summary: ellie has a question for her dealer and yes, maybe it's the middle of the night but she needs to know! hopefully she doesn't make it too painfully obvious that she's in love with you— and hopefully you have her number saved as something other than "ellie w (the cute one)" by now?
notes: this is the first thing i'm posting since i took a break and i don't think it would be right to ignore that! as i've said before i live in south america, i'm part of a whole continent of people who do their best to survive through the consequences (and current realities) of imperialism everyday— because of that, i will always stand with palestine. i've been and will continue to participate in boycotts and attend protests. regardless of what your story is, i urge you to never lose a grasp on the reality of what's going on in the real world as well as what's going on under the surface of the media you consume and enjoy. thank you <3
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if you follow me on main, you might have seen me complaining about a scene I had to rewrite a thousand times, to the point I made a whole separate google doc for all the versions of it. that was this update! it might not seem like much even happens during their convo lol but originally they had a conversation about a different topic on top of it. i spent forever trying to make the segue sound natural and trying to decide what fiddly lore bits I wanted to commit to, before finally giving up and pushing that topic to later in the story lol. I hope I don't regret not setting up what I was gonna set up later lol but I think ultimately this was a good choice
that being said there is still some important info in his update before Wake warps them :-))) we'll come back to that
I accidentally sketched this entire page around Wake using the Wind Waker with his right had, and got halfway through drawing all the poses before I realized. i was just gonna take the L and leave it but it bothered me too much so I redrew everything JHFKJ
Got some asks about what Linebeck is reading: it's a trashy romance novel lol
in the last update where Slate is crouched down talking to the koroks, they're asking him to tell Link hi and that they miss him HAHA i was actually supposed to put that as text and then. forgot and just put empty text bubbles. good job on the set up and payoff, me
the sound of Loft's mouth audibly clicking shut HAHAHAHA. Slate is like we're not doing this again. we get it, I don't know shit or fuck abt hero stuff. can u let it go.
Wolf actually does know what the triforce is- even though twilight princess doesn't ever call it that explicitly, at the very least he's put two and two together.
and "all the heartaches and the smiles never faded / i know you'll be by my side when we make it" and "here's to all the mistakes i never made" and "if it ain't for your misguided taste / i'd turn out so ordinary" and
Love the idea of each previous hero's journey being mostly lost to time, such that each time the cycle starts again absolutely no one picks up the very obvious clues that might lead them to the hero.
Oh, you've named your blond haired blue eyed child Link, have you? That's a good name!
Oh, he's found a strange red and white maned horse he's named epona who has utterly bonded with him? How unusual!
Yes, the princess Zelda is the same age, isn't she? What a good omen for the family!
We know he doesn't talk much, but he's the sweetest lad, don't worry!
Don't fret, dearie, his wanderlust will abate when he grows up, I'm sure it won't get him in too much trouble before then.
Prodigious little swordsman, isn't he? He would make a great knight if he wanted to when he's older!
Oh? Rumours about a long forgotten temple in the woods? How strange! Are you sure it's not just the children telling stories?
Look at him in his armoured green outfit! That hat looks lovely on him - where did you find it?
Post s2e9 confirmations and speculations as of this ep, starting with confirmations and moving on to thoughts/speculations.
Before I start, just going to link my speculations as of a couple of episodes ago here because they're surprisingly either still relevant or have been confirmed either way. Of these, the main pieces still outstanding are Liu Min's phone and the serial murders.
Fountain boy low-key confirmed to be Liu Min's younger brother (Liu Xiao, apparently?). He knew Tianchen would soon be given the opportunity to "hunt" and lo, there is Liu Min (who even vaguely recognised Tianchen which makes sense if he's an acquaintance of his brother's). His own surname is Liu and obviously that's a pretty common name, but the fact he had someone driving him around means he's pretty rich and, well, son of a games company CEO seems pretty rich indeed. Apply law of conservation of detail and this one is now locked in at 95%. Fountain boy = Liu Xiao = "hunter" = hat guy (the last I'm a bit less certain of, but again, conservation of detail and there aren't many episodes left).
I'd been wondering about the weird focus the neighbour got in terms of his gaming so him being someone Liu Min wanted taken care of made that entire side of things click for me. Liu Min was terminally online and so was the neighbour. Tianchen must've thought it karma that he had this opportunity.
Third story: Tianchen as red eyes, going further and further as Tianxi is forced to watch until he goes too far even for her - at which point she broke free and tried to appeal to Lu Guang (but why him?). (All that said, Tianchen claims he killed both their parents, but we didn't actually see it properly in any of the flashbacks which could just be because they're being careful with the censors but I'm still side-eyeing it until we see exactly what happened. After all, there was no knife in the picture when we left the scene.) Tianxi's story I'm presuming is simply an animated version of what Tianxi is showing Qiao Ling to tell her story.
Speaking of, Tianxi "broke free" in her school uniform and that was also how she was found. Does that place the hoodie scenes in the hospital as before she fled? Because rewatching a bit of ep 4 and it seemed that QJ was talking to Tianchen-as-Tianxi then (could be wrong, 'Tianxi' never spoke that we heard in this scene but it being actual Tianxi rather than Tianchen raises so many more questions) which would imply she was missing after the hospital and that's when they implemented the disguising plan. Thinking about the "sorry" scenes in the third story and wondering if Chen Bin was the final straw for Tianxi.
First/second story: The Romeo and Juliet backstage they're at was indeed as I saw a few people speculating a production featuring Qian Jin's wife and her co-star. Tianchen "I killed them both" @ Qian Jin: wow he just like me fr. (But nah this definitely raises more questions about the murder of his wife). (Also, just to note that I'm putting the different perspective of QJ meeting LTX and LTC down to the unreliable nature of Xiao Li relaying info initially rather than alternate timelines. Can't rule it out, of course (and the blood on Tianxi in only one of the tellings has me even more hesitant), but unreliable narrator seems an easier fit at this stage. We also know QJ doctored the case files and if LTC outright told him "I killed them both" then that sure didn't make it to the files.)
Qian Jin's motives now back up in the air. Initially it seemed as though he wanted the powers so he could bring his wife back, but with the revelation that he had reason to believe she was cheating (and pregnant with the person she was cheating on him with) the idea he would want her back seems... a lot less likely. Also, his break from morals is placed a lot earlier than it seemed from the outside. Those in the police thought he was outstanding etc etc until his wife died, but he was gone long before that. Ultimately, in both cases with alleged cheating it doesn't matter if the person themselves was cheating because they didn't deserve to be killed for it, but it is fascinating that we're presented with these two similar scenarios from two entirely different perspectives. Li Tianchen and Tianxi as victims of domestic abuse by the person who believes they're being cheated on whilst Qian Jin is the role of the husband who believes he's being cheated on. (The way the pregnancy reveal is played - QJ not seeing his wife often because he was always at work, her startling when caught on the phone - it does seem like he takes the pregnancy as confirmation that she was cheating as the pregnancy couldn't have been with him. She's already dead at that point though.)
With the current timeline we have, I don't know whether QJ engineered the initial killing of his wife (and the fact the culprit escaped legal justice actually kinda makes me think that he didn't), but I do think he used Tianchen after the fact to set up the suicide and suicide note of the killer
The serial killings. We originally believed there were eight in total, starting with Emma. However, this episode shifts the timeline somewhat. Liu Min says thank you for dealing with "that woman", but he still seems to have use of his legs so presumably "that woman" isn't Emma and this is taking place beforehand. Which would imply there are a number of extra victims the police haven't uncovered. (The alternative is that this flashback was in a timeline before the Emma stuff went so wrong and Liu Min still had use of his legs? I'm really hoping it's not this because it'd break my brain a bit) This also somewhat explains how the police were unable to tie motives together for the serial killings if it was a killing-for-hire type scenario, though I do still somewhat believe there's some underlying logic that QJ either bought into himself or was able to make Tianchen buy into in order to believe the victims weren't "innocent"
i wish there was a way to put the way part of a song sounds as an image(but not an image) for a profile picture or something so that it translates to everybody's mind as that sound as if they're actually listening to it but without actually listening to it. like how you look at an image but sound instead. but not sound. no audio. but it's in your mind the same way an image is in mind when you see it. instantly. if you could see sound. but not like written music or anything. is any of this making sense or no
okay if I ran communist manifesto daily I'd probably want to make it as accessible as possible... probably find the most dyslexic friendly text and reformat the original so each line isn't as long (like say instead of 30 words per row it's closer to 15 words per row) and with like a 1:2 vertical to horizontal ratio... that way when people click on it on desktop it'll be bigger.. and there can be a literal copy of the text under the cut for people who want to use screen readers... thinking...
like this detaching a post from its link to each individual reblog in a chain is a NIGHTMARE
-> new hyperfixation, and i'm trying to backread some of the associated blogs that have been around a while, yeah?
and i'm on mobile, which is relevant because hey fuck app users is i guess the motto?
so used to, if you wanted to read a few months/years back on a blog you could: find a tag of theirs, click on a post that was around the time you were interested in, be ported to the blog's dash AS OF THAT TIME IN THE PAST, and just scroll along
but now, because tumblr, for whatever moronic reason, has isolated posts so that
clicking takes you to an individual pane for *only* that post, not where it is on the blog timeline
AND NOW you CANNOT reach a previous reblog from clicking on the username in the reblog (only the og post)
the ONLY way to get back to older posts is to SCROLL MANUALLY FOR LITERAL HOURS
if i want to see posts from 2017, finding an old post and clicking on it does NOTHING to help me - it has been snipped out of its native environment and shown to me, but the other posts available as links at the bottom pane are just whatever tumblr algorithm thinks are 'relevant', not access to the rest of the blog timeline
this is true EVEN ON MY OWN BLOG and
I HATE IT
either make the Archive function work on mobile or GIVE BACK THE FUNCTIONALITY THAT WE HAVE ALWAYS HAD
I understand the importance of cybersecurity training. I really do.
But when the height of a 15-minute training (that is more or less the SAME TRAINING VIDEO from the year before) is just Don't Click Suspicious Links and Look for Spelling/Grammar Errors and Never Give Away Bank Details and Use a VPN on Public WiFi.
My dude. I could cry at this waste of 15 minutes of my life. This is the most reiterated knowledge, some of which is regularly repeated through YouTube VPN sponsorship ads!
Yes, companies need to cover their bases and whatnot but come ON I thought we collectively learned about phishing and scam emails back in the 2000s days of the whole Nigerian prince needs preloaded credit cards scam. Why are we all still being badgered with the same schtick and not on things like, 3rd party tracking data sold to the highest bidder and usage of professional social media that, with everything else, is BEING SCRAPED FOR GENAI HELLO. How is THAT not a "risk to company information"?
Phishing is a problem yeah but for the love of all goodness if we've completed ~training~ on it already, maybe JUST MAYBE. Consider. We don't need to sit through another mind-numbingly generic-ass animated PowerPoint on stuff we already know.
And MAYBE add a slide on your PowerPoint about bigger concerns to protect against.
It's interesting to stroll around Fanlore reading discussions that took place in 2007 talking about the fractured nature of fandom on LJ and people interacting without having enough context (as in commenting on a post they did not read by a user they do not know) when you're living in 2023 and people distribute likes without reading anything or commenting; when there's supposedly "drama" of unknown origins happening in more than one website at the same time because there's no real "home base" for fandom activity anymore; and we're all carrying on with our lives reblogging things without even looking at previous notes and reactions to that same post even if out of simple curiosity...
trying to research for jamie meta is actually super dangerous because you'll see someone saying that the jacobite period was between 1603 and 1625. and you'll just have to live with that.