#to keep them consistent… that’s… yeah…

[chiya-eltanin]

hm. dont usually put my own two cents for theories but somethings been kind of annoying me recently so yeah. ralsei thoughts.

i really dont like the idea that ralsei is a specific object. especially not with newer stuff from chapters 3 and 4.

For starters, most people that try to figure out what ralsei is in the real world are basing it off of this appearance

however, I feel like there's plenty of evidence to point to this not being his real form, right? People have already pointed out that his original shadowed form isn't fully consistent. It's possibly the most obvious when you compare his singing animations in both forms. His hat form makes what was later 'revealed' to be his ears look more like hair?,

Ears don't really split the same way that hair does, and theres other examples of hatsei having this kind of spikyness to his 'ears' that hatless ralsei doesnt have.

even the fangamer plush makes his ears spiky!!

its a pretty major part of how hatsei looks, and its certainly been talked about before. And then comes chapter 3+4. And we have plenty of evidence that ralsei is a shapeshifter, and I have seen literally nobody talk about it????? huh?????

Oh, and the hat casting a shadow on him makes no fucking sense because he goes onto wear SEVERAL hats in chapter 3 and he's normal????

also I know its like. A funny bit, but HE TURNS INTO A HORSE

WHY THE FUCK WOULD KRIS'S HEADBAND TURN INTO A HORSE???? WHY WOULD A GREEN CRAYON TURN INTO A HORSE???? WHY CAN HE DO THIS????? THIS ISNT A COSTUME THATS NOT HOW THEY WORK????? WHERE WOULD HIS BODY GO.

not to mention that changing shapes was literally his ability in the legend of tenna game???? he plays it off like 'oh every character has abilities i can turn into a box' but he can also turn into a dog? since ralsei was the only one who read the manual it very well could be an ability given to him since the real Ralsei is also a shapeshifter.

It would also explain why ralsei draws himself in his hat form

thats closer to what his natural form is. Dont have any screenshots on hand right now, but he's got two lines in chapter four (if you leave him lying on the ground for too long, and right before they find the first fountain) about how much longer he can 'keep this body for' that make it very obvious that he's only using a form that looks cuter to appeal to us. Him being a shapeshifter would also explain things like

His face being a deliberately made abstraction would also make this interaction make a lot more sense. Pre chapter three, I assumed Ralsei based his face on Asriel to either try appealing to Kris or as fanservice for the player/red soul, however, now that we've slowly started learning more about Ralsei, it's beginning to seem more like Ralsei just wants to have a face and more distinct appearance, like the lightners do. However, because of how dark worlds work, he can only base it off of what already exists, with that already existing 'model' being Asriel, although with modifications to make himself cuter— pink horns and eyes, and his usual glasses. It's why Kris is always quick to point out differences between them, and why Ralsei is embarrassed at being told that they look similar, he didn't have a choice other than be based off something that already exists.

Alright, so Ralsei is a shapeshifter. He still has to have some equivalent in the Light World though, since that's how Dark Worlds work. He was literally about to tell Susie what he was before getting interrupted, and Toby Fox is deliberately dancing around the topic.

However, I think the answer is actually pretty obvious. Ralsei is a being of 'pure darkness', which is why he can exist in any Dark World, unlike Lancer and Rouxls, who need to be objects that 'belong' in their respective worlds. His form is made up by the original dark fountain, and he describes himself as a 'Prince of the Dark'. Characters in the Dark World know about what happens to and around their real world equivalents, but Ralsei in particular seems to be especially aware of all of Susie and Kris's actions and movements. He doesn't need to be brought in by Kris like Lancer and Rouxls do, and he always appears in the Dark World a few moments after Susie and Kris do, while somehow almost always having pretty intimate knowledge of how the world came to be. Ralsei is also the most adamant on being depended on by Lightners, even more than people like Tenna. He talks about how a Darkners role is to be used by Lightners and to make them happy, and his character development in Chapter 3 especially goes into how he wants to be needed and how he's afraid he's slowly developing his own personality, and why he believes darkners shouldn't do that.

So, taking all of that into account, I feel like the most obvious answer for what Ralsei is is a shadow.

He's a literal prince of the dark. It explains why he can shapeshift, since shadows can be made to look like anything— I'm specifically thinking of things like shadow puppets, and why when he gets knocked out he seems to literally disappear, returning to the shadows. A shadow is also the most dependant on light, shadows literally cannot exist without light, or they'll just be darkness. It even explains his empty room.

His insistence that his only role is to help the Lightners, the way that people can never find anything notable about him (asking swatch for specials his suggestion for Ralsei is based purely on how he dresses and Queen literally forgets to get him a cage), and his ability to be in any dark world (since there's literally nowhere without shadows) all seem to point towards Ralsei being a shadow.

Ralsei being a shadow also means he's literally with you in the dark, could probably straight up not exist if the world was plunged into darkness, and also makes him a weaker version of a titan (explaining the 'prince' title. not quite king, but noble nontheless).

[theotherrookie]

Erica, of course, couldn't do anything but cheer at that. "Heck yeah! That guy deserved all the bruises he got."

Somebody had to stand up for children. It was nice of Travis to take the matter into his own hands.

"It sounds like willow and I." Erica said, before she pointed to her double, "She scares people just by standing around and nobody ever hears me coming!"

Both taking great pleasure from the effect they had on people. Willow's attention briefly shifted to the car as Travis got it started and listened to the noise of the engine just a moment before losing interest. Disappointing like its former owner. She might let the others keep this one, after all.

"I'm sure it would be her pleasure to do so." Willow replied, "You should inquire about it directly. There is a high chance she already has some stories to share."

It would have been beneficial in more than a way. The ghost lady would have loved to brag about doing something like that. Having that waiting for her on the other side might have actually persuaded her to take time off more consistently with her needs.

"Let's leave the area. Then I will provide directions to our destination." Willow instructed, "Or we could have a little fun with the GPS."

"We should put on that song that plays in that sketch with the three guys in the car!" Erica suggested.

"We shall, Erica."

They could indulge as long as it was funny.

Like a good host, Rook was keeping track of her guests, especially the ones who had visited before. Russell had made it through on his own last time, strong of the fact that the pocket didn't enjoy holding onto regular humans.

That had changed, but Lucien was already on the case.

"Well, now we know what it feels like to visit the Backrooms." the half fae mused.

"It's more like that infinite Ikea thing." Rook replied. She was quick to summon two endless shelves filled with all kinds of books and knickknacks that stretched past them as far as the eye could see.

It was an excuse to flex the full extent of her occult collection, but it also offered a distraction while she quietly reached to place her hand on Antonio's shoulder. Younger siblings had to be supportive too when needed.

"In my professional opinion, his entire family has never really shined in that regard." Veronica said, "They're just a bunch of power hungry hypocrites. It wouldn't surprise me if he was actively discouraged to improve his technique. He wouldn't be this deranged if he did. They essentially ruined their own child."

As a parent, she simply couldn't stand the thought.

Rook briefly looked at the chainmail, before shutting the chests. "I'm glad you didn't need that."

The battle had gone better than she could have ever hoped for. Both chests floated up to an empty spot on one of the shelves. They would be safe there for the time being.

"Alright, then. Let's all line up and follow mum outta here!"

Veronica sighed and moved to lead the way. "The first one to make a duck joke will take the express way out."

Lucien opened his mouth to reply, but decided for his own good to keep quiet.

Rook fell into step, moving more quickly now that her wings were gone.

"Do you guys mind if we stop by my stash? It's been a long fight..."

Her marks were starting to nag her already.

Erica's ears perked up. She was glad Travis appreciated her choice of nicknames. That meant they could both have fun with it.

"Yep! And then you could do all sorts of things like standing ominously behind someone, or breaking things in two for no reason—" she tilted her head, "Do you think you could break a phone book in half? We could also find other stuff that is more readily available than one of those old things."

Indeed, the elven shenanigans couldn't be so easily stopped once they were encouraged.

"Nah. Willow has to do her thing on that fancy dashboard screen over there." Erica paused to slide in once the windows were rolled down, "And I get more leg space back here!"

It wasn't safe to ride with her legs resting on the seats, but she too could have some fun while the kids weren't around.

"Or my creator's office." Willow added, "Some smokers do their very best to discourage others from getting addicted. They fail to realize that effort should be better spent towards dropping it themselves."

"But that gets some of them out of the way faster." Erica said, leaning back, "You know, Rook's mum goes back to the afterlife sometimes. I bet she's been looking for Cassandra..."

"With nefarious intent, of course."

Rook's attitude had to come from somewhere. They could only imagine the kind of commotion Veronica caused whenever she had to retire beyond the veil for a few days.

"Yeah. I don't think I'd be able to sit back here if we had to keep the windows up." Erica said, before grinning, "Hell yeah. Hit it, Willow!"

Willow placed a hand on the dashboard and quickly disabled the GPS, before tapping into the radio. She decided to start with a song that should fit everybody's taste, as well as the general atmosphere.

"I'm taking requests." she stated casually as she leaned back.

The pocket dimension used to be a secret so jealously kept it was at one point something of a mystery with the Order itself. Had he known about it, Five would have thrown a fit over how it looked like Rook might just start organizing guided visits at this point.

Lucien felt the need to keep an eye on Russell as they proceeded. He was in a pretty ragged state the last he had been there. Lucien figured it could bring back some bad memories.

"Well, I guess you guys now know where the mean monsters go when they get in the orb." Rook said, "This is actually more effective than standing around waiting to be smacked off your feet while in the middle of sucking someone off."

She had no idea why Five didn't use the orbs, but she had the feeling he either didn't know about them or simply refused to use them for some reason. He probably wouldn't have been such a sadistic freak if he for once did things like everybody else.

"Thank you, Leofric. I'll be happy to show you around." Veronica replied, before she stuffed a few more vials in her bag.

Rook did her best to help store all the equipment, calling up an extra chest for Leofric's armor. She appreciated the logic of leaving the bulk of their equipment behind. Not everybody's outfits fit like a glove the way her armor did.

So she considered her options, then decided to call up her necklace and hide her wings. "Well, that's one weight off my back."

Lucien rolled his eyes, "That certainly makes a difference."

"Hey. When I change out of this, it'll be into my pajamas." Rook snapped back, "Well, you could have Antonio take a thirty minute dive, or you could be stuck on the infinite stairs from Mario 64."

Both were equally unfortunate situations. But with Rook around, there was no risk of them getting lost.

"All because the Brotherhood guys are a bunch of idiots."

"Excuse me, they're my easily manipulated bunch of idiots." Lucien pointed.

"Yes, well, we can get going when you guys are ready."

[blasphemousclaw]

Good news: you've been selected to write/direct/produce (whatever) an Elden Ring movie. Which story do you choose to tell?

OK first of all im setting aside the question of what part of elden ring makes the most sense to adapt and what parts of the story would be better left vague etc etc because this is MY adaptation and its what my heart wants <3

personally I’d want an adaptation about the demigod characters the most because they’re so complex and morally grey and I think their family drama would be SO compelling played out onscreen. instead of a movie I’d want a limited TV series thats like less than 10 episodes so there’s more space to flesh out the different characters and their relationships. the show would be about the Night of the Black Knives with Ranni as the central character… it would follow the background, planning, and execution of the plot with the actual Night of the Black Knives being the climax of the show. the episode-to-episode plot would consist of Ranni bringing together all the different elements of her plan like recruiting the black knife assassins, getting Rykard involved, stealing a shard of Destined Death, and forging the black knives, while at the same time she’s navigating the politics of being an empyrean and heir to Caria and having to interact with both sides of her family, keeping her plan a secret and deciding who she can trust.

the central theme of the show would be Ranni’s fear of becoming a pawn of higher powers and her struggle for autonomy amidst the destinies thrust upon her… maybe the very first scene could be a young Ranni’s first meeting with the Two Fingers and learning of her empyreanhood but its shot in a way that emphasizes the Fingers’ dark and twisted appearance in a way that makes the announcement feel like a death sentence and you can see the horror on Ranni’s face!! and the rest of her storyline would really dig into why she’s so afraid of being controlled while also getting into her being caught between two family lineages and their fraught history… the family drama between Radagon leaving Rennala and how it’s affected Ranni and her brothers and the resentment they feel, and how these tensions build up towards the Night of the Black Knives and Godwyn’s murder!!!

some other various moments I’ve already designed written directed and shot in my mind palace:

- Ranni revealing her plans to her Carian vassals and them standing behind her and pledging their loyalty to her as her mother’s heir… Blaidd and Iji of course but also the Carian knights and nobles like the ghost waiting for Ranni to return at Caria Manor and the ghost in the Study Hall who begs the tower to “obscure the transgressions of the princess” and Preceptor Miriam who now guards her discarded flesh

- specific scene with Blaidd pledging his loyalty to Ranni and it’s beautiful and endearing but also uncertain because Ranni and Iji know the Two Fingers could use him against her

- Ranni visiting Volcano Manor and bringing Rykard into the plot, trusting that he would understand her and wouldn’t rat her out… him telling her he’s been waiting for a chance to strike back at the Golden Order for years

- Ranni visiting Rennala and telling her everything and saying goodbye but Rennala not even being lucid enough to fully understand what she’s saying… :(

- Ranni and Rykard stealing a shard of the Rune of Death by descending into Maliketh’s room suspended from the ceiling mission impossible style ok this one is a joke but imagine

- Ranni and Marika having a conversation about what it means to be a god where Marika bitterly laments the loss of her free will, making Ranni abandon all doubt that what she’s doing is absolutely necessary. oh yeah I’m not subscribing to the theory that Marika was in on the plot I think its more interesting if she’s not in on it but she and Ranni still sympathize with each other despite everything

and maybe cliche but the last scene of the show could be Ranni’s doll eye opening. end-credit scene where Godwyn’s dead eye also opens like in the story trailer. ok that’s it where’s my TV deal

[myshollow]

Will make some art of this in a few days, probably, but for now, I thought I'd share which characters are LGBTQ. Was gonna do this at the actual start of Pride Month, but I got a tad wrapped up in other things…silly silly.

Margaret - Yeah, mentioned in my girl dynamics post that she's a lesbian, but doesn't know it for a while bc she just assumes she's into guys. Definitely one of the main reasons why her relationship with Mordecai failed, and also why she keeps going through boyfriends left and right at first. Girlie doesn't know what she actually wants for a while.

CJ - Bisexual. No doi. 

Skips - Pansexual, figured it out over his years and years of being immortal.

Techmo - Gay. Honestly, I'm probably gonna put him with Skips bc the more I've written their dynamic, the more it makes sense for them to become a thing lol

Gary - Omnisexual (would slightly prefer to date a woman but likes guys too) (the skips group gay as hell wtf)

Celia/HFG - Asexual couple

Stef - Bisexual

Eileen/Rigby - AroAce couple

Muscle Man - Bi-curious.. Did you SEE HIM in free cake? He thought it was that kind of party. Pops - AroAce

For the rest of the characters+other potential info about the characters I listed, I'll probably keep it up in the air. The ones I listed are what will be consistently shown/applicable.

[r26yz]

marketable keychain

[soggedupfrog]

June ref for my own personal post-sburb canon :) probably gonna just do 1 character at a time bc if i rush them and forget anything i have to kill myself /j

Also the inevitable yuri + some silly siblings ^_^

[genosoffline]

all in

[got7]

i think itzy should be allowed to shoot people

[bad-traffic-smp-ideas]

right... okay. i'm considering something. sound off in the comments if this is a bad idea

[goddessofroyalty]

Re-reading through some of the previous Zaun Family stuff and it's kind of funny to think that pre-season two the default version of the verse was that they had 5 kids and Jinx was the youngest with the version with them having an additional baby later in life like a fun extra element that I would sometimes add.

And now, after season two practically gift-wrapped Isha for me as a possible Vanco baby the default version of the verse now has them with 6 kids and Isha being the youngest and her being adopted by Jinx the alternative that I'll sometimes go with instead.

[wackywatchdotcom]

gotttaaaa finish these little icons im making of the cast. going to make them transparent in case anyone wants me to make actually icons out of them or smth. im not really sure if theres a demand for that but like. shrugs. why not. ive gotten thru kinger, queenie, ragatha, jax, and gangle. started on zooble but had to sleep

[sydney-carton-of-sour-milk]

The Many Illustrators of A Tale of Two Cities 7: A. A. Dixon

"'Collins' Clear-Type Press, let me ask you a question.'"

This is a very long post.

This week's edition has, in my research, become quite the edition.

Sadly, this image is the best source for the cover wrapper illustration that I could find.

You are likely familiar with Arthur Augustus Dixon's illustrations for the 1905 Collins Pocket Edition of A Tale of Two Cities. Several of them are very common to find in Internet searches and articles about the book, if not other editions of the book itself.

But the question raised by my research for this week's edition is: Are you familiar with all of them?

Thing is, as the source above states (read the whole article if you have the time, it's very interesting!), Dixon created twelve illustrations for this novel.

And sure enough, this source from the Internet Archive and this source from @oldillustrations (hello!) both have eleven of the same illustrations - with the twelfth presumably being for the wrapper, as seen in this source (previously cited) from the Victorian Web.

Alright, so that's three separate sources, all with (effectively) the same set of elaborate illustrations from 1905. Neat!

...

...but if you start counting...

...you'll notice that this seems...

...like a lot more than twelve!

Basically, there are five illustrations by A. A. Dixon that are completely unaccounted for in any of the three sources previously cited.

For the purposes of this post, the cover wrapper is considered #0 and is not pictured in these banners.

In full-size set of illustrations in this post, this source from Google Books is the source of four of those mystery illustrations:

#3: "'He stared at her with a fearful look.'" #6: "'Drive him fast to his tomb.'" #7: "He said, 'Farewell!'" #12: "'She appeared with folded arms.'" #9 ("'Patriots and friends, we are ready!'") and #11 ("'You are consigned to La Force.'") are sourced from Google Books in the full-size versions in this post simply because the Internet Archive versions of those two illustrations had cropping issues.

To me, this is mystery enough on its own. Why would another version of the book suddenly have more than the originally-stated number of illustrations by this artist? Especially considering that the Google Books source does not have #13 ("''I know you, Evremonde!''") - why would it be missing one of the "main" set?

It gets even more interesting.

As you'll notice in the banner, we're still one off: Keen-eyed observers of the full-size set of illustrations might have already noticed that #14 ("'Carton and the spy returned.'") looks a bit different than the rest of them - a bit like what happened in the previous edition of this series!

That's because that Dixon illustration comes from this completely random source - a post from a blog called the Paperback Palette dating back to 2018 - that I happened across on Google Images of all places while sitting on an airplane trying to set up this post last week!

And to top it all off, that source is missing #6!

At this point, if your first instinct is, reasonably, that perhaps Dixon didn't actually illustrate these extra five and that it was someone imitating him for later editions, then know that that was my instinct too - until I (dare I say it again) checked those signatures!!!

(I edited the colors to prevent flashing.)

All five of those illustrations bear Dixon's signature, so it's safe to assume that they are A. A. Dixon originals - from 1905, even.

Interestingly, #s 1, 10, 13, 15, and 16 don't have signatures! Does this mean anything? Probably not - as an artist myself, I often forget to put my own signature - but still, I can't resist mentioning it!

So the most likely explanation here is simply that the publishing house originally commissioned A. A. Dixon for more than twelve illustrations and then held on to some of them, eventually choosing to publish them in other editions. Still, we can't say for sure.

And as to why some are missing from the more "complete" sets - human error, most likely!

If you scrub through the Google Books source, you'll notice that #s 11 and 12 actually repeat (one even changes color, which I have no explanation for) - it's most likely either that the book was accidentally printed with repeats of #s 11 and 12 where 13 and 14 were supposed to go or that the person scanning this edition made a similar error.

As an aside, it's so interesting that the illustrations are evenly spaced throughout the book - I had not noticed that until now!

And as for the Paperback Palette source, it's most likely that the blogger accidentally skipped over an image while combing through their edition or just glossed over it when posting the batch (I understand that from experience!) We can see this by adding up the letters in some of the illustrations' captions - doing so reveals that the letters are meant to go to P, the sixteenth letter of the alphabet.

Thus, one must be missing! Case closed!

Except... It's actually (going by both the chronology of the book and the order in which this set was found in Google Books) missing the wrong letter! Here, it seems that In the Google Books source, #7 in the full set is given the seventh letter in the alphabet, G - whereas in the Paperback Palette source, "#7" is labeled as the sixth, F:

This implies not only that #6 is absent from the Paperback Palette source but also that there is a missing mystery illustration located between this source's H and K - that is to say, before or after #9!

EXCEPT... For one, this isn't the only inconsistency I've noticed - there are several places where the letters seem shifted in a strange way. I've seen #2 listed as "C" and #9 listed both as "H" and "I2i" (???), just as two examples. (My theory is that the cover wrapper and the frontispiece may be at play here, but who knows?)

More importantly, though, it seems that, for some mysterious reason, all of the sources with relatively consistent use of these letters (i.e. all but the Victorian Web) - even the sources with only eleven interior illustrations - still give #15 in the full set the fifteenth letter, O. Which, of course, may make all of this pretty moot anyway.

Dare I say..."Oh."

Suffice it to say, just as much as major sources like the Internet Archive and Google Books are vital to this sort of research and preservation work, so are smaller websites and bloggers! After all, without the Victorian Web and the Paperback Palette, we as collective netizens likely wouldn't have ever known about the cover wrapper or illustration #14 (not to mention that the versions of the illustrations from the set posted by @oldillustrations have by far the best image quality and standardization that I've found! Please go check them out if you haven't yet!).

As for the reasons behind Collins' Clear-Type Press not publishing all of the illustrations from the beginning (if that's the explanation we're to go with here), I suppose the question I'd like to ask is:

why? why would you put us through this?

& the standard endnote for all posts in this series:

This post is intended to act as the start of a forum on the given illustrator, so if anyone has anything to add - requests to see certain drawings in higher definition (since Tumblr compresses images), corrections to factual errors, sources for better-quality versions of the illustrations, further reading, fun facts, any questions, or just general commentary - simply do so on this post, be it in a comment/tags or the replies!💫

[sn0wbat]

← part 1 🦇

fun fact, they are almost the same age frida was when rune went to sleep. funny how time works

[lanternlightss]

loop ….

[epiphainie]

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[thedrotter]

re:kinder goofy (for the most part) doodle dump !!! last two are from. five months ago when i was barely starting to draw these characters but i found them amusing 😊 enjoy snacks