probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
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sometimes i think abt my first job and get mad again for the various shittinesses it had
for instance we had no PTO despite being full time, so when i caught a flu from there bc someone was working sick, i kept going in anyways and probably got others sick, bc we all interacted with the same handful of mobile devices for testing (software QA) and no amount of hand sanitizer will save you from the airborne spit flecks
and i ended up getting a sinus infection and it just got worse and worse until i just literally couldnt get out of bed one day, and they STILL got annoyed like i was being lazy or something even tho they saw day by day how much obviously worse i was feeling
eventually, in the last few months of my time there, i got called into the office to talk about concerns about my attendance, like i was in jr high or something, bc i--get this--averaged 1.5 days absent a month (usually for migraines)
like jesus christ. people get sick. expecting them to work every weekday for the rest of time aside from the like 4 required national holidays is unrealistic, and shouldnt be expected! and we shouldnt have to financially suffer bc we had to take a few days off to rest through an illness--they only paid me 9.50/hr for the first like 6 months to begin with so each day off was a big hit to the paycheck and it was just inhumane
anyways they moved to another state and they have two kinds of reviews on google maps:
1 - people vaguely saying it's a great place to work
and
2 - people detailing why it's an awful place to work including telling us that they make new employees leave good google maps reviews
fuck that place for real tho
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(totk rewritten)
finally, all the arm and spirit abilities- for the first half of the game (rauru) and for the second half with the shiekah arm replacing links arms instead and the spirit abilities gained through ganondorf
(please excuse my handwriting and sometimes repeated info on the first two, i lost motivation/patience at the end and couldnt get myself to basically redo it all from scratch just to make it a bit more cleaner)
note, the camera rune is unconnected to the arm, its the shiekah stone copy link has (zelda carries the one from botw, a copy was attempted to be made for link but it lacks all runes except the camera, the map and its teleportation, and journal/archive)
note for the heal effects of some spirit abilities- im also reworking the healing system, making it more like the older games, so healing isnt as easy and much more restricted, thus making those effects of spirit abilities more valuable ( lil potion icon on the d pad will act a little bit like in skyward sword, opens your limited selection of healing items and if chosen link switches to holding it and letting you consume it with -a- while walking around in real time- to avoid more pausing and mass healing on regular items while in menu)
additional note, the automatic recharging of the magic meter depending on the environment gives you a reliable but less abusable way of using abilities and allows for even more creative dungeon/challenge design by using it effectively- it works by absorbing magic from its surroundings, so if its an area with little magic it recharges slower, if its a very spiritual or healthy place it will recharge faster, it can be used to make things more challenging and also as subtle storytelling (example, theres a graveyard with the magic energy around being off the charts, even if there are no spirits to see, it could hint at the people buried not having died peacefully, no matter what their gravestone says...)
the usage of magic and how much the different abilities cost also allows for a much more dynamic fighting style for players to choose and try out, balancing them all out with their cost instead of a fixed timer, and the recharging beign affected by the environment perhaps forcing players that favor high cost magic abilities to use the lower cost ones for example, or not being able to charge one up bc the enemy is too fast and doesnt give you enough time to charge it
about half of the small overworld dungeons (not shrines) are also locked/inaccessible for the first half and new quests appear as the second half commences- together with the additional changes raurus return brings with it (sonau buildings, enemies being mostly cosntructs that he summoned etc) and whole set of new abilities giving you a fresh new way to play while (hopefully) not making you feel too restricted for the first half
... making these detailed concepts took me longer than id like to admit q-q
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Been thinking about this idea I had and finally finished drawing what I meant
The sillies ever <333
I wish I had more skin colours but I did my best with what I have rn :b
There are a few details I wanna talk about so imma put them here :)
- The newest Robin wears green, this is why in the bonus doodles at the end I made Dick's second suit blue instead of teal and gave Jason red shorts instead of green (though I do think imma go with black instead). Cass's domino will switch to black after Damian joins and Damian's suit changes after Duke joins (I'll have to design that later)
- Steph gives Cass her old mask when Cass becomes Robin (they're silly to me)
- Barbra is the only one who isn't Robin, she stays Batgirl then Oracle (she tries to convince the girls to take up the BG mantal at least once a week)
- Every Robin has red on their suit besides Dick when Jason was Robin. He was def bullied into adding it into his next suit and chose the placement for optimal wisecracking (probably the only way he was able to let go of the discorob suit)
I spent a long time designing some of the suits and have so many thoughts about this au :') feel free to send an ask if you have any questions or requests about them 😊
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Went skimming thru late trimax For Reasons, got caught up reading the Legato fight, realized things about the fight that I never had before & went WOW, I kind of want to write an analysis post right now!
Felt the same kind of insanity grip me, however momentarily, that fueled all my analysis posts however many months ago. Too tired to actually word things coherently right now, but...
I May or may not have a full(ish?) analysis of the Legato & Vash fight a la style of This post analyzing the Trigun: Multiple Bullets fight that got unexpectedly kind of popular. People seemed to really appreciate that one, & I even had some ppl saying it could be cool if I did that for others?
So. Legato fight. Maybe. Feel free to remind me later if u see no mention of it again for over a week lol
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