charlie-yes-i-am-here).

🦋 I mostly post Don't Starve and TMNT art right now, as well as attempts at original stuff :)

🦋 I do commissions! If you'd like to learn more about those, head on over to here 👉 https://secreterces5.carrd.co

🦋 I also have a ToyHouse for all my OCs and sonas and whatnot, because I keep making more, unfortunately!

⭐ General organization tags! ⭐

#🌹 charlie's art ;; #🌹 oc art ;; #🌹 self art ;; #🌹 charlie's animations

#🌹 chareblog ;; #🌹 my friends' art! ;; #🌹 other people's ocs

⭐ Ongoing stuff! ⭐

🌹 2k3 separated AU - a TMNT 2003 Separated AU! Mikey is a Timestress, Leo is a Foot Ninja, and Donnie is missing entirely. Raph, after growing up with only his dad, decides to try and find his brothers!

🌹 Revolution Radio AU - a fic I'm writing on AO3! The 2003 ninja turtles start a radio broadcast!

🌹 AHC AU - art for the Actions Have Consequences AU, co-written with @/violetvulpini on AO3, about president Bishop accidentally adopting Cody Jones and the Dark Turtles after the Fast Forward season.

🌹 Clone Zixx Theory - art operating on my headcanon that Zixx is a Bishop clone. Mostly made this tag for adding context to my art, not gonna lie.

🌹 TCAJ - To Catch a Jackdaw, a to-be-published original story of mine about different worlds intertwining and causing magical events of catastrophic proportions. Currently involving characters Aran, Flip and Iotash.

🌹 the haters club - a roleplay inspired scenario between me and a friend where several no-longer-human people team up to be racist against monsters who literally did nothing to them. they make each other worse and are besties. Currently consisting of DST Charlie, TMNT Stockman and Bishop, and TOH Belos (and Lilith, kinda?)

🌹 Survivor Charlie AU - a Don't Starve AU where Charlie is somehow dethroned and now one of the Survivors!

🌹 Magician Interview! - small DST snippets of Charlie and Maxwell's life before... well, before.

Graveyard of unlikely-to-be-elaborated-upon-right-now AUs under the cut 👍

🌹 Spider Queen Charlie AU - Maxlie but they're cannibalistic spider hybrids

🌹 DST pirates AU - Maxwell is a somewhat struggling pirate captain. Wilson Higgsbury never wanted to be a pirate but ends up having to work with one anyways. They seek out the pirate queen for help, but unfortunately, there is relationship drama involved.

🌹 Understarve AU - An Undertale AU of Don't Starve Together. Wilson Higgsbury, a human, loses his way and wanders into a world of monsters. Maxwell and Charlie are plant monsters, studying magic to hopefully one day free monsterkind.

🌹 Spilled Beans AU - A Don't Starve AU where Maxwell tells Charlie everything. They are doomed, either way.

🌹 Stolen Blessing AU - Philza Minecraft is an angel committing crimes. It doesn't work out great for him.

🌹 The Sun Can't Stop Us AU - An Apritello Rise of the TMNT AU based on the Greatest Showman movie where Donnie is an acrobat and April falls in love with him.

🌹 UDOA AU - Unwanted, Dead or Alive! A Fast Forward AU in which somehow, Leo is the only ninja turtle left standing as his family goes missing and their disappearance is pinned on him. With the help from the Dark Turtles, he now has to clear his name and find his family, all the while looking for the true culprit behind this and bonding with his kind-of-sort-of brothers.

🌹 Old Man Mikey AU - The year is 2275, and you have just graduated under your master with the title of chūnin. "Who will be my new master, though, sensei?" you inquire, unable to contain your curiosity. Your sensei names a person that you frankly didn't even think was real. "The Ancient One, of course." (Or, Mikey became the Ancient One long after Fast Forward.)

#Pinned Post!#shiny and new!#hopefully all these links work lmao

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