#I also made the entire background and we see 10% of it

[pyralart]

In which Luz gets isekai-ed another way

First part >> Next Part

Remember folks, look both ways before crossing the road or this might happen to YOU! This was an advert from the Road Safety Agency (it's not).

Oops, I just dropped the angst! I can reveal that it's inspired by this original post, although I'll put my own spin on it so don't think you know what's gonna happen!

[erectile-disgruntlement]

TW: suicidal thoughts and law enforcement

I had an interview at my local Safeway today and they offered me the job pending a background check. I thought I should be honest about my criminal history because if they're going to do a background check, I might as well not lie about it and make myself look worse. That was the wrong fucking decision. They decided the harassment conviction that I self reported along with my "rehabilitation" plans of weekly therapy and the phone number of the victim in the case were just too horrible for me to be hired. This is the only fucking place that would give me 4 hour shifts and I'm so fucking tired. I just want to be done with that stupid fucking conviction.

In July of last year, I called 911 on my partner after he grabbed a knife and threatened to kill himself after he ruptured my eardrum. For reasons completely beyond me, the police decided to arrest me and throw my ass in jail. It was like 9-10 am and I still had to wait till 1 pm the next day to see a judge. I wasn't given any of my medications that night despite them having them and my heart rate being in the 150's or higher the entire night.

The fucking trauma didn't stop after I got out though because I still had fucking criminal charges against me. We had a plea deal made up that would expunge the charges after I was on unsupervised probation for a year. And then the day of my fucking sentencing, they switched DAs and that flew out of the window. I was also originally charged with both harassment and assault, but the assault charge was dropped, so the new DA decided to threaten that if I pleaded not guilty and it went to trial, they would add the assault charge back on.

I was basically forced to plead guilty without a plea deal. Thankfully, the judge took pity on me or something so she just gave me 12 months bench probation and ordered me to continue the therapy I was already doing instead of giving me 18 months and making me go to a batters group like the DA wanted.

At this fucking point I'm genuinely contemplating suicide not because I actually want to die, but just because I know I don't have to worry about this shit if I'm dead.

[jarofstyles]

Illicit 10

Here we are, babes. The last official part of the main Illicit story. It’s bittersweet because I finally completed something lmao but also, I really love them and their story.

Safe to say this isn’t the last you’ll see of them. I’m fully planning on doing little flashbacks and check ins with them, feel free to let me know what you would like to see/if you have any unanswered questions. Thank you for reading!

Check out our Patreon for early access and 160+ exclusive writings

Illicit masterlist

WC- 3.3k

Warnings- mention of wounds, stitching, having children, marriage talk, nightmares, etc

——-

“Harry, for the love of god, please be careful of your arm.” Y/N winced in worry as the man carried firewood over to their fire pit. He had not been taking his injury half as seriously as he had been taking Y/N’s concussion, treating her like the ‘delicate little bird she was.’ He’d gotten an eye roll for that. Of course he wasn’t letting her help lug the wood for their night in front of the fire. She’d requested with sleepy eyes earlier in the morning to make smores because they’d been in her dream and Harry was giving her basically anything she wanted. 

“M’fine, baby.” He laughed, appreciating her concern but knowing the injury barely stung anymore. “The stitches are coming out tomorrow, and we pushed it, keeping them until then. Only kept them because you wanted me to.” 

It had been about 2 weeks since the attack and they’d left for the lake house. As much as he knew it was terrifying for the both of them, he was utterly relieved to have Katherine behind bars. He’d made sure to keep updated by his contact in the force to know what was happening with her case. Apparently she had really lost it, but Harry didn’t give a fuck. He wanted her to rot behind bars, to live miserably and have Y/N be safe without the threat of some crazy ex-who-isn’t-an-ex looming in the background. 

Harry had kept work to a minimum, only logging in to oversee the decisions he had to make. There had been no calls besides the nightly one with his COO to ensure things were running smoothly. Other than that, his entire attention had been on Y/N. They’d barely left the house considering at first Y/N had been a bit embarrassed of her injuries. Another reason he’d hate Katherine until the day he died. Harry always was one to hold grudges, he was infamous for it. She’d never know peace if the man had anything to do with it. 

They were healing incredibly well, Harry taking the time at night to set her on the bathroom counter and wipe them clean and apply the healing ointment to them. The only one that was more than a fading scab was the one on her head along with the slight discoloration the black eye had caused. Other than that, he was more than relieved to see her bouncing back. The only thing that plagued him still was the nightmare. 

His nightmares. 

They’d always start the same, almost a play by play of what had happened to him walking into the home and up the stairs- only when he got there it had been too late. In his nightmare, the knife had already taken Y/N’s life and he couldn’t do anything to save her. He always woke up before the knife struck him, but it actually hurt him. It was a little difficult for him to admit to her, always wanting to be the strong one when it came to their pairing- someone for her to lean on fully- but she had cried once he told her and insisted that she wanted to be there for him. That a partnership was made out of balance and while she could offer him some of the same things he did for her, she was more than capable to be his emotional shoulder to cry on. It had been a tough thing to come to terms with but this week seemed to be healing. Not just physically, either. 

“Ms. Greta, please tell him to take it easy.” Y/N pouted at the older woman who brought out the tray of s’more making supplies. She’d made sure to add the peanut butter cups as requested. 

“I’m afraid if he won’t listen to you, he won’t listen to anyone.” She chuckled. “Men will be men, and that includes straining their physical health for the macho man act. One day they learn we do know what we are talking about.” A little wink was sent her way as Harry huffed, arranging the wood in the fire pit with a grumble. 

“Because I’m fine.” He stressed, standing up straight and crossing his arms. “It’s healed up nicely. I’m more than capable of setting up a little fire.” Crossing over to Y/N, he stole a kiss before grabbing the lighter and a few other things. “Just sit pretty and let your man do the work, baby. I’ve got it.” 

There was a snort heard from both women but Ms. Greta was now off the clock, wishing them a good night before retreating into the house. As much as he loved having the woman around, he really was obsessed with this alone time with Y/N. There was the residual guilt he had over her being treated less than ideally because he was juggling the faux relationship and the contract, but he knew now that he was going to have to take a bit of a step back from work in order to do that. He’d delegate as he was supposed to be doing to begin with, assign more to his assistant, take Y/N more places and on more dates out in public. He couldn’t fucking wait to attent events with her and show her off. 

He’d been waiting months to let people know who his heart belonged to, and he was finally getting the chance to do so. It was obvious now since the articles had been a media frenzy over the attack, things leaked he couldn’t pinpoint. The only thing he had been commenting on was the fact that Y/N wasn’t a mistress, Katherine wasn’t his lover that was scorned, and there was no true excuse for the actions. It was a good thing in hindsight that they were there, alone. No one had a true clue about the location and he didn’t feel like being hounded by paparazzi- though hopefully they knew better now than to test him and his hatred for the cameras.

One thing that had been burning into him, though, was a question he’d been wanting to ask her. One he knew that was a bit unorthodox but a necessary one nonetheless. 

She sat across his lap, his hoodie covering her tank top and denim shorts as her legs swung slightly while they waited for the fire to burn a bit hotter so they could roast their marshmallows.

“When would you like to get married?” He asked. “And how many kids are we thinking about?” 

The girl nearly snapped her neck as she looked at him with wide eyes, the not so casual question leaving his mouth as if it was him asking what she wanted for dinner. Harry always did find a way to shock the hell out of her but this was definitely one of the top questions that had caught her off guard.  Secretly, she’d assumed Harry had that all figured out. He always made sure to let her know how much he appreciated her opinions and her thoughts, that they were important to him- but he was a planner. Harry was the man in charge and she was happy to let him be. It took a lot of weight off of her shoulders that she wouldn’t admit to anyone else actually weighed on her. 

“Uh…” She blinked at him a few times. “I’m not sure. Kinda figured you’d be the one to pop the question. But honestly… Maybe a year? A few months? I dunno.” There was a slight lump in her throat. “I’ve no doubt I want to be with you the rest of my life so part of me feels like I’d probably be fine eloping right now if that was something you wanted but… We haven't really had the chance to be a couple out in the open. While I doubt that’s going to change much considering we feel so strongly, I think it would be kind to ourselves to let us iron out some of the details first before we fully tie the knot.” There wasn’t a right or wrong answer but it still made her a little nervous to answer. “As for kids? I’m not sure. 2? 3? I’d probably say we have one first and figure it out from there.” It wasn’t like they’d have to worry about resources externally but she knew Harry valued family more than anything and he’d want to be an active father. He’d already indulged that detail to her one night when they were particularly loved up. However, neither of them had any children so they didn’t know the workload it would entail, nor did they know how they’d work as parents. Of course they’d figure it out but it would make it a bit more clear on how many they could handle.

“First of all, as much as I’d love to call you my wife right this second… I could never deprive you of the wedding you deserve.” Y/N had told him about the fact that she had always dreamt about her wedding as a little girl. She had pinterest boards full of themes and wedding dresses she’d want to try and cake designs. He wasn’t about to deprive her of those things for his selfish needs.. Harry knew he was indeed a selfish bastard in every other facet of his life, but when it came to Y/N and his soon to be family? That was his only exception. “My mum would probably keel over dead if I did that too. Trust me, you’re going to get your princess wedding.” There was no debating that. “And for kids… I’d love to give you many, many babies.” His tone turned smooth, a little smirk lighting up his face and the twinkle of his eye. “But I think I agree. My idea had been 2-4, but I’ll take as many as you’ll give me. Always.” His hand pulled her in so he could press a kiss to her cheek, muttering a soft declaration of love. 

“Love you more.” She sighed, leaning further into his chest. “I’m so happy that we can live our lives when we get back. I know it’ll probably be a little crazy but there's no more hiding. We can go out and hold hands and kiss, people are going to know we belong to each other.” The giddiness on her face was bittersweet. “I’m so excited to be with you properly.”

The tinge of guilt hit him full on in the stomach, making him frown as he looked into the fire. He knew he had fucked up several times on this journey and Y/N just had a lot of patient and given him a lot of grace when he knew for a fact most other people wouldn’t- but that made it feel a little worse. He’d been wrong in not ditching the contract immediately. “Baby?” He said, voice quieter as he met her eyes. “I’m sorry. Genuinely sorry that I’m a stubborn son of a bitch and I didn’t just dissolve the contract and take on a lawsuit. I should have done it the day I met you because I knew you were going to mean a lot to me even there. I… I know I’ve told you a lot how you were the first and only person to ever make me feel the way you do, but it’s more than that. And my hard headed shit got us into something awful. I know I fucked up and you are more generous than I deserve but…” His fingers tenderly moved the hair from her face, stroking her cool cheek. “I’m going to work every single day for the rest of my life to make it up to you. I’m going to make you the most spoiled, well traveled, happiest woman I possibly can.” His voice stayed quiet as he searched her eyes for any hint of resentment but somehow there wasn’t any there. 

“H.. I knew what I signed up for. You’d been nothing but honest with me the night I ignored you. You laid it all out for me. I knew that you were taken in name only and I liked you so much that I agreed. I never felt like I played second to her. You can say a lot of things about you, lovely, but subtle isn’t one of those things. You never made me feel like she was important. I understood how important your business was to you- it’s the most important thing to you. Did I like seeing you with her? No. But you made it so clear to me that I was yours and you were mine, I never felt like… I never had any competition.” Y/N tried to soothe the ache she knew he felt. Of course she hadn’t liked people thinking he belonged to someone else but she knew he loved her. The most she had ever been loved, the most unashamed. 

“First, I have a correction- You are the most important thing to me. I’d give it all up for you.” That wasn’t a sentence anyone could take lightly, nor one he would ever thought he would say. It used to be the truth, but now it was far from it. “You are my life.” His gaze bore into her own as he cupped her cheek.  “There was never any competition. If we want the honest truth, I thought I’d marry as a business decision. I thought I’d probably not have any kids considering I only ever wanted children out of love. I was happy working until I was gray and about to keel over. Business was my only reason for being, and it wasn’t something I minded- but you gave my life so much more, so much color, my angel.” He’d never sounded more fond in his life, looking at his heaven sent gift perched in his lap. “I didn’t realize there was more to life until I met you. You opened my eyes and made my heart soften. I give a shit about a lot more than numbers now and it’s because of you.” 

People could say he did it himself but he knew the truth. Without meeting Y/N his life would have been the same robotic function it had been since he got out of uni, and he wouldn’t have complained. He’d never know how much he would miss out on. “I thank whoever in the world sent you to me every damn day and you know m’not religious. You are my miracle. It made me feel so fucking sick walking in that house and thinking you were hurt, I have never in my life felt that sort of terror. But I’d do it all again in order to keep you.” The scar on his arm was a reminder of that. 

“I love you, H. The most in the world.” Her eyes watered a little as she smiled at him. “I’m sorry you got scared. I was scared too, scared she would do worse with that knife though I’m still upset you got hurt at all. But I’d go through every bit of it again too.” She sniffled, feeling his thumb brush under her eye as a tear fell. “I know I want everything with you. The marriage and babies and our own house with a pool, if that’s something you want too. You’re the love of my life.” 

“And you’re mine.” He mumbled, pressing his lips to hers. “M’gonna spend every day proving that to you. Just wait and see, my angel. My heart is yours.”  

—-------

Nails dug into Harry’s back as he rocked slowly into his girl in their brand new home. One he’d bought her as a surprise when they arrived back into the city, leaving their old memories behind in the other penthouse and moving on to the next chapter in the rest of their lives. 

“H-Harry…” She bleated, holding on to him while the other hand grabbed his face and pulled his face down so he could be kissed. “Thank you. You always take c-care of me.”

His pace as slow and deep, pressing in as far as he could go on the brand new sheets they’d picked out together. The sunset bled into their room as they breathed each other in, wrapped up in their covers on their first night sleeping there. He’d spared no expense making sure he got the best of the best for her. He was dedicated to the cause, dedicated to proving to her that she was the most precious thing to him in the world. 

“M’always going to take care of you, my love.” He nudged his nose against hers as he dipped his hips to get deeper inside of her. It was like they couldn’t get close enough to one another, her legs wrapped snug around his hips while he kept himself up with one hand, the other under her neck. The term making love was fully about this. It was unmistakable. “You were made for me.” 

He couldn’t wait to spend every morning like this for the rest of his life. The man who used to cringe at the idea of fucking anyone face first now had it as his preferred position, wanting to make sure he could see every second of her reactions to him. She was snug around his cock, taking him like it was her only job in the world. He’d had no problem doing only this for the rest of his life. 

“And you were… you were made for me. We’re made for each other.” Y/N nodded, pressing another open mouthed kiss to his lips as he kept the steady pace, hitting the delicious spot he always knew how to find. “You know my body perfectly. It’s yours forever.” It was both the truth and a bit of a taunt, knowing how much he loved when she spoke like that. 

“You are. You’re mine and m’all yours, never have to share me. I love you so fucking much, Y/N.” He whimpered as her fingers tangled in his hair, tugging on it as she was filled over and over again. He hit the perfect spot and was trying to get her to cum, trying to have her finish all over him so he could do the same and stay deep inside for a while. Craving this sort of closeness was an addiction, one he didn’t plan on cutting. The obsession with Y/N grew each and every day. “I can’t wait to make you my wife.”

The woman whined out his name at the last sentence, tugging him closer with her legs as she soaked up every bit of heat from him. It didn’t matter what happened, who tried to get in their way- they would always belong to one another. There was an understanding between both of them knowing this love was bone deep, soul deep, it only deepened by the day. When it felt like they couldn’t love each other more it just kept growing, no matter how full they felt. It was everything. 

A love like this was something people revered as pure, perfect, something that everyone craved and yearned for. Something out of a book or a movie, the sort of feeling that trumps all other people and situations. Their passion and yearning for one another had been cultivated in anything but pureness, it was made in the dark. It always made him laugh a little to know that such a concept had blossomed into a real, tangible thing that he could feel between their bodies, something he could see when he looked at her, something he could taste when he kissed her. 

A love that stayed between the lines wasn’t the type that grew stronger- that’s why he smiled when they called it illicit.

[feelbokkie]

💙Blue💙

☀️Feelbokkie M.list ☀️

Blue: Calm, Responsible, Sadness

genre: angst, hurt/comfort

pov: 2nd person

description: jisung feels guilty about having to cancel your date because of an anxiety attack.

pairing: jisung x reader

warnings: swearing, slight depiction of an anxiety attack

word count: 817

©feelbokkie (2024) — all rights reserved. reposting/modification of any kind is not tolerated.

🖍️Crayon Box M.list🖍️

“I’m sorry,” Jisung quietly mumbles. You almost didn’t hear him over the movie. You almost thought it was a voice actor in the background. Hell, if Jisung didn’t squeeze your arm, and turn further into your side as he said it, you would have thought he was asleep.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about, Hanji.” You reassure him, gently stroking his hair with your free hand.

The two of you are sitting on Jisung’s bed, watching a show that both of you have seen a million times before. Something that neither of you have to really pay attention to. It's on for noise more than watching.

The two of you were supposed to go on a date. Jisung just came back from traveling the world, touring, and working on nonstop promotions. When he told you that he had an entire date planned at an amusement park, you were a little bit worried. It would have been fine if he had planned it a few weeks, maybe even a month after he got home. But he said that the two of you would go the day after he came home. You know your boyfriend well and you've been watching him from the sidelines of fan videos and whatever content the company put out. You've seen him slowly but surely being worn down mentally over the past few months. You didn't want him to overexert himself knowing how he can get anxious in crowded places and social situations.

Still, he insisted that you two meet up at his dorm and then head out together. When you got to his dorm, you could already tell that something was off about him. He was quieter than normal and not quite as excited to see you as you thought he would be after not seeing you for months. His eyes had a faraway stare like he was looking past you and you know he could barely hear you. You tried to convince him to stay home, but still, he kept trying to go out. The two of you made it as far as the bus stop before you felt him starting to shake beside you. You eventually put your foot down and dragged him back home.

"Yeah, but you were excited to go to Lotte World." He whispers.

"It's okay, we can go another time. Lotte World will still be there." You lay your hand on his lap, palm up, so he can take it.

"God," He groans, throwing his head back. "I fuck everything up. I just wanted to spend time with you and I can't even do that."

"Hey," you grab the remote and pause the show before turning your body towards him. "don't talk about my boyfriend like that."

"You should get a new boyfriend. One you don't have to take care of all the time."

You press your lips into a fine line as you study his face. His dark brown eyes are puffy and glassy as they stare deep into your eyes. The tip of his nose is also red. You know he's been silently crying for a little bit, probably stressing over the date. You've been wordlessly wiping his tears away for him or handing him tissues. The sight of him breaks your heart knowing how bad he feels about the sudden change of plans.

"I don't want a new boyfriend. I'm perfectly happy with the one I have now. And couples are supposed to take care of each other. It's 50/50."

"More like 90/10," He mumbles to himself.

"Hanji--"

Jisung lets out a frustrated groan. "I don't know why I feel like this."

"Jisung,"

"It's literally my job to go out and do these things and I can't even take you out on a freaking date? Pathetic,"

"Han Jisung,"

You cup Jisung’s face and force him to look at you. Really look at you. His head is heavy in your hands as he seems to just relax into your touch. Your thumbs gently stroke his cheeks, something he’s done for you more times than you can count to calm you down. Somehow, it’s slowly working for him. You can't help but push your thumbs into the soft skin of his cheeks.

"Stop playing with my cheeks like they're stress balls," He whines, chuckling a bit.

"It's de-stressing you a bit, you even cracked a small smile." You press a soft kiss into his forehead. "Hanji, you don't have to apologize for today okay? We can always go to the amusement park. I like spending quiet moments like this with you anyways. I'm just glad you're feeling a little better."

"Well, then tomorrow--"

"Let's just focus on today's date."

—

Buy me a coffee?

—

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[20dollarlolita]

Frill Skirt Tutorial

Here's a tutorial for making a lolita skirt with a fully elastic waistband.

Recommended background reading: How to pick quilt prints for use in lolita fashion. And here's some things I've previously said about this project.

We're going to make some skirts that look like this. This is a really fun project because you can use a lot of quilt prints, and fully elastic skirts are comfortable and flexible wardrobe pieces.

In this skirt, my pink striped fabric is "Skirt", and the navy with the shoes is "frill". The black lace at the bottom of the skirt is the hem lace, and the lace with the pink ribbon is the transition lace.

You can use the same fabric for the frill and the skirt, making it look more like the skirts referenced above. If you use different fabric for the frill and the skirt, it's is a little bit like faking a border print.

Here's some cutting dimensions. Please excuse the fact that I forgot to turn off "emulate brush dynamics".

Because this is elastic, we're going to be basing the sizes off how much fabric you cut. When you're working with a big, gathered rectangle, you have a lot of options for how much ease you're going to put in the garment.

I forgot to list it, but these skirts really look better when they're lined with a slippery lining fabric. For lining, you just need the "skirt" measurement. For size 1, you need 23" of lining, or 2/3 of a yard.

For size 2, you're going to want 36" of lining, or one yard.

All these sizes include some fabric for extra things like bows and hair accessories. I highly, HIGHLY recommend getting into the habit of making matching accessories as part of the project of making a lolita garment. You're going to need them anyway, so they might as well match.

For size 3, you will want 40" of lining fabric, or 1 + 1/8 yards.

All of these sizes assume that you're using 45" wide fabric. If you're using 60" fabric, you can likely go down a size. (This would be max hip of 52" for size 1, 82" for size 2, and 172" for size 3).

For any view, you will also need enough 1/4" or 3/8" elastic to go around your natural waist (or wherever you wear your skirt) about 4 times. Let's be honest, we all have a massive roll of 1/4" elastic hanging around from making covid masks, so let's use it up.

These skirts are a little bit on the shorter side, because that's just how Meta releases them. Since you're the one making the skirt, you can make some decisions. If you're tall, want to wear a fuller petticoat, or are building a skirt for a substyle where you usually want a longer skirt, you can add a few inches. You'll get a slightly different look if you're lengthening the skirt versus lengthening the frill, versus lengthening both equally. If you're not sure, now's a good time to check out lolibrary and look for dresses and skirts and see where they place the details around the hem. Lolibrary lets you search by brand, so search by brand and just take a note of what you see most often in pieces that you like.

For example, Alice and the Pirates often has the hem detail to be pretty close to the hem on their solid pieces, while Baby the Stars Shine Bright will have the detail going up quite a bit higher. (Please do more than the 10 seconds of searching that I did to get these examples). Therefore, if you want to lengthen the skirt and have a slightly more AatP tone, you can add the length to the skirt part of the skirt, and if you want a slightly more BtSSB tone, you can add the length to the frill part.

Researching your garments is the secret to having handmade garments that actually read as lolita fashion. Lolita fashion history is documented to an extent that no other fashion I've ever heard of is, and it really helps to take advantage of that extraordinary resource.

With our pattern ready and maybe lightly adjusted, let's get to work:

Foundational fact #1: fabric that rips will rip in a straight line along the grain of the fabric. Our skirt is made entirely of rectangles, so we're going to take advantage of that fact. If you want to cut your fabric with scissors, or with a rotary cutter, you're completely allowed to. If you don't have a serger with a functional cutting blade, you might want to cut it so that you don't need to trim the edges. I have a serger and I like to rip it. It might not be the best way, but it's how I've been making my lolita skirts since 2011, and I don't like change and I do like the stress-relieving experience of ripping.

So, lay your fabric out, and mark your cutting lines. If you're ripping the fabric, like I am, you just need to cut a little snip to get the tearing started.

This pattern factors in a half inch for seam allowance. If you're ripping the fabric, you will lose a little bit of usable fabric, so add yourself an extra inch to each cut.

Take your nice straight cuts/rips and lay them out in an organized fashion. You should have a frill pile, a skirt pile, a waistband pile, and an extra pile. If you like piles, you can also pile up your lace next to it.

You're going to sew every pile together so that you have each it its own long strip. Your lining (white fabric) should be the same size as your skirt piece. If it's longer (if you're using 45" quilt fabric for the face and 60" lining fabric for the lining), go ahead and trim them so they're the same total length in the long dimension.

Put the skirt on top of your lining and sew the top edges together.

You'll notice that this skirt is made up in doubles. The skirt is twice the long dimension as the waistband, and the frill is twice the long dimension of the skirt. This makes things easy to gather up.

If you're not using an overlocker to assemble this skirt, you will also want to run some kind of seam finish on the long ends of this skirt, to stop fraying.

(please pardon my hypermobile thumb)

A lot of people do gathering stitches by sewing two lines of basting stitches, and then pulling the thread on those stitches to cinch up the gathers. This does work really well on small things. However, as the amount that you need to gather gets longer and longer, it's gets more and more difficult to pull those threads without them breaking. Instead, I like using an applied gathering string. My current favorite string is waxed dental floss. Most dentists recommend unwaxed floss since it grabs more plaque, so make the smart decision and retire your waxed floss to be in your sewing box.

If you are making this project on a serger or an overlocker (and this is a GREAT first serger project), you can overlock over the dental floss. Here you can see the white floss going between the two needles. The needles are not going through the floss, just on either side of it. Tip: that little hole in the front of the presser foot is actually intended for you to put elastic or thread through so you don't need to hold it as carefully. I forgot and so I didn't do that here).

We're applying the dental floss onto the top edge of the ruffle.

If you aren't using an overlocker, you can do some form of hem finish (my favorite is the 3-step zigzag) and then apply the dental floss by doing a zigzag over it. Again, the needle isn't going through the floor, just on either side of it.

Now, pin your ruffle onto your skirt. I divide the ruffle and skirt up into equal portions, and then pin it first. My ruffle is twice the long measure as the skirt is, and they're both cut out of the same width of fabric. This means that dividing the ruffle up is pretty easy, because I can use the seams of the ruffle. The first seam in my ruffle goes halfway between the edge of the skirt and its first seam. The second seam of my ruffle goes on the first seam of my skirt, and so on.

Then, you just pull your dental floss so that it gathers up the fabric, and pin it down. Since we divided the fabric up earlier, we don't need to spend as much fight getting all the ruffles to be even. Go ahead and pin everything down, and then sew it together.

Now you're going to fold the skirt and lining in half to seam it all together. Match up your seams, and unfold your lining (see picture). This will let you sew the frill, the skirt, and the lining all together in one go.

The easiest time to put the hem and transition laces on is before you attach the waistband. The basic rule with gathered skirts is that it's a lot easier to apply anything flat that you can before you gather it.

In a lot of older lolita tutorials, a lot of people treated lace as optional. However, now that it's not 2007 anymore, we have a bit more of an expectation for detail in the garments we wear. Quilt cotton especially has a very flat texture, even when it has a nice print. If you can add a bit of texture and detail, you want to do so. If you're doing the skirt and the ruffle out of the same fabric, you can probably get away without using the transition lace, but you will still want hem lace.

I didn't have any lace when I was making this one, so I used a couple of lines of decorative topstitching between the skirt and the frill. I got the idea from this blog post from 2010. I didn't execute it as well as Lolita Noveau did, but that was the general concept.

Anyway, waistband time.

Take the edges of your waistband and press them in. You don't need to apply a seam finish before you do this. I have overlocking on mine because I ripped my fabric, and used the serger to clean up the edge. If you don't rip your fabric like a savage and use technology like scissors instead, you don't have that problem.

Fold your waistband in half. It's now time to sew the elastic channels.

Here's the secret to this waistband. Start out by stitching a line about 3/16" away from the fold in your waistband.

When you put your elastic in, this little line of stitching makes your waistband stay on straight, and adds a tiny ruffle to the top. I picked this up from the Metamorphose frill skirts, and it's amazing.

After you've made that line of stitching, start making channels for your elastic. Add about 1/8" of width from the width of your elastic (so 1/4" elastic, sew your channels at 3/8". 3/8" elastic, sew your channels at 1/2"). Leave a space for you to be able to actually put the elastic in. Don't forget this, or you'll have to redo it. Ask me how I know. I found that three channels works pretty well. Don't sew the channel closest to the edge, because you need to attach your skirt.

You're going to need to gather the top of your skirt, just like you gathered the top of your frill. Get your dental floss and your zigzag stitch ready.

Your waistband (flat) will be twice the length of your skirt, so you can pin and pull the gathers just like you did for the ruffle.

So this part is important: You are going to sew the right side of a single thickness of the waistband onto the wrong side of the skirt. I don't have a good picture of this, but here goes trying to explain it.

You need to sew the waistband so that the top seam of the skirt (the part that's sewn to the lining) is sandwiched between the front and back of the waistband. You are going to have your edges of the waistband turned under to hide the raw edge.

While you CAN do this by just putting the top of the skirt edge into the waistband seam and sew it down, you can make it look prettier by doing it like this:

You sew the right side of a single thickness of the waistband to the wrong side of the skirt. This means that, when you unfold it, the seam will be pointing outward, towards the viewer. This feels like it would look bad.

You then press that seam so that it's flat, and then wrap the front of the waistband to the front of the skirt. You tuck the raw edges into the waistband, so that they're all sandwiched between the back and the front of the waistband. You then sew the front of the waistband down from the front.

What this does is it allows you to have very precise control of where your final line of topstitching is. If you've ever sewn a skirt facing and been told to stitch the back of the facing by doing a stitch-in-the-ditch, this is like that but in reverse. It's the same process, but with the top stitching definitely showing.

Anyway, you can now cut your elastic to your waist measurement (or maybe about an inch shorter than your waist measurement) and start feeding it through your elastic channels. Since you're using such thin elastic, it helps to have negative ease (which is the technical name for "cut it smaller because it'll stretch) in your elastic measurements. Start by putting in the elastic at the top casing, and go down.

Sew your elastic ends together when you're done, and there you go! If this is your first lolita garment, congrats! See if Wunderwelt Closet Child has a blouse in your size that goes with your skirt, because they ship fast and some items are really discounted. 42lolita is a lolita-themed taobao reseller that's easy to shop. Basically just don't overpay from devilinspired. If you're going to have to wait crazy long lead times anyway, you might as well be not spending their big marked up prices.

Finish up any little last things, like threading the ribbon through your beading lace, if you used it.

Anyway, now you have a skirt! Yay. Make yourself several and learn how colors, prints, scale, and texture work with each other.

[leviaana]

Miraculous Movie Review (Rating: 4/10)

I watched the preview of the Awakening movie yesterday and really want to share my honest review. There’s going to be several things that I’ll criticize. So be warned!

Also: Spoilers!! DON’T read it if you haven’t seen it yet. This is my personal opinion. So please stay excited for it!! 🐞🪄

First of all, my overall rating for this movie is a 4/10. Just yesterday I was ready to give it a 5/10, but quickly noticed it had much more things that upset me than I initially realized when walking out of the movie.

I know it’s a pretty low rating coming from such a huge fan like myself, but that’s probably the main issue. I’m a big fan of the show, so changes in lore and characterization will be more apparent to me. For better or for worse, in this case, mostly for worse.

On the first glimpse the movie seems like a retelling - a soft reboot, if you will - of show’s origin story. The plot goes much further than that however, as it also provides a conclusion in form of a final battle with Hawkmoth as well as an identity reveal of our two main heroes.

In order to ensure the entire premise fits into a 90 minute movie, a lot of things regarding the shows lore were simplified. I say that as a neutral statement seeing as a simplification can be either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your opinion of the source material.

Personally, it left me rather unsatisfied but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with the good things!

One of the things I really enjoyed was the animation! Seeing miraculous with such a high production value certainly felt like a cool summer breeze. While I do prefer the original character models style wise, it was still just nice to see them in this cutesie pretty style! The locals were gagging!

Ladybug and Cat Noir were especially gorgeous!

I also really enjoyed the singing. I watched the German dub and it was very neat!

Sad to say that was pretty much how long my enjoyment lasted. Everything apart from what I’ve mentioned above was… interestingly handled… to say the least. Let me elaborate.

1. The dialogue was awful!

Truly not the biggest fan of musicals but I couldn’t wait for them to start singing just in order for them to STOP TALKING 😩!

The dialogue was so awkward and stiff. All of the characters were interacting very weirdly with each other. At times it would sound like several lines of dialogue were cut from the final version, as the characters barely acknowledged each other verbally. They didn’t talk with each other, but past each other.

Moreover, every second phrase was a very cheesy one liner. “Believe in yourself.”, “Listen to your heart.”, “stronger together”. Super overdone.

The movie wanted to be inspirational so bad, it forgot to be genuine.

Some examples that I recall from memory:

“Mom, I don’t have any friends and I’m scared to go I school.”

“Just believe in yourself, Marinette.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Or.

“Tikki, I’m in love with Adrien.”

“Listen to your heart, Marinette.”

“My heart……Adrien.”

2. How did they manage to make Ladynoir banter … weird and uncomfortable to watch?

Don’t let these pretty movie shots fool you because Movie!ladynoir spent their time in a constant roasting competition that they were somehow both losing!

Not once did they manage to establish that flirty and charming atmosphere around them. No, they were draaaagging each other through filth. And maybe it could have been somewhat fun, god knows I love couples that can roast each other. If only the dialogue was better and didn’t reek of “we have no idea how young people interact”.

In a desperate attempt to make jokes, they let Chat call LB a sidekick or watermelon in every. single. scene. To say that it got annoying when the jokes didn’t land the first 10 times they were made is an understatement. No Milady, no Bugginette, no little wink or a kiss on the hand. Only watermelon and sidekick. Them talking in weird cut off phrases. With careless whisper playing in the background.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some beautiful moments. But their beauty can only ever do so much when met with weird pacing, dialogue and characterization. I’ll talk about that last part in a minute.

3. Everything was so on-the-nose.

The characters would constantly say how they feel and what they think aloud. Jeremy didn’t trust us with even an ounce of media literacy. Classic case of always telling, never showing. Not to mention the constant inspirational quoting in a desperate attempt to convey some deep message. Is this a movie script or my moms facebook page? I guess we‘ll never know.

4. Characterization: Marinette

Having Marinette be somewhat scatterbrained but overall still respected by her peers is not inspirational enough! Make her your average teenage outcast and a total loser. Dad, you’re embarrassing me in front of the cool kids!

If you enjoy that kind of characterization that’s okay! Personally, I thought it was very cliche. It just.. didn’t do anything for her as a character. Having her start off at a much „lower” point in life, with almost no support system, only makes her coming of age journey to eventually become a self accepting confident heroine take longer. Seeing as the movie is only 90 minutes, the moment we see her “shine” is when it’s all almost over.

5. Ladybug …?

Did I mention Ladybug doesn’t use her lucky charm? Not. once. No crazy plans to show that she’s smart and creative. Just a pretty girl swinging around.

6. Adrien

I have a bit more to criticize about the characterization of Movie!Adrien.

The longer I think about it, the more it becomes apparent that they really didn’t know how to write Adrien. His personality appears inconsistent, almost like they were trying to fit him in too many roles at once. He is either extremely closed off and mysterious (even towards his friends), a comic relief character, bathing in self pity or just outright cocky. Those hoping to see his politeness and selflessness will be disappointed. This character only is ever shown to be self centered. A perfect example is how he *didn’t do anything* to be called worthy of the Black Cat Miraculous. He was just one of the „chosen ones“. When the Adrien from the series sacrificed his own freedom to help Master Fu.

Another example is how this Adrien doesn’t really see anything in Marinette. He called her strange in their first interaction and never really lost a single thought on her throughout the rest of the series. No common praises, no support, just awkwardness and not the wholesome kind. In fact, I would argue Marinette and Adrien aren’t even friends in the movie, the only interaction to suggest otherwise was slammed as a 5 second scene in a 2 minute montage.

Even if you were to suggest their bond was formed off screen. We don’t really see it ever take root. He even turned down her gift and invitation to go to the ball with her. Yes, you guessed correctly. It was because he was busy bathing in self pity over being rejected by Ladybug. Yikes.

To sum it up, this Adrien really doesn’t care about anyone but himself. Ever. They massacred my boy.

7. Chat Noir

His charming smugness as Chat Noir crossed the fine line that turned to arrogance.

Considering how Adrien was characterized, that comes as no surprise.

As mentioned in my criticism towards the dialogue and the Ladynoir dynamic, this Cat is often seen discrediting LB with unfunny jokes. The moment you see him actually appreciate Ladybug, open up to her and Woo her, it’s all overshadowed by his entitlement to her affection.

Some may argue that we see traces of such attitude in the show as well. However, in a series, Chat Noir has many redeeming qualities as well as time to grow, change and move past these flaws. And boy, move past these flaws he did. In the movie, it’s all you get. Take it or leave it.

In one scene, he even lets her think he was hurt by an Akuma in order to catch her worrying about him. It was just a short scene and most people would look past it, but I think it’s these small details that really show how these movie characters tick in comparison to the series.

8. Akumas/Hawkmoth

Just a small detail that kind of ended up taking away the enjoyment of all action scenes is how the Akumas in the movie do not have a motive. There’s just some random people that you don’t care about before their akumatization and that you won’t care about after.

Hawkmoth doesn’t make a deal with them, ask for ladybug and chat noirs miraculous in exchange for his powers, none of that.

He just makes them evil and they do evil things for shits and giggles. The movies premise doesn’t even suggest he needs the miraculous. He just needs to get close enough to Ladybug and Chat Noir to steal Tikki and Plagg.

9. The Ending

I just wanted to dip into that ending real quick. In the movie, Gabriel is redeemed when he finds out about Chat Noir being Adrien. He apologizes to him and they make up. The scene surely will make people emotional, but from my perspective it was all rather predictable.

Whether or not Gabe was worthy of a redemption in the movie is a topic to discuss on its own. Personally, I was okay with it.

What I found more interesting however was…

10. The reveal

This is the moment most people have been waiting and yearning for. And I may sound a bit smug when I say that the movie served a good purpose to show us that a fast reveal would have never ever been satisfying!

It was super underwhelming because - of course it was!

Marinette and Adrien barely had a connection! For all we know they could have been total strangers and their reaction to each other’s identity wouldn’t have been any different than what we saw in the movie.

We never saw Marichat or Ladrien interact either. So that certainly lead to a less explored dynamics. Cue unsatisfying reveal.

They really tried to make it this big emotional final moment, but really? We just saw Ladybug and Chat Noir lean in for a kiss without their masks. Like in a new fit. Nothing really groundbreaking came out of it.

Any fake reveal in the show was better than that and I mean it with every fiber of my being.

And don’t even get me started on how Adrien only ever noticed Marinette when she revealed to be Ladybug. It’s just not it.

Final thoughts.

There’s sooo many more things that I could elaborate on but I think for now I’ve said enough to support my rather poor rating of the movie.

In my opinion, the movie relies too much on people enjoying the source material while trying to be its own thing. It risks leaving everyone unsatisfied.

Those who watch the movie as a stand-alone are met with weird dialogue as well as plot, characters and dynamics that aren’t at all fleshed out.

Meanwhile those who watch the movie because they like the show will be inevitably comparing the movie to its far superior source material.

[amalthiaph]

✨ EDMON RAMPART (Amalthia's Version) ✨ You know I once swore to never draw him, well that was of course before he got the James Norrington treatment so it's the Alexsandr Kallus Effect for me again. Talk about from fuck this man to I wanna fuck this man.

Teeny weeny fandom salt and salt in general coming up so if you don't like that, you can go scroll down. There used to be a cut here but I removed it. I will always be polite, but I know WHEN to talk.

From now on, I will be calling my fanart "Amalthia's version". I hope I don't come across as tone deaf or insensitive about this, but I wish I was good at art.

I've seen posts that say "I wish artists would stop drawing [character name] with [this] or [that]" or "stop drawing [character] with [this]". While it's great to hear about your preferences, please bear in mind that at the end of the day, fanart CAN BE an artist's take on a character. For me, THIS is how I draw Edmon Rampart. This is with regard to the art style I developed and the color palette that I constantly use to keep up with my blog's theme.

Another ick is an ongoing issue in the TBB fandom. In my Hunter and Omega art, I did something I don't usually do, which is add a secondary light source. A few minutes after posting, I got an anon telling me to unwhitewash the characters. I immediately messaged one of my friends for their honest opinion and they said I don't whitewash the characters. I went on to the drawing file and tried to study my own drawing and see if I really did whitewashed the characters. Edit: There really are some artists who whitewash the characters and I was trying to do a SELF-CHECK bec maybe I'm one of them.

I found out that the thing that made the difference is the secondary light source that I added. This secondary light source is lighter in color than their skin, and it created the Contrast Effect. Due to the nature of the human eye and visual processing by the brain, there's an optical illusion that the same color will look different depending on the color beside it and/or the background. It's in psychology class, paying attention would help.

In addition to the secondary light, it could also be the brown background color that caused this effect. And before anyone goes, "are you sure?" Yes, I am. I sat with a Psychology major to discuss about this whole Contract Effect thing.

This does not only apply in colors, it could also be to objects, that why they say all things are relative. One thing could appear bigger or smaller depending upon the object beside it. One of the things they 'check' to see if a certain artist whitewashed a character is the size of the nose. Once again, please do apply Contrast Effect. Some artist really draw their characters stick-like so try to compare all the noses they had drawn in their entire lifetimes and maybe, just maybe they did draw the noses wide in comparison to their other artworks, it just looks like that because it's part of their art style.

Edit: Please do try to analyze things first before casting down your judgement.

It's so difficult to be an artist AND IN THIS FANDOM. We never seem to be enough. If we do the character with artistic freedom, you'll say "stop drawing them like that bec they don't have that in the show" and when we try to draw them as close to the show, you'll say "unwhitewash the characters". We are never good enough for you.

So yeah, I wish I was good at this.

Link to the rest of this series:

1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 || 6 || 7 || 8 || 9 || 10 || 11 || 12 || 13 || 14 || 15

[astro-enthusiast]

Solar Return Observations 1.0

Hello, I'm so excited to write this post! Today I will provide an overview of my most recent solar return chart and how the year manifested for me.

For extra background, this was my 12th house profection year (ruled by Jupiter) and it was just as messy as the astro girlies predicted. 0/10 would recommend. Due to this being my 12th house protection year, I assumed it would be pretty low-key. But, my Leo ascendant had other plans. Note: these observations were made using Tropical astrology and Placidus house system!

Leo Ascendant at 24 degrees: talk about being in the spotlight. To an uncomfortable degree, the focus really was on me this year. What I could do, what my talents are, and undivided attention. For an introvert like myself, this was superrr uncomfy!! Idk how y'all do it. But this was a year where my creativity was able to shine. I spent a lot of time with kids and nurturing my own inner child.

Taurus Sun in 9th house (conjunct mercury, NN and MC): I started and stopped college this year. Apparently I needed to go back to be reminded of how much I despise it. Much to my dismay, I did little to no traveling this year. But these planets are all in Taurus so perhaps that can make them stationary? Sun conjunct NN made it to where my entire being was exactly what I needed to be. I just needed to stand tall and confident (Leo ASC) in who God created me to be.

Speaking of God, with this being my 12th house protection year, I started going back to church, volunteering my time and resources, and standing stronger in my spirituality. I would have NEVER made it through this year without this!

Aquarius Pluto in 6th house square Taurus Sun: I thought I was gonna d*e like a thousand times when I seen this aspect/placement. Y'all I was scurred, but still I rise! This year was certainly strange. At times it felt as if I was my own worst enemy. Battling inner battles every moment of the day. I joked that each week I was a new person, but honestly, this was the truth. Pluto doesn't let you stay the same. My routine changed a lot this year and I ended up working in a career I have never even considered! I also started posting on social media a lot more and even made a YouTube channel!

Cancer Moon conjunct Cancer Mars in 11th house: this also frightened me. I'm a natal Cap moon so to give me a Cancer moon?! Baby, idk what to do with this...but we made it work! My energy levels were very much dependent on my mood and emotions so that was icky. My relationship with my mother pretty much carried me through this year. In whole signs, this moon is placed in the 12th house which I found very interesting as my mother suffered some mental health issues and had to go away for a bit. I did partake in more social gatherings this year, although I won't say I necessarily gained more friends. Friendly gatherings felt more purposeful and I felt much less anxiety compared to what I would typically feel.

Scorpio IC: a majority of my transformations took place at home. I would go to sleep and energetically wake up a completely different person.

Taurus Mercury square Leo Ascendant: the way I articulated myself was in direct contrast with the way I presented myself. My appearance was very bold and hard to ignore, but my voice was very soft-spoken, yet straight to the point. I also noticed that people expected me to be one way, but when I opened my mouth and was a straight shooter, it took people aback, Like yeah, you weren't expecting me to be a bad*ss were you? Also Sun conjunct Mercury and Mercury conjunct Uranus so I stood on business!

Aries Chiron at a Leo degree: You know what's worse than being projected into the spotlight? Being in the spotlight, but cringing the entire time because you don't want people to see who you truly are. Flaws and all. This was how this placement manifested for me. I've always struggled with self-acceptance but the universe really said it's time to tackle this head on! Not an easy feat...

7th house Pisces Saturn at a Leo degree: Dang, Leo energy was on me bad this year! Well, I experienced my first committed romantic relationship with a Pisces Rising! It only lasted a few months, but the levels of delusion were insane. Definitely someone I shouldn't have been with to begin with, but you don't know unless you try, right? Saturn sextile my NN and Sun, so it was for character development hahaha.

10th house Gemini Venus at Leo degree: I've had this placement in plenty of my Solar Returns and each time I thank God it's only for a year. But it's a cute lil placement for the time being. With Venus in the 10th house, I found it very easy to charm people and get on their good side. Especially after just one conversation. I didn't have any love triangles cause I don't play that, but I did have quite a few people tryna be my boo...Venus square Neptune added to the delusion I had going and Sextile Chiron helped me to heal relationship issues and my relationships with women! Ooh, Gemini rules the hands and I created a lot of beauty this past year! Especially on the internet. I was also incredibly loved at work. People bringing me gifts and buying me food regularly. I could get used to this lol.

10th house Taurus Uranus conjunct MC: drastic and unexpected changes in my career and reputation. One minute no one knew me and next minute I'm Ms. Popular?? Okay, popular for ME lol. I was nervous in my career because I was doing stuff I had never done before. My job seemed fairly stable and chill. I appreciated this vibe greatly.

These are some of the placements/aspects that stood out to me this last year. Feel free to shed some light on your personal experiences with these placements either natal or solar return. :)

Please do not under any circumstances copy, rewrite, reword, or repost my work without crediting me.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for being paranoid about US Border Security?

🪤 <- for searching later

Background info: I live in Canada, (relatively) close to the US border. Because of this, when shopping online it can be cheaper to have orders shipped to the nearest American town and then drive down yourself to pick them up. I hadn't done this myself but it's pretty normal to do around here.

This happened at the end of this summer, so the situation is fully over but my (white) friends immediately adjacent to this situation have said that I was basically the only asshole here and I feel that I am, at least, only one of the assholes. I want people's genuine opinions however. I have since stopped talking to this entire group of people, who I'd previously been friends with for 4-5 years, over this issue and a couple others.

My friend (20s, white) had ordered a package to [nearest American town], and because they don't have a car, they were looking for someone who could do a day trip to the states so they could pick it up. I (20s, white-passing, but from a mixed South Asian Muslim family, & I have very recognizably Muslim family names) offered to drive them down with my car, they agreed. We were going to split gas money, the date was set, everything was ready to go.

A few days prior to when we were going to go, my south asian parent reminded me that because I have muslim names, I need to be very careful when crossing the border, because the US Customs is well known for profiling muslims/arabs and pulling them aside for intensive screening. My parent also pointed out that, because my friend smokes weed basically every single day (legal in Canada), I would need to make sure that they were not carrying any weed with them when we went.

I was freaked out by this, and was not thinking super clearly in the moment because it was close to midnight and things my parent had mentioned about previous experiences going through Customs had scared me a lot.

I immediately texted my friend, saying that Customs would find weed on them if they swabbed them, and that it would be "a big problem." They replied that Customs doesn't swab for weed, and that they "failed to see any problem." I replied that Customs is allowed to go through your phone (people have been turned away at the border for admitting to having used cannabis before, but if you tell Customs that you've never smoked weed and they find evidence to the contrary they can ban you from entering the country for lying to border personnel.)

I linked them to an unofficial site that went into detail about what US Customs agents can do if you have weed on you or admit to having smoked previously. My vague intent at this point was for us to get everything in order so that none of the bags/jackets/etc we were taking could possibly have had any weed crumbs/dead old vapes/edible packaging in them , but I didn't get a chance to say this because they immediately replied that even if Customs tested them and found weed in their system, that they wouldn't care because it's legal in Canada. I said that Customs very much would care, and they said that I was insulting them and accusing them of having a criminal record. At this point they sent a further ~10 upset/angry texts in a row, which I didn't open or reply to because I was really upset at this point and needed a minute.

At this point (around midnight), they phoned me, I picked it up and they immediately(!) started yelling at me and saying I was a piece of shit etc etc. I told them they sounded dysregulated and should take a minute to compose themself (I phrased what I said in an aggravating therapy-speak way, bc I had been watching vids about cptsd immediately before they phoned me, but I was extremely freaked out, as I think most people would be when their friend is suddenly yelling at them, and it was the first thing that came to mind). This just made them yell louder, so I told them I refused to let people speak to me that way, said goodnight, they said goodnight, we hung up, and I blocked their calls and texts so they couldn't continue berating me.

After this, I realized that I'd completely neglected to mention that the reason I was particularly scared was because of US Customs' Islamophobic profiling, but I had gone into the interaction assuming (incorrectly) that they already knew implicitly that that was going to be an issue, because we'd known each other for 5 years and I've definitely talked (not recently) about how going thru US Customs is always a pain in the ass because my whole family gets profiled and taken for extra questioning, so right before I went to sleep I briefly unblocked them and sent a text saying that the reason I was so paranoid was because of the extra questioning I was already expecting to encounter at the border, but that it was now irrelevant anyway because I refused to be in a car with someone who was totally fine treating me this way.

I've since stopped talking to this person and, by association, my (white) friendgroup because they sided with them completely. It was a long time coming for other additional reasons I can't get into though.

TL;DR

Planning trip from Canada to US in my car with stoner friend, realized a few days before trip that US Customs can arbitrarily fuck your shit up if they find evidence of weed on you. Got scared and tried to tell stoner friend that it would be a big problem if they had weed on them, they flipped their shit and yelled at me over the phone about it, I blocked them (functionally cancelling the trip).

I believe I was accusatory in a bad way, and that I should have communicated better, but ultimately that my fear had a 100% legitimate basis and should not have been completely and totally dismissed by everyone around me, even though I was too extreme in my paranoia

(They were able to get another ride and pick the package up later)

What are these acronyms?

[freetobeeyouandme]

Mike’s Monologue (Actually Romantic Version)

Hey y'all! So, a lot of the analyses I've seen about the monologue and things I noticed about it myself as to why it sucks ass were kind of just easily fixable things related to the editing of the scene. And because I have an editing software and thought it would be a fun way to practice...I fixed it. So here's what Mike's Monologue could have looked like if they had wanted it to be actually romantic.

Notes and process under the cut.

- Everything I used (except flashbacks) is from the original ~4 min sequence from them pulling El out of the water to her sending Henry flying (I’ll reblog with a link in a second)

-My version is ~3 mins long, shaving off a whole minute from the og. I did that by cutting out everyone else who intrudes on the scene, which is Will and Max but also shots of Lucas, Hopper, Eddie and Dustin in distress after the bulk of Mike's speech

-The ending is super interesting because El looks at Max and then frees herself, but as she does so we leave the mindscape and Surferboy’s: We cut to Max irl, getting her bones broken, Lucas beating Jason to go stand and look at Max dying, a shot of Hopper with a snarling demodog on top of him, Eddie getting eaten and Dustin calling out for him, and then back to Max and Lucas. Only then do we cut back to Mike still yelling "fight!" and El falling off the wall sending Henry flying. Which imo emphazises that this isn’t the kind of romantic love saves the day scene that it should have been if it was meant genuinely. It’s El remembering Max is in danger that pushes her to fight, not Mike, which is why we see all of her friends in danger as she frees herself. It’s not just Will between them in this scene, it’s everyone.

-Cutting all that was relatively easy because at this point Mike just keeps repeating "fight, El" so no dialogue was lost and I didn't have to futz with the audio

-Similarly cutting Will's prompting Mike was also so easy to cut, which just shows how unnecessary it was. Which, in turn, just hammers home how suspicious it is

-I simply covered Will and Jonathan's reactions to "hurt more" with a reaction shot for El, eliminating further intrusions on the scene by others

-The montage includes 15 different clips of memories, which is more than El has when she restarts Max's heart (10) and about the same as Max during Running Up That Hill (16).

-Making the montage made me realize how jarring the constant back and forth between Mike and El becomes, especially towards the end of the monologue, after that first memory: During Running Up That Hill we focus solely on Max after the boys put on Kate Bush, only cutting to them once when Max starts to float and even then Max is still in the picture, because we're in her head and need to see how she feels and how she's escaping. I tried to imitate that with my montage, but it's interesting that in the real version we get dragged back to Surferboy's and see Mike talk, making the scene not just about El and her fight to escape but also about Mike performing (when he should become just a guiding voice like the song)

-El's reaction in the montage except for the laugh after the t-shirt mention are all from after the monologue

-The most immediate and drastic change imo was when I changed the background music. Even without the montage the cut already works so much better with "Unambigious True Love" playing instead of "You're The Heart"

-I didn't have to do anything fancy to make the new song work. I simply underlaid UTL so the track lined up with the fade to black and it fit basically on the first try. The length spans the entire monologue, slowly building up and then cresting during the montage and falling as Mike calls for her to fight and the vines fall away. It would literally have been the perfect track to use instead of making up a new one and then naming it after Will's feelings.

-There are still a couple of things about the monologue that I couldn't fix, such as lighting, shot composition (Will is still visible over Mike's shoulder for example) and the actual text, which is still a bit weird, but overall doing this was very interesting because it made me think about what we should have seen if they wanted this to be genuine and the difference between what I ended up creating and what we saw on screen is stark.

In conclusion: They’re bones

[jazeswhbhaven]

Beel, Are You Srs Brah? WHB Event React Part 1 *Spoiler Warning*

So here we are at our third event since the start of the game!!! Here's some quick things I noticed right off the bat 1. It's LONGER? Instead of stopping at SP15 it's more like SP26, which I thought was a good call considering our Avisos bbys had 3 fucking places to search and there's no way to squish that in such a short amount. 2. The enemies are more challenging??? I think my wording may be off here for this, but more angel enemies were popping up that you normally wouldn't see until chapter 3 or 4. I h a t e the specific ones that scream at you from a distance...if you know, you know which ones...and yeah a bunch of those bitches were popping up so I was like AYO >:( 3. Tons of l o r e. We actually got to see some background lore for two characters in this, and it still leaves me wanting more because honestly, because Andre is from Niflheim though he praises Beel as to be the one to stop the war... For this event I gave a 10/10. I loved learning about the freak nasty devils of Avisos (i mean this is in a good way), and what really goes down after dark. (adult swim, all kids outta the pool! *i get i'm old, bye*) Plus the dynamic of our three bois???? Omfg I couldn't trust them with barely anything if they can't even bother to feed themselves. But I did notice something.... Why the fuck Beel opening tabs and not paying? He'd have to come see me, because baby I ain't made out of money, Mammon is. ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ ANYWAYS I'm talking too much, let's go, but not before you all grab your snick snacks <3 (this may very well be a three-parter) ♨(⋆‿⋆)♨

So we enter in the grand office of Beelzebub, swanky stuff. And the story starts off with Bael literally being buried in an organized stack of paperwork...(poor bby) He even didn't bother to have the guard devil tell him that Beel decided to not reach out...like at all. .-. And he just brushes it off because he's used to it. Bael is really out here handling the entire country by himself for the most part. He was so tired he nearly ripped his horn off (we now are aware that the crown on his head is a uniquely shaped horn, imagine how that thing grows out of his skull like that? w i l d).

So the guard devil reassures him that the subjects of Avisos do respect all of his hard work, but right now Bael just cares that Beel is being a shitty best friend by causing him so much trouble. Tickets, tabs, just stacks upons stacks of things Beel owes money for (again why is he traveling around broke asf, and having his friend deal with the consequences back at home T^T) So he calls our bbygirl, Amon...and well he shows up with Stolas AND Naberius all of their tummies growling and Bael is like "??? Do you not eat?"

So basically what happened is it took the two of them to wake up Amon so it killed all of their calorie intake for the day. Also, another big eater, Stolas (Eligos also being another big eater) was complaining about his third snack of the day. So it makes me think he eats on a specific schedule everyday. But here we also see he's like "Let's just kill Amon he's annoying."

Like damn Stolas okay T^T And poor Naberius is like "My energy was spent trying to stop Stolas from killing him... Dysfunctional bunch aren't they? Lol

NOW BAEL's face here....he looks so done rn. Amon sleeping off his starvation just so he can wait for Beel to return and eat with him *quiet sobbing* But he also is like "Your fake Majesty" as you know he's aware that Bael isn't really Beel but it's still funny he calls him that. Naberius tries to correct Amon, but they just go into a spat about what to call Bael. Stolas even calls both of them stupid for not just using the normal title (again they are a trip and a half their dynamic makes me want to see them interact animated wise) Then Amon, our no.1 Beel simp is like "Majesty Beel is the only Majesty for me" (cutie) Bael is done with them all and what's worse they can't leave because they're too hungry and their energy is spent. (FEED THE BOIS). Stolas out here complaining about tea time...sir you can't even move... So from here the story starts going on about how Avisos is. A rough area where you can basically just do whatever the fuck you want and it sounds like something out of a GTA game if you think about it. Also there tends to be ALOT of accidents. The line "Avisos routine was a battlefield even before the angels appeared" just reads to me like they really there just fucking shit up 24/7. Honestly, do the angels even have to bother with Avisos?? Cause it sounds like they rarely touch that area. But even a place as lawless as Avisos, what binds them together-

My...guilty pleasure. My one-night stand. My fuck buddy. The devil that always has the Plan B prescription ready.

ANYWAYS Beel is that order, you know even when he's out there just fucking roaming around his country still respects as if he's there. Bael is just here being the temporary face, and it's funny because they mentioned how he wanted to kick his ass (understandably so because goddamn) Also Amon is so me...because he was asking Bael if he could take a nap before the mission when his ass literally slept for months. But Bael gives everyone the mission: Find Beel and drag him back here. And Amon brings up his crown asking when Beel returns would he be able to remove it and Stolas is like wtf you idiot-

But with how Bael replies to him confuses me a little because he's just like "Oh you think I'm just gonna do that, I'm throwing off these sunglasses too!" So now I'm like...is your horn removable? Like...can you take it off and put it on, or are you just agreeing to agree? ;.; don't mutilate yourself Bael. *also small tender moment where Amon and Bael are excited to speak to each other like friends again when Beel returns * Now after they're dismissed it seems to me that Stolas is really fucking excited that Bael would be stepping down, and even offers to put him out of his misery (what's up with Stolas being a little gremlin it's funny)

So our Avisos bois are on the hunt, but they need a plan right? The papers are basically receipts and tickets that Beel has racked up during his travels (like goddamn Beel where's your cash?) What gets me is that Naberius mentions that most of the places are so old it wouldn't be beneficial to even check. And this has me thinking...how fucking long has this king been MIA? So our Avisos bois are on the hunt, but they need a plan right? The papers are basically receipts and tickets that Beel has racked up during his travels (like goddamn Beel where's your cash?) What gets me is that Naberius mentions that most of the places are so old it wouldn't be beneficial to even check. And this has me thinking...how fucking long has this king been MIA? So they keep talking and it's been decided that traveling in threes might take too long so splitting up may work better, that is until Stolas and Nabe stare at Amon like yeah nah he can't be trusted Poor Amon. Like he really just seems like he stays out of trouble for the most part, but maybe it's just due to his personality and how he does whatever is why his comrades question him so much.

Stolas is Amon's #1 hater. He's literally just hating on Amon because he just wants to lol. Here is when we found out that Stolas can shapeshift. Fun stuff. Not that I'm surprised since OG demon Stolas is an owl (no srs look it up). While going without Amon seemed like a good idea for them due to their mistrust...Nabe did bring up that Amon is devoted to Beel so badly (yes a fanboy in every word) that he would point out clues, track things easier etc. Amon's their hunting hound.

Bael is so pretty <3 But yes we get more lore about Avisos. At night time it's apparently not the best country to be walking about in the heavy city areas. Though from the background it looks really pretty D: (that's how they'll get me) Nabe then says during their mission he will observe Amon closely, also admitting to himself (and us) that he always though Amon was pretty soft of a devil. That's very judgmental but okay lol

So the pub they're gonna go see first is called Dance of the Bumblebee (cute name) and Amon is like IT FAMOUS FOR BEING NASTY. (this had me cracking up because yes, thank you Amon for telling us this) And by reading through this again I realized that he meant "nasty" as in not really a place devils wanted to hang out at too often? And Stolas is like calling him out how how he knows this info when he's always asleep. Amon apparently has awareness even when he's sleep, so this pisses off Stolas even more to realize that while they were trying to wake him up he was listening to them try xD

To be fair though, just because one can hear you doesn't mean you're fully awake. *shrug* They keep talking about this pub and how it makes weird alcohol with extra additives in it and how Beel would be up for visiting there just for that reason. And I'm the same as Stolas WHAT IF THERE IS SOMETHING LIKE POISON IN IT? And even though Amon pointed out other stores in Avisos do it, Stolas says it's really an image issue to the other countries if they suddenly have deadly alcohol lmao

So outta nowhere Stolas turns himself into a crow. And I'm cryin' look at his little crown and cape/outfit! He'd peck me because I'd call him cute all the time. His point of turning into this was so Nabe and Amon can follow him because it is dark, so certain landmarks may be difficult to see.

We start off in what looks like a downtown area, and it's described as being really loud and noisy. The devils are literally just out here doing whatever, someone was even singing out loud, cussing each other out, the works. LMAO It even sounds like people were smoking (probably different types of things lets be honest...) and other devils were making out, PDA, and even though they won't say in game.... there was probs public sex happening too Like pit stop, have any of you come across those wild fucking vids of ppl just straight up fucking on the sidewalk and someone is filming and there seems to be no one else on the streets? it's just weird to me lmao

So there's a devil with good eyes (whatever that's supposed to mean) that says there's one place where there's something fishy going on. And fishy is right because it's fucking quiet.

So the Dance of the Bumblebee seems like really swank place. A great place to find some sugar devils~ /j though watch me be exactly right that you can waltz in there and come back out with a devil that will pamper you...

It's fully of customers, and looks nice, but it's quiet and no one is really making a move??? Well...guess who decided to show up?

Dreeeeeee <3

So they're talking about how everyone is nervous because this tall ass devil with wings a halo and a nice suit is just chillin' in the pub and they can see the horns so they know he's not an angel...it's just...

they all assume he's some kind of assassin

So they were explaining how the jazz music stopped and do did everyone smoking and I'm just laughing because of that meme

skskskskkskskkskskskks xD

But yeah like the devils weren't concerned about the music anymore they literally were trying to figure out what Dre wanted and if he was the famous 'Angel Hunter' based on his appearance.

More rumors (which are true about him) are that he plucks the wings and other parts off angels and sticks them to himself to provoke them. His eyes were damaged by an angel and the scar on his neck shows where his head was once severed. Even so, they're calling him savage looking. (i mean he does look a bit rough around the edges, you would too if you were on a mission)

GIRL YES SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS Dre is my kind of devil. I wonder if he likes brown tequila or the clear kind... Could he drink me under the table? Yeah...like two drinks in and I'm giggling and being a klutz.

So as someone tries to buy him that drink, the owner pushes the bartender out of the way and starts making small talk with Dre. However he calls him out quick, asking to see the real owner. And now the fake owner is sweating more than he was before.

Dre pulls out his sycthe on him (sexy asf move) and then it goes to black. We then see that this fake owner was actually a fucking angel in disguise and Dre starts hacking off his ears. The angel was bitching and crying about it, asking why he didn't bother to ask him to confirm he was the fake owner and Dre knew the entire time that it wasn't the real owner and that the angels are here following our Avisos bois around. Thankfully tho, it seems they don't know why.

Dre is a fucking beast. Because like he gives 0 fucks here. And it appears that Dre can isolate the area to where it's only him and the imposter owner where no one else can see or hear. This is some powerful stuff and some more lore behind how powerful each of the 72 can be.

That fucking unhinged grin.

And yeah of course the angel is shitting his pants at this moment. Dre even was saying that each time he lied he would rip his body piece by piece and he only has 6 chances to waste his time and if whatever of him is leftover is able to return to heaven he will do that. But... who knows what he'll leave behind. bloodthirsty. stands on business. focused. Dre for the win everyone.

(not to mention the first part of the angel he aimed for was his dick lmao)

While Dre is basically having some fun with his victim, it pans back to our bois. This lets me know this probably happened some time before they got there.

And Stolas is back to his regular looking self saying that they should go in and get some clues. Amon brings up how he looks and Stolas gets upset about it. Though in the game I was concerned with how they described his looks being 'boyish' I figure this is the literal sense of young looking but he's of age/adult. As he has said in the Raphael card prologue as well when Amon teased him about his looks there too.

See? He's just not gonna let him win this one ever xD These two, I swear So Amon is just walking into the pub without caring and he realizes that it's abnormally chilly. Even the doorknob is. (probably Dre's doing from that alt. area thing he did) But the way it said the other stores were sweltering hot I'm just like crying inside because I hate the heat and I hate sweating. I'd have to keep a bottle of water around me traveling in Avisos. Amon is feeling a bit uneasy, but he has to do the mission. The others follow him in and the guard is putting up a front asking if they were customers.

There's a comparison to Gehenna in saying that Satan and his nobles knew basically everyone and that their approach isn't so frigid. The guard questioning the three active nobles of Avisos makes it seem like ppl don't care if you're important or not.

The guard demands that each of them show their proof. And at first I'm like what proof???

So Nabe shows his ear, Amon his tongue, and Stolas his 'pretty pink' nipples. It turns out that these areas all have piercings. Not only are they pierced, the jewelry has a green hue to it when a flashlight is shown on it.

So, it is confirmed, that our headcanons that Beel knows how to give out piercings is true! He pierces his citizens when they turn of age and he feels that they belong there truly. Anddd I guess that's out 1st stopping point! Part 1 and done. I think there will be two more parts for sure....because this event was l o n g. Sorry if there's less screencaps than usual it's just most of this stuff is better said than with millions of screenshots lol

See you in the next post <3

[aquamarineglow]

Things I'd love to see in the Future of the Layton Series:

Some of these are unlikely, borderline impossible. But here's hoping Apollo may grant me the gift of prophesy on just one thing:

1. The rest of the Layton Games get a HD release on mobile.

This just makes sense! The original trilogy got a HD release, time for the prequels! And what if we get new cutscenes and content like Curious Village did? That would be amazing!

2. The entire series gets released on Switch.

This also makes sense. Since NWOS is releasing on the Switch, it makes sense to add the original games so new fans can play all of them! Especially since the Nintendo DS is dead. Rest in Peace. 💕

3. London Life gets a sequel/reboot and is available for all regions.

I've been playing London Life on an Emulator and it is so fun! It's a shame my region never got it!

My hope for the future is that if Spectre's Call gets a HD release, it will include London Life for everyone! But this version will include characters from Miracle Mask and Azran Legacy!

And here's a fun idea: what if befriending Dimitri Allen unlocks the ability to use his time machine! Unfortunately, it doesn't work perfectly; it can only take you twenty years into the future. So you can meet and befriend characters from Mystery Journey and Mystery Room!

4. Layton Brothers Mystery Room Sequel

It's been ten years since the mobile game was released and it's been largely ignored by Level 5. Until recently, with Alfendi's cameo in the anime, and then the manga series. It's clear that there's still love for this game. I think it's perfect time for Alfendi and Lucy to get the sequel they deserve! I'd love to see how they are doing!

5. Layton's Mystery Room Sequel/ Layton Mystery Detective Agency Season 2

I know Katrielle's game and anime wasn't the best received, but I think the series has a lot to offer! With the return of Layton and possibly an appearance from Alfendi, I believe the best is yet to come! Also, we still don't know the backstory of Sherl.

6. Lost Media gets found:

What is Professor Layton and the Phantom Thieves? What is Professor Layton Battle Royale? What is Professor Layton and the Deathly Mirror? I have no idea. But I'd like to know.

7. Roid Artwork

I don't know much about it, but I believe Level 5 had some kind of mobile app where, amongst other things, you received really cute artwork of various characters. Most of if the ones I've seen are poor quality, so I think it would be great if the Level 5 Twitter said, "check these out" and released HD images, including ones we've never seen before.

8. More Games

So, the original series was a trilogy. And the prequels were a trilogy. So what if NWOS is the first entry in a new trilogy, starring Luke in America! The Detective Triton Trilogy!

Also, it's been a while since Professor Layton's first and only crossover game. What about another? I don't know much about the Phoenix Wright series, but a crossover between Apollo Justice and Alfendi/Katrielle could be fun?

9. Rook and Bishop

This message is for Akihiro Hino's eyes only. If you are not Akihiro Hino, please skip.

Hey, Akihiro Hino. I know you read my blog. I will give you £29 and my ham sandwich if you put Rook and Bishop in the new game. They don't even have to do anything, just stand awkwardly in the background. It would be hilarious because nobody would care. Everyone wants to see characters like Flora, Emmy and Descole. You put Benny in LMJ and nobody cared about him. Do this for me.🥺

10. Flora

Just.... Acknowledge her existence in some way. Let her appear in NWOS. Give her something to do.

11. Mangas Series

I was so happy when it was revealed that Level 5 was making a manga series about Mystery Room. I can't read Japanese, but I just love the artwork. So expressive and fun! Completely different from the original 2d sprites.

So I was thinking, what if they made a manga about each of the original games? I don't mean like the Cheerful Mystery Manga, but with beautiful artwork that followed the original stories, maybe with new scenes? I'd like that.

Feel free to add what you'd love to see for the Layton Series! No matter how impossible it sounds! If the list is long enough, at least one thing has to come true, right?

[antianakin]

@theneutralmime

Here's the thing. The chips WEREN'T A THING when the films were being made, so it isn't represented in them (or their novelizations) at all.

What IS sort-of implied within the films is that the clones are... somewhere between droid and sentient. What we're told in AOTC is that the clones "can think creatively" which is what makes them superior to droids as an army, but that they are also "totally obedient" and "take any order without question," something that was modified into them by the Kaminoans to "make them less independent than the original host." So basically, what I think we're intended to understand happens with Order 66 is that the clones have just enough independent thinking to be sort-of friendly with the Jedi while they're told the Jedi are their leaders, but that they don't HAVE enough sentience to care when they're then ordered to kill the Jedi because the Jedi are all traitors now. They don't have quite enough independence built into them to allow them to question that, so they don't.

The chips were only introduced in TCW, and season 6 at that, which would've come out about 10 years or so after the prequel trilogy and the ROTS novelization.

Other things that came out that dealt with Order 66 and the clones like comics and books either continued the semi-sentient idea and just left the clones as sort-of background characters who couldn't really CHOOSE whether they cared or not about this, or they went with the idea that the clones WERE independent but that they HATED the Jedi and any friendliness or familiarity was presumably just an act so long as they were forced to be serving with the Jedi.

TCW seems to be going the second route for a while to some degree, especially with the episode with Slick which is the ONLY episode where the clones' situation is explicitly compared to slavery and he calls the Jedi slavers. While this makes little sense with the way the relationship between the clones and the Jedi is represented in the show OVERALL (and with the introduction of the chips towards the end), it makes MORE sense if the idea was that the clones became more and more disillusioned with the Jedi over time and by the time Order 66 came around, they didn't MIND killing the Jedi. But at some point, that idea changed and they went with the mind control chips instead. This is just a theory, of course, but it seems to make sense to me.

But with all of that in mind, anything written before TCW, which includes the films and their novelizations, has to be understood to have been written without the chips as a motivation for why the clones did what they did. Presumably the only reason they show any friendliness between the Jedi and the clones (which amounts to just Cody and Obi-Wan really), is to make the betrayal then hit all the harder and to parallel the betrayal happening with Anakin at the same time. Everything is GOOD, everything looks like it's going WELL, and then it all goes to hell in a handbasket. It just adds a little more pathos to the entire tragedy, I imagine.

TCW took that and said "Okay, but what if it was MORE ANGSTY because the clones had that choice taken away from them and never would've made this choice if they'd been making it themselves." Cody's representation in TBB, which came out after the chips were a thing, is going to then be wildly different than how he's represented in the ROTS novelization. The novelization has him not care because he is INCAPABLE of caring about this, it's just how he's built. In TBB, the chip is FORCING him not to care but it's starting to weaken and so his actual personality and opinions are coming back and so we see him beginning to question what he's done and feel guilty about it. Cody in TBB is presumably not all the way back, he's still somewhat under the effect of the chip, but we see the stark black and white difference between Rex under the chip and after the chip is taken out, so we KNOW how little choice the clones are given and how completely it controls them. We see Rex attempt to use logic against Jesse by reminding him that Ahsoka technically left the Order and is no longer officially a Jedi and it DOESN'T WORK even though Jesse was shown to be BESIDE HIMSELF earlier for having given away Ahsoka's identity to Maul. So Cody is left in this immensely tragic and painful position of still sort-of thinking this was his choice that he made, but not truly understanding WHY he'd have made it because he's starting to realize how WRONG it was.

So the only stuff that deals with the clones and Order 66 while keeping the chips in mind are things written AFTER season 6 of TCW was released. This includes things like Rebels, TBB, and the Kanan comics in particular. Even the original Obi-Wan Kenobi show concept included Cody in it as someone Obi-Wan considered a friend still on Tatooine, so presumably they would've addressed the chip issue there before the character got cut. Anything that came out PRIOR to TCW season 6 either follows what the films set up as their "motivation" or went a more Jedi critical direction.

[i-like-turkey]

I announced on Twitter that I was taking a step back from social media and fandom to deal with a personal matter. That’s still true. I just need to barf some feelings into the universe. I’m putting them under a cut. This is NOT an easy read and I’m NOT holding back details. Don’t feel compelled or obligated to share my pain. TW: Pet death & grief.

I said goodbye to my little girl on Thursday. She’s been my world since I took her home at the end of July 2012. It was both sudden and not sudden. So I’m in shock, but I’m also not really surprised. There were signs that something bad was looming and I had this gut feeling as early as January that this wasn’t gonna be a good year for us.

This likely all started a long time ago. I took her to the vet in August of 2022 right before we moved east. The vet told me that her heart didn’t sound 100%, but it wasn’t something that needed immediate intervention. She had a little murmur that could indicate heart disease and if it got worse, then I’d need to get her to a specialist to take pictures and then we’d likely get her on some medicine to deal with whatever the problem was.

So I heeded the advice to take a wait and see approach. My baby was acting fine. She made it across the country well. She had energy and life. Not quite her puppy energy, but she was 10, so that was normal. I took her to the vet again this last August and I heard the same thing. She has a murmur. It’s not quite bad enough to get images. If it gets worse, we’ll refer you to a specialist. Ok. Great.

We keep living our life. She still has energy. Lunging at cars and barking at other dogs and trying to get endless pets from all of the strangers we’d encounter while walking in our neighborhood and riding our building’s elevators. I can’t tell y’all how many people would ask how old she was and be surprised when I told them 11.

So we get to January and she’s coughing a bit more than she usually does. Background: for the last few years of her life, she’d occasionally have coughing fits when she got super excited about something or barked too hard at a car. Worrying. But something I’d disclosed to all of the vets we’d seen and they didn’t seem perturbed by it. But now the coughing was every few days instead of a couple times a month or three days of coughing followed by months without a single damn cough.

It got really bad mid January. I took her into the vet. The same one who’d listened to her heart in August. He listened again. Nothing out of the ordinary. She didn’t have fluid in her lungs. Her energy was fine. He sent me home with antibiotics and a cough suppressant and told me to come back if she didn’t improve after a few days of treatment. She improved. Not right away. There were scary times where her breathing was all labored, but after a few days of the meds, she was doing better, and by the end she seemed fine.

And then we get to last Sunday and I hear a cough and that wasn’t good. And then Monday she’s coughing a bit more and I’m getting nervous. I talk to my parents and we agree to not do anything yet because illnesses can linger and her energy was fine. My mom came over that night and we were standing by the laundry closet doors and my pup pulled a toy out of her toy basket and was just running all over the living room with it. She was shaking her head and growling and having an absolute blast flinging that thing everywhere for the entire lengthy time my mom and I were chatting. She didn’t look sick. She looked like a puppy with lots of gray hair.

Then my mom leaves and we sit on the couch and she rolls over for belly rubs and immediately has to roll back over to cough. Then she cuddles up to me and we sit there and watch TV and I pet her and then I take her out and we go through our nighttime routine. She seemed fine.

Tuesday was a good day. She had energy. We played a bit with one of her favorite toys. We had some good cuddles. I only heard a few coughs.

Wednesday morning she seemed ok energy wise. She coughed when she rolled over for belly rubs right after I got home from my morning walk (solo cause it’s long & hilly. She also got one every morning). I didn’t notice anything abnormal during the day. Then we go out for our evening walk and she’s sluggish. That also wasn’t abnormal cause her energy had been fading for the last few years. Sometimes she’d race through our walks. Sometimes she liked to take a leisurely pace. I never worried cause if a car zoomed past she’d lunge and bark and if she saw a dog, she’d lose her mind. But we passed a couple dogs that night and nothing. That had me on edge. But then we get inside and I put on her favorite TV show, Person of Interest, and she was barking up a storm at Bear and seemed fine. I take that as a positive sign and relax a little.

I make dinner. We go to the couch for nightly cuddles. She rolls over for belly rubs. Starts coughing immediately. I pet her through it. Then she cuddles into my side and coughs a couple more times as we sit there. I put her to bed at her usual bedtime. I hear her coughing a few times as I’m struggling to fall asleep. Then I wake up Thursday and she’s in bad shape. I don’t wanna describe it cause it’s too fucking tough to type and traumatic. But I get us scheduled with the nearby vet asap* and I keep an eye on my girl and her scary symptoms. The symptoms subside a bit. Then my mom comes over to help keep me calm as we wait for our appointment time. My baby perks up when she hears my mom knock. She runs from the couch to the door. She’s wagging her tail and barking and jumping on my mom. She goes and chugs half her bowl of water. We sit there with her for over an hour petting her as we talk. She’s breathing ok. Her tail is between her legs, so that’s a sign something isn’t right. But she’s getting all the love from us and seemed happy.

Then we leave. She pees and poops on the way (I didn’t take her out first thing that morning cause part of the scary badness that I’m skipping is that she peed inside). The vet comes in and listens to her. I show a video I took of her that morning. The vet’s reaction said it all. She snapped into action. Took my baby out of the room for x-rays. As that was happening we were going over pricing options with a tech and then shit kinda really hit the fan cause the x-rays were bad. No specialty review necessary. She had fluid around her heart. So we start talking about transporting her to a specialist. They bring my girl back in. The tech just kinda drops the leash and steps away as soon as my girl is through the door. She starts racing directly to me and she collapses. My mom runs for help. They take her away again. The vet ends up doing the procedure she would have sent us elsewhere to do. Basically draining the fluid. It’s blood. They get her stable and hooked up on oxygen and give me the option of trying to get her to the animal hospital for further intervention. But the vet was clear that she’d probably die on the way and it was VERY clear at that point that she wasn’t gonna get better from this. It was a heart tumor. Something had ruptured and started bleeding. There was no fix. So I made the call to let her go. We got my dad and my brother on the line and told them to get their asses over to us. We stood there petting my baby as we waited. Then we said goodbye.

*In hindsight I maybe should have gotten her in the car and driven her to an emergency hospital. But the closest one ISN’T close. And that wouldn’t have changed the outcome. She hated the car enough that she would pant during two minute drives. 40 minutes (assuming relatively light rush hour traffic which is probably a bad assumption so more like 60 min) of that while she was already in breathing distress might have killed her. But assuming we made it, they could have intervened and maybe bought her a day or two. But this wasn’t something she was gonna get better from. That extra time would have been full of pain. So I made the right call. She got more loves from me and my mom at home and got to pass peacefully nearby while she was surrounded by everyone who loved her.

So I’m devastated and completely out of my mind at the moment. I don’t know what’s up or down. I’m keeping myself occupied between sobbing fits by going through all the pictures I’ve taken over the years. It’s a pain in the ass because my storage habits are terrible and my screenshotting habits are worse so I have hundreds of thousands of images scattered everywhere and now I have to dig through them to find my girl.

Here are some painful lessons I’ve learned from this:

Don’t store 77k images in a single folder on an external hard drive. You won’t be able to copy them all over to the iCloud at a single time unless you have a fuckton of available disk space on your Mac. And trying to scroll through the images will push your computer dangerously close to the limits (I really need a new machine 😬)

Don’t rely too heavily on Snapchat to takes pics. It’s fun in the moment, but 5-6 years later you’re gonna cringe & regret that all your cute dogs pics from that era are plastered over with weird graphics. A Happy Mother’s Day pic with my dog on the couch behind me, hearts all above us, and a damn Wookie filter plastered over my face? jfc 🤦🏼‍♀️

Do give yourself a refresher on how Snapchat works lest you go through and favorite a bunch of memories, see a pop up flash about them getting added to a story, and then have a full on panic attack in front of your parents about how you might have accidentally shared semi-naked pics of yourself with the few people that still follow you 😅 (Yes, I’ve been been known to take and share some risqué pics. Yes, I wanted to download them before deleting them. I might be grieving, but I can still see a pic of my 2018 back muscles and think “Damn!” 🫣🤣)

Don’t be so lax and sloppy about your picture storage habits that you’re forced to keyword search your text messages for pictures cause it’s a good way to find out just how many women you’ve texted dog pics to throughout the years 🥴 She was a great wing woman, but she also loved to clam jam me cause she thought she was the one who should be getting kisses when I’d sit on my couch with a woman 😂

Do find a balance between taking pictures of every damn thing and living in the moment. I stopped taking lots of pics since my east coast move cause I wanted to get away from my compulsive snapping. Now I regret not taking at least one daily shot of her sleeping on the couch.

Do have other people take pictures of you and your dog. So far I’ve only found two different occasions on which someone else took a picture of me and my baby together. All other pics of us are terrible selfies or feature just my hand/arm/legs. I have memories of all those moments that I spent with her, but it hurts to not have a father away perspective on them. Part of this is my fault for living thousands of miles from my family, being fairly closed off to human connections aside from shallow hookups and activity buddies, and viewing my home as a sacred domain accessible to people only if there wasn’t another option for where we could hang out.

Thank you anyone who has made it this far. Please go hug your pets and tell them that you love them. If you would like to leave me a note, that’s very welcome. I don’t have the energy to engage, so it’s unlikely I will respond until the day my energy returns. Idk when that will be. Right now I’m still in the sobbing hysterically as I process my new reality phase. I need to get through that before I’ll be ready to start communicating normally. I’m hopeful that I’ll only need a week or two in this phase. But who knows. Grief is hard to predict. All I can do now is stay patient and work through it.

[venomous-ragno]

Writing advice...

... About military things by a soldier :)

You wanna write a story with a militaristic setting, like CoD or R6S? You wanna create an oc with a military background, but you don't know where to start?

Well, lucky for you or not I know what that feels like and I've also got the combat / real life experience to help ya out!

Feel free to hop in my askbox or dm's and ask questions. I'll gladly elaborate and do my best to answer in full and plenty:)

Disclaimer: My experiences and knowledge are mostly based on the German military, the Bundeswehr. They may differ from those of other countries.

Happy writing y'all :)

Pt. 4 / ?: Habits a soldier most likely has (due to the military)

1. Never wearing parts of their uniform in combination with civilian clothing. Not only is it forbidden by military law, it also just feels wrong. Superiors go feral when they see it.

2. Sleeping absolutely everywhere and anywhere, likely huddled up with comrades. 48h work days exist. You can't be picky about where or when you sleep - your body needs it and you need your body. A comrade of mine used to have a blanket she'd carry around at all times. It wasn't particularly thick or fluffy, but it made sleeping cramped in some dirty back room propped against a wall just a bit more comfortable. Yes, we all cuddled.

3. Staying awake no matter how exhausted you are.

4. Being a neat freak. Our uniform and overall appearance must always be flawless and in line with current standards. Gear must be cleaned and polished after every use. Not only that, but needing things to be in one exact place and knowing by heart where everything is. God have mercy on those that mess up our patterns.

5. Nicotine or caffeine addiction. 9.9/10 soldiers are addicted to either one, most likely both though. Chugging a 0,5l monster energy at 5am is normal.

6. Ignoring non lethal wounds and ailments until it's no longer possible or a superior forces you to go see the doc. Pretty self explanatory. You just get used to being all in even when your whole body aches and you've had a combined 30mins of sleep that night - heck, it's what we're trained to do. Tough to admit to yourself that you need a break though.

7. Using the NATO alphabet to spell words, no matter the context. You'd make a call somwher, they ask you to spell your name and you do just that - most often gaining confused reactions by civilians. Similar to this: Using military phrases like stand by and good to go no matter the environment you're in. (Not to mention the phonetic alphabet)

8. Being a fast eater. Sometimes you got about 5 minutes to wolf down an entire meal.

9. Learning to observe before chiming in. If you even chime in at all.

10. Taking hats off when going inside any kind of building.

[alagaesia-headcanons]

you know, we have only Oromis words to tell how was Morzan when he was a kid, how can we be sure that he doesn't' exaggerate? Morzan was a rebellious kid, who could be rude and maybe cruel? A lot of kids can be cruels, it's doesn't mean they're fully bad from the start. I just think that Morzan had need of a parental figure who would correct his attitude and would CARE for him, because it what Oromis should have been: a teacher AND a parental figure since the kid was 10 when he took him.

YES THIS I 100% agree with you!! Forgive me for the very long rant I’m about to go on because I have many thoughts about Morzan that I’ve wanted to get down for a long while now. I find it super interesting to interpret that he wasn’t entirely malicious or irredeemable from the outset.

I really, REALLY don’t like the old order of Riders. From all the things we learn about them, they had a seriously objectionable system. The way they took human kids when they were 10 years old and then left them to the discretion of people like Oromis is brazen evidence of that. I’m really intrigued by the possibility that at least one of the Forsworn joined Galbatorix to dismantle the Riders out of a genuine aversion to their abuse and a desire to put an end to it and build something better, not just from a personal lust for power.

Given the way Galbatorix talks to Oromis and Nasuada, I think he would have presented his intentions that way to distract from his real deranged vengefulness. It would have fascinating implications for any of the Forsworn to have truly fallen for that, and then as the consequences of their actions fully unfold and Galbatorix becomes an even worse tyrant, for that Forsworn to burn with regret and resentment and hatred towards him. It would make for such an interesting dynamic during the Empire’s reign. I just want one disloyal Forsworn who hates Galbatorix because they feel tricked and used, it’d be cool!!!

Admittedly, Morzan is the only one of the Forsworn we have any background for at all, so it doesn’t mean much to say he’s the best fit, but the backstory we do have can potentially line up with that role very well. Morzan was very young when he met Galbatorix, and thus inexperienced and impressionable. He spent more time with him and would have been exposed to a lot more of his manipulation. And I think he would have reason to be predisposed against the Riders before they met, a resentment Galbatorix could have fueled for his own benefit.

I’ve made it no secret how much I loathe Oromis. Tbh the fact that Morzan spent years training under him is a huge reason why I’m able to sympathize with him lmao. I would also start killing people. That man could have never given the necessary care and tolerance and emotional support to a ten year old, but it seems like the new Riders were entrusted entirely to their mentors. We see how horribly Oromis mistreats Eragon and how that affects him even when he’s sixteen- his callous neglect inflicted on ten year old children is a disaster waiting to happen, especially if any of those kids weren’t well cared for to begin with.

Also, this is slightly pedantic, but when Oromis is talking about Morzan, he specifically says that he “grew so proud and cruel,” which implies that this issue was less significant or not there at all when he first took Morzan. His harmful behaviors apparently developed over time which should be addressed and cared for by whoever’s raising him. Oromis is the only one in a position to raise him and he still turns a blind eye to Morzan.

In my headcanons, Morzan grew up impoverished and neglected. He doesn’t know what fair and caring treatment looks like and so he also can’t identify Oromis’s abuse, but its impact is compounding on an already present wound. Morzan is starving to make something of himself because no one has acknowledged and loved him for who he already is, which makes for a horribly volatile mixture with Oromis’s penchant for demanding his students prove themselves against an arbitrary and merciless standard. Morzan’s susceptibility to Oromis’s pressure makes him viciously desperate to prove himself, intensely competitive, and highly reactive to disapproval. It creates a perception of inadequacy that bleeds into everything Morzan does.

When he’s unpressured and at ease, Morzan’s nature is actually quite reserved, slow, passive, and methodical, but he is so, so easily incensed. Because he’s so fixated on proving himself, he assumes everyone initially holds a very low opinion of him and that’s what necessitates he fight for approval. He just can’t fathom receiving acceptance, respect, or care without proving he deserves it, and so he’s perpetually clawing for more. And falling short feels so devastating because he’s never been shown his worth beyond people’s expectations.

To me, that’s why he ends up attached to someone like Brom, who idolizes and defers to him. For Morzan, it would feel like his endless efforts to prove himself have actually proven something. Because he thinks he has to earn love, Brom’s affection would also feed into Morzan’s ego, providing a long desired vindication. The fact that Oromis trains both of them makes their relationship so much worse. I feel like his relatively positive relationship with Brom could have balanced out and helped Morzan adjust with time, but there’s an unfortunate competitive aspect at play. As Morzan scrambles for Oromis’s approval, now Brom is also being trained and the differences between them present another metric that could make Morzan seem lesser. So he puts Brom down and fights against him for their master’s care and validation like they’re limited commodities.

I think, over time, Morzan comes to recognize elements of Oromis’s abuse. He simply doesn’t have the energy to constantly struggle for his approval forever, and as that starts to run dry, it reveals some things. He resents that Oromis belittles his struggles and only values efforts that yield the results he wants, so he stops putting in the effort. If Morzan still doesn’t matter to him after trying so hard, why should he keep trying? He hates that Oromis can never give a true justification for the standards he demands they reach, and he starts ignoring them. He despises how he lies when says he cares for him and wants the best for him, because he prioritized his utility to the Riders over his well being in every moment since they met.

So, when he meets Galbatorix, Morzan is bitterly resentful and disillusioned. He joins him out of desire for revenge on Oromis and to tear down the system that abandoned him to his abuse. I do believe Morzan genuinely loved Brom in a certain way, despite his mistreatment, and he starts trying to incite him against Oromis not solely because of his own vindictiveness but also out of concern for Brom. As Galbatorix’s plans start to move, Morzan balks and begins seriously doubting him, even more so as the scope of slaughter unfolds, but he swallows his misgivings and stays determined to recruit Brom to the winning side. When one of the Forsworn kills the first Saphira despite Morzan’s insistence they be spared, he’s vehemently outraged. I think of Galbatorix’s disinterest in his uproar as the turning point in Morzan’s loyalty to him. As the Empire takes form, that disloyalty solidifies and Morzan hates Galbatorix for being even more cruel, manipulative, and uncaring than the people he wanted revenge on. Galbatorix tolerates it because forcing his vengeful resentment into subservience gratifies his sadistic impulse.

Now all of this is well within the realm of extrapolation and interpretation- none of these details directly suggest this version of Morzan’s character and motivations. They give the potential, but not real support, and they can just as easily be seen in any number of different ways. However, there is one single thing that actually grounds this in canon, which is that Morzan was a name-slave from very early on. When Eragon is telling Murtagh about the chance to change his true name and challenges his hesitation, Murtagh says, “[Galbatorix] has been creating name-slaves for over a hundred years, ever since he recruited our father.”

This detail fascinates me. There is the possibility that it’s a lie, but I can’t imagine Murtagh would make it up considering how much distaste he expresses towards his father. And I don’t think it would make sense for Galbatorix to lie to Murtagh about it either. If he didn’t actually have control over Morzan’s name then, claiming he did would discredit that real loyalty Morzan would have had to feel for him and his cause to do everything of his own free will. I think it’s the truth. Galbatorix learned Morzan’s true name more than a hundred years ago, before the fall, when he recruited him- which, to me, feels like before Morzan even helped him steal Shruikan’s egg.

Morzan either knew his true name already or Galbatorix went through his mind to find out, and the latter seems far more likely. Given the way Morzan’s described: young, arrogant, weak minded- I highly doubt he knew and the way Murtagh brings this up implies Galbatorix’s skill at uncovering names. Morzan either felt so loyal to Galbatorix at that point that he willingly let him in his mind, he was coerced into agreeing to it, or Galbatorix did it by force.

This still doesn’t mean Morzan wanted to dismantle the broken parts of the Riders instead of fully destroying them and that Galbatorix manipulated him into starting a war he found appalling- but it makes that idea much more feasible. If Morzan did realize Galbatorix’s intentions weren’t what he said and that he didn’t want to take things so far, he couldn’t back out. Any reluctance or disagreement would have been overridden and things would unfold exactly how they did.

I think Morzan was wounded and angry and starving for true respect and care that lured him to Galbatorix, and the precarious pride he clung to made him look away from the severity of Galbatorix’s actions. Then he realized his desperation was preyed upon only when it was far too late.