#these are so nonsequential

[indy829]

Some propaganda for Audrey. I do think that Eartha will take the whole cake (and if she does, she deserves it), but I do always appreciate an opportunity to share Two for the Road Audrey.

The first image many have of Hepburn is what I call "Dorm Room Wall Audrey," where she's decked out in one of her resplendent Givenchy gowns or vanishing under a large exquisite Cecil Beaton hat.

However, my favorite brand of Audrey is "'60s Mod Audrey on a Roadtrip through the South of France":

Two for the Road (1967) was her second to last film in her 1953-1967 hot streak before entering semi-retirement to raise her son Sean and to recover from being married to Mel Ferrer for too long.

It was her third time being directed by Stanley Donen after Funny Face (1957) and Charade (1963) and tells the story of couple Mark and Joanna Wallace (Albert Finney and Hepburn respectively) navigating the ups and downs of their tumultuous yet passionate relationship over the course of 12 years. It's experimental in its nonsequential storytelling, transitioning frequently between different years of their relationship. Essentially, Two for the Road backpacked so Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind could run. It's also very telling that screenwriter Frederic Raphael would go on to write the screenplay for Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

Donen said of directing Hepburn that of all of their collaborations, Road saw Hepburn at her most relaxed. And watching her as Joanna, one does get the sense that she hadn't been so unguarded and comfortable in her own skin since Roman Holiday (1953).

Joanna may have also been the most complex role she ever had the chance to play. The 12-year timeline allows us to see how her naive ingenue persona slowly evolves into the world weary women she played in her later films that were getting sick and tired of men's shit.

Her fashions in the film also gave us a unique off-the-rack Audrey. Her Givenchy wardrobe was often like a suit of armor for her and alleviated her of some of the insecurities she struggled with. In Road, she allowed herself to dispose of that crutch and gave us what I feel is her best performance. The woman got to wear a skintight PVC suit and even jeans and a pair of Converse!

@hotvintagepoll

[remnantglow]

hey, mar! what would *you* like to see more of in the next 10 years in sff literature?

GOOD QUESTION... i shared the amal el-mohtar quote precisely bc she hit the nail on the 'big' things i'd most like to see more of (SFF getting WEIRD with it, 'queer as a verb', diversity beyond 'box-checking', both genre-fuckery/blurring of lines btwn genres and maximalist quintessential fully-and-unapologetically-in-love-with-the-genre books). BUT if i may also be self-indulgent a little bit, some more specific things i personally would love to see more of:

sff centering a sense of wonder and/or existential dread!!! some of my favourite works of SFF are ones that tap into those specific feelings, i'd love to see more of either, or both - especially since the line between the two is rather thin

kind of relatedly - not to sound like a snob but i LOVE when scifi gets philosophical with it. like make me question the fundamental subjectivity of our experience and the transience of our existence! more of that! sickos hahaha yes!!!

if i can get into the weeds of specific tropes: i'd love more xenoarchaeology and Big Dumb Objects in particular <3 (both of which tie into the wonder/existential dread thing for me)

hard scifi - i'm always down for more hard scifi - but specifically hard scifi with a focus on sciences other than just physics

also, more books playing with the form - by which i mean not just nonlinear/nonsequential fiction, but also messing with the physical format itself - the layout, the typography, etc. (yes this is the graphic designer in me speaking)

illustrations also… like i think they could really add SO much to the experience of speculative fiction in particular, it's such a pity how rare illustrations are in SFF, esp adult SFF. case in point: look at Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (YA, but still) or Walking Practice by Dolki Min and tell me the illustrations do not elevate the text to a new level!

[theoriginalmarke]

NONSEQUENTIAL SUNDAY SUMMATIONS

I need to do some planting today. I love hostas, but I haven't been able to grow them since I lived in Florida. I bought one yesterday and I can split it into four different plants and fill a tire planter in the backyard, surrounding a tall grassy plant I picked up at the same time.

I also bought some flowers I'll transfer to a large pot and put by the front door for her mom to enjoy. One of them is catmint, which I have to admit I just bought for the name. It will be nice to get my hands dirty.

WWE had two shows yesterday, Worlds Collide and Money in the Bank. Worlds Collide was in conjunction with their new acquisition, Mexico's AAA. Chad Gable wrestled for the AAA title in the main event, then later wore a mask and appeared as "El Grande Americano" in the MITB ladder match. That's impressive.

The appearance of 53 year old Ron Killings (R-Truth) was a surprise. He was released six days ago, which drew a lot of backlash. He's 53, so I can understand it. Apparently there was enough heat on the company that the big boss stepped in and got a last minute deal done. They kept it under wraps until Truth showed up to attack John Cena at the end of the show.

Now if you'll excuse me it's time to get this show on the road.

I love you, baby. Even more than hostas. MWAH!

Y'all have a great day.

[thejesusofsuburbiabutcringe]

The Abandoned Allan-Centric Spiritual Odyssey Fic that Led to My Current Fic

So, I never thought this would see the light of day, but I had to urge to look back upon a simple two paragraph piece of writing that predates my fic and was one of the springboards that led me to begin writing my fic. Basically, it was a seedling of an idea for a story that eventually led to the creation of my fic.

This is the only existing fragment of a larger idea titled "Allan Becomes the Jesus of Suburbia" in which the story would've followed Allan dealing with severe mental health and substance abuse issues and would go on an abstract, psychological, and spiritual odyssey that existed primarily through dreams, hallucinations, and out of body experiences dictated through a form of spiritual meditation called astral projection where he would discover the core of his existence, sense of self, and soul healing guided by spiritual beings and dreamlike versions of people in his life in which he'd be elected as a god of this dreamworld in the end and achieve divine peace and immortality of the soul.

Sounds insane? Yes, it was. It was more a vague mental and emotional vision than a concrete story. It never got past one page and I never plan to revisit it. It was birthed from a dark place in time and I'm at peace with leaving it as a relic of a time past, but I choose to share it with you all in its abandoned, untouched form simply because you might like it. It's an important piece of history in my writing journey and a particularly personally vulnerable work. You may find glimmers of parallel between this work and my current work.

The full text is below the cut. It was written late September/early October 2024.

Allan was where he always was at this time of night in the same state of mind he always was when he was like this. He was drunk, lying half awake in bed at an ungodly time of night when all other sane critters would be asleep, feeling the consequences of his actions, being half in a daze of images flashing through his mind’s eye of nonsequential dreams and the crushing pains of the painful reality he couldn’t seem to escape. It was one of those nights where all the pills he took to be able to fall asleep peacefully decided not to work as well as they should, leaving him in a grueling state of panic from sources unknown where nothing seemed to quell it, even though his mind was already greatly impaired by the alcohol that was supposed to calm him down. It wasn’t even the type of panic that could be extinguished once the problem was solved, it was the kind that seemed to penetrate his mind for as long as he was conscious. Oh, how he hated things he couldn’t control, and there was very little in his life that he could. 

He rolled over to the only source of light in his dark bedroom, the digital clock on his side table, revealing that it was 3:13am. Allan groaned softly and turned over, accidentally applying too much pressure on his left hand. He sharply inhaled and bit back a yelp. He gingerly rubbed at the scarring that crusted over the back of his hand and the center of his palm. Another grueling reminder that the events of his crucifixion will never be undone. Through the dull light of his clock, he examined his hands, the blobbish shapes of the scars morphing into starbursts under his impaired and sleepy eyes. 

[datapacks]

I just wanted to tell u that im most excited about your birds. Genuinely i just want to fill my world with as many birds as i possibly can

Yesssssss I'm so glad to hear. I want to make sure to add 1 bird, 1 crop, and 1 other mob to every update, at the Very least, though if I do a standalone for my birds I could work on them nonsequentially..... hm......... I'm also v much figuring out how I'm gna do bird cages, I've got some.... interesting :3 ideas.

[strixcattus]

Conlang Year Days 206–258

...That's a rather long span of time. I suppose it makes sense because this post is going to cover All The Clauses. I'm not sure if this is my longest Conlang Year post (though it's probably the longest timespan), but it's a big one.

As you will see, the following sections are incredibly nonsequential. To the point where even if I weren't playing catch-up, I still would have had to wait the full fifty-three days before posting.

Days 206–212 and 252–255: Relative Clauses

Relative clauses follow the nouns they modify and are structured in the same way as full sentences, using a relative pronoun. This pronoun is always used with a case particle (similar to demonstrative pronouns) and conjugates for subjective tense.

(Note: Despite having been doing things with -iza vs. -u/oli pronouns for months, I somehow managed to swap the inanimate and animate sets of pronouns and only caught it much later. Hopefully I'm managing to catch any errors that might find their way into the examples I'm putting into this post, but...)

The verb of a relative clause is almost always left tenseless, unless its objective tense is necessary to clarify.

Koikesio ne ja siza zasi tio nasiza ne ja zacio duoko. I see the person who repaired my time machine.

Nesui tio jia gate sage natia deitei ne taoli dio jikata. The birdmeat that you wanted to eat is over here.

Relative clauses always have heads.

Kateiko sou lui keda katu tia sou taoli. I will go anywhere you go. (lit. I will go to any place that you go to.)

Days 214–222: Phrasal Modifiers

Days 215 and 219: Adposition Phrases

Adposition phrases can be as simple as an adposition phrase placed immediately after the noun they modify:

Kai tio ja siza da Kesiniju ne ki jilulu kainanu. The person from Kesiniju gave them (sg.) flowers.

In some cases, context or order makes the meaning clear—while all arguments save the subject can come in any order, placing, say, a locative argument between the subject and object would usually not happen unless it's meant to modify the subject. Of course, there can be ambiguity:

Lena tiona ja siza da Kesiniju sou ja miedegako. The person from Kesiniju came to the library. OR The person came to the library from Kesiniju.

And you can always use a relative clause to convey the same information in an unambiguous way:

Lena tiona ja siza nai timiza da Kesiniju sou ja miedegako. The person who is from Kesiniju came to the library.

Days 216–217 and 220: Active and Passive Participial Modifiers

This is not a feature present in Lecizao. Relative clauses are to be used instead.

Here's a passive relative clause, to prove that they exist:

Kitulano ne jia gate teinai tio nasaoli kao ja juoci duosia. I made the birdmeat that was eaten by your friend. (I'm looking back at my lexicon and I actually don't think kitule is supposed to mean "make" as in "create," but rather exclusively "make" as in "cause"... this can be a problem for later down the line. I'm too tired to create new vocabulary today.)

Days 218 and 221: Infinitival Modifiers

Infinitives can be placed as noun modifiers in the same manner as adjectives (i.e. after the noun). That's, ah, that's it.

Tetesio ne talouli deitei. I have many things to eat.

Days 223–224 and 235–239: Noun Clauses

My entire section on noun clauses is just a reference to the section on embedded clauses.

Clauses (with infinitive verbs) can be treated as nouns by applying a particle to them. This is something I neglected to include when first working on embedded clauses, but in retrospect makes more sense than the alternative. So that's been adjusted.

Gakani ne deisage naneju deitei ne jia gate. They (sg.) said they (sg.) wanted to eat birdmeat.

Koigano ne deitei tiona Keiti ne ja nene. I saw Katie eating the onion.

(Accusative particle underlined in both examples)

Clauses can be put under any case that makes sense. Here are examples where clauses are given nominative and instrumental marking:

Nai tio deikitule kalo naneju ne deitei tiona Keiti ne ja nene. It is wrong that they (sg.) made Katie eat the onion. (That they (sg.) made Katie eat the onion is wrong.) (Check that adjective placement!)

Lenano nalako sie naneju sou Tanu Dato kao deilio. We (excl.) came to Tanu Dato by walking.

Day 225: Subjunctives

There is no specific subjunctive marking in Lecizao.

Tenesio ne deisuonai lako dio jikata. I wish I weren't here.

Days 226, 228–229, and 231–232: Evidential Marking and Communication/Cognition

See: Embedded clauses. Again.

Sidesio ne deitei tiona Keiti ne ja nene. I know Keiti ate the onion. Gakani ciako ne deitei tiona Keiti ne ja nene. They told me Keiti ate the onion. Midani ne deitei tiona Keiti ne ja nene. They lied that Keiti ate the onion. Denano ne deitei tiona Keiti ne ja nene. I thought that Keiti ate the onion.

(Fun fact: Lecizao now has a canonical word for "onion." It's nenetono. But I've been making Katie/Keiti eat onions to show off embedded clauses for a while, and nene can cover almost all edible plant parts, including whatever an onion is [don't know nor care], and I really don't feel like going through and replacing all of them now or ever.)

Days 227, 229, 233, and 248: Conditionals and Reason/Condition Clauses

I posted part of the conditional documentation out of context a while back. Here's a condensed version of the whole thing:

Conditionals are formed in different ways depending on whether the verb is tenseless or tensed. Tenseless verbs just take a prefix ni-:

Miju tiokesi Keiti. Keiti is sleeping. Nimiju tiokesi Keiti. Keiti would be sleeping right now. (Note that there is a tense in this sentence, but it's attached to the case particle.)

Tensed verbs use an infix instead. Whenever possible, the infix is reduced simply to -n-, coming between the full verb and the reduced suffix. Otherwise (which is to say, in 3.5th and 4th person), the infix is -ni- and comes between the full verb and the suffix.

Mijesio. I am sleeping. Mijunesio. I would be sleeping. Mijusipeke. The Time Worm is sleeping. Mijunisipeke. The Time Worm would be sleeping.

Irregular verbs are treated as regular in this construction:

Neiso lako lakui. I am afraid. Nainesio lako lakui. I would be afraid. (The most literal translation of these sentences would actually be "Afraid me exists." This is how adjectives work.)

The word niu pretty straightforwardly means "if." It can be used to indicate external information that a conditional is dependent on, either before or after the conditional:

Niu neisia zunoma, mijunesio. If you were quiet (right now), I would be sleeping. Mijunesio, niu neisia zunoma. I would be sleeping if you were quiet (right now).

Or it can be used to indicate unknown information:

Nemulesio niu deimiju tio Keiti. I do not know if Keiti is sleeping.

Reason clauses are led in with the word node, and follow the clause they give reason for. As you will soon see, this is very typical.

Nemulano ne ja zeneino, node nano kui jia Kamama Taitesi. I didn’t hear about the pandemic, because I was in the Taitesi Mountains. Nemulano ne deigana nanejui, node mijano diaci kogakatia ne goduili. I didn’t know they left, because I was asleep when you said so.

Days 243–245: Clausal Coordination

I already did this.

Days 246–247, 249–251, and 256–258: Adverb Clauses

Adverb clauses are generally formed with conjunctions. There are sequential conjunctions, conjunctions for indicating time and place... and those are all the ones I've already made.

Mijano sezela tei dio gainoudu. I slept after eating in the evening. Zaseiko ne ja zacio duoko seku gana. I will repair my time machine before leaving. (Or: I will repair my time machine, and then leave.)

Mijeiko diaci konai ne la zatuiza. I will sleep when I’m dead. (lit. I will sleep when I’m a person that dies.) Nemulano ne la keni nai tio timiza daida kokimo tio ja dolo. I didn’t see a path at the start of the river. (lit. I didn’t see a path that was where the river begins. [Implying you may have seen one elsewhere]) Galani ne la degako diaci kopasi se la nulo. They read a book while sitting at a desk. (lit. They read a book when sat at a desk.)

That's it. I think. If it isn't, well, I've spent enough time on this post. If I've made a mistake on the days I'm attributing to each category, or forgotten something important, or written something particularly silly, I don't care until at least tomorrow and at most until I've managed to scrape together a full night of sleep, which at the rate I've been going might not happen for a month or several or ever.

And I'm still eleven days behind on Conlang Year and counting. Hopefully I can catch up before September en—before October st—before too long. That's a realistic goal because it cannot be defined.

[xeansicemane]

"Mint? Fucking Mint are you fucking kidding me"

I had not expected Jötunn, draconic icy terror of the midatlantic to barge into the shop in full bank robbing regalia. I especially had not expected them to start critiquing the places' choice in sandwiches without as much as a hello.

"Sure, The mountaineer gets a nice crunchy crouton deal, Tecumseh gets this really quite nice heavy cheese number. And I get fobbed off with 'what if I made a cheese sandwich minty' ".

"I, uh, sorry?" I stammered as they rubbed the bridge of their nose, digits getting under the magenta visor they wore as a fashion accessory to do so.

"It's fine. It's cool" they flashed a smile at that, to which I politely laughed. You don't piss off someone who froze the CEO of a plastics company in three feet of ice in the middle of July.

"Do you mind if I-" They heaved themself over the counter, immediately plucking a few condiments up as they moved through the prep space "Just. I ain't here for royalties kid. But if you're making sandwiches you have to do it right. It's serious business"

The villain took the time to roll up the sleeves of their coat, wash their hands, and started looking through the bread. "Mint. Fucking. Ooooh cold dragon, must love mint" they muttered to themselves, tail twitching in annoyance as they pulled out a loaf of rye. They applied a generous helping of mayo, layered on onion, lettuce, American and Munster, then whatever cured meats they could find.

"There. Proper heart stopper right here. Calories for a week and your cholesterol for the month." They said, pushing the creation towards me. "You don't need to eat it or anything I just needed to set the record straight"

They hoisted themselves over the counter again as sirens just barely became audible. "Also, you're going to want to fix the one you made for the Dancemaster. Dude's got zero fucking chill" they said, gesturing at the board that listed the villain sandwiches. They paused on their way to the door, dug into their pockets and produced a wad of 20s "Stole this from a bank last week, nonsequential and not tagged" they stuffed it into the tip jar. "Good day citizen"

I watched as they strolled out of the shop and started hurling ice spears down the street.

You own a sandwich shop in the heart of a superhero city. After gaining customers by making sandwiches based on heroes, you decided to try making some based on villains. Today, a villain stopped to review theirs.

[alienglowgarden]

not gonna finish that fic, so instead I'll just ramble abt it to myself

First thing I'll say is, damn longform stories are hard to write. I've really only roleplayed and written nanofiction, drabbles n the like( n one short story but its full of experimental prose so its pretty nonsequential stuff too) so the very basic act of stringing a bunch of events together and giving each enough attention was kind of a struggle. Plus I wanna start a philosophical tangent based on like every other paragraph y_y It went better than my first attempt at fic, but even this in retrospect is probably pretty bad, esp with the lack of response from anyone beyond a "well this convoluted sentence was kind of funny". Tho I'll say I still feel fairly confident in the first chapter v_v It was GOOD, OK??? Could ofc be flippant and blame it on the fact that its not shipping or smut n that thats all fandom cares about, but-

Next up, excerpts from the fic that I, PERSONALLY thought were super funny and great bits in general.

I thought I was SO clever for the customer service voice comparison. A real phenomena that affects millions of sufferers every day.

n honestly this whole paragraph right after I thought sounded like a delightful little montage. And its a sweet thought that Sol's wasting their rations on Sym just to include him in the ritual and to prolong the whole "playing house" bit. Similarly later on when Sol prattles on abt cooking up something special next time, again, even tho Sym doesn't really need to eat. He's noted by Dys to like sweets, but even when you give him a cake he just tastes the icing a bit n is like "well that was nice :-)"

I WAS BOILING IN MY SKIN I THOUGHT I WAS BEING SOOOOO FUNNY UGH AND NOBODY EVEN MENTIONED IT!!!! COME ONNN!!! Similarly Sol having trouble focusing on the english, needing subtitles cus they grew up on esperanto I thought was nice attention to detail from me.

Also I compared Seeq to Blackadder, where is my comedy emmy

this wouldve had a nice callback in the last chapter, of Sol similarly finding themself experiencing something totally new and unique, totally outside of the timeloops scope.

I also liked my little Sol & the Embrace Eternity ending during Syms death hiatus bit, that was something I had written as just a teensy drabble idea before the fic. Also liked injecting a slight divergence from known canon with Geranium believing Sols future vision. Wouldve later been called up again with both of them fussing over Flulu a lot n Ger kinda feeling like shit when/if Sol gets involuntarily operated upon.

Onto chapter 2:

Ok the sugarbug thing was really all I had going for it, I was gonna wax poetic abt Vace n Sols relationship more, but depended far too much on getting any positive feedback n motivation to keep going lol v_v Theres a lot you could weave together about their mutual self-inflicted need to be a hero, even at the cost of their own suffering, their own dreams. Of feeling alienated from others for seemingly knowing more, seeing the big picture. N similarly (my) Sol has a bit of that same bravado that masks the unseemly parts of them, the reasons that would make others worry if they knew Sol wasn't just messing around, that their achievements weren't just happy accidents, but things they'd meticulously planned for, sacrificed for.

But anyway the surgabug thread was meant to be a sign of the Gardeners still holding onto their feelings of both resentment and love for their creators. Just a single facet, there would be more, but the most obvious thread once Sol learns to spot it.

Noctilucent is just fun to write for :3 "Little weed" would also with time become a more affectionate nickname for Sol.

Once again, I THOUGHT I WAS SO FUNNY FOR THIS. Why is my genous so underappreciated.

...and again, the care all Gardeners share for their planet, for the garden their creators left them, largely explored through Noctilucent, for whom that would seem most unlikely, who would surprise the reader most. In future chapters, there would have been more scenes.

Most notably, Noct finds Sol after a devastating accident that leaves them with a concussion(possibly self inflicted in an attempt to reconnect those wormhole synapses in their brain again). Sol tries to blubber something about a deal the gardeners wont be able to resist. They realize Noct has taken measures to care for their wounds. Eventually, the agreement is struck. More lenience is extended. Noct hidden relationship meter goes a little bit up again.

The end would mark a secret place Noctilucent takes Sol, the New Experience they share in confidence, a new facet of understanding the puzzle and Sol's own place in it.

ok yea its referencing that rio romero song lmao. Sol feeling a spooky ooky similarity of their own fates within the timeloop to that of the sugarbug, as utilised by their own colony. A replenishable resource; no regard for its wellbeing. Or probably more likely seeing the danger of becoming that, by their own hand, permitting their life to be consumed by the colony's survival.

[anomalocaris-lesbian]

Every other post in my food is that one person with the cool pfp saying something random that I am viewing nonsequentially and it's interesting trying to put the pieces of it together lol

i am so sorry we are like this all the time

[videogamelover99]

The Oracle

A/N: I bring you the thing I had wanted to write in like forever: the saltiest reunion yet. But come on, did you really think I’d leave this character out? Not a chance.

Based on Flat Dreams by @pengychan. AU by @doodledrawsthings. Enjoy.

Part 1

Part 2 

“He is awake.”

“So soon?” Jheselbraum casts a look at at dimension 46’/, where Mabel Pines reaches to shake the hand of the monster they defeated only a year or so ago. “I would have expected at least a few more centuries.”

“I’m sure you know that time is relative.” The is a tone of amusement in the Ancient’s words. “It has been a lot longer than that.”

The Oracle takes that in, watching the events in Stanford’s home dimension play out, and hums in amusement, “‘A different form’,” she repeats to herself, “You couldn’t resist the irony, could you?”

The Axolotl chuckles, “Rather fitting, considering the many times humanity was deceived by him.”

“And who brought him to his demise.” she mutters. It is strange, seeing the used to be triangle in a completely different form, and she feels a certain satisfaction when he starts to panic, staring at his newfound body in shock. That’s when Mabel Pines finally collects herself, putting her grappling hook to good use. “Looks like the universe is giving its tormentor a warm welcome.”

Another chuckle. “What will you do now?”

She shrugs, her gaze still aimed at the two small Pines twins as they argue on what to do. She’d waited for a trillion years to see her mistakes paid for. And now, when Bill Cipher is finally getting what’s coming for him, she can’t help but feel a bit overwhelmed. Interfering now seems too soon. She’ll stay, and wait her turn. For now, she has her own personal comedy to watch. If the Pines family handles him as well as they had so far, then she has nothing to worry about. Besides, she has a feeling her meeting with Bill Cipher wasn’t that far away. A brief glimpse in the future tells her as much.

Then she’ll rub his loss in his eye. Or eyes. Seems like he has two now.

“I’ll stay.” she answers finally, turning to her friend. “A confrontation now doesn’t seem all that appealing.”

“It’s your choice.” the Axolotl seems to have expected that from her. He gives a farewell nod before leaving. The temple seems quiet now, but it doesn’t matter. There is a calm relief, now that Bill would not be posing a threat to anyone. And a certain anticipation, an emotion the Oracle hadn’t felt in a very long time. She will wait, then. After a trillion years, waiting doesn’t seem that hard at all.

…

“Wait, so you’re the one that helped my uncle defeat Bill, right?”

“That would be me, yes.” Dipper Pines is, as Jheselbraum soon finds out, extremely likable. He’s smart, resourceful, and has a thirst for knowledge not unlike that of his great uncle. In only a few hours the boy manages to ask enough questions to fill a star system. She tries her best answering all of them, seeing as how they are somewhat predictable, yet some just have her at a loss of words.

“Can I get your autograph??”

“Um…”

“NEVERMIND THAT!” Mabel literally jumps in the conversation, pointing an accusing finger at her. “Tell me, if you’re really an oracle, how come you don’t speak in rhyme?”

“Mabel, this isn’t Percy Johnson-”

“Shush, this is an important question.”

While the younger Pines twin is subdued but thoughtful, the older one is the complete opposite. She’s loud, lively, and a welcome change to the usual quiet of the temple. Unlike her brother, the questions Mabel asks are often slightly absurd even for the Oracle.

“It would be a pointless amount of effort to do so.”

The girl seems to think it over, then nods approvingly. “Fair enough. Okay, but why are you purple?”

“…Symbolism.”

Mabel gives another satisfied nod, “Gotcha.” Her brother looks even more confused.

The Oracle’s attention is briefly torn away from the children as she casts an unimpressed look at the balcony, where her third visitor sits with his back to her, trying his best to ignore all three of them. “He’s always like that.” Mabel supplies. “Plus, you know, you kinda helped defeat him and all that junk. He’s probably still mad about that.”

“Of course.” Her tone turns cold, and the twins seem to flinch slightly at that. The Oracle noticeably softens her demeanor. “Why don’t you two go explore?” she asks instead, careful to keep her voice friendly. Often times she ends up intimidating the mortals she converses with, and while that’s understandable, it mostly makes her conversation with them…awkward. She’s sure not to make the same mistake with the Pines children.

Judging by the brightened looks on both of their faces, that shouldn’t be a problem. “Oh, we did,” Dipper confesses eagerly, “though most of your books aren’t in English, so kinda hard to..read. I wrote some stuff down though, so-”

“And I found a lazer gun!” Mabel cuts off her brother, “Or I think it was a lazer gun. Maybe it’s a can opener…it looks like a gun. And you’ve got a lot of weird gadgets, lady. Where do you get them all, some kinda sci-fi black market?”

“Yes, a lot of the parts come from…interesting places.” she smiles, the two lower eyes crinkling in amusement. The girl’s enthusiasm seems to be contagious, and the Oracle doesn’t mind at all.

“Wait, so what kind of stuff do you actually have? Can you show me? I mean, you don’t have to I just- yeah sorry, it’s just so cool.”

That is flattering, extremely so, despite the fact that the boy is slowly running out of air. “I’ll be glad to show you sometime, but for now, I’m sure you’d want to see what the rest of this dimension is like.” The Oracle gestures toward the balcony, where far below them the valley extends into the fading sun on the horizon. The village lights were just starting to appear, blinking serenely in the distance.

The two human children stare at her dimension in silence, before Mabel brakes it with a whoop of joy. “YES! Wait…” she glances back down at the settlement warily, “It’s not gonna be like last time, right? Cause we kinda pissed off an alien princess, and then these giant buff guards started chasing us. Through one of them was kinda cute…”

“Correction, Bill pissed her off.” Dipper glares at the figure who made himself comfortable on her terrace.

“Bill pisses everybody off.” the boy’s twin shrugs. “I don’t know what’s so surprising.”

“Good point.”

After she assures them that her dimension is one of the safest they could possibly visit, Jheselbraum  hands both of them translators and sends them on their way. To think that the two were running around without one. No wonder their journey hadn’t been that pleasant.

The woman finally turns her attention to the elephant in the room. Bill Cipher. The monster she’d worked most of her trillion year old life to defeat is now sitting on her stoop like it’s nothing, so the least she could do is give him a nice warm welcome. The Oracle fixes her seven-eyed stare on the back of his head, silently watching. The tension in the room winds up, ready to burst as soon as one of them speaks. Of course, the one that eventually does is Bill. “Whatever you gotta say, say it already.” he doesn’t turn around, but she can tell by his tone he is angry. That is not surprising in the least.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“Oh come on! What, don’t even wanna gloat about anything? That stupid piece of metal in Sixer’s head, maybe? Or maybe that unicorn spell you were so eager to share with him? Don’t think I didn’t notice it was you.” the demon finally turns around to give her a humorless sneer. Jheselbraum, in turn, keeps her expression calm, devoid of any fury she might be feeling right now. That only seems to fuel his own anger. “Let me guess: the big frilly got you those eyes, didn’t he? I betcha you’re one of the guys whose dimensions I freed, right? And you were pissed because you couldn’t take a little change. So he offered you some kinda deal, to “stop his chaos”, yada yada, and you took it because you were so eager to play hero. Did I get it right? I bet I did, didn’t I?” he fixes her a mirthless smile. It seems like Cipher tried his hardest to find the words that would best get a reaction out of her. To be fair, it was a pretty good try. But considering that it’s exactly what the Oracle expects from him, it doesn’t prove to be very effective.

“Yes. I suppose there’s some truth in it.” As tempted as she is, she doesn’t mention that the dimension he destroyed was hers as well. So far, Bill Cipher did not give any hint that he knows her identity. She’d like to keep it that way, for the time being. It’s interesting to see how long it will take until he figures it out. Perhaps he won’t. It has been a trillion years after all, easy for him to forget. “Though some respect could be shown for the Ancient. He’s the reason you’re still here, after all.”

“Oh yeah, thanks! Feels great to be me again! Except I’m not, am I?” Bill raises his voice almost to the point of shouting, and it echoes through the temple, leaving an uncomfortable heat in the air. “SO YEAH, THANKS FOR PUTTING ME IN THIS USELESS SKIN PUPPET.”

“The alternative would be death.” Though you deserve a lot worse than that.

Bill falls silent, turning away abruptly to stare at the valley below. It isn’t hard to guess what he is thinking, she spent too much time observing him not to know. In this body he is mortal, the maximum he could live is 6 or 7 more decades. A long time for most, but for beings like themselves, it was nothing but a blink. To Bill, this form is nothing but prolonging the inevitable. No doubt it scares him.

Good.

“So, which dimension was it, anyway?” he asks suddenly, faking amusement. “22? 1.357? 666/513? Oooh, I bet it was one of those flowery, happy-go-lucky ones like this one, huh? Too bad it’s ALL GONE NOW. The nightmare realm’s got more use for it than the idiots that lived there.” he pauses, turning to stare viciously in all seven of her eyes. “And you’re still here, taking the ‘moral highroad’ or whatever. Helping people. And what did they ever do for you, huh? Nothing. Soon enough they’ll forget all about you, because mortals only care about what concerns them. So you’ve ‘defeated me’, congrats. Here’s a gold star, you’re free to go. What now, Seven-Eyes? Too bad nobody knows what you did, right? Nobody cares. You’ll just stay here, alone, dancing to his tune. Hope you’re HAPPY about that.” Jheselbraum casts long, cold look back at the demon. It seems that the horrifying one-eyed beast is now reduced to nothing but a pathetic kicked puppy, whose bark is far worse than his bite. Though the Oracle has to admit, it’s a bit impressive. For him, this is technically the first time they’ve ever met, and Cipher still finds something about her that actually hits its mark.

There’s a temptation to march over to the demon and shake him, to give him a harsh reminder that the only reason he is still alive is because of the mercy of those whom he has wronged. To rub his loss in his face, to remind him that he is nothing but a pathetic little man now, with not even a scrap of the power he had before. Nora wants to take all those millennia of hurt and hopelessness and anger and hurl it back in his stupid ignorant face, and make him feel at least a fraction of what she felt because of him. That was what she had planned to do.

But something holds her back.

Spotting the hesitancy, Bill looks ready to spout something else, but loses his nerve when she shoots one look at him. The Oracle finds herself fiddling with her pendant, a nervous habit she had developed a few millenia ago. It catches the demon’s eye, and from the corner of her vision she can see him staring at it, an unreadable look on his face. She drops her hand, leaving to tinker with one of her personal projects, though her attention is elsewhere, and the action seems more like a need to keep herself busy than anything else. After an eternity of waiting, that method of occupying her time seems common to her. All she does is wait, and the Oracle can’t help but feel frustrated just at the familiarity of it. She waited most of her existence to see Bill Cipher defeated, and waited for the right moment to rub that defeat in his face. But now, she can’t even bring herself to say anything, and the waiting game begins anew. Except now she is waiting for the twins to come back, and hopefully distract her from the thoughts of the past that keep on surfacing, despite her best efforts to snuff them out.

And, as if to her own silent plea, the children do come back, holding an assortment of trinkets that they seem to have acquired free of charge and chatting amiably with each other. “You’re such a nerd, Dip Dop!”

“Hey! This thing could be really useful, you know?” Dipper waves a small book around, and Jheselbraum could just make out the title: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Multiverse.

Well. At least he would get a laugh out of it. Once the disappointment clears away.

“Besides,” the boy continues, “who gets a freaking pillow when they visit another dimension?”

“Actually,” the Oracle gestures at the woven mass of cloth in Mabel’s arms, “It’s a bagpipe.”

“Ooh,” the girl looks down at her new-found souvenir. “So like an interdimensional bagpipe?”

“No, a regular one.” The two blink simultaneously down at the object.

“How did it-”

“Who cares!” Mabel squeezes the instrument in a strange sort of hug, making it emit a small tooting noise. “I’m keeping it!”

“Alright, just make sure not to break it.” the Oracle smiles at the girl. Yes, Mabel Pines is extremely likable. There is a sort of nostalgic feel she can’t shake away when taking to the child, though in all honesty she cannot place where it’s coming from. “I believe it is time for you to be heading back. Your family is extremely worried about you.”

“Oh man,” Dipper drops the books he’s been holding and grips the sides of the hunting hat he’s wearing. “The Grunkles! They’re probably freaking out right now. Mabel, we gotta go back! Uh-” he turns to her pleadingly. “How do we go back?”

The Oracle reaches for something cluttered among the shelves that she’s been saving a while ago for this exact occasion. She hands it to the boy carefully. “These are dimensional scissors. They would be able to get you back to your dimension safely. But,” she explains as the two twins look at them quizzically. “These are only good for three uses. So please don’t go joyriding.”

“Aye aye, captain!” Mabel salutes playfully. “Hey Bill, quit sulking, it’s time to go home!” The demon, who left her balcony a while ago to stare at the hydrodisplacer she had assembled a few weeks before with mild interest, turns to look back at the girl with a confused sort of frown. “Home?”

“You know, the Shack!”

“Oh, right.”

Dipper inspects the scissors. “It looks like one of those kiddie ones for arts and crafts. Uh, no offence,” he remarks quickly at her, blushing in embarrassment, “It’s just- how do you use them? Just cut the air or-?”

Bill stanches them away with an annoyed growl, dismissively slicing through the fabric of reality, leaving behind a glowing blue cut where spacetime had divided to provide a pathway through. “Great, LET’S GO.”

“Wait!” Mabel looks back at the woman, still clutching the slightly battered bagpipe. “We’ll meet again, right?”

Jheselbraum winks with three of her eyes. “Sooner than you think.”

The girl beams, waving one last time, before fearlessly dragging a nervous looking Dipper and an impatient looking Bill right through the portal.

“I’ll be watching you, Norm.” The demon freezes at the nickname, turning around to look back at her in newfound shock. Or more exactly, at her pendant. His eyes then dart up to her face, a realization in them that is hard not to catch on to. He opens his mouth to say something, only to be dragged into the portal by Mabel’s impatient grip. The Oracle watches the three disappear, and then the rip in reality closes, leaving the temple quiet and empty once again.

And for the first time in a trillion years, she breaks down laughing.

…

A week passes by before Bill Cipher finally returns, dimensional scissors in hand and looking ten times more livid than before.

“I take it you’ve figured it out by now.” She says, calmly watching the demon out of the corner of her bottom left eye. Cipher looks like he’s just about ready to break something, and her relaxed demeanor only seems to fuel his unrelenting anger. She tries not to smile in amusement.

“I thought you were dead.”

The last word seems to hover heavily in the air for a moment, and the Oracle blinks in surprise, turning around fully to stare back at her visitor. Enacouraged by her stunned silence, Bill keeps going, his volume growing with every word. “A TRILLION YEARS, and not even a ‘hey Bill, how’s it going? By the way, I’m totally fine, living it up in my fancy mansion on a freaking mountain, not a pile of dust and ashes at all, WHY WOULD YOU THINK THAT?’ SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE HELL, NORA?”

She pushes back her surprise and tries not to wince at that name, the one she hadn’t heard in quite a while. “Is that what you are mad about?”

“Oh trust me, I’ve got a whole list. THAT just takes the cake. I thought you were dead, and you just show up like it’s no big deal with your-haha-” he cuts himself off with laughter, gripping a nearby column to keep himself upright. “Wow, okay. The whole ‘wise, ancient oracle’ shtick? Real clever of ya, Nora, hard to guess it was you under all that.” he sobers up then, renewing his glare.

“That’s not my name anymore.” she remarks, watching as he sputters indignantly.

“No your- are you serious?” Bill throws his hands up. “That’s THE MOST CLICHE THING I EVER HEARD YOU SAY. WHERE DID YOU GET THAT FROM, SOME B-RATED SOAP OPERA??” He points an accusing finger in her direction. “OH YEAH, LIKE ‘JHESELBRAUM’ IS WAY BETTER. IS YOUR LAST NAME YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS, TOO?”

She blinks, considering how off kilter this conversation is going. Then again, this is Bill. “I…don’t think that’s relevant.”

“NO IT ISN’T! But you wanna know what is? YOU TRYING TO KILL ME!”

This is a little more of what she had expected. Jheselbraum’s expression turns from surprised to cold once again. “Actually, I believe I’ve succeeded.” The way he opens and closes his mouth, not knowing what to say, makes her snort under her breath. “What, the great Bill Cipher has nothing to say now? And here I thought you were a maser with words.” She looks away to examine the edge of her sleeve. “I guess dying changed that.”

“YOU- WHY WOULD-”

“Why do you think?” The spark of anger, the one that’s been death for so long finally ignites, and burns in a cold, unmasked fury as the Oracle slowly walks up to him. Bill notices the change, and almost subconsciously backs away a few steps as she looms over him. “I watched dimensions burn and people die just because you thought it might be fun. Do you know how many I’ve met that suffered because of you? Stanford Pines was no where near the worst case, oh no. There were people whose minds you’ve shattered completely because you felt like it. Beings whose scars were too deep to ever heal, and I had to put them back together again. So many I’ve watched that suffered because of my mistake, because I believed what you promised me. And what did you promise me, Bill?”

Make it worth something.

I will.

“Well, did you?”

Bill, who had been glaring at her as she talked, flinches away at that as if she were yelling, despite her voice being only slightly above a whisper. He looks to the side, biting his lip and not saying a word, and even though her mind is now clouded with anger Jheselbraum can’t help but notice how strange it is. The scenario she had seen had Bill yell back at her, defending the chaos he created, and giving her an excuse to throw him off her mountain.

He does none of those things, and it strikes the Oracle just how different this seems to be from how he had acted a week ago. And she berates herself for all this time not even taking a glance at Gravity Falls, because she has no idea what could have possibly happened to make him act this way.

“So, you’re not happy about that.”

Jheselbraum blinks down at him, and resists the sudden urge to laugh. “Now why would you think that?” she asks, the anger no longer present. She is still looming over him, and Bill only seems tense, something between fear and disappointment in his expression. The Oracle takes a small moment to note just how small he is compared to her. Nothing like the terrifying demon he made himself to be. She steps back finally, giving him space to breathe. Bill straightens out, only to fiddle with the sleeve of his sweater awkwardly. The bright yellow color and the big, black eye on the front has Mabel’s handiwork written all over it. That girl is a bit too open, a bit to accepting for her own good. “If you have something to say to me, say it now. Those scissors only have one more use, after all.”

That is an unsubtle message to get out. Bill takes it without comment. “You kept it.” he says instead, gazing at the pendant she’s wearing. The original grey has been gone for a long time, replaced with an intense dark purple that seems to absorb all light. So he still remembers it as well, despite how different it looks now. She regards the necklace with a detached sort of acceptance and offers him no explanation, partly because she is tired, the anger draining most of her energy, and partly because she has none. “You can go now,” is all she says instead. “The sun is almost rising.”

“Fine.” He says not without a hint of rejection. There is a sound of reality splitting at the seams, and then he is gone.

Jheselbraum gazes at the brightening hizon, watching as the sun showers Dimension 52 in a gentle golden glow. Her grip is on her pendant. It’s like the layers of hurt she kept buried for eons had emerged again, and the Oracle doesn’t quite know what to do. So she stares at the valley down below, and tries not to think about the conversation that just happened.

“He is still angry.” Well, that proves to be futile, and she turns to face her second visitor with a small frown. The Axolotl makes a sound not unlike a sigh, and his presence does seem to soothe the soothsayer somewhat. “I’m sure you aren’t very surprised at that.”

“What…happened?” she asks instead, eyes still directed at the horizon line. She absentmindedly rubs her pendant, and realizes that she is anxious. “Why is he-?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask him that yourself.” she could hear the slight smile in the being’s voice. “His bubble cracked, and of course the All-Seeing Eye was not left unscathed. No matter what he wishes you to believe.” He regards her patiently for a while, before his gentle voice breaks the silence once again. “Will you join them?”

Jheselbraum finally tears away from the scene outside to look at the piece of parchment that had made it to her only a short time ago. Stanford Pines had found a way to reach a dimension as remote as hers, and the Oracle can’t help but be impressed. “In a while,” she replies, hand on her pendant once again. “I…need to think.”

There is a silent acknowledgement, and then she is alone again. One of the few things Bill had gotten right simply by looking at her. In the silence, there is finally nothing to distract the Oracle from her concerns, and for once the concerns are about the past as much as they are about the future. Well, no, that wasn’t quite true. The future still worried her a whole lot more, and for good reason. The Oracle makes the mistake of, once again, glancing at what lies ahead.

And sees nothing but flames.

[apoclyptics]

( 𝐌𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐘𝐍 𝐂𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄 ) ⸻ have you heard about FAYE HAYNES ? she lives at the qz. i think they've lived there for twenty three years. they're twenty six years old and seem very SYMPATHETIC. i've also heard they can be very IMPULSIVE as well. they've been assigned as a bartender. they often daydream about 𝑎 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠𝑛’𝑡 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑑, 𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑠ℎ 𝑏𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑚𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑠.

name:  faye elizabeth haynes.

nicknames:  fox.

preferred name:  fox.

age:  twenty six.

date of birth: september 28th, 1997.

starsign:  libra.

faceclaim:  madelyn cline.

hair colour:  blonde / dirty blonde.

eye colour:  green.

height: 5 foot, 1 and ⅔ inches.

occupation:  bartender in the pittsburg qz.

hometown:  cranberry, pennslyvania.

children: none.

tattoos: none.

piercings:  two lobe piercings.

signature scent:  straight whiskey and malted milk.

parents: jeremiah haynes ( deceased, cordyceps. cause of death: bullet. ) and eleanor haynes ( deceased, cordyceps. cause of death: bullet. )

siblings: sister, wanted connection.

𝙲𝙷𝙰𝚁𝙰𝙲𝚃𝙴𝚁  𝙸𝙽𝚂𝙿𝙾:     100%  -  81% ,  oberyn  martell  (  game  of  thrones  )  ,  daenerys  targaryen  (  game  of  thrones  )  ,  dominic  toretto  (  fast  &  furious  )  ,  stitch  (  lilo  &  stitch  )  .  80%  -  61% ,  michaela  banes  (  transformers  )  ,  nymphadora  tonks  (  harry  potter  )  ,  octavia  blake  (  the  100  )  ,  maddy  perez  (  euphoria  )  60%  -  50%,  ellie  sattler  (  jurassic  park  )  ,  mia  torretto  (  fast  &  furious  )

TRIGGER WARNINGS: death, guns.

𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊

how is it you can want for something when you can't remember it ? children have little memory to begin with, but it's a cruel would i suppose, when a child doesn't know the feel of her mothers arms, doesn't remember the sound of her fathers voice. it can be such a cruel world. faye haynes doesn't remember any of that. september twenty eighth, 1997, it's a day nonsequential to anyone really, it's possible to some, but to the haynes family, of cranberry, pennsylvania, it was a joyous day.

perhaps it's because it's so unexpected, the family knows nothing of what's too come and perhaps that's what makes it so devastating. but the first three years of faye's life, while with no memory, they were just as they were suppose to be. white picket fence, two kids and a dog, everything was perfect. how can things become so disastrous so easily ? is it really true that disaster breed kindness.

what's a three year old to do in an apocalyptic outbreak ?

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊 𝐈𝐓𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅

it was just a normal day, until the amber alert started, well. it wasn't really, the day had been explosive, there was an agitation in the air. but a child her age would never understand. to preoccupied with her toys, breakfast lay untouched, the toast buttered and gone cold left alone, to the point that eleanor ate it herself. that was her downfall.

they say it started in the flour, in the bread, in the many foods that contained flour. and it spread from their, an infection that altered the brain, feasted on flesh from within, caused an almost rage that no one understood. and the unseen twitch. that twitch became a scowl, and soon her mother was lost. the infection quickly spread through the haynes parental figures to the point of madness when the full outbreak was released. the eldest of the two children gathered faye in her arms and scurried as well as she could, away from the monstrous creatures their parents had become.

they were so close, so close to not knowing life as it became, a hovering, snarling monster lingered above the girls, fayes head buried inwards, sobbing in fear that she didn't understand why daddy was acting this way. and a sister who clamped her eyes shut and prayed that this wouldn't hurt. but it was a gunshot that rang out, the hovering mess over jeremiah haynes collapsed, the life that had been taken, drained from his eyes. another gun shot rang out, echoing in the quiet street, but the body of eleanor haynes was soon to hit the ground.

the two girls, like princess' in the stories you tell your children were rescued by a knight in shining armour, and they clung to him as if he were their only hope.

𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐔𝐏 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐐𝐙.

there's a bleakness in their years, days of walking, sobbing and whining led them to a barely constructed safe zone. they clung to a man they barely knew, they clung to the hope that this was their saviour, but there lives were completely different.

fedra schools were like orphanages and schools all rolled into one, and faye had ended up there, the first memory she has, a clear memory, is one of fear for the stranger, not the man that brought them to the place that would become her home, but rather the uniformed guard with the gun strapped to his chest. he scared her.

they tried, to make a solider out of this girl. but how could they do something like that ? disaster in her breeds with kindness. faye haynes could not be broken by them. she was no solider, always apologetic, always kind. she was clumsy and awkward, all knees and elbows as a girl and that was no good to them.

she did have a knack for sneaking out and in of places, so much so she garnered the name fox, and it was something she carried with her like a badge. as each year passed, fox grew into a women, until she eventually was no longer a child. her sister came and went as she pleased, but fox preferred the stability ( if a quarantine zone could be considered stable ) eventually she aged out of the school, no fedra uniform, no want to join the fireflies. but rather, a girl with a glass half full attitude wanting to make the best of what she had, landing a long standing job as a bartender, she's been content to just live her life as it was.

[dragoncityinteriordesign]

When Zhao Yunlan finally goes to investigate Lin Jing's potential treachery, he does so by comparing the empty bag that the syringe should have been in to the log sheet. Thanks to @bisouette's crackerjack language skills, I have some translations of the log sheet:

Column headings: (serial) number, evidence origin, evidence name, amount, case progress/situation, results, inspector

#095-097: Drunken Murder Case; sharp knife, fruit knife, long knife; case confirmed; Inspectors Wang Zuojun, Da Qing #317-[323]: Kong Jing case; syringe, drill, feather duster, steel saw, steel [something], rope, electric saw; case confirmed; Inspector Da Qing [...]: glove; case awaiting confirmation; Inspector Bai Jinyuan [...]; case confirmed; Inspector Zhu Hong [...]; case confirmed; Inspector Zhao Zhugang

And then the bag itself, with explanatory notes:

Case name: Kong Jing case Evidence name: syringe with needle Collection location: old street [something something] building Investigating unit: SID Collector [the one who found it]: Lin Jing Sealer [person who sealed the bag?]: Da Qing Deliver-er [person who passes it on]: Receiving analyst: Receiving analysis unit:

Well, that's all nice and -- wait a minute, who the hell are Wang Zuojun, Bai Jinyuan, and Zhao Zhugang?

And now we're at the reason I originally asked @bisouette to look at this for me. I've mentioned before that my grasp of Chinese is beyond shaky, but by this point in the process, I can reliably read the names of all the main characters -- and these are not the names of the main characters.

Obviously the numbering system is nonsequential, which means that Wang Zhojun might be an employee from any time in the past decade, as long as Da Qing's been around. However, two of them have been busy recently: This is from episode 27; the Kong Jing case (AKA the Great Personality Caper) was episode 25. That means that somewhere in the interim, in the midst of wrangling Da Ji, SID also logged in at least eight new pieces of evidence, only three of which correspond to a case managed by someone we know.

On a meta level, I figure these are probably the names of some of the people who worked on the show, and those trusting fools figured no one would ever care enough to look closely. Ha! I sure showed them.

But when it comes to in-universe explanations? Go wild.

Theory 1: SID takes in all the weird shit anyone finds in Dragon City. Wang Zuojun, Bai Jinyuan, and Zhao Zhugang are employees of some other division, who, in the course of doing their otherwise mundane jobs, came across ooky spooky objects. These objects were collected and delivered to SID HQ, with the names of the original investigators preserved for future reference.

Theory 2: Despite what we see in the show, we are expected to understand that SID is actually a much larger division. All those "new" employees we see at the end have been there all along. However, Zhao Yunlan has chosen not to notice them, and we, experiencing the world through his protagonist's perspective, have not either.

Theory 3: Zhao Yunlan has concocted an entire roster of fake employees in an attempt to keep the funding coming in, and needs to keep putting their names on things to justify it all to payroll.

The possibilities are endless! And that's even without scratching the surface of what a Drunken Murder Case would entail, why it would be supernatural enough to warrant SID involvement, how that specific knife trio was involved, and whether those knives are or are not now being used for cutting up little fish in Lao Li's kitchenette (it's okay, he washed them real good first).

[stormtide-leviathan]

I’m currently watching through Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’ve watched through this show fully like, twice before, not to mention watching tons and tons of episodes nonsequentially.

I just watched an episode I swear I have *never* seen before. I just watched it with my mom who also had no memory, and she watched it through with me as well as on her own. It had multiple plot-significant events that missing would be very noticeable, as they’re built on and referenced in the following episodes, not to mention how the next episode literally picks up right where the last one left off. Even if I did skip over it in the past how did I not notice that and go back? I’m so confused

[gatheringbones]

[“As trans historian Cristan Williams explains:" The message TERF opinion leaders send is clear: trans women represent the wolf in sheep's clothing; an enemy that could be anywhere, especially in authenticated women's spaces. Put another way, the enemy has already breached the inner sanctum and the only option now is to proactively expel them. Assigning so high a priority to this unholy task is in large part a distraction mechanism. As Jules Joanne Gleeson and Elle O'Rourke write in the introduction to their edited volume Transgender Marxism( 2021):

The figure of the trans woman interloper, disrupting otherwise stable and harmonious relations within the community of women, functions to relieve radical feminism of the indignity of acknowledging the incoherence of the radical feminist project as such. Conveniently, the trans woman as pest distracts from long-running doubts around radical feminism's claimed ability to speak for, represent, and defend the sanctity women- in- general: women's rights, women's interests, women's spaces and women's knowledge."

The lone phrase' trans woman interloper' is, basically, the sum of Raymond's views on trans women in a less verbose format. As a direct result of her chronic evidentiary malnourishment, Raymond mistakenly treats prescriptive medical texts written by cis men as a window into trans people's scheming minds. Justifiably disgusted by what she saw through the glass, but unjustifiably ascribing guilt to the very people who suffered most from the gender-normativity of the medical regime, she lets fly her transphobic rage in The Transsexual Empire. This passage is but a sample:" The transsexually constructed lesbian- feminist, having castrated himself, turns his whole body and behavior into a phallus that can rape in many ways, all the time. In this sense, he performs total rape, while also functioning totally against women's will to lesbian- feminism."

I do not aim here to dispute the standard critique of the text, but I do wish to significantly expand upon it and fill in some of its empty compartments. Principally, commentaries on The Transsexual Empire almost always pass over its somewhat challenging, esoteric, opaque and often quite nonsequential theological elements; this is an oversight that is irreconcilable both with Raymond's educational and cultural heritage and, more importantly, with the privileged place she gives to her discussion of Gnostic transcendentalism and androgyny in the book's final chapter, immediately foreshadowing her concluding arguments. The positioning of this discourse at the climax of Raymond's argumentative flow suggests that she saw body/ mind dualism as one of the cardinal philosophical problems of trans identity and among the foremost proofs, therefore, of its illegitimacy under feminist critical analysis.

Transcendence to a higher plane of consciousness, the ostensible aim of Gnostic religious practice, is not itself the sticking point. Raymond's intellectual mentor, Daly, was not opposed to anti- materialist transcendentalism per se, and neither is Raymond. In Empire, she makes it clear that she regards the transcendence of the self over the imposed bodily confines of patriarchal society as integral to radical feminism's mission, because, as she says,' who we are should not be defined by exclusive reference to our bodies." However, in her idealised futurity, the soul does not transcend the body by detaching from it, nor by exploiting the body's plasticity to make it align with a particular image of the self; rather, the soul and body, in constructive dialogue, should together transcend the limitations of their cultural environment, because to do otherwise would be to leave either the psychical or physical aspect of societal misogynistic oppression untouched. Thus, the error of the Gnostics, as Raymond perceives it, is not their dissatisfaction with worldly constraints, for this she shares, but rather is twofold in form: first, their assumption that full spiritual freedom can only be attained extra-corporeally, and second, their propagation of misogynistic value- judgements about the female body, which male Gnostic leaders often cited to justify women's systemic subordination within their movements. Raymond's reservations centre most of all on the traditionally ascribed Gnostic belief that humanity once possessed an androgynous purity which, though lost when the Demiurge divided humanity along physical, anatomical lines, we might aspire one day to recover." Under scrutiny, she argues, this androgyny reveals itself to be a disguised form of purified maleness and, by extension, a technology for the stealthy annihilation of independent female subjectivities.

The creation stories in the Gnostic scriptures and traditions differ greatly, but creational androgyny- the unity of the male and female in a single spiritual being as originally designed by the Prime Creator, or in a single organism as designed by the Demiurge- is a recurring theme, representing the proper, uncorrupted human state. In the Sophia[ Wisdom] of Jesus Christ, one of a collection of texts discovered buried in pottery by an unsuspecting Egyptian farmer at Nag Hammadi in 1945, a corpus only gradually translated into English from the Coptic between 1956 and 1977, the Messiah explains that when the' self- made Father ... decided to turn his likeness into a great power, at once the strength of[ his] light appeared as an immortal androgynous Human. This Human was then placed into a physical bipedal body, marking the inception of the ancestral hominid we call Adam. Only later did material sex- differentiation take place with the creation of a woman, who would be called Eve, from Adam's side- an event that took place in the earthly Garden of Eden under the self- interested( mis) direction of that most malicious sub- divinity, the Demiurge. The imagined archetypal adherent to the Gnostic scriptures considered this partitioning to have been a tragedy, rather than a cause for celebration. That Adam now had company was beside the point; he had lost a part of himself and was condemned, so long as he remained imprisoned in physical spacetime, to a lesser, eternally incomplete existence in subordination to the Demiurge. The Gnostics wished to undo what that infernal entity had done- to become whole once again- but since Eve is a fragment of Adam, and not Adam a fragment of Eve, the barrier to the restoration of one's complete humanity tends to appear higher for women than for men. Men must recover the missing chunk taken from their side; women are the missing chunk, and so their journey to recompletion is not so much about' recovering' something as it is about becoming the full being that they never were to begin with.”]

rebecca jane morgan, from gender heretics: evangelicals, feminists, and the alliance against trans liberation, 2023

[contentment-of-cats]

Dear Brain. WTAF are you doing?

All through my diagnosis last February until very recently, I can't remember any dreams I might have had. It's possible I didn't have any, but I don't think it's likely. Lately, it's as if the dream factory has resumed production, and it's of a product that wakes me up and keeps me up for a few hours after. They're not nightmares, though some of them edge that, but just so strange that I have to wake up to parse and digest them.

There's a lot below the cut. Total brain dump.

The oddest ones are of a pastiche of places I've been and lived. Familiar enough, but also strangely assembled. An apartment with more rooms than make sense, or a city familiar enough but one where I get lost when things are not where they ought to be. There are people in these dreams that I know in the dreams, they're familiar, but when I wake up I lose who they are. My dreams have always been vivid, but these are unsettling.

During my last depressive episode, there was a point where I questioned my own reality. I lacked belief in my own existence. It was a throwback to when I was a kid at home, and I'd pretend what was happening was happening to someone else to the point where I would have the illusion of leaving my body. I remember an incident where my mother wasn't satisfied with how I was washing my face - I was in early adolescence and has having a spate of acne - and she put me in a chokehold to use an abrasive scrubbing pad on my face. I have no memory of anything after that. I assume that I overwrote my own memory. It took me decades to remember that - and my mother admitted to doing it after claiming that I made it up, then saying that it wasn't really like that.. Maybe there's enough unprocessed trauma in there that I'm in for an interesting few months. I talked about this yesterday with my medical trauma therapist, and she has asked me if I still doubt the reality of my own existence, if that's how I got through treatment and surgery, and I had to say that I didn't know.

I strove to live in the moment, to let the things happening to me pass around me like water around a rock. I don't think or believe that I was strong, or a warrior, or tough. I think that I survived somehow when others didn't or couldn't. My docs say I came out better because I was heavy going in and I had that cushion - essentially carrying extra weight (fat) saved me. I had people around me who helped, supported, and sent me loving energy - and it was a revelation that so many cared. I finally was able to know my own reality.

I don't know what's next. I am in remission - or have what I prefer to call Schrodinger's cancer. I know that if the cancer comes back, the chances that I will get another remission decrease. I have to be at peace with that to live. And if I am going to live, I am going to treasure every moment I have. Even in my dreams, maybe I need to say that life is too short.

Thank you for reading this brain barf, brought to you by nonsequential sleeping patterns, gabapentin, and ever-decreasing doses (YES!) of oxycodone. I made focaccia, have cold brew, and am spending the day reading, napping with cats, and writing.

[invisibleanonymousmonsters]

So, I've been reading HOS, My Eyes, nonsequential, HFY...

And I'm just stuck on how freaking good all Y/N are in each story.

If you had to rate them which ones are you favourite to least in personality anf backstory.

And which were the most fun and interesting for you to write to least!

Just a little random question from one of your biggest fan and lover of your writing

This is a very interesting question. I've said this before and have always been pretty transparent about this: but all of my reader inserts have a part of me in them. So I see them as just different versions of myself in a lot of ways. Maybe that's cringe to admit. But after all, I've always written the stories I wanted to read, so.

I don't think I have it in me to rank all of them. But I will share some of my thoughts and opinion on a few of them.

I would say that my least favorite is Y/N in My Eyes. Mostly because I am childless by choice and will always be, so I can't relate to her at all in her decision to keep a child. I would say she's also a bit more insecure – which I think makes her more relatable, but stops her from being my favorite.

My absolute favorite to write was Y/N in Recruit. I simply just wanted to write a completely badass female character. I didn't give a fuck if she was a Mary Sue or whatever misogynistic thing people say about powerful female characters. I just did what I want. And I still enjoy her just being a complete boss bitch.