#also there is clearly a pattern

[autumnrory]

idk why people are so weird about not having rep tv yet when she was hinting at speak now and 1989 for ages before announcing them

[vashti-lives]

Things currently on the first page of the "hot right now" section of knitting patterns search page on ravelry:

Several basic raglan sweaters

Mesh/fishnet sweater covered in sequins.

A dissected rat; complete with internal organs

Cute vest with stylized flowers

Two different sweaters (one pullover, one cardigan) with the same unicorn tapestry design by the same designer. Each pattern is $13 and there isn't a discount for buying both and neither pattern description mentions the other pattern. Designers can and should charge what they want for their work but this feels like a wild choice to me TBH.

Thong/Speedo "bulge" version-- ie designed for people with a penis. This pattern is no longer available??? Why is it on the hot right now page?????

Cute Christmas fair isle sweater.

Coin purse in shape of ten week old fetus.

Ranunculus sweater. Obviously.

Bookmark in shape of squished rat; complete with blood puddle.

Headband with extremely impressive goat horns and little ears. It's free and went in my library immediately.

5 different PetiteKnit patterns that still somehow look exactly the same.

Purse in the shape of grotesque head. For some reason the featured example includes a real cat tooth????

Hood with lamb ears being modeled by depressed young man.

That sweater with all the eyes which calls for yarn that is $58 per skein??

Hat that looks like a dead fish, but in a cute way.

Latest Stephen West shawl.

I don't know whats happening but the trending page pattern page has never been so chaotic. I am obsessed. Let's have more dead rat patterns and fewer tastefully boring PetitKnit patterns.

[mayasaura]

Hopping series for a minute, that's also why Harrow's refusal to condemn John at the end of Nona the Ninth hits. Harrow knows that she has never had power that she didn't abuse. She has hurt people, badly. Partially because of her self-hatred born of guilt.

She can't and won't absolve John, but she doesn't have to condemn him either. So she doesn't. She refuses to condemn him because she sees herself in him. She refuses to condemn him as part of her journey to learning how to stop condemning herself.

[thegh0st-of-ingrid]

While reading Nevermore I feel like that one best friend that sees their bestie's man and how he treats them and goes: "FUCKING LEAVE HIM! HE'S JUST A MAN, HIT HIM WITH YOUR CAR!" when it comes to Ada and Will.

Those two are such meansexuals

[ganondoodle]

you know im unable to shut up when i have any opinion on zelda (though i try and have thus far succeeded at not commenting on any other concept from the darn book)- i find most totk ganondorf concept art worse than what we got to insulting even (of those i have seen) ..... this one though

much more the one in the background than the one up front, still at least he has the collar and the weapon we saw in the first trailer of things that never happen in the end (like so much else)

[thepaddockprincesses]

I just find it very interesting how the same people who are always talking about how important the mental health of drivers is and feel personally attacked when another driver even just alludes to their faves, turn around and defend their faves talking shit about others.

A whole ass witch hunt was started because Lance called Daniel an "idiot" directly after a crash on the radio, where emotions clearly run high. Meanwhile he's been called slurs by other drivers and is regularily catching strays for the tiniest mishaps. But that's funny right? Because it's Lance! He totally deserves being treated like shit, right?

[elodieunderglass]

Don’t know if it’s against the rules to complete TWO egg projects. However I’m learning to become a silversmith and I’ve finished my first ring. It’s not perfect at all, but many hours of time and effort and a whole lot of learning are in it!

aaah is that labradorite? my favorite!

You can certainly pelt Killie with another egg, you've been such a good friend to him that you deserve to get him with an ostrich egg.

But in all seriousness that's a lovely ring, and you've been extremely busy this month, encouraging others, showing kindness and progressing your own creative works. Well done.

[vice-like]

yk re-reading natsume after knowing abt matoba's cat autism makes him sound SO different in my head lol he asks abt nyanko-sensei constantly it almost feels like he's more interested in sensei than natsume

[codgod-archive]

i feel like i see ppl mischaracterise mariana a lot too but then i also don’t feel like i know his character well enough to articulate in what way lol

like i read. a lot of slimeriana fics. and in some of them his behaviour just feels ? off ? from what i expect it to be but idk how LOL

[picory]

i think... i'm cooking. still a ways to go (clearly) before i master it, but i think i like working with gouache!

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

“i believe in the idea that old bits of equipment have songs built into them already, like a ghost in the walls.”

[dykesynthezoid]

Fields also seems p toxic to be fair but the fact that there are people who looked at his and Burt’s dynamic and went yeah he’s the main toxic one, Burt is totally normal, in fact he’s a victim. Burt was literally gaslighting that man at the dinner table babes!!! And I love his manipulative ass for it but he was!!!

[angeart]

Howwwww did you angst the world tour?? 🎀

this question made me giggle so much oh i'm glad you asked :3c there was so much yummy grian angst in the hc world tour!

it's all about grian and his penchant for destruction. he doesn't even mean to! he's not trying to be pesky; quite the opposite. he's curious but restrained, trying to be good, trying to follow instructions. he's not malicious at all! he's just there to see what people were up to, open and friendly and curious, eager to look and learn and praise. not a bad intention in sight... and yet things seem to break wherever he goes. everything he touches goes wrong.

the guilt churns, acidic and overwhelming, and grian's miserable. why is he like this? he's trying so hard, why is this the only way he can ever be? why can't it stop?

spoilers for grian's world tour video below <3

plantie pointed out to me how, during the tour of scar's train, when grian got rid of scar's arrows—the glitched ones that doc put there—he was so desperate to point it out after scar just glossed over it. as if he wanted to show that he can do something good. he can be helpful, he can fix things instead of just breaking everything.

but then we have all the other things, right? grian can't escape it.

when he was with etho and the mushroom farm exploded, he sums it up in a wretched if confused apology: "i'm so sorry. the two times i tried to use it, i broke it :( and created a water source floating— which i don't know how it happened— and flung the TNT, which i really don't understand—"

they move on, but it's so clear it lingers.

etho isn't blaming him. he's amused and brushes it off and moves along, unbothered, but grian himself can't wrap his head around it. about that propensity to breaking things, even unintentionally. the way nothing is safe around him.

he tells etho: "i can't stop thinking about your mushroom farm. why does everything i touch break, in new and unexpected ways?"

(not to mention when etho's showing him frogger and grian plays, almost instantly etho goes: "uh-oh, the game's broken", with a little huff of laugh. it wasn't exactly tied to anything grian did, but still something i wanted to point out, since grian was there for it <3)

and then grian goes to zedaph, right?

the very first game zedaph shows him. the very first. grian plays the way he was told to, the way he was meant to, and— he breaks it.

zedaph just laughs and moves them on.

(just sprinkling in a side note that zedaph's furnace minigame also didn't seem to work the way it should've—)

by the time grian gets to pearl's, it's starting to be a pattern that's so clearly eating away at him, making him anxious. he doesn't want it to happen again!

and yet.

pearl invites him to play her wordle game, and grian mindlessly goes and pushes the wrong button trying to start it... instantly stepping away with a quiet groan of a dread-filled "...oh-" followed by: "i just— ruined it already."

there's something about the mood switch. the way he seems more restrained and tame, silently upset with himself, trying so hard not to mess things up further. questioning why this is happening again. why he can't stop making it happen.

he walks over to the reset game button and asks, carefully: "can i press reset? is it gonna hurt? 🥺👉👈"

pearl reassures him he can, with a sigh noting that it'll just take a while.

there's an almost hysteric laugh from grian, followed by an exasperated, upset scream. "everything i touch breaks! when i went to e— i broke etho's thing when i went to— not frogger, his— his mushroom farm i— it blew up."

"you blew up his mushroom farm?? how? what did you do?!"

"yeah, i— i broke zed's game, instantly, pretty much, it's—"

"oh my gosh :("

"sorry 🥺"

pearl is quick to reassure him, though. "well, luckily for you, this is— you doing that (pushing the wrong button) does not break the game. it's just, you now have to wait for it to reset."

she makes sure grian knows that he didn't mess up anything terribly here. he didn't break pearl's game. it's okay! it's fine!

and then grian right clicks to open the book, and instead makes bonemeal pop out of a composter.

i think at this point pearl is a little bit taken aback by how wrong everything really seems to be going around grian. she makes sure to say, "it's fine," again, just so grian won't start worrying about it all again. "you're clicking on everything that people do not usually click on today. but it's okay. it's still not broken! it's not broken, it's alright, it's okay— i've got failsaves for people like you."

it's so sweet how she really tries to soothe him— and yet she can't help but let out that last remark.

people like you.

those few words surely lodge in more than all the reassurances. they're like splinter, proving grian right.

eventually, he gets to skizz.

during the tour of skizz's base, skizz shows him a horse statue and starts talking about how he lost his first horse at an event that grian was also a part of. and grian's stomach instantly sinks.

he asks hushedly, a bit confused, trying to remember: "was i there?"

skizz laughs. "you were absolutely there, dude."

which leads grian to ask, uneasily: "did i do it?"

skizz waves his hands, quick to easily reassure that no! that's not it, grian didn't do it!

grian lets out an oh with such palpable relief, and goes on to explain about how, "i remember witnessing it, but sometimes it's hard to disentangle whether i did it or not. coz i tell you what, on this tour i've broken everyone's stuff."

nobody was upset with grian when things broke, but here he is, several hermits down, still unable to leave it to rest. because it's him. it's him who did all of that, somehow, and he didn't mean to, but it doesn't matter. it happened anyway.

and now he can't even tell what is and what isn't his fault anymore.

the guilt is deep rooted, leaving anxious assumptions and dark, jagged precipices. how much did he destroy? what else should he be feeling guilty about? how far does this go?

he keeps breaking things, and it's such a blur that he can no longer tell what is and what isn't his fault.

the tour continues, and he delves into skizz's pyramid. and it's just— it's just a tunnel to swim through. nothing to mess up, besides potentially dying to suffocation, right?

and yet you can hear skizz shrilly exclaim: "oh he's going to end up breaking something!!"

and, (plantie's words: ) grian hearing that and just wondering, is that all i'm good for? is that all i'm known for? is that all i am?

there's no room for doubt; not really. that is what grian does, all the time, whether he wants to or not. he breaks stuff. he just— he doesn't mean to. and this tour is one big show of how powerless he is against it. (how everyone expects it from him anyway.)

despite it all, grian perseveres, trying out skizz's game, stubbornly dedicated and trying to win. (to pass; to have something to be proud of, at least—) and he gets to the powdered snow section.

there, he jumps across to a pathway that he was meant to circle to through the snow instead.

it's not breaking anything, not really. not even the rules. it's not cheating! he's just— he just did something skizz did not expect, but that was entirely possible within the game's design, even if not intended. he exploited it to his advantage; a risky, tricky shortcut.

and yet skizz remarks with a laugh: "this is what grian does! he breaks games!"

no matter what grian does... is that all he'll ever be?

is that all they'll see?

he fails getting through skizz's game, is thanked for play-testing, praises it all, they talk it all away, and...

and then grian goes to tour mumbo's base.

and fails to even die properly to his llama—

and then mumbo shows him his archive machine, and instantly panicks when grian gets curious about it, begging him not to touch anything. and grian says: "your stomach just fell through didn't it?" and after mumbo's immediate agreement, he adds: "and rightfully so. coz, almost everything i've touched on this tour has broken."

there's not a sliver of surprise to mumbo's anxious rushed: "yeah, yeah yeah! please stop now." because, of course things have broken. of course what grian touches is bound to go wrong. of course—

and then mumbo very carefully tells grian what to do with the machine.

grian does as he's told.

mumbo looks up and pauses, a frown crossing his face as he takes it in. he notes that grian probably did it too fast—

(something went wrong)

(something broke)

mumbo says: "i can't believe you come along and every single thing in my base starts [going wrong/breaking/malfunctioning]"

and then grian mysteriously ends up with an extra book from mumbo's machine, much to mumbo's dismay. grian's confused, cogs spinning as he tries to figure out what did he mess up this time to result in this.

it's clear mumbo wants grian away from his machine. it's not safe. (grian isn't safe.)

"maybe just give that to me and maybe just step away from the contraption. and then— maybe just leave me to—"

grian's upset and bewildered voice cuts in: "i didn't do anything wrong this time :(("

he's trying so hard.

he's trying so hard to be good and do things right and not mess anything up.

(it isn't working.)

(it's never bound to work, is it?)

mumbo ushers him away, and ends up showing him another cool invention—an elevator. except the second mumbo hits the button, a creeper shows up and explodes it. (it's midday.) (it wasn't even meant to be there.)

this one isn't grian's fault at all, but with everything that's happened— well, it's easy enough to link it to grian's presence. like a bad luck omen.

apprehensively, grian asks if the elevator broke, and mumbo—a bit bewildered by the reality of it—says that no, it seems to still work. "amazingly," he tacks on, disbelieving.

grian's relieved. "ohh, i thought we were in big trouble there!"

besides himself, mumbo anxiously agrees: "augh. i was like, if every single creation that i show breaks in some fashion, i'm just gonna quit."

because this isn't normal. none of this is, least of all everything at once. it simply doesn't happen.

(not when grian isn't there, anyway.)

mumbo notes that he needs to work on his lighting, and grian nods wisely saying it's a perpetual issue, but the anxiety is digging its talons in now, unrelenting. (what else is going to go bad in grian's presence? what else will he mess up? what else will he break? why is he like this?)

another remark that comes after this is mumbo's nervous: "i've actually just built up the automatic sorter which does this—which you're not gonna touch. we're banned from touching any redstone contraptions!"

and what can grian do but oblige? (but he can at least look, right?)

but does it ever change anything?

does it matter?

-

at the end of the day, the others don't think too much about it.

they all say their part, pass their judgment, wave their hands, dismiss, move on. it doesn't keep them up at night.

... i think it might keep grian up at night.

a cacophonous collection of word snippets, aimed at him or woven around him, digging under his skin until it bleeds. a noose of inescapable fate, a tightening band around his chest that promises he can only ever be one thing:

a vessel for destruction.

it doesn't matter if he wants to be.

shackles and chains and a cosmic inevitability written into his skin, etched into his bones, tangled into his bloodstream. and an ever-rising guilt like stormy sea, far above his head now, drowning him.

(maybe he's not meant to be near other people and their things.)

(maybe he's not meant to touch games that were constructed with so much effort and love and passion poured into them.)

(maybe he shouldn't—)

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bonus screenshots from discord DMs (with extra sprinkles of hmtb mentions):

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bonus hmtb quotes because i kept thinking about it:

He always destroys the things he loves most, after all.

and:

He destroyed everything he touched, and when there was nothing left, he destroyed the only remaining thing: himself.

-

[xariarte]

warriors in five like i thought from the beginning

[since-times-long-forgotten]

kitty on tiktok

owner says he's a bengal?

That makes sense! It's definitely possible. The kitty looks like some kind of charcoal tabby.

Charcoal is a kind of tabby pattern modifier, and while some charcoal-like patterns have been found in randombreds, it's much more often found in a cat who has at least some Bengal ancestry.

It seems like it's likely due to the "domestic cat non-agouti allele (a) and an ALC agouti allele (APb)." (source, from UC Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory)

Messybeast also has two articles that discuss charcoal and charcoal-like patterns: Psuedomelanism & Charcoal-Like Pattern and Hybrid Hues.

[tixdixl]

Ever since I noticed the different ways Vil signals her gender identity and gender presentation in the original Japanese, the more and more I wish that there was a way for us to get a complete revision of Book 5 where the nuances of Epel's cultural identity, Vil's gender presentation, and the ways the two clash in cultural understandings and ideals are ACTUALLY demonstrated in the localization for English only readers. Because they aren't. Vil's gender presentation and Epel's cultural rootedness are both watered down and erased from the English. And what's worse is watching both turn into superficial charicatures of their intended design, in order to accommodate an uninformed Western audience.

With Epel's very specific rural understanding of masculinity and feminity, and Vil's urban, gender-nonconforming understanding of masculinity and feminity, we have an incredibly nuanced and intersectional conversation about self-realization. And English only fans get to see none of it.

Of COURSE Epel is rejective of Vil's expectation of embracing feminitiy. He's a cis male who grew up likely in the rural country side, with hints of rural, possibly rural Osakan dialect in his dialogue. Of COURSE his expectations of masculinity and feminity clash with Vil, a femme non-binary person who is both an idol/celebrity and who has lived her entire life in urban settings. He likely has deep seated misogyny that he has to contend with. He likely has deep seated transphobia that he has to contend with. It's not that he himself is dysphoric; it's that his expectations of masculinity, his tate shakai, and his understanding of collectivism reject and clash with a sub-culture that permits and encourages the exploration of self expression, and views those forms of self realization AS maintaining the collectivist status quo, rather than violating it. When his understanding of self-realization dictates he must be and act a certain way as to not break the collectivist status quo, of course, Epel looks at Vil and thinks that what she is asking him to do is uncomfortable.

Of COURSE Vil sees Epel's rural world view and wishes to challenge him on it. Of COURSE she also FAILS to understand his perspective and find it irritating and uncouthed. She ALSO has biases against rural cultures, as indicative by her dialogue and Tokyo dialect. It's not that she wants Epel to "become girly", but rather that she wants to see him fit in and join the mold of Pomefiore. Because in Pomefiore and in the idol world, ruralisms and a rooted rural identity clash with the status quo. Her understanding of the collectivist culture and mindset within the dorm and within her culture dictate that HE is the one stepping out of line... all while he believes SHE is the one stepping out of line.

There are just so many layers here, and without any help from the localization, nor cultural understandings of the values and norms that inform the writing of this game.... of course. Of course Book 5 is watered down.