#this is written very silly but i AM dead serious

[ro-botany]

Since I don't want it to be stuck in Debate Hour Jail forever, today I bring you a Hot Take(tm):

Validar would be a good-looking guy if IntSys stopped making him gray.

My evidence?

I UN-GRAYED HIM MY DAMN SELF, SINCE THEY WON'T.

In both Original Sinister Eyeshadow flavour and the ALL NEW Slightly More Chill Eyeliner flavour.

...Okay, okay, so I changed a few things aside from just the skin tone, but it genuinely does not take much to make him good looking. Here, Ana even made a side-by-side comparison! Do you see how little changed!!! And yet how much better he looks!!!

The philosophy with Validar's design, as far as I can tell, is to make him look genuinely inhuman to sell you on how irredeemably evil he is. To make him look dead, keeping in theme with his role as leader of the apocalypse cult and known controller of zombies.

That's where you get the gray skin tone. The lightless eyes, the vertical slit pupils. The lack of eyebrows that makes his expression harder to read. The way the sinister eyeshadow shapes his face. The weird ass impossible wrinkle on his forehead. It's to make him inhuman and hard to read. And beyond that; his long face and willowy proportions are a pretty far cry from most of the other characters in the game, the ones intended to be attractive.

HOWEVER. IF YOU JUST... MAKE HIM LOOK HUMAN, AND CHANGE NOTHING ELSE.

THIS IS WHAT YOU GET.

Literally all you have to do is:

Give him an actual human skin tone

Give him back his eyebrows

Tell him to stop squinting 24/7

Make the wrinkle on his forehead plausible instead of whatever the fuck it does in canon

Round out his pupils and put a little shine in his eyes

And very suddenly the man is, dare I say, handsome.

Willowy proportions, slim face, and high cheekbones are not inherently bad-looking traits. It's genuinely JUST the eyes and the skin tone that ruin his looks. Hell, even the eyeshadow can stay once you fix those things. Look at him. Look me in the eyes and tell me Edited Validar wouldn't be a niche but beloved tumblr sexyman if he were canon.

He's so close to being pretty. His personality and moral values are absolutely rancid. But his face ain't.

ALSO CAN YOU IMAGINE if the default Robins looked a little more like him? They would look GOOD. WE WERE DOUBLY ROBBED I TELL YOU.

[kerubimcrepin]

Liveblog - Dofus, livre 1 : Julith [PART 4]

"BOUBOL"

Besides the fact that I think Joris is threatened by Lilotte's presence, I think Lilotte is a bit jealous of Joris's position in life. He's just like her... but luckier. He has a father he has a very close relationship with, yet he's judging her from his own, somewhat privileged position.

I know this scene is probably just about showing that Joris has speed and strength atypical for normal children. I just like reading into things.

Just looking at this makes me feel suicidal. You know what? Fuck this. I am stealing this translation. I remember someone else doing one.

I can't translate the second page because it's too much. Just too much.

Babygirl your haunted stares have bewitched me.

This still says "BOUBOL", but it now also seems to say "SUPG SORDES". Unless I'm stupid. It's kinda hard to understand because some letters are atypical.

Joris 320 years later when he finds one of his hand written self-insert fanfics of being Khan's coolest most beloved right-hand arm man woman silly rabbit and getting a single kiss on the forehead (with roses straight from Shoujo Manga drawn on that page of the manuscript): I am going to kill mys——

I think that Joris is at the age where Kerubim could fucking tell him a single thing. Like literally any single thing to give him context.

"Something dangerous is going on, the world needs saving! And to save it, I have to leave, and you have to guard the store." or "Someone DIED. (a lie, but the situation is just as grave, so whatever)"

But no, he just leaves, without giving Joris a single idea of how serious the situation is, despite it literally concerning him and his safety. The Kerubim Crepin AAA+ parenting.

From Joris's POV, it's not like something urgent came up, something dangerous, — it's that Kerubim "forgor :3" again. As he always does. He even calls it an errand. Who the fuck calls a dangerous situation an errand? Kerubim "dangerously addicted to lying to my son about how bad things are" Crepin, that's who.

The way he starts out angry and just ends in a ":(" is just... heartbreaking, man.

He tries to appeal to his maturity and desire to please, but from Joris's POV, he's been doing a lot of favours for Kerubim his whole life. And in response, this guy can't even go and have fun with him at the stadium. Two times now, actually. It's almost like he just promises him things so he'll shut up, and never goes through on purpose.

We know it's not like that for Kerubim, but I understand why Joris reacts the way he does.

Very cute ad.

Dofus livre 2 when Simone comes into the room to beat everyone who wronged her little nephew to death:

(Joris felt awkward about going to her and Julie with the whole "everyone is dead" issue for the entirety of livre 1 bc of their Out-of-Town Octopus Barbecue plans)

[slashercult]

free readings - closed (for now)

hello everyone!! im willing to do some free readings for the month of october so i can get some more experience with divination! just a reminder that i have only been doing this for a couple of months now so i am still learning so i ask you to keep that in mind. please read the rules i have written down below for the readings, if you don't follow them i will delete your ask.

i can do tarot readings, oracle readings, and answer yes or no questions. i can also give you a personalized song, book passage, and sea creature, just be sure to request what you want from what i listed. read below if interested.

rules (1) only send questions through asks (no dms) (2) specify what type of reading you want. and if u want a personalized song, book passage, or silly sea creature that i pick through shufflemancy along with it. (3) tell me something meaningful to you related to ur reading, anything interesting about yourself. it could be an item, a book, anything that you resonate with. entertain me! readings i will not do - anything to do with finances or money related - 18+ readings - asking for readings of celebs - trying to contact the dead - anything that deals with a very heavy or serious topic - nothing weird pretty please

[oohbuggypie]

it's both my God given right and duty to never shut up so i am going 2 not be quiet about BullDon 🫡 putting all text ("analysis", fanfic reccs, general rambling) under a read more so those who don't gaf can scroll easy 🩷 HERE WE GO !!

(all fanfics and their respective author are linked within their titles 🩷)

-------------------------------------------------------

K WHERE DO I START . their dynamic, past the obvious matador and bull trope, is so interesting to me. i think that their backgrounds have so many similarities; Don is a matador and is shown to have hundreds of people gathered in a stadium to watch his match, and Bull is watched relentlessly by the paparazzi. but they both have very different reactions to the fame and attention they receive. Don soaks it up and Bull can't stand it, and i think it contributes to their odd, almost mirror dynamic a lot

past that is their personalities and ethics,, both of them are SO full of themselves i actually almost forget, with Bull only being slightly more humble (cuz he can't exactly brag about his looks 😭) . Don is more prideful than he is cocky imo; but he's VERY expressive of his anger and distaste for losing, which makes him kind of paralell to my idea of Bull. though this follows more of a headcanon of mine and not whats in the game, i think Bull is really calm outside his persona in the ring (i.e his intermissions,,, he's being friendly if anything with Doc and he speaks so calm and low in Title Defense). unlike Don, he's shown actually building endurance and managing his emotions compared to his Contender cutscnene, essentially the OPPOSITE of Don, who only gets more sour and negative after he loses. i think in that aspect they're complete opposites but that switch makes their dynamic and relationship so much more complex to me

in the ring i think they share the factor of channeling their anger to help them succeed; Don is stronger when he's pissed at his missing toupee and Bull is .. Bull ? the Bull charge and his gut punch in Title Defense are very telling if his entire character isn't about how genuinely angered that man can be and i think that gives them a more complex element to how they'd work together; they're both sour and ugly about being perceived/looked at (more literally) in a way they don't want to, so that's just another thing that i find so interesting .. they have a BUNCH in common yet they're drastically different when you look at their characters generally

K NOW FANFIC RAMBLE TIME 🩷

Suficiente:

if anybody knows the author DetectiveCapan from AO3 personally im so dead srs when i say u should message them and praise them. i could not stfu about their BullDon writing and im not going to in a paragraph or two here but OH MY GODD. i have always avoided both actual books and fics alike that are written choppy and simplistic, and especially ones that lack atmosphere simply cuz they're just unappealing and hard to make me feel what's actually going on. but their BullDon trilogy ?? somehow their style of writing, which doesn't use complex words or long sentences packed with detail, is genuinely some of my favorite that i have EVERR read . they make the emotions the characters are feeling SO easy to understand and feel even without exaggerated expressions and dramatic descriptions it's actually kind of incredible ? and the bit of humor isn't overbearing, it's just silly and it sets up the atmosphere, which never ends up terribly serious. they write relationships with a familiarity in the atmosphere and actions that have been unachievable in any other piece of fiction ive read and the gestures omg .. IM GONNA BE SPECIFIC IN MY RECCS SO YOU'LL HEAR MORE ABOUT IT BUT OMGG. DETECTIVECAPAN IF U SEE THIS BLESS UR HEART SERIOUSLY UR AN AMAZING AUTHOR 🩷🩷 PLEASE KEEP DOING WHAT U DO UR WONDERFUL AND I'D LOVE 2 SEE MORE OF UR WORK ABT BULLDON / PUNCH OUT!! WII IN GENERAL 🥹 now the recc list!!

possibly my favorite out of all three and it's literally the first one 😭 ough i could gush about this one FOR SO LOOONG ,,, i love how they immediately establish Don's mindset and attitude with how he both admires and pities the World Circuit for what they get and what they go through. when Don's out of the shower and he sees Bull half dressed there's no implication of sexual tension despite them being mostly undressed in front of each other and thats actually SO special to me because i had a morethanfriendship just like this and they captured the reality of it in a perfect way, like feeling for feeling . same in the way that Bull watches Don get dressed; they mention he stares but he doesn't have a corny, shocked "omg i hope he didn't notice me" reaction to catching himself. instead they mutually understand that they're admiring each other and they just smile about it . LIKE UGH THATS SO SPECIAL TO ME OMGG. and also Don putting on his - what'd id assume - rosary and then dabbing cologne behind his ears .. literally clutched my own cross necklace like omg that detail makes me crazyy i love the religion mention sm 😭

also UGH Bull's mannerisms .. a little annoyed at Don but there's such an endearing thing about it; he's annoyed at his demands but he complies anyway cuz even though he knows Don is purposely trying to make him a little pissed, he likes him enough to and he knows it'll make him happy .. THERE'S A DEEPER SENSE TO IT AND I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT IT IS BUT IT'S HARD TO WORDD 😭 also Bull being quick tempered about small things like the radio playing static and the music not being his taste .. and just the mutual like attachment they have with each other.. Bull never says anything about taking Don "home" (his hotel room) but Don knows exactly to get in his car and go with him anyway ,, and i cannot stress hard enough that it's just the little things seriously. i will never ever be regular about Bull liking to tie Don's boot laces, or promising to get his favorite beer when he offers it, or purposely (and patiently) waiting for him to get out of the shower so they can talk 🥹 like all those little gestures of love that show that he really does care . also possibly my favorite thing about this whole trilogy is that they have a very unestablished relationship ! it's never explicitly stated that they're dating or in love or anything even romantic but there areee quick mentions that imply (if im reading them correctly) that they're def a bit more than friends i.e Don mentioning how he thought his skin would burn from being in Bull's shower water temps ,, but the fact that it's not an established relationship and they don't outright express romantic interest in one another makes it SO much more special. it sets a completely different tone that creates warmth, familiarity, and comfort between them 😭

that's about that for Suficiente .. I LOVE IT SO MUCHH 😭 PLS READ IT, LEAVE KUDOS, AND IF U CAN COMMENT UR PRAISES !! 🩷 it is so well deserved genuinely. now on2 the next:

La Cosa Sobre El Pelo:

ugh i love this one equally as much. im gonna be repeating a lot of the same praises and ideas from "Suficiente" bcuz the whole trilogy creates the same kind of atmosphere but i still wanna gush about and explain it 🥹 omgg the paragraph about Don having a bald ass head and it scaring away the ladies made me giggle SO BAD . also UGH okay .. the sentiment of Don being vulnerable enough to confess his biggest insecurity to Bull, and for Bull to actually reflect and think about it so long after he's been told and reciprocate the vulnerability by showing Don a photograph of him before he lost his hair .. OUFFFGGHH actually the cutest and sweetest thing ever . also i am a nitpicker and a sucker for small details and i just absolutely LOVE how naturalistic the author makes the characters move. like Don doesn't get up and stand to grab the photo off the nightstand, he leans over and props himself up with his elbow and continues sipping on his beer when he's observing it like any other person would .. ugh i LOVE that detail , i get a little bothered when people write characters to be unnaturally animated in a setting where it doesn't exactly make sense to be, so that's another aspect of their writing that i appreciate soo much 😭 also it's the gestures omg .. when Bull grabs Don's thigh and shakes it and Don doesn't jerk away or question the closeness , he just leans back onto the bed and continues/ends their conversation about how he'll look bad with no hair and Bull looks good without it ,, I LOVE THAT SO BAADDD again it's the familiarity the meaning of Bull's gestures ,, the care that they quietly express instead of directly saying it .. GAWDD that's like my fav thing 😭 there's something so special about the silent concern and care that Bull has for Don in their writing; the small actions and the thought behind them do so much more than what words could say and i think it's super in character for him as well .. literally stellar i think i need to reread and add onto this one once i look at it again but I LOVE THIS ONE SO SO MUCHH 🩷

[asherlockstudy]

The “We Dug a Hole” discussion

Yesterday I finished watching the latest Ear Biscuit, in which Rhett and Link explained the creative process behind the video “We Dug A Medium-sized Hole”. I was unsurprisingly interested in this one, in light of my analysis “They Dug a Hole” which I would recommend reading in order for this post to make more sense, and I felt both “vindicated” and perplexed while watching it.

I assumed the podcast would be full of potentially interesting information, which is why I legit kept hand-written notes, which made me feel like a creep, to be honest. But the actual reason I did it was because I knew I wouldn’t have the time (or willpower) to rewatch, so taking notes was the only way to not miss on potentially significant details. I believe it was a good call, despite making me feel like a creep. I will explain later why I emphasise on this unpleasant feeling.

Let’s start by reminding ourselves that, on face value, this is a discussion about an (admittedly entertaining) video in which essentially nothing happens. It’s just a hole in the middle of nowhere and a puppet mole that is accidentally killed. And that’s it.

Throughout the podcast Rhett and Link focus a lot on the creative element of the video, which had me raising my eyebrow more than once. Link seemed very excited, saying he was very interested but also didn’t want to be too concerned about the reception of the video, its risk ( what risk?) and whether people would “get it” (? get what ?). The risk was mentioned multiple times by Link and I found it suspicious because it isn’t exactly the first time they make a lightweight video and save for the excavators rent, it shouldn’t have been too expensive either.

My most “vindication” moment was when Rhett said exactly that while they of course always care about standard success (views etc), this time the success in a traditional sense was not their first thought. So I am humbly adding a small part of my post “They Dug A Hole”.

Please, bear with me. I have trauma after the Sherlock and Game of Thrones fiascos and now every vindication feels like a big deal 😂

Link agrees that the most important thing about this video was “expression”. Like, umm, at first glance, this video feels a little surreal to be meant as a vessel of expression. Should I give Link the benefit of the doubt and believe that he meant expressing the silly, carefree side of life and their comedy? Well no, because then Rhett adds that the content was “soul-driven” and “substantial”! Give me a break, my good gents!

Link then intensifies my suspicions, when he vaguely confesses that he has “certain desired outcomes” from this video but at the same time he tries to separate himself from them and simply celebrate the completion of this project. Since it’s established that the views are not the (most) desired outcome, then what is? Probably some certain response from the viewers? It’s shit like that that I say to myself in order to not feel like a creep.

Link finally acknowledges that all this time they sound too serious for something that is seemingly so shallow or silly. I am thankful to him acknowledging this because I was on the verge of feeling like a jerk for the amount of disbelief I had for them calling this video “expression” and “soul-driven content”. Obviously, my disbelief stands only if you judge the video on face value, but it’s Rhett and Link’s avoidance to discuss the deeper motivation behind the video that will inescapably confuse some viewers as to what can possibly be so very significant about a dirt hole and a dead mole.

Link goes on by saying he was happy they made this video as is, by escaping sensationalism and controversy! At this point, I am sure some of the fans just swallow everything these two say with zero processing inside their brains. Shouldn’t one ask themselves: “Hold on, why is Link talking like they actively tried to avoid making the video sensational and controversial? Are we still talking about a video where they dig a hole and have a last convo with a mole puppet? How was avoiding controversy a success in this case?”. But nobody asks these questions in the YouTube comments, at least not in the open.

Rhett says that they had many concepts for those videos they are about to start on their Rhett and Link channel. Link said the original ideas were like 6-7 but Rhett corrected him saying they were certainly close to 30! But Rhett also considered these ideas very bad as “there was no filter in them”. I guess he meant no filters like hole digging and mole dying allegories huh? However, 30 plans… hmm that shows that the “We dug a hole” video was anything but an one-time silly thing. There was thought behind it and intense planning and apparently it is calculated to be so lightweight.

One thing that perplexed me is that Rhett revealed that the whole hole-digging concept was not theirs (except Rhett dreamed it) but of someone hired for the project. As they go about the technical aspects of the work, I realise how many people were involved in this project. Does this mean that all these people…. know? Can all the crew and all the hired extras possibly know things about Rhett and Link’s privacy and have opinions on how to apparently condition the viewers on it (because that’s what they are trying to do IMO)? This possibility seems crazy. Shouldn’t there be contracts of confidentiality in order to collaborate with Mythical in this case? And Mythical has a LOT of employees and extras. That’s so hard to believe. It seems so very risky. This gave me a serious halt.

But here’s an interesting little moment. Rhett said this extra (whose name I am forgetting) said that he had no source of information or any motive or a reason behind suggesting the concept of “digging a hole”. Even more interestingly, Rhett said he didn’t know and he didn’t care to know whether that was true, he just liked the idea (and had dreamed it too). These are some strong phrases there, if not slightly defensive. “I don’t care to know if there was truly no implication behind his suggestion.” Hmm. You see, “digging a hole” has a very particular meaning and if I am right, what Rhett and Link are trying to do can prove to be very dangerous. But the way the extra excused his suggestion and Rhett chose to ignore the prickles of doubt and concern makes me think that it is something that is not openly discussed with the crew. Probably, Rhett and Link asked an inconsequential concept (to quote Link, who used this word 100 times) from their crew to work on for their own reasons. And the crew understood because they are like a gazillion people and they are not fools. But they do not acknowledge or talk about it openly. I wonder if some very close and powerful people in Mythical openly know, like Stevie and Jenna. It would make sense if these two knew.

Another thing that proves that this is not a brainless random video is that Link says that it is an idea that has many other ideas to explore within it.

This is totally off topic but Link broke my heart when he said they didn’t like the vlogs and wouldn’t like to repeat doing them. They were my favourites! This and the improvising Wheel of Mythicality! What the hell guys?

The next initially perplexing piece of information was that Rhett disclosed the video was unscripted. This seemed to disagree with the theory that the video was exactly an allegory of their story but perhaps what Rhett meant was that no writer of Mythical was involved in the script. The crew was just aware of the very general concept. Rhett and Link prepared on their own what exactly they were going to say without external involvement.

Rhett then says there are certain parts of the video that were predetermined and they are choosing to keep those behind the curtain. Well, for one thing, the ultimate motivation, the aspiration and goal behind this remains veiled. They talked about expression, soul-driven content, big risk but they are not explaining how and why.

But this time Rhett spares us a little and gives a hint. Was the song written before or after the video? Well clearly before but certainly also after the “digging a hole” suggestion. The song was one of the things that were predetermined. Please keep this in mind for later.

Link goes back to something he also said earlier in the podcast. He is somewhat contradicting himself by saying that he doesn’t want people to think when watching this video but to feel. However at the same time he repeats that he tries to not concern himself with whether people get it, and in order to get it, you have to think a bit. This makes me feel that he actually wants people to think about it but he doesn’t want to be disappointed in case they don’t. Or at least I hope so because otherwise I feel like a bloody intruder and that’s so awkward… I am so open about this (on my totally obscure blog, at least) because I genuinely get the feeling that they want to communicate this to people but they don’t know how. I do think that Bleak Creek (this book that’s one of my fave things they have ever done) was another effort of “whoever gets it, gets it”. Anyway…

The whole “feel, don’t think” is also because Link might associate too much thinking with judgement in his mind. He wouldn’t be wrong to fear that. For others, I mean.

And then after all this confusing or thought provoking sequence, Link made it easy for us!

Rhett: We love making scripted stuff.

Link: … Love-making scripted?

Rhett: *mild side-eye to Link*

Link, unhinged: Scripted love-making…..?

There, the answer, in three words.

Then they talked about the mole puppet. Link went on and on for a long time about how the mole is one dirty guy, like really dirty, and with some spicy talk. Perhaps this is confirmation that the mole was an allegory of the shippers, dirty minded and spicy.

This project is the first in a series of many similar projects they will be doing about once a month. Four such videos are already planned for sure. Link said that he is very excited for all but he is most excited for the last one of the already certain ones, which he implied is also the “riskiest”. I guess this will be bolder than the rest. But, also, I have a theory that this whole project is the preparation of a music album. (Link wouldn’t just let Rhett’s solo drop like that now, would he? 😂) Whether they will totally go all in until the end of this video project, I doubt it. But they will certainly be closer to their ultimate objective which is most likely that. Every video will probably include a new song and these songs are meant to be meaningful in that they are the coded narration of their relationship - story which will become an album. I am very excited to see whether this is the case. If there is an album coming, I just hope Hazel will be in there. It’s my favourite song of theirs, it is so haunting, so good, so SERIOUSLY good.

Closing off this giant post with Link’s closing words. There is a genuine risk in what they are trying to do. So, it’s not just any album because they have already made albums and Rhett has also gone solo where the exposure is even harder. So, whether it’s an album or not, it is certainly different in some huge way.

“There is a genuine question where we don’t know what the answer is”

How will it go? How will it be received? What happens next?

“That’s why we’re doing it and then we’re sharing it once we know”

Oh boy. They are sharing the answer? Don’t excitescare me like that. This seems alarmingly like “is it yet yet?”, like it’s THE time. But in typical R&L fashion, usually the thing proves to be far less consequential than it is initially suggested to be.

In any case, whether a music album or something else completely, it is going to be a passion project, more candid, very meaningful to them and thus quite scary to them. But they intend to walk that distance, a distance, whatever that distance is. I can’t wait for it. Hopefully it goes well.

[justanotherpersonsuniverse]

Cap (evil beast who plays with my emotions <3) lore questions for PN!! (unrelated to the thing i'm writing, i just realised i can just, well, ask you about the things i've been wondering about)

obviously if any of this veers off into spoilers territory or would lead to you pointing out something you wish to keep close to your chest, do just say :)

Numero Uno: i don't speak spanish not sure what that is, so we know that Juleka is every cats favourite human friend, is that just because its cute (valid) or is there more to why they flock to her? and does this happen to other miraculous holders? as i may just be forgetting something, apologies, but i don't remember if marinette has spoken about experiencing this as well

2) what was with the crows. tell me please. was it just for the.. i forgot its name- the really fucking cool thing which was amazingly written (metallica moment) or is this a new creature that follows her around due to symbolism or that you just wanted to use to foreshadow Cool Things Dead Ahead, once again, why are the other holders not experiencing this (or is it just 'off screen'?)

3) at the end of the chapter it was very very fast tonal change, civilians don't seem to be taking hawky boy as seriously as they should even those majorly affected, now this is obviously because a) he attacks with the stupidest looking guys b) no consequences due to ladybug and c) even the heroes seem to be content with goofing off, so will there be a tonal shift in public opinion as things become more serious or will that continue to be something they have to wrok against, the fact that as soon as an attack is over all fear of these events seems to dissipate (although we have seen that our core heroes seem to understand the severity of the situation slightly more) or am i being silly and the fast moving on is people posturing to not seem as affected?

4) are they being paid for the work they do...? like, i feel as though they should be and we all know that people like to throw money at things they like to show that affection, so even if it wasn't a government (or i suppose just the mayor) funded thing they would still end up with money from people. wait now i'm creating problems in my head of people pretending to be the heroes online to get money- scrap this one people would scam others if it was a thing <3 i just think it'd be nice if they were financially compensated... i feel like chloe would panic with more money and try to find a charity she likes only to end up making her own for very specific a very specific cause...

5) is there any fun world building things / lore that you want to discuss? i have for sure missed a lot of things i'm curious about this was just off the top of my head as i was musing about panthera, but its always interesting to see dealers choice

(bonus question, do you have specific real cats /designs in mind for minou and parrot? if so show us the beasts, in case you can't tell from the everything about me i like cats and would enjoy that greatly)

Number Hana! (lets learn some korean shall we?) Miraculous holders do indeed attract their animals! It's like a drawn magic thing. The animals aren't per say processed but they have this innate desire to follow and to find interest in the holder. (Marinette has been followed by ladybugs. Bees will follow Chloe soon. And so on and so forth.)

Number Dul! The crows are... lets say Juleka's thing. Not Panthera's thing. Not the cat miraculous's thing. Juleka's thing. Although.. half of those birds are only there cause they recognize and like her in an actual bird way and not a magic way. They hang around Rose's window a lot (both at the hospital and at home) and corvids have amazing memory on who is friend and foe!

Crows and Ravens- they're a sign of bad luck and death. They only started to show up around Panthera very recently. Imagine like, just days before Hero's Day they've started to show up more and more. Juleka finds them a bit, ominous, but is nice to them anyways as respect. Unfortunately this just attracts more birds, poor Adrien's allergies...

Number Set! I would say the in universe answer is more so "A" and just, the underlined layer of spite against Hawkmoth. Paris banded together and won against him, so their confidence is pretty high by the fact they somehow really did scare him off. Only the B Team are also goofing over it as well, though for them there's a slight edge, while our main two LB and PN are the most on edge.

As for the meta answer on why I wrote it like that- I just wanted you guys to have a sorta light reprieve from the angst. Some funny scenes to lighten the suffering I threw you guys into.

Number Net. Chloe's been trying their best to get them money!!!!!!! I can't remember if it's working or not.

Number Daseot. Hmmmmm.. Nothing comes to mind exactly.. I will say to keep an eye out for how I write Fei in the upcoming Shanghai chapters and how she relates to Juleka. Shanghai Special will be setting up some.. themes for Season 3. That's all.

(I got nothing on Minou he was just always a blobby void cat born from my mind. Parrot was designed a bit after my Nephew who is a cat and also the tiktok cat Reznor!)

[stopthatfool]

3, 77 :333

YAAAAA FENTOMY ILYYY

77. Do you have a favourite scene you've written from Your jeep. Your teeth. The coffee that you bought me.?

omg ummmmmm... i think it's this scene from chapter 3 about Mav's mom (whom I made up, she is not 'canon') idk i was just really proud of like.. the imagery? i think that's the word. I was also proud of how much this short scene tells you about Flo Mitchell as a character and as Mav's mom.

Pete had watched as his mother parked haphazardly, crooked, and partially on the dead grass on their front lawn. He watched her fling open the car door and slam it shut, clearly on some mission toward the front door. The flag next to the door hung static and still, like a dead animal strung up on a line waiting to be slashed and skinned, waiting to be picked apart and eaten, waiting for its entire life to come full circle and rot in some hunters stomach, waiting for its own bones to be thrown out and picked apart by the maggots. The flag hung dead, unsentient, while Pete’s mother– she was anything but. She walked up to the flag, shoes clacking on the cracked pavement, her arms swaying at her sides. She unhooked the flag from its stand, her hair billowing in the sudden wind. It turned alive as soon as she touched it, flowy and slippery, squirming and wriggling through her fingers. Flo balled up her fists in the fabric to stop the movement, the life that erupted from it transferring from her to the flag. As she walked back to the car, the flag slithered and moved with the waves created by Flo Mitchell. Then Pete watched as she opened the back door and threw the flag into the back seat. It lay there, dead and unmoving once again, sprawled out against the leather, the stripes overlapping and the stars crumpled and muddled. Flo picked up Pete from the passenger seat and cradled him against her side as they walked up to their new house. Pete yawned, “Why did you do that–? To the flag?” His mother only steered her head forward, eyes serious and focused, “That flag keeps your daddy away from me– from us–” She looked up to the setting sun, the sky all orange and yellow, “Why should I fly the thing that keeps him away– that puts him in danger?”

Flo Mitchell supremacy!! Anti-war queen and Tammy Wynette fan! She's just like me....

3. Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic.

i thought you'd never ask (this is going to be long sorry (im saying this as if it's not already long))!!

i cannot, for the life of me, work directly from the computer. I am a "traditional artist" (whatever that even means) at heart, meaning that I have to do everything on paper </3. So for the first idea of Your jeep. Your teeth. The coffee that you bought me. i mapped it out very loosely in my silly little notebook.

(i blocked out spoilers (maybe) for future chapters...) check out my terrible handwriting! and check out how different the plot was! What was i thinking? "Mav bumps into Ice with Bradley after visiting Carole" yeah... sure. But once i had that loose idea i started writing in that same notebook and things kind of went from there.

And then i realized that i should probably plan out the chapters on paper so there's some consistency. so that leads to the little list-like mind maps that i make--

This is from before i learned TOP GUN moved to Nevada (sigh). In these list-like mind maps is where i come up with some of the important dialogue that needs to happen between characters ("I don't need to see a fucking shrink, Kazansky") and it was in these that the plot really began to change from that first mind map. I've made these mind maps for every chapter that needs to happen for the story.

Then after the mind map, I actually begin to write all the scenes out. after i physically write them out, i type it all up in google docs (sigh). AND THEN i copy and paste it all paragraph by paragraph into Grammarly (free edition i am not paying for that) and edit it all. And then i do it again. and then one more time. and then i post it. im crazy.

Thank u for putting in the ask!!! ily fentomy!!! i love talking about my fanfic (as you have so kindly suffered through these past weeks, thank you.) <333

[hyprfixate]

hold on tight↝ [L.F] :: teaser

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ summary: you're unhappy. you're almost certain that there isn't anything in this world that can make you happier, and you're right. what you don't account for, however, is something otherworldly flipping your life on its head. or, should you say someone

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ pairing: lee felix x reader

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ word count: 950

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ tags: angst, non idol au, fantasy au kind of, felix is an angel literally and figuratively, mentions of suicidal thoughts without going into detail, reader is depressed, she/her pronouns used for the reader, slowburn, strangers to lovers, putting angst again bc thats how much angst there is.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ author’s note: hello! this is a small teaser for a much longer upcoming fic that i'm still in the process of writing! i haven't written fanfic in a very long time so i apologize if i'm rusty lol. i hope you guys enjoy! :)

quickly skimmed, ignore typos lol

-

Felix doesn’t remember when he became the front desk worker for purgatory. 

He assumes it was a while ago, since his fellow co-workers have all come and gone, some of them eons older than him. He’s always been “their little Lixie”, and while most of them have gone to a place he can’t reach, the nickname still lives on. Their little Lixie remains seated behind a mahogany desk, clicking away at his computer and waiting for the next person to approach him.

Felix is the first face a person sees when they die. Guy, the one in charge of it all, says it’s because of his contagious grin and never ending happiness. Felix could light up a room with his smile alone if he wanted to. That kind of energy helps people calm down– makes them feel at ease. Another perk about him is that he never feels lonely, despite how desperately lonely the job is. Felix knows that even though nobody stays, there is always someone new to talk to.

Like now.

“Hi!” he chirps to the person walking up to his desk. They’re dressed in pajamas with a severe case of bedhead, so from the looks of it they were probably sleeping when it happened. They look scared, and he pouts.

“Are you okay?”

“Where am I?”

He leans back in his seat, pointing to the gold plaque above his head. “Purgatory.”

“I’m dead?”

It’s the same script every time someone comes in, but his soft smile never wavers. “Yeah,” he says softly. “I’m so sorry. It’s not really so bad here, you know?”

He pulls himself back up to his computer. “Could I get your name?”

Stuttering, the person gives him their name. He presses a few keys on his keyboard before the computer dings softly, setting off the printer next to him.

“Oof.” He grimaces, eyes racing across the lines on the screen. “Heart attack did you in, yeah? That’s always the worst way to go. Have you had heart problems before?”

“Yeah,” they stutter out. “But I never-- no one told me they could kill me.”

Felix peers up through his long lashes, giving them another small smile. He knows it’s best to move on, rather than walk them through the speech about how everything and anything can kill you, so it’s a bit silly to expect that something as serious as heart issues would just be swept under the rug. Most people don’t appreciate being lectured when they die.  Instead, he pulls the paper from the printer and scans it quickly.

“Seems like you have some business to attend to first,” he hums. “You left behind two kids and a partner, I see. They’re going to need your presence in the next few days. Afterwards you’ll get to go upstairs.”

“Like, Heaven?”

“If that’s what you want to call it, that’s what it is,” he smiles. The person in front of him softens at that. He hands them the paper and points at a set of doors on his left. “Go through those double doors and walk down the hall to room 202. Knock and ask for Christopher, tell him Felix sent you.”

He waves, cheeks puffing up in a genuine grin as they wave back and disappear beyond the double doors. Once they’re out of sight, he pulls out his notepad from the desk drawer and scribbles furiously.

No glow, almost faded.

While Felix undoubtedly had a lot of questions about his appearance and business in purgatory, his biggest question was something no one could answer.

Why was he the only one who glowed?

At first, before they got computers in the office, Felix had no idea what he looked like. He knew had soft, sandy brown hair; Guy would always ruffle it and tell him he was handsome, but he didn’t know why he was handsome. Once technology advanced and they got a desktop, that question was answered thanks to the webcam. In addition to noticing his features, Felix also noticed that his body was outlined with a bright, sparkly gold light.

No one else in purgatory had that, not even Guy. Christopher, who worked in the office of external affairs, told Felix it was probably just his happiness manifested into something physical. Christopher himself was covered in tattoos, as he was known through the office for always knowing what to say to comfort people. Felix would agree with that theory, but he’s met countless people just as happy as himself with no glow.

Since then, he’s been keeping a journal of every face who’s walked through his office. Some people were more faded than others-- those were the people who wouldn’t spend too long here. Some people were dark and vivid, like the image of a 4K TV screen (not that Felix knew what 4K was, he’d heard about it from a couple visitors and adopted the phrase himself). Those people were usually there for a long time. But no matter how long a person was set to stay, they never had a glow like he did.

He tosses the notepad back into the desk drawer, leaning back into his seat and sighing. He didn’t have much time to himself, though, as the elevator outside the office door dinged.

He leans forward, clearing his throat and running his “script” in his head. He runs his hands through his hair before looking up with a bright smile.

“Hi! Welcome to…”

His voice trails off and his jaw goes slack as his eyes settle on the person in front of him. 

Yeah. Felix had seen lots of dead people, sure, but he’d never, ever seen one that glowed like he did.

Until now.

[joy-returns-in-the-morning]

I read a lot of Captain America fanfiction last year. People have written some pretty amazing stuff! But also. I disagreed with Steve's characterization like 90% of the time. 🙈😅😂 With those kind of statistics, am I the one who's wrong??

I don't know but I'm tired of holding it in. I need to complain about this or I'll lose my mind. This is just my own personal opinion of course etc etc.

Anyway here is a list of things that annoy me in Captain America fanfiction

- When Steve is Soo depressed that all he does is mope around crying about Bucky and never does a single useful thing. Look I understand that he's kind of in a rough place, with everybody he ever knew being dead and all and I get that even the best of us can get depressed and there's nothing wrong with exploring this. But I dunno. I kinda just want to read a fic where he's well-adjusted for once.

- There is this trope where after CATWS Steve and/or Bucky go around killing endless mooks in HYDRA bases. I understand it's necessary for them to have something to do but. I just have serious questions about the legality of the situation. If you go to a foreign country and you kill a citizen of that country, that's still murder and, I think, illegal, even if that citizen is a terrorist or a neo-nazi or something. You can't just do that, right? Bucky can get away with it maybe, being in a gray zone of legal existence himself, but not Steve. And either way.... YES they are HYDRA and they are EVIL but nonetheless, they are still human, in the end? How is HYDRA recruiting all these people anyways? That's probably a thing they should be worried about, rather than just blowing up bases, idk.

- That particular genre of Bucky Recovery fic where they spend the whole time doing absolutely nothing but Help Bucky Recover. Like they just sit there in Steve's apartment or wherever. But look we all lived through the pandemic, staying in the same room doing nothing all day is not going to do wonders for anybody's mental health. How can they stand it? Go touch some grass.

- Similarly, when Steve has no life outside Bucky. I guess I'm not really a big fan of codependent relationships in general. But like, okay sure Bucky is your world your home your everything your silly rabbit that's great but personally I think it's sort of a shallow world if all you care about is one person. Take a look around you! The world is full of so many other things worth fighting for. Help Bucky, sure, but that shouldn't be the only thing going on in Steve's life. Get some hobbies man. Talk to your neighbours. Use your clout to make positive political change. Idk. He's Captain America why does he act like he has literally nothing better to do than sit around watching Bucky like he's a freshly painted wall.

- When Steve refuses to accept that Bucky doesn't remember him and hangs around Bucky like a rejected puppy. First of all, I think Steve is intelligent enough to accept that Bucky's not going to be the same after everything. And secondly, I think that he respects people autonomy enough to not force himself into Bucky's life. Give him a little credit, come on.

- When they take in Bucky after CATWS and put him in a blank white room he can't leave, all to help him "recover" and everyone is totally okay with that. Like guys do you not realize how you are treating him? Surely there must be a better way to rehabilitate him. Steve, at the very least, should be advocating for something better. Yeah I get that the Winter Soldier's soooo dangerous but so is the Hulk and they let Bruce walk around just fine. 🙄 They should at least realize what they are doing is kind of messed up

- It's not that I don't think Tony is allowed to be angry that Bucky killed his parents. It's just that, personally, I think his relationship with his parents is a little complicated, and so his reaction too, will be complicated and also likely different depending on the circumstances. People probably feel that because canonically he flew into a rage that's what will always happen, but that doesn't have to be the case!

- when they are in Wakanda and it's treated like some kind of extended vacation home. This isn't a hotel, it's a completely other county with its own issues and cultures and that should be addressed. Similarly, it's cute when Bucky and Shuri become friends but honestly I think she has waaaay too many other things to do that he barely tops her priorities. Like he's not That important. He's just some white dude.

- When Bucky EXPLICITLY asks not to be called Bucky but Steve keeps doing it.

- When Steve is portrayed as this incompetent idiot who always rushes into things without thinking and Bucky's the only brain cell of the operation. I just think that Captain America should be at least a little bit cool, you know. He should be the kind of person you can't help but admire. He should do something good and true every now and then. He's a superhero! I want to see him do something heroic! In some stories he's just so lame it drives me up the wall.

[elpublico]

Hello! I've been following you for a while and have been wanting to ask you: who exactly is this Federico Garcia Lorca, you seem to like him a lot and I was wondering if you might want to explain why you love him so much. Also why don't you like Salvador Dali (cause I think that has something to do with Lorca? lol) Anyway no pressure if you don't want to answer. I like your blog a lot, have a nice day! :)

first and foremost, thank you very much :-) <3 

ive written an absurd amount here, so uh tldr lorca is a spanish writer whose work i enjoy very much, i dont like dalí because of his support of facist systems and because he was an asshole plain and simple, and they are related in that they shared a weird intense homoerotic bond from roughly 1924-1929

and a more in depth explanation below should you care to read! warning it is quite literally 1.5k words. sorry

okay. let us begin

a very basic bio: federico garcía lorca was a spanish creative best known for his plays and poetry, though he was also a talented musician, draftsman, and theatrical director. he was born in 1898 and is considered part of the generación del 27, a loosely defined collection of spanish creatives and intellectuals interested in modernism emerging in the 1920s and 1930s. he was assassinated at by francoist forces at the start of the spanish civil war in 1936 due to his support of and connections to the republican government, leftist politics, and his somewhat public homosexuality. 

i have serious, academic answers for why i like him but also silly ones so i’ll start with the silly ones. he was a weird fucking guy. most modernists are weird guys but he’s weird in a unique and dare i say somewhat charming way. he played a game with his friends where he’d pretend to be dead and everyone would pretend to have a funeral for him. when he was a kid he play Catholic Mass and make his family cry during his sermons. he had a jesus complex and wrote a play about his jesus complex. weird guy i love studying his weird brain. also he was that fun type of 20th century homophobic homosexual that was like “guys relax im a cool homosexual i dont like drag” thats extremely easy and fun to ridicule (see: ode to walt whitman). this is especially bold of him since he has the world’s worst taste in men.

on a more serious note i do genuinely enjoy his poetry (and plays, but i’m not well-versed enough in theater to give an informed review), and i think its a particularly poignant and unique version of modernism. and it is both easy and fun to make fun of his loser ass homophobia, but i think generally his work portrays a far more nuanced and compelling depiction of struggling with internalized homophobia that what you see in “ode to walt whitman.” as i am interested in both modernism and queer art, he’s one of those touchstone creatives that forms the basis of this line of inquiry in my personal research interests. also, i think his drawings are severely underrated as examples of spanish modern art and in terms of the material culture of modernism and warrant more in depth scholarship than what currently exists, which is generally just as a coda to his written work.

this is something of a meta-reason, but something i’ve also become interested in as i learn more about lorca is the way in which he has become martyrized in historical and contemporary discussions. i mean like people really create Narratives out of this guy’s life. even as early as 1939 we have people like william carlos williams championing him as the martyr of the spanish civil war to galvanize support in the usa among the literary community (if anyone is interested in reading williams’s essay hit me up i have a pdf). ian gibson’s (lorca’s biographer and the guy who uncovered the details surrounding lorca’s assassination) biography is very much constructed as a narrative of an smoothed over and idealized character. i started thinking more seriously about this after watching the film bones of contention, where lorca is shown as patron saint of lgbt people oppressed under francos rule and of all those who killed during franco's rule. the director of the fundación lorca, who is his niece (great-niece?) expressed in this documentary that the family did not want his bones to be found and reburied, because there is such a strong symbolic connection to him amongst those still fighting for government recognition of the true devastation of facist rule. if they find his bones and rebury them with family, there is the concern that the government will use this as propaganda to suggest that they have dealt with all the repercussions of facism and will not diligently follow up with how fascist power is still a systematic issue. i don’t know if this makes sense, as i haven’t articulated this yet and i still don’t really know what to make of it. there’s just something about the loss of humanity here, that his family could not and cannot properly grieve him because in this horrific death he has become a symbol of resistance. and even as people use his image to delve into queer art and history and as facist resistance, there are also people working in the opposite direction, claiming him as like, a neutral historical presence that like, whether he would have wanted that or not, just isn’t true or even ethical when talking about him today. 

and as we talk about narratives i feel this is a good time to shift to dalí who is like The Narrative Guy. as mentioned previously, lorca and dalí were doing some type of gay shit for a little while there (what kind of gay shit is still up for debate). they met in madrid at the residencia de estudiantes, then became very close around 1925, when lorca first visited the dalí summer home in cadaqués. lorca visited again in 1927. they kept a regular correspondence, of which we have relatively few letters, esp those penned by lorca to dalí, and had a particularly fruitful artistic exchange in the years they were friends. lorca drew more (and exhibited his drawings in barcelona), and dalí wrote more. they shared symbols and had this sort of theoretical artistic dialogue through the analysis of saint sebastian. lorca’s head and references to lorca can be found in many of dalí’s paintings of the period, and lorca wrote his "ode to salvador dalí" (which unfortunately kind of slaps) some scholars even go as far as calling this dalí’s lorca period and lorca’s dalinian period.

in 1928 (i think?) luis buñuel (spanish filmmaker who was friends with both of them) begins to turn against lorca, supposedly because he found lorca’s work too traditional/conservative but also probably in large part also due to the fact that he was gay and that he was being gay with dalí. buñuel goes up to dalí, goes “hey i hate lorca don’t you hate lorca haha,” dalí pens this really critical and kind of rude letter to lorca saying his freshly published gypsy ballads was too traditional/conservative and he needed to be more modern etc etc it’s all very high school. dalí pulls away from lorca, goes to paris and collaborates with buñuel on un chien andalou and l’age d’or, lorca goes to new york, and they don’t see each other again until 1935 or 1936 i don’t remember the date. i guess now is as good a time as ever to say at this point in time dalí had ostensibly communist politics and affiliations, but going into late 30s/early 40s as he becomes more successful financially, he cozies up to the fascist franco regime and catholic church and other such institutions so he can live comfortably in spain. he espouses a lot of racist shit that (in my opinion) he only said to further his own career. later on in his life he does a lot of sketchy stuff relating to prints to earn a quick buck. so you know. i dont like him LOL

anyway to bring this back to lorca and narratives, dalí is understandably a key component in understanding the development of lorca’s work but a lot of what he’s said following lorca’s death just cannot be taken at face value. he claims lorca was entirely apolitical in his 1942 autobiography (obviously to make dalí’s own horrendous politics easier to swallow), and in a later interview he presented their relationship in a way that makes lorca look like a pining fool and kind of predatory. this has very clearly influenced lorca scholarship, though i think more and more people are looking at dalí’s comments more critically. in trying to manipulate his own self-image, dalí has had an insane influence over lorca’s narrative, which. grinds my gears.

i hate to end on dalí but i have no more to say lol. but at least i am spreading the word that dalí fucking sucks. gonna cite/link some shit here in the interest of transparency:

biographical details for both mostly pulled from my recollections of ian gibson’s biographies of the two (frederico garcía lorca: a life and the shameful life of salvador dalí) i will also say my understanding of dalí’s personal motives comes pretty much exclusively from gibson’s biography and its thesis, that dalí’s entire life revolved around masking and coping with his own personal sense of shame. very biased point of view but i don’t care enough about dalí to bother reading more about him. even just writing this post bummed me way the fuck out. too much dalí. i will also say i encourage everyone to NOT read gibson’s dalí biography, there’s a really transphobic section that violates the privacy of someone in dalí’s life. she’s a public figure and i’m sure it would not be hard to find speculation elsewhere, but you know. it’s just gross and all i can do is my best to prevent more people from speculating about this woman’s genitals

read a good article a while ago that sums up dalí’s racism but i can’t find it so here are some other articles providing more details, some of which i am only learning about now lol:

el pais: https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-09-06/the-day-dali-invented-a-racist-religion.html

vice: https://www.vice.com/en/article/8qwp9v/its-really-surreal-how-salvador-dal-was-a-fascist-who-hit-women

if you are ever looking for a painfully mediocre period drama, i suggest little ashes in which robert pattinson plays dalí, making some of the most confusing acting choices of his entire career.

if you’re gonna read a lorca biography i suggest leslie stainton’s lorca: a dream of life. i haven’t read it all the way through, but it’s written more for a general audience than gibson’s hyper detailed version, and stainton isn’t afraid to point out tomfoolery on the part of lorca.

a selection of lorca poems:

fable and round of the three friends: https://hellopoetry.com/poem/623292/fable-and-round-of-the-three-friends/

ballad of the spanish civil guard: https://www.poesi.as/index214uk.htm

the guitar: https://poets.org/poem/guitar

if you made it this far i'm sorry

[loafandfish]

Hi friend, seeing that you write for Atticus makes my heart go 🦋😭

If you still take requests: a one-shot where (Y/n) is Pilate's advisor and goes with him to meet Atticus to talk about current issues (like they did in season 3). When Atticus gets there, he and (Y/n) try to figure each other out with sarcastic comments/playful banter, which bascially turns into subtle flirting and tangible chemistry. Once Atticus leaves, Pilate comments on it, expressing both amusement and support. Of course, the Reader has 'no idea what he is talking about' but can't help but blush.

If you're not comfortable with this I understand :)

Thank you in advance! <3

I’ve never written for Atticus before so I hope I got it right! Sorry it took so long too haha

Knowledge and Beauty//Atticus

“Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, why must we wait out in this heat again?” Y/n tugged picked at her sleeve. The fabric was beginning to itch against her sweaty skin. “It’s miserable.”

“Ah, lighten up a little.” Pilate grinned, waving off her discomfort. He was absolutely fine with a servant to fan him in the summer sun. “And no need for this silly “sir” business. It’s too polite for my taste.”

Y/n rolled her eyes in response, slouching further in her chair. “Believe me, sir, I was not saying it to be polite.”

Pilate did not reply, opting to pop another grape in his mouth instead, smirking at Y/n’s sass. She let out a loud huff and continued. “You still haven’t answered my question. Why are we here?”

With a slight tilt of his head, the mischievous look on Pilate’s face grew tenfold. “We’re just here to meet a friend of mine. A rather mysterious friend. A rather uptight, old-.”

“It’s Atticus.”

“Yes.”

Y/n placed her elbows on the table in front of her, resting her chin on her fist. “How is it that I’ve heard so much about this man, yet have never met him?”

“I’m protecting you from his irresistible charm, obviously.” Anyone who didn’t know Pilate would have guessed he was being dead serious, but Y/n could sense his sarcasm as he continued. “I can’t afford to lose my best advisor.”

“Well I guess I will have to question him too see if your friends are nice to you, sir.”

“Yes, mother.” It was Pilate’s turn to roll his eyes. “There’s no need to worry. All my friends are violent murderers, nothing more.”

“Well at least you all have something in common.”

Pilate frowned, crossing his arms like a child. “Excuse me I am very peaceful. I rather dislike slaughtering innocent people, thank you very much.”

He went to lean back on his fancy couch, but stopped as he saw a horse in the distance. He recognized the cloaked rider immediately, and stood up to shake Y/n by the shoulders.

“There he is!” Pilate hopped from foot to foot excitedly. Sometimes it was hard to believe he was a grown man.

Y/n glanced over her shoulder at the silhouette in the distance. She couldn’t see his face at all, which made her a little uneasy. She’d learned not to trust people in cloaks.

The two watched the man until he was close enough to hop off the horse. Pilate ran out to meet him, probably the most physical activity he had gotten all week. Y/n followed warily, eying the man skeptically. She did not trust him.

He flipped the hood off, running a hand through his hair in an attempt to tame the mess of curls. Y/n nearly did a double take.

No, she definitely did not trust him. No matter how handsome this stranger was.

He flipped his cloak over his shoulder, revealing the initials of the Roman Republic on his armor. He clasped his hands behind his back, shaking his head at Pilate. “Why do you do this? Every single time, you do this.”

“I just want to see how far I can push you before you finally snap, old man.” Pilate offered him a mischievous grin, gesturing at his tent. “Care to join me?”

Without a word, Atticus followed the younger, but stopped when Y/n stepped in front of him. She didn’t care how many times Pilate had met this man before, she didn’t trust him. Her motherly instincts had kicked in and they were telling her to protect Pilate at all costs.

Atticus raised a brow as Y/n crossed her arms. He tried sidestepping her, but she moved in his way. Pilate giggled behind them, delighted at the new turn of events.

“Excuse me.” Atticus tried moving again, but to no avail. Y/n had matched his every move.

“I don’t think so.” She sneered, staring him down. “What is so important that Pilate had to drag me out here in this heat?”

“I have reports for him.” He replied, eying her right back. Y/n stepped closer to him. “About what, exactly?”

“You do realize this is my job, right?”

“You do realize you are avoiding the question?”

The corner of his lips quirked upward for a moment. This woman’s stubbornness amused him greatly. However, he had a job to do, so he tried his best to hide it.

“I bring news from around the kingdom. Also some interesting updates on the rogue preacher I mentioned in my last visit.”

Y/n’s eyes widened at the revelation. She knew about this preacher. In fact, she had gone to see him once. He had been an incredible teacher and she had hoped to hear more of him. This was her chance.

“The preacher?”

“Yes.” Atticus knew he had caught her attention in a good way. “Now may I speak with Pilate?”

Hesitantly, she moved aside, allowing him to go past her. She still could not trust this man fully, but she way intrigued by his news. Keeping a careful eye on him, she followed.

“Ah, Atticus, my friend!” Pilate welcomed him with open arms. “I see my mother finally let you join.”

“Your mother?” Atticus looked back at Y/n incredulously. Pilate waved him off, pulling out a chair for the man to sit in. “She’s not really my mother, but she sure does act like it.”

Atticus declined the seat, opting to stand instead. “I was about to say, she looks far to beautiful to have dealt with you for this long.”

It was a jab at Pilate’s childish ways and difficult, unending energy, but Y/n noticed the small compliment tossed her way. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from smiling.

With no need for the chair, Atticus gestured at Y/n to sit. She did as the two men began to exchange news and conversation of the current events. In reality, politics had always bored Y/n to death. She dreaded accompanying Pilate to these meeting, but she had no choice. However, something about this particular meeting made it less difficult to stay awake and listen. Perhaps it was the promise of news from the preacher that interested her so much.

As if he had heard her thoughts, Atticus turned the conversation toward the teacher. Y/n perked up immediately.

“Yes, I’ve been following him for weeks now and-.”

“You’ve been following this man?” U/n couldn’t hold back the questions. “What else has he done? What other miracles?”

Atticus turned to her, mildly surprised. “You’ve heard of the teacher?”

She nodded sheepishly, realizing she would have to admit to her small adventure to one of His sermons. “Yes, I heard him preach once. I even took notes.”

With an impressed nod, Atticus pursed his lips. “You write?”

“Yes.”

“I do appreciate a smart woman.” Atticus finally allowed himself to smile at her slightly. “I believe knowledge is more attractive than physical beauty.”

It was merely an observation and opinion he had expressed. Nothing to get excited about. Y/n still had to shove down the butterflies in her stomach. “Yes, but I do have much to learn. I would like to know more about this preacher.”

Atticus finally broke and offered her a grin. “Well if you will accompany Pilate to the next meeting, I will bring more news.”

He continued, lowering his voice slightly. “And if you are as interested as you say, I wouldn’t mind meeting up to talk about it soon.”

“Would you mind if I took notes?” Y/n realized she was biting her lip out of excitement. “I would like to remember all you say.”

“Not at all.” He rubbed a hand through his hair. “In fact, I admire that you enjoy note taking.”

“Well, I do have a passion for recording what I see.” She admitted, almost embarrassed. It was not common for women to seek knowledge the way she did.

“Beautiful, intelligent, and passionate.” Atticus crossed his arms, his grin melting into an adoring smile. “You really are everything, aren’t you?”

Pilate cleared his throat, catching Atticus’s attention once more. He had been intently listening to their conversation, very amused by it all. Atticus turned, almost surprised as he remembered that the younger man was still there. Pilate glanced from him, to Y/n, and back again. “As entertaining as that was, I am getting very hot. I think it’s time to leave.”

He nodded at Y/n as he continued. “I assume that I’ll have to let you off for a day so you two can… talk.”

With his face set back to its normal monotone expression, Atticus flipped his coat back over his shoulder. With a quick goodbye to Pilate, and a slightly longer look at Y/n, he mounted his horse once more. Y/n watched as he left, not taking her eyes off of him until he disappeared over the hill.

Pilate walked up behind her, tapping her on the shoulder. “Now, would you like to tell me what exactly I just witnessed?”

Y/n was genuinely confused. “Witnessed?”

“Atticus is charming, sure.” The younger man shrugged. “But I’ve never seen him try and use so much charm on someone before.”

He let out a loud gasp, shaking Y/n’s shoulders “He fancies you!”

Y/n let out a kind laugh, waving Pilate off. “That is so not true.”

“Oh, please. I just watched you two eye-court each other. I know what I saw.”

She felt her cheeks heat up at the comment. Did Atticus really feel that way about her? Earlier he had been a stranger, but now he was someone she wanted to know better. She would not mind if he asked he talk to her more. In fact he had-.

“Earth to Y/n.” Pilate waved a hand in front of her face. When she blinked, he shook his head. “You fancy him too.”

“Wha-.” Y/n furrowed her brow. “I do not.”

“You do so! It’s written in your face!”

If she was being honest, Pilate was completely right. But she would never tell him that. So instead she kept her mouth shut.

Pilate took that as a win for him and flashed her an evil grin. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve never seen him so excited to meet up with someone.”

Y/n felt herself smile, allowing the butterflies to stay in her stomach. She looked out toward the hill that Atticus had disappeared over. “I’m excited as well.”

[ginnotwist]

What is your favorite jojo part? And favorite character? I have noticed that people who like both jjba and enstars can often be the smartest most nuanced people youll have the pleasure of talking to and i think you qualify

HIII okay preemptively putting this under a readmore since its just going to be me rambling. thank you though im glad u think my takes are good. it makes me happy to be able to discuss stuff (dreamy sigh) i love discussions

my fav jojo part kind of pingpongs between parts 7, 8 and 3. i think part 7 is exceptionally written. i love the characters i love their interactions i love their banter to offset the more serious tone and conflicts of the part. jesus christ corpse aside i think part 7 touches some very heavy issues with how johnny is handled and while things couldve been done better, i think it's good. i love part 8's entire plot and it feels like a murder mystery the whole time to me, at the beginning it feels quite silly but when the focus shifts over to the rokaka, the rock humans and gappy's origins thats where it starts getting really good. i'd rather not spoil since ik a lot of people havent finished reading p8 and i implore u to because p9 is just around the corner. p3 is just kind of. there. i feel bad because part 3 is just a hero's journey. it's not outstanding but i think it's charming in its simplicity. i like the characters and the stand fights and the format is silly and lets me turn my brain off.

ok fav characters... i'll try to narrow this down to 3. johnny, jotaro, and fugo. fugo probably the one i am most fond of (hes my milk webkinz). johnny aside, i feel like the other two are kind of simple characters but this is where my Tendency To Overanalyze Anything I Like kicks in so to me they're a lot deeper and fleshed out than they seem at first glance.

johnny, well...i see a lot of dislike towards johnny from certain parts of the community because of his (implied) depression and him being disabled. a lot of dudebros seem to see him as someone whiny and a "useless" jojo, comparing him to gyro which seems to do most of the emotional heavylifting this part. this is not at all true and i think both his and gyro's efforts are what result in them progressing in the race as well as johnny's own progress irt to the spin, in coping with his brother's loss, and finding purpose in himself. i am Not disabled, so i cant truly comment on how good of a representation he is but while one of his motivations is to obtain the jesus corpse to be able to walk again, this motivation is almost entirely set aside by the end of the part – and by the time he does 'gain the ability' to walk again for lack of a better term it's not at all the main focus. it's almost cathartic to see that when gyro passes away johnny thanks him for all he's done, but he's most certainly not making reference to his working legs, but rather, everything else. his best friend just died, and his main goal is to finish the race, and get his corpse back to italy. throughout the part gyro helps him find strength in himself to see that he is capable of more than he thinks (even though he can be quite harsh, i think this is exactly what johnny needs), and johnny's depression and survivor guilt when it comes to being alive while his brother, who he considers was better in every respect, is dead, is very realistic within the confines of what Can Be, in a story like jojo, and idk. when his neglectful father who left him to die comes back to greet him at the end of the race, begging for forgiveness, is essentially spat on by johnny because after all his growth he knows he deserves more than that, that he does not owe him forgiveness just because after years of mistreating him he's finally seen the error of his ways... stuff like that just kind of sells him for me. he feels so real. that and he's really cute and funny ✌️

JOTAROS A BIT HARDER TO TALK ABOUT BECAUSE he feels very flat. in part 3 you can argue hes just some angsty brooding teenager who's mean to his mom and punches shit. which is true. that's what it is on paper. idk though. i made a lot of shit about jotaro up in my head so a lot of this is going to be hcs and my interpretation of him. but i dont think he's ever really had a healthy outlet for his issues. i love holly, but she's always just kind of gone with what jotaro wants/says, and jotaro's never really had a father figure in his life. ofc he wants to save his mom when he goes off to egypt, it's almost all he has. then in egypt i like to think that meeting the other three and becoming friends with someone close to his age, kakyoin, he realizes things about himself that he never really considered, or wishes to put a name to. i think jotaro has a bit of internalized homophobia in regards to kakyoin and having lost him, his first love, at 17 fucks you up. i also like the interpretation that jotaro is autistic and this is one of the reasons he has such a hard time relating to people, voicing his thoughts and latched onto marine biology which is something that persists throughout his whole life.

i think one of the best things about jotaro is that he might seem underdeveloped in his own part but then in p4+p6 when he shows up enough has happened to him that you can infer some of his development behind the scenes. by p4 we know he has jolyne but travels around a lot and we know nothing about his spouse so we can assume his relationship with her isnt the best (this is confirmed in p6). going back to the internalized homophobia i think jotaro would take on a spouse because of comphet and because he feels like this is something that should be normal. keep in mind his father was also never around while he was growing up, so again traveling around and not spending time with his daughter, spending more time on speedwagon foundation business and his studies, and it never once occurs to him that this might not be the best thing to do (at the time). he's a lot more mature now and knows he cant use violence to solve everything, which is good, and tries to form lasting relationships with josuke, koichi and okuyasu. he's trying to make progress

and then p6 rolls around and jolyne is grown up and we find out that yeah jotaro was a pretty shit dad. our suspicions were correct. he was never around, he's always had fights with jolyne’s mother not because hes violent but because hes completely disinterested. again, the comphet, but also: he's out of the house all of the time on spf business because he wants to keep jolyne safe. to this day the effects and losses of egypt still rest heavy on him and marine biologist work aside he doesn't want the same fate to befall jolyne. him sending her the brooch is a last resort for her to protect herself. when hes awake during the part he's trying to make it up to jolyne, in his own way, and he loves and protects his daughter until his dying breath (this brought me to tears, btw part 6 is a ride). also i rly think he loved kakyoin his whole life. idk. i think jotaro can be pretty tragic depending on how you see him. which is why i love him but he also makes me sad as fuck because i think after p3 he spends his whole life lamenting the trauma he suffered when he was 17 and forcing himself to suck it up; ofc this doesnt excuse him being a shitty father to jolyne, i think she deserves better, but... you know

NOW FUGO!!!!!!! This is all going to sound delusional. bear with me. fugo is literally in p5 for like 2 milliseconds so ill explain how /i/ see him. but also keep in mind ive read phf like 3 times. OK SO fugo is this moody ass 16 year old with extreme anger issues -- while most of the time hes mature, good with people with only a bit of snark, he has an explosive temper that stemmed from his childhood. he was a prodigy child, he got into university at the age of 13, but was for the most part neglected by his family (not including his grandmother), his parents only looking after him/demanding More from him when it came to his studies/extracurricular activities. his family is new money, so they need fugo to excel in life to ensure that they are not taken lightly.

here is where stuff kind of varies: in the anime, he is almost sexually harassed by a much older uni professor and in a fit of rage beats him over the head with a heavy book. in the novel and the manga i think it just comes from the teacher mocking him (in the novel he gets pissed off because his grandmother died prior and the teacher belittled him for failing an exam when he had requested to not take it) but the consequence is the same: hes kicked out of uni and disowned by his family to not blunder the family name, making him homeless. time goes by and he's taken in by bruno and hes the first one to join his gang under the guise of needing a "level head" (ironic bc bruno knows why fugo ended up on the streets).

then the actual events of p5 happen and he actually leaves the gang really early on as bruno had decided to betray the boss. fugo is inept emotionally and prefers to not face the wrath of the boss, narrowly avoiding his own death LOL and then being like ok why did they ditch me. 

he doesnt understand why bruno and the rest of the gang would throw away their lives for some girl theyd just met. he's logical, emotion-driven only when it comes to himself. hes moody, as a teenager should be, but after joining brunos gang becomes heavily reliant on routine, on being told what to do, and despite all of the gang related activities they carry out, is likely the only time he's ever been able to be a kid/someone's child. from here on we dont see him at all unless you read his spin-off novel which is technically not considered canon by a lot of ppl bc its not by araki, but its overseen by him and the illustrations included are all provided by him. but basically i like fugo for a lot of the same reasons i like kakyoin: that being hes a socially inept introvert who had no friends until the main story and didnt realize what they had until it was too late

(PHF SUMMARY HERE) after the events of p5, with bruno, abbacchio and narancia dead, giorno as the head of the mafia seeks him out to carry out a mission to exterminate the head (happens to be an old university classmate of his) of this group selling drugs under the passione's name. essentially a suicide mission if it goes wrong. hes tasked to go with sheila e. (girl, same age as boss' daughter approx.) and murolo (middle aged man). they butt heads quite a bit but grow rather close. thru various parts of the novel hes still on some Dumb shit with his anger issues like nearly killing sheila e. when she caught him while he was falling bc he was still seeing red from the enemy. otherwise this part he just kinda comes off as depressed, less explosive. without going into much detail about the fights or what actually happens, he begins to trust people, i think. he doesnt see Everything as if the world was against him and it makes me rly happy for him. like up until this point hes never been Alone alone, but has alienated himself from others bc he feels that they dont understand, or that theyre too different from him, too dumb. very this ⬇️

im going to link to a post i wrote a while back about some phf fugo thoughts because this post is already long enough

anyways i think im done here. i hope this was satisfying and good. i went on a bit of a tangent irt fugo and jotaro because i feel like unlike johnny people dont really tend to look at them with the same depth. i also think i am just out of my mind. if youve read this far i love you

[goatsandgangsters]

SAB EPISODE THREEEEE LIVEBLOG

I’m really glad I have the subtitles on, because “we could definitely use your arsenal” is NOT what I heard Mal say to Nikolai. GOTTA ENUNCIATE THE END OF THAT WORD THERE ARCHIE OR I’LL BE WRITING A NEW RAREPAIR BEFORE YOU KNOW IT

AW KOVU, HE’S IN THE SHOW TOO. fun fact! if you look up the etymology of the name Kovu, it’s JUST the lion king 2! so in addition to naming someone privyet, I’m fairly certain that Leigh Bardugo named someone on Nikolai’s crew after an oddly good-looking talking lion

I’m so glad I have a visual for the flying ship now, because ngl I was never able to really… picture that in a way that made sense. My mental image of the Hummingbird previously was like. two kayaks strapped to some 2x4’s with a sail on it. this is much better

I like that they’re taking the crows more seriously this season? they felt sort of. silly and comic reliefy last season. but their scenes have so much more heft to them. Freddy is doing an incredible job, AND I’m loving all the more serious moments between him and Jesper (people always short-change Jesper on his depth and that makes me annoyed)

“wHAT HAPPENED TO THE WOMAN WHO WOULD BURN VILLAGES TO KEEP HER CHILD SAFE” AAAYYYYYYY DEMON IN THE WOOD REFERENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ooooohhhhhh Morozova family scenes SO GOOD, I’m fucking living. these two play off each other so well. I’m also just?? fucking living for getting to see him in all these different contexts? like, in the books obviously we only get him when Alina’s there (and then he doesn’t…. do that much in Rule of Wolves…) and like. genuinely. just getting a lot of canon scenes that’s him interacting with all kinds of different characters is REALLY exciting for me. you know what it is actually? they’re treating him as a character. and not just A Mysterious Figure. even compared to season 1, he feels more like a character and less like a Presence

THERE!! HE!!! ISS!!!!!! oh I was so excited to see the Nikolai switch and I love that he does change the way he carries himself and the way he speaks, HE’S VERY FUCKING GOOD

SPINNING WHEEL?????? ARE WE GOING TO SEE?????????? MY FAVORITE LOCATION??????????????????????

aw I love David. he’s so sincerely like “so these terrifying shadow monsters. explain.” and then just listens intently.

OH, HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW IF ALINA’S ALIVE?? they BOTH think the other is dead?? they both think they’re just arguing with a dream every night? well. that is juicy

“MY JAW FEELS MUCH BETTER NOW THANKS FOR ASKING” he’s such a shithead :333333

he’s even BETTER as nikolai, I am. very pleased. I am very pleased! i AM VERY PLEASED WE’RE GETTING NIKOLAI DEPTH, BECAUSE I LOVE HIM YOU SEE AND I LOVE THAT THEY’RE TAKING HIM AND HIS DEPTH SERIOUSLY

I WISH YOU COULD HEAR THE UNHOLY SCREECH I JUST MADE. OH WE ARE GETTING THE SPINNING WHEEL???????????? this is not on top of a mountain but I understand production restraints. um. anyway. I would like to take this moment to say SP??? SPINNING????? wHEeehHELHWELHLHWLHELHW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Zoyalina kiss when. ZOYALINA KISS WHEN.

part of me is a little bit mad that “arrive at the spinning wheel and get an exposition dump about how the little palace is a mess because the first army turned on grisha” is…….. a chapter I have already written, for amnesia au, but I have not posted it yet, and now I don’t have Verifiable Proof that I wrote it on my own free brain without show influence. you’ll all just have to believe me on this

WESPER PRECANON HOOKUP????????????????????

Wesper piano tuning adventure, eXTREMELY CUTE

Jesper having feeeeeeelings Jesper having feeeeeeeeeelings

CANNOT BELIEVE WE’RE JUST DOING CROOKED KINGDOM BEFORE SIX OF CROWS. genuinely did not have that on my bingo card at all

oh Inej’s IMMEDIATE “then we destroy him” is A Lot. from the mistrust to “ride or die, let’s kill” oh wow

WOW THEY ARE REALLY DOING KANEJ BATHROOM SCENE JUSTICE

ARE WE DOING????? STAIRCASE FIGHT?????????????????????????? IN EPISODE THREE???????????????????????????????????? IN THPIEOSDE THREE????????

oh FREDDY IS GOOD THIS SEASON. not that he wasn’t good last season, but they are REALLY letting him shine

this episode vacillating between scenes from Siege and Storm, scenes from Ruin and Rising, scenes from Crooked Kingdom, and not-yet-published scenes from my own AU has been a headtrip. IT’S NOT BAD, but I feel like I put myself in a washing machine with all of the books and we’re just going whuubbuwhuuubbbwhuuubbbb together 

my biggest complaint about season 1 was the pacing, and I can’t put my finger on what they’ve done differently because certainly they have even more to cram in and I really thought—if season 1 felt bumpy and rushed and all over the place—there was no WAY season 2 wouldn’t be even more all-over-the-place with so many characters and so many books. but somehow they’re really pulling it off??? I can’t believe this is the third episode only??? I can’t believe this is only haLFWAY THROUGH the third episode???? they are really packing a punch with everything and it’s working. this season so far is TIGHT. I don’t know what they did or what they changed or how, but they are NAILING IT

(interestingly, because each episode feels so meaty and satisfying, it doesn’t feel Designed To Be Binged. this would have rocked as a weekly release. each episode stands so well on its own, I wish they had a full week of breathing space)

ohhhhh poor David, about to be unwilling witness to Morozova Family Drama. World’s Biggest Ilya Morozova Fanboy accidentally has front row seat to watching his kid and grandkid duke it out, dysfunctional immortal style

HM. DON’T KNOW IF THAT’S BETTER OR WORSE THAN EYEBALLS, BUT NEITHER DAVID NOR I WERE EXPECTING THAT LEVEL OF FAMILY DYSFUNCTION RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR SALADS

me seeing my boy in a fancy vest and gay-ass cravat with his sleeves rolled up: I am living my best possible life

ohhhhhhhh the Kaz Wylan Jesper scene VERY GOOD, FREDDY REALLY BRINGING IT

Ben Barnes with Merzost Tuberculosis was ALSO not on my bingo card, but I’ll be honest, I’m not mad about it. just hackin up a lung in every single scene

why is Tidemaker Woman styled like that. like, her hair, her makeup, she just…. looks like someone who knows what tiktok is? she does not look like she’s lives in Magical Tsarist Russia

OH HE EXTINGUISHED THE CANDLE, OKAY. there was a genuine moment there where I wasn’t sure if he was gonna give alina a wet-willy or flip her off

OH, NOT THE DOOR I THOUGHT YOU WERE KNOCKING ON

I’ll see how I feel tomorrow, I was gonna knock out two more, but I might just do one? I’m enjoying A LOT, but every episode has been so FULL in a good way that I don't. feel like I'm chomping at the bit for more? I mostly want to sit and digest everything so far. TBH I WANT TO REWATCH EVERYTHING SO FAR, ALREADY. god this would have been SO good on weekly release. how the fuck is this so good?????? 

[thelugubriousheart3]

There's a whole chapter on perfectionism in Bird by Bird, because it is the great enemy of the writer, and of life, our sweet messy beautiful screwed up human lives. It is the voice of the oppressor. It will keep you very scared and restless your entire life if you do not awaken, and fight back, and if you're an artist, it will destroy you.

My pastor said last Sunday that if you don't change directions, you are going to end up where you are headed. Is that okay with you, to end up still desperately trying to achieve more, and to get the world to validate your parking ticket, and to get your possibly dead parents to see how amazing you always were?

This is not going to happen. They are either so dead, like mine are, or they are insatiable, or so relieved that you did not end up divorced--or if you did, then heavily into drugs, like the Woodson girl, or more out of shape than you are, like Esther's son. It's hopeless, and this is the good news.

Putting those tiny pesky parental voices aside, what about, oh, say, the entire rest of the world?

Do you mind even a little that you are still addicted to people-pleasing, and are still putting everyone else's needs and laundry and career ahead of your creative, spiritual life? Giving all your life force away, to "help" and impress. Well, your help is not helpful, and falls short.

Look, I struggle with this. I hate to be criticized. I am just the tiniest bit more sensitive than the average bear. And yet, I'm a writer, so I periodically put my work out there, and sometimes like all writers, I get terrible reviews, so personal in nature that they leave me panting. Even with a Facebook post, like the last one, do you have any idea what it's like to get 500-plus negative attacks, on my character, from truly bizarre strangers.

Really, it's not ideal.

Yet, I get to tell my truth. I get to seek meaning and realization. I get to live fully, wildly, imperfectly. That's why I'm alive. And all I actually have to offer as a writer, is my version of life. Every single thing that has happened to me is mine. As I've said a hundred times, if people wanted me to write more warmly about them, they should have behaved better

Is it okay with you that you blow off your writing, or whatever your creative/spiritual calling, because your priority is to go to the gym or do yoga five days a week? Would you give us one of those days back, to play or study poetry? To have an awakening? Have you asked yourself lately, "How alive am I willing to be?" It's all going very quickly. It's mid-May, for God's sake. Who knew. I thought it was late February.

It's time to get serious about joy and fulfillment, work on our books, songs, dances, gardens. But perfectionism is always lurking nearby, like the demonic prowling lion in the Old Testament, waiting to pounce. It will convince you that your work-in-progress is not great, and that you may never get published. (Wait, forget the prowling satanic lion--your parents, living or dead, almost just as loudly either way, and your aunt Beth, and your passive-aggressive friends, whom we all think you should ditch, are going to ask, "Oh, you're writing again? That's nice. Do you have an agent?")

Oh my God, what if you wake up some day, and you're 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written; or you didn't go swimming in warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It's going to break your heart. Don't let this happen. Repent just means to change direction--and NOT to be said by someone who is waggling their forefinger at you. Repentance is a blessing. Pick a new direction, one you wouldn't mind ending up at, and aim for that. Shoot the moon.

Here's how to break through the perfectionism: make a LOT of mistakes. Fall on your butt more often. Waste more paper, printing out your shitty first drafts, and maybe send a check to the Sierra Club. Celebrate messes--these are where the goods are. Put something on the calendar that you know you'll be terrible at, like dance lessons, or a meditation retreat, or boot camp. Find a writing partner, who will help you with your work, by reading it for you, and telling you the truth about it, with respect, to help you make it better and better; for whom you will do the same thing. Find someone who wants to steal his or her life back, too. Now; today. One wild and crazy thing: wears shorts out in public if it is hot, even if your legs are milky white or heavy. Go to a poetry slam. Go to open mike,and read the story you wrote about the hilariously god-awful family reunion, with a trusted friend, even though it could be better, and would hurt Uncle Ed's feelings if he read it, which he isn't going to.

Change his name and hair color--he won't even recognize himself.

At work, you begin to fulfill your artistic destiny. Wow! A reviewer may hate your style, or newspapers may neglect you, or 500 people may tell you that you are bitter, delusional and boring.

Let me ask you this: in the big juicy Zorba scheme of things, who fucking cares?

[shizukahaiji]

You guys will NOT want to hear it but I cracked the code

Ok. Let me describe a series for you super quick

There’s an extremely long story, technically still ongoing with its sequel that fans are a little apprehensive about. It’s a multimedia project, some of which being music and a video game. There’s a huge cast of characters (which some people complain about, because characters are being added over the character development of one-dimensional pre-existing ones), some of which have specific typing quirks. The story makes references to a lot of pop culture and pre-existing media, and makes a lot of silly nonsensical jokes that fans take as dead serious or important parts of the lore. It hasn’t aged very well, and it’s full of racism, sexism, and even homophobia despite having pretty strongly queercoded characters. The story also has a lot of heartfelt, genuinely well written emotional moments, which get overshadowed by the absurdity of the plot and a lot of fandom drama.

Speaking of fandom drama, the fandom has made a name for itself. Even if you haven’t heard of this series, you’re likely aware of the fandom, or at least have some idea of what the fandom is like based on stories. There’s well known discourse topics, and even posts that people in the know can reference for their absurd takes and memetic quality talking about the media. Shipping discourse is especially loud, people claiming some characters are abusive while ignoring worse characters or the fact that, really, everyone in the cast can be a dick at one point or another. The wildest part is that there are people who claim to love the series, but openly admit to never actually reading it, or just skipping to parts that interest them. There’s a ton of fandom mischaracterization because of that

The creator of the story, whether openly or just due to the quality of the work, very clearly seems to be fed up with writing for the work, making some strange creative decisions in later years. And while they’re a very contentious figure among fans, their work tends to be some of the strongest, and parts of the story written by other authors aren’t nearly as beloved

Now

Am I talking about Homestuck or am I talking about Ensemble Stars?

[vio-starclad]

My most recent read book was written by our own @dadpat-tactual and, full disclosure, he told me that it was in a fairly unedited state and that he was working on revisions.

Now I know how I am about editing my own work, and thought that could take eons if he's anything like me, so I picked it up anyway.

I do think it's appreciable as a series of vignette sections amongst a fairly standard post-apocypse backdrop. But I must be honest to say that there's not really enough going on here. There seems to be a sequel in the works, and a prequel, but I really would have liked a tighter narrative right Here.

Spoilers and extended thoughts be ahead here:

I don't think our main character was actually ever described, nor was our villain. I'm imagining him with a hook for a hand because that's fun! We got more description for a random bartender! Our hero also has very little agency and seems to just stumble into events or be put on paths by other characters. He wants to regain his lost memories but has no good ideas on how to retrieve them and that desire hardly comes up anyway.

He's also a bit of a textbook Mary Sue or Gary Stu in this case, wherein he's great at fighting and every woman is interested in him, completely altruistic with no faults.

There was a section at the docks that, as far as this book was concerned, was inconsequential, only existing to introduce Gentle Crew. Their raid on the ship seems to be the story our author really wanted to tell.

There's also a tone issue where everything is quite serious but also constantly jokey. We got to a Lynyrd Skynyrd reference and I was like okay hell yeah let's get silly. I was full on expecting our gruff manly men to bond over country rock and break out into an impromptu karaoke session. It would have been hilarious. But no they just have a bar fight, which also doesn't serve any overall narrative purpose. Maybe someone knew who Evan was and had this fight staged to eliminate him? Just an idea.

Brother it's okay, get silly! It's an apocalypse, have fun with it! Let our heroes be larger than life. Carl scratched the surface at least. Everybody thinks Evan is a super soldier so just let him be Solid Snake-like. Let him be near superhero levels, why not?

Evan sleeps with Ellie after knowing her for like a day and later she says they're just friends and I'm over here like "WOW savage" but he doesn't react at all? Okay.

There's a scene where everyone in the market is taking shelter from a hail of bullets, including the faceless mayor. And our freedom fighter Ellie is in view of him and doesn't shoot him in the confusion? I guess she's unarmed for some reason or doesn't have a shot. Which would be fine but that needs to be stated. And later there's a plot to snipe him as he makes a speech and I'm thinking why not a Claymore pointing towards him in the podium? That makes so much sense. It doesn't have to work but somebody should have thought about it. It's safe and logical. And he's kinda made into a joke when he tickets a woman for jaywalking??? He's also out on the town by himself walking into a house with people who want him dead and they do nothing but chat with him.

It's an okay book.

This isn't a callout post; I hope it doesn't read like one. Our author is a good man this story is just half-baked as is.