#this is more relevant now than ever

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

All of us after hearing that Rhys Darby is sad about losing the role he's said he was born to play

[kyouka-supremacy]

“Average enemies to lovers save each other 10 times per show” factoid actually just statistical error. Average enemies to lovers save each other 0 times per show. Shin Soukoku, who are doomed by the narrative and save each other over 1000 times each arc, are an outlier and should not have been counted

[kimdokjas]

We are alive. And we will continue living. So long as you remain by my side.

[andrevasims]

"Move" by Ross Golan was one of the songs added to the Hip Hop radio station with the University EP, and one day after hearing it for the 700th time I decided to look up the original... and... wellll... this snippet from a 2004 article sums it up:

[aerithisms]

rotating the pub scene from 73 yards in my mind i think there is so much being said there about wales and welsh/english tension that is so interesting and is going so under discussed

[razberrypuck]

rotating henry emily in my mind

[tomwambsgans]

tomshiv presents the notion of love being "giving someone the power to hurt you" while tomgreg allows the more complete version of this idea: "and also, having been given this power, choosing not to use it"

[tbzrai]

various old oberon dumps

[girlwiththegreenhat]

i am never going to recover from the death shroud radio play actually

[sanddusted-wisteria]

Qi and names

A really, really random thing I've been noticing as I'm doing a second playthrough: Qi almost never calls anyone by just their name. Unless he's talking directly to someone, he almost always uses a title or a stand-in...nickname? Epithet? Not sure what to call it.

[VERY long post below, contains some act 2 and mild act 3 spoilers]

Grace: The frycook

Elsie: The rancher's daughter/ranch girl

[pardon the text mine, i don't have screenshots of some of the act 3 quotes and it's not up on the wiki yet]

Catori: The entrepreneur

Justice: The sheriff

Also combined with Unsuur: The lawmen

Pen: The homunculus man

Yan: "Your director"

X: The bird

Bronco the Kid: "The person seeking Logan"

Pablo: "Our local barber"

Here are the ones with titles:

Trudy: Mayor Trudy (but also sometimes just "Mayor" or even "Trudy")

Fang: Dr. Fang

Nia: Assistant Nia

You/the builder: Earlier in the game/at lower relationship levels, he'll only call you "Builder". But later on, he'll always use your builder's name.

(at Buddy level)

(at Good Friend level)

And last but not least, those who Qi always refers to by name:

Mint (but he also calls him Sleepyhead, of course)

Zeke

Logan

Matilda (though she's only ever referred to once and she's been de facto stripped of her minister title at this point, so I'll gloss over her)

So uh...what's the takeaway? Well, I think it's an insight to Qi's idea of respect. All the people in the first section have nicknames, which are mostly light jabs at their character/job.

Contrast to the people in the second and third sections. If they have an established title of authority, he'll use it. And for those he refers to by name directly, it's someone he personally respects. Think about it:

Trudy is the mayor, the highest authority in town (and also probably singlehandedly responsible for his funding lol)

Qi's no quiet admirer of Fang's work, as shown by their few interactions

He respects Zeke as a fellow man of science, and a very persistent one at that

Nia is part of academia, advised by a reputable professor

Mint is obvious; he's his closest friend

And you! Take another look at his dialogue with you as it progresses through the main quest, especially after you build the mobile suit. He comes to respect you and your work.

Logan is an interesting exception, but I picked the above quote for a reason. I think he knows straight off the bat that the Logan situation is more complicated than other people say, and he sympathizes with him a little bit (even though he'll promptly hole himself up again and keep working after any Logan event happens).

I made another very long post a while back that touched on why Qi insists on being called "Director" all the time, and I think that's only compounded by this. It's a golden rule type situation, yk? You respect his titles, work, and time, and he'll do the same to you.

ETA: you could also interpret this as Qi viewing people as their occupations first. He's not the most sociable person in town, and he'd like to keep it that way (maybe). So he keeps a veneer of over-professionalism on by default.

[heir-of-the-chair]

Lowkey hyperfixating now and I’ve come to the devastating conclusion that Jacob the main character of Water For Elephants… doesn’t really have a character arc

[hvmansongs]

happy 4th of July!

[seoafin]

List of some palestinian works that are on my to-read list (both fiction and nonfiction)

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

On Palestine by Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky

Salt Houses by Hala Alyan

The Question of Palestine by Edward Said

In the Presence of Absence by Mahmoud Darwish

The Butterfly's Burden by Mahmoud Darwish

Wild Thorns by Sahar Khalifeh

[courtjesterrr]

Hey guys!! Jester here,

So.. Ehhehhehsbsjjx i dunno how to start this um ;-; i literally JUST REHEARSED THIS-

um....

I quit taocc (kinda- let me explain)

Im quitting the rp part of taocc. Its just not fun anymore, not like it used to, i cannot connect and keep my characters stable for the life of me, and most characters are done. Im just adding unnecessary lore to them. Im just really. REALLY burnt out from taocc rping. I wanna focus on other projects that taocc have gotten in the way of..

Im not quitting taocc all together!! No,no, this whole community has been amazing. Taocc got me through some hard times in life, and literally all my friends are here. Im just not doing roleplay anymore. Ill still finish projects like the TAOCC Episode, A TAOCC in Time, Hollow Oc Circus, etc., dw!!

You see, the Characters Of Eternity (I.e. Lantern, The shadows, Eternal Eclipse, etc.,) are done. Their story has been finished for a looong time.(when lantern became Guardian.) Its just, i keep adding unnecessary lore that I feel is ruining that bitter ending.

And the other half of my characters i made on a whim and have either A. No personality. Or B. No real reason to be there.

Rodger: made on a whim, no direction

Mimic: no real reason, plus i failed at making them evil, no direction Cookies: made on a whim, stopped using after my CRK hype went down

Lannbot: was requested to make by Mod Stuff, no real reason, no direction Knights: made on a whim, not even done yet Gardener: given to me by Jeff, no direction, + Jeff selfuses him more than me Sunshine: no reason and has no direction Ludvic: not done, no direction

And, that is why im giving away some of my characters. I feel like some of them CAN have direction, i just cant execute them. For the collab characters (Knights, Gardener, etc.,) ill be giving to the collabers respectively.

Now, the ones who ARENT collabs, ill be giving away to others if they want it. Those include

Sunshine @sunshiningdayyy Rodger @rodger-rodger-101 Mimic @mimic-your-actions Lannbot @artificialflame And Ludvic (librarian for WBQuest)

You can alter appearances, lore, personality, whatever! Im not giving away the eternity characters, as they were my first in taocc and i refuse to give them to someone else, plus their story is done.

You guys can still find me on: @courtjesterrr , @theamazinghollowcircus , @taocc-updates , and @storyjesterrr !!

Sorry guys again for this sudden announcement, like i said, roleplaying isnt fun or fulfilling anymore, and id prefer if i didnt have to stress 24/7 about where things go, whats happening, whos who, etc..

But ill still be here, making stuff for TAOCC, joining VCs, and interacting with this community!!! >:]

this also means i will info dump on unsaid lore on my characters if you desire to know more-

With that said, i will see you guys in the near future!! Stalking you from the shadows, uee hee hee!!

Jester, out!!

[kiwikiwiandkiwi]

.

[mantisgodsdomain]

3,4,15 for any member of team snakemouth!

...how about all three?

(for this ask game)

3. Obscure headcanon

For Kabbu, though we may have noted this before, we think that the North is quite firmly considered a patch of Deadland - and its inhabitants, as a result, tend to be very, very strange from the perspective of the rest of the world. For Kabbu, specifically, this means a variety of things, both biologically and culturally - though Northern beetles are a lot more common in Bugaria, deadlands in general come with a very high rate of mutation and a very high rate of death, and that means a high rate of superstition both in things that actively impact survival and in things that do not - as well as the simple fact that a constantly-changing set of genetics means that what a northern beetle is like is often very, very open to change.

Kabbu is an example of a burrower - a subspecies of sorts primarily identified by claws designed, very specifically, for digging. His claws grow into a sort of broad shovel shape and tend to be much sturdier than an equivalent beetle's - getting underground in moments in soft ground isn't really an exaggeration! Though he can dig through harder ground, it takes time and effort, and he can't go at it with the sheer speed of softer soil - technically, he could burrow through solid rock given enough time, but it would be both hard and extremely painful. It's a trait that's heavily prized in the North for its ability to create shelter and safety - beetles dominate the North's underground, and there's nothing that can really pose a threat to them. Tunnels are safety, and it really surprises and disorients him when things underground attack him, because back home that just kind of doesn't happen unless it's Another Beetle specifically targeting you.

In terms of more social things, he has a lot of trouble getting used to the concept of mimics. This is mostly due to the fact that mimics as a whole don't really... exist in the north, at least not in the means of gaining benefit from mimicking anything else. If you can talk to them as any other awakened bug, they're usually exactly what they say they are, and species mimicking normal geological features and plants haven't found any success, unless you're willing to get extremely generous with describing the snow-bank camouflage of a Northern Silk Moth's topcoat.

Though sand wasps or "white bees" still exist, the thing they're mimicking no longer exists in the same area. Any Hive that once was in the North is long dead, overly-large groups of bugs tend to die out quickly thanks to the handful of large predators that may decide the benefits outweigh the consequences when enough tasty beetles gather in the same place, and when the enemy you're dealing with is both too heavily armoured to be really deterred by most weaponry and capable and intelligent enough to stalk your group through the snow until the cost outweighs the benefit of eating you... well, the sort of small groups generally sent to start a new colony of social bugs really don't stand a chance.

It is, occasionally, very hard to get used to the fact that southern silk moths only grow a few heads taller than him. He's used to them presenting a lot more of a threat.

For Leif... we think he's completely, 100% blind. His eyes are frozen over due to quirk of his biology - the thing about his integration that makes him a failure, specifically. With any of the Snakemouth cordyceps, they do not naturally transfer the immunity to their own magic that any other variety of mage would have, and so need to alter their hosts in order to get the appropriate biology across. With Leif, that protection is not sufficient to protect the host, much less to preserve valuable organs - eyes, especially, are fragile, after all. The cold he naturally generates exceeds the host adaptations he provides, resulting in, even beyond the blindness, unusually brittle chitin, extremely stiff and easy-to-damage tissue, organic food processing efficiency appropriate for a bug currently freezing to death...

Well, you get the idea. Functionally, if alive, a host body would be in a state of perpetual hypothermia, prone to breaking down over time and needing persistent repair that his strain of cordyceps cannot provide, as any repair he could offer that's not within his host's natural healing capabilities requires manually breaking down and reconstructing any parts, which... is inconvenient at best. As he is, he gets around most of these issues by simply replacing his host body's soft tissue with cordyceps, but that has its own issues, mainly in making him look and move incredibly uncanny. Injuries take a very long time to repair, relatively, though the less tissue damage is done the easier it is to fix - being cleanly sliced in two, for example, might be easier to handle than any sort of crushing damage. As far as his eyes go... eyes of any sort are delicate, and the slightest damage can permanently blind someone. Any of Snakemouth Den's cordyceps tend to go blind anyways as the fungus burrows into ocular nerves - if anything, this is better for hiding, since the frost over his eyeballs conceals any mycelium in the eyes themselves. In theory, it can be repaired... in practice, it would be far too much of a pain for work that will be undone the moment he overtaxes his ice magic again.

...also, he doesn't really care. Sight is not the most important sense a moth has and his scent and ability to sense pheromones is fine, along with a general sensitivity to things like vibrations in the air. More than fine, even, since he's now kind of hybridized with both Ant and Bee and the number of pheromones he's sensitive enough to sense has shot through the roof. This on top of the "magic sense" he has means he has absolutely no trouble getting around, though reading books requires more or less sticking an antenna or fungal tendril over them and parsing out where the ink is by scent and texture. He full-on didn't notice he was blind until after the cordyceps reveal.

For Vi, while this might be one we've mentioned before, we headcanon that she's got a bit of minor mutation throwing her antenna... maybe 2% more towards a non-social relative, which gears her just slightly more towards being able to detect "foreign" scents - predators, prey, and any pollen or nectar in the area. Unfortunately, this slight shift in what scents she's made to pick up comes with a reduced sensitivity to pheromones and pheromone communication within the hive, along with loss of the general innate understanding that an average bee would have of how she's meant to "fit in" to a structure that utterly cripples her communication and social life in the hive.

It's minor enough of a mutation that she's never been flagged - she's a mutation of a social bee, not a normal variant of a solitary - but she smells weird, and she doesn't pick up on pheromones quite enough, and the variation in signals she puts off means that she both fails the communication to get across what she might need and fumbles the communication conveyed back to her about what she should do. Subtle things build up over time, and within the Hive, the negatives far outweigh the benefits - the Hive is only built with bees that fit to a standard in mind, and even minor deviations can get you dragged far, far behind.

This is getting very long so, uhh. Here's a cut. Everything else is below it. We enjoy getting very long-winded. There's a lot in here.

15. Worst thing they’ve ever done

Well, this one will depend on if it's "in general" or "by their standards". Putting any sort of objective moral judgement on just about anything is ridiculously difficult, especially with how values vary by culture or individual.

There is no such thing as objective worst, and we absolutely don't guarantee these would line up with your idea of worse, and so we'll offer two options here - what we believe they would think of first if posed with the question, and an alternative answer that would likely crop up.

For Kabbu, his own response would be easy - abandoning his teammates to The Beast. It haunts him to this day - really, what sort of beetle abandons their swarm to a fate like that? If he was a little faster, a little braver, a little less of a coward - but no. He abandoned those he was meant to care most for, and they died because of it.

For the other...

There are some things that are necessary, to survive somewhere as harsh as the Deadlands. Not everyone can be saved. Not everything can be helped. Not everyone can be taken in. Tradition and law is the heart and soul of the North - rules that everyone must comply to, if not for the sake of themselves, than for the sake of those they may interact with. To break a law, for any reason, is to be shunned by the community, most likely to your eventual death.

She broke a law. It could have been for understandable reasons, or not - it doesn't matter. She put the community at risk, and for that, she couldn't stay. She was put out in the cold, despite her pleading to the contrary. She was allowed to beg and plead and bang on the door, and yet, it meant nothing. The beast she would have lead to them caught up, eventually. He would still believe it was justified.

For Leif, his first response would be... exactly what you expect of him, really. The body he took without a care. The life he stole. He might vary on whether it's the action of stealing it or the lies he's told with that body, but the answer would be the same.

For the one he wouldn't think of... He could have spoken up. He didn't. He met their eye, slated for execution on crimes that he could parlay them on if he implicated himself, and he said nothing.

The look on their face still haunts him sometimes. It hurts more now that he's two, rather than one. It's what was needed to protect his family.

For Vi... a fault in a machine. The instructions were boring, and confusing, and hard to read. She tried to do whatever she thought might work, instead of following the manual. There was an injury. Then another one. It was her fault, really, for rigging it wrong, but she was tired and angry and she argued instead of just sucking it up and fixing it when confronted on it, and it went unfixed for days more. A minor fault can very well lead to deaths, and though this one didn't, it came close - one more inch, a slightly looser bolt, and it would have cracked a bug's shell clean open. It's a miracle it turned out as well as it did. It's a miracle that no one connected it to her enough, even when it was fixed. Someone else was punished, and she was old enough to know not to step forward - she's not stupid, after all.

The guilt still haunts her. The "what-if". The possibility of it. If someone died of her own stupid negligence, if she made someone else take the fall - she would let them, really, her sense of self-preservation isn't that bad, but she's not sure she could live with it after.

With the one she wouldn't think of personally... considering the background she's got, the journey to the Ant Kingdom, and the fact that it's already stated she took jobs before canon? We think there's a fairly good chance that Vi's off jobs got... shady. It's not like she has much in the way of morals when it comes to money, and "will do just about anything for enough cash" is a decent market. If you're willing to forsake your morals, you can get more money than your heart desires - at the cost of just a bit of risk, at that!

She doesn't think about it, really. It wasn't something she needed to think about. They were threatening her, they were a risk to her team, they were the price she had to pay to eat, the specifics of what happened don't matter much at this point. Put in the position again, would she choose their life, or hers? It doesn't matter. They're dead, anyways. She should know. She was the one to take the payment for it.

4. Favorite line?

We're copy-pasting these straight from the game! These Direct Quotes are all sourced from @aquilamage's Bug Fables Transcript project, which we highly recommend checking out! It's an excellent resource for double-checking dialogue without having to replay the game first, and a repository for just about all the dialogue in the game (provided it wasn't taken out by previous patches, of course).

We will be honest: there's a lot of dialogue in this game. This might not be our absolute favorites, as a result of a general poor memory as well as Too Much Game. Also, we have blatant favoritism towards Vi in all ways. Most of these are favorite interactions, rather than anything else, so...

For Leif:

Kabbu: Leif. If you need to take a break, let us know. Vi will carry you. Vi: That is not happening. Leif: Oh, the fatigue, it kicks in... Vi: I said it's not happening!

...and for Vi, we're fond of this dialogue, specifically because the first time we encountered it we misread "exploring" as "exploding".

Leif: Science looks like a lot of hard work. Vi: It's like uh...the thinking version of exploring!

But of course, our favorite Vi Dialogue as well as our personal favorite dialogue in the game in general would be the Bee Guard overworld spy.

Leif: Vi, you're the only Bee explorer, right? Vi: Huh? Uh, yeah! That I know of... Leif: We've been thinking it's a bit weird, to see so many Bee guards, but only one explorer... Vi: Look, they're not guards because they want to or anything, okay? Vi: They were born to be guards, so they guard. That's it. Kabbu: That's a bit somber... Vi: ...That's just how the Hive is sometimes.

"I'm allergic to bouncers" is a close second, of course. In terms of story implications, we pull on her Jaune interactions and especially the point just after getting kicked out of the studio for the first time during Jaune's request, but that's... it's less we "like" it, per se, and more that the implications are fun to toy with. In terms of the actual dialogue, it just... makes us feel sad. Sad, [], and maybe a bit angry on her behalf. We've been there more than we care to admit, after all.

We... wouldn't wish something similar on anyone. And no matter how good the good gets with Jaune, it still can't really outweigh the fact that the bad starts ticking boxes about emotional abuse in a way that makes relationships like Mothiva & Zasp that more people are willing to try and call out pale in comparison. We probably need to finish that essay some time...

Anyways, we like it when Kabbu gets mad enough to yell at people.

Kabbu: This is ridiculous! You realize you could be dooming us all!? Kabbu: What if the Termite King loses trust in the Queen!? Kabbu: What if you lose to the Wasp King without our help!? Kabbu: Have you gone completely, utterly insane!? Have you lost all intelligence! Mothiva: Yikes. You're overthinking this WAY too much. Mothiva: The Ant Kingdom's way better in our hands than with you LOSERS. Kabbu: We have SAVED YOUR LIFE BEFORE, you WITCH!