#<- i guess?? challenge 70 design and all

[transgenderfivepebbles]

and robot number sixty-seven / found her way into android heaven

[daisythornes]

speedrun of things that cause me agony in the wondla tv series trailer:

whyyy did they have to make the sanctuary so sterile and minimalistic? the book sanctuaries had this charming clunky 70s sci-fi design to them – they were blocky and durable and Eva's was tangibly lived-in, even worn in some places, because that was the point! they were an experiment that outlived their usefulness, but people kept living in them & they felt like it. this feels like Kim Kardashian's creepy white torture house.

"this... is me." has this line not become extremely passé in trailers, like almost to the point of parody?

that is NOT Muthr. idk who that is, but she is not mothering. it's like they took her book design and stripped away anything that may have been even slightly challenging to the cocomelon-smoothed zeitgeist of current animation. she's just so... nothing. she doesn't even look like a robot so much as like.. the lame soul design from pixar's soul. book Muthr looked WEIRD, but you can see the ways in which she's literally a synthetic + superhuman recreation of a Mother Figure: her head shape mirrors the beehive hairdo, her big eyes are saccharine sweet, she has four arms bc she always needs to do a million things at once, etc. i get that this version of Muthr was probably way easier to animate, and i don't even think they had to stick to the original design 100% as long as they still did something interesting for her, but. they didn't.

rip Eva's sick as hell hairstyle. :( seriously, her complicated braids were so important. bc 1) they were an homage to Dorothy's braids in the wizard of oz, the book to which the whole trilogy is a love letter. 2) they immediately gave her a unique visual identity as a character. 3) they contributed to the world of Wondla feeling genuinely strange and foreign to our current one. 4) they subtly spoke to things like Eva's boredom and loneliness and all the time she had to herself.

the paltry mini braids and single low bun they gave her instead are WEAK. again, they didn't have to follow the books to the letter, but. they did kinda need to give us something more memorable and distinctive than this.

i mean... there is ofc the obvious question of why'd they make her 16 instead of going on 13 like she was in the books? but also, perhaps even more crucially, why does she look like a whole ass adult woman? wondla is very much a coming of age story, and it's really good at capturing the messiness of that experience in every way down to its character design. this Eva doesn't look messy, she looks like an influencer. also i hate that current disneyesque cgi character design.

her outfit's like... fine. but it was so fucking cute in the books. cute and ultra utilitarian, and unlike anything i'd ever really seen before. can't a girl have a vest with a funky collar, cool billowy balloon sleeves, and scrunchy knee socks? do yknow how many kids would want to be Eva for halloween if they simply gave her an outfit that looked cuter? they're leaving money on the damn table.

she wasn't done with her training for life on the surface in the books, and that was important. :/ not that anything could've really prepared her, but the fact that she was so young made her terror and anger all the more palpable. i guess i don't think it's inherently terrible for her to be a bit older in adaptation, but idk, at least let her retain that trial by fire/still kind of a scared kid quality that's integral to her arc.

the placement of the 'wondla' letters on the page makes no sense. it's meant to be the wonderful wizard of oz (or the wonderful wizard of oz by l. frank baum. i forget which, but ONE of those for sure), so by all accounts the l and a shouldn't be right next to each other like that, there should be more space between those two letters.

now i don't fully remember, but i super don't think that 'Eva find me' note was in the books. Eva would've been way more obsessed with it if it was. in the books, she doesn't know the 'wondla' page was actually left for her, it's just this strange anomaly she finds that gives her hope, but she sort of creates that hope herself. its origin is an honest to god mystery until the second book, and therefore, the meaning that Eva gives it is what really comes to define it.

it's not just that no one had seen a human in a long time, most aliens on Orbona had never seen a human at all until Eva came along. that's a big difference! though, this audio does sound chopped up from multiple sentences, so maybe disregard this.

i don't like that they gave away the 'Orbona was once Earth' twist right off the bat. i know it's not a wholly original trope in sci-fi, but this is a middle-grade/family series, and it straight up blew my mind to see as a kid that hadn't ever really read true sci-fi before. and Orbona is SO bizarre, and Eva is SO desperate to find other humans, that the reveal is extra jarring and bleak, and it creates such powerful tension. why give the impact of that away in the trailer?? why not just let people think she's stuck on an alien planet until they get the full emotional gut punch when they actually watch it for themselves?

where's the lake in Lacus? :/ that was... kinda the basis of Lacus' culture and design and all. like ok i see some water, but Lacus should be almost more water than village.

Otto's design!! why god why.

why is Otto furry, why are his eyes Like That, etc.

nooo, don't show the ruins of New York in the trailer, that's for the audience to discover in horror along with Eva.

also why does Otto (i think that's him talking at least?) sound like that? thumbs down.

what are the. uh. shark tale-looking creatures running on water. they're very shark tale-looking (derogatory). they don't look like they belong in this series?? like did this footage just get misfiled?

egads it's coming out at the end of this month. i'm gonna watch it of course. but the whole time i'll be thinking about what could've been. and i'll reread the books, too. >:|

[openstorygames]

On Editing and Ego

Nothing is quite as humbling (for a writer) as handing your work over to someone for feedback.

To be completely honest, that is a good 70% of the reason none of my novel drafts ever turned into anything readable. Even when I finished them, I wasn't brave enough to have them shredded by another's opinion.

In school, I excelled in language classes. I wasn't going to be the next great bilingual writer or anything, but languages click for me, so even when I wasn't working in English, I got decent at writing prose and even tried my hand at some poetry.

Writing in my first language (English) came to me like I'd come into the world doing it.

Like many students, I found myself in peer review groups quite often.

The trouble with being naturally talented at something is that you don't get challenged.

My teachers compared me to my classmates, and I was always towards the top of the curve. I was writing at or above the expected level, so that box got checked. No problems, no need to push.

My peers compared me to their own level of effort, to other students' skills. I got a few rude comments and some ribbing for being nerdy, but nothing to challenge my pride in my skill. That might have been good for my grades, but it was terrible for my ego (and my editing skills). I was so confident in my writing abilities that I rarely wrote more than a single draft. 'Editing' became proofreading. Checking for typos.

Of course, eventually you grow up. And in the broader world, there is always someone who is better, more skilled, or further along their path.

My writing hid for many years.

You know the great thing about games? They're only playable if the rules are readable.

This is doubly true for TTRPGs.

Guess how you discover if your game is playable.

That's right. Suddenly, I couldn't write off feedback.

Add that to the fact that game design is an entirely different medium than the typical school projects, and I found myself quite humbled.

I don't have editing skills.

I've got a degree in literature and nearly 2 decades of writing (if you count childhood attempts, which I do!) under my belt. But my editing skills are hardly better than when I was in middle school!

Fortunately, I've found a community that looks for the good and nudges me toward that. I have colleagues who are already learning my weak points and offer support and suggestions.

The lovely thing about learning as an adult is that we're all a little more mature about helping each other out (usually).

Doesn't ease the ego much, though.

I'm embarrassed to say I never really learned how to take that critique with grace. But I hope I'm getting there.

My ego still twinges when I'm reading feedback, but I'm able to read the genuine care that my community pours into my games, into my development as a designer.

I might be well-practiced at writing, but I'm still a beginner in this medium. And that's okay. I'm learning to be less full of myself, to ask more questions, and to take instruction.

Giving up the comfort of a puffed-up ego is the best way to move forward as an artist, but it's also a great way to be a considerate, compassionate human.

Join me in letting that ego go a little bit. Be a beginner! Try something new. Adapt your art to a slightly different medium. Take a class that sounds interesting but intimidating. Ask for feedback. Listen with open ears. Look with clear eyes.

[party-pixie]

yo, owner of daily demon spotlight here, what'd you think of smt v? i wanna have tempered expectations for when vengeance comes out, so i was curious how someone who played it felt about it. ty in advance! :)

hi!! overall i really liked smtv tbh, at least enough to keep playing to get every ending (and then see the vengeance reveal THE NIGHT I FINISHED MY LAST RUN 😭)

i'll try to keep it a little vague in case you don't want too many spoilers but......there's still some spoilers lmao i'm so sorry but i at least tried to leave out the huge details or not explicitly say them

in terms of gameplay, it's really fun!! it's pretty difficult at first (i played on hard mode my first run but i've read that normal and casual can be challenging too i guess esp if you're new to the series) but it gets easier as you progress. a lot of people seemed to have a problem with the level scaling, esp for the shiva battle since he's a lv96 superboss (optional really but required for the secret neutral ending) but the bosses in the very final dungeon are like......lv80-85. even the final boss is only like lv85 unless you're doing the secret neutral route then he's lv90 i think. i didn't really think much ab the level scaling until i saw other people talking ab it but.......yea i had HUGE problems with shiva, i had to max out the level of my whole team just to take him on, but then it turned the endgame bosses into a total joke. i had a hard time with some of the other bosses too, the ones i remember the most being hydra, nuwa, lahmu, surt, and vasuki but it might be different on lower difficulties. the magatsuhi gauge + the skills were fun to use but the one you get at the very beginning that just comes with being a nahobino is.........kinda the only one you really need a lot of the time since you can just crit everything when you use it. it didn't really make all of the other ones obsolete tho since some were really good for survival like buffs/healing, it's just that it was a little too easy to get away with using the critical one for most of the time

oh, the unique skills were a good addition too, a lot of them were super useful like idun's, demeter's, and danu's since they all had good healing + extra effects. a lot of the new demons were good too, i haven't used all of them but the ones that i did use either really saved my ass or i just enjoyed having them on my team. although, i'm pretty disappointed the last 3 bosses aren't fusible and i'm ESPECIALLY disappointed that lucifer isn't fusible considering he was in apocalypse. he has such a good design in this game i'm so upset i can't have him on my team 😭 oh yea, and demons being locked behind an alignment is a little annoying but i don't really mind it much????? idk i feel like it gives the game a little more replay value, so i don't mind as long as it's not overly difficult to get. danu. inanna. and maria being locked behind certain alignments and ALSO being locked behind 70% compendium completion was a little annoying, but if you've got the macca to burn you can just summon directly from the compendium for new fusions until you get 70%, so it's not overly difficult to do. maybe a little tedious. i also liked the essence mechanic, but getting them was SUCH a pain since there isn't really any consistent way to farm them except for the aogami essences which are a little easier to get. i prefer the demon whisper from iv/a tbh but essences makes it easier to get certain skills on demons without having to do fusion gymnastics to get the perfect build

another thing is that there were only two real dungeons since the open areas were kinda supposed to serve as dungeons to a certain degree, but those two dungeons were........pretty underwhelming. the first one was really annoying cus it had a fan mechanic that would blow you to certain areas around the rooms and you kinda had to be careful with the timing on certain ones. it wasn't overly difficult to get around, it's just the fans that were a pain. the second dungeon was also the second to last area you go thru in the whole game and the setup was so ridiculous??????? like, it had a ton of long hallways and dead ends which is kinda to be expected but when you see a pic of the whole map for each section it's like "who the hell designed this?!" it's not even difficult to get thru, it's actually SUPER easy even with the time stopping doors gimmick which you can just......ignore entirely and the only consequence is losing out on some treasure. the layout is just weird and chaotic and seems like it might've been rushed cus it's also pretty empty, tbh both dungeons are

for the game's story..........oh god. it's pretty clear it was really rushed cus it was super underbaked. i didn't hate it, i actually liked the beginning a lot! but it falls off really bad after the second lahmu fight imo and the pacing just ends up all messed up. like the second lahmu fight feels like you're still early in the story but it's more like closer to midgame. and after finishing each major area, you end up going back to tokyo and having a meeting with your friends and director koshimizu at the research center, so all of those cutscenes look more or less the exact same since it's always in the same room and even the placement of the characters is almost the same. i've seen some people complain ab the lack of world building and while i don't think it has as much as iv/a did, a lot of the world building just ends up coming from talking to npcs and doing side quests instead of the main story. idk if that's good writing/design really but it's how the game ended up. there's also a few parts where they seem to be building up to something really big, but then the thing they were building up to ends up being mostly underwhelming. like the part where you meet yuzuru in da'at in front of the broken train, it feels like something is ab to happen, like a demon is gonna ambush them or they're gonna run into another friend like dazai, but then the convo ends and nothing happens. but it feels like something should've happened! and the pandemonic summit should've happened a lot earlier imo, idk i just feel like the placement of it is off cus after the summit, you're in the last main area and the end of the game is basically right around the corner. as long as you can beat the shit out of odin, zeus, and vasuki, you can get to the end relatively quickly, but it feels like more should've happened between the summit and the end of the game

i really liked a lot of the side quests tho! i think the khonsu one was my favorite and i wish he and miyazu didn't get sidelined so badly 😔 but the gameplay was really what kept me coming back for ng+ so many times tbh

the characters are all severely underdeveloped too, the only character that gets much at all is dazai tbh. yuzuru is off doing his own thing for a huge majority of the story and his sister miyazu is completely useless, getting minimized to being the chronically ill girl who just hangs out in the fairy forest the entire time. she get sidelined so badly which was so sad to me cus i ended up loving her, esp after the khonsu quest. sahori could've been given a little more, i wish she had a bigger role or something. tao also could've been expanded on a lot more especially considering her role in the grand scheme of things. even aogami doesn't get much of a backstory but it seems like they meant to try and touch on that but couldn't cus of time constraints. dazai is the only one that gets much of an arc at all, and it's decently interesting. i get that they might've wanted to try to do what nocturne did where you almost immediately split off from your friends and only meet intermittently, so their development happens offscreen, but i don't think this game did that very well. it also doesn't help that the world of v is so much more whimsical compared to nocturne

and oh god the ending...... i thought the cutscene where you finally ascend to the throne was beautiful so i don't necessarily hate it, but the way they tied the ending in with everything else was so obviously rushed and not well done. if you've played any of the other mainline games (mostly nocturne and iv/a are my frame of reference since i haven't played i or ii and haven't finished strange journey redux yet) it's really different in a way that i didn't really like. after you beat the final boss, the cutscene where you'd see or at least get an idea of the kind of world you created is so.....disappointing a little bit???? i won't spoil the endings for the other games in case you haven't played them, but the gist of them is that you're with your respective alignment rep and they're talking to you. but in v it's just.....you're getting narrated at by some guy! the whole thing is kinda just an info dump of how the new world turned out instead of getting to infer from the conversation with the alignment rep you sided with! like, really?? it would've been nice to see how the alignment reps felt about the new world at least

i was treating this as kinda a spoiler but tbh if you've played any other mainline game you can kinda expect lucifer to be the final boss or an endgame boss, but they basically used him as a huge infodump at the end?????? if you do the secret neutral ending he starts talking sometimes mid-battle about stuff about the universe that was never mentioned earlier in the story???? like, he talks about how the universe is doomed to reincarnate (which i know is par for the course in smt but still....) and that you have to kill him to break the cycle, but nobody else really mentioned that during the story. and i guess you could suspend your disbelief and say only he knows about it since he consumed the knowledge of the creator so of course none of the other characters would know, but that whole thing just felt really random, like the devs suddenly remembered that smt is supposed to have themes of reincarnation so they threw that in at the end. i don't think he mentions any of this in the other endings, and you don't even fight him in the normal neutral ending! and then after you kill him and see the cutscene about the new world, you find out in the post credits cutscene that none of that shit even worked!! so what the hell was all that for!?!!?!? i get that smt always has huge nihilist themes so the whole "you just did all of that for absolutely nothing cus we're doomed to reincarnate forever" thing isn't out of left field, but man seeing that post credits cutscene REALLY made it feel like i just did all that for absolutely fuckin' NOTHING. i'm kinda conflicted about it honestly, cus it was an interesting twist! i was surprised by it and the way they revealed it was really cool! but it also felt like it just diminished all of the world building lucifer just dumped onto us literally 10mins prior

the requirements for the secret neutral ending also felt really weird cus you're supposed to help all of these demons and it's basically showing you that even the demons aren't completely evil, but then the ending for that route is just "nah fuck all of them, this world is only for humans" and i just don't think it was a very good writing choice. the requirements make you feel like maybe there IS a solution for all of this conflict and maybe there is some kind of way to coexist with demons in a positive way, but then you see the ending and it's like oh......nvm then. maybe it turned out that way cus of time contraints, i don't know. i pretty strongly believe the secret neutral ending was meant to be a route centering around miyazu and khonsu considering the requirements to get it, but then the time constraints made atlus have to dump khonsu and miyazu off into a side quest and shift things around

overall, i'd say it was a good game! the gameplay is a lot more compelling than the story, but the problems with the story really only become glaringly obvious if you play it 4 times over like i did lmao. i've seen some people ask if they should play the game or wait for vengeance, or say that they got the game to play while waiting for vengeance to release and tbh.......i don't think it's all that worth it, if i didn't have the game already i'd just be waiting for vengeance since the story of the original game is still gonna be available, it'll just be a different path entirely. plus vengeance is supposed to have a lot of improvements both storywise and gameplay wise, so i feel like it's better to just wait. i'm really looking forward to it tho, i've been loosely following the trailers/news and it looks like miyazu will have more of a role and they've added a lot of cool gameplay mechanics 🥰

i wasn't expecting this to be so long, but i feel like there's a lot to say about the game even if it seems like there isn't. i just really liked the game despite all its problems and it's in really close second as my favorite after iv, so the release of vengeance makes me wonder if it'll top iv as my favorite. thanks for giving me a chance to word vomit ab it lol

[soufre-de-paris]

we watched the first few episodes of the original gundam from 1979.

it is absolutely brilliant. thoughts under the cut.

this is a truly different experience from watching later media of any sort. the story continues from episode to episode, without the soft-reset we are used to in nearly all episodic television outside of select prestige series, especially these days. the character designs vary so wildly one might reasonably assume they all come from different properties:

this feels so very 70s (in '79!) but when's the last time you saw any anime with such diverse style of character design? modern anime suffers from such extreme sameface syndrome that this is such a breath of fresh air.

(also bright, baby, why are you with the girls in this clearly gender segregated split? A's suggestion is that it's to separate the serious characters from the slapstick. pretty sure y'all can guess my interpretation 😏)

even though obviously the "heroic"' machines are those with brighter colors, the designs of the machines themselves are wild; they aren't just color-changed variations to tell the "good guys" from the "bad guys":

which is another point.

caveat that we are only on episode three, and i have consumed absolutely nothing of gundam ever prior to this.

so far what we know of the zeon (i'll use the canonized name instead of what they're actually saying, which is jion, likely better transcribed as zion) is that they started a war of independence, and in the ensuing war, half of humanity was killed. we are told this outright in the opening.

in a doylist sense, we know they have some pretty clear indications of "evil" (nearly all their machines are military green, we have seen exactly zero zeon women, everything is dark, one renegade zeon eagerly kills civilians, etc) but in-story, there is so far no reason to believe the entire movement or whatever is evil, at least not compared to the "heroic" side.

in the text, char (main "villain") is presented with steadfast determination and drive and dedication. he praises his men freely, makes decisions quickly, and isn't afraid to enter the fray himself to turn the tides. he mourns the loss of men, while working towards ensuring future successes won't mean they died in vain. he works hard, and despite his worse equipment, regularly runs circles around those with better tech. he's valiant, clever, thoughtful, and just generally traditionally hero-coded.

comparing him to amuro (main "hero") and his wishywashy inadequacy? his wrong motives of "i'll do it because i'm ordered to do so"? his selfishness? his bleeding heart that leads him to fail to do his duty, resulting in worse outcomes for all? the only thing amuro has going for him is that he's a genius and he learns quickly, and does occasionally rise to the challenge.

i'm very eager to see the trajectory of both these characters! from the time period i'd expect the two to invert—amuro becoming more traditionally heroic while char descends into selfishness—but we'll see!

very compelling storytelling so far!

[adventuresinclientservice]

Why early failure does not mean future failure.

In 2012, in search of better weather, Roberta and I abandoned our Manhattan residence, buying a house and relocating to Napa.  I call it the second-best decision I ever made (it’s easy to guess what the first one is).

We love our by-the-water home, but if all goes as planned, we soon will decamp to a different residence.  I’m now approaching my mid-70s; it makes sense to simplify.  Simplification means more liquidity, less worry.  It means renting a house, not owning a home.

Simplifying also means winnowing and discarding, ridding ourselves of items we no longer need, use, or want.  Among other tasks, we worked our way through two file cabinets of easy-to-part-with records and reports accumulated over the better part of a lifetime.   

Some things, however, you do not discard.

One of these you see above:  Bobby’s Compositions book for Ms. Rafael’s second grade class, a priceless bit of personal history.  (Note:  everyone called the growing-up me “Bobby,” a fractured diminutive I found embarrassing; at 24 I jettisoned it for the more preferable “Robert.”)  If you were to turn the page, you would see the book is designated as a “Lesson Boob,” foreshadowing seven-year-old Bobby’s problem with language.

Here’s a graded test, one of many that demonstrated Bobby’s struggles with English.  The problem grew so acute and worrisome, that summer Bobby’s parents paid for a qualified and capable private tutor, someone who could help.  Regular learning sessions largely supplanted a season almost entirely devoted to outdoor play, focused on teaching Bobby how to spell.

Did it work?

It took years of effort, a second tutor during high school, punctuated by repeated setbacks large and small, with one graduate-school teacher casting a cold eye on one of my assignment papers, commenting, “I am not wild about your writing style,” but considering where I was compared with where I now am, I’d say yes.  

Improvement required consistent dedication to process, slow, painful, and often disappointing, which yielded progress, raising a question:  why did someone who was verbally challenged emerge as a published author and resident deck swami, adept at all forms of writing for commerce?

The teachers didn’t change how they taught.  The student did.

Driven by fear, motivated to improve, with the help of we-won’t-give-up others, I became better at learning.  Looking back on it, it was about developing the equivalent of muscle memory; the more I learned, the more determined to learn more I became.  Instead of treating my mistakes and missteps as failures, I began to see them as opportunities to get better. 

My first job out of college was working for Ron Hendren, who at the time led George Washington University’s PR office.  One day Ron dispatched me to the  school’s Registrar office to look up the backgrounds of a couple of soon-to-graduate students.  I did so, but then took a detour, locating my own record in the seemingly endless rows of filing cabinets. 

In it I discovered a letter of assessment from my high school, projecting I would be a 2.0 GPA (grade-point average) student – essentially a “D” – with commentary that sentenced me to a life of less-than-mediocre professional performance.

I had just graduated "with distinction" and as a member of the academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa, having the highest grade-point average among students in my major, along with being a Danforth scholarship nominee.  I was at the start of my prove-them-wrong journey.

There is a disclaimer financial service institutions commonly invoke with investors:  "Past performance is not a predictor of future success." By extension, it is not a predictor of future failure either.

The next time you are thwarted by setbacks, stymied in pursuit of a career, or generally struggling to succeed, remember how this phrase applies to me, and how it absolutely should apply to you.

[seeminglyseph]

I have a strange project idea. I don’t know if I’m gonna achieve anything with it… I don’t think it has a purpose save for passion.

I’m really feeling the nostalgia of Persona 4. And I think just because the person who introduced it to me lived on the outskirts of Vancouver, and a lot of supernatural murder mystery has a like… Twin Peaks inspired vibe, and since I haven’t officially seen Twin Peaks, just a shit tonne of stuff inspired by Twin Peaks, my brain is like “damn I don’t know if this is has Twin Peaks vibes or is just a supernatural murder mystery…” and since Twin Peaks was extremely popular, and had a big fan base in Japan, I fully have no idea how many anime and Japanese games have Lynchian vibes on purpose.

Or picked them up second hand like me. Did we accidentally grab them from Silent Hill and Alan Wake and Life is Strange and now despite limited exposure to the man’s actual filmography we’re deeply influenced by David Lynch?

Anyway, firstly, I have decided since I’m trying to practice drawing again to get back in the habit I’m gonna do a fan project where I combine Persona 4 and Life is Strange. Basically because Persona 4 gives me The Vibes.

So reimagining it like it takes place in a small town outside of like… Vancouver. Like the friend that recommended the game, and the nostalgic place that also broke my heart because it’s also where my first girlfriend lived. So a bunch of like… you know, the halcyon days of teenage love and heartbreak. That’s where stories get made etc etc. blah blah blah. It would be a far more Douglas Fir dominated setting than Inaba, but I’m hoping for more of a design aesthetic kinda cultural upbringing impact on remixing the P4 cast designs.

Life is Strange just feels like a base model comparison. A game with a similar base (Supernatural Mystery Thriller) but Western, with a clear influence from Twin Peaks, but since Twin Peaks is dated and I haven’t seen Twin Peaks yet and I can’t find it to easily commit to watching it and I’m not paying for Paramount+ right now. Or like $70 for a box set of DVDs. (And I don’t feel like sorting through all the piracy websites to find the one that’s not just concentrated malware and Trojans right now. I get it I’m a pussy, whatever.)

No I’m not planning on race swapping anyone, plenty of Japanese people live in and around the Vancouver area, however multicultural Canada is, I’m just gonna do like. Fashion and maybe like… “since food and body standards are different in Canada, people might have different body types” but also I draw thick characters on instinct. Like. Automatically. It is something I cannot help. Characters are gonna be thicker than anime characters and probably Life is Strange characters based entirely on the fact that my default drawing style is like… thick. I know right now, for myself, that I’m gonna get in shit from someone, for either sexualizing, or making characters fat. And the fact of the matter is that I just… draw thick thighs and wide waists and that’s why I suck at drawing anime girls. This is gonna be my challenge going forward. Yukiko at least should be pretty slender. I feel like I can give Chie thighs that can kill, but Yukiko should be thin. Rise should have pop star eating disorder figure, but I’m morally apposed to that. Yosuke should be a little toothpick boy. I shouldn’t give Kanji a big muscle man bod…. But I guess that one’s more reasonable…. People would probably not care if Kanji was more buff than he was supposed to be. That’s a little fucked…

I need to focus and try to relearn the muscle memory and the ability to draw. I think a fan project would be a good way to maintain passion and confidence, while getting my skills back in shape…

[kuinaoflight]

13: Do you hate anyone at the moment?

17: Ever made out in the bathroom?

28: Have you ever been cheated on?

70 horrible questions … Fuck it

13. Do you hate anyone at the moment?: You know this— and I think you took it as a challenge or a game, which it’s not, but I don’t hate! Or the closest I’ve come to hate is how I feel when you’ve destroyed something of mine and flash me that innocent look. At the moment though… no, I don’t hate anyone. Not even close. So you’re safe. I guess I hate the people that designed this place, if I had to pick. But… wait, why do you ask? What did you do?!

17: Ever made out in the bathroom?: I have made out in the bathroom, both public and non. Sometimes the moment just takes you… I guess that can apply to either situation. And the public bathroom ones were on rare occasions! A little too much to drink, a have to have you now moment— you know, see if you have chemistry before taking them home? Private ones are more fun though with the shower and bath involved~

28: Have you ever been cheated on?: Might come as a shock to all… since I’m so beautiful and had zero free time to date in the real world, but yes, I’ve been cheated on. (Insert Taylor Swift lyrics here) One time it was after I’d just moved to a different area outside of the city. I barely heard from him after that, but I kept trying to keep it going. I found out through a friend he was seeing someone else, and when I confronted him he said it was because the commute was too far and he decided we would just naturally fizzle out without officially breaking up. But if I was willing to come out his way all the time, then we could stay together. I might’ve smacked him. That’s a tamer cheated on story. Why so curious, mm~?

-Kuina

[randomboo256]

Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy (2017) Review [Part Two]

[This review is the second part of a larger Crash Bandicoot: N Sane Trilogy review. Please read Part One first]

Crash Bandicoot (N. Sane Version)

In my opinion, this version of Crash Bandicoot sucks. The trilogy gave Crash a much heavier jump and changed his hitboxes to make his jumping way less reliable. Levels that were fairly easy in the original such as Road to Nowhere became way harder when basic jumping and landing on platforms became far less consistent. Essentially, Crash has a pill shaped hitbox that’ll make him slip off platforms if you’re too close to the edge of it. This effectively made every platform in the game slightly smaller and made every jump have slightly less room for error. When combined with the heavier jumps and a game that's designed as deliberately as this one, the remaster just makes the game much less enjoyable to play in my opinion. That’s not to say the remaster has NO benefits, as it fixed the save system, made Stormy Ascent easier to access, and it made 100% easier by letting you see box totals and saving broken boxes with checkpoints, allowing you to die but still get the gem. So there are reasons to play the remaster instead, and if you own the remaster and haven’t played it yet, it’s still a decent way to play this game. However in my opinion, the pros don’t outweigh the cons. On a final note for the remaster, I’ll add that if you’re someone who played the remastered version of this game and didn’t like it, try the original. I hated the remaster when I first played it and I ended up loving the original.

Speaking of Stormy Ascent, that was a level that was cut from the original for being too hard. You could still play it with a Gameshark code however. I’ve played it. It was long and hard with some spaced out checkpoints, but it wasn’t too bad. I enjoyed the challenge. On the ORIGINAL, that is. On the remake I spent like an hour and 70 lives dying over and over, while I only died like 10 times in the original game. The remake had more checkpoints in that level too, and it was still way harder! Even Vicarious Visions knows that they made the jumping a lot harder because they acknowledged that in a blog post. Remember when this remaster came out and the Gamers™ called everyone “fake gamers” who complained about the difficulty? Remember how they were like “Oh, back in my day these games were even harder!” Well guess what? They weren’t. They were a lot easier, in fact. 

Anyway on to Crash 2.

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (N. Sane Version) 

Crash 2 has a lot of the same changes as Crash 1. It has the bad hitboxes and it has the inaccurate jumping, however this time around it’s different. You see, all three games in the trilogy are based off of Crash 3. In case you forgot, Crash 1 had a light jump, Crash 2 had a heavy jump, and Crash 3 had something in between. Crash 2’s jump was too heavy, so switching to Crash 3 was an improvement. Also, Crash 2 and 3’s jumps were both balanced around the slide jump, a high and floaty jump that basically replaces the normal jump button in a lot of places. The slide jump is basically a souped-up version of Crash 1’s normal jump, but for Crash 2 and 3. With the precise slide jump, getting around the garbage hitboxes is a ton easier. It also ends up making Crash 1 feel like the heaviest game in the trilogy, when it was originally the opposite. 

That begs the question: Why didn’t they add the slide to Crash 1? If they would’ve done that, the game would’ve been sooo much better. I understand that it would be less accurate to some extent, but how about this: Only give Coco the slide in Crash 1. In this remaster, you can choose to unlock Coco in any of the games. Like, literally choose. They give you an option. However Coco plays no differently, despite being canonically from the future (it’s not explained). Specifically Crash 3. So wouldn't it make sense for her to have moves from future games? Hell, while you’re at it: Give Coco the double jump and crash dash from the start in all three games. Coco would essentially be an easier option either for people struggling or just people who want to mix things up with moves from later Crash games in Crash 2 and 3. I think that would’ve been brilliant.

Oh anyway, yeah Crash 2 remake was ok. Overall I’d say between the better gravity and worse hitboxes it balances out to being equal with the original. They also improved the jetpack controls somewhat, but not by a lot. Anyway now for Crash 3.

Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped

Still refusing to just call it Crash Bandicoot: Warped. Anyway Crash 3 wasn’t half bad. Firstly, the enhanced moveset completely corrects the bad hitboxes. The hitboxes are still bad, but you won’t be able to casually notice. Also the core jumping gameplay was designed around 3 from the get go, so the platforming levels in this game are basically identical. As for the vehicle levels, well let’s go down the list.

Scuba levels: They’re the same. They still suck.

Jet Ski levels: They control a bit worse. They’re a lot less precise and feel more like a real jet ski. Honestly though, I think they’re better. The original jet ski levels were way too easy and became boring. The less precise and more realistic controls actually end up improving these levels.

Motorcycle levels: They control a lot worse, and this time that’s a bad thing. The motorcycle has awful handling and now requires you to break and come to a complete stop at times just to make certain turns. This certainly isn’t CTR I’ll say that much.

Airplane levels: These levels were a pain in the ass in the originals, but now they’re just fine. Your plane no longer snaps back to center position which makes aiming soo much easier. It’s honestly too easy now. These levels are effortless for late game stages.

Things like airplane levels are also enhanced by the new analog stick support. The original Playstation controller didn’t have dual sticks, so a lot of PS1 games didn’t have analog input, including the Crash trilogy. Or at least, THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT!! Turns out Crash 2, 3, and CTR all natively support full analog input on the original Playstation. I found this out after I beat the games already. I guess I just never tried hitting the analog button in Crash 2 or 3. I feel like such a dumbass. Oh, and if you’re wondering Crash 3 PS1’s airplane levels do play nicer on analog sticks. They still aren’t good, but you can aim a lot easier with the more precise analog inputs.

Crash 3 also introduced a brand new level: Future Tense. Originally, Crash N. Sane Trilogy was a PS4 exclusive. However a year later it was released on all platforms. To celebrate that release, they added a new level to the game. Future Tense is designed to be the hardest Crash 3 level and is supposed to be that game’s version of Stormy Ascent. However, it wasn’t very hard for me. It was a bit more difficult than the average level I suppose, but not by much honestly. It was a very fun level though. Probably the best level in the N. Sane Trilogy, and that’s probably because it was actually designed with the N. Sane Trilogy in mind.

In conclusion, Crash 3 N. Sane was an improvement overall. The only real downgrade was the motorcycle levels. As for the N. Sane Trilogy in general, it was ok I guess. Other than Crash 1, the trilogy versions of these games are pretty interchangeable with the original versions to me. However, the original trilogy wasn’t the only thing that got remade...

[To be continued...]

[lindsaywesker]

Deaths In 2022 (to date)

January

5: Jessie Lee Daniels a.k.a Jessie D, 57, American singer (Force MDs)

6: Peter Bogdanovich, 82, American film director (‘The Last Picture Show’/’Paper Moon’/’What’s Up Doc?’)

Sidney Poitier, 94, Bahamian actor (‘In The Heat Of The Night’/’Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?’

Calvin Simon, 79, American musician (Parliament/Funkadelic)

7: R. Dean Taylor, 82, Canadian singer/songwriter (‘Indiana Wants Me’/’There’s A Ghost In My House’)

8: Marilyn Bergman, 93, American songwriter (‘You Don’t Bring Me Flowers’/’The Way We Were’/’The Windmills Of Your Mind’)

9: James Mtume, 76, American songwriter/producer (‘The Closer I Get To You’/’Juicy Fruit’)

12: Ronnie Spector, 78, American R&B singer (The Ronettes)

13: Sonny Turner, 83, American soul singer (The Platters)

15: Jon Lind, 73, American songwriter/musician (‘Save The Best For Last’/’Crazy For You’)

Nino Cerruti, 91, Italian business man/stylist (founder of Cerruti)

18: Dick Halligan, 78, American musician (founding member of Blood, Sweat & Tears)

20: Meatloaf, 74, American singer (‘I’d Do Anything For Love’) & actor (‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’)

21: Louie Anderson, 68, American comedian/actor (‘Coming To America’)

23: Thierry Mugler, 73, French fashion designer

February

2: Monica Vitti, 90, Italian actress (‘L’Avventura’)

6: Syl Johnson, 85, American soul and blues singer (father of Syleena)

8: Bamber Gascoigne, 87, English TV presenter (‘University Challenge’)

9: Betty Davis, 77, American soul and funk singer

Ian McDonald, 75, English musician (King Crimson/Foreigner)

12: Ivan Reitman, 75, Czechoslovak film director (‘Ghostbusters’/’Meatballs’)

16: Jack Smethurst, 89, English actor (‘Love Thy Neighbour’)

19: Gary Brooker, 76, English singer/songwriter/musician (Procol Harum)

22: Mark Lanegan, 57, American rock musician/singer (Queens Of The Stone Age)

24: Sally Kellerman, 84, American actress (‘M*A*S*H’)

27: MC Skibadee, 47, English drum & bass artist/MC

March

3: Denroy Morgan, 76, Jamaican singer/musician (father of Morgan Heritage)

4: Rod Marsh, 74, Australian cricket player

Shane Warne, 52, Australian cricket player

Lynda Baron, 82, English actress (‘Open All Hours’)

11: Timmy Thomas, 77, American soul singer (‘Why Can’t We Live Together?’)

12: Traci Braxton, 50, American soul singer (The Braxtons) (sister of Toni)

13: William Hurt, 71, American actor (‘Altered States’, ‘Broadcast News’)

25: Taylor Hawkins, 50, American drummer (Foo Fighters)

Bobby Hendricks, 84, American soul singer (The Drifters)

29: Donald Shaw a.k.a. Tabby Diamond, 66, Jamaican singer (The Mighty Diamonds)

April

1: Fitzroy Simpson a.k.a. Bunny Diamond, 70, Jamaican singer (The Mighty Diamonds)

C. W. McCall, 93, American country singer (‘Convoy’)

3: June Brown, 95, English actress (‘Eastenders’)

12: Gilbert Gottfried, 67, American comedian/actor (‘Saturday Night Live’/‘Aladdin’)

24: Andrew Woolfolk, 71, American saxophonist (Earth, Wind & Fire)

26: Klaus Schulze, German composer/musician (Tangerine Dream)

30: Naomi Judd, 76, American singer/songwriter (The Judds)

May

6: Jewell, 53, American R&B singer (First Lady Of Death Row Records)

8: Dennis Waterman, 74, English actor/singer (‘Minder’/’The Sweeney’)

15: Kay Mellor, 71, writer/actress (‘Families’/’Fat Friends’)

17: Vangelis, 79, Greek musician (Jon & Vangelis/’Chariots Of Fire’)

19: Bernard Wright, 58, American jazz and soul musician/singer

26: Ray Liotta, 67, American actor (‘Goodfellas’/’Field Of Dreams’)

Andy Fletcher, 60, English keyboardist (Depeche Mode)

29: Lester Piggott, 86, English jockey

June

5: Dom Phillips, 57, British music journalist (editor, Mixmag)

6: Jim Seals, 79, American singer/songwriter/musician (‘Summer Breeze’)

9: Julee Cruise, 65, American singer (‘Falling’)/actress (‘Twin Peaks’)

17: Ken Williams, 83, American songwriter (‘Everybody Plays The Fool’)

22: Patrick Adams, 72, writer/musician/producer (Musique/Universal Robot Band/Inner Life/Black Ivory)

July

4: Mona Hammond, 91, Jamaican actress (‘Desmonds’/’Eastenders’)

5: Manny Charlton, 80, Scottish rock guitarist (Nazareth)

6: James Caan, 82, American actor (‘The Godfather’/’Rollerball’)

8: Tony Sirico, 79, American actor (‘Goodfellas’/’The Sopranos’)

11: Monty Norman, 94, English composer (‘James Bond Theme’)

14: William Hart, 77, American soul singer (The Delfonics)

15: Paul Ryder, 58, English bass player (Happy Mondays)

21: Taurean Blacque, 82, American actor (‘Hill Street Blues’)

23: Bob Rafelson, 89, American film director (‘Five Easy Pieces’/’The Postman Always Rings Twice’)

24: David Warner, 80, English actor (‘Tron’/’Titanic’/’The Omen’)

25: Sandy Roberton, 80, Scottish record producer (Steeleye Span)

Paul Sorvino, 83, American actor (‘Goodfellas’/’Law & Order’)

27: Bernard Cribbins, 93, English actor/singer (‘The Railway Children’/’Doctor Who’)

Tom Springfield, 88, English musician/songwriter (The Springfields) (older brother of Dusty)

30: Nichelle Nichols, 89, American actress (‘Star Trek’)

August

5: Issey Miyake, 84, Japanese fashion designer

7: Roger E. Mosley, 83, American actor (‘Magnum, P.I.’)

8: Lamont Dozier, 81, American singer/songwriter/producer (‘Going Back To My Roots’)

Olivia Newton-John, 73, English singer/actress (‘Grease’)

9: Raymond Briggs, 88, English children’s writer (‘The Snowman’)

11: Anne Heche, 53, American actress (‘Psycho’/’Donnie Brasco’)

16: Duggie Brown, 82, English comedian/actor

18: Josephine Tewson, 91, English actress (‘Keeping Up Appearances’/’Last Of The Summer Wine’)

22: Creed Taylor, 93, American jazz trumpeter/founder of CTI Records

25, Inez Foxx, 84, American R&B singer (‘Mockingbird’)

September

2: Angus Gaye a.k.a. Drummie Zeb, 62, English reggae drummer (Aswad)

8: Mavis Nicholson, 91, Welsh writer/broadcaster

12: Ramsey Lewis, 87, American jazz pianist/composer

13: Jean-Luc Godard, 91, French film director (‘Breathless’)

Jesse Powell, 51, R&B singer (‘All I Need’)

16: Marva Hicks, 66, American R&B singer/actress

22: Stu Allan, 60, Welsh dance music artist (Clock)/radio broadcaster

John Hartman, 72, American drummer (The Doobie Brothers)

23: Louise Fletcher, 88, American actress (‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’)

24: Pharoah Sanders, 81, American jazz saxophonist

28: Coolio, 59, American rapper (‘Gangsta’s Paradise’)/actor

October

4: Loretta Lynn, 90, American country singer/songwriter

6: Ivy Joe Hunter, 82, American songwriter (‘Dancing In The Street’)

11: Angela Lansbury, 96, English actress (‘Murder She Wrote’)

13: Joyce Sims, 63, American R&B singer/songwriter (‘Come Into My Life’)

14: Robbie Coltrane, 72, Scottish actor/comedian (‘Cracker’/’Harry Potter’)

20: Bettye Crutcher, 83, American songwriter (‘Who’s Making Love?’)

Josephine Melville, 61, English actress (‘Eastenders’/’The Bill’)

24: Leslie Jordan, 67, American actor (‘Desperate Housewives’/’Will & Grace’/’Ally McBeal’)

27: Geraldine Hunt, 77, American R&B singer (‘Can’t Fake The Feeling’)

28: Jerry Lee Lewis, 87, American singer/musician (‘Great Balls Of Fire’)

November

1: Takeoff, 28, American rapper (Migos)

3: Noel McKoy, 62, English soul singer

5: Aaron Carter, 34, American singer

Tyrone Downie, 66, Jamaican keyboardist (Bob Marley & The Wailers)

7: Leslie Phillips, 98, English actor (‘Doctor In The House’/’Carry On’ films)

8: Dan McCafferty, 76, Scottish rock singer (Nazareth)

9: Gal Costa, 77, Brazilian singer

11: Keith Levene, 65, English guitarist (The Clash/Public Image Ltd.)

Rab Noakes, 75, Scottish musician (Stealers Wheel)

21: Wilko Johnson, 75, English guitarist (Dr. Feelgood)/actor (‘Game Of Thrones’)

25: Irene Cara, 63, American singer (‘Flashdance’)/actress (‘Fame’)

30: Christine McVie, 79, English singer/songwriter/musician (Fleetwood Mac)

December

5: Kirstie Alley, 71, American actress (‘Cheers’)

Jim Stewart, 92, record producer/co-founder of Stax Records

6: Jet Black, 84, English drummer (The Stranglers)

9: Ruth Madoc, 79, English actress (‘Hi-De-Hi’)

10: J. J. Barnes, 79, American R&B singer

11: Angelo Badalamenti, 85, American film and TV composer (‘Blue Velver/’Twin Peaks’

13: Sol Amarfio, 84, Ghanaian drummer (Osibisa)

16: Rick Anderson, 75, American bass player (The Tubes)

17: Mike Hodges, 90, English screenwriter/director (‘Get Carter’/’Pulp’/’Flash Gordon’)

18: Terry Hall, 63, English singer (The Specials/Fun Boy Three)/songwriter (‘Our Lips Are Sealed’)

Martin Duffy, 55, English keyboard player (Felt/Primal Scream)

19: Sonya Eddy, 55, American actress (‘Barbershop’/’Daddy Day Care’/’Coach Carter’/’Seinfeld’)

20: Iain Templeton, English drummer (The La’s/Shack)

21: Harvey Jett, 73, American guitarist (Black Oak Arkansas)

22: Thom Bell, 79, Jamaican-born American artist/songwriter/arranger/producer (‘Betcha By Golly Wow’/’I’ll Be Around’/’You Are Everything’/’The Rubberband Man’/’La-La (Means I Love You’))

23: George Cohen, 83, English footballer (member of 1966 World Cup-winning side)

[sweetspotgolf]

Welcome back to another Sweet Spot blog!

In today’s blog, I want to give you all my most recent round update at Torrey Pines south course, a short instructional video that puts all of my golf hack’s together as requested by some readers, and my personal favorite golf apparel. 

Round at Torrey Pines, South course

On Friday, October 28th, two friends and I set out to go low at Torrey Pines south. It was a beautiful day for a round of golf. Mid 70’s and partly cloudy with barely any wind. Not only ideal golf conditions, but a rare opportunity at Torry. 

If you are a resident of San Diego and play golf, you would be stupid not to purchase the residents card. Only $20 for one year, you can get twilight rounds at Torrey Pines on the south course for around $40…which is $100 cheaper than the normal price. Talk about a deal for an official PGA tour graded course! 

As most may already know, when you play Torrey Pines, you do not want to end up in the rough as it is some of the thickest, trickiest madness to get out of. Not only that, but good luck finding your ball. Even if you are just a tad right or left in the rough, your ball could be stuck two inches into grass. Lucky for my group, they had just recently trimmed up the course and the rough was just a hair taller than the fairways themselves. 

I started off by hitting most everything very pure. A textbook par on hole one and a very lucky bogey save on two. Just to throw it in here for reference, I am a 14 handicap. It was not till the fourth hole when I started to take some very unfortunate losses. I hit four out of nine greens in regulation on the front nine, and on three of those four greens I smacked, guess what I did? The horrific three putt… This is something I have improved tremendously throughout the past year, and to take my solid score (to me) of a potential +5 on the front nine to a +8 did not make me too happy. And to put the cherry on top and make it that much sweeter (complete sarcasm), each 3rd putt was within three feet. Talk about some bad breaks. These are the rounds that really test my patience. Welcome to the love hate relationship I have with golf, and I am sure I am not alone! 

Here is a picture of my follow through on famous cliff side ocean view Par 3, Torrey Pines South course hole #3. If you look closely you can see my ball in the ray of sunshine heading straight for the green!

Harry’s Golf Hack’s demonstrated 

As requested by a few friends and readers, I have put together a brief instructional video of “Harry’s Golf Hack’s” to help you all hit that sweet spot (#3 is outlined at the end of this blog). 

Let me know what you all think and send me more video requests! Stay tuned for the next blog post as my golf group and I will record a one hole, winner takes all competition. If there is a tie, we’ll do a ‘closest to the pin’ challenge on the following hole. 

Current Favorite Golf Brands

Out of the many new and upcoming golf apparel brands, and besides your typical powerhouse brands such as Titleist, Callaway, Taylormade, etc, I wanted to provide some honorary mentions that I have recently fallen in love with. 

First we have Malbon Golf. Founded in 2017 by Stephen and Erica Malbon, Malbon is a golf lifestyle brand focusing on inspiring the youth to participate in the greatest game on earth. Having a partnership with Nike certainly helps Malbon maintain a solid reputation and stellar designs. Besides having great apparel, they also have a wonderful social presence through media platforms and collaborations with celebrities. They are doing some great things over at Malbon and I am excited to see what they will continue to bring!

Next, I want to mention LuluLemon and Travis Mathew. I am putting these two together because they are not really new companies, and LuluLemon isn’t only a golf brand, but both these companies really make some quality golf apparel. They are comfortable, stylish, and most of all, very compatible with the game. I think Travis Mathew is the cream of the crop, and I am sure some others would say the same. If you have never played a round in a pair of Lululemon commission pants and a Travis Mathew polo or hat, I highly recommend you up your golf drip. Look good, feel good, golf better! 

Lastly, there is GoodGood golf. As a fairly new brand, GoodGood certainly has a lot ahead of them, but are already doing a tremendous job creating solid content and unique designs. GoodGood golf has a wonderful youtube channel to help promote their apparel yet also providing pure entertainment. I think GoodGood has the potential to become a massive golf brand and channel with a huge following already. 

Harry’s Golf Hack #3:

85% of weight on your lead foot - If you are just starting out and find yourself struggling to make solid contact, try putting the majority of your weight on your lead foot throughout your swing, especially for wedges and irons. This will allow you to focus on that transfer of weight during your down swing, and ultimately allowing for better contact. Sometimes, when I find myself not feeling too confident with my swing in a given moment, I tell myself to slow down and focus on this exact thing. I shorten my backswing and think about putting the majority of weight on my lead foot for solid contact and get me back into my groove. 

See you all next time for Sweet Spots ‘winner takes all’ hole challenge. Cheers!

[ozma914]

Hillary's Bra, and Other Halloween Scares

 Halloween is the scary holiday, timed perfectly to arrive just before the two scariest spots on the calendar: winter, and elections.

It's hardly surprising, then, that one popular Halloween mask is that of the politician. One year I dressed up as Hillary Clinton, stopped all the other trick-or-treaters, and collected 28% of their candy. The bra was kind of binding, though. The problem is, half the people don't recognize political figures, and the other half get too scared.

"What costumes? We just finished some barbecue ribs."

 My main criteria for choosing a Halloween costume was always warmth. In northern Indiana, it's not unheard of for Halloween decorations to be under a layer of snow by the end of October. Any Hoosier parent will tell you the main challenge in designing a costume is incorporating a winter coat and snow boots. Dressing as an astronaut is very popular.

As for me, I stopped going out on Halloween when I got old enough to buy candy at the store, turn off the porch light, and sack out on the couch in a diabetic coma. Preferably while watching a really awful Godzilla movie.

The last time I dressed up for the holiday Emily and I went to a Zombie Walk, costumed as ... well, you know. On a whim I walked into a grocery store and asked if they had any bran. The clerk said, "Last year you were way scarier as Dick Cheney".

"Brains--huh. Nothing there."

 We always tried to do costumes on the cheap because, well--I'm cheap. So we scrounged around the house, looking for something that could be worn over insulated long underwear. For instance, my adopted brother Martin once gave me a bag of hand-me-down clothes. We don't have the same fashion sense, what with me being a white small town boy and him a black guy from Fort Wayne, which is a big city by my standards.

Most of the clothes did class me up, a little. But I also found a uniquely loud puffy shirt, and a pair of oversized parachute pants that button all the way down the side. No, I never saw him wear them in public--I suspect he was messing with me.

That gave me two choices: Go to Halloween as a stereotypical 70s disco black guy, or a clown. I'll never be politically correct, but you can guess which one I did NOT go as.

A rare photo of me outside in November.

 Another choice was something my mother bought for me years ago, back when she (correctly) assumed I needed to get more fit. It's this silver foil costume designed to hold in body heat, like a personal portable sauna. I used it once on the treadmill and lost twelve pounds in thirty minutes. I could have gone as a zombie without needing makeup, if I could walk in a straight line, which I couldn't. Still, a little silver makeup, an aluminum foil hat, and: tah-dah! I'm a space alien.

If I ever trick-or-treat again I'll choose that outfit. Any candy I eat will sweat out of me by the time I make it home. Besides, I'm bound to stay warm no matter how cold it gets outside. Since my one and only goal from October through March is to stay warm, I could celebrate Halloween for months to come, even as political campaigning leaves me cold.

And if that doesn't work, I still have Hillary's bra.

 Remember: When you don't read our books, the Wicked Witch melts. You don't want to clean that up.

http://markrhunter.com/ https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

[hunxi-after-hours]

O Soul, have you watched the SVSSS donghua? If so (or whenever you do), can you talk about it? (and oi, not just about Wu Lei's Wu Lei-ness, 'kay? Ofc, that too! But More 'cuz I adore your posts!)

sldkfjsldjkf ANON I can't believe you called me out and dragged me like that in a public forum because......... you're completely right............ I definitely would have made this entire post about Wu Lei if you hadn't intervened........................................

okay but listen, Wu Lei really makes this show work because the entirety of SVSSS pivots around the central character of Shen Qingqiu, so you have to, you absolutely have to get someone who can pull off the range of "internal disaster constantly in the middle of a metafictional meltdown" and "external badass who's a bit of a bitch but consistently cool as a cucumber" (one might even say, a peerless cucumber, great okay I'll see myself out now)

the POINT I'm trying to make is that a lesser voice actor might not have been able to conduct those hairpin-reversals at the speed of incredulity as well as Wu Lei does, but he has such an incredible range (as well as like, pitch and breath control, and crisp yet expressive high-speed enunciation, and — I'll stop now). the number of times I've idly pulled up the first episode to just re-listen to the opening monologue... many. many times. never fails to bring a smile to my face. I don't even watch the sequence I just put it on in the background while, like, kneading dough or whatever

okay, but credit where credit is due — the voice director, naturally, but also the scriptwriter! I feel like SVSSS is a particularly challenging text to adapt because honestly? I'd say a solid 70% of it resides in Shen Qingqiu's wackass internal narration, which is wildly difficult to translate into a visual medium. so for the scriptwriter to go at the original text with, well, a handsaw and select only the choicest of his 吐槽 roasts is quite the feat since there is SUCH a wealth to choose from

what else, let's see... ahahaha I guess we can talk about the animation, which for the record I am quite fond of! pre-February of this year, I was skeptical of 3D wuxia/xianxia animation, but SHJX completely sold me on it so I was game for the SVSSS donghua. and honestly, 3D animation works super well for SVSSS because they can really lean into the ways 3D animation is reminiscent of video games, and, well (waves vaguely) System. even the endearingly cringey elements of it (bless their hearts, they tried on their fight choreography but they certainly did not have the budget of SHJX sdlkfjsdklf) played into the overall irreverent tone of SVSSS. these lines are stereotypical/awkward/flat-out dumb? satire! the design/animation/movement choreography is mediocre? satire! they really can't lose here, which makes it a manic kind of delightful

my main gripe with the donghua I guess would be the pacing because... sldkfjsldkj yeah it's, uh, terrible. also they clearly ran out of money partway through? again, bless their hearts — I suspect that their original outline took season 1 through the abyss-yeet (thus, the fact that they had the designs and recordings necessary for the post-credits stinger) , and if my suspicions are correct, season 2 will cover everything up to chapter 43 because... c'mon, it's the perfect moment for a season break. well, I shan't hold their shoestring budget against them because they really got quite far on it, and also got renewed for season 2!!! go them!!!

tl;dr the SVSSS donghua is fun!!! I'm hype for season 2!!! I desperately want an audiodrama of SVSSS with 原班人马!!! but in the meantime I've found the audiobook just like, on YouTube, which is 1) a slightly different brand of batshit wild and 2) I mean... (checks audiobook queue) yeah I can jettison all of my library books in favor of this, right? right then what could possibly go wrong

[sleepy-ogre]

Day 5 of B-T 30 Day Challenge

My fave MV? Definitely Itoshi no Rockstar, since i've already swooned over Uta Nexus version and I don't want to repeat an entry lol. I love the overall aesthetics of the vid. Its so vintage with the simple white background and the neon lighting. Very much reminds me of retro indie films of the 60s and 70s, which also matches the overall sound of the song. Which is psychedelic, a subgenre of rock music I love. Also the juxtaposition of their previous and I guess beloved and popular MVs along with some clips from Climax Together (definitely their most iconic live ever) really makes the MV all the more interesting. Also the bandmembers look awesome in their all black ensemble. With the guitarists rocking black leather jackets with their own unique designs and Atsushi and Toll wearing stylish vintage suits that feel like a call back to the suave tailored styles of the 40s and 50s. The perfect MV for one of my most fave songs😍😍😍😍

Images via TheBuckTickZone

[lovelylexipedia]

Just Friends – Alex Karev x Fem! Reader

Type: Imagine (2,200+ words)

Requested: No

Summary: After being invited to a gala, you beg Alex to accompany you to help soften the blow of your mother's demands of you finding a suitable man.

Warning(s): Grey's Spoilers, Mild Swearing, Smut-ish towards the end

Note(s): You're a Peds nurse, so you and Alex grew close over the years, and your mom is a famous fashion designer. Thank you for reading!

———

I sit behind the nurse's station, going over a couple of charts. I drift my index finger over a few lines, then look up to log the information into the desktop computer in front of me. My ears perk up as I hear a familiar voice coming from down the hallway to my left. I look up from the log and spot my best friend and Pediatrics Chief, Alex Karev.

He enters a patient's room and I duck my head down to continue transfering information from the charts that I have. After a few minutes, he comes out and knocks on the marble island in front of my seat.

I look up and give him a sweet smile. "Hey, Karev. What's up?"

"Oh, nothing much. I just wanted to say hi." He smirks, returning the smile.

"Aw, that's so–"

"Ah, just kidding. I just need the chart for 2211. The kid in there is allergic to a few medications and I just need to look over which ones." Alex leans his forearms against the island and scrunches his nose.

"Rude." I roll my eyes before sifting through my pile of charts on my lap and beside me on the desk. I grab it and begin to hand it to him, but then I remember that I need a favor. "Actually," I pull the chart back, looking Alex up and down, "could you do me a favor?"

Alex reaches over for the chart and shakes his head. "You've asked me too many times for me to know that what I'm gonna agree to is gonna be either embarrassing or go down really badly."

I pull my arm back and feign a gasp. "What? No! It's just a simple, teeny-tiny favor, Alex, please!"

"Let me hear it," he grumbles, standing straight and crossing his arms. "This better be quick."

"Okay, so you know how my mom has these galas a couple of times a year to celebrate the brand and their partners?"

"Yes?" Alex drags out.

"Well, she invited me to one and wants me to bring a date. And I was hoping‐"

"No, no no no no no." Alex turns and walks away briskly. I tuck 2211's chart under my arm and I immediately get up to try and follow him.

I trail behind Alex, pouting. "Karev, please! It's just gonna be for a few hours!"

"Don't you have patients to tend to, L/n?" Chief Bailey turns the corner and stops in her tracks, eyeing the chart in my arm. I wince and Alex shakes his head.

"She's being a brat about her Mom's stupid gala," Alex explains as he leans against a wall a few feet down from the nurse's station.

"Am not!" I scoff and shove Karev lightly. He chuckles and finally turns to look at me.

"Well whatever it is, it better not he interfering with patient care. Hurry on." Bailey continues down the hallway, making a few stops in a could rooms along the way.

I give Alex a lopsided smile before continuing to pester him. "Alex, please. My mom really wants me to bring someone."

"Yeah, and that someone should be your boyfriend." Alex raises his eyebrow as if he's challenging me.

"Alex, you and I both know I don't have one of those. Believe me, I don't wanna go either, but the gala's tomorrow. Please? I'll do anything."

"Whatever," he turns and begins walking away, but I quickly catch up to him.

"I'll do your laundry for a week. I'll pay your rent for three months. I'll buy you a suit for tomorrow!" I finally intercept him and stand in front of him, hugging the chart in front of my chest and keeping my arms tight around me.

"Fine. But you're telling your mom that we're just friends. None of this 'fake boyfriend' crap." He points an accusing finger at me and I nod happily.

"Ah, thank you, Alex. Send me your measurements tonight so I can order your suit so we can have it ready for tomorrow!" I hug him briskly and hand him the chart curtly, before rushing back to the nurse's station to finish with the rest of the charts.

———

I knock on Meredith's front door and open my red velvet handbag, searching for the small comb I had packed before I left my apartment.

"Who is it?" I hear Meredith shout from inside.

"Your favorite nurse!" I yell cheerfully. I straighten my dress, it's black with small red roses trailing around the skirt.

A few seconds later, Meredith opens the door and looks me up and down. "Hm, I don't think so..." I scoff and smile, she giggles at her joke and steps aside. "He's figuring out his tie, maybe you should help him. Upstairs bathroom."

I walk in and thank her before making my way up the wooden stairs and to the upstairs bathroom. I knock on the door before entering and swing the door open. "I'm here!"

Alex whirls around from looking at himself in the sink mirror and lets his tie rest on his shoulders. "Jesus Christ, knock much?" He grabs the black fabric from his shoulders and holds it out to me. I leave the bathroom door open a few inches and take the undone tie from his hands.

"Uh, I did knock, Karev. Maybe you're just deaf." I drape the tie around his neck and begin.

"Whatever. Anyway, what time are we heading out of there?"

I pull back, having finished tieing his tie, and gasp, hitting him on the shoulder softly. "We haven't even left for the gala yet and you already wanna leave!"

He chuckles and I smile. Alex turns around to look at himself in the mirror once more. He tries shifting his tie around and I reach my arms over his shoulders to fix it for him.

"Quit it, I wanna do it..."

"It looks fine, Karev, calm down." I scoff and lightly slap his hands away from his tie. "So, you ready to go?" I ask, moving beside him and looking at him through the mirror.

He lifts his chin and turns his head from side to side before nodding and looking back at me through the mirror. "Yeah, let's get this over with, I guess."

———

The valet takes my car keys, tipping his head to Alex and me before rounding the front of the car and sitting in the driver's seat.

Alex and I walk up and gawk at the size of the venue. The building is about 5 stories tall and looks large enough to host a carnival and then some. Freshly-cut bushes line the front walls by the large double doors, and leading up to those doors is a mini red carpet. Two men guard the door, while another waits and is taking the names of who is arriving, he stands at a pedestal holding a pen and clipboard.

While marveling at the sight of spotlights dancing along the outside walls, I feel Alex's hand slip into mine. I take a deep breath, It's just the lights, it's just the lights.

Alex nudges me with his elbow, letting go of my hand, making it seem like an accident. "You ready to go in? You've been staring at the stars for a few minutes."

I don't bother correcting him and just nod, looking down at my feet and smoothening out my dress. Others walk past us, mostly couples my mom's age and younger, business partners, former models, employees. All are in their elegant attire, chatting away and it makes me feel small, insignificant.

Alex hooks my arm into his and I smirk slightly as we walk in together. After passing through the security, Alex and I make our way inside and the scenery is just as bright and fancy what was outside.

Another red carpet is lined up, but it instead leads to a large ice sculpture in the center of the building, with three more on the sides of it. Mini chandeliers hang over a few of the tables with the largest at the end of the hall, hanging over the large stage. Tables that seat 8 are sprawled around the venue, around 50 to 70 of them, covered in white table cloth and fixed with a wine glass, plates, utensils, and napkins.

"Oh, shit. This is a gala." I hear Alex mutter under his breath.

"You bet'cha. Crap, I need to find my mom." I bite the inside of my cheek and stand on my tippy-toes for a bit, looking around the large room as we continue to walk in.

"Look at that sculpture, how is it not melting?" Alex continues to marvel at the many exclusive items inside the vicinity while I scour the room for my mom.

"Y/n! Y/n, darling! Over here, honey!" I could hear my mom's voice from across the building. I spot her past the sculpture and right by the stage.

"Okay, Alex, you're gonna stay quiet and only talk when spoken to. If not, we'll be talking for a while and this gala will never end. You understand?"

"Loud and clear, captain." Alex sneers and I elbow him in the side. He crumbles over for a split second and groans before standing up straight again.

I walk up to my mom and smile, my arm still looped in Alex's.

"Y/n, I'm so glad you made it. And who's this?" My mom asks, eyeing Alex up and down.

"Oh this is Alex, my be–"

"–Boyfriend. Nice to finally meet you, Ms. L/n." Alex smiles shortly and shakes my mom's hand.

Boyfriend?

"Boyfriend? You never mentioned anything about a boyfriend, Y/n?" My mom questions, raising an eyebrow and looking me in the eye.

"Well... I was..." I look from her to Alex and bite my lip. "You see, I was going to, but I've just been so busy, y'know, at the hospital." I exaggerate to try changing the subject. I can feel my face going warm and my hands becoming sweaty.

"Okay, okay. I guess it's valid enough. I'm glad you could make it, we missed you at the last one." My mom pouts and rubs my arm, giving it a squeeze before pulling back. "Well, going to go get a drink. Would either of you like something?"

"No ma'am, but thank you." Alex smiles and shakes his head. My eyes almost widen in shock, but I keep my composure.

"Alright, well, I'll be with Ricky and Delilah by the stage if you guys need me. Have fun you two!" She waves a good-bye and makes her way back to the large stage, weaving her way through small crowds of people.

I wait a few seconds before turning to look up at Alex with wide eyes and my jaw dropped. "Why would you do that? Now she's gonna keep asking me questions about you all night!"

"Don't worry about it, just follow my lead, okay?"

"You're supposed to be following my lead! What happened to 'Loud and clear, captain'?"

Alex shrugs nonchalantly, "I got bored."

"You got- You know what, never mind. We just have to get through the first few hours, and then we can sneak out of here."

———

I stumble with Alex at my side into the unisex bathroom. I pull us both inside and lock the door.

"Alex, what happened to Following. My. Lead?" I pinch the bridge of my nose and look down, my back against the brown door.

"'Your lead' was about to get us busted. You should be thanking me! I just helped convince your mom you aren't a lonely loser who can't get a guy." He smirks and crosses his arms in front of his chest.

The few glasses of wine make me push him back harder than I intended, which makes him hit the restroom sink on his backside. He groans and rubs his side, probably where the sink jabbed him.

"Hey! No need to get violent! It's the truth!" He jokes, moving off the sink and taking steps toward me.

I laugh loudly and he covers my mouth, pushing me up against the door. "Shush! They're gonna think there's a comedy show in here." Alex whispers, slowly removing his hand from my lips, but not his eyes.

I bite my lip to keep myself from laughing and stare into his eyes, though he doesn't stare back into mine. I notice his hands have moved down to my waist and his fingers are slowly tapping at my dress. He looks up to my eyes, then down to my lips and I nod. Alex kisses me harshly, squeezing my waist as I tug at his dress suit.

We can taste the alcohol on each other's lips, but it doesn't stop either of us.

I can only think of how badly I've wanted this. To be able to kiss Alex Karev without the fear of him not wanting me back. Now that it's happening, I'm praying to God to make it last forever.

Alex moves one hand to my neck, the other on the back of my thigh. He lifts me up and holds me steady, my hands are in his hair and my legs are wrapped around his waist.

We continue making out for a few more seconds before I pull back. "What about 'just friends'?"

"Screw 'just friends'." Alex kisses me again, rougher. He takes a few steps and sits me on the bathroom sink, taking off his suit jacket.

We continue making out until we aren't "just friends" anymore.

[hellomynameisbisexual]

Here's a shortlist of those who realized that I — a cis woman who'd identified as heterosexual for decades of life — was in fact actually bi, long before I realized it myself recently: my sister, all my friends, my boyfriend, and the TikTok algorithm.

On TikTok, the relationship between user and algorithm is uniquely (even sometimes uncannily) intimate. An app which seemingly contains as many multitudes of life experiences and niche communities as there are people in the world, we all start in the lowest common denominator of TikTok. Straight TikTok (as it's popularly dubbed) initially bombards your For You Page with the silly pet videos and viral teen dances that folks who don't use TikTok like to condescendingly reduce it to.

Quickly, though, TikTok begins reading your soul like some sort of divine digital oracle, prying open layers of your being never before known to your own conscious mind. The more you use it, the more tailored its content becomes to your deepest specificities, to the point where you get stuff that's so relatable that it can feel like a personal attack (in the best way) or (more dangerously) even a harmful trigger from lifelong traumas.

For example: I don't know what dark magic (read: privacy violations) immediately clued TikTok into the fact that I was half-Brazilian, but within days of first using it, Straight TikTok gave way to at first Portuguese-speaking then broader Latin TikTok. Feeling oddly seen (being white-passing and mostly American-raised, my Brazilian identity isn't often validated), I was liberal with the likes, knowing that engagement was the surefire way to go deeper down this identity-affirming corner of the social app.

TikTok made lots of assumptions from there, throwing me right down the boundless, beautiful, and oddest multiplicities of Alt TikTok, a counter to Straight TikTok's milquetoast mainstreamness.

Home to a wide spectrum of marginalized groups, I was giving out likes on my FYP like Oprah, smashing that heart button on every type of video: from TikTokers with disabilities, Black and Indigenous creators, political activists, body-stigma-busting fat women, and every glittering shade of the LGBTQ cornucopia. The faves were genuine, but also a way to support and help offset what I knew about the discriminatory biases in TikTok's algorithm.

My diverse range of likes started to get more specific by the minute, though. I wasn't just on general Black TikTok anymore, but Alt Cottagecore Middle-Class Black Girl TikTok (an actual label one creator gave her page's vibes). Then it was Queer Latina Roller Skating Girl TikTok, Women With Non-Hyperactive ADHD TikTok, and then a double whammy of Women Loving Women (WLW) TikTok alternating between beautiful lesbian couples and baby bisexuals.

Looking back at my history of likes, the transition from queer “ally” to “salivating simp” is almost imperceptible.

There was no one precise "aha" moment. I started getting "put a finger down" challenges that wouldn't reveal what you were putting a finger down for until the end. Then, 9-fingers deep (winkwink), I'd be congratulated for being 100% bisexual. Somewhere along the path of getting served multiple WLW Disney cosplays in a single day and even dom lesbian KinkTok roleplay — or whatever the fuck Bisexual Pirate TikTok is — deductive reasoning kind of spoke for itself.

But I will never forget the one video that was such a heat-seeking missile of a targeted attack that I was moved to finally text it to my group chat of WLW friends with a, "Wait, am I bi?" To which the overwhelming consensus was, "Magic 8 Ball says, 'Highly Likely.'"

Serendipitously posted during Pride Month, the video shows a girl shaking her head at the caption above her head, calling out confused and/or closeted queers who say shit like, "I think everyone is a LITTLE bisexual," to the tune of "Closer" by The Chainsmokers. When the lyrics land on the word "you," she points straight at the screen — at me — her finger and inquisitive look piercing my hopelessly bisexual soul like Cupid's goddamn arrow.

Oh no, the voice inside my head said, I have just been mercilessly perceived.

As someone who had, in fact, done feminist studies at a tiny liberal arts college with a gender gap of about 70 percent women, I'd of course dabbled. I've always been quick to bring up the Kinsey scale, to champion a true spectrum of sexuality, and to even declare (on multiple occasions) that I was, "straight, but would totally fuck that girl!"

Oh no, the voice inside my head returned, I've literally just been using extra words to say I was bi.

After consulting the expertise of my WLW friend group (whose mere existence, in retrospect, also should've clued me in on the flashing neon pink, purple, and blue flag of my raging bisexuality), I ran to my boyfriend to inform him of the "news."

"Yeah, baby, I know. We all know," he said kindly.

"How?!" I demanded.

Well for one, he pointed out, every time we came across a video of a hot girl while scrolling TikTok together, I'd without fail watch the whole way through, often more than once, regardless of content. (Apparently, straight girls do not tend to do this?) For another, I always breathlessly pointed out when we'd pass by a woman I found beautiful, often finding a way to send a compliment her way. ("I'm just a flirt!" I used to rationalize with a hand wave, "Obvs, I'm not actually sexually attracted to them!") Then, I guess, there were the TED Talk-like rants I'd subject him to about the thinly veiled queer relationship in Adventure Time between Princess Bubblegum and Marcelyne the Vampire Queen — which the cowards at Cartoon Network forced creators to keep as subtext!

And, well, when you lay it all out like that...

But my TikTok-fueled bisexual awakening might actually speak less to the omnipotence of the app's algorithm, and more to how heteronormativity is truly one helluva drug.

Sure, TikTok bombarded me with the thirst traps of my exact type of domineering masc lady queers, who reduced me to a puddle of drool I could no longer deny. But I also recalled a pivotal moment in college when I briefly questioned my heterosexuality, only to have a lesbian friend roll her eyes and chastise me for being one of those straight girls who leads Actual Queer Women on. I figured she must know better. So I never pursued any of my lady crushes in college, which meant I never experimented much sexually, which made me conclude that I couldn't call myself bisexual if I'd never had actual sex with a woman. I also didn't really enjoy lesbian porn much, though the fact that I'd often find myself fixating on the woman during heterosexual porn should've clued me into that probably coming more from how mainstream lesbian porn is designed for straight men.

The ubiquity of heterormativity, even when unwittingly perpetrated by members of the queer community, is such an effective self-sustaining cycle. Aside from being met with queer-gating (something I've since learned bi folks often experience), I had a hard time identifying my attraction to women as genuine attraction, simply because it felt different to how I was attracted to men.

Heteronormativity is truly one helluva drug.

So much of women's sexuality — of my sexuality — can feel defined by that carnivorous kind of validation you get from men. I met no societal resistance in fully embodying and exploring my desire for men, either (which, to be clear, was and is insatiable slut levels of wanting that peen.) But in retrospect, I wonder how many men I slept with not because I was truly attracted to them, but because I got off on how much they wanted me.

My attraction to women comes with a different texture of eroticism. With women (and bare with a baby bi, here), the attraction feels more shared, more mutual, more tender rather than possessive. It's no less raw or hot or all-consuming, don't get me wrong. But for me at least, it comes more from a place of equality rather than just power play. I love the way women seem to see right through me, to know me, without us really needing to say a word.

I am still, as it turns out, a sexual submissive through-and-through, regardless of what gender my would-be partner is. But, ignorantly and unknowingly, I'd been limiting my concept of who could embody dominant sexual personas to cis men. But when TikTok sent me down that glorious rabbit hole of masc women (who know exactly what they're doing, btw), I realized my attraction was not to men, but a certain type of masculinity. It didn't matter which body or genitalia that presentation came with.

There is something about TikTok that feels particularly suited to these journeys of sexual self-discovery and, in the case of women loving women, I don't think it's just the prescient algorithm. The short-form video format lends itself to lightning bolt-like jolts of soul-bearing nakedness, with the POV camera angles bucking conventions of the male gaze, which entrenches the language of film and TV in heterosexual male desire.

In fairness to me, I'm far from the only one who missed their inner gay for a long time — only to have her pop out like a queer jack-in-the-box throughout a near year-long quarantine that led many of us to join TikTok. There was the baby bi mom, and scores of others who no longer had to publicly perform their heterosexuality during lockdown — only to realize that, hey, maybe I'm not heterosexual at all?

Flooded with video after video affirming my suspicions, reflecting my exact experiences as they happened to others, the change in my sexual identity was so normalized on TikTok that I didn't even feel like I needed to formally "come out." I thought this safe home I'd found to foster my baby bisexuality online would extend into the real world.

But I was in for a rude awakening.

Testing out my bisexuality on other platforms, casually referring to it on Twitter, posting pictures of myself decked out in a rainbow skate outfit (which I bought before realizing I was queer), I received nothing but unquestioning support and validation. Eventually, I realized I should probably let some members of my family know before they learned through one of these posts, though.

Daunted by the idea of trying to tell my Latina Catholic mother and Swiss Army veteran father (who's had a crass running joke about me being a "lesbian" ever since I first declared myself a feminist at age 12), I chose the sibling closest to me. Seeing as how gender studies was one of her majors in college too, I thought it was a shoo-in. I sent an off-handed, joke-y but serious, "btw I'm bi now!" text, believing that's all that would be needed to receive the same nonchalant acceptance I found online.

It was not.

I didn't receive a response for two days. Hurt and panicked by what was potentially my first mild experience of homophobia, I called them out. They responded by insisting we need to have a phone call for such "serious" conversations. As I calmly tried to express my hurt on said call, I was told my text had been enough to make this sibling worry about my mental wellbeing. They said I should be more understanding of why it'd be hard for them to (and I'm paraphrasing) "think you were one way for twenty-eight years" before having to contend with me deciding I was now "something else."

But I wasn't "something else," I tried to explain, voice shaking. I hadn't knowingly been deceiving or hiding this part of me. I'd simply discovered a more appropriate label. But it was like we were speaking different languages. Other family members were more accepting, thankfully. There are many ways I'm exceptionally lucky, my IRL environment as supportive as Baby Bi TikTok. Namely, I'm in a loving relationship with a man who never once mistook any of it as a threat, instead giving me all the space in the world to understand this new facet of my sexuality.

I don't have it all figured out yet. But at least when someone asks if I listen to Girl in Red on social media, I know to answer with a resounding, "Yes," even though I've never listened to a single one of her songs. And for now, that's enough.