#which is so unfortunate because i decided like a year ago that i wasn't gonna prepare for competitive physics at all

[dykrophone]

literally @ physics

[illneverrecover]

TW: Just a heads up, this will be about death and grief. If that's not something you can handle right now, then please skip over this and keep yourself safe 💜

I'm not sure why I'm writing this.

It's not why anyone is here, not why anyone follows me or this page. It's not even the reason I created this godforsaken tumblr to begin with (that honor goes to Dylan O'Brien and Teen Wolf). But I felt like I needed to say something, and I didn't know where else to say it.

One of my good friends that I've known since high school passed away two weeks ago. Not from any sort of underlying health issue, or a sudden, unfortunate accident. But because she was struggling so hard with postpartum depression, and decided that it would be less painful if she went to sleep and didn't wake up.

We didn't know she was struggling, I didn't know she was struggling. She had reached out to me only two weeks prior, telling me that she missed me and we lived too close to each other to never see each other, and proposed a Twilight movie marathon (which I had gladly accepted). She was going to message me dates, we made plans for lunch, and she ended it by saying "yay!! can't wait!".

And then, before I realized, it was too late to say anything else.

Being a mother is hard. Being a mother to two young kids, both under two, while trying to build your career, be successful, and be a good wife is even harder.

But it gets easier. I promise it does.

I have a lot of regrets and a lot of guilt. I have a lot of things I wish I could say to her one more time -- and then I feel guilty for thinking that my words could ever be that important, that they would even matter on that kind of scale.

I know that depression lies. It is a liar. It's nefarious; its call, soft, sleepy and welcoming, comforting almost. It feels easy to lay in its embrace, to let yourself be swallowed by the darkness, let the echo chamber of your worst thoughts sing you a haunting lullaby until it feels like nothing matters. Until you rather just not exist.

But that lullaby is a poison, filled with deception and misdirection. It's intentionally vague, dragging out its notes so that it seemingly doesn't ever end. What it doesn't include is how beautiful the background music can be, when you finally are able to stop and breathe enough to hear it. How relaxing it can be to sing along to the melody, when you are clear-headed and no longer sleep deprived to learn the lyrics. How much fun it is to let go and dance along to the music, when you're able to recharge and take time for yourself.

Those things all come with time. I promise they do. It does get easier. Not always right away, not always all at once, but soon you'll find each breath you take is a little deeper, each step you take a little bit lighter.

If you're reading this, and you have found yourself struggling with similar dark thoughts - please, please, reach out to someone. A trusted friend, a teacher, a neighbor, your physician, a counselor. SOMEONE. Please ask for help, and please utilize the resources available. There is no shame for asking for help, especially in today's climate of fuckery -- it's hard out there for everyone.

But please, please stay. I want you to stay. I promise you there are people out there who also want you to stay, but even if you don't believe that, believe that I don't want to be in a world where you don't exist.

One of the last messages my friend sent to me during our final conversation was about how she was going to send me dates ASAP, because "we're gonna commit to this because that's what I'm doing this year! Committing to happy things!"

I think about those words a lot. I think about what she was feeling in those moments when messaging me, and what she was feeling only two weeks later, when she felt so painfully alone. If I think about it too much, it consumes me and shatters my heart.

So instead, I try to remember that message - it wasn't the last thing she texted me, but it does feel like her final message all the same. To commit to happy things this year. To try and do things that unabashedly bring me joy, because I deserve to.

My wish for you all is to commit to more happy things, this year and every year. To dare to feel joy, to seek out things solely because you want to, and not because of any perceived outcome. And to tell your loved ones how important they are to you, and how much you love them. It's all over far too soon, and the points don't matter, anyway. 💜

[sugar-omi]

okay, so i've been doing some thinking. i've been scrolling through your blog and i stepped upon these "cheating on cove with Baxter and the other way around" scenarios. (i'm sorry, i wasn't able to read them, my heart couldn't take it ;-;) but!

what if mc was like, in a normal relationship with Baxter. you know, a couple, maybe married later and stuff, while of course still being besties with Cove. later mc and Baxter have a kid together, maybe still a small baby but! plot twist! Baxter gets into an accident or something and dies. (i'm sorry, he's my favourite man but i had to kill him for that scenario:'))

mc is completely devastated and also a little panicked, because what about the baby? and then Cove stepps in, deciding to help his best friend take care of the little one and basically becomes its father. i recently watched a video of a dog "helping" a cat take care of her kittens, and there you have it.

this one may be boring, so feel free to ignore, but i can't stop thinking about it.

ITS OK<333 I figured some ppl didn't read it bc angst n pain</3 trust me I skip over angst all the time

(I even have the tag blocked😬 sorry angst writers but I will read it and not be the same for months, I read a kiribaku angst fic years ago, and was devesated for 4 months afterwards LMAO)

okay i... I cannot expand too much on this bc OUCH

(eta now that I've finished. who am I fooling? I rlly said that like I haven't wrote a whole novel 💀 anyway <3 this clearly made me pop off more than I thought I would bc I read this at first n was devastated!!! I had no words!!!! well clearly I found them LOL)

ALSO BORING??? ANON PLEASE.. BORING WHERE<///3

n im gonna fix the format later but for now here is the bare minimum. I'm going to bed rn so nini everyone enjoy a bit of angst I promise its fluffy as well<333

tags: Angst, Hurt/Comfort

p/n = parental name, since I wanted to leave flexibility for all the readers here <3

but anyway yeah cove would so step up for you

will follow you to the end of the earth and do whatever you need to help you work through this and to adapt to this sudden and unfortunate change

if/when your relationship starts becoming something romantic, cove would absolutely put the brakes on everything and you'd go so slow...

I imagine he'd probably move in with you or you with him, and he'd stay somewhere else (if you're living in his house he will leave anyway, he's a gentleman like that fr) so that way you can figure out if it's not just bc he's doing all these things n you're mistaking admiration for love

you'd spend the first year going super slow, as if you've never known each other before

which technically you haven't, since you've never dated before. but cove would go so far as to find out your favorite color, song, animal, food.. all over again, even though he has it memorized and knows your likes better than his own.

once cove is sure you're ready for this (after much talk between the two of you and even with your therapist that yes you've made enough progress and are emotionally ready for this) does he finally put a label on it

now if you get married...

I imagine cove won't propose at all

like I think you'd have to talk n almost beg him...

in that case he would do a small but grande gesture to propose. or he'd propose to you before you've even left the bed for the day... no inbetween

but like 8 times outta 10, you're gonna have to propose to him

he'd cry and hug you n say yes of course.

and unless you want to keep this outta your wedding, I think cove would include baxter in your wedding.

first, ofc you'd have the picture to honor his memory

but I think he'd even go so far as to have smth in his vows. but to start, he'd say smth like:

"I know the reason we became closer was unfortunate, but I'm so happy to be able to call you and [Child] my family. and I hope I can be a good father and husband"

and "baxter will always have a place in our hearts. even though he and I didn't get along at first (watery chuckle)... I'm glad he got to love you, and I hope he trusts me to love and cherish you the same way as well.."

also if you don't want to give up your wedding ring from baxter, I think cove would even go so far as to suggest combining it with his.

!!! omg I was gonna say your and baxter's wedding bands would be black, but I have another idea

okay now, for YOUR bands, I imagine they're either black or silver and yk those infinity(?) bands? that has the 2 types of metal or whatever

that's what cove would suggest doing. and if you are worried abt people asking why your bands are different, he'd get the same twisted band but silver with say a black diamond or smth. just smth to make it look like it's intentionally different colors but same design or smth

(im overthinking a bit but it's an idea right?! I'm not crazy??<////3)

or if you don't wanna do that, I imagine you can just slip it on a necklace or leave it as is, whatever you want. he wouldn't mind even if you kept wearing it, cove would never ask you to get rid of baxter's image or memory in any way, not unless it was a real problem and your attachment to him/his things was unhealthy anyway.

now for baxter's band... well if you didn't bury it with him, I imagine you'd give it to your child

another thing I think you could do w your wedding band as well, and give them both your bands to do whatever they want with. or if they don't want it of course you're not forcing them to keep it

even though they didn't get to know baxter, the way you and cove still cherish baxter's memory does help them feel something of a connection.

I also imagine baxter would take lots of photo n video w the kid, even though they're young n just a babe, theres so many videos of baxter looking n acting so loving w them

and even a couple where he's teary-eyed n all "imma do you right by you. I love you so much.."

of course, if the kid doesn't feel that connected to baxter since they were too young to know or rmbr anything, and they don't feel anything much other than sympathy and the occasional sting when they see how much baxter loved them, you don't force it.

you both know that baxter was basically a stranger to them and even though they still respect baxter and he has a place in their heart, they don't feel like they're lacking anything.

"I don't really know what to say.. or how to feel... I see how much [P/N] misses you sometimes, and we have pictures of you, and they talk about you and stuff...

but I don't feel like im missing a dad. I hope that doesn't hurt your feelings, I wish I knew you too. sometimes I wish you were still here, so I got to know you as well, even though I'm still happy to have dad cove for my dad.

I just wanna know what you were like. I wanna experience what you were like. I... I wanna miss you like everyone else misses you too...

anyway, just know that dad is great! he takes care of me and [P/N] really well! he makes breakfast in bed, and he does/used to do this thing where he lifts me in the air before bed! he's so cool. I see how he makes [P/N] happy as well, so don't worry. although, [P/N] said you always thought cove was reliable and a good guy so maybe you aren't worrying anyway.

well... that's it I guess. i hope ill get to know you one day, and maybe you can tell me you're glad to see dad took good care of us. goodbye,

baxter."

pa."

cove happily listens to anything they have to say on how they feel abt baxter btw. he accepts any of their feelings, be it that they don't feel anything at all, sympathy for others, or they feel sad abt losing him.

if they do say smth like how even though it's unfortunate and they feel bad for everyone who mourns baxter (for example/especially you), they see cove as their dad and don't feel like they're missing anything and they're happy to have cove for their dad.

ofc he cries n hugs them n tells them he loves em and he's happy n he comforts them if needed of course

I also think cove is very scared abt being a father

especially in this way... even if the kiddo doesn't remember anything, or it's hazy at best, he worries about replacing baxter.

he'd probably worry abt not living up to baxter

baxter was always much more mature, at least it seemed that way most times. cove just worries about if he has the backbone and the ability to parent the child well and be someone they can look up to and/or appreciate for being a good father

cries if they call him dad btw

if they do it before you start dating, I imagine it's one of the catalyst that cause you to talk abt your feelings for each other. or if it's in the early stage..

cove prbly freezes and runs away to the other room n freaks out, definitely cries. if you don't talk to him like right after he calls his dad n cries n shares his worries n fear

either way, when you do talk he's biting his nails n trying not to pace around the room and he's like "if you wanna distance yourselves so that they don't call me dad any more I totally understand, I mean idk it's prbly weird for you-"

n he just rambles. like none of it makes sense n u have to physically shut him up. kiss him, yell, throw a pillow, hit him w the child's stuffed animal, throw a single lego brick at his back and watch him fall to the floor like he just got a nuke thrown at him

if it's later on n theres nothing to worry abt bc youve talked abt this or saw it coming or its just the otherwise most natural step, he cries of course

but he doesn't fall apart from being his in the back w a single fucking Lego as if it hurt 🙄🙄🙄🙄 (I hate this man he's DRAMATIC)

well... actually no he does

hit him, kiss him, hug him, run him over w a hotel wheels truck.... he just cries harder

adopts them like immediately basically

I imagine you do it soon, like maybe before the wedding just so that way you can have a private moment (just to save him some embarrassment from ugly crying in front of your families. in fact he just might faint fr)

n you + the kiddo surprise him w adoption papers (depending on how old the babe is at this point, they have like no idea what's going on but they know that cove is now officially recognized by the whole world (even by the unicorns n wizards n warlocks) as their daddy))

imagine laying in bed w cove n the kid in between you two

and when you wake up, cove is alrdy awake and was watching you two. he was petting the kids wild hair and he had pulled the two of you in and kept you under his arm..

and the sunlight is coming in, the day is just perfect. n the look on cove's face is full of so much love but also a bit somber this time

(cove feels awkward being here like this sometimes. during times like this you have to remind him it's okay, and you pull him back in. of course he does the same for you on those days.)

"I love you two. so much..." he whispers, tears sticking to his lashes

the kid flips over, curling into cove and they stop their sleepy mumbling now that they're tucked into cove's chest, feeling warm, happy, and safe.

you whisper equally as tender. "we were meant to be like this too."

also!! smth I just thought of...

imagine the kid looks mostly/very much like baxter. they act very much like cove's kid

like you would think cove n baxter had a kid together LOL

(if the resemblance is too much, they ask if you're the step parent </3 pls Ik it may not make sm sense but I just think it'd be so fuckin funny)

[fox-quills]

Do have any additional thoughts/ideas you’d be willing to share about Mobius?

OKAY FIRST AN APOLOGY BECAUSE THIS HAS BEEN SITTING SINCE???? NOVEMBER????? I'm so so sorry anon I'm on mobile 99.9% of the time and I don't know where that stupid app hides asks but I'm like the t-rex from Jurassic Park I can only perceive movement 😭

Second thank you so much for taking the time to ask about my mostest favorite topic in the whole wide world! Unfortunately there's not a lot I can say about the fic story-wise without spoilers, although I have SO MANY post-fic thoughts I'm dying to share. Unless someone really wants my thoughts on how gender works in this particular omegaverse variant?? I spent so much time thinking about something that's only tangentially mentioned lol BUT, I can talk a bit about the process of writing Mobius! Because it has been an experience. I started Mobius just over a year ago (april or so), but didn't really knuckle down and and get cracking until June/July. It started as aideku, because I thought it was an interesting ship idea, but the few fics I'd come across hadn't really scratched the itch. I didn't even plan on writing it, but my beta at the time kept nudging me, and before I knew it I had a wholeass plot. And then a first chapter, at which point I was done for. In the original iteration of the fic, Hizashi was only meant to be the supportive BFF, but something in the original idea run (I forget what exactly) made my beta go.... hey how come this isn't a poly ship? And the answer was, I'd never written one before and didn't think of it, BUT IT IS NOW. (If you've read any of my other fic you may have noticed that this has become A Problem, and also led to a stealth love of dekumic, because apparently I wish to languish in rarepair hell) The fic has gone through about four major version changes. Aideku -> aidekumic (which came with some major detail pivots even though the overall plot hadn't changed) -> suffering reduction (it was gonna be so bad) -> suffering reintroduction, but different. It's gonna punch everyone right in the heart but I don't think I'm sorry about it. I'm also going to have to sneak back to the first chapter and retcon a detail once I get the actual logistics sorted. OH WAIT I DO HAVE A DETAIL I CAN SHARE THAT'S NOT A SPOILER ANYMORE. Although maybe skip it if you haven't read the latest chapter. Hizashi was, originally, not going to get together with them this early (not until near the end of the fic, actually). They still had the bond, and Izuku did eventually figure it out, but for [redacted] he decided not to act on it. So they both thought they had a one-sided bond, and just... never did anything about it. For a long while. Which eventually culminated in Shouta being away, Hizashi having an untimely heat, and him and Izuku sleeping together because mash an unfulfilled bond together with overwrought pining in a hormone cocktail and you get bad choices. Which resulted in a lot of immediate guilt in the aftermath, even though Shouta had clocked them ages ago and wasn't all that upset about it. Then something immediately happened to make things worse, but I can't disclose that part because it's still going to happen. ;)

That continued to be the plan until chapter 11 happened, with all the snuggling and purring, and @fondofeveryprickle read it and was like, "...if you wanna keep this I think you need to reevaluate The Suffering because these things do not mesh." Which resulted in a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth because that was a HUGE upset to the back half of the fic, and not something I was excited to re-jig. But she was right. And the new way was better. And then @scratchxiii said, "Hey what if we added Different Suffering?"

To which I replied, "Ouch my heart, that's absolutely devastating let's do it."

The blorbos uh, tend to get the worst of it when we're left unsupervised. BUT fresh suffering aside, the happy ending tag still applies, I'm just gonna make them earn it. :)

[bunkernine]

hi pls ignore this if i have mistaken you for someone else and am making a fool out of myself but are you the person who wrote isosceles?? because that fic altered my brain on an abnormal and chemical level way back when and i just remembered it the other day and binged it all again and i feel like i remember there being a few other fics in that universe (one from travis’s pov iirc) and i wanted to know where they are. of course if you are not the person who wrote isosceles i am a fool and feel free to ignore this ❤️

I did, yeah.

I wrote it when i was 14 so at a certain point i didn't want to be associated with it because it didn't reflect me as much anymore. It was my big baby at the time!!! But i divorced from that a few years ago. As for the other universe fics, if i remember correctly: connor, drew, a vers where jason admits to liking him back (some point isos implied that jason DID like leo back but was too confused to do anything).... But i deleted those first because they just weren't as fun, and my own friend group was falling apart so it felt too close.

But yes, you have found me LOLOL. Isos is orphaned, but unfortunately the other fics are deleted fr. Sorry :( but thanks for enjoying it!!! 💖

(ramblings under the cut)

The reason why i didnt delete isos too was because so many people were saying what you are now. If i could, id rewrite it (both with style and plot differences) and do a whole new remastered version. Im not sure why i decided to write his senior year when i was a freshman/sophomore LOL so I always figured I would've came back to it when I was older.... Clearly I did not.

I WAS miserable in high school, at least socially. So Leo was a little TOO personal and it made me mad when i basically did what he did towards the end. I spent some time just doing some random apolleo fics. Capolleo series, so my name should've been capolleon by then? LOLOLOL i had been majorly influenced by some now-deleted fic which is why apollo is even there 💀 but now im apollos age in the fic and im like 'hmm. Yeah maybe not...'

Then there was a fic that was coming out towards the end of isos that i felt was copying me 😭😭😭 ← 14/15 yr old feelings. Who cares! But i would update and then they would update and i was so paranoid 😭😭😭 honestly, the vibe in general for valgrace in 2018 is much different than right now, and it was much more open and varied in topics. This is not to discredit the current valgrace leaders or whatever the fuck, but the vibe is just ... Pretty different.

But yeah. Im sort of using this ask as an excuse to talk about it, but isos was SO big and what i was known for within the small vg circle (outside of the text fic at the same time 💀) so i was constantly reminded of it. And dont get me wrong, i ADORED that fic when i was writing it. I was upset whenever my life was too messy for me to drop the chapter of the month. Double updates felt so ... Um. Mature and awesome, like i was a professional 💀 i wrote leo as bisexual but he had a pretty strong inclination to men because i was figuring I'm out that I wasn't bisexual but a lesbian, but I couldn't really articulate that, especially as I was dating a guy through that fic. That was some cute little endpoint i was gonna have but its reality frightened me so it was dropped... The complexities of piperleojason were insane to think about when i was like, crying at lunch in my bf's car 😭 When it was posting, i left some really crazy A/N's showing how volatile i was at the time, that i eventually deleted. But i was so proud of it and it was a comfort to write. I think the drafts were a lot more raw but people loved it anyway.

Anyway. It's been a while since I've been able to talk about this fic. People have left the most loving comments in the world and it connected with a lot of readers. Its also my only fic that had fanart and playlists and such made for it! I was so proud of that! I dont think people understand how incredible that is and it truly is the dream for fic writers!!! I have other fics that inspired ppl, but isos was the one ppl constantly flocked to or appreciated :)

I used to cry writing some parts of it and now it just feels like an old diary entry. I haven't read it in a while and thought about remaking it (probs... As college kids though) but haven't bothered. Technical-wise, theres so many things that are dropped or forgotten or are just clumsy but thats really just a maturity thing.

Anyway THANK YOU FOR ASKING!!!!!!!!! Ppl dont ask me about my fics like they used to which was the whole reason why i made this account :(((( among other things, lack of interactions in fandom have decreased so much :((((

Love love love uuuuuuuuu

[goldensmilingbird]

Cool cartoons I'm excited about

So while I was on my search, I went through some animation magazines and trailer compilations and stuff and found a bunch of interesting projects that I just want to infodump about.

The first one is the one I'm most excited about, Voro.

Synopsis: "Lily is a talented young novice who dreams of becoming a master thief. Unfortunately, because she is young and puny (and a girl), the guildmaster assigns her only most trivial missions. However, during one of these quests, Lily finds herself at the centre of a battle between several ancient cults, worshipping entities who have been long forgotten… In order to prevent the world from sinking into chaos, the teenager will have to find a series of occult artefacts during quests that will make her question her own ethics. She will have to make crucial choices of allegiance – even going against her old mentor Seamus!"

It's a show aimed at young adults, based on a finnish comic of the same name (though in translation it's called Lily the Thief) and it's gonna have 16 episodes of 26 minutes. Btw, the comic looks like this

The director says they're making the show for slightly more mature audience than the comic and so they wanted to make the style more cinematic and realistic and also age up the characters a bit. Also they're planning to make a videogame, so that's fun.

I found out that the author of the comic, Janne Kukkonen, is on tumblr (he is @/kukez) though he doesn't post often. Idk what he is up to rn but he previously said that, while writing Voro, he accidentally spiraled into making a whole other story ("Raivotar" which means Fury) that's more gritty in comparison to Voro being pretty lighthearted, so I'm interested in what comes out of that too. Also I'm trying to buy a used copy of Lily the Thief rn because it looks cute and I want to know more about this girl already.

The second one is Shepherdess Warriors.

Synopsis: "The sto­ry takes place in a small medieval vil­lage, nest­ed at the heart of a green val­ley by the sea. Only women, chil­dren and elder­ly peo­ple live in this village, as all men were recruit­ed to join the Great War in a dis­tant land. They left ten years ago and nev­er came back. Nobody knows what hap­pened to them. To protect and defend the village, women had to step up and decided to cre­ate the Order called “The Shep­herdess War­riors”. Mol­ly, our lead char­ac­ter, is a young girl, who nev­er knew her father. At 10-years-old, she is now old enough to start her train­ing as a shep­herdess war­rior, an apprenticeship she's been waiting to start for a long time…"

Also based on a comic, but this time French one. Sadly, looks like it wasn't translated into my language. But the animation looks amazing and the concept's fun. It's gonna have 13 half-hour episodes. Also Molly strongly reminded me of Kelsey from Craig of the Creek (who is 9 and daydreams about being a fantasy hero) and I love that for her.

Third one is The Monsters Valley.

Synopsis: "Ellis is a common teenager who, apparently in an accidental way, touches a magic orb and acquires a power that allows him to control fire. At that moment, he starts being chased by strange creatures who want to take advantage of his power. Ellis, overwhelmed by the situation, asks Blanchet, his childhood friend, for help. Together they will enter into this dreadful and wicked world to try to find a way for Ellis to get rid of his power without knowing that fate has another plan for both of them".

This is gonna be an original Spanish series, not based on anything, aimed at teens and young adults. The creator is already planning five seasons (13 episodes of 25 minutes) and wants to expand to other stuff, like videogames, films or novels. (Damn, that's ambitious) He also says the show "proposes a journey of the hero from an adult point of view, with gray characters, battles, magic and blood".

Beyond the teaser and this interview, I found a link to a now privated video called "The Monsters Valley developing footage" from 8 years ago, twitter and facebook accounts made for the show that were only active in 2019, a link to a site that my browser says is fake and probably dangerous and a studio website that's just a logo and a contact link. So I just kept hitting dead ends with this thing. Then I suddenly found show's creator twitch? Good luck to this guy, honestly, he seems passionate.

There are more interesting projects, like The Tern, for example, but for now these are the top three I wanted to highlight.

[b-else-writes]

Vector Prime (1999): Some Thoughts

so i've decided to re-read the old EU (maaybee because i'm gonna write some more fanfic) and arbitrarily decided that I would start with the era for which I first ventured into as a child - the NJO. it's going to be a total chore but let's get started. Spoilers for a book that came out 24 years ago, this is just my thoughts as I was reading:

the Yuuzhan Vong: contrary to whatever revisionist stuff fans say, opinions on the old EU were very mixed and the Vong were a major point of contention. the whole idea was to end the repetitive formula of "evil Emperial Warlord and their Death Star knock-off" of the past books, but people disagreed as to whether they felt Star Wars. i think the idea of an invasion of religious war zealots who hate the Jedi and technology is not a bad idea per se, and i do think that the parts of the story that feel like a thriller as we learn more and more about the Vong and Yomin Carr hunts the scientists on Belkadan, are quite gripping. but i don't know if they feel Star Wars, the sadomasochism and orc appearance especially.

Luke: i feel like the NJO is when the writers realised that Luke had already concluded his character arc and didn't know what to do with him in a main role but people would cry blood if he wasn't in a main role so they were stuck (the original idea was to kill Luke and not Chewie). Luke is fine but unmemorable, and his conflict is external - whether Jedi operate as a law force of its own or not, and whether to have a Jedi Council or not (because the PT was airing) to keep all the Jedi in-line, and Luke is largely wishy-washy.

Han: the best written of the trio, i think his characterization was spot-on, especially in grief and rage.

Jacen: contrary to revisionist history (2), fans LOATHED the Solo children and you can straight up find fan polls on which Solo spawn is the worst from like 2002. i'm a contrarian and you know what? i like Jacen here. i think he has a good point about whether the point of the Force is to be a Space Police Officer or whether it's a source of self-enlightenment and growth and that he wants the Jedi to be less bureaucratic. like Anakin straight-up says the Jedi are the Law, and Jacen says no, and you know what? he's right. unfortunately Jacen can never be right because SW runs on the hamster wheel of endless violent conflict, but sue me, i like Jacen.

Kyp Durron: sue me (2), i like Kyp Durron. Kyp was never meant to have this role (it was meant to be a new character) but someone who no doubt hated Kyp suggested he take the role of the cocky trigger-happy "the Jedi should act like a law onto themselves" that puts him at odds with EVERYONE else. they try to justify it that Kyp wants to prove to everyone that he's good and atone, and in principle, I think the idea can work, but without writing Kyp as an arrogant, cocky, and smug asshole with zero compassion for others. leave my man alone!! he's just trying to earn redemption!!

Mara, Leia, Jaina, Danni: they are all lumped together because Salvatore doesn't know how to write women. they are all "strong willed and beautiful" (except Leia because she's old and how dare women be old) and that's it. Jaina's personality is lit "fly good".

Lando: the writers have no idea what to do with Lando either.

Anakin Solo: the Solo Spawn i am sending to the execution squad. joking i think he works as a stupid teenager who needs to grow up.

the big controversial death: i actually think it works as an emotional beat (and i don't object to death in SW), but the writing was very confusing as to how the whole thing actually happened. how fast is the Moon coming down that the Falcon can fly away and have enough time to loop back to see Chewie die?

blowing up Helska: this made zero sense and was resolved in one chapter and i suspect was tacked on because the book couldn't end at Sernpidal, which would actually have worked better because while the writing isn't great, the imagery of the Moon crashing down is really effective.

overall, it's a brisk read but the cracks in the old EU are visible. i think some of the writing decisions were plain bad to downright side-eyeable in the case of Lando and all the female characters - also is EVERYONE in this galaxy white except Lando?? (Kyp is Asian you can't take this from me, child-me thought this and it is my truth now) - and tbh trying to drag Luke into more adventures at this point feels like extending something beyond where it should be. it is fairly gripping though, the writing is serviceable and nothing special, but i never felt bored reading.

[mad-hunts]

what made you choose this muse? 👀

oh?? *double eye emojis* okay, i LOVE you for asking me this question, NGL. so thank you very much for the ask, my friend!! i really do appreciate it. now, as for what made me choose this muse... let me just say that a lot of it had to do with the fact that i may or may not have had this big fixation with the batman rogues (and honestly, i still do, though it's ehhh... kind of less extreme now LOL) a few years ago because i just think they're really neat, you know? like they're all meant to challenge bruce in a particular way and/or aspect, i think, and that kind of attention to detail is * chef's kiss * and i'm honestly not too sure how i came across it anymore (i thinkkk i had accessed the comics from this totally legitimate site *wink* at the time, which basically means i torrented it JSJ) but i wanted to read some comics from zack snyder's run in particular AND that is how i was originally introduced to the character. this is because he was in one of the comics related to death of the family and when i tell you that i was sort of fascinated by barton's character in there, albeit HORRFIED as well since his literal first appearance showed him in a mask made out of his deceased father's face (like seriously, WTF dude? LOLLL), i mean it.

and i think this was because there really wasn't a lot of information about him even within the comic besides that his father was this pretty monstrous guy who forced him to go on 'hunting trips' with him when he was a kid, as you all may already know, and later got killed by jim gordon... and after disappearing for some years, he came back and just. Decided to do something that's completely normal (sarcasm haha) and help the joker cut off their face??? which is an utterly INSANE plot point, of course, but i really do enjoy the more horror-based stories surrounding the batman lore so i immediately wanted to see what else i could find this character in. and much to my dismay, barton only appeared in ONE other comic besides that one before the writers were like ' welp. i guess we're done with this guy, because he's served his purpose ' LIKE OMGGG. i did not want to believe that they literally just had him be the primary antagonist in one comic, and a secondary in the other, because i honestly could see a lot of potential in him as a formidable threat towards heroes + i really wanted to know more about what EXACTLY he was making these 'dolls' of his for.

but unfortunately, the writers of dc sometimes are WACK and don't always pursue plot-lines that would be very interesting in my humble opinion / kind of subvert from the norm. so i decided, to hell with it, i was going to make him MY original character now because if they weren't going to make more content with him in it... then i will MUAHAHAH 😈 nahhh, i'm kidding, but that is pretty much what i was thinking whenever i started to develop him and basically make him into a fully-fledged person rather than just an antagonist with limited backstory to him + that was one-dimensional. anddd i wanted to delve deeper into the subject of how barton became the way he is in particular, because although his environment was most definitely a factor in his role in 'gotham's underground' now, everyone has to take full responsibility for their actions anyhow and his was to be a violent as well as overall abhorrent person. for, although the fact that he also has ASPD plays into this, it is not an excuse for any of his behaviors.

so yeah! all in all, the reasons behind why i chose the character of barton specifically to portray was because i think that the writers of DC reallyyy missed out on the opportunity of creating a complex villain and just in general doing something more with barton's character than him just simply being 'that guy who cut off the joker's face.' plusss, once i got the idea in my head that he was a blonde man with curls? it was all over for me, y'all, i'm not gonna lie. i was OBSESSED / j LMAO i'm joking, but for some reason, i could just see my current fc suiting him. and that's about all i have to say about it for right now but i hoped you liked my response to this!!

[youmarin]

"The Smile Has Left Your Eyes" rant.

*Spoilers below*

Gotta get it off my chest. Mostly bc I hurt for Kim Moo Young .

I read the series summary and I was like, "Mmm okaaay there's gonna be trauma here." To be honest I didn't think grandly of him during the first episodes. Actually I didn't know what to think of Kim Moo Young. A very goodlooking mf who's a loner. He grew in an orphanage after the incident and well he seemed to care for the nuns there but that was it. He didn't let anyone close or felt anything for anyone (the closest thing before things developed was that coworker of his but even they didn't appear too close to be called friends? idk).

Until he overheard that conversation between Seung Ah and Jang Woo Sang, he didn't seem to do stuff that would make him go out of his way. He seemed to be looking to entertain himself even at the cost of other people's well being. That was because he normally was numb minded. He didn't understand people's behaviour, like for example, why people "had" to do things they didn't really want to do. So when he taunted Seung Ah (even though it must've been uncomfortable. I felt like that watching it), I thought, "He's being quite an asshole, but maybe that's his way to try and help her step up for herself?". Think about it, things are never as easy as just saying it. She thought she couldn't get herself out of that situation but Moo Young didn't see things like that. He saw things differently. And so he was like, "If you don't wanna do it then don't." Simple as that.

Seung Ah fell for Moo Young because of that. And I don't think she really loved him either. She was clinging to him to escape her own life, one that was mostly decided for her and that she didn't want. (Plus they've "known" each other for like 2 months. C'mon.)

Still at this point, Moo Youngs motivations regarding Seung Ah were obviously messed up. "I wanted to know what drives a rich girl.", the whole bunch of lies, working up people for the fun of it. I wasn't a fan. He really gave an uneasy feeling (and with that face too. I was like, "Damn he's so fine but something's really wrong with him. Can't say I like him but I don't unlike him" lmao). And all that game got two people killed (which of course he didn't plan on it to end like that, and it was her fiancé, speeding and being drunk off his ass that didn't even bother to press the breaks before they crashed. ). But feeling nothing over it? Something's up up there in his head.

Same with Lim Yu Ri. He keeps her from ending her life and she catches feelings (he collects broken girls and broken girls love him 💀). He learns she's on a tough spot with another girl who's extorting her. And he intervenes again and helps someone who's also clearly not in her right mind to commit murder. Moo Young stands and watches. And then goes and cleans it up. ( 🚩❗)

Seung-Ah's and Jeong Mi Yeon's death were not his doing. Directly. But he did stuff that lead to that end. And still, no remorse, no guilt. Nothing. Again, technically he didn't do it so why would he feel those? But well, any other person would, wouldn’t they?

It's understandable and logical for Jin Gook to be a worried brother and not want Jin Kang near him. Oh but wait! Jin Gook might know the guy! From way back when he was a little boy! He's aware of the great possibility that Moo Young might be actually the son of a criminal he accidentally shot to death more than twenty years ago. And that Jin Kang and Moo Young's pasts are linked. But Jin Gook is scared for Jin Kang and more scared for himself to face the past and burst the bubble he's been trying to keep for so long (though it's still eating him alive).

Unfortunately for him, Jin Kang falls in love with Moo Young and for her, Moo Young decides to try an be a good person and stop acting as he had been until then. With her help.

"Promise me you'll be a good person." "Then teach me."

And he starts getting curious again about the past he'd forgotten about thanks to (funny, huh) the car crash he was in with Seung Ah and Jang Woo Sang. And what does Jin Gook decides to do? Stab. the. guy. A police officer. Oh and after calling Moo Young a murderer, a devil and everything he could come up with. Talking big when he had also killed someone (be it an accident, that the person was a murderer and that he might've ended up sentenced with death anyway, it doesn't take away that he killed someone).

And then everyone at the station being normal about it?? "Oh there was no report." Nobody investigated shit. Tak So Jung saw the footage and still did shit about it. But that also lead to Moo Young seeking the doctor (the doctor who let go an amnesic 7 year old boy from a hospital alone to who knows where with nobody to take care of him. Just relying on chance, "Maybe it'll be better". Like some sort of study subject.).

More questions were brought to Moo Young. The only thing the doctor could tell him was that his father fell to his death. But he knew that wasn't it because every time that the memory came he saw and heard a gun fired. So he goes to where they say his father died, finds his house (that scene when he's inside the house and the memories come back full force that he falls to the ground. Ok, kill me now that was so intense.) And he finds out that his girlfriend's brother is his father's killer. Now, how can he tell her that?

He goes back, he's angry, he has to know the rest. He breaks into Jin Gook and Jin Kang's house. Finds an old missing child poster with his picture in it. Then he reaches out for help with Jang Woo Sang's older sister (from the people he got tangled with in the beginning and that Jin Kang had stopped him from getting involved with again. And Jin Kang had told him that those people were capable of anything. Honestly didn't get that woman's deal. She was really a bitch who loved nobody and loved toying with people. Girl, get a life won't you. Mind your business.) He asks for a gun and breaks in again into their house. When Jin Gook arrives he sees Moo Young's shoes in the entryway. And he admits that he shot his father. Moo Young asks why and tells him he ruined his childhood and family. But was he really going to shoot him? I don't know. I really want to believe he wouldn’t shoot him. Because Jin Gook is important to Jin Kang. And I know he said a couple of times "You're just you to me." Which basically I translate to "The hell with your brother." (plus he stabbed him. I have resentment over that lol. Like, what was the reason?).

But I'm glad we didn't see that happen (for Moo Young. The grudge again 💀). Later he finds out that the story he had made around his drawing, the sole clue he was left with for a long time was actually not true. His dad, who he thought had in a moment searched for him, was not a police officer (that was Jin Gook, in fact), it was a murderer. A murderer who killed his mom and two others (when I heard about the other two people that's when I realized, "Ok those are Jin Kang's parents" and the idea that popped into my head when Tak So Jung told Jin Gook "If that's the boy you were searching they can't be together.", that Jin Kang and Moo Young were siblings, was wrong. But they scared me for a sec. with that. I was like, "Hell nah I love SIG but what's up with his dramas always having smthn (the age gaps in Café Minamdang and High School King of Savvy? Mostly the Minamdang one. Don't get me wrong I still loved the shows but there was that fact that eek! Aand now incest? Pls no. And thank GOD it wasn't. Phew 😬😅😂)

Continuing, Moo Young feels disgusted (for someone who barely felt anything now he feels this great love for Jin Kang and is so troubled with all the things he's found out, and the things still left for him to know) and that it now makes sense his way of being. The Dr. tells him his past and his father's doing have nothing to do with him and that he's an example of that.

"You're just you."

The "I love you" text. She knew he was in pain.

"Are you really ok with who I am?" "I want to be born again." 🥺💔

"To be born again you have to live in a warm house. A warm house smells like warm rice."

And when she got burnt and he was so worried and it brought another piece of the puzzle of his memory. He and Jin Kang had been together all along.

(Also that scene of them comparing their scars? I was not okay.💔) "They look like a map. And we followed that map to get here."

But he got it wrong and believed they were siblings (also bc of that lying bitch of Jang Woo Sang's sister. Honestly I didn't think he'd believe her. He always was so "Don't trust people, people are nothing." So clever, used to lie and play around like that that I thought he'll ask for proof or something. But that was how he remembered it and well the bitch hadn't lied to him until that point so oh well) and couldn't tell Jin Kang because he loved her. But not the way a brother loves a sister. And how could he tell her that yes, your dad is the same as mine, a murderer who killed our mom and two more people. And even when he found out that thankfully they were not siblings he still didn't want Jin Gook to tell her anything because still the truth wasn't much better. His father killed her parents.

And then Kim Moo Young commited murder trying to protect Jin Kang when he didn't have to.

"I killed someone when I felt human the most."

Jin Kang unable to believe it and breaking down saying he couldn’t have done it, that he couldn’t even stand seeing a bird or a fish hurt. Because she knew him better than anyone. He truly was sensitive.

How Moo Young hugged Jin Gook (See that? No need for hurting him more, man.) Left him a note. Signed with his real name. 💔

"When I met Jin Kang I was able to breathe again." 😭

And when she pointed a gun to her forehead his façade vanished.

"Go back."

"To where? You've been there from the start."

The fucking ending. She made him admit that he wanted to live right before that mf came in and shot her first, that being the last thing he saw, breaking his heart one last time before he was shot and died too.

How she didn't get to say "I love you" back. He only got to say it while he was dying and she just texted it to him. And it was probably the first time he remembered ever saying it to someone. Like when Jin Kang asked him if he had ever really liked someone and he said, "you."

How in the beginning he was the one who looked over and treasured Jing Kang but no one looked over him for so long until she came around again years later without remembering him and finally showed him love.

(And how it was her voice now that woke him up from the nightmare/memory.)

I hated that they always kept Jin Kang in the dark. Like, tell her something pls. Enlighten the woman too. She died and never got to know the mess that made Moo Young break up with her. She missed so much. Trying to protect her that much ended bad.

How different would've been things maybe if Moo Young also had had someone like Jin Kang did. (?)

If Jin Gook had told them everything!!! Instead of being so against them. Moo Young made mistakes but he then tried (and it really showed in his eyes how he instantly regretted it when Jin Gook treated him like that. Because he wasn't doing it for him, he was doing it for Jin Kang.). And Jin Gook was always like, "You can start afresh" (even though he always carried his grief and regret but still, he tried to believe that but apparently that didn't apply to Moo Young or wtf).

Loved, loved, loved the scene when they first slept together, how full of love and how they couldn't help their laughter because of how happy they were at that momemt. All the times she squished his face. So cute hahah. And when he carried her inside his house. How she helped him make his house a home. He didn't even have a single glass because, what was the need for those things? He's the only one who's ever there.

And that scene when he's looking at the night sky and cries and Jin Kang appears there. "How didn't I know? There are so many beautiful things in the world." And then the shot shows him lying there alone. I don't have a heart anymore, this show stepped on it and shattered it. 💔 It was so sad but such a beautiful scene.

When she told her smthn like, I hope you always have things like plants to water and food you have to eat before it spoils and that those stuff cling to you and all that. For him to keep living and enjoying the simple things. Things that in the end they didn't have the chance to live for. 🥺🥲

Other stuff that ended me:

"You planted love in her heart". "I don't believe it but I hope it's true."

"You protected her with your tiny body." "Now I feel proud of my big, ugly scar." (And this got me thinking how he protected her back then and then she did the same and took the bullet for him. But in the end both got burned and both were shot 💔💔💔)

And the songs "Lost", "Star". Loved them. And "Hidden Memory" (again, that whole scene).

Anyways, great name. I have puffy eyes thanks to this drama. The smile left me eyes.

I'll edit this if something else comes up in my head later but I had to write all these so I can process what I just finished watching yesterday evening.

[lab-trash]

Today is mother's day and I got my dad a present. Multiple actually.

For background, my mom doesn't live with us. She moved out in 2021 and she moved back in with her parents just a couple months ago. She was neglectful when she did live here and I can't remember a single promise she ever kept.

My dad took over her (tiny amount of) responsibilities when she left and I think it made me appreciate him more. My dad wasn't there a ton when I was a kid, but that was because he had a job that required a 45 minute commute, and it's not like he was gonna get anything better to support our 8-member family. My dad has always tried his best.

(Fun fact: The day I bought a #1 Dad Mug at a thrift shop that matched my mom's very unique #1 Mom Mug was the same day my mom's mug broke. Talk about symbolism.)

In October he took in a homeless trans kid that my sister's partner was friends with. Both that kid and my sisters partner are going to be in our family pictures this coming Thursday.

At Walmart, I saw a pillow that said "mama bear" on it. And immediately I was like, I have to get this for my dad. For context, my dad is a bigger man with a big beard and long hair. He's a bear. He's also greygender and pretty much only uses his agab terms because, well, he's 45 and it doesn't really matter to him.

After seeing that pillow, I decided I didn't want to just do that. I got him a cuticle remover (he was talking about how he enjoyed it), some new hair things and hair clips (again, long hair), some oatmeal cookies that I know he likes, dark chocolate peanutbutter doves, and some liquid death, which we'd recently had a laugh over the existence of before promptly realising its actually really good. Lastly, a peanuts card that I picked up last minute.

I had to fit everything into a box from work so he wouldn't see anything and I brought it home under the pretense that my coworker had given me some miscellaneous items while decluttering. I brought it into my room, set everything up and put it behind my door.

I went around and had everyone sign it, only barely managing to get my sister before she left for work (unfortunately her partner left earlier than we anticipated, so I couldn't get them to sign the card) and I put everything into this tall bag with a unicorn on it. It was one of the only bags that was big enough to fit everything, and I just thought it was so perfect.

I was also planning on giving him a painting I did in middle school of the northern lights— I have all of my paintings from middle school tucked away on my bookshelf— but I couldn't find it.

I had to go to the store with him when he picked up my sister, so I couldn't just wait for him to get home. I had to wait til he went out to the van, sprint upstairs, grab this bag that's easily 15 pounds because of the liquid death, rush back downstairs, hide it between our couches, rush out to the van, then rush back inside when we got home and set it up on a couch for him to open.

It went over really well, which was something i was worried about right at the end there, since he'd asked me and my sister if we told our mom happy mothers day. I hadn't, but my sister had. They were talking about it when they entered and I beckoned dad into the living room for his mother's day gift.

Overall, I spent about $60 on the gift. And I don't regret it. One of the biggest things of note with my mom was that whenever we celebrated mother's day, I would always try to put effort into it to make her happy. And it was never... really appreciated. I remember one year I got this sort of clear trophy-wine glass thingy and put some chocolate in it, and I had all of her kids sign the lid. She didn't take it when she left. It was sitting in our kitchen (with half of our deadnames on it, might I add) until a few months ago. If she'd left it in dad's room, I think it'd be less hurtful, but she left it on the microwave cart where we all saw it every day. Mocking us both with our deadnames and our failure of a gift.

Buying for my dad wasn't like that. I know even if I fucked up one of the items, he'd enjoy even the existence of it at all. I could've just bought the card or just the pillow and he would've been happy. But I didn't, almost because of that fact. My dad would be happy with less, so he deserved more.

[youredreamingofroo]

📩 Simblr question of the day: Choose as many sims/ocs as you'd like for this question, What's something INCREDIBLY obscure and/or out-of-pocket about your sim/oc? Something that nobody (fellow sims and/or your followers and mutuals) knows 👀 (This could be things about their social skills, physicality and/or birth defects, or it could be something they vaguely remember, a dream they had that actually predicted the future, etc etc... whatever you come up with)

( p.s I'm [the SQOTD anon] planning on starting a separate SQOTD blog for these asks/questions, and I'm open for input on this :) ) ( p.p.s freely share this SQOTD around, anon or not, and use the # SQOTD ~ 💛 )

HI SQOTD ANON!! I hope you are so well, you are amazing

I'm gonna sorta blast out obscure facts for multiple OCs/Sims, when I say obscure facts, I'm gonna prolly do more behind the scenes facts and less actual character facts 😭 I'll try to squeeze some in tho

Under the cut cuz this gets LONGGG (I have so many behind the scenes facts LMAO)

For Roo: Here's a couple Behind-The-Scenes facts, I have SOO many of these for early-days roo so get ready:

[ Prior to a settled design for Roo, Roo was gonna be a Succubus woman with white fading to black hair! I still have the only drawing I made of her, but it's bad and embarrassing (mind you its like 6 years old so) LMFAOO [ Adding onto the last one, I used to go by "The Unfortunate Roo" before Roo was a separate character and when I used to call myself Roo, I also went by "The UnRootunate" which you can imagine 12 year old me was SOO proud of that... 💀 (it is clever tho so 🤷‍♂️) [ After making Roo's first design, I intended Roo to be trans! FtM- This ended up changing because I designed his younger versions and they weren't pre-transition, and instead ended up making his gender be very apparently open-ended (which you can see through his different eras where his hair progressively gets longer :P) [ I never really shared what Roo's middle name is! But to be honest, I completely forgot about the existence of his middle name LMAO Initially his middle names were "Ivory-Roland" and the idea of "Roo" for a name came from "Roland"! [ This will come as a shock... but a while ago (~1 year ago), I was actually gonna give Roo a child 👀👀 Not biological, but just a kid he adopted or something, I don't remember anything about the kid cuz I never wrote anything down

And Here's a couple "other people/sims don't know/notice this" facts:

[ This is INCREDIBLY unnoticeable, but Roo's freckles would very faintly change through the years alongside his hair and eyes changing due to Piametia!

For Virginia (Roo's mother): I've only got one Behind-The-Scenes fact for her:

[ My first name choice for her was gonna be Persephone! But I felt that it didn't fit her <:)

Putting these together but here's two name facts for Virginia (besides the persephone part) and Reese:

[ Virginia's last name was supposed to be Keith-Norman when I first made her, but have since realized it wouldn't make sense for one reason that you'll see in the next fact- Her middle name was supposed to be Jillian and... it stuck! (Virginia Jillian Norman) [ Reese's name was COMPLETELY different when I made him... "Stephen-Elijah [Eli] Jackle Florence"... Yea LMAO, this is why Keith for Virginia wouldn't make sense, and overall his name was just a chaotic mess... I decided to actually make him have no middle name! And his birth last name is Arnett, but he changed it to Norman :) (Reese Arnett -> Reese Norman)

For Jordynn (Roo's oldest sister): Once again, behind-the-scene fact :):

[ One of the first iterations of Jordynn was that she looked nothing like her parents (Virginia and Reese) and because of this, Reese got upset with Virginia and almost divorced her bec he assumed the kid wasn't his! They had a much more toxic relationship when they were being baked in the OC oven

and here's an in-universe fact:

[ She doesn't tell a lot of people this because it's not necessarily an issue, but she's deathly allergic to lavender, one whiff could put her out of commission for a LONGGG while

For Devan (Roo's only brother): behind-the-scenes fact:

[ Devan used to have british origins, and would have a very confusing accent crossed with heavy Swedish and a heavy British accent, making it very difficult for people to understand him no matter what language he spoke, I ended up changing this simply cuz I forgot :)

in-universe fact:

[ He has pierced ears! But he tends to forget to put earrings in and has had to re-pierce his ears once before

For Deliahna (Roo's second youngest sister): in-universe fact:

[ Her birthday is on Valentines Day!! <:)

And finally, Juniper (Roo's youngest sister): in-universe fact:

[ Juni is mixed! She's Hispanic and Scandinavian, and has an accent that actually ping-pongs in terms of which half is stronger, which depends on which parent she's with, if she's with Virginia, her light Swedish accent comes out, but if she's with Mateo (Her Father and Roo's step/half(?) father), her thick hispanic accent comes out, she's also fluent in Spanish and English, and knows little-to-no Swedish

- -

And here's a random fact about an OC that never really saw the light of day (keep in mind I was like 12-14 when I made this OC LMAO):

[ This oc's name is "Bashful", is a clown and is a quintuplet! (The other names are just [insert verb] - ful 💀)

AND last fact (sorry I keep saying and LMAO) about an OC that I plan to... eventually share 😭:

[ I have an OC named 1504 and she's made of Clay! She's one of my oldest OCs that has actually survived the OC-purge (by OC purge I just mean completely dropping all my old OCs for new ones)

[ehh-is-the-name]

Happy (late) Holloweeny!!

It may be like almost a week after the holiday but whatever! I decided to be Jyushi this year since I already made the hat like 2 years ago. That led to me wondering how much I could do for the costume without buying things, and well... I think the only thing I really bought was the baseball uniform but I had to dye it and whatnot so idek what I was planning with that. I think I just wanted an excuse to make stuff and this is what I got to show for it. I think it turned out well!

Though, I think I really like just dressing up as characters at this point, and of course work in process photos under the cut!

Gonna go in chronological order, so starting with the hat.

The photos of it are at the other post linked above if you wanna see it but I'll say my process/thoughts on it here.

If I went back in time to redo the hat I would've changed the way I did the white base. I did it with a spray primer and it made the hat really stiff. I used to wear it out, but also because of the primer, the fabrics not breathable anymore so you get sweaty FAST. Even with the wig on above, it made my head hot. It also made it not able to like stretch easily, so when I had it on with the wig, it kinda looked weird from some angles. Otherwise, It's pretty good. It's just the fact it has so many paint layers.

I unfortunately forgot to take wip pics of the bat and ball, but I have all the resources I used to make them if that counts!

I used the ball pattern from Supergurumi here. For the bat, I used Jay Hen's pattern linked here.

The only thing about the bat is that I switched up some things for this. Like I barely used any stuffing (mainly bc I didn't have much) but also because I just don't think the silhouette of the one on the site matches what an actual metal bat looks like and Jyushi got a metal bat. So I just crocheted around a pool noodle. And gotta say, very fun to hit my friends with, 10/10. Another thing, is that I made the whole bat the grey seen above and just wrapped some old fabric around it, since sometimes Jyushi has it and sometimes he doesn't?? It's weird.

Like in the earlier season (top right), he doesn't, but later in the show (bottom left) he has one and the grip is black? Oh but in the game (top left) he has a yellow grip! BUT THEN THE FUCKING NENDROID DOESN'T HAVE IT EITHER??? SO WHAT????

Idk. The whole thing kinda pissed me off since I didn't know what would be right. In the end, I just went with the yellow grip to match the uniform. I saw all of this like I care about accuracy- I fucked up the baseball stitches anyways, but that'll be our little secret.

I bought the whole uniform from a bulk sellout sports company for like only a handful of dollars. Even with shipping and everything, it wasn't even $20. The only thing was that they weren't selling yellow ones, so I had to dye it. Wouldn't have been that bad if it weren't polyester! Do you know how hard it is to dye polyester??? Well I didn't when I bought it, so lemme tell you.

You gotta make your witch's brew with synthetic fabric dye and soap. It took me a while, but I'd found some of RIT Dyemore in a store (but there are also some online like iDye Poly that should work). I just used a broken hanger to stir that shit for like 30 minutes since I didn't wanna ruin a spoon. Then I had to soak it in a dye fixative, which I did not buy 'cause fuck that. I'll just made some with water. vinegar, and sodium carbonate which you too can make at home. I will stay thanking NileRed for everything here, love his content. I think I soaked it for about 10-15 minutes, and from the pics above I wouldn't say much washed out.

This was probably the dumbest thing I've done. I could've just bought a wig for like $12 but no, I chose to make one instead. Also, I know he doesn't have blue strands in his hair, I just ran out of black yarn and had to make do. These are trying times, ok!! Anyway, I got one of the mesh wig caps meant to cover hair and then started tying strands to every couple of rows and holes. I guess this is where the stiffness of the hat came into use since I used that to hold the mesh cap. I got the idea from this video which helped with telling me what not to do if I wanted to make a wig like this. I was about as far into tying as the first pic below before I found cosplay veteran, Kind of Derp's, yarn wig series which put the idea in my head to press it. The only issue was that I couldn't brush out the twist since they were already tied and it would've pulled out all my hard work. So, I had to individually spread out every piece before pressing... That took the most amount of time, tbh I spend days doing that. I do not recommend it. If you're gonna make a yarn wig either do it KoD's way or like Uropa Queen does it here. That vid helped me quite a bit with styling.

Lastly, although the final photos don't show it, I did put Jyushimatsu's lil ahoge thing! I made it out of a spring and wrapped it with a shitload of yarn before stitching it in place.

And the last thing was stitching their last name! I thought about doing it directly onto the shirt, but since the uniform shirt is kinda stretchy and I don't have any fabric stabilizers, I chose not to.I wanted the stitches to be really crisp and nice, so I just did it on a different piece of fabric and pressed it on. I also kinda wanted to have a yellow shirt by the end of this without the kanji, so I wanted the chance to peel it off afterwards. But, me being silly, I didn't check if the iron-on adhesive was permanent before ironing it onto the shirt. Not the end of the world, I'll still wear it anyway. Though I think I could've cut the edges closer to the word since you can see it pretty clearly irl and even in the photos, but again the damage is done, what am I gonna do about now.

For the sketch, I used an erasable pen to draw 松. And for the stitches themselves, I just used the satin stitch to fill and some back stitches for the outline. This was probably the easiest and quickest part of the process.

I did the little "14" wristband thing a similar way. I just whipstitched the numbers onto some strap material (poly webbing, I think?) and attached some velcro. I folded it in half and stitched down the sides since I didn't ant the stitches to show on the back side of the cuff.

And I would put stuff for the mask, but that was super last minute. I literally just took one of my cloth masks and painted his smile on it with some acrylic paint and pouring medium, 'cause I was too lazy to whip out my actual fabric paint. Took about an hour to get it done, max.

But yeah, despite all the corners I cut, I still like the way it turned out. I can really see why cosplayers do what they do. It's fun to do stuff like this. I don't know if I'll have the time to squeeze in a DIY-heavy costume like this next year, but for Jysuhi and Airy, it was nice to do it.

And as always, I share the process because OH MY FUCK PEOPLE SHOULD!! The cosplayers that share their processes, I love you I love you I love you so much. Their stuff was really helpful for doing this! Hence, that's why I linked so many things. Plus, I know there are others out there who are trying to do the same and if it was helpful for me to stumble across other people's processes it'd probably be helpful to them too.

This is your sign to make a costume if you've been putting it off because you don't know how to do it. Start with something small, just for the hell of it. Hey, in 2021 I didn't think that painting his hat would lead to this, but look where we are. I believe in you, go forth and be creative!

And if you've made it this far, thanks for reading!!

[jonny-b-meowborn]

Dude I had a Mechanisms dream again and I'm going quite insane and also I am upset at my body for waking up at a very bad moment for no reason at all much earlier than I'm supposed to get up.

Basically I was at my cousin's, she lives in a very big city. It's summer, so there's a lot of festivals and shows and all that, both huge expensive ones and small in random locations. There was some sort of small unknown artist festival in some theatre or pub or whatever that was going to last a few days. Unfortunately I couldn't afford it even though it was fairly cheap, but they had an artist I wanted to check out on the first day. So since I couldn't buy a ticket, I decided to sit by the building where it took place and listen through the walls and windows, and in the end I had a pretty good time.

The next day, I'm thinking if I wanna do the same thing even though I didn't know any of the other artists, when it turned out that the Mechanisms are gonna play there, a decision made last minute because of some planning issue, there was an empty slot between other bands or something? But in that dream it wasn't the actual pirates, but it wasn't just straight up their actors either, something kind of in-between, they weren't their fictional characters but they weren't exactly real people, I'm not sure what was the deal with that. Like, it wasn't the real man Jonny Sims, it was still Jonny D'Ville, but if Jonny D'Ville was just a regular guy. Either way, the mechanisms died a few years ago and this wasn't supposed to be a huge reunion, more like old friends playing a couple of their songs together. So of course I wanted to go see them, but I still had no money, so I decided to do the same trick as before and sat near the door to the venue a little while before they were supposed to begin. In the end I managed to somehow sneak in unnoticed, and the place was pretty empty, no one really cared for this festival. So of course, since there weren't that many people and no one noticed that I entered without a ticket, I sat in the first row. Eventually the mechs entered the stage, which was just a designated area of the floor in the main room on the same level as the audience. Not every mech was there, there was a bunch of people I didn't know at all, because not every original band member was able to come. They didn't have their costumes either, instead wore casual daily clothes. It seemed like the decision to play there was really last minute. There was Jonny, Brian, Tim, and I think Marius. I was, obviously, extremely excited to see them, even if the whole band couldn't be there. They weren't going to play a whole album, just a couple random songs from across their discography. I remember that when they started playing due to some dream bullshit my sister was suddenly in the audience with me? They started with Old King Cole, and it was great. I don't remember the next song, but it was one of the ttbt ones.

And then, almost everyone left the stage except for one person I didn't know that was supposed to play a few very rare unreleased mech songs, and in the meantime the rest of the band just hung out in the venue. So because it was a dream and some dreams are pretty much just fanfics that your brain unconsciously writes, Tim and Brain sat next to us. And like I said, they all were something weirdly between the immortal space pirate character and the real person. Like, they were all still fictional characters, but they weren't these specific characters? Kind of like if they were actually immortal guys with silly names and their silly personalities, but the space pirate part was made up. Anyway, these two sat next to us, and I tried extremely hard not to fangirl all over the place. We all were watching the short solo performance, and at some point my chair turned into like an office chair on wheels or something, idk dream logic. Gunpowder Tim was sitting slightly behind me, and I wanted to casually roll back to kinda have him in my field of vision while he's there, for fangirl reasons. But I accidentally rolled my chair across his foot and I panicked, I just hurt the guy I was a fan of, he's surely gonna leave because of that and he'll hate me. I started apologizing, but he was just like, chill literally nothing happened my toes arent made of glass it's not a big deal. I still felt horrible though so I kept saying I'm sorry and if there's anything I can do as an apology. My sister was just kinda laughing at me for embarrassing myself, Brian didn't have any big reactions, he was more focused on the performance. Tim eventually laughed that as an official apology I could write a letter to his character. He said that half jokingly but I got excited at the opportunity to, as I put it then, write a lil bit of fan fiction on request of the og creator, so I agreed. He was like, cool, then write it right now. It kinda seemed like he wanted to like, embarrass me further but not in a mean way, more in a playful friendly way. So I produced a piece of paper and a pen out of nowhere and started writing something with the paper on my lap, hurrying before the main performance resumes and they all go back on the stage. While I was working on that Tim moved his chair closer and I shit you not he leaned his head on my shoulder and watched my writing. I was, of course, internally screaming and exploding. Like he was fully leaning on me while I was writing a silly letter to the character he played. It felt like he was very aware of how much I was fangirling in my mind and making me flustered amused him.

Aaaand that's when I woke up. I have no idea why, it was 5:40 in the morning, I'm supposed to get up in like two hours, there wasn't any noise that woke me up or anything, but in the last couple days I've been waking up weird early. Just sucks that it happened while I was having a very silly nice dream lmao

[safyresky]

I'm not sure I've told you guys about my trashy neighbours, but I'm gonna tell you now bc I've been living in the spare bedroom at the back of the house which has the perfect view of their porch where they hang out being trashy, and, when the window is open, surround sound of whatever the shit they're going on about, and was just woken up by their bs!

Some quick notes for y'all on their general nature:

There's three of them; trashy woman (we call her trashy trish), her partner who is ur stereotypical bad sitcom hubby to match her bad sitcom wife vibes, and a third girl who is ?????? Related??? To them??? I think???

Wife likes to smoke sitting on her porch and glare in our general direction

Two winters ago they came charging at me while I was shovelling the snow, mad because I had APPARENTLY blocked their driveway while shovelling my snow over to the snow bank across the street bc there's no space for snowbanks on our side

Trashy wife was like "I'VE GOT PICTURES OF YOU DOIN IT!! I'LL CALL THE COPS!!" then proceeded to trip and fall and roll like a potato on a patch of ice (a story for another time)

It was amazing

The husband recently traded in his car for a honda civic with a loud ass muffler

He enjoys revving the engine on purpose and doing burnouts in the street, also on purpose

Called it a "civ" when his work friends came over to help him "work" on said civ

"hey man let me show you how a CIV does it"

(I'm not sure if those words are HAUNTING me or living rent free in my brain tbh)

he then proceeds to do a burnout so nasty the house smelt like burnt rubber for five minutes after

Got so annoyed at their upstairs neighbour for helping my neighbour with her driveway, because she was parking in it, that same winter the potato roll took place, that they were horrible enough to her that she moved out

Their reasoning for being mad about it: she wasn't helping with THEIR driveway even though she wasn't using it 🤦🏻‍♀️

Third girl has a boo thang who drives a smart car and ALWAYS PARKS IT THE WRONG WAY ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE ROAD

So that's a quick round up of their best moments to preface what I just woke up to!

I live in a university town, and unfortunately the kids in this town like to celebrate something called FOCO, which is short for FAKE homecoming. The reason why it existed was for students from years ago when HOCO was banned. However, HOCO has been back for years at this point, but when the students came back after a year and or two of being remote, they were RAVENOUS for parties and seemingly brought it back even tho it was totally unnecessary.

This weekend is "FOCO". Next weekend is "HOCO". There is no football game next weekend which defeats the purpose of HOCO. The alumni are supposed to come back and watch a game and bond with current students, but when there's no football game (american football) it's like ??? Tf???

Anyway for a FOCO weekend, it's been relatively quiet--probably bc most people are sick with various flus and ronas, if the pharmacy shelves yesterday were anything to go off of. And on the school sub, anytime someone asked about foco about 8 to 10 users replied "foco is stupid, just let it die". It seems to be getting a bit loud next door now though, and apparently across the street at trashy Trisha's place.

I was asleep trying to fight a potentially covid induced headache (came up negative Thursday night, but my fiance was positive so I'm sure it's only a matter of time) when I am awoken to a crude rendition of Trashy Trisha's Greatest Hits, ft the not so soothing background vocals of her Cuckold Husband and Girl-Who-May-Be-Related-To-Them. Featuring songs we know and love such as:

FUCKING UNI LOOKING MOTHER FUCKER

YEAH YOU BETTER RUN YOU PIECE OF SHIT STUDENT

GOD I FUCKING HATE STUDENTS

FUCKING UNI CLOTHES WEARING TWINK

And so on and so on.

In my sleepy headache induced haze I perk up, and surmise this from the screeching across the way: a group of students were walking and decided to smash a mirror to pieces. Trashy Trish saw them and rallied her troops, and all three of them were shouting and yelling at the students who had the misfortune of being seen by the grumpiest woman on the street. Shouts of I SAW YA followed by YEAHHHHHS from her two satellites has me feeling like I'm listening to Myrtle Lilo and Stitch go off about some shit while her croonies go YEAHHHHHHHHH beside her. Where's Lilo with her fists of fury when you need them, eh?

Anyway they run off to the building across the street, which they have the misfortune of living in, and Trashy Trish is screeching like something that screeches, and her Cuckold Hubbers hops into the sedan (not the civ) and GUNS IT down the street to get a better look at these three kids who simply gave in to a destructive need while under the influence, as do we all at one point (sometimes even without influence. Destruction is FUN).

He races back like he's the fucking block captain or some shit and confirms that it's three kids and they're wearing this and that and Trashy Trish is like IM GONNA CALL THE COPS ON THEM ALL and I'm like good fucking luck bc the last time we did that after seeing which apartment stole the stop sign, the cops didn't do shit lmao.

Anyway, I rolled out of bed to check on the fiance and went downstairs to water the plants I put outside again bc the weekend is going to be VERY WARM, and guess what I didn't see?

The smashed up mirror Trashy Trish was so hopped up about.

[valcuda]

(Note: Most of this was written prior to my previous post! And this was actually the draft I referenced in it!)

I've had an idea for a story so long, that it actually predates literally every other story I'm working on currently, including Carrot Man's! (Though the roots of that story predate this one)

I simply call it "The Tiny Series", which makes it one of 2 series I've created which doesn't reference a main character in its title! This was originally meant to be a side-series for "TheModSeries", taking place in the same world, and occasionally featuring TheModHead, but he wasn't the focus.

Anyways, the only core part of the series that doesn't change, is that it takes place in a world with tinnies. For those who don't know, on the internet, a tiny is basically just a name given to tiny humans, with what tinnies are being left up to the writer.

In this series, tinnies are a sub-species of human, split off thousands of years ago due to being trapped on a remote island, evolving to be small, before being found in the 1700s, then basically turned into pets. I have a bit more written, but that's the gist of it. In fact, this marks the 4th time I've written an in-universe research paper on them! Cause I keep returning to this idea, and losing the damn document!

Anyway!

What does this all have to do with anything? I've decided to make Quinton's story a part this series.

It opens so many more doors for what I can do with him, Elizabeth, Jasmin, and the others, including allowing for some interesting stories with Quinton interacting with a Tiny! Which is an idea I had before, but ended up scrapping for various reasons. (The "Tiny" would've been a young kid shrunken down, so she was raised as a tiny person) I also felt like if I was gonna have 2 series involving tiny people, I'd end up only focusing on one, with that likely being the Tiny series anyway, since it more easily lets me tell the kinds of stories I want to.

Despite what you'd expect, this decision doesn't really require much of a rewrite of Quinton's story. I already have all the changes I'll need to do, and their impact on the story, all planned out. I think this change improves quite a bit honestly. Quinton and Hellen meet, cause she's doing an experiment on him. I ended up skipping most of that in the draft though, cause I didn't know what to put. This change however, makes the experiment make far more sense, and I actually have an obvious reason for that experiment now!

---

Now then, with the resurrection of this series, I've decided to revive 2 characters who I associate heavily with this series!

Trisha Hammert, and TheModHead However, I'm renaming TheModHead, and the name I settled on (at 6 AM during a restless night) is Timothy, because TiMOtHy, and "Tim-Moth-E" "The-Mod-Head". Yes, that was my actual logic.

If you read my last post (from only a few hours ago), you'll know I was having difficulty drawing one of these two, and that was Trisha! I had an epiphany almost right after making that post, and after some more tweaking, and the finally drawing her final linework, I finally have a drawing of Trisha!

This is something I've been trying to do for years, but just couldn't for some reason. I unfortunately only have 1 of these attempts saved, and I was gonna share it, but it is far worse than I thought! It might be a day or two before I recover from how horrible that was...

Instead, here's some of the test exports I made while working on the current version!

Starting off, we have icons I made for something funny I thought of, and am gonna share later in this post. I somehow messed up at first, and made her blonde with an orange sweater. She's never looked like that.

My first actual attempt at her base art. She was supposed to be pressing her cheek against Timothy, but he was shorter than I expected (based him off Quins proportions in Hellen's artwork), and I didn't want to draw him standing. Instead, it looks like he's pulling her hair. In reality, he's just holding it to help avoid falling. Anyway, this didn't look right, so I thew this out almost completely, and started anew.

I have 7 exported drafts from this version, but I picked out 4 to show. I didn't redraw Timothy for this, that's the same drawing as in the previous version, and I just kept moving him around. He hides in her hair, just cause it's warm, and safe, and this fact helped me hide the fact he's still drawn sitting!

Anyway, with all of that! This is the final (unshaded) version of Trisha Hammerts artwork!

This whole process took multiple days...

Anyways, I don't have any artwork of Timothy by himself, I'll draw that up later.

---

Now then, let's talk about Trisha!

IRL, I originally gave her a sister, and I was planning on reusing Skizzy for this, since she basically stole Trisha's sisters personality, and is based off of Trisha anyway. However, I decided to scrap that idea, and make Trisha an only child.

This is why she has Timothy! Her parents bought her a pet tiny, so she wouldn't be alone all the time, since they were often busy, and couldn't spend much time with her.

Personality wise, Trisha is meant to be a bit introverted, but still rather kind, and caring. I imagine her studying for a test, under a tree in a park, with a nice breeze. She's the kind of person to catch and release most pests, instead of just killing them. She takes Timothy almost everywhere she goes, even school! They're basically inseparable.

Because of this, Timothy doesn't come across as very shy most of the time, as he trusts Trisha's judgement of people. Like most tinnies, he's a bit naive of the world from a humans perspective. (Unlike Quinton and Elizabeth, who aren't, due to actually being humans)

I don't have everything figured out yet, as Trisha is admittedly not very developed, and Timothy needs to be completely redone due to not being TheModHead anymore, and Quinton stealing quite a bit of his personality...

---

Now, finally, onto that funny thing I made! This is what cemented the idea of bring the Tiny Series back in my mind.

I imagined what social media posts might be like in the Tiny Series universe, thought of this, and laughed my ass off so much, I decided to make it with Tweetgen.

---

Anyway, that's all for now. I'm gonna continue working on this, and try figuring out how everything fits together. I already have Quinton's story figured out, but I don't know what I want to do with Elizabeth yet.

--- Addendum Except Trisha's artwork to change every time you see it.

I think she's gonna be the first case since Junk-Watt, where I constantly make small changes to her. I did this with both Skizzy and Junk-Watt, just constantly iterating on their appearances as I notice things that bug me. I had improved to the point I didn't need to do it, but I'm starting to think it's more of a character thing than a quality thing.

[bunnywand]

there's an animated version of the (almost completely) missing william hartnell doctor who story "the celestial toymaker" coming out next week, which i'm p excited abt bcos it's one of the stories i skipped over when i watched thru classic who a few years ago, so it's all gonna be new to me 🤯

and that got me thinking abt which other stories i haven't seen before either, bcos along w/ "the celestial toymaker" there's a few other stories w/ missing episodes i skipped over too.. but unfortunately, altho i kept track of when i watched the classic seasons and how many episodes i watched, i didn't keep track of exactly *what* i watched at the time 😔

luckily it wasn't too hard to reverse engineer a list from that tho!!

so here's what i found out, and i'm putting it under a read more bcos it's probs gonna be long and not of any interest to anyone but me.. 😆

season 1: there's 42 episodes in season 1, and 9 of those are missing.. 2 of those are from "the reign of terror" but there were official animations for those on the dvd, so i only missed 6, because the 7 part "marco polo" is entirely missing - instead i watched the abridged reconstruction of it that was on one of the dvds, and counted that as 1 episode 😌

still haven't watched any complete reconstruction of the story tho, so "marco polo" is still one of the few stories i haven't fully seen/listened to 🤔

season 2: i had 37/39 episodes down as watched, so i think the 2 missing ones are the only lost episodes for this season, the 2 missing episodes of "the crusade" ..which i think i just listened to the soundtracks for, before deciding i didn't really like just listening to the soundtracks?? 😅

season 3: only 34/45 episodes for season 3.. there's a Massive amount of lost episodes in this season (28 😳) and so for the majority of those i watched some rly wonky fan animations on youtube, which were fucking awful but more interesting to me than the telesnap reconstructions or just listening to the soundtracks at least..

but then there was an official abridged reconstruction of "galaxy 4" on one of the dvds (which like "marco polo" i counted as 1 episode) and some ppl at a university filmed a really good recreation of "mission to the unknown" so i watched that and counted it too.. but then i Completely skipped over all 4 episodes of both "the celestial toymaker" and "the savages" and still haven't seen either now (altho soon i'll be able to watch the animation of "the celestial toymaker" 😁)

(also since i did this initial classic who watchthrough, "galaxy 4" has got it's own official animation of all 4 episodes, so i've since watched that too!!)

season 4: 39 out of 43 episodes for this season, which is p impressive considering 33 of those are lost!! it was a mix of official and fanmade animations for this season, and the only story i fully skipped over was "the smugglers" which i still haven't seen in any shape or form 😔

at the time i was watching these in early 2020, i'd have watched youtube animations for the missing episodes of "the underwater menace," "the faceless ones" and "the evil of the daleks" but they've all thankfully had official animations in the last few years which i've now watched too 😌

season 5: 34/40 episodes for this season.. i either skipped the 6-part "the abominable snowmen" or the 6-part "fury from the deep" but i can't remember which.. 🙁 either way it doesn't really matter tho, cos both (along with "the web of fear") have had official animations that i've watched since too ☺️

season 6: 38/44 episodes for this season, thankfully it's a lot more complete than the previous 2 - just 7 episodes missing, 2 from "the invasion" (which had official animations at the time i was watching these) and 5 from "the space pirates" which, along with it's 1 surviving episode, was the last story i completely skipped over 😳

so kind of interesting if u ask me!! and so now i know, the only 1st and 2nd doctor stories i haven't seen in any form are the 1st doctor's "the celestial toymaker," "the savages" and "the smugglers" and the 2nd doctor's penultimate story "the space pirates" ..but like i said at the start of the post, "the celestial toymaker" is getting it's own official animation next week, so then there'll just be 3 stories i haven't seen 😁