#I recently started a new world with the purpose of actually doing everything the game has to offer

[arolesbianism]

The things I would do if I had a less shitty laptop (things being streaming dst)

[grifff17]

Audiodrama Sunday 8/4/24

How is it august already? This week I listened to a lot of InCo and new episodes of several other shows. Once I finish InCo I need something else to binge. I've got a ton of shows on my list, maybe I'll do a poll or something.

I hyperfixated hard on @itmeblog's InCo this week. I started season 3 last Sunday, and since then I've listened to 60 episodes. This season really hits everything for me, I'm a sucker for the found family and I love the political intrigue/family drama. “Palace politics” is one of my favorite genres of story. All of Hatov's siblings are great characters too. I'm currently right after the reveal of the full extend of the ambassador project conspiracy. I'm so excited to see how this story ends, I'll finish it by next week if I keep up anything close to this pace.

In @lostterminalpod this week the quote “I hope our new gods are the good kind” was so good. This season is almost over, so much has happened in basically no time. I'm still insane about the premise for this season and the way AIs interact with each other and the world so differently from humans.midn

@worldgonewrongpod's new episode was great. Jamie’s dad is insane, I love him. Also, the dual purpose garlic salt was such a good idea. I'm really liking the town council stuff, it has big Unwell energy.

In @midnightburgr's Welcome to the Horizon this week, the gang explore a horrible fungus house. Trinket is growing on me, despite my initial dislike of her, which I think was intentional. It's so nice to be seeing more of Verge outside of Young Leif. I really hope she reunites with Leif before the end of the season.

@spoutlore-blog joined Fable and Folly recently, and are doing a big marketing push, so I hope this great show becomes more well-known. The anticlimactic defeat of the pumpkin king was perfect, all of their stupid plans somehow falling into place was amazing. I genuinely laughed out loud at the line “it really brings my ass together”, which sounds insane without context.

In @worldsbeyondpod there was so much going on. Ame popped the fuck off, let them cook indeed. Brennan is insane for being able to play 4 different sides in a complex game of political intrigue simultaneously. Ame fucking over half the coven while ingratiating herself to the others was amazing. I totally called Mirara being the other target. Also, Tefmet’s loredump was great(if they can be trusted). If they can, holy shit the imprisonment of Naram was part of a larger conspiracy.

In @wanderersjournalpod Marigold finally made it out of the forest! Is Pluto like a criminal or something? What else would explain his actions, and his hesitancy to talk about them?

In Dear Liisphyra this week it was funny to see Kimbul and Bimbul (spelling?) actually asking for advice.

Lots of good stuff this week. As for upcoming stuff, the new Stories from Ylelmore season starts in a few weeks IIRC. Can't wait for that to start.

[khywae]

Hi!!! i just wanna say im legit so impressed with your work. kind of fired me up. just finished my CS degree and im so burnt out of coding, feel like i lost my purpose. creating a dating sim like yours and animating, writing and coding it... do u work alone?? HOW do u do it??? im really inspired

First off, congrats on getting your degree! I'm sure it must've been hard. I was lost for a few years after I graduated, so I know a bit what that’s like. Actually, I was always lost before this year so lol

(long post ahead)

Yes, I work alone haha and how I do it, well I sold my soul—JK. I think there are two main reasons for how I manage it: 1) I work a lot every day. My day is mostly work, dividing my time between learning, solving problems, interacting with you guys, and creating things. The only thing I do besides that is work out (for mental health reasons and because I just love muscles so much), and spend time with my family and dogs.

And 2) it's all about this word you said, purpose. I'm not creating these games solely for money (although I need it to live and continue this), I'm doing it because I saw something that was missing in the world and decided to change it. And by doing that, by wanting to serve a community, I found a purpose. I think that's the only reason I can do all this by myself (write, code, animate, draw, do customer support, etc.) because my purpose is bigger than me. Even if the beginning is tough, I won’t stop because there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.

And it's so easy to fuel my desire for change. Every time I search the adult tag on itch.io and see all those games targeted towards men, my drive gets stronger. Recently I watched the gameplay of a game where you're a guy during the middle ages and you can go around and have sex with many women, even the married ones, AND you get a buff called "alpha male" because you "satisfied your needs". And I was like holy shit why is there no such thing for women hello??????

So, all this is to say, if you're feeling you don't have a purpose, take some time to sit with yourself and your thoughts. If your mind starts talking shit about things it has no way of knowing if it's true or not (you don't deserve this, we're shit at everything, etc.), don't listen to it. It's just an organ enclosed in a bone cage, trying to make sense of the world through the input it receives. It doesn't know everything and can be deceptive. Don't let it mislead you. Think about all the things you'd like to do before your life is over. Time is our most precious thing. I have a widget on Notion that shows me an estimate of the percentage of life I have left. I look at it every day and it helps me keep things in perspective.

Often, your purpose lies at the intersection of what you love, what you are good at, and what you believe the world needs. The Japanese concept of Ikigai illustrates this idea. I hope you find your Ikigai very soon.

I wish you the best of luck in this new phase of your life, and I'm happy to know my work could be an inspiration to you ❤

[lovinglettersacrosstheverse]

Special Delivery!

We've got a letter for Louise Worth @mysweetlouise! And there's even some pressed flowers! 💖💕

My Dear Lou.

How long will you make me wait? Dancing on the edge of my reach with the one you know I despise most? I know you enjoy games but hasn’t this gone on long enough?

A part of me feels this is my own fault. Some form of punishment for the state I left you in. I wish you knew how much it has tormented me over the years. Knowing what was only a second in the world was decades in the mirror with Damien and Celine, I can’t imagine how alone you must have been. How much time you spent alone, trapped. The centuries we will never know. You did not deserve that. Which is why I don't understand why you keep playing with Mark. It’s not the same Mark, fine, but they all have that same seed of narcissism inside them that lead to our fates.

We could make a home in this new reality, if you would only give me the chance. I haven't made one without you yet, not really. There’s a building where I meet with others, unusual like us. I have a room with a bed here, but I do not rest. If you were here, it would give the old bed purpose and I would keep you company. The affection of Damian and curiosity to know you of Celine live on in me, memories of you that are not mine haunt me. Your face is what I see most nights Louise, before everything went wrong, the college days, the games, the late walks across the college grounds. 

And the look in the mirror when you were left behind. I don’t know which one is worse.

Please! I have been tortured enough, join me and we will make sure Mark receives the same punishment as I or better yet, ensure he can’t hurt another soul when he next feels the need. While I drown in the past of our fury and pain, he lives on free of his sins. 

I’ve taken a breath and a moment of reflection. This isn't about him. This is about you and me. And you deserve better than you have ever gotten, Lou. I want to be the one to provide that for you, we can provide a better life and a better future for each other. You never truly got to be the D.A. in our past life, but you can be anything in our future. Not just playing a role, a meaningless game where nothing matters as you do now. We can make something with substance that actually counts for something. But I can’t do it without you.

Maybe I sound like a fool. We haven’t gotten the chance to re-familiarize ourselves with each other in some time, despite how long we’ve had. You’re a different person by now as well, I imagine. I wonder how many habits you still have from the past. What new ones I could learn about you. 

When you tire of your current circumstances, remember that my door is always open and a new home of our own making ready to be built. 

Sincerely,

Your Ever Waiting Darkiplier

Well, there is one more thing....

I also found a torn paper in the mailbox today, it looks like a journal page? I'm not sure this is supposed to be here... but I think its for a Louise Worth as well so maybe i am supposed to deliver it!

It’s late now. I’m in my office, reading the most recent report from the Jim’s when the radio changed. It started playing this slow jazz and these memories came to my mind, unbidden. Damien's memories of you, late nights listening to jazz as you both studied for exams. A record you’d put on the phonograph that became his go to for focusing on work in the years after. The years apart as you all worked for your separate goals, when Damien would spend these nights wishing for your company once again. Lou.

You're not even here. I write only for myself, a page i will tear and burn when I have the chance. But still, writing to you makes it easier somehow. Calms me in these moments.

This body always aches, and I can imagine at one point the heart would ache for you. If I told you it still did, you would know better than to believe me, wouldn’t you? I saw it in your eyes the last time we met, your silent regard for me. You're getting wiser to the situation. I can’t fool you into thinking the Damien you knew is still in here anymore, can I? Nor can I convince you that being as I am, I can feel anything other than rage and resentment. Perhaps the resentment I feel towards Mark for making that promised future of you and Damian working together side by side once again is a form of love itself?

But it’s not even by his remnants you stand by now is it?

Do you have any idea what it’s like to be in a body constantly in a state of decay? I feel the pull of death over me constantly, trying to drag me away like a fist around my throat, never tightening more than it is but never loosening either. And yet you’re out there in your own new skin, where did it come from?

(Note from here to the * was originally all scribbled out but i managed to make it readable... though maybe I should have left it)

Do you want me to apologize for leaving you there? None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for him, I am trying to get revenge for us all!

And now you go and have your little adventures with that monster! In practically every reality, you two are connected in some way, you really think any Mark in any other universe is any different than the one who did this to us? This is why you couldn’t stay! You’re too soft, you weren’t angry enough at the right people. You are the exact fool Celine pegged you for that night, all those years ago. 

How did you get a new body? How, how, who did you take it from, where did you get it, why do YOU have one?*

I apologize. You know how this unstable amalgamation of my being can be. I'm getting better at controlling it over the years, but I still have my moments. Can you not lend a hand to an old friend?  Or perhaps those old tales you told Damien once were true, and this is my repentance for breaking a mirror?

No, perhaps you're right. And there is more to atone for on my end. You should not have been pushed out. I was blinded by the mission of my birth. Clearly I underestimated your strength and resolve, if the way you stand against me and the endurance of your soul is anything to go by.

We are still old friends, aren’t we? You were there when I was created, the first face I saw and even behind whatever cloaks me now, still the face I see in every mirror and reflection. What some might say should be guilt or softness I should feel at that is as all things, replaced with the rage of knowing why I carry you with me in such a literal way…

I wish to confide in you one thing Louise, that I barely confide in myself. There’s one other feeling I'm capable of that sits so deep within me it’s but a grain of sand in the void fractures that make up my sewn together soul. Fear. I am the living testament to their hatred and thirst for revenge. If, when I see their retribution through, then what? What will become of me? Will I have any purpose? Will I continue to exist at all? What will be left when there is no one left to despise? You are the only one I can think of to ask. How did you survive the void of the mirror for so long that you escaped? What feeling motivated you? What purpose?

I shouldn’t keep bringing up old wounds, but what else can I do as a living scab of a soul myself? It is only this mission that keeps this broken body together.

If you just let me in, I can fix all of this. Just let your old friend in Lou.

[nacricissa]

WIP Re-Intro: The Forever Project

Tried this once here and none of that is strictly wrong, but I just wrote a killer blurb so we’re going again.

How would you fare if you became omnipotent on your fourteenth birthday? I imagine you might be able to figure something out given some time to get a handle on your newfound powers, but Hera Elizabeth Rider’s deicidal brother and waking up to the discovery that she’s transported herself out of her body and into a new world are not giving her that luxury. It takes her a deal with the devil, unwitting service to a vampire hunter, the creation of several gods, and one eccentric genius before she’s able to do anything with her powers on purpose, and by then it’s really not clear what the right thing to do even is.

Relevant tags (searchable on my blog)

Forever project: all tag games, short stories, random thoughts, and if I ever do them character intros for this work are tagged with this tag. It’s the one to block if you are mainly here for Twilight content.

Elise Godslayer: This is the tag for the MC, Hera Elizabeth Rider. She goes by Elise because there’s too many Hera’s in her family (in her world Mary goes by her syncretized Greek name, and so most European historical figures that in our world are named Mary are named Hera there) and Elizabeth is too long for her tastes. The godslayer part is arguably a spoiler, but it happens in chapter three so I’m not too worried. Elise is a fairly normal fourteen-year old, outside of her godlike powers. She likes music (she can play violin and fiddle), was just starting to figure out she might like some girls as more than friends, is wary of responsibility, and has a crushing need to be liked.

Davriel Godslayer: This is Elise’s birth brother, though they were raised separately: Davriel was never human. He started out with their theoretical mythological purpose: killing the Greater Demons, but when the gods separated Elise from his at birth out of fear, he began to expand his horizons; were they really so different from the forces they pretended to oppose? Davriel was given far too much time alone growing to stew in his own mind, and has convinced himself there could be no greater solution than him as god-emperor of everything. This is not to say, unfortunately, that he wouldn’t make a terrifyingly competent and entirely benevolent god-king, it is simply that his understanding of what he’s working with (the world) is a scoche incomplete.

Eric Melior: This is the blurb’s vampire hunter! What the blurb does not mention is that he is also a vampire and was born in 1892. I recently decided he would be a Lithuanian aristocrat, so his name is likely to change, but he is not. He’s a very steadfast type, committed to his ideals and those he was raised with. He was raised by a pro-Tzarist father and a mother who joined a cult upon her husband’s death, however.

Sorceress: Here we have our eccentric genius. The only person (human, centaur or siren) to discover how to use magic on a sentient creature! She used this power to give herself a pair of legs, having been born a siren but being too curious about the world to confine herself to the water. Even though Elise created her world, Sorceress is likely its most consequential figure.

Mlle Nefara: The most recent character to get a tag, Mlle Nefara is just trying to get rich. Unfortunately, honest means are not particularly available to her as a black woman in 1890s Europe, and so she has chosen the slightly easier route of lying to a bunch of rich people, telling them all about the supernatural threats only she can teach them how to defend themselves against. Her charisma and talent are serving her well in this endeavor until 1897, when a plague of monsters begins to creep through the land. They’re similar enough to the ones she’d made up for her sect to become increasingly popular, but she can’t be so lucky that the techniques she made up would actually defeat them.

Siren’s meet nada: Nada is the word for city among the most magically reckless group of humans on Globe, Sorceress’s world. They call the city that has built up around Sorceress’s first home on land Siren’s Meet, not because they really ever meet Sorceress (and very few know she was ever a siren regardless), but because the estuary has collected extremists and eccentrics from human and siren communities. While it was Sorceress’s presence (and her geologic engineering) that drew the first few citizens to the place, it continued to thrive long after she went to Nadalitas. I use this tag mainly for short stories and worldbuilding facts that take place in the city.

Nihil hunters: A nihil is the most dangerous of the monsters that have begun to infect Eric’s and Mlle Nefara’s world. They are at once vampire and wraith, and so lose many of the vulnerabilities of both. The tag is nihil hunters for their whole world, because vampire hunters, what they call themselves, is simply too generic.

Southern dragons: These are mostly a world building project, as their interaction with the magic system and spatial/temporal laws I’ve built for this project is generally quite illustrative. While they originated in the southern continent of Sorceress’s world, hence their name, they have since spread to other worlds, moving through space and reality with a degree of mysterious ease I think is suitable for dragons.

Spacewhaling: It may not be correct to include this tag with this project; in fact, it started as an independent concept. If it does intersect with Elise’s story, it would only be in the third or maybe even fourth book.

[shadowmaat]

Palia, a casual mmorpg review

A friend of mine was hyping a new game she was playing: Palia. Mostly she was hyping her attempts to romance one of the NPCs, but enough other details leaked through that I decided to give it a try. And I liked it.

I'm generally not a fan of the mmorpg genre, partly because I hate being social, and mostly because I hate fighting and my reflexes absolutely suck. Palia, thankfully, is more casual/cozy, and while there is a hunting aspect, they're all prey animals that run away. There's no fighting. Thank the gods.

The basic premise of Palia is that humans died out/disappeared a long time ago, leaving the world to the majiri, who have pointy ears and purple skin. There's also the grimalkin, a race of alien felinoids who arrived a few centuries ago and set up shop. And there are galdur, robots who have been around since the Age of Humans.

For Mysterious Reasons one of Palia's deities, the Phoenix, has started dropping humans back into the world, particularly around the remote village of Kilima. That's where the PC comes in.

A lot of Palia is your standard fare (I think). You get to know the NPCs and build relationships with them through talking and gift-giving (which is an actual mechanic of the game). There are quests and loot piles, and a number of skills you're meant to level up in: Hunting, Fishing, Mining, Cooking, Furniture Crafting, Foraging, Bug Catching, and Gardening.

The mainline quest, of course, is trying to figure out what happened to the humans and why you're suddenly reappearing. The list of items needed in order to complete the first part of the quest was... unpleasant, IMO, and involved a lot of epic-level rarity items that take a hell of a lot of time and resources to gather. That, again, is pretty much par for the course with games like this: allll the grinding. I've posted about that before, but thanks to some advice I did finally manage to get everything I needed. My main source of stress on that score is that I am a completionist, so leaving a task unfinished was stressful for me. Hells, it took me a while to accept that I didn't need to finish all tasks/requests immediately, and those are mostly plot irrelevant.

Once you accept that you don't need to do all the things right now ASAP, it's a lot more fun. Even the main quest only recently unveiled part 2, and while it includes some new (and easier, IMO) tasks to complete, it's also more waiting for the "big" update coming in '25, when a new area will be made available. Or I assume that's what's going to happen.

You get to build and decorate a house, which has been more fun than I expected. Tish, in particular, will make expanding your house easier, and you will get hecktons of furniture from loot boxes, from Tish's store, from recipes you can build yourself, and from the Grimalkin underground market.

I've been enjoying playing, even when all my current quests are filled. Even when there's "nothing to do" there's still stuff to do, and selling off all your excess supplies gets you more money for buying more things.

The NPCs are, for the most part, a lot of fun to interact with, even if every single one of them seems to have some tragic backstory. The only character I don't like is Tamala, and I think it's partly calculated that way. She's the witchy "vamp" type character and flirts outrageously with anything that has a pulse. I understand the narrative purposes of characters like that and I know the majority of the time the attitude is manufactured to keep folks at a distance, but I still find her unpleasant, manipulative, and mean-spirited.

The only real issue I have is that some of the longer-term players are clique-y assholes who like to tear into newbies for not following the unspoken rules of the game. Which are, y'know, unspoken.

Most people are very understanding of newbies and have no problem politely explaining the community-developed courtesy of "wait to chop down the magic trees til everyone can get here," but there's a handful who choose to bitch at each other about it and shame folks for chopping "too soon" and thus "ruining" it for everyone else.

Here's the thing: the grove of "magic trees" appears every in-game midnight, and time moves a hell of a lot faster in Palia, so you can get multiple groves in a single day. There is absolutely no reason to act like an inflamed, pustulating asshole just because you couldn't chop one grove. There's no reason to make newbies feel bad for not knowing something, especially when no one fucking tells them.

Thankfully that group is in the minority. I think I've only seen newbie-bashing bitch-fests twice, but that's still two times too many, IMO. Especially for, and I really can't stress this enough, something that isn't an actual rule of the game. If it was a rule, folks wouldn't be able to chop early. I appreciate the courtesy of people waiting for everyone to gather, but acting as if it's some grievous crime is fucking bullshit. Ugh.

Anyway, the game itself is fun. I love nerdy girl Jina and her helicopter mom galdur friend Hekla. Widower Ashura has Big Dad energy. Uptight librarian Caleri and her conspiracy-loving twin Elouisa. Zeki the grimalkin scoundrel with a heart of gold. Tau, the best pupper. Lots of fun and friendly characters, and very little need to interact with other players. You can also block/mute people or just mute the whole server, which is nice.

I'd recommend it, especially for people who like the idea of an open-world RPG thing but are more interested in stories than fighting. You'll get a lot of stories with Palia.

[virtchandmoir]

An Evening with Olympic Champion, Tessa Virtue

May 19, 2023

Olympic Ice-Dance Champion, Tessa Virtue follows a mission of empowering and inspiring young girls in Canada. Pictured with a young fan at the recent event in Weyburn.

The community gathered on Thursday evening for a much-anticipated visit by Olympic Champion Tessa Virtue, organized by the Weyburn Young Fellows Club. Following past delays due to the pandemic, Weyburn welcomed the decorated Ice-Dancer to the event with applause following a prime rib dinner prepared by the Young Fellows.

Questions were fielded to the public prior to the event and streamlined into a panel hosted by Moderator Katherine Gilliss for the evening. Gilliss was thrilled to occupy the role of Moderator as a self-proclaimed "super fan, but not in a weird way!", and added a genuine element of interest that led the conversation to answer the questions on everyone's minds.

One of the most common points of interest in Tessa Virtue's athletic career is her relationship with dance partner, Scott Moir, and how that relationship developed as they grew up. First partnered together at the ages of 7 and 9, Tessa and Scott were only children when their potential was first recognized. By their teens, they had entire teams of support staff dedicated to their success on the ice, including Kinesiologists, Sports Psychologists, and even a marriage counsellor.

"Despite the comments we often received, we were focused on cultivating an environment of respect towards one another. Every day, we were committed to lifting each other up and making each other the best athletes we could be; and so at the ages of 15 and 17 we actually visited a marriage counselor to help strengthen the relationship that we were building."

Olympic athletes often train for the games in what they dub as 'quads': Four-year long cycles of training, qualifying, and competing towards the world stage. Following their first quad, having missed qualification for the 2006 Olympic Games, Virtue said that their resolve had strengthened knowing the next games were in Canada. But by the time they had competed at the following Games in Sochi, Tessa recalled feeling "tired and almost disillusioned towards sport." She had even assumed they would be stepping away from competition.

However, it was together that Virtue and Moir decided to continue on. This time, flipping the script and building a support team the way they wanted it to be, rather than becoming the athletes that a support team expected them to be. The duo built a support staff of 25-30 experts and held monthly board meetings to clearly determine how they could extract the best out of their team, "which is really the exact opposite of what we were used to at that point," said Virtue. "Doing things our way completely shifted the dynamic and led us towards the pursuit of excellence rather than chasing perfection."

Virtue shared that this shift in perspective also led to much more effective training strategies. For example, when most ice-dancers fell during practice the norm was to start the routine over again from the beginning, seeking to do it again and again until perfection is achieved. Their newfound pursuit of excellence helped her face and overcome her biggest fear: Failure.

"To fail in skating means falling, so we had to find a way to prepare for that in our training. In a four-minute routine we would train to purposely fall at every blow of the whistle, so that we could experience what it was like to fail. But more importantly, what it was like to pick right back up and continue the routine after falling."

Having not only found a new resolve for the fierce competition of high-performance sport, Tessa said she gained a new perspective on her personal and professional lives.  "I once viewed everything through this filter of 'will this help me win the Olympics', but after Sochi I wrote a personal mission statement and that is to empower young girls, and women, and that became my guide in everything."

Virtue and Gilliss closed the night with the topic of addressing burnout and mental health. Having gained powerful tools from her time as a champion, Virtue said that the keys to recovery are universal and apply to all facets of life.

"We had to learn how to not just implement rest and recovery, but also to prioritize it in a meaningful way. We had to treat rest as important and with as much intensity as we did our training."

Virtue added that she encourages the pursuit of sport for such valuable lessons as these, and that it can build great confidence, especially in young women, when you set lofty goals and work towards achieving them.

—Discover Weyburn

[justsaysomethingjayj]

WIP First Lines

I truly do love a good opening, so getting to share some first lines is a real fun one for me to be tagged in. Thanks @cypanache for tagging me.

For this I opted to limit myself only to my two most recent writing docs or this list would have been ridiculously long instead of just, you know, long.

Some of these may not end up being the actual first lines, but they are what I currently got there to start with. So with that said, and without further ado… SW, Obidala:

1.

A harmless invitation goes a bit sideways.

2.

He mapped out the constellations of far away worlds against her skin, no touch of his lips on her body seemed to be without purpose. Everything held a sense of meaning.

3.

It began, almost fittingly, with a double take.

4.

“We’re allowed our lapses, Obi-Wan,” she said, as if she could sense the conflict stirring inside of him. Her hair a mess of loose curls she tried to swipe away from her eyes. “They remind us that we’re human. And there is nothing wrong with that.”

5.

He dreamed in the deepest shades of blue; of the places brushed by grief, and the shimmering hue of her long billowy dress. She was his sadness made flesh. Not real, but tangible. To be felt. Always just that. For that was all that was left of her.

6.

She pushed herself against the wall, as he pushed himself into her. Urgency and a frenzied kind of madness had overtaken him at the mere sight of her. The seductive simplicity of her in nothing more than a barely there nightgown of sapphire washed silk and an unruly tide of tousled brown curls spilling down her bare shoulders.

7.

The proposal had been completely innocent. Well-meaning in its initial intent. The idea had come to her then and she had simply thought to ask. Really, she had thought nothing of it.

OUAT, Golden Swan

1.

“It’s quite the thing,” it mused, wearing an old forgotten face, a strange but perhaps purposeful choice for the Darkness to make, “to seek out and covet death. Not the ending one would imagine for a love story.”

2.

Her eyes are full of timeless tales. Some as old as time. Fluttering back into the present. Fragmented speckles of a lifetime of broken promises and stubborn hope, shaded in a spiraling landscape of glittering greens. The subtle dark jade of envy; vibrant emerald of a rebirth; an endless evergreen of love; and just the softest hint and budding pine of corruptibility.

3.

He kills the boy and rewrites the story. Starts by making them all forgot that particularly dark deed. His sickly act of cowardice and self-preservation. Then moves on to the next chapter of the tale by claiming a powerful queen from the proverbial game board to have and to hold by his side.

4.

“There’s a deal here.” “Still so sure of yourself, Miss Swan. No matter how many times you’ve failed to play a meaningful hand against me.” He looked amused. Maybe a tad too pleased with how the cards have fallen in his favour, yet again. “There’s no version of this where you come out unscathed.”

5.

“Your hand is trembling.” The sound of his voice seemed to jerk Emma from whatever trance she had fallen into. She turned sharply to look up at him, but there's a slight glaze to her eyes that told Rumplestiltskin that she hadn't come back fully just yet. 

6.

The Evil Queen doesn't mince her words. Takes—maybe a bit too much—pride in saying them to his face with a smirk smeared across her apple red lips. "A love like that will ruin you."

7.

He’s a fickle and jealous man, and so he makes the pirate stay dead.

Bonus OUAT, Golden Swan Queen:

1.

They are conflicted. He, by true love. She, a possible soulmate. What they wanted, what’s been saturated into their blood and bones and temperamental hearts, was now a liability to their happy endings.

------------------------------ I'm still new and very much lacking in mutuals to tag, and it seems like most of the Obidala crew I know have already been tagged by others. So what the hell, I'm just gonna tag some fav writers of mine: @thestorieswesay @lazybakerart @lemonlovely @harringroveheart @justadram @lainelannister

[cosmik-homo]

hi :) i would like to hear about 2s physical/social presentation if you fancy👀 :)

I CANNOT be coherent atm and i am doing this rocket speed cuz i need to go to slepe but

Its like. sooo gender dyspraxia to me. which is how i refer to the ways dyspraxia kind of effects my sense of self like. my own personal philosophy recently is. I'm gonna use a weird example cuz it's partially when i codified this thought but one time I was having lunch on an airplane. I know as someone with dyspraxia eating in a very limmited physical space- and rice, with a fork- while having a drink can open- is going ot be a careful buisness so i start setting up carefully everything as i want it and then im like hey, what the fuck. im already at this point, right, and i add to it an honestly black-and-white movie style, donald duck style, spread paper towl and excited hand rub in my seat, right? you get to the door of the clownhood. go in.

and it's like. I'm sooo obsessed with the bow tie that's just a cloth bow held to the shirt with a safety pin. that IS what gender dyspraxia is like. the signifyer and the act of the signifier are seperate things and the act is A Whole Thing I Can't Quite Do so i'm doing away with it, all i need is the symbol anyways. and with a bow tie! a symbol of, like,

Quirky Officialness, right, this IS an "im being somewhat serious here", its not casual. but the complete disregard to the. tying of the bow tie and the proper form of it and the, yknow. all he wants and needs is a floppy little bow cuz he's not doing this to be looked at, hes doing this cuz he wants to wear one. and that's an aspect i think really brings the final balance to the whole. "silly and smart and playing the fool and also an idiot" web. he straight up doesnt, care about dignity or respect as much and in the way some other incarnations of the doctor do- especially one or three. hes not really bothering making many shows of force he doesnt want to; he isn't trying to impress anyone; literally look at Power Of The Daleks. "how do we know you are the real doctor?" asks ben. "are you the real examiner?" ask the people finding out he isnt. "lmao. lol" says two, trying to focus on the daleks.

so it's like the thing with the whole. Modus Oparendai, clever clown, is it afacade blah blah is that Outward Wise he's just chilling and much prefers outlandish disguises/ overdoing roles (war games commander impersonation?) to actually trying to ever adjust his Real self to a situation. he Wont mask any of his goofy and if a situation needs Something Else he won't fold on that, he'll just go in a new direction.

and THEN the other half of the equation is his, negotiation-y, people-y attitude to problemsolving, which shows quite well in the three doctors and enemy of the world but i think is most, summarized with "Human beings, jamie, are always in reach of other human beings". he Interacts with the enemy, either to bring them to his side and try to solve problems interpersonally- his soft demeanor with ben in macraterror is suchhh a moment for me- or to learn them/ their weakness, to connect with them to put ideas in their heads or decieve them. and since being underestimated - or correctly estimated for his physical capability which i feel a lot of DW media does accept as Lesser Than Later Doctors- i mean this positively im cheering and clapping- WORKS to gurther his methods, and being regarded as soft frivolous harmless clown man works for Good connections too- earning peoples trust and the likes, as well as like. bonding with victoria after she just lost her family. Surprise Child Aqquisition. the lines betweeen being yourself + (On Purpose) sometimes blur.

but yeah in macra terror he is like WHO has EVER needed shined shoes ew. so i think theres definitely osme Autism as well on the comfort level; he likes the same kind of clothes and they need to be comfy to him but also there is a whole, idea connection to it. hes chasing fun hats, yknow? he wants to enjoy the way he is in the world and the way he presents and he will learn to work with or around what people think.

[amaiguri]

heyy, happy last STS of the year!! it's hard coming up with an original end-of-year ask, so I'm just gonna shoot off a bunch of questions, and you feel free to answer whichever you want/haven't already:D are you satisfied with where you're at right now in your writing journey? where do you hope to be at this time next year? do you have any Must-Accomplish 2024 writing goals? anything new you'd like to try in your writing (technique-wise, story-wise, scheduling-wise, structure-wise, etc.) next year? any stories you'd like to start? end?

My Yssaia writing is a hobby so I try not to put time-based pressure on myself long-term -- only short-term goals. If I'm not writing, it's probably because I'm doing something else "productive" -- whether that is other hobbies, hanging out with friends, or focusing on my health! Obviously, at my job, all my writing is dictated by the needs of the project -- so of course, I want to keep up with those.

I am perfectly happy with where I am -- and I have worked really hard to ensure I am generally content with myself and love the journey. So, I am proud of my mindset, even if that, too, has more to go. I have written more words this year than almost any other that I have tracked. I have ACTUALLY made new friends, just like I've wanted -- now I just gotten deepen my relationship with all of them! And I have reached by 1k subscribers on YouTube -- now I just gotta get those 4000 watch hours for the passive income. And eventually, convince all those subscribers to buy my games someday 🥺🥺🥺

I have started to frame my hobby goals as "accomplishments that I have pre-emptively listed". This makes it feel like there are no minuses if I don't make it -- I am Enough as I am. Everything more is extra. So, I have nothing I must accomplish because existing happily in this economy? That's the biggest and most important thing I can do.

In my dream world, I would finish the rough draft of Yssaia's whole 300k+ word plot but that's not gonna happen with my continued focus on YouTube and a full time job and my attempt to focus on my friends. So, I will just try to get to 150k words in this most recent act by July 2024.

(If you don't know, Currently Untitled Yssaia Game is about world of fated heroes and abyssal machines -- born both of Kings and Philosophy --, in which a burned assassin girl must find new purpose when the War ends. Right now, it's a writing project but it'll eventually be a narrative-focused, hand-drawn adventure where you navigate an assassin through her delicate, brutal world after the War annexed her homeland. You'll delve deep into political dealings, your past trauma, and the Abyss beneath the world!)

((How's the marketing pitch? I'm still workshopping it!))

I would like to try to write every day again, cuz in CalmWriMo November, that did, in fact, improve my productivity without spiking my stress. It didn't happen in December but as we leave the holiday season, I want to pick it up again. And journalling or daily posting, lol, I already slipped on that again 😭😭😭 It's so healthy for me. It helps me see time pass. I just need to do it.

Thanks so much for asking about my goals/pre-listed accomplishments! I look forward to a post about your goals floating across my feed 🥰

[the-last-dillpickle]

first lines game

Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway.

A few days late since i’ve been sick (🤮) but I got tagged in this game by several people, started doing it and then got sleepy tired and saved it into my drafts. Only just remembered it was hidden in there. Anyways.

1) Julian rode the turbolift to Ops, bouncing with anticipation. By this time tomorrow, he would be waking up to gorgeous pink sand beaches, orange hued cliffs across the pristine waters of the bay, and, if he was lucky, a lover or two clinging onto him in bed. (Hold, Bashir/Sloan, M)

2) Julian woke to a shifting in the bed next to him. He kept his eyes closed, reluctant to move when the pleasant haze of a good sleep was clinging to his forebrain. (In Morning, Bashir, T)

3) Winn rubbed at her temples, wondering who in the world might be ringing at her door chime this time. (acta deos numquam mortalia fallunt, Bashir/Winn, E)

4) Sloan is a toxic sludge—the byproduct of the Federation’s careless existence. He taints everything he touches, a carcinogen by design. (the love canal and other disasters of hope, Bashir & Sloan, T)

5) “What-” Julian started, only to cut himself off with a bubbly belch. He paused, looking mildly upset by the interruption and frowning at the bottle of alien liquor in this hands before looking back to Miles as he continued, “What if I was tiny and helpless, and you could do anything you wanted to me?” (small intents and purposes, Bashir & O’Brien, T)

6) The sun was rising over Casperia Prime’s equatorial continent. Bruised twilight hues gave away to radiant orange beams that left not a single crag on the distant limestone cliffs unilluminated. None of it touched inside Julian’s hotel suite. (The Jet-Setter, Bashir/Sloan, M)

7) The Romulan didn’t laugh at the joke. Nevertheless, she tilted her head and a small smile graced her lips before it was quickly covered over with a sip of her drink. Julian counted that as a win and picked his own glass up off the bar to do the same. (New Lows, Bashir/Sloan, E)

8) Julian laughed brightly. Miles felt his heart drop. Of course this had been a stupid idea. It didn’t matter what any of his therapists had ever said; Feelings were one of those things that were better left unsaid and unacknowledged. (name something that's twelve inches and completely straight, Bashir/O’Brien (one-sided), T)

9) Julian hated sleeping alone. Actually, no, not really. Scratch that. He hated waking up alone, and also, trying to fall asleep alone. (sleepsong, Bashir/Sloan, T)

10) Garak was a degenerate. He knew it. He understood it. His association with Julian Bashir was continuing proof of it. (pricked, Garak/Bashir, E)

[doubleddenden]

I know the comparison is tired, bit after playing ToTK and after experiencing how glitchy and... well let's face it, kinda ugly Scarlet and Violet can be, I really hope I don't hear about the dlc for a while. Like I do want it, but I also don't, you dig?

I have sort of a rant below lol

Totk had six years of development plus 300 something staff members. SV had maybe 2 and a half years and around 180 or so. Game Freak is aiming way too close to the sun on wings made of Elmer's glue and brittle leaves. They need to stop splitting their staff so much between all of these projects (btw reminder that they started working on Project Bloom, another IP due out in 3 years on pokemon's 30th anniversary lol) and up dev time to 5 years minimum for each project.

I'm just saying, the worst glitches in ToTK are usually player triggered and do not end up messing with their game. The worst glitches in SV can corrupt save data with barely a way to fix it. If it only happens to 100 people out of millions world wide, that's still 100 too many.

So what I want is this:

Do not release Teal Mask until a MASSIVE update rolls out to fix things. In theory, November will be a year since release, and maybe then most of the issues will be fixed, but I'm seriously doubting it since we're 6 months out and the slow downs keep happening. Ideally, fix things by November, release Teal Mask- delay Indigo Disk until March or so instead of winter this year, give both plenty of time to bake.

After that?

Just let Pokémon nap for a bit. Seriously. I don't want to hear about a Let's Go Johto at all. I don't want to hear about BW Remakes (least of all from ILCA). I don't wanna hear about gen 10. Not until it's good and God damn ready.

Here's the thing, folks: the gaming industry copies everything from Zelda now. Open world with climbing and gliding ESPECIALLY jumped up since BoTW, and SV is no exception. ToTK added new layers to its world and added physics, engineering- what pokemon really, REALLY needs to take away from Zelda is this: time, focus, and effort to refine a product. ToTK was actually finished a year before release, but Aonuma delayed it and kept playing the game to completion 10 times over so they could polish it to hell and back. That kind of dedication is what I'd kill for in Pokemon game development.

I already hear some of you.

1. They're entirely different games! It's not fair to compare!

It actually is. Here's the thing: both are Nintendo products- yes pokemon isn't quite first party, but you're not seeing it on the ps4, and Nintendo does have partial ownership, so it is a Nintendo product. Both are running on the Switch, so it isn't so much a hardware issue so much that it's Game Freak and the lack of optimization or shooting themselves in the foot with cut corners, less staff, and less dev time. ToTK has WAY MORE going on compared to Pokémon in terms of mechanics, animation, and programming. Pokemon has been recycling and reglossing the same mechanics, models, animations, and gameplay since XY. Yes, there's new textures, there's a few new models, there's some new animations- but the majority is so recycled that you can find items and data in the code that's leftover carry over from bw2 of all things. And yes, ToTK does have an advantage of being built on top of BoTW, but let's be real, there's way more going on by having to program bullet time, fuse an arrow, and then programming the effects of said fused arrow as it attacks a fully autonomous enemy that has its own set of programming to kill you. This, vs updating the same turn based battle Mechanics that is literally pick a move, X Pokémon does animation, damage calculation, enemy randomly selects pre programmed set of moves, animation, damage calculation.

2. But there's 1000 pokemon they have to model now!

Incorrect and you're purposely spouting misinformation by balooning the numbers. They only put in around >500 pokemon at launch, only 400 of which were available until recently when the Home Update finally let us access the others from LA that were in the code. At most there's 230 more coming. While that's still a lot, consider that ToTK has hundreds of models of NPCs, entities, weapons and weapon combos with their own mechanics and interactions, and enemies on the map, each with vastly more complex dynamics, modeling details, animations, etc than your standard pokemon npc that just stands there, or your standard pokemon that just walks around with walking programming from SM's data. I'm not asking for all pokemon back (although I do find it real fucking suspicious that a fucking 3ds can have 800+ pokemon in it, plus megas, plus forms, plus z moves, plus all sorts of other transformations PLUS shinies PLUS more shirts and pants and apparently gf thinks the Switch can't handle it, and said 3ds only really chugged with more than 1 pokemon on the field lol). What I am asking for is that since they themselves have stated that the reason for dex cuts was to improve things, they actually put their multi billionaire money where their mouth is and actually show it.

3. But people freaked out over Home not being available at launch!

As they should be. ILCA develops Home, not GF. They should have had it ready to go day fucking 1, lets be real. Yes its never been day 1 (it was for ORAS but i digress) but there's really no reason for it not to be- and no, they don't care about team metas or whatever because players will get the pokemon they want regardless. If they cared, they'd leave out Landorus and Kyogre.

SV were rushed out the door covered in glue and tape holding it together, but the far simpler side products get to take their sweet time? GF should have waited for ILCA to be done and taken time to polish, or they should have had the home update out the door by February at the latest by working alongside developers to get it working asap.

Even then, that's just Home. Home is not the entire game. Even if fans snarl and foam at the mouth for GF to release an unfinished product, ESPECIALLY if FINANCIAL PARTNERS scream and throw tantrums about wanting their money now; pokemon, Nintendo, and GF need to tell those people to fuck off until it's done and not falling apart.

There's a difference between what's essentially a save editor app and a full functioning game.

4. But the anime! The merch! Everything else! They have to keep schedule! Pokémon isn't just a gaming franchise anymore!

I really, really am tired of this argument and quite frankly I do not give a flying fuck anymore, even if i have made the same argument myself in the past. Pokémon IS a game first and foremost, even if everyone wants you to think otherwise. There is NOTHING without the games, and it's time we give the games the proper respect.

For plushies, merch, trading cards, etc: why don't we try changing how things are marketed?

Game Freak can still develop the games- they take their time doing it this time though. What should change is the order in which the public sees things.

GF basically spear heads the operations of all commercial grade goods because they're the ones that decide regional location basis, and most importantly, design the new Pokémon.

Why do we need the games to come first in that regard?

Here's a consideration: back in the early days of Pokémon, they would tease new Pokémon before the games they originate from ever come out. Ho Oh, Togepi, Donphan, Marill, Snubbull, Elekid, Bellossom, Hoothoot- all teased in the anime and movies before gen 2. Keckleon, Wailmer, Duskull, Wynaut, Blaziken- all before gen 3. Gen 4 was REALLY hype af because we'd get Munchlax super early in the gen 3 anime, Bonsly as playable in XD, Lucario got his own movie- you get the idea.

What if instead of forcing a team that clearly needs more time to not fuck things up to work faster, they just make merch for new Pokémon ahead of time to hype people up?

Imagine if Wooloo was a plushie before gen 8 released. If Corviknight, Centiskorch, Drednaw, Dragapult, and Toxtricity were in the tcg before launch? What if we had Horizons tease Ceruledge, the Paldean starters, and more a whole year before launch? Shit, that's what they're doing for Terapagos right now, and it's working!

Now imagine all of this teasing. You want these guys on a team. You want to see their stats so bad, don't you? Imagine the payoff when you finally get it. That's how it was when I was a kid, believe it or not. Hell, that's how it was when I was 18 and saw Noivern and Mewtwo Y in the BW anime and movie before XY dropped. That's how it was seeing Charizard X in Origins, too.

Instead of relying on the games to lead the way, let the Pokémon designs do it. Let the games be completed and polished in the background while they tease the dex in the gap time. And then they can have more surprises hidden in the game at launch!

Idk, have Liko and Roy catch a gen 10 pokemon and evolve it. Have some movies based off of some gen 10 mythicals or mascot pokemon before gen 10 comes out. Have a couple of new characters drop to Masters with new Pokémon. In a SIDE game like the theoretical Colosseum 3 I keep BEGGING for made by a different company- have a few gen 10 pokemon be teased and have them be able to be rented to battle with, like Bonsly.

All of this edging for a few years- when gen 10 is finally announced, you sit there clutching your ultra cute mon pkushies that you want to befriend. You sit there hyped as fuck clenching your cards and holding your figurine of your cool new bird or dragon mon bro. Fuck it, you got your waifu pillow of your furry bait at the ready. Gen 10 finally is teased, you see your babies and bros in the game for real now- AND NOW THERE'S MORE! And then you finally get the games and you're so fucking hyped to have your new favorite pokemon that you've been teased at for so long. ALL from a game that took its time to release, so you get the added satisfaction of playing a game you can be proud to own.

You get your new Pokémon. TPC gets billions in merch, and then tpc, gf, and Nintendo rake in the billions they're gonna make anyway from the games, and most importantly WE get a game that has had more dev time.

Make sense? There's options that they can and *should* explore rather than whipping the poor hamster to keep running on the broken hamster wheel until one or both break.

"B-but the leaks! But but! I don't want to be spoiled!"

Okay, that's on you. I'm basing this off of how things USED to work and what worked very well in the past. That's on you to avoid all of this.

Besides that, for leaks, I really don't care anymore. SM leaked all the final starter evolutions before Mallow was revealed- its going to happen. We know this. It literally always does via 4chan, Discord, or Twitter. Who even cares anymore? What matters is the finished product! Use it as part of marketing!

Or, all of this to say, there's another way to go about this:

Radio

Silence

TOTK went radio silent for years. Then it just fucking drops trailers months before release. Now look at it! It's selling POKÉMON levels at launch!

Just go silent for a few years on the new gen. Idk, hire other companies to port older games to the Switch. Focus on side games. They would make BILLIONS with a an Explorers remake. With Colosseum and XD remakes. With a Colo 3 that does nothing but make a new game with existing pokemon. A Battle Revolution type game that exclusively uses pokemon in your Home Account. We don't need any of that, but it's perfect keys to dangle in front of your frothing man baby businessmen or poketubers that demand their content to milk.

I just want a game that is COMPLETE AT LAUNCH. I want pokemon to finally make a game every other game in the industry copies. I want Pokémon to finally make a GoTY contender. I'm tired of always playing and saying "oh this is a good start- oh this is kinda bad now BUT THERE'S POTENTIAL-" I want to see them FUCKING NAIL IT for once. I want to see 9 and 10 out of 10s from critics and fans alike.

Pokemon used to be a gaming Titan and now it's a laughing stock. I want to be proud to be a fan again. We all agree there's a TON OF GOOD going on in LA and SV, literally some of the best ideas the entire franchise over- but don't you want a glimpse of the timeline where they took their time? Where they were polished? I know I do. I know we can have it.

And before you say "guh you just outgrew the franchise" kindly stop licking TPC's boots and sweaty ballsacks and listen. Gen 8 sucked until DLC. BDSP sucked, but LA was fun. Even with the flaws SV has, it's still vastly more fun than SwSh and LGPE were. I didn't complete Colosseum or XD until AFTER I beat SwSh. This argument is done- I am a fan and have been for a long time. There's a difference between me wanting a COMPLETE AND POLISHED $60 AAA TITLE AT LAUNCH and some man baby that thinks all of gen 5 sucks because of ice cream pokemon.

This is the last point: pokemon games are going to get more expensive. ToTK gave Nintendo the greenlight to charge $70 for their games now- granted, its one of the few games i have ever played that feels close to that price. They're going to start doing it for everything else soon, and Pokémon is going to be SHOVING for the chance to charge you $70 a game.

Do you want to pay $70 for another Scarlet and Violet? PLUS tax? Plus $35 for dlc? Plus $15 a year for Home? Plus $20 to $30 a year for Nintendo Online?- which will probably become more expensive on the Switch's successor, which IS coming, and Pokémon WILL be on it. Don't forget to add in shipping fees or any other regional expenses- it'll probably be $80 in some countries.

$150 for the full experience. Do you want to drop that on bugs and glitches again? I certainly don't. And Nintendo games do not drop more than a few pennies in price either, especially pokemon games, so that $70 Pokémon game, 10 years from now, will be $68.99. Are you going to drop that hard earned money on another incomplete game?

It is time to start demanding better of the richest franchise in history. No, actually the time was 2018 when LGPE thought they could get away with its awful catching mechanics and its Kanto elitism, and it was definitely 2019 when SwSh dropped its awful story and characters in an awful wild area. Stop ass kissing and defending and DEMAND more.

Start demanding Pokemon: Tears of the Kingdom NOW while things are still in the early stages of development.

[intizzies]

what is lula's tarot card and why is it the sun?

so recently I've been struggling with what tarot card i'd give lula on account of her not having one in canon, and I ended up settling on the sun. not only am I thrilled bc this is one of my two most fav cards (the other being the world), but also I just feel like I've reached a natural answer.

I've collected some descriptions of the card and it's meaning to support my hc ~

so my thoughts here are pretty much everything reflected above. lula joins the horsemen and immediately provides a sort of new and different energy to the ego-driven and generally quite conflicting personalities of the existing horsemen (not including henley- altho I'm sure she'd agree I wish we had seen them interact).

lula is boundless and optimistic and very enthusiastic (typical ENFP behaviour, not to toot my own horn but us ENFPs are very Sun Energy). she shines very brightly, very confidently, but her confidence isn't drawn from a place of insecurity or pure egotistical base. It's instead drawn from a genuine need to spread happiness and make people laugh, and a need to find her own place in life.

the whole journey Lula goes on is one of finding her place in other people's lives. I think this is one of the more negative aspects of her psyche, and the fact she relies on other people absorbing and reflecting her own energy back at her for validation is a little worrying. but she does know that her purpose is to help people in her own way, and I think that she immediately does so for the horsemen.

I don't want to compare but the ending of the first movie compared to the second was a different ball game altogether. In the second, because of the insider character development we experienced, they're all very much Together and happy together. there's still excitement about the eye, but it's actually focused more on them as a unit, working as a single organism as Dylan would say.

Well, they don't start working as their single organism until Lula shows up and acts as this weird bonding agent. You can kind of tell they needed someone forward and emotionally available enough to get right in their psyches and wiggle around a bit for the team to work properly again (and for perhaps the first time on a more deep emotional level as a whole). This is DEFINITELY sun behaviour, just coming in and blinding everyone with positive thinking and outlandish behaviour while also displaying a need for connection and empathy

Just to top things off, look at how The Sun ties into the Fool's journey!

Lula is literally optimism personified, she never gives in, she tells the horsemen not to give in, because that's not what they do. And she's right, and she puts everyone back on the right course. She is a constant "we CAN do this, we WILL be successful, things WILL work out" messenger and I love that for her.

I like to think she brings a rejuvenating energy to everyone who kinda seems a bit flat and discouraged from the lack of the eye's involvement with everything. anyway that's me done bye

[nuclearfeels]

REPLACE YOUR EMAIL NOW!!!

And let me explain why... I just realized how companies are using your personal information. So years ago you signed up for an email, right? just for receiving mail. Then you searched the web for the first time and found all these websites. Some have videos, others have pictures, some with games, forums where people chat, etc. Then business websites showed up trying to sell you stuff. Invasive Ads started popping up everywhere. And of course we all know how much we hate ads. So we blocked them from ever showing up But the businesses got smarter. Now they are offering people money to be sponsored on various social media sites like youtube, facebook, insta, and yes, tumblr. Which means every poor sonovabitch is shilling ads for profit. And we are all poor, so there is a LOT of them.

Doesn't stop there. Remember that email account you got? Every site you register it to is actually collecting all of your personal data, and not just who you are, but what you are actually doing with that account, and they are adding it to a database where everything you have ever done is being recorded, and used as a basis for bombarding you with specially curated content and ads. And here is how i figured out how they are doing this... I recently watched the movie Puss In Boots, The Last Wish. I didn't even know this movie existed until i saw it on the list at the theatre. The Theatre I go to has their own points card called a Scene card. You scan it for points which you exchange for free movies. Well the theatre was bought out by the bank, so they now have 3 cards. A Scene debit, and Scene Visa. And now even Grocery stores accept these cards for collecting points as well. When I scanned my card, to see this movie, and when i got my junk food, it added that information to a database with all my activity to it. So after the movie, when i got home, and turned my computer on, and went to youtube... my recommended videos changed. Puss and Boots everywhere. Videos about popcorn and burgers too. Meme videos about puss and boots, people shilling sponsored ads for the new deep fried mac and cheese nuggets, etc. I go on to netflix, and my recommended section has changed too, with videos associated with disney, sony, and dreamworks, including all the past shrek movies.

Everything you do, everything you view or buy, or see, or interact with, no matter how small or insignificant, in any way whatsoever, where you are using an account that uses your email, ultimately affects what you are going to get bombarded with later. And it is all about the profit.

And I know that might not scare all of you, but remember that even your google account has your email. Apps have your email, your phone has your email. They can track what you search up in browsers, on facebook, on any given website, hell they can even track where the hell in the real world you are now, they revealed that instragram was doing that a few years ago.

So how much longer before your political activities get recorded? Before something truly TRULY private gets found out? Something extremely sensitive and compromising? Something that a political group may dislike. During the riots before the past US election, the police were collecting data on everyone specifically for this exact purpose. To find out who was a liberal, or lgbt, or black, etc. They stormed the houses of people on their watch list in the dead of night. All thanks to a little email. If you dont want to be compromised. Delete accounts, or create alternate emails for every site you go to. get a new browser that does not collect data. Use a different search engine. Get a free VPN. save links to every Youtube account you go to, and delete your Youtube account. Do whatever it takes to dissassociate yourself from this databank they have built on you. Right now its being used to profit off of you. But one day they may use it against you.

[instantbreplay]

Amaria is a good friend, and I've heard of the crap that has been going on, and I decided to say my piece.

Fiction has no ties to the real world.

You have no idea how many times people have to remind everybody of the same thing over and over and over again. Sure, fiction does have its ideas from the real world, but anything in the book or writing blog means nothing. Fiction is for entertainment purposes only and to teach people something new, to inspire them! And this is the thing I really can't stand because the same thing happened to me.

Arguing with people without a proper foundation.

I have seen it so many times and experienced it just recently. I remember a kid on TikTok going off about the voice actor, Griffin Burns, for being a racist but never properly explained the how and why. Someone commented on my theory about Al-Haitham being a robot about how I was implying that anybody in the real world who acted weird wasn't human. People attack actors because of the characters they play, sending them death threats and all that crap because they don't like them and saying that their personality is the same as the character they play. Where is the evidence? Where is it? How are you just going to ruin everything for everyone who enjoys the same game, the same book, the same show as you all because you decided to voice your opinion about how it's bad or whatever without properly explaining and bringing real evidence to the table? If you just decide, "let's shout our opinion and get everybody on our side", and say you hate this person or that this blog supported terrorism, show me why! Show me where it says "I support terrorism" or "This guy is a racist" in that book, in that show or interview with the actor. If you are going to say something, have a stable foundation to support your claims about fiction or people supporting something! If you can't, don't say anything, and I mean these next words as nicely as possible while staying firm—just shut your mouth. I heard the person who called Amaria out for the terrorist crap never explained what she did wrong. What did she do? Find the evidence and show her what she did wrong! Otherwise, skurt back your lane and mind your business. If you don't like something, don't come online and start attacking people left and right to make yourself look righteous. It's not worth it, and it's a sucky feeling to have afterward. Fiction is just fiction...just...fiction. Authors or actors do not have any correlation with the fiction they're writing and do not support anything that they write unless they actually say so. Those people are not the characters. They are not the fiction itself. It was just inspiration themselves, and I know dang well Amaria would do her research before writing something, but we talk about the real world everyday. We tell each other what we like and don't like, and I promise you she would never think that terrorism is a good thing. Never. So, don't come at anybody without a proper argument. Otherwise, there's the door. Just walk away.

Thank you.

Hi yes I've been gone for who knows how long but Mafia!Yandere!Cyno is something I live for

He's in the mafia cause he has his own moral code, not even police work and other such law enforcement fills his needs anymore.

If someone's guilty, they're probably violently hurt/killed.

To that end, he has a tell tale kill signature: A single stab through the chest, lightning 'scars' coming from the point

Even his higher ups (Assuming he's not the boss) are scared of him

But you're completely unaware of who he is

Every Wednesday, you meet him at the local coffee shop, where he'll help you with schoolwork

You two met when he accidentally spilled coffee on your papers

He felt guilty so he helped you rewrite it

But ever since then you've felt like you're being watched....

And your closer friends have been backing off even more recently.

Any dates you go on never have a second. They won't even answer your calls.

It makes sense when they end up dead a few days later

Cyno assures you that it's not your fault, that they probably had ties or debts to the local mafia and gangs that ended up getting you killed

It's strage, though....

Even your own family seems a little wary of you now.

Finally you straight up ask what's going on

Your family says that the General Mahamatra has been watching you, and been threatening them.

You've never even met him. You're not associated with the mafia. And, for the first time, you don't show up to the Wednesday meet up.

Imagine your surprise when Cyno comes to your goddamn house, worried about you

You're starting to connect the dots...

When you finally do, he'll give a gentle smile, and cage you in whatever way he can.

"My little dove is a smart thing, they know too much." And you're swept away, never to be seen again.

Forgive me if this sucks ass lmao, I haven't been sleeping well and several medical issues have popped up.

[shadowxamyweek]

So... I run this blog, yeah? This one, a ShadAmy ship blog, in the good year of our lord 2022.

Why?

I like the ship. You say, 'yeah no shit dumbass,' but I really like the ship. It is the ship that formulated a blueprint for my fleet of favorite ships all under one flag. It is my ship of dreams.

And I'm not someone who grew up with Archie, which is where a lot of old-school shippers come from. I knew ABOUT Archie and what I knew scared me. Even post-reboot, I didn't want to touch it. I was firmly entrenched in the games and the games only (to a large degree, I still am. They are the only actual 'canon' in my opinion, no matter the many cool things IDW and Archie may have done.)

I'm also not someone who just wants to see their fave in a cute ship. They're both favorites of mine -I like them both separately just as much as I like them together.

So why the fuck did I love these two characters together so much when they hardly even talk?

This moment.

Because it was always going to be this moment.

I'm about ten years of age playing this game, my mind being totally blown by the plot and the characters, and it all comes to a grinding halt... to talk.

But me liking this scene didn't happen right away.

It happened in stages.

(Trigger warning. Heads up for mild mentions of gaslighting and issues with eating disorders. Shit you not, this is canon to their history.)

Part 1- Why do I like Shadow?

I knew from the start I liked Shadow.

There's something about a character that is not a 'nice person,' but they are, very much, a 'good person.' They are, in their own way, trying very hard to do the right thing.

Shadow was designed as a weapon, first and foremost. That's what G.U.N. wanted them for and that's how Gerald found his funding, even if he was also designing Shadow to be a cure/aid for Maria on the sly. Shadow went through a lot of hell because of that. Yet regardless of his history, he still makes the decision to get up every day and do his best to solve whatever situation is in front of him, bit by bit, striving steady forward to make the world a better place.

Too often, the messy, personal business of having to recognize your faults is minimized for the protagonist and amplified for everyone else that they are with. Especially in recent media (last 10-years ish, in my opinion,) you don't get a lot of protags that might not be likable all the time. You don't have that moment where they realize what they have done, are reeling from guilt and self loathing and shame, and have to make the conscious effort to do better.

But Shadow is.

This is a character who was gaslight (actual genuine memory manipulation with malicious intention I CANNOT make this shit up), fed a lie for purpose, their personality weaponized. Their love turned into an atomic bomb.

Then, they had to unlearn that and become themselves again.

I want more heroes like that. I want heroes that were or could have been villains, and instead of and dying in a last redemptive act (as if it makes up for everything they have done), they live... and they have to keep living. They have to keep learning. They have to be... you know... people.

I know a lot of people debate over whether or not Shadow as actually suppose to stay dead after SA2, and in everything I have read, the evidence seems inconclusive. Either way, I'm glad they brought him back. I'm glad they made him live and learn (pun intended) and choose to be better. Not as a weapon, not as a cure, but as themself.

That makes for a great story and character study. That's always the sort of thing I want to sink my teeth into and stay awake reading and rereading and coming back to it with new eyes.

Furthermore, Shadow... well, they are a person who scares people. The design, the demeanor, the articulation (or lack thereof) in regards to motivation and thought. It doesn't matter if they mean to, it happens.

And they're fine with it.

They don't need to be verbal all the time. They don't need to understand social cues or unspoken rules. They are allowed to go off and stare at nothing and think in the quiet because it's comfortable. This guy was living my fucking dream.

Also, Shadow was also my first introduction to Nonbinary Thoughts that I had ever seen. This person walks in with their highlights and eyeliner and fluffy self with their dope kicks and sweet color pallet and a cool voice and I had all sorts of joy lighting up inside me. This was like glam rock. This was like seeing Mercury or Lennox for the first time, or realizing that sometimes, the chick-parts in theater productions are played by boys and the dude-parts are played by girls. I dunno how else it put it. It's the moment you go, 'ooooh,' before you flip the flimsy table that the binary gender code has placed itself upon.

This fantasy hedgehog bastard and I have a lot in common, and I've leaned on that a couple of times to remind myself I'm not alone because, for the longest time... I didn't know any living people who had gone through what I had. I have since found friends over time with similar situations, and they all mean the world to me, but Shadow for years was the imaginary friend of a lonely kid who scared the other kids.

That means a lot to me.

Part 2- Why do I like Amy?

I use to not like Amy.

(As such, the order of thought for this segment is going to be different. Sorry in advance.)

I hasn't played any other Sonic game before SA2, so my first encounter with her was not the best. I didn't understand why she was here. I didn't understand why she acted the way she did. I didn't like her voice actor, or her dialog lines, or how she was just written as 'the girl'. Every other character got to be cool and do shit and be playable and Amy was just There(tm). Later I played SA1 and realized she was cool but how she was written in every game seemed to just be decided by dice. Yeah, they used the same dice, so the basic characteristics stayed the same, but the way they were portrayed or portioned fluctuated drastically. I never knew what she was going to show up like.

And that's partially on me- I was stuck in a binary jam as a kid. Still, even beyond that, she as a character and I did not gel.

And then I played Sonic Battle.

(tw // eating disorders)

I keep saying I need to replay Battle, if only to get evidence of this. There's a part of me that wants to believe I made it up, just to avoid the implications, but I know I didn't.

In Battle, like in SA1, SA2, and 06, you play through multiple perspectives of a story (always did like that sort of gameplay.) During the story, you get to be both Cream and Amy, and you find something out during this.

Amy has an eating disorder.

This may be a headcanon, and I am biased, but this obsession to the point of illness with her weight and figure has appeared a couple of times including out if gameplay (I know, breaking my own rule about game canon focus). For an older example, there's an issue in the Sonic manga Spin and Dash where Amy falls for one of Eggman's schemes for weight loss since she's worried she's gaining weight. She then comes back emaciated, asking Sonic and Tails if she looks pretty. Most recently, there is official art of Amy punching a punching bag with a picture of ice cream on it while Germal watches, which is a direct reference to that I am about to relay.

In Battle, you go against Amy several times in a form of combat called Boxercising. Canonically, it is stated that Amy got into Boxercising to get stronger and help out more on missions, but then became obsessed when she realized she could lose weight. Though Cream protests all the 'training' saying Amy is too tired due to her lack of eating and constant training, Amy keeps insisting she wants to go another round. You do this a few times, and then, it is revealed that she has been wearing weights this entire time.

I use to wear weights all the time, around my ankles and under long pants so nobody noticed. I did it to try and lose weight. You want to know what happens when you do that? You fuck up your ligaments and tendons. I had to take a second. Then, I went back to the game. It got worse from there.

After the fighting, Amy passes out. When she awakens, after a bit of dialog, she asks then-Emerl how she could loose more weight. The robot proposes a ridiculous training regiment and a diet in which Amy is to only eat salad leaves and some other minimal insane bullshit, and though Cream is horrified, Amy insists she can do it.

And I hated it.

I hated how of course it was Amy. I hated how this was played for laughs. I hated how they'd pick the Girl Character(tm) because eating disorders are coded girlish apparently and once again I'm sitting there hating everything to do with everyone but especially whoever thought that was funny or let that mistake (if it was a mistake) slide or whatever. I was angry.

But it was at that moment I saw Amy in a new light. I had never seen another character go through this, not in the way I did. I decided to go back and give her character a second look.

What I found upon putting aside my own self loathing was a wonderful character. Yes, she, like everyone else, suffered from tone changes between games, but at the core, she was a really wonderful person doing the best she could out of love for everything and everyone.

Yes, she is stubborn and maybe sometimes a bit selfish. Yes, she has tunnel vision and sometimes that causes a problem. I will remind the court that the kid in canon is 12/13 and which one of you was the perfect preteen? I reiterate my point about flawed protagonists. I reiterate my point about multifaceted characters. I reiterate my point that a person is allowed to be a person and that makes them better than a cardboard cuttout that can be projected upon.

She's not a manic pixie dream girl, she's a fucking supernova.

She loves her friends, her found family, her home, her planet, the strangers she meets on the street, everyone. This girl will remind you to take care of yourself right before she throws hands with god. This girl is a badass because she loves fiercely and terribly. No, not in the 'cool, masculine way' that seemed to be the only permissible volatile love I saw in media, but in her way.

It's not a thing that just is. That sort of love comes from wanting to love. Making the conscious decision to love, and act on that love, in the best way a person knows how.

Just like you, or I, or anyone else.

And how deeply, how furiously, how passionately and totally a person can love everything, anything, and in spite of whatever is going on, decide to act on that love with a desire to do good for the sake of doing good.

That means a lot to me.

Part 3: The Ship of Dreams

We come back to this moment, because it was always going to be this moment.

An unstoppable force meets an unmoveable object.

But they are not on opposite sides. In fact, they are very much on the same side. These two love fiercely and terribly. They want to do the right thing. They are willing to sacrifice happiness and safety in order to achieve that.

And once they realize this, they work together to do the right thing out of love.

This post, I think, does a very nice job of elaborating on a facet of that concept.

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@wizardofthebog

The “This character who is flawed, traumatized and hurting cannot be saved by love. But they can choose recovery because they are loved”-trope makes me just… I think I need to lay down.

@theoneandonlymagiscientist

“saved by love” and “choose recovery because loved” look similar on the surface, perhaps because the end results look similar, but they’re so different really. It’s passive vs. active; a story is about the person who’s making choices, being proactive. If Character A is saved by love, then it’s not them the story is about, it’s about their savior, Character B. If Character A chooses recovery, then they’re the one the story is about. Character B is the side character this time.

One is the narrative of taking what is broken and fixing it. It is not about the ‘broken’ person, it’s about the ‘savior’ who ‘fixes’ them.

One is a tale of healing. It is not about one person ‘fixing’ the other, it’s about the person who makes a conscious decision to not let their pain define them.

In one, the story is about the person who loves the hurt person, and the hurt person’s pain is incidental to the main character’s arc. In the other, the story is about the hurt person themself, and the other person’s love is incidental to their arc.

I hope I’ve said this well enough. My words may not be coming out the right way to express what I’m trying to say. Sometimes they do that.

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There's also this quote from Guillermo del Toro

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"The beast doesn’t need to transform to be loved. He doesn’t have to turn into a boring fucking prince to be loved. Or renounce to the essence of who it is. To me love is not transformation, love is acceptance and understanding."

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And what about these closing lines from Niel Gaiman's observations on love given at a friend's wedding?

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"- In the darkness you will reach out a hand,

not knowing for certain if someone else is even there.

And your hands will meet,

and then neither of you will ever need to be alone again."

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I believe in love: the concept, the idea, the goal. I believe that, upon achieving the goal of fostering love, in maintaining it, enabling it to thrive, to be happy and be healthy.

I believe in people and the power they have as individuals, and how that power finds new strength when people work together as a unit, as a team, as friends and confidantes and lovers.

Love to me is being in lock step, hand in hand, walking forward together.

And I just so happen to see it in these two silly, fictional hedgehogs.