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Is it bad I still can't fully decide on Finn's name? Like, I know his name is Finn. I have been calling him Finn in my brain for a long time now. I want the other characters to call him Finn, but I keep going back and forth on whether to make Finn his first name, Finnegan his first name, or Finnegan his last name. Either way, he's Finn, but it's driving me crazy!
This is regency era London, he's going to be called Mr. X by so many people and I can't decide on his last name! It's his pen name for Christ's sake. How long can I go on like this?!
Quick poll to help me:
If I can just decide on one of these, it'll make my life so much easier. If you don't have a preference, just send thoughts and prayers. I need it.
Anyway, what else? I've cleaned up the first chapter more today. Not sure how many words I took away vs. added, but it's looking more like, you know, a story than a block of exposition. Not much to share in terms of snippets, but we're going to keep it going anyway.
“Well about about him?” Gwen said, nodding to a fine looking man in the corner. “I’m sure he’d be willing to stretch your legs.”
Juliana looked up just long enough to note that the man was staring in their direction, but his eyes were turned somewhat lower to her considerably shorter companion.
Well, that wasn’t fair. Juliana was just exceptionally tall. When standing next to Henry it wasn’t as noticeable, but among other ladies she often stood half a head above the rest.
“I think he’s more interested in stretching yours,” she said, dryly.
Gwen waved her off. “He’s had his turn. C’mon, you’re worse than an elderly dog. I’ll take you for a walk.”
ARIES. tries to do everything at once. doesn’t know when to stop and take care of themselves. bends over backwards for everyone even if someone did them dirty. has entirely too much on their plate.
TAURUS. idealistic. spends a lot of time trying to impress others. doesn’t like to apologise. eating is a coping mechanism or just addictive personalities in general. a tad codependent.
GEMINI. the most flip - floppy people ever. what’s today’s mood ? never apologises. in denial 90% of the time. their way is the highway. desperately needs a break. they have a hard time setting goals because their goals scare them.
CANCER. the literal meaning of ‘ I’ll give you the shirt off my back ’. isolates themselves in fear of someone hurting them. wants to change but is scared of change. complains a lot but never takes advice people give them.
LEO. no one takes them seriously because they feel they always have to portray themselves as the fun one. is actually really sad inside. honestly needs a hug. exhausted always. a crackhead.
VIRGO. can dish it but can’t take it. rushes everything. anxious. plans their future but forgets to live in the moment. sometimes ignores their friends because they have so much on their mind. talks about themselves a lot and sometimes forgets to ask the other person how they are.
LIBRA. solves everyone’s problems but their own. is actually really sad and lonely. gets easily heartbroken but tries not to show it. will do anything to justify bad decisions. honestly just wants everyone to love them but doesn’t really love themselves.
SCORPIO. easily set off. will give anyone the cold shoulder at any time even without reason. keeps a lot in. so observant that they oftentimes find out things that hurt them. too many “what ifs” swirling in their heads. has trouble showing their true selves.
SAGITTARIUS. impatient. brash. commitment issues. body issues. doesn’t realise they don’t need to change for anyone. has a lot of different goals to a point where they get overwhelmed. just wants to disappear and do what they want without anyone questioning them.
CAPRICORN. scared people won't like them unless they're at the top of their game 24 / 7. takes a LOT for them to talk about their feelings. secretly struggling. fake happy. needs a plan but doesn't know what that plan is. confident but insecure at the same time. wants to be stable but sometimes wishes they could drop everyone's expectations of them and live normally.
AQUARIUS. gets heartbroken like 30 times a week. trust issues. can be unmotivated and disinterested. feels they have to adapt to every person they meet so they can be liked. doesn't know how to tap into their emotions despite being very intuitive. confused. expects little.
PISCES. empathetic, often to a point of no return. plays the victim. doesn’t know when to say no. cynical. hermit. is very impatient. trusts everyone too much. can be secretly very critical and judgmental. can only tolerate maybe ten minutes of social interaction. needs a lot of validation.
Pokemon SV is already found family but take it a step further. Penny manages to hack the original Professor’s system and separate the AI professor from the time machine’s coding before the Squad takes them out of Area Zero to get their body repaired properly—instead of their concept of a solution, which was yeeting themselves into a time machine. Now we have four rowdy teenagers and one AI Professor who can barely handle them, but they love them, they really do, and they’re SO proud of them and are amazed at how brilliant and talented they all are. Pull in Clavell and Geeta and we have three adults trying to tame children who literally took on time itself and conquered it. Nemona is thrilled that she has even more parents now, which is way more than anybody else can say. Penny grows quite close with Geeta, even after the awkward start they had due to her past misdeeds. Arven’s slowly reconnecting with his new (?) parent, and is a little shocked they’re acting more like a parent than his original one did. Florian/Juliana are loving every minute of it, bc their dad isn’t in the picture, and while they have their mom it just isn’t quite the same, and now they have all these friends and parental figures to depend on. And the professor is learning how to be human, how to enjoy themselves and follow their own dreams, how to be a parent not just to Arven but to the rest of them. And it’s wonderful and soft and warm and wholesome and family, dammit
alright, i'm gonna be honest that when we are given instances of a character's sexuality being anything other than straight and people literally only focus on the 'likes the opposite gender' part of it? that's fuckin toxic and ick.
there's so few representations out there (though more and more are coming each day) but in a major franchise for the wording to be so ambiguous as to lend us to CANONICAL bisexuality and y'all just........................... sit there and make them so straight?!?!?!
no. do fucking better, okay? can't believe i'm getting this heated about the pokemon fandom right now but we have AT LEAST two- if not three- canonical instances of BISEXUALITY within the newest game and people are ERASING it. Arven is coded to have a crush on the character regardless of your gender. Drayton asks the player character on a DATE (and it's fucking called that) regardless of their gender. the more ambiguous one FOR ME is Kieran, but far be it from me to stand in the way of the Kieran/Juliana shippers because if Arven and Drayton are coded to be at least SOMEWHAT interested in the player character regardless of gender......... then fucking Kieran is too.
every time i see a fic or post that talks about any of these characters with EXCLUSIVELY heterosexual language, i cringe. let these fuckin bi little disasters be bi.
Because everything with Arven is totally shoujo romance coded and Kieran has a crush on Juliana/Florian. It would be really funny for these two to meet and be friendly, but have very quiet beef going on.
spoilers for geeta's club room dialogue below the cut!
NARANJA EXCHANGE STUDENT KIERAN!! NARANJA EXCHANGE STUDENT KIERAN!!!! pls invite him to come paldea, geeta!!
okay, but this interaction does make me wanna talk about an idea i had for older!kieran. like i mentioned before, they carry on the family tradition of mask carving, but i also like the idea of them becoming a member of the elite four.
i imagine he'd end up moving to paldea in his 20's so he can be closer to florian, who just got appointed to be the region's resident pokémon professor. ( the two have been in a very committed relationship for a while at that point. ) geeta stepped down from her champion position not too long after nemona graduated from school and gladly took up the role, but she still serves as the league's chairwoman and definitely would jump at the chance to recruit kieran. after all, she came highly recommended by both florian and juliana ( who also agreed to join the league once she finishes up with getting her teaching license. )
kieran would probably be reluctant to accept the offer, with what happened with the bb league lingering in the back of his mind, but getting to take on strong trainers on a regular basis again does sound pretty fun. i think what finally gets her to agree to join the league is geeta telling her about this exchange with florian, which immediately twisted her arm bc her boyfriend is her biggest weak point. i'm not sure what type kieran would specialize in, though. i feel it'd be cool if he had a mixed type team with a stellar tera type hydrapple.
also, since the league seems to have a dress code that requires business attire, i think that kieran would either wear one of those cool street fashion outfits that mixes elements of a kimono with a business suit or just a full-on kimono while they're working.
Juliana's Internal Monologue: Fuck Finn and his stupid chest hair. The only thing keeping me from snapping his neck are his pretty brown eyes. I want to kiss him so bad it's makes me physically ill. 😤😡🤬
Finn's Internal Monologue: I love Juliana so much. She made eye contact with me today, I nearly fainted. Why won't she slap my face? 😢🥺😭
The election earlier this month of the Russia-friendly populist Peter Pellegrini to president of Slovakia over the pro-Western candidate, Ivan Korcok, has gifted Moscow another collaborator in the EU, and thus dealt faltering Ukraine a further blow as it struggles on the battlefield. The new president will solidify the power of his close political ally, Prime Minister Robert Fico, who opposes sending military aid to Ukraine, and hand Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a more solid pro-Russia ally in EU and NATO decision-making processes.
The campaign’s shrill tone, dominated by anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian disinformation posing Korcok as a U.S. lackey and “candidate of war,” is not just another case of dirty electioneering in Central Europe. It is also the result of Russia’s intervention in Slovakia’s media space and politics, which experts say ramped up significantly during the campaign’s final weeks. It was another stark warning ahead of European parliamentary elections in June that Russian digital propagandists and their proxies are intent upon—and capable of—swaying elections within the EU.
The contest for the Slovakian presidency might at first glance seem like a marginal spectacle. In the Central European country of just 5.4 million, the presidency has few powers, the most consequential being a veto over new legislation—and even that can be overridden by the parliament with a simple majority. Yet for the past five years this post has been held by the progressive-minded environmental and human rights advocate Zuzana Caputova, who, when elected in 2019, many saw as a bright spot in Central and Eastern Europe, a region where populists have thrived. Perhaps her most important work—and evidence of the enormity of the popular figure’s decision not to run for reelection—unfolded in the last six months. Despite her limited reach, Caputova acted as a check on Fico’s three-party coalition, for example by challenging the government’s overhaul of the criminal code.
Korcok, a retired diplomat who was foreign minister from 2020 to 2022, would have been an able successor, observers said. And he entered the race in pole position after winning the first round of voting in March with 42.5 percent of the votes, compared to Pellegrini’s 37 percent.
But a campaign featuring a barrage of pro-Russian disinformation could have been the lever that turned the result around so dramatically: Pellegrini captured around 53 percent, while Korcok trailed woefully with almost 47 percent. Russia’s footprint was all over the election campaign, said Slovak observers, and, as it did in last year’s parliamentary elections, Russia’s machinations may well have swung the vote to its favored candidate.
“Russia’s impact was immense and influential,” said Eva Mihockova of the Bratislava-based think tank Slovak Foreign Policy Association. “The lies and ridiculous falsehoods on dubious websites and social media blasted Korcok as the candidate of war and a dangerous free-market liberal,” she said. “The influence of Russia is obvious, even though there’s no evidence yet that these media are actually paid by Moscow, although there is big suspicion that they are. They certainly take a line that reflects Russia’s interests.” Mihockova said that much of the disinformation comes indirectly through Slovak proxies rather than directly from Russia, in contrast to last year, when Slovakia expelled a Russian diplomat for meddling in the parliamentary campaign.
“Since the pandemic, the pro-Russia, conspiracy-theorizing, so-called alternative media have been and are instrumental in changing the political landscape here, as well as the language and culture,” said Juliana Sokolova, a Slovak poet and philosopher. “They are listened to by lots of people and accepted as true.”
The pro-Russian internet platforms and social media channels, said Slovak experts such as Dominika Hajdu of the Bratislava think tank Globsec, threw their support demonstratively behind Pellegrini after the first round. The websites—such as Hlavne Spravy, ExtraPlus, InfoVojna, and others—reiterated the Kremlin line pretty much verbatim, she said. Hlavne Spravy’s Telegram account is rife with posts about LGBTQ perversion, Washington’s aggressive foreign policies, NATO’s expansionist aims, the NATO-U.S. bombing of Serbia in 1999, and of course the war in Ukraine itself: the oppression of the Russian minority in Ukraine, NATO hawkishness, and the far right in Ukrainian society and politics. Some of the Slovak websites’ news bulletins simply copied, translated, and pasted articles from NewsFront, Hajdu said, referring to a Crimea-based disinformation and propaganda outlet that works with Russia’s main security agency, the FSB.
According to Gerulata Technologies, a Slovak start-up specializing in hybrid threats, the thicket of pro-Russian media is complex and intransparent. There are far-right, far-left, and populist politicians who spread pro-Russian propaganda out of conviction, it said, as well as disinformation media outlets that are sometimes directly connected to Russian interests and others, like the Slovak branch of NewsFront, that are Russian state-controlled trolls and proxies.
The analyst Michaela Ruzickova said in the two weeks before the vote, the pro-Russian narratives reached a crescendo. Even more so than in July last year, Ruzickova, working for the think tank Warsaw Institute, found that “to achieve its goals, the Kremlin uses not only its own resources (embassies, spies, oligarchs), but also local actors who are willing to cooperate and spread Russian propaganda for various incentives.” Ruzickova argued that “the multiplication of Russian influence in Slovakia is facilitated by domestic sympathizers and disinformation actors who willingly adopt the content of pro-Kremlin channels, as well as the official positions of the Russian military and political establishment. Slovak disinformation actors are thus deliberately helping Russia to legitimize its policies and discredit Ukraine, the West, and democratic and international institutions.”
The most pronounced example of this was the way that, in the aftermath of the first-round vote, Slovakia’s pro-Russia media outlets and proxies energetically perpetuated the disinformation that Korcok was the candidate of war who would reinstate military conscription and send Slovak soldiers to Ukraine to fight for Kyiv. They charged that Korcok was a U.S. and NATO puppet who put the interests of the EU and the Atlantic alliance above those of ordinary Slovaks. In fact, Korcok never said this, nor does the Slovak president have the power to send anyone to war. Fico joined in the cacophony of Russian tropes, calling Korcok a “warmonger.”
There is evidence across Central Europe of Russia investing in disinformation channels much like the Slovak websites and illiberal right-wing parties. On March 27, the German magazine Der Spiegel and the Czech Deník N reported that politicians from Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Hungary received payments from Voice of Europe, a portal owned by a pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch, to spread Russian propaganda in advance of the European Parliament vote. The Czech government slapped sanctions on the platform for promoting Russian interests and covertly financing candidates for the European Parliament, which caused it to cease operations. Voice of Europe had more than 180,000 followers on Twitter/X, according to the BBC.
Matus Kostolny, chief editor of Dennik N, finds it hard to explain the Slovaks’ favorable opinion of Russia after the Soviet Union’s 40 years of postwar occupation of Slovakia and the invasion of Ukraine—in stark contrast to neighboring Czech Republic and Poland. But he underscored that the Russian propaganda in Slovakia has more voices than just “fake journalists” on the internet. “Slovakia’s politicians, particularly in the government parties, regularly mouth this language of Russia and repeat its topics and propaganda. This is more powerful than anything coming directly from Russia.”
“It’s not that Slovaks want to live in Russia, nor do these [pro-Russian] politicians want the Soviet Union back in Slovakia,” Kostolny told Foreign Policy. “But they use it to attack their liberal opponents who have cracked down on the corruption and put their allies behind bars.” The Slovak president, Kostolny noted, has the authority to appoint justices to the Constitutional Court and to issue pardons—two critical levers for reversing the fight against corruption. Kostolny said he wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if Pellegrini begins pardoning some of the dozens of convicted figures from the ranks of the government parties.
But Slovakia’s new rulers have shown that they will practice what they preach. After the Fico government took office last year, Fico cut off Slovakian military aid to Ukraine and then claimed earlier this year that Ukraine stood “completely under the influence and control of the USA” and is therefore “not an independent and sovereign country.”
Sokolova said that another critical component to the wins by Fico’s party and Pellegrini was the long arm of Orban. The ethnic Hungarians living in Slovakia compose about 8 percent of the population and vote in both Slovak and Hungarian elections. They vote overwhelmingly for Orban’s Fidesz party and tend to chafe under the rule of Slovak nationalist politicos.
But Orban sees an alliance with Slovakia’s populist government, which includes the ultranationalist Slovak National Party, as a better payoff than fighting rhetorical battles over bygone injustices. “Orban mobilizing voters in southern Slovakia via his media for Pellegrini was absolutely decisive,” said Sokolova, an ethnic Hungarian living in southern Slovakia. “The voter turnout [for Pellegrini] was massive in [ethnic] Hungarian towns.”
Mihockova said the ethnic animosity between Slovaks and Hungarians has mostly evaporated in favor of other enmities. “Slovakia’s nationalists and autocrats found that you can win more voters with the hate figure favorites of the Orban regime—such as Brussels, the U.S., and immigrants—than with traditional ethnic nationalism,” she told Foreign Policy. “The Slovak populists see Orban and Fidesz Hungary as a role model.” And, as for Orban’s about-face, “he needs partners,” Mihockova said.
Now, with Slovakia’s populist president and government in place, he has one more partner in his crusade to flip the European Parliament and abandon Europe’s defense of Ukraine.
This is an animatic I made for @dipplinduo because when ttpd came out we agreed that I can fix him (no really I can) is SO juliana coded in s&s d’s current dynamic!!
I put in Arven and nemona for the beginning (bc clearly they do NAWT trust our edge lord 😞) and then Carmine and drayton because those two are most adamant on helping Kieran.
It’s not very good because 1. It’s drawn on a phone and 2. Ive never animated before but yaa I hope you enjoy
it's the way tony and chris flip the script on the whole like. protege imitating his mentor, taking his place and outgrowing him (killing him too, depending on the genre). instead tony begins to copy christopher. tony sends chris away in 5x05 on a job and he uncharacteristically starts to use cocaine for stress relief and he seriously considers getting with his nephew's fiancée - not just having sex either, he tells melfi this whole bizarre fantasy he has of marrying adriana and starting a second family with her that he'd get "right" this time. (which is also curious because tony definitely knows adriana has fertility problems, but it's not a factor in this fantasy.) when melfi asks him if he intends to act on this, he says no, firstly because of how carmela would react, and then because it would destroy the work he put with christopher "after years of grooming him", and finally because he is aware it would be viewed as incestous. but it's something tony's thought about more than casually, it's a sort of reverse freudian dream where he replaces his nephew-son and takes his place as adriana's spouse.
and adriana as a person is part of it, but when tony tells christopher he and adriana were just chatting about chris... he's trying to put him off the scent, but he's also right. they were talking about chris right before things almost turned sexual. he comes up every time tony and adriana have a conversation, even if only briefly. the appeal of adriana is tied up in her connection to christopher. (which is interesting because christopher later takes up with juliana and repeatedly expresses discomfort over the fact that she had a relationship with tony, even though they ultimately never consummated it. the pseudo-incest of sharing a partner is part of the appeal to tony, but even the vague appearance of it unnerves christopher.)
tony does almost the same thing immediately after he kills chris a season later. he sleeps with christopher's mistress - even jokingly (?) asks her if he fucks like christopher - and takes drugs with her. tony rarely does drugs during the series, but he mentions to christopher, i think in 4x09, that he used drugs a fair amount when he was younger. i think part of what going on is an age thing - recapturing youth, the power trip of replacing the guy who was supposed to replace you (even if you were the one who said he would).
but i also think it ties back into tony's anxieties expressed in 1x01 that the perfect ideals of usamerican masculinity are being lost more and more across each generation. tony feels he is a corrupted, softer, and weaker version of the men who came before him, but he thinks christopher has taken it one step further. tony used drugs as a young man but he calmed it down; christopher developed an addiction. tony goes to therapy; christopher goes to rehab. tony talks about the mob in (barely) coded language to melfi, who at least has doctor-patient confidentiality; christopher confides in jt, his friend from aa, until finally christopher says too much and has to kill him. in replacing christopher, i think tony also feels as if he can rewind the tape, stop what he sees as the erosion of manhood, and by extension the mafia - which needs those ideals in order to exist.
I really love how ridiculous and cute and funny and so very teen-coded xo kitty was. it was so nice to watch something where the teenagers acted like actual teenagers—hormonal and messy and having fun and just figuring themselves out and having crushes on way too many people all at once—and not have them be weirdly oversexualized in any way during any point. yeah there were a lot of moments where they were making out but it wasn’t weird to watch? I also love how it felt so realistic in the fact that these kids all sucked at communicating with each other during different points and were often mad at each other for being hypocritical or other things but it just felt real because they’re 16, they don’t always know how to communicate things the best. hell adults suck at communicating too sometimes but some of the misunderstandings, as frustrating as they were, seemed realistic.
and I also love how the characters were all so loveable and likable with their charms and development, and the depth each of them had. like these are my children I built connections with them I adore them!!! despite there being quite a lot of characters, their backstories were all touched on giving them relatable qualities. even if this show hadn’t turned into some love square, these characters make a great group of friends.
my only complaint is juliana and even though she wasn’t around to see all the things yuri was going through and doing to try and reunite them, she just gave me weird “I’m hiding something” vibes from the start?? and then to see her get so quickly jealous of kitty aklsdjfk both in the phone call during the trip and at the end in the airport, I know I just said it felt very teen-like and realistic but it still sucks because surely she could see how fake yuri’s “friends” were?? and to see yuri build a real relationship with both dae and kitty as friends was heartwarming like be happy my girl has some real friends for once who aren’t just around for her money and chaebol status.
I don't know if you've played the Scarlet and Violet DLCs but at the end of the teal mask dlc I honestly thought there was going to be a romantic coded scene with Carmine, kinda like the Parfum Palace Fireworks scene in X and Y.
So I was wondering if I could ask for headcanons of Carmine confessing her feelings to Juliana at the end of the Teal Mask DLC?
Thank you!
I haven't played it, but I've seen that part of the DLC! Still need to catch up on the second part though lol. Love Carmine, though
Juliana wasn’t sure why Carmine wanted to meet with just her, but she was really hoping that she was reading everything right. She really liked Carmine, and was sad to see her go.
Carmine felt the same way. She really liked Juliana, in more ways than she was ever expecting to- not that she ever expected to like Juliana at all, as a friend or otherwise.
It wasn’t exactly the right mood or anything, since she was getting ready to go back to Unova, but she had to tell Juliana because of that. Because of everything that already happened.
Juliana was overjoyed, but had to contain herself. They both had feelings for each other, clearly, but she was going back to school; could they really do anything about it?
Carmine was more confident about them. Even if they didn’t date then, they could still flirt over the phone. Maybe one day they’d be in the same place again, and then they could go on a proper date.