#I've been on the Internet far too long to know where that leads...

[demonfox38]

You magnificent bastard, books were read, etc.

I won't say this for everything in the game, but I do prefer the Landmaster / Titania level execution in "Star Fox Zero" to "Star Fox 64"'s interpretation. Watching debris rain in from the Sector β is really a sight to behold. I also don't feel quite as weighed down control-wise with the Landmaster as I did in the past. I mean, when it has a flying transformation, that's literal. But I wish to keep my point.

When I feel like I'm halfway decent at this level, I'll record it. Gotta polish the boss sequence, though. I've only gotten it to a two cycle.

[buckets-and-trees]

Unholy Errand

Characters/Pairings: Lloyd Hansen x female!Reader, God the Bounty Hunter x female!Reader, Ransom Drysdale Word Count: 4k

Summary: You're caught in the crosshairs when a hit goes out for your boss.

Content Warnings: non-consent and dubious consent, cuckolding, bondage, knife play, dacryphilia, oral (m and f receiving), cumplay, spitting, facial/marking, groping, spanking, clothed males naked female, coarse language, mild but irreverent use of religious terminology/themes (we’ve got a bounty hunter who refers to himself as God – we’re not committing hard to the bit, but we are using the bit), use of pet names + no y/n

Notes: I was happily working on some other lovely things last weekend, and then Sunday afternoon, totally unprovoked, a rogue muse crept up and whispered, "Lloyd and God..." and my brain broke, and I told @navybrat817 and she immediately enabled/encouraged the sprouting of this fic (and helped identify exactly who these two would be after). I thought this might be fifteen hundred words... and then it hit 2k, and then 3k, and they still weren't done with poor Reader, so...

Additional Notes: First time writing Lloyd, God, or Ransom in any capacity. This is also straight up the filthiest thing I've gone all in on. Is it the filthiest thing that exists on the internet? Of course not, but my filthiest and READ THE TAGS. This is NOT your standard Aspen fic. But was this a bit of a riot to write? Yep. It had a chokehold on me all week, and I stayed up far too late to finish it off tonight because... if I didn't, life would've prevented me finishing for a couple more days, and I've been too eager to push this out.

The clearing of his throat is what pulls your attention. You look up from your desk, taking in long legs in impossibly tight white slacks showing too much ankle, and a torso clad in a black turtleneck and blazer. A thick mustache lives above his smirk. He was too silent entering the offices, and he knows it, seems to revel in unsettling you. “Lloyd Hansen, the six o’clock appointment.”

“Yes, if you’ll follow me right this way,” you proffer politely, and move smoothly out of your chair, leading him to the door of your boss’s office. You give a short knock and open the door, announcing, “Lloyd Hansen, sir,” as you briefly step inside, holding the door open for the man.

He’s still smirking as he passes by, and then you sweep back out, but not before hearing Lloyd whistle and say, “Fancy shit you got yourself in this office, Ran,” as you close the door on them.

You sigh as you sit back down at your desk. Lloyd is your boss’s last meeting of the night, and he had seemed more than perturbed when he said to go ahead and accept the last-minute request Lloyd had made for the appointment. While this is the meeting of the day, Mr. Drysdale had made it clear he was staying late, which means you are also staying late, so you pull out the file of menus you keep in your desk and begin mulling over where to order dinner from tonight.

There’s a succession of loud thuds on the other side of the wall, and you only hesitate for a second before rushing into the office.

You stop dead, a small cry escaping your lips as you watch Lloyd wrestling Ransom to the ground.

“You may be sorry you disturbed us, sweetie, but since you’re here, be a good girl and close and lock that door so we don’t get interrupted by anyone else.”

You hesitate, staring in horror at the display before you: books knocked off the shelves, everything that’s usually so immaculately placed askew on the desk, a lamp overturned, Ransom Drysdale on the floor of his office with Lloyd Hansen’s knee pressed into his back and both arms pulled taught behind him while Lloyd binds his wrists together with the Hermes ascot scarf ripped from Ransom’s own neck.

Lloyd clucks his tongue. “Lock the door or I start cutting his fingers off. Barnes and Rogers only said they want your boss alive; they didn’t say how much of him still needs to be intact.”

“Do it,” Ransom grunts, turning his head away from you, clearly embarrassed at his predicament.

You turn and slowly close the door. You know there are still people working at Blood Like Wine tonight, and while it’s not likely that any of them will be passing through this wing after normal business hours, it’s probably safer that they stay out than accidentally stumble into whatever this dangerous mess is evolving into. You wished you had suppressed your own urge to investigate.

When you turn back around, Lloyd is unbuckling his belt as he continues to kneel against Ransoms back. He pulls it out, uses it to gag Ransom, giving it an additional tug after already pulling it tightly, and fastens it off.

“There, that’s just about perfect.”

“What are-?” You venture to ask, but he abruptly cuts you off.

“No one asked you to talk, sweetie, now come away from that door.”

You only take two reluctant steps towards them when there’s a scraping of wood that draws everyone’s attention to the opposite side of the room.

A piece of the floor is slowly being lifted from below, pushed out of the way, and then another man pops up from out of the floor. He hefts himself out of the hole in the floor and then drops a duffel bag on the floor, the heavy sound of muffled metal hinting at the equipment he’s brought with him.

“Oh, good, you’ve already done some of my work for me,” the tall, dark-haired man appraises the situation he’s just stepped into.

“Who the fuck are you, and where’d you come from?”

“Clearly you watched me ascend from a trapdoor in the floor.” He stalks over to stand in front of the large mahogany desk and sits back on the edge. “You didn’t think Harlan Thrombey - noted mystery author - wouldn’t have a publishing house full of trapdoors and secret passageways?”

“Didn’t need to, walked right in the front door. Still waiting to find out who you are.”

“God the Bounty Hunter.”

“Ooh,” Lloyd cocks his head, and another one of his smirks returns, “I can’t say I hate the audacity. Very bold. But there are a lot of gods and only one Lloyd Hansen.

“Now we’re clearly both here because of the hit put out for this prick, but since there are two of them and two of us, why don’t you make yourself useful, God, and tie up this little Margaret while I get Ransom nice and comfortable here.”

“With pleasure,” God says, and beckons you over to him.

The way he fixes you with his gaze is so intense you can’t to resist his silent command. He stands when you’re just a foot or two away, puts a ringer under your chin to tilt your head up, and looks down into your face. You don’t dare look away, nor do you want to, for some reason.

After another moment, he lets your chin drop, and God begins to circle you, looking you up and down. You hold very still. “You don’t need to be tied up, do you? You like to behave, to be praised.”

Lloyd lets out a loud, longsuffering sigh. “Fine, it can be more fun when they’re tied up, but I’m not picky as long as I get what I want.” Then his tone changes, directing his next words at you. “Understand, sweetie?”

You nod.

“Good.” With that, Lloyd pushes his knee roughly into Ransom’s back, drawing a painful groan from the bound man, before standing and hauling Ransom up with him. He shoves Ransom down to sit on the couch that faces the desk in the small entertaining area of Ransom’s office. “Now Relax, let me pour myself a drink. No reason we can’t enjoy ourselves for a few minutes, for old time’s sake.”

While Lloyd pours some bourbon, God steps right up behind you, close enough that you can feel the heat of him. He moves your hair off your shoulder, and leans close to whisper in your ear, “You be very good, and I’ll make you my angel.” You can’t help but shiver - it’s the heat of his breath at your neck and the promised threat - and you know he notices your reaction, because there’s a soft, dark chuckle before he presses a hot kiss to the base of your neck. His hand comes around to your front, toying with the edge of your open collar, and then he lightly draws his index finger along your clavicle and then up the other side of your neck. You don’t realize you’re holding your breath until you gasp when his other hand quickly pushes a small piece of metal right below your ear.

“And what’s that?” Lloyd asks, not missing the tagging.

“A little incentive for obedience,” God answers. “Fifty-thousand volts when fully unleashed.”

There’s a non-electrically generated jolt in your stomach, but it’s not pure fear, it’s tinged with a little adrenaline as well.

“Huh. To each his own. Now down to business, Ran.”

God steps back and then leans on the edge of the desk again. He pulls you to stand between his legs, your back up against his chest, and his hands settle on your shoulders. Standing against him like this has your hips aligned with his, and you have no doubt it’s setting the stage for his intentions, even if it seems harmless enough now. It mimics a familiarity between partners that is both soothing and unsettling.

Across the room, Lloyd takes a seat on the other side of the couch from Ransom, drink in one hand, and draping his arm casually along the back of the couch. “It was quite a convenient circumstance that even had me nearby to make this social call Ransom. Couldn’t be happier that I’d get to drop in on you for something like this. Ransom and I both went to Yale, you know,” he tosses this part across the room to you and God. “Even ended up in the same fraternity. But he was a senior, I was a freshman. Didn’t spare me the time of day except for the hazing, right?”

His focus shifts back to Ransom, who only gives Lloyd a cold stare, unmoving, clearly not wanting to give Lloyd the satisfaction of any emotional reactions.

God’s hands shift from your shoulders and begin to stroke up and down your arms.

“Why am I boring us all with the backstory though? Old college buddies is pretty typical. You know what’s not typical? Barnes and Rogers putting a bounty out for someone. They’ve got their own guys, and you’re not hard to find.”

The hands move from your arms to your waist, moving up and down your ribs, and still Lloyd keeps talking.

“So, either you’re too important and they wanted the closest person available to pick you up and make a rush delivery to their door, or you’re not important enough for them to want to dispatch any of their own men to deal with you. Outsourcing because you’re still an inconvenience to them, and they can’t let you go unpunished.

Strong hands on your hips.

“Maybe you can prove to be useful tonight, sweetie. How long have you worked for Ranny here?”

You don’t know if you should be surprised that he’s turned his attention to you for questioning, but you do your best to keep your mind focused as you answer him. “I’ve worked for Mr. Drysdale for – oh –” God starts rubbing circles over your hipbones, applying more pressure and pushing you back against a very prominent erection “– a little over seven months.”

“Mr. Drysdale, eh?” Lloyd’s perennial smirk grows, and he tilts his head, tsking again. “You don’t have to pretend like you’re not assisting him after hours, I told you we were in the same frat, so I know what this bastard gets up to.”

Your mouth drops open a little, and Lloyd looks from you to Ransom, whose cold stare has turned into an unmistakable glare.

“Oho! So, she does only assist you professionally?” Lloyd laughs, seemingly out of genuine amusement. “You really are useless, Ranny.”

God is still relentless in touching you, exploring over and even under the clothing, one of his hands sliding down your leg to slip under your skirt to skim up your thigh, and the other stroking just under your breasts, calculated touches to evoke responses but not yet to take or give any more satisfaction.

Both strangers are demanding your attention, and you’re almost evenly divided between Lloyd’s words and God’s actions.

“She probably would’ve slept with you the first two weeks on the job, but now she’s gotta know you’re an insufferable prick.”

Would you have? You don’t think either statement is true. You were never drawn in by Ransom, and since working for him, you’ve only been focused on doing your job well, getting a good paycheck, and going home. Ransom wasn’t particularly demanding compared to other executives, and so you had only wanted him to continue to respect and rely on your assistance so he’d find you indispensable and raise your salary regularly.

God finally speaks again. “We should let the man see what he’ll never have.”

Lloyd sits back in the chair. “I’m not opposed.”

Your face burned. There was no question what he meant, and you did not want Ransom to see you on display, but Lloyd is intimidating and God is intoxicating, so you can do no more than comply as God unzips your skirt and pushes it to the floor.

Next he turns you around and works on the buttons of your shirt, in no hurry, putting your ass on display for Lloyd and Ransom while torturing you with more of the heated, intense eye contact that makes you nearly forget to breathe.

You’re only warned that Lloyd’s behind you when God looks over your shoulder, and you turn your head, but before you can fully face him, his hand has come down against your ass with enough force that you fall against God’s chest. He spanks you again, harder, and you whimper in God’s arms, your head falling against his shoulder with the sting and shock and humiliation.

Then, in another quick turn of events, Lloyd grasps the waistband of your panties with one hand, and you briefly feel the chill of metal against your skin as he slips a knife under the fabric and then slashes them away with two strokes and throws the fabric on the desk.

“Move, God, I want her up on the desk.”

God stands again, and he pulls your shirt off your shoulders as he moves away.

Lloyd could unclasp your bra, but of course Lloyd uses the knife to slice through the band.

“Drop it,” he instructs.

With a deep, steadying breath, you do as he says.

“Turn and sit up on the desk for us.”

You’ve taken hundreds of orders from this office, completing tasks you enjoyed and hated, this can be just another of those.

“Open those thighs for us all to see, sweetie.”

You close your eyes. You know what they will see, and the shame burns in your stomach.

Lloyd taps the flat part of his knife just above your knee. “Now.”

You bite your lip and look at the ground as you spread your legs. Lloyd presses the edge of the knife to the flesh of your inner thigh, forcing you to spread even wider if you don’t want him to cut into you.

Lloyd brings his knife to your chin to tilt your face up to look at him as he traces your wet folds with two fingers. The smirk is gone, replaced by a wicked grin. “Nice and slick for us.”

“God’s handiwork,” the other man is quick to note.

“Sure. A nice little sacrificial offering. Now, Ransom, since you’ve never had a taste, seems a shame not to give you a sample,” Lloyd says.

Ransom shifts and begins to stand, but Lloyd turns abruptly and points at him with the knife. “Stay there, you dumb fuck.”

Ransom sits back again.

“And don’t you dare look away.” He looks to God. “Shoot him if he does.”

God pulls a gun from behind his back that he must have had tucked into his waistband. You watch as he moves to the other side of the room and stands behind Ransom. He plants his gun at the base of Ransom’s skull, then locks eyes with you again. It’s clear he doesn’t want take his eyes off you if he’s going to have to ensure Ransom doesn’t either. Something in your chest stirs under his rapt attention.

Lloyd demands your attention again as he grips your hips and pulls you to the edge of the mahogany desk. He slaps your pussy, drawing a sharp cry from you, then drops down to delve between your thighs. He gives your clit a vicious nip, and you bit back another yelp. His tongue plunders into your cunt, licking and sucking, and your hands are moving to grasp his skull to anchor yourself, but he’s already pulling away. As he stands, he yanks you off the desk, and strides across the room, dragging you with him.

He spits directly in Ransom’s face – a combination of Lloyd’s saliva and your slick that he’s not able to do anything but let drip down his face. Your mouth is agape, truly shocked. Ransom’s entire body radiates rage and embarrassment.

“That’s all you’ll be getting from her, Drysdale.”

Then Lloyd’s shoves you to your knees, putting you on display in profile to the other men. He undoes the zipper of his pants, releasing his cock, no underwear to fuss about.

“Open up,” he demands, and you comply, unwilling to provoke this demon who clearly doesn’t play by any rules.

He slips the angry red tip of his cock into your mouth. “Be good,” he warns. You give a small nod, closing your mouth around him. With one hand, he grips your head and begins to thrust in and out of your mouth. You and gag, and your eyes close as you try to focus very hard on breathing through your nose. He’s hitting the back of your throat with each brutal thrust, and the tears spill quickly down your face.

“Eyes on me,” he grunts, and you force them open and look up at him, knowing what he wants to see. He groans in approval. “You are a pretty little trinket, prettier when you cry.”

Then he abruptly pulls you off his dick and grips you by the chin and turns your head for Ransom and God. “Fucking look at her, swollen lips, gasping for breath, desperate.”

Just as quickly he slots his dick back in your mouth, this time gripping your head with both hands and he fucks your face with abandon. Fast. Hard. Your whimpers turn into sobs, and your hands come up to brace and grasp desperately at his thighs. “You can still take it,” Lloyd growls, undeterred, and you’re powerless to stop him. The tears are not just running but flooding down your cheeks. It’s too much now, and you can’t get enough air, and vision is going black. Finally he throws you off and away from him, and turns to aim his cock at Ransom, shooting his load over his face and shoulders, letting out a hiss that turns into a hum.

You’re hunched over and you wretch – blessedly only once – bracing your hands on the floor, and you gulp and heave, lungs fraught for the necessary oxygen.

Lloyd is talking again. The voice registers, but not the words.

And there are warm hands on you again. One rubbing small circles at the base of your spine, the other pushing your hair out of your face and coaxing you to look up at him.

With enough soothing, God has you breathing evenly again, and you’re still crying a little, but he helps you up onto the couch and sits next to you, very close, and he tucks a hand under your chin and lifts your face up, then he licks your left cheek, then the right, lapping up the tears. You hiccup, not sure how to react. Then he merely strokes your cheek, and the fingers trail down your neck, down your chest, down, down…

“Boring,” Lloyd announces.

You look up at him for a moment, but then God’s questing fingers reach the point he really wants to concentrate his might on, plunging into your wet cunt, and your eyes flutter closed.

“I’m eager to be done here,” Lloyd continues while God continues pumping his digits in and out of you. “We don’t need any more dumbasses showing up for this fool.”

“Agreed,” God says, casually as if he’s not beginning to pull you apart softly but surely. “You take him. I’ll keep her. There’s room for her in the trunk next to the cargo.”

“Fine, I wasn’t fussed about the goods anyway, I only took this job for the satisfaction of humiliating Drysdale, and that’s already exceeded my expectations. I’m sure Barnes and Rogers will give you enough for the recovered inventory even without him, and I’ll do you a solid and not mention the little side piece you’ll be keeping for yourself.”

God moves you off the couch, coaxing you to lean over the coffee table and kneels behind you. “Good.”

You moan as God slowly pushes his hard length inside your cunt.

There’s a thud next to you, and you turn to see a pile of Ransom hit the floor a few feet away.

“I assume you’ve got a way to move this man through down in that passage?” Lloyd asks, dragging the unconscious figure across the floor by his feet.

“Mhmm,” he responds, more intent on the movement of his hips against yours, slowly pistonning in and out of your tight heat.

“Good. This was fun enough, but let’s not do this again.”

God pulls your head up roughly to look at Lloyd just as he’s about to drop into the floor. “Say goodbye to Lloyd, Angel.”

You’re barely able to make the, “Bye,” tumble out of your lips, you’re so full of this man behind you, and his sudden roughness taking you by surprise.

Lloyd chuckles, then disappears.

God lets you drop back down, leaning on your elbows.

“I thought he’d never stop talking,” God murmurs.

It’s bitter, but a laugh actually falls from your lips, but you still can’t form words.

“There’s other things I’d rather do with you around than talk.”

He adjusts his angle from behind you. It allows him to plunge more of his cock into your slick channel, and you groan, but then after only a few thrusts, he pauses, balls deep inside you.

“You took what he gave you, but I think you don’t want me to stop, do you?”

You’re breathless. You can’t speak. You don’t want to speak?

He places his right hand, palm flat, at the base of your spine and presses it slowly up your back, his middle finger trailing up the ridge of your vertebrae, and you can feel the metal of his ring draw a line along your skin.

“You were very good.”

He rocks his hips against you, and you whimper.

“I said I would make you mine if you were good.”

Another rocking. He moves his hand from the nape of your neck around to grip it fully, and he pulls you back up against his chest, and you’re gasping for air for a moment, both hands coming up to clutch at his arm.

He lowers his voice and delivers his next words right into your ear. “You want to be mine, don’t you?”

Your pussy clenches around him, and he presses a kiss against your throat, and you feel the smile of his lips against your skin.

His other hand moves down across your hip, to your vee, and his deft fingers stroke your throbbing clit. He doesn’t move his cock, but he does move those fingers expertly, drawing tight little circles that wind you up to the top until you’re flung off the edge and into pure pleasure.

Coming down from your first orgasm, you sink against him. As your breathing returns to normal, the hand on your neck remains like an anchor, but his other hand moves up to tilt your chin to the side and up to meet his lips. The kiss claims you, and you part your lips for him, just as you’ve parted your legs for him – willingly.

“That was one, but I want a trinity to secure your devotion here tonight. I’m going to fuck you dumb, dress you, and then you’re going to walk out of here like a sweet little angel and get in my car. Then I’ll let you choose. You can sit up front and keep my cock warm or you can crawl in the back of the trunk. Your choice.”

How are we?

I'm ruined.

Restore my health with your lovely reblogs, commentary, comments...

↠ Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

[daily-rayless]

25 Years of Rosa

I've been doing this character appreciation series for a while now, and it's about time we got to a very special character – the first character from the first JRPG I ever played that I first really fangirled over – the first character that was my Number One Favorite Video Game Character – Rosa Farrell from Final Fantasy 4.

June 1999

We are going so far back that I have no idea what my first Rosa fan art was. It's not this – but I wanted to highlight it because I was incredibly proud of myself. Rosa, all sad and anguished because she's missing Cecil.

But let's talk some about her, the good and the -- maybe? -- bad.

October 1999

I first played FF4 in May 1999, on a rickety and unreliable Super Nintendo. The cartridge was prone to failure and wiped out my first save once I'd gotten the team underground. But by then, I was invested, too invested to give up and play Chrono Trigger or something. I had to find out what happened to Cecil and Rosa and everyone, so I slammed that cartridge right back in and started up a new game. Fortunately, that one lasted all the way through.

January 2000

As I said, it was my first JRPG, and I adored the medium, especially the story. Along with having a rickety SNES, I also had a house with a not-great internet connection, and this was long before you could easily look up Let's Plays and videos of your favorite scenes. Convinced in my young mind that the game might never properly work for me again and would never, I don't know, be republished, I immediately sat down and wrote a detailed, dramatized summary of the whole thing just so I wouldn't forget it.

April 2000

And my favorite element of the story was Rosa, the healer, the archer, the female lead. Maybe it's just that FF4 was my first game, but I like to think there's a special spark to Rosa that makes her stand out.

June 2000

I was bubbling over with enthusiasm and, along with writing out a detailed summary, I subjected my patient and obliging mother to endless dissertations on the characters and story. I specifically remember talking to her about Rosa, and her commenting that Rosa was a traditionally “feminine” character, even “passive” – a healer, a love interest, needing to be rescued not once, but twice.

November 2000

And I think that's worth exploring – as neutrally as possible. On one hand, in fiction we do have a very long history of imperiled, secondary, predominantly supportive heroines, and the fact that so many had to be written that way reflects something bad in the real world. On the other hand, I really do believe that most tropes are just tropes, and even if they've been overused, often badly used, that doesn't mean they can't be used.

August 2001

In a lot of ways, Rosa is a very safe character. Though she's a studied mage and master archer, that's not why she's in the story. Her main involvement is as a love interest, both to the hero Cecil and his rival/best friend Kain.

November 2001

Rosa's reason for joining the adventure comes down to her love for Cecil. She isn't seeking her own quest. She never states a goal that isn't Cecil's. In fairness, the game is very stripped down, and none of the characters voice very complex motives. You could just as easily say Cecil is Cid's reason for joining the adventure.

November 2002

But Rosa's story beats all come down to Cecil and Kain. Surely, on such an adventure, Rosa would grow and discover things about herself, but you never hear about it. What you hear about is her worrying about Cecil, worrying about the fate of the world, taking care of others, and of course getting kidnapped. All very safe, non-disruptive things for a female character.

June 2004

There are even moments where the game leans into a slight but still apparent sexism. At the siege of Fabul, despite Rydia and Rosa being practiced fighters and valuable mages, they're sent to tend to the injured while the men go off to fight.

June 2005

This is echoed at the end of the game when Cecil himself, who knows full well how powerful Rosa and Rydia are, still forbids them to join him in the ending level. There's some brief resistance, but then the girls, in all apparent obedience, quietly leave while the men remain to save the world.

September 2005

Part of it may be that Rosa comes from a very early video game, but if we look at sci-fi/fantasy itself as a genre, we had more boundary-pushing heroines long before the early 1990s, at least in the West. By then, we already had Princess Leia, Red Sonja, Alanna the Lioness, and others.

April 2006

Rosa is brave, talented, and loyal, but is she ultimately a regressive character?

October 2007

I don't know if I have a perfect answer to that. What I do know is that one of the things I've always loved most about Rosa is that she knows her own mind. Yeah, she'll support you. Yeah, she'll cast Protect and Haste on you, and then she'll Cure you when Bahamut takes your HP down to 1. But she does not do it meekly.

2008

One of her first scenes is her comforting Cecil as he deals with his thorny ethical angst. But she quickly stops murmuring kindly to him and tells him he can't just mope and complain about things. He has to take a stand. He has to own his actions – change himself, one of the themes of the game. She sees it long before he does, and she isn't exactly tender as she tells him.

July 2009

She joins the adventure for Cecil, but she doesn't join with him. He leaves without her (she doesn't beg to come with him, she has things to do) and when he goes missing, she sets off on her own in search of him, going faster and getting farther than he did before desert sickness stops her cold.

March 2010

And at the end of the game when this selfsame Cecil, this guy who grew up with her and is in a relationship with her and knows her so well, tells her to go home and be safe while he and the guys save the world, she does meekly turn around and leave. But she doesn't go far. She and Rydia stow aboard his spaceship and travel with him and the men to the moon. Whereupon she tells Cecil, with no ambiguity, that he cannot keep her from coming.

October 2011

Which is a good thing, because I have beaten FF4 many times, and let me tell you, you are not surviving the ending boss without Rosa Curing you, Protecting you, and probably Lifing you more than once.

February 2013

So have I exonerated Rosa? I've shown how assertive she really is. Have I proved she's not regressive?

October (?) 2018

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of the assertive woman = automatically good female character theory. A woman can be physically weak, even psychologically timid, and still be an incredibly interesting, complex, and strong character. And another can be bold and brave and badass and still remain uninteresting and shallow.

2020

But I think I've shown that, whatever Rosa is, she's not passive.

August 2021

Being a back-row archer isn't a problem, being a healer isn't a problem, being conventionally feminine isn't a problem. Even, at the end of the day, being a “safe” character isn't actually a problem. It comes down to how well the character's written – and, even more subjectively, how they connect with the audience.

May 2024

Rosa connected powerfully with me. Since then, other characters have come and eclipsed her number one spot in my heart. But I still love her a lot, and I don't want to see her dismissed.

[cityoftheangelllls]

I dunno, guys, I think I may need to take a break from the Internet, for a number of reasons. I'm very burnt out at the moment from my job, which I don't enjoy as much as I used to and which I may end up quitting, as well as the production of Cats I'm currently involved in (in a LEAD ROLE!) that is almost over but has still taken up a lot of my time.

Also, I've had a bad habit of doomscrolling and giving myself secondhand trauma from reading and seeing so many horrible stories of abuse, trauma, crime, etc. on the Internet for a few years ago now, but right now it's reached a high. I don't know why my anxiety tends to make me run towards things that cause me further distress than avoid them, but it just does. I can't explain it. And no matter where I go, I seem to run into these kinds of stories. Whether it's a Youtube comment where a user shares a story of the horrible traumas they've experienced in the past or present or the reason why they want to die, or another headline about the terrors happening in Palestine or Ukraine. It doesn't help that I have an unnaturally high amount of empathy and a tendency to imagine myself vividly in these people's shoes. Oh, and I believe that a user on here I came across who expressed intentions of suicide and who I tried to help, is dead now. She hasn't posted or responded to my messages in over two months.

I don't know what made me this way. It could be my mom's obsession with true crime stories and the ID channel, or the fact that I've inevitably run into those kinds of accounts here and elsewhere. Either way, it frightens me and makes me wish more than ever that I could erase certain memories with no problem and continue on with the life that has, so far, been pretty kind to me.

Until I can get myself together and stop getting myself overly upset about how horribly cruel human beings can be to one another in so many ways, I may have to step back from the Internet and social media, except maybe to share artwork. I recognize that my mental health is starting to go down a slippery slope at this moment, and I recognize how important it is to take care of it and do what's best for me. And I hope you all realize that I want YOU to do what's best for you, too, as long as it doesn't hurt you. Caring for others is important, but so is caring for yourself.

This all being said, I'm going to a little less active on here for just a little while. I'm sorry for being so open all of a sudden, but I hope you understand.

[gren-arlio]

Rewriting this sucks, but we ball. Welcome to Episode 13 of Waku Puyo Extras.

(...If you saw the post before I deleted it, no you didn't. I hate my internet.)

Heya everyone, Gren here, rewriting this for a second time because I accidently clicked post and lost everything because my internet decided to be a dickhead. Welcome to Episode 13 of this wonderful show I've made, where I discuss random Puyo things and hope they make sense to an audience. They usually do.

Today we'll be focusing on our favorite idiot out there, Ms. Draco Centauros. It's wild how she's been with us since day one and we haven't made anything for and about her. This one might seem more summarized and less "Gren's rambling again," because man. Retyping sucks.

Uploads have been scarce due to school, we're hitting the toughest parts by far, I plan to change it sometime.

Let's begin, shall we? I hope you enjoy.

Oh, and please play Persona 3 Reload. Amazing game.

----

So Who IS Draco in Puyo?

I have to specify Puyo so we can mention Madou stuff later, since it's how I wanna roll this time around.

She's been with us with a personality since what, 1992? And she's had two wonderful traits.

She loves beauty contests.

And she may be stupid.

We'll come to love and hate those traits later on down the line. Believe me on that. That's how she began in Tsu, after all.

However, everything changed when it came to Puyo SUN, where something very unique happened. She's now a protagonist, and I believe the first one to do so, a massive accomplishment. She's the protagonist of the Easy Mode Course, the shortest one, but that's fine.

She finds Skeleton-T heating up tea while she basically dying of heat, and she burns the tea, making the man (skeleton?) PISSED, and a fight happens, classic Puyo. After that, Draco encounters Harpy, who collapsed on the ground due to dehydration, so Draco saves her life via a water bottle. Sadly, it results in Harpy singing, and Draco to slowly die inside because...it's Harpy's singing for God's sake.

And finally, she runs into Choppun (remember that guy?) He's land surfing on a rock... before he gets properly swept away by the water, thankfully. With that, Draco tries to relax, and uh, that doesn't end well. The sun's too hot, and she goes flying, not by her free will, of course, but because sunburn does that to someone...leading to her being the first fight of Arle's story, basically in severe pain due to that.

The fact that she got a protagonist role is something to behold, and it's very interesting to know that a common Mook like her was able to secure such a spot. Later on, other side characters like Witch and Lagnus would get the role in other games (Comet Summoner, Madou Saturn, etc,) but no, Draco is the first one to do that, a very big accomplishment in of itself. Nice one Draco.

And hey, she returns in Puyo~N too, being one of the first fights in the game.

(Just want an excuse to show the artstyle. MAN, it's so good.)

Here, Arle asks if she knows who stole Carbuncle, as that's basically the plot of the entire game, but Draco has reverted back into her good old "Is she stupid?" personality, assumes she's there for a beauty contest and fights her, and loses, go figure. After that, she actually joins Arle for the search for her missing Carbuncle, alongside Witch, Serilly, and Chico.

She even says Gao. It's perfect.

But after that, it kinda went all over the place. It was her last real major/semi-prevelent role for a good bit. She's there in Minna, but she doesn't exactly do a ton. She's part of a long fetch quest where mail has been messed up, and her mail got lost 3 years ago because Witch accidently got it instead, but that's really about it. And then, like everyone in Compile besides Arle, she vanishes for The Fever Era. She doesn't even appear in 15th, when Nasu Grave and Zoh Daimoh made it. But hey, jokes on them, they haven't appeared since.

But after so long, Draco makes her grand return in Puyo 7.

(Wonder who you saw first in this image. For me it was Raffine.)

Here, she's in the Bermuda Triangle because Dark Arle told her that there's a beauty contest there, and she just believes it. Ringo and Amitie go there for plot reasons, and Draco assumes they're there for the same reasons as her. Sadly, they're not, and Draco has been HOODWINKED. And as we know, if you play as Amitie, Witch and Harpy make their cameo appearance, new designs as all... just to not use them ever again. Makes me sad every time.

Draco reappears in 20th Anniversary, where Witch also makes her real debut back. Harpy died sadly. She got smacked to the Land of Chronicles instead. Back to Draco, she wants to find a really cool swimsuit Arle mentioned, but it's Draco, life hates her. After a slew of mishaps and ruining people's day, she finally finds it... and finds out it's from Suketoudara. Rip.

And hey, she reappears in Chronicle, where she's just minding her own business until she gets yoinked by the book that took everyone else to Ally's world. And in Draco Fashion... she assumes Ally and crew are there for a beauty pageant and won't be usurped. Wonder how many times I've mentioned her and beauty pageants, gotta keep count sometime.

She's in Tetris 1 and uh. She tries to eat O.

And uh...she does a talent show with Witch in the DLC. That's it.

TETRIS 2 TIME

She's one of the many people who got corrupted by Marle, but had Ringo fooled for a good bit on accident, and apologized for her odd behavior. Not her fault Marle is uh... quite the character.

And in side story stuff, she's just playing around with Mini Puyos since she finds them interesting. Unfortunately, Witch also finds them interesting and makes Draco her test subject for studying Mini Puyos, saying it'd at least be a good workout for her. And since we're playing as Draco, she does just that...for science, we swear. After that, Witch notes that due to their smaller size, much higher chains and such, before Draco says she's just there for a good time, much to Witch's annoyance.

So That's Puyo. How About Madou?

(One guy out there just decided to make the coolest Draco art out there. Thanks man.)

Draco began in the series like many other characters, a Mook, a random encounter, a person Arle ran into during dungeon crawling adventures, the sort. It's simple enough, it's her beginnings.

However, I won't exactly be going in chronological order for this, rather, I want to mention some things here and there as I go.

Draco began to get fairly popular due to her design and appearances in Puyo, ala Witch, so she began to make a lot of appearances in side stuff, such as Disc Station games. She appears in a few off memory:

Tower of the Magician, where she's a random encounter Schezo can fight. Here though, she has a little more personality since it's been more established.

PuyoLympics, where she makes a cameo appearance in the swimming section of the game. She's not playable, like Rulue and Schezo, but she makes an appearance.

Rulue's Spring Break of Fists, where like many other characters, she talks a lot... because it's a visual novel. She only appears in one story route, like almost every other character in the game.

Arle Man'Yuki, where she's uh. There.

Madou Saturn, where she's a playable ally, but a temporary one.

Waku Puyo Dungeon and it's manga, where in the manga, she fights against and alongside Rulue.

So let's talk about her role in Saturn first. She's been chained up alongside Witch due to Incubus being Incubus, and you're given a choice to save her or Witch first. Today, it's Draco.

Arle and Rulue save Draco, and Draco's first thing to do is go to a beauty pageant...to find out that she's late and it's already over.

And it leads to this. She's gone, bros. To the point where she doesn't help fight Schezo 3 minutes later. However, after said fight, she regains her senses and enters a whole other contest since the reward is a key that opens literally anything. You know, so they can save Witch.

Unfortunately, Yog Smoke is appearing, and it's not looking so good for our heroes, but we skim some smaller details, some fights later, it's honestly quite similar to Witch's route, down to the Schezo Refight and Jaan appearance, I guess to give players similar experiences. It's honestly a very nice role Draco has at least, where she's able to kinda bounce off Arle and Rulue decently well, and she's no slouch in combat either.

After saving Witch, she does leave you, but reappears at the end of the game at the very least. And that's mostly her role, she has her own quirks and her personality, while a little one dimensional as always, still leaves room up for some unique conversations with Arle and Rulue.

And even then, her role in Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon and its manga are at least more than that, to an extent. It depends on the Route.

In Arle's Route (yeah, sorry for not translating in a hot minute. School work over that, sorry.) she relies more on her stupid self and assumes Arle is there for a beauty- basically the usual. However, at the very least, she does canonically say she can make 5 chains, before realizing they her and Arle are gonna PROPERLY fight rather than Puyo battle, which is neat. And even after defeat, she just trains to become even better, which is honestly a nice change of pace.

And in Schezo's route, it relies on Schezo also being partially a Grade A dunce, since the boss dialog is him misunderstanding Draco completely about "Something," before she says it's a Battle, leaving him to feel stupid for not thinking that. And after defeat and near the end of the game, Schezo runs into her again, and he says that he's not really interested in appealing to women or anyone, leading to Draco assuming he's gay, much to his annoyance. And on another talk, Draco mentions if he was more in touch with how people feel and watched his wording, Schezo would be even more popular with the ladies, before he's shocked that he's popular in general.

Notice how I haven't spoken about Rulue yet, and it's because...I dunno how she acts there. But I do somewhat know how she acts in the manga.

(This requires context. Believe me.)

Like in the game, Draco is the boss of Fire Mountain, and since Rulue and Minotauros are there...to put it bluntly, the three fight. Draco's no slouch though, as she's able to actually fight Rulue competently and WIN round one, so to speak, which is the top image of the entire post.

When knocked out, Rulue begins to dream about Arle...and Satan. The rest is history. Round two happens, and it's a real back and forth, honestly. Draco lands good hits, Rulue gets good hits, before out of nowhere, steals the Naruto Handbook and Shadow Clone Justu's, shocking Draco and ending the fight there.

It's worth noting that it appears Draco might (or definitely does,) like or even crush on Rulue herself. Since this stupid 10 image limit it kicking my ass, you can probably find many pages online of those moments. Draco even tags along in fighting... these guys, who are basically traumatized from fighting Rulue.

(They're in Saturn, that's for sure.)

And as such, ends our talk about Draco. She's a very fascinating character, since she hasn't changed a whole lot throughout the decades.

She's been fairly two-note for years now, but it doesn't really stop her from being a good and fun character, especially when Compile/SEGA decide to give her a little more than "Is she stupid?" and beauty pageants.

That'd be all from me. Adios.

[lgcjiho]

LEE JIHO READS THIRST TWEETS

when he's told he's going on this show, he really doesn't know what to think. it's kind of funny to him, considering that many of his friends call him a boomer because he doesn't really understand internet slang or any slang really, in general. he knows a little bit but he has a feeling he's going to be surprised when it comes to anything that the staff at buzzfeed might find,

he's grateful for all the hours he's been putting into studying english though, considering that he's not a native english speaker and he's sure that most of the tweets will be from that side of twitter that he doesn't fully get.

but it's okay, because it's more for laughs than anything else right?

once he's on set, it doesn't take too long before the cameras start rolling considering that he's mostly here just to react. \

"hello, my name is lee jiho and i'm the leader of v&a and part of agito. please take care of me," he says his greeting, bowing his head slightly from where he's sat.

the first couple tweets are tame.

( credit: @lgcjungsu )

"oh that's sweet of them," jiho says in slightly accented english, a smile appearing on his lips. he had watched a few other episodes of celebrities replying to thirst tweets out of curiosity since he wasn't really someone who consumed a lot of media. the tweets that other celebrities got were far more explicit than this. "i was expecting worse, but that's very nice of them," he says, winking at the camera after laughing a little.

it's more embarrassing than he thought it would be, if he's honest.

many of the tweets were singing praises, and he has to wave off a lot of them mostly because he feels a bit self-conscious as a solo artist compared to when he's leading agito.

( credit: @lgcxnoeul )

"noooo, i don't—don't die?" he says in a slight panic, laughter bubbling in his throat and he leans back in his chair, his friend had coming up to cover his mouth. "ascending to heaven means dying right? i'm sorry?" he apologizes, though bewildered he's still amused, hearing the laughter behind the camera and he glances at them.

"isn't that what this means? am i missing something?"

he can't help the laugh that escapes him here, considering that he's definitely a bit scared of spiders and would probably not be the bigger fan of having one named after him.

but it's still a compliment ...

"i hate spiders," in his initial reaction, and he covers his mouth to laugh after. it's funny, he thinks, how afraid he had been to go on this show since he still doesn't think his english is the best. but it was a good opportunity and he hopes that people will tune in because of it.

"i think daddy long legs existed before me, but thank you for saying i look tall," he says, already thinking about haru is probably going to make fun of him for this. "i appreciate it."

( credit: @lgcxjasper )

"oh ... see i was waiting for one of these," he says after reading it aloud, hesitating on the word daddy but reading the whole tweet aloud without cringing too much. he would give himself a pat on the back if he wasn't on camera.

"i'm only 23 years old ... i don't think i can be your father," jiho says, with an entirely too straight face and he hears laughter behind the cameras again. he glances over to the team, looking somewhat bewildered before someone seemingly explains.

"oh—wait, no, okay," he laughs, covering his face with his hands as his eyes curve into their signature crescents. "wait, no, i did know that. can we cut that out? oh my god," he laughs again, seemingly in disbelief of himself.

"wait—i've heard of this one," he starts, after a laugh leaves him again. these tweets keep catching him off guard and he takes a moment to process, re-reading it aloud. "is it possible to both be a babygirl and a daddy at the same time?" jiho asks, looking confused and he frowns slightly.

"can't you only be one?" he asks, though getting absolutely no confirmation from the staff helping him.

"um, thank you. i guess you did call me babygirl to my face, right? since i read the tweet? yay!"

( credit: @lgcmilan )

his eyes go wide when he reads this one, turning to look at the camera and then looking back at the phone. "oh, well, that's very forward," he says, unable not to laugh once again. he's flustered, obviously, but he glances down at the tweet one more time.

"i, um, that's a very bold pose i guess," jiho comments, laughing a little because he's caught off guard by this one. "and once again, i think i'm too young to be a dad but thank you."

( credit: @lgcsaem )

he reads this one aloud and stares at it for a long time before rereading it slowly. "wait ... i don't understand," he says, looking confused and also a bit pained. it's clear that he hasn't been online to really learn this meme and it's origins, considering that he's never really been someone who was chronically in online spaces either.

"is this ... this is a good thing right?" he looks at the staff again, seeing someone of them stifling their laughter and he just still looks confused.

"there ... i might be stupid, but that's not a real university right?"

"oh ... this is a really nice one," he says, looking pleased and happy with the tweet he was reading last. he hadn't expected that many sweet ones when the theme of the video they were recording was specifically thirst tweets so he's definitely very pleasantly surprised.

"i don't know about a museum, but thank you for thinking so highly of me," he bows his head towards the camera, smiling. "i'll work hard to continue to live up to all of your expectations."

turning back to the ipad, he pauses when there's nothing else and he looks at the cameras to confirm that they're all finished.

"well ... i came into this not knowing what to expect and i'll say i was definitely caught off guard with some of those ..." he trails off, remembering the things he had read and he gives a pretend shudder. "i hope i didn't set off a war between the people who think i'm a daddy and the ones who think i'm a babygirl," he adds, laughing a little.

"my solo debut came out, so please check out 'pose' if you haven't! it's a different vibe from agito things, but if you like agito's music, keep your eyes peeled too," he adds, knowing that by the time this video airs, agito's comeback will be teased and if not they can edit out what he had said.

"thank you for having me here buzzfeed, i had a questionable time here but it was fun too!"

[hypnofantasma]

"Where's the Ulterior Spectacle remake?"

I know i've gotten this a ton of times, and seeing how it's been a couple years since i said it'd exist, i decided i'd give all of my reasons why it's taking So Damn Long. hopefully, this'll reduce the amount of... hate? judgement?? i keep getting regarding this song.

1) The only reason I SHOULD be giving: the simple fact that I am working on an immense universe

I'm not working on JUST Stars Below, and even THEN, a remake has the lowest priority of all when it comes to new Stars Below songs, character development, design solidification, etc. I'd rather solidify the world and story FIRST before making a remake that might swiftly become outdated once again if I rush it. This is also why songs IN GENERAL have been slow; I'm refining the story. It's a HUGE WIP.

I'm not a company, I'm One Single Person with OCs on the internet. If I don't work on one singular aspect, I'm sorry? I guess? That leads into...

2) I'm so immensely stressed at the moment that I'm having physical health issues and can't reliably/consistently work on things

Like I still CAN draw, but completed PVs are so high-effort (and risk), low-reward for me right now that I have to make smaller things. That's why I'm focusing on Artfight for now. On top of that, I'm gonna try to get another term of college this year so I can accomplish something tangible in my life and get a degree. (College is ALSO why stuff's been slow)

If you want to know WHAT my health issues are, all you need to know is that I've got visible ribs yet my weight is constantly depleting.

3) People keep reuploading my stuff

People keep taking things from my Discord server and reuploading them on sites like Youtube. If I don't upload something, I do not want it uploaded, plain and simple. No, I am not free game just because I'm on the internet. I'm just an independent artist and not a company, and this is breaking several boundaries of mine.

If you claim it's "out of fan love" or "giving me free promotion", it doesn't change the fact it makes me (and even my community) exceedingly uncomfortable. The big one being reuploaded was Tundra Lens, and while I did make it public again, it was solely to appease the reuploaders. Please don't reupload my stuff.

It's killing my motivation and drive for the Ulterior Spectacle remake.

4) Multiple abusers in my life

I won't dive into this one but just know that, behind the scenes, I have been treated like a goddamn ragdoll. I have been treated like an object by both strangers and people extremely close to me, and I'm drained, man.

These events have been adding to my current status of being physically ill and chronically fatigued.

5) I am currently being stalked by a group who hates me and intentionally mocks me

A certain group of individuals (who will remain unnamed) are currently stalking me, gathering my creations, and making a complete mockery of a project that intends to break all of the universal rules I have crafted. I don't mind if you don't know everything about my universe; it's a lot, after all, and I'm more than happy to educate.

However, this group intends on making a complete mockery of not only my universe but also my art. It is out of malice and not parody. Due to this, I'm almost too scared to post anything, really. I don't want this to stop me, but damn it does it sting. I'll ride this out with god-rivaling perseverance if I have to.

Now....

While all of this is there, I'll also say the remake IS NOT cancelled. I'll be dead before it's cancelled. But I just wanted to give some perspective a little bit, and maybe- if you're someone mad about the lack of the remake so far- you'll understand why a little more.

Just please respect my boundaries for things, don't drum up drama with me, and leave me in peace. That's all I ask. One day this song'll be completed, and it'll be a day where I'm no longer treated as some soulless machine.

Thank you.

[theliterarywolf]

Wha what's going on with hockey players???

I'm going to go ahead and link Swell Entertainment's video on the fiasco

But, to make a long story short: BookTok Bitches Are At It Again

To make a short story long:

Apparently BookTok has reached the period of the internet where RPF (Real People Fanfic) is thriving. Though, instead of fancasting and sending messages to attractive male TikTok users because they slightly resemble the male leads in their romance book du jour, now they've latched onto the 'Hockey Erotica' subgenre of romance books and have been fancasting real hockey players as the roles and writing fanfic about real hockey players.

Again, nothing that wasn't already being done... Several years ago and more regulated (as in, it's bad enough that you're doing it but don't fucking bother the real athletes in question)

What happened here though is that there was a prominent BookTok influencer named Kierra Lewis (calling herself a self-appointed 'Queen of BookTok') who started branching into this subgenre and it's sphere on BookTok and her TikToks about it and real hockey players were essentially severe thirstposts (one went 'Do you watch sports because you like it or because of the fine men' and she was lip-syncing to someone saying 'BOTH! Capital B! Capital O! Capital A! Capital T! BOAT!')

Well... The PR team for the Seattle Kraken reached out to her --

And, going forward, I just want to say that both Kierra and the PR team are responsible for what ended up transpiring. I've seen a lot of people heap all of the blame on Kierra (which she is the prime instigator) but the PR team should have done more research on the kind of influencer she is

-- And essentially started collabing with her ('Hey, this person is passionate about Hockey! Let's get some of that passion for social media purposes!') So they ended up inviting her to one of the Kraken games and gave her a seat... Right at the ringside. This got long, so I'm putting the rest under a Read More.

Where she decided to start screeching and shouting all sorts of sexual comments about the players while they were doing warm-ups. Like when they were stretching ('AAAAHHH! THEY'RE DOING IT!'), describing her excitement in... interesting ways ('Ooh, my kitty's not used to being around this many fine men~!') and singling out one player in particular ('21!!! Can you do something for me?! CRACK MY BACK!!)

And she only eased down, not because common sense kicked in, but because people were in her comments telling her 'Honey, they can hear you'. Though her response of 'Well, when you're at the zoo, doesn't the glass cover the sounds?!?!' wasn't great...

Anywho, later on Number 21's (Alex Wennberg) wife Felicia Wennberg would go on social media to make a post about how 'okay, I was cool with the fangirling at first because, obviously my husband's a famous athlete, but some of the comments... Especially those made by certain users are kind of going too far???'

And she also incorporated discussion about the double-standards of sexual harassment (how it's pretty much universal that making unwanted sexual comments towards women is awful but it seems to be okay when the lens is turned on men).

Well! Kierra didn't like that. Tried to call out Felicia for 'singling her out and sending her followers to attack her, pulled the old 'It's just a joke, brah'... Also didn't help that the Kraken PR team eventually decided to just cold-turkey cut ties with Kierra out of the blue.

So... Yeah, a whole lot of kerfluffle caused by people who don't know how to act in public.

Made worse by the fact that Kierra herself is TWENTY-SEVEN GOD DAMNED YEARS-OLD. WOMAN, YOU KNOW BETTER!!

[qqueenofhades]

I've been hearing some deeply worrying things about 4 surveillance/censorship bills: https:// www.badinternetbills .com/

From what I've been able to gather online, these bills (the Kids Online Safety Act, EARN IT Act, STOP CSAM Act and RESTRICT Act) all proclaims to be about protecting children online, but the evidence I've seen from various articles highlights that they all share the same serious flaws of being too overly broad and vague, with various stipulations and elements that would actually not only fail to protect children, but also outright lead to incredibly invasive censorship.

There's even been an explicit admission from far right wing groups like the Heritage Foundation and the Family Research Council that they actively plan to use the first bill (and likely the others) to silence LGBT media online.

They outright stated as such here:

https:// www.heritage.org /gender/commentary/how-big-tech-turns-kids-trans

https:// twitter.com /ButNotTheCity/status/1661560827164471296

The first two are supported by a religious fundamentalist group who used to go by Morality in Media.

And the first three bills have massive bipartisan support, with EARN IT and STOP CSAM already on the calendar to be heard in the Senate, and significant celebrity support for the first bill.

IIRC, SESTA/FOSTA also had similar results akin to KOSA, and that turned out to be a disaster.

...I can't help but be extremely worried, because any reaction to these bills has been lukewarm and lacking, with barely any significant pushback.

Basically yeah, this is what I mean when I say that regulating social media is currently almost impossible in a useful and productive way. Both left and right will talk about "protecting children online," which in my opinion is a bullshit metric anyway because it's a) so wildly unspecific and b) usually means OH NO A CHILD MIGHT SEE TITTIES moral panic, rather than actually addressing the violent extremist/far right/Nazi/other types of terrorist content that is far more of a threat. The right wing wants to use it to demonize LGBTQ content, because that's their goal with literally everything right now. The left is caught between a rock and a hard place where they want to regulate and/or punish Big Tech for all that casual democracy-destroying-for-profit that they've been doing, but haven't figured out how to apply that effectively, get it passed, or otherwise achieve the desired results. So they end up signing onto these vague "Protect The Children" acts which are extremely vulnerable to being manipulated by bad actors (and are often deliberately designed by said bad actors in the first place) to look like they're addressing the problem. Which they're not. They're not getting at the tech oligarchs who actually control these platforms, they're not putting in meaningful safeguards, they're just thinking that requiring individuals to submit age verification for porn sites or whatever is somehow going to fix this. Which. It will not.

The good news here is that every few years there's a lot of alarm about some bill that's going to Break The Internet As We Know It, and while we obviously need to pay attention to those and keep abreast of what's going on, that has not actually happened yet and even fucking nightmare-city SCOTUS recently declined to dismantle or otherwise significantly overhaul Section 230, which would have opened the door to all kinds of micromanaging/policing/bad-faith lawsuits from people who scream about "Free Speech!!!" and then want to destroy it for everyone who is not them. So yes, obviously, continue to exercise your rights, contact your representatives, make sure people know what is at stake etc -- but there are good people working on this, such as the Wikipedia foundation and others, who have been battling literal DECADES of attacks on the open web and have been in this fight for the long haul. They'll be in it for this one too, so if you're exceptionally worried, I would advise you to look into foundations/organizations working on this. They have a whole lot of structure and experience, I'm sure they would welcome volunteers, and you can join the effort that's already underway, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel and build an opposition movement from scratch. So yeah.

[ardathksheyna]

Do It For You

I haven't been posting my art as much. The reason? I'm tired of attempting to coerce whatever algorithm each site is using to reach my current followers or even new followers—and that includes Tumblr. I was doing pretty good on Instagram... until they changed their algos to favor big influencers more, which happened sometime in August.

Actually, Tumblr seems to be the worst offender compared to other sites. Or I'm probably getting pissy because of the tabs "For You", "Your tags", and "Following"—all three show me the same shit I saw a few days ago. And don't even get me started on Tumblr Live. If I wanted Only Fans, I'd go to Only Fans. But I digress...

Since then, I've slowed down on posting artwork of any sort on all platforms that I'm part of. Yesterday was probably the first piece I've posted in a while, and that was basically done on a whim.

Anyway, what it boils down to is I am (and a lot of other people) are tired of sacrificing mental health for likes because in order to keep the engagement, you have to constantly churn out piece after piece. Unfortunately, the algorithms seem to favor quantity over quality—you can bust your ass on a piece, but someone else churning out prompts (yes, I'm referring to AI art) can get more engagement because that's what the algos favor: speed.

AI art is problematic by itself—for many reasons, the least of which is how the AI algo is trained. However, that is a complicated mess and another thoughtful post for another time.

On the flip-side, algorithms also favor videos over static content—Insta's in particular (basically favoring the sloppy seconds of TikTok over genuine content). On that subject, I like YouTube's implementation (Shorts) better than Instagram's anyway.

All that being said, the current climate of the internet is hostile to content creators. Twenty years ago, you didn't have this uphill battle of trying to train an algorithm just to get views. Really, all you had to do optimize for search engines and you were pretty much set.

Now, it's a balance between your mental health and trying to retain the level of engagement that you do have, and then become frustrated when you're doing everything right and still get fucked because some bean-counter decided that they want more profits.

It's almost too easy to get discouraged and think that what you're doing doesn't matter and all you're really doing is shouting into the void. When that happens, you have to ask yourself these questions:

Who are you doing this for? (0 for someone else, 10 for yourself)

Do you like making art? (0 for no, 10 for yes)

Do you want the attention (rate 0 to 10)

Are you only doing this for likes (rate 0 to 10)

Yeah, I made that up on the spot. Whatever score for each question you come up with will tell you where your priorities are. If you're doing this for anything other than enjoyment or for yourself, well... that leads me to my next part:

You see, I learned a long time ago that when you're doing something mental/time-intensive for reasons other than pure enjoyment, it is very easy to get burned out quickly. I know this because once upon a time, I used to enjoy writing code. After graduation, I spent my free time trying to improve my skills—not for myself or because I enjoyed it, but because I thought it was the only way for me to retain a job in my field.

Well, I think we know how that ended—badly.

Because of my past experiences, I made a decision a while ago that what I'm doing, I'm doing for me (and maybe my boyfriend) but not for anyone else. The stories I write, the artwork I create. I'm not doing it for likes, I'm doing it for me, because I like what I do. Because I like the creative process and seeing how far can I push my skills.

So keep that in mind if you're struggling with mental-health and trying to beat bullshit algorithms. It's not worth the stress, and that stress just steals energy from your creativity.

You're doing what you love for you and maybe a few others—not for likes, attentions, engagement or whatever fake internet points exist nowadays.

Remember: do it for you!

[softedgessculptures]

Im thinking of leaving loa community on tumblr

The journey of ALL of us is different and unique. You can scroll through days and hours several posts and several profiles seeing each new law that emerges, each new step, each new technique, which is nothing wrong with doing this because each person with their particular journey just wants to help by teaching what worked best for them; they are angels and have even provided access to it through blogs on Internet... im so grateful for them because im here now with their help and generosity. Meanwhile, we must remember to learn to cultivate the autonomy and self-confidence to set OUR OWN RULES. What worked for someone may seem strange to you, or even not work at all depending on your beliefs and consciousness. "Oh you're doing something wrong" lol there's no wrong and yes just learning. You're on the right path as long as it leads to your unconditional love and peace of spirit, you'll get where you're supposed to have, you learn YES to manipulate energy and manifest through the body/ego (aways this separation, already annoying me honestly) to be happier but your journey is already predestined for you, is what your true form wants for you.

Focus on yourself above your desires, above other profiles, have your rules and your peace. Determine what your limits are and how far YOU want to go. Appreciate and go to support ask for help when you need, have doubts and questions but what matters most is that you DO NOT SEEK APPROVAL to feel Self, as if you depend on x person's affirmation for your power to work. This journey is YOURS. YOU DECIDE.

"Access to Void" You are the Void. You are the void and you are being void right now without realizing it, because you are watching an movie living the consciousness of the body that you're conscious of. Do not chase it, there is no need for this. Also... is there a body to leave?

Read books, study philosophy, metaphysics, physics, theology, study religions, consciousness... if you feel you need it, go after it and consume it until you not only get closer to your Self, but evolve whatever you want in your knowledge. You don't need all this because your manifestation is instantaneous, after all, this reality that you see, your home, your job, the Earth and the world where you live is already a manifestation occurring in "real time", maybe even coming from your old Self believes. It's instantaneous and you can have what you want.

Lol I've been looking for affirmations and approvals in so long, nothing was good enough. One person says x, another person says y; the book says one thing, the teachings say another. It is important to have faith and believe, to move forward with courage and astuteness, even if it seems frightening to know our gigantic and absolute identity. This is also my story, what I witness and believe in my reality... and yours is different from mine. You can just don't turn on and get on with your life discpvering what works better for you, according on you.

Don't forget that the body is limited, so don't expect too much from it... Or wait? Who am I to tell you what's right and what's not?

You can do it because you're loved, strong and wise. Trust in God. Trust YourSelf 💕💕

[nephrastar]

Honestly convinced that, barring maybe tumblr, bigwig social media has collapsed damn near all of my social circles.

All this shit about figuring out the algorithm, all this shit about analytics, SEO, about view time, about follower count... I just fucking hate it all now. Social media basically turned the internet from a wild west with pockets of peaceful and interesting communes to a monolithic walled city where the only thing that matters is numbers. And if you get big numbers, congrats you get to be famous!! But only if you can keep those numbers going.

And let me tell you from personal experience-- 9 times out of 10, when you post something to social media at "the right time of day" with the intent of getting some clout, your post just... Does not get clout, most of the time.

Any post that goes viral is a benefactor of circumstance. In my almost 20 years of being on the internet, the one and only thing I've ever posted that went viral was a shitpost on Twitter of me memeing on a restaurant because they had a tip limit on their app and they along with many other food and adjacent companies were being criticized for not paying their employees a living wage. This was in 2022. Last year. I learned nothing from having hundreds of thousands of likes and retweets, and have not had anything nearly as popular since. I promoted my art Twitter in the replies, but you wanna know what that did?

Absolutely FUCKING NOTHING. I didnt make any money as a result of piggybacking that viral tweet. I didn't have people clamoring for what i had to offer. And it was then when I realized that getting big numbers anywhere will ultimately amount to jack and shit. And Jack had long since left town.

That may sound like i was upset that i didnt become internet famous overnight. I honestly wasn't, but there's a point to be made here-- the chances of your platform becoming big and internet famous are about as good as your acting landing you a breakout role in a Hollywood film. You're competing with hundreds of hours worth of content per second on most platforms, and depending on the site, their algorithm, which may or may not be controlled by real life humans.

Nobody can know for certain what types of videos will be hits on YouTube anymore. not even YouTube staff know what will be hits anymore because their algorithm is a machine learning AI, and creating any content at all with the intent of beating the algorithm or making faceless computers happy will lead to burnout. And when that content doesn't make the big numbers, you're probably going to feel like it's your fault when it's really not. this goes for any social media site that uses similar methods to "curate" their user's site experience.

And I've seen far too many people i know fall into this trap, which may as well be gambling. Getting good numbers so you can get that nice dopamine hit. Then maybe you hit a jackpot. Then you're just outright delighted. So you do the same thing you did before. But it doesn't make big numbers this time. Was it something you did? Ah well. Post again. Nothing. You adjust how you post and when to post. Maybe what to post, even. But still... Your content isn't doing well. You may as well be playing slots at a casino, except instead of losing thousands of dollars you're losing time. Time that, honestly, would've been better spent doing something you legitimately like to do.

The way i see it, make content like the algorithm doesn't exist-- make videos infodumping about your special interest like view counts dont matter, draw art and post it with the same energy a 5 year old has when they show off their macaroni art to their parents. Make the music you want to hear played during a thunderstorm.

Make the content that you want because you like the idea of it existing. At the end of the day, that content is FOR YOU! It has value because you poured your passion and love into it, and no amount of Algorithms or influencer courses or viral content will ever change that. And if that does eventually lead to you being notable and successful, then congratulations! You have a large audience that's cheering you on and encouraging you to do what you love.

[cutiedwaekki]

PUPPYM DETECTIVE

CHAPTER 5 : NO MORE EXPECTATION

part 1 ; part 2 ; part 3&4

Everything seemed more logical until now, but I had the distinct impression that I was missing a part of the story to fully understand it.

So I grabbed my phone and, using the Dictaphone app, began to summarize my progress on this investigation.

2 months after the death of General Councilor Jung, I'm not giving up. I've discovered that several people were responsible for his murder. So the field of culprits has been widened, but I think I've got an idea of where to look.

Digging into the past of the three stores on the Miroh street , I discovered some amazing things:

• Felix and Changbin's bakery has been around for at least three years. The two are a married couple who make no secret of their love for each other and their fantasies about the oldest putting on weight. A little funfact is that they've been dating since high school and graduated from the same university as Jisung and me.

Felix is rather jovial and smiles like a ray of human sunshine, he's the one who manages the kitchen part of their bakery while Changbin although I haven't had the chance to talk to him for long is described by Jisung as a noisy but funny guy. My question every time I see him is if this guy can still walk with his weight, i mean ... he's huge ! I've always seen him sitting on a seat, a chair (or two lately) but never standing.I have the impression that if one of the two hides something these definitely Changbin but that Felix covers it, I do not see another explanation

Let's move on to Minho's cat's cafe, he and his brother are both chaebols of the great CEO Yang, who seems to have a preference for his little brother since he's his illegitimate son born out of wedlock- my god, it's such a cliché.

Anyway, I tried to contact my brother so that he could tell me more about Jeongin But, but I didn't find anything very interesting: just a random college student, he had good grades and seemed rather popular in his class. Minho, on the other hand, is like a ghost who never existed. I looked up "Lee Minho" and even "Yang Minho" on the Internet, but nothing ... no leads and there was no way I ask my father any information, I'd rather die then talk to that piece of sh-

I'm sorry ... Well, to get back to them, I haven't found anything suspicious about them, but their father is. PDG Yang, is also known as the rich corrupt entrepreneur who puts his own interests before those of others and who thinks that money is the solution to everything.

In short: a jerk.Their father is justly interesting with his various projects, including Project 143, which consists of building more factories to increase supply and export internationally. Except that the factory is supposed to be built not far from Stayville, so it would be a death sentence for the town's inhabitants, or else relocate them elsewhere than where many of them were born and raised.

How do I know? Jisung was given a file and was talking about bribing the town councillor and the mayor to get the project accepted. Of course Jisung refused, and he assured me that Mayor Bahng would too.

So if the Lee/Yang brothers have anything to do with this story, it's probably to do with leir perr and project 143. Also, on the day councilman Jung was killed, Jelngin launched his last lesson of the day... pretty strange, isn't it?

Anyway, I didn't want to talk about him, although there are things to say: Hwang Hyunjin. A former world-famous model who quit everything overnight to move to Stayville to open a bed'n breakfast.

His case is also a mystery, because from what I could find he had an impeccable career without the slightest scandal, and the only one he had was linked to the fact that he was attached to a mafia branch and that his modeling agency was precisely a means of laundering money.

Honestly, I'm not surprised, he's a real jerk who thinks he can do whatever he wants, so if he's a former mafioso, it's the height of cliché here! Maybe his goal is to launder money here away from the mafioso and far from the prying eyes . Which explains his relationship with Mayor Bahng!

Speaking of him, I find this mayor rather suspicious, and I'm not just saying that because I voted for their Daengmo mascot! Kind of a long story bjt as joke in Stayville the mascots always present themselves at the ekections if the candidate ever sucks, this year it was Daengmo, a plush dog

In fact, although he's a fair mayor and allows stayville a good economic situation, I find him far too easily manipulated, just look at how Hyunjin wrapped him around his finger with sex and food! He was no longer the athletic, fair-minded mayor everyone knew him to be, he was now just a walking pile of corruptible fat and out of shape , manipulated by a potentate ex-mafioso with a bastard's back.

Then I say that but i do get a little out of shape ... well little, better say's a lot. I had to ask Jisung to lend me one of his jeans because mine don't zip anymore. Oh and now i just can't stop eating ! it seems that as you get older you gain weight more easily but I'm only 23 , I'm not that old, am I?

But it's not my fault, Jisung always brings back food when he comes home from work and always feeds him when I'm concentrating on the investigation. Maybe I've put on weight because of Jisung's case, but at least he's become much more cuddly with me! It was a sort of routine where after each day we'd sit on the sofa and hug each other for a long time without saying a word, as if this simple embrace was enough to make us forget our daily lives.

Poor Jisung, he was so closely involved in all this that he couldn't do anything about it. I feel sorry for him, who didn't ask for anything, but found himself sitting on the desk of someone who'd been murdered.I miss him, if only he didn't have a charity gala in the next village.

Yet someone knocked and rang the doorbell again and again. Curious, I pulled on a sweater and opened the door.Oh no, not him again.

-"Seung"

- "I'm sorry sir, I have nothing to do with you" I said as I closed the door on my "father".

- "Seungmin please, it's important"

- "It's always important with you "

- "It's about Jisung!"

My heart caught a beat, I took fright and reluctantly decided to open the door.

-"Is everyone here? Chan asked shyly.

-"Idiot, you can see that someone is still missing.

- "Hey, we didn't talk to you fatso!" defended Hyunjin.

- "Fatso?! How dare you call me like that you little-".

- "Eurk you're spitting on me, I'm sure I'll get fat because of you're saliva" Changbin would have stood up to teach Hyunjin a lesson, but he'd eaten too much and couldn't get up from his chair without being humiliated again by the tall blond.

-"Stop your immature bickering, you look like damn kids !" exclaimed Minho, sighing heavily.

-"I remind you that we're not here out of friendship" confided Hyunjin, who then turned on Minho.

-"Oh no, I've been dreaming of becoming friends with you" cried Changbin falsely as the three of them began to bicker, leaving Chan confuse on how to deal with the situation.

-"Wow, calm down, I remind you that the situation is critical, that's why we're all here! So if we can put our differences aside, that would be great!" said Felix supportively, arriving with a feast of salted muffins which he placed on the table before taking a seat.

-"You're right Lixie sorry" said shyly Changbin, placing a tender kiss on his husband's cheek.

- "Ew ... love " said Hyunjin, earning himself a confused look from Chan, who ended up covering it with a kiss a few minutes

-"Well, he's going to be late, isn't he? As usual, I suppose" accused Linho, who was impatiently tapping his foot while looking at the door.

-"I remind you that you're the one who's close to him, so you should know better than anyone whether he's on time or not", Felix commented almost dryly.

But just as Minho was about to retort, the door suddenly opened, letting the breathless latecomer in.

-"Ah, here he is!"

- "Come on Jisung, you're exaggerating, we said 6.30pm not 7pm! Chan said in exasperation, which made Hyunjin laugh.

- "Sorry, I had to sort something out, I remind you that I live with the enemy"

- "Oh Lixie that's sweet, he calls his boyfriend an enemy~"

- "He's not my boyfriend, you don't know how hard it is to put him on the wrong track, he's too smart for that shit!" Declare Jisung before taking his place on the last remaining seat.

-"I find it amazing that he still hasn't suspected you, I mean, you're the ideal suspect but the idiot still hasn't noticed!"

- "stop it Minho, I'm not happy about treating him like that either, but he can't harm our project like that!"

- "It's true that M.Han is our leader" teased Hyunjin, earning a glare from the concerned.

-"Enough chatter, let's recap the facts"

- "So you're sure that even if he has several leads Seungmin won't be able to trace them back to all of us?"

-"I promise you Felix, I've known him since we were kids, he thinks I'm innocent of everything! He didn't even consider me as a potential suspect!"

Everyone looked at each other in astonishment before laughing loudly.

-"And then, thanks to Changbin's plan, he spends more time digesting all that food than thinking!"

-"See ? I bet you must be excited by that" then added Felix who hastened to put his hand on the belly of his lover

Changbin then smiled proudly as Felix congratulated him by offering him a cookie.

- "So we just have to lay low until it calms down?"

- "Channie, you don't understand... this pseudo detective won't give up until he finds someone to blame"

- "But he can't know it's us!-.... but who will it be?"

Everyone reflected before Minho had a sudden idea

- "Isn't it rumored that while he was dating Choi Yena, he was also sleeping with his brother Choi San?"

Everyone nodded, seeming to already know the outcome of this plan.

Poor detective puppy m, things weren't turning out the way he'd expected

-"No i don't want to hear you !"

-"Seugmin i beg you to hear what i have to say , i have proof that Jisung is involved in the death of the municipal councilor!"

but Seungmin didn't want to hear anything, he felt like that night, where his father lectured him for long hours on the dangers of homosexuality after he had sex with Jisung.

Because of that and although he had only half listened to it, he had trouble pairing up with the quokka despite their shared common feelings.

So at that moment he felt this mixed feeling, he did not know which camos this ranger ... that of his father who abandoned him or his best friend / crush?

[backpackingspace]

okay were getting deep oversharing with the internet times bc I'm going to react to dw through my trauma lense. Specifically hell bent and heaven sent here we go.

So far so good.

Listen will I be grateful if these episodes no longer trigger me to hell and back. Will I also be pissed that I've spent years being triggered by this show when the original trigger episodes no long trigger me? Yes. Yes I will be.

Never mind there will be no deeper meaning sound here the doctor is trying to dry his doc martins up right and laced up and its annoyed me so much it's all I will associate with this episode now.

The doctor talking himself into being brave o.o baby. Also me. Talking myself into doing anything with heights.

Sprays last thought like a cat no bad. Making me based comparisons is how this whole mess got started

Oh. Yep there it is. Being forced to relive the things that scares you on purpose forever. "I'm scared and I'm alone" ha ha yah fuck

Okay listen self. If the doctor being forced to relive his wrost fears on purpose is torture than you being forced to relive your worst fear is torture. I know we don't want to accept that don't want to accept its that bad but it is.

Oh hey the losing time thing too?? Haha yah

The sleep deprivation

"Maybe I'm in hell" "how long do I have to be here? Forever?" Yah it sure did feel that that.

"Asking a skull if it's still scared" yah passively contemplating death so I didn't have to be scared anymore. That sure was a thing.

"There's something I'm missing and I think it's something terrible" literally shut the hell up

Im actually finding this really helpful to be able to go through and label my emotions and thoughts about my situation might show this to the brand new shiny therapist I now have.

"I'm playing someone else's game I cannot stop and everyone else has lost" man if we're taking ever line as a metaphor for what was done to me. This therapist had a deal with a school man. It literally terrifies me to think of how many kids she's messed up like she messed me up. Both before and after because let me tell you. She was so fucking good at messing you up. Took literally 3 sessions to get you dependent on her and going insane.

The clinging feeling of desperation that you just have to get through this it gets worse before it gets better.

"The I can't keep doing this rant"

the way he's just sitting defeated against the wall? Yah I saw that expression everyday for years. That hits hard.

Okay not trauma related but the doctor saying I remember it all everytime when we've been lead to believe he doesn't like talk about a hell. Talk about good story writing. I've never caught that before!!

The way the doctor looks so tired. Yah that's framilar too. Also the having to be strong as your body gives up you that sure was a thing too.

Okay but literally this episode is so good. I fucking love the doctors dying speech in this it's only one of my favorite episodes of tv ever. Which is in part of why losing it hit me so hard.

hey if the rooms revert how come the shovel has dirt on it and the clues stays and the clothes are drying?? Finally some good old plot holes.

Also where is the food coming from like???

Okay but the sequence of the Shephards boy says is fucking fire

I want to know how long each time lap is

....thinking about how the tardis was left alone for 4.5 billion years.

Okay no because I should have been able to trust the therapist and the doctor should have been able to trust the time dial!! They were tools meant to HELP HEAL TURNED INTO PAIN AND TRUAMA

[eight-twenty]

Hi, I've Been Writing. And This Does not Have to be Relevant. Or Celebratory.

I am writing to you from the floor, my back hunched, in a place that's just an address to me. I moved from Southeast Asia to Northern America, and I've been far from home for almost a year—writing about it adds to the reality of it, it makes it feel all too real. And in some ways, I have deviated from doing so.

As a child of livejournal-dot-com, my brain has been wired to believe that my life needs to be documented through words for anyone to read. It does not. Nobody really cares. But I will write it anyway. I have long been meaning to.

I am thinking about ways to restructure and repair my relationship to writing & the internet, or shall we say 'content creation' in ways I can share with you. Thinking of ways to truly center publishing as a form of expression, not glorification, monetization, and consumption.

I don’t have the answers to how I can do that sustainably yet. It's not new. This expression of feeling that my relationship with writing has been corrupted. 

I've been avoiding writing on my Substack more than I hoped I would because a little voice in my head tells me it's too intrusive. I don't want my writing to be perceived as 'influencing'—by that, I mean something that is reactionary rather than authentic; preachy than it is just a chronicle of a personal experience; curated than it is effortless.

Ironically, I know deep down why I haven't written in so long is because I have been anxiously trying to put my writing in this 'strategic box' (because that's been my career); my writing has been so rooted in the invisible standards set about by age and this capitalist society.

Writing means so much to me in a way that only I and my 9-year-old self could understand. What I lacked in my IRL personality (thanks to anxiety), I made up for words on a blank page.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I do miss the peak of LiveJournal, WordPress blogs, and Tumblr. That was the most authentic I've felt the world was in a long while.

But this is also why I'm writing now. I've been trying to find joy in having no idea with what I'm doing. I have been trying to celebrate curiosity. And I hope that curiosity leads me to find things worth my time, commitment, and energy. And even if it doesn't, at least the journey toward it will be full of bliss and lessons worth sharing.

And I hope you find the same too.

----------

I've been long meaning to write about nostalgia--that in this hyperconnected yet divided world, the yearning for 'the good old times' is what truly binds us; from the reading sections of National Bookstores, running home to watch Meteor Garden, to huddling together to watch Showtime on a 'China Phone'. Feelings that are all unique yet similar.

I also have this working theory where 'the Housing Financial Crisis of 2008' was when Christmas celebrations all went downhill from there. Coincidentally, ABS-CBN's Star Ng Pasko was released in 2009.

I am always up for a brainstorm.

[brownskinsugarplum76]

Beautiful man in a box

Why did you shut yourself in?

Why did you resign to a life buried in your shit?

I can't imagine the pain that would lead to such a narrowing of one's world

A father who took more than he ever gave

Took his love away

Took your trust away

Your money

I have to believe you were as powerful inside as your voice was to our ears outside

But sadly you were the last to know

If you ever did

I got on an Alice in Chains kick last week, and I immersed myself in what I could read about the story of Layne Staley on the internet. I'm sure there are some nuances that I've missed, being a new listener (and honestly, I don't know if I can listen to the Dirt album, knowing it's so informed by his personal hell), but this is the impression that I have.

His story is heartbreaking. For someone with such a gift for singing, such a sweet, mischievous spirit, it's unbelievably sad how things turned out for him.

I think what I love about Robert, and Iggy, too, is their inner strength and resilience--Robert, bouncing back after losing a son and a best friend, and Iggy, beating his demons, addictions, and the music industry that thought for decades that he had no place.

But Layne... Never got that third act, that comeback arc. It makes me incredibly angry and sad for him.

There are areas of my life that I want to change. These are nowhere near as serious and challenging as what Layne grappled with, but slow progress does make me second-guess myself. Will I get to a point where I make peace with my losses, real and perceived, and continue life whole and vibrant? Will I lose hope in my ability to change? It seems like such a fine line between long-term success and failure.

I believe in myself, but I do fear that one day the optimism will stop.

Thanks if you've read this far. ☺️❤️ I do feel better right now, for processing why I've been so affected by Layne's story over the past few days. And I will keep fighting for myself.