#when in reality they're mostly pitch

[scorittanius]

it would appear i've given soleil a kis-sprit.. ><3

[thatfreshi]

Pitch Black (Astarion x Reader)

TW - panic attack, claustrophobia, themes of death/rotting

I based this off some sad lore I found out about him yesterday :(

Recommended Song: Rainy Day Loop - SALES

There's a lot of things Astarion hasn't told you. You don't mind, because a lot of those things are hard to relive. Everything he tells you comes with a price, but he does it mostly out of necessity. There are times you know something lies deeper, and yet you don't pry. It will come to light if he decides it needs to.

However, he never told you about one of the first truly cruel things Cazador did. How one day he refused him, told him no for once. He woke up buried six feet under, starving in undeath for an entire year until his master dug him up again. That was the last time he disobeyed.

This led to a fear he never told you about, claustrophobia, that terrifying feeling of being unable to escape small spaces. He doesn't like closets, this you knew, but you assumed it was because they're dark and sad, not because they're small rooms.

One morning you're sleeping, peaceful, arms wrapped around him tight. He wakes up before you, calm at first. When he realizes his discomfort at feeling trapped in your arms, he gently tries to move you off of him, but you grab back in your slumber, not knowing what's going on beyond the barrier of sleep. That first wave of panic sets in as you wrap yourself tighter than before, and he freezes up, remembering the smell of musty dirt and bones. He tries to scoot away, and you unknowingly pull him in again. That second time is enough for him to feel fully trapped, and without thinking he bites down hard on your arm.

"GODS!"

You bolt up out of your sleep, holding your arm, realizing it was Astarion who caused the sudden alarm. He sits at the edge of the bed, breathing heavily, still trying to ground himself. You try to ask him things, why the hell he'd do that to you, but he can't hear your questions. The worms, the beetles, at some point you become accustomed to the tiniest sounds. He wondered if they'd start to eat away at him, if vampires were like corpses, if he would slowly decompose in the ground. You go to touch his hand and he yanks it away, standing up.

"Astarion!"

And he finally turns to see you on the bed, your arm bleeding badly, how concerned you look. He can't speak though. Footsteps, people passing by, unable to scream because of how tightly packed the sediment is. You try anyways.

"Aster, listen to me. I need you to listen to me, okay?"

You're panicking. You haven't seen him this bad in a while. He's not there, at least not truly there. To be knocked out, only to wake up in pitch black, what a horror.

"I think you're having a panic attack my love, can you try to focus on one thing in the room?"

A painting, a landscape of a graveyard. He was put in a graveyard, some kind of cruel joke. His eyes wander to the frame, golden, like thread. He remembers stitching little phrases and stories into his clothes, he remembers the first time he did such a craft for you. The breathing starts to settle, still shaking, he sits back down next to you, and just starts sobbing. You go to hug him and he flinches.

"No!"

You are almost taken aback, but you remember that it's not your fault.

"Okay, that's okay. I'll just sit here with you."

He just cries for a while, and you let him. Clearly something startled him badly, badly enough that he bit you. You forgot until now that you were bleeding. Not only did his fangs pierce, but many of the rest of his teeth got through the skin. As you're analyzing your wound, you take part of the blanket and press it into your arm, trying to stop the bleeding. Astarion notices the movement, and you see guilt overcome his face immediately. You interrupt before he can speak.

"It's okay darling, I know you didn't mean it."

He wipes at his tears, finally coming back to reality, truly grounding himself.

"I... I'm sorry."

"I know, it's okay."

He stares at a crack in the floorboards.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He nods, mainly because he hates it when you're confused.

"So... a long time ago, Cazador decided it would be fun to bury me alive."

He almost laughs at how ridiculous it is, how someone could even think to do that. You just listen.

"And I stayed there for an entire year. And I don't know how it happened, but you tried to hug me tighter while you were asleep, and I- I just panicked, I felt so trapped and it just reminded me so much of-"

He can't even bring himself to say it again.

"I'm so sorry, I had no idea."

He scoffs.

"Yeah, you were asleep, and I freaked out like a monster and bit you."

He gazes down at the wound, wincing at what he's done.

"Hey, look at me. Wounds heal, I'll be okay. What matters is that you're okay."

"I... I think I'm okay now. Just, feel miserable."

"That's okay, you're allowed to feel however you want."

"I know. Thank you my sweet."

He picks your hand up off the bed, holding it to his face. It takes weeks after for him to be hugged again, especially being the little spoon, but you don't mind. You'll go through every phase of his, good and bad. This one just happens to be bad, and that's okay. He'll be okay. You'll both be okay.

[angelicblondie]

Hi!

I love the PJO show ver. of Luke, I'm so very normal about him skvqmw

So, for a fanfic request, I was thinking... It's the 4th of July, so everyone is staying up late, and fem!child of Apollo user and Luke are off in a different part of Camp to see the fireworks. And well their alone and waiting, he confesses how he fell in love with her (they're dating to begin with btw), and she lights up.

Like, glow-wise. Like Will can do.

awww this is the cutest thing ever!! im not exactly sure what you mean by "glow-wise" (bc i admit i havent read any of the recent books bc i just couldnt get into them), but i'll try my best hehe <333

·:*¨༺🎀🦢🕯️༻¨*:·. 

the fourth of the july was your favorite day of the whole summer each year. you weren't exactly sure why - maybe it was that all camp duties were dismissed for the day, maybe it was that you held a deep love of america (which you didn't of course, but something about the fourth of july strangely made you a bit patriotic), or maybe it was that all the senior campers snuck off to the beach to watch the fireworks light. "snuck" might be the wrong word, considering chiron and mr. d definitely knew about it, but obviously they didn't really care since you guys never got in trouble.

moments like these were times you got to escape reality, even if it was just for a moment. it was a breath of fresh air to just be like every other teenager in the country, make a bonfire at the beach, and watch the fireworks. it was nice to pretend.

you, like every other person on the beach, had a red solo cup in your hands, taking leisurely sips. you decided to take it easy tonight - you wanted to witness the fireworks fully sober, which was unlike last year when you got plastered and your poor best friend (now boyfriend) luke had to take care of you the whole night. bless his heart!!

after spending the first half of the night chatting away with your girlfriends, luke came up behind you, placing his arms around your waist and resting his chin on your shoulder. you didn't even flinch, knowing it was him, and you leaned back against him, hugging his arms around you with warm smile.

luke greeted your friends (who were smiling teasingly at your lovesick expression) and asked to take you away, to which they gave in with no hesitation. luke whisked you away to walk along the shore, away from the gathering.

you hugged his arm as it began to get chillier away from the fire, and right by the water. you walked mostly in silence, enjoying the pure serenity and peace in the moment, loving the way his arms radiated warmth into your skin.

you eventually found a log to sit on, the chatter of the gathering being out of earshot, but the bonfire still being visible. luke tore off his hoodie for you, and you swore to him as you put it on that you would return it (which you both knew wasnt true).

even with his hoodie on you still cuddled up close to him, staring out into the pitch black water and starry sky. "where did connor and travis even get these fireworks?" you ask him, voice muffled into his arm.

luke chuckled a bit when asked about his siblings. "zues knows," he muttered, turning down to look at you, cheeks scrunched up against his bicep with a faraway look in your eyes. for some reason, he couldn't stop looking at you - the way the water view in front of you reflected in your eyes, the way your lips sat in a gentle pout, how big his hoodie was on you - it gave him a sense of pride that you were his. that he had somehow, someway, managed to get you.

he began to smile to himself, and shook his head, almost as if he couldn't believe this was his life. and the way you looked up at him, turning your eyesight away from the view solidified his admiration.

you looked up at him the same way you looked at the stars and sea just then - with wonder and serenity. you bit your lip for a moment, as if you were hesitating to speak. "when'd you fall in love w'me?" you ask quietly and curiously.

luke raises his eyebrows at your question. "jeez, sunshine, where'd that come from?" he asks, and you giggle softly. "i dunno, i guess i was j'wondering," you explain, still looking up at him fondly.

luke blows out a breath of air and looks away to think. he racked his brain, trying to remember. in truth, luke believed he had always been in love with you, or as least slowly falling over time. but, if he thought about it, there was one moment he remembered admitting it to himself.

it was on your last birthday, a couple months after the two of you had started dating. your father (apollo), like every year, had left you a gift on your side table to wake up to. this year it had been a necklace with a sun on it, and he remembered you were so excited. "its like i can carry a piece of him everywhere!" you had excitedly squealed to your boyfriend after breakfast. he also remembered all the other years before feeling a bit jealous - and being incredibly guilty about it. your father gave you gifts, and visited you in your dreams - yet his father could only ever give him a doomed quest. he always knew he should've been souly happy for you, and he was, but the fucked up and bitter part of him was a bit envious of the love you had received effortlessly. now looking back, it felt stupid, because he didnt need his father to love him - as long as you did, nothing else mattered in his books.

he guessed that it was then when he realized that he loved you. this time around, he couldn't even be jealous, because he understood. luke loved you so much, that if he could, he would give you just abut anything you desired, simply for existing. he didn't have it in him to be bitter, because he was just so happy that you were happy on your special day.

after a moment, luke turned back to you to explain. the whole time he spoke, you lips were twisted in a soft smile and your eyes were lit up, feeling in awe of how lucky you were. moments like these made you feel grateful for your boyfriend. you didn't exactly know what life would look like without him, but you knew you never wanted to find out.

you pouted. "aww, lukey, that was adorable!" you exclaim, your hoodie-covered fingers grabbing his face and placing a fat kiss on his lips. he chuckled. "alright, back up." he joked.

you giggled, resting you head on his shoulder. "love you, luke." you say softly and quietly.

"love y'too, sunshine." luke whispered back, scincere michief filling his voice.

not too long after, the fireworks were lit, and you and luke watched in awe as the bright colors filled the sky, hearing the distant whoops and hollars from the campers not far away along the shore. luke tried to distract you, peppering kisses on you face and tickling you, so you giggled you scolded him, telling him you wanted to enjoy the moment and look at the fireworks. but you knew deep down that his teasing would only make the memory sweeter, and undoubtedly unforgettable.

·:*¨༺🎀🦢🕯️༻¨*:·. 

[solarpunkani]

Solar Powered Community Fridges - Concept Art

So one of my grad school classes is a 8 week long group project to essentially come up with an artistic solution to a problem. Of course, my pitch was solarpunk in nature, and my group actually really liked it! Basically, the concept is to design a series of solar panel-powered community fridges, to help address food insecurity and build community in different areas without having to rely on a specific host building to provide power. What better time to show my concept art than Solarpunk Aesthetic Week?

Originally, I was just drawing up ideas with what usually comes to mind when I imagine fridges--upright fridges. Here's my concept art!

In these sketches, my main concern was imagining how these fridges would fit into the community alongside their power sources--I didn't want them to be too bulky, but I also wanted them to be available for easy access. I also figured they'd need shelter for the fridge's longevity, as well as to protect any users from the element. It'd also be nice to have them alongside other mutual aid sources like little free pantries, little free libraries, the like. One of my favorite designs is the sheltered community space on page 2, with the fridge, the seat, the pantry, and the library all in one protected structure with solar panels on the top. Having a table near the community fridge would also be nice to give people a place to rest as well.

However, around this time, I started trying to find out just how big of a solar panel would be needed to power a fridge like this, and the results were... a bit discouraging. Until! I was informed that chest freezers use way less energy to keep cool--cool air sinks, so opening an upright fridge releases most of the cold air that's been building up and makes the machine work harder to keep cool, whereas a chest fridge doesn't lose nearly as much cold air. In addition, some people have converted chest freezers into chest refrigerators for as little as ~$30 USD. Due to the insulation in a chest freezer, converted chest fridges use way less energy than their upright counterparts to keep cool, making it way more feasible to power them with solar.

So of course, I had to get to drawing again!

Since I'd already concepted a variety of structures for upright fridges, for the chest fridges I mostly focused on their design and possible convenience/accessibility concerns I had been worried about, one of the main being having to reach inside vertically instead of horizontally--several of my family members have difficulty bending, so I was worried having a chest fridge would make things more difficult for others like them. There are likely other ways to address this concern that I haven't thought of, but for now I've concepted putting a grabber tool inside of every fridge so people with trouble bending can still get things. How well it'd work in reality, I'm not sure...

Buuut these are my concepts so far! I hope you like them, I hope they're cool? Let me know what you think! I think these would be cool to have in a solarpunk future--whether they're entirely possible today or will have to wait until a somewhat-distant, 'solar panels can generate more energy with less size and fridges are also way more energy efficient' future I can't say, but it's cool to think about!

[Image 1: Pencil sketches of refrigerators connected to solar power. The annotations on them are as follows. An arrow points to a magnet caddy on the freezer door with markers and stickers, saying "Markers + labels for dating donations". An arrow points to a battery-structure at the base of a solar panel system saying "Doubles as charging station for phones & stuff". An arrow points to a slanted roof structure over a fridge saying "Bus stop-esque structure." An arrow points at a glass door grocery store-style fridge saying "any kind of fridge, any size."

Image 2: Pencil sketches of refrigerators connected to solar power. The annotations on them are as follows. An arrow points to a fridge under a slanted roof structure, saying "Paintings on the fridge itself." Over a portion of a brick wall is written "Murals can be on accompanying walls or on the shelter structure for the fridge." An arrow points to a wheel-mounted solar panel saying "solar panel". A community space is named at the top "The Free Community Space: Open 24/7" An arrow points to the outside wall of a community space structure saying "mural on outer walls". Items inside are labeled 'Freedge, Little free Library, Seeds, Pantry'. An arrow points to a couch, saying "Maybe a bench instead?" Written on the inner wall is "mural inside." An arrow pointing at the space says "Community built space w/ lights, solar panels, little free library, freedge, seed library, little free pantry, couch (???). Solar battery stored behind or on top. Plastic magnet door to protect from elements? Like those magnet curtains?"

Image 3: Pencil sketches of refrigerators connected to solar power. The annotations on them are as follows. An arrow points to a slanted structure over a mini fridge, saying "Solar panel on roof?" Another arrow points to the side saying "Chalkboard paint--anyone can art here." Underneath says "variety of sizes/energy needs mean wider availability". At the top of a curved shelter on a pole is written "solar panel", along the sloping sides is "curved solar panels" and "Or solar voltaic glass?" On the underside of the structure is a label saying "Could be in a park or smth (something)". An arrow points to a box at the base of the structure, saying "charging station" and another arrow labels a table and chairs.

Image 4: Pencil sketches of refrigerators connected to solar power. The annotations on them are as follows. Along the top of a slightly-curved roof structure is an arrow saying "curved solar panel roof. renogy curved 4ft x 2ft for example". To the side of the roof is written "4 panels each side, 0.45 kWh x 8 = 3.6 kWh/h". A chest fridge is labeled "converted chest fridge", and a glass-front box is labeled "Old cabinet/case now Little Free Library". A box sitting between them is labeled "I hear car batteries are good solar storage for cheaper?" A standalone chest fridge has the following labels: "Could paint on fridge exterior" "solar panel on top of fridge?" "most chest freezers are 22-28 in wide &24-38 or 54-68 in long. The longest wattage panel needed would be ~50 in long & ~26 in wide"

Image 5: Pencil sketches of refrigerators connected to solar power. The annotations on them are as follows. The inside of an open lid has an arrow pointing to a grabber object saying "Grabber for accessibility for those w/ trouble bending". A label points at a strap fastened to the inside of the lid saying "straps to help shorter people pull the lid closed." A variety of arrows point to a drawing of an open, decorated chest fridge saying the following: "Counter-balanced lid" "Baskets/crates for storage -> can slide or be removed to access underneath" "Murals on front & sides (not back)" ]

[penultimate-step]

Oshi no Ko 143 Reaction

This was a fun chapter. Ruby getting aggressive finally forcing Aqua to stop ignoring the problems in their relationship that have been simmering for 20 chaps now and actually have a conversation that puts it all out in the open. They're mostly saying stuff I predicted in advance, but some of it took me by surprise.

One bit that made me stand up and !!! was this page:

I thought I was doing something interesting when I compared Ruby's feelings towards Gorou to Aqua's feelings about Ai in my last two analyses but she just came out and said it directly on page, haha. I feel pretty validated.

I still stand behind most of what I wrote last week after this chapter. Ruby is desperately trying to make this a romance, but her best pitch is "I care about you in the same way we cared about idols in our past lives. Parasocially and without regard for the actual person, because I need to put somebody on an idealized pedestal or else I'll kill myself. This is what romance is, right?" Girl with so so so many issues, I love her.

The one thing that did really take me by surprise was the bit where she listed off Aqua's flaws as a person. In the past I assumed that Ruby was intentionally ignoring these flaws and making up a version of Aqua that didn't exist in her head. The way in her mind he's drawn like a romance hero and how she makes excuses for all the things she took issue with before lead me to believe she was intentionally distancing "Gorou, her idol" from "Aqua, the person, her brother" in her head. I'm not sure how to square this knowledge with the way she is (textually, now!) putting him on a pedestal. If I had to guess, I would think she actually is aware of who Aqua is as a person - she was friends with him as Gorou before and siblings for 18 years, she should know him better than anybody - but is intentionally separating this knowledge from the figure she is idolizing, because she needs to keep ahold of something for her mental stability.

I'm reminded of an analysis post of OnK ep 1 I read on tumblr almost a year ago, I forget who posted it so I can't properly credit it but it's not my own thoughts. (if anybody else remembers it please let me know so I can link it!) They contrasted Gorou's parasocial fan relationship with Ai to Ryosuke, the stalker who killed him: both put were fans of Ai, the Idol, but when confronted with the reality that she was more than an idol, that she had relationships and would have children, Gorou decided that the health and happiness of Ai the person was more important than his image of Ai the Idol, and did his best as a doctor to help her, while Ryosuke's reaction to having his image of the Idol shattered was to try and destroy Ai the person. The analysis put forth the idea that this was contrasting healthy vs unhealthy methods of being a fan - that there's nothing wrong with being a fan of someone, necessarily, but you have to keep in mind that you aren't entitled to anything about them, and there's always a real person underneath the performance.

I didn't fully agree with it - in my post about how the series portrays different kinds of love I talked about how it came down very harshly on dishonest and idolizing love - but I did think it was very interesting (obviously as I still remember it almost a year later). Anyway Ruby's approach to Aqua this chapter made me think of that a lot. She makes a big deal out of how Aqua is her idol, their relationship is idol/fan, and she can ignore all his flaws - but at the same time she points out that she does actually know what those flaws are. It puts her in something of a strange position. What would she do if her image of The Doctor, Her Idol, no longer existed, and she was left with just Aqua? Would she care for the person, or be mad at losing the illusion? According to this chapter she fits into neither of those, she chooses to pretend that the illusion still exists even while staring directly at the reality. Ruby seems aware that she is essentially using the idea of the doctor as a coping mechanism, but doesn't want to admit that this desire is directly in tension with the idea about caring about Aqua as a person, romantically or otherwise.

As for Aqua, it's great that he's finally being a little honest with his emotions and feelings after so long, to the one person who is really able to understand the context.

However, I think he's still holding a lot back, especially in the latter half of the chapter, because there are things he doesn't feel that he can say to Ruby, specifically about their relationship. He seems hesitant to directly tell Ruby that he can't be her lover or her idol, he can only be himself - even when he tries to tell her that he can't be the person he was she just brushes it off - and I think with how Ruby's mental health is holding on by a thread he is unwilling to do anything to jeopardize it, even if it means accepting the spot on her pedestal.

My read of the relationship between Gorou and Sarina 22 years ago was that they were genuine friends at the time. Regardless of difference in age and position they were both socially isolated people who found one person they felt they could be honest and open with. This makes their current relationship even sadder - Ruby has twisted the memory of their old friendship into dreams of romance and idolatry to fuel the desire to live one more day. Aqua, who in his last life would have been willing to do almost anything to get her to keep living, is forced to cut away his own relationship to her, both last life friend and current life brother, because being dishonest - being an idol - is the only way he can see to keep her alive and healthy. Both have already cut away most of their other bonds for the sake of the revenge plan, and now they can't even be fully honest with each other. Very tragic stuff.

All in all I really really liked this chapter. The interactions between Ruby and Aqua has always been multiple layers of relationships and mindsets existing on top of one another, and that just makes it super interesting for me. I love it whenever that leads to character tension. They've been friends and siblings and idols and all of that has to coexist, its a very unique kind of character writing that Oshi no Ko does well and I don't see very often and makes me care for the series a lot. I think I have a much more positive view of this arc than most of the fandom because the trainwreck of their relationship is one of the series highlights to me, so chapters like this, where exactly how bad their mindsets have gotten are placed as the main focus, are some of my favorite story beats.

I know there's a lot of negativity about this chap but I'm having a good time over here in my corner. Not sure if it's because I've been letting my thoughts about the series out in posts a lot more recently or because I liked this specific chapter a lot but this is definitely most I've been invested in the series for a while now. I think I was letting the Discourse kind of sour things for me and now I have mentally exorcised it from my mind.

[potahun]

help whenever mxdzt posts from you popped up on my dash i assumed it was another acronym for like, a webnovel or donghua or something but i only just looked it up and learned it's a cvariety?? anyways please go ahead and pitch it to me/ramble if you want because i am intrigued

THANK YOU FOR ASKING AAAA <3 sobs a little bc mxdzt/明星大侦探 is so niche here but to be honest, i think it is one of my top comfort shows if not The comfort show and i usually feel very alien to the term 'comfort show'. it feels fair to say mxdzt is one tho TT

Concept:

It IS a variety show, you're right. It's like a reality show but mostly a murder-mystery show, initially co-hosted by CCTV presenter Sa Beining and the He Jiong, the He laoshi himself that everyone and their mothers know ...except, for once, they're not there hosting as the top MCs they are. They, and the guests, 85% of which soon became regulars, are playing a murder-mystery game. Each episode, each of the guests embody a character within a story, and a murder (or several) happens, that the players have to solve together. Among them hides the murderer (or several), who is the only player allowed to lie, and whom the other players have to try and vote out at the end. Also among them, one player will be the Detective, who has an extra vote, and has to act as a leader of the good guys.

(Side note: From S4 onwards, there is also a Detective Assistant, who's basically a smart non-celebrity helping to take notes, sometimes having a minor role to move the plot along...In time, the team of Detective Assistants have gotten their own spin-off show called 名侦探学院, because they're a riot (Xiao Pu is my favorite))

It's almost jarring the 1st time you watch it if you know them as celebrities, because the show starts and they're in-character right off the bat. They break in and out of character, sometimes to laugh their heads off, but mostly, they act a role with different levels of seriousness throughout the episode, so it's a very different vibe from regular c-varieties where they're themselves :D At the same time, it's clearly a reality show in which those people are extremely familiar, casual and silly with each other. Players often refer to each other only by their last names in the show for this reason, so that it refers to both player and character.

So yeah, there is 开始推理吧 with Zhou Shen and Liu Yuning, and there is MXDZT, which is its still enduring predecessor. mxdzt is pure murder-mystery without the escape room element. But it does have a lot of times where the guests are really pulled into the story, and events happen in-game, moving the story along. And oh boy, those are intense stories sometimes...

General facts:

Each season has 12 episodes, and there are currently 9 seasons. Most episodes are stand alone, even when verses are recurring, it's fine to watch them out-of-order. S8 is the only exception where it introduced a central character and a story that tied half the season together (TT<3). Another exception is the season starters and finales (eps 1-2 and 11-12 of each season) which tend to be stories in two parts with a deeper mystery behind the setting.

From S1 to S6, Sa Beining and He Jiong were the main hosts, with regulars being the likes of Zhang Ruoyun, Da Zhangwei, Wei Daxun, Bai Jingting, Wang Ou, Yang Rong, Gui Gui, Wei Chen and Liu Haoran. After S6, Sa Beining left due to CCTV not allowing him to work in other channels' shows :( but more regulars returned or joined, like Wu Xin, Qi Wei...An array of people I didn't know much before watching but all grew to love.

The show functions using rounds of group discussions and evidence-searching time, and then final votes, to get to the murderer and reveal the story. Players will not speak about themselves unless triggered by the right evidence, but once evidence is found, they cannot lie about it...unless they're the murderer.

Charm points?

The stories...While S1 was still simple, MXDZT evolved rapidly over time and by S4-S5 became a mammoth of story-telling, creatively exploring a whole range of themes like smiling depression, societal obsession with beauty and its tragedies, toxic masculinity, generational conflicts and reconciliations in families, mob mentality, the danger of cults, and the individuality of thoughts vs collectivity etc etc...in more and more depth, through intricate stories with memorable characters and great delivery and wild plot twists. There are always clever ways in which something will trigger a character story, mixing story and gameplay, and it helps that most of the players are actors: sometimes, they do get invested in their own characters! The range of acting goes from exaggeratedly bad for laughs to heartwrenching and elegantly grave. You thought it was a donghua I was babbling about for that reason in part, bc it's as much variety as it is about stories TT The show reuses its verses sometimes, too, so it's always a pleasure to see the running gags or the expanding lore.

The laughs. As the seasons progress, the show did go from a simple game to building real poignant, and deep stories with a message, some of which have made me cry ;~; BUT all the while being an absolute laugh-riot full of Ace Attorney-style names (pianist called Zhen Huitan? sketchy doctors called You Maobing? a man called He Baodan?) and so many PUNS and jokes and a loving post-prod that is so good at putting the right captions and effects. Not only this, but the show is not afraid of swerving back-and-forth between outright crack and the most touching storyline. Emotional whiplash is a big thing in the show. But when it's funny, god, it's FUNNY. and it is So often funny...

Cast. As mentioned, most of the cast rapidly became regulars. The show requires a lot of IQ, focus, thinking and also relative eloquence, and just a set of skills that isn't for all celebrities tbh. So those who stayed did for a long time, and grew comfortable with each other. I rarely watch a variety in which the cast has so much chemistry and are so chill with each other. They casually ship each other (so many ships), poke fun, develop their inside jokes... He Jiong x Sa Beining alone was the epitome of a self-proclaimed married-and-divorced-and-remarried-and-re-divorced miracle. It's also difficult to explain before watching but it's a very refreshing feeling to watch them slip in and out of character, giving this seamless mix of players being themselves, and also a character within a story and a fictional universe.

Gameplay! You can solve murder too as you watch! You can figure it out along with the players. But if you don't want to, you can just watch and wait for it to unfold! Both are ok!

Freedom to cherry-pick: While 9 seasons can be daunting and the episodes are Long TM, the show also makes it incredibly easy to watch out of order... or just watch the ones that intrigute you.

Episodes Recs:

IF you are a looking for an episode to start with, my rec is always S5E1 and S5E2, called Pianists on The Sea. You can skip the piano competition at the start of Ep1 (it's so incredibly cringe and lasts 10 mins. i love those idiots but it's so cringe). S5E1 is a murder-mystery as we know it taking place on a cruise, but what's wrong with the boat...and then S5E2 is just. oohhhhh my god. so much is wrong with the boat. The reason I pick this one is that it illustrates very well the kind of breadth the show has ;W;

Also, S6E1 and S6E2 Midnight Hotel which packs an absolute PUNCH.

I would recommend watching S6 as a whole, every ep is fun. Same with S8, which punches me in the gut again and again.

I also have my other rec lists here (with some explanation on the premise of eps recced) and here (i believe this was before S8 broke my heart (positive)) if ever helpful.

Voilà, here is my rambling for MXDZT, thank you for giving me the opportunity to babble about it <3 I haven't encompassed everything that makes this show wild and incredible, but it has to be lived. One thing is for sure though:

MXDZT is a show in which anything, and i mean literally anything, can happen.

And it's beautiful <3

[tinkerbelldetective]

I think in all the memes and jokes about not understanding Kingdom Hearts or that it makes no sense (it made perfect sense to me up until Dream Drop Distance and Unchained/ Union Cross), we have a tendency to forget about Kingdom Hearts and its message of love, family, friendship, and home.

In Kingdom Hearts (KH1), there's literally a world where those who lost their homes go to. In a place where you go when you're lost and alone, sometimes you get found. Sora is confused, shaken, and just wants his friends, and he acquires new friends and a family, among Donald and Goofy. He finds strength and is even looked after by Leon, Aerith, Cid, and Yuffie.

It is the love (and power, but mostly love) of Kairi that returns Sora back to his human form.

In Kingdom Hearts II, Roxas exists in a data world, the Hayner, Pence, and Olette he knows don't exist outside of this world and in his heart (shh you know what I mean). It is their names and presence that he turns to when he perceives himself to be losing grip on reality. When Sora wakes up in the real Twilight Town, Roxas' friendship with the Twilight Town gang is so strong that Hayner, Pence, and Olette feel like they know him/Sora, even though they themselves have never truly met.

The townspeople of Hollow Bastion/Radiant Garden pitching in to fix their home even though it's nearly overrun with Nobodies and Heartless, because they're back on their world, and they won't let it be taken again.

Sora and Roxas get keychains for their keyblade from every person they bond with, each one personalized to that person and their bond, each one helping Sora and Roxas to survive and save the day.

Kingdom Hearts is about going home. It's about love breaking through the shadows. It's about friendship that saves you.

[socialmediasocrates]

MITZIE AND THE THINGS SHE FOUND IN THE RIVER; a wip intro

(intro graphics by @veneritia)

Genre: new adult, urban fantasy

Tropes: Cloudcuckoolander, But for Me, It Was Tuesday, Her Boyfriend's Jacket, Non-Linear Character, Red String of Fate, Necromancer, Child of Forbidden Love, Anthropomorphic Personification, Revenant Zombie, Interactive Narrator

5 Song Playlist: Inkpot Gods, Bulletproof Heart, The Last of the Real Ones, Call Your Mom, Breath of Life

TL;DR: Keyesville, PA's got a serial killer, and it's up to "undergrad" witch Mitzie Morse and yoga instructor Khalil Bashir to stop them.

Summary:

For six months, Mitzie Morse has been pulling murder victims out of the river.

She gets them fixed up, so she figures it's not really a big deal, but there's definitely a serial killer on the loose. One who's ramped up their activity lately, a pattern of escalation in both violence and frequency of killings that would give anyone other than Mitzie some pause. Necromancers have a dysfunctional relationship with reality. Someone has to remind them that death is scary for most people, or they forget. Luckily (for Keyesville, not Mitzie) the latest victim, burnt out physical therapist turned yoga instructor Khalil Bashir, is happy to remind her that she has the power to stop these killings once and for all. Unluckily (for Keyesville, for Mitzie, and mostly for Khalil) a quirk of fate and magic has bound the two of them together. Doubly unluckily (for Keyesville, for Khalil, and mostly for Mitzie), the killer has set their sights on a new target: Mitzie Morse.

Characters

Mitzie Morse

like all necromancers, mitzie has a sense of style kindly described as "macabre" and accurately described as "fucking gross." dir en grey, gazette, and my chemical romance posters war with gruesome anatomical diagrams of creatures ranging from humans to unicorns to, somehow, dodo birds for wall space. her kitchen cabinets are home to a collection of mismatched thrifted cups, plates, and bowls, an ancient, somewhat decrepit, rice cooker, and an array of body parts preserved in mason jars. the colorful ones your least favorite high school classmates use for drinks in their instagram posts.

[…]

"i think he might need a new left eye." she takes a step back to survey her handiwork. "maybe a couple toes and fingers, too. do i still have toes and fingers?"

unfortunately, the answer to that is yes. they're in the pantry, next to the box of gushers. the one that's already open, not the unopened one on the top shelf. kind of wedged between the gushers and the canned ravioli. yep, she's found them. she's never explained why she keeps them in there, to me or anyone, at least not in a way that i'm willing to accept.

"i told you, there's not enough space in the cabinets."

there would be plenty of space if she got rid of all the novelty cups.

"i don't want to get rid of my novelty cups."

she should, they're grungy in the gross way.

Khalil Bashir

"who are you?"

anyway, the yoga instructor, khalil, is up.

he's still sitting on mitzie's kitchen table, the blanket she threw over him folded over itself in his lap. he's twisting around, trying to figure out where he is (you're in mitzie's apartment, i just said that) and where i am (everywhere all at once, but i'm incorporeal so you can stop looking).

"who are you? who the fuck is mitzie?" he's got that high-pitched edge to his voice that people get when they're panicking. unfortunate.

"hello?"

oh. right. i'm stevie.

[…]

"what is this?" he holds the gift card out from himself like it's going to bite him.

"a twenty five dollar gift card!" mitzie stares at khalil. khalil stares back at mitzie. this goes on long enough that she decides to elaborate, "you know, for your trouble."

he looks like he'd like to say something but isn't fully certain what he wants to say or how he wants to say it. this is a common reaction to mitzie. she does tend to just open her mouth and say things. khalil opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens his mouth, then closes it. he looks at the gift card. he looks at mitzie. he looks at the gift card. he sighs, shakes his head, and stuffs it in a pocket.

"why did you settle on twenty five dollar gift cards?"

"i dunno, it seemed fair."

"right."

khalil's been having the longest day known to man for two and a half weeks.

Fatima Bashir

fatima is one of those unspeakably fashionable people that makes everything she wears look good. even, more than occasionally, dog vomit.

see, much like her brother burnt out on the whole "living in philly and fighting the demon in the homeless man outside the wawa for his life every time he wanted a hoagie" life, fatima got tired of having to sit through putting people's dogs to sleep for eighteen dollars an hour and no health insurance. so khalil's a yoga instructor, and fatima owns keyesville's first doggie daycare. somehow, her perfect manicures never get too fucked up.

"any news on khalil?" asks the office worker, passing a tupperware container of cookies across the counter. this is the fifth time today that someone has asked this. it is seven in the morning.

"not yet, but we're staying optimistic. thanks for the cookies; mom loved the last ones." it's true that her mom loved the cookies, but it's not true that she's thankful for them.

Johnny ???

"so, what's up with the mcdonald's napkins?" khalil is sitting extremely inadvisably unbuckled in the back of the van.

"no clue." two sharp turns and a hard stop at a red light. johnny sips his cucumber water placidly while everyone behind him climbs back into their seats. "gotta take 'em somewhere in oklahoma, though."

"how do you know that?"

"no clue."

johnny is a mystery wrapped in an enigma lodged in a mound of horse shit. you'll recall that his previous identity was cursed or something, so he turned it over to edna in exchange for the first of many mcdonald's napkins and a broken magic guitar. some garage sale special of unknown make, black paint flaking off the wood everywhere, strings curling around the pegboard like medusa's snakes. it doesn't matter how many times he changes the strings, or what he does when he changes them, they will always break as soon as he plays them, and the only song the guitar will reliably play is the mysterious one written on the mcdonald's napkins he keeps finding everywhere.

@seasteading ; @writinglyra ; @asablehart ; @zorya-km ; @silent-creed ; @cheshawrites ; @thewritersplace

[chameleonspell]

HTDC commentary - 13: legs & 14: plan & 15: claws & 16: door

[Looking back at HTDC after nearly ten years: comments on lore, character notes, influences, art, whatever. May contain spoilers for later chapters.]

chapter text: 13: legs & 14: plan & 15: claws & 16: door

Four short chapters, in which Iriel prepares for and undertakes his first real Mages' Guild quest. Everything goes well, until it doesn't.

“Anaaaaarenen…” The slightly high-pitched, panicky quaver in Ire’s voice was unmistakable.

Iriel's fear of bones is something that comes up frequently after this, but fine, yes, it only started because I wanted to make this one joke. In my defence, it's an amazing joke. Anyway, I'm mostly making fun of myself, because I'm extremely arachnophobic, and I play out this scene with my long-suffering partner on the regular.

“It’s the only Conjuration spell I can do,” Ire said dolefully

Actually, I'm lying, there was another origin for this scene. I had Iriel learn a Summon Skeleton spell ingame as a plan to defend himself in battle, but when he tried casting it, safely shut away in his Mages' Guild bedroom to prevent any accidental aggro from other NPCs, this happened:

And the sight of it just... standing there... on his BED... waiting... LOOKING at him... was so horrifying and invasive and weird that Ire developed a phobia on the spot, and never cast it again.  They're so creepy, and they raise unpleasant questions. Whose skeleton is this? Where does it come from, when you summon it? A tomb, a graveyard? Does some poor bastard, who once made an ill-advised Daedric pact, go suddenly extremely floppy?

Iriel tries conjuring other things, later, and finds it differently uncomfortable. If magic is expressing how you wish to affect the world, then conjuration is... what? The ancient and mystical art of Delegation? It's just getting other people to do things for you, isn't it? Which is exactly what Ire's doing now, summoning Anarenen to protect him from the thing he summoned to protect him.

I do not think Dwemer animunculi are susceptible to pleading eyes and tragical expressions, which are your primary offensive weapons, as far as I can tell.”

Every time i see a sphynx cat, I'm all, "who leaked Iriel's nudes?"

You are extremely good at getting other people to take care of you

Iriel is baffled by this characterisation of himself, but you can see why Anarenen thinks it's true, since Anarenen falls for Ire's pathetic wooby act, and takes care of him. Iriel, though, is familiar with the downsides of a tactic that amounts to a display of abject weakness and vulnerability. The people who don't fall for it, (i.e. the ones without the intelligence, taste and compassion,) tend to want to punch him.

but it is no way to go through life. You are a grown man now, and need to learn to act like it.

And even the ones who start out compassionate quickly get judgemental and critical, trying to change him, fix him. At least, this how (if he hadn't stopped listening) Iriel would have interpreted Anarenen's mild scolding, though Anarenen is really only trying to help him survive. People are often tempted to be parental towards Iriel, but it doesn't usually go down well. Because Iriel has a terrible relationship with his parents, and the minute someone starts talking to him in ways that sound like his mother, he hears everything they say through a poisonous veil.

if this is the reality where I’m good at getting people to take care of me, I can’t imagine what my life is like in the reality where I’m bad at it.

Anarenen has no idea Iriel just got out of jail, or what his life's been like, recently. He doesn't understand why his comment made Iriel bluescreen from irony quite so hard. Since Ire is educated and well-spoken, Anarenen assumes he has a spoiled rich-boy on his hands, but that's not fair. Iriel isn't noble, grew up poor, and hasn't ever been spoiled. But he has been sheltered, and never before been in a situation where he had to fight for his survival - even jail was another form of enforced dependency.

Iriel doesn't know how to interact with the world, isn't sure if he even can. He often needs help from other people to do it, but hates all the possible ways this can play out. He hates living with his weakness on display, waiting to see which path others will choose with him, compassion or cruelty. He knows that even the compassion always comes with a price, sooner or later.

Edwinna Elbert trotted in. “Iriel, there you are. How are your preparations coming along?”

He doesn't much like taking orders, either, or getting sent on stupid errands. But advancing within the Mages' Guild is his current plan for taking control of his life. He's sick of playing Blanche Dubois, always depending on the kindness of strangers, and he knows he has magical skills. If someone like Anarenen can make a living via alchemy and enchantment, he doesn't see why he can't, too - but he needs to be higher rank.

He emerged from Arkngthunch-Sturdumz panting but triumphant, the Dwemer tube safe in his pack

I really didn't explain anything about the Dwemer, their ruins or anything else, did I? Oh well, it's a ~mystery~, right? Edwinna gives this quest, and instructs you to bring her a Dwemer tube. You don't have to get it from this ruin, and there are actually many others across Vvardenfell.

He had cast a Mark spell in the doorway, so an emergency exit wouldn’t mean trekking all the way back from civilisation again.

Teleportation spells, like healing spells, threaten to make a character's life too easy. Still, you can also have some fun with them, and the various ways their exact placement (or misplacement) can complicate their travel options.

Centurion spiders and spheres fell quickly to frost spells

Look at him go, doing destruction spells all on his own! It's much easier to handle, when you're not setting fire to a person, you're just turning off a machine. Quiet and clinical, no screaming.

there was a Steam Centurion, a huge mechanical warrior that shrugged off every spell he threw at it. [...] All brawn, no brains, thought Ire smugly.

Iriel's first encounter with an anthropomorphic robot, and I just want to point out that despite the scurrilous rumours his awful friends keep spreading, he was totally not weird about it okay? He paid it no special attention, and was just glad it didn't kill him! For fuck's sake, leave him alone!

he had turned a corner and come face to face with a frost atronach. Taken by surprise, he had run like hell, paying little attention to where he was going.

Pure gameplay record. Do not mess with Daedric ruins at low level.

All of this contributed to his decision, coming across a cave entrance on a small island, to [...] shelter inside. Where, in the damp, oppressive darkness, someone swiftly cracked him over the head, and knocked him out cold.

Again, pure gameplay chance that he stumbled into a smuggler's cave while trying to find Gnisis. Given that Ire was in no position to defeat a gang of slavers, it gave me an opportunity to send things in another direction. You can track Ire's little journey on this map, he ends up in Assarnud.

“Sarvur, do y… …. ….?”

My intention was that the gist should be intelligible from context, but if anyone wants it, the full conversation that Iriel barely hears runs as follows:

“Sarvur, do you recognise this elf?” "I have no idea who that n'wah is, but he's obviously a mage. What if the Telvanni are onto us?” “I don’t think that's likely. He's Altmer, so more likely to be Mages Guild or something.” “What are we gonna do now, boss? He might not be alone, there might be others.” “She's right. The Assarnud route isn’t secure anymore. We're gonna have to move out, fast. Forget the slaves, they’re too slow to travel with. We have to focus on the shipment, and get it out tonight.” “OK, Bazgulub. I’m on it. C'mon, you fetchers, let's pack up” “What should we do with him?” “Bah, just take anything of value and throw him in the slave pen.”

"claws" might be the first chapter I'm really happy with, in terms of achieving the thing I wanted to. It feels dark and bleak and confined, with moments of kindness and awkward humour that are warmer and brighter, for how small and pointless they might seem.

“Does the softskin yet live, Akish?”

Obviously I love a lot of things about Morrowind, but one of my favourite details is that the vast, vast majority of NPCs are named, including enemy smugglers in caves who exist only to attack you, and including slaves, who wait in the dark to be rescued by the player. Most games would have them all be copy-pasted "Orc Bandit", or "Slave", because that would be so much easier for the game devs, but not here. These are people. They have names.

It was an hour before Ire was in any state to talk, and another before he could sit up

Look, head injuries are no joke. You don't just get knocked out for plot convenience, have a little nap, and then wake up fine. Ire's lucky he only had a concussion, not a cracked skull or bleeding on the brain. Do not fuck around with head injuries! If you get brained by a smuggler, do not just take skooma, go on a hallucinogenic rampage and hope for the best! Consult a medical professional as soon as possible, and no, Telvanni wizards do not count!

“While there is life, I will do what I can to pressserve it.”

This sticks with Iriel, as an approach to caring for someone. Despite the awful surrounding circumstances, he doesn't hate the feeling of being cared for this way, because it's not about being pitied for his weakness. It's not about him, personally, at all, it's about preserving life, as an abstract principle. Ire's not sure if he agrees with the principle, necessarily, but he understands it, and he respects Akish for it.

An Argonian named Huzei, claiming to be a bard, tried to raise their spirits by singing a bawdy song involving fish 

This would be the song in question. I mention it, because Iriel's recent literary and media intake will be relevant, shortly.

Later, they slept, all together in a heap for warmth, the cold-blooded Argonians in the middle, and the furriest Khajiit on the outside.

You might read Lord of the Flies and assume it's natural for people to turn on one another violently, when trapped together in desperate circumstances. When actually, maybe William Golding was just cripplingly depressed and coming off the horrors of World War 2? Because in reality, when some schoolboys got shipwrecked, they co-operated and kept one another alive for over a year. Not to make sweeping statements about human nature based on one example, but if we have to pick a side, I do choose optimism. I think the vast majority of people will try to care for each other and keep each other alive, even in situations where it seems pointless to try. I think the point is to try.

Akish held out her wrist, placing it next to Ire’s. “What do you see?”

I almost didn't explicitly gender Akish in this chapter, on the basis that Iriel can't tell, and it never occurs to him to ask. But I thought people might assume she was male, if I didn't specify, which would annoy me.

Iriel does not immediately assume Akish only monitored his health for self-interested reasons, which is surprising, given his usual brain patterns. True, he's been hit onna head, but mostly, Akish was just so sincere and impressive with her life-above-all line that he doesn't think past that.

“You mussst. You are the only one with a chance.” Akish tapped the slave bracer with her claw, and left him alone.

What is magical capacity, or magicka, and how does it work? What is it, that a slave bracer drains away? For Iriel, in prison, losing his magic was part of the torture of it, to quote a later chapter, he felt it as a partial loss of self: locking around his arm, draining part of his mind away, taking parts of himself he went without for hundreds of buried days, some parts he was still missing.

I suspect that in Tamriel, the nature of magicka is, like so much else, the subject of debate. Probably mages like to claim it's a measure of your soul - of course they would! And there is a relation between complexity of consciousness and "soul value", i.e. how powerful a gem you need to contain it. But others might very reasonably counter that a lack of aptitude for magic is not a sign of an impoverished soul! You could take a middle way, and argue that all people have powerful souls, but not everyone can harness their potential for magic. It fits nicely with the idea that sleeping souls visit Aetherius, and sleeping recharges magicka. Maybe. Furthermore, in Morrowind, you almost always need Daedric components (and comberries, for some reason) for restore magicka potions. Make of this what you will.

Instantly, the white hot pain seared into his brain, and, gasping, he let the words fade, the spell lost.

Even if the soul is involved, I refuse to believe a head injury wouldn't affect spellcasting. Unlike the slaves, Ire is still technically capable of it, it's just causing the sort of pain that is very difficult to power through, because it feels like his brain is being torn to shreds by the strain, and for all he knows, that's exactly what's happening. It feels suicidal, and his survival instinct rebels against it.

It will hurt, yes He began again. and you do not like to hurt.

Iriel has to free everyone, but it's going to hurt. And his mind dredges up what Dro'Zaymar said about escape being painful, and Ire's fixating on the condescending little barb the Khajiit threw in, about Iriel not liking to hurt. As if not liking to be hurt was something ridiculous, as if that made him weak. Which he is, (Ire thinks,) since he still hasn't escaped his addiction.

Trapped in the dark and hanging by a thread in all manner of ways, it's not possible for Iriel to find the strength he needs in thoughts of being heroic, of being a good person, of helping others. He doesn't have the time or energy to construct that persona, doesn't even have a blueprint. So he turns to what he has plenty of: self hatred.

Once he deserved it, it was easier.

Iriel endures the pain by not enduring it. By surrendering to it. By smothering his survival instinct, drowning the parts of himself that don't like to hurt, because pain is bad and good people don't deserve pain. So he achieves something "heroic", but in doing so, he completely blowtorches any shreds of personhood and self esteem he has left, and destroys any ability he might have to see himself as a hero.

We are free!” A feeling of pressure about his shoulders… a hug, he thought.

To the point that it's actively painful, when other people react to him positively at all.

“No! Really. It’s fine.” He worked to make his voice sound warm and encouraging. 

It really is incredibly dangerous, when someone has gone so far into a violently depressive breakdown, that they put all their limited energy into pretending they're okay. Because even a cry for help requires being able to tolerate the idea of deserving help. Other people are a hazard to the self-destruction project, and must be removed as soon as possible.

“Ra'Mhirr found these in the cave, dropped by the smugglers in their haste. Ra'Mhirr… thinks you need them more than he does.” The Khajiit met Iriel’s eye, knowingly, and transferred two small bottles into his hand.

Ra'Mhirr knows the signs of sugar withdrawal, and is trying to help. Under other circumstances, this might have been a really stupid thing to do, and it does worsen Ire's addiction. But it also saves his life.

please don’t be like this now you have to get out of here, the door’s open, you just have to 

Iriel feels trapped, like he was trapped in jail, like he's breaking down the way he did in jail, like he's trapped in himself but also losing himself because he can't stand to be in himself. It is exactly the same sort of breakdown he has, much later, in Tel Fyr, in another situation where, by all logic, he should be happy and celebrating.

He looked at the skooma. He was well aware it was dangerous, but at this moment, his unadulterated brain was even more dangerous.

Drugs are not evil. Drugs are just chemicals that affect the body, and which ones are legal or illegal is often extremely arbitrary. Even addictions are not, in themselves, evil, and the people who have them certainly aren't. Life is hard. If people choose to self-medicate in ways that aren't available on prescription, they often have good reasons - or no other options. Ire is definitely out of options.

Ire chose life.

Yes, fine, I admit it: this is the single pop-culture reference in the fic. At least, I hope there are no others, I certainly intended to avoid them! (Song lyric echoes are not intended to be legible, and so I maintain don't count.) This one is only allowed because it's undetectable if you don't know the reference, and makes perfect sense without it. But also because the irony was so appealing: "choose life" in the Trainspotting quote is set in opposition to choosing heroin, but Iriel is choosing both at once. Life, in this moment, means doing hard drugs.

Playlist pick: Portishead - Roads. Because it sounds like how being trapped in a damp dark cave feels: all sad, wet and echoey. Subterranean drug-sick blues.

next: 17: VCDRKAA & 18: language & 19: knowledge & 20: again previous: 11: books & 12: silence

[wetbloodworm]

been trying to write somaverse posts but they're all getting too long so. we're trying. so hard to make a short one without feeling the need to elaborate for paragraphs and have five wiki tabs open

edit: this was not short but i finished it at least lmao

anyway achlys comes out of the time skip better off than a human would be after a decade of complete sensory deprivation and total isolation (plus starvation plus having his energy stolen periodically), just because he's NOT human and his kind can bounce back from all kinds of damaging shit a bit easier for a few reasons. but he's not... like... TOTALLY fine. by the time he reaches asim he's mostly calmed down and functional, dealing with remnants of mood fuckery but he's not wildly hallucinating or registering positive sensory input as negative anymore, but there's still trauma there. he's absoLUTELY not over it. it's easy for asim and the others to think achlys is fine after he settles into the friend group, because he forgives asim and immediately moves on to living a normal (for a body-stealing monster) life. sometimes he brings up his imprisonment and there's clear displeasure/bitterness there, but that's expected. it's just none of them can fully conceptualize the very literal torture that achlys experienced, or understand how his non-human psyche would respond to it. he acts like he's fine and like that's nothing more than a bad memory he complains about sometime so he's fine.

it would become obvious that he's not Totally Recovered from the experience if he encountered anything that reminded him of it too much. being restrained too much, especially if both his human body and his metaphysical true body are unable to move, or losing/nearly losing any of his senses, would be ENORMOUS triggers for him. immediate, intense panic. he will be extremely difficult to calm down and will be solely focused on freeing himself or regaining his sense(s). once the triggers are gone he mentally/emotionally recovers quickly though the human body has to deal with the adrenaline crash.

i think he might be scared of the dark after this too? mostly the pitch black kind of darkness but really the harder it is to see the twitchier and more anxious he gets.

being outside of a human host body would also be significantly more uncomfortable for him after his imprisonment, though he didn't like it to begin with. when it's just him, no host, he exists in purgatory, where external stimuli is very limited. it's not exactly the same as being trapped, but the disconnect from the mortal realm and the inability to interact with things would set his brain on fire a little bit. mmmm no thanks no thanks give him a body now immediately

one more panic-inducing thing for him is just the threat of getting trapped like he was again. not many people know how to do that, or how to deal with somaphors in general, so he's MOSTLY safe, but like. not entirely. and if he thought he was in danger he WOULD do whatever he feels is necessary to eliminate the risk.

final note related to the last one: there's also a way to kill somaphors that makes him nervous on an understandable base level plus a separate trauma level. the method is the same as how you send a ghost to the spirit realm, maybe a touch modified. somaphors physically can't enter that realm so it's like putting them in a hydraulic press. or like trying to make a human go through a concrete wall with unrelenting force. just fucking obliterates them. and achlys works with hunters and joins them on hunts sometimes, but he will turn down joining them on ghost hunts unless the planned solution is 'i get to eat the ghost'. he has not elaborated on why he avoids those hunts so everyone mostly assumes he's kinda pouty about it. no snack, no achlys. in reality he doesn't want to see the exorcism and also doesn't want his friends to know it makes him anxious. none of them know how to kill somaphors and he prefers it that way, even as he grows to trust the whole group. also maybe he's a LITTLE pouty. let him eat the ghost! boy's gotta eat! boy's gotta have his supper!

[danse--macabre]

slayer!ch'lakhou + durge horror

the way i've begun thinking about ch'lakhou's conception is that it is as if someone tried to stuff a giant Slayer into a very small trojan horse "githyanki". as in: the slayer form comes first; the "githyanki" is window-dressing.

as a result:

it was expected that ch'lakhou would be this messianic figure who had covered the astral plane in spilled blood and ruin, who would descend from the stars with the heads of a thousand enemies, back home to bhaal and lead.

the reality couldn't be further from the truth (locked themselves up in a monastery for a decade). they never corrected these rumours. (orin discovered the truth; think this was part of her disillusionment with ch'lakhou)

before they were tadpoled, through monastic practice, ch'lakhou had learned to control which form they were in with ease. since then, it's become highly volatile.

i've mentioned this a thousand times but spikes, teeth, forked tongue, tail, etc. sometimes let themselves be known during moments of emotion. you'll see partial transformations often. they'll be chilling at camp eating dinner and CHOMP a second set of teeth comes out to bite into their steak.

they need to eat three times as much as a normal person. they're basically wolfing down several plates of food and are often barely full.

digestive system can handle practically anything you could throw at it. would not be surprised if they could eat raw meat. would not be surprised if they could digest fucking bicycle parts, honestly.

they have a particularly sensitive sense of smell & hearing. this mostly manifests with them appearing to be murderously irritable in overly 'cluttered' places with too many different noises/smells (e.g. food markets). this might also explain their particular irritation with bad musicians - they probably have a very good ear for pitch.

because they're not really gith, they lack psionics. i think the tadpole granted them psionic like powers and when it disappeared i think ch'lakhou was a little distraught they didn't have the ability to throw people across the room again.

still retain slayer form after they've been severed from bhaal.

however they're not plagued by uncontrollable kill kill murder urges when they're in slayer form post-bhaal. just maybe a little bit more bestial than normal (slayer form reduced to giant monster puppy)

while connected to bhaal, the 'natural' form was slayer, staying in gith form took some low-level effort

post-bhaal, their natural form is actually somewhere between slayer and gith. a half-way semi-monstrous figure. staying in gith form is what they're used to, and takes less effort than before - but still takes something. at the same time, full slayer form takes a lot of effort and concentration - but is still achievable.

it takes them a while to come around to being naturally a little beast-like and monstrous. they're not a massive fan at first.

astarion, gale, & minthara are big helps with coming to term with this. particularly astarion. in private ch'lakhou won't bother to hold things back. (cue domestic scene of astarion cuddling with his 5ft monster boyfriend with a comical number of spikes going down their spine)

[pattern-recognition]

what is the difference in tone?

a few things, none of them really consequential in the grand scheme of things but just a few distinctions I noticed in how the Jenin Brigade edits their propaganda reels compared to like al-qassam. most of what the boys in green publish is daylight footage, like all the countless examples of them turning Merkavas into million dollar piles of scrap metal, and like Hezbollah they tend to favor appropriately suspenseful and inspirational music, usually with lyrics. the Jenin brigade though publish mostly night operator footage, all slow movements through claustrophobic alleys in the pitch black, accompanied with the sort of tense electronic instrumentation like you can hear at the beginning of that one video. they're both mortifying when you grasp the reality of the situation, but the latter is more eerie. we live in an age of modern warfare in which you can make an informed guess as to which faction published which war footage reel based on the editing

[autumnalwalker]

Empty Names Masterpost

I'll be updating this post with links as I post chapters. The intent is that everything I write for this project will be posted here to read in its entirety.

Also mirrored on Scribble Hub: (Main Story, Side Stories)

Cast list is below the "Keep reading" line.

Pitch:

A trans woman accidentally summons a demon while trying to DIY her transition with magic and computers...

A young wizard returns to Earth after his adventure in a magical otherworld only to realize you can never truly go home again once you've changed too much...

A teenage girl gets stood up for prom, kills a lake monster, and spends the next decade hunting down things that go bump in the night...

An assassin marries an immortal sorceress and allows the rumors that he murdered her to flourish once she disappears...

A world-hopping adventurer sees the potential in all of them and asks if they're interested in helping make the world a better place.

"Empty Names" is an episodic urban fantasy series about a group of misfits fighting monsters and grappling with existential questions regarding the interplay of reality, perception, and identity.

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Summary: Road, an adventurer with a penchant for jumping between different worlds tries to set up the sort of adventurers' guild so common in sword & sorcery setting in a modern day urban fantasy world where "adventurer" isn't considered a legitimate profession and magic and the supernatural are kept behind the scenes and out of public knowledge. The story is told from the points of view of the people that get roped into being the initial test run adventuring party but never Road's.

Update Schedule: Once or twice a month, depending on chapter length. New chapters get posted on Saturdays, when they're ready.

Overall Content Warnings: Genre-typical violence, gender dysphoria, anxiety, occasional mild body horror, death. I'll update this list as more is written and if anyone points something out to me that I should have included a warning for and missed. In general though, I aim to try to keep this approximately PG-13-ish, but we'll see where this all goes over time. Individual chapters have more specific content warnings at the top of the post with anything likely to be distressing below the "Keep reading" line.

Current Status: Rough Draft (just throwing things up as I write them with minimal review or editing)

I'm primarily viewing this project as practice for moving out of my comfort zone and doing more traditional prose with proper dialogue and action scenes and such rather than the journal format that I've been doing with @thearchivistsjournal. The original plan was to write a few sort of prologue/character introduction chapters and then mostly do a series of one-shots with the same setting and cast based on whatever random idea or writing prompt strikes my fancy that week, but as time goes on it's starting to verge more toward "continuous narrative". Time will tell how it eventually winds up I suppose.

Chapter List:

Hello World

Back From The Looking Glass

Dance Partners

Prince In Gold

Rite of First Refusal

Background Checks

Compilation

En Route

Test Run

Cleanup

Afterparty

Houseguests

Open Office

Down Low

Matters of Technique

Mall Rats

Embedded Media

Mom Energy

Shire

Changeling Child

Old Flame

Leads

Compression

Nostalgia

Euphoria (coming sometime in May 2024)

Love

Attention

Concern

Side Stories:

Scenes that don't fit well into the main story. They might come before it, focus on side characters, or just be conversations between the main cast during downtime.

There Are No Dogs At The Dog Park: Every full moon Eris does some volunteer work. Set a couple years before the main plot, shortly after Eris and Lacuna met and started hanging out.

Once Upon A Time...: A bedtime story by Sullivan Bridgewood.

Pop Quiz: A younger Ashan not-yet-Glassheart gets a refresher on terminology.

The Sphinx And The Spider: Two first-time interdimensional tourists run into trouble on vacation. (Coming when I get the motivation back to return to this one)

A Shining Shallow Sea: They say the Sorceress Bridgewood never gave a gift which she didn’t benefit from the giving. (More of a loose idea at the moment than an in-progress story)

Non-Canon AU:

I suppose at this point you could call it writing shipping fan fiction of my own work.

2023 Pride Month Drabble Challenge: A series of dialogue snippets from an alternate universe/timeline where Eris and Lacuna avoided ever learning about the existence of the supernatural, wound up meeting anyway, and became a couple instead of (or perhaps in addition to) best friends.

Core Cast:

Road:

The experienced adventurer and idealist who started this whole venture.

Very much the iconic "hero" archetype. Brave, strong, kind, strict "no killing" policy, etc.

The kind of person that you quickly feel like you're best friends with and can count on and share anything with, but then several months or even years down the line it occurs to you that you don't actually know anything about their personal life.

Humor/Color Scheme: Balanced

Sullivan Bridgewood:

Road's best friend since childhood and the only one who knows that under their heroic persona they're about one really bad day from an emotional breakdown at any given time.

Married for power and money and is using that money to bankroll this adventurers' guild startup operation. May or may not have killed his wife.

Kind of an asshole, but reins it in when Road's around for their sake.

Humor/Color Scheme: Choleric

Lacuna:

A trans woman whose introduction to the existence of the supernatural was a failed attempt to magically get a new body that resulted in a demon trying to eat her, and then being rescued by Road.

Now works with an unholy combination of applying AI-generated art algorithms and principles to create custom magic glyphs.

A walking embodiment of imposter syndrome, who vacillates between "I am a mad genius!" and "I have no idea what I'm doing and really am not qualified for any of this."

Humor/Color Scheme: Melancholic

Eris:

The team's physical powerhouse and heavy hitter. A veritable brick wall of supernaturally-reinforced muscle.

Survived a scenario out of a C-list monster movie as a teenager, enjoyed the experience more than she reasonably should have, and has spent the past decade since then as a semi-professional monster hunter.

Has sort of taken Lacuna under her wing as the younger sister she never had but always wanted. In spite of Lacuna being the older of the two.

Humor/Color Scheme: Sanguine

Ashan Glassheart:

Already went through the whole "little kid from Earth goes on an adventure in a magic otherworld and becomes a wizard" hero's journey/bildungsroman routine before this story even started. Except he was gone long enough that once he finally returned home there wasn't anything to come back to. Does a convincing job of pretending it doesn't bother him.

Mostly focuses on barriers, wards, bindings, and other such defensive techniques with his magic.

Actually doesn't mind all that much when strangers mistake him for a woman. Minds a little bit though when people call his wizard robes a dress. Minds a lot when people mistake his outfit for cosplay.

Humor/Color Scheme: Phlegmatic

[boba-beom]

fr you can take them everywhere without having to buy/carry some heavy ass amp 🫠 aww that is so cute though that the guitar has been with you for that long🥺 i have a classical guitar that's been with me since i was 13 and an electric one that's been with me ever since i was 15 i think?

anyways, i've always thought about attaching one of those devices to my classical guitar so i could turn it into electric-acoustic as well, but i feel like when it comes to electric acoustic guitars, it's always better to buy one and not diy one.

i love how this is something we have in common though🥺

the middle school i went to required us to learn different pieces on the flute and get graded on them. we had a book all about it and that's how i learned hehe. it is indeed a beautiful instrument though and i find it fascinating how you can produce different sounds through it just with your breath. and it's honestly pretty easy to learn and with your musical background, i'm sure you'd pick it up really quick :") ahh, the harp is such a magical instrument. it's so calming and relaxing <3 wooow i'm always highly impressed by people who can play the violin, because it's not easy instrument at all. and self taught piano? respect. are you secretly a music genius too? 👀👀

my best friend actually taught me some piano and i also learned some things on my own, but i haven't played the piano that much ever since he moved across the world :/ nowadays, i mostly use the piano when i'm trying to guess the chords/notes in a song.

it's always nice to hear the perspective of other people on creative work tbh, cause everyone perceives things differently. i think that's my favorite thing about literature - how subjective it is🥺

ah, i see. i didn't know that. and thank you smiles🥺 have you had any time to look at txt's tour? ash blue taehyun has me WEAK to my knees fr wow it looks so good on him!! i think you really manifested that into reality. also the choreography to tinnitus is so good, i just love groovy it is. also the way soobin and taehyun did their parts, whoosh, i'm dizzy. anyway, beomgyu really ate it up, i think tinnitus suits him so much.🥺 and also the choreography for farewell neverland is so beautiful like wow, i have no words?? they all looked so stunning and the vocals were so good.

p.s: black is one of favorite haircolors on soob but i kinda miss blond hair soob, it looked so good on him. also whoever has been styling kai's hair so far needs a raise, because he looks way too good.

I did used to have a classical guitar before my dad gifted me the electro-acoustic one. but yes, I guess you could diy it, it's just a hassle and a little tedious but some electro-acoustics are pricey too, especially now with inflation 😭 but omg you have an electric one!! and how is it? I also love how we have that in common, I feel like I love talkingt o people about guitars and I can go on for a while hehe

I wouldn't say music genius 🤭 I've just always been interested in performing and doing covers. It's funny actually, because I could never do a speech in front of my class but I could perform a set of songs in front of majority of my high school peers, I just find it fun that way

I never actually got graded for piano and I've wanted to take lessons but with the pace of how my life was and is going I feel like I wouldn't have the time atm :< maybe in the future I'll pick it up again. I do have a keyboard in my room and the last song I learnt was billie eilish' my future. omg trying to find chords and notes by ear can be hard, unless you have perfect pitch? 👀 but that's nice that you learn from someone else, it's fun like that.

you're so right, like music, art, writing — they're all subjective and it's up to how people interpret it, I love it :>

omg YES I can't believe you remembered me manifesting periwinkle blue tyun hehe, it really does suit him and I hope his hair colour stays like that throughout the whole tour. I still have hope that I'll see them late this year IF they release europe/uk tour dates. the choreo for tinnitus is SO CATCHY like the vibes and the whole lot is just a masterpiece 🤭 farewell, neverland really is beautiful. something about that gives me contemporary dance and I love that for them, especially hueningkai's solo that he does? they're so graceful I love it. oh and blue spring? I told myself I need to go to their concert so I can hear them sing it and sing it with them. I got emotional the first time I heard it. all the emotion is there and again, another tubatu x moa song <3 they really love us :')

I was really hoping soobin would be a different colour but black, solely because he went from black hair, to blonde and to black hair again :(( I was hoping he'd be a light brown at least but black does suit him a lot. as for kai, his hair styled so far has been beautiful. oh and yeonjun and beomgyu with their long hair? long hair tubatu has a special place in my heart, honestly 💕

how have you been, lovely?

[chaoticclaybomber]

The sounds of woodworking surround him, the smell of sawdust and the sealant that Sasori uses to keep his puppets protected against weather mingling with the scent of weapon oil and metal shavings. Tobi is leaned up against the side of the bed Deidara is stretched out on, sharpening a stack of kunai and shuriken as he fills the lazy, warm air with idle chatter. His voice fades into the background with the sound of Sasori's carving knife working at a small block of wood, the puppet master for once working at a silly little project rather then a new or improved puppet. His legs are stretched over top of Deidara's, and Tobi's head is right at Deidara's elbow, all three of them content with the arrangement in a way that speaks of long hours working together and trusting each other with their lives. Deidara is mostly asleep, entirely relaxed.

For shinobi, especially missing nin, this is the highest form of trust possible.

Warm contentment that he's never quite managed to grasp before rests in the center of Deidara's chest. He wouldn't move for the world.

So, of course, that is when the world moves instead.

The door bursts open, and the blond shoots up, finding himself caught entirely off-guard. Wasn't the door open already? Hadn't he just seen Kisame and Hidan amble past? Who had managed to get into the base without alerting everyone else?

The ashy haired young man in the door looks tired but determined, and it takes a long few seconds for Deidara to remember he knows him. Steven sighs at the scene before him, at both Sasori and Tobi standing warily, before focusing squarely on Deidara.

"Hey. It's time to leave. It's a dream, comfortable as it may be, it's still just an illusion, and you know that. I thought you told me you hated illusions more than anything?" Sasori sneers, and Tobi gives a high pitched giggle that's somehow awfully menacing despite being so childish.

"Senpai isn't dreaming, this is very real. But you're invading our space, so now we have to kill you! Tobi is terribly sorry." Steven doesn't even look at the towering, masked shinobi as he lunges, but suddenly Tobi is being flung across the room. Smoke and mist explodes from him at the impact, and he doesn't so much as cry out as he staggers up.

"See? They're not real. Just like that Sharingan thing you told me about, right? The one that makes you see things that aren't there? I'm real, Deidara, they aren't. They're smoke and mirrors, and you need to wake up." Both Sasori and Tobi are thrown away as Steven steps up to Deidara, pressing the handle of the largest dagger he's ever seen into his hand. Then Steven does something absolutely insane and grips the blade, letting it slice into the palm of his hand to draw blood. Deidara is so taken aback that he can't focus on the mist in his peripherals or the lack of his partners.

"I bleed, I'm real, I'm not part of this dream. I came to get you out, you need to come back to reality and leave this place, okay?"

".... They're not here at all, are they, yeah?" He knows the answer, he's known it the whole time. Steven's face shows he knows that, and knows that Deidara needs an answer anyway. It still hurts when Steven shakes his head.

"Come back and stay with Ito and I for a while. It'll be better for you, I think." Steven glances behind him, and his expression goes tight. "Listen, we need to go. My ambitus is... well. They're both going to try to kill us right now, and mine might be a tad stronger than yours. So don't let go of me and keep running." In a flash, Steven has his wrist in an iron grip, and they're bolting through hallways and doorways, and it all blurs between underground passages and halls of shining metal. Deidara... doesn't remember most of it, not past the blur of movement and the screaming of voices he knows and one's he doesn't but Steven does. All he knows is that even once they get out, they don't stop moving, and Steven doesn't let go of him.

He thinks there's a door involved, maybe a dog? Honestly, it's nothing he wants to pay attention to when it feels like something in him has snapped apart, and he's filled with a rushing noise and pressure. It's worse by far than the moment he'd realized he'd nearly killed himself because of Itachi's Sharingan. The horror and fear and anger that had filled him then was nothing to the cascade of... of something that twisted and screamed in his chest like some creature had woken up and was trying to tear him apart.

Sasori was gone, dead, torn apart, and stabbed through what remained of his human form. He was gone, and it was Deidara's fault for having left him to fight alone. His arrogance had gotten Sasori no danna killed, and there was nothing that would bring back the real person.

Tobi was the same, likely no more than dust and atoms floating in a breeze in the miles of desolate emptiness that his final explosion had left. He'd killed both his partners, the ones he'd grudgingly liked, the ones who'd kept him sane in the cage Akatsuki had put him in. They were gone, he was gone, but here he was, still finding himself caught in illusions and cages like a gullible idiot. Because he wouldn't admit that he missed them, that he was alone and it hurt and he hated it.

"You're not, you've got me, and Ito, and Badou, and Uriah at least. You're not alone, so just breathe, okay? You're okay now." Who knows when he said any of that out loud, but Steven keeps up a steady litany of nonsense and soft chatter, and it gives him something to focus on, something to cling to.

The last time he felt like this... he was probably only four or five, being reassured by an older kid in the orphanage. What a miserable reminder of how far he hasn't come at all. But Steven came after him and dragged him out of his cage of his own making, and if he didn't trust him after something like that, what the hell would it take? So he cracks and shatters and Steven lets him scream and cry and get out everything he's been bottling up since Sasori died, just sitting back to back so Deidara can feel the warmth of him there but doesn't feel watched and judged.

It's not better, not really, but it is a little bit. At least he can breathe when he's done, exhausted and more drained, then he's been in his life.

"Get some sleep. It'll look better in the morning when you're not so wrung out." Deidara isn't sure if he really believes that, but what does he have to lose at this point? The room is comfortable, and Steven doesn't seem inclined to leave any time soon, so Deidara supposed he can let himself have a proper sleep. Maybe Steven will be right, and things will be better.

That would be a nicer dream then the illusions anyway.

[boosqoowoo]

beenzino - slowdown (english lyrics translation)

*chorus* 음악의 템포를 낮춰줘야 할 때 가 온 것 같애 it feels like we have to slow down the tempo of the music

나는 그만 싸울래 i don't wanna fight anymore

계속해서 continuously

pedal to the metal, from the bottom to the top *pedal to the metal means to floor it, or to just press the pedal as hard as you can and speed

*chorus repeats* 음악의 템포를 낮춰줘야 할 때가 온 것 같애, 나는 그만 싸울래 계속해서 pedal to the metal from the bottom to the top, umm

이젠 진절머리가 나 i'm sick of it now

pedal to the metal, from the bottom to the top

우린 쉬지 않고 뛰기만 해 we're constantly running without rest

marathoner's life

보름달이 떠도 못 벗는 교복과 our uniforms that we can't take off even when the full moon rises

뾰족한 넥타이가 제일 많은 아버지의 장 my father's wardrobe mostly filled with sharp-looking neckties

어머니의 반찬은 또 남아버리고 my mother's side dishes left over again

덩그러니 남겨지신 우리 할머닌 어디로? where did our grandmother, who was left all alone, go?

가신지도 몰랐어. 이제 와 용서를 빌어 i didn't even know she had passed away. now I beg for forgiveness

but I'm always on time

출석부 안의 기록 it's recorded in the attendance book

ayo, what's going on?

더 높은 곳을 못 보네, 내 상사 위론 i can't see any higher, they're superior to me

낭만스러운 반항도 꿈을 꿨다가도 even a romantic rebellion was just a dream

결국은 마음 속으로만 하는 platonic love in the end, it's just a platonic love that exists only in my heart

damn, 내 이상과 현실의 시차 damn, the difference between my dreams and reality

느린 낮, 느린 밤과 느린 잠 slow days, slow nights and slow sleep

빠른 차들, 빠른 시간, 빠른 삶에 fast car, fast time, fast life

발을 맞추다 문득 페이스를 늦춘다 while trying to keep up, i suddenly slow down

*chorus repeats* 음악의 템포를 낮춰줘야 할 때가 온 것 같애, 나는 그만 싸울래 계속해서 pedal to the metal from the bottom to the top, umm 음악의 템포를 낮춰줘야 할 때가 온 것 같애, 나는 그만 싸울래 계속해서 pedal to the metal from the bottom to the top, umm

이젠 진절머리가 나 i'm sick of it now

-okasian- 이제 음악의 템포를 낮춰 now slow down the tempo of the music

느린 음악에 추는 춤을 가르쳐 teach me how to dance to slow music

줄테니까 i'll give you a ride

pull your pants down

girl, i'm playin'. you're right, we better slow it down

pedal to the metal, from bottom to the top

매일이 쳇바퀴 속 다람쥐 같아 everyday feels like being a squirrel in a wheel

이제 어언 한국 들어온 지 2년 it's been two years since I came to Korea

버스가 떠나면 뛰고 서면 밀치고 타니까 when the bus leaves, we run, and when it arrives, we push to get on

바짓가랑일 잡더라도 달려 hold onto your pant legs and run

마른 하늘 날벼락이 치는 서울 Seoul, where the clear sky suddenly has lightning

여기선 무소���이 희소식 here, no news is good news

습관이 돼버린 모르는 번호 무시 ignoring unknown numbers that have become a habit

오늘 다쳐도 내일 다 나은 듯이 even if I'm hurt today, tomorrow will be better

그 내일이 어제 또 그제가 되면 돌지 that tomorrow, yesterday too, and the day before will keep coming

said I'm all in, but i feel like foldin'

너무 높은 blind the blinds that are too high

gotta take a pitch down

*chorus repeats* 음악의 템포를 낮춰줘야 할 때가 온 것 같애, 나는 그만 싸울래 계속해서 pedal to the metal from the bottom to the top, umm 음악의 템포를 낮춰줘야 할 때가 온 것 같애, 나는 그만 싸울래 계속해서 pedal to the metal from the bottom to the top, umm

이젠 진절머리가 나 i'm sick of it now

-dok2- 요즘 가수들의 성공, 그건 마치 사랑 없는 sex these days, success of singers is like loveless sex

빠르지만 원본 없는 가짜 뿐인 fax it's fast, but it's still fake without being original, facts

뭘 하던 늘 중요한 점은 no matter what happens, the most important thing is

commas in 'em checks

어제는 사랑, 오늘은 이별, 이미 남남이 된 ex yesterday it was love, today it's a breakup, my ex who's already with someone else

더 많은 걸 빠르게 원해 i want more things and want them quickly

카드 긁고 바로 벌어 use the card and throw it away immediately

다시 갚기 바삐 버네 and then i'm busy trying to pay back

입에 달고 사는 한숨과 한탄, 아이코 like Jhene sighs and regrets that are trapped in my mouth, aigoo, like Jhene *pun on Jhene Aiko, who is an American singer

기분은 Jordan 11, 맑다가도 누렇게 변해 my mood is like Jordan 11, it changes from clear to yellow *the Jordan 11, a shoe model by Nike, features a clear sole which yellows overtime

시작은 몇 십 짜리 버클, 또 몇 백 짜리 kicks it starts with buckles worth a few tens, and then a few hundred worth of kicks

다음은 몇 천 하는 Rolex, 억이 넘어가는 whips next is a few thousand Rolex watches, and whips worth over a billion *whips is slang for cars

앞에 놓인 것만 찾다 보니 잃은 나의 꿈 while only looking for what's in front of me, i've lost my dreams

가끔은 두려워 언젠가 사라질 아빠, 엄마의 품 sometimes i'm afraid of losing my mom and dad someday suddenly like poof

숨… breathe…

take a breath and inhale

everyday is a training day. feeling like i'm Denzel *Training Day is a movie that came out in 2001, featuring actor Denzel Washington

쉴 새 없이 벌어도 어차피 모잘라 even if i work without rest, it's all for nothing anyway

뭐 달라질 것 없으니 다 같이 since nothing will change, let's all do it together

*chorus repeats* 음악의 템포를 낮춰줘야 할 때가 온 것 같애, 나는 그만 싸울래 계속해서 pedal to the metal from the bottom to the top, umm 음악의 템포를 낮춰줘야 할 때가 온 것 같애, 나는 그만 싸울래 계속해서 pedal to the metal from the bottom to the top, umm

이젠 진절머리가 나 i'm sick of it now