#we are doing the lords work

[obsob]

the accolade ( the...the cat-olade...)

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 209

Now Jason was planning on, well, a lot of things, when he came back to Gotham. He had a lot of plans, several of which had to do with the old man and even more that had to do with cleaning up Crime Alley, making it safer and all that. 

What he was not planning on was to find some sort of lab in the basement of where he was planning on setting up a safehouse. Nor was he planning on finding several literal children in cages inside said lab. Oh and Lazarus Waters- but children! With muzzles! Being experimented on!

Now he’d like to say he had a plan in what happened next, but if he’s honest everything had gone Green and he didn’t remember what happened next, only that he’s back home with said children and covered in blood. Oh and everything smells of smoke. 

… And apparently there’s more of these things dotted around Crime Alley with the rest of these kids, er, siblings? Family? Fright does mean family? Okay kids, he’s not turning into Bruce but you can stay here while he deals with this… however long that takes. 

He better not be turning into Bruce he swears-

[gunsatthaphan]

sh00k.

[cataclysmictide]

I Love You, That's All

The Louvre - Lorde/Edgar Degas/The Creation of Adam - Michelangelo/Art Heist, Baby! - @otrtbs /The Gathering Storm - Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky/The Last Great American Dynasty - Taylor Swift/The Louvre - Lorde/Unknown/Art Heist, Baby! - Otrtbs/New Year's Day - Taylor Swift/Margaret - Lana Del Rey/Unknown/Art Heist, Baby! - Otrtbs/New Year's Day - Taylor Swift/Ships in a Storm - Ludolf Bakhuizen/Interior with the Artist's Wife Emilie Heise -  Carl Holsøe/Art Heist, Baby! - Otrtbs/Half Return - Adrianne Lenker/Art Heist, Baby! - Otrtbs/My Tears Ricochet - Taylor Swift/Art Heist, Baby! - Otrtbs/Fourth of July - Sufjan Stevens/Unknown/Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss -  Antonio Canova/Bigger Than The Whole Sky - Taylor Swift/Love in the Heart of Everything; The Correspondence between Vladimir Mayakovsky & Lili Brik/Art Heist, Baby! - Otrtbs

[bi-grlsdoitwell]

Walton Goggins as Lee Russell in Vice Principals. Spit.

[fumifooms]

Dungeon lord Chilchuck

What would his wish as a dungeon lord be? What would he be like? Headcanons & speculation post for fun. But I’ll start with analytic lead up because that’s always fun for me, though feel free to skip and skim.

When it comes to what Chilchuck’s dungeon lord desires could/would be like we have mainly 3 hints: His nightmare, his succubus and what the winged lion says to him.

Why: — From what we see nightmares are based on the person’s worst fears and insecurities, both Laios’ and Marcille’s nightmare were closely tied to their dungeon lord wishes (Laios’ dream monster being summoned to crush the ghosts of relationships that represented the pressure to fit in and belong, Marcille seeking control over death and aging through magic to avoid loss), the fuel behind their desire/goal if you will. Fear and deep-seated desires are seemingly closely tied, something also supported by Thistle and Mithrun’s reigns as dungeon lords (Thistle proving his worth through fulfilling his given duty + protecting his loved ones, being listened to instead of having to listen, Mithrun escaping rigid two-faced elven society and living in a wonderland where he has no enemies and he’s loved, free from everyone he knew yet propped up by the person symbolizing his brother being chosen over him, the bastard child).

— I’ve talked about the significance I assign to the succubi often by now, but rundown: What we see of each character is all very telling if you care to listen, it shows not only someone’s "ideal form" but what they want from it. Izutsumi’s is familial, offering a hug and comfort, Marcille’s is romantic with a character she knows and loves, offering a kiss on a hand and a connection regardless of how distant it actually is, and Laios’ is platonic, arguable at first but then Laios’ fear of judgement is placated and he is offered the picture perfect friend group that accepts his interest (if you want my full look at Laios’ succubus go here). They take on the most alluring form, most ideal person of their victim, even uncovering deep subconscious desires, so precisely and effectively to the point it leaves victims physically frozen before the object of their desire. Succubi and the demon are themselves tied in lore and it’s easy to see how similar their core skill are. Succubi don’t give a good idea of what a character would wish for on their own but they certainly give hints on what they crave, regardless of how you want to read it.

— Last bit is self-explanatory. To placate Chilchuck and win his compliance over, the monster that reads your soul like an open book offers to give him something specific. But! It’s also important to remember that the lion isn’t offering to fulfill Chilchuck’s dream world wish here, it’s a second prize, because his goal with what he promised Laios is that they’d stay in this world, away from everyone and everything else. Chilchuck wants to get away but is kept back, and it’s here the lion placates him with "hey it’s okay! You can’t do that but I can still give you this! This is enough right? It’ll make everything easier on you".

What each bit says: — Long version in another post. Tldlr: His daughters and family are obviously important to him, and this reinforces that he takes on the role of protector a lot, he’s constantly worried for his party members’ lives and implicitly his family’s. Safety and stability, both economical and otherwise, are his core values and goals, and he berates both others and himself if someone fails on those fronts. Here, there’s the fear of not being enough, of not having been able to protect, and of course of loss.

— Chil’s succubi are obviously sexual, and not only that but agressively and straightforwardly so. It’s not like Marcille’s where there’s personality involved, all they do is give him sultry looks and pretty smiles before jumping on him. His succubi aren’t like Izutsumi’s, always the same exact person and appearance, so it’s not someone but an appealing general idea. The idea of a sexual being he can regard as simply a gorgeous piece of meat and a good time no strings attached. In my interpretation, especially with my reading of Laios’ succubus where even with deep-seated desires negative emotions can be too intense to effectively freeze a victim, I think this doesn’t contradict his character. Relationships have been painful to him in the past, in the succubus scene when his wife gets mentioned his immediate reaction is to yell "Don’t bring her up now!", like with his habit of drinking and as a tallman liking his senses feeling dulled, it’s about not having to feel emotions with how difficult they are to deal with sometimes and just feeling good, or at least not having to think, for a while. If a succubus showcases someone’s ideal connection with an ideal person, then Chilchuck’s is with a pretty person that doesn’t stir any negative memory or drama, someone low stakes and low maintenance that doesn’t require him to manage or talk out feelings because there’s none involved in the first place.

— Once more, wife and family are important! He does long for his family, not only his wife but his daughters, and vice versa. This suggests not only that he wants good relationships with them but that he wants them to be with him, a family life. Far from the cut communication they all more of less have during canon, and perhaps far from their life pre-canon when he worked away from home a significant amount of time. We’ve seen recreations of people by the winged lion before with doppelgangers and monsters (naga), and though he claims he can make satisfying imitations, what we’ve seen is that they base themselves on the best memories of that person, like with Marcille’s dad, or twist behavior to be more pleasant, like Mithrun’s lover (and possibly twist appearances depending on the person’s view of them, but that’s Mithrun analysis). The line does suggest Chilchuck would want his family members as they are in reality and not idealized versions, but the circumstances are chaotic and urgent enough in the scene (and again the lion isn’t fulfilling Chilchuck’s wish but trying to make him content for Laios’) that it could just be the winged lion saying what he needs to to convince him the fastest possible, and like we see with Laios that can crumble to give way to deeper or more complex desires.

On top of that we just have general info on Chil. How does Chilchuck deal w his issues? What does he like to do? He likes alcohol and ignoring his problems. We have to remember there is a split between what someone would consciously wish for and what their soul uncontrollably irrationally craves. As always with Dunmeshi, there’s a narrative of irrational deep-seated desires vs active wants, what you crave vs what you strive for, what you dream of vs what’s actually good for you, the animal vs the human inside you, heart vs mind. Chilchuck craving a harem of hot babes in his fantasies but wanting his family life & wife back again is not mutually exclusive. You may crave becoming a monster and tasting what humans are like a little but still want to save the world & your friends more.

Btw can we adress the irony of him terrified of being the last one alive, of being left by his daughters and wife, of having left and coming back home one day to see everything gone or rampaged, yet not caring about dying of liver failure himself, knowing every time that he enters a dungeon there’s a real risk he may not come out. Die somewhere I can’t see you. I prefer leaving you than being left behind. He’s selfish and shortsighted like that… Chilchuck is selfless in many ways of course, but perhaps also due to his own relationship with his parents, he often undermines the effects he has on others in his relationships, both the good and the bad (he talks himself down about being cowardly and greedy yes, but never hints at his bad health habits, alcoholism and starving himself, may have affected his loved ones, doesn’t question his wife falling into a bad mood the night before she left, and talks about the possibility of dying here and there very casually, though obviously he tries his best to stay alive when it doesn’t concern his health).

Chilchuck king of "Let me just avoid and ignore my problems surely they’ll go away, things might work out and if they don’t well tough luck I’ll survive and I probably deserve it anyways". If I don’t look at it it will dissapear <3 Why care when you can simply not think about it.

You might not understand Mister "my love will stay strong through months of work travel and also 4 years of separation" and Mister "well idk my siblings and me are kinda strangers and my dad is dead but that’s kinda whatever", but typically relationships need some form of maintenance and emotional availability…

The actual headcanons finally

I kinda have 2 routes in mind for dunlord Chil and both of them are centered on "I care too much, i wish things were easy", so first is a lot like his succubi, it’s full on indulging in his guilty pleasures like alcohol and bodies and it’s to keep him in a constant state of thrill and euphoria and distracted, unfeeling about stuff that really matters. "Nothing matters except that I’m enjoying the moment!" vibe. He gets to live a life worthy of Dionysus, with alcohol and women and debauchery and like— never having to think again, never having to feel anything but pleasure again, never have to feel guilty or shitty or angry or sad. He has a harem and gets everything on a silver platter.

Breaking news demon magic-induced rush of euphoria and power still not enough to cure this man of his self-hatred nor his capacity for thought!! But in his case a state of euphoria is what he seeks I think, to kinda mask or replace the Everything Else.

The other is what I think closer to what canon suggests, with what WL implied too with "I’ll make you a new wife and kids like the originals!! 😊", it’s a (spoilers) Wandavision type thing where it’s a slice of life where he’s never at work and always at home and the family eats lunches at the dinner table together and everything and everyone at any moment is just. Happy. No issues. It was all a dream, this is real and everything is fine and your family is perfect and happy. I like to think the timeline would be wonky, his daughters would fluctuate in age, but he’d want to be there for what he missed, would want them to still rely on him and look up to him like when they were young, would like to forget that they’re now independent adults and the distance that grew between Chilchuck and his siblings is happening between them as well. Chil would want doppelgangers of his family imo, at its core just a general wish for a peaceful happy family life with no drama, no need to compromise, a little paradise of unconditional love and no consequences. It’s for sure straightforward, but Chilchuck is a man with straightforward desires…

But see Chilchuck is a greedy man, and he wants it both ways without having to sacrifice anything or expanding any efforts himself. He wants to have his cake and eat it too. I think playing with these two opposite directions and mixing and matching is most fun. Him leading a life where he indulges in all his worst habits while still having everything he wants… Him getting to have BOTH his wife and any woman he can imagine up, his life like two sides of a coin he can flip at any moment where he’s partying then he’s at home enjoying the quiet and his toddler daughters playing with toys on the carpet. Christ when you remember it’s all an illusion that’s terrifying, the doppelgangers and succubi from the winged lion playing chilchuck ping pong.

A safe little haven both security-stability wise and emotionally. Gets to have both the relaxing and the thrilling in any dose he wants, mixed or separatedly. What I’d argue he had pre-canon too: Can live it up in taverns away from home, stays away from home for long periods of time, and can come back to home aka the symbol of relaxation and safety whenever he decides to. Something he can leave and come back to at will, an anchor he can trust in (until it’s taken from him and his wife leaves. Or in his worse nightmare people rush in and kill his daughters). The ideal of a house and family to a working man, perhaps…

I think it’s fun to think on wether or not these desires would be interesting at all to the winged lion… In canon he seeks out "rare/complex desires", common simple things like I imagine riches, sex, substances and pleasure would be are boring to him, he’s eaten those so many times already. So perhaps he wouldn’t last long as a dunlord, the WL would want to eat him fully quick, can’t keep him interested or waiting long for a meager meal, too much effort raising the cattle and too low quality meat. By making it more twisted or layered Chil’s desire would become more desirable to the demon, it’s part of what’s fun with the third option to me. But whatever. Has he ever eaten a guy with this much repression and self-sabotage... Like trying to get the meat out of a walnut, enrichment…

Other dunlord Chil takes I’ve seen that are fun and good:

@feelo-fick and @pluvio-floret have a dunlord Chilchuck AU project dubbed "tragedy AU" where Chilchuck is said to be "on vacation", in a weird delirious state, only half-there half of the time… From which he doesn’t want to wake up </3 Quoting Feelo, this is why the vacation thing is only a half-joke cause he is 1) letting all his responsibilities go 2) indulging in himself and 3) "spending time with his family" <- lie but you get what i mean. Additional comments that have me vigorously nodding: because changing is hard why cant things just be okay right now without the effort !!! Life is hard he’s so so tired he just wants to feel good… he just wants life to feel nice and easy for a sec while he can learn to breathe again and lose the stress and trauma he’s accumulated…….. spoiler alert yes !!! in fact a depressed person can suck themselves into their job and lock out the world who wouldve thought !!!

And then Cabinette I know posted about his dunlord take once but I don’t have the link, in which Chil has a lot of nosebleeds because of mana overload which is fun and interesting to think about imo~

In dunmeshi, where characters get underground pockets of the world as their playground disconnected from everything outside and the rest of the world, it’s important to remember to face reality even if it has conflict and people with different views and stances from you, it’s something Chilchuck and Marcille and everyone needed to learn, and the thing with a dungeon lord AU is that you imagine a timeline where he fails to <3

A timeline where his dungeon lord wish is to desire nothing bc hope and want has only ever hurt him would also go so hard. Very universal thing though I suppose.

… And this is why a Chilchuck-centric Coraline AU is really really interesting and fitting and topical— Ok that’ll go in a separate reblog/post at @Fumiku I need to let this end

[forcedhesitation]

astarion origin playthrough worth it just for all the extra moments where he does the "sad wet cat" face

[reireichu]

There’s nothing else (that needs to be said).

[curiosity-killed]

covenant

[ALT ID: A digital painting of Vash from Trigun and a Dependent Plant. Vash's hands are seen, cupping starry water that bleeds down from the veins in his wrist over the Plant's head. The Plant rises from dark, starry water with multiple sets of wings and glowing eyes.]

[coveredinsun]

i put this in a fic so i might as well make it into a post too. this is NOT original, i should say, but it’s basically canon in my head that legolas’ mom died in the war of the last alliance (presumably fighting under oropher, who also perished then) cuz it’s just more narratively weighty than “some gundabad orcs killed her.” peter jackson mega fumbled with that one if you ask me. and i think if legolas were forbidden from going into that fight it would create a scrumptious parallel to gimli being forbidden from going on the quest to reclaim erebor with thorin. which is important and true because everything is about gimleaf. every single time without fail

[gunsatthaphan]

👁️👄👁️

[hellishfig]

it's really beautiful to tune into the fireside chat and hear aabria and erika teaching brennan and [insert lou's replacement here] about things like onceler self-cest and the omegaverse

the only person i know irl who is caught up on wbn and subscribes to the patreon is also my ex boyfriend, and many conversations that we had in high school sounded very similar to today's fireside chat

brings back wonderful memories of inflicting psychic damage on those nearest and dearest to me

[problemnyatic]

"Trans men treat transfems like shit, trans women are so weird to transmascs-"

hey ive got an idea what if we all shut the fuck up and held hands and realized letting our dysphoria and trauma bleed out into how we treat others is something we all need to work on together and drawing lines in the sand and reinventing boys versus girls Queer Edition isn't gonna help any of us heal from the shit we're all going through in some form or another

[david-tennant-in-chairs]

Good morning, sunshine!

There are few things sexier than a gentleman unraveled

[shinakazami1]

I'm thinking of @krotiation post about how Rhys is strong sm and I'm just wondering of Anu and him

Anu presents herself as genius - after all, she made the device to mimic power of sirens which is just very awesome but... We don't see her genius at all in the game. All we see is that she's dependant on her goggles to analyse for her.

The way the comments are built in the game suggest that Rhys had some doing to them. They are snarky, they get some Atlas marketing in there too and while Echo devices had always existed with some remarks, they have their own character well before Ocvatio puts additional programming in.

Best way to show how dependant she's on them is Episode 4. When she reaches her designed spot where she's made to believe to be seen as genius, she problems solves through... The goggles. She doesn't solve the issues by herself at ALL - everything has to be said to her.

Through Tales, we watch Rhys use the Echo device a lot. But there are many moments, in combat or through hacking in Ep 3 that show its only an enhancer of his abilities, not main source of them. It is of course unfair a bit to say - as he also has the arm that he uses a few times, since it's stronger than his body but, I feel his loss of the devices is very significant. Because at the end of the day - he wanted a manager position from the start. He was sometimes an asshole, a coward, but in the end, he did exactly what he wanted. Through his own hard work, he got to the top.

They both used their echo devices to analyse. Anu however, used it to think for her. Rhys used it to help him think.

[respectthepetty]

Lost in Translation

I saw this image recently, and instead of hijacking that perfectly good post, I thought it best to write my own.

Because this a very real issue, even when watching a show or movie.

Mostly when it comes to watching queer media that already incorporates a coded language due to the topic.

Many people watching Portrait of a Lady on Fire in another language didn't realize the significance of the final scene between these two because they didn't understand French.

The entire movie, they used the formal form of you basically referring to each other as madam, but at the end, they use informal you, and it shows the intimacy that has developed between them. If you didn't understand French or romance languages, you probably missed it!

It happens often in Asian dramas as well because they use honorifics that don't get translated with the same significance.

These two in Ghost Host, Ghost House skipped over the traditional honorifics and instead opted for you and I. It was important because even when they were fighting, they still saw each other as equals.

This was a big moment in Semantic Error, but if you watched it with just the translation on one streaming platform

You would have missed the urgency of the scene because he finally showed respect for this person and the relationship they had developed.

And often, the translations of colloquialisms (slang or informal language) are literal so context is omitted.

I would pay $$$ for annotated subtitles (like from Viki, depending on the team, Idol Factory does a good job, and Lazy Subber, please come back!) because they explain the context we would miss in the literal translations.

In Thailand black bean is (derogatory) slang for gay sex, so asking if someone wants black beans is coded language.

When Knock asks his girlfriend if she is itchy in Together With Me, if the audience doesn't speak Thai, they understand the flow of the conversation as being logical since Knock's girlfriend just mentioned getting bit by mosquitoes and wanting to go inside. However, the show does a strange sequence that indicates this moment meant something...more.

Because asking if someone is itchy in Thai is asking if they are horny. Knock is asking his girlfriend if she is horny and if that's why she wants to go inside. That's missed in the translation.

This happened in Love Mechanics as well. Vee asks Mark if he wants him to come inside to watch a series. It seems innocent enough, but Mark's reaction is aggressively upset.

It's because this is equivalent to America's Netflix and Chill or Korea's Wanna Eat Ramen?. Vee is asking Mark if he would like to YouTube and Lube. Vee is asking Mark if he wants to have sex! That is missed in the translation.

Big Dragon had this issue with different translations on different streaming platforms in regards to this scene:

Some platforms translated Yai as saying "You're a pain in the ass, really" while others used "You're a pain in the ass, literally." It's a small change, but Mangkorn smiles afterwards because he gets what Yai is saying and is a literal pain in the ass. Yai had to visit a doctor after their first sexual encounter because Mangkorn was so rough it caused Yai pain...in his ass, and they just had sex again.

Language is a cultural tool, so although it incorporates a lot of implied knowledge, it's subtle. If the audience is missing the cultural context, an entire narrative can be easily missed.

This is also the case with intonation aka the rise in pitch when speaking or emphasis on a particular word - Why is this here? vs. Why is this here? - One is asking why this specific item is outside instead of another item, while the second asks why that specific item is outside instead of another location. If we don't know the language, it's hard to decipher when the intonation causes a change in meaning.

So the next time you are watching a series in another language and think the dialogue is lacking, understand it's probably because you don't speak the language. Sometimes the substance is lost in translation.

It's okay, but ask questions, do some research, and try to learn, so the next time someone asks if you want ramen, you can smile and say enthusiastically "YES!"

EDIT - Adding more links from others that show examples:

Extraordinary Attorney Woo - The cat's butler scene

My Engineer - Cool Kid Nickname

English in KinnPorsche as deception