#i am finally done with my backlog everything is posted now

[amikoroyaiart]

'Stay still, Lt.'

[little-acts-of-gratitude]

Hello, Tumblr! I am incredibly excited to announce the start of my biggest project so far: Little Acts of Gratitude! It's a post-WW AU fancomic that follows a Ganondorf redemption-ish story set on the Great Sea, in which Link decides to defy fate right before the final duel and bring his sworn enemy back to the surface. But why? The comic explores the Triforce Trio and the world around them, in an attempt to solve the ancient mysteries and tie the loose ends. Suffice it to say, I have big, big plans for this story >:^з.

If you have access to desktop Tumblr, I recommend reading the comic that way, as you’ll be able to see a fancy blog theme with a comfy pagination and a banner for each chapter! But if not, there'll also be a dedicated pagination system for mobile users, like this:

(Page 0) next > last ▷

And now, FAQ/Disclaimer/whatever:

There’s no upload schedule planned as of now. I’ll try my best to aim for monthly updates and have at least a little backlog whenever possible, but more often than not I’ll probably upload the pages as soon as I am done with them. Also I’ll make sure to announce any major hiatuses if for some reason updates will take more time than planned. Just please don’t send any asks/DMs regarding this matter.

As a non-native English speaker, I’d greatly appreciate it if you guys pointed out any grammar mistakes I might make! This goes double for the instances of me using ASL for Link, as I don’t have any kind of experience with sign languages.

You may see the artifacts on the pages - this is the result of me Glazing them, just to see how that pans out. I'll... probably think of an option to show you guys the clean hi-res pages eventually.

For now, the comic will stay a Tumblr exclusive — but I am thinking of potentially crossposting it on other webcomic-hosting platforms! Once I amass a decent amount of pages and decide where exactly to upload them, I will provide links. As for the social media presence, I... don't really have anything other than Tumblr (except, well, iykyk), so no promises there.

And for, uh, legal purposes: the Legend of Zelda series belongs to Nintendo; I am not affiliated with them and do not claim ownership on anything other than the artwork itself. Not that they're currently going for fancomics, thankfully.

And... Thanks for taking time to read this! My lack of work ethics is my lifelong nemesis, but I hope that, despite everything, this comic will see the light of day, that I won’t stop working on it until I’m done, and that you will have a great time reading my silly little AU for a silly little vidyagame ✨!

[voxofthevoid]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by my one and only Jesus @eusuntgratie

I recently cleared out all the ask/tag games in my drafts because I realized I'd reached the pile-up stage of putting things in there and not doing shit. Thanks to everyone who's tagged me in those the last couple of months and sorry I didn't get to any!

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

148

2. What’s your total ao3 word count?

2,005,606 (crossed the 2 million milestone recently and am still buzzing about it)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I'm only writing for Jujutsu Kaisen, but I'm posting for Jujutsu Kaisen, Bleach, and MCU.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

I was so sure it was going to be all MCU, but nope, it's a mix of MCU and Hannibal. God, that was my first Ao3 fandom, and my Hannibal fics are from 2014. It's surreal people are still reading/enjoying them.

if you're looking for jesus (then get on your knees)—MCU

i'm a ghost, you're an angel (one and the same)—MCU

A darkness seen and shared—Hannibal

Ways and Means—Hannibal

the hand you want to hold is a weapon (and you're nothing but skin)—MCU

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do! I enjoy the interactions and discussions. Plus, since I'm not a Discord (or group spaces) person, it's how I find fellow fans to chat with, especially during my initial foray into a particular fandom. I do have a huge backlog of some 1.1k comments from 2020 to mid-2021 because I didn't have much time for fandom in that period. I'm chipping away at it slowly, but I'm pretty prompt about replying to everything on my post-2021 fics.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmm, this Hannibal fic, I'd say: Till the bitter end

Let's just say I predicted the series finale in some weird way.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Most of mine end happily—a few are ambiguous, while others are dark.

8. Do you get hate on fic?

Oh yeah. It's only happened with MCU and Jujutsu Kaisen, and they're mostly cases of overgrown children unhappy that I didn't write the ships or dynamics they want.

9. Do you write smut?

It's my specialty now 😎

10. Do you write crossovers?

Nah. I've done fusion-style AUs, but full-on crossovers aren't something I'd like to write. I'll read them, but I'm picky.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Multiple times (MCU and YoI, iirc), both within Ao3 and offsite.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Multiple times, for multiple fandoms! It's always a delight.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I did write one(1) fic that way, but it got yeeted into the void when my co-author deleted her entire Ao3 account. I have a copy, I think.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I'm the kind of person who's most devoted to whatever is eating my brain at the time, so right now, it's Yuuji/Gojou from Jujutsu Kaisen.

15. What’s a wip you want to finish but probably won’t?

My writing superpower is that if I lose interest in a WIP, I also lose all desire to finish it and any guilt about it. And these days, I tend to start a fic and work on just that till it's done. So the answer is—none.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I write some smokin' hot porn, and I'm pretty good at threading character study through it. The porn is the plot, in most cases. I also enjoy doing background worldbuilding that serves to give the narrative a sense of depth despite the focus being on characters and relationships.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Fight scenes, ensemble casts, and sustained plotty plots.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Ah, I can feel my Hannibal-era Google-translate Lithuanian judging me.

In general, I avoid it, but when I write for anime set in Japan, I tend to work in honorifics. My mother tongue has those too, so I know from experience that there are no English equivalents that capture the same vibe.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Hunter x Hunter, I think. That account no longer exists. On Ao3, it's Hannibal.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

I tend to be biased toward my newer works, so this keeps changing. At the moment, it's (let me be clear) every version of the story ends with you being slaughtered (JJK, goyuu).

Tagging (no pressure) 20 people because why the hell not: @possibleplatypus, @actualalligator, @joeys-piano, @cursedvibes, @backwardshirt, @m34gs, @naamah-beherit, @dragongirlg-fics, @crossroadswrite, @spacebuck, @jenroses, @calamitouskings, @knivash, @lo-55, @bookwyrmling, @sorrythatwasamistake, @ddelline, @lilyfarseer, @roughkiss and @deunan306

[lightleckrereins]

Is the game still gonna b planned for the end of December?

Yeah this deserved an update since before it got to four asks.

First of all happy holidays to you too anon number four!

Second. As much as I hate that the update is definitely not happening before the end of the year. A few months back after I decided to fully restructure the game I started mapping what would be a realistic time for the update to be done and thats when I figured out by the end of the year could happen. But then my computer died. I worked a little on a borrowed laptop but what I could do in there was incredibly limited. After the computer issue was solved I couldnt really work in the game for an aditional month due to work backlog.

Currently I am finally done with the hair bases. Recoloring and setup is not a fast process but that is the one big thing I am missing. Aside from that some alt variations, the sixsona designs and I am done with art. I know for a fact the second I reach sixsona I will enter hyperfocus and not leave my desk until those are done (which is why I left those until the end) so I am feeling before the spring is the current realistic end date.

And seriously. I am so sorry to dissapoint everyone with this. I know people have been waiting for this update for over a year now. But I genuinely think this one will be the best one since I originally posted the game.

I do have some asks with previews coming up but meanwhile lets do a hair update. Give me queen names (and covers for the alts) with hairstyles that aren't yet in the game and I'll do some previews next week.

Also the reminder that I stil have a ko-fi. Haven't updated the goal in a while but if anything goes in there it will probably actually become coffee or tea because we haven't hit over 15°C since last week and everything points towards things being freezing all winter.

[wanderingmoonmen]

hiiii my kennderland goddess so ive been catching on to ur series of kennderland sooo much im so hooked to it ITS SO GOOD GODLY DELICIOUS KAWAII DELIGHTFUL GOODNESS i love it so much and like its the reason why im into crackship SO like im not rushing u or anything im just worried if theres anything wrong around u cuz u havent updated since july and i kinda worried ..... if u answer this THANKS SO MUCH for answering and i hope ure always doing well in everything !!!!1!1

Oughhh this is such a sweet ask 😭😭😭 There hasn't been anything "wrong" necessarily - I've been struggling to get through this part of the planned story as I am... way more comfortable writing angst/hurt/comfort/more plot nonsense rather than fluff. I love drawing fluffy stuff! Struggle to write 😅

Between that and just general ~adult life~ fun times (job has been stupid, but now I've committed to finding a new one so that's given a lot of relief, after a couple other med changes for the Mental Illness I'm finally finally feeling better) I haven't been able to progress

However! I do have.......... a lot of other stuff written (both for james/Leon and me falling down the rabbit hole of wesker/Birkin and intertwining everyone between SH and RE) that hopefully once I get through this slump I'll have a little bit of backlog (tbh getting this ask has kinda motivated me to wanting to try and work on this :) )

I also literally have an entire sketchbook full of drawings and have been drawing Entire Group Nonsense that I can hopefully post? I won't promise because it's annoying to scan stuff lol so maybe I'll take some pictures if that's something you'd want to see too (I do have some stuff on here already that went to the drawings on ao3)

It also has passed the one year of drowning into this nonsense where I accidentally drug myself and @fly-rye into this. Seeing these awful unpracticed drawings is so funny and scary 🤣 with me drawing Leon with SUPER emo hair

I'll also in lude some doodles for the last chapters uploaded for PE

Also James' big beautiful body in unrelated stupid shirts

(I've done this on mobile so hopefully the formatting isn't horrendous 😅)

[thereallivingded]

8 months

Nearly 8 months have passed since I blogged. Damn.

I apologize profusely if anyone was interested in my ramblings. I have zero excuses other than life got hard. Full time job. Which I hated profusely - not that I'm not going to be working full time again soon - tends to bring on crushing depression when I feel stuck in it. Which I did, and I was. When you are paid bi-weekly and you see that entire paycheck go to your cost of living.. well. It doesn't do good things to your psyche. Energy levels get low and all that extra you had energy for before gets used up with day to day survival. Getting out of bed. Getting to work. Feeding yourself. Cleaning your house. Squeezing in workout (a thing I do now).

It's not all bad I suppose. I've finally been able to interview for and obtain a position that will not only net me a raise but be closer to home. Hopefully, that should get me more free time to pursue the things I actually enjoy.

I'd like to say that in this time I've been able to tackle my backlog of Steam games. But. Well. BG3 happened. And I spent even more time in the game than I had in early access. It's maddening how much time I've sunk into Faerun. I have no regrets though.

The only thing really that's kept me from finishing my campaign - as I am in Act 3 - is my computer. I haven't upgraded the beast since 2020 or 2021-ish. And it's starting to show. My mobo is acting extraordinarily peculiar. Sometimes I'll walk away from my computer to come back a couple hours later and find it stuck in bios. Super fun. The connection to the mobo gets wiggled a little and everything pops back on. Super. However, anything heavy to run - like BG3 - tends to get very crash-y.

Again. Super.

T.T

AND. Due to my financial constraints because of the job I recently left, I was completely unable to fix this. I'm hoping with the advent of the new job, getting a few paychecks in to stabilize, I can rectify the problems. Hopefully.

I started a couple of fanfics for the first time ever. I am ridiculously shy about them. My writing skills have become so sodding rusty. The stories came to me while I was playing BG3 and I was compelled to write them down. Note now, that the frequency of updates directly reflects the time I have to invest in them. So keep that in mind.

Be gentle on me here lol!

I have been able to get some gaming done. I have ceased playing Back 4 Blood, as it became no longer supported by its dev team. A sad move really. The gaming industry as a whole has become this parasitic beast. Devs work on a game for an extremely limited amount of time and abandon it the moment it becomes less lucrative than their board of directors care for.

There is a trend towards monetization of minutiae and online play in inappropriate genres, that has become an insidious infection in the game industry. It robs us of good game development. There's this mentality of more, more, now that's just slow poison to the whole beast. It makes everything very same-y and boring.

Which is why I strive at this point in my life, to not give money to the companies which I feel are most guilty of this. The only way to make these corporations listen is to hit them in the $. As such I will probably be carefully curating any games I discuss or mention on this blog from here on. My next post will likely be discussing a visual novel I've spent some time in that I equal parts enjoyed and became frustrated with. So that's in the pipeline. Until then keep to the lights lovies. <3

[blysse-and-blunder]

in lieu of spring cleaning

11pm monday, april 3, 2023

family in town this week! i've been vacuuming! and cleaned the bathroom! funny how the title of these posts is starting to turn into a pattern, where the X in 'in lieu of x' is becoming an obligation more and more often...i guess as befits a fun little side project that i keep up instead of doing other things? even though it didn't start out with that sense in mind? curious. spoilers for some of the early episodes of dimension 20: neverafter, baru cormorant 3. and the first three episodes of ted lasso season 3!

reading having fun with baru 3 again. the masquerade ball (a masquerade ball! in a series about masks!) was v fun for me. the dialogue lately between barhu and heingyl and iscend and even aminata and shao lune has been great. seeing tau-indi back in action has changed everything. watching aminata fucking evolve and change her position and go against her earlier principles is so really excellently done. i hope to finish this up, since i have a backlog of things now on my phone and piling up next to my bed physically, nona (and rereading harrow) and jasmine throne and the golden enclaves and more, not to mention more victoria goddard and the rest of what we all long for and my various malingering libby loans which i keep asking to be delivered later....

watching caught up on the first new episodes of series 3 of ted lasso this weekend, and oh wow i've missed this show. i have inchoate emotional thoughts about roy + keeley, and about ted and his family shit, about rebecca and ted clashing over the need to 'fight back' as the season progresses, over the nate of it all, but i think none of that has surprised me? i'm here for it, but it's not unexpected (even the roy/keeley situation, that was flagged at the end of the last series). what has so far surprised me, in the sense that, i am pleased to see the show introducing new complications and layers and avenues of inquiry, has been shandy, keeley in management and how that's going, trent's book and watching him relate to roy (that scene with the review, aghhh) and watching them realize that they have the memory, the history of the sport, that beard and ted don't have, the roy and jamie scenes, the way jamie has been really great actually? especially seeing him react to zava? and finally, the chance to get to know colin. we've gotten to know isaac a bit, and sam a lot, and i am here for this deep dive into a new player. and it's not just because he's the welsh player, or the closeted player, i've always had a soft spot for colin and i'm excited to see more of him! and i'm worried for him now, but... not that worried because he is, after all, a strong and capable man. also, because this is apparently the final season, i have some...what's the opposite of trepidation. about how things will go. sure, there will be surprises and probably some heart-wrenching stuff but whatever will happen, will happen with a sense of finality, if that makes sense.

(this is a very silly picture, but it has trent and zava in it whereas most of the cast shots don't, so.)

listening an almost constant stream of dimension 20: neverafter, every time i'm outside the house. i'm still only just through episode 5, trouble in tuffeton, so it's a good thing i'm not waiting to watch these with the video-- having the dropout subscription has enabled me to stream just the audio, which is better for commuting and also is i think good for me this season-- as much as i'd like to see people's faces, the maps and whatnot, the minis are a little immersion-breaking. i may go back to watching alongside an hour or two of stardew, now that i have access to my games again, hooray. anyway i'm obsessed with lou, with zack, with noticing and really appreciating murph? all of a sudden? as a player and as someone playing a character who is flawed and still very funny. ally beardsley my beloved. the premise for this season was exciting to me, and then the multiverse / stories within stories flavor was...less so, it feels like well-trodden fairy-tale territory at this point to get so meta about storytelling, but the more i listen the more i am surprised and pleased by brennan's choices and how these reinterpretations are achieved. i love pitting the princesses against the fairies. i love the overlap between the characters' backstories (pinocchio's mother being the bad fairy!?) and everyone doing so fucking well at being both players who Know Things and unreliable narrators as their characters who Couldn't Know.

playing got to hang out with the lovely @floragraph and play a little stardew valley today! it's been so nice to dip back in, now that my laptop is fixed and functional again. also revisited pentiment with @dimir-charmer and we've absolutely run down the clock on this one bit without a satisfactory solution, and it's stressful! this is a good game!! and finally, d&d yesterday was a riotous delight, a run-in with the fantasy pinkerton detectives, and now a horse-chase. what a good game.

making fucked around in the kitchen yesterday while on the phone with an old friend, and together we concocted an interesting soup, using a quarter of a japanese pumpkin i had. roasted, pureed, mixed with sage and cream and ginger and a bit of roasted carrot...you get the picture. a solid B+ for totally improvised soup. totally improvising soup and adding little things to taste until it arrives at Pleasant, Actually always reminds me of my gran.

working on a bunch of things that aren't actually my work, which is starting to cause a bit of stress. applied for a funding award last week, while also sitting down with a couple of profs to talk about my rejected paper and where to send it next and how to amend it (which i have yet to do), though, so there's that. put several hours into paid work for my RAship though, that felt good. i also filed a bit of paperwork that ended up being easy but was frustrating in the moment, which i can consider a win. i need to finalize and book a bunch of summer travel things, start and finish my taxes, make these revisions and do so in a timely manner so that i can send the drafts to the people who need to read them.... but it all feels sort of far away and dreamy in comparison to the last few weeks of march, for better or for worse. instead, i have begun duolingo dutch and looking up travel phone plans in the netherlands...!

[lyrebright]

Season 2 of The Magnus Archives was an experience.

Season 1 was fun and atmospheric, but even as the plot outside of the statements became more and more prevalent, the vibes of it were still very anthology horror. From the start, S2 diverged from that with the addition of Jon's supplementals at the end of each statement--with the meta plot and the statements being far more tightly interwoven. The mystery is no longer whether or not what is going on is real, or Jane Prentiss: Prentiss is dead, and we know the supernatural is real for certain, and more to the point, so does Jon, and he always has.

Hearing that in MAG039 that Jon has always believed the "real" statements--the ones that would not record on modern equipment, only on tape--but had pretended not to because he felt watched was something of a reframing of everything for me.

Until then, I hadn't really thought about how, oh, yeah, they're still doing the bogus ones that record easy peasy as well as the ones we hear.

Maybe it would have been easier to keep it in mind if I was listening to the episodes as they aired (like one a week, I believe?) instead of binging them. Like...that would have really sold the toll you can hear them take on Jon. Once a week, you encounter a statement that won't record like the rest, and the dread creeps up on you as you know, you know, what is written down here on these pages is different to the vast majority of what fills the archive, and you desperately do not want to think that means it is real, but you sit down with your tape recorder and you do your job and as you recite those awful awful words you can Feel you are not alone. Something Is Seeing You.

It Really makes the accidents he makes re: dates and names in some statements more understandable, actually. And explains why he doesn't want to re record them to fix those mistakes--sounds exhausted at the very idea.

I was keeping this in mind as I went through S2, using it to inform my new understanding of Jon's character and the progression of his arc and development--

--and then the finale, and perhaps more pertinently, the first episode of S3, broke that understanding once more down to its foundations.

(Keep in mind that I have not seen past MAG081. I stopped myself from progressing further so as to not give myself even MORE backlog on my liveblog posts to finish, and to write out my thoughts on Jonathan Sims as he and they stand right now, before canon gives me more to work with.

I reiterate: I have only seen up to MAG081, 'A Guest For Mr. Spider;' please do not spoil me for anything further along in canon.)

The revelation that MAG081 gave me is both very layered and very simple (and, I'm sure, has been discussed to death already because I am very late to this party :P): Jon's character is best understood through the lens of his trauma.

Of course, it makes his hatred of Leitners make so much more sense, as well as his hatred of spiders--I think it personally even made some things click as to why he was so quick to believe Jane Prentiss as Real when he denied other events with similar amounts of evidence; while I have since come to the conclusion that whatever the spiders are, They ARE Their Own Thing, I was initially lumping them in with the other bugs, and Jon, encountering a worm woman, could very well have done the same--these are things he has survived, and thus fears all the more intently, because he knows them.

What's quite a bit more telling about Jon As A Person to me, though, is the things he says in his own statement that he seems not to think much of. Jonathan Sims was, by his own words, a "deeply annoying child," and I can't begin to explain how much that hurts me, as an ND adult who related to a lot of how he explained his reading habits, though in the other direction (I would fixate on only one thing and read it and only it for weeks).

It opened up my eyes to the fact that Jon definitely sees himself in a negative light. I'm not sure just yet how deep that self hatred runs, but there's no denying it's there. Somehow, he buried his pessimism under his mask of skepticism and snark, but it's almost more real than either of those things, and it's only aggravated by the survivor's guilt he carries even to this day.

It's a lot. This man--I don't yet know Jon's exact age, but from context clues of his personal timeline he has to be around thirty, I think? Maybe just before or past it?--underwent a severe trauma at the age of eight. It's very much understood that the first decade of life very much does inform a lot of who you'll grow up to be, and Jon didn't undergo anything so easy to explain as a car accident or physical abuse. No, on top of the already damaging record of being an orphan and being raised by a grandmother he knew resented having to do so, Jon's greatest childhood trauma came in the form of watching a bully twice his age getting taken by a giant spider that had initially been aiming for him.

That's...not something you can explain, and have believed, and Jon knew that. But it also means it's something he couldn't get support for; it means that even as he knew it was real and remembered it as real he was likely asking himself: Was That Real? and that sort of doubting of your reality is damaging for anyone, let alone a child under ten!

Is it any wonder, then, that he found himself drawn to puzzling out the paranormal? Is it any wonder, then, that when encountering more cases of true encounters, that his idea was equal to the childish and simple ideal of If I Can't See You, You Can't See Me?

And is it, then, any wonder, how spectacular a mental breakdown he has in the lead up to the S2 finale?

Going into TMA, I was told by almost all my friends who have listened to it that I was going to like Jon. "He's your type," they told me, "total blorbo material," and listening to the early episodes I could only think...surely not. What do they think of me?

But I first started to change my mind around the time of his first live statement; Naomi Herne. Maybe I read this differently than most, but for all his bluster and terrible bedside manner (which actually got him a complaint, which is still hysterical, I'll be more lovely, he says, like this is something he's been harped on at before, in those exact words), I sincerely do think that when he suggested she reach out and maybe speak to someone: he was being sincere. She just took it poorly, because Jon had spent the rest of their time together acting poorly.

This is a running theme as time goes on--even more so throughout S2, to be honest. But it doesn't just start after the trauma of the S1 finale; Martin is being menaced by Jane Prentiss, because he encountered her trying to prove himself to Jon's exacting standards, after Jon has spent the rest of the season thus far being hypercritical of him? With MAG081 in mind, it's easy to see how Jon's survivors guilt immediately kicks into gear and berates him for how he's been acting when he knows, he knows that the supernatural is out there and it's deadly.

He immediately tells Martin to stay in the archives, where he thinks it will be safe. And this compassion continues as a core part of his character, even if that's really all we get to see of it--the core, under the mask. He's gentle and concerned with Sasha in her live statement, too, and immediately goes to argue with Elias about better "defenses" for the archives with new knowledge in mind. And it doesn't end there! He's still a snarky little bitch about it, but each interaction with Melanie throughout S1 and S2 made me :D. And, one of perhaps the most standout moments in my mind, currently:

Helen Richardson. God, I'm still having so many feelings about that episode.

Imagine you're Jon. You've spent all this time thus far trying desperately not to see the things you are seeing so as to not be seen by the thing you are sure is seeing you, but then a worm woman attacks you, and you're badly scarred, and your predecessor was murdered, and there's an itching sense of Something Is Wrong, Someone Here Is Lying To Me that you cannot shake, and it is only aggravating your paranoia. On top of that, you can no longer hide your head away in the sand; you have admitted your skepticism was an act, you are throwing yourself headfirst into chasing after the spooky things you've only been reading about up to this point because you need answers, and even when you're not running around in creepy tunnels, you cannot escape the new reality that you have found yourself a part of because it is now choosing to intrude on you directly.

Jon's instant connection with Helen--and his recognition of Michael and, no doubt, his subtle, unconscious fear that Helen could have very well been Sasha--is currently one of the most tragic things that have happened in TMA, outside of Sasha herself (don't worry, ha, I am Bracing For Worse).

Jon's history with the live statement givers isn't the greatest; outside of Martin and Sasha, they all seemed to find him short or abrasive at best, even if they didn't all lead to a formal "knock it off" from Elias. But with Helen, he's sympathetic, he's empathetic, he's gentle, he believes her, and when she's taken once more by the very monster that she had managed to escape, right from his office--well, he attacks that monster. Give her back, he says, of a woman he's known for five minutes, and gets stabbed for his trouble.

I am not a brave man, Jon says of himself, but I think that's more of his negative self framing, because you can be brave and still afraid, brave and still a coward; the antithesis to bravery is not fear, it is antipathy, and if there is one thing Jon is firmly good at it is feeling things, deeply.

Helen, I think, is the real firestarter to the pinnacle of this part of Jon's development, that culminates in all that Sasha was. When he was a child, a monster snatched away a life right before his eyes, one he can't help but feel like should have been his own.

And when he was an adult, two monsters did the same to two women he felt a connection to--though he didn't realise the first one had happened til much, much later.

S2 had me riding a highwire of tension. I've mentioned in my liveblog posts that what happened to Sasha struck at a personal, deep-seated and fairly irrational fear of mine, so I was waiting, the entire season, for something to happen with Not!Sasha. Hearing Jon later muse that his paranoia was aggravated and worsened by the presence of Not!Sasha was honestly highly validating, because it was doing that to me, too.

(Not to defend all the choices Jon made because of that paranoia. Stalking your coworkers is so far over the line you've looped back round to the start, Jon.)

When Melanie finally got some gears turning, all I could feel was a horrible sense of relief, because at least now I wasn't alone in knowing the awful truth, having to listen to Jon speak with Not!Sasha over the course of the season, knowing he was speaking to something that had killed a woman he was demonstratively close with and cared for, and overwritten her existence entirely with memories of it.

Jon's baffled stammering as Melanie storms off in a huff, assuming he's having a laugh at her expense? Underneath that dreadful relief, it signalled the beginning of the end.

The next few episodes are all build up to resolve this. The revelation of the existence of the Not-Them, the importance of the table, the discovery of the true Sasha's tapes. Jon's confusion and denial and the grief that breaks through when he trips over saying kills, as he realises: there was a woman, and her name was Sasha, and he knew her, and she's gone now, but all he and anyone will ever know in connection to her name is the face of her killer.

Quite frankly, listening to what happened next, I initially thought Jon was making an incomprehensible, baffling move. We just heard a statement where it was all but spelled out that the table was in some way binding the Not-Them, why on earth are you trying to destroy it???

But A Guest For Mr. Spider recontextualises so much of the canon. So much of Jon.

He says, in MAG081, that he feels as though if he'd done something, literally anything, then maybe the bully whose name he no longer remembers would still be alive. Never mind that he was eight, he could have done something.

Martin is attacked? Do something. You have a way to kill the worms? Do something. Helen Richardson falls victim to a monster she'd been lucky enough to escape the first time? Do something!

Sasha James dies, unknown and alone, after rushing out of safety to save Tim, while you sat wounded and afraid and did nothing? Her killer now smiles amongst you, and you don't know when it will attack next, but you know you're not going to lose anyone else, if you can help it?

For the love of god, Jonathan Sims, do something.

Everything--everything Jon does in S2 can be tied back to this core concept, this niggling scar of survivors guilt. Someone died when he did nothing. So he has to do SOMETHING.

Stalk your coworkers makes perfect sense, I'm sure, when not just caught in the middle of supernaturally enhanced paranoia but when you're so determined to Not Do Nothing (Again) that you don't really take the time to think your actions through.

This rambling...doesnt really have an end point. I was just struck, after going through 81 episodes of The Magnus Archives, by how deeply compassionate Jonathan Sims truly is, if you actually look at his actions and not his words. With the fact now that I can't help but read him as some flavour of neurodivergent, I can't help but think of him as having hyperempathy but difficulty actually expressing himself. Big autism mood.

Some people deserve to be remembered, Jon says--of a bully he believes himself to have doomed, yes, but also of a woman he no longer knows except as a voice on a tape, bickering with him on how to correctly pronounce "calliope."

It says a lot, I think, that when he's in those tunnels, hiding from the Not-Them, what finally breaks his cool and draws him out isn't the promises of pain it is going to inflict on him, not his burning desire for the answers he's been chasing down all season, not even his own fear and panic--

No, Jonathan "Not A Brave Man" Sims is drawn out in righteous fury and grief over being taunted with how much Sasha's death hurt.

He's your type, said my friends. Blorbo material.

(They were right.)

[matan4il]

Am I currently working my way through your entire Buddie meta backlog to ease the pain of the impending hiatus? Yes.

Am I also loving EVERY minute of it? You bet your ass I am!

A big THANK YOU for everything you do <3 <3

Sooooooooooz! I saw and I was SO DELIGHTED, I can't even properly express it! I am so happy to know that even things I wrote a while ago don't get lost and continue to bring joy, especially when it's to someone as lovely as you! I hope you didn't have too much difficulty finding them? I've been working on making the blog more easily accessible, so for example, now all the weekly meta posts have their own tag, as well as additional Buddie meta posts, but I'm still not done working on updating this (hopefully in the next day or two everything will be completed)...

But no, the real thank you goes to you! You made my whole week better! Happy mid season finale to you, darling! And to everyone reading this blog! (as always, if anyone’s looking for it, here is my ask tag!) xoxox

[chryblossomjjk]

Hi, Kikiiii 💕💕

I saw that you're finally on break and I really hope that you find some free time to rest and have fun along with getting work done. You've been so busy and working so hard, you deserve it 🥺🥺🥺

Also, please don't worry about rushing with the weekend. My excitement levels have been through the roof since I found out about it and I'm sure that they'll stay that way even after it's posted. I can't wait to officially meet baby Yul 🥺. But please take your time and I'm sure that we'll all love it once it's done.

Sending you lots of motivation and energy and also my endless love for you 💞💞💞

oh hi my love!! how are you? how is school? i hope it is treating you well!!

im trying to work my lil booty off this weekend so i can backlog some essays and not have to stress over them later. ive been saying i was going to do this for like two weeks now n peanut brain could never pay attention lol! i did two today, and have two short ones that im going to do tomorrow!! i feel like im finally caught up :') <3

and ugh thank you so much for the reassurance!! after not posting anything substantial since like october i feel a bit nervy like do ppl even care about my writing anymore eep!! but regardless im am really excited to share!! i only have the smut and the end scene left, so not much!! and i like everything ive written so far so yeah im really hoping to have it done soon!! yul is dying to be set free n out of my docs lol!!

i love you with my entire heart n soul

[transgirl-gaming-thoughts]

My Thoughts On: Rhythm Heaven DS

Hi there! It's Alex! I recently (ok, like a month ago) finished Rhythm Heaven for the Nintendo DS, or more specifically I played the Japanese release, Rhythm Tengoku Gold. I absolutely adored the first game on the Gameboy Advance, so I was really optimistic going into the second entry of the series! Did it pay off? Eh...

Keep in mind that all my thoughts should be taken with a grain of salt, as I am not an objective game analysis expert or reviewer, I'm simply sharing my personal thoughts.

I've never leaned much into the whole "Nintendo gimmick controls", like the Wiimote or the DS touchscreen. Some games make good use of the touchscreen like Cave Story on the 3DS eShop allowing for more seamless inventory selection, but mostly I view these things as novelties that could be done without. I play Skyward Sword on the Switch so that I can use button controls instead of motion, for example. So when I saw that RHDS was controlled 100% using the touchscreen, I wasn't thrilled. BUT, I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt and start my journey!

The first few games are alright, with a new take on Built to Scale from the GBA entry, and some more neat rhythm games, but right after Remix 1 we reach my first symptom of carpal tunnel: Ping Pong. The Ping Pong game in RHDS is easily one of my least favorite rhythm games in the series so far, and that's counting the rest of this game! It was my first taste of the mixed bag that is Rhythm Heaven DS. Con: The rhythm games aren't as consistent as the first one. While I pretty consistently enjoyed the games in the GBA game, the DS entry constantly had me on highs and in lows. Some games I loved, like DJ School, and some I abhorred like Ping Pong and Moai Doo-Wop.

Reaching Remix 6, I was worried as to how I might fare in the second half of the game. I already knew there were 10 levels in all, so I- wait, are those the credits? Yep, after Remix 6, the staff credits roll, and then the last 4 levels are added, making them technically post-game content? That felt odd to me and totally threw off my rhythm of progress. Looking at my backlog and seeing that it was already beat made it hard to continue for a little bit. I finally did come back to it and... well...

Con: The last 4 levels are pretty mid. Most of the games in levels 7-10 are just new harder versions of previous games, and the remixes most of the time use games that weren't even in that level so you have no fair clue as to what may be thrown at you. It sort of feels like this was a "Rhythm Heaven Expert Mode" which was an unpleasant punch to the throat. I love Rhythm Heaven because I feel like it makes rhythm games accessible to people who aren't really any good at them (i.e. me), so to have a slew of games of this manor wasn't exactly fun for me, but I can see why people might like it.

Now, I have to say, Remix 10? Easily made the whole game worth it! Pro: Remix 10 is a bop. Remix 10 incorporates every game up to that point, and strings them all together in a perfect song that ties together the leitmotif of the game present in so many of the songs! Remix 10 made the rough journey worth it for me, and that's saying a lot considering how many things I disliked about this one.

One last Pro: It has one of the best soundtracks ever! Particularly I love Fan Club, The Dazzles, and Karate Man 1 and 2. Fantastic music, even among Rhythm Heaven games! I was blown away!

In the end, despite everything, I still enjoyed Rhythm Heaven DS. It's not a favorite of all time, it's not even a favorite among the series, but it's still a lovely game with an identity of its own. If i had to rate it, I'd give it maybe a 4/5 stars to be fair, but it's far from perfect. Still, I look forward to sticking with the series, as Rhythm Heaven Fever on Wii is next! Be sure to ask questions and suggest new post ideas in my ask box! Stay safe, stay hydrated, and God bless! Happy gaming to ya!

~ Alex

[wherethewoofwoofsgo]

Febuwhump Day Six : Secrets Revealed

Is it May? Yes. Am I still posting my backlog as I do it? Y... Yes. I cannot physically be stopped. I'm not writing a description, though. This is admittedly getting posted just because I feel I spent too long on it I would hate not to share it.

1.3k

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“Honesty.”

His eyes remain shut, his head tipped back, fingers interlocked across his stomach. If all is going correctly, he is currently the picture of obstinance. He’d ask for nothing less. Anything less, and she might assume that he was simply engaged in a bout of listening, far away and in conversation with the cavern that envelops them, and that wouldn’t do for more reasons than the sickness a purposeful attempt might cause him.

“You’re old enough to know better than to play this type of game.”

He has to give his matriarch that. He knows much, much better than to play this type of game, knows the dark, panicky nights it’ll earn him when he’s discovered. Even thinking it too long is enough to leave a tremble to his hands, but he thinks of his cousin, of his whispers the night before, the struggle to keep his voice low as he told him where he’d go, of what he’d heard of the trains that danced across the surface of the continent, and he forces his hands still.

“I am,” he says, even. As if he’s never had reason to be scared of his mother.

The silence stretches on and at the end of the day, even with the terror of what lies ahead weighing down on him, Honesty is still Honesty and her momentary lapse in judgment is still enough to leave him fighting a quirk to his lip. It wouldn’t do, will just make her angrier. He lays there, counts the seconds of success, and waits.

Finally, she speaks, softer than he expected as she asks, “Where is Obedience?” The words tug at him, picking apart the strings that make him. It’s a mundane manipulation, the only type of manipulations she has, and he’s too old, too committed for it to work.

He cocks his head, eyes still shut, and he’s sure it bites at her as much as the cool of the cavern ground is beginning to bite at him through his clothes. He says it calmly, as if he truly believes it could ever possibly be a possibility, and he’s sure that only pisses her off more. A chill runs down him at the thought that, this time, she might well and truly hit him. “At a time like this? Obedience would usually be working a shop, wouldn’t he? Some kind of date planned for the afternoon break, I’m sure. A woman today?”

“Honesty.” As flat as her voice is, he still hears the way she holds back the beginnings of a plead.

He doesn’t let the sadistic pleasure, however short-lived it’s sure to be, shine through his response. “Matriarch.”

“Where is Obedience?”

He sighs, anything to drag the seconds out longer. “You know, he doesn’t have to tell me everything. His name’s Obedience, not Tell Honesty Your Every Whereabout.”

“If you truly have no idea where he is, you will say so right now.”

And well, that’s that, isn’t it? The silence stretches.

Finally, she whispers, “Honesty.”

He looks up to her and addresses her the only way he can think to extend the matter. “Forethought.”

It was, admittedly, a very stupid idea.

Pain bursts out of his side. It’s not bad, not compared to what he used to get, but it’s still a sharp pang through his side, enough to leave his eyes shutting tight. But she doesn’t hit him again, and the silence stretches on another moment, so he’s counting it as a success.

She spits out, “You know better.”

He barely keeps from laughing, the one guaranteed way to worsen the situation, and instead offers up, “It’s your name, isn’t it?”

“Where is he?”

The truth of the matter is, Honesty doesn’t know, not exactly. He knows where he was going, but he doesn’t know where Obedience is. Somewhere far away, hopefully. Heading somewhere even farther away. But if he admits that he doesn’t know, even if it doesn’t come close enough to a lie to leave him sick, then his role is done. His aunt knows he doesn’t know. It’s over. They’re done.

The dirt clings to him, the cavern pressing into his ears like water.

“Do I have to take you to your first mother?”

A shock runs through him. He sinks into the ground, looking hard up at the ceiling.

“I’ll have to lock you in the room over this, you know.”

And he does know, is the thing. He knew when he told Obedience he’d do this that he was going to earn himself some days in the room. His palms begin to sweat. He doesn’t want to go in.

He doesn’t want to make it worse.

Carefully, more careful than he has a right to be with the way he’s been swinging for death, he works his way to standing and leads his aunt into the house. They make their way towards the rooms his mother prefers, only to almost literally run straight into her.

Forethought straightens, saying primly, “Adamance, can you tell Honesty to tell me—”

But even before she interjects, he knows she already knows. It’s clear in the way her eyes dart between them, her brow drawn tight and stricken. “Where Obedience is? Gone. He’s gone. Left the caverns and went only the Goddess knows where. That’s what I’m dealing with right now.” She finally acknowledges him enough to ask, “Do you know where he went?”

He can feel his face morph into something ugly as he says, “Just that it’s somewhere far away from here.”

The next thing he knows, fireworks of pain explode across his face.

“What is wrong with you?” Forethought hisses at him.

His mother scoffs as he reaches up a hand to touch his cheek, and by the time it lands she’s gone.

He stares at Forethought. Now that he’s done what he meant to, has met all goals, served all purposes, a heaviness has settled over him, accompanied by an emptiness.

Obedience is gone. What else is there to say?

“I asked you a question. I expect an answer. Unless you want me to answer for you?”

She must be livid if he’s expected to deliver part of it himself.

His lips move of their own accord. “I’m ungrateful. I refuse to obey, even when what you ask of me is clearly what’s best for me. And it would be one thing if I was purely incapable of obedience, but that obviously isn’t the case, because I can obey the Goddess perfectly fine.” He pauses, takes a breath. “And that means I do it on purpose. And that makes me a worse son.”

She stares at him, heat burning in her eyes. He holds her gaze as best he can as she says, quiet, “You deserve this.”

He doesn’t ask her what, already has a clear idea of it as she grabs him by the arm. His body follows her. It’s real. Obedience has gotten his wish. And now, Honesty…

She was saying something to him, lecturing him probably, but he was too busy nursing the emptiness in his chest to sit with it. Down the hall, down to the door he knew so well, and even seeing the sigils worn into it was enough to make his heart quicken, even like this, and she threw open the door, threw him in. She didn’t tell him how long he’d be left in the room. Canniness would have. It was one of the things that made her a good first matriarch.

Immediately the terror of the room pushes into him, makes it difficult to think. Emptiness spreads out in him, Obedience’s absence an abyss. Immediately he knows he’ll dwell in it, sink into it for however long he’s in here—Days? Weeks? Will he still be whole when he’s pulled out? They’d try for it, wouldn’t they? But something could go wrong—A lump caught in his throat.

Obedience was gone. If all went well, Honesty would never see him again.

And what a terrible thing to wish for things to go wrong.

[syrinq]

in this one i'm collecting air for my girlfriend

aka syrinq should post dreamlog things when she gets them so she doesn't get a backlog for 3+ months to catch up with. but i also prefer to do everything in 1 go so it's all done and over with, but the minus of that is that i put everything off & it then takes one Full Day to complete said Task. sigh. i can never win at life

anyway.

last night i had a dream about going to some pool/wrestling class to cheer on my Imaginary Dream Girlfriend, because she wanted to try out something new

we get to some resort and there's a queue, so we wait patiently in the courtyard by sitting around, hanging about, reading magazines together and having lunch etc. etc. this takes several hours because this was an extremely popular class with an extremely long fucking queue. sigh. at least the environment was cool & looked something like this

it goes from afternoon to sunset. the queue shortens by a lot but we're still waiting. my gf gets unwell and suddenly faints. awesome. i'm fucking panicking, there's several maori/similar culture people around. they're either renting rooms there or they actually lived there (leaning towards the latter).

there's one lady called Bug who knows how to treat my gf. she says all people around have to perform a certain breathing technique by pinching their nose. if enough people did this, it'd change the chemicals in the air (or something like that) & send idk a brain signal so she'd wake up.

unfortunately for me, there's not enough people around to try this. so we gotta 'recruit' people around the resort and outsider friends to help out, like we're asking the entire world to aid goku's spirit bomb or whatever. so there's eventually mario & gang (luigi, toads, princesses). other disney princesses and characters. maybe sprinkle some other game characters in there idk and it was like this for me

and it's still not enough people. god fucking damn my gf has a fucking disease or something. Bug says we still need a few more people. we're like 2 short. so i mention that we can still call in goofy the janitor & bowser. everyone PROTESTS HEAVILY at the idea of bowser coming around, because, you know, bowser.

i tell them he's actually chill and won't pull anything freaky if it's for a life-or-death situation. like he's my friend (yeah fine i'm okay with that). everyone then reluctantly agrees and i call up the real bowser and goofy the janitor. bowser's there practically immediately, sunbathing until the last person's here. i notice cracks are forming in the architecture around us, and the weather is getting weird. i can only hope the Lord And Saviour Goofy the Janitor arrives soon

then the POV shifts. i am witnessing goofy the janitor in his janitor van, that looks colourful like the mystery machine. he's racing chaotically on a highway that's falling apart rapidly, thanks to the surrounding environment that's getting worse by the second. there's heavy rain and a dark thunderstorm going on. cyclones are appearing on sea in the distance. there's ginormous water spheres rising from the seas, that are covered by an electrical shield like it's a fucking plasma ball. it's protecting what's growing inside- phallic alien monsters (that really just look like khezu monster hunter) that grow out of blue sperm cells the size of giraffes. so you can only imagine how big the final beast is

so, you know, world is obviously falling apart due to reasons unknown. goofy has to fucking gta it across high way gaps and whatever to nearly crash land into the resort courtyard.

FINALLY GOD DAMN HE'S HERE we all do the breathing technique in an extremely rushed manner. my gf FINALLY WAKES UP THANK GOD I'M NO LONGER WORRIED but now we have to deal with *hand gesture to outside* world falling apart.

so we fetch rubber boats, because the resort just has these and we're conveniently next to a sea, and we open the door to the inside of the resort. it's been destroyed and morphed, and it pretty much looks like a danger slide downhill. we split up in teams and get into the boats to go down.

[storytellerofuntoldlegends]

an icarus and his sun: chapter 7

A/N: scott's pov, finally!! as well as more of my "the empires smp gals deserve to go off, actually" agenda. also check out this rad art submitted by @dancinglifeboat! i also would like to apologize ahead of time, the updates from here on out are probably going to slow down a bit because while i am still extremely motivated to write this fic, it hasn't been as high as it was for the upcoming chapters as it has been for the previous ones. i honestly don't even know HOW i was so motivated to write several chapters so fast that i actually had a backlog of them for a bit and was able to post them daily. so the updates will likely slow down to being every couple of days or maybe every couple of weeks, depending on time/motivation. but yeah! anyway, enjoy!

Warnings: lying/manipulation, threats of violence, past violence, arguing, heartbreak

AO3 Link - Tumblr Masterpost

-

Scott felt just about sick to his stomach every time he looked at the slimeball Jimmy had given him. It was such a stupid little thing to get emotional over, and it was honestly kind of gross and sticky. But Scott couldn’t bear to get rid of it. It had stung more than he cared to admit when Jimmy had reminded him of how isolated and distant Scott was from everything. Staying up and away from the world kept him safe, kept his empire safe. But being safe didn’t make it any less lonely and isolating. And then Jimmy had looked at him like he was the world, and told him that he should be able to enjoy the little things too. Scott couldn’t bear to get rid of the slimeball, even though the memories were painful now. For as much as bluntly being reminded that he was alone stung, Jimmy telling him to leave stung even worse.

Looking back on it now, Scott didn’t really know why he had sided with Fwhip. It was long before Scott had really felt anything for Jimmy, mostly flirting with him to get a rise out of him. That flirting had always devolved into fighting, and it was after one particularly nasty argument that Fwhip had pulled him aside after the meeting and talked about how the House Blossom Alliance would be the downfall of their empires. And at the time… Scott had agreed with him. He loved Katherine, he really did- but there were too many rivalries in that alliance for it to ever truly work. So he went along with Fwhip’s plan- go along with the meetings until an opportunity arose. Then came the addendum of Scott keeping an eye on Jimmy to make sure he wouldn’t be a problem. And then came the plan of rigging the ballroom to explode and blame it on another empire. And even worse- Scott actually caught feelings for Jimmy, instead of it being an act like Fwhip had planned.

So before the night of the ball, Scott had struck a deal with Fwhip. If there was no argumentative behavior during the ball, then he wouldn’t set off the TNT. To his surprise and relief, Fwhip had agreed- and then went and purposefully antagonized Jimmy. And Jimmy- sweet, impulsive Jimmy- had fought right back. Scott didn’t get a chance to pull Fwhip aside and convince him to change his mind before Lizzie had asked him for a dance, then spun Jimmy right into his arms. Fwhip had been watching them the entire time they danced, then left as soon as the song ended, heading up the stairs. Scott snuck away from Jimmy to follow him- only for Fwhip to have flown off by the time Scott made his way up the stairs. Then Jimmy followed him too, and once he spotted Fwhip in the distance with his crossbow, Scott realized he had been used to draw Jimmy out. So he kissed Jimmy, and then Fwhip set off the explosions. It was then Scott realized Fwhip had lied to him about the plan- somehow he had rigged Katherine’s entire castle with TNT, not just the ballroom, and wanted to be sure that everyone knew it was Fwhip and the Wither Rose Alliance behind it all. A show of power, so that no one would mess with them.

So now Scott was alone again. Jimmy felt like Scott had betrayed him- and frankly, Scott had. He should have told the House Blossom Alliance about the TNT, instead of striking a weak deal with Fwhip. Now the House Blossom Alliance would never trust him again, and all Scott had now was the Wither Rose Alliance- which Scott wasn’t so sure if he wanted to be a part of anymore. And at their next secret meeting, Scott found out that he wasn’t the only one with this opinion. Usually they met in Gem’s hidden meeting room, but this time around, she insisted on meeting in the Grimlands, not giving a clear reason why. Scott had thought nothing of it, until the time for the meeting actually came.

“I’m done, Fwhip,” Gem said, not even taking a seat at the table. Fwhip leaned back in his chair, raising an eyebrow at Gem.

“What do you mean, you’re ‘done?’” he scoffed. Gem slammed her hands down on the table, purple magic sparking in the air. Everyone in the room had ranging expressions of shock and terror on their faces. Gem never got angry like this, at least not as long as Scott had known her. Fwhip, however, seemed unphased.

“You lied to us. You said you were going to make a point at the House Blossom Ball. Instead you blew it up! You could have killed us!” she fumed. Fwhip rolled his eyes.

“Gem, you know me. What other point would I have made that didn’t go off with a bang? Besides, Sausage and Scott knew about the TNT,” Fwhip replied with a shrug. The glare Gem sent him was deadly, and Pearl rose from her seat at the revelation.

“I was hoping that maybe Scott was clever and figured out your plan, and just wasn’t able to get the information to anyone in time- but you told him and Sausage?! And I’m not exactly pleased that neither of them felt it was necessary to tell Gem and I what was going on, but the nerve of you to hide information from your own allies, Fwhip!” Pearl scolded. Scott and Sausage didn’t say anything, a little embarrassed- but to be fair, it hadn’t really occurred to Scott that Fwhip didn’t tell everyone about his plan. He had told Scott one-on-one, and Scott had foolishly assumed that he had told the others as well. Yet another frustrating hoodwink courtesy of Fwhip.

“Because I knew you would react like this! But there’s no sense in arguing about it now, what’s happened has happened. Let’s discuss plans for the future, shall we?” Fwhip said with an overly charming grin.

“No,” Pearl said firmly, and Fwhip blinked in surprise.

“What?” he asked in disbelief.

“You heard Gem. She’s done, and so am I. I won’t be a part of this senseless destruction anymore,” Pearl said evenly. And before Fwhip had a chance to protest, Pearl and Gem stormed out of the room. Fwhip let out a dejected sigh, before sitting up straight in his seat again.

“Fine. Who needs them? We’ll be just fine- won’t we, boys?” Fwhip asked, and the smile he gave Scott made his stomach roll.

“Yeah! Now we don’t have to tiptoe around them anymore!” Sausage cheered, and Scott could only give a weak smile in response. Something in Fwhip’s smile turned sharp as he leaned towards Scott with a dangerous glint in his eyes.

“You know, I never properly complimented your acting skills. You really had Jimmy caught like a fish in a net. It’s a shame though- you got a little too wrapped up in the act- not to mention him- and we lost a valuable chance to deal with the Codfather once and for all. But that’s alright- I’m sure we’ll get another opportunity,” Fwhip said in a low and dangerous tone, the thinly veiled threat very clear to Scott. Don’t get in the way again, and don’t try and weasel out of plans. Or he’d make sure he’d regret it.

“R-right,” Scott said shakily. Fwhip seemed satisfied, and leaned back in his chair once more.

“Good. Now I suppose that advantage with you pretending to like Jimmy is gone now, unless you do a lot more than just kiss him this time around-”

“No,” Scott blurted, before he could really think about it.

“What was that?” Fwhip asked, raising an eyebrow. A lie about how Jimmy definitely didn’t want to see him again- which wasn’t really a lie per se, but it wasn’t the reason Scott said no- was at the tip of his tongue. But he couldn’t say it. And in that moment, he finally decided to do what Pearl and Gem had done.

“I’m not doing this anymore. It makes me sick to my stomach to even think about bringing more pain and destruction to J- to these lands,” Scott said, voice shaking a little but his eyes sharp as he glared at Fwhip. But Fwhip caught the wobble in his voice and how he nearly said Jimmy’s name. However Sausage spoke up and commented on it before Fwhip could.

“You WEREN’T pretending, you actually fell for Jimmy!” Sausage gasped, and the tone of his voice reminded him of simpler times, when Sausage would tease him about his flirting with Jimmy and Pearl would admonish him and tell Sausage to leave Scott alone. Then Fwhip had taken advantage of Scott’s banter with Jimmy, and brought Scott’s world crashing down around him as a result.

“You’ve gotten weak, Scott. What happened to the imposing, cold ruler of Rivendell?” Fwhip sneered. Scott rose from the table at that, glaring Fwhip down.

“I’m finally being the ruler I should have been. I’m not going to let other empires use me for their own gain, and I’m not going to be part of your destructive plans,” Scott fumed, wings flaring and making him seem taller, more threatening. Fwhip chuckled darkly.

“You walk out of here, and you’ll regret it,” he growled.

“I’ll take my chances,” Scott shot back, turning on his heel and exiting the room, ignoring both Fwhip and Sausage’s voices after him. He was done with the Wither Rose Alliance. In fact, he was done with alliances entirely. He was going to stay in the mountains and care for his empire, like he should have been all along.

-

Then the slimeball on the side table by his bed reminded Scott why he didn’t want to stay in the mountains. He would just be exactly what Jimmy expected of him- high and mighty, being too good for anyone. And being alone. Scott had a taste of what a sense of togetherness felt like, and now being alone hurt more than ever. But there was no one he could go to, no one who would trust him. Maybe he could form something with Pearl and Gem, or maybe the two new empire rulers, Shelby and Joey- but it wouldn’t be the same. Nothing would ever be the same, not as long as the mere memory of Jimmy’s goofy grin sent his heart fracturing a thousand times, over and over again.

He couldn’t stand being within the walls of his home any longer. His wings itched with the need to spread and take to the skies, and flying always made him feel better. So Scott did just that, taking to the skies and flying nowhere in particular, just far away from all the empires as much as possible. Maybe if he flew far enough, it would all disappear and Scott wouldn’t have to deal with his problems anymore. And maybe with enough distance, his heartbreak would disappear too.

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[kumoriyami-xiuzhen]

Tentative 2022 plans

well... happy late-ish new year. been mostly out of it since saturday because of my booster... and geez, i have not felt this shitty since my 2nd shot. anyway, here’s hoping that this year will not be as crazy as last year... though i won’t hold my breath. having no expectations makes it harder to get disappointed... though i am looking forward to the next hakumyu musicals.

So. stuff for this year.

While id like to say that id normally be trying to have something posted almost every week again this year (not counting jan [spend this month stocking up on translations], feb [CNY this year], march [bday month] and dec [always do less then]), horizon zero west will be released in march... and i know that the game will suck away all of my translating time, provided that it does not have a disastrous release like cyberpunk 2077 lol (what can i say? i love my video games. also horizon zero dawn was absolutely amazing).

For now though, aside from Deemo -Prelude-, and the last 2 short episodes from yuugiroku 3, here’s what im hoping to translate this year... though i have no idea if i’ll get to everything. still, i really do want to finish translating shinsengumi oni-tan and get to translating the shimabara disturbance drama... and I would like to translate more dramas this year (im getting more than a tad sick of yuugiroku hahhaha).

some other saito chapter from ginsei no shou

tsukikage no shou -  yamazaki final chapter (only cuz i really like it)?

hakuoki kyoka-roku conversation in the rain v2 - Okita/Toudou/Kazama story

shinsengumi oni-tan (1/9 tracks remain. aside from from t1 and 2, i also ended up translating everything aside from track 3... cuz it was +10min... ah. ha. ha... *sigh* I swear, i am going to fucking finish translating this drama this year!)

shimabara disturbance (4/6 tracks remain. only did tracks 5 and 6... if someone wants pretty much no context, i can post them whenever haha)

薄桜鬼 ドラマCD ～十五夜花 ～

薄桜鬼 真改 ~風華大全~ 特典「稽古の痛み」

薄桜鬼 遊戯録弐 祭囃子と隊士達 A店特典「あなた好みの想いの形」

2011 OTOPA drama “Samurai Selling Medicine”

Nightshade Kuroyuki Cd

Café Enchanté Stellaworth Vocal CD

2016 otopa code realize drama

SSL drama with Harada/Kazama/Ibuki 

Yuugiroku stuff?

Hijikata Biyori?

regardless of what i end up doing/not doing, i know i’ll be stuck with yuugiroku for a while because of the patch... still have to figure out what still hasnt been translated later... or maybe i’ll just do that for the 2nd half of this year?

of course, if life gets really busy, i’ll have to cut down on what i put out again... or i might end up not being able to have posts done in advance on patreon like last year (sorry!)... though i can only hope that doesnt happen again. 

still, i hope that people continue to enjoy the translations i put out because i do find it difficult to post stuff on a regular basis at times  (also im probably more than a tad crazy because i’ve actually managed to do that for 2 years now).  

yaisa!

removed new live drama links. found it on a non premium site.

also, i finally got around to cleaning up my master list... though im still not done with my video backlog...

[ryqoshay]

Putting on Hairs

Primary Pairing: NicoMaki Words: 877 Rating: G, probably, mild T at best AU: Werewolf (possibly others?)

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Author’s Note: It’s AU August, which is something in which I’ve not often participated, but adore the idea. Recently, @lonelypond tagged me to choose a prompt, which resulted in this lovely work. At least I assume it’s lovely based on the author’s prior work; I haven’t had a chance to read it, but intend to do so later today.

Anyway, the list has been simmering in the back of my mind for a few days. And I had a silly idea for a Cryptid Theater prompt as I walked to the kitchen for some water after waking up wa~y to early this morning. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about it and couldn’t get back to sleep. So I got back up and wrote this. And here is the sleep deprived, decaffeinated result.

Notes edited with credit to @daily-nicotine

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“I can’t believe you would do this to me!” Nico fumed as she paced around the dressing room.

“Whatever do you mean, Nicocchi?” Nozomi inquired innocently.

“Don’t play coy with me!” Nico paused to point. “You recommended this… this circus to me!”

“I did.” Nozomi confirmed. “As your agent, I thought this role would suit my client perfectly.”

“You mean you saw an opportunity to make fun of me.” Nico growled back.

Nozomi donned a hurt expression. “You don’t like the production?”

“It’s a joke!” Nico declared. “The whole thing is one big joke! I mean of course it is. A show about werewolves titled ‘Putting on Hairs’?! What else could it possibly be but a horrible, B-rate comedy? Or tragedy more like.”

“I thought the title was amusing.” Nozomi admitted.

“Ughn!” Nico threw up her hands and started pacing again. “This was supposed to be my breakout role! But instead, I’m stuck quipping about knees bending the wrong way during transformation! I mean that’s not even true!”

“You would know.”

“Of course, I would know! That’s my point!” Nico shook her head. “You would think nobody in this whole production has ever met an actual werewolf. Or anything else for that matter. I mean of course real vampires don’t sparkle. Gods, I hate Hollywood.”

“Well, you’re not exactly admitting everything to everyone yourself, now are you.” Nozomi pointed out.

“That’s not the point.”

“Oh?”

“I can’t work like this.”

“Mm?”

“This whole thing is a mockery of who I am.” Nico groused. “And don’t even get me started on that spoiled brat of a costar.”

“I thought she was nice.”

“Nice?! Did we meet the same person?”

“She’s also quite talented.”

“Well yeah, she’d have to be to get into a school like Waseda. Unless her mommy and daddy just bought her way into that place.”

“Money may have secured her enrollment,” Nozomi conceded “and her family’s influence certainly made connections for obtaining roles like this. But I’ve done my research, her skills are her own.”

“Well maybe she should just take my role and I can get out of this whole ordeal.”

“I’d say give it a chance. Give her a chance.” Nozomi pulled something out of her shirt. “I have a feeling good things are coming.”

“You and your cards.” Nico rolled her eyes. “Put that away. And button up. Geez.” As she was about to make another round, her gaze found one of the outfits that was to be fitted for her. “Oh, and have you seen this mess?” She paused to hold up the garment. “Where did they find this? It looks like a kindergartener’s first arts and crafts project.” She tugged at a tuft of fur. “Seriously, Teen Wolf had better material for crying out loud.”

Heating up again, Nico stomped the first few steps in her circle. For her part, Nozomi watched in calm amusement, waiting for what she knew would eventually occur.

Sure enough, the strap of Nico’s top slipped off as her shoulders narrowed. Then her skirt began to slide. However, the actress was too lost in her tantrum to notice. Of course, having done this very routine dozens of times before, Nico subconsciously stepped out of everything as if it was part of her plan. Within moments, the young woman had shrunk down entirely and what was left prancing was a pretty little Pomeranian.

Nozomi held back a chortle as the fluffball yapped away, still not having noticed her transformation.

A knock sounded at the door.

That startled Nico into realizing her state and she scampered behind a chair to hide.

“Come in Maki-chan.” Nozomi called.

“How… did you know it was me?” A young redhead asked, slowly opening the door.

Nozomi merely smiled in return.

Maki raised an eyebrow but didn’t press the issue. “Anyway, I thought I heard… barking?”

Now Nozomi laughed. “Maki-chan has good ears. Do you like dogs?”

Maki tilted her head with confusion. “I don’t dislike them.” She responded. “But I was hoping to ask Yazawa-san something about our roles? Is she here?”

“As if you don’t already know.” Nozomi smirked.

“What do you…”

“You can come out, Nicocchi.” Nozomi called. “Maki-chan’s here to talk.”

“What are you…”

Nozomi moved around the chair, stooped and scooped up the dog from behind it. Nico immediately began to growl and nipped at the arms holding her.

“Here you go.” Nozomi held out the fuzzy football toward Maki.

“Eh?” Maki balked.

Nozomi sighed. “I know you’re both actresses, good ones at that, but you can stop pretending you didn’t already sense each other.”

Nico stopped squirming and let herself be handed off to a still somewhat reluctant Maki.

“But, you’re… not like me…” Maki leaned in a little toward Nozomi “or her.” She indicated Nico.

“Nope. I’m not.” Nozomi nodded.

“Then how…?”

“I have my ways.”

“Hrm…”

“Anyway, I’ll let you two have your chat.” Nozomi slipped past Maki but paused in the doorway. “Oh, Nicocchi won’t be able to change back until she calms down a bit. Perhaps try sitting with her in your lap and petting her?”

“Buweehh?” Maki almost dropped Nico.

Nozomi giggled and was gone, leaving behind a flummoxed Maki to figure out how to talk with her apparent cryptid costar.

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Author’s Note Continued: So there we have it. It may feel like an introduction to something bigger, but for the time being, I’m calling this one and done. Maybe someday I’ll come back and expand on this with cheesy tropes and Hollywood mockery, but I have far too much of a backlog of ideas that I want to write for my current ongoing projects.

Also, the idea for Pomeranian Nico is shamelessly stolen from... someone I follow on Tumblr.* I’m about to pass out in my chair, so I’ll have to search for that later, but preemptive thanks to the individual who posted about that months ago.

And finally, no, I did not decide what type of cryptid or monster or whatever Maki is. Maybe she’s another werewolf. Maybe she’s a vampire. I dunno, and honestly, it’s not important for the sake of this little bit. Whatever she is, I hope Nozomi made it clear that she and Nico can sense that neither are normal humans, so she’s not spilling their secrets here; they already know. And Nozomi herself is... Nozomi; probably a witch or some other spiritual/magical/whatever human type.

Edit: *lonelypond located the original post for Pomeranian Nico, or woofnic as she is adorably tagged. Thank you lonelypond for the link and thank you daily-nicotine for the wonderful art and inspiration.