#that's a me problem though and a capitalism problem XD

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: GRAVEYARD SHIFT by M. L. Rio.

I really liked IF WE WERE VILLAINS back when it came out, so I was excited for the same author to do Creepy Fucked Up Fungus and Questionable Scientific Ethics: The Insomnia Book.

This was fun! Very short (my copy is only 108 pages), and it takes place over the course of one (1) sleepless night (which, coincidentally, is how I read it), but I enjoyed it for what it was. I've seen some people in reviews wishing it were longer, but I thought we got to know all the characters pretty well for a story that happens in less than 10 hours, and I had a good time.

[teecupangel]

So... There is this one (01) Winterfell guard canonically named Desmond. No last name. No more information other than him being a house guard for House Stark. I don't even remember if he has lines in the book, and he isn't even mentioned in the series.

I'll just leave this information here and let you cook it, Cup.

Xoxo Madu 😽

Man, letting me cook with all these fresh ingredients is always a toss up XD

Anyway…

Here’s a “Desmond sorta adopts Dany and Vis” idea.

Here’s a “Desmond turns into a White Dragon during HOTD” idea and the continuation.

And here’s the AC characters live in ASOIAF idea.

According to the awoiaf wiki, Desmond’s pretty much a minor character who served as one of Eddard’s main guards.

So in this one, Desmond awakens north of Westeros after using the device and became a guard because of… certain circumstances that pretty much ended with him feeling indebted to Eddard Stark.

Eddard personally believe Desmond to be a commoner who is unfamiliar with the whole world, probably from one of the small close-off village that has been wiped out by certain… evil doers that come and go on the North.

Desmond leaned onto it and used his Bleed of Ratonhnhaké:ton to make it believable.

Also, the best way to get information is to stay close to one in power.

He’s mostly known as a chill dude who is easy to talk to. Arya likes him because he never tries to make her act more lady-like. If anything, he’s a secret enabler, giving Arya secret lessons of the best way to kill someone two times her size.

Eddard knows about this and Desmond admitted Arya reminds her of his little sister that he could no longer see. Eddard assumes he means that said sister is dead like the rest of his village and not… well… Desmond using his Bleed of Ezio to talk about Claudia who is the real person that Arya reminds him of.

He’s also close to Jon Snow because he has no problem with illegitimate children and he can see how lonely Jon is at times.

To House Stark, he’s a reliable loyal guard who is faster than anyone and seems to prefer underhanded techniques that knights would have frowned upon.

He becomes part of the guard detail that goes to the South and Eddard knew that Desmond plans to leave House Stark’s employ sooner or later, especially now that Desmond could see the abuse of power and corruption plaguing King’s Landing.

Hell, he even started creating a sorta information network with the use of orphans that he’s trying to keep alive.

He’s not with Eddard when he was arrested but he was ambushed with the rest of the guards that remained in their lodgings that day. Because he was there, the ambush ended with the Winterfell guards alive (some of them anyway).

Unfortunately, they were branded as traitors soon enough and Desmond takes control of what remains of the guards. Some of the more honorable ones split soon after because they do not agree with Desmond’s methods of slinking into the shadows but Desmond doesn’t give a shit about that, he’s more worried about the Starks in the capital.

Arya actually finds him and his band of ‘traitors’ and he takes her to their hideout before rushing to save Eddard.

Eddard is an honorable man though who refuses to leave because he sees it as an admission of guilt and it’s up to you if you want Desmond to find a way for Eddard to agree to leave or not.

No matter what happens to Eddard, Desmond finds a way to save Sansa and take her away from the castle by making her pretend to be a maid.

If Eddard isn’t saved, Sansa and Desmond watches his execution with Desmond trying to shield Sansa’s eyes but failing and they leave the capital with Arya and what remains of the Winterfell guards.

The Lanisters definitely hide the fact that Sansa and Arya escaped and this leads to Rob declaring war as canon as House Stark believed that Sansa and Arya are still held captive in the capital.

[asterefflores]

So I received another request from @achlys-1974 about Roksoo causing the fight this time instead of Cale,,

It turned out too simple that it hardly is considered a fight cuz this is Roksoo we're talking about xD

This is turning into more of a writing than a drawing account lol

Anyway, enjoy 🌸

----------------------------

“I see you’re back.”

Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and looked toward the door to see Cale resting elegantly against the wall with his arms crossed. However, the intense stare put everyone on edge.

Rok-Soo blinked blankly, wondering why Cale would be glaring at him viciously like that when he had just returned home. “Is something wrong, dongsaeng?”

“…ah,”

Rok-Soo slightly frowned when his brother sighed, looking a bit tired and upset.

Cale fixed his eyes on his hyung again, “So, would you mind telling me where you have disappeared off to all too suddenly?”

Rok-Soo slightly flinched when he noticed the vicious smile from the old man standing with his eyes closed behind Cale.

“Ron did inform me that you left on a quick adventure for a week,” Cale explained, still looking unimpressed, “Did I have to look for you and ask around to know of your departure?”

Rok-Soo stared in silence for a moment. Was Cale's bad mood because he hadn't been told in advance that he, Choi Han and the kids were going on a short mission?

‘Ah…’ He finally realized his mistake, taking a moment to recall Cale’s childhood…

However, if he had informed Cale about the problem, his brother would have been even more busy than he already is with matters regarding the territory.

“You’re right. I should’ve informed you beforehand.” He nodded calmly, “It was something that needed to be taken care of and done with.”

“I know.” Cale sharply said with a slight frown, “I received the letter from the Capital, and I was going to take care of it had not a certain hyung gone out of his way to disappear suddenly and worry the whole family, only to receive wonderful news of a whole mountain mysteriously vanishing before I even could take a step to our gate.”

“We took care of the rats, dongsaeng.” Rok-Soo kept blinking blankly for a moment, “You can relax and rest a bit now, right?” Wasn’t it a good thing? The problem is solved. Isn’t this all that mattered now? With this, they both can take their time to slack off. Though he knows Cale will still be busy as the duke, his dongsaeng can now take his time finishing his work and have some free time to breathe and live comfortably as he always wished. 

“You could’ve consulted me before taking any action.” Cale sighed, seemingly less upset now.

“It can be taken care of quickly instead, dongsaeng.” Rok-Soo picked up the cup of tea to take a sip, “Those bastards were disturbing my slacker life, after all.”

“…understandable.”

‘Hm?’ Rok-Soo opened his eyes, looking at his brother standing not far before him. Even though he could tell Cale wasn't upset with him anymore, he found Cale's stoic face and lack of expression in response a bit strange. “I’ll remember to talk to you on any matter next time, Cale.”

Cale calmly shook his head, “You're not obligated to do anything I say if you can think of a better way to handle any matter, but please remember to tell me before you leave next time.”

“…I understand.”

He watched Cale nod before silently turning around and leaving.

The kids and Choi Han turned to look at him in awkward silence.

Rok-Soo was glad the issue was solved relatively smoothly; Cale was no longer upset with him after all. But then, why does he feel something’s off?

“Would you care to hear my very honest opinion, Young Master?”

Rok-Soo slightly flinched, ‘Why does Ron look upset now…?’

Ron looked with a benign smile at the older redhead sibling. “I suppose you must talk with the Puppy Young Master soon.” He closed his eyes with his hands clasped behind his back, “This old servant wouldn’t be pleased to see the Kitten and the Puppy fighting again.” He bowed his head in respect, then closed the door, presumably to return to the office to look after Cale.

“…Human, did you make a mistake?”

“…probably?”

He had done something, and he wasn't sure what, but he didn't want to wait around to see Cale's behavior change slowly.

“Human, I don’t like to see you and the Gentle Human fighting again!” Raon exclaimed. Ohn and Hong nodded along with Choi Han, remembering the first fight that lasted weeks until Tristan had to step in.

Rok-Soo nodded in response but remained silent for a moment. It wouldn’t be wise to seek Cale now to ask him what he had done wrong.

“Human, are you troubled? Should I call Purple Grandpa?”

“No.” Rok-Soo quickly answered, hearing a fake cough from Choi Han. He frowned as the punk seemed to be silently laughing at him, knowing precisely why he reacts this way every time Tristan is mentioned.

Rok-Soo sighed; it’s not like their dad wouldn’t be able to solve the issue within minutes, but they aren’t kids. Tristan wouldn’t be disappointed in either of them, but Rok-Soo still found the man scary. One look from the Emperor’s sharp eyes was enough to make him drop a sweat. If they dragged him to solve another tiny fight between them, Tristan would probably scold them both and teach them a lesson.

Rok-Soo shivered at the thought and stood up. “I’ll go talk with Cale now. No need to ask Dad for help.” He looked at the kids, especially Raon and Hong, “Don’t call Dad or send him a message, all right?” While the kids’ new habit of calling Tristan randomly using his device or Cale’s is sweet, especially since they know Tristan secretly enjoys it, it’s still a bit troublesome sometimes, like now, for example.

“I understand, Human.”

“……”

Rok-Soo glanced at Ohn, pleading with a stoic face to watch her siblings in his absence. The silver cat only nodded, holding back a sigh.

.

.

“Is the duke inside?” Rok-Soo asked the guards standing by the door and went to knock after their nod. “Cale, it’s me.”

Instead of receiving an answer, the door opened before him, revealing a vicious assassin.

Rok-Soo ignored the vicious smile from the old butler, “Ron, give us a moment alone.”

Ron looked over to the side at the duke, closing his eyes with a benign smile as he earned a nod. “Yes, Young Masters.”

The door closed behind him, and Rok-Soo walked straight to the desk, admiring how organized the office was as usual for a moment despite the amount of reports and work that never seemed to end.

“What is it, hyung?”

He turned his focus to his brother looking up at him and waiting with the quill in his hand.

“I apologize for leaving a week without saying a word.”

Cale nodded calmly, “I appreciate your apology.”

Rok-Soo nodded as Cale kept staring at him with a bewildered look in his eyes, yet his little brother was still not as responsive as usual, almost even formal with him.

“I trust you, Cale.”

This time, there was a subtle look of surprise visible in Cale's eyes. ‘This is it.’ Rok-Soo was now sure of what mistake he had made this once. "I never doubt your skills and ability in dealing with any matter, whether it be inside or outside the territory."

Cale calmly nodded again. “I understand.”

He slightly frowned at the formal response, “Do you?”

“I really do.” Cale nodded with a small smile this time, “You only took matters into your hands because I was busy enough, right?” He let out a breath like a chuckle as he looked down at the papers again, going back to working on the reports. "However, hyung, I may have to provide you with some guidance. A true slacker would rather relax in his room if he knew someone else would do the work for him."

That only made Rok-Soo frown even more, “Didn’t you announce to everyone that my word is on the same level as yours?”

Cale’s hand stopped writing on the paper. He looked up again and was met with Rok-Soo’s scolding eyes, “Yes, I did. My word is your word, and your word is my word.”

Rok-Soo nodded, “Which means you can ask me to help when you’ve enough work to deal with, right?”

“That really is coming from you— Ow…” Cale looked lost with a slight frown when the other suddenly pinched his cheek.

“I care about my slacker life, but I also know very well you want to live comfortably, yet look at you.”

Cale slightly winced at the harsh pinch on his left cheek, “Ow, okay, I understand—”

“What do you understand?”

“You want me to stop overworking myself?”

“What else?”

“You never do anything on my behalf for the reason that you consider my methods are not good enough to solve the issue?”

“Excellent, make sure to remember that every day.”

Cale rubbed his reddened and slightly swollen cheek with a sigh, “How did I end up the one being scolded now?” He slightly shook his head in disbelief as Rok-Soo casually picked a cookie from the plate on his desk.

“I was already scolded by a certain dongsaeng here, then Ron and Raon. Isn’t that enough?” He went to half lay on one of the couches in front of the desk while munching on the cookie.

"Ah, that's good to hear."

The two brothers looked at each other, laughed, and immediately felt at ease again, talking casually for a while, then falling into a comfortable silence as Rok-Soo took a nap while Cale worked quietly.

.

.

Later at night…

“Ah, right! Human! Purple Grandpa called when you left your room today! Why did you leave your device here? Did you forget it?”

Cale’s hand holding the glass of wine paused, and Rok-Soo stopped patting Hong while lying on his bed, “…what did he want?”

“He wanted to check on you two. I told him you’re talking to the Gentle Human to make up because you two fought again!”

“……”

Rok-Soo turned to Ohn with a look of betrayal. She looked back at him as if saying, ‘You said not to message or call him, right?’

And both redheads sighed at the same time.

The next day…

-So, what exactly made my kids pout this time?

Tristan laughed through the screen at the two brothers, both sighing in embarrassment before their dad.

-Hey, it’s fine to grow backward and live your childhood—

“Please stop.”

And, as predicted, their dad spent the entire call teasing them for two hours while working in his office at the same time.

At least they know Madelin would scold him for it later, even if all that would come out of it is the usual playful bickering between the married pair.

[veebs-hates-video-games]

Sure whatever, I can put ten game in a single post, because that's how many I managed to play since the last one. Only for like an hour each on average, but that was enough to finish multiple of them and decide the others weren't really doing it for me.

Clickolding was pretty good. I don't usually play stuff right when it comes out, but it was a couple bucks and I feel like I can trust Xalavier Nelson Jr./Strange Scaffold to do something interestingly weird at this point. It's the most about sex work anything's ever been without explicitly stating it's about sex work, and it will do its best to make you vaguely uncomfortable about that and the mundanity and boredom and desperation and detachment that can go along with it. It's also about the impact our actions have on the lives of people around us. A decent way to spend like an hour of your time.

I had a bit more mixed feelings about the first DLC for Voxelgram. On one hand it's good because more Voxelgram is good. On the other the larger puzzles don't really make it more challenging or anything, just more tedious. The last couple took me a bit over an hour each, and I saw someone else saying the last one took them significantly longer than that. I think I would've been happier if they were a bit smaller and didn't go on for so long, and they'd also fit on the screen better that way.

Something I didn't have mixed feelings about was Strawberry Vinegar, which was kind of disappointing because I tend to enjoy ebi-hime's stuff even if it's never my favorite stuff ever. This one I just got through the bad ending and stopped though because I had no interest in seeing what happens in any of the other routes. The way the characters were written just didn't feel right to me, like this is not a nine year old girl despite you telling me it is, and the vibes were definitely off. Oh well.

I have mostly positive things to say about Seraphim Slum though. It's very not afraid to get weird with things, and I mean Capital W Weird, not lolrandom rawr xd. A tagline/pitch like "Play as sapphic Lucifer and corrupt angels to fall...in love with you." is a good way to get my attention. It's at least initially on the surface "date cute angel girls", but it very quickly leans heavily into corruption = love = freedom/release/relief. Overall I definitely enjoyed the vibes and presentation and where it went with stuff, and I only have a couple issues with it: one is that some of the auto-advancing text is borderline unreadable on certain backgrounds, which is unfortunate but can be worked around by reading it in the log, and the other is that the routing/structure of it is pretty incomprehensible to me and I have no idea how to get to a couple parts of it I haven't seen yet. Maybe I'll check the DLC guide at some point when I can justify spending more money on stuff.

An Arcade Full of Cats was ok. Not my favorite Devcats game but fun enough that I finished it. As someone who remembers most of the eras it represents (not the DLC ones though) it was fun seeing the terrible cat puns on old arcade games and various other things they snuck in. There was definitely some artistic liberty taken with some of it, but they did a surprisingly good job capturing the feeling of a bunch of stuff I hadn't thought about in a long time in a hidden object game about cats. I feel no shame about using the cheat button for a few things in this one though because some of them were genuinely bullshit. Even after it pointed out a couple of them to me I could barely recognize them because they were so small they didn't look like anything. I don't remember having that problem in Building or Castle, at least not to that degree.

Gorogoa took me forever to finally try out. I really like the idea of it, and they do some clever stuff with the presentation and ways you interact with things that let them do fun stuff with how puzzles work. I don't really like actually playing it though. It does a bad job sometimes with letting you know which things are interactable or in what ways, and as a result I feel like it kept deteriorating into the typical point and click adventure game problem of rubbing every object on every other object until something happens. It's just not very enjoyable to know what the end goal of a puzzle sequence is but have no idea how to get there because it's looking for a very specific sequence of very specific events, and you tried something very slightly different that didn't work, and there's no useful feedback why.

TET's alright though, if a ten minute cooking game about preparing food for Vietnamese Lunar New Year sounds like your kind of thing. It's cute and funny and even includes recipes. Also it makes me want spring rolls. Also also it feels much better to play with a touchscreen.

I was extremely underwhelmed by Muse Dash, which also took me forever to get around to actually trying. The gameplay seems fine. What I saw in my brief time with it didn't really stand out to me, but there also wasn't really anything wrong with it either. What definitely is wrong with it though is that it kept pestering me to create an account even though I was just trying to play by myself offline, and also the UI seems completely unmanageable. Like the song picker would work but be mildly clunky if there were 20 songs in the game. It appears to have hundreds though, maybe more, and it's just really not suited for that. Yeah there appears to be a filter, but it's just a bunch of incomprehensible icons and very inaccessible for a new player. The art and music seemed ok though.

Speaking of ok, there's also Luna's Fishing Garden. It had some better than ok moments, but overall...it's ok. The default/challenging fishing minigame did not feel good to me at all, and the relaxed/easy mode was a bit boring, but I got over it because it turns out you don't actually have to do it all that much once the game gets going. It's pretty chill, and there's some cute pixel art and characters. Shout out to the "you caught a fish" animation in particular for being adorable. Most of the time I felt like progression was pretty well balanced, but toward the end there was definitely a significant amount of waiting around to get enough of certain resources that dragged it out longer than it really needed to. Aside from that though? It's ok!

And then since I said ten at the beginning, uh...Townscaper exists? Let's include that even though it wouldn't be hard to argue it's not a game. I'm pretty sure I got it in a game bundle though, and it's on Steam, so let's just go with that. It's fun to poke at for a little while and see what you can build with it. And that's about all there is to it.

Video games ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[poetrywise]

Life, sort of

I can't access Twitter lately, so I thought mb I should try to be more active here. Yes, I know I said it before, but my VPN hasn't been working for weeks and I kind of miss people. I miss life, in general. For the past nearly 2 years, life has been hell in my country: mass arrests, toxic propaganda, army drafts, idiotic laws, silencing the media and public opinion, to say nothing of the horror we have been inflicting on another country. I don't know about most people but I do feel ashamed and depressed, even though I am, have always been, and always will be staunchly anti-war. Seriously, how have people not learnt to solve their disagreements in a less insane way over the course of our history?

Today, yet another "great" news: LGBT is now considered an extremist organization. They've done all they could to torment queer people short of criminalizing queerness itself. They keep promoting so-called "traditional" values, debating whether women should be allowed access to higher education (I kid you not, this is us in the 21st century) and abortion, all the while wasting 40% of the budget on war; in the meantime, all their beloved "traditional" families live in poverty and find their social support cut. You can get 7, 15, 30 years in prison for changing price tags in a supermarket to anti-war statements, staging an anti-war play, digging into government corruption. Children are being force-fed "patriotic" claptrap at school. Bloggers get fined, arrested or forced to leave the country because they fear for their safety. Life here is a cruel joke.

I know that I personally have little reason to complain, since I haven't been arrested (yet), nor have any of my loved ones. But it doesn't mean I don't get panic attacks (I had them before, I've been seeing a therapist for 6 years, and this situation IS derailing my progress) or fear for the future. My personal future feels ruined too: I can't travel, I can't see my BFF who lives abroad, I can't get paid for my stories even if I do manage to publish them (I write in English and have had 4 stories published in America, but we can neither send, nor accept payment from abroad lately). All this feels so small compared to what other people go through, in both our countries, but it's big to ME. I can't look into the future with any kind of hope because I don't want to live in the country that makes its people and another nation suffer. (Don't get me started on actual things our politicians say, like: Well, if smb drops a nuke on us, it'll be fine, as long as it's not on the capital. [FYI, I live in the capital, but it doesn't mean turning the rest of the country into a nuclear wasteland is fine by me. WUT EVEN!])

Everyone hates my country. We deserve it. I hate my own inability to change that but I'm neither brave, nor smart enough to do anything. When it all started, I tried writing letters to politicians, but this ain't America, nb listens to the people here. The only reply I got was smth like: Well, the West is threatening us, we must defend ourselves, so STFU. Idk what bizarre illusionland these ppl live in. Last time I checked WE were threatening everybody. Including ourselves.

What's the point of this TL;DR? Idk. To speak out in some way, I guess. Like I said, my VPN isn't working, and I can't access Twitter, which is my usual platform for whining XD I'll try to post smth more positive some time. Among other platforms that don't work without VPN are: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Goodreads, AO3, various torrent sites, BBC sites, many kinds of Western media, and probably a hell of a load more I don't know about. I admire the reporters who are still publishing the truth. It's impossible to hide it from the people these days, but unfortunately, most people just watch TV, which spouts disgusting lies and propaganda.

Nostalgia is a fashionable thing lately, and here's my two cents: I loved the late 90s - early 2000s. Yes, we had problems then too. Like financial crises and local wars. But we had freedom of speech, independent news, we at least tried to respect human rights, we could travel, we had cultural exchanges, foreign tourists, and nb hated us more than any other country. I wasn't ashamed to admit where I was from. I never felt I'd be stuck in a totalitarian state because surely, surely we'd learned! We'd been through it and it wouldn't repeat again. But I guess "all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again" is a very true saying. I'm so tired. I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I do feel very alone whenever I read the news. I'm lucky in the sense that my family at least shares my opinion, but on a grand scale? I don't know if any meaningful change can be achieved when we can't even form proper opposition: a few parties/organizations both here and abroad are usually at each other's throats instead of working together. So yeah, I'm tired, disappointed, depressed, and idk what else to say.

Wow, hope I don't get arrested for this XD

[tuulikannel]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ❤

So I already got this twice so I guess I should try to get an answer out ^^;; It's... really a tough task though, but here we go! I can’t really pick a clear favorite of them all, so they’re just in random order. (Or actually, I guess they're in the order in which they've last been updated/posted.)

1. Caught Between, my Hikaru no Go fic where Sai's a real kid with dreams of turning go pro, an intersex condition, and not... the greatest parents in the world, I guess. (His mom has grown on me though.) I've talked about this fic a lot before, so I'll just say that I'm so glad I finally started posting it and that I've managed to nearly reach the end - still need to wrap things up, but at Sai's finally where he wants to be in live, so in that regard, all's fine.

2. blind alley, Assassination Classroom fic which, as usual for me, is basically about Shuu's relationship with his dad. The summary is rather short: "One day, Gakushuu decides to end it all. Just, all does not end that easily." I've said it before, I don't even know why I like this fic so much. Maybe I'm just a sucker for sad things? I don't think I've ever said anything about the title, have I? Cause this is a rare case where I didn't have to struggle to come up with a title only to end up with something mediocre. I was originally going to name this Dead End, cause stupid puns & Shuu being in a sense stuck in one, but then realized that blind alley refers to the same thing, plus it has the word "blind" in it... and you could say Shuu is blind to the truth for a good while there. (why I decided not to capitalize it, I don't know. Sometimes things just look better like that to me.)

3. oneironautics, AssClass & The Sandman crossover (no knowledge of Sandman required.) Again, Shuu and his dad are in the spotlight. It's just that I like Gakushuu, I found Gakuhou simply... intriguing. What's going on his brain? How did he really go so crazy? I've never felt like Ikeda's death would have been quite enough for that. They hadn't even been in touch for years! So, yeah, I guess one goal for me in this fic was to create him one potential background where all the problems have their roots. Also, writing dreams is fun. ^^

4. Ok, those first three were clear, but now it's getting hard. I've two random Hikaru no Go fics in mind here... maybe I'll pick the one that showcases my fic-naming abilities, It’s the Zombie Apocalypse! XD Its birth was absolute randomness, once upon a time in the hikago community on Dreamwidth people were playing Let’s Five on Hikago Day. Someone asked who'd be the five characters who'd survive the zombie apocalypse, and reading the answers I was attacked by a rabid plotbunny. This fic... it was just so fun to write. And I like how it's got a true ending and a bad ending (the reader's choice determines which you get.) (And, dammit, I'll mention the other fic I was just considering too: Chika-go, the Hikago & Dresden Filess crossover. Another fic that was really fun to write. And it has my first ever battle scenes. XD Also, I like the title for various reasons. ^^)

5. Then, finally: The End of Silence (The All Paths Lead to God of Go Remix), yet one more Hikago fic. This is perhaps a bit surprising choice, but I can’t help it… there’s something about this little fic I really like. It’s a remix, as you see (tho in all honesty it’s more like a sequel than a real remix, I feel), of Flonnebonne’s drabble The Silent Path where Akari, not Hikaru, was the one to end up with Sai. I had always wanted to write about Akari more, but somehow never had any inspiration. This (though I'm sure it's not exactly what anyone expects XD) fixed that.

[snazum]

am I aro? am I ace? (Ha no... well idk. It's complicated) Who knows! I need to look back into these identities again, it's been a decade since I've thought bout it. (More rambling below, warning it's long)

Like. Idk if I'm just commitment avoidant or something. Still recovering from my prev relationship or what. WHO KNOWS! Not me. XD I used to identify as demi-romantic and demi-sexual when I was younger. Then I just, didn't really think about it once I was in a relationship. And now that I'm out of it I don't like. Know?? If you asked me my ideal relationship, the words Work Partners For Life come out of my mouth. Power couple. I want to fucking make cool shit with someone, someone who fucking gets it ya know? Which is a lot to ask of someone lol, and seems pretty much impossible.

And then also! I miss being in a relationship. But my main reason for why? It's cause it was easy to turn people down. Just be like, Hey I'm in a relationship. And that was that. Like usually I just pull the oh sorry I'm gay card and then I'm fine, but then when another guy asks me out? I tweak and freak out and don't know how to turn this dude down (That's a skill issue on my part ofc though)

But at the same time I want to dote on people, I want to be affectionate and caring, and cared for. In a way that friendship can't provide (At least not the ones I'm in.)

But then that line of thought makes me think I'm poly? Cause as much as I can easily picture a monogamous life, it just doesn't seem like it's for me. I picture myself as more of the third wheel? That a couple keeps around? Or i'm in a commune? I DONT KNOW?

THEN I don't know if I have problems picturing myself in a relationship due to being trans, or due to having identity issues. Or what I don't know. Is it internalized racism? Internalized Misogyny? Internalized transphobia? Internalized Homophobia? I have No Clue. Do I even deal with those things? Surely I must growing up in this society. And I do see their prints on my soul, but I think I've made strides to grow from that?

And then I question if I'm actually Bisexual, or even straight! Or do I just picture myself in a hetronormative relationship as to affirm my masculine identity. Am I even fully a man? I think I'm getting a little non binary with it as of late.

But I experience sexual attraction to masculinity? And I definitely experience horniness n shit. But do I only really experience it when I'm high now? I don't fucking know. Do I just have problems when it comes to my own sexual experiences? I don't know! This is why I'm starting therapy (semi-soon)

And then it all leads back to me questioning if I'm aro and or ace. Cause all my Crushes have always been on unobtainable people. And I worry that if the person I believe is unobtainable actually has feelings back for me that I'd fall out of the feelings. And I feel this may be true.

Cause there this one cis (pretty sure het) guy that I'm into rn, like soooo into. But like. I cannot fathom the idea that he likes me back. Like the fantasies are great and all but, when I sit down and actually think that if I confess and he feels the same. Where do we go from there. Like.

Maybe I'm just scared.

But hell, I don't want to have a serious long term relationship with him anyways? I want something casual? I think? Once again I struggle to see myself in a relationship with him because of xyz. And I wouldn't want to be his only partner anyways, I know I wouldn't be able to provide what a proper monogamous relationship needs. And maybe that's a skill issue as well, but I also couldn't give two shits bout trying to provide that either.

So do I just want a situationship? FWB? Be the third in a threesome? But I want an intimate relationship with these people, so do I just want to be polyam?

Goddamn it I live in a fucking capital city. Why does it feel like the queer scene here is so small. Possibly my own fault for not seeking out these communities. But at the same time, there's like 1 gay bar in the city. And I'm broke, and I hate social media (excuses excuses smh. I need to get with the times.)

TLDR: I can't figure out if I'm bi, polyam, aro and/or ace, or just mentally ill.

[peggyao3]

Get to know me better

Thank you for the tag my lovely @faegoddessog, I loooovee tag gamesss ❤️🥹

Fav Color: Blue, especially in combination with gold 💙

Currently Reading: "Sacred and Terrible Air" by Robert Kurwitz, which has led me to embrace a whole new genre for myself, called Weird Fiction. I had no idea it existed before looking up SATA on goodreads.

Last Song: "Frictionless Wipe" by OCT. And yes, it's a song about poop, and it's abdolutely brilliant.

Last Movie: "Rat Race"

Last Series: "Resident Alien", though I had to think about this one very hard because I watch like one series in two years or so

Sweet/savory/spicy: Savoryyyy, then spicy, then sweet. I can't eat anything sweet without having something savory right after 🥹

Craving: A world free of toil, capitalism and suffering, but I think that was not the point of the question, so I'll say, I crave for my hyperfixations to last forever, so they'll always keep me distracted from toil, capitalism and suffering 😂

Tea/Coffee: Very sweet tea, but I also do love an extremely sweet iced coffee that just barely still tastes like coffee (apparently I can drink sweet, no problem, but I can't eat sweet xD)

Last thing I googled:

Non-vital organs

How to get my game taken down from a piracy website (spoiler: you can't)

Looking forward to: Sitting on the balcony during sunset, tomorrow

Current Obsession:

Feyd-Rautha and Austin Butler, obviously 🤭

But also Disco Elysium, because no game has ever touched me on such a deeply nihilistic yet hopeful level. I'm actually begging on my hands and knees to brainrot with anyone about it 😩🙏

Tagging: @28bohemianmoons, @sebastianswallows, @ughdontbeboring, @thefloatingpickle, @mystra-midnight, @moonbeammist, @sandwormrp, @dreamlandcreations

Get to know me better!

Thanks @f3ytal for the tag darlin'!

Ok so I started a new post, bc the old one was REALLLY long for a reblog. HERE is the og if you want to see other's responses!

Ok here we go:

Fav Color: Blue!!!! all blues but espcially dark, royal, ultramarine and cerulean.

Currently Reading: acutal book? these are the two that I have crrently have bookmarks in: Food for Though by Alton Brown and Ultra 85 by Logic (dont' ask me how long I've been 'reading' these, I am an ridiculously slow reader due to rapid naming dyslexia)

Last Song: The Hand that Feeds by Nine Inch Nails or Don't Get Me Wrong by Matchbox Twenty

Last Movie: The Saint (RIP Val Kilmer)

Last Series: The Last of Us (Love me some Pedro, he'd just be SO FUN! I feel like he'd be down for anything... like ANYTHING and I like to explore sooooo... yeah)

Sweet/savory/spicy: I'm partial to sweet but a good savory is delightful. Spicy I can take or leave.

Craving: an honest to goddess vacation, preferarbly to visit my stone bf The David. (it's been far, far too long)

Tea/Coffee: tea in the morning, coffee in the afternoon.

Last thing I googled: "Help my brushes went away in firealpaca" 🤦🏼‍♀️

Looking forward to: My daughter being home from College, (she's one of my bff's) glamping trips this summer with my hubs.

Current Obsession: 👇🏼for his talent, his thoughtfulness, his dedication and hard work, his light and his groundedness-

and of course his 🎂

He's a whole package of amazing that I truly want to to have a long sit down chat with (long cuz it's gonna take me a hot min to get over myself). Do I have a note on my phone filled with questions I'd love to ask him... Yes... yes I do. Are they all 'appropriate' no, no they are not.

No Pressure Tags: @peggyao3 @therealslimshakespeare @softmamawrites @psycheetamore

(sorry if I've double tapped you!)

[dasmidna]

How to write German in your König fanfics by a native speaker

It’s basically exactly what it says in the title. These last days, I’ve made a hobby out of reading König fanfiction and looking at the German in them and if I see one more bad google translation, I think I might actually cry

Listen, I have used google translate too. I admit that and I know that resources are limited unless you have a native speaker around. That’s what this guide is for!

Also, if you have any further questions or want a translation on something, absolutely feel free to message me. I have no problem giving you guys specific translations if it means I don’t have to read any more google translate stuff XD

If you’re just looking for a list of curses and pet names, because I feel like that’s the most used stuff, they’re at the very end. If you wanna learn more about German though, stick around! 

The contents of this includes:

German dialects

the German alphabet

gendered language

capitalization

the formal “you”

conjugation/declension

direct translations and when not to translate

writing bilingual characters

a note for smut writers

pet names

curses

German dialects So, first things first, unlike König, I am not Austrian. I’m German, meaning I speak, well, German-German if you so will.

The thing is though, König’s VA doesn’t speak Austrian-German either. Both in the English and the German dub of the game, he speaks the most accent-free standardized High German I have ever seen in my life. It’s a common thing in the dubbing industry to do, but I still feel like it’s worth pointing out that it’s not exactly accurate.

Germany is an official language in 6 different countries, in which the language will be different and that is not counting each different state in those, where equally vast differences can occur.

I have a Berlin accent, for example. If someone spoke to me in a Saxon accent, I wouldn’t understand shit and that’s just two states over.

So keep in mind that this guide caters to High German, which is the standard for the written language and also what König speaks in the game. It is not, however, an accurate representation of what an Austrian guy actually sounds like.

The German alphabet Ah yes. The enemy of every non-native speaker, right after the ultra-long Frankenstein words.

Generally speaking, German does use the Latin alphabet like English. Only that we have 30 letters instead of 26. The four special characters would be: ä, ö, ü and ß

I find it important to point out that those are their own characters. They are not interchangeable with any other character in the alphabet. ä is not the same as a, ö is not o and so on. So if I see one more person spelling König as Konig, I will commit arson.

And that is also the only thing I will actively blame people for. Google giving you bad translations is not your fault. But this? This irks me in ways you can’t even imagine. It would be like spelling king as kang, for example. You wouldn’t do this in English so please don’t do it in German either.

What do you do then if you have a limited keyboard? Well, either you use copy and paste (the easy way), or you use the official workaround. And yes, there are official replacements for these

Ä = Ae / ä = ae

Ö = Oe / ö = oe

Ü = ue / ü = ue

ẞ = SS / ß = ss

As you can see, the capital ß is replaced by two capital S instead of one capital and one lowercase. This is because this letter can never stand at the beginning of a word and thus, it would only be capitalized if you write in all caps.

It should also be said that not every ss can be replaced with an ß. You can write “Straße” as “Strasse” but you can’t spell “dass” as “daß”. It is not wrong per se as far as I know, but you just wouldn’t do it.  

Gendered language German is, to put it mildly, a very gendered language.

Linguistically, German has 3 genders: masculine, feminine, neutral. You need to watch out for this because it means there is often a male and female version for certain words.

Arzt = male doctor

Ärztin = female doctor

Also, even inanimate objects have gender. Cars are neutral, trees are masculine, the sun is feminine and so on.

A lot of times, people will use the “generic masculine”, meaning they will use the male version and “mean the women too”. Nowadays this is counted as outdated and insulting towards women/other female presenting identities.

Is this a very binary system? Yes. Which actually brings us to another issue: there is no they/them in German. There are workarounds, like neopronouns or other ways to describe people, but this is generally really tricky.

Long story short: watch out what gender the person you’re referring to is.

Capitalization This is by far the most common mistake I see made in fanfiction.

While in English, things are generally written in lowercase unless they’re names or things like “I” for example, German has a few extra rules

Nouns – these are always written with a capital letter. And yes, this includes pet names. Anything from Liebling to Maus or whatever else you chose, it needs to be capitalized. I beg you.

verbs that act as nouns – Now this rarely comes up in fanfiction and as far as I can see, platforms like google translate actually get this right, so I won’t get too far into this, but if you give an article to a verb, something like “the walking” it has to be capitalized in German

Formal pronouns – Which brings us to the next point!

The formal “you” Long story short: German has two variants of the pronoun “you”

One is the formal and polite way to address someone, the other is the informal and more casual version. Depending on the social context, people can be very picky about which version to use and addressing someone by the wrong version can be counted as an insult.

Formal you – Sie/Ihnen/Sie

Informal you – du/dir/dich

When do you use formal pronouns? Well, it depends. Here are the two main scenarios in which you would address someone formally

They’re above you in the social hierarchy. Your boss, teacher, superior, someone a lot older than you. All these people would be addressed with formal pronouns. Of course you wouldn’t address your family formally. Same if you count older people as close friends/found family.

You’re addressing an adult you don’t know personally. This can also depend a lot on context. A teacher will address an 18-year-old student formally, but the students will talk to each other informally among each other, even if they don’t know each other. Generally, you start addressing people formally around their 18th birthday or if you assume they’re around that age. If you’re the same age as someone, it depends a lot on the social context and how old you are, exactly.

Both of these examples can be ignored if the other person offers the informal you. Say you’re starting to befriend a coworker, the two of you would at some point agree to use “du” with each other. 

Conjugation/declension I know this sounds really grammar specific, but I noticed that platforms like google can’t conjugate or decline properly if they have too little information. Mostly because German grammar is a lot more dependent on context than English grammar is and also slightly more complicated.

An example!

Let’s work with the English word “promise”, which we can use in two contexts. Either as a verb or a noun. In both cases, it looks fairly similar and aside form promise/promises/promised, you won’t have much variation in both the verb’s conjugation and the noun’s declension.

German, however…oh boy. 

As a noun, it would be “Versprechen” and as a verb, it would be “versprechen”. Looks similar enough you say? Until you realize that the noun can be:

das Versprechen

des Versprechens

dem Versprechen

die Versprechen

These tiny differences can change a lot in the meaning of the sentence and also, how it has to look. Verbs aren’t any better either.

Let’s say you want your character to say “Promise?” as a short form of “Do you promise me that?”. In both sentences, the verb looks the same.

Put “Promise?” into Google translate however, you get “Versprechen?”. Which, as you can see, is the noun. It can be the infinitive verb form, but either would be wrong to use here.

Instead, “Promise?” should be “Versprochen?” (which is actually past tense) and “Do you promise me that?” would be “Versprichst du mir das?”

You see the problem?

What Google translate gave you is not wrong necessarily. It is a correct translation in a certain context. Only that it’s not the context you want to portray. So if you do use google translate or similar, give as much context as you possibly can.

Direct translations and when not to translate Sometimes, it’s honestly just better to don’t translate something at all. This might sound weird at first, but hear me out

I’ve seen it a couple of times that people will put military ranks into google translate and then have König refer to people by those titles.  

A couple of issues with that.

Again. Context. Say for example you give google the word “Captain”. It will give you the word used in the navy, which would be “Kapitän”. However, the actual equivalent rank in the army would be “Hauptmann”

Titles and ranks are rarely actually translated. Sometimes because they don’t have an equivalent or it’s too much of a hassle to mentally search for it or even just because they’re counted as part of the name. So, even if the entire sentence is in German, König would for example still say “Sergeant MacTavish” to Soap instead of “Feldwebel MacTavish”

When it comes to other direct translations, it just doesn’t work sometimes. Different languages don’t just have different words for things, they have different contexts and cultures associated with it. Languages work differently.

Another example for the last one in terms of pet names. Do not translate English pet names directly. It doesn’t work.

Let’s take “love”. Google Translate gives you “Liebe” as the translation. Which is not wrong, that’s the translation for the noun. The pet name however does not work like that, which is something I’ll touch on in the pet names part.

A problem is also that sometimes, your target language has more words, sometimes it has less. The best thing would be to look up a word in an actual bilingual dictionary. PONS is a great example.

Writing bilingual characters For the love of god, please don’t write bilingual characters switching their language in the middle of their sentence. I know that Activision didn’t do that much better, considering that König’s voice lines often do this mistake, but that’s not how bilingual people talk.

If we don’t know a word, we try to find a way around it. We don’t just say our native word, unless there’s someone around who speaks our native language or the two languages are related. Spanish and Italian would be a prime example for that but also German and Dutch, the Slavic languages or Nordic languages amongst each other.

Curses are an exception to this. At least personally, I do use German curses when talking to English-speakers. But even that is rare and really only happens as a knee-jerk reaction. Somebody scaring me, for example.

But other than that? Bilingual characters are completely able to separate their native language from any others they have learned.

Besides, König would have started learning English fairly young, I assume. I can only speak for the German education system but here, English became mandatory in 4th grade and was only droppable by grade 11. 

For smut writers I’m just gonna go ahead and say it: no German-speaker I know, me included, finds German dirty talk sexy. And to us, other German accents are also not considered hot. They’re just…weird.

Really, just once I want to see König absolutely cringing at using German in bed, especially if it’s heavily accented because that would be an accurate representation XD

Pet names Keep in mind that with German being a gendered language, a lot of these have a male and female version. Also take a look at the disclaimers. Just because these are actual pet names doesn’t mean people actually use them.  

Liebling – darling

meine Liebe (fem.)/mein Lieber (masc.) – my love; rare as an actual pet name and rather used in a teasing sense

Maus/Mausi/Mäuschen – mouse/little mouse/cute mouse

Spatz/Spatzi/Spätzchen – sparrow/little sparrow/cute sparrow

Hase/Hasi/Häschen – bunny/little bunny/cute bunny

Schatz/Schazi/Schätzchen – treasure/little treasure/cute treasure; Schätzchen can be very condescending if used towards woman and in general, this one is a 50/50 thing. Either you love it or you hate it. Personally, I know more people that hate it, but there are also some psychos that use this unironically  

Engel/Engelchen – angel/cute angel

Süße (fem.)/Süßer (masc.) – sweet one; same as Schatz. Not really liked and can be very creepy, especially if used on women

Herzblatt –This is rather used when talking about your partner instead of talking to them. As far as I know, it comes from the heart cards in a card deck and basically means your partner is good luck

Another thing to watch out for: the word for a platonic friend is the same as a boyfriend/girlfriend.

Freund (masc.)/Freundin (fem.) = platonic friend

Freund (masc.)/Freundin (fem.) = boyfriend/girlfriend

Oftentimes, the latter is often made clear through saying “fester Freund/feste Freundin”, which would mean something like permanent or attached friend (don’t question it).

Sometimes it also depends on context again: “eine Freundin”, meaning “a female friend” is often seen as platonic vs. “meine Freundin” with “meine” meaning “mine”, it is often interpreted as romantic.

Some more terms for spouses would be

Ehemann (masc.) – husband

Ehefrau (fem.) – wife

mein Mann (masc.)/meine Frau (fem.) – shortened version of husband and wife

Lebensgefährte (masc. or neutral)/Lebensgefährtin (fem.) – literally means “life partner” and refers to either a husband/wife or an otherwise long-term romantic partner

Partner (masc. or neutral)/Partnerin (fem.) – just means partner

Curses Ah, yes. Let is just be said there are a lot of curses in German and we can get quite creative too. Sometimes, insults and curses can just be everyday words used in a certain sense. I shall compile some general ones here, however, as well as some of my personal favorites

I have to assume that some of these are a special quirk of my native dialect, so use with caution.

Scheiße – shit

verdammt – damn

verdammte Scheiße – fucking hell (literally “damned shit”)

Schnauze/Klappe/Fresse! – shut up!

Halt die Schnauze/Klappe/Fresse! – shut your mouth!

Fick dich – fuck you

Leck mich am Arsch – kiss my ass

Leck mich – kiss my ass, but shortened

Hackfresse – refers to someone who is ugly (literally “a face like ground beef”)

Arschloch – asshole

Du kannst mich mal – similar to fuck you/fuck me

Hast du Lack gesoffen? – are you crazy? (literally “did you drink paint?”)

alternatively: Er/Sie hat zu viel Lack gesoffen – He/she is crazy (literally “He/She drank too much paint”)

Du bist dumm wie ein Meter Feldweg – literally “You’re as stupid as a meter of dirt road”, means someone is being very stupid

Du denkst auch nur von der Wand bis zur Tapete – literally “Your train of thought reaches from the wall to the tapestry”, also meaning someone is very stupid

Intelligenzallergiker – someone allergic to intelligence, so very stupid

Warmduscher – refers to a very whiny/sensitive person (literally “someone who takes a warm shower”), mainly used for men

Nervensäge – refers to someone who is very annoying (“someone who saws your nerves”)

Arschkriecher – refers to someone who tries to earn the favor of another, in a very annoying way (“someone who crawls in someone else’s ass”)

Pissnelke – a nerd or know-it-all (literally made up of the words “piss” and “carnation”)

Arschgeige – annoying idiot (comes from the words “ass” and “violin”)

[a-mag-a-day]

MAG 63 - making apple pie in the kitchen

I just want to say right off the bat that this is one of my favorite statements!

"And if you don’t know what it is, well, the Internet’s a thing. Look it up." - so true, lmgtfy

"Everyone always forgets how much London is under London." - Foreshadowing? I mean, it's true, but still since this will become relevant to the plot.

"I took another picture before I followed him. The shadow was still there, and it seemed to be ever so slightly closer." - Aaaah, this is exactly the shit I love! xD

"I told him bluntly that I didn’t have enough, and if I didn’t get paid, he didn’t get paid." - Capitalism is the real enemy!!! Aside from that, it's so tragic that the Luke gets snatched. He wanted to leave.

"the third set of breathing. It was quiet, at first, long and slow, and very deliberate." - Jonny does love the words "slow" and "deliberate", preferably very close to each other, doesn't he?

"and I sank to the floor, clutching my camera to my chest like some sort of protective talisman." - I wonder if it was? Cameras belong to the Eye and that's the opposite of the Dark. The Dark is about the unseen, the Eye is about being seen. And the camera did make them visible to some point.

"As I pressed the button, the screaming stopped, with a wet snap, and for the worst moment of my life, an explosion of light shot through the darkness." - I love this so much _

"His eyes were staring at me as though pleading for my feeble, flashing camera to save him." - Firstly, again the camera being mentioned as a possible lifesaver. And secondly, and this is why horror writers say their search history is super fucked up: Luke's eyes were probably fixed on the statement-giver's camera because he was thinking just that. Yes, just the head. It is believed, that people (and animals) stay at least 2 to 3 seconds conscious before falling in a coma and dying from oxygen deprivation and sudden fall of perfusion of blood in the brain. This is a highly interesting topic physiology-wise that I have on some occasions been reading up about with fascination and dread alike. Because holy shit, this is so messed up.

MELANIE "The new girl let me in. Are you all right?" - <.<

MELANIE "No! I, um – I actually do need your help." JON "… Hm. Interesting." - He doesn't, but I feel like he really wants to be smug about it. Like, well well well, how the turns have tabled!

MELANIE "Georgie actually has some nice things to say about you." JON "Oh!" MELANIE "That came as a surprise." - Hahaha, that little "Oh" in there xD

JON "We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms…" - Well I wonder why that is… I mean, Jon can be a prick, but Georgie isn't a saint either. She's got a bit of a control problem going on. Ha… interesting… since it is said how similar Jmart is to wtgfs, this would make Georgie and Martin similar and control is a Web-thing, isn't it? It's just that Georgie can't quite succeed in it.

JON "I’m sorry to hear that. I noticed you weren’t updating anymore." - I know people in fanfics are always like "Oh, Jon only watches documentaries" and I think this was also said in a Q&A once that he'd probably be the documentaries-type but let's not forget what kind of a kid Jon was! He was a bookworm! He probably read a lot of fiction and I can't believe that he completely stopped that, fiction I mean. He may not have seen Kill Bill, but he knows the basic story of Spiderman, hell he's probably seen the first one with Toby Maguire! So yes. I believe Jon also watched some Ghost Hunting shows. It is after all that what he wants answers to.

"The new girl" line always sent shivers up my spine....

[an-aspiring-jester]

Hi I have a question and want to hear your thoughts! A lot of anti-Maiko arguments claim that Mai was completely unaware/does not align with Zuko’s moral codes and mission, for example in stopping the fire nations imperialism. This therefore means that they don’t work in a relationship. I want to hear your thoughts, specifically if you choose to debunk this claim! Thank you!

Hi! Thanks for the ask! I don't know if you're the same anon as before but I love seeing (and talking to!) other maiko fans on this site! <3

To start off, I don't think the show gives us any concrete evidence of Mai's political views, so my response consists mostly of canon-compliant headcanons that I think make sense for her character.

Mai's main problem is her passivity. So frankly, I think she never questioned Fire Nation's imperialism because she had no reason to! (Or even the opportunity - remember that everyone in the Fire Nation is spoon-fed the propaganda since early childhood, and the only time she went out she was traveling with Azula) But, judging from her apathy in Omashu, her view can be summed up as something like "why bother conquering other nations, we already have everything we need in the capital, it's more trouble than it's worth/it's boring." What she does have strong opinions about (I think) is the absolute power of the Firelord - the guy branded and banished his own son for speaking out of turn - what can a regular citizen do? I talked about it before - she views maintaining the status quo and playing by the Firelord's rules as a way to keep Zuko (and herself) safe. Add her own stifling upbringing where she was forbidden to express her opinions, and you see why she never speaks against the regime. Even talking about it with Zuko can be potentially dangerous - the walls have ears, after all.

(Purely headcanon territory: I think one of the reasons she fell for Zuko in the first place was his earnestness in speaking up against mistreatment of others - be it the fountain incident, or opposing the slaughtering of young Fire Nation soldiers. And she saw how that turned out for him. I believe the Agni Kai trauma made her even more reluctant to stand up for anything.)

And now the turning point - the Boiling Rock. Mai's whole arc is about overcoming her apathy and passivity and finally finding the courage and the drive to stand up and FIGHT for what's important to her. And let's not kid ourselves, she didn't do it for any political agenda, but for ZUKO. But it doesn't make it any less impactful. It's just the first step for her! I see no reason why she wouldn't become a supporting and politically-aware queen by Zuko's side? It's not like she threw a fit over keeping Fire Nations colonies or insisted on staying spoiled and unbothered in Caldera - we see her in Earth Kingdom clothes, peacefully interacting with Zuko's friends!!! She has time to learn about the world and different cultures now that the danger is over, and there's no Azula's shadow looming over her, ready to report any perceived treachery if her opinions stray from the universally accepted.

I'll give antis that - maiko probably WOULDN'T work out long-term if Mai stayed her uninterested, apathetic self. This (among other things) is why they had communication problems during the show. But the whole POINT is that she grows as a person and will CONTINUE to do so after the show! It's never too late to change! Mai didn't have to actively help Zuko stop the war (though saving his life was a pretty important step for that!), it's enough that she'll help him shape a better future for the Fire Nation and the world!

There's a long way still ahead of them but what we are shown in the finale makes me very optimistic about these two. :)

I don't know if you're satisfied with my answer but that's basically my opinion on the matter. I'm really glad you reached out! (And kinda flattered you wanted to hear MY thoughts XD I'm just a nobody chilling in my corner XD)

[novelmonger]

FFVI - This is the pixel-era Final Fantasy everyone always points to as being the classic, but oddly enough I've never particularly liked it. I recognize that it was super influential and appreciate the groundbreaking things it did in terms of story and so forth. I'm also super impressed that Nobuo Uematsu basically did an opera in 16-bit. I think my main issue is that I never connected with any of the characters (of which there are many), so the conflict never really gripped me. The final boss battle is super epic and crazy, though!

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones - Actually my first Fire Emblem game! I'm not sure why, but I really really like the way Fire Emblem does turn-based tactics games even though I don't like FF Tactics. Maybe it's the incredible art and beautiful music. Maybe I just like the support conversations, even though the individual characters are often not particularly unique. The plot of Sacred Stones is also not anything new, what with a king who suddenly starts acting strangely and then oh my you don't think it might be because he's being possessed by a demon, do you??? But I really liked a lot of the characters, and especially appreciated that the two main characters were brother and sister. Sure, you can pursue romances for both of them if you want, but I liked that the male and female leads of the story were supportive and affectionate with each other without any hint of romance between them. Also Franz totally looks like Alphonse Elric.

Five Nights at Freddy's - Honestly, I'm surprised this one didn't win ^^' It's far from my favorite horror game, but I can't deny it's groundbreaking and quite effective. The horror doesn't stick with me the way some games do, probably because I don't personally have much fear of animatronics and that kind of thing. So playing this game is kind of like going on a roller coaster for me - I get a huge adrenaline rush while playing, the jumpscares do get me, but as soon as I turn it off I don't really think about it anymore. I definitely think this is one of the better games in the franchise, though. It capitalizes on the analog horror, what with the grainy video footage and flickering lights and vaguely ominous poses of the animatronics as they slowly (or quickly) make their way to you. And nothing can compare to that creeping feeling of dread when the power dies and you hear the slow plinking of that one song from Carmen as Freddy lurks outside your door, waiting to eat your face D:

Goetia - And I'm surprised anybody voted for this one at all! This is a side-scrolling adventure horror game where you play as a ghost trying to figure out why you died and what happened to your house and the village where you lived. It was an interesting challenge, but I didn't really realize what I was getting into at first. The whole thing has to do with summoning demons and then having to deal with them, so I probably wouldn't have bothered with this game if I'd known that ahead of time. I did play the whole thing, but felt a bit weird about it.

Grim Fandango - Classic adventure game! Which is funny, because it's also very different from any other adventure game I've played; you'd think there'd be more imitators. I like the humor and the Dia de los Muertos influences, as well as the noir-esque storytelling. I kept thinking back to this game the first time I saw Coco XD That being said, I liked this game but don't particularly care to play it again. It was kind of a one-and-done deal for me.

Math Blaster Ages 6-9 - Would you believe me if I told you this game gave me nightmares when I was the target age for it? XD I have to laugh at myself, looking back, because it's just a simple educational game where you have to solve math problems to chase after your robot Spot, who was taken by the evil Gelator, a slime monster who kidnaps Spot to...make himself smarter??? I forget. All I know is that this game was what taught me the formula E = mc², though I had no idea what it meant at the time :P But yes, I was terrified of Gelator, and at the age of 7 was convinced that unless I lay on my back and kept my eyes open at night, he was going to ooze through the ceiling and come get me. I would lie there, back aching and eyes stinging, longing to roll over onto my side and close my eyes, but I was too scared to :C Thankfully, we moved before my eighth birthday, and the change of location cured me of that.

Night in the Woods - Whoa, this one almost won! I'm amazed so many people even know this game exists! I was kind of disappointed in it, to be perfectly honest. It's mostly a whimsical (but dealing with deep topics) little adventure game set in a world of anthropomorphic animals, where a college dropout is trying to figure out what to do with her life and then gets embroiled in some sinister goings-on in her town. I think I just wanted it to be a different sort of story. What with how worked up Mae is getting over the mysterious happenings, I think I was expecting it to be something much less dramatic than it turned out to be, because I thought it was going to be more about how Mae would learn to appreciate her small town and the everyday pursuits of normal life, rather than seeking out adventures and giving up when she discovers "this is all there is." And like...that sort of was the point, but they also nearly died several times, so she still got her adventure. Also, I kept on getting distracted by the worldbuilding (they're anthropomorphic animals and yet there are dogs and cats and squirrels running around that act like normal animals), and was very annoyed by the wishy-washy pastor and the general anti-God sentiment with only a token rebuttal from the other side that simply made it clear the writers of the game don't actually know that much about Christianity. Ultimately, I found myself more interested in the Demontower minigame than the actual game itself (I played Demontower twice to get both endings, so clearly I have my priorities straight).

Okami - I can definitely see why this one won! What a beautiful game. I kind of wish I'd waited to get the Wii version (I played it on PS2), because the motion controls would have been super fun for all the brush strokes. But even so, it was really cool to play through a world of Japanese folklore, as a gorgeous white wolf. I often felt like it was way more wordy than it needed to be, like people would literally just say the same thing three different ways one after another, but overall it was very fun. When I took care of a white rat for a psychology class in college, I named her Ammy after Amaterasu :3

Arbitrarily-Chosen Video Game Tournament, Round 1.6

Welcome to the Arbitrarily-Chosen Video Game Tournament, where we will find out which of the games I've played is the best game of all time!

Why? Don't ask. Just vote and reblog!

[minijenn]

Yessss so I can finally talk about the KH Anastasia AU I've been having Brainrot over for like the past 2 weeks. Yes this is 100% based on the animated Anastasia (which I watched the other night while working on these, pretty good movie though terribly historically inaccurate whoops) and its time for me to ramble about it.

So once upon a time there was this lovely seaside kingdom known as the Destiny Islands, ruled by a kindly king and queen who have five kids (in this AU, the Heart Squad are all siblings, so the oldest is Ven, then Vanitas and Sora who are twins, then Roxas, then Xion). The middle prince, Sora is betrothed to the Princess of Radiant Garden, Kairi, and they're childhood best friends, along with a young servant boy who works at the palace named Riku. So yeah, cute childhood Destiny Trio vibes until...

Old Man Xehanort comes along to fuck everything up; he banishes the king and queen to the Realm of Darkness, holds the kids hostage (and they all kinda suffer a lot as a result, but I'll save all that for when I draw them), and only one of them manages to escape (its Sora, of course), though he suffers a bad fall, konks his head, and winds up losing all his memories at the ripe old age of 8 years old.

Fast forward 8 years and Xehanort's fully taken over, the Islands are miserable, and nobody can travel to or from them (knowledge/travel between worlds is a common thing in this AU shhhh). We have a bitter and sarcastic Riku, living in the abandoned old palace with Donald and Goofy, a pair of dignitaries who had been visiting from Disney Town who got stranded on the Islands during Xehanort's coup. In an attempt to finally get off the islands, these three are trying to capitalize on a rumor that's popular among the islanders, who, despite thinking the rest of the royal family is dead, think Prince Sora might still be alive. Princess Kairi, desperate to find him, is offering a massive reward to anyone who can bring him back to her safe and sound. Though he acts like its just a simple con for quick cash, for Riku, finding the lost prince is far more of an... emotional matter, not that he'd ever let anyone else know.

At the same time, a 16 year old orphan named Skye is not so kindly kicked out of the orphanage that had taken him in when he'd been found as an 8 year old, without a single memory to call his own. Eager to discover if he has a family and reclaim his lost memories (and guided by a mysterious seashell charm someone gave him a long time ago, though he can't remember who) Skye ventures to the old palace, where he meets Riku, Donald, and Goofy. Naturally, they notice the rather startling resemblance Skye has to the lost prince, and decide he'd be the perfect candidate to present to the princess to claim the reward. So they teach this poor lost kid (with a surprising snark to match Riku's own) how to be royalty, all in the hopes that he can somehow manage to convince Kairi. Meanwhile, Xehanort catches wind of rumors of a boy who looks surprisingly like the lost prince he thought had been killed the night of his coup, a prince who could very well lead to the end of his rigid regime if he doesn't put a swift, and violent end to this problem before it can even begin...

So yeah that was a lot! I also drew a lot! From "Orphan" Skye (see what I did there with his fake name ahahah), to a fancy outfit for the equivalent to the "Once Upon a December" scene, to an "opera scene" outfit, to full regal robes (honestly I love drawing Sora in fancy outfits XD). Same deal for Kairi, and Riku too, these were honestly so much fun to draw.

And don't worry cause I plan on drawing even more for this AU too! There's a lot of other characters I haven't really talked about, like Kairi's sister Namine, her attendant Aqua, some poor royal guards forced to work for Xehanort back on the islands like Terra and Axel, and of course the siblings. So suffice to say I plan to draw more for this AU and... mmmm possibly even write it....? We'll see ahahhaha :3

[hannah-heartstrings]

Skyrim Asks

Thanks for the tag @babyblueetbaemonster! 

I think that makes now a good time to introduce my dragonborn Kyria! (Pronounced Kai-ra, I don't know what was up with younger me's spelling)

A Nord battlemage from a secluded village somewhere in the eastern mountains, raised in the old Nord ways, so basically she knows lore but not what's currently going on. Joined the Stormcloaks because the Imperials tried to cut her head off that one time and she's still mad about it.

Currently on the run from her destiny and probably the law in at least one province, not because she's a criminal but because she's prone to causing problems.

On to the actual asks:

1. Favorite Tavern:

I don’t know, I played on 360 so no mods and it was long before survival mode so I didn't stay at inns much. XD

I know she doesn't like the ones that play the Imperial song though.

She might like the New Gnisis Corner Club to get a break from the rest of Windhelm but I don't really think they want Nords there.

2. Favorite Drink:

Mead

3. Travel Companion:

Meeko! The lonely loyal dog quickly became her best friend, they’re inseparable now. And he's the only one who will eat her cooking. XD

Sometimes she also travels with her fellow college students.

4. Wealthy or not?

No

5. Worships the Aedra or the Daedra?

I never really thought of her as that religious but since she was raised in the ancient Nord ways, she’d probably worship the Nordic Pantheon. But since she’s a rebellious teenager, probably not too religious.

6. Biggest Fear:

Failure, she's made so many mistakes that she's afraid of her next one, you'd think that would make her be more careful but no she continues to be reckless and make mistakes.

Convinced that she'll only ever be a screw up she's also afraid of her destiny as dragonborn, afraid of what would happen if she tried to save the world.

But I think her biggest fear is that she will never change.

7. Pet Peeves:

Jerks, she ends up in a fistfight with a lot of them.

8. Do they like being dragonborn?

Eventually I think she'd have fun with the cool powers, but at first doesn't because of the previously mentioned fears. So she just pretends she isn't dragonborn as if that solves anything.

9. Favorite faction:

The College of Winterhold, it became a home to her (probably because I never bought a house) and the fellow students there her friends.

10. An object of sentimental value:

Was going to be the dagger Alvor taught her to make but I made a bunch of iron daggers to enchant and sell and forgot about it. If I do another playthrough maybe I'll also make it the first thing she enchants, that way I can rename it.

I do like the idea of it being a sentimental item storywise, maybe being the first thing she forged it's not made quite right and Alvor told her that mistakes were just part of learning, so she pulls it out sometimes to remember that. Also I have her using a dagger in an important scene, it might as well be that one.

11. Hobbies:

Interfering with Imperial business. XD

Really I can't think of anything she does other then what we do in game, so I think her hobbies are traveling Skyrim with her dog, bounty hunting, and annoying Imperials.

12. Favorite city:

I’m surprised how difficult this one is. ‘Cause I don’t really like the towns I ended up in the most and I’m not sure she’d actually like them any better.

She likes the College of Winterhold but I don't think she'd care anything about the town, she'd mind Windhelm's cold bleak aesthetic less than I do but it has too many jerks.

Probably Whiterun, but really she prefers the countryside.

Wait, I just realized I assumed this meant hold capitals, it might not. If it's any town then it's definitely Riverwood. It might be the first place to truly take her in since she's left her village, even the Imperials there are so nice and welcoming. Riverwood just feels like home. She wants to beat up Sven and Faendal though.

Tagging: @arimabari @nerevar-quote-and-star @arnaerr and anyone who wants to

Thanks again! I love having the excuse to ramble about my characters. XD

[marzipanilla]

chewing on the corner of the fandom particle board table like a dog w anxiety. there's something up there. I know there's something up there. there are so many people at this table there must be something Up There

lol who knows, but prolly not. I generally have to be at least a little mad at a piece of media in order to want to write fic for it, and I pretty much liked SU/F xD Though that might be a bad habit to have and I could try and break it ??? lol

When Steven finally does have a shitty moment w her bc being travel buddies CAN be straining and she's just like MUAHAHAH FINALLY and Steven just being all what was the point of leaving if you're still here !! what happened to the cave, loner Jasper ?? huh ?? What happened to the damn cave that was supposed to solve all your problems ?? idk how, but he'd have to hit a nerve eventually...

idk how you feel about that one film in particular, but Michael Keaton as the Vulture vibes for sure at that family dinner xD Bowls accidentally sticking to Peter's hands as he tries to help pass things around the table. Him desperate to get his damn web slingers... Nolan just like Why Am I At This Event, bored af. Mark just like Mooo-om you don't have to arrange playdates for me anymore, I'm not five. Peter and I can hang out on our own! Aunt May just all it's lovely to have company : )

lol Nolan like yes my human-sona is doing excellently in the friend department. success. Cecil wondering why the hell a guy known for wanting to unmask a kid vigilante is suddenly hanging out w a top tier hero... on a boat on a lake. what is going on there. JJ and Art just snarking at each other the whole time would be so hilarious. esp since Art would know they're chillin w Omni-Man and JJ doesn't.

You got web on me one(1) time and now I want you dead is a pretty hilarious thing. Debbie just having to be like ??? you don't even talk about villains this much! wtf is going on ! Nolan refusing to admit he basically had toilet paper stuck to the bottom of his foot one day. it is also just enough of an excuse for him to justify putting things off again, 'cause you know that man was desperate to stall for time xD Can't take over the planet until this one guy is on lock down ! clearly! totally rational ! it just fuels his obsession bc if he does succeed it means he has to carry on w Everything Else and that's a whole ass can of worms he refuses to think about. he actually has a truly disturbing number of images that show Peter IS Spidey but refuses to use them because he just wants to fuck W spider-man. the plan was to fuck w spiderman. he cant deviate from a plan. clearly. once he wraps up here he'll move on with everything else. promise.

Character decisions affecting the plot rather than external forces my beloved. where did you go. where.

I always figured an 'evil' AU of Debbie (that keeps her human) would be that she's like, a tv personality real estate mogul (making Mark not only a hero nepo baby but a genuine rich boy brat, and Nolan doesn't even bother w a job just hangs out as her kept husband when not acting as Omni-Man lol) - and like, branching off of that just her actually using her career to fund/manage a group of.. individuals.. would be awesome. Bc real estate capital CAN be used for so much ! her 'fighting crime' w real estate is actually something I have come up rather as a side note in two fic (tho one hasn't actually gotten to that point yet) and it's like ! she doesn't need powers to be useful! you can influence the world in many ways ! Which is Amber's whole fucking deal ! it's what Eve decided to do when she quit the main stream hero game ! let more normies in on that shit ! show the importance of the ground level ! No you don't save the damn planet Paul, but you're the reason the planet is interesting and doesn't suck ass !!

like have people point out Powerplex wasn't after justice, he was after retribution! if there aren't any laws in place for when heroes do shit like this, why NOT form a group who gets a stink worked up about that and makes it so there are? How opposed would Cecil be to not being the main authority on who gets punished for what? pretty pissed I think ! or does he twist it to his use? How nervous would heroes be to operate when they are suddenly faced with repercussions for collateral? does Cecil fight against it bc of shit like that, or does he say if you join my List of Approved People I will make you immune to that and end up consolidating a lot of power over a lot of people? How is any of it enforced? Give us a Civil War esque divide that's actually interesting ! Okay Mark, you're obsessed w people who fuck up going to prison- now the people have decided you need to go to prison. what you going to do? (tho I would like to tell mr prison is for criminals that you stole Shapesmith from his peoples' laws against his crime, tho it was a death sentence but that DOES raise another factor- what happens when his magical non-lethal solution gets turned into a lethal one by a court?) how do you justify the cost of keeping a being made of pure energy contained if it takes a cities worth of power to fuel one cell ?? give us fucked up shit like that !!

if it's the GoG on Cecil's pre-appoved list taking you in bc they're immune for staying in line? Your brother sure as shit isn't going to listen to anything these people say. Eve wouldn't want to kill people, but you know she'd be pissed ! How does new yet-to-be-renamed TT fit into all of it ?? If Debbie has resources at her disposal what is she doing about all of this ?? if shes doesn't is she just going for appeals in the court case?? having lawyers and media pick apart her fucking life in order to try and get her son out of this mess? pictures of Mark in the hospital bed after Nolan kicked the shit out of him plastered all over the internet as news stories run w it ??? what if Mark gets released bc yeah, you were trying to help, but his mom gets sentenced for aiding and abetting a terrorist? You figured out what he did and didn't alert anyone ! again what are the spouse testifying against spouse laws like in superhero world... do people pull the fucked up shit like 'he wasn't human and the law as written defines marriage as...' shit ?? do they call his false identity tax fraud and throw those charges at her too?? what are the immigration laws for space aliens in this universe...

alright back to the other point xD

Art being a big contributor and Debbie's connection to him resulting in a lot of ppl stepping in line bc of how important he is would be great! New player but w Old money. she knows a lot about the internal workings of the GDA due to what Nolan told her over the years and what she's seen herself ! she has important information on shit that has been confiscated from assorted villains over the years. She knows who the GDA prioritizes and who they don't! she recognizes their agents on sight !! forget the cameras in her house the last few years, they've apparently been stalking her since she met Nolan if her annoyance w the nanny plants was anything to go by. Was it a game they played while dating ? spot the GDA tail?

Titan being like this is MY city block and Debbie being like hmm : ) but is now MY city and Mark's incredible annoyance that their turf war seems to be about who can clean up the streets the most- who can support their civilians while collecting up the goons to go hit the GDA- promising stability and security for families while just fucking the government approved heroes in the process. Or Debbie trying to start a larger war like that but Titan holding on to loyalty to people who dont WANT to escalate. who is pushed out, who is pushed around- give me the fucked up bits and the beneficial to all the dynamics ! give me 'villains' like the ones we saw robbing the bank getting hired on as defenders / private security to new public works in an area. fuck your criminal record ! we don't care ! give us people who are terrified of the regime change ! who dont like heroes at all and want a non-powered person in charge and get pissed when they find out Debbie employs them ! maybe she doesn't ! maybe it boils into a fucked up divide about that outside her intention !! god have SoS have been an anti-hero group like many people speculated. Have Debbie have MET Scott ! have known him ! have been someone she chatted at meetings w ! have the betrayal come not in one episode while at a bar w a guy who instantly finds out who her husband was, but to someone she's been hanging out w ! whose kid and wife she knows ! who tried to get Debbie to help him build his court case against invincible but she pulled out, and then he finds out she's his mom??? GOD that would have been beautiful.

gah. the wider world politics on Invincible is just so threadbare. you're either one person in a storm whose life has barely any meaning while someone punches someone, or you're a psychotic dictator and there's no inbetween. there's a lot of inbetweens !! I don't think there's any leadership that isn't some form of totalitarianism?? Cecil expects utter loyalty (and is NEVER shown answering to anybody despite arguably being a branch of US government), Titan expects utter loyalty (he just helps swap out dictators for the Order in order to get a favor to be left alone lol), there really isn't enough info on the Coalition but one guy seems to be in charge of all of them at the end of the day, the viltrumites definitely !! the thraxans apparently demand Nolan do that to them !! I just !! there's more than one form of government. Even the hero teams runs off of 'one guy says stuff and we all have to adhere or else' and like !! can we see literally any other dynamic between people ??? show us the pros and cons of both !! no system is unfallable !! no collection of people is without friction !! 'the power has been returned to the people' the robots intone. ELABORATE ON THAT ??

While I'm not too familiar with the DCU- your batfam meta posts are intiguing- so in transfering some of the broader strokes from them- I think you tackling a 'Mark isn't Nolan's biological son' fic would be fascinating. Sort of a step to the side of the 'what if Mark never got his powers' fic that sometimes pop up in the fandom

OOOOOO chewing on this currently, hm, the much a distinct flavor of exactly what you’re talking about, but the potential for more family drama depending on WHO knows. Does Mark know?? Is he waiting every day only to be crushed? Does he confused non-Debbie features with Nolan’s? I suppose I’m not the most enthusiastic about non-power AUs, but I think there’s something very fun to explore about Mark having to settle with, if he knows all his life, he will never have powers? I think the trajectory of his dreams will obviously shift, I can see him still having that distinct fatherly idolization, but perhaps embraces being useful to the GDA? Cecil’s number one intern—only intern—curtesy of nepotism, ha! There is something tickling me about Mark taking the Robin Route/Role for the Teen Team in terms of having no powers, just insane skills, BUT there’s something way more delicious about intern Mark when s1e01 happens and Mark tries snooping around to find out the truth about what happened to his Dad.

I wonder if, with Mark having a whole another father, if they’re more or less distant relationship, depending on WHEN Nolan entered Mark’s life? Like if Debbie met Nolan later for this, or just for fun, they dated once, separated (Mark being born during then), then they happened to stumble into each others lives again and Mark’s already been born, anywhere from tween to teenager so there’s a gap in how close they are. I feel like one important aspect of the whole Family Drama is how close they’re supposed to be, a functional, loving family turned upside down? So I wonder what more distance does. I wonder how Nolan copes when his family is entirely human and he can’t project onto Mark.

I love thinking about these, omg.

[after-nine-at-the-oasis]

NOOO still not over it even as the promo's starting 😭😭

I mean obviously I will not be over it any time soon I haven't even accepted it xdd this BETTER be temporary that's all I can accept 😭 xd <33, but anyway I'm still kinda stuck on it is my point lol

O P E that's a big fire o.o

Uh ohhh

Ope is that the FBI lady o.o 👀?

Mayhaps o.o ┐⁠(⁠ ⁠∵⁠ ⁠)⁠┌

Uh ohhh

None of this looks good xd like n o t h i n g lol

O P E the capital again??? Maybe??

Idk but ಠ⁠oooಠ

As in :OOO but with those eyes lol

Anyway xd

OPE OWEN

Why are you the only one going it xd

Bc we know he's after you 😬😳?

Idk but STILL BAD IDEA 😬😬😬

O P E uh oh 😳

Ohhh nooo xdd

o.o

Awww aghhh and look at all of them 😭😭

Y'all he better be okay

I mean I know he will be but yk <33

For them lol

And sure fine for him too xD /hj

But anyway yeah o.o

That's the last of my last thoughts! Now it's time for the. . .

REVIEW

AAAHHHHHH!!! I loved this episode 😭😭. I know the tears might seem to negate that but they don't I promise xd. I loved the focus on Marjan, our queen being the awesome person she is <33. And Grace :D. Our amazing girls all around today <33. But y'all 😭😭💔. I did not deserve that with Marjan <33. Alas, agh, we'll get to that in a second xd. But first of all, I loved all of them 🥰🥰🥰. Grace's storyline was great, really interesting :D. It's always amazing to see Grace's emotional side, it's so good. And the calls, though I know those related to the storylines lol, were really good too :D. I actually really enjoyed how they tied into the main storylines, speaking of.

Anyway! Now it's time for individual bits :))

Which will pretty much include Carlos (for my little bits on how much I love him and him not being here), Paul, Grace, Marjan, and everyone else xD. Nah, I'm just kidding, I'll separate it out a bit more than that lol. But! It's time for it :)

Quick Carlos bit! He got a mention :DDD. I know he's not in every episode, and it's more likely that he's not in one than someone else, but I do still miss him lol <333. He is babey 🥰🥰 :D. And,I hope he's recovering okay :)). Also he totally would hunt Marjan down xD. And succeed pretty easily too, knowing lol. Anyway, excited to see him again :DD. I love him ❤️❤️!

Mateo, Nancy, and TK 🥰🥰. I love my babeyssss!!! We didn't see them much this episode but they were amazing when they were there :D. And honestly, they were still chilling in the scene a lot of the time :). I love my children <33. Also their goodbyes to Marjan 😭. UGH they broke me <333. Anyway, excited for when we get a Nanteo (together or separate) storyline :D. And I do love TK but he's had his share so far lol. Lastly, they were of course all wonderful at their jobs :).

Judd and Tommy! Both separate but both more involved in Grace's storyline than the other three so I'm gonna put them together since it's still relatively small sections :). I loved them supporting Grace this episode :DDD!! We know they do, obviously, but we don't see it often enough since Grace is usually so put together. It was just really nice to see :)). Also, I love them 🥰🥰🥰. Both of them were adorable with their kids this episode 😭😭❤️❤️❤️❤️. Literally amazing :'). Anyway, they were also amazing at their jobs, as always :D. And we especially got to see it with Tommy helping Grace out over the phone :). And y'all their goodbyes with Marj 😭. I can't <333.

Owen! His scenes with was Marjan were super sweet 😭😭🥰🥰🥰. Catch me wondering if he sold her the bike or just gave it to her though lol. Anyway xD, even if it didn't come off the best, I'm glad he was giving some Marjan some (not even that bad) advice this episode, and supporting her :). Though let's be real he was more of a problem than she was in that meeting XD. Also, I'm a little stressed for him with all that bomb stuff in the future 😬. Or, I guess, stressed for him now about the future because of all the bomb stuff? Idk lol. Anyway, his goodbye with Marjan man 😭😭😭❤️❤️. I didn't deserve that xdd. Also, Owen was hilarious in the first few minutes xD. I mean he was in general, and they were all a part of the interview, but he was first yk? It was just funny lol. Anyway, I love him <3.

Paul :)). My boyyy 😭😭❤️🥰. Him standing up for Marjan :'DD. And also standing BY her. AGH, just, amazing <333. My besties :'))). I'm gonna miss them so much y'all 😭😭😭💔. But I'll talk about that in a second xd. Anyway, I honestly do see something happening (maybe not definitely but like as a possibility) between Paul and that lawyer lady :D. And like- the fact that she recognize him from the smile, and said he hasn't changed - hmbneozpka :'DDD. Y'all she saw him for who he was even if neither of them knew it <33. Idk I just loved that :). Anyway <3, LOVED seeing is observance skills this episode :D. It's always fun to get little hints whenever we do but this was full on and it was LOVELY!!! And of course, his goodbye with Marjan 😭😭😭😭💔❤️❤️. Y'all I literally did not deserve that <33. And of course, I love him 🥰🥰.

Grace, my girl!! She was so amazing this episode :D. First of all, her calls with Linus were so cute 🥰🥰 and she was so nice :D. And her VOICE!!! OUUGH!! Sometimes I forget how good it is :D. Anyway, she slayed <333. Also, it's cool that she's good at math! It's one of those fun little details that makes a character feel more really :D. I do wonder if it'll come back up though 👀👀. Maybe at some point in the future! Anyway, she did s well on the calls today :D. And, even though she was freaking out at first, she did amazing helping that kid's mom 🥰🥰🥰❤️. And the waiting room scene 😭😭❤️. Our girl was going through it but at least she had Tommy by her side <333. And she still was awesome, our girl can do anything :)). Also her and Judd are, as always, absurdly adorable ❤️❤️❤️🥰🥰. Plus, Charlie sighting!!! Love my girl 🥰🥰. Anyway, yeah, Grace Ryder,our queen :D. I love her <333!!

Now, finally, our girl Marjan.

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

MARJANNNNNNN I DID THE DESERVE THATTTT!!!!

😭😭😭😭💔💔💔 Like I know it's for the best and all and I really hope she isn't gone for good but just :'(((. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if she gets drawn back in just a couple episodes from this upcoming disaster/a related one :). Anyway! We'll talk more about that in a minute. Right now, this episode. Seeing her try so hard to just make good and fix her mistake (barely a mistake) was just 😭😭😭😭💔❤️. She's genuinely just a good person who doesn't like upsetting people :'((. And those jerks decided to take advantage of the city being the city >://. Like, I get they didn't want to go to court over it, but come on!! It really is extortion. Besides that, she gave them a full detailed apology and was willing to post it online to millions of people!!! Like, at that point you just tell them "Don't push your luck." Ugh, but whatever. I'm really glad she had Paul on her side though, and the lawyer herself even :D (though she had to be impartial but I mean her personal opinion). Still, it all sucks <33. But anyway,her heartbreak throughout this whole episode 😭😭. And yet still, she stuck to her guns and was even cooler than usual :'). It's an awful situation, but luckily she is AMAZING, and I love her so much <33.

Also, those goodbyes 😭😭😭😭. I literally did not deserve that <333. That entire last scene was just 💔💔 but I am upr glad we got :'DDD ❤️❤️. We deserve it, especially if she doesn't return (permanently).

But yeah, I honestly don't think I've fully processed that she's leaving??? You're not gonna convince me until she's gone for the rest of the season besides the wedding episode xDD. I just REALLY hope it's only a break :((((. Bc I don't think I could handle it if she genuinely left xdd. Like I said, I may seem chill, but it hasn't sunk in yet, and it better not - as in it's not fully happening lol. Now the thing is, I do want her back as soon as possible, but I also want this storyline to MEAN something, you know? And it gets a little negated if she comes back in like, two episodes xd. So, idk. I'd like her to come back for some crisis maybe mid-season ish and the stick around :). And probably late mid season, not early (more like 11/12 than 8 or smth). Also, speaking of meaning, it feels almost like an insult that sometimes this small took her down. But at the same time, it shows that sometimes things just come out of the blue, and they're not fair, you know? As long as she does eventually come back (and stays back), I still enjoyed this storyline lol. Scared for the future, though <333. I love her 😭😭💔🥰🥰❤️❤️❤️❤️.

Overall, I really enjoyed this episode. I thought it was great, and it's been nice to see everyone again - even though I do totally love Tarlos. I loved both of the main storylines, and I thought it was cool how the calls directly related to the plots. That's what happens when you have Grace as one, lol! But yeah, the calls were greta an I enjoyed ho they intertwined :). Besides that, everyone was awesome :D. Again, the final scene was just 😭. And there were some funny bits this episode! Mostly the first few minutes, but throughout the rest too :). I also just loved all the group scenes in general, speaking of that 🥰🥰. I am very scared for the future, what with Marjan leaving, and everything with the explosion. And even though I want the storyline to have time to breathe, I'd honestly be cool if she came back next time lol. To be fair it looks like it'll be pretty dramatic xD. Also, does anyone remember seeing Marj in that shot o Owen talking to the 126? Presumably about the explosives threat. Because it would make sense now if she's not xD. Anyway, I don't know if she will, but it would be nice :'). Besides that, I just love them all :)) <33.

So yeah! I loved this episode. Great to see everyone more, even if it's sad. This has been my review of. . .

9-1-1: Lone Star, Season 4, Episode 5: Human Resources

It was great! I'm definitely nervous for the next episode, and the next few. I'll be back next week with my review of. . .

9-1-1: Lone Star, Season 4, Episode 6: This Is Not a Drill

See you then!