cityofbullshit

a side blog for what I'm currently reading and writing. the title is kinda self explanatory so don’t come here looking for quality.

[knighthearts]

i watched one (1) video on how to draw hands that changed my life forever. like. i can suddenly draw hands again

these were all drawn without reference btw. i can just. Understand Hands now (for the most part, im sure theres definitely inaccuracies). im a little baffled

[knighthearts]

for those of u asking for the vid!

[decemberwinter]

One person can separate fiction from reality, doesn’t harm anyone in real life, thinks harassment and censorship are bad. The other scams a real person, who’s trying to support an artist, and then brags about their literal crime online.

But antis will tell you they’re the good and normal ones 😍

[cityofbullshit]

So let me get this straight: a person feels so morally and etichaly superior to another based solenly on difference in preferences that they commit a crime and feels justified in doing so because they consider the other person beneath them? I don't know man this feels very much like the horseshoe theory to me.

What is happening in the anti-shippers part of fandoms that made them think this is okay?

Furthermore, I hope she is an artist and not a writer because if we want to be 100% transparent and accountable if she was a writer by accepting comissions for fan fics she is commiting a crime and she is puting fanfictions in jeopardy as a whole.

Friendly reminder that not so long ago fanfics were illigal and writers were sued to hell and back over them when they were fully created for free and within the limits of copyright exemptions. Now people are getting mony to write them, which is infringement of both moral and economic copyright by the way (or at least a good lawyer will go for the pursue of both because it strenghten the case), feel very secure in promoting it as a service and also use it as a means to scam people instead of acting professionaly as any service provider shall?

This looks terrible for fanfics future ngl especialy with all the GenAi discourse that ought to make authors and publishers more harsh in the protections of their rights. I just hope we won't go back to the reign of copyright terror when people had to put 10000 disclamairs at the beggining of fics so they weren't dragged to court.

Over all a lot of illigal things are happening here.

[cityofbullshit]

Man... i don't want to be a hater, but i didn't like the 4.4 story. Like it was okay, a good story, a solid 8/10 one of the best of planarcadia the fleshbacks to all the privious journyes 10/10, put it wasn't up to my taste its weird. I liked the "tomorrow" bit is a call back to the plot of Amphoreus, and I loved the call back to Sunday past wherever it comes up, but man it didn't feel like growth for the MC, just repeating the same concept and conclusion over and over again until it loses all its meaning. Feels like a sick joke tbh

[More ramblings and spoilers under the cut]

Regardless Goodluck to anyone pulling Himeko Sp and I hope you all enjoyed the story more than I did

I feel like such a hater, when I don't even want to be, i really wanted to like this story, I really did.

But the TB message... i don't know, this warrents a proper analysis, but to me at a first impact feels shallow.

Don't get me wrong I love a power of friendship moment, but this... man is exactly what I feared after finishing Amphoreus, the writers are cowards who don't want to kill characters to the point that they justify it with the main character resolve, but after an entire arc where i heared the moto "loss is inevitable of the flames-chase journy" and than himeko's "the Trailblaze journy comes to an end like it beguns abruptly" and than the TB all talk about loss and not accepting it and than things going just the way they wanted like always instead of a real sacrifice?

I don't believe this writers anymore, no threat is a real threat because they don't want to commit to it, the only characters that are affected by the events are the Npcs.

Now with this out of the way. I hated. I HATED. to the point of stoping the quest and going "I don't belive you" to the screen, the goodbye scene with himeko before the other Mc arrived, what was the purpose of all of that? Final goodbyes are impactfull because they are final, not Just kidding see you later moments, it felt like arm forcing the viewer into feeling sad just to give them a bust of dopamin when the relif of the worst case scenario being avoided hits, but if you remove the scene and let the TB meet the other MC from the point where TB is told that himeko is gona die "8 days ago, 8 hours ago, 8 seconds ago ecc..." the story works far more better because I don't feel manipulated for cheap tears and is far more fluid, but if the writers really wanted to keep the final godbye they could have pulled a Phainon (again sure, but Himeko is basically him rebrended have you seen the trailer? Come on, you already did that, why stop now, do it again) removed the bit with the other MC, killed Himeko and than using the power of the wish from Aha bring her back, will I've been equaly disapointed because it was what i expected it was gonna happen? Sure, but at least I wouldn't have screamed "I don't belive you" at the screan 10 minutes and lost all the trust in this writers.

Lastly this plot feels so bussy and convoluted when it really didn't need to be, like there are 4 threats to face all at once all after another. This feels like a first draft of a writer with to many idea that hasn't been revised to give the plot cohesion, and i still don't trust the IPC, at every turn I expect the shoe to drop with those guys.

Oh well I'll hang around in this game till 4.5 because i want to give it one more chance and get Hyacine, but is not looking good, at all, my expectations for 4.5 are 0, but to be fair my expectations for 4.4 were pretty low and they still managed to let me down.

[cityofbullshit]

I just realized The why I disliked the 4.4 story so much despite all my good intentions to love it.

It's because is the Dhalia's quest rebrended, and rushed as fuck.

More ramblings under the cut.

There is no build up to the TB growing more and more agitated through out the 4.x versiones we jumped from one plot to another instead of building up to a pivotal moment and all the fear for himeko come from Hi3 hard lifting, and everything in the end was just the TB using Terminus power again, but not really this time was Stelaron, or are they same thing? Well they aren't gonna tell us anyway. and the ending, that wasn't a proper ending, the victory was taken away in such a cheap way it wasn't even comical, it was uneccesary, all this build up for Asat Pramad and he got jumped and fucked over in 1 5 hurs quest that could have been an email, but because he is an asshole he had already freed the voracity, like what about instead of that Pramad frees the viracity BECAUSE THE TB SAVED HIMEKO, what about giving some CONSEQUENCES TO THE CHOICES WE MAKE, you know the bloody darn theme of the entire narrative instead of a cheap cliffhanger with no stakes at play because this is Irontomb all over again, they aren't gonna fail and there are no crysos heir to save so there isn't the "sure they are gonna stop the threat to the universe, but are they gonna save their friends?" plotline, because we have already seen that, we already know the answer to that 3 times.

So yeah is a structural problem and it pissed me off so much because the bones for a cool story where there and they did nothing with it but copy paste and change some names and add some interactions of a previous quest that was even weaker.

I still hold on to hope that the story will improve (I'm delusional, but something something hope is a difficult thing to kill) but this is an awful first half and the more i think about it the angrier I get, expecially because I watch the trailer for Planarcadia (which i usually don't do because if its important it should be in the game, and if its not I usually don't care) and as it serves as a sort of promise to the story (like the synopsis of a book if you will) the focus should have been the plot of the trailer: The Anti destruction alliance. Not the games, not Himeko past,the alliance and things should have gonne terribly. Sure it could have evolved into those subolots too, which is what hoyo tryed to do, but they did it to fast and a bit to forcefully, expecially the alliance-> games transition (Aha as the leader of the allience instead of the Express crew was so stupid I started skiping the story after that for a while because it made no sense with our prior understanding of Aeons and Elation, but I digress).

So what is my conclusion? This story is rushed, it showes that they had to rewrite it because of the political dispute with Japan, but while i would have tolerated it for 2 patches this is the 5th patch of the version and they have yet to get their shit toghter, and their story is not compliacted enough to justify this mess, this lookes like an amateur work not the work of a bloody damned team of professionals. AND THE DHALIA QUEST WAS A MISTAKE! LET THE TB FUCK UP HOYO, LET THEM LOOSE! KILL YOUR DARLINGS HOYO!

[ruchi-writes]

enemies-to-lovers is about power, actually

I think a lot of people misunderstand why enemies to lovers is so popular. It’s quickly become one of the most pervasive tropes in many novels. Is it the banter, the tension? That’s definitely part of it. But if that were true, then friends-to-lovers and literally any romance with good dialogue and characterization would scratch the same itch. For some, it does, but for many…enemies-to-lovers just hits different. 

My theory is that it isn’t actually about love, not really. I think it fulfils a fantasy that no other trope can provide: the fantasy of being seen as an equal. 

Think about what specifically makes someone an enemy in fiction. It’s not just someone the MC dislikes, it’s someone who can affect them in tangible ways, maybe even have the power to ruin them, challenge their worldview, expose their weaknesses, etc. The relationship begins with conflict because the characters are fundamentally opposed in some way. It doesn’t matter why, but they’re fighting. There is a struggle for dominance. 

I would argue that the most impactful enemies-to-lovers moments are never the romantic moments, they’re the scenes where power shifts. They BOTH lose: they’re forced into a position that would have horrified them at the beginning of the story. They end up needing (or wanting) each other. 

That’s why I think people are often disappointed when a supposed enemies-to-lovers story turns out to be a milquetoast attempt where they’re just kinda mean to each other for a few pages, and then immediately start making out. Where’s the risk, the actual threat? If the characters aren’t capable of genuinely affecting one another, then the relationship isn’t actually transforming in a satisfying way. The appeal is in the fact that they have power over each other, because the eventual trust they build requires real surrender.

Because here’s the thing about enemies; they pay attention, and usually more attention than anyone else. They notice weaknesses because they’re actively looking for them, they notice strengths because they need to account for them. They notice habits, blind spots, ambitions, fears. 

They study the MC with a level of scrutiny that borders (and later crosses) intimate, but unlike friends (or supporting characters in the MC’s corner) they’re not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, they don’t overlook flaws out of affection. Which is exactly what makes the eventual romance so satisfying. It feels earned. 

It’s easy to imagine being loved by someone who sees the best version of you, but it’s an entirely different thing to be loved by someone who has seen you at your worst. That’s why this dynamic often feels more convincing than romances where the characters are immediately into each other.

I imagine there are many who go through life feeling misunderstood, or worse, that the people who love them only love the polished, perfect version they present to the world, almost like impostor syndrome. But what if there was someone who couldn’t be fooled by this carefully constructed image? 

When someone more powerful chooses someone, maybe the fantasy is protection. When it’s someone less powerful, the fantasy might be admiration. But if there’s someone intelligent and observant enough to see the MC as an equal, the fantasy there is the most intense and honest validation. 

Which means enemies to lovers was never about turning hate/annoyance into love, it was about turning power into vulnerability – which is a terrifying loss of power, which THEN leads to intimacy. 

[twig-the-escaped-cephalopod]

i am Thinkimg . about the Character. and listening to a Song. i a m sure this will not have repercussions

[cityofbullshit]

Man... i don't want to be a hater, but i didn't like the 4.4 story. Like it was okay, a good story, a solid 8/10 one of the best of planarcadia the fleshbacks to all the privious journyes 10/10, put it wasn't up to my taste its weird. I liked the "tomorrow" bit is a call back to the plot of Amphoreus, and I loved the call back to Sunday past wherever it comes up, but man it didn't feel like growth for the MC, just repeating the same concept and conclusion over and over again until it loses all its meaning. Feels like a sick joke tbh

[More ramblings and spoilers under the cut]

Regardless Goodluck to anyone pulling Himeko Sp and I hope you all enjoyed the story more than I did

I feel like such a hater, when I don't even want to be, i really wanted to like this story, I really did.

But the TB message... i don't know, this warrents a proper analysis, but to me at a first impact feels shallow.

Don't get me wrong I love a power of friendship moment, but this... man is exactly what I feared after finishing Amphoreus, the writers are cowards who don't want to kill characters to the point that they justify it with the main character resolve, but after an entire arc where i heared the moto "loss is inevitable of the flames-chase journy" and than himeko's "the Trailblaze journy comes to an end like it beguns abruptly" and than the TB all talk about loss and not accepting it and than things going just the way they wanted like always instead of a real sacrifice?

I don't believe this writers anymore, no threat is a real threat because they don't want to commit to it, the only characters that are affected by the events are the Npcs.

Now with this out of the way. I hated. I HATED. to the point of stoping the quest and going "I don't belive you" to the screen, the goodbye scene with himeko before the other Mc arrived, what was the purpose of all of that? Final goodbyes are impactfull because they are final, not Just kidding see you later moments, it felt like arm forcing the viewer into feeling sad just to give them a bust of dopamin when the relif of the worst case scenario being avoided hits, but if you remove the scene and let the TB meet the other MC from the point where TB is told that himeko is gona die "8 days ago, 8 hours ago, 8 seconds ago ecc..." the story works far more better because I don't feel manipulated for cheap tears and is far more fluid, but if the writers really wanted to keep the final godbye they could have pulled a Phainon (again sure, but Himeko is basically him rebrended have you seen the trailer? Come on, you already did that, why stop now, do it again) removed the bit with the other MC, killed Himeko and than using the power of the wish from Aha bring her back, will I've been equaly disapointed because it was what i expected it was gonna happen? Sure, but at least I wouldn't have screamed "I don't belive you" at the screan 10 minutes and lost all the trust in this writers.

Lastly this plot feels so bussy and convoluted when it really didn't need to be, like there are 4 threats to face all at once all after another. This feels like a first draft of a writer with to many idea that hasn't been revised to give the plot cohesion, and i still don't trust the IPC, at every turn I expect the shoe to drop with those guys.

Oh well I'll hang around in this game till 4.5 because i want to give it one more chance and get Hyacine, but is not looking good, at all, my expectations for 4.5 are 0, but to be fair my expectations for 4.4 were pretty low and they still managed to let me down.

[fandom-trash-goblin]

we've got a life to love living.

[candycoatedrox]

getting characters into world-endingly intense codependent queerplatonic relationships is literally what life is all about. it is literally what we were put here on this earth to do

[luna-azzurra]

Advice for writing Autistic Characters!!

Quick note before this one: I'm writing this bc i have autism in my family, i know a few autistic people personally, and i genuinely did a lot of research to get this right, not bc i consider myself any kind of expert on lived experience. Autism is a spectrum in the actual literal sense, meaning there isn't one autistic experience, there are many, and the most important thing i can tell you is to ask real autistic people, read their own accounts, and treat this as an ongoing learning process, not a checklist you finish once.

IT'S NOT A PERSONALITY TRAIT, sprinkled on top, and it's not one uniform presentation. Autism affects communication, sensory processing, and social interaction differently in every single person, some autistic people are highly verbal, some are non-speaking, some mask so well that people flat-out don't believe they're autistic at all. Ask yourself what your specific character's profile actually looks like before you write it, and be specific rather than generic.

⤷ Masking is a survival skill with a real cost. Many autistic people, especially those diagnosed later in life or socialized hard to "pass," learn to force eye contact, suppress stimming, script conversations in advance just to get through a normal day. It works, but it's genuinely draining, and a character who seems totally fine in public may need to decompress hard the second they're safe, sometimes called an autistic shutdown or meltdown once the mask can finally come off.

⤷ Stimming isn't a symptom to suppress, it's regulation. Hand-flapping, rocking, repeating phrases, fidgeting with an object, these aren't random quirks, they help an autistic person manage sensory input or emotion in real time. Writing a character who's "cured" of stimming as a sign of growth genuinely misunderstands what stimming is even for, it's not a bad habit, it's a coping tool.

⤷ Special interests are a source of joy, not just an obstacle. An intense, deep focus on a specific topic isn't a quirky trait to be mildly tolerated by everyone else, it's often a genuine source of comfort and identity. Don't write it as something the character needs to "grow out of" to become relatable, that framing quietly implies their joy is a problem to be solved.

⤷ Literal interpretation IS NOT stupidity. An autistic character taking a figure of speech literally, or needing direct rather than implied communication, reflects a different processing style, not a lack of intelligence. Sarcasm and idioms can genuinely be missed, or need explicit signaling, and that should never be played as a joke at the character's expense.

⤷ Meltdowns and shutdowns aren't tantrums. A meltdown is an involuntary response to overwhelm, sensory, emotional, or cognitive, not a manipulative outburst, and a shutdown can look like someone going quiet, still, or unresponsive rather than loud at all. Writing either as a controllable choice the character is making on purpose misrepresents what's actually happening in their body.

AND few more things i think matter, that don't get said as often:

⤷ Sensory sensitivity isn't about having "better" senses, it's about a different relationship to input. Fluorescent lighting, certain fabrics, background noise in a restaurant, these can be genuinely distressing, not just mildly annoying, bc the usual sensory filtering most people's brains do automatically doesn't work the same way.

⤷ Skip the diagnostic labels like "high-functioning" or "low-functioning." These terms are largely rejected by the autistic community for flattening a person's actual strengths and support needs into one blunt, misleading label. Describe what your specific character can and can't do instead of reaching for a label that doesn't actually explain anything.

⤷ Autism doesn't mean a lack of empathy or emotion. Autistic people love, grieve, laugh, and form deep relationships, just sometimes expressed differently than neurotypical people expect. Writing an autistic character as cold or emotionless is a harmful, outdated stereotype.

Do the research, read own-voices accounts, and if you can, ask an actual autistic person to look over your character. this is genuinely one of those topics where getting it right matters more than getting it done fast. ;)

[jstor]

100 open access books on JSTOR

African American Studies

An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans, Revised and Updated Edition

Disrupting Colonial Pedagogies: Theories and Transgressions

J. A. Rogers: Selected Writings

The Race for America: Black Internationalism in the Age of Manifest Destiny

African Studies

Ethnicity, Identity, and Conceptualizing Community in Indian Ocean East Africa

Lagos Never Spoils: Nollywood and Nigerian City Life

American Indian Studies

Book Anatomy: Body Politics and the Materiality of Indigenous Book History

The Urgency of Indigenous Values

Anthropology

Graceful Resistance: How Capoeiristas Use Their Art for Activism and Community Engagement

Lacandón Maya in the Twenty-First Century: Indigenous Knowledge and Conservation in Mexico's Tropical Rainforest

Maya-British Conflict at the Edge of the Yucatecan Caste War

Neobugarrón: Heteroflexibility, Neoliberalism, and Latin/o American Sexual Practice

Our Hidden Landscapes: Indigenous Stone Ceremonial Sites in Eastern North America

Power and Place: Preservation, Progress, and the Culture War over Land

Voices of Indigenuity

Archaeology

Living Ceramics, Storied Ground: A History of African American Archaeology

New Deal Archaeology in the West

The Cretan Collection in the University of Pennsylvania Museum, volume III: Metal Objects from Gournia

Violence and Inequality: An Archaeological History

Architecture

Waterhouses: Landscapes, Housing, and the Making of Modern Lagos

Asian Studies

Hong Kong Public and Squatter Housing: Geopolitics and Informality, 1963–1985

Communication Studies

Covid and…: How to Do Rhetoric in a Pandemic

Hillary Clinton's Career in Speeches: The Promises and Perils of Women's Rhetorical Adaptivity

Influential Machines: The Rhetoric of Computational Performance

Migrant World Making

Nuclear Decolonization: Indigenous Resistance to High-Level Nuclear Waste Siting

Serial Mexico: Storytelling across Media, from Nationhood to Now

Stories of Our Living Ephemera: Storytelling Methodologies in the Archives of the Cherokee National Seminaries, 1846-1907

Unsettling Archival Research: Engaging Critical, Communal, and Digital Archives

Cultural Studies

Cultural History of British Alternative Cabaret (1979-1991)

Middlebrow 2.0 and the Digital Affect: Online Reading Communities of the New Nigerian Novel

Reconstructive Memory Work: Trauma, Witnessing and the Imagination in Writing by Female Descendants of Harkis

Toward a Gameic World

Development Studies

Hottest of the Hotspots: The Rise of Eco-precarious Conservation Labor in Madagascar

Urban Indigeneities: Being Indigenous in the Twenty-First Century

Education

Limiting Privilege: Upward Mobility Within Higher Education in Socialist Poland

The Vulnerability of Public Higher Education

Environmental Studies

Ecologies of Imperialism

Unsettling Agribusiness: Indigenous Protests and Land Conflict in Brazil

Feminist & Women's Studies

Reclaiming Time: The Transformative Politics of Feminist Temporalities

Recovering Women’s Past: New Epistemologies, New Ventures

Film Studies

Han Heroes and Yamato Warriors: Competing Masculinities in Chinese and Japanese War Cinema

Monsters on Maple Street: The Twilight Zone and the Postwar American Dream

The Rise of Central American Film in the Twenty-First Century

Mapping the Stars: Celebrity, Metonymy, and the Networked Politics of Identity

Food Studies

The Visible Hands That Feed: Responsibility and Growth in the Food Sector

Gender Studies

Masculine Pregnancies: Modernist Conceptions of Creativity and Legitimacy, 1918-1939

Surgery and Salvation: The Roots of Reproductive Injustice in Mexico, 1770–1940

Women, Nationalism, and Social Networks in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1848-1918

History

Captivity's Collections: Natural History and the British Transatlantic Slave Trade

Our People Are Warlike: Civil War Pittsburgh and Home-Front Mobilization

Reimagining the Educated Citizen: Creole Pedagogies in the Transatlantic World: 1685-1896

Southern Enclosure: Settler Colonialism and the Postwar Transformation of Mississippi

Language & Literature

Abraham Lincoln and the Bible: A Complete Compendium

Blood and Ink: The Barbary Archive in Early American Literary History

Ethical Crossroads in Literary Modernism

Faking It: Victorian Documentary Novels

Genre Networks and Empire: Rhetoric in Early Imperial China

The Lost Texts of Confucius’ Grandson: Guodian, Zisi, and Beyond

Understanding Agatha Christie

Latin American Studies

Awakening the Ashes: An Intellectual History of the Haitian Revolution

Law

Creating a More Perfect Slaveholders’ Union: Slavery, the Constitution, and Secession in Antebellum America

Linguistics

Cantonese Since the Nineteenth Century

Publishing Contemporary Foreign Poetry: Transnational Exchange in the Italian Publishing Field

Middle East Studies

Outcasting Armenians: Tanzimat of the Provinces

Music

Fantasies of Music in Nostalgic Medievalism

Imagining Musical Pasts: The Queer Literary Musicology of Vernon Lee, Rosa Newmarch, and Edward Prime-Stevenson

Lieder in America: On Stages and In Parlors

On Music Theory and Making Music More Welcoming for Everyone

Peace & Conflict Studies

Remaking the World: Decolonization and the Cold War

The Coup and the Palm Trees: Agrarian Conflict and Political Power in Honduras

The End of the Future: Trauma, Memory, and Reconciliation in Peruvian Amazonia

Uniting Against the Reich: The American Air War in Europe

Unwilling to Quit: The Long Unwinding of American Involvement in Vietnam

Performing Arts

Sonic Strategies: Performing Mexico's War on Drugs, Mourning, and Feminicide

Staging Existence: Chekhov's Tetralogy

Philosophy

Phenomenology in an African Context: Contributions and Challenges

Violence and the Mimetic Unconscious: Vol. 2 The Affective Hypothesis

Violence and the Oedipal Unconscious: vol. 1, The Catharsis Hypothesis

Political Science

Beyond Othering: A Gandhian Approach to Conflict Resolution in India and Pakistan

Local government and democracy in the United Kingdom

Paradoxes of Emancipation: Radical Imagination and Space in Neoliberal Greece

The Cost of Voting in the American States

The New Star Chamber and Other Essays: Annotated Edition

Population Studies

Central American Migrations in the Twenty-First Century

Psychology

Ferenczi Dialogues: On Trauma and Catastrophe

Public Health

Irish Fever: An Archaeology of Illness, Injury, and Healing in New York City, 1845–1870

Tuberculosis Control and Institutional Change in Shanghai, 1911–2011

Religion

Christan Colleges and Universities: An Empirical Guide

From Jesus to J-Setting: Religious and Sexual Fluidity among Young Black People

The Hispanic Faculty Experience: Opportunities for Growth and Retention in Christian Colleges and Universities

Science & Technology Studies

Composting Utopia: Experimental Infrastructures for Organics Recycling in New York City

Sociology

Apartheid’s Leviathan: Electricity and the Power of Technological Ambivalence

As Legend Has It: History, Heritage, and the Construction of Swedish American Identity

Continuous Pasts: Frictions of Memory in Postcolonial Africa

Prison Capital: Mass Incarceration and Struggles for Abolition Democracy in Louisiana

Research as More Than Extraction: Knowledge Production and Gender-Based Violence in African Societies

The Souls of Jewish Folk: W. E. B. Du Bois, Anti-Semitism, and the Color Line

Technology

Transnational Families in Africa: Migrants and the role of Information Communication Technologies

Urban Studies

Living Politics in the City: Architecture as Catalyst for Public Space

[raekensiphon]

haymitch didn’t drink enough wtf

[theaawalker]

Alternatives to "Saw"

ᚑ      ᚑ

When a character notices something quickly:

»-♡→ Spotted »-♡→ Caught sight of »-♡→ Glimpsed »-♡→ Noticed »-♡→ Detected »-♡→ Clocked »-♡→ Picked out »-♡→ Espied »-♡→ Observed »-♡→ Sighted

...or if they're searching for something:

➺ Scanned ➺ Surveyed ➺ Examined ➺ Inspected ➺ Searched ➺ Swept their gaze across ➺ Looked over ➺ Studied ➺ Pored over ➺ Scrutinized

...or if they're admiring something:

➵ Beheld ➵ Gazed at ➵ Admired ➵ Marveled at ➵ Took in ➵ Drank in ➵ Appreciated ➵ Feasted their eyes on ➵ Reveled in ➵ Absorbed

...or if they're shocked or horrified:

̗̀➛ Witnessed ̗̀➛ Stared at ̗̀➛ Gawked at ̗̀➛ Recoiled from the sight of ̗̀➛ Bore witness to ̗̀➛ Froze at the sight of ̗̀➛ Locked eyes on ̗̀➛ Gaped at ̗̀➛ Couldn't look away from ̗̀➛ Found themselves staring at

ᚑ      ᚑ

Follow me if this was helpful :)

[cityofbullshit]

Procrastination induced A/Z re-watch, and code geass re-watch for genre study purposes (I need to put Slaine and Suzaku in a room and see who kills the other first), lead me back here with more questions than before; I swear when I think that I have this show figured out there some new detail that jumps and hits me in the face; this time is no really relevant at the end of the story and can be easily ignored, but for those who are cosmic horror lovers and wished Aldnoah had been a more prominent driver in the story instead of a rather fickle plot devise whose mechanics depended on the needs of the plot, I guess this is a pretty food for thought.

What is even Slaine’s Father deal?

Okay, first thing first, I didn’t read the manga and I don’t plan to, because If the writers wanted me to know it they should have put it in the show and also because I won’t be able to find it.

With that out of the way Slaine past on Mars is rather confusing if we go by the wiki, according to the wiki the scene we saw in the anime when Slaine was saved by Aseylum was when he and his father arrived on Mars, however the angle is off, and the airship used was, for lack of batter term, not appropriate for a Mars-Earth voyage, so I always interpreted it as the last resort of a caring father to save his son from certain violent death, so as a consequence Dr.Troyard death was violent in nature and also expected;

furthermore the wiki doesn’t specify how his father died and we were never told that he was sick or how he become sick, we just know that he died somewhere after Slaine and Seylum first meeting, and than Slaine was given to count Cruhteo at Saazbaum request (which again I have my own Hdc why, but was never explained why Saazy didn’t take Slaine in himself), why didn’t they sant him back to earth is still a mystery too.

So yeah pretty confusing, and tbh isn’t as I said that important for the plot, but I’m a sucker for cause and effect and backstories (they are the best fuels for fanfics), so it kinda bothered me and had me spin it in my head like a rotisserie chicken; so here is what I think happened.

The writers wanted to make Aldnoah a more predominant force, a bit like the geass and the codes in code geass, but for some reason (probably budget) they cross out the idea half way through the first season, and here come my hdc for what could have happened

Dr.Troyard come to mars when Saazbaum did, and was allowed to research the Aldnoah drive, both because of Saazbaum and because the emperor too wanted to know more, but due to his son death he had to go back to rule so he didn’t have much time or free hands and resources to do that, so Dr.T was kinda free labor easy to dispose off; sure if we want to humanize the man a little more he probably saw himself in Dr.T as he too was once a curious scientist, more curious about the whys than the how this force could be used to kill people; either way Dr.T and Slaine were allowed to stay on Mars, while Sazzy returned to his castle orbiting earth.

Than probably Dr.T dig a little to deep, found out something that could revolution the way Aldnoah was used, and maybe even save the whole of mars from it cartian death without earth resources, but this something would have come at a high cost.

From here the things can go in three ways

1. The cost was of the imperial family and was their monopoly over the Aldnoah and its secrets, or this discovery in the hands of the general populace might lead them to end up just like the first civilization of mars

2. The nobles of Mars and the counts need the war, they aces to Aldnoah is directly connected to the war, and the war is connected to the resources on earth, if mars could develop its own resources thanks to Aldnoah than they lose all their links to power

3. Both of option 1 and 2

Regardless of the reason Dr. Is not stupid and knows they will come for him, so he compiles his research and hides the key in the pendant he leaves to Slaine (which allows me to give more importance to that pendent than it already had, I love that pendant, I love how it symbolizes hope for Seylum and Inaho, while it’s literally a chain tight around Slaine neck that he can never break free from) and than helps Slaine escape through the ship, that however malfunctions and ends up in seylum baths and we know how this story goes from here, but both the emperor and the counts now have a reason to keep Slaine around, the emperor knows the boy must be the key to Dr. Research or backup, and the counts think he knows to much to be let back to earth, and before they can get rid of him Cruhteo takes over as guardian so all are “Well, that solves it, the kid will die sooner or later”.

Season 1 will kinda remain unchanged but if S 2 where up to me here Dr.Troyard would come up and it come be anything from the power of god to horror and this is why all the imperial family is bloody damn bonkers, the aldnoah is getting to their heads like a parasite that is draining them of their life force until it will kill them and turn into a zombie, so now comes int question if using aldnoah his or not ethical or is it a sacrifice a rule should be ready to make for the wellbeing of their people, will Seylum be ready to be turned into a cosmic horror for the sake of mars? Maybe if pushed enough; would Lamarina? Unlikely

Either way I think there could have been so much more done with Dr.T plot and Aldnoah

(my dream where because of Aldnoah drive Slaine becomes a comic horror set on conquering earth for the preservation of Mars is still one of my fav outcomes) and also it makes more sense considering the ending when Dr.T research come back just as a weird throw back and dig at Slaine, probably that was always the ending, earth and mars making peace and Dr.T finding was what sealed the deal for the HEA, but without proper development of that subplot it kinda meh.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

What is your favorite Aldnoah side effect hdc?

[syn4k]

[talking about my favorite characters] okay so THESE two come in a bonded pair and if i think about them too hard i start taking poison damage

[sapppphho]

katniss is given grace for being a seventeen year old girl thrown into war (as she should!), but gale is never given any grace for being a seventeen year old boy who suffered the exact same way she did all his childhood and then chose to walk into the fight for whatever he had left. gale didn’t have a cinna or an effie; he didn’t see capitol people growing to care for katniss, he saw them walking her to a death match and then dolling her up as a child bride who got pregnant at seventeen. he had three younger siblings and a mother to take care of, he was hunting way before katniss. he’s the revolutionary people want katniss to be when in reality her story is about the effects of war on innocents.

[daisywords]

not everything in a story has to or should be "realistic" but in my opinion there's a level of illusion that should be maintained, and I think that's the actual problem that many people try to pinpoint with the "unrealistic" criticism. Dialogue shouldn't be written like an actual transcript of human speech, but should contribute to the illusion of a real person speaking. A character is a tool of the story, not a narrative, but we're trying to maintain the illusion that they are a person. Worldbuilding should exist to serve the story, not to be a perfect simulacrum of how every aspect of nature/society etc. would actually play out for real. But there should be the illusion that it could be real, that organizations and systems would operate in such a way, that people might behave in such a way.

in conclusion: "Is this realistic?" <<wrong question. "Does this serve the illusion or disrupt it?" <<now we're talking

[runasulienadanika]

come on😀mention my favourite character😀i am well adjusted😀and will act very normal😀i assure you😀