#(re)introducing my old eye style???

[tobyisave]

hammock negotiations

[chrollogy]

MOON TIE

— suguru geto x f! reader

syn: During a private session with your rigger—Suguru Getou—you tell him to tie you up naked, and it takes all his professionalism not to take you right then and there.

18+ MDNI; rigger!geto, bottom!reader, smut, bondage (shibari/kinbaku), unprotected semi-public s*x (in a studio), suspension s*x (reader is tied up in a moon tie while doing it lol), all consensual, oral (f receiving), brief clit slapping, light dirty talking, multiple orgasms, pet names (sweetheart, baby, my pretty, my darling), the tie done in this fic is the ‘moon tie suspension’ for reference.

word count: 4k

notes: re-published work from my old (deactivated) account, not plagiarising :>

“do you trust me?” his voice, smooth and velvety, just above a whisper, ghosting over your ears inside the dimly lit room.

suguru always asked this question before starting the private lesson—to solidify the bond between the rigger and the bottom. shibari wasn’t just about the act of binding someone or being bound, it was more than that; the consent, the art of intricate rope patterns, the intimacy between two people.

before you was a wooden suspension rig which donned a ‘swing-set’ style frame; suguru stood behind your figure, you could feel his tall frame looming as his question floated along the thick air of the room, waiting to be answered. “yes.” a breathy tone slipped past your lips, one that you didn’t intend—you couldn’t help it, not when the growing tension went unnoticeable. the lesson hasn’t even started and yet ever since you stepped foot in the room 10 minutes ago, the atmosphere shifted.

it was like both of you were walking on egg shells in each other’s presence, as if a single wrong move would result in something dangerous. the glint in suguru’s eyes confirmed that but nonetheless, as your rigger, he remained nothing but absolutely professional. although you can’t help think about his lingering touches during the last session—the way his palm rested against the inside of your thigh a little longer; the way his chest pressed against your back; the way his fingers rubbed the crimson rope marks on your arm.

a satisfied hum came from behind, followed by his footsteps walking away from you—to grab the rope, you assumed. “i-i want to try something new. .” turning around, you watched suguru walked towards you with a scarlet jute rope in his hands. he tutted, “not with that hesitancy in your tone, no.”

a deflated sigh left your lips, “just hear me out.” your rigger stood before you, arms crossed over his chest, head tilted to the side. you took upon his silence as a sign to keep going but you found your cheeks heating at the thought of it—the words forming on your tongue. suguru watched as the gears turned in your head, your expression somewhat flustered and deep in thought. he shook his head, “no, we’re not trying it.” suguru sighed before walking towards the wooden suspension rig.

you let out a sigh of disappointment. “shibari is all about the art of experimenting but that comes with the great cost of consent and confidence. i won’t force anything you’re uncomfortable about nor introduce new themes if i sense your hesitancy. rope bondage is something to take seriously or you can end up seriously injured.” that’s what he told you during your first lesson. suguru sensed a sign of hesitancy in you twice, which means your idea was most likely off the plate.

fuck it.

“i want to do it naked.”

you watched as suguru stopped in his tracks, his ebony strands were tied in a bun, exposing the back muscles stiffening under the white tank top he donned; the singular spotlight pointed at the middle of the room—at the suspension rig—casted harsh shadows upon his physique, defining every dip and curve of his body. looking over his shoulder, suguru held your gaze but remained silent. “it’s nothing new for you, right? i want to experience it all.” that’s right. as a professional rigger, it wasn’t new to him to encounter naked models while in practice.

you’ve attended some of his performances where suguru worked his ropes on a naked model. seeing him up on the stage with someone else’s naked body on display had your stomach turning, even if suguru was completely professional about it. “i can already do suspension, so what’s the difference with having no clothes on?”

a lot. one big difference was that you were going to be suspended in the air naked. you knew that but it wasn’t like you were trying anything completely new. a velvety chuckle tore through the deafening silence of the room, “for once, you’re going to be completely naked and at my mercy.” suguru rolled his shoulders, muscles flexing at the movement before continuing towards the suspension rig. at his mercy. did he have to word it that way? the corner of his lip tugged up as he watched your thighs rub together, it was a subtle action but suguru was all about subtlety.

“i know that, and i’m okay with it.” oh god. you didn’t know why you were so pushy today. usually, all you did was follow suguru’s instructions as he guided you through the ropes. “my darling, do you know what you’re getting yourself into?” your knees almost buckled at the pet name but you stood your ground, holding his ebony gaze. suguru has your full consent, there was nothing else, really. he sighed but his face showed amusement, the light illuminating his handsome features.

“changing room is to the left, there are robes inside for you to slip into and a cabinet for your clothes. i’ll be here once you’re done.” a tinge of crimson painted his cheeks, paired with a slight waver in his velvet voice. you nodded wordlessly and didn’t waste any time to get undressed. suguru let out a loud sigh he’s been keeping as he heard the door closed shut; he dropped the scarlet rope on the ground, a thud bouncing from wall to wall as he face palmed, fully aware of his blush.

suguru cleared his throat as he watched your robed figure quietly pad over to where he stood, his mind spun at the thought of your naked body beneath the ivory cotton fabric—how it rubbed against your bare skin. his hands should be the one doing that, not some fabric. you noticed the way suguru’s chest heaved up and down, harsh breaths leaving his nose as you begun to untie the soft belt around your waist. your rigger found himself scampering to grab the rope off the ground, keeping his best to remain professional and to avoid gawking at your body.

in reality, his professionalism was hanging by a single thread. a thread bound to snap sooner or later.

suguru didn’t dare look up once he heard the soft fabric fall to the wooden floor, he could see from the corner of his eyes as it pooled around your bare feet. suddenly the jute rope in his palms were much more interesting, onyx eyes scanning the scarlet swirls of the rope. “i’m ready.” he almost jumped at your whispered tone, causing him to immediately look up from the rope. suguru sucked in a sharp breath as his eyes traced your naked body, light illuminating the parts he has never seen before.

fuck. he can already tell what your bare figure would look like all bound and suspended in the air. completely at his mercy.

surprisingly, you didn’t feel small under his piercing gaze but your heart hammered against your chest. you felt tranquil, like you weren’t inside your body, as if someone else was controlling every single action and emotion you had. is this what it felt like to be zen? to be at peace with your body and mind?

suguru cleared his throat once again, palm tightening around the rope. “right. last session, i introduced you to a new tie called the ‘moon tie’. this time, we’ll try the ‘moon tie suspension’ where you’ll be suspended in the air. the position is a bit different from last time, so do let me know if you’re beginning to feel uncomfortable.”

your rigger stood behind you, “i’ll start with the xana chest harness but this time with your arms bound behind your back. may i?” you could feel suguru’s breath ghost over your bare back, leaving goosebumps under its phantom touch. not trusting your voice, you nodded, placing your arms behind your back. a shaky breath slips past your lips as you feel the scarlet rope wrap bind your wrists together—a feeling you’re accustomed to but now with you bare body, you can feel the entirety of the rope, the roughness of it without any fabric barrier.

suguru looped the rope around your torso, making sure it’s snug enough to hold you suspended but also safe for you to breathe and stay comfortable while in the air. you bite your lip at the feeling of his fingers brushing against your breasts while looping the rope around your front and bringing it back. standing perfectly still with your arms behind your back, your body jerks along with every tug suguru does as he works the rope around your torso—your rigger stands before you, looping it over and under the previous ties he has done.

you study his concentrated face while he works on your chest. so professional. you think to yourself. in reality, suguru is almost losing his mind, his face so close to your naked breasts and yet all he can really do is brush his hands against them. oh, how he would like to massage them and listen to the moans that slip past your lips. maybe even pop a mound in his mouth, hot tongue swirling around your sensitive nipple over and over again—fuck what was he thinking?

a few more tugs here and there, your rigger admires the intricate rope work around your torso—he takes a couple of steps to circle you, making sure the lines are neat and snug. suguru noticed the way your breasts look with the scarlet rope woven around it, he slightly fiddles with the waist band of his ivory loose pants, a sinful feeling stirring between his legs. “i’ll move onto the moon tie.”

your body heats at the rough texture of the rope rubbing against your bare skin, it wasn’t painful nor uncomfortable but it did things to you. “do tell me if you feel anything out of sort, be as vocal as you want.” suguru voices out before starting the moon tie. he weaves the rope into the chest harness, kneeling down to loop it around each thigh—hands lingering on your inner thigh a little longer than needed. you bite back a moan as suguru tugs the rope, giving you a pleasurable friction near the apex of your legs. so close yet so far.

before you know it, the scarlet rope that suguru had was perfectly woven around your body, intricate loops and patterns accentuated your features. he helped you on a small step stool to prepare for the suspension, grabbing an extra rope to tie you on the suspension rig. “comfortable?” “as always.” you reassure him. suguru nods, walking to your right side, “i mentioned before that this one is a bit different than the previous moon tie we did. the suspension requires tying your ankle to the rig.”

a warm palm encased around your right ankle, securing the jute rope around it before lifting it up and tying it on the wooden rig. with one ankle lifted, it placed you in a compromising position—legs far apart and your cunt in full view, all for suguru to admire. once the ankle tie was secured around the suspension rig, he took a step back to admire the art before him—a slight tent in his pants forming at the sight of you at his mercy.

you looked absolutely breathtaking. the way the scarlet rope hugged your body just right, the fat of your skin bulging from it’s snug fit. oh, how he wished to take you right then and there.

suguru’s eyes glossed over your exposed cunt glistening under the warm lighting. he didn’t mean to say it out loud, he had no intentions of even speaking about it but it just came out. “you’re wet.” the rigger before you pointed out, gaze locked on the apex of your legs. your first instinct was to close them but the rough scarlet rope that bound you kept them in place, cheeks heating at the restriction. “. . why don’t you do something about it, then?”

“that won’t be professional of me.” his words betrayed his actions.

one. two steps and he was right in front of your wet cunt. bringing a slender finger to your right inner thigh and dragging it towards the spot where you yearned for him the most. a muttered curse slips past your lips as suguru’s digit teased you. up and down, up and down his finger trailed but never near your cunt. now you completely understood being at his mercy—hands bound behind your back, ankle tied to the suspension rig, body suspended mid-air; you couldn’t do anything other than take what he gives you, or not what he gives you.

“you’re so beautiful, you know that?” he hummed, dropping to his knees so he was at eye level with your wet folds. the first day you stepped foot in his studio, eyes wide with curiosity, suguru fantasised about you—how your body would look bound and suspended in the air, your most intimate parts exposed all for him to admire and touch.

the last thread of his professionalism snapped. all he wanted was you, now.

he moved closer, breath fanning over your cunt. “suguru, please. .” your body wiggled against the restraint, arms dying to grab his head and press his face between the apex of your legs. he hummed, tongue darting out to lick a long stripe towards your clit. you shuddered at the feeling of his hot tongue, a broken moan in the form of his name hangs in the thick air. “that’s it. i like it when you’re vocal for me, sweetheart.” suguru purred before diving into the heat of your cunt.

you tasted just as delicious as you looked. suguru ate you out with such fervour—tongue plunged deep inside you, exploring the parts he has never touched before. he groaned against your cunt, sending vibrations which had your body shuddering with pleasure. “fuck. . ! just like that—mhm!” the scarlet rope left marks on your arms as you tugged against it, needing some kind of object to hold on to, to keep you grounded as you awaited your impending orgasm.

lewd sounds filled the studio, with every slurp of suguru’s mouth, the sounds bounced around the walls, engulfing your ears. his large hand slapped your clit, causing you to jerk at the sudden pleasure jolting up your body. “a-ah! yes, i’m so near—ngh. . !” you let out a heated gasp as suguru harshly sucked on your cunt, hand still stimulating your swollen bud just above his nose. he grunted, signalling you to cum all over his tongue.

and you did. you threw your head back, body wriggling against the restraint as you cried out his name, a pleasurable pain rubbing on your bare skin which was sure to leave evident marks. suguru hungrily lapped your essence, tongue languidly licking up every bit of cum that trickled out of your cunt, groaning in satisfaction. he rode out your orgasm by rubbing slow, soft circles on your clit—muttering saccharine praises near your cunt.

suguru stood up and made his way in front of you, lacing his hand beneath your jaw to pull you in a passionate kiss. you groaned into the kiss, tasting yourself on his lips. so lewd, so dirty and yet you wanted more. your body jolted as his free hand wandered to your bare chest, palm ghosting over your pert nipples in a teasing manner. “i want you so bad.” suguru whispered as he broke the kiss, lips softly grazing over your own while he held your gaze.

a small smirk formed as he watched you chase his lips, attempting to lean forward to seal the distance, only to be held back. “you have me. . at your mercy.” suguru’s eyes were the colour of space, dark, vast, and mysterious but it held the universe inside it. “fuck . . you can’t tease me like this.” he groaned, the growing tent in his pants became uncomfortable with every passing second. “‘m not teasing you, suguru. i want you just as bad as you want me.” he held your gaze for a few seconds before his arms worked on the white tank top he wore.

you sucked in a sharp breath—eyes tracing his god-like physique. the light above contoured suguru’s muscles, casting sharp shadows that added depth to each curve and dip of his body. you wanted to run you hands all over his torso, to feel his muscles flexing beneath your palms while exploring his body but to your dismay, your arms remained secured behind your back.

suguru didn’t hesitate to discard his pants and underwear in one swift movement, the fabric pooled around his ankles. your eyes were glued to his hard cock, standing proudly against his abdomen, it’s red tip was already leaking with pre-cum. fuck, he was big. suguru groaned as his palm wrapped around the shaft, giving it languid strokes as he worked his pre-cum all over his cock.

“just the thought of you suspended mid-air like this. . fucking you while you’re restrained is driving me crazy. would you be a good girl and take it all? or would you squirm beneath my touch, beg to be untied? mmm, i can have my way with you. .”

your cunt clenched around nothing as you watched your rigger pleasure himself, fisting his cock again and again. he situated himself between your parted legs, one hand holding his hard cock to tease the angry tip up and down your folds, alternating between rubbing and slapping in against your wet cunt. “s-suguru. . !” you gasped, hands balling into fists at the bare contact. “please, no teasing.”

“eager, aren’t we?” suguru eased his cock in before you could come up with a retort. your mouth formed an ‘o’ shape, head thrown back as his cock parted you. strings of curses and broken moans left your lips as suguru inched his way inside your tight walls, he gripped your thighs for support, to at least keep him grounded while his head spun at your cunt wrapped around his hard cock.

he stood there for a moment, cock fully sheathed inside you as he let you adjust to his size because fuck was he big, it also gave suguru time to pace himself—making sure not to cum right then and there with the way you clenched around him. “please move, suguru . .” you pleaded, attempting to wiggle your hips to chase some kind of friction down there.

suguru’s breathless chuckle filled your ears. he planted a chaste kiss on your right ankle—the one bound to the suspension rig—before slowly pulling his hips back and slamming into your sopping cunt; you both fell into a unison of moans, desperate pornographic sounds intertwining with one another to create a perfect melody—suguru’s deep groans mixed with your dainty sounds. his nails dug into the flesh of your thighs, leaving crescent shaped marks on your soft skin.

you squirmed, eyes shut tightly as the blunt tip of his cock repeatedly kissed your cervix. the position you were suspended in allowed suguru’s cock to reach deeper into your cunt, causing your eyes to roll to the back of your head. wet squelches echoed throughout the studio, your essence dripping to the floor with every eager push of his hard cock. “if you keep squeezing me like that, i ain’t going to last much longer—haah. . !” suguru groaned, throwing his head back and exposing his neck; his adam’s apple bobbed with every moan of your name, a deep crimson blush plastered on his cheeks.

suguru noticed your closed eyes and reached a hand under your chin, angling your head towards him, “look at me while i fuck you.” he grunted, thumb caressing your bottom lip, dragging it downwards before prodding the digit between your lips. your mouth circled around his digit, eagerly welcoming it by swirling your tongue around and sucking on it—all while holding his lustful gaze.

your body jolted at the sudden force of suguru’s thrusts, his hips desperately ploughing into you, causing a pleasurable burn at the flesh of your inner thighs. his free hand wandered down your stomach, stopping just before where you to met and rubbed tight circles on your clit. you moaned around his digit, earning a breathless chuckle from suguru, “yeah? you like it when i fuck you like this? all tied up and open just for me?” you let out an unintelligible sound, your mind too hazy from lust to even nod in agreement.

shocks of pleasure prickled your skin, your muscles becoming taut as you neared your impending orgasm. suguru noticed the change in your behaviour, the way your chest heaved up and down, a series of broken high pitched moans coming from you, and your eyes rolling to the back of your head—he took his thumb from your mouth and held your jaw, “make pretty sounds for me while you cum.” you cried out his name, voice full of heat and desperation that had suguru’s eyes almost rolling back in pleasure.

he encouraged you to make more sounds, shaky whispers leaving his lips. suguru knew he was close too from the familiar bubbling at the pit of his stomach but he wanted you to cum first, he wanted to see how pretty you’d look as you creamed his cock. “that’s it, baby. . ! moan just for me, and only me. .” suguru let out a heated gasp, the sensation of your clenching walls becoming too much for him.

you tugged at the rope woven around your body, squirming in place as you came—stars engulfing your vision, and suguru’s name hung in the thick air of the studio. he caressed your cheek, onyx eyes glued to your lust-driven face as he whispered dirty praises; suguru knew you probably couldn’t hear his voice from the blissful expression on your face but that was fine, you did so well for him.

“think you can take one more for me?” he grunted, a pained expression donned his face as you clenched around him—although, what he was feeling was far from pain. you let out a broken cry, scrambling to get away from suguru’s hips since the pleasure was becoming too much. hot tears rolled down your heated cheeks as you chanted his name, throat scratchy from all the moaning you did earlier.

“c’mon, one more f’me, my pretty—aah, fuck . . !” you leaned into suguru’s touch, the contact of his palm on your cheek burned with bliss. “‘m cumming! ngh! suguru. . !” “s-shit. let go for me.” you let out a silent moan, eyes rolling back and lips locked in an ‘o’ shape as pleasure hit you immensely—your body shuddered, head spinning. suguru angled his body so his face was positioned near yours, sealing your lips together in a messy kiss.

he groaned in between kisses, chasing your lips while your body jolted with every desperate thrust of his hips. suguru gave you a few more messy thrusts before completely pulling out and shooting his load on you. he eagerly fisted his cock, hand swiftly working on it to ride out his orgasm, and paint your body with every last bit of his cum; you moaned at the warm feeling of his cum coating your lower abdomen, and inner thighs—biting your bottom lip at his lewdness.

“you have no idea how much i’ve been wanting to do that.” suguru panted, a sheen of sweat coating his body, causing his muscles to glisten under the warm light.

“looks like i’m looking forward to our session next week, then.” you croaked. “oh, trust me, my darling, you may want to take a break next week. the rope marks aren’t the only thing that’s going to be sore for you.” he playfully chided, placing a chaste kiss on your sweaty forehead before setting the stool beneath your suspended body, preparing to untie you.

“yeah? why don’t you come massage it for me then.” “mmm, let’s get you cleaned up, hm? i’ll give you a real good massage. after all, i’m good with my hands.” suguru replies, peppering butterfly kisses all over your arms—the scarlet rope made a rather evident mark on your skin.

“good is such an understatement.” you smile up at him, tucking strands of his onyx fringe behind his pierced ear.

[aotopmha]

I caved and watched an entire playthrough of Sonic X Shadow Generations. Both sides.

Sonic Generations just looks like the same old fun and honestly, not being re-released as a broken mess is what I wanted for it the most and that's exactly what it seems to be.

They somehow struck the (almost) perfect balance between edgy and heartfelt for Shadow Generations. (I think him getting the powers the way he does is just on the brink of overdone edge, but the package is more sincere than edgy, so I'm cool with it.)

I feel like in the case of Shadow's character, you have to go fully sincere for it to work at all because of the archetype he is. I think this is why I liked him in Sonic Adventure 2, at least.

Don't earn the dark elements or put in the character work and combine this with basically zero levity and you have shallow, tedious melodrama on your hands, which is the issue with Sonic 06.

(I think Shadow's story in 06 actually had the least of it, but Sonic's and Silver's absolutely suffered from weightless melodrama the most in my eyes.)

Lean too much into emphasising how dark and cool you are and you become childish, which was the issue with Shadow The Hedgehog.

Shadow fits inside the Vegeta archtype, specifically more leaning into post-redemption Vegeta.

Distant and stoic on the surface, but deep down good-hearted and a softie for the people he cares about.

All of this aside, though, Shadow Generations looks like a polished, consistent and complete package.

I think the entire playthrough I watched only had 2-3 instances of true glitches.

All of the elements making it up are unified: there are no strange discrepancies in music, the visuals have flavour and a consistent style they're going for all the way through and from start to finish, the story is a complete whole.

They basically have the open world of Frontiers without the pop-in, the fantastic level design of the Generations stages and a further refined version of the power-up system introduced via Wisps back in Colours (latest variation of which was in Superstars), but outfitted for Shadow.

And all I can say is that I think they should flesh out all of the characters exactly like this. I at least want to see this treatment for Tails, Amy and Knuckles. I think Blaze is my own big wish for cool 3D gameplay in this style because I think it just has the potential to be incredibly fun.

Keep Sonic as a template as with Shadow, but give them abilities fitting to their characters, making them variations of Sonic (which the best playable versions of them have basically been since the start).

My big worry here is the lesson they might take away from Shadow Generations, which is to keep shoving Shadow into everything without ryhme and reason now because that's just what "people like" now.

I can easily see his character and gameplay style eventually fall victim to poor implementation (and on the side, writing), just like the end point of all cool and successful Sonic gameplay styles: Adventure gameplay, Modern Sonic, Classic Sonic and the Wisps, to name a few.

I hope the lesson is to do cool stuff like this with all characters, maybe go back to doing multiple stories with multiple gameplay styles with solid effort put into all of them, not make the franchise consist entirely of Shadow games.

Maybe make Shadow one of several gameplay styles next to Sonic in the next game and even use what they've done here to further refine Sonic's gameplay?

To me it really stood out how smoothly some of Shadow's abilities seemed to work.

Above all, I know this game skyrocketed on my list of to-gets after seeing some of those levels.

Circumstances in the past few days actually also maybe have made it possible for me to get it earlier than I thought, but it's still pretty pricey for me currently.

Eventually, for sure, though.

The impressions are so much better than I ever thought they would be and the game just looks so much better from footage than I ever thought it would.

[masterjarthub]

Chuggington Headcanon: Rosa

Tonight, we'll be talking about Rosa, the Spanish crane chugger introduced in the 6th season episode "Not From Around Here" where she moves to Chuggington from her home of San Locomota, to try and find jobs that utilize her to her full potential, and in the end, she is recruited by Zack as part of the Chuggineers.

In my headcanon, Rosa never joined the Chuggineers.

The reasons for this is because with how many characters and locations were written off and Herschend's rather mixed writing quality and their overall depiction of the world of Chuggington, (I'm not normally much of the reviewer type, but that elephant in the room shall be covered some other time) It really feels like they were hastily scraping the bottom of the barrel with the choice of having Rosa join the Chuggineers...

Another thing to note:

Notice how the Chuggineers all match each other, Zack, Fletch and Tyne all have matching stripes and certain parts. Even Brewster has the Chuggineer attire to some degree, but Rosa does not. She still wears that brightly colored Carribean styled paint job.

Some of you fellow Chuggington fans who have been around a hot minute on the internet may remember user TranquilSkies, or on here, @chuggingtonfanatic , who is no longer active in the Chuggington fanbase as far as I'm aware, but around the time of S6, she used to write some headcanons for Chuggington herself, and I was greatly inspired.

In her headcanons for the Chuggineers, she mentions that Rosa turns down the Chuggineer livery in favor of her own, due to her still being very attached to her homeland. I very much see this being canon and while I agree that Rosa would have good character dynamics with the Chuggineers, having her part of this team just felt kinda forced and doesn't exactly sit right with me, especially since Fletch and Tyne were two of the characters cut from S6 and Rosa pretty much replaces them...

Now, I DO NOT mean to say this out of bias in any kind of offense, but I'm sorry- I... I just can't get over how trippy this feels... They did Fletch and Tyne dirty...

So now, this begs the question: If I am not having Rosa become part of The Chuggineers, what is her new job in Chuggington? Where will she go?

Well recently, I finally found the answer: An underused character, and an EXTREMELY underused location, both of which were ALSO absent from S6...

...Yeah, I think it's already safe to say I'm gonna have to post a re-write of "Not From Around Here" someday, as well as the other misfires from S6, but anyway, here's what happens:

In this re-write, the episode plays out mostly the same, albiet with more characters of course.

After caring passengers with Koko, Wilson, on his way to deliver extra safety barriers, shows Rosa the quarry of Rocky Ridge where Speedy is working, and she helps him with his work. After deciding hauling heavy stone is not for her, Brewster meets up with Rosa and asks for her help; The Chuggineers are repairing a wooden bridge in the countryside and need some timber, so Rosa offers to pick some up from The Timber Yard while Brewster is busy collecting ballast.

Little did she know, she would not only encounter a familiar face on the way, but a VERY close call as well...

As Rosa heads down from the quarry after getting directions to the Timber Yard from Brewster, she comes across Rocky Ridge Rickety Bridge, which is just before the quarry.

Speedy was coming out of the mine and crossing the old bridge with loaded hopper cars. Then there was trouble...

The weight of Speedy and his heavy stone cars made the old bridge sag and creak, and only after he made it safely across, a chunk of the bridge snapped off with a CRACK, about to crash down on another chugger!

Rosa rushed in and caught the falling wooden beams just in time. But when she saw who exactly the chugger she saved was, she could not believe her eyes...

The chugger was none other than Skylar, whose model was reused for Rosa. Although we've known him since the 3rd season, he unfortunately did not get much focus due to the advanced training update in S4-S5 before he was written out. Regardless, he and Rosa are indeed siblings.

Thankfully, Skylar was not hurt, and he and Rosa were very happy to be reunited after so many years. Skylar did live in San Locomota with Rosa for a period of time before going of to The Training Academy in Tootington, to pursue his career of becoming a trainer.

By this point in the show, the trainees of Chuggington would become less dependent of both Dunbar and Skylar as their trainers.

As we know, Wilson, Brewster and Koko have well already joined Chug Patrol, The Chuggineers, and Speed Fleet, respectively, and Hoot and Toot are recently promoted to advanced training as shunting engines in The Depot, giving Dunbar the extra set of wheels he needed. Even little Piper would have completed the basics of training and find her own role in Chuggington becoming a frequent helper for Mtambo at The Safari Park.

With the younger trainees needing less and less lessons from Dunbar and Skylar, Their time would go completely into their work. Skylar became The Timber Yard's designated chugger, which would explain his semi-regular usage after S3, since The Timber Yard has not been seen at all since the first season.

Rosa and Skylar head off together to The Timber Yard and load up the timber to take to The Chuggineers. It is then Rosa finds that she really enjoys working there - loading and pulling logs was the perfect job for a crane chugger, and even better, she had her own long lost brother to share it with; she had found just the right job for her in Chuggington at last!

The two set of with the timber for not one, but now two bridges in need of repair, catching up and Rosa getting to know The Chuggineers for the rest of the day, which raps up the episode.

To this day, Rosa and Skylar work happily together at The Timber Yard, and while neither of them are part of The Chuggineers, they do help them out with certain construction jobs around Chuggington from time to time, and become very close friends indeed.

Although Rosa can be a little shy around those she's not too familiar with, it doesn't stop her from proudly sharing her heritage of San Locomota with all her fellow chuggers who welcomed her with open arms, and her experience and knowledge from navigating complicated routes to keeping loads even does wonders.

She wasn't sure at first, but while she is indeed still attached to San Locomota, she can now safely say that she is proud to call Chuggington her new home.

(Oh, and before we close off, I should also mention that Rosa and Skylar's close call with the bridge was also based one of TranquilSkies's headcanons, so credit to her)

[ineffablydelighted]

[Re-Angelized Crowley ruling Heaven alongside Supreme Archangel Aziraphale #1 & #2]

You may have encountered this fanfic of mine on Facebook. Time to bring it here! This explores what it would have been if Crowley had accepted to follow Aziraphale in Heaven... Probably Metatron's very own version of Hell... right? 😈

[This is meant to be light and funny - well, at least am I attempting to be. I reserve my deep thoughts for my analysis and I'm just as against our favorite Angel's decision as the next person 😅]

That time the Supreme Archangel Aziraphale had a "big announcement" to make, Day 1

Aziraphale: On this day particularly important for me - I mean, for us all, I have the pleasure to introduce *weird Magishun tone* *already amused by his own pun* or, to re-introduce: Archangel Anthony Crowley!

Crowley: *arrives in all-black attire, already owns the place* Helloooo, suckerssss! Ooookayy, Time to change a thing or two: Beige is out, Black is in! *snaps his fingers because Crowley*

Aziraphale: aka... my husband.

Crowley: *stops in the middle of a twist* Wait, what? Since when?

Aziraphale: *with a both cute and firm smile* Since now. I've decided.

Crowley: *blushes behind his glasses* *shrugs his shoulders**tries to sound cool and detached* M'okay. Works for me.

The crowd: *Too stunned to react*

Aziraphale: A round of applause, please, that would be lovely.

The crowd: *weird applause*

Aziraphale: *innocent yet somewhat demonic smile* Thank you 🤭

When the Supreme Archangel Aziraphale asked the Meeting Room to be repainted in wood shades "because it will feel cozier"

Michael: *about to have a heart attack* *cannot deal with the Jealousy* You cannot be serious?

Uriel: Come on, Michael, it must be a joke... Right?

Metatron: *is waiting for Aziraphale to answer "Yes, of course"*

Crowley: *arrives in style* Have you told them about the yellow lights yet or have I arrived too soon?

Two Angels walk into the New Office That Somehow Looks Like an Old Bookshop to report the news on Armageddon 2.0 - which should have happened two centuries ago - and on how Attempt #451 mysteriously failed.

Crowley: *leans in Aziraphale's seat that looks like an old sofa* And why do they keep talking, exactly?

Aziraphale *holds himself back from rolling his eyes for two centuries* *sympathetic smile* I'm sure you've done your very best to make it work. Thank you.

In the middle of a very important War meeting

Crowley: *sighs* I need a drink, Angel *realizes* *does not care* Yeah, nope, cannot stop calling you that. *To Michael, Uriel, Saraqael, and Metatron* Deal with it, losers. *miracles a glass of Talisker and drinks it as if it were 6 expresso shots in one big mug*

Metatron: *Contemplates the end of his own existence as a valid option for the first time in his Eternity* *So done with their bullshirt since day 1*

Three Angels report on how Attempt #523 mysteriously failed.

Crowley: *straight-up laughing* You heard that, Angel? They didn't do what you asked them to do! *theatrical hand movements* How unusual! How revolutionary! *whispers* Can I hang them by their tiny little fee-T?

Aziraphale: *scandalized look* *high-pitched voice* Of course not!

Crowley: *sighs in childish* Ughhh, I need a drink.

When Archangel Michael makes an appearance

Crowley: Isn't it time we introduce quiet firing, Angel? Also, Micky, I need a towel! *winks at his husband*

That first time Supreme Archangel Aziraphale and Archangel Crowley were about to re-enter the Elevator together.

Aziraphale & Crowley: *dressed formally* *Aziraphale loves top hats and convinced Crowley they should both wear one with reversed colors* *arm in arm*

Metatron: *clears his throat* *severe tone because that is the only tone he knows* Where do you think you two are going?

Aziraphale and Crowley: *startle like children caught stealing After Eights way before eight*

Aziraphale: We... hum... We... *looks at Crowley* Weeee thought it would be... hum... good to... hum... go back to Earth to... observe humans and to... hum... to... do... groceries? *innocent smile*

Metatron: *cannot believe his ears* Groceries?

Crowley: You haven't got the faintest idea how many wars and plagues have started in a grocery store, do ya'? *is handsy around Aziraphale's hip for no reason*

Aziraphale: *giggles*

Crowley: Come on, Angel, time to start World War III by pissing off some Karens at the cashier. T'will take what, Supreme Archangel, to kickstart Second Coming, hum? Two days? *puts his arm around Aziraphale's shoulders* *strong grip*

Aziraphale: *looks at Crowley* Oh, hum, maybe a week. *looks at Metatron* Let's not be pretentious.

Crowley: *glasses slightly down revealing his eyes only to his hubby* You mean like Michael?

Aziraphale: *giggles again before tapping Crowley's hand away from his shoulder in order to concentrate* *pretends to be shocked* Don't say that!

Metatron: *trembling voice* But... You cannot go back to Earth!

Crowley: *has NOT removed his hand from Aziraphale's shoulders* Watch us. *walks like Rihanna because Crowley, straight to the elevator*

Later, after the elevator's doors are closed.

Aziraphale and Crowley: *sigh in unison*

Aziraphale: I thought he would erase our names in the Book of Life for a second.

Crowley: Yeahhh, well... The night is still young, Angel. But, for now, time to recharge at the Ritz.

Aziraphale: Remember your promise, right?

Crowley: *pretends to not remember* Hum? Wot?

Aziraphale: You promised you wouldn't drink too much alcohol so that we can go to the Opera after. I need us to see Madam Butterfly sober!

Crowley: And I still strongly disagree with that statement. If I find Laudanum, I'll take a hundred bottles: one for tonight, the other 99 to bear the sight of Killjoy in Chief* for yet another day.

[Oh, I think we all know who Killjoy in Chief is. Obviosleh.]

Crowley: If we ever go back Up.

Aziraphale: *scandalized in type A personality* Of course, we will come back! We have responsibilities!

Crowley: Says the Supreme Archangel *of course he always mentions his hubby's new title ironically* who ASKED for a week on Earth.

Aziraphale: Yes, well... There is no such thing as the concept of vacation in Heaven at the moment, but I will certainly introduce it in a century or two. This is important!

Crowley: Sure.

Aziraphale: *talks in Life Mission* It helps stay productive. And happy!

Crowley: Riiight.

Aziraphale: You know it's true! Stop mocking me!

Crowley: I'm not, I... *freezes*

Aziraphale: What is it? Are you okay? *handsy around Crowley's shoulder*

Crowley: My Bentley is going to be so pissed at me. My baby must be so depressed... *puppy-snake-like eyes*

Aziraphale: I know where this is going... And the answer is no, Crowley. *tries to muster some authority in his tone* *fails*

Crowley: Rahhhh! Come on, Angel! You plan on taking your diaries, your favorite books, and snacks! All I want is a dozen Talisker barrels, my plants, and my car back!

Aziraphale: These things will take too much space, Crowley! What will Metatron say?

Crowley: Tss. Says the Supreme Archangel who dreams of reproducing to perfection his very Earthy Bookshop in Heaven. And has started to do exactly that! You're no fun and you're a hypocrite! An Angel, for short. And a basic* one at that.

[Insert The Good Place Michael who says "It's a human insult. You're devastated right now" gif here - Hey, we're on Tumblr, actually, I can!]

Aziraphale: *crosses his arms like a 5 yo while being 6000+* You too are an Angel, Crowley. You tend to forget about that.

Crowley: I'm not an Angel-Angel, Angel. Do you know why? Because I don't have a whole range of brooms stuck inside my bottom.

Aziraphale: *hurt* *also annoyed* *but mostly hurt* And here I was, thinking we would just spend an amazing week together. *trembling voice* You're the no-fun one, Crowley. *almost about to cry* *avoids eye contact*

Crowley: *notices* *pretends not to care* *holds himself back from thinking how cute Aziraphale's pouty face is* *fails miserably* *growls in defeat* How unfair is that?!

Aziraphale: *pretends not to hear for a second* *turns back to him* *keeps his pouty face steady* What? What is unfair?

Crowley: Nevermind, Angel. *sigh* Alright... I will limit my alcohol consumption to four, maybe five glasses.

Aziraphale: *cutest smile emerges* Thank you 🥰 *happy as in a Mariah Carey Christmas clip* *giggles*

Crowley: *blushes behind his glasses* *takes Aziraphales' arm back*

*Pretty long silence*

Crowley: Seriously, though, Sexy is gonna be so pissed at me.

Aziraphale: *high-pitched voice* OH MY LORD, for Heaven's sake, Crowley, the answer is no! Not another word!

Crowley: She might not want to take us to places, you don't understand how serious that is, Angel! What if she never forgives me? What if... *parent's biggest fear* What if she has been car-napped? Or worse? Ran away on her own? She could be anywhere by now!

Aziraphale: *tries to be reassuring* Well, if she isn't here when we arrive, we can miracle her back, it will be fine, Cro-

Crowley: And hurt her even more, treating her like... like... well, a car? I cannot talk to you when you are delusional like that! You're really pissing me off, *makes childish faces* SuPrEmE ArChAnGeL. *crosses his arms* *looks away*

*New silence*

Aziraphale: What if I allow you to drink as much as you like?

Crowley: *mumbles* Not enough.

Aziraphale: Come on, I need you to meet me halfway!

Crowley: *gritted teeth* Not. Enough.

Aziraphale: *sighs in angry mom* What do you want?!

Crowley: I told you what I wanted. You just don't listen.

Aziraphale: We cannot bring the Bentley to Heaven, Crowley! This is not happening!

Crowley: Then I'm not coming back either. Simple. *shrugs in blackmail*

Aziraphale: *shocked*

Crowley: For the record: when humans get married, Angel, they usually do not reject their spouses' child. You... You're behaving like a nasty mother-in-law right now and I'm not having it.

Aziraphale: Did you just Lady Tremaine-labelled me? For real?!

Crowley: Yep. You're that mean. I cannot believe how quickly your new job had gone to that top hat-ed head of yours.

Aziraphale: ...

Crowley: How career changes people, isn't it just baffling.

Aziraphale & Crowley: *cross their arms and look away at the same time*

*ANOTHER silence*

Aziraphale: *defeated sigh* *literally cannot be mad at his hubby for more than 3 minutes* One Talisker barrel, only the plants that stayed in the Bentley and... the Bentley. IF, and ONLY IF she consents to be... huh... reduced in size a little.

Crowley: *yells in bad faith* Here, have some fatphobia, now! I've seen it all! *points a reproachful finger at his spouse* You're a disappointment, Angel.

Aziraphale: *starting to lose patience* Crowley...

Crowley: Two barrels.

Aziraphale: Do not push your luck, I swear...

Crowley: Have you not noticed I'm winning the argument by now, SuPrEmE aRcHaNgEl?

Aziraphale: This is. Not. About. Winning, Crowley! And it is so unfair you keep our Soirée hostage until you get what you want!

Crowley: I'm a demon, Angel. Demons tend to do that.

Aziraphale: Technically, you aren't anymore!

Crowley: We both know you never technically sent the form to make my re-Angelisation official, so I am technically AND in truth: *marks a pause* Still. A demon.

Aziraphale: Exactly! A nasty mother-in-law would never do such a thing!

Crowley: So?

Aziraphale: A raging bureaucrat either!

Crowley: So?

Aziraphale: And certainly NOT a basic Angel!

Crowley: *annoyed* SO?

Aziraphale: I need you to take that back! That was unfair and BEYOND mean, Crowley! *shaking lips*

Crowley: *growls* *rolls his eyes* FINE. *removes his glasses* Sorry, Angel. It was the worried parent speaking.

Aziraphale: *little smirk Crowley has never seen before* *so ready for his petty revenge* Not. Enough.

Crowley: *finds it super hot* *likes being imitated* *cannot concentrate anymore* You... hum... Okay, what do you want? *is wondering how he went from winning the argument to being a fair loser in a matter of a single no-so-angelic smirk*

Aziraphale: *ready to push his luck* How about... a little dance?

Crowley: Out of the question.

Aziraphale: Crowley...

Crowley: NO.

Aziraphale: Crowley...

Crowley: *feels his determination melt like ice at the heart of Hell* *gritted teeth* Fi-

Elevator: Earth. *neutral ding* *doors opens*

Aziraphale: *takes Crowley's hand in his* *looks at him with soft eyes*

Crowley: *cannot believe a SuPrEMe ArChAnGeL could ever make him swoon**longest sigh* Ughhhh. Let's get this over with.

Aziraphale: *recoils to enjoy the view better*

Crowley:

You were right,

You were right,

I was wrong,

You were righ-T. *sighs* Satisfactory enough, SuPrEmE aRcHaNgEl?

Aziraphale: Thank you, Cinderella. *leaves first in victory*

Crowley: *wants to murder and kiss him at the same time*

[flyttadigsart]

for my birthday this year (6/25) i redesigned my oc téa-kyoko again lol. re-introducing her, so more about her under the cut!

téa’s twin sibling is mitsuko. she is a trans woman and takes the pronoun she. she wants to be a makeup artist and experiments on herself, her twin, and also their friend ryu who does drag. shes an appreciator of art and high fashion and writes poetry. she also does html coding and css, enjoys simple programming, refurbishes old tech, and likes open world video games. she suffers from survivors guilt.

this redesign is somewhat closer to how i originally created her in 2007, while keeping some changes i made in 2015 when i initially redesigned her. removed the completely peachy hair and went back to blonde, this time with a peach dye fade instead. her wardrobe choices are now closer to her original preference; i decided i want to embrace the fun and girly clothing she would wear earlier, but this time gear it more towards a gyaru style, particularly agejo (although i also want to experiment and use her as a style doll and dress her in other sub categories too). two other things i want to keep from the redesign are her trans identity and her body shape. lastly, something i was on the fence about was changing her eye color. shes always had dark purple eyes like her twin up to this moment, but i think pinkish-red eyes are fun on a character who is part rabbit. i think the visual contrast with mitsuko is much more diverse and appealing, in my opinion. theyve always been opposites in personality despite how close they are. might also draw her dressed down at some point but details are fun lol.

[apocalypsewriters]

Writeblr Re Intro

Friends and fiends, I welcome you to the reimagining of the direction of my humble writeblr. Mind the angst on the way in, the way around, and the way out. Take some fluff if you’d like, the found family is no extra cost. I am your gracious host, Eve (or Noah), who will be introducing you to the motley cast of characters floating from my brain to your page.

A New Infection is old, mostly abandoned but has a small host of short stories for your entertainment. Featuring three children fighting off an apocalyptic world of zombies, Blue, Zach, and Freddie are struggling to get along in a world that demands survival. Have a gander under the matching tag for related asks, lore, and teasers. Keep an eye on some of the characters for reappearances in future collaborative works with my delightful bestie

Take a turn and feast your eyes on the nebulously titled WIP, A Quest of Cards and Calamity, or House of Cards. Four acquaintances, Alex, Bendis, Cuckoo, and Maggie, cross the continent to retrieve a gadget for their mutual and only friend, Elestial. After the goddesses were banished by a noble adventuring party, the quartet fight through a world that just lost its major source of power. If found family, early industrial technology, and magic are your style, this is the WIP for you.

In the final corner is the most beloved work. Disregard the scaffolding and construction paper, Not My Magical Destiny is a short story being slowly expanded when inspiration strikes. Follow Kodi, the best friend of the chosen one, Gabriel, in a world they can’t keep up with. Kodi learns to set boundaries and reforge relationships with customer-turned-queer platonic partner, Sofia. The modern world clashes with the seven deadly sins and their heavenly virtues in a unique perspective of the classic modern fantasy novel.

Enjoy the show as long as my ADHD allows me to keep focus. This has been your enby aussie host writing from florida

Eve/Noah (they/them)

[the-pink-album]

So 1989 TV is here and this is it. This is the re recording I was waiting for. It means a lot to me for so many reasons, and it felt like a good moment to talk about the why.

As much as I love Red and all too well and beging again are so dear to me, and therefore I was so excited about Red TV, truth is I wasn’t a fan when the original album came out, and less so for the other two albums we have Taylor’s version now. So I couldn’t quite go down the memory lane for those. I don’t have the connection of being in the fandom in that era.

But i do have that connection with 1989. Is when I first got to really know about Taylor. It was a funny road, getting there: see back at the end of 2014 two things were happening: i really loved blank space and shake it off. So much so I wanted to check the album. I liked it. I was also becoming a Harrie. Bc somehow even if I didn’t follow 1D blogs he was all over my dash, and I tried to resist it, I didn’t want to stan the guy… I was in my mid 20’s way over boybands… it feel silly to be so taken by a 20 year old guy.

So… while I was in denial I was still watching interviews and following along Harrie content on tumblr and on a few they mentioned Taylor. And that’s how I was introduced to Haylor… and the Pandora Box was opened.

And then there was Style. An amazing pop song on it’s own. But also a song about Harry Styles and how it ain’t the easiest to let the guy go… and it sounds over the top but I never had quite the thrill as singing that song when you’re in the process of falling for a certain artist. It made me feel happy, silly and young. It was in ways like falling in love but without the risk of getting your heartbroken. And Taylor gave me the soundtrack for it, and I don’t think I would have become a Harrie in the way I did if it wasn’t for Style.

Style isn’t the only Harry song in 1989, and in the process of getting through those, of seeing Harry through Taylor’s eyes I got to know her too, and she was amazing. Her lyrics were something else (the amount of love i also have for You’re in love… is insane). And so along with a Harrie, a lowkey swiftie was born. (Nowadays while I still would say i’m more of a Harrie than a swiftie, I love Taylor, I feel for her and if I could I would love to tell her I’m going to be forever grateful for Folklore in particular those two songs that feel like she wrote them just for me)

I went from checking tumblr on my free time to endless scrolling between two fandoms, both of which where also touring which meant really fun times here, (and crazy ones too) and if it came with a lot of discourse, fandom fighting, (and getting to know Taylor in a very particular point of her life) also i the moment, those were really happy times. (Yes, even when Harry was clearly 💔 at the 2015 BBMA) I really loved being here for all of it.

2015 was the year that brought me to the two artists that would be a huge source of comfort for the years to come. I often refer to 2015 as my last happy year, in reality it’s just that it was the last time I felt young and carefree and the world didn’t seem as overwhelming. It also gave me friends here that while I don’t talk much to them nowadays they were there for me when life got my heart broken, and to this day I still remember the wise things they told me. I will always remember that year with a fondness and smile, bc nothing has ever been as so naively happy since.

So I’m really excited to revisit and album that was a huge part of that time in my life. It will also remind me of Haylor, I just can’t separe it from that album and in truth I love that. Since 1989 the glimpses we get of Haylor are like Harry said once the most amazing unspoken dialogue ever. Theirs is quite the tale.

So 1989 TV for me is a really special time, that will never be not haylor related, and i’ll be in that headspace for a while. Yes, i know the album is about her, and reclaiming it for her, not about a relationship. But as Taylor herself would say, these songs are also about us, and I want to remember the why and how I came to love her so.

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

Hi! Happy lukewarm Tudum day, I hope you're having an okay one :) all things considered... If you're taking asks right now I'd love to hear your thoughts. I've been reading again about attachment styles (secure, avoidant, anxious, and I think another I'm forgetting right now) and it got me wondering about ST characters and how they might fit in these categories. I remember kaypeace21 mentioning attachment style in an old post (the one about parentification) but it wasn't a focus. Any thoughts? Thanks either way! ^_^

I haven't really been keeping up with Asks, to be honest. The past school year was very rough, as I keep getting additional responsibilities as I'm there longer (without decent pay, of course). Now that it's summer, though, I suppose I have no more excuses. I think I knew I'd never be able to just walk away from this community.

So, attachment styles. This is a difficult thing to really get into since we know very little about most characters' early childhoods. Attachment styles are rooted in the attachments developed with caregivers in infancy, though they develop from there. That is to say, someone who forms an insecure attachment in infancy isn't doomed to treat all social relationships that way forever. These initial bonds do often tend to influence later bonds, though.

This is going to be a long one, so the rest of the post is under the break.

The attachment styles you mentioned go back to the work of Ainsworth in the late 70s. She devised the Strange Situation observational experiment, which involved an infant child being introduced, separated, and reunited with a caregiver and an unfamiliar adult. Attachment styles are determined based on how the child reacts to these situations, demonstrating how much security they derive from their caregiver. What constitutes a caregiver can vary based on culture and individual circumstances, so it need not be a parent/guardian.

The four attachment styles based on this theory are as follows:

Secure Attachment: To the child, the caregiver is a secure base from which they feel safe to explore unfamiliar situations. The child is upset when the caregiver leaves, but the bond isn't damaged, and the child is fine when the caregiver returns. This is the result of a healthy bond between caregiver and child. Funny story, in grad school my classmates and I got a look as to what this might look like in dogs when my professor brought his dog to class. The dog enjoyed coming up to all of us as long as my professor was there, but he left the room for a minute to fetch something, closing the door behind him. His dog stopped sniffing around all of us and immediately went towards the closed door. My professor walked in a moment later, and the dog's tail was rapidly wagging. I'm not aware of any research into whether this theory holds for dogs or other animals, but it was an interesting thing to watch given that we just learned about attachment styles.

Insecure Avoidant Attachment: The child avoids the caregiver, interacting little with them, and not being upset (or even noticing) their departure. The child may avoid eye contact when the caregiver returns. The bond, if it was ever there, is not re-established on return. This is generally the result of a caregiver not being emotionally available to the child. It's can be, but is not necessarily the result of abuse or neglect, as an emotionally reserved caregiver can unintentionally withhold affection. These children often come to see attempts at bonding as being met with hostile or dismissive reactions. A child like this could grow up to see self-sufficiency as the only way to go, as they don't expect emotional reciprocity, and will avoid getting too close to people, favoring more casual relationships.

Insecure Anxious-Ambivalent (originally Insecure Resistant): The child becomes very distressed upon separation, clinging to the caregiver, usually while crying. However, upon return of the caregiver, the child resists reattachment, sometimes to the point of kicking and yelling. This can be the result of inconsistency in the caregiver-child relationship, resulting in the child being confused as to how to navigate it. The child essentially never knows when anything will be ok, resulting in great distress whenever a situation is unfamiliar. A child with this attachment style may be afraid of abandonment, and could continue carrying that fear with them as they grow up if the situation continues that way. They may feel unworthy of love and need regular reassurance.

Insecure Disorganized: The child appears confused and/or afraid. The child shows some aspects of both avoidant and resistant styles, but there's a marked difference in intensity. The child may actively fear their caregiver, and it can be a sign of an abusive caregiver and/or childhood trauma. As a result, there's a real lack of any clear pattern of behavior relating to the child's relationship with caregivers. Survival could be a matter of reacting to individual situations without any real underlying schema having been formed. A child with this type wants love, but has no idea how to get it.

I dare say that most of the cast probably has a Secure Attachment style based on their behavior in the show. There are some exceptions, however. I will not be trying to classify El, as her, ahem, unique socialization complicates matters.

Mike Wheeler: I'm gonna go out on a limb and say he has an Anxious-Ambivalent style. He can be very emotionally reactive and sullen, and he does seem to have a fear of loved ones leaving him. This could potentially be the result of Ted's lack of emotional reciprocity. Karen was likely a very loving mother during Mike's infancy, but Ted being closed-off could have resulted in a lot of confusion for Mike. Mike gets clingy, suspicious, and jealous with loved ones when he suspects things aren't going well. This comes from his fear that he's not good enough for their love, and, as a result, he's deeply touched by Will's reassurance in the van, likely owing to his low self-esteem.

Will Byers: He's a tough one. He doesn't seek out relationships, which suggests Avoidant, but he has one loving parent and one asshole (later absent) parent, which suggests Anxious-Ambivalent. At best, Lonnie was emotionally distant, if not outright abusive. However, we know Will has great bonds with Joyce and Jonathan. I suppose it could be argued that there is still a lack of consistency, as a result of Joyce having to work a lot and Jonathan being a kid himself, but we don't know enough about how that worked in Will's early childhood. He does lack the emotional reactivity that goes with Anxious, though. I'm going to lean towards Avoidant, though, as Will does seem reluctant to get too close to anyone. His first friendship was with Mike, and Mike made the first move there. We don't know how he met Lucas and Dustin, but I can't see him taking the initiative based on what we know about him. He also befriended both Max and El because his friends did. He seemingly made no friends in Lenora, and, unlike El, he didn't seem to care much. His focus seems to be more on not losing his current relationships, particularly Mike.

Jonathan Byers: Insecure-Avoidant. He's very similar to Will, only he's had to serve as the caregiver for Will, which might complicate things. I'd say he's definitely Avoidant, though. He has no real drive to form relationships. His relationship with Nancy developed only because he spent a couple very traumatic weeks with her where they pretty much had to bond to survive. He did genuinely like her, but he likely never would have attempted to get into a relationship with her under normal circumstances. Now that he's in it, he's terrified. He's in too deep, and he has no idea how to handle that. He's afraid it's going to turn out like his parents' relationship. He's friends with Argyle, but it seems to be a largely casual friendship (up until recently, anyway). Argyle being an outcast stoner is probably what made him an appealing friend for Jonathan, as he doesn't have to worry about emotional closeness.

Steve Harrington: Insecure-Avoidant. We know he doesn't have a good relationship with his parents, who never seem to be around. He's confident and easy-going, likely the result of having to learn to fend for himself emotionally. He's had several shallow relationships, both platonic and romantic, owing to his fear of getting too close to someone. We only see him get close to three people: Nancy, Dustin, and Robin. All three of those relationships we can see Steve get antsy about being too close. He fears that Dustin is choosing Eddie over him. He was devastated by Nancy saying their love was "bullshit." And he's almost afraid as he confesses to Robin that he developed feelings for her. When he pushes through his fear, he's able to really click with people, but it always requires a real feat of courage from him.

Ok, I can't do anymore than that, I don't think. There's others who would be interesting to look at in regards to attachment, but, like El, have too many complicating factors. Hopper has had trauma in his past with Vietnam, his daughter dying, and his marriage collapsing. We don't know how he was growing up. Max has dealt with divorced parents and an abusive stepbrother, so it's hard to determine what might be the result of attachment style and what might be the result of her own traumas.

I do enjoy your thought-provoking Asks, though. I've missed doing these types of psych analyses, which is a bit ironic considering it's largely what I based the blog on when I originally created it.

[soupbabe]

House of Wax Oc Re-Introduction

I rewrote Maggie a little bit. My ocs are forever changing, but I really like what Maggie is now :) any questions about her are always welcome

Tagging: @rottent33th, @slaasherslut, @the-pinstriped-hood, @devil-doll13, @bugginbeetlew

❁❁❁

Name: Magnolia "Maggie" Sinclair

Age: 34

Birthdate: April 9th, 1971. Aries 🐏

Gender: Trans Woman, She/Her

Orientation: Lesbian

Appearance

Height: 5'4"

Eye Color: Blue

Hair: Blonde, falls down to the shoulder blades, parted in the middle, naturally straight yet she curls them into loose waves for extra volume

Ethnicity: White

Body Description: Maggie is plus size with an hourglass figure, visible stomach and bigger arms, visible stretch marks across her arms and thighs

Aesthetic: She expresses her femininty through old Hollywood glamour, even styling her hair after Monroe. But with her family's location and lifestyle, she has to aim for more casual and convenient wear: jeans and a tank top. To combine her wants/needs, she'll add plunging necklines to her shirts, wear small pearl earrings, and prefers things that'll accentuate her curves.

Personality

Confident, Sociable, Nosey, People Pleaser/Sensitive

Extras

- Eldest Sinclair, was the accident that led to Trudy and Victor getting married

- Rather close to her mother, pretty ignored by her father

- Was around when Bo and Vincent were born, commonly was given Bo when Trudy and Victor were too busy with caring for Vincent (especially when they were in recovery after surgery)

- In the Sinclair sibling hierarchy, she's a solid 2nd favorite

- She was often left behind with Bo and eventually Lester as Vincent's talents and reserved behavior led him closer to his mother, but Trudy still wanted to keep her close

- She introduced her to old movie musicals like Wizard of Oz and taught her how to sew when she was younger, two interests that Maggie carried with her to adulthood

- Behind the scenes of the pageant is where she had her awakening. The other finalist gave her a kiss on the cheek for good luck moments before they had to go back to the stage for the crowning

- At 17, Magnolia entered herself in the Miss Ambrose pageant in drag. Although she did not win, she discovered a lot of things about herself: that being a woman and competitive nature of pageantry felt great

- At 18, she graduated highschool and swiftly left for college to study costume design. Throughout her time in college, she'd recognize her trans identity and begin to transition, unknowing to her family.

- Though at 21, she moved back to Ambrose upon hearing the news that her mother and father died. She dropped out to take care of her family so they wouldn't be put into foster care.

- Lester and mostly Bo felt resentful when she left. After being raised by her for their entire lives, they felt as if they had to rely on each other ever since she left.

- When the twins started making people into wax, Maggie wanted no part of this, but no one wanted her to leave.

- Writing to each other wasn't enough, her brothers wanted the family together again and to finish what their mama wanted

- Her main role in the modern Ambrose operation mirrors how she bonded with Trudy: designing/sewing clothes and costumes for the wax figures

- She roams around Ambrose frequently, sometimes acting as a distraction, stalling the visitors until Bo takes the lead and she can watch from afar

- Has a lower kill count, ranging from 2-3 people a year maybe. While she wants to act as if she only harms out of self defense, she's grown a bit jaded over the years. She gets easily annoyed and prefers to throw her victims to her brothers to keep her hands clean.

[redfoxv]

Hmm you want asks?

Why are you so beautiful?

How are you so kind and thoughtful?

Why does looking into your beautiful eyes make me melt?

When did you decide on your cool cyberpunk style?

What is your favourite dinosaur?

Yeaaah tank you keep me entertained ^w^

Ummm idk tbh still getting used to being a hott girl can be hard to recon with especially when still working twords body goals

Ummm idk maybe from going through depression and trauma just want ppl to feel loved and cared for don't want them to feel isolated and alone and uncated for like I have

Isa good color piercing some have said.

Um I have always love cyberpunk style in my old life old life I wore cage pants and torn up team long sleeves cause it re mided me of the itl matrix world. Didnt start buying my new cyberpunk style stuf till being introduced to a cool synth friend and zir cool aesthetics

Raptors . I'm a summer for the old jaruassic park movies and beasts of prey

Thank you<3

[redrascal1]

TROS is a hitman which not only destroyed SW but all leading characters in the ST

Here's my Top Ten:

10. Snoke.

Yes, Snoke. Throughout both TFA and TLJ it was very much stressed that he was NOT a Sith. His eyes were blue, not yellow. Instead, TROS 'reimagined' him as a cloned puppet of the Emperor. Who was as bad at cloning him as he was with Rey's father, as for some reason the clones were all disfigured.

9. Rose. She had a great role in TLJ, and her character was completely stripped of her importance and reduced to a single line. And I refuse to believe it was because of Carrie's untimely death.

8. Holdo. Even though she died in TLJ, her character's self sacrifice was presented as an object of ridicule in TROS, which isn't only unfair but petty and childish.

7. Hux. He could - and should - have been the 'big bad' of the sequel's final chapter, but no, Hux is unceremoniously killed off five minutes into the film and prior to that revealed as a Resistance 'mole' - this goes completely against everything he was. Hux loathed the Resistance with a passion, it was completely out of character for him to join them, just to get rid of Kylo - there were plenty of ways to 'off' him without turning traitor.

6. Poe. Rian Johnson did a great job with Poe, he became more than a Han Solo wannabe in TLJ. Instead of becoming Leia's heir he was turned into a seedy drug runner - he was supposed to be the son of legendary Rebels, FFS!

5. Luke. Remember how angry he was when Obi Wan admitted he'd lied to him about who his father was? He told Rey he didn't know her in TLJ. Now, apparently, he DID but had kept the truth from her. Luke is now a liar, full stop.

4.Finn. He had a great character arc in TLJ. All that was gone in TROS, his 'grand announcement' that he had the Force was a damp squib and all he was good for was running around screaming 'REEEEEEEEY'. I'm genuinely stunned JB calls TROS his 'favourite' of the sequels....but there ya go.

3. Rey. Our likeable, feisty, gloriously flawed 'nobody' is completely deconstructed into a snotty, self righteous, judgemental little space nun. She was like an evil reflection of herself. The Rey we were introduced to in the first two films wept for Han Solo (although she'd only known him five minutes), longed for a family, lost her temper and was called out on it, and most of all was human. What is particularly irksome is post TFA Abrams insisted that she was 'not a Skywalker'....and then they made her one anyway.

TROS Rey was an emotionless two legged example of Jedi dogma. She actually gave me the creeps.

2. Kylo Ren/Ben Solo. Poor Kylo. Even more, poor Ben. He went through a complete character reversal in the first part of the film. Where like Snoke, it was stressed he was not a Sith, in TROS he made deals with them. When it was insisted upon that he was not Darth Vader, he acted just like him complete with that ridiculous mask.

The final part of the film when Ben returns should have been glorious. Instead, he spent most of it down a hole while Rey got the 'glory' of killing her grandad. No dialogue. No role in destroying his family's old enemy. And then....poof. Gone. Ben Solo's only legacy is that he 'gave Rey back to the galaxy.'

And she didn't even tell anyone.

1 Leia.

And....the number one is our beloved Princess, Leia Organa.

The cruelest character assassination of them all is that of Leia, child of Anakin and Padme, sister of Luke, husband of Han Solo, mother of Ben Solo, adopted daughter of Bail Organa, Senator, warrior, courageous leader and General of the Resistance.

Re imagined by Terrio's loathsome fan fiction as being in an afterlife GoT style incestuous relationship with her brother. And a woman who didn't give a damn for her own child.

TFA Leia made mistakes. Like her husband, she was afraid of her son being like his grandfather. She left him to be raised by droids. She sent him away at nine.

But...TFA Leia knew she'd made mistakes. She admitted that she never should have sent her son to Luke. And she wanted him back. Desperately so.

We could forgive TFA Leia because she knew she was wrong and owned up to it - as did, in fact. all of the OT cast. And we could forgive her for sending Ben to Luke, because TFA and TLJ Leia didn't know how to train him in the ways of the Force. Leia was NOT a Jedi. She didn't know how to train Ben, so thought it a good idea to send him to someone who did.

That however was TFA and TLJ Leia. The Leia I loved and believed in.

TROS introduced her to someone I didn't recognise.

TROS Leia DID have Jedi training. She might have quit, but she had enough knowledge to be able to train Rey. Train her well enough to fight and almost kill Kylo. AKA Ben.

AKA the child Leia had given birth to.

TROS Leia had sent her emotionally vulnerable nine year old away so she could focus on her career, despite having the ability to train him herself. She then trained the woman who she knew might very well kill him, and after her death...'took him with her into the Force'.

Her FG is later seen smiling fondly on Rey. It wouldn't have been quite so bad - although I still would have hated it - if Ben's FG had been beside her and we would have seen him with his mother. But, no.

According to a source Terrio wanted the 'final scene to be all about the Skywalkers.'

Rey is a Palpatine. I will never see her now as anything else. And Leia had the Skywalker blood, but she was an Organa and then a Solo.

Terrio and perhaps Abrams, made sure that everything of Ben's went to Rey. His grandfather's lightsabre. His father's ship. Whatever relationship he had with Chewie. Luke's respect.

And....Leia's love.

What a terrible, terrible way to treat Leia. And how they disrespected Carrie, a mother in real life to Billie Catherine, with this abominable assassination of her most well loved role.

TROS is an abomination. I will never be able to understand why they chose to retcon TLJ....yet leave this horror story as set - in - stone canon.

[gretchensinister]

2022 is now officially, 100% over, and so now I can be solid on my book count for the year. I read 103 books! Reading is my main source of entertainment and I make a point of doing it. Please don’t think I’ve also been keeping up with all the popular tv shows, video games, movies, podcasts, etc. I haven’t. I mostly read, and that’s how I get to this number. Also, I’m not buying all of these. I live in a place with a big public library system and free interlibrary loan. So, as a random person who read 103 books in 2022, I do want to note my favorites and other recommendations.

Favorites are totally personal and in no particular order. Also probably kind of uninformative, but you can always ask me for more details if you’re curious and would rather hear from me than a website selling the book.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik: This wasn’t the first time I read this book but the dynamic between the protagonist and the wizard is still catnip to me.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir: Hopeful, but not syrupy, science fiction, and also with some survival narrative flavor.

The Thousand Eyes by A. K. Larkwood: The second book in a duology that starts with The Unspoken Name. Completely nonhuman, alternate world, high-stakes fantasy, weird relationships with divinity and magic, fantasy trope aware but still earnest, I found the ending satisfying.

Vagina Obscura by Rachel E. Gross: Nonfiction book giving an overview of the latest knowledge and research of the pelvic organs including the vagina, clitoris, ovaries, uterus, etc. The last chapter is about neovaginas, and the book is intended to be trans-inclusive.

Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse: Sequel to Black Sun, fantasy set in non-Columbian Central American styled setting, light and darkness in a struggle, political intrigue, I can’t quite get to squishing the avatars of light and darkness together in my mind but that’s because of the devoted nonbinary ex-assassin priest and the bisexual mermaid with a dark secret that they’ve respectively got. Story not completed and sequel not out yet.

Lost Boy by Christina Henry: A story asking what if Captain Hook started out as a lost boy? I’m usually very suspicious of books that kind of go for edginess with regard to Peter Pan, but this one was really good, and I felt like the author took the project seriously.

Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee: End of the Machineries of Empire trilogy. Found the ending satisfying, unique science fiction world, yeah it’s one of them unnaturally old space generals with personal problems, one of them tear down the empire stories. You get it. First book is Ninefox Gambit.

The Obelisk Gate by NK Jemisin/The Stone Sky by NK Jemisin: I finished the Broken Earth Trilogy this year and it’s so good. I will probably re-read this series sometime in the future just to get to see the story from the new perspective of knowing what’s going on rather than being introduced to everything.

Devotions by Mary Oliver: An extensive collection of Mary Oliver’s poetry throughout her career. This is one of the few books in that 103 I own, and I have marked many poems in the volume for fighting against The Melancholy. Mary Oliver is the “Wild Geese” poet if you are unfamiliar.

Other fiction recommendations:

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet/A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers: I think these are good as a sort of lower-stakes sci-fi. They’re character-focused and...nice? But they do include a trope that’s my pet peeve, about humans being uniquely smelly among all aliens.

This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki: Graphic novel about two girls during a growing-up summer. Very good at capturing the vibe, didn’t make the first list because it’s not queer.

In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente: Intricate, interwoven fantasy with a pure uncut fairytale vibe, beautiful language, didn’t make the first list because of casual fatphobia and also some places where I could not tell if certain orientalist tropes were being played straight or not.

The Habitation of the Blessed by Catherynne M. Valente: I took a class in college on the European medieval imagination, particularly as it related to monsters and marvels. So I read this book with context for Prester John and the various creatures in the story. Because this is an imagining of Prester John’s journey and how he became king of the land that’s first mentioned in this medieval text. I didn’t put it in the first list because I feel that it’s kind of inaccessible without at least some background knowledge of the way medieval thought worked.

Other nonfiction for writers and other people that just want to know WTF is going on:

Revelations in Air by Jude Stewart: Musings about scents

Hurts So Good by Leigh Cowart: How does pain work and why do people seek it out

Sentient by Jackie Higgins: Animal senses and human senses

Sandy Hook by Elizabeth Williamson: What happened, including the long-term aftermath that has recently culminated with a billion dollar judgment against Alex Jones. Heavy read.

The Tragedy of Heterosexuality by Jane Ward: What is going on with straightness?

Evolution’s Rainbow by Joan Roughgarden: Nature is very queer

Phallacy by Emily Willingham: What is going on with penises? (When you try to look without patriarchal assumptions.)

Legacy of Violence by Caroline Elkins: Sober look at one of the ways British colonization fucked up everything it touched, focused on the 20th century. Dense, heavy read.

Edit: Wow! The spacing was very fucked up in this before I fixed it! Hope this doesn’t happen again when I try to copy and paste things from LibreOffice in the future!

[estellamiraiauthor]

The Stars May Rise and Fall: The Annotated Re-read (Chapter 24)

This is another LONG chapter, and again I think it’s interesting to see how my writing style sort of evolved during the writing of this book. Of course I went back and edited the whole thing many, many times, but I didn’t really notice the way the chapters get longer and more complex as we go, and even if I had, it’s not necessarily something that needs to be corrected. But in the first half, basically, each scene is it’s own chapter, but chapter 24 feels more like an episode of a TV show, with multiple scenes and plot lines going on.

As always, spoilers under the cut!

It also introduces a couple of new conflicts after the relative peacefulness of 23. Teru has decided that he needs to tell the band about his relationship with Rei, since it is affecting them too, but he almost doesn’t because Minori is in a pretty terrible mood in the first scene here. I do wish I had kind of introduced a LITTLE more foreshadowing about the family problems that eventually lead to Minori deciding to quit the band, but there’s a little of that going on here. We can assume the phone call he gets in the middle of the band meeting is related to that, and I think his frustration with Rei wanting to include Saki’s song on the album and then not even showing up at the meeting to discuss it is related, too. He knows this album might be his last chance to make it as a musician, and Minori is a good enough composer AND businessperson to know that Rei is better at BOTH of those things than he is… in other words, working with Rei is his last, best chance, and it understandably annoys him when Rei doesn’t do everything he possibly could to make it a success.

But Teru does come out anyway. Looking back at this, I kind of wonder why I didn’t have him talk to Rei about it first… he probably should have, I guess. But I guess I didn’t think about it at the time because Rei IS “out”? Maybe not specifically to the band members, whom he doesn’t know that well, but I don’t think he’s actually HIDDEN his sexuality for a long time. So Teru isn’t really outing him, per se (again, he sort of is to the band, but because Rei is openly gay to anyone who cares to ask, it’s not the same as outing someone who’s closeted). And Rei DOESN’T mind, in the end, that Teru does it… but I guess if Teru were a little more worldly he probably would’ve realized that he should’ve asked first, just in case. 

The band’s reactions probably aren’t too surprising. Seika already knew, and as someone who’s been there, done that, is proud of Teru for coming out. Nao doesn’t know Teru that well, and doesn’t really have a reason to care (unless he was a raging homophobic or something, so at least we know he’s not). Yasu is… just being Yasu, I think. He’s an allocishet guy, and he’d assumed that his best friend was too, so his mind’s a little blown. It takes him awhile to get used to the idea, but he’ll be okay with it in a few chapters. He sort of jokingly asks how old Rei is… Yasu’s defense mechanism is always to kind of joke around, and while this isn’t particularly funny, I think he’s pretending to care about something that everyone knows he doesn’t really care about, because the questions he REALLY wants to ask are ones he needs to really think about first to make sure he’s not being rude.

Minori’s reaction is a little more complex. Teru tells Rei that night that he seems angry, but his initial reply is just kind of curt. I don’t think he has a problem with Teru being gay or even with him being with Rei, but again, it goes back to the idea that this is the band’s last chance in Minori’s eyes, and now he knows that choices are being made for emotional reasons that have nothing to do with good creative or business sense. I think he also feels a little like he’s being pushed out of his own band; it’s sort of become the Teru and Rei Show, and this is maybe where Minori decides he isn’t really needed anymore.

There’s also a passing moment earlier in this scene where Minori mentions a couple of new planned concerts: this big countdown on New Year’s Eve, and a “three-man” on January 5. A three-man is just a show with three bands instead of the usual six or seven, which means they each get a longer set but also have a higher ticket sales quota before they make a profit, so it’s a good indicator of success.

Super observant readers MAY notice that the date of this three-man is also the anniversary of Saki’s death, and that the show is NOT at Rock Eden, meaning that Rei probably isn’t going to attend… Teru doesn’t make the connection until later, though.

After all of this, Teru goes home and has a fight with Rei… there’s not much to add beyond what’s on the page; I think he’s just sick of having to carry out all of Rei’s arguments with Minori on his behalf, and wants Rei to come to the meetings and rehearsals himself. On Rei’s part, I think he’s partly starting to feel jealous (which he’ll admit to later on) now that the band is starting to have some success, and starting to feel some of the physical effects of overwork, which is both causing him pain and making him worry about his own future. So even though they’re only partly frustrated with each other, they say some pretty terrible things to one another here. 😢

The next scene is Teru telling Kiyomi that he’s dating Rei… not everyone loves this. I know a lot of people don’t really understand why Kiyomi thought the relationship was so serious when they’d only been on a few dates… and honestly that reaction blew my mind, because this scene is PARTLY autobiographical. It was in the Kabukicho Doutor, not the Shibuya Starbucks, but I once showed up for what I THOUGHT was a coffee date with a guy I’d been out with a few times and REALLY liked, only for him to tell me he couldn’t “hang out with me” anymore because he’d gotten MARRIED since our last date. Like Teru here, he CLEARLY knew that I considered the relationship more serious than he did (otherwise he would’ve just not contacted me again, right? No need for the one-on-one confession?), and while I have to admit I pretty must just cried and left, rather than spilling coffee and ripping off jewelry like Kiyomi does, when she says “Give it all back”? That’s what I remember thinking at the time… that he’d taken something from me in the emotional energy I’d been putting into him while he’d clearly been having another more serious relationship all along. (I later found out he’d met his wife the same night he met me and just kinda… dated us both until he decided which one he wanted to focus on.)

So. Kiyomi isn’t being super mature here or anything but that wasn’t the point. Yet again, my fictional book is not a manual for how to have healthy relationships! 😬

Kiyomi does actually show up to work the merch tables at the band’s next show, which IS pretty mature of her. 99% of the reason she’s working for them in the first place is to get closer to Teru, but even when that falls through she does show up to work one last show and tell Minori she quits in person. She’s still really young and inexperienced and can do some really socially inept things, but this was supposed to be Kiyomi growing a little.

Teru’s also really worried about Rei during the show… this is where we sort of start to see the effects of Rei not taking great care of himself. He blames the weather, which is probably a part of it, and he definitely definitely didn’t help anything by falling into a table during the fight with Teru earlier in the chapter, but he’s also got about a million repetitive stress injuries that are definitely getting worse as the result of working on the album 24/7. And I think this TERRIFIES Rei. Up to now, he’s at least been able to rely on his left hand, but because he’s overusing it to walk with a cane, to type and play the keyboard all day, he’s starting to realize that he might not have that forever, either… so he’s starting to see a future in which Teru gets more and more successful while he gets more and more disabled. And that’s understandably scary. Of course, we all end up disabled someday (I mean, unless we die young, and that’s not exactly better.), and Teru is nothing but genuinely worried about Rei… but Rei is beginning to see the possibility that he might not be able to help Teru in the same way forever, that he might be more of a burden on Teru instead… and that obviously influences the awful, awful thing he’s about to do.

[nickgerlich]

Jet Set

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”



It’s an oft spoken phrase, and essentially it means that we should learn from our mistakes, hopefully never to repeat them. While we can also argue that we should learn from our successes—a topic broached by my podcast guest on 17th April—the broader point must be taken: We must always be in learning mode.

And with this the final episode of the Daily Blog for the Spring 2023 semester—can I get a hallelujah?— it is only fitting that I focus on just that. By now, you have long grown accustomed to my style. I write 700-900 words every morning, and whenever possible, try to wrap it up in a story. You know how you trick your dog to take its meds by wrapping those pills in cheese? Yeah. That’s my MO. The cheese is just the story. Inside is the stuff you need to take in.

For my parting shot, I choose to use an example that was actually suggested by one of my MBA students this term. It’s a good one, and even though it predates much of the digital era as we know it, the lessons are huge and just as applicable. It even spawned a four-part Netflix limited series late last year.

For now, put yourselves back in 1996. Coca-Cola and Pepsi have been locked in the Cola Wars for decades, a battle that intensified in the 1970s with the Pepsi Challenge and blind taste-testing taking center stage. Pepsi, long mired in second place, learned that in tests like those, consumers actually preferred the taste of that product instead of Coke. Yet those same shoppers were undeterred by reality: they kept buying Coke anyway, and the rankings never changed, even when Coca-Cola blinked in 1985 and killed “Old Coke,” replacing it with “New Coke,” and then having to backstroke by (re-)introducing Coca-Cola Classic.



That’s another story for a different day. In 1996, though, Pepsi decided it was time for a sweepstakes that encouraged brand loyalty and frequent consumption. Collect Pepsi Points from cans and bottles, and redeem them for merch. It is a campaign that many marketers have used through the years.

But wait, there’s more. Pepsi listed one especially interesting prize: a $23 million fighter jet. Who would possibly take Pepsi seriously when they said you could redeem seven million points for the jet? Well, a 20-year-old college student named John Leonard did, and he set out to claim his jet. The problem, though, was that Pepsi had also made it possible for people to acquire needed points pretty cheap—10 cents apiece.



Mr. Leonard thought on this. He could buy seven million points for $700,000. Being a college student, he did not have that kind of money around, but he convinced millionaire Todd Hoffman to front the money. Bingo. Todd had the points needed to get his $23 million fighter jet, a bargain considering he could do it for $700,000.

The only problem is that Pepsi wasn’t buying it. JK, they said. Surely no one would take them seriously, right?

But Mr. Leonard did, and took them to trial. He claimed it was an offer, and that he had complied. Fortunately for Pepsi, though, the court ruled that an advertising claim does not constitute a unilateral offer. “Whew,” said the folks at Pepsi HQ. That was a close one. Never mind the hoops and hurdles of—you know—actually delivering a military-grade fighter jet to a private citizen. The story is so legendary that Netflix released it as “Pepsi, Where’s My Jet?” It’s a great watch, something I did last winter shortly after it was released.

Even though Pepsi prevailed, it had massive amounts of egg on its face. How stupid could a company be to promote something it had no intention whatsoever of following through on? The message is clear for any marketer staging similar promotions: If you are kidding, then you need to make that abundantly clear. It costs money to defend yourself, even if you win. And the black eye it suffered was not worth any value it received from the rest of the folks redeeming points for far more mundane things.

Now skip forward—notice how we no longer say fast-forward like in the days of VHS—to the digital era. Imagine how this would have played out on social media. It would have been far bigger, and millions more people would have known. Class action lawsuits would have been filed. Major media coverage would have ensued. I suspect there would have been boycotts, because…why not?

This is a sad story for Pepsi, but they are lucky it happened in 1996 instead of 2023. I really didn’t even need to wrap cheese around this one, because it is tasty on its own. I mean, unless you work for Pepsi. I can only imagine folks in the C-suite at Coca-Cola giddy with laughter.

Complicating matters is that, as we have discussed just this week, sometimes companies do things for shock value because they think or know it will all work out in the end anyway. Ask the folks at AB InBev about that. Or, listen to the latest podcast episode tomorrow in which I feature the Mayor of Uranus. Yeah. Shock. Insert every double entendre you can imagine. He wins; Pepsi lost.

It has been my pleasure to serve as your guide this term. It is customary that I leave you with a benediction. It will feel strange tomorrow morning knowing that I don’t need to write a blog until the 5th of June for summer term. It will be great that I have more time to work on a couple of book projects I put on the back burner.

Now may you all go forward with the realization that you must be information sponges in order to be an informed businessperson. May you keep your eyes, ears, and—most importantly—your minds open to the changes around you. And may you act responsibly, ethically, and professionally in all that you do. Good health, and shalom, y’all.

Dr “Stay In Touch—I Mean it“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

[yama-uba]

This post is here to once again remind you to take part in signing petitions that should fill the Valve office to the second floor. It won't cost you much, but it might give our dear old game a chance. https://save.tf/

And I also want to talk it out so I can finally get this out of my head. In the last week, there was so much news and content on TF2 in my information field, more than I have consumed in total over the past three years. The final chord was listening to cover songs, re-voiced by the voices of the original voice actors using neural networks. As a result, I dreamed that a trailer for a certain game was released on YpuTube…

In general, it was a new numbered part of this team shooter, even the demonstration of the name of which looked like a joke. At first the screen displayed “Team Fortress 2+1”, then it changed to “Team Fortress 2.2”, and then it was changed to “Team Fortress III”, where the letter “I” in the middle fell at an angle after a second, causing the number to become in "N". Someone immediately added the remaining words and as a result the name of the game was demonstrated as “TF: New age”.

The announced slogans read “New mechanics. New environment. New items… And the new generation." And in the kaleidoscope of gameplay demo-frames, one could really see how the Übercharge mechanics were reworked, parkour/wall running mechanics were introduced, mechanics for destroying the environment and objects on the map were introduced, assistance and team kills were expanded to a full-fledged development tree. And also a little else, but I either couldn’t remember it or didn’t have time to notice it due to the fast modern pace of games. By the way, instead of the “best kill streak” after the round, cinematics were displayed, clearly directed in the game engine, and not previously filmed, where the characters of the team players interacted with each other in various ways, depending on how “teamwise” the gamers played. And at the end of the game, the character of the most successful player was rocked by the team in their arms to applause. I've NEVER thought about a placeholder like this instead of a progress bar, but I've ALWAYS desperately needed it.

And “New age” completely changed the vibe and theme of the spirit of the game: Despite the fact that the game was still bright, but restrained in color, it became a little darker and more brutal. Now, analyzing my dream, I can say that this happened due to the transition from the atomicpunk setting of the 60s to the B-movie setting of the 80s. Yes, the events of the new TF take place in the 80s with the corresponding OST (swing and the orchestra was replaced by synthesizer and synthpop), with the corresponding historical context (the collapse of the USSR, Japan is strangling the USA with its beautiful cheap goods, and so on), as well as the corresponding style (leather pants , colorful shirts, bouffant hairstyles, psychedelic interiors of the 80s).

And since this is all happening 20 years later… I observed only 2 character classes who lived to see the events of the new part. If anything, I hope the rest of the team wasn't shown just because they retired. The only one for whom age is just a number is the Medic. Not only is he perfectly preserved from his "meet the" moment, with only silver hair and a pair of crow's feet at the corners of his eyes, but he continues to be a playable class. He still runs fast, cuts people on the battlefield and on the surgical table, and is still the same loud psycho. He still doesn’t change his white shirts, although he has changed the style of the coat and optimized the medigun to a standard-sized weapon without a backpack, but with new mechanics. He also got a Mossberg 500 as a secondary weapon and an ice pick for his finishing animation (lobotomy reference, I guess). In snippets of videos like SFM, he has a one-way dialogue with Archimedes (either this is a new bird, or his recipe for immortality applies not only to people) and an urn with ashes, which he calls Heavy. When someone from the new team intervenes in his monologue dialogue, he says that giving eternal life to Mikhail was his best and dumbest decision at the same time. Having received immortality and retired, Misha died a week later, choking on his snoring in his sleep due to lying on his back. Ludwig still works as a mercenary, but his boss is now 25-year-old Olivia Munn, whom he affectionately calls Ollie. Accordingly, his team color is now gray-green, and the set of cosmetics dedicated to the release of the game is very similar to the green uniform of real surgeons. Olivia looks more like Elizabeth from Bioshock in a green aerobics suit and a black leather jacket with a voluminous bouffant. She dotes on her old favorite (Medic) among the “meat dolls” in the form of a team of thugs. They are her living body armor, her errand boys and confidants in the war for world domination against the purple team. Purple… Well, this is the team of our beloved Administrator, who is still called that by the mercenaries from TF2 and Olivia, and the new thugs don’t understand why. She herself was not shown in the trailer, but the main quartermaster of her will is still Miss Polling. Or should this MILF no longer be called Miss? At least, when the new team is training with the 40-year-old Scout (not a playable character, more serving for the game's lore), he says that he knows very well that he cannot contradict this woman, because, otherwise, the team will go through all that hell. what he himself went through when he was going through a divorce from her. Basically, the retired marathon runner immerses the team and trailer viewers into the current state of affairs on the world stage and new mechanics. And when they ask him that if he is such an experienced soldier of fortune, then why doesn’t he lead the attack, Jeremy throws his feet up on the tactical table and says that now it’s not fitting for such a respectable man like him to rush and jump. In addition to the ragged scar on his face, his past is revealed by the prosthetics of both his legs below the knee. This runner will no longer fuss on the battlefield.

By the way, I didn’t write about which characters now occupy mercenary classes in “New Age”: Scout appears to be Sicilian, but I'm not sure since his first cosmetic set looked like a traditional bullfighter outfit; The soldier - perhaps it was the Briton shown in the trailer (judging by the trademark coldness, self-irony, strong-willed chin with a dimple, long nose and protruding Adam's apple), since it was he who had a cosmetic outfit form of a biplane pilot's suit, and perhaps it was a reference to a rocket-jump; Arsonist - either he was not shown, or I have already forgotten part of the dream with him; The bomber is definitely a Western Slavic man, most likely a Pole, who has this written all over his face, from his always dissatisfied, silent face; Machine Gunner is a huge, charming Mexican extrovert who speaks excellent English and does not shut up for a second and does not know the personal boundaries of other people (but because of his size and volume, no one dares to be rude to him); The engineer is a Japanese man, who in a minute of screen time managed to demonstrate his bunch of mental illnesses in the form of OCD, monstrous perfectionism, asymmetriophobia, mysophobia and love of killing with the help of mechanisms (his first cosmetic set is a reference to Emmerich from MGS, and instead of turrets, server stations were demonstrated, releasing flying mini-drones of various specializations from killing to constructing shelters for the team from the debris generated on the battlefield); Medic – everything is clear with the green team, but this class was not shown on the purple team; The sniper is a frightening Canadian with his charm and calmness, who does not even have a voice line with screams of death, and, having committed a series of murders, he quietly and naturally says something like “My mistake. I’m sorry,” as if he has just accidentally hity someone with my elbow; Spy - just like Piro, I either didn’t remember him or he wasn’t shown.

And at the end of the trailer, when I was ready to scream with delight, a “teaser part” was shown, where more powerful forces in the form of an entire country intervene in the war between olive and purple! The Australians, seeing that humanity is using their metal to kill each other, and not for good purposes, declare themselves the world's gendarmes and intend to confiscate all their "vibranium". Of course, the whole world does not agree with this. The Third World War begins with a race of people with superpowers, where disparate countries are trying to resist and snatch the super-precious metal for themselves by any means, even if this means concluding a temporary alliance with Australia. The world is rapidly losing to a civilization with advanced technologies, surrounded by oceans in a remote part of the planet, where there are spiders the size of Indian elephants and emu-tyrannosaurs capable of destroying a platoon of special forces (do not forget that absolutely everything there is marsupial and deadly poisonous), and the average Australian child is at times superior to a trained weightlifter.

The mysterious figure in the picture receives honors in connection with his appointment as the elected "king" of Australia in the form of an offering of a wide-brimmed hat made from the skin of a kangaroo, which he defeated in a fair fight. Subordinates ask the new head of state what his first order will be. The figure grins and orders all the Australium they managed to confiscate from other countries to be sent to the Sydney laboratories. … Black screen and mysterious unknown. I would like to believe that it could be Mr Mundy, but this is impossible due to the fact that this class only has 125HP, even if we consider that Australians have no prejudice against a foreigner in their presidential seat. It would also be TOO fanservicey. Most likely it would be Saxton Hale to form the trio of faction “bosses”, because their relationship is like a triangle, where one woman is the Australian’s former flame, and the second stole his company in the most dishonest of ways.

At the end of the video, something like a first-person interview is shown in relation to the viewer, where a crowd of journalists sits (their techniques, hairstyles and outfits still correspond to the 80s era) opposite the table at which the interviewee sits. A bunch of microphones, spotlights and cameras are directed at the viewer, silence falls and even the ambient music fades away. The youngest of the journalists awkwardly asks a question to the viewer like “Sir, please tell us a little about yourself.” And that damn thing was just a brilliant reference to the “meet the” videos! At the moment where the viewer was shown the new game mode “Relay Race”, my alarm clock woke me up. And I couldn’t fall asleep anymore because I was overwhelmed by a storm of emotions; I didn’t immediately realize that all this was happening in a dream. It was very sad that these were fantasies that I invented for myself…

You need to have low expectations so as not to be disappointed. And, regarding Valve’s new project, I want to say that they were 5-8 years late to publish a steampunk shooter in the form of a hybrid of Doka and Overwatch. Children want to play games where they can come up with a game for themselves, and not go online as a job to earn pieces of content generated by a neural network for free access.

In any case, I felt better when I wrote all this multi-page nonsense and now I won’t think about it all the time) I hope that not many people will read what is hidden under the cut.