#I get the feeling my audience already know this

[cattimeswithjellie]

Stream Recap, PearlescentMoon, 6/11/24

((I started recapping this one before I knew it was going to be a six hour redstone marathon stream. It has taken literally all day, so I will probably think twice before doing one like this again. My knowledge of redstone is too limited to understand everything that was happening, so there are chunks of the middle of the stream where the recap is basically "redstone continues." Impulse and Skizz playtest Pearl's game near the end of the stream and it is very fun!))

3:50 Pearl opens her stream and greets the chat in audio-only mode. She tells chat she just woke up after being up all night and sleeping late. She got plenty of sleep, just at a weird time. She apologizes for postponing the stream yesterday and said she was making the video a priority for someone who was holding their own video waiting for hers. (It was Tango.) Today’s stream will have spoilers. She wants to do a couple things on the minigame today but she can’t make too much progress on the interior because she has to film an intro first. Chat is complimentary about the new video and Pearl says she is probably going to keep the new editing tweaks for redstone-type videos. She’s also going to keep the Editor Pearl overlay. She admits that the snow transition was a happy accident.

7:20 Someone told Pearl that the new video is engaging, which is what she is trying to do with her videos. Feedback sticks in Pearl’s brain, and some people have said on Twitter where they don’t know she is seeing it that while she is a nice person, her videos are not engaging. She is trying to make that better. Chat asks if Pearl feels okay, she tells them she usually wakes up a little congested but is fine. She talks more about finer points of the new video. She knows she can’t please everyone, but feedback that she could be more engaging in her videos is legitimate critique and she wants to keep improving.

10:10 Pearl and Chat talk about what it means for a video to be engaging. They talk about the different ways streams and YouTube videos and podcasts are engaging, and Pearl mentions how she deliberately changes up camera angles when there is a lot of talking in an episode. A chatter admits that the most recent video was not their favorite because redstone goes over their head. Pearl agrees that her audience is not a redstone audience and assures Chat she will not be getting too overly intense on redstone in her videos.

14:20 Pearl switches video on. She is logged into the server and standing at the start button for her Wordle game. She tells Chat that the Wordle invention VOD is up on her second channel for people who want an eight-hour stream of Pearl doing redstone. Something she didn’t show in the video is her adding the diamond barrel. Every Wordle attempt costs one diamond. She didn’t put that part in the video because she had 40 minutes each with Bdubs and Tango and had to do some severe editing. Hermits who fail the Wordle can try again by paying another diamond, Hermits who succeed should not play again til reset. She has plans to make a leaderboard so people can track their streaks.

18:00 Pearl wants to know if an item that bubbles to the top of a bubblevator will stay or despawn. Chat is not sure, but enough people think it will stay that Pearl takes their word for it. She wants to make a randomizer for the game supplies so players don’t have to randomize them at the end of their games. She says they can test the bubblevator despawn issue and test it, but if it works, bubblevating the supplies and then dropping them into a hopper is a great randomizing solution. She digs into the wall to create a test bubblevator. Chat offers suggestions for refining the resetting system. Pearl considers options for triggering the bubblevator, using freecam to examine the redstone she already has in place. She wants to be absolutely sure that the “success” items don’t come out together and first.

23:40 Twitch is having some minor resolution problems, but the stream is generally all right. Pearl goes and gets some water. She fills the bubblevator and throws a bunch of building blocks into it, then writes some signs to explain how the system will work. She discusses the finer points of reset with chat. A chatter suggests killing the player to reset the game, which makes Pearl laugh. A chatter can’t wait for Scar to break the game. Pearl says the only way to break the game should be going into the walls and actually fiddling with the redstone. She demonstrates some ways that players cannot break the game.

28:50 Pearl describes a timing problem where the game kept trying to play the fail sound while she was filming, but she added a pulse extender to fix it. It makes her very happy that she knows enough redstone now to be able to fix things when they don’t work right. She learned so much during her eight hour stream, but now she needs to keep doing redstone so she doesn’t forget it. She also needs to memorize item sorters.

30:30 Pearl checks the bubblevator. It does not work, the building blocks have despawned. She is disappointed, but has a minecart method she wants to try next. Minecarts are good because they take items super-quick, which will help solve the problem of dropping loose items onto a hopper and walking away, leaving them to despawn. Pearl goes out to collect some logs. A chatter suggests that an item does not despawn if a dolphin is playing with it. Pearl thinks that’s a funny idea, if impractical. Chat says that a multiple minecart system is what Tango used for the Decked Out shuffler. Pearl thinks about this, as well as thepossibility of a dispenser-based randomizing system.

35:00 Pearl realizes she is talking redstone like a redstoner and wonders what the heck has happened to her since last week. Chat embraces her new redstonification. She gathers up supplies for more testing. There’s a little bit of room in the existing redstone, but it’s going to be tight. Before Pearl starts redstoning, she thanks chat for donos and subs.

41:20 Pearl is happy to live in a place that doesn’t require driving or walking everywhere. Driving in a city is so much worse than public transit, but she also doesn’t have to walk a long way. Where Pearl lives, some things are walkable and she can drive to other places, and that is perfect. Chat agrees about avoiding city driving. She tells a story about getting stuck in LA traffic, which is even worse than Melbourne. She wishes she could enjoy the observatory she visited out there more, but it was right after TwitchCon and she was feeling horrible. A chatter asks if she’s been to Singapore, but she has not. She continues talking about public transportation and tells a story about a train that never showed up and required an expensive Uber ride to not miss D&D.

49:00 Pearl continues catching up on subs and donos. She considers whether there is something she can be doing while she’s talking, but there’s not much that doesn’t require brain effort. She is jumpscared again by having subs over 50 months, which seems like such a long time.

52:00 Pearl talks with Chat about Pokemon as she heads down into the redstone. She is very against the idea of brown Cyndaquil. Chat agrees about recent downgrades in Pokemon. Pearl says Platinum is the last game she loved. She begins installing the randomizer system. She needs to be careful because if the water-stream goes out of control, it can mess up a lot of redstone. Chat contributes ideas and critique about redstone as she builds.

57:50 Pearl successfully places her system without drowning the redstone. It doesn’t look quite as nice on the display side, but she is all right with it. She adds a timer to finish it up, and makes sure both hoppers are lockable. Space in the redstone area is getting tight. Chat suggests removing one hopper entirely, which helps. Pearl figures out what needs to be done in what order for it all to work properly. She warns chat that this will be Pearlstone, and that means it will not be pretty.

1:07:00 Pearl finishes connecting up the randomizer to the system, then has sudden concerns as to whether it will actually randomize the items as they come in. As the system is set up now, the dispenser dispenses before it is full, which means it will not have time to randomize. Pearl and chat devise a system to fix this and increase the randomzation. A chatter points out a problem in the line with a pulse extender and Pearl fixes it, while quizzing chat til she understands what the problem was.

1:12:00 Pearl begins working on the hopper clock on the opposite side of the new randomizer. There is not very much space available. She goes back and redoes some of the redstone she just made to add more room. She pops out to collect some scaffolding and thanks chat for subs and donos.

1:17:00 Pearl returns to working on the redstone. She falls off the scaffolding a few times and sarcastically declares how much she loves it. She runs out of smooth stone and grabs more. Chat suggests learning to color-code redstone, Pearl says maybe next time. She and chat have a conversation about the function of a reversed signal and a pulse extender. She explains to Chat the initial problem with reset that needed the pulse extender solution.

1:23:00 Pearl prepares to test the redstone. She set a new word yesterday but Tango was too busy flinging Skizzleman into the Void to actually play it. She tells Chat to close their eyes if they don’t want to know the answer for this week, then decides to leave camera mode and hide it so Chat can’t spoil it to anyone. One she has arranged the supplies appropriately for the correct answer, she brings Chat back and presses the solve button. The win celebration happens like it’s supposed to. She tests the fail. The fail happens like it should as well. Pearl is pleased. She hides the game again to unload the letters, but some become lost in the system. They are stuck in the dropper because she pressed the reset, but everything is okay. Chat sees some of the letters. Pearl decides to change the word and asks chat to guess. They guess it correctly.

1:29 Pearl shows off some of her prize bundles and says she is going to change some of them to be more themed. Chat suggests changing the theme every month or week. She does not want to retexture the dyes into letters, it’s no longer on theme with the shop. She also likes that it’s a little more vanilla. She tests the reset again and realizes she needs to adjust the water stream. She tests it again and this time everything comes back in a random order.

1:34:30 Pearl sees a flaw in the system. She thinks there might need to be a delay on item release or the correct letters might always come back first, ruining the randomizing. Further testing is needed. She collects her redstone supplies back up while talking with Chat about the possibility of flower crowns for rare prizes. Pearl needs to buy more fireworks, but not just yet. She starts doing the redstone to add the delay.

1:43:00 Chat is attempting to help with the redstone, with varying amounts of forcefulness. Pearl reminds Chat that there are lots of different ways to do redstone and people advocating too many methods or being too pushy about their preferred way can make it uncomfortable to do redstone on camera. The redstone is expanding rapidly.

1:49:50 Pearl tests the randomizer. The signal strength is difficult to calibrate, it is either too weak to activate the randomizer or too strong and sets it off early. Pearl begins calibrating the system to get the correct signal strength for the result she needs. She releases a bit of water but fortunately it only kills one bit of redstone. An Australian streamer raids in and compliments Pearl on the new video. She chats with them a bit about ancient city raiding in a hardcore world being nerve-wracking.

1:54:15 Pearl tests the redstone again. The delay is too short. Pearl explains the problem to chat, chat suggests “more comparators.” There is not much room to add more redstone at all. Pearl contemplates moving other redstone to make more room. She digs into the wall instead. She decides to do another proper test with the actual letters. Chat tells her that her redstone is reversed. She changes it, apologizing that she is not as cool as Tango and is doing Noobstone.

2:02:00 Time for the test. Pearl throws letters in in alphabetical order to see if they get scrambled nicely. It did not work because things came back into the chest too quickly to get randomized. Pearl has a big thonky-thonk about what to do next. Another streamer raids in. Pearl starts troubleshooting again.

2:09:00 Another test, it’s looking better, it will randomize til the letter G instead of C. She needs a long enough delay to send the whole alphabet through the system. Chat suggests an Etho clock, she says she is not very familiar with it, but will lean on chat if they help her build one. She replaces a patch of Pearlstone with a hopper clock, following instructions from Chat. Chat tells her she needs at least 17.6 seconds.

2:18:00 A chatter asks if Pearl is calling the game Wordle. Pearl says no, it’s Wordle-inspired, but she won’t call it that. She shows off the signs she put up at the entrance and says she took suggestions from the chat: the game is called “Dye-duction.” You use dye to deduce what the word is. “Pearldle” was a close runner up but is hard to say and a little cheesy. She returns to the redstoning.

2:25:00 Another test. The randomizing is working, but it’s still too short. Things are still getting stuck in the system. She decides to try extending the clock and also needs to fix the locking conditions on one hopper. She tests it again. It does not work. She studies chat, hoping for answers. Chat has suggestions.

2:30:00 More troubleshooting. Pearl accuses chat of misleading her when she was in fact right all along. Most of chat just seems a little confused, but of the chatters trying to help, the votes are split between “correct” and “wrong.” Pearl says this is why people don’t do redstone on stream.

2:36:40 Pearl spots a creeper down in the guts of the redstone and is Not Happy about it. She asks it to please not blow up her redstone. She gets her bow and takes care of the creeper with no damage done. Pearl asks why it always has to be a creeper and never a zombie or skeleton. Redstoning continues

2:41:00 Pearl takes a moment to process, thanks subs and donos. She is an hour behind on her donator thank-yous and has no idea how she is 2:42 into the stream. False raids into the stream. Pearl continues to disbelieve that she has spent this much time on a randomizer. She’s fine. She’s fine. Attendance is down for the stream, but chat is fine too. Pearl chats with False’s raiders. Chat asks if Pearl needs a snack or a drink, but she is fine. She has a drink. False and her chat have been doing base design. Pearl likes how everyone has been building bases in stages this season, it’s neat! Redstone continues.

2:53:00 Pearl loses some of the letter dyes from the system when they shoot out of the water stream. She finds all of them except light gray, and enables freecam to look for it. As she swoops around, she briefly dips out of the room and into x-ray view. There is a chasm below, which contains a number of mobs, and something that looks like a green room or tunnel with a white stripe along it. Pearl finds her lost dye and pops back into her body, mentioning she saw something down there she hadn’t meant to look at and is just going to ignore. She rearranges her letters in the box and does another test. The piston is very very loud and the signal is too strong. All the items get stuck at the top of the water stream. Pearl tries to put the items away but activates the circuit again, so the items spit back out again. Test failed.

2:57:00 Pearl disables the circuit and collects up her letters again. She decides to try again with a different repeater delay and yells at the hopper clock until it behaves itself. She reloads the letters for another test. Things are much less obviously broken on this test, but the hopper that should release stays locked for longer than is ideal. At the end of the test, though, the letters are randomized and in the chest. Victory!

3:03 Pearl resets for another test, this time to make sure that the first-in-first-out problem doesn’t cause any hints. She points out that she has added something to the system that can break. She runs the test again. The chest does not randomize very well this time, despite everything going through the system. Another test has the same result. Pearl figures out what is going wrong and discusses possible solutions with chat.

3:16:00 Redstone work resumes. Pearl has a solution in mind, and she hopes to do it without flooding the room. Pearl and chat briefly forget how many letters are in the alphabet. A chatter gives her an idea that will allow her to switch the game to allow for the entire alphabet later if she wants it. She likes that idea and decides to implement it.

3:24:00 Another test. It looks good in the water stream and stops when it needs to. Pearl is excited. The chest is nicely randomized. The hopper clock is not finished yet, and she has not solved the first-in-first out issue with the correct answer letters, but it’s progress! She goes to adjust the hopper clock and runs the test again. Again random, and with better timing, but the letter K is stuck in a dropper. She tests again. Letter C gets stuck in the same place. She adjusts the timer a little bit and wonders how this became a redstone stream. Everything works!

3:32:00 Pearl prepares for a full playtest. She walks chat through the gameplay and decides doing a reset on the reset barrel is not worth it. She does a playtest and pretends she doesn’t remember the word. The moment the letters are out of the chest, it begins cycling. She discusses possible fixes with chat. Chat suggests a “do not touch” potato that stays in the chest, but Pearl is certain that it will be touched consistently by Hermits because Hermits don’t read things.

3:38:30 Pearl admits that a “do not take this block” block is the easiest solution, but she’s trying to minimize points of possible breakage. The biggest consequence of moving the block would be a loud noise, so the problem is fairly small. Pearl comes up with a solution involving sticky pistons that might be effective and might be silly. Chat thinks if it works, it’s not silly. She tries out the solution.

3:45:00 Time to test the fix. Pearl simulates a reset and giggles “It’s working” as the items begin to circulate. She asks if she actually fixes it, with a solution she came up with herself and didn’t get from chat. She is very proud. Chat is very proud of her. She reorders the letters for a full randomization test. The test runs successfully, though with a couple patches of ordered letters. Time for a playtest.

3:50 Pearl reorganizes her inventory and sets up for a playtest. She adds the correct letters. The win condition runs successfully, but she forgets to put away the winning letters before reset. She tries it again. It works successfully, there is no sign of what the original word was. Pearl is pleased. She gets a nosebleed, but not a bad one. She stuffs a bit of paper up her nose to stop it. Chat tells her she needs Etho’s Kleenex box, but she points out that every tissue removed from that box is one less layer of sound dampening.

3:56:30 With four minutes left of stream time, Pearl says they couldn’t possibly have cut that finer. She decides to do a quick fail test. She puts in “PATHS,” then changes it to “PEARL” because it has some needed letters. The fail test works. Pearl doesn’t like that she can’t do a true playtest because she always knows the word. She thinks about asking Impulse to playtest for her. She puts in “SHELF”, another good test. She plays “FIELDS” and gets the win condition. She resets again and decides to ask Impulse to play. The correct letters are in the first five slots. Pearl needs to put a timer on the letter release. She decides that she has nothing big to do tomorrow, so she’s going to go overtime on the stream.

4:04:30. Back to the redstone. Pearl does another win test and looks at the way the chests empty. The letters randomize on this go-through. She wonders if she was just unlucky. She tries the test again and asks if Impulse is streaming. Chat says no, Impulse is sick. This test has three correct letters at the top and two at the bottom. Pearl is mostly satisfied.

4:14:20 Pearl invites Impulse to play a game. Impulse says “Depends” Pearl asks if he wants to play or not. Impulse asks if it will kill him. Pearl assures him it will not. He agrees to play. She invites him to the flower shop. She resets the game, cleans the playing room, and goes to find Impulse. He’s a hard guy to find.

4:18:00 Pearl finds impulse at the flower truck. He sounds pretty rough, but says he’s okay. She asks if he’s ready to play Wordle. He says he likes Wordle, and that he is proud of her for doing redstone. She leads him to the new shop and shows him around, then welcomes him to Dye-Duction. She tells him she’s just going to watch him play and see what happens. He doesn’t have to pay today.

4:20:15 Impulse reads some of the instructions aloud. Pearl reminds him to guess words and not just letter combinations. Impulse admits he didn’t read enough of the book to know where things are. He goes back and reads the book. He plays through the game with some small guidance from Pearl on the technical aspects of the game. He plays “SPACE,”

4:26:40 Impulse tries to think of a second word. His dogs start barking at the landscaper and he leaves for a moment. He comes back and says it’s hard when the dyes are not in order. He plays “BEING” and still has no letters in the right spot.

4:31:00 Impulse tries to think of another word. Pearl assures him there’s no pressure, she’s had people watch her do redstone for the past four hours and she knows from pressure. She tells him it’s really quite simple. He says it’s _not._ She asks what Impulse says when he’s doing redstone, like how Tango and Mumbo have catchphrases. He admits he hasn’t got a line, but Chat is bopping.

4:34:15 Impulse is struggling. Pearl is amused. Impulse plays “THEIR” and has one letter in the right spot. Still no more letters. Impulse is getting squeaky with Wordle-related distress. Pearl realizes that having each letter only once makes Wordle considerably harder and that random letter combos might be okay to counteract that. She mutes herself in-game so she can laugh at Impulse.

4:40:40 Impulse wants a sign he can write on. He tries it out, then realizes he can’t see his inventory when the sign is up. A sign would at least let him save guesses. Pearl and chat discuss custom textures to make the dyes look more lettery.

4:43:00 Impulse plays “FIELD” and gets the win event. He is happy and gets the prize. He reads the book and puts the supplies back in the box. He presses reset and tells Pearl the game is impressive and enjoyable. He isn’t used to playing Wordle under pressure and is sweating about it, but in general it was fun and he’s going to cut the footage to make it look like he guessed very quickly.

4:47:00 Pearl says she isn’t going to do signs but people can use whispers or an actual piece of paper to make notes. Impulse gives back the bundle because his game was comped, but Pearl says she’s going to reset the game and open it today or tomorrow so he can play. She says she’s going to rig up a hint barrel for people who get really stuck. She asks if he wants to see behind the curtain.

4:48:20 Pearl gives Impulse the redstone tour. He jokes about how she needs documentation for all this. She tells him she used his sorters for the game. He said he saw her screenshot while he was on his cruise and was proud to see his sorters. She thanks him for helping her test. Chat suggests naming the shop Dye On The Inside. Pearl and Impulse talk about how lack of repeated letters and only five guesses can make things harder. Impulse thinks no repeated letters is not bad, just hard to learn to think about.

4:51:00 Pearl explains that she’s trying to eliminate user error from the system. Impulse agrees it needs to be spam-proofed for Grian. Pearl needs to add a few more rules to the book before the game opens. Impulse says the game is cool and leaves. Pearl is pleased with the test run and knows she needs to install a locker room and hint barrel. Chat remembers that Impulse didn’t take his stuff. Pearl sends him a message.

4:54:10 Impulse sneaks in and grabs his stuff. Pearl explains her next video will be less about the game and more about stocking the actual shop. Before she ends, Pearl wants to do a few last things, but chat wants Skizz to test the game. Pearl sends him a message, asking “Would you like to play a game?” Skizz is always up to play a game. Impulse says he heard that in the Saw voice. Pearl says that was the correct way to hear that. She discusses the possibilty of making the game a death trap. It would be pretty difficult. She sets up a new recording for Skizz’s visit.

4:57:00 Pearl and Chat decide that easier than a death trap would be a chest where if the contestant loses, they need to pay another diamond to get their stuff back. Easier, but diabolical. The reward would have to be very good to justify that. She examines her bundles again and decides which ones to switch out. Chat suggests adding coupons to the bundles, Pearl likes that idea. Skizz doesn’t know where the shop is, so Pearl gives him directions.

4:59:00 Skizz and a creeper arrive at the flower shop at the same time. Pearl warns Skizz off while she deals with the “green cucumber.” She is very impressed with Skizz’s green shutter shades from Mission Possible. Skizz asks if he’ll be playing Wordle. She says yes and asks how good he is at it. He says he doesn’t like to brag, but… She leads him downstairs, introduces him to Dyeductions, and has him read the book.

5:00:30 Skizz looks at the book and is dismayed by nine pages. He reads the book aloud. He loves the “no letters twice” thing. Pearl adds a few editorial comments for things she’s going to change or that he doesn’t get. He accidentally picks up the book, sets it down, and loses track of it. This is because he is losing his connection, because he instantly falls offline.

5:03:00 Pearl hopes that Skizz didn’t fake losing connection so he doesn’t have to play Wordle. She talks to chat about color choices and waits for him to come back, which he does. He says everything crashed. He finishes reading the book and drops his inventory into the barrel. Pearl critiques his crowded inventory. Skizz gathers his supplies and readies for his first guess. He can’t remember what starter word he wants to use. After a moment of thought, he plays “HORSE,” because eliminating an H eliminates all H blends. He gets one letter, not in the right place.

5:08:30 Skizz clears the board and sets up for his next guess. Pearl creates a sign to remind players of which letters are not included in the game. Skizz is nervous! Pearl tells him not to be stressed. She creates a sign to remind players that letters do not appear twice. Skizz plays “CLEAN,” a word that pleases Cleaning Lady Pearl. He gets a letting in the right place and a letter in the wrong place. He clears the board again. He is so impressed by Pearl’s redstone prowess. Pearl tells him she had so much fun making the game.

5:14:00 Skizz tries to figure out his next guess. Pearl is impressed by his deduction attempts. Skizz says not having letters on the textures makes it hard, but Pearl tells him she is still not sure what to do about this. She mentions that all the vowels are flowers. Skizz says I before E except after C and promises he is actually good at this. He says he’s going to edit this to be much faster. He continues muttering to himself and looking at letters while Pearl thinks about Mission Possible.

5:17:20 Skizz decides on a word. It is “FIELD.” He bops all the letters into place. Chat is so excited. He gets the win condition and is very pleased. Impulse, who was stream sniping, yells “woo!” in chat. Skizz explains that when he and Impulse play Wordle, they share their results. A word guessed in two tries is a twofer, a word guessed in three is a woo. Pearl tells Skizz he did it in faster than Impulse with one less try. He demurs, saying he may have done one less try, but he doubts he did it faster. ((He did it much faster, in about half the time it took Impulse.)) He asks to take a peep at the redstone using freecam. He asks Pearl how she is both an amazing builder and an amazing redstoner and accuses her of hogging all the cool. Pearl says she’s not really a redstoner, but Skizz scoffs at that. He tells her not only did he have fun with the game, he was very impressed.

5:20:10 Skizz puts away the supplies and resets the game. He looks at his bundle, the orange and red dyes. She tells him he can keep it and tells him about her plan for new bundle rewards. Hoffen is doing the bundle texture. Skizz tells her he has an enormous amount of pink dye if she needs it. Pearl gets most of her dyes from Keralis, but she won’t say no to dyes. She tells him the shop will be open in a week or two, but the game is opening very soon, with one word per week. Chat is still busy loving on Pearl after Skizz’s compliments.

5:23:00 Skizz thinks Pearl could charge more than a diamond for the play or the hint, because the bundles are so nice. He promises to play again as soon as the word resets, then leaves. Pearl heads downstairs and realizes she forgot to ensnare Skizz in her Mission Possible task. She says she thought about doing it before he finished the Wordle, but he was very dialed in. She still has plenty of time. She has not told Chat what the task is. She wants to come up with a better sto- a better thing anyway. Chat asks if it’s in her video and she remembers yes, she did put it in the video. She’s still not going to give it away in case of lurking Hermits, but she’s going to get something better put together before she completes the mission.

5:26:00 Pearl says the worst problem so far is hermits not noticing the droppers. She thinks about ways to fix it. Chat suggests adding a sign with the date that the game was last updated. Pearl agrees, and talks again about the leaderboard and locker room. Otherwise, the game is done!

5:28:00 Pearl says it’s time to end the stream. She asks what it is about redstone that makes these 5+ hour streams. She must be having fun if she lets it run so long! She could actually keep streaming, but she has stuff to do in the gaming district. This week is birthday week, so she has family stuff to do, plus she uploaded late and has less time to make her next video. She wants to get back to her Friday release schedule. She needs to figure out what will be in her next video before she makes it, too. Her birthday and Kahn’s birthday are both this week, but she will not take a week off. Taking a week off is so bad for the YouTube algorithm. Right now she is very happy with everything she’s doing on the server and has been having a lot of fun. She tells chat she’s streaming again tomorrow

5:31:50 Pearl realizes she has not read out her notifications for three hours. She is embarrassed and blames redstone streaming. She wails a bit, then starts thanking her subs and donos. Pearl and the chat have a mutual-appreciation party for a little while. Pearl thinks Chat is wonderful, and that things are better now than in older streams, with less backseating and more support. She liked streaming back then but even more now. There are fewer trolls (she thinks this may be because she gave up facecam) and more peaceful building. She likes how Chat offers good suggestions in kind ways. Chat is loving this and feeding compliments right back to Pearl. Pearl says she feels good after every stream these days. Some people in the community give fair critique but in painful ways that makes people feel bad instead of making them better, and that has happened with other creators she knows recently, but her chat is excellent. Pearl also says she understands a fraction of what Tango felt when he finished Decked Out.

5:44:40 Ollie Orionsound appears in chat and asks about the game, so Pearl gives him the very short tour of how the redstone works for the game itself. Ollie thinks it is “so cool.” After the tour, Pearl says she needs to end stream now. No Hermits are streaming Minecraft so she raids into Jono, who is mixing the Poe Poe song, and ends her stream.

[fereldanwench]

i'm still holding off final judgement until the gameplay today, but seeing some stills on twitter kind of helped me solidify what i found so off-putting about the style in the companion trailer

although before i post those, a few counter arguments because i'm already tired of ppl bashing the ppl who aren't vibing with it, and my head is clear enough to put these thoughts down:

"cinematic trailers rarely look like the actual game" - true to a point. however: 1) typically cinematic trailers strive to look like a higher definition version of the game, which seems to be the opposite here. in the case of DAO and DA2, i would say the cinematic trailers actually strived for more realism, not stylization, as that was the trend at the time. 2) this is a cinematic trailer, but it is also done in the game engine so it's not unreasonable to assume that the end product is gonna look somewhat similar 3) this was supposed to be their best foot forward so suddenly going "don't worry, it's gonna look better in-game" is just a bad marketing move. it's not on the audience to give this company the benefit of the doubt (particularly in light of all the shit that has gone down there in the past decade)

"not everything has to be super realistic!" - agreed! not liking elements of this particular style doesn't mean i'm opposed to stylization in DA at all. i think DA2 is much more stylized than DAO, and not only does it look nicer, it looks more distinctly dragon age. DAO visually is also very generic, especially for its time. i still love the almost painterly look of DA2, even all these years later

and i think DAI has issues with the character models, especially the uncanny valley disconnect between the really stiff animations and realistic faces (having played it within the past year, they've aged pretty roughly), but in terms of environment and armor and whatnot, it did build off the style presented in DA2 in a way that effectively modernized it for that era. it did go for a more realistic look, but it was cohesive and still distinctly dragon age

"people reacted like this to DA2 and DAI's trailers too" - no, they did not, lmao. DA2's trailers were the reverse--they looked more realistic than the actual game. now there was some backlash against the stylistic choice in the actual game. i remember david gaider talking about it in a panel at dragon con in 2012--apparently ppl were upset that the companions looked like they were made with cosplayers in mind, which i thought was an interesting criticism. but no, the trailers did not get this sort of response.

and DAI's trailers used a lot of in-game footage, and the cinematic ones were both pretty accurate to the game and well-received by the audience. DAI's marketing was also absolutely bonkers and nonstop for like 9 months before the game was released, which in hindsight i think was way too much, but in terms of visuals, we knew exactly what we were getting.

"you guys just think anything with a style to it looks like fortnite" - lmao, okay, yeah, describing it as fornite is probably unfair and inaccurate, but i know for me, i kind of use it as a shorthand to reflect my general dissatisfaction with the way so many 3D styles (in both games and movies) just have this bland, cartoonish look to them. the pixar-ification of everything. i just don't like it.

and the logo with the bright purple and overly smooth text doesn't really help here either. i think a less saturated and darker purple paired with a grungier font would also help in making this feel like less like fornite season 3458345: dragon age avengers.

plus it was originally gonna be a live service game and i think that it still has some of that dna artistically

SO ANYWAY

these stills, which i think are also in-game engine but im not entirely sure if they're from cinematics, gameplay, or just renders but they seem to be in-line with the trailer:

and seeing emmrich and to a lesser extent neve in these pics solidified why the stylization didn't work for me on a visual level (never mind it being paired with the light-hearted planning-for-a-silly-little-heist vibes)

so when i first saw the trailer, and i saw varric, i was like "nice"

he looked like a higher definition, older version of a DA2/DAI hybrid of his model. he looked really good. i thought harding looked good, too. it did take me a minute to realize who she was, but it really wouldn't be a DA trailer if we weren't left wondering who tf a returning character was lmao (remember the confusion over alistair's appearance in one of the DAI trailers? this is actually tradition now)

but as the trailer goes on, the style doesn't even stay consistent--it just gets progressively more cartoonish right up to emmrich, which is the exact moment that made me go WHAT

he looks like a cartoon character. the hard lines in his face, the stiffness of his hair, his overall proportions--he looks like he should be a villain in a pixar movie. like i'm digging his overall vibe and as a concept of a character design, i love it. but this execution of it next to fellow old wrinkled man varric looks so off

and then we go right into davrin who is beautifully rendered and designed--he doesn't look out of place next to varric or harding

some characters have the soft, wispy hair while others have hair that looks like a hard shell with lines carve into it. some characters have finely detailed wrinkles while others have thick, cartoonish ones. some characters have realistic proportions while others have more exaggerated features.

stylization is only effective when it's purposeful and consistent, and from what i've seen so far, it's not. it's all over the place.

so there's my thesis about why i dont like the art direction in the trailer lmao

and like i've been saying since it dropped, i am reserving full judgment for the gameplay reveal, but based on the other stuff bioware has teased, i'm not expecting this aspect to change too much. i've seen other ppl who were on the fan council thing say the tone in the game is more in-line with the tone in the other games, so maybe that'll help smooth out this disconnect

[nalyra-dreaming]

Thank you for your consistently detailed analysis and speculation which have frequently calmed me down when I was concerned about the direction of the show. As long time VC fan, I'm not gonna lie, this show has often left me heartbroken- and not in a good way. I've been trying to get through it in hopes when we will finally get to see the real Lestat. But honestly, for me, if the drop is left in, than the character is done. There is no way to redeem him. And it just hurts because not only is it something that Lestat would never do to Louis, but it's something that was actually done to *him*. He suffered for years from that fall and it was one of the main reasons he went in the ground. It's important for his character development. I just don't understand the justification for leaving it as is especially since it isn't canon. I don't think I can take another 2+ years of Lestat being called an evil domestic abuser. How can audiences be expected to root for him. They won't. He will be condemned as the monster who dropped his partner from the stratosphere. Leaving it also ruins the L+L QotD flight. I just don't see the point in irrevocably damaging the main protagonist of the entire story. I'm heartbroken and furious. Please, help me understand.

*sighs* (Sending you a big hug.)

So. Emotions seem to be very high on this already, and it hasn't even aired yet. I'm just pointing that out because... what we have right now is hearsay - maybe directly, maybe over a few people in the middle... but ultimately we haven't watched it yet, right? Other people have. Other people, with their own understanding, and their own takes.

And yes, it was done to him. Exactly. And as just said in another ask, he has not told his side of the story yet. The trial, so also that part of it... will definitely be scripted. And we already know that what we were shown... cannot be trusted. Not a 100%.

Let's watch first and then judge, please.

Because so far this show has excelled at elevating the source material.

Which is not to say that they cannot make mistakes, obviously. And who knows, maybe I'll be disappointed AF after. We'll see.

But... there's a reason why they revisit all that. There's a reason. And, given that we're segueing into s3... and therefore Lestat's story?

I don't know how they re-contextualize it. I don't. But I think we need to see the bigger picture - and that won't be done by s2. (And I have a feeling like it might not even be done by s3...)

IF they follow the book IWTV here... then Lestat will testify against Louis and Claudia at the trial, seemingly out of revenge (but actually under duress), he will witness her burn, he will have the yellow dress. Louis and Armand will break up. Lestat and Louis will meet in the later contested NOLA meeting. Louis will end up alone at the end of the novel.

I don't know how the revisit fits with the trial. You probably know my feelings wrt the diary and the pages etc but it seems they are not used as heavily as anticipated.

IDK. Given the in-universe publication of the book IWTV I think they will follow the beats above - and episode 5, and the drop, are likely part of the accusation then.

Now, we know that it will be revealed later that this was done with manipulation and torture. That it was Lestat who was thrown off the tower later, and who needed decades to heal. Which fits with the "mind call" in 2x05, doesn't it.

IDK. I just want to point out that even if... EVEN IF THAT DROP STAYS FOR NOW - there is a lot more to it and they have already hinted at that.

So.

Yes, I can very well do without another 2 years of shit-show by some people, especially those unwilling to take the step back for the bigger picture. But ... I have become much, much better at blocking.

And I am not going to let them take away my joy. Especially... ESPECIALLY that we know - WE KNOW - that TVL is up in s3. They already confirmed that.

Don't let an unfinished puzzle or some asshats take your joy either, dear.

[thesilliestofgals]

A Legacy of Brambles and Thorns Abridged Analysis: Elizabeth "Lizzie" Hearts

If you haven't read A Legacy of Brambles and Thorns by @c-rose2081, I highly suggest you do, as it is one of my favorite Ever After High rewrites! I would also suggest you do it before diving into my analysis, as it will contain spoilers for what has happened thus far in the story. (also, this very likely won't be proofread, so if you see any spelling or grammatical errors, no you don't.)

Lizzie Hearts is a fascinating character in this version of Ever After High. We don't know much about her other than a few details here and there from other characters when she first makes an appearance- saving Briar from being poisoned by an assassin. By doing this, Briar now owes Lizzie a boon of sorts, but interestingly, Lizzie makes it so Briar has a favor from her:

"...The wonderlandian girl stepped forward, standing on her toes to place a kiss right on Briar’s cheekbone. Startled, she reeled back in confusion, but the future Red Queen took her face in one hand, sharp nails ghosting against her skin. Lizzie continued to stare for a while before something crossed her face and she visibly relaxed. Humming a bit in her throat (the first sound Briar had heard from her) she stepped back, walking off without a word. 

“Ooh, Lizzie likes you,” Maddie chirped. “You’re a lucky duck!” 

No one gave an explanation as the three Wonderlandians made their exit, heading back down the hall and around the corner towards the Castleteria. Briar stared in their wake, lifting a hand to feel the smudge of red lipstick left on her face. “Darling, I think I’m hallucinating.” 

“Not hallucinating,” the knight confirmed with a faint laugh. “You just received a token from the future Red Queen. Consider that a great honor.”" (Act 1, Chapter 11)

The audience soon discovers what exactly the favor Lizzie will call upon for Briar to fulfill: to return with her to Wonderland and be her champion, which is confirmed by a prophecy:

"A champion of white bears the scales and a champion of red bears the sword." (Act 1, Chapter 14)

Here's some interesting... Lizzie made it clear at the end of Act 1 that she does not like Snow trying to control the people with destiny:

"“But I will not go empty handed. The Ever Queen is a traitor, playing favorites to the White Court when she’s already promised to be unbiased. The treaty between Wonderland and Ever After is broken, and I cannot leave here with nothing. My people are in grave danger, threatened by the ivory regime. Destiny is not meant to be used as a guise for power, it is meant to be unique and ever changing, if not sometimes unfair. I will not allow my people to be bound to something falsified...”" (Act 1, Chapter 29)

This, followed by her actions in the rest of the chapter, confirmed something to me about the new Queen of the Red Court.

Elizabeth "Lizzie" Hearts is a hypocrite.

This was even confirmed by the author herself when yours truly sent in an ask expressing this!

"...(So yes, she is totally a hypocrite. If not a different flavor than Snow and with slightly different intentions)"

For further context, as I know I cannot just call Lizzie a hypocrite before moving on: After the death of her mother, Lizzie's soldiers invade Ever After High. At some point, Lizzie kidnaps Briar, manipulates her into agreeing to being her champion, and then drugs her into a forced sleep.

(WARNING: this is where it gets a little incoherent, so be warned lol)

Here was my initial thought: Lizzie says she doesn't like Snow controlling people via destiny, and then, in the same chapter, lies to Briar in order to get her to fulfill the prophecy. Now doesn't that sound familiar?

(Another little tidbit: you could argue that all the things Lizzie has done for Briar since they met was a tactic to get Briar to trust her, so she'd be more willing to agree to be her champion. Just, y'know, something to think about, too.)

But here's where it gets complicated: Lizzie is doing this for the Greater Good, in order to keep her kingdom, and by extension, her people, safe. While this doesn't excuse her actions, it does separate her from Snow White's reasonings for using destiny with the people of Ever After- control.

Something else that also piqued my curiosity is how in the story, Lizzie Hearts/Briar Beauty is tagged, and in Chapter 14, Lizzie mentions this:

"“She has ferocity and courage in her eyes,” Lizzie admitted, counting her cards as they laid before her. “But something else too, which is nay impossible to explain or describe. I wonder if it is the same feeling mother had upon finding my father as her champion.”"

She also calls Briar "my love" a few times at the end of Act 1.... hmmmmm...

It's all just so... fascinating to me. I have a feeling sometime in Act 2, Briar will call out Lizzie (I'd be surprised if she didn't), and maybe that'll be a little plot point, or maybe it won't, who knows!

This was just me word vomiting onto a tumblr post, but I really enjoyed doing it, so maybe I'll do it in the future with another eah fanfic character :)

[riptides-n-roses]

dirty secret - seth rollins (18+)

⛧ pair - seth rollins (architect era) x reader

⛧ warnings: unprotected p in v, biting, hickeys, trying not to get caught, cre@mpie, consensual sex, little hint of fluff, hate sex. (Honestly idk if this contains angst but i'll go ahead and add this as a warning)

⛧ he's an absolute cutie and i feel that he should have some smut written about him too; i will say right now that this is taken place around 2015 authority era. so imagine rollins in his architect character with the championship. :)

⛧ after seth rollins costed you a win for the championship, you've started to hate his guts and he hated yours too. but what if the two of you were hiding something...

⛧word count: 1.7K

Backstory:

You were one of the top babyfaces of WWE and heavily adored by the audience. The way you competed against female superstars always caught their attention. You were insanely talented with your move-sets and your finisher (which was a double arm grab curb stomp.) However, The Authority took notice of this, including the WWE world-heavyweight champion, Seth Rollins.

One night, you had a match against Nikki Bella for the Divas Championship. As soon as you were about to hit your iconic finisher, Rollins came out to the ring, leaving you confused and distracted, not realizing that Nikki was rolled under the ring, and her twin sister, Brie Bella, disguised as her. You shrugged and went back to your match. However, Brie quickly rolled you over for the cover.

1...

2...

3...

It was over. Nikki Bella is still the Divas Champion. After Nikki and Brie leave the ring to celebrate her victory, you sat in the ring with disbelief. But also, pure anger. You turned your attention to Rollins who was still watching you from the titantron, with a shit-eating grin on his face, proud that he prevented you from reaching a milestone you worked hard for. The audience roared with excitement as you quickly left the ring and made your way to Rollins, delivering a slap across the face. He was stunned as you left the arena.

Backstage, you were stopped by the Authority to ask you something.

“Y/N, we’ve been taking notice of you and your moves and we’ve got to say. You are talented.” Stephanie spoke, looking you up and down with a smile.

“Um…Thanks?” Your tone was full of confusion. “But, No Offense at all, why are you speaking to me about that?”

“Well Y/N…” Triple H chimed “You see, The Authority always does what’s best for business. And we’ve agreed that the newest member…should be you.”

Your eyes widened. You? A member of The Authority? You wouldn’t. You couldn’t. You’re already a loveable superstar with the audience. Why change that now for absolute power?

“I…I don’t know. I’m already happy with where I am. The WWE Universe seems to agree too. I wouldn’t give that away with all due respect. Besides, I refuse to be in the same group as Seth Rollins who’s literally ruined my opportunity tonight to be a champion.” You wanted to puke mentioning that name.

“We understand your frustration.” Stephanie replied. “But, it wasn’t our decision for him to prevent that. That’s why we’re here to bring an offer.”

“And what would that be?”

“You. In The Authority. If you join us, you can have any opportunity you could ask for. We’ll even get you your deserved rematch for the Divas Championship with any qualifications that you desire. All it takes is for you to do what’s Best. For. Business.”

Stephanie’s words seemed to give you some interest, your thoughts hypnotized with visions of you under the faction. You raised your eyebrows with excitement but also anxiety. Were you willing to give away everything you achieved just because you’ve always dreamed to be champion? Were you going to fall trap to their words? Were you…going to turn heel?

Before you could speak, an angry Seth Rollins storms in to where you and the Authority were, demanding an answer from you.

“What the actual hell, Y/N?” he yelled. “Do you not understand who you’re dealing with? I’m Seth freakin’ Rollins!”

“AND?! You think I care?” you screamed back at him. “You cost me the match I’ve busted my ass for. And for what? That should’ve been ME with the championship! And I would’ve been champion right now if it wasn’t for you ruining it you son of a bitch!”

Your words echoed all through backstage, the audience cheering, chanting your name around the arena. The Authority were shocked with your recent change in behavior. You’ve never spoken like that before and it shocked many. You and Rollins began to stare each other down, both of you delivering cold stares to each other’s faces. You shook with absolute anger while staring him down. You hated him. He hated you. But the WWE Universe seemed to grab an interest with this heated moment between you two, hoping an intergender match would come to be to settle your new feud with the heavyweight champion.

.•°☆.⋆｡⋆☆•˚｡⋆｡˚•☆˚｡⋆.☆•°.⋆

Present:

Another episode of Monday Night Raw had arrived. Tonight, you had a match with Paige to gain momentum to have your rematch with Nikki Bella for the Divas Championship. Seth Rollins, on the other hand, had a match with Randy Orton, after he betrayed him last week during a handicap match with Roman Reigns. The question was…where were you? And where was Seth Rollins? No one knew your whereabouts neither his. Anytime there was a text or call, neither of you answered. When Monday Night Raw started, Stephanie came out to make an address to the WWE Universe.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Monday Night Raw! Tonight, there’s going to be matches with superstars you all love and new opportunities to be brought to the table. But, there is a huge problem. Y/N and your WWE World-heavyweight champion, Seth Rollins- “the WWE Universe booed to his name, making Stephanie laugh a bit. “They’re not here! We’ve been trying to get in contact with the two superstars and nothing has been done now. However, that doesn’t mean any changes. The Authority is confident that Rollins and Y/N WILL be here tonight. We’ll do everything we can to have them perform. With that said, ENJOY THE SHOW!”

The WWE Universe, including the staff and locker rooms, were confused as to why you and Seth were missing. You never missed any day away from Raw before. So why tonight?

The truth was you and Rollins were at the arena. However, what no one knew was that you and Seth were in his locker room, leaving hot breathy kisses all over each other as you bounced on his hard cock.

“F-fuck Seth…” you moaned, your breasts jiggling with each thrust. Seth had a tight grip on your ass while the other hand was around your hip. His groans making you even wetter.

“Good girl. Take every inch of my cock like the slut you are.” He muttered, his grip on your ass getting tighter, white knuckles forming. He was enjoying how you took his length, his tip always hitting your spot with each thrust.

“Y-you know…The Authority’s not going to like this.” You whined, not wanting him to stop fucking you like this. His thrusts were deep and slow, making sure your walls will remember his shape.

“Oh, shut up. They’re not going to do anything. Besides, this will be our little dirty secret.” He replied, his face going up to one of your breasts, roughly sucking on some skin. You gasped from how he sunk his teeth into your flesh, leaving bite marks and hickeys all over your breasts – you were lucky to have ring gear that didn’t show your breasts or cleavage.

“Fuck, baby…” He groaned “Why haven’t we been doing this before?” His hands now grab your ass as he thrusts a little faster. You threw your head back, covering your screams with one hand so neither of you would get caught.

“You…You know I still hate your guts, right?” you giggled, making Rollins deliver a hard slap across your ass, earning a whine from your lips.

“I hate you too…but why do I love this so damn much?” He asked with breathy moans, “You’re still a little brat. Don’t forget that.”

“I could care less…fuck right there…You’re still an asshole”

“I know, sweetheart. Now be quiet and take this dick like a good little bitch.”

As much as you both hated to admit it, you both drove each other crazy, sexually and in a weird sort of way romantically too. But that would’ve been way too soon. Besides what would the WWE Universe think if they found out about your hidden relationship? Seth Rollins, a total heel who’s also a huge asshole. You, an adored babyface who deserves to be champion. You two could never let them find out. Not now and not anytime soon.

You lost your thought when you felt another slap on your ass from Seth, his thrusts getting sloppy. You knew he was going to cum. You hope he came inside of you, to remind you about your secret. Only he could fuck you this good and make you never want to stop things with him. You’d do crazy shit for him if you wanted to.

“Baby…I’m getting close. I’m going to cum in you.” He growled as his thrusts get faster, earning high pitched moans from your lips. He fucks you way too good.

“M-Me too…” You were shaking, desperately to cum your stomach tightening for release.

“I know baby…Remember we got to be quiet. We don’t want no one finding this out do we?”

You shut him up by pressing your lips against his – muffled moans as he came in your pussy, you following him, his arms holding your hips down tightly as he rode out his orgasm. His warm cum leaking out of you made you beg for more. You stayed on top of him, his cock still inside of your cunt as you looked into his eyes, he gave you that same cocky smile like he did that night.

“Fuck, baby…You drained me like that. I don’t know if I’ll have enough energy for my match tonight.” He laughed, leaving another slap on your ass cheek. You giggled as you wiggled your ass, your cunt throbbing from how sensitive you were.

“Same here…How are we supposed to tell everyone where we were?” You asked, your breaths were hoarse.

“We don’t. And this stays between us. Understood?”

“Whatever you say, asshat.”

You and Seth looked into each other’s eyes, with a stare down, heavy breathing coming from the both of you. As you laid your head in the crook of his neck, he played with some strands of your hair, admiring you.

“You know…I been meaning to ask you. Are you still mad at me for costing you a title match?” he mocked.

“Hmm…maybe.” You chuckled, surprised that he recognized that he was wrong for that.

“How about…I take you out for dinner and eat your cunt as an apology?” he offered “Besides, we need to get ready for our matches.”

“Hm…Sounds like a plan” You replied.

You raised your head and smiled at him before giving him another kiss

“Even though we’re supposed to hate each other, I actually like you.”

[rafesfuckdoll]

The Side Chick

Rafe Cameron x fem reader

Note: This is my first ever written fic, I promise I’ll improve. Besides it’s 3am so my brain is exhausted and so are my fingers (ifyk)

You and Rafe have been hooking up for ages now, you knew you had feelings for him but two things held you back. You being a Pogue and maybe.. something else..?

Warnings!! This my first ever short fiction!!Unprotected sex! Daddy Kink! Not proofread (sorry in advance)! Public sex! (No audience). Cheating (not on reader)!!

———————————————————————————

Rafe arrives at the Boneyard and immediately sees you with the Pogues. He scoffs at the thought of even being surrounded by them but despite his hate for them, little did anyone know that you and him have had a summer fling for a while now. He couldn’t help but get hard just by the thought of what you guys did last night. He keeps his eyes locked to yours with a small smirk formed on his lips; hinting you to come over to him. He knew it was a risk, especially with your friends and his friends being around. But he couldn’t care any less. You catch him trying to adjust his buldge from outside his pants. Which made you immediately excuse yourself from your friends, walking past him towards the parking lot. Expecting Rafe to follow you.

He watches you leave. His cock throbbing with every step you take. He glances around the Boneyard, making sure none of his friends have notice his distraction. Satisfied, he quickly follows you out of the parking lot where he spots you leaning against his car.

You smile at him. “Well if it isn’t my favourite Kook” You said in a teasing tone. He grins at your words as he approaches you, your flirtatious and playful words causing his dick to throb even harder. “Well if isnt my favourite little Pogue” He responds, wrapping an arm around your waist, drawing you close to him. You look up into his eyes, the height difference making him look down at you. “Hm.. missed me?” You speak up quietly in an innocent tone. His eyes full with desires as he gazes at you, his hold on your waist becoming firmer. “More than you know” He growls, before leaning in to kiss you passionately. “I’ve been thinking about this all day” He mumbles against your lips. You obviously kiss him back immediately with no regret but gently pull away after a few seconds. “No way, The Rafe Cameron is thinking about a Pogue all day?” You playfully tease. Rafe and you knew that this Pogue and Kook thing was taking a toll on both of you.

Rafe chuckles, nipping at your bottom lip playfully. “Not just any Pogue” He says, pressing his hips into yours, making you feel his hardness. “I’ve been thinking about this tight little body of yours all day baby.” You let out a chuckle giving his lips a gentle peck. “How bad do you want me babe?” You ask. His cock throbbing at your words again, his control slipping as he becomes more and more consumed by desire for you. “Badly enough to bend you over this car and fuck you right now.” He growls, his hand moving down to squeeze your ass firmly. “Fuck me then” Was all you whispered. He didn’t need any more encouragement.

He quickly lifts you up and sets you down on the hood of his car, spreading tour legs apart making your mini skirt lift up to your hips. “Fuck.. you’re so wet for me already” he whispered, sliding a finger up and down outside your panties. Although he enjoyed teasing you, this time he couldnt wait any longer. He pushes your panties aside and roughly inserts a finger inside you. “Mmhm just for you daddy” you moan out, glancing around to make sure no one was watching, but Rafe couldn’t care less if there was an audience watching you guys right now. His need for you grows stronger and stronger. “I love hearing you call me that, baby” he says, leaning down to kiss you deeplt as he adds another finger inside of you. “You’re so tight and wet for me, fuck..” Rafe continues to finger you, this time adding a third one, his mouth moving to suck on your neck as he listens to the sweet sound of your moans. “You like that don’t you baby?” He whispers, sliding his fingers in and out of you at a faster pace, making tou moan against the frook of his neck trying not to be loud. He groans, deeling just how wet and reasy you are for him. “Im going to fuck you so hard baby” he whispers against your jaw, pulling his fingers out and bringing them up to his mouth to suck them clean.you watch him suck on his fingers and bite your lip at how attractive he looks in the fact that you were in public. “Fuck me please daddy mm.”

Rafe grins and pulls his finger out of his mouth with a pop and smirks at you. “Dont worry baby. I plan on fucking you so hard you won’t walk anymore for a few days”. He then spread your legs further, lowered his pants and boxers revealinf his hard cock. With a few strokes only, he started groaning already. Grabbing your hips, bringing you closer as you leaned against the car. He looks down at you with a grin and swiftly enteres himself into you, causing your legs to twitch from the sudden movement. He groans as he starts moving his hips, gripping onto your hips as he starts going faster. “Fuck you’re so tight baby. You like getting fucked in public, huh?” He groans as his nails dig into your skin. “Yes- yes daddy” you whine out of pleasure as you lean your head back letting out moan after moan.

Rafe’s thrusting becomes rougher as he listens to tour moans, his need for you taking over completely. “You’re going to make me come so hard, baby” he pants out, fucking you deeper and harder as he feels his orgasm bulding uo inside of him. You bite your lower lip trting to suppress your moans. “Cum for me daddy” you beg nearing your own climax as well. He loved seeing you come for him first. It turned him on even more. Rafe grunts at your words, his thrusting becoming errotic as he feels his orgasm getting closer and closer. “Cum for me baby. Let me feel you cum all over my cock” he demands. It didn’t take half a minute until your legs start shaking and you come all over him.

He continues fucking you, can’t help but groan and huff at the feeling of your juices and squirting out ,coating his cock making his orgasm hit him hard. “Fuckk!” He shouts almost as he comes inside you. His cock twitching from the pleasure, his T-Shirt a little soaked from all the sweating. “You’re so hot..” You whisper as you try to catch a breath. Those words made him chuckle at you. “You’re not so bad yourself baby” he says, before pulling his cock out of you, helping you straighten up before pulling his own boxers and pants back into place.

You gently grasp his arm and bring him close to you. You knew Rafe didn’t want anyone to know about this. It was quite obvious. He was embarrassed about even being around a Pogue, even more.. fucking one. But he couldn’t get enough of you. His eyes widen slightly as you pull him closer, but he doesn’t resist. He wraps his arms around you and leans in to press a short, cute kiss to your lips before pulling back slightly. “Y/n.. don’t start this again.. you know nobody can know this,. especially after I started dating.. you know..” You knew. Sofia.

[somedayillbepeterpan]

There’s a part of me that wishes Netflix/Shondaland did 10 eps for Bridgerton S3 because essentially there are 4 love stories running side by side this season and my heart is overflowing with the emotions of it all.

- Colin and Penelope

- John and Francesca

- Violet and Marcus (maybe??)

- Penolope and Eloise

The angst coming from 2 directions— Colin and Eloise— with Penelope in between is giving me so much anxiety. Having read the book doesn’t help at all to put my anxiety to rest since they have changed Pen and Eloise’s relationship so much. I guess they purposely changed their dynamics so it’s easier to justify Pen spending more time with Colin and push Eloise to find solace in Philip’s arms.

I don’t know. I just feel like they didn’t need to pit any more women against each other in order to get the angst for S3 because the Whistledown reveal itself is already a heavy burden on the audience.

I guess I just have to prepare myself in crying buckets and buckets of tears at the end of this journey. And brace myself in waiting a few more years for all of this to be resolved.

[avelera]

So now that I'm caught up on Interview with the Vampire (as of ep 2.5) I want to say a few words about the appearance of Raglan James, aka the antagonist in "The Tale of the Body Thief".

First, and on the most basic level, I lost my fucking mind when he showed up. Body Thief is perhaps a controversial installment of the Vampire Chronicles but it's actually one of my favorites (and I could write essays on why).

Once I was done screaming in delight at his appearance, I went looking to see the reaction of other book fans and here I must admit I am puzzled.

Many book fans here seem to think that Raglan James isn't what he appears. That he's Marius, or David Talbot, or Aaron Lightner, or some other book character in disguise.

I vehemently disagree with this both for Watsonian (in-universe) and Doylist (out-of-universe, practical) reasons.

Raglan James is Raglan James, the Body Thief, and I'm going to reiterate this a few times in explaining why I hold this view.

Now, to get into why I think the show is just giving us pre-canon Raglan James right now, and not already playing with his body jumping abilities by having him be someone like Marius:

When introducing a character who is effectively a shapeshifter, in this case the Body Thief himself, Raglan James, you actually do need to show him in his "normal" state first because not everyone in the audience is familiar with his ability because of the books. You have to introduce and build up this ability gradually because it's a very confusing ability for a visual medium to have a different actor playing the same character (and if you don't believe me, go check out some other famous shapeshifter characters like Mystique or The Doctor and see how carefully the narrative introduces and builds up how their power works, almost always starting by showing them in a normal "original" state as a baseline).

Showing him for the first time in another guise would only create confusion. We need to know who he is on his own before we can begin to play with the narrative. At most, I think his current form might be the body of his first "jump" into the body of his fellow inmate, but even then, I think that's something you save for later, when you introduce the ability he has. I really think we're actually seeing early or pre-canon, real Raglan (the one who had cancer) right now in his first original body. Honestly, I wouldn't even be surprised if Raglan doesn't have the ability yet and is building up towards achieving it. I think right now, he's just a normal, scummy, kleptomaniac Talamasca member.

Is "Raglan" his real name? Perhaps not, the man is an infamous con artist. But I took Daniel's skepticism to be more in line with "You made up a silly sounding name because you're a drama queen and great believer in your own legend. Your real name is probably something normal like "Bob', Raglan," rather than an invitation by the audience to assume that Raglan is, for example, Marius or another vampire in disguise.

My sense is that we're setting up Raglan to be the post-Queen of the Damned antagonist, just like he was in the books. But in order to introduce him to best effect then, instead of a totally confusing appearance out of left field (like he is in the book, tbh), it's actually very clever to introduce him now, early on, as a Talamasca member (or recently kicked out of it) before introducing him as the Body Thief. They're making him a normal, known member of the cast before they toss him out there as one of the most bizarre antagonists of the entire book series.

Personally, I think that Raglan is being introduced now as our first introduction to the Talamasca. The Talamasca is a very questionable organization on many levels, we are often meant to distrust them or view them with the same distrust as the supernatural creatures do who encounter them, despite the fact they're actually mostly benevolent in the books so the suspicion supernatural characters view with them often feels a bit excessive. So it makes sense that our first introduction to it is with a somewhat shady character, in order to justify the book levels of suspicion vampires and witches feel towards the Talamasca, because the first one of their members we meet is a con artist and a villain, even if later ones are mostly good guys.

Basically, I think instead of just introducing Raglan out of the blue after he's jumped bodies a couple times. Instead, we're going "back in time" so to speak, showing the prologue of his backstory and intertwining it with the main story so it's not so shocking when he shows up later as an antagonist.

For my money, Raglan hasn't been kicked out of the Talamasca yet or he has very recently been kicked out and is now hunting down Daniel on his own in order to get closer to his real targets, powerful vampires like Lestat or Armand. He's going to be a regular for a bit, a shadowy figure at the edges, perhaps drop away for a bit during the events of Queen of the Damned, and then come back as the main antagonist, with all the familiarity we have with him, after those events as the new antagonist.

And as for Marius... along similar lines of, "you have to show how something works before you break it / you have to show who a character is before you disguise them with a shapeshifter's abilities" IMO, when we see Marius, we're going to see Marius. We're going to see Armand's master in his original form. We're probably going to see him the way we first do in Queen of the Damned, busy tending the shrine of Those Who Must Be Kept.

I don't, for my money, think we're going to deviate so much that Marius is going to show up (except in flashbacks) just because the characters are talking about him.

The whole point of Lestat becoming a rock star, the whole justification for it in Queen of the Damned and the Vampire Lestat was to draw out all the vampires in his life, vampires he's missed like Louis and Armand and Marius. The whole point was to bring them to him.

Having Marius just randomly pick up that Louis and Armand are talking about him and then show up smacks of television coincidence. But the show's narrative is too carefully crafted for that.

So, in my opinion, Marius will be held in reserve. We will only see him in flashbacks at first, probably not until Season 3 so they can cast his actor for the whole season (nice thing about Raglan James, since he is a shapeshifter/body thief you can always recast him later once his plotline kicks off). Marius will emerge for the same reasons he did in the books, because that lends weight to Lestat's otherwise batshit insane plan to become a rockstar, because it might be crazy but it works.

Marius has no need to appear in the body of a human before that. It makes no sense from a television angle (where it only causes confusion) or from a story angle, because he'd have no reason to show up in Armand's life now when he hasn't done so before except that we've first learned about him in the show.

Obviously I could be completely wrong! It would be amusing to eat my words and it has admittedly been a very long time since I read all the books (though I read them over and over back when I did). But these are my lengthy two cents on the matter.

[solarballs-confessions]

The show's never had any gay characters and I legitimately never think they will. Don't get me wrong, a show doesn't NEED lgbtq rep to be good. But I'm a little worried they're avoiding it for the wrong reasons.

If characters in a show don't naturally fall in love, it feels rushed or forced. A lot of people feel this way about Titan and Titania- We don't know if this'll become a true canon ship or anything yet, because Titan does seem to be a little more distant from Titania's affections, but alas, it is Titania's affections which are the problem. Some think its shoehorned in, and I can't really blame them. The blushing was obnoxious, and Titania didn't spend too much time on-screen with Titan, and Titania never got the development AWAY from Titan to BE a proper character, really. It feels like shipping the main character with a side character who hasn't had their own story fleshed out yet.

So, if love isn't natural, it's hard to lapse into it. I don't want this to happen for any ships on the show, let alone a gay one lol. But I think the whole Titan x Titania thing kind of presents my issue, that they might be falling down the road of forcing ships just because one character is a girl and the other is a boy. If i haven't made that clear, that's bad and I don't want that.

Relationships between characters are hard to handle, and admittedly Solarballs has done a very good job so far! Pluto and Charon were handled wonderfully and I do get the appeal of other hinted ships like Calisto and Triton. Genuinely, they CAN handle ships well. One day I would LIKE to see a gay ship in Solarballs handled with the same grace. But that kind of rises the problem of community shipping discourse. No main character in Solaballs will be revealed to be queer. I'm just saying, the likelihood of that is like. 0%. And it's not because Solarballs is homophobic or anything,, rather its a conflict of interests.

Make your main character gay and anger the fandom who had their own headcanons, ORRRR keep everyone ambiguous! Shipping culture is HUGE especially in Solarballs. The people who make Solarballs KNOW their community, at least a little, and they do listen to our feedback. So, why upset the fandom by taking away one of the Main Characters they PROBABLY have headcanons for already.... and instead just, keep it on the low? Oh also the whole 'their audience is kids' thing and the potential backlash they could get for representation,, if ykyk.

So I guess, no character is gay and no character is straight or whatever you headcanon because we'll probably never truly get a reveal on any character being gay. I kind of hope the same thing is true for straightness, god forbid they make Mercury crush on a woman, you could get the best woman alive and I'd still keep him 16 ft away. LMFAO. ANYWAYS

That was my rant because I needed to get it out and I've seen a bit of this topic from kids in the fandom. Yep. Thanks for reading if u did because lord is this long.

.

[misscammiedawn]

A lot of hypnosis resources and guides teach detecting modality as a stage hypnotist or cold reader would. Describe the taste of a lemon to see if they drool or alternate between speaking about the sound of rolling waves or the feeling of relaxation spreading. You're taught to approach a scene like BBC Sherlock and decode the way that the hypnotee experiences hypnosis in your gosh darn mind palace and assert yourself on the scene with a tailor made induction designed to get the desired result.

Yeah.

No.

One thing I've learned in my years is curiosity and communication are the tools. Maybe I just had the wrong teachers but too much of the skill development is taught as if hypnosis is something you do to someone rather than something you do with someone.

So just ask. And should yoi find yourself with someone who doesn't know their modalities, approach it together. Work it out as a puzzle you're solving together. Sharing information and growing skill. Let the hypnotee be active and engaged, heck, let them lead the tailoring of the session that is supposed to be theirs.

I'm likely just projecting because I read some silly things from people who get off on the control aspects of our hobby and forget that it's a collaboration, but heavens I wanted to rant.

[plan-3-tmars]

Is this what Happiness is?

- hey so I haven't seen an interpretation of the bar scenes in Half that I fully agree with, so I wanted to throw my own two cents out there into the void and pray that it makes sense !!!

so, in the bar scenes in Half we see what I interpret as a hangout with old friends (or, hangout with old friend + his wife.) These scenes used to be the biggest piece of evidence for the cheater theory, but now that that's been debunked by the man himself, I have a new way of looking at them

~ before I go any further, I just wanted to say that I'll be calling the brown-haired woman whiskey for simplicity's sake

In this scene, Kazui turns to look at Whiskey, saying the lyrics:

"laughing together, side by side, this distance in our relationship is misleading me, is this what happiness is?"

With my guess (cuz that's really what it is there's no evidence for it) that Whiskey is the Bartender's wife i think this scene is Kazui being conflicted with what he's been told is true, that marrying Hinako is "true love", versus what he feels is true, that marrying Hinako has brought distance into their relationship.

He looks at Whiskey, a woman happily married, and wonders why his relationship with Hinako isn't like that.

~ shout out to @prisoner-000 for the following screenshot

in this post he points out that Hinako and Kazui's rings are silver in Cat, not gold like they were in Half, yet Bartender's ring colour stays the same.

For the sake of this writing I'm going to go with the first meaning they put out, that Bartender's ring is gold because his marriage is genuine.

But wait!! I hear you ask. This is Half and Kazui's ring is still gold in Half!! EXACTLY MY FRIEND!!

Kazui's ring IS still gold in Half because at the time of these scenes he's still fooling himself that this relationship is good, that he will eventually garner real romantic feelings for Hianko.

"laughing together, side by side, this distance in our relationship is misleading me, is this what happiness is?"

Remember this lyric that plays during the Whiskey -> Hinako scene. You know what other scene in Half this lyric reminds me of?

laughing together, side by side,

this distance in our relationship is misleading me,

is this what happiness is?

He's beginning to doubt if what he believes is true, he's beginning to believe the feelings telling him something's wrong (and remember, the scene right after this one is when he confesses (?) his secret to Hinako) ARE infact true, and that maybe the logic he's been following for so long has a couple holes in it.

I think these scenes are meant to show Kazui gradually realising that his relationship with Hinako will not work out. It just won't, no matter how hard he tries.

He's able to laugh together and talk with Whiskey because she's his friend, yet he can't do the same with his own wife? Even though, according to his gold ring, their relationship is supposed to be real and true and genuine?

[linddzz]

Long story short I dislike most modern retellings because they seem to be focused on "fixing" the ancient stories and breaking them to fit into their own moral box which is insanely self centered to me and hardly ever actually engages with the stories as they are

[puppyeared]

Atla live action 😐

[revvethasmythh]

I am curious about how Liliana and Ludinus' goals differ. Because Ludinus' obvious goal is to eradicate the gods--Liliana's, however, is apparently to free the Ruidusborn from the burden of their powers. How do these two things coincide? Obviously we can see how releasing Predathos causes the downfall of the gods, but why would releasing Predathos help the Ruidusborn? The obvious (though not necessarily correct) conclusion one would jump to is that, in order for Ruidusborn/Exaltants to be free from their powers, one would need to kill Predathos, not just free him. So I'm led to wonder if Liliana is willing to aid Ludinus in achieving his goal (kill the gods) in order to achieve her goal through some secondary effect (however one goes about killing a thing powerful enough to kill the gods). Which I suppose makes some sense, because why would you go to the effort to destroy all the gods only to allow a creature of equal-to-greater power of the gods continue to exist over Exandria? You wouldn't, would you? You'd probably want that to be gone as well

[birdmenmanga]

@raventhekittycat

hi okay so I've been mulling this one over for the past day or two and I think I have the answer. not to be using hamburger to explain anything to an american but you're my detco mutual so I'm going to try and explain it in detco terms

There's a post going around recently about how if you've read detco and only detco, the first time hakuba shows up you're going to be totally flummoxed, because damn this guy is clearly important, he gets to be even cooler than Shinichi, he's got a half-page shot of him (in such a panel-dense series such as Detective Conan, no less!!) and he's got a fucking hawk. he's CLEARLY important. everything about the narrative is indicating that you need to PAY ATTENTION to hakuba and that he's the coolest guy and he's important!!!! and then he dies in the case lol (not for real. but still.)!! and you're like huh??? what was that. why did aoyama do that.

But with the context of magic kaito this totally makes sense. He's a beloved character that people have been waiting decades to see again. Of course Aoyama is going to hype him up!! It's his big moment after years of being locked in the backrooms!!!

Anyways reading birdmen for me was kind of like that. The author's previous series, Kekkaishi, was pretty one-dimensional at the beginning, and even after the main plot started picking up at around volume 6, it still felt quite understandable. I knew what she was trying to get at, and the spectacular job she did with the anthropocene and climate change metaphor towards the end of that series really made me interested in the rest of her works. That and the way she writes familial relationships is absolutely DEVASTATING. (I mean this with the highest of praise)

But when I read BIRDMEN for the first time, I was probably in... middle school, maybe? And I read it, sure, but I didn't get it. I could see what was literally happening on the page but the narrative choices were absolutely baffling at times. Why skip over the entire part of the plot where they figure out who the birdman that saved them was? She blatantly doesn't care about that. What does she care about then?? I knew I didn't get it, I knew there were parts of it that were important and I couldn't figure out why and THAT'S how it dug its pretty little claws into me. Even after I finished catching up it nagged at me a little bit, not often at all, but enough that every once in a while I go, huh, right, that was a thing, let me go read it again.

For the record this type of story haunting has happened to me twice. First time was the Heart of Thomas, second time was BIRDMEN. I think the thing is that these are both stories which are not what other people say they are and I think I came into both of these stories with a misconception, trying to look too hard for things that weren't important and therefore missing the things that were.

Because sure, BIRDMEN is about mental illness. Yeah, it's about an evil scientific organization growing mutants in a lab. Yeah, it's about what it means to leave your humanity behind. That's all technically correct, on a surface level, and the fandom at large likely agrees with these takes for the most part, but in my opinion none of that really delves into what the thematic messaging of the story is about.

There are cryptic conversations about authority and human extinction and peculiar outfit and ability choices. You can tell these choices weren't made to serve the purpose of "writing exciting shonen manga" because that was what she did for the most part in Kekkaishi and you can tell she wasn't putting her whole pussy into doing that here. So what was she doing? What's like. All of this. Waves my hands at this.

The short answer is that it's really about the interplay between capitalism (represented by humanity) and communism (represented by birdmen), and explores the role institutional white supremacy (EDEN) plays in enforcing capitalism. It is ALSO about queer liberation and the importance of community, but hey, that double-stacks conveniently with the communism metaphor.

But also take this opinion of mine with a grain of salt. As far as I know I'm the only one who really truly deeply believes that it is not only AN interpretation of the work, but one that was fully intended by the author.

So basically, I like it, because I think it says something true and beautiful that I also believe in, even if I didn't have the words for it the first time I read it. But I don't really think that's what people really look for in a media recommendation.

Do I like it? Yes, I love it. Will I recommend it to others? Yeah, sure. But do I think it's deeply flawed? Yeah, absolutely. It's flawed in the same ways as The Witch from Mercury— a rushed ending, too many threads that were opened and never tied together. The pacing and characterization is perfect in the beginning, and too rushed at the end. There are prerequisites you basically HAVE to read in order to understand the story (tempest for G-Witch and the communist manifesto for birdmen). I think a truly good story wouldn't have any of these things so if people don't like it I never blame them.

It's my personal experiences that make birdmen so profound to me. If you are not queer I just don't think Eishi coming out as a birdman to his mom will hit the same, just as an example. Sorry that I wasn't the kid you wanted me to be. I know you love me and you just want the best for me and that's why you're so controlling, because you think I can be saved by conforming to societal expectations. But I can't live like that. I can't be like that. And that's why I must go. etc.

Aesthetically I do love birdmen a lot. If I had to describe it in a few words it would probably be "chilling", "beautiful", and "powerful", which nicely coincides with the type of things I personally like to draw. It's also silly to a small degree but it's so serious and I know Tanabe can be way way way funnier (read kekkaishi for this. kekkaishi and hanazakari no kimitachi he were foundational to my sense of sequential art humor) so that's not really the standout trait of this series.

I can't let it go because I'm chewing this series like a bone. And it's taking me years but I am getting that sweet sweet marrow. By god. We are on year 3 of this shit and I am GOING to understand this series. and I'm going to make 3 video essays about it

[lucienne-thee-librarian]

Me @ Netflix if they cut Foxglove and Hazel or A Game of You or yassify any of the girls