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#why are they changing perfectly good names for 0 reason.
starryrock · 2 years
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By far one of the WORST translation decisions in Eng TWST was changing Land of Pyroxene to “Shaftlands.” What the fxck is “Shaftlands”? Bxtch I’m NOT calling it that, that’s ugly as hell.
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sanjisboyfie · 5 months
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one piece smau: dating sabo edition
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liked by sabosbf, kokoala, and 10k others
[name]sblondie: this is exactly why im always late to work
tagged: sabosbf and d.dragon
sabosbf: DONT TAG YOUR BOSS????? HES GONNA FUCKING KILL ME??????
-> kokoala: LMFAOAOOA
-> sabosbf: i'm fuckin scared what is going on koala
d.dragon: This is hardly an acceptable reason to be late to work, Sabo.
-> [name]sblondie: boohoo just say youre sad and single
-> divaiva: SABO you're so dead.
freeluffy: cuddling is worth it
[liked by d.dragon, kokoala, and 200 others]
-> kokoeala: just heard dragon-san gasp in his office hold on u might be saved
-> [name]sblondie: thankgodthankgodthankgod
-> freeluffy: huh?
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liked by [name]sblondie, divaiva, and 18k others
sabosbf: he's urethral guys idk
tagged: [name]sblondie
[name]sblondie: i think you're urethral too baby
-> sabosbf: i love u i knew u would get my humor
-> [name]sblondie: of course i would my love <333
portgasace: no fucking way u two are real
dni_nami: something is telling me theres something wrong with the caption, but lemme not
-> sabosbf: what's wrong with it :0?
-> dni_nami: ....
divaiva: u two are the cutest (please change that caption, i'm telling you this out of the kindess of my heart)
[liked by kokoala, portgasace, and 140 others]
-> [name]sblondie: my boyfriends caption is perfectly fine
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liked by [name]sblondie, sabosbf, and 19k others
portgasace: barfed in my mouth i hate them
tagged: [name]sblondie and sabosbf
[name]sblondie: be nice to ur brother in law damn
-> freeluffy: [NAME] IS OUR BROTHER IN LAW NOW !?!?!?!?
-> [name]sblondie: future* brother in law my bad
-> freeluffy: booooo :(
sabosbf: yeah i hate u too ace, the only rzn u ever go out w us is so u can leech off our wallets
-> portgasace: thats a fuckign lie asshole
-> sabosbf: BROKE ASS
[liked by [name]sblondie, freeluffy, and 100 others]
boahancock: luffy's brother and luffy's brothers boyfriend are so cute <3
-> [name]sblondie: damn she don't even know our names
-> portgasace: professional luffy dickrider (for some rzn)
kokoala: my favorite gays <3333
-> [name]sblondie: ?????
-> sabosbf: thank u koala ;)
-> [name]sblondie: ???????
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liked by sabosbf, portgasace, and 20k others
[name]sblondie: guys do u think he loves spiderman more than me
tagged: sabosbf
sabosbf: if peter parker hit my line, im sorry
-> [name]sblondie: ????????
sabosbf: his theme song is my ringtone for u so i guess it connects?
-> [name]sblondie: YOU GUESS???
-> sabosbf: that just means ur my spiderman baby >///<
-> [name]sblondie: DONT TRY TWISTING THIS IN A COMPLIMENTARY WAY U JUS CONFIRMED THAT IM UR SECOND CHOICE
kokoala: spiderman >>>> any other man
-> sabosbf: u get me koala ughhh
portgasace: good taste [name], gooooddd tasteee
-> sabosbf: hehe
-> [name]sblondie: WHAT THE FUCK????????? STOP FLIRTING WITH OTHER MEN RIGHT NOW???
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liked by [name]sblondie, divaiva, and 16k others
sabosbf: got jumpscared by this pic in my cameraroll pls someone buy this guy brown contacts
tagged: [name]sblondie
[name]sblondie: me looking at u when u wake up 🧿🧿
-> sabosbf: its ok babe jus please maybe think about blinking a little bit longer
kokoala: cannot hold a conversation with him without feeling like hes thinking about murdering me
-> portgasace: what i said
divaiva: nooo you'd ruin his natural beauty :<
-> [name]sblondie: thank u iva <3
-> [name]sblondie: YOU JUST VENMOED ME 40 BUCKS WITH THE MSG "listen to [name]" ???
-> sabosbf: LMFOAOA babe don't actually buy contacts i love ur eyes theyre pretty :3
d.dragon: They are quite terrifying.
[liked by kokoala, divaiva, and 90 others]
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liked by sabosbf, kokoala, and 19k others
[name]sblondie: boyfriend appreciation post because even though hes got a weird sense of humor, hes still mine (...i guess)
tagged: sabosbf
sabosbf: HEHEHE he loves meeeeee
sabosbf: ok why that ugly ass photo of me as the second one what the hell is wrong w u u just hate me
sabosbf: I LOVE U SABO, LOVE UUU
-> [name]sblondie: love u too handosme (...i guess)
-> sabosbf: STOP WITH THE I GUESS i'd choose u over peter parker anyday baby pleaseee
portgasace: not [name] picking up on me and luffy's appetite too
[liked by kokoala, [name]sblondie, and 100 others]
-> freeluffy: bigger appetite is the best appetite !
sabosbf's story
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RESTRAIN ME??? MY SEXY BOYFRIEDN IN MENSWEAR HOLY SHIT IM CREAMINNNNGGGG
[name]sblondie replied to your story: u shouldve told me sooner, i'll wear them more often now just for u babe ;)
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yanderefairyangel · 5 months
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I think it's very funny how I hear so many people say "if only we could have a game with Engage's gameplay with 3H's level of writing we could have a perfect game" because we already had a FE game with 3H's level of writing long before 3H came out... and that's Fates.
I kid you not. 3H and Fates have the exact same writing flaws when it comes to the story and the worldbuilding. And that's that it was waaay too ambitious for its own good.
I mean, Fates orginal script was literaly so big it was massive novel trimmered down for video game format as for 3H's well...
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10 freaking thousand years of worldbuilding for a video game story.
See the problem ??? That's something you do for a novel not a video game !!!
The main reason why stories in video games tries to stay simple is because they are aware of the medium they are dealing with !!! Fates and 3H are both game that are very, very long. Do you have any idea how long they would be if they went fully into developping all of the worldbuilding and lore they were supposed to have ?
That's the problem with big worldbuilding. As ambitious as it is it comes with the downside of requiring a lot of screen time to make every bits of it story relevant in a way or another and to flesh it out well. Do Fates and 3H do it well ? Well, Fates is a tought subject seeing how the localization removed a lot of its worldbuilding and created incoherences and inconsistencies on top of that, but we do see that in the original there were some of them not that developped such as the 12 dragons having only 3 at least that are very plot relevant : Hydra, the Rainbow sage and Moro. You don't learn a lot about 3 more of them, the Ancestor of the tribe we do meet in Fates and the one that shared their blood with the Royals, but there is still some stuff missing and that could have been developped more. And this problem Fates had, 3H had this too, but multiplied by 4 because of 4 routes. And the Hopes recton. And I know Hopes takes place in an alternate timeline but some of the change are way to weird to attribute it just to Shez's survival. Like, the complete shitf of personality from Dimitri's uncle : in Houses he is supposed to be a useless lecher, in Hopes he is a depressed Claudius trying to kill Dima.... what happened exactly ?
What those game tried to do was waaay too big. They have the exact same problem in the story and lore. They also have the same strengh as in a strong cast with good characterization. And if I consider 3H's stories to be weaker then the 3 stories in Fates, I think the 3H''s cast had a stronger characterization compared to the Fates one.
Again, I can salute the ambition, but if we encourage the devs to follow that direction, we are basically begging them for half finished story with improper lore and worldbuilding.
A good worldbuilding isn't a gigantinc epileptic. It's one that is consistent, well used in the plot and despite of his tenght is rich enough. Take Pandora hearts. It's worldbuilding is small. Literaly. We only know the name of 2 city, Sablier and Reveil. We don't even know the name of the country we are in ! All that we can recognize is that the character are dressed in the 19 century victorian era seetings and have English name. But the country has 0 name. You can look, it's called and I quote the material world only to distinguish it from the Abyss !!! Even the characters comming from another country such as Isla Yura or the Duc Barma's family, characterized by their red hair and special clothing, we never learn which country they come from not the name ! And that is perfectly FINE. Because learning the name would eventually change nothing. Not having the name removes nothing from the story because PH focus only on those setting in a way that matters for the plot. Reveil being the capital of their country only matters to localize Gil's appartement and the Pandora's base. Sablier matters because it's at the core of the plot, the only historical aspect that matters is the tragedy of 100 years ago. All the other important place such as the Abyss, the monster, the chains, the system of contractor etc all of this is detailed in a way that is not thousand of data but only the essential to keep the plot moving foward so the story feels focus and only has some elements to flesh out rather then 1000000. And even then, Sensei still managed to improve that with the VNC worldbuilding that is much richer but that still is focused and that focus comes from how she is using a size that fit for the medium she writes for !! And the PH lore is still rcih in references, metatextuality and wink wink to Alice in Wonderland
And the main reason why I think Awakening and Engage had stronger stories then these 2 game was because they knew what they were doing. And by that they knew what they were : video games. Think about it 2 seconds.
Awakening was written as a random regular video game script. Fates became a novel. 3H had an over 10 thousand years woth of lore chronicle going on. Engage was written as a random regular video game stories keeping with a traditional RPG vein.
And out of the 3 Engage is the most consistant. It's not without its flaws, but it objectively does better because it knows the format it has. It knows it is a video game. You can't expect a video game to be has rich and have the same writing as a novel. Each medium as it's own rules : that's why when manga or novel can adapted on screen, the screewriters as to adapt it to the medium he is dealing with. Because it's not the same medium, it has different rules, different challenges etc. If a video game adapts a novel, you can't expect it to be as much in depth because a video game is supposed to be shorter then a novel. Same for a manga. Same for a movie.
Engage and Awakening knew their size. They knew what they were doing and avoided being so big. Because even if the 3H writers had kept in check all of the ten thousand years of lore they wrote, nothing would change the fact that they don't have the time to flesh that out in that game. The data doesn't allow it. The timing doesn't either.
Another example. Recently, Goody two shoes came out. And despite it being a prequel to Pocket Mirror, it has a very good story and a simple one with a few very important characters and enough lack of information for it to be a mystery and not just something that was left as is without proper developpement. And that's because it knew what it was and stick with it : being a prequel to Pocket Mirror.
Engage and Awakening, while not perfect, also stick with what they were : video game stories. Fates and 3H were more then that because they have enough of information to be literal novels. If you compare Engage to the manga, you'll noticed that the manga get to expend more on a lot of things and again it's all because of the medium. If Engage had a serialization as novel, it would be the same, more dense. If Engage had an anime, same. The same story will have different management of its ressources depending on the medium you are writing it for. Fates was written like it was a novel when it was supposed to be a video game. Same thing for 3H.
When the fandom says they want a story or writing on the same level of 3H they don't think about how a lot of 3H's flaws comes from the very core of the project, the size not fitting the medium or try to handwave it as "a game can be ambitious" but the problem is that 3H and Fates biggest flaws WERE their ambitions. The more your project is ambitious, the more it requires you time and effort and date for it. So when it doesn't suit a video game format because of the several restrictions, you know your project will end up feeling incomplete. The writers of 3H themselves said it. 3H is the smaller picture of a bigger one.... so how many Foldan game do we need to have the FULL picture ??? Knowing that Fire Emblem's settings keeps changing, 2 are clearly not enough.
Again, it's the aesthetic of depth that speaks. The fandom loves big stuff. And while 3H's worldbuilding isn't an empty shell, it has way too many elements to flesh them out entirely leaving holes that aren't of the level of mystery or ambuiguity, but of half cooked. However, fandom LOVES HOLES, it adores void so each time they'll spot one they will try to fill it imagine something bigger then it could have been implanted within the canon. Because it's more interesting to them then whatever IS could have actually written. And it shows that the aesthetic plays into this because 3h and Fates have the EXACT SAME LEVEL OF WORLBUILDING and it follows Seisen's too. 12 important figures ? Check ! Weird wonkery of blood givins special power to an elite of favored people? Check ! Lizard like creature revered as deities ? Check ! Magical weapons only some people can wield ? check ! The list goes on. But for some reasons people acts as if Fates had no lore (that's wrong, you can even check what the FE wiki says on that matter) because it doesn't have the same aesthetic as 3H despite all the common points these 2 games have.
And even if they decided to do 3H but less big, I don't think it would work because 3H's story also ended up being relying on its size and it would have worked had it had more lore... but that's the thing ! it already had TOO MUCH lore for a random video game and it was over 400 hour long and no matter how many DLC they would have released they just can't dwell into all of this ! Might as well create a new franchise entirely focused on the world of Foldan !!!
So really, be careful what you wish, because if you keep making believe to the devs that what they did with 3H was the way to go even though it's clearly disadvantaged by the size and the format of the medium, they will never manage to improve what was flawed in 3H. And that's mainly because what was flawed in 3H was that it needed more then it did when it already did something gargantuan which imo is the evidence that the level writing of 3H doesn't work on a video game. At all.
Again, take Goody two shoes. It had little going on but it explore it to its fullest resulting in very simple story with little stuff yet very rich and full of emotion and its simplicty made it work very efficientely. That's good writting. Not throwing in very big stuff and struggling to finish it, but managing to exploit to the fullest even the smallest thing to create a rich experience. Something that manages to be rich even though simple is what's actually impressive. That's the route to follow for a good game story.
So you wanna know what IS should do ? Follow what they did for Engage but simply improve what in Engage was flawed. Because Engage has the right size for a video game format and even if you think they would have expanded on more, the additions are so easy to spot that you can see it's not level of 3H big, but simply some polishing, maybe some chapter added, but not something as astronomically tall as Fates or 3H since those game had the problem of not going more in depth with the lore, requiring more lore to something that was already too big and too long for a video game. And again, I am not saying they can't take anything from 3H cause 3H does a lot of good things notably regarding the characterization, such as the idea of personal paralogue for the characters. That's great. This should come back. But when it comes to the story itself... gneee... nope. No. 3H's ambitions and tenght is way too close to to the core of the project yet it's the main thing that hold it backs and lead it to slip so often.
Imo the perfect FE story would be able to managed to combine simplicity and ambitions since the more simple story could feel like it needed more, but that's the same problem with the much more ambitious project. The writers of IS should try to find a balance between the two to fix that issue, but I don't think 3H has this balance
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moth-in-the-moon · 5 months
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Howdy I was that first ask (sorry I'd rather stay anon, bad xmen fandom experiences taught me to keep my opinions to myself or people will go after you personally). I'm only answering now cuz it doesn't look like we got the same timezones : I found your blog after looking up Margali related stuff (I needed this) and saw the reblog with the tag about "messy timeline". I like putting together timeline charts for my favs so I pulled out my Nightcrawler related one (slightly messy from following Si Spurrier's runs) and decided to give a shot to X-Men Blue. Big mistake. I should have listened to you. My 10 years in the making timeline chart is now only good for the dumpster and I'm done with Si.
I sent my ask to you because everyone is very hush hush about these kinds of complains and I just wanted you to know you weren't alone.
Okay so, I don't hate the Golden Child on her own, it's... How she came to be was unnecessary weird (genetically Kurt is as much her grandpa as he is her dad, wtf). What a weird road to go down instead of having her be like Cardinal. You know the chimera engineered from Nightcrawler's DNA +2 mutants that's straight up Azazel with red hair and eyes ? From PoX ? (Not sure if the editors remember him at all)
Funny stuff about Azazel btw, the demon thing was a retcon on his mutant status done after Austen left (he's back to being a mutant since 2019), Azazel keeps close contact with other Winding Way witches than Margali and Nightcrawler's ectrodactyly might have come from him too because he has been shown in a few comics (when doing his behind the scenes scheming with no one else around) to have that at least for his hands and uses his shapeshifting to hide it... For reasons.
I personally never cared about the Baron because he was a nothing character ? Man didn't even have a first name or canon appearance until TAS and his lastname's a plothole. This gets to the point where having him and Azazel turn out to be the same person, like a secret identity to the latter dude, would actually be an improvement and funny idea.
You're right, that "beloved darling child" is a straight up joke when looking at Mystique and Destiny's actions : They adopted and raised Rogue in 616 since she was a CHILD, raised both her and Kurt together in the "Children in the attic" what-if (Scott Lobdell but Mystique didnt throw Nightcrawler into a waterfall to save herself. Still calls Rogue the child she "always wanted" even then) and straight up let Nightcrawler die saving Hope when they were ready to sacrifice her as a baby to save Rogue (Kurt's death was avoidable and Mystique didn't know he'd be back to life like ever).
Mystique also raised Nightcrawler from birth in Age of Apocalypse where everything is Hell and he gets killed (Apocalypse attacks long after he was born so it's the same chain of events until that) and kept close contact and looked after Destiny's many human children, mutant grandchildren and grand-grandchildren throughout the years in 616... To the point of killing Graydon Creed, her biological son which she kept close watch on until his teens, to protect them. Kurt turns out to have been neglected more by her than Graydon at this point following this one shot.
The change made here on the "definite origin story" complicates and contradict stuff for no reason. It also adds another layer of unanswered questions which goes against the point of a definite story
"Why would Mystique and Destiny plan on having this kid, finally have him then straight up abandon him because of a 'sudden vision' when one of them is a precog who checks the future 24/7 to be sure everything goes perfectly fine but apparently kept things going when she saw 0 futures with that baby in it post due-date and never even once wrote about said baby in her future diaries for Mystique to do stuff for him in the future when she was gone (contrary to Rogue the child they adopted) ?" Si Spurrier doesn't care to think about important elements like that and just keeping throwing stuff on a wall to see what sticks
"Why didn't they rescue Nightcrawler before Xavier at any point and recruit him/secretly raise him with Rogue ?" Nightcrawler's first appearance was him literally running away from a mob (canonically not his first) before being saved by Xavier, one of the 3 people Mystique and Destiny were going to assassinate in their first appearance (Days of Future Past) which directly led to Nightcrawler being one of the first (avoidable) mutant casualties of that timeline. So even without years of baggage, these two didn't care about Kurt within their first X-Men issue with him. But sure the answer to this is probably the future vision excuse again I bet...
Well tell that to Margali Szardos, the circus fortune teller who managed to properly raise Kurt and protect him with half the power, wealth, means, knowledge and people. Oh wait we can't cuz she ded (Weird coincidence that the same writer behind this story which tries to make Mystique and Destiny look like the best moms for Nightcrawler turned Kurt's actual good mom into the complete opposite of who she was then unceremoniously killed her...)
Mystique has also spent her time using her knowledge of his origins as way to get him to do stuff for her then lied about them over and over again (this story makes it the third time she lied). Something she never hesitated or regretted doing
Then you have... Krakoa. So much to say. Most recent example ? Mystique and Destiny abandoned Kurt (for the 2nd time now) in the Sins of Sinister timeline when they left the island before he got switched with his sinister clone and Margali did her full corruption thing. They straight up ignored him when he grew horns in present time from beginning to end. He gets mind-controlled, murders people and has to leave to an Orchis filled Earth without keeping in touch with anyone, no reaction whatsoever from them
This reveal just turned Mystique and Destiny from bad to god awful parents in general (it looks like they never cared because they never raised him themselves) and yet the story pretends otherwise
One, before I get into anything, BIIIG ask. I've never had an ask that big. Two, Before I get into anything, Cardinal my beloved, my son, my beautiful beautiful boy, he and god baby should both be canon and like. weird universeally/timeline displaces siblings. A thing about Cardinal that I personally think is an interesting concept is how, being part Rachel (so a descendant of Jean) would make him probably be on the Phoenixes list of favourite hosts, which I think could be interesting with his anti-violence genes (<- whatever the fuck that was). Also they should remember him, since they made Rasputin 4 canon (I have my complaints about her genetic make up too, considering shes part. illyana and piotr.) Again, long thoughts under the read more
Yeah, again I completely agree on the neglect paart. The reveal managed to make Destiny and Mystique even more horrible parents, but it's trying to paint them as loving their son, which, is kinda nonsensical with past context. As I said, this retcon at this point in time is bad for the characters BECAUSE of the years of plot from the past. From mystique caring for other children to how they both act towards Kurt throughout things like Krakoa, it doesnt really add up. Plus, what would be the reason for them to not tell him sooner? Did destiny specifically see Kurt get a sick ass magic sword and go "this is incredibly important to the timeline" and thats why they stayed quiet? Having them make destiny and raven be heartbroken about the baby having to go and having the description literally be like "neither of us ever had any kids because of love until we decited to have you" It's a whiplash that could technically work if built up right, but this wasn't built up. Because I do think this could've worked with better set up, but its too late for that.
And yeah no, there have been what-ifs of mystique "successfully" raising Kurt, so it just makes the vision a weirdly cruel plotpoint. Plus that means Destiny is now canonically at fault for all that happened to Kurt, because she knew and actively set it in motion through this retcon. Which. is a wild thing to accidentally do.
Though I do like the moment where Mystique is like "I wished for a daughter", that feels fitting to her and kurts relationship.
Also this does make Kurt doing his "make 'em talk by letting them freefall under the threat of letting them splat" to Destiny funnier. You go boy, threaten matricide!
And man, yeah, Margali wasn't a perfect mom, but we have many scenes of her being a good mom or at least trying to be (specifically for kurt). Shout out to her calling Kurt her specialest boy that one time, she loved her baby. We need a Margali comic about her and her powers honestly, she's canonically one of the strongest sorcerers ever, bound by the moody nature of a living dimension, it would be so interesting to see how the way actually effects her and if she's like, bound to certain actions by the way, lest it destroys her or something. She is the sorcerer supreme of it iirc so there is a very specific connection here, especially since the wandering way is alive. With Kurt having the magic sword now too, it would be interesting for margali to come back (cause lets be real, she isnt gonna stay dead (<- threat. by me. at the comics.) and maybe teach him magic or how to work with magic. Let them actually work out the cracks in their relationship, show that they both do love eachother, but time and everything that has come up just kept tearing at them and margalis laissez-faire nature and following of the winding way didnt really help.
also man, krakoa was a good fun idea, i hate that they killed her, you couldve done alot of good with krakoa, the writers were just on their "uuuuh. shit we cant have mutants be happy" path again
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transandersrights · 2 years
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Vivienne, Fiona, and why their Redcliffe interaction SUCKS for Fiona
Currently thinking about: how Vivienne speaks to Fiona and what that looks like in the wider context of how we know people treat Fiona. 
Vivienne has two lines of dialogue that will come up when meeting with Fiona in ‘In Hushed Whispers’ - the first (at 0:15) is pretty reasonable (if Vivienne-standard levels of pointed/rude), commenting on how Fiona looks terrible, but the second (at 1:11) stands out to me.
Vivienne, when confronted with the knowledge that the rebel mages have sworn themselves into the service of the Tevinter Imperium, tells Fiona that her “dementia is showing.” Brushing aside everything I feel about casual, crude references to dementia (seriously, fuck non-serious depictions of or references to dementia), this is cruel, and especially so in Fiona’s specific context.
This line implies not only that Fiona has made a bad choice (which she has! One she doesn’t know the extent of and one she made in desperation, but that’s a whole other topic), but that she has forgotten why it’s not a good choice, that she is unsound to lead because she is unsound in mind.
This is immensely and monumentally disrespectful to Fiona. Now, I don’t know if Vivienne knows Fiona’s particular history (prior to the emergence of her magic, Fiona was a slave for seven years, from age 7-14. Fiona mentions in The Calling that she never tells anyone about it, but a lot of things have changed for her since then - it’s possible Vivienne is being either knowingly or unknowingly cruel here), but that’s not the point.
Fiona is smart. Vivienne might not think much of her, but Fiona is resourceful, intelligent, and a very quick thinker. She also has decades (likely at least one before she joined the Wardens, and then at least two and a half more after she left them) of Circle education and work, including making her way to the head of Circle politics. The point is: Fiona knows what the Tevinter Imperium is. She knows what slavery is. She knows exactly what that means for her as! An! Elf! Who has experienced slavery!!
Vivienne’s comment is therefore spiteful and incredibly cruel. Anyone with any sense (which Vivienne has in buckets) knows this isn’t a choice made lightly. She knows Fiona is perfectly, 100% aware of what this means - and she chooses to rub it in with something Fiona is intimately aware of (more on this momentarily): a suggestion that she has no idea what’s going on.
It’s possible to argue that Vivienne is referring to the Inquisitor having met Fiona in Val Royeaux, something Fiona likely experienced but has no memory of due to timeline fuckery (thanks, Alexius) - this makes the comment make more sense, but doesn’t minimise its cruelty, so bear with me as I explain why.
Fiona is referenced twice in DA2, in weapon descriptions that the vast majority of players will not read - Duncan’s axe, named after Fiona, and Kell’s bow (Kell is a Warden only in The Calling). The latter is pertinent here - the note left with the description of the Longbow of the Avvars, includes this section:
Her [Fiona’s] tales of this "darkspawn who speaks" must be a product of a fevered imagination.
The events of The Calling have three survivors: Maric (not a Grey Warden, and seemingly never asked to relay his version of events to the Wardens), Duncan (at the time of The Calling, the most junior Grey Warden in the Order in Orlais, but when the note was written in 9:20 he had been Commander in Ferelden for almost a decade), and Fiona. The Wardens, in the period between the final chapter and epilogue (~a year), get Duncan and Fiona’s testimony of a phenomenon that has never been known before (intelligent Darkspawn), send investigators… and later conclude that Fiona’s account specifically, with no mention of Duncan’s, is complete nonsense. She made it up, she dreamed it, she imagined it.
Fiona is shown, throughout The Calling (esp towards the beginning), to be sensitive to challenges to her knowledge, ability, and experiences. She’s particularly angry about the dismissal of her concerns about Maric (completely reasonable, given the combination of his less than stellar presence + her past experiences with nobility), her knowledge of the Fade (in response to Maric dismissing that dreams could ever mean anything), and others’ prejudice towards elves and mages.
She also refers, during Inquisition, to how she was glad to see the back of the Wardens because they began to resent her seemingly complete immunity to the taint. The Wardens didn’t like her. And they did the one thing she already hated most - dismissing her ability to actually know things.
When Vivienne speaks of how her “dementia is showing” in Redcliffe, it reads as an established jab. A trait Fiona has already been assigned, derogatorily, to suggest that her capacity to lead has faded and will only continue to do so. It is the kind of disparaging comment against her understanding of the world that Fiona has been enduring since at least her 20s (most likely, though her age is never stated beyond describing herself as old in Inquisition, by which point she’s probably at least in her 50s).
Tldr (I feel you, this is so long): Vivienne’s comment towards Fiona not only dismisses her personal experiences and knowledge but also forms a part of the consistent invalidation of Fiona’s mental capacity that has plagued her for most of her life.
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brycesirilan · 2 years
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martin del rosario & he/they/any / demi-man ‷ watch out , bryce sirilan has crash-landed into roswell !! they look 32 years old and celebrate their birthday on january 20. they are from bacolod, philippines, reside in tripp’s trailer park and are currently working as bartender @ wild pony. one thing you should know about them is they dress up in drag sometimes at planet 7 (for fun, not work). ‷ ( thia, she/her/they, 21, gmt )
BASICS
full name: bryce sirilan
age: 32
birth date: january 20, 1990
ethnicity: mostly filipino (hiligaynon and bicolano), some amount of white spanish heritage
sexuality: big bisexual… w/ a leaning towards women / fem ppl
relationship status: single
languages spoken: hiligaynon (native), tagalog (fluent), english (fluent), bicolano (basic bc his mom never taught him properly)
pronouns: he/they (but they don’t mind other pronouns like she unless ur being a piece of shit and using them to mock him lmao)
bryce is the oldest sibling and would’ve been the golden child. he was smart and reliable and shit. the problem for his family? bryce was sure that they were not cishet from a very young age. probably since kindergarten. they did not like that
speaking as a queer filipino, i know that filipinos tend to treat sexuality and gender as interchangeable. if you’re amab (assigned male at birth) and turn out queer in any way (though honestly i’ve seen this concept be applied to effeminate cishet men too), you’re assumed to be a gay man.
and there’s nothing wrong with being a gay man ofc. bryce embraced it tbh, it was their first label. they also fit the usual filipino of a camp gay dude.
i mean, when he decided to change his birth name he considered “carey” bc mariah carey and he’s pretty sure he subconsciously ended up using bryce bc it was a subtle nod to britney spears. (bryce siralan does sound a bit like britney spears, doesn’t it?)
but that wasn’t who bryce was. he’d learn that later.
he abandoned his immediate family to follow his supportive aunt to the usa when he was 13ish? so yeah, he grew up here in roswell.
when he was in his late teens maybe, he met ppl who taught him that sexuality and gender are separate. if you are a gay man ofc and you’re campy and everything, there’s nothing wrong w/ that! but your gender expression doesn’t inherently determine your sexuality, he learned. and there’s a whole spectrum of lgbtq+ identities
in that period of time, they thought about it and realized that they were nonbinary and bi.
anyway, they could’ve pursued a hotshot career bc they’re brainy but they don’t want that life.
they grumble about their annoying, mundane job at wild pony sure but lowkey they’re very grateful for it!!! yeah sure it’s boring and stressful but it’s part of the charm for him. just being able to live a normal life is good enough for him
they have enough money to leave tripp’s trailer park rn and fend for himself (and just himself, realistically) but doesn’t want to abandon their aunt & cousins.
yeah he likes to dress up in drag and yes his fc has gifs in drag so tune in
he’s honestly more into women but is much more insecure about pursuing them romantically. for reasons he thinks are obvious – society doesn’t rly expect a (demi-)guy who can walk perfectly in 6-inch heels to be into women at all.
they’d like to explore their attraction to women more, though. they’re attracted to men/masc-presenting ppl too though! and androgynous peeps.
on that 6-inch heels note: bryce is 6′0″, which is tall but not terrifyingly so. in heels he can be as tall as 6′6″ and seeing ppl get intimidated/startled by it makes him happy njansdjasdjn he’s a troll sometimes srry
“certified best kisser and thats why i dated him” –testimony from thee @nfldunn​ himself kdmskndjn
dating gunner in high school kinda left them with abandonment issues rip </3
anyway that’s all for now! pls do plot with us!
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nwr77 · 1 year
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Story of a Lady and her Home
Basically, while working on a completely unrelated project, I finally managed to come up with an explanation as to what exactly makes Sodor special, and it all comes down to Lady.
Lady is a goddess of locomotives, and she came to being in 1802, when Richard Trevithick built Coalbrookdale Locomotive - she is also the reason all locomotives are, well, how they are, with the faces and personalities. Although, at first her name was not Lady, but Jane, after Richard's wife. She did, however have the ability to turn between engine and human from the get go (and regardless of where she was, which is still true, for her and only her).
Young Jane was a friend to all engines, visiting them when they were born and seeing them regularly, but that changed in 1840 when she fell in love - and her feelings were reciprocated.
The lucky guy was Leopard, an LMR 0-4-2 freight engine, brother to Lion and Tiger. She started spending more and more time wherever he was and he always did his best to treat her like the goddess she is and a queen on top. Eventually, it became obvious to engines around them, and even some that only knew Jane; in this case we're talking about the Rocket, who possibly (definitely) had the highest EQ of early engines, and was the one to point out the possible solution to Jane's endless complaining about how they can't experience being in love to the fullest because Leo can't become a human and what not.
So, why can't she try to transform him? Theoretically, as a goddess, she should be able to do essentialy whatever she wants. And so she did... Kinda. She turned him into a humanish creature, that despite looking mostly like a regular person was still an engine at his core.
They ended up moving to Sodor (where there were no railways at the time) in Spring 1842 wearing the names Jane Taylor and Leopold Todd and got married in December the same year. And they were happy. They had a cordial relationship with other inhabitants of the island and their marriage was working out perfectly - that's also when Jane was first called Lady, as Leo called her that whenever given the chance (ex. introducing themselves to someone new, he'd say "This is my Lady, Jane"). They had mundane, human jobs, a house near the forest, and were favourite aunt and uncle of multiple kids. And, honestly, no one on Sodor was very phased by their unusual appearences (although they still made the effort to hide their wheels).
But, nothing good lasts forever. Because, as I said earlier, at the core Leopard was still an ordinary engine, that meant he couldn't just sustain himself like Jane did, and eventually time started catching up to him, the rust, lack of proper energy sources and any sort of maintenance making him unable to do more and more things until shutting his body completely - he might as well have been dead if not for retained ability to form thoughts and speak. Not long after reaching that condition, he asked to be turned back, fully aware that he most likely would be scrapped and effectively dead. And though it pained her greatly, she realized how selfish it would be to keep him like that ("Wasn't it already selfish that she took him away from friends and family so they'd have a life she dreamed of?"), so she obliged. But, first, she took him to the museum where Lion lived so he'd get to see her again and she'd get some closure as her brother was considered "the lost engine" for the past nearly forty years.
She waited, hidden, up until workers showed up, discovered Leo and took him away, and she ended up better for it, as she heard her husband tell Lion that he would not trade the life he had for anything, even the possibility of survival, so that lessend her guilt slightly.
And then, she effectively disappeared. She left the name Jane behind, and took to travelling the world, only letting herself be seen very occasionaly, maintaining a character of the mysterious Lady and never coming to Sodor - she didn't even know they built railways there - until she was truly desperate running from Diesel 10. She stayed, afterwards, because the island and now the railways, with the engines' ability... They were a reminder of what she lost, but also of what she loved. And for the most part they were pleasant reminders, even if she still sometimes saw the ghost of Leopard in places that used to be theirs. But she adjusted. She even got remarried in 2015, but that first love was what made and kept Sodor's magic alive.
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insertdisc5 · 3 years
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Hi!! I wanted to ask, in celebration of Deltarune CH. 2, do you have any updated thoughts and head canons about the game?? Like, y'know, similar to a previous ask about Kris in your Deltarune tag? Thanks!
thoughts on kris part 2 i guess???? (part 1 from ch1 here lol)
spoilers for deltarune like woah. this wont be kris focused just random thoughts on everything. thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk
not that many thoughts for this chapter tbh! EDIT LOL: this was a lie i have a lot of thoughts
-just in general i feel like the player isn't the only one controlling kris... like yes the player forced kris to do what happened in the snowgrave route but AT THE SAME TIME idk it feels like there's someone else too. just because of the terrifying voice i suppose. and also the jerky movement kris does every time they get their soul out? unless there's another reason for it... maybe getting your soul out means you walk weird lol
-BUT ALSO i feel like kris is 100% in control when they create fountains. idk it just makes sense kris would create them. to create another world, a better world, A WORLD WHERE THEIR BROTHER IS HERE PERHAPS? i do wonder why they get their soul out then though. i'm all for it sweetie! do whatever! i support you!
-(i am and will be playing deltarune with only kris' best interests in mind. i will not hurt anyone unless kris wants me to. dont worry my little meow meow im on your side! talk to me! no? okay ill stay under the sink its fine)
-speaking of asriel. SUMMER VACATION COLLEGE WHEN? SUMMER VACATION COLLEGE WHEN? SUMMER (starts crying) V-VACATION COLLEGE WHEN
-kris misses their brother so much it's so sad. if you make kris steal 5$ from asriel they take it "reluctantly"? talking to asriel online so often even alphys knows?? the google search?? GOING INTO ASRIEL'S GOOGLE SEARCH ROOM WITH THEIR EYES CLOSED BECAUSE THEY'RE CONVINCED THEY ALREADY KNOW WHATS IN THERE? THAT ONE IS LESS OF A MISSING THING BUT IM LIKE OH MY GOD
-the city walk with susie at the end makes it clear to me that kris really values susie's friendship... kris even sits with her if you spend long enough near the lake like aaaaah ;_;
-and even in snowgrave you spend your last acts with the final boss calling for your friends like YES there's a way bigger creepy aspect to this (kris as more of a Leader who Commands and commands their subjects to come) but still :'0 (and then noelle answers oh my god noelle im so sorry for the trauma)
-berdly. listen. listen. listen. liste
-berdly sucks but [berdly hurts his arm in the battle against queen if you don't save him because he doesnt want to hurt you] [berdly realizing smg's wrong in snowgrave and immediately taking steps to save noelle] berdly is my little crumb nugget. i will protect him.
-noelle. noelle. girlboss!
-like ooooh listen. hearing about the genocide path for undertale. made me go "that is SO COOL. i HAVE to experience it myself this is great. hehehe killing time" and like no regrets. i was fully enjoying the experience knowing i was an awful person. SNOWGRAVE THOUGH. i will never try this myself its too fucked up. casually grooming your childhood friend to murder people <3 and also acting like a weird stalker towards her <3 stockholm syndrome speedrun i will get all the info i can about this but i will never do this myself
-people remarking the kris/player>noelle relationship is similar to the relationship between player>chara in genocide path is like yes. chefs kiss. don't worry we just are making you stronger and everything will be fine "you made me kill my friend? and for what?" this is fine sweetie don't worry about it!!!!!!
-like the amount of details added to snowgrave, like if you equip noelle's watch she notices later? and her battle animations change as time goes on, she gets an ice shield and stops sighing in relief after battle? oh my god? oh my god.
-(berdly is not awake.) JUST KILL ME RIGHT HERE I HAVEN'T STOPPED THINKING ABOUT BERDLY NOT BEING AWAKE!!!!!
-also why didnt he turn into dust. so many possible reasons. is magic a thing in the normal world and perhaps no magic means no dust (theres graves). maybe he isnt dead. maybe hes braindead. maybe he'll come back. either way that boy is now in the closet big enough to put someone in
-also dess' name probably being december AND THATS WHY NOELLE LOST THE SPELLING BEE?!?!??! FUCK ME UP!!!!! JUST FUCK ME UP!!!!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!!!
-also so many good pixel art this chapter. too many? i didnt need pixel art of cardboard noelle falling on the statue. like thank you but please. please it hurts my game artist brain.
-the expressions in this chapter were also top notch. all the unsettling noelle expressions like (i fall over face first)
-i threw away the ball of junk (which i already tried in ch1) and this time the game was like "ARE YOU SURE BC THIS IS A BAD IDEA" and kris felt bitter :'( (it deletes all your items in the dark world)
-i uh fucked up and skipped the susie+noelle scene bc listen last time ralsei mentionned seeing what susie is doing we missed some PRIMO LORE. turns out it just makes you skip the scene and you dont get anything new. welp
-speaking of ralsei well you know. he exists. but im stuck on him going "i just wonder what being ralsei-like even is...?" ralsei my dude there's so much i could say about this. do you feel like you can't be ralsei-like because you feel like you have to be asriel-like
-but also that makes no sense bc susie hasnt even mentioned ralsei looks like asriel. and i cant imagine asriel being so meek. so WHAT GIVES
-ralsei as kris’ “i wish i was a monster just like my bro and family and i’d look like asriel but with red horns [THE HALLOWEEN COSTUME] and my name would be something cool like ralsei instead of a boring human name like kris and im sweet and cute because thats how i act with asriel because ASRIEL MADE ME” theory because that would be cute.
-ASRIEL GOING TO THE CHURCH TO CONFESS HIS "SINS" WHEN "SINS" AREN'T A THING IN THE ANGEL BELIEF LIKE I KNOW THIS INTERACTION WAS TREATED AS A JOKE BUT WHAT THE FUCK ASRIEL?
-kris definitely has a connection with the big red door in the city, judging by what the kids say they probably went there... i feel like this place's dark world will be the Final Dungeon you KNOW some shit happened there. also the sounds you hear when you go there is the phone dark world call's sound slowed down? AND AFTER SNOWGRAVE APPARENTLY YOU CANT HEAR IT ANYMORE? HUWAH?
-speaking of songs the songs were all so good, My Castle Town rules, the berdly snowgrave music is stuck in my head, flashback is uwah wuahah, Until Next Time is so good, AND ALSO A FRIEND NOTICED THE DARK WORLD CITY THEME IS JUST tHE SONG 74 (MOST NOTICEABLE WITH THE SNOWGRAVE VERSION)?????? WHAT DOES IT MEAN????? it might be just "hey its just reuse" BUT MR FOX YOU KNOW WE'RE GONNA READ INTO THIS IS NOELLE THE ONE SINGING IDK BRO!!!!!!!!!!
-asgore dreemurr fired from the force what happun!!!!! game theory is that asgore is related to dess' death/disappearance but eh who knows
-you start the chapter at lvl2 and get to lvl3 after the final boss, a friend mentioned this is probably because we destroyed a world and im :0
-to go back to kris it's still so interesting to figure out who they are based on how they act/people mention them. like kris shaking the ferris wheel car? yeah makes sense i can imagine a pranking kid do this. kris' dance? yeah thats a little silly but i can buy it. doing cool anime poses? well i dunno this doesnt line up PERFECTLY but sure. BUT EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN SNOWGRAVE... especially >proceed like that is such a weird thing that i can't imagine them doing, but i can't completely see the "player" doing either (compare with going to sans -which kris doesnt know- and going "SANS!" because of course the player would know sans), like THATS one of the reasons i feel like there's someone else in there. the weird robotic merciless actions. if im going super meta it feels like there'd be someone else like writing the choices into existence for us to pick you know? gaster probably? god i need to read more gaster theories i completely sidestepped the gaster shit bc i wasnt interested. anyway just spitballing
-(looks at big shot guy) please dont make him the next tumblr guy i beg you
-obligatory "queen was great" mention if only because this part made me laugh a little bit too hard
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that was a lot. thank you for letting me talk
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mckkachins · 3 years
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gif cut-out tutorial
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ok ok so @subtledean requested a tutorial on how to do stuff like this post with the gif cutouts and the text effects. hopefully this helps aria ;w; i’m not the best at explaining things but i included some screencaps for clarity. i’ve tried to compress all the sample gifs and screenshots down to under 3mb to avoid tunglr compression on mobile so if they look a little different from the actual gifset, that’s probably why!
what you’ll need:
photoshop, i’m using PS 2021 but any version of photoshop will work out
a basic knowledge of gif-making (i’m assuming you already know how to make a gif and color it).
step 0: storyboard
this isn’t strictly necessary but i HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend it. you don’t have to do any photoshopping this first step, but it’s really important to check out your footage and the shots you have gathered to see what works, especially if you’re trying to combine three or more gifs onto the same canvas. like literally take a piece of paper and draw out where you want the character’s faces to be, where you want the cutouts to be in relation to their faces, and think about whether or not there’s enough empty space to the right or left of characters heads for a cutout to be placed. is there too much movement that would be distracting or messy in an already busy gif?
things like that really help, and it also makes you double check on your footage quality and feasibility. if you end up making a gif where you want one character’s face to be on the left side of the gif but it turns out there’s not enough empty space on the right side of their face to place a cutout and you then have to hunt for new footage or start all over, it’s kind of a trainwreck and you just waste another hour of your time as you deepen your procrastination hellhole. that’s not a real story—
step 1: make the base gif
i’m assuming you know how to color it already. and aria i KNOW you know how to color already so :) size it accordingly to your desired dimensions.
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as you can see, i left enough space on the right side of abaddon for the knight cutout to be placed.
save this as a .psd file. you don’t actually have to sharpen and do everything that comes at the end of making a gif right away, but make sure your layers are clearly labeled. do NOT convert to video timeline/smart object just yet.
step 2: make the cutout gif
this is critical: make absolutely certain your cutout gif has the same number of frames as your base gif. otherwise it could get really messy! abaddon has 20 frames, so the cutout will also have 20 frames. again, do not convert the cutout gif to a video timeline/smart object. just keep it as a frame animation. here’s my cutout gif. it’s just a simple b&w gif but i added a touch of purple for color consistency sake whatnot.
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now for this particular gif i’ve actually cropped abaddon to be roughly exactly where i would want her face to be in relation to the first gif, but that is unnecessary. helpful, but unnecessary. you do NOT need the cutout gif to be cropped exactly perfect in order to make this work.
step 3: combining the two gifs
there are many different ways to combine two gifs onto the same canvas. some people like to do it via video timeline. i prefer to do it by frames and convert everything to a video timeline only at the end (it’s just a personal preference). here’s a tutorial if you prefer working with timelines, but i’m gonna go over how to do it by frames.
first group everything in your base gif into one folder. then group everything in your cutout gif into one folder as well. you can name them however you want to keep track of things.
then, select all of the frames in your cutout gif. in this case, all 20 of b&w abaddon get selected. make sure its not just frames 4-20 or whatever, but all the frames you made. you can click frame one and then shift-click your last frame to double check.
click the timeline tab group options bar and then go to options > copy frames
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now go to your base gif canvas. select ALL the frames of your base gif as well (it’s critical that all of them are selected).
now do options > paste frames.
a popup should appear and you’re going to select the “paste over selection” option. do not link layers.
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your cutout gif should now be completely or partially obscuring your base gif. however, now you should see two groups on your sidebar of layers. one for the base, one group for the cutout. if you labelled them with names you can tell which one is which.
step 4: creating the cutout
in order to create the cutout, we use my favorite thing in the whole world of photoshop. layer masks.
to make a layer mask, you simply select a layer or group you want to mask and then click this little icon on the row of icons at the bottom of your layers panel.
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white on a layer mask means whatever group or layer is getting masked is completely visible. black on a layer mask means that the group or layer is invisible. if there is 50% gray on a layer mask, then its 50% visible. so on and so forth.
i love these so much i abuse them on the daily. i’ve made a few gifs where i’ve masked every frame one by one because i wanted to get some cool effects. admitting that kind of embarrasses me but oh well.
anyway this is simple though. just find a picture or an outline of a knight. i used these boyes:
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obviously i cropped out the knight of the bunch, got rid of the watermark, and then i placed it on the canvas where i wanted it to go.
select the interior of the knight with the magic wand tool. should be pretty simple since it’s all black.
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now click over to your layer mask. make sure you have selected the mask and not the group. you can tell you have selected the mask when a little white rectangle pops up on it.
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when you know you have the mask selected, click command+i or control+i to invert. if for some reason you do not have this keyboard shortcut, just take a brush tool and color over the area in complete black. as long as the magic wand tool is still selecting just the interior of the knight, it should be fine.
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now once again, black means a layer will NOT be showing, white means a layer will be showing. so right now after i disable the visibility of the top layer we used as a reference for the silhouette, it looks like:
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do not fear the clownery. layer masks are great because they are always non-destructive. meaning that even if you somehow mess up and your canvas is showing something completely gross, you can always go back and edit your layer mask and your original gif would be unharmed as long as you did not touch any layers in the group, only the mask. simply invert the mask (again, make sure your mask is selected and then command+i or image > adjustments > invert) to get:
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for a layer mask that looks like:
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you could have also just made a black layer mask to begin with and then inverted the knight outline to be white. many different ways to do the same thing.
another tip: if you select your outline and then click layer mask upon a group or layer with no mask at the current moment, it will automatically make a layer mask with your selection as white and the unselected pixels as black. this is normally how i do my cutouts, because it’s a time-saver even if it like. saves a few seconds max. but i typed out the above for explanation and clarity, so hopefully i didn’t just make anyone more confused.
anyway.
now say you don’t like where the cutout abaddon is positioned. layer masks can also be linked or unlinked, depending on the little link icon you see between the group and the layer mask in the image above. if the icon is visible, the layer mask and the group are linked. if you cannot see the link icon, they are unlinked.
linked layer masks will move in conjunction with the group if any type of transform is done upon them. if the group moves, the layer mask also moves. but if a layer mask is unlinked, you can move the mask and the group independently of one another. for instance, i can change where the cutout is located on the overall canvas of the gif by simply moving ONLY the layer mask (and thereby changing where the blacks and whites of the layer mask occlude the cutout gif contents). but i can also transform the cutout gif layers without changing where the overall outline is located relative to the canvas itself. basically, i can transform the interior contents of the cutout independently. so here (make sure all of your frames are selected):
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group unlinked. i’m also making sure that now i am selecting the GROUP (ie. the frames of the layers you are actually going to move) and not the layer mask. you can tell because the little white rectangle around the layer mask can no longer be seen.
now i can transform/adjust the contents of the cutout solely “within” the cutout, and i don’t have to worry about changing where the cutout is located in relation to the overall gif. when transforming, make sure all the frames of your gif are selected. like select the whole group and not just an individual layer, basically.
i’ve seen a lot of how to combine and cut out gifs tutorials on this website, and here is a really good one that i know sully also used <3 big shoutout to all the photoshop queens being inspired by each other!! however i haven’t seen anything that mentioned the linked vs. unlinked layer masks, which i really feel like deserves a shoutout. you don’t have to crop your gifs out perfectly every time, you can always adjust them later. for demonstration, i’ve positioned abaddon in a few different positions with an unlinked layer mask.
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step 5: creating the outline
so in order to emphasize the shape of the cutout (the knight), i simply delete the white space surrounding the picture of the knight in the original silhouette that i used. magic wand tool + delete. you can also make a new layer, then paint bucket tool it. many ways to do the same thing.
now with only the knight on a transparent background, i double click the layer to pull up the effects. select outer glow. i used these settings:
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when you are doing this, make sure you are on frame one of the frame animation and the “propagate frame one setting” is selected, otherwise you might end up only applying the effect to one out of your many frames, which blows.
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then i go change the fill setting to 0%, BUT i leave opacity at 100%. fill is basically like opacity, but it doesn’t affect layer effects (whereas opacity does). so you basically get only the outline but not the black. you can also set the blending mode of the layer to screen and get the same effect, etc, etc. feel free to adjust however you see fit, in addition to the outer glow settings.
i move this layer over a couple pixels to give it the little offset effect, but you don’t have to.
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step 6: adding the text
okay the two fonts i used are avenir and perla. i think a LOT of gifmakers use them because they’re really pretty.
i make TWO different text layers, one with avenir in a smaller size and one with perla in a bigger size. this is because for the perla one, i’m going to be changing the blending mode whereas i don’t want to be changing the blending mode for the smaller text. i position the text where i want it to be and make sure the perla font is in the color i like:
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then i change the blending mode of the fancy text (perla) to difference. ONLY that layer, and again make sure to check “propagate frame 1″ and make changes on the first frame to apply the change to all of your frames.
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but i still don’t think it produces enough of a difference. so i right click on the text layer for knights of hell, and then go to: select pixels.
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then i click the curves adjustment layer. this will automatically make a curves layer with a layer mask that occludes everything BUT the area you selected. beautiful. i drag the curves around until i get enough of a difference that i like. normally i make the lights lighter and the darks darker. yeehaw.
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again there are sooooo many different ways to achieve the same effect on photoshop. this is just want comes easiest to me, and it’s totally okay if you find a different way that works better for you at producing the contrast you want or the colors you want.
step 7: export and cry
NOW you can convert everything to a video timeline, put your video frame layers to smart objects, and then apply your finishing sharpening filters. export, cry, and hope tumblr compression doesn’t screw you over.
hopefully this was helpful! pls like... idk support my edits if you found this helpful or reblog this post. feel free to dm me about how u do some of the text effects as well bc i’m always trying to learn new things and i am by no means an expert on like. any of this.
aria please go write your fucking thesis before i delete this entire tutorial challenge. :D
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confinedmadness · 3 years
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ChroNoiR Moments I Love
I did not include anything from videos linked in my post on favorite ChroNoiR collabs.
I included moments where ChroNoiR isn’t together but the two of them are talked about or have some sort of interaction.
I included habits or things that both of them do repetitively.
Keeping this at 10 because if I don’t put a limit, I’ll end up linking every single video where ChroNoiR is so much as mentioned.
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★ Kanae Immediately Understanding Kuzuha’s Message
This is from the 2019-08-18 Project Winter collab with Sasaki, Lize, Ange, Fairys, Tsukasa, Shiina, Kuzuha, and Kanae. Most of the time, when talking about ChroNoiR in this collab, people mention the match where both of them were traitors and perfectly coordinated to win. 
While that was great and exciting, my personal favorite ChroNoiR moment in this collab is when Kuzuha chilled Shiina, and Kanae, who saw that, immediately understood that Kuzuha was trying to tell them Shiina was a traitor. From Kanae’s POV, this is around 40:30, while in Kuzuha’s POV, this is around 40:45.
If you watch from Kuzuha’s POV, you can also listen to him just praising Kanae and saying how he knew if anyone were to understand it would be Kanae.
★ Kuzuha’s Perfect Kanae Impersonation
This is from a PUBG collab with Ran, Sentan, Kuzuha, and Akabane. When Kuzuha comments that the others’ impersonations of Kanae were off, they ask Kuzuha for an example of what a good Kanae impersonation would be. Kuzuha delivers with what is now one of his memorable lines 「SE方面敵いるよ葛葉」(”Kuzuha, there’s an enemy in the SE direction”), and the other three, as well as the comment section, erupt in excitement over it. It’s around 52:45 in Baneki’s video.
Later, in the last ChroNoiR.tv episode, Kanae says the same line at around 15:00 as Kuzuha and the comment section note that they’re finally hearing the real version. Kanae even includes the “kyaaaaaaaaa” reaction from the original collab above.
(Note: Kanae actually says 「方向」while Kuzuha said「方面」but the phrase means basically the same thing.)
★ Kuzuha Talks About Kanae Tweeting a Formal Apology
In his solo stream, one of the topics Kanae talked about with his viewers were gropers and their victims. Unfortunately, some people interpreted part of his words negatively, so Kanae took down the archived video later on and also posted an apology on twitter.
Kuzuha, in his own stream , laughed when he saw Kanae’s apology, saying that he’s sure it’s because Kanae said something easy to misunderstand again. (Timestamp: 11:20:38) When his own viewers explained what caused the buzz, Kuzuha said that he can’t believe this is what the VTuber world has come to, and says that if the internet pitchfork mob is after Kanae for something like this, then they should come for him as well.
Personally, I thought it was really nice that Kanae tried to understand why it isn’t easy for victims to call for help. Yes, he did say he couldn’t understand why they couldn’t do something that seems easy, but it’s also true that he discussed these and listened to his viewers’ explanations with what I thought was a very genuine desire to understand. A Japanese viewer even commented that as a victim, she was glad Kanae had this conversation. 
★ Kuzuha Blaming Kanae for Something He Said
Kuzuha mentions in his solo stream (1:03:03) that his image of guys who play guitar are those who like hitting women. Upon realizing that he said something that could be taken negatively, he immediately backtracks and puts the blame on Kanae saying, “it was Kanae who told me that, but he probably won’t remember.” (Kanae’s character is someone who supposedly has amnesia)
In Kanae’s solo stream (26:05), his own viewers let him know about what Kuzuha said. Kanae only said that “if Kuzuha says that I said so then maybe I did, but I don’t remember”.
At the end of their ChroNoiR Donkey Kong stream (2:05:55), as Kuzuha jokingly blames Kanae for various things again, Kanae brings up the guitarist line blamed on him. As Kuzuha emphasizes that Kanae is currently confused and asks him to talk to his lawyer, Kanae responds with a threat to sue him and the stream ends with Kanae saying “see you at court”. This last interaction was especially funny for me.
★ ChroNoiR Introducing Themselves as Each Other
In ChroNoiR collabs, Kuzuha and Kanae frequently introduce themselves as each other. I just find it cute, especially when they both make fun of each other during the impersonation.
In one of these instances, Kanae tries mimicking Kuzuha’s introduction line but accidentally says 「ヴァンパイア吸血鬼葛葉です」 (Literally “I’m vampire vampire Kuzuha”) instead of the actual 「吸血鬼VTuber葛葉です」(”I’m vampire VTuber Kuzuha”). Unfortunately, I can’t find the original stream when he said that.
In an ARK collab (7:20:15), when Kanae successfully introduces himself as Kuzuha with the correct introduction, Kuzuha notes that he got it right this time. More recently, during their 2020 Christmas collab (0:27), Kanae once again introduces himself as Kuzuha using the wrong version (this time seemingly on purpose).
★ Kuzuha is 7 Hours Late; Kanae Gets Strawberry Au Lait
At their 2018 Christmas collab, Kuzuha is 7 hours late to their agreed meeting time (1:35). Later on (6:20), when Kanae says that wants one of the 3 cups of strawberry au lait that Kuzuha has, Kuzuha didn’t want to give one to him but relented in the end because Kanae reminds him that he was late. Because of this, Kanae is sometimes referred to as “the man who forgave 7 hours of lateness with a cup of strawberry au lait”.
★ Kanae Praising Kuzuha’s Singing
Kuzuha mentioned before that he doesn’t like singing in front of other people because of a previous experience where someone he called “Mysterious Mushroom Man” corrected his singing while they were in karaoke. So I actually love the times when either Kuzuha or Kanae mention that they went to karaoke together. 
My favorite is this moment in one of their Apex collabs where Kanae mentions this one song Kuzuha sang in karaoke that he considers his favorite among the songs Kuzuha sings. Kuzuha admits that he was happy to hear Kanae tell him his singing was good, and that he ended up singing that same song a lot in karaoke since then. It’s around 1:38:10 in Kanae’s POV and around 1:36:14 in Kuzuha’s POV.
★ Kuu-chan and Kanakana
Kanae sometimes calls Kuzuha “Kuu-chan” in order to tease him. This happened more often early in their careers, but still happens every now and then. Aside from the cute name, there is also the fact that Kuzuha will always reply with「やめろその呼び方」(”Don’t call me that.”) like clockwork.
Kuzuha doesn’t allow anyone to call him Kuu-chan. In fact, the only one in Nijisanji he has given explicit permission to use -chan with his name is Moira who calls him Kuzuha-chan. On the other hand, Kanae is called by a lot of nicknames, both by his collab partners and his fans. The most common one is Kanakana.
During one of Kanae’s chat streams (18:49), one commenter asked how he would react if Kuzuha called him “Kanakana”. In response, Kanae says that he probably wouldn’t be able to take it *insert disgusted noises* and just die on the spot. 
I find it so cute they hate the nicknames, especially from each other. And personally, while I love Kanae teasing “Kuu-chan”, I do adore the fact that they call each other by name.
★ "Because it’s Kuzuha”
This is from one of the CR cup practice matches when Kanae was part of Kanaminto (Kanae, Admin, Kamito). When Kanae’s party encountered Kuzuha’s, Kanae asked for time from his team to execute the finishing move on Kuzuha (1:25:03). “Because it’s Kuzuha”. Hearing the reason, his teammates immediately agreed as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.
During their team practices, Kanae did in fact tell his team beforehand that he would like to perform the finishing move if they encounter Kuzuha. It was so cute how excited he was to be able to actually do it.
★ Kuzuha Not Realizing that Kanae was Streaming
This apex stream is definitely one of the most memorable even just for the fact that Kuzuha was unaware that Kanae was streaming for a whole 30 minutes. Kuzuha joined the voice chat at around 27:25. When Kanae informs him that he’s streaming, Kuzuha asks to confirm that he really is streaming, but mishears Kanae’s answer「うん、そう」(”Yeah, I am”) as「嘘」(”That was a lie.”).
They continue to talk, with Kuzuha mentioning some unusual food preferences among others, until finally at 1:00:25, Kuzuha realizes Kanae is streaming when Kanae tells him about something from the comment section. The sudden change in Kuzuha’s energy was amusing to watch. It was probably partly due to the shock because Kuzuha mentioned he was just about to talk about confidential matters right around the time he finally realized.
.
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♥ ChroNoiR ♥
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shtern-and-art · 3 years
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"Skeppy will probably cry" "Bad will probably cry". Bish, screw, that I am crying!!!
This whole thing was bloody gorgeous and I wasn't expecting that ending. I had no clue what ending to expect but that was definitely better than any I could have hoped for. Forest spirit to soulmate your honour!
I was terrified that you were gonna leave it at the point where he loses the spirit and becomes mortal again. If you had I would be actively sobbing!!!! And oh my god, the art!!! I still can't get over how wonderful your style is.
Imma ask fun things because if I don't I'll sit in a puddle of emotion all night:
What's the first tech thing Bad will buy and how annoying will he be about it? Poor Skeppy trying to answer 101 questions about something he doesn't really use XD.
Is no one concerned that the odd couple from a town they never name has a pet wolf??
Do they immediately go over to a different town or do they wander for a while. Find hidden creeks and befriend bears?
Does Bad still have a connection to nature and animals, like are creatures naturally more trusting of him?
Do they ever visit the og town again?
Does Skeppy still cause absolute chaos in other towns or has he learnt his lesson and only causes minor trouble now?
Does Bad ever try and study again? If he did what would he study and would Skeppy try to study as well?
Does Skeppy steal? I dunno, he just give off the vibe of a naughty lil trickster who'll pocket something if the owner refuses to sell it him.
Immediately after leaving the forest what the first 'argument' they have (not including the car one)?
Would they ever ride horse? If yes, how terrified would Skeppy be?
Skeppy falls outta tree. I don't know why but my mind keeps telling me that this man has great balance until he climbs trees. They are his mortal enemy and Bad finds this both hilarious and terrifying because he is going to hurt himself.
I had waaaaay more questions than I intended to have. My bad '^_^ but this story was way too much fun to read and you are entirely to blame for making it so engaging!
Make sure to take care of yourself and do stretches after and during drawing. You don't wanna hurt yourself <3
AaaaI’m so glad you liked it! :D And, dang, man, I cried while writing that part too :D
And I promised a nice ending for the main story, I did, and this one also makes the most sense narratively! For the story I wanted to tell, at least. Bad can’t really become human again, he’s changed to much. He can only move on, and do something with what he is, and has. And he did! :D That’s really nice and inspiring, this story will always have a place in my heart, heheh <3
Being a guardian spirit connected to a person and all, Bad may be not as strong as before, but he can’t die unless Skeppy dies first. And Skeppy can do that, but he’s pretty sturdy, and his lifespan operates on a whole other scale than human ones. And Bad knowing Skeppy’s real name balances it all out, makes them equal in the power and influence they have over each other.
So hellyeah, soulmates for the win :DDD
I’ll answer all questions under the cut, and this close up from one of the pages!
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1) What's the first tech thing Bad will buy and how annoying will he be about it?
Probably a pager! Because it’s a more feasible thing to get than a wholeass computer Bad actually wanted :D An it means Skeppy will have to get one too, and that Bad will be having the time of his life texting him and everyone he can get a number from, even if they’re still in the room with him.
Poor Skeppy indeed, he can learn to appreciate the pagers, and later phones, too, and computers, but he really has 0 idea on how it all works and why Bad is so fascinated by it all.
2) Rat and regular people
Oh, she can shapeshift, just like Bad! If they’re out with people around, she takes form of a puppy, and Bad can pass her off as a weird mix breed rescue doggo.
3) Do they immediately go over to a different town or do they wander for a while?
Oh, since they have no end destination in mind, they can ride around for a bit, go visit some cool places and roadside attractions. Sadly, Skeppy is probably not spiritually or morally ready to full on befriend wild bears yet, and they do need money for gas and snacks. So, at some point they will have to stop somewhere and find work – at least for a bit, to save up. Life’s gonna be a bit complicated with all that, until Skeppy figures out his treasure-finding abilities :DD
4) Bad and nature and animals
He is definitely still in tune with all wildlife! Even more – Bad could become a proper guardian spirit for Skeppy in part because, in a way, Skeppy himself is part of the nature.
So yeah, Bad can understand animals (and plants) and communicate with them; they’re just more free to not take his shit, and Bad’s emotions do not “possess” them unless he makes an effort to do so.
He doesn’t like doing it, tho.
5) Do they ever visit the og town again?
Hm, I think they will completely forget about it for a while, until, like, 30+ years later they will be going somewhere, and find themselves around those parts. And they try to not appear too often in the areas they’ve spent a lot of time in already (they can be pretty recognizable, and also barely show signs of aging). But it’s been a long time, and the town’s really different now… So they make a stop, and spend a day there. They walk the unfamiliar streets between the new buildings, check out the popular hiking trail, the advertisements for hot springs and winter activities. The old cinema is still there, and is hosting an all-night marathon of classic horror movies of the last century.
Bad and Skeppy leave the town after sunset – the day was nice, but they have nothing more to do there. They ride through the forest on a well paved road, with radio playing something barely above the whisper. And in the dark of hot summer night, Bad can see the white stag running between the trees alongside their car. Shadows dance over the shimmering light of it’s fur.
Somewhere after the towns border, the stag disappears back in the forest. But the air in the car stays light and fresh, saving the smell of old pines and dry leaves all though the night.
6) Skeppy and chaos
Well, after the whole mess in the main story, Skeppy definitely learned some lessons, especially about not being a dick :D
But the thing is – he can’t really help the fact that things tend to stir up around him a lot. He naturally brings in chaos into everything, because he is, in part, a personification, or an outlet for it in the world. And so, to feel, well and good, and himself Skeppy gotta do stuff that disrupts balance, and creates some mayhem. And in gave him a lot of trouble in early life, but in the course of the main story he learned that he can chose were he lets that chaos to take hold, learned what can come of that chaos, apart from utter misery.
Like, where it can help dismantle something destructive, and where – bring in the more positive change, that was already brewing, possible, but is stagnant for some reason.
Soooo, I can’t say Skeppy causes only minor chaos in his life, but he sure learns even more about not being a dick :DDDD
7) The studying
I think Bad will want to get a higher education at some point, because he wanted to, and because it’s already new millennia and all that. Bet he’ll go for something very technical and/or literature. Maybe he’ll start by piking up some classes in small time colleges, when they stop in one place for a while, and later get into an online program, because why not.
Skeppy is not a college guy at all. He’ll listen to Bad talk about it, read textbooks if he wants to, can research stuff, buuut going to classes and doing homework is definitely not his thing.
8) Stealing
Well, you’re right, Skeppy can and will steal stuff out of spite! And will be scolded by Bad for it, and will not feel (that) sorry about it. But real stealer between them will be Bad himself :D
It’s just… he has the corvid tendencies, and a hoard (a box) of sentimental mementos from different people and events, and the thrill of stealing something small and harmless is very exciting. Bad is very proud of his little collection. Skeppy finds it very adorable, a bit hypocritical, and kinda creepy. Like, that pretty box he gifted Bad at some point is now full of stuff like:
- pressed flower from the clearing they had a picnic at on their anniversary
- the button the waitress lost that one day the storm caused a black out in the whole town
- some small animal bones
- couple pretty rocks Bad stole from Skeppy’s pockets
- penny that was once glued to the ground
- a handful of teeth people (and not people) lost in fights with Bad
- pen from some fancy hotel
- rainbow dash keychain that belonged to a child
- the list goes on
9) Argument
Oh, that same day they’ll fight over whether they should stay at the really crappy and suspicious looking motel, or go sleep in a perfectly fine forest near the road. Ironically, Bad wanted to try out the motel (because, yay, first time spending the night back in civilization), and Skeppy was the one insisting on sleeping in nature (because the motel looks like it could give you 10 diseases if you even stand near it, and sleeping in the forest is kind of nice, and means they can cuddle).
10) Horses
The guys will probably ride them at some point. Well, Bad will ride, and Skeppy will sit on his horse and hope it knows what to do and where to go, because trying to make this giant thing do something seems dangerous. If they’ll have to actually go somewhere fast, Skeppy will not survive that day, his butt (and legs) will be dead for days to come.
And riding with Bad on one horse may sound romantic and nice, but all romance dies when the gallop starts.
F.
11) Skeppy and climbing
Skeppy is more down to earth kind of guy, more of a “rocks and caves” kind of creature, real-life lizard person or something. Up on the trees and in the air – not really his element, yeah. But it doesn’t mean that Skeppy will accept this fact easy. The embarrassment of never managing to safely make it down a tree is too strong, he just has to do it all over again, and again. And again. Because, clearly, he was distracted this time. And the time before that Bad was teasing him, and it “disrupted his flow”. And, really, maybe these trees here just do not like Skeppy much, and make him slip a lot. Yeah.
So, more often than not, if Skeppy climbs a tree, he will not stop climbing it until he falls, or the tree ends. Bad had to take him off high branches couple times, forcefully, because, of course, Skeppy was sitting there for 2 hours just to properly enjoy the sunset. He can climb down at any point, he just Choses not to. The view is amazing. The bark is literally part of his skin now, not because he holds on tight, no, he’s just Than Much one with the nature )<
---
Don’t apologize for the questions! It’s always so fun to answer them, and it makes me think more about stuff I may have skipped, or didn’t think about before. It’s really nice :3c
Again, thank you for the ask, and for being here for this story! <3
(And I’ll try setting timers for rest breaks while I draw, mb that will help)
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In The Dark - masterpost
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screaming about newtmas songs (long post)
a lot of these songs are from this playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4rfa3w0fo3oEq7UKVcAnBx 
this playlist was made by a tumblr but unfortunately, i can’t find the original post. huge thank you to the original creator though; it’s super amazing.
Photograph, Ed Sheeran
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newt’s last letter being inside the necklace. keeping it “next to your heartbeat where I should be”. the reminder that they were only around 16 or 17 throughout the entire series. 
“And if you hurt me“- the flare, their last fight. the “i’m sorry tommy“ and “it’s okay“. IT FITS SO PERFECTLY.
Dancing With Your Ghost, Sasha Alex Sloan
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a sad one, but this song really fits with thomas being alone in the safe haven. sleepless nights, just remembering what it was like when newt was still there.
the melody is kind of hauntingly beautiful and adds to the melancholy mood of the song so well. do give it a listen!
Please Tommy, Please John Paesano This isn’t a song, but a piece from the movie soundtrack. It’s one of my personal favorite orchestral pieces of music, ever. It’s around 10 minutes long and includes so many different mood changes, which are all amazing. 
It’s action-packed and exciting at times, mysterious at others, or ambient and wistful/longing at others. Please do consider giving it a listen:
https://open.spotify.com/track/1C3r2snScjilmjqKd6FjIQ?si=4c67a90288814eed
Kindly Calm Me Down
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could be interpreted as relating to newt having the flare.
or it could be newtmas in the safe haven, comforting each other’s nightmares. there is an amazing fic by amatus_jj with this concept: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13937601
Pink in the Night, MItski
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movie-verse au where newtmas pine for each other through the scorch, through the 6 months between tst and tdc. there are moments that could’ve been something, but they never talk about it.
and when newt (almost) dies in the last city, thomas realizes how little time they always had. wishing that they could’ve done something earlier.
maybe the last “And again, and again, and again” means a good ending in the safe haven  :)
Dancing After Death, Matt Maeson
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How to Save a Life, The Fray
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Happiest Year, Jaymes Young
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the whole of tmr takes place over 6 months + a few more. less than a year.
from the fever code, it’s revealed that newt was one of the reasons why thomas wanted to go into the maze. he started his new life so that he could save newt. but it never worked.
All I Want, Kodaline
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thomas grieving in the safe haven. that’s it.
Let Me Down Slowly, Alec Benjamin
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i don’t even know how to describe it, but it just works with newtmas? IT’S THEM.
there is this edit with this song that hit me pretty hard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWeCrRUAyd0
Arcade, Duncan Laurence
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Loving you is a losing game, huh :’)
Just Add Water, Cavetown
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book-verse newt leaving for the crank palace. him wanting the others to just leave him and continue on without him.
it happens in movie-verse too. at the end of tdc, when he says to leave him behind, and he gives the necklace to tommy.
Someone You Loved, Lewis Capaldi
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I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved.
And Then We Get Hit With The Major Character Death :D
Before You Go, Lewis Capaldi
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could be so many things. thomas watching newt attempt suicide in the glade, wishing he could’ve saved him.
thomas finding out that newt had the flare / wasn’t immune to the flare.
newt dying, and thomas wishing that he could’ve done more to save him.
Follow You, Imagine Dragons
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“I would follow you anywhere“, of course.
The Light Behind Your Eyes, My Chemical Romance
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newt repeating the names of their friends every night
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newt knowing that he wasn’t going to make it, leading to him writing the letter, hoping that everyone else would.
Heather, Conan Gray
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newt’s jealousy over teresa. him always thinking that thomas liked her more.
eventually, newt hating her over the betrayal. seeing that thomas is still attached to her somewhat.
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thank you so much if you actually read this whole thing :0 hope you discovered some music or lyrics that you might like!
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httpbryce · 2 years
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martin del rosario & he/they/any / demi-man ‷ watch out , bryce sirilan has crash-landed into roswell !! they look 32 years old and celebrate their birthday on january 20. they are from bacolod, philippines, reside in tripp’s trailer park and are currently working as bartender @ wild pony. one thing you should know about them is they dress up in drag sometimes at planet 7 (for fun, not work). ‷ ( thia, she/her/they, 20, gmt )
HEY besties i’ve got another muse and i love them very much. info under the cut ( tw for discussions of homophobia and general lgbtphobia )
BASICS
full name: bryce sirilan
age: 32
birth date: january 20, 1990
ethnicity: mostly filipino (hiligaynon and bicolano), some amount of white heritage
sexuality: big bisexual... w/ a leaning towards women / fem ppl
relationship status: single 
languages spoken: hiligaynon (native), tagalog (fluent), english (fluent), bicolano (basic bc his mom never taught him properly)
pronouns: he/they (but they don’t mind other pronouns like she unless ur being a piece of shit and using them to mock him lmao)
bryce is the oldest sibling and would’ve been the golden child. he was smart and reliable and shit. the problem for his family? bryce was sure that they were Not Cishet from a very young age. probably since kindergarten. they did not like that
speaking as a queer filipino, i know that filipinos tend to treat sexuality and gender as interchangeable. if you’re amab (assigned male at birth) and turn out queer in any way (though honestly i’ve seen this concept be applied to effeminate cishet men too), you’re assumed to be a Gay Man.
and there’s nothing wrong with being a gay man ofc. bryce embraced it tbh, it was their first label. they also fit the usual filipino of a camp gay dude.
i mean, when he decided to change his birth name he considered “carey” bc mariah carey and he’s pretty sure he subconsciously ended up using bryce bc it was a subtle nod to britney spears. (bryce siralan does sound a bit like britney spears, doesn’t it?)
but that wasn’t who bryce was. he’d learn that later.
he abandoned his immediate family to follow his supportive aunt to the usa when he was 13ish? so yeah, he grew up here in roswell.
when he was in his late teens maybe, he met ppl who taught him that sexuality and gender are separate. if you ARE a gay man ofc and you’re campy and everything, there’s nothing wrong w/ that! but your gender expression doesn’t inherently determine your sexuality, he learned. and there’s a whole spectrum of lgbtq+ identities
in that period of time, they thought about it and realized that they were nonbinary and bi.
anyway, they could’ve pursued a hotshot career bc they’re brainy but they don’t want that life.
they grumble about their annoying, mundane job at wild pony sure but lowkey they’re very grateful for it!!! yeah sure it’s boring and stressful but it’s part of the charm for him. just being able to live a normal life is good enough for him
they have enough money to leave tripp’s trailer park rn and fend for himself (and just himself, realistically) but doesn’t want to abandon their aunt & cousins.
yeah he likes to dress up in drag and yes his fc has gifs in drag so tune in
he’s honestly more into women but is much more insecure about pursuing them romantically. for reasons he thinks are obvious -- society doesn’t rly expect a (demi-)guy who can walk perfectly in 6-inch heels to be into women at all.
they’d like to explore their attraction to women more, though. they’re attracted to men/masc-presenting ppl too though! and androgynous peeps.
on that 6-inch heels note: bryce is 6′0″, which is tall but not terrifyingly so. in heels he can be as tall as 6′6″ and seeing ppl get intimidated/startled by it makes him happy njansdjasdjn he’s a troll sometimes srry
“certified Best Kisser and thats why i dated him” --testimony from thee @nfldunn​ himself KDMSKNDJN
dating gunner in high school kinda left them with abandonment issues rip </3
anyway that’s all for now! pls do plot with us!
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smylealong · 3 years
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The Long Ballad - thoughts
Just finished The Long Ballad and I have to say, I enjoyed it. Primarily because I went in with 0 expectations. After the brutal and fascinating journey that was Nirvana in Fire, I wanted something that did not require much thought and was enjoyable. And The Long Ballad delivered. I primarily went in for Liu Haikuan, knowing that he is a bit role, and I wasn't disappointed. I will discuss the details of the show below and because there are some spoilers, I will keep it under "keep reading"
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PLOT: After the brutal death of her family, Li Changge (Dilraba Dilmurat) goes on a self-imposed exile. The story is about her journey. She goes from an angry, revenge-seeking princess to a woman who comes to see the bigger picture and finds inner peace and true love. This is also the story of Ashile Sun (Wu Lei), the battle-hardened war veteran who slowly comes to realize the futility of war and understand where true happiness lies. This is the journey of Leyan (Zhao Lusi), the soft, sheltered, shy princess who finds her own form of courage and strength. We also witness Hao Du (Liu Yuning), the cold-blooded, by-the-books soldier who falls head-over-heels in love with Leyan. There is also Wei Shu Yu (Alen Fang) who goes from being a useless waste of space to brotherzoning himself. (He does it all on his own. No one places him there.)
The series is adapted from the manhua "Chang Ge Xing" (长歌行) written by Xia Da (夏达). The manhua, apparently, got embroiled in some legal issues with its publishing company and is hence left incomplete. The team of Long Ballad got the writers, Chang Jiang and Pei Yu Fei on board and the duo did a commendable job in making changes in the characters and the story to deliver a complete package to the audiences.
The plot, while complex and layered, is also very sanitized. They touch upon fairly dark topics such as fratricide, human trafficking, slavery, biological warfare, and rape, but the topics are treated with kid-gloves. The rape, for example, is never shown. Only implied. This is a very important detail to remember while watching the show. Do not go in expecting a "Nirvana in Fire" or even "The Rebel Princess", you will be disappointed. Go in expecting a Young Adult story, and you will be rewarded.
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CHARACTERS AND PERFORMANCES:
Li Changge: The protagonist of the story, Li Changge, starts as a boisterous, confident, but naive Princess. This is primarily her story, told mainly through her point of view. She goes from town to town, actively taking part in the governing of the cities/states. Fighting in wars, strategizing, making mistakes and learning from them. Finding both love and inner peace in the process. As you may have gleaned, the character is a bit of a Mary Sue, in the sense that she is almost perennially outsmarting everyone around her and people are constantly complimenting her on her smarts. That said, Changge does end up making a huge mistake and there are some serious consequences to her mistake, which decreases her Mary Sue-ness. The fact that not every man is falling for her like some other Mary Sues we know, coughA'Wucough, is also a HUGE positive. Dilraba Dilmurat does a commendable job as Li Changge and I don't really have anything negative to say about her performance.
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Ashile Sun: He is the Tegin (General) of the Eagle Division of the Ashile Tribe and the foster son of the Great Khan of the Tribe. He is a fierce warrior and a quiet man whose perfectly ordered world is turned upside down upon meeting Li Changge. He is the hero of the story and is a character I enjoyed. Given his age, people did have some concern about Wu Lei portraying such a "masculine" character, but Wu Lei rose to the occasion spectacularly. I could discard Fei Liu (not an easy task, because damnit, I could still see the little murder puppy in some angles because the face is still the same, yet different), and see Ashile Sun instead, so full points to Wu Lei.
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Li Leyan: Leyan starts as the soft and delicate princess who cannot stand up for herself. Her story is so beautifully shown. The way she comes to understand her country, her people, and learn true compassion is so beautifully shown that it really melted my heart. I loved the bits where she came in and Zhao Lusi embodied the character perfectly. Her love story was arguably the best thing in the story.
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Hao Du: Meet the guy that stole the show. The stoic, cold-blooded, brutal warrior who is absolutely smitten with Li Leyan, the princess he is supposed to guard. Hao Du is a man of few words and Liu Yuning portrays the complex emotions with his expressions. He conveyed the cold and unfeeling mask, the pure love, the devotion, the heartbreak, and the complete surrender to Li Leyan - he showed it all. It was just... FABULOUS.
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Wei Shu Yu: Meet the Ma Zitan of this story. Only, unlike Zitan who is both terrible and useless, Wei Shu Yu is just terribly useless. Alan Fang was reasonably good in portraying this nothing character. There is nothing else to say about him.
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Ashile She Er: I have to talk about this character. He starts off as the rival to Ashile Sun, the petty guy who is there to make the hero look good. But slowly, we learn that deep inside, he is just a hurt and confused child who is looking for one person who would love and trust him for who he is. Not for his name, not for his title (Young Khan, ie, crown prince), or the power he wields. His relationship with Ashile Sun is the most complicated one of the story and he gets a beautiful character arc. Kudousi Jiang Ainiwaer portrayed the progression of the character convincingly.
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The rest of the cast is adequate.
TECHNICAL DETAILS
OST: The OST is beautiful and is definitely worth a listen. My favorite track is the one sung by Liu Yuning. Man, the guy can sing!
Costumes: The costumes are not the best I have seen (NIF and JOL have spoiled me in that department), but they were not bad either. The fur on Ashile Sun's war costume, especially the one around his neck, made me want to itch my own neck, lol.
Cinematography: The long shots are done well, but the camera does switch angles a bit too often sometimes, which was rather distracting.
Graphics: Since the story is taken from a manhua, there are some scenes, especially the war scenes, that are shown in manhua panels. While this works, mostly, there are scenes where they become a tad comical. There are moments in the series where the graphics are in the background and a character is yelling some dialogue. NONE of those scenes worked. They were cringeworthy. Question to the writers: What do you have against boys aged eight to fourteen? Why did you do this to them?
OVERALL
Overall, I enjoyed the series. Was it the best I have ever seen? No. Definitely not. But this was not the worst either. The series is complete and does not leave any thread hanging or plot point unaddressed. The acting is adequate and I don't have any complains in that department. Yes, it was rather simplistic in its solutions and Changge does get some things done way too easily. The sanitizing of the more serious aspects can be off putting to the viewers expecting a dark, gritty tale. Go in with the expectation of watching a YA story, and you will be treated to an enjoyable one.
Final rating: 7 out of 10.
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rbbalmung · 3 years
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Pokemon SwSh GPL AU: Get to know ______
Guys, it’s time for my favourite pokemon ship. Prepare for loads of fluff. 
Get to Know Gloria x Hop (Postwickshipping/Hpyu): 
1: Who spends almost all their money on the other? I headcannon that Gloria really likes pokemon plushies, so Hop is always unconsciously checking the stuffed animal section of stores to see if there’s any she doesn’t have. Gloria tries really hard to get him books that pertain to his research, but she really has no clue what he studies aside from the fact that it’s legendary pokemon (Legendary Pokemon are his focus). 
2: Who sleeps in the other’s lap? Gloria! They are the cuddliest couple ever. There’s about a foot size difference between them, so she fits perfectly in his lap. (Hop is def the little spoon, tho). 
3: Who walks around the house half-naked and who yells at them to put on some clothes? TBH, they would both walk around the house half naked. They’re comfort first babies, so you know Gloria’s bra is coming off and Hop is discarding his work clothes the second their door is closed. I think it’s kind of a casual thing for them, though. They’ve known each other long enough that this kind of thing doesn’t bother them. 
4: Which one tells the other not to stay up all night and which one stays up all night anyway? Gloria has to drag Hop’s ass to bed pretty much every night. They’re both busy people, but we all know that Hop would lose track of time while working on his thesis. It is a fact that if Gloria doesn’t come to get him, he will fall asleep on his desk. 
5: Which one tries to make food for the other but burns it all by accident and which one tells them that it’s okay and makes them both cookies? They’re actually both pretty good cooks (Gloria’s mama owns a restaurant in Wedgehurst and Hop’s mom is obsessed with cooking), but I think Hop would probably be the one to burn all the food. The only reason why is because he has a harder time focusing solely on cooking instead of trying to multitask. Now, baking is a whole other story. They’re both terrible at it. 
6: Which one reads OTP prompts and says “Oh that’s us!” and which one goes “Eh, not really”? Gloria would be the one to read the prompts and Hop would be the denier (he secretly thinks it’s really cute whenever she does it). 
7: Which one constantly wears the other’s clothes? Gloria. 100% Gloria. She is constantly cold and has a passion for stealing Hop’s hoodies. He thinks its adorable because they’re always really big on her. 
8: Which one spends all day running errands and which one says “You remembered [thing], right?” Hop would be the errand runner and Gloria would make sure he remembered everything. It goes back to Hop’s mind being a million places at once and Gloria hyper focusing on one thing at a time. 
9: Which one drives the car and which one gives them directions? Hop would drive and Gloria would give directions for similar reasons to the question above. 
10: Which one does the posing while the other one draws? Hop doodles Gloria sometimes to keep his hands busy. It’s kind of an absent minded thing for him to do while reading an article/book. Once Sonia caught him doing it, and when I say she teases him relentlessly, I mean it. Hop absolutely does not let Gloria see these doodles (they’re very cutesy and he’d die of embarrassment). 
11: If they were about to rob a museum, which one does backflips through lasers and which one is strolling behind with a bag of chips? Hop would be the backflipper and Gloria would be the follower. Think back to their GPL season: Hop was blazing ahead at all times without a care in the world. Gloria is the slowest traveler in the world because she likes talking to everyone and visiting all the stores.  
12: Which one of your OTP overdoes it on the alcohol and which one makes the other stop drinking? Neither of them can hold their alcohol, but Hop at least has more body mass than Gloria. They’re a pair of lightweights and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise. (Let’s be real: Bede has to be the one to make sure they get home). 
14: Which one keeps accidentally using the other’s last name instead of their own? Gloria. I actually believe that Gloria would keep her last name even after she and Hop get married because it belongs to her mama (after the divorce, they both changed their last names to match her mama’s maiden name). Hop is also a proud Hoffman, so he wouldn’t use the name Park. However, everyone else will mix it up. Gloria gets called “Mrs. Hoffman” all the time if she’s arriving for restaurant reservations or something of the like. Newer reporters/young children call Hop “Mr. Park” because they just assume Park was his last name. 
15: Which one screams about the spider and which one brings the spider outside? Neither of them are scared of bug pokemon. 
16: Which one gives the other their jacket? HOP. I mentioned it earlier, but Gloria is always cold. Bede asks why he doesn’t just make Gloria bring her own jacket and Hop replies that he likes it when she wears his jacket (they’re freaking sappy).  
17: Who keeps getting threatened by the other’s overprotective older sibling? Pft. Leon? Please. By this point, he’s become the big brother of Gloria as well. The League members are a completely different story. They all like Hop, but since Gloria is one of their younger members and the biggest sweetheart, they’re a protective bunch (Especially Melony and Gordie). 
18: Who’s the first one to admit they have feelings for the other? Gloria, but it didn’t go well. It was right before he was leaving to finish up high school studying abroad, and the timing wasn’t right (aka Hop turned her down because he hadn’t yet realised his feelings for her). Gloria tries her best to move on but never truly gets over him. Luckily, his feelings hit him like a bag of bricks to the stomach when they reunite a couple years later.  
19: How good would your OTP be at parenting? The best. They would definitely be the cool parents (I mean, come on. They’re the freaking heroes of Galar!). I think they’d also be super supportive of their child’s choices. 10/10. They’re made to be parents. (Hop would especially want to be a good dad. He’s initially nervous because he never knew his dad and thinks he might mess up, but Gloria reassures him that he’s doing a good job). 
20: Which one types with perfect grammar and which one types using numbers as letters? Hop would be Mr. Perfect Grammar. Gloria would use mostly good grammar, but her texts would be littered with emojis. 
21: Who gets attacked by a bully and who protects them? Hop is the more confrontational of the two. Gloria tends to believe that people are only mean to others if something bad is happening in their life, but Hop will jump from 0 to 100 if someone even looks at Gloria funny.  
22: Who makes the bad puns and who makes a pained smile every time the other makes a pun? Gloria likes Hop’s bad puns, so everyone else has to cringe in discomfort at the oblivious pair. 
23: Who comes home from work to see that the other one bought a puppy? Hop. Gloria likes catching pokemon and sending them on poke jobs, so there’s a new member to their family at least once a week. 
24: Which one gives the other a piggyback ride when they’re tired? Hop. He’s the only one she would show vulnerability to, and he makes sure not to make her feel ashamed of it. (also, Gloria absolutely could not carry Hop. He’s like, a foot taller than her).  
25: Which one competes in some sort of activity and which one does the overzealous cheering? Both! They’re very supportive of each other to help ease the other’s insecurities. Hop gets really invested in her pokemon matches and Gloria throws him a little celebration every time he finishes a project.  
26: Who takes a selfie when the other one falls asleep on their shoulder? Gloria. Since Hop never goes to sleep at night, it is very common for him to take 5 minute power naps without even realising it. Gloria definitely takes pictures when it happens as a reflex (They were long distance for the first 4 years of their relationship) because she wants to be able to look back at their memories together.  Like Gloria doesn’t know about Hop’s doodles of her, Hop doesn’t know about her phone album of him. 
27: Which one would give the other a makeover if they asked? Gloria? I think they both grow into their separate styles as the get older, but Gloria would push Hop to wear more colourful things. Sonia once told Hop that a man should never tell a woman what to wear because it’s rude. I don’t think Gloria would mind if he suggested something, but he is way too nervous to do it (Sonia scarred him).   
28: Which one owns a pet that the other is absolutely terrified of? Hop is very nervous around Urshifu and Calyrex. Urshifu because he’s terrifying, large, and very protective of Gloria. Calyrex because the pokemon will take over his body without warning to tell Gloria something.  
29: Which one holds the umbrella over both of them when it rains? Hop! If Gloria held it, Hop’s head would be in the umbrella. 
30: If your OTP went on vacation, where would they go and what would they do? Who would take the pictures? Oh my gosh, they’d go everywhere. I think that after Gloria steps down as champion, they travel to all the different regions for at least a couple of years. Gloria would be the one to take pictures and make a little scrapbook when they return home.  
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chemical-cat · 3 years
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Something I don't recommend for beginners...
Disclaimer: I do NOT want to gatekeep tarot, this is simply my personal opinion and my advice for beginners who are interested in tarot. Everything stated below is from my personal experience.
I've begun to notice a climbing interest in tarot, not just in getting readings but on people wanting to learn how to practice tarot as well, especially on tiktok. Now I'm so excited to see that there are people interested in something that I personally love and has brought a lot of happiness and just overall comfort to my own life, but it can be overwhelming as a beginner to know where to start especially when there are millions of different decks out there. What deck should you start with? What books should you read? What myths are true about tarot and what rules do you need to follow when practicing?
The biggest thing that I don't recommend for beginners is a deck like what is pictured above. Now yes the artwork is gorgeous and at first it may not seem very obvious why I don't recommend a deck like this, but the main reason I don't recommend a deck like this is that in this deck and others like it, all of the suit names are renamed.
Now at first it may seem like a nit picky type recommendation, but the reason why is that most decks follow the rider-waite closely, using the rider-waite deck as a template. While each deck may have their own unique aspects, and the artwork may be different, ultimately they still follow a very similar pattern as the rider-waite and use it to also template most of their interpretations. Now this doesn't necessarily make this a con to your average deck because of one important aspect.
Most books on tarot, use the rider-waite as its example when describing tarot, the cards within tarot, the suit names, as well as other aspects such as elements, in depth descriptions of artwork, etc. Because most tarot books use rider-waite as their examples, when practicing initially while also researching it may be easier to practice with a deck that also follows the rider-waite template more closely. Yes there may be one suit name renamed - most commonly the suit of pentacles being renamed to the suit of coins, but overall if your initial deck follows the rider-waite template closely then when using books for research or help with practice/interpretation, it will be easier to apply the advice within guides to a deck that follows closely to this template.
But with a deck above, it can be extremely confusing to apply advice from guidebooks to a deck that doesn't follow this template, especially if the guidebook that may come with the deck itself doesn't explain what the original suits have become within this deck. (Which yes it can happen, it is possible to have a guidebook that doesn't explain very concretely and while those experienced may be able to work fine with these types of decks, it can be extremely frustrating for beginners).
Now this just comes as a recommendation from my own personal experience, in my own experience, my first ever deck had all of the suit names renamed, and while the guidebook did address this, when I eventually would roll over to a deck that would follow the rider-waite template more closely, I experienced a lot of frustration and confusion. It was difficult to apply guidebooks to my original deck, as some things contradicted what the original artist of the deck would say about the cards as well, but ultimately it was very confusing trying to adjust to the rider-waite template when I was used to a deck that didn't follow that template closely. It resulted in a lot of frustration and ultimately I ended up taking a very large and long break from tarot because I thought that, because I was having difficulties in working with a deck that followed the template more closely that I wasn't meant to practice tarot, that I was wrong for ever trying it, and that no matter how much I tried I'd never be good enough.
Now I do know that not everyone is going to struggle with it, but there may be someone out there who is in the same place as I was. I did eventually go back to practicing tarot, and I was not bad at tarot, I was meant to practice it. One thing that fueled a lot of my self doubt in my own abilities, were these "rules" or "myths" about tarot that I was constantly seeing, and it was so hard to know truly what was true and what wasn't true because it varied from person to person, one person would tell you if you didn't follow rules a,b,c that you would fail and your readings wouldn't be accurate; while others would say you need to follow x,y,z and not a,b,c and if you didn't then you were following myths and limiting your own abilities.
So where should you stand on these? Well... here's my personal opinion.
You must have your first tarot deck gifted to you
Personally, I don't follow this, and I know many other readers who don't as well. Whether this is a rule, or a myth that became truth for a while is unsure. But a large consensus of readers, have stated they consider this rule to be an attempt to gatekeep tarot. When I first started tarot, I didn't have anyone who would have gifted me a tarot deck, I was surrounded by family who would have viewed tarot at the time and possibly still would even in current day view it as demonic and that I was a Satan worshiper or delving into and practicing witchcraft. At the time, this myth was really floating around and being taken seriously, when I began practicing, I wanted to do everything perfectly and that I should obey any rules possible, including this one. However I ended up coming across my first deck, and instantly knew I couldn't leave without it. No one would buy it for me, that was out of the question, but I realized that there was nothing saying anywhere that you can't gift yourself a deck, and that's exactly what I did, I gifted myself my first deck.
You can't ask the same question twice
I honestly don't know where this one came from, or started but honestly I know a few people who follow this and others who don't and see no issue with it. The only thing with this one that I've seen, that would make sense is that by constantly asking the same question over and over (aka: nagging) you will eventually end up getting the answer you want, which makes sense ultimately, and you can make poor decisions simply because of it (which at that point why even use tarot if you already know the answer you want and your not going to accept any other answer?)
Sleeping with your deck under your pillow will help you bond with the cards
So personally I don't know how true this one is, I know that through personal experience I would hide my first deck under my pillow and I was very close with this deck, now whether that's because it was my first deck or because I slept with it under my pillow could be debated. But I honestly think this may be the same type of thinking as placing crystals or herbs under your pillow at night to inspire better sleeping patterns/get rid of nightmares. Now whether these things actually work or its psychosomatic is up in the air. Personally, if it helps me sleep then I like to believe in it and it isn't ultimately hurting anyone if I believe in it. So if it helps you bond with your cards go ahead! But I will say I do have multiple decks, and other than my first I do not sleep with any of them in my bed and I'm still close with all of my decks.
The death, devil, and similar cards are evil and ultimately mean your life is horrible and falling apart and there's nothing you can do.
This one is always a belief within tarot that has shocked me, ultimately at the end of the day, these cards are not evil. While some cards can signify change and people are afraid of change or aren't prepared for it, most of the time these cards do not mean that you or a loved one is going to die, your life is completely horrible and is going to fall apart, or that you dance with the "devil". These cards all have their own meaning past the entitle title and having fear of these cards will ultimately lead you to being afraid to correctly interpret the messages these cards have to tell you. This belief alone in tarot, helps to inspire fear of tarot and contributes to the belief that it is evil, similar to how there is the belief that ouija boards are evil and downright terrible. At the end of the day, tarot and oujia boards are divination tools, it boils down to how you personally use the tools and your actions from that which make them evil or not evil. A hammer isn't necessarily evil, but if it's someone's choice murder tool we don't consider the hammer the evil influence we consider the person who used that tool to be evil, the same goes for divination tools, including aspects of those tools which are less then favorable.
You need to put all the cards back in the original order (0-22 for major arcana, and all minor arcana in order)
Personally, I've never practiced it and I don't know any other readers who practice this. While some people may find it a very meditating experience to resort all the cards, to me personally this rule doesn't make sense. You're only going to reshuffle the cards again, and if you do this for multiple readings you're ultimately spending a lot of time in between readings to resort. In doing so, one point I'd like to point out is that those who follow this rule more than likely put cards "right side up" back into the deck, which could ultimately end up preventing you from getting the message you need too.
A card reversed is ultimately a bad meaning no matter what card it is.
This is simply not true, a card reversed or its shadow meaning doesn't not inherently mean that something bad is going to happen. What this does mean is that, every card has a meaning, however when it's reversed it means that whatever the cards have to tell you they can't get the message across simply by the card being right side up. Just like with the death, tower, and devil card this belief that reversed cards inherently mean something bad is ultimately another fear tactic implemented upon tarot.
You can't buy a used tarot deck, or you can't use a previously used tarot deck
This alone, goes against the rule/myth that you must be gifted a tarot deck as some people like to gift decks they've personally used that they haven't connected with. There are people who believe this rule simply because of the fact that, there is the large belief that tarot picks up energy from you as the reader or those that you are reading from/anyone who touches your deck, because of this there is a belief that with a previously used deck that it may be "contaminated" with bad energy. However, you can cleanse decks, and it's typically recommended to cleanse new decks as well as decks gifted to you, and to cleanse decks before practicing anyways. With this belief, if cleansed properly then your deck should be freed of any bad or negative energy including your own.
You are not a real reader or you can't read for other people if you use guidebooks.
Personally, I believe this is just another method to gatekeep as well as a method to keep beginning tarot readers from "stealing" clientele from more experienced readers. Not only do I know many experienced readers who use guidebooks, but I personally use my guidebooks as well. Now it is important to note that reading verbatim from the guidebooks for readings, is different then simply using them to reference off of. There are people like myself who have memory issues so using guidebooks is needed because we simply can not remember every little detail about all 78 cards, plus the added in differences that independent artists add in that vary from deck to deck, this doesn't lesson our abilities or our experience level. If you need to use guidebooks don't let that get you down or think less of your own abilities, if you read verbatim off of them try to work on branching past that work on using it as a base for your interpretation. If you don't need to use the guides that's absolutely great, and good job to you! However, remember that not everybody is going to practice the same way you do and some people have external reasons as to why they may need them. It isn't your job to police how every other reader on the planet practices, if someone is doing something wrong or is scamming they will ultimately lead to their own downfall.
You must let other people touch your deck in order to give accurate readings for other people/people need to touch or shuffle the deck in order to give a reading for them, or you can't give online readings without the person being there.
Personally, I believe this is a matter of opinion. There are readers who swear by the rule that people must physically touch your deck in order to give a reading for them because the deck then absorbs/becomes infused with their energy so then the reading will be accurate and if they do not touch the deck then the reading will not be as accurate. Then there are other readers who do not follow this rule, they believe that we as entities put our own energy out into the world consistently, and as the reader if you focus hard enough your own energy will be able to tap into that person's energy and be able to give an accurate reading that way. Within the last couple of years, we've seen a spike in online readings being offered on places like etsy, or social media platforms like tiktok. During the height of the covid-19 pandemic, it would be foolish to have allowed someone else to touch your deck due to the sheer fact alone that sanitizing a deck is fairly difficult as many decks are made of paper, so to sanitize them properly would be very difficult. Not to mention the fact that we would also be looking at a scenario where someone would be within 6ft of someone else and more than likely not practicing social distancing. The ability to practice readings online provides the ability to practice safe social distancing and protect individuals who may have a compromised immune system (the pandemic has taught us that even if someone with a compromised immune system, the elderly, or other individuals who would be at significant risk are present that some individuals simply do not care and would deliberately lie and put others at risk to get whatever it is that they want, and to assume that a reading or other metaphysical aspect would be an exception would be disingenuous not only to practioners but to those who may have compromised immune systems as well). Personally I believe that online readings, present a difficulty level just like doing a reading in person, and that because some individuals may prefer or have an easier time at doing online readings this irritates those who may not have this same type of ease at doing online readings, and they result to trying to tear down someone or gatekeep someone that they believe should be struggling as much as they are.
This is only a fraction of various "rules" that have been told within the tarot community that readers need to abide by. Ultimately, it is up to you as a reader to choose whether you want to follow every rule that is out there, a handful of the rules, or none of them at all. At the end of the day, many beginners may experience what experienced practioners have told were even similar to their own experience and that is that there is so much contradicting information out there that it can be overwhelming, a lot of the time many of these rules seem to come out of no where or have no tracable origin. Some have stated or traced some of these rules back to Romani culture, but whether or not there is truth to this lies with the Romani people themselves as they are the only ones who can speak the truth of their culture and whether there is any authenticity to these rules. As I said on the disclaimer, most of this is my personal opinion and I simply speak on my own personal experience, and I have no intents to gatekeep. This is just my personal advice for beginners.
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