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jazzyblusnowflake · 10 days

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OMG hi…I really like your art and was wondering if you wanna be mutuals??????????? Also tell me about your MD ships :3c

honey we are dating- .....okay yknow what- HI PRETTY & TALENTED LADY- yess i will absolutely love toooo 🙈💕💕💕💕💕

also lets see uhhh okay this is an excuse for me to just... expload-

keep in mind not every ship is meant for all of you so dont badger me about stuff that ISNT CANON or YOU DONT SHIP. contrary to whatever you believe, when somone posts about THEIR ships, nobody wants to hear about you NOT shipping it on THAT EXACT post.

hang in there, this gon be a long one >:p

First off we are starting strong with Nuzi- Biscuitbites obviously thats a given- these two just have too much to be said about why and how they make eachother the best version of eachother, whether they ever became canon or not- they fit like puzzle pieces- they lessen eachothers negative traits by being their for eachother.

next is Vuzi- Violentviolet, they are my favorite kind of enemies to lovers 😔 but its also tragic smh. kinda pissed off at how V always does something good in Uzis favor only when she is LITERALLY PASSED OUT- either in the camp ep on the bus or in Alices lab. like damn ofFUCKINGcourse Uzi wouldnt know she cares about her 😭😭😭

envuzi- Violentbitingbiscuits, i love these goobers with all my heart- they deserve the best 😔💕💕💕💕

envy - [does this poor ship just NOT have an exclusive FINDABLE tag name??? im calling them GoldenMemories...], i like to think that if they were in the manor still, and nothing bad had ever happened, these two would be comforting eachother in the healthiest way possible. V needs someone like N and N is just adorable like that uwu

Next we have JxTessa/Jessa- [calling them Fancyblades cuz why not-] J deserves some closure for the shit shes gone through smhhh 😔, its a tragic yuri of J loving and wanting something she probably already accepted she couldnt have, and even then she gotta deal with Ns ass being the favorite one regardless of how hard she tries to be perfect... sighhh i wanna imagine them in a future where Tessa was spared as the only human and J could save her 😭😭😭😭 Tessa might have loved doing mechanical stuff or wore black to hide grease/oil stains on her clothes from her parents and wore gloves to hide her oily stained hands- i want her to have a scene of wiring drones back to life and saving them and saying something like "hey there, you made it! dont worry, ill take care of you, youre my friend now :3" or something //dies//, also before anyone says it- even if Tessa was a teen in the flashbacks- romance is not exclusive to ADULTS, teens can love eachother without having sexual stuff involved. no she was not their MOTHER figure, she was their FRIEND who liked to fix robots for herself to not be alone in a house where her own parents literally chain her up as punishment. i dont even know why im arguing about this, people headcanon or make aus about characters NOT being dead all the time and if Tessa was alive for as long as J thought she was, Tessa would have been a perfectly fine adult either way. so counting this, yes shes canonically considered an adult when Cyn tries to imitate an adult humans body 🙄 makes as much sense as everything else i guess-

next ones i got is NorixYeva/Neva- Solverlilies- i just think theyre neat 😭😭😭 and once again, like everything else in this franchise- they are tragic yuris 😔 damn liam im finding a pattern over here 🤨 anyway, i like to think they either got closer in the lab experimentations or were already close when they were working as WDs in the campsite area for the humans. obviously canonically they were probably straight or just not into eachother romantically- [Nori either u have the worst taste men or Khan just fucking lost it after you died-] but also on the other handddd.... they have 2 hands and they are robots, i want them to kiss like two barbie dolls and im gonna make them do just that-

DollxLizzy/Dizzy- Bloodypink, wost fucking ship names ever, i cant find shit on them with these tags and it makes me angry >:/ at this point 2/3s of my ships are just tragic yuris smh, Doll did not deserve any of the things handed to her, even if she went about doing some things the wrong way i wish Lizzy didnt just abandon her- but then again, Doll did kinda abuse Lizzys trust and Lizzy got scared of being close to a serial murderer so.... morality calls this a draw? 😭 im crying... i wish someone was there to help Doll... sigh... i like to think Lizzy would have waited for Doll to just come back at some point... oh well, thats why AUs exist :"3 //sobs in the corner//

DollxUzi/Dollzi- Bloodybats, this ship is so underrated to me... they could have been... so much more. but why weren't they? did Yeva abandon ever getting close to Uzi when she was a kid after Nori died? did Uzi and Doll just never play around together as kids when their mothers were so close? were they ever close and something went wrong as they grew older? at worst they could have been like sisters together, and at best maybe more than friends. i just dont know what happened here, like Yeva could have tried to keep an eye on Uzi, maybe Uzi could have found Dolls powers so cool before having them too- i dont know theres literally tons of possibilities- but if Doll deserved to be saved or cared for by anyone, at least one of them should have been Uzi... sigh.

ThadxV- Killingblonde, yall this is... the cutest shit... ever???? like from here on out we kinda go into the more or less crackship territory but these two are adorable- Dumbass yet wholesome jock boy that just wants to keep his queen happy 😔👌👌👌 He and Uzi would have so much to talk about on "crushing on literal murder bots that stabbed and almost ate us" its literally love at first stab smhhh 😫💕

ThadxSam- Smokyjock ???? for some fucking reason??? i dont know what my brain did here man- i just like the trope of someone getting under Thads skin- like pair up the healthy sports loving gym boy with the lazy but wholesome dumbass that does drugs or is always just sleep deprived and Thad is always trying to just... take care of his ass and make him take care of himself but he just WONT SMHHH-

okay some more or less crack ships down here:

ThadxN: it speaks for itself. its too adorable and youll go blind from the light of wholesomeness-

ThadxNxUzi: Uzi will die here from the overwhelming wholesomeness... oh bonus if its just a 4s polycule of ThadxNxUzixV i mean i know im pushing my luck but.... random crackships go brr- V and Uzi will complain but love their dumbass golden puppy partners-

ThadxUzi: i think they could have been close and Thad caring about her as a childhood friend turned crush sounds just too cute for me 😔

LizzyxUzi: another random ass rivals to lovers or some shit idk what this is, Lizzy would pay Uzi to kiss the fuck out of her i dont make the rules-

ThadxLizzy: in some cases where they are NOT headcanoned as siblings or cousins, i think they have a good energy of wholesome jock bf and girly queen cheerleader lol, Thad is just a good bf eitherway-

DollxUzixLizzy: the gals would not leave a single second of silence for the small gremlin i swear to God- [Uzi is gay as FUCK for her gfs, absolute girloser unit with her gorgeous but crazy gfs]

okay for the end i have some characters that arent ships but i wish they could have become closer as friends or work out their issues...

J and N- too much abuse and toxicity here, i wish they could talk together more and see they have a lot of things in common- maybe a full line of dialogue from J without threatning N in every sense of the manner would be nice for a change =_=

Doll and V- again, a bit morally ambiguous to ship a character with the murderer of your family, esp when said murderer hasnt expressed regret lmao, but i wish they could at least be friends... Dolls disdain for the murder drones pushed her to end up the way she did. maybe if she didnt do it alone she would have been alive by now. so i like to think what would have happened if she and V could have made up- not necessarily Doll forgiving her- but at least having the space to grow and understand why they did they things that happened.

Cyn and literally ANYONE- i want the solver to be SEPARATE from Cyn- i wish Cyn would have still existed somewhere down there and was savable- i wish this poor child AI had a happy ending to her by connecting with the others as ACTUAL siblings... goddamnit 😔

aaaand thats it for this fine ass day 🫡 yall are welcome to ask about any of these- boy the tags are gonna be.... a lot.

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badolmen · 7 months

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“I’m scared to pirate stuff - ” do it scared!*

*with Firefox and Adblock and a VPN and -

If you want a nonspecific, nonexhaustive “where do I even start” guide…

Sail the cyber seas at your own risk!

Streaming - “I want to watch xyz”

This is normally what most people want when they talk about pirating.

Use Firefox with uBlock Origin and additional privacy add-ons such as PrivacyBadger, TrackMeNot, etc.

Free VPNs are out there. Get one - but vet it’s efficacy. My go-tos are Proton VPN, or Windscribe if you plan to do a bit of torrenting.

What is torrenting? How does it work? Here’s a guide!

Back to streaming -

Make sure that a) you’ve got your Mozilla browser with all its adblocking private glory, and b) you’ve got a VPN turned on to hide what you’re doing in that browser from your ISP (internet service provider).

Now you need to actually find a site to stream from. This is the tricky part, because openly sharing these sites will get them taken down if they’re talked about widely enough. (Remember how tiktok idiots got zlibrary taken down?)

You’re going to have to talk to people on forums. You’re going to have to experiment with sites you find yourself. Search for ‘x online free’ and look at the links that come up - is the preview text mangled or clickbaitey? Are there Reddit threads about that website confirming or denying its content? A good rule of thumb is to ignore the top result or two - copycats of good streaming sites will often buy out the top result spot. Eventually, you’ll develop a good gut feeling and understanding of what a good site ‘looks like’ from the results page alone.

However, there are some places that compile good sites that haven’t been nuked by lawyers (yet) - check out r/FMHY! The masterposts are actively curated and updated when a site goes down or is found to have malicious downloads.

Remember - loose lips sink ships. No tweeting (xeeting?) or Facebook statuses about your new favorite piracy website and where you found it. Even posting to tumblr (kind of like this…) isn’t a great idea if you want those websites to stay under the radar and stay accessible. Nobody talks, everybody walks (away with their share of pirate booty)

If you aren’t downloading media, pick pretty much any site and watch away! Adblock and Firefox will keep away pop-ups and other annoying ads, and your VPN means your ISP can’t tell that you’re visiting an unofficial streaming service.

Note: In my experience, I’ve never heard of visiting a site and watching stuff on it infecting or otherwise compromising your computer. That tends to come from misclicks on invisible or overwhelming pop-up ads that redirect you to an automatic download or similarly malicious bullshit. If you’re using Firefox and uBlock, you shouldn’t be in any danger of an accidental redirect.

Downloads - “I want to keep xyz”

This is the realm of pirate archiving - you’re keeping files physically on your hard drive, an external hard drive, or burning a disk.

Adblock + Firefox browser? Check. VPN on? Check.

Go to your streaming site of choice - most if not all have download options. You can download those files or, manually, right click and save the video file from the webpage as an mp4. I honestly don’t know if there’s a difference in quality or more danger in clicking the download buttons, but regardless -

Run that puppy through VirusTotal.com! It’s a reliable browser based virus checker - if the file is too large, use a local virus checking program (your native Windows Defender on Windows computers or, I prefer, Malwarebytes)

Generally mp4 and mp3 files are clean - choose where to save them for the long term, and bam! Free forever media.

Optionally, I also upload mp4 files to a named Google document - this way I can easily share them or make them findable through a ‘xyz Google doc’ search for others :]

Torrents - “I want to keep and share xyz”

I’m not going to go into this subject in depth because, honestly, it’s not something I do regularly.

See the previously linked Torrenting guide for information on how the process works, and check out r/FMHY for recommendations and warnings about different torrenting clients (I’ve personally only used qBittorrent - I’ve heard to stay away from the Pirate Bay and Bittorrent.)

As with streaming, turn on that VPN baby! You’re going to need one that supports peer-to-peer (p2p) connections, so Proton’s free version is a no-go. Windscribe is what I’ve used for torrenting (and it’s a good free VPN on its own - I’m just partial to Proton). You get 10GB every month on Windscribe’s free version, which is more than enough for a few movies/a season or two of your favorite show.

(Bigger torrents like video games are easily 30+ GB, so be prepared to either pay for a no-limit premium account or spend a few months downloading your files in chunks.)

VPN on? Double check.

Boot up your torrenting client - I use a slightly out of date version of qBittorent, but there are other options. The Reddit thread and previously linked torrenting guide have a few dos and donts of selecting a client, so be thorough before you download your client of choice.

This is getting into the logistics of torrenting a bit, so forgive me if this is vague or incorrect, but now you need a torrent seed. These will be .tor files found through pirating websites or archives - these are rarely malicious, but it’s good to run any piracy related download through something like VirusTotal.com or scan it with a local program like Malwarebytes.

You open your seed file in your client and wait. A ‘healthy’ seed tends to have lots of seeders and few leeches, but sometimes you’re stuck with an obscure seed you just have to wait for.

Your torrented files have fully downloaded! Now what? a) keep your client open and seed those files for others as long as you want to - sharing is caring! and b) run those files through a security program like Malwarebytes (not sponsored it’s just the only program I’m familiar with).

Be wary of what gets flagged - sometimes the files seem important, but are just trojans, and likewise sometimes they seem malicious, but are just cracked software getting flagged by your system. It’s good to check and see if others have had a problem with this particular torrent before - Reddit threads from 2008 are your long dead friends.

And that’s about it. Feel free to correct me if anything I’ve recommended is malicious or outright wrong. I’ve been doing this for years and haven’t had an active problem to my knowledge, so if there is something fishy with how I do things, I am a statistical outlier and should not be counted.

I wish you smooth sailing and strong winds in your ventures me hearties!

Obligatory ‘don’t pirate small author’s or artist’s works what the fuck dude’ statement.

#ra speaks #piracy #pirating #pirate to make hondo ohnaka proud #I’ve seen so many people on my streaming piracy post bemoaning that they don’t know how like !!!!#congrats you get to learn without the middle school trial and error phase we zillenials had (RIP family computer 2004-2009)#I genuinely think piracy has gotten easier/safer than it used to be. that or I’ve gotten smarter. which is also likely.

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sonkitty · 2 months

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The Sideburns Scheme (Good Omens 2)

(Previous version: The Sideburns Scheme v1)

This post will likely be regularly updated as I process my thoughts.

Last Updated: 04/27/2024

This is short:

This is long:

There is more to to it than above, and we are going to work through that.

Crowley's sideburns change in length in season 2. I have worked out some of how and have some theory on why.

Space

The absolute most crucial thing to understand for my theory is space. Character presence, movement, and likely memory all impact the space, but the space decides the length based on those things. The space is practically a character reading the story with us and making decisions on what length to give Crowley in response.

If you walk away from my post with only one thing and one thing only, I want it to be this:

The Bentley is Crowley's own demon space, and the driver's door to that space is its primary threshold.

Effect

When I refer to the effect, I will specifically mean the changing of the length.

But what is the effect from that?

Each type of length probably provides a benefit of some kind since Crowley takes actions to get them one way or the other. Grasping what that is, is difficult to say the least.

We'll see what each space tells us because the spaces have different readings on Crowley as it is. There are lengths between short and long after all. Short is going to be considered a human space and long enough will be considered a demon space, to simplify things as best I can. I won't say "long enough" every time, just "long" and sometimes I will refer to a "longest-length."

On its most basic level, short trends human, and long trends supernatural with that length increasing depending on the supernatural elements within the space.

Even though the length is what I focus on, the sideburns even change on how full of hair they are, and sometimes aren't even...well, even.

Earthly Objects

So far as my own theories go, Earthly Objects is a large, difficult, hidden game that has findable solvable puzzles in Good Omens 2. It is a layered type of game. The characters themselves are playing it, some with a higher awareness than others. An audience member can play it by trying to figure out how the game itself works. I've played it in my attempts at understanding the sideburns. It is amazingly and infuriatingly complex.

The Earthly Objects game is somehow related to this Sideburns Scheme, which is also a game. Both deal with thresholds so encounter each other. Certain aspects of the Earthly Objects game hint at falsehoods in at least the tutorial sequence for the sideburns.

Even so, the message about how the sideburns worked is still true. This story is tricky like that.

As such, a lot of my analysis is still going to be on what is presented nonetheless. I'll note if and when I have a guess at its deceptive nature.

...

Another important component in my theorizing is that Good Omens 2 is especially interested in these three things: doors, windows, and pockets—especially pockets. We'll be seeing these things a lot within the spaces when studying the sideburns, especially once I get to making more in-depth posts.

The Past

The Season 2 present day storyline is broadly solvable for the sideburns without examining the minisodes.

The minisodes offer other things to examine more closely regarding the spaces themselves, but these things don't really seem to tell you how the sideburns work in the present day. One can look for parallels regarding the hair in the first two minisodes.

By this point, I think the third minisode, the one where Crowley has sideburns in 1941, is intentionally set up as a test because it reverses so much of how the present day sideburns work. When things aren't reversed, they at least don't quite match the season 2 present day. I'm reasonably sure of myself in a lot of this theory for the season 2 present day, so that's why I think this test is doing what it does. I will cover it more once I reach that point.

Still, the Job minisode offers a clue to pay attention to when a roof is around, which then actually gives a clue about the roof of Crowley's car in the ending credits.

Generally, the minisodes suggest to keep an eye out for fire and hats or head gear too.

...

Home Base Concept - The Bookshop

Aziraphale's bookshop is where a lot of the present day season 2 story takes place, and it is nearly a second home to Crowley. Aziraphale himself is an angel, or a former angel.

The bookshop's default reading on Crowley being with just Aziraphale—if later scenes in the story are any indication—is somewhere between short and long, a medium length that gets closer to proper human-space short when in a private room together.

That's a reading that recognizes Crowley as a supernatural entity but still giving something shorter than longer reading around other angels. Most likely, that's because Crowley and Aziraphale are supernatural friends whose relationship is very similar to human partners.

When other angels are around, the bookshop's reading on Crowley increases the length. It's most noticeable from Gabriel, but that's likely because Gabriel is the angel who is around for most of the story.

Muriel shows up later, and Muriel is an angel, yet the sideburns are short. What gives?

The bookshop takes Muriel literally when Muriel claims to be human. It probably helps that Aziraphale literally accepts this claim even if he is fully aware that Muriel is an angel. As such, the reading on Crowley is that being a demon who tends to be around humans and pretend to be human often enough, the sideburns should still be the proper length for this "human" encounter.

Later in the story, Muriel admits to not being human. Crowley acknowledges a full awareness that they are an angel. The next time they are in the bookshop together, both with other angels and alone, the bookshop then gives the longest type of sideburns to Crowley.

After that, the bookshop's not really going to tell us about other specific angels, such as Michael.

The main thing we're told is that other angels who are not Aziraphale are going to make that length longer, with at least Gabriel and Muriel being among those angels. And that lying by claiming to be "human" will make them shorter nonetheless.

So, what does longer mean among the other angels? My general guess based on character behavior and story events when it's on, is that it's also a mark of rank from Crowley's time as an angel before his fall. The reading comes from a latent memory within the angels themselves. The story has repeated implications he was a high rank, seeming to be most specific at "First-Order Archangel" among those implications.

Crowley seems to be in charge among angels. He becomes a decision-maker and ends up directing the action.

When he is with only himself and Gabriel, he is in charge.

When he is with only himself and Muriel, he is in charge.

When he is with only himself, Aziraphale, and Gabriel, Aziraphale might make suggestions but otherwise follows along with Crowley's direction of what to do.

When Crowley is in the bookshop scene with both the powers of Heaven and Hell, he is in charge right up until he says to Aziraphale, "You got this?" Before that, he is quick to deflect a war, and they basically just let him with him yelling, getting the cardboard box, and recovering Gabriel's memories.

There is a moment where it looks like Michael is taking charge by commanding mortals be turned into salt, but Crowley quickly steps in to volunteer to take care of it. Saraqael, who looked ready to do what Michael ordered, abides and lets Crowley escort the mortals out.

Do longest length sideburns do more than mark rank? I suspect they are related to memory, and they are always present during three access points of memory with Gabriel, who has amnesia. Each one is brief, and it's hard to say how much the information given is actually used. One access point is a mix of Gabriel's and God's voice, another is a mix of Gabriel's and someone else's voice who sounds like a woman, and a third access point is that Gabriel took his memory out of a matchbox, no, wait, he took it out first. In the first two access points, Gabriel's eyes turn purple, which seem to be a mark of rank on him as the Supreme Archangel.

Home Base Concept - The Bentley

Did you ever notice how abruptly the encounters with Shax and Beelzebub ended when Crowley was in or near his car? That was weird, right? Here is what I believe happened.

The Bentley has special rules as a space, and each of those encounters ended with Crowley kicking out the other demon, possibly on accident in two of those instances.

The threshold to the Bentley is mainly the driver's door, but the driver's seat acted as one when Crowley was summoned to Hell.

Of note, the sideburns are long in these instances though not at their longest length that happens in the bookshop. Based on Crowley himself, Shax, and Beelzebub, that altogether suggests a default demon reading from the car. It can change, but it has to be managed through Crowley in the season's ending.

Back to the topic of the encounters, let's move on.

Shax at the Door

Crowley placed himself on the threshold and possibly made Shax wait a full hour before answering his phone. When answering, some of his body is touching the roof of the car, which makes it so that he's not touching that door panel exclusively. Then he turns around when he would presumably not be touching his car but at least fully intending to touch it, which seems to suffice for the story. Shortly after, he is leaning against the roof again.

By taking this action, he is allowing Shax closer to the space around the car, so that she can talk to him.

For the shots we are allowed to see him from the front, he is touching the roof, door panel, and sometimes we see the window pane is included the lean as well.

Before he asks, "Is that all?", he stops touching those parts of the car entirely and cannot be seen touching any other part.

Shax disappears from the scene.

By removing the touch from the car, the home base kicked her out. The forced exit seems unintentional.

Summoned by Beelzebub to Hell

Beelzebub uses a fly already inside the car. Crowley did not invite Beelzebub in, but the fly is enough to get their metaphorical foot in the door.

After Beelzebub says, "Hello, Traitor," Crowley makes a hit against his driver's seat, then says, "Oh."

Beelzebub then does not fully manifest in corporal form into the car and summons Crowley into Hell.

Crowley very deliberately leans back and while we can't see his back constantly against the throne during the entire scene, it is implied, bare minimum, he is not leaning forward while on that throne for most of it. He's gathering intel despite his evident reluctance to be in Hell during the scene.

The throne he sits in represents his driver's seat. Even when Crowley seems to want to lean forward, he'll try to not lean too much or he will lean to the side. Until the end of the conversation, he only leans forward off the back of the seat when he asks something ("Is that a new face?" "How?"). As in, he is inviting that part of the conversation into his space. He'll lean most toward Beelzebub's throne, even making sure to place his hand on the seat. The seat is to Crowley's own left, which is akin to the passenger seat in his car.

Crowley never stands up from the throne and only leans too far forward possibly at the end and possibly on accident. Beelzebub's "So if you hear anything, you come to me first, yeah?" is good enough to end the conversation, and that was a conversation where they were not invited. Crowley himself has no further questions and no further interest in actually being in Hell. The intel gathering is done. As such, the space reads that business is done and sends him back to the car instantly, whether Crowley intended for that exact thing to happen or not.

Shax in the Car

Crowley allowed Shax in by not verbally denying her entry and looking at where she would manifest. He kicked her out by non-verbally revving up his car even more after doing it once and giving her a second look. The home base understood it was about to de-activate and kicked her out.

Activation Points for longer sideburns:

The proper border for short and long is hard to explain, but when I say "longer" below, I am looking for length beyond what you see before Crowley enters the coffee shop and walks across the street with Aziraphale when they leave. Both scenes show us multiple angles of his face for comparison to the rest of the season.

Activation Points for longer sideburns:

-The bookshop under the right conditions

-The Bentley under the right conditions

-The pub (dependent on its threshold)

-The music shop (dependent on its threshold)

-Hell (likely qualifying through the Bentley)

-Heaven (assumed, likely qualifying through the pub)

-The park (only slightly longer because of a newspaper door, find out more here)

...

What are the right conditions for the bookshop to make Crowley's sideburns longer?

Within the season 2 present day storyline, longer seems to be a default reading actually. It's more like certain exceptions must not be met.

-No individual angel claiming to be human

AND

-Not in the private room with Aziraphale after encountering Gabriel

AND

-Not alone before an angel activates the effect.

...

The sideburns will be at their longest-length in any significant angel encounter that has an angel who is not Aziraphale and not pretending to be human. Those scenes are:

Scenes with only Crowley and Gabriel

Scenes with only Crowley, Gabriel, and Aziraphale

The overall general scene with angels, demons, and two humans, where Crowley is actively trying to undo a declaration of war.

The scene with Muriel after everyone else has left.

There's a small chance they lengthened slightly after first encountering Muriel, then going to talk to Aziraphale in the private room, but I can't really tell.

The sideburns are long during the ball, some parts being very hard to tell if they have reached their longest-length when there is a stronger focus on Gabriel's presence at the ball.

...

What are the right conditions for the Bentley to make Crowley's sideburns longer?

These conclusions are based on clues from the story itself:

-Staying parked for a long enough time with Crowley inside

-Approaching the car itself being isolated in a familiar area at night

-Standing at the threshold with utmost precision in the season's ending

The sideburns are at their longest-length in the season's ending up to the final cut right before the credits start.

I currently think it is because of a combination of stillness and his left arm's exclusive touch on the threshold. There is plenty more going on with such a touch, but I think those two factors are what are really increasing the length.

Activation Points for shorter sideburns:

-Driving the Bentley for a long enough time after de-activating it as a home base. His plants are ensured to be behind him as well.

-Exiting far enough away from the bookshop, assuming the bookshop already activated longer sideburns. This distance expands during the story, explained further below.

-Being present in human spaces. Thresholds can both force and counter this effect, dependent on their design.

-Entering a private room with Aziraphale within the bookshop shortened them from the bookshop's main first floor after encountering Gabriel.

-Being in the bookshop with two humans when Aziraphale enters and before the humans leave in episode 6. There are pocket touches on his pants, but pants pocket touches themselves have not been shown to change the sideburn length. If anything, the sideburn length has been shown to remain as it is during and after pants pocket touches or have other reasons for changing, such as no longer touching a door. He is shown blurred from some distance, so it's easy to miss him. He's to the camera's right behind Nina. Both humans are no longer looking at him. It's a cut that ensures Crowley is briefly visible before the next Muriel scene.

...

Connecting the Two Home Bases

During the specific season 2 story, Crowley regularly parks his car across the street from the bookshop. He himself parks it by the coffee shop in episode 1 twice and in episode 5 once. During episodes 5 and 6, the car remains parked by the coffee shop. Aziraphale also chooses to park the car by the coffee shop near the episode 4. Otherwise, Crowley parks it across the street from the pub in episode 2 and right by the pub in episode 3.

In episode 1, once Crowley reaches the middle of the street and starts to count to ten, the sideburns are a shorter length that better matches before he entered the bookshop.

In episode 2, we see Crowley with longer sideburns right before he crosses the threshold whereas episode 1 showed them still short. At some point he leaves and is seen with short sideburns again, across the street.

In episode 3, Crowley exits the bookshop to interact with Shax. He never crosses the street and remains mostly along the sidewalk. Still, it might be considered further in distance and is longer for the sideburns than seen in episodes 1 and 2.

In episode 4, when Crowley exits the bookshop, his sideburns are again longer than the usual shortness around humans up to that point of the story. Episode 1 is structured to tell us that the sideburns get shorter from the bookshop threshold to the center of the street. Episode 4 shows us the sideburns did not get shorter from the bookshop threshold to the center of the street. They stayed longer.

Why?

Crowley and Aziraphale connected their home bases for when the Bentley is parked across the street, intentionally or not. I think it is intentional, but I have a very loose grasp on a possible reason.

...

So, how did they connect their home bases?

Aziraphale borrowed Crowley's car. Crowley borrowed Aziraphale's bookshop.

Put another way, Aziraphale inhabited Crowley's home base without Crowley for a certain amount of time and over some distance between the two of them. Crowley inhabited Aziraphale's home base without Aziraphale for a certain amount of time over some distance between the two of them. Both time and distance contribute to changing the length from each of these homes.

Crowley and Aziraphale remotely contact each other once during this borrowing phase. Assuming this effect is memory-related, those spaces now share those memories.

When Crowley and Aziraphale take Crowley's plants, living things that inhabited one home base, then another, during this process, they are finalizing this connection.

The plants will now have memories of being in each space, and each space will now have memories of the plants inhabiting them.

I suspect these plants are a key part of the connection that is better covered in my Earthly Objects theorizing, specifically here:

The Pocket Chain Rainbow Connection Part 4 - The Door Trick and The Door Catch

Yes, despite Crowley's seeming reluctance and discomfort with loaning his car, I think forming this connection was intentional from both of them. I'll get into a specific part of how I interpret him agreeing to loan the car when time allows for covering the story scene-by-scene.

All the same, back to my main stuff. My theory is the home base border along the center of the street has disappeared. It is actually more like a radius around the bookshop expanded, but that's the main place the border was understood to exist.

Onto my loose grasp of a possible reason.

This connection—this disappearance of that border—does not protect the rest of the street from the incoming demon invasion when it starts. The demons enter the area without invitation.

After Crowley enters the bookshop for the ball, as best I can tell, no humans are on the street. There is a bunch of fog, and it's dark, and there are demons. Eventually, there will be an angel there, but there are no humans.

Crowley escorts some humans to safety to exit the bookshop. However, when he dismisses them, we don't really see where they go. The story cuts away, and when we are back to Crowley's location, they are gone.

There are other times we've seen Crowley in or near his car with longer sideburns and no humans.

The basic idea is that the space surrounding Crowley's car, that we've been seeing, has split itself into two different spaces at once. One is the Earth where humans do what they do, as usual, but are now not disturbing Crowley while he is in his car. The other is the Earth where Crowley does what he does, not disturbing humans. The spaces then re-merge when the driving time deems it to happen. The "no humans" space is a supernatural-exclusive zone when it comes to angels, demons, and humans.

For whatever it's worth, the only living natural beings I can find in the area are plants, inside and out of the car, and that one fly before Beelzebub shows up inside the car (assuming that fly is indeed natural).

Instead of a person, such as Crowley, being two places at once, one place becomes two places at once. The car being Hell, and the pub being Heaven further support this idea. Each of those spaces are accessed by Crowley when Crowley has the longer sideburns and in that zone to begin with.

The mechanics are confusing with the flies. I don't fully get it, but it probably relates to the car having thresholds in a wider supernatural space.

In the case of the ball, the split didn't just happen by accident or through time alone. Crowley's car is near the bookshop, but he wasn't in it. It wasn't in its usual isolated area. The window is open before the invitations start but closed when he talks to Nina, so we're never shown when it's being switched from open or closed.

There is a very specific point where things start to change, but before that, there are also some specific things that happen. Namely, during each ball invitation shown on camera, Crowley accompanies Aziraphale. He does not say anything during the actual inviting and makes various touches during each scene. These touches generally include earthly objects, self-clothing touches, self-skin-contact touches, and...pockets. Pockets are a big, little thing in GO2 that are beyond my ability to understand or explain.

I'm sorry. It sucks. It really, really sucks that I cannot do better. I've picked up enough to know they're important so am telling you at least that much. Touches and pockets or not, there are still ball invitations, and things still change. Crowley gets his own special invitation that's to the bookshop instead of the meeting.

Once he accepts this invitation, he goes to the bookshop and approaches Gabriel in basically Demon Mode. I'll get into it more whenever I reach the scene itself. You can read what I initially wrote in my past post on the Sideburns: The Sideburns Scheme

Nonetheless, I think Crowley was drawing out his own demonic energy to start the split, a shift from one zone to the other.

The shift is not instant. It's happening while Crowley is out in the street to make sure Maggie and Nina are on their way. The street is growing increasingly foggy as it is getting darker. Fewer and fewer humans are around as time passes.

It doesn't really seem to be completed until Maggie is walking toward the bookshop with Nina not long before her as next-to-last. Maggie herself is a human, but she seems to be a special type of human not explained in the story as to how or why she is different. Nina could be too, even if it's not as obvious. She is next-to-last.

If one excludes Maggie because she is human in some capacity, then it's probably done when Crowley himself enters the bookshop as a means to complete the matter, further confirmed with Shax arriving through the supernatural elevator in the pub instead of wherever the rest of the demons came from. The story referred to such a place as "stairs" when Shax was planning the invasion. An elevator is decidedly not stairs. It definitely raises questions about Shax with that kind of timing and wording.

Another thing about this special zone is that the Bentley is the only car around once the shift is done.

Speaking of the car, Crowley won't just drive away to re-merge these spaces. Not only that, he's not going back into that bookshop despite the indications in the dialogue he would.

Nope.

Instead, he goes to Heaven and spends time there until the war declaration goes off. Upon returning the following day, the merge has happened, either through the time itself or just the reset of the day. Sure, it could be the halo blowing up, but the people aren't shown as being in the street until Crowley himself is visibly there. It could be a combination of these factors too.

So, if Crowley and Aziraphale wanted to protect the street overall from the incoming invasion but somehow still needed this ball to happen with some humans, that's what they did to protect everyone as best they could.

It might even be a trial run for needing to protect Earth on a much bigger scale later.

Now, admittedly, Crowley did seem alarmed by the demons arriving, but both he and Aziraphale have been acting in certain ways to throw off whoever or whatever is reading them throughout this story. There is something about layering and switches they seem to have in the games they play that I don't fully understand.

By making the border expand, that meant that, for the most part, once Crowley entered the bookshop on the implied Thursday, his sideburns could not become their usual shortness around humans until that one fleeting moment mentioned earlier when Maggie and Nina were leaving. Even then, the sideburns quickly lengthened by the next scene. After that, they did not reach their usual shortness around humans until after he had driven for enough time and far enough away from the bookshop. He did not take that action and receive that shortness until right before the ending credits.

I suspect the sideburns do more than all of that since they seem connected to memory in some way.

...

The Bigger Thresholds Trick

This part of The Sideburns Scheme is a significant crossover with The Earthly Objects Game as one of the Threshold Tricks Crowley does during Good Omens 2.

There are three special locations that have thresholds bigger than Crowley, but we'll talk about a certain two first.

Those locations are the pub and the music shop. They are human-specific spaces that make it quite difficult to develop theories like the one about the connection and the other about the existence of a supernatural zone. In these two places, Crowley's sideburns are longer.

During the story, both locations have one thing in common that seems to have nothing to do with Crowley. Both locations have an encounter with a human who remembers a meeting from some years ago and say as much to Aziraphale. Each encounter mentions lights of a similar nature.

And then...there's Heaven. This time, there's no obvious way for a sideburn check. Instead, one is left to guess it's still relevant given the past two locations and noticing the threshold is bigger than Crowley.

I'll be covering these places more in-depth over time, hopefully, but you can again look to my previous post about the sideburns for reference: The Sideburns Scheme

The past post lacks many things about Heaven in particular, but the main one I want to note is Muriel's relevance. As far as my own theorizing is concerned now compared to then, Muriel is someone Crowley trusts deeply. You can find out more on that theory in these two links: Bookend Buddies - Crowley and Muriel (Part 2)

Before I move on from The Bigger Thresholds Trick, here is my understanding of how this part of Earthly Objects works. The sideburns being longer in the pub and music shop is a clue about this particular Threshold Trick.

A threshold being bigger than Crowley is not enough on its own to credit Crowley as having tricked that type of threshold.

Each one has a simple explanation but is done in a more complex way for an audience member playing to try and figure out in a puzzle.

My own conclusions are as follows:

In the pub, he "switched lanes".

In the music shop, he "never let go of the door".

I don't know the true simple explanation for Heaven though as more time passes, I lean most toward "pretended to be arrested". That's because it's emphasized as how he gets in with Muriel. His own dialogue brings it up once he's actually inside the threshold. It has a little rhythm to it. The problem with that solution is that the ideal one would include a noun, such as "buttons" or "cells" or "doorknobs," to represent the Triple. Another good solution would be something like "engaged in misdirection", especially given the context of the entrance scene itself. The "LETTERS" on the right-side door is a potential clue as is the doors closing in so specifically on Crowley's watch. So, I'm not fully convinced "pretended to be arrested" is the answer. It's still the one I lean the most toward as of the latest update.

...

The Season 2 Ending (The Door Trick)

Just like with the bigger thresholds, this part of the Sideburns Scheme actually crosses over with the Earthly Objects game (Threshold Tricks)

I am cutting a lot of content on it in this newer post though, again, you can look to the older one for reference to find more: The Sideburns Scheme

Near the end of episode 6 during season 2, Crowley is seen standing at the door to his car with longest-length sideburns.

For anyone trying to figure out how the sideburns work, that's noteworthy.

Despite how much we've seen Crowley, the car, and humans throughout the story, we've never seen them all combined into this particular context.

Other angels and demons are gone. Muriel is supposedly around but not on screen. Aziraphale and the Metatron have some distance between themselves and Crowley. Meanwhile, Crowley himself is surrounded by humans.

So, a question arises. Why are they this long in this setting?

Well, I already mentioned my answer before, but I'll go over what he's doing because it's rather specific despite how simple it looks.

This character is precise in his choices, whatever this scheme really is.

He is standing incredibly still. He has his legs crossed. The scene is structured to alert us that even though we can't see his feet, they are not touching the edge of the sidewalk—a threshold. He has his right hand fingers in his pocket and his thumb outside the pocket. The camera work ensures we know that he is not touching the window frame despite the incoming angle where we, otherwise, could not know. His left arm is touching the door panel. The door panel is the threshold. It is not an earthly object. He is touching his own space in his own way while watching Aziraphale's departure.

I think the length is due specifically to the stillness and touch on the door of the car.

There is a lot to be said for that pocket touch, which I hope to do eventually in other posts.

My own personal interpretation—not just from the games—but as someone having played them and who has her own thoughts on the story goes as follows:

Crowley is giving everything he has in himself to see Aziraphale off without truly giving his full self up in the process. Aziraphale is going to a place Crowley will not follow. Even so, the demon of the pair has put pieces in place to help Aziraphale from the distance they will have between each other in the foreseeable future. They both contributed to creating and maintaining a connection with each other during Good Omens 2. They also had to work together separately. They both love Earth, and they are going to work to protect Earth in Good Omens 3.

In my view, there's a hidden "Separately Together" theme in Good Omens 2 that one cannot find—or will very much struggle to find—unless you figure out at least some of the pocket puzzles.

Linked to The Door Trick is something truly magical called The Door Catch.

I found it on accident through never fully solving The Pocket Trick.

These are generally the posts I have on The Door Trick itself for now:

The Sideburns Scheme (skip ahead to The Season 2 Ending (The Door Trick)

The Door Trick Visual Representation (GIFs)

The Pocket Chain Rainbow Connection Part 4 - The Door Trick and The Door Catch

...

That's all I'll say for now since I have a lot of posts I want to make to cover parts of Good Omens 2 more in-depth.

Newer posts:

Episode 1: The Arrival (Links List)

Episode 2: The Clue

Post #17 (permit)

Post #18 (meeting with Shax in the car)

Post #19 (the pub)

Post #20 (crossing street from pub to bookshop)

Post #21 (your boss)

Post #22 (so were the goats)

...

This project is inspired by these posts:

Crowley’s Sideburns & what do they mean?

Ok, I love this theory that it could be some sort ...

#crowley #good omens 2 #good omens #good omens s2 #david tennant #good omens season 2 #good omens meta #good omens analysis #good omens crowley #crowley good omens #crowley s2 hair project #crowley sideburns #good omens theories #good omens theory

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olderthannetfic · 3 months

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People going to you to say they didn't like a book instead of just posting that in their own blog and blocking the rabid fans is so fucking sad to me. Is this where we're at? Instead of blocking the sea of lost teens and 20-somethings in the dark academia tag who try to use "dark academia" as a substitute for having to develop their own interests and hobbies, we're now going to whisper on anon, "I don't like this one book"? That's how scared of negative interaction people are? It's the dark academia fandom. They're morons. They don't even argue with you that The Secret History is good, they reply with your post quoted and emojis inserted inbetween every sentence and think they're big smarty smart-smarts who showed you, or they say you didn't get it. "The fandom is absolutely insane" by what metric? Speaking as someone who's been sent suicide bait, death threats, rape threats, pictures of dead animals, Holocaust pics and actual CSEM by other fandoms, if you're too afraid of someone replying, "wow lmao ur not smart like us u no get it" or spamming your original post's text with emojis, maybe you're not old enough to be on tumblr or be reading a book aimed at adults.

The fact that people are now so afraid of pushback that they won't even say they dislike something off anon is honestly really pathetic. This is like people on Reddit who say, "I wouldn't say this if I weren't deleting my account later today, but I don't like MCU movies." It's the same vibe and I have the same question: you know you can just block people if they cry about shit you say, right? I got sent a dead rat once by a Yandere Simulator fan and the police + a restraining order is basically blocking but for RL, but most people in the fandom for The Secret History aren't going to actually interact with another person. They don't even usually bother to write fic or make art for it, they just repost quotes from it with some pics they swiped off of Pinterest for it.

Those are the people who you're so afraid of that you can't even say, "I don't like a book" lest they hurt you. You're afraid of Pinterest moodboard makers who ask things like, "what religion is the most dark academia? I want to convert to that" with a straight face who think wearing a white button-down shirt and brown pants makes them the embodiment of wealth and class and quiet luxury.

As someone who's actually had interactions with crazy fans IRL - especially Star Wars fans, as they're almost all frothing at the mouth to rant about how much they hate Star Wars - I am happy to report that this is a survivable thing and not one you need to be so afraid of that you don't dare mention it for fear of backlash.

Speak freely. Block people. Move on. Their tears are embarrassing for them, not you.

I spent some time in anon spaces, and it felt like a nice break at the time... but I have to say, I really notice the difference now that I'm findable again. For all the shit that comes my way, a hell of a lot of people have tried to befriend me over the last few years. I wouldn't have met any of them if I hadn't been visible.

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maniculum · 8 days

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Bestiaryposting Results: Mlekragg

Unsurprisingly, multiple people read the entry and immediately clocked what this was. (Thank you for not actually making a guess in text, so that people who don't recognize it are able to work without that preconception.) I didn't want to leave it out, because the mythological ones are fun, but unlike some of the others, the modern conception of this beast is pretty much exactly what the bestiary says.

Anyway, as always, if you don't know what I'm talking about, you can find an explanation for this whole thing at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting. If you want to join in, the new entry for each week is tagged with "maniculum bestiaryposting" so it should be findable. This week's entry can be reviewed here:

Below the cut you will find the drawings responding to it, in roughly chronological order:

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) decided to branch out in an unusual direction with this one, in order to avoid drawing the creature they'd identified from the entry and also have some fun with it. I just think this is some quality creature design. Love the mask-thing, love the springy tail, and that's a really good rendering of a cuttlefish face IMHO. There's a really interesting explanation for all of these features, what inspired them and how it all works together, in the linked post, which you should go read.

@moonygryffin (link to post here) took a more direct approach, with the twist that the creature here is modeled on American fauna rather than ones the medieval Europeans would have been aware of. The body is a mountain lion, and the man-like head is a golden-headed lion tamarin, which of course comes with its own mane. I enjoy the choice to not use a lion lion, but rather two animals with "lion" in their name; also I've always thought lion tamarins were very cool-looking. For more details -- and an example of an attempt by MoonyGryffin to draw the same creature several years ago -- see the linked post. (Also thank you for providing alt text.)

@sweetlyfez (link to post here) has made an attempt to take the entry literally without drawing the creature she has recognized, which is a challenge considering how specific the description is. I think the decision to give it flea legs to help with that exceptional jumping is clever. SweetlyFez describes the result as an "awful creature" and... honestly I can't argue, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near one of these. In fact I think I'm going to wrap up this commentary and scroll down so I don't keep making eye contact with it.

@pomrania has also decided to go the route of "let's get weird with it", and avoided the literal interpretation by re-analyzing the word "has". This is similar to that style of joke one hears now and then -- you know, "he has the heart of a poet... he keeps it in a jar at home." (Incidentally, props to Mary Shelley for being perhaps the only person who could make that claim and not be kidding.) So this creature has the face of a man and the body of a lion, not in the sense that it was born with them, but in the sense that it keeps them as possessions. Very clever, and the underlying creature design is also fantastically creepy in my opinion.

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) mentions that she didn't recognize the description, and has given us this really cool-looking, rather menacing creature in their excellent medieval style. (This is why I insist on not naming the beasts even when it seems clear what it is -- this amazing piece of art might have looked entirely different if someone posted a spoiler.) I'm really struck by how it simultaneously looks like a patchwork sort of creature (different front & back legs, etc.) but all flows together into a cohesive whole. Just really well done, I think. (Also, thank you for including alt text.)

@cheapsweets (link to post here) has drawn the creature mid-leap, showing off its jumping prowess by shooting straight up into the air. I think this drawing does a very good job at combining human and lion anatomy to make something unsettling -- and the inclusion of the skull diagram up in the top left points to the amount of thought that went into this. As always, please check out the linked post for a detailed discussion of the design. (Also, thank you for including alt text.)

@strixcattus (link to post here) has drawn one that's oddly cute, and looks a bit worried. However, according to the description they've written in the linked post, this reaction on my part is probably going to get me killed, because apparently they're still quite vicious. I like it, though -- and, as always, I urge you to go read the linked post for this one.

On to the Aberdeen Bestiary... oh, we can't, actually. This is another missing page. So here's the illustration from the Ashmole Bestiary instead:

So, first of all, this is indeed the manticore, and I'm sure most if not all of the people who said they had guessed it got that correct.

Second, we can also note that all the artists who said something along the lines of "well we know about the issues of drawing medieval scorpions, so the scorpion-tail description doesn't need to be literal" were also correct there. Apparently this time a scorpion tail is just spiky all over, which I have to admit does look kinda cool.

Now let's address the elephant in the room. WHAT is that thing on its HEAD? My best guess is that it's meant to be a crown -- medieval art often sticks hats on nonhuman creatures with human faces, almost as if the artist wants to make sure you know it looks like a human head on purpose. I don't see crowns that often, though; usually it's just a cloth hat. (The one in Bodley MS 764, where I got the text for this entry, is clearly wearing a Phrygian cap.) I find myself unable to see it as anything but a daring hairstyle that is absolutely not working for it, though.

Anyway. The manticore is an odd one in its continuity here -- a lot of the mythical creatures in the bestiary have been changed, reinterpreted, or forgotten in the intervening centuries. I think maybe the manticore happens to have hit that sweet spot where it's popular enough that people remember it, but not so popular that it gets excessively telephoned through widespread transmission. I think a couple people noted that the Standard Fantasy manticore is more or less spot on to this description, and indeed, I can only think of one change:

(Art from the Magic: the Gathering card "Crimson Manticore", artist Daniel Gelon)

At some point, those bastards got wings. It's not universal at this time, but if you do an image search for "manticore", the majority of the modern ones are winged. I'm not really sure where that came from.

(Side note: I tested this by doing a Google image search, and one of the top results was a particularly odd-looking image, so I clicked on it out of curiosity. It was at the top of an... article? on a webpage I'd never heard of, and the opening of said article included the sentence, "In medieval bestiaries and art, the manticore was depicted with unique features such as paws, teeth, and fur." You don't say there, bud.)

Interestingly, the D&D manticore is slightly different from the description in an additional way.

Instead of a scorpion tail, it has a tail covered in spines. This has apparently been part of the D&D manticore since the beginning -- the above image is from 2e, but the 1e version had the same tail. (I just didn't use it because it's not as clear in the picture.)

Now, scroll back up to that Ashmole Bestiary image. The one where the tail doesn't really look anything like a scorpion's. Looks... similar to this in broad concept.

I doubt that Gygax or Arneson or whoever designed that aspect of their manticore after one bestiary image, so I popped over to bestiary.ca to see what else was out there. Out of the 38 medieval manticore images collected on that website, there are only two with a tail covered in spikes: the Ashmole manticore and one other that's clearly just a less-skilled artist working from the same image (it also has the same hat). Looking at the text sources, though:

"...it has a tail like a land scorpion, in which there is a sting; it darts forth the spines with which it is covered instead of hair..." -- Aristotle, De animalibus

"To the end of its tail is attached the sting of a scorpion, and this might be over a cubit in length; and the tail has stings at intervals on either side." -- Aelianus, On the Characteristics of Animals

Okay, that's the D&D version, mystery solved. New question: is it a coincidence that the Ashmole illustration fits Aelianus's description? Remember, the page is missing from the Aberdeen bestiary and the Ashmole bestiary isn't translated. The text comes from Bodley MS 764, which does not have a spiky-tailed manticore. My Latin is terrible and I'm untrained in palaeography, so I can't tell whether the entry there preserves the spiky description.

If any palaeographers out there want to solve this one for me, it's Bodleian MS Ashmole 1511, f.22v-23r, available digitally here. (I'll put some screenshots below, but I expect it's easier to zoom properly on the library's digitized manuscript.)

Okay, that's all I've got. Enjoy your week everyone.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #mlekragg

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ichijokaoru · 2 months

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omg do you have the 2 other ichijo songs to share??? i have only ever heard the live performance vids of him singing

[also small edit: just turning reblogs off cus I'd like to make a proper post abt these another time and this is rambly and a mess 👍]

aah I will post at some point, and I WILL message you when I do! I wanna make it a nice post and not do it in a rush you know, but I will remember to do this I promise 👍 (we also have a non kuuga related bricks album, if you want even more ~shingo singing~... he has a very beautiful voice! uwu)

I just will need to sort through some things as my partner is the one who ripped them off the disks and I'd like to just add other stuff to the post (such as original lyrics in japanese) and the ~approximate~ english lyrics which we will come with the full disclosure that they're machine translated, and we may wanna upload them to youtube since I don't know if they're actually findable up there?

that being said, it is a machine translation but are you seeing this shit though:

(from carry on:)

OKAY!! you're in love with godai we get it..

(from 勇気をくれた人へ, which, edit: is probably a Godai song, just sung by katsurayama actually?)

It's interesting cus we kind of had to wade through the pains of machine translation of shingo katsurayama's japanese wiki page to learn that the carry on release, which is 'carry on' and '勇気をくれた人へ' (which here is machine translating as 'to those who gave me courage' but is translated from our scan of the booklet, as 'to the person who gave me courage'- idk which is more accurate) is a kamen rider kuuga thing!

this isn't on the kuuga soundtrack properly (which we should probably also upload, we have both discs!), like 'it comes rain' (song I just reblogged) is but was just released separately by bricks, which is a personal musical unit??? (edit for clarification: they are kuuga songs in an official capacity just not on the soundtrack) but hey, I shouldn't be surprised that yes, world's strongest goichi warrior, shingo katsurayama went off and?? released the extra songs?? for his personal band?? ik I read somewhere him saying ichijou is one of his fave characters he ever played so this tracks, I guess. one time I found an image of him holdign up a little picture of godai and ichijou and a tiny little box with roses in? it was obviously sent by a fan and I don't know the context but.. hm. he seemed pretty happy to hold it up all smiley so ok shingo!!

[all these text screenshots had image descriptions if they're hard to read]

#ask #iridescentspacewhale #kuugaposting #kr kuuga #kamen rider #is this also a funny time to say i obsessively machine translate shingo's blog every day.#he posts a lot about his cat

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decepti-thots · 1 year

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sometimes i see new and/or returning folks on here still tagging stuff 'do not reblog', so reminder: you can now turn off reblogs on a post at any point. If you select the 'settings' option when making your post, you can turn them off. On desktop:

this can be done retroactively by editing the original post. it can also be done and then the original post deleted, if you like.

people being annoying on your post? worried about a selfie getting reblogged and spread around? have a stray thought you're worried would be taken out of context, but you want to talk with your mutuals about it? turn off reblogs! i use it ALL the time for e.g. personal posts.

also: if you want your whole dang blog to be a little less findable, you can set the following options if you like in your blog settings:

option one means exactly what it says; your blog can only be viewed by logged in users.

the second one means that none of your posts will show up in any kind of search or tags. period. want to chat fandom with folks you know, but not get randos in a Big Fandom TM jumping on your posts that mention the blorbo whose stans you hate? have a nsfw blog you don't want poor unsuspecting folks accidentally stumbling across? you can consider making your blog hidden! it's not always realistically what you want, but some people find it way less anxiety-inducing.

anyway. tumblr has some half decent features for keeping stuff a little more contained these days. use 'em!

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duckprintspress · 6 months

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Did You Know Duck Prints Press Has a Press Kit?

Did you know? No? Well now you do – Duck Prints Press has a Press Kit! We’ve been working hard to expand the functionality of our website, provide the resources that people request, give people the information they need to learn about the Press, and increase access for prospective contributors and customers!

The Press Kit is one of our biggest recent expansions.

This resource provides all the basics about Duck Prints Press in one easy package, such as who we are, what our goals are, where you can access media assets, how to contact us, and details on our crowdfunded projects to date! We continue to update this monthly as time passes, so this will be a great, easy-to-use page for finding out what Duck Prints Press is up to!

What else have we been working on? Well…

We have released an Accessibility Statement, and are working to bring our website and all our epubs up to current standards in accessibility. This is very much a work in progress, but we are committed to enacting best practices that we, as a small business with limited staff, haven’t already met. This has primarily meant adding alt text to images on our webpage, as most of the rest of our page already complies with best practices. For our epub files, it’s primarily meant adding meta-data that indicates that the files are compliant with accessibility standards: our files are accessible, just not labeled as such in a findable way!

We’ve expanded our About Duck Prints Press page to include testimonials from our contributors and synopses of our past crowdfunding campaigns.

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voidsuccessarchive · 10 months

Text

Please read

I want to address two things quickly.

If you've read my pinned post, you will know I have a criteria for stories that I archive. I recently reblogged one that did not fit this criteria and only realised just earlier and have since deleted it. I apologise for this as there's hundreds of stories out there and when I'm adding to my queue it's exhausting to have to read them all so I usually just skim them.

Running this blog is a hobby and I have already spent numerous hours working on it (going through numerous blogs, identifying and filtering out stories, reblogging/queueing them, archiving them in the logs, even adding links where I can, in addition to @voidarchivefiles) - so do not ask me to : 1. find tumblr posts for you (this is not my job. Do it yourself) or 2. add links to resources mentioned in the story (you realise you can do it yourself? The post in question was the one I ended up deleting (as mentioned above) and the document is easily findable if you just went to the mentioned blog and looked at their masterlist. Frankly it's a bit annoying that some people can't even be bothered to do the bare minimum to find a document that takes minimal effort to locate. There's almost 500 posts on this blog (including queued posts), I've done my best to include resources already (including archiving some @voidarchivefiles) but I'm not going through all the stories again to ensure they all have relevant links, that's exhausting. If you find a story that could use a link to a relevant resource, feel free to link it yourself in the notes replies - you can help out too.

Also, I won't be archiving older stories once the queue runs out as I think I've seen most of them already.

Okay that's it. I said what had to be said.

#updates

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cviperfan · 1 year

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Bayo 3 Thoughts

-Not crazy about the Homunculi as enemies, or at least not about the human sized ones, mostly bc i feel like their windups are a lot harder to read, and don't have as clear gives as Angels/Demons did before. But then some of the returning Angels have shorter windups/reads than before, so this is probably more representative of a general tuning of combat feel

-Trade-off from the "two weapons per set" to "one per set" is that while there's fewer combinations to play with, they are definitely more focused and interesting. G-Pillar is such a smart second weapon to introduce bc it feels so immediately distinctive from CMW, whereas getting the Shotgun after SF in B1 really only offers minor differences all things considered. Also, I can only speak for myself but in B1/2 it's extremely easy to decide on a couple sets, if that, to stick with for all your possible permutations (probably involving a sword(s) and whichever thing makes you skate around fast)

-Also was so used to Y (gun) just being the auto-fire attack with your quad pistol no matter what that when it did the anti-tank shot for G-Pillar I immediately went :OOOOOOO

-While I get completely the revamp of how acquiring weapons works here (acquired through story progress so you get all of them, instead of being found piecemeal throughout the world/through meeting specific requirements)-- and it makes sense, you want to make sure every player sees the entire toolkit and I can get being frustrated that some cool stuff like Pillow Talk/Sai-Fung in B1 requires pretty big asks, at the same time it makes it feel less special if you're just getting them like this? Like i really do get it but still the routine of finding all the pieces of an LP and bringing them to Rodin to do his thing built up this sense of anticipation and encouraged exploration and really gave him a lot of personality too so it's just like... it's fine i guess

-Speaking of which, I both kind of appreciate the more openly "wide-linear" approach to level design while also feeling like the meh rewards for doing so kind of undercut it. Like the RoT chests in B2 at least gave you vital upgrades like Witch Hearts/Pearls, so there was an incentive to take up the minigame or hunt down the really well hidden ones in B1. Most of these chests are just like... materials???? and a lollipop? K

So it turns out some of them *do* in fact have useful upgrades in them but I still feel this point kind of stands? Because it's still more likely you can go through the trouble of some of these and then it's just materials and that's still annoying

-That being said these levels do feel HUGE even right off the bat. there's at LEAST 2-3 Secret Missions per level, and it's hard to deny that the effort Platinum have made to ensure stuff is findable is hard to come back from. Not having to do some obscure bananapants placement/timing shit to hit them is honestly a fucking godsend, the way Verse breakdowns post-fight are laid out makes it IMMEDIATELY CLEAR if you missed one so it's easier to double back, along with up-front indicators about Umbran Tears. I swear to god I 100%ed Level 1 on my FIRST GO, a thing I never thought possible with the dense and easily-missable nature of Bayonetta levels, even if it took me just shy of an hour to do so.

-The mimic chests got me like :OOOOOO

-Honestly maybe the absolute best payoff of the new approach to level design is the Phenomenal Rifts, which open up after finding all of the Umbran Tears on a level, which are basically secret missions with guaranteed Really Good Rewards, like Accessories or even completely separate demons/weapons.

-Not crazy about how instead of just unlocking the base pieces of your whole moveset from Rodin (stuff like the Heel Slide/Tetsuzanko in particular) now you just buy them all piecemeal per weapon. They aren't super expensive but having it this way (while again making the whole suite of moves clearer to novices) really cuts into the ease of combat flow between weapons. Like it feels like a retroactive justification for the upgrade trees which kind of subtly shifts the focus from gameplay mastery to XP grinding which hmm not crazy about

-It's extremely interesting how much this borrows mechanically from Astral Chain, and feels like a glimpse into how Scalebound might have played out too. It's really clear they wanted to carry over a lot of those ideas, even if only in a more restrained and limited approach.

-Was not expecting to actually play as the Alternate Universe Bayos (BAyUs?) so that's a fun little treat. Tokyo!Bayo reminds me of that time Platinum was like PLEASE LET US MAKE A SPIDER-GWEN GAME and it's clear they're still hoping for it somehow. It's the fact that the Ignus Yo-yo's Gun attack is STRAIGHT UP THE FUCKING WEB-SHOOTER for me

-Not a fan of how slow some of the Ride monsters like Gommorah are, tho being in a chase that's like "avoid all these tiny objects or take damage" and the dodge command takes 4 entire years to complete does not help. The Not-Gojira fight while extremely fucking cool suffers from a similar problem of slow-ass responses to tight counter windows as well

-THE FUCKIN LUPIN HOMAGES FOR JEANNES FUCKIN STEALTH SHIT

-The Jeanne stuff is... short, but interesting? Definitely more mini-game than full-on concept

-Being a huge nerd? Having a sword? Punk haircut? Cool jacket? Semi-comedy relief character? Customizable shirts? The way we all called Viola a DMC character when the reality is she's absolutely a No More Heroes character

- OK so after playing as her for a while now I've concluded that while Viola The Character is a fun addition to the series Viola the Player Character is... kind of not? And a big part of that is that her main defensive option, Parrying (instead of Bayo dodging to get Witch Time, Viola can only do it if she parries with Jeanne-style timing) feels-- especially in the context of Platinum's oeuvre-- really fucking bad???? Like maybe it's the fact that reading the move in the context of Bayonetta's classic gameplay/enemy types is extremely difficult or the compounding difference of enemy attack timing or the fact that you cannot move AT ALL to do it correctly or you activate your double-tap rush move (and related, the fact that it's ALSO ON THE BUTTON FOR THE DOUBLE TAP RUSH MOVE, A MOVE THAT IS NOT SAFE AGAINST ATTACKS) or it's a combination of all the above but it's extremely frustrating to have three whole games built around Bayo's dodge timing and generous window and then to play Viola and have all that working against you... feels bad man

-That being said the kind of tandem character combat (again, carrying over from Astral Chain a bit) she has with Cheshire is extremely good and it feels like she's actually a better damage dealer bare-fisted than with the sword???

-While some of them are pretty cool on the whole I'm kinda not crazy about all the Big Area Bosses being gimmick Giant fights? Like I think Bayonetta as a series generally does a great job making Giant Boss fights feel readable and fun (a little less so in 2, but 1 is absolutely a How-To on making that work) when you're a human-sized character so largely setting that aside for the final game in the trilogy is... kinda weird ngl

-I do think it's funny as fuck we all saw the trailer where Bayo pulls her heart out to apparently summon a Giant Gommorah and everyone was like "oh shit this must be for the final battle... like a desperate last resort move at the end of her rope" and then in the game itself she's just poppin that sucker out every 3 chapters like it's no big thing lol

-One complaint I had about the first two games is that with a few exceptions the weapons aren't really unique or have distinctive characteristics (a more common quirk of the DMC games), which 3 has absolutely amended to its credit. While there are definitely light/fast and heavy/slow weapons, there's a lot more uniqueness and interesting quirks to each of them (Dead End Express is a very light homage to the Motorbike weapon from DMC5, and requires specific timing on the charge attacks to do the most damage but will burn out if you hold it too long; the Mic can do Attack/Defense buffs; there's a FUCKING TWIN DOOR SHIELD THATS DEFINITELY NOT A SOULS REFERENCE), so they really do all feel very different and fun to play with. Like this is absolutely an aspect of the game where designers got to let their imaginations run wild and it mostly pays off

-The entire (and i mean ENTIRE) final battle is honestly fucking hilarious bc it repeats this cycle of

Singularity: HA HA YOU CANT BEAT ME IM REALITY Bayo: gets the upper hand with some crazy trick Singularity: NOOO???? HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE????????? I CANT LOOSEEEEEE Singularity: counters it anyway Bayo: noooo im losing (return to step one)

LIKE THREE OR FOUR TIMES and it honestly kinda kills the momentum after the third one

Okay so. I finished the game and hooooooo boy am I emotionally am kind of all over the place.

So I think I, like a lot of other people, saw That One Polygon Review for Bayonetta 3 (pointedly entitled "Bayonetta 3 Broke My Heart") and kind of took the conclusion, based on how the article dances around spoilers, that the reviewer was let down by the endgame pairing and was maybe letting that dictate their response to the game? However turns out there are much bigger problems here and I can honestly see now why they made their feelings so bluntly clear.

I think giving it such a downer ending, when that's never been what Bayonetta has pursued or been about, is such a bizarre turn that for a hot minute during the first part of the credits I was just like "no way this is the actual ending. They're totally gonna pull a Bayo 1 and just when things seem most dire they're gonna fake-out the end credits and give us a better finale" and then. they just keep going. And then we get a random last fight with Viola with zero context? And then the credits continue over the traditional pole dance bit and quick verses and??? that's really it the end of the game????

And I think trying to position Viola as The New Bayo (no literally) is such a weird choice when... again I like the character, but her gameplay is so totally different that if they're serious and she is gonna be The New Generation carrying the series forward there's no way that shit's not getting revamped.

And some of it feels really pointed (oh, the gays like Jeanne? Even though she is specifically my, Hideki Kamiya,'s waifu? Here's her getting a stupid and cheap ass death that Bayonetta only gets the Arthur Clenched Fist Meme response to) but half-joking it feels like Kamiya discovered a new set of fetishes (semi-goth punk rock girls with short hair) and looked at Tall-Milf-Domme-With-Glasses Bayo and was just like "I don't wanna play with you anymore" and tossed her completely in the garbage, literally erasing every possible version of the character to utterly stamp her out

On the subject of shipping, while I've always been in the Bayojeanne corner I never really expected the series to commit to it, or at least not in an upfront way. Like honestly the most I expected was the comfort of ambivalence and ambiguity? And I think B2 had so little to do with Luka and them barely interacting that I think a lot of people felt comfortable that Kamiya and co had apparently 180'd on the BayoLuka thing (especially since he has literally acknowledged them as a couple, like, romantically, in the context of several of his other explicitly romantic pairs) that I think B3 pivoting so hard on a "no BayoLuka was not only always it but THEY ARE LITERALLY FATED TO ALWAYS END UP TOGETHER GO FUCK YOURSELF" feels kind of spiteful (and is Kamiya a spiteful, petty person? Yes. Would he? Also yes.) And my thing is, in B1 I'm honestly kinda like they're fine? Like the impression i got was for sure that they fucked btwn game 1 and 2 and then 2 makes it seem like they just moved on and never really hooked up again. And to be sure if you look at Kamiya's body of work he absolutely loves this dynamic in an M/F couple so it's like... I can see this having been the endgame for him but at the same time it's extremely poorly done.

Sidenote I think it's fucking hilarious that the game tries to play a few bits as recurring tics of their perpetual romantic entanglement which... are completely not (Luka's "Fate brought us together, and it will never tear us apart" is NOT EVEN A LINE HE SAYS TO HER, AT ANY POINT THROUGH THE GAMES IT'S A THROWAWAY PICKUP LINE HE GIVES TO SOME RANDOM NPC IN GAME 1 AND THATS IT???? or Bayo's "only the Luka I know would be bold enough to call me 'Cerezita'" which is ALSO something he has never said to her, except technically to Baby Her in B1 again). Like I am actually pretty open to het pairings provided that they have good chemistry and the thing in question is not Forcing its Hand about how Meant To Be they are and the B3 writing really hits every branch of that tree on the way down

And the thing about B3 going "No Actually Luka is the most Important and Super Special Awesome guy in the multiverse" is it's so disrespectful to the Bayonetta character??? After two other games of her killing God and in this one of her summoning every possible version of herself to fight a man-made god which isn't enough? And it's not even tied to any of the established lore it's some random new Third Thing too???

And the thing for me about all the great scores and recommendations in reviews for B3 that don't even touch on how bad this ending is is that most of them are like "lol no one cares about Bayonetta's story" and people are like "Platinum are bad writers and can't tell a story" and I'm just like. Compared to what, exactly. Platinum's track record isn't consistent to be sure but there are way more games than not that actually cannot tell a satisfying or interesting narrative, and while Platinum has never been one for subtlety or gravitas most of their big games have themes and ideas they're conveying mostly successfully, and for all its bombast and background lore the Bayonetta games up to now have told a pretty solid and entertaining story with a consistent internal mythology. Like B1 and 2 actually form a pretty tight duology that answers pretty much all of its own big questions and closes its time loop and like sure, you don't *have* to care about the narrative, you *can* just engage with them mechanically and still have a good time, but I think acting like there's nothing there, no thoughts head empty is pretty shortsighted. Like you're never gonna see a Vaatividya take but there are ABSOLUTELY people making Bayonetta lore vids just like there are people making sick combo vids.

And the thing that stands out to me the most about Bayonetta 3's writing is it really feels like the team at Platinum took that "no one cares about the story" dismissal and decided "yea fuck it I guess so"

Like despite this being the end of a trilogy and supposedly a wrapping up of the story to this point, it has almost no connection to everything that came before it (supposedly after all the debate about whether this was an AU Bayo or not the Bayo of this game supposedly is? And then through some multiverse shenanigans it seems to imply that the Bayo we played as in 1 and 2 are ALSO not the same character and are variants themselves which????? fucking weird and stupid if so????) aside from some cameo Angel/Demon fights. They try to recreate the time displacement character reveal thing from the other games with Viola but it really doesn't work bc 1) it's extremely obvious VERY early on what her connection to Bayo/Luka is but 2) she makes effort to very carefully tiptoe around saying it for most of the game for no reason when being upfront about it would make for better character moments??? Like this isn't a fucking Back to the Future scenario it's not going to fuck up the timeline if they know (Like it works in B1 bc Baby!Cereza is a literal fucking toddler and then it works for Balder in B2 bc it's clear Bayo understands that connection so it feels impactful when it turns out Balder understood without her saying anything). WE LITERALLY NEVER LEARN ANYTHING ABOUT THE VILLAIN, WHAT HIS GOAL IS OR WHY. There's no monologue, no connection he has to the lore of the series, what the Homunculi exactly are or why they exist. Faeries are a thing now I guess! Where are they from? what's their purpose? how do they fit into the Angel/Demon dichotomy? WHO FUCKING KNOWS BUT NOW LUKA IS A WEREWOLF TYPE DUDE I GUESS AND HE ALWAYS WAS SHUT UP. I've seen some reviewers call this a Celebration of Bayonetta as both a character and a series but aside from some pointed references and the Multiverse shenanigans it feels a lot more like, again, the trappings of the series up to now getting thrown in the dumpster.

And speaking of it feels like while they're cool in parts the series honestly does not gain a lot from dipping its toe into the New Hotness of Multiverse Stuff (aside from Egyptian!Bayojeanne, who at least have both the Devoted Princess/Knight dynamic and have big Oh They *Fuckin* energy). Like at least it's mostly there for Mari Shimazaki to fuckin flex (as one of the pillars of the foundation of what makes Bayonetta Bayonetta, her design work remains absolutely on point no matter what), but they're pretty perfunctory and while the advertising makes a big point of our Bayo teaming up with these BAyUs she really only meets them for like a minute and then they die but she gets their weapons/demons so hey lol works out for her

Honestly at the end of the day Bayonetta 3 just left me... extremely mixed on my feelings. I'd played DMC and Ninja Gaiden before, but Bayonetta 1 really awakened my love for character action games, and from all accounts with the dark direction Platinum is taking towards the Live Service hellscape, I had the sinking feeling that Bayonetta 3 was going to be the last true Platinum game; a reasonably sized title that keeps you coming back not with the promise of Endless Content(tm) but a densely packed title with compelling gameplay and loads of reasons to revisit it. And while gameplay-wise it definitely feels that way, its story feels like a disappointing cap-off to a great series and a company I loved as well. I guess we'll see if this vague promise of a B4yonetta comes to fruition.

#bayonetta 3 #bayonetta 3 spoilers #kinda all over the place bc i was writing some of these while playing #this one kinda hurts man

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