#future (i.e. maybe my next day off) ^^;

[kudamono94]

So I saw your tags on that post with Dark Might and first of all. Real. Secondly... care to share some of those thoughts™ you have about him? 👀

First and foremost, sorry to Anna in advance but, while I myself would also most likely have been scared for a short period of time seeing Dark Might in action, that's the key phrase there - a SHORT period of time - for you see, what with my terrible taste in fictional men combined with my barely being 5'ft, had I indeed been in her situation this picture pretty much sums up how I would be acting around that bastard fr (feel free to slap some blush stickers on there for reference btw)

I'm so sorry orz - if it's any consolation, you can blame characters like Zapp Brannigan from Futurama and fucking Ryuji Yamazaki from King of Fighters for this XD Without them, I would not only have not developed a taste in awful men BUT I would also not have a penchant for big/muscular dudes✨who could lock me in a choke hold so I would be at their mercy at any given time or straight up just pick me up and run off with me- who said that(⸝⸝๑ ̫ ๑⸝⸝⸝)

No but seriously tho, going back to what I had mentioned before in my prior post, have you seen Gollini's character design??? I seriously want to know if this guy can crush watermelons with his thighs alone - if he can, that means he's a keeper imo :3 Oh - and his personality is garbage too - that's also a huge selling point imo! Yeah, after seeing his trash personality and smug attitude, I would be lying if I said he didn't have me hooked by the half hour point, and it was only after seeing him interact with Anna that sealed the deal - it was at that point I knew I was fucked bc I'm a sucker for the villain with yandere tendencies/no sense of personal space x innocent heroine/heroine stuck in a bad situation kinda dynamic and this movie 100% delivered on that end imo

Now don't get me wrong, I adore the Anna x Giulio ship (in fact I almost cried seeing them in the end, it was very touching) - however, I would be lying if I said I wasn't low key shipping Anna x Dark Might throughout the film, and Dark Might himself didn't help, again, with this whatsoever orz

That said, as I have mentioned on yet another post regarding this bastard on my blog, in the spirit of being nice, I would be more than happy to take Anna's place both in the video as well as just in general - like in the movie✨ Given how often those employees of his kept screwing up, I would be more than happy to lend him my services - whether that be cooking, or cleaning, or providing him with company in case he gets lonely - what happens after that happens idk ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Sorry you had to read this mess of an answer anon, but for now I hope my ramblings got across at least some of my feelings regarding Dark Might - ngl I wish we could've seen him get worse :3

Also, I think he is just as hot without having to look like All Might, especially since imo I think both versions of him are big, buff guys - this is why threesomes and selfcest exist~

[rileyslibrary]

pretty pretty please 🩶

imagine ghost is forced to speak at a school’s career fair because he’s out on medical, and reader gets sent with him to chaperone. (i.e. make sure he doesn’t scare any kids to 💀. and also maybe to feed him some slightly manipulative praises so he stays in a good mood lmao)

———————————————————————

You’re both standing in the principal’s office. The school was kind enough to offer you a private room since kids are a little rowdy today, and Ghost isn’t very fond of tiny hands tagging at his uniform and asking him “how many people he has killed”.

You’re holding two balaclavas; one is black, while the other is a deep shade of army green.

“It’s either this one or that one.” You say while raising both to his eye level.

He pushes your hands down and points to his skull mask. “No.” He states. “I’ll stick with the one I’m wearing.”

You frustratedly shake the balaclavas to your sides. “Come on, Lieutenant,” you plead, “you’ll scare the kids.”

“Have you seen kids these days?” he asks, raising his hands. “These fuckers are not afraid of anything!”

“Oh god,” You wince and toss the balaclavas on the principal’s desk. You shake your index finger at his face like a teacher disciplining a misbehaving student. “Don’t you dare to swear in front of them!”

“Have you heard, kids—”

“—these days.” You cut him off with a flick of the wrist. “Yes, but there’s no need to reinforce bad behaviour.”

He lets out a long exhale and places his hands on his waist. He begins pacing around the principal’s office, swearing under his breath. You’re trying to figure out whether he needs to let it all out before his big speech or if he’s cursing the moment he has agreed to do this.

He pauses in front of a painting hanging next to a window overlooking the school’s playground. He slouches and places one hand on his lower back, rubbing his injury.

You approach him from behind and gently grasp his forearm.

“Hey,” you whisper, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he replies sternly. “Never mind.”

“Are you in pain? Please talk to me.”

“I’m not in pain!” He protests. “In fact, I wasn’t in pain to begin with, when the medics decided that I was,” he makes air quotes with his fingers, “temporarily unfit for duty.”

You place a palm on his lower back and begin rubbing it. He relaxes at your touch and puts one hand on the wall to support his weight.

“You talk about not reinforcing bad behaviour,” he murmurs, “but I’m not the best role model either.”

“Bullshit!” You scowl.

“Seriously,” he insists, “I highly doubt I’d be here talking to kids about their future if I hadn’t been injured.”

He’s correct, but he doesn’t need to know that, especially now, as you wait to enter a classroom full of kids. Any other team member would be far more qualified for this role. Gaz is such a cool guy that most kids would deem him a god. Price feels like the father you wish you had when he talks, and Soap can adapt to anyone he speaks to. Even you would be a better fit for this year’s career fair. But, Ghost? No, not at all.

“Come on, Simon,” you say as you continue rubbing his back. “It’s less about ‘being a role model’ and more about relating to them.”

“How am I supposed to relate to them?” He wonders, “My childhood was nothing like theirs.”

“How do you know?”

He looks at you and motions towards the window. “Look at them,” he says, “they’re full of life.”

“Not all of them are like that, Ghost; some are putting on a show.” You explain, and he turns to look at you again. “They look all jolly, but they might struggle at home or school. Worse, they can’t admit what’s happening behind closed doors because they’re either ordered to remain silent or not understand it themselves.”

He huffs and shakes his head. “Now I can relate to that.” He murmurs.

“See? You need to spot these kids and indirectly talk to them.”

“Spot?” He asks. “How do I spot them?”

“You mean to tell me you’re trained to spot targets from miles away but can’t see when a child suffers in silence?” You ask back. “Plus, it takes one to know one.”

He nods. “And what should I communicate to these kids?” He asks. “How do I help them?”

“By showing them that there’s something better waiting for them out there.”

“Don’t be naive, Y/N. How is what we do better than what they’re going through right now?”

“It’s not about the military, Simon.” You elaborate. “It’s about giving them another chance. They deserve to know there are options other than turning into their drug-addicted mother or alcoholic father.” You lean forward so he can meet your gaze. “Someone gave you a second chance, right?”

He closes his eyes and ponders your words. You tilt your head at him, trying to predict what he’ll say next so you can respond quickly.

But he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he straightens up and takes a deep breath. “You know,” he begins, “I gave one of those speeches to a school a few years ago.”

“Oh!” You cheer and pat him on the back twice. “Did you, now?”

“Lysychansk, Ukraine.” He recalls, “I was being held hostage with a bunch of kids.”

“Tell me more about it,” you say, sitting on the principal’s desk and playing with a pink highlighter. He begins narrating his story, and you can tell he’s becoming more confident as he realises he’s spoken to children before, albeit in a very different context, but who cares? What matters is that he is becoming more at ease with his “previous experience.”

You, in turn, try to give him your full attention, but now that his doubts have subsided, your primary concern is that mask of his. He needs to take it off.

“See? You’re far more experienced than any of us!” you shout. “And in that setting? My god! None of us would have been able to do such a thing!”

He chuckles and looks proudly out the window at the children playing in the school’s playground. He seems to be looking forward to it now.

“Hey, um, sir?”

He shifts his focus to you.

“Your mask, sir; It’s dirty,” you say as you point to his cheek.

He puts his hands on his mask. “Where?” He yells.

“It’s right….” You get up from the desk and take a step closer to him, inspecting his mask. You raise the marker and draw a bright pink line across his cheek, “...there.”

He immediately places his hand on his cheek, looks at the highlighter in your hand, and then back at you.

“You... motherfucker...” he murmurs.

You move away from him and stand behind the desk.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t let you go out with that mask on; the parents will be furious.” You point to the balaclavas on the principal’s desk. “You do, however, have two other options! Take your pick, and I’ll see you in class in 5 minutes!” And with that, you rush out of the principal’s office and into the school’s corridor.

You enter the classroom and greet the kids with a smile, trying to hide your nervousness. Walking towards the back where the parents are seated, your mind starts racing; Is he trying to choose a mask, or is he cleaning up your mess? What if he’s so furious that he doesn’t show up, leaving you to give the speech? Worse, what if he enters the classroom and takes his anger out on you?

But, the door opens, and Ghost walks in. Your eyes widen, and your jaw drops. He’s not wearing any mask. Not the black one, not the green one, not the skull—with the pink streak—mask on. Nothing.

You observe him moving around; despite his lack of disguise, he maintains his composure. He greets everyone in the room, smiles, waves back at the kids and stands next to the teacher. You let out a relieved exhale through pierced lips. This is going well, thank god.

As the teacher introduces Ghost to the class, you turn to give him a thumbs up, and his eyes lock with yours. There’s a faint smirk playing on his lips, and your heart skips a beat as he silently mouths something in your direction: “You’ll pay for this.”

———————————————————————

A/N: YOU’LL PAY FOR THIS, ANON! I was forcing myself to take a break from writing, only to be slapped by an inspiration wave. Hope you liked it, though; I had fun making it.

[spanishskulduggery]

Baldur's Gate 3 - Non-binary Translation in Spanish

A while back I had mentioned that when I learned how to change language settings for Baldur's Gate 3, I was curious to learn how they would adapt the non-binary [no binario] option into Spanish since Spanish (like many Romance Languages) is very gendered

What I saw actually surprised me a bit

Usually in game translations with different genders, English tends to treat you as a "they" even though it's usually male or female; and in Spanish most of the lines are gendered, or phrased in a very ambiguous way in translation like speaking of your character as una persona "a person" rather than "he" or "she", or "they"

This is one of the first times I've seen the gender neutral -e endings used in an official setting

-

For the purposes of this, and any future posts on this, I decided I would try to play as a non-binary gnome cleric. I should also mention that when you start up the game in Spanish and you do the character customization, everything starts you with the base word (i.e. masculine by default, or possibly agender but looks masculine)... as in you can choose to be elfo "elf", semielfo "half-elf", humano "human", semiorco "half-orc"... choose between bárbaro "barbarian", mago "wizard", brujo "warlock" and so on

My default character creation screen read gnomo, clérigo for "gnome cleric"

But the way your character is addressed by others is what changes

The first NPC you interact with is "Us" a little brain thing you can choose to help. If you do it calls you "friend":

Nosotros: Somos libres. Tenemos nuestra libertad. amigue Us: We are free. We have our freedom. Friend [nb].

The word used is amigue

For the sake of understanding Spanish grammar, you probably know amigo/a "friend". The G here is a hard G. The gender neutral ending is E... but the combination of GE is pronounced like an H sound in Spanish [la gelatina "gelatin" for example is like "hel-a-ti-na"]. To preserve that hard G sound, you have to add a UE to it... so amigo/a becomes amigue for non-binary

[if you study Spanish this is the exact same grammar you'll see in turning -gar verbs into subjunctive forms; why pagar would turn to pague]

The next person you come across is Lae'zel:

Lae'zel: Tsk'va. No eres une sierve. ¡Vlaakith me bendijo en el día de hoy! Juntes, tal vez podamos sobrevivir. Lae'zel: Tsk'va. You are no thrall [nb]. Vlaakith blessed me today ["on this day of today"; emphatic]. Together [nb plural], we may (yet) survive.

Interestingly, there's first siervo/a meaning "servant" or "serf" or "thrall"

What I found very interesting was that you have une... un and una being "a" are used for indefinite articles; the non-binary form seems to be une

What threw me off though was seeing juntes... now junto/a is "together" [lit. "joined"] but juntes implies a non-binary plural.

I don't know if this is because in Spanish grammar it would imply that non-binary trumps feminine [the way amigos "friends" could be male+female or multiple male, as opposed to amigas "friends" being all female]... or if it's maybe an error or something else; the game treats Lae'zel as a woman in every other regard so I think it's the first one which is a situation I somehow hadn't considered. I had just assumed it would be juntos ...or juntas if you played female

Next I decided to rescue Gale first because he uses a lot of adjectives/professions and I wanted to see what they looked like:

Gale: No serás clérigue por casualidad, ¿verdad? ¿Médique? ¿Cirujane? ¿Increíblemente hábil con una aguja de tejer? Gale: You wouldn't happen to be a cleric, right? A doctor/medic? Surgeon? Unbelievably skilled with a knitting needle?

First is clérigo/a "cleric" being used in non-binary as clérigue. Similarly we have médique which is the non-binary médico/a for "medical doctor"

[just like above C turned to QUE to preserve a hard C/K sound; you'll see this with subjunctive and even preterites of -car verbs... why atacar "to attack" will turn to ataqué "I attacked" and ataque in subjunctive... because CE has a soft S sound in Latin America, and can be lisped in Spain]

And next is cirujane... the word cirujano/a is "surgeon"

Finally important note - hábil being "able" or "skilled" is a unisex adjective, so there is no change in any gender - masculine, feminine, or non-binary

*Note: I did miss it but at some point someone used the article le to describe my character. The el and la "the" are the masculine and feminine definite articles; le is non-binary "the" which still catches me by surprise because it looks French to me

-

I've been told since I made the original post that people have seen the non-binary E ending used in other things, but this was special for me to see. I'm curious how the other gendered languages available treated non-binary options

It was a fun surprise for me, especially for some modern day Spanish linguistics in a VERY big modern game, with non-binary word choices being heavily prominent. It's a bit of a learning experience for me

If I find any more fun examples of NB language being used I'll let y'all know as I go

[all-with-angel]

Hello dash, just wanted to answer all these asks that I'll be doing for the next few days ~

(A ton of asks under the cut so feel free to ignore)

yes SIRRRR if I ever said no to any of them wanting a redo, it aint me

Oh I love enemies to lovers plots, you got it nonnie 😌

I'll be doing the first one for now, (the weed one) but Ill definitely get to the sex toys one in the future since I have an idea for it mwuehehehe

Id dig myself into the ground if someone heard me sing, its not that im that embarrassed I just SUCK at singing

I adjusted this one juuust a bit, where reader kinda ran off and is currently hiding lmao. Thankyou for requesting!!

Oh that is hilarious LMFAO I might just rush to make this

Im going to be doing this but only with good preparation. i.e. asking my male cousin penis related questions

I fear I'd complain too, especially if its a recurring thing

Its not specific at all!! I can definitely see it happening often because we readers wouldnt want them to worry too much with so much already on their plate!

I can relate sm- I literally get so sick during my period (currently am) im lucky i have an irregular period and only get it like 7 times a year

Heh. Im gonna love making this (desperate jjk cast YES PLEASE)

I shouldve done this for my first smau smh. Its like the foundation of so many creators masterlists lmao

This might not be a smau i think. Maybe another drabble if my brain worms work

Having this one be serious would be funny i think- cuz ive usually seen it as a prank/joke so like. Reader actually murdering someone by accident or not sounds interesting

Disclaimer: This isnt in any set order! This is just a post so I can answer all of em without spamming yall with answers hehe

Im looking at these and Im so excited to have so much stuff to work on instead of doing actual work. Thankyou guys for fueling my procrastination 😌

[captain-space-kin]

CAPPY!!! Do you have a breakdown of all the oppo moments in the show? Or whatever to you is significant within the show as an oppo shipper?

Hi Jal! I am currently working on my list of every Oppo moment (I’ll put what I have so far under the read more). I’m at the beginning of season 3 right now but there’s some moments in future seasons I already know about ahead of time (I.e Kai being the one to give Zane’s eulogy, basically all of Kai’s stuff during season 4, when Lloyd does his whole “Remember xyz” thing to the Ice Emperor where he mentions Wu, Pixal, and then Kai last (which I think about all the time it makes me crazy)). There’s also some good moments from the books but I’ve only heard them second hand so I don’t have specific page numbers or anything for those. If you want me to break down them specifically I definitely can when I’m not gaming o7

As for what I choose to be significant I don’t have like and concrete rule set for what gets counted. If it stands out to me I add it basically. I also add moments I can do analysis with or support hc’s I have so not everything on here is like explicitly shippy. However they did provide me with some sort of info I felt was worth looking back at later. Also my notes are probably incomprehensible sorry about that lol. Pretty early on I stopped counting them merely standing next to each other as counting, but just know, they stand next to each other a lot.

S1E1 -

* 1:29 they’re sitting next to each other

* 6:39 they talk to each other

* 8:07 the green ninjago prophecy reveal scene

* 17:02 standing next to each other

* 18:28 standing next to each other

S1E2 -

* 2:29 the fridge scene

* 2:45 Kai is taking the lead on the Zane is weird stuff, but he does admit that he likes him as a friend

* 12:46 Zane saves Kai from falling

* 15:08 OPPO FIGHT, Kai’s the first to apologize

* 19:50 “I don’t miss our home, I miss Zane” — Kai

S1E3 -

* 1:02 and they were bunk mates

* 2:35 they have a cleaning montage scene together

S1E4

* 5:46 Kai places his hand on Zane’s shoulder

* 19:12 paired off for a mission

S1E5

*21:11 Kai’s the first one to hop on Zane’s motorcycle

S1E6

* Zane and Kai’s accent colors on their new gi match

S1E7

* 7:55 Kai apologizes for Zane to that store owner guy

* 9:11 Kai’s the only one who kept up with Zane during the falcon following thing

* 9:39 The whole Kai/Zane convo in the birch wood forest

* 15:16 “You’re still our brother”

* 18:46 “I don’t know but I like it”

* They are kinda touchy with each other

S1E8 

* 1:25 Kai casually sending his sister into anaphylactic shock and then Zane high fiving him about it

* NOTHING YOU GET NOTHING GOOD DAY SIR

S1E9 

2:56 Zane knows that Kai is frustrated because he hasn’t unlocked his true potential

Kai and Zane’s casual outfits match

12:33 Zane backs Kai up when he fights with Jay

S1E10 

6:55 Manning the helm together

S1S12

14:22 “What? You try fighting up here”

15:49 Kai falls and Zane catches him

S1E13

1:10 Kai does the “Hey” thing to Zane

9:55 Kai yelling at Zane

15:31 Zane asking specifically for Kai’s input even tho Jay is right there

S2E1

6:11 Kai smacks Zane

S2E1

2:55 “No you were worse”

12:28 They look at each other 

14:13 Kai is holding Zane up

15:23 They’re wearing the same outfit again

S2E3

1:57 Oppo is plotting in the background

8:11 B!Oppo plotting

S2E4

1:12 Zane holding Kai up in his shoulder

S2E6

10:00 Zane is the one insisting that Wu needs to convince past Kai to be a ninja

11:55 Zane is very insistent that they get more involved in the situation to make sure Kai becomes a ninja, which could mean nothing

“Kai needs to find his fire” he already found that bbg you’ve been standing next to each other like the whole the damn episode

S2E8

7:30 Kai’s the one to grab Zane in the human ladder

17:00 Oppo Look tm

17:21 Oppo fight together

S2E9

6:23 HAND ON SHOULDER

7:08 Kai helps Zane up

S2E10

5:54 Kai has faith that Zane won’t get caught? Maybe?

8:54 Kai is worried mayhaps that Zane will get caught

9:27 come on it’s Zane

10:40 Kai only mentioned Zane specifically by name when asking for ideas

16:50 Kai and Zane are next to each other on the magic destiny wheel

S2E11

10:00 Kai compliments Zane’s quip

S2E12 

14:20 Kai asks Zane specifically for a definition 

S2E13

15:05 Zane and Kai are the last to get hit with da evil juice

S3E1 

1:50 Kai’s one of the people that shows up to help Zane

12:25 Kai is holding onto Zane as the crash into the window

15:37 Oppo mission

15:33 Kai riding on top of Zane’s vehicle

S3E2 

7:09 Kai’s the first one to be like “WA TECHNOBLADES”

12:18 Kai asking where Zane is

S3E3 

14:41 Kai supportive of Pixane

[goldenhickeyss]

The (ephimeral) success of solo projects on Chapter 2

I wanted to write a post about chapter 2 and Jimin, the "sabotages"... but I don't know if I'm able to sort out the facts and my ideas or judgements about them properly. Nothing is clear to me yet.

There are days when a part of me believes that something is going on with Jimin and Hybe (or BH, I don't know which). But there's another part, the rational part, the part that works as an economist for 20 years, that knows that it doesn't make much sense for a for-profit company to boycott one of its most valuable assets.

In the Executive Boards, and in financial planning, decisions are made on the basis of economical evidence, which is always provided by current numbers (or estimates), not by the heart. Maybe even in the case of BTS there is some sense of fairness, I would say, at the outset. And not an asymmetric distribution according to profit projections.

In the trade-off I find myself in, I would like to share the following thoughts:

- I have recently realised that Chapter 2 is not the chapter of their solo career. It is the chapter of their solo work, which is slightly different.

- Most of them has a short time to promote their work. The average has been a "several weeks" window.

- Their success is therefore somewhat short-lived or ephimeral. It appears and within weeks it seems to fade away, eclipsed by the next in line. The nex king of "k-..."

- There is no intention of promoting a structured solo career, because 1) BTS have said (a million times) that they will be back in 2025, and 2) if we are to take them at their word, the boys will all be joining the military before the end of 2023.

- So, there is no long-term vision to support "some" and not "others".

- The support is focused on a specific work. The only exception to a more continuous commitment has been Suga and his tour.

- Everyone has their budget, their schedule, their activities for the year...

- And yes, there can be different intensities of promotional activities, depending on the defined strategy or budget or goal or whatever (we don't know the whole story because the company doesn't explain anything to us). There is a rumour that some have even put their money into some activities. But I don't know how true that is.

- And I think they all have a say in the design of their promotions, even if they don't design them themselves.

So then....I can't take the agency away from any of them.

They are the best advocates or defenders within the company. And if one of them had less influence, which I doubt, the others would not remain silent without solving the problem. Or how do we think a commitment from the 7 of them to the 7 of them is achieved to keep BTS as a unified group? There are no weak links in this group. And if there were, I wouldn't bet my money that Jimin is one of them.

Once again, there are things that I can't explain and I'd like to know what's going on (the lack of restocking, the split of Spotify streaming, the deletion of sales...). But if there really have been damaging mistakes or strategies for any of them, I hope that when the next contract comes up for renewal, they will sort it out very thoroughly. Cause this cant happen anymore.

To tell you the truth, I blame the company for many things, and one of them - as serious as their lack of planning - is their lack of communication with the fans. BeautifulPeach has talked about this in some of her posts.

At some point in its growth, Hybe became too big to fail, or whatever, and forgot about certain corporate social responsibility obligations. One of them is to talk to its most important stakeholders: the customers, i.e. the fans. And addressing some of their concerns.

Investors are important in listed companies, but customers are important too. Always.

And if they don't see it that way and continue to despise the fans (clients) in that way, then at the end “future is not gonna be ok”.

And yes, I know that K-pop is controversial. It's clear that they can't deal with every rumour, every silly trend that comes out every day on twitter, ships, solos demands, etc. But there are things that they can deal with. And some of the Jimin's events when Face happened are one of them.

A bit of transparency would be appreciated. I expect it, actually, at some point (maybe when this chapter ends).

Maybe there will be things that could be explained as commercial strategy (do they want us to buy Face instead of the single LC, for example? And that's why they're not stocking it again?). But they might also be telling us about certain difficulties. Or about certain forecasting mistakes. Or how they learned from some of them. I'm pretty sure they learned a lot from Jimin's Face era.

I don't think I will be able to judge everything that has happened until at least the end of this year, when all the solo works have been completed/released.

And I'll have to keep listening to Bongo to see if he still talks about how they are more interested in being a company that has groups rather than individual singers. Maybe that is why it seems there's a ceiling to individual success. There is nothing better than capping success with time limitation of activities ("Let's see if that makes the fans forget what solo members are capable of")

And even then, there will be differences between all of them. Quite a lot.

But we will also have to consider that they are different artists with different goals, sensibilities, objectives and situations (let's not forget that JK himself, who now seems quite greedy, has admitted that he needed and enjoyed his free time and Seven had to come along to give him a boost). So we should be careful with the comparison too.

Perhaps Jin will end up getting the most promotions when he comes out, considering how little time he has had. Poor Jin…😔 He had to wait until the end of the year to enlist, despite the bad weather, to give us the Busan concert. It was a commitment to BTS, but it was a short of individual sacrifice too… you know..they do these things for BTS.

I would also like to listen to them (yes, it's a bit ambitious on my part, but I would like to listen to Jimin and his feelings, at the end of this year... will he open up to us?)

In conclusion, I would say that if we are BTS fans and want to remain so, and if we believe in the boys' words .... I would advise us to enjoy every moment they give us for their limited time. Every campaign, every song, every vlive... and try to find an atmosphere of caution given the situation we are in.

And by that I mean that we should also be able to read that we are in the age of solos and akages. All the information about grievances or leaks that comes out usuarlly comes from the same places.

And I'm not saying it's FALSE! Nor do I mean to belittle it! Just that sometimes we should take into account the intentions behind. And before we react, let's consider the source and the context. Look at what happened to the RNX journalist we all spent almost a day reporting on for a bad translation. Or look at how, in less than two weeks, two CCTV vids of Jimin shopping with a friend (one of them clearly with Saeon) suddenly appeared just as it became known that he was going to NY with JK.

Anyway, I will be a bit cautious for now. There are still a few months until the end of the year. A lot can still happen.

Jimin could came back again to us with sth as amazing as Like Crazy. Or even better, an album.

I miss Jimin and want to see him shine again and talking to us.

And I miss jikook……arrrggg

[theunsweetenedtruth]

Giving You The Best (2)

Summary: A flashback to how T'Challa pursued Nereyda

Previous Part

Pairing: T'Challa x Nereyda (OC) Word Count: 2,501 Warnings: None A/N: Originally written in 2018

He never expected to take up with a dora. He was a prince first and foremost, but he was also a man, something that was forgotten by basically everyone. But her. Nereyda.

When T'Challa first saw her in the market, it was as if every nerve in his body lit up in response to her. She was gorgeous in an innocently naughty way, and he wanted to both protect her and claim her as his. He watched her in what he could admit was an off-putting way, ignoring W'kabi next to him yammering about rhinos. She was with a friend, who eventually caught his unabashed staring and nudged her. She looked to her friend who gestured to T'Challa and when their eyes met, T'Challa felt a swooping in his stomach. She smiled at him shyly before breaking eye contact and ushering her friend in the opposite direction. Her friend's loud laughter and over the shoulder wave were the only indication that he had affected her as much as she had affected him. He had to have her, he felt himself aching to find out if her skin was as soft as it looked.

"I know that look on your face, my friend. I'm here to tell you not to bother," W'kabi's voice cut through T'Challa's imagines.

"What look? What are you talking about?" T'Challa feigned disinterest but W'kabi wasn't buying it.

"I know you, T'Challa. That girl is bad news."

"Eh! That could be your future queen you are talking about," T'Challa slung an arm around his friend's shoulder in jest.

"Aye! Bast forbid! That girl is a dora. The council would hand the throne over to the Jabari before placing a dora as our queen."

T'Challa was taken aback. Yes, he knew of the dora, had heard of the reason for their origination and the subsequent downfall of the practice. But he didn't expect to be completely ensnared with just a look. He just wanted a taste...

W'kabi stopped him with a hand against his chest. "I'm serious T'Challa. You are a prince. It would do no good to have the mark of a dora stain your reign before it even begins. Do not let yourself be swayed by a pretty face."

T'Challa nodded and tried to take his friend's advice but over the next few days he found himself distracted by his thoughts of her. After some investigation–i.e., getting a reluctant W'kabi to find out–he learned her name was Nereyda, she lived at the house where all the current dora lived, and she was not currently seeing anyone. But T'Challa wanted to see her again. He started off small, sending bouquets of flowers from the palace gardens to the dora house.

When they kept getting sent back, he started ordering the delivery people not to accept her returns and make sure Nereyda read the card before they left. In it, T'Challa asked her to call him so that they may set up a time for dinner together. After several weeks of waiting for his kimoyo beads to ring, he started sending other gifts: a white silk robe with flowers on it he saw while attending a conference with his father; a gold necklace with a medallion, Bast embalmed on the front; and a midnight blue, satin nightgown that T'Challa hoped he would get to see her in and maybe take off of her...

Still, the notes accompanying his gifts went unanswered. T'Challa was growing impatient; most women gave in at the first sign of him pursuing them. Even with Nakia– who was almost pushed on him—there was little resistance once he put on the charm. T'Challa would have to do something drastic to get Nereyda's attention.

He walked up to the door of the dora house and rang the doorbell. There was shuffling from the inside before the door was flung open. Nereyda's friend–Nina, his "investigation" had uncovered–opened the door.

"Hi, I am looking for–"

"Oh I know who you are looking for," Nina said, a cheshire grin on her face. "Come in before someone sees you." She ushered him inside, leading him to a parlor room off of the foyer. T'Challa looked around discreetly. There was a wall of pictures, past dora photographed in with men in positions of power and pictures of those who went on to become Queen of Wakanda. He wondered which category he would fall into, just a powerful John, or did Nereyda have the power to convince him to make her his queen.

"You know I told her that you wouldn't take no for answer," Nina interrupted his thoughts.

"I never do when it's something I want," T'Challa quipped.

Nina rose an eyebrow at him before exiting the room. T'Challa went to get a closer look at the pictures, wondering if it was anyone he knew, before hear harsh whispers from the hallway.

"Why did you let him in Nina? I told you I didn't have any plans to see him!"

"Well I don't see why not! If he wants to date you and give you expensive ass things then I say let his ass spoil you! I know you hate being a dora. This could be your chance to save enough to get out and probably get some bomb dick in the meanwhile."

T'Challa could hear Nereyda scoff. "You don't know anything about him, much less about his dick."

"Sis. He looks like he got a big dick, doesn't he? Long live the Black Panther eh!"

T'Challa couldn't hold back a laugh at that. He heard shushing and then Nereyda's head peeked around the corner. He stood as she walked into the room, looking apprehensive at his presence. T'Challa wondered if it was a mistake to come. She made it clear she wasn't interested; he wouldn't be made a fool of.

"My prince, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" Her voice was sweet, even as the nerves were painted against her face. She wore a yellow dress, curls free, lips pouty, and once again he was taken aback at her beauty.

"I can assume you received my gifts?" He walked around her, eyeing her. She followed him with her eyes until he was standing behind her and she was unable to look at him. "Is there a reason why I haven't heard from you?" He came to face her again.

She pursed her lips. "I appreciate your interest, your highness–"

"T'Challa," he interrupted.

She rolled her eyes. "I don't think it's appropriate, your highness–"

"T'Challa. Please I insist."

Another eye roll. "And I'm safe to assume that you tend to get your way when you insist."

"Well yes," he quipped just to annoy her. There was another subsequent eye roll and a scoff. By that point, he wanted to spank the habit out of her.

"Well Prince T'Challa, this is one instance where you won't be getting your way. I'm sorry that you would sully yourself by stepping foot in here but I'm not interested."

"May I ask why?" He was curious at the disparaging comments about the dora house, and subsequently of herself.

She met his eyes. "I've seen what happens who become dora for the powerful men of Wakanda." A bitter look crossed her face. "They are a secret that everyone knows about and calls a whore, yet the man is greeted with salutes and honor because he is able to have his cake and eat it too. At the end of the relationship, if the man wasn't generous, she's forced to come back here in shame, no way to book clients again after being the long term whore of a powerful man. He goes on to live a happy life while doras come back here to live out their lives alone." She squared her shoulders and her fiery gaze burned through him. "I have goals. I don't want to become known as "The Prince's dora" for the rest of my life."

T'Challa raked a hand over his mouth. He understood: she wanted to escape the dora house with a better reputation, get married maybe, have children. It's a life most people expected but the stigma of being a dora made her chances slim. Being "The Prince's dora" would make those chances impossible.

"I understand. Thank you for giving me the honor of an explanation," he said sincerely. "But I am not one of those men who would leave you destitute at the end of an arrangement. Even if you don't become my queen–"

"You want me to become your queen?" The shock was clear on her face.

He grasped her hands in his. "I want the opportunity to get to know you and see where this goes." He swallows, embarrassed at what he's about to admit. "You've held me capture from the minute our eyes met. If we grow to love each other, I see no reason why you wouldn't be able to be my queen. But even if you don't, you won't want for anything. All I'm asking for is a chance." T'Challa could see her struggling for words at his confession and the reluctance was still lingering. "I could get on my knees and beg if you'd like," he joked, doing his best to meet her lowered eyes.

That brought a musical laugh out of her, a full belly one that had her throwing her head back, hands still clasped in his. When she was done laughing, she pursed her lips at the puppy dog look her knew he was giving.

"Okay. I'll give you a chance. One dinner."

"One dinner," he agreed. He had one night to pull out all the stops.

That dinner turned into two, then a sleepover, until Nereyda was moving into the palace. T'Challa ignored the looks and whispers among the staff; there were people who didn't agree with his choice of a bed partner but it didn't matter to him. For the first time since Nakia had left to find her place in the world, he was happy. After a long day of sitting in on meetings and training to be king, he had a place to go where he could be himself.

Nereyda was uncomplicated; he was pretty sure she had no leanings toward being queen and for the first six months, she held herself as one who expected the rug to be swept from beneath her feet. T'Challa did his best to reassure her that it wouldn't happen and he was serious about her, but after a conversation with his father he wasn't sure.

"And what of this...dora you have sequestered here in the palace?" T'Chaka asked in the middle of a conversation with his son. They were in the king's office, wrapping up a conversation about the last council meeting. T'Challa was taken aback; this was not the turn he was expecting the conversation to take.

"Nereyda. She is...okay. What do you want to know?" This was an awkward situation. There was little else a man kept a dora for and T'Challa didn't want to delve into details about his sex life with his baba.

But the sex was more than okay. It was mind blowing. After waiting longer than it was clear Nereyda was used to to have sex, T'Challa surprised her with a trip. Even though he didn't expect for them to have sex, they did and T'Challa was addicted. Nereyda was sweet like honey, her skin softer than he'd suspected, and she lit a fire in his body. He found himself craving her with a ferocity he hadn't with any previous lover, just the thought of her getting him half hard and distracted.

But it was more than the sex. His favorite moments were after he returned from a long trip, when they would meet in his rooms and he could tell her all his problems. She'd sit on the couch, his head in her lap and she would listen while stroking his head. It brought him peace to have someone to lean on. T'Challa was also surprised at some of her suggestions to issues he brought before her, and even used them in discussions with his father. Nereyda was turning out to be an asset to his life.

"T'Challa have you heard a word I've said?" T'Chaka interrupted his thoughts.

"Ndiyaxolisa, baba. What did you say?"

"That girl...please T'Challa do not lose focus on what the goal is," T'Chaka warned. "Do not allow your possession of a dora to keep you from doing your duties and please do not get any ideas in your head."

"What kind of ideas, baba?"

"Like marriage to her. She is not a viable candidate for queen."

T'Challa disagreed. "How so? She is smart, beautiful, kind almost to a fault–"

"Ach! You are not thinking with your brain in your head!" T'Chaka exclaimed. "You are nothing more than a job to her. The sooner you realize, the better it will be. Once you are finished with her, she will move on to the next powerful man willing to have the prince's seconds."

T'Challa swallowed his ire. He didn't disagree with his father often but T'Chaka didn't know Nereyda. T'Challa knew he was wrong; Nereyda felt more for him than as just another man she had sex with. She did not have to say it. It was clear in the way she looked at him, the way she touched him and cared for his needs.

But maybe his father was right. It could be a part of her training that helped her to be everything he didn't know he needed. She could be playing coy for the throne. As much as he wanted to stand firm in his belief of her, T'Chaka's words had gotten to him.

His father laid a hand on his arm. "I just want you to be wise T'Challa. You can not risk not having the council on your side. A dora as queen is a sure way to ensure they turn against you."

T'Challa nodded and he felt a negativity that he carried with him the rest of the day.

Later that evening in bed, T'Challa found he couldn't sleep. His father's words played over in his mind, a bitterness in his words that T'Challa couldn't figure out. He rolled over to face his bed mate.

Small puffs of air came from Nereyda, her long lashes fluttering as her eyes moved behind her lids. She was in the beginning stages of a nightmare, the quickness of her heartbeat and the tight way she held herself his clue. Soft whimpers pushed through her lips and T'Challa pressed a hand to her cheek. He stroked her smooth skin with his thumb and whispered into her ear as he gathered her into his arms. Nereyda nestled into his chest under his chin, gripping his arm tightly before falling into a calmer sleep.

T'Challa smiled into the darkness and fell asleep. His father was wrong.

Next Part

[hero-deserves-to-be-happy]

At The End of the Road: Chapter 1: Unforgettable

In the future, nearly 14 years after the good ending of OMORI, Hero meets up with his old friends from college and reflects on how a Fall break vacation over a decade ago quickly turned into a road trip Hero and his friends would never forget.

Hero's friendships with his college friends Brandi, Kyle (OC), Zoey (OC), Tamra (OC), C.J. (OC) and Lorraine (OC)-centric. (Past Hero/Mari, Eventual Hero/OC, and Brandi/OC are also mentioned)

Slice of Life and Friendship Shenanigans Post-Good End (with a little bit of Hurt/Comfort).

Rated G. Some mild warnings for canon-typical heavy themes (i.e. grief and mourning) & some occasional mild language in later chapters, but this is mostly friendship fun and shenanigans. Please see AO3 tags for more information and also be mindful of OMORI spoilers.

Chapter 1 of 5 || Chapter Word Count: 2,412

Reading "When Sun Shines Again" and "Am I Ready For Love? Or Maybe Just a Best Friend" before this story is recommended.

A/N: This story is a gift for @shine-n-bright and was inspired by Shine's prompt and beautiful artwork of Hero and his friends. Thank you so much again for the wonderful art inspired by "When Sun Shines Again" and the prompt for this story!! We are so sorry for all the delays and appreciate your patience. We loved your prompt so much that this story became a much bigger work than we anticipated so we have divided it into chapters. We hope to post the next chapters very soon and really hope you like this story! 😊

Link to the chapter on AO3. Full Chapter Text Below the Cut.

Thank you for reading and supporting our work in progress! ⛅

PROLOGUE:

“There you are! What took you so long?”

Fidgeting, Hero scratched the back of his neck. “Sorry, Kyle. I got caught at work.”

“Eh don’t worry about it,” Kyle insisted as he shrugged his shoulders with a lopsided grin. He patted Hero on the back as he ushered him into the house, then laughed as he took his jacket. “Nice scrubs.”

Hero sheepishly smoothed his hands across his shirt. These days, he spent most of his time in scrubs, so it was easy to forget he was wearing them. “Sorry,” he apologized again. “I didn’t have time to change.”

With a dismissive wave of his hand, Kyle laughed again. “You know I don’t care. I love scrubs—it’s like wearing pajamas to work every day, but what in the world happened to you? We got off at the exact same time—or at least we were supposed to.” Kyle tilted his head, and Hero shuffled his feet. It was easy to forget that Kyle knew all about his schedule now that they were working in the same orthopedic clinic. “I thought you took this outpatient job, so you’d have more time for yourself than you did in your residency. That’s not gonna work if you keep working after hours.”

Hero sighed heavily. “I know…but I got behind on some of my charting today and—”

“You work way too hard, Mama,” Kyle interrupted with a tut bringing up an old nickname that had somehow stuck around since their undergrad. “And you’re already like the busiest person I know. You need a break.” 

“I’m fine. Please don’t worry.” Hero insisted, then chuckled lightly to himself. This conversation was all too familiar. He and Kyle must have had the exact same one at least a hundred times over the decade they had been roommates before Kyle had finally moved out and into this lovely house in the suburbs.

Kyle shrugged. “You know I don’t worry about anything, but you need a vacation. I think I’ll buy you one.”

“Oh you really don’t have to—”

Hero’s protests were promptly cut off by the frantic flurry of clip-clopping high heels, bouncing golden curls, a twirling sparkling tutu, high-pitched giggling, and an excited squeal of “Uncle Hero!”

He wasn’t really her uncle, only her godfather, but the title made him smile brightly as he scooped up Kyle’s daughter, Eloise, and she placed a tiara triumphantly into his unruly hair.

“Thank you, Ellie,” said Hero with a laugh as the tiara began to droop over his eyes. Eloise’s tiny brow furrowed in concentration as she tried to catch the crown, practically smacking Hero in the head with it as Kyle cackled in the background. Kyle only laughed harder as Hero reached up with his hand to try to affix the tiara to his head which, unfortunately, it seemed was much too big for a crown designed for toddlers. He looked at Eloise apologetically, but he couldn’t hold back his smile as he heard familiar laughter coming from a nearby doorway.

“You’ve finally got your crown, Mr. Prince.”

Hero stifled his laughter at another nickname it seemed he would never be able to outgrow, and Zoey leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms with a quirk of an eyebrow. Her voice was dry, but Hero knew her well enough after all these years to see the twitch of a smile in the corners of her mouth and that teasing sparkle in her green eyes as she added, “It suits you.”

Hero’s face grew warm. The fact he was blushing at Zoey’s recurring ‘prince’ joke after all this time was even more embarrassing than the joke itself. For a split second, he hoped she hadn’t noticed, but she knew him far too well for that. Hero was sure of it—even without her pointed flash of the engagement ring on her left hand as she raised it to her mouth to stifle her laughter.

Hero shrugged but smiled. Touché.

“I think it’s better for a princess,” he said as he gently nestled the tiara into Eloise’s blonde curls.

“I’m playing Cinderella,” Eloise explained. “You’ll be the prince for me—won’t you? Dad says you’re just like prince charming.”

Laughing, Kyle took his little girl from Hero and held her himself. “I said he was ‘basically prince charming,’” he corrected—clearly more for Hero’s benefit than for the understanding of his toddler. “Which he is.”

Before Hero could even begin to protest, a high-pitched voice laughed, “Oh he totally is!” followed by the excited footsteps of Lorraine sprinting through the doorway and practically jumping on him to squeeze him into a tight hug. It had always been her preferred method of greeting, but even after all of these years, it still surprised him, as did her unexpectedly tight grip for someone so dainty.

“My future brother, the prince,” she teased with a beaming smile, ruffling a hand through his hair before she turned to Eloise. “He’d be the perfect prince for your game, but he’s here to do some grown-up stuff, so he can’t play today.”

With a disappointed hum, Eloise pouted, “But Uncle Hero…” She blinked at him with big eyes and a pleading expression which reminded him a lot of her father’s. If Hero had to guess, she’d be just as persuasive as him someday—a troublemaker who somehow always managed to be earnest and look innocent, and just as Hero had always struggled saying no to Kyle, he struggled to say no to Eloise too. He almost wanted to say that he would play with her for a little while, but he had kept his friends waiting for so long already, so instead he sighed with a half-smile and said, “I promise we’ll play next time, okay?”

Eloise frowned—clearly not too pleased with the idea, but her face lit up into a bright smile when her dad said, “Hey, you wanna watch Cinderella on the big tv?” and led her off practically skipping up the stairs her plastic dress-up high-heels loudly clip-clopping all the way.

“Gotta keep an eye on our goddaughter,” quipped Zoey. “She’s dangerous. Before we know it, she’ll be roping her friends into who knows what—have them camping out in the middle of nowhere in an RV that had broken down on the side of the highway.”

Hero stifled a laugh. He hadn’t thought about that in years. Looking back, it was kind of amazing to think of the kinds of shenanigans he and his friends had gotten into back in college—all mostly thanks to Kyle and his hairbrained ideas. Truthfully, it was a little unbelievable seeing as they were all such responsible adults now: a teacher, a doctor, a speech therapist, two lawyers, an engineer, and a physical therapist. Nearly all of them married—some, like Kyle, with children who, in Eloise’s case, at least, for better or worse, seemed to be just like her dad.

“Ooh that reminds me,” interjected Lorraine. “I got out all my photo albums out for you to look at. Basil called me about pictures for some collage or wedding video or something, and you’re welcome to borrow any you want.” She clapped her hands with a smile. “I have an album from that trip, you know?”

“I still don’t know why you wanted to document that…” Shaking her head, Zoey sighed but shrugged. “Just don’t show Brandi, okay? I’m pretty sure she still calls it ‘the Road Trip from hell.’”

“Aww but it was the first time we all ever went on vacation together. It was so much fun!” Lorraine beamed, but her sister just shrugged. She quickly turned to Hero. “You want to see the pictures, don’t you, Hero?”

He could barely mumble a polite, “Um…sure, Lorraine” before she had dragged him through the doorway towards the dining room and kitchen where the rest of their friends were hard at work seemingly getting ready for dinner. C.J. and Tamra turned towards him with smiles and friendly greetings, but Brandi just huffed and crossed her arms.

“Well look who finally decided to show up.” She bristled, but Hero liked to think she happy to see him. Maybe… It was often difficult to tell with her.

“Finally,” C.J. repeated, though he sounded relieved rather than disgruntled. “We were about to cut our losses and order takeout. You know none of us can cook.”

“Hey,” huffed Brandi, but C.J. just smiled.

“You know I love you, but it was your idea to order takeout.”

Brandi frowned. “I didn’t mean me.”

“Well, I’m flattered,” Kyle interjected with a bright, smarmy smile as he walked in through another entrance. “But honestly, I think I could still burn a Pop-Tart.”

Brandi rolled her eyes, but paused glancing around, Hero could only assume, for Eloise, not wanting to insult Kyle in front of his kid. Even though the little girl was upstairs now, Brandi still just muttered a tame, “moron” under her breath and otherwise she pretended she hadn’t heard him and continued, “Lorraine is a pretty good cook, and Tamra’s still working on that lasagna.”

“Yeah…I think we should probably give up on the lasagna.” With a weary sigh, a particularly bedraggled Tamra chuckled somewhat sheepishly and wiped her floury hands on a stained apron. “We should not have tried to substitute the eggs when we ran out.” She shook her head but smiled at Hero with a shrug her shoulders, “I don’t think even you can rescue this one, Hero.”

“I think we should just order takeout,” huffed Brandi. “I’m starving.”

“And cranky,” quipped Kyle in a playful scold.

“You’re the one who invited people over for a dinner with no food.”

Kyle shrugged. “I thought Hero would cook for us—like the old days, but he was late.”  

“I’m sorry, everyone.” Hero had lost track of how many times he had apologized, but he felt another apology was warranted. “I can whip something up right away.”

A gentle hand on his shoulder stopped him. “No,” said Zoey. “I’ll order some takeout. Don’t worry about it.”

“Kyle will order some takeout,” Brandi corrected. “Since this is his fault.”

Laughing, Kyle held up his hands in a sort of helpless surrender. “Okay. Okay.” He pulled a menu for a local Chinese restaurant off of his refrigerator. From it’s prominent placement amongst family photos and Eloise’s artwork, Hero could only assume that Kyle was a frequent customer. As Kyle began to pass the menu around to his friends, Lorraine placed a stack of photo albums on the table.

“We should look through some pictures while we wait for the food!” She smiled brightly handing an album with “Our First Road Trip” emblazoned on the cover to Hero. “Here’s the one we were talking about.”

“Oh no. Not that one,” complained Brandi, peering over Hero’s shoulder. “I had almost blocked that road trip from hell out of my memory.”

“Told you,” quipped Zoey with a chuckle, but Hero doubted she was heard by too many of their companions over Kyle’s very loud and very dramatic gasp of offense.

“Why would you want to do that? It was the best trip ever!”

From the looks that were being exchanged, Hero could tell that while none of them would likely go so far as Brandi to call their vacation the “road trip from hell,” no one agreed that it was anywhere near the “best trip ever.” The way Hero remembered it, everything that possibly could have gone wrong did. Starting from the first moment Kyle had pulled up the driveway of their fraternity house in a weathered, broken-down RV equipped with a gross carpet interior and peeling paint. His mouth twitched in the corners as he released that his truly unforgettable recreational vehicle had been immortalized forever as the first photo in Lorraine’s album.

Though Lorraine hadn’t gotten a photo of it, Hero could vividly picture the bright beaming smile on Kyle’s face as he had proudly declared he had had “the best idea ever” to use their plane ticket money in order to rent that hunk of junk RV on the somewhat fantastical notion that a road trip would permanently bond them, make them all “best friends forever” like in one of those coming-of-age sitcoms Kyle loved so much. Hero could distinctly remember Brandi huffing, “This isn’t ‘Saved By the Bell,’ Kyle” as if friendships that close were just a fantasy—something only found on TV.

Hero supposed that in a way, at that time, it was a sort of fantasy to him too—a distant dream that almost didn’t feel real. He had had friends like that once, but, back then, back when Kyle was masterminding that road trip, he couldn’t imagine ever having friends like that again.

It was strange thinking back to that time, now, after everything that had happened. In a way, he felt almost like a different person—like the  young man who had driven that dilapidated RV all the way to Kyle’s family lake house wasn’t even him at all. That Hero could have never imagined that their ragtag group would still be in touch with each other after all this time, let alone such close friends. He could have never imagined that at the end of the road they’d someday all be gathering around the table to look through Lorraine’s photo album of that fateful road trip to find pictures for his wedding of all things.

Hero covered his mouth with his hand and laughed in spite of himself. It was truly unbelievable. Impossible. Even now, having reached this destination it almost didn’t feel real, but as Kyle had once said, some of the best journeys in life wind up at places you could never expect—that’s part of the fun!  

In that way, Hero supposed it was impossible to ever really know what was waiting at the end of the road. After so many twists and turns in the winding dark, there was a future surrounded by friendship and love that he hadn’t believed he could ever have after losing Mari, that he hadn’t believed he deserved anymore. 

But he had had no way of knowing that, had no way of knowing he could ever be happy again, just like he had no way of knowing that his Fall break vacation to Kyle’s family lake house would turn into a cross-country road trip he and his friends would never forget. 

[twentyseven-evil-bunnies]

Yeah, so Charles' staged pap pics in LA came out and people are claiming that this is proof fame got to his head. Maybe, maybe not, but my question is: as a marketing agency why would you want these pictures at all? Most of all, right now? Like isn't the contract renewal matter way more important right now? It's not like this is a relationship announcement so what does this achieve??? There's literally no shock value to this even (except that it is painfully obvious that the pictures are so staged).

Idk maybe there's a correct audience for this type of content and maybe that's not me but as a general consumer of Leclerc media wouldn't I be influenced by what other people are perceiving this as? And right now, the consensus as I see it, is that this coming out at the same time as Max's Time cover directly pits their media personalities against each other for comparison—Charles as the pr puppy who would have to have staged photoshoots to "keep his name in the headlines," rather than the professional athlete he is. Unfortunately, and quite unfairly, Max's cover directly influences our opinion on Charles' picture. His peer has already become a 3× World Champion while he...has a girlfriend...? Idk, I just don't get the logic WME were going with.

And maybe, this is Charles branching out to secure a sustainable future despite what happens in terms of his racing career, but you have to remember he's still gonna be in this line of job for the next decade or so, so then why would you have your image be distanced from your sport?

It could also be that this is his agency doing damage control for Charles liking a lestappen edit on the main (king behaviour), or perhaps even showing Ferrari that he is at ease and still happy after the DNS (denoting his confidence in his employability outside of Ferrari)...Idk there could be so many reasons but none of them can make for the how desperate this move ultimately come off as. After all, only those who would not be confident in their ability to be naturally papped (i.e., important enough to be noticed), would go to such length as hiring photographers to fake being papped so as to force their name into the headlines. [I can't believe this is a sentence I wrote unironically, excuse me while I go hurl 🤮]

But at the end of the day, I just want him to do good and (maybe just maybe win with Ferrari 🥲🥲🥲🥲], but yeah this papped thing was a weird shunt to his reputation. Well, that is life as a Forza Ferrari Sempre-er I guess. 🥲

Also, maybe we're just so chronically online that we assume the pictures are staged and not real. I mean a hard push that one, but I'd at least like to give them the benefit of the doubt. I mean I have been papped about zero times in my life so I am not the authority to decide about his brand reputation after all. [I just talk a lot of shit...it's okay, let's have it stay between you and me😀]

[sanddusted-wisteria]

Adventures in MTAS datamining (pt. 1/?: art assets)

Because I am incredibly normal about this game, I’ve been poking around in the game’s files (and MTAP’s, too) pretty much ever since I got it. Unity games are pretty easy to datamine, since tools are already out there, which is incredibly fortunate for fueling the hyperfixation. I wanted to share some of the more interesting things I’ve found on my travels. Spoiler warning: There are some midgame spoilers below (i.e. starting with the water tower). There’s also one thing that might be a future spoiler, which is at the very end and marked accordingly.

General disclaimer: If you’re curious to try datamining out yourself, feel free to ask me for how-to’s, but please be careful! Never edit the game’s files directly. Make copies and back up your save files. You’ll also need a good amount of RAM (I recommend at least 16 GB) to be able to handle tools like AssetStudio, since you’ll be loading assets directly into memory. And MTAS has a lot of assets. You may also encounter unreleased future content in there...so preemptive spoiler warning for that as well.

Since there’s so much to dig through, this post will only focus on some of the art/visual things. These can either be found under StreamingAssets > AssetBundles, or StreamingAssets > AssetBundles > art_asset. I can’t really comment too much on the 3D assets (meshs, textures) since I don’t know too much about modeling, but here are some other interesting things I found!

Cutscene thumbnails

You can find thumbnails of the cutscenes without the builder in them. The in-game album uses different thumbnails, which look like screenshots taken when it’s playing for the first time (hence why skipping a cutscene won’t put it in your album). Some of them actually really nice. Wallpaper-worthy, even.

The one they use for the kidnapping cutscene is incredible.

(ask people who don’t play mtas to caption this image.)

Newspaper photos

In The Tumbleweed Standard, the monthly issues are accompanied by these photos. Something about the filter makes it look pretty. Here are my personal favorites:

Family photos

You ever wanted to see the photos in the NPCs’ houses up close? Now you can! They’re all super sweet. Welllll, most of them.

(My favorite one’s the one with babby Heidi 😭 [far right, midway down])

It’s still unfortunately kinda blurry, since they’re meant to show up pretty small in-game. Hopefully you’re still able to see them.

Here’s a bit of a buffer before the last thing I have to show, since it’s probably the one thing that could be a future spoiler. If it is, it’s probably fairly minor. Hop off now if you don’t want that.

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Fine with maybe being spoiled? Alright, here we go...

Lastly, I leave you with a forbidden image:

...I’m sorry, who is this???

So, uh...Qi has an alternate set of character art. No other character has one (except Elsie for story reasons). I assume this’ll be a DLC outfit, like those in MTAP? Kinda weird how only one would be loaded into the files so far. The asset name doesn’t really give any pointers, it’s just marked as “Qi2″. It only exists as character art, no model or texture or anything like that.

So is this past Qi? Future Qi?? Qi for one day if he’s forced to wear something nice for a change??? It looks like the neat and complete version of his normal outfit. You can see the same shirt and tie, same pants (except they aren’t rolled up at the ankles anymore?), same shoes. I’m also just now noticing that his suit jacket’s the same color as the mobile suit, haha funni joke. Again, not a single other character besides Elsie has an alternate outfit yet in these files. What is this for?! I have no fuckin clue, but I can say that Qi cleans up pretty nicely 👀

(kinda wish he kept the messy hair, tbh. doesn’t really look right without it)

And that’ll wrap up this little datamining dive! I’ll probably come back to the art in the future, once more gets added, or if I find some other things to share. In the next parts, I’ll be showing off some of the audio and text data, but I do want to wait until future game updates for some of it. Hope you found this as interesting as I do!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to continue reeling from the psychic damage that full-suited Qi’s done to my poor little brain.

ETA: i just realized that it looks like the fucking onceler’s outfit. i am deeply sorry for putting the image of onceler qi in your head

  or am i

Edit 2: Unfortunately, as of several beta builds pre-release, full suit Qi has largely been removed. The full art version isn’t in the files anywhere, but there are still some map icons of him. Not sure if this is something for postgame content or a romantic mission they didn’t have time to add. We’ll have to see :P

ngl i kinda prefer scruffy qi over this lol

[tendertendrils1]

11, 16, 63, 64, aaaaand 75 for R&R!

~🐹💖

Rodent anon you have made me so happy asking about so many!

11. Link your three favorite (horny) fics

With the caveat that some of my absolute favorites are not currently posted anywhere I can publicly link them: 

-The Aristocrats by Quibbathor. (Link is NSFW) Legend/Wars, one of the stories that made me realize how much I enjoy Legend as a sub. -The Bet by itsnotasecrettoeverybody. (Link is NSFW) Legend/Wars again, one of the other stories that made me realize how much I enjoy Legend as a sub. Also a favorite from this author: An Enjoyable Experience, Four/Shadow. -For something newer, I’m really quite enjoying the farm sim au by green_lake! 

16. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

(Nervous laughter) Aside from the 11-page ideas document that lives in a folder with over a dozen half-written scenes just for future R&R stuff? I am actively working on the next R&R installment, plus two more kinktuary fills (I still need to post the first one actually, thanks for the reminder!) and another three or four unrelated things that may never see the light of day because either they are kinky enough that I’m embarrassed about them or I got stuck. 

This is from some early plans to bring the hover boots back:

Link came home to find Ravio wobbling around in the hover boots.  “Bun! You’re home early!” “Zelda had an emergency.” Of the political variety, unfortunately. Nothing Link could solve by stabbing. “What are you doing?” Aside from making Link nervous that his husband was about to lose his balance and break something in a spectacular fall. Link grabbed a flailing hand to steady him.  “I was going through my things and found these again. They’re supposed to have practical applications. Imagine coming to a gap in a dungeon floor and being able to simply go over!”  Link took a step backward to better see the boots, looking down at them in sudden interest. Ravio’s feet slid across the floor. He yelped, clutching tight to Link’s hands.  Grinning, Link took another step back. And another, towing Ravio after him. “What were you going to do, step off the hill out front?” “Well, yes. But I might be changing my mind. I think I like these better when you’re the one wearing them.” “Maybe you just need practice,” Link teased, heading the direction of the door and taking a reluctant Ravio with him.  “No, Bun! Where are you taking me? Ohhhhh!” He wobbled again, hands tight in Link’s own just to stay upright. “Come on, let’s test them.”  “Bunnybut! Link! Don’t you dare!” Laughing, Link pulled him in for a little kiss. 

63. Something you hate to see in smut

I’m going to choose not to answer this one because I don’t want to risk saying something that makes anyone feel bad about their kinks or their writing. Feel free to request another!

64. Something you love to see in smut

I enjoy story dynamics that challenge stereotypes! Especially around the status quo for certain characters, character types, gender dynamics, and fanfiction tropes (i.e. non-traditional omegaverse dynamics). 

That said, mouthy little guys all trussed up and getting dommed to hell and back is a near-constant favorite. And I don’t write it much, but tentacle dub/non-con is always delicious. 

75. What scene in (R&R) took the longest to write? What was difficult about it?

Any time Link and Ravio argue or have a serious conversation, it’s challenging. Much easier to just let the kinky scenarios flow! The explosive argument Link and Ravio have in making up was exceptionally difficult because on top of it being an argument, it was an argument where Link was overtly in the wrong. I hope it was understandable why he reacted the way he did, but he was still wrong, and that made it very hard to write.

[theuniversitychallengereview]

Get Lost Deer Keds

There is a fly in my eye.

Or right next to my eye. It feels like its trying to get into the eye though, and it's not being removed by a regulation brushing or swatting motion, so I have to squeeze it between my fingers and chuck it off.

It's the same for the ones on my arms, and on the back of my neck. The ones on my legs are getting away with it because there are too many of its brethren crawling around further up my body.

We are trying to climb a mountain in Knoydart - home of mainland Britain's remotest pub - but the heat, our lack of water, and these godforsaken flying menaces are making things very difficult.

What the hell are they, and why won't they get off me!

Even when we get off the mountain they are still there, burrowing around our hair and we keep finding them hours later, scuttling over our skin with no wings, more like spiders than flies. Writing this I can feel their tiny little feet all over my neck.

The name indicates the cause of the main problem - these wee beasties are designed to land on deer, but they are instead mistaking our human hair for the nice, welcoming back of a cervine mammal.

When they land on the deer they shed their wings - quite a deranged quirk of evolution, giving them no other options should the whole thing go south. But if indeed they have landed on a deer then its happy days for the ked, because deer famously don't have hands, and so cannot pluck them off.

Landing on a human then, is a worst-case scenario for both the deer ked and the human - from their perspective because they are going to be removed to (at best) wander around wingless, and from the human perspective because it requires hours of rigorous manual removal of slippery, squirming, snide little shits.

Sign up for The University Challenge Review

Midges, obviously, are the classical scourge of the Scottish summer, and everyone knows to check for ticks, with the risk of Lyme disease they may carry, but the discovery of this fresh hell has coloured my relationship with the outdoors.

There is no option other than to stay inside and consume a massive amount of media - so perhaps you'll see me making my return to televisual quizzing at some point in the near future. Though not on University Challenge, because in order to get to class I'd have to leave the house, risking another encounter with a swarm of wriggling critters.

So there's no risk of me appearing in the second round facing either of the two teams who played tonight - Warwick and UEA, which is the University of East Anglia, not a typo for the United Arab Emirates.

Warwick and UEA played in 2007, a match Jack McB recounted in great detail in a recent blog of his, discussing it as one of the great sliding doors moments in UC history.

We'll have to wait a while to see if this match lives up to the same billing. If you want to watch the episode before reading the rest of the post you can do so here.

Here's your first starter for ten.

Warwick skipper Siddle, wearing a university squash club top with an unacceptable logo or brand taped over on his left sleeve, opens the scoring with Afghanistan. A full set of bonuses on the US electoral system follows, before Hart adds to their lead with Andre, with one of the clues relating to Andre the Giant, who was known as the eighth wonder of the world in the WWE.

Other candidates for the eighth wonder of the world include the Giant's Causeway, the Great Wall of China, and, perhaps bizarrely, the Forth Road Bridge. Although maybe they had to build that while being attacked by deer keds in which case it fully deserves the title.

Hart is able to see the big picture, taking a second starter with IMAX and another perfect set extends their lead to 60 points before Willis gets UEA off the mark with Malta on a picture starter.

The First Picture Starter

I always agonise about describing the picture starters by specifying their number - i.e. the first picture starter, the second picture starter. But I've never the liked the phrasing - it's too clunky and long. However, I can't describe it as the picture starter, because there are two of them, even though it is incredibly obvious from context which one I'm referring to. Equally, it has always felt silly to say 'a picture starter' when there are only two, but maybe that's just me being silly (perhaps this is all just me being silly). So I'm going to try that out for a few weeks and see how it goes.

UEA took a full set of island nations on the picture bonuses, and Willis grabbed himself another starter with shoulder. There's a quote by the author Robert Muchamore where he complains about how sometimes when you spot that you are over-using certain words (as authors often do, especially in first drafts) you realise that there are no real alternatives. The word in question was shoulder. There's not really much you can say instead of shoulder.

UEA's North mishears the request for a Jane Austen character rather than novel on the next starter, giving Mansfield Park instead of Fanny Price, and I'm worried that both sides are going to miss a starter on Black Sabbath, but Watson takes the points for Warwick. They race through another full set on lesser-known brass instruments, then Hart takes another starter with Markov chains. They are flying (but not like deer keds), and have a lead of more than a hundred.

Shaffrey closes the gap with Plutarch, and closes it further with South Africa next time around and further still with The Aviator on a picture starter (I'm not sure I like that any more than 'second picture starter' to be honest), but Warwick remain 70 points clear thanks to Hart's buzzer jamboree, and the gulf between the sides would only increase as the gong approached.

Warwick 275 - 125 UEA

This match wasn't close enough to be a sliding doors moment, I don't think, with Warwick looking very impressive going into the second round. UEA can be proud of their performance, and should be glad they didn't encounter any deer keds on the way home.

See you next week for the series' first Oxbridge derby as St Cath's, Cam take on Wadham, Ox.

[popculturebuffet]

The KaBlammiest Retrospective: KaBlam! Season 4 Review: See Ya When We See Ya (Comission for Cory Bryant)

Hey there kablammoids, assume the crash position, keep your heiner in the recilner and get ready for more KaBlam! It's been a long ride but we're almost at the end: we're at the show's final season and next time we have some loose ends, some final thoughts, and close out this retrospective proper.

For now though we're looking at Season 4 of KaBlam, the final season, one constantly shuffled and screwed around by the network. The "screwed by the network" part isn't remotely suprising as Nick, for all the warm fuzzies it brought us as kids... has a track record of being absolutely awful in how it treats it's shows. A show is LUCKY if it gets two seasons most of the time, especially nowadays, and even if you do get those two seasons or more, the final season may be shuffled around all hours of the night and day so that you can't actually watch it. KaBlam, Danny Phantom, Hey Arnold, a LOT of nick shows had their final seasons just.. trickeled around. And tha'ts if your lucky: once sister network Nicktoons was established it became Nick's go to to dump off a series when it didn't meet their impossible expectations (I.e. being an overnight success, of which only Loud House has really met those goals in recent years), the third season of My LIfe as a Teenage Robot was left in limbo for years, and currently they just decided to.. not air the rest of big nate season 2 at all and remove the rest from paramount+. Viacom is awful is what i'm getting at and always has been.

So KaBlam getting kicked in the teeth in it's final go round wasn't a suprise. It's also not suprising given the series meta nature that they amped up the shots at the network, creating Mr. Stockdale, the exec running KaBlam this season to clearly vent about how brainless the execs at Nick were/still are.

It's also clear even with a possible spinoff.. they knew they were towards the end. There's episodes about the kids fretting about their future careers, and the ending makes it clear they knew they probably weren't coming back, leaving it OPEN to a return (or a revivial, HINT HINT PARAMOUNT), but knowing it probably won't happen. The end was a comin and this was a last hurrah and the Henry and June shorts made the most of this.

Outside of the host segments, there's a unique feel to the season: Sniz and Fondue are now truly gone, and in their absence we get more pilots than ever. There are a TON more animated shorts this season. This is a mixed blessing as there's a ton of great new shorts and we get not one but TWO music videos for they might be giants as well as a wholly original concept from the same team as the Henry and June segments, Dave Son of Hercules, and some true bangers to go out on.. but also a few misfires that were likely given the space as they needed whta they could get. It feels right though that KaBlam goes out with an influx of original shorts: it came in giving indie animators a shot and goes out giving every last one it had left a shot.

This torch would be picked up by O-Yeah Cartoons at least, but that's a story for maybe another day. For now let's see what KaBlam saved for it's final act.

As I mentoined in the overview , the final season of Henry and June shorts doubles down on the mocking of executives as their now given a character to represent them, Fred Stockdale.

Mr. Stockdale is a spacey old man who is barely aware of anythinmg happening to him, takes naps in his office frequently, and forgets what he's doing. He is a burden to deal with most times our heroes have to and most times he interjects with the show he messes with it. The writers were not subtle.

Stockdale features in about half of the episodes and how entertaining he is largely depends on the joke. Him just saying Henry and June's names wrong or being spotty.. is something i've seen done better by better characters

He works best when he's clearly just off in his own weird world, offering them snacks when they bring up a labor dispute, smashing his cell phone because it annoyed him , not realizing he's lost in the woods, or spending a good chunk of the show's budget on a train because he likes choo choos. He is also decent satire, showing how execs tend to be completely detached from projects they have far too much say in.

Another thing i noticed is the show keeps it's secondary cast around. Henry's mom appears for the third season in a row and gets two apperances, and i'm utterly exastic to report Jimmy , June's sidekick from last season returns.

Stylistically season 4 of Henry and June largely trucks on. While there are more shots at the network, and again not unresonably, it's otherwise a lot like season 3

That being said even with the unfair cancelation.. you can feel fatigue setting in a bit. The first half has a decent ep or two, but as I typed out my thoughts on each episodes I realized a lot of these are just.. meh. Not terrible to watch, but nothing really special like the last two seasons. There's an exception or two but most of these are just passable. Not bad, but probably best the series ended where it did. I do wish Marek would ge tmore work though as his work is great and the art here is as good as ever, and the final episode and his original segment for it show he still had legs. It's just clear they kinda took these two as far as they could.. and makes me dread the spinoff pilot next time. For now though..

Sasquatchersise: Henry and June have put on some weight, which heavily reminds me of a later home movies episode with the same premise, but honestly does it just as good: turns out they have to pass a physical fitness test and there's only one man who can help them

Yes fitness guru Richard Simmons. For those less familiar with him he was a fitness instructor who made a killing via vhs and has currently retreated from the public eye. He's doing fine, he simply decided to live privately and occasionally post on facebook. And honestly given the number of celebrties going the right wing jackass route, it's refresshing that richard simmons isn't ranting into daily wire he's simply.. retired. That's it. That's all. Good fo rhim

He tries his best but ultimately can't help the two loose weight in time.. thankfully in a really nice button it turns out they just have to withstand slapstick. A decent start to the season, mostly because I have a soft spot for Richard due to a combo of my grandma having his tape as a kid and that simpsons bit.

Takes a Knockin and Keeps Tick Tockin: This is a strike episode, as Henry goes on strike after finding out Mr Stockdale is having him injured for money. Given the sheer amount of abuse Henry takes, I can't say I blame him. June naturally only gets involved when she gets hurt and even more naturally they get replaced by robots.. and only get their jobs back because the robots malfunction. This one has a good start but fizzles out in the second half. The robots thing just isn't that funny nor is our heroes begging for their jobs back. It's mehtacular!

In It To Win It: A fantastic one as Henry and June get a today show style window outside their set and quickly the fandom grates on them. From unsettling hairy men to june cosplayers beating June up not realizing it's her, to their attempts to ignore them leading to their viewers looting the set it's a really great time.

The Best of Both Worlds: Our heroes want to go to the real world and try various shenanigans to get there. The first half is fine, but it really gets good in the back half when they casually find out there's just.. a door to the real world and we get real kids in wigs overdubbed playing the two, who decide the pain isn't worth it. My faviorite part is the final joke as it turns out Mr Foot just gets pizza from the real world all the time and our heroes hot doggin and grandstanding quickly deflates. Decent stuff but like Takes a Knockin and Keeps Tick Tockin, a bit lopsided.

A Nut in Every Bite: This one's a tad dervative as "boy gets crush on girl but won't actually talk to her" is a Nickelodeon staple. What works here is unlike some of Nick's own examples, Henry is portrayed as an idiot for not talking to Mr Stockdale's niece dawn, especially since she makes it clear she just wants him to say it himself. Henry doing more slapstick than usual to get her attention and June's utter exapseration make this one work.

Now With More Flava: This one is just.. depressing in hindsight. It's one of the better eps of the season objectveily, but it's VERY hard to seperate from reality. The opening bit is funny as our heroes find John Stamos, who I think is voice dby himself, working security and worry their star is fading. The thing is.. the characters stock DID go down eventually: while they did host segments fo ra while they disappeared and unlike most other nick shows from the era, nick dosen't seem to give one iota of a shit about this one nostalgicly: henry and june are just.. absent form murals, posters, group shot merch, all that good stuff. So this episode was just sadly prophetic, ending with the two working security themselves after trying to cash in.

Timeless: This one is a lot of fun as the two bury a time capsule and our heroes keep pissing off mr foot by forcing him to redig it: We get henry trying to bury his report card, June dumping out the stuff henry wanted for her merch, and a giant capsule getting dumped into some poor guys apartment. It's good stuff. The ending, mr foot stuffing them in , is fine if a bit obvious. Still it's such a fun segment it's hard to complain too long.

The Ka-Blair Witch Project: Another classic. The Ka-Crew have a team building retreat in the woods, with Henry, June and Mr Foot joined by Jimmy, Mr Stockdale and Henry's Mom in her final apperance. Mr Foot abandons them, even if he comes back in the credits, leading to lots of fun hyjinks from our heroes. It's good stuff. I've seen plenty of camping disaster episodes, but this one benefits from using the characters to their fullest.

Going the Extra Mile: This one.. was annoying. Ryan, an annoying kid from their class, wins a fan contest. His voice just.. grates on me on an atomic level and his schtick is something i've seen on a LOT of shows and done better. You know the drill. And given it was almost 2000 by this point, it's late neough in the shows run that I can't give it as much slack for this. The annoying fan plot was done better and would be done even better after this. Spongebob and Flight of the Conchords eat this episodes lunch. As does the film hot rod if only for richardson's sweet moves.

On the bright side Ryan does get shoved in the trunk of Mr. Foot's car, which h'es excited about as he's driven off to dig his own grave.

Under New Managment: This one is okay. Mr Stockdale tasks our duo with firing mr foot, a task made hard by the fact he won't wake up for them to do it. Henry tries twice, mostly because well Mr Foot has pummled him a bunch. The payoff joke, that they get him a new job as an executive is fine, it's just a forgetable plot>L it's a good concept they just don't do much with it apart from June getting him a job as an air traffic controller... so mr foot murdered a LOT more than the three people we've seen thus far on his way out. classic mr foot

Just Chillin: Our grand finale and while the rest of the episodes are mostly ... fine, Just Chillin is an instant classic and a worthy finale for these segments and the show as a whole. It's got a simple meta premise: Henry wants to make KaBlam more exciting as they don't know how much time they have left in the show , a nod that this could be the last episode and ended up being it. This is one of those episodes written as a finale, but not as defntiive in case the show got renewed. It didn't but this serves as a great one.

So they decide to have a KaBlamaganza! Pomp, ninjas and train chases... and the consequences of trying to give the people more than they could ask for results in their budget going away: the actor for the train fight gets fired, with Mr Stockdale hilariously trying to fill in, our heroes are reduced to black and white then cutouts, then learn their lesson and get their animation back.. not because they learned an animation but because Mr. Stockdale likes Choo Choos. They get hit by a train.. and will see us when they see us. It's a fitting end.. a bit of slapstick, some meta jokes, and a goodbye that feels final rather than the usual "see you next time". It hit hard, and i'm REALLY going to miss this show and while it was a releif getting to the end, as this project while fun has also been exausting and gotten delayed at times, it was also deeply sad. I'll miss this show.. and i'll miss you henry and june. Thanks for.. oh right we still have a LOT of ground to cover. My apologizes.

Action League Now!'s final season goes out on a high note, fitting as they'd later get their own show repackaging these segments for people who only liked this show and not the rest of kablam

Or just wanted to rerun the episodes without the league. There is one short specific to a tryout special for said series we'll get to next time.

Season 4 is mostly the same, with the quality going back up to around season 3 with the exception of two episodes. The big diffrence from the other seasons is movie parodies: Outside of the Jaws parody "Incident at Chlorine Lake", Action League now mostly stuck to either broader genre parodies or it's own thing. Even it's parody of aliens landing films was mostly "how badly can our heroes fuck up first contact. For the record it's sonly real tv/comics parody the red ninja being a parody of storm shadow from gi joe and the heroes that upstaged them being based on the challengers of the unknown.

Season 4 on the other hand is half movie parody, half buisness as usual and one literary parody with Flowers for Algernon. We get parodies of Armageddon, Jurassic Park, Face/Off, and for some reason Stephen King's Thinner. It works due to most of the parodies working well with the show, and a nice spread of regular stories. The Face Off Parody in paticular is my faviorite for reasons we'll get to shortly. Otherwise it's one last hurrah for the action loosers as they once again fuck up a bunch, somehow save the day, and go out with a great final season. I started pretty salty on this show but I can't help but love action league now er.. now. It's creative, hilarious, and lasted long enough to do a LOT with the premise and the world , but not so long it wore out it's welcome. I'll miss these idiots.

The Naked and the Dumb: A rare short that shadows the main Henry and June plot. The team is given apptitude tests to stay in the league and everyone passes.. including meltman somehow. Frankly i'm suprised he didn't stab himself iwth a pencil repdeately. The Flesh of course drew a kitty and thus is going to get kicked out, and the team needs him since he's their tank. We get a fun bunch of destructive hyjinks as they try to teach him, the great visual gag of them just.. writing notes on him, and the amazing punchline: he drew a doggy instead. I like both personally but hey it's a decent start to a great season.

Winds of Evil: The Mayor menaces people with a giant fan. At least he's not throwing them into it. It's a simple but amazing premise. At the same time the action league don't want to party at stinky's because he lives in an actual toilet, a joke so simple it's amazing. He refuses to shelter them after feeling snubbed by this, and only saves their lives if they agree to spend a weekend at his beach place, which was a porta potty a joke way better than it has any right to be, just like this episode.

Chickie Chickie Bang Bang: The Mayor tries to black market chicks, played by actual baby chickens, who are adorable.. and also peck out his eyes. The League is forced to calm them. This one was okay. Great premise, somehow not at all memorable.

Armageddon Out Of Here: Great title and a solid armageddon parody. It uses the same framework, our heroes have to blow up a meteor, but uses our heroes stupidity and selfishness well. They only agree to the mission because they get to blow shit up, and end up stranded because Flesh forgot the explosives, though still giving us an explosively good episdoe. I also applaud it for just.. leaving the league stuck there. While their back next episode I like to think there's at least one timeline where Chief is free of this mummy's curse of a team and maybe gets a spinoff in florida with bill the lab guy.

Yurplastic Park: This one is weak. it's a Jurassic Park Parody

That's all they have. I expect better and dumber from this show. It's one good joke is our heroes and the dinosaurs being saved because of sequels. I mean I do like the one where the guy realizes he shoudln't of given his robot dinosaur a penis because like everything with a penis it's gonna want to use it's penis.

Grief for the Chief: Thankfully the episode rebounds with one of the series best. The team's stupidity puts Chief in a coma and they remember all the good times.. and all the times they accidently injured him, either through good nature or stupidity. it's both sweet to see how much they genuinely like the chief.. and hilarous that his rage over their actions wakes him up. Simpsons had a similar gag, but this ones just diffrent enough to be great too. Good stuff.

Hey! Who Stole My Face?: I just read that title while picturing nicholas cage screaming it. Your welcome. Anyways it's a face off parody in that face's get swapped, so it's a loose one.. but ti works: the chief and the mayor get their faces on each others bodies.. and it's both so obvious and so hilarous. Everyone including bill is an idiot about this, so the Cheif has to rely on stormy, the dog I forget's on the team half the time to escape a prison beating, while the Mayor easily traps the league.. and the mayor looses his actual face. One that thrives purely on it's visual gags but what a gag it is

A Flesh of Genius: This one's boosted by a brand new villian, smarty pants, a baby doll dressed up as a neurotic nerd.. aka what I look like as far as you know. Our heroes cram the world's knowledge into face to keep it safe from this know at all, only for this to backfire as the flesh is now a smug jerk who constantly corrects grammar and is a pain to bea round. The Flesh normally kills or injures a LOT of people daily, but he's at least not telling the chief that you and I shit. You and me is just as fine. We get a final chess duel between the two, and the flesh loosing his intellect but winning by pure luck. A solid ep that uses a well worn premise decently.

Tune Up of Terror: Hodge Podge's final hurrah as he hyjacks the action mobile remotely. The premise is clever, he's using an rc remote, but otherwise the ep is just kinda.. eh. Meltman driving is kinda funny, I cant really knock him for taking a while to get a liscnse as I don't have one, but I can mock him for not being funny. He.. he no funny. Dammit. You win this round Meltman

What's Eating the Flesh: This episode has a great premise: the flesh rides a diseased guiena pig

And thus spreads a flesh eating virus to the team. I love how their left as head, how the treesap cure is dish soap and how when bill looks at the virus he sees mrs pac man. It's great. It's big drawback is that it has a racist sterotype bill goes to for help and I can't really FULLY enjoy the ep as a result. It's just bad even by late 90's/year 2000 standards. That Pac Man joke is an all timer though. one of the best in KaBlam as a whole.

Fatter: This one is just.. bad. They make a parody of Stephen King's it, where an old romani woman curses the chief.. only he overeats instead of looses weight.

It's painful, miildly gross and i'ts only redeeming factor is the chief blowing up after the ypop him and even that gets too gross to fully enjoy. A really whimper of an ending for the shows KaBlam run that makes me glad there's one more short to cover.. three actually but two are pilots. more on that next time.

So here's a shocker... I loved this season of Prometheus and Bob. Yes.. really. After three seasons of just absolute abivelence to this segment, just checking out to the point I went into a sleep deprived tangent last time... I loved this season of the show. The segments were funnier, played with the formula well and had more jokes than "caveman don't get it and monkey is asshole". I'm happy I enjoyed at least one batch of these: the premise isn't bad, the claymation is great and the two leads designs are iconic. It just wasn't for me... but i'm happy to say this season was.

Softball: Bob learns to

IQ: Bob takes an IQ test...... it took a second to figure it out because the wikipedia entry for this, which I use as the episode guide for prometheus and bob on the kablam wiki uses the number for the tape instead of the actual episode order. But this one was REALLY funny. Bob is given a test to put blocks in holes.. and puts promethus in a rock nearbye... just makes hims tand in a corner. So not only does bob get the test for once, but it's hilariously done.

Tape One: This was my faviorite as it's one of the most obvious things to do, but it fits they held off till the final batch: we see how Prometheus met bob. Prometheus comes down, and the other caveman understandably run away as they really can't.. comprehind the thin alien man. Bob dosen't.. because his hair is really stupid long and passes out. We do get a geninely nice moment form Prometheus who is usually just.. hung up on his job.. but cuts bob's hair to help him see. It's practical sure but it drives home he's really TRYING to help bob he just dosen't get that maybe bob dosen't need every advancement prometheus tries. We also find out why bob's bald, which isn't info I needed but I love the explination: he got a hold of the clippers and kept going and apparently just.. keeps doing that. He laso defends prometheus from the other cavemen, before prometheus rescues them both. Also they were going to eat the monkey. It's a fun origin story: we didn't NEED these explinations, but they were fun to find out which is how a good origin story should go.

Exercise: I forgot this one so..

Hey I said I liked this season I didn't say I liked every episode.

Dating: Prometheus tries to wingman for bob, which is cute. It dosen't go well, and she ends up falling for Prometheus but he tried. One of the series best.. which coming from me is nothing, but I still really liked this one. I especially liked the monkey for once NOT fucking everything up and instead just comforting bob at the end.

Pet: .. I dont' have anything for this one. Uh... here's wolverine fighting a dinosaur?

Yeah!

Evolution: Okay this one is REALLY fun as Promethus just.. gives up and tries to speed up bob's evolution.. and accidently ends up devolved. So we get a model swap which is a lot of funa nd had to be a lot of effort. I also like the solution: Monkey HYPER evolves and resets everything. This is also the final short and feels like a proper finale. Seriously every recurring segment seems to go out on a high EXCEPT action league now. It's weird. Speaking of which

It's time to bid farewell to Life with Loopy, which was always one of my faviorite segments, but I can say with confidence after four seasons is KaBlam's best. It's the most consistent, creative and fun of the recurring segments and goes out on a high note. Season 3 is a touch better, but Season 4 is still really good. Shorter, like Prometheus and Bob it was in less episodes and thus there's not AS much but what's there of this last batch is pure quality. The show ends well and i'm REALLY sad to see this one go. There may never be another show like you loopy. Thanks for letting me see your life.

Alternative Hamsters: Loopy experiments with Alternative Energy. Huh if I'd known about this one I would've snuck it into the earth day specail. At any rate this naturally leads to her hamster turning into a giant monster and her having to save it from teh military blowing the poor guy up real good. Thankfully she realizes her hamster can run on a wheel to provide energy to the whole town. A pretty standard start to the season, which says a lot about this show and a lot about me that this dosent phase me. It's not a radioactive killer hamster from a planet near mars after all.

Mister Macho: Larry gets bullied at the beach, but chooses to be chill about it. Loopy, is not so chill and uses an old muscle man add in a comic. Larry turns into a hulked up rage monster... which somehow is a very COMMON PLOT: skinny kid gets buff then lets it go to his head. It's done very well here it's just.. weird that for once the stock plot is something this oddly specific. It happens quite a bit but we never really talk about it. even simpsons did it, but we don't talk about that one for a lot of good reasons. Also it was marge instead of bart for some reason. I do like how it's solved; turns out the guy who made it's Zen now and helps larry loose his muscles and his zen attitude scares the guy off. Which is good because Loopy would've torn him assunder. After all where Zen ends, asskicking begins.

Times Up: Loopy beats click by a decade or two by making a fast forwarding remote. Instead of learning a lesson about time, she has to run from the time police. I love how she's entirely flippant to them. It's a common theme honestly. She gives not one iota of a fuck to the powers that be and it's amazing.

I (Don't) Belivie I Can Fly: Dave the Canadian Duck is back!

Dave's migrating again and since his best buddy left the south pole with him to attend to some pressing matters

He's back to get help migrating again. This time Loopy teaches him to fly a plane. It's a cute little episode as Dave is forced to face his fear and I love these two's little friendships and his promise to see her again next year. Sadly we woudln't see that.. but I like to think he just showed up every year to visit.

Good Food Gone Bad; This is a classic loopy premise: she takes a concept literally and turns out to be right. I am glad the show broke out of this formula, finding more weird shit to do, but it's kinda nice to go back to it once in a while. Staying in a formula forever can be draining but you can still find new life in it. And they do as Loopy's mnilk goes bad and she tries to help him on the wrong side of the track, dealing with a bad guy bar for expired food, a literal bad egg and a gang of greaser milk including her old one who she finds new lives for as cheese. It's wholesome, creative and has a lot of fun designs, this show in a nutshell.

Down the Drain: Loopy deals with a clog. This one's fine. Also I just now found out their family's last name is cooper. Huh.

Rock N Roll Loopy: My faviorite of the batch. We finally meet Bugsteak, Larry's faviorite band and I like how they've kept his love of them consistent. They haven't come up in a WHILE, but it's nice that they werne't forgotten. Larry can't afford tickets to their concert so he asks for tickets, since their down with the youth. Now Bugsteak IS within their rights to tell him "no thank you", or to at least make it up. Instead their response is, summed up...

Loopy is naturally pissed and while Larry sleeps at a friends house, she confronts bugsteak at their hotel. She points out their current fancy livin, lalalalala, and stuck up ways have made them loose touch with thier fanbase and dares them to spend one night like a real kid.

So we get a lot of funny bits as Bugsteak is not happy with meatloaf (which I don't get at all as a meatloaf guy), has to listen to dad talk for several years, and mom cuts their hair. They realize they were wrong, make a song about the experince and sing it to Larry. I just love this concept: a bunch of stuck up 90's rockers being put off by having to live like teens again. It's fucking great and the live action actors do a great job as bugsteak.

Bargin Hunters From Beyond the Stars: Is a decent finale. I admit the episode above would've made a better one, but it's still a good note to go out on. Loopy has a yard sale and sells most of the stuff they had.. but accidnetly sells her dad to a pair of aliens and has to find a trade. The gag is once again he goes on too long, which seems to be a trait exclusive to these final two episodes, but it fits the guy well enough that I don't mind nor do I mind it being reused as the contexts are diffrent: with bugsteak it's simply what Larry goes through every night, while here it's the old "annoy the aliens into getting rid of you" chestnut. It's a decent ending to an incredible show.

While our time together was way shorter, I'll also really miss race rabbit. It was a fun segment and it's , like most of kablam, sad ot see it go. But it goes out with both a nice cluster of episodes and on a high note.

Dog/Prince/Ham: Race has to deal with Gold Dingo, a mysterious criminal mastermind whose also a dog, and of course the boolies.. thought his time they pretend to like gold dingo, have kidnapped the prince.. only for the bigger boolie to get beaten up. I also like how he saves the prince: getting him out of the car and letting Gold Dingo go off a cliff a sdog's can't read. I don't know the science on that but ti's a goofy enough gag to get a pass

Robot Rabbit: I prefer Rabbot myself. Race dates a robot rabbit which can relate, but it dosen't work out as it was made by the boolies. How fast he moves is funny as is Max being exasperated for good reason for once.

The Championship: The finale and fittingly the best episode of the shorts. Race has to deliver the secret to strawberry cream, but has to deal with a bunch of pastry chefs all huddled in the same car throwing pies at him, which is just.. it's beautiful man. It's so frickin beautiful. The boolies also have a good plan for once: a heat seeking missle. IT's neat to see race force dup against two threats at once, as the Boolies were sidelined for the gold dingo thing, and I love how he solves it: putting hot chill on the chefs, taking both out, delivering the microfilm and saving the day. That's how it's done old sport.

JetCat's final two shorts are.. a mixed bag. Todd is less annoying in one and still so very punchable in the other. Still a decent superhero work, seen better, movin on.

Lunchtime: Melanie's lunch is interuptted by a mad shark man stealing the cities water and threanting the new wate rpark she and todd want to go to, while Todd guards her mother's cookies

For once he dosen't fuck up, not only not eating them, but also protecting them from said super villian. The series best episode. not a super high bar, but still neat.

I Was a Grade School WereMoth: This one has a great villian in Vicki Von Verman, an insect who hopes to turn JetCat into a hybird bug monster but instead gets Todd because he wans to be a sidekick and drinks strange liquids in hideouts proving why he's not. I mean most human sidekicks to powered heroes do fuck up: Jimmy Olson got transformed once a week and was forcebly married to a gorilla

Ron Stoppable became a super villian and accidently created one. But both these guys are also geninely good dudes who are helpful. Todd is just annoyingly overconfident and stupid. He's a child, and I do give child characters a wide berth for being assholes, but Todd is just so consitently jerkish, selfish and terrible I question why Mellanie hangs out with him. He dragged these shorts down to the depths of hell and while there's good company down there

It still shoudln't be this bad. I've rarely seen a character piss me off this much and that includes the other hall of shamers he's with.

As I mentioned in the intro, the show made up for loosing Sniz and Fondue, as well as what seems to be a dwindling number of Life with Loopy and Prometheus and Bob shorts to use something I only noticed after writing those sections, with a LOT of pilots and a few extra music videos. It's a fair trade off; KaBlam's always featured a ton of unique animation styles and pilots, it's just now spread out instead of an end of or mid season thing.

As usual the shorts are visually diverse, creator driven affairs and really fun to look at. There are more duds than usual, a lot of the weaker one off shorts i've seen from KaBlam reside in this section, but it's counterballanced by all but one of these shorts having great animation and a LOT of great shorts spread throughout. Also we get two They Might Be Giants Music Videos, which is always a good thing to put in your childrens cartoon, so that alone makes this influx of shorts worth it. So let's see what we have

Emmet Freedy: Emmet Freedy has a great art style, using a lot of puppetry to create some fun ugly puppets, and a lot of love and care went into this one and I admire that. The problem is the short itself is pretty stock for nickeldoen, if coked up a bit: Emmet Freedy lies about having lice to avoid a project, only for things to get out of hand. The grossout bits don't help. I wish I liked this one better because it's expertly crafted.. but they used that craft to make something pretty generic by 90's/00's nick standards.

Fuzzball: This one's just genericA tomboy named Fuzzball breaks her dad's bowling trophy when he breaks a promise to take her to the carnival, so she hustles to get a new one. I've seen better tween slice of life shows like As Told by Ginger or All Grown UP after this, and even before this the Girl with her head coming off was way better.

Garbage Boy: After two weak segments, Garbage Boy was a LOT of fun and has a far more intresting premise: Danny's dad works at the local dump, and thus bring shome various pieces of garbage that end up in the basement, and Danny uses them to solve his problems. In this case he dosen't have a pet ,the local bullies snake is eating his friends pets, and his parents won't get him one. His sister is also an abomination of some kind but they don't talk baout it for some reason. So he builds himself a dog that comes to life and wisecracks because the 90's and beats the bully. IT's a fun boy and his dog story with a dash of frankenstien and I like the art style: it's thorughly weird, patching together bits of photos like a ransom note but outsid eof said devil baby it works fantasticly.

The Shizzagee: This one blows. I'd be nice about it, but it wastes a good premise, an extinct creature is brought back and becomes friends with ab oy, on an annoying as hell beast that won't shut the fuck up and awful cg animation. Part of it is age, but even giving it that much, it just looks.. bad. It has a soundtrack by they might be giants but nothing else.

Little Freaks: One of my favorites and a simple premise: a weird supervillian uses moths to eat everyone's clothes so he can make them all dress the same and slowly conquer them, so it's up to the little freaks to stop them, a group of three friends who all look diffrent: Tryla, a three eyed girl with a triangle face, Briangel, a kid with a brain in a jar on his head which melts if he overthinks, and Dubbs, conjoined twins. It's a fun little short with a nice silver age parody flair, something done a lot but done right here. It's cute, fast and a lot of fun.

Doctor Worm: My faviorite segment. It was close, LIttle Freaks and our final indie short are very close. This last batch in the final few eps was really damn good.. but I have to give it to this one. It takes the They Might Be Giants classic and gives us the tail of a little worm who likes to play the drums and tries to get a band looking for a drummer's attention. It takes the song and makes it the tail of a cheery guy who clearly just wants friends. The animation is great, the live action blending is fantastic, and it's sheer fun to watch. Ther'es a reason I made it the title card for this one.

Stewy the Dogboy: This one's.. fine. It's a premise similar to teacher's pet and was actually going to get a full series order before that series got greenlit over at disney. It's not bad, it's fun and I like the payoff of Stewie's chaos getting him seen as a genius by the principal, as well as stewie's voice, it sounds nicely doggish and innocent. It's just Teachers Pet simply did this premise better, and that's not this short's fault. It's still a good boy.

Why Does the Sun Shine?: Another TMBG music video, another banger. I prefer Dr. Worm but this is a one for "The sun is a mass of incadesant gas" and I assume if you grew up after a certain point, you know this one. A boy tries to look at the sun, a sicentst doctor and asun grooves. Really fun stuff.

Dave Son of Hercules: The show's final original short and it' sluckily a banger. It's also unique as it's the only one done by Henry and June animator and creator Mark Marek. It's a really fun premise I wish had got it's own series and it's all in th etitle: Dave is a pretty normal 90's kid whose dad is Hercules. Herc .. really hasn't adjusted to modern life, and thus we get a LOT of fun antics: the guy drives a chariot, slays a serpent ride at the carnival, goes to a greek restraunt to consult the gods, and when realizing he let his boy down, offers to pluck out his eye or liver. Herc is just loveably dramatic: he really wants to be a good dad, he's just out of time. I also like the greek restraunt bhit as the owner, rather than turn herc away, actaully gives him advice, getting Herc genuinely thinks he's the gods and just needs a friend. His advice is good too: quality time. It works.. it ends in the police station for a bit but it works and while Dave is embarassed, he's genuinely impressed and the short ends adorably witht he two skipping rocks. What helps is Dave is embarassed by his dad, but you get he loves the guy.. and unlike a lot of embrarssed kids in children's cartoons you aboslutely get why. A divine finish to KaBLam.

Our Penultimate KaBlammy awards. Next time we'll give out both ones related to our odds an dends.. and overall ones. Best episodes, best segments for series overall. The works. For now, this season

Best Henry and June: Just Chillin. It's not even close. Just Chilin is a fun finale that sends the series out on a high.

Action League Now!: Hey Who Stole My Face? A thorughly stupid, thorughly hilarious face off parody.

Prometheus and Bob: Tape One. A fun origin story and easily the best of these shorts. Sorry to spoil that now but it's true.

Life with Loopy: Rock N Roll Loopy. Beefsteak are too much fun.

Race Rabbit: The Championship, a grand finale for a grandly silly series.

Jetcat: THe one that dosen't ahve todd being a jackass.

Suprising Short: Doctor Worm. They call him doctor worm, good morning to you he's doctor worm.

Next TIme: We finish this. Every little bit of KaBlam I found under the couch cushions. Pilots, shorts KaBlam didn't use the works. ONe last hurrah. See you next week and thanks for reading

[catsandgoodbooks]

20 Questions for Writers

Tagged by @bleue-flora (I am sorry it took so long it's been like a month I was procrastinating)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

22, because my brain hates to stay focused on one idea at a time and I just have to make everything worse. I've got a lot more half-formed ideas and three-paragraph beginnings of fanfiction too <3

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

124,920 - that's...a lot. And it's only been about a year, so yay!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Dream SMP. I'm lurking in a couple other fandoms (mostly the Locked Tomb and Dragon Age), but I haven't written anything for those yet.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

1. Off the Planned Course

Not that surprising because it's one of the fics I've been writing the longest, is the longest of my actual stories (so not counting Whumptober stuff), and it also has the most people reading it (I blame including the Syndicate for that). It's probably my favorite too, so the validation is really nice (even if I keep getting writer-blocked by it).

2. Unfortunate Circumstances

Also one of the long ones, so it makes sense that it's on this list. Also, literally the second Dream SMP fic idea I ever had, so it's great that it's still going.

3. Easier Said Than Done

This one I kind of feel bad about - I decided to change a few details a while ago and I'm still not done with editing the old stuff so I can start on new chapters, so I really haven't been writing much for it recently (i.e in the past six months). Maybe this will get me to work on it again but I wouldn't hold out hope. It's not abandoned, but it's still basically on hiatus.

4. Shared Scars

I really like this one, but I didn't really expect anyone would read it because it was just a random AU with no basis in canon about two side characters, y'know? It's just really fun to write.

5. Dive Deep Into The Dark

This one is the one that surprised me, because it's just a collection of Whumptober oneshots that I wrote in like an hour each. But, hey, apparently people liked that, so yay?

5. Do you reply to comments? Why or why not?

Whenever I can, because they're taking the time out of their day to read my stuff and going the extra step of leaving a comment, and because I just like talking about my stories and stuff <3

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Okay, this and the next question are kind of difficult because I am allergic to finishing anything, ever, and that means I have to stick to oneshots, but I'd say either everything I've ever written for a Whumptober prompt (because those are all terrible, basically) or Old Habits Die Hard (Old Reliances Die Harder) because it's an angsty canon-compliant (ish) oneshot where nothing is resolved and everything is just terrible. In my longer fics, I don't really plan for tragic endings, because the ending should be happy even if the journey there wasn't, or else the whole things sad and there's not really any point.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Again, only oneshots count for this, so I'd probably say burn the scorecards, balance out the scales, because the ending is hopeful and probably the best possible outcome via rivals duo.

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

Not really, which is great. The most I ever get is a confused comment or someone making assumptions, and that's all fine.

9. Do you write smut?

No, and I don't plan to.

10. Do you write crossovers?

No, but I have some ideas I might write that involve crossovers and I might write them eventually.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, I have not <3

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

No, but I would like to in the future.

14. What‘s your all-time favorite ship?

Drunz, for sure. It's the ship that really got me into the fandom and I've always liked that sort of toxic codependence even though they're terrible for each other.

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

All of them? Well, besides that, I'd probably have to say Off the Planned Course, because, although I really love it, I have no idea how to end that thing or when.

16. What’s your writing strengths?

Absolutely no idea, maybe internal monologues? It's hard to evaluate your own writing.

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

Dialogue. 100% dialogue. I get in my head about if it sounds natural or if anyone would ever say that or if I'm writing a character right and then it turns about clunky because I'm too busy worrying about it.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I don't have a problem with it, but you should provide translations in that situation so the readers have context and know what's going on.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Dream SMP

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Probably Off the Planned Course, there are some chapters were I was just having the time of my life writing that thing even if they were immediately followed by two months of struggle.

Not tagging anyone because it's been ages and I'm bad at doing anything quickly so yeah. Also, it's my birthday today and time is really fucking weird <3

[sunmarketing]

Dr. Mary Travelbest - Istanbul Turkey Part 1

In this episode, the FAQ is: What are the best theme parks for those in their Prime Years?

Today’s Destination is: Istanbul, Turkey (part 1 of 2)

Today’s Misstep- Ask for specific directions and then listen better.

Travel Advice: Get a better exchange rate than in a busy tourist city.

FAQ: 

What are the best theme parks for those in their Prime Years?

Answer: I think the best theme parks for adults are the Disney ones. They have been friendly for generations, and you can always find someone to answer your questions, i.e., a cast member. You will pay more than for other parks, but you have the franchise behind you to almost guarantee you a good visit. Prepare ahead of time with any needs you have for accommodations. My friend Ron was in a wheelchair there recently and agreed that the multi-generation experience was good for him. Listen to some of my previous podcasts about Disneyland and California Adventure.

Today’s destination: Istanbul, Turkey

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g293974-Istanbul-Vacations.html

  Turkey was a different type of experience, and I highly recommend you go there if you want to see some variety of culture. It is different from most places I have been to in my life. Yes, I did find someone selling carpets, so I will share that later in the episode.

I was in Turkey for 7 nights.

First, it is centrally located near Taxsim Square at the Wabi Sabi Hostel for four nights, then the Second Home for two nights, plus the Airbnb with “Miss” for one night. With all my travel, I managed a budget one-hour massage, which I highly recommend here.

Here’s a Carpet store tale: I was asking for directions and encountered a man named Burak Solak who worked at the Red Apple Carpet store. He sells carpets, purses, and jewelry at his uncle's store. I told him to put an apple sign out front, but he disagreed. What do you think?

If you are solo like me, I recommend the day Tours: Try one of the Hop-on-hop-off $40 for 24 hours. Stretch that over two days so you can do a half trip in the PM and the rest in the next AM.

 Museums: The Cistern Museum was an underground water system where you could see all the remnants from centuries ago. It cost $22 to explore and was cooler than the outside baking heat of the day, so it was refreshing.

https://mshiddengarden.com/

 Today’s Misstep: Ask for specific directions, listen better, and exchange rates.

  My missteps in Turkey

  Missing the pickup point:

I was getting off the hop-on-hop off the bus and should have been more specific about the pickup point. The driver pointed, but I did not pay attention. That caused me a lot of confusion. It was probably the busiest part of the city and under construction. I was dangerously lost and finally found someone to help me out after walking back and forth for a long time. It was maybe 30 minutes, but the heat was strong, so I was stressed.

Next time, ask for the pickup point.

Second mistake: Don’t try to exchange your cash in any Turkish currency exchange in Istanbul. I got 12 euros for $20 US, which is not a good exchange rate. I should have brought my debit card. Don’t make my mistake.

  Today’s Travel Advice- Money Exchange Woes

  Don’t try to exchange your cash in any Turkish currency exchange. I got 12 euros for $20, not a good exchange rate. I should have brought my debit card. Don’t make my mistake.

I want to bring meaning to your future travels. Sign up for the Dr. Travelbest newsletter. We can connect on my websites, Facebook page, group, or Instagram. Find the 5 Steps to Solo Travel series on Amazon. The show notes have more details for you to connect. Please support this podcast with a review. We need your help to help others.

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[cadaverre]

30 52 61 xx

ty for the ask !!

30: What’s irritating you right now?

umm packing for this trip is both pissing me off and stressing me out, ppl not responding to my damn texts, having to wake up in the morning, thinking abt my future ... idk im rlly happy rn but a few things r irritating me LMAO

52: Do you believe everything happens for a reason?

yes and no. i have a lot of Thoughts on this. i think when people say "everything happens for a reason" they can be really insensitive, like talking about how god has a plan after an accident/natural disaster/really any loss or tragedy happens. im sure that they mean it in a comforting way, as in "everything will work out" and "maybe this is for the better" but i dont think that saying that is very appropriate, especially as its usually said to someone who is grieving/struggling. HOWEVER. the sentiment that the universe is a powerful being is very interesting to me !! i was talking with my mum the other day how it was so crazy to me that i found this perfect handbag that i had been looking for since FOREVER, and we found it in a tiny store and it was in a corner. i said how amazing it was that i was there at the perfect time, and what if the next people coming into the store would have bought it? what if we didnt walk into the store at that exact moment? anyway, i think its nice to have the idea that there is something out there, gently pushing us towards the things we want in life. so maybe things dont happen for a reason, but they do happen, and thats kind of what's important.

61: Is it cute when a boy/girl calls you baby?

YES i think that in the right context ( i.e. not fucking creepy ) then it's so cute and mmm i love it. it makes me blush lmao

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