#gonna publish this for future reference

[greymorels]

doing the worst study known to man out of a precision laboratory (my room) on a reputable campus (my parents' house)

[a-b-riddle]

Part Three

Warning: If you don't like Taylor Swift, you're not gonna like this chapter that much, homie. But So Long, London is so fitting for this drabble series. (I guess a series since it's longer than a drabble at this point)

Can’t stop thinking about reader just trying to move on

You had to remind yourself several times not to check in with the guys. It had almost become second nature doing something big like this. But going to another country…

Not that they would care. You told yourself. It was for the best that way.

The expo went better than you expected. You didn’t believe that there would be a line out the door of eager readers wanting to read your book, but you got a decent amount. More than a few told you they couldn’t wait to read it. Several asking for photos and asking questions on any future books, a spin-off or even continuing the series.

When one a particular large group of girls your age asked for a group photo, you could have cried. They were had found each other in an online book club. You had given them your book several months ago. All copies signed with a note thanking them for taking the time to read what you had poured your heart into.

You had spent a large chunk of your free time talking to them. Bonding more so as women than over your book.

"Have you listened to Taylor's new album?"

It had only been out for two days and you had been able to avoid it like the plague. You didn't need to even listen to 'So Long, London' to know it would fucking gut you. So you would enjoy your time in the states. Save the listening experience for when you were packing up their stuff.

They had posted and tagged you before continuing on with the rest of the expo. You had reposted the photo to your own social media. Or at least one attached to the pen name you had crafted. You only had twelve thousand instagram followers, but it was something.

The first day was much like the second. You had attended several Q & A sessions with a panel of more experienced authors and managed to go to a few meet and greets. Before you knew it, it was time to pack up shop.

The agent the publishing house had assigned to you had stuck with you for most of the day. You were able to pick her brain a bit about new ideas for possible future plot lines and her thoughts. Overall, the trip was great.

Not only were you able to make great connections and take a lot back home with you to reference, but for a few days you forgot what waited for you back home. Or rather what wasn't waiting for you.

By the time your plane landed back in London you could barely hold yourself up. You left the expo, went straight to the hotel to shower, pack and head to the airport.

Your flight was delayed. Your luggage was taking forever to get onto the belt. It was only seven, but fuck if you weren’t ready to just call it a day. Tomorrow you would have to start again. Opening up the shop. Coming back to an empty flat. Maybe start gathering up the items the boys had left behind.

Should you give them in separate boxes or just one giant one and let them sort it out themselves? It was easy to discern whose sweatshirt and t-shirts belonged to who, but when it got to things like socks and chargers...

Yeah.

They could sort it themselves.

You could drop it off at Kyle's when you knew he would be at the gym. He was good at avoiding you anyway.

It wasn't until you stood in your apartment did it hit you.

You were alone.

For the first time in over a year you couldn't call one of them over to soothe that ache of loneliness.

For the first time in over a year, you had to relearn how to handle just being alone.

You usually showered at night. Washing away the grime of the day before settling into bed. But today was a new chapter. You woke up wanting to start it on a good note. Plus you went straight to bed after getting home so you still had a bit of airport funk on you.

It had been a week. One official since you had sent that text nailing the coffin shut. You had touched base with your friends who didn't bat an eye at you dating four men at once. They liked them, even if Simon scared them. You didn't give them the details of the breakup or the cause. You were pretty private in your problems and if you wanted relationship advice, you would seek an unbiased unopinion.

You had a good group of friends, but the moment you told them that you were well and truly heartbroken, they would insist the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. Something you were nowhere near ready for.

So you needed to look like you had your shit together. You put on a dress that was feminine and, most importantly, comfy as fuck. An A-line floral frock paired with a light sweater and some white trainers. You knew a few of your friends would be stopping by for tea so you need to look like you were taking the separation well. Even if you were barely holding it together.

With makeup and perfume on, you started the early morning stroll to your shop.

You loved openings. Starting up the register and selecting the playlist for today. Picking out the essential oil to put in the diffuser even though you mostly stuck with a lavender and vanilla blend during the spring months.

For the morning you stuck with a Taylor Swift Instrumental playlist you had found initially for studying, but you liked the peaceful feeling it brought. Even when it covered the most gut wrenching songs.

You had started to collect the online orders that had accumulated over the last week. Sending out the e-mails alerting to your patrons that their orders were ready for pick up. Luckily you weren't set to receive a delivery until tomorrow.

It was eight and everything was set. Although not many people came to a bookstore at eight in the morning, it really didn't bother you opening up that early considering you were the only employee that was on the payroll. It gave you the possibility of making money, but mostly you spent the morning reading or writing.

You flipped the sign over from CLOSED to OPEN. Ready to start take on the day.

You had turned the kettle on in the back room when your friends had stopped by around lunch. You always said it was just tea, but you always had an array of snacks on standby for you all to munch on.

Meredith was complaining about what a dick the new client at the law firm was being. An absolute slime who had been married to his wife for almost twenty-five years before he decided to fuck his twenty-two year old assistant.

Tabitha didn't want to talk about work. To her, her career in tech was just a paycheck. She did what she needed to do and left when she was done.

You talked about the expo and how your book. Although neither of them really read, they had promised that they would read your book. You didn't hold your breath. They had reposted your posts as well as making ones of their owns in celebration of you. Words of praise about your dedication and hard work.

You realized that even though they couldn't give you the support you needed as readers, they supported you blindly. You could have written absolute garbage, but they would still support you.

You talked about how many people liked your book and wanted pictures and to sign their copies.

Then came the question you had been rehearsing since you had texted them a week ago. They both shared a look before Meredith finally asked.

"How are you holding up?" You gave a half-smile and a shrug. So perfectly rehearsed in your head you were ready to deliver your lies lines.

"I'm fine," you lied. "It was just fading so there isn't much of a difference, I guess." Not necessarily a lie. "We just wanted different things and were on different paths in life." Not a lie. "It's for the best." You weren't sure if that last one was a lie or not just yet.

They both shared a passing look before returning their gazes back to you. "You know you can come to us about this stuff." Tabitha's hand reached across the table, placing a hand on top of yours.

"It wasn't going to work out." You added. "Situations like that don't and I should have known better."

"A situation?" Meredith asked. "When have you ever called it a situation?"

"It always was one."

"I love you enough to call bullshit." She raised her eyebrow at you, crossing her arms over her chest. "You loved them and you need to stop pretending this is easy."

"You're a divorce lawyer, Mere," You reminded. "You see marriages fall apart every day."

"I do. I get to see from across the table how a woman is still willing to take her cheating arse of a husband back. So the fact that you went from on cloud nine with all of them to not even talking about the break up is concerning to say the least."

"Tabitha," you looked at your only ally left. "A little back up would be nice."

"I'm with her on this one." She confirmed. "You loved them. Not that I cared, but if you weren't talking about books or the shop, you were talking about them. What you did, where you went. How they fucked you."

"I think I'll miss that part the most." Mere sighed. "I lived vicariously through you."

"You know you could actually date people." Tabitha suggested.

"I'd rather live with chronic carpal tunnel than a man." You almost choked on your tea. If you were wearing pearls you would have used the comedic relief of clutching them to break the awkwardness of the current topic of conversation.

"That should be put on a t-shirt." You suggested

"I wouldn't mind it on a welcome mat to be honest." Tabitha added.

"But in all seriousness, cut this bullshit." Meredith gave you an sympathetic smile. "We're here. Good, bad and ugly."

You returned her smile. "I know."

You had closed up shop for the evening. Your lunch had gone longer than expected so now you were left doing the dishes and clean up during closing. You were setting the last cup on the drying rack when you heard the front door chime.

Shit.

You must have forgotten to lock the door when you turned the sign.

“I’m sorry!” You apologized, making your way out of the back break area and to the front of the store. “We’re-”

“Closed.” He said, locking the door behind him. “I saw the sign.”

[daughterofheartshaven]

Hey! Do you have any recommendations for favorite First Doctor-era EU content which doesn’t necessarily rely on familiarity with later eras?

…not that I’m considering immediately breaking my “I don’t have time to get into EU content” resolution or anything… 😅😅😅

You have come to the right place! Welcome to the endless wormhole! We have so much fun here. I'm about to flood you with recommendations - my goal is not to get you to read/listen to them all but to give you a lot of options so you can pick something that sounds good to your tastes.

So my understanding is that you know basically nothing about the EU, so I'm gonna explain everything. Apologies if I explain something you already know.

So I tend to divide the EU up by medium. We have books, comics, short stories, audio stories, and video games. There aren't any 1st Doctor video games, and short stories tend to be in multi-doctor collections, so we're gonna focus on books, comics, and audios.

Books

The best first doctor book I have ever read is The Empire of Glass. It does make some references to the Third Doctor story The Three Doctors, but all you need to know is that the First Doctor was involved in a multi-Doctor story where he was pulled out of his own time by his own people. This book is one of the first books to feature the character of Irving Braxiatel, who is a pretty major EU character and a local fan favorite. This one features the Doctor, Steven, and Viki landing in Venice in 1609, with an interstellar peace conference (the Armogeddon Convention) happing in secret above the city. Great character work for Steven specifically.

The other book I would recommend is Venusian Lullaby. The Doctor, Ian, and Barbra, still melencholy after Susan's departure, land on a dying Venus well before the evolution of humanity. The Venusians are some of the best depicted aliens the franchise has done, and the book has a really impressive balance between the melancholy of the fact that Venus is dying and the persistent hope for the future.

Comics

So the comics published back in the 60s alongside the first Doctor are totally disconnected from the show (they feature Dr. Who and his grandchildren Joan and Gillan), hilariously bad, and occasionally horrifyingly racist. Not what I would recommend for an EU-introduction. There have been a few comics published with the First Doctor since then, but none of them are must-reads.

But you said first doctor era, though, which means I get to talk about the Dalek Chronicles. The Dalek Chronicles are comic series written by the Dalek's creator, Terry Nation, and they depict the origin of the Daleks and their conquests through space ending with leading into The Dalek Invasion of Earth. These comics have aged about as well as the tv show they are based on, and are a surprisingly foundational for how the Daleks lore has evolved. I highly recommend!

Audios

So most DW EU audio stories are created by a company called Big Finish. Initially, due to several actors passing away, Big Finish made First Doctor stories as two-handed audiobooks - usually through the framing narrative of a former companion telling someone about their old adventures. This section was originally longer, but I realized that was probably overwhelming, so I cut it down to a few. But if the companion chronicles sound fun, lemme know and I can provide more recommendations.

The Beginning: the story of the Doctor and Susan leaving Gallifrey and meeting humanity for the first time

The Rocket Men: SPACE PIRATES WITH JETPACKS. Focus on Ian (Ian, Barbra, Viki are the companions)

The Oliver trilogy: A trilogy with a new companion Oliver Harper, a (deeply closeted) gay man from the 60s alongside the First Doctor and Steven. The first story is... not great, but the last two are both much better.

The Perpetual Bond

The Cold Equations

The First Wave

And then later they recast the First Doctor and did fully-casted audio dramas (think like tv with no picture). Some of these still have narration, and some don't.

I have heard good things about The First Doctor Adventures series, which primarily stars the First Doctor, Ian, Barbra, and Susan, but have not listened to much of that personally. However, there are some individual stories from The Early Adventures series that I would like to recommend:

Domain of the Voord: A proper story starring the Voord as proper villains. Barbara/Ian/Susan are the companions, with the latter two being given some heavy focus.

An Ordinary Life: Steven and Sara are stranded in 1950s London with nothing but each other and must figure out how to survive

The Sontarans: The Doctor meets the Sontarans for the first time. Steven and Sara are his companions here again.

(oh and if you don't know who Sara Kingdom is that's because all of her stories got wiped. She's from The Daleks' Master Plan)

And finally I have to give the Chaos Evil recommendation of the Fourth Doctor story arc titled The Syndicate Master Plan. It is basically a sequel to the Daleks' Master Plan, and despite, you know, featuring the Fourth Doctor, pretty much everything it does builds on either First Doctor lore or stuff you don't need to know the background of.

That's it for now! If you check out any of these, I'd love to hear about it, and I'd be delighted to be your guide to the DW EU in future!

(oh and btw if you want to read the books or comics and don't wanna track down used copies of stuff that's VERY out of print, send me a DM and I can slide you some PDFs or something)

[irisintheafterglow]

HAND EIGHT - FOUR OF A KIND

summary: in a season where you're determined to fly under the radar, newly-returned crown prince!touya todoroki has other ideas. in this hand, you have an unwelcome visitor and the final ball begins.

wc: 1.95k

cw/tags: royalty!au/regency!au, fem!reader (she/her used), tomura shows up, down bad touya but he's still emotionally constipated, lots of foreshadowing and you're gonna be mad about the ending (sorry not sorry)

note: you think i forgot about you but i DIDN'T !!!!! the final hands have been completed and it's time to FINISH THIS DAMN SERIES. so all remaining chapters will be published very soon :) love you all, hope you like it <3

likes, reblogs, and replies are appreciated!

The king’s words hang heavy on your conscience, heavier than the luxurious fabrics you would soon be swathed in. Your dress for your last night as the prince’s fake future-wife was draped on the comforter of your bed, and your stomach churned at the sight. It was hard to fight down the wave of nausea that you associated with this final dress, this ridiculous amalgamation of satin and teardrop-shaped jewels that would bear witness to your parting moments with Touya. 

Touya. 

A few days prior, the invitation carrying the royal family’s seal arrived via messenger rather than the prince himself, which was to be expected; it didn’t make sense for him to invite you to your own proposal, right? That’s what the maids theorized, anyway, as they combed over the cursive again and again and imagined readying you in a gown so bulbous and white that it would put the back garden’s buttercups to shame. The invitation made you slightly uneasy then, but slipping into the dress felt like forcing your gag reflex with a hot poker. 

“It’s blue,” you observe quietly, examining how it flows with your body like tides at midnight. The shade is nearly black, only visible as navy when it catches the light correctly. It’s a beautiful dress. You swallow thickly. You don’t ask how the dress arrived, as it wasn’t in the style of the modiste you usually visited. You don’t ask if he sent you the dress.

“Fitting to be dressed in the prince’s colors tonight. Right, miss?” Your maid comments coyly. Her smile is blinding.

“Yes, so it is,” you answer with as much conviction as you can muster. She doesn’t notice, too lost in her own fantasies. “Is the carriage arranged?”

“Yes, miss. Shall I fetch your coat?” Movement rustles in the doorway before you can respond.

“Before you depart, miss, there is a visitor asking for you,” a footman announces, his voice echoing in your bedchamber. Your eyes narrow. Who could be calling on you at this hour? “He asked for you by name and referred to himself as Tomura, an acquaintance of a Mister ‘Dabi.’ Shall I see him out?” What the hell?

“That won’t be necessary,” you insist hastily, suddenly emboldened with a new type of energy that was different from the anxiety in your veins. Curiosity drives your steps and you dismiss your maids, making your way to the parlor where Tomura is waiting. 

He does not acknowledge you, but you immediately register he is standing at the window, looking out at the garden the same way Touya does. Your eyes scrutinize his attire; he’s dressed so formally that you could be mistaken for attending the ball together. It felt unnatural, seeing him in this light when you’d only ever seen him in a stifling warehouse for cards. He’s pulled back the long white hair that previously covered his face and swapped his tattered cape for a sweeping velvet cloak. Etched with scars and severely dry, his face is nothing but amused when you enter his field of vision. 

“He had that custom-made,” Tomura informs you, his shrewd eyes flicking up and down your body. You don’t need to clarify that he’s talking about the dress. “Couldn’t stop talking about it for a week. Said it was for a special occasion.”

“What are you doing here?”

“You’re not going to ask how I found your place of residence?” There’s a slight quirk in one of his thin eyebrows and he’s masking a sneer. 

“Respectfully, that’s at the bottom of my priorities,” you snap as lowly as you can, fearful that you’re overheard by nosy maids.

“And there’s that wit he loves so much,” he smiles, uncharacteristic admiration in his eyes. Your stomach flips again.

“You have thirty seconds before I tell the servants to see you out,” you state and Tomura huffs through his nose. “Now, why are you here?” 

“He will ask you to run away with him.”

The breeze halts.

The petals in the garden lie still. 

There is nothing but the blood rushing in your ears. 

Tomura does not elaborate.

He’s going to ask you to run away. With him. 

“H-How do you know this?” The man beside you snorts like you’d asked him what color the sky is. 

“Because he’s planned on asking you since he found you behind that pillar.” There’s a breathless feeling in your chest, galloping like the thundering hooves of racehorses down the final lap of track. “At least, that’s what he told me. There are other things he hasn’t told you, I’m sure.” 

“Are you to enlighten me of these empty spots in my knowledge?”

“Only if you wish to know,” he answers cryptically. It irks you in a manner you didn’t have time nor energy for.

“On whose authority?”

“My own,” he reveals. “To run away with Dabi–excuse me–Touya is no easy decision. He is not the prince you have come to know.” 

“I suggest you speak in more concrete absolutes if your goal is to gift me information.” Your hostility is dismissed with a wave of his hand, like he had nowhere else to be at the moment. 

“I can hear the horses stamping at the front. You should be on your way.”

“You’ve done nothing but incite unease within me,” you snarl, hiking up your skirt and turning to exit. 

“Ask him about Flash Fire,” Tomura calls after you and you pause, glaring at him over your shoulder. “Ask him why the attempt on his life was when you were with him at the market, why the fire was blue. Ask him what we did during his…exile,” he spits. Before you can whirl around to question him, the parlor windowpanels are swaying in the wind and Tomura has disappeared into the darkening dusk. 

—

“What ails you, my love?” Your arrival on the palace grounds soon turned into a spectacle, and you found yourself surrounded by nobility who were anxious to hear of your engagement to the crown prince. Touya’s heroic parting of the crowd to save you did nothing but suffocate you further. 

“It is nothing,” you lie straight through your tinted lips with the best smile you can manage, his strong arm steady beneath your fingertips while he guides you into the ballroom. “Worry not about my wellbeing, Your Highness.” You address him formally without thinking, an obvious slip-up that is impossible not to catch. His jaw clenches but his voice remains steady. You didn’t call him by that title anymore; he was supposed to be just Touya.

“How could I not, when I feel as though my heart is aching with yours?” 

“My heart is not aching,” you reply too quickly. He arches a single eyebrow, seeing through you like glass. Puzzlingly, he does not press further and exhales carefully. As you expected, his coat is a nearly identical color to your dress, and you stand out as a couple dressed in dark shades as opposed to the celebratory creams and pinks buzzing you. It does not slip past you that you’re dressed for a funeral in a room full of wedding guests.

“Why you decide to lie to me now, of all times, I cannot fathom,” he murmurs almost sadly. His eyes, usually so intense, reveal his disappointment even as his face remains the epitome of a cordial royal. You meet his gaze briefly and bite your tongue with so much force, you taste copper. You blink and he’s led you to the dance floor, settling a hand on your waist and pulling you close enough to examine all the uncertainty in your face. “I have the money for you, waiting just outside the palace. When the clock strikes 8:00–”

“I don’t want the money,” you sniffle, rapidly blinking back the tears in your vision. He clocks them immediately and is quick to swing you away from any prying eyes, lest someone accuse him of abuse for making you cry. “I don’t want any of it.” Touya’s eyebrows pinch and his molten blue eyes are fixed on you again, searching for some kind of answer that wasn’t in your words. There’s a stone in your throat that hits your gut as you swallow. Nausea overtakes you again, a bombardment of reminders that he was going to leave you, that you would never see him again, that he was going to ask you to run, that you would need to make a decision. 

“Are you hurt? What do you need?”

“I need you to tell me everything,” you whisper and watch as his face instinctively closes off. “If you want me to stay,” you say, mustering all the courage you can while war rages behind his eyes. “I need you to answer what I ask. Truthfully.” His steps to the string quartet’s song falter and you can see he wants to run from you, badly.

“I can’t,” he pleads. “I can’t do that to you.” 

You could leave it at that. You could nod, bid him goodnight, take your money, and forget whatever was going to happen at that season-ending ball. But, if there was one thing you knew about Touya, in spite of all his arrogance and snark, he would fold every winning hand for you without a moment’s hesitation.

“Tell me what Flash Fire is,” you begin cautiously and he stiffens. Your grip tightens if only to keep him from disappearing into the crowd. “Tell me what happened in your exile.”

“I am a selfish man,” he urges. “I cannot let myself pull you into the dark.”

“You say that as if I want to be a part of this world.” You let your composure waver and look around at the vaulted ceiling, the glimmering floor, the amount of luxury fabric that could wrap around the palace tenfold. But, moreover, you glare at the men making empty promises to women throwing themselves at their feet, promising love and family and a happy life together. It was sickening, being forced into marriage without the pretense of love and the ostracization if you denied this life. “If I wanted to be part of this world, I would not have been behind that pillar.” He searches your face again for any amount of deceit and opens his mouth to reply, but is interrupted by the tell-tale trumpets of the king’s entrance. “Go. It’s alright. I’ll find you later.” Touya looks nothing less than torn, caught between you and some previous vow he’d made within himself. Before the king enters, he suddenly grabs your hands and holds your palms against his heart.

“8:00. You must be out of this ballroom by 8:00,” he orders urgently, his eyes the fieriest you’d ever seen. “A footman will be waiting on the west side of the garden with the money. I may be there,” he pauses, an odd look blinking over his face, “or I may not.”

“Touya, I don’t understand–”

“Promise me that you will be out of this ballroom by 8:00.” The heavy golden doors slowly pull open to reveal the king, wrapped in red. Touya’s hands press yours against his rapidly beating heart. “Promise me,” he begs. 

“I promise,” you whisper. He mouths something before slipping from your gloved hands and you don’t realize what he said until he’s stationed at his father’s side, staring straight ahead like a statue. 

I love you. 

—

You keep your promise. When the clock strikes 7:59, you freeze in the doorway, the ball continuing to buzz behind you. 

You don’t know where Touya went. 

You don’t want to know where Touya went. 

And before you can decide whether to make your escape or search for him, the ballroom erupts into blue flames.

if you enjoy my writing and would like to support me, you can buy me a coffee on my ko-fi! you can also check out my full masterlist here :)

[alt-rock-confessions]

People need to stop confusing having money with being an industry plant, you’re babbling words you don’t know the meaning to.

You know what an industry plant is? An industry plant is someone who the industry plucks out and decides to fashion into music careerists. It’s when Simon Cowell puts together a boy band and has their entire image made up for them. It’s when they don’t have an artistic career of their own: every aspect of their career is planned out for them. It’s labels taking a child and saying, ‘kid, we’re gonna make you a star.’

You know what an ‘industry plant’ moment is? A 360 ‘all-rights’ record deal, where the label controls not only print, publishing and distribution of your music, but also what endorsements and sponsorships you will do outside of your music career. When that is signed at the start of your career, that’s industry placement. The word ‘industry plant’ is meaningless.

Having money to buy your instruments, having money to go to music school, having money to sustain a career gigging underground for 3 years before you get discovered? That is not being an industry plant. Getting signed to a record label after being discovered? That’s not being an industry plant.

Being born middle class? You may have your problems with it, but it’s not being an industry plant.

Personally I think we waste time trying to eat slightly more well off kids— focus on the rich kids. There’s not enough money in music for you to be squabbling over how someone with $10,000 is making a music career. I say this in the most practical manner possible: preventing middle class kids from making music is not going to create more grassroots venues. Boycotting middle class musicians will not create more arts grants and youth clubs. Cutting middle class acts, as much as this will surprise you, is not going to mean that more working class bands get support slots that will change their careers. That requires a cultural change. Oasis could’ve made the life and career of any smaller band they’d chosen to open for them. They were given those opportunities at the start of their career. They chose not to do the same for the next generation of working class bands. That decision is not impacted by the availability of working class musicians or the unavailability of middle class ones, that is a culture change. Focus on changing the conversation, redirect the unwanted attention to those that hold the purse strings.

There are execs that run the music industry that are raking in billions. Why is (Spotify CEO) Daniel Ek’s net worth higher than Paul McCartney’s, or all the Beatles (+ estates) put together? Why is one Daniel Ek richer than Oasis? Who’s done more for music? (And who has instead destroyed the industry from the inside so that no musician can ever hope to comfortably live off their music careers?)

Spotify parades on the BRIT awards red carpet going ‘omg, we love the vibes! ✨’ without ever having done any of the work to get those artists up there. I refer you to Myles Smith’s beautiful acceptance speech at the BRITs. ‘You can’t just celebrate success. You have to protect the foundations that make it.’

’Industry plant’, when it is not being used solely to discredit women in music, is not a word that is helpful in actually creating meaningful change in the music industry. All it does is drive wedges between musicians, fans and music industry workers behind the scenes—producers, light and sound technicians, venue staff, road crew, so many more—who are otherwise united in understanding that the problem isn’t that there is no money in music. The problem is that there is no money in grassroots music, because money that used to be put back into the music industry as an investment into the future stars that will one day sell out the big stadiums, top the music charts (/generate billions of streams) and generate those billions in the economy, has simply stopped in favour of another cheque bonus to a Lucian Grainge or a Daniel Ek. Anyone who works in the music industry or is vaguely familiar with its workings knows this.

And so it is in the best interest those that run the industry to create nonexistent divides between the kinds of musicians in the scene: one who will never again have the resources to reach the top and so can be discarded with no consequences by the industry (see: Spotify deciding that any artist with less than a thousand streams a month would not get paid at all. Not only is this work-for-free not being prosecuted, it is being embraced by other streaming companies as well), and the other who are now being eaten by their own for having barely a fraction of the wealth that DOES exist in music but will never reach the people that keep the music industry ticking over.

Put money into the underground. Make it easier for kids to take up music from the very beginning. Ezra Collective stood up on one of the largest platforms you can have in UK music and advocated for youth centres and music clubs.

You really want to tackle industry plants? Combat them by giving everyday musicians the resources to help them reach the top.

Support rising independent music. Voice your support for levies that will give back a portion of larger venues’ revenues to grassroots venues. Buy music if you can, rather than just streaming it. It goes a much further way than the $0.003 a stream gets.

[mamasbakeria]

hey, what's your major again?

summary: my credible expert opinion on what the aot characters would study in university. what are my qualifications? the dozens of hours i’ve spent staring at my school’s program bulletin trying to figure out what i’m majoring in

genre | includes: headcanons, sfw, minor language, uninformed percy jackson reference (pls don't hate me if im wrong)

characters: eren jaeger, mikasa ackerman, armin arlert, sasha braus, jean kirschtein, connie springer, historia reiss, ymir, reiner braun, annie leonhardt

author’s note: had this in my drafts for months now. i just need to post it so it stops haunting me. might do the rest of the marleyans and vets in the future! lmk your thoughts, my only tumblr notifications are from p*rn bots, so i'd love to hear from real people lol. enjoy <3

eren: sociology and public policy, 4+1 program for a social work masters

there’s only so many times you can hear “you’re gonna be a doctor just like your dad” before you start to believe it. that’s why eren started out with biology on the premed track. the thing is, he really didn’t care for it. eren is really passionate about lessening equity gaps and is a firm believer in “if you want something done right, do it yourself”. this is why i see him making the switch to a double major in public policy and sociology. he wants to know about how society got to the point of perpetuating disparities so that he can fix them. but he also knows that the government fucking sucks and thinks its naive to expect policy change to be the only method of change. and like the maniac he is, eren is enrolled in a 4+1 program so he can get his master’s in social work when he’s done with his undergrad. he’s determined to graduate with both degrees in just 4 years though. rip his summers.

armin: international relations and military ethics, minor in communications or smth

everyone always says armin would study marine biology or oceanographic studies, but i honestly think that it’s a passion that he pursues on the side. he takes marine bio courses for his breadth requirements, but knows he’d end up hating the ocean if he spent the rest of his life studying it. he also strikes me as someone who would rather run buck naked into traffic than sit through multiple semesters of organic chemistry. armin was always a good public speaker, though, despite being a bit insecure. that’s why his speech and debate teacher during sophomore year of high school recommended model united nations to him. he was hooked after his first conference and now genuinely sees the path of international diplomacy as his calling. that’s why he’s majoring in international relations. his concentration in military ethics is something he tacks on in his junior year after taking some courses and publishing research with dr. erwin smith. he probably minors in communications because he can.

mikasa: forensic science

mikasa had no idea what she wanted to do when she started uni. she’s good at nearly everything. like never gotten a B in her life and is the student who the curve is based off of. but excelling in every environment you’re put in often means you don’t know what you’re best at. she knew deep down that she wanted to do something justice related like her childhood best friends did, but she’s no public speaker and has no interest in political reform. she was, however, emo in high school and heard a fair share of undertaker jokes at her expense. it wouldn’t hurt to look into right? as cool as the title sounds, morticians don’t make enough money for the job they have. fortunately enough, forensic pathologists do and mikasa looks good in a lab coat. she would never admit it to spare armin and eren’s feelings, but when they, as children, recreated the crime-solving shows mrs. jaeger always had on, mikasa always wanted to be the brains. so criminology and forensic science it is. (side note: she definitely joins the military and they pay for her education)

jean: structural engineering and industrial design with a minor in studio art

more than anything, jean wants to provide for his mom and knows he can’t guarantee a retirement of luxury for her as the freelance artist he wishes he could be. he’s decent at math when he tries and doesn’t hate physics, so he decided he’d give structural engineering a try for at least a semester or two. he wasn’t expecting to get much from it, to be honest. he had a plethora of backup plans waiting for his supposedly inevitable distaste for engineering, but he found that he didn’t hate it at all. someone once told jean that he had the makings of a great leader and he didn’t believe them until he started taking the lead on design projects and producing incredible results. his only qualm is that he just doesn’t get to be as creative as he wanted to be. that was easily rectified by an additional major in industrial design and a minor in studio art. he’s unbelievably busy, busier than he anticipated when he started his post-secondary journey, but he’s content and there’s nothing some extra coffee can’t solve. 

sasha: environmental science and sustainability

sasha spent her childhood ankle-deep in mud and fighting her way through forest thickets without a compass. an upbringing like that doesn’t leave your spirit, no matter how far into the city you go for school. so sasha’s always been passively passionate about the environment. that passiveness became significantly more prominent when part of the woods she grew up in was cleared out to build an industrial complex. it was then that she started researching and writing petitions about preserving wildlife and making environmentally conscious decisions. her work actually got her the scholarship she’s on (because god knows it wasn’t her grades). and she genuinely loves what she does, so why wouldn’t she keep learning about it? the environmental science and sustainability program at the school is small, but tight-knit and known for churning out changemakers. sasha knows she’ll be one of them one day. just hide your plastic straws from her, okay?

connie: computer science and chinese

stick with me here okay? everyone expects connie to be a douchebag marketing major whose hardest assignments are graphing functions and making posters on photoshop, but he’s a lot more invested in his education than he looks. don’t get me wrong, connie has always struggled academically, but that’s because so much of early education is pre-determined. he performed way better when he could choose what courses he took. it’s kind of like percy jackson being dyslexic in english because he was wired to read in greek. connie can’t keep his eyes on a history textbook for shit, but will gladly sit in front of the c++ code on his pc for hours. he doesn’t even get mad when he realizes that he was missing a semicolon. connie loves how versatile of a future he could have with a compsci degree, because, let’s be real, he could never survive in a typical office environment. definitely takes a bunch of chinese classes and doesn’t realize that he has enough credits for it to be a minor until his second to last semester.

historia: political science with a minor in international relations and child development

historia is a lot like eren in the sense that she knows her time is best spent doing hands-on work in the fields she cares about. she realizes this sometime after reconnecting with her estranged father and volunteering at the orphanage she grew up in. but now that she’s publicly associated with a powerful political figure, historia doesn’t get to do what she wants, only what is expected of her. that’s how she ends up on the pre-law political science and public policy route. the nickname “ms. president” that connie and sasha give her only further reminds her that she’s heading down a path she never wanted for herself. after lots of encouragement from ymir, historia decided to take child development courses on the side. even if she doesn’t take on the full minor, she’s taking some classes she cares about. maybe she’ll find use for it someday. at the very least, it’s her first step in becoming the most selfish girl in the world.

ymir: data science and business management

ymir is smart. much smarter than she presents herself to be, almost as a form of protection. nobody expects much of someone who is aloof, so it makes it easy to slip through the cracks to remain safe and comfortable in the shadows. business management is notoriously low commitment and easy to skate by with. guaranteed internships, post-graduate employment, and so on. To anyone who doesn’t know ymir well, it’s perfect. but they have her mistaken, ymir will do as little as possible to go as far as possible. sure, she can live comfortably with a business degree, but it could be better with a little bit of data science in her arsenal. she’s intelligent enough to pick up on it, and determined enough to make it her bitch. yeah, academia is a money-sucking pipeline into the capitalist hellscape, she doesn’t believe in it yada yada, but at the end of the day, ymir’s gonna get the bag. so what if she’s gotta sleep through some stats classes to get it?

reiner: behavioral economics

reiner’s mother had convinced him his whole life that getting a high paying job would fix their lives and bring his father back. believing “perfect grades lead to a perfect life” made high school tough for reiner; gifted kid burnout is no joke. it really messed him up. he wasn’t sure if he could withstand the pressures of university, but here he is. reiner was never allowed a therapist, so he figured pursuing psychology would, at the very least, give him some answers and be a good pathway to a medical degree. he loved getting to understand how people work and why they act the way they do, but something was missing. he found out what it was when a guest lecturer spoke in his economics class. he knew making the switch would be risky, it’s a new field and his current career options are really only research, academia, or government, but the interdisciplinary study of behavioral economics is calling reiner’s name. 

annie: biomedical engineering and kinesiology

annie’s entire life revolved around her father, including the injury he was never able to heal from. the one she gave him. he’s claimed to be over it, she’s forgiven, but annie will never feel like she’s earned that forgiveness until she gets rid of the problem entirely. how is she going to do that exactly? with biomedical engineering. she has years of hell in front of her, especially with her concentration on biomechanics, but she doesn’t care. annie will throw herself into her work to get the results she wants. she takes the highest amount of credits possible every semester so she can graduate early. you’ll most likely find her chained to a study cubicle at the library at all hours of the day and running on 2 hours of sleep, but it doesn’t faze her. she tacks on a minor in kinesiology because it makes sense and she had most of the credits for it anyway. and as if it couldn’t get worse, she probably TAs for a thermodynamics course or something crazy like that.

© mamasbakeria 2023. do not repost, translate (without permission), or modify

[hms-no-fun]

I know you said you're cautiously optimistic about HS2, but the newest blog post has me kinda worried. The talk of "fixing the fans broken trust" and how even the new writers don't like a lot of story decisions that were made by the old team seem really off to me, like it's throwing the old team under the bus. I want to expect good things from HS2 but when the people working on it don't seem to like the story as it stands right now it really just seems like they might bend over backwards to appease the shitty side of the fandom. What do you think about this whole thing?

this is in reference to the october 30th 2023 news update on the hs:bc website. i give the date because the news posts don't seem to have individual links atm, so if you're reading this in the future you might have to scroll back.

to your worry that the new team might bend over backwards to appease the shitty side of the fandom, i wrote at length in my prior hs:bc post about why i don't think that's gonna be a problem. i'd also caution against reading too much into what james says about the attitude of the hs:bc team at large, for reasons that should be apparent by the end of this post.

i think it's perfectly reasonable to take a diplomatic position towards a fandom that is historically very hostile to this continuation. a lot of people haven't read the epilogues/hs2 and hate on them anyway because of what they've been told they contain, and refuse to question those received opinions on principle. many who did read them seem to have been inattentive or otherwise needlessly aggressive, sometimes owing to a baffling refusal to accept the premise of postcanon. plenty of others maybe just need a reason to think that homestuck is for them again. for this project to succeed, the fandom at large needs to be given a reason to revisit the epilogues/hs2 from a position of safety and critical distance. i have my own barbed opinions about this state of affairs, but it is what it is.

i understand and to an extent share your misgivings over that Q&A post, but it simply is not james roach's job to relitigate the conduct of the hs2 team. to even broach the subject in more than a general sense would constitute the opening of a massive can of worms, because the truth is muddy. mistakes were made on all sides, some worse than others, and to really contextualize where the hs2 team were coming from you'd need to explain the history of the hs fandom, the leadership of the reddit/discord, the overall tenor of twitter post-2016 and especially leading into/during 2020, the history of pgen and the homestuck renaissance, the lack of PR training or oversight or guidance from anyone at WP, the history of audience hostility in homestuck, and on, and on. for what it's worth, i think that context is essential-- but i don't know that anyone working on this project ought to be the ones to tell it (nor do i think they want that responsibility), and a brief casual Q&A post as a halloween treat is certainly not the place to publish it.

and ultimately, none of that has much at all to do with hs:bc. they are not beholden to or responsible for the choices made by the hs2 team. they have been entrusted with the reins of this story, and with that trust comes their own admitted desire to take it in different directions than what was initially planned. the hs2 team did this to the outline andrew hussie gave them; it's only fair that the hs:bc team has the same leeway over the outline they inherited. acknowledging fault in prior leadership, admitting disagreement over past creative decisions, is an olive branch to a largely skeptical fandom. i bristle at some of this because the hs2 team were my friends and i'm very protective of their work and that moment in history, but that isn't james roach's (nor the hs:bc team's) cross to bear. his choice, as the new public face of homestuck, is to move forward rather than linger on the past. it's good that he's burying the hatchet, frankly. i'm sick of that fucking thing.

love it or hate it, agree or disagree, the hs:bc crew has to exercise diplomacy right now. they've reopened the patreon and want to sustain this project for the foreseeable future, ideally without subjecting the workers to intensely traumatic levels of scrutiny and harassment. this involves clearing up miscommunications, admitting fault, gesturing at shared disagreements over story direction, and otherwise putting on a friendly face for strangers. and let's be clear, i know for a fact that plenty on the original hs2 team had a panoply of disagreements with the choices made in the epilogues! the operative condition here is not unquestioning devotion to / hatred of prior material, but a willingness to build upon that prior material constructively regardless. that's what matters most to me, and i have every reason to believe they're taking the constructive route.

i'll end this saying what i've been saying from the start. the measure of this project's success or failure should be taken in the work itself. if james roach blanket dismissed the prior team, but hs:bc constructively evolved in a way that didn't invalidate or undercut prior material, i'd still consider us oldschool hs2 fans the winners. i wouldn't be HAPPY about it, but the art is what we're all here for, and it's the art that people will remember. i think often about how the showrunners of the tv series LOST insisted from day one until the very end that everything in the show had a scientific explanation, despite the fact that they *always knew* this was a bald-faced lie. they told this lie because ABC did not want to fund a fantasy show and would've canceled it otherwise. some fans to this day decry the lack of scientific explanations in the text of the show, even when you point out that the promise of such explanations was false from the start.

point is, there are material realities to leading a creative enterprise. james roach has put himself in a genuinely dangerous and scary position, a fact that's easy to forget with how casual and welcoming his posts have been thus far. but this is perhaps the single most mismanaged property of the internet age, and there's no walking that back without stepping on some toes. over-correction is expected and probably necessary. if it ruffles your feathers, that's fine-- but let the work speak for itself, and judge it on its own merits. all this other stuff is ancillary and will inevitably fade into the distant fog of time.

[aachria]

i was rereading sssbmty and I realised smth, well not realised but yeah. as I was rereading I noticed somthing. Ed was bitch. not like 'omfg Ed ur such a bitch' but like 'wtf Ed? ur such a fucking bitch! jesus...' and then I got to alabasta.

ur a genius, I've read other fics like this for example divergence and another one I cant remember the name of (going to read this bites soon... maybe). but what really puts your fic at the tippity top is giving Ed character development, not a whole fucking arc to them obvi but giving them actual character development. Ive read so many what if I was in... but I rarely see authors giving the oc development because they don't think about it or they don't think they do.

but in alabasta, Ed was saying how no one listens to them and saying how they're always right (kind giving ranpo from bsd) but then the straw hats tell them that they don't say anything with conviction.

they basically tell them (incoming poetry made by mwah) that we cant hear you screaming if youre the one keeping your mouth shut.

yeah you can use that for future reference I'm an amazing poet fr fr but its really an eye opener for ed, so far Ed was making theories with no support or little evidence and everyone went along with it. so it doesn't really make any sense to Ed why no one is listening to them. because they haven't realised that even tho they're right about where to go, its vivi's country. vivi isn't their friend because she doesn't like Ed which further dampens ed's theories on where to go because it ties into vivi and hope. there's an analysis on YouTube by MelonTree (I reccomend her entire chanel) which gets deeper into this. but the straw hats trust vivi and want what's best for her. so when Ed is screaming about where to go, they don't say WHY. they don't further in on how vivi's destination is wrong or how there's other possibilities. instead, Ed tells vivi that's its stupid, we're wasting time, I know where to go, why wont you listen.

they aren't listening to Ed because Ed isn't even listening either. Ed was making bets on vivi's country which is a funny gag, is INCREDIBLE dark to her. she has spent years invading buroque works and when she encounters this strange pirate crew they want to help. but this one crew mate isn't serious and theyre laughing and screaming at her because she's wrong. that is the pov of vivi towards Ed.

so Ed and vivi talk it out and here comes Ed, they realize that even tho I'm on the crew, that doesn't mean I'm likable. its seen through the fic that they start to work on themself and provide more evidence to theyre theories.

another thing, the title was familiar, idk why so why when I ask chatgpt what the title is: it doesn't talk about the fic but a fucking poem from the 1920's!?

"Surely some star binds me to you" is a line from the poem "Tea at the Palaz of Hoon" by Wallace Stevens. This poem, found in his collection "Harmonium" (published in 1923), explores themes of self-identity, imagination, and perception.

The line suggests a mystical or cosmic connection between the speaker and the addressee, implying that their bond is predestined or influenced by the stars. It evokes a sense of fate and the interconnectivity of all things, typical of Stevens' abstract and introspective style.

In this context, the "star" symbolizes an inescapable connection, potentially representing destiny, love, or an elemental link between individuals.' WHAT THE FUCK? anyway I'm burnt out and finished rereading the fic so imma go have ice cream like the dumbass I am ;p

Oh this is a fucking mammoth. For your dash's sake I'm putting this under a break lmaoooo

Ed having ✨issues✨ they had to work through was important to me. Hell Ed still having ✨issues✨ they're working through is still important to me. You know when people do those comparisons of a character at the start of a season and the end and they're just so much sadder and fucked up? The goal was to make that Ed. We'll see how that goes. I'm gonna 'to be loved is to be changed' this bitch if it's the last thing I do.

Ed has that kid in your math class that only writes the answer because showing your work is for cowards inside them. Ed fights that kid inside them like they want his lunch money.

I've watched a couple of MelonTree's videos, they are very good.

Idk what the hell ChatGPT is on but like... that is not correct? I went and read the poem, it's quite nice, but there isn't a single use of the word star in it and the line definitely isn't from it. THIS IS WHY I DON'T TRUST AI AIGHT????

I've mentioned it a couple times before, but the title comes from Persius's Satire 5, it's in Latin and there's a couple translations here and here (neither of which have the line as I have written lmao) and I'm sure plenty of others. The line is about his teacher and is very beautiful ok I like it a lot. I went and did a bunch of digging into it a while ago (because of course my stupid ass didn't do more than preliminary research on it before I NAMED MY FIC AFTER IT) and like... y'all....

(I'm paraphrasing because I'm tired and can't be assed to do more than reread the wiki page this shit) Persius's satires critique societal morals (he also gets upset people like other people's poems more than his but that might be ironic idk these things are DENSE and HARD TO READ), discuss themes of what you can ask of the gods, why you should have goals, why you have to know yourself, MOST IMPORTANTY and in the satire the line comes from; Stoicism and freedom (Stoics believe all men are slaves except Stoics, who are free), and how you should use money. Also very interesting, there's a lot of scholars who believe his satires (mostly the first one, I think??) have anti-Neronian sentiments — which is really fucking funny to me specifically because do y'all (if you're caught up) remember Iva talks about the 20 founding members of the WG and about Nerona Imu? And how empty throne Imu could totes be him if he had the eternal youth surgery thingy??? Idk if Nerona actually has anything to do with the emperor Nero (because of translation diffs and any subtleties in the original Japanese I'm too English speaking to understand) or if they just sound similar in English, but it's a hilarious coincidence to me either way.

OK RANT OVER GANG I'M SORRY.

[velvetvexations]

i feel really selfish saying this, but i really wish there were more general trans movies with characters who aren't trans women. like, i'm really glad that they're there and there should be more, but on the other hand, its kinda all thats there? obviously there ARE movies like this, but 9 times out of 10 when there's a recommendation to go see a trans movie, its either a trans women or a character heavily implied to be a trans women there. and i'm really glad those movies are there! but i'd just wish there could be a big discussion about movie and there would be a trans man or a nonbinary person representing the community.

(this also goes for other types of media too)

i sent an ask complaining about how the majority of trans movies that the community talks mainly show trans women and i wanna take that back cause a lot of those media are shitty towards trans women. i dont think its fair to complain about that when those media are awful towards trans women. i apologize

anon of the trans ppl in media asks you can publish them! i retracted it cause im kinda emotional rn and i couldn't really remember if i was being fair or shitty

I think what you're forgetting, anon, is that while trans women are depicted badly in a lot of places - less so over the years, people mainly reference things from the previous century - there's still way more positive transfem rep than there is of anything for transmascs, and that doesn't mean transfems have it better, but as always hyper-visibility and invisibility are two sides of the same coin. It's okay for invisibility to not feel good. There should indeed be more media about transmascs.

Now I'm finally doing that. This year I made my first ever hand sewn cosplay. There are definitely mistakes, but it's pretty sturdy and I can't express the sheer sense of pride I got from wearing something I sewed myself. There are some things I wanna tweak on it, like I must have made a mistake when measuring the waistband because it's WAY too thick. But it's functional, it's accurate, and it even has a zipper! It was expensive because of course for my first ever sewing project I picked a character with a pleated skirt (you need 3x your waist in fabric and im fat which definitely adds up lmao, plus i got the fabric custom printed from a print-on-demand company) and the pleats took forever to do. But I'm so so so proud of it. I'm looking into armor crafting with EVA foam for a future cosplay, and it's intimidating but I'm really excited at the idea of working with it. I've seen so many amazing armor sets and props made with EVA foam and I can't wait to make my own. I'm thinking I'm gonna cosplay Maple from BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, So I'll Max Out My Defense.. Then again, that might be jumping off straight into the deep end again like I did for the last cosplay since she has a GIANT shield. At least I'm sticking to her main outfit, not the one with giant angel wings lmao. I may have watched several videos on wing crafting but even I'm not brazen (or stupid) enough to try making those for only my second real cosplay lmao. Anyway this has been your regularly unscheduled cosplay info dump. Thank you for tuning in, we'll see you next time!

Ambitious! I hope it all turns out great, it sounds like a lot of big projects to have on one's plate.

My opinions are a lot more nuanced than most takes on 'shipcourse' that ive seen, but I've gathered that im generally included when people say 'proshippers dni' based on how people define it in said dnis. I'm not gonna purposefully interact with someone who obviously doesn't want me there. But that makes it frustratingly difficult to find people to follow who also believe in things like transandrophobia. It happens all too often that I find someone with great takes and go to follow them, then see that they have a dni that includes me. It especially sucks when all the other things in the dni are things like "racist" and "transphobic". I'm sorry, but I just can't see having a nuanced opinion on fiction as being on the same level as being a bigot towards others. It sucks to be put on the same level as actively hateful people because I have concerns about the normalization of censorship. I believe that when you open the doors to censoring media because of morals, you set the groundwork for things like the Hays Code. Censorship has always been disproportionately used to silence marginalized groups. I just can't get behind that, no matter how 'noble' the intentions behind it might be.

If it helps any, I'm also what one would call a pro-shipper but find the word itself beneath my dignity because I think it's ridiculous it's an argument in the first place.

[presidenthades]

Compromise Arc 1, Chapter 3: Behind-the-Scenes Commentary

Continuing my commentary as I reread what I've published of Compromise!

Reminder: I will NOT include any spoilers for anything post-Chapter 9! Spoilers for anything from Chapters 1-9 are fair game, as is anything mentioned in other stories like Daemon's Handbook and The Golds.

The chapter title, "Imprints on the Shore," is a quote from Vaemond's eulogy for Laena. It's also a reference to Laenor's last adventure/dragon-ride with Luce.

I imagine Rhaenys and Laenor flew to Pentos several times to visit Laena and the twins while they were living there. Dragons make travel easier, but it still isn't a journey that you would impose on small children too frequently. So the funeral is the twins' first time coming to Westeros, and the Velargirls haven't been to Pentos before.

As such, the twins cling to Rhaenys as the only familiar figure who is emotionally available to offer them comfort. Laenor is a wreck, and Daemon is…dealing with other things.

Corlys is once again haranguing Laenor to give him a grandson. Corlys is grieving for Laena. He's also thinking about the future of his bloodline. Laena just has the twins with no possibility of any other grandchildren through her. Don't get me wrong, Corlys loves his granddaughters. But he would prefer a grandson to inherit after Laenor, so he's renewing his campaign for Laenor and Rhaenyra to try for another kid. That's why all the other adults are so awkward (except Daemon, who finds it amusing as usual).

Luce mentions that the braised beef dish is her and Laenor's favorite. It gets alluded to in The Golds, when Luce remarks about cattle bring brought to Driftmark just for her nameday meal.

I had to show Laenor being a good dad! Luce's grief for her father is something the she carries for a long time. As a writer, I wanted that grief to feel earned, to show why Luce feels his death so deeply. The scene at Driftmark is only a small glimpse of their relationship, but I hope it's enough to demonstrate how much she adored Laenor, even if he wasn't a perfect father.

Laenor mentions that Rhaenyra wanted to keep up with Vermax and Sunfyre during the flight to Driftmark. This is, of course, because she's worried that if Jace and Aegon arrive first, they're gonna get up to something.

Even when Luce is upset with Joff, she still tries to help her sister build a relationship with Laenor. Joff doesn't appreciate it though.

Laenor is 100% aware that the Targbros are suckers for his daughters. This amuses him greatly.

Notice that Laenor does not agree with Luce's statement that he and Rhaenyra are happily married.

I don't think Laenor liked when Corlys and Rhaenys suggested that Laena marry Viserys back in the day. Laenor loves his sister, and he's way more romantic than he is political. When he looks at Jace and Luce, he probably imagines little Laena being matched up with much older Viserys. He definitely doesn't want his girls getting married too young.

Poor Laenor never gets to walk his girls to the altar. Not in the universe, at least. He got to do it in Lavender.

Like Corlys, Laenor swears a lot by the Merling King's body parts. "By the Merling King's beard!" "By the Merling King's tail!" There are definitely some more, uh, vulgar body parts that they curse by, but not in front of small children.

Oh, the eternal mystery of Laenor and Joff's relationship. Who knows why Laenor is so awkward around her? (It's me, I know.)

Laenor ain't a perfect father, but compared to Viserys, he is the paragon of fatherhood. It doesn't even occur to Luce that Laenor is lacking in this department.

Laenor says you have to be "proud and brave" to claim Vhagar. Hmm… Laenor's description of Laena mostly fits Luce, though. Kind and loyal, fierce ally, wrathful. And Laenor thinks someone like Laena would have been Corlys's ideal heir—if only she weren't a girl.

"The heir must also be an excellent statesman, diplomat, swordsman, sailor, scholar, and negotiator. He must be genial and intimidating, cunning and strong, dutiful and self-reliant. He must take pride in our bloodline and seek to better our house." Luce says that these are too many requirements to exist in any one person. But she and Aemond combined demonstrate pretty much every quality on this list, so…

Luce tries to imitate Jace's mannerisms at the funeral. Once again, she treats Jace as the example that she should follow. Luce is even willing to try putting her hair into a braid, because she wants to appear grown-up and put-together out of respect for Laena.

I changed Vaemond's eulogy because he has no beef about Rhaenyra's children being illegitimate in this verse. Instead, his beef is about Laenor's children all being girls. In the show, Vaemond puts himself forward as Corlys's heir rather than Baela or Rhaena, who have a better claim as Laena's children. Vaemond thinks Driftmark should pass through the male line specifically. So his eulogy is about Laena being the paragon of Westerosi womanhood, supporting the menfolk in her life; Laena was not like this at all in reality, but Vaemond has an agenda here.

Laenor's trying to be a better dad to Joff, but it's too late. :(

Jace's second favorite color is pink. You get one guess what her favorite color is lol.

I wonder why Joff is so uncharacteristically unaggressive in the dessert melee??? (Rhetorical question, I know why.)

Velargirls coming to Helaena's defense. Love to see it. Helaena really does benefit from having other girls around while growing up.

Baela is the kind of kid who tries to act wayyyy more grown-up and knowledgeable about grown-up things, like sex, than she actually knows about.

Poor Rhaena didn't have many friends in Pentos because her EMBARRASSING SISTER kept scaring them away lmao.

Luce wants Aemond to be romantic, but she also realizes she sucks at it, so she's prepared to take the initiative and tell him he's supposed to be her first kiss. If only it turned out the way she imagined it.

Rhaena doesn't see the appeal in boys…

And Luce is officially awakened to her crush on Aemond in this chapter! Just in time for them to have their big fight. Oy…

Joff is listening to the other girls' conversation the entire time without them noticing. That's how she ends up being so precocious with knowledge of things like sex. She listens, and people don't pay attention to her. Perks of being the youngest.

Ahhh Daemon has been poisoning Baela against anyone with Hightower blood. Thanks, Daemon.

How differently Driftmark could have gone if Baela wasn't such a menace! Man, now I kinda want to write a short oneshot where Luce does go with Aemond to claim Vhagar.

In an ageswap AU where Luce is the firstborn and Jace is the secondborn, I think their dynamic might be similar to Baela and Rhaena. The bold elder sister bulldozes her way through everything, and the diplomatic younger sister cleans up the mess.

Luce being jealous of Rhaena potentially claiming Silverwing when she hasn't even acknowledged her feelings for Aemond, and Aemond hasn't even claimed Vermithor. One step at a time, girl.

Luce likes Rhaena, but she's way more on Aemond's side, so she chafes against the idea that Aemond is the bad guy here. But then he acts like a dick during the argument…

Luce's stomach tingles when Aemond smiles at her. Aaaand that's the beginning of her secret, conflicted kink for cocky!Aemond ahahaha.

I deliberately ended the chapter here because I really wanted the big fight to be in Aemond's POV. It hurts a lot more. :)

Chapter 4 Commentary

[lobotomy-lady]

you're a wannabe artist and domestic terrorist. do you ever meaningfully advance your goals in any fashion or do you just like to think about what it would be like if you did them? you impotently post about wanting to commit terrorism, and yet never do it. you're a thin veil of a person. youre a bad perfomance. you narrativise everything you do it's so transparent and embarrassing! lack of self awareness is the pinnacle of cringe. i can't believe I ever liked your blog.

This is...literally the most ridiculously parasocial ask I've ever gotten (which I'm sure you know is really saying smth, I don't know why I attract these type of followers but it is what it is). I am actually deeply fascinated by your perception of me & the fact that I'm apparently on your mind enough for you to feel betrayed & offended by me like this?? Wild. But anyways I'm just gonna respond earnestly bc I'm working a double rn, no one is in the center so I'm bored as shit but just know that this is the funniest thing I've ever received & I laughed for like 5 minutes before starting to type anything.

So like...first of all idk why this needs to be said but I am not in fact seriously aspiring to a life of terrorism-are you saying that bc I post about wanting to kill rapists but am not actually out there killing them?? You wouldn't know if I was bc I'm not an idiot who posts about committing felonies, secondly I'm a grown adult with a job & responsibilities to my family so I can't exactly go & throw my life away to become a vigilante for a few weeks then spend forever in jail.

As for the artist part, I mean...I write literally every day (& I talk about my various ongoing projects on here sometimes so idk how you missed that, real parasocials would know, sad!) so yeah I'm advancing in that respect lol. When I talk about my chronic procrastination it's usually me ignoring my novel for my screenplay ( which is much less likely to turn into anything by virtue of needing a producer investing hundreds of thousands of dollars rather than the option of just self publishing an e-book). I have a novel, two screenplays, & an album of songs that I'm almost done with, plus a ton of ideas for future projects I want to work on. If anything my problem is flittering between too many projects at once, if I could stick to one I'd have completed it by now lol.

Also if there's one thing I have in abundance it's self awareness! I'm literally the most self aware person on earth why do you think I refer to my dreams as delusional...it's bc I know being a famous writer/director is a crazy aspiration to have for a working class nobody with no money or connections. Why do you think I'm working as a crisis counselor & pursuing a career in the mental health field in the mean time? Backup plan!

[obaewankenope]

Link to the thread on bluesky buuuuut...

I went Off™ about the Disability Benefits aka PIP because I'm just- yeaaaah.

So, enjoy the 2k word rage that happened.

With the recent ‘consultation’ of the changes to Disability Benefits (PIP) presented by the UK Government, I have many, MANY concerns and a burning desire to bring some receipts and challenges to the entire disability assessment process. Hence this thread with the burning hot tea.

Condolences anyone who reads this, it’s gonna be LONG. References will be at the end too.

.

The current disability benefits is Personal Independence Payment (PIP) introduced in April 2013 to replace Disability Living Allowance (DLA) that had had been the established disability benefit since the mid-90s. PIP came into being after the then Conservative government had already overhauled the Incapacity Benefit (IB) and created the Employment Support Allowance (ESA) in October 2008. The ESA benefit assessment used the biopsychosocial (BPS) model of disability for its assessment criteria. The problem with this is that the BPS model is... flawed. Especially with the way it was applied to assess claimants of ESA. As Mo Stewart (2017) states, the BPS model is a “non-medical assessment” utilised by ESA and PIP assessments which “totally disregards medical opinion”. Stewart also points out how ALL the research commissioned by the DWP to justify using the BPS assessment model has “failed ALL academic scrutiny”. That’s right. ALL.

[rest under cut]

A peer-reviewed, independent study in 2016 literally stated that the BPS model has “no coherent theory or evidence behind [it]” and that the DWPs research was “POLICY based research not evidence based research” – aka the DWP research was literally designed to support the policy not assess it.

Back in 2014, a Parliamentary Committee literally admitted that the ESA assessment needed “fundamental redesign” and that it was committed to help “stop the ongoing identified preventable harm” of the assessments.

Fun fact. The BPS model used by the DWP for WCA and other disability assessment was “influenced by the PRIVATE INSURANCE INDUSTRY” especially UnumProvident in 2004 which FUNDED the DWP research to “justify the replacement of IB with the ESA”!!! (Stewart 2017) This had been happening since 1995 ffs when “corporate America were first involved with advising the UK government on welfare claims management” (Aylward & Locascio, 1995). This literally caused a 2001 conference that literally REINFORCED ITS OWN BIAS to publish papers that went on to influence future UK social policy leading to the “politics of fear” that sick and disabled people experience everyday now as a result. The bs concept of ‘malingering’ aka people MAKE THINGS UP TO AVOID WORKING BY PRETENDING TO BE SICK was championed during that conference and has affected ALL susequent social policy from that point on because it’s clearly easier to believe people are LYING about being sick than actually being sick.

ANOTHER fun fact: UnumProvident Insurance was identified by the American Association of Justice as the 2nd worst insurance company in America in 2008.

When the BPS model was recommended in 2005, the DWP commissioned research suggested one million plus people could be taken off IB. That number, incidentally, correlated to the number of claimants with mental health illnesses. So the DWP literally didn’t care about people’s mental health – how little has changed, hmm.

Atos is the company that performs the ‘assessments’ of disability claimants and its their decision that is listened to over that of the Jobcentre Decision Maker (in theory the one SUPPOSED to have the final say) because Jobcentre workers aren’t specially trained in understanding disability or medical problems, they “don’t comprehend the medical evidence” and it’s why so many ESA and PIP claimants get the refusal overturned when “all the medical evidence is (finally) considered at Appeal”. It is literally all up to the person doing the in-person assessment who, incidentally, has an INCENTIVE to process as many as possible claims with a leaked 2018 letter indicated they would receive a bonus the more cases they worked through. The problem there is its easier to process more cases by DENYING them than working through the evidence and assessment questions which is time-consuming.

On top of THAT, there’s been House of Commons documents published that showed the DWP set targets for how many mandatory reconsiderations MUST be rejected. Which is ESPECIALLY worrying when the DWP ‘target’ wasn’t even at risk of being failed with only 4% of PIP mandatory reconsideration appeals upheld between April 2013 and March 2017. Hell, the DWP staff were even noted to fell ‘under pressure’ to “rubber stamp” the original decision of cases ffs!

Stewart: “the BPS model of assessment disregards diagnosis, prognosis and the claimant’s past medical history and was always destined to create significant preventable harm. Between January 2011 and February 2014 over 91,000 deaths are linked to the ESA functional assessment, known as the Work Capability Assessment (WCA)”

91,000 deaths in THREE YEARS.

There’s been a DIRECT link identified by research in 2015 (independent and peer-reviewed) “between the ESA assessment and a SIGNIFICANT increase in suicides, self-reported mental health problems and the prescribing of anti-depressants” (Stewart 2017)

Most damning of all, the DWP has REFUSED to publish updated ESA mortality totals since 2016.

Moving on otherwise I’ll be here all day.

I have personal experience with filling out the PIP and DLA assessment paperwork and attending the in-person assessments by ‘trained professionals’. I have completed the paperwork and attended with others who claimed and have been refused and had to go to appeal. I’ve had to fight for them at appeal. I’ve succeeded but it is a long, exhausting, dehumanising process.

Questions from the PIP assessment include questions about food preparation, managing treatments, washing and bathing, toilet needs, dressing, communication (verbally), reading, understanding, following instructions/directions, engaging with others face-to-face, and budgeting. You’re asked how long you can focus on things, how far you can walk, what you can carry, how long, where you go, if you go alone, how you manage your money, if you can take your medication without someone handing each tablet to you, and so on.

On the surface, the questions are innocent and just looking for better information to ‘help’ you better gain the support you need.

On the surface.

But the questions are used during the in-person assessment and what you say and how you act is directly compared to the answers you put on your paperwork and both are used to determine the ‘score’ you receive for each aspect of your mobility needs.

The MAJOR flaw with the assessment is that the paperwork asks you to answer based on your WORST DAY and the in-person assessment is used to MINIMISE the answers you gave on the paperwork.

Because the basis of the BPS assessment model used by the DWP assumes EVERYONE malingers (pretends/exaggerates) and this means the answers you gave on the paperwork are viewed through that lens and your conduct during the in-person assessment is considered to be the ‘real truth’ of your disability.

It doesn’t account for if the day of the in-person assessment is a GOOD day for you.

You’re examined and interrogated and coerced into performing for the assessor during the in-person assessment regardless of whether you CAN do something because you’re NOT told that you CAN REFUSE at all.

They don’t tell you to only lift your arms to where it doesn’t hurt, or where you safely can without harm. They say “lift your arms as high as you can” and that’s it.

Because they WANT to catch you in a lie. They WANT to look at your answer you gave on the paperwork and see you raise your arms high despite pain and discomfort because they didn’t give you ANY additional parameters beyond “as high as you can” because they can then give you a LOWER score and justify it in the final decision as “claimant stated they struggle to lift their arms above their head x days but were able to complete this task with no issue during assessment, indicating their mobility is not noticeably impaired to qualify for the mobility portion of PIP”

Additionally, the psychological and sociological effects of disability on a person aren’t seriously considered. Especially when someone says they struggle to travel or be in public or talk to others yet are FORCED to do these things to attend an in-person assessment that dismisses the person’s difficulties by justifying the dismissal since “claimant attended in-person assessment and was calm, polite, and responded normally to questions”

The dichotomy between the paperwork assessment and in-person assessment aspects of the PIP assessment CAUSES people unnecessary pain and suffering because the in-person part is DESIGNED to reject the paperwork and medical evidence the claimant provides.

The disability benefit assessment is structured with REJECTION as the primary purpose of it, not SUPPORT. It doesn’t ENABLE disabled people to live better or have support without forcing disabled people to constantly JUSTIFY their need to have support and to even be allowed to live in the first place.

THAT is the flaw of the disability assessment and its use of the BPS assessment model that literally was designed with malingering and denial of support from the get-go.

So this government consultation and ‘improvements’ to disability benefits is even more terrifying because the narrative surrounding disability in society today is incredibly hostile.

Disabled people are presented as a drain on finances.

Disabled people are presented as scammers and lazy and malingering illness to avoid responsibility.

Disabled people are presented as UNDESERVING of support.

The narrative focuses on how many people have claimed disability PIP benefit in the last few years. It DOESN’T look at WHO those people really are.

The people who are claiming PIP lately are the same people who were frontline workers and NHS staff during the global pandemic. They’re the ones who DIDN’T die from COVID. They’re the ones who sacrificed and sacrificed because that was their JOB and now they’re being targeted and presented by a narrative as malingering scammers and liars.

Even those who are disabled and weren’t frontline workers or NHS staff are overwhelmingly people who NEED the paltry financial assistance that PIP provides them. These are people who don’t even get more than £900 a month from PIP. People who may be completely unable to work full-time or even part-time because they may not be able to travel or work in office environments or perform manual labour jobs, so they rely on a small amount of money every month to SURVIVE.

I can assure you, even if someone is claiming UC and has the non-working element, as well as enhanced rate PIP, they NEVER have more than £1600 a month in benefit. They receive less than £20,000 a YEAR if they claim UC and PIP. Most retail positions and even a newly qualified NHS nurse receive more than that annually.

The problem isn’t disabled people needing support and it isn’t even social welfare support being so expensive. The problem is that it is much easier to use a minority with little power and a near-silent voice as a scapegoat to avoid tough reforms to taxes and spending and enforcing corporations paying their taxes instead of avoiding them with loopholes.

It’s so much easier to use disabled people like this when it’s a foregone conclusion that disabled people are going to die much quicker than other minorities AND that will save you expenses at the same time.

References:

Mortality Statistics DWP

The Guardian, DWP mortality figures

Mo Stewart, 2017

2015 suicide figures

May 2016, BPS Model: Blaming the victim all over again. 

Parliamentary Committee 2014

Influence of Private Insurance Industry

Atos and leaked letter

[spacealligator]

I'm curious to know how you manage your documents for fics, so I've come to you with a few (possibly fun?) questions regarding your process !

1 - How do you name your documents? 2- If you have a multichapter fic, do you keep it all on one document, have a separate document for every chapter, or something else? 3 - If a situation arises where you want to make a drastic change that can essentially end up deleting thousands of words, do you commit to deleting those chunks and start fixing them right in the original document, or do you resort to making copies first so that you still have the original? Something else, maybe? 4 - Optional freebie slot ! Tell me something about your process that you might want to mention, but I didn't have a question specific enough for you to mention it !

hellou whoooo, thank you so much for the ask, here`s how my mess of a brain organizes everything?

1- most of the time the titles are just the theme of the fic, so for the Handsome Cop universe ie the title of the google docs was police AU for a long time, Ive had names like roommate AU, ame trio AU, flower AU etc very straight foward. I only change the title of the google docs once I settle on a title I really like, and that usually happens when Im about to publish and have to come up with something hehe

2- I keep all chapters in one doc, and also, if Im writing a series, theyre also in the doc because I often need to reference it to check some infos or really just the tone of the writing up until then. The worst part is correcting some info that you`ve been using for some time, like the age of a character changes, or something that happened in their past and they reference it a lot, then I have to go over the whole text and look for the specific mentions of that info and it just sucks

3- I have a google docs called kill your darlings where I put the scenes and ideas that were edited off my final drafts, I often go through the drabbles to check if there`s any cool idea in there I can re use under a new light

oh man 4 it`s gonna be a wild one

while reviewing and editing I often use text to speech tools to make sure that the writing sounds natural, its really useful for non native english speakers like myself

I have a spreadsheet of all my wips, with their % completion status, whats still on the pipeline to be written, and just silly ideas that I want to explore in the future (I had to do this because I had more wips than I could manage and was drowning in plot bunnies hehe)

when Im stuck I like writing on my phone because its hard to care about formatting, so I just shoot hundreds of words into a doc that when I open up in the computer looks like a enormous wall of text, and its easier for me to correct, edit and fill in the gaps once I have the main content on a page (blank pages scare me)

I often write all the dialogue of the scene first, and then fill in the gaps with descriptions and inner monologues, this way I make sure the conversations in my fics have some rhythm to them

most of my stories never had an outline, I just get this scene in my had and then I have to do the work around to get there and after it the consequences of it, right now Im working on my cowboy bebop AU and its the first time I really planned a plot, but I dont know whether is better or not

sometimes I go back to read my fics already posted but I often get an itch to correct things like wording and typos, but I dont because thats a rabbit hole I don`t wanna fall into

I hope you enjoyed reading my answers and got something useful out of them, I`d love to ask you right back and hear about your writing process too!

[goobleck0]

hi okay a friend sent me a twitter post of yours and i just HAD to send you an ask. im not gonna say my account but i personally identify w/ the profic label and am active in the proship community, so ignore my ask if you'd like, but i am genuinely just. so curious.

in the post im referring to, you say that you wish that portraying toxic and/or abusive relationships in fiction wasn't stigmatized by proshippers writing about them with sexual intent, because they are extremely interesting to explore. but i'd like to inform you that that actually is what proshipping is! and especially profic. i consider proship as more of an anticensorship identity than anything else - ship and let ship, live and let live, write and let write.

of course, many do write sexual things w/ those relationships, but i don't see why that's a bad thing. i assume that you mean that profic writers writing about sexual concepts poisons the public perception of these abusive relationships, but i don't think that's a fair perspective. puritans will always be puritan, no matter what you are doing. you can't appeal to them enough to be good enough for them - you just have to be yourself.

if you just generally see writing something for sexual gratification bad, then i can't agree at all. that would be a very puritan perspective and actively harmful to free speech and the freedom to write what you desire. and, really, THAT is what proshipping is. it just so happens that many people desire writing things with sexual themes. that's just how people are - sexual themes are interesting in the same way that dark themes are, as a facet of the range of human experience. it might surprise you to learn that a lot of my fellow proship/profic writers who write about sexual themes are actually asexual themselves, and I am on the asexual/aromantic spectrum.

also, i too am autistic, and i too have a fascination with exploring dark themes in media. i consider myself an academic, and i want to become an author in the future. the things that i write now are dark fiction, and they would be considered "proshipping" because they portray dark ships. i never intend to stop writing what i do. i intend to continue writing dark fiction, and to publish it, even if it includes sexual themes, because that is contained within the spectrum of human experience and i believe it is incredibly important to portray. in fact, that would be a necessity to include in stories of many abusive relationships, which often contain degrees of sexual abuse.

if you want to post this, go ahead. if you just read it, that's fine! if you want to reply to it privately you can dm onthelamby and they can put u through to me

I wasn't going to (seriously) respond to this initially, but I agree with most aspects of your take here.

I am a huge on anti-censorship and free speech, always have been. and, I would even consider myself "proship", if the label still meant what it did during its early days. I love to see the portrayal of taboo topics in writing and other forms of art, especially by other victims. but, a lot of the proship community today has made itself into something else entirely, I fear.

as you said, you're profic yourself. and being in the community, it's very difficult to see how it is seen by outsiders. a lot of the proship community that is seen by antis are shotacon, pedos, and things of the like, I don't know the terms... I will give it to you that these people give your community a horrible wrap. the content that these people consume and produce are so damning and make genuine, educational and interesting dark-fiction hard to find for people like me that are into exploring the topics at hand.

I will never be against exploring taboo topics in media, fics where abuse happen, explicit or not, can AND SHOULD be in the mainstream. something like lolita (Vladimir Nabokov), for example, is exactly what I'm talking about, even if this work was misconstrued as something praising the topics at hand. that is what I like to see, that is what should be read and spread around! however, a lot of what I see nowadays are less like lolita and more pornography.

I am not against pornography, but that is not a media that should not explore serious topics. browsing ao3, I often see fics where characters are just abused for no reason other than the idea of the abuse being sexy. that is something I will never, ever support. that is where the stigma comes from, works that explore dark topics in such a way that promote, endorse, and support them.

several people in this community stay in their eco-chambers where they only dig themselves deeper into their trauma by consuming and creating meaningless, nothingburger abuse pornography. I want art, I want things that create a message and spread awareness. I don't want content that purposefully gives even one person the idea that these topics are erotic.

I'm sorry if I repeat myself in this, I don't normally lock in this hard on discourse posts, lol...

[theoceanswaves0]

Ahhhh I fell completely behind on writing these! Thoughts on Chapters 4 for now, chapters 5-8 to come later.

Ch. 4

—>So Chapter 4 brings us to the end of volume 1, and I'm just left wondering - how many volumes is this going to be? As of this post, we just recently got chapter 8, so surely that means volume 2 will be published soon, right?

-->I?? Didn't??? Talk about Tadase and Niya??? That's a crime against humanity. Forgive me for I have sinned.

What a clever ploy here by our resident streamer. Like, are we sure he isn't from the future, where streaming is more commonplace (if you're like me, and refuse to believe that this arc isn't still taking place in 2008?)? Because kids back then weren't think of likes and view counts and all that. I could certainly believe a kid in this day and age would care about that, unfortunately.

Anyway, I really like how much of a wildcard Niya is here. Like, it's pretty obvious he's trying to manipulate Tadase, right? But to what end? What is his end goal here?? Is he working for the director or does he have his own motives??

Seeing him simply as a copycat to Ikuto kind of misses the point - like yes, on the surface, he has quite a bit in common with him. But based on how he operates, he makes for an interesting contrast with Nikaidou from the first arc. I'll hold off on a more in depth comparison to other characters for now though - I just want to see what he does next and find out what his actual endgame goal is.

--> Character Transformations from the dorm leaders wasn't entirely surprising to me. However, I am curious about the naming conventions - is it solely to reference their dorm names, or is there some sort of connection to Amu's own transformations? We know the Arc-Eggs are manufactured in some way, so is it possible that they were made to be modeled after other chara bearers?

Sure, it could simply another reference to card suites... but it's interesting since we don't normally see overlap with names like this.

--> Yesss!!! The conflict I've been waiting for!!!

--> I want to apologize to Tadase. I never appreciated him back in the OG days. Not that I hated him per se, but he just didn't stick out to me as much as the other characters. But you know what? His growth and determination is such a good parallel with Amu's.

--> I love Kinomi. I think he's my second favorite character introduced in this arc (after Erito ofc). Like he just has so much potential for interesting interactions, and this moment here is so funny. Please, please, please, can we get an anime reboot announced so we can see this become the cinematic masterpiece it's meant to be?

--> I'm not entirely buying that Niya likes Amu. Him saying this feels calculated for the same reason him collaborating with Tadase does. He's definitely stirring the pot one way or another though.

--> And this is what makes the Arc-Eggs so interesting. Guardian Characters are supposed to represent what someone wants to become, in terms of personality or aspirations. Amu's characters represent both traits (honesty, kindness, etc) she wants to express, and skills (athletics, art, cooking, etc) she wants to have. Kiseki is a symbol of Tadase's desire for power to protect others, while Yoru was born of Ikuto's dream to be free and live his life on his own terms.

So what does Rosetta actually represent? What does Erito really want for herself? Considering she didn't get the glossy eye look other X-Egg victims get, does this mean Rosetta has nothing to do with Erito's inner self?

--> Okay so... not gonna lie, I'm pretty lukewarm on this. Like, yes, transformation upgrades are pretty standard, but like... I kind of wanted something a little different? Like, I love the Arcana Academy uniforms because they still fit the characters while also reflecting their growth and maturity. And I was kind of hoping these character transformations would do the same?

I don't really know what would work here though. A different silhouette maybe, like with long sleeves? Less ribbons? Maybe it'll look better when it's colored?? IDK, it's been a few months since this chapter dropped and I'm still not entirely sure on this.

--> !!! So her name was Annabelle the whole time, and interestingly it was changed to Rosetta... almost as if trying to force a connection with Erito. And look how many more flowers she has on her after the X is lifted!

Was she taken from another child's heart?? Was she artificially created, and then modified for Erito's sake?? What's the backstory here???

--> I didn't even realize the lock changed to a heart shape at first, since I was so transfixed on the wings. I really like that detail for Amu, as if she's soaring to new heights.

--> Okay, so of course the big reveal of the chapter is that Ikuto is returning and headed to Arcana Academy, and the big question is why? But also... since the Humpty Lock changed, did the Dumpty Key pick up on that? Or did it change too? OR, will it change once he gets close to one of the other artifacts? Were these artifacts made by the same person who made the key and lock?

Overall thoughts for volume 1: I'm not going to lie, I was nervous picking up this sequel, since I wasn't really sure what else Peach-Pit could really do with these characters or this world. Others would (fairly) disagree with me, but I felt like Encore wrapped up enough of the narrative to feel like a satis

But the Arc-Eggs and their guardian characters pose some pretty interesting implications to what we've come to expect.

Anyway, time for a new poll!

[eyesteeth]

Details from The Mermaid's Tongue (Demo)

Spoilers for the entirety of the demo/the Mermaid's Tongue Prologue and Tangle Tower + theorizing on future plot points for the final game.

So, right off the bat: 

Stonetop Inn: as in Selena Stonetop, mother of Felicia Fellow and grandmother of Freya Fellow, as indicated by the Tangle Tower family tree. The boat being named The Dearest Selena cinches it.

The dragon-looking thing on the board is the Silversnake noted in the Children's Book (and Secret Research) in Tangle Tower. It is also present at the bottom of the family tree image.

The crab design on the table could be the Soulcrab... Or just a regular crab, lol

Felicia... Stonetop? Not Fellow? Perhaps she took her father’s last name after some incident? Or perhaps her heritage as a Stonetop was ignored by the family in favor of her status as a Fellow? Or perhaps it’s a retcon? Who can say...

Kristen Kale publishing… wonder if that’ll be relevant down the line.

This book also gives us some potential foreshadowing and a route for misdirection... but it being entered into evidence suggests that at least the author or publisher will be of some relevance.

I didn't take screenshots of it, but there's also an alliterative name outside the theatre on land, a W name. It's not any of the extended Fellow-Remington-Pointer family, but alliterative names have a tendency to come back... so maybe they'll be relevant to the full game, or perhaps a future one?

Tangle Tower took some beats from The Goldbug by Poe, so is this perhaps a Great Gatsby-esque green light? More literary connections? Post-war cynicism and the death of the American dream? Opulence as a disguise for deeper issues? Could be fun.

The likelihood of this being a cheeky All The Wrong Questions reference is a Big Zero, but "Silkwirm-on-Sea" is giving me "Stain’d-by-the-Sea" vibes by both the name and it being utterly dead.

I’m going to assume this is a statue depicting one of the Ambassadors (my guess would be Lord Fellow) attempting to capture the Silversnake - or the Silkwirm Serpent, as it’s called here.

I'm convinced these creatures are one and the same despite the name difference. Boggy's real name is The Amphobi, after all. It could happen again.

Also look at the hanging sign in the top right. Hold that image in your mind for a second.

Hm. Now doesn't that furnace and that glass of wine feel a little familiar... not to mention the shade of red...

...who wants to bet an Ambassador had a hand in making this submarine?

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that’s the Seafoam crest hanging over the Stonetop crest. (That is the Stonetop crest at the bottom, by the way. If you click on the hanging sign over the inn before you get onto the submarine, it reveals this information.) Perhaps the complex web of interpersonal relationships didn’t end with the Pointer-Fellow-Remington family.

And so the guessing game begins… Is The Captain’s Corpse Slumped Over The Panel In That Room

Oh, hey! I recognize that lamp. Has Felix Fellow been down here on one of his many supposed adventures?

The Silversnake returns as a metal structure inside the ship! This is starting to remind me of the constant egg motifs around Tangle Tower... and strengthening my theory that one of the Ambassadors made this ship. This is quite a prominent bit of Mystid decor, and Sally even suggests that it might be load-bearing.

The bottle of tablets having a sun on them leads me to think they’re Vitamin D tablets or the like. Not getting enough sun can really mess the body up, and being deep underwater would leave someone with no access to it. Therefore, these are likely vitamin supplements. The other side of the label having an onion, however… no clue. A mystery for the full game!

Likewise, the moon vial could be a sleeping drought. It’s hard to keep up with your sleep cycle if it’s always dark, after all.

POSTER PLAGIARISM!! Though, it's not like you're going to get called out for it twenty leagues under the sea... My guess is whoever refurbished this room into a theatre really likes the shows topside. But a witch girl seeing the ferryman while in the cauldron herself carries a different tone than a mysterious doppelgänger.

Both the “The Stargazing Girl” text and the footprints have bled through slightly to the other side of the cloth, so they must have been applied similarly (to some degree) - but the circle seems like it was always there. This is definitely part of a larger puzzle, so there's not much to say now.

Claw marks inside the cauldron… like the claw marks in the Tangle Tower aquarium, perhaps? And the gear marking on top… perhaps that’s how it was unlocked?

I also must say - I disagree with Grimoire's belief that the cauldron entity did the murder. The scratches inside the cauldron, with a single exception, are in groups of three. Magnus was specifically killed with a single slash across the throat. The creature in question would have left at least two slashes.

And so, the final analysis of this post. Grimoire suggests a supernatural entity responsible for the murder. Magnus' feet were right up by the cauldron. He fell onto his back. He left a puddle of blood on the ground. There's even a suspiciously placed hole in the wall! This is so, so similar to Freya's death. And, were it done like hers, I'd say that a long blade, like a spear, was thrust through the hole and slashed Magnus in the throat, at which point he fell backwards.

Except, I don't think that's what happened. Look at the bloodstain. Look at how it's pooling towards the cauldron. I don't think the submarine was horizontal when this murder happened. I think there was an initial impact, the main circular stain, and then the ship moved 90 degrees, resulting in the "second circle" of the stain dripping the way it does.

But, this is just theorizing from the little bits we have so far. What's done here so far is phenomenal and I can't wait to see how it goes. Will we meet the mysterious bug-post-sender? Will Penelope return? Will there be two murders on this submarine?? We'll see in 2024!!