#<- well not really. but putting this in my liveblog tag will make it easier for me to find

[riddlerosehearts]

okay. so. overall i loved this latest twst update but there were a couple things i didn't 100% love and i'll talk about one of them in this post: the shroud parents being so nice and loving and helpful seriously threw me off last time they appeared because i thought they always seemed so emotionally distant before. both from how idia talked about them on occasion and how they never once appeared in his very lengthy, two-part overblot flashback, not when he was shutting himself in his room for 2 whole years or when he finished creating ortho--the only adults we ever saw were STYX researchers. so like, i'd always had the impression that they weren't necessarily The Worst Parents Ever but that they were just so busy with their work that they forgot to pay attention to their kids. and when they first appeared in book 7, it felt like they were behaving exactly how a lonely little robot boy who knew that he was "replacing" their dead son would want them to act, and even looked that way too with the daft punk helmets giving them a robotic look. it just seemed too good to be true imo.

after that update came out i had read a theory that said maybe malleus was so powerful that he could put even a robot to sleep, and that that was what we were seeing: ortho dreaming of getting to be a hero and save the day, and getting to have this perfect happy family. i loved that idea. i probably should've realized a twist like that wasn't going to happen when we still hadn't checked back in on ortho after so many months, but i just thought, and still think, that it would be so compelling if ortho wished to be loved and accepted so badly that some part of him deep down had become human enough to dream, or at least for malleus to be able to bring out that part of him. if his parents weren't so loving in reality and maybe didn't even fully accept him as their son, so he dreamt that they would--which is a heartbreaking thought, but i definitely would not have put it past twst to do that. i also just like... think it would be neat if the development ortho has been getting in events and vignettes, which heavily focuses on his growing sense of autonomy and how he's started to have his own desires outside of his intended purpose of just Being Idia's Brother, was given a little more focus in the main story.

anyway though. obviously that theory just got obliterated by canon! so i guess the most logical explanation for the discrepancy in the shroud parents' portrayal might be that they were too emotionally distant and focused on their work before, and remained that way for a long time after ortho's death, but eventually they "woke up" and realized they'd never really been there for their sons. losing one of them changed them for the better and now they really are that helpful and sweet. if their behavior seems too good to be true then it could be because they're trying their hardest to make up for the years they wasted, to be a proper family now. maybe they didn't accept ortho for the longest time out of grief and that's part of why they never appeared in idia's flashback, but they later decided that just because they can never truly regain or replace the son they lost, doesn't mean they can't treasure the one they still have and the one that they've gained. and i guess the shroud parents still fully accepting ortho and loving him as one of their own despite the tragedy that led them to become family, and despite the fact that ortho does not have the shroud family blood flowing through his (nonexistent) veins, would parallel the bond that lilia has with silver and malleus... oh. okay. i think i've kinda just talked myself into feeling better about this, actually.

[cb-writes-stuff]

HEAVY ISAT SPOILERS. IF YOU DON’T HAVE ANY SPOILER TAGS FILTERED BUT DON’T WANT TO GET SPOILED, DO NOT GO PAST THE CUT.

Anyway. Let’s talk about Isabeau. And my feelings.

(Come on, you can’t expect me to play ISAT and not talk about my feelings.)

(This is not a silly post. All my other ISAT liveblogging posts have been silly, but this one is not. Not even slightly. If you’re only here for silly stuff, then you’re not here for this. But hey, you should read it anyway. You don’t have to like or reblog or anything. Sometimes it’s worth getting another perspective.)

Still here? Hmm. Maybe you do have tags filtered, and you wanted to see what this was about anyway? Hmm. I’ll make the least important words colored, juuuust in case.

I’m doing Isabeau’s help, and he talks about who he was before Changing. Smart, nerdy, always has the right answers, always gets good grades, can’t make friends on the playground, can’t even ask for a pen from a classmate, all that. And I was reading it, and I could really relate. That sounded a lot like me when I was younger. Not the braids part, though. But that’s not the point. It still kinda sounds like me. I have friends, and they’re great, but I can’t meet anyone new. Can’t befriend anyone new. I’ve tried a few times to go ask a place if they were hiring, and I just… couldn’t. I wasn’t paralyzed, but… I was so terrified of approaching anyone. So I just kept wandering around, until I told my ride I just wanted to go home. And I felt really crappy. If I can’t do this, how am I ever gonna live my life? How am I gonna do anything beyond basic human interactions?

But… I can’t change who I am. I’d tell myself, “I’m not that person anymore, I’m not gonna get anxious, I’m gonna be able to ask.” And then I go, and I get anxious, and I can’t ask. It’s not that easy. You can’t just change who you are. Am I wrong? Genuinely, am I? And if you can, is it really worth killing your self, as Isabeau puts it? Past self or no, it’s still yours.

…Truth be told, that sounds terrifying. Ripping out the parts of me that I’m familiar with, tearing up the version of me I know. It’s much easier to stay the same. I can’t change. Neither can I Change. I don’t really have a reason to, but… Well, I guess that’s not true. But—that’s just not how it works for me. Maybe other people can change. Completely reinvent themselves. Become someone totally new, yet be who they always were. But not me. I’m not Isabeau. Sure, he might be happy, love himself, etc. And if I’m not those things, that’s fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll find ways to do those without changing. I have to, since changing isn’t an option. I just… can’t.

[denblockedreboot]

Denblocked Reboot

 What is this?

Denblocked is a fan adventure I made back on the MSPA forums, waaaay back in the early 2010s. It was mirrored here and here, though I was never able to keep the mirrors up to date.

 A Homestuck FA in 2023? Really?

Really. I've had it on the mind for some time, and when it comes down to it, this is a story that I would like to 1) finish, and 2) share.

 What is this "reboot" going to look like?

There's going to be changes, big and small. I hope to share a story that feels both familiar and fresh.

In practical terms, I'm planning to update here and on AO3, primarily with image+text updates. Given the nature of both sites, I expect to be more text-heavy than I was before. I'd like to do animations and such as well, we'll see.

 Will there be reader input?

Absolutely! Reader suggestions can add a lot of variety and fun to the story, as evidenced by Homestuck itself.

I will moderate responses and even close comments if absolutely necessary, but I really hope it won't come to that.

 Sources?

Aside from rereading Homestuck prime itself, I read all of Candy and part of Meat. I've played the first Hiveswap installment. That's the extent of my experience with Official Homestuck Content (also, Paradox Space).

I've also been following/reading these two liveblogs. Aside from that, I've been going over my old Denblocked installments, though the death of the forum and general age of the work has cut into that some.

 That's not how [thing] works.

A lot of Homestuck elements are ambiguous or retconned one way or another. The plan is to be faithful without reinventing the wheel, but also not copying every single line. It's a tough balance.

Also some endgame choices still rub me the wrong way and Hussie has limited power here, so anticipate some changes!

 Will [character] be in here?

We'll see!

 How long is this going to be?

Again, we'll see. I've been condensing some early elements to make more sense, move faster, etc. I'm planning to post the beginning of Act 1 Part 1 before January is over. My Ultimate Goal is to keep posting until the story is entirely finished, however long that ultimately takes.

The current plan is to post more regular-style short updates to the Denblocked Tumblr, then collate all of one part to make a chapter on AO3 until the Act in question is done. Then, start a new fic for the next Act until the story is done (My current estimate is 3 Acts, much shorter than Homestuck's count ofc. That may grow or change as more updates are forthcoming.)

Why a new Denblocked Blog?

To be frank, the previous blog is a mess that I haven’t worked on in a while. I think it would be simpler and easier just to start fresh, though the old blog will remain up for posterity.

Also.... A lot of people have turned from love to hate re: Homestuck, or generally think it's cringe. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I totally get where a lot of this is coming from. That said, if you don't like Homestuck.... I think maybe you won't enjoy reading a Homestuck Fan Adventure.

For Tumblr users: would you rather see Longer Posts put under Readmores, or would you rather they be posted at full length and let the auto-shorten function do its work?

Lastly, for Tumblr Tags, I will be tagging the first post of an Act with “Homestuck”, but just the first post.

[ID: An Homestuck-style sprite with orange skin and a tiny fang stands in her room. She is ready to start.] See you soon!

[tittyblade]

tumblr etiquette 101

a list that is nowhere near exhaustive, from yours truly.

First off, welcome! Whether you’re a twitter veteran looking for anything but whatever twitter is, or a new user just done signing up, glad to see you in our ranks beloveds! Welcome home. Refer to this quick tour to make sure your fandom experience (or tumblr experience in general) is a positive one!

Disclaimer: I know it’s long, but please try to read or skim through til the end if you’re new here! This is by no means meant to be a rule book (for the most part lol), only a guide to help you get settled easier!

1) Your blog

This is where people will see and interact with you, so put some effort into it!

Try to choose a name (url) that’s simple. You can see it as your brand, it’s how people will perceive you and remember you. If you’d like to interact with other users here (and not use the site just for the content) it’s better to have something short and sweet, preferably without spaces. (Of course, these are only suggestions.) Rest assured, you can change it literally any time you want.

Have a theme. Utilize the tool that lets you edit your blog’s color or the font of your bio! You can make it match your profile picture, or your blog if it has a theme of its own. Make it feel homey :]

Fill in your bio. People will be checking out your profile probably more often than you think. Don’t leave it empty! Put in any information you’re comfortable with sharing and isn’t too personal (like your age if you’re a minor, or other TMI that can be found on other people’s carrds). It’s always better to add a name/nickname people can use to refer to you by, but feel free to use your blog description to shitpost still.

You can have an intro post. More often than not, you’ll see a blog have a pinned post, a post permanently appearing at the top of a blog until you pin another post or unpin it. You can make one of those, if you’d like to introduce yourself in more length, link any other socials or a carrd, and show others visiting your blog how you tag things so it’ll be easy for them to navigate. Not an obligation.

Keep your anonymity and your safety. It should go without saying, but there’s no harm in repeating it just in case. Your comfort, privacy and safety has the utmost importance. Don’t share any information you don’t want to. Don’t share your age if you’re a minor, or any other incredibly personal info. I’d encourage you to go by a nickname that’s not your real name, (blog name, your brand, remember?) since there’s safety in anonymity, and that’s lowkey one of the big deals of tumblr, but that’s up to you still.

Choose what you want to be visible. Your liked posts and who you follow are all things you can set to keep to yourself and hide from the publics eye, how handy! You should go through all the setting while you’re at it, set it to your comfort.

Side blogs are a thing. You can have multiple blogs that you can use for different things (see: different fandoms, art blog, etc) to keep them organized or away from your followers. Just remember that the replies and off-anon asks you send will be from your main blog, as well as where you follow other blogs from.

2) Interacting with others

You’ve set up your account, now comes the fun part!

Follow to your heart’s desire. If you care about others seeing who you follow, fear not! In tumblr, usually only two types of blogs keep their following visible to others: newbies, and big blogs using it to point people on other good blogs’ direction. Just turn it off, and go ham following people.

Customize your dashboard. Gonna mention just two things here: this is another reason why it’s really important that you follow blogs without sparing, your dash will collect dust otherwise; and you should turn off “best stuff first” in your dashboard settings, to have a better community here and all.

Follow tags. You can set it in your settings that posts with your followed tags appear on your dashboard.

You can check the og post for edits and context. When you see a reblogged post you don’t understand the context of (or don’t recognize the character in case of fanarts), click on the profile so it will take you to the original post. From there you can check the original poster’s tags to get the context, or see if there have been any edits made to the post, since when you edit a post it doesn’t update any past reblogs.

Send people asks... This is how you make mutuals, people! Do it off-anon if you’d like them to know your blog, or anon if you’d rather not! (You can still end your messages with a signature to show you’re the same person, -[name] is one example.) Send them nice messages, ask their opinion on something, discuss things, or just straight up shitpost lol. Go wild. The sky’s your limit and it’s definitely more than 280 characters.

...and let them ask you! You can set your preference in the settings, do it on desktop tumblr to access more settings tho! What you can customize on mobile is limited (like letting people ask you things anonymously, that’s only on desktop settings). In my personal opinion, it’s always better to tag their username (or a nickname you give them, if they’re a friend) on that post, since you wouldn’t want your interactions with your friends to get buried in your blog forever.

Comment on posts. If you have something to say but don’t want the post to appear on your blog you can add a comment. The owner of the post will get a notif for it, but for anyone else you need to tag them.

For the love of god, reblog. People will only see your liked posts if you have it visible to public and they specifically go on your blog to look at them. You like something? You reblog. It’s already hard for posts to circulate properly, if you don’t reblog them literally no one will see them. If not for anything do it for the artists. Just hold and drag on mobile to fast rb.

3) Your Posts

Finally here! Don’t be a lurker, post and engage!

Make use of “read more”. If your post is long, add it. That’s what you clicked on earlier to expand this post. On desktop leave an empty line and you’ll see three dots appear, and on mobile type :readmore: on that empty line.

Draft a post to come back to it later. Pretty self explanatory.

Queue your post. Whether it’s your own post or you’re reblogging, make use of the queue feature to a) not spam reblog and fill up the dashboard of people following you and b) keep your blog active while you’re gone. Mess around in the settings, it’s fairly easy to set up.

Schedule your post. Same as queueing, the only difference is you get to choose the exact time your post will go up. Handy if you want to schedule a post for certain dates like april fools, or 5 years in the future for some reason. 

Format your texts. You can do all kinds of fancy stuff here (that’s a link, try pressing on it). Twitter doesn’t have this, make use of it. Changes depending on whether you’re on mobile or desktop. (Desktop has less features.)

Check your stats. If you’re trying to understand the algorithm better or want to look at some pretty graphs you can get your data on that on desktop tumblr.

@ people in comments. You’ll get all the notifs when people comment on your posts but they won’t see your reply unless you tag them in your message.

4) Tags, and tagging a post

This is where my earlier statement “this isn’t a rule book” stops being applicable. It’s not a war crime to go against these, I won’t come chasing you (don’t take my word for this) but you’ll work up a bad rep. Just saying lol.

Do NOT crosstag posts. It’s really tempting to add unrelated tags to increase your posts’ interaction, I know, but that’s not what tumblr is about. Don’t be a dick and make other communities’ experience worse for them.

Always tag your posts with “crit/critical/discourse/etc” if it calls for it. There’s no exceptions to it. This is the reason you see people migrating to tumblr. Let people enjoy things.

Don’t main tag a critical/negative post. If your crit post is about “Thing”, you add the “Thing critical” tag, but not the “Thing” tag. People block crit tags if they don’t want to see it, don’t shove it in their faces by main tagging it. 

If you don’t want to see something, just block it. Another reason why people are able to survive on tumblr. You don’t start discourse, you don’t make call-outs, you block. You can find something for every community you can think of if you go looking for it. The worst of the worst probably won’t ever appear on your dash, but if you’re worried or feel the need for it, you know where the block button is.

Feel free to shitpost or ramble. More often than not you’ll see people rb a post with a comment, and their elaboration will be in the tags. The tags are only visible on your profile and the notifications of the owner of the og blog. Just a thing people do.

Reblog artists’ posts with nice comments in the tags! Commenting on a drawing is usually done through the tags (Not an obligation, again, just a thing people do. Feel free to add your comment on the rb itself if you’d want other people to see it tho!) and leave nice messages for the artists! It’s a win-win for everyone involved. 

If you have more than a single follower, always use the common tw warning tags. You don’t need to tw everything, but tw’ing some common things is the bare minimum human decency. Keep it safe for others. 

Tag a post “long post” if it’s really long. Pretty self explanatory. Don’t make people scroll through all that please lol. 

You can use them to organize your blog. This is more of a pro tip, if you’d like to not miss a post in your blog, cause they will start pilin’ up soon enough.

#Liveblogging is pretty fun. If you’d like to talk to people during streams, don’t forget to add the relevant tags still! Again, you won’t show up on people’s dash otherwise.

Whew! That got out of hand. Hopefully I didn’t bore you too much. Check out blogs like @heritageposts and @hellsite-hall-of-fame to honor our past o7. @mcytblr-hall-of-fame too maybe :eyes:. Anyways, don’t forget the most important rule of them all:

Enjoy your stay! You’re meant to have fun on here while also making friends (if that’s your thing). Just be kind and respectful of others, you’ll get the hang of the rest! <3

[scoups4lyfe]

Hi Karen anon here, long time no see (cause 8 just check tumblr like once a week and that just to read your liveblog. Usually i come to check it on Wed cause uhh I keep remembering the 30 hours anon lol chile anyway).

See, thanks to the newly added tags it did make my reading easier. But, I was scrolling for fun when I encountered the (excuse me if this sound rude) that mf 'interesting' anon. So pls excuse me while I put my Karen wig on

I know this is just Tumblr but people should really be professional. Your blog isnt a ship blog or whatever (though I noticed you just merely implying it sometime) so I found it really annoying that the anon attack you for something taht didnt have anything to do at all. Cause well, I will be honest. Im just interested in your blog bc of the fun af liveblog and the amazing analysis (i read the Ikki analysis so much its my bed time story/hj). And Im quite sure almost everyone who came to your blog is also come for the same reason. So what our personal ship is irrelevant to this blog (well at least thats how far I observed it)

*Taking my wig off* now that was done.

As always, I enjoy reading the live blog. Though I find it weird that in the ep 22 preview, it felt like everything go back to normal? Like Hiromi didn't just unalived down the cliff 😂. But well I will be anxiously waiting for that ep 🙏🙏

Also funny story, so I am someone who likes spoiler. So I will search spoiler on twitter first. Apparently, they all said that Daiji was useless in ep 21 and Im like "Naurr dont be mean to Daiji guysss" (bc they say that /every episode/ it basically a joke). Unfortunately, after watching ep 21 myself Daiji did feel even more....useless (this is strictly my opinion I swear lmao). Like, nah Daiji I cant defend you anymore like this 😂

Well sorry for the long af ask. Thank you for your hardwork and I will wait for the Oltecca(?) analysis. See you next week 🥰🥰 (take care of your health. The covid cases in country really spike up so hard this week 😔)

KAREN ANON????

Ayyyyy howdy buddy.

I'm glad the new tags help LOL

JDSKFJASDFJSDFDSF

THE KAREN WIG

'm glad for your wig'ed defense 🤣🤣🤣🤣 and yessssssssss

yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

I'm glad you like my analysis posts LOL!! And awh <333 it's always nice to hear y'all are having fun with the nonsense I've thrown into the abyss aasjdfjsdfjdf

AND YEAH G, I felt the SAME seeing the next episode preview. Really lol'ed cause it felt like we went back to the 'monster of the week' episodes aksdjflkjsdfj.

Tho I know the writers like to troll with us so idk I wouldn't be surprised if every other moment in that episode is just 'sibs mourning' hours. Sooooo funny too cause if it isn't,,,, and everyone's actin like nothing happened lmaooo that's STILL in character

#repress repress repress LOL

AHHHH USELESS DAIJI !!! BROOOO

soooo funny that's Daiji's pet peeve about himself too lasjdfksdf ;;;that he can't ever seem to do anything (esp when it really matters LOL!)

See, Daiji hates being the "damsel in distress" but that's all he was ever taught to be (cause Ikki and Sakura literally did everything else) and that was another big reason why he went out into the world and got some crazy asf job -- because he wanted to prove to himself too that he's able to do things on his own

but likeeeeeee, idk old habits die hard hahahaha

(Also doesn't help that in times of great stress Daiji clams up instead of being able to properly react to the situation. Aka he just shuts down.)

My homie is still learning just *how* to do things on his own, and then the Kagerou fratricide-stint really had him back-sliding in any positive development he had previously LOL!!!

My homie is the picture boy for Learned Helplessness

"People that experience repeated abuse and other aversive situations eventually learn to become helpless if nothing they do changes it. It’s as if they internalize that since nothing worked in that situation, nothing will work in similar situations, either. The trauma begins to erode two other critical aspects of mental well-being — self-efficacy and internal locus of control."

haha yoinks. Man I wish we got more flashbacks of the Igarashi sibs past cause DAMN. Pls man give me some bread in this desert.

"Self-efficacy is your level of confidence that you can tackle challenges and learn new skills. Internal locus of control is the degree to which you believe your circumstances are under your control. When these two traits are high, you feel confident and empowered, even when things get tough. Stressors seem controllable, and you know that you can trust yourself to do your best.

When learned helplessness takes over, though, you don’t feel so sure of your ability to handle challenges. You don’t believe that what you do makes a difference, and that makes it hard to see a way out — let alone a silver lining."

(These quotes are taken from: 'What is Learned Helplessness and how do you 'unlearn' It?' blog post/article)

Anyways It's obvious that Ikki's over-parenting has lead to this situation. And I think what makes it worse is that Sakura is more useful/helpful than he is.

(She wants to be seen as capable so she steps up to do as much as she can / to manage what Ikki isn't able to)

So now he's placed in the position of being especially useless LOL.

Anyways, Daiji has a lotttt of problems :')). He's literally the perfect target for cult recruitment.

(Which might be one of the reasons why he's still so quick to defend shady ass Fenix. Fenix is one of the few things he positively attributes to himself, so if Fenix is bad then that just means Daiji's failed *again* at doing the right, correct, moral, 'good', thing.

It's the *only* thing he has giving him any lick of worth. The only thing making him useful. Everything he's accomplished will go to ZILCH the moment Fenix isn't part of the 'good guys.' So,,,for him its just easier to ignore all the red flags. Cause he doesn't want to hate himself more than he already does, rip.)

[colorsofmyseason]

I posted 11,749 times in 2021

987 posts created (8%)

10762 posts reblogged (92%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 10.9 posts.

I added 14,963 tags in 2021

#arsenal fc - 2954 posts

#arsenal - 2953 posts

#bayern munich - 2263 posts

#fc bayern - 2259 posts

#incorrect football quotes - 870 posts

#incorrect quotes - 868 posts

#liveblog - 840 posts

#incorrect arsenal quotes - 778 posts

#germany nt - 625 posts

#leon goretzka - 553 posts

Longest Tag: 135 characters

#and manu is like 'he is a baby joshua. he will never do anything wrong he needs to be protected he doesnt know what hes doing yet ❤️❤️'

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

I think at this point it's easier for us to put up a starting XI of injured players than the healthy ones

60 notes • Posted 2021-04-09 12:27:32 GMT

#4

Mutuals Appreciation Post

So, a little warning here: I’m really bad at words! I’ll try to write some stuffs to express to you guys how much I appreciate you all for being here for me this year and keeping me sane during the pandemic, but I’m sorry if I can’t do it as nicely as I’ve seen some of you did :( so here we go..

@manuelmueller - after being a silent reader of your writings for awhile, we finally talked to each other on Tumblr! I really enjoy all of our talks and those little scenarios we made (some of them NEED to make their way to your writings, really XD) and of course to simp together over Bayern and their disastrous yet adorable couple that is Neuller. Thank you for encouraging me especially in writing my own fics, love you <3

@marcquez - my fellow Indonesian Gooner (though we never talk in our native language, ever, I wonder why XD). Thank you for accompanying me in stanning a huge mess of a club that is Arsenal (but as messed up as they are, we know we will always love them). Hope things will be better on 2021, both for you and for them ^^

@coffeebreakcreations - my favorite writing partner! Thanks for letting me dump all my random ideas to you and for helping me get through some stumbling blocks in my writings ^^ you even wrote me a whole eight pages of scenes for a fic that I haven’t finished to this day :’( I’m sorry, I promise I will try to be better this year, and good luck for your AU as well! I know you faced some obstacles yourself but hope things will improve for you this year!

@nikisuele - another Bayern-lover mutual! Thank you for the lovely cover you made me for my fic (also it’s the very thing that made us start talking? XD) and the nice Bernd edit you made, I still have it as the lockscreen on my phone ^^ thanks for stanning over Bayern and especially one certain papa bear with me, hope we’ll still continue to do so this year and you can finish your fic too, I can’t wait to read it in its entirety :)

@butterflyliverpoolkopite - another amazing writing partner, and one I never expected before, since you’re a Liverpool fan, but thanks for talking about stories about me on Tumblr and helping me expand my own AU as well! Hope you can write something out from all those mess we’ve created for the past few months, lmao. Also, goodness, your knowledge about Premier League there really blows me out of water! I wish all the best for your favorite club as well ^^

@thegametheboysandthearsenal - another Gooner mutual! Thank you for sharing your love towards our beautiful yet problematic club with me, and I always look for those pictures on your sideblog after every game ^^ thanks for talking with me continuously even when I’ve made you slept late more than one occasion XD keep going strong!!

@julibrandtt - also an unexpected mutual especially because you love the wrong side of North London ^^ but I can safely say I enjoy our friendly banters regarding our respective club and I’m looking forward for more of it XD I also know how 2020 has been treating you and I wish things will be better for you this year, stay happy and spirited!

@duckysweater - again, a Gooner mutual, and someone I frequently have random banters about anything that happens to pass our minds at the moment ^^ love it though, even if you sometimes confuse me whenever you change your URL name (and it happens every so often lmao). Keep being your awesome self and never change dear!

@cercissis - I love the random photos you posted on your Tumblr, lmao. Though probably we don’t talk every so often, I always enjoy our conversations, whenever it is <3

@spains - fellow Gooner and also a fan of Germany national team ^^ we also don’t talk every so often but you can be sure I’ll always be waiting for a nice chat with you! Wish you luck for college, dear!

And also, for those whom I’ve hardly interacted directly with aside from liking or reblogging their posts, I want you all to know that your presence cheers me up all the same, I always love seeing your posts on my dash and I wish we can talk more this year! So, honorable mentions for @euro2016changedme @thefutureduchessmarie @schwein-ski @elishamanning @magicmartinelli @fabioquartararhoe @petri-cheers @alex-iwobi @once-a-gunner-again @bergkamp @ultragooner89 @goonerkiki @artetass @arsenal-has-me-depressed @marcos-rossi @inlovewithamess @loftuscheeks @katiemccabesbisceps @slightlyconfuseddaydreamertrash @meteora-fc @hectorsbabie @kroosmadrid @andygravitee @moroslavklose @formulawolff @miasanmuller @everybodylovesper @mitchless @russellwestbrook @ermuellert @aboutmanuelneuer @mwnchens @laurenault @wtfbayern @tacas15 @jordanastudies @poulnabrone @campress @mccleans @swiftletinthecloud @mathematical-fussball @vivalachampions and perhaps many others that I can’t mention one by one, I’m sorry!

Happy New Year for you all and hope 2021 treats you better than 2020!

60 notes • Posted 2021-01-01 06:09:08 GMT

#3

I swear our goalkeepers can actually pass as siblings 😂😂😂

61 notes • Posted 2021-10-09 03:35:42 GMT

#2

Mesut's farewell letter for Arsenal 🥲🥲🥲

Farewell, Mesut, all the best for you in Turkey!

74 notes • Posted 2021-01-24 14:25:13 GMT

#1

LEON PLEASE DON'T, DON'T TURN OUR SWEET BABY BAMBI INTO YOUR DISCIPLE YET 😭😭😭

79 notes • Posted 2021-06-21 11:53:10 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[tieria-erde]

cam i have to know as someone who just got into something niche as well how Do you stay alive with such little content

ok so i don't know how much this will apply to axiom verge since it's significantly more recent than gundam 00 and from what it seems has never had a very active or large fanbase. but i will tell you my methods

(had to put my methods under a readmore because i loveeee talking. especially about 00. so sorry for all this shit you'll have to read)

something i used to do concerningly often is that i would choose a character from gundam 00 and scroll through, literally, their entire tumblr tag from beginning to end. every single post from the last 10+ years. UNFORTUNATELY because tumblr is horrible i think they broke their tag search recently? but also i'm blocked by one or two people who are extremely active in the gundam 00 tag (proshippers, ostensibly) so that might be why it hasn't been working for me. anyway this is very enriching, i did it like 7 times last year during online classes, but it has eaten hours upon hours upon hours of my time. like i think for the Main characters it'd take me up to a full day to get through the whole tag? again i don't know how much this will help you—gundam 00 actually had a fairly active fandom in like 2011-12 so there's more old posts than recent ones, and axiom verge seems to have fewer characters anyway

i'm not gonna lie you kinda have to be way less picky about the fancontent you consume. like of course you should always keep your boundaries intact, but there's gonna be a lot of content that you wouldn't be particularly interested in if it was for media with a larger fanbase and you're gonna have to make do with that. i've gotten really into content for minor characters that i otherwise totally wouldn't care about! but gundam 00 also has a lot more characters than axiom verge so this is sort of a given

don't just stick to tumblr and ao3—branch out to other websites! this also might be less applicable to axiom verge than to gundam 00. in my case it was VERY helpful to look at sites like pixiv and livejournal for gundam 00 content because there was WAY MORE there. in pixiv's case that was because gundam 00 is of course a japanese media and more fancontent for it was posted on a japanese website; for livejournal, that was just... where anime fans were in 2007-2012. sometimes i namesearch gundam 00 on twitter just to see what i find; i often stumble upon people watching the show for the first time and liveblogging it this way! which, yes, does count as content for the niche media enjoyer. (just found some cool shit namesearching axiom verge on twt)

unfortunately you do have to make the content you want to see in the world. look at middy and his 900 wiki edits. you have to become a primary fancontent creator for your niche media, it happens to all of us. this is easier when you have a friend to talk to about it; i use danny @neildylandy as my resident Guy For Talking To. we get very into it and it is DEEPLY enriching. basically, rope middy into axiom verge convos with you—i assume you're already doing this but can't hurt to stress the point! you will have to sustain yourself on your own art, writing, and conversations between friends. also, if you find enough people who are into axiom verge (or if you can get enough people into axiom verge) you can make a little discord server for it

once you've finished the game go watch some let's plays. since metroidvanias are relatively non-linear past a certain point you'll get a lot of Varying content from different let's plays, which is good

i asked danny if he had any input and xe said this: "i am gonna be honest and this is a terrible thing and not good advice but really genuinely having my entire room be full of gundam merch inspires me greatly and always. every day i wake up and i look to my side and there are 2 haros and lockon stratos and they smile at me so sweetly"

"as for actually staying engaged with it i honestly like don't look at 00 fics very much that aren't in the tag or written by my good friends i kind of just Always Have A Project Going so i'm always thinking about gundam through the lens of something i'm actively working on. and sometimes things i'm Not actively working on like ghd00"

"this is advice you've already given i'm sure but Having An Enabler is like. the key to this honestly i would not still be here in the 00 zone if i was all on my lonesome and i guess just like. don't worry about actually putting out content to Fill the Void if you have something to ramble on about it doesn't have to be Published it can just be thoughts and words and phrases between you and if it turns into something you can put out there then Cool if you make the priority be 'my friends will like this' rather than 'approximately a handful of strangers will like this' then you're happy right away and then also maybe you'll get a comment and it'll be like a Bonus rather than a Necessity"

have you tried making an au where all of the main characters are being parasitized by alien bug robots

[retphienix]

It's been 6 years :)

On March 30th, 2015 I decided I wanted a gaming side blog. (so we're early, but shush, it's the month for me)

I didn't know what I'd use it for exactly, but I had ideas- something I always have even if most of them only get as far as daydreamin' or writing out before closing them :P

For proof on the lack of direction the blog initially had- the March 30th date is the anniversary of my first post, an in-depth and lengthy review of Dragon Warrior Monsters for the GBC.

If you know the blog then you know "Extremely long and in-depth reviews" aren't the norm around here. As a matter of fact, that first post is the ONLY one I've done!

The closest I've come to ever repeating that would be the (word of the day) Directionless video I put out on Hades to get a grip on the concept of making videos, but that wasn't nearly as much of a 'review' as that first post is.

Tangent, definitely planning on trying my hand at videos some more for the foreseeable future. Probably not gonna use the tagline Full Impressions that I tossed as a whim for the Hades video but yeah- I'm excited to try my hand at a few videos :) tangent over.

It didn't take me long to come up with what I'd like to do for the blog though :)

A few months later I liveblogged a challenge run of FFT where I used only Ramza- a solo run. - Which maybe only happened because I tried a nuzlocke run a year prior on my main account-

(Nuzlocke | FFT challenge run)

Thanks to that haphazard liveblog experiment I started to realize a couple things which became the primary motivators behind this blog.

1) I LOVE sharing experiences. No brainer, I'm sure, but being able to share my experiences, and compare them with others' experiences, and just that mutual sharing is uplifting and feels good to do.

2) Liveblogging is an EXCEPTIONAL motivator to buckle down and play all those games I said I'd play (cue everyone laughing because I'm still way behind and have an immeasurable backlog).

But I mean that, on both respects. I have plenty of motivators toward the blog today, but if I were to be concise it's pretty much "It's easier to beat games if I liveblog them- otherwise I get distracted and play other games" and "I love sharing experiences and thoughts with people about my favorite thing- games."

Since 2015 I've tackled around 70 games as full playthroughs, and an untold ton as one offs or just to ramble about for a bit.

I've had a lot of highlights over the years, and I don't talk much about it as an overall experience so I thought for the anniversary I'd try to do just that. Not everything- I can't say I have photographic memory that would bring all of it up without prompting after all :P But whatever comes to mind as I browse some of my old stuff- as well as some thoughts on what I'd like to see in the future.

It's gonna be a bit self-centric I assume as I type this preamble to it, so let me say outright that this blog wouldn't be half of what it is without all the people who've given it the time of day over the years.

From recommending games they love or appreciate, to comparing thoughts, to offering kind words for analysis I've done over the years, to pointing out when I'm dumb and misread a situation :P- to, yes, even the people who decided "Fuck this guy's ramble" and deleted my captions before reblogging my gifs way back during Hamtaro (Of COURSE I remember that! It's amusing lol).

This is better because of others, because of the interactions and the people I've gotten the chance to chat with or befriend. It's just a liveblog more or less, my own little bit of fun I toss out for myself if for anyone- so seeing others enjoy this or that from the work I put into sharing my experiences or thoughts is always a joy in itself :)

Anyway, onto selfishly rambling about some tidbits of the past :)

Also sorry but no, opted to not shove a ton of photos in, it does have a handful of links to old posts though :P

This'll be disorganized as heck as I'll add to it over time before I feel it's worth posting (or the tumblr post editor becomes a hassle and more or less forces me to).

First~

FFT Solo Ramza Challenge: Considering it was roughly the first thing this blog has done, it's also something that's stuck in my head a lot more clearly than most of the other stuff I've done to be honest lol.

In truth, this is partially because FFT is my favorite game, bar none. But it's also because the whole experience was pretty new to me. Prior to it I had really only done one self-imposed-challenge that wasn't requested by the game in some manner and that was a nuzlocke run of Blue version.

So adding a challenge to my favorite game was a fantastic experience!

Notes I just wanted to say today about that run: If anyone enjoys FFT I honestly recommend giving it a shot for the unique story it lends itself to. I do recommend skipping the rules until after the second battle but that's up to YOU to decide.

My first post on the subject is me complaining about spending 4 hours grinding out the second fight and, despite hyperbole being my natural state, that was NOT hyperbole.

It DID take 60~ restarts to beat. It DID take 4 hours. The reason is that that 2nd battle is RNG as HECK, you HAVE to have Delita do some meaningful actions, you HAVE to have the enemies miss and make poor plays, you damn near HAVE to crit a few instances to save yourself from taking too much damage.

It's a numbers game to the extreme, so I wouldn't fault anyone for 'cheating' and skipping the 2nd fight for the ruleset lol.

The memory that stands out the most for that run is actually isolated in a post in which Ramza (Purrick in this run) talks like a total badass as just ONE DUDE running into a room full of enemies. I just think on that as a great encapsulated view of what it was like. The run started off face grindingly difficult, but because FFT is a game that offers so much freedom to the player it was extremely easy to 'break' the game into making Purrick overpowered as hell.

That's something I love about some tactical RPGs, I love having the ability to play smart so that I can play stupid later on, and breaking the game into making him one shot god is certainly a good payoff for playing smart early on :P

RetQuick: I miss RetQuick, it was primarily a short experiment I did in 2015 where I'd play a game for a short span of time (REALLY short, like 10-20 minutes) and record that for the purpose of making gifs and saying a short piece on what I thought.

It's one of those formats where the purpose was pretty shallow- but had a reason. I wanted to try making some gifs with some tools that existed online, so I made an excuse to do just that.

I also wanted to play a TON of games, usually through emulation on my sister's PSP, and this let me do that.

These two minor goals came together and so I spent a while making RetQuicks which were honestly more fun to make than they had any right to be. I mean the gifs were tedious but the playing? The thought sharing? The end product ocassionally having more appeal than just a photoset? It was fun.

I'm thinking whenever I have trouble picking a game for the blog I'll revisit the format... sorta.

I already reused it for a short stint to show clips I had no plan on expanding into a playthrough, but that died as well as it was too similar to Tidbits posts (another tag I no longer really use).

My thought is to rebrand retquick as something of a tryout for what game comes next. Play a handful of my backlog games for an hour or so each and say some thoughts before saying which one I'll continue as the main game for that period of time.

Old Tag Stuff: One of those things that only sticks to me since I made the decisions but it's always funny for me to look back on my old posts because I was apprehensive as hell toward making my posts visible. The reason my early playthroughs on the My-Tags page are variants of Ret instead of just "The name of the game so people can find this post" is because I felt like a liveblog would just spam the tag to hell-

Something I don't remotely feel bad for doing anymore.

So I avoided getting any sort of spotlight for quite a while on the blog for little reason.

Why Retphienix?: This is just a dumb thought I wanted to share and I'm sure I've said before.

It stands for retro!

Yeah!

Ain't that dumb and also not a real shorthand? lol

I think I have some sort of deer in headlights anxiety towards naming things, I mean do you think I think Full Impressions is a good summation for a video? I don't. But perhaps that's overshadowed by the other inexperiences and anxiety driven decisions that had- doesn't matter.

Retphienix is Retphienix because I sat there in 2015 and thought "Well... what do I name an alt account?"

My main is Redphienix, which yes, is ALSO a terrible name AND is misspelled. But it's that because of sentimental reasons. As a kid I misspelled Redphoenix when making my gamertag (I knew how to spell Phoenix back then as well, I was too excited about xbox live and misspelled it) and it's become something of a sentimental misspelling.

So I wanted to make a mix on that for my game blog, but I had no idea what. In the end I thought "RetroPhienix? I don't know. Retphienix is closer to Redphienix. I'll do that" and so it was done.

And just like how Redphienix is both bad and misspelled but exists because of sentimental reasons- Retphienix has acquired the same 'flavor' in my eye lol.

Aspirations for the blog: I have no immediate ramp up plans or road map or whatever, and in truth I'll be happy if the blog stays just as it is forever- up until tumblr ends- I cry over lost posts- and I reopen it on another platform.

But I do have blurry half-considered daydreams that I'd like to see happen for the blog through some hard work or shifts on my part.

One is something I'm already doing kinda, hence my embarrassing means of bringing it up a lot lately. Videos- I want those. I wanna make some looks back on series people don't talk about that I enjoy, I want to make videos sharing my thoughts on games I beat for the blog (like what full impressions kinda was, but I don't think they'll have a unified name from here on out). Maybe retrospectives, but mostly when I think of making a video tied to retphienix or me in general it's me looking at a game that said something to me, and saying it louder with my own interpretations on it.

You know the kind, videos where they talk about a video game but not the whole thing- just a singular message they really heard loud and clear from it intentionally or not. I dig those and I know I end a lot of games having plenty to say that could be directed into such a format.

We'll see.

And I'm along for the ride on that one as well- currently I'm keeping my eyes on whatever is directly next, which happens to be "I plan on playing Omori, if it clicks as something to talk about I would like to take a shot at that in a video too!"

The other is that I'd like to build a small community. Wouldn't know the first thing on doing that in a modern sense, but just a little online friend group to chat with and play games together. Something that could open up multiplayer and coop experiences being better shared on the blog and would just in general expand my gaming to what it used to be back on the 360 when I had a large group to play with.

Since the 360 era ended I've pretty much closed off- stopped playing competitive games due to lack of interest- and slowed down to playing all games either solo, with randoms (and no mic usually), or with my cousin. It's a rare instance when I play with some good people like @gamesception or another friend of mine, John.

When I diverted from playing competitive games nonstop toward other genres I didn't intend to also cut out all my online gaming buds, it just kinda happened, and I never really put any effort into rectifying that.

So more or less I'd like to one day sit down and work on a discord server, and then buck up and put the leg work in to make some gamin' buds again, but that's such a vague concept anymore.

Sounds all sad and what not but it's more ambivalent, I made decisions that

changed how gaming worked for me after the 360 and this is just where it landed for better and worse- I'd just like to see if I can make it a little better :P

General things I think when I think retphienix: Honestly? I think of how much fun I've had over the years and how thankful I am to have had an outlet that encouraged me to explore more of the medium.

I REALLY love games. I went to college for games, I've written LEAGUES about games, I've played countless games, my childhood was games, my adult life is games- games games games yada yada yada.

So when I think of retphienix I think of how without it I probably wouldn't have explored a lot of the corners of gaming that I have.

I genuinely, and I mean this, might not have sat down and beaten FF7 for myself and would have considered the amount I played as a kid to be enough.

I might not have played Chrono Trigger yet, and I KNOW I wouldn't have played Chrono Cross, and I'm happy as hell to have played both of those. CT was a mind blowing moment for me that showed me just how good an RPG can be, and CC gave me miles to think of in terms of innovating an RPG and how beholden to the narrative a sequel should be (I don't feel CC should have been chrono at all lol).

I DEFINITELY wouldn't have given New Vegas another chance. And I know I'm a sourpuss on NV, I've been that way since I maxed my achievements on the 360 for it, but replaying it really did reveal to me how exceedingly negative I was being.

My memories had become "It's brown and a boring location >:(" and "The factions all suck and it doesn't do anything with the idea of bad factions >:(" and became "It's... a little brown guys, not a big fan of the area" and "They didn't do enough with exploring the gray factions" while adding "Wait. This is pretty damn fun. And 90% of the additions are stellar. And I forgot about Dead Money, my favorite dlc in any game ever with a story that tears at my heart every time I think of it, NV good actually?"

Faxanadu would have remained a cool game I saw on SSFF and not a game I played to the end and fell in love with the aesthetic feel it has!

Also that's a game I cheated like crazy on lol, I would do it again! Save state scumming games meant to be rudely difficult is only fair :P

I probably would have never sat down to play through Windwaker which was such a positive and uplifting experience that I now get the most relaxed and warm feeling in my heart when I see those blue waves.

There's so many experiences I would have left on the table in favor of like... putting more hours into a live service title or something.

Maybe, and no offense to my cousin or anyone else playing it, but maybe I'd be no-lifing World of Warcraft nonstop just stagnating my interest toward the skinner box mechanics of an MMO?

Some offense, actually but lightheartedly lol.

But beyond the entire games I've played for the blog, when I think retphienix I picture all the time making gifs, all those games I played on the PSP for short stints, buying a retron 5 to add to what I could explore and being stoked when they shipped a freebie box of old controllers to go with it, getting angry at the retron for being a Piece Of Shit lol, crying at the end of damn near every game with an emotional story because I'm a big emotional mess of a person who finds investing and crying at a story way too easy thanks to empathy pulls, oh!-

Getting excited whenever I found that I had a "*controversial*" opinion that no one would care about lol. Like the one that comes to mind is that I thoroughly believe that Dragon Ball Z II: Gekishin Freeza!! for the NES is WAY better than the fandom recognized and appreciated sequel/remake Dragon Ball Z: Legend of the Super Saiyan!

How many people do you hear talking about either game, let alone saying the NES game that is roughly half of the SNES remake is the better one :P But I stand by that! The SNES one is a remake of DBZ1 and 2 for the NES but it loses all the charm and some of the fun of the NES ones by being a lackluster SNES game!

lol

I admitted wholeheartedly that this post would be a lit-

little directionless (gotta love the new tumblr poster making me break sentences like that), but to sum things up.

It's been 6 years. It's been an untold amount of work to be honest- liveblogging a game, at least for me, hasn't been the easiest thing. It's a lot of thinking out my thoughts (heh), it's a lot of learning tools to make the capturing process possible, it's a lot of experimenting, it's a lot of writing and editing, and, well, sometimes it's just tough.

I mean I went to school for coding, not video editing, not writing, not image processing, not this or that- but this hobby has introduced a lot of things even if only at a VERY base level (I admit fully to using online alternatives to make gifs for instance).

I learned a lot about, well, a lot of things in order to use this blog to learn more about games- and all that work has become part of why I've loved all 6 years of this blog.

6 years of gaming, work, and you all- and it's been worth the investment :) Here's to many more and all of you whether you stumble upon this post or not- literally anyone who's interacted in these 6 years, thank you, and anyone who hasn't I offer you well wishes as well.

<3

[theelliottsmiths]

Could you please liveblog the making of Ich Will?

They all are so cute in this huh.

I really enjoy that Rammstein and the media always seem to imagine they have this big scary manlymen thing going on but we're all over here cooing over them like they're a. I almost said a shoal of fish as if that's a thing people coo over. A bundle of kittens. We call them cute and soft when they seem to think they're being scary.

Anyway schneider looks very pretty with the contact in

His head is a nice shape

God they made Richard look so unbelievably tired looking. I mean this was... 2001 so as well as just bring in your which, draining, he was around this time going through some shit which perhaps is also why he's so pointy but he does just look like he hasn't slept in weeks

Still handsome though

I could listen to flake talk for hours and may get Spotify because im pretty sure his audiobook is on there

You know what was sad? Finding out he didn't read the English one. Which yeah obviously he didn't that would make little sense but also I do love his voice. So German one it is.

I maintain that they pick only a couple of boys to look pretty in every video it's so rare they all look good at once Oli looks like a goat I used to know his name was blue because his coat colouring was like blue cheese

I have heard Oli say Publikum so many times I swear once per interview at least.

I always forget that this is one of my favourite ones but I do love it, especially when Schneider talks about the band only existing when they're performing (everything else is just theory). It's like in the doc where he says the thing about being there and being alive and then it's gone. I'd like to hear more about that but I wonder if he actually would have any more to say since it's pretty self explanatory.

Paul suits this look somehow I think it's the chaos?

Bisexual behaviour

Flakes Iceland ramble kills me

I know I've said it many times but the way he looks around as he talks like he's seeing and choosing the words he's using

Like one of those fridge magnet poems that's why he's always saying the best nonsense

Poor boy needs something for those floppy spikes

Paul's littol giggle hhh

I can't help but copy him when he talks and I'm concerned that I'll end up speaking German with his accent

How is it that till is dressed like that playing that character and yet he looks so soft and sweet and adorable? Its not just me, right?

Rammstein thinking they're above the emotional kick in the face that is the audience interacting like they do in ich will

Since it was pointed out I cannot stop hearing till and Richard say irgendwie they do it all the time I heard Richard say it twice in one sentence last night in. I want to say making of Seemann or Mutter?

Paul singing tills lines is so cute always. Richard does it in the stripped making of too it's beautiful. I'm imagining them in the studio singing chunks of his parts as they work on their music

mein Ohr :(

So very scary. I sure am intimidated.

Jörn putting Schneider at the front again.

Sidenote I saw Jonas in some Hannibal related post today and forgot that he wasn't just theirs I was so surprised that he works with other people for some reason

In fairness I can see the argument/appeal of that but with such easier and the gun. The energy is impeccable.

The way Paul does the call thing killsssss me

Till is so small.

He's so small and says I feel too dumb to do it myself *tiny shoulder thing that makes him even smaller*

Richard said it twice in the span of. Let me check. Three seconds.

Bad boy feeling, he says in the campest may possible.

Okay so serious question is the idea that Paul makes the guy wet himself and that's why it cuts to his crotch because for a long time I assumed it was uhh. Something very much else entirely.

The married and or sibling energy between Paul and Flake always is just a delight

I really like hearing someone who has a deep relationship with someone else say their name for some reason. Logically it doesn't make much sense to listen for hints of something in the way they say it but in fairness listen to the way they say each others named sometimes it's really nice

They just follow their naïve impulse they dont mean to provoke people, they say

My brain took hold of the dead baby line the first time I watched this and now it's a very regular stim/echo I spent so long trying to work out the last word because he says. Not all of the letters I swear. It's widerlich im pretty sure so naturally I will be corrected soon

That's how Geordies say baby

Guten Tag

I just noticed the shoulder shimmy when he says untergehen and I am losing it over here

If I found out flake was immortal I would not be remotely surprised he has baby-immortal energies

When he talks sometimes Oli comes up with very good insights, it's a shame he doesn't talk to us more

I would like Jörn to never mention deformities and disabilities again until he stops being gross about it thank you he did it in Keine Lust too.

Evil attributes. I know this was 2001 but come on dude.

Olis fall is so soft it's like a victorian lady in need of smelling salts

Sometimes it's like Paul is showing off how he can do that throat rolled R sound (what's the English word for that? I have forgotten) but it does sound nice though

Small and cute

I do not like seeing Richard being manhandled by police

The door stumble is cute though a nice touch I don't think was intentional

It's a shame Schneider never did any acting or modelling he'd have been great

I know that yes the playing the bad guy thing is true, in tills lyrics especially, but unfortunately they're babies to me and it's hard to try and see it that way

BOO

[totally-normal-boy]

Totally Normal Boy watches Neon Genesis Evangelion

It was starting to get really annoying having to tag every single post I made for my Eva liveblog, so I’m going to start putting all my hot takes together in one post. Check out all my hot takes on episode 4, Rain After Running Away, underneath the cut!

This might sound weird, but the intro for this show makes me think of a combination of the Sarazanmai intro and the Rose of Versailles intro. That probably makes sense since it came out in between both of those shows.

We start off this episode with Misato being an extremely relatable hot mess.

The scene where Shinji is being emo on the train is really well done. The (mostly) still images of the crowded train with Shinji’s tinny music playing in the background really shows how isolated he feels from the world around him. I just want to give the poor kid a hug.

It’s hard for me to tell how Shinji feels about seeing the couple being intimate with each other in the movie theater. Is he disgusted? Is he sort of into it? Does he feel anything at all? I don’t really know.

Oh, wow. This got real trippy, real fast.

It seems like the show is trying to draw a clear parallel between Rei and Shinji with the way that they had Misato talking about how Shinji was fourteen while showing Rei’s bandaged body onscreen.

When I first started watching this show, I was worried that Shinji was going to be sort of a boring protagonist, but I’m actually really connecting with him.

The scene with Kensuke and Shinji in the tent together really highlights how different Shinji’s life is from all of his classmates. Kensuke thinks war is all fun and games, while Shinji has already been hardened by combat.

Yay! Toji is back! I liked him in the last episode!

Aaaand he’s gone again. After only 30 seconds on screen. Oh well, it looks like this is going to be exciting, so I’m not mad.

Misato’s line about how “what others think doesn’t matter!” is the exact opposite of Anthy’s line at the end of the Keiko’s duel in the Black Rose Saga where she says that it doesn’t matter how people really feel if they doing something for someone they love. (Yes, I did just make a random connection RGU without expanding on it whatsoever. No, this will definitely not be the last time I do this.)

On one hand, I can’t be mad at Shinji for resigning. He shouldn’t have to make himself miserable like that for the sake of others. But I don’t want to Shinji’s scary dad put Rei in the Eva either. Can’t they find someone who ISN’T A LITERAL TEENAGER to put in the giant war robot? 

TOJI IS APOLOGIZING TO SHINJI! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! I KNEW THAT I WAS RIGHT ABOUT HIM BEING A GOOD! I love how he needs Shinji to hit him back in order to feel better about himself. He’s literally so wonderful. I hope Shinji starts to become friends with him and Kensuke.

POOR SHINJI! He thinks that he’s a coward and a weakling. I don’t think that’s true since any teenager would be scared to be in a situation as terrifying as the one that he’s in. It makes me sad to see him holding himself to such high standards, since that’s something I do a lot as well.

Okay, so the Hedgehog’s dilemma from the title card is that “the closer they get to each other, the more that they hurt.” That’s not making me optimistic about there being any chance of Shinji just being able to be happy and have friends, even if its just for a moment.

This whole episode is sort of reminding me of episode 2 of Utena, when Utena almost purposefully lost her second duel against Saionji. I think it’s interesting how Utena is 39 episodes and she already got past this by episode two, while this show is 26 episodes and Shinji doesn’t have a moment like this until episode 4. This says a lot about the differences between how quick the two protagonists are to take action, and the differences in pacing that are a result of that.

I’m sure that there’s a very deep, important meaning behind all these cicada sounds but I can’t focus on that because they’re so darn annoying.

And the episode ends with us finding out that Shinji is not going to get on the train, much to the surprise of absolutely no one.

Final Thoughts: This episode didn’t really have as much as action as some of the last ones did, but it was still a decent episode. I’m having a really hard time getting used to the slower pacing of this show, but I really like a lot of the characters. Toji and Shinji are probably my favorites, but I really Misato as well I want to learn more about Rei.

I hope you all liked this liveblog format, because it was a lot easier than having to pause the episode every time I wanted to make a post.

[finsterhund]

Woah boy

So TLDR: my trip out around town that I looked forward to for a week that I thought was going to be an afternoon long event was not intended to be. I was the only one who had been made to assume it would be. So as well as how angry I am about that, this ended up being largely a bust. Except for something good that happened at the end.

I don’t like when people lie to me. Or change plans. Or whatever this was.

My trust can only take this so many times.

This was a liveblog but I didn’t have wifi so I just dumped it all in one post.

Me: *has to sort everybody else's recycling or else I won't get to go, which is frustrating because I am very up to date with making sure my recycling is clean and organized*

My friend after I did so: "I have work to do so we can't be out for very long and go to the places I promised all week" >.>

I really shouldn't be surprised by this anymore.

The only person who will help me go places reliably will be my service dog.

Pretty depressed about what a bust my "out of the house leisure day" ended up being despite what I was told leading up to today. Hope I'll be able to go to one of the places I wanted to at least. Got a nice amount of money back from my cans.

Currently sitting alone in the car waiting to head off to whatever places I'll be allowed to go to today. If I'm told I'm "wasting time" I'll be mad because I was made to sit in the car for an hour. That's the Finsterhund life.

Well turns out my friend was telling roommate that this was just a "recycling trip and nothing else" so yeah.

I was told this was going to be an all day excursion but in reality I was just being deceived. I was so excited to make some rounds and finally go to places I wasn't able to go to.

Like, this was supposed to be us getting some fresh air and exercise and going to some specialty stores to get stuff we needed. Apparently it’s just a “let Finsterhund do his recycling so he shuts up about wanting to do his recycling” instead.

I guess it’s easier to deceive me on that than tell me the truth.

...

Well surprise surprise

I got to go to the store I've been begging to go for a month. What I wanted was sold out. I am angry. Then even though another store in this chain is near our house I'm not allowed to go to that one to see if it's in stock there because "today wasn't supposed to be a day to do things (even though I told you it was)."

Heartbroken. Angry AND disappointed.

Was this all a waste of time that caused my back to flare up?

Will this be used as a "you already got to go out this month remember?" When I beg to go out to actually get things at a later date?

When I get my service dog we are unionizing. We will be the only ones who benefit from our labor. No errands going out to get things for other people who made excuses when I needed to get things.

Also I got an automated phone call from THAT STUPID SLEEP CLINIC. I HATE THEM SO MUCH.

They sent me a stupid robot call for me to press 1 to confirm that yes, I am going to the damn appointment. I already confirmed, twice, that I have this stupid appointment. Quit harassing me in public with your insulting robot calls asshole. I have had your stupid appointment written on both my phone and the appointment whiteboard on the fridge for over a fucking month can you not send me robot calls that reveal confidential and humiliating information super loud when I am in the grocery store about to have a meltdown because they're all out of these tiny stuffed dogs that my supposed friend put off taking me to buy for a month!? Even though I stressed how important this was to me because a friend I rarely see anymore since moving told me they had these little stuffed dogs that looked like Spot??? So now they’re all sold out!? Please!?

Fuck off sleep clinic. I'm about ready to actually cancel the damn thing I already hate you with every fiber of my being.

Like I had to confirm via phone

And mail in a MASSIVE book of invasive paperwork.

And then you have the never to make me press 1 to confirm fuck off.

I want sleep clinic to perish.

So entirely defeated, depressed, and in the heat of the moment snagging a ham and swiss sandwich because those always help me feel a little better...

We get to go to one last place.

The pet store. I've begged to go for MONTHS. MONTHS AND MONTHS. I originally wanted to get a tag for Outside Tiny but didn’t this time for reasons... Shhhh

So I get there, and I'm able to get something very special for Spot when she arrives.

I don't want to spoil the surprise but I'll be posting it on her social media accounts if you're interested.

I'll officially reveal it at the party.

Needless to say I got emotional. This was a very emotional day.

I cried when making the special thing (yes I made it with a machine with a laser. And that's as most as I'll spoil here.)

So there was one positive today. And the ham and swiss sandwich.

I am tired (and weak) and very upset at the dynamic I have with my housemates. I’m so excited that the northern health people are actually helping me get my service dog because I’m so sick of begging for help and rarely getting it and then feeling like I’m a burden.

I’m only semi serious about the unionizing thing. I’ll probably still be willing to do errands if we are in the area because I like to help people. Even if I struggled to get that same help before getting my service dog. We can use the exercise anyways.

[duhragonball]

Theme Customization Notes

All right, I did some testing, and determined that if I add a page to my blog, I can only put 249 links on it.   If you do more than that, you can still save the page, but it automatically removes all of the links, including the first 249.

This is irritating, because what I wanted to do was to make a permanent page on this blog, such that you could click on it, see a list of numbers, and be taken the corresponding post I wrote about that episode of Dragon Ball or Dragon Ball Z.   I think I can still do this, but it looks like I’ll have to break it up into at least three pages, which seems kind of cumbersome to me.     

My mistake with this was in thinking that I could just edit the page casually, adding links one by one and hoping tumblr would be stable enough to save them for me.    What I need to do instead is write all this up in html in a .txt file, and that way I can paste links in and make sure everything is safe before moving on.  So I need to plan this out better, and I may as well write out what I want to do here. 

1. Make permanent index of 2019 Dragon Ball Liveblog.

Copy all links to posts, tags, etc.   

Probably need to divvy these up into “Dragon Ball 1-153″, “DBZ 1-199″ and “DBZ 200-291 + Movies”

It’d be nice to toss some images on these, if only to fill out the page a bit.  

2. Rewrite the permanent Luffa page. 

I wasn’t planning to link to each chapter, since AO3 already has it organized for me, but now it’s clear that this would be a real bear to do.    At least the damn thing isn’t 250 chapters ha ha... right?    Right?

I think the current version is just a brief synopsis of the story and links to the first 30-odd chapters, grouped into story arcs.    I probably did all that before I started cross-posting to AO3, so it’s all way out of date and redundant.  

A better use of the space would be to describe the character and premise in greater detail.   Who is this, what is this about, stuff like that.   The most popular Luffa content on tumblr is the screenshot of her scolding Raditz for not training his tail.    #2 is the one where Vegeta tells her about all the freaky-deaky D/s stuff he does with his hot alien wife.    #3 is probably that hot dog bit.    Some context is probably needed.

I’m thinking maybe a list of one-shot chapters as sort of the sampler platter for the big fic.   Off the top of my head, 1, 16, 21, 77, 82, and 100 all fit the bill reasonably well.   Also the one where she chugs a glass of raw eggs.    I forget which one that is.  Twenty-four-ish?   I’d have to check for others, which means re-reading my own work... ugh.

Break the story down into “sagas”.   I hate using the term, but this enormous bastard is almost big enough to justify it.  Anyway, this will make it easier for people to keep track of where they are, as well as appealing to the much-coveted Part-Skipper demographic.

Really, what would be helpful, to me at least, is to go through the tags and sort out everything.    Separate the fic proper from meta ramblings, Xenoverse posts, and reader feedback.  

3. Other stuff.

I don’t really have anything planned, but I feel like there needs to be other permanent pages on the blog, like it’s bonus content or something.   Like, maybe just a gallery of some sort, or some sort of easter egg type thing.    Not that it’d be hard to find, but I figure most people view blogs through their dashboard, so someone would have to go out of their way to click on whatever this would be.   

[blapisblogs]

I’m here to make an announcement

Shadow the Hedgehog’s a- Okay, no, I’m not doing that again.

The real news is that I’ve got a new laptop! Sadly, that’s not the end of my troubles as the right half of my headphones decided to just stop working (and have since coming home from my trip), so I’m stuck using earbuds and I hate these fucking things so much, the sooner I can get headphones that work the better. But at least now I have a laptop again.

Liveblogging from my phone has certainly been an experience with... mixed results. Like, really, Tumblr, is it that hard to upload text and pictures in the same order one puts them in the first time? Also somehow my phone never remembered some of my tags and typing those in every time was exhausting after a while. It was surprisingly easier to take screenshots, but rewinding was frustrating (half the time it would skip ahead instead) and it seems the quality isn’t that great, so my bad. I’ll be sure to update my tags page after this one, and will likely be adding tags for each saga as well.

[punkscowardschampions]

Janis & Jimmy

Janis: Give me strength so I don't kill a bitch Janis: serious Jimmy: 💪🏆 Jimmy: I can't fuck you if you're in prison, remember Jimmy: unless this is you proposing Jimmy: so romantic 💕 Janis: Can't believe you won't fake marry me Janis: 💔 Jimmy: never said I wouldn't Jimmy: you haven't fake asked Janis: sure, trust you to wanna be savage about it Janis: dickhead 😏 Jimmy: I'm giving you chance to be #goals and 💍 me Janis: that's the vows is it Janis: be #goals forever and ever Jimmy: do you take this girl to be your lawfully wedded dickhead Jimmy: yeah alright Janis: 😂 Janis: such an idiot Janis: but at least you're funny Janis: teach Mia something, yeah Jimmy: no tah Jimmy: I know the kind of shit she wants me to teach her Janis: 😒 don't Janis: I'm already this close to actually smacking her without that mental image Jimmy: wait til I'm off work before you knock her out Jimmy: if you love me Janis: as bad as Grace Janis: start selling tickets Jimmy: we all wanna be there with pom poms & 🍿 Jimmy: don't be shy Janis: yeah I'm so sure Janis: you'll get your chance to wear the skirt one day, babe Janis: don't worry Jimmy: 💔💔🎻🎻🎻 Janis: mm Jimmy: I'm gonna show up & 💍 when you're about to smack her Jimmy: put you off 'cause you don't want me there Janis: you probably would Janis: love nothing more than shaming me Janis: but I ain't giving you my location so good 🍀 Jimmy: & you love the angle but fine I won't get down on my knees for you Jimmy: spoilsport Jimmy: pissed on your own parade there, girl Janis: shut up Janis: distracting me Janis: gotta be on my A game, boy Jimmy: you're too busy shutting her up to make me Jimmy: & she don't need your A game Jimmy: a breeze would turn her bones to dust Janis: you on my side or not, boy Janis: ain't a tag-team effort between you and her is it Jimmy: nah I'm dumping you for her & this is how I'm letting you know Janis: ah well Janis: your girlfriend is about to get fucked up Janis: soz about it Jimmy: she can lick her own wounds 🐍 perks Jimmy: it's alright Janis: boring Janis: but if that's what you're into these days Jimmy: once I teach her what to do with that 👅 I'm set for life Janis: disgusting Jimmy: 🤞 Janis: 😑 Janis: go away Jimmy: bit rude Jimmy: how many rounds you going? Jimmy: come see me after Janis: you're rude Janis: but like you said, ain't gonna take much, is it Janis: sure Jimmy: good Jimmy: I miss you Janis: I miss you too Janis: this is all easier to ignore when you're about Jimmy: I'm going nowhere Jimmy: still smack her though 'cause neither is she Janis: 👍 Janis: long time coming Janis: but I'll try not to kill her Jimmy: 👍 Jimmy: I'll help you hide the body, don't worry about it Jimmy: #peakromance Janis: have to be good Janis: it's how her dad shows he cares, appaz Jimmy: smacking her about? Jimmy: #relatable Jimmy: or hiding the bodies of her enemies Janis: 😬😂 Janis: nah though, threatening legal action if anyone dares to talk back to her, never mind smack her one Jimmy: the bodies thing is probably true too Jimmy: I ain't seen Gracie for a while is all I'm saying Janis: 🤞 Janis: sadly, 'less Mia gave her wifi in her grave Jimmy: what's the point of 💀 if you can't liveblog it #duh Janis: turn your location on girl Janis: maybe dig you up 'fore you suffocate Jimmy: might do Jimmy: might not do Janis: obvs gotta make her promise to change her ways Jimmy: 👍🍀 Janis: you're right Janis: maybe just let her 👻 Jimmy: not an invitation for me & her to be #couplegoals though Jimmy: your 👻 lad only Janis: swear to God she better keep her ghost hands to herself Janis: or I'll kill her properly Janis: send her 😈🔥 Jimmy: 😂 Jimmy: she'll be waiting for me there getting more 💕😍 then Jimmy: 👍 Janis: she can wait Janis: you said you're staying Jimmy: I am Jimmy: unless you send me away Janis: not gonna send you to hell Janis: have to fuck me off a lot more than this Janis: soz to disappoint Jimmy: not to be that dickhead but Jimmy: it's hell wherever you ain't Jimmy: so not much to do Janis: baby Janis: you're so genuinely #goals sometimes it hurts Jimmy: I'm not actually trying to distract you right now Jimmy: I swear Jimmy: I'm just Janis: hot Janis: I know Janis: ain't your fault, really Jimmy: I just love you Jimmy: & that is your fault Janis: I'll own it Jimmy: alright then Janis: not just 'cos I love you too Jimmy: course not Jimmy: but it'll do me that you do love me too Janis: you know I do Janis: a lot Jimmy: gimme more though Janis: how Jimmy: I'll let you know Jimmy: other than accepting my proposal obviously Janis: alright 😏 Janis: please do Jimmy: 👌 Janis: right, this is actually happening Janis: accept the charges if I have to bell you from jail, yeah? Jimmy: I suppose Jimmy: make me feel like the tables have turned, yeah rich girl Janis: if you like Janis: roleplay, fun Jimmy: 💕 Jimmy: keeping it #goals baby Janis: [fight] Janis: 👍 Jimmy: 💪🏆 Jimmy: 🥇🥇🥇🥇 Janis: you know it Jimmy: start running now Jimmy: 👮🚔 Janis: way ahead of you, babe Janis: as per Jimmy: #duh Jimmy: SUCH an athlete Janis: you'd reckon so if you saw her face Janis: that felt good Jimmy: 😍😍😍 Janis: how long you got left of your shift Jimmy: hour & a half Jimmy: come here when you're done running victory laps Jimmy: I've saved my last break Janis: Good Janis: gotta channel this energy somewhere Janis: and I want you Jimmy: just don't get her blood on me Jimmy: this ain't the CG none of the customers are thick enough to believe it's Halloween Janis: 🤞 Janis: I'll clean up Jimmy: 💔💔💔 Jimmy: I wanna do it Jimmy: but we don't have time Janis: we'll make the most of what we do still Janis: don't be sad, baby Jimmy: yeah Jimmy: I know but Jimmy: I want more time Janis: after Janis: not that long to wait Jimmy: it feels like Janis: always does Janis: whenever we have to be around other people even Jimmy: you reckon it's ever getting any easier or nah Jimmy: 'cause bit rude Janis: try and be less fuckable Janis: idk Jimmy: how Janis: alright bighead Janis: true but Janis: no one likes a showoff Jimmy: you do Janis: bit Jimmy: loads Janis: maybe Janis: if you really make the most of your break, like Jimmy: no challenge but still accepted Jimmy: I want you so much Janis: you know I love you Jimmy: I love you too Janis: I'm glad you exist Janis: everyone else is shit Jimmy: you Jimmy: you're the only one I care about Jimmy: let's go somewhere when I'm done here Jimmy: I'll call in sick tomorrow Jimmy: it don't even matter Janis: okay Janis: if you're sure obviously I want to Janis: where Jimmy: let's just not come back until my next shift Jimmy: fuck school Jimmy: where do you wanna go? Janis: yeah? Janis: I don't care Janis: anywhere with you Jimmy: we can just get on a train or whatever then Jimmy: I don't give a fuck either Janis: my nan and granddad have a caravan not far away Janis: but far enough Janis: might work Jimmy: is anyone else in your massive family likely to be using it Janis: eurgh Janis: shouldn't be but Janis: how to subtly check without telling everyone where we are 🙄 Jimmy: it's alright we'll just leave if anyone else turns up Janis: it'd only be nan and granddad in term time anyway so we've got good odds of being left alone Jimmy: 👍 Jimmy: let's do it then Janis: okay Janis: I'll hang around 'til you finish then Janis: no point going home Jimmy: I'll have to Jimmy: pack a bag & chat to the kids about it Jimmy: but we can go after Janis: yeah Janis: 'course Janis: they'll be alright, yeah Jimmy: you want me to pack shit for you seeing as you ain't going home Jimmy: all I can do is let 'em know I ain't just fucking off Jimmy: my dad too I'll pen him a note so he don't bell the 👮🚔 Jimmy: It ain't gonna be good but neither is this, here now Janis: if you like Janis: I don't care but you might once I start to stink Janis: probably a plan Jimmy: I'll just throw you in the shower, girl 💪 Janis: like to see you try Janis: have you know I'm undefeated, boy Jimmy: then you'll see me try Jimmy: I'm ready Janis: you've always been a very gracious 🥈babe Jimmy: oi Jimmy: come here & call me a loser Janis: come on, there's no losers babe Jimmy: easy to say when you're the winner, babe Janis: how bad does losing feel though, really Janis: you know it's still good Jimmy: I'll show you in a bit Jimmy: 🥇 me Janis: 😏 Janis: we'll see then Jimmy: just remember to tell me how it feels, alright Janis: do my best Janis: you do make it hard to speak though sometimes so Jimmy: do my best Jimmy: please be on your way Janis: I am Janis: time me if you wanna Janis: 💪 Jimmy: 👌 nerd Janis: [5 mins or w/e] Janis: come out here and say that to my face Jimmy: [does] Janis: [kisses his face] Jimmy: [kisses her neck] Janis: [noise like oh hey] Jimmy: [tells her how long she took to get there cos also a nerd] Janis: [pouty like nu-uh!] Jimmy: [pouty lip thing for life] Janis: ['I missed you' and showing him] Jimmy: [says it back & likewise cos they don't have a lot of time] Janis: [enjoy lads] Janis: do you think I should go get some stuff Jimmy: you should stay with me Janis: okay Janis: go make me a drink then, boy Jimmy: 👍 Jimmy: [we know the drill he's making it but looking at her like 😍] Janis: you're cute Janis: I can't wait to go Jimmy: you Jimmy: you can go to mine & pack for us & make it quicker Janis: I could Janis: still have to talk to the kids though Jimmy: just don't pack the 🐶 Jimmy: can give 'em a ring though Jimmy: might not even be there Janis: 💔 but baby Janis: cool, long as you're sure Jimmy: [shrugs at her from behind the counter] Jimmy: it ain't gonna go decent however I say it Jimmy: so whatever Janis: you still wanna though Jimmy: we're going Jimmy: if I have to listen to every dickhead talking about your #girlfight for the next week I'll 💀💀💀 Janis: 🙄 Janis: she thought Janis: got the scratches to prove it Jimmy: sexy Jimmy: but it's not gonna convince me to stay here Janis: I ain't trying to convince you Jimmy: you've already convinced me to go Jimmy: I've got the marks to prove it too Janis: 😏 Janis: trust me, you had more fun than I did Janis: even if it was pretty satisfying Jimmy: 🎻🎻🎻 Jimmy: you'll have fun with me Jimmy: if you ain't had enough just now which 💔 Janis: never enough Janis: not a diss Janis: brag if anything, your speciality Jimmy: good save, girl Jimmy: come get your smoothie Janis: okay lemme just enjoy the view for a sec longer Janis: [then does] Jimmy: lemme just enjoy that view for as long as possible Janis: knew there was a reason you were asking me to leave Jimmy: [is 😏] Janis: [keeps looking back] Janis: stop looking at me like that Jimmy: [gives her an even hotter look instead cos he be like that] Jimmy: miss you already Janis: I definitely miss you more Janis: only got yourself to blame Jimmy: sounds like a challenge that Janis: challenge to behave Janis: for once Jimmy: 💔💔 Jimmy: I give you a minute before you're changing your mind & wanting me not to Janis: 💪 Janis: challenge accepted Janis: I'm tough, tah Jimmy: ⏲ Janis: 🖕 Jimmy: bit rude Jimmy: I only wanna be 💕 Janis: you're rude Jimmy: if you like Janis: you know how bad I want you but we can't Janis: so very rude Janis: actually Jimmy: we can Jimmy: just Jimmy: another ⏲ going for that Janis: it's not long is it Janis: make it worth it Jimmy: when you've got to mine, packed and 🐶💕 I'll be done Jimmy: promise Janis: okay Janis: we can do this Janis: think how long we're gonna have Janis: just us Janis: and nothing to do Jimmy: just you to do Janis: not a chore, is it? Jimmy: ask me at the end of the week Janis: 😂 piss off Jimmy: just saying Jimmy: you love dickheads but do you love 'em 24/7 Janis: like we spend loads of time apart as is 😏 Janis: don't worry, there's more than one room if you're testing me Jimmy: 😂 piss off Janis: but I ain't getting in those tiny twin beds so Janis: be nice Jimmy: I am Jimmy: always nice me Janis: nah Janis: but I wouldn't like you if you were Jimmy: I reckon I could still get you to like me Janis: really? Janis: is this you admitting you are a bit of a 🤓 Jimmy: I'm admitting nowt til we're out of reach of the 👮🚔 Jimmy: life of crime starts so soon Janis: watch out Skerries Janis: 👊 Jimmy: Bonnie & Clyde 39 Janis: I'll straighten my hair so I can get my #whitepassing priviledge then 👍 Jimmy: weren't there a promise about never doing nowt like that Jimmy: except you reckoned you never would anyway Jimmy: don't 💔 me that ain't part of the crime spree Janis: well excuse me for not wanting to be shot, white boy 😂 Jimmy: if you ain't willing to die for me, Juliet we can call this off right here Janis: I thought I told you to stop being so suicide-pact-y Janis: don't want anyone to actually ring garda, like Jimmy: you say suicide pacty I say #ultiimategoals Jimmy: but FINE 🙄🙄🙄 Janis: don't Janis: actually giving out gracie vibes and terrifying me Jimmy: #whenyouvetakenthewrongtwinontherun Janis: ask her Janis: sure she's still up for it Jimmy: don't Jimmy: course she is Janis: you're such a cocky dickhead Jimmy: why you like me Janis: 😒 Janis: why she does too, obviously Jimmy: ain't my fault you two are #twinning with your tastes, girl Janis: fuck off Janis: you ain't had to misfortune of meeting any of her exes Jimmy: just the one Janis: he don't count Jimmy: my KO still does though Jimmy: & do any of 'em count as exes if she's fucking 'em still Jimmy: arguably not Janis: shut up Janis: don't be gross Jimmy: calm down Jimmy: I ain't suggesting you join in or owt Jimmy: me either Janis: why are we talking about her Jimmy: you brought her up Jimmy: & her exes Janis: well now I'm ending it Jimmy: alright Janis: take the dog for a shit whilst I'm at it Janis: 👍 Jimmy: 👌 Jimmy: write my dad a note Jimmy: such a way with words you Janis: ha Janis: funny Janis: he'll say I've kidnapped you just to fuck w me Jimmy: nah he'll say I've legged it Jimmy: loves to tell the others I don't give a shit & he does Jimmy: he can't turn 'em against you with that big house & dog training 🏆🏆 Janis: can definitely buy love Jimmy: if not love then less hatred Janis: works for me Jimmy: works for Ian too Jimmy: fucked himself on respect though Jimmy: don't have enough of a wage packet for that Janis: 💔 Janis: don't know how many times I've told him we could be bezzie mates Jimmy: 🎻🎻 Jimmy: you're fucking the wrong family member for that one Jimmy: even if you were doing him it'd be a stretch Janis: why you tryna hurt me rn Jimmy: save him a job Jimmy: since he don't do the ones he has Janis: too good, you Jimmy: yeah Janis: tragedy Jimmy: 🎭 Jimmy: let's say it's a comedy Janis: if you like Janis: again, works for me Jimmy: 👍 Jimmy: you ain't unlocked enough 💕 or 💸 to reveal my tragic backstory, soz Janis: backatcha Jimmy: works for me Janis: she's pissed everywhere Janis: 😑 Janis: gonna need to start charging more Jimmy: send Ian the bill Jimmy: he'll love that Jimmy: also feel free to leave it for him to sort Janis: we all know she's your 💕 Jimmy: yours Janis: sure Janis: whatever you say Janis: I'll keep your secret Jimmy: just 'cause you've given yours away by being so blatant Jimmy: leave it & me out tah Janis: you wish Janis: 🖕 Janis: such a mystery Jimmy: you wish, Jillian Janis: mhmm Janis: now who's blatant Jimmy: open book with a forgettable name you Janis: then forget it Jimmy: I do Jimmy: loads Jimmy: just happened then Janis: forget us going away if you're gonna be such a twat Jimmy: what are you on about Jimmy: I'm a twat everywhere & anywhere Janis: whatever Janis: go do some work Janis: ain't in the mood Jimmy: you're not serious Janis: we can still go Janis: just Jimmy: what Janis: I don't know Janis: genuinely Janis: forget it Jimmy: has that worked any time you've said it Jimmy: or made things weird Janis: so it's all my fault Janis: cool Jimmy: did I say that Jimmy: nah I said telling me to forget it ain't gonna make it happen Janis: you also said I make things weird all the time so Jimmy: you do Jimmy: so do I Janis: not what you said Jimmy: you were being weird before I said it so Jimmy: what's the problem Janis: I just don't want to think about my family Janis: let alone talk about them Janis: that's what this is about, alright Jimmy: it weren't like I wanna hear about 'em Jimmy: no begging here Janis: don't then Janis: hear enough without you adding your voice to the conversation Jimmy: a conversation you started Jimmy: but yeah whatever I'll shut up Jimmy: like you said, loads of work I could be doing Janis: if you like Janis: bye then Jimmy: if you like Jimmy: which you obviously do Janis: I'm telling you I don't Jimmy: you're also telling me to shut up Jimmy: so what the fuck do you want me to do Janis: why do I have to know Janis: work it out Jimmy: why do I have to work it out Jimmy: like this is a challenge all of a sudden Janis: it is Janis: ask anyone Janis: if you don't want to then don't Jimmy: shut up Jimmy: no it's not Jimmy: if you don't want to push me away then don't Janis: as if it's as easy as choosing Jimmy: it's trying which ain't easy but what the fuck is Jimmy: this? Jimmy: I don't think so Janis: I am trying Jimmy: good Jimmy: when you wanna try harder you know where I am Janis: fuck off Janis: you patronizing prick Jimmy: that's the easy route right there Jimmy: take it Jimmy: go on Janis: no it ain't Janis: 'cos I need to go Jimmy: then go Jimmy: like I said, easy Janis: I wanted to go with you Janis: dickhead Jimmy: I was gonna go with you dickhead Janis: well you ruined it Janis: yeah, you Jimmy: fuck you Janis: fuck you first Jimmy: whatever Jimmy: blame me Jimmy: on you go Janis: yeah whatever Janis: take what I can get Jimmy: lucky you Janis: 🍀 Janis: call me rich girl whilst you're at it Janis: hit all the  fuck you marks Jimmy: so you can blame me for what you've got & I've not Jimmy: yeah alright Janis: it's not me that brings it up Janis: constantly Jimmy: you don't wanna bring anything up Jimmy: I got that Janis: oh I'm sorry but you established we ain't ready for the tragic backstory did you not Jimmy: & that means we'll just fuck forever & never talk about anything, yeah Jimmy: that & you can run off whenever the fuck you need Janis: you said you don't want to talk about them either so why the hell does this matter even Janis: and I keep saying, I'm not going without you Janis: I did it once to you Janis: once Jimmy: I could give a fuck about them Jimmy: you're the one being a dickhead Jimmy: what matters is you could go whenever you like Jimmy: I'm the one who has to jump through a million hoops to do anything Jimmy: that I need Janis: Okay I'm sorry that you have family and obligations Janis: I already felt bad, actually Janis: I'm not forcing you to go Jimmy: nah you're just stopping me Jimmy: when I want to Jimmy: & fuck knows why even Janis: I ain't said you can't Jimmy: but I can't Janis: not because of me Jimmy: it's all my fault, you've already said Janis: no Janis: not what I meant Janis: 'cos of the kids Jimmy: it ain't their fault I ain't going Jimmy: or if I can't Jimmy: they didn't ask for this Janis: I didn't say fault Janis: it's just why Jimmy: it ain't why Jimmy: that's 'cause of my mum & dad Janis: well, yeah Janis: alright Jimmy: 👍 Janis: this is stupid Jimmy: it's been stupid for ages Janis: then stop being so Janis: pedantic Jimmy: stop being a dickhead Janis: fine Jimmy: 👌 Janis: is it Janis: or nah Jimmy: gotta be Janis: it don't Jimmy: I don't wanna fight with you any more Jimmy: so yeah it does Janis: is that enough Janis: serious Jimmy: like I said, gotta be Janis: Jim Janis: come on, that's bullshit Janis: we're not doing that Jimmy: you can bring as much bollocks as you want to this convo & say that to me Jimmy: alright then Janis: I mean Janis: fucking hell Janis: let me fix it Jimmy: you can't put all the blame on me & then be the one to fix it Jimmy: that don't even make sense Janis: I didn't! Janis: you just keep saying I did but Janis: I ain't trying to Jimmy: I ruined it, you said Janis: I didn't mean it Janis: obviously I did but sorry for not wanting to own that immediately Jimmy: have it how you like Jimmy: I don't care Jimmy: I already told you, I don't wanna fight about this Janis: stop saying that Janis: that don't fix anything Janis: it's as bad as forget it Jimmy: I don't know how to fix this Janis: so fuck forever yeah Jimmy: don't say that Jimmy: I didn't Janis: not to start this up again but you definitely did say that Janis: I don't want to Janis: but I don't know how to fix it either Jimmy: I just want you Jimmy: you know that Jimmy: I love you Janis: I love you Janis: I'll fix it somehow Janis: whatever Janis: whatever it takes not whatever Jimmy: tell me where to meet you Jimmy: as soon as I'm done here Jimmy: we can just Janis: I'm sorry Janis: for fucking Janis: the hassle Jimmy: I'm sorry for my bit of it Jimmy: I didn't mean to make you kick off Jimmy: or owt Janis: you don't need to Janis: it was stupid Janis: you didn't do anything Jimmy: It didn't leave it out though Jimmy: I could've Janis: you were just trying Janis: but alright, accepted, like Jimmy: give Mia another smack Jimmy: you'll feel better again Jimmy: & we can start over Janis: 'til her dad murders me or reads me my rights or some shit Jimmy: I believe in you, girl Janis: thanks Janis: don't deserve you Jimmy: yeah you do Jimmy: & if her dad kicks off I'll come knock him out Janis: hot Jimmy: you are Janis: nah Janis: I'm a pain in the arse Janis: naggy bitch Jimmy: you can be all of 'em Jimmy: it don't cancel out Janis: 😂 Janis: tah darling Jimmy: it's alright Janis: I miss you Janis: I've cleaned up and walked her though so Janis: welcome Ian Jimmy: I appreciate it Jimmy: I'll show you Jimmy: just come back Janis: you want me to Janis: I've already fucked your shift enough, I know Jimmy: I don't care Jimmy: I'm nearly done anyway Janis: okay then Janis: coming Jimmy: if you don't run I could be finished by the time you get here Jimmy: maybe Janis: be hard Janis: athlete that I am but Janis: take it slow Jimmy: do it for me baby Jimmy: when I see you I'll have to kiss you whether I'm still working or not Janis: um why are you actually being so fucking Janis: right now Janis: are you doing it on purpose Jimmy: I miss you too Jimmy: that's it Janis: thanks for not letting me ruin it Jimmy: I promised Jimmy: tah for not letting me Janis: I promised too Janis: know I make it difficult but Janis: you know Jimmy: it ain't like I make it any less Jimmy: you know I'd rather fight with you than be around anyone else Jimmy: just don't leave Janis: I ain't trying to give you anything else in your life to worry about or stress or Janis: but I won't Janis: swear on my life Jimmy: I worry about you all the time Jimmy: that's just Jimmy: giving a shit Jimmy: I'm never gonna stop doing that Janis: I'm Janis: not used to liking that Janis: or wanting it Jimmy: I know Jimmy: I'm not used to doing it 'cause I want to though so I get it Jimmy: you're not an obligation to me & that's weird but Jimmy: how I like it Janis: 'cause Janis: the way family 'cares' Janis: it does fuck all Janis: makes everything worse, usually Jimmy: yeah Jimmy: you know how my dad 'cares' so Jimmy: but you're more than family to me Janis: yeah Janis: I feel it too Jimmy: can we still go Janis: yes Janis: 'course Janis: we both still need to Janis: even if you wanna ignore me the whole time, you have to come Jimmy: that isn't what I want Jimmy: I want Jimmy: you Janis: good Janis: that's all I want too Jimmy: I'm gonna make everything better again Jimmy: we'll just leave everything behind like we planned Janis: it'll be good Janis: we're so good Janis: honest Jimmy: I love you so fucking much, alright Jimmy: forever still Janis: forever and ever and ever okay Jimmy: I swear I'm never gonna leave you Jimmy: I don't care if it's hard sometimes Jimmy: it's the easiest thing I've got Jimmy: & everything I want Janis: I love you Janis: I'm not losing this Janis: you Jimmy: me either Jimmy: I need you Janis: its mutual Janis: you know Janis: so fucking much Janis: I don't even know what I did before Janis: or how Janis: for so long Jimmy: I know Jimmy: & I need you to know too that it ain't always gonna be like this Jimmy: we can leave for real soon Jimmy: we won't have to come back Janis: you mean it Janis: 'cos don't say it otherwise I can't Jimmy: I'm serious Jimmy: you might have to wait longer than you wanna but Jimmy: if you can then we can Janis: 'course I can Jimmy: not gonna be this young forever Jimmy: 👵👴💕 Janis: that's all I've wanted since 👶 basically so Janis: and yeah, know you're buzzing for that Janis: only reason you're sticking around, yeah Jimmy: when's your birthday Jimmy: we can go after that Janis: 13th October Jimmy: 👍 Janis: you reckon they'll give less of a shit, like legally Janis: 'cos we'll be 16 Jimmy: the 👮🚔 will be if Ian gives 'em a bell Jimmy: that works for me Jimmy: he'll only bother when he figures out that we're staying away Janis: yeah Janis: exactly Janis: can't make you come home Jimmy: it don't look good your ex & your kid both doing one but we'll be long gone by then Jimmy: so he can be as fuming as he wants Janis: and give a shit about making him look good Jimmy: the kids will still have me on the end of the phone Jimmy: that's all that matters Janis: yeah Janis: we can make it work Janis: we will Jimmy: we have to Janis: promise Jimmy: trial run starts in a bit then Janis: it's easy Janis: if you can hack it being a bit rough in the beginning Jimmy: I can handle you being a massive dickhead so I reckon I've got it Janis: 😏 okay Janis: letting that slide Jimmy: 💕 Janis: you're allowed like Janis: three lowblows, I reckon Janis: then it's business as usual Jimmy: how many have I done? Janis: I'll be fair and count from that one Jimmy: alright Janis: don't waste 'em, babe Jimmy: don't sound like me that Janis: just sayin' Janis: got a week to deal with me, you know Janis: s'a long time Jimmy: not long enough Jimmy: I don't wanna come back & we ain't even left Janis: I know Janis: if we had somewhere we could be alone proper Janis: it wouldn't be as shit, still a lot but you know Jimmy: really fucked you over by making Dublin into 'something' Jimmy: no squats about now Janis: defs is, just gotta be in the right wrong postcode Jimmy: you reckon? Jimmy: sort it out then, rich girl Janis: yeah, gonna need to kill that nickname or we'll both be 👻 Jimmy: 😂 Jimmy: no promises Janis: not saying you have to remember my name Janis: not going that hard Jimmy: if you find us somewhere I will Janis: hold you to that Jimmy: you can Janis: I'm outside if you can have a quick 🚬 Jimmy: hang on Jimmy: gimme a sec to finish this bollocks & then it's over with Janis: 👍 ain't going anywhere without you Jimmy: good Jimmy: don't Jimmy: [after a realistic number of minutes to get shit done, a wild Jimothy appears] Janis: [leaning on the wall like a cool bitch just like sup] Jimmy: [kisses her like he said he would as soon as he saw her & it's such a good one like use that wall boy] Janis: ['well, shit'] Jimmy: [is just looking at her like 😍] Janis: [kisses him now she knows they're good, pulling him closer always] Jimmy: [just let them have a lil make out moment cos deserved] Janis: [then taking his hand like c'mon 'cos excited to gtfo] Jimmy: [handholding & walking but he's also 🚬 cos hasn't had chance since when] Janis: ['should we go shop and get load of ready meals for the kids?] Jimmy: [is looking at her even more hearteyes cos that's why he loves you bitch that's such a good idea & so nice bye, does remember to nod though eventually] Janis: [smiles like cool 'cos she ain't gonna see it as a big thing obvs, 'yeah, they ain't all unhealthy as fuck nowadays but even Bobs could do that if he needed so'] Jimmy: [kisses her again cos so nice & also her smiling kills him always so] Jimmy: what do we need? Janis: not much Janis: we'll have a bed and water and all the shit we need in the caravan so Janis: cash for food and some clothes, if you insist, like Jimmy: easy Jimmy: no need to piss about for ages Janis: [nods] Janis: seriously, enough of that as is Jimmy: yeah Janis: [keeps looking at him 'cos can't help it] Jimmy: [more kisses cos he can't help that either] Janis: [puts her forehead to his and is just saying thank you over and over quietly like] Jimmy: [says ILY over and over & also sorry because well] Janis: ['don't be' and more desperate kisses] Jimmy: [literally the hottest make out in the middle of the street or wherever like] Janis: [tryna compose herself so they can do this shopping and go to his but damn] Jimmy: [isn't helping by being hot af excuse him everyone] Janis: can you save this at least 'til we're on the train Janis: killing me, boy Jimmy: [looks at her all innocently but he knows exactly what he's been doing] Jimmy: 😇 me Janis: [gives him a look like hmm but not actually mad so starts smiling with it] Janis: hate you Jimmy: I hate you too, baby Jimmy: so much Janis: [makes ugh! noise out loud 'cos feeling that #frustrated by you rn boy] Jimmy: [is 😏] Janis: just you wait Jimmy: I'm already waiting Jimmy: come here Janis: [does 'cos ain't too proud lbr] Jimmy: [more of the same cos no chill] Janis: ['Jesus'] Janis: are you ever gonna let me live Jimmy: not if it means I have to stop Jimmy: this Jimmy: [even more] Janis: ['Baby, please-'] Jimmy: ['say it'] Janis: [more noises 'cos dying] Jimmy: [goes as hard as he can considering where they are] Janis: ['Okay, okay, fuck! Jimmy, please take me somewhere right now so you can do more. I need it. You.'] Jimmy: [god knows where but he does lead her off somewhere cos same obviously he's made that pretty clear] Janis: [enjoy lads] Jimmy: [& now focus please thanks so much places to be] Janis: [🤤 through life 'cos blissed out can probably leave this here now]

[writerbri-archive]

GoT 8x04 - Liveblog pt 1

hello I’m not even close to ready to watch this

really wish I could snap my fingers and make this whole season go away

and we haven’t even seen half of it with the length of the last three eps

fanfiction all the way baby

anyway I’m not ready

I didn’t think through my decision to rewatch 8x03 before this

theon’s death definitely puts me in the proper devastated mood

thanks hbo

he woke up in the afterlife to Robb’s smile, that’s the only canon I accept

anyway Ramin Djawadi is the only creator in this show that I claim, it may not be my favorite fantasy series but it’s my favorite score

it’d be hella easier to clean up if the wights burst into ice too sorry edd

well it bears repeating that I’m not ready for this episode and I kinda don’t want it

but here we are

none of this is liveblog it’s just me rambling while I wait for the episode to start so I’m not tagging it

[journeysintowebcomics]

Worm Liveblog #93

UPDATE 93: Counterattack

Last time Panacea and Glory Girl’s story reached a rather tragic end. It’s unlikely either of them will appear in this story again, unfortunately. Now it’s time to return to the story. Shall the Undersiders start planning their attack on Coil, now that they got a truce with the Protectorate? Let’s continue.

As much as I wanted to make it a focus, taking care of my territory was something I had to handle in my downtime.

Sure says something about the quantity and gravity of everything Skitter has to deal with that something like an entire territory with possibly hundreds of people in it is something to deal with in her downtime. That’s not the kind of thing you usually would say is secondary, yet here we are. This is followed by worries she’s not paying enough attention to her, and to that I can only say it’s something to actually be concerned about. Communities getting neglected often leads to resentment, and she currently is the only person in charge in this area. Everyone will judge her because of the lack of attention she gives them. Discontent in society will lead to rebellion, and the last thing she needs right now is a rebellion in her territory.

...

...although a rebellion brewing in her territory would be kind of an interesting thing to deal with, wouldn’t it? Maybe it’ll happen and it’ll be the focus of a future arc.

They all had gone their separate ways to do whatever they wanted, just to relax before tackling the very daunting goal for the next week. Skitter used her time to take care of her territory, Regent controlled people in his turf, Heckpuppy took care of her dogs, Grue and Imp tried to sleep. Well, more like they all tried to do such things, because in the end they didn’t. They had to give some thought to their plans.

With a hundred problems we needed to handle, we’d agreed the most important thing was to deal with the most inevitable ones.  There was no point in working out a complicated and involved attack plan against Coil if we didn’t wind up fighting him.  There was a point in dealing with the Chosen; they were bound to attack us at some point, regardless of how future events unfolded.  Better to take the fight to them.

Does this mean they’ll fight the Chosen first, because offense is the best defense? The Chosen are going to attack at some point in the near future, so may as well attack them first? I’m all for that, I am, but...I don’t know if they have time. I mean, the only reason why they’re considering attacking Coil is because Dinah is currently out of commission. That chance isn’t going to happen again. Do they have time to counter the Chosen and attack Coil, all in the span of one week? It’s not impossible, I guess, but it’s going to be...very difficult, to say the least.

But hey, looks like this arc will be about a preemptive attack onto the Chosen. I’m game. Them not having Hookwolf will make things a little easier. Maybe it won’t take as long as I’m thinking it will.

Apparently this is the day after they decided to attack Coil. Last night Tattletale, Grue and Skitter reunited to discuss strategy plans, the other three not being involved in the discussion.

“I wouldn’t have minded,” Imp said.  “I wouldn’t have anything to contribute, but I’d like to follow along.  And I can’t figure out my niche in the group with the trio being so… trio-ish.”

“Trio-ish?” I asked.

“Tattletale, you and my brother.  Making all the plans, you’ve got the nemeses…” Imp paused.  “Is nemeses a word?”

That’s the power of being the main characters of the story, Imp! But eh, it’s not like Grue and Tattletale have nemeses. Nemesii. Whatever. Tattletale does have Faultline, but Faultline has done nothing of importance for a long time. Grue had Shadow Stalker, and now she’s...not around. Isn’t she in jail? Skitter’s the one with a revolving carrousel of nemesiseseseses, by virtue of being the protagonist of Worm.

Although they’re aware three of their teammates have been brainstorming and having discussions they’re not privy too, they’re okay with that, enough to joke around in a moment that’s honestly kind of cute.

“Let’s quit and start our own group!”  Regent said, throwing one arm across Imp’s shoulders and gesturing dramatically with the other as he continued, “Regent, Imp, and Bitch, the Othersiders, a spin-off team.  And we’ll stick with Coil while the others turn traitor, and we’ll have this epic fight…”

Imp took his cue, “And Brian and I will go head to head, and it’ll end in this dramatic moment where he says something pretentious-”

“Et tu, sis?”

“And then I’ll say ‘Yeah, it’s me’ and finish him!  No mercy.”

They were playing off one another, joking.

And he calls me the dork?

Maybe it’s because I’m cherishing the rare moments of levity in this story. There’s so few moments where the characters can relax and mess around. Worm is a dark story, and for that reason such moments are rare...it’s a pity, really.

It’s planning time? Tattletale is here, Grue isn’t, and there’s no mention of Heckpuppy. The reason Grue isn’t around is because he needs to sleep, and this is a thinly-veiled jab at Skitter for not getting enough sleep. By now I’m sure she won’t get a night of good sleep at any point of Worm. So! Strategy meeting!

Mayoral elections are coming, oh boy. I don’t think that particularly affects the Undersiders, and Coil has agents working for him as mayoral candidates, anyway. It’s just another iron on the fire. Not worth doing anything about, in my opinion.

Next topic: Hookwolf’s group and Purity’s group are having trouble. Now that Hookwolf is gone, Purity would be the one to lead everyone, but that’s not going smoothly, it seems. Ideological differences, perhaps?

Apparently it’s that. Hookwolf may have been slandering Purity, and now people who believed everything he said will refuse to work under her. Also, capes like Stormtiger and Cricket want their turn as leaders and I’m not convinced that’ll happen. The point is that with the current dissensions and inability to unite, it’s a prime moment to strike. Yup, it is, but...really, is there time for that?

“Something to keep in mind,” I said.

“Something to exploit?”

I glanced at her in surprise, and she shrugged.

“Elaborate? You’re not suggesting we ally with them, are you?”

Do they have anything to gain from allying with the Undersiders? There’s no common threat now. I don’t really see a reason for villain teams to cooperate with each other.

Tattletale is proposing a truce; Imp completely rejects it on basis of having gone her entire life suffering the disdain of racists of all ages. I know truces and that kind of thing are necessary sometimes, but honestly, I’m supporting Imp on this one. I as a reader see no particular reason to ally with the Chosen or with Purity’s group in any manner, and the mere thought of working with them feels...gross. Again, no bigger threat. No excuse to ally with them.

Thank goodness, it seems the idea of possibly making a truce with the racist factions isn’t going to work.

Tattletale also brings up they have a truce with the New Wave hero faction, which is good. Doesn’t seem like she’s aware of what happened to Panacea and Glory Girl, or if she knows she doesn’t say anything. Mr. Wildbow takes the chance to set up the in-character reason to not look for her in the future.

Amy had crossed my mind as I’d reflected on the various encounters with the Nine, and I’d thought about going to look for her.  Having her in the group would be invaluable, no question.  Even touching base with her could leave us options if someone got hurt or if we needed resources.  That said, the major issue was that I couldn’t be sure she’d actually join or even listen, and we were trying to operate with certainties.  I couldn’t afford to go when it meant potentially wasted time.

Pretty unlikely she’d cooperate in any manner. Even if she did, she’d sabotage it in some manner or make it not be as useful as it should be. It took the agnosia miasma covering the city and threatening to kill everybody for her to cooperate with the Undersiders, all because of her rather black-and-white way of interpreting morality. Any requests for help would have been useless – leaving aside that she planned to leave Brockton Bay, anyway.

Thinking about Atlas reminded me of one thought I’d had during our downtime.  “It’d be fantastic if we could get a tinker in the group,” I said.  “Between Bakuda, Armsmaster, Mannequin and Bonesaw, I’m sort of starting to appreciate what they bring to the table.”

It’s starting to seem like tinkers are pretty useful for any kind of team, indeed. Even the Merchants had a tinker, even if she was...well...you know how she was like. Neither Purity nor the Chosen have tinkers, do they? But yeah, it’d be nice to get a tinker for the Undersiders. It’s not like they can put an ad or anything, though. Asking Coil to look for a tinker for the team would be a solution, but what they want is to attack him, no way they’ll ask him for help.

“You’re almost a tinker,” Regent told me.

He says that because Skitter is able to create stuff with her bugs and is generally quite versatile with them. Skitter wants more than what she’s capable to do, she wants someone who will open up a world of possibilities. That’s what a tinker is good for. Too bad there are no tinkers who are seeking to join anybody.

“It’s a shame that there’s not really any tinkers around that aren’t already committed. Unless you want to make a point out of recruiting Leet?”

There was a bit of a pause as we all considered the idea.

We simultaneously broke into laughter.

Oh. Right, that guy. He and the other guy are still alive?

In Regent’s territory, the Chosen have been causing havoc, and by havoc I mean petty defacement of buildings, just as a way to taunt Regent because he doesn’t have a way to counter them. What he does have is Shatterbird, who can blast the tags with sand until the walls are clean. It didn’t even take long. I wonder if this is the first time the Chosen have done this here. Can’t decide if it’d be petty or stupid to keep spray-painting his territory if they know Regent can clean it easily.

“Why spend a few hundred bucks on a sandblaster when you have a Shatterbird?  Who’s a good little power tool?”  Regent gave Shatterbird a pat on the cheek.  “You are.  Yes you are.”

Shatterbird must be seething with anger right now. I bet Regent says and does stuff like this often, he’s that kind of person. Not the kind that’d be always antagonistic for no reason, but the kind who’d casually do this if he feels like it.

It’s fitting for Skitter to ask Regent to treat Shatterbird with respect, but it still is kind of silly. Regent already gave a good reason to taunt and mess with Shatterbird – keep her emotionally drained to lessen the chances she breaks free – so there’s no really a reason to risk she getting away. The moment she escapes from Regent’s control; she’ll try to kill everyone in her way as retaliation for all this. Heck, even if she had been treated well, she’d do it for the fun of it.

As an idle thought, I noted that her teeth were in surprisingly good shape.  It made me wonder how the Nine took care of their teeth. Did they threaten some dentist and force him to do fillings and whitenings?  Or did Bonesaw handle that?  It was odd to think about.

Hah! What a time to be wondering something like that. The thought of the Slaughterhose Nine coercing a random dentist to clean their teeth and then leaving without major fuss is kind of funny. Nah, Bonesaw surely made sure the teeth don’t go into bad condition. She reinforced the teeth, it wouldn’t be surprising if she...I don’t know, implanted whiteners into them.

It’s time for a confrontation. There are several members of the Chosen around, and it doesn’t seem like any of them are parahumans. This should be easy.

A swarm of insects make everyone rush to the outdoors, trying to get away, giving Regent the chance to batter them with shards of glass in what must be a pretty painful experience. The point of this attack isn’t to kill, it’s to get them to stop bothering him. Not sure if it’ll work, but it’ll be a lesson learned for a few days, I’d say. It depends on if the leaders of the groups take this as a major insult or not. With some luck they’ll be all ‘that’s what you get for fooling around there’ buuuuut that’s unlikely.

Attacking the mooks is easy, the parahumans are the problem here – because yup, there are a few of those here. Rune, Night and Fog. Night is the one I’m worried about the most, I don’t think there’s a way to counter her, and if there is, they better think fast, because there’ll be retaliation for this attack soon.

Purity isn’t here – of course not, why would Purity hang out with the foot soldiers messing around? -- Crusader isn’t here...which one is Crusader, again? Well, it doesn’t really matter. There’s another parahuman, and it’s one I don’t think had been mentioned ever before.

Victor. He was a talent vampire, stealing people’s trained skills, keeping them if he held on to them long enough, and leaving that person temporarily bereft of whatever skill they’d spent their lives learning.  People like him had a tendency to pick up martial arts, parkour, weapons training and other combat skills.  He tended to pair up with Othala, the girl who could grant powers, meaning Victor also had super speed, super strength or invincibility.  If he was wounded, she could give him regeneration instead.

But her power demanded that she touch whoever she was using it on, and it limited her to granting one power at a time.  If he had invincibility, it meant he didn’t have super strength, pyrokinesis or any of that.

Sounds useful. If I understand this correctly, does this mean the people who got their talents stolen don’t lose them permanently? Even if Victor keeps those skills? How many different skills can Victor have? Unlimited, or is there a limit?

Well, it’s less impressive when Skitter is able to tie him with the silk, making him fall to the floor and keeping him down for the count. Night and Fog are the big threats, anyway. The current idea is to bait them somehow. They’re formidable opponents, that’s a dangerous plan.

Our last run-in with Night and Fog had been ugly.  That had been months ago, and we’d basically lost.  I wasn’t content to simply lose, though.  I’d replayed the scene over and over in my head since it had happened, doubly so since I’d found out Coil’s power.  If he could create alternate timelines and choose the results, and if he’d used his power to save us, what had happened in that other timeline? Had we died?

Definitely. I don’t doubt in alternate timelines they died.

Countering them is pretty difficult. Night is a tough one because, although her transformation doesn’t work when her opponents can see her, she has a myriad of ways of forcing them to be unable of seeing her. Fog is...well, a gas. Have you ever tried to contain large quantities of gas without specialized tools? Regent tries to block him with a glass barrier, yet he manages to seep through cracks. Right now it looks like it’s matter of time before Night and/or Fog manage to do something that’ll give them the advantage. Good thing Skitter seems to have a plan...whatever it is.

“This power is so hard to use,” Regent complained.  “So much to focus on.”

“You’re doing fine.”

“I’m doing fine because she’s helping.  I think.”

Really? I didn’t expect that. Why would Shatterbird try to help? Self-preservation, perhaps? I thought she’d try to resist as much as possible so Regent had higher odds of dying so she’d be set free, but I suppose she’s not sure she won’t die first or something. I imagine if necessary Regent will use her as a meat shield. Meanwhile, Skitter tries her silk strand restraints strategy on Night, it doesn’t work very well.

At least she’s able to stop the smoke grenades and her cloak, thanks to those same silk strands. Night’s remaining way of forcing her to look away is with a flashbang, and that works. It takes no time at all for Night to transform and rush towards the rest of the Undersiders, while Skitter tries to help with her swarm. I don’t know if things are going well...it seems to me the Undersiders aren’t doing much progress. It’s matter of time before things go pear-shaped.

Night gets to where the rest of the Undersiders are, ready to attack. It wouldn’t take her long to kill anyone if given the chance. Thankfully, she doesn’t get to attack, thanks to Skitter, so she runs into the closest place she thinks will help her transform. Although she’s out of Skitter’s sight, she still doesn’t transform, until she’s knocked out.

Imp stood over Night, holding a taser.

I completely forgot about her! So that’s why Night couldn’t transform, Imp was there. Now Skitter and Imp shall stand around, taking turns to blink...leaving Tattletale and Regent over there to fight everyone else by themselves. Welp. Even though Night has been dealt with, I’m not sure this is on the Undersiders’ favor.

Oh, nevermind, they’re moving Night towards the rest. Over there Fog is kept inside a box, and Rune isn’t in a state to fight. The Undersiders win, the enemies are embarrassed. That went well! Better than I expected, that’s for sure. Time for a serious conversation! Starting with Tattletale telling them to get out of their territory, and Rune retorting the Undersiders took the entire city as their territory. Iiii’m pretty sure that was Tattletale’s way of telling them to leave the city, yeah.

Time for a show of strength – as if defeating them wasn’t enough, hah. Well, better to be safe than sorry, so Skitter gets intimidating and tells them they have them defeated in every way and deserve to take over the city. Also they’re getting taxed, the Undersiders till take everything valuable that’s in the base they had nearby. Okay then! Spoils of war for the victor--

“But that’s not enough, is it?  So there’s another tax.  We’re borrowing one of your teammates.”

The Chosen weren’t the only ones who looked shocked at the declaration.  I snapped my head around to look at Regent.  There was no surprise there.

Fuck them. They’d planned this, and they hadn’t told me.

Oh goodness! That’s unexpected. And looks like this is a plan Regent and the others agreed to without telling them. Tattletale must know too, I imagine. Interesting! And dangerous, too. Is there a guarantee whoever they borrow won’t betray the Undersiders whenever they can? Unless...

...unless what they mean with ‘borrowing’ is that Regent will control someone. In that case, it’s not a bad plan. Purity is going to take it as a major insult and may try to have their revenge, but yeah. It’s interesting and could be useful.

I wonder which one they’d take. Everyone has their pros and cons. Hard to guess which one would be the best option. Buuut that’ll be for next time.

Next time: in seven updates