#lotus talks computer stuff

[lovelylotusf1]

chinhands. PLEASE tell me about symmetric encryption

Anon!! <3 I'd love to, but I'm gonna do it under a cut because this is a nerdy ramble that has nothing to do with the theme of this blog. I want to spare the people who solely come here for the vroom vroom men from this explanation. Also, I found out apparently in English it's "symmetric key encryption" and some of them are called ciphers??? but same difference.

Okay, so. You have a super secret message that you want nobody else to know about. Like, for example, "RPF is fine."

If you want to send your friend this message, it could get intercepted along the way, and you do not want to let anyone except that friend know that you are an rpf supporter. To achieve this, you have to encrypt your super secret message, send it to your friend, and they decrypt your message so they can read it. Anyone who intercepts that message will only be able to read gibberish.

A key forms the basis for this mechanism. With symmetric encryption, you use THE SAME key for encrypting the message & for decrypting the message. So, you need to give your friend information on what the key is. Only then can they decrypt your super secret message later on.

One of the first methods that got used is the Caesar Cipher, named after that Roman Guy, Julius Caesar, you might know from history or that one Shakespeare play.

The key in this case is moving the letters of the alphabet a certain number of times to encrypt something. Using the example from earlier, you and your friend love Lando Norris, so you decide to use the key 4 for your encryption. Every letter of your message then gets moved 4 letters further for encryption and your friend moves it 4 letters back to decrypt it.

So "RPF IS FINE" becomes "VTJ MW JMRI" (i hope i did it correctly lmao). But you see, that anyone reading this message wouldn't be able to know what it's about. At first glance.

Buuut, this method isn't exactly safe. There are only this many keys you can use. A clever person with enough time can just try ALL the keys and eventually find the one that works (called: brute-forcing), decrypt your super secret message, and find out about your avid love for rpf.

How do you prevent people from finding out the keys? Use more of them.

In comes Alberti, who got the genius idea of using DIFFERENT secret alphabets for encryption and also arrange them on a cool movable disk called the Formula if wikipedia is to be believed (the ... Formula 1 perhaps?)

Wooow, look at it! Isn't it nifty, as Russell George might probably say?

You have your normal alphabet on the inner ring and a secret alphabet on the outer one. If you move the outer ring, the letter now suddenly corresponds to another one and you've changed your key! The letter A might be a C in the first alphabet but a letter H in the second one. You can then tell your friend how often you change the key and by how much and they can decrypt is. This is much harder to crack, which is what we want.

A more famous one of those so called "polyalphabetic cyphers" (cause you assign each plaintext letter more than 1 substitute letter) is the Vigenère cipher. It was considered unbreakable for 300 years!!! That's quite some time.

It's kinda but not really like the Caesar cipher. Instead of a single number key, you have a whole KEYWORD or KEYPHRASE. And each letter of the word/phrase corresponds to how much you'll move the letter of your original message forward in the alphabet, with A =0, B = 1, C = 2, ...

Using our example from earlier: You also really like Oscar, so you and your friend decide to use OSCAR as the Keyword and you send them the message from earlier. "RPF IS FINE" then becomes "FHH IJ TAPE" and someone who reads it thinks that you might want tape? Sure?

The other part of the coin to encryption is asymmetric key encryption. Because sometimes you can't tell your friend your super secret key to encrypt your super secret message, so you need to find an algorithm that uses key1 to encrypt the message and ANOTHER, SECOND, DIFFERENT key to decrypt it. But this goes beyond the acceptable post length, probably.

This got ... quite long and I haven't even touched on The Enigma (sending encrypted messages during the war) or on how some symmetric key encryption is still used today, like in the last part of the protocol you use to be on this website! HTTPS!

I hope at least 1 person read this and goodnight <3

[irondad-defensesquad]

(tony adopts a cat AU)

tony creates a youtube channel to talk about engineering, mechanics etc. except tony jr. always steals the show

(peter also pops in sometimes)

[rebelfell]

Welcome to your appointment, @wolfqueenxxx we do so hope you find it to your liking!

18+, MDNI┃1.5k

cw: workplace romance, older!eddie (implied age gap), friends to lovers, modern au (real modern, as in like…last month)

Eddie wasn’t used to having you at his place yet.

He loved you being there, don’t get him wrong, he still just sort of couldn’t believe you were?

For so long he’d only gotten to see you for fleeting moments around the office, flitting about in your professional wear or appearing at his office door sheepishly holding up your laptop for him to fix.

You had steadily given up the pretense of needing his expertise in IT as your excuse to drop in, until you were appearing before him nearly on a daily basis. Sometimes twice, if he was lucky.

Whether you were just stopping by to chat, or to let him know when there were doughnuts in the communal kitchen, or to bring him a cup of coffee from the fresh pot you just made, the times when he got to see you and share a few words quickly became the brightest spots in his day.

And yes, in the beginning, he maybe might have (definitely) had the faintest inkling of a crush. 

How could he not, you know? Just look at you.

Still, he didn’t dare entertain the notion you had any intentions beyond pure friendship. He’d been around long enough by now to know the pretty, young administrative assistant wasn’t going to be making eyes at the prehistoric barely-rockstar turned corporate computer monkey.

He wasn’t that much older than you, but he’d always been a sort of crotchety and cranky sort. Older in spirit than in actual years. Except now his age was truly showing—extra creaks and clicks in his joints, deepening lines on his face, a dusting of salt and pepper in the scruff under his jaw.

Not to mention the streaks in his dark curls that flashed silver when they caught the light.

He really was thinking about dying it one of these days. He never expected to go so gray so fast.

He was barely forty for chrissake.

It didn’t matter, though. The very idea was a non-starter. You were just being friendly. End of.

The kind of friendly where you noticed the pens he liked and ordered them regularly; where you’d switched the coffee to one he recommended, and kept his favorite flavor of creamer stocked; where you brought in potted plants to put in his window because he had the nicest, biggest one in the office and didn’t utilize in the slightest.

And he in turn was friendly back. The kind of friendly where he had upgraded the RAM on your laptop just because you mentioned it was running a little slower than usual; where he only attended the Happy Hour gatherings you organized; where he set up an automatic back-up of all your files after one hard drive failure that nearly had you crying underneath the conference table.

Friendliness. That was all it was.

And that’s all it would ever be.

He loved it best, though, when you were watching the same show. That guaranteed at least a twenty minute convo of swapping theories and analysis, excitedly talking over one another you were so eager to share your thoughts.

Shows he might never have watched or maybe abandoned after one or two episodes, he found himself watching religiously just to be able to talk with you about it the next day. And the stuff he’d seen a million times felt fresh again seeing it through your eyes.

Then you started talking about the shows you were looking forward to coming back on.

You told him how pumped you were for White Lotus to start back up, but lamented that you’d let your Max subscription lapse, so you’d have to avoid spoilers until the season was over and you could binge it with a free trial or something. Eddie commiserated, telling you how he burned through Severance on an Apple TV trial and totally screwed himself over for season two.

He laughed. Said it was funny the way you both had what the other needed. At best, he thought a simple password exchange might be in order.

But you suggested a different sort of trade.

If he came over to your place on Thursday nights for Severance, you could come over to his on Sunday nights for White Lotus.

“It’s perfect, right?” you’d asked with your head tilted sweetly, so unaware what it did to him.

Eddie coughed and sputtered like he’d swallowed one of the thumbtacks on his desk.

You in his house? Him in yours? You seeing all his tour posters and records and the weird art pieces he’s collected over the years? Him getting to look at your books and your geode collection that he’s heard so much about? Meeting the pet he’s only ever seen in the framed photos on your desk?

He tried to at least act as though his head wasn’t full-on exploding at the thought.

“Yeah, definitely,” he said, voice cracking like he was going through a second puberty at 42.

From that point on, Thursday nights were reserved for emotional devastation while your Sundays were taken up by bemusement at rich people’s antics and giggling over increasingly silly imitations of Parker Posey’s southern accent.

The visits grew longer each time, both of you getting more comfortable in the other’s space. Often you traded off making dinner and bringing a bottle of wine or the makings for a cocktail to share. He quickly learned your preferences for food and drink, filing it away in his head.

You know, just in case he ever needed to know.

But as both the shows drew to an end, he found himself despising the modern model of television. What genius decided to cut whole seasons down to a measly eight or ten episodes, anyway? 

For months, he had gotten to spend at least one night a week with you (as it turned out the shows only overlapped for a total of four episodes) and now, what? He was supposed to give it all up?

Eddie sighed as the credits rolled for the White Lotus finale, and not just because the ending had left him slightly unsatisfied. Truth was, he’d only halfway been paying attention from the moment your eyes had begun to droop and he felt the weight of your head drop onto his shoulder.

His heart pounded and his body froze, his spine as straight as if someone had jammed a steel rod down the back of his shirt. Your head was close enough for him to smell your shampoo and he could feel the warmth of your body seeping through the cotton of his paper thin shirt.

For one brain splitting second, Eddie wondered if this was some kind of move you were making. At least he did until he heard your steady, rhythmic breathing and the soft rasp of you snoring.

You didn’t stir until he reached for the remote and tried to lower the volume as the post-season interview with the creator started playing. Oddly enough, the absence of noise rousing you faster.

“Oh, shit. Did I miss it?” you mumbled sleepily as you rubbed one of your still-closed eyes.

“Yeah, kind of,” Eddie chuckled, regretting how it made his shoulders shake, thinking how it might have made you move your head.

Thankfully, you didn’t. You kept it right where it was, not making any kind of shift to get up.

“Well, I guess that’s it,” he said as he clicked off the TV, his voice laced with disappointment.

Disappointment he let himself believe he saw mirrored in your eyes as you nodded and worried your bottom lip with your teeth. Was he crazy?

Or did you not want this to be the end either?

“You know,” you started, twisting your fingers in your lap, “The Last of Us starts back in a couple weeks. Maybe we can keep it going?”

“We could…” he answered slowly and rubbed the flat side of his palm against his pant leg, trying to alleviate the sweat starting to accumulate. “Or…you could let me take you out on a real date?”

All the air in his apartment whooshed out, leaving nothing but a deafening silence in its wake. More sweat collected in the center of his palm and he swore you could see how his heart thumped.

“Is that you asking me out?” you asked, your even and nonchalant tone debilitatingly hard to read.

If you were horrified, if you felt totally violated, if you were extraordinarily creeped out—it was just about impossible for him to tell. If you were filing a report with HR in your head, he wouldn’t have the faintest idea until the pink slip hit his desk.

But he took some solace in the fact that you never lifted your head off his shoulder.

“Uh…yes,” he answered after a long pause. A long pause followed by an even longer one; a long and silent one from you during which Eddie debated defecting to the company’s Canadian office.

And then he heard it—the soft, yet unmistakable sound of you chuckling sweetly.

“About fuckin’ time, old man,” you murmured in your half-sleep, the hint of a smile curling up the corners of your mouth as you draped an arm over him and nestled fully into his embrace.

Eddie’s own arm slipped around your back, hand landing on your shoulder like he’s been dreaming of it doing since January. He pulled you into him, wrapping you up tightly and exhaling in relief.

Shit. He had to tweet Mike White now.

Thank you so much for visiting the spa, we hope your services were satisfactory 🌿

[balek-nosleep]

Damien enter the DIY world(he will probably grow up to be a bobo)

Ok cutest thing, as we all know damian draw and read mangas ect. But I'll put you something better on the table.

I think the artsy teen that he is would enter in a DIY and tag phase (maybe not a phase after all i nevers left mine, its called growing poor).

In what i know of Ra's is that his attread of humanity come from it's destructive tendencies on earth, deforestation, mass extinction of spicies ect. And i do like to think that damian veganisme and love of animals started there but also it would be in that context logic for him to be ecologically conscious and that why he could maybe try DIY ,mending and stuff like that. From there he would grow an habit of mending/offering his friend and family stuff like pins,patches that he would had made himself or probably customize his family stuff .

List of what he would have done as an example:

-Make patches for Jason clothes, exemple when he made a hole in his favorite hoodie, damian gave him a patch with a kind of cartoony oldtimy bomb (you know the round one like in the looneytoons) drawn on it. I like to think he got the sewing part from him.

-For Alfred and Barbara he made pins with charms he found and gave them when he felt expecially thankful.

-Made patches of Jon’s favorite shows so he could put them on his backbag when Jon wasn’t looking.

-Dick made a stain (dont ask of what,probably ketchup)on his shirt one day and damian drew over it when the stain wouldn't leave(dick would know how to but he kind of wanted something made by his lil bro), probably a really stylise and majestic tiger with lotus flowers.

-Tim. He used glue to salvage the handle of his mug, but hey its glittery glue.

-He made a sticker for duke helmet when he made a dent on it during a outing on his motorcycle. Something like a sun with sunglasses and a helmet (because he apparently need a redo on driving safety ) or he painted a dragon over it (dont know why i just like it,maybe the merlin fan in me talking)

-On cass adoption anniversary he gifted her a necklace, a mix of pearls and jewel(that he may or may not have stolen from a old jewelry box in the manor attics ) each jewel being of different colors supposed to represent a member of the family and a charm of ballerina shoes.

-Steph would have asked him to customize her computer case for her ,which he firstly refuse to do because"i have better things to do" ,but it didn't stop said computer to disappear and be found on the kitchen counter the next morning covered with stickers, drawings and photos. She came back asking for him to do her phone case next.

-During patrol after finishing to report events to batwoman , he left a bracelet (probably leather band with spikes )behind him right were he was before sneaking off when she looked away(she let him do on purpose )

-Gifted Catwoman a cat keychain made of clay so she wouldn’t interfere during a mission. She took it.

-On the day of martha and thomas death, bruce woke up to find on his bed a big and bulky book ,when opened it reveal a family album scrapbook style.

I do think he would be shy about it as it is sometimes less polished and shabby compared to what they technically could have but he fell extremely proud when he see his family wearing or using what he made with joy until they brake once again.

(Sorry if there is misspelling or typos)

[beesmygod]

i only read tumblr once a day because i [try] to stay sane so only just caught up with the art discourse, which I do have some bits n shit I want to add: a bit fasile for one but, dont you as an artist have upkeep and resource needs to produce? even if its just like...computer, tablet and necessities to continue existence because art takes time to make, those are real, and cost money. "art" in an absolute sense can be made for free with minimal time through just thinking, but like, a webcomic that is a physical thing made of electronic patterns and hosted on a server, takes time and takes stuff. "Webcomics" isnt a free infinitely repeating resource, and you are more than a machine to create webcomic, and none of us are infinite as a resource! at worst, art hits public domain eventually. that said even from that place of survival in capitalistic society it DOES make sense to at least have free public facing art as PROMOTION even if its just idk downtime sketches, doodles, memes, fanart etc so like im not 100% disagreeing yknow, and I am not and artists cant be a paying consumer my/their own art, art has to exist for the self too, the self that isnt a "paying class", or i just start making marvel movies and then its time to find my cool wet hole in the dirt and express my creative individuality like im a mathmatician of statistical analysis of fluid dynamics.

now that im awake i was going to answer these point by point, but this kind of flies past my point that making art exclusively for those who pay is abysmal and treating your audience like they're thieves is a poisonous and off-putting response to one's perceived "loss of income" (which is not even theft because the item being "stolen" can be reproduced infinitely. im talking about like a digital image like a comic page and not a physical item where there's limited copies lol). people either want to pay you or they dont; you can't force people to pay you by making access to your work harder, worse, more inconvenient, and more degrading to your audience. you can't induce artificial scarcity and be a good person.

like yeah obviously art production takes money. that's why most artists work desk jobs instead of trying to make it a solo venture and just expecting the world around them to pick up their slack. i didn't come out of a lotus blossom with a tablet ready to go, i worked desk jobs from age 15-24 in order to have enough savings to cushion myself if need be and pay for base supplies. i use tablets and items gifted/sold to me at a steep discount by my friends. i lived really poor in order to have the life i wanted. and i really loved it lol. i still think of that time so fondly.

once the comic is produced and posted, it is free for my audience to look at and the reproduction costs of the finished image is 0 dollars. it can be copied and reposted freely without charge. it costs me basically nothing to host. the production costs are currently covered by patreon donations. if they were no longer covered by patreon donations i would get a desk job instead of making my choice to go into the financially unsuccessful field of the arts my audience's personal problem to solve. if i don't make things people want to buy, that's my problem and not my audience's.

yeah, it would suck to have to stop doing this because its no longer financially viable (it is really financially hard right now; the state of the world around us is not conductive to the patreon life), but i wasn't entitled to it anyway. i get to make art for a living bc i have an audience that permits me to. why would i start treating them like dogshit or lying about value of my work to squeeze extra money out of them after what they gifted me?

[commodorez]

What kind of work can be done on a commodore 64 or those other old computers? The tech back then was extremely limited but I keep seeing portable IBMs and such for office guys.

I asked a handful of friends for good examples, and while this isn't an exhaustive list, it should give you a taste.

I'll lean into the Commodore 64 as a baseline for what era to hone in one, let's take a look at 1982 +/-5 years.

A C64 can do home finances, spreadsheets, word processing, some math programming, and all sorts of other other basic productivity work. Games were the big thing you bought a C64 for, but we're not talking about games here -- we're talking about work. I bought one that someone used to write and maintain a local user group newsletter on both a C64C and C128D for years, printing labels and letters with their own home equipment, mailing floppies full of software around, that sorta thing.

IBM PCs eventually became capable of handling computer aided design (CAD) work, along with a bunch of other standard productivity software. The famous AutoCAD was mostly used on this platform, but it began life on S-100 based systems from the 1970s.

Spreadsheets were a really big deal for some platforms. Visicalc was the killer app that the Apple II can credit its initial success with. Many other platforms had clones of Visicalc (and eventually ports) because it was groundbreaking to do that sort of list-based mathematical work so quickly, and so error-free. I can't forget to mention Lotus 1-2-3 on the IBM PC compatibles, a staple of offices for a long time before Microsoft Office dominance.

CP/M machines like Kaypro luggables were an inexpensive way of making a "portable" productivity box, handling some of the lighter tasks mentioned above (as they had no graphics functionality).

The TRS-80 Model 100 was able to do alot of computing (mostly word processing) on nothing but a few AA batteries. They were a staple of field correspondence for newspaper journalists because they had an integrated modem. They're little slabs of computer, but they're awesomely portable, and great for writing on the go. Everyone you hear going nuts over cyberdecks gets that because of the Model 100.

Centurion minicomputers were mostly doing finances and general ledger work for oil companies out of Texas, but were used for all sorts of other comparable work. They were multi-user systems, running several terminals and atleast one printer on one central database. These were not high-performance machines, but entire offices were built around them.

Tandy, Panasonic, Sharp, and other brands of pocket computers were used for things like portable math, credit, loan, etc. calculation for car dealerships. Aircraft calculations, replacing slide rules were one other application available on cassette. These went beyond what a standard pocket calculator could do without a whole lot of extra work.

Even something like the IBM 5340 with an incredibly limited amount of RAM but it could handle tracking a general ledger, accounts receivable, inventory management, storing service orders for your company. Small bank branches uses them because they had peripherals that could handle automatic reading of the magnetic ink used on checks. Boring stuff, but important stuff.

I haven't even mentioned Digital Equipment Corporation, Data General, or a dozen other manufacturers.

I'm curious which portable IBM you were referring to initially.

All of these examples are limited by today's standards, but these were considered standard or even top of the line machines at the time. If you write software to take advantage of the hardware you have, however limited, you can do a surprising amount of work on a computer of that era.

[officerkotohime]

OfficerKotohime's Big Touhou Masterpost

I've apparently convinced a few people to try Touhou through my posts, and I think that's neat. So I've decided to say, fuck it, let's talk about how to play Touhou. Maybe you've heard of the characters, the music, or read the print works but never tried out the games. I'm here to tell you it's easier to get into than you think. What is Touhou like? Generally the Touhou games are top down games where you shoot forward, enemies shoot back, and you dodge like your life depends on it. There are exceptions to this rule, like the fighting games. The Touhou games are generally distributed via disk, and they are only in Japanese. They are brisk games created by a single dev called ZUN. If you're more interested in lore there are the aforementioned print works. But if you want to play? This is the post for you! Don't speak Japanese? This is STILL the post for you! Disclaimer 1: I will not be discussing where to acquire the Touhou games illegally. Disclaimer 2: Touhou is really, really hard. It's not something I would sugarcoat. Disclaimer 3: Be careful downloading random stuff from the internet. I cannot ever promise nothing bad will happen to your computer.

With that being said, let's do this!

Ah, your danmaku is beautiful. Simply amazing. -Kotohime "Officerkotohime, which game do I start with?" The easy answer is that it's not terribly important. Many people say beginners should start with Imperishable Nights. That being said there are a lot of Touhou games. We're going to go at this chronologically. PC98 Games: The first five games were released for the NEC PC98. These games get overlooked often because of their age, inaccessibility, and the fact that ZUN more or less purged them from canon. But there are some genuinely good entries here, Like Mystic Square and Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream.

Hm, you were just as strong as I expected.Which wasn't strong enough. -Mima

You can grab the English patches for all five PC98 games at the bottom of this page. There are detailed instructions in the file for getting these games up and running. A note, if you are acquiring your hdi (rom) files through external means you may be able to find prepatached ones already in English, and skip a few steps. Some useful software: The preferred PC98 emulator Locale Emulator (replaces applocale, which no longer exists) DiskExplorer

Again the instructions in the English patches are very good, but I may be able to answer simple questions if you get stuck.

"Officerkotohime, Lotus Land Story crashed!" Yeah it does that sometimes, if you figure it out let me know. Windows Games

From here on out you can get many different translations for each game via the Touhou Community Reliant Auto Patcher (ThCRAP)

ThCRAP is self-updating, stand alone software which can be set up to launch with your touhou games. VXpatch These patches apply for Touhou 6-15. They can help with vsync issues and other things like input slowdowns. VXpatch is MANDATORY for Embodiment of Scarlet Devil on windows 10 and up, due to an issue with it booting with unlimited framerate. Vxpatch can be integrated with your ThCRAP install, but requires some manual changes, which are described on the ThCRAP homepage.

sure, sure fight, fight - Reimu Touhou 6-8 The only legal means of acquiring these four (and yes I mean four) games is by purchasing the disks (sorry to disappoint) With any of the Windows touhou games you may run into an issue where ThCRAP tells you that you have the wrong version of the game installed. For these games you need to download and manually insert the updates into the game files. A note, these sites are in Japanese. Embodiment of Scarlet Devil Website Perfect Cherry Blossom Imperishable Night Files for Immaterial and Missing Power can be found on the touhou wiki

Phantasmagoria of Flower View, and everything after

I want to find a god with the gloomy power of love for my pets… -Koishi I'm so normal about Koishi guys

So here's where everything gets easier! Every Steam game from 9 on is available for purchase on Steam. They can be hard to look up, because they are in Japanese, but just pop Hakureishrine.org into your browser and it'll take you to a playlist of all of them. ThCRAP will work with you Steam touhou games as well. You can also select your game version within steam, so no downloading patches. Straight up that's it, we're done. Fangames

"Officerkotohime, I'm tired of losing at touhou but still want to play touhou." Fortunately ZUN is very open to people making games with his characters. There are way to many fangames to talk about, and in nearly any genre you can imagine. Want to play a metroidvania? We got those

Wanna play Mario Kart? Yup

We've even got some bizarre and uh... interesting stuff too.

(that image is from a fangame called haalluci-sabat of Koishi and it isn't really nsfw, but you know, just to be safe...) Safe for work Satori to the rescue I guess. For the record the majority of the touhous are adults, the style is just cutesy. It's a large and very old fandom. My point here is you really can find just about anything in terms of fanwork.

That's it. That's the post. This took over an hour. My asks are open if you have questions.

[mrs0verthink3r]

New blog intro

The basic stuff about me

Age:16

Gender: female

Pronouns: she/her

Sexuality: straight

•Still looking for friends

Personally

I’m nice, but sometimes I feel like being a hater on a bad day

I do curse

Willing to talk to anyone

Hobbies

Drawing, Reading , Listening to music, Watch tv , Baking, Cuddling with my cat, Exercising ,Shopping

My interests

Movies / shows : MLP , Miraculous ladybug , Ginny and Georgia, squid game, Alice in borderland, stranger things the rookie, modern family, young Sheldon, Orphan, Saw  movies , Triangle ,The autopsy of Jane doe,  Hell house , terrifier, Grave encounters , Ready or not ,A quiet place, The Blair witch project , mha, Madoka Magica, kakegurui, and many more

Games : Genshin impact, Honkai star rail, Roblox, project sekai, Minecraft, Fnaf, shining Nikki ,pony town. ( I don’t have a pc,console, or computer ) 

Other things : I like cats sometimes other animals,  my favorite flowers are red spider lily’s, cherry blossoms, blue lotus flowers, and peony.

Fandoms: Creepypasta, slenderverse, Sanrio, vocaloids, ever after high, monster high,Bratz, Danganronpa, and more 

( I’M  NOT A TOXIC PERSON ) that includes everything I like, I’m not that type of person,and I don’t hate on other’s interests, and I don’t Sexualize characters. So there’s no need to worry about me.

Music artists I listen to

( I really like music) ( It’s in no Pacific order) 

24 hanabie

23 ATARASHII GAKKO!

22 Itzy - my bias- Yeji 

21 New jeans - my bias - Hanni

20 Halsey 

19 Insane clown posee 

18 Katy Perry 

17 Millionaires 

16 Kesha 

15 ILLIT - my bias - Minju

14 Britney Spears 

13 Black pink - my bias - Jennie 

12 Red velvet - my bias - Wendy 

11 le sserafim - my bias - Sakura 

10 Ic3peak 

9 Twice - my bias - Dahyun

8 Ive - my bias - Liz 

7 Aespa - my bias - Giselle 

6 Marina 

5 Lady Gaga 

4 Baby metal 

3 (G)I-DLE - my bias - Yuqi 

2 Jazmin bean 

1 Baby monster - my bias -  Ruka 

Daily Reminders for you and me 

Remember to drink water and eat healthy don’t skip a meal it’s only going to hurt you. 

Feel good about yourself don’t let others take away your confidence. 

It’s okay to take a break from social media for a few days or weeks everyone needs one. 

Please try to stay healthy I know so from personal experiences it can be hard but I believe in you try and get motivators work out. ( I like taking a shower or working out when I feel down it might be different for you though) 

Remember no is perfect  so it’s okay to make mistakes sometimes just don’t let it overflow 

DNI LIST 

Homophobic, Transphobic,etc.

Misogynistic

Racist, Sexist, Ableist, Discrimination, etc.

DO NOT  send me  S/H, e/d, etc stuff like that  

Overall

am here to talk if you want but if it’s sounds like it needs professional help please talk to a trusted adult. If you feel suicidal please text or call 988, 911, 741741 

Also don’t be an asshole, it’s my blog if you don’t like it you have a block button for reason so use it,  instead of being a no life who hates on everything you see. Have a good night or day everyone  :) 

[foggypeacestrawberry]

Dragonfish Reloaded

I continue the story of the WaterFireGod, for part 1 click here

(1) Remember the gate, where the humanoid aliens came through?:

(2) It changed a lot after them humanoids arived -

(3) The second invasion started at dawn. It all happened very fast:

Some very mighty guards came through the gate...

(4) ...and them tiny fragile blossoms, that arrived earlier with the humanoids, grew within seconds into all kinds of - plants?! :

(5) At the same time, a second gate opened…

(6) … spitting out some more "visitors"…

(7) … all kinds of pretty agressive fellas!

(8) The whole garden of our little unnamed sim changed into a nightmare.

Well, he called them, and they came, right?

(9) They forced him to sit down and stay put on an alienesh-crystal-stone-stool-thingy…

(10) …and startet talking…

(11) … to their GOD! The WaterFireGod. Our well known dragonfish.

(12) Then they told our little unnamed sim, that they will return to their home planet through that portal, together with their god...

(13) … right after they solved this kind-a-tricky problem, that they just learned about from the little fish - sry, your highness, of course -

(14) Turns out, unfortunatly they can not just kill the sim, and leave with their god, as they intended…

(15) … because their god can not survive without our little unnamed sim, due to the bond that exists between them. This bond must be broken of course. Or else!

(16) (Moment of akward silence)

(17) They startet negotiating. Meanwhile it was bright daylight.

(18) They discussed during the whole day…

(19) …and also the whole next night.

(20) It turned out, there is more to the good old dragonfish than we ever imagined:

When he spits fire unterwater, while living with a sim that he has a very special bond with, the fire sinks down on the ground, and turnes into gold.

And you know what they say about dragons… they protect treasure.

Next time I will tell you:

What kind of bond the sim + the dragonfish do have,

what the sim is doing with all this gold?!,

and what the "Fisch des Grauens*" has to do with all that

ITS YOUR TURN NOW!

I want you to have the option to influence the story. You can choose 1 of these 3 options, what you want me to put into the story next:

No 1 - Someone will die

OR

No 2 - No one will die

OR

No 3 - Something will happen that has to do with owls.

Just write it into the comments until the End of April, then we will wrap it up and count the voices for 1/2/3!

* Please someone tell me how this fish is called in English, I couldn´t figure that out! (the dark-greenish fella living in the ponds of graveyards, killing all other fishes, and that can be used for prolonging live) - Or maybe I´ll just make up a new name for it :-D , you can recognize it anyway by the pictures I will take then.

The mods I used here for the first time:

Asparagus densiflorus, from alex_stanton1983

Lotus Lamp, from 4Sims

Floor-Lamp Skoll, from sim_man123

From @murfeelee :

TW3 Archespore Miniset

Skyrim Blackreach Giant Mushrooms as Outdoor Lights Miniset

AMR Small Plants Group

Junk Pile as Coin Pile

Deniisu_TS4 to TS3 RoM Rug Medallion as Floor Light

Thank you, @murfeelee! Love your stuff since I played the first time with the telvanni-village, and that was on my old computer (meanwhile, this computer I´m using now is pretty old).

I will also continue the 10-things-challange, weeks ago I already picked the items for the next round - but at the moment, I want to finish that alien-story first!

And yes, I still have to finish the sorting of my mod-collection. That has highest priority, not just because I want to continue playing, but also because of this 10-things-challange I started. For both I need a well-sorted, richly filled mod-folder (lol).

Well. The last weekend I spend downloading nearly everything that Murfeelee ever published :-D ! Just the sorting of this murfeelee-collection alone will take a week, or two, or whatever it takes :-D.

I started yesterday evening with the Letter A. Today I will do the B… like in "babysteps". Like in "Baby Yoda as Teddybear", that is the first mod beginning with a "B" in my murfeel-folder.

Just imagine, this green little fella, how well he would have fit in my alien-story, if I would have known this mod a week before.

You all have a good time :-)

Oh NO now I need to do the tagging. I still have NO clue how that really works here on tumblr, although I always watch you other simmers out there, and try to get it.

[walkingstackofbooks]

SNW 2x04 Among the Lotus Eaters thought-stream

[7 July '23]

You know it's gonna be good when the entire crew are featured in the recap! :D

I love to pieces that Pike is Always Cooking!

"Unless it's a red alert, I'm incommunicado for the next half hour." Allowing so little time, that's being pretty savvy

"Maybe we should pull it back a little." "Your timing is perfect." Yeah, Pike, so you think she really wants to be broken up with /just after she doesn't get a promotion?? Ouch

Erica nodding at "This is an undercover recon mission" - I can just imagine her saying groovy idk why XD

"Oh. You did that thing you do." Yep, Una sees through him straight away

I looove how excited Erica is

Oh nooo! You can't bench her! That's so unfair! She's got the hat and everything!

"I'm fine. Doctors love being tasked for a mission because of their combat skills." Oh, M'Benga.

Oooh that ringing is horrible

La'an, noo, it's not just a headache, you know better than to hide something that's wrong! There's only three of you!S

urely having a way to beam back to the shuttle would be worth the risk?

"We know you come from Starfleet." WELP this isn't going to be easy to get out of then!

"It's High Lord Zacarias.... I'm a long way from yeoman." Gosh I already love this guy as a villain but boy why do I feel this is going to be a tough episode?

"Haven't you noticed how hard it is to think?" Aghhhhh

"Reason doesn't exist here. You'll learn that." Wow.

Yes, we're back on the bridge - will Erica get to save the day after all?! (Moretegas, moretegas, moretegas)

"As long as it stays isolated to Uhura, we should be able to manage it." "Bridge to sickbay" Yeah, no, it's not gonna be that easy, Christine. Aaaand I'm terrified for what happens when the radiation gets to you.

Some random person is really risking themselves to say "Wait" to the guard? That's lovely.

This is a terrifying setup. Perfect for a tyrant to take control.

"You are guided by your emotions. They are your truth. I find them convincing." :3

"What is this place?" Oh no! Oh no! You can't forget the Enterprise!

"I believe the answer is here, but I cannot read this." fuuuuu-

Ohh is Erica gonna find her log from the start??

M'Benga is wild good even without serum, what!

"I'm Erica Ortegas. I fly the ship." Powerful

You'd have thought someone would have thought to get the computer to keep sending out reminders earlier?

Oh no! Pike could kill Zac and he wouldn't even know until after who he killed!

...Or suddenly his memory will come back and he'll freeze as he realises what he's doing?

That's all stuff Erica's done hundreds of times?? Who even is she? Majestic. We stan

"It figures you'd start a revolution." *manic laughter*

Oh jeez, Pike is gonna be so upset with himself after this

Why would Zac taunt Pike so much if he doesn't want to die?

"I don't blame Spock. He's still got a lot to learn." HAH

"Your logic... Feels sound to me." that switch in logic v feeling <3 <3

"There are only a handful of people in the galaxy who get what it is to be a Starfleet Captain." I get that, but that's not really a basis for a whole relationship...

Pike in this really has felt emotionally like the Pike in the pilot episode, when he talks to Boyce, idk? (Mind, I haven't watched that in a good while so might be off)

[lizzisimss]

Modern Tudor Family Home CC List

ATS4 - https://sims4.aroundthesims3.com/index.shtml

·       Bulk Grocery Table

Brazen lotus - https://www.brazenlotus.com/objects-d... :

·       EP09 Ship In A Bottle Short

·       EP09 The Trouble with Plants

·       EP09 Whatever you Want

·       GP07 Heavy Metal Shelf

·       SP13 Folded Clothing Deco

·       SP13 Laundry Made Deluxe

·       SP13 Laundry Made Essentials

 charly pancakes - https://www.patreon.com/charlypancakes

·       The Lighthouse Collection

·       Dinna Merged

·       Lavish Merged

·       Modish Merged

·       Munch Merged

·       Smol Merged

·       Soak Merged

·       The Candle deco version

felixandre - https://www.patreon.com/felixandre

·       Shop the Look Season 1 Merged

 house of harlix - https://www.houseofharlix.com

·       Orjanic Merged

·       Bafroom Merged

·       Baysic Merged

·       Harluxe Merged

·       Jardane Merged

·       Livin’Rum Merged

·       The Kichen Merged

·       Tiny Twavellers Merged

 harrie - https://www.patreon.com/heyharrie

·       Brownstone Collection

·       Brutalist Bathroom

·       Country Collection

·       DU Windows Updated

·       Octave Merged

·       Stockholm

Kardofe - https://kardofe.tumblr.com/tagged/sims%204%20cc

·       Charlie Bedroom Pictures

·       Home DIY Tool Board

 Kiwisim - https://www.patreon.com/Kiwisim4

·       Block House

·       Piha

·       Tekapo

 leaf motif - https://leaf-motif.tumblr.com

·       2202 Magnolia Bathroom

·       Astral Lights

·       Aubrey Office

·       Basil Chair

·       Botanic Boudoir

·       Calliope Bathroom

·       Devon Kitchen

·       Ivy Hallway

·       Keller Hallway

·       Little Ceramics

·       Patron gift 1

·       Patron gift 3

·       Patron gift 4

·       Patron gift 5

·       Starlight Crystals

·       Sunbeam Study

·       Vintage Crockery

lilis-palace - https://www.patreon.com/lilis_palace

·       Folklore Set Off the Grid Living

Littlecakes - https://litttlecakes.tumblr.com/downloadspage

·       Poor Bunny

·       Twinkly Lights

 littledica - https://www.patreon.com/littledica

·       Countryside Cabin Merged

·       Eco Kitchen Stuff Pack Merged

·       Greasy goods merged

·       Rise & Grind Café Merged

·       Sleek Slumber Stuff Pack Merged

·       Deligracy Merged Cottage Living Update

·       Summer Party

 Madlen - https://www.patreon.com/madlen

·       Nuri Rug

·       Brizo Soap Dispenser

·       Lorens Chair

·       Lorens Shelf Miu Lamp

Marvell - https://marvell-world.tumblr.com/download

·       Upcycle Bed

·       Upcycle Books

 max 20 - https://www.patreon.com/Max20

·       Child dream kit

·       Master bedroom pack

 Maxsus - https://maxsus.tumblr.com/post/640662541333348352/download

·       Poolside lounge pack

mlys - https://mlyssimblr.tumblr.com/

·       Pufferhead

·       Computer MookBook v2

·       Deco Storage Basket

my cup of cc -https://www.patreon.com/mycupofcc

·       Avant Basic Lounge Set

·       Colour Talk Kitchen Merged

·       Colour Talk Dining Stuff

·       Maple Manor The Modernist Collection Living Room

·       August 2021

·       March 2022

·       November 2021

·       October 2021

myshunosun - https://www.patreon.com/myshunosun

·       Garden stories

·       Nora Living

·       Serene Bathroom

·       The art room

·       Uma living

·       Arrie office

·       Daria Bedroom

·       Dawn

·       Lottie

·       Moonwood

MXSIMS - https://mxims.tumblr.com/tagged/mycc

·       Ikea Barso Wall Grid B

oni - https://www.patreon.com/oni28

·       Antique Country Dining Basket

·       Vintage Living Room Poster

 peacemaker - https://peacemaker-ic.tumblr.com/TS4O...

·       Bayside Bedroom Set Merged

·       Elsie Bedroom Basics

·       Futura Merged

·       Hinterlands Bedroom

·       Hinterlands Living

·       Hudson Bathroom

·       Kingston Dining

·       Kitayama Dining Merged

·       Kitayama Living Merged

·       MidCentury Eclectic Merged

·       Paige Seating

·       Quintin Kitchen

·       Roarsome Kids Bedroom Merged

·       Shore Seating

·       Bowed Channeled Petite Coffee Table

pierisim - https://www.patreon.com/pierisim

·       Precious Promises

·       Calderone Bedroom

·       MCM All

·       Oakhouse all

·       The Office Mini Kit

·       Tidying Up

·       Coldbrew Coffeeship

·       Domaine Du Clos part 1 Merged

·       Winter Garden

 PufferSuffer - https://www.patreon.com/puffersuffer

·       5pack pillow fawn

·       20pack drying machine

·       20pack washing machine

  simplisticsims - http://simplisticsims4.com

·       BG Bath Cabinet

·       Cottage roman curtain

·       Loloi contemporary rugs 2

·       RH Bottombunk

·       RH Bunkbeds

·       RH wallartsquareDH

·       RPC CurtainA

·       Tot Barn Rug

 sixiamcc - https://imfromsixam.tumblr.com/

·       Breeze of Greece Buy Mode

·       Oak & Concrete Kit Merged

·       PD Lilla Kids Bedroom

·       Artz

·       Forjasline

·       Home Basics

·       Home Office

·       Hotel Bedroom

·       Kids room cc pack

·       Luxbath

·       Retro Vibes

·       Small spaces

·       SpringSix Kitchen

·       Teen Room

·       Earbuds Plumbob Earbuds Replacement

 SurelySims - https://surely-sims.tumblr.com/downloads

·       Deco Nuka Cola

·       Fallout baby

Clutter Cat - https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/thec...

·       Busy Bee

·       Petits Pirates

·       222

·       Cat milk no 1 reloaded

·       Cat milk no 2 reloaded

 TUDS -https://www.patreon.com/TudTuds

·       Beam Parte 2 V01 Merged

·       Beam Kitchen Complete Set Merged v02

·       Cross Merged

 awingedllama - https://www.patreon.com/awingedllama

·       Apartment therapy inspired stuff v2 Merged

Wondymoon - https://wondymoon.com/

·       Ailuropoda Painting

Severinka - https://www.thesimsresource.com/artists/Severinka_/

·       Cleo living room heating radiator

Kaiso - https://www.patreon.com/kaiso

·       Lizards

·       Rusti co

Tray files are available on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lizzisimss

Please consider supporting if you wish :)

[riah-yorke-lex]

Hey so I’m gonna talk abt something this might get me cancelled idk and I wanna be clear I’m not an expert and I can’t diagnose anything nor would I try to actually diagnose someone I don’t know or even someone I do know I’d recommend they don’t get help but

Does anyone else think Thom Yorke is autistic? By the way I am autistic myself and have been around a lot of neurodivergent people.

Like I know it sounds crazy but listening to Radiohead like…his brain is weird and I get it? I don’t mean any of that as an insult but the way he thinks about things deeply, arguably overthinks things and all is a lot like my own brain. The way he does his funny little stage dances, it seems like some sort of excited stimming like during the idioteque performances! Also a lot of us have executive functioning problems and sometimes perfectionism prevents us from getting things done. Thom takes a long time trying to make albums and he is a known perfectionist to the point of getting angry onstage when things go badly. He doesn’t collaborate with that many people outside of his circle, unlike someone like Damon Albarn who collabs with everyone. We can obviously assume Thom is an introvert and being around people for too long can be exhausting, but there’s a difference from introversion and the social drain that I get where even a simple thing like going on a train can be really overwhelming (see “Glass Eyes”). There’s the intense burnout after the OK Computer era which yes, can be due to fame and introversion, but I also think there is more to it. Additionally, many of his works are about feeling isolated from society and misunderstood, which is a common feeling for neurodivergent people. Sometimes we think about things more deeply than neurotypicals, and can either be hypo or hyper empathetic in how we see the world, and I see a lot of that in Thom’s writing.

Then there is his body language. He is often awkward in interviews, again, I know shy people exist, but the way he averts his gaze or stares awkwardly into the camera is very telling. When he gets into music onstage he often does crazy almost manic dancing as if possessed by the music, there is also lotus flower…I feel like this odd dancing is a form of stimming, as sometimes when I am excited about something I’m writing or thinking about I start pacing the room or jumping around, I think it’s similar.

I also suspected Liam Gallagher has ADHD as he cannot stop fidgeting during interviews and always tweets random stuff changing the topic. I dated a guy with ADHD and it was rough sometimes.

If this is true, they are likely not diagnosed because of the time they’re born in. Thom may not even be aware, he might just think he’s his own beautiful odd self lmao. It’s also possible he got diagnosed and hasn’t share it with anyone which is also fine, I respect it. Again, if I’m wrong, I’m sorry, but I just have a strong feeling.

[thejudgingtrash]

Can you explain to me how Rachel was annoying in the series?

Well, I’ll try to keep myself short for this one (lol no, this took an hour to write). Also, let’s not forget that they’re all kids, but I’m basing this off from when I read the series as a fourteen year old because my opinions haven’t changed much (for better or for worse).

I’m not the biggest fan of Rachel. I have to admit that portrayals of her by Simi, Kit, Logan, Apollo and all the others helped to shape her into something cooler than what she had been in my foggy memories but I actually went back to take a look in the books (well, TTC + BOTL so far) to refreshen my mind about events that have happened.

Also, you should browse through @blackjacktheboss's blog as she’s a) hilarious and b) says whatever I say in like a single sentence lol. But your ask is about me and my opinions so here we go:

What I didn’t like about Rachel was that she’s rude and bold (DON’T GET ME WRONG, I love that in female characters!!!), but she doesn’t have Annabeth’s excuse of survival of the fittest (literally running off as a traumatized seven year old) and introducing us into the world of the Riordanverse.

Percy was on his way, had shit to deal with and Rachel pretty much interrupted him from the get-go and thought getting her answers was more important than letting Percy just rush forward. Yes, this is Rachel’s entrance into the series and the net Riordan threw into the sea, to make us little fish adapt to her. But it still didn’t sit right with me, probably because I would never interact that way.

I get why she did that, but it’s the way how she did it that’s just making me go ???

Even if I was seeing weird things, I wouldn’t set out to distract/interrupt someone who is incredibly busy to get my way. Rachel’s dick move seems like a Karen boomer type of thing to pull off, but guess that’s up to you.

If I were her, I’d either film/try to photograph the monsters via phone (if that’s possible) or internet stalk enough to find the other person (note: despite Riordan’s stupid rule of not being able to use phones, demigods still can use computers/the internet, I guess). Percy was national news like a year or two ago in the timeline, so it shouldn’t be that difficult to find more stuff out about him, even in like 2008 or so. Let him have a spot on Perez Hilton's shitty gossip blog, for the OGs reading this.

Annabeth was used as a tool of exposition to introduce us to CHB, the demigod life and how things roll around there. She barged into Percy’s mission as a nuisance first but a necessity second in TLT.

However, in comparison to Rachel, Annabeth was transformed into a fully-fledged protagonist within a span of a chapter or two. Rachel needed another separate book after her first appearance, so we don’t just know Annabeth better, we know that she’s an important constant throughout the story as of Rachel seems… almost random? Is she truly necessary as a character?

This doesn’t come from a shipper perspective, this is coming from a character design perspective and adds to the feeling that the way she has been introduced to me as a reader just seems off.

Yes, BOTL makes sense with her as a reborn Ariadne, but technically Sally could’ve done the job as she’s a clear-sighted mortal as well lol. Then again, Sally is an adult, went to college, had a job, was unfortunately probably working it up with Paul, did the cha cha slide with him and had overall better shit to do.

Then Rachel as the oracle, which is just super weird in general. Wasn’t Apollo himself responsible for issuing prophecies in the OG myths? Or did he both, have the oracle of Delphi as his spokesperson and issue important stuff to Team Olympus? Am I mixing things up? I’m getting sidetracked, my bad.

Either way, this oracle gig might be the only time I’d say Rachel might be important in the future (badum tzz), but Riordan fumbled the bag in the follow ups series so there’s that. Did she even appear in HOO? Can’t remember and also don’t care.

Rachel is used as one out of three choices in regard to his love life that Percy can make. Calypso literally got introduced into BOTL and was admittedly Percy’s biggest what if… But the general gist doesn’t sit right with me. We have three possible routes with Percy and the others:

Rachel: somewhat normality in the mortal realm

Annabeth: the danger and thrill of the demigod life

Calypso: ambrosia and nectar. a hint of immortality

(On one hand, literally why but on the other hand, mad props for Percy who has literally three romantic leads in the same book.) I’d cancel one of them at least out and since Annabeth isn’t going anywhere, I’m taking Rachel. Sally could literally been Percy’s anchor to a normal mortal life as she had intended until it didn’t work out anymore when he became twelve and his monster alerting scent grew stronger.

Calypso and Annabeth would’ve been the perfect opposites where each of them had a strong case. The demigod life within the realms or mortal or the demigod life ascending to Olympus/immortality. Sounds cooler and is way simpler. Three people is way too much, this truly feels like a shonen anime harem thing and it’s defo not my cup of tea (and while some Annabeth sideships aren’t my thing (Lukabeth go cry in the corner, no one likes you, WTF, Connabeth you fugly), it’s super unfair that Annabeth solely has Percy (fuck off Luke) to rely on in regards of romantic endeavors).

Rachel almost feels redundant? The option to walk away from all of that… which isn’t really true as Rachel really tries to push and insert herself into the story the very first time we meet her? But that’s just me, I’m certain that others are saying they’d kill off Annabeth or kick Calypso (I mean yeah) into the curb.

Big ALSO:

Why does Percy need another white and uber-rich love interest?

I semi-joked on Dez’ post (@sawasawako) with this response about Annabeth needing to keep up with powerful Rachel, but the core still stands.

We already have an affluent Annabeth (granted, we don’t know exactly how the Chase’s riches are divided, whereas it’s clear that Rachel can just make anyone drop dead by saying who she is. Annabeth needed that weird lotus casino credit card to make that happen, so Miss Harvard Legacy doesn’t wield that Dare schmoney. Also don’t think Annabeth can just up papa’s money and go…? Idk).

Why do we need another person needing to upstage this?

Like Rachel has to triumph in regards to standard and prestige as if it were a badly written Jane Austen AU. For what reason…? Why not make Percy friends and acquaintances with someone who comes from a normal household for once, not super rich brats (Piper, Annabeth, Rachel, technically the Graces with their TV starlet mother amongst others).

Moreover…

Important question: why should Percy actually be impressed/attracted to that? He’s dirt poor and has been sent to (boarding) schools filled with stupid rich people since he’s been twelve, probably even younger than that. As if that’s the very first thing Percy would look out for or be wowed or something. He’s used to rich douchebags. I think he’s more surprised that someone used their money for his benefit for once and not to crash daddy’s new Mercedes again.

Like seriously… Rachel did that weird art project thing in BOTL with her covered in gold and posing like it’s a super normal thing to do? Even for rich snobbish kids standards? That sounds weird to me. I don’t know, maybe Riordan’s been streaming the new Gossip Girl reboot on HBO Max on repeat and thought this girl is on fiyah (performed by Alicia Keys).

Rachel trying to separate herself from her money just comes off as super hypocritical when she’s using the very same funds to finance her lifestyle. I get it, trying to make amends and make a difference with the damage you have done but... your father still doesn't give a shit about the environment or YOU, sweetie. Kick him in the balls for once! Then you can go out about your art projects.

The concept of Percy having friends in the mortal realm is cool, but why does Rachel almost have to compete with Annabeth with her wealth and art stuff?

No seriously, the comparisons are constantly there, out and about. Roaming freely on the finest grass, needing to be feed delicious locally sourced carrots and stuff.

Annabeth is Athena’s kid. Athena is the goddess of wisdom, weaving, justice, warfare yada yada and arts and crafts. So definitely something which would affect Rachel, right (someone write that Athena messing with Rachel because she can AU and tag me please!)?

Annabeth wants to become an architect which translates to fancy building designer who is driving engineers like Leonardo Eugenio Valdez Cortes insane irl because the maths and physics don't work like that in the working field trust me I'm an engineer, which could/should be considered an art form.

They even shared some common ground while talking about architecture and design in BOTL!

Furthermore, they both share broken homes with absent parents (granted that all demigods go through that). Wealthy families at that as well. Shitty fathers that don’t care about their daughters well-being. Rachel however, is super powerful and influential in an unseen level in the mortal world. She isn’t like Matt Sloan (?) who truly messes up by destroying shit to get his father's attention, but she’s still in that circle and can easily demonstrate that. Making deals with her father and what not. We rarely see Annabeth doing that. Did y’all forget the fucking helicopter Rachel brought along in TLO?

Pan saying Rachel is just as important as her father has multiple meanings to me…

(Sidenote: I do think it’s hilarious that Annabeth is jealous/annoyed of Rachel that her remarks were she’s cute right and Percy went??? Or when Tyson said Rachel’s pretty? Or that time when Annabeth actually defended Luke and his weird behavior (because Kronos was slowly taking over, don’t forget that kids!), because f that rich artist nepotism kid that Rachel seems to be, right?)

Another note: Percy thinks Rachel is annoying in BOTL for a while and it took a while for him to admit that and he spent way more time being annoyed/jealous (for once, Lordy) at Luke for him to even notice lol.

I guess it’s really hard for me to exactly pinpoint what’s bothering me. I believe Rachel's persona just doesn’t seem to hit right, because it feels like a knock-off Annabeth who just simply isn’t a demigod, yet has two cool powers, but in even richer who still needs to be part of the story for exactly what reason?

The jumping around from the richest in the series to the poorest in the series is kinda bothering me as if the middle class doesn’t exist, like I’ve stated earlier. Why didn’t Riordan mix it up with Rachel, giving her more nuance the minute they met, not towards the end? Have her be Percy’s platonic friend from the get go. No weird oh wait she is kinda cute in the middle bullshit.

This kinda drifted more into a Perachel vs Percabeth essay, which really wasn’t my intention. Don’t worry kids, I’m criticizing Annabeth (and her stans) enough already.

And I do think that others in the fandom have softened my views on Rachel as a person like I’ve stated in the beginning. So friendship!Perachel is popping! But I do think that there are some valid points that I’ve made.

Also not gonna lie, Rachel issuing the new prophecy in TLO kinda dampened the end of PJO series but that’s more Riordan’s fault than hers.

TLDR: I’m just not a huge fan of this overbearing, uber-rich, excessively flaunting being that Rachel sometimes displays. She’s flawed, she’s broken at times, has a semi-interesting background story (although it has been done over and over again throughout the series and should be changed up for once) which is great, but it is still annoying.

We don’t need an anti-Annabeth who feels like a weird caricature of the real Annabeth.

Also if this seems super incoherent, repetitive, or whatever, I'm sorry, massive headaches + mental health going down the goo lagoon does this to ya, I hope I made somewhat sense!

[chongoblog]

Zero Time Dilemma Review/Ramble

Okay, so if you’ve been following me, you know that I’ve gotten into the Zero Escape series, famous for 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward, streaming both games. I recently took the time to experience the last game, Zero Time Dilemma by watching cutscenes rather than playing it proper mostly because A) I heard it was REALLY dark and didnt want to risk it on Twitch and B) I wanted to experience it more freely like while I’m at work.

After experiencing it. I have......feelings about it. And because there’s MASSIVE spoilers involved, I’m making it its own post under the ReadMore below.

tl;dr LOADS of bullshit, flawed execution, and stupid decisions, but still REALLY enjoyed it

Okay so a LOT of this is going to be complaining, and like I said in the tl;dr I still legit enjoyed this game, so I’m gonna make this a compliment sandwich by saying something nice now, loading up on complaints, then ending with more compliments. Carlos is good. So is Sean. Sigma being voiced by Matthew Mercer actually makes him more interesting imo. I REALLY like Phi’s new design and the way they build on the initial concepts brought up in VLR more accurately portray the ideas that started all the way back in 999, that being the idea of taking thoughts across timelines, just like the player. From the beginning, the theme/gimmick was always “what if your character remembered information when you savescummed?” In 999 that began as flashes of information, and in VLR the characters’ consciousness actually time traveled at the very end. ZTD now uses the idea of the consciousness traveling across time and space and RUNS with it. I also think that Delta has a cool design.

I’ll be nice again later, but now for the things I Did Not Like.

Emo Moody Junpei makes sense from a writing standpoint, but that doesn’t mean I have to like him. Maybe I just got spoiled since Evan Wilson did a spectacular job with his deliveries in 999 and in ZTD it seems like his soul got sucked out. Not the fault of the delivery as much as it is the writing. Eric is bad, and I feel like that statement isn’t controversial. I don’t think anyone likes Eric, and if you do, then sorry for shitting on him so much, but god I just don’t like him. And the abusive childhood thing doesn’t give me a drop of sympathy, but then again I’ve always hated the writing trick that “this person is shitty and pathetic but it’s because abuse!” (see also Mikan). Diane is boring (sorry).

But I fuuuuuckin HATE Mira. I hate Mira so much. Like, at first I thought she’d be alright, yeah she’s definitely The Boob Character™, but I liked Lotus well enough and Alice grew on me significantly, so I don’t see why Mira won’t. Then she’s like “surprise I’m a serial killer”. Now if they just made her a serial killer, it would be kinda boring so I’m glad they TRIED something new. I just think the result was bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad. Like....”hmm I never felt any emotions so when my mom told me they were kept in hearts I just ripped em out of people :)” is some garbage I’d write in middle school when I felt especially edgy. Also yeah seems p ableist. I won’t go too deeper into Mira, since she’s a sociopath and I don’t know enough about the actual disorder to put a candle to the real thing, but....bleh.

I won’t touch on THIS aspect for too long because I’m aware that it had barely any budget and it wouldn’t have happened without a kickstarter (don’t know the details), but the animation is just....so stiff. It really takes away from the dramatic impact some scenes are meant to have. But even IF the animation wasn’t stiff, I still am not a big fan of the darker and moodier direction it went. Although that’s moreso down to personal preference. Final note about the presentation (which is by far the game’s weakest aspect) is that I noticed multiple points in the sound mixing got to nearly Sonic Adventure 2 levels of being unable to understand what people were saying.

Alright. Now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Let’s talk about Delta. This is going to make up a MAJORITY of this post so strap in.

Delta is a meme. There’s no other way to say it briefly. He’s just such a huge fucking meme. Almost everything about him, from his plan to his “complex” motives to his backstory to his powers. I mentioned liking his design, but fuck it. That’s a meme now too. Delta is the stupidest part of the game, and as much as I kind of love it, I also need to complain about it.

First let’s talk about Delta’s plan (because it starts with the nicest part of this segment). His motives are “complex” which is actually greek for “he’s probably either a liar, an idiot, or both”. I said there was nice things, so I’ll start with those. The very ending’s “ah ah ah. I never killed any of you in this timeline. If you arrested someone for crimes of another history, there would be criminals everywhere” was something I actually legitimately enjoyed. Yeah, intent was still there and he’s still a bastard (plus there was kidnapping and non-consensual drugging involved so kind of a stupid take), but I still thought it was a fun attempt. And also the “I had to make sure I was born” thing is a mindfuck, and I love those. Basically the first retort is “well I’m alive, right? So I don’t need to make sure I was born with powers because I WAS born with powers, which means it happened in another universe. So I don’t have to.” Only to then realize that we’re just in the universe where he DID do that but then the only justification is “someone had to” right? Wrong. Let’s talk about the rest of his “complex” motives

So I give a pass to “I had to make sure I was born”, but now we see why he had to do this whole deal and what he declares at the end of the game. That there’s some religious fanatic who intends to blow up the world and completely end humanity. And he released Radical-6 in the VLR timeline hoping that it would kill the terroris only killing 4 billion people instead of 6 billion people. In the timeline at the end of ZTD, he says that they had used this experience to hone the skills of the Shifters that way they could use their newly honed take down the religious fanatic WITHOUT Radical-6 and save the world.

What?

Now......before I tear into this.....I have ONE nice thing to say. The “unleash radical 6 and kill 4 billion vs let a terrorist end humanity” gambit IS cleverly foreshadowed with the radical 6 decision game with Q Team. But also wouldn’t that have made, like 1800 times more narrative sense to give that decision game to team D who KNOWS the impact of radical 6, or team C who he explains this plan to later on? Damn, even my nice thing was backhanded. Alright let’s REALLY tear into it.

FIRST of all, this is the exact same plot of Virtue’s Last Reward. Only difference is that somehow Akane and Junpei are just as skilled at this technique as Sigma and Phi despite the latter going to do Moon Training (granted the moon training was also to give them enough of a jump to go back 45 years). Speaking of Virtue’s Last Reward, this game also reveals that Delta is Brother, the leader of Free the Soul. A group of religious fanatics. So I wouldn’t be especially shocked if the religious fanatic is working with Free the Soul. But for the sake of this argument, let’s just say they aren’t with FtS. How in the Flavor-Blasted FUCK does he know this? Did somebody Shift back from that timeline and then just get Mind hacked (and we’ll fUCKING talk about Mind Hacking dont you worry)? How would that be the only piece of information known about the end of the god damn world? And if there IS more, then why the fuck wouldn’t you tell them the information? How does he know that it’s inevitable when apparently a god damn snail can unleash Radical-6?

I call bullshit on the “religious fanatic” thing. Wanna know why? Because at this point, Delta had already founded Free The Soul. He started this shit in 1938. At this point in time, he and the rest of the Free the Soul had already kidnapped Alice’s dad to create clones of his dead brother. He was pushing for a new world order and then in the VLR timeline, tried to PREVENT this whole thing from happening by sending Dio to the Moon. So if he actually gave a shit about “honing their abilities” then why would he do everything in his power to stop it? There is ONE out that there can be, but it’s something not even HINTED at (and I’ll talk about this later), but I think that "religious fanatic” is a big ol’ lie that he made up to try and save face when he was faced with a consequence, but even that explanation makes no sense since he’s like “lol shoot me if u wanna I wont mind hack you”

And let’s talk about mind hacking. Let’s fucking talk about Mind Hacking. Adding Mind Hacking was stupid, completely pointless, out of left field, and actively makes Delta a worse character. For those that don’t know, Mind Hacking is an ability that only Delta has (and I guess the player character technically but that’s a whole meta thing from VLR that doesn’t get followed up on) where you can read people’s minds and also fuckin control them. Why? Why was this necessary, ZTD? You wanna know what I thought was really neat? When I saw that different timelines produced different X-Codes. I thought “oh shit, I know this is Game Stuff, but the sheer foresight of the villain to do that? That’s some Moriarty shit.” It would require some insane explanations, but we’ve had enough sci-fi that we could imagine with enough advanced tech, you could set up systems that could use conditionals to give certain responses based on certain outcomes. Like if someone dies after the decontamination room button is pressed, then the central computer outputs a different X-Code than if it’s after the initial vote. Just make up a new tech that accounts for Shifting (plus the QUANTUM COMPUTER you have RIGHT THERE) and you could make a villain with so much calculated foresight that he’s just a god damn genius. But no. Mind hacking. None of that interesting stuff, just “lol I read ur mind idiot”. No outwitting anyone, just “lol get mindhacked eric u scrub bang bang”.

Honest to god, honest to FUCKING god, do you want to know how cool the final cutscene would have made Delta look if he walked out and just KNEW what happened in another timeline because of his plans. Like everyone recognizes him as Delta and he just goes “ohoho I see you had a fun time in my other timeline” using that deduction alone. But nah, he’s just like “yo I just mindhacked y’all, nice experience y’all had” I hate mind hacking so much. There’s no part of his plan where he NEEDED to mind hack in order to succeed that could have been written without mind hacking.

Now there’s a bit of a missed opportunity here that could both make mind hacking relevant, made his motive not shit, and also maybe even developed him into a SUPER interesting character! I know this is a bit fanfic-y, but hear me out. Make Delta a VICTIM of the stable time loop/bootstrap paradox. For those who don’t know, the bootstrap paradox is when time travel makes certain events happen seemingly out of thin air since they are their own cause. Basically it’s this clip from Milo Murphy. This is something that seems like it’s KINDA there in the subtext, but if they actually dove into it, they could have a GOLD mine.

What if we keep the mindhacking, and before he even MAKES Free the Soul, he mindhacks someone who experienced the events of the “religious fanatic”. But not just anyone. An experienced SHIFTer who made it their goal to stop this religious fanatic. After hundreds of attempts, they still fail. Delta sees this and determines it to be inevitable. So he’s having fun, cursed by the knowledge of an inevitable apocalypse. Then he meets Akane, Phi, Sigma, or Junpei after they had undergone the events of VLR and ZTD. He learns that particular timeline. A bleak future, yes, but one single future where humanity is alive. He sees two futures, one in which all of humanity dies, and one where he is the leader of a religious cult that wipes out 4 Billion People with a deadly pandemic. And the idea of being that person disgusts him. He despises it. But he’s completely resigned to fate. He knows that things must go precisely as he’s seen at the price of humanity, too frightened by such a burden to even take a toe off of the predetermined pathway. His motive is that he’s so tightly bound to fate and so afraid to let it slip that he has no choice but to commit the atrocities, despising himself for it every step of the way, but considering it better than the inevitable alternative. It would give a purpose for the mindhacking powers, it would give him a solid motive, and it would make the ending SO much stronger, showing the contrast between a group of SHIFTers confident that they can change fate and the man who is completely resigned to his own. Fuck, I might steal this character concept because I REALLY think this idea would work to make an interesting villain!

Like I mentioned, this is KINDA there in subtext (with him quite frequently saying “life truly is unfair”) and this could be an interpretation of the character, but if ZTD had explored that theme, then holy hell what an interesting character Delta would be.

But even WITH this fix, holy hell, this plan is stupid. Because guess what, dingus. You just created like 30 new timelines that all end in annihilation.

He coulda said ONE line about “even if there is only one history that ends nicely, that is solace enough”, that might have been dark, but still powerful. You know, add some depth. But instead, he’s just like “hmm hmm shoot me”

And the Q Twist? I’m honestly not as mad at it as I should be. On one hand, it does that cute thing where there are little bits of foreshadowing so when you rewatch it, you notice little bits like shadows and stuff, but on the other hand, there are PLENTY of points where either the camera just straight up lies to you and doesn’t show him when he should be there or Delta’s just been fuckin SHMOOVIN on his wheelchair around the room constantly to stay out of the camera and everyone’s just been kinda chill with it. Maybe if they had been more careful with the camera it could have delivered a TOUCH better. Like, even if the shots are a bit off, that’s noticeable enough to be part of the hint, no? I don’t have as much to say about this, mostly because this post is getting long as fuck so I’m gonna wrap it up so I can move on with my life for a bit.

So even with ALL OF THAT, I still enjoyed playing the game. That’s right, compliment sandwich time. The three wards all being one ward was a really neat reveal. The fact that you can shoot Delta in one scene is creative with its replay value. I’m glad they touched on the philosophical idea of what happens to the people who made it out from the coin flip only to get SHIFTed into the exploding lab, and exploring that idea was fun. I absolutely lost my mind at the idea of the gun to sigmas head had a random chance of firing and then seeing it elaborated on in the dice scene directly after it. Gab is a good boy.

Cant wait to play AI

[snarky-art]

My enchantix redesigns that I’ve had laying around for a while. I’m going through my computer to try and clear up space and came across some winx stuff. I haven’t done the wings for them still to this day in any finalized way because they are very intimidating to me lmao. Some info here on how enchantix outfits and fairy outfits work as well as the inspirations for the clothes for each of the characters below! I’m going to include some more individual design notes from my sketchbook later too.

In my version of the winx redo, all fairy transformations have to do with a sense of self to an extent. The more sure and secure of oneself one is, the more likely certain parts of the outfits are to carry over to the other transformations. For example: I have multiple transformations for Daphne that I’ve done, but there are a lot of traits carried over in the designs (her tirar, her color scheme, cut of cloth, etc) since she was always very self assured in who she was. She was Marion and Oritel’s daughter, future queen of Domino, and the keeper of The Dragon Flame and she was going to become as strong as she could for her people and the universe so she could use The Dragon Flame as best as possible. (I swear I’ll upload her stuff at some point they’ve been collecting dust for literal years now sskdjkjfla).

The same can’t really be said of the girls here, and that’s fine too. Aisha is the one with the most confidence in who she is and that shows here in the carrying over of her metal accents (arm bands, a metal ring at her waist, albeit with a jewel in it this time) and the cloth that goes across her chest and wraps around her waist.

Another thing that can influence the appearance of a fairy transformation is closeness with another individual. Aisha at this point already knows she likes Musa (I’m going to upload a post after this going more in depth on their relationship in my version) and her double buns are influenced by that since that’s one of the main ways Musa likes to style her hair (she also helped Aisha really perfect how to do the hairstyle and as that was one of the first thigs Aisha ever really did with a friend after Anne left when she was young and not including the pixies, so it holds a lot of sentimental value to her. Musa was the one who went out of her way a LOT more than anyone else to try and get Aisha comfortable with everything. The other girls did too of course but Musa just kind of gets how it feels to be alone more than they do so they really understood each other.) Musa in turn also has armbands like Aisha and some cloth hanging from the tie around her waist in a way similar to the cloth trail around Aisha’s.

Bloom also has similar armor to Stella because of this, since Stella is Bloom’s closest friend out of the 6 and is the one who introduced her to magic and what it can mean to be a fairy.

Enchantix in itself works basically the same as it does in the show, and as the main focus of it is to save someone from your planet so you can become a guardian of it (there can be multiple guardians for a homeworld too. I always thought it was weird that it was implied there can only be one. The guardian fairies of a planet act as a protective council of sorts. They are expected to place the priority of protecting life on the planet above all else and sometimes align themselves with royalty as advisors for things if they it is requested of them by the royalty, but they are expected to be willing to break ties with any allegiance if the leader is doing things that upset the balance of the planet and enact cruelty, not that guardians have always done that in the past). As a result, it is tied closely to the culture of their homeworld, or the culture that the fairy is from if the planet doesn’t have a largely homogenous one.

Musa is based off of Chinese and Japanese culture, which is a really broad statement I know since there is so much that goes into those countries, but I tried my best to have it line up with the clothes she wears in the show and it seemed to be similar to that (and obviously her homeplanet is clearly inspired by Asia). Similar to what her original skirt seemed to be, the pants are inspired by paper lanterns, and the upper shirt part is inspired by the tops of dresses during the late tang dynasty. The design of the belt she has, although I didn’t really do a close up of it, is braided similarly to shimenawa (a rope used in ritual purification in the Shinto religion). She has an open lotus blossom that her hair is in the middle of that holds her buns in place and her makeup is based off of the Tang Dynasty and the little hair piece she has acting as her tiara thing (all the girls had one so I tried to carry that over) is based off of Quing dynasty hair styles specifically but like, similar hairstyles were used in other eras too I just liked those specifically.

Flora’s is based off of Mexican style clothes. The top part is based off of Folklorico dresses and the petal style I used for it is based off of marigold petals, which are used to lead deceased loved ones to the families shrine during Day of the Dead. Her makeup is also based off of designs seen on calaveras. Her head piece is a flower crown which is now a common staple seen in women’s fashion during festivals due to Freda Kahlo and her hair is divided into two parts. The upper part is pulled back into a braid that has a vine weaved in with it, which I took inspiration from hairstyles down there that thread ribbon into the braids.

Aisha’s was a trip to figure out. So her homeplanet really is,, something. There’s some middle eastern influence (her name is also Arabic), her mom and her when she was younger wore some 1500s style renaissance clothes, and also they have a shaman that seems to be based off of African medicine men, and then also there are mermaids wearing European style armor, so I had to do some looking around to figure out what I wanted to do here. In the end I went with Moroccan and Zulu style clothing overall with a few other influences as well and tried to mesh them together. The headpiece and the sash/hood are based off of women’s head dresses in Morocco and the facepaint, arm and leg bands are based off of traditional Zulu attire. Cowrie shells are on the bottom of the leg and arm bands as they are used in Zulu attire in the same place as well sometimes, but also because a lot of African cultures see cowries as being representative as gateways to the spirit world (a lot of cultures have the spirit world and afterlife tied to the ocean). Her stack of necklaces are based off of the necklaces worn by the people Ndebele people of South Africa. Her shorts and top are rimmed with silver and the shape of the attire itself is meant to be athletic and practical for her. It is covered in fish scales. Her ears are a different color here than they were in her winx transformation also. That isn’t an enchantix thing but a biology thing I have made up in my head for Androsian people. The fins start off a light shade and then over time settle into a darker color, which is what it will permanently be.

Tecna’s outfit is ready for the cold. For the longest time we didn’t know anything about her homeworld except that it was cold, so, anyway Russia and Siberia lmao. The green lines on her body suit have light moving through them also which I just thought was a neat idea because technology is a thing. Her glasses aren’t a permanent part of the outfit also. They come out if she wants to concentrate her magic to do something very technical and intense. I thought it would be a nice way to carry over that faceshield thing she sometimes used in her winx form. Her physical features btw are based off of the Nenets people of Siberia.

Stella’s outfit is Greek based because I’m not original and I don’t know why almost all of us collectively agreed Solaria is Greco-Roman but we sure did do it. Maybe it’s because of the word Sol being in it.

Bloom’s is just,, European lol. Domino is a Renaissance Era place it feels like (probably because of her mom’s ermine stoat cape). So there. There are some similarities of hers with Daphne’s inadvertently (family ties can influence things sometimes too, which can be seen in the Bloom and Daphne comparison sheet on my blog), but Bloom doesn’t know that. When Daphne eventually does see her in her enchantix outfit during the time of or before the movie (which does happen in my version but with a LOT of changes. Daphne still talks to Bloom though and helps out like in the movie) you bet your bottom she takes a second to collect herself (happy to see the bond is strong enough that it did manifest physically in a way, sad because she remembers what it was like to once have that transformation and the general bittersweet longing for the time before shit hit the fan. I have so much stuff about Daphne I need to upload some of it soon).

So yeah! Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk:)

[middleofnowhere92]

Azulaang for my ATLA Valentine’s Day Rarepair One Shots  for @ljf613

Blue Lotus

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Aang/Azula (Avatar), Aang & Azula (Avatar) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Tattoos, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Modern Era Summary: Azula, Ty lee and Mai decide to get matching tattoos on Valentine's day. Aang ends up being Azula's tattoo artist.

Read on ao3 or below the cut

Ty Lee bounced ahead of Azula into the tattoo shop. Mai and Azula followed her in, with much less enthusiasm.

By the time Mai and Azula made it inside, Ty Lee was flipping through a portfolio and chatting with the girl at the front desk. Ty Lee chirped, "Well we decided fuck valentine's day, let's get tattoos!" "More like you decided," Mai responded in a bored tone. Ty Lee laughed and then the girl at the counter called out, “Jet, Snoozles, Twinkle Toes- your appointments are here.”

A tall lanky guy confidently strode up to the desk and peered over the girl’s shoulder, “Azula?” She recognized him from the video chat when they had first discussed her tattoo. She walked forward and followed him down the small into a room that was painted a nauseating shade of orange.

He sat on a low rolling chair and she hopped up onto the tattoo chair. His wide grey eyes looked up at her, “So I was looking over what you requested, a blue lotus tattoo?” She nodded. He was easy and relaxed, “You’re still wanting it on your inner forearm?”

She flipped her forearm and pointed to the center, “Here.” He nodded, “I think it’ll look perfect. Let me show you what I drew up.” He easily rolled over to his computer and she peeked over from the chair. It was better than what she had expected, but instead she replied, “That’s fine.”

He spun around and looked at her, “Is there something you want me to change? It’s gonna be on you forever.” She brushed a bang behind her ear, “No, it’s fine. We can proceed.” He almost looked like he wanted to ask again, but instead rolled back to the computer. He printed up the design and then pulled on latex gloves.

He smiled up at her and said, “You can sit back and rest your arm on the arm rest, we’re gonna be here for a while.” She did as she was told and watched him roll over to a cabinet and grab supplies.

He rolled back to her, “Alright, so I’m just gonna disinfect you here.” She didn’t flinch as he rubbed down her inner forearm with a cool alcohol swab. She watched closely as he applied the outline to her skin. He looked up at her, “Alright, go look in the mirror and make sure it’s exactly what you want.”

She bounced down from the chair and walked over to the mirror. The flower was centered on her inner forearm and it looked like it was meant to be there. She turned and sat back down. To appease him, she said, “It’s perfect.”

“Great!” He responded. “Let’s get this show on the road.” She settled back into the chair and heard him start up the tattoo gun. He asked, “Is this your first tattoo?” She looked up at the orange ceiling. “Yes, it is.” “Oh, cool, cool.”  She bit her lip as she felt the first prick of pain.

He was bent over her arm intently at work, but his voice was carefree as he asked, “So why a blue lotus?” She really would rather sit here in silence, but she answered, “My friends and I always talked about matching tattoos. The lotus has meaning for all of us. I’m getting blue, Ty Lee is getting pink and Mai is getting red.”

He nodded along, “That’s so cool. Me and the other artist Sokka, we have matching tattoos, but you know what- actually we don’t need to talk about that.” A voice called from down the hall called, “Aang, don’t be ashamed of our bro tats!” He looked up at her, “Do you mind if I put some music on. I swear I can’t get any privacy here.”

The girl at the front desk yelled back, “The fuck do you need privacy for?” Aang rolled his eyes and Azula laughed, “Sure, go ahead.” He wiped down what he had done so far and then looked around, “Can you grab my phone and pick something on Spotify? It’s right behind you.”

She reached with her free arm and swiped open his phone, which already had the app open. She clicked on the playlist that said Tattoo Beatz. As she placed it down Lupe Fiasco played in the background. He waited for her to get settled and then went back to work, “Good choice.” She smirked, “You have your playlists pretty easily labeled.”

She watched him intently as he worked on the outline of the lotus flower. She looked around the room she was in to get her mind off of the pain. There was a happy buddha up on a shelf, plants were scattered all over the place and inspirational quotes were on the walls. She looked down at the artist as he was crouched intently working on her tattoo.

He was tall and skinny, but he had enough muscles that they flexed as he moved the tattoo gun. He was wearing a white tank top with the sleeves cut off and orange cargo pants. He was so different from her, in black jeans and a burgundy long sleeve crop top.

The tattoo gun hummed. She studied him as he worked, his face full of concentration and his bottom lip caught between his teeth. His body was covered in tattoos. It wasn’t haphazardly done, but seemed intentional and well thought out. She leaned forward without realizing, to get a better look at the blue pattern that covered him.

She was startled as his chipper voice disrupted her thoughts, “I spent a few years abroad, learning traditional tattoo methods.” “Oh,” she answered. She flushed a bit at being caught looking at him. He looked up at her, about to say something, when Ty Lee bounced into the room and poked her head over Aang’s shoulder, “Ohhh it’s so pretty.”

Aang wiped away excess ink and gently tapped Azula’s arm, “We’ve been at it for a minute. Take a break.” He unfurled himself from his crouched over position, stretching to his full height, his long arms stretching up towards the ceiling. Azula’s eyes scanned over him, until she felt Ty Lee yank her out of her chair, “Let’s go see Mai’s!”

It actually did feel good to get out of the chair. The girls walked into the small room. Mai was flipping her pocket knife with her free hand as the artist intently worked on her piece. Mai’s was the darkest, the lines straighter and more severe than the other two girls, but each of their tattoos were beginning to reflect their personalities.

Ty Lee and Azula each went back to their designated chairs. Aang snapped on a new pair of gloves and got back to work. He said thoughtfully,” You’re a really good canvas. You’ve got a great skin tone for colored work and the forearm is one of my favorite spots- not too much pain for you and I don’t have to be twisted in some awful position.” Azula’s brow furrowed, “Does that happen a lot?” His grey eyes went wide, “Oh yeah. People ask for the weirdest stuff. I’m just glad that you didn’t ask for an infinity symbol or something. Not that I have anything against it- just gets repetitive after awhile.”

She couldn’t hold back as she asked, “What’s the worst tattoo you’ve ever done?” He looked up at her mischievously as he switched to blue ink, “Worst in what way? Like worst design I’ve ever done? Worst thing someone has asked for?” She couldn’t help but be pulled in by him, “All of them.” He laughed easily, “Well, every tat Sokka asks for is easily the worst thing I’ve ever done.” A “HEY!” rang out from down the hall.

She looked around the room, at the decor, then at him and asked, “Do you think a lotus tattoo is offensive? You seem more spiritual than I am.” His brows pulled together, “I wouldn’t tattoo something I thought was offensive. I know some people think it’s crude, but you’re not doing it just because you’re into yoga this week. You’re doing it because it reminds you of who you are and your friends. I think that’s really sweet.”

Azula actually outright laughed, “No one’s called me sweet before.” He looked up at her, “Bullshit. Your friend, the peppy one, I’m sure she has.” Azula smiled at the description, “Nope. Never.” He shrugged and focused as he used the gun to spread white ink, “Well, I think you are. I mean you’re spending Valentine’s day with your friends. Seems pretty sweet to me.”

She rolled her eyes, “I was forced here.” “Oh really? ‘Cause we talked about this tattoo like a week ago. What would you be doing today if you hadn’t been forced here?” She looked down, “Probably watching cheesy movies with Mai and Ty Lee.” “See! You are sweet! Spending Valentine’s day with your friends.”

She sighed in fake annoyance. She really couldn’t be too annoyed when he was giving her a bright lopsided grin. He wiped down her arm for the last time and said, “Go have a look.” She slid out of the chair and when she saw the design in the mirror, she had never seen anything so beautiful, and it was a part of her now.

The flower looked so real, so delicate. The blue, white and yellow hues all blended seamlessly. He did beadwork that hung down from each petal and connected them. He had recommended it during Azula’s consult and she was enthralled by it. He stood behind her in the mirror, “I think a blue lotus suits you.” She was still staring in awe of it, “It means perfection of wisdom.” He added, “Lotus flowers symbolize a lot of things to different cultures. I like the idea that they symbolize the human condition. We can be planted in the dirtiest waters, but still grow to be beautiful. That we can grow past a difficult beginning and make a beautiful life.”

She normally would have made a snide comment, but she was thrown off as she saw the genuine look of interest on his face. Instead she softly replied, “I’ll remember that.”

He blushed and said, “Let’s get you bandaged up.” Azula realized she would miss how delicately he touched her. How good he smelled. This was silly, she had only known him a  few hours.  

He talked her through the aftercare and she took diligent mental notes. He easily slid back in his chair and scribbled on a post it, “Here’s my number, in case you have any questions or need anything. You can always come by so I can see how you’re doing. I’d be happy to take you to lunch sometime.”

The small paper felt heavy in her hands, but she nodded and slipped it in her pocket, “That would be great.”

-

Aang watched the group of girls leave the shop. As the door shut behind them, he heard the girl in pink shriek at Azula, “HE GAVE YOU WHAT?”

Toph rolled her eyes as she closed out the register, “You’ve got it bad, don’t you Twinkle Toes?”