#but it also contains the double standard of learning

[comingfromastatechampionasshole]

Wilt-resist your whipped cream! (A cheat, by Doc)

Okay, the phrase "by Doc" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here--I actually learned this tip from a gal I was competing with years ago in state fair (she beat my ass) and I'm sure other aunts and grandmas know it. But, whomst else on tumblr will deliver it to your eyeballs?

Because you know the trouble with whipped cream and whipped cream frostings is they tend to wilt over time, especially if they have to deal with absolutely any level of heat. A simple room temperature can make your pie or cake look weepy and sad. Your bowl of fresh whipped cream now looks worse than the fuckin' cool whip. Tragedy.

Now, I assume you, erudite and exceptional readers of this blog, are already using powdered sugar/icing sugar instead of standard sugar to make your whipped cream, not only because of greater stability but because it functionally removes the possibility of graininess. This is a "I want to make this whipped cream the night before" tip. Other tips like milk powder, I find, just don't have the same longevity as what's below:

Professionals use gelatin or agar-agar, which I don't like for two reasons: 1) Gelatin is not vegetarian and in the US is often made from pork, so fuck your Jewish or Muslim guests and 2) you have to bloom the gelatin or agar-agar, and it can be tricky to work with, and if you aren't the 'working with high-level mousses and creams often" type, it may be a waste of space in your kitchen.

But gee whiz, did you know there's a very cheap and intensely easy solution for busy housewives to keep her man loving her whipped cream, and by extension, her? Tell her, Don!

Why little lady, it's Jell-O (tm) brand instant pudding mix! Don't tell the ladies at the church bake-off...we won't.

This is the easiest possible way to get nice, stiff whipped cream that holds up for, I think my record is three days. It can also tolerate sitting in a warm room much much better than whipped cream really ought to be able to.

"But Doc, isn't Jell-O, uh, gelatin?"

Jell-O itself is, but Jell-O pudding is actually kosher. I assume other brands are as well, but I don't know this for a fact--so make sure to check the label if you're using a different brand. What's doing the work here is 'modified food starch' which is a stronger version of cornstarch, which I find, added to whipped cream, to require too much to be added, and the texture gets odd.

This is cheap! Your grocery store may vary, but this small box was 99 cents.

This is easy! All you do is add about 1 tablespoon of pudding mix per one cup of heavy/whipping/double cream* and then whip as usual.

It does lightly flavor the whipped cream, which I've never found to be a problem--I use regular vanilla mostly, but french vanilla is nice for banana cream pie, I used coconut cream for the pie I just entered WHICH WON BEST IN SHOW I MIGHT ADD. Chocolate is great for chocolate whipped cream. You're smart people, you got this. The only ones I don't recommend are tapioca (pearls) and Oreo (having about three bits of oreo in the whipped cream looks dirty rather than intentional.)

Go forth, and set your whipped cream on the sideboard with confidence!

*I'm aware these all actually contain different levels of fat, but let's get real here, they are often used interchangeably and only the craziest among us is going to seriously get into "What cream should you be whipping?" discourse.

#cooking tips #baking tips #recipe #kinda I guess

[digital-dhampirs]

VnC 58: the case study of astolfo

After a whole year of suspense, the Case Study of Vanitas is back with a bang and so is this tumblr blog. Time isn’t real, so let’s pretend that this analysis came out when I wrote it after reading chapter 58 rather than the day before chapter 59. Let’s go!

As always, although it’s been a while, this post will contain massive spoilers for VnC 58 and is intended for those who have read up to this point in the manga!

intergalactic tea party

Chapter 58 begins with (an absolutely stunning shot of Vanitas’s tarte tatin) a quick recap of the plot so far and where the main cast is at the moment— Domi and Jeanne tragically finish their conversation offscreen; Domi and Noé have an adorable reunion; and Jeanne leaves the hotel alone, likely to report on her successful mission to a worried Luca. Jeanne looks adorably carefree as she heads out and I pray for a flashback to her conversation with Domi in the near future.

Moving rapidly along, we cut to the Archiviste Noé caught a glimpse of last chapter, traveling through the border between worlds. We learn that she’s familiar with Comte and likely Luna as well, and she and Comte sit down to have a very Pandora Hearts flavored tea break. Comte says that mystery Archiviste hasn’t travelled to the human world in ages, making it very unlikely that she was there explicitly to see Noé, although it’s possible she was (like Comte) waiting in the shadows to intervene if the fair fight reached a certain point.

Mystarchiviste in turn reveals that Comte’s existence is “unstable”. The only context we really have for that term is Vani and Misha, artificial followers of the blue moon lying somewhere between human and vampire… Comte certainly acts like a vampire, but maybe he’s actually something much more in between? My half-theory half-headcanon is that his obsession with Luna stems partially from feeling commonality with another being who doesn’t understand their own existence…

Speaking of Luna, Comte taking their form has interesting lore implications (can he take the form of anyone he’s met, or is there another requirement that has to be met first?) and also interesting fanfic implications but let’s move rapidly onwards to the real meat of chapter 58.

the chasseurs are insane

A majority of VnC 58 takes place in an extended flashback, as Astolfo reflects on his past. This flashback confirms a lot of what past chapters have implied about Astolfo— he was consumed by self hatred and guilt following the vampire attack, to the point of attempting suicide. The whole flashback could easily read as yet another parallel to Vanitas, who, after finding himself as the sole survivor a second time in a row, turned to a path he knew would culminate in his own death.

We meet two fun new characters during this section of the chapter— a guy wearing an earring (I was half-wondering if this was a younger version of Olivier’s assistant, but their eyebrows and earrings are different, so he’s probably one of Gano’s homeboys) and Charles.

Earring guy is suspicious. He might have some sort of plot relevant past (cough cough, No. 7- [i am escorted off the stage]), he might be an average chasseur with a vampire related incident in his history, or he might just be your standard issue psychopath. My favorite Mochijun Flavored Detail this chapter is the panel where, under the guise of breaking up Mira and Gano’s brawl, he moves to block Olivier’s line of sight and path to Astolfo. It’s just so Mochijun and i missed her so much—-

Charles is neato, but he sort of has this vibe where he’s not meant to be the star of the panels he’s in. It’s like Astolfo isn’t fully looking at him. Even though Charles is trying to inspire faith in Astolfo here, the only light Astolfo sees is Roland. In his double-page introductory panel Charles is exclusively lit by light coming in through the door as Roland opens it. Roland, meanwhile, looks like a savior, the light behind him blinding, and Astolfo bursts into tears when he sees him. I’m so excited to watch their relationship collapse as this flashback continues..!

Through Charles’s conversation with Astolfo, we learn a very interesting piece of lore: when a vampire bites someone they aren’t injecting an aphrodisiac or poison with their fangs— they’re actively rewriting their world formula, and sometimes these effects are permanent. I feel like I should’ve been able to riddle this out, given the whole mark of the blue moon thing, but the fact that this happens so frequently throughout the series, and that Jeanne has rewritten Vanitas, is feckin shocking and feels like it has some very interesting implications for the series. Perhaps Archivistes are unique in that, rather than rewriting with their bite, they read what’s already there.

I honestly don’t have many other thoughts on Charles. He gets carried around and nobody’s allowed see him, possibly implying that he’s become sicker/ his existence has gotten more unstable ;) since he originally became a paladin. Maybe he’s the head honcho Roland and Olivier are working against, maybe he’s actually dead by the time we hit the main plotline. At this point, it feels like he could move in any direction.

interpretation, extrapolation, being wrong, that’s the mochijuncycle

Vampires rewrite the world formula when they bite others, often leading to devastating and permanent consequences for those they’ve bitten. Misha and Vanitas aren’t the only two unstable beings in existence— while we’ve never heard of VnC vampires turning humans with their bite, maybe once a human has been rewritten enough times they too become unstable. Maybe Comte, in constantly changing his name and shape, has been rewriting himself to the point of instability. Maybe Noé struggles to rewrite because, as an Archiviste, he was born to simply read and record.

But you probably shouldn’t trust me on any of this because, as always, this is 100% my biased initial interpretation of Chapter 58! I hope you’re all as hyped to see this flashback play out as I am, and I’ll see you (hopefully somewhat) soon for VnC 59!

#vanitas no carte #vnc #meta-ish #the case study of vanitas #vanitas no shuki

[olderthannetfic]

How I would do 2023 ship stats

You know, normally, I don't bother to do much with top AO3 ships stats. That's partly because someone already does it and partly because I think they're stupid stats that just lead to people gloating about their blorbos "winning". But I do routinely have a look at what's new and popular when I'm doing things like making a dance party playlist for Escapade Con, just so I know what fans might be getting into lately. I have to say, collecting these is not hard. It's not even particularly time consuming.

Doing it super efficiently would be easier with a script, yes, but most fandom stats aren't actually collected with scripts, and if you're only looking for the top 100 ships, you can more or less do that by hand. How I would set about it for you, the random fan who's curious but not curious enough to learn to code, would be to log into AO3 and then find tags where you can see the sidebar. They should be tags that encompass the whole archive and that are mandatory and unique… in other words, ratings.

Since every AO3 work must have one and only one rating, you can just check these five and get a good sense of what's on there. There are some minor wrinkles to iron out, but it's a good preliminary research step.

The way you want to do it is to start with a spreadsheet. Open up your ratings URLs (and also paste them in the spreadsheet for convenience—google sheets will make clickable links). Copy all the sidebar top ships into a list. Filter out all of these ships. Copy the next set, etc. After a while, you'll have a good list that's longer than 100 ships but that most likely contains everything really popular. (Filter for things posted/updated/whatever in the past year if that's the data you're after. Filter for f/f or whatever topic you're interested in if that's the question you're asking instead.)

Use your spreadsheet to generate the actual links for each of these ships. AO3 URLs are predictable: you can generate them from knowing the exact spelling of the tag and the normal format of this type of URL. (There are a bunch of standard spreadsheet functions that can be used to get rid of the work count numbers you've copied from AO3 to get just the pure ship tags. I'd use things like =right() and =left().)

Open the links. Copy the work totals back to your spreadsheet. Voilà!

One drawback of this method is, obviously, that it's boring and tedious, but if you didn't like boring and tedious, why were you collecting fandom stats anyway?

A more important drawback is that in using exclude filters, it's possible you could miss a ship. If the posting patterns are just right, there might be something that has its numbers reduced by excluding other ships that should be on your list. You could have a similar issue if the ships on your list are mostly one rating (so higher in those searches) and some other slightly larger overall ship is spread more evenly. I would try to ameliorate this problem by looking at the sizes of the smallest ships you're covering. They will likely be bigger than the entire fandom section for most fandoms. Taking another look at the bigger fandoms that could be hiding a small-end-of-big ship can help double-check that you haven't missed anything. Grabbing the top 130 or 150 ships in some search while only looking for the top 100 will likely find most of the edge stuff too.

Add any ships that look like they should be double checked to your spreadsheet. Add their work totals. Re-sort your list.

Another thing to consider is that AO3 keeps track of the most recent update date on fics. That's what's easy to search by. If you're only interested in when a work was first posted, easy manual filtering isn't the way to go… However, if the objective is to see which ship tags were active in a given year, most recent update date is the relevant piece of data anyway.

You're not going to recreate centreoftheselights' exact analysis unless you collect data year to year, but you can come up with something pretty similar that answers a similar question, and you don't need to be a programmer to do it.

In the end, accept that some data require hard collection methods that a site doesn't easily offer you and you might have to scrape multiple times a year with a script if you want to know that particular thing… or you might have to randomly sample and hand-count as with FFN shipping stats. (Yes, I've done it. It can be done. It's just annoying.)

So when you're setting out to look at some stats question, the big first step is to decide what you're even asking and why and whether you're just wimping out and going with what's easy to collect instead of what you actually want to know.

...now I'm kind of curious. Maybe I'll go pull some 2023 numbers.

[blackcrowing]

hi) I used to be a wiccan, I moved on from it because it no longer felt freeing and I didn't feel connected to it anymore, but I never knew it's something bad? could you please direct me to some good info about it?

There... is a lot going on with it to be entirely honest with you, probably more than could possibly be addressed in just one post of any kind. But I would say the core problems with it as a religion are centered in its founding, ie. that it was essentially completely made up by an English man in the 1940/50s. To make a very long story short, he was basically an amature anthropologist (the concept of anthropology interested him, but he had no formal training. which even if he did anthropology at the time was EXTREMELY colonistic in its applications). So he took aspects of many many different cultures, found similar belief structures in them, and decided to squish them together to make his own "ancient, secret practice." (The wheel of year is an example of this that is ESPECIALLY irksome to Celtic based polytheists.) Thus, Gardnerian Wicca was born.

Because it was pretty rigidly patriarchal (while saying how liberating and equal it was, which was standard for occult groups of the time) there was a backlash and Dianic Wicca grew out of that. They tend to have the most influence on butchering complex deities down to two dimensional figure heads, removing them from their cultural context completely and misappropriating them, causing great confusion to new polytheists looking for information. You're likely to see hundreds of blogs/articles/whatever if you look up say, Morrighan, that claim she is a triple goddess (in the maiden, mother, crone sense), and corresponds with other goddess like Freyja and Hecate. These statements remove her from her cultural context and are likely to set the blood of any one who genuinely studies her on fire.

There was also the Alexandrian Wicca, which set off the common mixing of the terms 'Wicca' and 'witchcraft' causing great confusion among lay-peoples and beginners that all witchcraft is Wiccan. This grew the concepts that are now popular in eclectic witchcraft books like the threefold law and again flattened and erased MANY folk practices as they got absorbed with little or no context into "Wiccan Witchcraft." See anything Silver Ravenwolf has ever written for an example.

Lastly (that I know of but honestly I can guarentee I have miss many many things even in this rather lengthy response) there was the W.I.T.C.H. movement, a semi feminist/occult... thing... which further muddied the waters and is more than likely responsible for the ideas people have in the community about male practitioners of magic and male polytheists, hell even some male deities.

Also I think this all continues to be a big problem because not only are people getting pulled into Wiccan framing when it comes to the occult inadvertently (because it has leaked into every "new witch" book that exists) but MANY folks out there when confronted about their appropriative behavior don't learn from that conversation, instead they double down on why its actually ok for them to "smudge" or why its actually ok that they misapproprate complex deities and treat them like collectable playing cards.

TLDR: Wicca perpetuates cultural erasure in witch/occult/magic circles and is in many ways responsible for problematic themes in those circles and when it comes to lay-peoples understandings of what those circles contain and believe. And they tend to defend their colonialist mindset whenever challenged on it.

#ask #anon #blackcrowing #I really do apologize for the length of this one #and again I promise that is just the tip of the iceberg #and don't feel bad that you participated its almost the nature of the beast that we all have a 'wiccan phase' when we start out #just grow from it and learn to find good sources for your information and remember to place the occult in its cultural context #wiccan #wicca #paganblr #witchblr #problematic #history #cultural appropriation #appropriation #culture #occult

[birindale]

I've mentioned the so-called "U-Matic tapes" before, but had tabled finding footage of them bc the next step was going to involve a lot more hacking than I'm capable of. But on my most recent research quest, I got a bootleg DVD which contained an unlisted feature: my personal white whale.

So what is this? Why did I want a copy so bad?

The U-Matic tapes were found in Filmation archives, and we believe this was part of the collaborative process between Mattel and Filmation's development of the characters.

It's easy to look at the Filmation designs and see where the studio's common practices are put into effect. Hordak was changed from gray-skinned to blue so that he would pop out against the backgrounds better. She-Ra's spiraling chest emblem was made symmetrical, because they'd learned that asymmetry and stock footage do not get along during their Superman cartoon.

But this--these designs, this singular tape--this is our missing link. The common ancestor between the first wave toys and the Filmation designs. And yes, I had still images, but not in the original resolution! Not with the clapperboard! This is an entirely unexpected windfall and I'm downright gleeful. Buckle in, folks, I'm breaking it all down:

Castaspella

Ah, Castaspella. She started out with really vibrant colors actually, Justine Dantzer designed her with this whole psychedelic vibe. Her magic wheel was originally super bright, primary colors that imo would have served the toy really well. Instead of 'look at this cool hypno disk' it would be 'look at this cool rainbow hypno disk'. Kids love rainbows! I'm not biased at all!

Obviously the biggest difference aside from her color scheme is the wheel. They did have it in early Filmation passes, but like... it's a giant wheel. I imagine it's kind of a pain to animate.

Double Trouble

Double Trouble, too, had a bit of a color scheme journey. She began with magenta and red, then apparently moved into this violet-and-blue combo, before finally settling on green. And like, the first wave did need more green imo. If they'd stuck with the red for Catra and that lilac for Glimmer they could have had a whole rainbow. And like, gay bias aside, that would be lovely for collectors, or kids that like to arrange stuff by color.

Anyway they kind of stole prototype DT's color scheme for Filmation Glimmer, probably because of the aforementioned 'pop' blue brings against their standard backgrounds. And speaking of...

Glimmer

The guide who lights the way! Filmation pushed her hair much pinker than the toy's (although it's dyed purple in one episode), but otherwise yeah, that's pretty much just Double Trouble's proto-outfit, sans tulle. I should note that the leotards and so on are likely also a 'reduce the number of frames we have to draw' measure. Lou Scheimer had a very, very strict policy that She-Ra's underwear never be showed, which made a number of shots incredibly difficult to animate (the spin-kick towards the camera comes to mind). Honestly it's probably the reason for our She-Ra's shorts. But it's where things like leotards come in handy, because you can animate the action without working around modesty or fabric physics.

Catra

Catra's the biggest downgrade, in my opinion. Like I know, toys marketing being what it is, that they had to push pink. But the red looked so cool! And I know it's difficult to see in the video, but her mask used to have fur like in the prelims. That I think was more of a practical decision, since it's harder to slip a fur-lined mask over rooted hair than a smooth plastic one, but I'd kill to see some test shots with it.

We're not sure what that flocked red Battle Cat mold is--if it's an early Clawdeen/late Tinx, or a shapeshifted Catra. I'm inclined to think the former, both because the play pattern is 'this one toy can be two forms' and because they appear to have added a silver collar in place of Battle Cat's helmet. It seems to have been scrapped for her winged horse Storm, at least for this wave, which is kind of a shame. I think a red velvet Panthor would have had a lot of crossover appeal with the MOTU market (and just been awesome in general).

She-Ra

She-Ra is pretty far along conceptually on both sides of the equation. Naturally, she was the first to be designed--you can see where Mattel was leaning into a tulle and reflective sticker thing and Filmation was like "we reeeeeally want to give her a winged opera-viking-helm thing though". You can see the mask, instead of hard plastic, is like, shiny foil.

Bow

The top of Bow's cape, too--shiny foil. His bow was shaped more like a traditional longbow, and his quiver appears to have been hollow instead of a single cast piece. His outfit is actually the least changed, both in the toy's production and in developing it for Filmation. Like the only things different in the cartoon are that he doesn't have a breastplate covering his heart & abs, and that they gave him a mustache. They tried to do a full beard initially so like. Hey. Could have been hairier!

The figure on the left, under proto-Enchanta, seems to be proto-Kowl. How quickly Justine Dantzer's concept was lost. Koala, plus owl--it's not that complicated!

but Mattel wanted to make a little guy with butterfly wings instead. Explains some of the Filmation concept art, at least.

Angella

Angella was probably changed the most for Filmation. Like they kept the pink and the wing-influenced sigil on her chest (and the actual wings), but they added that blue--almost certainly for contrast--and turned her blonde. Meanwhile the toy just refined the chest design and switched from opaque white to a semi-transparent pink for the wings. 'Cause you know, toy marketing.

Frosta

Frosta, too, was relatively unchanged. Both companies opted for a lighter shade of blueon the hair, and Filmation replaced the reflective elements with white & the sheer with a different shade of blue, but other than that it was pretty much just the same process they applied with Catra's fabrics. Mattel went for texture, Filmation went for an easy-to-animate silhouette.

Other

I've talked about Justine Dantzer's original vision for the Crystal Castle even more than the U-Matics themselves at this point. She loves eagles, she was really excited about the beak elevator thing, it didn't test well & Mattel decided it was too edgy. Thus, the eventual pink situation.

Speaking of eventual pink sitatuations--did somebody say Swift Wind?

That blurry, indistinct horse shape is everyone's favorite equine, in the flesh. Guys, look! He's white! There's a blue ombre on his wings! Suddenly the dichotomy of Toy! and Filmation!Swifties seems less extreme, no?

That bird-thing on the left seems to be a proto-Enchanta, albeit very different from the final product (which was basically just a swan with a mane, not this sick ass dragon-influenced version).

The shields were just round shields, but they may have been placeholders to show off colors/materials, because we know Noreen Porter had refined She-Ra's at least by this point.

The video quality is too poor to say for certain who had a weapon and who had a comb at this point, but Catra's little item there looks significantly pointier than the comb she wound up with. Maybe a comb-ination with a knife? I for one think she should get a blade or two. As a treat. They didn't even give her a sword until wave 3, and that wasn't even her main weapon [side-eyes the Shower Squirter judgmentally]

Man I still can't believe this just turned up. Who would have thought that trying to get cleaner footage of the 1985 Duck Soup commercial could lead to this. Thank you bootleggers you are doing god's work (media preservation). If anybody wants some Rainbow Brite or the live action Japanese Spider-Man or something, I had a pretty great experience with these guys. Only complaint is that their list of included features should be way more specific. I took a gamble on finding some footage anyway & while it didn't turn up I'm far happier with this result. Also if an officially licensed version of any of their titles comes out they take it off the store, which is like, weirdly honorable? But good for them, tbh. Good for them.

#the u-matic tapes #she ra #motu #prelims #prototypes #castaspella #double trouble #glimmer #catra #she-ra #bow #angella #enchanta #crystal castle #swift wind #kowl #hmm.... can't really tag the cat. i'm sorry. love u

[ottokallenhonkai3rd]

⚜ 𝒪𝓉𝓉ℴ𝒦𝒶𝓁𝓁ℯ𝓃 𝓈𝓊𝓅𝓇ℯ𝓂ℯ𝓂𝒶𝒸𝓎 ⚜

I searched for OttoKallen on Twitter (mind you, without a hashtag) and I came across misinformation again. In this post was a SakuKallen picture, too. I don´t hate it, when people ship this ship. But because SakuKallen shippers keep attacking OttoKallen and spreading misinformation, this ship is gradually getting on my nerves. However, that's not the only reason I don't like SakuKallen as Ship. In this post I explain why. It's my personal opinion. Nobody has to share it. So please be patient and nice. SAKURA SAMSARA:

First we have the three regular Sakura Samara. The Samsaras were created from the memories of Sakura and Black Box shard, if I remember correctly. Sakuras soul was inside. In principle you can explore three options. One where Kallen dies, one where Sakura is killed by Kallen and one where they live in peace. It is important to note, that it is just a dream world of stigma. At that point, the real Kallen was not at Sakuras side. What is important to the shippers is the picture in which Kallen and Sakura are lying on the meadow holding hands.

There is also a fourth Samsara part in which Kallen lies on the meadow with Sakura and then leaves her for no reason at all. The plot twist is that Kallen lost her memories and fought Sakura, because of it. But Sakura was able to get her back. It was also made clear here that Kallen was just Sakura's memories and not the real Kallen. The two images listed are important for shippers, because they can be interpreted romantically. THE GRATITUTE ARC:

In the "Gratitude Arc", Theresa is possessed by a Stigma, causing her to end up in Sakura's Samara. Kallen helps Theresa to save Sakura by giving her the Oath of Judah. At the end we see her together with Rin and Sakura, eating ricecake. But it was just Sakuras inmagination. Shippers are happy that the two soulmates have finally found each other and can live happily together. SANKA SAGA:

Sanka Saga is an event that takes place in a parallel world. This parallel world is very ninja-oriented and involves seals that need to be found. The plot-twist of the story is that Kallen Castellan tried to revive Sakura by resetting time with the Preta rune. But she couldn't control the power and basically blew herself up with Sakura's body in her arms. This is just a rough summary. If you are interested in Sanka Saga, you can watch the story on YouTube. Fact is, that SakuKallen Shippers celebrate this story. Even though Kallen takes on the role of Otto. She lived 500 years. Otto lived 500 years. Kallen cloned Sakura and created Kasumi. Otto cloned Kallen and created Theresa. Both instinctively know that the soul of the loved one is in the clone's body, but have no interest in them. Kallen did cruel experiments to bring Sakura back to life. Otto did cruel experiments to bring Kallen back to life. the parallels are fluid. And in this case I don't understand these double standards. ST. FREYA HIGH:

St. Freya High, also known as Sakura's Membrance, is a webcomic with massively sexualized yuri content. It is also the prequel to "The Gratitute Arc". In principle, Kiana playfully immerses herself in a database in which she, as Kaslana, gains access to secret data. She then meets Kallen Kaslana and ultimately saves her from execution. She receives the cross from her, which later helps Theresa save Sakura. We also learn that Kallen was in love with Sakura. She shouted this fact out loud in court and later even wanted to die, because Sakura was no longer alive. The St. Freya High webcomic is still on the official international Honkai Impact site. But only the first three chapters. The ones that contain this story are deleted. In that case, the material should be considered non-canon. COOKING VALKYRIES:

The "Cooking Valkyries" event is designed to teach fans how to prepare some dishes. You can see Kallen and Sakura cuddling with their hands clasped together and Sakura flirting with an alcoholic Kallen. GUN GIRLS Z:

When it comes to GGZ (or Houkai Gakuen Z), there doesn't seem to be much, that can be put into a romantic context. At least only one picture ever appears in Shipping-discurses, that is supposed to prove Sakura and Kallen as lovers. And this is the one shown above. But the truth looks different. Sakura is controlled by the Honkai energy. Being under this control, she turns Kallen into a mindless doll so that she won't leave. Kallen says several times that she doesn't want that. This image alludes to the GGZ webcomic "Dark Sakura Tales", which was also linked on the Chinese Honkai Impact 3 website.

The story begins after this part from this webcomic. Apparently it's supposed to be an alternative version to Dark Sakura Tales. As a what-if scenario. WHY I DISLIKE THIS SHIP: Why don't I like SakuKallen, or rather, why do I prefer OttoKallen over this ship? Especially because this SakuKallen is more or less canon and contains many beautiful tragic stories.

My reason is,... Sakura has a lot of trouble letting Kallen go. To the point that, under the influence of the Honkai energy, she is willing to turn Kallen into a doll to keep her with her. The black box controls its victims by bringing out the worst traits and darkest desires of its hosts. I'm not saying Sakura is a bad person, but that aspect is definitely a part of her. And Otto is not like that. While Sakura's fears of loss are justified by Kallen leaving her, Otto's fears of loss are justified by the fact that Kallen might die. This is clearly evident in the webcomic "Elan Platinus" and also in Sanka Saga. While Sakura can console herself with a false version of Kallen, Otto cannot. That's why he wants to bring her back to life. They both love Kallen, but I find Sakura's way of love much more selfish than Otto's. Why didn't she accompany Kallen, if she was so important to her?

All what was important to Otto was that Kallen was alive and happy. He was even willing to sacrifice himself for her happiness. Would Otto accept, if Kallen chose Sakura? - I think so. Because her happiness is more important to him than his own needs. Would Sakura accept if Kallen chose Otto? - “But that light chose to shine on others instead.” Kallen in a projection of Sakuras inmagination of her. It is mentioned very often that Kallen wants to leave. This was explicitly teased again in the fourth Samsara part. What is a romantic reunion for Shipper, is for me more of a sign, that Fake-Kallen also wants to leave this place. Sanka Saga is OttoKallen played through in a different way and as for the scenes in the cooking event...

Kallen also likes to hold hands with Otto. And as I said. Kallen is only blushing, because she consumed alcohol beforehand. Otto and Kallen, on the other hand, don't have a lot of screen time together. But the fact that they have a close bond. The tragic that Otto's fears came true and Kallen died. That Otto did everything he could to revive her. And the fact that he didn't do it for selfish reasons is what makes me love this shipping so much.

#honkai impact #honkaimpact3rd #kallen kaslana #ottokallen #otto apocalypse #gun girls z #houkai gakuen #honkai impact 3rd

[zodiactalks]

Zodiac Signs and Their LOVE LIFE

Dating is hard.

Though ultimately rewarding, putting yourself out there in hopes of finding a partner can be challenging and nerve-wracking, particularly if you don't know what you're looking for.

We can't tell you exactly what you want, but using your Zodiac sign, we can tell you a few things you should consider.

Pisces

Pisces's vulnerability is one of their greatest strengths and their greatest weakness.

Their empathy and desire to be there for their loved ones make Pisces a wonderful partner, but their sensitivity and need for recognition can create one-sided tensions that affect relationships.

Despite this, Pisces are quick to bounce back, and this resilience certainly works out in their favor.

Aquarius

Above all else, Aquarians desire mental stimulation, so even the most passionate relationship will fall flat if Aquarius doesn't feel challenged.

They enjoy adventures and whirlwind romances, and though they value stability, and they can't live without spontaneity and new experiences in their lives.

Aquarians can be emotionally distant from time to time, so they prefer the company of people who don't require constant validation.

Taurus

Though they can be dedicated partners willing to do anything for their loved ones, Taurus isn't good with words and tend to have an aloof personality, which can make others doubt their feelings.

Because of this, Taurus tends to prefer romantic relationships with independent yet like-minded people, as this tends to result in the kind of partnership that works great in the long run.

Aries

Arians are goal-oriented individuals who can't stand the thought of puttering around without a specific purpose. They know what they want and how to get it, and that extends to every aspect of their lives, including romantic relationships.

They can come off as arrogant and intimidating, which can scare away a lot of potential partners, but those willing to stay will be rewarded by intense love and dedication.

All that said, if you're an Aries and you're having trouble finding a partner, you may want to work on containing that passion a little bit.

Cancer

Cancers are sensitive and caring, which turns their romantic life into a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, they're dedicated to their partners and are clear about their emotions and desires for their relationship; On the other hand, people often take advantage of Cancer's ease of love and goodwill.

Gemini

Because they're contradictory down to their core, Geminis need a strong partner that's not afraid to roll with the punches and adapt to an ever-changing relationship.

This doesn't mean that Geminis can't be in a committed relationship, but rather than how they perceive that relationship or how they act in it can change at the drop of a hat, so Geminis work best with a self-assured partner that's confident in their relationship even though it may not be a picture-effect one.

Virgo

Their extremely analytic and critical nature can backfire on them tremendously, as it makes them have lofty ideals of what a partner should be like, and find fault even on those who meet their criteria.

There's nothing wrong with having high standards, but learning to relax and accept people just as they are is one of the best things Virgos can do for their love life.

Leo

Intimidating and captivating in equal measure, Leos have no problem attracting prospective partners, but keeping them is a whole other matter altogether.

Because they prefer to be admired than to be known, Leos tend to keep their emotional distance from others, which in turn makes them even more intimidating.

Leos require a strong partner who won't back down from them, but they also need to learn how to open up to others.

Libra

To no one's surprise, Libras value equilibrium and stability, so they often look for partners who'll compliment them without bringing any new drama to their lives.

Because of this, they don't rush into their love lives, which can make them seem boring, but really, they're just being careful. Once they find someone they want, they'll pounce without a second thought.

Scorpio

Strong-willed and secluded, Scorpios know what they want and aren't afraid to get it, but they're terrified to open up and show their vulnerable side.

They're the kind of people who will pull all-stops in their pursuit of their partners, but once they have them they'll struggle to make the relationship work; something that won't change unless they learn how to be vulnerable.

Sagittarius

Sagittarius values freedom above all else, and they hate the idea of being weighed down by social conventions and expectations.

They can settle down and be part of long-term, committed relationships, but only with people who will give them enough space to breathe and be themselves in the process.

To make a relationship work, Sagittarians need to learn how to live with some boundaries, but their partners need to avoid tightening their hold so much that it becomes stifling.

Capricorn

Usually, on the introverted side, Capricorns are meticulous and dedicated to their hobbies and crafts.

This can make them come off as aloof and boring, but only to people who don't take the time to get to know what makes a Capricorn tick.

Capricorns need a partner who can appreciate what they bring to the table, but they also need to make an effort to be an active participant in their lover's lives.

#Zodiac #Zodiac Signs #Zodiacs #zodiac facts #zodiacsign #astrology #astrology signs #Aries #Aquarius #Cancer #Capricorn #leo #libra #Gemini #virgo #Pisces #Sagittarius #taurus #scorpio

[flyonthewallmedstudent]

Cysticercosis

I had to double check the spelling about 10x. Still mispelled this about 100x.

More specifically, I'm interested in learning 5-10 mins of disseminated cystericercosis today. Following my post on motivation and building better habits.

Source: NEJM

Not to be confused with the intestinal/GI form of taeniasis, classically, via eating uncooked pork that contains the larval form/cyst of the parasite: taenia solium. Aka, Pork Tapeworm (don't click on the link if you don't want to know what a tapeworm looks like). Also related to taenia saginata (beef tapeworm), except solium can also have the extra GI manifestations.

In cysticercosis, the eggs have to have contaminated food/water/surfaces (following the faecal oral route). It's rare in developed countries or places where there is more highly regulated hygiene practices. Chances are higher where pigs have access to human faeces (and eat it) and also in rural areas. Unfortunately it is going to be more common in developing countries.

Incubation time: 2 months for eggs to develop into tapeworm and produce cysts throughout the body. Symptom onset may take months to years. The cysts then spread haematogenously (via bloodstream) to various tissues - including skin, brain, eyes and muscle.

When it affects the brain and spine, it's considered neurocysticercosis. Symptoms present as seizures, ataxia and confusion. Fairly nonspecific but in keeping with space occupying lesions and their sequelae (i.e. hydrocephalus). High mortality due to said seizures, hydrocephalus and cerebral oedema (brain swelling always bad in a space like the cranium that cannot expand - hence craniotomies to decompress in event of swelling, if caught in time).

Another gem, it is a common cause of epilepsy in developing countries (and hence worldwide). "30% of all epilepsy in endemic areas" as per the WHO.

Tests: IgG for cystericercosis (or serology), CSF and MRI/CT in neurocysticercosis. For taeniasis, standard is asking for stool mcs + ova/cysts

Treatment is anti parasitics and anti inflammatories if severe (i.e. steroids, usually dexamethasone if the brain is effect, antiepileptics in the event of seizures). Bit nuanced with anti parasitics - depends on local availability. Could be prazitquantel (small risk of seizures if the patient has neurocysticercosis) or albendazole (less risk of seizures). Single doses.

It's also been featured in the pilot episode of House MD.

Of course it was featured in House. Neurocysticercosis is a zebra. That show was originally going to be named, Chasing Zebras. I don't know why it took them an entire episode to get to the diagnosis. Not saying it'd be on my list of differentials for epilepsy in a young person in the suburban states or acute confusion ever, but you can't get through ED without getting a CT of the brain in wealthier countries. Which means someone in radiology land would definitely pick up the lesions early leading to a narrowed list of differentials and clearer/repeat history.

Sources:

WHO, NEJM and the CDC

Gold standard resources would be uptodate.com and your local/regional therapeutic guidelines. I'll try to use the free ones that everyone can access.

#medblr #medblrs #med school #infectious disease

[fingors]

C — The Way It’s Written — Types

This is the first part in a possibly multi-part series of posts about the C programming language. It’s based not on common examples or what you’ll see your particular C compiler output, but on what’s written in the actual standard(s) that define the language. That being ISO/IEC 9899, in particular the 2018 revision (often named C17 or C18), however due to upcoming significant changes in the next revision (C2X), I’ll be skipping over a couple bits here and there that will be deprecated or removed by said revision, I’ll also revert to older versions if needed for special cases. All that being said, unless stated otherwise these posts are about C17. This series also assumes a baseline level familiarity with programming in general and expects you to know the general syntax style of C (if you’ve written or read and C++, Java, C#, or any similar language you’re good).

Due to the nature of C17 being an ISO/IEC document, it is not freely available for download, however the final working draft version of it is freely available, and there should be no significant changes between it and final. Link here.

Now, in what might seem like a very odd choice, we’re going to instantly skip to section 6 of the standard, not only that we’re skipping directly to 6.2.5 (page 31), because this is what defines the fundamental types of the language. Paragraphs 2, 4 and 6 are the important ones right now. From 2 we learn that the type _Bool (just bool in C2X) is at least large enough to hold the values 0 or 1 (hence its name, bool, short for boolean). Then we come to paragraph 4, which states there are 5 standard signed integer types: char, short, int, long, and long long (there’s also a statement about extended types but that can be ignored for the moment). Finally we hit paragraph 6, which simply states that all signed integer types have an unsigned equivalent that can be written by simply attaching the word unsigned to one of the types (ex. unsigned int), and that these 5 unsigned types combined with _Bool make up the set of unsigned types, and that any unsigned type takes up the same amount of storage/memory space as its corresponding signed type.

Moving back slightly to paragraph 5 we learn that signed char and char take the same amount of memory (and as such so does unsigned char), it also states that the int type should be the natural operating size of whatever machine architecture the code is being written for (so long as it satisfies a minimum value requirement). Moving forward to paragraph 9 we learn that, as you would expect, the signed types can store negative and positive values, and that the unsigned types can only store positive (or zero) values. We also learn that by definition unsigned values can not overflow, instead their value simply wraps around the range, however this is often referred to as overflow regardless.

Yet further down (paragraph 15, next page) we learn that char, signed char, and unsigned char are all different types, however char must match either char or unsigned char (the reasoning for this is that a compiler is free to choose the most efficient match for processing).

So with all that jumble out of the way what did we actually learn? Well: there exist 5 fundamental integer types: char, short, int, long, and long long, and that signed and unsigned versions of each exist, we also know there’s an unsigned type, _Bool that can represent the values 0 and 1. Together these make up the integer types of C.

Beyond integers there’s also floating point types, float, double, and long double, but those are a much more complicated subject that are outside the scope of this post. There’s also the void type, which has confusing wording that basically boils down to “you can’t use this, it represents nothing” (which is why functions with no return value have their return type marked void). And finally that you can make arrays out of these types (except void), make structure types that contain any number of these types (except void), make union types (complicated subject, think a box that can store only one type (except void) at a time), you can declare functions that return any type, you can have a pointer to any type (including void in order to represent a pointer to an unknown type), and finally that any type can be made atomic (safe for access from multiple threads).

Most of that statement can be freely ignored for now, it’s a mess that we’ll (hopefully) get into later. The important bit to know is that you can build other types out of the fundamental types.

Moving beyond that section and into 6.2.6 we learn from 6.2.6.1 Paragraphs 2-4 that objects (any type’s representation in memory basically) is made out of a continuous sequence of bytes. Moving to 6.2.6.2 we get to the representation of integer types, which is pretty much what you would expect for unsigned values (an unsigned integer of size n value bits can store 2n values from 0 to 2n-1), signed integer types in C17 list three different representations, however C2X is reducing that down to just twos’ complement (a signed integer of size n bits can store from -2n-1 to 2n-1-1, negative zeros are not possible).

So far: there exist integer types, and these store values in the expected way, but what are the range of values they must store?

Section 5.2.4.2.1 (page 20), paragraph 1 states that all implementations of the language must have the integer types be able to represent at least the values in the ranges listed below, meaning an implementation is free to expand the range if it sees fit (like how many do with int). From here we learn that a char must be at least 8 bits, and as such a signed char must be able to represent -127 (-128 in twos’ complement) to 127, and that an unsigned char is 0 to 255. Helpfully the actual (minimum) number of bits for each type is specified in a comment next to the definition. short is 16 bits/2 bytes, int is also 16 bits/2 bytes (again often expanded to 32 bits/4 bytes), long is 32 bits/4 bytes, and long long is 64 bits/8 bytes. _Bool due to its nature as a boolean type is not mentioned (actually any values placed into an object of type _Bool will become 0 if the value is 0 or 1 otherwise).

In summary: 6 types, _Bool (0 or 1), char (at least 8 bits), short (at least 16 bits), int (at least 16 bits, often 32), long (at least 32 bits), and long long (at least 64 bits).

So that’s it? For now yeah, those are the basic integer types of the C programming language, I know it was messy and weirdly formatted and confusing at times but I hope it helps understand the language a bit more, or at the very least was entertaining (even if that entertainment derived from “what the hell is this language?”). However, these complexities are part of the reason I love this language so much, everything is well defined but still variable depending on the system and compiler, there’s a reason for everything in this language ranging anywhere from “old” to “for performance reasons we can’t mandate this”, which if this series continues we’ll really get into. But for now, I hope this was enough of a taste of the standard to either make you interested in seeing more, or scare you the hell away forever. Thank you for reading and have a good time. If you have any suggestions for future parts or ways I could improve these writings please inform me. I need to go to sleep now.

#C #C programming #C programming language #Computer Science #ISO #IEC #C The Way It's Written #fingors speaks #I was about to write 'I'm sorry for this' but no. no I'm not. I liked doing this #Thanks for reading. I love you all who did and I hope you liked it

[dsknsk]

It's Chen Qianyu's turn! She sent me down the rabbit hole of Chinese martial arts.

And yes, Chinese, not Cantonese, according to her name being transliterated in Hanyu Pinyin. Other than that...frankly there wasn't much. Just the bog-standard 'she's really good in martial arts and she has learned everything there is yet she is also still a spirited youngster!' thing. Yet her sword was such a tiny detail (if it was on there at all) that I did look up some footage of her in motion, and I'm happy I did.

This girl dual-wields swords. Yep. I think they seemingly come out of one sheath? Anyway, it wasn't obvious so it isn't obvious here, but I did indeed dive into Chinese sword art a bit. Turns out, dual-wielding sword art is a thing in China, simply called shuangdao (双刀), literally 'double blade'. The shuangdao art I could find is actually part of tai chi, so it isn't meant to fight with. But the post I found contains a few videos of it, and I could easily see this being changed into an actual battle art if it were slightly edited. It looks so damn cool!

Despite that though, her actual battle motions I found to be the epitome of boring and cliche. Oh well. Chinese company can't bother to look into Chinese martial art, I see.

For her design...I think that someone who's so focused on martial arts would also be a slight bit of a fashion disaster. I made it so that this girl wears a vest over a dress, a long glove on one arm (which she also had before, but a smaller one on the other hand) and knee protectors. She also wears a Chinese knot on her hip to match with the red of the mane on her tail.

I changed her hair a tad bit. I liked how the front bangs are pointed outside like that, so I emphasized it. It's supposed to be reminiscent of a dragon's whiskers. Then, I reduced the amount of ponytails to one just to make her less of a Ch'en clone, and let it flow much like a dragon's body is.

From the start, I was planning to give her scars, so when I had hardship with the other eye I simply made her lack the other eye. Disability rep, amiright? I can imagine it'd be hard for her to relearn after losing depth vision.

I was also kind of iffy on the white dress, so I made it longer and removed the frills (honestly, those just kinda clashed with her description). Her full model view also showed that she has heels (of course...) making me substitute them for a pair of sturdy boots.

#arknights endfield

[demifiendrsa]

Street Fighter 6 - Pre-Order Trailer

Japanese version

Street Fighter 6 adds returning fighter Dee Jay and newcomers Manon, Marisa, and JP.

Street Fighter 6 will launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PC via Steam on June 2, 2023.

Key visual

Screenshots

Latest details

Pre-Orders

All pre-orders will receive alternate colors for Chun-Li, Jamie, Manon, Dee Jay, Juri, and Ken’s Outfit 1, while PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 digital pre-orders will also receive exclusive items like 18 in-game Special Titles and 18 Stickers featuring unique art from the launch roster to personalize their profile.

Game Editions

The three editions available for pre-order starting today are:

Standard Edition ($59.99; Physical/Digital) – Includes the base game of Fighting Ground, World Tour, Battle Hub, and the 18-character launch roster

Deluxe Edition ($84.99; Physical/Digital) – Includes the base game and the Year 1 Character Pass (containing four characters), colors 3-10 for each of those Year 1 characters’ Outfit 1, and a bonus of 4,200 Drive Tickets for in-game purchases

Ultimate Edition ($104.99; Digital) – Includes the base game and the Year 1 Ultimate Pass, which contains content from the Year 1 Character Pass, two additional costumes and their alternate colors for the four Year 1 characters, two more stages, and a bonus of 7,700 Drive Tickets

World Tour Mode

Next up, we shared new details on the all-new World Tour mode. Visit exciting locations like an arena in Italy, a festival in France, a beach in Jamaica, and more as you travel around the world learning Special Moves from Masters. You can even mix and match Special Moves from different Masters meaning that your avatar can throw out a Hadoken or Sonic Boom, perform a Spinning Bird Kick, and execute a Yoga Flame, all in the same match as long as they’re using different inputs. World Tour also introduces Master Assist, allowing players to fight alongside a Master like Ryu by calling upon them in battle to help for a period of time, a useful tool for when you encounter more than one opponent. Lastly, play your heart out with minigames like karate-chopping bottles, enjoying Italian cuisine, parrying basketballs, and more. Minigames are playable in between matches in the form of part-time jobs where you can earn World Tour mode currency to purchase in-game clothing, food, and more.

New Characters

And now, we welcome to the Street Fighter 6 stage, one returning legend—Dee Jay—and three newcomers—Manon, Marisa, and JP.

Dee Jay – First appearing in Super Street Fighter II, Dee Jay is a globally popular dance music superstar with a burning love for music and fighting. As a returning character in the series, Dee Jay retains his trademark moves that will get you in the rhythm such as Air Slasher, Double Rolling Sobat, Machine Gun Upper, and Jackknife Maximum, while adding new moves like Jus Cool and Weekend Pleasure to his arsenal. Visit Bathers Beach, Dee Jay’s stage in Street Fighter 6, to find a beachside party full of life amidst a setting sun.

Manon – A supermodel and world champion judoka, Manon struts the catwalk of street fighting to become the world’s strongest model. Manon’s move set is a graceful union between judo grappling and classical ballet with moves like the Manege Dore, Renverse, Pas de Deux, and more. Find her in the Fete Foraine stage in France, a dazzling carnival amidst the French skyline.

Marisa – Marisa is an up-and-coming jewelry designer from Italy who claims ancestry to ancient Greek warriors. A powerhouse of a character, Marisa utilizes her long limbs to unleash slow yet gargantuan strikes like the devastating Gladius, defensive counter Scutum, powerful Quadriga kick, and the almighty Goddess of the Hunt. Bask in the scent of victory in Colosseo, Marisa’s stage, with battle-ready warriors in the background cheering you on.

JP – JP is the head of an international nonprofit organization responsible for many successful investment projects, and the man behind Nayshall’s present prosperity. He has a beloved cat named Cybele. JP takes control of the entire map from all angles with moves like the powerful void-creating Departure, the clone-deploying Torbalan, the Embrace grab, and the destructive Interdiction.

#Street Fighter 6 #Street Fighter VI #SFVI #SF6 #Street Fighter #Capcom #video game #PS5 #Xbox Series #Xbox Series X #Xbox Series S #PS4 #PC #Steam #The Game Awards #TGA 2022 #long post

[rudy-gargantua]

Choosing Present day Styles of Sofa Beds

Smaller living spaces and increased demand have made sofa manufacturers concentrate on the styles and plans of sofa beds. The sofas being planned today are altogether click here to learn more different from the conventional plan that many individuals were acclimated with seeing quite a while back.

The costs of sofa beds changes greatly. There are numerous sofas available today that have been intended to be both useful and beautiful. They consolidate plan techniques that change a very good quality sofa to a bed with no work with respect to the client.

The better quality extravagance sectional sofa beds have been intended for bigger areas. There are from three to five pieces in these sectional sofas. The shapes range from a standard square shape with stools, to a round sofa that, when all pieces are together, structures an ideal circle. At the mid and low scope of reasonableness is the 'L' shape sofa. These sofa is as yet a number one for small rooms or condos where they serve the double capability of sofa and bed consistently.

Current sofa beds are made utilizing a significant number of the customary procedures utilized for ordinary sofas. Outlines are presently produced using sturdy hardwood as a norm for the majority of the sofas. The cushioning is thick to offer help to the clients. Also, the springs in a large number of these sofas has been supplanted with memory froth. In sofas with springs, the springs are cushioned with protectant and have additional cushioning in the pad to safeguard against harm.

On the bigger sofa beds the pieces lock together to shape a bed. The bed can be shaped utilizing each of the pieces of the segment or only a couple of pieces. The lock system isn't noticeable and there is no additional wear to the sofa as there are less moving parts than on a standard sofa bed.

The 'L' shape sofa is as yet a famous decision for people who require everyday double capability from their sofa. These sofas give a sectional sofa bed that gives one a twin size bed. The sectional is likewise made utilizing a hardwood outline. The sleeping cushion of the bed is firm and gives an individual the solace they would track down on a standard bed. The bed outline acts as box springs and the sleeping cushion contains memory froth to enhance solace.

Large numbers of these sofas are produced using fabric to fit the budget of the singular buying them. The fabric is twofold treated with synthetics that make it profoundly sturdy and impervious to wear and smudging. At the point when one first gets their sectional sofa they might find that it feels stiff. The memory froth some of the time requires a cycle to shape itself to the client, however whenever this has been achieved the seating will be entirely comfortable.

#youtube

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

you know what really grinds my gears this morning (like... sand... get it?) -

SO MANY reviews for rogue one, including from critics whose insights i always really appreciate, were all “this movie is just fanservice, ‘hey remember yavin?? remember darth vader choking people?? remember tarkin?? remember the death star??’ these characters are boring and underdeveloped and i feel pandered to k2 and the vader scene were the only good things about this movie blablabla”

when that movie gave us new, complex and consistent characters with interesting team dynamics, expanded on the universe without ever contradicting anything that we learned in previous movies, a story with an honest-to-god message actually in the spirit of the OT, every cameo was self-contained but relevant to the narrative (except for 3PO i guess, but come on), every callback was an allusion with its own visual interest and relevance except for when they recycled the shots of the death star firing (and again, come on), and, and honestly i will never not be mad about this stupid argument, no it ISN’T another movie where they build a death star, it’s a f***ing prequel and it’s the same death star because the whole point is that “oh we just aquired the plans to this super secret space weapon from our oppressive overlords don’t ask where we found it maybe we got it on ebay idk” is a weird thing to just gloss over and there was an interesting story to tell there, exhibit A: Rogue One.

but now these same people are on board with to raving about the kenobi show where we get

the focal character we already know going on a journey we’ve literally seen them go on already (Obi-Wan realising Anaking is lost and being heartbroken about it? Seen that. Deciding Luke is best off with Owen and Beru? We’ve seen that. Feeling protective over the children and trying to sacrifice himself to save them but ultimately realising he has to trust they’ll get by without him? We’ve seen that too, and it was called A New Hope.)

throwing the logic of maybe the most iconic line from maybe THE most adored movie ever under the bus just so we can see obi-wan hang out with a cute kid. there were so many easy ways around this Disney please i just want to talk

every bad guy that was introduced was like a faded copy of either maul or vader somehow and also half of them were one big “hey you guys seen Disney property Star Wars: Rebels yet???? buy our very expensive Star Wars computer game Jedi: Fallen Order it actually does way more interesting things with those inquisitor guys we promise!!”

L0-LA was the most bland and lazy little merchandising opportunity i’ve ever seen i’m sorry

the [Spoiler!] Qui-Gon cameo was hilariously pointless it was literally just a “look! it’s the guy from Taken that was also in the Star War!! don’t say we never give you nothing!”

the constant recycling of famous lines my god it’s just legal plagiarism at this point (props for making him start the whole “using ‘Darth’ like it’s a first name” thing early, if only the show wasn’t so self-serious this could have been entertaining)

message? what “message”? is it not enough to hear ewan say “hello there” and learn where characters got an irrelevant object from??

i don’t mean to pit these things or fans against each other i just find the double standard so frustrating and sometimes i honestly feel like i watched a different movie than the general public back then

#obi wan kenobi spoilers #look before anyone tells me i KNOW we've just been culturally pavloved since r1 and that's why #it's still frustrating #also let's not talk about how r1 and mandalorian were the only disney sw things that understood show don't tell #because holy explainy dialogue batman #also i just read a tag somewhere where someone called the loader droid's death the 'saddest death in sw' and that's their opion and all #but ...... have you......... SEEN......... k2 die............?? #star wars #rogue one #obi wan kenobi #meta #i guess #anti kenobi series

[scripted-downfall]

Why do you think SPN canonically paralleled Sam with Mary (especially young Mary) for 15 seasons but then The WInchesters paralleled Sam with young John even though young John looks and acts nothing like SPN's John?

I mean, I think the way to answer your question is to say that even og Supernatural paralleled Sam with John, so it's not that out of character. I just made a post to this effect --- visible here --- and, while it might not contain every parallel between the two, it's got a decent list. In short, though: Sam is, innately, very John-like and Dean is, innately, very Mary-esque. A lot of the parallels in the opposite direction are the more learned traits: Dean shares John's music, fashion sense, car taste, and career, but these are all facets that he adopted expressly (and canonically) as a means of mimicking his father. Similarly, Sam has repeatedly said --- in the og show --- that he made his breaks for normalcy because Dean and John shared the hunting experience and he didn't ever feel like he could share it. This isn't the same as Mary's bids for freedom, which usually stemmed from an inner desire to quit.

However, to answer your question under the assumption that Sam was and has always been primarily paralleled to Mary... I think it also bears mentioning that the showrunners for Supernatural are different people from the showrunners for The Winchesters. (Disclaimer that this is going to be a bit vague because I still haven't seen the show and, thus, am speaking off of hypotheticals.) The actors for SPN are different from the actors for TW. Etc. So noticing changes between the two --- differences in parallels, differing characterizations, alterations in how similar situations progress --- are more significant than just "oh, they screwed up the characteriation" or "oh, this is a double-standard." Could any given change be one of those explanations? Sure. But it could also be intentional.

It could be that they didn't like how characters were compared in the initial version. It could be that they saw characters in a different light. (I actually have an example here: since we know that the initial show waffled back and forth on how bad or not John was --- e.g. "Bad Boys" heavily implies that he's awful, and yet "Lebanon" was more John-positive --- and yet the actor for TW!young!John has talked about how The Winchesters is about John's spiraling devolution into the version we had in the original show, that's already one such example.) It could be that they felt a situation in the initial show should have been handled one way and so they decided to make that point by having a similar situation go that way instead of the initial way. It could be that they felt as though the original show skipped over some comparisons that had to be made. (After all, for all that Sam is very John-coded, he's also got a lot of Mary traits; similarly, for all that Dean is very Mary-like, he's got a lot of John traits too. They're a blend of their parents, and og!SPN didn't always cover that.)

And, uh... frankly, idk how to respond to the part about TW!John not looking like SPN!John. Given that the new show is about a younger iteration of John, it's not really a surprise that he looks different. And, frankly, given that they had to find a younger actor with a similar appearance, I thought they did a pretty decent job of finding an actor similar to the original actors (JDM and Matt Cohen).

Anyway... TL;DR: I think that Sam's parallels with Mary, while present, aren't as strong as his parallels with John, even in the original show, and that the change in showrunners adds still more complication to the mix that might explain any different takes that might exist.

#answered asks #scripted downfall asks answered #i always come when you call (sd) #anti john winchester #slightly #but not horribly so

[away-ward]

This is the message from the Damon Torrance Hate anon. Below the cut is a message I received from someone who has less than favorable feelings (complete disdain, actually) for Damon Torrance.

If you are a fan and might find yourself upset over someone not loving your fav, read at your own risk. It literally opens with the disclaimer: "This is not a safe space for Damon Torrance or Kill Switch fan" so, uh. heed the warning.

Editing Note: Not as bad as I thought at first. It is long though. Edited with some added thoughts.

I actually don't interact with fandom outside my blog or responding to select posts. I mean, I saw people hating on Em on goodreads and was immediately like "this is not the place for me" and promptly created a blog so that I could curate my experiences.

So...I guess this is the rest of the fandom, huh?

(psst, the pizza boxes contain all my love for willemmy)

I don't know. I've always been partial to the "find people who like what you like and you'll have a great time" idea. And I think I've done a pretty good job so far.

These are the only PD books I've read, other than Punk 57 for obvious reasons. I have no interest in the others, so I can't relate on devouring PD's books. And honestly, I was bored with Kill Switch too. I was bored with Hideaway, and Corrupt my second time reading it. I almost didn't get to Nightfall (oh, what could have been. I could have saved myself all this DN brainrot...but alas, here we are).

I don't know where you got the idea that having money and privilege equals competency... but that's very much not the case. In fact, I would argue the opposite? Doing without the things you need and not have access to tools creates creative problem solvers; people who aren't used to having excess tend to know how to get around that or learn how to deal without it.

Added Edit: Also, Winter went to a school for the blind for years. She didn't live with her abusive, non-accommodating family. They accommodated her by sending her to a school where she could dance and that would cater her disability. They also go her a guide dog when she came back, and tried to speak to the school about what she wore as part of the uniform because she didn't like it. She was just as privileged in that regard as the other wealthy people in the story. Her family may have been criminals who valued money above loyalty, who basically sold their daughter for financial security, thereby setting Winter apart as "different," but they didn't ignore her blindness. Arion grew up with a younger sister who got a lot of attention for her disability and being a victim of the Torrance Boy. She acted selfishly and stupidly, but it's easy to see how not being given a fair amount of attention after Winter fell might have given her a complex.

Either way, I didn't walk into DN thinking I was going to get a perfectly planned heist story with intelligent criminals, where you have to study their every word and move because you never know what's coming next. I would have loved it if that were the case, but it's not what I was expecting.

The horsemen in general have double standards. They see things from their point of view and only caring about what they want. I'm not sure if we're supposed to see this as character flaws, a result of their privilege, or if this is something we're suppose to ignore so that we can root for them. *shrugs* it's not really that deep, is it?

What do you mean Michael and Rika got it together by Conclave? These two are a mess every day of their lives. As long as they're happy, I guess? I mean... Rika changed all their wedding plans at the last second to accommodate the multi-wedding party and Michael was just like 'yeah babe whatever you want' ? They don't ever talk about anything.

I have no thoughts on Rika being mayor at 22 other than it's dumb. I guess it's a good thing they live in a town that watched her grow up so she's the town's darling? Who's gonna vote against her, and risk the Torrance sibling's ire?

I'm not sure what character growth you're referring to. I haven't looked at Rika that hard. But I agree that the other characters needed a chance to shine. It should have been more balanced. Come on, PD, share the love. It can't be the Rika and Damon Show all the time.

I always forget he's only have Russian. I really didn't like the surprise mom storyline. Half Russian, half Dutch South African.

I'm not sure if it's "fetish" with Russians or just a love of mafia stories? Because I see just as much for the Italians and Irish as I do for Russians...

The thing about Damon is that he has a valid excuse actually, let's go with "reason." He had a valid reason for the way he is. Between all four boys, I'd say that Damon and Kai are the only ones who can actually explain why they do the things they do.

Damon didn't just experience "abuse." He was neglected and experienced CSA and punished for things that weren't his fault, over an extended period of time. With no one to come to his aid until he forced Banks to stay with him. And the most truly unfortunate part of this is that there are far too many readers who can relate. Too many readers have gone through the exact same or similar enough experience and find comfort in Damon's inner thoughts. Not that they support all of his actions (I truly hope not), but maybe they understand where he's coming from and the journey he has to undergo to being a better person? Also, sometimes people just like fictional men who like to draw blood.

Now, all that is to say... I didn't find Damon any more interesting that the other guys. He wasn't more twisted or darker. Just a different shade of gray. For me at least. I wasn't here for the hype, having read the series long after it finished. I don't completely understand all of the Damon love either. I wasn't impressed, but I was sympathetic to his story. I liked him a lot more in the past scenes with Winter than most other parts of the series. But because he was such a wild card, I usually was paying attention to what he was doing. Was I overall entertained? No. but I was paying attention.

I think a big part of this series was supposed to be "These men underestimate and don't appreciate women...except for the few that can keep up." Banks and Rika (and Emmy and Winter) are supposed to appear more competent than the boys sometimes. Otherwise it's just dumb, hot girls getting strung along by even dumber, hotter boys. And that's no fun. So yeah, of course Rika and Banks are going to pull the rug from under Damon sometimes.

I'm not gonna pretend that if Damon had tracked down a brother in addition to Banks (come on, we know he probably has like at least ten siblings somewhere out there), that Gabriel would have chosen the male heir over Banks. Banks was a last resort and a way to piss Damon off. I can't remember if it worked or if Damon was happy to be rid of the responsibly. And honestly, Banks was happy to take it. She'd been underestimated her entire life and finally had the chance to do what she knew she could. I hope that Banks and Damon had a good long talk and he was happy for her.

But oh, Damon standing back and letting Banks kick ass? Love siblings who support each other. Can we at least agree on that?

Damon biding his time was weird. But I think that had a lot to do with the fact that the story was tied to only happening in October, so Damon had to simmer for a year between books. I think it might have been interesting if we had seen through the narrative that Damon had been making moves and October is just when it always came to a head because of the pressure of Devil's Night. But Damon has a tendency to go to extremes, so being overly dramatic (throwing an entire wedding to Arion to get access to Winter and her family's fortune) or being completely invisible does fit his MO. He's a drama queen, after all.

I would have loved if we'd gotten to see more of the relationship between the guys. If we knew how Damon's bond with Michael and with Kai worked, instead of only with Will. I think their friendship should have had more emphasis overall, since it was such a catalyst for events in Corrupt.

I've never watched VD (and I'm not going to) so I have no idea how they compare. I know who you're talking about - just not the details of the character.

No worries. We'll crown you ruler of Damon Hater Nation. Here's your crown.

Yeah, i didn't feel much towards Winter one way or another. On my part, I was mostly confused. It seemed like she liked to tempt and tease Damon and then convince herself she was innocent? But again, I haven't re-read Kill Switch so I don't remember very well.

But I will disagree with you on the Emmy front. Winter was immediately accepted by Rika because of their past relationship in school. Kai and Michael didn't have a problem with Rika bringing her into the group, and Will was all for using Winter to get to Damon, but did seem to genuinely like her as well.

Winter had the benefit of being the enemy of their enemy, until the Damon was no longer the enemy. And then they were all just friends, except for Winter and Damon, who were also lovers. At no point was Winter on the outside of the group or made of feel less than because of what she did to Damon (other than by Damon at his worse moments). Those boys, whether intended or not, tried to make Emory feel like she was the worst person for sticking up for family.

You bring up an interesting point about Alex. Unlike Banks, Winter, and Emory, she was in the books from the start. She got the chance to interact with every single character. So even though she not a main character, not even deserving of her own novella, we have plenty of interactions of her to pull from, and barely any from the other three girls with each other or other members of the group. That's really not fair.

I have no thoughts on the group sex scenes. I basically read DN for the character dynamics and wanting to know about the little nerd Will loved enough to commit several crimes for. I could do without them and it wouldn't change the story much for me.

Added Edit: I thought Winter was trying to comfort Will and herself from the trauma they just experienced together. I think Will went along with it because he finds comfort in sex. It could have been anyone and he would have been in the same spot. Damon was the one who put limits on their interaction because he has control issues and doesn't want anyone else to be "in" Winter, ever.

Beyond that, I have no thoughts on what it says about their characters.

I haven't read ZA (zodiac academy, i think? I also won't be reading it).

So wait? You hate Alex but hate the way people treated Alex??? I have no idea what you mean, honestly, because one of my biggest gripes with NF was the scene where Alex was laying in a hospital bed while the boys made all sorts demands of Aydin because "Alex deserved it". like. Those boys very much did love Alex and consider her one of their own. Will didn't go after Martin until after he shot Alex. Because who did Will fight when it came down to it? Not Martin.

He picked Aydin.

He left Emory try and fight Martin.

So don't start with "the group doesn't love Alex." Because that is absolute nonsense.

And why did Emory have to stand there and watch them act that way in the hospital??? When they'd never said or did anything for her? They never even apologized!!!

I mean...Alex said it was her job? At least he respects her right to claim it. Rika was always trying to get Alex to do something else, like she was still stuck on her friend wanting be a sex worker. I think Alex could have gotten any job she wanted (Rika could have hired her for literally anything; Alex worked at the dojo; she was helping Winter plan tours). The job she chose to introduce herself with was clearly a point of pride for Alex (healthy or not) and Damon acknowledge it was her right. Was he gross about it? yeah, probably. It's Damon, after all. but he didn't shy away from it. She owned it and he respected that.

The group/share scenes mostly went over my head.

Added Edit: I think I do understand what Anon was saying now. They hated Alex for being in everything and the way she treated Emory, but hated the way the Horsemen and occasionally the other women treated Alex as if she was disposable.

My only response to this is Alex made it her job to get close to powerful, wealthy men. She was also the only one unattached romantically in Conclave, so she wouldn't be "cheating" on anyone by preforming her "job."

For PD, I feel that Alex was whatever they needed her to be, and that's Alex's biggest failing as a character.

Did Rika do that more than once? Must have missed it...

And I'm not sure if that scene was more about Damon than it was about Winter comforting Will. At that point, Damon and Will's friendship had been reestablished and Winter held some affection for Will as well. So similar to the Rika comforting Kai scene, Winter wanted to comfort Will and Damon just had to let that happen because he couldn't "control her" or tell her what do to. But he could control Will, so Will got the limits.

It was the exact same situation with Michael, Rika, and Kai. Michael couldn't impose his will on Rika anymore than Damon could with Winter. I have a lot of sarcastic thoughts about this scenario, mostly because it does conflict with Michael and Damon's characters up until that point, but PD needed it to happen so...

But that's what I meant when I said PD uses the same scenarios over and over again. What happened with Michael/Rika/Kai was the same as Damon/Winter/Will. And what happened with Will/Emmy/Alex/Aydin was the same thing that happened with Michael/Rika/Banks/Kai. It's the exact same situation, and even similar motivations, just with different faces.

I'm so tired.

What do you mean they don't matter to Will? Everything Will did was for the family. Will was gone for over a year, and I'm sure he thought about home in that time. We come into the story with Emory, which is what consumes Will's thoughts from that point forward. The circumstance changed for Will but we didn't get to see the before, only the after.

Alex was shot by Martin while Will was fighting Aydin so Aydin couldn't get to Alex. And then Will threw Martin and himself off a cliff, nearly dying. Like...Will clearly cares too much sometimes.

Wait wait wait are you switching tracks of the Damon hate train? You know that any Damon sympathy is strictly forbidden in Damon Hate Nation! Do I have to revoke your crown????

Why would Emmy need to make it look like she wanted nothing to do with him? In high school, she didn't want anything to do with him. After, they had that bond over you know...killing a person...And he was the only one who defended her (kinda). She didn't need to pretend to avoid him, and she didn't even really try to.

I mean, I think of all the boys, Will would have probably been the most likely to help Damon. But Damon wouldn't have let him. Mainly, he'd have to explain his abuse, which would tarnish Will's sunshine view of the world, and embarrass him. It might have changed the dynamics of their relationship, and Damon couldn't allow for that. But I think if Will wasn't out getting drunk, or was getting drunk in the cemetery instead of the bus, and had stumbled upon Damon, he probably would have helped. He's a ride or die kind dude.

I mean...overall, the guys do suck. They're also just not meant to be analyzed to this degree lol. I mean, I do with willemmy only because I want to write silly little stories about them. I really don't think this deeply about the rest of the series usually, unless I'm asked...

...and I certainly didn't intend to become any type of voice in this fandom.

I...have no thoughts.

Did you mention Em???? I mean yeah...Damon and Emory did have a deeper connection that Winter and Will!

Where were their moments? I want me some Damon and Emory non-spicy moments. The scene at the end wasn't enough.

I guess they're over hyped but maybe I only feel that way because I think Willemmy isn't hyped enough?? and technically they're also just a bland white couple with a boring trope for a backdrop (I mean, rich popular jock and the scholarship nerd? GrumpyxSunshine? Golden retriever bf and black cat gf? who's never heard of that???)

I hope you rested after all that. Do you feel better having gotten it off your chest?? I sure hope so, that was a lot. It's okay. this is a safe space. deep breath in....and exhale.

It's okay. Damon Torrance can't hurt you.

You're fine. My day wasn't ruined. I don't consider myself a Damon hater and I was a little confused at the start (for some reason, I only get these messages right before I go to sleep so I'm half awake when I read them for the first time), but we got there in the end.

If you have anything to say to me or the anon, all I ask is that we're respectful in the comments and replies. Thanks!! This is all meant in good fun (at least from my end).

#asked and answered #devil's night series stuff #anti-damon torrance #read at your own risk #be kind #asked and answered 21

[ladymoonveil]

Been venturing back into Reaper76 lately, and even though activity has died down a lot compared to when Overwatch was in its heyday, this is still probably my favourite pairing to sink my teeth into. 

The fandom is also a much nicer space to be in, especially since that annoying, vocal group of people who loved to villainize Jack Morrison based on the colour of his skin has stopped harassing and policing people after it was canonically revealed that:

1. Gabe was the more experienced leader during the Omnic Crisis, but Jack was the one who held the team together and brought out the best in the people around him.

2. Jack was ultimately chosen as Strike Commander because Gabrielle Adawe and the UN found him to be the more suitable candidate for rebuilding, especially since this is now a much more political role after the war has ended.  (Valkyrie short)

3. Unlike a lot of incorrect assumptions that were made, the promotion was not the main cause of the rift between the two characters.  Gabe was, in fact, a supportive friend and teammate who didn’t jump to bitterness over this.  If anything, it was Jack giving Gabe too much leeway and defending his sometimes questionable actions in the years that followed which resulted in his downfall.

There was a year or so that felt like stepping into a minefield where Reaper76 works were written by people who actively hated half the ship, and the sole reason for one character’s existence is to grovel for forgiveness.  It’s character bashing but tagged as the main pairing.  (Something similar happened to MCU!Stony, which is why I’m mainly into comics!Stony now.)  Some of the excuses I saw trying to justify Reaper working for Talon, a literal terrorist organization behind horrifying acts (and not a double agent either), was mind boggling.  It’s made worse because they don’t judge Jack by the same standards, and actively went out of their way to paint him as some useless white guy who barely contributed to the war effort and “stole” the promotion.      

I remember some of my favourite creators being harassed and bullied to the point that they straight up deleted their stories and left the ship.  The “moral high ground” fandom police held up their own headcanons as the be-all end-all for everyone (because I guess they never learned the basic fandom etiquette of “Your Headcanon Is Not Canon”), and if you disagreed with them you were called a bunch of names and had to deal with some truly terrible BS.  

It’s such a disservice to Gabe and Jack too, because they’re complex characters whose relationship got reduced to one of jealousy and hatred, and the things that each of them were allowed to explore ended up being severely limited in fear of pissing off said fandom police. 

Luckily this isn’t really the case anymore, and with a bit of digging you can find many fics that aren’t one-sided.  My favourites have always been the ones that allowed them to explore their own shades of grey. 

After many years of being in various fandom spaces, I feel like I’m generally not as interested in participating anymore unless I know that the source material is aimed at a mature audience, or the people I am interacting with will behave like adults.  Some positive examples of this would be:

1. Hannigram, where the fandom has pretty effectively shut down policing (because seriously are you going to try and police the “murder husbands” ship that contains a cannibal serial killer?)

2. A lovely Taiwanese Top Gun discord server where everyone is very well versed in their fandom etiquette of “Ship and Let Ship”, “I Am Responsible For My Own Content Consumption”, and the aforementioned “Your Headcanon is Not Canon”. 

Things like this really make such a big difference towards having a good time, instead of dealing with all sorts of fandom wank.

#reaper76 #jack morrison #soldier 76 #rant