#I'M TOTALLY NOT CRYING OR ANYTHING

[personinthepalace]

pic 7 has my heart on fire - Edward Bluemel

from Abbie Hern’s instagram

[rocketbirdie]

just move on already.

[coffee-dere]

well shit actions really do speak louder than words

[faunandfloraas]

i love being friends with girls and then they get a boyfriend and then he becomes the center of her entire existence and all she talks about and all she focuses on and i sit there and i smile and i nod and i feel myself becoming genuinely evil

[kidcosky]

I love Kaito so much, Kaito is my reason for living and Magic Kaito is my comfort anime.

Me without Kaito? I'm nothing!

Kaito made me reborn again, Kaito is part of me, it was fate that made me become a fan of Kaito, I love Kaito 100%, I love Kaito simply, Kaito fills my whole heart, yes I love Kaito, every day I thank Kaito for existing! 💙🤍

[katzirra]

I'm just going to rip everything in half.

I can't keep handling the shit life keeps throwing at me in my personal life. Like beyond the fucking state of America, that's not even on my fucking radar right now. I'm so fucking tired.

[brick-van-dyke]

TERFs 🤝 Zionists

Using the exact same talking points and rhetoric.

[loveontherocks]

no way are there people that unironically think chase would treat priya better than caleb lmao we were not watching the same show 💀

[fayeandknight]

I'm a huge proponent of sharing skills and knowledge, particularly of the how to do things for yourself variety. And when I share these with others I try to do so in a non judgemental way. A phrase I use a lot is "If no one taught you, how would you know?" And I mean it in the most genuine way. I understand that there are a lot things people just aren't taught anymore and I strongly feel that it is unfair to judge people for not knowing skills they were never taught.

All that to say one of my coworkers came in yesterday and asked how bad it was to drive with a flat tire. My immediate reaction was !!!! because it can lead to damage that's very costly especially given that a fix, even a temporary one, is relatively easy most of the time.

So I told my coworker I can help as I have a pack that supplies compressed air, can jump start a car, and has USB charging ports. (If you don't have one I highly recommend it. I got mine on sale for about $40 and it's come in handy more times than I can count.)

I asked what their tire pressure should be and they weren't sure. No problem, let me show you how to find that information. (There's a sticker inside the driver side door that lists front, rear, and spare tire pressure.) Then I walked my coworker through attaching the hose, how to set the pack to the appropriate number, and from there it just runs. It has a nice digital display and stops when it reaches the set air pressure. Very easy.

When we came back inside another coworker said they thought their tires might need air but wasn't sure. I took them out and explained how to find what their tires should be at and how to use a tire pressure gauge. We did end up putting air in one of the tires.

Back inside a third coworker admitted they had a tire that definitely needs air but they were embarrassed to get it fixed. So I went through showing them everything and filling their tire. This coworker told me their dad had told them how to do all this but the advice was hard to listen to. And I responded that I'm always happy to help. What I wanted to say is that I'm happy to explain things in a friendly way because things taught when the learner is made to feel like shit rarely stick in a helpful way. But that's too heavy for a light learning experience.

At the end of the day a different coworker started to complain to me about how younger people (they and I have about a decade on the majority of our coworkers) don't know how to help themselves. And I did my best to spin it as yes it's a shame they weren't taught these skills but fortunately you and I know them and are able to share them going forward. This stumped them for a bit before they eventually agreed with me.

I don't really have a neat way to wrap up this post. So I'm just going to reiterate that I'm always happy to pass along knowledge, provide assistance where I am able to, and ultimately help people help themselves in the areas I can.

[forcedhesitation]

...just heard about the upcoming perk changes...hmm...yeah. the only good one definitely is the adrenaline nerf. I've wanted them to take away healing off hook forever.

the other perk changes are ass.

ultimate weapon is still outrageously unfair, even if you take away the screaming! to me, it feels like they just saw the uptick in people using calm spirit following the addition of ultimate weapon, and decided "hm, the way to deal with this is to remove the screaming." no! this perks needs to be reworked differently! given a longer cooldown, something! it does way too much for just one perk!

DS buff isn't going to stop tunnelling. strong killers don't care if you stun them, and weaker survivors likely won't even have DS because it's licensed...waste of a buff. just as they should do with off the record, they need to spread out these important anti-tunnel strategies to general perks. it's so unfair that something this important be gated behind a DLC. and no one perk should ever be too strong!

also, I saw otz's commentary on the changes. I could not agree more that certain killers should be nerfed directly, rather than trying to just balance perks generally. not all killers interact with different perks the same... nurse, wesker, huntress, blight, etc do not care about a stun, even if it's increased in length. you need to change them & how their powers work in relation to stuns, so survivors have a chance to get away from them, rather than buffing the perk so that old man ghostface has an even worse time in this dogshit meta lmao.

[chrrywvea]

i just watched white palace (1990) and uuuh-oooh the spader brainrot is getting real deep

(gosh he's so mesmerising in that movie i can't even)

[monstermoviedean]

coworker was going on and on about the importance of regulating your nervous system today and i'm thinking 1) you don't know what that means and 2) if i were a teenager and someone told me to regulate my nervous system i would start throwing things. frankly it's hard not to throw things when hearing that as an adult.

[arthurtaylorlester]

i just want to shout out texas!michael and outlaw!ty for singlehandedly almost saving the timeline and then making it 10x worse and then dying technically because no one knows they even exist to bring them back. like ik realistically they are NEVER coming back but that doesn't stop them from being my favourite woe.begone duo ever

[selfinflictedgunshotwound]

it sucks to have no one to talk about the big emotions to because they're either too close to you or too far away... i simply don't know how to cope with real life and i don't know how people do

[void-botanist]

19, 20, 21, 22 for the polycule of your choice? :0

whoops we're doing it for two of them :3 and I'll include Heith too

19 - Summarize your character's goals in one sentence.

Marcus: be okay and go home, but also never have to tell Heith about all of his lies by omission

Heith: figure out if she's actually for real serious about Marcus (she thinks she might be actually for real serious about Marcus) and one way or another move out of her hotel room on Aephar

Yera: be a mom and try to make peace with the fact that Marcus is not here to be a part of the family

Hossan: be a dad and help Umedes figure themself out

Gren: see Marcus again and hopefully find out that there was no need to be jealous about his girlfriend, and make sure everyone's okay, especially the baby

Pali: prevent Kiatcarmen from finding Marcus (though that isn't a very active job), make sure the shifter coalition in the court doesn't budge, and get somewhere with her studies of shifter magic

Umedes: figure out whether they want to have a kid or not help

Kiatcarmen: find Marcus, because Minaya must not ascend, and do whatever else she can to preserve her accomplishments in the kingdom

Pirianus: broaden Kiatcarmen's vision beyond legacy, or, failing that, as he has for some 30+ years, get her to open up to him

Caladea: see Marcus again, and for his polycule's sake believe with all her heart the lies they tell Kiatcarmen

Thade: continue completing the political project du jour and end up in a happily ever after with Pirianus, which might also make him more welcome in the palace

Orvi: complete the one thing he was installed in the palace to accomplish

20 - Who's in the way of those goals?

Marcus: his mother. Always his mother. And honestly a little bit himself

Heith: herself, mostly. This is so not like her - well, specifically the part where she's still here when there have been plenty of times to go home

Yera: realistically, Kiatcarmen. But she still sometimes feels like she's lost some of her verve

Hossan: Umedes is the big challenge here. They're just so indecisive

Gren: Kiatcarmen, but sometimes it's easier to focus on the fact that Marcus has an interstellar girlfriend that none of them have ever met and that's so frustrating

Pali: herself. There aren't enough hours in the day for everything, and she has to sleep ugh

Umedes: themself, because they were the one who said this would be a great idea for when Marcus comes back. Who 100% believed Pali and Minaya and her ferasca spouses that this would go great. And who also took one look at Yera & Hossan's baby and thought that maybe they were signing up for more than they realized

Kiatcarmen: Marcus. Always Marcus. But she also blames Minaya and Yera and Pali for his disappearance, and she needs Pirianus to just shut up. This would have been so much easier with Jimmy

Pirianus: Kiatcarmen because he put his eggs all in one basket. But he mostly blames himself

Caladea: Kiatcarmen, but she tries to focus on what she can do better, and how she's getting in her own way

Thade: he's beginning to suspect he's been in his own way this entire time but it can't be understated how much Pirianus is constantly hot and cold

Orvi: it changes frequently, but always some contingent of the court

21 - What is your character's relationship with their emotions?

Marcus: he can't control his bad emotions, so he suppresses them. This has never caused any problems

Heith: she's just as cynical about her emotions as she is about everything else, but sometimes she just can't not feel something completely unironically

Yera: she's gonna feel them whatever they are so [grits teeth] negative emotions are part of the fullness of experience (she will be screaming into this pillow later)

Hossan: left to his own devices, he would feel his emotions, and then let them cast away upon the wind. Being with Yera and Gren has made him learn how to interrogate them more

Gren: he feels everything. A lot. He also conceptualizes things in terms of feelings a lot

Pali: she would like to believe she doesn't have them, but then she lays awake at night deconstructing them

Umedes: they tend to put intense feelings away for later, but don't ever get to later unless later comes for them first

Kiatcarmen: her emotions are so rich and nuanced and nobody understands that, so all of her emotions collapse into some flavor of annoyance

Pirianus: don't like that feeling? Repress it! This will never result in it returning in continually more warped and incomprehensible forms

Caladea: being in the palace seems to have stunted her emotions - they're flatter, duller, and way more anxious no matter what they are

Thade: don't like that feeling? Deflect it! The more mirrors there are between you and your emotions the less you will ever know what they are and the less you can ever be responsible for them

Orvi: he has a mental Tupperware for emotions that allows him to keep control of himself. He is the only person on this list who will actually open that Tupperware on purpose later

22 - What regrets do they have, if any? (From any part of the story, not just exposition.)

Marcus: missing out on eight years of his "real" life, and especially not being there when Gren's grandmother died. If only he'd been stronger, he could have stayed

Heith: before finding out about Marcus, that she's kind of a flake to her band, but they don't seem to mind that much. After finding out about Marcus, that she ever thought there was some kind of "magic" between them and maybe she could feel naïve about love for two seconds

Yera: she regretted drifting away from her father and sister, so she's fixing that now

Hossan: most of his regrets are from the now-distant past and don't make much sense - even he will say so - but he always finds himself regretting that he can't seem to do more for people

Gren: not going home even more before his grandmother died, even though he was practically splitting his time between his home city and the palace. He also regrets letting Marcus leave, even though he had to, and there was no other real choice

Pali: after getting married, she got more distant from her professor mentor, and the regret hit her hard when they died

Umedes: most immediately, thinking that having a kid was a good idea (they are beginning to think that this is a pregnancy kink that got out of hand). But more than anything they regret not going with Marcus, even though they couldn't

Kiatcarmen: Ashmalo was a liability, but she still regrets that he died (despite her image she does not think that assassination is the right way to deal with most problems, including Ashmalo). Conversely, she regrets that she couldn't save Jimmy, even though medical science itself could not have saved Jimmy. She also regrets letting Minaya slip out from under her thumb, because if she hadn't, she wouldn't be stuck looking for her runaway son

Pirianus: that he can't seem to permanently extract himself from Thade. If he stops and thinks about it (read: gets drunk and sad) he regrets spending so many years of his life trying to get through to a woman who would just as soon throw him to the dogs

Caladea: that she couldn't do more for Marcus or Minaya or Ashmalo, and that she still can't. And that being stuck in the palace has left her struggling to try and pick up the pieces of her creativity and her passion even though it should have given her unlimited resources to pursue them

Thade: things he's said to people. Most of them used to be seared in his brain because he thought they were funny, and eventually he figured out that oh, maybe they weren't. But some of them seemed bad from the moment they came out of his mouth (not before that, unfortunately, because he wasn't thinking about it) and he wishes he could take them back for real, especially the things he's said to Pirianus

Orvi: that he's still here. He had one thing to accomplish, and even though it was complex, it's taking SO. LONG. He knew that marrying into the royal family meant that he probably wasn't going to permanently go home again, but the longer this drags on the less he even wants to show his face there, and he wonders if it was worth it at all

[demigod-of-the-agni]

Fray: I need you to kill something

Me: