#I know a lot of people are saying we're on the cusp of seeing the film industry burst as it did in the 60s

[themidnightcircusshow]

I think the most worrying thing about 1899′s cancellation is that it firmly proves our worst fears about the state of streaming now that we’re going into 2023. 

There were many concerns about The Sandman not getting renewed. It all seemed so ridiculous-- it was the biggest show in the world. How could it not get renewed? Ah yes, it was the biggest show in the world, but that might not be enough. Then, of course, it got renewed. Why wouldn’t it? It was the biggest show in the world. 

1899 was not the biggest show in the world. But it seemed to be a successful show. There were people watching it. Interestingly, it was the show that I heard the most buzz about in the wild-- a lot of popular shows you only hear about in fandom, but this was the first time in a while that just random people in the street were mentioning a new show. It reminded me a lot of Ozark in that way, because even though the show seemed very quiet in its internet presence, it had a lot of viewers. 

A lot of people are comparing 1899 to the first season of Dark to explain why it failed to get renewed. But what they’re failing to take into account is that Dark came out in a very different media landscape. So did the first season of Ozark. And the first season of many shows that fit this ‘silent viewership’. And that is why-- based on observation only, because Netflix never has and probably never will release viewer metrics-- I believe that if 1899 had come out a few years earlier, there would have been no question about it being renewed. 

Because the streaming world of 2022 is profoundly different to that of 2017. Rings of Power had to make more than $1 billion to break even. Avatar and it’s sequels have a similar unfathomably lofty goal in order to make back their budget. And let’s not get into the shows on HBO Max. It’s a conflation of an increasingly bloated film industry with a television industry that is back to only being interested in short term gains and not long term investment. It’s 2014 again, and we’re watching the streaming equivalent of shows being cancelled because their viewership isn’t in the coveted Nielson Bracket. It’s not that they aren’t making money-- it’s that they’re not making enough money.

For shows to be renewed in 2022, they have to be the biggest shows in the world. 

And unfortunately, while it was successful, 1899 was not the biggest show in the world. 

[urmom3001]

Sweetheart

Summary: Luke Castellan pulls the camp sweetheart and no one knows how he managed to snag her after everyone else's attempts had failed.

Warnings!: Fem! Reader, claimed but not specific, Counselor! reader just really cute fluff lwk. :3

Y/n L/n was nobodies enemy at Camp Half-Blood. Everyone at half camp half-blood had come to the consensus that they all just loved Y/n. Even Mr. D admits that her smile could warm an old sad man's heart.

So obviously by default every boy was swooning for her and every girl admired her. Only one little problem. In all of her years at camp, (She was a full rounder). No one had ever managed to take her off the market. Not even a fling. Y/n had always just ridden solo and she was completely content with that.

Until one winter everything changed.

You see, Y/n had never really planned on dating Luke, but how could she refuse? He was Tall, Handsome, and really sweet. And he was the complete opposite of Y/n. Y/n always believed opposites attract.

"Go on a date with me? Just one, I promise I'll make it worth your while." Luke promised as he peered down at you.

"Hmm, okay." Y/n responded.

"Really?" Luke said. Luke had heard about the rumors of Y/n's dating life obviously. Who hadn't?

"No, not really." Y/n said in a sarcastic tone. "Of course really, just let me know when." She said as she picked up her training bag to go back to her cabin, before she could go, she tiptoed up to Luke and planted a kiss on his cheek.

She didn't turn around to see Luke's madly red face, and he's happy she didn't.

So when everyone came back for the summer, news spread like wild fire. Camp Half-Blood's Sweetheart was off of the market, taken by none other than Luke Castellan.

At first people didn't really realize until about three days into the summer. They started to notice that Hermes cabin was somehow always on schedule with Y/n's cabin.

Then the campers noticed the two counselors were closer, a lot closer. Some would even say they were on the cusp of borderline PDA.

Then everyone noticed how Y/n and Luke were sitting together at every meal, every meal!

Luke and Y/n liked playing games with everyone, so when people got bold enough to ask one of them "Are you guys together?" They would both have the same answer.

"No, we're just really close friends." They would both answer with a smile, when in reality they had been together officially for about 2 months.

Of course, everyone knew that they were together, even though they didn't say it. Everyone knew. He was hers and she was his. If she called, he would answer. That's just the way it was.

Eventually everyone got over the fact that they're beloved Sweetheart had been swooped by Luke Castellan because well. They were meant for each other.

[normal-thoughts-official]

Wyll's ideal reclassing is as a bard and God herself couldn't change my mind.

Listen. I do like that Wyll is a ranger if he gets out of the pact but rangers are a lonely class by nature and fuck that. And while I also get the people who reclass him as paladin, I think the last thing he needs after getting out of Mizora's pact is to immediately be bound by a new and different set of rules to another otherwordly being he's sworn his soul to.

And while I understand why the devs didn't do this, since bards are sort of a support class and there are many possible endings for Wyll where he is on his own, I am bound by no such rules because i know that the only real canon ending is that he is with Karlach.

So, bard Wyll.

For starters, the man loves drama. Look no further than his introduction, but I would also like to present to the jury the conversation where he tries to find Gale a Cool Wizard Name. Pretty much the only thing he ever has fun with anymore is his theatrics. He'd love every second of being a bard and using said theatrics to defeat his foes. Especially because Wyll is a sweetheart but when he's angry he is angry, and as a bard he gets to let his mean streak out with spells like vicious mockery and such. "Oh he already has vicious mockery as a warlock if you have the pact of the tome" thank you for further supporting my argument. He was made for this

But there is more! Wyll is a folk hero and his whole thing is that he wants to help the weak and in need, and if that isn't supporter class material, then I seriously don't know what is. Yes, defeating monsters is important; but healing people, restoring balance by weakening those who abuse their strength, entertaining and making them happy are all just as important ways of supporting the weak, if not more important.

And those ways allow him to be closer to people, which he is so desperately starved of.

As a warlock he sort of had to keep his distance because Mizora would make sure he never got close to anyone, either intentionally or just by the fact that the nature of his pact put people off (even more so after the horns). Unbound by Mizora, he has no such problems and can find a community, even if temporary, with the people he saves. "Oh but you just said you want him to be with Karlach and then he's in Hell". Yes, and there are people there. Show me a single place with more people who are weak and unfortunate in need of rescuing and respite. I'm not the first person to say this, but they actually have the chance to turn the House of Hope into an actual house of hope where people can rest and escape the horrors of the Hells. And those people would need respite and happiness, and Wyll "Drama Boy" Ravengard would be delighted to provide and find himself among them.

Also, if no one else, he has Karlach, and there is nothing he wants more than to see her happy and alright. I don't need to justify this one, it's text. So, again, supporter class makes a lot of sense in that context. Warlock/ranger is good for when he's on his own, but he's sworn to help and protect Karlach now, and while fighting side by side obviously qualifies, being able to heal her - make sure she's alright - support her in battle more than just fighting with her, gives them a deeper bond and puts him more at ease, I believe. Plus, they both deserve and desperately need some playfulness in their lives, so, at the very least, he can make her laugh with his insane Vicious Mockery casts. He kind of overcasts that one because 1- he has fun with it, and 2- it makes Karlach smile, but they're both op as fuck so it doesn't matter anyway. It's the closest they can get to lightness and fun while they don't find a definitive cure for Karlach's heart.

And once they do find it and get the fuck out of there, listen. They both deserve some downtime, okay. We're talking about two people who have been thrown into fighting nonstop since they were barely on the cusp of adulthood, and who have more trauma to unpack than years of life. So fuck going straight back to adventures and oaths and nonstop seriousness. Sure, Wyll would want to, but he also wanted to go to fucking Hell for no reason. Even with his father back, even free of Mizora, that's the only thing he can think to do with himself if you let him choose. And he deserves better than that. He deserves to rest and unpack what's happened and find value in himself beyond the Blade of Frontiers, to enjoy the youth that was stolen from him; and the man craves to settle down more than anything, even if he won't admit it even to himself other than the marriage aspect of things. But need I remind everyone that when Wyll had been given a death sentence - the tadpole - what he did was stop at a grove and teach kids how to fight? He thought he would do one last mission and then die, and what he did was that for once he allowed himself to stay and get to know people and be part of a community for a while. Sure, they needed him, but so many people did. And he was supposed to be hunting Karlach, yet he put that aside in order to have a place to belong, just for a little while, before he became a monster and lost his soul (which is fine, really. One way or the other, he knew that would be his fate. It's just coming sooner than expected, that's all) (this is me laying down Wyll's logic. None of this is fine and I'm screaming and crying).

As for Karlach, she never even wanted to be thrown into any of this anyway. Once they're out of Avernus, they will both need to rest and breathe, and that is final. And as a bard, Wyll can settle down. He can find a home and a community, have a place to come back to, have vacations when he needs to, have fun when he wants to. He will never fully give up being a hero - it's who he is, it's who he's always been even before he was the Blade. Someone who cares, someone who wants to be there for others - but he can and should find balance between that and being himself. And what better class to do that than the artsy, dramatic, drawing-strength-from-your-own-self-expression class?

Plus, as a bard, he gets to sing absolutely off the shits songs about the Blade of Frontiers/Avernus while being the Blade of Frontiers/Avernus. The comedy potential is unlimited. You want to see that. You agree. Don't lie to me.

Also, bards' spellcasting modifier is also charisma, so that's just convenient. I know that when you get reclassed in bg3 you can simply change your stats but uhhhhh. Fuck that? And yes, yes, he already has high wisdom because if anyone has a will of iron it's him, but I also feel like Wyll's off the shits charisma is a part of who he is. He is charming, both in the romantic and non-romantic sense. He enjoys being around people, he loves culture more than anything (I am once again thinking about his idle dialogue with Gale at the tollhouse when Gale says that they must have been very rich with all the trade from the Chiontar and Wyll replies, "And they wouldn't have brought just trade goods, but song, dance, and custom. Riches of the mind and the spirit". If that doesn't summarize Wyll's values and love of life I don't know what the fuck does), he likes being social and charming others. And people are drawn to him, people trust him, because he's a goddamn folk hero through and through, and not just because he's the Blade of Frontiers. So keeping his stats and using his charisma to draw his magical strength just makes sense for him

There's no other class that Wyll would enjoy as much, that would allow him to keep his favorite parts of being the Blade while also allowing room to be himself, or that would fit his current stats as well. Wyll was made to be a bard and I'll go to war over this

[degreedummy]

Empty Houses

So, before I start, I think we just need to talk about some misconceptions first, one being that an empty house has no meaning or value to your life, the lack of placements in that area being equated with complete silence, like an empty house. The most common practice people will use, when trying to understand empty houses, is by looking at the houses "lord", aka the ruling planet of the empty houses' ruling cusp.

 

When looking at the house lords, I prefer the modern method (but still use Traditional alongside it):

Aries - Mars

Taurus + Libra - Venus

Gemini + Virgo - Mercury

Cancer - Moon

Leo - Sun

Scorpio - Pluto

Sagittarius – Jupiter

 Capricorn – Saturn

 Aquarius - Uranus

Pisces – Neptune

 

When looking at house lords, we look towards where that placement falls in our chart, using the house it falls under, any aspects, and if you apply it, malefic/benefic delineations to understand how that houses themes express themselves. So, say someone has an empty Cancer 3H, the lord of that house would be the Moon, meaning that we look to their Moon placements, any aspects towards it, etc. to understand how they (3H) communicate their emotions.

For me, under that same circumstance (empty Cancer 3H), let's say the house cusp is at 25° 25°- Aries- square degree influence- causes conflict between (25°) their desire for leadership and (square/cancer) their understanding of being able to express themselves as that leader. So, through house lords and other theories, we're able to see that we are able to find meaning in empty houses. Especially when it comes to transits through those houses, we can miss out on a lot in our chart if we treat these transits as *entering a void*. So, now to go through the houses and what they mean on their own! If these don't apply, try applying the degree aspect method and see if you have square or inconjunction degree influences over said house.

 

EMPTY 1H

This is someone who doesn't have to put thought into who they are, most struggles they face when it comes to their identity having to do with almost being careless with who they represent themselves as. This is someone who doesn’t feel the need to prove themselves. An empty 1H is someone who... isn't by any means immune to insecurity, but they aren't driven by it. Doubting themselves, if they're able, only happens in response to failure, needing a direct cause to make them start thinking about themselves.

 

EMPTY 2H

This is someone who has an easy time communicating their morals, values, and need for stability to people, sometimes overstepping by laying out an NDA for a new friend. Empty 2H folks tend to be... while they value their possessions, this is someone who isn't broken by something breaking. If they lose something, to them, all they can do is either find it or replace it. There is no intermission with them, they push forward.

 

EMPTY 3H

This is someone who... may have issues with recognizing social dynamics and cliques because they're so ready to give everyone an equal opportunity to get to know them, usually never considering what can be done with all that information. An empty 3H shows someone who, really, talks to hear themselves talk. While the house may be empty, this is where the silence of it becomes uncomfortable, pushing the native to make up for it on their own.

 

EMPTY 4H

Empty 4H's tend to have a cohesive home life, possibly getting in trouble for not switching things up enough. These are folks who tend to go home with the intentions of staying home, entering a new mindset depending on what side of the door they're on. The 4H being empty can show someone who, actually, needs an empty house. Not having any placements, these folks aren't used to not being able to escape the stress, so shadow work literally starts at what they consider to be "home".

 

EMPTY 5H

An empty 5H represents someone who, maybe even though having a touch childhood, still never lost their connection to their innocence and curiosity. This is someone who's never felt scared of or embarrassed by their own need to share and receive love. The 5H being empty shows someone who tends to follow trends more than starting them, and it's because they don't mind being introduced to something new. Their love isn't limited by any insecurity, their heart reaches as far as consent allows them to.

EMPTY 6H

This is someone who has little problem staying organized, or lives life so comfortably that they have their own version of being organized. These will be the 6H cusps to have their own system, holding to it no matter how much sense it makes. When they don't need to do a lot of work to maintain their life, this can sometimes lead to them... not being so great at adhering to other peoples' schedules. They tend to assume everything will take the least amount of work, sometimes falling apart because they didn't check up.

EMPTY 7H

An empty 7H shows someone who, usually, doesn't ever know the relationship is going south until they're literally told it is, assuming everything is alright as long as the two people who need to be together [are] together. They're truly about "us against the world", having a habit of forgetting, romantically and platonically, to check up on the other person and actually ask what they need out of a partner. This 7H needs to focus on more active communication, even if they don't think they "need" it.

EMPTY 8H

This house being empty shows someone who has no hesitation in how they share themselves with people, simply following the desire to be closer to someone and wanting to be the one who changes them for the better. And it isn't necessarily their goal to change the people they love, but intimacy to them is pushing each other forward through the anxiety and fear, not letting each other get stuck in feeling out of place-- fear they forget to say they don't really experience.

EMPTY 9H

This is someone who swings around a sword with three edges, one who needs no validation for their beliefs, one who sees no limitations in exploring other peoples' beliefs, and one who asks so many questions that people perceive it as doubt. Empty 9H'ers are... always looking to understand, over anything else. I think sometimes digging too much can get them in trouble, but it's never enough to put an end to their curiosity, because that ease in their approach to expansion already accounts for growing pains.

 

EMPTY 10H

The 10H being empty represents someone who doesn't usually feel a strong desire to change who they are to affect perceptions of them, not seeing value in being [known] if it means they have to be known for being someone else. This is someone who... for better or worse, rushes past criticism, setting their minds to a goal and only accepting failure if that specific goal isn't reached. This is representative of a hard worker, but tunnel vision can be their worst enemy in terms of other areas in life.

 

EMPTY 11H

I think, when it comes to the 11H being empty, this can either represent someone who finds ease in surrounding themselves with people, or finds ease in knowing they don't need that many people in their lives. An empty 11H shows someone who's dreams change constantly, maybe so much that people lose belief in their ability to follow through, but everything is connected. They may bounce around a lot, but every "thoughtless" risk they take has purpose.

 

EMPTY 12H

Probably being the most intimidating house to face silence in, an empty 12H, to me, either represents someone who is in constant communication with themselves, or is so driven to push past their subconscious that they don't find the closure they need. An empty 12H shows ease in the connection between conscious and subconscious, but not everyone can handle a relationship they have little choice in being a part of. Sometimes it's silencing the endlessness of their anxiety that helps them find the answers they need.

[misskattylashes]

Instead of working today I have begun my concept album essays

The Arctic Monkeys and concept albums

Here is where I argue that Whatever People Say I Am, AM, TBHC and The Car are concept albums

Part One

Whatever People Say I am That’s What I’m Not (2006)

As I have said before, this whole album is a rock opera waiting to be written. The whole thing starts with the lines ‘anticipation has the habit to set you up, for disappointment in evening entertainment but, tonight there’ll be some love, tonight there’ll be a ruckus yeah regardless of what’s gone before’

This sums up the whole frigging album. Most of it is set up over one night on the town. There is the disappointment in love (Mardy Bum, Dancefloor, Dancing Shoes). Ruckuses come in the form of When the Sun Goes Down, Ritz to the Rubble and Riot Van. 

The album ends with A Certain Romance which once again sums up everything that has happened that night. ‘Don't get me wrong, though, there's boys in bands’, ‘And kids who like to scrap with pool cues in their hands, And just 'cause he's had a couple o' cans, He thinks it's all right to act like a dickhead (Riot Van/Ritz to the Rubble)

I would argue that there are two queer coded songs on this album. One being ‘You Probably Couldn’t See For the Lights’ that Alex reckoned was about Eva from The Little Flames…course it was Alex. Course it was Eva you made a bee-line for to teach you the chords to Put Your Dukes Up John…

The other one I would argue is Dancing Shoes – the red flag for me is the phrase ‘shit shock horror you’ve seen your future bride’ which to me screams of Northern working class expectation to marry some lass you probably met in a club. Also ‘so what you scared for? Well, don’t you always do the same? It’s what you’re there for but no’ which to me is that he’s there because he is expected to be but he doesn’t want to be because deep down it isn’t what he wants.

AM

In my opinion AM is a concept about loneliness and Alex being mucked about by Miles at a time when Miles wasn’t certain of his sexuality (I have been watching several young Miles interviews lately and his attempts to shoehorn women into them is quite painful). It is also an album with several mentions of secrets (Do I Wanna Know, Fireside, I Wanna Be Yours)

It starts with Do I Wanna Know…let’s look at the lyrics

(Baby we both know)

That the nights were mainly made for saying things that you can't say tomorrow day

Here we possibly go back to our ‘Midnight’ theme (also explored in Knee Socks and  Pattern by TLSP) and Miles’ possible guilt around his sexuality. He’s willing to be with Alex alone at night, but daytime, openly is a different thing altogether. 

‘I'm sorry to interrupt it's just I'm constantly on the cusp of trying to kiss you’

Remember the famous ‘it’s rare we don’t look like we’re about to snog’ interview?

R U Mine

I'm a puppet on a string (ahem)

some velvet morning (as previously discussed Lee Aizlewood/Nancy Sinatra, loved by Miles)

Unfair we're not somewhere misbehaving for days (I mean come on…misbehaving)

Well, are you mine? (Are you mine tomorrow?)

Are you mine? (Or just mine tonight?)

This goes back to our theme that the person is willing to be with him at night but generally treats him like a dirty little secret during the day

One for the Road

I think this one could be a mixed song. 

‘From the bottom of your heart

The relegation zone

I saw this coming from the start’

Once again we’re back to Miles dumping him but the rest of the song hints at loneliness and maybe Alex trying to hook up with someone else after a drunken party.

Arabella

Controversial opinion ahead – I don’t think Arabella is Alexa, Arielle, Miles or Uncle Tom Cobley and all

Arabella is Alex

Okay I am going to go deep here and people probably won’t agree but what the hell. Alex has a lot of feminine energy I think that is commonly agreed. He doesn’t get called slut for nothing. I think Arabella is the woman he would like to be, she is a woman who is highly desired by men (hello Alex flirting with numerous attractive men on various occasions), I would even go one further and say quite possibly she is the woman he wishes he could be, because at this time Miles was still screwed up about his sexuality and indeed if Alex was ‘Arabella’ he could be with ‘her’ without feeling guilty.

I Want It All

‘Ain't it just like you to kiss me and then hit the road

Leave me listening to The Stones

2000 Light Years From Home’

Here we go again (and also Miles has referenced the Stones in several interviews)

‘Blind faith

Heartache

Mind games

Mistakes

My sweet fireball

My sweet rigmarole

I want it all’

This reminds me a bit of the theme of The Wonder. Basically you’re a pain in the arse but I still want you.

No1 Party Anthem

This is a song about loneliness and the meaningless world our hero inhabits in LA (see also I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I AM) 

‘She calls the folks who run this her oldest friends’ (makes me think of some vacuous fame whore – I’m sure Alex has known lots of these)

‘She's a certified mind blower knowing full well that I don't

I may suggest there's somewhere from which I might know her’ 

I find this lyric really interesting. He is saying he doesn’t know this girl is a mind-blower (why, because he isn’t that familiar with women?) but he is trying to get off with her anyway because he is drunk and lonely. 

Mad Sounds

Is basically just Alex wanting to sound like Lou Reed (joke).  It’s just a cute little tune about how music can take you back to a happy place when you’re at your lowest.

Fireside

Interestingly I read the other day that this is the only song on the record Alex wrote in London not LA, so we’re presuming his ‘fuse’ was somewhere else (LA?). We can never ignore the words ‘fuse’ and ‘fire’ (Little Flames). What is also interesting is when AM played this on The Car Tour, Alex changed the lyrics.

The original goes

‘When you're ‘losing’ and your fuse is fireside’

But on the tour on every occasion, he sung;

‘When you’re ‘moving’ and your fuse is fireside’

Which I think is kind of cute, because presuming now all is well on Planet Milex. He is indeed ‘moving’ while he is on tour. Not losing like in the original one.

Why Do You Only Call Me When You’re High

I think this is quite possibly to a casual hook up…

It sort of feels like I'm running out of time

I haven't found what I was hoping to find

This sort of points to someone who can’t have who they want so they are settling for second best..someone he only bothers with when he’s off his head.

Snap Out of It

I think this song possibly relates to my theory of Miles and his issues with his sexuality. Especially the lines;

Forever isn't for everyone

Is forever for you?

It sounds like settling down or giving up

But it don't sound much like you girl (we all know Miles uses female pronouns obvs)

Knee Socks

I have covered Knee Socks 1,882,882 times! Mean Streets, Vespas, Be My Baby, the fact that Alex was always wearing that bloody sky blue Lacoste around the time of writing TAOTU in his house with Miles. Don’t forget Miles is also a footie fan and likes to play and indeed footballers wear knee socks. And obviously the ultimate ‘when the zeros line up on the twenty four hour clock’ 00:00 Midnight. Mr Fucking Midnight!!

I Wanna Be Yours

Now, to me, like A Certain Romance summarises WPSIAMTWIM, then I Wanna Be Yours summarises the whole of this album. The record starts with Alex asking Miles how he feels about him, and we go through a whole journey of Alex’s loneliness and confusion in his seemingly unrequieted love, casual hook-ups to fill the voids, and worries about his own sexuality. But at the end of the day, all he wants is to be Miles’. All the things he wants to be are things that serve – a vacuum cleaner, a car, a coffee pot, an electricity meter, setting lotion in the original JCC version there is mention of teddy bears and dreamboats. Alex just wants to serve the person he idolises. 

Part Two coming soon

How TBHC is about how Alex blames fame and the modern world for the mess his life is in and how The Car is about a him reflecting on his life so far…

[scarletify]

Hello! I have I have an update about the state of my comic going into 2024. If you enjoy my comic, thank you so much 💖

More under the cut!

Hello! The year is coming to an end, and as I tend to do at times like this, I find myself looking back on what this year was for me.

It's no secret that this has been one of the worst years for the comic in a long time, and it's not something I'm particularly proud of. It's also no secret that the comic slowing to a crawl is something that has been weighing on me greatly. It's something I feel a lot of regret and guilt over, and though I've said it many times this year, I still think it's important to say again. I'm very sorry that I've been unable to keep up with my comic. 

Next month the comic will be reaching its thirteenth anniversary. It's been a long road, and the comic's state through the years has directly reflected my own. When the comic is doing well, I am doing well. When it's not, I am not. I feel this is reflected in both the speed of updates and the quality of the art. 

This story is something I've put my heart into, and I want nothing more than to see it through. So, needless to say, the poor output of the comic this year has been a direct result of my own struggles. It's been a very hard year for me, a year I've struggled to stay afloat, and a year I've tried to find myself and who I want to be. 

I apologize if this comes off as too dramatic, but I can't help but think about these sort of things at times like this. Thirteen years... that's such a long time. I think I just hope to be understood. No one is more disappointed about the current state of the comic than me.

That said, I don't mean for this to be a sad post. On the contrary, I want it to be an uplifting one. 2023 was a year of struggles for me. A year of soul searching. A year of trying to find meaning. The answer I found was this. I love my comic. I love what I do. I love the people who enjoy my work. I love to share my work with you all, and I don't want to stop. 2023 was a year of struggles, so I'm going to make 2024 a year I can thrive again.

That's what I hope the takeaway of this post will be. I have been unwell, but I'm still determined to keep going. And I'm going to be trying harder than ever to find myself again this upcoming year. 

That said, I know that's easier said than done. I don't expect the comic to catch up to speed again overnight. But I'm ready to take those steps. Starting tomorrow, public updates will be resuming. Updates will continue to come first on my Patreon. My goal is to finish at least one page a week. Over time I hope to make that number even bigger. I hope to ease my way into more frequent updates again. These are goals, not promises, but ones I'm going to be trying as hard as I can to meet. 

You know what's been really hard? This scene we're on right now is a scene I've been looking forward to since the comic began. We're on the cusp of some big character moments, and it's driving me wild that we've been so close yet so far for so long. I'm excited about what's about to happen, and I truly hope you enjoy what's to come. 

Earlier this year I mentioned wanting to change the story medium at some point. This is something I still intend to do, but it won't be happening in the near future. At the very least I plan to finish chapter 6 as it is. Honestly, I really want chapter 7 to continue the comic format as well. Whether or not chapter 7 will be a comic however, I do intend to switch formats once the lycan arc is over. I truly believe this will be a good thing, and it will make finishing the story a lot more realistic. I'm excited for it when it comes, but I don't anticipate it coming just yet.

Also, I spoke before about issues with the hosting for my comic's website. This is something I've been working on behind the scenes, and I have good news in that regard! This issue has been resolved. Thanks to the help of a very kind friend, my website has new hosting and can continue running for the foreseeable future. I'm very relieved and very grateful that things turned out this way. That's one less thing to weigh down my mind.

Once again, thank you so much for all the support you've given me. Thank you for enjoying my work. Thank you for sticking by me for so long. Thank you for giving me a chance even as I've struggled. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for everything. Here's to a better 2024! ♥

[castiel-ten]

Looking at those responses, while understandable if given in good faith, I would argue that they don't seem as such. Yes, love does take place in many different ways. But it seems as if Mr.Gaiman is giving himself a cop out for not acknowledging them as textually queer in any form. It can textually be a queer love story and be acknowledged in text without using labels, but this is just not true of the show. Largely, the show makes it seems ambiguously on the cusp of something rather than acknowledging them as life partners. This is not a revolutionary act; as there are arguably a lot of shows displaying this ambiguity. You could argue that textually supernatural could be seen as such, although as you said you and I both view this as queerbait. Mr.Gaiman has also made responses before these on twitter in which he plainly stated they could not be queer, gay, or otherwise. It seems that he has disingenuously flipped his view

personally I don't understand how this could be a cop-out for neil when he has so many other "explicitly queer" characters. I just don't understand what he gains here. I also don't think it's fair to judge based on GO1 alone, since it's basically the development of their relationship into being established (for the audience).

also, it is a queer love story. like, it is and I don't understand why we're still on that.

There's a difference between the relationship itself being ambiguous in nature and the existence of an ambiguous relationship. The former is true, the latter is not in Good Omens, in my opinion. Destiel was regularly canonically backtracked and dismissed in and out of text.

This is Neil's preferred definition of queer (by his daughter).

I also think it's important to mention, in regards to "flipping his view," that he did write the show differently than the book very much intentionally. That doesn't somehow make it all wrong. Even if he somehow is ~covering his ass~ I literally don't care, it's still a queer story canonically. Supernatural covered their ass by killing Cas and shutting down fans, kind of a different ballpark here. GO2 will tell us if this truly is "revolutionary" in my opinion.

I honestly can't say that Neil is doing what I deem as best (or that he's completely innocent -- I can't know that), but I don't think there's enough of anything to say this is queerbait. I believe season 2 is where there'll be a line drawn. What side of the line A&C will be, I don't know. I'm hoping for some small narration thing like "and although they didn't give a name to their love, Aziraphale and Crowley lived their happily ever after anyways" literally something so easy and simple as that but nothing more. Anything more would be unnecessary.

I'm gonna address something different here just so I can have it all in one post, nothing at anon here. What I'm most sick of is people trying to "justify" A&C's relationship as if it isn't enough on its own. It is enough. No "they need to kiss" "they need to be say they are agender/nonbinary/aroace." "they're gay!" not if they don't call themselves that. they do not have genders, they get to make the rules. if I see one more "you cast two cis men!" I'm gonna scream. GENDER is NOT presentation. sorry they couldn't get real fucking angels. there are people you think are binary men and they look like you think binary men look like and they are not binary men. those people are real live people and walk amongst you. I sometimes consider myself one of them. There is nothing wrong with a genderless entity presenting as masc because yknow what? he has to present as fucking something and he can choose whatever he likes. it literally has nothing to do with their sexuality if they don't want it to.

[cleverthylacine]

I was born on the cusp of the Boom and GenX but I consider myself GenX because I do not feel like I had the same life at all as the people who were young adults during the Vietnam War and the Summer of Love, and I want to say that everything this man said is basically true, but there are caveats.

1964, the year I was born, is considered the last year of the Baby Boom. A lot of times I hear you guys talking about "boomers" whom you describe as being ... somewhere between the ages of 35 and 55. These people are not actually Boomers, they are Gen X. That's the generation that I identify with. We came of age after the Vietnam War and the protests and the hippies were over and done with.

Our generation was even more strongly affected by HIV and AIDS than the boomers were because we were the young adults of the 1980s.

The Boomers were the children of the late 40s and 50s. They were young adults, not children, in the 60s and 70s. The "baby boom" is considered as having lasted till 1964 because 64-65 is when postwar birth rates dropped, but the life experience of someone who was born in 1964 and was 16 in 1980 is wholly different from the life experience of someone who was a teen or young adult in the era of the 1960s/1970s. And NOBODY who was born 1965 or later is even "technically" a Boomer.

A lot of Boomers I know are actually pretty liberal. The Vietnam War killed a lot of Boomers, but a lot of the really liberal ones didn't go and had a disproportionate effect on the more conservative groups of young people back then.

AIDS was primarily killing young queer people and activists. AIDS also fuelled the Moral Majority and the rise of fundamentalism because it made people afraid of sex.

I don't think anyone who is young today can understand quite what it was like to be young and sexually active and not in a monogamous relationship in the 1980s.

A lot of people my age were angry at the hippies and the liberals and the sexual revolution and those are largely the ones that became evangelical conservatives. They also were the ones who voted for Reagan overwhelmingly. (The horror I felt when I learned someone I'd slept with was a Reagan voter can't really be overstated.)

A lot of the people my age that I was friends with were dying when the evangelicals and the Reagan conservatives were getting started.

So here is my advice. Gen Z and Gen Alpha have the determination the Greatest Generation had to fix things and create a safety net, but they also have the Boomers' desire to change things and make life easier and happier for people. The Boomers were Stonewall. My generation, unfortunately, was largely the Moral Majority.

In order to prevent this from happening again you need to do the following things: 1) Work your asses off to restore the social safety net and MAKE SURE your kids SEE you doing it and KNOW WHY you are doing what you're doing and what you're trying to shore up and prepare for. Do not tell them that they have to depend only on themselves. Tell them what your generation has already figured out--that we're not going to make it without each other, that we need a social safety net.

2) DO NOT let purity culture win. Yes, the 1960s/1970s sexual revolution had a lot wrong with it -- mostly because it needed feminism. Birth control made it easier to say yes, but also harder to say no if you hadn't learned how to say no when your no wasn't backed up by fear of Consequences. AIDS replaced pregnancy as Consequences in the mind of a lot of people who came of age in the 80s and weren't in the group I was in where a lot of us died.

3) Do not, as the Greatest Generation did, preach conformity of gender and social roles as a false source of safety and normality. Marriage is an important legal right because it allows you to easily do so many things that are hard for single people in a relationship to do otherwise and makes things clear, but it's not actually a solution for relationship problems or poverty and scarcity.

Anyhow, the people you're mad at, mostly, aren't Boomers. The youngest "technical" Boomers are 60 and they're not really Boomers; we were too young to have ever been the flower children or had to worry about getting drafted and sent to Vietnam.

If you're mad at people who are in late middle age, that's Gen X. :)

And it's important to know this not because we're evil (we're not, although a lot of our better angels didn't make it through the 80s and 90s to the era of HIV treatments that work) but because most of us were RAISED by the early Boomers and those who became Reagan conservatives and evangelicals were doing it out of fear that their parents, who had been letting their freak flags fly, had gone too far.

In a lot of ways we were like Gen Alpha, raised by the early millennials, in that we were raised by the early hippies.

Hope this helps.

(Also, many people do NOT get more conservative with age. I was 'socially liberal and financially conservative' in my teens and early 20s and then in the 90s got involved with queer activism and started working in health care and blossomed into a full on defund the police borderline anarchocommie progressive over the course of the last 34 years. The way people change as they age depends on what they experience and how open they are and how much attention they pay and how much they're willing to let go of their past.)

I mean, we knew, but it's nice to hear so succinctly

[nightcall99]

Notes from 22.4.24

The video didn't do much for me, which I expected. It's a good sign. I'd be disappointed if it did because I don't want to connect to information from months ago. That would mean I haven't integrated it yet. We're past it. We're past everything. It did help me confirm that the dog is a literal NPC dog because I recognise that I have no feelings toward it anymore. I used to worry and stuff but it no longer crosses my mind.

Uneventful day but I felt light and happy. My head was empty and I was just completely in the moment. This roller coaster ride has become less upsetting because it's set in that I know how it's going to go now. Not the specifics, I mean the energy of it. Even when I'm deeply irritated or depressed, I know how it's going to go. How many times do we have go through this? I can't play dumb anymore. I mean, those people in the chat play dumb and it's for their own purposes I suppose, but even that, I feel, will come to an end soon. We feel bad, we always feel bad and then we don't. We go back down and then we come back up. It's always the same. Should we keep playing?

You know what's fucking funny, I am Clea. I am her. She is me. Maybe today's video did help me more than I realise, because I remember that this is a fact I always knew. Like the sun rises and sets and my heart beats and I intake breath. I never once fought against the knowledge that she and I having the same HS. I just knew. And I dunno bro, you and me, talking each day like this, I'm sorry but how much deeper can you get? Your essence is deep in this shit. It's hanging around with my essence. I hope I'm not coming across as trying to influence but I think we do that to each other anyway and we can't help it. It's by design. And you and I aren't just hanging around, we're pioneering this shit. I'd bet all the money in the world that we were among the ones who coordinated everything. Yes, we're all one, so everyone did. Blah blah. But like, I'm talking about the fractalized, individualised level. The level of the game where we pretend we are separate essences. You and I. We did this. We must have.

It feels to me like we're on the cusp of something. It feels close. It does. I know, I say this a lot. Nothing I say means anything but it's like I've reached the point where I can just say stuff and it doesn't really matter anymore. The burden is gone, the anxiety. I don't care. The takedown is in a few weeks, the recall is any day now. People are here, people aren't here. Mort was on the side of the dark and he switched sides in this life, and that's why we feel the major ick. Is any of this true? I dunno. Whether it pans out or not, oh well. Live here till a 100? Ok. I want a Hello Kitty walking cane. And then the inverse of all that, is something extraordinary. The possibility that this all could be true, well my god. How can words express such joy? Maybe this is how it goes. Oh I know this is how it goes, because I planned it. In letting go, in giving in, in the absence of struggle (all figures of speech), beyond the appearance of drowning, we are deep diving toward the truth. We are safe. Diving suits, oxygen tanks. Goggles. We are good, fine. More than fine. And I think... I think I see something in the distance. And what if I do? See something. And I perceive it as getting closer? Well I'd smile a bit wouldn't I.

[letitrain-letitsnow-letitgo]

Anya’s SwynWriMo : Task 20

Personality Playlist: Create a playlist for a personality trait for a character!

Big Leo (and Cancer Cusp) Energy

A lot of people do not believe in astrological cusps, but for the purposes of this playlist… I do! I was the first triplet, so I picked a totally non-canonically birthday for them that they must now all obey (woops), but I did specifically pick a Leo/Cancer cusp because I felt like those were two very strong personalities that you could either lean into one or the other or both! Pepa’s definitely more on the Leo side, and a lot of these songs are about that big personality. The glamor! The showmanship! Wanting to be in the center of attention! But she also has a big Cancer streak, and that comes across in some of the moodier and more emotional songs. 

Link below!

Choice lyrics highlighted, with some liner notes:

There's a she-wolf in the closet

Open up and set it free (Ah-ooh)

There's a she-wolf in your closet

Let it out so it can breathe

She-Wolf/Loba - Shakira

I put the English and Spanish versions on here and I’m counting that as one song. Yes, Leos are lions, but I think the idea of having a free-spirited untamable animal side to yourself is very Leo. 

—

Look most of these are just bops about being an awesome person IDK what else to say. 

I live for the applause, applause, applause

I live for the applause-plause, live for the applause-plause

Live for the way that you cheer and scream for me

The applause, applause, applause

Applause - Lady Gaga

I'm feelin' myself, I'm feelin' myself, I'm feelin' myself

Feeling Myself - Nicki Minaj/Beyonce

—

There's only two types of people in the world

The ones that entertain, and the ones that observe

Well baby I'm a put-on-a-show kinda girl

Don't like the backseat, gotta be first

Circus - Britney Spears 

This is just such a Leo song! Put! On! A Show! Kinda! Girl! Yas! Queen!

Find light in the beautiful sea, I choose to be happy

You and I, you and I, we're like diamonds in the sky

You're a shooting star I see, a vision of ecstasy

When you hold me, I'm alive, we're like diamonds in the sky

Diamonds - Rihanna

My one, it lingers when we're done

You'll believe God is a woman

God is a woman - Ariana Grande

--

Cancer Szn transition here....

Think I'll miss you forever

Like the stars miss the sun in the morning sky

Later's better than never

Even if you're gone, I'm gonna drive (drive), drive

Summertime Sadness - Lana Del Rey

Listen. This is the quintessential Cancer Season Song. Miss Lana is the Queen of Cancer Feelings, and yeah okay this is such an overdone song but fight me, it’s perfect. It’s longing and desperate and full of big feelings. 

But I set fire to the rain

Watched it pour as I touched your face

Well, it burned while I cried

'Cause I heard it screaming out your name

Your name

Set Fire to the Rain - Adele

Also in the Cancer cusp mood! 

I've got thick skin and an elastic heart

But your blade it might be too sharp

I'm like a rubber band until you pull too hard

I may snap and I move fast

But you won't see me fall apart

'Cause I've got an elastic heart

Elastic Heart (Piano Version) - Sia

--

Okay back to the Leo vibez

I can cast a spell of secrets you can tell

Mix a special brew, put fire inside of you

Anytime you feel danger or fear

Then instantly I will appear, 'cause

I’m Every Woman - Chaka Chan

You can dance

You can jive

Having the time of your life

Ooh, see that girl

Watch that scene

Digging the dancing queen

Dancing Queen - ABBA

I'm on tonight

You know my hips don't lie (no fighting)

And I'm starting to feel it's right

All the attraction, the tension

Don't you see, baby, this is perfection?

Hips Don’t Lie (featr. Wyclef Jean) - Shakira

You got to strut like you mean it

Free your mind

It's not enough just to dream it

Come on, come on, get up

Strut - The Cheetah Girls

I want it, I got it, I want it, I got it

7 rings - Ariana Grande

I want fabulous,

That is my simple request,

All things fabulous,

Bigger and better and best,

I need something inspiring to help me get along,

I need a little fabulous is that so wrong?

Fabulous - Sharpay

[kylekozmikdeluxo]

CW: mental illness

At age 31, I think back to when I was 13. Reverse the numbers, haha. 13, back in the years 2005 and 2006. I'll stretch things a little further to 2007, when I was turning 15...

A lot of these last few years, amidst an ongoing pandemic that continues to mutate in messed up new ways, late stage capitalism clamping down on all aspects of life, and fascists trying their damnedest to regain power and poison the population with hatred- that seems pretty bad, right? Amidst all of this chaos, I've been re-unlocking myself. Or at least younger versions of me that needed fine-tuning, but were instead locked away or over-corrected.

These last three years, however, have not been an easy journey...

For me, this is crucial for my own creative endeavors, namely my writing and my slow move into comic-creating.

At 13-14, I would write and draw some pretty wacky stuff. A lot of it was nonsensical and mostly non-sequiturs, but not in the way something like the Lewis Carroll ALICE stories - off the top of my head - were or similar works of nonsensical storytelling. There really wasn't much of a vibe to it, these were more the ramblings of a young, overexcited autistic who wasn't given the tools to navigate through and around a very neurotypical-inclined world... and a young autistic who had much to learn about the world around them. For example, I had as much understanding of politics as - say - a leafblower. And for context, we're talking the mid-2000s here, where things were much tougher than they are now...

I look back on a lot of that stuff and I often wince at it... Well, the aspects of them that I consider bad, were bad, even. But there's a lot of stuff in there that I still love and still try to incorporate into what it is I do nowadays. That spontaneity, that I miss- That I feel like I might've lost because of my over-correcting of myself, and because I'm three decades old and regularly deal with adult stuff/responsibilities that wrack my autistic/ADHD brain that also dials up my health issues *and* my executive dysfunction to 11.

You see, I made the mistake of showing this stuff that I wrote and drew to the wrong people when I was 13/14... And I got the expected smackdown for it, I acted like a dingus in retaliation, and in the process... I did it to myself and my work, and a lot of it took a hit when I was 15, when I went through a really toxic depressive self-hatred period of my life.

After snapping out of that before I turned 16, I began to write weirdly again, but as I was getting closer to graduating high school... I was reading film criticism, I was "studying" film, I was starting to understand what apparently made good storytelling what it was. And this was on the cusp of the era where straight white men really dominated the film conversation on YouTube and message board forums. The likes of Doug Walker, the Red Letter Media crew, etc.... We were now in the era of multi-part "essays" on why the STAR WARS prequels were worse than nuclear holocaust, tryhard videos on why flawed but distinct blockbuster movies from the '90s should be forgotten and written off as mistakes... Like a young adult trying-to-be-straight fool who wanted to prove themselves and be a "good" storyteller... Someone who knew what they were doing and was destined to make all the things... I had these people on all the time, partially because I really liked the funny bits, but also because... You know...

That isn't to say I always agreed with the Plinkett stuff or the Nostalgia Critic videos. Often times, I vehemently disagreed with a lot of Doug's "observations" on various movies (particularly in his Disneycember reviews from the days of yore), and also was like "Whaaa?" at a lot of what was in the RLM videos... But I typically watched their stuff circa 2011-2017. This was all while I was slowly lurching through college, eventually going for an art degree and getting it. This was during the relatively quiet Obama years and then the spring-launch back into GOP misery when The Former Guy got into office.

Meanwhile, I was still trying to write my weird stuff, but a lot of it got very over-explainy. Like, the weird stuff that just comes to mind... Whenever I wrote it down, in the text, I would overexplain things. I'd write some bullshit reasoning as to why something weird happened in the story, or if the character had a vision, it would be a lot more explicit instead of how a better storyteller - to my estimation - does it. By letting the story itself feel, to immerse the audience in that feeling. The opposite was what I was doing, it'd be like the filmmakers at the Disney studio coming up with some rhyme or reason as to why - say - Dumbo and Timothy both saw Pink Elephants metamorphosing into all these weird-ass things instead of the film just simply showing them accidentally drinking a bucket-full of wine, blowing bubbles in a stupor, and then seeing all that stuff... And then waking up high in the tree. How could I admire such filmmaking in a classic Disney film, and yet not write that way myself?

Because I suppressed it. I was told that it was all awful, that I was "high" when I wrote it, that it was garbage. That it would never go anywhere... So a lot of that correcting of everything, as if a CinemaSins *ding* was going to go off if I so as much wrote a scene as I felt... Was a big mistake.

Yes, I had a lot to learn, and a lot of growing to do. At 31, I'm still growing. I recently came out as queer because I hid/denied a lot of that throughout my life, my politics were very muddy and unfocused for a long while until I shifted more left, you see...

Some people are "late bloomers", they take time to grow into the people they want to be. The problem is, this capitalistic world is constantly telling you that you missed the boat. That you had to be this spontaneous, amazing, do-it-all person at age 18. That I should've been interning at, say, DreamWorks Animation halfway through college. Or should've published my first graphic novel around that time.

At age 31, I've achieved none of that. I had to unlock many parts of myself before I could really seriously commit to making something and confidently putting it out into the world. I mostly hid behind blogging about animation news and making videos about my Disney VHS collection, to the point where social media algorithms have pigeonholed me as that and nothing more than that. And given what all these platforms have become, it's hard to escape that image of you, to stomp that out and be your rebooted, better self.

So what makes that journey hard is that when you see other people seemingly flourishing, you feel like you've missed the boat and that you don't have that spark anymore. Or that you're trying too hard. It can be quite grim being this age, because the world is constantly bellowing at you that you had to have made it as a 20-year-old. You should've traveled, achieved your goals early on, had an amazing social life, etc.

The way I see it now, I'm freeing my 15-year-old self from a prison cell. A once-spontaneous person who was spiraling into despair, and was kind of broken by it... And it's like I'm telling them it's gonna be ok, encouraging them to embrace their weird, guiding them to shed their immature "edge" and lack of self-awareness... Guiding them with my current knowledge, so that they can channel that spontaneity and weirdness into something.

When I threw away the "rule book" when COVID-19 hit in early 2020, and started writing like I used to, when I was 12-15 back in the mid-2000s... It was a real joy. It was a stepping stone to what it is I do now, but it was an important first step.

[the-firebird69]

Watch "Edge of Tomorrow - Official Trailer 1 [HD]" on YouTube

The sun commented on Google and regarding the Louvre and says they're holding them there illegally and it is against the law yes and it is the clones and they're planning to move him to Saturn when they're ready with their ships. Right now people are approaching France and finding them everywhere and the country is kind of overrun and there went out of 10 but it's bad and it is not too late and the French car thing helps and some other stuff and had them going out there and also the cathedral day Notre Dame there's several movies to begin and occur rapidly one of them is this but it's later on Angels and demons happens prior to it and Greyhound before that and Forrest Gump before that. It's a series of movies but it is going to get hot and heavy here and all over the world and against clothes. The empire is sick of these idiots and some of them are peeling off the empire is facility in Europe and it is a giant Force it's half of them and they're going to the Louvre the other half it's moving now and more armies are descending on France and yes we had to evacuate and we sent it back and pulled everyone out it's not a huge country so the size of a large state it's a little smaller than Texas for real and we did clear it the places it's over run with clones Trump went there was a son suggested it and said that place sucks so bad and figured out something that's full of clones that they wouldn't do anything to make it look normal and then he would talk about it but it did figure out that's a problem there and there might be others too that are waiting for pickup and they say that they go to Egypt first which might not be true it could be though because he needs a bigger war in order for it to be broken out and they're a huge teams moving in Europe now and this this movie is going to begin and it is going to start and while this is going on Angels and demons begins because it's going to move to Egypt and they're getting ready

There are several of the cap stones that will be moved there more or less all of them and they're being located globally and huge battles are occurring and the clones are getting their asses kicked yes this is a superb plan and it's really really potent

Thor Freya

The sun is American and we are kind of and he says I'm milking the hell out of it it really is squeezing every drop on and here comes a huge huge drop and Star wars and everything starts and it's going to be massive you can't wait we're all suffocating any of these fat ass s*** ass morons

Frank Castle Hardcastle

Giant numbers of movies are beginning and it's because of this statement so we're going to publish

Duke Nukem Blockbuster

I thank you for asking me a comment and it's good. We're on the cusp of the new reality I mean this will cause a massive massive war and they will see giants like they've never seen and they will lose the object and have a war to try and get there and have a war with them and it's very much needed it is exactly what we needed and it's working and my husband is the greatest and he says I am and I know a good leaders and would be a good leaders forever

Hera

We have a job and a lot of times it feels that way because we have the top job it's very hard on you and understanding but I like to think of it that way and I think you're helping me too and I am but it is strange we've come human and annoying but we've been very humble our whole lives and we should be able to handle it

Zues Hera and he says we haven't been that humble but we have been humbled and we know how to control ourselves and it's true

Olympus this is a great moment but let's get it out there

[itsrottenwork]

Hi mj!! Secret Santa here!! Wishing you a well-rested and relaxing Sunday before the start of a new week!! ✨

Yes, omg!! I would love to hear about your road-trip with your friends for the summer!! Especially because you live in another country, I’d love to see the sights through the lens of someone who lives within the area!! Love that for you!!

The energy at her set was incredible. I got to see her at a music festival since she was the closing act of the final night! It was my first ever music festival that lasted for four days and while I despise camping and never wish to do it again, I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything else!!

Exactly! If I can cancel out as much noise as possible, I will with those headphones lol!! I’d love to see what the boomerang looks like whenever you get the chance! Sounds very cool!!

I watched the first maybe three minutes of the video and already, I love the commentary!! I’m definitely gonna give the video a proper watch!! Let you know my thoughts in the next ask!!

Speed Round Questions!! My secret Santa this year asked me this question yesterday, so I have to ask, do you think different brands of water taste different? I think they do 100%!! Is there a movie line you tend to quote that no one else seems to know? What was your last impulse purchase? About a week ago, I went shopping with my mom. After I told her that I didn’t want to buy anything cause I already have all that I would need, I ended up buying a Kirby plush that was, I believe, $30!! I don’t regret it one bit, but it was definitely an impulse purchase lol. What’s your zodiac sign and do you believe in what it says/describes about you? I’m an Aries and I believe it, to an extent. It always says Aries are very headstrong and hardheaded and selfish in certain situations. To a degree, I can see myself with these traits, but I always try and not let that define me. I say I’m at the cusp of a Pisces rather than fully an Aries. 🎄✨

hehe well I'm not exactly a local either, but if we're actually able to pull it off, one of the girls we're going with knows a lot of the places pretty well, so I'll have a good tour guide. it'll prolly be april ish, so remind me at the time and I'll be sure to send you pics :)

I've never done a music festival before, that sounds really cool!! probably not my scene with the camping and whatnot, but yeah I know several people who've gone to some and had a great time despite all the logistics of it.

this is my boomerang!! I have a nicer one at my house that my parents bought me when I was little (also decorative, not for throwing lol) but this one is more mine because I painted it myself 😊

speed round answers!!

brands of water: oh yeah, 100%, they absolutely taste different (that's a good question lol)

movie line: probably something I picked up from my parents, so either the princess bride, good will hunting, or back to the future

last impulse buy: I'm really not much of an impulse shopper, I hate spending money, but my latest splurge was after my last class of the semester, I went to chinatown and got a really good takeaway as my treat for surviving all my classes :)

zodiac: I'm a taurus!! I don't believe in it at all, but I do enjoy reading my costar and whatever hehe (I won't lie though, even though I don't believe in it, I have had a suspicious number of leo friends throughout my life, not sure what that's supposed to mean though lol)

[redemptioninterlude]

poor, darling sayaka. doing her best all on her own! when's the last time she didn't have others holding her up, moving her along? even in her idol group, born to shine as someone extraordinary, if only for her talent when it came to the stage. they were all bound for GREAT THINGS, burdened by equally great expectations. but theirs wasn't meant to be a tragic ending, if she had anything to say about it. and she does. she does! steadfast, determined. a cheerful heroine until the end, and perhaps a foolish girl for wanting, hoping, for better, but... without hope, what could they ever imagine to change for them and their circumstance? they're all strangers, pit against each other in some horrific death match - to kill, or be stuck here forever. what would you choose? alice thinks, this life is temporary anyways ; she watches her video and kisses the screen. goodbye... i'm sorry! love is a heavy burden, now, isn't it? but so too, is the morals behind her.

but not everyone could. they're fucking children, after all, what could be expected of them but desperation and poor choices? it's why she'll hum happily to sayaka despite KNOWING FULL WELL what she would have done. might have. who knows? would her nerve fail her? to kill was a many splendored thing, but also, a rather awful one, too. after all, they were locked up for uncharitable reasons, weren't they? windows bolted over, the floors locked off and the lot of them, confined to bedrooms as soon as the clock hit an accounted for hour. for better or for worse.. .they were caught within the thematic hell of purgatory, weren't they? until someone makes a move, until the motive presented by that mono-bear was taken seriously, and then oh, oh, oh! it won't matter how many late night talks they share, will it? instead, they will be no amount of late night conversations to sway the desperate.

misery, after all, LOVES COMPANY.

and poor sayaka feels that despair within her veins, her heart a little numbed, even as alice cusps her hands to warm her by. that beneath the sharp edges of her gaze, leaning in closer and knowing she wants something form her. like the lock to her heart, won't you just HAND ME THE KEY? alice is a cautionary beast, and it's not very heroine-like to ask a lady to lift you up, she laughs, a quieter thing. "some things of the heart are like a mirror. they crack, and you put the pieces together. but not everything's the same. but it doesn't meant that it isn't any less beautiful! just different. consider that the inside of me. just different. i like it! i think. i'm trying to."

legs extend ; she looks at skinny, pale limbs trapped up in school trappings and uniforms, even in the absence of teachers or any form of authority. it's like they clung to the SMALL COMFORTS of what normalcy looked like to them, trying to recapture the feeling of safety that must have been there, before this wretched, curious attack. but she'd digress. "i think that people make those assumptions because they don't know you. and maybe the blessing on our side is, we only have that on our hands! kuwata will come around. he may not! but he'll be awfully lonely if he chooses to keep his heart closed. the more we face this together... the better our chances of getting out of here, don't you think? everyone trying together, that hope, it's what we have that they can't take from us. and it's the same for seeing each other as peers, as equals. it comes. with time. even when we're on edge, we can't forget patience."

- @truethes

            some part of her wishes to have an answer, to reveal the carcass of her heart and lay it open for them both to see, every wish both childishly exciting and morbidly dear to be examined by one who she knows, given their previous discussion, would try to understand them the most ( because who else will, in the end? who else could, when the knife is in your hands? you shine but you don't wish to burn. ) given the words in which have lead them here. she might find some solace from it, she can tell, or at least she has come to suspect from the multiple programmes she's acknowledged throughout the years of her existence, but the last try she took in attempting to show someone what she truly meant was ... makoto, she suspects, a suspicious vagueness to her words that were brushed off with a sentimental goodbye, not divulging too deep and now right now, before alice, does she find that the words the world considers her blessed with choose to fail her at the last round.

she does not wish to be understood at the first to snap, the star that valued nothing but the painted life she lived behind an LED screen above all else ━━ not to anyone but the girl in the mirror, at least; allow her to try an attempt at making a rival or a friend, her presence as a person and not a household name or star, the caring, the intuitive ━━ let them find cracks in her personality that make her human and not machine ( she needs to learn the difference, after all ) but just not, not ━━ something unsettled mirrors in the corner of her eyes, tense and ill at ease. she brushes it off as quickly as it comes with a gentle nod, and this is what she focuses on, what she chooses to concern.

❛  sayings like that have never been my strong suit.  ❜ no one should say it so resolutely but she, fading and uncertain soul, can't find a better way to put it ━━ compared to the radiance of alice's own, their soul beacon of light within the darkness, the words that will get spoken ... will never hold the same sense of envokement, aspiration. no matter how much alice may choose to see otherwise and she can only hope for that to be recognised.

❛  if cake was your wish, then i'd like to name mine as making friends.  ❜ it's still a very vague answer, that much she can tell. the bare minimum she has prepared for something as wistful as alice's own, one that could be offered by a girl much younger than the one that stands before her, a fondness seeping into her tone and it's only after a moment of saying it does she ponder on such a thought, a gentle giggle escaping. ❛  it sounds childish, i know. but haven't you ever found yourself disconnected from people ... ? those like kuwata-kun, i fear they'll forever see me as the idol, not as a schoolgirl who wishes to live the same sort of life as them.  ❜

[songofassandfire]

Kevlly, TriciaxKaren, Clybe for the ask game?

Kevlly!

Ship It

What made you ship it?

Hard to remember what really kicked it off. I recall being on the cusp of hyperfixation towards the Mccormick family, Kevin specifically, I was speed-consuming all the content I could find. I know @urspopinionsareshit wrote the ship a few times, which I definitely read many times along with a few others. I think I was just "yeah that makes sense" and my appreciation for them grew over time.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

They really have the potential to understand each other deeper than anyone else in their lives. I know this is all personal interpretation, but I see Kevin as someone who wouldn't find all of Shelly's explosive anger off-putting, someone who isn't scared of her and can understand where all the rage is coming from. As for Shelly, I see her as one of the few people who don't just write Kevin off as a lost cause or future deadbeat, even if Kevin himself sees him that way. Shelly to me seems like someone who cares a lot about fairness, and if the situation at the Feegan house is anything to go by, she's not afraid to acknowledge people being treated unfairly. And I think that's a kind of person Kevin needs in his life.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

I haven't really seen any opinions on the ship that I really disagree with? There's a lot of room for interpretation with these two, and even if someone's interpretation isn't mine, I can usually see where they're coming from. There's like five active kevlly shippers and we're all based.

Karen/Tricia! (?? calling them kricia ig)

Ship It

What made you ship it?

It's not one that I actively ship on its own, but I've seen a few fanworks where Karen and Tricia interact and get along (mostly as a side thing to crenny, but still) and it's cute!

What are your favorite things about the ship?

I like the "shy positive one x sassy grumpy one" dynamic. It'd be nice for Karen to just find a friend around her own age, and I like the idea of Tricia standing up to people who try to bully Karen, kinda taking her under her wing so to speak to make her more assertive.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Like I said earlier, this ship is usually a side ship to crenny, and I can't say I'm a huge fan of "two characters get together and then their siblings get together too." Like there's nothing wrong with it, really, I'm just not a fan. I also don't ship kevlly and stenny at the same time for that very reason.

Clybe!

Don't Ship It

Why don't you ship it?

This one was actually hard to pinpoint because I don't ship it, but I also don't not ship it? I'm pretty neutral on both Clyde and Bebe as individuals so shipping them is largely inoffensive to me.

What would have made you like it?

I mean, if I can really recall, their only major canon interaction was Bebe dating Clyde for shoes (and even then we don't actually see them "date" on screen at any point) after rigging a list to make him more popular so she her reputation wouldn't tank. Maybe if they had more actually genuine on screen interactions after that it might be different, but most of the content I've seen for clybe was just as a background ship in high school fics, always as the "dumb jock x ditzy cheerleader" stereotype. Which is also kind of odd to me because Bebe was the head of a whole actual conspiracy which would've never been questioned if Stan wasn't trying to make Kyle feel better. Like the girl can be shallow but she's definitely not dumb. Clyde, however, is very dumb (affectionate)

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

A lot of the fan art is real cute!

[marshmallowprotection]

i notice in saeran's route is how he and saeyoung always gets compared constantly (by the rfa and maybe other ppl as well)and its understandable since their difference is largely different despite them having almost the same appearance

but how would these choi twins feel about an mc with a fraternal twin? like we're kind of similar (hair/eye color wise)? in appearance except that he's a guy? though i always get compared by him- he's more responsible, caring, and smart so when people know that we're twins they always gets this kind of expectation that i should be some way similar to him which I'm not, i think im self-focused and impulsive. idk how it'd end up this way, maybe because my mom liked to matched us with everything when were young? (i didn't really liked it when she does that i wanna be my own person but i didn't want to ruin my mom having fun) so im like tired of being thrown in the shadow, and recently i just got scolded for being selfish and not being as successful as he is because unlike me im not really good at practical stuff i dread living a boring life routinely and im not really obedient to my parents i like living my own life. but i don't dislike my brother he got issues too lol he's such a people pleaser which i dont understand why he takes effort in pleasing others when other people probably will never be satisfied whatever you do..!

I think GE saeran and SE saeran are the ones most connected to saeyoung how would they feel about this??

GE Saeran has had to walk a long road when it comes to his relationship with his brother. He adored him, he hated him, he was indifferent to him, he wanted him gone, he wanted him back, and every other emotion in the book. He was the younger twin that could never match up. His mother made him feel like a waste of space. 

She only kept him so that she could control Saeyoung and make him stay and do whatever she wanted. He was always wrong... never good enough. So, he knows what it feels like to mean nothing to your parents. Siblings have a rocky relationship in most families, but especially ones where nobody is treated as they should be. He knows your grief like the back of his hand. 

However, he also understands that people will use your relationship with your family against you. Rika manipulated him over his brother. She made him think that Saeyoung abandoned him forever and ran away. He is aware that parents are able to tell you lies and make it seem like something is what it isn’t. He will be the first one to tell you to sit down with your brother and understand his side of things. You may not have the full picture. There are golden children and a lot of scapegoats out there. You never know what’s really going on until you talk. He learned that. 

SE Saeran has been through this song and dance twice. He had his birth mother treat him like a waste of space that was only good for ensuring that she got any money for alcohol, and then his second mother treated him like a tool that had to constantly prove himself to be anything in her eyes. 

He grew to resent his twin for what happened to him, regardless of how it ended up and why, and to this day, he’s on the cusp of struggling with what it means to care about your family, if you even should. So, he knows exactly what you mean when you say that you feel like nobody thinks you’re as good as your brother. He hates that feeling so damn much. He would never want you to compare yourself to someone else like that. It’s just... exhausting. 

However, it’s important to note that he understands at a base level that he was manipulated by the adults in his life. Even if he knows the situation is never quite as it seems... he’s not going to suggest talking to your sibling about that, he is a far more likely candidate to suggest that you look harder at how your family does you and your sibling, as well as looking to see if your sibling goes along with the hurtful attitude. There’s a difference and considering he was too blinded by trust to see his problem, he’d want to guide you into giving yourself a chance. Not the people around you. Yourself. You’re the only one who matters when it comes to a view of yourself.