#maybe I'll add some more coherent thoughts as well

[qqueenofhades]

Good Omens Season 2: Some Thoughts (and also Screaming)

First, /screams

Second, obligatory disclaimer that this meta contains MAJOR SPOILERS for all six episodes. If you somehow have managed to remain virginally unspoiled, look away now, scroll past, or add "good omens s2" and "good omens spoilers" to your block list, as those are the tags I have been using for all posts and reblogs.

Third, /screams more

Okay okay okay. Deep breaths.

Anyway, so, uh, how about all that, huh? First, the good thing about the tone of the season overall was that it felt considerably darker and more adult, in a good way. We didn't have the precocious kiddies, the kitsch and literally-comphet Anathema and Newt, the so-clever narration, etc. All that was gone, which makes sense when you consider that a) the end of last season saw them reboot into an entirely new universe, and b) the fact that God has gone silent is, in fact, a major plot point for the season. We don't have Her slyly telling us the story, or indeed anything, and everyone is left to make their own judgments and take their own actions. Which, obviously, gets them into a lot of trouble, especially when Metatron (the Voice of God, aka someone acting in the belief that they're speaking for God and therefore doing terrible harm) swoops in with the ultimate buzzkill at the end of episode 6. But we'll get to that.

The downside was that the main, present-day plot (hiding Gabriel in the bookshop and trying to get Nina and Maggie to fall in love) was fairly thin, felt stretched out and at times weirdly paced, and otherwise existed mostly to get us to That Ending and the setup for season 3. But the ending was so damn good (if obviously, very painful) that I can't be TOO mad, not least because we spent six episodes with them just making absolutely no pretense about the whole thing being as incredibly homosexual as possible. I'll be honest: I did not think they were going to actually, explicitly go there. Neil Gaiman has been so consistent about "your interpretations are valid and you're welcome to read it however you want, but the only canon is what's on screen," which I think is frankly a good thing (not least since the Neil GAYman Cinematic Universe is consistently very, very good to us queers), that I just... didn't quite think they'd pull the trigger. Sir Terry is dead and can't have active input, this is based on a book published 30 years ago, maybe they didn't want to make it LIKE THAT... etc. I certainly hoped, but I didn't really think they would.

Uh. Well.

As I said in my various semi-coherent liveblog posts, I honestly don't think there was a single straight person in the entire season, among both major and background characters. Aziraphale/Crowley and Maggie/Nina are the obvious paralleling couples, but Beelzebub (using "they" pronouns and addressed as "Lord" despite presenting as femme/femme-adjacent) is clearly nonbinary and therefore also queer, and the countless gay/queer side characters were just /chefs kiss. From Job's son making a sassy pass at Aziraphale, to the random Scottish goon with Grindr on his phone (which he then gives to Aziraphale, because what is subtlety), to the interracial couple with the trans spouse at the Pride and Prejudice ball, there was just a lot of casual, unremarked, non-story-critical queer representation visible at every turn. It's like the NGCU saw the bigots wailing about Sandman season 1 being extremely gay and went CHALLENGE ACCEPTED, LET'S MAKE GOOD OMENS 2 EVEN MORE GAY.

God bless.

Obviously, Jon Hamm as Amnesia!Gabriel stole the show (he was SO fucking funny) and it was also incredibly fun to watch Miranda Richardson repurposed as a scheming demon. Nina Sosanya also reappeared as Nina the coffee shop owner, which leads us into the Maggie-and-Nina subplot. They're obviously, wildly, incredibly clearly an analogue for Aziraphale and Crowley themselves, but they're also each, crucially, a mix of both. On the surface, Maggie is Aziraphale: the plump, blonde, earnest, sweet-natured one owning a slightly dated book music shop and somewhat clueless about emotional nuances, while Nina is (also on the surface) Crowley, the hard-edged dark loner who doesn't want to open herself up to people or be spotted caring. But emotionally, Maggie is Crowley: the one openly pining, clearly besotted, only wanting to hang around their crush and do whatever they can to make themselves useful, while Nina is Aziraphale. Interested but reticent, attracted but conflicted, trapped in an abusive relationship with a demanding offscreen "lover" (Lindsay/Heaven) who tries to constantly control and shame them without ever offering much, if anything in return. By the end, they bring themselves around to what Maggie/Crowley are offering, but by then, well. We've got a lot more problems on our hands.

As I also said in my earlier posts, this entire thing has always been a metaphor for religion, queerness, and what religion -- especially abusive, fundamentalist, organized religion -- does to queer people, but they really cranked the FUCK out of that metaphor this season. Aziraphale is guilt-tripped, controlled, and shamed for his attraction to Crowley at every turn. He is torn between his imagined duty to Heaven, in all its ignorant, uncaring, bureaucratic, gratuitously cruel system that he still insists on seeing the best in because he can't bear the alternative, and the chaotic and sometimes grey but genuinely more good morality that Crowley offers him. (Can I just say, we were explicitly shown that the two of them together doing "just a little miracle" are more powerful than Heaven AND Hell combined.) And at the end, he's told that the only way he can be with Crowley -- what Metatron explicitly blackmails him with -- is if they both go back to heaven, submit themselves to the cruel system again and give up everything that has made them who they are: their home in London, their human friends, their reliance on each other, their independence, their own ways of doing things. You can be queer in this (religious) framework, but only the limited, watered-down, controlled, controllable, constantly-under-supervision kind of queer, which relies on both you and your lover "converting" back to the true faith. And if you don't cooperate, they will literally kidnap you, lie to you, manipulate you, take you from your soulmate, and force you right back into doing the one thing (destroying the world) that you never, ever wanted to do in the first place, because in their minds, that is still better than this. It's for your own good.

Ouch.

And the thing is: that's why the ending a) hits so hard and b) is so fucking painful, because of course Aziraphale agrees. He has no conception of being able to defy Heaven on his own; he has always, always needed Crowley for that. In the flashbacks, when Aziraphale is faced with an order from Heaven that he desperately does not want to carry out (such as letting all Job's children get killed), he still relies completely on Crowley to "outsmart the rules" and find a better way. Crowley is A Crafty Demon; that's what he does, and so Aziraphale rationalizes it to himself that therefore that must be fine. Even in season 1, when he really didn't want the Apocalypse to happen but initially thought it was his duty as a good Heaven footsoldier, he relied on Crowley to talk him out of it and allow him to do what he really wants instead. That's their whole dynamic in a nutshell, as exemplified in that scene in episode 2, where Crowley tempts Aziraphale with the "pleasures of the flesh" while sprawled on his back in Ravish Me mode like the giant walking gay disaster that he is. (Sorry, buddy. That beard. Can't do it.) Everything that Aziraphale's existence is, that makes him who he is, that he loves and cherishes the most (in this case, food and wine) comes from Crowley. Everything else is just background noise.

Throughout the season, what we see is Aziraphale increasingly coming around to the fantasy of being with Crowley. He's coy and flirty; he talks about "our car" and expects Crowley will let him (which he does); he wants to have a Jane Austen ball and for them to dance together (oh my heart); he even thinks, at the crucial moment, that the best way for them to be together is to go back to heaven just like they were in the beginning, once more perfect angels, as if those entire six thousand years of struggle and grief and pining and separation and falling didn't happen. And Crowley -- poor, poor, brave, devoted, heartbroken Crowley -- has just heard for the first time in said six thousand years that actually telling the person you love how you feel is an option. Maggie and Nina tell them point-blank that their whole stupid plan failed because people aren't chess pieces who can be moved and automatically achieve the desired result. And of course this gobsmacks the dearest and dumbest Ineffable Husbands, because they can't conceive of anything else. People are chess pieces in the Great War of Heaven and Hell; Aziraphale and Crowley themselves are chess pieces who have been desperately trying to get out of being moved by external forces, but that doesn't change the fact that that's what they are. They don't have volition or agency aside from that which they can sneak for themselves in brief and stolen moments. That's it.

Until, well. It's not it. They discover that this whole would-be war is actually an elaborate ruse to cover up another angel-demon romance, that of Gabriel and Beelzebub. (I'll be honest, I'm 99% sure they did this storyline because they saw the fans crackshipping them, but I appreciate a fictional narrative that values and incorporates its fans' input, rather than trying to constantly "trick" or "outsmart" them or "do what they don't expect.") And Gabriel and Beelzebub get to be together, but only by leaving their world forever. They have to desert their homes, their structures, even their own identities, and never return. And Crowley and Aziraphale are so rooted in their "precious, perfect, fragile" life in their little corner of Soho, with their bookshop and their Bentley and their dining at the Ritz (which they didn't get to do in the end because METATRON /shakes fist), that that just doesn't work. Neither of them can conceive of doing that. So Aziraphale thinks "go back to heaven and try to make the terrible system do some good and take what we can in terms of being together" and Crowley just... pours out his heart. He's ready to fucking propose. He barely stops himself from saying something to the effect of "I want to spend eternity with you." He begs, he pleads with Aziraphale to go away not in the literal sense, but the emotional/metaphysical: to finally break this toxic dependence on Heaven and tell them once and for all where to stick it. And because he is desperate to make Aziraphale understand, he finally throws all caution to the winds and recklessly, desperately, adoringly kisses him, the one thing he's wanted to do for ages and...

Gets. Shot. Down.

Ugghhhhh. I'm suffering all over again. Aziraphale wants him, hungers for it, for them, and yet he's been so abused and so conditioned by Heaven (he's still blithely repeating to Crowley's face that "Hell are the bad guys!") that he just cannot accept that kind of desperate, blind, limitless, lawless affection. He even forgives Crowley for this "transgression," just to really twist the knife, and Crowley just can't take it, can't face up to how terribly this has all gone up in flames, after he went to heaven trying to find the answer for Gabriel's situation. Gabriel, who he fucking hates. Gabriel, who tried to kill the angelic being he loves (and for which Crowley has transparently never forgiven him). And yet at one pouty puppy-eyed look from Aziraphale and a warning that whoever is harboring Gabriel might be in danger, Crowley leaps headlong into the Bentley again and rushes to the rescue while "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" is blaring. He stoutly protects Gabriel; he does a miracle to disguise him; he lets him have hot chocolate and stay in the bookshop; he guards him from the literal demonic horde outside. All because of Aziraphale. That's it. And then, it still doesn't work. Not only that, Gabriel's absence and decision to forego Armageddon gives Heaven the one tool they finally need to take Aziraphale away from him.

I repeat: Ugghhhhhhhh.

(In a good way. Ngl, I love this angst. This is the kind of angst my brain Thrives on, the Thematic Parallel Romantic Character Arc kind. Nom nom nom. But also: AGONY.)

I also need to talk about Aziraphale driving the Bentley, aside from the obvious metaphor of him being in Crowley's home while Crowley is in his. Last season, we had the "you go too fast for me, Crowley" scene with them sitting in said Bentley, which was Aziraphale saying he's not ready for a relationship. In this season, as noted above, we see Aziraphale increasingly embracing the potential fantasy of being with Crowley. But here's the catch: when he's in the Bentley this time, driving it, setting the pace, acclimating to the idea, he's driving his own idea of what the Bentley/his relationship with Crowley is. It's not the real thing. He plays classical music; he supplies himself sweets; he turns it yellow; he drives too slow. Crowley calls him in another old-married-couple snitfit to complain that Aziraphale's messed it up, but what Aziraphale has actually messed up (or will, by the end of the season) is far more consequential than just a car. He's changed the entire shape of their relationship to the one he thinks can make it work, and it just doesn't. It has to be them -- "we could have been... Us" -- or it's not even close to the truth. It's not worth their time.

I repeat: Ouch.

Speaking of the writers validating fan theories, I know we all picked up and screamed about on Crowley's idea of Peak Romance Guaranteed To Fall In Love being sheltering from rain and gazing into each other's eyes, which confirms that that poor bastard was indeed ass-over-teakettle gone as soon as he met Aziraphale (again) in Eden. I also need to talk about the 1941 redux, because wow. This time, the danger comes from Hell, which we see being its usual self: gleefully, pointlessly cruel, pettily backbiting, dirty, sniping, tedious, endless, determined to mindlessly destroy because They're The Bad Guys and they like it. So they blackmail, spy on, miracle-block, illicitly photograph, and try to prove that Aziraphale and Crowley are secretly a couple, right after Aziraphale himself has just had the Light From Heaven realization that he's in love (which we all also picked up on in s1). They're forcibly outing them (to speak of more Religious Queer Trauma) in order to break them up/get them into trouble with their authorities/families. Aziraphale and Crowley manage to escape it mostly by dumb luck, but Crowley having an altogether freakout, hands shaking, barely able to actually point the gun at Aziraphale even in the knowledge that it's supposed to be fake, is just... wow. He can't even fathom the idea of ever trying to destroy him in earnest, especially when he knows on some level that Aziraphale also finally just realized his own feelings. So I just need to --

/screams

Anyway, Aziraphale's entire arc this season is doing what he thinks is the right thing and then inadvertently causing harm and damage as a result. In the Edinburgh flashbacks (live slug reaction of me: SEAN BIGGERSTAFF???!!) he tries to stop Elspeth from stealing bodies and gets Morag killed and Crowley drinking the laudanum to save him (though that part with David Tennant just riffing left and right, using his natural Scottish accent, and being Tiny Crowley/Huge Crowley was hilarious). He invites his neighbors to a Pride and Prejudice ball and makes them all the target for demonic attack. And of course the Job episode: Aziraphale, horrified at Heaven's callous cruelty, desperate not to get Job's children killed, willing to go along with Crowley's tricks to save them somehow, tempted by Crowley to do the fucknasty with their angel bits eat some food and decide that he likes it. As mentioned, the whole thing about God being silent this season is a major thematic choice. The only time we see/hear God is Her communing with Job from afar. Aziraphale enviously imagines the answers he must be getting (he's not, he's baffled and perplexed), while Crowley longs beyond words to even have the opportunity to ask the question: why? Why do this? Why is this your plan?

And of course, this absence culminates in the Metatron, the Voice of God, the person arrogantly claiming that they're speaking for God and know exactly what Heaven wants, being able to seize Aziraphale by the short hairs and absolutely fuck him over. Gabriel is gone/decommissioned/eloping with Beelzebub, so Heaven needs a Supreme Leader (God apparently is no longer a factor in the equation). And what this Supreme Leader needs to do is finally unleash the Apocalypse that Gabriel decided to pass on (the Second Coming). Aziraphale needs to be punished, taken away from Crowley's influence/love, and put back under Heaven's explicit control, so Metatron spots a great opportunity to do all three at once. It's not an accident that the exact tool he uses to get Aziraphale to agree is "now you can actually be with Crowley!" Aziraphale and Crowley have been trying so hard to hide out from their respective Head Offices, but now all at once, there's this seemingly miraculous opportunity for them not to have to do that anymore! They can be together! They can be sanctioned by Heaven! They can give up all this hiding and sneaking around and lying! Isn't that better?

... As long as, of course, they give up absolutely everything that makes them who they are. No big deal. Minor catch. Probably nothing.

Metatron doesn't let Aziraphale have time to escape, or think it over, or reflect, or anything. He pressures Aziraphale to come with him immediately, or be once more subject to Heaven's implicit wrath/destruction/judgment. Believe me, Aziraphale already KNOWS he's made a huge mistake, as soon as he hears what Metatron really wants: bringing him back to unleash the Apocalypse that Aziraphale and Crowley have given up literally everything to prevent. He doesn't need time to reflect. By the time my man is in that elevator, he's well aware of what a catastrophic misjudgment he's made, and yet --

Aziraphale needs this. He has, as noted, literally always relied on Crowley outsmarting Heaven's cruel orders in order to prevent himself from having to do them. He's relied on Crowley rescuing him ("rescuing me makes him so happy," WELL BUB, IT'S BECAUSE YOU ALWAYS NEED IT). He admits to Crowley's face that "I need you!" He hates Heaven's sadistic meanness, but he has absolutely no framework, in and of himself, to defy it. When the rubber hits the road, he will crumple and try to go along with it, and now he's been put in a position where he's going to have to stand up, defy Heaven, and make the break once and for all BY HIMSELF. He doesn't have Crowley around to do it for him, he has no support, he is going to arrive in Heaven and be shuttled straight off to the Apocalypse 2.0 War Room. The only way he gets out of this is if he actively stands up, if he chooses himself and Crowley and their life, and he has to.

The thing is:

Aziraphale has lived his entire eternal existence Looking Up. Up is the direction of Goodness and Heaven. Up is where Angels go. Up is where Aziraphale comes from and where Demons and Hell are not. But now he's going Up, in a position to take over the whole shebang, and it's the last thing he wants.

So he's going to have to come back Down.

He's going to have to Fall. He's going to have to get back Below at all costs. He's going to have to finally, once and for all, understand what led Crowley to make the choice to leave Heaven and never come back. It's only then that they can possibly be together on any kind of conscious, equal, deliberate footing, claim their own agency, reject Heaven AND Hell, and try to really earn that South Downs cottage and that happy-ever-after, and it's gonna hurt so good.

Now if you will excuse me, /screams

[u3pxx]

disco meshi au rambling below major spoilers for both disco elysium and dungeon meshi (only up until chapter 62)

BARKS anyways i was suddenly hit with a pang of "extremely normal about harry du bois" and thinking about the idea of harry being a former dungeon lord in this au

i'll copy-paste a bit of the rambling i did in tags (and clean them up) to catch you all up to speed

- ok so maybe harry + kim won't go dungeoneering on their own but maybe they were sent to investigate dangerous dungeons and sent to make sure those aren't threats anymore (kind of like the canaries) - maybe harry had become a dungeon master at some point and the part of him that was eaten was his memories. - GODD dungeon master harry is kind of giving me grief though. can you imagine what he would count as his perfect life. can you imagine when the illusion starts to fall apart and he's accepted that he will be consumed? but he doesn't get to die. that's his curse.

i have like several ideas on what things would be fun to explore in the au and one of those ideas is harry and kim being assigned to maintain the safety of a dungeon which just so happens to be: the dungeon that harry used to control.

(note: i do not remember that well what happens to a dungeon after the dungeon lord has been dethroned. iirc it does still stay there so OOF. imagine traversing to a dungeon and seeing things that should be familiar to you but you just cannot remember anything. it hurts when you look at it, but what did it mean to you?)

i just think that harry after being left, now an even more broken man than he ever was, being granted this false escape from his situation in the form of his deal with this demon. the kingdom he's built inside the dungeon, what if it was just a home. what if it was just a home, like any other home on the surface. surrounded by trees bearing apricots. what if it was a humble home for him, his wife, and their unborn children. what then huh orz

and then i thought: "hey now, didn't dolores have a line that LITERALLY had the words, "i will eat your mind"?" and then --

Dolores Dei: "... it was *a hundred million years ago*. I was someone else then -- filled to the brim with love for you. Hanging on your every word. Oh Harry, you were the *coolest*... But I am no longer that person. This..." She points to herself. "... has taken her place. It will devour you. Harry -- I will eat your mind."

COME ON. MAN. DO I EVEN HAVE TO DO ANYTHING HERE ORZ

thinking about. the demon manifesting as this monstrous amalgamation. if i think of a better animal than lamb that symbolizes what dolores dei represents then i'll change it but MAN.

anyways. thinking about this comic ryoko kui wrote and thinking about the dungeon as a metaphor for addiction. thinking about a demon that devours and feasts on a person's desires until there is nothing left of that person and thinking about the pale that slowly grows and expands and turns everything into nothing at all. MY BRAIN ISN'T WORKING ANYMORE SO I'M SORRY IF I CAN'T EXPRESS MY THOUGHTS MORE COHERENTLY. HELLO CAN ANYONE HEAR ME DFGDHJK

also, i think dora is an elf from a wealthy family in the au. just another layer of arghhhhgghgh to add above everything else. another reason why her family doesn't like harry is because he's from a short-lived race.

[libraryofbabel-postlocator]

Where is YOUR post in the Library of Babel?

In Jorge Luis Borges' short story, The Library of Babel, every possible combination of every letter exists within in a seemingly infinite number of books in a seemingly infinite library. Most books are nonsense, random strings of letters occasionally interrupted by a space or period, but every once in a while, you'll come across a whole word or maybe an entire phrase. Because here's the thing about the library. There really is every combination of letters in there. So, yeah, there's a lot of nonsense, but there's also every sentence ever said, every paragraph ever written, every thought you've ever had. You could flip from a page of complete nonsense to a perfect recreation of a letter you wrote your friend as a kid, only to turn the page to find more random letters. Everything exists within the library. (You can find the full short story here)

The Library of Babel is a website that recreates Borges' idea. You can browse through the shelves, get sent to a random book, or search for a specific phrase.

So what am I doing here? I'm just a nerd who loses their mind over the idea of infinity and spends way too much time on tumblr. So, I'm taking some of my favorite posts I find and locating them in the library using the website mentioned above. In my posts I'll link the exact page, as well as list its location by page, book, shelf, wall, and hexagon (the hexagons are distinguished by an incredibly long list of characters, so they'll be put below the cut for convenience). The website does allow you to find pages that are exact matches to your search, but I personally prefer the results with random characters as they really give you that lone bit of coherence in a sea of nonsense vibe.

If you have any questions, go ahead and ask! I may add a qna to this post if I get any consistently.

[adobe-outdesign]

i know absolutely nothing about neopets but your reviews are really fun...

could you review your favorite neopet or color? (or one of your favorites if your favorite was reviewed already?)

(My favorite species is the Xweetok and my favorite color is probably Mutant, both of which have been done already. I was debating between Halloween, Chocolate, and Oil Paint as I like all three, but I think I'll go Chocolate as it has more species than Oil Paint and I haven't talked about it as much as Halloween.)

Maybe it's just because I'm a chocolate lover in general, but I always really liked Chocolate as a colour. First, it's very coherent across the board, but leaves room for individual touches from species to species. Secondly, it's good a good amount of detail (how much varies from pet to pet), but doesn't tend to feel over-worked or stylistically jarring the way some modern pets do. And finally, it just plain looks pretty.

The only drawback to the Chocolate colour is that it's a lab ray exclusive. It kind of makes sense because it's a "weird" colour, but it's also annoying that it's such a pain to get in the first place.

Chocolate, being a colour without unique poses, really didn't lose anything with customization. (There weren't that many Chocolate pets released before conversion anyway, so that helps.)

Favorite Species:

Eyrie: An absolutely beautiful Chocolate pet, the Eyrie has a good amount of thought put into it. Chocolate-dipped wafers for wings, whipped cream fur, a milk chocolate body with white chocolate detailing, and icing "horns" make for a beautiful design. The detailing is just right and everything comes together very coherently.

Kau: Another relatively complex colour, the Kau also has a lot of nice details—shaved chocolate around the hooves, detailing resembling a Kau's normal markings, striped white chocolate horns, and whipped cream accents. My only nitpick is that the stripes on the ears feel a bit overdone.

Ogrin: Much simpler than the other two, the Chocolate Ogrin still looks really good. The white chocolate striping works really well with the Orgin's usual stripes, and is accented by the whipped cream and underbelly markings. The best part is the shaved chocolate mane, which is a great detail.

BONUS: The Tonu is similar to the Ogrin in a way, but it adds sprinkles to its whipped cream and forgoes most of the white chocolate in favor of a waffle cone horn. Very nice looking and a fun concept all around.

Least Favorite Species:

0/10 I don't think you tried at all.

[luimagines]

HI PINKY ! 🎻 Anon here ✧⁠◝⁠(⁠⁰⁠▿⁠⁰⁠)⁠◜⁠✧

My finals went overall quite well! (Except for one final but my overall grade was still fine so we're all good) I did end up having my ceiling of my room collapse though! (⁠ノ⁠｀⁠Д⁠´⁠)⁠ノ⁠彡⁠┻⁠━⁠┻ Gotta love landlords that refuse to do proper house maintenance on century old homes. So right before finals had my ceilings collapse, then had finals while stuck sleeping in the living room (to be fair the couch was comfy but the whole setup is less than ideal), and then literally the evening after my last final flew out to literal other side of the planet for college visits. So needless to say I've been rather tired recently! It's been fun though and I also got to see some family that I rarely see again so that was nice. BUT! I finally have the mental bandwidth to send in an ask again. So enough with the dramatic rambling about my life I have more ideas about the human hero reader I thought of!

So! I learned just the other day that an army captain is actually kinda low rank. (At least in the US military, can't speak to other systems) And you usually get there within like 4 years of your career as an officer. And if Wars is around 24-26ish (at least that's how old I usually imagine him since he's one of the older members of the group but not like OLD) and he would have started his time in the military as like a 17-18 year old, buddy boy would actually be behind on his career. (Stick with me this will all come together I swear!)

So I imagine human hero reader (I'm calling them hh!reader for my sanity to specify from here on out for my sanity) ended up getting pulled into the military after saving Hyrule. They really don't like being there, but the royal family of that time doesn't really give reader a choice. I'd imagine them most likely being a very low rank enlisted soldier. (If you require explanations for anything just let me know. I am more than happy to explain and understand most people haven't been raised around this stuff) But because reader didn't want to join the military in the first place and Warriors is one of the MOST wary member of the chain they would probably butt heads quite a bit. I imagine reader with an attitude of while they're usually a very nice person to be around they can hold a strong grudge and aren't afraid to tell someone if they're being an idiot. Not something that goes over well in the military. So reader probably targets at least some of that frustration to the resident military man. And something that would be rather easy to go for is that fact that he still hasn't been promoted. This would probably devolve into him telling them that they suck as a soldier until reader snaps and said they never had any choice in the matter and they storm off. Probably one of the their merry little band would go after reader. I think Sky might be best since he's a knight himself so he'd have a better idea what they were going through. Wind would also be an interesting option especially if it's after the whole "We're the same since we both made the active decision to save Hyrule!" moment. Both are good chances at bonding. Oh yeah I guess it's relevant that I see reader at an older teen age, like 16-17. Yay sibling dynamics (I say this like my only younger sibling doesn't drive me up a wall). I'll prolly add more later but I am tired. And I have a relatively early morning tomorrow.

Hope this was coherent but I actually had motivation for once so I went for it. If any clarification is needed just ask. Make sure to drink water and eat a snack! Self care is important to help prevent burnout. Have a lovely week. Good day/evening) ┌⁠|⁠o⁠^⁠▽⁠^⁠o⁠|⁠┘⁠♪ See you maybe once I've slept and ate. Bye!!

Oh, I thought you going to go the path of Reader outranking Warrior and him not being able to do anything about it. ^.^*

It reminded me of that one post for Marvel where Tony got excited because Rhodey, being Colonel, outranked Steve and could tell him what to do.

I'd imagine if Warrior pulled out the whole "you suck as a soldier" Wild would have to push back a bit because if they suck, what does that make him? He died! Hello? At least Reader had something going for them. They still won in the end with minimal loses on their side.

Wild lost everyone.

So what does Warrior actually think of him then?

[omaano]

more rambly thoughts about weapons (this is turning out to be a long one): -the darksaber is a weapon (sword), the beskar spear is a weapon (spear) -perhaps omega lends you her bow (bow), because hades itself definitely differentiates between a gun and a bow (adamant rail/vs coronacht). alternatively (sorry for bad batch-ifying your hades au it will likely happen again), crosshair's sniper rifle. -anyway, the rail would likely be a blaster of some sort, a dc-17 maybe? as a reference to the clones? (gun) -that leaves the shield and fists, then, which--- what the heck man, why is this so hard to pull from star wars lore. uh. who's big on martial arts? the jedi, i would imagine, so maybe the fists are… hm. nothing is coming to mind re: the jedi. what IS coming to mind is two things: darth vader's gloves of force choking (idk man), and mandalorian gauntlets/vambraces (din's whistling birds?). so one of those two, maybe? (fists). WAIT. i had a thought. it is bad batch associated but you can kill me for it later. WRECKER'S GLOVES!! there we go. -shield is a bit harder--- i'm considering leaning mando for that because they're big on armour, uhhhh….. the only shields that are coming to mind aren't even mando, they're the goddamn plasma shields used in TBOBF against boba and fennec. hold up let me go reference a fic--- okay wookieepedia is giving me silandra's shield, a legendary plasma shield used during the high republic era, or a simple light-shield, used by jedi younglings in training but able to deflect lightsabers and blasterbolts. okay i am thinking light shield with an aspect of silandra! (shield)

I've been promising this answer for well over a month please forgive me for taking so long! I sadly didn't have as much time as I would have liked to spend on the Hades AU in August ^^; Thank you so much @elwinged for sharing these super insightful thoughts as well, they were amazing to read and re-read! <3

Hades AU WEAPONS - and ASPECTS

First things first, I'll admit that I haven't thought about much of these on my own, so I'm just very thrilled and excited to dig into what you'd sent me! *A* (I'm combing the weapons and aspects together, hopefully in a coherent and somewhat structured manner)

SWORD

The darksaber is a weapon

Aspects: "darksaber probably turns into several different lightsabers: obi-wan's, anakin's/vader's, luke's? maybe ahsoka?"

This is the one thing were I won't have many thoughts to add, except that this would need some workshoping (mostly because I cannot think of any sword variants that's not "just" a vibrosword (Din would probably love to change the Darksaber to something less cursed XD) - but also wouldn't it be real funny if the Darksaber was just the Darksaber? No aspects, Din got it, Din is stuck with it in that one single form, there is nothing he can do about it.

I love all your suggestions, but I think I will just stick with this one because it's too hilarious to me. The Darksaber is the Darksaber, no two ways about it, sorry Din, you're stuck with it.

SPEAR

The beskar spear is a weapon

Aspects: "beskar spear becomes maul's double-bladed saber, savage opress' spear and perhaps venestra rwoh's lightwhip?"

I really like the idea of Savage's spear, but (after some minor googling) I like the Mon Calamari blaster spear (it's not very practical on land, but... we need some variety. Plus you get access to aspects through character interaction in Hades, right? Like another character gets reminded of that aspect and such... I guess Kit could be a lead in for this one, as Maul would be with Savage's spear).

(As a tangent I've also found the Lasan bo-rifle, but goddamnit I've kept most of the Rebels influence out of this AU too, so that only gets an honorable mention here.)

There are also electrostaffs that Zygerians used, that's one sided/ended (and Rex must be (unfortunately) very familiar with them since he used one to impale that slaver at the end of the Zygerrian arc)... I'm not a 100% set on this, but the other alternative I can think about is a shock trooper's electro-staff...

Venestra's lightwhip is more of a lightsaber, I guess? (I haven't yet watched the last two episodes of The Acolyte so don't at me here) so that doesn't really track here imo.

BOW

"perhaps omega lends you her bow, because hades itself definitely differentiates between a gun and a bow (adamant rail/vs coronacht). alternatively (sorry for bad batch-ifying your hades au it will likely happen again), crosshair's sniper rifle."

I think in this case it might be better to indeed keep the differentiation between bow and blaster (even if it will probably be a lot more difficult to collect enough aspects for a bow), and so let's not bad batchify the bow just yet XD (I've been fighting very hard NOT to allow the Bad Batch into this AU, only Omega and Echo got a pass from that ban)

Aspects: "bow maybe has an aspect of crosshair (sniper rifle), chewbacca's bow-caster, and… a nightsister bow? maybe swap omega and nightsister around and have the more basic version be the base weapon"

Yes to all of those and...I'm really feeling our limitations here for a 4th option because all i found was the Ewok's bow and arrow. So how about we downgrade a little to the energy slingshot that Ezra has in the beginning of Rebels?

RAIL

"anyway, the rail would likely be a blaster of some sort, a dc-17 maybe? as a reference to the clones? (gun)"

I suppose it is a better question if this is a handblaster or more of a sniper rifle. I don't know the rail all that much because for the life of me I cannot make it work (I don't remember how I managed to make a single successful run with it in the first place... so I don't remember how it works in-game) since Din has a variation of those on his person at all times. So the "rail" either stands in for the Amban Rifle, or the handblaster at his hip.

(I'll veto the DC-17 since that was nominated as Rex's keepsake, so let's not confuse those two, yeah?)

Aspects: "rail has an aspect of padme (she's my GIRL), ezra's bow-lightsaber monstrosity, and perhaps leia's blaster? feel like that's quite similar to padme's though… we'll workshop it"

I was thinking that Crosshair's rifle would fit better here (both Omega and Fennec can hint at access to that?), Ezra's lightsaber-blaster combination is a genius thing, no badmouthing that horrible creation, I love that! :D and sure, I guess Padme's little screwdriver looking blaster pistol can also be an aspect?

FISTS

"[...]what IS coming to mind is two things: darth vader's gloves of force choking (idk man), and mandalorian gauntlets/vambraces (din's whistling birds?). so one of those two, maybe? (fists). WAIT. i had a thought. it is bad batch associated but you can kill me for it later. WRECKER'S GLOVES!! there we go."

Aspects: "fists.. .maybe they start out as din's whistling birds, then aspect of wrecker, vader and…. boba (flamethrower)? i also just read about mandalorian crushgaunts (beskar reinforced gloves) which could also be the base, and swap out whistling birds for boba?"

The basic weapon can be a Mandalorian gauntlet (but the whistling birds I was planning to keep for the Cast attack, since it's with Din at all times, and so are his vambraces. I couldn't think of any other long-range weapon on his person that wouldn't become a changable thing with all these other weapons. Plus there is also a limit to how many times and how fast you can fire those, so I think that tracks alright) But I can get behind the others... I don't remember what's up with Wrecker's gloves, but I do seem to remember Black Krrssantan (sorry for any spelling mistakes) having his electric knuckle dusters that can also pack a punch.

SHIELD

"shield is a bit harder [...] the only shields that are coming to mind aren't even mando, they're the goddamn plasma shields used in TBOBF against boba and fennec. [...] or a simple light-shield, used by jedi younglings in training but able to deflect lightsabers and blasterbolts."

Aspects : "shield-- aspect of silandra (a legendary plasma shield used during the high republic era), uhhhhh OOH obi wan's saber because soresu, and. uh. enfys nest's gauntlets? they're technically gauntlets, as titled, so they could be slotted in as an aspect of fists, but they fan out to be mini shields, so…."

Mandalorians can have a small shield of their own (as seen on Paz and Bo-Katan both), so that's good for base, with and aspect of Silandra, and Enfys Nest (that's made of beskar plates too, isn't it?)... and like what could be the last one. The idea of Soresu is absolutely hilarious (mostly because Din would be so bad at it ,so it would also track as a legendary aspect, considering how those are supposed to be more tricky to use?) but also like. What if it's just Din's beskar armor turned up to 11? XD I really have nothing better here ^^;

[theamityelf]

I was thinking about your Mini's au while I was making som fanart if it and I was wondering how UDG/V3 would be able to work with the concept.

I'm totally sure with Udg with V3 minis (that just seems like...not great lol) However V3 with UDG characters seem a little more fun and can we could get more creative with it instead of having just either THH or GBD as their mini senpais (although it's kinda funny to think about there being a DOUBLE amount of senpais to take care of.)

Theres kind of a lot of ways we can go with this. We could just have the main characters (WOH, Komaru and Toko) and only them. Which could result in the pairing (or more) of the V3 characters to take care of 1 of the 7 minis. (I'd say Shuichi and Kaede take care of Komaru because it's adorable. Imagine Shuichi with 2 very energetic enthusiastic girls. He'd die + Naehara maybe who knows ooooooh~)

But we could also go the route of including other characters from the game such as Yuta, Taichi, Hiroko, Izuru perchance, and even Shiro and Kuro Kumas. Add in Byakuya for some spice That would bumb us up from 7 to 11 ( bears cause I'm not totally down for it. And izu could be done differently) It makes pairs easier to divide!!

For more fun we could include Hajime and Makoto from the demo!! It evens out the characters much well and they could accompany Kaede as they did in the demo but now we have a Protag squad (yaaaaay) Additionally it allows for some good sibling bonding for Makoto and Komaru!

I was imaging that for Trial 1 they disappear halfway and nobody would be able to find them afterwards (referencing the end of the demo because it just cuts off mid trial) which adds some drama for the V3 students that were assigned to them. In a similar light, Hajime and Izuru switch places mid trial and Makoto is still nowhere to be found. Allows us to include all UDG characters present and even more issues!!

For the pairings it would be hard to say but I'm working on a chart at the moment and if interested I'll totally share it in the next ask! (I work better with charts it's unfortunate 😞)

I dunno hehe, It's really a 4 am idea it might not be coherent lmao but I had fun writing this out. Thanks for letting me get my ideas out lol, I hope you enjoy reading this!

(Btdubs I'm still working on that mini rp server, I'll get back to you when it's up and running >:D)

(Awesome!!! So exciting!!)

(Mini Classmates AU Masterlist)

I really, really like the idea of the V3 cast having to pair up to care for Mini UDG cast. I would definitely love to see your chart, if you do make one. Right now, my thoughts are:

Komaru, Toko, the Warriors of Hope, and Yuta makes eight minis for the sixteen participants.

Kaede and Shuichi can share custody of Komaru, like you said. That works great, for the reasons you said.

Himiko and Tenko can maybe share custody of Yuta, because that would be challenging for both of them for different reasons, and I find that kinda funny. They would have to adjust in cute ways. Himiko is exhausted just watching him, but he fully buys into her magic stuff, and she becomes amenable to being more active.

Kokichi and Kiibo share custody of Monaca, but Kokichi is too un-trusting to actually share custody. (The rules are still that you die if the mini you're caring for dies.) This means that, if all else goes the same (which it of course probably wouldn't), then Kiibo wouldn't be around Monaca almost at all until Chapter 5, and then he loses his antenna. Monaca would understand the significance of the antenna so quickly. Honestly, she probably clocked it long before he even lost the antenna, and she mentioned it to Kokichi early on.

(I thought about having Kokichi paired up with Gonta, but I think not doing that shows off how special it is that Kokichi trusted Gonta with some of his plans.)

Kirumi and Maki share custody of Kotoko. It would be mostly Kirumi at first, but it would bring out a very cute side of Maki.

I'm torn between having Kaito and Angie share Masaru and having Korekiyo and Angie share Jataro. But I already have a fic for Kiyo, Angie, and Jataro, so actually maybe Rantaro and Angie could share custody of Jataro. They would be so supportive and patient.

Korekiyo and Gonta share custody of Toko. Because bugs and serial killers and the arts; it just feels like it would be a cool match in a lot of ways. Toko sits on top of Gonta's bug catcher. Also, Gonta casually picks up Toko's author vocabulary. Also also, I like the idea of these three spending time together.

Kaito and Miu share custody of Masaru? They would get so parental about it so quickly. Like, they would genuinely talk to each other like divorced parents. "Has he eaten?" "You're giving him a lot of screen time." Miu has a clear willingness to be maternal at the drop of a hat, and Kaito would match Masaru's high energy and need for attention really well.

Tsumugi and Ryoma share Nagisa? Ryoma having someone to care for would be a big deal for him, and the shared mental illness would be out of this world. Tsumugi might craft a tiny Nagisa Shiota cosplay.

Again, these are just the initial brainstorm matchups, lol.

But having the participants share a mini-person goes well with the rule where two people can survive together in this one (and also maybe parallels the Monokuma-and-Monokubs dynamic, but I digress). Plus it allows the potential for drama, because it seems like it would be a no-brainer that, if you were to survive with one person, it would be the person you share a mini with, but some characters feel differently.

Maybe Kirumi is the one who cares for any minis who lose both caretakers (if that ever happens).

And maybe part of Angie's new rules, once the student council stuff starts happening, is something about sharing the minis communally as a protective measure or even turning them over to her so they're all protected in one place, but then someone points out that doing this would mean that Angie could kill anyone without consequences by killing their mini. Angie wouldn't actually do that, but whether the unspoken threat of it is intentional or not remains unclear. She doesn't end up getting everyone's minis, but maybe she gathers a few together, from other student council members. Having a lot of minis in one place has the potential to prevent one's self from being murdered.

The downside to this is that I'm now realizing that the Mini Classmate AU's are arguably more fun without plot, lol. A part of me kind of just wants these characters to hang out in the situation rather than doing a Danganronpa. But also. It's fun either way. 🤣

[tartrat]

I want to give some more context to the Knight Light Painting that I'm working on for school.

The theme that we have to work on is based around viewpoints and i have gone with how people interpret fictional characters and how they completely change them, as well as how an outsider would view these actions.

So how does Knight Light fall into this theme?

Well firstly, since his backstory is kind of vague (it really is just him triumphing over luminous in battle that lasted like a week at most and being stranded in the light realm) and his personality is just typical Knight and Angel stuff, I wanted to add on to it to give my own view on it.

My headcanon for him is that, he is just lost, tries his best to make others happy and always sacrifices himself for them, but doesn't know that they don't care, after losing his parents and sibling he feels a continuous need to try and protect the other Light skylanders (mainly Astroblast and Aurora), has strange relations with the rest of the trap masters. I feel like i should make a whole post relating to these headcanons but the basic takeaway is that i view him more as someone who has to put up a strong front but isn't fine inside. Again I would need to fully explain in it's own post.

Face wise i wanted to change the emotions he's showing from a somewhat stern look to a more solemn one contrasting with the brightness of the armour. Relating to this is my colour choice for his armour. In game its pure white, but the figure as an iridescent purple glitter to it. However, in this painting I'm making it look pink and purple. Knight Light does have a quite masculine design, so i want the pink and purple to contrast as well as make his armour appear softer to match the expression on his face. The now actually yellow/golden background (previously supposed to be a light greyish yellow but came out as a vomit green) is there to make the colours less harsh as well as unintentionally being close to the colour that was used for Knight Light and spotlight's official artwork background.

I guess that what drew me towards him compared to the other skylanders that were in my collection was that he was my first Light element skylander and that was what was special, and surprisingly not the fact that I was an eight year old boy who these buff heroes were to appeal to, well thats part of it now so maybe he was part of my realisation that I was gay (that and probably preferring to play as the girl ghostbuster in the ghostbusters wii game because she was a lot cooler than the guy)

It is hard to explain this sort of stuff to a teacher so I'm my sketchbook I literally just said "The game he is from is very vague with his backstory, like with all characters in the series" which to an extent is true, however other characters such as Spyro (coincidentally sharing a voice actor with Knight Light) are more fleshed out because they were around from the start.

If i were to able to analyse better this would be more coherent. I do want to talk about Just Dance maps (as Just Dance is actually my main interest) and give my own thoughts and theories on them so I'll probably make a side blog for that. This post mainly serves as an exercise for me to get better at giving context in my school art work.

Anyway to basically end me explaining a headcanon and school work i leave you with the refence photo (top) and two extra photos that i took to decide on (ignore the last one being sideways).

I don't know if this will make much sense to anyone else so when i actually finish the painting I'll rewrite this when i develop my thoughts more, as there is more i want to say but I don't know how to phrase it as of now.

[jaythelay]

Got some more work done on Dead Rising FM, it's starting to actually come together in the primary areas I've been working on the most, meaning I can finally move on to other areas, like the Security Room.

Here's the WIP's

There's not really an order to these, just what I sent on discord going backwards and rearranged for clarity. Also ignore that Frank is Blonde I'm just too lazy to go to the locker to return to default.

I'm still searching for textures, have many LOD textures to change still. I have finally found where most of the LOD textures are, and it's a nightmare, one .arc has one of the two flowers in lower res, so it either means I gotta find the second flower in some other .arc, or it's just that one flower. How many textures are gonna be shrodinger's cat for just the one area? Let's find out! About 4, sometimes 2 if you're lucky, most I've seen and worst of all cases has been 6 or 7 where the textures are inside of even smaller textures of unrelated textur- you see why it's a nightmare right?

ALL that said, I've made organization a breeze, having finally moved my Theater edits to my primary mod file, and the seperated textures/finalized .rtexture folders, it makes doing the edits and then converting to the mod file, infinitely easier than it initially was.

My biggest mistake abso-fuckin-lutely was not just completely extracting everything initially and then scanning for files to edit in groups for coherency, I figured it was muuuuch simpler given the little direction I had found on the deadrising2promodding forums. I had thought every area had it's own .arc, this is only partially true, in actuality, it holds a majority of the base terrain and unique parts to those areas, BUT, it also holds some LODs for other areas, including some of it's own.

This is where the mistake comes in, there's actually 3 specific file... structures? for every area. There's the Primary .arc for each area, then a Smaller .arc for almost the rest of it, and then the third is in every other area's .arc, an actual, nightmare of navigation.

This is what the guide is aiming to resolve. If I edit just about everything in these areas, people can unpack my mod, look inside and see the file structure, and I can explain the rest in FAR simpler verbiage than this utter ramble for historical sakes at best.

It's much easier to do this than you'd expect, it's just a matter of patience. For most people, they're just gonna wanna change some colors and maybe add some memes. I want this to effectively be treated like Kingdom Hearts' Final Mix's color variations for enemies, but for the whole game... well at least Paradise Plaza, Security Room, and the Theater, and their LODs, and probably every conceivable item you can wield. And I'll consider zombies one day, dear god they'll be a nightmare.

All that said, once ya get a grip on how the devs rendered stuff out, it's much easier. I found a way to explain it too.

Basically, DR's dev's simply made a texture, and then had a program just shrink and make smaller textures out of them. They automated everything, and then rendered it out in various chunks that the 360 hardware would allow at better speeds, ending in .arc files.

Now what I'm doing is the reverse. I'm opening those automated .arc files, and searching through what was algorithmically the best way to load the game on the console, not what is best for devs to edit things. So everything that was automated, I now have to do manually, and everything that was structured, I have to restructure, with the bonus being that once I'm done, no one will ever have to do it again for a primary chunk of the game.

Hopefully once I finish these 3 areas and the various objects and other such, I can move on to the outside area and really make it pop out more. That is gonna have to be my next objective unfortunately anyhow, as every edit made inside Paradise Plaza, has to be done in the LOD textures for the outside area. At least if I do the entire Outside, I can structure the rest of the areas for others and perhaps myself one day.

Anyways if you've actually read through this, here's a thank you, an unused bit of work that's also a partially unused texture in-game.

Really wanted "Just Bags!" to go in the game. Oh well.

[alebrijediscordico]

Hm. This last post somehow made me think about something, but i don't think i can fully speak it coherently, so to whoever is reading, i'm gonna take you to a little adventure.

We start in a white void, as many other written things. No scene to go off of, no characters, no thing to see here. Just words. Or maybe my voice, if that's how your mind works.

But then i'm going to tell you that you and me are now in a cluttered room. The door to enter is behind us as we walk in, close to the corner. It was probably heavy to move if we were to enter this place in a conventional way—the "this door was made on old wood" kind of heavy. In the center of the room are two furnished chairs, and a tiny round table. And if you thought of me walking to the chairs before you while i was narrating, it's probably not gonna be strange for me to pass my hand over the table for a moment right now.

And now i'm sitting down already. Your chair is diagonal to mine. I'm on the chair with the backrest almost pointing to the window. Like i mean, if i put my left arm in the armrest of the chair to turn around, i would comfortably look out the window—which is one of those that are... could i say curved? Is more so a window with a nook. I've always liked those...

Anyway, now that you're seated, that i assume you are, because in the case you're still standing by the door, what are you waiting for? The warm drinks clearly in the table that i never described are waiting for us.

...There you are.

Now that we are sitting down, i'll describe the room further, because "cluttered" might've been enough other times, for when a book needs to progress a story—but here the focus is the little details.

There's two wall-bookshelves to the sides of us, full of thin and thick books; short and long, sometimes long enough to not really fit and so they're folded over other books. You'll see a few journals too—the big, long ones; the ones you'd see from sea captains—, notebooks, and the few spare spaces have trinkets. Colorful candles holding up books, ink bottles put conveniently over some dry splashed ink, a leaf or two, maybe a few wooden toys alongside puppets... dolls? Clown puppet-dolls. You know the ones. And in a few shelves there's little golden hooks from where tiny oil lanterns are hang up. Palm sized almost. Cute, isn't it?

Oh, and the shelves themselves are a brown-red wood. Carved with details i'll leave to your imagination. They're very fancy, almost like as it were shorthand.

I'm taking a sip, one moment.

...

Hmmm... This doesn't really work for the word "cluttered", right?

Let's, then, add the fact that whoever has these bookshelves has papers, files and documents that surely they must've been better kept somewhere appropriate, to keep them good and intact, but are instead... between books. Some are not even as well put between those books? Feels almost rushed. I really hope those are not important...

There's also other things hanging from the hooks, like resplendent ribbons, leftover party decorations, various mismatched holiday decorations in, not only the hooks, but the very few empty spaces left and hanging from the ribbons. One definitely doesn't need to move much around to be ready for the holidays in this place, isn't it? I mean, you'd only need to take out the non-appropriate decorations and colors that don't match the season and hide it somewhere. Maybe in the drawers in the wall to the opposite side of the window? And i mean in the wall, the drawers are the wall.

And now that we are looking at that wall, you'll notice the wood is that same brown-red. Some of those little thing-keepers are open, and... well, i'm not stopping you to go look at whats inside those drawers. Is a six by six wall full of them, and coming from the look of this place, there has to be something interesting there, right?

Let me just warn you about the floor before you stand up, which actually, did you enjoy your warm drink? Maybe it was your favorite, or maybe just the one you would think to be pleasant while warm.

I had some warm chocolate milk myself, if you were wondering.

Anyway, the floor. Under the table we have a circular carpet, yellow, with orange tones and a red ring almost on it's borders. It has a symbol in the middle, on deep blue, almost looks like a very elaborated snowflake... If you find a way to make them more elaborated than they already are, i mean. Is hard to see with how the leg of the table splits on four at the end.

The floor is wood too, light brown. It has very few holes, and from some little plants are starting to grow. It was a matter of time, honestly.

And around our chairs and just under the bookshelves? Piles of books. But specially piles of papers, tall enough to reach my waist. And maybe i'm fairly small, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of paper here—all of them are in different stages of use too. Some have things written over, from one single theme, but those are the ones under everything else, the ones in better order. The papers on top of everything, the most on hand, seem to have miscellaneous notes, and on the brink of falling. Maybe reminders, to-do lists, dreams scribbled with an still sleeping hand, or even the best effort of someone to note down the notes of a mental melody, for someone that has half the correct idea of music theory.

You try to not step on anything as you go to the drawers. You most be wondering by now what i wanted to say at the start, and why am i taking so long to tell you. And to that, i'll tell you not to worry. I mean, you were about to go investigate what were in the i-don't-know-how-many drawers, just to find that your hand landed in a ladder. One of those with wheels on the lower tips.

And now you look up. And realize i never told you if there was a ceiling over us.

This place is as much of a tiny library as is a memory. Maybe broken and mixed up, but still.

You go up the ladder to find yourself in a second floor like a balcony, looking down at me. And to answer your possible question, yes. That second floor is as messy as this one, but this time all walls are cluttered bookshelves only. Maybe less ribbons? And actually, is there more skulls in the free spaces between books...?

And what about the ceiling? Well. There's another floor to go to, with the help of another ladder, and then, a window just over the hole the balconies made, like a dome.

It starts raining as soon as you look at it. Odd. But is not much. From where i am, we would call it fool's rain. Or something like that. You'd only get wet with that rain if you were a dummy about it, it's what i'm saying.

Now look at this. I'm handing you a book from one of the bookshelves behind you, on the third floor. It has so many bookmarked pages, the pages are starting to turn yellow, and has a smell like an almost old paper, glue, and a barely noticeable hint of vanilla.

...Wait, how did i get here?

No matter.

I'm gonna rest my arms in the handrail while you look at the book, if you excuse me, and... there it is.

Is the same exact one as the first one from that post. Very pretty, right?

To think it inspired all of this.

Just as pretty as the rest of this place, if i must say so myself. But now tell me... would you want to know what's in the book, what the bookmarks are about, why there's just so many highlighted parts? The dried marked feels funny to the touch, right?

Again, tell me: Is there something in you that would wish to go floor by floor reading every single book, journal, notebook, file and document; look at each trinket, use a bit of that ink on a empty paper—because there must be some kind of quill or pen in those drawers—, and maybe make some of those puppet-dolls rest on each other, like friends?

And once again: what about maybe painting this place to a canvas? Taking a picture from different angles as the sun hits the bookshelves and anything gleaming. Or maybe just sinking in one of the chairs as the night makes this place glow...

If anything of that, or maybe even more that i hadn't thought of, appeals to you, i'm glad.

Because i know, maybe not you, but someone out there, wouldn't.

I've seen it a lot lately. With some very selected people that yearn for a place like this, with the books looking like variations of the one in your hands, with journals full of quotable words, and drawers full of useful things for each moment. But they don't really... want a place like this, at the same time. You know what i mean?

A horrifying thought is that the same people who would want a place like this just for the idea of what it is, a place of "intellect", after a while would try making it "better" by painting everything white, take out a good portion of these books, and leaving in just the necessary. Or less. The pretty to the eye. The minimum. Like the book i gave you, but only that one. Those same people would call this place dark academia and not even check a single book in here, just to be more direct.

Or in way less words, the people who want the image of a reader without reading.

And i mean... i can't blame them.

An aesthetic is formed with patterns, places and things that feel and seem similar and related, sometimes gaining a name. I also like how this place looks in the surface, dark academia as it is is wonderful, honestly. Like a living oil painting; is fascinating. But i worry for the people who chase after the image of things without actually seeing what makes them so magical.

More so since we all been there, in a way or another. Is part of growing up, and not from childhood to adulthood, if you were wondering. From yesterday to tomorrow.

I'm still there in some aspects, trying to get out of that hole.

Each word on every single one of these books... it reminds me of being little and passing my fingers over the many books we had in my house, but i was intimidated to read most of them because of how many words that meant i was gonna read, how many stories and how many concepts they had that i wasn't sure i would grasp. How long it would take to do all of that. If i was ever going to finish... And now i look at this place i made for this occasion (or... in a way) and i think of all the things listed in the files and documents; of reading the thoughts and feelings of other human beings, now pasted for the rest of the world in a journal or book; of all the notebooks with unknown things to be curious of.

And... well, even just looking at this place with a "It is that deep" attitude could tell you a story of it's own, don't you think?

I guess what i wanted to say is that... the world is bigger than people think. Which is scary, so we sit down with comfortable images instead of adventuring beyond into that massive place. I guess it would be also scary to think that when we come back from that world, if we ever do, we won't be the same...

And that will make us "other" to the people we care about.

And in an age where the self can feel so fragile in an ever changing world, where if you don't change fast enough with everyone else, or stay with everyone else...

Is absolutely hellish.

...And once again, if you're wondering how i ended up standing on the ceiling, i have no idea either. Things happen.

But at least it stopped raining, so I'll be heading out from the little glass trapdoor conveniently put in the middle of the window-dome.

And if you want to follow me after thinking as long as you want in this place, remember: The world's a bigger place when each wall is a floor.

[speaking-from-the-abyss]

Some random thoughts on Obey Me! Nightbringer up to lesson 10 (with LOTS of spoilers)

If you ask why I'm making a post like this in this blog is cause I will defend that this is a queer coded game to my last breath –and cause is my blog and I do what I want.

Full disclosure: I'm not done with the first game yet so no spoilers for that one please. I'm guessing I'll get spoiled by Nightbringer anyways as the story progresses, and I already did lol, but I wanna gush about this game because I love it so much already.

Starting with the title screen, oh my gosh the art is beautiful. 10/10 would definitely buy a poster of this.

They continue using they/them for MC and that's a thing we all gotta appreciate. Thank u.

The layout and the art of the game is just SO PRETTY in general. Definitely an upgrade from the first game, credits to the designers and artists.

It's a rhythm game!! I like it, the gameplay is easy enough and in classic Obey Me fashion you gotta be really precise when you click or else, which adds a good layer of difficulty.

We don't have 8 different types of support items, just 4, which makes it easier to keep count of how many we have. I am still broke in-game to buy them tho.

WE CAN GET DEVIL POINTS BY COMPLETING LEVELS THANK U SO MUCH. In contrast, I feel like they give less materials when you clear a stage? I mean, they gotta balance it I guess, or maybe is just me.

The game was lagging like hell when I first started playing tho. Idk if it was the game or my phone that couldn't run it or what, but it's fixed now.

I love the fact they're using the character songs for the levels!!! I was waiting for the unit songs and they took a while, but they're there too. The remixes are fun and I can't believe how good they sound.

Speaking of sound, this game's ost is SO GOOD like huh? I was kinda expecting it cause it's a big production and all but bruh. Every now and then I end up having to stop because I gotta appreciate the bgm. There was this one funny song where a banjo started playing and I straight up laughed out loud. 10/10

MK is that you?

Coming back to the layout and the designs: THERE'S SO MUCH RURI HANA IN HERE!!!!!! Love it. 20/10. Best thing ever. Whoever decided to add that I hope they're having an amazing day.

Also, is that a Ruri Hana Miss Em?? Gosh I love this game.

And I'm not done gushing about the designs yet cause LOOK AT HIM!!! LOOK!!!! He's so cute!!!!🧡🧡🧡

HE'S SO PRECIOUS JUST LOOK AT HIM!!!!! 🧡🧡🧡

The art for the cards is really pretty and I need more Levi cards so badly asap

Also, there's a shit ton of extra content, wow. I'm not sure how I feel about the whole 3D models yet (mostly cause my phone only gives me bad renditions of them) but the extra content is slice of life funny bits. I like that they're voice acted, they're good.

Hey so y'know how you can click on the characters and get voice messages in the home screen and how you interact with them in the surprise guest screen? In neither of those I can click on Levi's tail and I consider that a crime against all Levi stans.

OKAY SO when this game was announced and as time went on and we got little pieces of the plot, not gonna lie I was worried. When it comes to time and time travel this franchise has a, well, a record. I'm still worried how it's gonna develop but for now I really like the things they're showing in the main story regarding the characters and the plot. Just, y'know, fingers crossed it doesn't become a mess.

Honestly the timeline is a mess already as it is. We met Luke and he has apparently just started learning how to bake, but in the first game he says he's been doing it for about 300 years, so it's been only 300 years between the end of the Celestial War and the beginning of the first game? Shouldn't the time be at least a few thousand years?? I'm solving this by doing a headcanon that time moves differently in different worlds cause otherwise the lack of coherence bothers me too much.

I'm so intrigued about Nightbringer himself. You think the prologue is giving us a red herring about who he is? Will it be a new character? An old one? Us from the future? They did a good job in implementing the mystery and I can't wait.

I was rereading this chat we have with them at the beginning of the game and something caught my eye:

Do you think maybe we'll start jumping between time as the story continues? So that we'll be at and see different time periods with different characters?? 🤔

This guy has an omurice for an icon when we all know he can't cook to save his life and I find that so ironic xD I like how much he's getting involved in the story so far too

I still don't know who gave them the right to go THIS HARD on a rhythm otome game. I love this thing what the hell. I wish I went this hard with my own projects.

That's all, I'll be waiting for more lessons to drop✌️

[chayscribbles]

chayscribbles’ monthly writing update ☆ february 2023

☆ STATISTICS.

words written: 11 606

projects worked on: Andromeda Rogue; The Gemini Heist; and a Third, Secret WIP

proudest accomplishment: i'm about halfway through with AR1 draft 2! and i finished like, a bunch of drawings

books read: Architects of Memory by Karen Osborne; All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells;

☆ GENERAL COMMENTS.

why do i feel like i wrote a lot less than i actually did. like i looked at my total and thought "now that can't be right... there's no way i wrote that much."

things are going better for some wips (AR) than they are for others (GH) so maybe my head is cancelling it out lol.

reading comments: Architects of Memory was basically "a corporate war over alien weapons featuring messy sapphics in space" and i liked it but it wasn't quite a coup de coeur, 4/5 stars. All Systems Red was an absolute delight, 5/5 stars, will be reading the rest of the series once my holds on Libby come through.

(also i started reading Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo this past weekend, and i blame it + it's precursor Ninth House for putting me in the mood to work on Third Secret WIP lately, as Ninth House is partially responsible for the genre shift in Third Secret WIP.)

more specific wip-related comments + featured excerpt below.

☆ COMMENTS: ANDROMEDA ROGUE (draft 2)

i'm about halfway through this draft! i've passed 40k this month!

things are going super well. when i have the magical combo of time and energy and motivation to write i can get through scenes pretty easily, now that i don't have to worry about overall plot as much. plus i get to add little things here and there to beef it up.

i've mostly worked on the second act this month, which is where the team really starts going through things together.

there's one particular Azami chapter right before the midpoint that's a monster of lore-dropping. i had to rework it several times as i had an entire page of editing notes to make sure everything is coherent... and i'm still not entirely sure i've gotten it right 😭

☆ COMMENTS: THE GEMINI HEIST (outlining / draft 0.5)

not much to say about this one. didn't work on it as much. the plot for this wip continues to frustrate me. i'll find myself coming up with little ideas for the characters and the world... but when i try to sit down and come up with actual scenes and plot, my brain turns to soup.

☆ COMMENTS: THIRD, SECRET WIP

this wip is consuming me. devouring me with its teeth. i'm surprised to find i may actually have a plot. turns out letting it hibernate for 3 years and tweaking with the genre has done some good.

i might cave and post an intro in the next month. stay tuned...

☆ FEATURED EXCERPT.

this is from the like, one scene i wrote for gemini heist this month. i just think it's funny. for context, Leo and Gabi are trying to get access to some archives in a university library, and are posing as students.

As [Leo and the archivist] talked, Gabi slipped her hand into the pocket of her ridiculous jacket. Her fingers closed around a small round device. She glanced around. While Leo was doing a great job at keeping the archivist distracted, the commotion had caught the attention of nearly everyone in the room.

Just be normal, she told herself. She inched her hand out of her pocket.

“Which archives exactly do you need access to?” [the archivist] asked.

“Art of the early Viheldan Empiric era,” Leo said. “My paper is on the Gemini statuettes.”

“Ah, that might be why. You need a special authorization form from a professor or another faculty member to access those.”

Leo pouted. “But my professor said he got access for me!”

“Perhaps you can message him—”

“Ugh— can’t you just call him right now and ask? I don’t have time for this.”

“Alright. I’ll give him a call.”

Shit. Gabi wasn’t ready. She fumbled to take out the device, concealing it as best as she could in the palm of her hand. All she needed was to place it on the archivist’s computer terminal without him seeing a thing before he made that call.

The archivist’s fingers hovered over the screen for a second before pressing an icon at the bottom. With a starburst motion of his hand, he expanded a search window and began typing in the name of the professor. Panicking, Gabi slammed the device in her hand onto the side of the terminal.

The already quiet room went completely silent. All eyes turned towards her. The archivist’s were wide and stunned. Leo’s were sharp and furious.

“I, uh,” Gabi sputtered, awkwardly keeping her hand glued to the terminal. The device whirred to life, vibrating softly under her palm. “I-I thought I saw a bug.”

☆ TAGLISTS. let me know if you want to be added/removed to any of them.

general taglist:

@nicola-writes @dgwriteblr @the-orangeauthor @retrogayyde @quilloftheclouds @ashen-crest @writeblrfantasy @celestepens @stardustspiral @pepperdee @extra-magichours @avi-why @lefttigerobservation @chazzawrites @bardolatrycore @innocentlymacabre

andromeda trilogy taglist:

@bebewrites @nicola-writes @dgwriteblr @the-orangeauthor @retrogayyde @akindofmagictoo @quilloftheclouds @nora-theteawriter @ashen-crest @corpsepng @writeblrfantasy @toboldlywrite @celestepens @stardustspiral @pepperdee @cheerfulmelancholies @extra-magichours @writeouswriter @cilly-the-writer @lefttigerobservation @rose-bookblood @drowsy-quill @chazzawrites @cynic-and-chief @enchanted-lightning-aes @aesa

gemini heist taglist:

@florraisons @akindofmagictoo @cream-and-tea @nicola-writes @memento-morri-writes @antique-symbolism @rose-bookblood @afoolandathief @pepperdee @avi-why @zonnemaagd @chazzawrites @analogued @enchanted-lightning-aes @innocentlymacabre @kahvilahuhut @celestepens @cilly-the-writer @extra-magichours @retrogayyde

[casspurrjoybell-17]

Hart and Hunter - Chapter 17 - Part 2

*Warning Adult Content*

Dane Hunter

Rian Halloran waits until Ian and Sam have left before calling in our gruesome find. 

Soon, police and other emergency personnel swarm over the scene and Halloran joins the fray. 

Julian and I retreat to a safe distance, buy ourselves a couple of coffees at the nearby café and find an out-of-the-way spot to observe. 

A great deal of time is spent ensuring the tunnels are safe to enter before anyone enters them and I smile as I remember I'm no longer bound by red tape.

Eventually, someone declares the tunnels safe and a team of police and paramedics enter.

Sometime later, the paramedics emerge carrying a long, lumpy shape in a body bag. 

Chief Laura Coleridge arrives in the meantime and after speaking with Halloran, joins Julian and I where we wait at the borders of the scene.

"Alright, Hunter. How do you explain this one?" she asks, one grey, hawk-like brow lifting at a sharp angle.

"Man is cremated... man's body found." 

"I dunno, Chief," I say, which is true enough.

"Maybe his body never made it to the crematorium... maybe his widow buried a bag of wood ash instead." 

"Purly and Sons is a reputable funeral home," Coleridge says.

In a softer voice, she adds...

"I know first-hand. They took care of my Mom's service some years ago." 

I chew my lip, unsure what to say.

Coleridge would never have revealed something so personal when we worked together.

I don't want to seem insensitive and yet she must know that a single, personal anecdote does not a valid alibi make. 

Before I can arrange my thoughts into a coherent sentence, Julian beats me to the punch. 

"You're still gonna question them, though, right?" he asks.

"And Mrs. Lagrange?" 

Coleridge gives him a sharp-edged smile.

"What exactly am I paying you for, Mr. Hart?" she asks.

"Not to hang around crime scenes drinking coffee, I think." 

Julian sips his latte before answering.

"Well, this case might be a little more hazardous than we initially thought," he says, casually drawing attention to his cast. 

Coleridge glances over her shoulder at Halloran, who stands in the midst of things.

His arm in a sling now, though his shoulder hadn't seemed to bother him in the caves. 

"So I see," she says.

"Alright. Double your rate, if you want. I'll get it approved. Just don't let me down." 

She wanders off to speak with Halloran and Julian shoots me a wink.

"See?" he says.

"I always knew we'd make a good team." 

I try and fail to muster a smile and his levity fades. 

"You think there's really a second 'skin-changer?'" he asks quietly. 

"We should assume there is," I say.

"And 'changer' or not, someone got a body out of the morgue and destroyed it before anyone noticed something amiss." 

He sighs.

"Yeah but from what Ian said, it could be anyone and we wouldn't know." 

"Not anyone," I correct.

"It's got to be someone with the proper credentials... someone who could fix paperwork and get a body released. That narrows the field considerably." 

He scans the busy scene before us and lifts his brows.

Any one of the dozen or so people here could enter a morgue without raising suspicion and suddenly all of them seem newly suspicious. 

After a moment, Julian tugs at my arm.

"Come on. Let's get out of here."

He turns away and heads for the car and after a moment's hesitation, I follow. 

He's unusually quiet on the ride home.

I fight the urge to ask if he's okay but as I pull up and park before our home, I can't hold back any longer. 

"Everything all right?" 

Rather than his usual quick reply or casual brush off, he doesn't answer and stares out the window in silence for so long I'm not sure he heard me.

"Julian?" 

He sighs and turns to look at me. 

"I don't know what the hell is going on, Dane. One day, I'm just a dude with a werewolf boyfriend... then I'm Fae. Now I'm 'Fae royalty' or whatever and descended from a Wolf-slayer." 

"You're not your ancestors," I say, though my dad might disagree.

"You're you." 

He shakes his head.

"I just keep thinking about the Wolves that lived here, before. Who were they? How would they feel about us, about me, forming a Pack here with you?" 

I consider how to answer him but he speaks again before I can get my words in order. 

"I keep thinking about the skin-changer, too... the one that might still be out there... and whoever its victim might be. You're right, Dane... we can't change what happened in the past but we can do our best in the present. And whatever 'gift' this land has to offer, I think you need to take it... take the Alpha here and be the strongest Wolf you can be. We need to find that 'changer' figure out how it's all connected to Rhiannon and stop stuff like this from happening here again." 

I digest his words for a moment before answering. 

"We still need to wait for the full moon," I say.

"But there's plenty we can do in the meantime. Interview the shop-owners and Lagrange's family. The funeral home people, too. I'll also need a second Wolf here, besides Ingrid." 

"Who?" he asks. 

I think for a moment.

There's my Mom and Dad and six other siblings to choose from but I know who I want at my side for this... someone who can help us with the case, too. 

"I have just the Wolf in mind," I say.

[dr-wormman]

Thinking bout how Dame Aylin is probably the only person who could get Mooring to second-guess himself and his relationship with Balthazar. He’s very resistant to being attached to someone, allowing someone else to influence him; he is under the impression that this whole situationship with Balthazar is purely because ‘well, I'm inevitably going to die soon, this guy is attractive and usually in close proximity to me, I might as well have some fun while I can’ (that IS the reason. But he's grown a bit too reliant on using Balthazar as a distraction/coping method and so he's not as detached as he wants to be and thinks he is).

Mooring’s under no illusion that Balthazar is remotely a good person, and he has his own highly questionable morals, so the mere knowledge of Aylin wouldn't unnerve him much (just another atrocity to add to the pile). MEETING Aylin however…… Mooring is generally unempathetic but eve he can recognize that her situation is fucking awful, seeing her in person would make it more Real— if he were to find out how easy it is to free her, either from Aylin herself telling him, or Balthazar saying something careless, the ceiling would crash down on him (the ceiling being his perspective and sense of self). I have no idea how to explain this next part coherently in a way that says exactly what I want it to because this whole concept quite literally came to me in a dream but I'm going to try via greentext format because that's how my thoughts show up in my brain.

> Mooring could help Aylin, but he wont

>no, it's not because he's loyal to Ketheric. He hardly knows or cares about that guy

> No, it's not because he's afraid of Balthazar. He got over being scared of him after the first tenday of meeting him

> ok so if it's not either of those reasons why is he so hesitant to help someone he recognizes is in a great deal of pain

>wait a minute

> it's not because He's afraid of Balthazar, but because he Wants to please him. He is not afraid of Balthazar hurting him, but of upsetting him and losing the intimacy they shared

>losing the intimacy he has been using to make himself feel better amid the dread that comes with the knowledge of his impending death. That he has grown RELIANT ON

>he is not going to do a (relatively. Depending on how he went about it) effortless, and inherently good deed because he has allowed someone else to influence his actions. He has become a pet (and not in a fun way)

> D:

>AUGAHAHAAHGHHHHH

I've been thinking of a dialogue exchange between Mooring and Aylin that would lead to this. Maybe I'll write it out Idk. after the ceiling crashes, Mooring would definitely try to distance himself from Balthazar, as if to prove to himself that he doesn't need him. but he would inevitably slide back when the dread gets to be too much

ANYWAYS that might have gotten a little heavy but it's ok heres a picture I took with my phone because I was so excited to see Balthy in this scene I forgot I could screenshot

[macaroni-rascal]

Really good skating from Green/Parsons, but the colors are awful. It's a shade of red that looks like dried blood, and it's the same issue I had with Hawayek's Heart of Glass dress. And then to pair it with this awkward teal? A lot of teal this year, some more successful than others. The worst part is the ribbon on his waist, he needs a longer, less puffy shirt. This program is a non-starter, not just because it tries and fails to capture the magic of their iconic free dance from 2 years ago, but also because it's so meandering and devoid of concept and a coherent movement vocabulary (in contrast to the French, who will get to). They're making nice shapes with their bodies, but it doesn't add up to anything. I would've understood if the judges had dropped them in this program rather than the RD, since this is just a bag of random stuff pulled out the junk drawer. Her dress is contemporary, while his kinda period-inspired and doesn't fit his build, much like the Trennt sitch. I wish they'd scrap this one too.

Natalie, my sweet. While this is a great color on her, it didn't work paired with grey when VM did it, and it doesn't work now. His costume looks like an afterthought and the construction of hers is lazy and unflattering. I know they probably don't have the same resources as some other teams, so I'll let it lie, but also, the real problem here is the program. All they're doing is power skating between lifts and choreo elements. They're on two feet sooo damn much, and I dare them to take a step that isn't a crossover. It's not really ice dance, which sucks, because I really, really like them, but they're not an abstract concept team. Sorry about their dad.

Okay, the team that's really been impressing me this season, in spite of myself - the French. I loved the simplicity of her dress, which is why I don't get why they did the awkward, random dyeing on his. So many of these boys are wearing tops that look water-damaged. But I thought this program had a consistent movement vocabulary, it had a sense of dance history, and while we've seen them sharper this year, they did well here. I hate to say it, but Guillame did a great job. It's familiar music but it builds and they picked up every nuance and note, and this from a team I don't normally enjoy, so kudos. Good transitions like L/Q, great skating in hold, really seamlessly put together. Only they and H/B can pull off abstract.

LaLa - gorgeous colors, they looked like spring! Marjo was the force of the program, Zak looked a bit closed off in the chest, but I'm assuming that's from the injury and will pass. Some truly breathtaking elements and entries into them, and better levels, it seems. Skate Canada needs to get their scores where they need to be because Lolo and Nik hath no knees left. He did this to me with his shirt last year - it's big and boxy and flowy and bunches up at the waist, obscuring and cutting off his lines. Marjo, on the other hand, extremely pretty but a little too much skirt, I won't be surprised if it throws off her twizzles with how heavy it is. Such softness of movement yet such punctuation moments throughout, such effortless musicality and responsiveness to each other and the music. The one thing I will say is that it's maybe a bit too similar to the Nureyev and the Warsaw, but then again, it hasn't held other teams back, so why diversify? Get Zak a more fitted shirt and remove a layer of fabric from Marjo's skirt and they're ready for world domination. Nothing but respect for my next Olympic champions.

Okay, I really didn't want to become a C/B hater, but here we are - they've forced me over the past 3 years. What a load of pretentious schlock. We need to stop validating people just because they're hot. I'm pretty sure we've seen this concept 20 years prior. Her dress is well-made but it's what a teen whose social studies teacher once told her she should be a designer because she likes clothes would draw. Evan's outfit is straight out of Nathan Chen's closet of non-costumes. All of this is right out of the P/C guidebook on emperor's new clothes programs where they tell us we're too dumb to understand the high art that it is, when in reality they're just doing whatever to low-tempo music. All but one team here are stronger skaters than them. The whole program is just an exercise in figuring out how little actual skating they get away with. The fact that this is being celebrated and scored like this is why the sport is losing viewership, it makes the fans feel gaslit and taken for fools. And they can only do the planks and straight limb lines for a minute or so before they run out of steam, so whatever vague common visual thread there is totally falls apart. The USFSA fucked up when they let them win the nationals over the far superior H/D with that alien program because they wanted to give them a boost for the team event, but the lesson they took from it is that they could literally get away with murder, which is how we ended up here. I'm literally begging them to retire, they have me cheering for teams I usually can't stand. Prayer circle for the Italians to get a better RD.

Otherwise, Romain and Patrice serving looks like the dapper daddies they are, skaters take notes!

10s 10s 10s across the board.

[charmolypiii]

Long Distance Lover Visit log 2

10/22/2023

I spent the better part of the weekend with him again. I know that writing about a guy is a really "high school" sort of thing to do. It feels beneath me in some ways, but in others all I want to do is rant and rave about how it feels when HE'S beneath me. Ha! Sorry. Maybe that high school mentality is more prevalent than I thought. EITHER WAY. I feel like after everything I've been through, it only makes sense to want to write about something positive for a change. Something happy. . and GOD am I happy. I hate to admit this, but I truly think this is the first person I've ever dated where I didn't feel like I was settling, ignoring red flags and just accepting whatever I could get. I feel like I have someone who TRULY treats me well. . and the fact that we've been forced to take things slow due to the distance has created a really healthy dynamic I've not experienced before. For the record, I feel like I could go on for hours and hours about how beautiful my time with him is. But I also just took a giant shot of nyquil and RLS medication and it's very likely I'll either be A) Slurring my speech via typing some how B) Falling asleep directly on the keyboard C) Unable to form coherent thoughts D) All of the above Who knows. Maybe I'll post this as is and add to it later. Or I'll completely forget I ever started this blog post and you, dear random reader who found my old tumblr account at 3 am, will never know the beautiful (albeit some dirty) details of my long distance romance. Only time will tell.