#its almost hard to believe theyll be here soon

[c6scaramouche]

We're getting closer and closer to my most anticipated characters and I'm literally shaking with excitement

[v-bee-lilac]

thinking about how muscle turns to fat when its owner is inactive long enough. if i remember correctly a kilogram of fat has about 3x the volume of a kilogram of muscle.

someone used to physical activity suddenly is put on a desk job, one that takes up so much of their time that there's no more time to work out or anything. their appetite reduces after a week or so of inactivity, with them only putting on a few pounds of weight before it stops, but for some reason they just cant figure out they keep getting fatter. their scale when they hold their belly up enough to see says theyre still the same weight, but as theyre swelling out of all the clothes they own it's hard to believe.

their walk is quickly forced into a waddle, so slow they spend even more time in their chair to avoid it, a habit that only makes them balloon up more as their muscles continue to waste away into fat. said chair has to be replaced soon when their thighs and hips start cutting painfully into the sides. they're sure they must be getting heavier, it all feels like so much more of a struggle to lug this body around every day! they barely even have time to shop for more clothes, resorting to working in their old loosest clothes that theyre still spilling out of.

one day they finally get a day off to go for a day out with some of their old friends, who are all shocked by the person's sudden apparent "weight gain". none of them really comment on it past the first sight and immediate response to their new appearance, which was met by only a shrug that jiggled their entire body and "desk work, you know how it is." they go out to lunch, passing their leftovers to their much-fatter friend who laughed it off and said they were full.

then, when they all stand up to leave the cafe, they start to struggle. now, of all times they have to struggle under their own fat body to get up?! they have to ask for help, which is granted after a some laughter and teasing. one of their friends grabs their arm and puts their entire strength into hauling them up...only for them to come up easily. both of them almost fall.

"did you see that?! they barely weigh anything!"

"pff, what? no way."

"get out here, come on."

the lardball soon finds themselves being picked up by each of their friends in turn, their apparent lack of weight being marvelled at as they fruitlessly struggle and yell to be put down. then one of them scoops them up and tells the others that theyll handle the "marshmallow".

theyre too stunned to resist being carried, too stunned to resist each treat being pushed into their mouth as the friend group wanders around, too stunned to resist the belly rubs and jiggles of their lardy body fron their friends as theyre carried. eventually it stops, and theyre dropped at their doorstep stuffed to the brim with legs unprepared to carry their weight after an afternoon being carried around. theyre almost painfully full, belly hard as a rock under the layer of fat.

it doesnt stop them from stuffing themselves to the brim with snacks as they work the next day. lets see just how big and heavy this "marshmallow" can get.

[thinkingofsimpyboisinc]

Djhdhdjdjd ok ok so imagine this- Revivebur tries to find his darling. But darling joined Las Nevadas with fundy and is like a performer in the casino (idk what's happening currently in the lore cuz I'm so out of the loop rn but i do know that there's a casino for sure-) like they used to give like wholesome vibes but now-?

Bruh they did a whole ass glow up and they now give Jessica Rabbit vibes. And as soon as Revivebur recives word where his darling is, man practically yeeted himself into the casino, where his darling is currently all dolled up, all pretty like a newly bought Barbie doll on the stage..

(i can imagine the darling singing "Killing me softly" maybe like this? https://youtu.be/KGyTtPeP0Lw or like Kz Tandingan's version: https://youtu.be/CyPF91Qbf48

Or maybe like Jessie J's? https://youtu.be/GHyj93FGmuA

Idk i couldn't find a version that kinda gives off casino vibes id try to sing it but ehhhh ^^;;)

Basically this is the first time He hears his Darling sing, and man literally falls in love all over again. And he just simps so hard for them, and is oh so desperate to get them back, but darling is like "bitch my feelings died the moment the Wilbur I knew was gone-". (I tried to think of a more badass line but I'm tired ha-)

(Neways idk what to add more lol- i just thought of this while I was in the middle of reading an angsty Revivebur x reader ^^;;)

-🌻

the darling would absolutely take no shit from revivebur. what he did during the festival broke them and they felt as if they would never get the wilbur that they knew and love back.

when ghostbur is around, the darling allows herself to feel pity for the ghost. even though they know that ghostbur isnt their lover, theyre willing to let him believe that. at some times darling even believes that ghostbur is as close to their lover that theyll ever get so they let themselves feel like their lover.

darling joins las nevadas without telling ghostbur alongside fundy. even if fundy always acted defensive towards the darling due to how step kids can be at first, he warmed up to them really quickly. he doesnt know where hed be if they werent still besides him.

enough of that, revivebur. when darling hears that wilbur was revived, their first concern was fundy. they loved him more than they loved themself so they had to make sure he was alright. when both darling and fundy process the news, they both agree on hiding in las nevadas. it wouldnt be hard considering they already lived their, but they would definitely work on limiting their interactions with others outside of the country.

revivebur is almost immediately on the hunt for you. its been forever and his memories as ghostbur are a little foggy. he asks tommy where you are, but he doesnt know. so revivebur goes around the entire smp asking for where you are. some people (cough cough eret) would refuse to even tell him if they knew or not! its skeppy that tells where you are. not only is revivebur curious about the new country, but hes also curious as to why you're working with quackity. you and him never really got along.

its at nightime when he stumbles inside the casino and he's immediately blown away at the sound of your wonderful voice (second time jve wrote that today.) he feels like hes 20 years younger! (canon revivebur is 40+. don't believe me? check tommys first stream after c!wilbur was revived.) it feels like hes falling in love all over again.

eventually you head inside a door to the side and wilbur waits until the bodyguard (lets be honest, its just sam or purpled 😭) in front of the door has looked away to sneak past. it seems to just be a plain dressing room.

you turn at the sound of the door opening and immediately glare at wilbur. you werent worried about yourself, you were worried about your son. you would not let wilbur hurt him again.

"what do you want, wilbur?" he laughs and shrugs.

"what? im not able to see my wife? come here," he teases as he tries to pull you into a hug. you immediately back away and glare at him harder.

"dont lay a hand on me. i am not your wife and fundy isnt your son. get out," you hissed as wilbur stared down at you in disbelief. he lets out a breathy laugh.

"what? what do you mean youre not my wife?"

"i mean, im not your wife," you spoke, your tone laced in venom. you were even angrier than before. he didnt even care about fundy.

"youre being ridiculous. we have never gotten divorced," he mumbled. his anger was slowly starting to show through. you had to get him out.

"...."

"...."

"get out. before i scream," you responded. unfortunately, the one thing your outfit didnt come with was a dagger.

"i dont see what your issue is. love, do you have any idea how much i missed you? no one would tell me where you were and i was worried sick! now, im here and im trying to make things right and youre just trying to kick me out?" he took one step towards you and that was it for you.

"SAM!"

it took one shout for sam to come in. he had wilbur restrained immediately.

"will, you say we never got divorced. so, i would like to declare this our last conversation as lovers."

he gave a sharp inhale and stared you down as sam dragged him out of the casino.

he couldnt even give two shits about fundy.

this turned out so much longer than necessary. 😭

[heleizition]

hi uuuhhh could you tell us more about your meta! tim au? maybe about how he gets out and/or how his family and friends react when they find out? this is such a cool au and I love it (then again all your stuff is cool and I love it) Thank you!

rubs my little hands like a cartoon villain yes i van

ok so tim fights his first fight and realises he has powers.

many things happen in his head : it starts with how he woulent be allowed in the family anymore and at the point hes in this thought is almost a bad reflex that hes in the process of correcting, so he brushes over it. he knows hes loved. there is ofc the 'no metas in gotham' but he also knows that its an old rule that has been broken several times before until duke came into their lives and is now completely shattered. there is fear because he does not.control it, because its not natural and hes not sure he can live with it.

and there are also many thoughts about his friends and family and hoping theyll find him, and its desperate, but hes so tired and upset by everything....

back on earth ofc his absence is notice and soon they discover that he was taken into space. they follow a trail and ends up finding out about a huge fighting ring that takes place on a spaceship that takes many shortcuts in space andnis always so hard to find. they have to work with the lanterns.

tim stays on the ship for about four months, hes one of the most feared and powerful fighter, and the fights are either to the death or until one of them is unable to fight, except many of the losers end up being thrown into space for new fighters.

now here is a thing im debating on : tim either being unable to kill opponents but knowing theyll get killed later by their handlers, or tim giving them mercy deaths in the ring...... either way he has this huge guilt on his chest.

the jla infiltrates the ship and the bats and the titans specifically look for tim, knowing that he could very well be dead. bruce slips kn the crown watching the fight and he doesnt spare a glance toward the arena yet, and when he does, he has to ask dick who's not too fzr to look down at one of the fighter, asks dick if he's not dreaming, bc tim is there and hes definitely manipulating this fire.

tim is there and his opponent is unconscious on the floor n bruce drops in yhe arena n Tim immediately adopts a fighting stance and he looks so exhausted and hurt,,, tim is half not believing that theyre here n he doesnt conteol the fire well n bruce has.to take his time to gently coax tim into letting him approach him,,,, soon the flames dwindle and bruce has an armful of his sobbing son,, they're going home.

[ts-unpopular-opinions]

Side Tracks opinions part 1: Janus

(Yes I’m staring with Janus and going backwards, I just need to talk about this snake man right now!)

Alright, I’ve seen lots of people give their takes on each of the sides playlists, and honestly... I feel like they’re not all that similar to my interpretations. I mean yes anyone can interpret the songs how they’d like, but some people just flat out ignore canon to see the songs as their ship instead of what I believe they are actually meant to be seen as. Anyways... Janus! Yes let’s go through each song one by one 💛

1) Black Hole Sun: I’ll admit this one was hard for me. The song is obviously so Janus, with plenty of references to snakes and lying, but I can’t seem to put a finger on the exact meaning. If I had to guess, it’s showing Janus’ fist instance of fearing society. He’s realized that the world is not a safe place for Thomas and no one can be trusted (“Times are gone for honest men” “no one sings like you anymore”). He longs for the ignorance of childhood when society didn’t seem to pose a threat and Thomas wasn’t aware of the dangers and lies it held, but he knows that someone has to protect him from it, and that is Janus (“my youth I pray to keep” “hang my head, drown my fear”).

2) Seemed the Better Way: To me, this is a song about Janus knowing his place as a dark side and knowing that the others will not listen to him (“I better hold my tongue” “better take my place”). He initially trusts the core sides to do what needs to be done and take care of Thomas adequately, but when he realizes that it isnt enough, he finds it hard to keep in hiding (“Seemed the better way” “now it’s much too late to turn the other cheek”).

3) Anywhere: A BIG middle finger to society (“It’s a beautiful world, if youve been lied to” “No no no, nothing in this world is beautiful”). Janus basically trusts no one in society, not even the people closest to Thomas because he believes that everyone will do whatever it takes to get what they want (“Every man standing on another man’s back”). He also believes that society has been a huge detriment to Thomas and, AGAIN, is very dangerous (“It’s the world’s excuse for being disfigured and lying to you”).

4) Talking at the same time: This song is about Virgil. The song begins with explaining that a hard time for one person can be a triumph for another in multiple different metaphors (“Umbrellas cost more in the rain” “hard times for some, for others its sweet” “someone makes money when theres blood in the street”). The next part of the song practically shoves it in your face that it’s about virgil leaving (“Well she told me she would leave me, I ignored all the signs” “I know you're leaving and there's no more next time”). Janus was clearly hurt by Virgil leaving and it seems like he was almost in denial about it happening. A line near the end of the song that I found particularly interesting was “Well we bailed out all the millionaires, They've got the fruit, We've got the rind”. This line to me shows that Janus and the other dark sides let Virgil go, possibly in an attempt to get all of the dark sides accepted. Virgil capitalized on this opportunity and of course, got accepted, however, he left the others behind. Despite wanting Virgil to get accepted by the light sides, Janus remains bitter that Virgil was the only one. Virgil got the fruit, and the rest of the dark sides got the rind.

5) All the Good Girls go to Hell: Janus believes that Thomas needs to listen to him if he is going to stay safe and healthy. He thinks that his assistance, above all other sides, expecially Patton, is crucial for survival in this messed up world. (“And once the water starts to rise, And heaven's out of sight, She'll want the devil on her team” “Look at you needing me”). You’ll find it a common theme in this playlist that Janus refers to himself as the devil or an evil entity of some sort... Just thought I’d point that out.

6) Denial: Well, its in the title folks! Thomas is (or was) in denial. Janus is aware of the moments when Thomas thinks about consulting him or using one of his functions, but almost as soon as he gets the idea, he drops it and acts like the thought never happened (“Don't just shut your eyes closed” “You know that I can hear you thinking, I've heard you all the way from here, But if I look you in the eye though, It's like your thoughts all disappear”). Thomas is struggling for answers to questions that only Janus can answer, but he refuses to listen to consult him and Janus desperately wants this to stop (“I know you're looking for direction, I know where you wanna go” “Please don't turn the light out, I don't think the conversation's over”).

7) Trust in Me: Obviously, the original song has much more sinister undertones, but when listening to the song from Janus’ perspective, I get a different vibe. Basically, Janus just wants Thomas to trust him and give him more reign over decision making. Not much for this one.

8) Razzle Dazzle: JANUS IS EXTRA! Is anyone shocked? Also a HUGE showman. But again, no one’s surprised. Janus believes that the only way to get the light sides to listen to him is to practically put on a show to cover up whatever his true intentions are (“How can they see with sequins in their eyes?” “Razzle dazzle 'em And theyll never catch wise!” “How can they hear the truth above the roar?”) I could keep listing lines but theyre literally all just different versions of the same sentiment.

9) When the Chips are Down: The title right off the bat shows that, again, Janus believes that Thomas needs to look to him when important decisions are on the line. There are also a lump sum of jabs at patton in this song, lines like “Aim for the heart, shoot to kill” and “Cast your eyes to heaven, You get a knife in the back”. Theres also a lot of lines, yet again, of Janus practically begging Thomas to trust him and no one else (“Ain't nobody but yourself to trust” “Help yourself, To hell with the rest, Even the one who loves you best”).

10) Mandy goes to Med School: Soooo this one... Honestly, I don’t really have a lot. The original meaning of the song is not very applicable to Janus, so its a bit hard to pinpoint its meaning. The only thing I can think of is that Janus is again hating on society and the crazy things that people have to go through in it. If you weren’t aware, this song is about coat-hanger abortions.

11) I put a Spell on You: This one seems pretty striaghtforward to me. Janus knows that Thomas doesn’t want him, and it drives him up the wall, but he does what a snake boi does and slithers his way in anyways (“And I don't care if you don't want me, I'm yours right now” “I can't stand it 'cause you put me down”). I suppose you could argue that you could replace Thomas with Patton (mostly because daddy is used like 10 times in the song 😂) but a later song covers their realtionship extremely well.

12) Evil Night Together: Another toughie. My gut feeling is that this is a song about Remus and Janus just going out and having a wild night together. As I read into the lyrics more, though, it seems almost like Janus is doing this for Remus. Like he wants Remus to feel accepted and loved by him (something that can’t be said by Thomas). I just can’t read some of these lines without getting big Momceit vibes... i mean... theyre so supportive! “I'll hold your hand while they drag the river” “I'll cuddle you in the undertow” “I'll hold you close while they dust for prints”. Then theres of course this line... “Who's gonna make you a hero?” And to me, that is Janus saying that, if Thomas only sees Roman as his hero and not Remus, then it is Janus’ job to make Remus feel like a hero. Janus also saying “No need for cake or flowers” also feels like him reassuring Remus that he doesn’t need to be like his brother to be perfect and loved.

13) Don’t tell Mama: I think I’ve seen some people interpreting “mama” as Thomas in this song, but to me Patton seems like a better fit, especially after their interactions in the most recent episode. Basically this song is all about how Janus doesn’t mind people knowing about the bad things he does, but he can absolutely not have one person know. Janus seems to have grown a soft spot for Patton in the new episode and if you ask me, he would definately not want patton finding out about some of immoral things he’s wanted Thomas to do. I mean he literally waits for Patton to sink out and then the second he’s gone he starts scheming about pushing people down stairs and sabotage.

14) You’re a Cad: Another Virgil one, but this time it’s after Virgil’s acceptance. I think Janus has little faith in the beginning that Virgil would get far in his journey to the light side. Whether that is because of envy or just plain pessimism, I’m not sure, but he definately doubted Virgil would ever be able to escape his past (“So now you want the whole world to notice that you've come around, Now you expect, We'll see how you're really so much better now, But I know the truth” “What's the point pretending that you could be a better man, Just give in, since you always end up right back where you began”). Despite his reluctance to support Virgil’s endevors, Janus shows a softer side for Virgil that has gone completely untalked about in canon (“You're a rascal and a rogue, a villain and a crook, Still I tug at your line, I'm a fish on your hook” “Still I know the truth, but I have a sweet tooth for a Cad and a bounder, a dog and a cheap”). Janus really misses Virgil and I would go as far as to say that he regrets the things that he’s done to make Virgil want to leave (“I should be better, but I'm worse” “You're reckless with my heart, still I wait by the phone”).

15) As far as I can See: A sadie but a goodie. Janus doesn’t really understand love, but he’s sure that no one loves him (“As far as I can see Nobody loves me”). No one listens to him, no matter how much he shouts and cries. He doesn’t believe that anyone could love him if they are unwilling to hear him out and communicate with him (“As far as I can see, Nobody's listening” “And when I'm crying out, Nobody cries back for me”).

16) Criminal: AH MY FAVORITE SONG ON THE PLAYLIST! I LEGIT CRIED MY GUYS! Anyway. Janus LOVES Thomas. I would go as far to say that Janus loves Thomas more than any other side. Despite his lacking knowledge of love and what it feels like, he knows for a fact that what he feels for Thomas is the closest thing he will feel to love (“Because he's all I ever knew of love”). Now that thats out of the way, lets get to the juicy stuff... Janus feels like a criminal as he’s been taught over and over again that his opinions and thoughts are bad and harmful (“Cause I'm feelin' like a criminal” “I've done wrong and I wanna suffer for my sins”) This song is ultimately about Janus wanting to improve for Thomas, the one he loves the most. He knows that Thomas needs him, and the only way to get Thomas to listen is to get some help. Whose that help you might ask? Patton. Janus wants to be more helpful, but he doesnt know how. He’s envious of Patton’s ability to be accepted so easily, so he goes to him for advice (“I've come to you cause I need guidance to be true, And I just don't know where I can begin”). Janus wants to be redeemed in Thomas’ eyes, he wan’ts to escape the criminal appearance he’s been doomed to (“And I need to be redeemed, To the one I've sinned against”). He HATES some of the things he does to Thomas and some of the things he makes him think, but he doesn’t want to be forgiven, he believes that he deserves to be punished, but he still wants to get better for Thomas. He just doesn’t know how to do that (“Oh help me, but don't tell me to deny it, I've got to cleanse myself Of all these lies til I'm good enough for him”). Also, Janus sees Patton in a very very high place. He goes as far in this song to liken him to an angel while comparing himself, again, to the devil (“So what would an angel say, The devil wants to know”).

17) Change: The song is about, you guessed it, change! This to me is a continuation of the last song. Janus finally feels like things are changing in his favor (likely after the most recent episode). He was beginning to feel like there was no point in caring or trying, but now that he’s begining to see the light, he’s grown a bit hopeful (“Lately I've been thinking it's just someone else's job to care, Who am I to sympathize when no one gave a damn?” “Trying to find the power in me to be faithful” “Change is a powerful thing, I feel it coming in me”). With Patton’s help and acceptance, Janus is begining to feel worthy of Thomas again and begining to see the he has a voice (“Maybe by the time this song is done I’ll be able to be honest, capable, Of holding you in my arms without letting you fall when I don't feel beautiful Or stable”).

18) Devil in the Details: Janus worries again about his ability to help Thomas. He doesn’t believe that he can tell the difference between good and bad and he looks to Patton for that differentiation (“There was love I meant, there were accidents, So tell me which is which. 'Cause I just can't work it out” “I have, no way, of knowing,…”). There’s also an odd underlying message about doing something that he doesn’t want to do, but continues to do despite this and I’m not quite sure what that could be referring to (“And I know the cost, and I want to stop. But I can't do it, I just can't do it.”). It could simply be referring to him lying or deceiving others, but that seems too simple. I wish I had a better answer.

19) Come Little Children: ALSO MY FAVORITE SONG ON THE PLAYLIST! This is really big guys. This song practically confirms the fact that Janus was in charge of taking in and hiding the dark sides from Thomas (“Come little children, I'll take thee away Into a land of enchantment”). The song literally uses the phrase “My garden of shadows”, a clear metaphor for the hidden parts of Thomas’ mind where Janus keeps the dark sides. But it gets better... Janus pities these poor sides. He hates the way that society has forced them away from the light and into the shadows (“Follow sweet children, I'll show thee the way Through all the pain And the sorrows”). Not only does Janus feel bad for these sides and longs to protect them from the cruelness of the real world, but he LOVES them. He values every aspect of them and thinks they are beautiful and perfect. He cannot fathom why society wouldn’t also love see them this way and it frustrates him to hide such amazing traits from the world (“Weep not poor children For life is this way, Murdering beauty and passions”). Despite this sadness and dissapointment, Janus does his job and keeps the dark sides hidden away, knowing that society would never accept them for what they are (“Hush now dear children, It must be this way”).

20) Into the Unknown (no not the Frozen song): This song is VERY IMPORTANT. I have seen so many misinterpretations of this song, and granted mine could also be wrong, but please hear me out. This song comes right after the last song for a reason. The sides that Janus had once hidden away are now being shown to Thomas. He is literally going into the unknown (“Led through the mist, By the milk-light of moon, All that was lost, is revealed.” “Somewhere lost in the clouded annals of history, Lies a place that few have seen. A mysterious place, called The Unknown. Where long-forgotten stories are revealed to those who travel through the wood.”) Thomas is figuratively traveling through the wood by learning more about himself and traveling deeper into Janus’ previously mentioned Garden of Shadows. The song ends, beautifully framing Janus’ love for the sides he’s raised and hidden away, calling them “ The loveliest lies of all”....

(Ahhh! I’m sorry that was so long guys 😅 Thank you if you read the whole thing or evern part! I’d like to hear your opinions, so let me know 💛💛💛)

[pitayatea]

Talk is Jericho: The Emancipation of Jon Moxley

(i highly recommend listening to the episode if you have time, its a great listen and it goes a lot into jons thought process behind his leaving and the timeline from august until he left. if you dont have time or just want a rundown before you listen to see if youd be interested, i complied a list of points in the episode,,, i guess? idk.)

(none of these are in order im horrible at listing things but all of this was discussed at some point):

- mox started the podcast saying he harbors no ill will for wwe, how grateful he is for the time he spent there, how they helped him grow as a person, etc. he also talks fondly of the make a wish program and the fans and everything.

- there's a good bit of him talking about renee and describing her as his best friend, his soulmate, and how even if they had nothing it was fine bc they had each other. prime otp shit we stan. im sorry i love their relationship.

- jon describes a time where he was approached about a promo describing him doing stupid stuff that an idiot would do (riding a unicycle backwards, sharing pizza with a homeless dude, etc), and asking that it be changed because he doesnt want his character to be seen as an idiot. the line was taken out and readded by vince. when he confronted vince, vince didnt see the issue and described the segment as good shit and thought it described the dean character perfectly, which jon took as being described as an idiot.

- jon hated his heel turn, and defined it as being heavily micromanaged and told numerous stories of fighting with scripts and writers and vince because they wanted to do joke shit that he didnt want to do. he hated the germaphobe angle, he despised the vaccine promo, and it was all stuff pushed by vince.

- he also talks about other promos he hated before his heel turn, and a lot of it started as early as the 2014 feud with seth (the hotdog cart, seth mannequin, etc.)

- i actually remember an older tij episode where he goes into detail about how it was vince who pushed the mannequin thing, and how he once walked into vinces office and found vince sitting in his chair, facing the mannequin, with weapons laid out, verbally describing what he wanted to do to the mannequin... do with that what you will.

- (aka vince is senile which,,, we been knew)

- both of the stories he told are extremely interesting: one describes the time he knew for sure he was gone and started counting the days, and the other describes the time he almost walked out.

- there was numerous lines during his heel turn that he refused to use and demanded to be changed.

- one of which was a joke about a pooper-scooper that got changed to the gas mask line. he describes literally having to go behind vinces back and rushing with writers to get a copy of the script without the joke onto vinces desk before the one with the joke got there because vince wouldve forced him to do it.

- he describes all the promos he did that night as confusing and not telling stories, and remarked that "if we didnt need to run around and try to not look like idiots, we could focus on telling stories", which flustered a writer he was with at the time.

- the writers and jon got a note from vince which stated "dean needs to understand why he needs to insult the audience. dean needs to read his promos verbatim and not try to rewrite them." jon remembers feeling like he got punched in the gut and lashed out in frustration at a writer (in retrospect, he admitted it wasnt the writer's fault and he was just emotional).

- "why do i work here? im a professional wrestler, who can tell stories and come up with promos and i believe i have the ability to talk people into buildings, i learned those skills years ago, and i wanted bring them to the wwe, and you just want me to say your stupid lines. if you want someone to stay your stupid lines, hire an actor because theyll probably do a better job of it than me. im not interested in doing it."

- he spoke frankly about the fact that wwe is a billion dollar company, run by an alleged genius, filled with adults, and they were talking about pooper-scoopers, and how ridiculous it sounds.

- after the pooper-scooper joke was removed, vince took the gas mask comment literally and tried to make jon go out with a surgical match. eventually, it was talked down to the hankerchief that made it into the final cut of the promo.

- vince once mentioned how jon had so much creative license, to which jon remarks: "what creative license? what creative license do I have? i do exactly what you tell me and its terrible crap. thats not creative license."

- he booked it immediately after the show, got into the hotel, and immediately thought (after thinking that he needed a drink) that the entire segment was a waste of time because they got nothing done, and he didnt get why everyone was celebrating afterwards. he remarked that after doing six promos in one night, he couldnt say what the story was, who the characters were, and that the angle was dead, if it wasnt already.

- jericho agreed that the creative process of going through vince is awful and that it burns you out and that, at the end of the night, the match was the easy part.

- jon was never scared of getting fired for being outspoken, because he still did the work. if he couldnt convince vince that it wasnt a good idea, hed go out and try hard to make it good.

- jon woke up to a text from a writer describing the vaccine segment, and he responded that he "fucking hated it" and the writer texted back "yeah, i know".

- by the time he showed up to the building, word had gotten out that he wasnt happy with the vaccine promo. vince knew jon wasnt happy and called him to his office to reassure him that the bit wasnt comedic, and that its good stuff and its well written and would get him so much heat. he explains all of this while laughing, immediately proving that it is comedic, and said there was no props involved, to which jon replied "then whats with the actor we hired to play the doctor or the giant syringe? are those not props?"

- jon was ***EXTREMELY*** uncomfortable making comments about romans leukemia, and didnt even want to say the lines that got on tv, and sounded audibly pissed off when talking about it. when he confronted vince, vince said that roman needs to be in the story, that dean turned on both roman and seth, and that roman is a key part of the story.

- both jericho and jon then talk briefly about the 'vince jedi mind trick', where he makes things seem better than they actually are, and jon fell victim to it in that promo despite considering himself to be immune. he immediately regretted the lines as soon as he said them.

- there was a line in a promo talking about romans cancer that jon refused outright to say, and wouldnt even say it on the episode. all he said is that the wwe wouldve lost sponsors (esp the susan g. komen sponsorship) and someone (likely him) wouldve gotten fired. vince tried to convince him to say the lines but he absolutely refused and it was a matter of "ok i guess youre not comfy bc its roman" and not "its extremely offensive" with vince agreeing to not force the promo. jon then said it wouldnt have mattered to vince anyways bc he wouldnt have been blamed for it, and it wouldve been jon who took all of the heat. he then makes a comment in case whoever was responsible for the promo was listening:

- jons wanted to leave wwe since july 2018, and almost walked out after an episode of raw during his heel turn due to creative frustrations.

- jon wanted to return from injury as a completely new heel character. he brought this up to vince twice - once in february, when they thought hed be cleared for wrestlemania 34, and once in july, before his actual return.

- in february, vince had stated that they could do what jon wanted to do. the story changed by july due to them advertising the shield for the aus super showdown and not wanting to take them off the billing.

- they then wanted him to return as seths buddy in his corner for summerslam. jon wanted to return at summerslam as a surprise, and vince had an original plan for him to show up at the go home show for summerslam and just,,, be there, but agreed to go with jons plan.

- the week of summerslam, a writer contacted jon while he was training with joey mercury and cody hawk in cincinnati that he was, in fact, showing up at the go home show for vinces original plan. essentially, vince lied to him to sedate him because jon says he was extremely outspoken about everything. he managed to talk vince and the writers into putting a little bit of action into the go home show.

- jon hated the line that seth said to announce his return ("since you have a scottish psycopath, i ought to have a lunatic in mine"), which was entirely a line planted by the creative team and wasnt the fault of jon or seth. he felt like it muddled the crowd reaction and the pop bc everyone was reacting in different ways and he thought they shouldve just played the music because "how can you screw that up?"

- hes been creatively frustrated since 2016 on smackdown.

- by the time he left the company, he hated the character of dean ambrose and couldnt look at himself in the mirror.

- they tried burying dean with the nia storyline and squash matches, but fans loved him so much that vince saw dollar signs and pushed for the shield reunion tour. if it wasnt for fans being behind him, jon wouldve been mercilessly buried.

- aew was not his main reason for leaving. originally, he wanted to go back to czw or the indies. he wouldve left the company no matter what - even if no other promotions existed, he wouldve left and created his own promotion.

- jon described feeling severe symptoms of depression during his last few months, to the point where he couldnt motivate himself to get out of bed or go to the gym or do anything. he even looked up symptoms on webMD to confirm what he was feeling - jericho also confirmed it the second jon started talking about it.

- he outright stated that vince and the creative process and the shit vince had built around the wwe since 2002 is killing the company.

- he does not want to compete with wwe, he just wants to try and push them to improve the product and try and get vince to step back slightly and not micromanage so heavily.

- jon only got paid 500 bucks for the shields final chapter special, which is the same price that extras get on main shows and the same price that unused roster members get for just showing up and sitting in catering. jericho then brought up that during a house show street fight between him and ambrose, they both only got paid 750. 500 and 750 are bare minimum prices for just showing up - so they barely got paid for a dangerous gimmick match on a house show.

- jon and cody have been friends since before cody left wwe, and used to sit backstage and watch old wcw matches while getting ready for matches.

- he considers codys experience to be similar to his, and that they both experienced the same frustrations at different times.

- jon and jericho both agree that tony khan (CEO of aew) is the exact opposite of vince, and is a bigger wrestling fan than vince is. jericho then brings up that he doesnt see how vince can be a fan any longer because hes been doing it so long without a break. jon agreed and stated that vince is never gonna retire and is def gonna die in the chair, and how he just needs to step back a little bit.

- jericho brought up how jon broke the internet and jon practically jumped at the chance to tell the story.

- "king of social media, mic drop bitches." that is the line of the century im sorry.

- the inspo for the original mox teaser released on may first was inspired by the first venom teaser trailer.

- double or nothing was already planned to be moxs first appearance when the teaser dropped, and he had to keep it on the dl to make sure no dirtsheets reported it and no one advertised him to be there. he admitted he isnt tech-savvy and everyone who hes friends with who is belong to wwe, and the dude who helped him film the teaser was sick nick mondo.

- the trailer took two days to film and cost eight grand, but jon admits he wanted it to be quality and didnt care.

- while filming the trailer, vince texted him to try and extend his contract for the europe tour bc shield money. his response was that he was committed to a film project, which vince took as him filming a movie and not him filming the trailer.

- jon didnt tweet the trailer, he had a social media expert time it to where it released at exactly midnight through some techno shit with twitter.

- roman and seth knew how unhappy jon was in wwe and they were understandably sad to see him go but they wanted him to be happy.

- he talks about how he told seth he was leaving: seth had responded that he was super bummed out, and jon told him that he "is a wild animal, babe" and has been contained for too long. seth immediately agreed, saying it was the perfect analogy.

- the way he describes it kinda describes seth being more broken about jon leaving than roman, which also correlates with seths responses to questions about him leaving. do with that what you will, shippers.

- from now on, nothing is driven by money for him. everything is driven by trying to be the best he can be. he wants that for everyone: he wants his friends to be the best they can be, he wants his wife to be the best she can be, he wants the fans to be happy and everything, but his happiness is the most important thing.

- he feels more passionate about wrestling now, and describes it as his first love and his only love besides renee. the way he describes it reminds me of cm punk losing his passion due to wwe, and i feel like he wouldve ended up exactly like punk if he stayed any longer.

- his favorite part of the business is promos, and the scripted promos made him loathe it. aew gave him his passion for promos and wrestling back.

- he compares himself to the dentist elf from rudolph. his closing line is "if you're an elf and you wanna be a dentist, be a dentist." jericho edits in an audio clip from rudolph at the end and its great.

- jon is looking forward to working with legitimately everyone in aew and thinks of it as helping draw eyes to the product and to other lesser known talent, similar to jericho.

- he doesnt want a war, no matter how much he jokes about it. he just wants to show vince that the way he runs his show isnt the only way and it definitely isnt the right way.

- jon, speaking directly to vince: "your creative process sucks. fix it."

(i listened to the podcast in full three times, and i repeatedly replayed segments to confirm everything. if i missed something, lmk.)

[hansolmates]

hi hi its me 🍋 hi!! i really freaking hope this week's good to us manifesting strength and safety and happy times for us ahead :c and no im from a sea country hehe c: but oh wow i cant believe theres still school that isn't virtual?? like esp if the covid cases aren't letting up :c i hope u guys go virtual soon! its really challenging (like mad hard) (from a college student's perspective @ almost 2 semesters in) but safety shud be the priority :c

cont. also wow!!!! a tattoo!!! i take it it isn't ur first??? i rlly wanna get one but im rlly anxious abt it idk why :c i wna ask more abt it but it might be too personal hehe i hope it heals without problems and i wish u an abundance of great days :c and if theyre not great yet theyll come soon and ur loyal lemon is here to listen 🥺🍋 stay safe always always !!

a sea country hehe i love that i don’t know how to swim so being surrounded by water is a big O_O for me but i would love to travel to one one day. and YES the other day i had 11 kids squished in my lil room at one point i was just gonna let my kid sit in the coat rack because there was no room 

and yes this is my third tattoo LOL and i was really anxious at first too because i was thinking wayyyyy too hard about needing the tattoo to be “symbolic” and “getting the placement right” but honestly!! you’ll never get the tattoo if you worry about it being perfect. and depending where you get it the pain isn’t thaaat bad like of course it’s a needle but it is bearable for the most part. thank you thank u for talking to me lemon, you’re free to ask anything about tattoo advice im here to help! love u have a wonderful rest of your day!

[neotericbitch]

a sequel to DarqAnon

part the first

It’s quite abusive, there I said it, how you’re allowed to force a ritual onto a child, whether it be reciting an anthem or staring at the sun, before their brain has developed enough to comprehend the significance. In fact, doing so makes it more likely that as the child grows up, they will never truly find meaning in the action! How sad is that? I’d never force anything on my son.

Growing up, staring into the sun was something I never understood. For a long time I didn’t, I couldn’t conceive of the satisfaction or happiness my family derived from it. It meant something to them, so they tried to teach it to me, but it never meant anything to me. I understood that the sun was their god, but because I never truly believed, I couldn’t grasp how or why it would be important to them to stare up at it, burning their eyeballs out of their sockets. Their god was sending a clear message, do not look at me. Why would they do it anyway?

Oh, but - do keep in mind that that’s all in the past. I understand now. I understand perfectly.

Valkyrie Cain has the most brilliant black eyes. Truly, her every feature is marvellous, her sharp nose, her expressive mouth - but I always go back to the eyes. For Crandall, it’s her hands. They’ve shared many times over many meetings, to the point where I find it very annoying, that they want nothing more than to feel her hands on the sides of their head before she crushes it. I think it’s a nice little fantasy to have, just stop telling us about it. I have only ever shared what I wanted two, maybe three times. That’s an acceptable amount of times! Any more is overdoing it, Crandall! Crandall, I know you’re listening. I’ve been able to feel it even when a very good Sensitive is in my head, Crandall, and you are not a very good Sensitive.

Beside me they turn their head away. Why would they want to listen to my thoughts, anyway, when Valkyrie is here? I suppose I understand their hesitance. Darquesse, goodness - Darquesse wouldn’t stand for anyone hearing her thoughts, absolutely not! To attempt it on her would be a high offence. But Crandall, if you’re still listening, I’d say go ahead for the time being. Darquesse isn’t here. Not yet.

Looking at her, it all makes sense. I want to call up my mother and tell her I understand, I understand wanting - needing! - to look at something, even if it does not want you to. The sun may try to blind you. Valkyrie may glare and scream and curse. But you simply cannot look away.

I cannot call up my mother, of course. She has been dead for a hundred years, and I’m busy right now - and I don’t think there’s mobile phone reception here anyway.

For this week’s Thursday meeting, 6 to 7:30, we have made a temporary move from the community hall to the vault, generously donated for DA’s use by Nicki, who we had to murder. Dear girl, she didn’t want to let me hold the meeting here this week. I suggested it at the end of last week’s meeting and everyone was very excited. A hundred meters beneath the spot where Darquesse opened her portal to another dimension and disappeared - we’re so lucky to have this place! Of course everyone wants to come here whenever we have the opportunity! But Nicki said no. Nicki said to me, “Isserley, these meetings have been really great, you are a good organiser and I’m very happy to have met everyone, but I think what you’re planning is wrong. Please return the vault key to me.” So we had to kill her.

And here we are tonight, and I almost wish Nicki were here so I could say, to think you didn’t want this! The meeting is going very well, I think it’s our best one yet. 6:40 and we’re just about to finish setting up, we’re a neat little group of people. We won’t go over time at all! I’d like to say that I, being an incredibly organised person, have been a good influence on my fellow DA-goers.

Salma finishes painting the symbol on the ground. Her designs are ugly, but she has a steady hand and knows how best to use the petrol paste, a very special concoction. No one else could have done this job - though I must admit, I am a bit envious. Easy, Isserley! Remember, your job is the most important. Without you, this wouldn’t work. Without you, Valkyrie would not even be here.

Salma reaches for Valkyrie. She thrashes wildly - and I can’t say I blame her! I wouldn’t want Salma to touch me, either! Haha. But it really won’t do for her to behave this way, we really need her complete cooperation, so I motion to Respite at the wall and he turns the crank, tightening the chains attached to the bound cuffs at her every limb. She is pulled tight, and by the sounds of it it’s not a very comfortable experience, but now she is tense and mostly still - perfect for Salma to draw the symbol on her wrists and stomach.

She puts up a hell of a fight when Respite disconnects the chains from the wall and reconnects them to the floor, at each corner of where the symbol has been painted so she is now seated in the centre. I can’t help but smile! She reminds me of one of those beautiful shrine maidens. If only I’d thought of that earlier. I would have put this off one more week and gotten an outfit made. But the clothes she put on herself this morning are more than lovely. Darquesse will like them. Darquesse will like being back.

Valkyrie keeps straining and trying to get up, the poor dear! I wish I could go over there and pat her face, like I used to pat my son’s when he was resisting me - I wish I could tell her everything will be alright. But I know, even chained and without magic, she could certainly find a way to kill me if I were within reach. And I don’t want her to kill me until the ritual is complete, of course! Otherwise what would be the point?

“I don’t even know,” Valkyrie growls - what a good word for it! Indeed, she is doing her very best to sound deep, dark and scary. Soon it will come naturally. “I don’t even know what you think this will do. It’s not a full moon, or a blood moon, or any kind of moon. It’s not a magical day, it’s not a holiday, it’s not even a day that means anything to me.”

It’s my birthday, but don’t tell anyone that. It’s my special little secret, my gift to myself.

“This sigil is totally made-up. It’s not going to do anything.” She tries to raise her hand to her face to wipe off some sweat, but the chain is too short. “Let me go and I’ll make it quick - because when Skulduggery gets here, he certainly fucking won’t.”

I crouch down to be on her level, and I’m filled with such...reverence. I understand. I understand. This is what I was supposed to feel kneeling in the sweltering heat for hours on end. I’m glad I feel it here instead.

“You will kill us,” I say. “But we’re not going to uncuff you, you’ll do that yourself.”

“What are you talking about?” She is so exasperated and so irritated and so wonderful. “These cuffs are bound. It doesn’t matter how great you think I am, I’m not that strong.”

“You will be! You will be.” In the corner of my vision I see Salma fidgeting. Salma!!! You’re ruining this!! To make her stop, I gesture at her so she can speak and stop annoying everyone with her movements.

“The sigil you’re sitting on,” she fires off in her horrible, grating voice, “and the sigils that are on you are my own designs. Just because you haven’t seen them before doesn’t mean they won’t work. They’ll work.” Her lip trembles and she bows her head. “I’m sorry you don’t...believe in me.”

Valkyrie stares for a moment. “You’re completely nuts.” Nuts! Aah! That’s the word I use to describe her! How exciting!

“They’ll work, I swear. I promise. We only need to activate them, and...” Salma looks to me. Unfortunately, I have to stand up now and go back to looking down on Valkyrie. It’s okay, though. It’s okay. Soon she’ll be looking down on me.

For now, she doesn’t look at me at all. She looks down at where she’s put her arms on her knees, wrists facing out. Perhaps Supreme Mage Sorrows once gave her a lesson on what certain strokes can mean, perhaps she’s trying to work out how to counteract our symbol.

She’s fabulous and smart, yes, but she won’t be able to work it out. I am confident. I snap my fingers, summoning a bright, orange flame into my hand. She lifts her head, looks me directly in the eye, and I smile widely. Very widely. Not widely enough. I hope, before Darquesse kills me, she at least takes the time to appreciate what I’m doing for her. I hope she recognises how much I love her. No - I don’t hope. I know. She will. She must.

I take a step forward and crouch again, reaching my hand out to the edge of the symbol on the ground. My flame will catch onto the petrol paste and spread immediately. Valkyrie will be burned, but only a little bit! Just a little bit. Long enough for the fire to catch the symbols on her skin, and she will be protected - and Darquesse will be summoned back into her. She will be complete again.

Before my flame touches the paste, Valkyrie shoots her hand out and smudges the line, which gives me just about the fright of my life! Thank goodness I have such incredible reflexes, otherwise I wouldn’t have jerked my hand away in time. The paste would have caught on fire and surely burned her to death! She rubs her wrists together, wiping away the symbols written there, then kicks her legs out from under her so she’s in a more traditional butt-to-ground position, but that means she’s made the ground symbol worse and displaced dirt into my face.

It’s hard to love her when she has literally blinded me. That whole thing about the sun and everything, it was more of a metaphor. I still love her of course! I’m only taken aback. Anything I may say as I fall backwards isn’t really my fault, since she’s the one who kicked dirt in my eyes. It's more of my reflexes. I never would say anything of the sort to her under normal circumstances. Never.

“You bitch!”

What an inconvenience. I don’t get to see any of what happens next! I only hear the door flying open and gunshots, the sounds of my people yelling and trying to fight. Punches, kicks, bodies falling to the ground. When I hear Salma scream and feel her blood land on my face, I can’t help it! I can’t help it but think, serves you right for putting a cent in the collection tray every week!

“Skulduggery, the-”

“Valkyrie. Are you alright?” Is that him getting on his knees? Maybe he understands after all. “Are you hurt?”

“My skin’s burning, let me loose so I can get this shit off me. The crank on the wall, I think that controls the cuffs.”

I roll onto my side and wipe the dirt from my eyes. I hear Pleasant at the wall, turning the crank back and hitting the release. It’s terribly uncomfortable, but I can open my eyes and see well enough - and what I see is Crandall dead next to me! It’s such a shock, my heart skips at least three beats. That rotten Pleasant. What a barbarian. I lift my head as carefully as I can, so I won’t be noticed. Valkyrie has lifted her shirt to get the symbol off her stomach and cannot see me.

This is so unfair. I put so much work into this plan. It was so hard to trap her! I was going to bring Darquesse back. Me. Not Crandall, not Salma. Not Nicki. Her black eyes would have bored into my skull and killed me and I would have been good and happy. Huh! Maybe I'm not too different to those Faceless worshippers who go blowing themselves up in public places.

“Isserley. I thought that was you.” Pleasant. Pleasant is talking to me. “How have you been?”

Valkyrie snaps her head up at him. “You know her?”

“We’ve seen her in the High Sanctuary.”

“Jesus. Is there anyone you don’t remember.”

“No.” He reaches out and wipes the rest of the symbol off her stomach in one motion. I have dirt in my eyes but I see how her tummy kind of curls in a bit as she drops her shirt down.

That should be me. That should be me. I love her more than anyone. I burst into tears.

“She tried to set me on fire.”

“I think a list of people who haven’t tried to set you on fire would be shorter than a list of those who have.” I hear the clink of handcuffs. “Come on, now, Isserley.”

I let my head drop back onto the ground and stare up at the ceiling. I do not take one more look at Valkyrie. I’m not worthy. I’m not worthy. I failed. “Why don’t you just kill me.” I’m not even aware of myself saying it, to be honest! Just one of those things that...slips out...

“She makes a good point, Skulduggery.”

“Can’t be done. We should leave at least one cultist alive to arrest, so why not take the woman in charge?”

“How do you know she’s the one in charge?”

His terrible skull fills my vision as he looks down at me. You know, hearing him talk this much at one time has jogged my memory. And he does happen to wear very beautiful suits. My mouth falls open. “You’re-”

Valkyrie was startled for a moment by the sudden gunshot. Shoulders tensed, she looked over to Skulduggery standing over the woman, gun still pointed into a face that didn’t really exist anymore.

“What made you change your mind?” she asked as he put the revolver away. Skulduggery came over to her and brushed some hair out of her face, went back to fussing over the injuries she sustained on her way here.

“Too talkative,” he said, and she laughed and teased him about being a hypocrite.

[tumblunni]

Brainstorming about my yokai watch ocs: Dimmy and Gorgeous Ambassador, the most cutest family

* My Dimmy's name is Blythe and they are nonbinary. Gorgeous Ambassador is male and i dont have a name for him yet. I was thinking maybe try and make up a dub name for kageusuo (anime exclusive pre evolution) that sounds like it could have been his nickname as a human? Cos his story is that he used to be a wandering mercenary in ye olde ninja times, i feel like itd be fitting.

* Blythe is the main partner of my protagonist in my yokai watch lp, basically the jibanyan of the anime of my heart. Their personality is mostly similar to the Dimmy in the anime, but i feel like theyre maybe older and more powerful than the average Dimmy? Like a weak low evolution yokai thats stayed unevolved for centuries and is actually more skilled and world weary than you'd assume. Protag just got lucky that she bumped into this one super magikarp, lol! Also i like to draw them looking more teenage age by just taking the regular Dimmy design and making the tail extra super long. They stand roughly twice as tall as the protagonist and can wrap around her shoulders like a scarf :3 Blythe is however totally unaware of their super powerful mega skill and is very self depreciating and low confidence. But Mallory totally sees them as a cool older sibling mentor figure and is always trying to figure out ways to make their tol squiggle friend feel included and valued :3

* the way Gorgeous Ambassador comes into the picture is that he was actually the same sort of figure to Blythe! Back in the ninja era Blythe was partners with another human, but he passed away in tragic circumstances and it led to their current depressed self. However he actually reincarnated as a yokai and has been trying to find his lil sibling ever since! I feel like he was a failure samurai who tried to protect people but was so weak he never could. And he was always broke and starving and begging to do any sort of miscellaneous jobs for anyone or even let them punch him in the stomach for a few coins. And he had just as much self confidence issues as Blythe but he coped with it by becoming a compulsive liar instead, always boasting and trying to sell himself as some legendary hero to keep from facing the truth. Since Blythe was a cute lil babby yokai at the time, they always believed their human master's tall tales and looked up to him, which made him feel really guilty and try harder to work on becoming someone this kid could be genuinely proud of.

* Blythe was first born as a household spirit. Cos i was thinking about what Dimmy would be before it became a ninja, since the medallium description says it 'got a job as a ninja to put its powers to use', so like it isnt really a ninja yokai but just a yokai thats a ninja? I guess?? I figured that the idea of being an invisible shadow supporter fit with household spirits/domovoi/zakishi warishi (probably mispelled that) and the various other similar creatures in mythologies all over the world. Just the idea that theres some sort of being that protects your house and if you give it offerings and take good care of the place it will protect you and your family. So yeah its my headcanon that thats how Dimmys are born, and that theres probably many variants wearing different outfits inspired by whatever type of humans they guarded. Tho yeh ninja is a job that works really well with their abilities so it makes sense itd be the primary representative of the species in the games.

* Human-dude-who-would-become-gorgeous-ambassador first met Blythe when one of his various failed attempts to get a job happened to cross paths with the family Blythe was guarding. This family didnt believe in such old suspicions and never gave offerings to their household spirit, so it stayed small and weak and was almost fading away. Baby blythe didnt know why their humans didnt love them, even though they tried so hard to bring good luck and clean the fireplace and stuff. So they felt a sense of kinship with this poor failure samurai who was begging for food on their doorstep. The humans of the household spat in his face and turned him away empty handed, but the tiny yokai snuck some rice from the pantry and gave it to him. They were surprised that he was able to see them, and he gave them the first thank you they'd ever had!

* Addendum note: i feel like gorgeous samurai was cursed with being able to see yokai from a young age and its part of whay made him so determined to become strong enough to protect people. Perhaps his biological family was killed by an evil yokai and nobody ever believed what he saw? And he wandered japan trying to save other people and always failing and being blamed for what happened, since nobody could see the real culprit. This reputation of being a liar when he wasnt = he ended up actually lying about how he was totally fine and not sad and also great and not hating himself. Its not really something he can control anymore, its like a stress response and it keeps getting him in trouble but he cant stop. "Yes sure i can save the day, i'm awesome!" only makes things worse when he inevitably loses again, whic only makes his self confidence worse and traps him further in the lies...

* so anyway, he became friends with this lil babby yokai and kept coming back to visit them and tell more tall tales of his grand adventures. And eventually he managed to help Blythe come out of their shell a little and agree to leave this house where they were only fading away. Haunting him instead, the lil shadow soon flourished back to full health from being loved for the first time. And their new big bro would always give them the biggest share of all the food even when he was starving, and always wasted his money buying things for them, and knitted them lil scarfs and just HE WAS A GOODEST BIG BRO! They also made a great team, and he was finally able to fight evil yokai with a yokai of his own helping him out. Things were good for a few years!

* Eventually though, they faced a foe too strong for them to defeat. (Not sure yet who it is, cos it could be cool if they faced it again in the present day for a rematch?) Blythe's human friend ran into a burning building to save the people being attacked by this yokai, but because he was already gravely injured he didnt manage to make it out in time. And blythe was just a tiny bab who wasnt strong enough to carry his unconcious body to safety. So their last memories of him are of crying and begging him to wake up as the house fell apart all around them, and eventually the flames swallowed him up. the tiny yokai just ran and ran away from their shame, and never saw an ashy figure rising from the ruins and calling their name...

* eventually after years of struggling alone and lacking meaning in life, Blythe had a chance meeting with our protagonist and thus begins my yokai watch 1 lets play! At the same time their yokaified big bro is still out there searching for them, and maybe one day theyll meet again...

* also i wanna go with the pre-evo the anime added of Gorgeous Ambassador evolving from a sad depressed vampire lookin dude. Even if the whole circumstances here are vastly different! But we dont really have any info on what kageusuo's powers or stats would be, so i guess i'm free to mess around with that? I like the idea of it being vampiric just cos i feel it looks like that. But instead of drinking blood maybe its a hunger for shadows? Which is actually beneficial to humans and makes them less overshadowed aka the opposite of Dimmy's power. So if you ever feel that you're radiating charisma with perhaps a slightly lighter shadow, maybe youve been inspirited by this guy! And then the evolution into Gorgeous Ambassador doesnt actually change anything at all, except just looking more fashionable and confident (which is absolutely a lie). His power already made people more fabulous while being unable to affect himself, he just worked a bit harder on himself to try and catch up with everyone else. Self care vampire!

* oh and in this interpretation the way that kageusuo would be integrated into the gameplay is that Gorgeous Ambassador would get a new ability that lets him switch forms in battle, rather than it being a separate yokai. (Tho would still have a separate entry in the medallium just for conveinience of being able to view both character models whenever you want) Stuff that causes low confidence would make him poof between forms, and itd just be something like more attack based vs defense based, or maybe having two separate personality stats so its like his AI is slightly more versatile than the usual frustratingness of most yokai? Srsly im still so annoyed at so many yokai that have two mutually exclusive moves and the ai is stupid about using them at the wrong time to cancel each other out. Like how Dimmy can be given the AI personality to focus on attacking and thus take advantage of its auto-skill to be good at dodging aka a glass cannon. BUT also one of its skills gives that same status to an ally instead, which by definition takes it away from itself cos 'dont target this other guy' means there arent many other options. So you cpuld alternatively play dimmy as a supporter who exclusively protects others with that ability BUT the annoying part is that even when you set an AI profile to one particular move it still only makes it LIKELY to do that and not guaranteed. So every now and again your attacking dimmy will cancel its own buff to protect an enemy, or your supporting dimmy will forget to support abd instead buff itself despite not having the attack stat build to take advantage of it. Plus you cant have both and switch between modes mid battle, so thatd be REALLY useful if one yokai actually could do that, and also could change stats to fit! Im not sure how to give it a trigger condition thatd let you sorta change at will but also not be 100% easy and overpowered. I was thinking tying it to his confidence could mean missed attacks turn him into kageusuo and critical hits turn into gorgeous? But thatd be TOO uncontrollable...

* oh actually i think maybe i'll nickname him Amber! Just cos my brain just mispronounced gorgeous ambassador and It Kinda Works??? Also its a kind of name that sounds very pretty but also has connotations of gentle shyness, i think. Matches the duality of his fake boastfulness vs his true self doubt.

* Oh and i also thought of maybe having Blythe evolve into Casanono, even though you cant do that in canon. I feel like turning into a pretty humanoid would be a good way to symbolize their growing confidence ans casanono/casanuva has a big nonbinary aesthetic in my opinion. Plus of course the fact casanono is a variabt of a confident yokai thats actyally shy. Originally older brother dude was gonna be a casanuva to match, until i heard about Gorgerous Ambassador and decided it fits him better (especially with that new anime form!) So now im thinking maybe have Blythe be both casanono and casanuva at once, similar to their bro's form switching? But itd be more like casanuva is a rare super saiyan esque powerup when they experience rare moments of confidence. Im pretty much just doing this because SADLY casanono is a joke character who is literally mechanically forced to be useless in battle. Its ability makes it harder to catch yokai which ia already goddamn difficult, and it wastes a skill slot too. As opposed to Dimmy who has a similar personality of always being ignored and depressed but its abilities are actually beneficial. Itd suck to go from Blythe being my mvp to being unable to use them at all, so this would be a way to still always draw them as casanono in comics to match their actual personality, but using casanuva in battle cos.. Well.. Yeah its the functional one of the two. Level-5 if youre listening please make casanono useable in future games!! Casanuva is absolutely the worst one personality wise so it sucks that the game agrees with his ego that he's great and also punches his depressed counterpart into the bin of ignoreness DESPITE BEING SUPER SYMPATHETIC AND RELATEABLE AND ALSO CUTER COLOURSCHEME

Anyway thats all the thoughts i have so far. Except oh also itd be funny if throughout the whole story blythe keeps talking about their dead brother as if he was the super best most serious hero and then when the protagobists actually meet him he's this gaudy dork XD

[galimatios]

fear thy fortune chatlog notes

thinking abt the underdeveloped au i have in that weird off color fantasy universe that i realized is probably similar in ways to bloodborne even before i knew abt bloodbornes plot but this is nice bc i can solidify parts of it and i can probably also combine it with the knights au i have

OK I FORGOT TO PUT A CW HERE BUT CW FOR ABUSE MENT AND GORE MENT

somewhere located in present day west asia slash east europe theres a country divided into numerous states in which princes and princesses (princex (poc)/princen/etc for gender neutral options) are perpetually in contest with eachother for the right to be the divine ruler of the country

monarchy is not guided by blood, rather the church is responsible for finding the chosen candidates via prophecy, fururesight, dream interpretation, etc, and these kids are taken from their homes and reared as royalty the nature of this country is ... severe. pain is a gift, proof that one is alive. much ceremony is based in sacrifice, bloodspill, bloodsports, and pain endurance. magic as practiced by the church is extremely powerful in terms of healing so almost all wounds can be healed provided the heart still beats its essentially one big huge freakish cult of a country that has customs that seem barbaric to outsiders

the divine ruler of each state is the princens, though more often than not their councils do most of the governing with the princen merely being a puppet figurehead. they go through rigorous training to sharpen their minds and endurance against all types of pain, so training includes physical, mental, emotional trials in which the princen is supposed to keep a clear mind, concentrate on mediation or some mantra, bearing whatever is thrown at them. additionally they receive the best training in both combat and politics as well as magic. not all princen can withstand the requirements ofc so they.. vary quite a bit in terms of stability/constitution. its a p sick system even without the knights added in bc thats super messed up

the knights essentially belong to their princens in heart body mind and soul, and each princen receives exactly one knight soulbound to them. they also undergo the same scouting process once the princen is identified, and they undergo similar training except theyre also essentially brainwashed into believing their entire purpose in life is to serve and protect their princen no matter what. obviously this aint healthy! knights delude themselves into it so hard theyll fight for the system that literally abuses them! but thats how cults work

that being said knights are extremely powerful. they act as the sole bodyguard of their princen and believe me you dont want to get inbetween a knight and their prince. they are known especially for their brutality when their lords are threatened. it is extremely common for limbs to be lost in skirmishes btwn assailants and a knight

this takes us to the games! which are essentially gladiator coliseum type bloodsport contests between knights of different princens. its a pretty big affair like how the Olympics are for us so the fanfare the cheering the everything is all there i prob dont need to describe it in detail but its very violent. its considered practice for the knights before the true battle-royale type event thats even BIGGER bc it determines who becomes god-king of the country. this time the princen join their knights in the battlefield and basically whoever is left standing is the new king

is it worth it? probably not bc i think being king actually means being killed to be sent up to the heavens bc god kings dont need bodies any longer in truth the entire debacle is a distraction set up by the church to keep the country under its own control. its super corrupt. the council behind every princen is actually made up of high ranking church members that convene regularly to manipulate the politics of the region

but thats mostly the governing sphere of this world. the commonfolk are removed from most of this violence aside from the indoctrination by the church and the messed up religion they practice. a lot of the belief system here relies on this concept of karma and fate over free will. fate is oppressive, cannot be changed, but god do they try that belief ties into how princen and knights are fated to be pairs, how princen are fated to either ascend to godhood or die trying

but there is one way to manipulate fates in this world there exists in independent of the church a monastery that practices the art of transferring karma. think of karma as a type of currency that can be spent, saved, used, etc. lots of good karma may be distributed amongst loved ones via a ritual headed by a monk, or bad karma can be "paid off" essentially. the amount of good/bad karma a person has directly affects their fortune and luck. this practice is more or less outlawed by the church but the monastery is slowly gaining power over the commonfolk and the church mostly leaves the poor folk to rot anyway- their agenda mostly concerns the monarchy

altho i can definitely see tensions rising with the witch hunting as influenced by the church. particularly nefarious visions may result in blame being thrown around and commoners getting killed for crimes they have yet to commit and thats thanks to the teachings of the church

anyway as of rn though the monastery is still pretty small but it is an old, ancient organization with magic that runs far deeper than the magic of the church. it is a much more subtle magic- monks practice little offensive magic (they are a nonviolent sort anyway) but the ability to exchange karma is rare and has far more reaching impact in the long run i imagine they have strongholds further to the east but anyway theres one trump card the monastic order has

a subsection of the order is dedicated to the keeping of miracles. and miracles are... monsters! they are semi-physical manifestations of literal suffering and the sheer emotional energy provided by them is enough to give miracles the power to.. well. perform miracles.

when a person dies in anguish, there is a chance that their bodies will not decompose the way they are meant to. instead they slowly dissipate, bodies turning coal black and ashen to the touch. these cannot be disposed of the normal way (curses, contamination, all kinds of horrible things happen) so instead these corpses get locked up inside brick cells within the monastery

once, one of these was opened only to reveal that the bodies were gone- only a humming, massive shadow that seemed to move as if made of flies or soot combined. and it spoke, too. this was the first miracle created it was discovered then that these creatures had immense power but could not leave the rooms they were imprisoned in, touch sunlight, and similarly they could not die

imagine like the witchs nightmares in pmmm and you get what its like to be a soul trapped in a miracle. u get to relive ur worst fears and regrets forever. it suck miracles also cannot direct their powers towards their own will, only the will of others. ofc they are still monsters and exact a price for their services, whatever it may be.

a meeting with a miracle does not come cheap or without consequence, bc although miracles can be performed, karma always rebalances itself in the end. monks tasked with guarding and curating the miracles are called gatekeepers and are often someone close to one of the souls trapped in the vortex anyway i think thats the basics of everything in there... i got an au w cyrus as a prince and alex as his knight and instead of sticking around for their inevitable deaths the pair run off into the countryside far far away

actually i think something went wrong in the ceremony. cyrus and alex win godkingship of then... something goes wrong. probably the whole die-to-ascend thing is a secret kept from the princen and the public and. alex does a thing a knight should not do a refuses to let the ceremony continue. and im p sure as soon as cyrus learns of the truth hes like haha well fuck that

then they spend the rest of their days actually experiencing what life is like outside of a freakish cult and my fucking feels

i think.. meanwhile the monastic order grows in influence and power making them the enemy of the church... and jonah (yonah in this au) sacrifices himself to the miracle containing his brother in order to give the miracle a corporal form. which means august and company now have a physical conduit for all that power they had.

bad news for the church! bc august was unrightfully killed bc of a prophecy saying that hed become a huge threat and a killer

funny how prophecies work!

so now hes out for blood and he probably uses his own charisma and power to stage a coup against the church and basically the country goes to hell and i think at this point cyrus thinks. i got out of there alive. i need to do something about this. so he and alex probably join in and become arbiters of the game esp since cyrus and alex were probably the best synced, most skilled prince/knight duo the church had seen up to that date so theyre very powerful. ofc theyre still only two people so i really wonder how theyll step in btwn these two opposing parties

augusts side isnt good either bc august... is only out for revenge and self interest. he has no interest in fixing the country or helping anyone in fact once august is firmly seated on the throne of power he probably declares himself god-king anyway the end game probably looks like augusts body (which is jonahs body) being destroyed and the miracle contained in it finally put to rest jonahs soul must have something to do with the exorcism process- theyve tried to exorcise miracles before and only ended up upsetting it into violent outbursts anyway thats enough rambling from me time to paste this all into a blog post

god what if august picked keith to be his knight. thats messed up. keiths so easy to manipulate and hed be such a wildcard of a knight. he has more magic potential than alex and hes faster on his feet. im imagining bloodlust frenzy almost hyena-like behavior. also i mostly just want to see keith being violent and evil and i have an outfit in mind that would look great with a little splash of red

think like minimalistic ouji but like all black and keith with knives and serving a clearly twisted (even more than usual bc of the miracle’s influence) august

god even better the aftermath of augusts death TIME FOR THE FUCKING FEELS TO KICK IN BC now Keith has no purpose/he FAILED to protect his king WHICH WAS HIS ONLY PURPOSE IN LIFE then alex coming in with cy and just no, you have inherent worth. what happened wasn't right im upset this is how alex and keith become family in this au

miracles i think in this case are definitely more of a means to an end i think narratively ie jonahs brother being killed and augusts soul being trapped within it- tho i think its a good tie-in into how the severe paranoid cultish way the society works ends up producing a lot of People Dying In Extreme Anguish

almost a buildup of sickness so to say.. a plague of the soul that's a cool avenue to go down tbh the idea that miracles are more like viruses spreading misfortune in the long run for some quick gain in this life but bc karma always collects her debts if i throw in some nice reincarnation that would effectively damn someone in their next life... that implies that this story may need to expand across different generations

mechanics being so much bullshit has happened in this country it houses multiple miracles whereas elsewhere its like one, or none, very few in their histories except possibly during wartime and famine

since magic is Exists in this it makes sense that the emotional energy combined w ambient energy would manifest in some kind of grotesque Being

oh no thats maybe why the church is manipulating things by purposely generating that emotional trauma in its society its producing unprecedented amounts of energy they can utilize as magic power oh  no thats super bad august would definitely take advantage of that bc hed definitely figure the truth out once hes back to being alive

im upset bc i think they use princens and knights to specifically create emotional energy

energy released upon death which typically happens after a knight/prince duo has been chosen... then the resulting STRONG ass char plague on their bodies are collected to make artifacts? yes

gems created from the ashen plague are embedded into a huge mandala that actually ... is the god-king itself

[dangkinronpa]

headcanons for junko whose younger cousin was ouma

heres ur headcanons @newworldchild ! i hope u like them, and if u want me to make any sort of changes just let me know! - mod kiibo - since the two of them were cousins, junko and ouma didnt really get to see each other on a daily basis or anything. however, just because they couldnt see each other all the time didnt mean that they didnt enjoy being able to spend time with each other whenever the opportunity arose. in fact, they enjoyed getting to spend time together - whenever junko went to visit ouma, she always expected him to have some sort of prank planned for her as soon as she walked in the door, although she thankfully could never tell just what ouma had planned up his sleeve. it was never anything super bad, but it was still enough to make her wonder what was to come before her - junko and ouma spent a lot of time talking to each other about how boring the world was whenever they were around each other, though ouma definitely still saw some excitement in the world whenever he could see people reacting to some of the pranks he pulls and the jokes he makes. still, the two could relate on how boring the world could be - on days where junko felt like getting into a bit of mayhem, she has absolutely no problem bringing her little cousin along with her and letting him join in on the fun. ouma doesnt really want to cause too much trouble, but he doesnt mind stealing a few things and messing with random strangers as long as nobody gets hurt in the long run - any time that ouma wants to play a game, he ends up pretty much dragging junko into playing with him so that he can have the ultimate game playing experience. the two of them usually end up going all out when they play, and in the end the winner between them ends up switching often. every single game is super intense, though - sometimes junko would play with oumas hair and put it into twintails, just because she likes messing with him. he ends up groaning and complaining about the way junko puts his hair up, but she just really likes messing with him and putting his hair in cute styles. ouma considers it one of the many downsides of being related to junko - as payback for forcing him to put his hair up when he doesnt want to, ouma ends up forcing junko to do some of his schoolwork for him. its not like he cant do it, but he just really doesnt want to. still, its almost a little crushing seeing junko finish his homework so quickly, even though he expected it, because that was supposed to be her punishment - every once in a while junko brings ouma to see her friends, just so that she can brag about how her cousin is probably smarter than people her own age. at first, her classmates didnt exactly believe that, but as soon as her classmates started talking to him they realized that he really was much smarter than they initially expected him to be - any time ouma tells junko about his secret evil organization of over 10,000 members she just cant help but roll her eyes and chuckle a bit. sure, she doesnt believe him, but she does let him go on about how cool his organization is and just how great and thoughtful of a leader he is, simply by doing things like having tea breaks - as cousins, junko and ouma both know that they could absolutely rule the world if they tried hard enough, and even though they both said they wouldnt do it there was no telling if they were lying or not. still, even if they dont end up ruling the world, ouma and junko are sure that together theyll do something big and unheard of before

[pixelbatsy]

92 things!

yiKes im so late to this but i was tagged by @craighsiao, @kittenmusicals, @pbophelia, @zigisbisexual, and @mermaidwarriorqueen yall are so crazy i love yall thank u w all of my heart :’)))

THE LAST:

1. Drink: water 2. Phone call: my mom 3. Text message: "dont watch princess bride” w a pic of it buffering from my friend lmao 4. Song you listened to: fetish by selena gomez my newest bop 5. Time you cried: an hour ago bc of my shit eyebrows that got Ruined!

HAVE YOU:

6. Dated someone twice: lol

7. Kissed someone and regretted it: lol no

8. Been cheated on: LOL 9. Lost someone special: yes 10. Been depressed: hooyeah 11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: not yet djfakld

LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS:

12. millennial pink lol 13. periwinkle 14. maroon

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU:

15. Made new friends: hooooo boy yeAH irl and on tumblr!! 16. Fallen out of love: specifically w thomas hunt sry bb 17. Laughed until you cried: me 24/7 18. Found out someone was talking about you: hajdhf yeah but she cried and apologized so we’re cool now 19. Met someone who changed you: omg yes so much 20. Found out who your friends are: yesyeysyes i luv them 21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: who still uses fb

GENERAL:

22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: none?? 23. Do you have any pets: an inside cat, 3 strays outside that we just feed and they just chill out here, and also some fish that are like 6 years old 24. Do you want to change your name: i wanna switch my first and middle name 

25. What did you do for your last Birthday: i went on vacation in florida and new orleans with my best friends hfjakdhf 26. What time did you wake up: 12:30 my sleeping schedule is fucked 27. What were you doing at midnight last night: watching makeup vids lol 28. Name something you can’t wait for: TRR CHAPTER 15!!!!! 29. When was the last time you saw your mom: 30 mins ago idk 30. What is one thing you wish you could change in your life: my ability to talk to people bc my anxiety!! ahhaha!!!! 31. What are you listening to right now: FETISH BY SELENA GOMEZ A BOP!! 32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: no?? 33. Something that is getting on your nerves: my fukxign eyebrows that the lady messed up ughggjkhsd 34. Most visited Website: is this even a question lmao tumblr and youtube 35. Mole/s: ugh i have one on my stomach and it bothers the shit out of me but i have more in other places im just too lazy to look 36. Mark/s: do cat scratch scars count bc i got a lot of those 37. Childhood dream: my mom told me my 1st grade teacher asked what i wanted to be and i remembered the episode of curious george that i watched before leaving the house and said an ice cream girl in the park but either that or become ariel 38. Hair color: rly dark brown but in the sun it turns rly light like into like honey brown idek 39. Long or short hair: ive had both but long hair is such a chore so short bc i have like medium rn 40. Do you have a crush on someone: who needs that when ur already married to henry cavill but chris powell, drake, the prince, maxwell, dick grayson, jason todd... 41. What do you like about yourself: i DID like my eyebrows smh its ok theyll grow back 42. Piercings: lol i didnt even get my ears pierced so none 43. Blood type: who are u identity theft fuk off m8 44. Nickname: CATLYN, kk, kalina bc me and my friend have a 824 snap streak and its our #goals ship name 45. Relationship status: single married to henry cavill i even had to organize my own wedding for a project in floral design sophomore year 46. Zodiac: cancer im a crybaby ik 47. Pronouns: she/her 48. Favorite TV Show/s: pretty little liars, grimm, young justice, the big bang theory, two broke girls, sherlock, and family feud lmao 49. Tattoos: i want somethin smol but not yet 50. Right or left hand: i was gonna be a lefty but my daycare person literally treated me like shit and made me use my right hand so now im a righty and she got her ass fired :)) not like i remember anything tho lmao

51. Surgery: ortho surgery bc my mouth was too small and my teeth were so fucked up but braces gave me a glo up lol 52. Hair dyed in different color: omg no but i have these rly cool brown streaks on the side of my head and its also underneath my hair but its rly pretty ppl always ask me about it bc its like genetic idk its cool 53. Sport: i fucking live for watching football om Fg

55. Vacation: im guessing this is where ive been?? so uh hawaii, florida, mississippi, louisiana (and bish i been to shreveport, louisiana home of my boi jake mckenzie dshfjs), texas aka my home, las vegas, california, cozumel, jamaica, belize, and soon the bahamas!! 56. Pair of trainers: oh my god i have like 30+ pairs of shoes i love shoes!!

MORE GENERAL:

57. Eating: nothing rn i ate steak for dinner tho 58. Drinking: water! 59. I’m about to: start watching a youtube video 61. Waiting for: my bday party w my friends on wednesday (lowkey those choices chapters too i wish my bb chris powell could wish me happy bday :’)) 62. Want: a BIG FAT bank account 63. Get married: to a nice rich husband yuh finished the sentence

64. Career: im a senior in hs and i got accepted into my pharm tech class aaaah were gonna get to go to hospitals and and wear scrubs and shit im so excited i wanna be a pharmacist or like somewhere in the med field bc they make BANK and also they help ppl :’)) 65. Hugs or kisses: from my future bb kisses 66. Lips or eyes: eyes yus 67. Shorter or taller: im 5′5 so im smol and theyre tol 68. Older or younger: mmm i prefer older but only like a year younger if theyre worth it dhfgsk 70. Nice arms or nice stomach: this is so hard but arms bc abs arent a requirement but arms,,,, yes 71. Sensitive or loud: how am i both sensitive and loud (tru) 72. Hook up or relationship: lol relationship i want it all 73. Troublemaker or hesitant: hesitant but troublemaker when im feelin big mood

HAVE YOU EVER:

74. Kissed a stranger: uh kinda 75. Drank hard liquor: not yET LMAOOO 76. Lost glasses/contact lenses: nope 77. Turned someone down: jkasjdf lowkey yeah 78. Sex in the first date: no omfg sfdhgj 79. Broken someone’s heart: wym 24/7 lmao jk no 80. Had your heart broken: by many fanfics lord lol 81. Been arrested: nonoono 82. Cried when someone died: im making animals count so yes 83. Fallen for a friend: almost but skrtskrr were still friends

DO YOU BELIEVE IN:

84. Yourself: if i try really hard YUH 85. Miracles: 11:11 twice a day for extra good luck yuh 86. Love at first sight: lol no 87. Santa Claus: yeah until i was like 14 88. Kiss on the first date: YUH WHY NOT if theyre not shit 89. Angels: meh not really

OTHER:

90. Current best friend’s name: omg irl alina and caroline my bbs and online @evisms i rly love u,, so much 91. Eyecolor: brown 92. Favorite movie: the man from uncle that ive seen 7 times!!, wonder woman!!, ex machina, hidden figures, coraline, and moana

im not gonna tag anyone bc prolly the entire choices population has done this but hit it up if u wanna!!

[caredogstips]

Ann Patchett:’ If writers are to survive we must take responsibility for ourselves and our manufacture’

The author explores buying her own bookstore, the bequest of divorce and referring to herself in the third person

In the windowpane above Ann Patchetts desk is a small steel and enamel sign that reads: What good shall I do this day? This simple dictum is the engine of Patchetts world, both on the sheet and off. In the Orange prizewinning Bel Canto , comradeship, ardour and productivity bloom among terrorists and captives; in 2011 s artful State of Wonder , a sensible research scientist faces not just the serpents and other frights of the Amazonian jungle, but the dragon of her former medical lecturer.

I have been shown so much kindness in “peoples lives”, so for me to write volumes about good, species parties seems totally natural, Patchett tells. When “theyre saying”, Oh its too nice, its naive, I just think: who killed your mother?

It infringes a literary inhibition to write fiction that hints parties might be fundamentally good. For the 52 -year-old Patchett, however, the real taboo was writing about their own families. Commonwealth , her seventh romance, publicized this week, encompasses 50 years and two pedigrees, the Cousinses and the Keatings, whose common fate is set in motion at a gin-soaked christening defendant where Albert Cousins caresses Beverley Keating.

Today, the very best that Patchett will do involves picking up a columnist from Nashvilles airport and devoting her whole daytime to zipping around township in her little silver Prius, testifying mentioned journalist her world-wide. Even if she hadnt published an paper, The Mercies, about her schooling with the Sisters of Mercy, you might guess that Patchett had been raised by nuns. She excretes that sleeves-rolled, get-on-with it ability, paired with the clarity and occasional brutality of true-blue righteousness. To watch her in action is to hear the Mother Abbess from The Sound of Music sing, Climb Evry Mountain. Patchett climbs every mountain, but she will also croak an occasional, and deliciously un-nun-like, fuck!

What do you do when the bookstores in your hometown all shut down? If youre Patchett, you open one yourself. In 2011, she founded Parnassus Books, an idyll in a shopping plaza, with her business marriage, Karen Hayes. She has since become a rallying spokesperson for independent bookstores.

I feel that writers are treated like orchids: they keep us in the hothouse, they cloud the americans and attend to our every motivation, but if this system is going to work, if we are going to survive, we need to come out of the hothouse and take responsibility for ourselves and for the health of the industry.

She takes a firm line. When customers visit the bookstore and keep telling her Amazon is cheaper: Im like, You cannot come in, soak up what we have, talk to the staff, get recommendations, then go home and buy the book on Amazon. If you do, I will hunt you down and smack-dab you guys later. Somehow, she lends with a smiling, Ann Patchett can say that in a way that your regular bookstore owned cant.

She leads the way to the offices at the back, where young women work with puppies at their hoofs and on their laps. One of the salesclerks pokes her president around the door and tells Patchett that theres an Australian fan here who would really like to meet her.

All right, here “theres going”, and Patchett psyches out to the storey to signal four replicas for her love. Later, she tells me that when people tell her how much they cherish her notebooks, Im smiling, and Im grateful, but I almost dont know what theyre speak about. Its so far away, and what I am thinking at that moment, is: I hope I am cooking my face in a way that I seem hired and grateful.

She and her husband, the surgeon Karl Vandevender, talking here Ann Patchett in the third largest being, as do her friends and peers at the bookstore. Theyll reply: Oh, we need Ann Patchett for something, and Ill run: Ill see if I can conjure her up. Ann Patchett, she reads definitively, is the label. Ive got to employed that away at the end of the day.

All of her tales, she explains, are the same floor: a group of parties are thrown together and must forge connections to survive. Ive been writing the same journal my whole life that youre in one family, and all of a sudden, youre in another family and its not your option and you cant get off. Eventually, she expected herself: I wonder if I wrote the storey that Im so carefully not writing, if I might be free of it?

As soon as she began working on Commonwealth , the story of her own parents divorce and her precede life with stepsiblings, she announced her intentions to her family. Thats brave, I say.

Yeah, it is. It was also really smart. She told them: I dont want to cut off a part of my life any more. I dont wishes to not have access to my own experience because I dont want to set anybody out. I want to be able to grow. And, I find, until I get this done, Im not going to grow. And everybody supposed: You lead, girl!

Patchett concedes that, until this stage, shed been very self-congratulatory over not having written a volume about their own families, which seemed like the strong, easy thing to do. Then she read an paper by Jonathan Franzen in which he insisted that the novelist has to do what intimidates him “the worlds largest” and, for him, that had been writing about his family. When I speak that, I thoughts: oh , good-for-nothing would scare me more. I would happily razz down the Amazon in a canoe and is being dealt with serpents[ as she did to study State of Wonder ] rather than face my family.

In the entitle paper of her 2013 non-fiction collect, This Is the Story of a Joyous Wedding , she details the lineage of divorce in her own family, including her own at the age of 25, and her eventual matrimony to Vandevender. There is a sense in that paper, which moves in steady, clear-eyed increments, of a columnist willing herself into facing and articulating hard truths, of which this is paramount: Divorce is the history lesson, that circumstance that must be remembered in order not to be repeated. Divorce is the rock upon which this faith is built.

She remembers sweat swarming down her appearance as she wrote it, while she experienced the distinct sensation that she was sitting in the middle of the road in the dark, with a legal pad, contemplation: Im going to get squashed by a truck.

She writes candidly, for example, that she, her sister and their stepsiblings werent the products of our mothers joyous wedlocks: “were in” the flotsam of their divorces. In Commonwealth , that flotsam is the intense little tribe of the six Cousins and Keating babes, each of whom corresponds to her own stepsiblings.

Its like chess fragments, she tells, as she explains that each persona stood in for a real family member. In this mode, it was very easy for me to keep track of everyone over 50 years. And genuinely, I committed everybody a high quality of life, by a very large margin. The parties in the book somehow represented my dearest desires for all the people.

Its dedicated to Mike Glasscock, her half-brother, reimagined here as Albie, a very young, whom the others find so annoying that they narcotic him with Benadryl to induce him sleep for hours. Years afterwards, as a bicycle messenger and recovering heroin user, Albie chances upon a romance called Commonwealth by a writer announced Leo Posen. He realises it is about two pedigrees, his own, about the inestimable burden of their lives: the occupation, the houses, the friendships, the marriages, the children, as if all the things theyd craved and worked for had cemented the impossibility of any kind of merriment. He wonders: Isnt that what everyone wants, just for a moment to be unencumbered?

Its surely my greedy lust, Patchett laughs. Franny, whom the nun had led to believe that God granted preference to people who did things the hard way, is a cocktail waitress when she first fulfils the famous novelist Posen.( Who wants to have a novel about a novelist? Patchett groan. But thats the way it turned out .) He becomes so drunk that she must help him up to his hotel chamber, where he has only enough time left to ask for one more advantage, which Franny thought was the deepest difference between women and men. Eventually, that dynamic is enlarged in incidents established in the Hamptons, Long Island, where Franny spots herself expected to single-handedly acquire dinner and liquors for changing hordes of Posens clients. Theyre some of the funniest of the book.

You wanna talk about which part of this volume is autobiographical? Patchett reads. That fraction. How exhausting it is, as the status of women, to always be the one who has to do the meat and change the bunks. No topic how enlightened, how much of a feminist I am, I am still doing all of it.[ With] every journal I conceive: well, if this ones actually successful, maybe I wont “re going to have to” acquire dinner any more, she laughs. Perhaps Ill finally is how to not do this any more, because its my fault. Its is not simply gender, but the 12 years of Catholic school and being trained to be a good servant. I believe in this, I truly believe that the greatest event you can do is to serve.

Oh, if I could free-spoken myself from the autocracy of good deeds, she mocklaments. Oh, there used to be no stopping me. I could be Tolstoy without good deeds. I has actually be something.

Over lunch she tells me that she read a Charles Bukowski poem that morning that aims those who/ replace/ know/ this secret :/ there isnt/ one. Its abide with her, perhaps because writing, more than any other art formation, is susceptible to regulations, premier among other issues being to write every day.

Dont you think guys are the ones that always say that? she adds. Im not sure Ive heard a woman say you have to write every day. Theyre too busy obligating dinner. I go through extended periods of time when I dont write, and Im fine. Writing is an amazing situate to hide, to go into the rabbit defect and pull the trap door down over your premier. I want to have time in my life when I dont have that cover.

She also insists that there are things that are a lot more important than me writing a novel. For illustration: If person told, OK, you can either write five more great novels, or you are able to made to ensure that the people who work in bookstores have health insurance and have some home to depart if they need assistance because theyre transgressed. At this stage I might certainly go for the very best. Nothing fuels the good of “the worlds” like gaiety, and the thing that sees me feel really alive is figuring out how I can startle other beings into doing good.

To ordering Commonwealth for 15.57( Bloomsbury, RRP 18.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or announce 0330 333 6846. Free UK p& p over 10, online orders merely. Phone orders min p& p of 1.99.

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