#look at this totally new post that has never been seen before on this website

[binart]

DTOK page 12! (First)(Previous)(Next)

good man coran comes in with the taser to save His Boy LOL

[actual-changeling]

I have written many meta posts and s3-theories, and read even more, but I got hit by an idea I have not seen before. (If there is another post, please link it!)

After vibrating for an hour and losing my mind in my dms, I have no scraped together enough brain cells to present what is probably my first actual 'main-plot meta'.

Welcome to another edition of Alex's unhinged meta corner, today with a title to honour Crowley's James Bond obsession and the possibility of another heaven heist.

I give you:

From Jesus with Love - You Will Live Twice

Now, let's get right into it.

I think Neil might have told us more about the main s3 plotline in the announcement article than we previously thought. We all got stuck on 'they're not talking'—for good reason—but it is the part before that which has been bugging me ever since then.

The plans are going wrong—and this time that is a problem for earth and humanity. Turning that around, it means that whatever that plan consists of would be the way to go and beneficial for everyone, the opposite of the main plot of s1.

"They need to prevent the Second Coming (SC)" is pretty much the only and most popular idea I have seen, hundreds of fics and metas and whatnot have been written about it, but I think there's a good chance we're wrong. If we're not, well, I will honestly just be happy to be watching season 3.

Whatever the Metatron is planning will have negative consequences for everyone, or as Michael puts it: "And so… it ends. Everything ends. Time and the world is over, and we begin Eternity… forever and ever."

It sounds very much like Apocalypse #1 - Same Old Plan, same expected result, yet if we look at different interpretations of scripture we find that the SC is not entirely about complete destruction and death for all of humanity—it is about creating a new world/migrating to the kingdom of God.

This is taken from the Wikipedia article about the SC

Resurrection and life in a world to come are a direct contradiction to the result Michael is explaining—total annihilation of humanity.

Now, I am neither religious in any way nor have I ever received any sort of biblical education. Luckily, Christians seem to love talking about the bible because there are dozens of bible website to wade through. If I get anything wrong, please point it out, I have never touched a bible in my life.

So, after reading many, many quotes by a bunch of different guys, I tried to create a somewhat coherent picture of what the SC might look like based on the assumption that the end result is positive. I will talk about how they can be interpreted more in-depth later, otherwise this would turn into a string-net very fast.

Additionally, we can also see where these points overlap with the statement Jimbriel gave in the bookshop in episode three.

What is Jesus' job description?

only God knows when and how exactly it will begin/happen, no one else does, including Jesus and the Metatron

a lot of different catastrophes are mentioned or quoted as something Jesus said, like earthquakes and storms -> Jimbriel mentioned a tempest and great storms

there is also the line "All these are the beginning of birth pains." Birth pains dictate that there will be a birth—birth of the world to come perhaps?

dead people will be resurrected/leave their graves so that they too can be judged (I'd say participate in it but that sounds like the Second Coming is a summer camp activity)

there are also mentions of stars and the heavens in general falling from the sky and the sun going dark -> Jimbriel also mentions darkness as one of the signs

great lamentations, as Jimbriel says, are also a part of many different passages, with humans mourning the world as it was

the Lord will descent with the voice of an Archangel and the sound of a trumpet/the trumpet of God; the grammatical structure of that sentence seems to be interpreted differently depending on who you ask, but the voices of angels/an Archangel and some sort of trumpet are common terms

once everyone is in heaven/wherever the 'main even' will take place, a judgement call will be made for every single person in relation to the book of life, which decides whether they will be punished forever or not (one passage talks about a lake of fire and mentions it several times in a row)

And this is where it gets tricky. To figure out what the SC looks like, we first need to understand a) what the Metatron's capabilities are, b) what he has to lose, and c) what exactly would be a threat to him.

If you ask me, all of this comes down to the Metatron wanting to stay and be in power for eternity with full control over angels so he can do as he please, aka keeping the system running as it is.

We know the book of life (bol) is a thing in the Good Omens universe, whether it does what Michael said is an entirely different question. So far, we have also only got confirmation that hell collects and tortures souls—in such large amounts that they are understaffed—while heaven looks completely empty.

The Metatron runs heaven as an institution, he seems to be the highest power any of the angels have access to and the one they defer to. He refers to himself as the voice of God and combines judge, jury and executioner, making him one great celestial dictator.

From what we know of hell, they do things a lot more democratically, having different councils, dukes, and ranks that are responsible for different levels of command.

We also know that that the Metatron wants the world to end, his goals can probably be summarized as the statement Michael makes, which would leave him in charge without any opposing forces.

We also also know that he sees Crowley and Aziraphale as a threat—why exactly remains a mystery for now—and that the success of his plan hinges on having a Supreme Archangel (SA) he can control. Gabriel decided to become princess of hell and Beez' sugar baby, so he was out of the equation, and after the Armageddon disaster, I don't think he wants to risk failing because of an unfamiliarity with earth (plus, y'know, getting our two idiots away from the plan).

It's interesting to me that right at the end, he says to Aziraphale "We call it the Second Coming"—call, not it is or it will be, CALL. We know that nothing Neil writes is a coincidence, definitely not with such an important line.

Just because you CALL something a specific name doesn't mean it IS what you call it, e.g. Aziraphale calls Crowley a foul fiend when we know he very much isn't.

The Metatron is selling his plan as part of the "Great/Ineffable Plan", so any questions can be blocked by saying it's God's will, it's ineffable. Whatever his plan is, he hides it behind the concept of the Second Coming, which angels know just enough about to understand the basics without having in-depth knowledge of what exactly it entails.

It is a good fucking strategy, I'll give him that, and it WORKS because angels—even if they have doubts—do not question. They simply don't; fear of punishment and millennia of conditioning have left them in a horrible place. When they encounter something unknown, their response is "I already knew that" as to not ask questions.

Crowley questions, we know that, and Aziraphale, ohhhhh, Aziraphale ALSO questions, but he does it in a less dangerous and obvious way. The Metatron is vastly underprepared for that.

(Side note: That alone would be its own meta post, but the gist is that he questions heaven's plans and then adjusts his assumptions of what God might want to what he WANTS God to want, e.g. Job, the Arch)

To summarize everything I just said, the Metatron wants to do what Armageddon failed to do—destroy earth and the universe—so he can be supreme dictator of all remaining celestial beings and gorge himself on power.

But instead of calling it his Big Evil Plan, he calls it the Second Coming, making everyone play along without resistance.

We cycle aaaaall the way back to the sentence I quoted—the ACTUAL plans are going wrong since the Metatron's would mean total destruction.

But what is the SC supposed to be if not the Apocalypse 2.0?

When I look at all the different aspects of the SC and assume a positive outcome, then the end result to me would be a new world that is pretty much like the old world, or maybe even literally the old world but with any destruction reversed. Heaven and hell get dissolved since now that everyone has been "judged", they as institutions are no longer needed, they have fulfilled their purpose.

No more judgement means there is no reason to keep track anymore, so why do you need to run celestial corporations whose only job is doing exactly that? You don't—and THAT is what I believe is the biggest perceived threat to the Metatron, losing full control over everyone and everything, losing his position, his title, and whatever else he has.

On top of that, Good Omens has told us again and again that God doesn't seem to give a fuck about good and evil anymore, and that without heaven and hell being all wrapped up in it, humanity would have 100% free will without any consequences.

Maybe the BoL is empty, maybe it isn't real, maybe Jesus stole it to straighten a wobbly table, who knows. There is a chance it is what Michael says, but I would admittedly find that a bit. too obvious and boring since it would boil the plot down to "they save their own asses again" and not "they save humanity at all cost".

Regarding Crowley and Aziraphale's role in this—I have Thoughts TM but those definitely need their own post. In short, they have to get the SC back on track, the real one.

-

If you have made it this far, thank you for working through what I hope are more or less coherent rambles. Any spelling or grammar mistakes are my own.

Questions? Thoughts? Corrections? Expansions and additions?

Feel free to add to this post however you like (and I can't believe I have to mentions this but if you clown on my post or behave like an asshole you will be blocked).

[plasticflwrs]

★ ⠀⠀ ! ⠀⠀ DISCOGRAPHY — Under the cut, you will find an IN DEPTH look into the career of South Korea's favorite idol band, Plastic Flowers. Beginning in 2016, they would rebrand after failing to make a profit in 2017 and find true success with TEETH in 2020, just a few months before their 16 month hiatus would begin. In 2022, they came back stronger than ever with I'M ALIVE and have consistently topped the music charts since. They are known for their promotional style which revolves around a spring and fall release each other, amounting to about 16 releases across singles, minis, their three full studio albums. Despite their constant stream of releases, the quality never suffers despite being completely self-produced since all five members are now involved in the writing process.

★ ⠀⠀ ! ⠀⠀ TRIGGER WARNINGS — Death of a parent, descriptive mention of eating disorders + treatment ( 2021 section ). If this piece is too triggering, please DM and I can give you a summary of what happens!

★ ⠀⠀ ! ⠀⠀ THE YEAR IS ... 2016 !

Compared to their underground counterparts, idol bands have been relatively successful in the past as seen with FNC's trio of FT Island, CNBLUE, and N.Flying along with JYP's newest venture, Day6. However, Plastic Flowers would fall under the radar due to the influx of third generation groups debuting between 2014 and 2016 with all three of the major companies debuting at least one new group during that time. Plastic Flowers would debut as four members with SALEM, DAL, JIHUN, and GWYN on May 15, 2016 with the lead single SCARED from their single album LET ME GO. While the two songs were praised by music critics, it failed to reach the general public. Along with their other single album, it would sell 46 copies total within the year and has never been reprinted. Original copies of the album are priced very high on second-hand selling websites and no "real fans" currently own a copy. LET ME GO and MENTALISM were even taken off of all major streaming platforms until fans demanded for it's return in 2022.

MV VIEWS: 1.2 million.

MUSIC SHOW NOMINATIONS. 0.

MUSIC SHOW WINS. 0

In their debut, Plastic Flowers explores themes of fear and insecurity through the song SCARED. The lyrics suggest hesitant to approach someone and an inability to express oneself freely, with most fans interpreting this to relate to Salem's original group THE BIG GLOOM, which she left the year prior. The phrase why are you scared? repeats throughout the song and highlights a sense of frustration with the fear and reluctance in their relationship, despite attempts to change. The narrator yearns for reassurance and validation, seeking comfort in the hope that their fears and uncertainties will fade away.

This line-up would release their second and final single album MENTALISM in November of 2016 with the title track MOUSE. This would be a continuation of their previous release, in terms of themes and inability to perform well on music charts. Though Mouse is beloved by fans now, it made no noise in 2016 and remains their worst performing single of all time, selling even worse than their debut single. Mentalism marked their first attempts at performing at small venues like bars and other restaurants, however, due to Oliver's age, they were often denied by the promotional teams. They would return to busking and posting covers in hopes of gaining more fans. At the end of 2016, it was announced by Superbloom Media would be placed on INDEFINITE HIATUS as they evaluated where to go forward. DAL and JIHUN would leave not long after, moving to larger companies and debuting in traditional idol groups instead.

MV VIEWS: 3.9 million.

MUSIC SHOW NOMINATIONS. 0.

MUSIC SHOW WINS. 0.

In 2024, MOUSE is often compared to their later b-side BRAND NEW CITY from their 2023 album OHIO IMPROMPTU. Both discuss the sense of dread from being in one's prime and dreading what comes later. Mouse is described as what happens after the narrator of Brand New City moves and realizes that they need to find a way to survive, that simply moving was not enough to change their feelings and create happiness. The narrator vows to "find love / and find a way to survive here", giving them a new sense of hope for the remaining time that they have and will move on from the silence.

★ ⠀⠀ ! ⠀⠀ THE YEAR IS ... 2017 !

In September 2017, Plastic Flowers would return with an almost completely new lineup composed of SALEM, JUNYEONG, MINGHUI, SERIN, and OLIVER. Oliver would drop his initial stage name, Gwyn, during this rebrand for an unknown reason, though he still uses it to produce for other groups. They would release ROCKSTAR from the album SOCIAL REJECTS to limited success. They would sell 99 copies of their third single album, doubling the previous records set by LET ME GO and MENTALISM. Superbloom Media would also shift their promotional style in favor of the more traditional idol route, getting them performances on Music Bank and The Show for three weeks.

MV VIEWS: 3.4 million.

MUSIC SHOW NOMINATIONS. 0.

MUSIC SHOW WINS. 0.

ROCKSTAR moves away from their traditional melancholic sound for more critiques of the social landscape. Rockstar explores themes of frustration and defiance in the face of judgement and control from others. They are seen as a suspect, watched closely, and labeled as a hopeless murder by those around them. Similar to their other tracks, this is believed to have been written after the conflict with The Big Gloom and is Salem's take on it. Those around the narrator continuously reject and oppose them, leading to a growing sense of resentment with the world around them. The chorus emphasizes the narrator's resolve to stay true to themselves because they believe they are doing nothing wrong. This song would be revisited in 2024 and a re-recording with new pianist Oh Deurim would be included in their third studio album RUTHLESS ROCKSTARS as a b-side.

With a small but mighty fanbase under their belt, Plastic Flowers would return in December 2017 with their first mini-album NORTH STAR, which had five songs including the title track FREEDOM. This release would double their catalogue and allow for slow growth across the next few years. THE BIG GLOOM, composed of the four original members, would also release their newest album over Soundcloud that same day, leading to tensions amongst new and old fans as the debate of what Salem should have done returned. Rather than alienating the old fans, they went back to their old sound to prove that nothing has changed and Plastic Flowers will only be a better version of her previous band. NORTH STAR was promoted similarly to their previous single album with performances on all major South Korean music shows and even an appearance on The After School Club to connect with international fans.

MV VIEWS: 6.7 million.

MUSIC SHOW NOMINATIONS. 0.

MUSIC SHOW WINS. 0

FREEDOM returns to their original sound with the themes of liberation and desire to break from societal constraints from ROCKSTAR still following them. Freedom opens with lyrics expressing uncertainty about what to sing about, overwhelmed by the abundance of refrain in the world and emphasizes their understanding of the path that they have chosen. The narrator proclaims that they have finally found their own way and the metaphor of cutting the moon and devouring the night suggests a rebellious mindset, choosing to defy expectations and live freely. Freedom encourages fans to let go of the norm and find their own path, breaking from societal expectations for their own happiness.

★ ⠀⠀ ! ⠀⠀ THE YEAR IS ... 2018 !

2018 would cement Superbloom's promotional style for Plastic Flowers as they release an album in the spring and fall, the seasons in which they have found the band to be most popular in. The first release of 2018 was HIGHER & HIGHER, their second mini-album with the lead single LET'S GET LOST. This release continued their momentum forward and there was nothing out of the ordinary during this era. They were slowly being included in more variety shows, as seen by their joint appearance with Day6 on Weekly Idol and their first invitations to a major award show with the Golden Disc Awards and Seoul Music Awards. They were not nominated or even performed, but their photos from the red carpet got people talking about the unknown group.

MV VIEWS: 5.7 million.

MUSIC SHOW NOMINATIONS. 0.

MUSIC SHOW WINS. 0

By now, Plastic Flowers had also shown what their lyrical concept would be as they created another song about escaping hardships of life and embarking on a journey of self-discovery. The narrator has a desire to let go of the past and leave behind anything that feels uncertain in LET'S GET LOST. The verses encourages themselves and their companions to leave behind their negative experiences as they "open the curtains" and lock the door behind them. Later lines capture the excitement of encountering new experiences and embracing the unknown, showing their growth away from the past that seemed to follow them and rising above.

LOVE ME? would be the last Plastic Flowers album fully written and produced solely by SALEM and Superbloom's in-house production team. All of the members were growing interested in producing their own music, especially the two youngest members—Serin and Oliver. They had submitted drafts to Superbloom for Love Me?, however they were not chosen. Interviews this era were a bit tense because of this and Salem wanting to keep her creative control over the group. Superbloom would also give Plastic Flowers their first reality show, FLOWER SHOWERS, which followed them around and tried to show fans the "real" members.

MV VIEWS: 6.3 million.

MUSIC SHOW NOMINATIONS. 0.

MUSIC SHOW WINS. 0

TWENTY-ONE revolves around the themes of heartbreak, disappointment, and the realization that a once-special relationship has come to an end. The lyrics depict the emotions of someone who believed their relationship was unique and meaningful, only to discover that their partner does not feel the same. This is famously thought to be about former bandmate YING SHUHANG, more commonly known by his stage name IRUM. Throughout high school and much of their career together, they dated and broke up around the same time Salem left to join Superbloom Media. Through this song, she is coming to terms with the relationship being over after asking "why don't you adore me?" over and over again. She uses the concept of sleep and going to be bed to bury the past and move on from the relationship, showing that she would be ready to move on once she wakes up.

★ ⠀⠀ ! ⠀⠀ THE YEAR IS ... 2019 !

Plastic Flowers would release HYPOCREEP in March 2019, right before OLIVER was set to appear on the new survival talent competition show SUPERBAND, produced by JTBC. Despite the sound change, Hypocreep was met with positive reaction from fans and is their first mini-album to sell over 1,000 copies in the first month. It is often seen as a turning point for the band as their releases following would follow a similar sound and is the first song to credit another band member besides Salem, that being OLIVER. This would be the first of a long partnership between the two that would eventually fizzle out during their 2022 hiatus. Hypocreep is also one of the most popular songs for other idols and bands to cover given the technical requirements of each instrument.

MV VIEWS: 7.4 million.

MUSIC SHOW NOMINATIONS. 0.

MUSIC SHOW WINS. 0

HYPOCREEP expresses frustration towards people who are hypocritical and fake, particularly those who are thirsty for drama and attention on the internet. The singer identifies as a "hypocreep," which is a term they use to describe themselves as a different breed of person who is hyper and freaky. The singer acknowledges that they may be seen as strange or abnormal to others, but they do not care because those same people secretly wish they could be like the singer.

While Hypocreep opened the door for other members writing, THE CHAIN would be the first time another member would sing on a Plastic Flowers track. The Chain is a duet between Salem and Oliver and would mark the beginning for a lead singer change. It was under the direction of Kim Yuchan, a first generation soloist, and he advised the change since Oliver was well liked by the general public after Superband. THE CHAIN still remains a fan favorite song and would give the band their first award show nomination on Show! Music Core, much to the band's surprise. Most of the members recall this era as the first time they actually felt loved by the audience and could see people singing along.

MV VIEWS: 10.2 million.

MUSIC SHOW NOMINATIONS. 1.

MUSIC SHOW WINS. 0

The main message of THE CHAIN is that relationships can be enduring, even if they have difficulties. The first verse describes the struggles of having a relationship and feeling powerless to their partner's actions. They discuss the idea that a love can endure even in these moments of darkness, as the lover is trying to tell the other that they would never break the chain that binds them together. There is a strong guitar and bass solo--played by SALEM and OLIVER--that represents the strong connection between them that won't be broken so easily. The end is a plea to stay together, to keep the chain together, and not run into the shadows away from each other.

★ ⠀⠀ ! ⠀⠀ THE YEAR IS ... 2020 !

Fans of Plastic Flowers fall into two camps for their 2020 releases: either loving it or hating everything it stands for. Due to it's "inappropriate lyrics" FOR YOUR LOVE was banned by all the major South Korean music shows and would be promoted in a series of live concerts instead. They would instead promote READY TO FLY as their title track for this era, saving the performances of For Your Love for their smaller performances. Not long after the conclusion of For Your Love's promotions, Superbloom Media would confirm SALEM and OLIVER's relationhip, which had begun at the end of the year prior. This would be another reason why people did not like the song as it showed their relationship was taking away from making songs about important topics, not just each other.

MV VIEWS: 29.2 million.

MUSIC SHOW NOMINATIONS. Banned.

MUSIC SHOW WINS. Banned.

FOR YOUR LOVE talks about the desire to please and satisfy someone in a romantic relationship. The lyrics in the verses describe the singer's intent to be the first thing on the person's mind and engage in sexual activity with them. The chorus reinforces the theme of doing anything for the person they love. The bridge highlights the singer's willingness to give everything they have to their partner and the importance of communication in the relationship. The outro repeats the sentiment that the singer is willing to do anything for their partner's love. 

TEETH, and it's accompanying album LOVESICKNESS, continues with the themes from FOR YOUR LOVE. Unlike the previous song, it was actually allowed on music shows and was loved by their fanbase for the aesthetics that came with it. Due to the show going semi-viral on TWITTER thanks to a tweet by a poppy asking "what business Plastic Flowers had releasing" the song, LOVESICKNESS sold over 10,000 copies by the end of the year. This would also be the final time they were promote prior to their 16 month hiatus, making it special to their fans. Teeth would later become a sleeper hit by going viral once again and entering the top 10 on the Circle Chart after being used on an OST.

MV VIEWS: 229.6 million.

MUSIC SHOW NOMINATIONS. 3.

MUSIC SHOW WINS. 0

The major themes of TEETH relate to toxic and tumultuous relationships, with the lyrics depicting the ups and downs of being someone that can be both loving and hurtful. Written completely by OLIVER, many fans have begun to debate the real meaning of the song as it relates to his former relationship with Salem. In TEETH, the protagonist realizes that the person they are with is full of contradictions as they compare their lover to a pair of teeth. The lover's heart is described as having teeth, meaning that while they may talk sweetly, they can also hurt and bite. The relationship is very complicated, in which both parties are hurting each other but can't let go with the narrator realizing that they are losing themself by the end of the song and maybe even the relationship.

★ ⠀⠀ ! ⠀⠀ THE YEAR IS ... 2021 !

The GOODNIGHT era was spent dreading what would come next for Plastic Flowers. It was obvious that the members were losing steam as shown by their smaller performances and the constant cancellation of their performances at their bar, Cheeky's. The release of 403 only made that worse as they went back to the melancholic sound and promotions outside of music shows were cut short. In fear of losing the band, Poppies made sure that it sold well, achieving a record-breaking 14,000 copies in the first month alone and securing them more music show nominations. However, it seemed that nothing they were doing was enough as Plastic Flowers slowly slipped away from the public eye.

MV VIEWS: 122.9 million.

MUSIC SHOW NOMINATIONS. 3.

MUSIC SHOW WINS. 0

403 focuses on liberation and moving forward from a difficult past. In the verses, detachment and release from pain and regret is encouraged alongside the image of taking off one's shoes and lying on the floor as an escape. The narrator wants the listener to forget about the past and focus on the possibilities of the future, becoming an active participant in their life rather than remaining passive. There is a reoccurring theme of breaking free as shown through the lyrics "get up in the morning" and "get out of deception", indicating the need to rise above negative situations and leave them behind. It suggests that nothing valuable can be obtained by staying where they are currently and encourages them to let go and move on.

Despite GOODNIGHT selling well, Plastic Flowers were put on an unofficial hiatus two months after it's initial release. Superbloom would be intentionally vague about the details behind the scenes to keep everything under wraps, however, sasaengs exposed the truth. Not only were they on hiatus to "fight burnout", but Oliver had returned to his hometown of Boston after the death of his father and Jiyeon had been checked into an eating disorder treatment by their manager, Cheon Garam. During this time, Salem and Oliver would also BREAK UP, creating a new tension within the band. The band's social media—both company owned and personal—would go completely dormant from March 2021 to April 2022, leaving many to believe that the group would never return and would be lost just before they achieved stardom.

★ ⠀⠀ ! ⠀⠀ THE YEAR IS ... 2022 !

Just when most fans began to lose hope for Plastic Flowers to comeback, Superbloom did the unthinkable: dropping a new set of teasers for a full album called INTERNET BLUES. During this time, it was also revealed that MINGHUI had left the band and was replaced by Timefighter contestant OH DEURIM, who had failed to make it into the debut line-up by one place. According to Minghui, he left on good terms with the members but could no longer handle the idol life anymore. Despite how protective poppies are, they surprisingly welcomed Deurim with open arms and wanted to see what she could bring to the table. INTERNET BLUES would be released on May 5, 2022 with the title track I'M ALIVE, which secured them their FIRST WIN and first NOMINATION at a major award show after selling 100,000 copies.

MV VIEWS: 392.9 million.

MUSIC SHOW NOMINATIONS. 8.

MUSIC SHOW WINS. 2.

I'M ALIVE is an uplifting song that talks about the feeling of overcoming challenges and persevering through tough times. They promise that even in the midst of uncertainty and darkness, the singer declares that they will keep themselves alive. The chorus serves as a mantra of sorts as the singer repeatedly affirms that they are alive and won't give up. The idea of "highlight" suggests that even in the bleakest moments of life, one can find something beautiful to hold onto. The bridge encourages listeners to keep searching, keep breathing, and keep alive. It's a call to action to hold onto life and never give up. 

Plastic Flowers would return to their original promotional schedule with the release of PSYCHO, the title track for their first studio album, CALL ME CRAZY that November. The studio album was celebrated by all fans as it finally meant that Plastic Flowers were confirming that they were here to stay despite their earlier issues. The members looked so much more alive this era and they even held their first FAN SIGN, which went as well as expected. The members had fun with their fans, but hated the constant requests for cuteness or prying into their personal relationships. They would hold their own formal CONCERT, with over three thousand people in attendance.

MV VIEWS: 323.4 million.

MUSIC SHOW NOMINATIONS. 9.

MUSIC SHOW WINS. 3.

PSYCHO explores themes of obsession and dependency in a relationship. The lyrics depict a protagonist who is deeply infatuated with someone to the point of being obsessed, as represented by the repeated phrase "I can't stop thinking about you." The protagonist seeks answers and validation from a doctor, indicating a desperation for a solution to their intense emotions. They recognize their own exaggerated behavior, acknowledging that they may appear crazy or "psycho" to others. The chorus reinforces the protagonist's obsession, stating that they cannot live a day without thinking about this person. It conveys a sense of dependency and the idea that the protagonist's life revolves entirely around the object of their affection.

★ ⠀⠀ ! ⠀⠀ THE YEAR IS ... 2023 !

Coming into 2023, Poppies were promised many exciting things from the band. In March, Oliver's solo BURNOUT SYNDROME with the lead single STARTING LINE would be released to overwhelming success, cementing his popularity with the general public and showing everyone that he was here to stay. Though fans were happy for him, the same could not be said for his bandmates as SALEM and JUNYEONG began a smear campaign that lasted throughout the entire promotional period. Oliver would ignore any questions about the situation and chose to move on from it instead, celebrating his own achievements rather than focusing on those around him. In June, the band would come back as five to release LOVE AND WAR with the lead single of the same name, which became their best selling record at that point at just under 1 million copies.

MV VIEWS: 748.3 million.

MUSIC SHOW NOMINATIONS. 10.

MUSIC SHOW WINS. 7.

WAR tells the story of a broken relationship, in which the narrator realizes there isn't much to save if they cannot stop fighting. They are beginning to realize there isn't much to save and they have lost their love for each other, leading towards a state of emptiness or insignificance. The song's title WAR comes from the lyric "war of attrition without benefit", highlight that this war between the lovers is doing nothing to help with their current problems. The narrator wants to call a ceasefire, but it seems that their relationship's end if inevitable. Written by Oliver, many fans believe that this song was written about the end of his relationship with Salem, which has never been confirmed or denied by Oliver or Superbloom Media.

[strawbrygashez]

ALL THE TIMES DUDE HAS BEEN SUGGESTED/ALLUDED TO NOT BE STRAIGHT!!!!!!!! Feel free to add or correct me if I get something wrong!

First I will start off with things RWS has said themselves and the most obvious example of Dude basically being confirmed to be NOT STRAIGHT. This is from the official Running with scissors Twitter!

And here is a post from the RWS tumblr where they reblogged a post and added this comment

Just in general if RWS or Destructive Creations comments under Nottemdude fanart it’s always more than likely them being positive about it. The RWS tumblr hasn’t been active in 7 years so it’s not just a ‘new’ thing also. I would post more pics of these times but there is a image limit to posts so unless someone wants me to show specific examples….😐 But anyways, they have alluded to adding Nottem to Postal under a piece of nottemdude fanart before if I’m remembering correctly. They also support Dude being shipped with Duke Nukem as well, having retweeted ship art of Duke/Nottem/Dude. Also there is fanart of Nottemdude and just other works where he’s seen being 🏳️‍🌈 or just wearing all kinds of different pride flags on their offical website on the fanart page. And if you take all of this as them being cool about it (fanart and ships) and not minding it and being a ‘good sport about it’ then okay. Sure. But to say that RWS doesn’t encourage or support it would be veryyyy odd.

Before I get into my list of a couple moments Dude is alluded to being bi, I wanna add that If you wanna get technical, the Postal Dude according to RWS can be ‘anything you want him to be’ so while he might not have a totally confirmed sexuality yet or hasn’t been seen being with a man, he is more than likely never gonna be confirmed as straight and if you headcanon Dude being anything other than bi then that’s fine but the baseline seems to be that he’s into both men and woman.

Anyways, here is some moments that come to mind for me.

————————————————————————•In postal 2, You are able to let him kiss another man at the kissing booth on Valentine’s Day

•Most of Dudes dialogue to the other Dude in Brain damage has a flirty tone to it. Dearie & handsome are words Dude uses to refer to the other him. (Which sure, you could say he’s just flirting with himself but be fr for a moment. You wouldn’t be like 🤨 if you heard a man irl calling a clone of himself ‘dearie’?? And the tone Dude uses to tell him not to go and to come back???)

•In postal 4, one of the first things you do is write a sign in hopes to find work. No matter what you choose to write Dude adds something along the lines about being willing to ‘do dirty work’ with men. HE SAYS TO MALE NPCS THAT THEY CAN TAKE HIM BACK TO THEIR PLACE!!! How much more obvious-

•His whole thing with the drag outfit in postal 4. He really didn’t have to wear that if he didn’t want to or really felt uncomfortable with it. Wearing drag doesn’t make someone a certain sexuality but I just wanted to add this part because some people still view Dude as this manly man or this guy who sticks to only stereotypically masculine things?? When he wears drag, makeup & high heels.

•In postal brain damaged, there is a place in his mind specially for Doomguy. And not just in a “ohhh hes so cool and manly 🤩” way..there is full on pictures of his bare ass in Dudes brain. Why would a straight man have a secret part in his brain saved for another man’s ass????

•In BD again, there is a scene where in Dudes dream, buff men are standing behind him set up in a meme reference, suggesting that Dude is about to have sex with them all. Here is the pic 🫡

(And would you look at that. He’s smiling!)

•Lots of d*ldo jokes in postal 4 and BD. A used one is seen on his floor in the opening cutscene for BD. (Again you can just say it’s for the laughs besides the used one but why would a straight man own that many?)

•Dude says “it’s like taking it up the bum” in BD…how would u know how that feels like sir? 🤨

•In postal 2, Postal 3 Dude uses a certain kinda…tone and way of taking sometimes with p2. For example the “Short tempered today, are we?” line. Im sorry but that is such a oddly flirty teasing way of talking to another man. Also p3 Dude felt the need to remind p2 that he wore ‘skin tight leather’ and maybe it would rejog his memory wearing it again.

•In postal 4, dude has a line saying something about how no one has it harder than a “white cis man”. What’s interesting to me is that he didn’t throw in that he’s straight too. You’d think he would do to the nature of that sentence.

•Postal 3 dude is oddly insecure about his masculinity and or is not confident in his sexuality. He’s worried about being seen as gay just for riding some kinda scooter and hopes none of his friends sees him like that. I dunno to me I feel like people perceive Dude as a ‘no fucks given’ kinda guy but he’s whining and complaining about riding some scooter.

[simon-x-billy]

Simon x Billy

Year of the OTP: June

Chapter 6: Where’s the helipad?

June prompt: Soulmates

AN: Enjoy the sweet sweet sounds of helicopter blades slicing through the air. I love the helicopter scene so much. It is happy-making. It just makes me love both of them for each other. (Let's ignore the fact that I wrote it.)

We are so close to the sex, guys. So close. This is the last SFW chapter for a while. Bask in the virginal dude-bro vibe, and let people know that you read the chapters before they were cool.

TW: Rewrites. Mystifyingly late posts. Drunkenness. If alcohol is triggering for you, no need to read the last teeny section after we first meet Barry. Rest assured that Simon gets home safely and says cute stuff, then happily goes to bed.

Masterlist || ao3 || Prev || Next

————/Simon/————

I am trying to stop thinking about falling to my death. Give me a minute.

Ok, so this is…………This is a long flight of fucking rickety, wind-blasted wood. Not like that metal set of stairs with all the switchbacks I was complaining about last time I encountered stairs. I take all of my complaints back about that place. That was the height of stair-building technology by comparison. This place is just…..language fails me, like I’m picturing the stairs failing me any second now.

Shush, I need to concentrate.

————/-/————

Oh my fucking god. I can’t breathe. Metaphorically kissing the ground due to sheer survival has become a feature of my stay here. Just cuz I survived. So much ground kissing happening in Italy. Especially near stairs.

So from the size and schmanciness I’m guessing this place was either for a huge schmancy family, or hardcore party animals needing lots of bedrooms (the olden days version). This coastline has been a summer getaway spot for centuries. Scratch that. For millennia. What, like maybe three thousand, four thousand years?

But actual beaches are rare here. Anybody with two inches of it will stick a beach umbrella in it. So imagine owning an entire beach. Right? Beside the hotel, the only other possible access is from the water. And there are a lot -- I mean a lot of yachts around here. They will never, ever look normal to me. But they’re starting to look like a normal thing around here. And I’m told these aren’t even the big ones. Fuck me sideways.

Both shots are from the website of the actual Hotel La Tonnarella, which is the hotel I based my fictional hotel on. Yes, it really looks like that. Yes, I did stay there. Totally worth going into debt. Best decision I’ve ever made. You can faintly see the stairs, at left. It’s that pale diagonal line down the cliff from the hotel at top left down toward the beach, crossing right in front of that ruin in the middle, halfway down the cliff.

Anyway, we’ve seen the (only) road and there’s definitely no place for me to do my morning run. It doesn’t even have a shoulder. I guess if I can’t run without going airborne off a cliff, I could do the steps when I wake up. Better than nothing. It’s just-

Well, we’ve seen that I hate stairs. Steep stairs. Cliff stairs.

Fuck. Besides being terrifying, it was tiring just getting down here. What am I going to do when I have to go back up?

Anyway, Billy’s working down here today. And I really feel like disrupting his job well done.

“Will yeh take a look at yer man now. Down the beach, explorin,” he calls, as I approach the hotel’s tiny beach bar. “You didn’t take the stairs, did yeh?”

“Um, yeah? Certo. I wanted to see the beach.” Obviously.

“Why didn’t yeh take the lift?” he asks me.

I fix the man to his spot with a very frowny, very deep, “Would you mind repeating that, Billy?” Exactly like if Kronk was playing me in the movie. I can barely see through my eyes that have now narrowed to slits of disbelief and distrust and discomfort. “There’s an elevator?”

“Well, yeah man. How else are people meant to get down here? The cliff’s a dangerous way down, innit?”

It’s ok, Lewis. You can incorporate this new information without flipping out. Just be proud of yourself for facing your fears. You descended steep, unsafe stairs. Good job! And you were only vaguely terrified the whole time. Good job!

“Is the cliff so dangerous that they should close it down due to the mounting death toll? Or is it only dangerous in an inoffensive, cute way?”

He huffs out a quick laugh, then returns to slicing up lemons.

“Billy? That was an actual question. Care to provide an answer?”

“Meh, it’s safe enough,” he says. And that, ladies and gentleladies, is all I need to convince me I can indeed use this as my new Italian Morning Exercise. 1. Cliff, 2. Coffee, 3. Cliff, 4. Vomiting coffee. Perfect.

————/-/————

I’ve spent all this week forging a grudging relationship with the beach stairs.

I’m getting a little more accustomed to it. I have a few specific stones and broken twigs I’ve chosen as landmarks, whenever I require reassurance that I am indeed climbing down the right cliff. And if I’ve survived it the last four mornings, I can survive it a fifth time. Flawless reasoning.

Behind the beach bar, Billy spots me and gives me a wave. “You packed, man?”

My insides instantly start fizzing. I am so fucking stoked. I got us an airbnb in Naples for the weekend so we can check out Sabina’s gig tomorrow night. Billy could not say yes fast enough. He’s a social guy, and there’s not a lot of nightlife around here. I have no idea how he’s managed it all this time. Oh wait, that’s right. He’s managed it with women. Lots of women.

Over the last week, I’ve come to the realization that management does not mind a guest hanging out at the bar distracting their employee all day, because while that guest is distracting the employee, he is also ordering drink after frothy fruit-based drink, and healthy fruit-based foods. It’s like they’ve realized that my distraction of Billy might actually be lucrative for them. I even have my own barstool. Officially.

I have an announcement to make. “I have come to a decision,” I announce. “We need a convertible.”

“Sorry?”

“A convertible. We need one,” I repeat.

“Yeah, mate, heard yeh.”

“What, it’s a convertible!”

Billy remains unmoved. “Why can’t we take the train? It’s simplest-”

“We are not taking the train.”

“But I quite like the train,” he claims.

“Because you’re insane and don’t like convertibles.” J’accuse!

“See now, I never said I don’t like convertibles. I-“ he begins.

But I totally interrupt him. “I need to go do something.” Because my brain just exploded with potential.

“What?” He might be alarmed.

Whereas I’m enthusiastic. “Be an Ugly American.”

“Er, that sounds terrible,” he says.

“If you’re gonna be American, you might as well own it. Watch me own it, Billy, watch me.”

Oddly, Billy still looks wary. “That sounds-”

“Awesome.”

“-terrible. You’re not plannin to wear one of them caps with straws into beer cans, are yeh?” He snorts at whatever he’s picturing. “Actually, I might pay yeh to do that.”

“Nah. Not my brand,” I say, sliding off the barstool. I snag an olive and pop it in my mouth, to avoid grinning like someone who grins because they’re about to do something awesome. “Ciao, Beelee.” I wave behind me.

I’ve got the phone out and I’m already dialing before I’ve even reached the stairs. And then I remember I can also take the elevator.

———/-/———

Billy has finally met up with me at the fountain by the hotel entrance. Thank god, cuz I really don’t want him to miss the arrival of that Ugly American thing that required a phone call. Ever notice there’s an ugh in ugly? Just occurred to me.

“There you are, Delaney. MWAH hah ha ha hahhhhh! Prepare to hear the sweet sweet sound of helicopter blades pulsing through the air. It’s done, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

“Simon-”

“So where’s the helipad?” I inquire.

“The what now? Mate, it’s not that kind of hotel. Why are we taking a helicopter to Naples?”

“The correct response would normally be ‘because we can’-” Obviously. Certo.

“That is not a normal response.” Billy looks mystified, yet still amused. So that’s a thing.

“-but not this time,” I finish. “That’s not the real idea.”

“Oh, so you’re tellin me this is a superfluous helicopter. That is ugly.”

“No! It is most definitely not superfluous.”

“Your carbon footprint’ll be spendin all eternity in hell, man.”

“Billy.”

“Simon.”

“Stop talking. And just enjoy the mounting anticipation. The mellow sense of horror, or at the very least a nasty case of creeping dread. MWAH hah ha ha hahhhh!”

“Stop it, mate. You’re gettin evil genius all over my uniform. And you know how I feel about laundry.”

“Just a little bicarbonate of soda. Gets out even the most organic of stains. MWAH hah ha ha hahhhhh.”

“Simon.”

“Billy.”

“Stop talkin. Like an evil genius. We’re gettin complaints.”

“Are not.”

“From me. I’m complainin.”

“What am I going to wear?” I ask. It’s a fair question.

“Simon. Oh my god.”

“I’m serious! I packed for Italy in ten minutes. It’s all socks and shorts.” And sunblock. And chargers.

He’s shaking his head at me. For some reason, this makes me happy. In my tummy. How novel.

“Is that the fire alarm?” he asks.

“Huh? I mean, MWAH hah ha ha haaaah, oh no. What you’re hearing is the sweet sweet purring of a helicopter bearing my booty.”

“You didn’t think that one through, mate.”

“Oh, but yes, yes I did. This booty is worth baring. Can you feel it? The heady excitement of anticipation? The mellow terror?”

“Yes. I feel the terror,” he says blandly. He finds my terror bland.

Wait. “That would be the best cologne flavor ever. Mellow Terror, by Simon Lewis. Pour homme.”

“Are you manic right now?”

———/Billy/————

I was joking, but Simon just went very still. I’ve put my foot in, haven’t I?

“I am a bit manic, am’nt I?” he offers, tossing off a fake laugh.

“Somethin wrong with your shoes, mate? Simon, man, my eyes are up here.”

“Just wait til you see what I’ve done,” he says sheepishly, eyeing me from under his furry eye caterpillars.

“Simon. Should I be worried?”

“Oops?”

Oops? I haven’t a clue what to do with oops.

He grabs me excitedly by the forearm and starts dragging me toward the hotel gates.

That’s…Wait, is that-

“Simon. Did you buy a Mini Cooper?”

“A convertible Mini Cooper.”

“But why?” I ask the reasonable question.

“Because I can!” He’s practically vibrating. I can tell he wants to do his jumping-clapping thing by the way he’s currently bouncing on his toes.

“Simon.”

“Billy.”

“You bought a Mini Cooper. Convertible,” I swiftly add. “You’re in the land that built the Maserati, the Lamborghini, the Ferrari, and every other sports car that ends in i-”

“Not Audi.”

I huff in annoyance, “-and you bought a convertible Mini Cooper. And had it airlifted here. Because you could.”

“I’ve always wanted a convertible Mini Cooper.”

“But not a convertible Ferrari,” I clarify.

“No.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m awesome,” he answers, because he’s Simon.

I decide not to mention that we could have skipped the car altogether and taken the helicopter to Naples.

This is so childish, and impetuous, and reckless, and I refuse to find the actions of a grown man adorable. Jaysus.

“Oh my god!” he squeaks. “They were driving Minis in The Italian Job!!!”

Shaking my head. Just shaking my head. “Did you have them airlift in some clothes, too?”

“Shit! I totally should have!” He appears to actually mean that.

“You should see your face,” he hoots. Feckin hoots, all half bent over from laughin.

And now he’s ignoring me. Suddenly I’m not even here. He only has eyes for his Mini. “Oh my god it’s so kawaii.”

His smile is kawaii.

“Go away,” he flaps a hand at me. “I want to fanboy freely and without judgment from a judgy Irishman.”

“Fine. I need to pack anyway.”

And off behind me I hear him call, “Wait! What am I gonna wear?”

Shaking my head. Just shaking my head.

————/-/————

I’ve gathered my gear, and I can see Simon out by the car park. I’m hitching up my pack, so it isn’t really until I’ve cleared all the foliage that I realize Simon is humping his Mini Cooper convertible. “All right?” I ask, tryin to keep a straight face.

“Oh, yes. All is definitely right,” he purrs.

“Have you turned her on, too?”

He slides off the car til his Converse hit the pavement with a slap.

Now he’s draping himself over the boot. I can’t help it that I’m laughing. Sometimes he hits me just right to set me to belly laughin. Doesn’t happen often with Simon, but when it does, he wears the greatest surprised happy face I’ve ever seen. This time there’s giggling. Off to a good start, which is good. Yes. Good.

I hesitate. “Look, mate. Will this thing actually fit us?” I eyeball the car. “I am quite seriously concerned that we might actually need the top down to ride in this thing. How tall are you, anyway?”

“Six feet. Why? How tall are you?”

“Mate, get off the boot so I can shove this in there and we can go.” He does, and I do.

I have to say it, “Thanks for not getting the red, white, and blue one.” There is a god. Thank you, Poseidon.

“They were out of orange, white, and green, too,” he says with regret.

“You asked about the tricolor, did yeh?” Alright yes, he’s got me laughin again. Simon Lewis. Driving the Irish flag.

“Fuck out of the driver’s seat!” he’s suddenly roaring.

Blimey. He looks proper angry. I may have just flinched. “Don’t you want a car and a driver? No, serious, don’t yeh want me to drive, since I know the way?”

“Get the fuck out of the driver’s seat, Billy. Now!”

“Alright! Fine, fine. You’ll be usin GPS then, will yeh?”

“Si si si, certo.”

I groan. “This is all about to go so very-”

“Awesome,” he declares. “This is all about to continue to be awesome. Be the change, Billy. Be the change!”

“Oh my god Simon.”

“I can hear you rolling your eyes from here,” he says from behind the boot, which he slams shut a little too hard. I feel it in every moving piece of this tiny automobile. Bigger than a SMART car, so I suppose I shouldn’t be complainin.

Well, here’s hoping he’s still so enthused about it at the other end. “Gotta say, mate. I’m surprised you’d want to drive at all.”

“Why not?” he’s askin.

“Because mate, it’s Italy, innit. Famous for frightenin foreign drivers.” He has to remember what the drivin was like on our three other trips down this road. “Well,” I sigh. “At least you get to drive on the ‘right’ side of the road in Italy.”

—--/-/—--

“See? I told you you’d fit.”

“Alright man, you did,” I admit to the muppet.

“Come on, give it up…”

“What?” I’m not laughing, I promise. “Is she a smooth ride? I don’t know, man, why don’t yeh start her up ‘n find out?”

“Well there is that. So yeah,” he says as he pulls out of the car park and up to the mouth of the hotel driveway. “It’s to the left, right?”

“Em, yeah. Yes, the city of Naples is still in the general direction of left. Like the other three times we’ve done this road together.”

He rolls his eyes, and all is right and well with the world. Until the moment he pulls out onto the road. Then I’m brought up quick by the realization that between us we know fuck all about the convertible Mini Cooper. “Wait, where’s the GPS on her, for the flat’s address?”

“I dunno, check the screen thing.” So helpful, yer man Simon is.

“Do you even have an Italian driver’s license? Or insurance? I love this guy. How’ve yeh managed to live this long?” I pause for an answer, but none is forthcoming. “I mean, fucksake, Simon. You called someone to buy you a car and suddenly you’re on the road to Naples. Do you even know where the directionals are? Or like, the wipers? Should I be concerned for my safety?”

“Shoosh. Don’t jinx us,” he sternly admonishes me. “Do you need to have registration in Italy? Or insurance? I don’t know. Italy doesn’t really strike me as a big insurance-y type of country.”

“Fair point. But I take it you have….whatever, I dunno, papers and all that?” How is he like this?

“Don’t know. What’s in the glove box?” He makes a flappy gesture in the general direction of my knees.

“How are you like this? Were you actually born like this, or did it come with fame and wealth?”

“You mean, was I actually born a flaming asshole, or just become one?”

“Meh. Yeah ok,” I shrug. “We’ll go with that. So, what’ll it be?”

“Ow. Straight for the throat, Delaney.” His tone is recriminating as he protects his throat with both hands. “Uncool, man. Uncool.”

I’m flipping through the owner’s manual. Before long I’ve programmed everything, located the GPS, found Simon’s Only In Italy playlist, and even found the button to pop the bonnet. “There you go. It’s workin now.” I toss the manual in the glove box.

“What’s working?” he asks.

I shrug. “Everything, man. Everything.”

He barks out a laugh, the grumpy fuck, and I realize I’m laughing as well.

I plug in the address for the flat and immediately the voice pumping out the speakers is a woman speaking Italian. So I’m maniacally fumbling with it again, while Simon drives on in a fit of laughter.

“Aw, come on! Let’s see how we do in Italian,” he gasps out.

“Fucksake. See how we do in Italian.” Shaking my head.

“No, seriously. Let’s hear what she has to say, this ummmmm, what should we call her - Maria! Because obviously.”

“Certo.” That gets me another laugh.

“Santa Maria, Holy Madonna, show us the way, in Italiano,” Simon pleads in a truly horrendous Italian accent. “I am so happy right now.”

He says it with a laugh. Such a thing to so easily roll off the tongue. Fella I met a few months ago, I never would have pictured bein happy, let alone noticing it, naming it, declaring it. Nice to see. Unexpected, know what I mean?

“I don’t trust you when you’re quiet that long, Delaney.”

“Hm?”

“Exactly.”

Am I missing something?

“Ok, so.” He clears his throat. “We know who I am. Who are you? Let’s hear it. Who is Billy Delaney?”

Aw, man. Serious? “How long we got?” Please don’t make me.

“How would I know?” he shrugs. “Maria’s speaking your language, not mine.”

“Fair enough.” I hit play, hoping the music will make the conversation trail off from there. But of course it doesn’t, because this is Simon. Si. Certo.

“What. Do you have some horrible second identity thing going on? Are you really even Irish? Truth time, Delaney.”

“You show me yours, I’ll show you mine?”

“Yeah, ok,” says the cheeky monkey.

“Oh,” I answer, not sure how else to dodge Simon’s inquisition. Uh, erm….. “Soooo, what mate? What do you want to know?” I ask, though truthfully I wish he’d just let it go.

“Is your name really Billy Delaney, and are you actually even from Ireland at all?”

“Yes.”

“Boring.”

“Brief,” I counter.

“Obtuse,” he counters.

“Si.”

“Oh my god, Billy. So where are you from?”

“Ireland.”

He looks around us rapidly. “Is she going to start speaking Italian? Cuz we just passed Ercolano.”

“Already?”

“Yeah! I know, right? Time flies when you’re torturing someone for information. So should I panic?”

“Nah,” I reassure him. “We've a bit more road before we turn aside. Maria can sleep on.”

“Alright. But I swear to God, Billy. If you don’t start coughing up some details, I'm serious, I will pull this car over. Do I have to pull this car over, young man?”

“Wow, that’s forceful.” Cos it is. “Ow!” I flinch when he swats my shoulder with a backhand. “Fine, ye bastard. My name is actually Lola, but I go by Billy Delaney. And I’m only mostly joking. One of the summer cousins I used to play soccer with couldn’t say William when we were little. So for a few months every year, I was Lola. There. Was that not juicy enough for yeh?”

“Charming. But from that I got these few details: 1. You have cousins. Conceivably fertile ground. We could continue that way. 2. You play soccer, and you call it soccer. Isn’t that illegal outside the US? No- don’t answer that. I’m not finished. 3. You go someplace where there are cousins to play soccer with in summer. Are we even still in Ireland?”

Em. I just sort of sit here and wait.

“And you really don’t want to talk about this, do you?”

“You are so easily distracted,” I tease. “No, but seriously, here’s some details for yeh. I’m 27. Left Ireland at 18, after graduating culinary school, and was sent out to do my apprenticeship. That was at a manor house near Galway,” I say, wrapping up the conversation.

“And…..”

“That’s not enough?” I thought that was a fair bit of information, to be honest.

“Do I have to turn this car around, young man?”

“I fear I might be missin some essential cultural reference here, mate.”

“Don’t distract me with your distractions, Delaney. Feed me.”

And that’s when Maria tells us to turn left.

—--/Simon/—--

I can’t fuckin believe that there are Irish pubs in Italy. Nor can I believe I’m in one. I mean, where do real Italians go to watch soccer? This can’t be right.

“All right?” Billy asks the bartender.

“Howeyeh,” says the man back to him, and Billy’s eyes go comically wide.

Next thing I know, I’m bored stiff, pretending to find the intricacies of European football interesting with a Welsh guy named Barry.

And whoa, turns out Billy’s day-to-day accent is pretty washed out in comparison to the thickness of his accent when he’s speaking to his new BFF. They’re speaking so fast that I can’t understand a word through their accents and grammatical errors. Welsh is so much easier.

That is, until I hear a voice disturbingly similar to Billy’s, requesting a Bud.

I swing back around in time to see Billy’s new BFF nod at him and begin turning toward the draft beers.

“No! Wait,” I wave. “He’s only joking,” I say, emphatically shaking my head no.

“Oh,” the Irish bartender looks back to Billy in surprise. “Were you?”

What, he thinks I’m lying? “Course he was! Certo.”

“Why ‘of course’?!” Billy turns on his barstool to face me. “What the fuck, Simon?”

“Sorry if I fucked up your joke, dude, but don’t drag it out, ok?” I say under my breath.

Disparaging other people’s beer of choice is like a national pastime in Brooklyn, because it frequently employs irony, and we are naturally good at it from birth. Don’t blame him, he’s new.

“I’ll take that Bud,” Billy reiterates. “Ta, mate.” The barkeep returns his nod and goes about the business of it.

“Billy? We’ve talked about this. You swore you’re Irish. Were you lying to me? Are you a lying liar who lies?”

“Why do yeh say that?”

“Because you can’t – you’re not – you’re not, like, allowed to drink bad beer when you’re Irish. Isn’t that illegal? Or fatal, or something?”

The big ape is just lazing back against the bar, sipping his pint of piss beer, looking at me in amusement.

“You’re like a caricature of yourself sometimes, Simon, d’yeh know what I mean?”

“Fuckin- What?! That’s not very nice! I’m outraged.”

“You should see yerself, mate. Yeh look like your face is about ready to split down the middle and outrage’ll start pourin out like lava from the fissures.”

I stop and cock my head at him. “That was both specific and descriptive. Nice one. But that said, how dare you! I demand an apology.” I’m trying really hard to keep a straight face. He has no intention of making it easy for me.

“Apologize? For what?” He gives me a cock-eyed grin. Oh look, his cock eyes are doing that twinkly thing again.

“You have offended my good taste and have let down your countrymen and native soil. Or water or whatever it is that makes all beer taste better in Ireland. The least you could do is the decent thing and apologize to your countrymen, and me, and then hide it in your jacket where no one can see you sneaking sips!”

He laughs because he thinks I’m joking.

“Do you just not like beer at all? And that’s why you don’t order the good stuff?” I prod.

“Simon, you are such a snob,” he says, and goes right on twinkling.

“Correct. And if you’re going to drink cheap beer, for god’s sake, order PBR and salvage at least some of your self respect.”

“Do you know this man?” the bartender asks Billy. “Is he harassin yeh?”

Billy is now laughing so hard that he’s almost fallen off his stool.

“We know each other,” I reassure the barkeep. “Don’t know how long that’ll last, all considered, though. Check back for updates.” I raise my pint of Guinness in respect.

“It’s czech. Budvar,” the man informs me.

“Ah, no! Why’d yeh tell him, mate!” Billy raises his hands theatrically. I’m telling you, theatre school. “Yeh just had to put him out of my misery, yeah?”

“And my misery,” says the man.

—--/-/—--

Ok, so what is it with the whole pub drunkenly singing “oh-ay-oh-ay” at the top of their drunken lungs, sloshin beer out of their pint glasses, whenever Europeans play soccer. Mebbe they sing it in Southmerica, too. Butwhatevercuz I don’ really care.

If you can’t – beat em then join em. Thassmymott, um, -o. Thassmy motto. Motto.

Where’s Billy? I can’t see him. If thissperson would get out of the frickin way. He’s all backed up against my face’n I can’t see. Anything. Nothin to see here, folks. Move along, people, move along.

Where’s Billy? Oyeah, right right right. Right here in my face.

I figure it’ll be easier to keep track of him if I hold onto his belt loop. Or a pocket or something. Yeah, I’m just gonna hang on to his pocket.

Pocket.

I like the word pocket. Lossa hard consnits that pop. Pop.

Pop.

I like the word pop. It sounz like it pops. And it’s the same backwards and forwards an’itsall about the lips. Pop ’ing.

What? Where’s he going? I’m trailing after him with my hand in his pocket. He keeps pullin it out and I keep puttin it back in. Oth’wise I’m gonna get lost and then where would I be? Huh? I wouldn’t even know!

“Oh! Now I know where we are! We’re on the block where we’re were where gonna sleep.” If make it up th’stairs. But Billy’s helping. He’s nice like that.

“You’re nice like that,” I say with a big smile. “And you‘re funny lookin.”

Wait.

“Oops! I mean yerlookin funny at me right now. Whass funny? ‘m’I funny? ‘r’Juss funny lookin?”

I crack myself up. Like in real life, cuz I’m laughing. Right now. Sometimes iss hard to stop laughing but I’ll be ok.

“Billy. Billy! Hey, Billy. What’re you doing? Tryin to get in my pants? That tickles! Oh, hey! Did we win? I mean, I don’really care - just wonren.”

Hey! Tickles! “Stop that! How’dyou know I don’t wanna wear those? I’ll take ‘em off when I feel like it. Prollymaybe take ‘em off tomorrow. Hey! I was wearing that! And that!”

He’s very pushy. “You’re very pushy. Stop pushing!”

I land on the bed and it’s like fluffy clouds of teddybears. “K, fine. I’ll go to bed, jeez.” Alls I wanna do is bury my face in pillow, but can’t breathe when I do that.

“Don’t close the door all the way, Ma. And leave the hall light on, K? g’Night, love you too.”

————/-/————

Masterlist || ao3 || Prev || Next

————/-/————

[yunoteru4ever]

So I found a neat website that has interesting promotion videos of the panchinko machine and...? I'm not sure what the second one is. Another panchinko machine? Or perhaps just another promotional video for the same one?

The first one interests me because there's art of the characters I haven't seen before? (Unless I haven't gone digging enough) Some of them just use the art from the reference sheets, but about half of them have (what I believe to be) new art. Also a few different voicelines? (I don't know, I don't think I've heard Takao say that before zjdbdj might be tripping.)

And there's also this promotional video on the same site that has a trailer of Mirai Nikki but with different framing. I also bring this up because it looks so... Different. It's merely a matter of where they changed the camera to be, yet, these shots of the trailer just give a whole different feeling. Maybe discomfort because I know those scenes well and it's just... Odd to see them differently?

Maybe you've all seen these, but hey, if I put this here maybe others will see them too.

It's been a couple of years since I've looked at those first two. I never actually listened to the audio on the first video before... damn, that announcer sounds so dramatic when he says "PACHINKO... MIRAI NIKKI" at the end. :P Andor the record, the second video is a promo reel for the pachislot game — the one WITHOUT any physical elements where a ball drops and is knocked around by plastic versions of the characters, etc. That full-fledged pachinko edition with plastic Murmur and bumpers shaped like Twelfth's head and whatnot came along a couple of years later.

Now, the THIRD video you posted? I've legitimately never seen that before, somehow. That strange music, the complete lack of any logic, the fact that it ONLY showcases images from the first two episodes... I really wonder what the hell this was made for! Maybe it was a VERY early trailer?? People in the comments seem to be talking as though the video predates the very first episode airing, so that might be right. But that music and the fade-in/fade-out presentational style of the random scenes makes for something really tonally bizarre.

Anyway.

For anyone reading all of this who is unaware, one thing that's always excited/fascinated me about the pachislot and pachinko machines is that they both contain unique animation sequences made by Asread AND new performances by the anime voice actors. (For example: Here's a fun bit of business where you can watch completely botch his attack on Minene in the second episode and get totally laid out by her, lol.) Oh, and obviously there's lots of new key art/promo art, but that's pretty well-established by now. I wish there was some way to extract all the video and artwork from the device to obtain clean copies... alas.

@sermeno14 made a really good breakdown of the pachinko machine and what we know about it in this post from roughly a year ago. In fact, they're the one who posted the link to that Episode 2 alternate ending originally. There's loads of good info in that post!

[charisreads]

ALL THE BOOKS I READ IN 2022

This year I was mostly focused on my career (and I fell in loveeee) so I’ve not had much time for reading. Nonetheless, here are the books I managed to get through. (I'll do another post on the books I bought but haven't finished!)

This has been a bad reading year for me, so I was surprised to see that I read as many as I did. I think the reason for this is that now I have multiple ways to read eg. My kindle, the kindle app on my phone, audible, and hard copies. I bought myself a Kindle last year for Christmas, worried that I wouldn’t ever pick it up, but I use it all the time! (Hasn’t curbed my love for physical books though.)

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

I highly doubt Tumblr needs to be told how great this book is. I loved every second, I cried, I’ll buy whatever the author releases next.

Normal People ✨fastest read!✨

I really needed an easy read after stopping and starting so many books and I just swam right through this one. I finished it. I sulked. I watched the BBC series. I find it hard to recommend because it’s not satisfying but it’s real.

They Both Die At The End

I read the entirety of this book commuting. To and from London, up north and back to Manchester. It was great to dip in and out of. It made time pass by quickly. I cried like a bitch. Highly recommend.

Ark

It’s a short story but a lovely one. I was looking for more Veronica Roth books like a hungry dog, this satisfied the itch.

Press Reset

This was work related. It’s a great insight into the video game industry, probably not interesting if you’re not in this field.

Chess ✨new all-time favourite book✨

London Euston station bookshop staff I owe you so much!! I was looking for a short read for my long journey back to Manchester. I spotted this short book with a handwritten recommendation. It surprised me. Stefan Zweig is an author I’ve never heard of before. With a book name like “Chess” I expected a strategic story. To me it is colourful, people focused and wonderful. I love how he clearly writes the motivations of characters and how the story seems fantastical but real. I sent my writer friend 7 voice notes about it then bought her a copy of it for her birthday.

Primal Branding

Another work one. Marketing related, interesting case studies, goes on a bit.

Fatal Attraction 😶least favourite😶

My auntie gave me a bunch of books a while back and this thriller caught my eye. Sadly, it had potential to follow through but didn’t.

Whoever Fights Monsters

Non-fiction! This book was written by the man who invented the term serial killer. He writes about many cases he helped solve and serial killers he interviewed. It's very interesting, not just the parts about serial killers but his determination. He's worked in some very difficult and slow-moving agencies, yet got through the bureaucracy to get this work done.

The Thursday Murder Club

I really wanted to like it. I really, really, really did. But I didn’t. I couldn’t get attached to the characters and it felt like it was aimed at an older audience that wanted to be seen, which is lovely! But not meant for me.

Poirot’s Finest Cases

Audiobook. Top lad that Poirot.

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

Work related read. I wrote a blog post about it on my work website here. https://www.charisreid.co.uk/blog/charisreidstribe

Project Hail Mary ✨recommend the most✨

A friend recommended me this and I loved it. It’s only available on audible right now but I really recommend it. It’s fun, heartwarming and I love how the problems the character faces are all science-based. Really rad. 10/10.

(I also reread the Hunger Games trilogy bc it’s my comfort series, so let’s include that)

✨16 total books finished in 2022✨

I'll do another post about aims for next year and what I'll be starting to read in January!

[moneyallthetime]

Top News Aggregation Sites: Why You Need NewsCaster AI In

Top News Aggregation Sites: Why You Need NewsCaster AI in Your Arsenal Hey there, friend! If you've been around the block a couple of times with news aggregation sites, you know how they can be a mixed bag. Some are great; others, not so much. But today, I'm here to tell you about a game changer that's been making waves – NewsCaster AI. Now, before you roll your eyes thinking, "Oh, another one?" hear me out. This isn't just any news site. It's like the Beyoncé of news aggregators – a total powerhouse that does all the work while you sit back and watch the magic happen. The Struggle Is Real We’ve all been there, trying to keep our websites fresh and updated with the latest news, spending countless hours researching, writing, and posting. And for what? Just so we can do it all over again the next day? Nah, we're smarter than that. We need a solution that works as hard as we do but doesn’t take up all our time. That’s where NewsCaster AI comes in. Enter NewsCaster AI – Your New Best Friend NewsCaster AI is not just another tool in your arsenal; it's the weapon you didn't know you needed. Imagine deploying news sites with zero coding, zero designing, and here's the kicker - they're 100% self-updating. You don’t need to write or post anything because NewsCaster AI does it for you. And the traffic? Up to 10,245 clicks a day. I mean, come on, that’s insane! Why It Beats the Rest 1-Click Monetization: You don't have to sell anything. Promote offers from ClickBank, WarriorPlus, & JVZoo with your affiliate links seamlessly integrated into your news site. Making money while you sleep has never sounded so easy. Built-In Traffic Generator: It sends thousands of clicks to any link of your choice. Forget about spending a fortune on ads or begging for shares. NewsCaster AI got you covered. SEO Optimized & Mobile Responsive: In today’s mobile-first world, being optimized for all devices and search engines isn’t just nice; it’s necessary. NewsCaster AI makes sure of that. Lifetime Free Hosting: Yes, you read that right. Free hosting for life for all your websites. If that’s not a sweet deal, I don’t know what is. Flip for Profit: Once you’ve got these hot and trendy sites on your hands, you can flip them on Flippa, eBay, & Facebook for $997 each. Talk about an ROI! Why You Need It Look, the digital landscape is evolving, and to stay ahead, you need to leverage the best tools out there. NewsCaster AI isn’t just a tool; it’s a revolution. It simplifies the process of running a news site, from content creation to traffic generation, and gives you back what you value most – your time. Plus, with a 30-day money-back guarantee, you’ve got nothing to lose. But from what I’ve seen? You’re only going to gain – gain traffic, gain revenue, and most importantly, gain freedom from the drudgery of day-to-day site management. Wrap It Up If you’ve been struggling to keep up with the demanding cycle of content creation and want a solution that’s as straightforward as it is effective, NewsCaster AI is it. It’s practical, powerful, and proven to work. Why work harder when you can work smarter? Give NewsCaster AI a try and watch your site – and your bank account – grow. Ready to revolutionize the way you run your news site? Check out NewsCaster AI right here and get started today. Trust me; your future self will thank you. And remember, in the world of affiliate marketing, it's not just about working hard; it's about working right. NewsCaster AI helps you do just that. Read the full article

[dyst0p14-n]

I don't really know who I am yet.

Ever since I learnt to string together coherent sentences, I've always liked writing like these little introduction entries. Whether it be in a new notebook, online, or even in my stories, I love being able to talk about myself. I used to think I was egotistical, so I just kept these entries to myself, but I've grown to realise it's less of a "I love myself to bits" thing, and more of a "catching up with myself every once in a while" thing. I think it's important to check in on yourself every once in a while. You know, to keep yourself from totally losing your mind and ending up in a psych ward. I mean, I'll end up in a psych ward regardless. What I'm trying to get at is hi, welcome to my little online diary. Fair word of warning, I have a lot of issues and I've seen literal porn on this website, so I'm not exactly worried about my posts being taken down if I talk about actively cvtting myself (I'll like censor my words just to be safe). Trigger warning for every single trigger under the sun: svicide, self h4rm, eating "this order", mommy and daddy issues, substance abuse, just to name a fun few. Obviously, my whole life doesn't revolve around that stuff (it absolutely does, I'm just gaslighting myself), so it's not like all my entries will be suicide letter after suicide letter.. or something. I might post it in the future though, so look forward to that!

ANYWAY, hi. I'm Amelia (people also call me Jemma if they're feeling funky), I'm 16 as of the 31st of March, and I'll be treating this as my diary. Basically decided on making this on a whim, so I have no clue whether I'll be writing here every day, or just once in a blue moon, time will tell. Honestly, I made this account to commemorate me surviving this long. I never imagied I'd make it to 16, and yet here we are. I didn't plan on making it this far, and I really don't have any plans on what to do with myself. I'm kinda at a loss. Before, it's just been a countdown to the day my candle goes out. Now, I wake up confused. What am I doing here? What is there for me? Is there anything for me out there? Everyday is a question. A question to which the answer is unclear, but I can make an educated guess that it's either drugs, money or death. Maybe all of the above.

I guess theres a few things I like to do. I'll get into detail in a later entry if I feel like it. It's getting pretty late.

I draw sometimes. I used to only do digital art, but I lost my apple pencil and have been too embarrased to tell my mam, so i just switched to permenant pencil drawings. I actually prefer it. I used to hate it because I was really bad at anatomy and using a digital drawing program let me rearrange the limbs as I so pleased. I can't do that on paper, it forces me to practice and get better. And I'd like to think that I have. I understand muscle structure a lot better. Perspective, and all that jazz. I also bought a watercolour set recently, so I've been messing around with that. It's pretty fun!

I also write stories. A lot of them. I'm actually in the process of writing the pilot episode for one of my projects; It's called "All-in". Its about this snobby rich girl who is running an illegal underground gambling ring who meets this depressed traumatised orphan boy who's part of a gang that is trying to take down the mafia and is constantly on someone’s kill list, he accidentally drags her into his business after his brother is kidnapped and the mafia thinks shes affiliated with him and she is now on the kill list as well. He is under the impression that she doesn’t want anything to do with any of this, not knowing she has a criminal record of her own. It's a whole thing, I won't bore myself by explaining all the small details. This is my diary! It exists for my leisure and to let out everything on my mind! I'll leave the work to work hours.

Another major hobby of mine is volleyball. Officially, I'm a setter. In reality, I'm a bench warmer. I haven't been playing very long. Maybe a year and a half. So naturally, I suck at it. I still have a lot of fun with it. Maybe i shoud become a professional volleyball player if I don't end up killing myself?

What else is there about me.... I listen to a lot of rock and metal. All sorts of varients of the two. Really, I like all genres of music, these are just my personal favourites. I also listen to a ton of vocaloid. It's been a staple of my personality since 2016. If youve been here since before i repurposed this account (which, I doubt you did), then you'd have seen my entire page was FILLED with Hatsune Miku stuff. Big fan.

I watch a lot of anime. My favourites are FMA, Soul Eater and Assassination Classroom. I also have a manga collection that is worth over 450 quid. Some might say thats a waste, since I'm poor and could use that money to feed myself for a month, but food is temporary, wasted female lead potentional is forever.

I'm gonna gp to sleep now. I'll add on whatever I can think of when I'm back from school tomorrow.

...

School sucks dick.

-amelia

[spacenutspod]

More information is always better when it comes to publicly funded space exploration projects. So it’s welcome when a NASA engineer takes time out of the assuredly busy work lives to provide an update on everyone’s favorite helicopter on Mars. Ingenuity has been having a rough few months, and a new article entitled “The Long Wait,” posted by Travis Brown, Chief Engineer on the Ingenuity project, on NASA’s website, provides a good amount of detail as to why. The problems started when Ingenuity took off for flight #52 on April 26th. When the helicopter landed, it was out of range Perseverance, its rover companion, and the helicopter’s radio link back to its controllers on Earth. This was intentional, but it meant that Ingenuity’s minders didn’t know whether the flight had been completed successfully. Dr. Brown explains why the team would intentionally choose to land the helicopter out of range of Perseverance and details the four main mission priorities for the helicopter’s secondary mission. Unsurprisingly, the number one priority is: don’t mess up Perseverance. The rover is currently collecting interesting samples for the now-endangered Mars Sample Return mission, which, assuming it still goes ahead, will see those samples eventually return to Earth. Fraser describes Ingenuity’s long silence, among other topics. If Ingenuity accidentally interferes with that process, needless to say, the NASA brass would be upset. The helicopter’s handlers have decided that the best way for it is to stay well ahead of the rover and let it catch up to them, which is what it was trying to do with Flight #52. Unfortunately, part of Perseverance’s mission is flexibility, and its own project team can make the call as to where they want the rover to go next. After Ingenuity’s flight, the rover team decided not to stick to the planned path that would take it near the helicopter in a few days but instead take a long way around to do some exciting science elsewhere. When Perseverance did move back into range, 61 days had passed where the helicopter had been patiently waiting for it.  When Ingenuity could finally transmit its images back, the science team was excited as it had landed on a group of pebbles that had never before been seen on the Martian surface. Another flight was planned immediately, with this one intended to scout the immediate area for any other interesting geological features for Perseverance to look at. NASA released a video to celebrate Ingenuity’s 50th flight.Credit – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory YouTube Channel That’s where the second problem came up. During Ingenuity’s flight #53, a never-before-seen error forced the helicopter to land unexpectedly, what Dr. Brown describes as a time desynchronization between a camera that keeps track of ground features and other sensors tied to its inertial guidance system. Any engineer who has worked with multiple systems can tell you how difficult timing synchronization timing can be, so the guidance system was right to shut the system down for machine safety. Still, it means that Ingenuity was once again grounded without being able to fulfill a potentially interesting mission objective. While Ingenuity was recovering from its unexpected landing, Perseverance caught up to the helicopter, making it redundant to provide scientific data since the superior instruments on the rover were now on station. Luckily, that freed the helicopter up for a brief flight #54, where it tested its systems out again and then returned to its scouting duties with flight #55 shortly afterward, with no attendant synchronization problems. Remember that the original mission plan for Ingenuity lasted for 30 days and three flights. It is now on day 979 and has completed 66 flights in total. That is astounding for such a tiny machine on such a remote planet, and congratulations to Dr. Brown and his team. May they be able to overcome many more obstacles and complete many more flights. Learn More:Travis Brown / NASA – The Long WaitUT – After 63 Days of Silence, NASA Has Restored Communications with the Mars HelicopterUT – NASA Was Hoping for 5 Helicopter Flights on Mars. Ingenuity Just Completed its 50th!UT – NASA’s Mars Helicopter Had an Unscheduled Landing, But Flew Again Lead Image:Ingenuity after the emergency landing of Flight #53.Credit – NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS The post How NASA Keeps Ingenuity Going After More than 50 Flights appeared first on Universe Today.

[a-birdhorse]

I watch a lot of content about writing, and I read a lot about writing (in spite of how I may come across on this website) and I would like to make a submission to the World Writing Advice canon if it be accepted by the tumblrfolk: A lot of what people say to new writers is not helpful to some neurodivergent people.

Do I think people are doing this on purpose? No. That's silly. People are just sharing the advice that has helped them, and it's hard to give advice to people whose thought processes are totally different from yours. But does that make this kind of bad advice any less harmful to the people who it doesn't help? It does not.

Let's take an example of something that I see a lot among the YouTube writing channel set: Outlining. Outlining is a very important step when it comes to long-form fiction writing. All serious writers should at the very least be familiar with the basic techniques of outlining if they want to make high-quality work, just so that they have those tools available to them should they want them. That's not the problem.

The problem is that I've seen people say that if you aren't making a detailed outline of each scene in a play/screenplay/novel that you won't be able to keep track of events and your work will be worse for it. When I first started out writing plays, I believed that because it's what people had told me at my university and it's what people said online. Why wouldn't I have? The problem is that I have pretty bad ADHD, and stopping my thought process to write a detailed outline that might take me days to produce kills all the momentum that I might have already had. This technique killed multiple plays before I wrote even a single scene.

Then, I had an idea for a play that was simple enough that I could just remember what the scenes where going to be about and the order they were going to go in. I started writing without making so much as a mark in my notebook, and I was finished with the first draft in two weeks. I never felt lost, I always knew what I was writing next, it just worked. Why? I had done it all wrong.

The answer was that the advice of strict outlining was not good advice for me and my chaotic brain. Am I saying that you, neurodivergent author who is reading this, should stop outlining? No, that's not what this is about. Like the playwright I am, I have hidden my actual thesis halfway through the post: Never take someone else's advice at face value.

Let's look at another example: Ray Bradbury wrote every single day of his life. This is what made him a great writer, that's what I've been told. If you read any kind of published works on writing, that's likely the most consistent advice you'll ever see. Just work on writing every day. Once again, this is not the problem. Writing often and having your work evaluated by others is an important step in the process of growing as an artist. The problem is with the natural interpretation of that advice: Write stories every day.

Why would this be a problem? If you, like me, have the habit developing capabilities of an unstable atom of Americium 241, then you will inevitably end up missing a day or thirty of working on your projects. For me, this caused a lot of guilt. I would get into a loop of thinking that I could never be a great writer let alone a good writer if I wasn't constantly working on new plays or short stories or whatever.

Then, I took a job writing blog posts for a weird little startup (let's not talk about that.) Suddenly I was writing every day for work and feeling more and more comfortable at the keyboard. This gave me the confidence to start working on the projects that I wanted to work on, even if I couldn't do it every day because I was tired from work. I learned that it didn't matter what I wrote every day, I just had to be something. This allowed me to lower my expectations to a more realistic place in a way that has allowed me to develop a fairly robust suite of places to practice my writing skills even if I can't tell a story every day. I write fanfictions. I write speeches for my D&D characters. I write little poems. I send a text to my friend. I post on this very website (shocking, I know.) That's all writing! And when I have the energy, I can work on my plays.

But that initial advice of "write every day" needed a ton of tweaking for it to be empowering to me. As it was written, it was a shackle more than anything else. And I suspect that a lot of people out there feel the same way I did, like because they can't work on their novel/play/film/old school RuneScape tutorial every single day of their life they're somehow a failure. They might have ADHD like me, or they might have Bipolar disorder, or they might experience depression. They are not empowered by this advice. Like the advice of outlining, it is holding them back.

This is not a callout post. People don't need to stop giving out writing advice. That advice helps a lot of people. I would appreciate people who make videos/posts about writing to soften their terms a little bit. Don't tell people that they'll never be a good writer if they're not writing every day. Don't tell people that only meticulously outlined work is worth making. Please give people alternatives to your primary advice. Writing is like any other form of art in that you can make beautiful things using any number of methods.

This post is already super long, but I'm going to finish it with something I learned from my time acting: the only thing that matters to the audience is what they see. If they see a King Lear crying over the death of the only daughter who truly loved him, a crystal clear mirror in his hand, then regardless of that actor's internalities that is reality to the viewer. When it comes to art, it doesn't actually matter how the image arrives at the eye, or the ear, or the fingertips. All that matters is that it does. I hope that we can all keep that in mind as we share our little tricks for helping us do that work with our friends, keeping in mind that they are nothing more than tricks.

[rotting-in-your-arms]

Hating the Internet

Posted Saturday, June 10, 2023

Just a short long vent post, the recent username update Discord is pushing out along with more talk elsewhere online about the worsening state of the internet is getting to me.

It just feels like every website, application, and platform is trying to shove out the worst changes possible in the past couple years, along with trying to suck out as much data from users as possible. I've joked before that "Google knows more about me than I do" but at this point I wouldn't be surprised if they literally did, it's insane.

I'm not even a huge "muh cybersecurity, muh digital privacy" kinda person, I just think it's absolutely wild that not a single thing on the modern internet today seems to not have some ulterior goal or shady practice going on behind it. It's hilarious to me that the U.S. would go all out with trying to ban TikTok but they'd NEVER try to touch Google or Apple despite having the same problems prying into users' data constantly. It's a "national security" problem when a Chinese company steals user data, but when the biggest U.S-based tech companies in the world do the same shit it's no problem at all.

I would probably use a different search engine than Google if I'd ever seen one that looks worthwhile. I've seen and checked out a couple before, but none of them made me think "Wow, I should've been using this instead the whole time!" It reminds me of the types of Linux-using chuds on YouTube who tell you to use Firefox or a fork of it, turn on browser fingerprinting protection, get all these anti-tracking extensions, change your default search engine to DuckDuckGo or Qwant or some shit when half that shit doesn't matter for the average end-user. All you really need is a decent browser and a decent adblock at least, like Firefox and Ublock Origin.

Speaking of browsers, all of them suck now too; Chrome has been Chrome for years, Opera is known spyware (moreso than others), Brave advertises being "for your privacy" but has a built-in crypto wallet and bakes ads into the new tab page, of which both features are opt-out (as in, you have to turn them off yourself) AND it's built on Chromium anyway. Vivaldi is another Chromium browser I've heard of and tried, didn't interest me. Every other big alternative browser I've heard of has just been another fork of Firefox, like Waterfox or Pale Moon, which were also disappointing. Basically, use Firefox and get Ublock, otherwise don't browse the internet in the first place.

Going back to Discord's username update: the username system they're changing to has ALWAYS been bad and no one seems to realize that. Alphanumeric characters and underscores only, and maybe dashes or periods (one or the other, never both), often with a restriction on length (15 characters on Twitter for example, 32 on Discord). Discord's is even worse by making it forced lowercase, whereas at least Twitter allows uppercase characters (even if usernames are case-insensitive anyway, so uppercase is just a cosmetic difference).

Discord's original discriminator method was clever and solved the problem of "this username has been taken" that forcing totally unique names creates. The fact that they try to say "only 10,000 people can have the same name" is a problem is so unfathomably stupid. Even if discriminators just CAN'T be used, "@username123" is the future, at least allow uppercase and more special characters. I don't understand why the people running these sites and apps insist on only having 1 or 2 special characters (like underscores and periods) and not stuff like slashes, brackets, parentheses, or symbols like @, #, and $.

Anyway, fuck Discord. Maybe someday IRC will come back outside of niche subcommunities and piracy.

[gertlushgaming]

Warner Bros. Games Announces Mortal Kombat 1

The Mortal Kombat Universe is Reborn, Set in a New Story with Iconic Heroes and Villains Reimagined as They’ve Never Been Seen Before

Pre-Order Beginning May 19 to Receive Bonus Shang Tsung Playable Character and Access to Upcoming Beta; Kombat Pack to Include Jean-Claude Van Damme Skin Warner Bros. Games today announced Mortal Kombat 1, a brand-new title in the acclaimed Mortal Kombat videogame franchise that has sold more than 80 million units since its debut over 30 years ago. Developed by award-winning NetherRealm Studios, the upcoming game will introduce a reborn Mortal Kombat Universe that has been created by the Fire God Liu Kang, featuring reimagined versions of iconic characters as they’ve never been seen before. Mortal Kombat 1 is scheduled to release on Sept. 19, 2023, for PlayStation 5 (PS5), Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Official Mortal Kombat Website NetherRealm’s genre-defining Story Mode returns with an immersive cinematic narrative featuring unexpected twists on classic rivalries and original backstories for a wide-ranging cast of legendary fighters, including Liu Kang, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Raiden, Kung Lao, Kitana, Mileena, Shang Tsung, Johnny Cage, and many others. Mortal Kombat 1 will also introduce Kameo Fighters, a unique roster of partner characters that can assist during matches, creating expanded gameplay possibilities for players. “With Mortal Kombat 1 we are bringing a reimagined universe to the legendary franchise which has captivated gamers for more than 30 years and continues to top itself,” said David Haddad, President, of Warner Bros. Games. “The talented team at NetherRealm Studios continues to push the series forward in bold ways that have consistently expanded the global audience, and we believe Mortal Kombat 1 will continue to attract new players as well as thrill our core fans.” Related Post: new Lords of the Fallen Gameplay Trailer “Mortal Kombat 1 marks a new beginning for the franchise and we couldn’t be more excited to share this original storyline and fresh take on classic characters with our fans,” said Ed Boon, Chief Creative Officer, NetherRealm Studios and Co-Creator of Mortal Kombat. “We’re also introducing our Kameo Fighter system which brings a unique roster of partner characters into the mix, and we are looking forward to showing this feature as well as more new elements of the game very soon.”

Starting tomorrow, May 19, The game will be available for pre-order on all launch platforms*, including: - Mortal Kombat 1 Standard Edition will be available physically and digitally on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC, including Steam and Epic Games Store. - Mortal Kombat 1 Premium Edition will be available physically and digitally on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC (Steam and Epic Games Store) and will include all Standard Edition content, along with the Kombat Pack, early access to the game beginning Sept. 14, and 1,250 Dragon Krystals (in-game currency). The Kombat Pack will feature a Johnny Cage character skin with the likeness of famed actor and martial artist, Jean-Claude Van Damme (available at launch), early access to six new playable characters (available post-launch), and five new Kameo Fighters (available post-launch). - Mortal Kombat 1 Kollector’s Edition will be available physically at select retailers on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S only and will include all Premium Edition content, and early access, along with a 16.5-inch Liu Kang sculpture designed by COARSE and an inspired Liu Kang in-game character skin, three exclusive art prints, a steel case, and 1,450 additional Dragon Krystals (2,700 total). All Mortal Kombat 1 pre-orders will receive Shang Tsung as an in-game playable character, and those who pre-order the game for PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S will also receive access to the Beta, which will be available in August 2023. Read the full article

[yarns-travel-blog]

((This is one of those unreality post like pokemon is real kind of blogs)) (piccrew credit)

Hi, im Yarn (he/they transmasc, bi/ace 28) i used to have a website where i posted photos and paintings from my travels, but the hosting got zapped, soo.... blogging like this seems easier anyways.

I travel around with my pokemon, we do odd jobs mostly. I like having my freedom to go where i want and see stuff and try new things, and delicious food! I used to try tackling gym circuts, but me and my team have come to realize hardcore battling isnt really for us. Farming ends up being most of what we do, but I've also gone on research trips as backup muscle, and the designated camp chef xP. My parents (and brother) are botanists so I end up going with their colleagues a lot. (I dont know anything about plants or plant pokemon so do not ask me!)

I like learning about mythology and history. But i also love cooking, (for humans and pokemon) painting and drawing, and tea.

I grew up in Azelea Town in Johto, but did a lot of my early pokemon journey in Hoenn. Right now I'm helping out at an inn in Dewford (mostly cleaning some kitchen help and bartending xD). But when it warms up a bit I think we're gonna go to Sinnoh. Its been a while since I've been there, and im dieing to see Mt Cornet again, but I am NOT going there in the winter.

Team under the cut,

Current team:

Canopus - (Flygon) He was the first pokemon I caught on my own. And we've been training and traveling together ever since. When I was young i had ambitions of being a dragon tamer, and trapinch/vibraina/flygon gets are a good line to start with (at least acording to my cousin and her family don't complain to me if you disagree). He's really chill and calm, and honestly isnt much of a fan of fighting, which ended up being true for me as well haha.

Nari - (Ampharos) The farm I grew up near let me have one of the mareep after my first ever summer working there. They've been my treasured partner ever since. He's a total goof.

Lucy - (Trubbish) This is the only pokemon I've ever gotten from a fancy breeder, but just !!! She's the most precious darling girl! I've seriously never seen anything cuter!!! She's always at my side when I'm cooking, she’s an amazing taste tester and extreamly helpful with clean up.

Sparker - (Charmeleon) My cousin's charizard ended up with some eggs... and she knew I had always wanted a charizard, so she had me come pick one up. He's grown up so fast its honestly hard to belive. He's still stuck in his little shit phase though. He likes showing off for Canopus.

Larry - (Relicanth) met while helping on a fishing boat in southern hoenn. I love him dearly, but he's not happy outside the hoenn oceans, so i mostly hang out with him when I'm in hoenn and need to surf around.

Catasetum - (Leafeon) Technically my brother is her proper trainer, that's why she's named like that. But he's suck at home and she likes traveling, so she's coming with me ✌

Others:

Sable - (Umbreon) He's with my brother, I really miss him :< but he's helping look after my nephew and their family eevee.

Bluebell - (Gastrodon) They're an east sea varient. And soooo soft. When I'm not hanging with Larry I usually have them with me, otherwise they help with pest control in my mom's garden.

Periwinkle - (Altaria) They actually like battling, so mostly they hang out in Blackthorn with my cousin, but if I'm going on a trip where i might actually have to do some fighting I'll take them along.

Hopper - (Sableye) They're my funny little guy.

Nanasaur - (Tropius) He's kinda my dad's but also has traveled with me a lot. Especially before Canopus was fully evolved. He deffinatly has big dad energy.

[theswarmanthology]

Ash Reverie, 26, Ireland

"I used to be very active in the fanbase as a teenager. Especially in the community section on their website, which was my save haven as a very troubled teen. They recently took it all down with no warning and I'm honestly devastated to see all my old writing and blog posts gone - it's like losing my diary, and I wish they'd given a heads up so I could have saved it all. But I digress. Once I turned 18, I - for some bizarre reason - got it into my head that *adults* can't engage in fan culture so I basically made myself miserable for a few years before realizing that's ridiculous. But, now I honestly feel pretty lost, and on the outskirts of it."

Fast Facts: How long have you been a fan?: 9+ years Did you get to see MCR live before this tour?: No, this tour was my first time seeing MCR How many shows on this tour did you attend in total?: 2-4 Favorite album: The Black Parade Show experience out of 10: 10 Did you cry at your show?: Yes

Which date of the tour did you attend? 05/21/22, Milton Keynes 2

When did you get your tickets for your show? Was it a struggle, or were they easy to grab? January 2020 - most stressful morning of my life.

Did you attend with anyone else? My boyfriend

What did you wear? I wore skeleton fingers gloves I bought when I was 15 and used to wear to school with a pair of skeleton knee high socks I happened to buy the day they got back together. I wore a Revenge t-shirt with "fire at will" from Thank You For The Venom printed on the back and a red plaid skirt.

Where were your seats? Frank's side. Seated at MK. The seats were actually closer to the stage than they looked like they were on Ticketmaster so that makes me feel a little better about the price gouging

What was your favorite song(s) from the setlist they played at your show? Famous Last Words. Summertime. You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison. Parade. Helena.

What song were you most hoping to hear? Did you get to hear it? I wish they'd played The Kids From Yesterday and Vampires Will Never Hurt You but it is what it is. I knew we would definitely hear Famous Last Words and Helena but was so happy they played Prison and This Is How I Disappear

What was your favorite moment from the show? The crowd singing the bridge of Famous Last Words, just WTTBP in general, and Gerard & Ray being in awe of us lighting our phones up during Summertime

What was the most unexpected moment from the show? Gerard reacting to a cardboard cut out from Parade

Did you snag any merch? What pieces? The Roses t-shirt - I wonder if the reference will become clear soon

Many fans describe seeing MCR live as feeling like coming home. Did you experience anything like that at your show? I mean I cried the whole way through the first 2 songs. I wish I could live in that moment forever.

If you could change one thing about your show experience, what would it be? Milton Keynes is a hell hole.

Has your perspective or opinion about the band changed since seeing them on this tour? If so, in what way? It was kinda bittersweet. Best day of my life but I had such bad luck as a kid, I'd never seen them before. So it feels kinda odd getting used to "new" MCR when a part of me feels like we're still supposed to be living in the Danger Days era. It's a me problem.

What advice would you give to people seeing My Chemical Romance in the future? Bring tissues. Bring snacks. You might have to suck it up and drink pit water so you don't faint. Mostly, don't be an asshole. We weren't surrounded by the nicest bunch at the first night in Dublin (but MK was great), so I made sure the kids around me were okay and could actually see the stage - especially since they ended up separated from each other so I felt kinda protective. Most of the fans are lovely - don't let a few assholes put you off. We let another person who had flown in for the show alone hang out with us all day and made sure she got back to her hotel alright. If you're alone, you'll find some good people to hang out with.

Anything we didn't ask that you feel obliged to share or talk about? This band saves lives.

Thanks, Ash! Her TikTok handle is Ash Reverie.

[schmergo]

Boring serious post: I don’t know how many of you this applies to, but I live in Northern Virginia and it is much more difficult than I expected to ascertain which local wedding venues are former plantations (or on the site of one, or has another dark history). I suspect this applies to many other states, too.

There’s a stereotype of people in the Deep South getting married on historic plantations, and many local people up here in the progressive NOVA area, which used to be part of the Confederacy but which is rarely considered the ‘true south’ anymore, will say, “I would never attend a wedding held at a plantation!” 

Well... often the person saying that.... actually got married at a former plantation. They just didn’t realize it. Up here, those homes are usually called ‘mansions,’ ‘manors,’ ‘historic houses,’ or even just ‘farms.’ And they are wildly, wildly popular wedding venues. Washingtonian Magazine’s list of the 22 best Virginia wedding venues includes at least 7 that are former plantations with enslaved workers, at least 1 on the grounds of a historic plantation, and those are only the ones I knew off the top of my head from prior research. I didn’t look up the ones I hadn’t read about. Washingtonian is seen as a publication for cosmopolitan types, not people who’d probably condone the weddings held at some of the more infamous plantations in South Carolina and Louisiana that you sometimes hear about.

I didn’t realize until I got engaged how much research goes into finding the exact history of some of these properties. As you might imagine, their websites are extremely vague and often obfuscate elements of their history. They never, ever mention enslaved people, but if the property was a ‘farm’ with a ‘manor house’ from before the 1860′s... you can kinda connect the dots.

They don’t always make it easy to connect those dots. Many of these properties are older than they appear to be because they were renovated in the 20th century. Many don’t seem like they’d be plantations because they don’t have large grounds-- because the area around them has since developed. Some venues aren’t ‘mansions’ and seem rustic and humble, but they actually have a history of being a place where enslaved people worked (for example, a former mill that’s a popular event venue in my area). And some are brand new shiny buildings, but are actually built on the estate of a very large neighboring plantation and run and owned by the same people.

There’s one popular venue called Rosemont. It’s advertised as the home of former senator Harry F. Byrd. If you’re into history like me, you know that Byrd was a big fan of segregation, which is already... not great. But you have to dig deeper into the history to discover that the home was actually from 1811 and was already old when he bought it. The website says that its 200-year-history has been one of Southern hospitality, I feel like a 200-year-history in Virginia often means something else. ALSO on its property is a brand new venue called Rosemont Springs, a rustic barn. They’re advertised as two totally separate venues and people booking the barn venue might not realize that it’s actually on the grounds of the larger plantation.

I don’t see myself as being unusually politically active or particularly conscious about what I consume. But it startles me that this is still so common and popular here, and a topic that I have never heard people discuss here before. These venues are definitely making it harder to research their complicated history in order to seem more palatable to progressive folks.