#and I'd need to round the data out

[aureutr]

I love it when I fire up my Star Wars randomizer and it opens immediately because that means that someone else is using it and I'm happy it's useful ^^

[demilypyro]

I've been feeling demotivated about fighting games lately.

While I was going to locals regularly, I couldn't see myself improving. Rather, i'd been losing sleep and putting myself in stressful situations just to lose my fight money and go home. And I still wasn't making a dent even in my friendlies.

My talents are pattern recognition and adaptation. But my methods don't help against human opponents. They can switch tactics on the fly. They understand the game's mechanics and frame data better than I ever could. And if I don't have them figured out by the middle of the second round, it's over.

I can't work with knowledge. I need feelings. But I can't get that from fighting games. So maybe fighting games just aren't for me.

[captainsophiestark]

Nothing Wrong With Emotions

Platonic!Anakin Skywalker x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for Fictober 2024! Requested by Anon! Hope you like it, Nonnie, and thanks for being patient through the delay!

Fandom: Star Wars

Day Twenty-Six Prompt: "You were the first."

Summary: Anakin's at the beginning of the worst two days of his life. Thankfully, his best friend is there when he needs them, and they're more emotionally intelligent than some of the other Jedi.

Word Count: 4,903

Category: Angst, Fluff

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

My mind whirled as I marched through the halls of the Jedi temple, the length of my to-do list rapidly creeping towards overwhelming. This war had been going on for far too long, and even worse, there'd been a growing disturbance in the Force that had been nagging at the back of my mind for days. I kept glancing outside, expecting to see dark storm clouds through the windows to reflect the storm I felt coming with every fiber of my being, but the bright blue sky was unobstructed.

Something was wrong. I knew it, and so did the entire Jedi Council and then some. But none of us could quite figure out what.

Until anything more concrete could be figured out, we all still had mountains of work to accomplish. I needed to visit Jocasta in the Archives, check out five different books, bring a few to the Creche, meet with Master Windu-

My mind and body came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the hallway like I'd physically run into a wall. My to-do list, the lurking low-level disturbance in the Force, and just about everything else in my mind had just been shoved violently to the side by the feelings being put out by my best friend, who was apparently just down the hall from me.

Anakin Skywalker and I had met when he became a Padawan. We'd crossed paths regularly enough and spent enough time together that we'd bonded quickly, and now, he was probably my closest friend in all the worlds. As a result, I could usually read and feel him through the Force better than anyone else. But with the knot of negative emotions he was putting out right now, I was betting a Jedi in the Outer Rim would be able to notice.

I frowned, dropping my data pad on the nearest table and turning to go after Anakin. I had no idea what could've caused the hornet's nest of energy my best friend was putting out, but there was no way I was going to go about my day and ignore it.

I had to jog a little to catch up to him, since he was walking away from me. I caught him at the end of one of the Temple's hallways, seemingly headed for the hanger. I grabbed his elbow before he could round the corner, and he whirled on me with such a fierce scowl that, had it been anybody else, I would've flinched.

"Ani? What's wrong?"

Anakin practically growled, his shoulders up by his ears and his jaw clenched. Still, he had the gaull to say, "Nothing."

I scoffed. "My friend, I've never seen a more obvious lie in my life. I know you much better than that, although you apparently don't think so."

That negative air around Anakin instensified. He was clearly hanging on by a thread. I glanced around the hallway, and although no one else was around, I knew from first-hand experience that the Jedi Temple wasn't always the best place to process strong emotions.

"Alright, how about we go somewhere else?" I suggested, gently taking Anakin's arm again. He kept his glare trained on me, the swarming storm still clearly raging, but he didn't try to pull away from me either. Gently, slowly, I led Anakin away from the Temple, and thankfully, he followed.

"Where are we going?" Anakin barked, the first words he'd managed since his lie in the hallway. I glanced back at him with a smile.

"A place that's good for processing shit. Just trust me for a minute, okay?"

Anakin didn't respond, but he didn't make a move to leave, either, and the dark cloud centered on his chest didn't get any bigger. We climbed into my speeder, and after a short ride, parked at the top of one of the tallest buildings on the planet. The sun had just started to set, painting the sky in beautiful colors that didn't match the lurking darkness at all.

I hopped out, and when Anakin didn't immediately follow me, I motioned for him to do the same. After another moment's hesitation, he slowly climbed out of the passenger seat, glaring doubtfully around us.

"What is this place?" he asked. His tone had lost some of its gravel, which was a relief. I smiled and spread my arms wide, gesturing to the rooftop before us.

"This is paradise," I said. "A smaller, separate loction to the Coruscant Gardens. I made friends with the gardeners here a while ago, and they agreed to let me come up here and hang out whenever I wanted, as long as I don't hurt the plants. It's become my favorite place to be when I need... space. From the rest of the Jedi, to process things, from the war and the senate and whatever else... for anything, really."

"What do you mean, when you need space from the rest of the Jedi?"

I turned back to Anakin with a raised eyebrow. The set of his shoulders alone told me he knew exactly what I meant by "space from the Jedi", but they also told me he might not be in the mood to be teased about it.

"Well... you know, sometimes the Council and everybody can get a little... stuffy. And they taught me a lot of great techniques for managing my emotions, but meditation takes a lot of fucking practice and doesn't always work for me, especially in the middle of a storm. So, I've found other strategies for when the regular Jedi ones don't work. And from the energy you're putting out into the world right now, I thought you could use something like that."

Anakin frowned, but he took a few steps closer to me, away from the speeder. I gave him a tentative smile.

"Are you saying meditation doesn't work for you? That... that what the masters have taught us doesn't work for you?"

I shrugged. "A lot of the time, it does. More and more the more I practice. But sometimes, no, Ani, it doesn't work for me. The feelings are too strong or get too built up, and I need another way to bleed off steam before the kettle boils over, so to speak. Like this!"

I turned from Anakin and raised my hand, using the Force to start the program I'd put together up here years ago. To the side of the garden, in the empty parking space next to my speeder, a plate shot up and into the air. I used my blaster to shoot it before it could come back down, and I grinned as the thing shattered to pieces. Then, I turned back to Anakin with a smile.

"It's more satisfying to smash the plates by hand, but I can't do that from a distance, and I wanted to show off."

Anakin just stared at me for a long moment. To my relief, his surprise and confusion seemed to be taking over some of the space his anger had been occupying before.

"Are you really telling me that when you're angry... you come up here and smash plates?"

"When I get angry enough, yeah. It's not a fix, though, it's just a pressure vent. When I really feel like I'm going to lose it—like when I heard about what General Krell did, and all I wanted to do was go kill him in his cell—I come up here and let some of that rage vent off. Then, it's easier for me to use other, less destructive strategies to manage things. But Ani, I don't think I need to tell you, trying to mediate when you feel like your blood is boiling and every nerve in your body is screaming? It's... not the easiest thing to do."

"No," he said, voice grim and the scowl back on his face. "No, it isn't."

"So then let's smash some plates! Come on, I promise it'll help. And then maybe you can tell me a little bit about what's wrong. Talking usually does wonders for strong emotions, too."

Anakin looked dubious, but we'd been through so much together that he trusted me enough to try.

Anakin moved into the space I'd specfically designed as a sort of protected area for plate-smashing, picking up the first thing he saw. He held it up, but paused briefly and turned back to me. The rage swirled around so strongly, I swear it almost manifested physically around him.

"And you won't tell the Council about this?"

I snorted. "No! Fuck the Council! Smash some plates!"

Anakin huffed, then didn't wait another second to do as I said. He moved like lightning, grabbing one plate and then another, hurling each one into the ground. He kept going, getting more and more worked up, the anger rising up and around him as he let it all out. He became more and more frenzied, then slammed one last plate into the ground so hard that parts of it became dust, before letting out a long, loud scream.

I just watched him, being careful not to let my emotions bleed out through the Force too much. Watching my best friend clearly in so much pain was tearing me up, but I knew Anakin would hate the pity, so I needed to move past it for both our sakes.

Finally, as the scream died out with the last of Anakin's air on that breath, he slumped forward, breathing hard. Still, his shoulders were lower than his ears for the first time since I'd found him in the hallway, and that roaring wave of anger had quieted a little, being joined with frustration and sadness.

I gave him a second, then slowly approached when I was sure he wasn't going to reach for another plate. I put a hand gently on his shoulder, and when he turned to face me, I found him with tears streaming down his face and the same fierce scowl he'd had earlier.

"Anakin," I said, trying to strike the right balance of calm and firm. "Talk to me."

"I can't," he ground out. "I can't talk to you!"

"Why? I swear, everything stays between us. But the plates are just the first part, Ani. The second part is talking things out and finding a way to move forward-"

"No!" He'd been shaking his head for most of my speech, but he broke in when he couldn't take it anymore. "There are things you don't know, that I can't tell you!"

I studied his face, trying to figure out what exactly he might be referring to. I had a couple of theories, but Anakin still didn't seem to be in a good place to respond to theories, so I decided to take a different approach.

"Okay... is there any part of what's bothering you that you can talk to me about? Even something smaller, that's been part of the buildup? Or you could just tell me about the feelings without talking about the cause."

Anakin took a few deep breaths, clenching his jaw as he took heavy breaths in and out. He looked to be at war with himself, so I just concentrated on putting out calm, non-judgemental energy and hoped for the best.

Slowly, Anakin straightened. I let my hand drop back to my side, but I didn't take a step back. A lot of the manic energy had disappated from Anakin, but none of the emotions had yet.

"Master Windu doesn't trust me. I- I found the Sith Lord."

"What?" I cried, leaning forward and grabbing Anakin's forearm. "Anakin, are you serious?"

"It's Chancellor Palpatine."

I just blinked at him for a few moments, trying to take that information in. Then it was my turn for some fear and negative emotions to take root in my chest.

"Shit. Are you sure? Of course you're sure. Oh, this is the absolute worst-case scenario. Anakin, did you tell Windu? What did he say? If he's not going to do something, we-"

"He's going to confront the Chancellor with Masters Fisto, Tiin, and Kolar. I told him that the Chancellor is very powerful, and that they might need my help. I offered to go! But he refused to let me come. Told me to sit and wait for their return in the Council Chambers."

I frowned again, my mind racing a million miles an hour. I didn't let go of Anakin, and I could feel just how carefully he was watching me. Knowing that Windu and other Jedi had gone after the Chancellor was simultaneously scary and a relief, but in both cases, it meant he was currently someone else's problem. I could put that on the backburner to pay attention to my best friend, at least for now. I took a deep breath and shook my head.

"You think Windu told you to wait in the Council Chamber because... he doesn't trust you?"

"I know it. He told me himself I'd earn his trust only after he returned from confronting the Chancellor, only if I was correct."

I narrowed my eyes and huffed. "That's fucking ridiculous."

"You sound angry."

"I am angry. You've been here for a long time, Anakin, and you've done so much for the Order and for the galaxy as a whole. If Windu has a problem, he at least could've put it a little more diplomatically."

"I don't think I've ever seen you angry before."

The shock of that statement was enough to shake me out of my thought. I met Anakin's eyes with surprise.

"What? Yes you have."

"No, I haven't," he said, a bit of irritation in his voice. Thankfully, it was the kind I normally heard from him whenever we bickered, not the more serious kind. "Jedi don't get angry, just like you, and just like Obi-Wan, and just like every other damned Jedi but me!"

"Anakin... what? Of course Jedi get angry! Do you not remember me threatening to kill Kenobi when he threw out the Outer Rim delicacy I tracked down while we were out there because 'he thought it looked spoiled'? I literally almost punched him in the nose!"

"No, I don't remember that!"

"Kriffing hell! You must've been training or something with Ahsoka. Whatever. The point is, Anakin, everybody gets angry. Everybody humanoid, at least! It's emotion, which all of us have. Even Obi-Wan, who I'll admit, is remarkably good at not letting anything get to him."

Anakin just stared at me, looking absolutely thunderstruck, so I continued.

"We also, like you and everyone else, get sad and scared and exhausted and irritated. And happy and excited and impatient! It's normal to feel, Anakin. I'm sorry if somebody made you believe otherwise."

He started shaking his head, slowly and then much more quickly and frantic.

"No. No, that's not the Jedi way. The Jedi aren't supposed to feel, we aren't allowed to feel."

"If that were true every last one of us would've been kicked out years ago! Anakin, you can't control your feelings. You can control how you handle them, and that's what they're always trying to teach us at the Temple. But there's no amount of training or pratice or meditiation or whatever that can just magically make you not feel anger, ever again."

I saw Anakin's mind working as it processed what I'd just said. He seemed to accept it, at least, before I could feel his attention shift in the Force, and his fierce scowl returned.

"Even if you're right, no amount of 'handling' would help me."

"What are you talking about? Come on, Ani, I'm your best friend! If you can't tell me, who can you tell?"

"No one! I already told you, no one! I'm... I'm running out of time..." The sharp storm of anger changed abruptly into one of fear as Anakin's attention shifted away from me and back to the city. "We've been here too long. I need to go, now!"

He started taking off for the speeder, and it took my brain a few moments to catch up to his 180 degree shift. Once it did, I ran after him.

"Anakin, stop! Please, talk to me!"

I caught the edge of his robe and pulled it back. The moment I did, Anakin whirled on me, his expression a storm that threatened to bowl me flat. Still, I didn't flinch, and I didn't give up an inch.

"I can't be here! I'm running out of time! Padmé-"

He stopped abruptly and scowled even deeper, but the name was already out of his mouth.

"I knew this had something to do with her! Come on, Ani, talk to me. What's wrong? Is she okay? Is she mad at you? Is somebody coming after her again?"

"It's... It's none of your concern!"

Anakin whipped around again, pulling his robes out of my grip, but I called after him.

"If something's wrong with my good friend and my best friend's wife, then it's absolutely my concern!"

That got Anakin to stop dead in his tracks. He turned back around to me, his expression wild as the wind from up here blew his hair. I just stared back with a raised eyebrow.

"How do you know about that?" he demanded. I scoffed.

"Anakin, please! I'm your best friend, and the two of you are absolute shit at hiding it! I literally walked into the kitchen on one of the Cruisers and found you guys making out."

"When?" he demanded, sounding indignant.

"You'd know if you'd had an ounce of awareness! You were so busy making out with your wife that you literally didn't even notice I was there. I turned around and walked out because I did not want to see that for another second, and you clearly wanted to keep it a secret on some level. But this was months ago."

Anakin looked like I'd just shoved him over. I put a hand on my hip and raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to recover from his shock enough speak again. When he'd just about got there, I continued.

"Now seriously, Ani. If something's wrong with Padmé or your future child that you conveniently forgot to tell your best friend about, I want to know about it. I want to help you."

Anakin blinked a few more times, then finally sighed. He took a few steps towards me (and away from the speeder), his shoulders slumping.

"I... I've been having these dreams. I haven't been able to tell anyone but Padmé about them, and she keeps telling me they're nothing. But they weren't nothing when I was having dreams about my mother."

I closed the rest of the distance between us, putting an arm around Anakin as I eased him into sitting on one of the garden's benches, close to the edge of the parking lot. His hands shook as he held them up to emphasize his speaking, and the second he noticed, he shoved them between his legs.

"I keep having nightmares about Padmé dying with our children, as she's having them. There's something very wrong, but she won't believe me, and I can't talk to anyone else about it without telling them about our relationship. It's on me to save her. The Chancellor seemed to know, seemed to want to help me... and I don't know that I have another choice anymore."

"...Anakin. You just told me yourself that he's a Sith lord."

"But what other choice do I have?" he cried, exploding again. "I won't lose her. I won't let her die! I was too late to save my mother, I won't be too late to save Padmé. Master Windu says he doesn't trust me because he can feel my fear, but how else am I supposed to feel?"

I nodded, taking a deep breath as I put my hand on Anakin's shoulder again. He was seething, but he tolerated it.

"Your fear is valid, Anakin. If I had recurring nightmares about losing you, I'd be sticking to you like glue on missions. And that's without the factor of children! But if you starting taking rash, drastic actions as a result of that fear—like trusting a Sith lord who's been lying and manipulating his way through the Jedi for years—it might just cause exactly what you're scared of in the first place."

"So what are you saying? You're telling me I should do nothing, too?"

"No! Just... take a few deep breaths, and make your decisions with as rational a head as you can. From what I remember you telling me, Anakin, the dreams about your mom were actually visions happening in real time. And I'm sorry to remind you of that at all, but that means they were different than your dreams of Padmé. I saw her walking around the senate chambers today. She's not already dead."

Anakin took a deep breath as, to my relief, my words seemed to manage to get through to him, at least a little bit. When he spoke again, it was at a normal volume despite the words being a bit strained.

"That doesn't change the fact that she's in danger. Just because she's alright for now doesn't mean that she won't be-"

He broke off, clenching his fists and squeezing his eyes shut tight. I moved my hand from his shoulder to take both of his hands in mine.

"Has Padmé gone to her doctor lately? To check out whether anything is wrong? She's due soon, isn't she?"

"Yes. She's due soon. I don't know if she's been to a doctor since the dreams started. The Jedi... things have been keeping me from her recently."

"Well, okay then. For Padmé's sake and your own, let's sit up here and take a few deep breaths. I know that sounds like what everyone else in the Order's been telling you, but we did smash plates earlier, so I'm hoping you'll trust me. Then, once we're acknowleding the fear but making it take a backseat on decision-making, we can go see Padmé. We'll talk to her, and go see her doctor, just to check everything out and make sure it's all okay. I'll go with you to maintain the 'friendship' cover as much as possible. With all of the technology and medicine available to us, Anakin—especially since Padmé serves in the senate and you're a Jedi—any complications should be completely treatable and preventable. Then, once you're feeling alright about that, we can make a choice."

Anakin narrowed his eyes, then raised an eyebrow at me.

"And what choice is that?"

"If you want to stay with Padmé, we stay with Padmé. If you want to talk to Windu, we work together and come up with a plan for you to talk to Windu. Hopefully, by the time we get back to the Temple, he and the others will have defeated Palpatine and we can put all this behind us. But one way or another, we can practice and work out a conversation starter for you to discuss with him why he doesn't trust you, and how that makes you feel. It might not change his mind, but I really think it'll make you feel better to get it out there and talk about it with him. Calmly, though. As much as you might want to yell at him, and as nice as it might feel in the moment, it'll only make you worse off in the end. Which is why we come up here to smash plates first."

To my immense relief, that last part made Anakin crack the smallest of smiles. The knot of fear and lingering anger was still there, but much smaller, and confined to just a part of my best friend. That overwhelming knot I'd noticed earlier was almost entirely gone.

"I... think I like that plan. At least the first part of it."

"Good, then let's go do it. Just remember, Ani: I'm here for you. Odds are good that you're going to feel really scared and really angry again as we deal with the next few days. And that's normal. We just have to practice managing it, and I'm here for you whenever you need help with that."

"...Does that mean I officially get access to this place whenever I want it?" He gestured to the garden and smaller plate-smashing station around us, and I smiled.

"Sure. But you're gonna have to do some shopping for cheap plates before you come up here again. Believe it or not, I'm just about out."

"Seems like a pretty low number of plates you had up here. Aren't you supposed to be more prepared than that as a Jedi Knight?"

"Plate shopping was on my long list of errands for today. But... I ended up having more important things to do with my day."

The two of us shared a smile, and although Anakin's was weak, it felt like the sun shining down on us to me. We weren't out of the storm yet, but looking at my best friend in that moment, I knew we were both going to get to the other side okay.

****************

"Oh... my stars."

I grinned, my feeling echoing Obi-Wan's as the two of us and Ahsoka were led into the delivery room. Padmé laid in the bed, a baby cradled in her arms, and Anakin stood beside her with the other baby in his.

After Anakin and I's long talk on the roof, and after getting through some of the immediate aftermath of dealing with Chancellor Palpatine being a Sith lord, he'd finally decided to share his and Padmé's "secret" with Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, along with Rex, Cody, and a few of the other clones we'd been to hell and back with. Literally all of them had already known, but everyone other than Obi-Wan pretended to be surprised for Anakin's sake, and the knowledge meant a lot more to all of us now that Anakin had voluntarily shared it with us.

Even after all the doctor's appointments and support from his friends, I could feel the weight that had lifted from Anakin's shoulders with Padmé sitting in bed now, tired but healthy, their babies just as healthy and delivered in their arms.

"Wanna hold her? Her name's Leia," Anakin said, gently holding the baby in his arms out to Obi-Wan. He looked about knocked flat, but gingerly held his arms out all the same.

"Of course I do."

Anakin smiled, gently putting Leia into Obi-Wan's arms. Ahsoka headed over towards Padmé, and I was about to follow her when Anakin caught me, taking my arm and gently pulling me aside.

"Do you have a minute?"

I nodded, following Anakin as he led me just out of the room and into the hallway. I raised an eyebrow, but I could tell from Anakin's energy and the smile on his face that this was nothing bad.

"I have something to ask you."

"Okay... spit it out then. Dad."

Anakin's smile was enough to outshine the sun, and it warmed my heart to see him like that.

"Well, Padmé and I talked, and... since both of our lives are so dangerous, and since I may or may not be able to continue in the Order depending on how well we can continue to hide our secret..."

I scoffed, but Anakin ignored me.

"We wanted to make you the honorary, support-parent of the twins. I'm not going to let anything happen to us, but if something ever did... we want you to take them. And either way, we want you to be involved in their lives as... a mentor, of sorts."

"Anakin... I don't need a title or an official invitation to do everything I can to be in their lives. Frankly, not even death could stop me. Since Force ghosts exist and all."

Anakin grinned. "I know that. But I want you to have the title anyway. I mean, who better to help guide my kids through life than the person who made sure I didn't let my fear ruin any shot at actually seeing them?"

"...Surely someone else has told you that emotions are a normal, healthy thing for you to be feeling?"

"Believe it or not? You were the first."

I smiled, then moved forward to wrap Anakin in a tight hug. He didn't waste a second returing the gesture.

"I would be honored to play a role like that in the twins' life, Ani," I said, not letting go of him as I spoke. "Thank you for trusting me with it."

"Thank you for helping me get a hold of everything. I love Obi-Wan, but... he never managed to teach it the way you did. I don't know what would've happened if you hadn't found me when you did."

I squeezed Anakin tight, letting the seriousness live on for another moment before pulling away with a grin.

"Are you kidding me? I'll always find you, whether you want me to or not. I'm your best friend. You can't get rid of me, and you can't hide anything from me. And don't you forget it."

Anakin scoffed and rolled his eyes, but I could see how genuine the smile on his face was. I clapped him on the shoulder and took a step back towards the delivery room.

"Come on. I'm honorary guardian of the twins, and I haven't even met them yet. Obi-Wan's been holding Leia for long enough, it's my turn now."

"Good luck getting her back. Did you see the look on his face? I think I'm going to have to force him to let her go."

The two of us shared a laugh as we reentered the delivery room. The past few years of the war and the past few weeks especially had been brutal, on all of us. And there was still a lot of work to be done putting things right. But some very, very good things had come out of it, too, and no matter what came next, we'd always have each other.

****************

Everything Taglist: @rosecentury @kmc1989 @space-helen @misshale21

[twig-tea]

2024 Tumblr Top 10

tagged by @lurkingshan here and @neuroticbookworm here, thank you both! This really reminds me that I need to do a real pinned post at some point.

If you want to generate your own, you can use this link! I used the link to find the posts but wrote this below because I thought reflecting on the posts would be fun.

My GL rec list (covering everything through to Feb 2024), which I'm very happy about taking first place. If you want GL recs, check that out first, and then feel free to browse my #GL recs tag.

The admittedly shady post from October calling out the director of the Addicted Heroin Thailand adaptation for (a)making weird choices and (b)defending them as artistic. But I stand by my anger about this. Censorship is not an aesthetic!

The non-novel-spoilery reaction post to episodes 1 & 2 of Love In The Big City which was also from October, but which honestly stands up for my reaction to the whole series. What a gift of a show.

A quick pitch for Akaya is in Love with Hiroko from July. This one hurts! I was so ready to cheerlead for this show and did several times, but the penultimate episode made me wary and the finale really upset me, to the point where I didn't end up writing about the finale, so I'll take the chance here: Don't make a show about two self-aware lesbians, one who has been comfortably sexually active for years and one who is super horny for her, and have them get together as adults and yet be celibate for a year out of "respect". Is the message that sex between consenting and enthusiastic adults is not respectful?! GTFO. For the record I can be respected with orgasms, thank you.

The episode celebrating the messaging in the finale of Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo from November. Glad that this is here between the previous entry and the next two, because this is a good balm for the pain. LFtCoT landed the ending and gave us all a giant hug while doing it!

The list of things I was thinking about at the end of Wandee Goodday ep3 from May. Another disappointment for me. The things this post shouts out are still things I like about this show, and reading it again is a reminder of where the back half let the first half down (not taking seriously some of the things we were told to take seriously in the first few episodes).

An early post about Love Is Better the Second Time Around from March. Another show that did not land everything, in this case because it felt like it tried to shove in a complicated conflict in the last two episodes that they didn't have time to handle. But I still love those early episodes and all of the interplay between Miyata, Iwanaga, and Shiraishi.

My clown theory for Every You, Every Me also from October, which ended up being correct! I've never been more happy to be right, I liked this reveal for the show so much.

In February I wrote this thesis about the state of Thai BL looking at data from 2022 and 2023, which I have been meaning to go back and update since I think Shan as usual was feeling the start of the wave and we needed more data to see the change actually play out in 2024. I now no longer feel (as I did in this post) that things haven't changed, I do think they have this year. But I need to crunch the numbers again to prove it to myself (and everyone else) though. Stay tuned!

In July I did a round-up post about the various theories surrounding Century of Love, and whether Vee and Vad were the same person. Turns out San did wrestle with this as I'd hoped but the show itself felt like it lost steam and copped out around this, unfortunately. At least we'll always have fox demon Offroad and grumpy old man Daou's collarbones thanks to this show.

Special shout-out to @lurkingshan because two of the posts above are answers to asks she put in my inbox that spawned project posts. Shan knows what the people want to hear!

Tagging @italianpersonwithashippersheart @benkaben @ellsieee @colourme-feral @pigglepiephi @impala124 no pressure tags and apologies if you've been tagged already!

[ahgasegotarmy116]

hello 👋🏽 I wanted to ask if you could make a Drabble from bang-able where the oc and jungkook are both watching a movie and she fan girls over one of the male leads. I feel like it would be so cute to see Jungkook jealous. I understand if you can’t but I would love to see this, thank you!! :))

Haha sure! Let me know what you think 🤭

P.s. I read through this to edit it once so please ignore any mistakes 😅 ~~~~~~~~

"Okay what's wrong?" I ask, pausing Island right as a perfect frame of Cha Eunwoo pops on screen that it's almost difficult for me to take my eyes off of when I turn to address a very pouty Jungkook.

"Nothing" he grumbles and I sigh, tossing the remote on the coffee table and turning my body to face him. "If it was nothing you wouldn't be grunting and groaning and the other various array of sounds that you've no doubt been making just to get my attention"

"It's nothing alright" he denies again and I roll my eyes and grab the remote, giving up on talking it out when he's clearly not going to tell me unless I order him to.

"Suit yourself" I mumble and press play again, watching as Cha Eunwoo's character Johan gets out his sword while it illuminates his feature with a blue glow, leaving me biting down on my lip to stop the smile that's threatening to show.

I hear another scoff at that and notice that all of these reactions have been perfectly timed with when he's on the screen and so I chuckle.

"What's so funny?" he asks, no doubt frowning at me. "Oh nothing" I say, giving him the same answer he's given me and slouch back against the couch, amused with finding out the real truth.

"No what is it?" he asks again, acting completely hypocritical but I'll give in this time. "Your programming is showing" I tease and he scoffs again. "Yeah? And what of it?" he asks, crossing his arms over his chest leaving me smiling, the jealousy so apparent it’s laughable.

"It's just funny when that jealous side of you comes out to play" I say and he rolls his eyes, throwing the blanket off of him that we had been sharing, he doesn't need it for warmth or comfort but he knows that it makes me happy when we do it but it's always cute seeing these little signs of protest every once in a while.

"The amount of jealousy Ava added to your programing was perfect" I say while tossing the blanket to the side as well since I'm warm enough. "Well I'm glad you're having fun" he says under his breath leaving me turning to face him again and placing a hand on his cheek to bring his gaze back to me.

"He's just an actor in a drama Jungkook don't worry, it's not like I'm in love with him or anything" I reassure him but he's clearly not convinced. "Then why have you subjected me to watching it not once, not twice, but three times all the way through? Sounds like obsession to me" he argues, a slight pout on his lips very evident.

"I can watch this on my own you know. You don't have to watch it with me every time" I chuckle and he looks at me rather confused. "But you like it when we watch stuff together" he says, thinking he might've input that data incorrectly.

"I do but I don't want you to have to suffer through it" I say and he sighs and turns his face away from me. "It's just my programing. You can change it so you can watch in peace. You could even make it so I would tell you that you guys would be a perfect couple if you'd like" he says sarcastically.

I love the jealousy feature so much.

"No no that's okay, I don't mind watching it with you like this" I say and turn back to do so leaving him sighing and getting up to walk away. I pause the drama and I follow after the pouty baby, finding him way more enticing than the show right now.

"Where are you going?" I laugh when I see him flop down on the bed, watching the ceiling fan go round and round. "Figured I'd let you fangirl in peace" he says with a big sigh again. I chuckle and climb on top of him, straddling his lap with him immediately grabbing my hips to keep me steady.

"Come on don't be like that" I say, leaning down and kissing him to which he responds and I sigh into it, feeling even more attracted to him when he gets like this. It makes me feel wanted and that's something I won't ever take for granted.

"Like I said" he mumbles against my lips between kisses, "You can reprogram me" he finishes off and let's his hands wander up and down my torso but I sit back and look down at him again. "I like you just as you are" I say while running my fingers through his hair and he sighs.

"Good, because that's a feature that would take a long time to uninstall" he chuckles and I frown at him. "Some reprograming takes longer than others?" I ask, this being new information to me.

"Well it's a personality trait so those ones take a little bit longer to change compared to something like you begging me to fuck you harder" he teases and bucks his hips up into mine making me gasp a bit, the motion catching me off guard.

"Noted" I say after clearing my throat to break that tension he had tried to build. I try to get off his lap but he uses it as a change to put me on my back and hover over me.

"Speaking of fucking you harder you haven't touched me all day. Did you wanna play for a bit?" he asks, giving me a soft kiss and trailing his lips down my jaw and neck, sucking on that spot that gets me going.

"You still jealous?" I chuckle and he growls and bites down on me, "I don't want to talk about Father Johan when I'm trying to spend time with you" he growls and I giggle, leaving him scoffing and getting off of me, choosing to sit on the foot of the bed.

"Fine I won't talk about him anymore" I say, sitting up and taking up the space next to him. "You sure?" he asks and I nod but he rolls his eyes, clearly not believing me. "I won't talk about him anymore tonight. Promise" I say, holding up my pinky and he wraps his around mine and we press our thumbs together to seal it.

"Right after I finish up this episode" I say, slipping my hand out of his and trying to book it out of the room but he grabs me by my waist and throws me back down onto the bed, not letting me get away after that little stunt I pulled.

"No more" he growls again, hovering over me and giving me a glare that gives me a fluttering feeling in my stomach. "Okay fine no more" I say and run my finger along his jaw.

"You wanna take charge tonight?" I ask, the current mood he's been worked up into being a perfect transition for that and he smirks at me before giving me a reply that couldn't have been more perfect.

"It's cute that you think you had a choice tonight"

BANG-ABLE Masterlist

[artbyblastweave]

You ever play prototype and/or infamous?

Neither, although given the dual zombie/superhero fixation both should probably (sigh) Go On The List. Viewed at a distance, Infamous, as a franchise, has always been interesting to me because of how it's a really prominent data point when it comes to working out the strengths and weaknesses of an open-ended superhero game. My understanding is that in contrast to Prototype (where you're mostly The Special Boy) it's a setting that wants superhumanity to be large enough to act as a demographic- it wants to be a world where people besides the player are empowered, and lots of them- but the need to standardize enemies that you'll encounter again and again means that this rounds up to there being functionally a handful of power types that a whole hell of a lot of people receive, rather than the beautiful myriad of X-Men or Wild Cards. Likewise, the need to operationalize the protagonist's powerset as something that can grow or expand over the course of a playthrough leads to extremely generalist interpretations of electrokinesis, pyrokinesis, and so on, rather than the hyperspecific, limited implementations of the same found in other cape-punk media. And of course it was produced in that mid-2000s era where character dress and presentation in an original IP could be superhero-coded, iconic, but not too expressly superheroic, because we want to be able to take our juvenile power fantasies oh-so very seriously. For very understandable production reasons it mostly appears to add up to the exact kind of superhero setting that isn't really my cup of tea even if it's perfectly reasonable on its own terms. I'd love a game with its basic formula that's much more willing to embrace conventional superhero aesthetics, with the requisite worldbuilding to make those aesthetics and conventions remotely plausible within the fiction- we've all read Worm, you know what I mean by this

[couldtheysurviveshibuya]

Woah, dude, chill. I wasn't trying to be passive aggressive at all. If I was then genuinely, my bad.

I wont lie part of that message WAS just an excuse to claim about the voters (teasingly mind you) but what I was primarily going for was genuine concern for ya and this blog. Like you said I dont got the information or the contacts for all the super secret top shelf stuff, I'm like a soundcheck reaper, only a little higher on the ladder than a wall reaper dude.

I'm one of the rubes they're moving to Sapporo in a year or two so they're having me and a bunch of others spend time in all the different parts of tokyo and other major cities to get some familiarity with all the cities streets in real life first hand and rub elbows with a bunch of the staff in each one in case of emergency and they need to borrow for it.

While doing the rounds in Shibuya the other day, culling noise, collecting recently deceased to fill player slots, the usual, I overheard some pretty important looking reapers and that coffee dude from the game(? I think????) talking about the blog. I didnt catch everything, but it seemed dicey from what I could tell and figured I'd give you a heads up just in case (and also maybe complain about the voters a little lol.) I dont wanna dox myself but I'm from a nowhere city in a nowhere state in the midwest rust belt so aint a lot of noise or souls typically and this blog has been a good laugh and think most days while killing time. Its pretty neat getting a look behind the scenes and at the bigger picture and all the top shelf secret stuff, most reapers I've met still only know whispered rumors about the simulation thing.

...Sounds like you got everything handled though so..... Good? I guess??

...Seriously though, you good, dude? You uhhhhh...... kinda went from 0 to a 100 real fast... You wanna talk about it...? Stress will kill ya, man.

...Also should I be worried about Atarashi sniffing me out since I called her annoying and she's apparently smart enough to know english? Be honest, theres like one more week till they shuffle us all to different cities again and I need to know if I should be worried for my life and start hiding behind some of the other transfered reapers the rest of the week!

(OOC: naaaahhhhhhh you're good dude, dont worry about it. Thats just how the character chirps, aint ever gonna take it to heart lol)

Ohhhh you're one of those nymphs. I mostly just do my job and work on my laptop most of the time while ignoring the incessant chirping from the other Reapers. Didn't realize they were grabbing newbs from all the way across the ocean, Sapporo's UG is gonna be weird if they're staffing it with foreigners. ...Then again, if you're a soundcheck Reaper that makes sense. Americans have good music, imo. Hope you're enjoying Tokyo, it's as good as it's ever gonna get here. Sapporo wishes its UG was like Tokyo's.

Important looking-Reapers and a coffee dude... Coffee dude... You mean Hanekoma-san? Dang. I don't really know all the details regarding him (above my paygrade, that's for sure) but I think I heard Kariya mention once that Hanekoma-san was from a higher plane. Those types of folks are usually all sorts of freaky (exhibit a: our wonderful Composer) but Hanekoma-san seems pretty chill. If there was any sort of problem I'd like to think at least someone would tell me. You said they mentioned this blog???

Hanekoma-san, if you're reading this, can you tell me if you, uh, like it? And maybe give me a discount at your cafe for all the good work I've been doing? Cough Cough Hint Hint Wink Wink?

I probably don't have anything to worry about. Probably. Ultimately I only really answer to Yashiro and the Composer, and neither of them seems inclined to make me stop. As for the rumors about the Simulation software, I dunno how much I'm allowed to say about what my job usually requires me to do Transposing stuff for. Like you can probably guess it involves data analysis, but mostly I just sit around getting minor tasks done while everything renders. If you're really curious about what Transposers do and why, I'd recommend talking to Shinjuku's Transposer, Kaie Ono. You've heard of him, right? The guy who basically made the RNS? He's a total weirdo but when it comes to tech stuff in the UG he's a genius, he's probably forgotten more about the Simulation software than I've ever learned. Which means he'd have a better idea of what he can and can't tell you. Just uh. Bring a phone with you. Ono doesn't really do the talking thing for whatever reason.

I'm not going to apologize for overreacting, that's how I stay alive. The world is cutthroat and if you don't act fast and forcefully then you'll lose more money than you gain. Maybe it's an old habit from my previous residence but considering how insane my Shibuya coworkers are it's not worth the effort to try and adapt when everything is already working in my favor (well, almost everything).

(And stress did kill me, thank you so much for bringing that up.)

Don't worry, everyone calls Atarashi annoying, you aren't special. You're already in danger from her, but like, come one, this is the Reaper's Game. You didn't seriously think you were ever truly safe from anything, did you?

I'm still kinda pissed at you, but since you've proven that I do actually have a positive audience among other Reapers I guess I'll forgive your attitude, this time. If other Reapers are supportive of my goals here, that'll really help as evidence for when I finally showcase this project to the higher-ups. Not that I'm going to say what my goal in showcasing it will be, since apparently some of the higher-ups are reading this, and I want it to be a surprise! For now, let's just focused on keeping things running smoothly, shall we?

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive (please let me know if you've seen the preprint the article mentions. I'd like to read it and I'm having a bit of trouble finding it--and it's not linked in the article... XP)

By Greg Toppo

New working paper is believed to be the first to link weaker memory and diminished ‘flexible thinking’ skills to the pandemic’s academic downturn.

New research may help educators and families zero in on exactly how the COVID-19 pandemic caused such an unprecedented academic slump, suggesting that the culprit lies in something basic and crucial: children’s ability to think, remember and problem-solve.

And here’s a twist: The same core difficulties are bedeviling teachers too.

The findings, contained in a new working paper, are believed to be the first to identify brain changes as an explanation for why students have suffered, both inside and outside the classroom, since the pandemic drove millions out of the classroom.

Nancy Tsai, a Harvard University psychologist who studies the effects of stress on executive functions and who is the study’s lead author, said the new findings offer the first evidence to help us “understand the ‘why’” of the pandemic downturn — “what is actually causing all these issues that we’re seeing and talking about in the news.”

The paper, from the private tutoring firm MindPrint Learning, examines the cognitive skills of students nationwide and finds that, simply put, over the past several years, kids’ famously ever-changing brains have changed for the worse.

Since the pandemic’s onset, students across all ages and economic levels have begun to demonstrate weaker memory and “flexible thinking” skills — those represent the mental bandwidth needed for multitasking, shifting from one activity to another and juggling the day’s demands. But for a few groups, such as younger and lower-income children, the changes have been more profound.

They also show that their teachers’ brains are weaker in almost identical ways, which could help explain high rates of frustration and burnout. They suggest school districts have their work cut out for them if they want to keep their best employees on the payroll and returning to the classroom each fall.

Understanding the ‘why’ of pandemic downturn The data come from a large, widely-used assessment, the Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery, developed in 2013 at the University of Pennsylvania. It consists of a series of cognitive tasks that measure subjects’ accuracy and speed in several major cognitive domains, including working memory, abstraction, sustained attention, episodic memory and processing speed.

MindPrint has administered the assessment periodically to its clients over the past decade. The most recent rounds totaled 35,000 students and 4,000 teachers in 27 states.

By most measures, U.S. students are suffering. Last year, NAEP scores showed the average 13-year-old’s understanding of math dropping to levels last seen in the 1990s and reading levels dropping to 1971, when the test was first administered.

More recent research has shown that while older children are showing encouraging signs of academic recovery, younger kids aren’t making the same progress. Many students who weren’t even in a formal school setting when COVID hit are already falling behind — especially in math.

The Penn assessment found that children who attended elementary or pre-school during the pandemic and who are now 8 to13 years old showed the largest declines in memory.

“Younger kids haven’t really developed a lot of these core cognitive skills,” Tsai said. “It hasn’t solidified for them, either through development or just through practice in the classroom. And so younger kids are more vulnerable to these pandemic shifts.”

But students across all age groups showed worse flexible thinking, which researchers now theorize contributes to lower academic performance — as well as challenging behaviors.

Tsai said kids from lower income backgrounds were more vulnerable to these changes, specifically in verbal reasoning and verbal memory, than their higher income peers, with bigger declines in verbal scores, which are highly correlated with academic achievement in all subjects.

Adults in the study had similar declines in both memory and flexible thinking, possibly explaining higher reported levels of teacher dissatisfaction and low morale.

Nancy Weinstein, MindPrint’s CEO, said weaker flexible thinking isn’t necessarily a problem for experienced teachers who have developed strategies to cope with stressful situations and can modify plans on the fly. But those with less experience may be unable to change gears when lessons go astray or students act out in class. That may lead to higher teacher burnout.

Across the board, teachers’ skills suffered in areas such as verbal and abstract reasoning, spatial perception, attention and working memory, but they saw the greatest losses in verbal memory and flexible thinking.

“If we care about that, we need to know how to help them,” Weinstein said. “And there are some tried and true things you can do.”

She said schools should consider sharing data like this with teachers so they can understand that their frustration in class might not be due to students alone. That could make a big difference, she said, in “their willingness to put in the effort to change, as opposed to saying, ‘Why bother?’”

For students, Weinstein said, offering them more opportunities to practice skills with breaks and rest between study sessions could help. Schools should also consider “scaffolded memorization” techniques that break learning into chunks and address each individually.

Could such techniques help students — and teachers — regain a measure of pre-pandemic skills? Weinstein suggests the answer is “Yes.”

“The environment will matter, but certainly we can regain some of that if we do the right things,” she said. “And we know what the right things are to do.”

Crystal Green-Braswell, coordinator of staff wellness and culture for the Little Rock School District in Arkansas, said offering the Penn assessment to teachers and staff has helped many think more deeply about their work — and about their own thinking.

“People who have had the assessment will say, ‘Now, you know my processing speed is slower — y’all are going to have to give me a moment,’” she said.

That’s a huge change in a profession in which most workers have been asked “to take ourselves out of the equation and just get the work done,” Green-Braswell said.

She sees offering such insights to educators as part of “rehumanizing” teaching. “When we provide this kind of assessment and we provide this kind of space for folks to actually get to know themselves, we are humanizing this profession and helping people to realize, ‘You play a role. You play an active role. You matter.’ ”

[consumerofsoup]

HAIIIII I want to say hiiii hi I love your GG fics so much!!!! If I may request a fic, could it be possible to see something with Anji and Asuka (The original or R#). I am very fixated on the ship rn and there’s next to no fics, I’m starving out here. I’m writing my own but I want to read something from someone else. Looks at you with my big round autistic eyes

HIHIHIHIHI!!!!!!! I'm so glad you enjoy my GG fics :333 though royalblue / chaosdaryl / what have you is obviously my favorite to write, what drew me to GG (besides the music lol) is just how amazing the cast is!!!!! you have so much potential with literally anyone, which ofc just fuels the ideas, which then fuels the fics and so on etc. etc. (below cut because I ramble a lot)

Anji is someone I want to write more anyway (got an anbai fic maybe not in the oven, but in the stage of assembling the ingredients??), so I'm completely down to write a fic with him and Asuka!! honestly, and I say this as a comedy enjoyer, the potential is so much funnier with Asuka R#?? and that's probably who I'd end up writing??

like Asuka R# is doing his thing on Earth, collecting data or whatever while Asuka gets to do his radio show, then he stumbles along Anji doing something or another??? and then they get talking because yeah they kinda sorta know each other, but because Anji is a good people reader, he gets the vibe that yeah, this is Asuka, but it's Asuka R#, ya get me??? blablabla Anji figures he can get more info out of this Asuka, they both fall in love, then they kiss yada yada yada. and I mean tbh you could add good ol' Asuka into this by being an old flame of Anji's if you wanted to. basically what I'm saying is Daisuke cooked so hard that the potential fics are limitless.

UGH AND I GET IT. you are talking to the resident royalblue addict... they've been rotting my brain since August and because GG isn't that huge of a fandom (at least on ao3 compared to others) and you got a rarepair on top of that, you get starved... when you don't have a freak (me) writing regularly, it's TOUGH. and then it gets boring re-reading your own stuff!!!!! I get it sosososososososos much!!!!!!!!

THAT BEING SAID: kinda in a rough spot right now and writing to post a fic isn't something I'm capable of right now (unless dual rulers actually has royalblue in it, which is besides the point), so if you have any further ideas / tid bits / specific plot points, I am so down to hear them while the fic marinates!! :33 also I need to do a lotta research on Anji so I can get his voice down to a point I'm satisfied with, y'know? so that's another thing in the way of progress.. BUT!!! DO KNOW THIS IS A 'WORKING ON' FIC BEING ADDED TO THE GOOGLE DOC. AND I ALREADY HAVE AN IDEA BREWING.!!! AGAIN, I'M SO HAPPY YOU ENJOY MY FICS AND I HOPE I CAN SATISFY WITH THIS ONE WHENEVER IT GETS DONE!!!!!!!!!

[dgrailwar]

... unless she survived...

... mmh...

... for- for the record, Miss Ganesha- Blanca isn't a creepy crawly, she's a really cute and pretty snow-white moth, you'd know her unmistakably at a glance... though I suppose it doesn't matter if she didn't survive...

...

... I need to get my mind off Lord Pretender, he's not my Servant anymore- hey, Miss Ganesha? I noticed, way back when we tried to spar and you blasted us with lasers, but you give off a real different sort of energy than I'd expect from a Divinity... are you perchance a Pseudoservant?

Er- sorry if the question is overly prying or anything I'm just trying to shoot the breeze cuz the idea of being the container for a Saint Graph is super cool to me cuz then I could so stuff like fly or shoot lasers- like what you were doing- how often does that even happen- not that I think I could be a Pseudoservant, I just think it'd be neat if it did happen- [unintentional social awkwardness energy]

Round 12, Day 1 - MoonCancer

"Bugs are bugs are bugs, dude. Anyways... Trust me, the pseudo-Servant thing isn't all it's cracked up to be. I mean, sure, on paper it seems cool. Here's divine power and wisdom, go get 'em, right? Thing is, once a god foists their responsibilities onto you, the pressure meter gets turned up to a thousand. I mean, luckily Lord Ganesha's a nice guy for a god, but apparently the intermediary for this sorta junk is far from it... 'MoonCancer', gimme a damn break..."

"Ah, my bad. Ranting. And plus, I should shut up on that last point... 'speak of the devil and she shall appear', or whatever."

She sat back down by her computer, her fingers idly clicking in and arranging complex inputs as she spoke.

"Anyways, having god-like powers is great, but being human means that you're generally in 99% less dangerous scenarios with 99% less pressure, so there's ups and downs. Plus, I was already a god-tier Spiritron hacker even before Lord Ganesha, y'know?"

MoonCancer is in a 'Clue Encounter'!

'Clue Encounters' are risk-free. Simply focus your attention on one specific thing, and you'll gather information towards it!

One option, however, is a dud. And the dud isn't always obvious. If the dud option wins out, then you get nothing useful. At all.

Ganesha's advantage is that she gets an extra choice! Additionally, if you're feeling spicy, you can try to balance the polls ('See Results' not included) in order to maximize the information learned! However, if you fail, you'll just get the result of the winning option.

[askasummoner]

Glad to meet with you two again! Thank you so much for helping me with my research!

I’ve cross referenced my data with past studies made on the bears of Tokyo, and things are coming up well!

Bears may eat a lot of food at times, particularly the species that go into torpor in the winter, preparing by eating much more than normal in the fall. (it took a lot to keep ashigara full)

Bears are VERY protective of their young. Should anything come between a bear and their cub(s), they will give in to killer instinct to keep their cub(s) safe. (Barguest does absolutely everything in his peer to care for Kenta)

A bear’s heft indicates their health - whether or not they’ve found enough nutrients. (Ashigara eats a LOT to keep himself well and is nice and round. Barguest isn’t nearly as big, indicative of not finding as much to feed himself as the former bear; this state is further explained by poor living conditions)

W-whoa, you got all that just from watching us!?"

"Well, I guess you really do know your stuff. As much as i hate to admit it, you hit the nail right on the head."

"You got that right! This body is made for sumo, and you have to eat right if you want to keep it up."

"They're right on another thing too Barg, you need to start eating more."

"I told you that you should come join me for chanko more often, it'll fill you up in no time."

"Thank you for the offer, but I still got to be taking care of Kenta, and you know it ain't going to end well having my bad luck around a boiling pot."

"Don't worry, I'll figure something out, we get some good grub every now and then."

"Psst hey. You seem pretty smart, you think you could help me with some homework?"

"I thought MC was 'elpin you with that? Were you not paying attention again?"

"What! No! I was totally paying attention!"

"It's just I don't always get to see them, and I'd rather spend time doing something fun than some boring studying."

"Just help me out here, I just can't let them think I'm flunkin out on them. I'll let you do some more research and stuff if you want."

[scoops404]

if you don’t mind me asking, how do you get so much writing done in a day? i saw your post yesterday about getting like, 3k words done, in the span of a few hours and that’s just incredible to me - i write as well, but can only really get 500 words down on my wips on a good day.

Writing fast is absolutely a muscle that can be trained. However, it's also something you have to work up to. Just like sprinting/jogging. You wouldn't go from being out of shape and never exercising to running a marathon, you have to slowly build towards it.

For me, I think of things in units of 500 words because I know because of the sprint bot in discord (I'm in a few discords where we have this channel -- you can "sprint" for 15 minutes and then you input your word count and it tells you how many words you wrote) that I can usually average between 500-700 words in a 15 minute sprint.

So in my brain, it's easier to just go oh, I need to write 3K words? that's 6 sprints, or maybe even 5 if I'm really speedy.

The other trick to writing fast is twofold: 1) you need to already have a clear idea of what you're writing and 2) you need to be bursting at the seams excited to write that scene

Knowledge and enthusiasm will carry you far! When I say you need to know what you're writing, I don't mean every single detail to the point that it sucks the fun out of writing. I mean, you need to have a clear "goal" of that scene. For example, "Dream and George fight in the kitchen and it's all subtext" or "Dream makes George mad but George won't admit that, two steps backwards" and then go to town. That's enough for me, but might not work for someone else.

Another trick I've learned about myself recently -- not sure if this is the case for everyone else -- I write better when I have to stop at a fixed time, aka i have to leave to drive to work every morning at 7:30am so my most productive fifteen minutes is 7:15am - 7:30am because I'm usually already in the flow by then AND I know I'm going to have to stop. I can usually see more of the scene unfolding before me and I'm trying to get it all down before I have to go. That might just be a me thing. Unclear if it's universal, lol.

I read a book once about how to write faster which I didn't find very helpful overall, but it did mention that you need to be tracking how fast you write so that you have data to analyze. Which, fair. I did that for a bit and it didn't really illuminate anything for me, but I'm already happy with my speed of writing and the quality of the words. I feel like I have to edit less because I get the words I'm looking for more often in the first round. No point in putting down sloppy and bad words just to say you did some, unless it's a push just to get it done when you know you're going to need to re-write that section later. That's another rant though. My point it, I'd rather do the best quality words on the first pass as I can.

That's a lot of information. Clearly I just needed to write about this lol, but I hope it helped in some regard. I'm always happy to chat if you have more questions :DDD

[imaginationnook]

Rip Tide (pt3)

Rough Reception

"Whatever you say, blondie. See you later."

------

After dealing with the situation in the water, Abi decided to catch one more wave before heading in to dry off ahead of meeting the boys. While riding her final wave—unbeknownst to her—someone's bitter yet intrigued gaze followed her. Maxi couldn't help but stay curious about Abi, despite their earlier clash. He had a feeling this wouldn't be the last time he saw her—something was coming, and he knew it.

Abi's POV After riding my last wave in, I made my way over to the tower, greeting the three older lifeguards, who complimented my surfing. I let them know I'd be just outside if they needed me.

Throwing on my dress and sandals, I checked on the drones to make sure they were connected to the system inside the tower. I ran a quick flight check to ensure the controllers were responsive and that no technical issues would delay things before Hoppo rounded up the rest of the boys in blue.

I couldn't help but still feel a bit irritated by that lifeguard with the chest tattoo. He was clearly chatting when I first saw him, but got all defensive with me? Well—this'll make a good example later. Yep. I'll use it to explain my drone watch system.

5 PM – Closing Time

Once the clock hit 5, Hoppo stepped out of the tower and told me they were packing up. He said I could observe how the other boys handled pack-down according to their beach positions.

I watched two lifeguards in front of the tower drive their buggy into the garage beneath, collecting the equipment trailer. The others along the beach split up to gather the blue boards, red and yellow flags, and nearby signage. The buggy cruised along the sand collecting everything, then performed what Hoppo called a "tricky drop-off"—a careful reverse of the trailer into the garage to avoid getting stuck or damaging anything.

Seeing the boys in blue making their way back to the tower, I completed final preparations for my introduction. This moment—this first impression—had to be perfect. If it wasn't, I'd need more than just data and skills to convince them this trial could work.

Hoppo gave the lifeguards time to dry off and chuck on their jackets before calling them all to the tower for a briefing.

"Alright boys," Hoppo began, "I've called this meeting because today marks an important shift for us."

Some of the lifeguards looked confused. Harries and Kerrbox sat silently beside Hoppo, clearly more informed than the others.

"Bondi Rescue's going to face a few changes this year. We've got new rules and precautions coming into effect to improve water safety here at Bondi. As part of that, the minister is sponsoring an initiative proposed by an incredibly talented young woman, who's joining us as a specialist lifeguard. But I'll let her explain it herself."

At Hoppo's words, Harries knocked on the front glass window of the tower, giving Abi the go-ahead. He came down to the side door to let her in.

"Boys, welcome Bondi's newest recruit! Come on in, love—introduce yourself," Kerrbox called out warmly.

Abi's POV "Hey fellas, I'm Abi D'Cruz. I've been recruited by the minister here at Bondi to lead the innovative beach safety trials I proposed a while back—and to assist with general lifeguard duties."

I introduced myself confidently, locking eyes with each of the men. My gaze lingered a moment longer on one blond in particular. He looked... surprised. Maybe even irritated. I smirked slightly—he noticed, and his frown deepened.

I went around shaking hands with each of the boys in blue as they introduced themselves and their beach nicknames. When I reached my favourite from earlier, he stuck out a stiff hand.

"Maxi," he said curtly.

Before he could pull back, I gripped his hand tightly, leaned in slightly, and added with a smirk:

"Looking forward to working with you, blondie."

I gave him a taunting wink before moving on to the bigger guy beside him—the one who'd been chatting with Maxi earlier when I rescued that teen boy.

"Will," he said, shaking my hand warmly.

As I neared the end of the group, a lifeguard stopped me.

"You're from New Zealand, right?"

"Yeah, I am. How'd you know?"

"Well, a fellow Kiwi always knows that accent," Harrison laughed.

Now that I listened closely, I could hear the accent in his voice too.

"Wow—I thought I'd be homesick pretty fast. But I think I'll manage now that I know there's a fellow Kiwi here."

After chatting with Harrison and meeting the rest of the team, I figured it was time to show them what I was really here for.

"If you'd all like to follow me outside, I'll introduce you to what my role at Bondi will be this year."

The lifeguards followed me to the front of the tower. I grabbed the tablet and one of the drone controllers on the way. Handing them to Hoppo and Harries, I jumped up onto the buggy for a higher view.

"So, you're probably wondering: who is this chick, how did she become a lifeguard, and what on earth is a 'specialist lifeguard'?

"Well—I've trained in multiple emergency response fields. I'm certified to treat patients at a level close to EMTs, to improve survival chances before emergency vehicles arrive. I've got my jetski licence, and I've earned my lifeguard certification."

"That's yet to be seen," Maxi cut in. "You can't just become a lifeguard 'cause you passed requirements somewhere else. This is Bondi. There are standards you've got to meet."

"Of course," I replied, coolly. "I'll be training under Hoppo to adapt to Bondi's conditions, and I'll be joining you in the Ironman race to prove it." I locked eyes with Maxi before continuing.

Powering up one of my drones, I addressed the group.

"I'm here to trial a real-time drone surveillance system to help us identify distressed patients—faster, and more efficiently. This isn't about replacing your work—it's about improving visibility in rips and blind spots."

The older lifeguards looked intrigued. The younger ones... not so much.

"Please show us what this thing does," Harries said, Kerrbox nodding beside him.

"Absolutely. We have two drones—'Guide' and 'Guardian', or Kaiārahi and Kaitiaki in Māori. These drones are weatherproof, long-range, and made to withstand Bondi's worst wind."

I powered up Kaitiaki and opened the aerial view on the monitor.

"So... just flying cameras?" Maxi muttered. "We already have cameras on the towers."

I ignored him.

"These give a bird's-eye view. I've programmed them to auto-fly to pre-set distances based on historical water level and surf data. Lifeguards in the tower can manually direct them to monitor key rip zones."

"But how do we know where someone actually is?" Hoppo asked. "From the drone's angle, it's hard to pinpoint location."

"That's where the real tech kicks in. The tower operator just taps on the screen where they see the swimmer in distress. The system calculates their coordinates, distance from shore, and highlights the location instantly."

I tapped on a surfer near South Bondi. A banner popped up on the screen, giving distance and precise coordinates.

"Then the operator radios out: 'South end, 50 metres out, unconscious patient, surfers needing assistance.' Fast. Specific. No guesswork."

"Just today," I added, "while I was out for a surf, I rescued a teen boy who'd lost his board and was cramping. The boys in the buggy didn't spot him. What if I hadn't been there? If they'd missed him for just a minute longer?"

I glanced at Maxi—he knew. His face confirmed it. And, of course, he was frowning again. You'd think he has a permanent frown built into his face.

"That's why the drones are here—not to take your jobs, but to enhance your ability to do them. Seconds can be the difference between saving a live patient... or recovering a dead one."

My tone softened.

"We all know how it feels to wish we'd seen someone earlier. This system helps us do that."

Hoppo stepped in.

"Alright, fellas—you heard her. We're trialling this tech over the season. The minister's watching, and so am I. Let's give it a real go."

The guys murmured amongst themselves, a mix of interest and uncertainty. But I felt hopeful. I think I got through—at least enough to make them curious.

"Let's make this work. I'll be your eyes in the sky... and a hand on the sand."

"Alright then," Maxi said, muttering just loud enough, "Let's see what you've got... 

Aero Princess.

------

Thanks for reading Act 3 of Rip Tide!

We now know Abi's nickname — what do we think?

I'm honestly loving how this is progressing. Abi is a little sass queen, for real! The tension between Maxi and Abi keeps rising. Will she be able to prove herself within the week and meet the Ironman standards?

Please make sure to like and leave a comment to support Rip Tide, Abi, and Maxi! ❤️

[heliumspirals]

Rite of The Nine Week 1 - Spire of The Watcher

Rite of The Nine is exactly the type of content this blog exists for. Bungie is taking a pass at their aspirational content and making an accessible sub-mode with rewards for eager gamers to get their paws into, and this means more weapons for me to talk about. I'll be doing these on a week-by-week basis, so stay tuned for Prophecy and Ghosts Of The Deep in the following weeks. Full breakdowns on all four of the unique weapons in alphabetical order below the cut.

LIMINAL VIGIL

The sidearm doesn't have proper API data sorted out on D2Foundry, so we're getting a slightly scuffed light.gg setup instead. I'll personally be chasing the rolls of Headstone/Desperate Measures and Attrition Orbs/Rimestealer for Pve, and Lone Wolf/Kill Clip for PvP. Your main challenge on Liminal Vigil is going to be keeping your groupings tight and on-target, so your barrel and mag will be put to good use cranking the stability, as you have a naturally vertical recoil pattern already with 94 out of the box. I'm usually not crazy about Rimestealer, but having access to another potent utility perk next to it is quite the boon. This will make for a strong pairing with Rimecoat Raiment builds, but if you're less specialized, Headstone/DM is just a solid workhorse for general purpose play.

LONG ARM

Long Arm hasn't really changed much from its first iteration, but it is uniquely qualified to take advantage of Gravity Well. This isn't exactly a good enough utility to justify building around, however, so use it as you would any other aggressive scout. Subsistence/Dragonfly will eat crowds alive, as Dragonfly damage inherits the weapon scaling, and aggressive frame scouts have naturally high scalars. Redirection, Rolling Storm, and Explosive Payload are all worth considering in the fourth column, but the third is a little less exciting, with your only real PvE perks being Rapid Hit and Dual Loader. If it wasn't for Gravity Well, I'd probably be recommending Dual Loader, but slowing down your reload speed so drastically kind of ruins the convenient interaction the rounds reload enables. (EDIT: Apparently this isn't a thing anymore and I missed that. Dual Loader or Subsistence is now entirely your preference, they're pretty equally good in my eyes.)

TERMINUS HORIZON

Redirection/Killing Tally High-Impact Frame Machine Gun (Dragonfly in the third column is neat, but like. Dude.)

WILDERFLIGHT

I am admittedly pretty biased towards double fire GLs and swap DPS options in general, but I'm in love with this already. Wilderflight has a favourable element for surgematching with powerhouses like Tomorrow's Answer and Edge Transit, and a perk pool deep enough to make Rhulk proud. Repulsor/Destab, Reverberation/Destab, Demo/Vorpal, Demo/Lead, Auto/Frenzy if you're a hipster, it's harder to find bad combos for Wilderflight than it is to find good ones. My dungeon luck disagrees with me on that, but I digress. This is the second best void special GL to drop from a dungeon, and that's only because of how absurd Attrition is on area denial frames. I will not be shutting up about Wilderflight for at least the next three years.

REVISITING TERMINUS HORIZON BECAUSE THERE'S SOME OTHER STUFF, I GUESS

Do I think you should use anything but Recon/KT on it? Absolutely not, you're insane for suggesting as much. Do I have a responsibility as an educator to tell you about what you could, hypothetically, be using instead? Yes. Dragonfly/Rolling Storm is a potent combo for building bolt charge, but would be worse than a similar roll on Watchful Eye. Triple Tap/Target Lock (or High-Impact Reserves, or Precision Instrument) is a potent combo for sustained DPS if you're busy scrolling brainrot with your other hand, but is better on Retrofit Escapade. Demolitionist/Killing Tally is pretty solid, I'll allow that one. Eddy Current is a bad perk. Envious Arsenal doesn't need to be on this gun.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Broadly, the refreshed Spire weapons are all strong options. Only two of them are genuinely competitive options, in Terminus and Wilderflight, but that has less to do with the others being bad and is mostly because they're either outclassed or not doing a role that needs to be done. Long Arm is a strict downgrade to Unworthy from Sundered Doctrine, and Liminal Vigil is outclassed as an Attrition Orbs tool by the free Multimach available at Banshee. Farm up a Wilderflight if you like doing boss damage and your opponent is too far away for you to hold LMB with Lord of Wolves, and farm up a Terminus Horizon because I told you to.

[ask-nurse-curly]

Hey Curly!

I would appreciate if you did tell her. I was going to but then I thought… it sounds better coming from you, I think..? It's selfish of me but, well, I'm no good at this sort of stuff. I either say nothing, or blurt it out and stumble over my thoughts until my words are little but tears and nonsense. It does feel better that you know… I've never been one for secrets, and I trust you with mine as you've trusted me with yours. :)

I don't fault you for keeping your phone. For all the stress it's probably brought you, it's also a connection to many worlds. There's hardly anything that doesn't need you to be connected to every other person, ever, to work, and if you're not online for a day then people think you've been kidnapped. And who knows, the leak could've happened on any phone or computer-! You've done your duty in warning people - you're not trying to hurt anyone! Have you had flack from your other contacts..?

Also, do you know where the messages are being leaked? I'm not gonna look!! But I am curious… we have to hope the readers aren't malicious, nor that they're our employers (current and former). I don't think I mind my past being public… almost makes it easier this way. Not having to dredge it up on the rare occasion it comes up. I mean, I knew when I told you that other people could see it so don't beat yourself up, OK? I took the risk in telling you and, though we've been speaking for a while, you still could be anyone - not that I think that, but there's no evidence to say you're you other than your word (and visa versa). Even if there weren't a strange data leak, you could have shared the message intentionally and it would still be me to blame!

I do wonder who knows what though. Someone sent a clock last week. An analog with a bell - one of those traditional ones - but the time was wrong, and it was stopped. It wasn't addressed to anyone in particular, and when security opened the box it started ticking. Next thing we knew, it had been remotely detonated before it had a chance to do anything, so we don't know if it was ever dangerous to begin with. I may be paranoid but I wondered if the display was a date: 16 minutes past 5. 5/16? 14 days from now. Or a coincidence - yet I can't rule it out. I'm going to apply for a temporary leave permit… and hope they understand that I'm… concerned.

-xoxo, Pheobe

p.s. I didn't peg you for a hiker! Where did you go? Who did you go with?

Hello Pheobe,

That's okay, no worries, I can tell her on your behalf. I'm not the smoothest of talkers either but Anya is patient. I'll see when a good moment would be, we've both been a little busy.

Hah, that's true, the leak could've happened on any phone. It's strange to me that it happened on mine, but that's because it's the only point of view I have. And no, no flack, just. People were upset -- probably still are -- and I can't fault them. And no, I don't know where it's all being published. From what I gathered it might be some kind of forum? Though it's also been called a blog... I don't know.

Thank you, Pheobe. It helps to hear.

That's...very concerning. I don't want to cause you unnecessary stress by fretting about it, but I hope that leave pans out. You didn't sign up for this, you shouldn't be there if you aren't 100% certain of your safety.

The hike we did was up north, in the Canadian Rockies. It was...god, well over a decade ago now. How time flies. I think it was, what, the summer after the first year at uni, before our hospital rounds began, so a few of my group mates and I took off while we could. It was a good time, I don't think I'd swing something like this now.

Stay safe,

--Curly

[subwaytostardew]

The sprite work looks amazing as always, you can really tell how much time and effort went into the designs!! It's always a treat to see an update, here or on Youtube. Also, I love how we got a Ginger Island update in Winter and a Winter update in Summer. What's next on the agenda?

I didn't realize the Ginger Island update was in winter... How funny!

(Just to make a disclaimer... Updates may be slowing down from here since I have work/life stuff pulling me away from modding and Kade's route is rocky as she is trying to find a new place to live and barely supporting herself as-is with two jobs.)

As for next on the agenda... I've been meaning to make an updated checklist of things we'd like to finish before the mod is in a state where I'd consider it ready for release- so I might as well update on it here! I probably forgot some things and more things will probably break, but off the top of my head- this is what we have on our intinerary.

▷ Station Steward Thylak

To-do list

Station repair events: These will probably be shorter and not too elaborate (by our standards... They'll be more like vanilla with its 1 minute long events).

Schedules: The pathing broke. I need to figure out how to make Emmet stop sleeping in the middle of the ocean on a Friday night. I'd also like to make new schedules for when the station is built but I need to finish the events for those first so they a flag to activate upon. Cilan doesn't have a schedule at all since he spawns in the station and the game would crash if I tried to load a schedule for him without locking it behind the station repair events.

Fixing events: We need to go back and replace some of the event animations with new commands. The Pokeball effect and battle animations broke. I'd also like to try to edit some other event aspects to be less janky and more concise (the intro events pain me). Emmet's 8-heart event will need to be heavilly edited regarding this... You know how long that is.

Emmet's 10-heart event: Ingo has his done... It wouldn't be fair for him to not have one either! Aside from the station repair events, this is probably the most important event on our to-do list but also... the biggest work-in-progress. We have a lot of asset creation to do (Nimbasa... A dining car interior... Date visuals...) as well as figuring out the script. I have an idea for the main themes and what happens in the event, we just need to figure out how to execute it. We're mostly stuck on the actual... date montage part... We'll figure it out.

1.6 festivals: I felt bad enough having my original plan to have Emmet partake in the Ice Festival's fishing competition (he got sensory overload 😔... coding-wise it's just not possible for me to make him fish in a festival) and then 1.6 added not just one but TWO more fishing festivals for him to feel bad about. He likes winning more than anything, but I don't think Emmet is particularly good at fishing. Eelektross isn't either by Eelektross standards; together they make one average fisherman. I'd still like to have them comment on them (but ahhh.... Sad Emmet...). As for the Desert Festival- they for sure need to partake in that. We just need to scope out coordinates and make dialogue. Maybe make custom shops for them too? (Not too familiar with that... I haven't figured out the whole... Custom items and shops thing yet. Need to do that.)

Year 2 festivals: Apparently custom NPCs don't default to their first year of festival data and will not be present at succeeding festivals unless if I specify festival data for year 2. That means we have to make another round of festival dialogue for all the festivals! Yay... These will probably be shorter/closer to vanilla lines compared to the year 1 festival dialogues.

12-Heart events?: I know I said I would probably leave marriage events for a later update (alongside platonic routes) but... I don't think they're really "complete" as NPCs without marriage events. They're only romancable for now and there isn't really much incentive to marrying them otherwise! The events I have in mind (beachside dinner with Emmet, exploring the tidepool area with Ingo) aren't too elaborate and more just set-up for what I have in mind for the "conclusion" to their story/relationship development. I have a tendency to procrastinate so I might get sidetracked making these later. Besides, I've been thinking about the date ideas from earlier a lot and I miss coding events (my favorite part of modding… As you can probably tell… It's fun to me.)

Ingo's daily dialogue: I've been lagging behind when it comes to reorganizing the lines in Ingo's daily dialogue file to be more cohesive... It's like +20 pages long... I reorganized Emmet's but... Ingo... There's just so much...

Other daily dialogue: Elesa and Cilan have little to no lines (Cilan has ONE). We'd like to make them somewhat worth talking to even if we will be adding in their events/full routes in a later patch.

Marriage dialogue: This actually breaks if all the keys aren't filled out, so we will need to write more lines for them there. Should be easy enough.

Ingo's letters: Kade wrote drafts for them, but I'd like to polish them before release (more train terms!!! and edits for cohesion). Proofreading for Ingo is just a drag... I've also been thinking about giving him matching odd-heart events for if you try to break his heart donate his gifts to the museum.

Side/Passenger events: There's still a few events that we have in the drafts as well as event ideas that should probably be included in the main release as it elaborates more on passenger interactions+worldbuilding. Currently, I'm coding an epilogue of sorts to the Pierre/Saloon event storyline where you get to listen to Ingo infodump in an event conversation with Abigail. There's also another partially finished event of a double battle between submas that would start the Maru storyline which would include more worldbuilding around Pokemon in the valley and end with Maru helping them with care- hence why they make a stop at the clinic on Tuesdays! Buuut... That event broke thanks to 1.6. Oh well. I'll get it done eventually.